From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 03:47:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 13:47:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] 13th century zeal Message-ID: I found the following story from R Kaganoff interesting not only for the halachic portion but also to show that community fights are not new The question regarding recital of *mei'ein sheva* when *Yom Tov* falls on Friday resulted in a very heated dispute during the era of the Rishonim. In the time of the *Rivash*, Rabbi Amram ben Meroam, a frequent correspondent of the *Rivash*, wrote him the following *shaylah*: Reuven was the *chazzan* for the Friday night *davening *on a *Shabbos* that immediately followed *Yom Tov*. He began reciting *mei'ein sheva*, when Shimon reprimanded him, contending that one should not recite this *bracha* when *Shabbos* follows *Yom Tov* -- since no one was working on Friday, the reason for the *takkanah* did not apply. Levi then got involved, saying that it is accepted that one *does* recite *mei'ein sheva*on Friday night following a *Yom Tov*. The *shul* then burst into a cacophony of voices, with Shimon's and Reuven's backers screaming at one another. Finally, Shimon shouted that Reuven was desecrating*Hashem's *holy Name, since he was willing to recite a *bracha* in vain, and that if he did, Shimon would declare him to be in *cherem*, excommunicated! Reuven did recite the *bracha mei'ein sheva,* and a day later, opened his door to find Shimon and twenty of his backers there to notify him that he had been excommunicated! The Rivash* was asked to rule whether Reuven was indeed in *cherem* because of Shimon's declaration that he recited a *bracha* in vain, or, perhaps, Shimon should be placed in *cherem* for excommunicating someone without proper cause. The *Rivash* ruled that Shimon was mistaken, and that one should recite *mei'ein sheva* when *Shabbos* follows *Yom Tov*. Therefore, he concluded that Reuven, who followed the correct *halachah*, could completely ignore the *cherem* placed on him. However, he also concluded that since Shimon thought he was acting correctly, we do not excommunicate Shimon for his actions (*Shut HaRivash* #34). -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 06:54:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 13:54:19 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos Message-ID: <20150401.095419.16600.0@webmail12.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitzchok Levine wrote: > Does not the SA say that a person who has trouble chewing > matzah can soak it in water and then eat it? If so, then > I fail to see why eating gebrokts should be a problem for > anyone. The answer will depend on what you mean by "SA". If "SA" refers specifically to the author of the Shulchan Aruch, Rav Yosef Karo, then the answer is that he is not the last word in halacha. There are other authorities, and someone who follows the others could have a problem even with something that the SA allows. If "SA" refers to the Shulchan Aruch in general, then I do not understand your question, since the problem of gebrokts *IS* mentioned by authorities other than Rav Karo. If I'm not mistaken, the Shaarei Teshuva (which is in the printed editions of Mishne Brurah) is a good example. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 11:05:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 14:05:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> I repeated on Areivim RSM's deduction that yayin kal is closest to the alcohol level of chazal's wine. On Wed, Apr 1, 2015 at 9:39am PDT, R Saul Newman wrote to Areivim: > interesting, when seeing in ktubot abaye's widow describing the size of > his wine vessel. by that Percentage, it wouldnt be toxic... Here's RSM's science, and it seems impeccable: By natural means, no alcoholic beverage can get above 12% -- at that level the yeast drowns in its own output. That's why beer and wine tend to be 12%. We can tweak that up to 16% with specially bred yeast, and/or control of temperature and humidity -- not options in Chazal's day. (Higher alcohol drinks are made by distilling out the alcohol from the original 12% liquid.) To add my 2 pence: Their barrels weren't perfect, which means there was more evaporation. But since alcohol evaporates faster than water, that will only lower the percentage alcohol. So we're still at about 12% max. RSM's original line of reasoning, continues: Mezigas hakos is typically at least 1:3, or 25% wine. So, the final product would be at most 3%. A third penny: Now let's discuss how big a revi'is was back then... But even without that, I have no idea how any of them would have gotten anywhere near drunk. Why would R' Yonah have a headache until shavu'os off some 16 oz total of 3% wine? Do we have to assume it was the alcohol? Maybe he was a later owner of Abayei's kos... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Mussar is like oil put in water, micha at aishdas.org eventually it will rise to the top. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 12:08:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 01 Apr 2015 15:08:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> On 04/01/2015 02:05 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Now let's discuss how big a revi'is was back then... But even without > that, I have no idea how any of them would have gotten anywhere near > drunk. Why would R' Yonah have a headache until shavu'os off some 16 oz > total of 3% wine? Do we have to assume it was the alcohol? Maybe he was > a later owner of Abayei's kos... I don't think it's at all plausible that it was the alcohol. I have long assumed that he had some sort of allergy or intolerance for some component of grapes or grape skins, or perhaps for the sulfites with which wine was (and is still) preserved. It's well known that there are people today who get headaches from sulfites. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 12:25:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mordechai Harris via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 14:25:38 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> Message-ID: There is a lot of info here: http://seforim.blogspot.com/2012/10/wine-strength-and-dilution.html Chag Kasher v'Samayach< Mordechai -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 12:30:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 22:30:53 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: There recently appeared a sefer "Keren Zavit" by Nadav Shenrav on parshat hashavua that has a very nice combination of science and Torah. On parshat Tzav he brings a question on the shitah of the Nodah BeYuhuda that eggs doubled in size. The Noda Beyehuda claims that there is a contradiction between two sugyot that find measurements based on either the size of the egg or from length (or volume) measurements. To answer the contradiction the Nodah Beyehuda assumes that our eggs are half the size of those in the days of chazal. (Actually modern eggs are larger than those in his day) The basic point is that in order to translate the measurements of chazal to modern measurements we need a fixed point, ie some measurement that has not changed over the generations. If everything can change we have only relative measurements and not absolute measurements. The Nodah BeYehuda assumes that the width of the thumb is constant. Question: Rambam (maaseh hakorbanot 13:14) states the kemitzah which cinsists of 3 fingers closed over the palm contains 2 kezatim. However 2 kezaytim of 50cc (ie 100cc) is impossible to enclose within 3 fingers. He brings that he saw this question in a series "Bet Aharon VeYisrael" and they answered "nishtanu hateva" i.e. their hands were bigger and could hold 100c of flour within 3 fingers. (In general the author is not impressed with the answer of "nishtane hateva" but he assumes it for this article). However, this leads to an internal contradiction, ie Noda Beyehuda assumes that the size of the thumb has not changed but is required to assume that the size of the hand was much larger in the days of chazal ie how is it possible that their hands were MUCH larger but the width of the thumb remained constant. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 14:11:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 17:11:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150401211129.GA23585@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 01, 2015 at 10:30:53PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : There recently appeared a sefer "Keren Zavit" by Nadav Shenrav on parshat : hashavua that has a very nice combination of science and Torah. : : On parshat Tzav he brings a question on the shitah of the Nodah BeYuhuda : that eggs doubled in size. AISI, there are three distinct questions that generally get lumped together in the annual kezayis discussion: 1- Is "kezayis" a constant volume, or is it pinned to the average olive, or perhaps the average among some subset of breeds of olive as breeding, care and climate change? R' Chaim Volozhiner and the Avnei Neizer say the latter. You might remember my post from last Jan at. . The AhS OC 363:34 says that lehalakhah an ammah is the person involved's forearm. E.g. when measuring 4 amos for tiltul, the din is more chamur for me than for taller people. When coming to mavui or techum, where you need a single pesaq for a whole town, you need a standardized ammah, "ameru chakhamim denimdod lechumerah" it's the length of the arm of some very high percentile of the people relying on it (and possibly 100%) -- "debevadei yeish anashim shezehu midasan". (Also, when dealing with someone with a handicap or amputation, you need to use estimates.) To me this seems to feed RCV's approach. Because both assume that measurements are not absolute, but based on the set of whatevers involved. For example, the AhS's position about the standard ammah would imply that a community that is atypically tall would use a longer ammah for techum than in a ghettod population whose malnutrition stunted their typical growth. 2- If kezayis is a constant volume, do all the accepted overestimates performed and accumulated one atop the other unwind when we have more information about chazal's zeisim? Or do we say that the bottom of the range of measurments that dominate common pratice in one's qehillah is binding as pesaq, and one can't just ignore the now huge safety margin? This is what I argued here when RNS's paper came out http://www.zootorah.org/RationalistJudaism/TheEvolutionOfTtheOlive.pdf (And if so, is that extra amount considered as deOraisa as the original olive volume, because it's a pesaq in a din deOraisa? Or is it a harchaqah, and thus derabban? 3- The actual specifics 3a- If the answe to #2 is that we do roll back the kezayis based on better information about what it was, the metzi'us specifics can still be argued. Such as asking (as I did in passing in #1) which subset of olives to average. 3b- And if the answer is that we don't, then there are halachic process details to ask about. But I think many discussions, including our own previous years' iterations, stuble because they blur these topics rather than keeping them separate, which in turn would force dealing with them in the sequence I gave as well. (Because #2 depends on one kind of answer to #1, and #3 has different flavors depending on #2.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 13:36:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 16:36:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Yaknehaz [was: The Quinoa - Kitniyos Conundrum] Message-ID: In a message dated 4/1/2015 6:28:31 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, micha at aishdas.org writes: On Wed, Apr 01, 2015 at 12:03am EDT, RnTK wrote: : It was the norm in my parental home and is what my husband does too. : In fact I have never seen anyone use a regular havdala candle at a seder! : (Or a single wick candle without joining it to another candle or to a match.) A local yeshiva qetana sells two-wick candles that otherwise look like Shabbos candles as a fundraiser. This way you don't have a fire lasting as long as whatever is left on your havdalah candle, and the whole problem is avoided. >>>>> I wasn't really clear. What my parents used to do (and we do similarly) was to take one Shabbos candle ot of the candlestick and hold its flame close to another Shabbos candle for the bracha, and then put it back in the candlestick it came out of. IOW we use the candles that are already burning on the table anyway. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 14:36:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 17:36:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] partnership - adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties Message-ID: partnership - adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties In describing why person would fast all Passover over and above Jewish Law Practice, you used the words "emotional attachment". In the seven years since that wording , perhaps the message is deeper. Salamone Rossi the Jewish Italian composer, became a hero of the assimilationist movement. See AJS Review volume 26 #1 where where a series of books by one Don Harran re Rossi is reviewed. Twice in Adon Olam, the series of fast phrases of excitement called Tritum or whatever is used twice ??? ???? ??? ???? ???? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ?_?? ??? ????? ???? ???? ... ???? ????? ???? ???? ?????? - ??? ???? ? ???? ???? ????? ??? ?? ?????? - ????? ?? ???? ??? ??? ????? - ??? ????? - ????? ???? - ???? ???? ??? ???? ???? ??? ???? ??????? - ???? ????? ????? ??? - ???? ?? ????? ??? ????? - ????? ????? ???? ?? ????? - ??? ???? ??? ???? ???? ?????? ????? ??? ????? - ?? - ???? ?_?? ??? ????? ???? ???? ... ?????? ?? ?? ??? ???? ??? ??? ?? ???? ???? - ??? ???? ?? ????? ?????? ... ?? ?? ???? ?? GLOOMY THOUGHT NEGATIVE CHARACTERIZATION The reviewer - a music professor at Northeastern U in Boston MA - illustrates that limitless exhaustive research did not turn up for M. Harran the fact that in the surrounding milieu which Mr. Rossi is immersed in - these patterns aare reserved for ttheir Trinity.. Lhavdil elef havdalot. Rossi as a Jew with beating Jewish Heart - in Adon Olam his famous composition - when it came to Our God - he proudly used the pattern of the ecstasy of the Tritium (apologies of not being able to look up - will scan and send but each moment I am in danger of interrruption - ) . Why Yeihareig ? Why not float with the waves? Answer - because it is identity of Jew - visceral reaction necessary! taht is Key! Common motif of Piyut - ?????? ????? ?????? ????? - countering their attempted invasion and depriving us of identity - the desperation of drowning brings us to keep our identity- baby will starve self to reserve independence - if it is deprived from baby Not in complete normal routine vassalry to Hashem. But it is the assertion of identity. Sneh Boeir - Papers of Adoption - of formation of Partnership - not the bylaws which may never be read - but the primary identity of Hasheem as responsible party specifically to act as parent re MY CHILD - thsi is basic bedrock Jew - as Rashi certainly subscribed, and rashbam, and likely R' Yonah even Ramban. For my money - when functioning as Jewish Natnion member - the Rambam himself, codifier of the Doctrinal Jew. Back to subject after rant - A JS Reviewer - just like they show reverence for their Hero - we show reverence for our Hero - One God - that the reviewer explained for the first - ??? ???? ??? ???? ???? ?????? What of second threesome - look in Tur for Ecstasy - OC 5 - ???? ?_?? ??? ????? ???? ???? takif..???? ??? ?????? ??? ????? ???? - ???? ?? ???? ??? ??? ????? ??? - ???? ?? ???? - ??? ???? ???? ?? - ??? ???? - ???? ???? - ??? ???? ??? ??? ???? ??????? ?? ??? - ??? ???? ?? ???? ???? ??? ????? ???? ???? - ?? ?? ??? ?? ???? ???? ?????? ???? ???? - ?? ?????? - ??? ?????? ????? ?????? ???? - ???? ???? ?? ??? ?? - ???? ??? ????? ????? ????? - ??? ??? ????? - ?????? ????? ????? ??? ????? - ?? ??? ??? ???? - ?? ??? ??? ????? - ??? ????? - ???? ?????? ?????? - ???? ???? ?????? ????? ?? ?? - ??? ?? ????? ??? ???? ????? ???? ????? ???? ????? ?????? 148-155 - ?_?_?_? ??? ?? - ????? ???? 148 ???? ???? ?????? - ?? ?????? - ??? ???? ??? ???? ?? ?????? - ??? ????? ????? ????? - ?? ??? ??? ???? ???? ?? ????? =- ??? ???????? ?????? ????? ????? - ?? ???? - ????? - ?????? - ???? ???? - ??? ??? ????? - ??? ??? ?? ????? - ????? ??? ??? ?????? - ??? ????? - ????? ??? ?????? ?????? - ???? ???? ?? ??????? ????? ??? - ????? - ???? ?????? ???? ??? ????? ?????? ???? ????? ??????? ????? ?? - ??? ???? ?????? ???? ??"? - ??? ????? ???? ???? ???? ??? ????? ??? ?? ???? - ???? ?? ??? ?? ???? ???-????? ?? ????? ?? ?? ?????? - ??? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ?? ??????? - EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT IS ZILZUL IN A COVENANT ???? ?????? ?? ??? ???? - ??? ??? ??? ? ?? ????? ????? ??? ?????? ??! ???? ????? - ?? ????? ???? ??? ???? ?? ???? ????? ??? ????? ????? - ?? ??? ??? ???? ????? ?? ??? -- David Wacholder Cell: 917-742-7838 Email: dwacholder at gmail.com dwacholder at optonline.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 18:24:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 12:24:45 +1100 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice Message-ID: Wine in those days was frequently (typically?) flavored with resins or spices, some of which are actually toxic. These resins seem to have had the same effect as hops do in beer: they discourage microbial growth and therefore prevent it from souring and spoiling. This was an important consideration before the invention of Pasteurisation. If R' Yonah was allergic or otherwise sensitive to these resins he may have ascribed his symptoms to the wine itself. Alternatively, perhapshe simply didn't have access to any untreated wine and perhaps he didn't consider raisin "wine" to be chashuv enough. Joe Slater -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 18:27:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 12:27:16 +1100 Subject: [Avodah] Yaknehaz [was: The Quinoa - Kitniyos Conundrum] Message-ID: Another data point: I asked my father O'H about this and he said he'd never heard of anyone using a Havdala candle for YAKNEHAZ, or even joining two flames together. He came from central Hungary, and his rabbi was a great-nephew of Maharam Schick. Joe Slater -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 20:32:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 01 Apr 2015 23:32:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> Message-ID: <551CB836.5040609@sero.name> On 04/01/2015 03:25 PM, Mordechai Harris wrote: > There is a lot of info here: http://seforim.blogspot.com/2012/10/wine-strength-and-dilution.html It is interesting, but I think the author may have made a simple mistake in assuming that when Rashi says their wines were "stronger" than ours, he meant "more alcoholic". That may be what he meant, in which case he was mistaken, but it seems to me that he may have meant "strong tasting", or to put it more bluntly, "sour". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 02:18:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 12:18:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kitniyot Message-ID: see a discussion at http://etzion.org.il/en/pesach-journal by Rav Brosky -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 07:53:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 02 Apr 2015 10:53:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Historic Practice Passover Offering Message-ID: <20150402145402.230A3183730@nexus.stevens.edu> See the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kgbRusmqjs A FILM OF THE PRACTICE PASSOVER OFFERING THE TEMPLE INSTITUTE CONDUCTS UNPRECEDENTED PASSOVER OFFERING PRACTICE DRILL As reported earlier, in preparation for the upcoming festival of Passover, this past Wednesday (5 Nisan - 25 March) the 'Priestly Training Academy' established by the Temple Institute held a Passover offering practice drill. This is a film that documents this event. This was the most accurate and authentic reenactment of this service to have taken place in nearly 2,000 years. ---------- It looks to me that they used machine matzos in this video. If I am correct, then I find this bizarre. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 13:36:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 16:36:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: How many swallows of Matzo are necessary? How many olive tree generations to Calendar Year Tohu and Gan Eden? The following came up last year: FEARLESS RULING FOR PERSON WITH DIFFICULTY EATING: Every average person's swallow is a Kezayit, the amount which fulfils the Mitzvah and is the measure for the Bracha on Achilas Matza. As a Hidur and to erase all doubt, a second normal swallow would be good. That is for Motzi-Matzah, where the first olive-size swallowed fulfils a Torah obligation. Additional for Afikoman one swallow is certainly enough. For a person struggling to eat, try to eat at least a taste. Any more than that is for those who tolerate Matzo well. I look at how much a person can swallow - one swallow. That would measure a Kezayit. 100% the person has fulfilled the Mitzvah after one swallow. For margin of error issues, add another second swallow. For those with difficulty eating, one may then stop. For Afikoman the one swallow is sufficient. This needs no authority to base it on. Chazon Ish gave his asembled family pieces about the size of his palm , as described by qualified dedicated observer in Orchos Rabeinu. Traditions vary. Some quoted Rav Chaim Valozhiner as saying - the size of an olive is an olive is an olive. Another tradition said one must use an egg-size as a base unit. On Atkins Low-Carb Diet, daily consumption was - for starting extreme levels - 30 grams per day - about an ounce. I cut the piece of Challah, which by volume probably was an olive, but the air pockets should have been counted, so the person could say Birkas Hamazon for themselves. Someone else was Motzi the dieter in Birkat Hamazon. Air pockets and weight issue The swallow size may be according the the air pockets normally contained in Matzo, not ground, and according to volume not weight. VOLUME NOT WEIGHT By weight, comparable amount of Chareidim Boro Park 5774 MATZOS weighed perhaps 7 grams compared to perhaps 30 grams of a heavy brand of Hand Matzo. Using volume measures as weight measures creates significant errors. The person had been using 30 grams of WEIGHT as the Standard, not 30 grams of volume. It was a reasonably filled sandwich bag. Also Matzo can absorb moisture from the air making it heavier, can be freshened in the oven, which will make it weigh less. Volume remains the same. Weighing your Matza introduces a major error factor. SHEKEIN NEHENEH According to Rav Elchanan Wasserman, even a non-believer fulfils the Mitzvah, Shekein Neheneh. I have doubts if Kavana Hafucha would even work. I certainly think a person should not have Kavana Hafucha in the sense of - only be Yotzei when Measurement X is reached. NOT THE AMOUNT TO FILL THE CHEEK This is neither cheekful nor yet a mouthful. Observe how your neighbor swallows his food eating calmly. [DW comment - this is a normal comfortable swallow, not a contestant requiring for safety a Hatzala person or Heimlich Maneuver needed to monitor. This is not a Superman-Swallower who attempts to swallow the size of all olives ever eaten, whose face turns red but comes out OK after a KAPITAL TEHILIM. That is Achila Shelo K'darkah, and certainly is not optimum. That eliminates the Double and Exponential/Logarithmic olives from consideration for a single swallow. Never swallow more than a comfortable amount. SUKKOT No custom requires swallowing all at once in the Sukkah. Others require an Egg Plus size. ARUCH HASHULCHAN Aruch Hashulchan functioned as a review of the other Poskim in Orach Chaim. He pointedly does not double the Kezayit. MISHNA BRURAH - to my reading - says the same. Indeed I grant the MB does not totally negate a double-size as having precedent. MY HANDWIDTHS On a flat table, I measured my keyboard's width two different ways. first, using all ten fingers flat on table, it was 4 hands wide. With thumbs in air and only the eight fingers flat on the table, my keyboard was 5.5 hands wide. The thumbs were sideways, so the width added drilled through the wrinkle on the back to the fold on the front. This would be the thumb measured in Halacha. I certainly am not a measurement specialist, so I appreciate all feedback. According to best knowledge, that through-thumb measurement is the one which is supposed to be 25 percent of the other four fingers. CHZON ISH Even the writings of CHzon Ish reflect a defensive stance. As a practical matter, the CI knew in his heart that a Zayis will not change in recorded history. Olive trees of 1000 years old are not uncommon, and one in EY is 2000 years old. They are propogated from plantings identical to the original. As little as three generations of trees in EY could easily reach Calender Year 1. RIDDLE - HOW MANY OLIVES TO EAT A KEZAYIT? RABI YOCHANAN ATE ONE OLIVE- and made bracha acharona. It was the big variety salad olive, or a large specimen of the oil olive. I was convinced by a strong presentation in a conference from several years ago. A Bar Ilan professor compared olives from various species and showed pictures of all the oldest olive trees in EY. The oil olives were in the 4 cc to 7 cc (4-7 grams volume). Salad olives - the kind whose seeds were commonly eaten in Masada - max out at 17 grams. He convincingly argued that double size super-olives would in all likelihood kill the trees. 4 ccs is well below an average swallow. Please double check my numbers, as I am writing from memory. -- David Wacholder From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 18:58:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 21:58:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] naive kitniyos question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150403015816.GA8090@aishdas.org> On Thu, Mar 26, 2015 at 12:34:15PM -0400, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote: : Re kitniyos: isn't the issur one of "cooking" with kitniyos? ... Take 2 at answering this question. My wife found http://ph.yhb.org.il/en/04-09-06 "6. Kitniyot That Never Touched Water and Kitniyot Oils" by R' Eliezer Melamed We are not stricter with kitniyot than we are with the five cereal grains, so whatever is acceptable regarding these grains is kosher for kitniyot, too. Thus, kitniyot that have not come into contact with water, or that have come into contact with water but were not left for more than 18 minutes before being cooked (like matza), may be eaten. Some poskim are stringent in this respect, but most are lenient.[4] ... [4] Most authorities are not stricter about kitniyot than about the cereal grains (SAH 453:5; ??ayei Adam 127:1; Responsa Maharsham 1:183; Be'er Yitzhak sec. 11; Responsa Marheshet sec. 3; and Rav Kook's Orah Mishpat sec. 111). Some, however, are more stringent (Sho'el U-meishiv 1:1:175 and Ma'amar Mordechai sec. 32). Their rationale is that no one would understand these distinctions since kitniyot do not become hametz. Additionally, they were concerned that making the kitniyot exactly like the cereal grains would mislead people to think they could use kitniyot to fulfill the mitzva of matza. As noted, though, most poskim are lenient, and in any dispute about a custom the halakha follows the lenient opinion. The Rishonim also debate whether or not scalding works for kitniyot, since scalding any of the five cereal grains technically eliminates the possibility of its leavening, though the Ge'onim agree that no one knows how to scald the grains properly (SA 454:3). However, according to Or Zaru'a 2:256, since the prohibition of kitniyot is just a custom, scalding the kitniyot is effective and permits them. Mordechai rules stringently, and Rabbeinu Peretz's glosses to Smak sec. 222 notes the lenient opinion but rules stringently. So it seems the pesaq I grew up with is, in REM's estimaton, the minority view. And if my sevara holds: It would mean the machloqes is a machloqes as to whether qitniyos are compared to wheat or to dough. Which again would be reflected in the various theories about what risk it is the minhag is trying to avoid: qitniyos includes things used like grain, which can cause confusion of chameitz with mutar legume products; qitniyos could have real flour on them (as per Rava's admonition to the reish galusa's household), etc... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of micha at aishdas.org greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, http://www.aishdas.org in fact, of our modesty. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Louis Kronenberger, writer (1904-1980) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 09:32:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 16:32:11 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Tan Du Message-ID: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> I think we've discussed R'YBS's famous statement on ontological chazakot on a number of occasions. I was glad to see that I have giant shoulders to stand on (hat tip-Isaac Newton): Tradition - Winter 2014 (Rabbi N. Helfgot) In a famous episode in 1975, the Rav strongly denounced a proposal raised by R. Emanuel Rackman, z"l to reevaluating the validity of the Talmudic dictum "a woman would always be rather married to anyone (even a scoundrel) than be alone" in the modern context. R. Rackman called on religious authorities to reevaluate the reach of this dictum as a way of addressing the scourge of modern day recalcitrant husbands who did not give their estranged spouses a get. The reevaluation of this principle might be an opening to examine the use of halakhic annulment of marriages. The Rav vigorously maintained that this principle, like all hazakot of Hazal, was "an ontological statement" about the nature of women, not subject to changing historical factors or changing social mores. R. Lichtenstein in both private conversation with a number of talmidim over the decades, including this author and in remarks in public shiurim, noted his disagreement with the Rav's assessment of this hazaka (and expressed astonishment at the vehemence of the Rav's opposition at the time) given the clear cut evidence in the Rishonim in Yevamot and other places in Shas which clearly indicated that this hazaka was not one that applied in all contexts and at all times and in all situations. I don't recall that R'YBS said this was true of all chazakot of Chazal but haven't listened to that audio in a long time. CKV"S Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 04:06:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 14:06:33 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] rabbits Message-ID: << But PS can someone remind me what a picture of a rabbit is doing in the : medieval illustrated Hagada? There is a fundamental reason why pictures of people were avoided. >> Yet many of the medieval haggadot had pictures of people and even (wow) women!. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 11:41:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 14:41:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] rabbits In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150403184143.GB11664@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 03, 2015 at 02:06:33PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> There is a fundamental reason why pictures of people were avoided. : : Yet many of the medieval haggadot had pictures of people.. The reason is still there. We don't all agree on halakhah and minhag, why would two people necessarily agree during the medieval period? :-)|,|ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger The true measure of a man micha at aishdas.org is how he treats someone http://www.aishdas.org who can do him absolutely no good. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Samuel Johnson From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 23:57:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 09:57:26 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kitniyot Message-ID: see http://ohr.edu/5390 and http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/5184 by Rabbi Spits He discusses Quinoa In the second article he discusses potatos both for kitniyot and bishul akum As for modern products that didnt exist in the days of the gezera he notes Shu"t Igros Moshe (O.C. vol. 3, 63). Others who accept peanuts for Pesach include the Seridei Aish (Shu"t vol. 2, 37, 2; new print vol. 1, 50 -- through a combination of factors), the Yeshuas Moshe (Shu"t vol. 1, 35; he opines that the Kitniyos prohibition never applied to legumes that are eaten raw, but concludes similar to Rav Moshe, that if one has an existing minhag not to eat peanuts on Pesach he still should not do so), and the Rivevos Efraim (Shu"t vol. 7, 257; only if it came still in its shell). [This logic is based on the Shulchan HaRav's understanding (O.C. 453, 5) that the prohibition of Kitniyos only applies when it gets wet). Other poskim who ruled that way (as how can Kitniyos be more stringent than grain -- which only can become chometz when wet) include the Chayei Adam (vol. 2, 128, 1) and Maharsham (Shu"t vol. 1, 183 and Daas Torah O.C. 453), who cites that Rav Shlomo Kluger (Nidrei Zerizin, 8) held this way as well. Those who were stringent include the Shoel U'Meishiv (Mahadura Kama vol. 1, 175), the Avnei Nezer (O.C. 373 and 533), the Maamar Mordechai (Shu"t 32), and the Sdei Chemed (Maareches Chometz U'Matza 6, 1). This was also one of the points of contention between Rav Kook and the Badatz Chasidim of Yerushalayim regarding the permissibility of sesame oil for Pesach -- see footnote 13]. See also Shu"t Atzei HaLevanon (vol. 1, 18) who also permits peanuts for Pesach; yet based on his description it seems he is referring to a pistachio (as per the Yeshuas Moshe ibid.). [Email #2. Subject: kitniyot - summary] After our discussion of kitniyot and the psak of RMF several personal observations 1) We all agree that psak of RMF is controversial. IMHO it is "half" accepted probably more in the US than in Israel 2) There is a separate machkoket about derivatives of kitniyot and especially oils of kitniyot. While there are relatively few ashkenazim who eat corn on the cob or peanuts there are many who combine the 2 positions and use oild and derivatives from "new: kitniyot. Thus there are many rabbis that allow Canola oil (and certainly cottenseed oil) using RMF and the debate over oils. Similarly it has been common in my community to use lecithin (liftit) in candies etc. My rabbi allows this together with most rabbis in my town based on major dati leumi rabbis. R Elyashiv came out strongly against all of this and so in the charedi community especially in Israel no kitniyot oils or lecithin is allowed and only walnut or olive oil is used. Bottom line in spite of the objections on this list that RMF is "wrong" in many communities his teshuva is accepted when combined with the debate of kitniyot derivatives. chag kasher vesameach. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 03:57:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 13:57:43 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos Message-ID: > But let's not get buried under the reports of RMF and R' Tuvia Goldstein, > and forget that we have conflict in reports about whether RSZA would > allow someone to start eating gebrochts after hataras nedarim. > So, while rumor might say he did, we have a first-hand report from R > Yisrael Herczeg that tells us to ignore the grapevine >> In Halichos Shlomo (p90) it states explicitly that one can change his custom and eat gebrochs after hatart nedarim. However, this should be done only if there is a good reason (tzorach chashuv) for the change. Thus, for a chatan he would allow the hatarat nedarim if keeping bebrochs would cause family difficulties. RSZA paskened that the wife follows the customs of the husband both for kula and chumra(without hatart nedarim). He explicitly states that this is different than one who moves to another location where he does need hatarat nedarim since a woman knows that she will eventually marry and might change her minhag. The husband has the right to relinguish his rights. This is prevalant with regard to the nuscah of davening. A Baal Teshuva should prferably keep the customs of his "original" community where the family belonged. However, if he is now connected to some rabbi or community he can choose to keep their customs instead. He also paskens (for EY) that one can cook kitniyot on the 7th day of Pesach for use on the shabbat right afterwards (ef this year). This is because some sefardi could come over for a visit and so the kitniyot are not mukza . The same applies to gebrochs even though it is the 7th day of Pesach. RSZA himself ate gebrochs though he would not eat anything that fell on the floor. He did not use potato starch or anything that rsembled a chametz cake On a different topic he allowed drinking regular water eg from the kinneret since one can't taste at all the taste of any possible chametz, [Email #2] >> So, while rumor might say he did, we have a first-hand report from R >> Yisrael Herczeg that tells us to ignore the grapevine. > Perhaps he changed his mind! It has happened before. In this case he didnt change his mind. He said that it depended on the circumstances. In theory one could do hatarat nedarim and eat Gebrochs but he advocated not using this heter unless there was a good reason to change the custom. Obviously for Yisrael Herczeg he didn't feel there was sufficient justification. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 04:15:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 14:15:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: > 1- Is "kezayis" a constant volume, or is it pinned to the average olive, > or perhaps the average among some subset of breeds of olive as breeding, > care and climate change? archaeology shows that the olive has not changed dramatically over the millenia > 2- If kezayis is a constant volume, do all the accepted overestimates > performed and accumulated one atop the other unwind when we have more > information about chazal's zeisim? Not all communities accepted these various shitot. I can understand some overestimates for being conservative but factors of 5-10 larger seem overdone. This is especially true if one stuffs the matza into ones mouth and swallows together which becomes "achila gasa". In general the problem with the huge shiurim is that it is very difficult for many people. > average. Which is the reason to be on the conservative side and use the largest size olives which is still on the order of 17cc and not 50cc. [Email #2] > Or do we say that the bottom of the > range of measurments that dominate common pratice in one's qehillah is > binding as pesaq, and one can't just ignore the now huge safety margin? Reminds of a story I read on the recent 20th yahrzeit of RSZA. RSZA came up with 2 chumrot for the seder both related to the length of maggid being a problem for kiddush bemkom seudah and the bracha over the wine. His mechutan R Elyashiv accepted the chumrot and rushed his maggid while RSZA didnt accept his own chumrot in practice on the grounds that this was not the minhag of Israel over the generations. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 15:16:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 22:16:11 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Historic Practice Passover Offering Message-ID: <20150403.181611.8008.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitzchok Levine posted: > See the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kgbRusmqjs > ... > As reported earlier, in preparation for the upcoming festival of > Passover, this past Wednesday (5 Nisan - 25 March) the 'Priestly > Training Academy' established by the Temple Institute held a > Passover offering practice drill. This is a film that documents > this event. This was the most accurate and authentic reenactment > of this service to have taken place in nearly 2,000 years. Two things in particular surprised me in this video: 1) The lambs were so small! Children carried them in! 2) At the very end, it shows and mentions that the korban pesach "is roasted whole and in a special oven." Special oven? What was special about it, and why an oven at all? I would think that the oven would (at least partially) bake it, whereas it was supposed to be roasted by the fire, and only by fire. I recall halachos of it being held by a pomegranate branch to avoid heat conduction by metal, and rotated like a rotisserie to avoid it being cooked even by its own juices. What's this oven about? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/551f117e86f4b117e0fdfst03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 12:22:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2015 15:22:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <551EE85D.1030908@sero.name> On 04/03/2015 06:57 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > He also paskens (for EY) that one can cook kitniyot on the 7th day of > Pesach for use on the shabbat right afterwards (ef this year). Yes, I'm surprised that anyone disagrees. It seems so obviously correct. I know that many people don't do so, and believe it to be forbidden, but I have never yet heard an argument for why it should be so. > This is because some sefardi could come over for a visit and so the kitniyot > are not mukza . The main issue would surely not be muktzeh, but cooking on yomtov. But the answer is the same: the hypothetical horde of hungry guests who might descend on one ten minutes before sunset on Friday, and for whom one is, in principle, cooking, might very well be sefardim. > The same applies to gebrochs even though it is the 7th day of > Pesach. Gebrochts, of course, applies in Chu"l as well (since almost everyone who doesn't eat it on the first 7 days does eat it on the last day). And lich'ora the above heter is not applicable. Kitniyos are gebrochts are not similar. Ashkenazim don't avoid kitniyos because of a concern that it might be chametz; they readily agree that there is no such concern, and that for Sefardim it is heter gamur. Thus there is no reason at all why an ashkenazi should not cook kitniyos for a sefardi, any more than there is a reason why a zar who is tahor should not cook terumah for a kohen. But those who avoid gebrochts do so because of an (admittedly remote) concern that it might be chametz. If so, then they should be equally concerned not to give it to someone else, even one who isn't worried about it, and thus shouldn't be able to claim on Friday that they are cooking for hypothetical guests who eat it. Lepoel this question comes up every time there is such a kevius, and there doesn't seem to be one psak about it. Perhaps it comes down to the different reasons people give for why it's OK on the last day. If one holds that the reason is "shelo lehotzi la'az" on those who eat gebrochts all Pesach, then it makes sense that on the first 7 days one should also not be "motzi la'az", and thus should be willing to cook gebrochts for those who eat it. Thus on Friday the 7th one can claim to be cooking for such guests. But if one holds that the reason for not eating gebrochts for 7 days and then eating it on the 8th is as a symbolic gesture towards the kabbalistic idea that on the 8th day one ought to eat chametz, so for 7 days we treat gebrochts *as if* it were chametz, and then eat it on the 8th day, then it would seem to follow that on the 7th day one may not cook it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 14:17:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 21:17:19 GMT Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: <20150403.171719.13613.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' David Wacholder posted: > Every average person's swallow is a Kezayit, the amount which > fulfils the Mitzvah and is the measure for the Bracha on Achilas > Matza. As a Hidur and to erase all doubt, a second normal swallow > would be good. That is for Motzi-Matzah, where the first olive- > size swallowed fulfils a Torah obligation. > ... > This needs no authority to base it on. ... WHY would it need no authority to base it on? If this were the halacha, wouldn't someone have mentioned it? Why did so many authorities struggle with the math and the biology and the physics if such a simple solution were at hand? > Air pockets and weight issue > > The swallow size may be according the the air pockets normally > contained in Matzo, not ground, and according to volume not weight. If a kezayis is a swallowfull, aren't the air pockets gone? Haven't they been lost in the chewing? I concede that by the time the chewed matza gets to the throat, much of the missing air has been replaced by saliva. Or perhaps the saliva even *more* than accounts for the missing air. I am not knowledgeable enough about this to venture a guess on the comparison of the volume of the matza before chewing vis a vis at swallowing. In any case, I've always been bothered by the problem of counting the air bubbles. Mishneh Berurah 208:48 says that when eating cookies, l'chatchilah, one must insure that he ate a kezayis of flour, WITHOUT counting the sugar, in order to say Al Hamichya. MB concedes that the minhag is to count all the ingrdients, but the Igros Moshe 1:71 says not to rely on that minhag. So here's my question: If they would prefer us NOT to count the other ingredients, which have substance, isn't it a simple kal vachomer not to count AIR, she'ayn bo mamash? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/551f039acb72539a4c49st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 13:08:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2015 16:08:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Special Pesach Edition -- Instantaneous Redemption Message-ID: <20150403200810.6EC28181C84@nexus.stevens.edu> [] Instantaneous Redemption HaShem took us out of Mitzrayim at the last minute before we slipped to the fiftieth level of impurity. Had we fallen to that level, we would have been irredeemable. In one moment, we went from darkness to light, from death to life, from slavery to freedom, from anguish to joy, and from impurity to holiness. Lesson: Just as that moment brought instantaneous redemption, so too, every moment of life has the potential to take us from darkness to light, from death to life, from slavery to freedom, from anguish to joy, and from impurity to holiness. App: May we all be encouraged by the miracles of Pesach, that HaShem again will instantaneously redeem us, and take us from darkness to light, from death to life, from slavery to freedom, from anguish to joy, and from impurity to holiness! (Based on Ohr Yahol, Rav Yehoshuah Leib Chousman) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 18:59:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2015 21:59:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geirut Message-ID: <20150406015903.GA15874@aishdas.org> (Ccing most of the participants in our 2008 and 2010 conversations.) You might be interested in On Conversion to Judaism, by Rabbi Dr. Chaim E. Schertz THE YU LAMDAN: The Wilf Campus Torah Journal http://yulamdan.com/2015/03/29/on-conversion-to-judaism-by-rabbi-dr-chaim-e-schertz or http://j.mp/1CIV5GN It starts slow, but R/Dr Schertz has a lot to say about Qabbalas Ol Mitzvos (QOM, or KOM if you prefer) and its role in geirus. Aside from other ideas that my be of interest, but it was QOM that has us going. :-)|,|ii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 22:22:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 01:22:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house Message-ID: <552217FE.4020103@sero.name> Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in EY after kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times. Does this mean that at a shiva house Sholom Rov is said even in shacharis (in EY on a non-Mon/Thu)? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 22:28:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 01:28:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" Message-ID: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the holy serafim's conclave. Nusach Ashkenaz, in the introduction to the kedusha of musaf, has a similar phrase: "kesod siach sarfei kodesh". But what does this mean? Every translation I have seen has rendered it as if it said "kesiach sod sarfei kodesh", but that's not what it says! Does anyone know, if "kesod siach" really means "kesiach sod", why they are reversed? Or, if that's not what it really means, can anyone explain what it does mean? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 22:32:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 01:32:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Moroccan nigunim Message-ID: <55221A63.3010303@sero.name> Do we have any experts here on the history of the Moroccan nigunei hatefilah? If so, can someone please explain when/how the Ashkenazi tune for Maoz Tzur got into the Moroccan liturgy as a tune for Mah Ashiv Lashem? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 03:38:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 13:38:02 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] free will Message-ID: We have discussed many times the opinion of Rav Dessler that a person doesn't always have free will. I recently saw a halachic discussion that may have some connection. On ketubot 51 the gemara discusses a case of a married woman who was raped but at the end was willing (techila be-ones ve-sofa be-ratzon). Shmuel's father forbids her to her husband while Rava allows her. One possibility of explaining Rava is that she is overwhelmed by her "yetzer" and so is still considered "anus" This is explicit in the words of R Zadok (tzidkat zaddik 43) that her desire is so great that it is impossible to overcome it and so she is considered anus gamur and so there is no punishment. Targum Yonatan (Devarim 22:26) holds that she is not punished by death but her husband must divorce her. Maharshal (yevamot 6:3) paskens that she is permitted to her husband only if she is "karka olam" However the Noda Beyehuda disagrees (tenina EH 150) and says she is always permitted to her husband because she is overwhelmed by her yetzer and so is not considered that she did it with her free will. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 05:13:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 12:13:44 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house Message-ID: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero asked: > Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in > EY after kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times. Does this > mean that at a shiva house Sholom Rov is said even in shacharis > (in EY on a non-Mon/Thu)? No, but I don't know why. I never thought of that question before, but here is a possibly-related question that I've wondered for years: If Shir Hamaalos is said whenever we skip Tachanun, should it always be said at the shiva house? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:25:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:25:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house In-Reply-To: <552217FE.4020103@sero.name> References: <552217FE.4020103@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150406182521.GC20912@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:22:06AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in EY after : kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times... This rule isn't 100%. Otherwise Sim Shalom would never be said when davening beyechidus. I think it's more lke Ashk uses Sim Shalom in tefillos where Birkhas Kohanim could be said, if we had opportunity. :-)||ii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:28:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:28:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:28:24AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam : siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the : holy serafim's conclave... Sod means conclave? I thought it was referring to the ofanim and chayos haqodesh who learn the secret of the siach of the sarfei qodesh, thereby are misna'asim le'umas serafim... :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 2nd day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Chesed: What is constricted Fax: (270) 514-1507 Chesed? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:37:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:37:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house In-Reply-To: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150406183751.GE20912@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 12:13:44PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I never thought of that question before, but here is a possibly-related : question that I've wondered for years: If Shir Hamaalos is said whenever : we skip Tachanun, should it always be said at the shiva house? We skip tachanun on shabbos and YT (or the week of 7 berakhos, the day of a beris...) because of the joy of the day being inconsistent with its mournful tenor. Shir haMaalos goes hand-in-hand with the joy of the day; if it's joyous enough to warrant looking toward the geulah rather than lamenting the churban with Al Naharos Bavel, then it's joyous enough for Tachanun not to fit either. But the key is joy, which has nothing to do with a beis avel. We skip tachanun in an aveil's home for the opposite kind of reason -- either because 1- we don't want to add to the aveilim's grief by harping on midas hadin, or 2- it is inappropriate to ask for mitigation of middas hadin in a home where din is being fully felt. :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 2nd day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Chesed: What is constricted Fax: (270) 514-1507 Chesed? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:42:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:42:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tan Du In-Reply-To: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> References: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20150406184227.GF20912@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 03, 2015 at 04:32:11PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Tradition - Winter 2014 (Rabbi N. Helfgot) ... : R. Lichtenstein in both private conversation with a number of talmidim : over the decades, including this author and in remarks in public shiurim, : noted his disagreement with the Rav's assessment of this hazaka (and : expressed astonishment at the vehemence of the Rav's opposition at the : time) given the clear cut evidence in the Rishonim in Yevamot and other : places in Shas which clearly indicated that this hazaka was not one that : applied in all contexts and at all times and in all situations. The way I heard RAL (recorded) was more that the large amount of material in Yevamos, much of the rest of seder Nashim, and the rishonim ad loc that such a proposal would make moot was itself RYBS's primary argument against R' Rackman's proposal. And that RAL understood the statement about tav lemeisiv and its ontological nature as a separate secondary argument RYBS made along the way. :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 2nd day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Chesed: What is constricted Fax: (270) 514-1507 Chesed? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:38:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 14:38:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5522D292.4070305@sero.name> On 04/06/2015 02:28 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:28:24AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam > : siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the > : holy serafim's conclave... > > Sod means conclave? Yes, as in "besodam al tavo nafshi". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:59:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 21:59:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 6, 2015 at 9:28 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:28:24AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam > : siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the > : holy serafim's conclave... > > Sod means conclave? > Yes, as in "besodam al tavo nafshi" in birkat Yaakov (Bereshit 49:6), where it's parallel to "kehalam", or more directly connected to kedusha Ps 89:8 "sod kedoshim". I couldn't say whether "conclave" is the original sense and "secret" a derived meaning, or vice versa -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:30:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 14:30:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house In-Reply-To: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5522D0BC.2010004@sero.name> On 04/06/2015 08:13 AM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > R' Zev Sero asked: > >> Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in >> EY after kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times. Does this >> mean that at a shiva house Sholom Rov is said even in shacharis >> (in EY on a non-Mon/Thu)? > No, but I don't know why. > > I never thought of that question before, but here is a > possibly-related question that I've wondered for years: If Shir > Hamaalos is said whenever we skip Tachanun, should it always be said > at the shiva house? The same question would apply in the afternoon of Erev Tish`a B'av. But the two questions can easily be distinguished. The substitution of Shir Hamaalos for Al Naharos Bavel is not caused by the lack of tachanun; rather both are caused by the same thing: the element of simcha on that day that makes mourning inappropriate. But the omission of tachanun at a shiva house is not because of simcha, but because we don't want to invoke divine judgment in a situation which is already fraught; thus Al Naharos Bavel is not inappropriate. And of course on Erev Tish`a B'av what could be more appropriate than Al Naharos Bavel? Sim Shalom, however, seems (in nusach Ahskenaz) to be directly linked to the conclusion of birchas kohanim, "veyasem lecha shalom". Thus it shouldn't matter why birchas kohanim is not being said; the mere fact that it's not said should be enough to cause the omission of sim shalom, and the substitution of shalom rav. Proof that this distinction is valid comes from the case of Tehilim #49, which is said at a shiva house on days when tachanun is said; on days when tachanun is omitted, #16 is substituted. But of course in a shiva house *every* day is a day when tachanun is omitted, so when does one say #49? The obvious answer is that on normal days omission of tachanun is related to the place, not to the day, and thus #49 is said; when the day has an element of simcha that makes #49 inappropriate, we substitute #16. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 16:23:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 19:23:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] partnership - adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties Message-ID: <001b01d070c0$b326a370$1973ea50$@com> Here is a step towards making my approach to the Relationship of Yisrael with Hashem more understandable. As always it is the feedback and exchange of ideas which contains so much creative force. AVOS WERE PARTNERS, THEIR DESCENDANTS WERE IN LIMBO RACHAMIM WAS DETERMINED INCLUSIVITY - ALL ARE INCLUDED INCLUDED INTO THE COVENANT - UNILATERAL COVENANT OF HASHEM WITH HIMSELF 2. G-d related to the Avos - Avraham Yitzchak Yaakov - as partners, whose faithful service he knew and trusted. The durability was unusual, but the basic partnership never was under question, as with partners who get along. 3. 4. Almost all could ask - we are individuals in a mass of Egyptian slaves, we have lost direct contact!! We cannot compare ourselves to a 70 member Covenant, which included Yaakov Avinu one of the Avos, who actually made every move based on direct prophecy. Even the 12 Shvatim had almost direct access to HASHEM himself. 5. The Crisis of Galus Mitzrayim - assuming all had learnt every Passuk in Breishis - was of uncertainty. - Yes Pakod Yifkod - but who am I? Will my generation merit to see what even the most elderly never saw with their eyes? Even were Moshe Rabeinu assured of membership in the Elite, he retained that uncertainty. On Pshat level, five minutes prior to the moment of noticing the Burning Bush, could ask that question. That vision began transforming Moshe Rabeinu into the instrument of G-d, the Goeil. The man who turned to check - was already entering Geula mode. 6. Machzor Vitri page 148 has a key piece called Pithron Nishmas Kol Chai. According to Psachim, the Nishmas Prayer should contain within it the essence of the message of Seder Night. Towards the end of Yishtabach - there treated as just the ending of Nishmas - RAABAN adds that the 15 praises parallel the 15 Dayeinus. 7. The piece de resistance - Chai Haolamim is explained Haya hoveh yihyeh, Ani Hashem lo Shanisi (from Malachi Haftara of Shabbos Hagadol). 8. Rashi here is one theme - as I would see it. Chai means involved with caring for his children right now - as fits in Chai Anochi leOlam Im shanosi brak charbi or a Shvuah. 9. Haolamim means until the end of time, as in a parent telling the child not to worry, the Parent is always here. 10. The piece on page 148 adds an extra word to Nishmas, to make a point sharper. V' Y H V H Shmo Eir Hineh lo yanum vlo yiyshan. The word Shmo - appears only in this one obscure manuscript, seemingly a Rashi arrow. 11. Here Rashi uses full expression - Hashem appeared to Avraham with the name E I L S H a D a Y but not the Name Y H V H. Avos were established Partners and employees. Now Hashem is showing his determination and leadership - new World Order - all eligible Jews will be included in the Geulah, no exceptions. 12. Hashem is taking on the eternal duty of guarding them, with no limits and no clause for rejection. Yes Hashem admits no such precedent existed. Only Hashem can overturn His Rules. 13. Bnei Yisrael are Unilaterally Covenanted to be Hashem's Bni Bchori. Just like He had focused since the word Breishis, bishvil Torh Shenikra Reishis, now all He wants is that His People be His only. Bni Bchori Yisrael! First Day Chol Hamoeid Pesach - we read these key Psukim. Tephillin wearers understand that Kadesh li kol bchor means singular devotion. 14. In our world, it would be a person seeking a marriage partner, then signing Adoption Papers. The parent chose - volitionally and with focus - to adopt this child. PARENTAL RIGHTS - FAMILY IDENTITY 15.It is a brand new family identity, which cannot be abrogated. Yes - there can be strains. But there cannot be a dissolution. It is stronger than marriage! 16. Rashbam says - He the King says about Himself Ehkeh, I will be. Yisrael as his subjects use the Third Person He Will Be. 17. It is not about Maaseh Breishis in Rashi. It refers to the instant covenant - My determination to Adopt You is irrevocable. 18. Ehkeh - becomes the Name He Calls Himself - totally devoted to watching over my Ben Bchor. Yihyeh is the Ben Bchor's confidence that He is watching me us. 19. The moment the Ben Bchor first uses the He will Care for Me - Hashem makes Ehkeh obsolete. The family has begun. 20. This is Rashi Rashbam. CONFIRMATION The Tzarfas Tosafos included Rabeinu Yosef Bchor Shor. He accepts Rashbam completely, except that HVYH is the holiest Name, not Ehkeh. The structure remains the same. 21. Hashem's Choice in Mitzraim was a Bnos TzlOphchad choice - choose which cousin and which time to marry. It is totally volitional and conscious. He chose adoption of all. Bachar Banu. 22. It means at a specific date signing Adoption Papers for 3,000,000 individuals. 23. Rashi says it means the special Adoption - family identity. That Adoption of all Bnei Yisrael had a specific moment, the Sneh. Those Name issues had meaning for Rashi and Rashbam. 24. Within the short timespan, all the Bnei Yisrael are Hashem's chosen children. Rishon in Emmes Vyatziv means since Ytzias Mitzrayim. Maaseh Breishis is not Primary to Rashi only secondary. 25. It is Family Commitment and Identity. Practical example, a secure Child can look his father in the eye. A secure Jew is able to have Hashem look him/her in the eye without flinching. I know this is my Father. 26. As the Midrash puts it - Yam Suf - I already met him when I was born and raised six months with no human being in sight. I know Him! 27. Ha'tishkach Isha ulahh - even a mother's love for her child cannot equal hashem's love. Hashem's Power is ever greater, but even His Love is stronger. 28. Woman says - Pesach is my adoption as Hashem's own Child - no Chametz ever! There is no bending on identity. This works on the visceral level. 29. Rashi in MV 148 does call it Rachamim - as in Rachamei Av al Banim. It is the strength of Inclusion in the Covenant. It is in its deepest essence - a Unilateral Covenant. Ehkeh Asher Ehkeh - just like in this oppression - in any other oppression. That is the Adoptive Parent's approach. Lo yanum vlo yiyshan shomeir Yisrael. 30. Rashi's approach is extremely strong. Rachamim is only possible as part of a relationship. Rashi makes the relationship primary and volitional. The secondary application of which rewards or concessions will be granted, secondary Rachamim, is put onto a solid base. Only chanun is left as a "nebbish" Midah - even from a cruel tyrant chein is possible. 31. Let adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties 32. 33. In describing why person would fast all Passover over and above Jewish Law Practice, you used the words "emotional attachment". In the seven years since that wording , perhaps the message is deeper. 34. This woman was looking at the strength of the Covenant - which is Identity. The bylaws are only secondary. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: AJS review of Rossi.PDF Type: application/pdf Size: 255404 bytes Desc: not available URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 8 05:37:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2015 08:37:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150408123715.GC8438@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 09:59:14PM +0300, Simon Montagu via Avodah wrote: : > Sod means conclave? : : Yes, as in "besodam al tavo nafshi" in birkat Yaakov (Bereshit 49:6), where : it's parallel to "kehalam", or more directly connected to kedusha Ps 89:8 : "sod kedoshim". To clarify: "Sod" *here* means conclave? I suggested an alternative, which I think fits the sentence better, as it makes "sod siach" a phrase, rather than trying to explain the interruption of "siach" in "sod ... sarfei". : I couldn't say whether "conclave" is the original sense and "secret" a : derived meaning, or vice versa Very different implications hashkafically, whether yesod would then be related to secrets (as foundations are in the ground) or a gathering of people (people as founders?). :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 4th day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Chesed: When is Chesed an Fax: (270) 514-1507 imposition on others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 04:58:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 14:58:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: Just saw a halacha that to me was a chiddush That one cannot (or should not) be yotzeh someone else for tefiilat haderech but everyone should say for them self. Those agreeing (at least lechatchila) include R Aviner R Nebenzahl R C Kanevsky R Tuvia Goldstein (who said he convinced RMF) R Belsky Not what I have seen in practice. Anyone know any opinion that does allow it -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 08:55:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 15:55:59 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: <20150412.115559.22172.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel asked: > Just saw a halacha that to me was a chiddush > That one cannot (or should not) be yotzeh someone else for > tefiilat haderech but everyone should say for them self. > Those agreeing (at least lechatchila) include > R Aviner > R Nebenzahl > R C Kanevsky > R Tuvia Goldstein (who said he convinced RMF) > R Belsky > Not what I have seen in practice. > Anyone know any opinion that does allow it Chidush to me too. I don't where to begin my comments. There's a GIGANTIC difference between "cannot" and "should not". "agreeing (at least lechatchila)" also allows a too-wide variety. And without some sort of reasoning, how can we throw out what we already know? Is there something special about Tefilas Haderech, or is this merely an example of how we have so little kavana nowadays that being motzi others is just too risky? I'm sure there are other sources I could quote, but for now, I will simply quote from "Halachically Speaking", vol 1, pg 75, by Rabbi Moishe Dovid Lebovits, published by Israel Bookshop. > One person can say the tefillah for everyone, as long as he has > everyone in mind and the others concentrate on the words.(20) > Horav Yisroel Belsky shlita maintains that every individual > should try to say tefillas haderech if he can.(21) If this is > not possible, one person can say it for everyone.(22) > 20) Kinyan Torah 2:119, Bais Avi 5:55, Opinion of Horav > Elyashiv shlita quoted in Darchei Ori page 279:2, > U'velechticha Baderech 2:footnote 26 quoting the opinion of > Horav Chaim Kanievesky shlita, see Darchei Ori page 259:1. It > is questionable whether someone who has already said tefilalas > haderech can repeat it for someone else. (Halichos Shlomo > Tefilah 21:5:footnote 9). > > 21) See Emes L'Yaakov page 65. > > 22) See Eishel Avraham Butchtach, Rivevos Ephraim 6:32:2, > Halichos Shlomo Tefilah page 245:5, Divrei Chachamim page > 76:192. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 06:33:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 09:33:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: <10b001d074db$3ad805c0$b0881140$@gmail.com> References: <20150407125218.216501835E4@nexus.stevens.edu> <10b001d074db$3ad805c0$b0881140$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150412133337.B25AB182ACC@nexus.stevens.edu> I am moving this to Avodah. YL At 12:43 AM 4/12/2015, R. Moshe Yehuda Gluck wrote: >R' YL: >Another person wrote to me > >"Chazal say that one is not allowed to daven outside (probably because of >kavana); >-------------------- >Does anyone have a mareh makom for this? > >KT, >MYG From http://www.dinonline.org/2012/07/11/davening-outdoors/ Is it problematic to daven outdoors? Thanks. Answer: One should not daven in an open area outdoors, and should daven in a closed building, or a sheltered area. Sources: The Gemara (Berachos 34b) writes that it is wrong (arrogant ? chatzuf) to daven in an open field. Rashi explains that in an open field, one doesn?t feel fear of the King, and one doesn?t pray with a broken heart. Tosafos, however, understands that the concern is for passers-by, who are liable to disturb a person?s davening. The Magen Avraham (90:6) rules that the problem is that davening outside makes a haughty statement: ?Even though there are passers-by, they will not disturb my intent in davening!? This is arrogant and wrong. The Shulchan Aruch (90:5) rules that one should not daven in an open place, and the Mishnah Berurah (11) adds that those who are always travelling should can daven in an open place, but should try to daven by a tree. Therefore, although it is not forbidden to daven outdoors, it is wrong to daven in an open area, and one should seek a sheltered place. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 09:54:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 19:54:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] reviit Message-ID: In the sefer of Rav Aviner he brings many examples of gedolim who used a kiddush cup the size of the shiur of R Chaim Naeh (86 CC) and not CI. He says he heard from RSZA that when RCN published his sefer on shiurim the rabbis of Yerushalayim were astounded at his chumra !! 1) cup if Chafetz Chaim (from his grandson R Hillel Zaks) 2) cup of GRA (baal eyanim le-mishpat who got it as an inheritance) 3) cup someone got from Ohr Sameach (mesoros she-avdu) 4) Rebbe of Gur - Pnei Menachem stated about the cup of his father Baal Imre Ha-emes 5) cup of R Salanter (Shut Teshuvot Vehanhagot) 6) Rav Dessler used a small cup that belonged to his wife's family. After she passed away he used a larger cup 7) cup of the father of the CI 8) Brother of CI used a cup he got from his father-in-law (Cheshek Shlomo of Vilna) and also had shiur RCN 9) R Elyashiv used a cup the size of CI but explained that he did so in honor of CI not because that is the halacha 10) In the sefer Meged Givat Olam second volume p34) someone showed RMF a cup holding about 88cc and RMF remarked that it was kosher lechatchila (not not the shiur published in his name) 11) In Divrei Yoel the Satmar rebbe is quoted as saying the shiur of reviit is 75 gram (!?) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 12:01:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 15:01:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] reviit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <552AC11F.8060605@sero.name> On 04/12/2015 12:54 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > 11) In Divrei Yoel the Satmar rebbe is quoted as saying the shiur of reviit is 75 gram (!?) > RACN assumed that the Rambam's dirham was the same as the Ottoman dirham used in his day, which was 3.1 g. But there's significant evidence that the Egyptian dirham of the Rambam's day was slightly smaller, about 2.8 g, which gives a revi'it of about 75 ml. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 12:15:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 15:15:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150413191514.GA19165@aishdas.org> R' Ari Kahn posted a transcript of that famous talk that people remember for RYBS's statement about tav lemeisiv. http://arikahn.blogspot.co.il/2013/03/rabbi-soloveitchik-talmud-torah-and.html As a teaser, here is all RYBS said on tev lemeis tan du: Let me add something that is very important: not only the halachos but also the chazakos [19] which chachmei chazal have introduced are indestructible. We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above. Let us take for example the chazaka that I was told about: the chazaka tav l'meisiv tan du mil'meisiv armalo [20] has absolutely nothing to do with the social and political status of women in antiquity. This chazaka is based not upon sociological factors, but upon a verse in breishis -- harba arbeh itz'voneich v'heironeich b'etzev teildi vanim v'el isheich t'shukaseich v'hu yimshal bach -- "I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy travail; in pain thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee" [21]. It is a metaphysical curse rooted in the feminine personality -- she suffers incomparably more that the male who is in solitude. Solitude to the male is not as terrible an experience, as horrifying an experience, as is solitude to the woman. And this will never change, mayid shamayim vaaretz [22]. This is not a psychological fact; it is an existential fact, which is due not to the inferior status of the woman, but rather to the difference, the basic distinction, between the female personality and the male personality. Loneliness frightens the woman, and an old spinster's life is much more miserable and tragic than the life of an old bachelor. This was true in antiquity; it is still true, and it will be true a thousand years from now. So, to say that tan du mil'meisiv armalo was or is due to the inferior political or social status of the woman is simply misinterpreting the chazaka tan du mil'meisiv armalo. No legislation can alleviate the pain of the single woman, and no legislation can change this role. She was burdened by the Almighty, after she violated the first [law]. Let me ask you a question -- ribono shel olam, G-d Almighty, if you should start modifying and reassessing the chazakos upon which a multitude of halachos rest, you will destroy yehadus. So instead of philosophizing, let us rather light a match and set fire to the beis yisrael, and get rid of our problems. What I think is more typical of the general thesis of this portion of his talk was the immediately prior statement: V'chen hakofer b'perusha v'hu torah she b'al peh v'hamach'chish magideha; he who denies the perfection and the truthfulness of chachmei chazal -- not of the Torah, but of the chachmei chazal as personalities, as real persona as far as their character, their philosophy, or their outlook on the world is concerned -- is a kofer. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 9th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 most appropriate? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 12:27:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 19:27:43 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150413191514.GA19165@aishdas.org> References: <20150413191514.GA19165@aishdas.org> Message-ID: What I think is more typical of the general thesis of this portion of his talk was the immediately prior statement: V'chen hakofer b'perusha v'hu torah she b'al peh v'hamach'chish magideha; he who denies the perfection and the truthfulness of chachmei chazal -- not of the Torah, but of the chachmei chazal as personalities, as real persona as far as their character, their philosophy, or their outlook on the world is concerned -- is a kofer. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The whole piece is worth hearing (even more than reading) - it seems to me that the debate echoes here: https://kavvanah.wordpress.com/2015/04/12/rabbi-ysoscher-katz-and-rabbi-ozer-glickman-rounds-one-and-two/ I do wonder whether one can avoid self awareness with a modern education. Another challenge is how to deal with recent "Chachmei Hamesorah" who don't seem to meet the perfection definition. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 13:56:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 13:56:37 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] support obligations Message-ID: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/193853#.VSwsUo6ZPAG interesting question . while in theory the ketuba and consequently the terms of marriage , mandate the husband support a wife , in practice that is not true in the kollel years [which in israel could last a prolonged time ]. here , a kollel man divorcing claims no income , and that the wife should support the children by getting a job . apart from secular courts, is there a positive chiyuv for a husband to leave 'torato umnato' to support his children ? does a get terminate his financial obligations halachically? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 14:23:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 17:23:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Philosophy and practice of shmita In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150413212344.GA3301@aishdas.org> On Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 10:09:02PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : What is the earliest source that ties shmita to the farmers using the : time to learn Torah?... I don't know about first, but the Seforno (Vayiqra 25:4, d"h "shabbos Lashem") writes: So that also those who work the earth, when they rest for this year, yis'oreru lidrosh es H' be'ofen mah. This is then quoted verbatum by R' Yaaqov Tzevi Mecklengburg (HaKesav behaQabbalah, early or mid-19th cent), who sites both the Sefornu and and "Raba"ch" -- who is eluding me. I didn't see it in Rabbeinu Bechayei, nor the Chizquni. Nor am I sure that "liderosh es H'" means learning. More recent is the Ari (as recorded by R' Shemu'el Vital, Shaar haPesuqim) based on the Zohar (vol II 20b). Haro'eh baShoshanim -- "Shoshanim" refers to the 6 shins in "usefarta lekha SHeva SHabasos SHanim, SHeva SHanim SHeva pe'amim". And from there haro'eh bashoshanim becomes: the one who dedicates the 7th year to learning finds G-d in all the 6 years of labor as well. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 9th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 most appropriate? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 14:28:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 17:28:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos In-Reply-To: <20150401084748.2445618205D@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150401084748.2445618205D@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150413212857.GB3301@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 01, 2015 at 04:47:45AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Does not the SA say that a person who has trouble chewing matzah can : soak it in water and then eat it? If so, then I fail to see why : eating gebrokts should be a problem for anyone. : The SA lived in the wrong qehillah for the minhag to be relevant. He would allow you to eat qitniyos too. And if we accept the SA haRav's explanation of gebrochts over the MB's, the Rama lived before we counted kneading time toward the 18 min, and gebrochts wasn't necessary yet. And since according to the SAhR's teshuvah, the minhag caught on after the Besh"t, meaning during the lifetime of its author and his readers, I am inclined to believe his version of the timing over someone who is reconstructing older history. : Also, were not the matzos that were used in the time of the SA : thicker than ours? Again, MB vs the SAhR as to whether that's at issue. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 9th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 most appropriate? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 14:33:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 17:33:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] support obligations In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150413213345.GC3301@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 01:56:37PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : apart from secular courts, is there a positive chiyuv for a husband to : leave 'torato umnato' to support his children ? does a get terminate his : financial obligations halachically? Assuming she didn't agree to the arrangement. Ortherwise, the wife willingly waved her claim to his income, and took on the obligation of self- and child-support. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 20:54:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 03:54:11 GMT Subject: [Avodah] support obligations Message-ID: <20150413.235411.14734.1@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Assuming she didn't agree to the arrangement. Ortherwise, the wife > willingly waved her claim to his income, and took on the obligation > of self- and child-support. I would argue that she accepted the financial responsibilities only in exchange for the s'char she gets from enabling her husband to learn Torah, and that once he ceases to be her husband, that arrangement ends, and the whole thing reverts to the usual. Phrased differently, once he stops giving her the s'char of sharing in his learning, he has to give her a more practical olam-hazeh sort of support. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552c8fb420d2bfb30fdest04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 20:45:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 03:45:47 GMT Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> [RAK gives credit to others in fn. 1. It is not his transcript. -micha] R' Micha Berger posted R' Ari Kahn's transcript of Rav YB Soloveitchik: > ... This is not a psychological > fact; it is an existential fact, which is due not to the inferior > status of the woman, but rather to the difference, the basic > distinction, between the female personality and the male personality. > Loneliness frightens the woman, and an old spinster's life is much > more miserable and tragic than the life of an old bachelor. This was > true in antiquity; it is still true, and it will be true a thousand > years from now. So, to say that tan du mil'meisiv armalo was or > is due to the inferior political or social status of the woman > is simply misinterpreting the chazaka tan du mil'meisiv armalo. ... From what I understand, the objection to hafkaas kiddushin comes from a presumption that a woman would prefer to stay with her husband, even if he seems to be a terrible person, and even if she tells us that in *her* opinion he is a terrible person -- and we have this presumption because of the chazaka of tan du. But I do not see Rav Soloveitchik making that case here. All he is saying is that "an old spinster's life is much more miserable and tragic than the life of an old bachelor." He does say that this relative perspective on singlehood is a "permanent ontological principle[s] rooted in the very depth of the human personality," and that it will never change, and that this information is Revealed in the words of Bereishis. But this refers ONLY to the misery and tragedy of a single woman as opposed to a single man. And that's NOT that argument against hafkaas kiddushin, at least not how I've heard it. The argument that I've heard -- that is to say, the supposed translation of "tav l'meisiv tan du" -- is that a woman would prefer living with ANY man rather than to be alone. I can easily understand opposition to Hafkaas Kiddushin on the grounds that widespread use would give *all* marriages a sort of "tentative" status. But that's not what people are referring to here, right? When they invoke "tan du" against Hafkaas Kidushin, they're saying that despite the wife's protestations, the wife would actually prefer to stay married, and that's why they're unable to annul the marriage. Or am I mistaken? Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 05:26:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 08:26:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <552D0792.4060709@sero.name> On 04/13/2015 11:45 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > From what I understand, the objection to hafkaas kiddushin comes from a > presumption that a woman would prefer to stay with her husband, even if > he seems to be a terrible person, and even if she tells us that in*her* > opinion he is a terrible person -- and we have this presumption because > of the chazaka of tan du. What she prefers is irrelevant. Obviously she wants to leave her husband; she is openly telling us so, and it's ridiculous to suppose she is not telling the truth. And even if she weren't, if the marriage is invalid then it's invalid, no matter what she wants. You're looking at the whole thing from the wrong direction. No objection is needed to annulling a marriage; what's needed is grounds *for* annulling it. The alleged grounds are that it has now become clear that this man was always such a bad person that had the woman known this when he proposed marriage she would have refused, and throughout the subsequent marriage there was never a point at which she was so happy that had she found out the truth she would have consented to stay with him. Now if the husband is bad enough (and it can be proved that he always was so), *and* the woman is such a catch that there was never a point at which she could not have found another husband, then this makes sense. Obviously she has always preferred a good husband to a bad one, and only married this man because she thought he was a good one. But what if refusing to marry him, or leaving him at some point during the marriage, were to expose her to the risk of remaining single forever? Would she still have turned him down or left him? The proponents of annulment say yes, of course she would, just as she has left him now. But, RYBS says, Chazal tell us that it's female nature to prefer a bad husband to none at all, so perhaps even if she had known the truth about this man she would have consented to marry him rather than risk remaining single; or perhaps there was a point after the event at which, had she learned the truth, she would have stayed with him rather than face a single future. > But I do not see Rav Soloveitchik making that case here. All he is saying > is that "an old spinster's life is much more miserable and tragic than > the life of an old bachelor." Yes, and therefore while a man might prefer to be single rather than live with a bad wife, a similarly situated woman will not. That this woman *now* tells us she would, doesn't prove that she always would have. > He does say that this relative perspective on singlehood is a "permanent > ontological principle[s] rooted in the very depth of the human > personality," and that it will never change, and that this information > is Revealed in the words of Bereishis. But this refers ONLY to the misery > and tragedy of a single woman as opposed to a single man. > > And that's NOT that argument against hafkaas kiddushin, at least not > how I've heard it. The argument that I've heard -- that is to say, the > supposed translation of "tav l'meisiv tan du" -- is that a woman would > prefer living with ANY man rather than to be alone. Yes. How is that not the same thing? Spinsterhood is terrible for women, so terrible that they'd prefer living with a bad man to it. > When they invoke "tan du" against Hafkaas Kidushin, they're saying that despite > the wife's protestations, the wife would actually prefer to stay married, > and that's why they're unable to annul the marriage. Or am I mistaken? Not that she'd prefer it now, but that she did prefer it earlier, when she was faced with the risk of never finding anyone else. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 06:44:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 09:44:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Could a New Gadget Change Shabbat Observance - Forever Message-ID: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/njr5j7a List of leading rabbis endorse 'Kosherswitch' to allow lights on Shabbat. High-voltage project could send a current through Jewish world. Will Shabbat observance change forever with a flick of a switch? A new gadget was released to the mass market on Monday promising Orthodox Jews a solution to the age-old problem of leaving lights on or off on Shabbat and then being prevented by Jewish law from flipping the switch. The new invention, dubbed "KosherSwitch," has been beta-tested since 2009 - but an indiegogo campaign launched Monday promises to bring the project to the masses. See the above URL for more as well as for a video explaining how this device works. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 07:59:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 10:59:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Could a New Gadget Change Shabbat Observance - Forever In-Reply-To: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150414145918.GA28845@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 09:44:04AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : From http://tinyurl.com/njr5j7a :> List of leading rabbis endorse 'Kosherswitch' to allow lights on :> Shabbat. High-voltage project could send a current through Jewish :> world. :> Will Shabbat observance change forever with a flick of a switch? Unlikely. They say this is new tech, which could be true since they got a [atenmt, but the How it Works page and the ptent describe something much like what Machon Zomet uses in their wheelchairs . Actually, Zomet makes sure their switch changes the amount of current, I see nothing in the patent about anything but turning the power on and off entirely -- it appears *more* problematic. The engineers among us can check out . As you can read on Zomet's site, R Neuwirth permits the wheelchair only because the issue is basic mobility. KosherSwitch.com shows you that that RYN signed on a "me too" to R' Pinchas Zabihi's haskamah. I have a notion that once things are clarified, the truth is more somewhere in between. When a house is on fire, and someone puts up a wall of pottery flasks filled with water to arrest its progress, geram kibui is mutar. See SA OC 334:22. The Rama either adds or explains (citing the Mordekhai), that this is bemaqom peseida. But gerama isn't suddenly mutar even without hefsed meruba or kevod haberios as a matir. So it all boils down to whether they really have a new tech that is more legitimate for them to call "un-grama" than Machon Zomet's design. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 07:12:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 10:12:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] =?iso-8859-1?q?The_Kosher_Switch=3A_A_Response_from_the_?= =?iso-8859-1?q?Tzomet_Institute=92s_Rabbi_Yisrael_Rosen?= Message-ID: <20150414141204.C79091830F4@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/ptcfckt The rabbinic world and blogosophere (see, for example, here) has been abuzz about the propriety of the Kosher Switch, which its producers claim allows one to halakhically turn on and off lights on shabbat. Attached here is the Hebrew response of Rabbi Yisrael Rosen, the prominent engineer who heads the Tzomet Institute, which includes (signed) clarifications of the positions of Rabbi Avigdor Nevenzahl and Rabbi Yehoshua Neuwirth. It is was sent on Tzomet stationery to Rabbi David Mescheloff, and is reprinted here with permission. Below is a rough English translation of the first page, which does not include some of the halakhic argumentation provided on the 2nd page of the original Hebrew. For all scholarly and halakhic purposes, and purposes of citation, only the original Hebrew letter should be seen as the authoritative writing of Rabbi Rosen. D. And here is the main part of my remarks: Yesterday I went to my teacher and rabbi HaGaon Rabbi Yehoshua Neuwirth, Shlita, and I asked him whether he permitted to use this switch to activate electricity on Shabbat for the purposes of Oneg Shabbat, etc He was really shocked and said he never permitted that. When I showed him the endorsement letter, he added in his handwriting: ?Only for medicine and security? (see photo in attached Hebrew article). Rabbi Avigdor Nebenzahl Shlita, who signed a similar letter, also told me yesterday that he does not recall ever signing anything like that, and expressed the opinion that there is no place for this and was puzzled about the whole thing. I suppose that whoever managed to get the signatures of important rabbis ?sold? them an invention that is a kind of a complex Gramma used for the purpose of medicine or security, and succeeded in skipping this condition when they signed. E. With regard to the claim, written in their accompanying halachic responsum, that it is permitted to use this Gramma switch to minimize the prohibition of those who willfully the violate the Shabbat, we have never heard of such rabbis who permit this. I am sure that those who ?agreed? did not see this argument, and this is an argument that should not be stated. See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 08:01:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joseph Kaplan via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 11:01:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <002d01d076c3$e98d8290$bca887b0$@tenzerlunin.com> "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above." Can anybody explain what this really means? That is, explain it to someone who doesn't use the word "ontological" in his/her normal speech. I have read it many many times but I still don't understand what the Rav is saying. Joseph -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 07:42:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 17:42:18 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: I guess I was a little too succinct in my last post. The major problem is that many consider tefillat haderech as a tefillah and not as a bracha. Thus while one can be motze other for a bracha one cannot do it for a tefillah. Hence, R Nebenzahl paskens that all those that know how to say by themselves should do so R C Kanevsky says it is preferable for each person to say by themself R Tuvia Goldstein says that one cannot be yotzeh someone else and claims that he convinced RMF of that R Belsky repeats that it is a tefillah and not a bracha and so it is appropriate (min ha-raui) that everyone says it for themself. R Aviner says that it is "rachamim" and therefore it is preferable that each one requests for themselves however bidieved one can be motzi others The sefer Piskei Teshuvot (siman 110-2) has a discussion whether one is required to say tefillat haderech in modern times. He concludes that one who does not say it on major roads has someone to rely on but someone who also says it has the reward of a tefilla even though we no longer have "listin" and wild animals on the roads. Instead we have a car accidents. Therefore one should also say tefillat haderech on railroads and planes. He claims that on small side roads that everyone paskens you need to say tefillat haderech -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 08:22:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 11:22:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150414152222.GD28845@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 03:45:47AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : From what I understand, the objection to hafkaas kiddushin comes from a : presumption that a woman would prefer to stay with her husband, even if : he seems to be a terrible person, and even if she tells us that in *her* : opinion he is a terrible person -- and we have this presumption because : of the chazaka of tan du. You phrased it as a psychological issue. RYBS says it's something existential or ontological -- and explicitly NOT pschological. I think he is saying that this vector exists in every woman's character. Even when current social reality provides other vectors that may submerge tav lemeisiv tan du, it is an entity present in her psyche (ontologically) still shaping her perception of reality (existential). And because of that element of her soul, inherited from Chavah, it's very hard to ever call a marriage a complete meqach ta'us on the bride's part. But again, my impression from RAL which is reinforced by this transcript, this particular argument was a side-bar, not RYBS's primary argument. Eg: ... : I can easily understand opposition to Hafkaas Kiddushin on the grounds : that widespread use would give *all* marriages a sort of "tentative" : status. But that's not what people are referring to here, right? ... RYBS discusses that issue at greater length than this one anyway. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 08:32:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 11:32:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] support obligations In-Reply-To: <20150413.235411.14734.1@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150413.235411.14734.1@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150414153245.GE28845@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 03:54:11AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Micha Berger wrote: : > Assuming she didn't agree to the arrangement. Ortherwise, the wife : > willingly waved her claim to his income, and took on the obligation : > of self- and child-support. : I would argue that she accepted the financial responsibilities only : in exchange for the s'char she gets from enabling her husband to learn : Torah, and that once he ceases to be her husband, that arrangement ends, : and the whole thing reverts to the usual. Phrased differently, once he : stops giving her the s'char of sharing in his learning, he has to give : her a more practical olam-hazeh sort of support. We are in the weird situation of talking about what the bride was agreeing to WRT a situation she never pictured arising. (I am reminded of Avodah discussions about what the Rambam would do if faced with what he perceives as a solid philosophical proof for a position he could not find a basis for in Torah. Would he declare something an allegory despite a lack of source in Chazal, would he dismiss the proof as flawed, perhaps even assuming the flaw had to be something he didn't yet find? The Rambam thought the situation was impossible.) So, I want to detour into a case more likely to have crossed the kallah's mind -- his death. If the husband predeceases her without having left kollel, she wouldn't expect him to leave her the same estate than if he had spent that time earning money. It may be equally valid to argue that the bride relinquishes claims to money even after he finishes learning, in exchange for supporting him while learning -- however long that lasts. I really don't know which way of looking at things is more valid. It's kind of like the old chestnut, "But if you did have a brother, would he like noodles?" Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 10:00:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Weiss via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 10:00:06 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3e97bfe1715ba4f18f42bf014d7ab62a.squirrel@mail.panix.com> > From http://www.dinonline.org/2012/07/11/davening-outdoors/ >> Is it problematic to daven outdoors? ... >> The Gemara (Berachos 34b) writes that it is wrong >> (arrogant - chatzuf) to daven in an open field. >> Rashi explains that in an open field, one doesn't >> feel fear of the King, and one doesn't pray with >> a broken heart. Tosafos, however, understands >> that the concern is for passers-by, who are >> liable to disturb a person's davening. >> The Magen Avraham (90:6) rules that the problem >> is that davening outside makes a haughty >> statement... ... >> Therefore, although it is not forbidden to daven >> outdoors, it is wrong to daven in an open area, >> and one should seek a sheltered place. As you see from the above it is the Lechatichilla not do daven in an open place, Last week we had a mincha minyan at the grand canyon, (to wait to a more appropriate place it would have been well after dark) When one davens in a large minyan and is surrounded by other people davening it is easier to concentrate on the tefilla. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 12:44:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 15:44:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd [TM]: Why Does God Test Us? Message-ID: <20150414194402.GB3303@aishdas.org> RGStudent recently posted a piece to answer the question "Why Does God Test Us?" The notion that the all-knowing God needs to test us to determine whether we will follow His command is absurd. He knows the future and therefore gains nothing from the exercise. Yet the Torah discusses in multiple places God's tests. For example, regarding the man (manna) that fell in the desert, God states: "So that I may test them, whether they will follow My law or not" (Ex. 16:4). The midrash (Tanchuma, Vayera 23) expresses the question aptly: ... I. Personal Growth The Kuzari (5:20), followed by the Ramban (Gen. 22:1; Ex. 16:4; Deut. 13:4; Toras Ha-Bayis in Kisvei Ha-Ramban, vol. 2 pp. 272-273), explains that God tests people in order to actualize their potential goodness.... II. Education Rambam (Moreh Nevukhim 3:24) takes an entirely different approach. He sees divine tests as a way to publicize, and thereby teach, the righteousness of an individual.... III. Adult Education I believe that, aside from midrashic sources and textual cues, Rambam had a more fundamental reason for taking a path different from that of the Kuzari and Ramban. The Gemara (Makkos 10a) says that Heaven takes you in the direction you wish to go. Similarly, another Gemara (Yoma 39a) says that someone who wishes to become pure (i.e. do good) is divinely assisted. Apparently, the Ramban takes this literally. ... IV. Self-Discovery Radal (ibid.) offers a third approach to understanding divine tests. Pirkei De-Rabbi Eliezer (31) says that the test was for Avraham to know his heart. God certainly know whether we will pass a test but poses it so that we learn our own abilities. Like a good coach, God pushes us farther than we think we can go. This, too, applies to adults who often underestimate their capacity for strength. God only tests those who will pass and by doing so teaches us the extent of our faith and endurance. ... -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 15:41:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 18:41:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] reviit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150414224153.GA9794@aishdas.org> On Sun, Apr 12, 2015 at 07:54:45PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : In the sefer of Rav Aviner he brings many examples of gedolim who used a : kiddush cup the size of the shiur of R Chaim Naeh (86 CC) and not CI. : He says he heard from RSZA that when RCN published his sefer on shiurim the : rabbis of Yerushalayim were astounded at his chumra !! Interesting, because I thought that RACN's agenda was to justify the accepted practice in his local, in EY in the early 20th cent. (Something I learned on-list 15 years ago.) Minhag Y-m is RACN's shiurim, because RACN started with the assumption that Minhag Y-m was roughly accuate, with the Sepharadim being the more precise. RACN himself was a Lubavitcher chassid of the Yishuva haYashan, born in Chevron. I do not know why people usually call him "Rav Chaim Naeh", ommitting his first name "Avraham". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 15:50:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 18:50:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: <3e97bfe1715ba4f18f42bf014d7ab62a.squirrel@mail.panix.com> References: <3e97bfe1715ba4f18f42bf014d7ab62a.squirrel@mail.panix.com> Message-ID: <20150414225006.GB9794@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 10:00:06AM -0700, Harry Weiss via Avodah wrote: : > From http://www.dinonline.org/2012/07/11/davening-outdoors/ : >> Is it problematic to daven outdoors? : ... : >> The Gemara (Berachos 34b) writes that it is wrong : >> (arrogant - chatzuf) to daven in an open field. : : >> Rashi explains that in an open field, one doesn't : >> feel fear of the King, and one doesn't pray with : >> a broken heart. Tosafos, however, understands : >> that the concern is for passers-by, who are : >> liable to disturb a person's davening. : : >> The Magen Avraham (90:6) rules that the problem : >> is that davening outside makes a haughty : >> statement... : ... : >> Therefore, although it is not forbidden to daven : >> outdoors, it is wrong to daven in an open area, : >> and one should seek a sheltered place. : .... : When one davens in a large minyan and is surrounded by other people : davening it is easier to concentrate on the tefilla. The Kotel Plaza doesn't suffer from any of these concerns, which is unsurprising because centuries of gedolim had no problem davening outside at the kotel. It's set up like a shul, so there is no special chutzpah or yuharah in davening there. Interruptions are likely, but generally for other mitzvos -- tzedaqah, or answering qaddish or qedushah from nearby minyanim. In terms And the location actively fosters yir'ah, koveid rosh and a broken heart. However, davening at Robinson's arch might suffer from the yuhara issue. (Personally, I find it more moving than the Kotel Plaza. One stands on the same road walked by oleh regel, among stones thrown off Har haBayis by the Roman Army (whether during the churban or when Hadrian had the har plowed, I do not know). Behind me are the ghosts of shopkeepers, ready to exchange my maaser sheini coins back to food, sell me flour for a qorban Todah or an animal for a differen qorban. The miqvah is a bit back, and to the left.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 16:12:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 23:12:56 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <20150414.191256.7783.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The major problem is that many consider tefillat haderech as a > tefillah and not as a bracha. Thus while one can be motze other > for a bracha one cannot do it for a tefillah. I am very confused. Many poskim recommend point out that Tefilas Haderech does not begin with "Baruch", so they recommend saying it after another bracha (such as Asher Yatzar, or a Bracha Acharona on food), so as to make it into a Bracha Hasemucha L'chvertah. But if Tefilas Haderech is not a bracha to begin with, then I do not see the advantage of such a procedure. According to "Halachically Speaking", vol 1 pg 76, the poskim who recommend the above procedure includes: Magen Avraham 110:13, Machatzis Hashekel 110:13, Be'er Hetev 110:10, Shulchan Aruch Harav 110:6, Mishneh Berurah 110:28, Aruch Hashulchan 110:14, Kaf Hachaim 110:51 -- but NOT the Chazon Ish (Orchos Rabenu 1:61). In addition, I recall learning of certain situations where it is recommended that one should say tefilas haderech, but omitting the chasima at the end. But if it's not a bracha at all even WITH the chasima, then what is gained by leaving it out? I suspect that I do not appreciate or understand the meaning of "as a tefillah and not as a bracha". Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552d9f0aeea561f0a2aa2st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 19:48:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 22:48:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Could a New Gadget Change Shabbat Observance - Forever In-Reply-To: <20150414145918.GA28845@aishdas.org> References: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150414145918.GA28845@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415024810.GA29474@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 10:59:18AM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 09:44:04AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : : From http://tinyurl.com/njr5j7a : : :> List of leading rabbis endorse 'Kosherswitch' to allow lights on : :> Shabbat. High-voltage project could send a current through Jewish : :> world. RGS just posted http://www.torahmusings.com/2015/04/will-the-kosher-switch-bring-mashiach-2 which also links to his earlier http://www.torahmusings.com/2011/09/in-defense-of-the-kosher-switch .... : As you can read on Zomet's site, R Neuwirth permits the wheelchair only : because the issue is basic mobility. KosherSwitch.com shows you that that : RYN signed on a "me too" to R' Pinchas Zabihi's haskamah. I have a notion : that once things are clarified, the truth is more somewhere in between. Actually, RGS determined that R Neuwirth didn't give his approval of the Kosher Switch outide of special circumstances. RGS writes: > The Kosher Switch adds uncertainty to the Gerama Switch. Every time the > device is supposed to send a light impulse, it calculates a random number > below 100 and only sends the impulse if the number passes a threshold > (usually over 50). However, there is a random element to Machon Zomet's switch too. Again, I do not see anything in the patent that makes this switch any less a simple case of gerama than Machon Zomet's switch. (In fact, R' Rosen of Zomet checked the posqim cited on KosherSwitch.com *because* he saw no reason why they would allow the Kosher Switch for general use and not Zomet's Grama Switch.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 19:26:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 02:26:43 GMT Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150414.222643.13892.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> R' Joseph Kaplan asked: > "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with > the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not > upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon > permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of > the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, > which is as changeless as the heavens above." > > Can anybody explain what this really means? That is, explain it > to someone who doesn?t use the word "ontological" in his/her > normal speech. I have read it many many times but I still > don?t understand what the Rav is saying. This is how I understand it: Just as a leopard cannot change its spots, and just as Shabbos comes each week whether society accepts it or not, so too, there are certain elements of the human condition which Chazal have identified as inherent and unchanging, not subject to variation by time, place, or culture. Or something like that. At any rate, one can agree or disagree about whether this assertion is true, and even among those who agree with it, there might be discussion of exactly which chazakos are unchanging and which are variable. Still, his point is that there are indeed some UNchanging aspects. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552dcca9d8e634ca96125st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 02:07:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 05:07:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's true position on kosher switch I regret that my father's position on the kosher switch was misrepresented by stating that he endorses it l'maaseh . His position is that there are 2 aspects in hilchos shabbos, one is issur melacha and then there is zilzul shabbos. My father's opinion is that there is no issur melacha or chilul shabbos. However , there is a concern about zilzul shabbos as he stated clearly on the video. Before it is used one should ask a shaila from his rav. Moshe Oelbaum Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:01:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:01:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld : regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. ... :> Moshe Oelbaum :> Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum Authentication? -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 23:10:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 09:10:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: The reason for not allowing to be motzi someone else is actually quite simple. The Gemara in Berachos (29b) clearly states that tefilas haderech is a tefila "Amar R' Chisda hayotzeh laderech tzarich lhispallel tefilas haderech". Therefore the general rule of tefilla should apply, namely that if you are a baki someone else cannot be motzi you. Since nowadays we are all considered bekiim and for example, we don't allow someone to be motzi us in tefilas mincha the same would apply to tefilas haderech. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:18:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:18:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:01 AM 4/15/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: >: Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld >: regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. >... >Authentication? What I posted was sent to me by someone on my email list whom I trust. I can send you his email address if you like. YL From http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/kosher-switch > moish3 at yahoo.com > Member > Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's true position on kosher switch . > I regret that my father's position on kosher switch was > misrepresented by stating that he endorses it l'maaseh . His position > is that there are 2 aspects in hilchos shabbos. One is issur melacha > and then there is zilzul shabbos. My father's opinion is that there > is no issur melacha or chilul shabbos. However , there is a concern > about zilzul shabbos as he stated clearly on the video. Before it is > used one should ask a shaila from his rav. > Moshe Oelbaum > Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:44:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:44:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 06:18:35AM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : What I posted was sent to me by someone on my email list whom I trust. : I can send you his email address if you like. YL ... : From http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/kosher-switch : > moish3 at yahoo.com : > Member Oh, I believe it really appeared in YWN, and that link can allow you to check that much for ourselves. What I'm asking is whether anyone contact R' Moshe Oelbaum or RNIO to authenticate that the post really was from his son. It is trivial to claim to be anyone in a YWN chatroom. I don't know RMO, but I can't picture R' NI Oelbaum promulgating his position via chatroom. Could be, if his son is a regular there anyway. The presence of a post really doesn't tell me much. No matter how honest the person reporting to you is, he can be duped unless he spoke to the parties himself. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:13:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:13:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150415101229.BCD31183613@nexus.stevens.edu> At 05:54 AM 4/15/2015, R. Harry Weiss wrote: >When one davens in a large minyan and is surrounded by other people >davening it is easier to concentrate on the tefilla. I do not find this to be true for me personally. I am not a "group person" and hence prefer to daven in a minyan that has between 20 and forty participants. This is the case where I daven during the week and also at the Hashkama Minyan at the YI of Ave J where I daven on Shabbos. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 06:34:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 09:34:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:44 AM 4/15/2015, Micha Berger wrote: > What I'm asking is whether >anyone contact R' Moshe Oelbaum or RNIO to authenticate that the >post really was from his son. It is trivial to claim to be anyone >in a YWN chatroom. I received this in an email from Moshe Deutsch I personally spoke to Rabbi & Rebbetzin Oelbaum who told me to publicize this. I was the one who made them aware that the person behind KosherSwitch is using his name in a way that Rabbi Oelbaum did not intend. Person behind KosherSwitch does not pick up the phone now when Rabbi Oelbaum calls. Moshe From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 07:21:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 10:21:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 09:34:32AM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : I received this in an email from Moshe Deutsch :> I personally spoke to Rabbi & Rebbetzin Oelbaum who told me to :> publicize this. I was the one who made them aware that the person :> behind KosherSwitch is using his name in a way that Rabbi Oelbaum did :> not intend... This still doesn't clear up my confusion, although it does confirm what the YWN post said (if not who authored it). I am trying to understand whether RNIO's problem with the appearance of his name on the KosherSwitch.com "approvers" list is because a- he feels that use of the switch is zilzul Shabbos, or b- he would hold it's gerama. What I am trying to understand is the tzad to say their switch isn't gerama. It appears to conform to the description of the Machon Zomet switch as it existed at the time R' Neuwirth consulted with RSZA who ruled it was. If RNIO holds it's "only" zilzul Shabbos, then clarifying what his position is was useful, but doesn't remove all my confusion. I was expecting that the posqim the Kosher Switch people are hearing overly optimistically (for their investment) would actually all end up agreeing with RSZA once we got clarification. Such as R' Neuwirth, whose approval was based on assuming the proposed use was a medical context. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 04:38:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 14:38:08 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <> On many birtchot hamitzva one can be motzeh others even when they are "experts". This includes shofar, megilla etc (not lulav or netillat yadaim which is considered as a mitzvah be-gufo) similarly for kiddush and havdala. Note that for sefirat haomer usually each person says the bracha himself/herself and also counts for themselves. There are opinions that if needed one can rely on the chazzan for the bracha but not the count. In birchat ha-nehenim usually each individual makes his own bracha. There are some which are a mixture including kiddush and motzi on shabbat on lechem mishne (note there are various minhagim on seder night). For birchat shevach eg lightning seeing great mountains etc each person says it by himself. OTOH the shliach tzibbur can be motzi others with shemone esre only if they cant say it themselves. Shemonei esrei is a tefillah (bakasha and shevach) even though shemonei esrei consists of brachot. The usual minhag is that each individual says birchat hagomel though I once heard from R Zilberstein that if many people need to say it then it is preferable for one person to be motzei everyone else ---------------------------------------- I am not sure if I have made things clearer - if not I leave it to someone else to explain exactly when one can be motze others lechatchila, bidieved or not at all -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 06:29:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 16:29:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: R' Akiva Miller wrote: > I suspect that I do not appreciate or understand the meaning of "as a > tefillah and not as a bracha". The difference between tefila and a beracha is whether you can be motzi a baki nowadays. With a beracha you can however with a tefilla you cannot which is why these poskim hold that each person should say tefilas haderech the same way every person davens shemoneh esrei. You also asked: > I am very confused. Many poskim recommend point out that Tefilas Haderech > does not begin with "Baruch", so they recommend saying it after another > bracha (such as Asher Yatzar, or a Bracha Acharona on food), so as to make > it into a Bracha Hasemucha L'chvertah. But if Tefilas Haderech is not a > bracha to begin with, then I do not see the advantage of such a procedure. Something can be both a beracha and a tefila at the same time, the prime example is shemoneh esrei which is tefilla par excellence but composed of 18 (19) berachos. Tefilas haderech is a tefila composed (possibly) in the form of a beracha and therefore the rules of tefilla would apply. [Email #2. -micha] R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The sefer Piskei Teshuvot (siman 110-2) has a discussion whether one is > required to say tefillat haderech in modern times. He concludes that one > who does not say it on major roads has someone to rely on but someone who > also says it has the reward of a tefilla even though we no longer have > "listin" and wild animals on the roads. It seems clear from the context of the gemara that tefilas haderech is a tefila b'eis tzara. The gemara mentions tefilas haderech right after it mentions that a person who is in a dangerous place says a tefila. The world has changed a lot since the time of chazal especially related to travel and we need to understand if these changes affect the din of tefilas haderech Here are some of the changes that have occurred relating to travel. 1. Most travel is no longer considered unsafe. When I get in my car every morning to drive to work I don't think twice about it 2. The distinction between in the city and out of the city is no longer true. Most people fell much safer driving in the Catskills then driving through Harlem. Driving on a highway from Brooklyn to Queens is in the city but driving in Monsey to the supermarket may be considered out of the city. 3. This is related to 1, people travel all the time. Most people commute some distance to work, this is normal and part of everyday life. In the time of chazal yotze laderech was a big deal. Given the above R' Shachter (in Nefesh Harav) says that R' Soloveitchik did not say tefilas haderech when he commuted from Boston to NY to give his shiurim. He felt that because it is a tefila b'eis tzara and nowadays there is no perceived danger and it is routine that there was no reason to say it. Recently, I heard a short shiur on tefilas haderech and was happy to hear that RSZA seems to say a very similar idea to RYBS. RSZA did not say tefilas haderech when he traveled from Yerushayim to Bnei Brak. He explained his reasoning as follows: 1. In many places it is not considered as if you left the yishuv for the following reasons: 1. There are many other cars on the road 2. The police regularly patrol the road 3. There are houses on the side of the road 2. Traveling by car/bus is a normal activity. Whan a person gets up and commutes to work he does not say he is going on a trip. The takana of tefilas haderech was for someone who was yotze laderech these kinds of trips are not considered ???? ????. 3. There is little or no danger of yotze laderech RSZA reasoning is very similar to RYBS. Basically, the world has changed and it is no longer unusual or dangerous to travel between cities and therefore the din of when you say tefilas haderech changes as well. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 05:05:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:05:17 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150414.222643.13892.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150414.222643.13892.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <0fa3e90282b94c0e95214067965f579a@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> This is how I understand it: Just as a leopard cannot change its spots, and just as Shabbos comes each week whether society accepts it or not, so too, there are certain elements of the human condition which Chazal have identified as inherent and unchanging, not subject to variation by time, place, or culture. Or something like that. At any rate, one can agree or disagree about whether this assertion is true, and even among those who agree with it, there might be discussion of exactly which chazakos are unchanging and which are variable. Still, his point is that there are indeed some UNchanging aspects. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ I would add an observation that individual exceptions may exist empirically but are ignored halachically Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 06:24:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 09:24:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tan Du In-Reply-To: <20150406184227.GF20912@aishdas.org> References: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150406184227.GF20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <552E669A.6000104@aishdas.org> I personally was always inclined to side with Rabbi Rackman over RYBS on tav l'meisav, but this article gives me pause: http://www.bbc.com/news/health-32303997 KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 07:57:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 10:57:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Message-ID: From: Joseph Kaplan via Avodah "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above." Can anybody explain what this really means? That is, explain it to someone who doesn't use the word "ontological" in his/her normal speech. I have read it many many times but I still don't understand what the Rav is saying. Joseph >>>>> If you leave out the word "ontological" here the sentence is perfectly clear: Human nature does not change. I'm sure you looked up the definition of "ontological" so no need to go there. But in this paragraph, the word "ontological" serves a subliminal purpose. Here it means, "Don't condescend to Orthodox Jews and do not assume we are backwards, primitive, and ignorant. One can be an intellectual and still believe the Torah is true and eternal." --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 08:12:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:12:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: From: Eli Turkel via Avodah >>The sefer Piskei Teshuvot (siman 110-2) has a discussion whether one is required to say tefillat haderech in modern times. He concludes that one who does not say it on major roads has someone to rely on but someone who also says it has the reward of a tefilla even though we no longer have "listin" and wild animals on the roads. Instead we have a car accidents. Therefore one should also say tefillat haderech on railroads and planes. He claims that on small side roads that everyone paskens you need to say tefillat haderech<< -- Eli Turkel >>>> Saying tefillas haderech "on major roads" -- does that mean even within one city, not just when traveling between cities? "On small side roads everyone paskens you need to say tefillas haderech"? What does that mean? Every time I get in the car to go to the grocery store in my own neighborhood? Or was the word "don't" inadvertently omitted from that sentence ("you don't need to say tefillat haderech")? I was driving someone to the cemetery for a levaya, we were on the highway doing 60 and all of a sudden it started to rain, but I mean a mabul, a hard, driving, blinding rain. I couldn't see at all in front of me. Of course I slowed down, as did everyone else, but it was still very frightening and certainly I couldn't just stop in the middle of the highway. My passenger, a BT, became very agitated and said, "I only know one perek of Tehillim by heart so I am going to say that." Then she recited Shir Hamaalos (from benching) out loud. The rain stopped immediately! A few miles further down the road, there was another sudden blinding outburst and she said Shir Hamaalos again. Again the rain immediately stopped. She was like a reverse Choni Hamaagel! I really think her emunah peshuta saved the day! But to veer back into Avodah territory -- would it have been appropriate to say Tefillas Haderech at that time? With shem umalchus? (I assume you can always say it without shem umalchus.) --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 08:34:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:34:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides Message-ID: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> There was a bachur next to me this morning whose retzu'os were painted black on both sides. And I believe I know why this is done, in case a retzu'ah gets flipped. Or perhaps to be chosheish for the Rambam's description of such retzu'os being "noi". The MB 933:21 tells us not to follow the Rambam, whereas the Keses haSofer (written by R' Ganzfried of the QSA) says even the *sides* should be black. But the site got me wondering: 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? 2- If the leather is soaked in dye untile its absorbed and the leather is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? R YS Elyashiv is reported by R' Mordeschai Friedlander (a noted sofer and poseiq, a reliable source) to hold they're fine. I am not challenging their kashrus. It just struck me that both seem valid concerns. I assume the talented chevrah can find holes in my problems. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:17:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:17:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> At 10:21 AM 4/15/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >I am trying to understand whether RNIO's problem with the appearance of >his name on the KosherSwitch.com "approvers" list is because >a- he feels that use of the switch is zilzul Shabbos, or >b- he would hold it's gerama. Does it really matter. He is saying that he does not approve of its use. Why do you need to know more? YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:32:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:32:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 12:17:02PM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : Does it really matter. He is saying that he does not approve of its : use. Why do you need to know more? For the sake of the switch, no. For the sake of understanding the concept of gerama -- Torah hi, velilamdah ani tzarikh! Saying this switch isn't gerama, and its use limited to cases where we can permit gerama, really defies my understanding of the concept. Or perhaps I misunderstand how it works, in which case the Electrical Engineer I studied to become (and the neti'ah that motivated the intent to become one) wants to know. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:07:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 17:07:04 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:34:00 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah > 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam > consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? > 2- If the leather is soaked in dye [until it's] absorbed and the leather > is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we > know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? 1. If it is just soaked, there is no problem of chatzitzah. (Did the fact that the pesiloth of the Tsits were soaked in techeles dye constitute a problem of chatsisoh? atmahah?) There may be a problem if it was subsequently glossed black - which it isn't. 2. Why shouldn't it be valid material after soaking? It's still leather. According to halachah, [have not checked this up right now - but if memory serves me] you can even use klaf [bdi'eved] for retsuos - as long as it is the skin of a kosher beheimoh, its kosher. Dovid [sofer] From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:13:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:13:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> References: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <552E8E18.4090201@sero.name> On 04/15/2015 11:34 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam > consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? Why would it be? It's part of the retzua. AFAIK everyone agrees that it's a hiddur, just not necessary, and most people don't bother. > 2- If the leather is soaked in dye untile its absorbed and the leather > is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we > know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? Why wouldn't it be? It's still leather, after all. Where does it say what colour the leather must be? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:57:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:57:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150415165733.GD6173@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:04PM +0100, D via Avodah wrote: : Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:34:00 -0400 : From: Micha Berger via Avodah :> 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam :> consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? : 1. If it is just soaked, there is no problem of chatzitzah. (Did the : fact that the pesiloth of the Tsits were soaked in techeles dye : constitute a problem of chatsisoh? atmahah?) ... So I believe your answer to my first question is that they don't paint the bottom, they only use my scenario two -- soaking the leather. About your parenthetical comment... If halakhah requires tekheiles, it requires blue wool. The completed product would be what the kohein shouldn't have a chatzitzah under. Not the undyed wool. :> 2- If the leather is soaked in dye [until it's] absorbed and the leather :> is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we :> know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? : 2. Why shouldn't it be valid material after soaking? It's still : leather.... But it's no longer entirely skin of a kosher beheimah, as the dye isn't made from skin. It is now a retzuah made of skin + dye. I could see that either way, and am asking how we (or the posqim among us) can just assume that this innovation is not a problem. Just as tekheiles is different than tzemer, perhaps dye-soaked leather is different in kind than leather. How did we determine it isn't? : Dovid [sofer] Thanks for chiming in. But could you kindly put your full name in your email header or signature once in a while, so that people know who we're talking to? One of Avodah's goals is to create chevraschaft, which is difficult when people are anonymous or partially so. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 10:28:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 17:28:55 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150415.132855.9927.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 12:17:02PM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : Does it really matter. He is saying that he does not approve of its : use. Why do you need to know more? This is like saying, about ANY situation, "He is saying that it is assur. Why do you need to know if it is d'Oraisa or d'rabanan?" The answer is very simple: There are some situations which would justify doing it if "merely" d'rabanan, but not otherwise. Similarly, there may be situations where RNIO would allow this it his svara was ABC, but not if his svara was XYZ. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552e9fe45804e1fe4411ast02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 12:42:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 19:42:24 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu>, <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> Message-ID: <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Saying this switch isn't gerama, and its use limited to cases where we can permit gerama, really defies my understanding of the concept. Or perhaps I misunderstand how it works, in which case the Electrical Engineer I studied to become (and the neti'ah that motivated the intent to become one) wants to know. Tir'u baTov! -Micha _______________________________________________ Sounds to me like r' asher weiss's makeh bpatish definition. Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 16:13:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 19:13:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 07:42:24PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Sounds to me like r' asher weiss's makeh bpatish definition. You lost me. I wasn't discussing which melakhah -- if any -- one violates by using electricity in an of itself, but how using this switch relates to that melakhah. For example, even if we say that electricity and electronics itself weren't an issue, the majority of these switches would be installed so as to turn on fluorescent or incandescent bulbs. Both of which heat filaments until glowing -- so there is a melakhah of bishul or hav'arah to discuss. And my question becomes: In that rather typical setting, how the switch not gerama of one of those two melakhos? (Or possibly both, if a glowing filament is hav'arah, and the resulting boiling of mercury in the fluorescent bulb, bishul.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 13:05:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 16:05:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: REliTurkel wrote: >Just saw a halacha that to me was a chiddush That one cannot (or should not) be yotzeh someone else for tefiilat haderech but everyone should say for them self. Those agreeing (at least lechatchila) include R Aviner R Nebenzahl R C Kanevsky R Tuvia Goldstein (who said he convinced RMF) R Belsky Not what I have seen in practice. Anyone know any opinion that does allow it< Is there any opinion, even of the five quoted, which holds that one is _not_ yotzei even b'diavad? As for RET's question, the Kol Bo on Aveilus, quoted in SSK, Perek 64, footnote 75, states that an onein is obligated in t'fillas haderech, but it is preferable that he be yotzei with another's b'racha. (I have not seen the SSK, but have seen it quoted.) EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 15:35:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 15:35:27 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach Message-ID: did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 17:00:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 20:00:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 6:35 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? I have a friend who does this. She once told me the origins but I forget where it came from. I remember that it was very obscure and non traditional. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 17:38:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 20:38:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150416003839.GD1638@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 03:35:27PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? What did it grow out of? Avoiding she'avar alav es hapesach? A way of avoiding chodosh, at least during the omer period? -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 17:44:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 20:44:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: <20150416003839.GD1638@aishdas.org> References: <20150416003839.GD1638@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 8:38 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 03:35:27PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: >: did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? > What did it grow out of? ... It had to do with chodosh and the omer/barley. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 22:05:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Weiss via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 22:05:46 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > From: Marty Bluke via Avodah > Given the above R' Shachter (in Nefesh Harav) says that R' Soloveitchik > did > not say tefilas haderech when he commuted from Boston to NY to give his > shiurim. He felt that because it is a tefila b'eis tzara and nowadays > there > is no perceived danger and it is routine that there was no reason to say > it. I was on a number of trips to Europe with RHS and every morning when the bus left town he said Tefillas Haderech over the loudspeaker. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 22:19:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 08:19:12 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: multipart/alternative Size: 369 bytes Desc: not available URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 07:15:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:15:53 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: Question: If one doesn't view eilu v'eilu as multiple truths but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which is which), how do you explain the approach to halachic process which ignores academic findings concerning texts or historical circumstances? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 07:16:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:16:49 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] =?windows-1252?q?Nikra_Choteih=94_or_=93Nikra_Rasha=94?= Message-ID: <34b0a662bcc7405695661d14e08ddcfd@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> The gemara uses the expression ?Nikra Choteih? or ?Nikra Rasha? from time to time. Has anyone seen anything written on the relative ranking of such categories? (e.g. since it doesn?t say ?assur?? does it mean it?s not a complete prohibition but something less?) KT Joel RIch THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 08:26:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 16:26:54 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I've never heard of the minhag but there is a chasidishe minhag to eat matsoh every time one washes for hamotsi during the Omer [see Chayim VeShoolom - Minhogim of Munkatche Rebbe] - which might be connected. (The source is the Ari who perceives the spiritual influx of Pesach to be repeated over the Omer; the state that warrants the eating of matsoh during Pesach carries over till Shovuos. Full 'maturity' that warrants the eating of chomets is only reached on Shovuos.) Dovid Rubin From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 10:13:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 17:13:44 GMT Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach Message-ID: <20150416.131344.1969.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> R' Dovid Rubin wrote: > (The source is the Ari who perceives the spiritual influx of Pesach > to be repeated over the Omer; the state that warrants the eating of > matsoh during Pesach carries over till Shovuos. This reminds me of the comment (which I've heard several times here on Avodah, but I don't think anywhere else) that in Moshiach's time, all of Sefira will be a sort of Chol Hamoed to Pesach. > Full 'maturity' that > warrants the eating of chomets is only reached on Shovuos.) Shavuos -- a.k.a. -- "Atzeres" -- is of course an entirely distinct holiday, unrelated to Pesach or to its seven-week long chol hamoed. Chometz would not be a problem on Shavuos any more than Sukkah is mandated on the other Atzeres. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552fede2bc7ec6de23df7st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 10:56:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 13:56:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: <20150416.131344.1969.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.131344.1969.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150416175612.GB10238@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 05:13:44PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Dovid Rubin wrote: :> Full 'maturity' that :> warrants the eating of chomets is only reached on Shovuos.) : Shavuos -- a.k.a. -- "Atzeres" -- is of course an entirely : distinct holiday, unrelated to Pesach or to its seven-week long chol : hamoed. Chometz would not be a problem on Shavuos any more than Sukkah : is mandated on the other Atzeres. Entirely distinct, yes. Unrelated.... The chag of cheirus finds its fruition with "charos - cheirus al haluchos." The connection between the issur chameitz of Pesach, the barley of the qorban omer, and the two loaves of chameitz wheat of the Shetei haLechem is at least as old as the Chinukh. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:22:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:22:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> Yesterday, at 7:13 pm EDT, I wrote: > And my question becomes: In that rather typical setting, how the > switch not gerama of one of those two melakhos? (Or possibly both, if > a glowing filament is hav'arah, and the resulting boiling of mercury > in > the fluorescent bulb, bishul.) And then "ssvarc" (RMSS) wrote on Torah Musings at 8:28 am or > In all likelihood, the Zomet one doesn?t have the light on a > randomized > timer (with indicators), nor the randomized chance for the light > pulse > to operate the switch. Now for an updated version of my response (not yet approved) there: Zomet's Grama Switch does have a randomizer on the LED whose light you may or may not block. As do Shabbos mode ovens. The Kosher Switch has a the same randomizer on the detector opposite the LED, but I don?t see how that makes anything more random. But now that you had me looking at their ?How it Works? page, the key difference has the description of a sefeiq sefeiqa. It?s far from clear what is meant. Here?s the quote from : > This creates two safeiks (Halachic uncertainty): the first, whether > or not the light pulse of the Light Pulse Pair will fail; the second, > whether the switch will fail in triggering the circuit based on the > results of the Light Pulse Pair. ?The switch will fail in triggering the circuit?? What are they doing to introduce this second safeiq? The best I can tell, it's a simple bit of software -- a randomizer that says "don't respond anyway". But that's just guessing, I'm not good enough at reading their patent to be sure. Also, in what sense is either a safeiq? Both will eventually happen, the question is when. I am not sure how ?sefeiq sefeiqa? applies to gerama, or to be more precise -- avoiding gerama. But at least I?m a step further in my understanding. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Here is the test to find whether your mission micha at aishdas.org on Earth is finished: http://www.aishdas.org if you're alive, it isn't. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Richard Bach From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:46:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:46:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> Message-ID: PS: On the relevance of random delay to gerama... AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is *geram* kibui". A case of gerama with a random time delay. But this is Yom Tov, where the laws against extinguishing are looser. The AhS refers you to OC 277:7, where we see that on Shabbos it's assur -- but because of a special gezeira to prevent people from doing the same when the wind *is* blowing. Not because of gerama. I also don't think the randomness of the length of the delay is necessarily relevant. Just pointing out halachic precedent. But it's certainly not "iffy" that we could invoke sefeiq sefeiqa. It's a random length delay, not a doubt whether or not the switch will eventually cause the outcome. The odds the wind will never come, or the randomizer(s) will never produce a combination that causes the switch to be honored, is ignorably small. (No one is selling a switch that may or may not shut the light.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:43:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:43:56 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: RJRich >>>Sounds to me like r' asher weiss's makeh bpatish definition. RMBerger >>>> You lost me. I wasn't discussing which melakhah -- if any -- one violates by using electricity in an of itself, but how using this switch relates to that melakhah. >>> IIAMN, the idea RJR is expressing is that the poseik has ad initio determined that the action in question is forbidden, and now is searching around for the category into which to place this prohibition. I have heard RAWeiss explicitly use this concept in classifying the use of electricity as makeh b'patish, based on a Yerushalmi - it's not an idea just made up by contemporary poskim. It does seem that some poskim are looking at the switch and saying "it *must *be assur somehow"; in any event that seems to me to be what RJR is suggesting is going on. Saul Mashbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:45:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:45:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55300361.8020803@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 02:22 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > "The switch will fail in triggering the circuit"? What are they > doing to introduce this second safeiq? The best I can tell, it's > a simple bit of software -- a randomizer that says "don't respond > anyway". But that's just guessing, I'm not good enough at reading their > patent to be sure. Yes, that's how I understood it. If and when the pulse is received, instead of automatically triggering the light to turn on, there's a gatekeeper that flips a coin, heads it obeys the request to turn on the light, tails it refuses. > Also, in what sense is either a safeiq? Both will eventually happen, > the question is when. In principle it might not ever happen. The basis of all this seems to be siman 277. There the concern is that even if the wind isn't blowing right now, it might start to blow *immediately* as you begin to open the door. This implies that if we can be sure that it won't start blowing until some time after the door has been opened it will be OK. But that whole discussion assumes that extinguishing the flame is not the purpose for which the door is being opened, it's just a possible side-effect. Is the halacha different if that was the intention? On 04/16/2015 02:46 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > > AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes > the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable > to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, > as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. > The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is > *geram* kibui". But there you're actively taking it to the place where the wind will blow. Here you're merely opening the door, so that if/when the wind blows the door won't protect the flame. > But it's certainly not "iffy" that we could invoke sefeiq sefeiqa. It's a > random length delay, not a doubt whether or not the switch will eventually > cause the outcome. The odds the wind will never come, or the randomizer(s) > will never produce a combination that causes the switch to be honored, > is ignorably small. (No one is selling a switch that may or may not shut > the light.) Why not? For the shabbos-keeping household, a switch that sometimes fails is better than no switch at all. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 12:12:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 15:12:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <55300361.8020803@sero.name> References: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 02:45:53PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : >Also, in what sense is either a safeiq? Both will eventually happen, : >the question is when. : : In principle it might not ever happen. ... : >But it's certainly not "iffy" that we could invoke sefeiq sefeiqa. It's a : >random length delay, not a doubt whether or not the switch will eventually : >cause the outcome. The odds the wind will never come, or the randomizer(s) : >will never produce a combination that causes the switch to be honored, : >is ignorably small. (No one is selling a switch that may or may not shut : >the light.) : : Why not? For the shabbos-keeping household, a switch that sometimes fails : is better than no switch at all. You want to ask them why not, feel free to do so. I'm not guessing why they're not setting the randomizers to make each even that unlikely. Still, they are repeatedly rolling the dice, the odds of repeatedly getting "no" falls off geometrically with the length of time in question. Ignoring milsa delo shekhicha, the light will indeed go on. They say the average is "several times" at . : The basis of all this seems to be siman 277. There the concern is that : even if the wind isn't blowing right now, it might start to blow : *immediately* as you begin to open the door. This implies that if we : can be sure that it won't start blowing until some time after the door : has been opened it will be OK. But that whole discussion assumes that : extinguishing the flame is not the purpose for which the door is being : opened, it's just a possible side-effect. Is the halacha different if : that was the intention? : >AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes : >the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable : >to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, : >as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. : >The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is : >*geram* kibui". : : But there you're actively taking it to the place where the wind will blow. : Here you're merely opening the door, so that if/when the wind blows the door : won't protect the flame. The AhS invites the comparison, not me. Clearly you're making a disinction that he holds is without a difference. BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at . To quote: An alternative Talmudic analogy: * There is a candle burning next to a closed window, and a strong wind blowing outside. Certainly, opening the window on Shabbat is forbidden, since the candle will be extinguished immediately. * There is a device that can determine if there's no wind currently blowing, and it can predict with 100% accuracy that no wind will be blowing for at least the next ~5 seconds. It lights up with a green light when it has determined this to be true. * On Shabbat, a person opens/closes the window while the device's indicator is green, knowing that a wind will ultimately blow and succeed in extinguishing the candle. * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to KosherSwitch (R). -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:55:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:55:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] {Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: > From: Marty Bluke via Avodah > Given the above R' Shachter (in Nefesh Harav) says that R' Soloveitchik > did > not say tefilas haderech when he commuted from Boston to NY to give his > shiurim. He felt that because it is a tefila b'eis tzara and nowadays > there > is no perceived danger and it is routine that there was no reason to say > it. RAsher Weiss, in a shiur on tefillat haderech, similarly expressed grave reservations about the recitation of tefillat haderech on routine trips which do not involve any particular acute danger, and indicated that his personal practice is not to say tefillat haderech (at least with a bracha) on said routine trips. OTOH, he was apparently very reluctant to issue a definitive psak that others should do the same, in the face of common established practice. Saul Mashbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 12:43:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 15:43:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> References: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 03:12 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > > BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at > . To quote: > > An alternative Talmudic analogy: > > * There is a candle burning next to a closed window, and a strong > wind blowing outside. Certainly, opening the window on Shabbat is > forbidden, since the candle will be extinguished immediately. > > * There is a device that can determine if there's no wind currently > blowing, and it can predict with 100% accuracy that no wind will be > blowing for at least the next ~5 seconds. It lights up with a > green light when it has determined this to be true. > > * On Shabbat, a person opens/closes the window while the device's > indicator is green, knowing that a wind will ultimately blow and > succeed in extinguishing the candle. > > * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind > is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time > when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts > of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they > miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're > able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to > KosherSwitch (R). Yes, and it seems from the SA that this would be permitted. The big difference, though, is that in the SA's case there is no intention to extinguish the flame, and here there is. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 12:53:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 15:53:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> References: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150416195347.GC11430@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 03:43:24PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: :> BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at :> . To quote: ... :> * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind :> is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time :> when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts :> of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they :> miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're :> able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to :> KosherSwitch (R). : Yes, and it seems from the SA that this would be permitted. The big : difference, though, is that in the SA's case there is no intention to : extinguish the flame, and here there is. Getting back to the post that started this tangent, the question was whether this last bullet item actualy is relevant. What's relevant is the probability of the wind eventually blowing the candle out or the switch turning the light off. If it's a rov or maybe a rube deruba, then it's gerama. At least, that's what was consensus decades ago when Machon Zomet first produced their switch technology and wheelchair. Whether you can break down the likelihood of the melakhah occuring into a union of the probability of a number of sub-steps or not doesn't seem to me to impact the question. Because this isn't a safeiq situation, it's whether your action can be blamed for the melakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 13:25:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 16:25:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150416195347.GC11430@aishdas.org> References: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> <20150416195347.GC11430@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55301AC6.7000807@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 03:53 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 03:43:24PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > :> BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at > :> . To quote: > ... > :> * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind > :> is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time > :> when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts > :> of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they > :> miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're > :> able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to > :> KosherSwitch (R). > > : Yes, and it seems from the SA that this would be permitted. The big > : difference, though, is that in the SA's case there is no intention to > : extinguish the flame, and here there is. > > Getting back to the post that started this tangent, the question was > whether this last bullet item actualy is relevant. According to the SA even the penultimate bullet item is permitted: >> * On Shabbat, a person opens/closes the window while the device's >> indicator is green, knowing that a wind will ultimately blow and >> succeed in extinguishing the candle Surely the last bullet item makes the heter much stronger. But again, the case discussed is where this is not one's intention. Note also, in the mashal, that not only is there no wind right now, there is no candle right now either. > What's relevant is the probability of the wind eventually blowing the > candle out or the switch turning the light off. If it's a rov or maybe > a rube deruba, then it's gerama. That doesn't seem to be what the SA says. But again, with the caveat that intention might make a difference. > Whether you can break down the likelihood of the melakhah occuring into > a union of the probability of a number of sub-steps or not doesn't seem > to me to impact the question. Because this isn't a safeiq situation, > it's whether your action can be blamed for the melakhah. It's putting further causal distance between "cause" and "effect". What if you had a series of these routines, each of which may or may not call the next one, until the last one which may or may not do something? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 14:05:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Samuel Svarc via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 17:05:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Apr 15, 2015 6:01 AM, "Micha Berger via Avodah" wrote: > On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > : Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld > : regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. > ... > :> Moshe Oelbaum > :> Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum > Authentication? Um, the fact that R' Oelbaum says the same thing on the KosherSwitch video ()? What I find very disturbing is that this information is in the public arena. Why are people commenting or conjecturing without looking at the companies materials? On Apr 16, 2015 2:46 PM, "Micha Berger" wrote: > PS: On the relevance of random delay to gerama... > AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes > the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable > to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, > as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. > The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is > *geram* kibui". > A case of gerama with a random time delay. But this is Yom Tov, where > the laws against extinguishing are looser. The AhS refers you to OC > 277:7, where we see that on Shabbos it's assur -- but because of a > special gezeira to prevent people from doing the same when the wind *is* > blowing. Not because of gerama. Take a look at R' Schapiro's teshuva (available on the KosherSwitch website) as well as listen to the shuir they link to (26 min.). KT, MSS From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 14:48:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 17:48:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150416214839.GC1824@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 04:25:42PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: :> What's relevant is the probability of the wind eventually blowing the :> candle out or the switch turning the light off. If it's a rov or maybe :> a rube deruba, then it's gerama. : That doesn't seem to be what the SA says. But again, with the caveat that : intention might make a difference. But we already know it does, according to RSZa and numerous other posqim. IOW, your seifa answers your reisha. : >Whether you can break down the likelihood of the melakhah occuring into : >a union of the probability of a number of sub-steps or not doesn't seem : >to me to impact the question. Because this isn't a safeiq situation, : >it's whether your action can be blamed for the melakhah. : It's putting further causal distance between "cause" and "effect". : What if you had a series of these routines, each of which may or may not : call the next one, until the last one which may or may not do something? That's exactly what I'm saying -- gerama is always a chain of events that can be subdivided according to your taste (how fine grained you wish to define the word "event"). There is an oft-discussed difference between melakhah and CM, where the latter subdivides into gerama (culpable) and garmi (no libability) but hilkhos Shabbos does not. And then even so, garmi is about number of human actions, not physical events. On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 05:05:38PM -0400, Samuel Svarc wrote: : On Apr 15, 2015 6:01 AM, "Micha Berger via Avodah" : wrote: :> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: :>: Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld :>: regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. :> ... :>:> Moshe Oelbaum :>:> Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum :> Authentication? : Um, the fact that R' Oelbaum says the same thing on the KosherSwitch video : ()? YOu misunderstand what I'm asking to be authenticated. Yes, I agree that RNIO talks about zilzul Shabbos. He does in the original alleged approbation in print (or PDF) as well. I was asking for authentication that RMO was really the one who said it's "only" zilzul Shabbos and not also gerama. There is nothing in his caveat about them avoiding melakhah that explains in what way shabbos is being cheapened. Could be uvda dechol, could be gerama, could be any other derabbanan or shevus. No? Not to verify the new "chumera", but to very he wasn't being even more machmir. That's a lot to glean from a post on a YWN chatroom that claims to be from his son. No one identity checks on YWN. : What I find very disturbing is that this information is in the public : arena. Why are people commenting or conjecturing without looking at the : companies materials? In the same post I cite the site in numerous ways, including commenting on parts of the patent application. It's not like I stinted on the research. Never blame until the possibility of miscommunication has been eliminated. No? : On Apr 16, 2015 2:46 PM, "Micha Berger" wrote: : Take a look at R' Schapiro's teshuva (available on the KosherSwitch : website) as well as listen to the shuir they link to (26 min.). One thing I had noted about the teshuvah is that he doesn't bother with the whole thing about a second randomizer. Which is why I was lost as to why anyone would think this is more mutar, and why people who generally follow RSZA more often than RZS would think this solves anything. See R' Neuwirth's summary rejection, repudiating the claim he backed their work . Consistent with what he reported besheim RSZA decades ago. I already noted OC 277, which is specific to geram kibui being mutar, with the exception of taking a candle outside while the wind is calm, lest someone not wait for the wind to be calm. And havarah or bishul? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 18:59:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:59:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150417015924.GA11845@aishdas.org> Here's the current state of my understnading, to start the conversation over by clearing the exchanges that got me there. Feel free to correct any misunderstandings, or even points that needn't necessarily be as I present them. 1- RSZA considers Zomet's Gerama Switch to be just that -- gerama, and therefore assur derabanan except in special cases. Randomly delayed changes to a circuit is, leshitaso, gerama. 2- KSTI considers their switch to be halachically different because their version of the Gerama Switch then goes into a second randomizer which determines whether or not it actually turns on or off your light. They invoke the words "sefeik sefeika", which I don't understand, since the random element is to insure an unknown delay, not a doubt about whether or not the switch eventually turns the light on. 3- Those who hold like RSZA -- R Neuwirth (obviously), R' Nebenzahl, R' Shternbuch -- gave the same ruling to the new switch. 4- Those who say this switch is gerama do not actually invoke the second random element. I found nothing in that wouldn't apply to Zomet's switch. I see them as simply disagreeing with RSZA and R' Yehoshua Neuwirth when they dealt with that question decades ago. Which, given the stature of RSZA and the acceptance of Shemiras Shabbos keHilhasah (and thus RYN), I don't think will get very far in terms of communal acceptance. 5- The Machloqes between RSZA and R Chaim Zvi Shapiro (to pick two representative names) appears to be over how to understand the distinction between two statements by the Rama: 334:22- Geram kibui is only allowed in special cases, and 514:3- You may put a cnandle next to an open window even in a windy area. RSZA distinguishes between whether the intent is kibui or not. RCZS makes the chiluq between whether the maaseh is one of kibui. But I still don't see how this makes the Kosher Switch not a maaseh kibui that we would group it with open windows, not the normal geram kibui. 6- You can't take a candle outside to a windy area even when there is no wind because of a gezeira atu not waiting for the wind to die down. This is different than the window, because one is moving the candle itself. Still, the Magein AvrahamA applies the gezeira to the window as well -- inlike the Rama. So my wondering about how the Kosher Switch isn't a maaseh kibui means that I also have no idea why the switch wouldn't be covered by the gezeira. And according to the MA, the gezeira definitely applies, regardless. If so, wouldn't you need the switch to be physically blocked when the response could be immediately, and not merely warned off with a red light? 6- R' Oelbaum is against general usage, due to zilzul Shabbos. (To my understanding, zilzul Shabbos means violating a shevus or other deRabbanan, chilul Shabbos means deOraisa.) According to he explicitly states "it is clear it is not a grama". So, my prior approach to figuring out what he holds was pointless. Regardless of whether the person in YWN's chatroom is his son or just someone pretending to be, ie whether that text is likely to reflect the nuances of his position. And regardless how one is medayeiq the difference between melakhah and zilzul, ie whether he considers geram melakhah a melakhah or a shevus. RNIO is in the same camp as R' Chaim Zvi Shapiro WRT the mechanics of gerama, but with RSZA it all in practice. But at least now my opening question has some kind of resolution: No poseiq makes a point about how the switches differ, its a machloqes about whether the switch is more like bringing a candle outside or opening a window. It may also be a machloqes about whether it's only geram kibui that is limited to acts of kibui, or even other melakhos. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 17:56:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 20:56:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <10e550.ca50480.4261b459@aol.com> From: Zev Sero via Avodah >> Why not? For the shabbos-keeping household, a switch that sometimes fails is better than no switch at all.<< -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name >>>>> Now that Shabbos lamps are readily available -- they work by covering the light rather than turning it off -- why do we need the Shabbos switch at all? --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 18:08:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 01:08:53 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150416.210853.21413.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> > But that whole discussion assumes that > extinguishing the flame is not the purpose for which the door is being > opened, it's just a possible side-effect. Is the halacha different if > that was the intention? If the operative principle were Psik Reisha, then intention certainly would matter. So here's a question: Is Grama a version of Aino Psik Reisha, or is it another principle entirely? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55305d31763705d3173a1st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 15:56:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 23:56:59 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This idea (that the days of the Omer are a type of chol hamoed) is mentioned in Avoidas Yisroel [Koznitse Maggid] and Ramban in Acharie Mois. Dovid Rubin From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 18:27:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:27:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] re Chametz post Pesach Message-ID: >What did it grow out of? Avoiding she'avar alav es hapesach? A way of avoiding chodosh, at least during the omer period?< Since chadash is grain which has taken root after the minchas ha'omer on the second day of Pesach, and it takes more than 7 weeks for newly-sown grain to be ready for harvest, how is it possible for chadash to exist between Pesach and Shavuos? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 19:22:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 02:22:34 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Joel Rich asked: > Question: If one doesn?t view eilu v?eilu as multiple truths > but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don?t know which > is which), ... You've lost me. Doesn't the grammar and definition of the words "eilu v'eilu" imply that the two things under discussion are equal? I just can't wrap my brain around a way to translate "eilu v'eilu" where one is truth and the other isn't. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 19:35:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 22:35:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150417015924.GA11845@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150417015924.GA11845@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5530716C.8070201@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 09:59 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > They invoke the words "sefeik sefeika", which I don't understand, since > the random element is to insure an unknown delay, not a doubt about > whether or not the switch eventually turns the light on. I assume they disagree with this characterisation. This is your editorial opinion, that since it's inevitable that sooner or later the ducks will all be in a row and the light will come on, all that it achieves is a delay of random length. They would say no, each time the sequence is triggered (let's say every minute) is a discrete event, in which there is a sfek-sfeka whether anything will happen, and the fact that in the next hour there will be 60 more such opportunities, one of which is "bound" to succeed, is irrelevant. They would also point out that there *is* in fact a doubt whether the light will ever turn on (before Shabbos is over or the owner decides to flip the switch back), and they would deny your premise that the tininess of that doubt renders it meaningless. *You* think it's halachically insignificant; they are not required to agree with you. > But at least now my opening question has some kind of resolution: > No poseiq makes a point about how the switches differ, its a machloqes > about whether the switch is more like bringing a candle outside or > opening a window. They seem to say that this is like a case where at the time you open the window there is neither a wind nor a candle, but you know that some time later a goy is likely to put a candle in front of the window, and that some time after that a wind is likely to blow and put it out. On 04/16/2015 08:56 PM, T613K at aol.com via Avodah wrote: > Now that Shabbos lamps are readily available -- they work by covering > the light rather than turning it off -- why do we need the Shabbos > switch at all? I assume 1. To save electricity 2. If you want a brighter light than you can get from a 15w CF light (which is the maximum that it's safe to put in a Shabbos lamp) 3. For applications other than lights -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 20:02:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 03:02:13 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel wrote: > On many birchot hamitzva one can be motzeh others even when they > are "experts". This includes shofar, megilla etc (not lulav or > netillat yadaim which is considered as a mitzvah be-gufo) > similarly for kiddush and havdala. > > Note that for sefirat haomer usually each person says the bracha > himself/herself and also counts for themselves. I am not aware of any situation where the halacha says that I cannot say a birkat hamitzva on your behalf, AND that the reason why I cannot do so is because you are a baki. (There might be other good reasons, depending on the situation, but I don't know that "being a baki" is ever such a reason.) That said, I do concede that the common practice is for one person to say the bracha on shofar and megilla for all the assembled, yet we all say our own brachos on lulav, hallel, and sefira. I have never seen this explanation, but I've always felt there was a very simple explanation for how this distinction developed: When I take the lulav, say hallel, or count sefira, I am doing the mitzvah myself. I am doing it in shul, among many other people, but we are each acting as individuals. I do the mitzvah myself, so I say the bracha on it myself. In contrast, I am dependent on someone else to blow the shofar or read the megillah. You can say that I am personally hearing the shofar with my own ears, and you can say that "shome'a k'oneh" means that I am actively doing the mitzvah of krias hamegillah -- but the bottom line, l'maaseh, is that if the guy on the bimah messes up, I've lost the mitzvah. I am dependent on him to get the mitzvah done. I have to do my share of the work too, of course, by paying attention etc etc, but that's not enough. We *both* have to do it right. Under such conditions, I really don't want to risk saying a bracha that could end up being l'vatala. I'd rather answer Amen to *his* birkas hamitzvah. Following that logic, someone who has his own kosher megila, and actually reads along with the baal kriah, ought to say his own Al Mikra Megila. I suppose so! This distinction appears in other brachos too, even brachos other than birchos hamitzvah. For example, at Kol Nidre, everyone says their own Shehecheyanu on the Yom Tov, because, why not? We all say our own Netilas Yadayim, and brachos on Talis and Tefilin, for the same reason. We all listen to one person say Kiddush, but I think that's mostly because only he/she has a cup from which to drink the required amount. But at the Seder, everyone has a cup, so (in many families) everyone says their own Kiddush. EXCEPTION: There are some brachos which *ought* to be said by each individual according to the above logic, but we rely on the other person because a few brachos got bundled together. For example, if we pass around the b'samim and candle at havdala, we should each say our own bracha on them, but most people don't, because it is part of havdala. Similarly, if you are at the Seder and don't have your own 2.5 matzos in front of you, you'll have to hear Hamotzi from someone because of Lechem Mishne, but why not say your own Al Achilas Matza after you have a piece in your hand, and the answer is because Motzi Matzah go together. All of the above is purely my own logic, and I'm sure many of you will be able to punch some good holes in it. And I'm looking forward to reading that! Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553077e61f4dd77e644e0st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 22:30:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 01:30:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] SF - Focus on the Good Message-ID: <20150417053029.35F10181384@nexus.stevens.edu> [] Focus on the Good In ancient days if a person spoke loshon horah he contracted tza'aras. The message was that just as he exposed the flaws of a person, so too, his flaws were exposed. His rectification was to go into isolation and introspect on his own shortcomings. Lesson: If we focus on the faults of others, we are held responsible to correct our own faults. If we focus of the good of others, HaShem will mercifully overlook our flaws and focus exclusively on our good. App: Avoid saying all unbecoming comments about others. (Based on the writings of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 02:52:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 05:52:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150417095237.GB2327@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 17, 2015 at 03:02:13AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I am not aware of any situation where the halacha says that I cannot : say a birkat hamitzva on your behalf, AND that the reason why I cannot : do so is because you are a baki. (There might be other good reasons, : depending on the situation, but I don't know that "being a baki" is ever : such a reason.) More than that, Beis Hillel (Berakhos 38a, brought lehalakhah AhS OC 298:28) gives *preference* to one person making havdalah for all than each person making their own, because of berov am hadras Melekh. Similarly, it is better to be yotzei qiddush from the baal habayis than each person make their own. (AhS OC 273:6, citing Berakhos 53a, and a din mentioned in most Hagados, because at the seder each person already has their own kos.) But when it comes to birkhas shevach and birkhos hanehenin (which are unattached to other berakhos, unlike the the borei peri hagafen of qiddush or havdalah), we do hold that it's better to make your own. (Berakhos 42a) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 13th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Gevurah: To what extent is judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 necessary for a good relationship? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 05:01:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 12:01:53 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150417.080153.18454.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero explained two views: > I assume they disagree with this characterisation. This is your > editorial opinion, that since it's inevitable that sooner or later > the ducks will all be in a row and the light will come on, all that > it achieves is a delay of random length. They would say no, each > time the sequence is triggered (let's say every minute) is a > discrete event, in which there is a sfek-sfeka whether anything > will happen, and the fact that in the next hour there will be 60 > more such opportunities, one of which is "bound" to succeed, is > irrelevant. They would also point out that there *is* in fact a > doubt whether the light will ever turn on (before Shabbos is over > or the owner decides to flip the switch back), and they would deny > your premise that the tininess of that doubt renders it > meaningless. *You* think it's halachically insignificant; they > are not required to agree with you. If I'm understanding this correctly, the difference of opinion centers on: how many links does the chain need, to reach a point where one end has no halachically significant effect on the other end. To me, this whole discussion is very reminiscent of another topic in hilchos Shabbos, namely, that the Gemara never gave any halachos about cooking in a Kli Shlishi. One view says: "A Kli Rishon obviously cooks, and we were told that some easily-cooked things are capable of being cooked in a Kli Sheni, but that's as far as they went, so obviously nothing can get cooked in a Kli Shlishi." The other view says: "A Kli Rishon obviously cooks, and we were told that some easily-cooked things are capable of being cooked even in other keilim, so you have to be careful with *any* keli that's above Yad Soledes." To me, both of those arguments are very logical, and we must follow our poskim to know which one Hashem wants us to follow. I imagine that this whole Grama discussion might be similar: Chazal laid out circumstances under which indirect action is still assur -- so does that mean that *all* indirect action is assur?, or perhaps I can structure an even more remote indirectness which is acceptably distant. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5530f6662145376662eacst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 06:04:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 09:04:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: A shabbos lamp is tiny. Do you have shabbos lamps to light up your dining room table or the main lighting on a timer? > On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 8:56 PM, via Avodah > wrote: > >> >> Now that Shabbos lamps are readily available -- they work by covering the >> light rather than turning it off -- why do we need the Shabbos switch at >> all? >> >> >> >> >> *--Toby Katzt613k at aol.com * >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 06:54:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 06:54:30 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] yom hazikaron origin Message-ID: http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/Parasha/tazria/Ahrend.pdf on rav goren's placement of yom hazikaron on 4 iyar, analogizing to the israeli shmini atzeret , where hakafot precedes yizkor... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 08:26:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 15:26:20 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: > Question: If one doesn?t view eilu v?eilu as multiple truths > but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don?t know which > is which), ... You've lost me. Doesn't the grammar and definition of the words "eilu v'eilu" imply that the two things under discussion are equal? I just can't wrap my brain around a way to translate "eilu v'eilu" where one is truth and the other isn't. ------------------------------------------------------ See here https://kavvanah.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/rav-soloveitchik-religious-definitions-of-man-and-his-social-institutions-part-1of-7-1958/ for a general approach (especially "Part III- Rav Soloveitchik?s God In Judaism, God himself is the hidden God, Jal Mistatar ? unknowable and unknown. The Jewish experience of God (shared by other religions is antithetic, a polarity. it has both remoteness and intimate closeness. How is that possible? Judaism does not use Aristotelian logic of excluded middle. Unlike classic physic, modern physics uses both waves and particles; modern physics does not use Aristotle. God is both remote and close- in our encounter we are bewildered and comforted. Since Creation is also revelation, the every tree also incomprehensible strange. " And here for some more specifics: http://nishma.org/articles/commentary/slifkinrevisted3print.pdf especially starting around page 11. KT Joel Rich (who still can't really understand the double slit experiment, yet it's there) THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 08:54:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 11:54:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150417155456.GA7366@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 02:15:53PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Question: If one doesn't view eilu v'eilu as multiple truths but rather : one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which is which), how do : you explain the approach to halachic process which ignores academic : findings concerning texts or historical circumstances? To quote myself from : Last week I drew the conclusion from the Qetzos haChoshen that Torah is not Truth, it -- combined with the Jewish People -- is the process by which "Truth will bloom from the earth".... Thus, "vechayei olam nata besokheinu" -- Emes is matzmiach from the Torah. Note that the Torah isn't actually identified with Emes, but the process to get there. ... Rav Moshe Feinstein discusses the halachic process and the role of poseiq in his introduction to Igros Mosheh. (The introduction itself deserves serious study.) He writes about "ha'emes lehora'ah umichuyav lehoros kein af al pi im be'etzem galyah kelapei shemaya galya she'eino kein hapeirush - the true ruling, and one is obligated to teach accordingly, even if in essence is it revealed in heaven that this isn't the correct eplanation!" The ideal is following the pesaq as according to the process. As proof, Rav Moshe brings the gemara in Shabbos 130. We rule that only the milah itself overrules Shabbos. All preparation before the milah must be done in advance. Rabbi Eliezer ruled that anything necessary for the milah, even cutting wood to make the fire to make the knife, etc... could also be done on Shabbos. There was a town in Israel that followed Rabbi Eliezer. The gemara says that Hashem rewarded them for their tenacity for the mitzvah of milah. No one in that town died an early death. And when the Romans passed a law in Israel against milah, they exempted that one town from the law! Who was right -- this town, which was rewarded for their position, or we, who rule differently? If we understand that the essence of halakhah is that it and the Jewish People become one in a process to make truth bloom in this world, we can understand how the answer could be "both". Torah, like life, is about becoming, not being. IOW, if Torah is a legal process to reach the truth, and halakhah is law rather than truths, then it would be reasonable for an truth foung by extra-legal means to be irrelevant. We aren't up to pursuing Truth directly yet, we pursue the law. Someday they'll be identical, and and the neti'ah of chayei olam will have been matzmiach into Emes. On Fri, Apr 17, 2015 at 02:22:34AM +0000, R' Akiva ("Kenneth") Miller replied to RJR: : You've lost me. Doesn't the grammar and definition of the words "eilu : v'eilu" imply that the two things under discussion are equal? I just : can't wrap my brain around a way to translate "eilu v'eilu" where one : is truth and the other isn't. RMF says they're equally balid legally, but not as Truths. Implied is that Divrei E-lokim Chaim are on the meta-level, instructions about about how to hunt for halakhah, not the individual halachic conclusions themselves. Eilu va'eilu follow Hashem's instructions for how to pasqen, but the halakhah is like Beis Hillel. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 13th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Gevurah: To what extent is judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 necessary for a good relationship? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 10:03:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 13:03:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Derech Eretz: What is it the sets man apart from the animal? Message-ID: <20150417170308.D3E50183221@nexus.stevens.edu> Perhaps if yeshiva students were taught again and again, RSRH's commentary about what sets man (and this refers to all men, not just Jews) apart from the animal, then they would realize that every human being is to be treated with Derech Eretz and thus proper respect. YL The following is from RSRH's commentary on Bereishis 2:7 7 Then God formed man, dust of the ground, and breathed into his countenance the breath of life, and thus man became a living personality. What is it that sets man apart from the animal? The living individuality of the animal depends on earthly matter; like its body, so its soul, too, was taken from the earth. Not so man. In the creation of man, only the inert material was taken from the earth; only when God breathed into him the breath of life did he become a living individual. Herein lies the nobility and immortality of man, and this is the whole source of his freedom . That which gives the animal its individuality emanates from the earth and must eventually return to the earth. Not so that which makes man a ?living personality.? Man?s preeminence over the animal is not only in his spirit, but also in his vitality. His vitality is linked not to his body, but to his spirit. When he received a spirit he received life, his soul adhering to the spirit. When the spirit departs from the body, the vital soul is not buried with the remains; for man?s soul is bound up with his spirit, not his body. This is why his physical survival and health do not depend on his body alone. Of the many dangers to the life of an animal, not all are dangers to man. The survival of a man cannot be predicted with the same degree of accuracy as the survival of an animal. Adom yesh lo mazel ( Bava Kamma 2b): there is something in man that defies prediction. A man?s spirit will sustain him, even if it appears that all hope is lost; for the spirit sustains life. Who can gauge the power of an unbroken spirit? Who can calculate how long it can keep the body alive? Thus man is composed of two elements that are completely different from each other. One of these was taken from the earth. But man does not belong to the earth; rather, the earth ? as its name, Adama, implies ? has been given to man to rule. So, too, man?s body, which is afar min Ha?Adomo, is subject to man?s control. His true, living, spiritual essence is not dependent on the body; hence, even while he is physically combined with the earthly element, he can and should exercise control over the earthly in him. The afar, the earthly element, in him cannot be released from the realm of physical compulsion and is subject to the influence of earthly factors. But the nishmas chaim, which God breathed into man and which first made man a human being, imparts to man of the dignity of its source and releases him from all physical compulsion; it grants him freedom and elevates his body, too, into the realm of freedom. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 11:45:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mordechai Harris via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 13:45:49 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: > > That said, I do concede that the common practice is for one person to say > the bracha on shofar and megilla for all the assembled, yet we all say our > own brachos on lulav, hallel, and sefira. In the case of Lulav (first day - which is D'Oraita) and counting Sefira, the Pasuk uses the word Lachem which teaches of the need for each individual to have/count their own. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 12:26:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 15:26:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <55315E57.30506@sero.name> On 04/17/2015 02:45 PM, Mordechai Harris via Avodah wrote: >> That said, I do concede that the common practice is for one person >> to say the bracha on shofar and megilla for all the assembled, yet >> we all say our own brachos on lulav, hallel, and sefira. > In the case of Lulav (first day - which is D'Oraita) and counting > Sefira, the Pasuk uses the word Lachem which teaches of the need for > each individual to have/count their own. What has this got to do with the bracha? I actually had meant to post about this, since I've been wondering for some time why it is that the world's minhag is for each person to say their own bracha on hallel and sefira, after hearing the chazan's bracha. Doesn't the usual rule of "berov am" mean that everyone should be yotzei with his bracha? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 13:47:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 16:47:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is from today's Halacha for Today http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ Erev Shabbos Kodesh Parashas Shemini (Parashiyos Tazria- Metzorah in Eretz Yisroel); Mevorchim Chodesh Iyar; Rosh Chodesh will be on Sunday and Monday 28 Nisan , 5775 April 17, 2015 CURRENT TOPIC: REVIEW OF HALACHOS OF SEFIRAS HA'OMER Halachos for Erev Shabbos Kodesh 1) The thirty third day of the Omer, the 18th of Iyar, is referred to as "Lag B'Omer" and the early sources already treat this day as a special day, as a kind of Yom Tov. (See Sefer Hamanhig page 91a and Meiri to Yevamos 62b) 2) The Tur (Siman 493:3) states that the Talmidim of Rav Akiva stopped dying on Lag B'Omer. However, the Talmud (Yevamos 62b) clearly states that they died from Pesach all the way until Shavuos. If that is so, what then is the significance of the 33rd day of the Omer and why does the Tur write that they stopped dying on that day? The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between the Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the days between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not say Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh Chodesh Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 days in all. Therefore they only died on 32 of the 49 days. As a commemoration of this, we designate the "33rd" day as the day that the dying stopped and we celebrate that day, but not that it totally stopped on Lag B'Omer. ---------- Note that according to the Maharil tachanun was originally said during Nissan except for the days indicated! I wonder when saying Tachanun during Nissan ended. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 14:10:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 21:10:04 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150417.171004.3030.1@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitchok Levine reposted: > The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between > the Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the > days between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not > say Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh > Chodesh Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 > days in all. > > Therefore they only died on 32 of the 49 days... ... There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in both of those. Therefore, there are not "17 days in all", but only 16, leaving 33 days on which they died. (And this presumes that none of the 3 Rosh Chodesh days was Shabbos.) In any case, I am very curious how the commemoration of this event ended up as 33 *somewhat* consecutive days, including Shabbos. If the talmidim really died only on the days cited, our procedure sounds like cheating, at least sort of. Granted that a commemoration does NOT have to follow all the details of the event being remembered, but this pushes the envelope on that, in my opinion. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55317717a31937717329dst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 13:58:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 20:58:03 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <20150417.165803.3030.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero asked: > I actually had meant to post about this, since I've been > wondering for some time why it is that the world's minhag is for > each person to say their own bracha on hallel and sefira, after > hearing the chazan's bracha. Doesn't the usual rule of "berov > am" mean that everyone should be yotzei with his bracha? In theory (="l'halacha"), yes, you are correct. But in practice (="l'maaseh") Rov Am gets beat by our lack of kavana. Rov Am is an important hidur, but the ikar is to insure that one is yotzay, and that is more easily insured by saying it oneself. (It's like if one is forced to choose between an esrog which is definitely kosher but only barely so, vs. one which is beautiful but *might* be pasul. To me, it's a no-brainer that one would choose the barely kosher one.) This explanation fits my previous post well: We are all yotzay with someone else's bracha on the shofar and megillah, but NOT because of Rov Am, only because the bracha is somewhat risky because I'm relying on someone else. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5531743bc92df743b2646st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Apr 18 18:34:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sat, 18 Apr 2015 21:34:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Correction to Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150419013412.5B7E7181C69@nexus.stevens.edu> I sent out a couple of days ago. The following is from today's Halacha for Today http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between the Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the days between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not say Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh Chodesh Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 days in all. Therefore they only died on 32 of the 49 days. As a commemoration of this, we designate the "33rd" day as the day that the dying stopped and we celebrate that day, but not that it totally stopped on Lag B'Omer. ---------- Note this calculation is wrong. If one counts 7 days of Pesach then one has included one Shabbos. This leaves 6 Shabbasos until Shavuous. Thus one has 7 days of Pesach, 6 Shabbasos, 2 days Rosh Chodesh Iyar and one day Rosh Chodesh Sivan. Hence 7+6+2+1 = 16 days on which Tachanun was not said. 49 -16 = 33, and this is where the 33 days of aveilus comes from. Thus Tachanun was said not only during Nissan except for the days that are excluded, but also on Lag B'Omer . YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Apr 18 21:19:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 00:19:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <55332CDA.60208@sero.name> > 2) The Tur (Siman 493:3) states that the Talmidim of Rav Akiva > stopped dying on Lag B'Omer. > > However, the Talmud (Yevamos 62b) clearly states that they died from > Pesach all the way until Shavuos. If that is so, what then is the > significance of the 33rd day of the Omer and why does the Tur write > that they stopped dying on that day? He does not say any such thing. He says that *some* people have haircuts from the 33rd day on, because *they say* that this is when the dying stopped. The long list of rishonim who hold this cite a medrash that disagrees with the gemara, and says the dying stopped 15 days before Shavuos. The Tur himself does not express an opinion on the matter. > The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between the > Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the days > between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not say > Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh Chodesh > Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 days in all.* This is *not* a Maharil! It's supposedly a Tosfos, I don't know where. But there seem to be two versions of what this Tosfos says, which is why it would be nice to see the original. Mahari Ibn Shuaib (a talmid of the Rashba, and the rebbe of the Tzeida Laderech) cites this Tosfos as saying that the mourning takes place on 33 days during the Omer, because there are 16 days when no mourning is appropriate. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=9416&pgnum=131 The Bach, however, cites "Acharonim" who cite this Tosfos as saying that they didn't die on these 16 days. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=14268&pgnum=330 On 04/17/2015 04:47 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > Note that according to the Maharil tachanun was originally said > during Nissan except for the days indicated! I wonder when saying > Tachanun during Nissan ended. YL Not Tachanun. Techina, i.e. Kel Erech Apayim, Lamnatzeach Ya`ancha, etc. According to minhag Ashkenaz these are said even on days when there is no nefilas apayim, but not on Yomtov, Chol Hamoed, Shabbos, or Rosh Chodesh. [Email #2. -micha] On 04/17/2015 05:10 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos > Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or > it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in > both of those. Indeed, the Bach noters this and corrects it. > In any case, I am very curious how the commemoration of this event > ended up as 33 *somewhat* consecutive days, including Shabbos. If the > talmidim really died only on the days cited, our procedure sounds > like cheating, at least sort of. Granted that a commemoration does > NOT have to follow all the details of the event being remembered, but > this pushes the envelope on that, in my opinion. Well, according to the Tosfos as Mahari ibn Shuaib quotes it, the common interpretation of 33 days is *wrong*, and the correct minhag is to mourn for 33 days during the sefirah, i.e. all days except Pesach, Shabbos, and Rosh Chodesh. He does *not* say that they only died on these days. The first place I've seen the idea that Tosfos says they only died on those days is in the Bach. He sees it as justifying our mourning for only 33 days, not 34, as we should if our source were the medrash that the dying stopped 15 days before Shavuos. And since they only died on 33 days, our mourning period only lasts 33 days, including Shabbos, even though (according to this view) they didn't die on Shabbos. How exactly we mourn on Shabbos I'm not sure, but I assume the idea is that we do, so we count it toward the 33 days. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 06:26:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 09:26:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <55332CDA.60208@sero.name> References: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> <55332CDA.60208@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150419132604.GB19240@aishdas.org> On Sun, Apr 19, 2015 at 12:19:38AM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : >Note that according to the Maharil tachanun was originally said : >during Nissan except for the days indicated! I wonder when saying : >Tachanun during Nissan ended. YL : : Not Tachanun. Techina, i.e. Kel Erech Apayim, Lamnatzeach Ya`ancha, etc. : According to minhag Ashkenaz these are said even on days when there is no : nefilas apayim, but not on Yomtov, Chol Hamoed, Shabbos, or Rosh Chodesh. I am now wondering: why those techinos and not Tachanun? After all, as the name implies (and the Gra emphasizes), Tachanun is itself the core techinah. (Or perhaps "Elokai, Netzor Leshoni" is more central, since that's the one we place immediately "basar tzelosana", before aqiras raglayim.) I would bet (if I had spare money to bet with) that's the same question as asking why we're nofeil apayim for one but not the other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 04:00:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 11:00:12 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150419.070012.19808.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> I wrote: > There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos > Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or > it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in > both of those. R' Zev Sero added: > Indeed, the Bach notes this and corrects it. Glad to hear that, thank you. But over Shabbos, I thought of another problem: R' Akiva's talmidim were in Eretz Yisrael. There would never be a year where Pesach contains 7 days of Sefira. Even when including Shabbos Chol Hamoed, that yields only 6 days. Add 6 post- Pesach Shabbosim, and 3 days of Rosh Chodesh, and you have only 15 days of no Tachanun, leaving 34 days of mourning. Perhaps this is why Mechaber 493:2 says that the mourning continues straight through Lag Baomer, and does not end until the morning of the 34th. Note that Mishne Brurah 493:7 says that although most of the dying stopped on the 33rd, some deaths did occur on the 34th. I must point out that the above is true only when Pesach begins on Sunday, Monday or Tuesday. In years when it begins on Shabbos, as it did this year, then Eretz Yisrael does have a full seven post-Pesach Sabbaths in Sefira, totalling 16 no-Tachanun days, leaving 33 for mourning. BUT - In years when Pesach begins on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday (and even nowadays Thursday is a real possibility), one of the Rosh Chodesh days will coincide with Shabbos. This lowers the count to 6 days of Pesach, 6 Shabbasos, and only 2 days of Rosh Chodesh - a total of only 14 no-Tachanun days, leaving 35 for mourning. I can't help but wonder how the calendar looked that particular year. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ 4 Fish to Never Eat Click to Learn 4 Fish to NEVER Eat (avoid these like the plague!) http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55338b0147138b0126d6st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 10:34:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 13:34:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <20150419.070012.19808.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150419.070012.19808.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5533E71A.9080700@sero.name> On 04/19/2015 07:00 AM, Kenneth Miller wrote: > I wrote: >> There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos >> Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or >> it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in >> both of those. > > R' Zev Sero added: >> Indeed, the Bach notes this and corrects it. > > Glad to hear that, thank you. But over Shabbos, I thought of another > problem: R' Akiva's talmidim were in Eretz Yisrael. There would never > be a year where Pesach contains 7 days of Sefira. Even when including > Shabbos Chol Hamoed, that yields only 6 days. Add 6 post- Pesach > Shabbosim, and 3 days of Rosh Chodesh, and you have only 15 days of > no Tachanun, leaving 34 days of mourning. Except, as you note, in a year like this one. > Perhaps this is why Mechaber 493:2 says that the mourning continues > straight through Lag Baomer, and does not end until the morning of > the 34th. No, the Mechaber had never heard of this Tosfos that the Bach cites in the name of the "Acharonim". On the contrary, the only Tosfos he seems aware of on topic is the one cited by Mahari ibn Shuaib, which says that the plague raged throughout the Sefira, but that we only mourn for 33 days, because we skip Yomtov, Shabbos, and Rosh Chodesh. The Mechaber's own minhag follows the medrash that the plague stopped 15 days before Shavuos, i.e. the 34th was the last day. Either there are two versions of this Tosfos, or the Acharonim whom the Bach quotes are talking about the same Tosfos as Mahari ibn Shuaib does, and one of them misunderstood it. It would be nice to find it inside (though of course that would not rule out a different girsa). -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 10:36:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 17:36:03 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150419.133603.21006.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero wrote: > Not Tachanun. Techina, i.e. Kel Erech Apayim, Lamnatzeach > Ya`ancha, etc. According to minhag Ashkenaz these are said even > on days when there is no nefilas apayim, but not on Yomtov, Chol > Hamoed, Shabbos, or Rosh Chodesh. R' Micha Berger wrote: > I am now wondering: why those techinos and not Tachanun? Let me add a few more data points: Common practice in Nusach Ashkenaz is to skip Tachanun even for all of the Sefira days of Nisan, and also for all of the pre-Shavuos days of Sivan. (Note that NONE of the various minhagim allow haircuts on ALL of those days. Sounds like a great proof that tachanun takes all the kulos, even contradictory ones.) I concede that this is davka nowadays, and I do not know what the practice was in previous centuries. However, it is difficult for me to imagine anyone ever saying Tachanun on Isru Chag. Perhaps that might answer the point I raised in my previous post about R' Akiva's talmidim being in EY, and that in EY there are only 6 days of Sefirah during Pesach; perhaps the "7" comes from including Isru Chag. I should also mention Pesach Sheni, although that could lead to a messy argument over whether that is really "a non-Tachanun day" or merely "a non-Tachanun afternoon". So I won't mention it. :-) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5533e7dd3196367dd4042st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 09:54:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 12:54:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L Message-ID: <20150419165450.42320180CA8@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is taken in part from Rav Shimon Schwab's Essay The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L that appears in Selected Writings pages 88 -93. Rav Hirsch is usually accepted as the exponent of the Torah im Derech Eretz philosophy. This principle is explained by his grandson, Dr. Isaac Breuer, as follows: "He was strictly opposed to compromise or reconciliation, or even a synthesis: he demanded full and uncompromising rulership of the Torah. The Torah cannot endure co-rulership, far less tolerate it. As a true revolutionary he seized the liberalistic individual, the liberalistic, humanitarian ideal, liberalistic capitalism, and the human intellect, celebrating orgies in the liberalistic science, and dragged them as "circumstances'', in the narrowest sense of the word, to the flaming fire of the Torah to be purified or, if need be, to be consumed. As a true revolutionary he solved the unbearable tension between the Torah and the new era which had dawned over the Jews of Western Europe. He invaded the new era with the weapons of the Torah, analyzed and dissected it down to its last ingredients, and then shaped and reformed it until it could be placed at the feet of the Torah, as new nourishment for the Divine fire. The proclamation of the rulership of the Torah over the new era was the historic achievement of Hirsch's life for his own contemporaries." -- ("Hirsch as a Guide to Jewish History'' in Fundamentals of Judaism, published by Feldheim, 1949.) Unfortunately, the principle of Torah im Derech Eretz is grossly misunderstood by our contemporary Jewish orthodoxy. It does not mean that one who is a full-fledged citizen of hedonistic America and at the same time keeps the laws of the Torah, is a follower of Torah im Derech Eretz. Not to violate the laws of the Torah certainly deserves praise and recognition but it is not an embodiment of the Hirschian philosophy. Likewise, an academy dedicated to the study of science and philosophy, not in order to serve the understanding of Torah or to further the aims of the Torah but as the independent search by the human intellect to understand and control the world around -- even when added to a department of profound and very scholarly Torah studies -this is not an outgrowth of the Torah im Derech Eretz Weltanschauung of Samson Raphael Hirsch. Also, a secular university in Israel, albeit under skullcap auspices, complete with Judaic studies, is extremely remote from a Torah im Derech Eretz school even if it has established a "Samson Raphael Hirsch chair" as part of its academic set-up, something which almost borders on blasphemy . The Orthodox professional who is not regularly "koveah ittim batorah", or otherwise lacks in the performance of mitzvahs, or who is immodest in dress or behavior, is not a follower of Samson Raphael Hirsch. From all of Hirsch's prolific writings, it becomes evident that his main concern was to establish the majesty of the Divine Word and the role of the Divine Will as revealed in the Torah, to dominate all the highways and by-ways of mundane life. Those who abuse Torah im Derech Eretz as a "hetter" to lead a life of easygoing and lenient "Yiddishkeit" or those who consider the Hirschian idea as a compromise between the right and the left in Jewish thinking have distorted the meaning of the principle as laid down in the Mishne, Avos, Perek 2, 2: "Beautiful is the study of Torah combined with Derech Eretz for the effort to attain both makes one forget to commit sins". The Torah is not a mere branch of human knowledge, one discipline amongst many others, but rather must the Torah dominate all secular knowledge and all worldly activities. Equally so, the community of Israel, Klal Yisroel, as well as all Kehillos and organized communities, be they local or international -- which are all segments of Klal Yisroel -- are not supposed to be mere branches of a neutral Israel but are to be totally independent. The Torah community is not beholden to any non-Torah community and it does not even recognize its authenticity. This is the essence of the Hirschian Austritt (separation) ideology. The so-called "Austritt" is the militant vigilance of the conscientious Jew defending the Torah community against all encroachments from the non-Torah powers that be. The "Austritt" and Torah im Derech Eretz go hand in hand, they form "one package", so to speak, and both these aspects of Hirschian thought have one aim: the total domination of Torah over all thinking and actions of individual and national life. He who separates the rule of the Torah over all facets of the communal life of Klal Yisroel from the rule of the Torah over all human knowledge, in short, he who separates the "Austritt" from Torah im Derech Eretz, renders a disservice to both. Instead of becoming an inspiration to serve G-d in the spirit of B'chol D'rochecha dahu, Torah im Derech Eretz is reduced to become an excuse for being "modern but frum", an excuse for the cultural assimilation which plagues the modern Orthodox Jew who considers this world a kosher pleasure cruise eventually resulting in all the sorry hangovers of our age. Let us therefore beware of some common misunderstandings. The motto does not have its accent on the last word but on the first word. It is TORAH -underscored for double emphasis -- with Derech Eretz. Furthermore, the leit-motif is neither Torah and Derech Eretz nor Torah U'Madoh -- the two are not equal partners -- nor must it be twisted around into Derech Eretz plus Torah. It is neither a synthesis of Torah with assimilation nor a bloodless orthopraxy blended with earthbound Americanism. It is none of these. It is Torah im Derech Eretz. It means G-d's Torah in its totality, utilizing Derech Eretz as the means to bring about the Torah's full realization. It means: Torah as a Divine nourishment and the human Derech Eretz as the aromatic ingredient to bring out the Torah's intrinsic flavor to its most perfect bloom. There are two schools of thought and they are both legitimate. One is "Torah Only" and the other is Torah im Derech Eretz. All Torah-conscious Jews work for the same goal. There are various methods and various avenues of approach. They all lead up to the ultimate end of: "Yisgadal v'yisgadash Shmei rabah" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 15:00:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 18:00:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <20150419.133603.21006.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150419.133603.21006.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <55342569.2000502@sero.name> On 04/19/2015 01:36 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > Common practice in Nusach Ashkenaz is to skip Tachanun even for all of the Sefira days of Nisan, This is not just nusach Ashkenaz, it's the universal minhag, originating in Masechet Sofrim 21:3. It's actually the chapter title of Shulchan Aruch OC 429, and AFAIK there is no dissenting opinion or minhag. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 15:08:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Avi Goldstein via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 18:08:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu va'eilu Message-ID: It has always been my understanding that eilu va'eilu means that both (or more than two) are, within the sphere of Torah, "true" as long as they emanate from a valid drashah. As the Rambam writes in Hilchos Mamrim, Perek 2, a Sanhedrin can overturn the ruling of a previous Sanhedrin if that ruling was made based on the yud gimmel middos or based on sevara. The Rambam states that the new ruling becomes normative. So, for example, if a Sanhedrin ruled that yeush shelo mida'as is yeush, that is now the d'oraisa rule. If a later Sanhedrin overturns the ruling, then the new ruling becomes normative. Both, however, are "true," because the Torah has shivim panim; the Torah is multifaceted and can countenance more than one truth. The Rambam seems to hold that Moshe Rabbeinu was merely given the methods by which to darshan; he was not given the various possible halachic outcomes. The Ritva (Eruvin 13b) states that at Sinai, Moshe Rabbeinu was shown 49 possibilities for each halachic situation. Either way, it is up to klal Yisrael to determine what the halacha is, but all the possible outcomes are divrei Elokim Chayim. Avi Goldstein From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 20:47:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 23:47:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L Message-ID: <11211.6b4edbb3.4265d0c0@aol.com> From: "Prof. Levine via Avodah" The following is taken in part from Rav Shimon Schwab's Essay The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L that appears in Selected Writings pages 88 -93. Rav Hirsch is usually accepted as the exponent of the Torah im Derech Eretz philosophy. This principle is explained by his grandson, Dr. Isaac Breuer, as follows: "He was strictly opposed to compromise or reconciliation, or even a synthesis: he demanded full and uncompromising rulership of the Torah. [snip] There are two schools of thought and they are both legitimate. One is "Torah Only" and the other is Torah im Derech Eretz. All Torah-conscious Jews work for the same goal. There are various methods and various avenues of approach. They all lead up to the ultimate end of: "Yisgadal v'yisgadash Shmei rabah" >>>> See the wonderful pamphlet by R' Shimon Schwab, "Eilu ve'Eilu," explaining the broad outlines of the differences between these two hashkafos, "Torah im Derech Eretz" and so-called "Torah-only." I try to re-read this 48-page pamphlet every year. http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/these_and_those.pdf I am grateful to RYL (Prof. Levine) for making this pamphlet available to the public as a pdf. However I note that he is often highly critical of the charedi world, and I believe that R' Hirsch would emphatically not have agreed with him. He would have honored and cherished the talmidei chachamim who devote their lives to limud haTorah, and would have educated his balabatim to take pride in the zechus of financially supporting the "black hat" yeshivos. In the so-called "Torah-only" world they may have disdain for balabatim, but we who believe in TIDE can respect and honor that world of sustained and focused Torah study without internalizing an inferior self-image. We believe in Yisachar and Zevulun even if Yisachar lacks proper respect for Zevulun. We believe in twelve shevatim, we believe in twelve paths through the sea. And we believe that without the shevet of full-time lomdei Torah and talmidei chachamim, the rest of Klal Yisrael would have no kiyum. I would also note that R' Hirsch would certainly not have shared RYL's dour view of present-day Eretz Yisrael. True, all the flaws and failings of Zionism are abundantly on display in the modern Medinah. But at the same time, it takes an almost willful blindness not to see the incredible miracles that have been taking place there over the past sixty years or so. Not the least of these miracles is a flourishing of Torah scholarship, be'eichus uvekamus, the likes of which has not been seen since the churban Bayis Sheni. We owe at least a small measure of gratitude to the Zionist government that helps provide the infrastructure for the Torah community to flourish, and a huge measure of gratitude to the Ribono Shel Olam for allowing us to live in a time in which the beginning of kibbutz galuyos is taking place before our eyes. The sight of thousands of men, young and old, from all corners of the world, streaming into the Mirrer Yeshiva each day, gives us a little foretaste of what it will be like to visit the Third Bais Hamikdash. Again, I urge everyone to read Rav Schwab's wonderful pamphlet, "Eilu ve'Eilu." http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/these_and_those.pdf --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 19:30:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 02:30:15 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: <20150419.223015.3015.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Joel Rich asked: > Question: If one doesn't view eilu v'eilu as multiple truths > but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which > is which), ... I didn't understand that 2nd view, so he suggested to look > here for some more specifics: > http://nishma.org/articles/commentary/slifkinrevisted3print.pdf > especially starting around page 11. On page 4 of that article, the author offers this explanation of the concept of Machlokes L'Shem Shamayim: > ... every individual striving mightily to gain truth and an > understanding of God's Will can only achieve what is possible > within the parameters of his/her own individual being. Since the > fullness of Torah extends beyond the comprehension of any one > individual, machloket must necessarily ensue. It is not simply > that machloket emerges because of the inherent limitations of > the human condition. It is only through the enunciation of > machloket that human beings effectively are able to express the > fullness and truth of the Divine wisdom of Torah. ... Within > this category of disagreement, the existence of differing views > is not a problem. It is actually positive. It is the natural > consequence of a limited humanity trying to encounter the > unlimited nature of God and Torah. Elsewhere in that article, I understood him to say: Because both Hillel and Shammai worked within the rules of how Torah is to be understood, their differing views are equally valid and equally true (notwithstanding the detail that for purely practical reasons, halacha l'maaseh has to go one way or the other). This much fits very well with what I've been taught: Hashem deliberately wrote and designed the Torah in such a way as to allow both Hillel and Shammai to reach those differing views, and when they did reach those views, and (lovingly) refused to yield to the other, they accomplished exactly what Hashem had intended. But RJR referred us specifically to page 11, and on that page, the author brings the two views that RJR had initially posted: > One significant question in this regard, though, that should be > presented is: whether kalpei Shemaya, from the perspective of > Heaven, one view may really be correct or not? How one answers > this question will affect whether one considers any position in > a machloket l'Shem Shamayim as ultimately able to be labeled > incorrect. Effectively the question would be: are all positions > in the disagreement theoretically, equally part of truth and a > decision rendered between the opposing views solely because of > practical necessity? Or is there a truly correct position ? > albeit only able to be ascertained by Heaven ? but we still > accept all positions as part of Torah, albeit some are mistaken, > as they all are equally the best that humanity can achieve and > the mistakes only arise from the actual limitation of the human > being? With all due respect, but it seems to me that this second view is illogical and mistaken. How can there be a view which was obtained by legitimate methods of learning the Torah, without any personal agenda, and the best that humanity can acheive -- and yet be one which Hashem did NOT want us to arrive at? If there is a view that is NOT truly correct, yet the incorrectness can be ascertained only by Heaven, then why did Hashem design the Torah in a manner which allowed us to reach that mistaken conclusion? If only He would have made one little change, if only the pasuk had said this instead of that, then we'd have darshened that pasuk differently, and would have avoided that mistake. But since He did not make that change, but rather He wrote the Torah as we have it, and Toras Hashem Temimah, then I believe that the conclusions reached cannot possibly be mistakes, but rather, this is exactly what we mean by Eilu V'Eilu Divrei Elokim Chayim. (Of course, I am referring only to drashos made with the proper tools, and in the proper manner, such as those made by Hillel and Shammai and others of similar caliber. I am not referring to people who are of lower caliber, or who were working with broken tools. And I'm certainly not referring to people who deliberately distort Torah for their own purposes.) But then, as I was reviewing this post, my mind turned to the Tanur Shel Achnai. R' Eliezer had a minority view, and R' Yehoshua was in the majority. I've got to believe that both views were firmly grounded; this machlokes was surely just as L'Shem Shamayim as any between Hillel and Shammai. I'd *like* to say that Klapei Shmaya, both views were Truth. But then what can I do with Hashem's response of "Nitzchuni banai"? It sure sounds to me like this Judge was not impartial. He was rooting for R' Eliezer! And yet He wrote a Torah that allowed for R' Eliezer's mistaken interpretation. Why would He do that? To paraphrase RJR's question from the very beginning of this post, Tanur Shel Achnai seems to be an example of "eilu v'eilu": At the time of their dispute, it was possible that both views were Truth, but we didn't know which was which, so for practical purposes they took a vote. But later, Eliyahu Hanavi revealed the fact that it was NOT multiple truths, but rather one truth (R' Eliezer) and one nice try (R' Yehoshua). TO RECAP: In the beginning of this post, I explained my logical basis for believing that every true Eilu V'Eilu is a case of multiple Truths. At the end, I brought an example of an Eilu V'Eilu which was "one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which is which)". I cannot reconcile the logic and the example. All I can do is to ask again: Would Hashem really write a Perfect Torah which allows for mistaken interpretation? Why would He do that? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553464ea69a2864ea0cc6st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 01:48:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 11:48:03 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: RMB: Rav Moshe Feinstein discusses the halachic process and the role of poseiq in his introduction to Igros Mosheh. (The introduction itself deserves serious study.) He writes about "ha'emes lehora'ah umichuyav lehoros kein af al pi im be'etzem galyah kelapei shemaya galya she'eino kein hapeirush - the true ruling, and one is obligated to teach accordingly, even if in essence is it revealed in heaven that this isn't the correct explanation!" The ideal is following the pesaq as according to the process. This passage in IM is cited by R. Shalom Rosner in a systematic discussion of the subject of eilu v'eilu in the course of a shiur on Ktuvot 57a at http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/720210/Rabbi_Shalom_Rosner/Kesubos57. Rashi in Ktuvot 57a invokes the principle of eilu 'v'eilu, (read and explained by R. Rosner stating at about 18:30 in the shiur) and R. Rosner elucidates this principle, starting at about 21:30 in the shiur, until about 29:40. For anyone interested in a very clear explanation of the various shittot about what eilu v'eilu means, I can't recommend this shiur highly enough. Very briefly, R. Rosner cites three approaches in the sources 1. Illustrating the truth - The Ran in Drashot HaRan drasha 5 - In this approach, which severely limits the principle of eilu v'eilu, the Ran states that actually only one of the opinions is true. The other opinion is 'divrei Elokim chaim' only insofar as it serves to illustrate and elucidate the other opinion, which is the real truth, as the dark enables us to appreciate a candle. The Chida in Petach Einayim, his commentary on Eiruvin where the principle of eilu v'eilu is cited by the Gemara, takes this approach as well. R. Rosner emphasizes that this is a minority opinion, and personally finds it hard to accept, as he explains in the shiur. 2. Levels of truth - R. Moshe in the hakdama to IM, and R. Yaakov to Bereishit 26, the Netziv in his Hakadama to Haamek Sh'eila, his commentary to the Sheiltot). Using R. Moshe's terminology. there is Emet Shamaymit, and Emet L'Horaa. Both are correct, and in this world we are obligated to follow the emet l'horaa even if it deviates from the ultimate, heavenly truth. 3. Multiple truths (Ritva in Eiruvin, Maharal) - Both opinions are true, reflecting different perspectives of the subject at hand (IMO, this is similar to the previous explanation, without establishing a hierarchy between the truths expressed by the different opinions). R. Rosner states that the Rashi in question on Ktuvot 57a takes this approach. R. Rosner's explanation of the shittot is very lucid and concise. He refers in his shiur to Ktuvot 57 to a previous, more comprehensive shiur he gave on the subject, but I don't know if that shiur is available online. Saul Mashbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 19:43:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 22:43:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] brochos from the amud (was: tefillat haderech) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420024354.CJVF30458.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo110> >R' Zev Sero asked: > > > I actually had meant to post about this, since I've been > > wondering for some time why it is that the world's minhag is for > > each person to say their own bracha on hallel and sefira, after > > hearing the chazan's bracha. Doesn't the usual rule of "berov > > am" mean that everyone should be yotzei with his bracha? R' Akiva Miller wrote: >In theory (="l'halacha"), yes, you are correct. But in practice >(="l'maaseh") Rov Am gets beat by our lack of kavana. Rov Am is an >important hidur, but the ikar is to insure that one is yotzay, and >that is more easily insured by saying it oneself. (It's like if one >is forced to choose between an esrog which is definitely kosher but >only barely so, vs. one which is beautiful but *might* be pasul. To >me, it's a no-brainer that one would choose the barely kosher one.) > >This explanation fits my previous post well: We are all yotzay with >someone else's bracha on the shofar and megillah, but NOT because of >Rov Am, only because the bracha is somewhat risky because I'm >relying on someone else. Slight change of topic: I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea that we don't seem to have a chashash of a brocha l'vatalah. I mean, you have a sh'tz up there, saying a brocho out loud -- and he's intentionally trying to be motzi _some_ others (whoever has missed a day) and everybody says amen, and then they say the brocho themselves. No chashash for an issur d'oraissa? Shomea k'onen doesn't apply at all? What if you are in the shul and you're not thinking about the issue of being yotzie, you're just thinking about which day it is, and/or you simply have stam kavanah. No chashash for an issur d'oraissa? Apparently not because almost everybody does that. But I don't get it. (To satisfy my own comfort level, my preferred action to is to focus and have kavanah to be yotzie with the brocho, say amen, and then I don't have any chashash here). -- Sholom From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 10:36:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 13:36:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 11:48:03AM +0300, Saul Mashbaum via Avodah wrote: : This passage in IM is cited by R. Shalom Rosner in a systematic discussion... : http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/720210/Rabbi_Shalom_Rosner/Kesubos57. ... : Very briefly, R. Rosner cites three approaches in the sources : : 1. Illustrating the truth - The Ran in Drashot HaRan drasha 5 - In this : approach, which severely limits the principle of eilu v'eilu, the Ran : states that actually only one of the opinions is true. The other opinion is : 'divrei Elokim chaim' only insofar as it serves to illustrate and elucidate : the other opinion... : 2. Levels of truth - R. Moshe in the hakdama to IM, and R. Yaakov to : Bereishit 26, the Netziv in his Hakadama to Haamek Sh'eila, his commentary : to the Sheiltot)... : 3. Multiple truths (Ritva in Eiruvin, Maharal) - Both opinions are true, : reflecting different perspectives of the subject at hand (IMO, this is : similar to the previous explanation, without establishing a hierarchy : between the truths expressed by the different opinions).. My opinion differs from yours. The Maharal is saying that what RMF calls emes shamamis (I think that conjugation is yours, no?) is actually too rich to fit in this universe, and certainly in a human mind. Therefore, two shitos can be correct descriptions of the Truth, because each are incomplete. Rather than invoke the 5 blind men and the elephant, I think it's more useful to use a mashal of an object and a shadow. Because a shadow is only 2D, information is lost. It could make you think the two opinions are describing differnt thing, but they don't. If you shine a light directly at the fact of a cube, the shadow is a square. If you shine it at a corner, the result is a hexagon. Beis Shamma could hold "hexagon" while Beis Hillel holds "square", and both are describing the same cube. It all depends on which direction you face the cube from. The difference is in the approach chosen, where one stands at the foothills when answering "mi ya'aleh beHar Hashem", not the emes kelapei shamayim. None of which involves separating abstract truth from law, as RMF does. The Maharal places eilu va'eilu entirely within our understanding of that abstract truth. RSR's analysis differs from the two I've discussed in the past, RMHalbertal's and R' Michel Rosensweig's. E.g. See v32n8 E.g. RMH describes the Ritva and the Ran as sharing what he calls "the Constitutive view" of what pesaq is (halakhah is constituted by pesaq, and there is no one pre-existing reality), and thus the notion of one right answer doesn't fit. Rather, his peshat in the Ran is more like RMF's opinion. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? : that the Rashi in question on Ktuvot 57a takes this approach. : : R. Rosner's explanation of the shittot is very lucid and concise. He : refers in his shiur to Ktuvot 57 to a previous, more comprehensive shiur he : gave on the subject, but I don't know if that shiur is available online. : : Saul Mashbaum : _______________________________________________ : Avodah mailing list : Avodah at lists.aishdas.org : http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 14:43:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:43:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] HaRav Aharon Lichtenstein zt"l Message-ID: <20150420214331.GA31537@aishdas.org> Today's blog post. ... Can't we find children who would have helped him and still know the gemara? Do we have to choose? I hope not; I believe not. Tir'u baTov! -Micha HaRav Aharon Lichtenstein zt"l Posted on April 20, 2015 - 1 Iyyar 5775 by micha When someone passes away, I try to find a life-lesson from their lives that I can incorporate into my own. This is rather easy with regard to Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, as the rosh yeshiva left the Centrist / Modern Orthodox / Religious Zionist community with a cheshbon hanefesh, an accounting of our communal soul. Things that he saw we as a community need to look at and improve. See "By His Light: Character and Values in the Service of God" by R' Reuvein Zeigler, notes of shiurim by Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, pp 220-252, which is available on-line at Yeshivat Har Etzion's Israel Koschitzky Virtual Beit Midrash, as the email shiur from the series "Developing a Torah Personality" Lecture 12: Centrist Orthodoxy: A Spiritual Accounting. Listing the rashei peraqim (subtitles): * The Shift To the Right * The Need for Soul-Searching * Commonalities and Differences With the Right * Shaking Our Confidence In General Culture * The Complexity of Experience * Literary, Psychological and Historical Sensitivity * Attitudes Toward Zionism * "Torah Only" or "Torah And" * The Possibility of Integration * Theory and Practice * Dialectical Tension or Tepid Indifference? * Instilling Passion * The Need for Spirituality * Diffusion and Dilution * The Ascendancy of the Moral Over the Intellectual * "Do Not Fear Any Man" Here's one piece near the end, that stays with me each time I read the article: ... Perhaps much of what I have said in relation to culture, quoting Arnold and Yeats and others, seems very rarefied. People may be asking themselves, "What does this have to do with us? We have to deal with children in elementary school or high school; this is not our concern." Nevertheless, I have related to culture at its apex, because the kind of vision which is maintained at the pinnacle has an impact, and should have an impact, upon what is done at lower levels. In this respect, the awareness of the evaluation of culture does have practical consequences for whatever level of education we are dealing with. Granted that, our challenge is to see to it that indeed we maintain our position with depth and gusto. Given our constituency, of course, we cannot instill many of our students with the optimal level of love of Torah; we know from where they come. But, within our overall community, and surely within its leadership, such a level should exist. Woe unto us, if the only choice lies between tepid compromise and arrogant kana'ut. A couple of years after we moved to Yerushalayim, I was once walking with my family in the Beit Yisrael neighborhood, where R. Isser Zalman Meltzer used to live. For the most part, it consists of narrow alleys. We came to a corner, and found a merchant stuck there with his car. The question came up as to how to help him; it was a clear case of perika u-te'ina (helping one load or unload his burden). There were some youngsters there from the neighborhood, who judging by their looks were probably ten or eleven years old. They saw that this merchant was not wearing a kippa. So they began a whole pilpul, based on the gemara in Pesachim (113b), about whether they should help him or not. They said, "If he walks around bareheaded, presumably he doesn't separate terumot u-ma'asrot, so he is suspect of eating and selling untithed produce..." I wrote R. Soloveitchik a letter at that time, and told him of the incident. I ended with the comment, "Children of that age from our camp would not have known the gemara, but they would have helped him." My feeling then was: Why, Ribbono shel Olam, must this be our choice? Can't we find children who would have helped him and still know the gemara? Do we have to choose? I hope not; I believe not. If forced to choose, however, I would have no doubts where my loyalties lie: I prefer that they know less gemara, but help him. If I can refer again to my experience over the last several decades, I think that one of the central points which has reinforced itself is the sense, in terms of values, of the ascendancy of the moral over the intellectual -- with all my love for and commitment to pure learning. But, when all is said and done, you have to be guided not by what you love; you have to be guided by Torah. And the Torah tells us what is good: He has told you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you: only to do justice, and to love goodness, and to walk modestly with your God. (Mikha 6:8) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 12:48:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 15:48:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L by Rav Shimon Schwab Message-ID: <20150420194854.40DD317FB85@nexus.stevens.edu> See The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 11:46:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 21:46:52 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] hidur Message-ID: <> - changed topic from tefillat hadrech There is a famois R Chaim that if one can use both etgrogim then one should first use the beautiful but *might* be pasul since if one uses the minimally kosher one then one has accomplished the mitzvah and there is no reason to choose a second one. I have seen some that disagree with R Chaim claiming that it is possible to take a better etrog for hidur even after having minimally done the motzvah. This has applications mehadrin of chanukah -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 14:52:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:52:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 09:46:52PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> It's like if one is forced to choose between an esrog which is definitely :> kosher but only barely so, vs. one which is beautiful but *might* be pasul. :> To me, it's a no-brainer that one would choose the barely kosher one.) >> - ... : There is a famois R Chaim that if one can use both etgrogim then one should : first use the beautiful but *might* be pasul since if one uses the : minimally kosher one then one has accomplished the mitzvah and there is no : reason to choose a second one. This presumes you can afford both, or have access to a friend who will give you a matanah al menas lehachzir of whichever you aren't buying. The post you're replying to is "if one is forced to choose". My own dilemma. Say I earmark $X (Y NIS, in your case) to spend on my esrog. And say the price of a definitely kosher (or at least, just as sure to be kosher) but not very hadar esrog is half that or less. Should I buy myself a mehudar, or should I buy two esrogim and give the other to someone hitting on hard times? Shouldn't the asei (tzedaqah, dei machsero) trump a "mere" hidur mitzvah (esrog)? And yet, we know many great rabbanim who didn't follow this calculus. What am I missing? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 15:25:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 18:25:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safeik as Metzi'us Message-ID: <20150420222502.GC1634@aishdas.org> The story so far: Briskers don't wear tzitzis outdoors on Shabbos in case the gemara does conclude that hatekheiles me'eaqes es halavan. (Dspite the tam mishnah, there is reason to wonder.) And if so, the tassels on your tallis or tallis qatan are not tzitzis, and wouldn't be tafeil to the beged. On Shabbos -- hotza'ah. I asked why, since I personally am wearing those tassels because of the safeiq, wouldn't that mean that in terms of my intent, they are hotza'ah? In general, when do we pasqen one din and then use that pesaq as the metzi'us for the next case? And when do we look at the internals of that din (in this case, the safeiq) and carry them through to the next din? Other examples collected so far: AhS OC 409:6 -- An eiruv techumin made with a safeiq tereifah is not an eiruv, because you can't eat a safeiq tereifah. We look to the pesaq, the meat is assur mishum safeiq, not the safeiq itself. (Where a parallel case in the se'if is ruled safeiq derabbanan lequlah.) AhS OC 416:8 -- A person wants to make 2 different eiruvei techumin, one for each day of YT in chu"l. You can't create an eiruv on day 2 that you cannot reach on day 1. We don't say mima nafshach -- if day 1 is YT, you don't need the eiruv, and if day 2 is, you were allowed to reach the food on day 1. Again, we look at the masqanah. Recently I noticed two more in the AhS: AhC OC 509:12 -- The Rama (se'if 5) allows libun on YT of a skewer that that they broiled non-salted meat on to allow using the skewer again that day. The AhS explains this is not a real tiqun keli, because mei'iqar hadin it doesn't need libun (cf YD 76), an therefore even if you could have done the libun on erev YT, you can still do it now. We DO NOT say that lemaaseh we are not nohagim to use the skewer without libun, so therefore the skewer went from usable to non-usable. This time we do look into the cause of the non-use. I am wondering if it's because beshe'as hadechaq, they would go to a rav and get a pesaq that they could use the skewer as is, so it's not fully unusable. AhS 581:18 -- If fruit are stored in a room that is built from uncemented bricks and the room breaks, the fruit are usable. We do not say they a muqtza, because the issur of disassembling the room was only derabbanan, so he didn't have full hesach hadaas. Notice that here he is saying that a person is aware of issur derabbanan being on a lesser level. The ruling is on the metzi'us, but with the understanding the the metzi'us reflects the wishy-washiness of the issur. RAM: Does any of this change your proposed sevaros? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 14:54:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:54:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5535759A.5020909@gmail.com> What would be the kilayim status of this combo? http://www.territorialseed.com/product/grafted-tomtato-ketchup-n-fries/new_for_spring_2015 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 15:57:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 18:57:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> On 04/20/2015 05:52 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > My own dilemma. Say I earmark $X (Y NIS, in your case) to spend on > my esrog. And say the price of a definitely kosher (or at least, just > as sure to be kosher) but not very hadar esrog is half that or less. > Should I buy myself a mehudar, or should I buy two esrogim and give the > other to someone hitting on hard times? Shouldn't the asei (tzedaqah, > dei machsero) trump a "mere" hidur mitzvah (esrog)? And yet, we know > many great rabbanim who didn't follow this calculus. What am I missing? Perhaps that they would then let the other person use their mehudardige esrog, so both benefit. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:21:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:21:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 06:57:15PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: :> ... Shouldn't the asei (tzedaqah, :> dei machsero) trump a "mere" hidur mitzvah (esrog)? And yet, we know :> many great rabbanim who didn't follow this calculus. What am I missing? : Perhaps that they would then let the other person use their mehudardige : esrog, so both benefit. So, both get the mitzvah of esrog with a hadar esrog. But I asked about fulling tzedaqah. How does a matanah al menas lehachzir qualify? And for someone used to having their own esrog, how is it "dei machsero"? Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:15:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:15:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Matza between Pesach and Shavuos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Somebody (either here or on Areivim) was asking about the minhag to eat matza between Pesach and Shavuos. I happened to pick up a sefer called "Bein Pesach u'Shavuos" (by R Zvi Cohn) and saw a few mentions about this. First, he cites the Gr"a that he never ate matza when it was not Pesach. I think the reasoning is that he didn't want to get hana'ah from it, but, rather, eat it only because it was a mitzvah. But then, later in the sefer, I saw reference to (a) a minhag (Belz and Chernobyl) to eat matza to eat matza on every shalosh seudos between Pesach and Shavuos, and wetting it with fish juice/gravy; and (b) v'yesh a minhag to eat matza *every* time one washes for bread, in order to combine "michlei d'm'heimnusa u'michlei d'asvasa" food/meal of emuna and food/meal of refuah (apologies for messing up the vowels). The footnote cites the sefer "Darchei Chayim v'Sholom" siman 633. And also to be m'dakdek to make one kugel for shabbos with matza and to pass it around, particularly on shalosh seudos after the z'miros. I don't translate so well, so if you want to see "inside" R Cohn's sefer, I put it here: http://s3.postimg.org/wukbartcj/matza.jpg [1] and if you look and find mistakes, please let the list (or at least me!) know! FWIW & Kol tuv, -- Sholom Links: ------ [1] http://s3.postimg.org/wukbartcj/matza.jpg -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 16:32:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 19:32:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> At 05:52 PM 4/20/2015, RN Toby Katz wrote: > >I am grateful to RYL (Prof. Levine) for making this pamphlet available to >the public as a pdf. However I note that he is often highly critical of >the charedi world, and I believe that R' Hirsch would emphatically not have >agreed with him. He would have honored and cherished the talmidei chachamim >who devote their lives to limud haTorah, and would have educated his >balabatim to take pride in the zechus of financially supporting the >"black hat" >yeshivos. This is pure speculation on your part. I believe that RSRH would have agreed with my views on this matter. Of course, this is pure speculation on my part. He certainly would not have agreed with the idea of not working to support one's family. See my article "The Obligation to Support a Family" The Jewish Press, February 18, 2015, front page. and the extensive quotes I have there from the writings of Rav Dr. Joseph Breuer, ZT"L, who was, of course, a grandson of RSRH and the foremost expositor of TIDE during his life time. > >I would also note that R' Hirsch would certainly not have shared RYL's dour > view of present-day Eretz Yisrael. True, all the flaws and failings of >Zionism are abundantly on display in the modern Medinah. But at the same >time, it takes an almost willful blindness not to see the >incredible miracles >that have been taking place there over the past sixty years or so. Not the >least of these miracles is a flourishing of Torah scholarship, be'eichus >uvekamus, the likes of which has not been seen since the churban Bayis >Sheni. We owe at least a small measure of gratitude to the >Zionist government >that helps provide the infrastructure for the Torah community to flourish, >and a huge measure of gratitude to the Ribono Shel Olam for allowing us to >live in a time in which the beginning of kibbutz galuyos is taking place >before our eyes. The sight of thousands of men, young and old, from all >corners of the world, streaming into the Mirrer Yeshiva each day, gives us a >little foretaste of what it will be like to visit the Third Bais Hamikdash. Again, I have to disagree. I suggest you read Rav Breuer's writings about EY in the book A Unique Perspective under the heading Eretz Yisroel. The following are some excerpts from his essay The State of Israel. The proclamation of a Jewish state would bring great joy to all the members of our people, if conditions were such that we could feel justified to call it a Kiddush Hashem. It pains us to say, and we have no illusions, that for the time being this is not the case. For every Torah-true Jew the word Kiddush Hashem is his utmost concern, while Chillul Hashem leaves him trembling. Thus the establishment of a Jewish state will fill him with misgivings and alarm. Anyone who is imbued with the eternal truth and validity of God's Torah will have to be aware that a state on God's holy soil will only be able to endure if the conditions that God has set down for a Jewish state on His holy soil are met. These conditions apply to the Jewish entity and to the life of every individual who declares himself a member of God's People. Again, please read Rav Breuer's essays on Eretz Yisroel in this book. Also, please read Rav Shimon Schwab's essay Zion or Zionism that I have placed at http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/zion_or_zionism.pdf Rav Schwab was most certainly a proponent of TIDE and the approach of RSRH. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 15:32:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 18:32:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> References: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 11:34 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > There was a bachur next to me this morning whose retzu'os were painted > black on both sides. And I believe I know why this is done, in case > a retzu'ah gets flipped. Or perhaps to be chosheish for the Rambam's > description of such retzu'os being "noi". I've only ever heard of the leather being soaked in dye; and the reason given was not for flipped retzu'os but for scratches: if the entire thickness of the strap has been dyed, a scratch will not expose undyed leather. (This does not address your actual question, though) ?Chesky Salomon From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:24:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:24:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <553598C0.6010209@sero.name> On 04/20/2015 08:21 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > So, both get the mitzvah of esrog with a hadar esrog. But I asked about > fulling tzedaqah. How does a matanah al menas lehachzir qualify? And > for someone used to having their own esrog, how is it "dei machsero"? At a time when an esrog was a luxury that most people could not afford and were not used to, how often would such a case come up? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:27:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:27:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <553598C0.6010209@sero.name> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> <553598C0.6010209@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150421002736.GA24420@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 08:24:32PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : At a time when an esrog was a luxury that most people could not afford : and were not used to, how often would such a case come up? ... and today? Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:58:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 00:58:13 GMT Subject: [Avodah] hidur Message-ID: <20150420.205813.23096.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> R'Zev Sero asked: > At a time when an esrog was a luxury that most people could > not afford and were not used to, how often would such a case > come up? But it could certainly come up nowadays. About 25 years ago, my budget was so tight that I had decided to share my lulav and esrog with my two sons, despite my having gotten them their own set in previous years. I don't remember whether one or both was still below bar mitzvah that year, but it doesn't really matter, because the point is that they were used to having their own, and that year we shared the one set. Suffice it to say that it was not fun. Baruch Hashem we've each had own own every year since then. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5535a0f9e88320f87fb2st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 18:23:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 01:23:34 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Self-control fatigue Message-ID: <20150420.212334.23096.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> On Areivim, SY Scher wrote: > A now large body of research shows that we can have "self-control > fatigue". Professor Roy Baumeister and his colleagues have > demonstrated experimentally that when people have previously had > to exert self-control, their ability to do so goes down. They > have also showed physiological correlates -- will-power/self- > control takes energy, and after exerting a lot of control, our > blood glucose level is lower. Replenishment of glucose (for > example, by drinking lemonade sweetened with sugar, but not > lemonade with artificial sweeteners) raises self-control ability > back up. > We all know that following the halacha often requires a good deal > of willpower, and I would imagine that for charedi adolescent boys, > that would be even more strongly so. So, the ability to control > the yetzer in outside situations may well be reduced. The muscle > is just too worn out! Is there any way fit this in with the idea that many mitzvos - kashrus in particular and chukim in general - seem designed to train us to *have* self-control? Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 03:14:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 06:14:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Self-control fatigue In-Reply-To: <20150420.212334.23096.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150420.212334.23096.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150421101422.GB7409@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 01:23:34AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : Is there any way fit this in with the idea that many mitzvos - kashrus : in particular and chukim in general - seem designed to train us to *have* : self-control? If (and that's a big if) we define the yeitzer hara as the effects on our souls of living within a mammalian body, then the ability to plan ahead and work toward delayed gratification, rather than just instinctively going for what's before us, is going to be a fundamental skill in rising above it. In R Yitchaq Sher's introduction to the Slabodka edition of Cheshbon haNefesh (Feldheim bilingual ed. ), the mashgiach speaks of the nefesh habehamis's "lack[ing the will to exercise choice" and therefore "the tzivui or azharah of an asei or a lo-sa'asei are not shayach to it at all" (par 2). He then gives guidelines about how to train it by taking examples from animal training (par 304). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 17th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Tifferes: What is the ultimate Fax: (270) 514-1507 state of harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 03:17:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 13:17:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> References: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 8:36 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > The Maharal is saying that what RMF calls emes shamamis (I think that > conjugation is yours, no?) is actually too rich to fit in this universe, > and certainly in a human mind. Therefore, two shitos can be correct > descriptions of the Truth, because each are incomplete. > Where does the Maharal say this? (Not a challenge, I just want to learn it inside) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 06:24:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 09:24:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: References: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150421132444.GD1634@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 01:17:49PM +0300, Simon Montagu wrote: : Where does the Maharal say this? (Not a challenge, I just want to learn it : inside) Be'er haGolah, be'er 1, pg 20 in the common edition, available on pg 94 the whole book) in the Harman edition, on hebrewbooks.org (Onward, I would print the 1[:6] off the link at the top for the whole sefer. R YD Hartman has a clearer edition, with copious footnotes.) I've been citing that Maharal for over a decade, so I had to search for the actual mar'eh maqom. On nice find was the discussion in Mishpat Ivri . I want to go through the whole chapter on machloqos (that hit is mid-chapter) before commenting, but I don't know when I'll get to it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 17th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Tifferes: What is the ultimate Fax: (270) 514-1507 state of harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 09:11:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 12:11:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150421132444.GD1634@aishdas.org> References: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> <20150421132444.GD1634@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55367699.9010203@sero.name> On 04/21/2015 09:24 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 01:17:49PM +0300, Simon Montagu wrote: > : Where does the Maharal say this? (Not a challenge, I just want to learn it > : inside) > > Be'er haGolah, be'er 1, pg 20 The introduction to the Hartman edition shows that the title is actually Be'er haGulah, with a melupum rather than a cholam. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 01:40:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 11:40:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu Message-ID: Sagi in his book on the topic brings 3 basic approaches (all with many supporters) to the sugya 1) Monism - only one truth as subfields we can be tolerant of other attempts or not 2) pluralism - there are many truths and one can't decide 3) harmonism - different views are just separate parts of the same truth R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is self-contradictory. According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint is monism ! He further points out that sometimes pluralism can be a chumra Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he doesn't accept the kashrut Answer: Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable Of course these are only typologies. In the real world anyone who believes in pluralism has some radius of acceptance. Few would accept Naziism or Isis as a legitimate viewpoint -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 01:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 11:53:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] hidur Message-ID: <> As usual R Chaim is asking a theoretical question - he was not a posek In fact I once heard from RYBS that in fact almost all etrogim are kosher bidieved. In Israel one can get a mehudar set for about 100 shekel ($25) see http://www.dafyomi.co.il/nazir/halachah/nz-hl-002.htm 2. Bava Kama 9a (R. Zeira citing Rav Huna): One must spend up to a third for Mitzvos. 3. Question: What does this mean? i. Suggestion: One must spend a third of his wealth to fulfil a Mitzvah. ii. Rejection: It is unreasonable that if he encounters three (expensive) Mitzvos, he must exhaust all his wealth! 4. Answer (R. Zeira): One must spend an extra third to beautify a Mitzvah. Shulchan Aruch (ibid.): Some say that if he finds two Esrogim to buy, and one of them is nicer than the other, he should buy the nicer one if the price difference is no more than a third of the other. i. Source (Beis Yosef DH Kaneh): Rashi (Bava Kama 9b DH b'Hidur) says that if one found two Sifrei Torah to buy, he should add a third of the price to buy the nicer one. ii. Kaf ha'Chayim (17): It seems that neither opinion requires one who bought an Esrog bigger than an egg to exchange it for a nicer one. However, the Rosh, Gra and Taz obligate doing so. The Magen Avraham says that perhaps the Shulchan Aruch holds like the Rosh. iii. Kaf ha'Chayim (18): One must add a third from an Esrog that one could bless on without Safek. Hidur depends on what people in the area consider nice. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 05:09:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 08:09:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55378F6E.2070708@sero.name> On 04/22/2015 04:40 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > 2) pluralism - there are many truths and one can't decide > > R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is self-contradictory. According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint is monism ! Not true. There are many truths, but not an infinite number. Or, as my father says, there are 70 panim latorah, but there are also 70 achor. Strict monism, which rejects the gemara's statement that "eilu va'eilu DACh", is by definition wrong. > Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he > doesn't accept the kashrut > Answer: > Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong > Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable It depends whether his concern is legitimate. If there is a legitimate opinion or minhag that forbids or refrains from whatever it is, or if he has a legitimate private chumra, then there is no question that it is assur to be machshil him. But if he is acting out of pure amhoratzus, then one needn't pander to it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 09:45:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 17:45:34 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Avodah: Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:54, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah wrote: > What would be the kilayim status of this combo? > http://www.territorialseed.com/product/grafted-tomtato-ketchup-n-fries/new_for_spring_2015 Though potato and tomato are from the same family, it is clear from mesechte Kilayim, fruit [or animals] that look different are treated as 2 different species. Hence, though the spuds and tomatoes would be permitted to eat - as with any grafted fruit - it would be ossur for a Yid to grow Dovid Rubin From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 10:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 13:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: <55378F6E.2070708@sero.name> References: <55378F6E.2070708@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150422175311.GA11663@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 08:09:18AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : On 04/22/2015 04:40 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : >2) pluralism - there are many truths and one can't decide : : >R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is :> self-contradictory. According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint :> is monism ! : Not true. There are many truths, but not an infinite number. Or, as my : father says, there are 70 panim latorah, but there are also 70 achor. I think RMA is referring to a paradox I've mentioned here once. While in principle, it's possible for a halachic pluralist to not include any halachic monist positions in his spectrum of eilu va'eilu, I do not know of a halachic pluralist who rules out the Rambam. Or a less absolute case of the same paradox: MO Jews will turn to chareidi gedolim for pesaqim despite those gedoim not believing that MO is within eilu va'eilu. So it would seem that to the MO Jew asking the she'eilah, the variant of chareidism that says MO is not within eilu va'eilu, is (in the MO Jew's opinion) itself within EvE! : Strict monism, which rejects the gemara's statement that "eilu va'eilu DACh", : is by definition wrong. Or, understand it in terms of following HQBH's word, as opposed to being right. As per the Rambam or RMF, for example. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 18th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Tifferes: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 balance? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 11:53:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 14:53:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Chilul Hashem of Disrespecting Non-Jews Message-ID: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/kb4v525 This idea connects with something that has bothered me for some time: the wanton, unprovoked use of disparaging, racist comments among our youth. Over the years I have either heard directly or been made aware of many such comments by students. When I asked why they had expressed themselves in this manner, they could offer no meaningful response. All I could glean was that they were apparently parroting similar remarks they had heard elsewhere, without having given much thought to their words. Many of these students had few if any relationships or even interactions with individuals from the groups they were mocking. See the above URL for the entire article. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:32:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 15:32:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Chilul Hashem of Disrespecting Non-Jews In-Reply-To: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150422193201.GD11663@aishdas.org> One of my many pet peeves is the use of "chilul hasheim" to teach ehrlachkeit. It may win the battle -- historically, it hasn't -- but it does so by avoiding the war. Mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro as important as mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro. Derekh eretz is important as Chazal literally call it a prerequisite for Torah. Worrying about the bein adam laMaqom effects of the cheit misses the point. And perhaps the reason why past attempts to change behavior by talking about chillul hasheim haven't worked is that one is not teaching the centrality of ehrlachkeit as a *primary* value. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 18th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Tifferes: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 balance? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:43:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 21:43:09 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <5537F9CD.7000409@zahav.net.il> How did Rav Breuer work to ensure the conditions that "we could feel justified to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? Ben On 4/21/2015 1:32 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > > Again, I have to disagree. I suggest you read Rav Breuer's writings > about EY in the book A Unique Perspective under the heading Eretz Yisroel. > > The proclamation of a Jewish state would bring great joy to all > the members of our people, if conditions were such that we could > feel justified to call it a Kiddush Hashem. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:36:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 15:36:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Avodah: Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150422193627.GE11663@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 05:45:34PM +0100, D via Avodah wrote: : Hence, though the spuds and tomatoes would be permitted to eat - as : with any grafted fruit - it would be ossur for a Yid to grow I think it would be mutar to buy already grafted, and then grow. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:53:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 22:53:04 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Avodah: Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 7:45 PM, D via Avodah wrote: > Though potato and tomato are from the same family, it is clear from > mesechte Kilayim, fruit [or animals] that look different are treated as 2 > different species. > Hence, though the spuds and tomatoes would be permitted to eat - as with > any grafted fruit - it would be ossur for a Yid to grow > Do you mean because the potato and tomato that we eat look different? You're not comparing apples to apples (pun intended). The fruits of a potato plant look very similar to the fruits of a tomato plant! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 13:07:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joel Schnur via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 16:07:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos Message-ID: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> My understanding is that Briskers don't wear a talis katan outside the house on shabbos because the shiur is "ad habirchaim" according to the Gaon as brought in Keser Rosh by talmidei Reb Chaim Voloshiner. And since "until the knees" is a subjective criterion depending upon each person's height, there is no specific "one size fits all" length. Interestingly, Rav Moshe Shternbuch brings a Rav Moshe that says that the source is unreliable and the Gaon never said such a thing. -- ___________________________ Joel Schnur, Senior VP Government Affairs/Public Relations Schnur Associates, Inc. 25 West 45th Street, Suite 1405 New York, NY 10036 Tel. 212-489-0600 x204 Fax. 212-489-0203 joel at schnurassociates.com www.schnurassociates.com http://www.schnurassociates.com/joels-corner/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 14:57:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 17:57:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Chilul Hashem of Disrespecting Non-Jews In-Reply-To: <20150422193201.GD11663@aishdas.org> References: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150422193201.GD11663@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150422215739.6F5F0180576@nexus.stevens.edu> At 03:32 PM 4/22/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >Mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro as important as mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro. I believe that this sentence is wrong. I believe you meant to write that mitzvos bein adam l'Chaveiro are just as important as mitzvos bein adam l'makom. RSRH points out that the Luchos contained 5 mitzvos bein adam l'Chaveiro and 5 mitzvos bein Adam l"Makom on each side, and that both sides of the Luchos were the same size! >Derekh eretz is important as Chazal literally call it a prerequisite >for Torah. And hence may one deduce that those who do not have proper Derech Eretz do not have Torah? If so, then I guess we should not be surprised at the actions of some so-called Jews that are a Chilul Hashem. They do not have any Torah. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 13:46:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 20:46:08 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos In-Reply-To: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> References: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> Message-ID: <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> On Wednesday, April 22, 2015 3:33 PM, Joel Schnur wrote: > My understanding is that Briskers don't wear a talis katan outside the > house on shabbos because the shiur is "ad habirchaim" according to the > Gaon as brought in Keser Rosh by talmidei Reb Chaim Voloshiner.... > Interestingly, Rav Moshe Shternbuch brings a Rav Moshe that says that > the source is unreliable and the Gaon never said such a thing. The reason that Briskers don't where Tzitzes on Shabbos is because they are Choshesh for the Shita of the Baal HaMeor who says that Techiels is Me'akev the Lavan. As such -- by wearing these now unnecessary 'strings' in Reshus Harabim they will be Oveir the Lav of Hotza'ah on Shabbos, an Issur D'Oraisa and a capital offense. Inetrestingly, accroding to the Baal HaMeor, wearing a Beged of Daled Kanfos using Tzitzs without Techiles is a violation -- same as if he were wearing it without Tzitzis at all. I'm told that the Gra did not wear a woolen Beged for his Talis Katan for that reason. Because wool has a Chiuv D'Oraisa for Tzitzs whereas cotton is only D'Rabbanan. HM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 17:05:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 20:05:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <5537F9CD.7000409@zahav.net.il> References: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> <5537F9CD.7000409@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <5538373F.4000900@aishdas.org> On 04/22/2015 03:43 PM, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: > On 4/21/2015 1:32 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: >> Again, I have to disagree. I suggest you read Rav Breuer's writings >> about EY in the book A Unique Perspective under the heading Eretz >> Yisroel. >> The proclamation of a Jewish state would bring great joy to all >> the members of our people, if conditions were such that we could >> feel justified to call it a Kiddush Hashem. > How did Rav Breuer work to ensure the conditions that "we could feel > justified to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? He thought his late brother's Poalei Agudah might accomplish it. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 03:06:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 06:06:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos In-Reply-To: <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> References: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20150423100635.GA26841@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 08:46:08PM +0000, Harry Maryles via Avodah wrote: : The reason that Briskers don't where Tzitzes on Shabbos is because they : are Choshesh for the Shita of the Baal HaMeor who says that Techiels is : Me'akev the Lavan. : : As such -- by wearing these now unnecessary 'strings' in Reshus Harabim : they will be Oveir the Lav of Hotza'ah on Shabbos... In the opening post, I referred to the BhM's reason. Since there appears to be interest, I will spell it out. The mishnah (Menachos 4:1, 38a) says that techeiles is not me'aqeves the lavan, and v.v. Seems kind of open and shut, and that's what we hold lehalakhah. And so R' Yitzchaq says that R Yochanan ben Nuri says (beraisa , quoted on 39b) that if you have no tekheiles, you make all strings lavan. But, Rebbe is choleiq, and says the mishnah means sequence. Normally the lavan strings have to be put on first, or on a tekheiles garment, the tekheiles string first. And the mishnah is saying that if you put on the other color first, it's not me'aqeiv. According to Rebbe, though, you can't be yotzei without putting on tekheiles altogether. Getting to this understanding of the mishnah is an amud lonq chaqla vetarya in which Levi, Shemu'el and Rami bar Chama defend Rebbe's position. : Interestingly, according to the Baal HaMeor, wearing a Beged of Daled : Kanfos using Tzitzs without Techiles is a violation -- same as if he : were wearing it without Tzitzis at all. Not really. It's an asei, not a lav. So, if tekheiles truly is unavailable, why wouldn't it be mutar, if pointless? However, if you feel there is any possibility whatsoever that the murex derived dye is indeed tekheiles, safeiq de'oraisa lechumerah would force one to choose between not wearing tzitzis and wearing the dye. And there are those who hold it's garua to wear invalid dye, so combine the shitos right, and the discovery of a possible tekheiles would make it better not to wear tzitzis. IF we held like the BhM. But not even Briskers do, me'iqar hadin -- they are merely chosheish for his position as a chumerah. : I'm told that the Gra did not wear a woolen Beged for his Talis Katan : for that reason. Because wool has a Chiuv D'Oraisa for Tzitzs whereas : cotton is only D'Rabbanan. As usual for the Gra -- clever! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 19th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Tifferes: When does harmony promote Fax: (270) 514-1507 withdrawal and submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 02:45:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Allan Engel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 10:45:42 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos In-Reply-To: <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> References: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: So what was his Tallis Godol made of? On 22 April 2015 at 21:46, Harry Maryles via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote:. > > > Inetrestingly, accroding to the Baal HaMeor, wearing a Beged of Daled > Kanfos using Tzitzs without Techiles is a violation -- same as if he > were wearing it without Tzitzis at all. > > I'm told that the Gra did not wear a woolen Beged for his Talis Katan > for that reason. Because wool has a Chiuv D'Oraisa for Tzitzs whereas > cotton is only D'Rabbanan. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 05:07:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 12:07:10 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >> R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is self-contradictory. >> According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint is monism ! ... > Strict monism, which rejects the gemara's statement that "eilu va'eilu > DACh", is by definition wrong. Monism doesn't reject the gemara just interprets it different That was the shiur >> Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he >> doesn't accept the kashrut >> Answer: >> Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong >> Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable > It depends whether his concern is legitimate. If there is a legitimate > opinion or minhag that forbids or refrains from whatever it is, or if he > has a legitimate private chumra, then there is no question that it is assur > to be machshil him. No question is your opinion a true monist Would argue that there are no other legitimate opinions hence the other is wrong and you are not machshil him [Email #2, also in reply to this latter quote. -micha] You are not being machshil by offering food that he won't eat because of his minhag or chumrot you are mikayem shalach Manot even if he doesn't accept the kashrut From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 09:11:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 12:11:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L Message-ID: <20150423161105.DF2701836D1@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:13 AM 4/23/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: >How did Rav Breuer work to ensure the conditions that "we could feel >justified to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? I really have no specifics. but I do know that Rav Breuer was busy here in the US building a model Kehilla and educating Baalei Batim. I know that some of those from his Kehilla did move to EY. In particular, I know one person who was a professional and a follower of TIDE who moved to EY. I am sure that he did whatever he could to strengthen Yahadus in EY. But let me ask a related question. What are the observant now living in EY doing "to ensure the conditions that 'we could feel justifies to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 09:49:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 12:49:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55392297.20909@sero.name> On 04/23/2015 08:07 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > >>> >>Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he >>> >>doesn't accept the kashrut >>> >>Answer: >>> >>Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong >>> >>Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable >> >It depends whether his concern is legitimate. If there is a legitimate >> >opinion or minhag that forbids or refrains from whatever it is, or if he >> >has a legitimate private chumra, then there is no question that it is assur >> >to be machshil him. > No question is your opinion a true monist > Would argue that there are no other legitimate opinions hence the other > is wrong and you are not machshil him Even if there is only one truth, you don't necessarily know for sure what it is. You make your best guess, but someone else makes his, and for all you know he may have hit on the truth, even if only by accident, while you, with all your careful analysis of the evidence, may have been led astray. Let's take medicine, where there really is only one truth, but often we don't know for sure what it is. Does gluten in the diet negatively affect the health of most normal people? There doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence for that proposition, but it can't be ruled out. Maybe in 20 years we will observe that those who have followed the gluten-free fad really are healthier, and someone will discover how it is that gluten harms a person. Or maybe it will be established that it's exactly the mishguas that it appears to be. But until then we are just guessing, and if you hold that it's a mishugas but someone else is worried about it, you have to consider the possibility that he may be right, and by tricking him into eating gluten you may actually be harming him. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 10:54:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 17:54:52 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] A Papal Honor for an Orthodox Rabbi. Message-ID: <393104521.3643892.1429811692300.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> JTA is reporting that Pope Francis will be bestowing Papal Knighthood upon Rabbi Arthur Schneier (who I believe is an Orthodox Rabbi) for (among other things) his work in promoting a positive relationship with the Church. According to JTA,?Schneier will formally become a knight of Saint Sylvester at a ceremony on April 27.Isn't there a Halachic probelm with this? It would seem to me that becoming a 'knight' in the Catholic church ?would at least be Avak Avodah Zara - even though it is just honorary? HM??Want Emes and Emunah in your life? Try this: http://haemtza.blogspot.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 16:14:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 19:14:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early Message-ID: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin (or ate the food already, the food went bad, etc...) who for some reason can not rely on the rabbi's communal failsafe eruv (perhaps he isn't in a neighborhood with an observant community) do for lighting Shabbos candles? So, the BY (OC 537:19) permits, but he says "veyeish oserin". The AhS (se'if 28) names the oserim as the Rosh and the Ran, and that the SA names the Rambam (via a diyuq halashon)as his source lehatir. The AhS then questions the diyuq, but says it should be allowed anyway, since one gets hana'ah from the neiros while on YT too. So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, ones you used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making a berakhah on? Yes, there is light for enjoying the Shabbos meal, all the same shalom bayis. But there is no actual pe'ulah to make the berakhah on. Is there? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 19th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Tifferes: When does harmony promote Fax: (270) 514-1507 withdrawal and submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 16:21:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Daniel M. Israel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 16:21:06 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> References: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <33e302272e45c742ee54349bcfddc40a@kolberamah.org> On 2015-04-23 16:14, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin... > ... do for lighting Shabbos candles? > So, the BY (OC 537:19) permits... The AhS > then questions the diyuq, but says it should be allowed anyway, since > one gets hana'ah from the neiros while on YT too. > So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, ones you > used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making a berakhah on? Off the cuff hypothesis: Perhaps for the one lighting, it becomes Shabbos immediately, so the hadlakah is for Shabbos and there is a beracha. But for others in the house, they likely don't take on Shabbos until davening, and therefor they enjoy it on YT. Which would be enough to matir her lighting them. But I have no source. -- Daniel Israel dmi1 at cornell.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 16:27:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 19:27:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: <33e302272e45c742ee54349bcfddc40a@kolberamah.org> References: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> <33e302272e45c742ee54349bcfddc40a@kolberamah.org> Message-ID: <20150423232727.GB23492@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 04:21:06PM -0700, Daniel M. Israel wrote: : Perhaps for the one lighting, it becomes Shabbos immediately, so the : hadlakah is for Shabbos and there is a beracha. But for others in the : house, they likely don't take on Shabbos until davening, and therefor : they enjoy it on YT. Which would be enough to matir her lighting them. Not bad, if we don't read too much into the AhS not limiting this solution to cases where the candle-lighter isn't alone in the home. Nor does he mention having to use candles lit after pelag, nor her making a berakhah upon lighting and having an issur melakhah... Could be, but I find it dachuq. -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 17:58:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2015 00:58:48 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early Message-ID: <20150423.205848.16124.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger asked: > What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin (or > ate the food already, the food went bad, etc...) who for some > reason can not rely on the rabbi's communal failsafe eruv > (perhaps he isn't in a neighborhood with an observant community) > do for lighting Shabbos candles? Another problem this person will have is what to eat on Shabbos. There are several ideas offered by the poskim, and one of them is to cook extra food on Yom Tov, and the extra will be for Shabbos. This can be done even without an Eiruv Tavshilin, IIRC, because the melacha is not being done exclusively for Shabbos. > So, the BY (OC 537:19) [that should be 527:19 - Akiva] permits, > but he says "veyeish oserin". The AhS (se'if 28) names the oserim > as the Rosh and the Ran, and that the SA names the Rambam (via a > diyuq halashon)as his source lehatir. The AhS then questions the > diyuq, but says it should be allowed anyway, since one gets > hana'ah from the neiros while on YT too. This sounds to me the same as above. The lighting is not being done exclusively for Shabbos, and therefore may be done on YT. I would note that at no point in that se'if, does the AhS explicitly refers to the *mitzvah* of lighting Shabbos neros. Rather, his focus is on the practical need to light them in the late afternoon, both because it is *already* getting dark and hard to see without some artifical light, and because we won't be able to light anything later on. Truth be told, if lighting Shabbos candles is allowed only with an Eruv Tavshilin, then this whole se'if is needed even for a person who DID remember to make an Eruv, because (l'chatchila) one must do his Shabbos preparations early in the day, in a manner in which the melacha is -- or at least *could* be -- for tzorchei Yom Tov, and not exclusively for Shabbos. > So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, > ones you used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making > a berakhah on? Yes, there is light for enjoying the Shabbos meal, > all the same shalom bayis. But there is no actual pe'ulah to make > the berakhah on. Is there? I don't know where you see anything like this in the AhS. The AhS is explicitly talking about lighting after mincha, when it is already dark and the light is already useful. I concede that perhaps one should omit the bracha, because it explicitly declares one's intentions to be of a hachana nature, but that is a separate question not raised by the AhS. The main point I want to make in this paragraph is that the AhS never suggested that one might be yotzay Mitzvas Ner Shabbos via the candle that he lit in the early afternoon; it must be lit after Plag, with the intention that it will be burning into Shabbos. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55399563ca1dd156333b3st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 23:18:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2015 02:18:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Turning Jealousy into Progress Message-ID: Envy - Jealousy ? Kin?ah ? is an obvious theme for Parshas Mtzora. Paraphrasing freely (from L?chai Ro?-EY page 184), Midrash Tehillim/Shochar Tov on 37:1 parallel of TiTCHaR and TeKaNNEi. Do not fall victim to despondence those plotting evil, do not emulate those who succeed in career of crime. Rashi BMiDBar 25:11 neatly ties both into a General Theory of Jealousy. KoL LaSHON KiNAH HU HaMiTCHaReH LiNKom NiKMaS DaVaR. Rashi?s keyword is worth a thousand words. Rashi expects that we know Tanach and Midrash references. To catch Rashi?s nuance, always, I consult my paper Milon Gur [also in HebrewBooks.com]. HaMiTCHaReH is the exotic addition to our vocabulary. My trusty dictionary comes through here. Milon Gur pages 310 311 on CHaRaH: CHaRaH intransitive verb, showing outwardly as Ca_US or KaTZUF. ? foaming and frothing anger, against a traitor or hated enemy. determination to avenge and restore the Balance of Justice. HiTLaHeiV burning simmering anger, pressure like volcanic eruption. Hashem to Yonah ? are you truly upset ? HaHeYTeiV CHaRaH LCHa YoNaH? Divine CHaRON AF boiling or simmering anger is satisfied only by repentance, not by punishment. CHaRUCHA [burnt like over done fire-roast, long term anger leads to burn-through and burn-out. CHaRUL thorny tangle Milon Gur page 1088 McharCher RIV ? drum up strife and enmity CHaRCHuR ? disease of loss of muscle and strength. MChaRCHer Riv, CharumAf [nose ?bent out of shape? inset into face] and for Tacharut as resentment destroyed relationship. Rashi in Machzor Vitri 148 uses CHeReTZ in a unique way. Hashem jealously and with energy demands perfection from the world. Why does the Creator demand perfection? Rashi believes that Hashem cares strongly about the world. When the Adam attempts to be good, but falls short, He uses Rachamim, parenting skills, looking to the potential of ?You will worship Elokim on this mountain?. identification with the world demands perfection. When the world tries but falls short, fails to perform, Hashem uses Rachamim, flexibility, patience, empathy. He settles for potential. When the world rebels against Hashem, refuses to acknowledge Him at all, or mocking Him, rejecting their Father, breaking up the family, then there is Charon Af, red faced simmering anger. Rav Avraham Ruby authored the ?Tzilusa DiShmaata? series, focusing on chapters of the Baba-s routinely learnt Afternoon Seder which are master-works of Lamdus. Rav Moshe Shmuel Shapiro of Be?eir Yaakov was a talented teacher, and R? Ruby is an extremely able student. This year R? Ruby has turned his talents to creating the same sort of succinct and sharp presentation on Chumash.[L?chai Ro?-EY on Vayikra, self published 5775, contact me.]. Each Parsha offers an eclectic collection of solid sources. The organization is always unique and refreshing. L?chai Ro?-EY 185 shows the constructive power of ambition. Identity, membership,self-image, pride, place in society are all motivators of constructive behavior. Kinah jealousy is secondary, when there is an insult or threat to Hashem?s identity, or the individual?s. Ideally our self-image should include praise of Hashem and hatred of all insults against the Honor of Hashem. Only live in a town with Jewish services, and help create them. Your material ambitions include the dimension of Mitzvos and Kidush Hashem. A higher level of identity, ambition and constructive jealousy is aspiring to your neighbor?s higher spiritual levels. Even the Heavenly angels and even Avraham Avinu found mentors to emulate. Of course, the type of destructive strife we often see has other roots. Building a Jewish family is much easier with stronger spiritual models. -- David Wacholder Cell: 917-742-7838 Email: dwacholder at gmail.com dwacholder at optonline.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 24 08:42:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2015 11:42:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Beautiful Vort Message-ID: I recently came upon the following, listening to a hesped for Rabbi Mordechai Fachler zt?l, who was nift?r in November 2010. The hesped (one of many for Rav Fachler) was delivered by Rabbi Moshe Shirkin of England. This is just one part that caught my attention and was very touching. In previous generations the g?dolei Yisroel were discussing what?s the function of a Rav? The Rosh Yeshiva in Grodna (at the time) said the task of the Rav is to give shiurim. The Rav of Kovna, poisek oilam, said the task of the Rav is to pasken shailas. They came to Reb Chayim of Brisk and asked him what is the task of the Rav. His impressive response was: To give shiurim, you have a Rosh Yeshiva. To pasken shailas, you have a dayan. The task of the Rav is to do chesed with his oilam. A clergyman comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comfortable. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Apr 25 12:31:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 25 Apr 2015 21:31:27 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150423161105.DF2701836D1@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150423161105.DF2701836D1@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <553BEB8F.8040802@zahav.net.il> On 4/23/2015 6:11 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > But let me ask a related question. What are the observant now living > in EY doing "to ensure the conditions that 'we could feel justifies > to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? I gave an answer on Areivim, but I saw a couple of things on Shabbat which warrant an Avodah response. The first is from Yoma 86:A, Rashi, B'Amor Lehem (my translation): "Evil comes to chassidim and chachamim because "They desecrated My Holy name" (note: Rashi is of course assuming that they didn't do any particular sin to warrant what happened to them). How did they desecrate (God's name)? In those places to where they were exiled, the non-Jews say "These are the people of God" and He can't redeem them. Conclusion: God's name has been desecrated." End quote. Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem. Rav Soloveitch tz"l wrote about this point in Kol Dodi Dofek and in his drashot for the Kinot, as did Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook tz"l. However, I don't want to leave it at that. Rav Cherki (father of Shalom HY"D) wrote the following in this week's Shabbat B'shabato: "And this leads us to a moral question: How can it be that with respect to the most significant event in all of history, the redemption, the existence or lack of good deeds has no effect at all? This tension between the inevitability of redemption and arbitrary choices made by man is what makes it necessary for the nation of Yisrael to observe all the mitzvot in detail, in order to avoid creating a dissonance between the need for justice (which appears in the covenant in the Torah portion of Bechukotai) and the values of the path of unification, which insists that G-d is always working to glorify His name, no matter what else is happening. And that is why the Haftarah ends with the adamant demand of the Holy One, Blessed be He: "I am your G-d. Follow My laws and maintain My just actions and perform them, and sanctify my Shabbat and let it be a symbol between Me and you, in order to know that I am your G-d." [Yechezkel 20:19-20]." No one, not the most hard core DL around, says that there is nothing wrong with the State, that there isn't what that needs changing, from the level of how people get on a bus to the national agenda. In his hesped, Rav Cherki mentioned that his son Shalom went to the navy to help start a hesder unit for the navy, even though he knew that the religious level in the navy wasn't as high as it was in other units. He went there for the greater good, to help make the IDF a bit more Torah oriented, period. Rav Cherki went on to say that the answer to Shalom's murder was to add Kiddush HaShem. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 13:28:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 20:28:49 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lashon Hara and the Internet Message-ID: <20150426.162849.2967.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> On Areivim, there were some posts speaking about the residents of a certain area or areas. Someone commented: > I'm a little surprised at this exchange. Sefer Chafetz Chaim is > pretty clear about not saying loshen hara on a place or the > residents of a place. Someone else responded: > I am no expert on what is LH and what is not, but with the Internet > I think that some of the halachos probably do not apply to today's > world. Find me a sefer that deals with LH and the Internet, and > then we will talk. I too am no expert in Sefer Chafetz Chaim, but I clearly remember it talking about Lashon Hara via the written word, such as in personal letters to friends and relatives, or by publishing books and newspapers. Can someone find those sources and tell us where they are? I find it difficult to imagine that today's world is so different from that of a hundred years ago "that some of the halachos probably do not apply to today's world." But without quoting actual sources, it's simply a case of my imagination vs that of the other poster. So I am hoping that someone can help with the source material, "and then we will talk." Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553d4ab51dc554ab54c25st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 15:02:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 18:02:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] YIDDISHKEIT WITHOUT IDEOLOGY: A LETTER TO My SON Message-ID: <20150426220229.D93E41836B2@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://traditionarchive.org/news/originals/Volume%2036/No.%202/Yiddishkeit%20Without.pdf Let me be absolutely clear: where the demands of halacha are unambiguous, you must submit to them. But how does one navigate between much less well-defined traditional attitudes and strong personal inclinations? When I was your age I didn't know the answer-I still don't-but one proposition that seemed self-evident to me at the time was that it was essential to be consistent. In other words, I felt that I had to some- how make sure that the way I defined Yiddishkeit and the way I defined my commitments given my own inclinations would be perfectly aligned. I'm now convinced that that commitment to consistency was utter- ly wrong-headed and is the key to all that is wrong with institutional Yiddishkeit. I shouldn't have been defining either Yiddishkeit or my commitments at al. To do so is to reduce Yiddishkeit to ideology which is exactly what it is not. See the above UL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 16:54:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 19:54:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150426235424.BD633182CE0@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:52 PM 4/26/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: I gave an answer on Areivim, but I saw a couple of things on Shabbat which warrant an Avodah response. The first is from Yoma 86:A, Rashi, B'Amor Lehem (my translation): "Evil comes to chassidim and chachamim because "They desecrated My Holy name" (note: Rashi is of course assuming that they didn't do any particular sin to warrant what happened to them). How did they desecrate (God's name)? In those places to where they were exiled, the non-Jews say "These are the people of God" and He can't redeem them. Conclusion: God's name has been desecrated." End quote. >Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem. >Rav Soloveitch tz"l wrote about this point in Kol Dodi Dofek and in his >drashot for the Kinot, as did Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook tz"l. We all know that there were great Torah scholars who disagreed with the assertion that " the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." to name just 3, the Satmar Rebbe, Rav Breuer, and Rav Schwab. They were also most certainly familiar with the gemara you quote and the RASHI. If you had written, "Therefore, according to some Torah scholars the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." I would not disagree. However, your blanket statement, "Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." is IMO is not valid. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 12:36:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Jay F. Shachter via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 19:36:27 +0000 (WET DST) Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: from "via Avodah" at Apr 26, 2015 03:52:29 pm Message-ID: <14300949890.C90dE41.4028@m5.chicago.il.us> > > What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin (or ate > the food already, the food went bad, etc...) who for some reason can > not rely on the rabbi's communal failsafe eruv (perhaps he isn't in > a neighborhood with an observant community) do for lighting Shabbos > candles? > You light one candle, after plag hamminxa of course, and you say the appropriate brakha, lhadliq ner shel shabbath. You don't need an `eruv tavshilin to light one candle, because the Rabbinic prohibition of performing mlakha on Yom Tov for Shabbath was not intended to override the Rabbinic commandment of lighting one candle for use on Shabbath. Since (unlike in ancient times, and unlike a hundred years ago also) you don't need to have candles burning on Shabbath for their light, because you already have electric lights in your house that will stay on, or that will come on, during Shabbath, you therefore have no reason to light more than one candle (except for minhag, which you can dispense with when needed), so you don't. One candle is the Rabbinic commandment. Lighting two candles is a recent frumkeit, or yhiruth, that started among German Jews and is less than 900 years old. Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter 6424 N Whipple St Chicago IL 60645-4111 (1-773)7613784 landline (1-410)9964737 GoogleVoice jay at m5.chicago.il.us http://m5.chicago.il.us "The umbrella of the gardener's aunt is in the house" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 04:58:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 12:58:34 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001901d080e1$7d6fcbe0$784f63a0$@org.uk> RMB wrote: <> As I have written before, what I find intensely frustrating about this is that RYBS's invocation of tan du appears to itself involve a form of tampering with the chazakos and by implication the denial of the perfection and truthfulness of chachmei chazal that is then claimed to be kefira. The gemora in discussing tan du is very clear - both in Yevamos 118b and Kesuvos 75a: a woman in a tan du marriage commits adultery - "kulan mezanos"! - THAT is the chazaka from Chazal regarding the nature of women. Now this could mean: (a) the sort of woman who is prepared to enter a tan du marriage is prepared to and will commit adultery; or (b) all women will take a tan du marriage (RYBS), but if they find themselves in a tan du marriage - the existential loneliness that RYBS identifies as being the particular province of women will also, according to Chazal, inevitably drive them to adultery; But you can't get away from the fact that Chazal set this up as a chazaka. And if you take these chazakos in the way that RYBS says to do, then there are inevitable conclusions: A Beis Din faced with what can now clearly be seen as a tan du marriage HAS to assume adultery as a consequence - that being the chazaka. If you hold that these statements of Chazal are perhaps limited in time and place to the times of Chazal, and the nature of women then, then we cannot necessarily generalise to today, and despite a woman today being demonstratably in a tan du marriage, one cannot necessarily jump to conclusions regarding her faithfulness. But if these chazakos are immutable - then the only question must surely be, was there the possibility of adultery - and given the freedom of movement of women today, I do not see how anybody can say that opportunity was not available. Therefore the result, and the consequence for the marriage, was a foregone conclusion. A beis din, if it does not treat this marriage as a mekach taus (because the woman is one who would not have entered a tan du marriage), has to treat it as one in which the woman has committed adultery and is therefore forbidden to her husband, and under which the husband is clearly under a Torah obligation to divorce, according to all opinions ("dvar erva"). And yet note that there is none of this in RBYS's analysis. Women's loneliness and spiritual pain, yes - a full facing of the consequences of what is therefore, according to Chazal, endemic in our society and in the nature of Bnos Yisroel, no. There is a complete glossing over of the fundamental conclusion by Chazal regarding the consequence of a tan du marriage. And yet how can you write about tan du as an absolute immutable principle and yet not mention what, according to Chazal, is the cast iron result of that absolute immutable principl? Note by the way that this chazaka, if indeed it is immutable in the nature of women, has another consequence. Given that having women commit adultery is clearly (how shall I put this mildly) a highly destructive thing for society - having women enter into marriages where this is the inevitable consequence is a very bad thing. Surely any Rabbi who is mesader kedushin at such a wedding, any eidim at such a wedding, etc have as a matter of fact engaged in lifnei iver lo titen michshol in the full biblical sense. This isn't, according to Chazal, a maybe or a possibility, this is an inevitability. Surely it is obligatory on any Rabbi who agrees to be mesader kiddushin and on any shadchanim and eidim to investigate very carefully that this marriage is not of the tan du nature? That is if, as Rav Lichtenstein is quoted as saying "given the clear cut evidence in the Rishonim in Yevamot and other places in Shas which clearly indicated that this hazaka was not one that applied in all contexts and at all times and in all situations" - then these concerns would be significantly diminished. After all, any marriage presented to a mesader kedushin would then at the very least be a sfek sfeka - perhaps this isn't a tan du marriage, and if it is, perhaps the woman might not commit adultery. But if it is an inevitable chazaka that a woman in a tan du marriage will commit adultery, then there is only one safek in relation to a serious issur d'orisa - in which case must it not be the responsibility of all those who enable such a marriage to occur to make sure that it is not a tan du marriage and they are not enabling such adultery to take place? To my mind, indeed, that is precisely what Chazal were really getting at. A genuine acknowledgement that - at least in some societies and some environments, women are pressured into inappropriate marriages and give in to that pressure. And that where a woman does indeed give in to such an inappropriate marriage, the consequences are really, really bad for the general society and we need all to be on guard to try and prevent such marriages occurring. That to me demonstrates far more clearly the "perfection and truthfulness of Chazal" than trying to squish them in to some metaphysical understanding of womenkind that does not reverberate as true to many. But if one is going to apply this particular analysis to this particular statement of Chazal, it would seem important to do it honestly while facing the totality of what it is that Chazal actually said. >-Micha Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 11:00:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 18:00:12 GMT Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabal as Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150427.140012.4336.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Rav YB Soloveitchik zt"l was quoted: > ... Let us take for example the chazaka that I was told > about: the chazaka tav l'meisiv tan du mil'meisiv armalo > [20] has absolutely nothing to do with the social and > political status of women in antiquity. This chazaka is > based not upon sociological factors, but upon a verse in > breishis -- harba arbeh itz'voneich v'heironeich b'etzev > teildi vanim v'el isheich t'shukaseich v'hu yimshal bach > -- "I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy travail; in > pain thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall > be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee" [21]. It > is a metaphysical curse rooted in the feminine personality > -- she suffers incomparably more that the male who is in > solitude. Solitude to the male is not as terrible an > experience, as horrifying an experience, as is solitude to > the woman. And this will never change, mayid shamayim > vaaretz [22]. This is not a psychological fact; it is an > existential fact, ... In our discussions of this idea, that the chazaka is "an existential fact" and "based not upon sociological factors", there seems to be a general assumption that the Rav was speaking of ALL chazakos. However, it seems possible to me, or perhaps even likely, that he was singling this chazaka out as different from others. Note that he does not merely assert this chazaka to be existential, but he cites a pasuk as proof. To me, this is significant, because we would then be allowed to treat any NON-pasuk-based chazaka as sociological. I don't know what implications this might have for the chazaka of extramarital relations that R"n Chana Luntz mentioned, or for any other chazakos, but I wanted to mention it in case anyone else wants to comment. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553e7973421b079735cf5st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 14:53:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 17:53:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabal as Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150427.140012.4336.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150427.140012.4336.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150427215316.GA27558@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 06:00:12PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : In our discussions of this idea, that the chazaka is "an existential : fact" and "based not upon sociological factors", there seems to be a : general assumption that the Rav was speaking of ALL chazakos. However, : it seems possible to me, or perhaps even likely, that he was singling : this chazaka out as different from others. I suggested a third possiliblity. The shiur was all about Talmud Torah and Qabbalas Ol Malkhus Shamayim. This was a couple of off topic lines in what was basically a complaint that RER didn't respect the halachic process (as RYBS saw it). RAL reports that this was RYBS's primary argument against RER's beis din; I am suggesting that this quick assertion was an example of that argument, not an independent second reason to reject. It fits better as an efshar lomar than an actual assertion. How do you know you can simply repeal this chazaqah? What if it's an existential statement about the human condition; is it, after all, mentioned in a pasuq! Not so much that tav lemeisav was necessarily an existential and unchanging fact, but that it could be. That one can't simply reason in a vacuum and buck the trend of millennia of pesaq. But in any case, RYBS did say it belashon rabbim: "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above. Let us take for example the chazaka that I was told about: the chazaka tav l'meisiv tan du...." RYBS discusses tav lemeisiv as an example of a general principle not to tamper with chazaqos. Not as a single case. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 23rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Netzach: How does my domination Fax: (270) 514-1507 stifle others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 11:10:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 14:10:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A Halachik analysis of the kosher status of vitamins and medicines. Message-ID: <20150427181040.6E1171834B6@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/osf4fh7 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 12:51:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 21:51:46 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150426235424.BD633182CE0@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150426235424.BD633182CE0@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <553E9352.3030802@zahav.net.il> 1) I have to admit I don't get your answer. You asked in what way could the state be considered a Kiddush Hashem and I gave you an answer. Now you reply that various rabbis wouldn't agree with that answer. Ok, but az mah? 2) The Satmar Rebbe wouldn't have said that anything about the state is a Kiddush Hashem, no matter what it did, so I don't understand why you included him. 3) Lastly, the reply that you gave reminds me of something that Rav AY Kook wrote in Orot, Orot HaTechiya, Chapter 20. He was addressing the question of whether or not the religious should join forces with the non-religious in order to work together for the Zionist cause. Rav Kook used the story of the two women claiming to be the mother of a baby as example of people revealing their true intentions. The woman who agreed that the baby should be cut in half was in effect saying (according to RK) that there shouldn't be babies. She used others claims as way of hiding her true intent, but when the decisive moment came, the truth came out. Meaning - was the demand that the religious not work with the secular the issue or was that a cover story used to mask people's opposition to Zionism? Or in this case, is the demand that the creation of the state be a Kiddush HaShem in the eyes of all rabbanim a real demand or is it simply a cover? If the Breuer community want the state to reflect certain values, than please, make it happen. If they don't want to make it happen or aren't willing, than the demand is (at best) an exercise in dissimulation. Ben On 4/27/2015 1:54 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > We all know that there were great Torah scholars who disagreed with the assertion that " the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." to name just 3, the Satmar Rebbe, Rav Breuer, and Rav Schwab. They were also most certainly familiar with the gemara you quote and the RASHI. > > If you had written, "Therefore, according to some Torah scholars the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." I would not disagree. However, your blanket statement, "Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." is IMO is not valid. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 14:59:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 22:59:07 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] ashkenazi married to sefardi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003e01d08135$629ef9e0$27dceda0$@org.uk> RET writes: <> Note that the Bnei Banim in Chelek 3 siman 29 brings an objection to this position of RMF, based on the Rema in Even HaEzer siman 75 si'if 1. The discussion there is regarding the situation where the man literally comes from one country and the woman comes from another, who can force whom to move? And while the majority of the rishonim (including the Tashbetz) hold (absent special considerations such as Eretz Yisrael versus non Eretz Yisrael) that the man can force the woman to move to his country, Rabbanu Tam holds the opposite, that the woman can force the man to move. And the Rema holds l'halacha that we should be choshesh for the position of Rabbanu Tam, and hence neither can force the other to move. The Bnei Banim points out that if one cannot force the wife to physically move to the locale of the husband, l'halacha, how can she be considered to have moved to his place by mere dint of the marriage? After all, if she has in fact, halachically, moved to his place by entering the chuppah, what possible objection can there possibly be to her being made to up sticks and actually go to his country, Rabbanu Tam or no Rabbanu Tam? So while the Tashbez is in fact being consistent - being a rishon who holds that in fact she is required to physically move to the husband's country, the Bene Banim argues that by being choshesh for Rabbanu Tam, the Rema is clearly not poskening like RMF and the Tashbetz. The Bene Banim also discusses other arguments brought by the Tashbetz (such as ishto k'gufo) - but again rejects this, given that a woman does not take over her husband's chiyuvim and nedarim (with the possible exception of Channukah Candles). >In addition ROY states a similar psak in several places. One can argue that ROY is in a stronger position than RMF, on the grounds that he solely follows the Mechaber, and hence not the Rema, and might hold that one can force a country change. The Bnei Banim also brings, however, that while ROY comes out straightforwardly like the Tashbetz in Yabiat Omer chelek 5 siman 37 (there he is discussing an Ashkenazi woman who married a Sephardi man and whether she can eat rice on Pesach - answer of course, yes), in Or Torah Iyar 4751 ROY writes (quotation taken from the Bene Banim, I don't have access to the original): ?????? ??? ???? ????? ????? ????? ?????? ?????? ???? ??????? ????? ?????? ??? ????? ????? ???? ??? ???? ?? ?"? ????, ?? ???? ??????? ???? ???? ???? ?????? ???? ????? ????? ???? ?' ?? ?????? ????? ???? )??? ?' ???? ?"?(. ??? ?????? ???? ???? ?? ???? ??? ???? ???? ????? ?? ??? ????, ??? ??? ???? ????? ????? ????? ???? ???? ???? ???? ????? ???? ????? ????? ???? ?? ?? ?? ?????. ???? ?? ?????? ?????? ?????? ???? ????? ????? ????? ??, ????? ?? ???? ????? ?? ????. ??? ?? ?? ????? ????? ??? ??? ????? ??? ????? ????? ????? ?????. ???? ???? ???? ??????, ?? ??? ????? ?? ???? ?????? ???? ????? ????? ???? ????? ??? ???? ????? ?? ??? ?????? ????, ??? ??? ????? ???? ???? ????? ??? ?????? ??? ??????? ??? ????? ????? ???"?. ??? ??? ???? ???? ?????? ???????? ?????? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ?? ??? ??? "??? ???" ???? ?? ???, ????? ????? ?? ???? " customs that are required of the husband of necessity because of the tradition of his fathers like the Sephardim who accepted on themselves the rulings of Maran [the Shulchan Aruch] and are not able to be lenient against his opinion even by way of hatarah, it is required of an Ashkenazi woman to go after her husband and even to conduct herself leniently like the custom of her husband like that which I wrote in Yabiat Omer (chelek 5 siman 37). But stringencies that the husband has placed on himself that if he wants he is able to nullify them by way of hatarah, there is no need for the woman to conduct herself like him and he is not able to force on her a stringency that she does not want to accept as there is to her on whom to rely. Therefore if she wants to continue to use Tenuva milk she is able to do this, and the husband if he wants can be stringent upon himself. But not use any form of compulsion that also she be stringent that there not enter their house the products of Tenuva. And this is the law with the fruit of shmitta, if she relies on the heter mechira since there are many great ones of the world who hold to leniency she is also able to continue to be lenient, and so she is not forced to accept upon herself the stringency of not using products which do not have on them the hashgacha of the Badatz. And if the husband is not able to continue his stringencies when the woman does not want to accept he should do hatarah on that which he did not say ?bli neder? and be lenient also he, as great is the peace of a house." The Bnei Banim notes however that ROY does not bring any lamdus to defend the distinction he makes here between longstanding community customs (such as rice on pesach or glatt meat) and more recent customs - such as not eating Tenuva or relying on the heter mechira. To expand on this comment of the Bnei Banim, one might say that if you base the reason for a woman taking on the customs of the husband because she moves to his place, why should it make a difference whether the customs he has established in his place are longstanding ones, such as eating rice on pesach, or not using the products of Tenuva? The customs of his place are the customs of his place. And yet ROY is, in this, reflecting a common (if perhaps inconsistent) practice. In all the debate regarding husbands not using the eruv and relying on their wives doing so, and how it shows a lack of derech eretz etc, nobody suggests that actually it is assur for the wife to use the eruv, on the grounds that she has moved to the husband's place, and his custom is not to do so, and so she is stuck with the stringencies of his house. The Bnei Banim concludes his teshuva by stating: ?????? ???? ??? ????? ???? ????? ???? ??????? ?????? ??? ???? ?????? ?????? ???? ?? ????, ?? ????? ?? ????? ?? ???? ????"? ????? ??? ???? ??"? ???? ????? ???? ????? ???? ?? ????? ??? ????? ?????? ?????? ??? ???? ???? ?? ?? ???? ??? ???? ???? ???????? ??? ???? ???, ??? ?? ?????? ?? ???? ???? ??????? ?????? ????? ??????. "And l?halacha anyway one should not push aside the custom of the world that a woman frees herself from the customs of her father?s household and conduct herself according to the customs of her husband if she wants, but she is able also to rely on the words of [Rav Ovadiah Yosef] in the ma?amer and so it seems to me that when there isn?t in it [a matter] between him and her, and there isn?t a matter of inui nefesh she is able to continue like the customs of the house of her father since behold also if she vowed them from anew after the marriage the husband could not annul [such vows], and she may make a condition with her husband before the marriage that she will continue to conduct herself in accordance with her customs." This point of the Bnei Banim regarding innui nefesh and matters beno uvena is interesting. What he is referring to is the fact that a husband can be mafer (ie nullify) the nedarim of his wife, but only those that either constitute inui nefesh or are considered beno u'vena (Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah Diman 234 si?if 55). And it seems to me that you can therefore deal with the Tashbetz's point (as strongly re-iterated by ROY) regarding food issues - ie that they cannot eat together at the same table where what is permitted for one is prohibited for the other - with the use of this concept, without needing to come on to place changes. Because one of the definitions of inui nefesh brought in the Shulchan Aruch (Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah Diman 234 si?if 60-61) is if the woman forbids an item of food on herself (although the Shulchan Aruch there in si'if 60 notes that the Rambam considers this a matter not of inui nefesh but of beno u'vena). So that, certainly from the perspective of a Sephardi husband, a woman who has has the practice of not eating rice and kitniyot on Pesach is engaging in inui nefesh - and if you follow the Rav Poelim I brought in an earlier post, that if one is forbidden to eat something, one is forbidden to cook it on yom tov for others who may eat it, then the woman could not cook rice or kitniyot for the husband either - making the matter clearly one beno u'vena. So it seems like the whole question of differences in food do not need discussions of place, they can more readily be handled within the context of the existing halachic framework surrounding marriage, and what is and is not appropriate to be waived in the context of a healthy marriage. That set me thinking about the fact that actually we are talking about a whole range of different forms of minhagim - and it seems to me that as a first stab, we are dealing here with four different categories: a) minhagim that really have no impact on the husband - such as whether she benches and davens minhag Ashkenaz or minhag Edot Hamizrach (but will have a major impact on her should she be required to change, both in terms of the huge learning curve, and also in terms of the emotional impact, eg of the kol nidrei tunes). One might perhaps say that if she davens a different nusach, she will want to go to shul to a different place - but she is in a different place from the husband anyway, by virtue of the mechitza, and of course many women do not have the custom to go at all, so real impact would seem to be minimal. That seems to be the underlying message of the Bene Banim. b) minhagim that involve inui nefesh of the woman (which the halacha defines as having an impact on the husband, and which includes her having prohibitions on food) and those beno u'vena. We already have a halachic framework to determine these - the relevant sections of Yoreh Deah siman 234. For example, it doesn't seem to me to be a stretch to say that if he has the minhag of putting food with a majority of solid on the blech on shabbas, and she has a minhag not to, then her following that minhag will impact beno u'vena in terms of what gets provided at the shabbas table, and therefore would fall within the category of minhagim that ought to change in the interests of a unified household. c) minhagim that impact the husband financially. The interesting thing is that these *are* dealt with in the gemora and the halacha based on the principle "olah imo v'ana yoredes imo" - she goes up with him but does not go down with him. The case discussed on Kesubos 48a is regarding what it is necessary for him to hire for her funeral (in the way of flute players and wailers) where the custom between her family and his family is different. And while it might have been the case that it was different because they were from a different socio-economic class, it may also be because she came from a different place where the custom was to spend more on funerals and even so (once you accept that the same rule applies in death as it does in life) he is required to fund the difference - there is no assumption that because she has moved to his place, she is only entitled to the funeral according to the custom of his place. It would therefore seem that the straightforward pshat of this gemora is against the Tashbetz. Similarly the Shulchan Aruch rules in Even HaEzer siman 80 si'if 10 that the various forms of work that are required of a woman for her husband are only required if it is the derech of both her family and his family for a woman to do this - ie it is the intersection of the two sets of minhagim that make the requirement binding. d) minhagim of the husband that cause her tzar: this is in many ways the flip side of b), in that in b) we are talking about a situation where what she has been accustomed to doing all her life is, from the perspective of the husband, a form of inui nefesh, while here, the customs of the husband are what to her might well seem inui nefesh. This could also perhaps be said to be dealt with by the gemora. The gemora in Kesubos 61a discusses the situation where there is a dispute between him and her regarding whether she should nurse their baby in situations where it is the custom of her family but not his or vice versa. The question has a financial aspect, if she does not, then the husband will be put to the expense of hiring a wet nurse, and also, it would appear, a status/beauty aspect (the husband may not want her to, either because only lower class women do this, or because it might make her less beautiful in his eyes). In terms of the financial and status aspect, the gemora again brings the position of olah imo v'ana yoredes imo as per c), but there are also other aspects. For example, in the case where she wants to nurse, and the husband does not want her to, the gemora assumes that it is straightforward that, if she wishes to nurse, we listen to her, on the grounds that "tzara dedei hu" - it is her pain. Now Rashi understands this as the physical pain of having milk and having no-one feed - but it could also be understood to be psychological. However, it is hard to know how far to extend this case, nursing might well be considered sui generis, because (a) it is something very specific to a woman that a man will never do (regardless of what the women in his family did) and (b) there are very specific, unusual, physical and/or psychological factors which are not necessarily duplicated elsewhere. Refraining from specific foods (despite it being considered inui nefesh) would seem to be a far less significant matter. What might perhaps be of more general application is the discussion that immediately follows the nursing question - in which the gemora attempts to find a Torah source for the idea of olah imo v'ana yoredes imo. Rav Huna learns it out of "He beulas ba'al" (Breishis 20:3) [Reference to Sarah Imanu vis a vis Avimelech] and therefore "beilaso shel baal v'lo yoredaso" - she goes up with the husband and not down with him while Rabbi Eliezer learns it out from "ki who eim kol chai" [Breishis 3:20] and therefore "l'chaim nitna vlo l'tzar nitna" - she was given for life and not for tzar. Now the Pnei Yehoshua and the Mahrasha attempt to learn different nafka minas from the bringing of these two different sources - but it seems to me that a straightforward nafka mina is that the first source appears to understand the question primarily as being one of financial or perhaps spiritual improvement (however one understands "going up" rather than "going down"). While the second source seems rather to focus on the idea that marriage is supposed to bring with it life rather than pain. So under the first source one might understand, if one understands prishus from particular foods or activities as a form of greater spirituality, then a woman ought to follow her husband in that, even if it is considered innui nefesh, while following the second source, the key would seem more to be a question of tzar, and inui nefesh must surely be considered at least some aspect of tzar. On some level that does seem to be what is driving ROY in his discussion of customs such as not using tenuva milk or not relying on the heter mechira - both cases deal with the situation where the man is the stringent one, and her custom is towards leniency. But where this question would seem to really bite, is, for example, in the case of a Sephardi woman contemplating marrying an Ashkenazi man - where she has grown up eating and cooking rice and kitniyot on Pesach. I know a number of little Sephardi girls who have told me that they would not contemplate marrying an Ashkenazi man because of this. Now maybe they will grow out of it - but it does seem to me to a really bad reason to be rejecting a potential suitor - and yet the sense of tzar is there, that is what they are saying, I don't want the tzar of making Pesach, which for many women is tzar enough already, totally different from the way I grew up and have been taught - especially when it comes with countless greater stringencies. And even if she does ignore this in practice and accepts such a marriage, one can easily see a level of resentment bubbling to the surface at what can be in any event a very stressful time ("it is your fault that it is so darn difficult so the least you can do is be more helpful"). And if one could in fact understand a fundamental halachic principle to be taken into consideration as that of l'chaim nitna vlo l'tzar nitna - you might end up with something in keeping with the shalom bayis needs of klal yisrael. >Eli Turkel Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 15:12:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 18:12:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: <20150423.205848.16124.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150423.205848.16124.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150427221257.GA6982@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 24, 2015 at 12:58:48AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : > So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, : > ones you used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making : > a berakhah on? Yes, there is light for enjoying the Shabbos meal, : > all the same shalom bayis. But there is no actual pe'ulah to make : > the berakhah on. Is there? : I don't know where you see anything like this in the AhS. The AhS : is explicitly talking about lighting after mincha, when it is already : dark and the light is already useful... And was used or at least "used" before Shabbos (in some halachic rather than commonsensical sense), even if just for seconds, since that's the AhS's grounds for allowing the person who made no eiruv tavshilin to light her Shabbos candles. So, how can she make a berakhah on candles she was only permitted to light because they would be used before Shabbos? What hadlaqah for Shabbos itself occured? > omit the bracha, because it explicitly declares one's intentions to be > of a hachana nature, but that is a separate question not raised by the > AhS... I'm taking his silence, the AhS not telling her to light without a berakhah, as implication that there is no change from the usual WRT berakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 23rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Netzach: How does my domination Fax: (270) 514-1507 stifle others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:01:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:01:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428160119.GA8805@aishdas.org> On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 01:53:10PM -0400, Kaganoff via Avodah wrote: : For many years i had extreme difficulty with R. Elchanan Wasserman understanding : as it conflicted with my belief that Judaism (and other religions) was not : logically provable (contra to Moshe Mendelssohn and his contemporaries) and : therefore required a "leap of faith" and that a disbeliever could not be : faulted for failing to take such a jump. This is a false dichotomy. Logically proving things are not the only way to justify belief in there. How do you know that (in a flat space) two parallel lines never meet? If you're like me, you pictured it in your head. Even though infinite lines don't exist in the real world. (Nor, does it turn out, does flat space.) Did you figure out that oppression was evil by logical proof, or by a combination of imagination and empathy? My favorite example is answering the question, "Do elephants have hair?" A logical/verbal approach would be: Elephants are mammals, all mammals have hair, and so unless elephants are the exception to the rule, they must have hair. Elephants are well known and discussed animals. Could they be an exception to the rule and I don't know it? Nah, they must have hair. How it is more likely the question jogged your memory of elephants you saw, or saw pictures of. The detail may be blurry, so you may have to manipulate the picture a bit. Finally, a version of the picture which has a tuft of hair at the tail, maybe (if your memory is good) some downy hair around the eyes and ears, strikes you as the most familiar, the most real. And again you could reach the conclusion that elephants have hair. (See for some musings about the two modes of thought I'm contrasting here.) In I compare different versions of the Argument from Design from R' Aqiva's response to the apiqoreis through the Rambam, through similar approaches based on more modern science. "G-d created" (Gen. 1:1): A hereic came to Rabbi Aqiva and asked, "Who made the universe?". Rabbi Aqiva answered, "HQBH". The heretic said, "Prove it to me." Rabbi Aqiva said, "Come to me tomorrow". When the heretic returned, Rabbi Aqiva asked, "What is that you are wearing?" "A garment", the unbeliever replied. "Who made it?" "A weaver." "Prove it to me." "What do you mean? How can I prove it to you? Here is the garment, how can you not know that a weaver made it?" Rabbi Akiva said, "And here is the world; how can you not know that Haqadosh barukh Hu made it?" After the heretic left, Rabbi Aqiva's students asked him, "But what is the proof?" He said, "Even as a house proclaims its builder,a garment its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the Holy Blessed One Who created it. Not very rigorous. Rabbi Aqiva's reply revolves around giving a parable to make the conclusion self-evident. Not contructing a deductive argument. The more rigorous we try making it, the more arguable the proof becomes. R' Aqiva's argument is far more convincing than the Rambam's statement based on how objects lose form over time, not gain it. Or a similar argument based on thermodynamics or information theory. (Ironically, every formal / logical proof is built from givens taken as self-evident for informal-reasoning reasons.) Anyway, that's how I understood REW. R' Elchanan argues that on an informal level, the idea that the universe had to have a Creator is as obvious as a Euclidean postulate or the injustice of oppression. To not believe in G-d requires a formal proof, which one's negios then determine if they find it sound or specious, and whether they accept the postulates on which it's built. Notice I didn't invoke any leaps of faith. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:24:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:24:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Peshat and Drash (Was: Re: Meshech Chochmah on Kedushah) In-Reply-To: <5518BD49.3000508@gmail.com> References: <54FC792A.4080400@gmail.com> <20150324195248.GD29350@aishdas.org> <5518BD49.3000508@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150428162406.GB8805@aishdas.org> On Sun, Mar 29, 2015 at 11:04:41PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : But there were such instances where "one said this was how halakhah : was understood miSinai and another says that this is new." One : example (noted by the Chavos Yair in his Teshuva 192) is a 3-way : machlokess in Zevachim 110b, where one Amora says Nissuch HaMayyim : is miDrabannan, another says it is derived from a posuk, and another : says it was a halacha l'Moshe MiSinai. Rambam (Temidim uMussafim : 10:6 ) poskens it is a halacha l'Moshe MiSinai. This is consistent : with the concept that, as the Rambam writes, "once someone says 'so : have I received,' there is no more debate." The reason is that once : one of our sages can demonstrate he is a recipient of explicit data : originating with Moshe Rabbeynu, a HLMS, it is naturally accepted as : fact. I thought it was well accepted that the Rambam's position in HLMS is inconsistent, that he mentions numberous machloqesin in dinim he himself labeled HLMS. I don't have time to summarize the Chavor Ya'ir teshuvah 192, but I gave up waiting until I did. The examples are numerous. Possible resolutions: - No machloqesin in the essence of the matter, but there can be in details. (the CY's conclusion.) - Im halakhah hi neqabel -- no machloqesin in something both sides agree are HLMS. And what I suggested: That we should distinguish between disputes due to lack of knowledge and formal machloqesin, with the Rambam saying the legal term "machloqes" with all the usual rules of pesaq only apply to the latter. Other disputes, while called machloqes in the colloquial sense, are resolved using the rules of safeiq -- because (leshitaso) ignorance does not create a real machloqes (in the technical sense). And the Rambam here is saying that real machloqes is limited to conflicting deductions and extrapolations from existing law to new places. And thus disputes in laws that date back to Sinai can't have real machloqesin. I know I'm repeating myself, but it's been "forever" ago in email list time since I sat on this post awaiting the time to study the CY. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:33:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:33:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] free will In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428163338.GC8805@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 1:38pm IDT, R Eli Turkel wrote: : We have discussed many times the opinion of Rav Dessler that a person : doesn't always have free will. : I recently saw a halachic discussion that may have some connection. : On ketubot 51 the gemara discusses a case of a married woman who was raped : but at the end was willing... : One possibility of explaining Rava is that she is overwhelmed by her : "yetzer" and so is still considered ["anusah"]... While RET's suggested example is consistent REED's concept of nequdas habechirah, the way RET phrased REED's position kept this email on my to-do list for the last 3 weeks. REED's point is one that's pretty consistent with first-hand experience of making choices. We do not feel in control of our subconscious decisions. All the opportunities we filter out before we even are aware of thinking about it. He then says that the decisions that rise to the level of consciousness, and thus we have some control over, are ones that generate internal conflict. The "battlefront" in his metaphor, where the yh"t and yh"r are balanced. But once you accept the notion of non-conscious thought, REED's conclusion is unavoidable. And a person does always have free will, he just isn't aware of every choice he makes to know to exercise it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:41:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:41:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428164110.GD8805@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 04:29:11PM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The world has changed a lot since the time of chazal especially related to : travel... : : 1. Most travel is no longer considered unsafe. When I get in my car every : morning to drive to work I don't think twice about it : 2. The distinction between in the city and out of the city is no longer : true... : Recently, I heard a short shiur on tefilas haderech and was happy to hear : that RSZA seems to say a very similar idea to RYBS. In contrast, the qorban todah and birkhas hagomel depend not only on surviving a dangerous situation but also on reliving one of the four sorts of yeshu'os tehillim ascribes to yetzi'as Mitzrayim: crossing a desert, the sea, bring freed from jail or recovering from illness. So, if we deem flying over the Great Lakes or the Mediterranean (to pick shorter flights over mayim she'ein lahem sof) to be too safe to warrant tefillas haderekh, would one end up in a situation that calls for no tefillas haderekh beforehand, but benching gomel afterward? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:45:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:45:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428164537.GE8805@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 11:12am EDT, RnTK asked: : But to veer back into Avodah territory -- would it have been appropriate to : say Tefillas Haderech at that time? With shem umalchus? (I assume you : can always say it without shem umalchus.) Tefilas haDerekh is never said besheim umalkhus. Sheim, yes, but not malkhus: "Barukh atah H', shomeia tefillah." No mention of "E-lokeinu Melekh ha'olam". Also, when speaking about berakhah vs tefillah, Tefillas haDerekh refers to itself as a tefillah. And notice also the chasimah is about hearing the baqashah, not about the shemirah we're requesting itself. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:58:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:58:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150419.223015.3015.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150419.223015.3015.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150428165812.GF8805@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 02:30:15AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : But then, as I was reviewing this post, my mind turned to the Tanur : Shel Achnai. R' Eliezer had a minority view, and R' Yehoshua was in : the majority. I've got to believe that both views were firmly grounded; : this machlokes was surely just as L'Shem Shamayim as any between Hillel : and Shammai. I'd *like* to say that Klapei Shmaya, both views were Truth. And if not, how would we justify following the majority over Divinely revealed truth? We discussed bas qol, and why we follow the bas qol that says "vehalakhah kebeis Hillel" despite the anur shel achnai story. I listed the opinions in the Encyc Talmudit here It's not 100% accepted that the bas qol was really endorsing R' Eliezer's opinion in this particular machloqes, rather than defending his shitah in general -- "halakhah kemoso bekhol maqom", or that it was a test. Both suggested by R' Nissim gaon. Similarly one of the answers in Tosafos is that it was about R' Eliezer's kavod, and not a Divine statement to be taken literally about din. All three would imply that we would follow a bas qol over halachic process, and so they had to explain how the tanur story wasn't an example. Thus implying that what we are searching for is the truth rather than legal authority. RNG's position on the tanur shel achanai story supports RMHalbertal's theory that in the geonic era, the Retrieval theory of halakhah dominated. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:12:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:12:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] brochos from the amud (was: tefillat haderech) In-Reply-To: <20150420024354.CJVF30458.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo110> References: <20150420024354.CJVF30458.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo110> Message-ID: <20150428171200.GG8805@aishdas.org> On Sun, Apr 19, 2015 at 10:43:47PM -0400, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote: : Slight change of topic: I'm still trying to wrap my head around the : idea that we don't seem to have a chashash of a brocha l'vatalah. I : mean, you have a sh'tz up there, saying a brocho out loud -- and : he's intentionally trying to be motzi _some_ others... But only those who had in mind to be yotzei. : Shomea k'oneh : doesn't apply at all? What if you are in the shul and you're not : thinking about the issue of being yotzie, you're just thinking about : which day it is, and/or you simply have stam kavanah. No chashash : for an issur d'oraissa? RYBS says in the context of the berakhah on Hallel that because mitzvos einum tzerikhos kavanah, if you have no kavanah one way or the other, you would be yotzei. To avoid being yotzei would require having explicit kavanah not to be yotzei. He then continues that the idea of having intent not to want to do a mitzvah bothers him, and so RYBS said he says the berakhah on Hallel along with the chazan. (Which is what my father does, and what I grew up with.) I assume the same would be true here. (Although I don't recall what my father does, I say the berakhah along with the chazan.) I would have thought that interrupting with "barukh Hu uvarukh shemo" should also work. Recall that R Chaim was very against answering BHUBS to chazaras hashatz because one is being yotzei tefillat hatzibur. (Above and beyond one's own chiyuv of tefillah.) While listing my hunches, I believe that intent to say it yourself qualified as kavanah not to be yotzeir. So the default is kavanah not to be yotzei, not an absense of kavanah one way or the other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:44:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:44:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428164445.5B05B18384C@nexus.stevens.edu> At 12:24 PM 4/28/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: >Meaning - was the demand that the religious not work with the >secular the issue or was that a cover story used to mask people's >opposition to Zionism? This was an issue, and there was also opposition to Zionism. The opposition to Zionism was not masked at all. Please read http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/zion_or_zionism.pdf to see what Zionism really is according to Rav Schwab, ZT"L and others who think like him. >Or in this case, is the demand that the creation >of the state be a Kiddush HaShem in the eyes of all rabbanim a real >demand or is it simply a cover? I have never heard of "the demand that the creation of the state be a Kiddush HaShem in the eyes of all rabbanim " Who demanded this? > If the Breuer community want the state >to reflect certain values, than please, make it happen. And how do you propose that they do this? I asked you in an earlier email what the Orthodox Jews in EY and you in particular are doing to make this happen, and I received no response. > If they don't >want to make it happen or aren't willing, than the demand is (at best) >an exercise in dissimulation. Do you really believe that the Breuer's community at the time when Rav Breuer and Rav Schwab has the wherewithal to make the State reflect certain values? Even those living in EY at this time could not do this. There was (and still is) a large non-religious contingent of Jews living in EY. Do you really think that anyone can "make" them change their views or their behavior? YL YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:32:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:32:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eretz Yisrael vs Medinat Yisrael [was: The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L] Message-ID: <125cff.585c1330.42711e42@aol.com> R. Ben Waxman wrote: >Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem. >Rav Soloveitch tz"l wrote about this point in Kol Dodi Dofek and in his >drashot for the Kinot, as did Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook tz"l. RYL wrote: >> We all know that there were great Torah scholars who disagreed with >> the assertion that " the creation of the State is, in of itself, a >> Kiddush Hashem." >>>>> I will have to re-read Kol Dodi Dofek because I don't remember such a forthright quote -- "The creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." But in any case it isn't exactly an either-or question. The Medinah -- the secular socialist Russian government of Israel -- is hardly a kiddush Hashem. Indeed it arouses waves of hatred from the goyim all over the world, on a daily basis. RBW also wrote: >>....The first is from Yoma 86:A, Rashi, B'Amor Lehem: "Evil comes to chassidim and chachamim because "They desecrated My Holy name." How did they desecrate (God's name)? In those places to where they were exiled, the non-Jews say "These are the people of God" and He can't redeem them. Conclusion: God's name has been desecrated." End quote.<< The establishment of a government that is hated and vilified by the whole world is not, it would seem, a kiddush Hashem. Plus the fact that the country is under constant military threat and cannot, apparently, provide security to its inhabitants, also would not seem to be a kiddush Hashem. But I think these facts -- the constant physical attacks, the world-wide moral opprobrium -- are the cosmic result of the fact that the Medinah is determinedly secular and consciously rejects Torah as a guiding principle. HOWEVER, on the other side, RBW's Rashi quote does have a bearing on the current situation in Eretz Yisrael. There is no denying that the flourishing of Eretz Yisrael, after two thousand years of desolation, is miraculous. The continued existence of the country, despite the constant waves of physical and diplomatic attacks, is also miraculous. And the fact that all Jews can go and live in Eretz Yisrael, and that millions actually do live there, is also a huge miracle. I said there is no denying the miraculous aspects and yet I am aware that the Satmar Rebbe did deny it. He admitted that there was a supernatural aspect to Israel's recent history but ascribed the miracles to the Satan, blinding our eyes. He never joined Agudas Yisrael, the world-wide umbrella organization for all Orthodox Jews, because he was on one side and all the other gedolim in the world were on the other side. All the others rejected the ideology of secular Zionism while gratefully acknowledging chasdei Hashem in allowing the Land to be built up, allowing the Torah communities to grow and flourish, allowing millions of Jews to live in our ancient homeland. The Lubavitcher Rebbe also never joined the Agudah -- I refer not to the Israeli political party but to the world-wide umbrella organization. He had other reasons, perhaps for another time. I think he wanted Chabad to be THE world-wide organization, he did not want it to be one of many competing Orthodox groups and derachim. But he agreed with the basic ideology of the Agudah vis-a-vis the state of Israel -- the nuanced view of ohr vechoshech. And so did the Yekkes, very much so! In fact they were instrumental in founding and guiding the Agudah, for decades! Their attitude towards Israel after the founding of the Medinah and the beginning of kibbutz galuyos was very much the same as the whole rest of the Agudah -- grateful acknowledgment of the positive, hakaras hatov to the Ribono Shel Olam, opposition to the negative, working to improve the moral status of Eretz Yisrael, e.g., when it came to forced autopsies (B'H the charedim won that bitterly fought battle), giyus banos and other issues. But the Yekkes in Israel do vote, do participate in running the country, do daven at the kosel (unlike the Satmar and Neturei Karta), do thank Hashem for protecting Eretz Yisrael and daven for continued Divine protection. RYL considers himself the premier acolyte of RSRH but he and I have some fundamental disagreements about what the Hirschian legacy really is. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 11:59:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 20:59:46 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150428164445.5B05B18384C@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150428164445.5B05B18384C@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <553FD8A2.1060306@zahav.net.il> Regarding the second question, yes I did. Please see the previous emails. Regarding the first, all I can say is that it won't be done from New York. Regarding the other points, I addressed them so I won't repeat myself this round. Ben On 4/28/2015 6:44 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > And how do you propose that they do this? > > I asked you in an earlier email what the Orthodox Jews in EY and you > in particular are doing to make this happen, and I received no response. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:59:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:59:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Message-ID: <126fc1.37d9c7fc.4271247d@aol.com> From: Chana Luntz via Avodah >> As I have written before, what I find intensely frustrating about this is that RYBS's invocation of tan du appears to itself involve a form of tampering with the chazakos and by implication the denial of the perfection and truthfulness of chachmei chazal that is then claimed to be kefira. The gemora in discussing tan du is very clear - both in Yevamos 118b and Kesuvos 75a: a woman in a tan du marriage commits adultery - "kulan mezanos"! - THAT is the chazaka from Chazal regarding the nature of women. [snip] But you can't get away from the fact that Chazal set this up as a chazaka. And if you take these chazakos in the way that RYBS says to do, then there are inevitable conclusions: A Beis Din faced with what can now clearly be seen as a tan du marriage HAS to assume adultery as a consequence - that being the chazaka. [snip] Surely it is obligatory on any Rabbi who agrees to be mesader kiddushin and on any shadchanim and eidim to investigate very carefully that this marriage is not of the tan du nature? [snip] But if it is an inevitable chazaka that a woman in a tan du marriage will commit adultery, then there is only one safek in relation to a serious issur d'orisa - in which case must it not be the responsibility of all those who enable such a marriage to occur to make sure that it is not a tan du marriage and they are not enabling such adultery to take place? >>>>> There is brilliant yet convoluted logic behind this post. I hesitate to tangle with someone like R'n CL who is so erudite, yet I truly believe she has misunderstood this Gemara. Yes, a woman in a loveless marriage is much more tempted to commit adultery, given the right set of circumstances, but it is certainly not inevitable. Nor is it correct to deduce that a rav must make sure, before he marries a couple, that the woman is not entering a loveless marriage! He doesn't have to creep into her heart and mind before conducting the wedding, doesn't have to fathom the depths of her motives in marrying this man. There are so many motives, so many emotions, how could you ever fathom them all? I think "kulan mezanos" refers to all women, and it means all women can be seduced, though obviously it will be easier to seduce a woman who does not love her husband. All women potentially can be seduced. IIRC Beruria the wife of R' Meir -- and you can't claim that was a "tan duu marriage"! -- thought she was an exception to this rule about human nature, or feminine nature. And found out she was wrong! Even she, a brilliant and pious woman married to a great man, could be seduced. Without the Gemara most of us would assume that men are more likely to be unfaithful than women, and I do think that is true. I don't know how to square what we see before us -- that men cheat more than women do -- with what the Gemara says. In any case in Torah homes fidelity between husbands and wives is the norm, Baruch Hashem. All those fences -- laws of yichud, negiah, tznius and so on -- really do protect us. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 15:58:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 23:58:31 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos Message-ID: <001b01d081d6$cb2e0680$618a1380$@org.uk> Sorry, been away, and am therefore very behind in Avodah On 04/03/2015 06:57 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >> He also paskens (for EY) that one can cook kitniyot on the 7th day of >> Pesach for use on the shabbat right afterwards (ef this year). And RZS replied: >Yes, I'm surprised that anyone disagrees. It seems so obviously correct. >I know that many people don't do so, and believe it to be forbidden, >but I have never yet heard an argument for why it should be so. Well the arguments to prohibit can be found in Rav Poelim chelek 3 Orech Chaim siman 30 - he brings two: one based on the prohibition of a person who is fasting on yom tov to cook for others - as per the Rema in Shulchan Aruch Orech Chaim siman 527 si'if 20 as explained by the Magen Avraham there and an additional reason added by the Magen Avraham there in si'if katan 22. The Ben Ish Chai in Rav Poelim was discussing whether a person whose custom (in Bagdad) was not to eat rice on Pesach could cook rice for those who do. He rejected the first rationale provided by the Magen Avraham) as being applicable to this case, but accepted the second reason as applicable (although he also cites a number of achronim who accept the first reason as a reason to prohibit)- and therefore held that those who had the custom of treating rice as assur on pesach could not cook rice for those who had the custom of eating rice on yom tov of Pesach for so long as they had this custom of treating rice as assur (although he held that those who had this custom not to eat rice in Bagdad could do hatarat nedarim and be able to eat, and hence cook, rice on pesach so as to solve the problem). >> This is because some sefardi could come over for a visit and so the >> kitniyot are not mukza . >The main issue would surely not be muktzeh, but cooking on yomtov. >But the answer is the same: the hypothetical horde of hungry guests who >might descend on one ten minutes before sunset on Friday, and for whom >one is, in principle, cooking, might very well be sefardim. Yes, but according to the position of the Rav Poelim, Askenazim can never, when cooking for Sephardim on pesach, cook them dishes that they, the Ashkenazim, cannot eat, hence hoeil does not apply. The same ought presumably to apply to gebrochts according to the Ben Ish Chai - if you can't eat it on shvii shel pesach, you can't cook it for others, including hungry guests, and so cannot effectively cook it for shabbas based on hoeil, your shabbas food would have to consist of something else you could eat on shvii shel pesach. >Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 11:03:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Toby Katz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 14:03:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <127300.4be2c63a.42712586@aol.com> In a message dated 4/28/2015 12:45:47 P.M. EDT, micha at aishdas.org writes: > Tefilas haDerekh is never said besheim umalkhus. You are correct, I should have caught that myself. > Also, when speaking about berakhah vs tefillah, Tefillas haDerekh > refers to itself as a tefillah. And notice also the chasimah is about > hearing the baqashah, not about the shemirah we're requesting itself. zsh:1: command not found: Fmt --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 11:34:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 14:34:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: <127300.4be2c63a.42712586@aol.com> References: <127300.4be2c63a.42712586@aol.com> Message-ID: <20150428183420.GA25835@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 02:03:50PM -0400, T613K at aol.com wrote: : >> Also, when speaking about berakhah vs tefillah, Tefillas haDerekh refers : to itself as a tefillah. And notice also the chasimah is about hearing : the baqashah, not about the shemirah we're requesting itself.<< : : That doesn't answer the question of whether it is appropriate to recite : Tefillas HaDerech during a blinding rainstorm on the highway in your own city, : which was my question. It doesn't fully answer your question, but it does point a bit toward saying it. After all, it turns out that the only berakhah is about Hashem hearing baqashos. The body of the tefillah is only a formalized equivalent to saying "Please G-d, just get me home safe, healthy and in one piece!" or some other spontaneous cry for help. So, if you're scared on the road, tefillah is appropriate. Why would thanking G-d for listening to such tefillos depend on rules about travel? Add to that the fact that it's only half a berakhah, which indicates that it's shevach (like Shomeia Tefillah in Shemoneh Esrei), as another small indicator in favor of saying it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 12:58:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 15:58:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <001901d080e1$7d6fcbe0$784f63a0$@org.uk> References: <001901d080e1$7d6fcbe0$784f63a0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <20150428195810.GC25835@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 12:05:17PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: [RAM:] : > At any rate, one can agree or disagree about : > whether this assertion is true, and even among those who agree with : > it, there might be discussion of exactly which chazakos are unchanging : > and which are variable. Still, his point is that there are indeed some : > UNchanging aspects. : I would add an observation that individual exceptions may exist : empirically but are ignored halachically This is the classic case of affirming a chazaqah (or rov) when there is ika rei'usa. No? On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 12:58:34PM +0100, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: : The gemora in discussing tan du is very clear - both in Yevamos 118b and : Kesuvos 75a: a woman in a tan du marriage commits adultery - "kulan : mezanos"! - THAT is the chazaka from Chazal regarding the nature of women. : : Now this could mean: (a) the sort of woman who is prepared to enter a tan : du marriage is prepared to and will commit adultery; or : (b) all women will take a tan du marriage : (RYBS), but if they find themselves in a tan du marriage - the existential : loneliness that RYBS identifies as being the particular province of women : will also, according to Chazal, inevitably drive them to adultery; : But you can't get away from the fact that Chazal set this up as a chazaka. As the gemara was taught to me, what they set up as a chazaqah was pretty much as RYBS describes it. Women feel the loneliness of singlehood more. The flow of the sugya in the two gemaras are quite similar, from the point where Reish Laqish is quoted staying "tav lemeisiv" onward. RL, illustrated with meshalim by Abayei, R' Papa, and R' Ashi, followed by a tana saying that they all are mezanos and then blame their husbands. So, it would seem that tav lemeisiv is about a desire to be married. This has nothing to do with romance or eros, since we are told that a woman who is just married so s not to be like a widow (milemeisiv armelu) do tend to end up cheating. But tav lemeisiv isn't about the affairs, it's about (Yevamos) why hamezakeh gett le'ishto in the middle is not valid. Because it's not a pure zekhus for her, you cannot say zakhin le'adam shelo befanav (or befanehah, as the case may be). There is nothing about "being driven to" adultery by the loneliness, but by having tav lemeisiv alone satisfied by her marriage. Perhaps the reverse of your formulation. (I think the idea that tav lemeisiv means women are more likely to be sexually lonely would be really hard to support, even in a culture where husbands, not wives, have a chiyuv onah.) Or (Kesuvos) it is used (in a complex case I'm too lazy to spell out) why a man might wish not to be married, lest he later be prohibited to her relatives, but in the flipside case, we do not assume the same of the woman. The bit about mezanos vetolos beba'aleihen is not the basis for any halakhos. I have no reason to believe it's a chazaqah. Tangentially... On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 07:27:43PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Another challenge is how to deal with recent "Chachmei Hamesorah" : who don't seem to meet the perfection definition. I have two suggestions that work for me: 1- Make a list of current chakhmei hamesorah that don't pose such a challenge for you. Once you start, you'll likely find it's a longwer list than you had thought. Focus on them, and ignore the rest, no matter how popular as gedolim they may be. 2- Separate the current rabbinate from one's own ties to the mesorah with a project like Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:01:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 23:01:17 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) Message-ID: <553FF51D.6070804@zahav.net.il> Putting the question of Hallel aside, I don't understand the line below. I looked through the Beit Yosef OH 131 where he discusses the days on which Tachanun isn't said. The BY does not list all the days that we skip (like Purim Qatan or Pesach Sheni). These came later. So when did this idea (that we can't change when Tachanun is said or not said) start? Ben On 4/28/2015 12:31 PM, Prof. Levine via Areivim wrote: > Shemone Esrei is followed > by Chazaras Hashatz, which is followed by Tachanun, and then followed > by Ashrei and U'va' Letzion--and we do not have the right or > privilege of changing that, he opined. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:28:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:28:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early Message-ID: The statement was made that "Lighting two candles is a recent frumkeit, or yhiruth, that started among German Jews and is less than 900 years old.." Isn't it also yohara to stand in judgment of a minhag mentioned in the Tur and Shulchan Aruch and observed virtually without exception by klal Yisraeil? EMT From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 13:50:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 16:50:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eretz Yisrael vs Medinat Yisrael [was: The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L] In-Reply-To: <125cff.585c1330.42711e42@aol.com> References: <125cff.585c1330.42711e42@aol.com> Message-ID: <553FF29D.4030208@sero.name> On 04/28/2015 01:32 PM, via Avodah wrote: > The Lubavitcher Rebbe also never joined the Agudah -- I refer not to > the Israeli political party but to the world-wide umbrella > organization. He had other reasons, perhaps for another time. I > think he wanted Chabad to be THE world-wide organization, he did not > want it to be one of many competing Orthodox groups and derachim. The Lubavitcher Rebbe at the time the Agudah was founded was the Rashab, who in matters of askonus generally took his lead from R Chaim Brisker. Lubavitch was a member of the Agudah's precursor, Machzikei Hadas, but when MH merged with the Yekkes to form the Agudah, R Chaim put 18 conditions on his participation, and since they weren't satisfied both Brisk and Lubavitch stayed out. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:22:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 17:22:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Peshat and Drash (Was: Re: Meshech Chochmah on Kedushah) In-Reply-To: <20150428162406.GB8805@aishdas.org> References: <54FC792A.4080400@gmail.com> <20150324195248.GD29350@aishdas.org> <5518BD49.3000508@gmail.com> <20150428162406.GB8805@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <553FFA2E.6000809@gmail.com> On 4/28/2015 12:24 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > I thought it was well accepted that the Rambam's position in HLMS > is inconsistent, that he mentions numberous machloqesin in dinim > he himself labeled HLMS.... Chavor Ya'ir teshuvah 192...examples are numerous. > > Possible resolutions: > > - No machloqesin in the essence of the matter, but there can be in > details. (the CY's conclusion.) I don't think that is the Chavos Yair's conclusion. He leaves the matter bewildered, as Rambam appears incomprehensible and self-contradictory. > - Im halakhah hi neqabel -- no machloqesin in something both sides agree > are HLMS. With the modification of the word "against" in place of the word ''in,'' this is my conclusion, and that of the Maharatz Chayos. The Rambam is addressing the Karaite argument that even Chazal did not really consider the laws they called "payrushim mekuballim" and HLMS (the latter being payrushim mekuballim that lack indications planted in the Torah) to have literally come from Moshe Rabbeynu. That's why, the Karaites argued, Chazal felt free to dispute them. The Rambam explains that Chazal never disputed laws that made it to them from Sinai. The disputes are over issues ''branching out'' from them. Thus, '' There is no machlokess against any payrush that is known to have come from Sinai.'' This understanding fits very well in the Rambam's words, in the context of which he was talking and the issues he confronted; and eliminates what would certainly be a mess of the self-contradictions and open contradictions from the Talmud that the CY lists. Another concern raised by the CY is the fact that the Rambam seems inconsistent between the Mishneh Torah and his list in the hakdama to his Mishneh commentary in that some laws he labels as HLMS in one work he does not in other. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:28:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 17:28:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Renewal Role of Sarah Schenirer Message-ID: <20150428212818.DEBA1182F93@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/njwrn2g There was a major difference, however, between the Bais Yaacov of Williamsburg and the Bais Yaacov of Poland in pre-war Europe. The Bais Yaacov movement in Poland emphasized the universal Torah teachings of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, while the Bais Yaacov of Williamsburg did not give Rabbi Hirsch's teachings the same emphasis. Why were Rabbi Hirsch's teachings regarding the Torah's universal vision no longer the main focus? Most of the teachers and students at the American Bais Yaakov were Holocaust survivors who felt a need to turn inward after experiencing the hatred of the Gentiles around them and the horrors of the Holocaust. They knew that most of the "humanistic" intellectuals and artists of Germany actively supported the brutal persecution of the Jewish people. They also knew that most of the "enlightened" countries closed their doors to Jews who were trying to escape the Holocaust. In addition, they knew that most of the Christian religious leaders of Europe did not protest the organized murder of millions of Jewish men, women, and children; moreover, many Christians in the countries occupied by the Germans actively assisted the Germans in rounding up the Jews for the death camps. In fact, a number of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust who returned to Poland after the war were murdered in Polish pogroms! It is understandable that these survivors felt the need to first heal themselves before worrying about the world which had abandoned their suffering people. In addition, these survivors did not have the strong attraction to secular western culture which an earlier generation of Bais Yaakov students had once experienced, and their feelings are expressed in the following memoir of Dr. Judith Grunfeld: "Almost seventy years have passed since, and we have today most unfortunately an easy enough means of demonstrating that all cultures which we then venerated have revealed themselves to be nothing but a flimsy veneer covering over diabolical inhumanity. European humanitarian ideas so prevalent then, so much on the tip of everyone's tongue, preached by leading university representatives, have been proven utterly hollow. For they did not succeed in preventing, and indeed could be said to be frequently instrumental in strirring up the raging, terrible fire of man's inhumanity to man." ("Rebbitzen Grunfeld" by Miriam Dansky, p. 72) Nevertheless, our sages teach that Torah - the Divine wisdom - is the blueprint of creation, and that the Creator looked into the Torah when He created the world (Genesis Rabbah 1:1). If our Creator looked into the Torah and created the world, then when we look into the Torah we can rediscover this world. In addition, the Torah reveals that we have the potential to become holy vessels with the spiritual power to transform and elevate the world; thus, no matter how much we turn inward, the study of Torah reminds us that we must eventually turn outward. This may be one of the reasons why a growing number of Torah-committed Jews in our generation are rediscovering the writings of Rabbi Hirsch, as a major theme of his teachings is the universal goal of the Torah path. The Bais Yaacov High School of Baltimore, under the leadership of its principal, Rabbi Binyamin Steinberg, gave renewed emphasis to the universal vision of the Torah. Rabbi Steinberg himself was a Holocaust survivor, and in one of his talks to his students about respect for other peoples, he reminded them of the Compassionate One's promise to Abraham that "through you all the families of the earth will be blessed" (Genesis 12:3). The following is an excerpt from his talk: "All the families of the earth," he declared. 'Who cares about all the families of the earth?' you ask. Nevertheless, that's what the Torah says...The people of Israel will be a blessing for all the families of the earth. That means the Albanians, the Greeks, the Chinese, the Indonesians, the African Americans - all the families of the earth. That's what it says in my Torah! " (A Matter of Principal - a biography of Rabbi Binyamin Steinberg by Hanoch Teller). Before we can become a blessing to others, however, we first need to turn inward in order to develop our unique strengths. As Sarah Schneirer realized, we first have to renew ourselves before we can renew the world. As the Prophet Isaiah proclaimed to our people: "O House of Jacob: Come, let us walk by the light of Hashem! " (Isaiah 2:5) See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:59:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 22:59:29 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <002d01d081fe$99c5fcb0$cd51f610$@org.uk> RMB writes: >As the gemara was taught to me, what they set up as a chazaqah was >pretty much as RYBS describes it. Women feel the loneliness of singlehood >more. >The flow of the sugya in the two gemaras are quite similar, from the >point where Reish Laqish is quoted staying "tav lemeisiv" onward. RL, >illustrated with meshalim by Abayei, R' Papa, and R' Ashi, followed by >a tana saying that they all are mezanos and then blame their husbands. >So, it would seem that tav lemeisiv is about a desire to be married. >This has nothing to do with romance or eros, since we are told that a >woman who is just married so s not to be like a widow (milemeisiv >armelu) do tend to end up cheating. >But tav lemeisiv isn't about the affairs, I agree that tav lemeisiv is not brought initially to refer to the issue of affairs, but rather indeed about a desire to be married which is then brought to make a halachic point within another context (eg maezakeh get l'eishto) - but once the gemora is discussing tav lemeisiv marriages - it then takes the time out, twice, to explain what these marriages mean. And it explains, after going through the flow of Abaye etc, that these marriages mean inevitable adultery. Ie according the gemora a tav l'meisiv marriage = adultery. Now, that means, the more tav l'meisiv marriages there are, the more adultery there is. So the more you stress that the world is full of tav l'meisiv marriages, the more you are saying that the world is full of Bnos Yisrael committing adultery. That tav l'meisiv marriage results in adultery is clearly part and parcel of the definition of what a tav l'meisiv marriage is - one where a woman will prefer to be married than to be alone. And it is not a disputed statement, it is a concluding statement rounding up the discussion of what a tav l'meisiv marriage is. In order to break the equation, you have to say that Chazal didn't really mean what they said, or that they were talking about their time and place, but women today are different - but that means denying the truthfulness and accuracy of Chazal's statements (or understanding them differently) in exactly the way that RYBS objects to as kefira. You can't say that a woman prefers to be married than to be alone is a universal truth because it was stated by Chazal, and simultaneously that women in tav lemeisiv marriages commit adultery is not a universal truth, as they are bound up in the same discussion and you are picking and choosing your Chazalic statements - this one I like, this one I don't, and not just any statement, but the concluding statement rounding up the discussion defining the concept. .... >The bit about mezanos vetolos beba'aleihen is not the basis for any >halakhos. I have no reason to believe it's a chazaqah. So why did Chazal say it? For the fun of casting aspersions on Bnos Yisrael? Twice? In the context of a halachic discussion? If this was any other discussion, would anybody dream of suggesting that when Chazal said that something inevitably happened in the context of a halachic discussion they were not, at the very least, postulating a chazaka (albeit perhaps a rebuttable one) and possibly something even stronger? One might say - well nature has changed (eg kol treifos), or one might say - we have to treat something as halachically following Chazal's statement, even if we know or suspect the metzius is different (hence my line about a Beis Din being required to treat a tav l'meisiv marriage as one where adultery has been committed, and those enabling such a marriage being prohibited from so doing based on lifnei iver). That is the way we generally treat Chazalic statements of this nature. In this case, of course, we have another option, if tav l'meisiv marriages themselves do not occur very often, then we do not necessarily have to worry about, as common, the adultery which is part and parcel of their definition. But if they are in fact common and inevitable where the husband is not as a matter of fact suitable for the wife, then I cannot see how you can claim that this is not a significant societal and halachic concern. Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 15:14:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 18:14:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <002d01d081fe$99c5fcb0$cd51f610$@org.uk> References: <002d01d081fe$99c5fcb0$cd51f610$@org.uk> Message-ID: <20150428221418.GF11656@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 10:59:29PM +0100, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: :> The bit about mezanos vetolos beba'aleihen is not the basis for any :> halakhos. I have no reason to believe it's a chazaqah. : : So why did Chazal say it? For the fun of casting aspersions on Bnos : Yisrael? Twice? In the context of a halachic discussion? Well, it's really one conversation quoted twice. But it emphasizes the point. Tav lemeisiv is considered a reason why a gett would not be zakhin le'adam shelo befanav, even though the marriage would too likely lead to sin. The desire not to be husbandless, even by an insufficient husband, is being described as very profound. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 01:56:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 11:56:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith Message-ID: <> the Euclidean postulates are based on everyone's daily experience. In fact we know they are not true in other circumstances (eg on a globe) The injustice of oppression is more debatable. Surely ISIS believes that destroying ancient culture and cutting off heads of nonbelievers is a "mitzvah" As such the belief in a creator is obvious to one with a religious upbringing. For years scientists (and ancient philosophers) believed in an infinitely old world. Even today some scientists are attemping to justify a big bang without a creator (infinite big bangs , other universes etc.). The whole idea of axioms/postulates are that they are not provable. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 06:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 09:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150429135311.GA11332@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 11:56:31AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : the Euclidean postulates are based on everyone's daily experience... I picked the one about parallel lines because no one ever experienced infinitely long parallel lines. They are based on imagining an extrapolation from experience. : we know they are not true in other circumstances (eg on a globe) Thus my parenthetic remarks about flat space. It also doesn't work in Einsteinian Spacetime, as space is no longer believed to be flat. ... : As such the belief in a creator is obvious to one with a religious : upbringing. For years scientists (and ancient philosophers) believed in an : infinitely old world. Even today some scientists are attemping to justify a : big bang without a creator (infinite big bangs , other universes etc.). : : The whole idea of axioms/postulates are that they are not provable. My point exactly -- there are third options between logical proofs and leaps of faith. Logical proofs are only one way to justify belief. The Kuzari points to tradition, which may boil down to reliabilism. (Something you learned from a source that has a track record of being reliable.) I was saying that REW, like R' Aqiva, appealed to the self-evident nature of the universe having a Designer. Closer to the way we accept our postulates than a proof. And that this is so obvious look around at what was created, that belief is the default state for humans. And then REW continues that it takes an act of will to accept a counter-proof despite the self-evidence. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 25th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Netzach: When is domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control too extreme? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 02:02:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 10:02:27 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torahand Kabalas Ol Malchus In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000401d0825b$37ef5150$a7cdf3f0$@org.uk> RTK writes: > I think "kulan mezanos" refers to all women, and it means all women can > be seduced, You may be able to derive, from other contexts, that all women can be seduced - but that is not what is being discussed in the specific gemorros referred to. Our gemora is discussing what happens specifically in tav l'meisiv marriages - it gives examples of such marriages, and then concludes that such marriages result in adultery (and consequent hidden mamzerim). There is just no way of reading what you want to read into this piece > Yes, a woman in a loveless marriage is much more tempted to commit > adultery, given the right set of circumstances, but >it is certainly not inevitable. Nor is it correct to deduce that a rav must >make sure, before he marries a couple, that the woman is not entering a >loveless marriage! He doesn't have to creep into her heart and mind before >conducting the wedding, doesn't have to fathom the depths of her motives in >marrying this man. There are so many motives, so many emotions, how could >you ever fathom them all? Remember, none of what I have described is necessarily a consequence of these gemoros unless you read the gemora with the chiddush of RYBS: that inherent in the existential condition of womankind is that if a woman is offered only an inappropriate marriage she will take it because she cannot bear not to be married. If you understand it merely that there are and have been women, in some times and places, who when offered an inappropriate marriage, will sometimes take it because she cannot bear not to be married, but in other circumstances and times and places there are women who would refuse such a marriage - you have no idea what you are faced with in any given circumstance. And it is of course possible that she knows what she is doing and has seen what you cannot see, meaning that in fact the marriage will indeed be a good one. And it would be, as you describe, inappropriate to creep into her heart and try and fathom what is going on there. But according to RYBS we know what is going on there, in the woman's heart - we know it from RYBS's understanding of the pasuk in Breishis (one certainly does not have to understand the pasuk in Breishis the way RYBS does, but he is darshaning a pasuk to tell us about the human condition). A woman wants to be married above all else because she cannot bear to be alone, she is not capable of making an assessment that any given marriage, without alternative, may not be the best thing. She is never capable of that, according to RYBS's understanding of Chazal, this being an existential condition of womankind. In which case what happens if an outsider is capable of assessing the reality of the marriage in question as being one where the parties are fundamentally incompatible? Does he have an obligation to try and stop the marriage given that the woman is incapable of protecting herself? Well one might say - tough luck, it is not an outsider's job, any more than it is an outsider's job to protect others from a bad bargain in business. But that is where this further statement of the gemora comes in. A marriage which the woman has only entered into because she cannot existentially bear to be unmarried is one with the consequence that such marriage will not in fact be enough for her and she will commit adultery and produce mamzerim who are attributed incorrectly to the husband. So if the outsider does not intervene, he is not just failing to protect the woman from herself, he is failing to protect society from inherent danger. That raises the stakes considerably, and would seem to mean that outsiders (such as Rabbaim, shadchanim etc) do need to be vigilant, and not enable such marriages, so long as what RYBS says is true, in order to protect our society. Now I don't think we need a Rav to check a marriage out, before he marries a couple, to try and determine it is not a tav l'meisiv marriage. But that is because I think it relatively rare, in our society, that a woman will take a loveless marriage merely because she cannot bear to be alone (and I certainly do not think it is a irrebuttable presumption as per RYBS. Nor, as Rav Lichtenstein says, does the halacha over the centuries take this as an irrebuttable presumption despite RYBS's vehemence). And we don't have spend our lives worrying about uncommon cases even if we acknowledge that such cases may exist (and even if, in hindsight, if a marriage turns out to be unquestionably inappropriate, we might need to consider whether perhaps the woman in question *might* have been willing to go through with it anyway). But if RYBS were right and it is indeed a fundamental existential part of a woman's nature, unchanging throughout time and not infrequently occurring, to take whatever marriage is on offer, then we as a society do need such safeguards, because of the potential consequences, and if there is any hint that in fact this might be a tav l'meisiv marriage, since the woman is not able, according to RYBS, to protect herself from it, the Rav/shadchan etc would seem to have the obligation to investigate and if in doubt, to protect our society by preventing the marriage. >Toby Katz >t613k at aol.com Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 04:37:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 11:37:18 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: <20150429.073718.25006.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> I wrote: : But then, as I was reviewing this post, my mind turned to the Tanur : Shel Achnai. R' Eliezer had a minority view, and R' Yehoshua was in : the majority. I've got to believe that both views were firmly grounded; : this machlokes was surely just as L'Shem Shamayim as any between Hillel : and Shammai. I'd *like* to say that Klapei Shmaya, both views were Truth. R' Micha Berger responded: > We discussed bas qol, and why we follow the bas qol that says > "vehalakhah kebeis Hillel" despite the anur shel achnai story. I > listed the opinions in the Encyc Talmudit here > > > It's not 100% accepted that the bas qol was really endorsing R' > Eliezer's opinion in this particular machloqes, rather than > defending his shitah in general -- "halakhah kemoso bekhol maqom", > or that it was a test. ... I apologize for not being clear enough. I was not refering to the Bas Kol part of the story. Rather, I was referring to the end of the story, when Eliyahu Hanavi was asked for Hashem's take on the incident, and he quoted Hashem as laughing, "Nitzchuni banai!" Regardless of how the Bas Kol might be interpreted, is there any way to understand "Nitzchuni banai!" other than Hashem personally siding with one of the litigants, and losing? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540c29a485cf429a1a7cst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 04:46:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 11:46:38 GMT Subject: [Avodah] brochos from the amud (was: tefillat haderech) Message-ID: <20150429.074638.25006.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > RYBS ... then continues that the idea of having intent not > to want to do a mitzvah bothers him, and so RYBS said he > says the berakhah on Hallel along with the chazan. (Which > is what my father does, and what I grew up with.) Data point: Although I have not noticed people doing this for the bracha on Hallel, this IS the common practice for the Shehecheyanu at Kol Nidre, at least according to the ArtScroll and Koren machzorim. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540c4bfde4b244bf3c8cst03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 02:53:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 09:53:19 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) Message-ID: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Reposted from Hakhel: > ... Rav Soloveitchik, obviously upset, instead gave Shiur > on the importance of keeping the Tzuras HaTefillah intact. > Shemone Esrei is followed by Chazaras Hashatz, which is > followed by Tachanun, and then followed by Ashrei and U'va' > Letzion--and we do not have the right or privilege of > changing that, he opined. ... R' Ben Waxman asked: > I looked through the Beit Yosef OH 131 where he discusses > the days on which Tachanun isn't said. The BY does not > list all the days that we skip (like Purim Qatan or Pesach > Sheni). These came later. > > So when did this idea (that we can't change when Tachanun > is said or not said) start? I'm not sure if you are asking the correct question. You presume there was a time when Tachanun was *said* on Purim Katan, and then Tachanun was *omitted* on Purim Katan. I see another possibility, but I must point out that this idea stems from my total ignorance of the History Of Tachanun. Perhaps, since the day when Tachanun first began, the list of days has never changed. What did happen (perhaps) is that some places said it on Purim Katan, and some places did not. Over time, the minhag of skipping it spread to more and more places, but that's somewhat different than if a community would suddenly decide that they had a new appreciation for the significance of the day, and hence wanted to stop saying Tachanun. But either way, I'm not sure of the exact nature of RYBS's objection. It is one thing for a community to change its mind about the significance of the day (as in RMB's example of Purim Katan), and quite another for the day itself to acquire a new significance - as in the example of Yom Haatzma'ut. Shulchan Aruch already establishes the ability for a community to establish holidays, and this has been done many times. A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS insist that they say Tachanun on such days? Thus, I am drawn to conclude that RYBS must not be taken as too absolutist. He cannot have meant that the current list of Tachanun days must remain enshrined in stone forever. I beleive that he must have meant that the question of saying Tachanun on Yom Haatzma'ut is a serious one, to be dealt with seriously by the poskim and leaders of the community. Alas, I personally have seen many cases of where it is decided by those who attend the minyan, on a purely emotional basis, with no thought to the halachos involved, and with no consultation with the LOR. On the other hand, among the many tasks the LOR must deal with, is deciding when he should or should not get involved with the tzibur's choices. Although it does not address Tachanun, I would like to close with a reference to The Rav's opinions about a different tefilah which he "opposed, on halachic grounds". R' Mike Gerver wrote on Mail Jewish (http://www.ottmall.com/mj_ht_arch/v38/mj_v38i49.html) in January 2003: > (This is a continuation of my previous e-mail summarizing > the talk given on "The Rav and Medinat Yisrael" by Rabbi > J. J. Shachter on motzei shabbat, Jan. 25, at Lechu > Neranana in Raanana.) > ... ... ... > Rabbi Shachter quoted Rabbi Walter Wurzberger zt"l as > saying that the Rav's attitude toward Israel was > completely opposed to messianism, to the idea that the > founding of the State was an initial step to the geula > [final redemption]. Thus the Rav did not approve of Gush > Emunim. He even opposed, on halachic grounds, saying the > tefillah for the State of Israel in shul on Shabbat > morning, which only speaks of the State as "reishit > tzmichat geulateinu" [the beginning of the sprouting of > our redemption]. Rabbi Shachter, knowing this, assumed > that the tefillah for the State of Israel would not be > said at the Shabbat morning minyan held at Maimonides > School, a minyan that the Rav started in 1962, and which > generally did things according to his minhag. When Rabbi > Shachter was appointed to his position as director of the > Soloveitchik Institute a couple of years ago, and took > over as rabbi of the Maimonides School Shabbat minyan, he > was surprised to find that they were saying the tefillah > for the State of Israel. He asked someone why, and the > answer was interesting. One Shabbat morning, when the Rav > was still alive and in good health, someone started saying > the tefillah for the State of Israel. The Rav turned to > someone next to him and said {Rabbi Shachter imitated the > Rav's accent) "You would have thought they would have > asked me!" That was all. He didn't make any attempt to > stop them from saying the tefillah for the State of Israel, > and didn't think it was his place to ask the congregation > not to say it if they wanted to. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540aa3d6d7282a3d2b95st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 07:23:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 14:23:25 GMT Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith Message-ID: <20150429.102325.12106.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > I picked the one about parallel lines because no one ever > experienced infinitely long parallel lines. They are based > on imagining an extrapolation from experience. Parallel lines are not provable, but it's not because they are based on experience. Rather, they are based on definition. Find a pair of parallel lines that DO meet (such as on a sphere) and we'll simply say, "What I really meant was parallel lines on a *flat* surface." See more at "No true Scotsman". My choice for something which is unprovable because it is based on personal experience is, "Is there someone whom you love? Prove it to me." Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540e9944d22f699426abst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 12:11:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 15:11:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) In-Reply-To: <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> References: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <20150429191153.GG2666@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 08:53:00PM +0200, Ben Waxman wrote: :> #2 A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate :> the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS :> insist that they say Tachanun on such days? : I had the same question. I bet he said tachanun on the Gra's or R' Chaim's (Volozhin or Brisk) yahrzeit, etc... For people who are seeking his pesaq, it's very likely he would inist on Tachanun on days like that. But I think he would refuse to pasqen for them. Implied in your question is that it's a rav's job to comment and rank other derakhim, an idea RYBS did not share. He even limited his own right to 2nd guess a talmid serving as moreh de'asra. (Stories differ as to how much he insisted on such autonomy of the LOR, depending on which student.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 25th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Netzach: When is domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control too extreme? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 11:53:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 20:53:00 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) In-Reply-To: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> On 4/29/2015 11:53 AM, Kenneth Miller wrote: > #1 Perhaps, since the day when Tachanun first began, the list of days > has never changed. What did happen (perhaps) is that some places said it > on Purim Katan, and some places did not. Over time, the minhag of > skipping it spread to more and more places, but that's somewhat > different than if a community would suddenly decide that they had a new > appreciation for the significance of the day, and hence wanted to stop > saying Tachanun. I don't think so. The Rambam, Hilchot Tefila 5:15 lists the days that one doesn't say Tachanun (or nifilat ah'payim in his words) and the list is much more restricted than our list (Shabbat, Chaggim, Rosh Chodesh, Chanukka, Purim, and the Mincha before them). He writes that this is the minhag b'kol yisrael. I am not a Rambam expert so I don't know what to make of those three words (minhag, b'kol yisrael). If it is a minhag does that mean that it can change? What is b'kol yisrael (I realize that at the time of the Rambam, Ashkenaz was the middle of nowhere)? But it would seem from the Rambam that at his time, the Jewish world didn't skip those other days. > #2 A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate > the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS insist > that they say Tachanun on such days? I had the same question. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 12:25:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 15:25:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) In-Reply-To: <20150429191153.GG2666@aishdas.org> References: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> <20150429191153.GG2666@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55413040.4080903@sero.name> On 04/29/2015 03:11 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 08:53:00PM +0200, Ben Waxman wrote: > :> #2 A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate > :> the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS > :> insist that they say Tachanun on such days? > > : I had the same question. > > I bet he said tachanun on the Gra's or R' Chaim's (Volozhin or Brisk) > yahrzeit, etc... For people who are seeking his pesaq, it's very likely > he would inist on Tachanun on days like that. Of course he said tachanun on their yortzeits, why wouldn't he? The whole concept of turning a yortzeit into a holiday wasn't native to his world. The question is what he would do on a day they had been saved from some danger, and had observed as a private yomtov, or on a day that his community had adopted as a local "purim" to commemorate being saved from danger, as was a common practise among Jewish communities. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 30 01:53:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 30 Apr 2015 04:53:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Netziv, Reading Newspapers on Shabbos & Censorship (Part Two) Message-ID: <20150430085311.F372F183218@nexus.stevens.edu> Please see the article at http://tinyurl.com/oqujmba From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 1 10:09:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 1 May 2015 13:09:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] kol isha In-Reply-To: <842c75958dedf20875dfdece45b65e31@aishdas.org> References: <842c75958dedf20875dfdece45b65e31@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150501170943.GA13995@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 30, 2015 at 5:54pm EDT, R Sholom Simon replied to me on Areivim :> The fact that some ... Jews seem to think the gemara :> didn't realy mean it is something the ... community should have a :> cheshbon hanfesh about. : Gemara? Don't the ge'onim take the gemara to : mean that kol isha is a problem during krias sh'ema? (Which is, after : all, the context of its appearance in Berachos). : (Granted, halacha has : gone much further since then, but you were focused on the gemara) You're thinking of Berakhos 24a, where the gemara concludes that R' Yitchaq's tefach be'ishah ervah is to even include one's own wife during qeri'as Shama. (We knew about other women not during qeri'as shema from R' Sheishes.) And then R' Chisda continues with shoq be'ishah, Shemu'el says qol be'ishah ervah and R Sheishes adds sei'ar be'ishah. >From which one may conclude that all of them are in the same context as R' Yitchaq. R' Hai Gaon (Otar haGeonim Berakhos, peirushin #102), R Yehudai Gaon (acc. to the Yeriem 392), the Behag (1:3). the Eshkol (vol 1, pg 15), the Rivra (Berakhos ad loc) and his father (?), Rabbeinu Yonah (17a), the Shitah meQubetzes (ad loc), only speak of this rule WRT qeri'as shema. Interestlingly, one might also have concluded that all of them were about eishes ish, for the same reason that sei'ar be'ishah is only about eishes ish, but I don't think anyone does understand the gemara that way. But there is also Qiddushin 70a, where R' Yehudah refuses to relay regards from R Nachman to Yala (Mrs Nachman) citing Shemu'el's qol be'ishah ervah. It was this gemara I was remembering (due to recently re-encountering it). Pisqei haRid (Berakhos p' 3), Ri haChasid (Berakhos ad loc), Tosafos haRosh (ad loc) and the Rosh (Berakhos 3:37), say the rule is in general. The Rambam has qol be'ishah ervah in Isurei Bi'ah (21:2), not Hil' QS. Similarly the Tur has nothing about it in QS, but has it in EhE 21. (But then, since his father [the Rosh] and the Rambam do the same, that's no surprise.) And from there -- the Rif is silent, the Rambam and the Rosh agree it's in general -- the SA conforms to his rules and prohibits in general. I think it's a machloqes whether we hold like Shemu'el, who was indeed oly talking about Shema (but not only married women) or like R' Yehudah's extrapolation from Shemu'el. Al pi din, we do hold like the gemara in Qidushin. But it's not as much of a given as I had thought when writing. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 27th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in relationship? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 2 12:29:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 02 May 2015 21:29:39 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Kook on Sports Message-ID: <554525A3.2060408@zahav.net.il> He most certainly did! http://www.yeshiva.org.il/midrash/4234 The article is an examination of Rav Kook's writing on the subject. RK very much supported exercise and sport, and of course he opposed breaking Shabbat to play football (soccer). One quote/translation (mine): Exercise . . . .improves the spiritual strength of the greatest tzaddiqim, those involved in the Unification of God's name, including bringing the Light of God into the world, and no revelation of Light can happen without all the required components. Ben On 5/1/2015 3:36 AM, via Areivim wrote: > and I wonder if it is true that Rav Kook ascribed positive value to sports. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 3 03:01:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 3 May 2015 13:01:40 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Michael Avraham Message-ID: After another shiur with R Michael Avraham (RMA) I wish to clear up some of my previous posts. Apologies for repeating some material but I wish to make it self contained. 1) With regard to Pluaralism, Monism and Harmonism these are typologies. As with any typology real people are combinations and pure members of these groups. Avi Sagi has a book on the topic with listing on many reabbis on each side of the topic. Pluralism means that one accepts ALL opinions as true and legitimate. There is no one single truth Certainly as long as it doesn't harm someone else. RMA pointed out that pure pluralism is not consistent as it would mean accepting monism as also a legitimate truth Nevertheless it is popular in some circles 2) Monism says there is only one truth. I accept that one truth based on the normal rules of halacha, eg majority, chazakah etc. Nothing is ever known with 100% certainty both that is irrelevant. 2b) accepting monism (savlanut in Hebrew) . Though there is only one truth we accommodate those within a certain radius of the real truth even though they are wrong Normally we view pluralism as being more "mekil" than monism. However he considered the case of giving someone food that I consider kosher and he doesn't . The pluralist won't do it because his position is also truth and he doesnt consider the food kosher. However the pure monist has no trouble giving it to someone else. He is wrong and I am right and so the food is kosher (again the fact that he might be right is irrelevant - a bet din can kill based on rov and certainly for shabbat and kosher food we work on majority) The accepting monist won't give the food to someone else. Even though he is wrong I respect his being wrong as long as he is within my radius - ie he relies on someone I consider legitimate and not just an idiotic opinion. OTOH I would give him the food if I feel his "chumra" is too wild fetched and beyond my radius as distinct from the pluralist 3) Harmonism states that both sides are only part of the real truth. Rav Kook and others bring the second gemara about "Elu V-elu". The gemara in Gittin discusses why the man from Binyamin killed his mistress)(pilegesh be-givah) - after an amoraic argument the truth was both were right either because he found a fly in his soup but got angry only he found a hair in the soup. So both views were ight and "Elu V-elu" Based on this RMA had a different interpretation of the argument between Bet Hillel and Bet Shamai Both sides presented arguments supporting their position. Both sides agreed that all the arguments were legitimate. However, in the end one has to make a decision when there are legitimate arguments on both sides and Bet Shamai and Bet Hillel arrived at opposite conclusins. The Harmonism implies that both sides have legitimate arguments. Hoever, in the end there is only one truth that comes out of contradictory arguments. The harmonism means that both sides are right (pluralism) on the basic stands. But only one side is right (monism) in the final decision. As stated before the one truth is found based on standard halachic grounds. Nothing is ever known 100% but that doesnt matter. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 3 18:46:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 11:46:53 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] A halachic problem in measuring wholemeal flour Message-ID: I have recently become aware of a practical halachic problem with measuring wholemeal flour for the shiurim of challah and the kezeitim of matzot mitzva. I don't think this issue is generally recognised, and I hope Areivim members will be able to bring it to appropriate authorities' attention. Traditional flour mills produced a mixture of white flour and bran by grinding whole grains between millstones. This mixture was sifted to produce finer or coarser grades of flour by removing more or less bran, respectively. Halachically, the bran that is removed has changed its status: dough produced from bran is not subject to challah. Furthermore, mixing bran back into its flour does not restore its status: the bran and flour are not "mitztaref". (See Challah 2:6) This was not an issue with traditional mills: nobody would sift bran out of flour and then ruin the white flour by replacing the bran. This is not the case today, though. Modern flour mills do not grind flour between stones. They use a series of graduated rollers that crack the grain into progressively-smaller particles, and the bran is separated off at an early stage of the process. Millers make wholemeal flour by adding bran back to the fine flour near the end of the milling process. You can find a description and video of the process here: http://www.fabflour.co.uk/fab-flour/how-flour-is-milled/ If modern wholemeal flour is halachically considered a mixture of flour and bran, as it seems, then to be obliged in challah one would need a greater shiur of wholemeal than of regular flour, and to fulfil one?s obligation of eating matza one would need to eat more than a kezayit of wholemeal matza. (See S.A. Y.D. 324:3 and M.A. & SAHR O.C 454:1,2) It is not possible to state a definite ratio of bran to white flour, as this will vary between species of grain and between varieties of each species. The relevant shiurim are not measured by weight but by volume, which is affected by the fineness of the bran compared to the fineness of the white flour. Furthermore, the amount of grain removed as bran will depend on the operation of the mill. My research indicates that up to a quarter of each grain of wheat (by weight) consists of bran. If we take this as a rule of thumb then a shiur of wholemeal wheat flour would be one and a third times as large as a shiur of white flour. As a practical matter, I think people making wholemeal bread should probably avoid doubt and bake either less than a minimal shiur (for which, consult your LOR) or bake sufficiently more than one and a third shiurim. Many people deliberately try to use enough flour to require the taking of challah: they consequently use just over a regular shiur and need to be warned about this. With respect to wholemeal matzot mitzva, I presume that people would have noticed and queried any reintroduction of bran to flour ground using modern methods. None the less, it would be very good to establish this for each bakery. Joe Slater Melbourne, Australia -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 3 20:42:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 06:42:58 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RMA Message-ID: On another issue I had quoted RMA as saying that one who doesnt believe in a creator has no punishment or reward for keeping mitzvot. After 120 years he will be punished only for being an atheist but for each individual sin. Hence, there is no problem of "lifne iver" . In particular in the frequent case a religious doctor can ask an atheist to take over for him on shabbat (wouldnt apply to a chiloni doctor who does beleive in G-d) This applies only to mitzvot like shabbat. Of course an atheist can't claim that he is not bound by sins like murder because he doesnt believe in G-d. An atheist will be punished for all moral sins that he commits and all usual laws of :lifne iver" etc apply to all moral commandments. ------------------------ He is now starting a series on religious autonomy. In particular he holds that one goes to a rabbi for a psak only if he is in doubt. If one has seriously learned the halachaot and is convinced of the "truth" then he should follow his own psak and there is no need to go to a "higher authority". He was asked what if the personal psak goes against the generally accepted psak. His answer was that in theory the same holds. However, a person should have enough humility that if he is a "daas yachid" he better be awfully sure that he is right. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 04:47:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 11:47:38 GMT Subject: [Avodah] A married sister Message-ID: <20150504.074738.29327.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, and becomes part of her husband's family. Thus, she is no longer part of her brother's family. But what about her father? According to the above logic, her father may not be m'tamei for her either. And in fact, she *has* left her father's family in the sense that if her husband is not a kohen, then she has been disallowed terumah ever since the wedding. Yet the halacha is that her father *may* be m'tamei for her, despite that change in status. So, in very simple terms, here's my question: If a Bas Kohen is married and then dies, why is it that her father may attend the funeral, but her brother may not? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55475caae730f5caa5375st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 07:42:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 17:42:10 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] A halachic problem in measuring wholemeal flour In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, May 4, 2015 at 4:46 AM, Joe Slater via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > I have recently become aware of a practical halachic problem with > measuring wholemeal flour for the shiurim of challah and the kezeitim of > matzot mitzva. I don't think this issue is generally recognised, and I hope > Areivim members will be able to bring it to appropriate authorities' > attention. > > Traditional flour mills produced a mixture of white flour and bran by > grinding whole grains between millstones. This mixture was sifted to > produce finer or coarser grades of flour by removing more or less bran, > respectively. Halachically, the bran that is removed has changed its > status: dough produced from bran is not subject to challah. Furthermore, > mixing bran back into its flour does not restore its status: the bran and > flour are not "mitztaref". (See Challah 2:6) > > This was not an issue with traditional mills: nobody would sift bran out > of flour and then ruin the white flour by replacing the bran. This is not > the case today, though. > Just a thought: perhaps the halacha that the bran and flour are not mitztaref depended on the metziu't that nobody would return bran to white flour? So if returning the bran to the flour is now the normal way of producing wholemeal flour, maybe today they are mitztaref? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 09:45:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 12:45:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs In-Reply-To: <20150330.221259.10345.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 11:47:38AM +0000, RAM wrote on the thread "A married sister": : In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself : for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I : used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves : the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, : and becomes part of her husband's family... But Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 02:12:59AM +0000, RAM wrote on this subject: > I once heard an interesting argument against Rav Moshe's logic on > this point. He is viewing the wife as the one who is moving to a new > location, but we have an explicit pasuk that takes the opposite view: > Bereshis 2:24 - "Therefore, a man will desert his father and his mother, > and stick to his wife." (The woman may of may not leave her parents, > but the man explicitly does.) > Granted that there are other arguments for the wife taking the husband's > minhagim - terumah is the first that comes to my mind. But if Rav Moshe's > main argument is Minhag Hamakom, I wonder how he would have defended it > against this pasuk. Anyone else see one answering the other? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 30th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Hod: When does capitulation Fax: (270) 514-1507 result in holding back from others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 10:11:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 04 May 2015 13:11:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs In-Reply-To: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> On 05/04/2015 12:45 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 11:47:38AM +0000, RAM wrote on the thread > "A married sister": > : In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself > : for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I > : used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves > : the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, > : and becomes part of her husband's family... > > But Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 02:12:59AM +0000, RAM wrote on this subject: >> I once heard an interesting argument against Rav Moshe's logic on >> this point. He is viewing the wife as the one who is moving to a new >> location, but we have an explicit pasuk that takes the opposite view: >> Bereshis 2:24 - "Therefore, a man will desert his father and his mother, >> and stick to his wife." (The woman may of may not leave her parents, >> but the man explicitly does.) > >> Granted that there are other arguments for the wife taking the husband's >> minhagim - terumah is the first that comes to my mind. But if Rav Moshe's >> main argument is Minhag Hamakom, I wonder how he would have defended it >> against this pasuk. > > Anyone else see one answering the other? Not at all. Her father must still become tamei for her. Only her brothers may not. What's more, suppose her husband dies without issue. She returns to her father's house, and is once more entitled to eat terumah and kodshim. Now suppose the father dies; she continues to eat the terumah and kodshim that her brothers bring home. When she dies the brothers are the only people left who sit shiva for her, and yet they are not allowed to become tamei for her unless there is literally nobody else who can do it! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 10:24:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 17:24:33 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs Message-ID: <20150504.132433.5362.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger asked: > Anyone else see one answering the other? You make a good point, but as I see it, they don't *answer* each other as much as they illustrate how complicated this subject is. For example, consider the case of a Bas Kohen who marries a Yisrael, or a Bas Yisrael who marries a Kohen. Her status changes upon marriage, but it will revert upon the death of her husband. - Unless there is a child, in which case her status will *not* revert. - Unless the child died too, in which case her status *will* revert. - Unless there is a grandchild, in which case she keeps her status even though her own child did not survive. (I probably messed up some of those details, but my point is that itis a very complex topic.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5547ab96da8f82b966b58st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 11:01:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 14:01:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A married sister Message-ID: <1fbaa.22f534a3.42790de1@aol.com> From: Kenneth Miller via Avodah In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, and becomes part of her husband's family. Thus, she is no longer part of her brother's family. But what about her father? [snip] So, in very simple terms, here's my question: If a Bas Kohen is married and then dies, why is it that her father may attend the funeral, but her brother may not? Akiva Miller >>>>> I don't know why the bond between brother and sister seems to be lessened when the sister marries, but we do have other evidence that the bond between father and daughter is never severed: If a man has no sons, only daughters, his daughters inherit his property -- even if they are married. The fact that they are married does not annul the fact that they are still his daughters. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 12:50:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 22:50:54 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith Message-ID: <> A more practical problem based on personal experience is that of defining colors (to a human not in terms of wavelengths). There is no way for 2 people to confirm they are seeing the same colors. One practical application is to examining cloths for a niddah - ketem. I again refer to an article in Keren Zavit by Nadav Shinrav on parshat tazria In particular I learned that brown is not a color -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 13:43:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 16:43:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150504204354.GA2628@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 10:50:54PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : A more practical problem based on personal experience is that of defining : colors (to a human not in terms of wavelengths). There is no way for 2 : people to confirm they are seeing the same colors. Even further: there is no wavelength corrsponding to pink or brown, they only exist as our mind combines wavelengths. Pink is weirder, because it resides on the color wheel where you would glue the two extremes of the spectrum together to close the circle. Colors other than the three in the middle of the sensitivity range of each of the types of cone in your eye can be seen two ways. For example: you could make orange by mixing two parts red with one part green, or by looking at light of one color, that is at the right frequency to trigger your red cones twice as much as they trigger the green. The topic we're discussing is qualia, and color is a favorite sort of quale to use for illustration (pun intended). A quale is the "what it's like to see red". In my example about orange, we have two different physics, but both could end up producing the same experience, the same exact shade and brightness of orange. So orange is not 1:1 any specific wavelength. Asude from the question RET raises, a popular thought experiment among philosophers is Mary the Color Scientist (Frank Jackson 1982): Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor. She specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose, all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes, or the sky, and use terms like 'red', 'blue', and so on. She discovers, for example, just which wavelength combinations from the sky stimulate the retina, and exactly how this produces via the central nervous system the contraction of the vocal chords and expulsion of air from the lungs that results in the uttering of the sentence 'The sky is blue'.... What will happen when Mary is released from her black and white room or is given a color television monitor? Will she learn anything or not? It seems just obvious that she will learn something about the world and our visual experience of it. But then is it inescapable that her previous knowledge was incomplete. But she had all the physical information. Ergo there is more to have than that, and Physicalism is false. And so Jackson concludes that the world can't be reduced to physics. This is also what I was talking about when I referred to justifying a belief based on comparing imagination to memory. Koach hadimyon does mean "imagination", but what Ariso meant by Imagination, or the rishonim by dimyon, includes qualia in general. The image of red while you're seeing it, not just when you're dreaming it up. And I would argue that even when we make rigorous logical proofs, those proofs are conclusions drawn from a set of givens, and those givens end up resting on koach hadimyon anyway. The formally proven theological statement is therefore less conclusive than one based on an appeal to dimyon directly, such as R' Aqiva's argument. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 30th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Hod: When does capitulation Fax: (270) 514-1507 result in holding back from others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 15:25:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 04 May 2015 18:25:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs In-Reply-To: <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> Message-ID: <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> On 05/04/2015 01:11 PM, I wrote: > > What's more, suppose her husband dies without issue. She returns to her > father's house, and is once more entitled to eat terumah and kodshim. This is not quite correct. She returns to eat teruma, but not kodshim. "Milechem, velo kol lechem". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 16:07:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Mon, 04 May 2015 19:07:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy In-Reply-To: <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> Message-ID: <5547FB97.5020203@aishdas.org> Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, d'hashta) would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? Thanks! KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 18:11:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 01:11:49 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy Message-ID: <20150504.211149.15174.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer asked: > Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, > d'hashta) would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? My first knee-jerk reaction is to say that they DON'T relate. Chazakos are all about law, and what the law will *presume* the reality to have been. We found a piece of meat on the street, or we bought it and forgot where, or any of a million similar questions. We don't really know whether it is kosher or not, and to a certain extent we don't really care. What we really care about is whether halacha allows us to *presume* that it is kosher. Schroedinger's Cat and similar ventures are attempts to establish what the *reality* is. The Cat is a thought experiment, but do not make the mistake of thinking that it is mere philosophizing. The whole point of the experiment is to establish what is really and actually happening inside the box, and the answer (that they've come up with) is that two contradictory truths (the cat is alive, the cat is dead) are both true at the same time. This is a question of physics and reality, not a question of legal presumptions. The subject line of this thread says that you're "looking for help with an analogy". Could you tell us more about what you're working on? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5548190613cab19056408st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 19:10:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rafael Jason Hecht via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 22:10:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How Kosher is the Kosher Switch? Message-ID: Last Motzei Shabbos I was among the crowd that was saying Kiddush Levana out in the open. While davening I overheard someone making a joke about using a Kosher Switch (my guess was to place light on the outside so people could better read). I did my own reading and research before that and couldn't tell if the gentleman was joking or being serious. To put it lightly, the development and marketing Kosher Switch has caused a major controversy in the Torah Jewish community. The Kosher Switch, a device purportedly meant to ease the constraints of Sabbath observance, is not the first of its kind. The Grama switch by Zomet Institute, as well as the Zman switch have been created for emergency situations of pikuach nefesh. However, this switch has caused an uproar in the Jewish community. Why? Before going on, let me state that while I am far from an expert in the field of electrical engineering or Hilchos Shabbos (nor am I a certified Rabbi), I treasure Shabbos and am always looking for ways to enhance it. That said, I did my own personal research and humbly present my findings. Before I go on, let me first state that the topic of electricity on Shabbos is far more extensive than what I'm laying out, and that I am not (intentionally) offering my own Psak, just a compilation of "what's out there." Read more: http://www.mywesternwall.net/2015/04/30/how-kosher-is-the-kosher-switch.html Best Regards, Rafi Hecht *rhecht at gmail.com* ------------------------------------------------------- *LinkedIN:* *http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rafihecht* *Facebook:* *http://www.facebook.com/rhecht* *Twitter:* *https://www.twitter.com/#!/rafihecht* *Personal Site:* *www.rafihecht.com* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 12:47:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Shalom Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 22:47:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired Message-ID: I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a woman is owned by her husband, the language of the Mishna notwithstanding. Can anyone point to a clear statement by Hazal or rishonim that supports my supposition? My thanks, Shalom Z. Berger -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 13:51:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 16:51:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150505205140.GA20122@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 05, 2015 at 10:47:20PM +0300, Shalom Berger via Avodah wrote: : I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a : woman is owned by her husband, the language of the Mishna notwithstanding. : Can anyone point to a clear statement by Hazal or rishonim that supports my : supposition? First, the halakhos of qiddushin do not conform to that of purchase. Qinyan is a broader concept than purchase; for example, not that long ago you probably performed a qinyan sudar to appoint your rav as a shaliach to sell your chameitz. Some differences: - no din of ona'ah, a shaveh perutah is sufficient for all - you give the perutah to the woman, not her former "owner" - she has to agree to the qinyan, despite not being the former "owner" - she has to make a qinyan on the money - money needn't exchange hands; she could pardon a loan to effect a marriage. However, qinyan bekesef does require such an exchange. - Hilkhos gittin is a lot more complicated than just calling hefqer. - the wife gets to decide whether to give him her earnings in exchange for being supported. If she were property, he would get her earnings wheter or not *he* chose to support here. Now that I got that out of my system, to answer your question: Qiddushin 6b: ... and if an eved kenaani, whose body he was qoneh, if he says to him [in a shetar shichrur] "you are hereby your own" it means legmaei, ishah DELO QANI LEIH GUFAH, lo qol shekein! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 31st day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Hod: What level of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 results in harmony and balance? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 12:12:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 15:12:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun Message-ID: In Avodah V33n70, RZS responded to R'Micha: >> I bet [RYBS] said tachanun on the Gra's or R' Chaim's (Volozhin or Brisk) >> yahrzeit, etc... For people who are seeking his pesaq, it's very likely >> he would insist on Tachanun on days like that. > Of course he said tachanun on their yortzeits, why wouldn't he? The whole > concept of turning a yortzeit into a holiday wasn't native to his world. > The question is what he would do on a day they had been saved from some > danger, and had observed as a private yomtov, or on a day that his > community had adopted as a local "purim" to commemorate being saved from > danger, as was a common practise among Jewish communities. ...or on Pesach Sheini? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 11:47:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 05 May 2015 13:47:08 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Tree of 40 Fruits Message-ID: <5549102C.40808@starways.net> http://www.sciencealert.com/news/20142107-25892.html What's the halakha regarding eating fruit from one of these trees? Since the grafting was done by a non-Jew, is it okay to eat? Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 14:01:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 21:01:39 GMT Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired Message-ID: <20150505.170139.16146.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Shalom Berger wrote: <<< I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a woman is owned by her husband, ... >>> That depends on what you mean by "own". I own my shoes. This gives me certain rights, such as wearing them to the exclusion of anyone else, or the choice of who I might lend them to. I also have certain responsibilities; I cannot simply destroy them for no reason. I own my tefillin too. But the things I can do with my tefillin are much more limited than whast I can do with my shoes. I have certain rights and responsibilities vis a vis my wife as well. Do I own her? I don't know. Is there a real nafka mina, or is it just semantics? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55492fe2678522fe2353bst03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 15:46:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 05 May 2015 18:46:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Scrolling Down the Pages of Jewish History Message-ID: <20150505224615.83B27181E37@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/ocl2bqe his story appears in R. Yechiel Spero?s Pesach Haggadah: Touched by Our Story (pp. 88-91) and is republished here with permission from the copyright holders (ArtScroll / Mesorah Publications, Ltd.). The pictures below ? of the Tur Shulchan Aruch (printed in Berlin 1702) which belonged to Rabbi Yaakov Emden (Germany, 1697-1776) ? were taken by R. Akiva Males, and are republished with permission of Columbia University?s Rare Book and Manuscript Library. See the above URL for much more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 00:23:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 03:23:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] All About Tehillim Message-ID: <20150506072350.7A9B4181522@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/mxoucvn From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 02:02:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 05:02:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Disappearing Doctor of Iyyar: Virtual Vanishing of a Venerable Minhog Message-ID: <20150506090255.CB5C5182D80@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/mdz6883 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 03:13:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 06:13:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Disappearing Doctor of Iyyar: Virtual Vanishing of a Venerable Minhog In-Reply-To: <20150506090255.CB5C5182D80@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150506090255.CB5C5182D80@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150506101327.GA19813@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 06, 2015 at 05:02:54AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : See http://tinyurl.com/mdz6883 Quoting the Treasures of Ashkenaz blog [transliterations mine]: > The aleph stands for ani, the two yuds for HQBH, and the reish? fo > rofekha. The month is thereby depicted as a month of healing. The vort > seemingly is based on an old minhog of many generations among Yidden, > in which the letters yud-yud (sans hyphen) are used to represent the > venerated name of Hashem However, even yud-yud is not the original minhag. In older manuscripts they used three yuds, with the middle one slightly above the line, making a triangle. Preserved in this printed edition of Siddur R' Saadia Gaon . I suggested two possible reasons for the third yud's disappearance: - The printing press made that middle yud hard to insert into books, because it would require a special letter in the type box. I find this one less than compelling, because they kept an alef-lamed ligature in the type box, and that got less usage. - Xians read their own significance into the three letters. This would be clearner, if there were any evidence of them actually doing so. So the two-yud notation was just one step along the way. The general question of why non-chassidic Ashkenazim (or non-Chida-influenced Sepharadim) suddenly started writing out the sheim in siddurim is compelling, but the two-yud notation isn't necessarily some venerable alternative. The three yuds was often explained as beind the initial letters of Birkhas Kohanim; the yuds from Yevarekhekha, Ya'er, and Yisa. Some suggest that the two yuds represent the first and last letters of an intertwined sheim havayah and sheim adnus: YUD alef HEI dalet ... HEI yud. Itself heavily al pi qabbalah. And associating the two yuds with the transliteration into Hebrew of an Akkadian month name (Ayyaru = n. blossom) requires even more omnisignificance and mysticism than does finding significance in presenting sheim havayah written out. Where I really see this change as a problem is not because of venerable minhagim, but because books have less shelf life now than in the past. Cheap printing means also cheaper paper, not to mention faster replacement. And if generations past wanted to minimize their sheimos problems, al achas kamah vekamah we should. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 00:31:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 10:31:51 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: In some circles it is common for men to keep long peyot (as an aside it has become common also in some chardal circles) The book Keren Zavit says he doesn't understand the custom. The problem is not in long sidebruns but rather that the hair from under the ear rarely grows long. The long "peyot" usually grow from hair above the ear and so has no connection to peyot and in fact come from part of the head where there is no prohibition to shave -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 06:38:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Shalom Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 16:38:38 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired In-Reply-To: <20150505205140.GA20122@aishdas.org> References: <20150505205140.GA20122@aishdas.org> Message-ID: While Micha is correct that the Gemara clearly states "ishah DELO QANI LEIH GUFAH" and that there are many, many differences between true ownership and marriage, this does not keep the Tosafot HaRosh (Ketubot 2a sv Nistahpa Sadeihu) from concluding: "ha-isha kinyan kaspo shel ha-ish kemo avdo ve-shoro va-hamoro." I would like to find a source in the rishonim that clearly rejects the approach of the Tosafot HaRosh. Shalom Rabbi Shalom Z. Berger, Ed.D. The Lookstein Center for Jewish Education Bar-Ilan University http://www.lookstein.org https://www.facebook.com/groups/lookjed/ Follow me on Twitter: @szberger NETWORK*LEARN*GROW From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 09:26:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 12:26:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tree of 40 fruits Message-ID: The question was asked, "What's the halakha regarding eating fruit from one of these trees? Since the grafting was done by a non-Jew, is it okay to eat?" The only issur achila of kilayim is kilei hakerem. Anything else may be eaten. With regard to the fruits of a graft, the explicit halacha in Yoreh Deiah (295:7) is that it may be eaten even by the one who violated the prohibition by performing the graft. (That halacha also continues that one may take a branch from the graft and plant it.) As to the original question about the potato-tomato combination, grafting is prohibited: even though neither is a tree (295:3), but as above, the resulting product may be eaten. EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 10:28:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 13:28:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs Message-ID: The din of a kohein's daughter not eating t'ruma upon marriage to a non-kohein was mentioned in conjunction with this topic. However, I submit that perquisites of k'huna are unrelated to the adoption of one's spouse's customs. How else can we understand the din that a person can give the parts of a slaughtered animal due to the kohein (z'roa, l'chayayim v'keiva) even to a kohein's daughter married to a Yisraeil, or, for that matter, even to her Yisraeil husband (and according to one opinion, the same is true for pidyon habein)? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 10:37:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 13:37:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy Message-ID: <72706.56a00b87.427bab69@aol.com> From: Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, d'hashta) would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? Thanks! KT, YGB >>>>> Not sure where you're going with this but you seem to be saying that chazakos have no independent, objective reality. That a chazaka is in the eye of the beholder. Oops. Looks like you've let the cat out of the bag... --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 11:13:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 14:13:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Strange History of Lag B'Omer Message-ID: <20150506181455.D4FFC1836BF@nexus.stevens.edu> There is an interesting talk by Dr. Shnayer Leiman with the above title at http://yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/734356/ Yitzchok Levine -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 11:48:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 14:48:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy In-Reply-To: <5547FB97.5020203@aishdas.org> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> <5547FB97.5020203@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150506184838.GA4624@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 7:07pm EDT, RYGB wrote: : Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, d'hashta) : would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? Quantum Uncertainty is more similar to rov than chazaqah. And it could model how we can embrace conflicting majorities. Such as in the case of two pieces of shuman and one of cheilev, and being able to eat all three one after the other. (Or perhaps even in a ta'aroves, but that just complicates the picture.) It would fit if we treat the physical state of each piece of fat as ( 2 |shuman> + |cheilev) / 3 rather than as a 67% chance of being shuman. And then those things that were observed are immune from such weirdness, much like qavu'ah. That said: The notion that wavefunction collapse is due to observation, the Copenhagen Interpretation, was once taken as a given. But alternatives involving entanglement, wave function collapse, multiuniverse theory, etc.. have been gaining ground for decades. This parallel to qavu'ah could be illusory. On Tue, May 05, 2015 at 1:11am GMT, R Akive Miller wrote: : My first knee-jerk reaction is to say that they DON'T relate. Chazakos : are all about law, and what the law will *presume* the reality to have : been... : Schroedinger's Cat and similar ventures are attempts to establish what : the *reality* is... I am very inclined to agree. R' Aqiva Eiger (teshuvah $136) makes a chiluq between sefeiqos in the metzi'us and sefeiqos in din. Rov holds when we have sefeiqos in the metzi'us. So we can pasqen about something that is rov-kasher. But if someone knew the metzi'us, then there was a din established for the fat. Now that we don't know what it was, we have a safeiq as to what that din is. LAD, the whole thing is about human experience. See , which has 10 posts covering things like chazaqah (both types), rov, qavu'ah, terei mekei'ah (which I argue ignores rov for the same reason as qavu'ah), nosein ta'am, using tequfas Shemu'el for birkhas hachamah, microsopic bugs etc.... The hashkafic premise is that the goal of halakhah is to shape the self (whether into a tamim, a shelaim, to acheive deveiqus, etc...) And therefore the metzi'us a din has to work with is how we experience reality (and thus birur when we're in doubt) and how we can experience it (only visible bugs count). And not how the universe works in ways we can only understand in the abstract. The most lomdishe consequence of my whole edifice is that it manages to explain why a chazaqah trumps a migo in a case where there are also trei utrei eidim, but why a migo trumps a chazaqah when there are no eidim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 12:13:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 15:13:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150506191353.GB4624@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 06, 2015 at 10:31:51AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : The book Keren Zavit says he doesn't understand the custom. The problem is : not in long sidebruns but rather that the hair from under the ear rarely : grows long. The long "peyot" usually grow from hair above the ear and so : has no connection to peyot and in fact come from part of the head where : there is no prohibition to shave The custom is shared by Chassidim, Chidah-influenced Sepharadim (those with many Qabbalah-based pesaqim) and Teimanim. So there seems to be an ancient maqor unrelated to any reasons given al pi qabbalah by the first two groups. R' Chaim Kanievsky is a living example of a minhag/hanhagah that was once more common -- not combing one's peyos because of the hairs plucked out. Rav Dovid Lifshitz, so now we're talking Litta, had two thick blocks of hair going back from his temples to over his ear. According to the SA YD 181:9, peyos run as high as the hairline above the forehead until the bottom of the ear, where the earlobe detaches from the face. So the prohibition does include the area the KZ is asking about -- there are inches of hair between the top of the ear until you get parallel to the hairline. And this is the very area that the majority of the hair in long peyos grows from. I therefore don't understand the KZ's question. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 12:40:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 22:40:23 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: >From : B. Highest Point. The location of the highest point on the head that the peyos extend is described in Shulchan Aruch (181:9) as "across from the hair on is forehead". There are two basic opinions as to the precise location the Shulchan Aruch refers to: 1. Rabbi Yisroel Belsky (Shulchan Halevi page 122) writes that he had heard directly from Rav Yakov Kaminetzky zt"l that the upper limit of the peyos ha'rosh begins "at the highest point of the hairline as it arches over the ear and extends in a slightly curved line across to where the hairline of the forehead turns sharply downwards towards the sideburns. All the hair from the imaginary line that connect these two points and below comprises the peyos ha'rosh". 2. Rabbi Belsky also quotes "some rabbonim have a mesora, a tradition from their Rabbis, that the peyos do not extend above the upper cartilage of the ear (tenuch ha'ozen) at all. According to their mesorah, the imaginary line extends horizontally from the point in the hairline above the foremost part of ear almost until where the downward slope of the frontal hairline angles back towards the ear. For a picture see -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 13:42:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joel Schnur via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 16:42:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun Message-ID: <554A7CBF.3020300@schnurassociates.com> No one says tachnun on the Gra's yarhzeit. it's 3rd day chol hamoed succos ___________________________ Joel Schnur, Senior VP Government Affairs/Public Relations Schnur Associates, Inc. 25 West 45th Street, Suite 1405 New York, NY 10036 Tel. 212-489-0600 x204 Fax. 212-489-0203 joel at schnurassociates.com www.schnurassociates.com http://www.schnurassociates.com/joels-corner/ From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 14:13:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 17:13:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired In-Reply-To: <20150505.170139.16146.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150505.170139.16146.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150506211338.GB27781@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 5, 2015 at 9:01pm GMT, R Akiva Miller wrote: :> I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that :> a woman is owned by her husband, ... : That depends on what you mean by "own". : : I own my shoes. This gives me certain rights... I suggested more than once in the past that baalus has more to do with responsibility than western notions of property. Which is why yorshim do not inherit chameitz on Pesach. Even though the father owned chameitz in the sense of bal yeira'eh bal yimatzei, he lacked ba'alus at the time of his passing. Or why a rentor has a chiyuv to hang a mezuzah -- he has some measure of ba'alus, despite not being an owner. RAF (CCed) shared my post on Facebook, and since I have no idea what can be seen by the public, I'll paraphrase a couple of responses I thought would be of interest. On my line that "qinyan is a broader concept than purchase", one person compared the mishnah in Avos "qeneih lekha chaver". This morning, at 8:59am PDT, R Shalom Z Berger asked for a rishon who clearly rejected the Tosafos haRosh's statement (Kesuvos 2a "nitapecha sadeihu) that "ha'ishah qinyan kaspo shel ha'ish, kemo avdo veshoro vechamoro". Someone else on FB noted that the Rashba, in his chiddushim on the first pereq of Qiddushin, repeatedly points out that all the rishonim other than the Rosh reject the idea out of hand. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 15:09:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 15:09:17 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes Message-ID: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Shabbat-microphones-catching-on-among-orthodox-despite-taboos-402173 i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at hadchak /bedieved -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 17:12:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 20:12:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150507001204.GA31766@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 06, 2015 at 03:09:17PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Shabbat-microphones-catching-on-among-orthodox-despite-taboos-402173 : : i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at hadchak /bedieved Gerama devices, yes. But a passive element microphone feeding a PA system that is never entirely off -- so it's never turned off or on -- and has no lit indicators is an entirely different beast. (Most microphones generate current when vibrated; a passive element microphone changes resistance.) Still not an open-and-shut heter, as this article makes it sound. And there are more grounds for Sepharadim to be meiqil then Ashkenazim, based on a machloqes between the Mechaber and the Rama in OC 252:5. R' Ovadia was matir. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 18:18:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 01:18:22 GMT Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes Message-ID: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> R' Saul Newman asked: > i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at > hadchak /bedieved I've never read any of their material, but I'm pretty sure that they have MANY halachic "tools" in their arsenal, and not all of them carry the same restrictions. For example, a grama switch would only be useful for a very limited number of situations, as would a pen that writes with disappearing ink. But if you can make an electronic device that generates zero heat and zero light, it just *might* be acceptable for general use. Exhibit A: Hearing aids. I'll admit that a hearing aid is not the same thing as a loudspeaker system. But without getting into a whole discussion, the only point I'm making is that you have to look at the thing, and not just reject it out of hand. One might say that "Hearing aids are by definition for a shaas hadchak; how can this technology help the average person? So I bring you Exhibit B: Sabbath Mode ovens. Without any doubt, one DOES manipulate the electric circuit with these gadgets. If not on Shabbos, then at least on Yom Tov. But I think that the real answer to your question might be: "If the people in shul can't hear the rabbi or the chazan, that IS a shaas hadchak." In any case, about 15 years ago I happened to spend Shabbos at a shul that used one of these systems, and there were two large notices by the entrance to the main sanctuary, pointing out that the system was designed by Zomet. If I remember correctly, there was also a letter on the wall giving more halachic details about it. Which is the bigger chumra: To avoid using such devices, or to insure that even the hard-of-hearing can follow hear? Or, if you prefer, which is the bigger kula: To use such devices, or to disenfranchise part of the tzibur? (I'm not taking sides, just illustrating the issues. If you want answers, ask your LOR.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554abd8864c633d88019cst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 18:45:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 01:45:24 GMT Subject: [Avodah] The Disappearing Doctor of Iyyar: Virtual Vanishing of a Venerable Minhog Message-ID: <20150506.214524.14329.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitzchok Levine posted: > See http://tinyurl.com/mdz6883 That article has only slight relevance to anything medical. It is actually about the practice of abbreviating HaShem's Name with a double (or triple) Yud in siddurim, and how this practice is losing ground recently, with more siddurim using the Four-Lettered Name. That article says: > ... even in the printing of siddurim, where in the past, Shem > Hashem was not written out explicitly, based on venerable, old > practice. In other words, the spelling out of the letters, Yud > ? Kay ? Vov ? Kay in the past was done in Biblical texts, such > as Sifrei Torah and Sifrei Nach. In texts of tefilos, however, > it was not done. Instead, Yud ? Yud was substituted. I am very curious why this distinction was made, that the siddurim use the Yuds, while the printed Tanachs do use the Four Lettered Name. I note that towards the end of that article, he refers to an "Azharah L'Madfisim (Warning To Printers)" on this topic, written by the son-in-law of the Nesivos Hamishpat. Curiously, he writes that the Two Yuds should be printed in siddurim *and* *chumashim*. On the other hand, a few lines later, the Azharah explains a point I've long wondered about. The Four Lettered Name is just one of the *seven* Names Which May Not Be Erased. Why did this abbreviation arise for the Four Lettered Name and not for any of the others? I always figured it was because this one is *truly* a Name; "the Most Holy among equals" one might say. But the Azharah gives an entirely different explanation. Namely, the difference between this Name and the other six is that no matter how you spell it, it is not to be pronounced normally, so what is to be gained by using the correct letters? Therefore, find an abbreviation of some sort for this one, but the others should be spelled as they will be pronounced. Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554ac3e5a6e0843e34b38st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 19:34:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 22:34:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: <85279.31aefae5.427c294a@aol.com> From: Eli Turkel via Avodah In some circles it is common for men to keep long peyot (as an aside it has become common also in some chardal circles) The book Keren Zavit says he doesn't understand the custom.... -- Eli Turkel >>>> Yemenites have long payos, so this must be a very old custom, not some recent chumra. They don't call them "payos" but "simanim," which I find charming. They are signs that a man is a Jew, proud and obvious signs. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 02:13:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 12:13:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: In addition to the points brought up by R' Eli Turkel against long peyot, I would like to raise the following: The shiur given by all of the poskim for each hair is very very short, and in fact because it is a lo taase there is probably not even an inyan of hidur mitzvah. Therefore it is not clear why there would be any inyan to grow long peyot. The truth is it would be much better to be machmir on the shiur of where peyot harosh ends (maybe the very bottom of the ear) which is a safek issur d'oraysa then to grow long peyot which has no kiyum al pi din. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 20:33:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 23:33:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired Message-ID: <86422.6a1e08b9.427c3711@aol.com> [1] I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a woman is owned by her husband, the language of the Mishna notwithstanding. Can anyone point to a clear statement by Hazal or rishonim that supports my supposition? My thanks, Shalom Z. Berger [2] I own my shoes. This gives me certain rights, such as wearing them to the exclusion of anyone else, or the choice of who I might lend them to. I also have certain responsibilities; I cannot simply destroy them for no reason. I own my tefillin too. But the things I can do with my tefillin are much more limited than what I can do with my shoes. I have certain rights and responsibilities vis a vis my wife as well. Do I own her? I don't know. Is there a real nafka mina, or is it just semantics? Akiva Miller >>>> [1] Along the lines of what R' Micha Berger posted. On Ber 24:57 -- "Let us call the maiden and ask her what she wants to do" -- Rashi says, "Mikan she'ein masi'in es ha'isha ela mida'ata -- from here we learn that one does not [or may not, or cannot] marry a woman without her consent." I think he's quoting Kesubos 57b. I can't think of any kind of property whose consent is required before the property can be acquired. [2] The analogy to tefillin is flawed. You do not have any obligations or responsibilities to your tefillin. Rather, in regards to your tefillin, you have obligations towards your Maker! He has told you what you must do, may do, or must not do, with your tefillin. A better analogy would have been to your ox or your dog, where you do actually have obligations to your animals, an obligation, for example, to feed the animal before you eat your own meal. And a still better analogy would have been to acquiring a slave, about which the Talmud says "One who acquires a Jewish slave is like one who has acquired a master! (Kiddushin 20a)" -- because of all the obligations he incurs towards his slave. So there does seem to be some kind of ownership that a husband has vis-a-vis his wife, but then, she also in some sense owns him. Certainly she has the right to make specific claims on him, because he has specific obligations towards her. Shir Hashirim speaks about the love between Hakadosh Baruch Hu and Am Yisrael in an extended poetic analogy to the love between a husband and a wife. What does the wife say about her husband? Dodi li ve'ani lo -- He belongs to me, and I belong to Him. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 23:25:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 02:25:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Princess and I: Academic Kabbalists/Kabbalist Academics Message-ID: <20150507062523.18EF01826EC@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/km8kf2n The last few decades have witnessed the veritable explosion of "new perspectives" and horizons in the academic study of Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism. From the pioneering work of the late Professor Gershom Scholem, and the establishment of the study of Jewish Mysticism as a legitimate scholarly pursuit, we witness a scene nowadays populated by men and women, Jews and non-Jews, who have challenged, (re)constructed, and expanded upon Scholem's work.[2] These men and women themselves have been variously praised and criticized themselves for sometimes blurring the lines between academician and practitioner of Kabbalah and mysticism.[3] Professor Boaz Huss of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has done extensive work in this area.[4] One of the most impressive examples of this fusion of identities is Professor Yehuda Liebes (Jerusalem, 1947-) of Hebrew University, who completed his doctoral studies under Scholem, and rose to prominence himself by challenging scholarly orthodoxies established by his mentor. See the above URL for more. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 23:29:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 02:29:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Shabbat microphones catching on among orthodox despite taboos Message-ID: <20150507062953.0C966182FF8@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/men8bez Relying upon rulings by decision makers such as Rabbi Shaul Yisraeli, Isser Yehuda Unterman and Rav Haim David HaLevi, the Zomet microphone uses only transistors "without any glowing [or 'burning'] elements;" is turned on by an automatic "Shabbat timer;" and, once turned on, "current flows continuously in the system," according to technical notes on the setup released on the group's website. According to Zomet executive director Rabbi Dan Marans, the system has come into use in 15 synagogues in Baltimore, Montreal, West Stamford and other locations, as well as in 18 old-age homes. Leading American poskim, or decidors of Halacha, have even "stipulated in contracts with synagogues that they change the system to our system so that the RCA [will be] able to send rabbis." "I've not heard comments [against it]. If anything, people find the service more enjoyable and more elevating," agreed Schneier, adding that "We must get a dozen calls a year from rabbis contemplating putting this system into their synagogues. "I believe within 25 years it will be commonplace in Orthodox synagogues here in the Northeast." See the above URL for more. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 07:01:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 10:01:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Transferring my comments to Avodah At 04:00 PM 5/6/2015, R Saul Newman wrote on Areivim: >http://www.sharelive.tv/sharlive_Heb/SL27948.html I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire 33rd day, and they wait until the 34th day to take a haircut. Does this not imply that the entire 33rd day is part of Sefirah and the restrictions hold the entire 33rd day? Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva. However, the micktzas starts in the morning of the 7th day, not on the night of the 7th day. Thus, even according to Ashkenazim the night of Lag B'Omer is bound by the restrictions of Sefirah. So how can they make such gatherings on the night of the 33rd day? And, of course there is this post that I made on from Fri, 26 Apr 2013 based on comments by Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel. According to RSRH there is a major difference between the way the uses the terminology un-Jewish and non-Jewish. Un-Jewish things are things that are incompatible with Yahadus, whereas non-Jewish things are things of non-Jewish origin that are compatible with Yahadus. YL The following is from http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol11/v11n014.shtml#17 Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 11:37:58 -0400 From: "Seth Mandel" Subject: Re: bonfires on Lag Ba'Omer From: Phyllos... at aol.com Obviously, the bones of people who believe that there is a s'gullo in making fires . As I have had fun telling people, the _only_ bonfire that was an ancient Jewish tradition was the Simchas Torah bonfire in Ashk'naz, which is attested from the 14th century up until the 19th century, but has gone out of style. The Lag Ba'omer bonfire is a very recent phenomenon among most Jews. Indeed, the word bonfire is from "fire of bones." The term was used primarily in various pagan ceremonies which then were transferred to christianity, for a funeral pyre, and in burning infidels or books (like The Gaon of Vilna or MOAG). The bones used, if 'twere not a pyre, were primarily animal bones. Here's an early quotation (1493): "in worshyppe of saynte John the people waked at home and made all maner of fyres. One was clene bones and no woode, and that is called a bone fyre." From Marlowe in 1586: "Making bonfires for my overthrow. But, ere I die, those foul idolators Shall make me bonfires with their filthy bones." (Think that would get by the moderators on Areivim, R. SBA?) 1689: "The dead corps is buried. They of old made a bone-fire and therein burnt it." 1622: "Their holy Bibles cast into Bone-fires." The term became used for any large fires used for celebrations, although the practice and term continued to be used especially for those associated with various christian saints, particularly John and Peter. From a 1570 history: "Then doth the joyfull feast of John the Baptist take his turne, When bonfiers great with loftie flame, in every towne doe burne." From a constitution of the association of the cooks of Newcastle, 1575: "The said Felloship of Cookes shall yearelie. mainteigne and keep the Bone-fires. that is to say, one Bone-fire on the Even of the Feast of the Nativitie of St. John Baptist. and the other on the Even of the Feast of St. Peter the Apostle." These quotations start in the 15th century, because that is as far back as the term bone-fire goes, but the practice of making a bonfire in honor of Christian saints goes back to ancient times in England (and in France as well). Another practice that goes back to ancient times in Christian Europe is making pilgrimages to "qivrei tzaddiqim" and donating alms at the qever; this practice is well known from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Most Christian scholars attribute the association of the bonfires with celebrations of the feast of a saint to pagan, pre-christian practices which were later adopted by the local people to their new religion. Indeed, the Celtics made bonfires to honor some of their deities and spirits. No one would ever claim that these practices, going back into old Anglo-Saxon England, are of Jewish origin. The Arabs of EY, Syria, and Lebanon, as is well-known, honored the Christian and Jewish "saints" (everyone knows that the qever of Sh'muel haNavi has been a "holy" site to the Arabs for hundreds of years, and they built a mosque there; the site is called "anNabi Samwil"). They made pilgrimages to them, like the Christians did, and they made large celebrations to honor the festival of the saint. The Arab pilgrims who came did various things to honor the saint. They gave alms (a big mitzva in Islam), usually done by the practice of cutting the hair of their children (which they had let grow from before the pilgrimage), then weighing it and giving the same weight in gold or silver for alms. They also made large bonfires to honor the saint. The custom of making pilgrimages, giving alms, and making bonfires may have been borrowed from the christians, since a) they originally appeared among the Arabs of EY, Lebanon and Syria, AFAIK; b) they are first recorded after the time of the Crusades (although the giving of gold or silver in the weight of the hair seems to have been from the Middle East). However there is no clear proof that they did not arise from another source. But they are attested in Arabic sources going back to the 15th century, and probably before. Can the custom of bonfires on Lag Ba'omer have arisen among the Jews separately and independently from the non-Jewish sources? Theoretically it's possible. Books like Minhag Yisruel Toyre he brings all sorts of reasons from various chasidic rebbes and from the book Ta'amei haMinhogim for the origin of the bonfires on Lag Ba'omer. The problem with all the explanations is that a) they are all of recent origin, and b) they somehow ignore the fact that the custom was completely unknown to any Jews up until the time when it is recorded in EY in the 16th century. Furthermore, it was the custom there of only one group of Jews, the Musta'ribim, about whom other Jews complained that they had adopted a lot of Arab customs (the very name mean "Arabicized). From contemporary documents we learn the Muslims (and a few Jews) cut the hair of children as well as lit a bonfires on the yohrtzeit (28 of Iyyar) of non other than the aforementioned Shmu'el haNavi. However, in the 1560s the Arab authorities forbad Jews to go there. Shortly afterwards, we have the testimony of R. Chaim Vital that he was told by R. Yonatan Sagiz that a year before he started learning by the Ari, in the Ari's first year after he immigrated from his homeland of Egypt (also 1570), that "Mori v'Rabbi Z'L took his small son and all of his family there [to the celebration on RaShBY 's yohtzeit in Meron] and there he cut his hair in accordance with the custom." R. Chaim Vital is careful to note, however, that "I do not know whether at that time he was expert and knowledgable in this wondrous wisdom [Qabbolo] as he became after that." IOW, R. Chaim Vital himself is cautioning the reader that he has doubts about whether the Ari did this in accordance with his views in Qabbolo, or just because it was a popular celebration, and he might not have participated had he already been an expert in Qabbolo. Some historians believe that once the Musta'ribim were forbidden to go to the qever of Sh'muel haNavi, they transferred their celebration to Meron and the date to Lag Ba'Omer. Others claim that the custom at Meron predated 1570. But both groups agree that both of these customs, cutting the hair of the children and making bonfires, were practiced by the Arabs and the Musta 'ribim, but not by any of the Ashk'nazi and S'faradi Jews in Israel. Of great interest is that the local rabbis in Tz'fat, who had the practice of going to the all the known q'vorim of the Tano'im from the middle of Iyyar until Shavu'os and having a seder in learning there, opposed the celebrations of the Musta'ribim on Lag ba'Omer and tried to forbid it. They made little headway, and once it became known that the Ari participated one year, any opposition was swept away. We know from travelers to EY in the 18th and 19th centuries that the "hilula" at Meron on Lag Ba'Omer with bonfires and the cutting of children's hair had become an affair of the masses. A well known talmid chochom from Europe, R. Avrohom Rozanes, writes that in his visit to EY in 1867 he saw an Ashk'nazi Jew who had taken his son to the "hilula" and was giving him a haircut. R. Rozanes says that he could not restrain himself, and went to that Jew and tried to dissuade him but was unsuccessful, and that most of the Ashk'nazi and S'faradi Jews of EY participate in this "craziness," with "drinking and dancing and fires." The custom of giving the son his first haircut at that celebration, originally called "halaqa" by the Jews of EY (apparently because there was an established Arabic term but no Jewish term for the custom) was later mixed with the custom of making a celebration when a son reached 3 and began learning Torah. The two customs were combined by many, and resulted in the boy's haircut being delayed until he was 3, and not specifically on Lag ba' Omer. A chasidish rebbe, R. Yehudah Leibush Horenstein, who emigrated to EY in the middle of the 19th century writes that "this haircut, called halaqe, is done by the S'faradim in Yerushalayim at the qever of RaShB'Y during the summer, but during the winter they take the boy to the synagogue or Bet Medrash and perform the haircut with great celebration and parties, something _that is unknown to the Jews in Europe_. and at that point they start him growing his pe'ot. it is incomprehensible why this is not done outside of EY [as well]" [emphasis mine]. Indeed, the custom was adopted by shortly thereafter by chasidim in Europe to imitate the custom of the S'faradim in EY, and the custom of lighting bonfires on Lag Ba'Omer also was adopted at that time by chasidic communities in Europe. The Jews in Europe, knowing no Arabic and having no Yiddish name for the custom of the haircut, called it by a normal Yiddish word for cutting off the hair: opsheren. Both customs are less than 150 years old among Ashk'naz Jews, including chasidim. Now we scarcely can expect to find a historical document that says "we, the undersigned Jews, have decided that there is nothing wrong with copying the Muslim celebrations in honor of saints, and we will participate in them." So you're never going to find better historical evidence for Jewish borrowing of non-Jewish customs than this: that a custom that was previously unknown to any group of Jews arose among a group of Jews known to copy various Arab customs in a time and place that the custom is attested among the Arabs from independent evidence. Is there anything osur about a bonfire on Lag Ba'Omer, or waiting to give a son a haircut until he is 3 or until you go to Meron? Certainly not. As I believe R. SBA has noted, the opsheren provides an excuse for a party that is connected with the boy's beginning to learn; it could be done without the haircut, but if people feel that it is important to give a haircut as well, there is no issur. Certainly no one who lights bonfires or celebrates opsheren has any idea that the source of these customs is extremely questionable. And after 130 years most Jews forget the origin of customs anyway and just assume they are old Jewish customs.. However, those who studiously avoid eating turkey on Thanksgiving should know that the origin of the customs of the bonfire on Lag ba'Omer and halaqa/opsheren are much more suspect. Seth Mandel ---------- So I really do not understand this entire affair at Meron. To add to this see the pictures of Lag B'Omer from many years ago at http://tinyurl.com/khmhcz4 I do not see even one bonfire! YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:07:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 13:07:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 10:01:44AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown : which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. : The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire : 33rd day... : Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last : day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva... Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. Yes, many of us know that the PEC really says Lag baOmer is yom simchas Rashbi, which may or may not be his yahrzeit. "Yom shemeis" is a typo that reached later editions via a dropped ches. See http://seforim.blogspot.com/2011/05/printing-mistake-and-mysterious-origins.html But (as per previous conversations), that also doesn't rule out the possibility that the day of Rashbi's joy is his yahrzeit. But even if the Ari said it's the day he started the Zohar, finished it, left the cave, or whatever, it's still a day the Ari considered worth celebrating. And yes, many of us also know that the whole upsherin-at-the-qever thing was originally on the 43rd in/to the omer, at Nabi Samwel. (See shu"t haRadvaz 2:608.) Which makes sense -- Shemu'el was a nazir, and he lived in the BHMQ starting at age 3. The move to Meron and Lag baOmer happened when the Ottomans restricted access to the qever in the 1500s. The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) and ABD. But the version of the minhag he recorded would not pose the question -- observe the first "half" of the omer, and then a haircut a week before Shavuos isn't a problem. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:07:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 13:07:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 10:01:44AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown : which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. : The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire : 33rd day... : Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last : day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva... Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. Yes, many of us know that the PEC really says Lag baOmer is yom simchas Rashbi, which may or may not be his yahrzeit. "Yom shemeis" is a typo that reached later editions via a dropped ches. See http://seforim.blogspot.com/2011/05/printing-mistake-and-mysterious-origins.html But (as per previous conversations), that also doesn't rule out the possibility that the day of Rashbi's joy is his yahrzeit. But even if the Ari said it's the day he started the Zohar, finished it, left the cave, or whatever, it's still a day the Ari considered worth celebrating. And yes, many of us also know that the whole upsherin-at-the-qever thing was originally on the 43rd in/to the omer, at Nabi Samwel. (See shu"t haRadvaz 2:608.) Which makes sense -- Shemu'el was a nazir, and he lived in the BHMQ starting at age 3. The move to Meron and Lag baOmer happened when the Ottomans restricted access to the qever in the 1500s. The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) and ABD. But the version of the minhag he recorded would not pose the question -- observe the first "half" of the omer, and then a haircut a week before Shavuos isn't a problem. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 08:22:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 11:22:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554B8340.3090001@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 10:01 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > > > The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire 33rd day, and they wait until the 34th day to take a haircut. Does this not imply that the entire 33rd day is part of Sefirah and the restrictions hold the entire 33rd day? > > Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva. However, the micktzas starts in the morning of the 7th day, not on the night of the 7th day. Thus, even according to Ashkenazim the night of Lag B'Omer is bound by the restrictions of Sefirah. So how can they make such gatherings on the night of the 33rd day? That all applies if you regard Lag Ba'omer as simply marking the end of mourning. But as we discussed a few weeks ago, that doesn't really make sense. According to both shitos quoted by the BY there is no such thing as Lag Ba'omer -- the last day on which they died was either the 34th of the Omer or the 49th. Even according to the Tosfos as the Bach quotes it, that they only died for 33 days, Lag Ba'omer was one of the 33, and not the last one! And even if one will find a shita somewhere that they died only on the first 33 days, who makes a party on the last day of shiva? You stop active mourning, you don't go dancing! All of which points to the fact that Lag Ba'omer is *not* about the end of mourning, but a happy day in its own right, the simcha of Rashbi. (The silly discussion over whether the word is "simchas" or "shemeis" is irrelevant here. Either way it's his simcha, which he asked people to celebrate.) This simcha *overrides* the mourning of sefira, no matter which shita one follows. This way of looking at things also explains whether one should say tachanun at mincha of erev Lag Ba'omer. If it's just "the end of shiva", that starts in the morning, so one should say tachanun at the previous mincha, just as one does on erev Pesach Sheni (which also starts in the morning), erev Erev RH and erev Erev YK, and if we said tachanun in Nissan we would also say it at mincha of erev Erev Pesach, because it too starts in the morning. But once we regard Lag Ba'omer as a day of simcha in its own right, then it starts at night, and so we omit tachanun in the previous mincha. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 07:19:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 09:19:59 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] The Princess and I: Academic Kabbalists/Kabbalist Academics In-Reply-To: <20150507062523.18EF01826EC@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507062523.18EF01826EC@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554B748F.8080508@starways.net> On 5/7/2015 1:25 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > From http://tinyurl.com/km8kf2n >> The last few decades have witnessed the veritable explosion of "new >> perspectives" and horizons in the academic study of Kabbalah and >> Jewish Mysticism. From the pioneering work of the late Professor >> Gershom Scholem, and the establishment of the study of Jewish >> Mysticism as a legitimate scholarly pursuit, we witness a scene >> nowadays populated by men and women, Jews and non-Jews, who have >> challenged, (re)constructed, and expanded upon Scholem's work.[2] ... R' Adin Steinsalz once said about the Kabbalah Center type of Kabbalah that it bore the same relationship to real Kabbalah that pornography does to love. This "academic Kabbalah" bears the same relationship to real Kabbalah that an anatomy book does to love. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:32:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 13:32:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> At 01:07 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 10:01:44AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: >: I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown >: which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. > >: The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire >: 33rd day... >: Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last >: day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva... > >Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to >get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would >mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. Indeed, I think one should be. Truth be told my mother, A"H, told me that once a child is at least one year old and can say a few words, then his hair gets cut. This is what I did with my sons, and I am sure it is an old minhag. >Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the >Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning >on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in >the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke >qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to >last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. Indeed, this is where the New Religion is coming from. Years ago someone asked Rav S. Schwab, ZT"L, about certain things that certain chassidishe women do when they are pregnant and if they were valid. His forceful reply was, "My mother never knew about such things, my grandmother never knew about such things, and my great grandmother never knew about such things. These people are making up a religion!!!!!" I am not comfortable with people making up a religion, particularly since RSRH says definitively the Judaism is not a religion, to the New Religion is not Judaism by definition. >The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, >who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where >he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) >and ABD. But the version of the minhag he recorded would not pose the >question -- observe the first "half" of the omer, and then a haircut a >week before Shavuos isn't a problem. The MB points out that the minhag in Vilna was to start the restrictions of Sefirah on the first day of Rosh Chodesh Iyar and then they end in the morning of the first of the 3 days before Shavuous. I took a haircut shortly before Rosh Chodesh Iyar. There were no crowds to contend with and I had no waiting. This morning I trimmed my mustache and the hair that grows under my neck below my beard at shortly after sunrise. I will take a haircut on 3 or 4 Sivan. Again, there will be no crowds to contend with. This has worked and continues to work for me. YL PS. My wife has asked more than once, " How can they observe the aveilus restrictions of Sefirah during Pesach when it is a Yom Tov?" My reply is, "I do not know." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 13:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507175311.GC1758@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 01:32:05PM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : >Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to : >get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would : >mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. : Indeed, I think one should be. Maqor? Since when do we expect 3 yr olds to conform to minhag? ... : >Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the : >Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning : >on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in : >the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke : >qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to : >last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. : : Indeed, this is where the New Religion is coming from.... The PEC is older than RSRH. If you want to label any particular change as a "New Religion", you dwell in a glass house. ... : The MB points out that the minhag in Vilna was to start the : restrictions of Sefirah on the first day of Rosh Chodesh Iyar and : then they end in the morning of the first of the 3 days before : Shavuous. I took a haircut shortly before Rosh Chodesh Iyar. There : were no crowds to contend with and I had no waiting. And the Radbaz predates the SA, never mind the MB. : This has worked and continues to work for me... Good. What I'm objecting to is your insistnce in telling others that what works for them is "New Religion". : PS. My wife has asked more than once, " How can they observe the : aveilus restrictions of Sefirah during Pesach when it is a Yom Tov?" : My reply is, "I do not know." You can't get married on Pesach, not even ch"m either. Nor get a haircut. So you're asking about parties with live music. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:49:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 13:49:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <554BA59A.5040905@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 01:07 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, > who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where > he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) Who taught the Ari, who cut his son's hair at Meron on Lag Ba'omer. Does anyone know whether the Shita Mekubetzes, beside being the Ari's rebbe, was also related to him? I haven't seen this anywhere, but how many Ashkenazi families could there have been in Egypt at that time? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 11:41:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Herbert Basser via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 18:41:42 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah Message-ID: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> A recent post claims the Islamic "opsherin" was called "halaqah". What is the evidence for this claim? The only meaning of arabic "halaqah" I know is "learning circle". Zvi Basser -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 14:31:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 17:31:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Upsherin Message-ID: <20150507213225.D3EDA181A25@nexus.stevens.edu> Since Upsherin is done on Lag B'Omer at Meron, I think one should understand the source for this too. The following is from Shorshei Minhag Ashkenaz, Minhag Ashkenaz: Sources and Roots by Rabbi Binyamin Shlomo Hamburger, Synopsis of Volumes I-IV. YL The German custom to bring a young boy to the synagogue with a wirnpel (wrapping for t he Torah scroll) has no connection whatsoever to the practice of the chalaka (the Arabic term for Upsherin) observed by Sepharadirn and later ad opted by many Chasidirn. Th e custom of holding a special celebration marking the boy's first haircut developed among these groups. The celebration takes place at a specific age, usually three. Th e festivity is customarily held near the gravesite of a tzadik or in a synagogue. *This custom was unknown in ancient Sephardic and Ashkenazic communities.* (Emphasis added by me.) The earliest reports of the chalaka [upsherin] celebration are found in accounts written by Sepharadim early in the period of the Acharonim. Some three centuries later, we find the first indications that the custom had made its way into Chasidic circles. The most important source concerning the chalaka is the account of the celebration in which the Ari-zal is involved. The details of this story are somewhat vague, and it is unclear whether the Ari-zal made a chalaka for his son, or whether the account refers to his disciple, Rabbi Yonatan Sagish. There is also some question as to whether the Ari-zal participated in Lag Ba 'omer events in Meron after his kabalistic insights because the custom to conduct a chalaka on Lag Ba 'omer runs in opposition to the Ari-zal' s final ruling that forbade hair cutting during the orner period. Furthermore, the custom of the chalaka has given rise to some questions as to the propriety of hair cutting at a gravesite or synagogue, which might constitute an infringement upon the sanctity of the site. Some have also questioned the permissibility of haircutting on Lag Ba 'omer, during bein ha-rnetzarirn (the three weeks before Tisha B' A v) or during Chol Ha 'rno 'ed. Yet another concern was the immodest behavior that occasionally accompanied this event. Most Sephardic and Chasidic rabbis applauded, or at least defended the practices observed in their circles, though there were those who forbade the custom in this manner. Rabbi Yitzchak Zev Soloveitchik of Brisk (1889-1960) disapproved of bringing children to rabbis on their third birthday for the chalaka, claiming that this practice "has no reason or basis." He noted that there are sources indicating that one should introduce the child to matters of Torah at the age of three, but none that involve haircutting. Rabbi Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky [the "Steipler Ga'on," (1899-1985)] also opposed this practice, and would send away parents who brought their children to him for the chalaka haircut. The tendency among Ashkenazi communities to refrain from this practice stems, according to one view, from the concern that the chalaka transgresses the prohibition of imitating pagan practices. Cutting a child's hair at the age of three was a well-known custom among several nations in ancient times, and thus observing this practice may constitute an imitation of pagan ritual. Some, however, dismissed this argument, claiming that to the contrary, the chalaka perhaps began as an ancient Jewish practice which was later adopted by the gentiles. There are some older customs, originating in the times of Chazal and the Ge'onim, such as fasting on Erev Rosh Hashana and the ceremony of Kapaprot on Erev Yom Kippur which were opposed by some rabbis since they feared that their origins could be found in pagan rites. In any event, although some communities accepted this custom, Ashkenazi communities were never aware of such a practice. They did not receive this tradition from their forebears, and they found no mention of it in the writings of the Rishonim. The ancient tradition among Ashkenazi communities was to cut a boy's hair at a very young age. In fact, during the times of Chazal, parents would cut an infant's hair not long after birth, and they even permitted cutting a baby's overgrown hair on Chol Ha 'mo' ed. In the times of the Rishonim, too, boys' hair in Ashkenaz was cut already within the first several months after birth. The phenomenon of children with overgrown hair simply did not exist in Germany, and a boy with overgrown hair would have been mistaken for a girl. The custom of chalaka was never accepted in Ashkenazic countries or other regions in Western Europe, not even among the Sephardic communities in these areas. The practice earned acceptance in Eastern Europe among certain Chasidic circles, but only in later generations. Among other circles, boys' hair was cut when they began speaking, and no special affair was held to celebrate the event. .. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 14:31:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 17:31:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554BD9C6.9000803@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 01:32 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > > Indeed, this is where the New Religion is coming from. Years ago > someone asked Rav S. Schwab, ZT"L, about certain things that certain > chassidishe women do when they are pregnant and if they were valid. > His forceful reply was, "My mother never knew about such things, my > grandmother never knew about such things, and my great grandmother > never knew about such things. These people are making up a religion!!!!!" With all due respect to R Schwab's great-grandmother, there are more things in Yiddishkeit than were dreamt of in her philosophy. My great-grandmother did know about such things, and I'm sure her tzidkus and wisdom was no less than hers. And following the Ari's teachings is the very opposite of making up a religion. > I am not comfortable with people making up a religion, particularly > since RSRH says definitively the Judaism is not a religion, to the > New Religion is not Judaism by definition. You're the one assigning to it the word "religion", and then, in what can only be called an act of verbal ju-jitsu, you pull out a definition of that word which (you claim) does not fit Yiddishkeit, and declare that anything called a "religion" must not be Yiddishkeit. I might as well say that since my aunt is a secretary, a secretary is a kind of desk, and Jesus was a carpenter, therefore Jesus made my aunt! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 14:10:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 17:10:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> At 01:07 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. But doesn't "evolving" mean that there is an existing minhag, and it evolves? Here we are talking about a new minhag which no one knew about. The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was appropriate. People certainly can make up new customs whenever they like. But bonfires on Lag Ba'omer are no more or no less than parades on Yom haAtzmaut for those who celebrate it: They have nothing to do with religion. Some Jews have even invented a custom to put up a tree on Chanukkah. But do not try to tell us it then becomes a "religious minhag" and "minhag Hamokom." Everything that Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel wrote in his post is true. There were no rabbonim at the time who approved of the custom. Indeed it is true is that there were no rabbonim who approved of the custom at the time, nor at the time of the Ari and R. Chaim Vital. While they did not say it should be stopped, they gave no support either. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 15:42:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 18:42:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507224237.GA15428@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 05:10:31PM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : At 01:07 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: :> Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. : But doesn't "evolving" mean that there is an existing minhag, and it : evolves? ... The essence of mourning during the omer is not making a wedding, since nissuin, or a se'udas eirusin at the time of eirusin, is the act of simchah par exellance. Then the bit about haircuts crept in, and later, parties with music. Perhaps music as a whole, perhaps instrumental music, perhaps only parties -- machloqes acharonim. That's the minhag I'm talking about evolving. So, people found reason to poke a hole in a minhag that was otherwise growing. As I said, minhagim evolve. : The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was : appropriate. What? The Ari PARTICIPATED in it himself! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 16:39:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 19:39:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Upsherin In-Reply-To: <20150507213225.D3EDA181A25@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507213225.D3EDA181A25@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554BF7A0.10800@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 05:31 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > The earliest reports of the chalaka [upsherin] celebration are found in >accounts written by Sepharadim early in the period of the Acharonim. Indeed it is. For instance, see Gan Hamelech ch 62. http://www.otzar.org/wotzar/book.aspx?64092 This takes it back to at least the 17th century, and he refers to it as a well-known minhag that he doesn't have to explain. The Gan Hamelech is surely himself sufficient authority even if we had no other. And while he was Sefardi, he had a great influence on Ashkenazi psak. > The most important source concerning the chalaka is the account of > the celebration in which the Ari-zal is involved. The details of this > story are somewhat vague, and it is unclear whether the Ari-zal made > a chalaka for his son, or whether the account refers to his disciple, > Rabbi Yonatan Sagish. There is nothing vague about it. It's clear from the context that R Yonatan told R Chaim what the Ari had done a year before he, R Chaim, became the Ari's talmid. > Some have also questioned the permissibility of haircutting on Lag > Ba'omer, during bein ha-metzarirn or during Chol Hamo'ed. Gan Hamelech not only permits it on Chol Hamoed but even permits *delaying* it to Chol Hamoed so as to increase the simcha! And this psak is quoted lehalacha by the Baer Hetev. > The custom of /chalaka /was never accepted in /Ashkenazic /countries or > other regions in Western Europe, not even among the /Sephardic > /communities in these areas. The practice earned acceptance in Eastern > Europe among certain /Chasidic /circles, but only in later generations. This is untrue. It was already accepted in the Baal Shem Tov's time. The only time the Alter Rebbe saw the Baal Shem Tov was on his third birthday, when his parents brought him to have his hair cut. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 16:45:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 19:45:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554BF921.5070409@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 05:10 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was appropriate. On the contrary, he wrote that he personally saw the Ari take his whole family there and stay three days! > There were no rabbonim at the time who approved of the custom. The Ari was not a rov?! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 21:35:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 04:35:03 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Israeli carrots and peppers Message-ID: <20150508.003503.13248.1@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> Om Areivim, R' Yitzchok Levine posted this alert: > Shemitta: Carrots & Peppers from Israel > in Neighborhood Stores > > Please be aware that carrots (including Dorot Farms brand), > peppers, and other vegetables from Israel are consistently > being sold in the Baltimore area at produce markets in our > neighborhood, which are frequented by members of our community. > From the numerous inquiries we have received, it is apparent > that many consumers are unaware of this when shopping. > > The packages or labels state "Product of Israel." These > vegetables likely have Kedushas Shviis and require special > care. If you bought them, contact your local Orthodox rabbi > for further guidance. > > Seven Mile Market in Baltimore is monitored by Star-K and > produce sold there does not have this issue. My question is this: Why does the alert mention only the problem of Kedushas Shviis? If one is concerned about Kedushas Shviis, wouldn't he also be concerned about Sefichin, which (more than merely requiring "special care") is an issur achila? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554c3d3271e3c3d3240a3st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 21:11:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 04:11:14 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Meron live Message-ID: <20150508.001114.13248.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero wrote: > This way of looking at things also explains whether one should > say tachanun at mincha of erev Lag Ba'omer. If it's just "the > end of shiva", that starts in the morning, so one should say > tachanun at the previous mincha, just as one does on erev Pesach > Sheni (which also starts in the morning), erev Erev RH and erev > Erev YK, and if we said tachanun in Nissan we would also say it > at mincha of erev Erev Pesach, because it too starts in the > morning. But once we regard Lag Ba'omer as a day of simcha in > its own right, then it starts at night, and so we omit tachanun > in the previous mincha. I don't follow any of what RZS is saying about Lag Ba'omer, so I'll neither agree nor disagree. But my understanding of the nature of Pesach Sheni is very different from his: As it was explained to me, there's nothing special about the morning of Pesach Sheni. Pesach Sheni exists only on the afternoon of 14 Iyar and the following night. We omit Tachanun on the morning of 14 Iyar NOT because it is a holiday, but because it is the Tachanun *before* the holiday. Alternatively, one might say that the morning of 14 Iyar actually *is* Erev Pesach Sheni. Either way, the afternoon of 13 Iyar is too far removed to be significant enough to warrant skipping Tachanun. It is similar to how the *afternoon* of Erev RH and Erev YK are special enough to skip Tachanun, and this is extended even to the morning, but to say that the entirety of those days are so special that we would skip Tachanun even at the preceding Mincha -- No, that just doesn't fly. This leaves us with three days, at most, when we skip Tachanun at Shacharis, but we *do* say it at the preceding Mincha. (And many siddurim - ArtScroll, for example - explicitly list these three days as exceptions to the general rule.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554c37b79791d37b756e9st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 01:40:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 04:40:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507224237.GA15428@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507224237.GA15428@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150508084208.2D02F182131@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:42 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: > The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was >: appropriate. > >What? The Ari PARTICIPATED in it himself! From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upsherin Rabbi Chaim Vital wrote in Sha'ar Ha-Kavanot that "Isaac Luria, cut his son's hair on Lag BaOmer, according to the well-known custom." However, the age of his son is not mentioned. An obvious problem raised by Avraham Yaari, in an article in Tarbiz 22 (1951), is that many sources cite that the Arizal held one should not cut one's hair for the entire sefirah ? including Lag BaOmer, (see Shaarei Teshuva, O.C. 493, 8). YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 01:44:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 04:44:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Better Version of Upsherin Message-ID: <20150508084606.6189F180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> There were some editorial problems with what I sent out earlier about this topic from Shorshei Minhag Ashkenaz. See http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/shorshei_hair_cutting.pdf for a better version. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 21:02:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 06:02:54 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah In-Reply-To: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> References: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> Message-ID: <554C356E.2030103@zahav.net.il> On 5/7/2015 8:41 PM, Herbert Basser via Avodah wrote: > A recent post claims the Islamic "opsherin" was called "halaqah". What > is the evidence for this claim? The only meaning of arabic "halaqah" I > know is "learning circle". A (Tunisian) Arab told me that it means hair cut. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 01:54:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 04:54:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening in a Large or Small Shul Message-ID: <20150508085532.23F97182131@nexus.stevens.edu> From today's http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ 1)It is a Mitzvah to daven in a Shul that has a large amount of people, as the Pasuk (Mishlei 14:28) says "Brov Am Hadras Melech - with a large assemblage the glory of the King [Hashem] is multiplied." (See Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) 2)There are various exceptions to this rule, and certain times it is deemed Halachically superior to daven in a smaller place and forego the "Brov Am Hadras Melech". A few examples of the many such exceptions: a)Davening in a Bais HaMidrash or Yeshiva , where people learn Torah all [or a large part of the] day (even if you yourself do not learn there) is better than davening in a Shul (i.e. Bais Hakneses that is used only for Tefilah), even if there are more people in the Shul than in the Bais HaMidrash. (See Talmud Brachos 8a. See Chayei Adam Klal 17:1 and Mishna Berura Siman 90 S:K 55) b)If one is on the way to a big Shul, and is stopped by someone and asked to be the tenth man [or any part of the 10] in their Minyan (either in a shiva house, or a smaller Shul whose members cannot go to the larger Shul due to their health or age, or any similar situation) he should stay with them and not refuse based on "Brov Am Hadras Melech" (Psak of Maran Harav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv Zatzal, quoted in Sefer Tefilah K'Hilchasa Perek 2 footnote 29, who maintains that doing a Chesed is just as big a Mitzvah, if not bigger, than fulfilling "Brov Am Hadras Melech") c) If one can concentrate and daven better in a smaller Shul he should daven there, rather than in a bigger Shul where he may not daven as well. (Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) The Aruch Hashulchan (Siman 90:15) rules that if in the larger Shul there are people who talk and converse during the Tefilah (which is a terrible sin, as we have discussed many times, and will iy"H discuss again more thoroughly in the near future), it is better to daven in a small Shul where it is quiet and the proper respect for Tefilah is exhibited. (The Sefer Tefilah K'Hilchasa Perek 2 footnote 28 writes that Rav Shlomo Zalmen Auerbach Zatzal even went so far as to Pasken that if by leaving the Shul with the talking you will end up missing Krias HaTorah or having to leave davening early, one should still avoid the Shul with the talking!) d) Naturally, if by davening in the larger Shul one will miss the proper time for davening (Zman Tefilah), he may daven in an earlier Minyan or Shul even if it is significantly smaller. (See Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) ---------- I think that today there is a move away from davening in large shuls. This is certainly true here in Brooklyn where many of the larger shuls are at times struggling to maintain their congregants. Part of it has to do with the fact that most large shuls daven Ashkenaz, and this is not viewed favorably in Brooklyn. I personally prefer to daven in a minyan consisting of between 20 and forty people. It is much easier to maintain decorum in such a minyan than in a shul where 100 or more people are davening. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 05:14:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 12:14:58 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Davening in a Large or Small Shul In-Reply-To: <20150508085532.23F97182131@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150508085532.23F97182131@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <5f05607383324977a92361bd65ab804c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> From today's http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ 1)It is a Mitzvah to daven in a Shul that has a large amount of people, as the Pasuk (Mishlei 14:28) says "Brov Am Hadras Melech - with a large assemblage the glory of the King [Hashem] is multiplied." (See Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) 2)There are various exceptions to this rule, and certain times it is deemed Halachically superior to daven in a smaller place and forego the "Brov Am Hadras Melech". A few examples of the many such exceptions:....................... ================================================ I wonder if this write up is indicative of a trend seen in "The halachos of X" works, likutim which seem to have become more popular (did they exist 40 years ago?). As Rav Aharon Lichtenstein learned at Harvard, life is complex. Of course there are overarching priorities which need to be learned, but specific applications are hard to summarize in an algorithmic form (see hilchot lashon hara and tzedaka for some obvious examples). Maybe in an internet age we have no choice but to try to put everything on line but what you really need IMHO is a live mentor. KT Joel RIch THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 08:21:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 11:21:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] minhagei S'fira (was "Meron live") Message-ID: In Avodah V33n74, R'Micha replied to RDrYL: : PS. My wife has asked more than once, " How can they observe the : aveilus restrictions of Sefirah during Pesach when it is a Yom Tov?" : My reply is, "I do not know." > You can't get married on Pesach, not even ch"m either. Nor get a haircut. So you're asking about parties with live music. < If one is asking about *minhagei aveilus* during the "first days", one can also ask about the "second days" custom to observe *minhagei aveilus* whenever Tachanun is said, as the number of such days does not come close to 33 and one has to include Shabbos as well as either R'Ch'Iyyar or the *shloshes y'mei hagbala* (all days when Tachanun is _not_ said) in the number. All the best from *Michael Poppers* * Elizabeth, NJ, USA -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 11:39:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 14:39:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] minhagei S'fira (was "Meron live") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150508183940.GA11944@aishdas.org> On Fri, May 08, 2015 at 11:21:28AM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : If one is asking about *minhagei aveilus* during the "first days", one can : also ask about the "second days" custom to observe *minhagei aveilus* whenever : Tachanun is said... Which makes it a good time to remind people of my tweak of RAM's survey of 11 different shitos (12, if we include one that isn't followed) of omer mourning periods It's an interesting side-note that two opinions do not include the night of Lag baOmer. But neither end then. :-)BBii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 11:58:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 14:58:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] minhagei S'fira (was "Meron live") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <554D0756.4070105@sero.name> On 05/08/2015 11:21 AM, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: > If one is asking about /minhagei aveilus/ during the "first days", > one can also ask about the "second days" custom to observe /minhagei > aveilus/ whenever Tachanun is said, as the number of such days does > not come close to 33 and one has to include Shabbos as well as either > R'Ch'Iyyar or the /shloshes y'mei hagbala/ (all days when Tachanun is > _not_ said) in the number. Whose custom is that? This sounds like the shita of Tosfos as quoted by Mahari ibn Shuaib, which is that they died all 49 days, but we observe aveilus only on those days when we don't say *techina*, which comes to exactly 33 days (including Lag Ba'omer, which according to this shita is not a special day at all). -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 9 03:38:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Sat, 9 May 2015 20:38:40 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Upsherin Message-ID: > > R' Levin wrote: The German custom to bring a young boy to the synagogue > with a wimpel > (wrapping for the Torah scroll) has no connection whatsoever to the > practice of the chalaka [...] > This is the way KAJ recommends This the way KAJ recommends Not with the bangs but a wimpel. Joe Slater -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 9 05:12:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sat, 9 May 2015 22:12:16 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <418AFCD6-9213-453C-A268-58AFB75BB81A@balb.in> I didn't know my family Minhag until I chanced on a picture before the war with my grandfather and two of his sons, both with long hair. Using the mimetic tradition my sons and grandsons had an upsherin. It's interesting that mention was made of The Griz. As is well known followers of the Vilna Gaon (including Mori VRabbi Rav Hershel Schachter) don't go to the Beis HaChaim and neither did Rav YD Soloveitchik until in his words he felt compelled to visit his wife's Tziyun. How many know that the Griz asked some Talmidim to go to the Rashbi's grave and pray when the Griz was on his death bed? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 9 12:23:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 9 May 2015 22:23:58 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar Message-ID: The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article They show how Seder Olam is self consistent and in particular it frequently takes people in Tanach whom seem to be different and conflates them. In sefer shoftim they take everything literally that each judge was for 40 years and no gaps between them etc. They then address the difference between the secular and seder olam dates. They also point out the difficulty in the sefer Isuah from chapter 39 onwards (Deutero-Isaiah) 1) the sudden change from rebuke and sestruction to comfort (many years before the destruction) 2) Koresh is listed explicitly twice while prophecy tends to be general 3) Yeshayahu is mention 15 times in the first part but never is mentioned in the second part They conclude that the secular dates are correct (as an aside archaeologists decide on these dates based on astronomical events and carbon 14 dating of pollen seeds which are short lived) They then explain seder olam dating 1) seder olam was not written as a historical text but has a moral side 2) seder olam ignores periods of time when nothing of Jewish importance occurs In particular the Persian era until Shimon Hagadol did not live up to the expectations. Hence, the prophecy of Isaiah-II (name unknown) was simply added to an existing sefer 3) as with its practice conflates Darius I with Darius III. 4) The new Greek calendar (shtarot) was exactly 1000 years after the exodus. In order to achieve this goal parts of the Persian history had to be changed including the order of some kings, again conflating several separate Persian kings which leads to a much shortened Persian kingdom. Finally it removes 6 years from Alexander the great (ie seder olam states Alexander ruled for 6 years in Greece and 6 years in Persia) See above article for more details -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 10 16:49:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 May 2015 18:49:22 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <554FEE82.8090903@starways.net> I think this is tragic. Rather than allow the blasphemous thought that the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their minds, they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple frauds and told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern Orthodox Jews have regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic. Lisa On 5/9/2015 2:23 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a > series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar > > http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see > achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article > > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 10 17:27:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 May 2015 20:27:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <554FF779.8010200@aishdas.org> I cannot believe TABC allowed this to be published as is. /Shreklach!/ KT, YGB On 05/09/2015 03:23 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a > series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar > > http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see > achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 02:19:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 12:19:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebre calendar Message-ID: <> I don't see how you can call this "blasphemous" R. Schwab once suggested that Chazal purposely changed the facts for a good reason. While he later retracted it would be hard to call his original opinion "blasphemous" . Furthermore several current Orthodox rabbis such as R. Leibtag do accept the secular dating. In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some examples 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu As a curios it makes Eliyahu some 700 years old when he runs in front of Achav's chariot. It gives a different meaning to Achav's accusations against Eliyahu when Eliyahu actually worked together with Moshe Rabbenu. Besiades the fact that Eliyahu was from Gilad and worked in the northern kingdom it leaves the halachic question whether a cohen gadol can resign and even leave the land of Israel for various tasks. It is clear from Tanach that Eli and other were the high priest in later generations 2) Ezta = Malachi because both dealt with the problem of foreign wives 3) Nechemia = Zerubavel R. Yaakov Embden already points out that both are mentioned in the same pasuk 4) Daniel = Hatach = Sashvezer Ibn Ezra already doesnt accept this 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta This is part of the missing years controversy. Note that there are several ancient Persian inscriptions that list them as separate kings Note that Ibn Ezra identifies Achashverosh as Artachashasta 6) Conflates Kaleb ben Chetron married to Efrat with Kalen ben Yefuneh married to Miriam Ibn Ezra disagrees and also see the Gra -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 10 23:38:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 09:38:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah In-Reply-To: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> References: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> Message-ID: On Thu, May 7, 2015 at 9:41 PM, Herbert Basser via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > A recent post claims the Islamic "opsherin" was called "halaqah". What > is the evidence for this claim? The only meaning of arabic "halaqah" I know > is "learning circle". > Disclaimer: my knowledge of Arabic doesn't go much beyond being able to look up words in the dictionary, but from doing that the root h-l-q seems to mean both "shave", "form a circle" and "round off". This makes sense to me: after all, "lehakkif" in Biblical Hebrew has the same semantic range. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 03:06:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 06:06:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] He is my G-d Message-ID: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> From Today's Hakhel email bulletin. Hakhel Note: The following is excerpted from Rav Schwab on Prayer, and was related by Rav Schwab at a Shiur he gave on Tefillah: I heard a story from Rav Yosef Breuer, Shlita, which he told about his father, my Rebbe, Rav Shlomo Zalman (Solomon) Breuer. The elder Rav Breuer was a very good friend of Rav Shimon Sofer, the Rav of Cracow, a brother of the Ksav Sofer, and a son of the Chasam Sofer. Once when the two friends met, Rav Shimon Sofer asked Rav Breuer to tell him a short ?vort" from his father-in-law, Rav Shamshon R. Hirsch. Upon which, Rav Breuer told him that Rav Hirsch would point out that while Adon Olam described the unfathomable eternity and omnipotence of Hashem, it nevertheless makes a reference to Him in a very personal way--VeHu Kaili, He is my G-d. Each person in his Tefillah says: I have a personal relationship with HaKadosh Baruch HU, He is my personal G-d. Therefore, whenever a person says the word Ado--i, my Master, no matter how small he thinks he is, he is averring that he is in direct contact with Hashem. This thought is in the introduction to any individual's Iyun Tefillah, concentration on Prayer. There is nothing mystical or supernatural about it. It should be the most natural thing in the world. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 06:38:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 13:38:51 GMT Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebre calendar Message-ID: <20150511.093851.15442.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel wrote: > In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that > Chazal had a tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some > examples > 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu I rarely, if ever, come across the word "conflate", except here on Avodah. When it is used here, it seems to be pejorative, indicating that someone confused or merged two things that really ought to stay distinct. RET, is that what you mean here? Do you feel that it was wrong for Chazal to associate Pinchas and Eliyahu in the way that they did? Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5550b1061639931057a29st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 07:16:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joseph Kaplan via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 10:16:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar Message-ID: <002a01d08bf5$1a951290$4fbf37b0$@tenzerlunin.com> On 5/9/2015 2:23 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a > series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar > > http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see > achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article > There were (so far) two responses: "I think this is tragic. Rather than allow the blasphemous thought that the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their minds, they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple frauds and told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern Orthodox Jews have regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic." "I cannot believe TABC allowed this to be published as is. /Shreklach!/" When I read this when it came out I remember thinking: what a refreshing concept. Letting students use the educational tools they have been given to think on their own and then to publish the results which (to my extremely non-expert eyes) appears to be a nice bit of research and analysis - whether correct or not. Joseph -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 07:30:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 09:30:18 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebre calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> On 5/11/2015 4:19 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > < that the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their > minds, they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple > frauds and told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern > Orthodox Jews have regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic.>> > > I don't see how you can call this "blasphemous" R. Schwab once > suggested that Chazal purposely changed the facts for a good reason. > While he later retracted it would be hard to call his original opinion > "blasphemous" . Furthermore several current Orthodox rabbis such as R. > Leibtag do accept the secular dating. I didn't call it blasphemous. I referred to doubting secular scholarship as blasphemy, tongue in cheek, because that seems to be the way it's viewed by some of the secular thinking Modern Orthodox. R' Schwab once wrote a thought experiment, which was one huge hava amina. What if, he said, we were faced with absolute proof that the historiography of Chazal was wrong? And he gave an idea. He was horrified by the way in which the secular thinking Modern Orthodox misread what he wrote as an actual position, opposing the veracity of Chazal, and wrote, not a retraction, but a clarification that he had *never* espoused the position that was being attributed to him. If R' Leibtag accepts the secular dating, then my comments about the tragedy of Modern Orthodox Jews bowing to the modern idol of secular scholarship apply there as well. > In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a > tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some examples > > 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu > As a curios it makes Eliyahu some 700 years old when he runs in front > of Achav's chariot. > It gives a different meaning to Achav's accusations against Eliyahu > when Eliyahu actually worked together with Moshe Rabbenu. Wrong again. There's no historiography going on here. No chronological framework of any kind. It's Midrash. Like Moshe Rabbenu jumping 10 amot into the air when fighting Og. Like Pharaoh's daughter having a stretchy, Fantastic Four kind of arm. Midrashim are all true. They aren't all true in the literal sense. Pinchas was not literally Aharon's grandson Pinchas ben Elazar. That's quite different from throwing away the entirety of Chazal's historiography, which is internally consistent all the way through, and which *Chazal clearly believed to be literally true*. If you want to say they were wrong, that they were ignorant of the facts, go ahead and do so. But please, don't play games by imagining that they intentionally fudged the facts. > Besiades the fact that Eliyahu was from Gilad and worked in the > northern kingdom it leaves the halachic question whether a cohen gadol > can resign and even leave the land of Israel for various tasks. It is > clear from Tanach that Eli and other were the high priest in later > generations Again, he wasn't Kohen Gadol. No one holds that he was. Let me try and explain a little more about Midrash. Chazal bring Midrashim that contradict one another. For example, there's a Midrash that says Esther never slept with Achashveirosh. That Hashem sent a mal'ach that took her place. That conflicts with "Esther karka hayta", as well as with the Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son. None of this is problematic. Because the truth of Midrashim is not in their concretes. Like analogies, Midrashim are abstractions which are anchored with concretes, but are not defined by those concretes. > 2) Ezta = Malachi because both dealt with the problem of foreign wives And maybe Ezra was Malachi. And maybe he wasn't. I don't see much of a nafka mina either way. Do you? > 3) Nechemia = Zerubavel > R. Yaakov Embden already points out that both are mentioned in the > same pasuk Ditto. Not one single example you're bringing has anything to do with a massive chronological framework that Chazal clearly knew to be the way things happened. Megillat Esther took place *before* Bayit Sheni was built, and not after. Baruch ben Neriah was the talmid of Yirmiyahu and the rav of Ezra, and if you throw that away, you literally snap the chain of tradition from Sinai, rendering all of Judaism stuff and nonsense. > 4) Daniel = Hatach = Sashvezer > Ibn Ezra already doesnt accept this Again, l'mai nafka mina? > 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta > This is part of the missing years controversy. Note that there are > several ancient Persian inscriptions that list them as separate kings > Note that Ibn Ezra identifies Achashverosh as Artachashasta It's not part of the missing years anything. You need to read what Chazal say about that inside. As far as Achashveirosh being Artachshasta, Chazal say Artaxerxes was a throne name. And in fact, Greek sources say that both Artaxerxes II and III adopted it as a throne name. Furthermore, the Septuagint version of Esther refers to the king as Artaxerxes, so saying that Ahasuerus is Artaxerxes is a truism that has nothing to do with chronology. > 6) Conflates Kaleb ben Chetron married to Efrat > with Kalen ben Yefuneh married to Miriam > Ibn Ezra disagrees and also see the Gra I'll go further. R' Moshe Eisenmann's Divrei HaYamim for Artscroll (one of the few books in the Artscroll Tanakh series which I consider to be of inestimable value) has an entire section on the Kalevs. I highly recommend it. But again, Midrash is Midrash, and there's zero relevance here. Let me ask a simple question. Was Baruch ben Neriya Ezra's teacher? As Chazal say, and as Iggeret Rav Shrira Gaon and Rambam and others bring down. Or not? And if not, how do you feel about *not* having a chain of tradition going back to Sinai? Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 08:17:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 11:17:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: <20150511.093851.15442.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150511.093851.15442.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150511151732.GA15699@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 01:38:51PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I rarely, if ever, come across the word "conflate", except here on : Avodah. When it is used here, it seems to be pejorative, indicating that : someone confused or merged two things that really ought to stay distinct. I think that's my doing; I like the word. And yeah, it is merging two things that may be helpful in another context to keep distinct, but without being as pejorative as saying they confused them. If one assumes that Chazal's statements about the past are intended to be about how the past should have happened rather than caring about actual historicity, then their saying that Pinchas is Eliyahu is the identification of what Pinechas means to us with what Eliyahu means, and giving us a license to treat the two are a single symbol. With no intent to imply they were historically the same very-long-lived human being. I would also want a little more clarity from those who object to claims about missing years between levels of objection. Do you mean: 1- This isn't my derekh. 2- I cannot see this even as eilu va'eilu, it's simply false. 3- It is heretical. At least one of us used the latter language, and I don't see it. We have a definition of heresy, three definitions of three subtypes of heres, anyway (kofer, apiqreis, min). Is anyone actually intending to claim that it violates an iqar emunah to take Chazal's dating of events in the Galus Paras uMadai and early Bayis Sheini period as ahistorical, meant for some hashkafic reason? Or is it an epistomological thing? If you believe the academic community's interpretation of the evidence and will create new peshatim to fit in this case, you've bought into a system that would equally argue for kefirah? And for the two people who dismiss the Greek version of Persian history: What do you do with the astronomical state points thrown in that actually work? As RET noted last year, around Purim time, if you read Ezra and Nechemiah literally, ignoring Sefer Olam, it is more consistent with Greek historians than Chazal. I found he gave details in 1999 (v2n176) To quote: ... proofs for the secular history 1. external proofs A. The history of Herodotus (485-425 BCE) discusses in detail the lives of Cyrus, Cambyses,Darius and Xerxes and briefly Atraxerxes who was a contemporary of Herodutus. It is hard to conceive that he wrote about contedmporay figures or recent history who did not exist. Note that according to Chazal the Persians did not come into power until 350 BCE 75 years after the death of Herodutus !!! Thucydides (460-400 BCE) starts with Cyrus and goes through Darius II and the fights between Athens and Sparta and the Peloponnesian Wars. Again according to Seder Olam Rabbah there was no time for all these wars and so probably many of these Athenian and Spartan leaders did not exist. Ctesias (430-380) was a physician in the court of Artaxerxes and describes the 7 kings from Cyrus through Artaxerxes II. There are also later Greek historians who give the complete picture. Josephus also includes more kings than Chazal but not the entire Greek list. Moderchai Breuer in his history accepts the Greek dating. See Parker&Dubberstein, Babylonian Chronology for more details. Note: No modern historian claims that all facts in these histories are true. That is a far cry from stating that the entire history and not just certain details are fabrications and that all these kings never existed. B. Archaological evidence has uncovered many ancient Persian (cuneform) enscriptions (see for example The Persian Empire by J.M. Cook). For example one at the Persian palace in Persepolis says "I, Artaxerxes the son of Artaxerxes the son of Darius the son of Artaxerxes the son of Xerxes the son of Darius the son of Hystaspes" (Darius was not the son of Cambyses). Greek names have used for the original Persian names. There are other earlier enscriptions which are similar. These all conform to the Greek dating. C. There are letters from the Jewish community in Elephantine confirming the Greek position. D. I recently read of the history of the Assyrians. In their history they describe the reign of Sancherub and of a major eclipse of the sun during some battle. Astronomical calaculations confirm that the only full eclipse of the sun in that region occurred exactly during the dates of Sancherub according to the Greek chronology. 2. Internal Proofs A. Ezra 45,7 describes Koresh, Daryavesh, Achasverosh, Artachasta. These exactly parallel the Greek chronology with Achasversh=Xerxes. If one looks at the Persian writing rather than the Greek names then Xerxes is called khshayarsha which is close to Achashverosh (note Cambyses is left out probably because nothing of importance to Ezra occured during that reign). Note that Daat Mikrah on Ezra 4 assumes the secular dates. B. Nehemia 12:10 lists 6 High Priests, son after son, between Yehosua and Yadua. This is hard to explain if the whole period was on 52 years. It is even worse if one assumes that Shimon haTzaddik was the high Priest at the time of Alexander as that adds at least one more high Priest in the 52 years According to Ben Sira Shimon was the son of Johanan which would make of total of at least 8 high priests in 52 years all presumably sons of the previous one. C. Comparing Divrei Hayaim I: 3:19-24 with Ezra 8:2 and Nehemia 3:29 it seems that Ezra and Nehemis lived many years after Zerubbavel. Note: Daniel 11:2 seems more in line with chronology of Chazal. Second Note: According to Seder Olam Purim occured before the rebuilding of the second Temple while according to the secular chronology Achashverosh was the son of Darius and so the Temple was already in existence. According to Chazal, Daniel, Zerubavel, Ezra, Nehemia, Mordecai, Hagai, Zerchahiah and Malachi and even Shimon haTzaddik were basically contemporaries or within 1 to 2 generations of each other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 37th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Yesod: When does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 require one to be strict with another? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 06:52:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 09:52:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun on Pesach Sheni (was Meron Live) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150511135043.8781C182131@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:31 AM 5/11/2015, R. Akiva Miller wrote: >As it was explained to me, there's nothing special about the morning >of Pesach Sheni. Pesach Sheni exists only on the afternoon of 14 >Iyar and the following night. We omit Tachanun on the morning of 14 >Iyar NOT because it is a holiday, but because it is the Tachanun >*before* the holiday. Alternatively, one might say that the morning >of 14 Iyar actually *is* Erev Pesach Sheni. Either way, the >afternoon of 13 Iyar is too far removed to be significant enough to >warrant skipping Tachanun. From http://tinyurl.com/ln7le2m Some say Tachanun on Pesach Sheni (14 Iyar); some do not; some do not say Tachanun on 14 & 15 Iyar. What are the sources for these customs? Those who do say Tachanun probably do so because 14 Iyar is not listed as a day where Tachanun was customarily omitted by the Tur, anyone quoted in the Beit Yosef or Bach, by the Shulchan Aruch and its Mapah, the Levush, the Eliya Rabba, the Taz, the Magen Avraham, the Beiur haGra, the Chayei Adam, the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, the Mishna Berura and others. The Aruch haShulchan notes the custom of omitting Tachanun as foreign to Ashkenaz and deems it a 'wonder' (Pelah ). And from http://www.dinonline.org/2010/04/27/tachanun-on-erev-pesach-sheni/ Do we say Tachanun at minchah on Erev Pesach Sheni? Answer Yes [Shulchan Aruch Harav, Piskei Hassidur, end of Hilchos Krias Shema uTefilloh] YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 07:00:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 10:00:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening in a Large or Small Shul In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150511135900.11012181E6C@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:31 AM 5/11/2015, R. Joel Rich wrote: >I wonder if this write up is indicative of a trend seen in "The >halachos of X" works, likutim which seem to have become more popular >(did they exist 40 years ago?). As Rav Aharon Lichtenstein learned >at Harvard, life is complex. Of course there are overarching >priorities which need to be learned, but specific applications are >hard to summarize in an algorithmic form (see hilchot lashon hara >and tzedaka for some obvious examples). Maybe in an internet age we >have no choice but to try to put everything on line but what you >really need IMHO is a live mentor. Did R. Aharon Lichtenstein really not know that life is complex before he went to Harvard? I am very sure that a man as intelligent as he was knew that life was complex long before he went to Harvard. I never went to Harvard, but I knew by 12 or 13 years old that life in indeed complex. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 09:45:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 12:45:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] He is my G-d In-Reply-To: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150511164501.GA29539@aishdas.org> *On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 06:06:53AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : From Today's Hakhel email bulletin. : :> Hakhel Note: The following is excerpted from Rav Schwab on Prayer, :> and was related by Rav Schwab at a Shiur he gave on Tefillah... We need a source, and such a well documented lineage for the source, to point out what the words say? Does no one try translating a poem they've recited since childhood (and that's true even for many BTs)? "Adon Olam" through "velo ha'oz vehamisrah", the first 2/3 or so, talks about how transcendent HQBH is. Then the poet (usually attributed to Ibn Geveirol, 11th cent CE) abruptly switches to "VeHu Keili ... Hashem li velo ira" -- that despite that transcendence, I am still capable of having a personal relationship with Him. Li nir'eh this is the key to understanding sheim havayah: 1- The tetragrammaton is a contraction of "Yihyeh, Hoveh, veHayah -- Will Be, Is and Was", referring to Hashem being timeless and beyond the created. An el, when used in the secular sense, is a legislative ruler, so that Elokeinu, is a declaration that He is our Lawgiver -- the Author of both moral law and physical law. Havayah denotes connotes a vision of Deity that is very Other, the philosopher's G-d; Elokus is One who relates to man. 2- The very remoteness of the name Havayah also implies Divine Mercy. Which is how Chazal describe its usage in chumash. This is not intuitive, however the need to create law comes from a person's limited ability to deal with many individual cases. A teacher with few students is effective, one with more students, less so. To manage a country, we need laws and policies, since we do not have infinite time and attention to cover every decision on a case-by-case basis. Therefore, it is only because Hashem is Infinite that Divine Mercy is possible. Therefore, this expression can be seen as a declaration of the unity of G-d, despite the different appearances of Mercy and Strict Justice. We can each say "veHu Keili" *because* "velo ha'oz vehamisrah". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 37th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Yesod: When does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 require one to be strict with another? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 09:06:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 19:06:59 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] He is my G-d In-Reply-To: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 1:06 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > From Today's Hakhel email bulletin. > > Hakhel Note: The following is excerpted from *Rav Schwab on Prayer*, and > was related by Rav Schwab at a Shiur he gave on Tefillah: > ... > *whenever a person says the word Ado--i, my Master, no matter how small he > thinks he is, he is averring that he is in direct contact with Hashem*. > This thought is in the introduction to any individual's Iyun Tefillah, > concentration on Prayer. There is nothing mystical or supernatural about > it. It should be the most natural thing in the world. > I understand that "Rav Schwab on Prayer" was edited from recordings of RSS' shiurim, and I suspect that there is some misunderstanding here. If this is not mystical and supernatural, what is? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 11:12:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Herbert Basser via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 18:12:16 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah Message-ID: <1431367937499.87948@queensu.ca> Friendly amendment: When all else fails consult a dictionary-- where I found the root h-l-q both in hebrew and in arabic means "to make smooth" (no surprises here) and (surprise) a note after that indicating arabic h-l-q also applies to making the chin and the head smooth (hairless), i.e. "shaving".-- Not from the idea of rounding but from the idea of smoothing. Like in bereshit (27:11) esav was hairy and yaakov halaq. Zvi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 12:33:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 15:33:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150511193132.F24041829B7@nexus.stevens.edu> At 02:57 PM 5/11/2015, R. Eli Turkel wrote: ><the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their minds, >they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple frauds and >told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern Orthodox Jews have >regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic.>> > >I don't see how you can call this "blasphemous" R. Schwab once suggested >that Chazal purposely changed the facts for a good reason. While he later >retracted it would be hard to call his original opinion "blasphemous" . >Furthermore several current Orthodox rabbis such as R. Leibtag do accept >the secular dating. > >In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a >tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. The most definitive study on this topic is the recent book (2014) The Challenge of Jewish History: The Bible, The Greeks & The Missing 168 Years by Rabbi Alexander Hool From http://tinyurl.com/p42uvvj There is a well-known conundrum concerning Jewish history: The conventional chronology of the Western world - and academia - is in direct conflict with traditional Jewish sources over the history of ... history. Incredibly, there is a gap of roughly 200 years: For instance, the Talmud says the Second Temple stood for roughly 400 years, while mainstream historians today conclude that it stood for almost 600 years. This conflict has major implications on what occurred to who, and when. It also seems to question the accuracy of the entire Jewish tradition as accepted dating methods seem to contradict core parts of the traditional Jewish narrative. In presenting fresh and startling astronomical, mathematical and archaeological evidence, Rabbi Alexander Hool has charted new ground in his quest to find the solution to this ancient problem. The Challenge of Jewish History is revolutionary: it questions all assumptions, dispels unfounded myths, and transports us back in time over 2,500 years. With a subject of great significance and fascination to all those interested in history, and a wealth of scholarship and sources to impress academics, this intriguing book gives us a new perspective on .... This is a highly researched book based on Jewish and non-Jewish sources. the author concludes that there are no missing years and seems to prove his conclusion. I suggest that anyone who is really interested in this topic purchase this book. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 13:10:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Herbert Basser via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 20:10:00 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] chronology Message-ID: <1431375000749.45056@queensu.ca> [Transliteration mine. -micha] Seder Olam: Mahadurah Mada'it Peirush uMavo me'et Chaim Milikovsky's Makhor Yitzchaq ben Zvi shenei chalaqim, 326+711 amudim See Chaim Milikovsky's edition of Seder Olam for a very detailed explanation of all these issues in chazal's chronology and a critical edition of the readings of all extant manuscripts. The issues of chazal's chronologies were first highlighted at length by Azariah de Rossi's Meor Eynayim and should be settled by Milikowski's volume which took about 35 years to research. Chazal were great men but not modern historians, doctors, scientists, or nevi'im -- and certainly not liars. Zvi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 14:46:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 14:46:24 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] explanation Message-ID: the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not PC by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation for some shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a heterodox clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read those passages] . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other than the chok aspect] that the RBSO was looking from the perspective of the kahal and their kovod, and how they would react or be distracted by a baal mum. can someone supply a better take ? thanks -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 18:12:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 21:12:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150429.073718.25006.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150429.073718.25006.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150512011220.GA19224@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 11:37:18AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : Regardless of how the Bas Kol might be interpreted, is there any way : to understand "Nitzchuni banai!" other than Hashem personally siding : with one of the litigants, and losing? I don't see the closing of the story adding any problems the nissim themselves didn't. If you think they were about Hashem backing one side, then "nitzchui banai" is about that sice being defeated. If not, then it's whatever over reason He had for presenting misleading evidence that was defeated. Leshitas those who don't take eilu va'eilu literally and intead use a more classical logic with a law of contradition, the whole story is about HQBH choosing the process as a whole over the correctness of this one particular ruling. HQBH rejoicing that the chakhamim maintained the kelalei pesaq as they should rather than pay attention to His interferance. As the Maharitz Chayes understands it, by keeping the process viable, they keep the Torah eternal, capable of speaking to new circumstances as the world changes. "Nitzchuni banai -- My children have made Me eternal!" Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 37th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Yesod: When does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 require one to be strict with another? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 17:57:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 20:57:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55514FDD.4000100@sero.name> On 05/11/2015 05:46 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not > PC by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation > for some shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a > heterodox clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read > those passages] . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other > than the chok aspect] that the RBSO was looking from the perspective > of the kahal and their kovod, and how they would react or be > distracted by a baal mum. > > can someone supply a better take ? What's the difficulty? Hakriveihu no lefechosecho. The dignity of a king, and especially of The King, demands that all who serve Him be perfect in all respects. People with physical imperfections may be wonderful in many ways, but they are just that, imperfect. The current political correctness that refuses to acknowledge this is literally insane. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 15:31:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 23:31:27 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 12:19:57 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah > In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a > tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some examples > 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu ... > Besiades the fact that Eliyahu was from Gilad and worked in the northern > kingdom it leaves the halachic question whether a cohen gadol can resign > and even leave the land of Israel for various tasks. It is clear from > Tanach that Eli and other were the high priest in later generations Re Pinchos = Eliyohu The Ari says clearly [through the pen of R. Chaim Vital] in Shaar HaGilgulim that this refers to a gilgul neshomoh, not that he was literally the same person in body as well. DR From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 23:21:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 09:21:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar Message-ID: R' YGB writes: "I cannot believe TABC allowed this to be published as is. /Shreklach!/" Should we just bury our heads in the sand and not address these kinds of issues? Its very hard to hide information today, what happens when these kids get to college and find about the missing 165 years. What are they going to think? The fact is that Rabbi S. Schwab found this discrepancy a ?truly vexing problem? and wrote that the historical chronological dating: "?can hardly be doubted for they appear to be the result of painstaking research by hundreds of scholars and are borne out by profound erudition and by ever increasing authoritative evidence ... we are compelled to admit that the Bayis Sheni must have existed for no less than 586 years.? (Hakira A Y2K Solution to the Chronology Problem). If we don't address these kinds of questions (torah and science, the documentary hypothesis, etc.) then the implication that will be drawn by many people is that we don't have answers and we know what happens then. The Seforim blog (http://seforim.blogspot.com/2015/01/blog-post.html) not long ago reviewed a Sefer by R' Amnon Bazak, Ad Hayom Hazeh, which deals with many of the the issues that academia brings up related to Tanach. Are his answers compelling? Many times not. But at least he deals with the issues. A commentator there made a very important point, for those who have been exposed to these questions, we need seforim like this that at least attempt to deal with the issues raised and not simply bury our heads in the sand. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 01:36:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 11:36:40 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> References: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> Message-ID: > 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta <> Do these Greek sources explain how Koresh and Daryavush are the same person? Besides you use the parts of the Greek sources that you like and reject those that dont fit your thesis Now you rely on the Septuagint? Almost everyone else identifies Achashverosh with Xerxes, Besides the are several inscriptions in ancient Persian that give a detailed list of kings eg Artaxerxes the great king, king of kings king of peoples king on this earth son od Darius the king Darius son of Artaxerxes the king, Xerxes son of Darius the king Darius son of Hystapes the Archaemend proclaims .. As an aside modern chronology of Eygpt has been confirmed by recent carbon 14 dating. Dates of Sishak and other Assyrina and Babylonian kings have been confirmed by their writings combined with various astronomical events mentioned in their writings. <> That's your opinion. In fact many achronim take these conflating of names very seriously. While you claim Eliyahu wasn't a cohen gadol there is in fact a halachic literature whether he was or not and whether a cohen gadol can resign. For example see hebrewbooks Magen Tzvi siman 36 page 388 where he concludes that a Cohen Gadol (annointed by oil) who resigns still has all the laws of a cohen gadol You wrote "Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son " . However Darius's own version (Behustan) states that he was not the son of the previous king (see also above inscription on a wall) -------------------------- separately Marty Blake mentioned the sefer of R Amnon Bazak. The shiurim are also available in English http://etzion.org.il/en/topics/fundamental-issues-study-tanakh As Marty mentioned he discusses fundamental issues as are all pesukim in the Torah from Moshe Rabbenu, archaeology, accuracy of the text, Bible criticism, peshat and drash, sins of Biblical figures and many other controversial topics. I am sure that many of his solutions are also controversial. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 19:20:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 02:20:37 GMT Subject: [Avodah] explanation Message-ID: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero wrote: <<< The dignity of a king, and especially of The King, demands that all who serve Him be perfect in all respects. People with physical imperfections may be wonderful in many ways, but they are just that, imperfect. >>> "... in all respects." Really? Where will you find such a person? No, that's an impossible task. For practicality's sake, He cannot and does not demand that all who serve Him be perfect in ALL respects. So instead, there is a set of criteria, and a set of shiurim by which to determine if one is *adequately* perfect. I can't imagine that anyone would disagree with what I wrote thus far. But then we'll go the next step, and study what sorts of things are on that list of criteria. For example, if one is a Mechalel Shabbos, or a murderer, he is disqualified from Birkas Kohanim, so I'd bet that he's disqualified from the avodah too. But those aren't the sort of mumim that the previous poster's Shabbos guests were asking about. They were asking about physical abnormalities. I hope it is okay if I rephrase their question to something like this: It is reasonable for The King to insist on a certain degree of moral perfection, but why is physical perfection relevant? Or to phrase it more bluntly, the kohanim should not be judged by the shape of their nose, but by the content of their character. (Of course, we are not disputing the halacha. The question is WHY the Torah considers physical abnormalities to be disqualifications.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/555163bfd843b63bf2454st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 22:43:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 01:43:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah Message-ID: R? Zvi Basser points out ? H-L-Q was the haircut celebrated Lag B?Omer. Yes! Perhaps Chalak evokes Yaakov Avinu, aka Ish Chalak. An older version of Ibn Ezra's famous Tzama Nafshi has alternate ending stanzas. H?alo Chelk?cha Meirosh ? Addressing Hashem directly Chalak ? that is Yaakov Avinu the weak brother ? and his endless generations of martyrs Damo Darosh ? avenge and right the wrongs Shfoch HHamas Af al Rosh Hasa-ir Hachai ? let your anger pour over its proper target - . Ibn Ezra means that Hashem can grant Dveikus, Nevuah or Ruach Hakodesh. The Ibn Ezra 's philosophical approach ? said that the Nefesh ? as a Spiritual Heavenly entity ? can encounter the Ultimate Hashem ? directly. The alternate ? higher level of Hashkafa ? Tzama Nafshi has a verse ? now found in some better editions ? After dealing with Hagar rebelling against Sara (Shifha no-emmes) H?alo Chelk?cha Meirosh ? Chalak ? that is Yaakov ? and his endless generations of martyrs Damo Darosh ? avenge and right the wrongs Shfoch HHamas Af al Rosh Hasa-ir Hachai ? let your anger pour over its proper target - . -- Two other points ? the first verse in the alternat version of Tzama Nafshi: (See Kol Kisvei RAIE) Eil Chayy Bera-ani ? To my mind this means ? the always watching and involved One watching over us. Compare ? Chai Anochi LeOlam Im Shanosi Brak Charbi ? in Parshas Haazinu ? anger to avenge. Perhaps in Inquisitorial times ? Eil Echad Bera-ani was more relevant. Also fascinating ? The Ayin verse substitutes ? Al Kol Chasadecha ? Techadeish Eidecha!! References Iyov 10:17, where Ibn ezra refers to leprous blemishes. Posei-ach es Yadecha umasbia lechol chai ? directly allow Life, Deveikus and attachment to His Essence ? not the simple meaning of providing food . Earlier Ibn Ezra had said - Ki lo yir-ani ha-adam vachayy - no man can see Hashem and Chai ? no complete experience of Hashem. His Creation is Ne-elama hidden in its wisdom. Parshas Tazria has many multiple references to live healthy skin ? Basar Hachayy - as opposed to leprous skin. I would believe there are multiple references to Tazria Metzora. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 03:51:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 06:51:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150512105130.GC3499@aishdas.org> Lakol zeman va'eis... There is a time to force people to change their reflect reactions, and a time when the focus should be elsewhere. There are two kinds of mummim WRT kehunah (see Bechoros 43b): 1- mar'is ayin -- one whose appearance is repulsive to the people 2- eino shaveh bezar'o shel Aharon -- someone who is unique in appearance to the people (see Rambam, Bi'as haMiqdash 6:6) A kohein in the mar'is ayin category would pasl the avodah bedi'eved, one who is eino shaveh would violate an asei, but the avodah is kasher. Notice that both are defined by their impact on the observer. Presumably the point is that attention should be on avodah, not thoughts about the kohein performing it, or negative judgments of who is fit for service. But notice this is only for the Avodah.... a kohein with a baal mum was still expected to show up with his mishmar and do other necessary jobs. I am not even sure he is pasul from lighting the menorah. After all, we learn these mumim from the animals for qorbanos; it may apply to qorbanos in particular. So to me, the question is why isn't mid-qorban a good time to acclimate Kelal Yisrael away from such visceral reactions. But since I cannot get my head into the mindset of someone bringing a qorban, I leave the question tabled until I have the opportunity to learn what a qorban is like firsthand, bb"a. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 38th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Yesod: How does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 promote harmony in life and relationships? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 09:24:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 12:24:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: <20150512105130.GC3499@aishdas.org> References: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> <20150512105130.GC3499@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150512162421.GA13065@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 6:51am EDT, I wrote: : There is a time to force people to change their reflect reactions, and a : time when the focus should be elsewhere. ... To add, there are TWO reactions that would distract from the purpose of the qorban: Both the person who is turned off by how Hashem made this particular kohein (either through birth, disease, or allowing him to suffer an acctident), and the person who would then turn his qorban into a bein adam lachaveiro rather than a qorban. The one who would be thinking about how touching it was the such a person overcame disability to help them bring it. Rather than simply thinking about G-d. Even according to R' Chaim Volozhiner or R' Shimon Shkop, who see bein adam lachaveiro as the ultimate purpose of life, and thus presumably bein adam laMaqom as a derived value, there is a time to care for the goose, rather than everything being about collecting the golden eggs. In fact, the farmer is likely to spend nearly al of his time into caring for the goose rather than the ultimate payoff. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 38th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Yesod: How does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 promote harmony in life and relationships? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 06:17:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 08:17:09 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: References: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> Message-ID: <5551FD55.5090900@starways.net> On 5/12/2015 3:36 AM, Eli Turkel wrote: > 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta > < was a throne name. And in fact, Greek sources say that both > Artaxerxes II and III adopted it as a throne name. Furthermore, the > Septuagint version of Esther refers to the king as Artaxerxes, so > saying that Ahasuerus is Artaxerxes is a truism that has nothing to do > with chronology >> > Do these Greek sources explain how Koresh and Daryavush are the same > person? Fortunately, they don't have to, since that's just Midrash and has no nafka mina l'maaseh. > Besides you use the parts of the Greek sources that you like and > reject those that dont fit your thesis Of course I do. The Greek sources aren't what we would call "history" today. Herodotus collected folklore and picked the versions he liked to make a more entertaining story. He says himself that he heard 4 different and conflicting stories about Cyrus's backstory, and chose the one he liked best. He didn't even preserve the other three so that we could make our own decisions. He made his living in Greece by entertaining his patron(s) with exotic stories from exotic lands. > Now you rely on the Septuagint? Almost everyone else identifies > Achashverosh with Xerxes, Not so. Everyone recognizes that the *name* Achashveirosh is the same as the *name* Xerxes. Or rather, that both names are transliterations of the original Persian Khshayarsha. To say that "almost everyone else identifies Achashverosh with Xerxes" indicates that you aren't particularly well versed in the subject. I mean, at the very least, read the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahasuerus which notes which sources have identified him as which kings. > Besides the are several inscriptions in ancient Persian that give a > detailed list of kings eg > Artaxerxes the great king, king of kings king of peoples king on this > earth son od Darius the king Darius son of Artaxerxes the king, Xerxes > son of Darius the king Darius son of Hystapes the Archaemend proclaims .. Have you read the Behistun Inscription? Darius son of Hystaspes had it inscribed. In it, he talks about Babylonian kings who weren't actually Babylonian kings. At least not by our standards. They were pretenders, since Babylon had fallen to the Medes and Persians. But they gave themselves royal titles and claimed descent from Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus and the rest. From their point of view, they *were* kings of Babylon. From the Persian point of view, they were pretenders. Similarly, what do you think happened to Persia when Alexander conquered it? From one day to the next, Persia vaporized? Persia covered a huge area. Professor Levine posted about Rabbi Alexander Hool's book "The Challenge of Jewish History". I don't agree with all of his conclusions, and I'm embarrassingly late completing a review of the book, but he posits the Persian line continuing even after Alexander whupped Darius at Gaugamela. And in fact, the Parthian Empire, which started only about 70-80 years after the Alexandrian conquest, claimed descent from the Achaemenids of the Persian Empire. As did the later Sassanids. Names like Ardashir are just Late Persian versions of the Old Persian Artaxerxes. That's completely aside from the fact that we *know* there were forgeries perpetrated in ancient times for the purpose of establishing royal descent. Check out Roland Kent's article "The Present Status of Old Persian Studies" in /Journal of the American Oriental Society, /1936, vol. 56, p. 215ff. (http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/594668?uid=3739656&uid=2134&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21106376285721). A couple of inscriptions that are nothing but royal titles with no actual content to them is kind of flimsy evidence. Certainly not something strong enough to trash Chazal's entire picture of such an important period in our history. > As an aside modern chronology of Eygpt has been confirmed by recent > carbon 14 dating. Source. Because you may not be aware of this, but when you bring items in for carbon dating, you have to tell them -- up front -- what the rough date is that you think they're from. So that they can throw away any results that skew too far from that as "contaminated". The rest are subject to a fudge factor (sorry: correction factor) to help make them fit. But I'd like to see the source you have for carbon dating of modern Egyptian chronology. > Dates of Sishak and other Assyrina and Babylonian kings have been > confirmed by their writings combined with various astronomical events > mentioned in their writings. Assuming Sosenk = Shishak, which is iffy, considering that Sosenk only claims to have campaigned in the north of Israel, which would be odd for Shishak, whose son-in-law Yeravam was ruling there. The rest of what you're talking about is pure confirmation bias. They have a model and they shoehorn any evidence they find into that model, even if they have to kind of mush it in there. > < and explain a little more about Midrash. Chazal bring Midrashim that > contradict one another. For example, there's a Midrash that says > Esther never slept with Achashveirosh. That Hashem sent a mal'ach that > took her place. That conflicts with "Esther karka hayta", as well as > with the Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son. None of > this is problematic. Because the truth of Midrashim is not in their > concretes. Like analogies, Midrashim are abstractions which are > anchored with concretes, but are not defined by those concretes.>> > That's your opinion. In fact many achronim take these conflating of > names very seriously. While you claim Eliyahu wasn't a cohen gadol > there is in fact a halachic literature whether he was or not and > whether a cohen gadol can resign. > For example see hebrewbooks Magen Tzvi siman 36 page 388 where he > concludes that a Cohen Gadol (annointed by oil) who resigns still has > all the laws of a cohen gadol Midrash. And if it were something more solid than that, you'd have more than just some achronim saying so. > You wrote "Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son " . > However Darius's own version (Behustan) states that he was not the son > of the previous king (see also above inscription on a wall) So what? I'm confused. I'm saying that Midrash isn't necessarily the literal fact, and you pick out a phrase from what I wrote and point out that it isn't the literal fact? It seems like you're trying to make a point, but I'm not seeing what it is. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 10:18:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 13:18:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I commend you for having such guests at your table! > the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not PC by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation for some shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a heterodox clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read those passages] . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other than the chok aspect] that the RBSO was looking from the perspective of the kahal and their kovod, and how they would react or be distracted by a baal mum. can someone supply a better take ? This is, indeed, a difficult passage. R Jonathan Sacks has a good take on it -- which is generally along the lines of what you suggested, but a slightly different (and more big-picture) take, and, of course articulated extremely well. An excerpt: > Kugel also writes, "Most people, when they see someone ravaged by chemotherapy, just tend to keep their distance." He quotes Psalm 38:12, "My friends and companions stand back at the sight of my affliction; even those closest to me keep their distance." Although the physical reactions to chemotherapy are quite different from a skin disease or a bodily abnormality, they tend to generate the same feeling in others, part of which has to do with the thought "This could happen to me." They remind us of the "thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to." > > This is the logic - if logic is the right word - of Tumah. It has nothing to do with rationality and everything to do with emotion (Recall Pascal's remark that "the heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing"). Tumah does not mean defilement. It means that which distracts from eternity and infinity by making us forcibly aware of mortality, of the fact that we are physical beings in a physical world. If the above interests you at all, I encourage you to read the whole thing: http://www.aish.com/tp/i/sacks/149811775.html [1] -- Sholom Links: ------ [1] http://www.aish.com/tp/i/sacks/149811775.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 09:51:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Dov Weinstock via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 12:51:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Explanation Message-ID: On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 12:27 PM, via Avodah wrote: > the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not PC > by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation for some > shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a heterodox > clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read those passages] > . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other than the chok aspect] > that the RBSO was looking from the perspective of the kahal and their > kovod, and how they would react or be distracted by a baal mum. > > can someone supply a better take ? > May I suggest the following: http://rabbidovlinzer.blogspot.com/2014_04_27_archive.html Dov Weinstock -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 03:09:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 06:09:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: <20150513100956.GA14377@aishdas.org> Among the arguments that came up in the discussion of the Kosher Switch was that it's zilzul Shabbos. The thought hit me, though... Refraining from operating electrical devices has only been a potential issue for 125 years or so. And except for Yekkes, most of our ancestors come from places where it has been less than a century since electricity became part of our lives. So it's very hard to say that "not using electricity" is a defining feature of the Shabbos experience. Contrast this to hotza'ah, including haavarah, which take up what seems like 1/3 of chazal's discussion of issur melakhah (rough estimate from Berakhos and Eruvin in mishna, Tosefta, Y-mi and Bavli). When community eruvin got started, wasn't there a much easier argument of zilzul? Why wasn't it made? Indeed we use the general kelal of being meiqil WRT eiruvin to quite an extent to build one. And what does the fact that a community eruv is NOT zilzul Shabbos say about the nature of zilzul Shabbos and its applicability to nidon didan? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 12:26:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 15:26:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 06:42:58AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : He is now starting a series on religious autonomy. In particular he holds : that one goes to a rabbi for a psak only if he is in doubt. If one has : seriously learned the halachaot and is convinced of the "truth" then he : should follow his own psak and there is no need to go to a "higher : authority". Interesting. Does "seriously learned the halakhos" translate to higi'ah lehora'ah, or something less? RHS requires a certainly level of general knowledge. See Sanhedrin 5a-b. But it also fits RHS's hashkafah that halakhah is an inseperable whole. And so Rebbe doesn't just tell us that night Shema can be said at sundown, he ties it to the law of tevul yom. And RHS similarly advises his talmidim to look to gedolim from their own camp because one with whom they disagree hashkafically is likely to see even apparenty unrelated halakhos differently. Listen to (RAM transcripted other snippets from this talk for one of our many discussions of da'as Torah at .) For that matter, 5b talks about the need to get a heter hora'ah even if one knows enough to pasqen. But then, the gemara is discussing deciding for others, not only oneself. OTOH, pasqening for oneself has a major problem that one doesn't face when answering others' questions -- vested interest vs objectivity. Listen to R Jonathan Ziring's shiur on the topic at . In particular, his very first source (see link to mar'eh meqomos sheet) Nissah 20b. Yalta, "Rebbetzin Nachman", asks her mar'os questions of Rabbah bar bar Chanah and Rabbi Yitzchaq bereih deR' Yehudah, not her husband. Similarly mishnah Nega'im 2:5 saying you can't pasen nega'im even of relatives, Bekhoros 31a about judging one's own bekhoros. So, I would think that not being in doubt is too easily a delusion. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 12:54:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 15:54:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes In-Reply-To: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150513195451.GA16146@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 01:18:22AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Saul Newman asked: :> i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at :> hadchak /bedieved : ... : But I think that the real answer to your question might be: "If the people : in shul can't hear the rabbi or the chazan, that IS a shaas hadchak." Both letzorekh mitzvah and tzarkhei tzibbur are usually classified with she'as hadechaq and hefsed meruba. The two combined is why shuls have such wide lattitude with amira le'akum. (And perhaps either alone? I dunno.) So if a properly designed PA system is a shevus or other derabannan, why not permit this too? BTW, R/Dr Yisrael Rozen of Machon Zomet makes a point of noting that the issues seem to be the same whether the PA system is electrical or based on air pressure. See Microphones and Amplifiers on Shabbat Rabbi Yisrael Rozen C. Microphones Operating on Air Pressure 1. System Description Recently, the idea of a microphone which operates on air pressure, rather than electricity, has been proposed. A company in the United States is in the process of developing this "air-mike," although to the best of my knowledge, the project is still in the experimental stage. The device consists of a container of compressed air[12] and a system of pipes in which the compressed air flows. After one speaks into a horn-like input, his voice is carried on the stream of compressed air in the pipes. Acoustic adjustment (which apparently lies at the heart of the idea) then causes the voice waves to be amplified... 2. Comparison to an Electronic Microphone Several rabbis have permitted the use of air microphones on Shabbat, viewing it as an appropriate means of sound amplification for a synagogue. I question the distinction between an air microphone and a regular microphone - if we permit one, we must permit the other... Let me explain. We have shown that, given the current technology, the main problems with using a microphone on Shabbat have nothing to do with the fact that it runs on electricity. The problems concern the decree of klei shir, the fear that one will repair it, hashma'at kol like a water mill, avsha milta, denigration of Shabbat, and the suspicion of onlookers. Regarding all but the last of these, I see no difference between an air microphone and a regular microphone. In my opinion, an air microphone is a kli shir exactly like a shofar or trumpet; it creates a loud noise like a water mill; there exists the possibility that one will try to adjust it etc.. If you wish to claim that it is not a kli shir because it transmits speech; that we should not innovate a decree of "lest one repair it;" that it does not resemble a water mill because everyone knows that there is no Shabbat violation involved - then the same considerations should apply to a regular microphone as well. Only regarding the suspicion of onlookers might there be a difference between the two types of microphones; with an electric microphone, onlookers may think that an electric circuit was created on Shabbat. But we have already explained that even if one would turn on existing equipment on Shabbat, he would violate only a rabbinic prohibition, and we are not concerned with creating suspicion regarding rabbinic prohibitions. We also noted above that "everyone knows" that the equipment was turned on either before Shabbat or by means of a timer, and thus resembles a chiming clock (which is permitted). I have heard that there are those who permit the air microphone since the speaker's original voice is carried through the pipes (although clearly the majority of the sound waves reaching the audience's ears comes from the air pumped by the compressor). I am astonished at this claim: even in an actual musical instrument (such as a trumpet) the player's breath is mixed in, and nevertheless it is forbidden! In many musical instruments, the sound comes mainly from an "echo chamber," whose geometry shapes and amplifies the sound. To the best of my understanding, an air microphone operates on the same principle.[13] In my opinion, halachic definitions (in all fields) do not stem from scientific, physical, or technical definitions. The definitions of klei shir and hashma'at kol are not based on the technology of sound production, wave dispersion, or other acoustic considerations. The question at hand is whether these devices are included in the rabbinic decree of klei shir or not. In this regard, it does not matter whether one makes his voice heard by means of an electric or an air microphone. Some of those who give a blanket permit to use an air microphone claim that it does not amplify the speaker's voice, but merely carries it. On the basis of material I have received from the factory, I find this claim to be mistaken. Therefore, as far as klei shir and hashma'at kol are concerned, the two types of microphones are identical. ... 3. Responsa Which Erred in the Realia ... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 13:14:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 16:14:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes In-Reply-To: <20150513195451.GA16146@aishdas.org> References: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> <20150513195451.GA16146@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5553B099.7090100@sero.name> On 05/13/2015 03:54 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Both letzorekh mitzvah and tzarkhei tzibbur are usually classified with > she'as hadechaq and hefsed meruba. The two combined is why shuls have such > wide lattitude with amira le'akum. (And perhaps either alone? I dunno.) Letzorech mitzvah is not enough to justify amira lenochri for an issur derabanan, unless the mitzvah absolutely cannot be fulfilled without it. For instance, if one is pitch darkness one may ask a nochri to bring a lit candle through a communal chatzer that has no eruv, because oneg shabbos is impossible in complete darkness; but if there is already at least dim lighting, so that some minimal oneg shabbos is possible, one is *not* allowed to have a nochri bring another candle. Tzorchei tzibbur, OTOH, seems to justify amira lenochri for almost anything. [Quoting R Rosen] > The problems concern the decree of klei shir, the fear that one will > repair it, hashma'at kol like a water mill, avsha milta, denigration > of Shabbat, and the suspicion of onlookers. He's listing the same thing multiple times. "Hashma'at kol like a water mill" *is* "avsha milsa", i.e. passersby will hear it running and know that a Jew's business is operating on Shabbos, and the problem with that is that they will think the Jew is transgressing amira lenochri. These are not separate issues. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 13:32:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 23:32:51 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> References: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <> I understand the concern. However, there is no halacha that a rabbi can't pasken on his own chicken. In fact in real life we all pasken for ourselves on some level. Anytime one has a shabbat question \he can't always run to the LOR. One usually ends up paskening based on whatever knowledge and mesorah one has. This is what makes the life of a Baal Teshuva very difficult. Certainly what RMA and many others are against is running to the LOR or even gadol hador with every question. I have heard complaints from shul rabbis that some congregants come with questions they could easily look upo themselves but prefer to ask the rabbi so that the rabbi notes how serious they are. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 14:35:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 21:35:43 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> Message-ID: . I have heard complaints from shul rabbis that some congregants come with questions they could easily look upo themselves but prefer to ask the rabbi so that the rabbi notes how serious they are. ---------------------- True, but sometimes it may be to establish a connection (yes, funny coming from me-but it is true) KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 15:04:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 18:04:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150513220422.GC10395@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 13, 2015 at 11:32:51PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> OTOH, pasqening for oneself has a major problem that one doesn't face when :> answering others' questions -- vested interest vs objectivity. : : I understand the concern. However, there is no halacha that a rabbi can't : pasken on his own chicken. : In fact in real life we all pasken for ourselves on some level. Anytime one : has a shabbat question he can't always run to the LOR... I was using "pesaq" to refer specifically to open questions that require shiqul hada'as. Your typical Shabbos question is about a devar mishnah. To quote Rt Chana Luntz from Mon, 7 Sep 1998, 8:33pm BDT: 20:33:38 +0100, a post about not combining chumeros: > ... the Rashba on our daf in Chullin [43b], who hold that a Rav only > needs to pay if there is shikul hadaas and not a mistake in a dvar > mishna, are forced to conclude from this that Rava's mistake was in > shikul hadaas - see there]. It would seem that a devar mishnah is not a pesaq that the rav is as responsible for our following his teaching rather than getting the halakhah correctly from some other source. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 15 08:55:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 15 May 2015 11:55:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Laasok beDivrei Sorah Message-ID: <4c752525c83edeb17b85f6670479b9c0@aishdas.org> >From R' Eliezer Eisenberg's blog Beis Vaad L'Chachamim (highly recommended), at http://beisvaad.blogspot.com/2015/05/bechukosai-at-my-grandsons-bar-mitzva.html A couple of personal comments ellided, mostly to save myself the bother of transliterating more Hebrew text. A belated mazal tov to the author, G'Shabbos to all, -micha Friday, May 15, 2015 Bechukosai. At my grandson's Bar Mitzva Drasha at the Bar Mitzva of Avraham Jofen, 5/14/15 ... The Gemara (Brachos 11b) and the rishonim there talk about the issue of hefsek in Birkas HaTorah. There are those that hold that if a person stops learning, he has to make a new bracha when he begins again, because it is a hefsek from the first bracha. The Rishonim, the Agur and the Rosh, say that it is not a hefsek, because even when you are not actually learning, you have to consider what you can and cannot do according to the dinim of the Torah. Even when you are in a place where you cannot learn, you have to behave in a manner that is prescribed in the Torah. As the Hafla'ah says, when you do business, it is not a hefsek, because you are learning Choshen Mishpat. Every decision you make is examined in the light of the Torah, so that is not a hefsek in limud. I would put it this way. Torah is only a mitzvah when you learn al menas laasos. Al menas laasos means that you don't learn superficially, you make the Torah a part of who you are. On the contrary, if what you learn is just on the surface, the learning itself is bitul Torah. If the Mitzva of limud hatorah requires that it should make you into a different person, do you think that carefully living the life of an ehrilcheh ben Torah is a hefsek in limud hatorah? It's not a hefsek, it is a hemshech, it is a kiyum, of the mitzvah of limud hatorah. My father Ztz'l was very friendly with his lawyer, Bill Rosenthal. Bill was an assimilated Jew. The only contact he had with the Jewish religion was when he shook hands with my father. Nonetheless, he and my father were good friends and respected each other. A lawyer for a mortgage company once asked him which university my father studied at, because he could brilliantly analyze contracts. Bill told him that my father studied at Slabodka U. He once asked my father, "You and I are very ethical and honest men. I wouldn't take a penny that wasn't mine, and I have the highest standards of behavior in business. You, too, are very moral, but you do it because of your religious beliefs. Is there really any difference between us? My father told him, on the spot, that there are three differences. One is that for you, a dollar is a small matter, and a question involving a million dollars is a big matter. To me, there is no difference. The principal, the law, is what matters, and the sum of money is irrelevant. Another difference is that let's say you carefully think an issue through, and you decide the other side is right, and you let them win. you will toss and turn at night, ,thinking that maybe you were really right. I, on the other hand, if I decide that I am right, and I keep something that had been disputed, I won't be able to sleep at night our of a concern that maybe my decision was influenced by self interest. The third difference is that while you and I are both successful people,, and we've both made a lot of money, you think that you made the money yourself, and it's 100% yours to do with as you please. I believe that God decided that I should have the money, and God gave me the money, and every dollar that was given to me was given so that I use it in the right way. So it's true, my father learned how to do business at Slabodka U. Because he learned how to do business at Slabodka U, he was able to give, on the spot, three excellent and lomdusheh chilukim about the difference between Bill Rosenthal's moral code and his own moral code. Doing business like that is not a hefsek in the mitzva of limud hatorah. Farkert, it is the biggest kiyum and chizuk of limud hatorah and mussar and yashrus. This is a kiyum of the passuk [im bechuqosai seleikhu], as Rashi explains, [shetihyu ameilim baTorah]. It is this mesora which we bequeath to the Bar Mitzvah. ... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 15 13:39:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 15 May 2015 16:39:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Learning Chumash with the Trop Message-ID: <20150515203756.96751182847@nexus.stevens.edu> My 6 year-old grandson who is in the first grade was taught the trop at the same time he was being taught Chumash. The bottom line is that when he says the Pesukim he has studies in yeshiva, he says each word with the trop. I think this makes it easier for him to remember the Pesukim. When he davens, he says Shma with the trop! I can only wonder why this is not done in all yeshivas. When it will come time for him to lein at his Bar Mitzvah, it should be much easier for him than for those boys who are taught Chumash without the trop. YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 06:37:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 09:37:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Standing at a Chupah Message-ID: <20150518133702.1FA0A18392A@nexus.stevens.edu> Yesterday a friend of mine told be that the Rov where he davened said that he knew of grandparents who did not want to walk down at their grandchildren's Chassana, because they knew that the people attending the chupah would not stand for them even though they were 70 + years old. They did not want to be involved in lifnei Iver. Truth be told, I have seen the following many times. When the grandparents who are 70 or more years old walk down, no one stands for them. However, when the chosson and kallah walk down everyone stands for them. It is, of course, a positive mitzvah to stand up for any person 70 years old or more. See See http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/35165/standing-for-someone-whos-turned-seventy It is questionable if one has to stand for the chosson and kallah. See http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/levine/standing_chasuna.pdf I told my friend that it should be announced at the beginning of every chupah that 1. All cell phones should be turned off; 2. There should be no talking during the chupah, and 3. If grandparents who are 70 or more will be walking down, then one is required to stand for them. I think if this were done at Chasanas it would soon become the norm. 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URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 06:39:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 14:39:50 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001b01d09170$1d5db6f0$581924d0$@org.uk> Rav Zylberstein in the Cheshukei Chemed on Daf 78a of Kesubos discusses the question as to whether a woman today who has lots of peros from her property can say to her husband - "you do not need to redeem me, and I will not give you the peros" - on the ground that the need for redemption today is not common ("lo schiach") - even though the gemora there says that she cannot avoid this trade as mandated by Chazal (despite her being able to avoid the trade between mezonos versus ma'aseh yadeha, again a takana of Chazal, as this last takana was done for her benefit). Rav Zylberstein brings a discussion based on various rishonim to show that actually, pidyon was not common even at the time of Chazal, or at the time of the rishonim, and hence the fact that it is not common today does not change the situation from that mandated by Chazal. He also adds in the position of the Ran, that the takana regarding pidyon is not just made for her benefit (as the mezonos one is) and hence something that can be waived by her, but is also for the benefit of the husband, as without her redemption, the husband doesn't have the benefit of her company and services, while with mezonos that doesn't apply. However, it seems to me that Rav Zylberstein is not in fact dealing with what strikes me as the fundamental question. That is, it is not a question of whether or not pidyon is not common today (indeed, I would be tempted dispute that it is in fact "lo schiach", despite Rav Zylberstein taking this for granted) - but rather that the job of pidyon today is one of those that has been appropriated away from family members such as husbands, and is now the province of governments. The decision as to whether an individual may or may not be redeemed from ISIS, or pirates off Africa, or wherever, is now one which governments take with regard to their citizens. Governments which are prepared to do deals, like France, redeem their citizens (albeit for astronomical sums). Governments, like the UK and the US, who refuse to do deals on the grounds that it just encourages terrorists - will not let individuals, including husbands, redeem, even if the sums could be raised individually, as a matter of general policy. Nobody assumed it was the job of Gilad Shalit's family to effect his release - except to the extent that they was required to lobby the Israeli government (it might even have been treason to go negotiating with Hamas directly). Release or non release negotiations therefore, including the price to be paid (whether by prisoner release or otherwise) is today a government price. So it seems to me that what in fact we have today is a situation where husbands are, for the most part, forbidden by law (dina d'malchusa dina) from redeeming their wives, ie from fulfilling their side of the takana of Chazal. In such circumstances - while one might argue that the state of which the woman is a citizen is entitled to (at least some portion of) the peros (taxes?) the real question then seems to become: on what basis does one say that the second half of the takana stands - not just in relation to a woman who tries to say "you do not need to redeem me", but in relation to any woman in this circumstance. Has anybody come across anybody discussing this question, and any thoughts on any justification for the retention of the husband's benefit if in fact husbands are not legally allowed to effect redemption? BTW on the question of the commonness of redemption - part of that would depend on the scope of the definition of "pidyon". Clearly redemption from ISIS or pirates in Africa falls within this category - but how about rescuing somebody who was trekking in Nepal at the time of the earthquake? Again this is something that governments are now regarded as having a responsibility to do (the British Government has been criticised for failing to do as much as others, such as the Israeli and US governments, have done). At first blush I can't see why flying somebody out of an earthquake zone would not fit within the pidyon definition - despite it being physical forces, such as landslides, rather than people, who may be trapping the individuals. How about a package tour company going bust? Again, the person in question would (absent ATOL and similar travel bonding schemes set up by the relevant governments) be trapped in a foreign country and need to be returned to their country of origin, as per the language of the takana/ketuba. So why would this not be a form of pidyon? But again, is not the fundamental responsibility now assumed to devolve onto the government in respect of its citizens? So while I am not actually sure that it is true that pidyon is in fact so extremely not common, it seems to me that the fundamental question is rather a different one. Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 05:15:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 12:15:18 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: <20150518.081518.3271.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Among the arguments that came up in the discussion of the Kosher > Switch was that it's zilzul Shabbos. > ... what does the fact that a community eruv is NOT zilzul > Shabbos say about the nature of zilzul Shabbos and its > applicability to nidon didan? Excellent point. And I'd like to add another point: There are those who have argued that the availability of various types of timers (including those with software and adjust themselves for varying sunset times) have made the Kosher Switch unnecessary. I disagree strongly. The Kosher Switch, and similar devices do not merely add convenience, but can do a lot for lessening tzaar, and that is a valid and recognized halachic consideration. There were many times when I went to bed earlier than planned, but the light would not go out for another hour, and it was keeping me awake. And there were many times when my seudah lasted longer than expected, but the lights had gone out and we benched in dim light. There were many times when I set the air conditioning for what was expected to be a very hot day, and when it turn out to be mild, we all froze in the cold house. And there were many times when I left the air conditioning off, and regretted it when the day turned hotter than expected. Of course, a couple of centuries ago, people did not have these conveniences, and they learned to cope with them. But I really believe that for us, who have gotten addicted to them, it is a real tzaar when we must do without. (None of the above should be construed as meaning that I endorse any particular sort of device. I'm only talking about devices which we are allowed to use on Shabbos.) [Email #2. -micha] R' Micha Berger asked: > When community eruvin got started, wasn't there a much easier > argument of zilzul? Why wasn't it made? I'm not sure which period of history you're referring to with the phrase "when community eruvin got started", but here's my attempt at an answer: Eruvin did not allow something which had been previously assur, the way timers do and the way the Shabbos Switch would (according to its supporters). Beginning in Moshe Rabenu's day, people were very careful not to carry from a Reshus Hayachid to a Reshus Harabim, or vice versa, or 4 amos within a Reshus Harabim. But everything else was no problem. People would carry from one home to another within the same chatzer without thinking twice. Or even to a home across the street, IF that street was NOT a Reshus Harabim. But over time, accidents started to happen, because it is not always so easy to determine what's a Reshus Harabim and what's not. So at a certain point (either by David Hamelech's beis din, or Shlomo's, I don't remember) TWO halachos were enacted, at the SAME tme: One, that hotzaah was forbidden in a wide variety of areas other than within one Reshus Hayachid. Two, that these other areas could be transformed into a Reshus Hayachid by following some specific rules. The net result is that after Hilchos Eruvin were instituted, there were NO actions which people could be done that were not being done before. No one said, "Now the neighborhood can have a picnic on Shabbos afternoon!", because they could have done this all along, if there was no Reshus Harabim running through. Thus, no one lamented the zilzul Shabbos caused by allowing picnics which had previously been forbidden, because they had NOT previously been forbidden. I suppose it is possible that in the beginning, these procedures were used only by small neighborhoods (chatzeros and not much larger), and it was only much later that they were used by entire communities. If that's what RMB was referring to, then I'll have to stop here and let a historian continue. Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 07:00:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 10:00:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Megilat Rut: The night of Boaz and Rut Revisited Message-ID: <20150518135955.4DC6C183869@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/kmyx55p YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 08:40:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 11:40:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> On Sun, May 17, 2015 at 1:32pm EDT, R/Prof. Yitzchok Levine wrote on Areivim: : Yesterday in shul I asked a 12 year-old boy who attends a good : yeshiva if he was willing to announce the Molad. He looked at me : incredulously and said "What's the Molad?" I replied, "You know, : when the new moon can be seen." He still didn't get it, and I had : to elaborate a bit. I want to get all nerdy with this. The molad is actually an average, not when you could first see the moon this particular month. From 1601 to 200 CE, the actual physical lunation could be 6h 21m shorter or 7h 15m longer. And, the average too changes over time. (As I've noted in the past, it is amazing to me that we had back in the days of Galus Bavel, a molad value that was most accurate in the same century R' Hillel II and his Sanhedrin crated a standard calendar, some 900 years later. Exact to within the unit of measure (the cheileq). Accurate when we needed the value, not when we first obtained it. Currently, the molad is around 108 chalaqim off. And that's just the time between the molads. Then you have to ask when in the cycle the moon could first be seen. How thin of a sliver is visible to the typical human eye? And which longitude's clock are you using? And we announce the time for this point on the globe using today's hour naming convension. If you look at (eg) the Rambam, you'd be seeing a clock which is restarted every day at sunset, making sunset 0:00, not a number various about 6pm. But that's only something to keep in mind when looking at older Sepharadi sefarim, and wouldn't impact understanding what it is we actually announce. It would seem the molad as we now announce it would be for Kandahar, Afghanistan. But that must be due to slippage because the molad is too long. If we go back to the 4th or 5th cent CE, the molad is being announced given the time around midway between the Nile and the far (south-east) end of the Euphrates, which would have been around the middle of Jewish settlement at the time. In any case, calling is Jerusalem Time is a misnomer. Anyway, because we don't know for sure what location on the globe the molad was defined for, and how much of the current location is due to slippage during centuries of molads growing ever longer, we cannot definitively translate molad time to your local standard time. We simply do not know the starting lattitude to convert from. Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 08:53:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 11:53:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 11:40 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. Sure we do. It's the motion of an "averaged moon" that orbits the earth in a perfect circle, and that, however fictional, forms the basis of our calendar. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 09:41:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 12:41:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150518164134.GC20828@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 11:53:42AM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : On 05/18/2015 11:40 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: : >Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. : Sure we do. It's the motion of an "averaged moon" that orbits the earth : in a perfect circle, and that, however fictional, forms the basis of our : calendar. Except we don't know how much of an idealized moon is supposed to be showing and where between the latitudes of Alexandria and Sura it would have been showing. IOW, we don't know when in the moon's cycle the molad is an idealization of. Note, though, that Rabban Gamliel quotes a mesorah from R' Gamliel haZaqein ("mibeis avi abba) that the molad varies. And in a second quote, that it will never be "less than" 29-1/2d 2/3h 73 chalaqim. (Shabbos 25a) And he uses this to question eidim, so this is a mesorah he accepts for re'iyah, not just computation. Redoing R' Gamaliel's fractions, and converting 73c = 4m 1c, we get 29d 4 hr, 44m, 1 c. Our molad. So Rabban Gamliel held our molad was a lower limit, not an average!? And recall, we'e talking re'iyah (see the sugya) and the actual lunation could be over 6hr easlier than the average. What am I missing? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 08:23:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 11:23:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: <001b01d09170$1d5db6f0$581924d0$@org.uk> References: <001b01d09170$1d5db6f0$581924d0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <555A0402.4060608@sero.name> It should be borne in mind that there are still countries (including ones with substantial Jewish communities) where the need for pidyon is at least as common now as it probably was in Chazal's day. Also that while in many countries paying ransoms may be technically illegal, hardly anybody who is r"l in that situation cares about this. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 09:35:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Riceman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 12:35:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <555A14EF.8070305@optimum.net> RMB: <. In particular, his very first source (see link to mar'eh meqomos sheet) Nissah 20b. Yalta, "Rebbetzin Nachman", asks her mar'os questions of Rabbah bar bar Chanah and Rabbi Yitzchaq bereih deR' Yehudah, not her husband. Similarly mishnah Nega'im 2:5 saying you can't pasen nega'im even of relatives, Bekhoros 31a about judging one's own bekhoros.>> The standard hiluq is is'hazek issura or not. See, e.g., Hochmas Adam H. Shechitah 1:10, Binas Adam ad. loc., and HA H. Nidah 109:6 and BA ad. loc. I think the issue is that hora'ah in the presence of hezkas issur is considered eidus. The argument of self interest raises some problems: 1. Do you know of cases where rabbis have referred questions about communal matters to experts elsewhere because they are self interested since they live in the community? For example, do Hachmai EY refer questions about communal safety (e.g., military matters) to rabbis in Hutz LaAretz because they are self interested? 2. Why shouldn't self interest be a psul in the absence of hezkas issur? I know people on this list have cited it to me in the case of restaurants certifying their own products. David Riceman From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 10:03:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 13:03:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518164134.GC20828@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> <20150518164134.GC20828@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555A1B64.8060409@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 12:41 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > What am I missing? That what we announce is *not* anything to do with the actual moon, which the eidim in RG's time would have claimed to have seen, but the notional averaged moon on which *our* calendar is based. The *real* molad, i.e. conjunction of moon and sun, does vary, because the real moon does not orbit the earth in a perfect circle; the notional molad on which we base our calendar, and which we announce every month (except, ironically, the one month when it actually matters), is perfectly regular. And "molad" does seem to mean the conjunction, not the moment when the first sliver is visible, because the gemara in RH seems to say that the first possible sighting of the new moon is six hours *after* the molad. So we do know exactly what we are announcing: the number on which the calendar is based. Given this Shabbos's announcement, one can easily calculate that next Rosh Hashana will be on a Monday, exactly as it should be. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 10:49:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 13:49:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> At 11:40 AM 5/18/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. Yet it says in the siddurim that it should be announced so people know when it is! My understanding is that what is announced is Jerusalem solar time and this is different from Jerusalem local time. YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 11:47:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 14:47:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150518184701.GD20828@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 01:03:32PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : On 05/18/2015 12:41 PM, Micha Berger wrote: : >What am I missing? : : That what we announce is *not* anything to do with the actual moon, which : the eidim in RG's time would have claimed to have seen, but the notional : averaged moon on which *our* calendar is based... First, as Zev noted to me in private, I meant RH 25a (not Mes' Shabbos). But the point I asked "what am I missing?" about was Rabbi Gamliel questioning what people thought they saw, not the average. In R' Gamliel's day, the length of the molad was pretty close to exact; even today it's closer than they had any way to measure. But that's still an average. And real values can be more than 6 hr earlier. So, how can R' Gamliel question someone's observation for being less than a molad, when in half of all months re'iyah will be early -- and many 5 or 6 hr early. : So we do know exactly what we are announcing: the number on which the : calendar is based. Given this Shabbos's announcement, one can easily : calculate that next Rosh Hashana will be on a Monday, exactly as it : should be. As I said in my previous post... Yes, that explans the length of the molad, but not the point in the idealized cycle. How much moon must be visible for it to be a new moon? Or more accurately, what was visible when the molad was al pi re'iyah that we are now using a simplified model to approximate? And we can't just calculate what it is the molad is approximating, because we don't know what clock to use. It looks to me like Hillel was using a point halfway between EY and Bavel, somewhere in the center of the contiguous Jewish settlement. But that's largely guesswork. On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 01:49:49PM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : My understanding is that what is announced is Jerusalem solar time : and this is different from Jerusalem local time. Which is why I left out the word standard, writing "Jerusalem Time" rather than Israel Standard Time. But as I wrote above, it's not. See also my first post (for Avodah) on this thread for more detail. In 1999, R Yisrael Medad posted something about this on MJ, after having R/Prof Ely Merbach, R/Prof Yaakov Loewinger and the Bar Ilan astronomy dept bad the question around. See They assume Jerusalem Mean Time, but they make the fundamental error of discussing mean conjunction -- no moon -- not the first sliver. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 13:31:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 16:31:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150518203148.GB4022@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 02:24:32PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : >Yes, that explans the length of the molad, but not the point in the : >idealized cycle. How much moon must be visible for it to be a new : >moon? [...] they make the fundamental error of discussing mean : >conjunction -- no moon -- not the first sliver. : : I don't think they made an error at all. The molad is the conjunction; : the earliest time at which the moon can be seen is six hours after : the molad. How do you know this? The Rambam (Qiddush Levana 6:1) appears to say it's the average of the first time the moon could be seen "kedei leida im yeira'eh hayarei'ach of lo yeira'eh.... bemahalakhtam ha'emtza'i, who haniqra 'molad'". And my whole point was that we didn't know how big of a sliver is "yeira'eh", but I'm willing to entertain the possibility that we announce when it cannot be seen, as a way of knowing by deduction when it could. I just can't see it as a given. Combining not knowing how much -- if any -- after the conjunction the molad is with not knowing which lattitude's clock is being used was the not knowing what the molad really means. You could move the lattitude by changing the size sliver. As for why we announce the molad... The Yerei'im gives the answer Zev did. The MA quotes the Yerei'im and says that mevorkhim hachodesh is lezeikher the real qiddush hachodesh by Sanhedrin. Which is why we stand. RMF (IM OC 1:142) says this is in imitation of the qehillah who would stand when answering "Mequdash! Mequdash!" I find the MA's answer more compelling, because it unlikely that it is to know when Rosh Chodesh should be, when the one RC that most depends on the molad isn't announced -- Tishrei. It also adds resonence for me when saying "Mi sheAsah Nissim", that before the chazan announces ther month, we ask for a return of the qiddush hachodesh being commemorated. And if truly "chaverim kol Yisrael" and we acted it, we would have a Sanhedrin. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 11:24:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 14:24:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 01:49 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > At 11:40 AM 5/18/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >> Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. > Yet it says in the siddurim that it should be announced so people know > when it is! It's the number used for calculating the calendar. That's all people need to know. > My understanding is that what is announced is Jerusalem solar time > and this is different from Jerusalem local time. No, it's different from J'm *standard* time, i.e. the modern time system invented by the railroads, which of course we take no notice of. On 05/18/2015 02:47 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > But the point I asked "what am I missing?" about was Rabbi Gamliel > questioning what people thought they saw, not the average. Why are you discussing that? The topic is the announcement in shul, which relates entirely to our calculated system, not to RG's system. You wrote that nobody knows what it is that's being announced, and I dispute that. RG is entirely irrelevant, since he was dealing with the actual moon, not the notional moon that our system deals with. > Yes, that explans the length of the molad, but not the point in the > idealized cycle. How much moon must be visible for it to be a new > moon? [...] they make the fundamental error of discussing mean > conjunction -- no moon -- not the first sliver. I don't think they made an error at all. The molad is the conjunction; the earliest time at which the moon can be seen is six hours after the molad. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 14:36:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 17:36:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518203148.GB4022@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> <20150518203148.GB4022@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555A5B79.2030308@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 04:31 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > > How do you know this? The Rambam (Qiddush Levana 6:1) appears to say > it's the average of the first time the moon could be seen "kedei leida im > yeira'eh hayarei'ach of lo yeira'eh.... bemahalakhtam ha'emtza'i, > who haniqra 'molad'". On the contrary, that Rambam says *explicitly* that the molad is the exact moment of the conjunction, which is *not* when it can be seen. Read it again and you will surely see this. > As for why we announce the molad... The Yerei'im gives the answer > Zev did.The MA quotes the Yerei'im and says that mevorkhim hachodesh > is lezeikher the real qiddush hachodesh by Sanhedrin. Which is why > we stand. RMF (IM OC 1:142) says this is in imitation of the qehillah > who would stand when answering "Mequdash! Mequdash!" Neither the Yere'im nor the MA even mention the announcement of the molad, let alone give any reason for it. All the Yere'im says is that the announcement of Rosh Chodesh in shul is not at all related to kidush hachodesh, but is merely so people should know when Rosh Chodesh will be. The MA adds that although this is true, the custom is to stand for it, as a zecher to kidush hachodesh, which was done standing. R Akiva Eger asks how this could be so, since we know that a beis din must sit, not stand. RMF answers thatkiddush hachodesh was done notby the BD, but by the audience, after hearing the BD's psak, and they were surely standing, and this is what the MA means. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 14:49:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 17:49:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: RMicha Berger wrote: >Among the arguments that came up in the discussion of the Kosher Switch was that it's zilzul Shabbos. >>The thought hit me, though... Refraining from operating electrical devices has only been a potential issue for 125 years or so. And except for Yekkes, most of our ancestors come from places where it has been less than a century since electricity became part of our lives. >So it's very hard to say that "not using electricity" is a defining feature of the Shabbos experience.< True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul Shabbos. (Of course, by this argument, putting an electric light on or off should be prohibited even if the use of electricity is not a m'lacha.) >Contrast this to hotza'ah, including haavarah, which take up what seems like 1/3 of chazal's discussion of issur melakhah (rough estimate from Berakhos and Eruvin in mishna, Tosefta, Y-mi and Bavli).< I assume that "Berakhos" should be replaced by "Shabbos." >When community eruvin got started, wasn't there a much easier argument of zilzul? Why wasn't it made? Indeed we use the general kelal of being meiqil WRT eiruvin to quite an extent to build one. And what does the fact that a community eruv is NOT zilzul Shabbos say about the nature of zilzul Shabbos and its applicability to nidon didan?< What tzuras hapesach and eiruv permit is not carrying prohibited by the Torah. Rather, it is, in effect, a built-in exception to the issurim imposed mid'rabbanan by two g'zeiros: the classification of certain areas, which min haTorah are m'kom p'tur, as a new entity called karmelis, and the imposing of a prohibition of hotza'a from one r'shus hayachid to another of different ownership. Both were in use long before there was a city eruv. E.g., persons sharing a two-family house with a common fenced yard would make an eruv to permit carrying to and from their living quarters to the others' and to the yard. Likewise, a house opening to an unfenced yard would make a tzuras hapesach to permit carrying between house and yard. And, of course, two houses opening to a common unfenced yard would make a tzuras hapesach to "enclose" the yard, and then an eruv to permit carrying among houses and yard. The city eruv was not an introduction of a new practice, but a larger-scale use of already common practices. How does this constitute zilzul Shabbos? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 14:31:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 22:31:48 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000001d091b2$0c5074f0$24f15ed0$@org.uk> RZS writes: >It should be borne in mind that there are still countries (including ones >with substantial Jewish communities) where the need for pidyon is at least >as common now as it probably was in Chazal's day. Are you thinking of South America? I confess that is what springs to mind from your suggestion, although how often ransom is really required in such countries I don't know. > Also that while in many countries paying ransoms may be technically illegal, hardly anybody who is >r"l in that situation cares about this. But presumably you are talking about the same ones (eg South America). My question relates solely to countries, like Britain and Israel, to which Rav Zylberstein was referring. He took it for granted that in fact it was exceedingly uncommon for pidyon to be needed. I am not so sure it is so uncommon, but I doubt very much that in these countries "hardly anybody who is r"l in that situation cares about this". That is, while I know from the press of numbers of cases in which pidyon has been needed for British and Israeli citizens, in none of these cases were private individuals allowed to redeem (despite them quite naturally wanting to, and possibly being willing to do so, if they had not been restrained, whether by circumstances or otherwise). Clearly if one lives in a place where pidyon is common, and where, whatever the technical law says, in practice individual family members redeem, neither my question nor Rav Zylberstein's gets off the ground. But I don't think the existence of a place in the world, that one would never contemplate living in (and is not the locus of the ketuba), is relevant to the obligations under that ketuba which must relate to the places that the couple live and the governments under which they live. Even when it might involve some less scrupulous situations - one of the mothers in our school in England had the situation that her sons were effectively kidnapped by her ex-husband and held in Russia. And while yes, ultimately she found where they were hidden by means of a private investigator, which cost her private money, she would never have been able to extract them had: (a) Russia not signed up to the Hague convention; (b) the Russian court given judgment in her favour; and (c) the Russian police at the bequest of the English government on the basis of the Russian judgment actually going in and retrieving the boys (whose location they had singularly failed to identify until the private investigator had provided the cast iron information as to where they were). And she would have struggled to have brought them back into England without the rulings of the Russian authorities. And even if an adult is different, I cannot see the British government allowing one of its citizens to go off and try and attempt pidyon of another of its citizens without its active involvement, it being seen as cutting across its foreign policy (even if this was occurring in a place where ransom payments amongst locals was common). >Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 15:53:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 18:53:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] measurement error In-Reply-To: <20150111185211.GA15414@aishdas.org> References: <54AD8B25.3010103@optimum.net> <20150111185211.GA15414@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150518225308.GA15666@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 01:52:11PM -0500, Micha Berger wrote: : In an appreciated bit of siyata dishmaya, my Arukh haShulchan yomi : sechedule brought me to a primary source : on this subject -- AhS OC 363:32-35. The he.WikiSource.org ("Vikiteqst") : copy is at ... : When dealing with mavui, where there is only one mavui and therefore one : measuring process to be used for everyone, the above applies. However, : when the measurement is only for one person's use, tbey should be : measuring for himself, with his own norms. : And here he adds a touch of subjectivity: a person should measure how : far he himself could walk. And the rule of carrying in rh"r a distance : of no more 4 of one's own amos is brought into that umbrella. : The reason for the general rule is to cover the personal amos of the : people who will be using the measuring. : BUT, and this is why I do not follow, he opened se'if 32 by telling us : the variability is 1/48 of the total (1/24 of an etzba per ammah). Which : is far less than the variability in forearm lengths in most groups of : people. For example, my own sukkah is used by Yoni, who stands 6'3" and by : my own 5'3" -- and my arms are on the shorter side, even proportionally. : When we hold up elbows together, my ammah ends just past his wrist. Not : within 47/48 of eachother. I came across another AhS datapoint for this thread, OC 586:14. He quotes the Rambam Shofar 1:5, discussing the minimum length of a shofar: that you can hold it in your hand and it's visible on either end. The AhS explains the intent as being the size of the toqei'ah's hand, but rather an average person's hands, "veshi'uro tefach sheheim 4 godelim". Then there is a debate whether the tefach has to be a generous one, so as to be visible (Tur, quoting Ri Gei'os) or a narrow one (Tur himself and SA), which is still visible if the toqei'ah uses four fingers -- after all, they'll still be narrower than 4 thumbs. So the shiur is neither personal nor really the standard tefach. It is literally as the gemara says, what can be held and still seen. Which is why there is a machloqes about where the tefach stands in relation to the real shiur. But, visible if hypothetically held by an average hand. And if the tqoei'ah has wide hands, he could hold a minimal shofar without it being visible, and it would still be kosher. The AhS also says this was already explained in Nidah 26b, which is a depressing gemara about miscarriages, and a tefach comes up in shiurim for tum'ah, but I didn't see where it mentionrs our topic of what kind of tefach is used. What I find even more interesting is that there is no chiluq being drawn between someone who blows in shul and someone who blows just for himself. Wouldn't the rule from OC 363 mean that someone in the latter situation should use what is visible when their own hand holds it? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 15:35:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 18:35:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: <000001d091b2$0c5074f0$24f15ed0$@org.uk> References: <000001d091b2$0c5074f0$24f15ed0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <555A6924.4010709@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 05:31 PM, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: > RZS writes: > >> It should be borne in mind that there are still countries (including ones >> with substantial Jewish communities) where the need for pidyon is at least >> as common now as it probably was in Chazal's day. > > Are you thinking of South America? Well, Latin America (so as to include Mexico). There are also other such countries, such as India, the Philippines, Nigeria, where the need for pidyon is common, but there are not a lot of Jews living there. > But I don't > think the existence of a place in the world, that one would never > contemplate living in (and is not the locus of the ketuba), is relevant to > the obligations under that ketuba which must relate to the places that the > couple live and the governments under which they live. Even a couple marrying in such a country must contemplate the possibility that one or both might one day travel to a country where kidnapping is common, and be kidnapped. Even in Chazal's day the danger was not so much where people lived as on the highways and the seas, where they might travel. Also, I am not at all sure that it is actually illegal in most normal countries to pay ransom. What is illegal is giving *anything* to groups that are officially listed by that country's government as terrorists. If the kidnappers are not on the list, so that it would be legal to give them a gift, then I don't think there's a law against paying them ransom. (Perhaps there should be.) -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 19 11:32:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joseph Kaplan via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 14:32:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Standing at a Chupah Message-ID: <004f01d09262$1f0388c0$5d0a9a40$@tenzerlunin.com> "Truth be told, I have seen the following many times. When the grandparents who are 70 or more years old walk down, no one stands for them. However, when the chosson and kallah walk down everyone stands for them." At almost every MO wedding I've attended over the past 5-10 years, everyone stood when the grandparents walked down whether they were older than 70 or not. But if, God willing, I'm around for my grandchildren's weddings, I plan to walk (or, if necessary, wheelchair) down the aisle whether anybody stands for me or not. Joseph -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 19 12:18:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 15:18:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150519191809.GA8642@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 05:49:16PM -0400, elazar teitz via Avodah wrote: :> So it's very hard to say that "not using electricity" is a defining :> feature of the Shabbos experience. : True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature : of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so : accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul : Shabbos. (Of course, by this argument, putting an electric light on or off : should be prohibited even if the use of electricity is not a m'lacha.) As would replacing gefilte fish with sushi? It's not that people from Sinai to around 100 years ago actually experienced avoiding the lightswitch, nor did they even consciously experience not having one -- since there was no conception of an alternative. Not using electricity, and saying that qedushas shabbos requires avoiding electricity are really two different things, experientially. 100 years ago we had an opportunity to do something new on Shabbos, much like when shomerei Shabbos first learned of sushi. The difference is that we did assur one new opportunity, and not the other. ... : What tzuras hapesach and eiruv permit is not carrying prohibited by : the Torah. Rather, it is, in effect, a built-in exception to the issurim : imposed mid'rabbanan by two g'zeiros... ... : The city eruv was not an introduction of a new practice, but a : larger-scale use of already common practices. How does this constitute : zilzul Shabbos? Yes, that explains why it's nothing clearer cut than zilzul Shabbos. AIUI, worrying about zilzul means that the mechanism is mutar, but the goal is one that cheapens Shabbos, removes some of the feeling of its qedushah. Like taking the pre-existing concept of eiruv as a way to have a reshus that was no included in Shelomo ubeis dino's original issur hotza'ah and stretching it to a much bigger area than ever before, so that most people never have reason to leave it most weeks. So that the entire issur goes from being one of the dominant features of Shabbos (judging just in blatt of discussion) to barely ever experienced. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 45th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Malchus: What is the beauty of Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity (on all levels of relationship)? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 19 12:46:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 22:46:01 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] donor egg Message-ID: "A 65-year-old Bnei Brak woman gave birth this week, becoming the oldest woman to give birth in Israel. The ultra-Orthodox woman and her 67-year-old husband had been battling infertility for 46 years before the birth at Kfar Sava?s Meir hospital. After fertility treatments abroad and with the help of a donor egg, the woman became pregnant, giving birth to a 2.685-kg baby in her 35th week of pregnancy. ?To the best of my knowledge, this is the oldest woman to give birth in Israel. It is extremely rare that pregnancy at this age ends well. The ultra-Orthodox circle from which the couple comes attributed the pregnancy and birth to a blessing the woman received from a Hassidic rabbi. " http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel/.premium-1.657230 Given all the halachic controversy of who is the halachic mother I am a little surprised -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 07:11:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 17:11:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? Message-ID: There is a famous Medrash that before offering the Torah to the Jewish people Hashem offered it to the other nations of the world. "First He approached the children of Esav and asked them, "Do you wish to accept the Torah?" They replied, "What is written in it?" "Do not murder." They said, "...Our father was assured that, 'By your sword will you live (Bereishit 27:40)!'" Next Hashem went to the children of Ammon and Moav, and asked, "Do you wish to accept the Torah?" They asked, "What is written in it?" "Do not commit sexual immorality." They responded, "Master of the Universe, our very existence is based on an immoral act!" Hashem then went to the children of Yishmael, and asked them, "Do you wish to accept the Torah?" They asked, "What is written in it?" "Do not steal." They responded, "Master of the Universe, the essence of our father was to be a bandit, as it is written, 'And he will be a man of the wild; his hand will be in all...'" (Bereishit 16:12)." Sifri, Ve'Zot HaBracha #343 However, the Medrash has an obvious question. All of the examples of Torah prohibitions given by the Medrash, are also prohibited by the 7 mitzvos of Bnei Noach. The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from murder so how would accepting the Torah make things worse for them? The same goes for arayos and stealing, these were already prohibited to them anyway so why does the medrash specifically pick these as examples for Torah prohibitions? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 11:16:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 14:16:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150520181647.GA15475@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 05:11:29PM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : However, the Medrash has an obvious question. All of the examples of Torah : prohibitions given by the Medrash, are also prohibited by the 7 mitzvos of : Bnei Noach. The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from murder so how would : accepting the Torah make things worse for them? The same goes for arayos : and stealing, these were already prohibited to them anyway so why does the : medrash specifically pick these as examples for Torah prohibitions? I raised this and a second question in : Hashem's answer to each of the nations is strange. Why choose the one sin their forefather was known for? Is that how you would do kiruv, starting with the hard stuff? By comparing this medrash to the opening pasuk in this week's parshah, [Lekh Lekha,] we can get a better understanding of the point of the story. "Hashem said to Avram, `Go for yourself from your homeland, from your birthplace and from your father's house to the land which I will show you'." (12:1) The first sentence recorded in the Torah of the Jewish mission on earth is a commandment for Avram to leave his home and his father. Avram didn't say, "I can't worship G-d because my very substance his idolatry, because my father, Terach, manufactures idols". Hashem orders Avram to leave the culture that made him, to leave his father's sphere of influence, and he does. Avram's reply was "And Avram went, just as G-d told him". (12:4) If Hashem said he could change, rise above Ur Casdim to become fit for both the land of Israel and the father of the people of Israel, then he goes. Is man a creature of fate or of destiny? Is his future foretold, etched in rock, unchangeable? Or can he rebuild himself into something greater than he was? Clearly the Torah insists on the latter. The very key to accepting the Torah is to be committed to use its ideas and its mitzvos to improve and to grow. This was the failing ascribed to the other nations in the medrash. They saw a given flaw in their national character as their substance, immutable. Hashem wasn't asking them about a particular prohibition, but about their commitment to leave their "father's house". If they do not believe they can change, what purpose can getting the Torah serve them? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 46th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Malchus: How can some forms of Fax: (270) 514-1507 "unity" be over domineering? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 11:48:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 14:48:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: <20150520181647.GA15475@aishdas.org> References: <20150520181647.GA15475@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555CD6E5.5000606@sero.name> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 05:11:29PM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from murder so how would : accepting the Torah make things worse for them? The same goes for arayos : and stealing, these were already prohibited to them anyway sowhy does the : medrash specifically pick these as examples for Torah prohibitions? Perhaps that was His point: you can't even keep the mitzvos you already have, so how can you want more? On 05/20/2015 02:16 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > I raised this and a second question in > : > Hashem's answer to each of the nations is strange. Why choose the one > sin their forefather was known for? Is that how you would do kiruv, > starting with the hard stuff? Why the premise that the purpose was kiruv? On the contrary, I think the medrash's intent is clear, that Hashem did *not* want them to accept His offer, and thus pitched it in the manner most likely to be rejected. The only purpose of making the offer in the first place was so they wouldn't be able to complain that they hadn't been given the chance. He wasn't trying to sell it to them, He was showing them why they didn't want it, and therefore shouldn't be upset that the Jews were getting it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 17:29:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 20:29:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] 65 Year-Old Woman Gives Birth to First Child in Bnei Brak In-Reply-To: <20150520.101659.17683.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150520.101659.17683.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150521002935.GC9522@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 02:16:59PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Areivim wrote: : If we were speaking Lashon Hakodesh, you'd be correct - Bar Mitzvah is : a noun, and only a noun. However, we are clearly speaking English, and : several dictionaries tell me that in English, "Bar Mitzvah" is both a noun : and a verb. See, for example, http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bar+mitzvah : which gives "bar mitzvahed" (and other forms) as examples. : Languages are funny this way. Stuff can change when a word enters a : new language. However, there is no real concept correspnding to the English word "bar mitzvahed". The borrowing was primarily done by non-traditional Jews, who think that being called up to the Torah changes your status. But in reality, "bar mitzvahed" makes as much sense as saying someone pubertied or menopaused. We O could borrow the word as shorthand for "became a bar mitzah" but since the original borrowing is really based on a misunderstanding of the Torah, why should we? It'll just make it harder to clear up the mistake. : If I'm not mistaken, the Yiddish word for "holiday" is pronounced : "yuntif", and it is spelled "yud vav memsofit blankspace tes vav beis", : and is considered a single word despite the fact... IIRC, on the NY State Yiddish Regents Examination in the late 1970s, it was spelled as it sounds, one word, yud-alef-nun-tes-eyin-ende fei (w/ a refuyah line over it). (R' Riskin, whose HS I attended, required a foreign language, and Hebrew doesn't count as "foreign". The Hebrew Regents exam was a separate requirement to graduate. As was Red Cross swimming certification and you could choose either CPR or First Aid. The latter two were because the HS is the father's shaliach for all of chinukh and education. Anyway, I already had some background in Yiddish, and I heard that the Yiddish regents eere easier than more popular languages like Spanish or French, so...) But the, Chassidishe Yiddish and YIVO Yiddish (the legacy of Litvishe Yiddishists) are different dialects. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 46th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Malchus: How can some forms of Fax: (270) 514-1507 "unity" be over domineering? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 17:53:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 20:53:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Admin: [Areivim] 65 Year-Old Woman Gives Birth to First Child in Bnei Brak In-Reply-To: <20150521002935.GC9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150520.101659.17683.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> <20150521002935.GC9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150521005329.GF9522@aishdas.org> The previous email was misdirected. Replies to it will not be accepted. (On Avodah. If Areivim's mods approve it, reply there.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 18:57:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 20:57:21 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <555D3B81.5030709@starways.net> I think the obvious answer is that midrash is midrash. One midrash doesn't have to be consistent with another. It's there to learn from, and the message of this one comes through regardless of the Noachide laws. On 5/20/2015 9:11 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > There is a famous Medrash that before offering the Torah to the Jewish > people Hashem offered it to the other nations of the world. > > However, the Medrash has an obvious question. All of the examples of > Torah prohibitions given by the Medrash, are also prohibited by the 7 > mitzvos of Bnei Noach. The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from > murder so how would accepting the Torah make things worse for them? > The same goes for arayos and stealing, these were already prohibited > to them anyway so why does the medrash specifically pick these as > examples for Torah prohibitions? > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 03:36:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 06:36:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: <555D3B81.5030709@starways.net> References: <555D3B81.5030709@starways.net> Message-ID: <20150521103619.GC7831@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 08:57:21PM -0500, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: : I think the obvious answer is that midrash is midrash. One midrash : doesn't have to be consistent with another. It's there to learn : from, and the message of this one comes through regardless of the : Noachide laws. I believe the question was finding internal consistency in a single medrash from the Yalqut Shim'oni. The medrash that says the nations were offered the Torah itself says the example mitzvos were ones they were already obligated in, and ones their ancestor was known for. So, what does that tell us about the message? To me, it says that the offer was more about testing one's willingness to change. Therefore, each is asked if they would be willing to refrain from something that they should already be avoiding, but is part of their current culture. And that, in turn, speaks to seeing the Torah as a tool for self-transformation. Which I mean in a manner vague enough to include both Chassidim and Litvaks. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 07:50:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 10:50:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Ways to find non-meat or non-milk Message-ID: <20150521145032.GH9522@aishdas.org> >From the founder of Machon Zomer, RYRosen, on possible ways to eat kosher meat and milk together without violating basar bechalav. -micha Shabbat B'Shabbato Translated by Moshe Goldberg Point Of View Bit of Reality from Sinai Rabbi Yisrael Rosen Dean of the Zomet Institute "This teaches you that scripture, the Mishna, halacha, tosefta, hagadda, and whatever a veteran scholar will teach in the future already exists, and it was all given as halacha to Moshe at Sinai" [Kohellet Rabba 1]. ... Recipes with Meat and Milk In honor of the holiday, we have pieced together for you, from the newest volume, some juicy samples of dairy halachot, as is fitting for the holiday of Shavuot, in order to fulfill the verse, "Honey and milk are under your tongue" [Shir Hashirim 4:11]. We will capture your interest for halachic sophistication by offering you, from this new volume of Techumin, a serving of meat cooked in milk (yes, you read that right!). Compare this to Rav Nachman, who gave his wife an udder soaked in milk in order to satisfy her desire to taste a combination of milk and meat (Chulin 109b). And what is our enticing menu item that fits this requirement? See below... (1) "Ben Pekua" -- It is an accepted halacha (admittedly quite odd) that if a cow is slaughtered in the eighth month of her pregnancy and the calf is found to be alive, it is called a "Ben Pekua" and there is no need to slaughter it. It can be eaten in any manner, including even taking off a limb while it is still alive (Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Dei'ah 13), even many years later, and there is no need to check if it has one of the faults that would render a normal animal unkosher. And now, here is the most surprising part: The offspring of a male and female "Ben Pekua" (both of the "parents must be of this type) will never require kosher slaughtering either, and this includes all subsequent generations. (However, if only one parent is a "Ben Pekua," the offspring cannot be made kosher, even by slaughtering!) Rabbi Meir Rabi from Australia published a dramatic article where he claims that by definition a Ben Pekua is not cattle (but is rather the same as fish), and therefore not only is there no need to remove the veins in the hind quarter, one is even permitted to cook it and eat it together with milk! To come to this conclusion, the rabbi bases his ruling on a Torah insight by the Meshech Chochma, that our Patriarch Avraham served his guests, the angels, "a calf (literally, the son of cattle, or a ben pekua!) that was tender and good," from the womb of a pregnant cow, and he gave them "butter and milk, and the calf" [Bereishit 18:8]. Rabbi Rabi went further, and acted on his ruling. Using this method he created male and female "sheep" and grew flocks from them, and he now has a culinary and halachic declaration -- these animals do not need to be slaughtered, their veins do not have to be removed, their fat is not prohibited -- and the rabbi has a long list of other benefits. However, modern rabbis do not accept this idea! In the new volume of Techumin, Rabbi Zev Vitman, the rabbi of Tenuvah (which sells milk, meat, and fish) vigorously opposes the novel ruling. Aside from the release from the requirement of ritual slaughtering (which is carried over from the mother or the grandmother of the calf), Rabbi Vitman disagrees with (almost) all the other conclusions. He finds no justification for defining the Ben Pekua as a "new and separate species." In addition, in volume 19 of Techumin, sixteen years ago, Sephardi Chief Rabbi Bakshi-Doron rejected a similar proposal that was sent to him by meat farmers on the Golan, fearing that it would lead to serious problems. Other prominent rabbis, such as Rabbi Shmuel Vazner and Rabbi Asher Weiss, warned against getting involved in this sophisticated and complex halachic problem. (2) We are thus left to search elsewhere for a combination of meat and milk: meat that has been cloned from stem cells! In a previous volume, Rev Tvi Reizman (a well-known businessman from Los Angeles who is also a Torah scholar well versed in matters of halacha and actuality) writes about an "artificial hamburger" which was created two years ago. This is produced from artificial meat made from stem cells of a cow which was not slaughtered or which was declared unkosher ("tereifa"). In principle, he concludes that clone meat is not real meat, and that it can therefore be cooked and eaten with milk! (The summary of the article includes many details which will not be repeated here. For example, the problem of appearances can be solved by proper packaging and declarations, as is done for soya milk.) However, my friends, I doubt that you should rush out after the holiday to search for an "artificial hamburger," in order to season it with honey and dip it in milk. Rabbi Yaacov Ariel opposes the idea in the new volume of Techumin. He concludes that such artificial meat can only be produced from a kosher animal, and that then "it will be considered meat for all intents and purposes, including the matter of cooking with milk." So, in the end we are left with the solution in the Talmud: Does anybody want some milk-saturated udders? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 08:36:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 11:36:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula Message-ID: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> In OC 196:1, the Rama mentions the minhag of blowing 30 qolos at the end of RH mussaf. "Ule'achar sheyatze'u bazeh, shuv ein litqua od bechinam." (Although a qatan, even higia lechinuch, may.) So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. As for being yotzei... Mitzvas shofar only requires tashra"t, tasha"t OR tara"t, 3 times. A point the AhS makes besheim the Rash besheim R' Hai Gaon (Shilhei RH), "delav sefeiqos gemuros hein", that Rav Avahu was mesaqein in order for everyone to do the same thing, not because otherwise you're not yotzei shemie'as qol shofar. The AhS criptically adds, "(ulevad zeh yeish bazeh inyan gadol)." So the question is whether you have to blow in numerous ways few other people use in order to fulfil a taqanah created to create uniformity of practice. But enough of the tirade, and back to the point: Being machmir in hilkhos shofar this way involves a qulah in hilkhos yom tov. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:25:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:25:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150521202527.GP9522@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 02:46:27PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : On 05/21/2015 11:36 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: :> In OC 196:1, the Rama mentions the minhag of blowing 30 qolos at the :> end of RH mussaf. "Ule'achar sheyatze'u bazeh, shuv ein litqua od :> bechinam." :> (Although a qatan, even higia lechinuch, may.) : : Not bechinam; for practice, so that he may one day blow for real. That's not what the Rama says, though. He says "you're allowed to tell him to blow (HaMagid, Hil' Shofar, pereq 2) and it's mutar to for him to blow all day (Or Zarua dRH)." The mishnah says "any me'qvim es hatinoqos militqoa, aval mis'asqim imahem ad sheyilmedu", which implies they are not stopped even after yilmedu. The gemara ad loc (RH 33a-b) says that a qatan higia' lechinukh is encouraged to blow to learn, but any child is not prevented from blowing. So I think the Rama is paralleling the gemara, and not saying the seifa is only for chinukh, or for a child who doesn't need to be stopped because he isn't ready yet. The AhS's wording is even further from your deduction. :> So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the :> qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, :> etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. : No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the : last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. They aren't to fulfill minhag. Hey, I didn't outright assur the practice, I said it relies on being meiqil, such as calling wanting to be chosheish for some minority opinion shitah a need to blow. In general, I'm increasingly uncomfortable with this concept of being machmir to be chosheish for ... It seems to reflect a lack of emunah in kelalei pesaq and the authority of pesaq. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 11:46:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 14:46:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 11:36 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > In OC 196:1, the Rama mentions the minhag of blowing 30 qolos at the > end of RH mussaf. "Ule'achar sheyatze'u bazeh, shuv ein litqua od > bechinam." > > (Although a qatan, even higia lechinuch, may.) Not bechinam; for practice, so that he may one day blow for real. > So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the > qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, > etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 05:09:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Arie Folger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 14:09:57 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: RMB wrote: > Yes, that explains why it's nothing clearer cut than zilzul Shabbos. > AIUI, worrying about zilzul means that the mechanism is mutar, but > the goal is one that cheapens Shabbos, removes some of the feeling > of its qedushah. > > Like taking the pre-existing concept of eiruv as a way to have a > reshus that was no included in Shelomo ubeis dino's original issur > hotza'ah and stretching it to a much bigger area than ever before, > so that most people never have reason to leave it most weeks. So > that the entire issur goes from being one of the dominant features > of Shabbos (judging just in blatt of discussion) to barely ever > experienced. RAW actually deals with this explicitly by citing IIRC Rambam on why Chazal legislated mutze. We are not all farmers or builders, not even cooks and bakers. Hence, many of us hardly ever come close to deoraitot of Shabbat. However, Shabbaton requires shevita hanikeret,so Chazal legislated muktze to create a shevita hanikeret. Says RAW, even if he is wrong on electricity being a deoraita (but he doesn't think he is wrong), nonetheless, the consensus of poskim on elecricity makes it into something akin to muktze. That never happened regarding gefillte fish [which outside Hungary hardly anyone ever ate except on Yom Tov, since what passes for gefillte fish is just the filling. ]. No one ever suggested it is chillul Shabbos to eat gevldige Sushi. At worst, some puerile yeshive boocher called it goiyishe maakhoolim. -- Arie Folger, Recent blog posts on http://ariefolger.wordpress.com/ * Kann man die Religion des anderen korrekt wahrnehmen? ? Zur Woche der Br?derlichkeit * ???? ???? ????? ? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ???? ??? * Ist Pessach f?r die Vergangenheit oder die Zukunft? * Frag den Rabbi ? Wie backte man Mazzot in der Bibel? * Frag den Rabbi ? Seit wann und warum bedecken j?dische m?nner beim gebet ihr haupt? * A Critique of Liberal Orthodox Approach to Halacha -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:38:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:38:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 02:46:27PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the : last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. Having 100 qolos as learned from Eim Sisera's 100 cries is a minhag recorded already in the Arukh, and is mentioned by Todafos and the Rosh in RH pereq 4. (AhS OC 596:1) The Tur that R' Amram Gaon mentions of minhag of a single teru'ah gedolah without a teqi'ah kedei le'arbeiv hasatan, but we do not have this minhag. The the AhS continues (se'if 2) with the already mentioned Rama, "ke'achar sheyatz'u bazeh, ein litqoa od bechinam". Which is why I said that blowing more than 100 qolos for reasons less than minhag requires a qula-dik reading of "chinam". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:31:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:31:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521202527.GP9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521202527.GP9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E409C.7080609@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 04:25 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > >:> So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the >:> qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, >:> etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. >: No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the >: last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. > They aren't to fulfill minhag. Hey, I didn't outright assur the practice, > I said it relies on being meiqil, such as calling wanting to be chosheish > for some minority opinion shitah a need to blow. That's not a kulah, because the issur is davka when it's bechinam, and so long as there's a reason it's not chinam. Their wish to hear shofar the way this rishon or that one wanted it heard is at least as good a reason as our "le`arvev es hasoton", or giving women a "nachas ruach". [Email #2. -micha] Follow-up: However, your chashash brings up an interesting suggestion. if they are worried about all possible chashshos, then maybe they should worry about yours too, and they can easily solve it: let them go on mivtzo'im and find Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all, and blow for them according to these opinions. That way, not only will they have heard shofar according to all possible opinions, and not only will they have the zechus of those Jews having heard shofar according to at least one opinion (which is certainly kosher, as you correctly point out), but their "extra" tekios will be with a bracha! -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:51:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:51:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E454E.60107@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 04:38 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 02:46:27PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: > : No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the > : last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. > > Having 100 qolos as learned from Eim Sisera's 100 cries is a minhag > recorded already in the Arukh, and is mentioned by Todafos and the > Rosh in RH pereq 4. (AhS OC 596:1) Yes, but what of the extra 30 kolos after davening? Those are not in the 100 kolos, they're just le'arvev es hasoton, and yet nobody seems to raise this objection to them. > The the AhS continues (se'if 2) with the already mentioned Rama, > "ke'achar sheyatz'u bazeh, ein litqoa od bechinam". Which is why I said > that blowing more than 100 qolos for reasons less than minhag requires > a qula-dik reading of "chinam". No, it's not kuladig, it's just what the word means. Any valid reason is not chinam. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:55:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:55:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <555E454E.60107@sero.name> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> <555E454E.60107@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150521205546.GA9166@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 04:51:26PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Yes, but what of the extra 30 kolos after davening? Those are not in the : 100 kolos, they're just le'arvev es hasoton, and yet nobody seems to raise : this objection to them. Actually, they were part of the 100 qolos, and in nusach Ashkenaz they still are. It's only because y'all starting blowing during chazaras hashatz that it's not obvious. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:44:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:44:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <555E43A6.3020602@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 08:09 AM, Arie Folger via Avodah wrote: > No one ever suggested it is chillul Shabbos to eat gevldige Sushi. At worst, some puerile yeshive boocher called it goiyishe maakhoolim. Chilul Shabbos, no, but I have heard people seriously claim that it's forbidden to eat milchigs on Shabbos because it's "not shabbosdik", and specifically citing as "obviously" ridiculous the idea of eating lasagna on Shabbos. Which struck me as funny, since I recall one Rosh Hashana, no less, being confronted with an excellent milchig lasagna, made with fake meat, and having to wait to eat it because I was still fleishig from lunch. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:52:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:52:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What do Chazal mean when they refer to "pashtei d'kra?" Message-ID: <20150521205201.GA6908@aishdas.org> Maybe one of you could help R' CHaim Brown, even if he did leave us over a decade ago. A recent blog post on his "Divrei Chaim" at or . I mean, we talk about different definitions of the concept of "peshat" often enough, perhaps maybe someone had something. Tir'u baTov! -Micha Divrei Chaim Wednesday, May 20, 2015 what do Chazal mean when they refer to "pashtei d'kra?" The gemara Archin 8b darshens that "tzikascha k'harerei E-l" refers to nigei adam, which Hashem in his mercy limits to affecting a person for a week. The continuation of the pasuk, "mishpatecha tehom rabbah," refers to nigei batim, where the punishment is more severe in that it can stretch out for three weeks. The gemara then asks, "Pashtei d'kra b'mai?" and brings two similar explanations to the pasuk that read it as saying that G-d shows great mercy in tempering and mitigating the verdict that strict justice would call for. What do Chazal mean when they refer to "pashtei d'kra?" Despite the word "pashtei" in there, it does not seem to mean what the Rishonim like Rashi call "pshat," because if you look at Rashi or the Metzudas David, they don't simply quote this gemara. It seems that the gemara's "pashtei d'kra" is itself a derasha, albeit a derasha that is closer to the plain meaning of the words than the derasha that links the pasuk to nega'im. So are there different levels of derashos? The term "pashtei d'kra" is not all that common, so are these isolated exceptional cases, or in general are there different levels of derash? Does it make any nafka minah (except in our understanding of things?) Posted by Chaim B. at 9:40 AM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 14:12:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 17:12:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521205546.GA9166@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> <555E454E.60107@sero.name> <20150521205546.GA9166@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E4A32.8030909@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 04:55 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 04:51:26PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : Yes, but what of the extra 30 kolos after davening? Those are not in the > : 100 kolos, they're just le'arvev es hasoton, and yet nobody seems to raise > : this objection to them. > > Actually, they were part of the 100 qolos, and in nusach Ashkenaz they > still are. It's only because y'all starting blowing during chazaras > hashatz that it's not obvious. No, these kolos are not part of the 100. These are an extra 30, *after* the 100, and their only purpose is le'arvev es hasoton. And yet that doesn't count as "bechinam". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 18:25:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 21:25:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Shulchan Aruch's "Beis Din" Message-ID: <20150522012546.GA28788@aishdas.org> We discussed a number of times the fact that the SA doesn't follow the rule in his haqdamah to OC about following the majority of the Rif, the Rambam and the Rosh. Less often, peoeple mention actual examples. So, in case you were looking for one, the AhS mentions on OC 606:8-9 the machloqes about whetherit's a mitzbvah to eat on erev YK. In se'if 8 we learn the the Rif, the Ramnam and the Smag omit this idea, and in se'if 9 he says the Rosh, Tur and SA (se'if 1) hold that it's a mitzvah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 20:02:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi, its Kosher! via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 13:02:42 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Ways to find non-meat or non-milk - The BP Project Message-ID: I am happy to engage in discussion regarding the Halachos of BP, with anyone who is interested. For the time being such discussions must be and remain private I can confirm that I have been in contact with R Chaim Kanievsky about this for some years now and that he supports the Lomdus and proofs that I have proposed. Best, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi *Its Kosher* and *Exodus Matza * *it's kosher Authority Pty Ltd **ABN: *77 160 144 374 rabbi at itskosher.com.au +61 0423 207 837 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 18:55:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 01:55:29 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula Message-ID: <20150521.215529.1991.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Actually, they were part of the 100 qolos, and in nusach Ashkenaz they > still are. It's only because y'all starting blowing during chazaras > hashatz that it's not obvious. R' Zev Sero responded: > No, these kolos are not part of the 100. These are an extra 30, > *after* the 100, and their only purpose is le'arvev es hasoton. > And yet that doesn't count as "bechinam". Okay, folks, I think it is clear that some of us have been exposed to minhagim that the others are unaware of. I suggest that we clarify the various minhagim, and tally up the different ways of dong it. >From what I've seen, the vast majority of Nusach Ashkenaz shuls blow 30 times before Musaf, 30 during Chazaras Hashatz, 40 during or after Kaddish Tiskabel, and that is the end, for a total of exactly 100. I have been in a Nusach Sfard shul where they blow 30 times before Musaf, 30 during the silent Musaf, 30 during Chazaras Hashatz, 10 during or after Kaddish Tiskabel, and that is the end, for a total of exactly 100. Here in Elizabeth, we blow 30 times before Musaf, 60 during Chazaras Hashatz, 10 during Kaddish Tiskabel, and that is the end, for a total of exactly 100. R' Zev, could you describe for us how the first 100 are blown, and when the extra 30 come in? And if anyone else wants to add to the list, please do so! Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/555e8cc570114cc51cdast04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 01:14:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 11:14:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat Message-ID: REMT wrote > True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature > of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so > accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul > Shabbos. (Of course, by this argument, putting an electric light on or off > should be prohibited even if the use of electricity is not a m'lacha.) In particular using an preset switch to turn lights and off should be prohibited. While RMF originally did object he later changed his mind when it became the norm. In fact even the kosher lamp might be prohibited Can someone come up with a definition of zilzul shabbat? Is every modern way of doing any melacha that does not technically violate hilchot shabbat zilzul? The gemara allows using the sun for cooking on shabbat - why isn't that zilzul shabbat? -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 07:59:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Sassoon via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 15:59:41 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003901d0949f$eed65840$cc8308c0$@org.uk> RZS writes: >That's not a kulah, because the issur is davka when it's bechinam, I don't think that is exactly the correct phrasing to explain the situation. Rather, there is the general blanket rabbinic issur on playing musical instruments on yom tov, into which sounding shofar prima facie falls. This general issur is pushed aside by the d'orisa positive mitzvah of blowing shofar (noting that, at least according to the famous Taz, because rabbinic power doesn't stretch far enough to allow the banning of something which is a mitzvah d'orisa in every circumstances in which it would occur, as this would do - but is only in allowed situations where only sometimes the mitzvah would not end up being performed, such as Rosh Hashana on shabbas). This rabbinic issur of playing musical instruments on yom tov vis a vis the shofar is also pushed aside in other rabbinically recognised circumstances - including (according to the majority rishonim, Shulchan Aruch and Rema, although there are major rishonic dissenters) nachas ruach d'nashim. The case of the katan may well be different, given that the fundamental issue with katanim is chinuch (which might perhaps be said to cut both ways here). > and so long as there's a reason it's not chinam. Their wish to hear shofar >the way this rishon or that one wanted it heard is at least as good a >reason as our "le`arvev es hasoton", or giving women a "nachas ruach". Leaving aside nachas ruach, which has (according to those who hold by it at least rabbinic weight - ie power to push aside at least rabbinic prohibitions) - what is the justification for le'arev es hasoton? My instincts are that, to the extent that le'arvev es hasoton is taken seriously, the argument there is one of pikuach nefesh, which of course would push aside the rabbinic issur of playing musical instruments (think about it, if you can get a few extra years out of confusing the soton, how could that not be considered pikuach nefesh)? Don't think that helps with being choshesh for minority shitos. >However, your chashash brings up an interesting suggestion. if they >are worried about all possible chashshos, then maybe they should worry >about yours too, and they can easily solve it: let them go on mivtzo'im >and find Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all, and blow for them >according to these opinions. That way, not only will they have heard >shofar according to all possible opinions, and not only will they have >the zechus of those Jews having heard shofar according to at least >one opinion (which is certainly kosher, as you correctly point out), >but their "extra" tekios will be with a bracha! But aren't they then denying those Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all the chance to hear shofar according to the majority opinions by only blowing for them according to the minority opinions? Or are you proposing that they *then* blow for them according to the majority opinions? Either way you seem to me to be opening a real can of worms. The principle on which somebody who has fulfilled their obligation can then fulfil the obligation of another is based on kol yisrael areivim zeh b'zeh. But to what extent is that applicable in a situation in which that person would never, had the situation been reversed, have accepted the form of fulfilment they are offering the other. Ie since the person who is blowing the shofar refused to have these alternative ways of blowing as the fundamental method of fulfilling their own mitzvah, is it really areivus to then foist that form of fulfilment on others? >Zev Sero zev at sero.name Shabbat Shalom Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 10:22:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 13:22:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What is the Law? Message-ID: <20150522172240.022581829C9@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/sivan_v.pdf YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 11:16:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 14:16:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula II Message-ID: <20150522181627.GA5977@aishdas.org> I came across another one, more inyana deyoma... According to the AhS (OC 494:3) we used to wait for "laylah mamash" to make Qiddush the first night of Shavu'os, so that the omer could be "sheva shabasos temimos". Presumably this is following the MGA who has us wait until tzeis for Qiddush, and the AhS's "laylah mamash" means tzeis. The Taz (494:haqdamah) and the MB (s"q 1) have us waiting for tzeis to start *Ma'ariv*. The Qorban Nesanel (on the Rosh, Pesachim 130b) brings the Rosh as a ra'ayah against the MGA. The Rosh says that even though on Shabbos *and the other YT-im* we add from the chol to the qodesh and eat before it gets dark, we do not do so for the seder night. So the QN QN takes the implication that "she'ar yamim tovim" includes Shavuos. So the QN treats Shavuos like Shabbos, and presumably let you daven maariv and make Qiddush right after pelag. The QN is machmir in omer, the MGA is machmir in tosefes YT. And each is being correspondingly meiqil in the other. I would presume that the silence in the Tur, the BY and the SA about any waiting means that the Tur, the Mechaber and the Rama hold like the QN and treat erev Shavuos like erev Shabbos, RH, Sukkos, etc... (But not Pesach.) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 48th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Malchus: What binds different Fax: (270) 514-1507 people together into one cohesive whole? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 08:55:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 11:55:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <003901d0949f$eed65840$cc8308c0$@org.uk> References: <003901d0949f$eed65840$cc8308c0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <555F517D.4080806@sero.name> On 05/22/2015 10:59 AM, Chana Sassoon via Avodah wrote: >> >However, your chashash brings up an interesting suggestion. if they >> >are worried about all possible chashshos, then maybe they should worry >> >about yours too, and they can easily solve it: let them go on mivtzo'im >> >and find Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all, and blow for them >> >according to these opinions. That way, not only will they have heard >> >shofar according to all possible opinions, and not only will they have >> >the zechus of those Jews having heard shofar according to at least >> >one opinion (which is certainly kosher, as you correctly point out), >> >but their "extra" tekios will be with a bracha! > But aren't they then denying those Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all > the chance to hear shofar according to the majority opinions by only blowing > for them according to the minority opinions? AFAIK everyone agrees that all these methods are kosher, so those Jews are definitely yotzei the mitzvah. > The principle on which > somebody who has fulfilled their obligation can then fulfil the obligation > of another is based on kol yisrael areivim zeh b'zeh. But to what extent is > that applicable in a situation in which that person would never, had the > situation been reversed, have accepted the form of fulfilment they are > offering the other. Ie since the person who is blowing the shofar refused > to have these alternative ways of blowing as the fundamental method of > fulfilling their own mitzvah, is it really areivus to then foist that form > of fulfilment on others? They're not foisting anything. The people they're blowing for would otherwise not hear shofar at all, so they're clearly better off hearing even some obscure form of it, so long as they're yotzei. On 05/21/2015 09:55 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > R' Zev, could you describe for us how the first 100 are blown, and when the extra 30 come in? And if anyone else wants to add to the list, please do so! I'm talking about 30 kolos blown at the very end of davening, just before going home, and well after all 100 kolos have already been heard (30 meyushav, 30 in each musaf, and 10 in kaddish). Their purpose is le'arvev es hasoton. And I've never heard it suggested that there is any chashash issur. Thus my conclusion that shofar-blowing is allowed on RH for *any* valid purpose, and the only blowing that remains forbidden as usual on Yomtov, is when it is truly "bechinam". -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 25 12:15:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 25 May 2015 19:15:59 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Brisker Theory of Everything Message-ID: 1. The gemara (Ketuvot 5b) discusses whether causing a certain type of blood flowing is considered a Sabbath violation. The first attempt to resolve the question turns on whether "mifkad pakid or chaburei mechbar" (is the blood in the womb stored up or is it the result of a wound?). Rashi there (please look) seems to define this as a physical question. Is this acceptable or must we say Rashi was leaving out the "obvious" philosophical/halachic question (i.e. the physical was known, it's a question of how to categorize it halachically)? 2. That gemara continues to try to resolve the question and is willing to entertain the possibility that the halacha is like Rabbi Yehuda (vs. Rabbi Shimon) in mekalkeil (destroying) and like Rabbi Shimon (vs. Rabbi Yehuda) in davar sheino mitkavein (the result was not the major one intended). If these two issues were interconnected, could the gemara entertain this possibility? 3. If the answer to 2 is no, must we assume that when the Shulchan Aruch said he would decide the psak based on majority 2 of big 3, did he really mean this as a primary tie breaker, or only when he did not have a clear understanding of the underlying philosophy that resulted in their final opinions. 4.Is it possible that R'YBS limited his "canon" to only a few major rishonim (in contradistinction to R" A Lichtenstein) because the more data points included in trying to determine the underlying theoretical construct, the more likely a single errant point would skew the results? Kt Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 25 19:35:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 02:35:10 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir Message-ID: <20150525.223510.2086.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> After Machlon and Kilyon died, we find in Ruth 1:8-13 that Naami tells both Orpah and Ruth to go back home. Didn't Naami realize that they would return to avodah zara if they'd do that? Even if they had not converted yet, wouldn't this be an example of Lifnei Iveir? One answer I can think of is that perhaps this eventuality didn't occur to Naami. But several pesukim later, in 1:15, Naami tells Ruth that Orpah has "returned to her people and to her god; go back with your sister-in-law." Naami persists not only in trying to convince Ruth to leave, but she explicitly urges Ruth to return to her former god! This question is certainly relevant according to those who understand that Orpah and Ruth converted prior to marrying Machlon and Kilyon. But it is relevant even to those who hold that Ruth did not convert until afterward. It is one thing to dissuade a prospective ger from joining us. But Ruth had been living with a Jewish family for ten years! How can Naami urge her to go back to avoda zara? I know that the meforshim give various reasons why Naami did not want them to accompany her back to Eretz Yisrael, but do those reasons justify this Lifnei Iveir? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 06:00:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 09:00:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Who Wrote the Mishna Brura? Message-ID: <20150526130054.4548818394C@nexus.stevens.edu> I am sure that most will answer "The Chofetz Chaim" Israel Meir (HaKohen) Kagan. However, he apparently did not write all of it. I have been reading Marc Shapiro's latest book "Changing the Immutable" How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites its History. See http://www.littman.co.uk/cat/shapiro-orthodox.html Shapiro points out that Rabbi Aryeh Leib Cohen, a son of the Chofetz Chaim, wrote in his biography of his father that he wrote parts of the Mishna Brura and that is why there are contradictions in some parts of the MB. Which parts Aryeh Leib wrote are not indicated. Does anyone know? YL PS. I have found this book an eye opener and recommend it highly. llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 10:19:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kaganoff via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 13:19:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 12:01 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 01:53:10PM -0400, Kaganoff via Avodah wrote: > : For many years i had extreme difficulty with R. Elchanan Wasserman > understanding > : as it conflicted with my belief that Judaism (and other religions) was > not > : logically provable (contra to Moshe Mendelssohn and his contemporaries) > and > : therefore required a "leap of faith" and that a disbeliever could not be > : faulted for failing to take such a jump. > > This is a false dichotomy. Logically proving things are not the only > way to justify belief in there. > > How do you know that (in a flat space) two parallel lines never meet? If > you're like me, you pictured it in your head. Even though infinite lines > don't exist in the real world. (Nor, does it turn out, does flat space.) Actually non-euclidean geometry is an excellent example. We cannot say with absolute certainty that two parallel lines will never meet or that there is only one line that goes through a particular point that is parallel to another line, as there is a well developed body of literature on non-Euclidean geometry (such as Riemannian Geometry). One might "feel" strongly that Euclidean Geometry is true and non-Euclidean Geometry is false. But someone might also feel that chocolate ice cream is superior to vanilla ice cream. But neither can be proven. > > Did you figure out that oppression was evil by logical proof, or by a > combination of imagination and empathy? > Calling anything "evil is not meant to be logical but rather to pull at an audiences' heartstrings. Evil is neither logical nor illogical. Nor can one "prove" that the Nazis are evil and that circumcision is not. However, that is a red herring. Again, emotions are not proof. Feelings are neither true nor false. > My favorite example is answering the question, "Do elephants have hair?" > A logical/verbal approach would be: Elephants are mammals, all mammals > have hair, and so unless elephants are the exception to the rule, they > must have hair. Elephants are well known and discussed animals. Could > they be an exception to the rule and I don't know it? Nah, they must > have hair. > > How it is more likely the question jogged your memory of elephants > you saw, or saw pictures of. The detail may be blurry, so you may have > to manipulate the picture a bit. Finally, a version of the picture > which has a tuft of hair at the tail, maybe (if your memory is good) > some downy hair around the eyes and ears, strikes you as the most > familiar, the most real. And again you could reach the conclusion that > elephants have hair. > That is a proveable thesis. One could prove either way whether or not elephants have hair. Unlike the two earlier examples. As for whether one could prove the existence or non-existance of God, I don't have time now to start that discussion. > > (See for some musings about > the two modes of thought I'm contrasting here.) > > In I compare > different versions of the Argument from Design from R' Aqiva's response > to the apiqoreis through the Rambam, through similar approaches based > on more modern science. > > "G-d created" (Gen. 1:1): A hereic came to Rabbi Aqiva and asked, > "Who made the universe?". Rabbi Aqiva answered, "HQBH". The heretic > said, "Prove it to me." Rabbi Aqiva said, "Come to me tomorrow". > > When the heretic returned, Rabbi Aqiva asked, "What is that you > are wearing?" > > "A garment", the unbeliever replied. > > "Who made it?" > > "A weaver." > > "Prove it to me." > > "What do you mean? How can I prove it to you? Here is the garment, > how can you not know that a weaver made it?" > > Rabbi Akiva said, "And here is the world; how can you not know that > Haqadosh barukh Hu made it?" > > After the heretic left, Rabbi Aqiva's students asked him, "But what is > the proof?" He said, "Even as a house proclaims its builder,a garment > its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the > Holy Blessed One Who created it. > > Not very rigorous. Rabbi Aqiva's reply revolves around giving a parable > to make the conclusion self-evident. Not contructing a deductive argument. > > The more rigorous we try making it, the more arguable the proof becomes. > R' Aqiva's argument is far more convincing than the Rambam's statement > based on how objects lose form over time, not gain it. Or a similar > argument based on thermodynamics or information theory. > > (Ironically, every formal / logical proof is built from givens taken > as self-evident for informal-reasoning reasons.) > > Anyway, that's how I understood REW. R' Elchanan argues that on an > informal level, the idea that the universe had to have a Creator is > as obvious as a Euclidean postulate or the injustice of oppression. > I believe that such an explanation is disrespectful to REW. I am assuming that REW believed what he wrote and wrote down clearly what he believed as opposed to assuming that REW believes one thing and wrote another. > > To not believe in G-d requires a formal proof, which one's negios then > determine if they find it sound or specious, and whether they accept > the postulates on which it's built. > To believe and to not believe in God can be pulled off without formal proofs. However, it is intellectually dishonest to state that one has an arguement for God's existance and than say that we are not talking about formal proofs when a counterarguement is made. > Notice I didn't invoke any leaps of faith. > > Tir'u baTov! > -Micha > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 12:25:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 15:25:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150526192512.GA22762@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 01:19:53PM -0400, Kaganoff wrote: : > How do you know that (in a flat space) two parallel lines never meet? If : > you're like me, you pictured it in your head. Even though infinite lines : > don't exist in the real world. (Nor, does it turn out, does flat space.) : : : Actually non-euclidean geometry is an excellent example. We cannot say with : absolute certainty that two parallel lines will never meet or that there is : only one line that goes through a particular point that is parallel to : another line, as there is a well developed body of literature on : non-Euclidean geometry (such as Riemannian Geometry). Well, if we know the curvature of the space we're dealing with, we know which Geometry to use. And only one is correct for that particular space. :> Did you figure out that oppression was evil by logical proof, or by a :> combination of imagination and empathy? : : Calling anything "evil is not meant to be logical but rather to pull at an : audiences' heartstrings. Evil is neither logical nor illogical. Nor can one : "prove" that the Nazis are evil and that circumcision is not. I disagree with your reisha. Evil is an objectively meaningful predicate. Yahadus wouldn't work is evil were subjective. As for your seifa... that's kind of my point: there are truths that can be justified even when they are not amenable to formal proofs. : However, that is a red herring. Again, emotions are not proof. Feelings are : neither true nor false. Although the notion that John is feeling happy at 2:55pm EST May 26, 2015 is either true or false. Or some fuzzy state in between. It is a predicate, even if it needn't be a boolean predicate. All three of these comments are interrelated: Euclidean geometry is the only accurate description of flat space. Not every space, but flat space. People may disagree about what is evil, and Nazis may be able to fool themselves about what the word means, but HQBH did create a concept of good that has an objective definition. Even if -- again -- we cannot find it via proof. : > My favorite example is answering the question, "Do elephants have hair?" : > A logical/verbal approach would be... : > How it is more likely the question jogged your memory of elephants : > you saw, or saw pictures of... : That is a proveable thesis. One could prove either way whether or not : elephants have hair. Unlike the two earlier examples. As I said in the first paragraph, before the first ellipses. However, in practice, people aren't likely to use proofs to reach the conclusion. We justify our belief that elephants have hair in a different way. : As for whether one could prove the existence or non-existance of God, I : don't have time now to start that discussion. But my whole point is that proof isn't the only grounds for justifying knowledge! ... : > Anyway, that's how I understood REW. R' Elchanan argues that on an : > informal level, the idea that the universe had to have a Creator is : > as obvious as a Euclidean postulate or the injustice of oppression. : I believe that such an explanation is disrespectful to REW. I am assuming : that REW believed what he wrote and wrote down clearly what he believed as : opposed to assuming that REW believes one thing and wrote another. Um... That /is/ what Rav Elchanan wrote. I'm arguing that he is being misread because they think that REW invoking the notion of knowledge (as opposed to belief) is equivalent to his invoking the notion of proof. Instead, he invokes the synthetic a priori, of the self-evident, or whatever your theory of justification is of R' Aqiva's answer to the atheist or that letters aren't the product of ink spilled on paper. AISI, REW is saying that humans know there is a G-d, without his saying anything about the possibility of proving it. And that people then go about creating proofs for His non-Existence or Deism, to hide from that knowledge. Or, to be more loyal to his original wording -- because they took shochad to buy into a proof against the obvious. He might be saying that at some level, that knowledge lingers, no matter how much someone buries it under layers of counter-proof and convincing themselves. But I don't see that in REW either. Quoting: Now, of course, we shouldn't be astonished that so many great philosophers had difficulty believing that the world was created by a Purposeful Creator. Their minds were surely great, but their desire to gain benefit from the pleasures of this world overcame their ability to think straight. Such a powerful bias can divert a person's mind to the point that he can say two plus two does not equal four... After my signature, I'll quote Qovetz Maamariv par 5-7 from a translation provided by Pirchei Shoshanim. You'll notice it's nothing like the Rambam's attempt to formally prove an Argument from Design in Moreh sec. II. Really, all he says is that monotheism woul be self-evident if people didn't want to escape its implications on their lifestyle. Not proven, self-evident, and not that those who argue against it are less than fully convinced of their atheism (or Deism, or polytheism). :> To not believe in G-d requires a formal proof, which one's negios then :> determine if they find it sound or specious, and whether they accept :> the postulates on which it's built. : To believe and to not believe in God can be pulled off without formal : proofs. : However, it is intellectually dishonest to state that one has an arguement : for God's existance and than say that we are not talking about formal : proofs when a counterarguement is made. Not "argument", any more than your acceptance of Euclidean (or Reimann) postulates are based on argument. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_justification#Theories_of_justification and http://www.iep.utm.edu/epistemo/#H3 may be clearer than I have been. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "Man wants to achieve greatness overnight, micha at aishdas.org and he wants to sleep well that night too." http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yosef Yozel Horwitz, Alter of Novarodok Fax: (270) 514-1507 5. If you ponder it, however, you shall find that the belief that the Holy One, blessed by He, created the world is self-understood by any intelligent being -- unless a person is a complete imbecile. And there is no need for any [knowledge of] philosophy to grasp this principle. The author of the Duties of the Heart (Shaar HaYichud 6) thus wrote: There are people who say that the world came into existence by chance, without a Creator who caused it and formed it. I wonder how any rational being in a normal state of mind can entertain such a notion. If one holding such a opinion would hear a person expressing a similar view in regard to a water-wheel that revolves in order to irrigate a portion of a field or garden -- and were to say that he thinks it had been set up without any intention on the part of a mechanic who labored to put it together and adjust it, using all his tools to obtain this useful result -- the hearer would wonder, be exceedingly astonished, and think the man who made such a statement extremely foolish. He would promptly charge him with lying, and would reject his assertion. Now, if such a statement is rejected in regard to a small and insignificant wheel, the fashioning of which requires but little contrivance and which serves for the improvement of but a small portion of the earth, how can anyone permit himself to harbor such a thought concerning the immense sphere that emcompasses the whole earth with all the creatures on it; which exhibits a wisdom so great that the minds of all living creatures, the intellects of all rational mortals, cannot comprehend it; which is appointed for the benefit of the whole earth and all its inhabitants – how can one say that it came into existence without a wise and mighty designer purposing and conceiving it? Whatever takes place without purpose shows, as is well known, no trace of wisdom or power. Do you not realize that if ink were poured out accidentally on a blank sheet of paper, it would be impossible that proper writing should result, legible lines such as are written with a pen? If a person brought us a fair copy of script that could only have been written with a pen, and said that ink had been spilt on paper and these written characters have come of themselves, we would charge him to his face with falsehood, for we would feel certain that this result could not have happened without an intelligent person's purposeful action to produce it. Since this appears to us an impossibility in the case of characters whose form is conventional, how can one assert that something far finer in its art, and which manifests in its fashioning a subtlety infinitely beyond our comprehension, could have happened without the purpose, power and wisdom of a wise and mighty designer? How could anyone say that the universe came into existence on its own, seeing that everywhere we look we see signs of such inconceivably profound wisdom? How wondrous is the wisdom and design in the human body, how wondrous the arrangement of its limbs and organs, as all doctors and surgeons attest. How is it possible to say, with regard to such a wondrous machine, that it came into existence on its own without a purposeful designer? If anyone would claim that a watch had just come into existence on its own, he would be considered insane. We see this in the Midrash (Midrash Temurah in Midrash Aggadot Bereshit): An athiest came to Rebbi Akiva. "Who created the world?", he queried. R. Akiva answered, "The Holy One, blessed be He." The athiest replied, "Show me proof." R. Akiva said, "Come back to me tomorrow and I shall prove it to you." When the man returned the following day, R. Akiva began by asking, "What is that you are wearing?""A piece of clothing,"the athiest replied."And who made it?" R. Akiva continued. "The weaver", he replied. "Show me proof", R. Akiva demanded. "But how can I show you proof if it isn't already obvious to you that it is the work of the weaver?!" With this R. Akiva said, "Have you not heard what your own lips have spoken? Isn't it obvious to you that the Holy One has created this world? Doesn't the clothing testify to the weaver; the house and the door to a builder and a carpenter? Just so does the world testity to the One who made it." Imagine a human being born with a fully developed intellect. We can't imagine his great astonishment upon seeing, suddenly, the heavens and their hosts, the earth and all that is upon it. What would this man's answer be to our question: Did the world that he is seeing now for the first time come into existence on its own, without any conscious intent, or is it the work of a wise Creator? Behold, without a doubt, after contemplating for a moment, he would respond that all this was made with wondrous wisdom and extremely subtle order (fine-tuning). [We find this concept expressed in any number places in our classical literature.] The Psalmist said, "The heavens declare the glory of G-d"(Psalms 19:2). [According the Duties of the Heart 2:5] this is also the meaning of Job's words when he declared, "From my flesh, I will see G-d!"(Job 19:26) [The Psalmist saw proof of G-d's existence in the magnitude of the universe. Job was saying that the very fact that something as wonderful as his body could exist demonstrates that it is the work of a wise Creator.] In view of all this it is therefore extremely puzzling, a great enigma: How could some of the greatest philosophers who ever lived have concluded that the world was brought into existence by chance? 6. The resolution of this enigma can be found in the Torah. The Torah reveals something profound about human psychology when it commands, "Do not take bribes, for bribery blinds the eyes of the wise!" (Deuteronomy 16:19). What is bribery? In legal terms, the smallest amount necessary to constitute a bribe is a "shaveh prutah"(not much more than a penny), similar to the minimum amount needed [for a court] to find a person guilty of stealing or of taking interest. This negative commandment, to never take a bribe, is directed not only at a judge, but at every man, even the wisest of men, even the most righteous, even Moses himself. Yes, if it could be imagined, even if Moses would take the tiniest bribe, a prutah, his perception of reality would be distorted; he would be incapable of bringing forth a just ruling. At first sight, this is nothing short of amazing. Can we imagine Moses or Aaron twisting the law and judging falsely merely for the sake of receiving such miniscule benefit? But the Torah itself testifies to the possibility, and "the testimony of G-d is trustworthy" (Psalms 19:8). We must therefore say that it is a psychological law: A person's will or desire [to gain some benefit] influences his mind [his ability to think straight]. Of course, it depends how strong the desire and how resolute the mind. A small desire will not exert much influence on a great mind, whereas on a lesser mind it will. A powerful desire [for gain] will exert even more influence. One thing is certain: no matter how miniscule, a desire for gain will always have some affect. Even the tiniest desire can cause the greatest mind to waver a fraction. This is exemplified in the Talmud (Ketuvot 105b): Rebbi Yishmael bar Yossi had a land tenant who used to bring him fruits from his [R. Yishmael's] orchard every Friday before Shabbat. Once, he came on a Thursday. R. Yishmael asked him: "What's changed this week?" "I have a court case this week", he answered."Since I was coming to town anyway, I thought I would bring you your fruits."R. Yishmael refused to take the fruits [even though they were his]. "I am disqualified from judging your case."Two [other] rabbis sat and began to hear the land tenant's case. R. Yishmael sat [on the sidelines] watching. At every turn in the discussion, R. Yishmael felt himself wanting to give advice to his land tenant. "If only he would say this now... if only he would say this..."After the case was decided, he exclaimed, "O that the spirit of those who take bribes would explode! I refused to take what was rightfully mine [and I still couldn't help being biased and wanting to see him come out winning]. How much more those who actually take what it is not theirs! It is known that the sages [of the Talmud] were angelic in terms of their expanded consciousness and saintly character. We nevertheless see that the smallest degree of bias could cause them to incline away from the truth. How much more so the rest of us who are sunken in the desires of this world! The desire for gain literally bribes us, saying, "Hey, look, the world is free to do with as you please!"How powerful this bias is! How easily it distorts our perception and blinds us! For when a person has "bought into"a certain bias, he is incapable of recognizing any truth that flies in the face of that bias. As far as that truth is concerned, he might just as well be in a drunken stupor. He doesn't recognize its existence. Now, of course, we shouldn't be astonished that so many great philosophers had difficulty believing that the world was created by a Purposeful Creator. Their minds were surely great, but their desire to gain benefit from the pleasures of this world overcame their ability to think straight. Such a powerful bias can divert a person's mind to the point that he can say two plus two does not equal four, but five. A person cannot judge whether something is true unless his mind is free from any distorting influence vis a vis the thing he wishes to judge. On the contrary, if recognizing a particular truth in any way contradicts a bias that a person has bought into, no amount of intellect, even the intellect of a great person, can remove or overcome that bias. 7. We learn from this that the foundations of true faith are simple and unquestionable for anyone who isn't an idiot. It is simply impossible to doubt their veracity. This is only true, however, on the condition that one does not allow oneself to be bribed. One must be disinterested in and free from the desires and allures of this world, and his own personal desires [for gain]. If so, the root of God-denial lies not in the distortion of the intellect in and of itself. It lies in the heart, i.e., in one's desire to gain benefit [from this world], which distorts and blinds the intellect. It is clear now why the Torah commands, "Do not stray after your hearts..." (Deuteronomy 15:39), concerning which the sages commented, "Do not follow after the heart's desire to deny G-d"(Sifri Shlach 15:70). A person is obligated to subdue and sublimate his desires [for personal gain], because this is the only way his intellect will be free of any blinding influence! He will then automatically recognize the truth of the existence of a Creator. This is what Rebbi Akiva meant when he said that the world attests to the Holy One, blessed be He, who created it. God-denial really has no place in a person's mind. Its place, if man allows it to exist there, is the heart; in a person's desire for gain. And if one would be careful not to allow his desires to overcome him, he could never come to deny G-d's existence or atttribute reality to any form of idolatry. It is a sign that one's desires have grown out of proportion if one is incapable of understanding this simple truth. And the commandment to believe in G-d? It is a commandment not to allow one's desires to overcome his intellect so that he will automatically come to believe. In other words, there is no need to struggle to believe. One must simply remove the obstacles that stand in the way of believing. It will then come naturally, of itself... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 11:11:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 14:11:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura? Message-ID: <20150526181117.9766A180F62@nexus.stevens.edu> Someone sent me the following which is also in Shapiro's book. "The first edition of Shemiras Shabbos K'Hilchasah had a footnote to the effect that some things in the MB had been written by the CC's son. See p. 263 n. 203. The full footnote is not in the later editions of SSK." Shapiro views this as part of the Chareidi attempt to keep certain information from the Chareidi public that they do want people to know. His book is filled with many examples of the "rewriting of history" to fit current Chareidi ideology. He also wrote "Rabbi Jacob J. Schachter wrote an article in The Torah U-Madda Journal about changes and mentioned the MB, the CC's son, and the original SSK footnote. See his "Facing the Truths of History" at http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/704426/Rabbi_Dr-_Jacob_J_Schacter/Facing_the_Truths_of_History (p. 225 and n. 114 on p. 264)." YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 12:44:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 15:44:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura? In-Reply-To: <20150526181117.9766A180F62@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150526181117.9766A180F62@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150526194413.GB22762@aishdas.org> And many of the books we consider the Gra's are students' records of his teachings. For that matter, people talk about what the Ari says in Peri Eitz Chaim or others of R' Chaim Vital's works. RALC piously takes blame for those occasions when he misunderstood his father's position, saying that these errors, rather than actual inconsistencies in the CC's shitah, is what you may find in the MB. But the CC takes ownership of the contents of the MB. See the title page (Warsaw 1884 ed.) "Ube'uri qarative besheim MISHNAH BERURAH..." ... kol eileh chibarti be'ezras H' yisbarakh, haChonen le'adam da'as, YISRAEL MEIR br' Aryeh Ze'ev haKohein zlh"h, mei'ir Radin." Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I long to accomplish a great and noble task, micha at aishdas.org but it is my chief duty to accomplish small http://www.aishdas.org tasks as if they were great and noble. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Helen Keller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 15:01:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 18:01:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150526220106.GA9900@aishdas.org> On Fri, May 22, 2015 at 11:14:15AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature :> of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so :> accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul :> Shabbos... : In particular using an preset switch to turn lights and off should : be prohibited. : While RMF originally did object he later changed his mind when it became : the norm. Actually, RMF's primary argument was mar'is ayin, which would naturally change as people know to blame lights turning on and off on "Shabbos clocks". : In fact even the kosher lamp might be prohibited Well, I would think that fits the zilzul Shabbos argument bewing used WRT the kosher switch. : Can someone come up with a definition of zilzul shabbat? The textbook case would be on Shabbos 6a: situating someone in a meqom petur so that someone in a reshus hayachid can hand items to them so that they could then hand it over to someone in a reshus harabim. Rashi ad loc explains "demezalzel be'isurei Shabbos". I think it's making a farce out of one of the issurim / chiyuvim of Shabbos. Notice that the case Rashi attributes to zilzul would otherwise be perfectly mutar. : Is every modern way of doing any melacha that does not technically : violate hilchot shabbat zilzul? : The gemara allows using the sun for cooking on shabbat - why isn't that : zilzul shabbat? I think the problem is more than just avoiding the issur, but making it trivial to entirely avoid it. Which is what I had in mind when I distinguished between eiruv, which is built into hotza'ah derabbanan, and community eruv, which takes that idea and stretches it until someone can pretty much ignore the whole topic of carmelis for years on end. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Strength does not come from winning. Your micha at aishdas.org struggles develop your strength When you go http://www.aishdas.org through hardship and decide not to surrender, Fax: (270) 514-1507 that is strength. - Arnold Schwarzenegger From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 16:14:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 19:14:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") Message-ID: In Avodah V33n82, RAM requested: > I suggest that we clarify the various minhagim, and tally up the different ways of dong it....And if anyone else wants to add to the list, please do so! < When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: -- 30 *dim'yushav* -- 10 *dim'umad* -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the post-"Aleinu" Qaddish) All the best from *Michael Poppers* * Elizabeth, NJ, USA -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 18:24:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 21:24:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir In-Reply-To: <20150525.223510.2086.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150525.223510.2086.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150527012443.GA5467@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 02:35:10AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : It is one thing to dissuade a prospective ger from joining us. But Ruth : had been living with a Jewish family for ten years! How can Naami urge : her to go back to avoda zara? I know that the meforshim give various : reasons why Naami did not want them to accompany her back to Eretz : Yisrael, but do those reasons justify this Lifnei Iveir? On a technical level, it would be mesayeia, not lifnei iver, and I'm not sure that mesayeia applies to 7 mitzvos benei Noach. But if you're just asking how it's moral... Just thinking off-the cuff. The timing is between eishes Shimshon and Shelomo's mistake with many of his wives. It would seem that women only pretending monotheism to join the Jewish People was common. If Rus was going to be a pagan either way, better not one who people would mistake for a geir. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet micha at aishdas.org about things most people don't watch even on http://www.aishdas.org Yom Kippur. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 00:25:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 10:25:26 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat Message-ID: <<: The gemara allows using the sun for cooking on shabbat - why isn't that : zilzul shabbat? I think the problem is more than just avoiding the issur, but making it trivial to entirely avoid it.>> In that case how about a "dud shemesh" according to the poskim that it is allowed because it uses the sun <> would there be a difference between doing this once and making this a standard procedure? -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 01:22:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:22:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <> The key word is "if" . That is the difference between math and physics. Math assumes axioms and from there everything is provable. Physics discusses the "real" world. This is based on observation and induction. Hence, physics is always subject to modification based on new observations. Hence, we have no proof of the curvature of the universe. <> Yahadus uses the Torah to define evil. Others don't accept this definition. Is ISIS beheading victims and their other acts "evil" ? They believe they are keeping the word of G-d. Destrying ancient monuments is viewed by the world as "evil" while they see it as destroying idols and hence a mitzvah. If we were to eradicate Amalek we would consider it a great mitzvah while the rest of thw world would bring us to the world court for genocide. <> But without a formal proof it is always debatable. You feel that the existence of G-d is obvious even without a formal proof (which doesn't exist) while Dawkins feels that anyone who believes in a diety that interacts with the world is a fool. You accept Torah mi-sinai while most academics are convinced the Torah was written during the late Bayit Rishon if not later -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 02:20:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 12:20:34 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] right and wrong Message-ID: Tangential to some of the recent discussions I wish to point out that the defintion of right and wrong is subjective and indeed changes through history. As one example consider the recent post on love from http://www.talmudology.com/ In the 1440s in England, Elizabeth Paston, the twenty-year old daughter of minor gentry, was told by her parents that she was to marry a man thirty years her senior. Oh, and he was disfigured by smallpox. When she refused, she was beaten "once in the week, or twice and her head broken in two or three places." This persuasive technique worked, and reflected a theme in Great Britain, where Lord Chief Baron Matthew Hale declared in 1662 that "by the law of God, of nature or of reason and by the Common Law, the will of the wife is subject to the will of the husband." Things weren't any better in the New Colonies, as Ann Little points out (in a gloriously titled article "*Shee would Bump his Mouldy Britch; Authority, Masculinity and the Harried Husbands of New Haven Colony 1638-1670.*) The governor of the New Haven Colony was found guilty of "not pressing ye rule upon his wife." What was obvious in one generation is no longer regarded as true today. Similar arguments apply to slavery -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 03:47:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 06:47:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 07:14:36PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: : -- 30 *dim'yushav* : -- 10 *dim'umad* : -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to blow. How do you do less than 10 *each*? Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 05:03:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 12:03:32 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir Message-ID: <20150527.080332.8051.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> I asked if Naami had violated Lifnei Iveir: : It is one thing to dissuade a prospective ger from joining us. : But Ruth had been living with a Jewish family for ten years! How : can Naami urge her to go back to avoda zara? R' Micha Berger answered: > On a technical level, it would be mesayeia, not lifnei iver, and > I'm not sure that mesayeia applies to 7 mitzvos benei Noach. Really? Perhaps I need a better understanding of the difference between the two. I thought that mesayeia was when the other person is going to violate the halacha anyway and I am merely helping him to do it. But in this case, the three of them have been living for ten years as a family unit, and regardless of the geirus (or lack of it) I presume there was no avodah zara under Naami's roof. This status quo could have continued for a long time, as we see even Orpah was reluctant to leave. But Naami urged and insisted, and it is difficult for me to imagine a bigger michshol. Pasuk 1:15 - "So [Naami] said: Look! Your sister in law has returned to her people and to her god. Go follow your sister in law." One of us might as well hand the car keys to our child on Shabbos and tell him to have a good time. Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:14:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:14:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527151410.GG27891@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 11:22:14AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : <> : : The key word is "if" . That is the difference between math and physics. : Math assumes axioms and from there everything is provable... Again, from a set of givens. The givens are accepted as the rules of the formal system. Which is why I spoke of the validity of Euclid's Postulates in the context of flat space. But my point was that there are things other than proof. : <> : : Yahadus uses the Torah to define evil. Others don't accept this definition. Nu, so they're wrong. We may not be able to prove to them they're wrong, but they are. Somewhere "out there" is a real objective definition. Regardless of someone's ability to know what they are, or to accept it if they did. : <> : : But without a formal proof it is always debatable... 1- That's a different topic. We're talking about how I justify my believing in something, not how I prove it to others. 2- There are synthetic a priori knowledge so self-evident people don't debate them. Which is why I dragged Euclid into this. EVERY proof STARTS with these givens. Logic is a means of combining postulates, not starting yeish mei'ayin. And thus no proof is actually more solid than its weakest postulate -- and that postulate is justified by something other than proof. And I brought up these notions because I think that without disentangling why I believe from how can I get others to believe, or the general concept of how knowlege is justified from the specific concepts of formal or experiment proof, we cannot get to what R Elchanan Wasserman means. REW says that if it were not for ulterior motive, G-d's existence would be as self evident as the conclusion that a calligraphied poem had an author and scribe (who may be the same person), and was not just spilled ink on a piece of paper. He doesn't yet talk about proof, and in fact, his language is that of informal justification, not proof. (I've blogged the notion that the more formal we make the Argument from Design the LESS solidly it justifies belief. See . For example, R Aqiva's -- or REW's -- version only requires common experience. The Rambam's requires dividing matter into Form and Substance and accepting certain postulates about Form and Time. Later versions will instead speak of entropy and time... But they all suffer from involving *more* givens and insisting they are self-evident and precede the attempt to prove anything.) REW then says that it's only ulterior motive that allows many of us to create arguments and proofs (validly drawn but from broken givens or flawed in reasoning) to let convince ourselves away from that default position. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When a king dies, his power ends, micha at aishdas.org but when a prophet dies, his influence is just http://www.aishdas.org beginning. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Soren Kierkegaard From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:33:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:33:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527153329.GH27891@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 11:48:03AM +0300, Saul Mashbaum wrote: : Very briefly, R. Rosner cites three approaches in the sources : : 1. Illustrating the truth - The Ran in Drashot HaRan drasha 5 - In this : approach, which severely limits the principle of eilu v'eilu, the Ran : states that actually only one of the opinions is true. The other opinion is : 'divrei Elokim chaim' only insofar as it serves to illustrate and elucidate : the other opinion, which is the real truth, as the dark enables us to : appreciate a candle... R/Dr Moshe Halbertal forms his opinion of the Ran's shitah on the haqdamah to haMafteiach leManulei haTalmud. He translates: It is a known fact that the entire Torah, written and oral, was transm itted to Moses, as it says in the tract ate Meggilah, R. Hiyya bar Abba said in the Name of R. Yohanan: The verse:...and on them was written according to all the words.." teaches that the Holy One blessed be He showed Moses the details prescribed by the Torah and by the Sages, including the innovations they would later enact. And what are those? the reading of Meggila. The 'details' provided by the rabbis are halakhic disputes and conflicting views held by the sa ges of Israel. Moses learned them all by divine word with no resolution every controversy in detail. Yet [God] also gave him a rule whose truth is manifest, i.e., 'Favor the majority opinion'....as the sages of that generation saw fit, for the decision had already been delegated to them as it is written: 'And you shall come to the priest the Levites, and to the judge that shall be in those days' and 'You shall not deviate....". (Quoted from . I do not know where to find the original, to see what's ellided or whether my own attempt to translate would agree.) This quote from the Ran pretty clearly backs the third position in RSR's survey: : 3. Multiple truths (Ritva in Eiruvin, Maharal) - Both opinions are true, : reflecting different perspectives of the subject at hand (IMO, this is : similar to the previous explanation, without establishing a hierarchy : between the truths expressed by the different opinions)... (BTW, I happen to agree with this parenthetic. ) OTOH, in Derashah #7, I think I could defend RSR's #2! To quote the Ran: We have been commanded to obey their decision whether it represents the tru th or its opposite ...for the power of decision-making has been entrusted to the halakhic authorities for each generation. Whatever they decide is what God has commanded. Compare: : 2. Levels of truth - R. Moshe in the hakdama to IM, and R. Yaakov to : Bereishit 26, the Netziv in his Hakadama to Haamek Sh'eila, his commentary : to the Sheiltot). Using R. Moshe's terminology. there is Emet Shamaymit, : and Emet L'Horaa. Both are correct, and in this world we are obligated to : follow the emet l'horaa even if it deviates from the ultimate, heavenly : truth. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You are where your thoughts are. micha at aishdas.org - Ramban, Igeres haQodesh, Ch. 5 http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:38:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:38:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5565E50A.4070406@sero.name> On 05/27/2015 04:22 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Yahadus uses the Torah to define evil. Others don't accept this definition. Why is that relevant? Objective truth doesn't depend on how many people are aware of it or accept it. It's true for everyone, whether they know and accept it or not. Those who don't know it are simply ignorant, and those who dispute it are simply wrong. Subjective truth is a very different matter. If a truth is subjective then those who dispute it are not wrong, it *isn't true* for them, and if someone insists it must be true for them then *he* is wrong. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:41:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:41:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] right and wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5565E599.6050709@sero.name> On 05/27/2015 05:20 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Tangential to some of the recent discussions I wish to point out that > the defintion of right and wrong is subjective and indeed changes > through history. No, it isn't and it doesn't. That the majority of people in the course of history have been wrong is no chiddush; the majority of people *today* are wrong. Truth isn't determined by democracy. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:42:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:42:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") In-Reply-To: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> References: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5565E5EC.7030806@sero.name> On 05/27/2015 06:47 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to > blow. How do you do less than 10*each*? Tashrat for Malchiyos, Tashat for Zichronos, and Tarat for Shofros. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 10:58:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 13:58:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Even More on Who Wrote the Mishnah Brurah Message-ID: <20150527175829.C3B57182454@nexus.stevens.edu> Someone on my email list spoke to a well-known Flatbush Rov and sent me the following: Reb Yitzchok I spoke to Rabbi XX this morning, and he did indeed confirm that the MB was not written only by the Chofetz Chaim. He said R. Moshe Feinstein told him that it is a work of a rabbim, not only a yochid. It seems that R. Arye Leib was not the only one to work on it. According to what R. XX heard the team also consisted of the CC's son in law and the mashgiach Rav Londinski. R. XX also told me that R. Henoch Liebowitz, the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim in Queens told him that his father Reb Dovid, who was a nephew of the CC, also wrote portions of the MB. So thank you for leading me towards this information. llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 12:38:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 15:38:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55661D24.8040207@gmail.com> Micha Berger: >> Rabbi Akiva said, ... "Even as a house proclaims its builder,a garment >> > its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the >> > Holy Blessed One Who created it. >> > >> >Not very rigorous. Rabbi Aqiva's reply revolves around giving a parable >> >to make the conclusion self-evident. Not contructing a deductive argument. >> > >> > ...there are truths that can >> be justified even when they are not amenable to formal proofs. >> ... I'll quote Qovetz Maamariv par 5-7 from a translation >> provided by Pirchei Shoshanim. You'll notice it's nothing like the >> Rambam's attempt to formally prove an Argument from Design in Moreh >> sec. II. Indeed, the Rambam himself in the Moreh Nevuchim recognizes this distinction and supports the superior validity of the non-formal approach. Chapters after he devotes chapters to formal philosophic proofs for Creation ex nihilo, he describes how a healthy (and unbiased) mind thinks: And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, /for one who is modeh al ha-ememmes/ (Ibn Tibbon; KPCH: /baal tsedek/; Pines: an equitable man) [contra Aristotle?see 2:20-23], is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an intender, and that such purposeful intent necessarily implies the production of something new [and not something that always existed along with the one who bears the purposeful intention for its existence]. (MN 3:13) Aristotle agreed to the premise that everything in Nature serves a certain purpose, and that every being contributes to the existence of still another being, but he refused to concede to the conclusion the Rambam considers something a /modeh al ha-emmess/baal tsedek/ is naturally convinced of. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 13:54:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 16:54:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <55661D24.8040207@gmail.com> References: <55661D24.8040207@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150527205440.GB22904@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 03:38:12PM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : Indeed, the Rambam himself in the Moreh Nevuchim recognizes this : distinction and supports the superior validity of the non-formal : approach. Chapters after he devotes chapters to formal philosophic : proofs for Creation ex nihilo, he describes how a healthy (and : unbiased) mind thinks: : : And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, ... : is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities : serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; : and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an : intender, and that such purposeful intent necessarily implies the : production of something new [and not something that always existed : along with the one who bears the purposeful intention for its : existence]. (MN 3:13) There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam recaps a point made in 2:19-20. And for that matter, if the Rambam was talking about not really needing formal proof, despite spending much of sec. II on just that, why would it be buried in a chapter that focuses on something else? 3:13 is about how the universe has its own purpose. It is not just an arena designed for the purpose of humans. He argues here with Aristo who says that plants exist for the purpose of animals, and in general, that things exist for the purpose of other things. Besides, the Rambam writes in 3:51 in the mashal of the palace, that people who believe because of tradition without having proof are like those who wander around the chatzer, whereas someone with a proof is like one who entered the prozdor. Not Aristo's epistomology didn't analyze issues of proof vs other justification. But clearly Reliabilism, trusting an idea found in a source that has already been found to be reliable (hama'aminim ... derekh qabalah), is not being considered good enough justification to fully accomplish life's goal. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 14:39:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 17:39:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527213945.GE22904@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 10:25:26AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> I think the problem is more than just avoiding the issur, but making :> it trivial to entirely avoid it. : : In that case how about a "dud shemesh" according to the poskim that it is : allowed because it uses the sun I don't know. Maybe because you still can't boil hot water if you wanted it, say, for your tea. :> The textbook case would be on Shabbos 6a: situating someone in a meqom :> petur so that someone in a reshus hayachid can hand items to them so :> that they could then hand it over to someone in a reshus harabim. :> Rashi ad loc explains "demezalzel be'isurei Shabbos".>> : would there be a difference between doing this once and making this a : standard procedure? Good question. I don't see "standard procedure" in the gemara, it looks like a one-off. It depends if we're talking about zilzul of kevod Shabbos, or zilzul of the melakhah, the latter being more of a "threat of slippery slope" problem. Rashi has "mezalzel be'isurei Shabbos". BH 337:2 "shelo yishtaberu" uses the same turn of phrase. Why would you be afraid of cheapening the issur if we aren't talking about that opening the door to future violation? The Tur OC 315, Beiur Halakah 344 and elsewhere talk about not doing things "shelo yavo'u lezalzel bo". Which clearly invokes a slippery slope argument; but not that zilzul is itself a slippery slope, rather than zilzul is such a problem, we avoid things that will slide us there. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is harder to eat the day before Yom Kippur micha at aishdas.org with the proper intent than to fast on Yom http://www.aishdas.org Kippur with that intent. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 14:49:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 17:49:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir In-Reply-To: <20150527.080332.8051.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150527.080332.8051.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150527214903.GF22904@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 12:03:32PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Micha Berger answered: :> On a technical level, it would be mesayeia, not lifnei iver, and :> I'm not sure that mesayeia applies to 7 mitzvos benei Noach. : Really? Perhaps I need a better understanding of the difference between : the two. I thought that mesayeia was when the other person is going to : violate the halacha anyway and I am merely helping him to do it... My understanding is that mesayeia is when the person was capable of doing the aveirah without you. Not "would" but "could". Whereas lifnei iveir is when the nazir is mei'eivar hanahar and you're giving him passage. The sugya is on AZ 6a-b. But, I see the Ran does say mesayeia apply to preventing a nakhri from violating the 7MBN. The Rama *YD 151:2) says we are meiqil and allow selling AZ items to nakhriim if they already own similar items or can buy them elsewhere, but there are machmirim. See the Shach YD 151:6-7, who discusses this machloqes rishonim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The mind is a wonderful organ micha at aishdas.org for justifying decisions http://www.aishdas.org the heart already reached. Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 18:33:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 21:33:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] measurement error Message-ID: <20150528013324.GA4749@aishdas.org> The topic I got caught up in has been the AhS and standard shiurim. The story so far.... Jan 8, when this thread was current, I wrote : > BTW, carrying 4 amos bereshus harabbim is 4 of one's own amos, assuming > they have mainstream bone structure. It's where I am in AhS Yomi. > But notice that we would naturally assume "amah" as unit of length, not > as a function of how far that particular person can reach. On Jan 11, I hit the topic again WRT eiruvin AhS OC 363:32-35, and wrote : > But then in se'if 34 he says something I do not follow, but key to > our discussion. > When dealing with mavui, where there is only one mavui and therefore one > measuring process to be used for everyone, the above applies. However, > when the measurement is only for one person's use, tbey should be > measuring for himself, with his own norms. > And here he adds a touch of subjectivity: a person should measure how > far he himself could walk. And the rule of carrying in rh"r a distance > of no more 4 of one's own amos is brought into that umbrella. > The reason for the general rule is to cover the personal amos of the > people who will be using the measuring. > BUT, and this is why I do not follow, he opened se'if 32 by telling us > the variability is 1/48 of the total (1/24 of an etzba per ammah). Which > is far less than the variability in forearm lengths in most groups of > people. For example, my own sukkah is used by Yoni, who stands 6'3" and by > my own 5'3" -- and my arms are on the shorter side, even proportionally. > When we hold up elbows together, my ammah ends just past his wrist. Not > within 47/48 of eachother. And then on May 18 I hit AhS OC 586:14 and tried reviving this thread . The topic was the minimum length for a shofar -- long enough to be seen on either side when being held in one hand. > So the shiur is neither personal nor really the standard tefach. It is > literally as the gemara says, what can be held and still seen. Which is > why there is a machloqes about where the tefach stands in relation to the > real shiur. But, visible if hypothetically held by an average hand. And > if the tqoei'ah has wide hands, he could hold a minimal shofar without > it being visible, and it would still be kosher. ... > What I find even more interesting is that there is no chiluq being drawn > between someone who blows in shul and someone who blows just for himself. > Wouldn't the rule from OC 363 mean that someone in the latter situation > should use what is visible when their own hand holds it? But today I seem to have hit an AhS which deals with shiurim that aren't human: revi'is, kezayis. According to OC 612:8, the shiur of drinking on YK is not a revi'is, but melo lugmav. And unlike akhilah, where there is one kezayis for everyone, melo lugmav is literally his own cheek. So it would seem that kezayis, and perhaps revi'is and other shiurim (beis se'ah) are not subjective. Which makes sense, since I can't figure out how to make a kezayis correspond to the person... Except RCVolozhiner's position, where it's the average kezayis then and there, and not a static shiur. Which could, literally, be the same shiur for all people (living there and then) and thus may be within the AhS's intent. Can't I get anyone else intrigued by this problem? Back on Jan 11, I was in hil' eiruvin, and hit upn the AhS's discussion of an ammah just as we were discussing the topic Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The purely righteous do not complain about evil, micha at aishdas.org but add justice, don't complain about heresy, http://www.aishdas.org but add faith, don't complain about ignorance, Fax: (270) 514-1507 but add wisdom. - R AY Kook, Arpelei Tohar From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:12:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:12:53 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul Message-ID: Micha wrote: The Tur OC 315, Beiur Halakah 344 and elsewhere talk about not doing things "shelo yavo'u lezalzel bo". Which clearly invokes a slippery slope argument; but not that zilzul is itself a slippery slope, rather than zilzul is such a problem, we avoid things that will slide us there. >> My apologies but I am still completely confused when one applies zilzul and when one says something is allowed as an exception to the rule. No purpose in giving examples as there are myriads of exceptions that are allowed. I have the same problem with "lo plug" sometimes something that would be allowed is prohibited because of "lo plug" and sometimes we simply say it is an exception. Perhaps the most famous example is lighting candles on leil yom tov. The wife of the Prisha says one should say the bracha first and then light since lighting (preexisting flame) is allowed on tomtov. The MA calls her names and says this is an obvious "lo plug". My impression is that most women follow the wife of the prisha. The question is what is the basis of the machloket either when do we say "lo plug" and when do we apply "zilzul" and when do we ignore these arguments -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 21:04:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 04:04:33 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir Message-ID: <20150528.000433.22403.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > My understanding is that mesayeia is when the person was capable > of doing the aveirah without you. Not "would" but "could". Whereas > lifnei iveir is when the nazir is mei'eivar hanahar and you're > giving him passage. > > The sugya is on AZ 6a-b. > > ... I will be the first to point out that Lifnei Iveir is one the many topics where my learning and expertise is severely lacking. Even so, I suspect that there is something missing from RMB's definition. In the simplest reading of the pasuk (Vayikra 19:14), Rashi says that Lifnei Iveir forbids one to give bad advice to another person. It is difficult to imagine a worse piece of advice than telling Ruth to follow Orpah back her her previous god. Googling the question "What is Lifnei Iveir" brought me to an interesting article by Rabbi Yirmiyohu Kaganoff (bio at http://rabbikaganoff.com/about) The full article is at http://tinyurl.com/ka3pwq6 and I would like to quote the part where he gives three different categories of Lifnei Iveir: > I. Inciting ? maiseis > > This occurs when a person was not even considering doing an > aveirah until someone encouraged him. Thus, the instigator incited > the performing of the aveirah and is therefore a maiseis. > > II. Encouraging ? chanufah > > One violates this prohibition by complimenting someone for doing a > sin, thus implying that sinning is acceptable. > > III. Enabling ? lifnei iveir > > One violates this prohibition if the sinner wanted to do the > aveirah, but was unable to do so without assistance. The person > who enables the performing of the aveirah violates lifnei iveir. > > IV. Even when none of these Torah prohibitions are involved, > helping the sinner do the aveirah sometimes violates the rabbinic > prohibition of mesaya?a y?dei ovrei aveirah, assisting someone who > is sinning. (It is unfortunate that the article did not cite a source or precedent for these categories, but please bear with me.) It seems to me that RMB is giving a useful tool to distinguish between category 3 and category 4, but that tool is useful only in the case where a person already has the *desire* to commit a sin, but it lacking the *ability* to some degree. If a person has only a mild inability to sin, then the enabler is merely mesayeia; but if the person has a severe inability, then the enabler is placing a real michshol. But what of the case where a person does *not* yet have a desire to sin? Rabbi Kaganoff is saying that one who incites or encourages him to do it is violating Lifnei Iveir. Even if the person already has the ability to do the sin, it was below his "bechirah point" until he was egged on to do it. Rabbi Kaganoff offers an example: > Inciting Someone to Sin ? maiseis > > The classic case of maiseis is when the nachash encouraged Chavah > to eat the forbidden fruit. Even though the nachash itself did > not eat, Hashem punished it for inciting Chavah to sin (Gemara > Sanhedrin 29a). Similarly, if Reuven incites Shimon to sin in a > way that Shimon had not considered, Reuven is a maiseis. And so my question can be rephrased: If the nachash was wrong to tell Chava to eat the fruit, wasn't Naami wrong to tell Ruth to follow Orpah back to her god? Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/556694205dac4141e6338st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 01:07:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:07:24 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim Message-ID: On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 07:14:36PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: : -- 30 **dim'yushav** : -- 10 **dim'umad** : -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the R' Micha Berger asked: "How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to blow. How do you do less than 10 **each**?" Many Rishonim (quoted by the Beis Yosef in Siman 592) hold that during Chazaras Hashatz in Musaf you blow Tashrat for malchiyos, Tashat for zichronos and Tarat for shofaros. In all of the Nusach Ashkenaz shuls that I have davened in they blew 30 before Musaf, 30 during chazaras hashatz and then 40 after Musaf adding up to 100. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:33:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:33:43 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: Micha wrote <> Well Micha and I agree on several points but still disagree on others. Agreed that people in real life don't use formal mathematical proofs. A sanhedrin can kill on a majority vote (OK there a little more than 50%) I also agree that if one is talking about oneself then feelings count. Saying they are wrong but I cant prove it works perfectly OK with regard to your own beliefs. It doesnt work when trying to convince others. Example: Your child comes home and says he learned that the world is billions of years old not about 5700 years. Or else your teenager tells you he doesn't believe G-d is loving because of the Holocaust or because of Amalek. You can tell him that whatever is in the Torah or Chazal is truth and its not open to discussion. That might work with some children. Alternatively you can give him/her one of the many answers that have been discussed on this list. That may or not convince him. There are no proofs that G-d exists or that G-d rules the universe or that G-d is just or loving. You can convince yourself but doing that to others is difficult, We have already argued about REW and I still can't accept it. The argument is that if someone else tells you why he doesn't accept G-d or that G-d rules the world whether for rational or emotional reasons the answer is that we don't believe him and say he is making up reasons. Of course he will say the same about your acceptance of Torah and mitzvot. To simply accuse the other of simply rationalizing his beliefs is simply not true. I have had enough lectures on why the Bible was written very late by many scribes to be convinced they really mean it. You may disagree but you can't accuse them of merely rationalizing their non-belief. In one class the professor said he would willing debate anyone who has a different opinion objectively. However, if you start that the Torah is from Sinai because of your belief then there is nothing to discuss. What is self-evident to you is self-evidently false to someone else. Again it is legitimate to disagree with that person but I claim it is not legitimate to state that he doesn't really believe in his own position. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:57:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:57:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura Message-ID: <> They state clearly these are things they heard from the Gra, Ari etc. No misleading. No different than RHS writing what he heard from RYBS and many other such seforim. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:55:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 05:55:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5566E62F.8040201@sero.name> On 05/28/2015 05:12 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > Perhaps the most famous example is lighting candles on leil yom tov. > The wife of the Prisha The MA's girsa in the Prisha is "mother", and the Machtzis Hashekel confirms that this is not a typo in the MA. > says one should say the bracha first and then > light since lighting (preexisting flame) is allowed on tomtov. > The MA calls her names He does not! He merely quotes the gemara Yoma 66b that "women only have wisdom with the spindle". Machtzis Hashekel says he is not even referring to the Drisha's mother, but to most women, who will not understand the distinction between Shabbos and Yomtov. > and says this is an obvious "lo plug". He doesn't just assert it, he cites clear sources that when a bracha must sometimes be said after the deed, we apply lo plug and always say it after the deed. Thus, he says, the same thing must apply here. (But see Dagul Mervava, who distinguishes this case because the bracha is different, and points out that if not for this distinction then the same should apply to the Chanukah lights). > My impression is that most women follow the wife of the prisha. Really? I'm surrprised. I'm also surprised that you've surveyed enough women to form an impression one way or the other. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:19:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 10:19:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:57:05PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> < teachings. For that matter, people talk about what the Ari says in Peri :> Eitz Chaim or others of R' Chaim Vital's works.>> : They state clearly these are things they heard from the Gra, Ari etc. No : misleading. I'm not sure about such disclaimers on the Gra's talmidim's writings, aside from Maaseh Rav. And if so, lo kol shekein in our case! Here we have the author of Shemiras haLashon -- someone known for thinking about what he said -- calling the MB "beiuri", "od tzarafti" "ki bo biarti", "upo hir'eisi", and "kol eileh chbarti..." on the title page. How can one argue he didn't oversee the entire work and checked the content? Nothing about parts being by Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger What you get by achieving your goals micha at aishdas.org is not as important as http://www.aishdas.org what you become by achieving your goals. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Henry David Thoreau From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:33:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 10:33:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528143339.GB4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:12:53PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : My apologies but I am still completely confused when one applies zilzul and : when one says something is allowed as an exception to the rule. No purpose : in giving examples as there are myriads of exceptions that are allowed. I think the reverse: the norm is to allow valid loopholes to the din, and it's only when the poseiq decides that the loophole would destroy some significant part of the feel of Shabbos (whether qedushas Shabbos or an entire melakhah) that we call it zilzul. ... : Perhaps the most famous example is lighting candles on leil yom tov. The : wife of the Prisha says one should say the bracha first and then light : since lighting (preexisting flame) is allowed on tomtov. The MA calls her : names and says this is an obvious "lo plug". : My impression is that most women follow the wife of the prisha. The AhS OC 263:3 does, citing the Perishah. Then he quotes the MA (s"q 12) and says "and many were choliq on him... vekhein iqar ledina." Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:45:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 10:45:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528144529.GC4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:33:43PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : Well Micha and I agree on several points but still disagree on others. : Agreed that people in real life don't use formal mathematical proofs... I would go further and say that far too many things /can't/ use formal proofs. And even further: even when you do have a formal proof, it is built from givens -- call them postulates or first principles. So, barring an infinite regress, even a formal proof is a structure atop things accepted without formal proof. I should point out that this a major subset of the field of epistomology. : It doesnt work when trying to convince others. True, but not relevant. We -- and more importantly to the origianl point, REW -- are talking about whether it's more natural to believe in G-d or not. Not whether a believer could then convince someone else. ... : We have already argued about REW and I still can't accept it. The argument : is that if someone else tells you why he doesn't accept G-d or that G-d : rules the world whether for rational or emotional reasons the answer is : that we don't believe him and say he is making up reasons. REW doesn't say that. I even cut-n-pasted a translation to support that point. REW says that he really doesn't believe, but he had to work against the natural state of seeing a world that shows obvious signs of a Designer. Someone can truly and honestly convince himself, or be convinced by others (including upbringing) that a poem really could emerge by someone spilling ink. But that's not what people would conclude if we lacked a strong desire to conclude that way -- the "shochad" of freedom if ein din ve'ein Dayan. There is nothing in that quote from Qovetz Maamarim about anyone not really believing what they think they believe. Rather, he ascribes a motive. : Of course he will say the same about your acceptance of Torah and mitzvot. Again, REW isn't speaking about the context of debate. Nor was I. By bringing it in, you complicate matters without addressing the original claim. REW is really just saying that the reason why believe is a fair topic of bechirah because on one side design is self-evident but on the other the desire to live without having to follow the Designer counterbalances it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger People were created to be loved. micha at aishdas.org Things were created to be used. http://www.aishdas.org The reason why the world is in chaos is that Fax: (270) 514-1507 things are being loved, people are being used. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:22:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 14:22:41 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> References: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, May 28, 2015, 5:19 PM Micha Berger wrote: > Here we have the author of Shemiras > haLashon -- someone known for thinking about what he said -- calling > the MB "beiuri", "od tzarafti" "ki bo biarti", "upo hir'eisi", and "kol > eileh chbarti..." on the title page. How can one argue he didn't oversee > the entire work and checked the content? Nothing about parts being by I agree he must have looked it over That leaves the question of contradictions And stories about minhagim of cc that are different than what is in mb From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:23:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:23:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150528152301.GE4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 02:22:41PM +0000, Eli Turkel wrote: : I agree he must have looked it over Which is why I think R/Dr MS is making too much ado over the actual authorship. : That leaves the question of contradictions Well, not every sheverer Rambam is a printing error either. Another case where the academic norm is to run far further with some fun concept than I'm comfortable with. Perhaps we should be looking for how the contradictions are only apparent. Or perhaps the CC felt than ruling al pi rov or safeiq lechumerah/lequlah in two different cases needn't results in consistencies between pesaqim. Before you spend too much time on that bothering you, recall when we daven minchah and maariv. If the tefillos are on two different days, you can end up following different definitions of evening on different days. : And stories about minhagim of cc that are different than what is in mb I thought R/Dr Seth Mandel's position is compelling. Look at the title page and the haqdamah. The CC never claims that the MB is a seifer of pesaq. Rather, he describes the work as a survey. From the title page, defining the MB (as opposed to the left column about the BH): I called my biur by the name MB since within it is explained (misbareir; c.f. "berurah") the words of the SA, every law by its reasoning and origins in the gemara and posqim that it not be like a sealed book. Also I will collect in it all the dinim, halakhos and biurim scattered amog the books of the acharonim, meforshim of the SA who are known (like MA, PMG, Birkhei Yoseif, Maamar Mordekhai and many such.) There are many of them after the Be'er Heitiv and they are not brought in shu"t because they are somwhat scattered in various places. All of these are compiled here, and all is in a straightforward and easy language and in proper order, with Hashem's help. And the BH: Also, I appended on its side some necessary inyanim titled under the name Biur Halakhah -- and as the name, so it is. For in it I sometimes explained the words of halakhah which are brought in summary in the MB without proof, and here I show (be"h) its source looking inall of gemara and the posqim. Also in it are sometimes explains the words of the SA at length in places which need explanation. (Sorry, just always wanted to bother translating that -- this thread was just my excuse.) So, the MB is a survey, and thus the halachic conclusions found in it (and explained in the BH) are purely what in theory the sources surveyed would indicate. It's not that the CC didn't believe in mimeticism, it's that the MB is a book of theory and therefore ignores mimeticism. The MB was written lehalakhah velo lemaaseh. Which makes it ironic that so many RYs of the mid- and late 20th cent worked so hard to make the work a "poseiq acharon" lemaaseh. Whereas he CC's own practice did reflect weighing shitos based on their acceptance. And so, unsurprisingly, in all the places I know of where his own practice didn't fit the MB (such as supporting a community eiruv, despite BH 364 "ve'achar") his practice does follow the AhS. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "The most prevalent illness of our generation is micha at aishdas.org excessive anxiety.... Emunah decreases anxiety: http://www.aishdas.org 'The Almighty is my source of salvation; I will Fax: (270) 514-1507 trust and not be afraid.'" (Isa 12) -Shalhevesya From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:11:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:11:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528151127.C0EE817F7D9@nexus.stevens.edu> At 10:33 AM 5/28/2015, R. Micha Berger wrote: >And if so, lo kol shekein in our case! Here we have the author of Shemiras >haLashon -- someone known for thinking about what he said -- calling >the MB "beiuri", "od tzarafti" "ki bo biarti", "upo hir'eisi", and "kol >eileh chbarti..." on the title page. How can one argue he didn't oversee >the entire work and checked the content? Nothing about parts being by I wonder if these words were on the title page of the first publication of each volume of the MB. After all, publishers do add things. One title page I found online for the second volume of the MB refers to the author as HaGaon. I doubt that the CC would have had this on the title page of the first printing. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:39:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:39:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: <20150528151127.C0EE817F7D9@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150528151127.C0EE817F7D9@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150528153911.GG4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 11:11:28AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : I wonder if these words were on the title page of the first : publication of each volume of the MB... Why wonder? Each volume: 1. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49623&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1884 2. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49624&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1895 3. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49625&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1891 4. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49626&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1898 5. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49627&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1902 6. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49628&pgnum=1 - Pietrekov 1907 (None call him ga'on, all have pretty much the same self description.) These fit the years of the first editions that wikipedia gives, based on "The Chafetz Chaim" by R MM Yoshor, pg 603. (But even if wiki has it wrong, they are editions published by the author.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Rescue me from the desire to win every micha at aishdas.org argument and to always be right. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Nassan of Breslav Fax: (270) 514-1507 Likutei Tefilos 94:964 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:10:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 08:10:56 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH Message-ID: http://menachemmendel.net/blog/are-you-a-mishnah-berurah-or-arukh-hashulhan-person/ see there also the r henkin review . he points out that the Oz Vhadar edition inherently has a difficulty in attributing notes to the [non-satmar oriented] relatives of the Aruch Hashulchan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 09:00:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:00:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the suggestion that a kosher lamp is zilzul shabbas. Isn't just a nice (and -- significantly -- *safer*) way of covering a lamp? If one were to make the argument that its convenience might make it zilzul shabbas, might one respond with "but safety"? Why do the rabbis deem the following to not be a case of zilzul yom tov: cooking a large pot of food on the afternoon of yom tov rishon, "in case people might stop by", and "I'll eat some of it" knowing there will be leftovers? -- Sholom -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 14:15:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 17:15:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") In-Reply-To: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> References: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> Message-ID: R'Micha asked: > How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to blow. How do you do less than 10 *each*? < 3 during Malch., 3 during Zichronos, and 4 during Shof'ros. On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 6:47 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 07:14:36PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: > : When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: > : -- 30 *dim'yushav* > : -- 10 *dim'umad* > : -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the > > How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to > blow. How do you do less than 10 *each*? > > Tir'u baTov! > -Micha > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 15:45:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 18:45:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528224528.GB28282@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:00:22PM -0400, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote: : I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the suggestion that a : kosher lamp is zilzul shabbas. That's okay, it's just a hava amina we raised here. No one AFAIK actually banned kosher lamps over zilzul Shabbos. The question was why a Kosher Switch (that claims to not even be grama) would be zilzul and not the Kosher Lamp. And then, many (most? the vast majority of posqim?) do not believe it actually avoids gerama, including the author of Shemiras Shabbos kehilkhisa. : Isn't just a nice (and -- significantly : -- *safer*) way of covering a lamp? Well, every case where one would discuss zilzul Shabbos would be one where there wasn't a more easily defined problem. So every discussion could be "isn't it just". I think the difference is that a kosher switch would mean being able to turn or off anything, whereas the Kosher Lamp is more limited, being a specific appliance. ... : Why do the rabbis deem the following to not be a : case of zilzul yom tov: cooking a large pot of food on the afternoon of : yom tov rishon, "in case people might stop by", and "I'll eat some of : it" knowing there will be leftovers? I would guess that similarly, because it's of limited utility. It doesn't totally destroy the concept of an issur of cooking on Yom Tov. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The fittingness of your matzos [for the seder] micha at aishdas.org isn't complete with being careful in the laws http://www.aishdas.org of Passover. One must also be very careful in Fax: (270) 514-1507 the laws of business. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 05:52:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 15:52:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Indeed in Europe before WWII the MB was not the "final" arbiter of halacha. Much changed when CI wrote in a letter that the MB has the halacha of a sanhedrin and one can't disagree with its conclusions. Of course CI himself disagreed with the MB and in fact there are published versions of the MB which include the disagreements of the CI. All to show that what is written in letters is not to be taken very literally. In any case that paid a large part of the change in attitude towards the MB. Certainly poskim of the previous generation who grew up before the war also did not take the MB as a final posek. As an example is RMF though I heard similar things from RYBS. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 08:24:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 11:24:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150529152455.GA5770@aishdas.org> R/Dr Haym Soloveitchik focused on the MB's more textualist slant vs the AhS giving weight to shitos that were common practice. Which fits R/DHS's thesis for that particular paper, the idea he was using that particular comparison to illustrate. But I do not believe it's the primary difference between them. I already gave what I saw was the primary difference. The AhS was written by a moreh de'asra to reflect halakhah lemaaseh. The MB was written by a tzasiq and a gaon as a survey of later shitos that weren't available to most people trying to learn halakhah. No focus (by the author, see below about others) on lemaaseh. I see this as the cause for the MB's lack of attention to halakhah as practiced. It wasn't so much that the CC was a textualist when it comes to pesaq, but that he wrote a book for discussing texts. A second difference is that the AhS's idea of understanding the halakhah is looking to see how the pesaq evolved from gemara (and Y-mi) to Rif, Rambam, Rosh to the Tur, BY, SA, and finally to the acharonim since. The MB is more focused on the halakhah in the acharonic period, and how to decide amongst them. Third, the AhS is willing to leave the halakhah fuzzy, and often comes to a range of conclusions rather than one clear-cut pesaq. Or, he will pasqen one way in one se'if, but in a slightly different case in a different se'if reopen the question: ... but if you hold like... The MB offers more clarity. An AhS fan might say that clarity is artificial, because the reality of halakhah isn't cut and dry with only one best pesaq for all people. But it does make it easier to open a MB than to try to decide what to do when you reach one of the fuzzier stretches of the AhS. Perhaps the clarity is really is artifice, and that's why we need LORs rather than thinking a book is our poseiq. On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 03:52:06PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : Indeed in Europe before WWII the MB was not the "final" arbiter of : halacha. Much changed when CI wrote in a letter that the MB has the : halacha of a sanhedrin and one can't disagree with its conclusions. : Of course CI himself disagreed with the MB... : All to show that what is written in letters is not to be taken very : literally... Although it wasn't only the CI, so it's not all about taking his letter overly literally. Rav Yaakov Kamenecki and R' Aharon Kotler called him the "poseiq acharon", and RAK went as far as making sure the MB would appear in photos of him. See also our 2006 discussion Aruch Hashulchan vs. Mishna berura OTOH, R YH Henkin testified about his famous grandfather ( quoting his own Bnei Banim vol. 2 page 31): AH saw the MB; see 11:22; 12:4; 28:23; 62:4; 268:6; and other places where he mentions Mishnah Berurah by name. In 79:11 and 319:22 and elsewhere he disagrees with him by name and in innumerable places he disagrees with him without mentioning his name: for instance, in 55:20 he is writing against the Mishnah Berurah and similarly in 370:13 -- this is obvious anyone who looks carefully. So it is a mitzvah to let people know that AH is not only a Sefer Halacha but also a response to the Mishnah Brerurah. OTOH, similarly R [Shmuel] Yaakov Weinberg (Ner Israel) considered the AhS the more authoritative. And minutes before my chupah (while waiting for the paper to burn to have ashes for my head), R' Dovid Lifshitz asked if I had one for my new home, because it was closer to halakhah as my ancestors held. (RDL knew my family back in Suvalk.) As for RMF, RDF and RRF both agreed that RMF gave priority to the AhS because R' Yechiel Michl Epstein had a qehillah, and therefore the more practiced poseiq of the two. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger People were created to be loved. micha at aishdas.org Things were created to be used. http://www.aishdas.org The reason why the world is in chaos is that Fax: (270) 514-1507 things are being loved, people are being used. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 30 16:03:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 00:03:21 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] : Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001f01d09b2c$d37ec030$7a7c4090$@org.uk> I wrote: >> But aren't they then denying those Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all >> the chance to hear shofar according to the majority opinions by only blowing >> for them according to the minority opinions? And RZS replied: >AFAIK everyone agrees that all these methods are kosher, so those Jews >are definitely yotzei the mitzvah. ... >They're not foisting anything. The people they're blowing for would >otherwise not hear shofar at all, so they're clearly better off hearing >even some obscure form of it, so long as they're yotzei. But if these people who want to hear the shofar blown according to minority shitos are capable of finding people who would otherwise not hear shofar at all and blowing for them, they are *also* capable of finding such people in circumstances where they then blow for them according to the majority shitos. For it to be true that "they're clearly better off hearing some obscure form of it, so long as they are yotzei" - you have to be assuming that the people doing the blowing would only be prepared to go to the trouble of blowing to fulfil their desire to fulfil minority shitos but NOT where the result is only to ensure that fellow Jews perform a mitzvah. You may be correct that indeed people are more concerned with making sure they themselves have fulfilled the mitzvah of shofar in every possible permutation than in making sure another Jew performs the mitzvah at all, but could anybody honestly regard that as praiseworthy? As a consequence, I then raised a halachic query: > The principle on which > somebody who has fulfilled their obligation can then fulfil the obligation > of another is based on kol yisrael areivim zeh b'zeh. But to what extent is > that applicable in a situation in which that person would never, had the > situation been reversed, have accepted the form of fulfilment they are > offering the other. Ie since the person who is blowing the shofar refused > to have these alternative ways of blowing as the fundamental method of > fulfilling their own mitzvah, is it really areivus to then foist that form > of fulfilment on others? RZS's assumption is that, so long as everybody agrees that a form of blowing is kosher bidieved, then areivus works, but I wonder whether this is necessarily true. Areivus is a fascinating halachic concept - it allows somebody who has already fulfilled a mitzvah to do it again, including (importantly) making brachos again (which they would otherwise not be permitted to do) on behalf of another. I went for a bit of a hunt over Yom Tov to see what I could find regarding areivus, but did not turn up much. First of all, the pasuk from the Torah regarding Areivus is brought in Shevuos 39a as being based on the Vayikra 26:37 [vchashlu ish b'achiv] - which is then explained as meaning that a man in *the sin* of his brother so as to teach that kol yisrael areivim ze l'zeh. But while that seems a valid source for what might be considered "negative" areivus or areivus in relation to lo ta'asehs (and the obligation to protest), it led me to wonder how straightforwardly that gets you to what might be called "positive" areivus - ie doing something, such as performing the mitzvah of shofar on behalf of another [not that I have seen this distinction between "negative" and "positive" areivus anywhere]. Ie while you can see that if is permitted to blow shofar for somebody who was otherwise unable to fulfil the mitzvah, and one failed to do so, one might then be considered to have stumbled into the sin of that person's omission - ie failure to perform an aseh - it seems a leap to therefore derive from this particular pasuk that one has the power to fulfil and make brachos on behalf of that person. If anything I would have thought perhaps v'ahavta re'echa k'mocha seemed more likely, but I couldn't find any reference. Note that areivus would seem not to be shlichus, as one can make a shaliach out of somebody who is themselves not commanded in a particular thing - whereas that is not applicable for areivus where the original level of obligation must be at least equal on the part of the arev. [This is all leaving aside the famous Rosh Brachos perek 3 siman 13 which states that areivus does not apply to women, which is clearly discussing what might be termed positive areivus ie making brachos on behalf of one another, and which the achronim generally limit to cases where there is no equal obligation, despite what may seem to be the simple pshat, or the Tosphos in Kidushin 70b that areivus does not apply to gerim - which must surely at most [and here it seems to me you need the definition of negative and positive areivus] to be only a reference to negative areivus - otherwise this would be raised as a problem of a ger making brachos on behalf of others - although given the source of the Tosphos in Sotah 37b, this would also seem to apply to women for the same reasons - ie the number count being made by reference to the 603,550 in the midbar not including the eruv rav, and not including women either]. The most I was able to find in my brief search over Yom Tov was a Birchei Yosef Orech Chaim siman 124 discussing the question as to whether a Ben Chutz L'Aretz who found himself in a village in Israel over Yom Tov (in the case quoted by the Birchei Yosef he had gone to Israel to bury his dead) where nobody besides him had the knowledge to be Shatz, and who had already davened at home on second day yom tov the second day yom tov davening, could be shatz for the community by saying the birchei chol amidah. But there seem to be lots of other reasons to permit (as the Birchei Yosef does) in this particular case. In particular it seems to me, besides all of the Birchei Yosef's arguments, if you were to say that areivus was linked to v'ahavta re'echa kamocha, you can see why, if circumstances were reversed, the ben chutz l'aretz would want the same as he is providing to the benei aretz (ie the mutuality of areivus). But in the case that RZS has outlined, where the people hearing only the minority shitos form of shofar blowing would surely want the majority position shofar blowing if they could get it, can the blower unilaterally choose to force them to fulfil their obligation via a set of minority shitos via areivus, or does the principle of areivus not stretch that far? More generally, if somebody holds a particular position as being the ikar, can they under the principle of areivus perform a mitzvah on behalf of somebody who holds by a contradictory position, so that what the arev is doing is, according to him, possul? How about the reverse situation? And that gets us to RZS's case, where it might be agreed that a particular form is kosher bidieved, but if the arev could provide a l'chatchila version and chooses not to, can he be genuinely be said to be a real arev? How good a guarantor must a guarantor be to be considered a guarantor at all? I am sure some achron has written a treatise on areivus which must cover these kinds of topics, but so far I haven't found it. Zev Sero zev at sero.name Shavuah tov Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 12:25:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 15:25:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] FORBIDDING WOMEN DRIVERS: A HALACHIC ANALYSIS Message-ID: <20150529192533.D89D0182BDA@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/nqnquzc The media has widely reported that a Belz Yeshiva in England has forbidden women from driving their children to Yeshiva. It was further reported that if the mothers do not comply, the children will be thrown out of Yeshiva. In a letter sent to parents last week, seen by the Jewish Chronicle, they say there has been an increase in the number of mothers driving their children to school and add that this has led to ?great resentment among parents of pupils of our [Hasidic] institutions?. The letter says the ban, to come into force in the summer, is based on the recommendations of Rabbi Yissachar Dov Rokeach, the Belzer spiritual leader in Israel. It says that if a mother has no other choice but to drive her child to school ? for medical reasons, for example ? she should ?submit a request to the special committee to this effect and the committee shall consider her request.? The question is what does halacha have to say about this? See the above URL for more. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 14:04:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 17:04:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <5568D45F.9010809@gmail.com> R. Micha Berger maintained that R. E. Wasserman was not positing a formal proof for G-d's existence, formal proofs not being the only way, or even the superior way, to establish truths. I cited a passage in the Moreh Nevuchim to support this concept. But as is occasionally the case, R. MB disagrees with me, even when I attempt to defend him: ZL: Indeed, the Rambam himself in the Moreh Nevuchim recognizes this : distinction and supports the superior validity of the non-formal : approach. Chapters after he devotes chapters to formal philosophic : proofs for Creation ex nihilo, he describes how a healthy (and : unbiased) mind thinks: : :And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, //for //one who ismodeh al ha-ememmes// (RMB substituted an ellipsis for this :crucial clause) :is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities :serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; :and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an :intender, and that such purposeful intent necessarily implies the :production of something new [and not something that always existed :along with the one who bears the purposeful intention for its :existence]. (MN 3:13) RMB: There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam recaps a point made in 2:19-20. In 2:19-20 Rambam makes no reference to each component or entity in nature providing a benefit for another, and certainly does not use that there as a proof for Creation ex nihilo. *(Section II is devoted to developing the argument against a naturally necessary eternal world based on ''particularization,'' the differing formations and behaviors of things despite their being made of the same materials.) * ** *Perhaps you are referring to the fact that in both the argument there and here the crucial concluding step invokes the mindset that purposeful intention on G-d's part (which Aristotle as well attributes to G-d) indicates *a changeable will on His part (which indication Aristotle denies) that allows for and indicates Creation ex nihilo. But just as in 3:13 the Rambam describes that crucial mindset as something that is possessed by those who are modeh al ha-emmess, so too in 2:19-20 the Rambam first describes it as something that is ''pashut'' (KPCH) or ''mevuar" (Ibn Tibbon), which he will then proceed to demonstrate through more formal proof: It has already been shown that according to Aristotle... the Universe is not the result of intent of choice and desire; for if this were the case, they would have been non-existing before the intent had been conceived. We [proponents of Judaism?ZL], however, hold that it is /pashut\mevuar/ that all things in the Universe are the result of intent-not-of necessity; and it is possible for that Intender to change them and have a different intent. But in this chapter, my intent is to show by arguments almost as forceful as real proofs, that the Universe gives compelling evidence of being [freely] intended by an Intender: RMB: And for that matter, if the Rambam was talking about not really needing formal proof, despite spending much of sec. II on just that, why would it be buried in a chapter that focuses on something else? I did not posit that the Rambam's intent was to make the point that formal proof is unnecessary. That indeed is not his purpose. After all, the explicitly stated primary purpose of the Moreh is for those (himself included) who yearned to defend and support the mesorah through philosophical approach of his day. He is not interested in dismissing the project. He explicitly describes this /modeh al ha-emmess/ statement /as a tangential interruption/: After that statement, he says, ''I will now return to the subject of this chapter, viz., the ultimate cause [i.e. the purpose behind the universe being as it is--ZL].'' My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows the non-formal mindset of those who are /modeh al ha-emmess/. It is a reference to those who do not restrict their acceptance of truth to things provable through formal logic, settling for healthy, unbiased reasoning (and who thereby see the truth of Creation ex-nihilo as a simple conclusion from the fact of the purposeful hierarchy of nature). RMB: 3:13 is about how the universe has its own purpose. It is not just an arena designed for the purpose of humans. He argues here with Aristo who says that plants exist for the purpose of animals, and in general, that things exist for the purpose of other things. He does not argue with Aristotle on this point, as is clear in the passage from 3:13 that I originally quoted, and as he elaborates in the introduction to his Mishnah commentary. The disagreement (outside of the parenthetically mentioned one) revolves around the /ultimate/ purpose behind the existence of everything, and the question of why the intermediate steps in this world that lead to its finale of the hierarchy must exist, rather than the finale existing alone. (According to Aristotle, every component of nature is simply a necessity whose non-existence is absolutely impossible. It is impossible for G-d to maintain anything but the universe and its entities as they are. According to the Rambam, although every sub lunar being contributes to the existence of another such being, until we get to Man (and then the Ish Shalem), G-d could nevertheless have created that final being directly, without creating the intermediary plants and animals. Why He in His wisdom decided to do it as He did, and why he decided to create the heavens as He did, we cannot know.) RMB: Besides, the Rambam writes in 3:51 in the mashal of the palace, that people who believe because of tradition without having proof are like those who wander around the chatzer, whereas someone with a proof is like one who entered the prozdor. The ''modeh al ha-emmess'' proof, building upon careful observation of the world and and its components and creatures and theorizing as to how it all works, is also a proof. The inferior knowledge that does not lead to optimum closeness to Hashem is pure tradition without proof. Not[e] Aristo's epistomology didn't analyze issues of proof vs other justification. But clearly Reliabilism, trusting an idea found in a source that has already been found to be reliable (hama'aminim ... derekh qabalah), is not being considered good enough justification to fully accomplish life's goal. I did not refer to emunah b'derech kaballah. That's not what I meant by ''ha-modeh al ha-emmess.'' I meant what I said: the healthy thinking of an unbiased mind, meaning the thinking of such a mind informed by knowledge of the things that exist in the world and their behaviors, and explanations of how they operate. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 30 20:04:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sat, 30 May 2015 23:04:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] : Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <001f01d09b2c$d37ec030$7a7c4090$@org.uk> References: <001f01d09b2c$d37ec030$7a7c4090$@org.uk> Message-ID: <556A7A27.3000006@sero.name> On 05/30/2015 07:03 PM, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: > RZS's assumption is that, so long as everybody agrees that a form of blowing > is kosher bidieved, then areivus works, Not just b'deiavad; my understanding is that all of these shitos are kosher lechatchilah, they're just not the way we do them lemaaseh. Let's say they're not mitzva min hamuvchar. Or "de`avad kemar `avad, ud`avad kemar `avad but we do kemar". > But in the case that RZS has outlined, where the people hearing > only the minority shitos form of shofar blowing would surely want the > majority position shofar blowing if they could get it, We're talking about people who have no particular desire to hear shofar at all, or they'd have done so. They didn't bother going to shul on Rosh Hashana, so they're probably not even aware that there are different shitos in how to blow shofar, let alone have a preferred shitah. Anything that is motzi them in the mitzvah is an improvement over what they would do otherwise, and is a benefit for them. And we're talking about potential blowers who currently don't go out and do this, they don't spend their precious Rosh Hashana hours bringing this zechus to fellow Jews who did not come themselves to hear shofar. So what I'm proposing is a win-win. They get to hear the obscure shitos they want to hear, and the people they're blowing for get the basic mitzvah as the Torah commanded it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 30 20:22:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 30 May 2015 23:22:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <556A7E8D.70007@gmail.com> I wrote: > > > > But as is occasionally the case, > R. MB disagrees with me, even when I attempt to defend him I should have put a smiley after that sentence, or maybe even explicated that it was meant as a humorous observation of irony. It meant to imply that RMB is interested in emmess and does not make it a personal issue. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 31 00:59:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 10:59:58 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura Message-ID: RHS has said many times in his shiurim that the MB was not written alone by the Chofetz Chaim and that is why there are sometimes contradictions. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 31 01:08:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 11:08:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: "Indeed in Europe before WWII the MB was not the "final" arbiter of halacha. Much changed when CI wrote in a letter that the MB has the halacha of a sanhedrin and one can't disagree with its conclusions." I believe it happened even a little later then that. RHS who grew up in the 1950s stated many times in shiur that when he learned halacha in the 1950s no one learned Mishna Berura, people either learned Chayei Adam or they learned Shulchan Aruch with Magen Avraham and the Taz. If you look at the European gedolim who came to America like R' Moshe, R' Ruderman, etc. even after WWII they almost never quoted the Mishna Berura. >From what I understand R' Aharon Kotler was very influential in America in promoting learning Mishna Berura. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 31 10:20:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 13:20:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Texualism and the Mishnah Berurah by R. Micha Berger Message-ID: <20150531172101.ED88B180CD0@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://www.aishdas.org/asp/texualism-and-the-mishnah-berurah The author [of the Mishnah Brurah, the Chofetz Chaim] is clear: the purpose of the book was not to provide his own ruling, but to survey the later posqim who have added complexity to the field so that someone looking to reach a decision knows who wrote on the matter. Yes, the CC (or his son or other students who worked with him) often gave his own opinion, including our ?ba?al nefesh yachmir?, but it is unclear to me he intended that opinion to be a pragmatic ruling rather than a theoretical statement. This would explain why the Mishnah Berurah?s rulings diverge from accepted practice so much more often than the Arukh haShulchan (a contemporary work from the same region). Halakhah lemaaseh, pragmatic rulings, need to take such precedent and continuity into account; discussions of textual theory do not. As further evidence that the Mishnah Berurah was not intended to be a practical law guide, we have a lot of testimony that shows that its own author often followed the common Lithuanian practice over his own ?ruling?. Despite the origin of wearing one?s tzitzis strings out being in the MB, the CC did not. His qiddush cup doesn?t hold as much wine as the MB would require. (It is still in the hands of the Zaks family and has been checked repeatedly.) He advocated for building city eiruvin for carrying on Shabbos despite BH 364 ?ve?achar?. The Chafeitz Chaim did not say ?Berikh Shemeih? when taking out the Torah. Etc 1 I am suggesting that the CC?s textualist and formal stance in the MB is simply because the MB was a book for studying texts. And he did not intend to deemphasize mimetic tradition (the flow of practice transmitted culturally). This shift happened when the Chazon Ish in Israel and a number of American rashei yeshiva (such as R? Aharon Kotler) promoted the idea of using the Mishnah Berurah as a poseiq acharon. See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 00:25:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 10:25:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <> I have a book "The Goldilocks Enigma" by Paul Davies (cosmolgist) on why is the universe just right for life. Most of the book is to show how unlikely it is that the universe has exactly the right properties for existence. The second part is a discussion as to why this happened. He goes through all the theories including the watchmaker etc. One possibility is a "creator" . He adnits that it is logically consistent but finds iy highly unlikely. His own preference is for the multi-verse. The idea is not whether you agree with him or not. Rather here is an intelligent human who has thought deeply about these problems and does not see any obvious signs of a designer. I would venture that that is the opinion of most physicists and certainly biologists. What you consider obvious he considers very unlikely. Again we come to the point that REW claims that anyone who really thinks about the problem and comes up with a different answer than he does simply has an ulterior motive. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 03:08:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 06:08:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150602100830.GA12384@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 10:25:05AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : The idea is not whether you agree with him or not. Rather here is an : intelligent human who has thought deeply about these problems and does not : see any obvious signs of a designer. I would venture that that is the : opinion of most physicists and certainly biologists. REW would say that he found it obvious that the world was created, something deep inside (to add my own 2c: of which he is likely unaware) didn't want to live in a world with a Creator, so he thought deeply about these problems until he could find an alternative. (For what it's worth, I think most physicists believe in G-d.) As you put it: : What you consider obvious he considers very unlikely. Again we come to the : point that REW claims that anyone who really thinks about the problem and : comes up with a different answer than he does simply has an ulterior motive. But that doesn't make the person any less convinced. For that matter, the believer also likely has an unlterior motive. (I said that, I doubt REW would. I am just saying it wouldn't rob him of his point.) REW is asserting that before you even get to bias, the obvious position is ours. Their atheism is the one that takes work, because it's explaining away the obvious. After all, there is no a priori, obvious-as-a-postulate version of the Anthropic Principle or other such atheistic explanations of the universe's design. No equivalent to REW's not attributing a poem to spilled ink or R' Aqiva's insisting that a garment or bread testify to their makers. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Friendship is like stone. A stone has no value, micha at aishdas.org but by rubbing one stone against another, http://www.aishdas.org sparks of fire emerge. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Mordechai of Lechovitz From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 08:40:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 11:40:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] women making a zimun In-Reply-To: <20150602125704.JHYM8162.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo306> References: <20150602125704.JHYM8162.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo306> Message-ID: <20150602154026.GF23551@aishdas.org> Bringing this thread to where this belongs. On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 08:56:59AM -0400, Sholom Simon via Areivim wrote: :> There was no family or community prior to the 20th century in :> which girls or women bentshed with a zimun. : I always wondered about that vis-a-vis the following: : The SA"HaRav (written by somebody who was certainly not a feminist) : at 199:6 writes that three women who are eating together (provided : there are less than 10 men) are permitted to break away and make : their own zimmun. (l'chelek l'zimun l'atzman). ... : What I've always wondered about was: is he writing entirely : theoretically, or was there a practice among some which led him to : clarify this issue? : Thoughts? : -- Sholom The SA haRav says that they must participate when 3 men make a zimun. If there are three women, no minyan of men, and want to separate off to make their own zimun, hareshus beyadam. Then he takes on the case of three women who are eating without men, again "hareshus beyadam" to make a zimun. (Similarly avadim, but not a mix of women and avadim because we we assume avadim are capable of peritzus. Given that the part about avadim couldn't have been a practice in the Baal haTanya's day, I wouldn't assume his mention of zimun for women makes any such implication. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Weeds are flowers too micha at aishdas.org once you get to know them. http://www.aishdas.org - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 08:49:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 11:49:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Modah Ani In-Reply-To: <20150602.081411.27008.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150602.081411.27008.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150602154924.GG23551@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 12:14:11PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Areivim wrote: : R' Micha Berger wrote: :> ... When I told them that traditionally we held that they're :> probably yotz'ot with saying Modah Ani once a day, ... : I noticed your very deliberate spelling here, and I can't help but : wonder: Was there any family or community prior to the late 20th century : in which girls or women said "modAh ani"? Talmidei haGra. The Siddur haGra also mentions "shelo asani nakhriah" (the Gra had "nakhri" for men) and "shelo asani shifcha". Speaking of new minhagim: Modeh Ani is likely the youngest prayer in most siddurim, even younger than Lekha Dodi. It exists to compensate moving "Elokai Neshamah" out of that spot. (Asher Yatzar doesn't open "barukh" because it's a berakhah hasemukhah lechaverta with haMapil -- one before sleep one after. When we moved it, many (including the Gra), made it semuchah to Asher Yazar -- thanking the Creator for both body and soul.) Which is why I find it unwarranted to treat its matbeia as unchangable even in the face of simply reconjugating. But in any case, I'm in favor of most changes that give one pause to think about what they're saying or doing. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow micha at aishdas.org man's soul and his own stomach; a pious Jew worries http://www.aishdas.org about his own soul and his fellow man's stomach. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 09:16:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 12:16:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <5568D45F.9010809@gmail.com> References: <5568D45F.9010809@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150602161633.GA15555@aishdas.org> On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 05:04:31PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: :> There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam :> recaps a point made in 2:19-20. : : In 2:19-20 Rambam makes no reference to each component or entity in : nature providing a benefit for another, and certainly does not use that : there as a proof for Creation ex nihilo... 2:20 marks the end of an Argument from Design, which is what I was referring to. As it opens: "According to Aristotle, none of the products of Nature are due to chance. His proof is this: That which is due to chance does not reappear constantly nor frequently, but all products of Nature reappear either constantly or at least frequently..." This is a formal argument, unlike R' Aqiva's or REW's own appeal to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. I am saying that 3:15, when it mentions in passing the bit that :: And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, //for :: //one who ismodeh al ha-ememmes// ... :: is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities :: serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; :: and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an :: [I]ntender.... This is reference to people being willing to accept a proven point, and not accepting something as true because of a justification system other than proof. ... RZL, continued: : He explicitly describes this /modeh al ha-emmess/ statement /as a : tangential interruption/: After that statement, he says, "I will now : return to the subject of this chapter, viz., the ultimate cause [i.e. : the purpose behind the universe being as it is--ZL]." : My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that : there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows : the non-formal mindset of those who are /modeh al ha-emmess/... Agreed it's tangential, which is why I doubt that if the Rambam did want to say something that signficant, this would be its only mention. But I don't think it makes the point you're making because the Rambam already made design the topic of a formal proof. So the current mention of design in this aside is talking about a proof, not another verification system. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is complex. micha at aishdas.org Decisions are complex. http://www.aishdas.org The Torah is complex. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' Binyamin Hecht From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 13:24:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2015 22:24:55 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <556E1117.1050507@zahav.net.il> That a text written such a short time ago could have questions about it authorship really nails down how hard it is to have definitive knowledge of the past. Ben On 5/31/2015 9:59 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > RHS has said many times in his shiurim that the MB was not written > alone by the Chofetz Chaim and that is why there are sometimes > contradictions. > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 13:27:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 16:27:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed Message-ID: <20150602202700.GA7449@aishdas.org> R/Dr Alan Brill recently carried this essay by comparatively new chaver, R' Ysoscher Katz. I am sharing here the essay in full (see or for R/D AB's biographical introduction) for two reeasons -- or one two-part reason: 1- I think this post could start a nice discussion of the fundamentals of each of our hashkafos; and 2- Comments are blocked on the post, so it's not like I am stealing a conversation that ought to happen there. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you won't be better tomorrow micha at aishdas.org than you were today, http://www.aishdas.org then what need do you have for tomorrow? Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rebbe Nachman of Breslov Torat Chaim Ve'Ahavat Chesed Ysoscher Katz I was raised in the chassidic community of Satmar. I should make it clear from the outset: I am modern but not Orthodox. Do not get me wrong, I am observant and my practice is orthodox but that is not who I am. In other words, I am orthodox-my practice is halakhic and my belief orthodox-but Orthodoxy is not me. It is not an integral part of my identity. My orthodoxy is merely a means towards a religious end. Keeping halakha and accepting orthodox faith-claims provides me with the infrastructure which allows my soul to strive and pursue perfection. Orthodoxy enables me to be who I really am: a Modern Chassidish Jew. As I mentioned, my identity is comprised of two parts, Modern and Chassidish. I inherited these identity markers from my parents, the modernity from my mother and the chassidut from my father. Here, I mean real Chassidic, and not Neo-Chassidic. How my chassidic, homemaking and sheitel-wearing mom made me modern is a conversation for another time. At the moment I wish to focus on my dad. My father is the most non-chassidish Chassid. He does not study "chassidus," nor does he want to "understand" it. The few times I tried to explain to him Moshe Idel's distinction between theosophy and theurgy, his eyes glazed over. Chassidut is what he does, not what he learns. From his perspective, Torah is for learning, chassidut for practicing. His aversion is not limited to the study of academic mysticism. He also stays away from traditional kabbalistic or chassidic texts. He never studied the Zohar nor did he ever read any of the Arizal's writings. Not only would he not read them, he also would not touch them. He is so intimidated by their sacredness; he fears that his touch would contaminate them. Yet, despite never having formally studied chassidic texts, he still is the quintessential chasid. Chassidut is his essence, part of his religious DNA, but it is a chassidut that is behavioral, not intellectual. Chassidut is how he lives his life. It is the prism through which he encounters the world and the ethos by which he lives by. He adores his wife, loves his children, cherishes his community and reveres and respects his neighbors and fellow human beings, Jew and non-Jew alike. While this practice is not special, many people love their family and surroundings, its flavor is unique. It is Chassidic love, deriving its passion from the Chassidic teachings he has absorbed throughout his life. These teachings have filled his being with a deep religiosity, which, in turn, infuses his actions and emotions with a deep and robust spirituality. His love of humanity is, therefore, a love that is sensualized by its spiritualized valance. Chassidut does not just spiritualize my father's interpersonal relationships, it also enhances his religious practices, particularly the yearly calendar. Chassidut allows him to infuse the annual cycle with a sensuous spirituality. Satmar is a Hungarian/Romanian Chassidut (The broad strokes difference between Hungarian Chassidut and the Polish and Russian versions is that the latter were intellectually inclined while the former was not. Hungarian Chassidut was predominantly behavioral. This is, of course, a generalization; the nuances are far more complex but outside the parameters of this presentation.) Hungarian Chassidim are nourished by an elaborate "sacred calendar." They have more days of note than the conventional Jewish calendar, and their holidays tend to be richer than your typical modern Jews' chag experience. A Satmar Chasid's year is thus replete with days of deep joy and periods of intense reflection. While the Jewish calendar has several biblical holidays and two Rabbinic ones, the Chasid's calendar records additional dates of importance. Every winter, the Hungarian Chasid has six to eight weeks of "shovavim," a period that usually falls sometime between Chanukah and Purim, which is dedicated to repentance and introspection, largely focusing on sexual impropriety; the days of awe continue through the end of Chanukah, the potential for repentance lasts for them for two more months; Purim celebrations begin three days earlier than usual; and (a modicum of) Pesach extends all the way to Shavuot (based on Nachmanides' notion that the interim weeks between Pesach and Shavuot are somewhat akin to a chol ha'moed of Pesach). Combined these add up to a significant number of additional days of awe and periods of celebration. Qualitatively, chassidic holidays are different as well. Although many things distinguish a chassidic chag, there is one distinction that is particularly noticeable to the keen observer: chassidic religious celebrations are comprised of a dissonant blend of joy and contemplation. Here are some examples: Shabbat in Satmar is an incredibly meaningful day, bookended by powerful contradictory modes. Friday night is a time of joy, where the spiritually and mystically rich Lecha Dodi chant inspires celebration of the metaphysical significance of the day. While this spirit carries through most of the Shabbat, towards the end of the Shabbat the Satmar Chasid shifts gears, switching modes from the celebratory to the reflective. This transition occurs in a much starker manner than it does in most other communities. A Satmar Shabbat never ends at "shekiah." Sehudah shlishit is always a two hour affair, spent singing and listening to the Rebbe's dvar torah. Speaking in highly evocative tones, he expounds on the weekly reading, spending close to an hour challenging and rebuking his followers. Growing up, this is exactly what Shabbat looked like for me. My dad's Shabbat was intense and complex. While the day began upbeat, it gradually shifted into the contemplative. But, my father's Shabbat, like his chassidut, is adamantly experiential, text and study play a minor role in the development of his religious persona. Kegavna (a section from the Zohar which Chassidim recite during Friday night prayers), is one of the most powerful kabbalistic liturgical texts. Utilizing the connection between Shabbat and the number seven, a prominent kabbalistic trope, it succinctly articulates the mystical value of Shabbat. It emphasizes that Shabbat is a day of heightened divine intimacy and advanced mystical union. I have begged my dad on many occasions to read this Zohar text with me. He refused each time. Sacred mystical texts are for the elite. The lay receive their nourishment residually, from the spiritualized environment created by those qualified to access those recondite sources. While he will not study Kegavna, he does recite it every Friday night as part of the Kabbalat Shabbat service. Notwithstanding that he does not fully grasp its meaning, he reads it with the pathos and passion it deserves. Kegavna's power for him is metaphysical, not intellectual. Purim provides another example of the intensity of Hungarian chassidic practice. Many Jews celebrate Purim, but not the chassidic Purim. The chassidic Purim is unique in its richness and multiplicity. Communally, preparations for the holiday start early. More than a week before Purim, one can already detect the arrival of the holiday, both, in the discourse of the scholars and activities of the laity. The learned discourse focuses on the legal and spiritual aspects of the chag, while the public sphere is filled with people making arrangements for every aspect of the day. When Purim finally arrives, it takes on a distinct theological flavor. Appropriating the Zoharic notion that Purim is analogous to Yom Kippur (Yom Kippurim), Satmar Chassidim created a unique Purim blend that is both frivolous and somber. This day of festivity is overlaid with practices of repentance and reflection. While I am nourished by my dad's behavioral Chassidut, personally it is not enough. Behavioral Chassidut gladdens my heart but does not stimulate my mind nor sufficiently satisfy my soul. I personally seek a religiosity which nourishes both pillars of my being, the mind and the heart. My personal journey is, therefore, informed by a combination of my father's passion and the academic's sophistication. Chassidus resonates with both of them, sometimes simultaneously, when the intellectual engagement and behavioral spiritual encounter complement one another, and sometimes separately, when I religiously shift back and forth between the intellectual and the experiential. Ultimately, the attraction to Chassidut is the fact that it can operate in different modes at different times, in the process offering up a variety of mechanisms to help spiritualize my life. It is precisely this multifacetedness which convinces me that Chassidut is the proper theology for us moderns. Its theology is perfectly situated to offer meaning and spirituality to the contemporary modern seeker. I feel strongly that it is our only hope. Chassidut today is not a luxury, it is a necessity. If the Torah-u'Madda project is to succeed Chassidut needs to become an integral part of its curriculum. Chassidut is of course a vast discipline, teaching all of it would be a daunting task. For the moment there are three aspects of chassidic theology that stand out as particularly suited for the world we live in today. 1) Truth. We live in a post-modern world where objective truth is rejected and absolute claims are frowned upon. I would go as far as to say that rationalism (in the general and colloquial sense) as a source for Emunah is bankrupt, it increasingly speaks to fewer people. It, therefore, behooves us to come up with alternative models. Chassidut could very well be that alternative model. Facts and empirical truth is not Chassidut's primary currency. While it does a priori accept the biblical theological faith statements, its goal is not to argue or prove the scientific veracity of the Bible's claims. Truth is not of primary concern for these thinkers. Chassidic theology has two main features. It is a-rational and a-historical. It is apathetic about Jewish historicity as a proactive theological stance. The Torah for Chassidim is there to teach us how to live life and serve God, the narrative qua narrative (the origin story) is mere background music. The narration parts of the Torah are, therefore, not of much theological significance to them, they are a-historical However, during those rare occasions when they do pay attention to the biblical "stories," their orientation is a-rational. They absolutely "believe" those stories, but their belief is internal: it is true because it happened in the Torah. That is where these events transpire and that is where these stories matter. Asking about their historicity is, as far as they are concerned, foolish and missing the point. At the same time, to the extent that the biblical narratives have religious and theological significance, they read those stories through the Rabbinic lens. So, for example, while Moshe's historicity is not historically relevant to them, his persona carries theological and ethical significance. The same is true for God's attributes. Chassidim are, by choice, apathetic about God as a scientific reality, his attributes and characteristics, however, are theologically highly significant to them. For that they did turn to the Bible, but the encounter with the Torah is filtered through Chazal. They see Chazal as essential to the understanding of the Torah. As believers in immanence they actually see the Sages as much more integral to the experience of the written Torah than the rationalists did. They did not think that the presence at Sinai (mamad har Sinai) ended at the giving of the Torah (mattan Torah). For them the Torah is perpetually and continuously revealed. The modern reader of chassidic texts would, therefore, not have to decide whether they scientifically accept these postulates in order to engage with them. Chassidut's goal is instead to describe an immanence which provides spiritual and emotional transcendence. Chassidut (informed, of course, by kabbalah) promotes a sophisticated immanence which results in a dramatic shift in Judaism's orientation towards God and His commandments. Prior to the emergence of chassidut on the historic scene, theology was convincing and Jewish observance was rewarding. Chassidut changed that. Chassidic theology offered meaning and kabbalistic observance provided sanctity. Personally, my rejection of the Maimonidean ethos and realization of the degree to which chassidut can speak to the modern searcher was a long and arduous process. It came about as a result of a deep sense of betrayal by Maimonides, the champion of Rationalist Judaism. I for many years was the object and fool of Maimonides "the seventh reason" as presented in his introduction to the Guide by not seeing his philosophic views. In that passage, Maimonides condones misleading the masses for their greater good, even to the point of advocating contradictory ideas for different audiences and then obscuring those contradictions. Growing up in Satmar and then Brisk, I was oblivious to his non-halakhic writings and led to believe that he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad. I was exposed to his other writings only later and when I did I felt cheated. I was part of that the masses, whom he thought could not handle his unconventional approach to theology and tradition. As much as I have read about him, I personally have not managed to reconcile his two sides. I do not find Prof. Isidore Twersky's harmonizing approach compelling or convincing. Realizing what a fool I was led me on a tortuous and circuitous search. As the Rabbis say about Yisro, ????? ??? ?? ??????; I explored all the options. I finally found the answer in kabbalah and chassidut, they speak a language which resonates with our current reality. They emphasize that which contemporary Judaism needs. The emphasis in chassidut on meaning and sacredness, are perfectly suited for our community. These are exactly the things our culture needs more of; holiness and meaning. This emphasis in Chassidut on immanence also generates a move towards spiritualization. 2) Spiritualization. As scholars have pointed out, chassidic teachings contain elements of spiritual psychology. They provide us with a language which helps us infuse our lives with meaning. One can point to many examples where this psychological spiritualization occurs in chassidut, I will mention two of them. Everybody sometimes has a bad hair day, when we wake up feeling less than optimal. Chassidut has a term to describe that mood; it calls it mochen de'katnus. While it technically means the same as a "bad hair day," the language is mystical. Mochen de'katnus describes a less than stellar spiritual state, a low energy level which does not allow us to engage in the usual religious pursuits we crave to pursue. Another example is Kabbalah's elaborate taxonomy of love and awe: Kabbalah and Chassidut talks about superior and inferior love (ahavah ela'e'e and ahavah tata'a) or superior and inferior awe (yirah ela'e'e and yira tata'a)While these terms primarily describe nuanced stages in our engagement with the Divine, they have traditionally been imported into the colloquial arena. They are used to describe varied emotional states which we experience in our interactions with our friends and loved ones. Contemporary life does not provide us with that many opportunities for encountering the Divine in our daily lives. Chassidut allows us to bring God in. Sprinkling our conversations with mystical and Chassidic terminology allows us to spiritualize our daily routines and infuse our mundane pursuits with meaning and spiritual significance. Besides enriching our personal encounters, adopting a chassidic ethos could also enhance our communal experiences. 3) Social Change. One of the most pressing tensions in the community is how to reconcile our values with our convictions; what to do when halakha points us in one direction and our values in another direction. We are tempted to follow our values but pulled to abide by our halakhic commitments. A proper resolution requires an emboldened stance towards tradition, one that allows us to cajole the tradition to reconcile itself with our modern sensibilities. [Using, of course, legitimate halakhic mechanisms developed by our predecessors when they were confronted with similar challenges.] Our values are so emboldened because they derive their power from Chaissdut. A chassidic life is a spiritualized life which infuses our values with powerful theological significance, and it allows us to aggressively challenge the tradition to reevaluate its assumptions and attempt to accommodate itself-when halakhically possible- to a changed modern reality. Chassidut is very explicit about the value of religious aggression. The following two quotes are often encountered in chassidic writings, "even a thief says a prayer before he breaks in to his victim's home" (quoted on the margin of Brachot 63A, from the Frankfurt manuscript), and "an aggressive stance towards the Divine bears results" (Sanhedrin 105A). While the provenance of these texts is Talmudic, they take on significant prominence in Chassidic theology. They become the impetus for an aggressive theology which is informed by a religiosity that sees itself driven by a Divine immanence which infuses our values and ethical intuitions with spiritual resonance, subsequently leading to radical societal change. Such change is actually an integral part of Chassidic social history. When one looks at recent major changes in traditional Jewish society it is hard not to notice that the forerunners were often Chassidim. The last sixty years have seen far reaching social and political change. The two most dramatic changes that have happened is that Jews are now sovereign and women have made significant progress in their pursuit of religious equality. The pioneers of both these changes were driven, at least in part, by a chassidic ethos. R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Rebbi of Lubavitch, was one of the first orthodox scholars to champion female Talmud scholarship, while R. Avraham Yitzchak Kook, a serious student of Chassidut, was an outspoken early proponent of a Zionist state. There is no doubt that their chassidic worldview, at least partially, informed their proactive stances towards these changes. Their adherence to a spiritualized religiosity allowed them to explore new religious vistas. Their unique theological outlook changed the religious and legal equation for them, simultaneously making their decisions more complex, but also more progressive. Their spiritualized worldview allowed them to see divinity in the ostensibly secular state or the seemingly illegitimate request of women for greater equality. Granted, this hybrid of chassidic spiritualization and robust religious creativity would be a 21^st century concoction, traditionally, these two do not go together. Chassidism, for the most part, frowns on change and rejects innovation. As a matter of fact, nineteenth century Hungarian Chassidim were vociferously opposed to any accommodations to modernity. Further, the contemporary thinker is not going to intuitively embrace spiritualized non-rational thought. It is, nevertheless, a match pregnant with immense potential and could go a long way towards reviving a dormant Modern Orthodoxy. Contemporary Modern Orthodoxy is struggling; a significant number of its adherents are abandoning yiddishkeit and many who stay no longer find it meaningful; inertia has set in. I suspect that Modern Orthodoxy's rationalist ethos is partially to blame. Current Modern Orthodox theology is Litvish and hyper-Maimonidean, it lacks a native spiritual core, and does not satisfy people's search for meaning. We are due for a change. Chassidus could be that change agent. I strongly believe that a chassidic theology combined with a sophisticated modern overlay could be the elixir for the dispassion and disinterest that ails our community. It will provide our community what it so desperately needs: a torat chaim ve'ahavt chesed; a Torah that stimulates our minds but at the same time also gladdens our neshamah. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 14:39:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:39:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> : > From: Micha Berger via Avodah > > [Rambam's statement (''And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, //for > :: //one who ismodeh al ha-ememmes// ... > :: is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities > :: serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; > :: and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an > :: [I]ntender...'') is not an informal argument, akin to R' Aqiva's or REW's appeal > to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. Rather,] it is a recap of a formal proof The Rambam made in 2:19-20... 2:20 marks the end of an Argument from Design. As it opens: "According to Aristotle, none of the products > of Nature are due to chance. His proof is this: That which is due to > chance does not reappear constantly nor frequently, but all products of > Nature reappear either constantly or at least frequently..." > > This is a formal argument, unlike R' Aqiva's or REW's own appeal > to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. Philosophers may disagree with classifying the argument made in 2:20 from ''frequency of appearance'' as ''an argument from design.'' But even if it is ''an'' argument from design, it's a different argument from the ''modeh al ha-emmess'' proof from the hierarchy of entities benefiting others. So the latter is not a recap of the former. And it does not necessarily follow that one who is modeh to the ''frequency'' argument considers the hierarchy argument ''one of the strongest.'' RZL, continued: : He explicitly describes this/modeh al ha-emmess/ statement /as a : tangential interruption/: After that statement, he says, "I will now : return to the subject of this chapter, viz., the ultimate cause [i.e. : the purpose behind the universe being as it is--ZL]." : My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that : there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows : the non-formal mindset of those who are/modeh al ha-emmess/... RMB: >Agreed it's tangential, which is why I doubt that if the Rambam did want to say something that signficant, this would be its only mention.< Again: Here, where the Rambam, for the first time, is about to bring up the hierarchy proof, he parenthetically mentions that it is intuitively understood by anyone unbiased. He does then go on to state the proof in a formal philosophic form. This is the most proper place to insert such a parenthetical remark parenthetically, and only once. It's not ''that significant'' for his purposes, because, as I had written, the entire purpose of the Moreh is to address people (including himself) concerned with hearing formal philosophic proofs and confronting the challenges that formal philosophic proofsbrought to the mesorah. Those interested in hearing an expanded version of the argument in informal form could find it in the Rambam's introduction to his his Mishnah commentary. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 16:04:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 19:04:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <103ab8.504f8d1e.429f9062@aol.com> From: Eli Turkel via Avodah >> I have a book "The Goldilocks Enigma" by Paul Davies (cosmolgist) on why is the universe just right for life. Most of the book is to show how unlikely it is that the universe has exactly the right properties for existence. The second part is a discussion as to why this happened. He goes through all the theories including the watchmaker etc. One possibility is a "creator" . He admits that it is logically consistent but finds it highly unlikely. His own preference is for the multi-verse. The idea is not whether you agree with him or not. Rather here is an intelligent human who has thought deeply about these problems and does not see any obvious signs of a designer..... << Eli Turkel >>>> On the contrary, he sees many signs of a Designer and he is so desperate to avoid the obvious conclusion -- because of his own prior philosophical biases -- that he adopts the currently trendy and absurd idea of "many universes" to escape from what he does not want to face. You see, if this is the only universe then it is so fantastically improbable that it can only be a miracle. But if it is only one of many universes, then it is not so strange that just one out of millions of universes would happen to have the conditions necessary for life. Normally the definition of "science" includes things like capable of observation or experiment, falsifiable, etc. But if you are desperate enough to escape G-d (and His moral demands) you will take something as airy-fairy, non-observable, not subject to any possible experiment, non-falsifiable as a "multi-verse" -- a product of the human mind that is as real as leprechauns -- and you will crown it with the noble name of "science"! I have a wonderful book in my house called *The Privileged Planet* that should be a science textbook in every yeshiva high school and Bais Yakov. Please please read it. It's by Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards. Here's the website with more information about the book and a video: http://www.privilegedplanet.com/ --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 00:03:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 10:03:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] MB Message-ID: The entry in wikepedia in Hebrew on Mishna Brura contains much of the information that we have been discussing. In particular it discusses the authorship of MB (ie the quote from his son) . MH vs AH and the change after the holocaust and other comments -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 05:39:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2015 08:39:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Standing at a Chupah Message-ID: <20150603123934.850661827E1@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is from today's Hakhel email bulletin. FROM A READER: Further on the point on standing at Chuppahs: Many think/say that it is because of Choson Domeh L'melech that they stand up for the Chosson. Yet, they should be aware that to my knowledge, HaRav Moshe Feinstein, Z'tl, never stood because he used to say, Doi-meh (L)melech NOT (Ke)melech. HaRav Yaakov Kamenetsky, Z'tl, stood but for a totally different reason. The question of L'melech or K'melech never entered into consideration as the Chosson is not a true Chosson until AFTER the Chuppah. Rather, HaRav Yaakov stood purely because of the Mishna in Bikurim (3:3), that discusses the bringing of Bikurim and the rule of standing Lif-Nai Oisei Mitzva, and since the Chosson is entering into a Chupah which will enable him to be mekayeim the mitzvah of P'ru U'revu, we stand. As to why we don't stand for everyone doing a mitzvah, it's for a mitzvah that is mei-kama zman l'zman, not a regular occurrence. The question remains as to a justification for why people stand for the Kallah, since she is not K'Malka (see HaRav Moshe and HaRav Yaakov above) and is peturah from Mitzvas Peru U'revu. HaRav Avraham Kamenetsky, HaRav Yaakov's son, told me that one can say that since the Chosson cannot be mekayeim the mitzvah without her, she has a chelek in the mitzvah and thus qualifies for Lif-Nai Oisei Mitzvah. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 06:57:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 09:57:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 05:39:33PM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : But even if it is "an" argument from design, it's a different argument : from the "modeh al ha-emmess" proof from the hierarchy of entities : benefiting others. So the latter is not a recap of the former. And : it does not necessarily follow that one who is modeh to the : "frequency" argument considers the hierarchy argument "one of the : strongest." I think our point of contention is simple: You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind justification that isn't a proof. Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. And therefore there is nothing in the Rambam about a justification that isn't a philosophical proof. For that matter, I would take his words to say this non-proof, being only meaningful to someone who is already "modeh al ha'emes", is not valid justification -- an instance of what I believe would be his general rule. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 10:58:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 10:58:33 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] ashtei-asar Message-ID: could someone explain please the ibn ezra in last weeks parsha ? someone asked about the origin of 'ashtei' and noted the this week mikshah is translated as eshet--- which must mean one solid piece so that must mean ashtei= one . but why not say achad asar ? [ he pointed out that 'eshet'= 770 , a number of completion ] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 14:23:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 17:23:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] ashtei-asar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150603212342.GA31632@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 03, 2015 at 10:58:33AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : someone asked about the origin of 'ashtei' and noted the this week : mikshah is translated as eshet--- which must mean one solid piece so : that must mean ashtei= on... The Akkadian for 11 is ishteneshret, ishten (one) + shret (ten). It is weird, though, that Hebrew would use a form of isheneshret without also using ishten. Then there's the idea in the Radaq (Mikhlol pg 140) that it was two that was collapsed from "ashtei" to "shtei". Which would explain why "shtayim" isn't "shesayim". The rule is that a sheva under the first letter is a sheva na (pronounced schwa), the legacy of the missing "i-" makes "shtei" an exception -- the sheva under the shin is nach (silent). Along these line, but presumably without the knowledge of Akkadian, the IE (Bamidbar 7:72, citing his own Sefer Me'oznayim) writes that "ashtei asar" is like "eshtenosav" -- that which were born from his thoughts. As though the 10 gave birth. "Vehu sod gadol". He then goes on to dismiss R' Yonah haSefaradi's theory that it means "el shtei asar". Because 1- "al shetei asar" would refer to the number AFTER 12, not before; and 2- "asar" (masc) would get "shnei" (masc), not "shtei" (fem). The gemara doesn't explain peshat, but interestingly R' Ashi's example (Sanhedrin 29a) of "kol hamosif goreia'" is how adding an ayin turns "shtei esrei yeri'os" into "ashtei esrei". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 15:16:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2015 18:16:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> On 6/3/2015 9:57 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > I think our point of contention is simple: > > You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind > justification that isn't a proof. I thought I was clear that I was taking it to be the same informal kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind. > > Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, > but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. I did not see this in your previous remarks that characterized the ''modeh-al-ha-emmess" as a formal proof/argument: :> There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam :> recaps a point made in 2:19-20. > 2:20 marks the end of an Argument from Design, which is what I was > referring to. ...This is a formal argument, unlike R' Aqiva's or REW's own appeal > to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. And I don't see how one can possibly interpret (MN 3:13 [not 3:15 as I mistakenly typed previously]) ''And know that one of the strongest /proofs/ (min /ha-gedolah sheh-b'ra'ayos/) for Creation ex nihilo, for one who is /modeh al ha-ememmes/, is his understanding the /proof/ (/hu mah sheya'amod alav ha-mofase/)...'' as meaning: > ''this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the emes, > look how nicely it works out.'' Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 16:37:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 19:37:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150603233708.GA7958@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 03, 2015 at 06:16:59PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: :> You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind :> justification that isn't a proof. : I thought I was clear that I was taking it to be the same informal : kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof : not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized : and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind. Then I did understand you correctly. When I say, "a kind justification that isn't a proof", I believe I mean the same thing as your "informal kind of proof". To me, the word "proof" implies formality. "Justification" is a general term for how we know something is true. (From Plato's definition of knowledge: "a justified and true belief.") :> Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, :> but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. : I did not see this in your previous remarks that characterized the : "modeh-al-ha-emmess" as a formal proof/argument: Because that's not what I am saying is the formal proof. I overused the word "this", which led to confusion. In addition "modeh al ha'ames" refers to a person, not an argument, so you lost me on that bit. AISI, it refers to the person who accepted the proof in 2:20, would find this point compelling. But since the point he's making here is not a formal proof, he doesn't expect it to convince, only to reinforce belief in those who already accepted the related proof. : And I don't see how one can possibly interpret (MN 3:13 [not 3:15 as : I mistakenly typed previously]) "And know that one of the : strongest /proofs/ (min /ha-gedolah sheh-b'ra'ayos/) for Creation ex : nihilo, for one who is /modeh al ha-ememmes/, is his understanding : the /proof/ (/hu mah sheya'amod alav ha-mofase/)..." as meaning: :> "this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the :> emes, look how nicely it works out." You are taking a sentence that says "One of the greatest proofs for creation for someone who accepts the truth is his understanding the wonder..." He is discussing a ra'ayah that someone who already believes would find compelling. Not a proof that would convince an unbiased seeker. Because I don't think the Rambam accepted that an informal justification other than philosophical proof could be a sounds reason to embrace a belief as true. (I see you consistently double the "s" in "emess". Why? If the sav had a dageish, it would be a tav, not "ss".) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are what we repeatedly do. micha at aishdas.org Thus excellence is not an event, http://www.aishdas.org but a habit. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Aristotle From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 4 15:16:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2015 18:16:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong Message-ID: <20150604221600.GA28870@aishdas.org> An Areivim conversation moved in topicality so that my reply really belongs here. Some background.... At some point, one person wrote, in part: | Right is right and wrong is wrong,... Speaking about moral correctness. To which someone else replied: > Really? ISTM that there is lots of grey in our world. People disagree > about right and wrong like they disagree about assur and mutar... And my reply, from Areivin: } This is why disputes about eilu va'eilu are so significant. Machloqes } can be between two approaches, two paths, one may take. Between different } strategies to obtaining the same goal. } Or it could be between a correct vs an incorrect understanding of the } halakhah. A process by which something becomes law, regardless of which } is right. } Or... } But if there is one right and one wrong, human decision-making wouldn't } change which is which. That second person wrote later in the conversation: > Sure am. Women learning Talmud was wrong, then it was right. In fact, > now it's both right (MO) and wrong (Hareidi). My response: } I don't consider that a good example. It is possible for something to } be right in one settting and wrong in another. Such as whether learning } Talmud is a good idea may depend on how women are being educated to relate } to knowledge in general. Since they aren't obligated to learn halachic } theory, such as gemara, they may be better off with a naive mimetic } faith. But if we have universal education, and an economic system that } demands a certain wordliness in both genders, such that naivite isn't } an option, then our choices are different. } Morality is like a Faucault's Pendulum; it keeps swinging the same } direction. The pendulum only looks like the direction changes over time } because the world rotates beneath it. Them again: > Zionism is right (DL) > and wrong (Satmar). You see the world as black and white; I see lots of > colors, including grey (and black and white sometimes as well). Me: } But gray too objectively exists. We may need to choose a response, } and thus have to fit it into a boolean black-white category. And then } someone may choose a strategy that categorizes it as white and someone } else as black. } But the grayness is not a matter of opinion. And also, from the same person, in an email between the two: > And my point was, the topic under discussion was not gravity ... > it was an issue that what people think about it is, in fact, relevant. My response, continued: } Is that true? } As far as I know, it's pretty basic to Judaism that the Creator has an } "Opinion" of what is moral and what isn't. That things run more smoothly } for everyone involved if we run with the design rather than do something } else. } Not only that, G-d put us on the same page once. } People may not be sure if there is an absolute moral standard, and those } who agree there is one, may not agree about what it looks like. } It's out there and as objectively real as gravity. } Even if you cannot prove it to others, and therefore will always be } subject to conflicting opinions -- some more right in some ways, some } more right in others, some simply wrong. } Your position implies an Empiricism that rules out revelation as a valid } source of truth! In which case, what's left of Torah? Futher down in the conversation, Lisa wrote of halakhah: : There are actually cases where opinions can establish right and : wrong. Tanuro shel Akhnai illustrates one. Actual reality is : *created* by the informed and considered opinions of the Sanhedrin. To which I responded: } Law, not reality. And Lisa, post #2: : I disagree. Torah *is* reality. Finally, some new material. R Chaim Brisker links "vechayei olam nata besokheinu" and "emes mei'eretz tatzmiach". Torah is the seed from which Emes grows, and not (leshitaso, but I bought into it) Emes itself. The Qetzos says something similar on the use of "emes mei'eretz" in the medrash about the 2 forces -- Emes and Shalom -- opposing the creation of humanity. Emes is thrown to the ground, to which the tanna says "emes meieretz tatzmiach". Emes will come out through the process of history. It's not with us yet. Torah is how HQBH leads us there. But in any case, I didn't speak of Torah, of "divrei E-lokim chaim", I spoke of halakhah. Or as RMF put it, I spoke of emes lehora'ah, not Emes as it is kelapei shamay galya. Continuing my reply to Lisa's 1st post: } And the reason why we only let the Sanhedrin vote is because the law is } expected to be consistent with the objective reality. There may be many } ways up Har Hashem, but you really only want people who know mapreading } and reconteuring figuring out which one is best. } And the mountain and its altitude are unchanged by people's decisions. Lisa's 2nd post, cont: : And what Hashem wanted the halakha to be was determined by people's : decisions. New material again: If we combine your insistance that halakhah is Truth with the idea that it is determined by people's decisions, you end up with Constructivism. Halakhah as a man made reality. Which makes sense -- you tend to side with the Rambam on this kind of thing. But if dinim bein adam lachaveiro define or at least shape morality, you are left with the OP's claim that opinion determines what is moral. Opinion as informed by kelalei pesaq, but still, morality isn't entirely absolute or objective. The position I was suggesting that there is an objective Morality that is part of Emes. Emes, with a capital "E", as in something that exists in Shamayim (a/k/a the Olam haEmes) but can't fit in this world among human minds. We have approximating models (Maharal), getting ever closer to the Emes (Qetzos). Halakhah is our means of approaching it, and the existence of multiple correct pesaqim reflects their being more than one viable path (R Chaim Brisker). Or more specifically: The path is on the meta-level, the evolution of the Oral Torah and its pesaqim is part of getting to Emes, not "only" the path taken by a life that follows that pesaqim. So that halakhah is not morality, it is a means of producing ever more moral people. Which makes sense in terms of my own Mussarly tendencies. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are great, and our foibles are great, micha at aishdas.org and therefore our troubles are great -- http://www.aishdas.org but our consolations will also be great. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi AY Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 4 19:55:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2015 22:55:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <20150603233708.GA7958@aishdas.org> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> <20150603233708.GA7958@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55710FAB.70107@gmail.com> On 6/3/2015 7:37 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Wed, Jun 03, 2015 at 06:16:59PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: > :> You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind > :> justification that isn't a proof. > > : I thought I was clear that I was taking it to be the same informal > : kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof > : not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized > : and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind. > > Then I did understand you correctly. > > When I say, "a kind justification that isn't a proof", I believe I mean > the same thing as your "informal kind of proof". To me, the word "proof" > implies formality. "Justification" is a general term for how we know > something is true. (From Plato's definition of knowledge: "a justified and > true belief.") Got it. > :> Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, > :> but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. > > : I did not see this in your previous remarks that characterized the > : "modeh-al-ha-emmess" as a formal proof/argument: > > Because that's not what I am saying is the formal proof. I overused the > word "this", which led to confusion. I''m even more confused now. What "this" that led to confusion was overused? I took you to mean that the ''emmess'' that a ''modeh al ha-emmess'' person was modeh to was the conclusion of a formal proof stated somewhere in 2:19-20. (And such a person would consider, as one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, the proof from the hierarchy of benefit of entities.) > In addition "modeh al ha'ames" refers to a person, not an argument, > so you lost me on that bit. When I wrote ''I was taking it to be the same informal kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind'' I was responding to you statement: :> You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind :> justification that isn't a proof. which was in response to my writing: : My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that : there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows : the non-formal mindset of those who are /modeh al ha-emmess/... I meant to say I was taking Rambam's remark to mean that someone whose thought process is normal and unbiased (i.e. a modeh al ha-emmess) recognizes (without the aid of formal proof) the fact of the hierarchy of benefit as compelling the conclusion of a freely intended Creation ex nihilo. Another way to crystallize our differing interpretations: You are taking the "emmess'' that the ''modeh al ha-emmess'' is modeh to, to be the correct fact. I'm taking it to be the correct process of thinking. > AISI, it refers to the person who accepted > the proof in 2:20, would find this point compelling. But since the point > he's making here is not a formal proof, he doesn't expect it to convince, > only to reinforce belief in those who already accepted the related proof. > > : And I don't see how one can possibly interpret (MN 3:13 [not 3:15 as > : I mistakenly typed previously]) "And know that one of the > : strongest /proofs/ (min /ha-gedolah sheh-b'ra'ayos/) for Creation ex > : nihilo, for one who is /modeh al ha-ememmes/, is his understanding > : the /proof/ (/hu mah sheya'amod alav ha-mofase/)..." as meaning: > > :> "this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the > :> emes, look how nicely it works out." > > You are taking a sentence that says "One of the greatest proofs for > creation for someone who accepts the truth is his understanding the > wonder..." He is discussing a ra'ayah that someone who already believes > would find compelling. Not a proof that would convince an unbiased > seeker. > > Because I don't think the Rambam accepted that an informal justification > other than philosophical proof could be a sounds reason to embrace a > belief as true. Your first paragraph is just restating your position and denying mine. I am saying otherwise, pointing out that saying that this person considers the hierarchy factor ''one of the greatest proofs for creation'' means '"this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out" is incompatible with the words. And /l'fi ta'amych,/ of your second paragraph: If the Rambam considers an informal justification vs philosophical proof an unsound reason to embrace a belief as true, then one would think he would not consider noteworthy a non-ra'ayah found compelling only by someone who already believes in the conclusion (stated or implied somewhere in 2:19-20, or in that previously stated formal ra'aya which /is/, or is not, compelling--I'm not sure which of these you're saying, but my objection applies regardless.) I think it may be productive for us to examine the 4 or 5 other places in MN where the Rambam uses the expression ''modeh al ha-emmess.'' (Curiously, the search of the Hebrewbooks.org MN in my Adobe Reader skips over the instance in 3:13!) > > (I see you consistently double the "s" in "emess". Why? If the sav had > a dageish, it would be a tav, not "ss".) It's to duplicate the /sound/ (not the lettering) of the word as it would be in English, for a careful English-reading person. (Not that I'm sure there are many of those around...) In contemporary English spelling, one "s" at the end of a word that ends in ''e'' is pronounced hard, like a ''z'' (shines, pines, processes); the soft ''s'' added to words that end in "e" is indicated by two ''s'' 's (process, ingress, mess). But we digreSS.... Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 5 03:54:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2015 06:54:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Science and Halachah - The Trumpeting Stone Message-ID: <20150605105427.GA27466@aishdas.org> This stone, at the excacations south of the Kotel, apparently marked a location where the shofar would be blown on Fri afternoon to warn people about the approaching and arrival of Shabbos. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trumpeting_Place_inscription It says "lebeis hateqi'ah lh[k?b?]" and was at the corner of Har haBayis. My obaervation is about the font. Notice the base of the lamed, which is a diagonal. The same is true of the Qumran texts and of texts from the Cairo Geniza. but this pushes the date for this tradition of script back to Herod's rebuilding of the BHMQ. This kind of lamed is also found in Kesav Vellish, that used in Sepharadi sta"m, but not in Kesav Beis Yoseif or the other Ashkenazi variants. http://sofercenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/different-ksavim.jpg Now, the stone is in far from the formal Ashuris required for Sifrei Torah, but if Kesav Beis Yoseif is correct, why aren't other fonts from the period more similar? If this does indicate a preference for one script over the other, we could discuss how the various approaches to Halakhah and Science would handle this case. {In terms of being yotzei, I think the only problem Ashkenazim have with the Sepharadi kesav is that variants that predate the Chida lack Rabbei Tam's qutzo shel yud. And since the popularity of the Ben Ish Chai, this issue has become very rare. Lehalakhah, the Tur, Noda biYhudah, Tzitz Eliezer and R' Ovadiah all alow using the other's sefer. Even with the spelling differences!) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is equipped with such far-reaching vision, micha at aishdas.org yet the smallest coin can obstruct his view. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 5 08:16:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2015 15:16:42 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong Message-ID: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Continuing the discussion from Areivim... R' Joseph Kaplan wrote: > About some things there is a right and a wrong; it is right > to fast on Yom Kippur and wrong to eat. But not everything > fits so neatly into categories of right and wrong. Micha > didn't like my example of Women learning Talmud was wrong, > then it was right. In fact, now it's both right (MO) and > wrong (Hareidi)." He argues that it is possible for > something to be right in one setting and wrong in another. I don't see the distinction between women learning vs eating on Yom Kippur. Women learning is right in some settings (such as where an unlearned woman would be in a spiritual sakana) and wrong in others (the ideal or traditional situation). In the same manner, eating on Yom Kippur is right in some settings (where the person would be in a medical sakana) and wrong in others (where the person is physically healthy). For that matter, learning is dependent on the setting even for a man: In most settings, it is right for a Jewish man to learn Torah, but not if he is in aveilus, or if he is davening, or if he is in other situations where the learning would conflict with another mitzvah. My point is that EVERYTHING depends on the setting. (I once tried to think of a positive or negative mitzvah which is totally independent of setting, and which always applies under all imaginable circumstances. The only one I could come up with is Avodah Zara. If anyone wants to continue that thought, please start a new thread.) Anyway, getting back to *this* thread, which is about whether right and wrong are absolutes decreed by G-d, or whether they are subject to the opinions of the Sanhedrin or others, I was reminded of an interesting gemara. As translated by http://www.torah.org/learning/maharal/p2m10part2.html it reads: > Eruvin (13b): For two and a half years Beith Shammai and > Beith Hillel argued. These [Beith Shammai] said "It is > better for man not to have been created than to have been > created." And those [Beith Hillel] said "It is better for > man to have been created." Together, they [reviewed the > opinions and] reached a consensus: ... I left out their conclusion, because it is not really so critical to this thread. What *IS* critical is the fact that they had the chutzpah to even discuss this question at all. There is a thought in this thread that if G-d does something, then it is good by definition. Yet Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai considered the possibility that G-d had another option which was even better than the option that He did choose. This sounds to me like a good argument for the view that people (or at least certain people, such as the Sanhedrin) CAN decide what is right and what is wrong. Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 5 14:41:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2015 17:41:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong In-Reply-To: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <557217A4.4010309@sero.name> On 06/05/2015 11:16 AM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: >> >Eruvin (13b): For two and a half years Beith Shammai and >> >Beith Hillel argued. These [Beith Shammai] said "It is >> >better for man not to have been created than to have been >> >created." And those [Beith Hillel] said "It is better for >> >man to have been created." > There is a thought in this thread that if G-d does something, then it > is good by definition. Yet Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai considered the > possibility that G-d had another option which was even better than the > option that He did choose. The discussion was not about what is good or right, but about what is better *for a person*. What is in the person's interest. "Noach lo le'adam". What G-d chooses for a person is right, but who says it's "noach lo"? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 12:49:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2015 21:49:38 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] Right/wrong In-Reply-To: <5571BB83.7010500@sero.name> References: <73824318-9EAD-43A2-924A-23983726765C@tenzerlunin.com> <55704A19.7000001@sero.name> <20150604182845.GA18772@aishdas.org> <557113ED.9080608@zahav.net.il> <5571BB83.7010500@sero.name> Message-ID: <55734ED2.8020702@zahav.net.il> Moved from Areivim. It is a case of muttar and assur, which in this case I am equating with right and wrong. For this person, something is muttar and for the other it is pasul. The way I see, it would be absolutely wrong for the wealthier person to eat his chicken, and absolutely wrong for the poorer person to throw his chicken away. Correct, popular opinion doesn't play a part in this one. Ben On 6/5/2015 5:08 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > > That's not a question of right and wrong, From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 17:19:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 01:19:52 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> R' Ysoscher Katz writes: ... <> And yet ironically RYK's experience in Satmar and Brisk would seem to confirm the sense of what Maimonides did. RYK was only the object and fool of Maimonides "seventh reason" because he was immersed in a society that had built very high walls against the risk of engaging with philosophy. Contrast his experience to mine. I read the Guide at fourteen - long before I had any real exposure to the Yad. Why? Because I grew up in a society in which it was more acceptable for girls to read philosophic texts than it was to learn and engage with halachic texts. And indeed, a translation of the Guide was published and available in English, in my shul library, whereas the Mishna Torah, which was no doubt there (I don't remember), was only in Hebrew and would have been in the "halachic" section that only boys (and scholarly boys at that) were expected to access. Even more, when I started asking questions, the librarian pointed me in the direction of the philosophy works, which included the Guide, that is how I got to it. It was just assumed that if somebody was asking theological questions, that was the place to go. So by the time, much, much later, that I read the relevant portions of the Mishna Torah, I already knew Maimonides' philosophic works in some depth, and layered them on to anything in the Yad. And yet Maimonides was surely right, had the Yad contained the opinions expressed in the Guide, in any detectable way, there is no way a society like Satmar and Brisk would have allowed it into their hallowed betei midrash - and what a loss to the halachic world that would have been. What occurred to RYK is merely a by-product and inevitable consequence (if you step outside) of what Satmar/Brisk have created. Not what Maimonides created. He created a work which, in any society that valued philosophy, would be available to those who sought it. And this is why RYK's experience is unlikely to occur in any true Modern Orthodox setting. Because curious, searching teenagers will inevitably take advantage of what is available in languages they can read in their local libraries (assuming they are encouraged to go there, and such libraries are not off limits), and hence, while they might (hopefully) be exposed to the Mishna Torah earlier than I was, they will certainly have the opportunity, and if that way inclined, are likely to take the opportunity of exploring at least the introduction to the Guide. <> Now this I find- well perhaps touchingly naive to the point of bizarre. Not the characterisation of the two most dramatic changes, necessarily, but the idea that "the pioneers of both these changes were driven, at least in part, by Chassidic ethos". Of the two, the claim regarding female Talmud scholarship is the most odd. Chassidic groups have been at the forefront of those fighting a rearguard action against women's exposure to any form of text, not least Talmudic and halachic text. Satmar in particular - I recall once standing in a bookshop in Boro Park, perusing a book (written clearly by somebody from the Satmar derech) who had gathered together all the sources on the evils of giving women access to any text - but most fundamentally, horror of horrors, to Rashi al haChumash. It was of course, an attack on what is taught in Beis Ya'akov. The position advocated being that at most, girls should be taught in school the stories of the Tanach, outside and without any recourse at all to reading in original. Lubavitch, I agree, was and is in this regard unusual amongst the Chassidic groups. But, growing up in Melbourne, a community heavily dominated by Lubvitchers, I am pretty well acquainted with what was allowed and not allowed vis a vis girls/women and learning from people with reasonably close connections with the Lubavitche Rebbe. Sure, streets ahead of the other Chassidic groups - but more open than the Beis Ya'akovs? - dubiously - although there was a fair bit of flexibility granted when dealing with potential ba'alei teshuva who (it was acknowledged) could be seriously put off by bans on access to knowledge of the nature of that on gemora. But what was granted begrudgingly and in a limited fashion in such circles were standard parts of the curriculum in Modern Orthodox schools (with Maimonides in Boston the flagship in this regard). How high a level a girl was taught in MO environments differed (especially given that often the overall level of kodesh education was not always that high in such schools), but the idea that any of this was driven fundamentally by the Lubavitcher Rebbe is ludicrous. And if you look at Israel and the explosion of women's learning there - not a chassid in sight. R' Kook and Zionism is a more justified charge. While it is hard to describe Rav Kook as a "pioneer" of political Zionism (there were many before him who saw political Zionism as logically arising out of their religious belief), he unquestionably provided serious theological underpinnings justifying the religious being involved in this endeavour, and much of what he wrote is rooted in chassidus. But note of course that the major thinker against was again the Satmar Rebbe - ie chassidus provided, yet again, the most reactionary response to this phenomenon. Which is more typical of chassidus - Rav Kook or the Satmar Rebbe? - I think it is far fairer to say that Rav Kook was the exception, despite his deep roots, and the Satmar Rebbe closer to the rule. And note, while we are on the subject of Rav Kook, that while he was "progressive" regarding political Zionism, he was "regressive" regarding woman voting. Was his attitude towards women's place in society also fuelled by his Chassidic studies? In general, while I do agree that Chassidic thinkers, such as Rav Kook, have a lot to say to "the world we live in today" and that there is something to be said for incorporating aspects of their theology in the pursuit of meaning, I suspect that trying to create "chassidish modern Jews" is an enterprise doomed to failure, and certainly not something that will be able to speak to the modern orthodox world. Why? Firstly because Chassidism is all embracing. I have watched many ba'alei teshuva embrace Chassidism (in lots of forms) over the years - as indeed it has a serious pull for many. I have rarely found one who is attracted that way who ends up in the modern orthodox camp. Where do they usually end up? Well amongst the most extreme Chassidic groups, where they can indulge to the fullest extent. Chassidism become so all embracing that it pushes everything else out. And while this phenomenon is already found amongst Modern Orthodox children going "black". It is certainly not going to save modern Orthodoxy. A further problem is articulated at the beginning of the piece, in relation to RYK's father: > My father is the most non-chassidish Chassid. He does not study > "chassidus," nor does he want to "understand" it. But, however you cut it, those with a modern orthodox upbringing are taught to want to "understand". They are brought up with the scientific method, even if some debunking then occurs in universities. For sure, there are those who reject that in favour of exploration of mystery and experience - but as suggested above, by and large those "go right" - further into the ultra orthodox world. By and large, while the ashrams of India are peopled by many Jews, I don't think very many of them are modern orthodox dropouts. The ones we are losing totally are going left, into the secular mundane world without religious input. Because while they are usually aware of the experiential, it appears to simultaneously contemplate a suffocation of the mind that they cannot swallow (as an ashram also does). Such people are never going to be comfortable in a world in which there is any expectation of not "wanting" to understand. They may perhaps be persuaded to find meaning in the writings of people like Rav Kook, or in other aspects of Chassidic writing, but are likely to be even more repelled by a world that implicitly or explicitly tells them to bin what is the attribute they have been taught to spend most of their life cultivating - their mind. I am probably going to be (metaphorically speaking) shot on this list for even mentioning it, but if you want to see what you get when you mix a modicum of Chassidic plus philosophic inspired thinking in a more "modern" context, you could always look at the German thinkers (including Reform thinkers) of the early twentieth century - people like (particularly) Franz Rosenzweig, not to mention Leo Baeck, Martin Buber, Hermann Cohen. What about Levinas? There is your post modern thinking (but note that it comes out of a Lithuanian background with existentialism and philosophical exploration rather than chassidus). But it is a long way from Maimonidian rationalism (despite of course Maimonides being the father of all this philosophy, but only after it has been through Kant and the existentialists). Avraham Yehoshua Heshel is another example of those attempting to integrate a Chassidic background with modern sensibilities. But since he operated out of the Jewish Theological Seminary, and was closely identified with the Conservative Movement, he probably did more to make such explorations treif to MO thinkers than he did to inspire them to explore. A bigger problem, I think, is that MO in America is so fixated on RYBS, and his particular brand of philosophy, that philosophy linked to Orthodoxy becomes identified only with his particular stance. But there is a much wider world out there, and a philosophical world that does not only relate to transcendence (as RYBS appears to do) but to imminence as well. Are those who speak of paradox/polarity of imminence and transcendence inspired by the imminence of the Chassidic world? Maybe, but it is attenuated, and no longer strictly Chassidic. Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 19:09:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 22:09:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Brisker Theory of Everything In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150607020921.GB7516@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 25, 2015 at 07:15:59PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : 1. The gemara (Ketuvot 5b) discusses whether causing a certain type : of blood flowing is considered a Sabbath violation. The first attempt : to resolve the question turns on whether "mifkad pakid or chaburei : mechbar" (is the blood in the womb stored up or is it the result of a : wound?). Rashi there (please look) seems to define this as a physical : question. Is this acceptable or must we say Rashi was leaving out the : "obvious" philosophical/halachic question (i.e. the physical was known, : it's a question of how to categorize it halachically)? It is very hard to identify a real machloqes in metzi'us. There is a machloqes in the Y-mi about whether rice flower and water makes chameitz. Pesachim 2:4, vilna 17a): Rabbi Yochanan ben Nuri said: Qarmis (millet or something similar) requires [giving] challah [from the dough to a kohein] because it can become chameitz or matzah. And the Rabbis say it doesn't because it can not become chameitz or matzah. So check it! They disagree about the essence of the check (iqar bediqasahh): RYBN said they checked it and found it can become chameitz or matzah. The Rabbanan said they checked it and they didn't find it can become chameitz or matzah. What looked like a machloqes about facts, that could just be checked experimentally, was a machloqes about how to categorize the physical reality. Is that dough a chimutz or a sirchon? I am sure that can be generalized. We could be arguing about metzi'us, but as the gemera asks, why not just check it? More likely, when the metzi'us is in the gray area, the machloqes is about: Where is the line between the categories? : 2. That gemara continues to try to resolve the question and is willing : to entertain the possibility that the halacha is like Rabbi Yehuda : (vs. Rabbi Shimon) in mekalkeil (destroying) and like Rabbi Shimon : (vs. Rabbi Yehuda) in davar sheino mitkavein (the result was not the : major one intended). If these two issues were interconnected, could the : gemara entertain this possibility? I think the gemara is consistent with two posibilities: 1- The two machloqesin are not interconnected. 2- The hava amina as that they were not connected, but the masqanah is that indeed they are. : 3. If the answer to 2 is no, must we assume that when the Shulchan : Aruch said he would decide the psak based on majority 2 of big 3, did : he really mean this as a primary tie breaker, or only when he did not : have a clear understanding of the underlying philosophy that resulted : in their final opinions. As I wrote in the past, I think it's easier to excuse the SA's exceptions to his rule by saying he was talking about the majority when counting consistent positions. Which means the rule is subject to which machloqesin the SA held were interconnected, and therefore which statements on other topics need to also be counted toward he majority. : 4.Is it possible that R'YBS limited his "canon" to only a few major : rishonim (in contradistinction to R" A Lichtenstein) because the more : data points included in trying to determine the underlying theoretical : construct, the more likely a single errant point would skew the results? I would think the reverse: How do you identify an outlier point without getting more full statistics on the data? Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger Worrying is like a rocking chair: micha at aishdas.org it gives you something to do for a while, http://www.aishdas.org but in the end it gets you nowhere. Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 19:16:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 22:16:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir In-Reply-To: <20150528.000433.22403.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150528.000433.22403.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150607021626.GC7516@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 04:04:33AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I will be the first to point out that Lifnei Iveir is one the many : topics where my learning and expertise is severely lacking. Even so, : I suspect that there is something missing from RMB's definition... : It seems to me that RMB is giving a useful tool to distinguish between : category 3 and category 4, but that tool is useful only in the case where : a person already has the *desire* to commit a sin, but it lacking the : *ability* to some degree... Correct. I was only thinking of the original question, and the gemara only discusses the one chiluq -- between lifnei iveir (deOraisa) and mesayeia' (deRabbanan). : But what of the case where a person does *not* yet have a desire to : sin? Rabbi Kaganoff is saying that one who incites or encourages him : to do it is violating Lifnei Iveir. Even if the person already has the : ability to do the sin, it was below his "bechirah point" until he was : egged on to do it... I didn't understand Orpah's offer that way. She was convinced her daughters-in-law "converted" for the sake of marriage; and depending which midrashim you quote, that likely wasn't even an actual conversion. But if Rus didn't really buy into Jewish beliefs, she would be better off not going through a pro-forma conversion than in the same boat as Delilah or Shelomo's wives. Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet micha at aishdas.org about things most people don't watch even on http://www.aishdas.org Yom Kippur. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 21:46:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 07:46:04 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] right/wrong Message-ID: <> comes back to the question of pluralism vs monistic vs tolerant monistic vs harmonism. As discussed before there are opinions on all sides -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 7 04:06:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 07:06:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] right/wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150607110645.GA7126@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jun 07, 2015 at 07:46:04AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : comes back to the question of pluralism vs monistic vs tolerant monistic vs : harmonism. Or, as R Moshe Halberatal cateogired halachic legal theories: Retrival, Accumulative, vs Constitutive. But it only starts there. Here the question is whether 1- any of these positions imply that halakhah is man-made more than the other positions would; and 2- does any of this conversation reflect on the absolute nature of right and wrong on a moral plane? Which also drags in the relationship between halakhah and morality. Divine Command Theory (morality is that which Hashem commanded) may well identify the two. But then, we were hard pressed to find an advocate for DCT, (outside contemporary popularizations). R/DR Y Leibowitz coms close, by saying we exist to follow halakhah, and any attempt to map halakhah to some other value system was one step toward AZ. Someone else might say that halakhah approximates morality, but since it's a blanket rule for all people in many situations, it's only an approximate. That said, once the halakhah is set, preserving it and the morality of the majority of cases has greater moral weight than one loses in the exceptional cases. But getting back to our question, while I consider the two related, I do not think the evolving nature of halakhah reflects morality being a human construction. Rather, I think it's because of two effects: 1- dialectics between concflicting values can yeild different strategies for finding balance between them One therefore finds that a machloqes is resolved by finding one strategy more appropriate for the culture asking the question than another. And if it is not resolved with finality, another culture may have the same question (eg mixes of immigrants with different precdent) and choose a different strategy. As I put it last time: choosing different paths up the mountain doesn't imply that the mountain's altitude is subjective. But this assumes that the linkage between halakhah and morality is that halakhah is a means to becoming moral. 2- changes in reality can cause two similar looking situations to have different moral outcomes. I think the vast majority of seemingly reopened questions are really of this sort. E.g. the categorization of today's dead mutes. We didn't change our belief that demands cannot be made of someone who cannot be taught them -- even if it means a consequent loss of priviliges (if being able to be motzi another is a privilege). The realia of the life of a cheiresh changed. (Over Shabbos I read which misses this point, creating a very bloated list of cases where R' JD Bleich, and most contemporary posqim, allow halakhah to "evolve".) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is our choices...that show what we truly are, micha at aishdas.org far more than our abilities. http://www.aishdas.org - J. K. Rowling Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 7 04:10:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 07:10:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong In-Reply-To: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150607111036.GB7126@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 05, 2015 at 03:16:42PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : There is a thought in this thread that if G-d does something, then it : is good by definition. Yet Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai considered the : possibility that G-d had another option which was even better than the : option that He did choose. Aside from Zev's point, that the machloqes is over which is pleasanter for the person, not which is good... I think the discussion is more what if HQBH tells us to do something, it is good by definition, necessarily good by implication, or somehow more distantly related to morality. (I guess someone could say halakhah is not connected to morality, but I don't see that coming up as an O hashkagah.) : This sounds to me like a good argument for the view that people (or at : least certain people, such as the Sanhedrin) CAN decide what is right : and what is wrong. Can determine, which is still different than the original idea on Areivim, that consensus *defines* morality. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger One who kills his inclination is as though he micha at aishdas.org brought an offering. But to bring an offering, http://www.aishdas.org you must know where to slaughter and what Fax: (270) 514-1507 parts to offer. - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 7 05:52:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2015 08:52:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Torah Scholars and Torah Education for the Masses Message-ID: <20150607125250.7E561182EA1@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is taken from Rav Schwab on Chumash, Parshas Acharei Mos. I have posted the entire selection at http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/tide_chumash_schwab.pdf At all times the Torah's unchanging teachings must be applied to the ever-changing derech eretz. All of our actions, attitudes, relationships to man and beast, and positions within nature and history are subject to the jurisdiction and evaluation of the Torah. What follows is that the Torah scholar should be well informed of the "ways of the Earth." The laws of nature and the paths of history should be known to him. He should be well aware of what happens in the world that surrounds him, for he is constantly called upon to apply the yardstick of halachah and the searchlight of hashkafah to the realities that confront him. What also follows is that the greater the wisdom of Torah, the more crucial it is that this wisdom be conveyed to the Jewish contemporary world. It must be transmitted in a language that our generation understands and that will attract the searching youth, the ignorant, the estranged and the potential ba1al teshuvah to a joyous acceptance of the yoke of Heaven. The Torah leader must be able to dispel the doubts of the doubter and to counter the cynicism of the agnostic. He must, therefore, speak their language masterfully so that he can convince and enlighten them. There is indeed a dire need for gedolei Torah, great Torah scholars, who devote their entire lives to the study and dissemination of Torah. The Jewish world today needs many talmidei chachamim whose life task is to enlighten and inspire it with the love and the fear of G-d. We are ready to accord to those "messengers of G-d" the highest respect and a loyal following. These are the kohanim and levi'im of today. Like the members of the Levitic tribe of old, they are to serve all the other tribes and teach them the living Torah. Yet education and leadership cannot function in a vacuum. Therefore it becomes mandatory for the present day "Tribe of Levi" to initiate and encourage an educational system that can serve the other "eleven tribes who comprise the vast majority of our people. It becomes mandatory for the Torah-conscious educator not to inspire fear of the world and hesitancy to meets its challenges, but rather, to fortify the vast majority of our youth to meet head-on the thousand and one pitfalls of professional and business life. Our youth must be inspired to courageously and intelligently brave the onslaught of scientific arrogance and the sensual poison that is masked as intellectual liberalism. The Divine purpose for which Yisrael was created can be served in every capacity, in every profession, in all human endeavors, as long as they are not excluded by the halachah. ---------- Unfortunately, I do not see many Torah scholars today who are "well informed of the "ways of the Earth." The laws of nature and the paths of history should be known to him. He should be well aware of what happens in the world that surrounds him, for he is constantly called upon to apply the yardstick of halachah and the searchlight of hashkafah to the realities that confront him." I also do not see our educational institutions serving "the other 'eleven tribes' who comprise the vast majority of our people. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 8 09:25:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2015 09:25:43 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] replacement value Message-ID: secular law [US] recognizes that one need is not liable replace a lost item with a new one ie if you lost my used IPAD [which happened in fact this month to us] you don't owe me the value of a new one , but rather some pro-rated amount accounting for wear and tear. what does bais din require? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 9 14:17:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2015 17:17:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] replacement value In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150609211745.GA4160@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 08, 2015 at 09:25:43AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : secular law [US] recognizes that one need is not liable replace a lost : item with a new one... what does bais din : require? According to the Business Halakhah Institute : Many years ago I borrowed a Chumash with commentaries from a local beis medrash. I forgot to return it and eventually misplaced the sefer and I do not recall which volume I borrowed. It was "borrowed", ie no reshus was asked. ... [Skipping from opening paragraph to bottom line...] Someone who borrowed a sefer without permission is obligated to return the sefer, the same as any other thief. Even if the owner despaired of retrieving it, e.g., he bought a new set, the obligation to return it remains in force (C.M. 354:2 and 360:5). If the sefers condition changed dramatically (shinui) or if it was lost altogether, the borrower is obligated to repay the value of the sefer (C.M. 360:5). In your case, since the sefer you borrowed is missing, there is no obligation to replace the actual sefer. Your obligation is to repay the beis medrash the sefers value at the time you borrowed it. In other words, you would pay the value of a used sefer rather than a new sefer, and there is no need to pay for a complete set. But then, maybe that's under Gittin 55b, not making a ganav tear down his house in order to return a stolen beam he built into it. But that halakhah is to facilitate teshuvah after theft. And so I won't generalized. Also for hezeq, I know a maziq pays for his damage, and therefore only has to pay replacement value -- what it would take to make things right again. But again, your case, a shomer or sho'el returning a lost item, could be different. I didn't yet find it. But I haven't entirely given up... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A cheerful disposition is an inestimable treasure. micha at aishdas.org It preserves health, promotes convalescence, http://www.aishdas.org and helps us cope with adversity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' SR Hirsch, "From the Wisdom of Mishlei" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 9 14:17:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2015 17:17:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] replacement value In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150609211745.GA4160@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 08, 2015 at 09:25:43AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : secular law [US] recognizes that one need is not liable replace a lost : item with a new one... what does bais din : require? According to the Business Halakhah Institute : Many years ago I borrowed a Chumash with commentaries from a local beis medrash. I forgot to return it and eventually misplaced the sefer and I do not recall which volume I borrowed. It was "borrowed", ie no reshus was asked. ... [Skipping from opening paragraph to bottom line...] Someone who borrowed a sefer without permission is obligated to return the sefer, the same as any other thief. Even if the owner despaired of retrieving it, e.g., he bought a new set, the obligation to return it remains in force (C.M. 354:2 and 360:5). If the sefers condition changed dramatically (shinui) or if it was lost altogether, the borrower is obligated to repay the value of the sefer (C.M. 360:5). In your case, since the sefer you borrowed is missing, there is no obligation to replace the actual sefer. Your obligation is to repay the beis medrash the sefers value at the time you borrowed it. In other words, you would pay the value of a used sefer rather than a new sefer, and there is no need to pay for a complete set. But then, maybe that's under Gittin 55b, not making a ganav tear down his house in order to return a stolen beam he built into it. But that halakhah is to facilitate teshuvah after theft. And so I won't generalized. Also for hezeq, I know a maziq pays for his damage, and therefore only has to pay replacement value -- what it would take to make things right again. But again, your case, a shomer or sho'el returning a lost item, could be different. I didn't yet find it. But I haven't entirely given up... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A cheerful disposition is an inestimable treasure. micha at aishdas.org It preserves health, promotes convalescence, http://www.aishdas.org and helps us cope with adversity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' SR Hirsch, "From the Wisdom of Mishlei" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 10 18:52:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 01:52:34 GMT Subject: [Avodah] 100% Vegetable oils etc. Message-ID: <20150610.215234.27464.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> On Areivim, R' Martin Brody wrote: > If any such ingredient of an ingredient was non-kosher, it would be > batel b'shishim, (more likely nullified by thousands). For those > that are interested, the London Beth Din is not concerned with > "flavourings" as an ingredient for this very reason. This surprises me. I would think that non-kosher flavorings cannot be batel. Bitul is a mathematical procedure by which we can presume that the non-kosher ingredient is not noticeable. But in the case of flavorings (and colorings and maamads), if its presence were not noticeable, then the manufacturer would not go to the trouble and expense of including it. Therefore (I would think) that its presence proves that it *is* noticable, overriding the presumption. Rabbi Binyomin Forst's "The Laws of Kashrus" (ArtScroll) says on page 98, "If, however, the mixture was sampled and the non-kosher taste was noticeable, the mixture may not be eaten, even though it was batel b'shishim. (Shach 98:4)" What other views are there? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5578ea0af09296a0a79abst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 07:41:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 10:41:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Worker or Craftsman Message-ID: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> How do we view the task of life? Is a person an po'el, paid for his time? Implying, it's our job to do good while here on earth, but the determining factor is the duration? Or is a person an uman, paid to get a particular job done. We're put on earth to get some specific accomplishment. The Zohar suggests something more like an uman when it uses an idiom like "ana avda deQBH". Admittedly an eved does not get paid for his time, but an eved is for the duration, whether until shemittah, until yovel, or for the rest of his life. However, in Shaar haGilgulim we get all this talk about a person having a tafqid, and how if they fail to get the job done, they could be given a second chance. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger What you get by achieving your goals micha at aishdas.org is not as important as http://www.aishdas.org what you become by achieving your goals. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Henry David Thoreau From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 07:46:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 10:46:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Color names In-Reply-To: <221167CA3A2A46908C9CA2A3474664EA@webhost.local> References: <221167CA3A2A46908C9CA2A3474664EA@webhost.local> Message-ID: <20150611144639.GF20169@aishdas.org> RZLampel and I discused this once, I think here. If not, the topic could be of interest anyway. So, rather than checking the archive (which is difficult, given the number of tekheiles discussions) I am just sharing either way. -micha Shabbat B'Shabbato Translated by Moshe Goldberg Machon Zomet ... What Is That Phrase? Green Sky? Yaacov Etzion At the end of this week's Torah portion, we are given a command, "Let them place on the tzitzit at the corner a thread of 'techelet.'" [Bamidbar 15:38]. Rashi explains that techelet is "the 'yarok' color of a snail." Any speaker of modern Hebrew can only wonder at this. Why does Rashi call the blue color of techelet "yarok" -- that is, green? Well, it is not only Rashi that calls techelet "yarok." It is an explicit ruling that appears in the Shulchan Aruch: "The color white is ritually pure, as is the look of 'yarok,' even if it has the look of wax or of gold. And this certainly includes the 'yarok' of leek or grass (and also the color that is called 'blue' is included in 'yarok')" [Hilchot Nidda, 188]. We are not interested at this point in the details of the halacha but rather in the fact that the RAMA writes that the color "blue" is called "yarok" in our traditional sources. Our sages spoke of four main colors: shachor (black), lavan (white), adom (red), and yarok. And "yarok" included yellow, orange, blue, and turquoise of today. For example, it happens quite often that a newborn baby is a bit yellow right after its birth. But the Tosefta calls this color "yarok." Rabbi Natan says the following: "When I was in the Land of Kapotakia, there was a woman who had given birth to boys... They brought him to me, and I saw that he was 'yarok'... I looked at him and did not find any blood for circumcision..." [Shabbat 134a]. Moreover, in the wording of the ROSH in his halachic rulings the word yarok as used by the sages is not our color green (which they call "yarok as a leek") but is yellow or orange. "This shows that the word yarok is similar to the yolk of an egg or to gold, which has a tinge of red." Among other sources, the ROSH bases his decision on the words of the verse, "the wings of a dove coated with silver and its limbs the 'yerakrak' of gold" [Tehillim 68:14]. Yerakrak is clearly the color of gold, that is, yellow. The words for orange (katom) and blue (kachol) were instituted in modern times by Zeev Yavetz. This was reported by David Yalin in the newspaper "Hatzevi" in 1887: "When I spoke to my uncle the illustrious rabbi and investigator Rabbi Zeev Yavetz, he said to me that he wants to fill what is missing in our language for the names of two colors, the color of techelet and the color of the yoke of an egg." Yavetz proposed that techelet should be called kachol and that the yoke should be called "ketem," which in the holy writings refers to gold or to the color of gold. (An example appears in the following verse: "Woe, the gold is dim, the good 'ketem' has changed" [Eichah 4:1].) Yavetz wanted to use the word katom for the color of yellow (which we call tzahov), since he felt that tzahov "includes a bit of red" (as per a note by Yalin). But as time went on, katom became the color orange, as we use it today. Thus, the word "yarok" changed in meaning during the years, as did "tzahov." However, "techelet" evidently kept its original meaning, and it remains similar to the color of the sea, which is similar to the color of the sky, and this reminds us of the Divine Throne of Glory. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 09:34:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 12:34:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Worker or Craftsman In-Reply-To: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> References: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5579B89C.8060902@sero.name> On 06/11/2015 10:41 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Is a person an po'el, paid for his time? Implying, it's our job to do > good while here on earth, but the determining factor is the duration? > > Or is a person an uman, paid to get a particular job done. We're put on > earth to get some specific accomplishment. Eruvin 65a: Anan po`alei diy'mamei anan. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 11:17:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 14:17:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> References: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> Message-ID: <20150611181746.GI20169@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 2, 2015 at 4:27pm I forwarded an essay by RYK that had appeared on R/Dr Alan Brill's blog, Kavvanah. In it he proposes from personal experience that MO would be enhanced by shifting away from its focus on RYBS's Briskkeit and in particular that elements of his Hungarian Chassidic birth community would be of great value. : Personally, my rejection of the Maimonidean ethos and realization of : the degree to which chassidut can speak to the modern searcher was a : long and arduous process. It came about as a result of a deep sense : of betrayal by Maimonides, the champion of Rationalist Judaism. I for : many years was the object and fool of Maimonides "the seventh reason" : as presented in his introduction to the Guide by not seeing his : philosophic views. In that passage, Maimonides condones misleading : the masses for their greater good, even to the point of advocating : contradictory ideas for different audiences and then obscuring those : contradictions. : Growing up in Satmar and then Brisk, I was oblivious to his : non-halakhic writings and led to believe that he fully and literally : believed every word he wrote in the Yad... I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." And in fact, that was the whole point of the project -- to outline all of halakhah, to document the TSBP. Not to hint at something for the meivinim without risking that the hoi palloi mistake his words in a heretical way. It's simply not meaningful concept for a book he titled Mishneh Torah. I am uncomfortably using the Rambam as a poster boy for rationalism. In the Rambam's day, science hadn't been invented yet. Claims about physics weren't based on emprical proof and experimental process. It was Natual Philosophy, and the weight of an a priori argument. A lot of it really ended up on reliabilism; deeming the Greeks as reliable sources on such things -- after 1,5000 years of their theories reigning. And therefore, quite honestly, much the same kind of thought that we use to accept mesorah. The word rationalism changed meaning. What I think we really mean is a willingness to be meqabel es ha'emes mimi she'omro, rather than take a maximalist attitude toward mesoretic and Torah-derived statements. But that's quite a bit meta from anyone today using the Moreh as a foundational element of their hashkafah. In particular, RYK mentions three items he believes would enhance MO: : 1) Truth. We live in a post-modern world where objective truth is : rejected and absolute claims are frowned upon. I would go as far as to : say that rationalism (in the general and colloquial sense) as a source : for Emunah is bankrupt, it increasingly speaks to fewer people... I don't think it ever worked. As one of my favorite truisms goes: The mind is a wonderful organ for justifying decisions the heart already reached. People accept the rational argument that fits the experiential justification that really underlies their beliefs. Aristo thought otherwise, which eventually led to the Qalam and the Scholasticists -- including R' Saadia Gaon and the Rambam. But then Scholasticism collapsed, the scientific method arose, leading to a dispute between the Empiricists and Idealists which in turn forced the discipline of philosophy away from belief in the reality of an objective rigorous proof. Experimental eproof, yes. Incontravertible objective philosopy, not so much. Kant then gets all transcendental, and talks about the synthetic a priori. (Knowing things without proof that don't simply boil down to a matter of translations. In the recent past, I mentioned how we know the Euclidean posulates hold in flat space, that Reimannian ones hold in a spherical space, and our knowledge about morality and ethics.) This was the zeitgeist when the Besh"t lived. (Besh"t 1698-1760; Kant 1724-1804.) Someone who is given a proof whose conclusions don't fit their experience is likely to reject the soundness of the givens / postulates / first principles on which it's based. Just as someone who accepts a proof is making synthetic judgments about the quality of the foundations of that proof before even making an analytic decision that the logic seems sound. So even if no one makes a logic error, every proof relies on interpretation of experience. RYBS was not a rationalist in this sense. Brisk is very experiential, to the point of eschewing the study of hashkafah altogether. They are rational when it comes to how to learn, but the value of learning is in the experience of learning. When RYBS does do philosophy, he calls it halachic hermeneutics. Neo-Kantian and Existentialist observations of what halakhah says to the one following it about life. He makes no claims about the function or cause of halakhah, he makes few theological observations. For example, to RYBS tzimtzum speaks mostly to the value of anavah as an emulation of His "Retreat" to give us room. RYBS's Neo-Kantianism is a very different project than the Rambam's Scholasticism. ... : However, during those rare occasions when they do pay attention to the : biblical "stories," their orientation is a-rational. They absolutely : "believe" those stories, but their belief is internal: it is true : because it happened in the Torah. That is where these events transpire : and that is where these stories matter. Asking about their historicity : is, as far as they are concerned, foolish and missing the point. And also a given. It may not be stated as the point, but the confidence given to authority which is a necessary component of the rebbe-chassid relationship means accepting Chazal's historical and scientific claims as being from ruach haqodesh. And not stam as meshalim. The kind of agnosticism about the historicity of medrashic material you are recommending we import Chassidus to justify would itself leave a chassid aghast. And even after citing the long chain of rishonim and acharonim who speak against assuming medrashic stories are historical, And you want to extend that beyond medrashic stories into foundational stories in Tanakh and maybe in the chumash as well? Given my above assertion that the only thread that runs consistently through "rationalism" from the Rambam to today is to choose qabel es ha'emes mimi she'omro over taking some baal mesorah's statement maximally, one actually needs what's left of the Rambam's hashkafic legacy to accomplish this, not Chassidus. : 2) Spiritualization. As scholars have pointed out, chassidic teachings : contain elements of spiritual psychology. They provide us with a : language which helps us infuse our lives with meaning. One can point : to many examples where this psychological spiritualization occurs in : chassidut, I will mention two of them. : 3) Social Change. One of the most pressing tensions in the community : is how to reconcile our values with our convictions; what to do : when halakha points us in one direction and our values in another : direction. We are tempted to follow our values but pulled to abide by : our halakhic commitments.... : Chassidut is very explicit about the value of religious aggression. The : following two quotes are often encountered in chassidic writings, : "even a thief says a prayer before he breaks in to his victim's home" : (quoted on the margin of Brachot 63A, from the Frankfurt manuscript), : and "an aggressive stance towards the Divine bears results" (Sanhedrin : 105A). While the provenance of these texts is Talmudic, they take on : significant prominence in Chassidic theology. They become the impetus : for an aggressive theology which is informed by a religiosity that : sees itself driven by a Divine immanence which infuses our values and : ethical intuitions with spiritual resonance, subsequently leading to : radical societal change. : Such change is actually an integral part of Chassidic social history. : When one looks at recent major changes in traditional Jewish society : it is hard not to notice that the forerunners were often Chassidim. The : last sixty years have seen far reaching social and political change. Both of these are not specific to Chassidus, but would be true of any Ism that draws attention fo the notion that halakhah is merely a "floor" rather than the sum total of behavioral expectations. For that matter, self development and societal needs are both more central to Mussar than chassidus. Pretty much its defning features, really. Which (aside being my own pony in this race) has the advantage of being closer to being consistent with MO's current gestalt; it's easier to get from here to there. OTOH Chaasidic maximalism means that statements made in the past have to be accepted as being from ruach haqodesh, and consequently change in these communities is minimized. Not only because isolation is part of the survival strategy, but because of reverence for and desire to emulate Chassidic isolation is indeed part of their survival stategy. It's hard to leave when you know no other social context and speak with an accent. And knowing that you stand for something greater than yourself in the eyes of those who see your uniform makes it harder to sin. (Harder, not impossible.) But it's not one of the three elements of Chassidus RYK wrote about. : The two most dramatic changes that have happened is that Jews are now : sovereign and women have made significant progress in their pursuit of : religious equality. The pioneers of both these changes were driven, at : least in part, by a chassidic ethos. R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson, : the Rebbi of Lubavitch, was one of the first orthodox scholars to : champion female Talmud scholarship, while R. Avraham Yitzchak Kook, : a serious student of Chassidut, was an outspoken early proponent of : a Zionist state. RAYK is a student of the Leshem, and thus of the Gra's school of Qabbalah. Not Chassidus. You might be able to make a more generic argument for a need for more Qabbalah in MO. Personally, I'm an engineer by inclination, not just training, and my own head doesn't lean that way. Although I had more success with the Leshem Haqdamos uShe'arim, which incidentally heavily draws from the Moreh and Yesodei haTorah, than I did with Qela"ch Pischei Chokhmah, the later parts of Derekh H' or Tomer Devorah after ch. 1. At least in the golah this might be true; in Israel, those of the DL community who are an appropriate audience for Qabbalah already have RAYK in numerous interpretations. Also, Chassidus's approach to Qabbalah puts the Ari Za"l on an even higher pedestal than the Gra did, and elevate R Chaim Vital from *a* talmid of the Ari to his sole authorized presenter. The Gra is willing to question something from RCV that chassidim would literally consider Torah min haShamayim. Which, for the more socially and humanistically minded, might well turn Eitz Chaim 49 ch. 3 into a show stopper. (But this isn't the place to discuss it.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Never must we think that the Jewish element micha at aishdas.org in us could exist without the human element http://www.aishdas.org or vice versa. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 06:48:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 09:48:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <20150611181746.GI20169@aishdas.org> References: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> <20150611181746.GI20169@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150612134802.GA12483@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 2:17 I wrote: : What I think we really mean is a willingness to be meqabel es ha'emes : mimi she'omro, rather than take a maximalist attitude toward mesoretic : and Torah-derived statements. But that's quite a bit meta from anyone : today using the Moreh as a foundational element of their hashkafah. ... : Given my above assertion that the only thread that runs consistently : through "rationalism" from the Rambam to today is to choose qabel es : ha'emes mimi she'omro over taking some baal mesorah's statement maximally... The thought hit me this morning that there is another and drastically different way to view this point. "Qabel es ha'ames mimi she'omro" is a bit of a circularity. Obviously we want to accept the truth from whomever says it, and not errors. So we're deciding what is true /before/ we decide to accept it, not /because/ we accept it. We could therefore say that the single consistent theme we associate with throwing the word "rationalism" about is critical thought. When we judge Aristo's, Copernicus's, Darwin's or Einstein's thought as true, do we second guess that asessment, or accept their ideas as true? And consequently we can phrase this chiluq a third way: As being abut how much authority we give rabbinic works in comparison to how much we trust our own critical thinking. The higher the pedestal we put the historical rabbinate, the more of their statements one would logically choose to suspend judgment and accept. (Not only accept, but accept as literal.) As for the original premise... Rather than looking to RYK's or anyone else's ideas as to what from Chassidus would most benefit MO, perhaps we should look at the Neo-Chassidic phenomenon to see de facto what MO Jews who are open to such experimentation are drawn to. And if those two questions yeild different answers, why? :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger What we do for ourselves dies with us. micha at aishdas.org What we do for others and the world, http://www.aishdas.org remains and is immortal. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Albert Pine From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 06:55:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 09:55:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What FDA Learned About Dark Chocolate and Milk Allergies In-Reply-To: <557A5564.7040807@zahav.net.il> References: <20150611174606.4DC6F181DFA@nexus.stevens.edu> <5579E680.2050607@zahav.net.il> <5579E319.7070103@sero.name> <557A5564.7040807@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <20150612135524.GC12483@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 05:43:32AM +0200, Ben Waxman via Areivim wrote: : This story came out here a few years ago when some kid had an : allergic reaction to parve chocolate. The product had a Badatz Eida : Chareidit heksher. The heksher was fine, they didn't make a mistake. : The amount of milk in the chocolate was much, much less than 1/60. Assuming the allergic reaction isn't lifethreatening so that the child is not prohibited from eating the chocolate on those grounds... Say they're a chocoholic and chose to eat the chocolate shortly after eating meat. Mi ma nafshach for everyone else it's batel. But do we say that since for them it's detectible, bitul doesn't apply? :-)BBii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 14:24:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 21:24:59 GMT Subject: [Avodah] What FDA Learned About Dark Chocolate and Milk Allergies Message-ID: <20150611.172459.6802.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 11:01:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 14:01:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If and When Message-ID: <20150612180148.GA7261@aishdas.org> R' Yishmael famously (Mechilta BaChodesh-Yisro 11, Mishpatim 182 or ) says that "im" usually means that the decision is up to you, but three times it's a chiyuv: - "Im mizbach avanim ta'aseh Li" (Shemos 20:21) - "Im kesef talveh es ami" (Shemos 22:24) - "Im taqriv minchas bikurim" (Vayiqra 2:14) This is often explained in English as saying that "im" usually means "if", but in these cases it takes on the rarer second meaning of "when". I would prefer to propose a single common interpretation. LAD, "im" introduces an implication -- X implies Y. When X is a conditional, then so will the Y that depends on it. When X is always obligated, then Y will also be always obligated, but the "allways" is because X is. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 13 19:40:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 04:40:37 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Why Chassidut Message-ID: <557CE9A5.6090303@zahav.net.il> From Rav Yehoshua Shapira (my quick translation) The idea that Chassidut?s positive atmosphere isn?t obligatory is a serious mistake. Not only is it obligatory, but it brings with it more obligations. Without emphasis on the Mitzvot of ahava and yirah, simcha and deveikut (which are the soul of the 613 mitzvot) the mitzvot remain external actions, technical, something which doesn?t affect or uplift the heart and soul. Those doreitta mitzvot, which are the pinimiot of all mitzvoth, demand from a person and from us to give their entire being when doing a mitzvah. . . .. In the performance of mitzvoth, God wants our hearts. Therefore, Chassidut definitely demands deep dedication. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 15:34:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ysoscher via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 18:34:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed Message-ID: <073EBBC1-7CA3-4E26-BA35-4A9007B1EAE4@gmail.com> Chana, Three quick points: 1) You are making the mistake many others are making as well, conflating chassidim with chassidut. Chassidic life today has very little to do with original chassidut. Early chassidut was a revolutionary theological movement which appealed to a small elitist group. As time went by more people started joining. As the masses joined, the theology became diluted. The theologically influenced practices reminded but the ethos became stagnant. Therefore, your attempt to disprove my thesis from the way Chassidim behave today is wrong. I'm advocating for chassidic theology which was prevalent during the first and second generation of the chassidic movement, people like the Besht, the Magid, the Toldos Yakov Yosef, Reb Nachaman, the Ba'al Hatanye and others. I have no doubt that their philosophy informed Rav Kook and Lubavitcher Rebbe when dealing with tensions between Halacha and modernity. And, their philosophy can help us today as well. Incorporating a chassidic ethos would allow us to infuse our encounters with modernity with kedusha and meaning. Which brings me to my second point. 2) Kabbakah and chassidut isn't about warmth and community. It's a highly sophisticated philosophical system which offers a nuanced alternative to the Maimonidean/rationalist approach. While the approach is a-rational, it isn't irrational. However, more to the point, the warmth and sense of community is a byproduct of this theology, not its primary focus. 3) Finally, I'm not sure I understand your point about the Rambam. The Rambam says that he believes it is justified to fool and mislead the masses. That to me is highly problematic. Rabbi Ysoscher Katz Chair, Department of Talmud, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School; Director of the Lindenbaum Center for Halakhic Studies; Educational Director of Judaic Studies, Luria Academy, Brooklyn, NY.; Rabbi, Prospect Heights Shul. E-mail: ysoscher at gmail.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 07:00:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 14:00:32 GMT Subject: [Avodah] If and When Message-ID: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > R' Yishmael famously (Mechilta BaChodesh-Yisro 11, Mishpatim 182 > or ) says that "im" usually means that the > decision is up to you, but three times it's a chiyuv: > - "Im mizbach avanim ta'aseh Li" (Shemos 20:21) > - "Im kesef talveh es ami" (Shemos 22:24) > - "Im taqriv minchas bikurim" (Vayiqra 2:14) ... > LAD, "im" introduces an implication -- X implies Y. ... > When X is always obligated, then Y will also be always > obligated, but the "always" is because X is. If I'm understanding you correctly, your logic will work only if there is another pasuk somewhere which *already* obligates us to build a mizbe'ach of stone, to lend money without interest, and to bring bikkurim in this manner. If so, then a fuller translation can be written with the word "if", and without the word "when", like this: : (You are already obligated to build a stone mizbe'ach, and) : if (today is the day that) you will build a stone mizbe'ach, : you will not build it from cut stones... But I thought that R' Yishmael's whole point is that THESE ARE the source pesukim for those mitzvos, and that there are NO other pesukim which obligate you to do these things. That's why R' Yishmael made the whole point of stressing that these "im"s really mean "when". His fear was that if we translate "im" as "if", then someone might think these pesukim are like Hilchos Gittin: "IF you get divorced, here is the right way to do it, and IF you make a stone mizbe'ach, here is the right way." R' Yishmael's point is that there is no "if" - you MUST do these things, and WHEN you do it, this is how. So over Shabbos, I tried to verify my idea. Thanks to RMB, who quoted not only the 3 pesukim, but identified their location, it was pretty simple to look them up in the Torah Temimah. But what I found was rather odd. Torah Temimah Shmos 20:127 quotes R' Yishmael in the Mechilta, pretty much the same way that RMB did, and points out that this is NOT the source for the obligation for build a stone mizbe'ach - that is in Ki Savo. This RMB's logic fits: "If (today is the day that) you build a stone mizbe'ach, don't build it of cut stones." Please note: In the excerpt of the Mechilta which the Torah Temimah quotes regarding the mizbe'ach, R' Yishmael says that there are 3 cases where "im" is not optional, but the other two are not specified. This is very different than the Torah Temimah about lending money. Torah Temimah Shmos 22:198 does quotes R' Yishmael in the Mechilta, but it doesn't mention the word "im" explicitly, nor is there any reference to two other cases. He simply asks whether it is a reshus or a chovah to lend money, and he answers that the obligation appears in Parshas Re'eh. I find it curious that this Mechilta is worded so differently than the previous one, but the message is clearly the same. Finally, we have the pasuk about bikkurim. It turns out that the Torah Temimah on this pasuk doesn't mention R' Yishmael at all. It does mention R' Yehudah, but from the Toras Kohanim, and not from the Mechilta. Further, my unlearned reading of R' Yehudah had little or nothing to do with the reshus/chovah question, but Torah Temimah Vayikra 2:80 DID see a reshus/chovah question that troubled R' Yehudah. I am left with several questions, the main one being whether or not Bikkurim really was R' Yishmael's third "im". And that's where I'll leave this thread, for more skilled minds to investigate should they be so inclined. Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/557d895b6e89195a4573st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 10:27:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 13:27:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If and When In-Reply-To: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150614172744.GA27133@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 02:00:32PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : > LAD, "im" introduces an implication -- X implies Y. : ... : > When X is always obligated, then Y will also be always : > obligated, but the "always" is because X is. : : If I'm understanding you correctly, your logic will work only if : there is another pasuk somewhere which *already* obligates us to build a : mizbe'ach of stone, to lend money without interest, and to bring bikkurim : in this manner. If so, then a fuller translation can be written with : the word "if", and without the word "when"... In reality, the cited Mechilta actually provides derahos to prove that there is nothing optional about the antecedants. But my point was to suggest that "im" has nothing to do with the maybe-ness of "if". Just the implication bit -- if X then Y, or whenever X then Y, or since X then Y, regardless of whether not-X is a possibility or option. Which would reduce what looks like two definitions for "im" into a single common meaning. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Time flies... micha at aishdas.org ... but you're the pilot. http://www.aishdas.org - R' Zelig Pliskin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 13 22:30:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ysoscher via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 01:30:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> R. Micha, you write "I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." This is pure conjecture, perhaps even wishful thinking. The Rambam shares the 7th principle in which he argues that one may disseminate untruths for the greater good of society. Once he believes that, we are left to wonder about everything he wrote: did he really believe that or was there a political (in the Aristotelian sense) agenda behind it. To then preference the yad over the moreh is a personal bias. You and I as Orthodox Jews would like to believe that he believed every word in the yad and that the stuff he says in the moreh, oftentimes contradicting Chazal and the mesorah, was only said for the greater good of society-he personally didn't believe them. The non-observant philosopher, on the other hand, would say the opposite, that in the Moreh he articulates what he really believed, not in the Yad. Ultimately there's no objective measure to determine who's right. R. Isidore Twersky in his book on the Rambam tried to argue that there is no stira, that the moreh and the yad compliment each other. I don't find his arguments compelling. These two sefarim are incompatible and, ultimately, we are left in the dark, never able to objectively determine which of the two Rambam's sefarim were written with ulterior motives. You then write "I am uncomfortably using the Rambam as a poster boy for rationalism." I am using "rationalism" in a loose colloquial sense. Rambam believed in an evidence based religiosity, that we believe in God because His existence can be proven. That project, IMHO, failed. For every proof proving existence there's a proof to the contrary. That is precisely why I believe that the non-rationalist/Kabbalist approach is a better option. They offer an a-rationalist approach ("a-rational," not to be confused with "irrational," they're not the same). They believe because they chose to believe not-because they are "convinced." Their mehalach is more appealing to our post/modern generation where few people believe in absolute truths, and, it's also truer to our tradition. We were always a a-rational tradition until Maimonides came along and changed that. Which brings me to my next point. You then write "...means accepting Chazal's historical and scientific claims as being from ruach haqodesh. And not stam as meshalim." implying that I believe that stories in Chazal or Torah are meshalim. [Chas lei lezar'eih deAvraham deleimru hakha]; God forbid that I should make such a suggestion. I am saying something radically different. We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims. A faith claim is a religious "belief" not a scientific claim. Two things distinguish the chasid's experience of reading Torah from the philosopher's experience. When the chasid reads those stories he or she a) doesn't pause to ask if it's "true" they just learn it. "Truth" isn't a primary orientation of their encounter with toras Ha'shem. B) In the event that he does pause to ask the "truth" question, his approach is a-rational and unscientific. The truth question, for him or her, is internal to the system as is the solution. It truthfully and absolutely happened in the Torah. It's not denying the claim, it's just ignoring the scientific objective layer. Because the chasid's yiddishkeit happens exclusively in the religious realm. I also think there's a lot of confusion between what I'm arguing and what you're responding to. Briefly: 1) As I wrote to Chana: Chassidim and chassidut is not same. Chassidim today have little to do with chassidut. Contemporary chassidic philosophy is a complete deviation from original chassidut. 2) A-rationalism isn't one iota less sophisticated than rationalism. These are two parallel philosophies each with their own set of nuanced assumptions, postulates, and assumptions. 3) My program has nothing to do with neo-chassidut. NC is a behaviorist movement with very little philosophical underpinning. I'm proposing a theological program which also happens to have behavioral implications. Rabbi Ysoscher Katz Chair, Department of Talmud, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School; Director of the Lindenbaum Center for Halakhic Studies; Educational Director of Judaic Studies, Luria Academy, Brooklyn, NY.; Rabbi, Prospect Heights Shul. E-mail: ysoscher at gmail.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 08:55:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 11:55:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] 100% Vegetable oils etc. (Walker Crisps) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <557DA3F6.8050406@sero.name> On Areivim, Kaganoff wrote: > Zev Sero wrote: >> Kaganoff wrote: >>> Zev Sero wrote: >>>> Kaganoff wrote: >>>>> I would be rather surprised if there was a genuine kashrus concern >>>>> from with the Walker Crisps from any meat contamination. >>>>> Any meat would be batel. >>>> It's flavouring. >>> We hold of bittul b'shishim. >> Only as a general assumption that at that dilution it can't be tasted. >> Not applicable to concentrated flavourings which are designed to be tasted >> at high dilution. > That is a chumrah that you could adopt, but should not force on others. Why do you call it a chumra? Do you deny that the din is about ta`am, not percentage, and bitul beshishim is merely a general assumption that at that level of dilution there is no ta`am? >>> And it's a not a flavoring for this particular product. So it is not >>> avida l'ta'amei, even at less than 60. >> Since when does the fact that it wasn't intended to be in this product make it >> not intended for its taste? > That is why companies spend thousands of dollars perfecting formulas > for what is and is not used in a product. If it is not used as an > ingredient, then it was not meant to flavor this product. Once again, so what? Where did you get this idea that it matters whether it was intended to be in this product? Perhaps you're thinking of nosen ta'am lifgam, and saying that even a pleasant flavour, if it was not intended to be in a particular dish, may be considered a pegam in that dish. But that doesn't work. Suppose a chef created a dish flavoured with lard, but made a mistake; he put in too much, or too little, or didn't cook it long enough, or cooked it too long, or at the wrong temperature, and the final flavour of the dish isn't what he was aiming for. It's pleasant, and the diners eat it up and compliment him, but he knows that it wasn't meant to taste like that, and his recipe needs work. Can you imagine calling that dish pagum, and allowing it to be eaten?! That's obviously not tenable. So how is this case any different? A pleasant and desirable flavour has made its way into a product that wasn't intended to have that flavour. Does that make it pagum?!! No. It's a good product, it's just not the product that's on the label. The product that's on the label is kosher, but the product that's inside the packet is treif, exactly as if a labelling error had occurred. >>>>> Stam Keilim Ain ben Yomo. >>>> Are you joking? That klal is clearly not true in any commercial setting. >>> Why do you assume that it is clearly not true. Or rather you are >>> assuming that in a majority of cases, meat is used the same day as >>> the kosher product. That strikes me as a bit extreme. >> It's not at all extreme. Everyone knows that commercial equipment is almost >> *never* idle for 24 hours at a time. And since the meat flavouring is a >> regular product it stands to reason that it's processed every day. > Do you know this for a fact about this particular plant? Otherwise, > it's an assumption that you can make, as per Chazal. Everyone knows that it's true about *all* commercial equipment. And we have no right to "assume" something we know not to be true. Stam keilim einom bnei yomam is simply not a valid rule in the context of commercial equipment today. >> In any case, the issue here isn't keilim, since the flavouring is cold, and >> sprayed on cold chips. If it were keilim then there would be no bittul >> beshishim, since stam keilim are more than 1/60 of their contents. No, >> the issue here is the residue of actual flavouring that remains in the >> equipment after the meat flavours are run, until it is cleaned. > Which again would be batel within the first few products of the new run. It might be, if we knew the order in which the flavours are run. But they refuse to disclose that information. What we do know is that the plain chips are run first, so they're acceptable. After that all bets are off. There is no way to be sure that the packet of non-meat-flavoured chips you are eating was not the first one off the rank immediately after a meat run. >>>>> It's not Avida L'Ta'amei, etc. >>>> It's precisely avida letaama -- it's a flavouring! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 16:53:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 19:53:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> References: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150614235339.GA15695@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 01:30:46AM -0400, Ysoscher via Avodah wrote: : R. Micha, you write "I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle : applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word : in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think : "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." : : This is pure conjecture, perhaps even wishful thinking. The Rambam : shares the 7th principle in which he argues that one may disseminate : untruths for the greater good of society.... Yes, but he says it in an introduction explaining a particular kind of book -- which the Moreh is, and the Yad isn't. Whereas the Yad self-describes as being Mishneh Torah, explanation, not obfuscation. So why look to the intro to the Moreh to muddle what the Rambam himself says was the point of the Yad? In either case, the Rambam describes Yad and the Peirush haMishnayos a explanations written to be comprehensible to the masses. Moreh 2:35 (el-Qafih ["Kapach"]): Kevar bi'arti likhlal benei adam ... veheivesi ra'ayos al kakh ubirartav bePeirush haMishnah ubeMishneh Torah... : You and I as Orthodox Jews would like to believe that he believed every : word in the yad and that the stuff he says in the moreh, oftentimes : contradicting Chazal and the mesorah, was only said for the greater : good of society-he personally didn't believe them. The non-observant : philosopher, on the other hand, would say the opposite, that in the : Moreh he articulates what he really believed, not in the Yad. Actually, I tend to side with the anti-Mamonidians. Mostly because his model of redemption leaves people like my son Shuby (who has Downs) wandering around the palace with no hope of getting in. (To paraphrase 3:51.) : You then write "I am uncomfortably using the Rambam as a poster boy : for rationalism." : : I am using "rationalism" in a loose colloquial sense... Which is so loose as to be meaningless. The Rambam predated science, and followed the secular authority. Rationalism today refers to emprical and other objective proof. : That project, IMHO, failed. For every proof : proving existence there's a proof to the contrary. That is precisely : why I believe that the non-rationalist/Kabbalist approach is a better : option. They offer an a-rationalist approach ("a-rational," not to be : confused with "irrational," they're not the same). They believe because : they chose to believe not-because they are "convinced." Yeah, but so does the Gra's Qabbalah or Mussar. Mussar in particular replaces the Rambam's akrasia based on knowlege / wisdom, and therefore redemption through getting the right knowledge, with talk of first-hand experience, emotions, subconscious, etc... : You then write "...means accepting Chazal's historical and scientific : claims as being from ruach haqodesh. And not stam as meshalim." implying : that I believe that stories in Chazal or Torah are meshalim. : : [Chas lei lezar'eih deAvraham deleimru hakha]; God forbid that I should : make such a suggestion. I am saying something radically different. Well, I wouldn't lump the two together. The Rambam is far from alone in considering aggadic stories to be meshalim repeated with not concern about historicity. Much like you wrote -- an authentic attitude toward such things would be to not care about what really happened. Not to assert they are or aren't historical. (Although the Rambam would tell you to assume the wilder ones aren't historical, lest you make a joke out of the Torah -- the first two of the three katim described in his haqdamah to mishnah Cheileq.) : We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims. A : faith claim is a religious "belief" not a scientific claim... Agreed. BUT... the kind of problem I thought you were trying to address was the person who felt the Torah and academia conflict. To invoke this dichotomy to resolve the issue would be to allow people to assert ahistoricity, rather than avoiding a position altogether. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The true measure of a man micha at aishdas.org is how he treats someone http://www.aishdas.org who can do him absolutely no good. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Samuel Johnson From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 06:49:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ken Bloom via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 09:49:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What FDA Learned About Dark Chocolate and Milk Allergies Message-ID: > > > Actually it sounds to me that one very much can rely on the > > label (from this example). The trace amounts [the LBD are] talking > > about are much, much less than 1/60. Completely bateil, > > totally parve, but enough to elicit an allergic reaction. > I remember learning about a machlokes concerning whether we hold dairy > can be batel to pareve, or whether we say that since there is no loss (at > least, not the total loss that we have when something becomes nonkosher) > we should simply consider it dairy. But I don't remember how we hold on > this issue. Anyone else? > And shouldn't these questions be on Avodah? > Akiva Miller What's the machloket? Doesn't the Rema YD 99:6 clearly hold that that milk is batel in parve? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 14:00:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 17:00:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safeik and Multivalent Logic Message-ID: <20150615210040.GA17358@aishdas.org> Back on Fri, 14 May 2004 10:45am EST (yes, 11 years ago) I wrote on the thread "Valid halachic change" I wrote: > I was at a yarchei (yarei'ach? shavu'ah -- since it was only a > week?) kallah during Elul in Boston where RYBS explicitly said is wasn't. > He also speaks about multivalent logic in halakhah in numorous places > in Ish haHalakhah. From the [yarchei kallah]: > An esrog that was used for the mitzvah is qadosh and assur behana'ah > that entire day. And since it's qadosh bein hashemashos, it's gadosh > part of the next day and therefore assur behan'ah the entire next day. > RYBS asked (as do many) mimanafshach: Either BhS is part of the first > day, and there's an isur hana'ah BhS. But in that case BhS isn't part > of the next day, and on that day han'ah should be mutar. Or, BhS is part > of the 2nd day, and the issur would end BhS! > Rather, for certain sefeiqos both chalosim apply. It's only when the > chalos turns into a pe'ulah that we are forced to choose. > Therefore, one can daven either minchah or ma'ariv BhS. Even switch off > between days. But not both in the same BhS. > This is why a woman who is from safeiq chalal history (Rashi and Tosafos > disagree on details of the case) is called an "almanas issah", the widow > of a dough, a mixture. > This shtims with the teshuvas RAEiger distinguishing kol deparish meiruba > parish and kol kavu'ah kemechtzah al mechtzah. When the question is one > of pasqening on an unknown situation, we follow rov. When one is trying > to resolve a question that arose after the pesaq, rov doesn't apply. > Rov is a non-boolean state, something between yes and no. Therefore, > it does not apply after we've taken the question from the realm of > machshavah to that of ma'aseh. > Also, Rav Tzadoq (Resisei Laylah 17) distringuishes between the logic of > machshavah and that of pe'ulah, saying that when it comes to machshavah, > it's impossible to consider one thing without also considering its > opposite. RThK then develops this idea to explain eilu va'eilu as being > about real plurality. (More on this when I summarize the articles whose > URLs have been posted to the list.) I'm repeating all this because, once again, AhS Yomi showed me that something I thought I understood was more complicated than I realized. AhS OC 638:5 distinguishes between muqtza machmas mitzvah and other forms of muqtza when it comes to migo de'isqatzei bein hashemashos, isqatza'ei lekhulei yoma. And so, sukkah and its decorations (the topic of OC 688) are muqtzah the following day. But beitzah shenoledah beYT rishon is not muqtzah on the next day. So the example RYBS brings of esrog fits this pattern too -- muqtzah machmas mitzvah is muqtzah the day after it's used for the mitzvah. However, RYBS used it to make a general point about the nature of BhS, and I surmized safeiq in general. I don't understand how we can, if even withint the topic of mutqzah we find BhS acting both like a mixture of states and being in one of the two states -- although we don't know which -- depending on the kind of muqtzah we're talking about. Thoughts, anyone? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The Maharal of Prague created a golem, and micha at aishdas.org this was a great wonder. But it is much more http://www.aishdas.org wonderful to transform a corporeal person into a Fax: (270) 514-1507 "mensch"! -Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 14:44:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 17:44:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Worker or Craftsman In-Reply-To: <5579B89C.8060902@sero.name> References: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> <5579B89C.8060902@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150615214430.GA17695@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 12:34:36PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Eruvin 65a: Anan po`alei diy'mamei anan. The context is talmud Torah, and speaks to the fact that when it comes to Torah, it's the amount of learning, not the success at comprehension, that matters most. See also the Me'iri ad loc, who says simply that R' Nachman bar Yitzchaq is saying we should learn the whole day, because that's the only way we'll fully understand. Which alines with R' Zeira's statement, when he was complemented "Mechadedan shema'iskha!" and he replied "diyemama ninhu." I do not think it can be applied to my question -- whether life is a job of "be good as long as you're here", or if we each have a specific task we were put here to accomplish. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Take time, micha at aishdas.org be exact, http://www.aishdas.org unclutter the mind. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 15:01:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 18:01:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] 100% Vegetable oils etc. In-Reply-To: <20150610.215234.27464.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150610.215234.27464.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150615220103.GB17695@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 01:52:34AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : ... I would think that non-kosher flavorings cannot be batel. Bitul : is a mathematical procedure by which we can presume that the non-kosher : ingredient is not noticeable... In fact, the only time the mishnah invokes bitul beshishim is with min bemino, so that you can't tell which of two identically tasting substances one is tasting. (Chullin 7:4-5, Zevachim 8:6) Rava (Chullin 97a-b) says that if a non-Jew can be asked to taste a substance, we rely on their statement, but if not (eg min bemino), then we use batel beshishim. In contrast, Bar Kaparah holds kol issurin shebiTorah is beshishim. Ta'am is just a derabbaanan that doesn't allow us to use the fundamental 1/60 bitul. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you're going through hell micha at aishdas.org keep going. http://www.aishdas.org - Winston Churchill Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 11:20:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 14:20:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> References: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150616182036.GA13263@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 6:34pm EDT, RYK wrote: : 1) You are making the mistake many others are making as well, conflating : chassidim with chassidut. Chassidic life today has very little to do with : original chassidut. Early chassidut was a revolutionary theological : movement which appealed to a small elitist group... I thought Chassidus started out a kiruv movement, designed to bring Judaism to the kind of people Litta's focus on learning left without religion. Like the story of the boy who played his prayers on his flute, or the one who recited the alef beis over and over and begged HQBH to weave them into the right words. But in any case, to get closer to the point I intended to make... ... : 2) Kabbalah and chassidut isn't about warmth and community. It's a highly : sophisticated philosophical system which offers a nuanced alternative : to the Maimonidean/rationalist approach. : While the approach is a-rational, it isn't irrational. I am not sure how you're using "a-rational". Even after your consequent explanation (posted Sun Jun 14, 1:30am EDT): : They offer an a-rationalist approach ("a-rational," not to be : confused with "irrational," they're not the same). They believe because : they chose to believe not-because they are "convinced." What is this a-rational stance that is also highly philosophical and yet not the experiential chassidus of the nostalgic memories with which you opened your blog post? I cannot figure out what you're getting at. Contining the first post: : 3) Finally, I'm not sure I understand your point about the Rambam. The : Rambam says that he believes it is justified to fool and mislead the : masses. That to me is highly problematic. And in the follow-up post he elaborated: : R. Micha, you write "I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle : applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word : in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think : "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." In an introduction to a philosophical book he thought was a bad idea to write that he produced as a necessary evil. Thus the title of the Moreh Nevuchim. It's a tactic he had to reveal the esoteric to those ready for it while keeping it esoteric. Recall, that while we think of Pardes's "sod" as Qabbalah, to him it was more like the Moreh. In the Pesichah the Rambam limits the need of obfuscation to the topics of Maaseh haMerkavah and Maaseh Bereishis. So, after the first 5 chapters of the Yad, the whole discussion in the pesichah and haqdamah of the Moreh wouldn't apply. ... : We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims... Just like I loathe using the word rationalism because it's so vague in meaning as to just add to the confusion, let me add the word "fact". We use it to mean (a) a truth, (b) an empirical/physical truth, (c) a truth established by evidence, (d) an empirical truth established by evidence, and in legal settings: (e) the empirical evidence itself ("let me present the facts of this case"). : We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims. A : faith claim is a religious "belief" not a scientific claim... ... and therefore there is a gap between religious beliefs and scientific claims. Belief is yet another dangerous word. Knowledge is classically (Plato) defined as a justified true belief. In that sense, anything you accept as true is a belief. Other times we use belief in contrast to knowledge. A usage that ends up undermining confidence in something we seem to overtly be claiming is true. After all, if you think it's true, and you think you have real reason to think it's true, why say "believe" rather than "know"? Which gets me back to the point, I hope. You talk about belief in chassidus being an act of will. Personally, I agree with Rihal when he has the chaver note that anything one philosopher can prove, another can prove the opposite. (Kuzari 1:13) Religion isn't amenable to proof, and that's why Scholasticism, the idea of giving religion a philosophical underpinning, lost momentum centuries ago. The reasons why are two-fold: First, negi'os. People cannot really objetively think about these topics. They end up liking proofs of disliking proofs based on where they already decided things should end up. Like one of the truisms in my signature file generator says: The mind is a wonderful organ for justifying decisions the heart already reached. So, whether or not you agree that some postulate is self-evident (Kant: synthetic a priori) and therefore the proof works will depend more on whether you want to believe than actual obviousness. Second, the experiences upon which religious belief gets justified are internal. Questions of whether Shabbos, kashrus, or some of the more elegant outcomes of lomdus statisfy my Search For Meaning (Frankl) is quite a bit more difficult (usually impossible) to duplicate for someone else. Unlike a getting someone else to experience something empirical that you did by repeating a science experiment. But I think chassidic belief, even as per your description of it, is rational rather than an act of will. It's not Scholastic, expecting the kind of proof that would have make R' Saadia Gaon or the Rambam happy, but it is based on deriving a conclusion that fits one's evidence (ie experiences). I would say "rational" but not "rationalist", except that just highlights how many problems we get into throwing around the word "rationalism". This is true about how emunah works whether speaking about why people become BT, go OTD, or even if we're speaking of the Rambam. The Rambam lived in a world that didn't value non-philosophical justification, so he felt that real emunah required Scholasticism. (There was a time, not that long ago, when most people's emunah was backed by Reliabilism. My parents and community have a track record of being reliable sources of truth, so I trust them on this too.) To my mind, the difference is whether someone values the chizuq emunah of affirming that conclusions with that half of the philosophical proofs that end up in the right place. The rationalist does so, thinking that's *why* he believes (despite the Kuzari). Some of us simply enjoy philoosphy or consider such explorations to be part of talmud Torah. And others simply don't need the exercise. : a) doesn't pause to ask if it's "true" they just learn it. "Truth" : isn't a primary orientation of their encounter with toras Ha'shem. B) In : the event that he does pause to ask the "truth" question, his approach : is a-rational and unscientific... Again, if it's taken for granted as being true, truth is still at issue. Moreso, they really don't discuss truth because trueh is a given. It's like water not being the primary orientation of fish. : It truthfully and absolutely : happened in the Torah. It's not denying the claim, it's just ignoring : the scientific objective layer. Because the chasid's yiddishkeit happens : exclusively in the religious realm. Lets plow through the words and just ask outright: A chassid would take it for granted that a time traveler would find the Yam Suf divided into 13 tunnels with everything you might want available to be plucked from the walls. No? You may deprecate the importance of that historical claim to the belief system of Chassidic Judaism. I would agree that chassidim do not consider the historicity important. But the belief is there, and for reasons that speak volumes about the gap between chassidus and MO as a potential target audience. Chassidim have to accept the historicity of this midrashic elaboration of Qerias Yam Suf because maximalism and acceptance of rabbinic authority run much stronger in comparison to confidence in one's own truthometer in chassidus. Part of the value of having a rebbe is to believe he has access to truths I don't. And similarly one's rebbe's rebbes, and so on through Chazal and whomever repeated that medrash. To a community that teaches the value of other sources of knowledge, such as secular historians or other professionals, such maximalism is impossible, and therefore bitul to a rebbe will always be limited. Yes, it would be of value to realize that historical claims are non-central to religion. It makes it much easier to table any questions one might have in those areas as not being important, therefore not very pressing. Things that can wait for an answer rather than being responded to now, with what I know now, or taken as an upshlug. ... : 3) My program has nothing to do with neo-chassidut. NC is a behaviorist : movement with very little philosophical underpinning. I'm proposing a : theological program which also happens to have behavioral implications. I understood this. However, NC is an indication of what elements of chassidus actually were found useful by MO Jews. You're theorizing which elements you thought would in theory be more useful. I am asking about the difference between the two. If your theory were correct about what MO could use, wouldn't the Neo-Chassidim have locked on to those three points? IOW, I know they are different, and some idea as to how -- but why? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Weeds are flowers too micha at aishdas.org once you get to know them. http://www.aishdas.org - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 11:53:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 18:53:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Asking your questions to one authority Message-ID: <45cbca92b332457591636332317a5855@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> I'm looking for sources concerning a requirement or good advice concerning asking all your questions to one authority. According to some commentaries the mishna (actually mentioned twice) in Avot concerning aseih lcha rav points in this direction as does the gemara in eiruvin on not picking all the leniencies of both beit hillel and shammai. OTOH the gemara in avodah zara about not asking 2 rabbis is interpreted as applying only to the particular question at hand. From a Brisker theory angle wouldn't the existence of overarching theoretical constructs argue that all your questions should go to one authority so as to avoid the possible tartei dsatrei on a meta-theory basis (i.e. psak in kashrut case a may share a construct with psak in business case b)? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 13:36:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 16:36:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Asking your questions to one authority In-Reply-To: <45cbca92b332457591636332317a5855@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> References: <45cbca92b332457591636332317a5855@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <558088EA.2070102@sero.name> On 06/16/2015 02:53 PM, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > From a Brisker theory angle wouldn?t the existence of overarching > theoretical constructs argue that all your questions should go to one > authority so as to avoid the possible tartei dsatrei on a meta-theory > basis (i.e. psak in kashrut case a may share a construct with psak in > business case b)? Hilchesa keRav be'isurei vechiShmuel bedinei. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 16:30:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 19:30:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why Chassidut In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150616233048.00B061836ED@nexus.stevens.edu> At 02:20 PM 6/16/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: > From Rav Yehoshua Shapira (my quick translation) > >The idea that Chassidut?s positive atmosphere isn?t obligatory is a >serious mistake. Not only is it obligatory, but it brings with it more >obligations. Without emphasis on the Mitzvot of ahava and yirah, simcha >and deveikut (which are the soul of the 613 mitzvot) the mitzvot remain >external actions, technical, something which doesn?t affect or uplift >the heart and soul. > >Those doreitta mitzvot, which are the pinimiot of all mitzvoth, demand >from a person and from us to give their entire being when doing a >mitzvah. . . .. In the performance of mitzvoth, God wants our hearts. >Therefore, Chassidut definitely demands deep dedication. > The following is from Rav Dr. Y. Breuer's Essay "Our Way" that appears in the collection of Rav Breuer's essays titled A Unique Perspective. One should not confuse Chassidus with the so-called Chassidic movement that began in Poland in the 18th century. The latter met the needs of the Jewish masses who lived in terrible misery, and thus spread rapidly. Tefillah was projected into the foreground, from which flowed strength and faith in God; dances and songs induced enthusiasm and joyfulness; the stress on human and hu- mane qualities increased the self-respect of the impoverished. Thus, without a doubt, Chassidism saved these Jewish masses. However, the resulting frequent neglect of Torah study led to justified protest by Torah giants and caused a regrettable inner rift, which was subsequently healed when a great Chassidic leader returned the study of Torah to its rightful central position. Genuine Chassidic Jewishness strives for Chassidus, which in itself is a lofty achievement on the ethical ladder which the Yehudi must attempt to climb. This is demonstrated for us by R. Pinchas ben Yair (Avodah Zarah 20b): Our highest duty is Torah and its study; this leads to carefulness which in turn leads to active striving; to guiltlessness; to purity; to holiness; to modesty; to the fear of sin; and, finally, to Chassidus. Accordingly, a Chassid is a Jew who gives himself in limitless love to the Divine Will and its realization, and to whom the welfare of his fellowmen constitutes the highest source of satisfaction (see Chorev, Ch. 14). Thus, in the Talmudic era, the title ?Chassid? was a mark of highest distinction ? and this is what it should be today. The so-called Chassid who confines his Avodah to prayer does not deserve this title, as this ?Avodah of the heart? does not call him to the Avodah of life where he must practice and apply the precepts of Chassidus. He does not deserve this title if he is particular regarding the kashrus of his food but fails to apply the precepts of conscientiousness and honesty to his business dealings. He does not deserve this title if his social life is not permeated by love and deep interest in the welfare of his fellowmen; if he does not shun quarreling, envy or even abominable lashon harah; if he does not earnestly strive to acquire those midos for which Rav Hirsch (in his Chorev) calls so eloquently. Certainly the mere exhibition of a certain type of clothing or the type of beard worn or even the adornment of long sideburns does not entitle the bearer to the title of honor?Chassid. These may be marks of distinction ? but they must be earned to be deserved. Even study of the Zohar does not necessarily signify the attainment of Chassidus. If this were so, only a few chosen ones would be eligible. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 23:03:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2015 09:03:25 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] If and When In-Reply-To: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 5:00 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > Please note: In the excerpt of the Mechilta which the Torah Temimah quotes > regarding the mizbe'ach, R' Yishmael says that there are 3 cases where "im" > is not optional, but the other two are not specified. This is very > different than the Torah Temimah about lending money. > > Torah Temimah Shmos 22:198 does quotes R' Yishmael in the Mechilta, but it > doesn't mention the word "im" explicitly, nor is there any reference to two > other cases. He simply asks whether it is a reshus or a chovah to lend > money, and he answers that the obligation appears in Parshas Re'eh. I find > it curious that this Mechilta is worded so differently than the previous > one, but the message is clearly the same. You see this quite often in the Torah Temima when a derasha says something about a number of pesukim in parallel. He quotes the same source in each place, but redacts it so that it appears to be referencing only that specific verse. An example in last week's parasha is the Yerushalmi that all 10 commandments are referenced in Kiryat Shma`, quoted on 15:39 and 41 (OK, not such a close parallel because in that case he does make the cross-reference and quotes the whole passage on Shemot 20:2, but there are plenty of other examples) In any case, inside the Mechilta on both verses in Shemot all three "im"s are listed each time, including bikkurim. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=38109&st=&pgnum=245 http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=38109&st=&pgnum=317 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 17 02:14:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2015 05:14:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Talks by Rav Shimon Schwab, ZT"L Message-ID: <20150617091410.A8547183759@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://torahdownloads.com/shiur-24386.html YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 17 04:00:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2015 07:00:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] =?iso-8859-1?q?Soul_Terminology=2C_and_Expressions_of_Lo?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ve=3A_Proper_Frum_Expression_In_The_Lens_of_the_Ashkenaz_T?= =?iso-8859-1?q?radition_=96_Gleanings__From_Rav_Shimon_Schwab?= Message-ID: <20150617110051.2F7B9183762@nexus.stevens.edu> Please see http://tinyurl.com/q64ehha YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 18 06:50:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2015 09:50:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Ishbaal's Jar Message-ID: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> According to TOI or , discusses finding a jar that dates to around 1020-980 BCE (Iron Age), breating the name the name of Ishbaal ben Beda. Ishbaal is Divrei HaYamim's name for the son of Shaul whom seifer Shemuel calls Ishboshet. (Probably because bearing the name of Baal is a bushah.) Allegedly "Among Judeans, personal names evoking Baal fell out of fashion after the 10th century, but not so among their Israelite cousins to the north." Lisa, does any of this relate to strengthening or weakening the case for revisionist dating? (Newcomers might wish to see the Jewish Action article Lisa has on her site at to understand why I asked.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person must be very patient micha at aishdas.org even with himself. http://www.aishdas.org - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 18 07:43:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2015 17:43:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Ishbaal's Jar In-Reply-To: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> References: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 4:50 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > According to TOI < > http://www.timesofisrael.com/inscription-bearing-name-from-davidic-era-found-at-ancient-site > > > or , discusses finding a jar that dates to around > 1020-980 BCE (Iron Age), breating the name the name of Ishbaal ben Beda. > See also http://bit.ly/1F2HFD9 (= https://www.academia.edu/12775087/The_%CA%BEI%C5%A1ba%CA%BFal_Inscription_from_Khirbet_Qeiyafa) for a more detailed excavation report. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 19 11:46:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 13:46:46 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Ishbaal's Jar In-Reply-To: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> References: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55846396.5000207@starways.net> On 6/18/2015 8:50 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > According to TOI > or , discusses finding a jar that dates to around > 1020-980 BCE (Iron Age), breating the name the name of Ishbaal ben Beda. > > Ishbaal is Divrei HaYamim's name for the son of Shaul whom seifer > Shemuel calls Ishboshet. (Probably because bearing the name of Baal > is a bushah.) The standard form for names in most of the ancient near east was DN-stem, or stem-DN, where DN is a divine name. We have this pattern ourselves with names like Chizki-Yahu and N'tan-El, or El-Chanan and Yeho-natan. From what I've seen, it wasn't unheard of for people to refer to the same person, but exchange the DN. So Ish-Boshet for Ish-Baal is in line with Hado-Ram (I Chron 18:10) for Yo-Ram (II Sam 8:10), or Hado-Ram (II Sam 20:24, I Kings 12:18, II Chron 10:18) for Adoni-Ram (I Kings 4:6, 5:28). I don't see any indication that this pattern of name was different towards the beginning or towards the end of the monarchy. That said, Baal in particular sort of declined after the time of Eliyahu. They had newer avodah zarahs to play with. I don't really see a lot of chronological significance here. Yes, they did some radiometric dating, but as always, I would take that with grain of salt until I saw the raw results. When you send something for carbon dating, you tell them first what your target date is, so that they can discard results that are off from that too significantly. Not very scientific, but I guess it's "science-y". Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 19 13:38:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 16:38:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Soul Terminology, and Expressions of Love: Proper Frum Expression In The Lens of the Ashkenaz Tradition ? Gleanings From Rav Shimon Schwab In-Reply-To: <20150617110051.2F7B9183762@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150617110051.2F7B9183762@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150619203804.GA23818@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 17, 2015 at 07:00:53AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Please see http://tinyurl.com/q64ehha On the second example, I'm reminded of the Soloveitchik tradition that emotions are the Qodesh haQadashim of avodas Hashem. And therefore while RSSschwab's position was depited as: > Nowadays one at times witnesses public statements, in the form of songs, > declarations, and even bumper stickers, proclaiming [HQBH anachnu ohavim > Osakh!] (Hashem, we love you), an expression that was not commonly heard > shouted aloud in the past in our circles. Is that in consonance with our > [Mesorah]? Rav Schwab (in his address entitled Internalizing Eternity) > states the following (after 33:20) Since Ahavas Hashem is such a strictly > personal matter, he who truly loves Hashem does not show his [Ahavah]. He > rather hides it. It is far too intimate to parade it in public. He is > mekayeim [vehatzneia lekhes im E-lokekha]. It is exclusively his private > affair, between him and his Creator. Briskers would not expose any emotion. And so, when RYBS left for Berlin, R' Moshe took him to the train station, but there was no emotional goodbye. Even though RMF didn't know if he would ever see his son (and chavrusah) again. RYBS said he knew his father's feelings at the moment, he just knew that he would never display it publicly. Just a simple "Leikh leshalom HQBH zul dir matzliach zein!" Story told far better, in RYBS's own words here In any case, the Brisker approach doesn't speak to too many people in this generation. I would bet many of us would consider it less-than-positive. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger One who kills his inclination is as though he micha at aishdas.org brought an offering. But to bring an offering, http://www.aishdas.org you must know where to slaughter and what Fax: (270) 514-1507 parts to offer. - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 22 06:53:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2015 09:53:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kuntros chasidei umos haolam Message-ID: <0ce401d0acf2$c108d8f0$431a8ad0$@com> The was once a link posted here to a Kuntros chasidei umos haolam (In hebrew) from a Rav in south Africa (I think he was an Ohr Samach graduate) Does anyone have it or a link to it? Thanks, mc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 22 14:32:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2015 17:32:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Two Levels of Bitachon Message-ID: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is from Rav Schwab on Chumash Parshas Shelach. We suggest the following explanation: Hashem demands bitachon of every Jew - trust in Hashem that everything will turn out for the best, without worrying about what the future might bring. Throughout the generations, devout Jews have walked this path. A person with bitachon ultimately will merit to see clearly that, indeed, "All that Hashem does is for the best." There are two types of bitachon. The first is trusting in Hashem with "closed eyes," with no speculation about what may develop. However, there is a second kind of bitachon that is even greater than the first. This is the bitachon of "open eyes." One who follows this path looks ahead and sees clearly that the future might entail great danger, that his life may be full of trials and tribulations. Nevertheless, he does not hesitate, relying on Hashem to help him deal with whatever the future will hold. This kind of bitachon is greater than the first, because someone who trusts in :Hashem with "open eyes" must elevate his bitachon to a much higher level in order to overcome his worries and quiet his concerns. However, as great as this second path is, it is fraught with danger. There is a strong possibility that instead of overcoming one's fears and worries, one will be vanquished by them. A "realistic" evaluation of the challenges could be so frightening as to cause one to lose his bitachon in Hashem altogether. Therefore, :although the bitachon of "open eyes" might be appropriate for certain great people, Hashem does not demand it of us. Hashem only requires us to have the bitachon of "closed eyes"; we need only trust that everything will turn out for the best, in accordance with His will, without considering what the future might hold. This is implied in the pasuk (Yeshayahu 12:2), 11) Behold the G-d of salvation; I shall trust in Him, and I will not fear. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 12:26:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 21:26:11 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Two Levels of Bitachon In-Reply-To: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <5589B2D3.5030908@zahav.net.il> I'm not sure what this is in reference to, the sin of the spies? What does it mean, to live ones life without worrying about the future? You trust in God so therefore you're calm (meaning you live your life the same way anyone else does, but you have inner peace)? Ben On 6/22/2015 11:32 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > We suggest the following explanation: Hashem demands bitachon of every > Jew - trust > in Hashem that everything will turn out for the best, without worrying > about > what the future might bring. Throughout the generations, devout Jews > have walked > this path. A person with bitachon ultimately will merit to see clearly > that, indeed, > "All that Hashem does is for the best." From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 14:34:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 17:34:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Two Levels of Bitachon In-Reply-To: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150623213434.GA30077@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 22, 2015 at 05:32:42PM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : The following is from Rav Schwab on Chumash Parshas Shelach. ... : There are two types of bitachon. The first is trusting in Hashem with "closed : eyes," with no speculation about what may develop. However, there is : a second kind : of bitachon that is even greater than the first. This is the : bitachon of "open eyes." : One who follows this path looks ahead and sees clearly that the : future might entail : great danger, that his life may be full of trials and tribulations. : Nevertheless, he : does not hesitate, relying on Hashem to help him deal with whatever : the future will : hold... I just want to point out that RSS here is assuming the descriptive bitachon of the CI, not the prescrictive bitachon of Novhardok (and many kiruv programs and religious fiction). The Alter of Novhardok taught that bitachon causes positive results. If you trust G-d enough, He will make things turn out the way you desire. And when you point out to said public speaker that indeed life doesn't work that way this idea gets modified into: Hashem will make things turn out the way you'll be happy with once you get to the end of the road. And while I'm being cynical about it, this is unassailable. If things don't yet have a happy ending, it just means the story isn't over yet. You can just push the long run out further and further until you find the happy outcome you promised. In Emunah uBitchon, the CI rejects this notion. He says that bitachon is belief that things are working out according to Divine Plan. A believe in how things run, not a belief that causes things to run right. Rather than the comfort of knowing that you'll like the results, one aims for the comfort that all of life's suffering has meaning and a purpose. RSS presumes the latter and appears to be saying that one can then take this trust in two different ways: - Since Hashem is driving, I don't need to bother looking out the windsheild, it will just stress me out for nothing. - Hashem and I are in partnership, so I cannot refrain from helping Him bring us to our destination, even when it involves heading for trials and tribulations. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is a stage and we are the actors, micha at aishdas.org but only some of us have the script. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Menachem Nissel Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 15:56:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Toby Katz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 18:56:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book Message-ID: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> I recently came across the issue of Jewish Action (the OU's quarterly magazine) of Fall 2000 and in that issue there was a remarkable article. It was a review of a two-volume book called *The Rav: The World of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik* by Rabbi Dr. Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff. The review article was written by R' Philip Weinberger. It was a very laudatory review, written by someone who admired and respected RYBS and who thought the book was excellent. It's important to note that he respected RYBS and admired the book, because when you see what I am going to quote from the review, you might think otherwise. But if you read the whole review you will clearly see that what looks like a negative to me is clearly seen as a positive by R' Weinberger. http://ou.org.s3.amazonaws.com/publications/ja/5761fall/BOOKS.PDF OK here goes -- the most interesting parts of the review (I have mostly dispensed with ellipses, which are distracting): --quote-- [The book] focused my attention on a paradox that confronts me every time a new book or article appears about the saintly Rabbi Soloveitchik, zt"l. In the latter part of the twentieth century, the Rav was one of the most outstanding rabbinic titans, teaching and leading the Jewish people. A master of communication, orally and in print, he left behind multitudes of devoted students and admirers who still hang on his every word. Yet the Rav seems to have left a legacy that is unclear and misunderstood, despite his gifted powers of communication. Among the numerous questions, debated passionately by those who represent themselves as knowing the Rav's authentic thinking, are: What was the Rav's view toward secular education; Torah u'Madda; new religious practices by women; reciting Hallel on Yom HaAtzma'ut; and Religious Zionism? There is a raging battle among his followers as to who may legitimately and authentically present the Rav's opinions, thoughts, ideas and teachings. How could so careful a teacher, who could literally spend hours at a time in shiurim defining with precision the meaning of a particular word or phrase, be misunderstood on so many basic and critical issues? The Rav himself, despite his best efforts, was misunderstood and misquoted in his lifetime by able people who presumably had the best of intentions. The Rav illustrates that he was misunderstood by journalists because of their lack of familiarity with the Rav's precise use of language and terminology, and because the Rav's thoughts, ideas and speech were extraordinarily nuanced, delicate, subtle and sophisticated. However, the book falls short, even on its own terms, in its failure to more deeply explore the complexity and nuances of the Rav's thoughts and insights that were influenced by the religious, existential, and personal tensions that the Rav experienced and talked about. Similarly, the book does not treat much of the controversy that sometimes surrounded the Rav in a meaningful way. There is no acknowledgment of how the Rav was inappropriately treated and often marginalized in the yeshivah universe because of his embracing secular studies and Religious Zionism (albeit in a disciplined and highly nuanced manner)... in a letter to Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Shragai, the Rav writes : "If I were to judge this matter (which party to associate with) based on pragmatic or political considerations, I would join the zealots who ask nothing of their members (not diligence in Torah study, not pure fear of Heaven, nor spending money on tzedakah, nor excessive care with regard to mitzvot) except to besmirch our movement. I could clothe myself with the mantle of a tzaddik and 'fighter of the Lord's battles.' " This and other letters to Rabbi Shragai show clearly what a man of principle the Rav was. ...Scholars and laymen alike are indebted to Rabbi Rakeffet for his vital work. --end quote-- Well, you can see why this review would interest me. Let's take a few points: [1] "The Rav seems to have left a legacy that is unclear and misunderstood, despite his gifted powers of communication." I would suggest that the end of the sentence is contradicted by the beginning of the sentence. The main thing that the Rav generally managed to communicate was that one could be a great Torah scholar and also be a brilliant intellectual in secular terms. This was not the text but the ur-text of much of what he wrote. I will add that he did this not for his own honor but for the honor of the Torah, which was often treated with contempt by mid-twentieth century Jews who were rapidly abandoning the Torah. But his opaque Germanic philosophical style of speaking and writing was by its very nature open to multiple interpretations, and could neither be summarized nor re-written in plain American English. [2] "Among the numerous questions, debated passionately by those who represent themselves as knowing the Rav's authentic thinking, are: What was the Rav's view toward secular education; Torah u'Madda; new religious practices by women; reciting Hallel on Yom HaAtzma'ut; and Religious Zionism?" I would have to say that this is a highly unusual thing to say of any gadol. Of which other gadol could it be said that after he taught and wrote for decades, no one could be sure what his position was on the most important issues of his day? [2A] "What was the Rav's view toward Religious Zionism?" and "his embracing Religious Zionism (albeit in a disciplined and highly nuanced manner)..." Those of us who have claimed (based admittedly, at times, on anecdotal evidence and oral reports) that RYBS was not really a Zionist have often been vilified. Yet here a great admirer of RYBS admits that his views were far from obvious, and subject to much disagreement even among his followers. That RYBS was a great lover of Eretz Yisrael -- of that there can be no doubt. That he really believed in the whole aschalta de'geulah ideology of RZ -- highly doubtful. The rest can be left for another time, or another book. [3] "How could so careful a teacher, who could literally spend hours at a time in shiurim defining with precision the meaning of a particular word or phrase, be misunderstood on so many basic and critical issues?" It may be that in a Gemara shiur, trying to define a word with great precision may lead to greater understanding, but out here in the larger world, such precise definitions tend to leave most people scratching their heads. Common everyday words lose their accepted, common meanings, and the many sentences used to define those words lead to greater obscurity rather than clarity. "When I use a word, it means precisely what I want it to mean." But his listeners or readers are often left in the dark. [4] "The Rav was misunderstood...because his thoughts, ideas and speech were extraordinarily nuanced, delicate, subtle and sophisticated." The impression left by all that subtlety and nuance is that he was trying to avoid saying anything controversial that could be quoted in a sound bite. [5] "There is no acknowledgment of how the Rav was inappropriately treated and often marginalized in the yeshivah universe" [6] "...the zealots who ask nothing of their members (not diligence in Torah study, not pure fear of Heaven, nor spending money on tzedakah, nor excessive care with regard to mitzvot) except to besmirch our movement. I could clothe myself with the mantle of a tzaddik and 'fighter of the Lord's battles...' " Maybe [6] at least partially explains [5]. Maybe the way he felt about them was reflected in the way they felt about him. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 17:52:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 00:52:25 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> References: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> Message-ID: Let's take a few points: [1] "The Rav seems to have left a legacy that is unclear and misunderstood, despite his gifted powers of communication." I would suggest that the end of the sentence is contradicted by the beginning of the sentence. [2] "Among the numerous questions, debated passionately by those who represent themselves as knowing the Rav's authentic thinking, are: What was the Rav's view toward secular education; Torah u'Madda; new religious practices by women; reciting Hallel on Yom HaAtzma'ut; and Religious Zionism?" [2A] "What was the Rav's view toward Religious Zionism?" and "his embracing Religious Zionism (albeit in a disciplined and highly nuanced manner)..." [3] "How could so careful a teacher, who could literally spend hours at a time in shiurim defining with precision the meaning of a particular word or phrase, be misunderstood on so many basic and critical issues?" [4] "The Rav was misunderstood...because his thoughts, ideas and speech were extraordinarily nuanced, delicate, subtle and sophisticated." The impression left by all that subtlety and nuance is that he was trying to avoid saying anything controversial that could be quoted in a sound bite. [5] "There is no acknowledgment of how the Rav was inappropriately treated and often marginalized in the yeshivah universe" [6] "...the zealots who ask nothing of their members (not diligence in Torah study, not pure fear of Heaven, nor spending money on tzedakah, nor excessive care with regard to mitzvot) except to besmirch our movement. I could clothe myself with the mantle of a tzaddik and 'fighter of the Lord's battles...' " Maybe [6] at least partially explains [5]. Maybe the way he felt about them was reflected in the way they felt about him. _______________________________________________ I remember reading the original review and being very surprised. [1]&[2]&[3] My general impression is that most of the lack of clarity and misunderstandings are on issues that have little to do with the style issue. I don't think many get concerned about whether Adam I and II ever resolve their dialectic . The main cause of misunderstandings imho can be generously stated as being caused by The Rav's being so sui generis that students could not assimilate the whole of his teachings. The less generous approach would be that some want to be toleh on an ilan gadol and project their own priorities and approaches on him. Could anyone who looked at his life as a whole have any doubt that he valued secular studies? That he was a non-messianic RZ lover of eretz Yisrael seems pretty clear. [4]Or how about the world is complex and our desire (btw very reflective of our host society) is to boil everything down to a sound bite goes against the educational need to understand how to look at complex issues [6]explaining [5] seems to me like the classic blaming the victim for "asking for it". I can only assume the fact that other roshei yeshiva didn't publically call for tolerance was that they did think he, and MO, was krum or they had higher priorities or didn't think their talmidim would listen to them. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 18:07:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 21:07:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: References: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> Message-ID: <20150624010730.GA18745@aishdas.org> Both Ishbitz and Chabad, Rushin and Satmar each beleive theirs is the most accurate understanding of Derekh haBhesh"t. Kelm, Novhardok and Slabodka have very different understandings of R Yisrael Salanter's teachings. RAYK's disagree over what their rebbe meant. Even Moshe Rabbeinu -- he had 70 front-row talmidim and ever since we have had 70 panim laTorah. Any gadol brilliant and subtle enough to be worth following will so outstrip his talmidim that each only grasps onto one facet and interpretation of a more complex original. This is far from unique to RYBS. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you're going through hell micha at aishdas.org keep going. http://www.aishdas.org - Winston Churchill Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 19:01:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 22:01:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: <20150624010730.GA18745@aishdas.org> References: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> <20150624010730.GA18745@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <558A0F65.7090501@sero.name> On 06/23/2015 09:07 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Both Ishbitz and Chabad, Rushin and Satmar each beleive theirs is the > most accurate understanding of Derekh haBhesh"t. Satmar doesn't believe this; rather, it believes that the BSh"T's torah has been lost. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 19:21:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 22:21:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kol Isha Twist Message-ID: <558A1421.3060009@gmail.com> See http://www.kikar.co.il/174128.html or http://www.totpi.com/2/ultra-orthodox-woman-performs-incognito-on-the-x-factor/ It's an interesting loophole: Since kol b'isha erva only applies when you know what a woman looks like, the heavy sunglasses and very modest dress may do the trick. Not middas chassidus, but perhaps on a technicality permitted. KT, YGB -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 07:35:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 10:35:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kol Isha Twist In-Reply-To: <558A1421.3060009@gmail.com> References: <558A1421.3060009@gmail.com> Message-ID: <558AC044.2010107@sero.name> On 06/23/2015 10:21 PM, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah wrote: > > It's an interesting loophole: Since kol b'isha erva only applies when > you know what a woman looks like, the heavy sunglasses and very > modest dress may do the trick. Not middas chassidus, but perhaps on a > technicality permitted. I don't see anything in the two linked articles about such a loophole. And I don't think it would work. Surely you can see enough of her to form some idea, perhaps mistaken, but enough for the yetzer hara to work with. I think the true heter for what she's doing is a lot simpler: she is not machshil anyone, because whoever is watching the show is already seeing and hearing enough women sing that one more makes no difference at all. If she didn't sing, then in all likelihood another woman would do so, wearing much less and acting more provocatively; or else a man would be giving some provocative performance that would be almost as bad. So really what has she done wrong? Those who don't normally watch should continue not to watch, and they won't be affected. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 08:33:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kaganoff via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 11:33:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating Message-ID: I am curious if anyone has written about a common practice. We assume that *Kaddish* is a *Devar she-Bikdusha* and requires a *minyan* to be recited. We require separate seating for a *Devar she-Bikdusha.* In many circles it is not uncommon to have a *siyyum* with a *kaddish *at a Bar Mitzvah or a Dinner even when there is mixed seating. Does anyone explicitly discuss this practice and permit it? Yonatan Kaganoff -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 11:38:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 14:38:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150624183849.GA2711@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 11:33:54AM -0400, Kaganoff via Avodah wrote: : We require separate seating for a *Devar she-Bikdusha.* This is news to me. Do those who say that zimmun with a minyan is a davar shebiqdushah (BY OC 199 "umah shekasav", MB s"q 15) require separate seating at my shabbos table? The AhS (200:6) refers to zimun with 10 as "shekhinta sharia", but I didn't see him mention minyan or davar shebiqdushah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 11:52:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 14:52:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating Message-ID: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> From: Kaganoff via Avodah We assume that *Kaddish* is a *Devar she-Bikdusha* and requires a *minyan* to be recited. We require separate seating for a *Devar she-Bikdusha.* In many circles it is not uncommon to have a *siyyum* with a *kaddish *at a Bar Mitzvah or a Dinner even when there is mixed seating. Does anyone explicitly discuss this practice and permit it? Yonatan Kaganoff >>>> You see something similar when people make an ad hoc minyan at a wedding (or an airport lounge). They don't put up a mechitza. Is this situation explicitly discussed in the halachic literature? It must be. Maybe what applies to one also applies to the other. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 12:32:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 15:32:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating In-Reply-To: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> References: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> Message-ID: <20150624193208.GA22316@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 2:52pm EDT, RnTK wrote: : From: Kaganoff via Avodah :> We assume that Kaddish is a Devar she-Bikdusha and requires a minyan :> to be recited. :> We require separate seating for a Devar she-Bikdusha. : You see something similar when people make an ad hoc minyan at a wedding : (or an airport lounge). They don't put up a mechitza... Slight topic change. You can have separate seating (or locations in general) without a mechitzah. I believe that minyanim were held at the kotel even when the Ottomans didn't let us put up a mechitzah by separating the genders even without one. I see R YH Henkin (Responsa on Contemporary Jewish Women's Issues, pg 124 ) rejects the hava amina that mechitzah is only for an established shul. He requires a mechitzah, not just separate seating at a temporary location for davening. While a minyan is there, the laws of mara miqdash apply. I do not whether he would advised the yishuv hayashan not to daven at the kotel. Tir'u baTov! -Micha Cc: RYHH -- Micha Berger The trick is learning to be passionate in one's micha at aishdas.org ideals, but compassionate to one's peers. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 12:21:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 19:21:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating In-Reply-To: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> References: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> Message-ID: <9d095a46ac044dd88d591c13b05195d1@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Yonatan Kaganoff >>>> You see something similar when people make an ad hoc minyan at a wedding (or an airport lounge). They don't put up a mechitza. Is this situation explicitly discussed in the halachic literature? It must be. Maybe what applies to one also applies to the other. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=922&st=&pgnum=66 where R' Moshe deals with the Mechitza issue but still requires that there not be intermingling. That's the part I'm unsure of. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 16:34:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 19:34:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safeik and Multivalent Logic In-Reply-To: <20150615210040.GA17358@aishdas.org> References: <20150615210040.GA17358@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150624233428.GA29242@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 15, 2015 at 05:00:40PM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : Back on Fri, 14 May 2004 10:45am EST (yes, 11 years ago) I wrote : on the thread : "Valid halachic change" I wrote: :> I was at a yarchei ... kallah during Elul in Boston where RYBS... :> An esrog that was used for the mitzvah is qadosh and assur behana'ah :> that entire day. And since it's qadosh bein hashemashos, it's gadosh :> part of the next day and therefore assur behan'ah the entire next day. ... :> Rov is a non-boolean state, something between yes and no. Therefore, :> it does not apply after we've taken the question from the realm of :> machshavah to that of ma'aseh. : I'm repeating all this because, once again, AhS Yomi showed me that : something I thought I understood was more complicated than I realized. : AhS OC 638:5 distinguishes between muqtza machmas : mitzvah and other forms of muqtza when it comes to migo de'isqatzei bein : hashemashos, isqatza'ei lekhulei yoma. : And so, sukkah and its decorations (the topic of OC 688) are muqtzah the : following day. But beitzah shenoledah beYT rishon is not muqtzah on the : next day. More info at AhS OC 667:1, which distinguishes between sukkah and 4 minim on Shemini Atzeres. Because sukkah would actually be used bein hashmeshos between the 7th day Sukkos and SA (speaking of EY now), a sukkah and its decorations are muqtzah on SA. The esrog, because the mitzvah would habe been done before BhS either way, is not. It would seem the point in 638:5 appears not to be that mutzah machamas mitzvah is special, but because the mitzvah would still apply BhS. : Thoughts, anyone? Still looking for other perspectives! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 25 02:54:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 09:54:58 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book Message-ID: <20150625.055458.3550.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Even Moshe Rabbeinu -- he had 70 front-row talmidim and ever since > we have had 70 panim laTorah. > > Any gadol brilliant and subtle enough to be worth following will > so outstrip his talmidim that each only grasps onto one facet and > interpretation of a more complex original. > > This is far from unique to RYBS. Here's my guess about what made RYBS unique in this regard: On the one hand, he did have his opinions about many things. But that was NOT what he tried to pass on to his talmidim. In fact, he is famous for NOT answering many of the questions posed to him. What RYBS wanted was for his talmidim to be able to decide for themselves. He never wanted to teach his talmidim WHAT to think, but HOW to think. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Buffett???s Warning for YOU 4 in 5 Americans aren???t taking his shocking advice. Click here now. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/558bd00ca32f7500c77efst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 25 08:10:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 11:10:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: <20150625.055458.3550.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150625.055458.3550.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150625151002.GD10708@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 25, 2015 at 09:54:58AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: :> This is far from unique to RYBS. : Here's my guess about what made RYBS unique in this regard: On the : one hand, he did have his opinions about many things. But that was NOT : what he tried to pass on to his talmidim. In fact, he is famous for NOT : answering many of the questions posed to him. What RYBS wanted was for : his talmidim to be able to decide for themselves. He never wanted to : teach his talmidim WHAT to think, but HOW to think. I realize that this is about to get meta, because I'm about to disagree with RAM about RYBS's position and why people disagree about what it was. I thin this is overplayed. Yes, he pushed fledgling rabbis to assert themselves as LOR and not defer every halachic question. But he didn't do this with every talmid, nor with every question. I think people are taking a pedagogic technique used for talmidim to scared to pasqen and turning it into a principle. Im kein ein ladavar sof, and there is no way to say he took positions for anyone but himself and his mispalelim in Boston and Moriah. No Qol Dodi Dofeiq promoting Zionism, no attack on RERackman's beis din, etc... And besides, we aren't talking about whether his talmidim vary, but why the talmidim's understandings of the rebbe's position varied. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Never must we think that the Jewish element micha at aishdas.org in us could exist without the human element http://www.aishdas.org or vice versa. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 25 08:56:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 15:56:25 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Hakarat Hatov Message-ID: Does Hakarat Hatov engender a measurable "liability" (e.g. require a marginally greater action) between the recipient and the provider of the "Tov", or is saying "Thank you, I appreciate it" the only requirement? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 26 01:19:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2015 11:19:39 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book Message-ID: <> In addition like many others RYBS gave different answers to different people depending on the person and circumstances. As a simple example he encouraged his talmidim to move to EY but told some to stay in the US. Also RYBS was big believer in everyone making their own decisions and not simply doing what they were told. Hence, he avoided certain statements so that his talmidim would make up their own minds. It is well known that all the children of RYBS got a PhD. Even his nephew R Meiselman the most charedi in the family received this degree from MIT. Nevertheless he never publically stressed this idea probably because he felt it was a very individual decision -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 27 19:37:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2015 22:37:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government Message-ID: Gut voch to all, What alternative texts exist for the tefillah l'shlom malchus? I have heard that other versions exist, perhaps more suited for a Republic than is "Hanosen teshua la-melachim", but the only version I could find comes from a Conservative source -- putting me in the same situation as R' Eliezer ben Hyrcanus upon hearing a good "vort" in the name of Ben Pandera. Can anyone point me to appropriate sources? --Chesky Salomon From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 27 20:29:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2015 23:29:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: An hour or so ago, I wrote: > What alternative texts exist for the tefillah l'shlom malchus? I remember this topic coming up in the past, though I have not been successful in searching the archives for it. I did find an article by Dr Jonathan Sarna, "A Forgotten 19th-Century Prayer for the United States Government: Its Meaning, Significance, and Surprising Author" [1] which pointed to the "Orthodox prayerbook for American Jews entitled Tefilot Yisra'el. Prayers of Israel. with an English Translation." The variant text Sarna discusses, "Ribbon kol ha-olamim", can be seen at -- but he makes the case that the prayer's author was Rabbi Max Lilienthal, leaving me in the same position as before. (As a side note: I recall one of the J-blogs mentioning a Tefillah for the State written for 1930s Germany under the Nazi government, but I cannot find the post again. Any help?) --Chesky Salomon [1]: http://www.brandeis.edu/hornstein/sarna/americanjewishcultureandscholarship/Archive3/AForgottenNineteenthCenturyPrayerfortheUnitedStatesGovenment.pdf From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 29 05:29:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mordechai Harris via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2015 07:29:07 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Here's the one I shard last time from the De Sola Pool Siddur. -Mordechai - Please excuse typos as this was sent from my cell phone. On Jun 28, 2015 2:59 PM, "Chesky Salomon via Avodah" wrote: > An hour or so ago, I wrote: >> What alternative texts exist for the tefillah l'shlom malchus? > I remember this topic coming up in the past, though I have not been > successful in searching the archives for it... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 29 15:15:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 01:15:23 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jun 29, 2015 at 3:29 PM, Mordechai Harris via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > Here's the one I shard last time from the De Sola Pool Siddur. > > Can you also share the publication details and/or title page of this siddur? What I know as the De Sola Pool Siddur is not the same as in this link. I have the second edition of 1977, and the title page says: BOOK OF PRAYER ACCORDING TO THE CUSTOM OF THE SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE JEWS Edited and translated by DAVID DE SOLA POOL Minister of the Congregation Shearith Israel in the City of New York PUBLISHED BY THE UNION OF SEPHARDIC CONGREGATIONS NEW YORK The prayer for the government begins with the usual "Hanoten teshu`a lamelachim" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 11:55:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Arie Folger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 20:55:34 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government Message-ID: Someone asked about alternate texts of the prayer for the government, more attuned to democracies. I have adapted the classic hanoten teshuah lamelakhim for the US, with variant readings for Canada, for inclusion in the still forthcoming new revised RCA Siddur. Send me a message through my web site (see the sig) and I will gladly share that text with you. -- Yours sincerely, Mit freundlichen Gr??en, Arie Folger blogging at http://www.rabbifolger.net/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 10:22:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Baruch Cohen via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 10:22:13 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] BIRCHAT KOHANIM AT THE KOTEL Message-ID: I plan on being in Israel for Sukkot, and hope to be at the Kotel for Birchat Kohanim. I usually daven early every morning, and the Birchat Kohanim occurs later in the morning. My question is: do I have a Chiyuv to "duchen" if I'm in the audience and the Shaliach Tzibbur announces on the loudspeaker the word: "Kohanim!" Does that trigger a halachic obligation for me to duchen, even if I am in the audience, in the back of the crowd? -- Respectfully, Baruch C. Cohen, Esq. e-mail: BCC4929 at gmail.com LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/baruchcohen From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 12:06:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 15:06:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] BIRCHAT KOHANIM AT THE KOTEL In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5592E8B9.5020201@sero.name> On 06/30/2015 01:22 PM, Baruch Cohen via Avodah wrote: > I usually daven early every morning, and the Birchat > Kohanim occurs later in the morning. My question is: do I have a Chiyuv to > "duchen" if I'm in the audience and the Shaliach Tzibbur announces on the > loudspeaker the word: "Kohanim!" Does that trigger a halachic obligation > for me to duchen No. If you have already duchened that day, you have no further chiyuv, even if you hear the chazan, and even if someone directly tells you to go up. However if you *choose* to duchen for a second (or third, etc) time that day, you may do so with a bracha. (SA OC 128:3) [Email #2. -micha] PS: This applies also in an ordinary shul where they duchen at shachris and musaf. Any cohen who duchened at shachris, and doesn't feel like doing it again at musaf, needn't leave the room. He has no obligation to answer the chazan's call. But those who do answer it duchen with a bracha, because that is takanas chachamim. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 12:26:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 19:26:26 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish Yasom Message-ID: <20150630.152626.19374.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> What is the rule for when we do or do not say Kaddish Yasom (Mourner's Kaddish)? >From what I've seen, it is NOT said even if a minyan says Birkas Hamazon, but it IS said when a minyan says Kiddush Levana. It is NOT said when a minyan says Tehillim even as an organized group, but it IS said on Yom Tov after the Megilla (Shir Hashirim, Rus, Koheles) is read. I do not see any pattern. Does anyone else know of a rule? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5592ed93bb00b6d93482cst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 15:03:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 18:03:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish Yasom In-Reply-To: <20150630.152626.19374.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150630.152626.19374.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5593124A.2040905@sero.name> On 06/30/2015 03:26 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > What is the rule for when we do or do not say Kaddish Yasom (Mourner's Kaddish)? > >>From what I've seen, it is NOT said even if a minyan says Birkas Hamazon, Why would it? > but it IS said when a minyan says Kiddush Levana. Probably because people are used to saying it after Alenu. > It is NOT said when a minyan says Tehillim even as an organized group, Where have you seen it not being said then? I'm surprised that this is your experience. > but it IS said on Yom Tov after the Megilla (Shir Hashirim, Rus, Koheles) is read. Yes, that is my experience as well. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 03:47:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 13:47:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] 13th century zeal Message-ID: I found the following story from R Kaganoff interesting not only for the halachic portion but also to show that community fights are not new The question regarding recital of *mei'ein sheva* when *Yom Tov* falls on Friday resulted in a very heated dispute during the era of the Rishonim. In the time of the *Rivash*, Rabbi Amram ben Meroam, a frequent correspondent of the *Rivash*, wrote him the following *shaylah*: Reuven was the *chazzan* for the Friday night *davening *on a *Shabbos* that immediately followed *Yom Tov*. He began reciting *mei'ein sheva*, when Shimon reprimanded him, contending that one should not recite this *bracha* when *Shabbos* follows *Yom Tov* -- since no one was working on Friday, the reason for the *takkanah* did not apply. Levi then got involved, saying that it is accepted that one *does* recite *mei'ein sheva*on Friday night following a *Yom Tov*. The *shul* then burst into a cacophony of voices, with Shimon's and Reuven's backers screaming at one another. Finally, Shimon shouted that Reuven was desecrating*Hashem's *holy Name, since he was willing to recite a *bracha* in vain, and that if he did, Shimon would declare him to be in *cherem*, excommunicated! Reuven did recite the *bracha mei'ein sheva,* and a day later, opened his door to find Shimon and twenty of his backers there to notify him that he had been excommunicated! The Rivash* was asked to rule whether Reuven was indeed in *cherem* because of Shimon's declaration that he recited a *bracha* in vain, or, perhaps, Shimon should be placed in *cherem* for excommunicating someone without proper cause. The *Rivash* ruled that Shimon was mistaken, and that one should recite *mei'ein sheva* when *Shabbos* follows *Yom Tov*. Therefore, he concluded that Reuven, who followed the correct *halachah*, could completely ignore the *cherem* placed on him. However, he also concluded that since Shimon thought he was acting correctly, we do not excommunicate Shimon for his actions (*Shut HaRivash* #34). -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 06:54:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 13:54:19 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos Message-ID: <20150401.095419.16600.0@webmail12.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitzchok Levine wrote: > Does not the SA say that a person who has trouble chewing > matzah can soak it in water and then eat it? If so, then > I fail to see why eating gebrokts should be a problem for > anyone. The answer will depend on what you mean by "SA". If "SA" refers specifically to the author of the Shulchan Aruch, Rav Yosef Karo, then the answer is that he is not the last word in halacha. There are other authorities, and someone who follows the others could have a problem even with something that the SA allows. If "SA" refers to the Shulchan Aruch in general, then I do not understand your question, since the problem of gebrokts *IS* mentioned by authorities other than Rav Karo. If I'm not mistaken, the Shaarei Teshuva (which is in the printed editions of Mishne Brurah) is a good example. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 11:05:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 14:05:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> I repeated on Areivim RSM's deduction that yayin kal is closest to the alcohol level of chazal's wine. On Wed, Apr 1, 2015 at 9:39am PDT, R Saul Newman wrote to Areivim: > interesting, when seeing in ktubot abaye's widow describing the size of > his wine vessel. by that Percentage, it wouldnt be toxic... Here's RSM's science, and it seems impeccable: By natural means, no alcoholic beverage can get above 12% -- at that level the yeast drowns in its own output. That's why beer and wine tend to be 12%. We can tweak that up to 16% with specially bred yeast, and/or control of temperature and humidity -- not options in Chazal's day. (Higher alcohol drinks are made by distilling out the alcohol from the original 12% liquid.) To add my 2 pence: Their barrels weren't perfect, which means there was more evaporation. But since alcohol evaporates faster than water, that will only lower the percentage alcohol. So we're still at about 12% max. RSM's original line of reasoning, continues: Mezigas hakos is typically at least 1:3, or 25% wine. So, the final product would be at most 3%. A third penny: Now let's discuss how big a revi'is was back then... But even without that, I have no idea how any of them would have gotten anywhere near drunk. Why would R' Yonah have a headache until shavu'os off some 16 oz total of 3% wine? Do we have to assume it was the alcohol? Maybe he was a later owner of Abayei's kos... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Mussar is like oil put in water, micha at aishdas.org eventually it will rise to the top. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 12:08:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 01 Apr 2015 15:08:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> On 04/01/2015 02:05 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Now let's discuss how big a revi'is was back then... But even without > that, I have no idea how any of them would have gotten anywhere near > drunk. Why would R' Yonah have a headache until shavu'os off some 16 oz > total of 3% wine? Do we have to assume it was the alcohol? Maybe he was > a later owner of Abayei's kos... I don't think it's at all plausible that it was the alcohol. I have long assumed that he had some sort of allergy or intolerance for some component of grapes or grape skins, or perhaps for the sulfites with which wine was (and is still) preserved. It's well known that there are people today who get headaches from sulfites. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 12:25:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mordechai Harris via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 14:25:38 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> Message-ID: There is a lot of info here: http://seforim.blogspot.com/2012/10/wine-strength-and-dilution.html Chag Kasher v'Samayach< Mordechai -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 12:30:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 22:30:53 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: There recently appeared a sefer "Keren Zavit" by Nadav Shenrav on parshat hashavua that has a very nice combination of science and Torah. On parshat Tzav he brings a question on the shitah of the Nodah BeYuhuda that eggs doubled in size. The Noda Beyehuda claims that there is a contradiction between two sugyot that find measurements based on either the size of the egg or from length (or volume) measurements. To answer the contradiction the Nodah Beyehuda assumes that our eggs are half the size of those in the days of chazal. (Actually modern eggs are larger than those in his day) The basic point is that in order to translate the measurements of chazal to modern measurements we need a fixed point, ie some measurement that has not changed over the generations. If everything can change we have only relative measurements and not absolute measurements. The Nodah BeYehuda assumes that the width of the thumb is constant. Question: Rambam (maaseh hakorbanot 13:14) states the kemitzah which cinsists of 3 fingers closed over the palm contains 2 kezatim. However 2 kezaytim of 50cc (ie 100cc) is impossible to enclose within 3 fingers. He brings that he saw this question in a series "Bet Aharon VeYisrael" and they answered "nishtanu hateva" i.e. their hands were bigger and could hold 100c of flour within 3 fingers. (In general the author is not impressed with the answer of "nishtane hateva" but he assumes it for this article). However, this leads to an internal contradiction, ie Noda Beyehuda assumes that the size of the thumb has not changed but is required to assume that the size of the hand was much larger in the days of chazal ie how is it possible that their hands were MUCH larger but the width of the thumb remained constant. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 14:11:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 17:11:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150401211129.GA23585@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 01, 2015 at 10:30:53PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : There recently appeared a sefer "Keren Zavit" by Nadav Shenrav on parshat : hashavua that has a very nice combination of science and Torah. : : On parshat Tzav he brings a question on the shitah of the Nodah BeYuhuda : that eggs doubled in size. AISI, there are three distinct questions that generally get lumped together in the annual kezayis discussion: 1- Is "kezayis" a constant volume, or is it pinned to the average olive, or perhaps the average among some subset of breeds of olive as breeding, care and climate change? R' Chaim Volozhiner and the Avnei Neizer say the latter. You might remember my post from last Jan at. . The AhS OC 363:34 says that lehalakhah an ammah is the person involved's forearm. E.g. when measuring 4 amos for tiltul, the din is more chamur for me than for taller people. When coming to mavui or techum, where you need a single pesaq for a whole town, you need a standardized ammah, "ameru chakhamim denimdod lechumerah" it's the length of the arm of some very high percentile of the people relying on it (and possibly 100%) -- "debevadei yeish anashim shezehu midasan". (Also, when dealing with someone with a handicap or amputation, you need to use estimates.) To me this seems to feed RCV's approach. Because both assume that measurements are not absolute, but based on the set of whatevers involved. For example, the AhS's position about the standard ammah would imply that a community that is atypically tall would use a longer ammah for techum than in a ghettod population whose malnutrition stunted their typical growth. 2- If kezayis is a constant volume, do all the accepted overestimates performed and accumulated one atop the other unwind when we have more information about chazal's zeisim? Or do we say that the bottom of the range of measurments that dominate common pratice in one's qehillah is binding as pesaq, and one can't just ignore the now huge safety margin? This is what I argued here when RNS's paper came out http://www.zootorah.org/RationalistJudaism/TheEvolutionOfTtheOlive.pdf (And if so, is that extra amount considered as deOraisa as the original olive volume, because it's a pesaq in a din deOraisa? Or is it a harchaqah, and thus derabban? 3- The actual specifics 3a- If the answe to #2 is that we do roll back the kezayis based on better information about what it was, the metzi'us specifics can still be argued. Such as asking (as I did in passing in #1) which subset of olives to average. 3b- And if the answer is that we don't, then there are halachic process details to ask about. But I think many discussions, including our own previous years' iterations, stuble because they blur these topics rather than keeping them separate, which in turn would force dealing with them in the sequence I gave as well. (Because #2 depends on one kind of answer to #1, and #3 has different flavors depending on #2.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 13:36:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 16:36:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Yaknehaz [was: The Quinoa - Kitniyos Conundrum] Message-ID: In a message dated 4/1/2015 6:28:31 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, micha at aishdas.org writes: On Wed, Apr 01, 2015 at 12:03am EDT, RnTK wrote: : It was the norm in my parental home and is what my husband does too. : In fact I have never seen anyone use a regular havdala candle at a seder! : (Or a single wick candle without joining it to another candle or to a match.) A local yeshiva qetana sells two-wick candles that otherwise look like Shabbos candles as a fundraiser. This way you don't have a fire lasting as long as whatever is left on your havdalah candle, and the whole problem is avoided. >>>>> I wasn't really clear. What my parents used to do (and we do similarly) was to take one Shabbos candle ot of the candlestick and hold its flame close to another Shabbos candle for the bracha, and then put it back in the candlestick it came out of. IOW we use the candles that are already burning on the table anyway. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 14:36:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 17:36:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] partnership - adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties Message-ID: partnership - adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties In describing why person would fast all Passover over and above Jewish Law Practice, you used the words "emotional attachment". In the seven years since that wording , perhaps the message is deeper. Salamone Rossi the Jewish Italian composer, became a hero of the assimilationist movement. See AJS Review volume 26 #1 where where a series of books by one Don Harran re Rossi is reviewed. Twice in Adon Olam, the series of fast phrases of excitement called Tritum or whatever is used twice ??? ???? ??? ???? ???? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ?_?? ??? ????? ???? ???? ... ???? ????? ???? ???? ?????? - ??? ???? ? ???? ???? ????? ??? ?? ?????? - ????? ?? ???? ??? ??? ????? - ??? ????? - ????? ???? - ???? ???? ??? ???? ???? ??? ???? ??????? - ???? ????? ????? ??? - ???? ?? ????? ??? ????? - ????? ????? ???? ?? ????? - ??? ???? ??? ???? ???? ?????? ????? ??? ????? - ?? - ???? ?_?? ??? ????? ???? ???? ... ?????? ?? ?? ??? ???? ??? ??? ?? ???? ???? - ??? ???? ?? ????? ?????? ... ?? ?? ???? ?? GLOOMY THOUGHT NEGATIVE CHARACTERIZATION The reviewer - a music professor at Northeastern U in Boston MA - illustrates that limitless exhaustive research did not turn up for M. Harran the fact that in the surrounding milieu which Mr. Rossi is immersed in - these patterns aare reserved for ttheir Trinity.. Lhavdil elef havdalot. Rossi as a Jew with beating Jewish Heart - in Adon Olam his famous composition - when it came to Our God - he proudly used the pattern of the ecstasy of the Tritium (apologies of not being able to look up - will scan and send but each moment I am in danger of interrruption - ) . Why Yeihareig ? Why not float with the waves? Answer - because it is identity of Jew - visceral reaction necessary! taht is Key! Common motif of Piyut - ?????? ????? ?????? ????? - countering their attempted invasion and depriving us of identity - the desperation of drowning brings us to keep our identity- baby will starve self to reserve independence - if it is deprived from baby Not in complete normal routine vassalry to Hashem. But it is the assertion of identity. Sneh Boeir - Papers of Adoption - of formation of Partnership - not the bylaws which may never be read - but the primary identity of Hasheem as responsible party specifically to act as parent re MY CHILD - thsi is basic bedrock Jew - as Rashi certainly subscribed, and rashbam, and likely R' Yonah even Ramban. For my money - when functioning as Jewish Natnion member - the Rambam himself, codifier of the Doctrinal Jew. Back to subject after rant - A JS Reviewer - just like they show reverence for their Hero - we show reverence for our Hero - One God - that the reviewer explained for the first - ??? ???? ??? ???? ???? ?????? What of second threesome - look in Tur for Ecstasy - OC 5 - ???? ?_?? ??? ????? ???? ???? takif..???? ??? ?????? ??? ????? ???? - ???? ?? ???? ??? ??? ????? ??? - ???? ?? ???? - ??? ???? ???? ?? - ??? ???? - ???? ???? - ??? ???? ??? ??? ???? ??????? ?? ??? - ??? ???? ?? ???? ???? ??? ????? ???? ???? - ?? ?? ??? ?? ???? ???? ?????? ???? ???? - ?? ?????? - ??? ?????? ????? ?????? ???? - ???? ???? ?? ??? ?? - ???? ??? ????? ????? ????? - ??? ??? ????? - ?????? ????? ????? ??? ????? - ?? ??? ??? ???? - ?? ??? ??? ????? - ??? ????? - ???? ?????? ?????? - ???? ???? ?????? ????? ?? ?? - ??? ?? ????? ??? ???? ????? ???? ????? ???? ????? ?????? 148-155 - ?_?_?_? ??? ?? - ????? ???? 148 ???? ???? ?????? - ?? ?????? - ??? ???? ??? ???? ?? ?????? - ??? ????? ????? ????? - ?? ??? ??? ???? ???? ?? ????? =- ??? ???????? ?????? ????? ????? - ?? ???? - ????? - ?????? - ???? ???? - ??? ??? ????? - ??? ??? ?? ????? - ????? ??? ??? ?????? - ??? ????? - ????? ??? ?????? ?????? - ???? ???? ?? ??????? ????? ??? - ????? - ???? ?????? ???? ??? ????? ?????? ???? ????? ??????? ????? ?? - ??? ???? ?????? ???? ??"? - ??? ????? ???? ???? ???? ??? ????? ??? ?? ???? - ???? ?? ??? ?? ???? ???-????? ?? ????? ?? ?? ?????? - ??? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ?? ??????? - EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT IS ZILZUL IN A COVENANT ???? ?????? ?? ??? ???? - ??? ??? ??? ? ?? ????? ????? ??? ?????? ??! ???? ????? - ?? ????? ???? ??? ???? ?? ???? ????? ??? ????? ????? - ?? ??? ??? ???? ????? ?? ??? -- David Wacholder Cell: 917-742-7838 Email: dwacholder at gmail.com dwacholder at optonline.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 18:24:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 12:24:45 +1100 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice Message-ID: Wine in those days was frequently (typically?) flavored with resins or spices, some of which are actually toxic. These resins seem to have had the same effect as hops do in beer: they discourage microbial growth and therefore prevent it from souring and spoiling. This was an important consideration before the invention of Pasteurisation. If R' Yonah was allergic or otherwise sensitive to these resins he may have ascribed his symptoms to the wine itself. Alternatively, perhapshe simply didn't have access to any untreated wine and perhaps he didn't consider raisin "wine" to be chashuv enough. Joe Slater -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 18:27:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 12:27:16 +1100 Subject: [Avodah] Yaknehaz [was: The Quinoa - Kitniyos Conundrum] Message-ID: Another data point: I asked my father O'H about this and he said he'd never heard of anyone using a Havdala candle for YAKNEHAZ, or even joining two flames together. He came from central Hungary, and his rabbi was a great-nephew of Maharam Schick. Joe Slater -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 20:32:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 01 Apr 2015 23:32:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> Message-ID: <551CB836.5040609@sero.name> On 04/01/2015 03:25 PM, Mordechai Harris wrote: > There is a lot of info here: http://seforim.blogspot.com/2012/10/wine-strength-and-dilution.html It is interesting, but I think the author may have made a simple mistake in assuming that when Rashi says their wines were "stronger" than ours, he meant "more alcoholic". That may be what he meant, in which case he was mistaken, but it seems to me that he may have meant "strong tasting", or to put it more bluntly, "sour". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 02:18:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 12:18:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kitniyot Message-ID: see a discussion at http://etzion.org.il/en/pesach-journal by Rav Brosky -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 07:53:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 02 Apr 2015 10:53:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Historic Practice Passover Offering Message-ID: <20150402145402.230A3183730@nexus.stevens.edu> See the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kgbRusmqjs A FILM OF THE PRACTICE PASSOVER OFFERING THE TEMPLE INSTITUTE CONDUCTS UNPRECEDENTED PASSOVER OFFERING PRACTICE DRILL As reported earlier, in preparation for the upcoming festival of Passover, this past Wednesday (5 Nisan - 25 March) the 'Priestly Training Academy' established by the Temple Institute held a Passover offering practice drill. This is a film that documents this event. This was the most accurate and authentic reenactment of this service to have taken place in nearly 2,000 years. ---------- It looks to me that they used machine matzos in this video. If I am correct, then I find this bizarre. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 13:36:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 16:36:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: How many swallows of Matzo are necessary? How many olive tree generations to Calendar Year Tohu and Gan Eden? The following came up last year: FEARLESS RULING FOR PERSON WITH DIFFICULTY EATING: Every average person's swallow is a Kezayit, the amount which fulfils the Mitzvah and is the measure for the Bracha on Achilas Matza. As a Hidur and to erase all doubt, a second normal swallow would be good. That is for Motzi-Matzah, where the first olive-size swallowed fulfils a Torah obligation. Additional for Afikoman one swallow is certainly enough. For a person struggling to eat, try to eat at least a taste. Any more than that is for those who tolerate Matzo well. I look at how much a person can swallow - one swallow. That would measure a Kezayit. 100% the person has fulfilled the Mitzvah after one swallow. For margin of error issues, add another second swallow. For those with difficulty eating, one may then stop. For Afikoman the one swallow is sufficient. This needs no authority to base it on. Chazon Ish gave his asembled family pieces about the size of his palm , as described by qualified dedicated observer in Orchos Rabeinu. Traditions vary. Some quoted Rav Chaim Valozhiner as saying - the size of an olive is an olive is an olive. Another tradition said one must use an egg-size as a base unit. On Atkins Low-Carb Diet, daily consumption was - for starting extreme levels - 30 grams per day - about an ounce. I cut the piece of Challah, which by volume probably was an olive, but the air pockets should have been counted, so the person could say Birkas Hamazon for themselves. Someone else was Motzi the dieter in Birkat Hamazon. Air pockets and weight issue The swallow size may be according the the air pockets normally contained in Matzo, not ground, and according to volume not weight. VOLUME NOT WEIGHT By weight, comparable amount of Chareidim Boro Park 5774 MATZOS weighed perhaps 7 grams compared to perhaps 30 grams of a heavy brand of Hand Matzo. Using volume measures as weight measures creates significant errors. The person had been using 30 grams of WEIGHT as the Standard, not 30 grams of volume. It was a reasonably filled sandwich bag. Also Matzo can absorb moisture from the air making it heavier, can be freshened in the oven, which will make it weigh less. Volume remains the same. Weighing your Matza introduces a major error factor. SHEKEIN NEHENEH According to Rav Elchanan Wasserman, even a non-believer fulfils the Mitzvah, Shekein Neheneh. I have doubts if Kavana Hafucha would even work. I certainly think a person should not have Kavana Hafucha in the sense of - only be Yotzei when Measurement X is reached. NOT THE AMOUNT TO FILL THE CHEEK This is neither cheekful nor yet a mouthful. Observe how your neighbor swallows his food eating calmly. [DW comment - this is a normal comfortable swallow, not a contestant requiring for safety a Hatzala person or Heimlich Maneuver needed to monitor. This is not a Superman-Swallower who attempts to swallow the size of all olives ever eaten, whose face turns red but comes out OK after a KAPITAL TEHILIM. That is Achila Shelo K'darkah, and certainly is not optimum. That eliminates the Double and Exponential/Logarithmic olives from consideration for a single swallow. Never swallow more than a comfortable amount. SUKKOT No custom requires swallowing all at once in the Sukkah. Others require an Egg Plus size. ARUCH HASHULCHAN Aruch Hashulchan functioned as a review of the other Poskim in Orach Chaim. He pointedly does not double the Kezayit. MISHNA BRURAH - to my reading - says the same. Indeed I grant the MB does not totally negate a double-size as having precedent. MY HANDWIDTHS On a flat table, I measured my keyboard's width two different ways. first, using all ten fingers flat on table, it was 4 hands wide. With thumbs in air and only the eight fingers flat on the table, my keyboard was 5.5 hands wide. The thumbs were sideways, so the width added drilled through the wrinkle on the back to the fold on the front. This would be the thumb measured in Halacha. I certainly am not a measurement specialist, so I appreciate all feedback. According to best knowledge, that through-thumb measurement is the one which is supposed to be 25 percent of the other four fingers. CHZON ISH Even the writings of CHzon Ish reflect a defensive stance. As a practical matter, the CI knew in his heart that a Zayis will not change in recorded history. Olive trees of 1000 years old are not uncommon, and one in EY is 2000 years old. They are propogated from plantings identical to the original. As little as three generations of trees in EY could easily reach Calender Year 1. RIDDLE - HOW MANY OLIVES TO EAT A KEZAYIT? RABI YOCHANAN ATE ONE OLIVE- and made bracha acharona. It was the big variety salad olive, or a large specimen of the oil olive. I was convinced by a strong presentation in a conference from several years ago. A Bar Ilan professor compared olives from various species and showed pictures of all the oldest olive trees in EY. The oil olives were in the 4 cc to 7 cc (4-7 grams volume). Salad olives - the kind whose seeds were commonly eaten in Masada - max out at 17 grams. He convincingly argued that double size super-olives would in all likelihood kill the trees. 4 ccs is well below an average swallow. Please double check my numbers, as I am writing from memory. -- David Wacholder From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 18:58:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 21:58:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] naive kitniyos question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150403015816.GA8090@aishdas.org> On Thu, Mar 26, 2015 at 12:34:15PM -0400, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote: : Re kitniyos: isn't the issur one of "cooking" with kitniyos? ... Take 2 at answering this question. My wife found http://ph.yhb.org.il/en/04-09-06 "6. Kitniyot That Never Touched Water and Kitniyot Oils" by R' Eliezer Melamed We are not stricter with kitniyot than we are with the five cereal grains, so whatever is acceptable regarding these grains is kosher for kitniyot, too. Thus, kitniyot that have not come into contact with water, or that have come into contact with water but were not left for more than 18 minutes before being cooked (like matza), may be eaten. Some poskim are stringent in this respect, but most are lenient.[4] ... [4] Most authorities are not stricter about kitniyot than about the cereal grains (SAH 453:5; ??ayei Adam 127:1; Responsa Maharsham 1:183; Be'er Yitzhak sec. 11; Responsa Marheshet sec. 3; and Rav Kook's Orah Mishpat sec. 111). Some, however, are more stringent (Sho'el U-meishiv 1:1:175 and Ma'amar Mordechai sec. 32). Their rationale is that no one would understand these distinctions since kitniyot do not become hametz. Additionally, they were concerned that making the kitniyot exactly like the cereal grains would mislead people to think they could use kitniyot to fulfill the mitzva of matza. As noted, though, most poskim are lenient, and in any dispute about a custom the halakha follows the lenient opinion. The Rishonim also debate whether or not scalding works for kitniyot, since scalding any of the five cereal grains technically eliminates the possibility of its leavening, though the Ge'onim agree that no one knows how to scald the grains properly (SA 454:3). However, according to Or Zaru'a 2:256, since the prohibition of kitniyot is just a custom, scalding the kitniyot is effective and permits them. Mordechai rules stringently, and Rabbeinu Peretz's glosses to Smak sec. 222 notes the lenient opinion but rules stringently. So it seems the pesaq I grew up with is, in REM's estimaton, the minority view. And if my sevara holds: It would mean the machloqes is a machloqes as to whether qitniyos are compared to wheat or to dough. Which again would be reflected in the various theories about what risk it is the minhag is trying to avoid: qitniyos includes things used like grain, which can cause confusion of chameitz with mutar legume products; qitniyos could have real flour on them (as per Rava's admonition to the reish galusa's household), etc... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of micha at aishdas.org greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, http://www.aishdas.org in fact, of our modesty. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Louis Kronenberger, writer (1904-1980) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 09:32:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 16:32:11 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Tan Du Message-ID: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> I think we've discussed R'YBS's famous statement on ontological chazakot on a number of occasions. I was glad to see that I have giant shoulders to stand on (hat tip-Isaac Newton): Tradition - Winter 2014 (Rabbi N. Helfgot) In a famous episode in 1975, the Rav strongly denounced a proposal raised by R. Emanuel Rackman, z"l to reevaluating the validity of the Talmudic dictum "a woman would always be rather married to anyone (even a scoundrel) than be alone" in the modern context. R. Rackman called on religious authorities to reevaluate the reach of this dictum as a way of addressing the scourge of modern day recalcitrant husbands who did not give their estranged spouses a get. The reevaluation of this principle might be an opening to examine the use of halakhic annulment of marriages. The Rav vigorously maintained that this principle, like all hazakot of Hazal, was "an ontological statement" about the nature of women, not subject to changing historical factors or changing social mores. R. Lichtenstein in both private conversation with a number of talmidim over the decades, including this author and in remarks in public shiurim, noted his disagreement with the Rav's assessment of this hazaka (and expressed astonishment at the vehemence of the Rav's opposition at the time) given the clear cut evidence in the Rishonim in Yevamot and other places in Shas which clearly indicated that this hazaka was not one that applied in all contexts and at all times and in all situations. I don't recall that R'YBS said this was true of all chazakot of Chazal but haven't listened to that audio in a long time. CKV"S Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 04:06:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 14:06:33 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] rabbits Message-ID: << But PS can someone remind me what a picture of a rabbit is doing in the : medieval illustrated Hagada? There is a fundamental reason why pictures of people were avoided. >> Yet many of the medieval haggadot had pictures of people and even (wow) women!. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 11:41:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 14:41:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] rabbits In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150403184143.GB11664@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 03, 2015 at 02:06:33PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> There is a fundamental reason why pictures of people were avoided. : : Yet many of the medieval haggadot had pictures of people.. The reason is still there. We don't all agree on halakhah and minhag, why would two people necessarily agree during the medieval period? :-)|,|ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger The true measure of a man micha at aishdas.org is how he treats someone http://www.aishdas.org who can do him absolutely no good. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Samuel Johnson From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 23:57:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 09:57:26 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kitniyot Message-ID: see http://ohr.edu/5390 and http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/5184 by Rabbi Spits He discusses Quinoa In the second article he discusses potatos both for kitniyot and bishul akum As for modern products that didnt exist in the days of the gezera he notes Shu"t Igros Moshe (O.C. vol. 3, 63). Others who accept peanuts for Pesach include the Seridei Aish (Shu"t vol. 2, 37, 2; new print vol. 1, 50 -- through a combination of factors), the Yeshuas Moshe (Shu"t vol. 1, 35; he opines that the Kitniyos prohibition never applied to legumes that are eaten raw, but concludes similar to Rav Moshe, that if one has an existing minhag not to eat peanuts on Pesach he still should not do so), and the Rivevos Efraim (Shu"t vol. 7, 257; only if it came still in its shell). [This logic is based on the Shulchan HaRav's understanding (O.C. 453, 5) that the prohibition of Kitniyos only applies when it gets wet). Other poskim who ruled that way (as how can Kitniyos be more stringent than grain -- which only can become chometz when wet) include the Chayei Adam (vol. 2, 128, 1) and Maharsham (Shu"t vol. 1, 183 and Daas Torah O.C. 453), who cites that Rav Shlomo Kluger (Nidrei Zerizin, 8) held this way as well. Those who were stringent include the Shoel U'Meishiv (Mahadura Kama vol. 1, 175), the Avnei Nezer (O.C. 373 and 533), the Maamar Mordechai (Shu"t 32), and the Sdei Chemed (Maareches Chometz U'Matza 6, 1). This was also one of the points of contention between Rav Kook and the Badatz Chasidim of Yerushalayim regarding the permissibility of sesame oil for Pesach -- see footnote 13]. See also Shu"t Atzei HaLevanon (vol. 1, 18) who also permits peanuts for Pesach; yet based on his description it seems he is referring to a pistachio (as per the Yeshuas Moshe ibid.). [Email #2. Subject: kitniyot - summary] After our discussion of kitniyot and the psak of RMF several personal observations 1) We all agree that psak of RMF is controversial. IMHO it is "half" accepted probably more in the US than in Israel 2) There is a separate machkoket about derivatives of kitniyot and especially oils of kitniyot. While there are relatively few ashkenazim who eat corn on the cob or peanuts there are many who combine the 2 positions and use oild and derivatives from "new: kitniyot. Thus there are many rabbis that allow Canola oil (and certainly cottenseed oil) using RMF and the debate over oils. Similarly it has been common in my community to use lecithin (liftit) in candies etc. My rabbi allows this together with most rabbis in my town based on major dati leumi rabbis. R Elyashiv came out strongly against all of this and so in the charedi community especially in Israel no kitniyot oils or lecithin is allowed and only walnut or olive oil is used. Bottom line in spite of the objections on this list that RMF is "wrong" in many communities his teshuva is accepted when combined with the debate of kitniyot derivatives. chag kasher vesameach. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 03:57:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 13:57:43 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos Message-ID: > But let's not get buried under the reports of RMF and R' Tuvia Goldstein, > and forget that we have conflict in reports about whether RSZA would > allow someone to start eating gebrochts after hataras nedarim. > So, while rumor might say he did, we have a first-hand report from R > Yisrael Herczeg that tells us to ignore the grapevine >> In Halichos Shlomo (p90) it states explicitly that one can change his custom and eat gebrochs after hatart nedarim. However, this should be done only if there is a good reason (tzorach chashuv) for the change. Thus, for a chatan he would allow the hatarat nedarim if keeping bebrochs would cause family difficulties. RSZA paskened that the wife follows the customs of the husband both for kula and chumra(without hatart nedarim). He explicitly states that this is different than one who moves to another location where he does need hatarat nedarim since a woman knows that she will eventually marry and might change her minhag. The husband has the right to relinguish his rights. This is prevalant with regard to the nuscah of davening. A Baal Teshuva should prferably keep the customs of his "original" community where the family belonged. However, if he is now connected to some rabbi or community he can choose to keep their customs instead. He also paskens (for EY) that one can cook kitniyot on the 7th day of Pesach for use on the shabbat right afterwards (ef this year). This is because some sefardi could come over for a visit and so the kitniyot are not mukza . The same applies to gebrochs even though it is the 7th day of Pesach. RSZA himself ate gebrochs though he would not eat anything that fell on the floor. He did not use potato starch or anything that rsembled a chametz cake On a different topic he allowed drinking regular water eg from the kinneret since one can't taste at all the taste of any possible chametz, [Email #2] >> So, while rumor might say he did, we have a first-hand report from R >> Yisrael Herczeg that tells us to ignore the grapevine. > Perhaps he changed his mind! It has happened before. In this case he didnt change his mind. He said that it depended on the circumstances. In theory one could do hatarat nedarim and eat Gebrochs but he advocated not using this heter unless there was a good reason to change the custom. Obviously for Yisrael Herczeg he didn't feel there was sufficient justification. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 04:15:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 14:15:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: > 1- Is "kezayis" a constant volume, or is it pinned to the average olive, > or perhaps the average among some subset of breeds of olive as breeding, > care and climate change? archaeology shows that the olive has not changed dramatically over the millenia > 2- If kezayis is a constant volume, do all the accepted overestimates > performed and accumulated one atop the other unwind when we have more > information about chazal's zeisim? Not all communities accepted these various shitot. I can understand some overestimates for being conservative but factors of 5-10 larger seem overdone. This is especially true if one stuffs the matza into ones mouth and swallows together which becomes "achila gasa". In general the problem with the huge shiurim is that it is very difficult for many people. > average. Which is the reason to be on the conservative side and use the largest size olives which is still on the order of 17cc and not 50cc. [Email #2] > Or do we say that the bottom of the > range of measurments that dominate common pratice in one's qehillah is > binding as pesaq, and one can't just ignore the now huge safety margin? Reminds of a story I read on the recent 20th yahrzeit of RSZA. RSZA came up with 2 chumrot for the seder both related to the length of maggid being a problem for kiddush bemkom seudah and the bracha over the wine. His mechutan R Elyashiv accepted the chumrot and rushed his maggid while RSZA didnt accept his own chumrot in practice on the grounds that this was not the minhag of Israel over the generations. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 15:16:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 22:16:11 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Historic Practice Passover Offering Message-ID: <20150403.181611.8008.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitzchok Levine posted: > See the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kgbRusmqjs > ... > As reported earlier, in preparation for the upcoming festival of > Passover, this past Wednesday (5 Nisan - 25 March) the 'Priestly > Training Academy' established by the Temple Institute held a > Passover offering practice drill. This is a film that documents > this event. This was the most accurate and authentic reenactment > of this service to have taken place in nearly 2,000 years. Two things in particular surprised me in this video: 1) The lambs were so small! Children carried them in! 2) At the very end, it shows and mentions that the korban pesach "is roasted whole and in a special oven." Special oven? What was special about it, and why an oven at all? I would think that the oven would (at least partially) bake it, whereas it was supposed to be roasted by the fire, and only by fire. I recall halachos of it being held by a pomegranate branch to avoid heat conduction by metal, and rotated like a rotisserie to avoid it being cooked even by its own juices. What's this oven about? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/551f117e86f4b117e0fdfst03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 12:22:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2015 15:22:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <551EE85D.1030908@sero.name> On 04/03/2015 06:57 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > He also paskens (for EY) that one can cook kitniyot on the 7th day of > Pesach for use on the shabbat right afterwards (ef this year). Yes, I'm surprised that anyone disagrees. It seems so obviously correct. I know that many people don't do so, and believe it to be forbidden, but I have never yet heard an argument for why it should be so. > This is because some sefardi could come over for a visit and so the kitniyot > are not mukza . The main issue would surely not be muktzeh, but cooking on yomtov. But the answer is the same: the hypothetical horde of hungry guests who might descend on one ten minutes before sunset on Friday, and for whom one is, in principle, cooking, might very well be sefardim. > The same applies to gebrochs even though it is the 7th day of > Pesach. Gebrochts, of course, applies in Chu"l as well (since almost everyone who doesn't eat it on the first 7 days does eat it on the last day). And lich'ora the above heter is not applicable. Kitniyos are gebrochts are not similar. Ashkenazim don't avoid kitniyos because of a concern that it might be chametz; they readily agree that there is no such concern, and that for Sefardim it is heter gamur. Thus there is no reason at all why an ashkenazi should not cook kitniyos for a sefardi, any more than there is a reason why a zar who is tahor should not cook terumah for a kohen. But those who avoid gebrochts do so because of an (admittedly remote) concern that it might be chametz. If so, then they should be equally concerned not to give it to someone else, even one who isn't worried about it, and thus shouldn't be able to claim on Friday that they are cooking for hypothetical guests who eat it. Lepoel this question comes up every time there is such a kevius, and there doesn't seem to be one psak about it. Perhaps it comes down to the different reasons people give for why it's OK on the last day. If one holds that the reason is "shelo lehotzi la'az" on those who eat gebrochts all Pesach, then it makes sense that on the first 7 days one should also not be "motzi la'az", and thus should be willing to cook gebrochts for those who eat it. Thus on Friday the 7th one can claim to be cooking for such guests. But if one holds that the reason for not eating gebrochts for 7 days and then eating it on the 8th is as a symbolic gesture towards the kabbalistic idea that on the 8th day one ought to eat chametz, so for 7 days we treat gebrochts *as if* it were chametz, and then eat it on the 8th day, then it would seem to follow that on the 7th day one may not cook it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 14:17:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 21:17:19 GMT Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: <20150403.171719.13613.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' David Wacholder posted: > Every average person's swallow is a Kezayit, the amount which > fulfils the Mitzvah and is the measure for the Bracha on Achilas > Matza. As a Hidur and to erase all doubt, a second normal swallow > would be good. That is for Motzi-Matzah, where the first olive- > size swallowed fulfils a Torah obligation. > ... > This needs no authority to base it on. ... WHY would it need no authority to base it on? If this were the halacha, wouldn't someone have mentioned it? Why did so many authorities struggle with the math and the biology and the physics if such a simple solution were at hand? > Air pockets and weight issue > > The swallow size may be according the the air pockets normally > contained in Matzo, not ground, and according to volume not weight. If a kezayis is a swallowfull, aren't the air pockets gone? Haven't they been lost in the chewing? I concede that by the time the chewed matza gets to the throat, much of the missing air has been replaced by saliva. Or perhaps the saliva even *more* than accounts for the missing air. I am not knowledgeable enough about this to venture a guess on the comparison of the volume of the matza before chewing vis a vis at swallowing. In any case, I've always been bothered by the problem of counting the air bubbles. Mishneh Berurah 208:48 says that when eating cookies, l'chatchilah, one must insure that he ate a kezayis of flour, WITHOUT counting the sugar, in order to say Al Hamichya. MB concedes that the minhag is to count all the ingrdients, but the Igros Moshe 1:71 says not to rely on that minhag. So here's my question: If they would prefer us NOT to count the other ingredients, which have substance, isn't it a simple kal vachomer not to count AIR, she'ayn bo mamash? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/551f039acb72539a4c49st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 13:08:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2015 16:08:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Special Pesach Edition -- Instantaneous Redemption Message-ID: <20150403200810.6EC28181C84@nexus.stevens.edu> [] Instantaneous Redemption HaShem took us out of Mitzrayim at the last minute before we slipped to the fiftieth level of impurity. Had we fallen to that level, we would have been irredeemable. In one moment, we went from darkness to light, from death to life, from slavery to freedom, from anguish to joy, and from impurity to holiness. Lesson: Just as that moment brought instantaneous redemption, so too, every moment of life has the potential to take us from darkness to light, from death to life, from slavery to freedom, from anguish to joy, and from impurity to holiness. App: May we all be encouraged by the miracles of Pesach, that HaShem again will instantaneously redeem us, and take us from darkness to light, from death to life, from slavery to freedom, from anguish to joy, and from impurity to holiness! (Based on Ohr Yahol, Rav Yehoshuah Leib Chousman) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 18:59:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2015 21:59:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geirut Message-ID: <20150406015903.GA15874@aishdas.org> (Ccing most of the participants in our 2008 and 2010 conversations.) You might be interested in On Conversion to Judaism, by Rabbi Dr. Chaim E. Schertz THE YU LAMDAN: The Wilf Campus Torah Journal http://yulamdan.com/2015/03/29/on-conversion-to-judaism-by-rabbi-dr-chaim-e-schertz or http://j.mp/1CIV5GN It starts slow, but R/Dr Schertz has a lot to say about Qabbalas Ol Mitzvos (QOM, or KOM if you prefer) and its role in geirus. Aside from other ideas that my be of interest, but it was QOM that has us going. :-)|,|ii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 22:22:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 01:22:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house Message-ID: <552217FE.4020103@sero.name> Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in EY after kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times. Does this mean that at a shiva house Sholom Rov is said even in shacharis (in EY on a non-Mon/Thu)? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 22:28:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 01:28:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" Message-ID: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the holy serafim's conclave. Nusach Ashkenaz, in the introduction to the kedusha of musaf, has a similar phrase: "kesod siach sarfei kodesh". But what does this mean? Every translation I have seen has rendered it as if it said "kesiach sod sarfei kodesh", but that's not what it says! Does anyone know, if "kesod siach" really means "kesiach sod", why they are reversed? Or, if that's not what it really means, can anyone explain what it does mean? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 22:32:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 01:32:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Moroccan nigunim Message-ID: <55221A63.3010303@sero.name> Do we have any experts here on the history of the Moroccan nigunei hatefilah? If so, can someone please explain when/how the Ashkenazi tune for Maoz Tzur got into the Moroccan liturgy as a tune for Mah Ashiv Lashem? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 03:38:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 13:38:02 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] free will Message-ID: We have discussed many times the opinion of Rav Dessler that a person doesn't always have free will. I recently saw a halachic discussion that may have some connection. On ketubot 51 the gemara discusses a case of a married woman who was raped but at the end was willing (techila be-ones ve-sofa be-ratzon). Shmuel's father forbids her to her husband while Rava allows her. One possibility of explaining Rava is that she is overwhelmed by her "yetzer" and so is still considered "anus" This is explicit in the words of R Zadok (tzidkat zaddik 43) that her desire is so great that it is impossible to overcome it and so she is considered anus gamur and so there is no punishment. Targum Yonatan (Devarim 22:26) holds that she is not punished by death but her husband must divorce her. Maharshal (yevamot 6:3) paskens that she is permitted to her husband only if she is "karka olam" However the Noda Beyehuda disagrees (tenina EH 150) and says she is always permitted to her husband because she is overwhelmed by her yetzer and so is not considered that she did it with her free will. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 05:13:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 12:13:44 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house Message-ID: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero asked: > Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in > EY after kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times. Does this > mean that at a shiva house Sholom Rov is said even in shacharis > (in EY on a non-Mon/Thu)? No, but I don't know why. I never thought of that question before, but here is a possibly-related question that I've wondered for years: If Shir Hamaalos is said whenever we skip Tachanun, should it always be said at the shiva house? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:25:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:25:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house In-Reply-To: <552217FE.4020103@sero.name> References: <552217FE.4020103@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150406182521.GC20912@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:22:06AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in EY after : kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times... This rule isn't 100%. Otherwise Sim Shalom would never be said when davening beyechidus. I think it's more lke Ashk uses Sim Shalom in tefillos where Birkhas Kohanim could be said, if we had opportunity. :-)||ii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:28:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:28:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:28:24AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam : siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the : holy serafim's conclave... Sod means conclave? I thought it was referring to the ofanim and chayos haqodesh who learn the secret of the siach of the sarfei qodesh, thereby are misna'asim le'umas serafim... :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 2nd day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Chesed: What is constricted Fax: (270) 514-1507 Chesed? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:37:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:37:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house In-Reply-To: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150406183751.GE20912@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 12:13:44PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I never thought of that question before, but here is a possibly-related : question that I've wondered for years: If Shir Hamaalos is said whenever : we skip Tachanun, should it always be said at the shiva house? We skip tachanun on shabbos and YT (or the week of 7 berakhos, the day of a beris...) because of the joy of the day being inconsistent with its mournful tenor. Shir haMaalos goes hand-in-hand with the joy of the day; if it's joyous enough to warrant looking toward the geulah rather than lamenting the churban with Al Naharos Bavel, then it's joyous enough for Tachanun not to fit either. But the key is joy, which has nothing to do with a beis avel. We skip tachanun in an aveil's home for the opposite kind of reason -- either because 1- we don't want to add to the aveilim's grief by harping on midas hadin, or 2- it is inappropriate to ask for mitigation of middas hadin in a home where din is being fully felt. :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 2nd day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Chesed: What is constricted Fax: (270) 514-1507 Chesed? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:42:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:42:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tan Du In-Reply-To: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> References: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20150406184227.GF20912@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 03, 2015 at 04:32:11PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Tradition - Winter 2014 (Rabbi N. Helfgot) ... : R. Lichtenstein in both private conversation with a number of talmidim : over the decades, including this author and in remarks in public shiurim, : noted his disagreement with the Rav's assessment of this hazaka (and : expressed astonishment at the vehemence of the Rav's opposition at the : time) given the clear cut evidence in the Rishonim in Yevamot and other : places in Shas which clearly indicated that this hazaka was not one that : applied in all contexts and at all times and in all situations. The way I heard RAL (recorded) was more that the large amount of material in Yevamos, much of the rest of seder Nashim, and the rishonim ad loc that such a proposal would make moot was itself RYBS's primary argument against R' Rackman's proposal. And that RAL understood the statement about tav lemeisiv and its ontological nature as a separate secondary argument RYBS made along the way. :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 2nd day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Chesed: What is constricted Fax: (270) 514-1507 Chesed? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:38:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 14:38:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5522D292.4070305@sero.name> On 04/06/2015 02:28 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:28:24AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam > : siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the > : holy serafim's conclave... > > Sod means conclave? Yes, as in "besodam al tavo nafshi". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:59:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 21:59:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 6, 2015 at 9:28 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:28:24AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam > : siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the > : holy serafim's conclave... > > Sod means conclave? > Yes, as in "besodam al tavo nafshi" in birkat Yaakov (Bereshit 49:6), where it's parallel to "kehalam", or more directly connected to kedusha Ps 89:8 "sod kedoshim". I couldn't say whether "conclave" is the original sense and "secret" a derived meaning, or vice versa -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:30:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 14:30:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house In-Reply-To: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5522D0BC.2010004@sero.name> On 04/06/2015 08:13 AM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > R' Zev Sero asked: > >> Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in >> EY after kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times. Does this >> mean that at a shiva house Sholom Rov is said even in shacharis >> (in EY on a non-Mon/Thu)? > No, but I don't know why. > > I never thought of that question before, but here is a > possibly-related question that I've wondered for years: If Shir > Hamaalos is said whenever we skip Tachanun, should it always be said > at the shiva house? The same question would apply in the afternoon of Erev Tish`a B'av. But the two questions can easily be distinguished. The substitution of Shir Hamaalos for Al Naharos Bavel is not caused by the lack of tachanun; rather both are caused by the same thing: the element of simcha on that day that makes mourning inappropriate. But the omission of tachanun at a shiva house is not because of simcha, but because we don't want to invoke divine judgment in a situation which is already fraught; thus Al Naharos Bavel is not inappropriate. And of course on Erev Tish`a B'av what could be more appropriate than Al Naharos Bavel? Sim Shalom, however, seems (in nusach Ahskenaz) to be directly linked to the conclusion of birchas kohanim, "veyasem lecha shalom". Thus it shouldn't matter why birchas kohanim is not being said; the mere fact that it's not said should be enough to cause the omission of sim shalom, and the substitution of shalom rav. Proof that this distinction is valid comes from the case of Tehilim #49, which is said at a shiva house on days when tachanun is said; on days when tachanun is omitted, #16 is substituted. But of course in a shiva house *every* day is a day when tachanun is omitted, so when does one say #49? The obvious answer is that on normal days omission of tachanun is related to the place, not to the day, and thus #49 is said; when the day has an element of simcha that makes #49 inappropriate, we substitute #16. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 16:23:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 19:23:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] partnership - adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties Message-ID: <001b01d070c0$b326a370$1973ea50$@com> Here is a step towards making my approach to the Relationship of Yisrael with Hashem more understandable. As always it is the feedback and exchange of ideas which contains so much creative force. AVOS WERE PARTNERS, THEIR DESCENDANTS WERE IN LIMBO RACHAMIM WAS DETERMINED INCLUSIVITY - ALL ARE INCLUDED INCLUDED INTO THE COVENANT - UNILATERAL COVENANT OF HASHEM WITH HIMSELF 2. G-d related to the Avos - Avraham Yitzchak Yaakov - as partners, whose faithful service he knew and trusted. The durability was unusual, but the basic partnership never was under question, as with partners who get along. 3. 4. Almost all could ask - we are individuals in a mass of Egyptian slaves, we have lost direct contact!! We cannot compare ourselves to a 70 member Covenant, which included Yaakov Avinu one of the Avos, who actually made every move based on direct prophecy. Even the 12 Shvatim had almost direct access to HASHEM himself. 5. The Crisis of Galus Mitzrayim - assuming all had learnt every Passuk in Breishis - was of uncertainty. - Yes Pakod Yifkod - but who am I? Will my generation merit to see what even the most elderly never saw with their eyes? Even were Moshe Rabeinu assured of membership in the Elite, he retained that uncertainty. On Pshat level, five minutes prior to the moment of noticing the Burning Bush, could ask that question. That vision began transforming Moshe Rabeinu into the instrument of G-d, the Goeil. The man who turned to check - was already entering Geula mode. 6. Machzor Vitri page 148 has a key piece called Pithron Nishmas Kol Chai. According to Psachim, the Nishmas Prayer should contain within it the essence of the message of Seder Night. Towards the end of Yishtabach - there treated as just the ending of Nishmas - RAABAN adds that the 15 praises parallel the 15 Dayeinus. 7. The piece de resistance - Chai Haolamim is explained Haya hoveh yihyeh, Ani Hashem lo Shanisi (from Malachi Haftara of Shabbos Hagadol). 8. Rashi here is one theme - as I would see it. Chai means involved with caring for his children right now - as fits in Chai Anochi leOlam Im shanosi brak charbi or a Shvuah. 9. Haolamim means until the end of time, as in a parent telling the child not to worry, the Parent is always here. 10. The piece on page 148 adds an extra word to Nishmas, to make a point sharper. V' Y H V H Shmo Eir Hineh lo yanum vlo yiyshan. The word Shmo - appears only in this one obscure manuscript, seemingly a Rashi arrow. 11. Here Rashi uses full expression - Hashem appeared to Avraham with the name E I L S H a D a Y but not the Name Y H V H. Avos were established Partners and employees. Now Hashem is showing his determination and leadership - new World Order - all eligible Jews will be included in the Geulah, no exceptions. 12. Hashem is taking on the eternal duty of guarding them, with no limits and no clause for rejection. Yes Hashem admits no such precedent existed. Only Hashem can overturn His Rules. 13. Bnei Yisrael are Unilaterally Covenanted to be Hashem's Bni Bchori. Just like He had focused since the word Breishis, bishvil Torh Shenikra Reishis, now all He wants is that His People be His only. Bni Bchori Yisrael! First Day Chol Hamoeid Pesach - we read these key Psukim. Tephillin wearers understand that Kadesh li kol bchor means singular devotion. 14. In our world, it would be a person seeking a marriage partner, then signing Adoption Papers. The parent chose - volitionally and with focus - to adopt this child. PARENTAL RIGHTS - FAMILY IDENTITY 15.It is a brand new family identity, which cannot be abrogated. Yes - there can be strains. But there cannot be a dissolution. It is stronger than marriage! 16. Rashbam says - He the King says about Himself Ehkeh, I will be. Yisrael as his subjects use the Third Person He Will Be. 17. It is not about Maaseh Breishis in Rashi. It refers to the instant covenant - My determination to Adopt You is irrevocable. 18. Ehkeh - becomes the Name He Calls Himself - totally devoted to watching over my Ben Bchor. Yihyeh is the Ben Bchor's confidence that He is watching me us. 19. The moment the Ben Bchor first uses the He will Care for Me - Hashem makes Ehkeh obsolete. The family has begun. 20. This is Rashi Rashbam. CONFIRMATION The Tzarfas Tosafos included Rabeinu Yosef Bchor Shor. He accepts Rashbam completely, except that HVYH is the holiest Name, not Ehkeh. The structure remains the same. 21. Hashem's Choice in Mitzraim was a Bnos TzlOphchad choice - choose which cousin and which time to marry. It is totally volitional and conscious. He chose adoption of all. Bachar Banu. 22. It means at a specific date signing Adoption Papers for 3,000,000 individuals. 23. Rashi says it means the special Adoption - family identity. That Adoption of all Bnei Yisrael had a specific moment, the Sneh. Those Name issues had meaning for Rashi and Rashbam. 24. Within the short timespan, all the Bnei Yisrael are Hashem's chosen children. Rishon in Emmes Vyatziv means since Ytzias Mitzrayim. Maaseh Breishis is not Primary to Rashi only secondary. 25. It is Family Commitment and Identity. Practical example, a secure Child can look his father in the eye. A secure Jew is able to have Hashem look him/her in the eye without flinching. I know this is my Father. 26. As the Midrash puts it - Yam Suf - I already met him when I was born and raised six months with no human being in sight. I know Him! 27. Ha'tishkach Isha ulahh - even a mother's love for her child cannot equal hashem's love. Hashem's Power is ever greater, but even His Love is stronger. 28. Woman says - Pesach is my adoption as Hashem's own Child - no Chametz ever! There is no bending on identity. This works on the visceral level. 29. Rashi in MV 148 does call it Rachamim - as in Rachamei Av al Banim. It is the strength of Inclusion in the Covenant. It is in its deepest essence - a Unilateral Covenant. Ehkeh Asher Ehkeh - just like in this oppression - in any other oppression. That is the Adoptive Parent's approach. Lo yanum vlo yiyshan shomeir Yisrael. 30. Rashi's approach is extremely strong. Rachamim is only possible as part of a relationship. Rashi makes the relationship primary and volitional. The secondary application of which rewards or concessions will be granted, secondary Rachamim, is put onto a solid base. Only chanun is left as a "nebbish" Midah - even from a cruel tyrant chein is possible. 31. Let adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties 32. 33. In describing why person would fast all Passover over and above Jewish Law Practice, you used the words "emotional attachment". In the seven years since that wording , perhaps the message is deeper. 34. This woman was looking at the strength of the Covenant - which is Identity. The bylaws are only secondary. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: AJS review of Rossi.PDF Type: application/pdf Size: 255404 bytes Desc: not available URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 8 05:37:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2015 08:37:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150408123715.GC8438@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 09:59:14PM +0300, Simon Montagu via Avodah wrote: : > Sod means conclave? : : Yes, as in "besodam al tavo nafshi" in birkat Yaakov (Bereshit 49:6), where : it's parallel to "kehalam", or more directly connected to kedusha Ps 89:8 : "sod kedoshim". To clarify: "Sod" *here* means conclave? I suggested an alternative, which I think fits the sentence better, as it makes "sod siach" a phrase, rather than trying to explain the interruption of "siach" in "sod ... sarfei". : I couldn't say whether "conclave" is the original sense and "secret" a : derived meaning, or vice versa Very different implications hashkafically, whether yesod would then be related to secrets (as foundations are in the ground) or a gathering of people (people as founders?). :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 4th day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Chesed: When is Chesed an Fax: (270) 514-1507 imposition on others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 04:58:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 14:58:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: Just saw a halacha that to me was a chiddush That one cannot (or should not) be yotzeh someone else for tefiilat haderech but everyone should say for them self. Those agreeing (at least lechatchila) include R Aviner R Nebenzahl R C Kanevsky R Tuvia Goldstein (who said he convinced RMF) R Belsky Not what I have seen in practice. Anyone know any opinion that does allow it -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 08:55:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 15:55:59 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: <20150412.115559.22172.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel asked: > Just saw a halacha that to me was a chiddush > That one cannot (or should not) be yotzeh someone else for > tefiilat haderech but everyone should say for them self. > Those agreeing (at least lechatchila) include > R Aviner > R Nebenzahl > R C Kanevsky > R Tuvia Goldstein (who said he convinced RMF) > R Belsky > Not what I have seen in practice. > Anyone know any opinion that does allow it Chidush to me too. I don't where to begin my comments. There's a GIGANTIC difference between "cannot" and "should not". "agreeing (at least lechatchila)" also allows a too-wide variety. And without some sort of reasoning, how can we throw out what we already know? Is there something special about Tefilas Haderech, or is this merely an example of how we have so little kavana nowadays that being motzi others is just too risky? I'm sure there are other sources I could quote, but for now, I will simply quote from "Halachically Speaking", vol 1, pg 75, by Rabbi Moishe Dovid Lebovits, published by Israel Bookshop. > One person can say the tefillah for everyone, as long as he has > everyone in mind and the others concentrate on the words.(20) > Horav Yisroel Belsky shlita maintains that every individual > should try to say tefillas haderech if he can.(21) If this is > not possible, one person can say it for everyone.(22) > 20) Kinyan Torah 2:119, Bais Avi 5:55, Opinion of Horav > Elyashiv shlita quoted in Darchei Ori page 279:2, > U'velechticha Baderech 2:footnote 26 quoting the opinion of > Horav Chaim Kanievesky shlita, see Darchei Ori page 259:1. It > is questionable whether someone who has already said tefilalas > haderech can repeat it for someone else. (Halichos Shlomo > Tefilah 21:5:footnote 9). > > 21) See Emes L'Yaakov page 65. > > 22) See Eishel Avraham Butchtach, Rivevos Ephraim 6:32:2, > Halichos Shlomo Tefilah page 245:5, Divrei Chachamim page > 76:192. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 06:33:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 09:33:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: <10b001d074db$3ad805c0$b0881140$@gmail.com> References: <20150407125218.216501835E4@nexus.stevens.edu> <10b001d074db$3ad805c0$b0881140$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150412133337.B25AB182ACC@nexus.stevens.edu> I am moving this to Avodah. YL At 12:43 AM 4/12/2015, R. Moshe Yehuda Gluck wrote: >R' YL: >Another person wrote to me > >"Chazal say that one is not allowed to daven outside (probably because of >kavana); >-------------------- >Does anyone have a mareh makom for this? > >KT, >MYG From http://www.dinonline.org/2012/07/11/davening-outdoors/ Is it problematic to daven outdoors? Thanks. Answer: One should not daven in an open area outdoors, and should daven in a closed building, or a sheltered area. Sources: The Gemara (Berachos 34b) writes that it is wrong (arrogant ? chatzuf) to daven in an open field. Rashi explains that in an open field, one doesn?t feel fear of the King, and one doesn?t pray with a broken heart. Tosafos, however, understands that the concern is for passers-by, who are liable to disturb a person?s davening. The Magen Avraham (90:6) rules that the problem is that davening outside makes a haughty statement: ?Even though there are passers-by, they will not disturb my intent in davening!? This is arrogant and wrong. The Shulchan Aruch (90:5) rules that one should not daven in an open place, and the Mishnah Berurah (11) adds that those who are always travelling should can daven in an open place, but should try to daven by a tree. Therefore, although it is not forbidden to daven outdoors, it is wrong to daven in an open area, and one should seek a sheltered place. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 09:54:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 19:54:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] reviit Message-ID: In the sefer of Rav Aviner he brings many examples of gedolim who used a kiddush cup the size of the shiur of R Chaim Naeh (86 CC) and not CI. He says he heard from RSZA that when RCN published his sefer on shiurim the rabbis of Yerushalayim were astounded at his chumra !! 1) cup if Chafetz Chaim (from his grandson R Hillel Zaks) 2) cup of GRA (baal eyanim le-mishpat who got it as an inheritance) 3) cup someone got from Ohr Sameach (mesoros she-avdu) 4) Rebbe of Gur - Pnei Menachem stated about the cup of his father Baal Imre Ha-emes 5) cup of R Salanter (Shut Teshuvot Vehanhagot) 6) Rav Dessler used a small cup that belonged to his wife's family. After she passed away he used a larger cup 7) cup of the father of the CI 8) Brother of CI used a cup he got from his father-in-law (Cheshek Shlomo of Vilna) and also had shiur RCN 9) R Elyashiv used a cup the size of CI but explained that he did so in honor of CI not because that is the halacha 10) In the sefer Meged Givat Olam second volume p34) someone showed RMF a cup holding about 88cc and RMF remarked that it was kosher lechatchila (not not the shiur published in his name) 11) In Divrei Yoel the Satmar rebbe is quoted as saying the shiur of reviit is 75 gram (!?) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 12:01:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 15:01:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] reviit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <552AC11F.8060605@sero.name> On 04/12/2015 12:54 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > 11) In Divrei Yoel the Satmar rebbe is quoted as saying the shiur of reviit is 75 gram (!?) > RACN assumed that the Rambam's dirham was the same as the Ottoman dirham used in his day, which was 3.1 g. But there's significant evidence that the Egyptian dirham of the Rambam's day was slightly smaller, about 2.8 g, which gives a revi'it of about 75 ml. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 12:15:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 15:15:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150413191514.GA19165@aishdas.org> R' Ari Kahn posted a transcript of that famous talk that people remember for RYBS's statement about tav lemeisiv. http://arikahn.blogspot.co.il/2013/03/rabbi-soloveitchik-talmud-torah-and.html As a teaser, here is all RYBS said on tev lemeis tan du: Let me add something that is very important: not only the halachos but also the chazakos [19] which chachmei chazal have introduced are indestructible. We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above. Let us take for example the chazaka that I was told about: the chazaka tav l'meisiv tan du mil'meisiv armalo [20] has absolutely nothing to do with the social and political status of women in antiquity. This chazaka is based not upon sociological factors, but upon a verse in breishis -- harba arbeh itz'voneich v'heironeich b'etzev teildi vanim v'el isheich t'shukaseich v'hu yimshal bach -- "I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy travail; in pain thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee" [21]. It is a metaphysical curse rooted in the feminine personality -- she suffers incomparably more that the male who is in solitude. Solitude to the male is not as terrible an experience, as horrifying an experience, as is solitude to the woman. And this will never change, mayid shamayim vaaretz [22]. This is not a psychological fact; it is an existential fact, which is due not to the inferior status of the woman, but rather to the difference, the basic distinction, between the female personality and the male personality. Loneliness frightens the woman, and an old spinster's life is much more miserable and tragic than the life of an old bachelor. This was true in antiquity; it is still true, and it will be true a thousand years from now. So, to say that tan du mil'meisiv armalo was or is due to the inferior political or social status of the woman is simply misinterpreting the chazaka tan du mil'meisiv armalo. No legislation can alleviate the pain of the single woman, and no legislation can change this role. She was burdened by the Almighty, after she violated the first [law]. Let me ask you a question -- ribono shel olam, G-d Almighty, if you should start modifying and reassessing the chazakos upon which a multitude of halachos rest, you will destroy yehadus. So instead of philosophizing, let us rather light a match and set fire to the beis yisrael, and get rid of our problems. What I think is more typical of the general thesis of this portion of his talk was the immediately prior statement: V'chen hakofer b'perusha v'hu torah she b'al peh v'hamach'chish magideha; he who denies the perfection and the truthfulness of chachmei chazal -- not of the Torah, but of the chachmei chazal as personalities, as real persona as far as their character, their philosophy, or their outlook on the world is concerned -- is a kofer. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 9th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 most appropriate? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 12:27:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 19:27:43 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150413191514.GA19165@aishdas.org> References: <20150413191514.GA19165@aishdas.org> Message-ID: What I think is more typical of the general thesis of this portion of his talk was the immediately prior statement: V'chen hakofer b'perusha v'hu torah she b'al peh v'hamach'chish magideha; he who denies the perfection and the truthfulness of chachmei chazal -- not of the Torah, but of the chachmei chazal as personalities, as real persona as far as their character, their philosophy, or their outlook on the world is concerned -- is a kofer. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The whole piece is worth hearing (even more than reading) - it seems to me that the debate echoes here: https://kavvanah.wordpress.com/2015/04/12/rabbi-ysoscher-katz-and-rabbi-ozer-glickman-rounds-one-and-two/ I do wonder whether one can avoid self awareness with a modern education. Another challenge is how to deal with recent "Chachmei Hamesorah" who don't seem to meet the perfection definition. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 13:56:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 13:56:37 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] support obligations Message-ID: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/193853#.VSwsUo6ZPAG interesting question . while in theory the ketuba and consequently the terms of marriage , mandate the husband support a wife , in practice that is not true in the kollel years [which in israel could last a prolonged time ]. here , a kollel man divorcing claims no income , and that the wife should support the children by getting a job . apart from secular courts, is there a positive chiyuv for a husband to leave 'torato umnato' to support his children ? does a get terminate his financial obligations halachically? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 14:23:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 17:23:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Philosophy and practice of shmita In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150413212344.GA3301@aishdas.org> On Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 10:09:02PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : What is the earliest source that ties shmita to the farmers using the : time to learn Torah?... I don't know about first, but the Seforno (Vayiqra 25:4, d"h "shabbos Lashem") writes: So that also those who work the earth, when they rest for this year, yis'oreru lidrosh es H' be'ofen mah. This is then quoted verbatum by R' Yaaqov Tzevi Mecklengburg (HaKesav behaQabbalah, early or mid-19th cent), who sites both the Sefornu and and "Raba"ch" -- who is eluding me. I didn't see it in Rabbeinu Bechayei, nor the Chizquni. Nor am I sure that "liderosh es H'" means learning. More recent is the Ari (as recorded by R' Shemu'el Vital, Shaar haPesuqim) based on the Zohar (vol II 20b). Haro'eh baShoshanim -- "Shoshanim" refers to the 6 shins in "usefarta lekha SHeva SHabasos SHanim, SHeva SHanim SHeva pe'amim". And from there haro'eh bashoshanim becomes: the one who dedicates the 7th year to learning finds G-d in all the 6 years of labor as well. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 9th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 most appropriate? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 14:28:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 17:28:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos In-Reply-To: <20150401084748.2445618205D@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150401084748.2445618205D@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150413212857.GB3301@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 01, 2015 at 04:47:45AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Does not the SA say that a person who has trouble chewing matzah can : soak it in water and then eat it? If so, then I fail to see why : eating gebrokts should be a problem for anyone. : The SA lived in the wrong qehillah for the minhag to be relevant. He would allow you to eat qitniyos too. And if we accept the SA haRav's explanation of gebrochts over the MB's, the Rama lived before we counted kneading time toward the 18 min, and gebrochts wasn't necessary yet. And since according to the SAhR's teshuvah, the minhag caught on after the Besh"t, meaning during the lifetime of its author and his readers, I am inclined to believe his version of the timing over someone who is reconstructing older history. : Also, were not the matzos that were used in the time of the SA : thicker than ours? Again, MB vs the SAhR as to whether that's at issue. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 9th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 most appropriate? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 14:33:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 17:33:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] support obligations In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150413213345.GC3301@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 01:56:37PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : apart from secular courts, is there a positive chiyuv for a husband to : leave 'torato umnato' to support his children ? does a get terminate his : financial obligations halachically? Assuming she didn't agree to the arrangement. Ortherwise, the wife willingly waved her claim to his income, and took on the obligation of self- and child-support. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 20:54:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 03:54:11 GMT Subject: [Avodah] support obligations Message-ID: <20150413.235411.14734.1@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Assuming she didn't agree to the arrangement. Ortherwise, the wife > willingly waved her claim to his income, and took on the obligation > of self- and child-support. I would argue that she accepted the financial responsibilities only in exchange for the s'char she gets from enabling her husband to learn Torah, and that once he ceases to be her husband, that arrangement ends, and the whole thing reverts to the usual. Phrased differently, once he stops giving her the s'char of sharing in his learning, he has to give her a more practical olam-hazeh sort of support. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552c8fb420d2bfb30fdest04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 20:45:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 03:45:47 GMT Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> [RAK gives credit to others in fn. 1. It is not his transcript. -micha] R' Micha Berger posted R' Ari Kahn's transcript of Rav YB Soloveitchik: > ... This is not a psychological > fact; it is an existential fact, which is due not to the inferior > status of the woman, but rather to the difference, the basic > distinction, between the female personality and the male personality. > Loneliness frightens the woman, and an old spinster's life is much > more miserable and tragic than the life of an old bachelor. This was > true in antiquity; it is still true, and it will be true a thousand > years from now. So, to say that tan du mil'meisiv armalo was or > is due to the inferior political or social status of the woman > is simply misinterpreting the chazaka tan du mil'meisiv armalo. ... From what I understand, the objection to hafkaas kiddushin comes from a presumption that a woman would prefer to stay with her husband, even if he seems to be a terrible person, and even if she tells us that in *her* opinion he is a terrible person -- and we have this presumption because of the chazaka of tan du. But I do not see Rav Soloveitchik making that case here. All he is saying is that "an old spinster's life is much more miserable and tragic than the life of an old bachelor." He does say that this relative perspective on singlehood is a "permanent ontological principle[s] rooted in the very depth of the human personality," and that it will never change, and that this information is Revealed in the words of Bereishis. But this refers ONLY to the misery and tragedy of a single woman as opposed to a single man. And that's NOT that argument against hafkaas kiddushin, at least not how I've heard it. The argument that I've heard -- that is to say, the supposed translation of "tav l'meisiv tan du" -- is that a woman would prefer living with ANY man rather than to be alone. I can easily understand opposition to Hafkaas Kiddushin on the grounds that widespread use would give *all* marriages a sort of "tentative" status. But that's not what people are referring to here, right? When they invoke "tan du" against Hafkaas Kidushin, they're saying that despite the wife's protestations, the wife would actually prefer to stay married, and that's why they're unable to annul the marriage. Or am I mistaken? Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 05:26:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 08:26:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <552D0792.4060709@sero.name> On 04/13/2015 11:45 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > From what I understand, the objection to hafkaas kiddushin comes from a > presumption that a woman would prefer to stay with her husband, even if > he seems to be a terrible person, and even if she tells us that in*her* > opinion he is a terrible person -- and we have this presumption because > of the chazaka of tan du. What she prefers is irrelevant. Obviously she wants to leave her husband; she is openly telling us so, and it's ridiculous to suppose she is not telling the truth. And even if she weren't, if the marriage is invalid then it's invalid, no matter what she wants. You're looking at the whole thing from the wrong direction. No objection is needed to annulling a marriage; what's needed is grounds *for* annulling it. The alleged grounds are that it has now become clear that this man was always such a bad person that had the woman known this when he proposed marriage she would have refused, and throughout the subsequent marriage there was never a point at which she was so happy that had she found out the truth she would have consented to stay with him. Now if the husband is bad enough (and it can be proved that he always was so), *and* the woman is such a catch that there was never a point at which she could not have found another husband, then this makes sense. Obviously she has always preferred a good husband to a bad one, and only married this man because she thought he was a good one. But what if refusing to marry him, or leaving him at some point during the marriage, were to expose her to the risk of remaining single forever? Would she still have turned him down or left him? The proponents of annulment say yes, of course she would, just as she has left him now. But, RYBS says, Chazal tell us that it's female nature to prefer a bad husband to none at all, so perhaps even if she had known the truth about this man she would have consented to marry him rather than risk remaining single; or perhaps there was a point after the event at which, had she learned the truth, she would have stayed with him rather than face a single future. > But I do not see Rav Soloveitchik making that case here. All he is saying > is that "an old spinster's life is much more miserable and tragic than > the life of an old bachelor." Yes, and therefore while a man might prefer to be single rather than live with a bad wife, a similarly situated woman will not. That this woman *now* tells us she would, doesn't prove that she always would have. > He does say that this relative perspective on singlehood is a "permanent > ontological principle[s] rooted in the very depth of the human > personality," and that it will never change, and that this information > is Revealed in the words of Bereishis. But this refers ONLY to the misery > and tragedy of a single woman as opposed to a single man. > > And that's NOT that argument against hafkaas kiddushin, at least not > how I've heard it. The argument that I've heard -- that is to say, the > supposed translation of "tav l'meisiv tan du" -- is that a woman would > prefer living with ANY man rather than to be alone. Yes. How is that not the same thing? Spinsterhood is terrible for women, so terrible that they'd prefer living with a bad man to it. > When they invoke "tan du" against Hafkaas Kidushin, they're saying that despite > the wife's protestations, the wife would actually prefer to stay married, > and that's why they're unable to annul the marriage. Or am I mistaken? Not that she'd prefer it now, but that she did prefer it earlier, when she was faced with the risk of never finding anyone else. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 06:44:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 09:44:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Could a New Gadget Change Shabbat Observance - Forever Message-ID: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/njr5j7a List of leading rabbis endorse 'Kosherswitch' to allow lights on Shabbat. High-voltage project could send a current through Jewish world. Will Shabbat observance change forever with a flick of a switch? A new gadget was released to the mass market on Monday promising Orthodox Jews a solution to the age-old problem of leaving lights on or off on Shabbat and then being prevented by Jewish law from flipping the switch. The new invention, dubbed "KosherSwitch," has been beta-tested since 2009 - but an indiegogo campaign launched Monday promises to bring the project to the masses. See the above URL for more as well as for a video explaining how this device works. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 07:59:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 10:59:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Could a New Gadget Change Shabbat Observance - Forever In-Reply-To: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150414145918.GA28845@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 09:44:04AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : From http://tinyurl.com/njr5j7a :> List of leading rabbis endorse 'Kosherswitch' to allow lights on :> Shabbat. High-voltage project could send a current through Jewish :> world. :> Will Shabbat observance change forever with a flick of a switch? Unlikely. They say this is new tech, which could be true since they got a [atenmt, but the How it Works page and the ptent describe something much like what Machon Zomet uses in their wheelchairs . Actually, Zomet makes sure their switch changes the amount of current, I see nothing in the patent about anything but turning the power on and off entirely -- it appears *more* problematic. The engineers among us can check out . As you can read on Zomet's site, R Neuwirth permits the wheelchair only because the issue is basic mobility. KosherSwitch.com shows you that that RYN signed on a "me too" to R' Pinchas Zabihi's haskamah. I have a notion that once things are clarified, the truth is more somewhere in between. When a house is on fire, and someone puts up a wall of pottery flasks filled with water to arrest its progress, geram kibui is mutar. See SA OC 334:22. The Rama either adds or explains (citing the Mordekhai), that this is bemaqom peseida. But gerama isn't suddenly mutar even without hefsed meruba or kevod haberios as a matir. So it all boils down to whether they really have a new tech that is more legitimate for them to call "un-grama" than Machon Zomet's design. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 07:12:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 10:12:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] =?iso-8859-1?q?The_Kosher_Switch=3A_A_Response_from_the_?= =?iso-8859-1?q?Tzomet_Institute=92s_Rabbi_Yisrael_Rosen?= Message-ID: <20150414141204.C79091830F4@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/ptcfckt The rabbinic world and blogosophere (see, for example, here) has been abuzz about the propriety of the Kosher Switch, which its producers claim allows one to halakhically turn on and off lights on shabbat. Attached here is the Hebrew response of Rabbi Yisrael Rosen, the prominent engineer who heads the Tzomet Institute, which includes (signed) clarifications of the positions of Rabbi Avigdor Nevenzahl and Rabbi Yehoshua Neuwirth. It is was sent on Tzomet stationery to Rabbi David Mescheloff, and is reprinted here with permission. Below is a rough English translation of the first page, which does not include some of the halakhic argumentation provided on the 2nd page of the original Hebrew. For all scholarly and halakhic purposes, and purposes of citation, only the original Hebrew letter should be seen as the authoritative writing of Rabbi Rosen. D. And here is the main part of my remarks: Yesterday I went to my teacher and rabbi HaGaon Rabbi Yehoshua Neuwirth, Shlita, and I asked him whether he permitted to use this switch to activate electricity on Shabbat for the purposes of Oneg Shabbat, etc He was really shocked and said he never permitted that. When I showed him the endorsement letter, he added in his handwriting: ?Only for medicine and security? (see photo in attached Hebrew article). Rabbi Avigdor Nebenzahl Shlita, who signed a similar letter, also told me yesterday that he does not recall ever signing anything like that, and expressed the opinion that there is no place for this and was puzzled about the whole thing. I suppose that whoever managed to get the signatures of important rabbis ?sold? them an invention that is a kind of a complex Gramma used for the purpose of medicine or security, and succeeded in skipping this condition when they signed. E. With regard to the claim, written in their accompanying halachic responsum, that it is permitted to use this Gramma switch to minimize the prohibition of those who willfully the violate the Shabbat, we have never heard of such rabbis who permit this. I am sure that those who ?agreed? did not see this argument, and this is an argument that should not be stated. See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 08:01:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joseph Kaplan via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 11:01:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <002d01d076c3$e98d8290$bca887b0$@tenzerlunin.com> "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above." Can anybody explain what this really means? That is, explain it to someone who doesn't use the word "ontological" in his/her normal speech. I have read it many many times but I still don't understand what the Rav is saying. Joseph -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 07:42:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 17:42:18 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: I guess I was a little too succinct in my last post. The major problem is that many consider tefillat haderech as a tefillah and not as a bracha. Thus while one can be motze other for a bracha one cannot do it for a tefillah. Hence, R Nebenzahl paskens that all those that know how to say by themselves should do so R C Kanevsky says it is preferable for each person to say by themself R Tuvia Goldstein says that one cannot be yotzeh someone else and claims that he convinced RMF of that R Belsky repeats that it is a tefillah and not a bracha and so it is appropriate (min ha-raui) that everyone says it for themself. R Aviner says that it is "rachamim" and therefore it is preferable that each one requests for themselves however bidieved one can be motzi others The sefer Piskei Teshuvot (siman 110-2) has a discussion whether one is required to say tefillat haderech in modern times. He concludes that one who does not say it on major roads has someone to rely on but someone who also says it has the reward of a tefilla even though we no longer have "listin" and wild animals on the roads. Instead we have a car accidents. Therefore one should also say tefillat haderech on railroads and planes. He claims that on small side roads that everyone paskens you need to say tefillat haderech -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 08:22:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 11:22:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150414152222.GD28845@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 03:45:47AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : From what I understand, the objection to hafkaas kiddushin comes from a : presumption that a woman would prefer to stay with her husband, even if : he seems to be a terrible person, and even if she tells us that in *her* : opinion he is a terrible person -- and we have this presumption because : of the chazaka of tan du. You phrased it as a psychological issue. RYBS says it's something existential or ontological -- and explicitly NOT pschological. I think he is saying that this vector exists in every woman's character. Even when current social reality provides other vectors that may submerge tav lemeisiv tan du, it is an entity present in her psyche (ontologically) still shaping her perception of reality (existential). And because of that element of her soul, inherited from Chavah, it's very hard to ever call a marriage a complete meqach ta'us on the bride's part. But again, my impression from RAL which is reinforced by this transcript, this particular argument was a side-bar, not RYBS's primary argument. Eg: ... : I can easily understand opposition to Hafkaas Kiddushin on the grounds : that widespread use would give *all* marriages a sort of "tentative" : status. But that's not what people are referring to here, right? ... RYBS discusses that issue at greater length than this one anyway. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 08:32:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 11:32:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] support obligations In-Reply-To: <20150413.235411.14734.1@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150413.235411.14734.1@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150414153245.GE28845@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 03:54:11AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Micha Berger wrote: : > Assuming she didn't agree to the arrangement. Ortherwise, the wife : > willingly waved her claim to his income, and took on the obligation : > of self- and child-support. : I would argue that she accepted the financial responsibilities only : in exchange for the s'char she gets from enabling her husband to learn : Torah, and that once he ceases to be her husband, that arrangement ends, : and the whole thing reverts to the usual. Phrased differently, once he : stops giving her the s'char of sharing in his learning, he has to give : her a more practical olam-hazeh sort of support. We are in the weird situation of talking about what the bride was agreeing to WRT a situation she never pictured arising. (I am reminded of Avodah discussions about what the Rambam would do if faced with what he perceives as a solid philosophical proof for a position he could not find a basis for in Torah. Would he declare something an allegory despite a lack of source in Chazal, would he dismiss the proof as flawed, perhaps even assuming the flaw had to be something he didn't yet find? The Rambam thought the situation was impossible.) So, I want to detour into a case more likely to have crossed the kallah's mind -- his death. If the husband predeceases her without having left kollel, she wouldn't expect him to leave her the same estate than if he had spent that time earning money. It may be equally valid to argue that the bride relinquishes claims to money even after he finishes learning, in exchange for supporting him while learning -- however long that lasts. I really don't know which way of looking at things is more valid. It's kind of like the old chestnut, "But if you did have a brother, would he like noodles?" Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 10:00:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Weiss via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 10:00:06 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3e97bfe1715ba4f18f42bf014d7ab62a.squirrel@mail.panix.com> > From http://www.dinonline.org/2012/07/11/davening-outdoors/ >> Is it problematic to daven outdoors? ... >> The Gemara (Berachos 34b) writes that it is wrong >> (arrogant - chatzuf) to daven in an open field. >> Rashi explains that in an open field, one doesn't >> feel fear of the King, and one doesn't pray with >> a broken heart. Tosafos, however, understands >> that the concern is for passers-by, who are >> liable to disturb a person's davening. >> The Magen Avraham (90:6) rules that the problem >> is that davening outside makes a haughty >> statement... ... >> Therefore, although it is not forbidden to daven >> outdoors, it is wrong to daven in an open area, >> and one should seek a sheltered place. As you see from the above it is the Lechatichilla not do daven in an open place, Last week we had a mincha minyan at the grand canyon, (to wait to a more appropriate place it would have been well after dark) When one davens in a large minyan and is surrounded by other people davening it is easier to concentrate on the tefilla. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 12:44:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 15:44:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd [TM]: Why Does God Test Us? Message-ID: <20150414194402.GB3303@aishdas.org> RGStudent recently posted a piece to answer the question "Why Does God Test Us?" The notion that the all-knowing God needs to test us to determine whether we will follow His command is absurd. He knows the future and therefore gains nothing from the exercise. Yet the Torah discusses in multiple places God's tests. For example, regarding the man (manna) that fell in the desert, God states: "So that I may test them, whether they will follow My law or not" (Ex. 16:4). The midrash (Tanchuma, Vayera 23) expresses the question aptly: ... I. Personal Growth The Kuzari (5:20), followed by the Ramban (Gen. 22:1; Ex. 16:4; Deut. 13:4; Toras Ha-Bayis in Kisvei Ha-Ramban, vol. 2 pp. 272-273), explains that God tests people in order to actualize their potential goodness.... II. Education Rambam (Moreh Nevukhim 3:24) takes an entirely different approach. He sees divine tests as a way to publicize, and thereby teach, the righteousness of an individual.... III. Adult Education I believe that, aside from midrashic sources and textual cues, Rambam had a more fundamental reason for taking a path different from that of the Kuzari and Ramban. The Gemara (Makkos 10a) says that Heaven takes you in the direction you wish to go. Similarly, another Gemara (Yoma 39a) says that someone who wishes to become pure (i.e. do good) is divinely assisted. Apparently, the Ramban takes this literally. ... IV. Self-Discovery Radal (ibid.) offers a third approach to understanding divine tests. Pirkei De-Rabbi Eliezer (31) says that the test was for Avraham to know his heart. God certainly know whether we will pass a test but poses it so that we learn our own abilities. Like a good coach, God pushes us farther than we think we can go. This, too, applies to adults who often underestimate their capacity for strength. God only tests those who will pass and by doing so teaches us the extent of our faith and endurance. ... -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 15:41:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 18:41:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] reviit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150414224153.GA9794@aishdas.org> On Sun, Apr 12, 2015 at 07:54:45PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : In the sefer of Rav Aviner he brings many examples of gedolim who used a : kiddush cup the size of the shiur of R Chaim Naeh (86 CC) and not CI. : He says he heard from RSZA that when RCN published his sefer on shiurim the : rabbis of Yerushalayim were astounded at his chumra !! Interesting, because I thought that RACN's agenda was to justify the accepted practice in his local, in EY in the early 20th cent. (Something I learned on-list 15 years ago.) Minhag Y-m is RACN's shiurim, because RACN started with the assumption that Minhag Y-m was roughly accuate, with the Sepharadim being the more precise. RACN himself was a Lubavitcher chassid of the Yishuva haYashan, born in Chevron. I do not know why people usually call him "Rav Chaim Naeh", ommitting his first name "Avraham". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 15:50:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 18:50:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: <3e97bfe1715ba4f18f42bf014d7ab62a.squirrel@mail.panix.com> References: <3e97bfe1715ba4f18f42bf014d7ab62a.squirrel@mail.panix.com> Message-ID: <20150414225006.GB9794@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 10:00:06AM -0700, Harry Weiss via Avodah wrote: : > From http://www.dinonline.org/2012/07/11/davening-outdoors/ : >> Is it problematic to daven outdoors? : ... : >> The Gemara (Berachos 34b) writes that it is wrong : >> (arrogant - chatzuf) to daven in an open field. : : >> Rashi explains that in an open field, one doesn't : >> feel fear of the King, and one doesn't pray with : >> a broken heart. Tosafos, however, understands : >> that the concern is for passers-by, who are : >> liable to disturb a person's davening. : : >> The Magen Avraham (90:6) rules that the problem : >> is that davening outside makes a haughty : >> statement... : ... : >> Therefore, although it is not forbidden to daven : >> outdoors, it is wrong to daven in an open area, : >> and one should seek a sheltered place. : .... : When one davens in a large minyan and is surrounded by other people : davening it is easier to concentrate on the tefilla. The Kotel Plaza doesn't suffer from any of these concerns, which is unsurprising because centuries of gedolim had no problem davening outside at the kotel. It's set up like a shul, so there is no special chutzpah or yuharah in davening there. Interruptions are likely, but generally for other mitzvos -- tzedaqah, or answering qaddish or qedushah from nearby minyanim. In terms And the location actively fosters yir'ah, koveid rosh and a broken heart. However, davening at Robinson's arch might suffer from the yuhara issue. (Personally, I find it more moving than the Kotel Plaza. One stands on the same road walked by oleh regel, among stones thrown off Har haBayis by the Roman Army (whether during the churban or when Hadrian had the har plowed, I do not know). Behind me are the ghosts of shopkeepers, ready to exchange my maaser sheini coins back to food, sell me flour for a qorban Todah or an animal for a differen qorban. The miqvah is a bit back, and to the left.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 16:12:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 23:12:56 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <20150414.191256.7783.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The major problem is that many consider tefillat haderech as a > tefillah and not as a bracha. Thus while one can be motze other > for a bracha one cannot do it for a tefillah. I am very confused. Many poskim recommend point out that Tefilas Haderech does not begin with "Baruch", so they recommend saying it after another bracha (such as Asher Yatzar, or a Bracha Acharona on food), so as to make it into a Bracha Hasemucha L'chvertah. But if Tefilas Haderech is not a bracha to begin with, then I do not see the advantage of such a procedure. According to "Halachically Speaking", vol 1 pg 76, the poskim who recommend the above procedure includes: Magen Avraham 110:13, Machatzis Hashekel 110:13, Be'er Hetev 110:10, Shulchan Aruch Harav 110:6, Mishneh Berurah 110:28, Aruch Hashulchan 110:14, Kaf Hachaim 110:51 -- but NOT the Chazon Ish (Orchos Rabenu 1:61). In addition, I recall learning of certain situations where it is recommended that one should say tefilas haderech, but omitting the chasima at the end. But if it's not a bracha at all even WITH the chasima, then what is gained by leaving it out? I suspect that I do not appreciate or understand the meaning of "as a tefillah and not as a bracha". Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552d9f0aeea561f0a2aa2st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 19:48:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 22:48:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Could a New Gadget Change Shabbat Observance - Forever In-Reply-To: <20150414145918.GA28845@aishdas.org> References: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150414145918.GA28845@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415024810.GA29474@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 10:59:18AM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 09:44:04AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : : From http://tinyurl.com/njr5j7a : : :> List of leading rabbis endorse 'Kosherswitch' to allow lights on : :> Shabbat. High-voltage project could send a current through Jewish : :> world. RGS just posted http://www.torahmusings.com/2015/04/will-the-kosher-switch-bring-mashiach-2 which also links to his earlier http://www.torahmusings.com/2011/09/in-defense-of-the-kosher-switch .... : As you can read on Zomet's site, R Neuwirth permits the wheelchair only : because the issue is basic mobility. KosherSwitch.com shows you that that : RYN signed on a "me too" to R' Pinchas Zabihi's haskamah. I have a notion : that once things are clarified, the truth is more somewhere in between. Actually, RGS determined that R Neuwirth didn't give his approval of the Kosher Switch outide of special circumstances. RGS writes: > The Kosher Switch adds uncertainty to the Gerama Switch. Every time the > device is supposed to send a light impulse, it calculates a random number > below 100 and only sends the impulse if the number passes a threshold > (usually over 50). However, there is a random element to Machon Zomet's switch too. Again, I do not see anything in the patent that makes this switch any less a simple case of gerama than Machon Zomet's switch. (In fact, R' Rosen of Zomet checked the posqim cited on KosherSwitch.com *because* he saw no reason why they would allow the Kosher Switch for general use and not Zomet's Grama Switch.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 19:26:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 02:26:43 GMT Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150414.222643.13892.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> R' Joseph Kaplan asked: > "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with > the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not > upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon > permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of > the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, > which is as changeless as the heavens above." > > Can anybody explain what this really means? That is, explain it > to someone who doesn?t use the word "ontological" in his/her > normal speech. I have read it many many times but I still > don?t understand what the Rav is saying. This is how I understand it: Just as a leopard cannot change its spots, and just as Shabbos comes each week whether society accepts it or not, so too, there are certain elements of the human condition which Chazal have identified as inherent and unchanging, not subject to variation by time, place, or culture. Or something like that. At any rate, one can agree or disagree about whether this assertion is true, and even among those who agree with it, there might be discussion of exactly which chazakos are unchanging and which are variable. Still, his point is that there are indeed some UNchanging aspects. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552dcca9d8e634ca96125st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 02:07:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 05:07:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's true position on kosher switch I regret that my father's position on the kosher switch was misrepresented by stating that he endorses it l'maaseh . His position is that there are 2 aspects in hilchos shabbos, one is issur melacha and then there is zilzul shabbos. My father's opinion is that there is no issur melacha or chilul shabbos. However , there is a concern about zilzul shabbos as he stated clearly on the video. Before it is used one should ask a shaila from his rav. Moshe Oelbaum Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:01:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:01:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld : regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. ... :> Moshe Oelbaum :> Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum Authentication? -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 23:10:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 09:10:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: The reason for not allowing to be motzi someone else is actually quite simple. The Gemara in Berachos (29b) clearly states that tefilas haderech is a tefila "Amar R' Chisda hayotzeh laderech tzarich lhispallel tefilas haderech". Therefore the general rule of tefilla should apply, namely that if you are a baki someone else cannot be motzi you. Since nowadays we are all considered bekiim and for example, we don't allow someone to be motzi us in tefilas mincha the same would apply to tefilas haderech. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:18:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:18:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:01 AM 4/15/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: >: Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld >: regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. >... >Authentication? What I posted was sent to me by someone on my email list whom I trust. I can send you his email address if you like. YL From http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/kosher-switch > moish3 at yahoo.com > Member > Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's true position on kosher switch . > I regret that my father's position on kosher switch was > misrepresented by stating that he endorses it l'maaseh . His position > is that there are 2 aspects in hilchos shabbos. One is issur melacha > and then there is zilzul shabbos. My father's opinion is that there > is no issur melacha or chilul shabbos. However , there is a concern > about zilzul shabbos as he stated clearly on the video. Before it is > used one should ask a shaila from his rav. > Moshe Oelbaum > Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:44:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:44:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 06:18:35AM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : What I posted was sent to me by someone on my email list whom I trust. : I can send you his email address if you like. YL ... : From http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/kosher-switch : > moish3 at yahoo.com : > Member Oh, I believe it really appeared in YWN, and that link can allow you to check that much for ourselves. What I'm asking is whether anyone contact R' Moshe Oelbaum or RNIO to authenticate that the post really was from his son. It is trivial to claim to be anyone in a YWN chatroom. I don't know RMO, but I can't picture R' NI Oelbaum promulgating his position via chatroom. Could be, if his son is a regular there anyway. The presence of a post really doesn't tell me much. No matter how honest the person reporting to you is, he can be duped unless he spoke to the parties himself. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:13:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:13:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150415101229.BCD31183613@nexus.stevens.edu> At 05:54 AM 4/15/2015, R. Harry Weiss wrote: >When one davens in a large minyan and is surrounded by other people >davening it is easier to concentrate on the tefilla. I do not find this to be true for me personally. I am not a "group person" and hence prefer to daven in a minyan that has between 20 and forty participants. This is the case where I daven during the week and also at the Hashkama Minyan at the YI of Ave J where I daven on Shabbos. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 06:34:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 09:34:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:44 AM 4/15/2015, Micha Berger wrote: > What I'm asking is whether >anyone contact R' Moshe Oelbaum or RNIO to authenticate that the >post really was from his son. It is trivial to claim to be anyone >in a YWN chatroom. I received this in an email from Moshe Deutsch I personally spoke to Rabbi & Rebbetzin Oelbaum who told me to publicize this. I was the one who made them aware that the person behind KosherSwitch is using his name in a way that Rabbi Oelbaum did not intend. Person behind KosherSwitch does not pick up the phone now when Rabbi Oelbaum calls. Moshe From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 07:21:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 10:21:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 09:34:32AM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : I received this in an email from Moshe Deutsch :> I personally spoke to Rabbi & Rebbetzin Oelbaum who told me to :> publicize this. I was the one who made them aware that the person :> behind KosherSwitch is using his name in a way that Rabbi Oelbaum did :> not intend... This still doesn't clear up my confusion, although it does confirm what the YWN post said (if not who authored it). I am trying to understand whether RNIO's problem with the appearance of his name on the KosherSwitch.com "approvers" list is because a- he feels that use of the switch is zilzul Shabbos, or b- he would hold it's gerama. What I am trying to understand is the tzad to say their switch isn't gerama. It appears to conform to the description of the Machon Zomet switch as it existed at the time R' Neuwirth consulted with RSZA who ruled it was. If RNIO holds it's "only" zilzul Shabbos, then clarifying what his position is was useful, but doesn't remove all my confusion. I was expecting that the posqim the Kosher Switch people are hearing overly optimistically (for their investment) would actually all end up agreeing with RSZA once we got clarification. Such as R' Neuwirth, whose approval was based on assuming the proposed use was a medical context. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 04:38:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 14:38:08 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <> On many birtchot hamitzva one can be motzeh others even when they are "experts". This includes shofar, megilla etc (not lulav or netillat yadaim which is considered as a mitzvah be-gufo) similarly for kiddush and havdala. Note that for sefirat haomer usually each person says the bracha himself/herself and also counts for themselves. There are opinions that if needed one can rely on the chazzan for the bracha but not the count. In birchat ha-nehenim usually each individual makes his own bracha. There are some which are a mixture including kiddush and motzi on shabbat on lechem mishne (note there are various minhagim on seder night). For birchat shevach eg lightning seeing great mountains etc each person says it by himself. OTOH the shliach tzibbur can be motzi others with shemone esre only if they cant say it themselves. Shemonei esrei is a tefillah (bakasha and shevach) even though shemonei esrei consists of brachot. The usual minhag is that each individual says birchat hagomel though I once heard from R Zilberstein that if many people need to say it then it is preferable for one person to be motzei everyone else ---------------------------------------- I am not sure if I have made things clearer - if not I leave it to someone else to explain exactly when one can be motze others lechatchila, bidieved or not at all -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 06:29:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 16:29:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: R' Akiva Miller wrote: > I suspect that I do not appreciate or understand the meaning of "as a > tefillah and not as a bracha". The difference between tefila and a beracha is whether you can be motzi a baki nowadays. With a beracha you can however with a tefilla you cannot which is why these poskim hold that each person should say tefilas haderech the same way every person davens shemoneh esrei. You also asked: > I am very confused. Many poskim recommend point out that Tefilas Haderech > does not begin with "Baruch", so they recommend saying it after another > bracha (such as Asher Yatzar, or a Bracha Acharona on food), so as to make > it into a Bracha Hasemucha L'chvertah. But if Tefilas Haderech is not a > bracha to begin with, then I do not see the advantage of such a procedure. Something can be both a beracha and a tefila at the same time, the prime example is shemoneh esrei which is tefilla par excellence but composed of 18 (19) berachos. Tefilas haderech is a tefila composed (possibly) in the form of a beracha and therefore the rules of tefilla would apply. [Email #2. -micha] R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The sefer Piskei Teshuvot (siman 110-2) has a discussion whether one is > required to say tefillat haderech in modern times. He concludes that one > who does not say it on major roads has someone to rely on but someone who > also says it has the reward of a tefilla even though we no longer have > "listin" and wild animals on the roads. It seems clear from the context of the gemara that tefilas haderech is a tefila b'eis tzara. The gemara mentions tefilas haderech right after it mentions that a person who is in a dangerous place says a tefila. The world has changed a lot since the time of chazal especially related to travel and we need to understand if these changes affect the din of tefilas haderech Here are some of the changes that have occurred relating to travel. 1. Most travel is no longer considered unsafe. When I get in my car every morning to drive to work I don't think twice about it 2. The distinction between in the city and out of the city is no longer true. Most people fell much safer driving in the Catskills then driving through Harlem. Driving on a highway from Brooklyn to Queens is in the city but driving in Monsey to the supermarket may be considered out of the city. 3. This is related to 1, people travel all the time. Most people commute some distance to work, this is normal and part of everyday life. In the time of chazal yotze laderech was a big deal. Given the above R' Shachter (in Nefesh Harav) says that R' Soloveitchik did not say tefilas haderech when he commuted from Boston to NY to give his shiurim. He felt that because it is a tefila b'eis tzara and nowadays there is no perceived danger and it is routine that there was no reason to say it. Recently, I heard a short shiur on tefilas haderech and was happy to hear that RSZA seems to say a very similar idea to RYBS. RSZA did not say tefilas haderech when he traveled from Yerushayim to Bnei Brak. He explained his reasoning as follows: 1. In many places it is not considered as if you left the yishuv for the following reasons: 1. There are many other cars on the road 2. The police regularly patrol the road 3. There are houses on the side of the road 2. Traveling by car/bus is a normal activity. Whan a person gets up and commutes to work he does not say he is going on a trip. The takana of tefilas haderech was for someone who was yotze laderech these kinds of trips are not considered ???? ????. 3. There is little or no danger of yotze laderech RSZA reasoning is very similar to RYBS. Basically, the world has changed and it is no longer unusual or dangerous to travel between cities and therefore the din of when you say tefilas haderech changes as well. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 05:05:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:05:17 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150414.222643.13892.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150414.222643.13892.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <0fa3e90282b94c0e95214067965f579a@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> This is how I understand it: Just as a leopard cannot change its spots, and just as Shabbos comes each week whether society accepts it or not, so too, there are certain elements of the human condition which Chazal have identified as inherent and unchanging, not subject to variation by time, place, or culture. Or something like that. At any rate, one can agree or disagree about whether this assertion is true, and even among those who agree with it, there might be discussion of exactly which chazakos are unchanging and which are variable. Still, his point is that there are indeed some UNchanging aspects. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ I would add an observation that individual exceptions may exist empirically but are ignored halachically Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 06:24:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 09:24:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tan Du In-Reply-To: <20150406184227.GF20912@aishdas.org> References: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150406184227.GF20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <552E669A.6000104@aishdas.org> I personally was always inclined to side with Rabbi Rackman over RYBS on tav l'meisav, but this article gives me pause: http://www.bbc.com/news/health-32303997 KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 07:57:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 10:57:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Message-ID: From: Joseph Kaplan via Avodah "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above." Can anybody explain what this really means? That is, explain it to someone who doesn't use the word "ontological" in his/her normal speech. I have read it many many times but I still don't understand what the Rav is saying. Joseph >>>>> If you leave out the word "ontological" here the sentence is perfectly clear: Human nature does not change. I'm sure you looked up the definition of "ontological" so no need to go there. But in this paragraph, the word "ontological" serves a subliminal purpose. Here it means, "Don't condescend to Orthodox Jews and do not assume we are backwards, primitive, and ignorant. One can be an intellectual and still believe the Torah is true and eternal." --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 08:12:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:12:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: From: Eli Turkel via Avodah >>The sefer Piskei Teshuvot (siman 110-2) has a discussion whether one is required to say tefillat haderech in modern times. He concludes that one who does not say it on major roads has someone to rely on but someone who also says it has the reward of a tefilla even though we no longer have "listin" and wild animals on the roads. Instead we have a car accidents. Therefore one should also say tefillat haderech on railroads and planes. He claims that on small side roads that everyone paskens you need to say tefillat haderech<< -- Eli Turkel >>>> Saying tefillas haderech "on major roads" -- does that mean even within one city, not just when traveling between cities? "On small side roads everyone paskens you need to say tefillas haderech"? What does that mean? Every time I get in the car to go to the grocery store in my own neighborhood? Or was the word "don't" inadvertently omitted from that sentence ("you don't need to say tefillat haderech")? I was driving someone to the cemetery for a levaya, we were on the highway doing 60 and all of a sudden it started to rain, but I mean a mabul, a hard, driving, blinding rain. I couldn't see at all in front of me. Of course I slowed down, as did everyone else, but it was still very frightening and certainly I couldn't just stop in the middle of the highway. My passenger, a BT, became very agitated and said, "I only know one perek of Tehillim by heart so I am going to say that." Then she recited Shir Hamaalos (from benching) out loud. The rain stopped immediately! A few miles further down the road, there was another sudden blinding outburst and she said Shir Hamaalos again. Again the rain immediately stopped. She was like a reverse Choni Hamaagel! I really think her emunah peshuta saved the day! But to veer back into Avodah territory -- would it have been appropriate to say Tefillas Haderech at that time? With shem umalchus? (I assume you can always say it without shem umalchus.) --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 08:34:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:34:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides Message-ID: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> There was a bachur next to me this morning whose retzu'os were painted black on both sides. And I believe I know why this is done, in case a retzu'ah gets flipped. Or perhaps to be chosheish for the Rambam's description of such retzu'os being "noi". The MB 933:21 tells us not to follow the Rambam, whereas the Keses haSofer (written by R' Ganzfried of the QSA) says even the *sides* should be black. But the site got me wondering: 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? 2- If the leather is soaked in dye untile its absorbed and the leather is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? R YS Elyashiv is reported by R' Mordeschai Friedlander (a noted sofer and poseiq, a reliable source) to hold they're fine. I am not challenging their kashrus. It just struck me that both seem valid concerns. I assume the talented chevrah can find holes in my problems. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:17:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:17:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> At 10:21 AM 4/15/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >I am trying to understand whether RNIO's problem with the appearance of >his name on the KosherSwitch.com "approvers" list is because >a- he feels that use of the switch is zilzul Shabbos, or >b- he would hold it's gerama. Does it really matter. He is saying that he does not approve of its use. Why do you need to know more? YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:32:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:32:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 12:17:02PM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : Does it really matter. He is saying that he does not approve of its : use. Why do you need to know more? For the sake of the switch, no. For the sake of understanding the concept of gerama -- Torah hi, velilamdah ani tzarikh! Saying this switch isn't gerama, and its use limited to cases where we can permit gerama, really defies my understanding of the concept. Or perhaps I misunderstand how it works, in which case the Electrical Engineer I studied to become (and the neti'ah that motivated the intent to become one) wants to know. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:07:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 17:07:04 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:34:00 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah > 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam > consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? > 2- If the leather is soaked in dye [until it's] absorbed and the leather > is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we > know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? 1. If it is just soaked, there is no problem of chatzitzah. (Did the fact that the pesiloth of the Tsits were soaked in techeles dye constitute a problem of chatsisoh? atmahah?) There may be a problem if it was subsequently glossed black - which it isn't. 2. Why shouldn't it be valid material after soaking? It's still leather. According to halachah, [have not checked this up right now - but if memory serves me] you can even use klaf [bdi'eved] for retsuos - as long as it is the skin of a kosher beheimoh, its kosher. Dovid [sofer] From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:13:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:13:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> References: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <552E8E18.4090201@sero.name> On 04/15/2015 11:34 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam > consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? Why would it be? It's part of the retzua. AFAIK everyone agrees that it's a hiddur, just not necessary, and most people don't bother. > 2- If the leather is soaked in dye untile its absorbed and the leather > is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we > know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? Why wouldn't it be? It's still leather, after all. Where does it say what colour the leather must be? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:57:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:57:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150415165733.GD6173@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:04PM +0100, D via Avodah wrote: : Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:34:00 -0400 : From: Micha Berger via Avodah :> 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam :> consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? : 1. If it is just soaked, there is no problem of chatzitzah. (Did the : fact that the pesiloth of the Tsits were soaked in techeles dye : constitute a problem of chatsisoh? atmahah?) ... So I believe your answer to my first question is that they don't paint the bottom, they only use my scenario two -- soaking the leather. About your parenthetical comment... If halakhah requires tekheiles, it requires blue wool. The completed product would be what the kohein shouldn't have a chatzitzah under. Not the undyed wool. :> 2- If the leather is soaked in dye [until it's] absorbed and the leather :> is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we :> know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? : 2. Why shouldn't it be valid material after soaking? It's still : leather.... But it's no longer entirely skin of a kosher beheimah, as the dye isn't made from skin. It is now a retzuah made of skin + dye. I could see that either way, and am asking how we (or the posqim among us) can just assume that this innovation is not a problem. Just as tekheiles is different than tzemer, perhaps dye-soaked leather is different in kind than leather. How did we determine it isn't? : Dovid [sofer] Thanks for chiming in. But could you kindly put your full name in your email header or signature once in a while, so that people know who we're talking to? One of Avodah's goals is to create chevraschaft, which is difficult when people are anonymous or partially so. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 10:28:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 17:28:55 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150415.132855.9927.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 12:17:02PM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : Does it really matter. He is saying that he does not approve of its : use. Why do you need to know more? This is like saying, about ANY situation, "He is saying that it is assur. Why do you need to know if it is d'Oraisa or d'rabanan?" The answer is very simple: There are some situations which would justify doing it if "merely" d'rabanan, but not otherwise. Similarly, there may be situations where RNIO would allow this it his svara was ABC, but not if his svara was XYZ. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552e9fe45804e1fe4411ast02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 12:42:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 19:42:24 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu>, <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> Message-ID: <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Saying this switch isn't gerama, and its use limited to cases where we can permit gerama, really defies my understanding of the concept. Or perhaps I misunderstand how it works, in which case the Electrical Engineer I studied to become (and the neti'ah that motivated the intent to become one) wants to know. Tir'u baTov! -Micha _______________________________________________ Sounds to me like r' asher weiss's makeh bpatish definition. Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 16:13:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 19:13:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 07:42:24PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Sounds to me like r' asher weiss's makeh bpatish definition. You lost me. I wasn't discussing which melakhah -- if any -- one violates by using electricity in an of itself, but how using this switch relates to that melakhah. For example, even if we say that electricity and electronics itself weren't an issue, the majority of these switches would be installed so as to turn on fluorescent or incandescent bulbs. Both of which heat filaments until glowing -- so there is a melakhah of bishul or hav'arah to discuss. And my question becomes: In that rather typical setting, how the switch not gerama of one of those two melakhos? (Or possibly both, if a glowing filament is hav'arah, and the resulting boiling of mercury in the fluorescent bulb, bishul.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 13:05:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 16:05:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: REliTurkel wrote: >Just saw a halacha that to me was a chiddush That one cannot (or should not) be yotzeh someone else for tefiilat haderech but everyone should say for them self. Those agreeing (at least lechatchila) include R Aviner R Nebenzahl R C Kanevsky R Tuvia Goldstein (who said he convinced RMF) R Belsky Not what I have seen in practice. Anyone know any opinion that does allow it< Is there any opinion, even of the five quoted, which holds that one is _not_ yotzei even b'diavad? As for RET's question, the Kol Bo on Aveilus, quoted in SSK, Perek 64, footnote 75, states that an onein is obligated in t'fillas haderech, but it is preferable that he be yotzei with another's b'racha. (I have not seen the SSK, but have seen it quoted.) EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 15:35:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 15:35:27 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach Message-ID: did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 17:00:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 20:00:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 6:35 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? I have a friend who does this. She once told me the origins but I forget where it came from. I remember that it was very obscure and non traditional. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 17:38:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 20:38:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150416003839.GD1638@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 03:35:27PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? What did it grow out of? Avoiding she'avar alav es hapesach? A way of avoiding chodosh, at least during the omer period? -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 17:44:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 20:44:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: <20150416003839.GD1638@aishdas.org> References: <20150416003839.GD1638@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 8:38 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 03:35:27PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: >: did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? > What did it grow out of? ... It had to do with chodosh and the omer/barley. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 22:05:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Weiss via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 22:05:46 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > From: Marty Bluke via Avodah > Given the above R' Shachter (in Nefesh Harav) says that R' Soloveitchik > did > not say tefilas haderech when he commuted from Boston to NY to give his > shiurim. He felt that because it is a tefila b'eis tzara and nowadays > there > is no perceived danger and it is routine that there was no reason to say > it. I was on a number of trips to Europe with RHS and every morning when the bus left town he said Tefillas Haderech over the loudspeaker. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 22:19:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 08:19:12 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: multipart/alternative Size: 369 bytes Desc: not available URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 07:15:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:15:53 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: Question: If one doesn't view eilu v'eilu as multiple truths but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which is which), how do you explain the approach to halachic process which ignores academic findings concerning texts or historical circumstances? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 07:16:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:16:49 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] =?windows-1252?q?Nikra_Choteih=94_or_=93Nikra_Rasha=94?= Message-ID: <34b0a662bcc7405695661d14e08ddcfd@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> The gemara uses the expression ?Nikra Choteih? or ?Nikra Rasha? from time to time. Has anyone seen anything written on the relative ranking of such categories? (e.g. since it doesn?t say ?assur?? does it mean it?s not a complete prohibition but something less?) KT Joel RIch THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 08:26:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 16:26:54 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I've never heard of the minhag but there is a chasidishe minhag to eat matsoh every time one washes for hamotsi during the Omer [see Chayim VeShoolom - Minhogim of Munkatche Rebbe] - which might be connected. (The source is the Ari who perceives the spiritual influx of Pesach to be repeated over the Omer; the state that warrants the eating of matsoh during Pesach carries over till Shovuos. Full 'maturity' that warrants the eating of chomets is only reached on Shovuos.) Dovid Rubin From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 10:13:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 17:13:44 GMT Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach Message-ID: <20150416.131344.1969.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> R' Dovid Rubin wrote: > (The source is the Ari who perceives the spiritual influx of Pesach > to be repeated over the Omer; the state that warrants the eating of > matsoh during Pesach carries over till Shovuos. This reminds me of the comment (which I've heard several times here on Avodah, but I don't think anywhere else) that in Moshiach's time, all of Sefira will be a sort of Chol Hamoed to Pesach. > Full 'maturity' that > warrants the eating of chomets is only reached on Shovuos.) Shavuos -- a.k.a. -- "Atzeres" -- is of course an entirely distinct holiday, unrelated to Pesach or to its seven-week long chol hamoed. Chometz would not be a problem on Shavuos any more than Sukkah is mandated on the other Atzeres. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552fede2bc7ec6de23df7st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 10:56:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 13:56:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: <20150416.131344.1969.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.131344.1969.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150416175612.GB10238@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 05:13:44PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Dovid Rubin wrote: :> Full 'maturity' that :> warrants the eating of chomets is only reached on Shovuos.) : Shavuos -- a.k.a. -- "Atzeres" -- is of course an entirely : distinct holiday, unrelated to Pesach or to its seven-week long chol : hamoed. Chometz would not be a problem on Shavuos any more than Sukkah : is mandated on the other Atzeres. Entirely distinct, yes. Unrelated.... The chag of cheirus finds its fruition with "charos - cheirus al haluchos." The connection between the issur chameitz of Pesach, the barley of the qorban omer, and the two loaves of chameitz wheat of the Shetei haLechem is at least as old as the Chinukh. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:22:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:22:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> Yesterday, at 7:13 pm EDT, I wrote: > And my question becomes: In that rather typical setting, how the > switch not gerama of one of those two melakhos? (Or possibly both, if > a glowing filament is hav'arah, and the resulting boiling of mercury > in > the fluorescent bulb, bishul.) And then "ssvarc" (RMSS) wrote on Torah Musings at 8:28 am or > In all likelihood, the Zomet one doesn?t have the light on a > randomized > timer (with indicators), nor the randomized chance for the light > pulse > to operate the switch. Now for an updated version of my response (not yet approved) there: Zomet's Grama Switch does have a randomizer on the LED whose light you may or may not block. As do Shabbos mode ovens. The Kosher Switch has a the same randomizer on the detector opposite the LED, but I don?t see how that makes anything more random. But now that you had me looking at their ?How it Works? page, the key difference has the description of a sefeiq sefeiqa. It?s far from clear what is meant. Here?s the quote from : > This creates two safeiks (Halachic uncertainty): the first, whether > or not the light pulse of the Light Pulse Pair will fail; the second, > whether the switch will fail in triggering the circuit based on the > results of the Light Pulse Pair. ?The switch will fail in triggering the circuit?? What are they doing to introduce this second safeiq? The best I can tell, it's a simple bit of software -- a randomizer that says "don't respond anyway". But that's just guessing, I'm not good enough at reading their patent to be sure. Also, in what sense is either a safeiq? Both will eventually happen, the question is when. I am not sure how ?sefeiq sefeiqa? applies to gerama, or to be more precise -- avoiding gerama. But at least I?m a step further in my understanding. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Here is the test to find whether your mission micha at aishdas.org on Earth is finished: http://www.aishdas.org if you're alive, it isn't. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Richard Bach From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:46:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:46:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> Message-ID: PS: On the relevance of random delay to gerama... AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is *geram* kibui". A case of gerama with a random time delay. But this is Yom Tov, where the laws against extinguishing are looser. The AhS refers you to OC 277:7, where we see that on Shabbos it's assur -- but because of a special gezeira to prevent people from doing the same when the wind *is* blowing. Not because of gerama. I also don't think the randomness of the length of the delay is necessarily relevant. Just pointing out halachic precedent. But it's certainly not "iffy" that we could invoke sefeiq sefeiqa. It's a random length delay, not a doubt whether or not the switch will eventually cause the outcome. The odds the wind will never come, or the randomizer(s) will never produce a combination that causes the switch to be honored, is ignorably small. (No one is selling a switch that may or may not shut the light.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:43:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:43:56 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: RJRich >>>Sounds to me like r' asher weiss's makeh bpatish definition. RMBerger >>>> You lost me. I wasn't discussing which melakhah -- if any -- one violates by using electricity in an of itself, but how using this switch relates to that melakhah. >>> IIAMN, the idea RJR is expressing is that the poseik has ad initio determined that the action in question is forbidden, and now is searching around for the category into which to place this prohibition. I have heard RAWeiss explicitly use this concept in classifying the use of electricity as makeh b'patish, based on a Yerushalmi - it's not an idea just made up by contemporary poskim. It does seem that some poskim are looking at the switch and saying "it *must *be assur somehow"; in any event that seems to me to be what RJR is suggesting is going on. Saul Mashbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:45:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:45:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55300361.8020803@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 02:22 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > "The switch will fail in triggering the circuit"? What are they > doing to introduce this second safeiq? The best I can tell, it's > a simple bit of software -- a randomizer that says "don't respond > anyway". But that's just guessing, I'm not good enough at reading their > patent to be sure. Yes, that's how I understood it. If and when the pulse is received, instead of automatically triggering the light to turn on, there's a gatekeeper that flips a coin, heads it obeys the request to turn on the light, tails it refuses. > Also, in what sense is either a safeiq? Both will eventually happen, > the question is when. In principle it might not ever happen. The basis of all this seems to be siman 277. There the concern is that even if the wind isn't blowing right now, it might start to blow *immediately* as you begin to open the door. This implies that if we can be sure that it won't start blowing until some time after the door has been opened it will be OK. But that whole discussion assumes that extinguishing the flame is not the purpose for which the door is being opened, it's just a possible side-effect. Is the halacha different if that was the intention? On 04/16/2015 02:46 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > > AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes > the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable > to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, > as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. > The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is > *geram* kibui". But there you're actively taking it to the place where the wind will blow. Here you're merely opening the door, so that if/when the wind blows the door won't protect the flame. > But it's certainly not "iffy" that we could invoke sefeiq sefeiqa. It's a > random length delay, not a doubt whether or not the switch will eventually > cause the outcome. The odds the wind will never come, or the randomizer(s) > will never produce a combination that causes the switch to be honored, > is ignorably small. (No one is selling a switch that may or may not shut > the light.) Why not? For the shabbos-keeping household, a switch that sometimes fails is better than no switch at all. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 12:12:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 15:12:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <55300361.8020803@sero.name> References: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 02:45:53PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : >Also, in what sense is either a safeiq? Both will eventually happen, : >the question is when. : : In principle it might not ever happen. ... : >But it's certainly not "iffy" that we could invoke sefeiq sefeiqa. It's a : >random length delay, not a doubt whether or not the switch will eventually : >cause the outcome. The odds the wind will never come, or the randomizer(s) : >will never produce a combination that causes the switch to be honored, : >is ignorably small. (No one is selling a switch that may or may not shut : >the light.) : : Why not? For the shabbos-keeping household, a switch that sometimes fails : is better than no switch at all. You want to ask them why not, feel free to do so. I'm not guessing why they're not setting the randomizers to make each even that unlikely. Still, they are repeatedly rolling the dice, the odds of repeatedly getting "no" falls off geometrically with the length of time in question. Ignoring milsa delo shekhicha, the light will indeed go on. They say the average is "several times" at . : The basis of all this seems to be siman 277. There the concern is that : even if the wind isn't blowing right now, it might start to blow : *immediately* as you begin to open the door. This implies that if we : can be sure that it won't start blowing until some time after the door : has been opened it will be OK. But that whole discussion assumes that : extinguishing the flame is not the purpose for which the door is being : opened, it's just a possible side-effect. Is the halacha different if : that was the intention? : >AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes : >the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable : >to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, : >as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. : >The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is : >*geram* kibui". : : But there you're actively taking it to the place where the wind will blow. : Here you're merely opening the door, so that if/when the wind blows the door : won't protect the flame. The AhS invites the comparison, not me. Clearly you're making a disinction that he holds is without a difference. BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at . To quote: An alternative Talmudic analogy: * There is a candle burning next to a closed window, and a strong wind blowing outside. Certainly, opening the window on Shabbat is forbidden, since the candle will be extinguished immediately. * There is a device that can determine if there's no wind currently blowing, and it can predict with 100% accuracy that no wind will be blowing for at least the next ~5 seconds. It lights up with a green light when it has determined this to be true. * On Shabbat, a person opens/closes the window while the device's indicator is green, knowing that a wind will ultimately blow and succeed in extinguishing the candle. * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to KosherSwitch (R). -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:55:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:55:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] {Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: > From: Marty Bluke via Avodah > Given the above R' Shachter (in Nefesh Harav) says that R' Soloveitchik > did > not say tefilas haderech when he commuted from Boston to NY to give his > shiurim. He felt that because it is a tefila b'eis tzara and nowadays > there > is no perceived danger and it is routine that there was no reason to say > it. RAsher Weiss, in a shiur on tefillat haderech, similarly expressed grave reservations about the recitation of tefillat haderech on routine trips which do not involve any particular acute danger, and indicated that his personal practice is not to say tefillat haderech (at least with a bracha) on said routine trips. OTOH, he was apparently very reluctant to issue a definitive psak that others should do the same, in the face of common established practice. Saul Mashbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 12:43:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 15:43:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> References: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 03:12 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > > BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at > . To quote: > > An alternative Talmudic analogy: > > * There is a candle burning next to a closed window, and a strong > wind blowing outside. Certainly, opening the window on Shabbat is > forbidden, since the candle will be extinguished immediately. > > * There is a device that can determine if there's no wind currently > blowing, and it can predict with 100% accuracy that no wind will be > blowing for at least the next ~5 seconds. It lights up with a > green light when it has determined this to be true. > > * On Shabbat, a person opens/closes the window while the device's > indicator is green, knowing that a wind will ultimately blow and > succeed in extinguishing the candle. > > * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind > is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time > when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts > of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they > miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're > able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to > KosherSwitch (R). Yes, and it seems from the SA that this would be permitted. The big difference, though, is that in the SA's case there is no intention to extinguish the flame, and here there is. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 12:53:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 15:53:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> References: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150416195347.GC11430@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 03:43:24PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: :> BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at :> . To quote: ... :> * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind :> is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time :> when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts :> of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they :> miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're :> able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to :> KosherSwitch (R). : Yes, and it seems from the SA that this would be permitted. The big : difference, though, is that in the SA's case there is no intention to : extinguish the flame, and here there is. Getting back to the post that started this tangent, the question was whether this last bullet item actualy is relevant. What's relevant is the probability of the wind eventually blowing the candle out or the switch turning the light off. If it's a rov or maybe a rube deruba, then it's gerama. At least, that's what was consensus decades ago when Machon Zomet first produced their switch technology and wheelchair. Whether you can break down the likelihood of the melakhah occuring into a union of the probability of a number of sub-steps or not doesn't seem to me to impact the question. Because this isn't a safeiq situation, it's whether your action can be blamed for the melakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 13:25:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 16:25:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150416195347.GC11430@aishdas.org> References: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> <20150416195347.GC11430@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55301AC6.7000807@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 03:53 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 03:43:24PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > :> BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at > :> . To quote: > ... > :> * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind > :> is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time > :> when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts > :> of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they > :> miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're > :> able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to > :> KosherSwitch (R). > > : Yes, and it seems from the SA that this would be permitted. The big > : difference, though, is that in the SA's case there is no intention to > : extinguish the flame, and here there is. > > Getting back to the post that started this tangent, the question was > whether this last bullet item actualy is relevant. According to the SA even the penultimate bullet item is permitted: >> * On Shabbat, a person opens/closes the window while the device's >> indicator is green, knowing that a wind will ultimately blow and >> succeed in extinguishing the candle Surely the last bullet item makes the heter much stronger. But again, the case discussed is where this is not one's intention. Note also, in the mashal, that not only is there no wind right now, there is no candle right now either. > What's relevant is the probability of the wind eventually blowing the > candle out or the switch turning the light off. If it's a rov or maybe > a rube deruba, then it's gerama. That doesn't seem to be what the SA says. But again, with the caveat that intention might make a difference. > Whether you can break down the likelihood of the melakhah occuring into > a union of the probability of a number of sub-steps or not doesn't seem > to me to impact the question. Because this isn't a safeiq situation, > it's whether your action can be blamed for the melakhah. It's putting further causal distance between "cause" and "effect". What if you had a series of these routines, each of which may or may not call the next one, until the last one which may or may not do something? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 14:05:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Samuel Svarc via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 17:05:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Apr 15, 2015 6:01 AM, "Micha Berger via Avodah" wrote: > On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > : Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld > : regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. > ... > :> Moshe Oelbaum > :> Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum > Authentication? Um, the fact that R' Oelbaum says the same thing on the KosherSwitch video ()? What I find very disturbing is that this information is in the public arena. Why are people commenting or conjecturing without looking at the companies materials? On Apr 16, 2015 2:46 PM, "Micha Berger" wrote: > PS: On the relevance of random delay to gerama... > AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes > the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable > to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, > as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. > The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is > *geram* kibui". > A case of gerama with a random time delay. But this is Yom Tov, where > the laws against extinguishing are looser. The AhS refers you to OC > 277:7, where we see that on Shabbos it's assur -- but because of a > special gezeira to prevent people from doing the same when the wind *is* > blowing. Not because of gerama. Take a look at R' Schapiro's teshuva (available on the KosherSwitch website) as well as listen to the shuir they link to (26 min.). KT, MSS From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 14:48:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 17:48:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150416214839.GC1824@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 04:25:42PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: :> What's relevant is the probability of the wind eventually blowing the :> candle out or the switch turning the light off. If it's a rov or maybe :> a rube deruba, then it's gerama. : That doesn't seem to be what the SA says. But again, with the caveat that : intention might make a difference. But we already know it does, according to RSZa and numerous other posqim. IOW, your seifa answers your reisha. : >Whether you can break down the likelihood of the melakhah occuring into : >a union of the probability of a number of sub-steps or not doesn't seem : >to me to impact the question. Because this isn't a safeiq situation, : >it's whether your action can be blamed for the melakhah. : It's putting further causal distance between "cause" and "effect". : What if you had a series of these routines, each of which may or may not : call the next one, until the last one which may or may not do something? That's exactly what I'm saying -- gerama is always a chain of events that can be subdivided according to your taste (how fine grained you wish to define the word "event"). There is an oft-discussed difference between melakhah and CM, where the latter subdivides into gerama (culpable) and garmi (no libability) but hilkhos Shabbos does not. And then even so, garmi is about number of human actions, not physical events. On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 05:05:38PM -0400, Samuel Svarc wrote: : On Apr 15, 2015 6:01 AM, "Micha Berger via Avodah" : wrote: :> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: :>: Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld :>: regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. :> ... :>:> Moshe Oelbaum :>:> Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum :> Authentication? : Um, the fact that R' Oelbaum says the same thing on the KosherSwitch video : ()? YOu misunderstand what I'm asking to be authenticated. Yes, I agree that RNIO talks about zilzul Shabbos. He does in the original alleged approbation in print (or PDF) as well. I was asking for authentication that RMO was really the one who said it's "only" zilzul Shabbos and not also gerama. There is nothing in his caveat about them avoiding melakhah that explains in what way shabbos is being cheapened. Could be uvda dechol, could be gerama, could be any other derabbanan or shevus. No? Not to verify the new "chumera", but to very he wasn't being even more machmir. That's a lot to glean from a post on a YWN chatroom that claims to be from his son. No one identity checks on YWN. : What I find very disturbing is that this information is in the public : arena. Why are people commenting or conjecturing without looking at the : companies materials? In the same post I cite the site in numerous ways, including commenting on parts of the patent application. It's not like I stinted on the research. Never blame until the possibility of miscommunication has been eliminated. No? : On Apr 16, 2015 2:46 PM, "Micha Berger" wrote: : Take a look at R' Schapiro's teshuva (available on the KosherSwitch : website) as well as listen to the shuir they link to (26 min.). One thing I had noted about the teshuvah is that he doesn't bother with the whole thing about a second randomizer. Which is why I was lost as to why anyone would think this is more mutar, and why people who generally follow RSZA more often than RZS would think this solves anything. See R' Neuwirth's summary rejection, repudiating the claim he backed their work . Consistent with what he reported besheim RSZA decades ago. I already noted OC 277, which is specific to geram kibui being mutar, with the exception of taking a candle outside while the wind is calm, lest someone not wait for the wind to be calm. And havarah or bishul? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 18:59:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:59:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150417015924.GA11845@aishdas.org> Here's the current state of my understnading, to start the conversation over by clearing the exchanges that got me there. Feel free to correct any misunderstandings, or even points that needn't necessarily be as I present them. 1- RSZA considers Zomet's Gerama Switch to be just that -- gerama, and therefore assur derabanan except in special cases. Randomly delayed changes to a circuit is, leshitaso, gerama. 2- KSTI considers their switch to be halachically different because their version of the Gerama Switch then goes into a second randomizer which determines whether or not it actually turns on or off your light. They invoke the words "sefeik sefeika", which I don't understand, since the random element is to insure an unknown delay, not a doubt about whether or not the switch eventually turns the light on. 3- Those who hold like RSZA -- R Neuwirth (obviously), R' Nebenzahl, R' Shternbuch -- gave the same ruling to the new switch. 4- Those who say this switch is gerama do not actually invoke the second random element. I found nothing in that wouldn't apply to Zomet's switch. I see them as simply disagreeing with RSZA and R' Yehoshua Neuwirth when they dealt with that question decades ago. Which, given the stature of RSZA and the acceptance of Shemiras Shabbos keHilhasah (and thus RYN), I don't think will get very far in terms of communal acceptance. 5- The Machloqes between RSZA and R Chaim Zvi Shapiro (to pick two representative names) appears to be over how to understand the distinction between two statements by the Rama: 334:22- Geram kibui is only allowed in special cases, and 514:3- You may put a cnandle next to an open window even in a windy area. RSZA distinguishes between whether the intent is kibui or not. RCZS makes the chiluq between whether the maaseh is one of kibui. But I still don't see how this makes the Kosher Switch not a maaseh kibui that we would group it with open windows, not the normal geram kibui. 6- You can't take a candle outside to a windy area even when there is no wind because of a gezeira atu not waiting for the wind to die down. This is different than the window, because one is moving the candle itself. Still, the Magein AvrahamA applies the gezeira to the window as well -- inlike the Rama. So my wondering about how the Kosher Switch isn't a maaseh kibui means that I also have no idea why the switch wouldn't be covered by the gezeira. And according to the MA, the gezeira definitely applies, regardless. If so, wouldn't you need the switch to be physically blocked when the response could be immediately, and not merely warned off with a red light? 6- R' Oelbaum is against general usage, due to zilzul Shabbos. (To my understanding, zilzul Shabbos means violating a shevus or other deRabbanan, chilul Shabbos means deOraisa.) According to he explicitly states "it is clear it is not a grama". So, my prior approach to figuring out what he holds was pointless. Regardless of whether the person in YWN's chatroom is his son or just someone pretending to be, ie whether that text is likely to reflect the nuances of his position. And regardless how one is medayeiq the difference between melakhah and zilzul, ie whether he considers geram melakhah a melakhah or a shevus. RNIO is in the same camp as R' Chaim Zvi Shapiro WRT the mechanics of gerama, but with RSZA it all in practice. But at least now my opening question has some kind of resolution: No poseiq makes a point about how the switches differ, its a machloqes about whether the switch is more like bringing a candle outside or opening a window. It may also be a machloqes about whether it's only geram kibui that is limited to acts of kibui, or even other melakhos. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 17:56:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 20:56:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <10e550.ca50480.4261b459@aol.com> From: Zev Sero via Avodah >> Why not? For the shabbos-keeping household, a switch that sometimes fails is better than no switch at all.<< -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name >>>>> Now that Shabbos lamps are readily available -- they work by covering the light rather than turning it off -- why do we need the Shabbos switch at all? --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 18:08:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 01:08:53 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150416.210853.21413.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> > But that whole discussion assumes that > extinguishing the flame is not the purpose for which the door is being > opened, it's just a possible side-effect. Is the halacha different if > that was the intention? If the operative principle were Psik Reisha, then intention certainly would matter. So here's a question: Is Grama a version of Aino Psik Reisha, or is it another principle entirely? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55305d31763705d3173a1st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 15:56:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 23:56:59 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This idea (that the days of the Omer are a type of chol hamoed) is mentioned in Avoidas Yisroel [Koznitse Maggid] and Ramban in Acharie Mois. Dovid Rubin From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 18:27:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:27:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] re Chametz post Pesach Message-ID: >What did it grow out of? Avoiding she'avar alav es hapesach? A way of avoiding chodosh, at least during the omer period?< Since chadash is grain which has taken root after the minchas ha'omer on the second day of Pesach, and it takes more than 7 weeks for newly-sown grain to be ready for harvest, how is it possible for chadash to exist between Pesach and Shavuos? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 19:22:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 02:22:34 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Joel Rich asked: > Question: If one doesn?t view eilu v?eilu as multiple truths > but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don?t know which > is which), ... You've lost me. Doesn't the grammar and definition of the words "eilu v'eilu" imply that the two things under discussion are equal? I just can't wrap my brain around a way to translate "eilu v'eilu" where one is truth and the other isn't. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 19:35:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 22:35:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150417015924.GA11845@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150417015924.GA11845@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5530716C.8070201@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 09:59 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > They invoke the words "sefeik sefeika", which I don't understand, since > the random element is to insure an unknown delay, not a doubt about > whether or not the switch eventually turns the light on. I assume they disagree with this characterisation. This is your editorial opinion, that since it's inevitable that sooner or later the ducks will all be in a row and the light will come on, all that it achieves is a delay of random length. They would say no, each time the sequence is triggered (let's say every minute) is a discrete event, in which there is a sfek-sfeka whether anything will happen, and the fact that in the next hour there will be 60 more such opportunities, one of which is "bound" to succeed, is irrelevant. They would also point out that there *is* in fact a doubt whether the light will ever turn on (before Shabbos is over or the owner decides to flip the switch back), and they would deny your premise that the tininess of that doubt renders it meaningless. *You* think it's halachically insignificant; they are not required to agree with you. > But at least now my opening question has some kind of resolution: > No poseiq makes a point about how the switches differ, its a machloqes > about whether the switch is more like bringing a candle outside or > opening a window. They seem to say that this is like a case where at the time you open the window there is neither a wind nor a candle, but you know that some time later a goy is likely to put a candle in front of the window, and that some time after that a wind is likely to blow and put it out. On 04/16/2015 08:56 PM, T613K at aol.com via Avodah wrote: > Now that Shabbos lamps are readily available -- they work by covering > the light rather than turning it off -- why do we need the Shabbos > switch at all? I assume 1. To save electricity 2. If you want a brighter light than you can get from a 15w CF light (which is the maximum that it's safe to put in a Shabbos lamp) 3. For applications other than lights -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 20:02:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 03:02:13 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel wrote: > On many birchot hamitzva one can be motzeh others even when they > are "experts". This includes shofar, megilla etc (not lulav or > netillat yadaim which is considered as a mitzvah be-gufo) > similarly for kiddush and havdala. > > Note that for sefirat haomer usually each person says the bracha > himself/herself and also counts for themselves. I am not aware of any situation where the halacha says that I cannot say a birkat hamitzva on your behalf, AND that the reason why I cannot do so is because you are a baki. (There might be other good reasons, depending on the situation, but I don't know that "being a baki" is ever such a reason.) That said, I do concede that the common practice is for one person to say the bracha on shofar and megilla for all the assembled, yet we all say our own brachos on lulav, hallel, and sefira. I have never seen this explanation, but I've always felt there was a very simple explanation for how this distinction developed: When I take the lulav, say hallel, or count sefira, I am doing the mitzvah myself. I am doing it in shul, among many other people, but we are each acting as individuals. I do the mitzvah myself, so I say the bracha on it myself. In contrast, I am dependent on someone else to blow the shofar or read the megillah. You can say that I am personally hearing the shofar with my own ears, and you can say that "shome'a k'oneh" means that I am actively doing the mitzvah of krias hamegillah -- but the bottom line, l'maaseh, is that if the guy on the bimah messes up, I've lost the mitzvah. I am dependent on him to get the mitzvah done. I have to do my share of the work too, of course, by paying attention etc etc, but that's not enough. We *both* have to do it right. Under such conditions, I really don't want to risk saying a bracha that could end up being l'vatala. I'd rather answer Amen to *his* birkas hamitzvah. Following that logic, someone who has his own kosher megila, and actually reads along with the baal kriah, ought to say his own Al Mikra Megila. I suppose so! This distinction appears in other brachos too, even brachos other than birchos hamitzvah. For example, at Kol Nidre, everyone says their own Shehecheyanu on the Yom Tov, because, why not? We all say our own Netilas Yadayim, and brachos on Talis and Tefilin, for the same reason. We all listen to one person say Kiddush, but I think that's mostly because only he/she has a cup from which to drink the required amount. But at the Seder, everyone has a cup, so (in many families) everyone says their own Kiddush. EXCEPTION: There are some brachos which *ought* to be said by each individual according to the above logic, but we rely on the other person because a few brachos got bundled together. For example, if we pass around the b'samim and candle at havdala, we should each say our own bracha on them, but most people don't, because it is part of havdala. Similarly, if you are at the Seder and don't have your own 2.5 matzos in front of you, you'll have to hear Hamotzi from someone because of Lechem Mishne, but why not say your own Al Achilas Matza after you have a piece in your hand, and the answer is because Motzi Matzah go together. All of the above is purely my own logic, and I'm sure many of you will be able to punch some good holes in it. And I'm looking forward to reading that! Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553077e61f4dd77e644e0st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 22:30:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 01:30:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] SF - Focus on the Good Message-ID: <20150417053029.35F10181384@nexus.stevens.edu> [] Focus on the Good In ancient days if a person spoke loshon horah he contracted tza'aras. The message was that just as he exposed the flaws of a person, so too, his flaws were exposed. His rectification was to go into isolation and introspect on his own shortcomings. Lesson: If we focus on the faults of others, we are held responsible to correct our own faults. If we focus of the good of others, HaShem will mercifully overlook our flaws and focus exclusively on our good. App: Avoid saying all unbecoming comments about others. (Based on the writings of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 02:52:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 05:52:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150417095237.GB2327@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 17, 2015 at 03:02:13AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I am not aware of any situation where the halacha says that I cannot : say a birkat hamitzva on your behalf, AND that the reason why I cannot : do so is because you are a baki. (There might be other good reasons, : depending on the situation, but I don't know that "being a baki" is ever : such a reason.) More than that, Beis Hillel (Berakhos 38a, brought lehalakhah AhS OC 298:28) gives *preference* to one person making havdalah for all than each person making their own, because of berov am hadras Melekh. Similarly, it is better to be yotzei qiddush from the baal habayis than each person make their own. (AhS OC 273:6, citing Berakhos 53a, and a din mentioned in most Hagados, because at the seder each person already has their own kos.) But when it comes to birkhas shevach and birkhos hanehenin (which are unattached to other berakhos, unlike the the borei peri hagafen of qiddush or havdalah), we do hold that it's better to make your own. (Berakhos 42a) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 13th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Gevurah: To what extent is judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 necessary for a good relationship? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 05:01:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 12:01:53 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150417.080153.18454.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero explained two views: > I assume they disagree with this characterisation. This is your > editorial opinion, that since it's inevitable that sooner or later > the ducks will all be in a row and the light will come on, all that > it achieves is a delay of random length. They would say no, each > time the sequence is triggered (let's say every minute) is a > discrete event, in which there is a sfek-sfeka whether anything > will happen, and the fact that in the next hour there will be 60 > more such opportunities, one of which is "bound" to succeed, is > irrelevant. They would also point out that there *is* in fact a > doubt whether the light will ever turn on (before Shabbos is over > or the owner decides to flip the switch back), and they would deny > your premise that the tininess of that doubt renders it > meaningless. *You* think it's halachically insignificant; they > are not required to agree with you. If I'm understanding this correctly, the difference of opinion centers on: how many links does the chain need, to reach a point where one end has no halachically significant effect on the other end. To me, this whole discussion is very reminiscent of another topic in hilchos Shabbos, namely, that the Gemara never gave any halachos about cooking in a Kli Shlishi. One view says: "A Kli Rishon obviously cooks, and we were told that some easily-cooked things are capable of being cooked in a Kli Sheni, but that's as far as they went, so obviously nothing can get cooked in a Kli Shlishi." The other view says: "A Kli Rishon obviously cooks, and we were told that some easily-cooked things are capable of being cooked even in other keilim, so you have to be careful with *any* keli that's above Yad Soledes." To me, both of those arguments are very logical, and we must follow our poskim to know which one Hashem wants us to follow. I imagine that this whole Grama discussion might be similar: Chazal laid out circumstances under which indirect action is still assur -- so does that mean that *all* indirect action is assur?, or perhaps I can structure an even more remote indirectness which is acceptably distant. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5530f6662145376662eacst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 06:04:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 09:04:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: A shabbos lamp is tiny. Do you have shabbos lamps to light up your dining room table or the main lighting on a timer? > On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 8:56 PM, via Avodah > wrote: > >> >> Now that Shabbos lamps are readily available -- they work by covering the >> light rather than turning it off -- why do we need the Shabbos switch at >> all? >> >> >> >> >> *--Toby Katzt613k at aol.com * >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 06:54:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 06:54:30 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] yom hazikaron origin Message-ID: http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/Parasha/tazria/Ahrend.pdf on rav goren's placement of yom hazikaron on 4 iyar, analogizing to the israeli shmini atzeret , where hakafot precedes yizkor... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 08:26:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 15:26:20 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: > Question: If one doesn?t view eilu v?eilu as multiple truths > but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don?t know which > is which), ... You've lost me. Doesn't the grammar and definition of the words "eilu v'eilu" imply that the two things under discussion are equal? I just can't wrap my brain around a way to translate "eilu v'eilu" where one is truth and the other isn't. ------------------------------------------------------ See here https://kavvanah.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/rav-soloveitchik-religious-definitions-of-man-and-his-social-institutions-part-1of-7-1958/ for a general approach (especially "Part III- Rav Soloveitchik?s God In Judaism, God himself is the hidden God, Jal Mistatar ? unknowable and unknown. The Jewish experience of God (shared by other religions is antithetic, a polarity. it has both remoteness and intimate closeness. How is that possible? Judaism does not use Aristotelian logic of excluded middle. Unlike classic physic, modern physics uses both waves and particles; modern physics does not use Aristotle. God is both remote and close- in our encounter we are bewildered and comforted. Since Creation is also revelation, the every tree also incomprehensible strange. " And here for some more specifics: http://nishma.org/articles/commentary/slifkinrevisted3print.pdf especially starting around page 11. KT Joel Rich (who still can't really understand the double slit experiment, yet it's there) THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 08:54:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 11:54:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150417155456.GA7366@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 02:15:53PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Question: If one doesn't view eilu v'eilu as multiple truths but rather : one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which is which), how do : you explain the approach to halachic process which ignores academic : findings concerning texts or historical circumstances? To quote myself from : Last week I drew the conclusion from the Qetzos haChoshen that Torah is not Truth, it -- combined with the Jewish People -- is the process by which "Truth will bloom from the earth".... Thus, "vechayei olam nata besokheinu" -- Emes is matzmiach from the Torah. Note that the Torah isn't actually identified with Emes, but the process to get there. ... Rav Moshe Feinstein discusses the halachic process and the role of poseiq in his introduction to Igros Mosheh. (The introduction itself deserves serious study.) He writes about "ha'emes lehora'ah umichuyav lehoros kein af al pi im be'etzem galyah kelapei shemaya galya she'eino kein hapeirush - the true ruling, and one is obligated to teach accordingly, even if in essence is it revealed in heaven that this isn't the correct eplanation!" The ideal is following the pesaq as according to the process. As proof, Rav Moshe brings the gemara in Shabbos 130. We rule that only the milah itself overrules Shabbos. All preparation before the milah must be done in advance. Rabbi Eliezer ruled that anything necessary for the milah, even cutting wood to make the fire to make the knife, etc... could also be done on Shabbos. There was a town in Israel that followed Rabbi Eliezer. The gemara says that Hashem rewarded them for their tenacity for the mitzvah of milah. No one in that town died an early death. And when the Romans passed a law in Israel against milah, they exempted that one town from the law! Who was right -- this town, which was rewarded for their position, or we, who rule differently? If we understand that the essence of halakhah is that it and the Jewish People become one in a process to make truth bloom in this world, we can understand how the answer could be "both". Torah, like life, is about becoming, not being. IOW, if Torah is a legal process to reach the truth, and halakhah is law rather than truths, then it would be reasonable for an truth foung by extra-legal means to be irrelevant. We aren't up to pursuing Truth directly yet, we pursue the law. Someday they'll be identical, and and the neti'ah of chayei olam will have been matzmiach into Emes. On Fri, Apr 17, 2015 at 02:22:34AM +0000, R' Akiva ("Kenneth") Miller replied to RJR: : You've lost me. Doesn't the grammar and definition of the words "eilu : v'eilu" imply that the two things under discussion are equal? I just : can't wrap my brain around a way to translate "eilu v'eilu" where one : is truth and the other isn't. RMF says they're equally balid legally, but not as Truths. Implied is that Divrei E-lokim Chaim are on the meta-level, instructions about about how to hunt for halakhah, not the individual halachic conclusions themselves. Eilu va'eilu follow Hashem's instructions for how to pasqen, but the halakhah is like Beis Hillel. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 13th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Gevurah: To what extent is judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 necessary for a good relationship? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 10:03:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 13:03:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Derech Eretz: What is it the sets man apart from the animal? Message-ID: <20150417170308.D3E50183221@nexus.stevens.edu> Perhaps if yeshiva students were taught again and again, RSRH's commentary about what sets man (and this refers to all men, not just Jews) apart from the animal, then they would realize that every human being is to be treated with Derech Eretz and thus proper respect. YL The following is from RSRH's commentary on Bereishis 2:7 7 Then God formed man, dust of the ground, and breathed into his countenance the breath of life, and thus man became a living personality. What is it that sets man apart from the animal? The living individuality of the animal depends on earthly matter; like its body, so its soul, too, was taken from the earth. Not so man. In the creation of man, only the inert material was taken from the earth; only when God breathed into him the breath of life did he become a living individual. Herein lies the nobility and immortality of man, and this is the whole source of his freedom . That which gives the animal its individuality emanates from the earth and must eventually return to the earth. Not so that which makes man a ?living personality.? Man?s preeminence over the animal is not only in his spirit, but also in his vitality. His vitality is linked not to his body, but to his spirit. When he received a spirit he received life, his soul adhering to the spirit. When the spirit departs from the body, the vital soul is not buried with the remains; for man?s soul is bound up with his spirit, not his body. This is why his physical survival and health do not depend on his body alone. Of the many dangers to the life of an animal, not all are dangers to man. The survival of a man cannot be predicted with the same degree of accuracy as the survival of an animal. Adom yesh lo mazel ( Bava Kamma 2b): there is something in man that defies prediction. A man?s spirit will sustain him, even if it appears that all hope is lost; for the spirit sustains life. Who can gauge the power of an unbroken spirit? Who can calculate how long it can keep the body alive? Thus man is composed of two elements that are completely different from each other. One of these was taken from the earth. But man does not belong to the earth; rather, the earth ? as its name, Adama, implies ? has been given to man to rule. So, too, man?s body, which is afar min Ha?Adomo, is subject to man?s control. His true, living, spiritual essence is not dependent on the body; hence, even while he is physically combined with the earthly element, he can and should exercise control over the earthly in him. The afar, the earthly element, in him cannot be released from the realm of physical compulsion and is subject to the influence of earthly factors. But the nishmas chaim, which God breathed into man and which first made man a human being, imparts to man of the dignity of its source and releases him from all physical compulsion; it grants him freedom and elevates his body, too, into the realm of freedom. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 11:45:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mordechai Harris via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 13:45:49 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: > > That said, I do concede that the common practice is for one person to say > the bracha on shofar and megilla for all the assembled, yet we all say our > own brachos on lulav, hallel, and sefira. In the case of Lulav (first day - which is D'Oraita) and counting Sefira, the Pasuk uses the word Lachem which teaches of the need for each individual to have/count their own. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 12:26:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 15:26:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <55315E57.30506@sero.name> On 04/17/2015 02:45 PM, Mordechai Harris via Avodah wrote: >> That said, I do concede that the common practice is for one person >> to say the bracha on shofar and megilla for all the assembled, yet >> we all say our own brachos on lulav, hallel, and sefira. > In the case of Lulav (first day - which is D'Oraita) and counting > Sefira, the Pasuk uses the word Lachem which teaches of the need for > each individual to have/count their own. What has this got to do with the bracha? I actually had meant to post about this, since I've been wondering for some time why it is that the world's minhag is for each person to say their own bracha on hallel and sefira, after hearing the chazan's bracha. Doesn't the usual rule of "berov am" mean that everyone should be yotzei with his bracha? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 13:47:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 16:47:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is from today's Halacha for Today http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ Erev Shabbos Kodesh Parashas Shemini (Parashiyos Tazria- Metzorah in Eretz Yisroel); Mevorchim Chodesh Iyar; Rosh Chodesh will be on Sunday and Monday 28 Nisan , 5775 April 17, 2015 CURRENT TOPIC: REVIEW OF HALACHOS OF SEFIRAS HA'OMER Halachos for Erev Shabbos Kodesh 1) The thirty third day of the Omer, the 18th of Iyar, is referred to as "Lag B'Omer" and the early sources already treat this day as a special day, as a kind of Yom Tov. (See Sefer Hamanhig page 91a and Meiri to Yevamos 62b) 2) The Tur (Siman 493:3) states that the Talmidim of Rav Akiva stopped dying on Lag B'Omer. However, the Talmud (Yevamos 62b) clearly states that they died from Pesach all the way until Shavuos. If that is so, what then is the significance of the 33rd day of the Omer and why does the Tur write that they stopped dying on that day? The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between the Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the days between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not say Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh Chodesh Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 days in all. Therefore they only died on 32 of the 49 days. As a commemoration of this, we designate the "33rd" day as the day that the dying stopped and we celebrate that day, but not that it totally stopped on Lag B'Omer. ---------- Note that according to the Maharil tachanun was originally said during Nissan except for the days indicated! I wonder when saying Tachanun during Nissan ended. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 14:10:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 21:10:04 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150417.171004.3030.1@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitchok Levine reposted: > The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between > the Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the > days between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not > say Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh > Chodesh Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 > days in all. > > Therefore they only died on 32 of the 49 days... ... There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in both of those. Therefore, there are not "17 days in all", but only 16, leaving 33 days on which they died. (And this presumes that none of the 3 Rosh Chodesh days was Shabbos.) In any case, I am very curious how the commemoration of this event ended up as 33 *somewhat* consecutive days, including Shabbos. If the talmidim really died only on the days cited, our procedure sounds like cheating, at least sort of. Granted that a commemoration does NOT have to follow all the details of the event being remembered, but this pushes the envelope on that, in my opinion. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55317717a31937717329dst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 13:58:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 20:58:03 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <20150417.165803.3030.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero asked: > I actually had meant to post about this, since I've been > wondering for some time why it is that the world's minhag is for > each person to say their own bracha on hallel and sefira, after > hearing the chazan's bracha. Doesn't the usual rule of "berov > am" mean that everyone should be yotzei with his bracha? In theory (="l'halacha"), yes, you are correct. But in practice (="l'maaseh") Rov Am gets beat by our lack of kavana. Rov Am is an important hidur, but the ikar is to insure that one is yotzay, and that is more easily insured by saying it oneself. (It's like if one is forced to choose between an esrog which is definitely kosher but only barely so, vs. one which is beautiful but *might* be pasul. To me, it's a no-brainer that one would choose the barely kosher one.) This explanation fits my previous post well: We are all yotzay with someone else's bracha on the shofar and megillah, but NOT because of Rov Am, only because the bracha is somewhat risky because I'm relying on someone else. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5531743bc92df743b2646st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Apr 18 18:34:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sat, 18 Apr 2015 21:34:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Correction to Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150419013412.5B7E7181C69@nexus.stevens.edu> I sent out a couple of days ago. The following is from today's Halacha for Today http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between the Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the days between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not say Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh Chodesh Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 days in all. Therefore they only died on 32 of the 49 days. As a commemoration of this, we designate the "33rd" day as the day that the dying stopped and we celebrate that day, but not that it totally stopped on Lag B'Omer. ---------- Note this calculation is wrong. If one counts 7 days of Pesach then one has included one Shabbos. This leaves 6 Shabbasos until Shavuous. Thus one has 7 days of Pesach, 6 Shabbasos, 2 days Rosh Chodesh Iyar and one day Rosh Chodesh Sivan. Hence 7+6+2+1 = 16 days on which Tachanun was not said. 49 -16 = 33, and this is where the 33 days of aveilus comes from. Thus Tachanun was said not only during Nissan except for the days that are excluded, but also on Lag B'Omer . YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Apr 18 21:19:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 00:19:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <55332CDA.60208@sero.name> > 2) The Tur (Siman 493:3) states that the Talmidim of Rav Akiva > stopped dying on Lag B'Omer. > > However, the Talmud (Yevamos 62b) clearly states that they died from > Pesach all the way until Shavuos. If that is so, what then is the > significance of the 33rd day of the Omer and why does the Tur write > that they stopped dying on that day? He does not say any such thing. He says that *some* people have haircuts from the 33rd day on, because *they say* that this is when the dying stopped. The long list of rishonim who hold this cite a medrash that disagrees with the gemara, and says the dying stopped 15 days before Shavuos. The Tur himself does not express an opinion on the matter. > The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between the > Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the days > between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not say > Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh Chodesh > Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 days in all.* This is *not* a Maharil! It's supposedly a Tosfos, I don't know where. But there seem to be two versions of what this Tosfos says, which is why it would be nice to see the original. Mahari Ibn Shuaib (a talmid of the Rashba, and the rebbe of the Tzeida Laderech) cites this Tosfos as saying that the mourning takes place on 33 days during the Omer, because there are 16 days when no mourning is appropriate. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=9416&pgnum=131 The Bach, however, cites "Acharonim" who cite this Tosfos as saying that they didn't die on these 16 days. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=14268&pgnum=330 On 04/17/2015 04:47 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > Note that according to the Maharil tachanun was originally said > during Nissan except for the days indicated! I wonder when saying > Tachanun during Nissan ended. YL Not Tachanun. Techina, i.e. Kel Erech Apayim, Lamnatzeach Ya`ancha, etc. According to minhag Ashkenaz these are said even on days when there is no nefilas apayim, but not on Yomtov, Chol Hamoed, Shabbos, or Rosh Chodesh. [Email #2. -micha] On 04/17/2015 05:10 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos > Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or > it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in > both of those. Indeed, the Bach noters this and corrects it. > In any case, I am very curious how the commemoration of this event > ended up as 33 *somewhat* consecutive days, including Shabbos. If the > talmidim really died only on the days cited, our procedure sounds > like cheating, at least sort of. Granted that a commemoration does > NOT have to follow all the details of the event being remembered, but > this pushes the envelope on that, in my opinion. Well, according to the Tosfos as Mahari ibn Shuaib quotes it, the common interpretation of 33 days is *wrong*, and the correct minhag is to mourn for 33 days during the sefirah, i.e. all days except Pesach, Shabbos, and Rosh Chodesh. He does *not* say that they only died on these days. The first place I've seen the idea that Tosfos says they only died on those days is in the Bach. He sees it as justifying our mourning for only 33 days, not 34, as we should if our source were the medrash that the dying stopped 15 days before Shavuos. And since they only died on 33 days, our mourning period only lasts 33 days, including Shabbos, even though (according to this view) they didn't die on Shabbos. How exactly we mourn on Shabbos I'm not sure, but I assume the idea is that we do, so we count it toward the 33 days. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 06:26:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 09:26:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <55332CDA.60208@sero.name> References: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> <55332CDA.60208@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150419132604.GB19240@aishdas.org> On Sun, Apr 19, 2015 at 12:19:38AM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : >Note that according to the Maharil tachanun was originally said : >during Nissan except for the days indicated! I wonder when saying : >Tachanun during Nissan ended. YL : : Not Tachanun. Techina, i.e. Kel Erech Apayim, Lamnatzeach Ya`ancha, etc. : According to minhag Ashkenaz these are said even on days when there is no : nefilas apayim, but not on Yomtov, Chol Hamoed, Shabbos, or Rosh Chodesh. I am now wondering: why those techinos and not Tachanun? After all, as the name implies (and the Gra emphasizes), Tachanun is itself the core techinah. (Or perhaps "Elokai, Netzor Leshoni" is more central, since that's the one we place immediately "basar tzelosana", before aqiras raglayim.) I would bet (if I had spare money to bet with) that's the same question as asking why we're nofeil apayim for one but not the other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 04:00:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 11:00:12 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150419.070012.19808.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> I wrote: > There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos > Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or > it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in > both of those. R' Zev Sero added: > Indeed, the Bach notes this and corrects it. Glad to hear that, thank you. But over Shabbos, I thought of another problem: R' Akiva's talmidim were in Eretz Yisrael. There would never be a year where Pesach contains 7 days of Sefira. Even when including Shabbos Chol Hamoed, that yields only 6 days. Add 6 post- Pesach Shabbosim, and 3 days of Rosh Chodesh, and you have only 15 days of no Tachanun, leaving 34 days of mourning. Perhaps this is why Mechaber 493:2 says that the mourning continues straight through Lag Baomer, and does not end until the morning of the 34th. Note that Mishne Brurah 493:7 says that although most of the dying stopped on the 33rd, some deaths did occur on the 34th. I must point out that the above is true only when Pesach begins on Sunday, Monday or Tuesday. In years when it begins on Shabbos, as it did this year, then Eretz Yisrael does have a full seven post-Pesach Sabbaths in Sefira, totalling 16 no-Tachanun days, leaving 33 for mourning. BUT - In years when Pesach begins on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday (and even nowadays Thursday is a real possibility), one of the Rosh Chodesh days will coincide with Shabbos. This lowers the count to 6 days of Pesach, 6 Shabbasos, and only 2 days of Rosh Chodesh - a total of only 14 no-Tachanun days, leaving 35 for mourning. I can't help but wonder how the calendar looked that particular year. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ 4 Fish to Never Eat Click to Learn 4 Fish to NEVER Eat (avoid these like the plague!) http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55338b0147138b0126d6st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 10:34:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 13:34:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <20150419.070012.19808.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150419.070012.19808.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5533E71A.9080700@sero.name> On 04/19/2015 07:00 AM, Kenneth Miller wrote: > I wrote: >> There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos >> Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or >> it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in >> both of those. > > R' Zev Sero added: >> Indeed, the Bach notes this and corrects it. > > Glad to hear that, thank you. But over Shabbos, I thought of another > problem: R' Akiva's talmidim were in Eretz Yisrael. There would never > be a year where Pesach contains 7 days of Sefira. Even when including > Shabbos Chol Hamoed, that yields only 6 days. Add 6 post- Pesach > Shabbosim, and 3 days of Rosh Chodesh, and you have only 15 days of > no Tachanun, leaving 34 days of mourning. Except, as you note, in a year like this one. > Perhaps this is why Mechaber 493:2 says that the mourning continues > straight through Lag Baomer, and does not end until the morning of > the 34th. No, the Mechaber had never heard of this Tosfos that the Bach cites in the name of the "Acharonim". On the contrary, the only Tosfos he seems aware of on topic is the one cited by Mahari ibn Shuaib, which says that the plague raged throughout the Sefira, but that we only mourn for 33 days, because we skip Yomtov, Shabbos, and Rosh Chodesh. The Mechaber's own minhag follows the medrash that the plague stopped 15 days before Shavuos, i.e. the 34th was the last day. Either there are two versions of this Tosfos, or the Acharonim whom the Bach quotes are talking about the same Tosfos as Mahari ibn Shuaib does, and one of them misunderstood it. It would be nice to find it inside (though of course that would not rule out a different girsa). -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 10:36:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 17:36:03 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150419.133603.21006.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero wrote: > Not Tachanun. Techina, i.e. Kel Erech Apayim, Lamnatzeach > Ya`ancha, etc. According to minhag Ashkenaz these are said even > on days when there is no nefilas apayim, but not on Yomtov, Chol > Hamoed, Shabbos, or Rosh Chodesh. R' Micha Berger wrote: > I am now wondering: why those techinos and not Tachanun? Let me add a few more data points: Common practice in Nusach Ashkenaz is to skip Tachanun even for all of the Sefira days of Nisan, and also for all of the pre-Shavuos days of Sivan. (Note that NONE of the various minhagim allow haircuts on ALL of those days. Sounds like a great proof that tachanun takes all the kulos, even contradictory ones.) I concede that this is davka nowadays, and I do not know what the practice was in previous centuries. However, it is difficult for me to imagine anyone ever saying Tachanun on Isru Chag. Perhaps that might answer the point I raised in my previous post about R' Akiva's talmidim being in EY, and that in EY there are only 6 days of Sefirah during Pesach; perhaps the "7" comes from including Isru Chag. I should also mention Pesach Sheni, although that could lead to a messy argument over whether that is really "a non-Tachanun day" or merely "a non-Tachanun afternoon". So I won't mention it. :-) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5533e7dd3196367dd4042st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 09:54:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 12:54:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L Message-ID: <20150419165450.42320180CA8@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is taken in part from Rav Shimon Schwab's Essay The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L that appears in Selected Writings pages 88 -93. Rav Hirsch is usually accepted as the exponent of the Torah im Derech Eretz philosophy. This principle is explained by his grandson, Dr. Isaac Breuer, as follows: "He was strictly opposed to compromise or reconciliation, or even a synthesis: he demanded full and uncompromising rulership of the Torah. The Torah cannot endure co-rulership, far less tolerate it. As a true revolutionary he seized the liberalistic individual, the liberalistic, humanitarian ideal, liberalistic capitalism, and the human intellect, celebrating orgies in the liberalistic science, and dragged them as "circumstances'', in the narrowest sense of the word, to the flaming fire of the Torah to be purified or, if need be, to be consumed. As a true revolutionary he solved the unbearable tension between the Torah and the new era which had dawned over the Jews of Western Europe. He invaded the new era with the weapons of the Torah, analyzed and dissected it down to its last ingredients, and then shaped and reformed it until it could be placed at the feet of the Torah, as new nourishment for the Divine fire. The proclamation of the rulership of the Torah over the new era was the historic achievement of Hirsch's life for his own contemporaries." -- ("Hirsch as a Guide to Jewish History'' in Fundamentals of Judaism, published by Feldheim, 1949.) Unfortunately, the principle of Torah im Derech Eretz is grossly misunderstood by our contemporary Jewish orthodoxy. It does not mean that one who is a full-fledged citizen of hedonistic America and at the same time keeps the laws of the Torah, is a follower of Torah im Derech Eretz. Not to violate the laws of the Torah certainly deserves praise and recognition but it is not an embodiment of the Hirschian philosophy. Likewise, an academy dedicated to the study of science and philosophy, not in order to serve the understanding of Torah or to further the aims of the Torah but as the independent search by the human intellect to understand and control the world around -- even when added to a department of profound and very scholarly Torah studies -this is not an outgrowth of the Torah im Derech Eretz Weltanschauung of Samson Raphael Hirsch. Also, a secular university in Israel, albeit under skullcap auspices, complete with Judaic studies, is extremely remote from a Torah im Derech Eretz school even if it has established a "Samson Raphael Hirsch chair" as part of its academic set-up, something which almost borders on blasphemy . The Orthodox professional who is not regularly "koveah ittim batorah", or otherwise lacks in the performance of mitzvahs, or who is immodest in dress or behavior, is not a follower of Samson Raphael Hirsch. From all of Hirsch's prolific writings, it becomes evident that his main concern was to establish the majesty of the Divine Word and the role of the Divine Will as revealed in the Torah, to dominate all the highways and by-ways of mundane life. Those who abuse Torah im Derech Eretz as a "hetter" to lead a life of easygoing and lenient "Yiddishkeit" or those who consider the Hirschian idea as a compromise between the right and the left in Jewish thinking have distorted the meaning of the principle as laid down in the Mishne, Avos, Perek 2, 2: "Beautiful is the study of Torah combined with Derech Eretz for the effort to attain both makes one forget to commit sins". The Torah is not a mere branch of human knowledge, one discipline amongst many others, but rather must the Torah dominate all secular knowledge and all worldly activities. Equally so, the community of Israel, Klal Yisroel, as well as all Kehillos and organized communities, be they local or international -- which are all segments of Klal Yisroel -- are not supposed to be mere branches of a neutral Israel but are to be totally independent. The Torah community is not beholden to any non-Torah community and it does not even recognize its authenticity. This is the essence of the Hirschian Austritt (separation) ideology. The so-called "Austritt" is the militant vigilance of the conscientious Jew defending the Torah community against all encroachments from the non-Torah powers that be. The "Austritt" and Torah im Derech Eretz go hand in hand, they form "one package", so to speak, and both these aspects of Hirschian thought have one aim: the total domination of Torah over all thinking and actions of individual and national life. He who separates the rule of the Torah over all facets of the communal life of Klal Yisroel from the rule of the Torah over all human knowledge, in short, he who separates the "Austritt" from Torah im Derech Eretz, renders a disservice to both. Instead of becoming an inspiration to serve G-d in the spirit of B'chol D'rochecha dahu, Torah im Derech Eretz is reduced to become an excuse for being "modern but frum", an excuse for the cultural assimilation which plagues the modern Orthodox Jew who considers this world a kosher pleasure cruise eventually resulting in all the sorry hangovers of our age. Let us therefore beware of some common misunderstandings. The motto does not have its accent on the last word but on the first word. It is TORAH -underscored for double emphasis -- with Derech Eretz. Furthermore, the leit-motif is neither Torah and Derech Eretz nor Torah U'Madoh -- the two are not equal partners -- nor must it be twisted around into Derech Eretz plus Torah. It is neither a synthesis of Torah with assimilation nor a bloodless orthopraxy blended with earthbound Americanism. It is none of these. It is Torah im Derech Eretz. It means G-d's Torah in its totality, utilizing Derech Eretz as the means to bring about the Torah's full realization. It means: Torah as a Divine nourishment and the human Derech Eretz as the aromatic ingredient to bring out the Torah's intrinsic flavor to its most perfect bloom. There are two schools of thought and they are both legitimate. One is "Torah Only" and the other is Torah im Derech Eretz. All Torah-conscious Jews work for the same goal. There are various methods and various avenues of approach. They all lead up to the ultimate end of: "Yisgadal v'yisgadash Shmei rabah" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 15:00:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 18:00:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <20150419.133603.21006.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150419.133603.21006.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <55342569.2000502@sero.name> On 04/19/2015 01:36 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > Common practice in Nusach Ashkenaz is to skip Tachanun even for all of the Sefira days of Nisan, This is not just nusach Ashkenaz, it's the universal minhag, originating in Masechet Sofrim 21:3. It's actually the chapter title of Shulchan Aruch OC 429, and AFAIK there is no dissenting opinion or minhag. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 15:08:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Avi Goldstein via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 18:08:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu va'eilu Message-ID: It has always been my understanding that eilu va'eilu means that both (or more than two) are, within the sphere of Torah, "true" as long as they emanate from a valid drashah. As the Rambam writes in Hilchos Mamrim, Perek 2, a Sanhedrin can overturn the ruling of a previous Sanhedrin if that ruling was made based on the yud gimmel middos or based on sevara. The Rambam states that the new ruling becomes normative. So, for example, if a Sanhedrin ruled that yeush shelo mida'as is yeush, that is now the d'oraisa rule. If a later Sanhedrin overturns the ruling, then the new ruling becomes normative. Both, however, are "true," because the Torah has shivim panim; the Torah is multifaceted and can countenance more than one truth. The Rambam seems to hold that Moshe Rabbeinu was merely given the methods by which to darshan; he was not given the various possible halachic outcomes. The Ritva (Eruvin 13b) states that at Sinai, Moshe Rabbeinu was shown 49 possibilities for each halachic situation. Either way, it is up to klal Yisrael to determine what the halacha is, but all the possible outcomes are divrei Elokim Chayim. Avi Goldstein From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 20:47:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 23:47:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L Message-ID: <11211.6b4edbb3.4265d0c0@aol.com> From: "Prof. Levine via Avodah" The following is taken in part from Rav Shimon Schwab's Essay The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L that appears in Selected Writings pages 88 -93. Rav Hirsch is usually accepted as the exponent of the Torah im Derech Eretz philosophy. This principle is explained by his grandson, Dr. Isaac Breuer, as follows: "He was strictly opposed to compromise or reconciliation, or even a synthesis: he demanded full and uncompromising rulership of the Torah. [snip] There are two schools of thought and they are both legitimate. One is "Torah Only" and the other is Torah im Derech Eretz. All Torah-conscious Jews work for the same goal. There are various methods and various avenues of approach. They all lead up to the ultimate end of: "Yisgadal v'yisgadash Shmei rabah" >>>> See the wonderful pamphlet by R' Shimon Schwab, "Eilu ve'Eilu," explaining the broad outlines of the differences between these two hashkafos, "Torah im Derech Eretz" and so-called "Torah-only." I try to re-read this 48-page pamphlet every year. http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/these_and_those.pdf I am grateful to RYL (Prof. Levine) for making this pamphlet available to the public as a pdf. However I note that he is often highly critical of the charedi world, and I believe that R' Hirsch would emphatically not have agreed with him. He would have honored and cherished the talmidei chachamim who devote their lives to limud haTorah, and would have educated his balabatim to take pride in the zechus of financially supporting the "black hat" yeshivos. In the so-called "Torah-only" world they may have disdain for balabatim, but we who believe in TIDE can respect and honor that world of sustained and focused Torah study without internalizing an inferior self-image. We believe in Yisachar and Zevulun even if Yisachar lacks proper respect for Zevulun. We believe in twelve shevatim, we believe in twelve paths through the sea. And we believe that without the shevet of full-time lomdei Torah and talmidei chachamim, the rest of Klal Yisrael would have no kiyum. I would also note that R' Hirsch would certainly not have shared RYL's dour view of present-day Eretz Yisrael. True, all the flaws and failings of Zionism are abundantly on display in the modern Medinah. But at the same time, it takes an almost willful blindness not to see the incredible miracles that have been taking place there over the past sixty years or so. Not the least of these miracles is a flourishing of Torah scholarship, be'eichus uvekamus, the likes of which has not been seen since the churban Bayis Sheni. We owe at least a small measure of gratitude to the Zionist government that helps provide the infrastructure for the Torah community to flourish, and a huge measure of gratitude to the Ribono Shel Olam for allowing us to live in a time in which the beginning of kibbutz galuyos is taking place before our eyes. The sight of thousands of men, young and old, from all corners of the world, streaming into the Mirrer Yeshiva each day, gives us a little foretaste of what it will be like to visit the Third Bais Hamikdash. Again, I urge everyone to read Rav Schwab's wonderful pamphlet, "Eilu ve'Eilu." http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/these_and_those.pdf --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 19:30:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 02:30:15 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: <20150419.223015.3015.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Joel Rich asked: > Question: If one doesn't view eilu v'eilu as multiple truths > but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which > is which), ... I didn't understand that 2nd view, so he suggested to look > here for some more specifics: > http://nishma.org/articles/commentary/slifkinrevisted3print.pdf > especially starting around page 11. On page 4 of that article, the author offers this explanation of the concept of Machlokes L'Shem Shamayim: > ... every individual striving mightily to gain truth and an > understanding of God's Will can only achieve what is possible > within the parameters of his/her own individual being. Since the > fullness of Torah extends beyond the comprehension of any one > individual, machloket must necessarily ensue. It is not simply > that machloket emerges because of the inherent limitations of > the human condition. It is only through the enunciation of > machloket that human beings effectively are able to express the > fullness and truth of the Divine wisdom of Torah. ... Within > this category of disagreement, the existence of differing views > is not a problem. It is actually positive. It is the natural > consequence of a limited humanity trying to encounter the > unlimited nature of God and Torah. Elsewhere in that article, I understood him to say: Because both Hillel and Shammai worked within the rules of how Torah is to be understood, their differing views are equally valid and equally true (notwithstanding the detail that for purely practical reasons, halacha l'maaseh has to go one way or the other). This much fits very well with what I've been taught: Hashem deliberately wrote and designed the Torah in such a way as to allow both Hillel and Shammai to reach those differing views, and when they did reach those views, and (lovingly) refused to yield to the other, they accomplished exactly what Hashem had intended. But RJR referred us specifically to page 11, and on that page, the author brings the two views that RJR had initially posted: > One significant question in this regard, though, that should be > presented is: whether kalpei Shemaya, from the perspective of > Heaven, one view may really be correct or not? How one answers > this question will affect whether one considers any position in > a machloket l'Shem Shamayim as ultimately able to be labeled > incorrect. Effectively the question would be: are all positions > in the disagreement theoretically, equally part of truth and a > decision rendered between the opposing views solely because of > practical necessity? Or is there a truly correct position ? > albeit only able to be ascertained by Heaven ? but we still > accept all positions as part of Torah, albeit some are mistaken, > as they all are equally the best that humanity can achieve and > the mistakes only arise from the actual limitation of the human > being? With all due respect, but it seems to me that this second view is illogical and mistaken. How can there be a view which was obtained by legitimate methods of learning the Torah, without any personal agenda, and the best that humanity can acheive -- and yet be one which Hashem did NOT want us to arrive at? If there is a view that is NOT truly correct, yet the incorrectness can be ascertained only by Heaven, then why did Hashem design the Torah in a manner which allowed us to reach that mistaken conclusion? If only He would have made one little change, if only the pasuk had said this instead of that, then we'd have darshened that pasuk differently, and would have avoided that mistake. But since He did not make that change, but rather He wrote the Torah as we have it, and Toras Hashem Temimah, then I believe that the conclusions reached cannot possibly be mistakes, but rather, this is exactly what we mean by Eilu V'Eilu Divrei Elokim Chayim. (Of course, I am referring only to drashos made with the proper tools, and in the proper manner, such as those made by Hillel and Shammai and others of similar caliber. I am not referring to people who are of lower caliber, or who were working with broken tools. And I'm certainly not referring to people who deliberately distort Torah for their own purposes.) But then, as I was reviewing this post, my mind turned to the Tanur Shel Achnai. R' Eliezer had a minority view, and R' Yehoshua was in the majority. I've got to believe that both views were firmly grounded; this machlokes was surely just as L'Shem Shamayim as any between Hillel and Shammai. I'd *like* to say that Klapei Shmaya, both views were Truth. But then what can I do with Hashem's response of "Nitzchuni banai"? It sure sounds to me like this Judge was not impartial. He was rooting for R' Eliezer! And yet He wrote a Torah that allowed for R' Eliezer's mistaken interpretation. Why would He do that? To paraphrase RJR's question from the very beginning of this post, Tanur Shel Achnai seems to be an example of "eilu v'eilu": At the time of their dispute, it was possible that both views were Truth, but we didn't know which was which, so for practical purposes they took a vote. But later, Eliyahu Hanavi revealed the fact that it was NOT multiple truths, but rather one truth (R' Eliezer) and one nice try (R' Yehoshua). TO RECAP: In the beginning of this post, I explained my logical basis for believing that every true Eilu V'Eilu is a case of multiple Truths. At the end, I brought an example of an Eilu V'Eilu which was "one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which is which)". I cannot reconcile the logic and the example. All I can do is to ask again: Would Hashem really write a Perfect Torah which allows for mistaken interpretation? Why would He do that? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553464ea69a2864ea0cc6st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 01:48:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 11:48:03 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: RMB: Rav Moshe Feinstein discusses the halachic process and the role of poseiq in his introduction to Igros Mosheh. (The introduction itself deserves serious study.) He writes about "ha'emes lehora'ah umichuyav lehoros kein af al pi im be'etzem galyah kelapei shemaya galya she'eino kein hapeirush - the true ruling, and one is obligated to teach accordingly, even if in essence is it revealed in heaven that this isn't the correct explanation!" The ideal is following the pesaq as according to the process. This passage in IM is cited by R. Shalom Rosner in a systematic discussion of the subject of eilu v'eilu in the course of a shiur on Ktuvot 57a at http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/720210/Rabbi_Shalom_Rosner/Kesubos57. Rashi in Ktuvot 57a invokes the principle of eilu 'v'eilu, (read and explained by R. Rosner stating at about 18:30 in the shiur) and R. Rosner elucidates this principle, starting at about 21:30 in the shiur, until about 29:40. For anyone interested in a very clear explanation of the various shittot about what eilu v'eilu means, I can't recommend this shiur highly enough. Very briefly, R. Rosner cites three approaches in the sources 1. Illustrating the truth - The Ran in Drashot HaRan drasha 5 - In this approach, which severely limits the principle of eilu v'eilu, the Ran states that actually only one of the opinions is true. The other opinion is 'divrei Elokim chaim' only insofar as it serves to illustrate and elucidate the other opinion, which is the real truth, as the dark enables us to appreciate a candle. The Chida in Petach Einayim, his commentary on Eiruvin where the principle of eilu v'eilu is cited by the Gemara, takes this approach as well. R. Rosner emphasizes that this is a minority opinion, and personally finds it hard to accept, as he explains in the shiur. 2. Levels of truth - R. Moshe in the hakdama to IM, and R. Yaakov to Bereishit 26, the Netziv in his Hakadama to Haamek Sh'eila, his commentary to the Sheiltot). Using R. Moshe's terminology. there is Emet Shamaymit, and Emet L'Horaa. Both are correct, and in this world we are obligated to follow the emet l'horaa even if it deviates from the ultimate, heavenly truth. 3. Multiple truths (Ritva in Eiruvin, Maharal) - Both opinions are true, reflecting different perspectives of the subject at hand (IMO, this is similar to the previous explanation, without establishing a hierarchy between the truths expressed by the different opinions). R. Rosner states that the Rashi in question on Ktuvot 57a takes this approach. R. Rosner's explanation of the shittot is very lucid and concise. He refers in his shiur to Ktuvot 57 to a previous, more comprehensive shiur he gave on the subject, but I don't know if that shiur is available online. Saul Mashbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 19:43:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 22:43:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] brochos from the amud (was: tefillat haderech) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420024354.CJVF30458.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo110> >R' Zev Sero asked: > > > I actually had meant to post about this, since I've been > > wondering for some time why it is that the world's minhag is for > > each person to say their own bracha on hallel and sefira, after > > hearing the chazan's bracha. Doesn't the usual rule of "berov > > am" mean that everyone should be yotzei with his bracha? R' Akiva Miller wrote: >In theory (="l'halacha"), yes, you are correct. But in practice >(="l'maaseh") Rov Am gets beat by our lack of kavana. Rov Am is an >important hidur, but the ikar is to insure that one is yotzay, and >that is more easily insured by saying it oneself. (It's like if one >is forced to choose between an esrog which is definitely kosher but >only barely so, vs. one which is beautiful but *might* be pasul. To >me, it's a no-brainer that one would choose the barely kosher one.) > >This explanation fits my previous post well: We are all yotzay with >someone else's bracha on the shofar and megillah, but NOT because of >Rov Am, only because the bracha is somewhat risky because I'm >relying on someone else. Slight change of topic: I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea that we don't seem to have a chashash of a brocha l'vatalah. I mean, you have a sh'tz up there, saying a brocho out loud -- and he's intentionally trying to be motzi _some_ others (whoever has missed a day) and everybody says amen, and then they say the brocho themselves. No chashash for an issur d'oraissa? Shomea k'onen doesn't apply at all? What if you are in the shul and you're not thinking about the issue of being yotzie, you're just thinking about which day it is, and/or you simply have stam kavanah. No chashash for an issur d'oraissa? Apparently not because almost everybody does that. But I don't get it. (To satisfy my own comfort level, my preferred action to is to focus and have kavanah to be yotzie with the brocho, say amen, and then I don't have any chashash here). -- Sholom From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 10:36:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 13:36:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 11:48:03AM +0300, Saul Mashbaum via Avodah wrote: : This passage in IM is cited by R. Shalom Rosner in a systematic discussion... : http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/720210/Rabbi_Shalom_Rosner/Kesubos57. ... : Very briefly, R. Rosner cites three approaches in the sources : : 1. Illustrating the truth - The Ran in Drashot HaRan drasha 5 - In this : approach, which severely limits the principle of eilu v'eilu, the Ran : states that actually only one of the opinions is true. The other opinion is : 'divrei Elokim chaim' only insofar as it serves to illustrate and elucidate : the other opinion... : 2. Levels of truth - R. Moshe in the hakdama to IM, and R. Yaakov to : Bereishit 26, the Netziv in his Hakadama to Haamek Sh'eila, his commentary : to the Sheiltot)... : 3. Multiple truths (Ritva in Eiruvin, Maharal) - Both opinions are true, : reflecting different perspectives of the subject at hand (IMO, this is : similar to the previous explanation, without establishing a hierarchy : between the truths expressed by the different opinions).. My opinion differs from yours. The Maharal is saying that what RMF calls emes shamamis (I think that conjugation is yours, no?) is actually too rich to fit in this universe, and certainly in a human mind. Therefore, two shitos can be correct descriptions of the Truth, because each are incomplete. Rather than invoke the 5 blind men and the elephant, I think it's more useful to use a mashal of an object and a shadow. Because a shadow is only 2D, information is lost. It could make you think the two opinions are describing differnt thing, but they don't. If you shine a light directly at the fact of a cube, the shadow is a square. If you shine it at a corner, the result is a hexagon. Beis Shamma could hold "hexagon" while Beis Hillel holds "square", and both are describing the same cube. It all depends on which direction you face the cube from. The difference is in the approach chosen, where one stands at the foothills when answering "mi ya'aleh beHar Hashem", not the emes kelapei shamayim. None of which involves separating abstract truth from law, as RMF does. The Maharal places eilu va'eilu entirely within our understanding of that abstract truth. RSR's analysis differs from the two I've discussed in the past, RMHalbertal's and R' Michel Rosensweig's. E.g. See v32n8 E.g. RMH describes the Ritva and the Ran as sharing what he calls "the Constitutive view" of what pesaq is (halakhah is constituted by pesaq, and there is no one pre-existing reality), and thus the notion of one right answer doesn't fit. Rather, his peshat in the Ran is more like RMF's opinion. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? : that the Rashi in question on Ktuvot 57a takes this approach. : : R. Rosner's explanation of the shittot is very lucid and concise. He : refers in his shiur to Ktuvot 57 to a previous, more comprehensive shiur he : gave on the subject, but I don't know if that shiur is available online. : : Saul Mashbaum : _______________________________________________ : Avodah mailing list : Avodah at lists.aishdas.org : http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 14:43:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:43:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] HaRav Aharon Lichtenstein zt"l Message-ID: <20150420214331.GA31537@aishdas.org> Today's blog post. ... Can't we find children who would have helped him and still know the gemara? Do we have to choose? I hope not; I believe not. Tir'u baTov! -Micha HaRav Aharon Lichtenstein zt"l Posted on April 20, 2015 - 1 Iyyar 5775 by micha When someone passes away, I try to find a life-lesson from their lives that I can incorporate into my own. This is rather easy with regard to Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, as the rosh yeshiva left the Centrist / Modern Orthodox / Religious Zionist community with a cheshbon hanefesh, an accounting of our communal soul. Things that he saw we as a community need to look at and improve. See "By His Light: Character and Values in the Service of God" by R' Reuvein Zeigler, notes of shiurim by Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, pp 220-252, which is available on-line at Yeshivat Har Etzion's Israel Koschitzky Virtual Beit Midrash, as the email shiur from the series "Developing a Torah Personality" Lecture 12: Centrist Orthodoxy: A Spiritual Accounting. Listing the rashei peraqim (subtitles): * The Shift To the Right * The Need for Soul-Searching * Commonalities and Differences With the Right * Shaking Our Confidence In General Culture * The Complexity of Experience * Literary, Psychological and Historical Sensitivity * Attitudes Toward Zionism * "Torah Only" or "Torah And" * The Possibility of Integration * Theory and Practice * Dialectical Tension or Tepid Indifference? * Instilling Passion * The Need for Spirituality * Diffusion and Dilution * The Ascendancy of the Moral Over the Intellectual * "Do Not Fear Any Man" Here's one piece near the end, that stays with me each time I read the article: ... Perhaps much of what I have said in relation to culture, quoting Arnold and Yeats and others, seems very rarefied. People may be asking themselves, "What does this have to do with us? We have to deal with children in elementary school or high school; this is not our concern." Nevertheless, I have related to culture at its apex, because the kind of vision which is maintained at the pinnacle has an impact, and should have an impact, upon what is done at lower levels. In this respect, the awareness of the evaluation of culture does have practical consequences for whatever level of education we are dealing with. Granted that, our challenge is to see to it that indeed we maintain our position with depth and gusto. Given our constituency, of course, we cannot instill many of our students with the optimal level of love of Torah; we know from where they come. But, within our overall community, and surely within its leadership, such a level should exist. Woe unto us, if the only choice lies between tepid compromise and arrogant kana'ut. A couple of years after we moved to Yerushalayim, I was once walking with my family in the Beit Yisrael neighborhood, where R. Isser Zalman Meltzer used to live. For the most part, it consists of narrow alleys. We came to a corner, and found a merchant stuck there with his car. The question came up as to how to help him; it was a clear case of perika u-te'ina (helping one load or unload his burden). There were some youngsters there from the neighborhood, who judging by their looks were probably ten or eleven years old. They saw that this merchant was not wearing a kippa. So they began a whole pilpul, based on the gemara in Pesachim (113b), about whether they should help him or not. They said, "If he walks around bareheaded, presumably he doesn't separate terumot u-ma'asrot, so he is suspect of eating and selling untithed produce..." I wrote R. Soloveitchik a letter at that time, and told him of the incident. I ended with the comment, "Children of that age from our camp would not have known the gemara, but they would have helped him." My feeling then was: Why, Ribbono shel Olam, must this be our choice? Can't we find children who would have helped him and still know the gemara? Do we have to choose? I hope not; I believe not. If forced to choose, however, I would have no doubts where my loyalties lie: I prefer that they know less gemara, but help him. If I can refer again to my experience over the last several decades, I think that one of the central points which has reinforced itself is the sense, in terms of values, of the ascendancy of the moral over the intellectual -- with all my love for and commitment to pure learning. But, when all is said and done, you have to be guided not by what you love; you have to be guided by Torah. And the Torah tells us what is good: He has told you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you: only to do justice, and to love goodness, and to walk modestly with your God. (Mikha 6:8) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 12:48:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 15:48:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L by Rav Shimon Schwab Message-ID: <20150420194854.40DD317FB85@nexus.stevens.edu> See The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 11:46:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 21:46:52 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] hidur Message-ID: <> - changed topic from tefillat hadrech There is a famois R Chaim that if one can use both etgrogim then one should first use the beautiful but *might* be pasul since if one uses the minimally kosher one then one has accomplished the mitzvah and there is no reason to choose a second one. I have seen some that disagree with R Chaim claiming that it is possible to take a better etrog for hidur even after having minimally done the motzvah. This has applications mehadrin of chanukah -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 14:52:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:52:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 09:46:52PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> It's like if one is forced to choose between an esrog which is definitely :> kosher but only barely so, vs. one which is beautiful but *might* be pasul. :> To me, it's a no-brainer that one would choose the barely kosher one.) >> - ... : There is a famois R Chaim that if one can use both etgrogim then one should : first use the beautiful but *might* be pasul since if one uses the : minimally kosher one then one has accomplished the mitzvah and there is no : reason to choose a second one. This presumes you can afford both, or have access to a friend who will give you a matanah al menas lehachzir of whichever you aren't buying. The post you're replying to is "if one is forced to choose". My own dilemma. Say I earmark $X (Y NIS, in your case) to spend on my esrog. And say the price of a definitely kosher (or at least, just as sure to be kosher) but not very hadar esrog is half that or less. Should I buy myself a mehudar, or should I buy two esrogim and give the other to someone hitting on hard times? Shouldn't the asei (tzedaqah, dei machsero) trump a "mere" hidur mitzvah (esrog)? And yet, we know many great rabbanim who didn't follow this calculus. What am I missing? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 15:25:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 18:25:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safeik as Metzi'us Message-ID: <20150420222502.GC1634@aishdas.org> The story so far: Briskers don't wear tzitzis outdoors on Shabbos in case the gemara does conclude that hatekheiles me'eaqes es halavan. (Dspite the tam mishnah, there is reason to wonder.) And if so, the tassels on your tallis or tallis qatan are not tzitzis, and wouldn't be tafeil to the beged. On Shabbos -- hotza'ah. I asked why, since I personally am wearing those tassels because of the safeiq, wouldn't that mean that in terms of my intent, they are hotza'ah? In general, when do we pasqen one din and then use that pesaq as the metzi'us for the next case? And when do we look at the internals of that din (in this case, the safeiq) and carry them through to the next din? Other examples collected so far: AhS OC 409:6 -- An eiruv techumin made with a safeiq tereifah is not an eiruv, because you can't eat a safeiq tereifah. We look to the pesaq, the meat is assur mishum safeiq, not the safeiq itself. (Where a parallel case in the se'if is ruled safeiq derabbanan lequlah.) AhS OC 416:8 -- A person wants to make 2 different eiruvei techumin, one for each day of YT in chu"l. You can't create an eiruv on day 2 that you cannot reach on day 1. We don't say mima nafshach -- if day 1 is YT, you don't need the eiruv, and if day 2 is, you were allowed to reach the food on day 1. Again, we look at the masqanah. Recently I noticed two more in the AhS: AhC OC 509:12 -- The Rama (se'if 5) allows libun on YT of a skewer that that they broiled non-salted meat on to allow using the skewer again that day. The AhS explains this is not a real tiqun keli, because mei'iqar hadin it doesn't need libun (cf YD 76), an therefore even if you could have done the libun on erev YT, you can still do it now. We DO NOT say that lemaaseh we are not nohagim to use the skewer without libun, so therefore the skewer went from usable to non-usable. This time we do look into the cause of the non-use. I am wondering if it's because beshe'as hadechaq, they would go to a rav and get a pesaq that they could use the skewer as is, so it's not fully unusable. AhS 581:18 -- If fruit are stored in a room that is built from uncemented bricks and the room breaks, the fruit are usable. We do not say they a muqtza, because the issur of disassembling the room was only derabbanan, so he didn't have full hesach hadaas. Notice that here he is saying that a person is aware of issur derabbanan being on a lesser level. The ruling is on the metzi'us, but with the understanding the the metzi'us reflects the wishy-washiness of the issur. RAM: Does any of this change your proposed sevaros? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 14:54:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:54:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5535759A.5020909@gmail.com> What would be the kilayim status of this combo? http://www.territorialseed.com/product/grafted-tomtato-ketchup-n-fries/new_for_spring_2015 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 15:57:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 18:57:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> On 04/20/2015 05:52 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > My own dilemma. Say I earmark $X (Y NIS, in your case) to spend on > my esrog. And say the price of a definitely kosher (or at least, just > as sure to be kosher) but not very hadar esrog is half that or less. > Should I buy myself a mehudar, or should I buy two esrogim and give the > other to someone hitting on hard times? Shouldn't the asei (tzedaqah, > dei machsero) trump a "mere" hidur mitzvah (esrog)? And yet, we know > many great rabbanim who didn't follow this calculus. What am I missing? Perhaps that they would then let the other person use their mehudardige esrog, so both benefit. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:21:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:21:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 06:57:15PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: :> ... Shouldn't the asei (tzedaqah, :> dei machsero) trump a "mere" hidur mitzvah (esrog)? And yet, we know :> many great rabbanim who didn't follow this calculus. What am I missing? : Perhaps that they would then let the other person use their mehudardige : esrog, so both benefit. So, both get the mitzvah of esrog with a hadar esrog. But I asked about fulling tzedaqah. How does a matanah al menas lehachzir qualify? And for someone used to having their own esrog, how is it "dei machsero"? Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:15:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:15:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Matza between Pesach and Shavuos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Somebody (either here or on Areivim) was asking about the minhag to eat matza between Pesach and Shavuos. I happened to pick up a sefer called "Bein Pesach u'Shavuos" (by R Zvi Cohn) and saw a few mentions about this. First, he cites the Gr"a that he never ate matza when it was not Pesach. I think the reasoning is that he didn't want to get hana'ah from it, but, rather, eat it only because it was a mitzvah. But then, later in the sefer, I saw reference to (a) a minhag (Belz and Chernobyl) to eat matza to eat matza on every shalosh seudos between Pesach and Shavuos, and wetting it with fish juice/gravy; and (b) v'yesh a minhag to eat matza *every* time one washes for bread, in order to combine "michlei d'm'heimnusa u'michlei d'asvasa" food/meal of emuna and food/meal of refuah (apologies for messing up the vowels). The footnote cites the sefer "Darchei Chayim v'Sholom" siman 633. And also to be m'dakdek to make one kugel for shabbos with matza and to pass it around, particularly on shalosh seudos after the z'miros. I don't translate so well, so if you want to see "inside" R Cohn's sefer, I put it here: http://s3.postimg.org/wukbartcj/matza.jpg [1] and if you look and find mistakes, please let the list (or at least me!) know! FWIW & Kol tuv, -- Sholom Links: ------ [1] http://s3.postimg.org/wukbartcj/matza.jpg -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 16:32:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 19:32:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> At 05:52 PM 4/20/2015, RN Toby Katz wrote: > >I am grateful to RYL (Prof. Levine) for making this pamphlet available to >the public as a pdf. However I note that he is often highly critical of >the charedi world, and I believe that R' Hirsch would emphatically not have >agreed with him. He would have honored and cherished the talmidei chachamim >who devote their lives to limud haTorah, and would have educated his >balabatim to take pride in the zechus of financially supporting the >"black hat" >yeshivos. This is pure speculation on your part. I believe that RSRH would have agreed with my views on this matter. Of course, this is pure speculation on my part. He certainly would not have agreed with the idea of not working to support one's family. See my article "The Obligation to Support a Family" The Jewish Press, February 18, 2015, front page. and the extensive quotes I have there from the writings of Rav Dr. Joseph Breuer, ZT"L, who was, of course, a grandson of RSRH and the foremost expositor of TIDE during his life time. > >I would also note that R' Hirsch would certainly not have shared RYL's dour > view of present-day Eretz Yisrael. True, all the flaws and failings of >Zionism are abundantly on display in the modern Medinah. But at the same >time, it takes an almost willful blindness not to see the >incredible miracles >that have been taking place there over the past sixty years or so. Not the >least of these miracles is a flourishing of Torah scholarship, be'eichus >uvekamus, the likes of which has not been seen since the churban Bayis >Sheni. We owe at least a small measure of gratitude to the >Zionist government >that helps provide the infrastructure for the Torah community to flourish, >and a huge measure of gratitude to the Ribono Shel Olam for allowing us to >live in a time in which the beginning of kibbutz galuyos is taking place >before our eyes. The sight of thousands of men, young and old, from all >corners of the world, streaming into the Mirrer Yeshiva each day, gives us a >little foretaste of what it will be like to visit the Third Bais Hamikdash. Again, I have to disagree. I suggest you read Rav Breuer's writings about EY in the book A Unique Perspective under the heading Eretz Yisroel. The following are some excerpts from his essay The State of Israel. The proclamation of a Jewish state would bring great joy to all the members of our people, if conditions were such that we could feel justified to call it a Kiddush Hashem. It pains us to say, and we have no illusions, that for the time being this is not the case. For every Torah-true Jew the word Kiddush Hashem is his utmost concern, while Chillul Hashem leaves him trembling. Thus the establishment of a Jewish state will fill him with misgivings and alarm. Anyone who is imbued with the eternal truth and validity of God's Torah will have to be aware that a state on God's holy soil will only be able to endure if the conditions that God has set down for a Jewish state on His holy soil are met. These conditions apply to the Jewish entity and to the life of every individual who declares himself a member of God's People. Again, please read Rav Breuer's essays on Eretz Yisroel in this book. Also, please read Rav Shimon Schwab's essay Zion or Zionism that I have placed at http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/zion_or_zionism.pdf Rav Schwab was most certainly a proponent of TIDE and the approach of RSRH. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 15:32:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 18:32:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> References: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 11:34 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > There was a bachur next to me this morning whose retzu'os were painted > black on both sides. And I believe I know why this is done, in case > a retzu'ah gets flipped. Or perhaps to be chosheish for the Rambam's > description of such retzu'os being "noi". I've only ever heard of the leather being soaked in dye; and the reason given was not for flipped retzu'os but for scratches: if the entire thickness of the strap has been dyed, a scratch will not expose undyed leather. (This does not address your actual question, though) ?Chesky Salomon From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:24:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:24:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <553598C0.6010209@sero.name> On 04/20/2015 08:21 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > So, both get the mitzvah of esrog with a hadar esrog. But I asked about > fulling tzedaqah. How does a matanah al menas lehachzir qualify? And > for someone used to having their own esrog, how is it "dei machsero"? At a time when an esrog was a luxury that most people could not afford and were not used to, how often would such a case come up? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:27:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:27:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <553598C0.6010209@sero.name> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> <553598C0.6010209@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150421002736.GA24420@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 08:24:32PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : At a time when an esrog was a luxury that most people could not afford : and were not used to, how often would such a case come up? ... and today? Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:58:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 00:58:13 GMT Subject: [Avodah] hidur Message-ID: <20150420.205813.23096.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> R'Zev Sero asked: > At a time when an esrog was a luxury that most people could > not afford and were not used to, how often would such a case > come up? But it could certainly come up nowadays. About 25 years ago, my budget was so tight that I had decided to share my lulav and esrog with my two sons, despite my having gotten them their own set in previous years. I don't remember whether one or both was still below bar mitzvah that year, but it doesn't really matter, because the point is that they were used to having their own, and that year we shared the one set. Suffice it to say that it was not fun. Baruch Hashem we've each had own own every year since then. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5535a0f9e88320f87fb2st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 18:23:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 01:23:34 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Self-control fatigue Message-ID: <20150420.212334.23096.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> On Areivim, SY Scher wrote: > A now large body of research shows that we can have "self-control > fatigue". Professor Roy Baumeister and his colleagues have > demonstrated experimentally that when people have previously had > to exert self-control, their ability to do so goes down. They > have also showed physiological correlates -- will-power/self- > control takes energy, and after exerting a lot of control, our > blood glucose level is lower. Replenishment of glucose (for > example, by drinking lemonade sweetened with sugar, but not > lemonade with artificial sweeteners) raises self-control ability > back up. > We all know that following the halacha often requires a good deal > of willpower, and I would imagine that for charedi adolescent boys, > that would be even more strongly so. So, the ability to control > the yetzer in outside situations may well be reduced. The muscle > is just too worn out! Is there any way fit this in with the idea that many mitzvos - kashrus in particular and chukim in general - seem designed to train us to *have* self-control? Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 03:14:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 06:14:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Self-control fatigue In-Reply-To: <20150420.212334.23096.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150420.212334.23096.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150421101422.GB7409@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 01:23:34AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : Is there any way fit this in with the idea that many mitzvos - kashrus : in particular and chukim in general - seem designed to train us to *have* : self-control? If (and that's a big if) we define the yeitzer hara as the effects on our souls of living within a mammalian body, then the ability to plan ahead and work toward delayed gratification, rather than just instinctively going for what's before us, is going to be a fundamental skill in rising above it. In R Yitchaq Sher's introduction to the Slabodka edition of Cheshbon haNefesh (Feldheim bilingual ed. ), the mashgiach speaks of the nefesh habehamis's "lack[ing the will to exercise choice" and therefore "the tzivui or azharah of an asei or a lo-sa'asei are not shayach to it at all" (par 2). He then gives guidelines about how to train it by taking examples from animal training (par 304). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 17th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Tifferes: What is the ultimate Fax: (270) 514-1507 state of harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 03:17:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 13:17:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> References: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 8:36 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > The Maharal is saying that what RMF calls emes shamamis (I think that > conjugation is yours, no?) is actually too rich to fit in this universe, > and certainly in a human mind. Therefore, two shitos can be correct > descriptions of the Truth, because each are incomplete. > Where does the Maharal say this? (Not a challenge, I just want to learn it inside) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 06:24:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 09:24:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: References: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150421132444.GD1634@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 01:17:49PM +0300, Simon Montagu wrote: : Where does the Maharal say this? (Not a challenge, I just want to learn it : inside) Be'er haGolah, be'er 1, pg 20 in the common edition, available on pg 94 the whole book) in the Harman edition, on hebrewbooks.org (Onward, I would print the 1[:6] off the link at the top for the whole sefer. R YD Hartman has a clearer edition, with copious footnotes.) I've been citing that Maharal for over a decade, so I had to search for the actual mar'eh maqom. On nice find was the discussion in Mishpat Ivri . I want to go through the whole chapter on machloqos (that hit is mid-chapter) before commenting, but I don't know when I'll get to it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 17th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Tifferes: What is the ultimate Fax: (270) 514-1507 state of harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 09:11:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 12:11:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150421132444.GD1634@aishdas.org> References: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> <20150421132444.GD1634@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55367699.9010203@sero.name> On 04/21/2015 09:24 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 01:17:49PM +0300, Simon Montagu wrote: > : Where does the Maharal say this? (Not a challenge, I just want to learn it > : inside) > > Be'er haGolah, be'er 1, pg 20 The introduction to the Hartman edition shows that the title is actually Be'er haGulah, with a melupum rather than a cholam. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 01:40:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 11:40:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu Message-ID: Sagi in his book on the topic brings 3 basic approaches (all with many supporters) to the sugya 1) Monism - only one truth as subfields we can be tolerant of other attempts or not 2) pluralism - there are many truths and one can't decide 3) harmonism - different views are just separate parts of the same truth R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is self-contradictory. According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint is monism ! He further points out that sometimes pluralism can be a chumra Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he doesn't accept the kashrut Answer: Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable Of course these are only typologies. In the real world anyone who believes in pluralism has some radius of acceptance. Few would accept Naziism or Isis as a legitimate viewpoint -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 01:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 11:53:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] hidur Message-ID: <> As usual R Chaim is asking a theoretical question - he was not a posek In fact I once heard from RYBS that in fact almost all etrogim are kosher bidieved. In Israel one can get a mehudar set for about 100 shekel ($25) see http://www.dafyomi.co.il/nazir/halachah/nz-hl-002.htm 2. Bava Kama 9a (R. Zeira citing Rav Huna): One must spend up to a third for Mitzvos. 3. Question: What does this mean? i. Suggestion: One must spend a third of his wealth to fulfil a Mitzvah. ii. Rejection: It is unreasonable that if he encounters three (expensive) Mitzvos, he must exhaust all his wealth! 4. Answer (R. Zeira): One must spend an extra third to beautify a Mitzvah. Shulchan Aruch (ibid.): Some say that if he finds two Esrogim to buy, and one of them is nicer than the other, he should buy the nicer one if the price difference is no more than a third of the other. i. Source (Beis Yosef DH Kaneh): Rashi (Bava Kama 9b DH b'Hidur) says that if one found two Sifrei Torah to buy, he should add a third of the price to buy the nicer one. ii. Kaf ha'Chayim (17): It seems that neither opinion requires one who bought an Esrog bigger than an egg to exchange it for a nicer one. However, the Rosh, Gra and Taz obligate doing so. The Magen Avraham says that perhaps the Shulchan Aruch holds like the Rosh. iii. Kaf ha'Chayim (18): One must add a third from an Esrog that one could bless on without Safek. Hidur depends on what people in the area consider nice. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 05:09:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 08:09:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55378F6E.2070708@sero.name> On 04/22/2015 04:40 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > 2) pluralism - there are many truths and one can't decide > > R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is self-contradictory. According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint is monism ! Not true. There are many truths, but not an infinite number. Or, as my father says, there are 70 panim latorah, but there are also 70 achor. Strict monism, which rejects the gemara's statement that "eilu va'eilu DACh", is by definition wrong. > Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he > doesn't accept the kashrut > Answer: > Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong > Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable It depends whether his concern is legitimate. If there is a legitimate opinion or minhag that forbids or refrains from whatever it is, or if he has a legitimate private chumra, then there is no question that it is assur to be machshil him. But if he is acting out of pure amhoratzus, then one needn't pander to it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 09:45:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 17:45:34 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Avodah: Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:54, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah wrote: > What would be the kilayim status of this combo? > http://www.territorialseed.com/product/grafted-tomtato-ketchup-n-fries/new_for_spring_2015 Though potato and tomato are from the same family, it is clear from mesechte Kilayim, fruit [or animals] that look different are treated as 2 different species. Hence, though the spuds and tomatoes would be permitted to eat - as with any grafted fruit - it would be ossur for a Yid to grow Dovid Rubin From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 10:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 13:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: <55378F6E.2070708@sero.name> References: <55378F6E.2070708@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150422175311.GA11663@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 08:09:18AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : On 04/22/2015 04:40 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : >2) pluralism - there are many truths and one can't decide : : >R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is :> self-contradictory. According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint :> is monism ! : Not true. There are many truths, but not an infinite number. Or, as my : father says, there are 70 panim latorah, but there are also 70 achor. I think RMA is referring to a paradox I've mentioned here once. While in principle, it's possible for a halachic pluralist to not include any halachic monist positions in his spectrum of eilu va'eilu, I do not know of a halachic pluralist who rules out the Rambam. Or a less absolute case of the same paradox: MO Jews will turn to chareidi gedolim for pesaqim despite those gedoim not believing that MO is within eilu va'eilu. So it would seem that to the MO Jew asking the she'eilah, the variant of chareidism that says MO is not within eilu va'eilu, is (in the MO Jew's opinion) itself within EvE! : Strict monism, which rejects the gemara's statement that "eilu va'eilu DACh", : is by definition wrong. Or, understand it in terms of following HQBH's word, as opposed to being right. As per the Rambam or RMF, for example. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 18th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Tifferes: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 balance? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 11:53:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 14:53:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Chilul Hashem of Disrespecting Non-Jews Message-ID: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/kb4v525 This idea connects with something that has bothered me for some time: the wanton, unprovoked use of disparaging, racist comments among our youth. Over the years I have either heard directly or been made aware of many such comments by students. When I asked why they had expressed themselves in this manner, they could offer no meaningful response. All I could glean was that they were apparently parroting similar remarks they had heard elsewhere, without having given much thought to their words. Many of these students had few if any relationships or even interactions with individuals from the groups they were mocking. See the above URL for the entire article. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:32:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 15:32:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Chilul Hashem of Disrespecting Non-Jews In-Reply-To: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150422193201.GD11663@aishdas.org> One of my many pet peeves is the use of "chilul hasheim" to teach ehrlachkeit. It may win the battle -- historically, it hasn't -- but it does so by avoiding the war. Mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro as important as mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro. Derekh eretz is important as Chazal literally call it a prerequisite for Torah. Worrying about the bein adam laMaqom effects of the cheit misses the point. And perhaps the reason why past attempts to change behavior by talking about chillul hasheim haven't worked is that one is not teaching the centrality of ehrlachkeit as a *primary* value. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 18th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Tifferes: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 balance? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:43:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 21:43:09 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <5537F9CD.7000409@zahav.net.il> How did Rav Breuer work to ensure the conditions that "we could feel justified to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? Ben On 4/21/2015 1:32 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > > Again, I have to disagree. I suggest you read Rav Breuer's writings > about EY in the book A Unique Perspective under the heading Eretz Yisroel. > > The proclamation of a Jewish state would bring great joy to all > the members of our people, if conditions were such that we could > feel justified to call it a Kiddush Hashem. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:36:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 15:36:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Avodah: Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150422193627.GE11663@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 05:45:34PM +0100, D via Avodah wrote: : Hence, though the spuds and tomatoes would be permitted to eat - as : with any grafted fruit - it would be ossur for a Yid to grow I think it would be mutar to buy already grafted, and then grow. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:53:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 22:53:04 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Avodah: Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 7:45 PM, D via Avodah wrote: > Though potato and tomato are from the same family, it is clear from > mesechte Kilayim, fruit [or animals] that look different are treated as 2 > different species. > Hence, though the spuds and tomatoes would be permitted to eat - as with > any grafted fruit - it would be ossur for a Yid to grow > Do you mean because the potato and tomato that we eat look different? You're not comparing apples to apples (pun intended). The fruits of a potato plant look very similar to the fruits of a tomato plant! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 13:07:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joel Schnur via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 16:07:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos Message-ID: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> My understanding is that Briskers don't wear a talis katan outside the house on shabbos because the shiur is "ad habirchaim" according to the Gaon as brought in Keser Rosh by talmidei Reb Chaim Voloshiner. And since "until the knees" is a subjective criterion depending upon each person's height, there is no specific "one size fits all" length. Interestingly, Rav Moshe Shternbuch brings a Rav Moshe that says that the source is unreliable and the Gaon never said such a thing. -- ___________________________ Joel Schnur, Senior VP Government Affairs/Public Relations Schnur Associates, Inc. 25 West 45th Street, Suite 1405 New York, NY 10036 Tel. 212-489-0600 x204 Fax. 212-489-0203 joel at schnurassociates.com www.schnurassociates.com http://www.schnurassociates.com/joels-corner/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 14:57:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 17:57:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Chilul Hashem of Disrespecting Non-Jews In-Reply-To: <20150422193201.GD11663@aishdas.org> References: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150422193201.GD11663@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150422215739.6F5F0180576@nexus.stevens.edu> At 03:32 PM 4/22/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >Mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro as important as mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro. I believe that this sentence is wrong. I believe you meant to write that mitzvos bein adam l'Chaveiro are just as important as mitzvos bein adam l'makom. RSRH points out that the Luchos contained 5 mitzvos bein adam l'Chaveiro and 5 mitzvos bein Adam l"Makom on each side, and that both sides of the Luchos were the same size! >Derekh eretz is important as Chazal literally call it a prerequisite >for Torah. And hence may one deduce that those who do not have proper Derech Eretz do not have Torah? If so, then I guess we should not be surprised at the actions of some so-called Jews that are a Chilul Hashem. They do not have any Torah. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 13:46:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 20:46:08 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos In-Reply-To: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> References: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> Message-ID: <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> On Wednesday, April 22, 2015 3:33 PM, Joel Schnur wrote: > My understanding is that Briskers don't wear a talis katan outside the > house on shabbos because the shiur is "ad habirchaim" according to the > Gaon as brought in Keser Rosh by talmidei Reb Chaim Voloshiner.... > Interestingly, Rav Moshe Shternbuch brings a Rav Moshe that says that > the source is unreliable and the Gaon never said such a thing. The reason that Briskers don't where Tzitzes on Shabbos is because they are Choshesh for the Shita of the Baal HaMeor who says that Techiels is Me'akev the Lavan. As such -- by wearing these now unnecessary 'strings' in Reshus Harabim they will be Oveir the Lav of Hotza'ah on Shabbos, an Issur D'Oraisa and a capital offense. Inetrestingly, accroding to the Baal HaMeor, wearing a Beged of Daled Kanfos using Tzitzs without Techiles is a violation -- same as if he were wearing it without Tzitzis at all. I'm told that the Gra did not wear a woolen Beged for his Talis Katan for that reason. Because wool has a Chiuv D'Oraisa for Tzitzs whereas cotton is only D'Rabbanan. HM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 17:05:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 20:05:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <5537F9CD.7000409@zahav.net.il> References: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> <5537F9CD.7000409@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <5538373F.4000900@aishdas.org> On 04/22/2015 03:43 PM, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: > On 4/21/2015 1:32 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: >> Again, I have to disagree. I suggest you read Rav Breuer's writings >> about EY in the book A Unique Perspective under the heading Eretz >> Yisroel. >> The proclamation of a Jewish state would bring great joy to all >> the members of our people, if conditions were such that we could >> feel justified to call it a Kiddush Hashem. > How did Rav Breuer work to ensure the conditions that "we could feel > justified to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? He thought his late brother's Poalei Agudah might accomplish it. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 03:06:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 06:06:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos In-Reply-To: <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> References: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20150423100635.GA26841@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 08:46:08PM +0000, Harry Maryles via Avodah wrote: : The reason that Briskers don't where Tzitzes on Shabbos is because they : are Choshesh for the Shita of the Baal HaMeor who says that Techiels is : Me'akev the Lavan. : : As such -- by wearing these now unnecessary 'strings' in Reshus Harabim : they will be Oveir the Lav of Hotza'ah on Shabbos... In the opening post, I referred to the BhM's reason. Since there appears to be interest, I will spell it out. The mishnah (Menachos 4:1, 38a) says that techeiles is not me'aqeves the lavan, and v.v. Seems kind of open and shut, and that's what we hold lehalakhah. And so R' Yitzchaq says that R Yochanan ben Nuri says (beraisa , quoted on 39b) that if you have no tekheiles, you make all strings lavan. But, Rebbe is choleiq, and says the mishnah means sequence. Normally the lavan strings have to be put on first, or on a tekheiles garment, the tekheiles string first. And the mishnah is saying that if you put on the other color first, it's not me'aqeiv. According to Rebbe, though, you can't be yotzei without putting on tekheiles altogether. Getting to this understanding of the mishnah is an amud lonq chaqla vetarya in which Levi, Shemu'el and Rami bar Chama defend Rebbe's position. : Interestingly, according to the Baal HaMeor, wearing a Beged of Daled : Kanfos using Tzitzs without Techiles is a violation -- same as if he : were wearing it without Tzitzis at all. Not really. It's an asei, not a lav. So, if tekheiles truly is unavailable, why wouldn't it be mutar, if pointless? However, if you feel there is any possibility whatsoever that the murex derived dye is indeed tekheiles, safeiq de'oraisa lechumerah would force one to choose between not wearing tzitzis and wearing the dye. And there are those who hold it's garua to wear invalid dye, so combine the shitos right, and the discovery of a possible tekheiles would make it better not to wear tzitzis. IF we held like the BhM. But not even Briskers do, me'iqar hadin -- they are merely chosheish for his position as a chumerah. : I'm told that the Gra did not wear a woolen Beged for his Talis Katan : for that reason. Because wool has a Chiuv D'Oraisa for Tzitzs whereas : cotton is only D'Rabbanan. As usual for the Gra -- clever! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 19th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Tifferes: When does harmony promote Fax: (270) 514-1507 withdrawal and submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 02:45:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Allan Engel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 10:45:42 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos In-Reply-To: <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> References: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: So what was his Tallis Godol made of? On 22 April 2015 at 21:46, Harry Maryles via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote:. > > > Inetrestingly, accroding to the Baal HaMeor, wearing a Beged of Daled > Kanfos using Tzitzs without Techiles is a violation -- same as if he > were wearing it without Tzitzis at all. > > I'm told that the Gra did not wear a woolen Beged for his Talis Katan > for that reason. Because wool has a Chiuv D'Oraisa for Tzitzs whereas > cotton is only D'Rabbanan. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 05:07:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 12:07:10 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >> R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is self-contradictory. >> According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint is monism ! ... > Strict monism, which rejects the gemara's statement that "eilu va'eilu > DACh", is by definition wrong. Monism doesn't reject the gemara just interprets it different That was the shiur >> Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he >> doesn't accept the kashrut >> Answer: >> Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong >> Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable > It depends whether his concern is legitimate. If there is a legitimate > opinion or minhag that forbids or refrains from whatever it is, or if he > has a legitimate private chumra, then there is no question that it is assur > to be machshil him. No question is your opinion a true monist Would argue that there are no other legitimate opinions hence the other is wrong and you are not machshil him [Email #2, also in reply to this latter quote. -micha] You are not being machshil by offering food that he won't eat because of his minhag or chumrot you are mikayem shalach Manot even if he doesn't accept the kashrut From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 09:11:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 12:11:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L Message-ID: <20150423161105.DF2701836D1@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:13 AM 4/23/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: >How did Rav Breuer work to ensure the conditions that "we could feel >justified to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? I really have no specifics. but I do know that Rav Breuer was busy here in the US building a model Kehilla and educating Baalei Batim. I know that some of those from his Kehilla did move to EY. In particular, I know one person who was a professional and a follower of TIDE who moved to EY. I am sure that he did whatever he could to strengthen Yahadus in EY. But let me ask a related question. What are the observant now living in EY doing "to ensure the conditions that 'we could feel justifies to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 09:49:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 12:49:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55392297.20909@sero.name> On 04/23/2015 08:07 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > >>> >>Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he >>> >>doesn't accept the kashrut >>> >>Answer: >>> >>Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong >>> >>Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable >> >It depends whether his concern is legitimate. If there is a legitimate >> >opinion or minhag that forbids or refrains from whatever it is, or if he >> >has a legitimate private chumra, then there is no question that it is assur >> >to be machshil him. > No question is your opinion a true monist > Would argue that there are no other legitimate opinions hence the other > is wrong and you are not machshil him Even if there is only one truth, you don't necessarily know for sure what it is. You make your best guess, but someone else makes his, and for all you know he may have hit on the truth, even if only by accident, while you, with all your careful analysis of the evidence, may have been led astray. Let's take medicine, where there really is only one truth, but often we don't know for sure what it is. Does gluten in the diet negatively affect the health of most normal people? There doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence for that proposition, but it can't be ruled out. Maybe in 20 years we will observe that those who have followed the gluten-free fad really are healthier, and someone will discover how it is that gluten harms a person. Or maybe it will be established that it's exactly the mishguas that it appears to be. But until then we are just guessing, and if you hold that it's a mishugas but someone else is worried about it, you have to consider the possibility that he may be right, and by tricking him into eating gluten you may actually be harming him. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 10:54:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 17:54:52 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] A Papal Honor for an Orthodox Rabbi. Message-ID: <393104521.3643892.1429811692300.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> JTA is reporting that Pope Francis will be bestowing Papal Knighthood upon Rabbi Arthur Schneier (who I believe is an Orthodox Rabbi) for (among other things) his work in promoting a positive relationship with the Church. According to JTA,?Schneier will formally become a knight of Saint Sylvester at a ceremony on April 27.Isn't there a Halachic probelm with this? It would seem to me that becoming a 'knight' in the Catholic church ?would at least be Avak Avodah Zara - even though it is just honorary? HM??Want Emes and Emunah in your life? Try this: http://haemtza.blogspot.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 16:14:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 19:14:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early Message-ID: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin (or ate the food already, the food went bad, etc...) who for some reason can not rely on the rabbi's communal failsafe eruv (perhaps he isn't in a neighborhood with an observant community) do for lighting Shabbos candles? So, the BY (OC 537:19) permits, but he says "veyeish oserin". The AhS (se'if 28) names the oserim as the Rosh and the Ran, and that the SA names the Rambam (via a diyuq halashon)as his source lehatir. The AhS then questions the diyuq, but says it should be allowed anyway, since one gets hana'ah from the neiros while on YT too. So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, ones you used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making a berakhah on? Yes, there is light for enjoying the Shabbos meal, all the same shalom bayis. But there is no actual pe'ulah to make the berakhah on. Is there? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 19th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Tifferes: When does harmony promote Fax: (270) 514-1507 withdrawal and submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 16:21:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Daniel M. Israel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 16:21:06 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> References: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <33e302272e45c742ee54349bcfddc40a@kolberamah.org> On 2015-04-23 16:14, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin... > ... do for lighting Shabbos candles? > So, the BY (OC 537:19) permits... The AhS > then questions the diyuq, but says it should be allowed anyway, since > one gets hana'ah from the neiros while on YT too. > So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, ones you > used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making a berakhah on? Off the cuff hypothesis: Perhaps for the one lighting, it becomes Shabbos immediately, so the hadlakah is for Shabbos and there is a beracha. But for others in the house, they likely don't take on Shabbos until davening, and therefor they enjoy it on YT. Which would be enough to matir her lighting them. But I have no source. -- Daniel Israel dmi1 at cornell.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 16:27:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 19:27:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: <33e302272e45c742ee54349bcfddc40a@kolberamah.org> References: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> <33e302272e45c742ee54349bcfddc40a@kolberamah.org> Message-ID: <20150423232727.GB23492@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 04:21:06PM -0700, Daniel M. Israel wrote: : Perhaps for the one lighting, it becomes Shabbos immediately, so the : hadlakah is for Shabbos and there is a beracha. But for others in the : house, they likely don't take on Shabbos until davening, and therefor : they enjoy it on YT. Which would be enough to matir her lighting them. Not bad, if we don't read too much into the AhS not limiting this solution to cases where the candle-lighter isn't alone in the home. Nor does he mention having to use candles lit after pelag, nor her making a berakhah upon lighting and having an issur melakhah... Could be, but I find it dachuq. -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 17:58:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2015 00:58:48 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early Message-ID: <20150423.205848.16124.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger asked: > What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin (or > ate the food already, the food went bad, etc...) who for some > reason can not rely on the rabbi's communal failsafe eruv > (perhaps he isn't in a neighborhood with an observant community) > do for lighting Shabbos candles? Another problem this person will have is what to eat on Shabbos. There are several ideas offered by the poskim, and one of them is to cook extra food on Yom Tov, and the extra will be for Shabbos. This can be done even without an Eiruv Tavshilin, IIRC, because the melacha is not being done exclusively for Shabbos. > So, the BY (OC 537:19) [that should be 527:19 - Akiva] permits, > but he says "veyeish oserin". The AhS (se'if 28) names the oserim > as the Rosh and the Ran, and that the SA names the Rambam (via a > diyuq halashon)as his source lehatir. The AhS then questions the > diyuq, but says it should be allowed anyway, since one gets > hana'ah from the neiros while on YT too. This sounds to me the same as above. The lighting is not being done exclusively for Shabbos, and therefore may be done on YT. I would note that at no point in that se'if, does the AhS explicitly refers to the *mitzvah* of lighting Shabbos neros. Rather, his focus is on the practical need to light them in the late afternoon, both because it is *already* getting dark and hard to see without some artifical light, and because we won't be able to light anything later on. Truth be told, if lighting Shabbos candles is allowed only with an Eruv Tavshilin, then this whole se'if is needed even for a person who DID remember to make an Eruv, because (l'chatchila) one must do his Shabbos preparations early in the day, in a manner in which the melacha is -- or at least *could* be -- for tzorchei Yom Tov, and not exclusively for Shabbos. > So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, > ones you used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making > a berakhah on? Yes, there is light for enjoying the Shabbos meal, > all the same shalom bayis. But there is no actual pe'ulah to make > the berakhah on. Is there? I don't know where you see anything like this in the AhS. The AhS is explicitly talking about lighting after mincha, when it is already dark and the light is already useful. I concede that perhaps one should omit the bracha, because it explicitly declares one's intentions to be of a hachana nature, but that is a separate question not raised by the AhS. The main point I want to make in this paragraph is that the AhS never suggested that one might be yotzay Mitzvas Ner Shabbos via the candle that he lit in the early afternoon; it must be lit after Plag, with the intention that it will be burning into Shabbos. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55399563ca1dd156333b3st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 23:18:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2015 02:18:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Turning Jealousy into Progress Message-ID: Envy - Jealousy ? Kin?ah ? is an obvious theme for Parshas Mtzora. Paraphrasing freely (from L?chai Ro?-EY page 184), Midrash Tehillim/Shochar Tov on 37:1 parallel of TiTCHaR and TeKaNNEi. Do not fall victim to despondence those plotting evil, do not emulate those who succeed in career of crime. Rashi BMiDBar 25:11 neatly ties both into a General Theory of Jealousy. KoL LaSHON KiNAH HU HaMiTCHaReH LiNKom NiKMaS DaVaR. Rashi?s keyword is worth a thousand words. Rashi expects that we know Tanach and Midrash references. To catch Rashi?s nuance, always, I consult my paper Milon Gur [also in HebrewBooks.com]. HaMiTCHaReH is the exotic addition to our vocabulary. My trusty dictionary comes through here. Milon Gur pages 310 311 on CHaRaH: CHaRaH intransitive verb, showing outwardly as Ca_US or KaTZUF. ? foaming and frothing anger, against a traitor or hated enemy. determination to avenge and restore the Balance of Justice. HiTLaHeiV burning simmering anger, pressure like volcanic eruption. Hashem to Yonah ? are you truly upset ? HaHeYTeiV CHaRaH LCHa YoNaH? Divine CHaRON AF boiling or simmering anger is satisfied only by repentance, not by punishment. CHaRUCHA [burnt like over done fire-roast, long term anger leads to burn-through and burn-out. CHaRUL thorny tangle Milon Gur page 1088 McharCher RIV ? drum up strife and enmity CHaRCHuR ? disease of loss of muscle and strength. MChaRCHer Riv, CharumAf [nose ?bent out of shape? inset into face] and for Tacharut as resentment destroyed relationship. Rashi in Machzor Vitri 148 uses CHeReTZ in a unique way. Hashem jealously and with energy demands perfection from the world. Why does the Creator demand perfection? Rashi believes that Hashem cares strongly about the world. When the Adam attempts to be good, but falls short, He uses Rachamim, parenting skills, looking to the potential of ?You will worship Elokim on this mountain?. identification with the world demands perfection. When the world tries but falls short, fails to perform, Hashem uses Rachamim, flexibility, patience, empathy. He settles for potential. When the world rebels against Hashem, refuses to acknowledge Him at all, or mocking Him, rejecting their Father, breaking up the family, then there is Charon Af, red faced simmering anger. Rav Avraham Ruby authored the ?Tzilusa DiShmaata? series, focusing on chapters of the Baba-s routinely learnt Afternoon Seder which are master-works of Lamdus. Rav Moshe Shmuel Shapiro of Be?eir Yaakov was a talented teacher, and R? Ruby is an extremely able student. This year R? Ruby has turned his talents to creating the same sort of succinct and sharp presentation on Chumash.[L?chai Ro?-EY on Vayikra, self published 5775, contact me.]. Each Parsha offers an eclectic collection of solid sources. The organization is always unique and refreshing. L?chai Ro?-EY 185 shows the constructive power of ambition. Identity, membership,self-image, pride, place in society are all motivators of constructive behavior. Kinah jealousy is secondary, when there is an insult or threat to Hashem?s identity, or the individual?s. Ideally our self-image should include praise of Hashem and hatred of all insults against the Honor of Hashem. Only live in a town with Jewish services, and help create them. Your material ambitions include the dimension of Mitzvos and Kidush Hashem. A higher level of identity, ambition and constructive jealousy is aspiring to your neighbor?s higher spiritual levels. Even the Heavenly angels and even Avraham Avinu found mentors to emulate. Of course, the type of destructive strife we often see has other roots. Building a Jewish family is much easier with stronger spiritual models. -- David Wacholder Cell: 917-742-7838 Email: dwacholder at gmail.com dwacholder at optonline.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 24 08:42:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2015 11:42:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Beautiful Vort Message-ID: I recently came upon the following, listening to a hesped for Rabbi Mordechai Fachler zt?l, who was nift?r in November 2010. The hesped (one of many for Rav Fachler) was delivered by Rabbi Moshe Shirkin of England. This is just one part that caught my attention and was very touching. In previous generations the g?dolei Yisroel were discussing what?s the function of a Rav? The Rosh Yeshiva in Grodna (at the time) said the task of the Rav is to give shiurim. The Rav of Kovna, poisek oilam, said the task of the Rav is to pasken shailas. They came to Reb Chayim of Brisk and asked him what is the task of the Rav. His impressive response was: To give shiurim, you have a Rosh Yeshiva. To pasken shailas, you have a dayan. The task of the Rav is to do chesed with his oilam. A clergyman comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comfortable. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Apr 25 12:31:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 25 Apr 2015 21:31:27 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150423161105.DF2701836D1@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150423161105.DF2701836D1@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <553BEB8F.8040802@zahav.net.il> On 4/23/2015 6:11 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > But let me ask a related question. What are the observant now living > in EY doing "to ensure the conditions that 'we could feel justifies > to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? I gave an answer on Areivim, but I saw a couple of things on Shabbat which warrant an Avodah response. The first is from Yoma 86:A, Rashi, B'Amor Lehem (my translation): "Evil comes to chassidim and chachamim because "They desecrated My Holy name" (note: Rashi is of course assuming that they didn't do any particular sin to warrant what happened to them). How did they desecrate (God's name)? In those places to where they were exiled, the non-Jews say "These are the people of God" and He can't redeem them. Conclusion: God's name has been desecrated." End quote. Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem. Rav Soloveitch tz"l wrote about this point in Kol Dodi Dofek and in his drashot for the Kinot, as did Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook tz"l. However, I don't want to leave it at that. Rav Cherki (father of Shalom HY"D) wrote the following in this week's Shabbat B'shabato: "And this leads us to a moral question: How can it be that with respect to the most significant event in all of history, the redemption, the existence or lack of good deeds has no effect at all? This tension between the inevitability of redemption and arbitrary choices made by man is what makes it necessary for the nation of Yisrael to observe all the mitzvot in detail, in order to avoid creating a dissonance between the need for justice (which appears in the covenant in the Torah portion of Bechukotai) and the values of the path of unification, which insists that G-d is always working to glorify His name, no matter what else is happening. And that is why the Haftarah ends with the adamant demand of the Holy One, Blessed be He: "I am your G-d. Follow My laws and maintain My just actions and perform them, and sanctify my Shabbat and let it be a symbol between Me and you, in order to know that I am your G-d." [Yechezkel 20:19-20]." No one, not the most hard core DL around, says that there is nothing wrong with the State, that there isn't what that needs changing, from the level of how people get on a bus to the national agenda. In his hesped, Rav Cherki mentioned that his son Shalom went to the navy to help start a hesder unit for the navy, even though he knew that the religious level in the navy wasn't as high as it was in other units. He went there for the greater good, to help make the IDF a bit more Torah oriented, period. Rav Cherki went on to say that the answer to Shalom's murder was to add Kiddush HaShem. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 13:28:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 20:28:49 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lashon Hara and the Internet Message-ID: <20150426.162849.2967.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> On Areivim, there were some posts speaking about the residents of a certain area or areas. Someone commented: > I'm a little surprised at this exchange. Sefer Chafetz Chaim is > pretty clear about not saying loshen hara on a place or the > residents of a place. Someone else responded: > I am no expert on what is LH and what is not, but with the Internet > I think that some of the halachos probably do not apply to today's > world. Find me a sefer that deals with LH and the Internet, and > then we will talk. I too am no expert in Sefer Chafetz Chaim, but I clearly remember it talking about Lashon Hara via the written word, such as in personal letters to friends and relatives, or by publishing books and newspapers. Can someone find those sources and tell us where they are? I find it difficult to imagine that today's world is so different from that of a hundred years ago "that some of the halachos probably do not apply to today's world." But without quoting actual sources, it's simply a case of my imagination vs that of the other poster. So I am hoping that someone can help with the source material, "and then we will talk." Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553d4ab51dc554ab54c25st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 15:02:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 18:02:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] YIDDISHKEIT WITHOUT IDEOLOGY: A LETTER TO My SON Message-ID: <20150426220229.D93E41836B2@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://traditionarchive.org/news/originals/Volume%2036/No.%202/Yiddishkeit%20Without.pdf Let me be absolutely clear: where the demands of halacha are unambiguous, you must submit to them. But how does one navigate between much less well-defined traditional attitudes and strong personal inclinations? When I was your age I didn't know the answer-I still don't-but one proposition that seemed self-evident to me at the time was that it was essential to be consistent. In other words, I felt that I had to some- how make sure that the way I defined Yiddishkeit and the way I defined my commitments given my own inclinations would be perfectly aligned. I'm now convinced that that commitment to consistency was utter- ly wrong-headed and is the key to all that is wrong with institutional Yiddishkeit. I shouldn't have been defining either Yiddishkeit or my commitments at al. To do so is to reduce Yiddishkeit to ideology which is exactly what it is not. See the above UL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 16:54:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 19:54:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150426235424.BD633182CE0@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:52 PM 4/26/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: I gave an answer on Areivim, but I saw a couple of things on Shabbat which warrant an Avodah response. The first is from Yoma 86:A, Rashi, B'Amor Lehem (my translation): "Evil comes to chassidim and chachamim because "They desecrated My Holy name" (note: Rashi is of course assuming that they didn't do any particular sin to warrant what happened to them). How did they desecrate (God's name)? In those places to where they were exiled, the non-Jews say "These are the people of God" and He can't redeem them. Conclusion: God's name has been desecrated." End quote. >Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem. >Rav Soloveitch tz"l wrote about this point in Kol Dodi Dofek and in his >drashot for the Kinot, as did Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook tz"l. We all know that there were great Torah scholars who disagreed with the assertion that " the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." to name just 3, the Satmar Rebbe, Rav Breuer, and Rav Schwab. They were also most certainly familiar with the gemara you quote and the RASHI. If you had written, "Therefore, according to some Torah scholars the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." I would not disagree. However, your blanket statement, "Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." is IMO is not valid. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 12:36:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Jay F. Shachter via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 19:36:27 +0000 (WET DST) Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: from "via Avodah" at Apr 26, 2015 03:52:29 pm Message-ID: <14300949890.C90dE41.4028@m5.chicago.il.us> > > What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin (or ate > the food already, the food went bad, etc...) who for some reason can > not rely on the rabbi's communal failsafe eruv (perhaps he isn't in > a neighborhood with an observant community) do for lighting Shabbos > candles? > You light one candle, after plag hamminxa of course, and you say the appropriate brakha, lhadliq ner shel shabbath. You don't need an `eruv tavshilin to light one candle, because the Rabbinic prohibition of performing mlakha on Yom Tov for Shabbath was not intended to override the Rabbinic commandment of lighting one candle for use on Shabbath. Since (unlike in ancient times, and unlike a hundred years ago also) you don't need to have candles burning on Shabbath for their light, because you already have electric lights in your house that will stay on, or that will come on, during Shabbath, you therefore have no reason to light more than one candle (except for minhag, which you can dispense with when needed), so you don't. One candle is the Rabbinic commandment. Lighting two candles is a recent frumkeit, or yhiruth, that started among German Jews and is less than 900 years old. Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter 6424 N Whipple St Chicago IL 60645-4111 (1-773)7613784 landline (1-410)9964737 GoogleVoice jay at m5.chicago.il.us http://m5.chicago.il.us "The umbrella of the gardener's aunt is in the house" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 04:58:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 12:58:34 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001901d080e1$7d6fcbe0$784f63a0$@org.uk> RMB wrote: <> As I have written before, what I find intensely frustrating about this is that RYBS's invocation of tan du appears to itself involve a form of tampering with the chazakos and by implication the denial of the perfection and truthfulness of chachmei chazal that is then claimed to be kefira. The gemora in discussing tan du is very clear - both in Yevamos 118b and Kesuvos 75a: a woman in a tan du marriage commits adultery - "kulan mezanos"! - THAT is the chazaka from Chazal regarding the nature of women. Now this could mean: (a) the sort of woman who is prepared to enter a tan du marriage is prepared to and will commit adultery; or (b) all women will take a tan du marriage (RYBS), but if they find themselves in a tan du marriage - the existential loneliness that RYBS identifies as being the particular province of women will also, according to Chazal, inevitably drive them to adultery; But you can't get away from the fact that Chazal set this up as a chazaka. And if you take these chazakos in the way that RYBS says to do, then there are inevitable conclusions: A Beis Din faced with what can now clearly be seen as a tan du marriage HAS to assume adultery as a consequence - that being the chazaka. If you hold that these statements of Chazal are perhaps limited in time and place to the times of Chazal, and the nature of women then, then we cannot necessarily generalise to today, and despite a woman today being demonstratably in a tan du marriage, one cannot necessarily jump to conclusions regarding her faithfulness. But if these chazakos are immutable - then the only question must surely be, was there the possibility of adultery - and given the freedom of movement of women today, I do not see how anybody can say that opportunity was not available. Therefore the result, and the consequence for the marriage, was a foregone conclusion. A beis din, if it does not treat this marriage as a mekach taus (because the woman is one who would not have entered a tan du marriage), has to treat it as one in which the woman has committed adultery and is therefore forbidden to her husband, and under which the husband is clearly under a Torah obligation to divorce, according to all opinions ("dvar erva"). And yet note that there is none of this in RBYS's analysis. Women's loneliness and spiritual pain, yes - a full facing of the consequences of what is therefore, according to Chazal, endemic in our society and in the nature of Bnos Yisroel, no. There is a complete glossing over of the fundamental conclusion by Chazal regarding the consequence of a tan du marriage. And yet how can you write about tan du as an absolute immutable principle and yet not mention what, according to Chazal, is the cast iron result of that absolute immutable principl? Note by the way that this chazaka, if indeed it is immutable in the nature of women, has another consequence. Given that having women commit adultery is clearly (how shall I put this mildly) a highly destructive thing for society - having women enter into marriages where this is the inevitable consequence is a very bad thing. Surely any Rabbi who is mesader kedushin at such a wedding, any eidim at such a wedding, etc have as a matter of fact engaged in lifnei iver lo titen michshol in the full biblical sense. This isn't, according to Chazal, a maybe or a possibility, this is an inevitability. Surely it is obligatory on any Rabbi who agrees to be mesader kiddushin and on any shadchanim and eidim to investigate very carefully that this marriage is not of the tan du nature? That is if, as Rav Lichtenstein is quoted as saying "given the clear cut evidence in the Rishonim in Yevamot and other places in Shas which clearly indicated that this hazaka was not one that applied in all contexts and at all times and in all situations" - then these concerns would be significantly diminished. After all, any marriage presented to a mesader kedushin would then at the very least be a sfek sfeka - perhaps this isn't a tan du marriage, and if it is, perhaps the woman might not commit adultery. But if it is an inevitable chazaka that a woman in a tan du marriage will commit adultery, then there is only one safek in relation to a serious issur d'orisa - in which case must it not be the responsibility of all those who enable such a marriage to occur to make sure that it is not a tan du marriage and they are not enabling such adultery to take place? To my mind, indeed, that is precisely what Chazal were really getting at. A genuine acknowledgement that - at least in some societies and some environments, women are pressured into inappropriate marriages and give in to that pressure. And that where a woman does indeed give in to such an inappropriate marriage, the consequences are really, really bad for the general society and we need all to be on guard to try and prevent such marriages occurring. That to me demonstrates far more clearly the "perfection and truthfulness of Chazal" than trying to squish them in to some metaphysical understanding of womenkind that does not reverberate as true to many. But if one is going to apply this particular analysis to this particular statement of Chazal, it would seem important to do it honestly while facing the totality of what it is that Chazal actually said. >-Micha Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 11:00:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 18:00:12 GMT Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabal as Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150427.140012.4336.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Rav YB Soloveitchik zt"l was quoted: > ... Let us take for example the chazaka that I was told > about: the chazaka tav l'meisiv tan du mil'meisiv armalo > [20] has absolutely nothing to do with the social and > political status of women in antiquity. This chazaka is > based not upon sociological factors, but upon a verse in > breishis -- harba arbeh itz'voneich v'heironeich b'etzev > teildi vanim v'el isheich t'shukaseich v'hu yimshal bach > -- "I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy travail; in > pain thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall > be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee" [21]. It > is a metaphysical curse rooted in the feminine personality > -- she suffers incomparably more that the male who is in > solitude. Solitude to the male is not as terrible an > experience, as horrifying an experience, as is solitude to > the woman. And this will never change, mayid shamayim > vaaretz [22]. This is not a psychological fact; it is an > existential fact, ... In our discussions of this idea, that the chazaka is "an existential fact" and "based not upon sociological factors", there seems to be a general assumption that the Rav was speaking of ALL chazakos. However, it seems possible to me, or perhaps even likely, that he was singling this chazaka out as different from others. Note that he does not merely assert this chazaka to be existential, but he cites a pasuk as proof. To me, this is significant, because we would then be allowed to treat any NON-pasuk-based chazaka as sociological. I don't know what implications this might have for the chazaka of extramarital relations that R"n Chana Luntz mentioned, or for any other chazakos, but I wanted to mention it in case anyone else wants to comment. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553e7973421b079735cf5st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 14:53:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 17:53:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabal as Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150427.140012.4336.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150427.140012.4336.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150427215316.GA27558@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 06:00:12PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : In our discussions of this idea, that the chazaka is "an existential : fact" and "based not upon sociological factors", there seems to be a : general assumption that the Rav was speaking of ALL chazakos. However, : it seems possible to me, or perhaps even likely, that he was singling : this chazaka out as different from others. I suggested a third possiliblity. The shiur was all about Talmud Torah and Qabbalas Ol Malkhus Shamayim. This was a couple of off topic lines in what was basically a complaint that RER didn't respect the halachic process (as RYBS saw it). RAL reports that this was RYBS's primary argument against RER's beis din; I am suggesting that this quick assertion was an example of that argument, not an independent second reason to reject. It fits better as an efshar lomar than an actual assertion. How do you know you can simply repeal this chazaqah? What if it's an existential statement about the human condition; is it, after all, mentioned in a pasuq! Not so much that tav lemeisav was necessarily an existential and unchanging fact, but that it could be. That one can't simply reason in a vacuum and buck the trend of millennia of pesaq. But in any case, RYBS did say it belashon rabbim: "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above. Let us take for example the chazaka that I was told about: the chazaka tav l'meisiv tan du...." RYBS discusses tav lemeisiv as an example of a general principle not to tamper with chazaqos. Not as a single case. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 23rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Netzach: How does my domination Fax: (270) 514-1507 stifle others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 11:10:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 14:10:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A Halachik analysis of the kosher status of vitamins and medicines. Message-ID: <20150427181040.6E1171834B6@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/osf4fh7 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 12:51:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 21:51:46 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150426235424.BD633182CE0@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150426235424.BD633182CE0@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <553E9352.3030802@zahav.net.il> 1) I have to admit I don't get your answer. You asked in what way could the state be considered a Kiddush Hashem and I gave you an answer. Now you reply that various rabbis wouldn't agree with that answer. Ok, but az mah? 2) The Satmar Rebbe wouldn't have said that anything about the state is a Kiddush Hashem, no matter what it did, so I don't understand why you included him. 3) Lastly, the reply that you gave reminds me of something that Rav AY Kook wrote in Orot, Orot HaTechiya, Chapter 20. He was addressing the question of whether or not the religious should join forces with the non-religious in order to work together for the Zionist cause. Rav Kook used the story of the two women claiming to be the mother of a baby as example of people revealing their true intentions. The woman who agreed that the baby should be cut in half was in effect saying (according to RK) that there shouldn't be babies. She used others claims as way of hiding her true intent, but when the decisive moment came, the truth came out. Meaning - was the demand that the religious not work with the secular the issue or was that a cover story used to mask people's opposition to Zionism? Or in this case, is the demand that the creation of the state be a Kiddush HaShem in the eyes of all rabbanim a real demand or is it simply a cover? If the Breuer community want the state to reflect certain values, than please, make it happen. If they don't want to make it happen or aren't willing, than the demand is (at best) an exercise in dissimulation. Ben On 4/27/2015 1:54 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > We all know that there were great Torah scholars who disagreed with the assertion that " the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." to name just 3, the Satmar Rebbe, Rav Breuer, and Rav Schwab. They were also most certainly familiar with the gemara you quote and the RASHI. > > If you had written, "Therefore, according to some Torah scholars the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." I would not disagree. However, your blanket statement, "Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." is IMO is not valid. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 14:59:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 22:59:07 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] ashkenazi married to sefardi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003e01d08135$629ef9e0$27dceda0$@org.uk> RET writes: <> Note that the Bnei Banim in Chelek 3 siman 29 brings an objection to this position of RMF, based on the Rema in Even HaEzer siman 75 si'if 1. The discussion there is regarding the situation where the man literally comes from one country and the woman comes from another, who can force whom to move? And while the majority of the rishonim (including the Tashbetz) hold (absent special considerations such as Eretz Yisrael versus non Eretz Yisrael) that the man can force the woman to move to his country, Rabbanu Tam holds the opposite, that the woman can force the man to move. And the Rema holds l'halacha that we should be choshesh for the position of Rabbanu Tam, and hence neither can force the other to move. The Bnei Banim points out that if one cannot force the wife to physically move to the locale of the husband, l'halacha, how can she be considered to have moved to his place by mere dint of the marriage? After all, if she has in fact, halachically, moved to his place by entering the chuppah, what possible objection can there possibly be to her being made to up sticks and actually go to his country, Rabbanu Tam or no Rabbanu Tam? So while the Tashbez is in fact being consistent - being a rishon who holds that in fact she is required to physically move to the husband's country, the Bene Banim argues that by being choshesh for Rabbanu Tam, the Rema is clearly not poskening like RMF and the Tashbetz. The Bene Banim also discusses other arguments brought by the Tashbetz (such as ishto k'gufo) - but again rejects this, given that a woman does not take over her husband's chiyuvim and nedarim (with the possible exception of Channukah Candles). >In addition ROY states a similar psak in several places. One can argue that ROY is in a stronger position than RMF, on the grounds that he solely follows the Mechaber, and hence not the Rema, and might hold that one can force a country change. The Bnei Banim also brings, however, that while ROY comes out straightforwardly like the Tashbetz in Yabiat Omer chelek 5 siman 37 (there he is discussing an Ashkenazi woman who married a Sephardi man and whether she can eat rice on Pesach - answer of course, yes), in Or Torah Iyar 4751 ROY writes (quotation taken from the Bene Banim, I don't have access to the original): ?????? ??? ???? ????? ????? ????? ?????? ?????? ???? ??????? ????? ?????? ??? ????? ????? ???? ??? ???? ?? ?"? ????, ?? ???? ??????? ???? ???? ???? ?????? ???? ????? ????? ???? ?' ?? ?????? ????? ???? )??? ?' ???? ?"?(. ??? ?????? ???? ???? ?? ???? ??? ???? ???? ????? ?? ??? ????, ??? ??? ???? ????? ????? ????? ???? ???? ???? ???? ????? ???? ????? ????? ???? ?? ?? ?? ?????. ???? ?? ?????? ?????? ?????? ???? ????? ????? ????? ??, ????? ?? ???? ????? ?? ????. ??? ?? ?? ????? ????? ??? ??? ????? ??? ????? ????? ????? ?????. ???? ???? ???? ??????, ?? ??? ????? ?? ???? ?????? ???? ????? ????? ???? ????? ??? ???? ????? ?? ??? ?????? ????, ??? ??? ????? ???? ???? ????? ??? ?????? ??? ??????? ??? ????? ????? ???"?. ??? ??? ???? ???? ?????? ???????? ?????? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ?? ??? ??? "??? ???" ???? ?? ???, ????? ????? ?? ???? " customs that are required of the husband of necessity because of the tradition of his fathers like the Sephardim who accepted on themselves the rulings of Maran [the Shulchan Aruch] and are not able to be lenient against his opinion even by way of hatarah, it is required of an Ashkenazi woman to go after her husband and even to conduct herself leniently like the custom of her husband like that which I wrote in Yabiat Omer (chelek 5 siman 37). But stringencies that the husband has placed on himself that if he wants he is able to nullify them by way of hatarah, there is no need for the woman to conduct herself like him and he is not able to force on her a stringency that she does not want to accept as there is to her on whom to rely. Therefore if she wants to continue to use Tenuva milk she is able to do this, and the husband if he wants can be stringent upon himself. But not use any form of compulsion that also she be stringent that there not enter their house the products of Tenuva. And this is the law with the fruit of shmitta, if she relies on the heter mechira since there are many great ones of the world who hold to leniency she is also able to continue to be lenient, and so she is not forced to accept upon herself the stringency of not using products which do not have on them the hashgacha of the Badatz. And if the husband is not able to continue his stringencies when the woman does not want to accept he should do hatarah on that which he did not say ?bli neder? and be lenient also he, as great is the peace of a house." The Bnei Banim notes however that ROY does not bring any lamdus to defend the distinction he makes here between longstanding community customs (such as rice on pesach or glatt meat) and more recent customs - such as not eating Tenuva or relying on the heter mechira. To expand on this comment of the Bnei Banim, one might say that if you base the reason for a woman taking on the customs of the husband because she moves to his place, why should it make a difference whether the customs he has established in his place are longstanding ones, such as eating rice on pesach, or not using the products of Tenuva? The customs of his place are the customs of his place. And yet ROY is, in this, reflecting a common (if perhaps inconsistent) practice. In all the debate regarding husbands not using the eruv and relying on their wives doing so, and how it shows a lack of derech eretz etc, nobody suggests that actually it is assur for the wife to use the eruv, on the grounds that she has moved to the husband's place, and his custom is not to do so, and so she is stuck with the stringencies of his house. The Bnei Banim concludes his teshuva by stating: ?????? ???? ??? ????? ???? ????? ???? ??????? ?????? ??? ???? ?????? ?????? ???? ?? ????, ?? ????? ?? ????? ?? ???? ????"? ????? ??? ???? ??"? ???? ????? ???? ????? ???? ?? ????? ??? ????? ?????? ?????? ??? ???? ???? ?? ?? ???? ??? ???? ???? ???????? ??? ???? ???, ??? ?? ?????? ?? ???? ???? ??????? ?????? ????? ??????. "And l?halacha anyway one should not push aside the custom of the world that a woman frees herself from the customs of her father?s household and conduct herself according to the customs of her husband if she wants, but she is able also to rely on the words of [Rav Ovadiah Yosef] in the ma?amer and so it seems to me that when there isn?t in it [a matter] between him and her, and there isn?t a matter of inui nefesh she is able to continue like the customs of the house of her father since behold also if she vowed them from anew after the marriage the husband could not annul [such vows], and she may make a condition with her husband before the marriage that she will continue to conduct herself in accordance with her customs." This point of the Bnei Banim regarding innui nefesh and matters beno uvena is interesting. What he is referring to is the fact that a husband can be mafer (ie nullify) the nedarim of his wife, but only those that either constitute inui nefesh or are considered beno u'vena (Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah Diman 234 si?if 55). And it seems to me that you can therefore deal with the Tashbetz's point (as strongly re-iterated by ROY) regarding food issues - ie that they cannot eat together at the same table where what is permitted for one is prohibited for the other - with the use of this concept, without needing to come on to place changes. Because one of the definitions of inui nefesh brought in the Shulchan Aruch (Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah Diman 234 si?if 60-61) is if the woman forbids an item of food on herself (although the Shulchan Aruch there in si'if 60 notes that the Rambam considers this a matter not of inui nefesh but of beno u'vena). So that, certainly from the perspective of a Sephardi husband, a woman who has has the practice of not eating rice and kitniyot on Pesach is engaging in inui nefesh - and if you follow the Rav Poelim I brought in an earlier post, that if one is forbidden to eat something, one is forbidden to cook it on yom tov for others who may eat it, then the woman could not cook rice or kitniyot for the husband either - making the matter clearly one beno u'vena. So it seems like the whole question of differences in food do not need discussions of place, they can more readily be handled within the context of the existing halachic framework surrounding marriage, and what is and is not appropriate to be waived in the context of a healthy marriage. That set me thinking about the fact that actually we are talking about a whole range of different forms of minhagim - and it seems to me that as a first stab, we are dealing here with four different categories: a) minhagim that really have no impact on the husband - such as whether she benches and davens minhag Ashkenaz or minhag Edot Hamizrach (but will have a major impact on her should she be required to change, both in terms of the huge learning curve, and also in terms of the emotional impact, eg of the kol nidrei tunes). One might perhaps say that if she davens a different nusach, she will want to go to shul to a different place - but she is in a different place from the husband anyway, by virtue of the mechitza, and of course many women do not have the custom to go at all, so real impact would seem to be minimal. That seems to be the underlying message of the Bene Banim. b) minhagim that involve inui nefesh of the woman (which the halacha defines as having an impact on the husband, and which includes her having prohibitions on food) and those beno u'vena. We already have a halachic framework to determine these - the relevant sections of Yoreh Deah siman 234. For example, it doesn't seem to me to be a stretch to say that if he has the minhag of putting food with a majority of solid on the blech on shabbas, and she has a minhag not to, then her following that minhag will impact beno u'vena in terms of what gets provided at the shabbas table, and therefore would fall within the category of minhagim that ought to change in the interests of a unified household. c) minhagim that impact the husband financially. The interesting thing is that these *are* dealt with in the gemora and the halacha based on the principle "olah imo v'ana yoredes imo" - she goes up with him but does not go down with him. The case discussed on Kesubos 48a is regarding what it is necessary for him to hire for her funeral (in the way of flute players and wailers) where the custom between her family and his family is different. And while it might have been the case that it was different because they were from a different socio-economic class, it may also be because she came from a different place where the custom was to spend more on funerals and even so (once you accept that the same rule applies in death as it does in life) he is required to fund the difference - there is no assumption that because she has moved to his place, she is only entitled to the funeral according to the custom of his place. It would therefore seem that the straightforward pshat of this gemora is against the Tashbetz. Similarly the Shulchan Aruch rules in Even HaEzer siman 80 si'if 10 that the various forms of work that are required of a woman for her husband are only required if it is the derech of both her family and his family for a woman to do this - ie it is the intersection of the two sets of minhagim that make the requirement binding. d) minhagim of the husband that cause her tzar: this is in many ways the flip side of b), in that in b) we are talking about a situation where what she has been accustomed to doing all her life is, from the perspective of the husband, a form of inui nefesh, while here, the customs of the husband are what to her might well seem inui nefesh. This could also perhaps be said to be dealt with by the gemora. The gemora in Kesubos 61a discusses the situation where there is a dispute between him and her regarding whether she should nurse their baby in situations where it is the custom of her family but not his or vice versa. The question has a financial aspect, if she does not, then the husband will be put to the expense of hiring a wet nurse, and also, it would appear, a status/beauty aspect (the husband may not want her to, either because only lower class women do this, or because it might make her less beautiful in his eyes). In terms of the financial and status aspect, the gemora again brings the position of olah imo v'ana yoredes imo as per c), but there are also other aspects. For example, in the case where she wants to nurse, and the husband does not want her to, the gemora assumes that it is straightforward that, if she wishes to nurse, we listen to her, on the grounds that "tzara dedei hu" - it is her pain. Now Rashi understands this as the physical pain of having milk and having no-one feed - but it could also be understood to be psychological. However, it is hard to know how far to extend this case, nursing might well be considered sui generis, because (a) it is something very specific to a woman that a man will never do (regardless of what the women in his family did) and (b) there are very specific, unusual, physical and/or psychological factors which are not necessarily duplicated elsewhere. Refraining from specific foods (despite it being considered inui nefesh) would seem to be a far less significant matter. What might perhaps be of more general application is the discussion that immediately follows the nursing question - in which the gemora attempts to find a Torah source for the idea of olah imo v'ana yoredes imo. Rav Huna learns it out of "He beulas ba'al" (Breishis 20:3) [Reference to Sarah Imanu vis a vis Avimelech] and therefore "beilaso shel baal v'lo yoredaso" - she goes up with the husband and not down with him while Rabbi Eliezer learns it out from "ki who eim kol chai" [Breishis 3:20] and therefore "l'chaim nitna vlo l'tzar nitna" - she was given for life and not for tzar. Now the Pnei Yehoshua and the Mahrasha attempt to learn different nafka minas from the bringing of these two different sources - but it seems to me that a straightforward nafka mina is that the first source appears to understand the question primarily as being one of financial or perhaps spiritual improvement (however one understands "going up" rather than "going down"). While the second source seems rather to focus on the idea that marriage is supposed to bring with it life rather than pain. So under the first source one might understand, if one understands prishus from particular foods or activities as a form of greater spirituality, then a woman ought to follow her husband in that, even if it is considered innui nefesh, while following the second source, the key would seem more to be a question of tzar, and inui nefesh must surely be considered at least some aspect of tzar. On some level that does seem to be what is driving ROY in his discussion of customs such as not using tenuva milk or not relying on the heter mechira - both cases deal with the situation where the man is the stringent one, and her custom is towards leniency. But where this question would seem to really bite, is, for example, in the case of a Sephardi woman contemplating marrying an Ashkenazi man - where she has grown up eating and cooking rice and kitniyot on Pesach. I know a number of little Sephardi girls who have told me that they would not contemplate marrying an Ashkenazi man because of this. Now maybe they will grow out of it - but it does seem to me to a really bad reason to be rejecting a potential suitor - and yet the sense of tzar is there, that is what they are saying, I don't want the tzar of making Pesach, which for many women is tzar enough already, totally different from the way I grew up and have been taught - especially when it comes with countless greater stringencies. And even if she does ignore this in practice and accepts such a marriage, one can easily see a level of resentment bubbling to the surface at what can be in any event a very stressful time ("it is your fault that it is so darn difficult so the least you can do is be more helpful"). And if one could in fact understand a fundamental halachic principle to be taken into consideration as that of l'chaim nitna vlo l'tzar nitna - you might end up with something in keeping with the shalom bayis needs of klal yisrael. >Eli Turkel Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 15:12:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 18:12:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: <20150423.205848.16124.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150423.205848.16124.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150427221257.GA6982@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 24, 2015 at 12:58:48AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : > So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, : > ones you used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making : > a berakhah on? Yes, there is light for enjoying the Shabbos meal, : > all the same shalom bayis. But there is no actual pe'ulah to make : > the berakhah on. Is there? : I don't know where you see anything like this in the AhS. The AhS : is explicitly talking about lighting after mincha, when it is already : dark and the light is already useful... And was used or at least "used" before Shabbos (in some halachic rather than commonsensical sense), even if just for seconds, since that's the AhS's grounds for allowing the person who made no eiruv tavshilin to light her Shabbos candles. So, how can she make a berakhah on candles she was only permitted to light because they would be used before Shabbos? What hadlaqah for Shabbos itself occured? > omit the bracha, because it explicitly declares one's intentions to be > of a hachana nature, but that is a separate question not raised by the > AhS... I'm taking his silence, the AhS not telling her to light without a berakhah, as implication that there is no change from the usual WRT berakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 23rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Netzach: How does my domination Fax: (270) 514-1507 stifle others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:01:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:01:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428160119.GA8805@aishdas.org> On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 01:53:10PM -0400, Kaganoff via Avodah wrote: : For many years i had extreme difficulty with R. Elchanan Wasserman understanding : as it conflicted with my belief that Judaism (and other religions) was not : logically provable (contra to Moshe Mendelssohn and his contemporaries) and : therefore required a "leap of faith" and that a disbeliever could not be : faulted for failing to take such a jump. This is a false dichotomy. Logically proving things are not the only way to justify belief in there. How do you know that (in a flat space) two parallel lines never meet? If you're like me, you pictured it in your head. Even though infinite lines don't exist in the real world. (Nor, does it turn out, does flat space.) Did you figure out that oppression was evil by logical proof, or by a combination of imagination and empathy? My favorite example is answering the question, "Do elephants have hair?" A logical/verbal approach would be: Elephants are mammals, all mammals have hair, and so unless elephants are the exception to the rule, they must have hair. Elephants are well known and discussed animals. Could they be an exception to the rule and I don't know it? Nah, they must have hair. How it is more likely the question jogged your memory of elephants you saw, or saw pictures of. The detail may be blurry, so you may have to manipulate the picture a bit. Finally, a version of the picture which has a tuft of hair at the tail, maybe (if your memory is good) some downy hair around the eyes and ears, strikes you as the most familiar, the most real. And again you could reach the conclusion that elephants have hair. (See for some musings about the two modes of thought I'm contrasting here.) In I compare different versions of the Argument from Design from R' Aqiva's response to the apiqoreis through the Rambam, through similar approaches based on more modern science. "G-d created" (Gen. 1:1): A hereic came to Rabbi Aqiva and asked, "Who made the universe?". Rabbi Aqiva answered, "HQBH". The heretic said, "Prove it to me." Rabbi Aqiva said, "Come to me tomorrow". When the heretic returned, Rabbi Aqiva asked, "What is that you are wearing?" "A garment", the unbeliever replied. "Who made it?" "A weaver." "Prove it to me." "What do you mean? How can I prove it to you? Here is the garment, how can you not know that a weaver made it?" Rabbi Akiva said, "And here is the world; how can you not know that Haqadosh barukh Hu made it?" After the heretic left, Rabbi Aqiva's students asked him, "But what is the proof?" He said, "Even as a house proclaims its builder,a garment its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the Holy Blessed One Who created it. Not very rigorous. Rabbi Aqiva's reply revolves around giving a parable to make the conclusion self-evident. Not contructing a deductive argument. The more rigorous we try making it, the more arguable the proof becomes. R' Aqiva's argument is far more convincing than the Rambam's statement based on how objects lose form over time, not gain it. Or a similar argument based on thermodynamics or information theory. (Ironically, every formal / logical proof is built from givens taken as self-evident for informal-reasoning reasons.) Anyway, that's how I understood REW. R' Elchanan argues that on an informal level, the idea that the universe had to have a Creator is as obvious as a Euclidean postulate or the injustice of oppression. To not believe in G-d requires a formal proof, which one's negios then determine if they find it sound or specious, and whether they accept the postulates on which it's built. Notice I didn't invoke any leaps of faith. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:24:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:24:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Peshat and Drash (Was: Re: Meshech Chochmah on Kedushah) In-Reply-To: <5518BD49.3000508@gmail.com> References: <54FC792A.4080400@gmail.com> <20150324195248.GD29350@aishdas.org> <5518BD49.3000508@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150428162406.GB8805@aishdas.org> On Sun, Mar 29, 2015 at 11:04:41PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : But there were such instances where "one said this was how halakhah : was understood miSinai and another says that this is new." One : example (noted by the Chavos Yair in his Teshuva 192) is a 3-way : machlokess in Zevachim 110b, where one Amora says Nissuch HaMayyim : is miDrabannan, another says it is derived from a posuk, and another : says it was a halacha l'Moshe MiSinai. Rambam (Temidim uMussafim : 10:6 ) poskens it is a halacha l'Moshe MiSinai. This is consistent : with the concept that, as the Rambam writes, "once someone says 'so : have I received,' there is no more debate." The reason is that once : one of our sages can demonstrate he is a recipient of explicit data : originating with Moshe Rabbeynu, a HLMS, it is naturally accepted as : fact. I thought it was well accepted that the Rambam's position in HLMS is inconsistent, that he mentions numberous machloqesin in dinim he himself labeled HLMS. I don't have time to summarize the Chavor Ya'ir teshuvah 192, but I gave up waiting until I did. The examples are numerous. Possible resolutions: - No machloqesin in the essence of the matter, but there can be in details. (the CY's conclusion.) - Im halakhah hi neqabel -- no machloqesin in something both sides agree are HLMS. And what I suggested: That we should distinguish between disputes due to lack of knowledge and formal machloqesin, with the Rambam saying the legal term "machloqes" with all the usual rules of pesaq only apply to the latter. Other disputes, while called machloqes in the colloquial sense, are resolved using the rules of safeiq -- because (leshitaso) ignorance does not create a real machloqes (in the technical sense). And the Rambam here is saying that real machloqes is limited to conflicting deductions and extrapolations from existing law to new places. And thus disputes in laws that date back to Sinai can't have real machloqesin. I know I'm repeating myself, but it's been "forever" ago in email list time since I sat on this post awaiting the time to study the CY. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:33:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:33:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] free will In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428163338.GC8805@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 1:38pm IDT, R Eli Turkel wrote: : We have discussed many times the opinion of Rav Dessler that a person : doesn't always have free will. : I recently saw a halachic discussion that may have some connection. : On ketubot 51 the gemara discusses a case of a married woman who was raped : but at the end was willing... : One possibility of explaining Rava is that she is overwhelmed by her : "yetzer" and so is still considered ["anusah"]... While RET's suggested example is consistent REED's concept of nequdas habechirah, the way RET phrased REED's position kept this email on my to-do list for the last 3 weeks. REED's point is one that's pretty consistent with first-hand experience of making choices. We do not feel in control of our subconscious decisions. All the opportunities we filter out before we even are aware of thinking about it. He then says that the decisions that rise to the level of consciousness, and thus we have some control over, are ones that generate internal conflict. The "battlefront" in his metaphor, where the yh"t and yh"r are balanced. But once you accept the notion of non-conscious thought, REED's conclusion is unavoidable. And a person does always have free will, he just isn't aware of every choice he makes to know to exercise it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:41:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:41:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428164110.GD8805@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 04:29:11PM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The world has changed a lot since the time of chazal especially related to : travel... : : 1. Most travel is no longer considered unsafe. When I get in my car every : morning to drive to work I don't think twice about it : 2. The distinction between in the city and out of the city is no longer : true... : Recently, I heard a short shiur on tefilas haderech and was happy to hear : that RSZA seems to say a very similar idea to RYBS. In contrast, the qorban todah and birkhas hagomel depend not only on surviving a dangerous situation but also on reliving one of the four sorts of yeshu'os tehillim ascribes to yetzi'as Mitzrayim: crossing a desert, the sea, bring freed from jail or recovering from illness. So, if we deem flying over the Great Lakes or the Mediterranean (to pick shorter flights over mayim she'ein lahem sof) to be too safe to warrant tefillas haderekh, would one end up in a situation that calls for no tefillas haderekh beforehand, but benching gomel afterward? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:45:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:45:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428164537.GE8805@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 11:12am EDT, RnTK asked: : But to veer back into Avodah territory -- would it have been appropriate to : say Tefillas Haderech at that time? With shem umalchus? (I assume you : can always say it without shem umalchus.) Tefilas haDerekh is never said besheim umalkhus. Sheim, yes, but not malkhus: "Barukh atah H', shomeia tefillah." No mention of "E-lokeinu Melekh ha'olam". Also, when speaking about berakhah vs tefillah, Tefillas haDerekh refers to itself as a tefillah. And notice also the chasimah is about hearing the baqashah, not about the shemirah we're requesting itself. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:58:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:58:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150419.223015.3015.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150419.223015.3015.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150428165812.GF8805@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 02:30:15AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : But then, as I was reviewing this post, my mind turned to the Tanur : Shel Achnai. R' Eliezer had a minority view, and R' Yehoshua was in : the majority. I've got to believe that both views were firmly grounded; : this machlokes was surely just as L'Shem Shamayim as any between Hillel : and Shammai. I'd *like* to say that Klapei Shmaya, both views were Truth. And if not, how would we justify following the majority over Divinely revealed truth? We discussed bas qol, and why we follow the bas qol that says "vehalakhah kebeis Hillel" despite the anur shel achnai story. I listed the opinions in the Encyc Talmudit here It's not 100% accepted that the bas qol was really endorsing R' Eliezer's opinion in this particular machloqes, rather than defending his shitah in general -- "halakhah kemoso bekhol maqom", or that it was a test. Both suggested by R' Nissim gaon. Similarly one of the answers in Tosafos is that it was about R' Eliezer's kavod, and not a Divine statement to be taken literally about din. All three would imply that we would follow a bas qol over halachic process, and so they had to explain how the tanur story wasn't an example. Thus implying that what we are searching for is the truth rather than legal authority. RNG's position on the tanur shel achanai story supports RMHalbertal's theory that in the geonic era, the Retrieval theory of halakhah dominated. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:12:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:12:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] brochos from the amud (was: tefillat haderech) In-Reply-To: <20150420024354.CJVF30458.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo110> References: <20150420024354.CJVF30458.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo110> Message-ID: <20150428171200.GG8805@aishdas.org> On Sun, Apr 19, 2015 at 10:43:47PM -0400, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote: : Slight change of topic: I'm still trying to wrap my head around the : idea that we don't seem to have a chashash of a brocha l'vatalah. I : mean, you have a sh'tz up there, saying a brocho out loud -- and : he's intentionally trying to be motzi _some_ others... But only those who had in mind to be yotzei. : Shomea k'oneh : doesn't apply at all? What if you are in the shul and you're not : thinking about the issue of being yotzie, you're just thinking about : which day it is, and/or you simply have stam kavanah. No chashash : for an issur d'oraissa? RYBS says in the context of the berakhah on Hallel that because mitzvos einum tzerikhos kavanah, if you have no kavanah one way or the other, you would be yotzei. To avoid being yotzei would require having explicit kavanah not to be yotzei. He then continues that the idea of having intent not to want to do a mitzvah bothers him, and so RYBS said he says the berakhah on Hallel along with the chazan. (Which is what my father does, and what I grew up with.) I assume the same would be true here. (Although I don't recall what my father does, I say the berakhah along with the chazan.) I would have thought that interrupting with "barukh Hu uvarukh shemo" should also work. Recall that R Chaim was very against answering BHUBS to chazaras hashatz because one is being yotzei tefillat hatzibur. (Above and beyond one's own chiyuv of tefillah.) While listing my hunches, I believe that intent to say it yourself qualified as kavanah not to be yotzeir. So the default is kavanah not to be yotzei, not an absense of kavanah one way or the other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:44:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:44:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428164445.5B05B18384C@nexus.stevens.edu> At 12:24 PM 4/28/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: >Meaning - was the demand that the religious not work with the >secular the issue or was that a cover story used to mask people's >opposition to Zionism? This was an issue, and there was also opposition to Zionism. The opposition to Zionism was not masked at all. Please read http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/zion_or_zionism.pdf to see what Zionism really is according to Rav Schwab, ZT"L and others who think like him. >Or in this case, is the demand that the creation >of the state be a Kiddush HaShem in the eyes of all rabbanim a real >demand or is it simply a cover? I have never heard of "the demand that the creation of the state be a Kiddush HaShem in the eyes of all rabbanim " Who demanded this? > If the Breuer community want the state >to reflect certain values, than please, make it happen. And how do you propose that they do this? I asked you in an earlier email what the Orthodox Jews in EY and you in particular are doing to make this happen, and I received no response. > If they don't >want to make it happen or aren't willing, than the demand is (at best) >an exercise in dissimulation. Do you really believe that the Breuer's community at the time when Rav Breuer and Rav Schwab has the wherewithal to make the State reflect certain values? Even those living in EY at this time could not do this. There was (and still is) a large non-religious contingent of Jews living in EY. Do you really think that anyone can "make" them change their views or their behavior? YL YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:32:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:32:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eretz Yisrael vs Medinat Yisrael [was: The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L] Message-ID: <125cff.585c1330.42711e42@aol.com> R. Ben Waxman wrote: >Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem. >Rav Soloveitch tz"l wrote about this point in Kol Dodi Dofek and in his >drashot for the Kinot, as did Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook tz"l. RYL wrote: >> We all know that there were great Torah scholars who disagreed with >> the assertion that " the creation of the State is, in of itself, a >> Kiddush Hashem." >>>>> I will have to re-read Kol Dodi Dofek because I don't remember such a forthright quote -- "The creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." But in any case it isn't exactly an either-or question. The Medinah -- the secular socialist Russian government of Israel -- is hardly a kiddush Hashem. Indeed it arouses waves of hatred from the goyim all over the world, on a daily basis. RBW also wrote: >>....The first is from Yoma 86:A, Rashi, B'Amor Lehem: "Evil comes to chassidim and chachamim because "They desecrated My Holy name." How did they desecrate (God's name)? In those places to where they were exiled, the non-Jews say "These are the people of God" and He can't redeem them. Conclusion: God's name has been desecrated." End quote.<< The establishment of a government that is hated and vilified by the whole world is not, it would seem, a kiddush Hashem. Plus the fact that the country is under constant military threat and cannot, apparently, provide security to its inhabitants, also would not seem to be a kiddush Hashem. But I think these facts -- the constant physical attacks, the world-wide moral opprobrium -- are the cosmic result of the fact that the Medinah is determinedly secular and consciously rejects Torah as a guiding principle. HOWEVER, on the other side, RBW's Rashi quote does have a bearing on the current situation in Eretz Yisrael. There is no denying that the flourishing of Eretz Yisrael, after two thousand years of desolation, is miraculous. The continued existence of the country, despite the constant waves of physical and diplomatic attacks, is also miraculous. And the fact that all Jews can go and live in Eretz Yisrael, and that millions actually do live there, is also a huge miracle. I said there is no denying the miraculous aspects and yet I am aware that the Satmar Rebbe did deny it. He admitted that there was a supernatural aspect to Israel's recent history but ascribed the miracles to the Satan, blinding our eyes. He never joined Agudas Yisrael, the world-wide umbrella organization for all Orthodox Jews, because he was on one side and all the other gedolim in the world were on the other side. All the others rejected the ideology of secular Zionism while gratefully acknowledging chasdei Hashem in allowing the Land to be built up, allowing the Torah communities to grow and flourish, allowing millions of Jews to live in our ancient homeland. The Lubavitcher Rebbe also never joined the Agudah -- I refer not to the Israeli political party but to the world-wide umbrella organization. He had other reasons, perhaps for another time. I think he wanted Chabad to be THE world-wide organization, he did not want it to be one of many competing Orthodox groups and derachim. But he agreed with the basic ideology of the Agudah vis-a-vis the state of Israel -- the nuanced view of ohr vechoshech. And so did the Yekkes, very much so! In fact they were instrumental in founding and guiding the Agudah, for decades! Their attitude towards Israel after the founding of the Medinah and the beginning of kibbutz galuyos was very much the same as the whole rest of the Agudah -- grateful acknowledgment of the positive, hakaras hatov to the Ribono Shel Olam, opposition to the negative, working to improve the moral status of Eretz Yisrael, e.g., when it came to forced autopsies (B'H the charedim won that bitterly fought battle), giyus banos and other issues. But the Yekkes in Israel do vote, do participate in running the country, do daven at the kosel (unlike the Satmar and Neturei Karta), do thank Hashem for protecting Eretz Yisrael and daven for continued Divine protection. RYL considers himself the premier acolyte of RSRH but he and I have some fundamental disagreements about what the Hirschian legacy really is. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 11:59:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 20:59:46 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150428164445.5B05B18384C@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150428164445.5B05B18384C@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <553FD8A2.1060306@zahav.net.il> Regarding the second question, yes I did. Please see the previous emails. Regarding the first, all I can say is that it won't be done from New York. Regarding the other points, I addressed them so I won't repeat myself this round. Ben On 4/28/2015 6:44 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > And how do you propose that they do this? > > I asked you in an earlier email what the Orthodox Jews in EY and you > in particular are doing to make this happen, and I received no response. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:59:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:59:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Message-ID: <126fc1.37d9c7fc.4271247d@aol.com> From: Chana Luntz via Avodah >> As I have written before, what I find intensely frustrating about this is that RYBS's invocation of tan du appears to itself involve a form of tampering with the chazakos and by implication the denial of the perfection and truthfulness of chachmei chazal that is then claimed to be kefira. The gemora in discussing tan du is very clear - both in Yevamos 118b and Kesuvos 75a: a woman in a tan du marriage commits adultery - "kulan mezanos"! - THAT is the chazaka from Chazal regarding the nature of women. [snip] But you can't get away from the fact that Chazal set this up as a chazaka. And if you take these chazakos in the way that RYBS says to do, then there are inevitable conclusions: A Beis Din faced with what can now clearly be seen as a tan du marriage HAS to assume adultery as a consequence - that being the chazaka. [snip] Surely it is obligatory on any Rabbi who agrees to be mesader kiddushin and on any shadchanim and eidim to investigate very carefully that this marriage is not of the tan du nature? [snip] But if it is an inevitable chazaka that a woman in a tan du marriage will commit adultery, then there is only one safek in relation to a serious issur d'orisa - in which case must it not be the responsibility of all those who enable such a marriage to occur to make sure that it is not a tan du marriage and they are not enabling such adultery to take place? >>>>> There is brilliant yet convoluted logic behind this post. I hesitate to tangle with someone like R'n CL who is so erudite, yet I truly believe she has misunderstood this Gemara. Yes, a woman in a loveless marriage is much more tempted to commit adultery, given the right set of circumstances, but it is certainly not inevitable. Nor is it correct to deduce that a rav must make sure, before he marries a couple, that the woman is not entering a loveless marriage! He doesn't have to creep into her heart and mind before conducting the wedding, doesn't have to fathom the depths of her motives in marrying this man. There are so many motives, so many emotions, how could you ever fathom them all? I think "kulan mezanos" refers to all women, and it means all women can be seduced, though obviously it will be easier to seduce a woman who does not love her husband. All women potentially can be seduced. IIRC Beruria the wife of R' Meir -- and you can't claim that was a "tan duu marriage"! -- thought she was an exception to this rule about human nature, or feminine nature. And found out she was wrong! Even she, a brilliant and pious woman married to a great man, could be seduced. Without the Gemara most of us would assume that men are more likely to be unfaithful than women, and I do think that is true. I don't know how to square what we see before us -- that men cheat more than women do -- with what the Gemara says. In any case in Torah homes fidelity between husbands and wives is the norm, Baruch Hashem. All those fences -- laws of yichud, negiah, tznius and so on -- really do protect us. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 15:58:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 23:58:31 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos Message-ID: <001b01d081d6$cb2e0680$618a1380$@org.uk> Sorry, been away, and am therefore very behind in Avodah On 04/03/2015 06:57 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >> He also paskens (for EY) that one can cook kitniyot on the 7th day of >> Pesach for use on the shabbat right afterwards (ef this year). And RZS replied: >Yes, I'm surprised that anyone disagrees. It seems so obviously correct. >I know that many people don't do so, and believe it to be forbidden, >but I have never yet heard an argument for why it should be so. Well the arguments to prohibit can be found in Rav Poelim chelek 3 Orech Chaim siman 30 - he brings two: one based on the prohibition of a person who is fasting on yom tov to cook for others - as per the Rema in Shulchan Aruch Orech Chaim siman 527 si'if 20 as explained by the Magen Avraham there and an additional reason added by the Magen Avraham there in si'if katan 22. The Ben Ish Chai in Rav Poelim was discussing whether a person whose custom (in Bagdad) was not to eat rice on Pesach could cook rice for those who do. He rejected the first rationale provided by the Magen Avraham) as being applicable to this case, but accepted the second reason as applicable (although he also cites a number of achronim who accept the first reason as a reason to prohibit)- and therefore held that those who had the custom of treating rice as assur on pesach could not cook rice for those who had the custom of eating rice on yom tov of Pesach for so long as they had this custom of treating rice as assur (although he held that those who had this custom not to eat rice in Bagdad could do hatarat nedarim and be able to eat, and hence cook, rice on pesach so as to solve the problem). >> This is because some sefardi could come over for a visit and so the >> kitniyot are not mukza . >The main issue would surely not be muktzeh, but cooking on yomtov. >But the answer is the same: the hypothetical horde of hungry guests who >might descend on one ten minutes before sunset on Friday, and for whom >one is, in principle, cooking, might very well be sefardim. Yes, but according to the position of the Rav Poelim, Askenazim can never, when cooking for Sephardim on pesach, cook them dishes that they, the Ashkenazim, cannot eat, hence hoeil does not apply. The same ought presumably to apply to gebrochts according to the Ben Ish Chai - if you can't eat it on shvii shel pesach, you can't cook it for others, including hungry guests, and so cannot effectively cook it for shabbas based on hoeil, your shabbas food would have to consist of something else you could eat on shvii shel pesach. >Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 11:03:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Toby Katz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 14:03:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <127300.4be2c63a.42712586@aol.com> In a message dated 4/28/2015 12:45:47 P.M. EDT, micha at aishdas.org writes: > Tefilas haDerekh is never said besheim umalkhus. You are correct, I should have caught that myself. > Also, when speaking about berakhah vs tefillah, Tefillas haDerekh > refers to itself as a tefillah. And notice also the chasimah is about > hearing the baqashah, not about the shemirah we're requesting itself. zsh:1: command not found: Fmt --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 11:34:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 14:34:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: <127300.4be2c63a.42712586@aol.com> References: <127300.4be2c63a.42712586@aol.com> Message-ID: <20150428183420.GA25835@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 02:03:50PM -0400, T613K at aol.com wrote: : >> Also, when speaking about berakhah vs tefillah, Tefillas haDerekh refers : to itself as a tefillah. And notice also the chasimah is about hearing : the baqashah, not about the shemirah we're requesting itself.<< : : That doesn't answer the question of whether it is appropriate to recite : Tefillas HaDerech during a blinding rainstorm on the highway in your own city, : which was my question. It doesn't fully answer your question, but it does point a bit toward saying it. After all, it turns out that the only berakhah is about Hashem hearing baqashos. The body of the tefillah is only a formalized equivalent to saying "Please G-d, just get me home safe, healthy and in one piece!" or some other spontaneous cry for help. So, if you're scared on the road, tefillah is appropriate. Why would thanking G-d for listening to such tefillos depend on rules about travel? Add to that the fact that it's only half a berakhah, which indicates that it's shevach (like Shomeia Tefillah in Shemoneh Esrei), as another small indicator in favor of saying it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 12:58:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 15:58:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <001901d080e1$7d6fcbe0$784f63a0$@org.uk> References: <001901d080e1$7d6fcbe0$784f63a0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <20150428195810.GC25835@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 12:05:17PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: [RAM:] : > At any rate, one can agree or disagree about : > whether this assertion is true, and even among those who agree with : > it, there might be discussion of exactly which chazakos are unchanging : > and which are variable. Still, his point is that there are indeed some : > UNchanging aspects. : I would add an observation that individual exceptions may exist : empirically but are ignored halachically This is the classic case of affirming a chazaqah (or rov) when there is ika rei'usa. No? On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 12:58:34PM +0100, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: : The gemora in discussing tan du is very clear - both in Yevamos 118b and : Kesuvos 75a: a woman in a tan du marriage commits adultery - "kulan : mezanos"! - THAT is the chazaka from Chazal regarding the nature of women. : : Now this could mean: (a) the sort of woman who is prepared to enter a tan : du marriage is prepared to and will commit adultery; or : (b) all women will take a tan du marriage : (RYBS), but if they find themselves in a tan du marriage - the existential : loneliness that RYBS identifies as being the particular province of women : will also, according to Chazal, inevitably drive them to adultery; : But you can't get away from the fact that Chazal set this up as a chazaka. As the gemara was taught to me, what they set up as a chazaqah was pretty much as RYBS describes it. Women feel the loneliness of singlehood more. The flow of the sugya in the two gemaras are quite similar, from the point where Reish Laqish is quoted staying "tav lemeisiv" onward. RL, illustrated with meshalim by Abayei, R' Papa, and R' Ashi, followed by a tana saying that they all are mezanos and then blame their husbands. So, it would seem that tav lemeisiv is about a desire to be married. This has nothing to do with romance or eros, since we are told that a woman who is just married so s not to be like a widow (milemeisiv armelu) do tend to end up cheating. But tav lemeisiv isn't about the affairs, it's about (Yevamos) why hamezakeh gett le'ishto in the middle is not valid. Because it's not a pure zekhus for her, you cannot say zakhin le'adam shelo befanav (or befanehah, as the case may be). There is nothing about "being driven to" adultery by the loneliness, but by having tav lemeisiv alone satisfied by her marriage. Perhaps the reverse of your formulation. (I think the idea that tav lemeisiv means women are more likely to be sexually lonely would be really hard to support, even in a culture where husbands, not wives, have a chiyuv onah.) Or (Kesuvos) it is used (in a complex case I'm too lazy to spell out) why a man might wish not to be married, lest he later be prohibited to her relatives, but in the flipside case, we do not assume the same of the woman. The bit about mezanos vetolos beba'aleihen is not the basis for any halakhos. I have no reason to believe it's a chazaqah. Tangentially... On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 07:27:43PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Another challenge is how to deal with recent "Chachmei Hamesorah" : who don't seem to meet the perfection definition. I have two suggestions that work for me: 1- Make a list of current chakhmei hamesorah that don't pose such a challenge for you. Once you start, you'll likely find it's a longwer list than you had thought. Focus on them, and ignore the rest, no matter how popular as gedolim they may be. 2- Separate the current rabbinate from one's own ties to the mesorah with a project like Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:01:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 23:01:17 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) Message-ID: <553FF51D.6070804@zahav.net.il> Putting the question of Hallel aside, I don't understand the line below. I looked through the Beit Yosef OH 131 where he discusses the days on which Tachanun isn't said. The BY does not list all the days that we skip (like Purim Qatan or Pesach Sheni). These came later. So when did this idea (that we can't change when Tachanun is said or not said) start? Ben On 4/28/2015 12:31 PM, Prof. Levine via Areivim wrote: > Shemone Esrei is followed > by Chazaras Hashatz, which is followed by Tachanun, and then followed > by Ashrei and U'va' Letzion--and we do not have the right or > privilege of changing that, he opined. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:28:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:28:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early Message-ID: The statement was made that "Lighting two candles is a recent frumkeit, or yhiruth, that started among German Jews and is less than 900 years old.." Isn't it also yohara to stand in judgment of a minhag mentioned in the Tur and Shulchan Aruch and observed virtually without exception by klal Yisraeil? EMT From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 13:50:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 16:50:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eretz Yisrael vs Medinat Yisrael [was: The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L] In-Reply-To: <125cff.585c1330.42711e42@aol.com> References: <125cff.585c1330.42711e42@aol.com> Message-ID: <553FF29D.4030208@sero.name> On 04/28/2015 01:32 PM, via Avodah wrote: > The Lubavitcher Rebbe also never joined the Agudah -- I refer not to > the Israeli political party but to the world-wide umbrella > organization. He had other reasons, perhaps for another time. I > think he wanted Chabad to be THE world-wide organization, he did not > want it to be one of many competing Orthodox groups and derachim. The Lubavitcher Rebbe at the time the Agudah was founded was the Rashab, who in matters of askonus generally took his lead from R Chaim Brisker. Lubavitch was a member of the Agudah's precursor, Machzikei Hadas, but when MH merged with the Yekkes to form the Agudah, R Chaim put 18 conditions on his participation, and since they weren't satisfied both Brisk and Lubavitch stayed out. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:22:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 17:22:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Peshat and Drash (Was: Re: Meshech Chochmah on Kedushah) In-Reply-To: <20150428162406.GB8805@aishdas.org> References: <54FC792A.4080400@gmail.com> <20150324195248.GD29350@aishdas.org> <5518BD49.3000508@gmail.com> <20150428162406.GB8805@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <553FFA2E.6000809@gmail.com> On 4/28/2015 12:24 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > I thought it was well accepted that the Rambam's position in HLMS > is inconsistent, that he mentions numberous machloqesin in dinim > he himself labeled HLMS.... Chavor Ya'ir teshuvah 192...examples are numerous. > > Possible resolutions: > > - No machloqesin in the essence of the matter, but there can be in > details. (the CY's conclusion.) I don't think that is the Chavos Yair's conclusion. He leaves the matter bewildered, as Rambam appears incomprehensible and self-contradictory. > - Im halakhah hi neqabel -- no machloqesin in something both sides agree > are HLMS. With the modification of the word "against" in place of the word ''in,'' this is my conclusion, and that of the Maharatz Chayos. The Rambam is addressing the Karaite argument that even Chazal did not really consider the laws they called "payrushim mekuballim" and HLMS (the latter being payrushim mekuballim that lack indications planted in the Torah) to have literally come from Moshe Rabbeynu. That's why, the Karaites argued, Chazal felt free to dispute them. The Rambam explains that Chazal never disputed laws that made it to them from Sinai. The disputes are over issues ''branching out'' from them. Thus, '' There is no machlokess against any payrush that is known to have come from Sinai.'' This understanding fits very well in the Rambam's words, in the context of which he was talking and the issues he confronted; and eliminates what would certainly be a mess of the self-contradictions and open contradictions from the Talmud that the CY lists. Another concern raised by the CY is the fact that the Rambam seems inconsistent between the Mishneh Torah and his list in the hakdama to his Mishneh commentary in that some laws he labels as HLMS in one work he does not in other. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:28:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 17:28:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Renewal Role of Sarah Schenirer Message-ID: <20150428212818.DEBA1182F93@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/njwrn2g There was a major difference, however, between the Bais Yaacov of Williamsburg and the Bais Yaacov of Poland in pre-war Europe. The Bais Yaacov movement in Poland emphasized the universal Torah teachings of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, while the Bais Yaacov of Williamsburg did not give Rabbi Hirsch's teachings the same emphasis. Why were Rabbi Hirsch's teachings regarding the Torah's universal vision no longer the main focus? Most of the teachers and students at the American Bais Yaakov were Holocaust survivors who felt a need to turn inward after experiencing the hatred of the Gentiles around them and the horrors of the Holocaust. They knew that most of the "humanistic" intellectuals and artists of Germany actively supported the brutal persecution of the Jewish people. They also knew that most of the "enlightened" countries closed their doors to Jews who were trying to escape the Holocaust. In addition, they knew that most of the Christian religious leaders of Europe did not protest the organized murder of millions of Jewish men, women, and children; moreover, many Christians in the countries occupied by the Germans actively assisted the Germans in rounding up the Jews for the death camps. In fact, a number of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust who returned to Poland after the war were murdered in Polish pogroms! It is understandable that these survivors felt the need to first heal themselves before worrying about the world which had abandoned their suffering people. In addition, these survivors did not have the strong attraction to secular western culture which an earlier generation of Bais Yaakov students had once experienced, and their feelings are expressed in the following memoir of Dr. Judith Grunfeld: "Almost seventy years have passed since, and we have today most unfortunately an easy enough means of demonstrating that all cultures which we then venerated have revealed themselves to be nothing but a flimsy veneer covering over diabolical inhumanity. European humanitarian ideas so prevalent then, so much on the tip of everyone's tongue, preached by leading university representatives, have been proven utterly hollow. For they did not succeed in preventing, and indeed could be said to be frequently instrumental in strirring up the raging, terrible fire of man's inhumanity to man." ("Rebbitzen Grunfeld" by Miriam Dansky, p. 72) Nevertheless, our sages teach that Torah - the Divine wisdom - is the blueprint of creation, and that the Creator looked into the Torah when He created the world (Genesis Rabbah 1:1). If our Creator looked into the Torah and created the world, then when we look into the Torah we can rediscover this world. In addition, the Torah reveals that we have the potential to become holy vessels with the spiritual power to transform and elevate the world; thus, no matter how much we turn inward, the study of Torah reminds us that we must eventually turn outward. This may be one of the reasons why a growing number of Torah-committed Jews in our generation are rediscovering the writings of Rabbi Hirsch, as a major theme of his teachings is the universal goal of the Torah path. The Bais Yaacov High School of Baltimore, under the leadership of its principal, Rabbi Binyamin Steinberg, gave renewed emphasis to the universal vision of the Torah. Rabbi Steinberg himself was a Holocaust survivor, and in one of his talks to his students about respect for other peoples, he reminded them of the Compassionate One's promise to Abraham that "through you all the families of the earth will be blessed" (Genesis 12:3). The following is an excerpt from his talk: "All the families of the earth," he declared. 'Who cares about all the families of the earth?' you ask. Nevertheless, that's what the Torah says...The people of Israel will be a blessing for all the families of the earth. That means the Albanians, the Greeks, the Chinese, the Indonesians, the African Americans - all the families of the earth. That's what it says in my Torah! " (A Matter of Principal - a biography of Rabbi Binyamin Steinberg by Hanoch Teller). Before we can become a blessing to others, however, we first need to turn inward in order to develop our unique strengths. As Sarah Schneirer realized, we first have to renew ourselves before we can renew the world. As the Prophet Isaiah proclaimed to our people: "O House of Jacob: Come, let us walk by the light of Hashem! " (Isaiah 2:5) See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:59:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 22:59:29 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <002d01d081fe$99c5fcb0$cd51f610$@org.uk> RMB writes: >As the gemara was taught to me, what they set up as a chazaqah was >pretty much as RYBS describes it. Women feel the loneliness of singlehood >more. >The flow of the sugya in the two gemaras are quite similar, from the >point where Reish Laqish is quoted staying "tav lemeisiv" onward. RL, >illustrated with meshalim by Abayei, R' Papa, and R' Ashi, followed by >a tana saying that they all are mezanos and then blame their husbands. >So, it would seem that tav lemeisiv is about a desire to be married. >This has nothing to do with romance or eros, since we are told that a >woman who is just married so s not to be like a widow (milemeisiv >armelu) do tend to end up cheating. >But tav lemeisiv isn't about the affairs, I agree that tav lemeisiv is not brought initially to refer to the issue of affairs, but rather indeed about a desire to be married which is then brought to make a halachic point within another context (eg maezakeh get l'eishto) - but once the gemora is discussing tav lemeisiv marriages - it then takes the time out, twice, to explain what these marriages mean. And it explains, after going through the flow of Abaye etc, that these marriages mean inevitable adultery. Ie according the gemora a tav l'meisiv marriage = adultery. Now, that means, the more tav l'meisiv marriages there are, the more adultery there is. So the more you stress that the world is full of tav l'meisiv marriages, the more you are saying that the world is full of Bnos Yisrael committing adultery. That tav l'meisiv marriage results in adultery is clearly part and parcel of the definition of what a tav l'meisiv marriage is - one where a woman will prefer to be married than to be alone. And it is not a disputed statement, it is a concluding statement rounding up the discussion of what a tav l'meisiv marriage is. In order to break the equation, you have to say that Chazal didn't really mean what they said, or that they were talking about their time and place, but women today are different - but that means denying the truthfulness and accuracy of Chazal's statements (or understanding them differently) in exactly the way that RYBS objects to as kefira. You can't say that a woman prefers to be married than to be alone is a universal truth because it was stated by Chazal, and simultaneously that women in tav lemeisiv marriages commit adultery is not a universal truth, as they are bound up in the same discussion and you are picking and choosing your Chazalic statements - this one I like, this one I don't, and not just any statement, but the concluding statement rounding up the discussion defining the concept. .... >The bit about mezanos vetolos beba'aleihen is not the basis for any >halakhos. I have no reason to believe it's a chazaqah. So why did Chazal say it? For the fun of casting aspersions on Bnos Yisrael? Twice? In the context of a halachic discussion? If this was any other discussion, would anybody dream of suggesting that when Chazal said that something inevitably happened in the context of a halachic discussion they were not, at the very least, postulating a chazaka (albeit perhaps a rebuttable one) and possibly something even stronger? One might say - well nature has changed (eg kol treifos), or one might say - we have to treat something as halachically following Chazal's statement, even if we know or suspect the metzius is different (hence my line about a Beis Din being required to treat a tav l'meisiv marriage as one where adultery has been committed, and those enabling such a marriage being prohibited from so doing based on lifnei iver). That is the way we generally treat Chazalic statements of this nature. In this case, of course, we have another option, if tav l'meisiv marriages themselves do not occur very often, then we do not necessarily have to worry about, as common, the adultery which is part and parcel of their definition. But if they are in fact common and inevitable where the husband is not as a matter of fact suitable for the wife, then I cannot see how you can claim that this is not a significant societal and halachic concern. Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 15:14:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 18:14:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <002d01d081fe$99c5fcb0$cd51f610$@org.uk> References: <002d01d081fe$99c5fcb0$cd51f610$@org.uk> Message-ID: <20150428221418.GF11656@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 10:59:29PM +0100, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: :> The bit about mezanos vetolos beba'aleihen is not the basis for any :> halakhos. I have no reason to believe it's a chazaqah. : : So why did Chazal say it? For the fun of casting aspersions on Bnos : Yisrael? Twice? In the context of a halachic discussion? Well, it's really one conversation quoted twice. But it emphasizes the point. Tav lemeisiv is considered a reason why a gett would not be zakhin le'adam shelo befanav, even though the marriage would too likely lead to sin. The desire not to be husbandless, even by an insufficient husband, is being described as very profound. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 01:56:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 11:56:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith Message-ID: <> the Euclidean postulates are based on everyone's daily experience. In fact we know they are not true in other circumstances (eg on a globe) The injustice of oppression is more debatable. Surely ISIS believes that destroying ancient culture and cutting off heads of nonbelievers is a "mitzvah" As such the belief in a creator is obvious to one with a religious upbringing. For years scientists (and ancient philosophers) believed in an infinitely old world. Even today some scientists are attemping to justify a big bang without a creator (infinite big bangs , other universes etc.). The whole idea of axioms/postulates are that they are not provable. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 06:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 09:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150429135311.GA11332@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 11:56:31AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : the Euclidean postulates are based on everyone's daily experience... I picked the one about parallel lines because no one ever experienced infinitely long parallel lines. They are based on imagining an extrapolation from experience. : we know they are not true in other circumstances (eg on a globe) Thus my parenthetic remarks about flat space. It also doesn't work in Einsteinian Spacetime, as space is no longer believed to be flat. ... : As such the belief in a creator is obvious to one with a religious : upbringing. For years scientists (and ancient philosophers) believed in an : infinitely old world. Even today some scientists are attemping to justify a : big bang without a creator (infinite big bangs , other universes etc.). : : The whole idea of axioms/postulates are that they are not provable. My point exactly -- there are third options between logical proofs and leaps of faith. Logical proofs are only one way to justify belief. The Kuzari points to tradition, which may boil down to reliabilism. (Something you learned from a source that has a track record of being reliable.) I was saying that REW, like R' Aqiva, appealed to the self-evident nature of the universe having a Designer. Closer to the way we accept our postulates than a proof. And that this is so obvious look around at what was created, that belief is the default state for humans. And then REW continues that it takes an act of will to accept a counter-proof despite the self-evidence. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 25th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Netzach: When is domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control too extreme? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 02:02:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 10:02:27 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torahand Kabalas Ol Malchus In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000401d0825b$37ef5150$a7cdf3f0$@org.uk> RTK writes: > I think "kulan mezanos" refers to all women, and it means all women can > be seduced, You may be able to derive, from other contexts, that all women can be seduced - but that is not what is being discussed in the specific gemorros referred to. Our gemora is discussing what happens specifically in tav l'meisiv marriages - it gives examples of such marriages, and then concludes that such marriages result in adultery (and consequent hidden mamzerim). There is just no way of reading what you want to read into this piece > Yes, a woman in a loveless marriage is much more tempted to commit > adultery, given the right set of circumstances, but >it is certainly not inevitable. Nor is it correct to deduce that a rav must >make sure, before he marries a couple, that the woman is not entering a >loveless marriage! He doesn't have to creep into her heart and mind before >conducting the wedding, doesn't have to fathom the depths of her motives in >marrying this man. There are so many motives, so many emotions, how could >you ever fathom them all? Remember, none of what I have described is necessarily a consequence of these gemoros unless you read the gemora with the chiddush of RYBS: that inherent in the existential condition of womankind is that if a woman is offered only an inappropriate marriage she will take it because she cannot bear not to be married. If you understand it merely that there are and have been women, in some times and places, who when offered an inappropriate marriage, will sometimes take it because she cannot bear not to be married, but in other circumstances and times and places there are women who would refuse such a marriage - you have no idea what you are faced with in any given circumstance. And it is of course possible that she knows what she is doing and has seen what you cannot see, meaning that in fact the marriage will indeed be a good one. And it would be, as you describe, inappropriate to creep into her heart and try and fathom what is going on there. But according to RYBS we know what is going on there, in the woman's heart - we know it from RYBS's understanding of the pasuk in Breishis (one certainly does not have to understand the pasuk in Breishis the way RYBS does, but he is darshaning a pasuk to tell us about the human condition). A woman wants to be married above all else because she cannot bear to be alone, she is not capable of making an assessment that any given marriage, without alternative, may not be the best thing. She is never capable of that, according to RYBS's understanding of Chazal, this being an existential condition of womankind. In which case what happens if an outsider is capable of assessing the reality of the marriage in question as being one where the parties are fundamentally incompatible? Does he have an obligation to try and stop the marriage given that the woman is incapable of protecting herself? Well one might say - tough luck, it is not an outsider's job, any more than it is an outsider's job to protect others from a bad bargain in business. But that is where this further statement of the gemora comes in. A marriage which the woman has only entered into because she cannot existentially bear to be unmarried is one with the consequence that such marriage will not in fact be enough for her and she will commit adultery and produce mamzerim who are attributed incorrectly to the husband. So if the outsider does not intervene, he is not just failing to protect the woman from herself, he is failing to protect society from inherent danger. That raises the stakes considerably, and would seem to mean that outsiders (such as Rabbaim, shadchanim etc) do need to be vigilant, and not enable such marriages, so long as what RYBS says is true, in order to protect our society. Now I don't think we need a Rav to check a marriage out, before he marries a couple, to try and determine it is not a tav l'meisiv marriage. But that is because I think it relatively rare, in our society, that a woman will take a loveless marriage merely because she cannot bear to be alone (and I certainly do not think it is a irrebuttable presumption as per RYBS. Nor, as Rav Lichtenstein says, does the halacha over the centuries take this as an irrebuttable presumption despite RYBS's vehemence). And we don't have spend our lives worrying about uncommon cases even if we acknowledge that such cases may exist (and even if, in hindsight, if a marriage turns out to be unquestionably inappropriate, we might need to consider whether perhaps the woman in question *might* have been willing to go through with it anyway). But if RYBS were right and it is indeed a fundamental existential part of a woman's nature, unchanging throughout time and not infrequently occurring, to take whatever marriage is on offer, then we as a society do need such safeguards, because of the potential consequences, and if there is any hint that in fact this might be a tav l'meisiv marriage, since the woman is not able, according to RYBS, to protect herself from it, the Rav/shadchan etc would seem to have the obligation to investigate and if in doubt, to protect our society by preventing the marriage. >Toby Katz >t613k at aol.com Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 04:37:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 11:37:18 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: <20150429.073718.25006.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> I wrote: : But then, as I was reviewing this post, my mind turned to the Tanur : Shel Achnai. R' Eliezer had a minority view, and R' Yehoshua was in : the majority. I've got to believe that both views were firmly grounded; : this machlokes was surely just as L'Shem Shamayim as any between Hillel : and Shammai. I'd *like* to say that Klapei Shmaya, both views were Truth. R' Micha Berger responded: > We discussed bas qol, and why we follow the bas qol that says > "vehalakhah kebeis Hillel" despite the anur shel achnai story. I > listed the opinions in the Encyc Talmudit here > > > It's not 100% accepted that the bas qol was really endorsing R' > Eliezer's opinion in this particular machloqes, rather than > defending his shitah in general -- "halakhah kemoso bekhol maqom", > or that it was a test. ... I apologize for not being clear enough. I was not refering to the Bas Kol part of the story. Rather, I was referring to the end of the story, when Eliyahu Hanavi was asked for Hashem's take on the incident, and he quoted Hashem as laughing, "Nitzchuni banai!" Regardless of how the Bas Kol might be interpreted, is there any way to understand "Nitzchuni banai!" other than Hashem personally siding with one of the litigants, and losing? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540c29a485cf429a1a7cst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 04:46:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 11:46:38 GMT Subject: [Avodah] brochos from the amud (was: tefillat haderech) Message-ID: <20150429.074638.25006.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > RYBS ... then continues that the idea of having intent not > to want to do a mitzvah bothers him, and so RYBS said he > says the berakhah on Hallel along with the chazan. (Which > is what my father does, and what I grew up with.) Data point: Although I have not noticed people doing this for the bracha on Hallel, this IS the common practice for the Shehecheyanu at Kol Nidre, at least according to the ArtScroll and Koren machzorim. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540c4bfde4b244bf3c8cst03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 02:53:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 09:53:19 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) Message-ID: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Reposted from Hakhel: > ... Rav Soloveitchik, obviously upset, instead gave Shiur > on the importance of keeping the Tzuras HaTefillah intact. > Shemone Esrei is followed by Chazaras Hashatz, which is > followed by Tachanun, and then followed by Ashrei and U'va' > Letzion--and we do not have the right or privilege of > changing that, he opined. ... R' Ben Waxman asked: > I looked through the Beit Yosef OH 131 where he discusses > the days on which Tachanun isn't said. The BY does not > list all the days that we skip (like Purim Qatan or Pesach > Sheni). These came later. > > So when did this idea (that we can't change when Tachanun > is said or not said) start? I'm not sure if you are asking the correct question. You presume there was a time when Tachanun was *said* on Purim Katan, and then Tachanun was *omitted* on Purim Katan. I see another possibility, but I must point out that this idea stems from my total ignorance of the History Of Tachanun. Perhaps, since the day when Tachanun first began, the list of days has never changed. What did happen (perhaps) is that some places said it on Purim Katan, and some places did not. Over time, the minhag of skipping it spread to more and more places, but that's somewhat different than if a community would suddenly decide that they had a new appreciation for the significance of the day, and hence wanted to stop saying Tachanun. But either way, I'm not sure of the exact nature of RYBS's objection. It is one thing for a community to change its mind about the significance of the day (as in RMB's example of Purim Katan), and quite another for the day itself to acquire a new significance - as in the example of Yom Haatzma'ut. Shulchan Aruch already establishes the ability for a community to establish holidays, and this has been done many times. A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS insist that they say Tachanun on such days? Thus, I am drawn to conclude that RYBS must not be taken as too absolutist. He cannot have meant that the current list of Tachanun days must remain enshrined in stone forever. I beleive that he must have meant that the question of saying Tachanun on Yom Haatzma'ut is a serious one, to be dealt with seriously by the poskim and leaders of the community. Alas, I personally have seen many cases of where it is decided by those who attend the minyan, on a purely emotional basis, with no thought to the halachos involved, and with no consultation with the LOR. On the other hand, among the many tasks the LOR must deal with, is deciding when he should or should not get involved with the tzibur's choices. Although it does not address Tachanun, I would like to close with a reference to The Rav's opinions about a different tefilah which he "opposed, on halachic grounds". R' Mike Gerver wrote on Mail Jewish (http://www.ottmall.com/mj_ht_arch/v38/mj_v38i49.html) in January 2003: > (This is a continuation of my previous e-mail summarizing > the talk given on "The Rav and Medinat Yisrael" by Rabbi > J. J. Shachter on motzei shabbat, Jan. 25, at Lechu > Neranana in Raanana.) > ... ... ... > Rabbi Shachter quoted Rabbi Walter Wurzberger zt"l as > saying that the Rav's attitude toward Israel was > completely opposed to messianism, to the idea that the > founding of the State was an initial step to the geula > [final redemption]. Thus the Rav did not approve of Gush > Emunim. He even opposed, on halachic grounds, saying the > tefillah for the State of Israel in shul on Shabbat > morning, which only speaks of the State as "reishit > tzmichat geulateinu" [the beginning of the sprouting of > our redemption]. Rabbi Shachter, knowing this, assumed > that the tefillah for the State of Israel would not be > said at the Shabbat morning minyan held at Maimonides > School, a minyan that the Rav started in 1962, and which > generally did things according to his minhag. When Rabbi > Shachter was appointed to his position as director of the > Soloveitchik Institute a couple of years ago, and took > over as rabbi of the Maimonides School Shabbat minyan, he > was surprised to find that they were saying the tefillah > for the State of Israel. He asked someone why, and the > answer was interesting. One Shabbat morning, when the Rav > was still alive and in good health, someone started saying > the tefillah for the State of Israel. The Rav turned to > someone next to him and said {Rabbi Shachter imitated the > Rav's accent) "You would have thought they would have > asked me!" That was all. He didn't make any attempt to > stop them from saying the tefillah for the State of Israel, > and didn't think it was his place to ask the congregation > not to say it if they wanted to. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540aa3d6d7282a3d2b95st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 07:23:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 14:23:25 GMT Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith Message-ID: <20150429.102325.12106.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > I picked the one about parallel lines because no one ever > experienced infinitely long parallel lines. They are based > on imagining an extrapolation from experience. Parallel lines are not provable, but it's not because they are based on experience. Rather, they are based on definition. Find a pair of parallel lines that DO meet (such as on a sphere) and we'll simply say, "What I really meant was parallel lines on a *flat* surface." See more at "No true Scotsman". My choice for something which is unprovable because it is based on personal experience is, "Is there someone whom you love? Prove it to me." Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540e9944d22f699426abst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 12:11:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 15:11:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) In-Reply-To: <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> References: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <20150429191153.GG2666@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 08:53:00PM +0200, Ben Waxman wrote: :> #2 A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate :> the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS :> insist that they say Tachanun on such days? : I had the same question. I bet he said tachanun on the Gra's or R' Chaim's (Volozhin or Brisk) yahrzeit, etc... For people who are seeking his pesaq, it's very likely he would inist on Tachanun on days like that. But I think he would refuse to pasqen for them. Implied in your question is that it's a rav's job to comment and rank other derakhim, an idea RYBS did not share. He even limited his own right to 2nd guess a talmid serving as moreh de'asra. (Stories differ as to how much he insisted on such autonomy of the LOR, depending on which student.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 25th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Netzach: When is domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control too extreme? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 11:53:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 20:53:00 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) In-Reply-To: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> On 4/29/2015 11:53 AM, Kenneth Miller wrote: > #1 Perhaps, since the day when Tachanun first began, the list of days > has never changed. What did happen (perhaps) is that some places said it > on Purim Katan, and some places did not. Over time, the minhag of > skipping it spread to more and more places, but that's somewhat > different than if a community would suddenly decide that they had a new > appreciation for the significance of the day, and hence wanted to stop > saying Tachanun. I don't think so. The Rambam, Hilchot Tefila 5:15 lists the days that one doesn't say Tachanun (or nifilat ah'payim in his words) and the list is much more restricted than our list (Shabbat, Chaggim, Rosh Chodesh, Chanukka, Purim, and the Mincha before them). He writes that this is the minhag b'kol yisrael. I am not a Rambam expert so I don't know what to make of those three words (minhag, b'kol yisrael). If it is a minhag does that mean that it can change? What is b'kol yisrael (I realize that at the time of the Rambam, Ashkenaz was the middle of nowhere)? But it would seem from the Rambam that at his time, the Jewish world didn't skip those other days. > #2 A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate > the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS insist > that they say Tachanun on such days? I had the same question. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 12:25:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 15:25:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) In-Reply-To: <20150429191153.GG2666@aishdas.org> References: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> <20150429191153.GG2666@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55413040.4080903@sero.name> On 04/29/2015 03:11 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 08:53:00PM +0200, Ben Waxman wrote: > :> #2 A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate > :> the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS > :> insist that they say Tachanun on such days? > > : I had the same question. > > I bet he said tachanun on the Gra's or R' Chaim's (Volozhin or Brisk) > yahrzeit, etc... For people who are seeking his pesaq, it's very likely > he would inist on Tachanun on days like that. Of course he said tachanun on their yortzeits, why wouldn't he? The whole concept of turning a yortzeit into a holiday wasn't native to his world. The question is what he would do on a day they had been saved from some danger, and had observed as a private yomtov, or on a day that his community had adopted as a local "purim" to commemorate being saved from danger, as was a common practise among Jewish communities. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 30 01:53:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 30 Apr 2015 04:53:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Netziv, Reading Newspapers on Shabbos & Censorship (Part Two) Message-ID: <20150430085311.F372F183218@nexus.stevens.edu> Please see the article at http://tinyurl.com/oqujmba From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 1 10:09:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 1 May 2015 13:09:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] kol isha In-Reply-To: <842c75958dedf20875dfdece45b65e31@aishdas.org> References: <842c75958dedf20875dfdece45b65e31@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150501170943.GA13995@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 30, 2015 at 5:54pm EDT, R Sholom Simon replied to me on Areivim :> The fact that some ... Jews seem to think the gemara :> didn't realy mean it is something the ... community should have a :> cheshbon hanfesh about. : Gemara? Don't the ge'onim take the gemara to : mean that kol isha is a problem during krias sh'ema? (Which is, after : all, the context of its appearance in Berachos). : (Granted, halacha has : gone much further since then, but you were focused on the gemara) You're thinking of Berakhos 24a, where the gemara concludes that R' Yitchaq's tefach be'ishah ervah is to even include one's own wife during qeri'as Shama. (We knew about other women not during qeri'as shema from R' Sheishes.) And then R' Chisda continues with shoq be'ishah, Shemu'el says qol be'ishah ervah and R Sheishes adds sei'ar be'ishah. >From which one may conclude that all of them are in the same context as R' Yitchaq. R' Hai Gaon (Otar haGeonim Berakhos, peirushin #102), R Yehudai Gaon (acc. to the Yeriem 392), the Behag (1:3). the Eshkol (vol 1, pg 15), the Rivra (Berakhos ad loc) and his father (?), Rabbeinu Yonah (17a), the Shitah meQubetzes (ad loc), only speak of this rule WRT qeri'as shema. Interestlingly, one might also have concluded that all of them were about eishes ish, for the same reason that sei'ar be'ishah is only about eishes ish, but I don't think anyone does understand the gemara that way. But there is also Qiddushin 70a, where R' Yehudah refuses to relay regards from R Nachman to Yala (Mrs Nachman) citing Shemu'el's qol be'ishah ervah. It was this gemara I was remembering (due to recently re-encountering it). Pisqei haRid (Berakhos p' 3), Ri haChasid (Berakhos ad loc), Tosafos haRosh (ad loc) and the Rosh (Berakhos 3:37), say the rule is in general. The Rambam has qol be'ishah ervah in Isurei Bi'ah (21:2), not Hil' QS. Similarly the Tur has nothing about it in QS, but has it in EhE 21. (But then, since his father [the Rosh] and the Rambam do the same, that's no surprise.) And from there -- the Rif is silent, the Rambam and the Rosh agree it's in general -- the SA conforms to his rules and prohibits in general. I think it's a machloqes whether we hold like Shemu'el, who was indeed oly talking about Shema (but not only married women) or like R' Yehudah's extrapolation from Shemu'el. Al pi din, we do hold like the gemara in Qidushin. But it's not as much of a given as I had thought when writing. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 27th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in relationship? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 2 12:29:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 02 May 2015 21:29:39 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Kook on Sports Message-ID: <554525A3.2060408@zahav.net.il> He most certainly did! http://www.yeshiva.org.il/midrash/4234 The article is an examination of Rav Kook's writing on the subject. RK very much supported exercise and sport, and of course he opposed breaking Shabbat to play football (soccer). One quote/translation (mine): Exercise . . . .improves the spiritual strength of the greatest tzaddiqim, those involved in the Unification of God's name, including bringing the Light of God into the world, and no revelation of Light can happen without all the required components. Ben On 5/1/2015 3:36 AM, via Areivim wrote: > and I wonder if it is true that Rav Kook ascribed positive value to sports. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 3 03:01:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 3 May 2015 13:01:40 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Michael Avraham Message-ID: After another shiur with R Michael Avraham (RMA) I wish to clear up some of my previous posts. Apologies for repeating some material but I wish to make it self contained. 1) With regard to Pluaralism, Monism and Harmonism these are typologies. As with any typology real people are combinations and pure members of these groups. Avi Sagi has a book on the topic with listing on many reabbis on each side of the topic. Pluralism means that one accepts ALL opinions as true and legitimate. There is no one single truth Certainly as long as it doesn't harm someone else. RMA pointed out that pure pluralism is not consistent as it would mean accepting monism as also a legitimate truth Nevertheless it is popular in some circles 2) Monism says there is only one truth. I accept that one truth based on the normal rules of halacha, eg majority, chazakah etc. Nothing is ever known with 100% certainty both that is irrelevant. 2b) accepting monism (savlanut in Hebrew) . Though there is only one truth we accommodate those within a certain radius of the real truth even though they are wrong Normally we view pluralism as being more "mekil" than monism. However he considered the case of giving someone food that I consider kosher and he doesn't . The pluralist won't do it because his position is also truth and he doesnt consider the food kosher. However the pure monist has no trouble giving it to someone else. He is wrong and I am right and so the food is kosher (again the fact that he might be right is irrelevant - a bet din can kill based on rov and certainly for shabbat and kosher food we work on majority) The accepting monist won't give the food to someone else. Even though he is wrong I respect his being wrong as long as he is within my radius - ie he relies on someone I consider legitimate and not just an idiotic opinion. OTOH I would give him the food if I feel his "chumra" is too wild fetched and beyond my radius as distinct from the pluralist 3) Harmonism states that both sides are only part of the real truth. Rav Kook and others bring the second gemara about "Elu V-elu". The gemara in Gittin discusses why the man from Binyamin killed his mistress)(pilegesh be-givah) - after an amoraic argument the truth was both were right either because he found a fly in his soup but got angry only he found a hair in the soup. So both views were ight and "Elu V-elu" Based on this RMA had a different interpretation of the argument between Bet Hillel and Bet Shamai Both sides presented arguments supporting their position. Both sides agreed that all the arguments were legitimate. However, in the end one has to make a decision when there are legitimate arguments on both sides and Bet Shamai and Bet Hillel arrived at opposite conclusins. The Harmonism implies that both sides have legitimate arguments. Hoever, in the end there is only one truth that comes out of contradictory arguments. The harmonism means that both sides are right (pluralism) on the basic stands. But only one side is right (monism) in the final decision. As stated before the one truth is found based on standard halachic grounds. Nothing is ever known 100% but that doesnt matter. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 3 18:46:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 11:46:53 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] A halachic problem in measuring wholemeal flour Message-ID: I have recently become aware of a practical halachic problem with measuring wholemeal flour for the shiurim of challah and the kezeitim of matzot mitzva. I don't think this issue is generally recognised, and I hope Areivim members will be able to bring it to appropriate authorities' attention. Traditional flour mills produced a mixture of white flour and bran by grinding whole grains between millstones. This mixture was sifted to produce finer or coarser grades of flour by removing more or less bran, respectively. Halachically, the bran that is removed has changed its status: dough produced from bran is not subject to challah. Furthermore, mixing bran back into its flour does not restore its status: the bran and flour are not "mitztaref". (See Challah 2:6) This was not an issue with traditional mills: nobody would sift bran out of flour and then ruin the white flour by replacing the bran. This is not the case today, though. Modern flour mills do not grind flour between stones. They use a series of graduated rollers that crack the grain into progressively-smaller particles, and the bran is separated off at an early stage of the process. Millers make wholemeal flour by adding bran back to the fine flour near the end of the milling process. You can find a description and video of the process here: http://www.fabflour.co.uk/fab-flour/how-flour-is-milled/ If modern wholemeal flour is halachically considered a mixture of flour and bran, as it seems, then to be obliged in challah one would need a greater shiur of wholemeal than of regular flour, and to fulfil one?s obligation of eating matza one would need to eat more than a kezayit of wholemeal matza. (See S.A. Y.D. 324:3 and M.A. & SAHR O.C 454:1,2) It is not possible to state a definite ratio of bran to white flour, as this will vary between species of grain and between varieties of each species. The relevant shiurim are not measured by weight but by volume, which is affected by the fineness of the bran compared to the fineness of the white flour. Furthermore, the amount of grain removed as bran will depend on the operation of the mill. My research indicates that up to a quarter of each grain of wheat (by weight) consists of bran. If we take this as a rule of thumb then a shiur of wholemeal wheat flour would be one and a third times as large as a shiur of white flour. As a practical matter, I think people making wholemeal bread should probably avoid doubt and bake either less than a minimal shiur (for which, consult your LOR) or bake sufficiently more than one and a third shiurim. Many people deliberately try to use enough flour to require the taking of challah: they consequently use just over a regular shiur and need to be warned about this. With respect to wholemeal matzot mitzva, I presume that people would have noticed and queried any reintroduction of bran to flour ground using modern methods. None the less, it would be very good to establish this for each bakery. Joe Slater Melbourne, Australia -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 3 20:42:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 06:42:58 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RMA Message-ID: On another issue I had quoted RMA as saying that one who doesnt believe in a creator has no punishment or reward for keeping mitzvot. After 120 years he will be punished only for being an atheist but for each individual sin. Hence, there is no problem of "lifne iver" . In particular in the frequent case a religious doctor can ask an atheist to take over for him on shabbat (wouldnt apply to a chiloni doctor who does beleive in G-d) This applies only to mitzvot like shabbat. Of course an atheist can't claim that he is not bound by sins like murder because he doesnt believe in G-d. An atheist will be punished for all moral sins that he commits and all usual laws of :lifne iver" etc apply to all moral commandments. ------------------------ He is now starting a series on religious autonomy. In particular he holds that one goes to a rabbi for a psak only if he is in doubt. If one has seriously learned the halachaot and is convinced of the "truth" then he should follow his own psak and there is no need to go to a "higher authority". He was asked what if the personal psak goes against the generally accepted psak. His answer was that in theory the same holds. However, a person should have enough humility that if he is a "daas yachid" he better be awfully sure that he is right. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 04:47:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 11:47:38 GMT Subject: [Avodah] A married sister Message-ID: <20150504.074738.29327.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, and becomes part of her husband's family. Thus, she is no longer part of her brother's family. But what about her father? According to the above logic, her father may not be m'tamei for her either. And in fact, she *has* left her father's family in the sense that if her husband is not a kohen, then she has been disallowed terumah ever since the wedding. Yet the halacha is that her father *may* be m'tamei for her, despite that change in status. So, in very simple terms, here's my question: If a Bas Kohen is married and then dies, why is it that her father may attend the funeral, but her brother may not? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55475caae730f5caa5375st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 07:42:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 17:42:10 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] A halachic problem in measuring wholemeal flour In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, May 4, 2015 at 4:46 AM, Joe Slater via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > I have recently become aware of a practical halachic problem with > measuring wholemeal flour for the shiurim of challah and the kezeitim of > matzot mitzva. I don't think this issue is generally recognised, and I hope > Areivim members will be able to bring it to appropriate authorities' > attention. > > Traditional flour mills produced a mixture of white flour and bran by > grinding whole grains between millstones. This mixture was sifted to > produce finer or coarser grades of flour by removing more or less bran, > respectively. Halachically, the bran that is removed has changed its > status: dough produced from bran is not subject to challah. Furthermore, > mixing bran back into its flour does not restore its status: the bran and > flour are not "mitztaref". (See Challah 2:6) > > This was not an issue with traditional mills: nobody would sift bran out > of flour and then ruin the white flour by replacing the bran. This is not > the case today, though. > Just a thought: perhaps the halacha that the bran and flour are not mitztaref depended on the metziu't that nobody would return bran to white flour? So if returning the bran to the flour is now the normal way of producing wholemeal flour, maybe today they are mitztaref? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 09:45:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 12:45:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs In-Reply-To: <20150330.221259.10345.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 11:47:38AM +0000, RAM wrote on the thread "A married sister": : In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself : for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I : used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves : the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, : and becomes part of her husband's family... But Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 02:12:59AM +0000, RAM wrote on this subject: > I once heard an interesting argument against Rav Moshe's logic on > this point. He is viewing the wife as the one who is moving to a new > location, but we have an explicit pasuk that takes the opposite view: > Bereshis 2:24 - "Therefore, a man will desert his father and his mother, > and stick to his wife." (The woman may of may not leave her parents, > but the man explicitly does.) > Granted that there are other arguments for the wife taking the husband's > minhagim - terumah is the first that comes to my mind. But if Rav Moshe's > main argument is Minhag Hamakom, I wonder how he would have defended it > against this pasuk. Anyone else see one answering the other? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 30th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Hod: When does capitulation Fax: (270) 514-1507 result in holding back from others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 10:11:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 04 May 2015 13:11:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs In-Reply-To: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> On 05/04/2015 12:45 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 11:47:38AM +0000, RAM wrote on the thread > "A married sister": > : In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself > : for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I > : used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves > : the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, > : and becomes part of her husband's family... > > But Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 02:12:59AM +0000, RAM wrote on this subject: >> I once heard an interesting argument against Rav Moshe's logic on >> this point. He is viewing the wife as the one who is moving to a new >> location, but we have an explicit pasuk that takes the opposite view: >> Bereshis 2:24 - "Therefore, a man will desert his father and his mother, >> and stick to his wife." (The woman may of may not leave her parents, >> but the man explicitly does.) > >> Granted that there are other arguments for the wife taking the husband's >> minhagim - terumah is the first that comes to my mind. But if Rav Moshe's >> main argument is Minhag Hamakom, I wonder how he would have defended it >> against this pasuk. > > Anyone else see one answering the other? Not at all. Her father must still become tamei for her. Only her brothers may not. What's more, suppose her husband dies without issue. She returns to her father's house, and is once more entitled to eat terumah and kodshim. Now suppose the father dies; she continues to eat the terumah and kodshim that her brothers bring home. When she dies the brothers are the only people left who sit shiva for her, and yet they are not allowed to become tamei for her unless there is literally nobody else who can do it! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 10:24:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 17:24:33 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs Message-ID: <20150504.132433.5362.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger asked: > Anyone else see one answering the other? You make a good point, but as I see it, they don't *answer* each other as much as they illustrate how complicated this subject is. For example, consider the case of a Bas Kohen who marries a Yisrael, or a Bas Yisrael who marries a Kohen. Her status changes upon marriage, but it will revert upon the death of her husband. - Unless there is a child, in which case her status will *not* revert. - Unless the child died too, in which case her status *will* revert. - Unless there is a grandchild, in which case she keeps her status even though her own child did not survive. (I probably messed up some of those details, but my point is that itis a very complex topic.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5547ab96da8f82b966b58st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 11:01:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 14:01:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A married sister Message-ID: <1fbaa.22f534a3.42790de1@aol.com> From: Kenneth Miller via Avodah In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, and becomes part of her husband's family. Thus, she is no longer part of her brother's family. But what about her father? [snip] So, in very simple terms, here's my question: If a Bas Kohen is married and then dies, why is it that her father may attend the funeral, but her brother may not? Akiva Miller >>>>> I don't know why the bond between brother and sister seems to be lessened when the sister marries, but we do have other evidence that the bond between father and daughter is never severed: If a man has no sons, only daughters, his daughters inherit his property -- even if they are married. The fact that they are married does not annul the fact that they are still his daughters. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 12:50:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 22:50:54 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith Message-ID: <> A more practical problem based on personal experience is that of defining colors (to a human not in terms of wavelengths). There is no way for 2 people to confirm they are seeing the same colors. One practical application is to examining cloths for a niddah - ketem. I again refer to an article in Keren Zavit by Nadav Shinrav on parshat tazria In particular I learned that brown is not a color -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 13:43:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 16:43:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150504204354.GA2628@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 10:50:54PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : A more practical problem based on personal experience is that of defining : colors (to a human not in terms of wavelengths). There is no way for 2 : people to confirm they are seeing the same colors. Even further: there is no wavelength corrsponding to pink or brown, they only exist as our mind combines wavelengths. Pink is weirder, because it resides on the color wheel where you would glue the two extremes of the spectrum together to close the circle. Colors other than the three in the middle of the sensitivity range of each of the types of cone in your eye can be seen two ways. For example: you could make orange by mixing two parts red with one part green, or by looking at light of one color, that is at the right frequency to trigger your red cones twice as much as they trigger the green. The topic we're discussing is qualia, and color is a favorite sort of quale to use for illustration (pun intended). A quale is the "what it's like to see red". In my example about orange, we have two different physics, but both could end up producing the same experience, the same exact shade and brightness of orange. So orange is not 1:1 any specific wavelength. Asude from the question RET raises, a popular thought experiment among philosophers is Mary the Color Scientist (Frank Jackson 1982): Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor. She specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose, all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes, or the sky, and use terms like 'red', 'blue', and so on. She discovers, for example, just which wavelength combinations from the sky stimulate the retina, and exactly how this produces via the central nervous system the contraction of the vocal chords and expulsion of air from the lungs that results in the uttering of the sentence 'The sky is blue'.... What will happen when Mary is released from her black and white room or is given a color television monitor? Will she learn anything or not? It seems just obvious that she will learn something about the world and our visual experience of it. But then is it inescapable that her previous knowledge was incomplete. But she had all the physical information. Ergo there is more to have than that, and Physicalism is false. And so Jackson concludes that the world can't be reduced to physics. This is also what I was talking about when I referred to justifying a belief based on comparing imagination to memory. Koach hadimyon does mean "imagination", but what Ariso meant by Imagination, or the rishonim by dimyon, includes qualia in general. The image of red while you're seeing it, not just when you're dreaming it up. And I would argue that even when we make rigorous logical proofs, those proofs are conclusions drawn from a set of givens, and those givens end up resting on koach hadimyon anyway. The formally proven theological statement is therefore less conclusive than one based on an appeal to dimyon directly, such as R' Aqiva's argument. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 30th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Hod: When does capitulation Fax: (270) 514-1507 result in holding back from others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 15:25:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 04 May 2015 18:25:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs In-Reply-To: <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> Message-ID: <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> On 05/04/2015 01:11 PM, I wrote: > > What's more, suppose her husband dies without issue. She returns to her > father's house, and is once more entitled to eat terumah and kodshim. This is not quite correct. She returns to eat teruma, but not kodshim. "Milechem, velo kol lechem". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 16:07:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Mon, 04 May 2015 19:07:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy In-Reply-To: <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> Message-ID: <5547FB97.5020203@aishdas.org> Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, d'hashta) would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? Thanks! KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 18:11:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 01:11:49 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy Message-ID: <20150504.211149.15174.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer asked: > Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, > d'hashta) would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? My first knee-jerk reaction is to say that they DON'T relate. Chazakos are all about law, and what the law will *presume* the reality to have been. We found a piece of meat on the street, or we bought it and forgot where, or any of a million similar questions. We don't really know whether it is kosher or not, and to a certain extent we don't really care. What we really care about is whether halacha allows us to *presume* that it is kosher. Schroedinger's Cat and similar ventures are attempts to establish what the *reality* is. The Cat is a thought experiment, but do not make the mistake of thinking that it is mere philosophizing. The whole point of the experiment is to establish what is really and actually happening inside the box, and the answer (that they've come up with) is that two contradictory truths (the cat is alive, the cat is dead) are both true at the same time. This is a question of physics and reality, not a question of legal presumptions. The subject line of this thread says that you're "looking for help with an analogy". Could you tell us more about what you're working on? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5548190613cab19056408st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 19:10:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rafael Jason Hecht via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 22:10:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How Kosher is the Kosher Switch? Message-ID: Last Motzei Shabbos I was among the crowd that was saying Kiddush Levana out in the open. While davening I overheard someone making a joke about using a Kosher Switch (my guess was to place light on the outside so people could better read). I did my own reading and research before that and couldn't tell if the gentleman was joking or being serious. To put it lightly, the development and marketing Kosher Switch has caused a major controversy in the Torah Jewish community. The Kosher Switch, a device purportedly meant to ease the constraints of Sabbath observance, is not the first of its kind. The Grama switch by Zomet Institute, as well as the Zman switch have been created for emergency situations of pikuach nefesh. However, this switch has caused an uproar in the Jewish community. Why? Before going on, let me state that while I am far from an expert in the field of electrical engineering or Hilchos Shabbos (nor am I a certified Rabbi), I treasure Shabbos and am always looking for ways to enhance it. That said, I did my own personal research and humbly present my findings. Before I go on, let me first state that the topic of electricity on Shabbos is far more extensive than what I'm laying out, and that I am not (intentionally) offering my own Psak, just a compilation of "what's out there." Read more: http://www.mywesternwall.net/2015/04/30/how-kosher-is-the-kosher-switch.html Best Regards, Rafi Hecht *rhecht at gmail.com* ------------------------------------------------------- *LinkedIN:* *http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rafihecht* *Facebook:* *http://www.facebook.com/rhecht* *Twitter:* *https://www.twitter.com/#!/rafihecht* *Personal Site:* *www.rafihecht.com* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 12:47:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Shalom Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 22:47:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired Message-ID: I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a woman is owned by her husband, the language of the Mishna notwithstanding. Can anyone point to a clear statement by Hazal or rishonim that supports my supposition? My thanks, Shalom Z. Berger -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 13:51:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 16:51:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150505205140.GA20122@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 05, 2015 at 10:47:20PM +0300, Shalom Berger via Avodah wrote: : I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a : woman is owned by her husband, the language of the Mishna notwithstanding. : Can anyone point to a clear statement by Hazal or rishonim that supports my : supposition? First, the halakhos of qiddushin do not conform to that of purchase. Qinyan is a broader concept than purchase; for example, not that long ago you probably performed a qinyan sudar to appoint your rav as a shaliach to sell your chameitz. Some differences: - no din of ona'ah, a shaveh perutah is sufficient for all - you give the perutah to the woman, not her former "owner" - she has to agree to the qinyan, despite not being the former "owner" - she has to make a qinyan on the money - money needn't exchange hands; she could pardon a loan to effect a marriage. However, qinyan bekesef does require such an exchange. - Hilkhos gittin is a lot more complicated than just calling hefqer. - the wife gets to decide whether to give him her earnings in exchange for being supported. If she were property, he would get her earnings wheter or not *he* chose to support here. Now that I got that out of my system, to answer your question: Qiddushin 6b: ... and if an eved kenaani, whose body he was qoneh, if he says to him [in a shetar shichrur] "you are hereby your own" it means legmaei, ishah DELO QANI LEIH GUFAH, lo qol shekein! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 31st day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Hod: What level of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 results in harmony and balance? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 12:12:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 15:12:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun Message-ID: In Avodah V33n70, RZS responded to R'Micha: >> I bet [RYBS] said tachanun on the Gra's or R' Chaim's (Volozhin or Brisk) >> yahrzeit, etc... For people who are seeking his pesaq, it's very likely >> he would insist on Tachanun on days like that. > Of course he said tachanun on their yortzeits, why wouldn't he? The whole > concept of turning a yortzeit into a holiday wasn't native to his world. > The question is what he would do on a day they had been saved from some > danger, and had observed as a private yomtov, or on a day that his > community had adopted as a local "purim" to commemorate being saved from > danger, as was a common practise among Jewish communities. ...or on Pesach Sheini? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 11:47:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 05 May 2015 13:47:08 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Tree of 40 Fruits Message-ID: <5549102C.40808@starways.net> http://www.sciencealert.com/news/20142107-25892.html What's the halakha regarding eating fruit from one of these trees? Since the grafting was done by a non-Jew, is it okay to eat? Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 14:01:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 21:01:39 GMT Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired Message-ID: <20150505.170139.16146.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Shalom Berger wrote: <<< I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a woman is owned by her husband, ... >>> That depends on what you mean by "own". I own my shoes. This gives me certain rights, such as wearing them to the exclusion of anyone else, or the choice of who I might lend them to. I also have certain responsibilities; I cannot simply destroy them for no reason. I own my tefillin too. But the things I can do with my tefillin are much more limited than whast I can do with my shoes. I have certain rights and responsibilities vis a vis my wife as well. Do I own her? I don't know. Is there a real nafka mina, or is it just semantics? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55492fe2678522fe2353bst03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 15:46:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 05 May 2015 18:46:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Scrolling Down the Pages of Jewish History Message-ID: <20150505224615.83B27181E37@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/ocl2bqe his story appears in R. Yechiel Spero?s Pesach Haggadah: Touched by Our Story (pp. 88-91) and is republished here with permission from the copyright holders (ArtScroll / Mesorah Publications, Ltd.). The pictures below ? of the Tur Shulchan Aruch (printed in Berlin 1702) which belonged to Rabbi Yaakov Emden (Germany, 1697-1776) ? were taken by R. Akiva Males, and are republished with permission of Columbia University?s Rare Book and Manuscript Library. See the above URL for much more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 00:23:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 03:23:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] All About Tehillim Message-ID: <20150506072350.7A9B4181522@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/mxoucvn From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 02:02:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 05:02:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Disappearing Doctor of Iyyar: Virtual Vanishing of a Venerable Minhog Message-ID: <20150506090255.CB5C5182D80@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/mdz6883 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 03:13:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 06:13:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Disappearing Doctor of Iyyar: Virtual Vanishing of a Venerable Minhog In-Reply-To: <20150506090255.CB5C5182D80@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150506090255.CB5C5182D80@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150506101327.GA19813@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 06, 2015 at 05:02:54AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : See http://tinyurl.com/mdz6883 Quoting the Treasures of Ashkenaz blog [transliterations mine]: > The aleph stands for ani, the two yuds for HQBH, and the reish? fo > rofekha. The month is thereby depicted as a month of healing. The vort > seemingly is based on an old minhog of many generations among Yidden, > in which the letters yud-yud (sans hyphen) are used to represent the > venerated name of Hashem However, even yud-yud is not the original minhag. In older manuscripts they used three yuds, with the middle one slightly above the line, making a triangle. Preserved in this printed edition of Siddur R' Saadia Gaon . I suggested two possible reasons for the third yud's disappearance: - The printing press made that middle yud hard to insert into books, because it would require a special letter in the type box. I find this one less than compelling, because they kept an alef-lamed ligature in the type box, and that got less usage. - Xians read their own significance into the three letters. This would be clearner, if there were any evidence of them actually doing so. So the two-yud notation was just one step along the way. The general question of why non-chassidic Ashkenazim (or non-Chida-influenced Sepharadim) suddenly started writing out the sheim in siddurim is compelling, but the two-yud notation isn't necessarily some venerable alternative. The three yuds was often explained as beind the initial letters of Birkhas Kohanim; the yuds from Yevarekhekha, Ya'er, and Yisa. Some suggest that the two yuds represent the first and last letters of an intertwined sheim havayah and sheim adnus: YUD alef HEI dalet ... HEI yud. Itself heavily al pi qabbalah. And associating the two yuds with the transliteration into Hebrew of an Akkadian month name (Ayyaru = n. blossom) requires even more omnisignificance and mysticism than does finding significance in presenting sheim havayah written out. Where I really see this change as a problem is not because of venerable minhagim, but because books have less shelf life now than in the past. Cheap printing means also cheaper paper, not to mention faster replacement. And if generations past wanted to minimize their sheimos problems, al achas kamah vekamah we should. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 00:31:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 10:31:51 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: In some circles it is common for men to keep long peyot (as an aside it has become common also in some chardal circles) The book Keren Zavit says he doesn't understand the custom. The problem is not in long sidebruns but rather that the hair from under the ear rarely grows long. The long "peyot" usually grow from hair above the ear and so has no connection to peyot and in fact come from part of the head where there is no prohibition to shave -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 06:38:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Shalom Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 16:38:38 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired In-Reply-To: <20150505205140.GA20122@aishdas.org> References: <20150505205140.GA20122@aishdas.org> Message-ID: While Micha is correct that the Gemara clearly states "ishah DELO QANI LEIH GUFAH" and that there are many, many differences between true ownership and marriage, this does not keep the Tosafot HaRosh (Ketubot 2a sv Nistahpa Sadeihu) from concluding: "ha-isha kinyan kaspo shel ha-ish kemo avdo ve-shoro va-hamoro." I would like to find a source in the rishonim that clearly rejects the approach of the Tosafot HaRosh. Shalom Rabbi Shalom Z. Berger, Ed.D. The Lookstein Center for Jewish Education Bar-Ilan University http://www.lookstein.org https://www.facebook.com/groups/lookjed/ Follow me on Twitter: @szberger NETWORK*LEARN*GROW From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 09:26:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 12:26:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tree of 40 fruits Message-ID: The question was asked, "What's the halakha regarding eating fruit from one of these trees? Since the grafting was done by a non-Jew, is it okay to eat?" The only issur achila of kilayim is kilei hakerem. Anything else may be eaten. With regard to the fruits of a graft, the explicit halacha in Yoreh Deiah (295:7) is that it may be eaten even by the one who violated the prohibition by performing the graft. (That halacha also continues that one may take a branch from the graft and plant it.) As to the original question about the potato-tomato combination, grafting is prohibited: even though neither is a tree (295:3), but as above, the resulting product may be eaten. EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 10:28:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 13:28:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs Message-ID: The din of a kohein's daughter not eating t'ruma upon marriage to a non-kohein was mentioned in conjunction with this topic. However, I submit that perquisites of k'huna are unrelated to the adoption of one's spouse's customs. How else can we understand the din that a person can give the parts of a slaughtered animal due to the kohein (z'roa, l'chayayim v'keiva) even to a kohein's daughter married to a Yisraeil, or, for that matter, even to her Yisraeil husband (and according to one opinion, the same is true for pidyon habein)? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 10:37:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 13:37:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy Message-ID: <72706.56a00b87.427bab69@aol.com> From: Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, d'hashta) would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? Thanks! KT, YGB >>>>> Not sure where you're going with this but you seem to be saying that chazakos have no independent, objective reality. That a chazaka is in the eye of the beholder. Oops. Looks like you've let the cat out of the bag... --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 11:13:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 14:13:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Strange History of Lag B'Omer Message-ID: <20150506181455.D4FFC1836BF@nexus.stevens.edu> There is an interesting talk by Dr. Shnayer Leiman with the above title at http://yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/734356/ Yitzchok Levine -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 11:48:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 14:48:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy In-Reply-To: <5547FB97.5020203@aishdas.org> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> <5547FB97.5020203@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150506184838.GA4624@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 7:07pm EDT, RYGB wrote: : Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, d'hashta) : would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? Quantum Uncertainty is more similar to rov than chazaqah. And it could model how we can embrace conflicting majorities. Such as in the case of two pieces of shuman and one of cheilev, and being able to eat all three one after the other. (Or perhaps even in a ta'aroves, but that just complicates the picture.) It would fit if we treat the physical state of each piece of fat as ( 2 |shuman> + |cheilev) / 3 rather than as a 67% chance of being shuman. And then those things that were observed are immune from such weirdness, much like qavu'ah. That said: The notion that wavefunction collapse is due to observation, the Copenhagen Interpretation, was once taken as a given. But alternatives involving entanglement, wave function collapse, multiuniverse theory, etc.. have been gaining ground for decades. This parallel to qavu'ah could be illusory. On Tue, May 05, 2015 at 1:11am GMT, R Akive Miller wrote: : My first knee-jerk reaction is to say that they DON'T relate. Chazakos : are all about law, and what the law will *presume* the reality to have : been... : Schroedinger's Cat and similar ventures are attempts to establish what : the *reality* is... I am very inclined to agree. R' Aqiva Eiger (teshuvah $136) makes a chiluq between sefeiqos in the metzi'us and sefeiqos in din. Rov holds when we have sefeiqos in the metzi'us. So we can pasqen about something that is rov-kasher. But if someone knew the metzi'us, then there was a din established for the fat. Now that we don't know what it was, we have a safeiq as to what that din is. LAD, the whole thing is about human experience. See , which has 10 posts covering things like chazaqah (both types), rov, qavu'ah, terei mekei'ah (which I argue ignores rov for the same reason as qavu'ah), nosein ta'am, using tequfas Shemu'el for birkhas hachamah, microsopic bugs etc.... The hashkafic premise is that the goal of halakhah is to shape the self (whether into a tamim, a shelaim, to acheive deveiqus, etc...) And therefore the metzi'us a din has to work with is how we experience reality (and thus birur when we're in doubt) and how we can experience it (only visible bugs count). And not how the universe works in ways we can only understand in the abstract. The most lomdishe consequence of my whole edifice is that it manages to explain why a chazaqah trumps a migo in a case where there are also trei utrei eidim, but why a migo trumps a chazaqah when there are no eidim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 12:13:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 15:13:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150506191353.GB4624@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 06, 2015 at 10:31:51AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : The book Keren Zavit says he doesn't understand the custom. The problem is : not in long sidebruns but rather that the hair from under the ear rarely : grows long. The long "peyot" usually grow from hair above the ear and so : has no connection to peyot and in fact come from part of the head where : there is no prohibition to shave The custom is shared by Chassidim, Chidah-influenced Sepharadim (those with many Qabbalah-based pesaqim) and Teimanim. So there seems to be an ancient maqor unrelated to any reasons given al pi qabbalah by the first two groups. R' Chaim Kanievsky is a living example of a minhag/hanhagah that was once more common -- not combing one's peyos because of the hairs plucked out. Rav Dovid Lifshitz, so now we're talking Litta, had two thick blocks of hair going back from his temples to over his ear. According to the SA YD 181:9, peyos run as high as the hairline above the forehead until the bottom of the ear, where the earlobe detaches from the face. So the prohibition does include the area the KZ is asking about -- there are inches of hair between the top of the ear until you get parallel to the hairline. And this is the very area that the majority of the hair in long peyos grows from. I therefore don't understand the KZ's question. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 12:40:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 22:40:23 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: >From : B. Highest Point. The location of the highest point on the head that the peyos extend is described in Shulchan Aruch (181:9) as "across from the hair on is forehead". There are two basic opinions as to the precise location the Shulchan Aruch refers to: 1. Rabbi Yisroel Belsky (Shulchan Halevi page 122) writes that he had heard directly from Rav Yakov Kaminetzky zt"l that the upper limit of the peyos ha'rosh begins "at the highest point of the hairline as it arches over the ear and extends in a slightly curved line across to where the hairline of the forehead turns sharply downwards towards the sideburns. All the hair from the imaginary line that connect these two points and below comprises the peyos ha'rosh". 2. Rabbi Belsky also quotes "some rabbonim have a mesora, a tradition from their Rabbis, that the peyos do not extend above the upper cartilage of the ear (tenuch ha'ozen) at all. According to their mesorah, the imaginary line extends horizontally from the point in the hairline above the foremost part of ear almost until where the downward slope of the frontal hairline angles back towards the ear. For a picture see -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 13:42:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joel Schnur via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 16:42:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun Message-ID: <554A7CBF.3020300@schnurassociates.com> No one says tachnun on the Gra's yarhzeit. it's 3rd day chol hamoed succos ___________________________ Joel Schnur, Senior VP Government Affairs/Public Relations Schnur Associates, Inc. 25 West 45th Street, Suite 1405 New York, NY 10036 Tel. 212-489-0600 x204 Fax. 212-489-0203 joel at schnurassociates.com www.schnurassociates.com http://www.schnurassociates.com/joels-corner/ From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 14:13:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 17:13:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired In-Reply-To: <20150505.170139.16146.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150505.170139.16146.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150506211338.GB27781@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 5, 2015 at 9:01pm GMT, R Akiva Miller wrote: :> I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that :> a woman is owned by her husband, ... : That depends on what you mean by "own". : : I own my shoes. This gives me certain rights... I suggested more than once in the past that baalus has more to do with responsibility than western notions of property. Which is why yorshim do not inherit chameitz on Pesach. Even though the father owned chameitz in the sense of bal yeira'eh bal yimatzei, he lacked ba'alus at the time of his passing. Or why a rentor has a chiyuv to hang a mezuzah -- he has some measure of ba'alus, despite not being an owner. RAF (CCed) shared my post on Facebook, and since I have no idea what can be seen by the public, I'll paraphrase a couple of responses I thought would be of interest. On my line that "qinyan is a broader concept than purchase", one person compared the mishnah in Avos "qeneih lekha chaver". This morning, at 8:59am PDT, R Shalom Z Berger asked for a rishon who clearly rejected the Tosafos haRosh's statement (Kesuvos 2a "nitapecha sadeihu) that "ha'ishah qinyan kaspo shel ha'ish, kemo avdo veshoro vechamoro". Someone else on FB noted that the Rashba, in his chiddushim on the first pereq of Qiddushin, repeatedly points out that all the rishonim other than the Rosh reject the idea out of hand. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 15:09:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 15:09:17 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes Message-ID: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Shabbat-microphones-catching-on-among-orthodox-despite-taboos-402173 i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at hadchak /bedieved -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 17:12:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 20:12:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150507001204.GA31766@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 06, 2015 at 03:09:17PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Shabbat-microphones-catching-on-among-orthodox-despite-taboos-402173 : : i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at hadchak /bedieved Gerama devices, yes. But a passive element microphone feeding a PA system that is never entirely off -- so it's never turned off or on -- and has no lit indicators is an entirely different beast. (Most microphones generate current when vibrated; a passive element microphone changes resistance.) Still not an open-and-shut heter, as this article makes it sound. And there are more grounds for Sepharadim to be meiqil then Ashkenazim, based on a machloqes between the Mechaber and the Rama in OC 252:5. R' Ovadia was matir. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 18:18:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 01:18:22 GMT Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes Message-ID: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> R' Saul Newman asked: > i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at > hadchak /bedieved I've never read any of their material, but I'm pretty sure that they have MANY halachic "tools" in their arsenal, and not all of them carry the same restrictions. For example, a grama switch would only be useful for a very limited number of situations, as would a pen that writes with disappearing ink. But if you can make an electronic device that generates zero heat and zero light, it just *might* be acceptable for general use. Exhibit A: Hearing aids. I'll admit that a hearing aid is not the same thing as a loudspeaker system. But without getting into a whole discussion, the only point I'm making is that you have to look at the thing, and not just reject it out of hand. One might say that "Hearing aids are by definition for a shaas hadchak; how can this technology help the average person? So I bring you Exhibit B: Sabbath Mode ovens. Without any doubt, one DOES manipulate the electric circuit with these gadgets. If not on Shabbos, then at least on Yom Tov. But I think that the real answer to your question might be: "If the people in shul can't hear the rabbi or the chazan, that IS a shaas hadchak." In any case, about 15 years ago I happened to spend Shabbos at a shul that used one of these systems, and there were two large notices by the entrance to the main sanctuary, pointing out that the system was designed by Zomet. If I remember correctly, there was also a letter on the wall giving more halachic details about it. Which is the bigger chumra: To avoid using such devices, or to insure that even the hard-of-hearing can follow hear? Or, if you prefer, which is the bigger kula: To use such devices, or to disenfranchise part of the tzibur? (I'm not taking sides, just illustrating the issues. If you want answers, ask your LOR.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554abd8864c633d88019cst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 18:45:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 01:45:24 GMT Subject: [Avodah] The Disappearing Doctor of Iyyar: Virtual Vanishing of a Venerable Minhog Message-ID: <20150506.214524.14329.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitzchok Levine posted: > See http://tinyurl.com/mdz6883 That article has only slight relevance to anything medical. It is actually about the practice of abbreviating HaShem's Name with a double (or triple) Yud in siddurim, and how this practice is losing ground recently, with more siddurim using the Four-Lettered Name. That article says: > ... even in the printing of siddurim, where in the past, Shem > Hashem was not written out explicitly, based on venerable, old > practice. In other words, the spelling out of the letters, Yud > ? Kay ? Vov ? Kay in the past was done in Biblical texts, such > as Sifrei Torah and Sifrei Nach. In texts of tefilos, however, > it was not done. Instead, Yud ? Yud was substituted. I am very curious why this distinction was made, that the siddurim use the Yuds, while the printed Tanachs do use the Four Lettered Name. I note that towards the end of that article, he refers to an "Azharah L'Madfisim (Warning To Printers)" on this topic, written by the son-in-law of the Nesivos Hamishpat. Curiously, he writes that the Two Yuds should be printed in siddurim *and* *chumashim*. On the other hand, a few lines later, the Azharah explains a point I've long wondered about. The Four Lettered Name is just one of the *seven* Names Which May Not Be Erased. Why did this abbreviation arise for the Four Lettered Name and not for any of the others? I always figured it was because this one is *truly* a Name; "the Most Holy among equals" one might say. But the Azharah gives an entirely different explanation. Namely, the difference between this Name and the other six is that no matter how you spell it, it is not to be pronounced normally, so what is to be gained by using the correct letters? Therefore, find an abbreviation of some sort for this one, but the others should be spelled as they will be pronounced. Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554ac3e5a6e0843e34b38st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 19:34:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 22:34:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: <85279.31aefae5.427c294a@aol.com> From: Eli Turkel via Avodah In some circles it is common for men to keep long peyot (as an aside it has become common also in some chardal circles) The book Keren Zavit says he doesn't understand the custom.... -- Eli Turkel >>>> Yemenites have long payos, so this must be a very old custom, not some recent chumra. They don't call them "payos" but "simanim," which I find charming. They are signs that a man is a Jew, proud and obvious signs. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 02:13:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 12:13:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: In addition to the points brought up by R' Eli Turkel against long peyot, I would like to raise the following: The shiur given by all of the poskim for each hair is very very short, and in fact because it is a lo taase there is probably not even an inyan of hidur mitzvah. Therefore it is not clear why there would be any inyan to grow long peyot. The truth is it would be much better to be machmir on the shiur of where peyot harosh ends (maybe the very bottom of the ear) which is a safek issur d'oraysa then to grow long peyot which has no kiyum al pi din. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 20:33:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 23:33:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired Message-ID: <86422.6a1e08b9.427c3711@aol.com> [1] I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a woman is owned by her husband, the language of the Mishna notwithstanding. Can anyone point to a clear statement by Hazal or rishonim that supports my supposition? My thanks, Shalom Z. Berger [2] I own my shoes. This gives me certain rights, such as wearing them to the exclusion of anyone else, or the choice of who I might lend them to. I also have certain responsibilities; I cannot simply destroy them for no reason. I own my tefillin too. But the things I can do with my tefillin are much more limited than what I can do with my shoes. I have certain rights and responsibilities vis a vis my wife as well. Do I own her? I don't know. Is there a real nafka mina, or is it just semantics? Akiva Miller >>>> [1] Along the lines of what R' Micha Berger posted. On Ber 24:57 -- "Let us call the maiden and ask her what she wants to do" -- Rashi says, "Mikan she'ein masi'in es ha'isha ela mida'ata -- from here we learn that one does not [or may not, or cannot] marry a woman without her consent." I think he's quoting Kesubos 57b. I can't think of any kind of property whose consent is required before the property can be acquired. [2] The analogy to tefillin is flawed. You do not have any obligations or responsibilities to your tefillin. Rather, in regards to your tefillin, you have obligations towards your Maker! He has told you what you must do, may do, or must not do, with your tefillin. A better analogy would have been to your ox or your dog, where you do actually have obligations to your animals, an obligation, for example, to feed the animal before you eat your own meal. And a still better analogy would have been to acquiring a slave, about which the Talmud says "One who acquires a Jewish slave is like one who has acquired a master! (Kiddushin 20a)" -- because of all the obligations he incurs towards his slave. So there does seem to be some kind of ownership that a husband has vis-a-vis his wife, but then, she also in some sense owns him. Certainly she has the right to make specific claims on him, because he has specific obligations towards her. Shir Hashirim speaks about the love between Hakadosh Baruch Hu and Am Yisrael in an extended poetic analogy to the love between a husband and a wife. What does the wife say about her husband? Dodi li ve'ani lo -- He belongs to me, and I belong to Him. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 23:25:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 02:25:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Princess and I: Academic Kabbalists/Kabbalist Academics Message-ID: <20150507062523.18EF01826EC@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/km8kf2n The last few decades have witnessed the veritable explosion of "new perspectives" and horizons in the academic study of Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism. From the pioneering work of the late Professor Gershom Scholem, and the establishment of the study of Jewish Mysticism as a legitimate scholarly pursuit, we witness a scene nowadays populated by men and women, Jews and non-Jews, who have challenged, (re)constructed, and expanded upon Scholem's work.[2] These men and women themselves have been variously praised and criticized themselves for sometimes blurring the lines between academician and practitioner of Kabbalah and mysticism.[3] Professor Boaz Huss of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has done extensive work in this area.[4] One of the most impressive examples of this fusion of identities is Professor Yehuda Liebes (Jerusalem, 1947-) of Hebrew University, who completed his doctoral studies under Scholem, and rose to prominence himself by challenging scholarly orthodoxies established by his mentor. See the above URL for more. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 23:29:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 02:29:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Shabbat microphones catching on among orthodox despite taboos Message-ID: <20150507062953.0C966182FF8@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/men8bez Relying upon rulings by decision makers such as Rabbi Shaul Yisraeli, Isser Yehuda Unterman and Rav Haim David HaLevi, the Zomet microphone uses only transistors "without any glowing [or 'burning'] elements;" is turned on by an automatic "Shabbat timer;" and, once turned on, "current flows continuously in the system," according to technical notes on the setup released on the group's website. According to Zomet executive director Rabbi Dan Marans, the system has come into use in 15 synagogues in Baltimore, Montreal, West Stamford and other locations, as well as in 18 old-age homes. Leading American poskim, or decidors of Halacha, have even "stipulated in contracts with synagogues that they change the system to our system so that the RCA [will be] able to send rabbis." "I've not heard comments [against it]. If anything, people find the service more enjoyable and more elevating," agreed Schneier, adding that "We must get a dozen calls a year from rabbis contemplating putting this system into their synagogues. "I believe within 25 years it will be commonplace in Orthodox synagogues here in the Northeast." See the above URL for more. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 07:01:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 10:01:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Transferring my comments to Avodah At 04:00 PM 5/6/2015, R Saul Newman wrote on Areivim: >http://www.sharelive.tv/sharlive_Heb/SL27948.html I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire 33rd day, and they wait until the 34th day to take a haircut. Does this not imply that the entire 33rd day is part of Sefirah and the restrictions hold the entire 33rd day? Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva. However, the micktzas starts in the morning of the 7th day, not on the night of the 7th day. Thus, even according to Ashkenazim the night of Lag B'Omer is bound by the restrictions of Sefirah. So how can they make such gatherings on the night of the 33rd day? And, of course there is this post that I made on from Fri, 26 Apr 2013 based on comments by Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel. According to RSRH there is a major difference between the way the uses the terminology un-Jewish and non-Jewish. Un-Jewish things are things that are incompatible with Yahadus, whereas non-Jewish things are things of non-Jewish origin that are compatible with Yahadus. YL The following is from http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol11/v11n014.shtml#17 Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 11:37:58 -0400 From: "Seth Mandel" Subject: Re: bonfires on Lag Ba'Omer From: Phyllos... at aol.com Obviously, the bones of people who believe that there is a s'gullo in making fires . As I have had fun telling people, the _only_ bonfire that was an ancient Jewish tradition was the Simchas Torah bonfire in Ashk'naz, which is attested from the 14th century up until the 19th century, but has gone out of style. The Lag Ba'omer bonfire is a very recent phenomenon among most Jews. Indeed, the word bonfire is from "fire of bones." The term was used primarily in various pagan ceremonies which then were transferred to christianity, for a funeral pyre, and in burning infidels or books (like The Gaon of Vilna or MOAG). The bones used, if 'twere not a pyre, were primarily animal bones. Here's an early quotation (1493): "in worshyppe of saynte John the people waked at home and made all maner of fyres. One was clene bones and no woode, and that is called a bone fyre." From Marlowe in 1586: "Making bonfires for my overthrow. But, ere I die, those foul idolators Shall make me bonfires with their filthy bones." (Think that would get by the moderators on Areivim, R. SBA?) 1689: "The dead corps is buried. They of old made a bone-fire and therein burnt it." 1622: "Their holy Bibles cast into Bone-fires." The term became used for any large fires used for celebrations, although the practice and term continued to be used especially for those associated with various christian saints, particularly John and Peter. From a 1570 history: "Then doth the joyfull feast of John the Baptist take his turne, When bonfiers great with loftie flame, in every towne doe burne." From a constitution of the association of the cooks of Newcastle, 1575: "The said Felloship of Cookes shall yearelie. mainteigne and keep the Bone-fires. that is to say, one Bone-fire on the Even of the Feast of the Nativitie of St. John Baptist. and the other on the Even of the Feast of St. Peter the Apostle." These quotations start in the 15th century, because that is as far back as the term bone-fire goes, but the practice of making a bonfire in honor of Christian saints goes back to ancient times in England (and in France as well). Another practice that goes back to ancient times in Christian Europe is making pilgrimages to "qivrei tzaddiqim" and donating alms at the qever; this practice is well known from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Most Christian scholars attribute the association of the bonfires with celebrations of the feast of a saint to pagan, pre-christian practices which were later adopted by the local people to their new religion. Indeed, the Celtics made bonfires to honor some of their deities and spirits. No one would ever claim that these practices, going back into old Anglo-Saxon England, are of Jewish origin. The Arabs of EY, Syria, and Lebanon, as is well-known, honored the Christian and Jewish "saints" (everyone knows that the qever of Sh'muel haNavi has been a "holy" site to the Arabs for hundreds of years, and they built a mosque there; the site is called "anNabi Samwil"). They made pilgrimages to them, like the Christians did, and they made large celebrations to honor the festival of the saint. The Arab pilgrims who came did various things to honor the saint. They gave alms (a big mitzva in Islam), usually done by the practice of cutting the hair of their children (which they had let grow from before the pilgrimage), then weighing it and giving the same weight in gold or silver for alms. They also made large bonfires to honor the saint. The custom of making pilgrimages, giving alms, and making bonfires may have been borrowed from the christians, since a) they originally appeared among the Arabs of EY, Lebanon and Syria, AFAIK; b) they are first recorded after the time of the Crusades (although the giving of gold or silver in the weight of the hair seems to have been from the Middle East). However there is no clear proof that they did not arise from another source. But they are attested in Arabic sources going back to the 15th century, and probably before. Can the custom of bonfires on Lag Ba'omer have arisen among the Jews separately and independently from the non-Jewish sources? Theoretically it's possible. Books like Minhag Yisruel Toyre he brings all sorts of reasons from various chasidic rebbes and from the book Ta'amei haMinhogim for the origin of the bonfires on Lag Ba'omer. The problem with all the explanations is that a) they are all of recent origin, and b) they somehow ignore the fact that the custom was completely unknown to any Jews up until the time when it is recorded in EY in the 16th century. Furthermore, it was the custom there of only one group of Jews, the Musta'ribim, about whom other Jews complained that they had adopted a lot of Arab customs (the very name mean "Arabicized). From contemporary documents we learn the Muslims (and a few Jews) cut the hair of children as well as lit a bonfires on the yohrtzeit (28 of Iyyar) of non other than the aforementioned Shmu'el haNavi. However, in the 1560s the Arab authorities forbad Jews to go there. Shortly afterwards, we have the testimony of R. Chaim Vital that he was told by R. Yonatan Sagiz that a year before he started learning by the Ari, in the Ari's first year after he immigrated from his homeland of Egypt (also 1570), that "Mori v'Rabbi Z'L took his small son and all of his family there [to the celebration on RaShBY 's yohtzeit in Meron] and there he cut his hair in accordance with the custom." R. Chaim Vital is careful to note, however, that "I do not know whether at that time he was expert and knowledgable in this wondrous wisdom [Qabbolo] as he became after that." IOW, R. Chaim Vital himself is cautioning the reader that he has doubts about whether the Ari did this in accordance with his views in Qabbolo, or just because it was a popular celebration, and he might not have participated had he already been an expert in Qabbolo. Some historians believe that once the Musta'ribim were forbidden to go to the qever of Sh'muel haNavi, they transferred their celebration to Meron and the date to Lag Ba'Omer. Others claim that the custom at Meron predated 1570. But both groups agree that both of these customs, cutting the hair of the children and making bonfires, were practiced by the Arabs and the Musta 'ribim, but not by any of the Ashk'nazi and S'faradi Jews in Israel. Of great interest is that the local rabbis in Tz'fat, who had the practice of going to the all the known q'vorim of the Tano'im from the middle of Iyyar until Shavu'os and having a seder in learning there, opposed the celebrations of the Musta'ribim on Lag ba'Omer and tried to forbid it. They made little headway, and once it became known that the Ari participated one year, any opposition was swept away. We know from travelers to EY in the 18th and 19th centuries that the "hilula" at Meron on Lag Ba'Omer with bonfires and the cutting of children's hair had become an affair of the masses. A well known talmid chochom from Europe, R. Avrohom Rozanes, writes that in his visit to EY in 1867 he saw an Ashk'nazi Jew who had taken his son to the "hilula" and was giving him a haircut. R. Rozanes says that he could not restrain himself, and went to that Jew and tried to dissuade him but was unsuccessful, and that most of the Ashk'nazi and S'faradi Jews of EY participate in this "craziness," with "drinking and dancing and fires." The custom of giving the son his first haircut at that celebration, originally called "halaqa" by the Jews of EY (apparently because there was an established Arabic term but no Jewish term for the custom) was later mixed with the custom of making a celebration when a son reached 3 and began learning Torah. The two customs were combined by many, and resulted in the boy's haircut being delayed until he was 3, and not specifically on Lag ba' Omer. A chasidish rebbe, R. Yehudah Leibush Horenstein, who emigrated to EY in the middle of the 19th century writes that "this haircut, called halaqe, is done by the S'faradim in Yerushalayim at the qever of RaShB'Y during the summer, but during the winter they take the boy to the synagogue or Bet Medrash and perform the haircut with great celebration and parties, something _that is unknown to the Jews in Europe_. and at that point they start him growing his pe'ot. it is incomprehensible why this is not done outside of EY [as well]" [emphasis mine]. Indeed, the custom was adopted by shortly thereafter by chasidim in Europe to imitate the custom of the S'faradim in EY, and the custom of lighting bonfires on Lag Ba'Omer also was adopted at that time by chasidic communities in Europe. The Jews in Europe, knowing no Arabic and having no Yiddish name for the custom of the haircut, called it by a normal Yiddish word for cutting off the hair: opsheren. Both customs are less than 150 years old among Ashk'naz Jews, including chasidim. Now we scarcely can expect to find a historical document that says "we, the undersigned Jews, have decided that there is nothing wrong with copying the Muslim celebrations in honor of saints, and we will participate in them." So you're never going to find better historical evidence for Jewish borrowing of non-Jewish customs than this: that a custom that was previously unknown to any group of Jews arose among a group of Jews known to copy various Arab customs in a time and place that the custom is attested among the Arabs from independent evidence. Is there anything osur about a bonfire on Lag Ba'Omer, or waiting to give a son a haircut until he is 3 or until you go to Meron? Certainly not. As I believe R. SBA has noted, the opsheren provides an excuse for a party that is connected with the boy's beginning to learn; it could be done without the haircut, but if people feel that it is important to give a haircut as well, there is no issur. Certainly no one who lights bonfires or celebrates opsheren has any idea that the source of these customs is extremely questionable. And after 130 years most Jews forget the origin of customs anyway and just assume they are old Jewish customs.. However, those who studiously avoid eating turkey on Thanksgiving should know that the origin of the customs of the bonfire on Lag ba'Omer and halaqa/opsheren are much more suspect. Seth Mandel ---------- So I really do not understand this entire affair at Meron. To add to this see the pictures of Lag B'Omer from many years ago at http://tinyurl.com/khmhcz4 I do not see even one bonfire! YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:07:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 13:07:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 10:01:44AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown : which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. : The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire : 33rd day... : Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last : day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva... Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. Yes, many of us know that the PEC really says Lag baOmer is yom simchas Rashbi, which may or may not be his yahrzeit. "Yom shemeis" is a typo that reached later editions via a dropped ches. See http://seforim.blogspot.com/2011/05/printing-mistake-and-mysterious-origins.html But (as per previous conversations), that also doesn't rule out the possibility that the day of Rashbi's joy is his yahrzeit. But even if the Ari said it's the day he started the Zohar, finished it, left the cave, or whatever, it's still a day the Ari considered worth celebrating. And yes, many of us also know that the whole upsherin-at-the-qever thing was originally on the 43rd in/to the omer, at Nabi Samwel. (See shu"t haRadvaz 2:608.) Which makes sense -- Shemu'el was a nazir, and he lived in the BHMQ starting at age 3. The move to Meron and Lag baOmer happened when the Ottomans restricted access to the qever in the 1500s. The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) and ABD. But the version of the minhag he recorded would not pose the question -- observe the first "half" of the omer, and then a haircut a week before Shavuos isn't a problem. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:07:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 13:07:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 10:01:44AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown : which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. : The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire : 33rd day... : Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last : day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva... Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. Yes, many of us know that the PEC really says Lag baOmer is yom simchas Rashbi, which may or may not be his yahrzeit. "Yom shemeis" is a typo that reached later editions via a dropped ches. See http://seforim.blogspot.com/2011/05/printing-mistake-and-mysterious-origins.html But (as per previous conversations), that also doesn't rule out the possibility that the day of Rashbi's joy is his yahrzeit. But even if the Ari said it's the day he started the Zohar, finished it, left the cave, or whatever, it's still a day the Ari considered worth celebrating. And yes, many of us also know that the whole upsherin-at-the-qever thing was originally on the 43rd in/to the omer, at Nabi Samwel. (See shu"t haRadvaz 2:608.) Which makes sense -- Shemu'el was a nazir, and he lived in the BHMQ starting at age 3. The move to Meron and Lag baOmer happened when the Ottomans restricted access to the qever in the 1500s. The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) and ABD. But the version of the minhag he recorded would not pose the question -- observe the first "half" of the omer, and then a haircut a week before Shavuos isn't a problem. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 08:22:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 11:22:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554B8340.3090001@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 10:01 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > > > The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire 33rd day, and they wait until the 34th day to take a haircut. Does this not imply that the entire 33rd day is part of Sefirah and the restrictions hold the entire 33rd day? > > Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva. However, the micktzas starts in the morning of the 7th day, not on the night of the 7th day. Thus, even according to Ashkenazim the night of Lag B'Omer is bound by the restrictions of Sefirah. So how can they make such gatherings on the night of the 33rd day? That all applies if you regard Lag Ba'omer as simply marking the end of mourning. But as we discussed a few weeks ago, that doesn't really make sense. According to both shitos quoted by the BY there is no such thing as Lag Ba'omer -- the last day on which they died was either the 34th of the Omer or the 49th. Even according to the Tosfos as the Bach quotes it, that they only died for 33 days, Lag Ba'omer was one of the 33, and not the last one! And even if one will find a shita somewhere that they died only on the first 33 days, who makes a party on the last day of shiva? You stop active mourning, you don't go dancing! All of which points to the fact that Lag Ba'omer is *not* about the end of mourning, but a happy day in its own right, the simcha of Rashbi. (The silly discussion over whether the word is "simchas" or "shemeis" is irrelevant here. Either way it's his simcha, which he asked people to celebrate.) This simcha *overrides* the mourning of sefira, no matter which shita one follows. This way of looking at things also explains whether one should say tachanun at mincha of erev Lag Ba'omer. If it's just "the end of shiva", that starts in the morning, so one should say tachanun at the previous mincha, just as one does on erev Pesach Sheni (which also starts in the morning), erev Erev RH and erev Erev YK, and if we said tachanun in Nissan we would also say it at mincha of erev Erev Pesach, because it too starts in the morning. But once we regard Lag Ba'omer as a day of simcha in its own right, then it starts at night, and so we omit tachanun in the previous mincha. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 07:19:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 09:19:59 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] The Princess and I: Academic Kabbalists/Kabbalist Academics In-Reply-To: <20150507062523.18EF01826EC@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507062523.18EF01826EC@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554B748F.8080508@starways.net> On 5/7/2015 1:25 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > From http://tinyurl.com/km8kf2n >> The last few decades have witnessed the veritable explosion of "new >> perspectives" and horizons in the academic study of Kabbalah and >> Jewish Mysticism. From the pioneering work of the late Professor >> Gershom Scholem, and the establishment of the study of Jewish >> Mysticism as a legitimate scholarly pursuit, we witness a scene >> nowadays populated by men and women, Jews and non-Jews, who have >> challenged, (re)constructed, and expanded upon Scholem's work.[2] ... R' Adin Steinsalz once said about the Kabbalah Center type of Kabbalah that it bore the same relationship to real Kabbalah that pornography does to love. This "academic Kabbalah" bears the same relationship to real Kabbalah that an anatomy book does to love. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:32:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 13:32:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> At 01:07 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 10:01:44AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: >: I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown >: which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. > >: The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire >: 33rd day... >: Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last >: day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva... > >Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to >get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would >mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. Indeed, I think one should be. Truth be told my mother, A"H, told me that once a child is at least one year old and can say a few words, then his hair gets cut. This is what I did with my sons, and I am sure it is an old minhag. >Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the >Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning >on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in >the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke >qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to >last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. Indeed, this is where the New Religion is coming from. Years ago someone asked Rav S. Schwab, ZT"L, about certain things that certain chassidishe women do when they are pregnant and if they were valid. His forceful reply was, "My mother never knew about such things, my grandmother never knew about such things, and my great grandmother never knew about such things. These people are making up a religion!!!!!" I am not comfortable with people making up a religion, particularly since RSRH says definitively the Judaism is not a religion, to the New Religion is not Judaism by definition. >The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, >who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where >he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) >and ABD. But the version of the minhag he recorded would not pose the >question -- observe the first "half" of the omer, and then a haircut a >week before Shavuos isn't a problem. The MB points out that the minhag in Vilna was to start the restrictions of Sefirah on the first day of Rosh Chodesh Iyar and then they end in the morning of the first of the 3 days before Shavuous. I took a haircut shortly before Rosh Chodesh Iyar. There were no crowds to contend with and I had no waiting. This morning I trimmed my mustache and the hair that grows under my neck below my beard at shortly after sunrise. I will take a haircut on 3 or 4 Sivan. Again, there will be no crowds to contend with. This has worked and continues to work for me. YL PS. My wife has asked more than once, " How can they observe the aveilus restrictions of Sefirah during Pesach when it is a Yom Tov?" My reply is, "I do not know." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 13:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507175311.GC1758@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 01:32:05PM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : >Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to : >get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would : >mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. : Indeed, I think one should be. Maqor? Since when do we expect 3 yr olds to conform to minhag? ... : >Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the : >Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning : >on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in : >the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke : >qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to : >last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. : : Indeed, this is where the New Religion is coming from.... The PEC is older than RSRH. If you want to label any particular change as a "New Religion", you dwell in a glass house. ... : The MB points out that the minhag in Vilna was to start the : restrictions of Sefirah on the first day of Rosh Chodesh Iyar and : then they end in the morning of the first of the 3 days before : Shavuous. I took a haircut shortly before Rosh Chodesh Iyar. There : were no crowds to contend with and I had no waiting. And the Radbaz predates the SA, never mind the MB. : This has worked and continues to work for me... Good. What I'm objecting to is your insistnce in telling others that what works for them is "New Religion". : PS. My wife has asked more than once, " How can they observe the : aveilus restrictions of Sefirah during Pesach when it is a Yom Tov?" : My reply is, "I do not know." You can't get married on Pesach, not even ch"m either. Nor get a haircut. So you're asking about parties with live music. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:49:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 13:49:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <554BA59A.5040905@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 01:07 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, > who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where > he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) Who taught the Ari, who cut his son's hair at Meron on Lag Ba'omer. Does anyone know whether the Shita Mekubetzes, beside being the Ari's rebbe, was also related to him? I haven't seen this anywhere, but how many Ashkenazi families could there have been in Egypt at that time? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 11:41:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Herbert Basser via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 18:41:42 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah Message-ID: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> A recent post claims the Islamic "opsherin" was called "halaqah". What is the evidence for this claim? The only meaning of arabic "halaqah" I know is "learning circle". Zvi Basser -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 14:31:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 17:31:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Upsherin Message-ID: <20150507213225.D3EDA181A25@nexus.stevens.edu> Since Upsherin is done on Lag B'Omer at Meron, I think one should understand the source for this too. The following is from Shorshei Minhag Ashkenaz, Minhag Ashkenaz: Sources and Roots by Rabbi Binyamin Shlomo Hamburger, Synopsis of Volumes I-IV. YL The German custom to bring a young boy to the synagogue with a wirnpel (wrapping for t he Torah scroll) has no connection whatsoever to the practice of the chalaka (the Arabic term for Upsherin) observed by Sepharadirn and later ad opted by many Chasidirn. Th e custom of holding a special celebration marking the boy's first haircut developed among these groups. The celebration takes place at a specific age, usually three. Th e festivity is customarily held near the gravesite of a tzadik or in a synagogue. *This custom was unknown in ancient Sephardic and Ashkenazic communities.* (Emphasis added by me.) The earliest reports of the chalaka [upsherin] celebration are found in accounts written by Sepharadim early in the period of the Acharonim. Some three centuries later, we find the first indications that the custom had made its way into Chasidic circles. The most important source concerning the chalaka is the account of the celebration in which the Ari-zal is involved. The details of this story are somewhat vague, and it is unclear whether the Ari-zal made a chalaka for his son, or whether the account refers to his disciple, Rabbi Yonatan Sagish. There is also some question as to whether the Ari-zal participated in Lag Ba 'omer events in Meron after his kabalistic insights because the custom to conduct a chalaka on Lag Ba 'omer runs in opposition to the Ari-zal' s final ruling that forbade hair cutting during the orner period. Furthermore, the custom of the chalaka has given rise to some questions as to the propriety of hair cutting at a gravesite or synagogue, which might constitute an infringement upon the sanctity of the site. Some have also questioned the permissibility of haircutting on Lag Ba 'omer, during bein ha-rnetzarirn (the three weeks before Tisha B' A v) or during Chol Ha 'rno 'ed. Yet another concern was the immodest behavior that occasionally accompanied this event. Most Sephardic and Chasidic rabbis applauded, or at least defended the practices observed in their circles, though there were those who forbade the custom in this manner. Rabbi Yitzchak Zev Soloveitchik of Brisk (1889-1960) disapproved of bringing children to rabbis on their third birthday for the chalaka, claiming that this practice "has no reason or basis." He noted that there are sources indicating that one should introduce the child to matters of Torah at the age of three, but none that involve haircutting. Rabbi Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky [the "Steipler Ga'on," (1899-1985)] also opposed this practice, and would send away parents who brought their children to him for the chalaka haircut. The tendency among Ashkenazi communities to refrain from this practice stems, according to one view, from the concern that the chalaka transgresses the prohibition of imitating pagan practices. Cutting a child's hair at the age of three was a well-known custom among several nations in ancient times, and thus observing this practice may constitute an imitation of pagan ritual. Some, however, dismissed this argument, claiming that to the contrary, the chalaka perhaps began as an ancient Jewish practice which was later adopted by the gentiles. There are some older customs, originating in the times of Chazal and the Ge'onim, such as fasting on Erev Rosh Hashana and the ceremony of Kapaprot on Erev Yom Kippur which were opposed by some rabbis since they feared that their origins could be found in pagan rites. In any event, although some communities accepted this custom, Ashkenazi communities were never aware of such a practice. They did not receive this tradition from their forebears, and they found no mention of it in the writings of the Rishonim. The ancient tradition among Ashkenazi communities was to cut a boy's hair at a very young age. In fact, during the times of Chazal, parents would cut an infant's hair not long after birth, and they even permitted cutting a baby's overgrown hair on Chol Ha 'mo' ed. In the times of the Rishonim, too, boys' hair in Ashkenaz was cut already within the first several months after birth. The phenomenon of children with overgrown hair simply did not exist in Germany, and a boy with overgrown hair would have been mistaken for a girl. The custom of chalaka was never accepted in Ashkenazic countries or other regions in Western Europe, not even among the Sephardic communities in these areas. The practice earned acceptance in Eastern Europe among certain Chasidic circles, but only in later generations. Among other circles, boys' hair was cut when they began speaking, and no special affair was held to celebrate the event. .. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 14:31:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 17:31:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554BD9C6.9000803@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 01:32 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > > Indeed, this is where the New Religion is coming from. Years ago > someone asked Rav S. Schwab, ZT"L, about certain things that certain > chassidishe women do when they are pregnant and if they were valid. > His forceful reply was, "My mother never knew about such things, my > grandmother never knew about such things, and my great grandmother > never knew about such things. These people are making up a religion!!!!!" With all due respect to R Schwab's great-grandmother, there are more things in Yiddishkeit than were dreamt of in her philosophy. My great-grandmother did know about such things, and I'm sure her tzidkus and wisdom was no less than hers. And following the Ari's teachings is the very opposite of making up a religion. > I am not comfortable with people making up a religion, particularly > since RSRH says definitively the Judaism is not a religion, to the > New Religion is not Judaism by definition. You're the one assigning to it the word "religion", and then, in what can only be called an act of verbal ju-jitsu, you pull out a definition of that word which (you claim) does not fit Yiddishkeit, and declare that anything called a "religion" must not be Yiddishkeit. I might as well say that since my aunt is a secretary, a secretary is a kind of desk, and Jesus was a carpenter, therefore Jesus made my aunt! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 14:10:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 17:10:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> At 01:07 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. But doesn't "evolving" mean that there is an existing minhag, and it evolves? Here we are talking about a new minhag which no one knew about. The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was appropriate. People certainly can make up new customs whenever they like. But bonfires on Lag Ba'omer are no more or no less than parades on Yom haAtzmaut for those who celebrate it: They have nothing to do with religion. Some Jews have even invented a custom to put up a tree on Chanukkah. But do not try to tell us it then becomes a "religious minhag" and "minhag Hamokom." Everything that Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel wrote in his post is true. There were no rabbonim at the time who approved of the custom. Indeed it is true is that there were no rabbonim who approved of the custom at the time, nor at the time of the Ari and R. Chaim Vital. While they did not say it should be stopped, they gave no support either. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 15:42:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 18:42:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507224237.GA15428@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 05:10:31PM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : At 01:07 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: :> Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. : But doesn't "evolving" mean that there is an existing minhag, and it : evolves? ... The essence of mourning during the omer is not making a wedding, since nissuin, or a se'udas eirusin at the time of eirusin, is the act of simchah par exellance. Then the bit about haircuts crept in, and later, parties with music. Perhaps music as a whole, perhaps instrumental music, perhaps only parties -- machloqes acharonim. That's the minhag I'm talking about evolving. So, people found reason to poke a hole in a minhag that was otherwise growing. As I said, minhagim evolve. : The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was : appropriate. What? The Ari PARTICIPATED in it himself! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 16:39:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 19:39:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Upsherin In-Reply-To: <20150507213225.D3EDA181A25@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507213225.D3EDA181A25@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554BF7A0.10800@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 05:31 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > The earliest reports of the chalaka [upsherin] celebration are found in >accounts written by Sepharadim early in the period of the Acharonim. Indeed it is. For instance, see Gan Hamelech ch 62. http://www.otzar.org/wotzar/book.aspx?64092 This takes it back to at least the 17th century, and he refers to it as a well-known minhag that he doesn't have to explain. The Gan Hamelech is surely himself sufficient authority even if we had no other. And while he was Sefardi, he had a great influence on Ashkenazi psak. > The most important source concerning the chalaka is the account of > the celebration in which the Ari-zal is involved. The details of this > story are somewhat vague, and it is unclear whether the Ari-zal made > a chalaka for his son, or whether the account refers to his disciple, > Rabbi Yonatan Sagish. There is nothing vague about it. It's clear from the context that R Yonatan told R Chaim what the Ari had done a year before he, R Chaim, became the Ari's talmid. > Some have also questioned the permissibility of haircutting on Lag > Ba'omer, during bein ha-metzarirn or during Chol Hamo'ed. Gan Hamelech not only permits it on Chol Hamoed but even permits *delaying* it to Chol Hamoed so as to increase the simcha! And this psak is quoted lehalacha by the Baer Hetev. > The custom of /chalaka /was never accepted in /Ashkenazic /countries or > other regions in Western Europe, not even among the /Sephardic > /communities in these areas. The practice earned acceptance in Eastern > Europe among certain /Chasidic /circles, but only in later generations. This is untrue. It was already accepted in the Baal Shem Tov's time. The only time the Alter Rebbe saw the Baal Shem Tov was on his third birthday, when his parents brought him to have his hair cut. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 16:45:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 19:45:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554BF921.5070409@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 05:10 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was appropriate. On the contrary, he wrote that he personally saw the Ari take his whole family there and stay three days! > There were no rabbonim at the time who approved of the custom. The Ari was not a rov?! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 21:35:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 04:35:03 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Israeli carrots and peppers Message-ID: <20150508.003503.13248.1@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> Om Areivim, R' Yitzchok Levine posted this alert: > Shemitta: Carrots & Peppers from Israel > in Neighborhood Stores > > Please be aware that carrots (including Dorot Farms brand), > peppers, and other vegetables from Israel are consistently > being sold in the Baltimore area at produce markets in our > neighborhood, which are frequented by members of our community. > From the numerous inquiries we have received, it is apparent > that many consumers are unaware of this when shopping. > > The packages or labels state "Product of Israel." These > vegetables likely have Kedushas Shviis and require special > care. If you bought them, contact your local Orthodox rabbi > for further guidance. > > Seven Mile Market in Baltimore is monitored by Star-K and > produce sold there does not have this issue. My question is this: Why does the alert mention only the problem of Kedushas Shviis? If one is concerned about Kedushas Shviis, wouldn't he also be concerned about Sefichin, which (more than merely requiring "special care") is an issur achila? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554c3d3271e3c3d3240a3st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 21:11:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 04:11:14 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Meron live Message-ID: <20150508.001114.13248.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero wrote: > This way of looking at things also explains whether one should > say tachanun at mincha of erev Lag Ba'omer. If it's just "the > end of shiva", that starts in the morning, so one should say > tachanun at the previous mincha, just as one does on erev Pesach > Sheni (which also starts in the morning), erev Erev RH and erev > Erev YK, and if we said tachanun in Nissan we would also say it > at mincha of erev Erev Pesach, because it too starts in the > morning. But once we regard Lag Ba'omer as a day of simcha in > its own right, then it starts at night, and so we omit tachanun > in the previous mincha. I don't follow any of what RZS is saying about Lag Ba'omer, so I'll neither agree nor disagree. But my understanding of the nature of Pesach Sheni is very different from his: As it was explained to me, there's nothing special about the morning of Pesach Sheni. Pesach Sheni exists only on the afternoon of 14 Iyar and the following night. We omit Tachanun on the morning of 14 Iyar NOT because it is a holiday, but because it is the Tachanun *before* the holiday. Alternatively, one might say that the morning of 14 Iyar actually *is* Erev Pesach Sheni. Either way, the afternoon of 13 Iyar is too far removed to be significant enough to warrant skipping Tachanun. It is similar to how the *afternoon* of Erev RH and Erev YK are special enough to skip Tachanun, and this is extended even to the morning, but to say that the entirety of those days are so special that we would skip Tachanun even at the preceding Mincha -- No, that just doesn't fly. This leaves us with three days, at most, when we skip Tachanun at Shacharis, but we *do* say it at the preceding Mincha. (And many siddurim - ArtScroll, for example - explicitly list these three days as exceptions to the general rule.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554c37b79791d37b756e9st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 01:40:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 04:40:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507224237.GA15428@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507224237.GA15428@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150508084208.2D02F182131@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:42 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: > The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was >: appropriate. > >What? The Ari PARTICIPATED in it himself! From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upsherin Rabbi Chaim Vital wrote in Sha'ar Ha-Kavanot that "Isaac Luria, cut his son's hair on Lag BaOmer, according to the well-known custom." However, the age of his son is not mentioned. An obvious problem raised by Avraham Yaari, in an article in Tarbiz 22 (1951), is that many sources cite that the Arizal held one should not cut one's hair for the entire sefirah ? including Lag BaOmer, (see Shaarei Teshuva, O.C. 493, 8). YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 01:44:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 04:44:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Better Version of Upsherin Message-ID: <20150508084606.6189F180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> There were some editorial problems with what I sent out earlier about this topic from Shorshei Minhag Ashkenaz. See http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/shorshei_hair_cutting.pdf for a better version. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 21:02:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 06:02:54 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah In-Reply-To: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> References: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> Message-ID: <554C356E.2030103@zahav.net.il> On 5/7/2015 8:41 PM, Herbert Basser via Avodah wrote: > A recent post claims the Islamic "opsherin" was called "halaqah". What > is the evidence for this claim? The only meaning of arabic "halaqah" I > know is "learning circle". A (Tunisian) Arab told me that it means hair cut. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 01:54:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 04:54:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening in a Large or Small Shul Message-ID: <20150508085532.23F97182131@nexus.stevens.edu> From today's http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ 1)It is a Mitzvah to daven in a Shul that has a large amount of people, as the Pasuk (Mishlei 14:28) says "Brov Am Hadras Melech - with a large assemblage the glory of the King [Hashem] is multiplied." (See Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) 2)There are various exceptions to this rule, and certain times it is deemed Halachically superior to daven in a smaller place and forego the "Brov Am Hadras Melech". A few examples of the many such exceptions: a)Davening in a Bais HaMidrash or Yeshiva , where people learn Torah all [or a large part of the] day (even if you yourself do not learn there) is better than davening in a Shul (i.e. Bais Hakneses that is used only for Tefilah), even if there are more people in the Shul than in the Bais HaMidrash. (See Talmud Brachos 8a. See Chayei Adam Klal 17:1 and Mishna Berura Siman 90 S:K 55) b)If one is on the way to a big Shul, and is stopped by someone and asked to be the tenth man [or any part of the 10] in their Minyan (either in a shiva house, or a smaller Shul whose members cannot go to the larger Shul due to their health or age, or any similar situation) he should stay with them and not refuse based on "Brov Am Hadras Melech" (Psak of Maran Harav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv Zatzal, quoted in Sefer Tefilah K'Hilchasa Perek 2 footnote 29, who maintains that doing a Chesed is just as big a Mitzvah, if not bigger, than fulfilling "Brov Am Hadras Melech") c) If one can concentrate and daven better in a smaller Shul he should daven there, rather than in a bigger Shul where he may not daven as well. (Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) The Aruch Hashulchan (Siman 90:15) rules that if in the larger Shul there are people who talk and converse during the Tefilah (which is a terrible sin, as we have discussed many times, and will iy"H discuss again more thoroughly in the near future), it is better to daven in a small Shul where it is quiet and the proper respect for Tefilah is exhibited. (The Sefer Tefilah K'Hilchasa Perek 2 footnote 28 writes that Rav Shlomo Zalmen Auerbach Zatzal even went so far as to Pasken that if by leaving the Shul with the talking you will end up missing Krias HaTorah or having to leave davening early, one should still avoid the Shul with the talking!) d) Naturally, if by davening in the larger Shul one will miss the proper time for davening (Zman Tefilah), he may daven in an earlier Minyan or Shul even if it is significantly smaller. (See Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) ---------- I think that today there is a move away from davening in large shuls. This is certainly true here in Brooklyn where many of the larger shuls are at times struggling to maintain their congregants. Part of it has to do with the fact that most large shuls daven Ashkenaz, and this is not viewed favorably in Brooklyn. I personally prefer to daven in a minyan consisting of between 20 and forty people. It is much easier to maintain decorum in such a minyan than in a shul where 100 or more people are davening. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 05:14:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 12:14:58 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Davening in a Large or Small Shul In-Reply-To: <20150508085532.23F97182131@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150508085532.23F97182131@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <5f05607383324977a92361bd65ab804c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> From today's http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ 1)It is a Mitzvah to daven in a Shul that has a large amount of people, as the Pasuk (Mishlei 14:28) says "Brov Am Hadras Melech - with a large assemblage the glory of the King [Hashem] is multiplied." (See Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) 2)There are various exceptions to this rule, and certain times it is deemed Halachically superior to daven in a smaller place and forego the "Brov Am Hadras Melech". A few examples of the many such exceptions:....................... ================================================ I wonder if this write up is indicative of a trend seen in "The halachos of X" works, likutim which seem to have become more popular (did they exist 40 years ago?). As Rav Aharon Lichtenstein learned at Harvard, life is complex. Of course there are overarching priorities which need to be learned, but specific applications are hard to summarize in an algorithmic form (see hilchot lashon hara and tzedaka for some obvious examples). Maybe in an internet age we have no choice but to try to put everything on line but what you really need IMHO is a live mentor. KT Joel RIch THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 08:21:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 11:21:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] minhagei S'fira (was "Meron live") Message-ID: In Avodah V33n74, R'Micha replied to RDrYL: : PS. My wife has asked more than once, " How can they observe the : aveilus restrictions of Sefirah during Pesach when it is a Yom Tov?" : My reply is, "I do not know." > You can't get married on Pesach, not even ch"m either. Nor get a haircut. So you're asking about parties with live music. < If one is asking about *minhagei aveilus* during the "first days", one can also ask about the "second days" custom to observe *minhagei aveilus* whenever Tachanun is said, as the number of such days does not come close to 33 and one has to include Shabbos as well as either R'Ch'Iyyar or the *shloshes y'mei hagbala* (all days when Tachanun is _not_ said) in the number. All the best from *Michael Poppers* * Elizabeth, NJ, USA -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 11:39:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 14:39:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] minhagei S'fira (was "Meron live") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150508183940.GA11944@aishdas.org> On Fri, May 08, 2015 at 11:21:28AM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : If one is asking about *minhagei aveilus* during the "first days", one can : also ask about the "second days" custom to observe *minhagei aveilus* whenever : Tachanun is said... Which makes it a good time to remind people of my tweak of RAM's survey of 11 different shitos (12, if we include one that isn't followed) of omer mourning periods It's an interesting side-note that two opinions do not include the night of Lag baOmer. But neither end then. :-)BBii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 11:58:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 14:58:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] minhagei S'fira (was "Meron live") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <554D0756.4070105@sero.name> On 05/08/2015 11:21 AM, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: > If one is asking about /minhagei aveilus/ during the "first days", > one can also ask about the "second days" custom to observe /minhagei > aveilus/ whenever Tachanun is said, as the number of such days does > not come close to 33 and one has to include Shabbos as well as either > R'Ch'Iyyar or the /shloshes y'mei hagbala/ (all days when Tachanun is > _not_ said) in the number. Whose custom is that? This sounds like the shita of Tosfos as quoted by Mahari ibn Shuaib, which is that they died all 49 days, but we observe aveilus only on those days when we don't say *techina*, which comes to exactly 33 days (including Lag Ba'omer, which according to this shita is not a special day at all). -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 9 03:38:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Sat, 9 May 2015 20:38:40 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Upsherin Message-ID: > > R' Levin wrote: The German custom to bring a young boy to the synagogue > with a wimpel > (wrapping for the Torah scroll) has no connection whatsoever to the > practice of the chalaka [...] > This is the way KAJ recommends This the way KAJ recommends Not with the bangs but a wimpel. Joe Slater -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 9 05:12:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sat, 9 May 2015 22:12:16 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <418AFCD6-9213-453C-A268-58AFB75BB81A@balb.in> I didn't know my family Minhag until I chanced on a picture before the war with my grandfather and two of his sons, both with long hair. Using the mimetic tradition my sons and grandsons had an upsherin. It's interesting that mention was made of The Griz. As is well known followers of the Vilna Gaon (including Mori VRabbi Rav Hershel Schachter) don't go to the Beis HaChaim and neither did Rav YD Soloveitchik until in his words he felt compelled to visit his wife's Tziyun. How many know that the Griz asked some Talmidim to go to the Rashbi's grave and pray when the Griz was on his death bed? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 9 12:23:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 9 May 2015 22:23:58 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar Message-ID: The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article They show how Seder Olam is self consistent and in particular it frequently takes people in Tanach whom seem to be different and conflates them. In sefer shoftim they take everything literally that each judge was for 40 years and no gaps between them etc. They then address the difference between the secular and seder olam dates. They also point out the difficulty in the sefer Isuah from chapter 39 onwards (Deutero-Isaiah) 1) the sudden change from rebuke and sestruction to comfort (many years before the destruction) 2) Koresh is listed explicitly twice while prophecy tends to be general 3) Yeshayahu is mention 15 times in the first part but never is mentioned in the second part They conclude that the secular dates are correct (as an aside archaeologists decide on these dates based on astronomical events and carbon 14 dating of pollen seeds which are short lived) They then explain seder olam dating 1) seder olam was not written as a historical text but has a moral side 2) seder olam ignores periods of time when nothing of Jewish importance occurs In particular the Persian era until Shimon Hagadol did not live up to the expectations. Hence, the prophecy of Isaiah-II (name unknown) was simply added to an existing sefer 3) as with its practice conflates Darius I with Darius III. 4) The new Greek calendar (shtarot) was exactly 1000 years after the exodus. In order to achieve this goal parts of the Persian history had to be changed including the order of some kings, again conflating several separate Persian kings which leads to a much shortened Persian kingdom. Finally it removes 6 years from Alexander the great (ie seder olam states Alexander ruled for 6 years in Greece and 6 years in Persia) See above article for more details -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 10 16:49:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 May 2015 18:49:22 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <554FEE82.8090903@starways.net> I think this is tragic. Rather than allow the blasphemous thought that the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their minds, they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple frauds and told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern Orthodox Jews have regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic. Lisa On 5/9/2015 2:23 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a > series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar > > http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see > achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article > > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 10 17:27:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 May 2015 20:27:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <554FF779.8010200@aishdas.org> I cannot believe TABC allowed this to be published as is. /Shreklach!/ KT, YGB On 05/09/2015 03:23 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a > series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar > > http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see > achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 02:19:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 12:19:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebre calendar Message-ID: <> I don't see how you can call this "blasphemous" R. Schwab once suggested that Chazal purposely changed the facts for a good reason. While he later retracted it would be hard to call his original opinion "blasphemous" . Furthermore several current Orthodox rabbis such as R. Leibtag do accept the secular dating. In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some examples 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu As a curios it makes Eliyahu some 700 years old when he runs in front of Achav's chariot. It gives a different meaning to Achav's accusations against Eliyahu when Eliyahu actually worked together with Moshe Rabbenu. Besiades the fact that Eliyahu was from Gilad and worked in the northern kingdom it leaves the halachic question whether a cohen gadol can resign and even leave the land of Israel for various tasks. It is clear from Tanach that Eli and other were the high priest in later generations 2) Ezta = Malachi because both dealt with the problem of foreign wives 3) Nechemia = Zerubavel R. Yaakov Embden already points out that both are mentioned in the same pasuk 4) Daniel = Hatach = Sashvezer Ibn Ezra already doesnt accept this 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta This is part of the missing years controversy. Note that there are several ancient Persian inscriptions that list them as separate kings Note that Ibn Ezra identifies Achashverosh as Artachashasta 6) Conflates Kaleb ben Chetron married to Efrat with Kalen ben Yefuneh married to Miriam Ibn Ezra disagrees and also see the Gra -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 10 23:38:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 09:38:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah In-Reply-To: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> References: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> Message-ID: On Thu, May 7, 2015 at 9:41 PM, Herbert Basser via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > A recent post claims the Islamic "opsherin" was called "halaqah". What > is the evidence for this claim? The only meaning of arabic "halaqah" I know > is "learning circle". > Disclaimer: my knowledge of Arabic doesn't go much beyond being able to look up words in the dictionary, but from doing that the root h-l-q seems to mean both "shave", "form a circle" and "round off". This makes sense to me: after all, "lehakkif" in Biblical Hebrew has the same semantic range. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 03:06:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 06:06:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] He is my G-d Message-ID: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> From Today's Hakhel email bulletin. Hakhel Note: The following is excerpted from Rav Schwab on Prayer, and was related by Rav Schwab at a Shiur he gave on Tefillah: I heard a story from Rav Yosef Breuer, Shlita, which he told about his father, my Rebbe, Rav Shlomo Zalman (Solomon) Breuer. The elder Rav Breuer was a very good friend of Rav Shimon Sofer, the Rav of Cracow, a brother of the Ksav Sofer, and a son of the Chasam Sofer. Once when the two friends met, Rav Shimon Sofer asked Rav Breuer to tell him a short ?vort" from his father-in-law, Rav Shamshon R. Hirsch. Upon which, Rav Breuer told him that Rav Hirsch would point out that while Adon Olam described the unfathomable eternity and omnipotence of Hashem, it nevertheless makes a reference to Him in a very personal way--VeHu Kaili, He is my G-d. Each person in his Tefillah says: I have a personal relationship with HaKadosh Baruch HU, He is my personal G-d. Therefore, whenever a person says the word Ado--i, my Master, no matter how small he thinks he is, he is averring that he is in direct contact with Hashem. This thought is in the introduction to any individual's Iyun Tefillah, concentration on Prayer. There is nothing mystical or supernatural about it. It should be the most natural thing in the world. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 06:38:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 13:38:51 GMT Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebre calendar Message-ID: <20150511.093851.15442.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel wrote: > In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that > Chazal had a tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some > examples > 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu I rarely, if ever, come across the word "conflate", except here on Avodah. When it is used here, it seems to be pejorative, indicating that someone confused or merged two things that really ought to stay distinct. RET, is that what you mean here? Do you feel that it was wrong for Chazal to associate Pinchas and Eliyahu in the way that they did? Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5550b1061639931057a29st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 07:16:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joseph Kaplan via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 10:16:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar Message-ID: <002a01d08bf5$1a951290$4fbf37b0$@tenzerlunin.com> On 5/9/2015 2:23 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a > series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar > > http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see > achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article > There were (so far) two responses: "I think this is tragic. Rather than allow the blasphemous thought that the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their minds, they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple frauds and told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern Orthodox Jews have regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic." "I cannot believe TABC allowed this to be published as is. /Shreklach!/" When I read this when it came out I remember thinking: what a refreshing concept. Letting students use the educational tools they have been given to think on their own and then to publish the results which (to my extremely non-expert eyes) appears to be a nice bit of research and analysis - whether correct or not. Joseph -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 07:30:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 09:30:18 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebre calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> On 5/11/2015 4:19 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > < that the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their > minds, they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple > frauds and told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern > Orthodox Jews have regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic.>> > > I don't see how you can call this "blasphemous" R. Schwab once > suggested that Chazal purposely changed the facts for a good reason. > While he later retracted it would be hard to call his original opinion > "blasphemous" . Furthermore several current Orthodox rabbis such as R. > Leibtag do accept the secular dating. I didn't call it blasphemous. I referred to doubting secular scholarship as blasphemy, tongue in cheek, because that seems to be the way it's viewed by some of the secular thinking Modern Orthodox. R' Schwab once wrote a thought experiment, which was one huge hava amina. What if, he said, we were faced with absolute proof that the historiography of Chazal was wrong? And he gave an idea. He was horrified by the way in which the secular thinking Modern Orthodox misread what he wrote as an actual position, opposing the veracity of Chazal, and wrote, not a retraction, but a clarification that he had *never* espoused the position that was being attributed to him. If R' Leibtag accepts the secular dating, then my comments about the tragedy of Modern Orthodox Jews bowing to the modern idol of secular scholarship apply there as well. > In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a > tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some examples > > 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu > As a curios it makes Eliyahu some 700 years old when he runs in front > of Achav's chariot. > It gives a different meaning to Achav's accusations against Eliyahu > when Eliyahu actually worked together with Moshe Rabbenu. Wrong again. There's no historiography going on here. No chronological framework of any kind. It's Midrash. Like Moshe Rabbenu jumping 10 amot into the air when fighting Og. Like Pharaoh's daughter having a stretchy, Fantastic Four kind of arm. Midrashim are all true. They aren't all true in the literal sense. Pinchas was not literally Aharon's grandson Pinchas ben Elazar. That's quite different from throwing away the entirety of Chazal's historiography, which is internally consistent all the way through, and which *Chazal clearly believed to be literally true*. If you want to say they were wrong, that they were ignorant of the facts, go ahead and do so. But please, don't play games by imagining that they intentionally fudged the facts. > Besiades the fact that Eliyahu was from Gilad and worked in the > northern kingdom it leaves the halachic question whether a cohen gadol > can resign and even leave the land of Israel for various tasks. It is > clear from Tanach that Eli and other were the high priest in later > generations Again, he wasn't Kohen Gadol. No one holds that he was. Let me try and explain a little more about Midrash. Chazal bring Midrashim that contradict one another. For example, there's a Midrash that says Esther never slept with Achashveirosh. That Hashem sent a mal'ach that took her place. That conflicts with "Esther karka hayta", as well as with the Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son. None of this is problematic. Because the truth of Midrashim is not in their concretes. Like analogies, Midrashim are abstractions which are anchored with concretes, but are not defined by those concretes. > 2) Ezta = Malachi because both dealt with the problem of foreign wives And maybe Ezra was Malachi. And maybe he wasn't. I don't see much of a nafka mina either way. Do you? > 3) Nechemia = Zerubavel > R. Yaakov Embden already points out that both are mentioned in the > same pasuk Ditto. Not one single example you're bringing has anything to do with a massive chronological framework that Chazal clearly knew to be the way things happened. Megillat Esther took place *before* Bayit Sheni was built, and not after. Baruch ben Neriah was the talmid of Yirmiyahu and the rav of Ezra, and if you throw that away, you literally snap the chain of tradition from Sinai, rendering all of Judaism stuff and nonsense. > 4) Daniel = Hatach = Sashvezer > Ibn Ezra already doesnt accept this Again, l'mai nafka mina? > 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta > This is part of the missing years controversy. Note that there are > several ancient Persian inscriptions that list them as separate kings > Note that Ibn Ezra identifies Achashverosh as Artachashasta It's not part of the missing years anything. You need to read what Chazal say about that inside. As far as Achashveirosh being Artachshasta, Chazal say Artaxerxes was a throne name. And in fact, Greek sources say that both Artaxerxes II and III adopted it as a throne name. Furthermore, the Septuagint version of Esther refers to the king as Artaxerxes, so saying that Ahasuerus is Artaxerxes is a truism that has nothing to do with chronology. > 6) Conflates Kaleb ben Chetron married to Efrat > with Kalen ben Yefuneh married to Miriam > Ibn Ezra disagrees and also see the Gra I'll go further. R' Moshe Eisenmann's Divrei HaYamim for Artscroll (one of the few books in the Artscroll Tanakh series which I consider to be of inestimable value) has an entire section on the Kalevs. I highly recommend it. But again, Midrash is Midrash, and there's zero relevance here. Let me ask a simple question. Was Baruch ben Neriya Ezra's teacher? As Chazal say, and as Iggeret Rav Shrira Gaon and Rambam and others bring down. Or not? And if not, how do you feel about *not* having a chain of tradition going back to Sinai? Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 08:17:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 11:17:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: <20150511.093851.15442.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150511.093851.15442.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150511151732.GA15699@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 01:38:51PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I rarely, if ever, come across the word "conflate", except here on : Avodah. When it is used here, it seems to be pejorative, indicating that : someone confused or merged two things that really ought to stay distinct. I think that's my doing; I like the word. And yeah, it is merging two things that may be helpful in another context to keep distinct, but without being as pejorative as saying they confused them. If one assumes that Chazal's statements about the past are intended to be about how the past should have happened rather than caring about actual historicity, then their saying that Pinchas is Eliyahu is the identification of what Pinechas means to us with what Eliyahu means, and giving us a license to treat the two are a single symbol. With no intent to imply they were historically the same very-long-lived human being. I would also want a little more clarity from those who object to claims about missing years between levels of objection. Do you mean: 1- This isn't my derekh. 2- I cannot see this even as eilu va'eilu, it's simply false. 3- It is heretical. At least one of us used the latter language, and I don't see it. We have a definition of heresy, three definitions of three subtypes of heres, anyway (kofer, apiqreis, min). Is anyone actually intending to claim that it violates an iqar emunah to take Chazal's dating of events in the Galus Paras uMadai and early Bayis Sheini period as ahistorical, meant for some hashkafic reason? Or is it an epistomological thing? If you believe the academic community's interpretation of the evidence and will create new peshatim to fit in this case, you've bought into a system that would equally argue for kefirah? And for the two people who dismiss the Greek version of Persian history: What do you do with the astronomical state points thrown in that actually work? As RET noted last year, around Purim time, if you read Ezra and Nechemiah literally, ignoring Sefer Olam, it is more consistent with Greek historians than Chazal. I found he gave details in 1999 (v2n176) To quote: ... proofs for the secular history 1. external proofs A. The history of Herodotus (485-425 BCE) discusses in detail the lives of Cyrus, Cambyses,Darius and Xerxes and briefly Atraxerxes who was a contemporary of Herodutus. It is hard to conceive that he wrote about contedmporay figures or recent history who did not exist. Note that according to Chazal the Persians did not come into power until 350 BCE 75 years after the death of Herodutus !!! Thucydides (460-400 BCE) starts with Cyrus and goes through Darius II and the fights between Athens and Sparta and the Peloponnesian Wars. Again according to Seder Olam Rabbah there was no time for all these wars and so probably many of these Athenian and Spartan leaders did not exist. Ctesias (430-380) was a physician in the court of Artaxerxes and describes the 7 kings from Cyrus through Artaxerxes II. There are also later Greek historians who give the complete picture. Josephus also includes more kings than Chazal but not the entire Greek list. Moderchai Breuer in his history accepts the Greek dating. See Parker&Dubberstein, Babylonian Chronology for more details. Note: No modern historian claims that all facts in these histories are true. That is a far cry from stating that the entire history and not just certain details are fabrications and that all these kings never existed. B. Archaological evidence has uncovered many ancient Persian (cuneform) enscriptions (see for example The Persian Empire by J.M. Cook). For example one at the Persian palace in Persepolis says "I, Artaxerxes the son of Artaxerxes the son of Darius the son of Artaxerxes the son of Xerxes the son of Darius the son of Hystaspes" (Darius was not the son of Cambyses). Greek names have used for the original Persian names. There are other earlier enscriptions which are similar. These all conform to the Greek dating. C. There are letters from the Jewish community in Elephantine confirming the Greek position. D. I recently read of the history of the Assyrians. In their history they describe the reign of Sancherub and of a major eclipse of the sun during some battle. Astronomical calaculations confirm that the only full eclipse of the sun in that region occurred exactly during the dates of Sancherub according to the Greek chronology. 2. Internal Proofs A. Ezra 45,7 describes Koresh, Daryavesh, Achasverosh, Artachasta. These exactly parallel the Greek chronology with Achasversh=Xerxes. If one looks at the Persian writing rather than the Greek names then Xerxes is called khshayarsha which is close to Achashverosh (note Cambyses is left out probably because nothing of importance to Ezra occured during that reign). Note that Daat Mikrah on Ezra 4 assumes the secular dates. B. Nehemia 12:10 lists 6 High Priests, son after son, between Yehosua and Yadua. This is hard to explain if the whole period was on 52 years. It is even worse if one assumes that Shimon haTzaddik was the high Priest at the time of Alexander as that adds at least one more high Priest in the 52 years According to Ben Sira Shimon was the son of Johanan which would make of total of at least 8 high priests in 52 years all presumably sons of the previous one. C. Comparing Divrei Hayaim I: 3:19-24 with Ezra 8:2 and Nehemia 3:29 it seems that Ezra and Nehemis lived many years after Zerubbavel. Note: Daniel 11:2 seems more in line with chronology of Chazal. Second Note: According to Seder Olam Purim occured before the rebuilding of the second Temple while according to the secular chronology Achashverosh was the son of Darius and so the Temple was already in existence. According to Chazal, Daniel, Zerubavel, Ezra, Nehemia, Mordecai, Hagai, Zerchahiah and Malachi and even Shimon haTzaddik were basically contemporaries or within 1 to 2 generations of each other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 37th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Yesod: When does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 require one to be strict with another? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 06:52:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 09:52:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun on Pesach Sheni (was Meron Live) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150511135043.8781C182131@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:31 AM 5/11/2015, R. Akiva Miller wrote: >As it was explained to me, there's nothing special about the morning >of Pesach Sheni. Pesach Sheni exists only on the afternoon of 14 >Iyar and the following night. We omit Tachanun on the morning of 14 >Iyar NOT because it is a holiday, but because it is the Tachanun >*before* the holiday. Alternatively, one might say that the morning >of 14 Iyar actually *is* Erev Pesach Sheni. Either way, the >afternoon of 13 Iyar is too far removed to be significant enough to >warrant skipping Tachanun. From http://tinyurl.com/ln7le2m Some say Tachanun on Pesach Sheni (14 Iyar); some do not; some do not say Tachanun on 14 & 15 Iyar. What are the sources for these customs? Those who do say Tachanun probably do so because 14 Iyar is not listed as a day where Tachanun was customarily omitted by the Tur, anyone quoted in the Beit Yosef or Bach, by the Shulchan Aruch and its Mapah, the Levush, the Eliya Rabba, the Taz, the Magen Avraham, the Beiur haGra, the Chayei Adam, the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, the Mishna Berura and others. The Aruch haShulchan notes the custom of omitting Tachanun as foreign to Ashkenaz and deems it a 'wonder' (Pelah ). And from http://www.dinonline.org/2010/04/27/tachanun-on-erev-pesach-sheni/ Do we say Tachanun at minchah on Erev Pesach Sheni? Answer Yes [Shulchan Aruch Harav, Piskei Hassidur, end of Hilchos Krias Shema uTefilloh] YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 07:00:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 10:00:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening in a Large or Small Shul In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150511135900.11012181E6C@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:31 AM 5/11/2015, R. Joel Rich wrote: >I wonder if this write up is indicative of a trend seen in "The >halachos of X" works, likutim which seem to have become more popular >(did they exist 40 years ago?). As Rav Aharon Lichtenstein learned >at Harvard, life is complex. Of course there are overarching >priorities which need to be learned, but specific applications are >hard to summarize in an algorithmic form (see hilchot lashon hara >and tzedaka for some obvious examples). Maybe in an internet age we >have no choice but to try to put everything on line but what you >really need IMHO is a live mentor. Did R. Aharon Lichtenstein really not know that life is complex before he went to Harvard? I am very sure that a man as intelligent as he was knew that life was complex long before he went to Harvard. I never went to Harvard, but I knew by 12 or 13 years old that life in indeed complex. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 09:45:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 12:45:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] He is my G-d In-Reply-To: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150511164501.GA29539@aishdas.org> *On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 06:06:53AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : From Today's Hakhel email bulletin. : :> Hakhel Note: The following is excerpted from Rav Schwab on Prayer, :> and was related by Rav Schwab at a Shiur he gave on Tefillah... We need a source, and such a well documented lineage for the source, to point out what the words say? Does no one try translating a poem they've recited since childhood (and that's true even for many BTs)? "Adon Olam" through "velo ha'oz vehamisrah", the first 2/3 or so, talks about how transcendent HQBH is. Then the poet (usually attributed to Ibn Geveirol, 11th cent CE) abruptly switches to "VeHu Keili ... Hashem li velo ira" -- that despite that transcendence, I am still capable of having a personal relationship with Him. Li nir'eh this is the key to understanding sheim havayah: 1- The tetragrammaton is a contraction of "Yihyeh, Hoveh, veHayah -- Will Be, Is and Was", referring to Hashem being timeless and beyond the created. An el, when used in the secular sense, is a legislative ruler, so that Elokeinu, is a declaration that He is our Lawgiver -- the Author of both moral law and physical law. Havayah denotes connotes a vision of Deity that is very Other, the philosopher's G-d; Elokus is One who relates to man. 2- The very remoteness of the name Havayah also implies Divine Mercy. Which is how Chazal describe its usage in chumash. This is not intuitive, however the need to create law comes from a person's limited ability to deal with many individual cases. A teacher with few students is effective, one with more students, less so. To manage a country, we need laws and policies, since we do not have infinite time and attention to cover every decision on a case-by-case basis. Therefore, it is only because Hashem is Infinite that Divine Mercy is possible. Therefore, this expression can be seen as a declaration of the unity of G-d, despite the different appearances of Mercy and Strict Justice. We can each say "veHu Keili" *because* "velo ha'oz vehamisrah". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 37th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Yesod: When does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 require one to be strict with another? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 09:06:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 19:06:59 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] He is my G-d In-Reply-To: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 1:06 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > From Today's Hakhel email bulletin. > > Hakhel Note: The following is excerpted from *Rav Schwab on Prayer*, and > was related by Rav Schwab at a Shiur he gave on Tefillah: > ... > *whenever a person says the word Ado--i, my Master, no matter how small he > thinks he is, he is averring that he is in direct contact with Hashem*. > This thought is in the introduction to any individual's Iyun Tefillah, > concentration on Prayer. There is nothing mystical or supernatural about > it. It should be the most natural thing in the world. > I understand that "Rav Schwab on Prayer" was edited from recordings of RSS' shiurim, and I suspect that there is some misunderstanding here. If this is not mystical and supernatural, what is? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 11:12:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Herbert Basser via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 18:12:16 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah Message-ID: <1431367937499.87948@queensu.ca> Friendly amendment: When all else fails consult a dictionary-- where I found the root h-l-q both in hebrew and in arabic means "to make smooth" (no surprises here) and (surprise) a note after that indicating arabic h-l-q also applies to making the chin and the head smooth (hairless), i.e. "shaving".-- Not from the idea of rounding but from the idea of smoothing. Like in bereshit (27:11) esav was hairy and yaakov halaq. Zvi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 12:33:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 15:33:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150511193132.F24041829B7@nexus.stevens.edu> At 02:57 PM 5/11/2015, R. Eli Turkel wrote: ><the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their minds, >they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple frauds and >told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern Orthodox Jews have >regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic.>> > >I don't see how you can call this "blasphemous" R. Schwab once suggested >that Chazal purposely changed the facts for a good reason. While he later >retracted it would be hard to call his original opinion "blasphemous" . >Furthermore several current Orthodox rabbis such as R. Leibtag do accept >the secular dating. > >In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a >tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. The most definitive study on this topic is the recent book (2014) The Challenge of Jewish History: The Bible, The Greeks & The Missing 168 Years by Rabbi Alexander Hool From http://tinyurl.com/p42uvvj There is a well-known conundrum concerning Jewish history: The conventional chronology of the Western world - and academia - is in direct conflict with traditional Jewish sources over the history of ... history. Incredibly, there is a gap of roughly 200 years: For instance, the Talmud says the Second Temple stood for roughly 400 years, while mainstream historians today conclude that it stood for almost 600 years. This conflict has major implications on what occurred to who, and when. It also seems to question the accuracy of the entire Jewish tradition as accepted dating methods seem to contradict core parts of the traditional Jewish narrative. In presenting fresh and startling astronomical, mathematical and archaeological evidence, Rabbi Alexander Hool has charted new ground in his quest to find the solution to this ancient problem. The Challenge of Jewish History is revolutionary: it questions all assumptions, dispels unfounded myths, and transports us back in time over 2,500 years. With a subject of great significance and fascination to all those interested in history, and a wealth of scholarship and sources to impress academics, this intriguing book gives us a new perspective on .... This is a highly researched book based on Jewish and non-Jewish sources. the author concludes that there are no missing years and seems to prove his conclusion. I suggest that anyone who is really interested in this topic purchase this book. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 13:10:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Herbert Basser via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 20:10:00 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] chronology Message-ID: <1431375000749.45056@queensu.ca> [Transliteration mine. -micha] Seder Olam: Mahadurah Mada'it Peirush uMavo me'et Chaim Milikovsky's Makhor Yitzchaq ben Zvi shenei chalaqim, 326+711 amudim See Chaim Milikovsky's edition of Seder Olam for a very detailed explanation of all these issues in chazal's chronology and a critical edition of the readings of all extant manuscripts. The issues of chazal's chronologies were first highlighted at length by Azariah de Rossi's Meor Eynayim and should be settled by Milikowski's volume which took about 35 years to research. Chazal were great men but not modern historians, doctors, scientists, or nevi'im -- and certainly not liars. Zvi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 14:46:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 14:46:24 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] explanation Message-ID: the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not PC by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation for some shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a heterodox clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read those passages] . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other than the chok aspect] that the RBSO was looking from the perspective of the kahal and their kovod, and how they would react or be distracted by a baal mum. can someone supply a better take ? thanks -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 18:12:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 21:12:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150429.073718.25006.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150429.073718.25006.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150512011220.GA19224@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 11:37:18AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : Regardless of how the Bas Kol might be interpreted, is there any way : to understand "Nitzchuni banai!" other than Hashem personally siding : with one of the litigants, and losing? I don't see the closing of the story adding any problems the nissim themselves didn't. If you think they were about Hashem backing one side, then "nitzchui banai" is about that sice being defeated. If not, then it's whatever over reason He had for presenting misleading evidence that was defeated. Leshitas those who don't take eilu va'eilu literally and intead use a more classical logic with a law of contradition, the whole story is about HQBH choosing the process as a whole over the correctness of this one particular ruling. HQBH rejoicing that the chakhamim maintained the kelalei pesaq as they should rather than pay attention to His interferance. As the Maharitz Chayes understands it, by keeping the process viable, they keep the Torah eternal, capable of speaking to new circumstances as the world changes. "Nitzchuni banai -- My children have made Me eternal!" Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 37th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Yesod: When does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 require one to be strict with another? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 17:57:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 20:57:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55514FDD.4000100@sero.name> On 05/11/2015 05:46 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not > PC by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation > for some shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a > heterodox clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read > those passages] . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other > than the chok aspect] that the RBSO was looking from the perspective > of the kahal and their kovod, and how they would react or be > distracted by a baal mum. > > can someone supply a better take ? What's the difficulty? Hakriveihu no lefechosecho. The dignity of a king, and especially of The King, demands that all who serve Him be perfect in all respects. People with physical imperfections may be wonderful in many ways, but they are just that, imperfect. The current political correctness that refuses to acknowledge this is literally insane. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 15:31:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 23:31:27 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 12:19:57 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah > In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a > tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some examples > 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu ... > Besiades the fact that Eliyahu was from Gilad and worked in the northern > kingdom it leaves the halachic question whether a cohen gadol can resign > and even leave the land of Israel for various tasks. It is clear from > Tanach that Eli and other were the high priest in later generations Re Pinchos = Eliyohu The Ari says clearly [through the pen of R. Chaim Vital] in Shaar HaGilgulim that this refers to a gilgul neshomoh, not that he was literally the same person in body as well. DR From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 23:21:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 09:21:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar Message-ID: R' YGB writes: "I cannot believe TABC allowed this to be published as is. /Shreklach!/" Should we just bury our heads in the sand and not address these kinds of issues? Its very hard to hide information today, what happens when these kids get to college and find about the missing 165 years. What are they going to think? The fact is that Rabbi S. Schwab found this discrepancy a ?truly vexing problem? and wrote that the historical chronological dating: "?can hardly be doubted for they appear to be the result of painstaking research by hundreds of scholars and are borne out by profound erudition and by ever increasing authoritative evidence ... we are compelled to admit that the Bayis Sheni must have existed for no less than 586 years.? (Hakira A Y2K Solution to the Chronology Problem). If we don't address these kinds of questions (torah and science, the documentary hypothesis, etc.) then the implication that will be drawn by many people is that we don't have answers and we know what happens then. The Seforim blog (http://seforim.blogspot.com/2015/01/blog-post.html) not long ago reviewed a Sefer by R' Amnon Bazak, Ad Hayom Hazeh, which deals with many of the the issues that academia brings up related to Tanach. Are his answers compelling? Many times not. But at least he deals with the issues. A commentator there made a very important point, for those who have been exposed to these questions, we need seforim like this that at least attempt to deal with the issues raised and not simply bury our heads in the sand. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 01:36:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 11:36:40 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> References: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> Message-ID: > 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta <> Do these Greek sources explain how Koresh and Daryavush are the same person? Besides you use the parts of the Greek sources that you like and reject those that dont fit your thesis Now you rely on the Septuagint? Almost everyone else identifies Achashverosh with Xerxes, Besides the are several inscriptions in ancient Persian that give a detailed list of kings eg Artaxerxes the great king, king of kings king of peoples king on this earth son od Darius the king Darius son of Artaxerxes the king, Xerxes son of Darius the king Darius son of Hystapes the Archaemend proclaims .. As an aside modern chronology of Eygpt has been confirmed by recent carbon 14 dating. Dates of Sishak and other Assyrina and Babylonian kings have been confirmed by their writings combined with various astronomical events mentioned in their writings. <> That's your opinion. In fact many achronim take these conflating of names very seriously. While you claim Eliyahu wasn't a cohen gadol there is in fact a halachic literature whether he was or not and whether a cohen gadol can resign. For example see hebrewbooks Magen Tzvi siman 36 page 388 where he concludes that a Cohen Gadol (annointed by oil) who resigns still has all the laws of a cohen gadol You wrote "Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son " . However Darius's own version (Behustan) states that he was not the son of the previous king (see also above inscription on a wall) -------------------------- separately Marty Blake mentioned the sefer of R Amnon Bazak. The shiurim are also available in English http://etzion.org.il/en/topics/fundamental-issues-study-tanakh As Marty mentioned he discusses fundamental issues as are all pesukim in the Torah from Moshe Rabbenu, archaeology, accuracy of the text, Bible criticism, peshat and drash, sins of Biblical figures and many other controversial topics. I am sure that many of his solutions are also controversial. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 19:20:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 02:20:37 GMT Subject: [Avodah] explanation Message-ID: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero wrote: <<< The dignity of a king, and especially of The King, demands that all who serve Him be perfect in all respects. People with physical imperfections may be wonderful in many ways, but they are just that, imperfect. >>> "... in all respects." Really? Where will you find such a person? No, that's an impossible task. For practicality's sake, He cannot and does not demand that all who serve Him be perfect in ALL respects. So instead, there is a set of criteria, and a set of shiurim by which to determine if one is *adequately* perfect. I can't imagine that anyone would disagree with what I wrote thus far. But then we'll go the next step, and study what sorts of things are on that list of criteria. For example, if one is a Mechalel Shabbos, or a murderer, he is disqualified from Birkas Kohanim, so I'd bet that he's disqualified from the avodah too. But those aren't the sort of mumim that the previous poster's Shabbos guests were asking about. They were asking about physical abnormalities. I hope it is okay if I rephrase their question to something like this: It is reasonable for The King to insist on a certain degree of moral perfection, but why is physical perfection relevant? Or to phrase it more bluntly, the kohanim should not be judged by the shape of their nose, but by the content of their character. (Of course, we are not disputing the halacha. The question is WHY the Torah considers physical abnormalities to be disqualifications.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/555163bfd843b63bf2454st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 22:43:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 01:43:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah Message-ID: R? Zvi Basser points out ? H-L-Q was the haircut celebrated Lag B?Omer. Yes! Perhaps Chalak evokes Yaakov Avinu, aka Ish Chalak. An older version of Ibn Ezra's famous Tzama Nafshi has alternate ending stanzas. H?alo Chelk?cha Meirosh ? Addressing Hashem directly Chalak ? that is Yaakov Avinu the weak brother ? and his endless generations of martyrs Damo Darosh ? avenge and right the wrongs Shfoch HHamas Af al Rosh Hasa-ir Hachai ? let your anger pour over its proper target - . Ibn Ezra means that Hashem can grant Dveikus, Nevuah or Ruach Hakodesh. The Ibn Ezra 's philosophical approach ? said that the Nefesh ? as a Spiritual Heavenly entity ? can encounter the Ultimate Hashem ? directly. The alternate ? higher level of Hashkafa ? Tzama Nafshi has a verse ? now found in some better editions ? After dealing with Hagar rebelling against Sara (Shifha no-emmes) H?alo Chelk?cha Meirosh ? Chalak ? that is Yaakov ? and his endless generations of martyrs Damo Darosh ? avenge and right the wrongs Shfoch HHamas Af al Rosh Hasa-ir Hachai ? let your anger pour over its proper target - . -- Two other points ? the first verse in the alternat version of Tzama Nafshi: (See Kol Kisvei RAIE) Eil Chayy Bera-ani ? To my mind this means ? the always watching and involved One watching over us. Compare ? Chai Anochi LeOlam Im Shanosi Brak Charbi ? in Parshas Haazinu ? anger to avenge. Perhaps in Inquisitorial times ? Eil Echad Bera-ani was more relevant. Also fascinating ? The Ayin verse substitutes ? Al Kol Chasadecha ? Techadeish Eidecha!! References Iyov 10:17, where Ibn ezra refers to leprous blemishes. Posei-ach es Yadecha umasbia lechol chai ? directly allow Life, Deveikus and attachment to His Essence ? not the simple meaning of providing food . Earlier Ibn Ezra had said - Ki lo yir-ani ha-adam vachayy - no man can see Hashem and Chai ? no complete experience of Hashem. His Creation is Ne-elama hidden in its wisdom. Parshas Tazria has many multiple references to live healthy skin ? Basar Hachayy - as opposed to leprous skin. I would believe there are multiple references to Tazria Metzora. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 03:51:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 06:51:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150512105130.GC3499@aishdas.org> Lakol zeman va'eis... There is a time to force people to change their reflect reactions, and a time when the focus should be elsewhere. There are two kinds of mummim WRT kehunah (see Bechoros 43b): 1- mar'is ayin -- one whose appearance is repulsive to the people 2- eino shaveh bezar'o shel Aharon -- someone who is unique in appearance to the people (see Rambam, Bi'as haMiqdash 6:6) A kohein in the mar'is ayin category would pasl the avodah bedi'eved, one who is eino shaveh would violate an asei, but the avodah is kasher. Notice that both are defined by their impact on the observer. Presumably the point is that attention should be on avodah, not thoughts about the kohein performing it, or negative judgments of who is fit for service. But notice this is only for the Avodah.... a kohein with a baal mum was still expected to show up with his mishmar and do other necessary jobs. I am not even sure he is pasul from lighting the menorah. After all, we learn these mumim from the animals for qorbanos; it may apply to qorbanos in particular. So to me, the question is why isn't mid-qorban a good time to acclimate Kelal Yisrael away from such visceral reactions. But since I cannot get my head into the mindset of someone bringing a qorban, I leave the question tabled until I have the opportunity to learn what a qorban is like firsthand, bb"a. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 38th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Yesod: How does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 promote harmony in life and relationships? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 09:24:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 12:24:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: <20150512105130.GC3499@aishdas.org> References: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> <20150512105130.GC3499@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150512162421.GA13065@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 6:51am EDT, I wrote: : There is a time to force people to change their reflect reactions, and a : time when the focus should be elsewhere. ... To add, there are TWO reactions that would distract from the purpose of the qorban: Both the person who is turned off by how Hashem made this particular kohein (either through birth, disease, or allowing him to suffer an acctident), and the person who would then turn his qorban into a bein adam lachaveiro rather than a qorban. The one who would be thinking about how touching it was the such a person overcame disability to help them bring it. Rather than simply thinking about G-d. Even according to R' Chaim Volozhiner or R' Shimon Shkop, who see bein adam lachaveiro as the ultimate purpose of life, and thus presumably bein adam laMaqom as a derived value, there is a time to care for the goose, rather than everything being about collecting the golden eggs. In fact, the farmer is likely to spend nearly al of his time into caring for the goose rather than the ultimate payoff. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 38th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Yesod: How does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 promote harmony in life and relationships? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 06:17:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 08:17:09 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: References: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> Message-ID: <5551FD55.5090900@starways.net> On 5/12/2015 3:36 AM, Eli Turkel wrote: > 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta > < was a throne name. And in fact, Greek sources say that both > Artaxerxes II and III adopted it as a throne name. Furthermore, the > Septuagint version of Esther refers to the king as Artaxerxes, so > saying that Ahasuerus is Artaxerxes is a truism that has nothing to do > with chronology >> > Do these Greek sources explain how Koresh and Daryavush are the same > person? Fortunately, they don't have to, since that's just Midrash and has no nafka mina l'maaseh. > Besides you use the parts of the Greek sources that you like and > reject those that dont fit your thesis Of course I do. The Greek sources aren't what we would call "history" today. Herodotus collected folklore and picked the versions he liked to make a more entertaining story. He says himself that he heard 4 different and conflicting stories about Cyrus's backstory, and chose the one he liked best. He didn't even preserve the other three so that we could make our own decisions. He made his living in Greece by entertaining his patron(s) with exotic stories from exotic lands. > Now you rely on the Septuagint? Almost everyone else identifies > Achashverosh with Xerxes, Not so. Everyone recognizes that the *name* Achashveirosh is the same as the *name* Xerxes. Or rather, that both names are transliterations of the original Persian Khshayarsha. To say that "almost everyone else identifies Achashverosh with Xerxes" indicates that you aren't particularly well versed in the subject. I mean, at the very least, read the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahasuerus which notes which sources have identified him as which kings. > Besides the are several inscriptions in ancient Persian that give a > detailed list of kings eg > Artaxerxes the great king, king of kings king of peoples king on this > earth son od Darius the king Darius son of Artaxerxes the king, Xerxes > son of Darius the king Darius son of Hystapes the Archaemend proclaims .. Have you read the Behistun Inscription? Darius son of Hystaspes had it inscribed. In it, he talks about Babylonian kings who weren't actually Babylonian kings. At least not by our standards. They were pretenders, since Babylon had fallen to the Medes and Persians. But they gave themselves royal titles and claimed descent from Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus and the rest. From their point of view, they *were* kings of Babylon. From the Persian point of view, they were pretenders. Similarly, what do you think happened to Persia when Alexander conquered it? From one day to the next, Persia vaporized? Persia covered a huge area. Professor Levine posted about Rabbi Alexander Hool's book "The Challenge of Jewish History". I don't agree with all of his conclusions, and I'm embarrassingly late completing a review of the book, but he posits the Persian line continuing even after Alexander whupped Darius at Gaugamela. And in fact, the Parthian Empire, which started only about 70-80 years after the Alexandrian conquest, claimed descent from the Achaemenids of the Persian Empire. As did the later Sassanids. Names like Ardashir are just Late Persian versions of the Old Persian Artaxerxes. That's completely aside from the fact that we *know* there were forgeries perpetrated in ancient times for the purpose of establishing royal descent. Check out Roland Kent's article "The Present Status of Old Persian Studies" in /Journal of the American Oriental Society, /1936, vol. 56, p. 215ff. (http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/594668?uid=3739656&uid=2134&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21106376285721). A couple of inscriptions that are nothing but royal titles with no actual content to them is kind of flimsy evidence. Certainly not something strong enough to trash Chazal's entire picture of such an important period in our history. > As an aside modern chronology of Eygpt has been confirmed by recent > carbon 14 dating. Source. Because you may not be aware of this, but when you bring items in for carbon dating, you have to tell them -- up front -- what the rough date is that you think they're from. So that they can throw away any results that skew too far from that as "contaminated". The rest are subject to a fudge factor (sorry: correction factor) to help make them fit. But I'd like to see the source you have for carbon dating of modern Egyptian chronology. > Dates of Sishak and other Assyrina and Babylonian kings have been > confirmed by their writings combined with various astronomical events > mentioned in their writings. Assuming Sosenk = Shishak, which is iffy, considering that Sosenk only claims to have campaigned in the north of Israel, which would be odd for Shishak, whose son-in-law Yeravam was ruling there. The rest of what you're talking about is pure confirmation bias. They have a model and they shoehorn any evidence they find into that model, even if they have to kind of mush it in there. > < and explain a little more about Midrash. Chazal bring Midrashim that > contradict one another. For example, there's a Midrash that says > Esther never slept with Achashveirosh. That Hashem sent a mal'ach that > took her place. That conflicts with "Esther karka hayta", as well as > with the Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son. None of > this is problematic. Because the truth of Midrashim is not in their > concretes. Like analogies, Midrashim are abstractions which are > anchored with concretes, but are not defined by those concretes.>> > That's your opinion. In fact many achronim take these conflating of > names very seriously. While you claim Eliyahu wasn't a cohen gadol > there is in fact a halachic literature whether he was or not and > whether a cohen gadol can resign. > For example see hebrewbooks Magen Tzvi siman 36 page 388 where he > concludes that a Cohen Gadol (annointed by oil) who resigns still has > all the laws of a cohen gadol Midrash. And if it were something more solid than that, you'd have more than just some achronim saying so. > You wrote "Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son " . > However Darius's own version (Behustan) states that he was not the son > of the previous king (see also above inscription on a wall) So what? I'm confused. I'm saying that Midrash isn't necessarily the literal fact, and you pick out a phrase from what I wrote and point out that it isn't the literal fact? It seems like you're trying to make a point, but I'm not seeing what it is. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 10:18:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 13:18:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I commend you for having such guests at your table! > the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not PC by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation for some shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a heterodox clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read those passages] . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other than the chok aspect] that the RBSO was looking from the perspective of the kahal and their kovod, and how they would react or be distracted by a baal mum. can someone supply a better take ? This is, indeed, a difficult passage. R Jonathan Sacks has a good take on it -- which is generally along the lines of what you suggested, but a slightly different (and more big-picture) take, and, of course articulated extremely well. An excerpt: > Kugel also writes, "Most people, when they see someone ravaged by chemotherapy, just tend to keep their distance." He quotes Psalm 38:12, "My friends and companions stand back at the sight of my affliction; even those closest to me keep their distance." Although the physical reactions to chemotherapy are quite different from a skin disease or a bodily abnormality, they tend to generate the same feeling in others, part of which has to do with the thought "This could happen to me." They remind us of the "thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to." > > This is the logic - if logic is the right word - of Tumah. It has nothing to do with rationality and everything to do with emotion (Recall Pascal's remark that "the heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing"). Tumah does not mean defilement. It means that which distracts from eternity and infinity by making us forcibly aware of mortality, of the fact that we are physical beings in a physical world. If the above interests you at all, I encourage you to read the whole thing: http://www.aish.com/tp/i/sacks/149811775.html [1] -- Sholom Links: ------ [1] http://www.aish.com/tp/i/sacks/149811775.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 09:51:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Dov Weinstock via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 12:51:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Explanation Message-ID: On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 12:27 PM, via Avodah wrote: > the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not PC > by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation for some > shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a heterodox > clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read those passages] > . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other than the chok aspect] > that the RBSO was looking from the perspective of the kahal and their > kovod, and how they would react or be distracted by a baal mum. > > can someone supply a better take ? > May I suggest the following: http://rabbidovlinzer.blogspot.com/2014_04_27_archive.html Dov Weinstock -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 03:09:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 06:09:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: <20150513100956.GA14377@aishdas.org> Among the arguments that came up in the discussion of the Kosher Switch was that it's zilzul Shabbos. The thought hit me, though... Refraining from operating electrical devices has only been a potential issue for 125 years or so. And except for Yekkes, most of our ancestors come from places where it has been less than a century since electricity became part of our lives. So it's very hard to say that "not using electricity" is a defining feature of the Shabbos experience. Contrast this to hotza'ah, including haavarah, which take up what seems like 1/3 of chazal's discussion of issur melakhah (rough estimate from Berakhos and Eruvin in mishna, Tosefta, Y-mi and Bavli). When community eruvin got started, wasn't there a much easier argument of zilzul? Why wasn't it made? Indeed we use the general kelal of being meiqil WRT eiruvin to quite an extent to build one. And what does the fact that a community eruv is NOT zilzul Shabbos say about the nature of zilzul Shabbos and its applicability to nidon didan? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 12:26:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 15:26:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 06:42:58AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : He is now starting a series on religious autonomy. In particular he holds : that one goes to a rabbi for a psak only if he is in doubt. If one has : seriously learned the halachaot and is convinced of the "truth" then he : should follow his own psak and there is no need to go to a "higher : authority". Interesting. Does "seriously learned the halakhos" translate to higi'ah lehora'ah, or something less? RHS requires a certainly level of general knowledge. See Sanhedrin 5a-b. But it also fits RHS's hashkafah that halakhah is an inseperable whole. And so Rebbe doesn't just tell us that night Shema can be said at sundown, he ties it to the law of tevul yom. And RHS similarly advises his talmidim to look to gedolim from their own camp because one with whom they disagree hashkafically is likely to see even apparenty unrelated halakhos differently. Listen to (RAM transcripted other snippets from this talk for one of our many discussions of da'as Torah at .) For that matter, 5b talks about the need to get a heter hora'ah even if one knows enough to pasqen. But then, the gemara is discussing deciding for others, not only oneself. OTOH, pasqening for oneself has a major problem that one doesn't face when answering others' questions -- vested interest vs objectivity. Listen to R Jonathan Ziring's shiur on the topic at . In particular, his very first source (see link to mar'eh meqomos sheet) Nissah 20b. Yalta, "Rebbetzin Nachman", asks her mar'os questions of Rabbah bar bar Chanah and Rabbi Yitzchaq bereih deR' Yehudah, not her husband. Similarly mishnah Nega'im 2:5 saying you can't pasen nega'im even of relatives, Bekhoros 31a about judging one's own bekhoros. So, I would think that not being in doubt is too easily a delusion. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 12:54:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 15:54:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes In-Reply-To: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150513195451.GA16146@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 01:18:22AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Saul Newman asked: :> i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at :> hadchak /bedieved : ... : But I think that the real answer to your question might be: "If the people : in shul can't hear the rabbi or the chazan, that IS a shaas hadchak." Both letzorekh mitzvah and tzarkhei tzibbur are usually classified with she'as hadechaq and hefsed meruba. The two combined is why shuls have such wide lattitude with amira le'akum. (And perhaps either alone? I dunno.) So if a properly designed PA system is a shevus or other derabannan, why not permit this too? BTW, R/Dr Yisrael Rozen of Machon Zomet makes a point of noting that the issues seem to be the same whether the PA system is electrical or based on air pressure. See Microphones and Amplifiers on Shabbat Rabbi Yisrael Rozen C. Microphones Operating on Air Pressure 1. System Description Recently, the idea of a microphone which operates on air pressure, rather than electricity, has been proposed. A company in the United States is in the process of developing this "air-mike," although to the best of my knowledge, the project is still in the experimental stage. The device consists of a container of compressed air[12] and a system of pipes in which the compressed air flows. After one speaks into a horn-like input, his voice is carried on the stream of compressed air in the pipes. Acoustic adjustment (which apparently lies at the heart of the idea) then causes the voice waves to be amplified... 2. Comparison to an Electronic Microphone Several rabbis have permitted the use of air microphones on Shabbat, viewing it as an appropriate means of sound amplification for a synagogue. I question the distinction between an air microphone and a regular microphone - if we permit one, we must permit the other... Let me explain. We have shown that, given the current technology, the main problems with using a microphone on Shabbat have nothing to do with the fact that it runs on electricity. The problems concern the decree of klei shir, the fear that one will repair it, hashma'at kol like a water mill, avsha milta, denigration of Shabbat, and the suspicion of onlookers. Regarding all but the last of these, I see no difference between an air microphone and a regular microphone. In my opinion, an air microphone is a kli shir exactly like a shofar or trumpet; it creates a loud noise like a water mill; there exists the possibility that one will try to adjust it etc.. If you wish to claim that it is not a kli shir because it transmits speech; that we should not innovate a decree of "lest one repair it;" that it does not resemble a water mill because everyone knows that there is no Shabbat violation involved - then the same considerations should apply to a regular microphone as well. Only regarding the suspicion of onlookers might there be a difference between the two types of microphones; with an electric microphone, onlookers may think that an electric circuit was created on Shabbat. But we have already explained that even if one would turn on existing equipment on Shabbat, he would violate only a rabbinic prohibition, and we are not concerned with creating suspicion regarding rabbinic prohibitions. We also noted above that "everyone knows" that the equipment was turned on either before Shabbat or by means of a timer, and thus resembles a chiming clock (which is permitted). I have heard that there are those who permit the air microphone since the speaker's original voice is carried through the pipes (although clearly the majority of the sound waves reaching the audience's ears comes from the air pumped by the compressor). I am astonished at this claim: even in an actual musical instrument (such as a trumpet) the player's breath is mixed in, and nevertheless it is forbidden! In many musical instruments, the sound comes mainly from an "echo chamber," whose geometry shapes and amplifies the sound. To the best of my understanding, an air microphone operates on the same principle.[13] In my opinion, halachic definitions (in all fields) do not stem from scientific, physical, or technical definitions. The definitions of klei shir and hashma'at kol are not based on the technology of sound production, wave dispersion, or other acoustic considerations. The question at hand is whether these devices are included in the rabbinic decree of klei shir or not. In this regard, it does not matter whether one makes his voice heard by means of an electric or an air microphone. Some of those who give a blanket permit to use an air microphone claim that it does not amplify the speaker's voice, but merely carries it. On the basis of material I have received from the factory, I find this claim to be mistaken. Therefore, as far as klei shir and hashma'at kol are concerned, the two types of microphones are identical. ... 3. Responsa Which Erred in the Realia ... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 13:14:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 16:14:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes In-Reply-To: <20150513195451.GA16146@aishdas.org> References: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> <20150513195451.GA16146@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5553B099.7090100@sero.name> On 05/13/2015 03:54 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Both letzorekh mitzvah and tzarkhei tzibbur are usually classified with > she'as hadechaq and hefsed meruba. The two combined is why shuls have such > wide lattitude with amira le'akum. (And perhaps either alone? I dunno.) Letzorech mitzvah is not enough to justify amira lenochri for an issur derabanan, unless the mitzvah absolutely cannot be fulfilled without it. For instance, if one is pitch darkness one may ask a nochri to bring a lit candle through a communal chatzer that has no eruv, because oneg shabbos is impossible in complete darkness; but if there is already at least dim lighting, so that some minimal oneg shabbos is possible, one is *not* allowed to have a nochri bring another candle. Tzorchei tzibbur, OTOH, seems to justify amira lenochri for almost anything. [Quoting R Rosen] > The problems concern the decree of klei shir, the fear that one will > repair it, hashma'at kol like a water mill, avsha milta, denigration > of Shabbat, and the suspicion of onlookers. He's listing the same thing multiple times. "Hashma'at kol like a water mill" *is* "avsha milsa", i.e. passersby will hear it running and know that a Jew's business is operating on Shabbos, and the problem with that is that they will think the Jew is transgressing amira lenochri. These are not separate issues. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 13:32:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 23:32:51 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> References: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <> I understand the concern. However, there is no halacha that a rabbi can't pasken on his own chicken. In fact in real life we all pasken for ourselves on some level. Anytime one has a shabbat question \he can't always run to the LOR. One usually ends up paskening based on whatever knowledge and mesorah one has. This is what makes the life of a Baal Teshuva very difficult. Certainly what RMA and many others are against is running to the LOR or even gadol hador with every question. I have heard complaints from shul rabbis that some congregants come with questions they could easily look upo themselves but prefer to ask the rabbi so that the rabbi notes how serious they are. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 14:35:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 21:35:43 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> Message-ID: . I have heard complaints from shul rabbis that some congregants come with questions they could easily look upo themselves but prefer to ask the rabbi so that the rabbi notes how serious they are. ---------------------- True, but sometimes it may be to establish a connection (yes, funny coming from me-but it is true) KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 15:04:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 18:04:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150513220422.GC10395@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 13, 2015 at 11:32:51PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> OTOH, pasqening for oneself has a major problem that one doesn't face when :> answering others' questions -- vested interest vs objectivity. : : I understand the concern. However, there is no halacha that a rabbi can't : pasken on his own chicken. : In fact in real life we all pasken for ourselves on some level. Anytime one : has a shabbat question he can't always run to the LOR... I was using "pesaq" to refer specifically to open questions that require shiqul hada'as. Your typical Shabbos question is about a devar mishnah. To quote Rt Chana Luntz from Mon, 7 Sep 1998, 8:33pm BDT: 20:33:38 +0100, a post about not combining chumeros: > ... the Rashba on our daf in Chullin [43b], who hold that a Rav only > needs to pay if there is shikul hadaas and not a mistake in a dvar > mishna, are forced to conclude from this that Rava's mistake was in > shikul hadaas - see there]. It would seem that a devar mishnah is not a pesaq that the rav is as responsible for our following his teaching rather than getting the halakhah correctly from some other source. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 15 08:55:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 15 May 2015 11:55:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Laasok beDivrei Sorah Message-ID: <4c752525c83edeb17b85f6670479b9c0@aishdas.org> >From R' Eliezer Eisenberg's blog Beis Vaad L'Chachamim (highly recommended), at http://beisvaad.blogspot.com/2015/05/bechukosai-at-my-grandsons-bar-mitzva.html A couple of personal comments ellided, mostly to save myself the bother of transliterating more Hebrew text. A belated mazal tov to the author, G'Shabbos to all, -micha Friday, May 15, 2015 Bechukosai. At my grandson's Bar Mitzva Drasha at the Bar Mitzva of Avraham Jofen, 5/14/15 ... The Gemara (Brachos 11b) and the rishonim there talk about the issue of hefsek in Birkas HaTorah. There are those that hold that if a person stops learning, he has to make a new bracha when he begins again, because it is a hefsek from the first bracha. The Rishonim, the Agur and the Rosh, say that it is not a hefsek, because even when you are not actually learning, you have to consider what you can and cannot do according to the dinim of the Torah. Even when you are in a place where you cannot learn, you have to behave in a manner that is prescribed in the Torah. As the Hafla'ah says, when you do business, it is not a hefsek, because you are learning Choshen Mishpat. Every decision you make is examined in the light of the Torah, so that is not a hefsek in limud. I would put it this way. Torah is only a mitzvah when you learn al menas laasos. Al menas laasos means that you don't learn superficially, you make the Torah a part of who you are. On the contrary, if what you learn is just on the surface, the learning itself is bitul Torah. If the Mitzva of limud hatorah requires that it should make you into a different person, do you think that carefully living the life of an ehrilcheh ben Torah is a hefsek in limud hatorah? It's not a hefsek, it is a hemshech, it is a kiyum, of the mitzvah of limud hatorah. My father Ztz'l was very friendly with his lawyer, Bill Rosenthal. Bill was an assimilated Jew. The only contact he had with the Jewish religion was when he shook hands with my father. Nonetheless, he and my father were good friends and respected each other. A lawyer for a mortgage company once asked him which university my father studied at, because he could brilliantly analyze contracts. Bill told him that my father studied at Slabodka U. He once asked my father, "You and I are very ethical and honest men. I wouldn't take a penny that wasn't mine, and I have the highest standards of behavior in business. You, too, are very moral, but you do it because of your religious beliefs. Is there really any difference between us? My father told him, on the spot, that there are three differences. One is that for you, a dollar is a small matter, and a question involving a million dollars is a big matter. To me, there is no difference. The principal, the law, is what matters, and the sum of money is irrelevant. Another difference is that let's say you carefully think an issue through, and you decide the other side is right, and you let them win. you will toss and turn at night, ,thinking that maybe you were really right. I, on the other hand, if I decide that I am right, and I keep something that had been disputed, I won't be able to sleep at night our of a concern that maybe my decision was influenced by self interest. The third difference is that while you and I are both successful people,, and we've both made a lot of money, you think that you made the money yourself, and it's 100% yours to do with as you please. I believe that God decided that I should have the money, and God gave me the money, and every dollar that was given to me was given so that I use it in the right way. So it's true, my father learned how to do business at Slabodka U. Because he learned how to do business at Slabodka U, he was able to give, on the spot, three excellent and lomdusheh chilukim about the difference between Bill Rosenthal's moral code and his own moral code. Doing business like that is not a hefsek in the mitzva of limud hatorah. Farkert, it is the biggest kiyum and chizuk of limud hatorah and mussar and yashrus. This is a kiyum of the passuk [im bechuqosai seleikhu], as Rashi explains, [shetihyu ameilim baTorah]. It is this mesora which we bequeath to the Bar Mitzvah. ... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 15 13:39:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 15 May 2015 16:39:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Learning Chumash with the Trop Message-ID: <20150515203756.96751182847@nexus.stevens.edu> My 6 year-old grandson who is in the first grade was taught the trop at the same time he was being taught Chumash. The bottom line is that when he says the Pesukim he has studies in yeshiva, he says each word with the trop. I think this makes it easier for him to remember the Pesukim. When he davens, he says Shma with the trop! I can only wonder why this is not done in all yeshivas. When it will come time for him to lein at his Bar Mitzvah, it should be much easier for him than for those boys who are taught Chumash without the trop. YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 06:37:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 09:37:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Standing at a Chupah Message-ID: <20150518133702.1FA0A18392A@nexus.stevens.edu> Yesterday a friend of mine told be that the Rov where he davened said that he knew of grandparents who did not want to walk down at their grandchildren's Chassana, because they knew that the people attending the chupah would not stand for them even though they were 70 + years old. They did not want to be involved in lifnei Iver. Truth be told, I have seen the following many times. When the grandparents who are 70 or more years old walk down, no one stands for them. However, when the chosson and kallah walk down everyone stands for them. It is, of course, a positive mitzvah to stand up for any person 70 years old or more. See See http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/35165/standing-for-someone-whos-turned-seventy It is questionable if one has to stand for the chosson and kallah. See http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/levine/standing_chasuna.pdf I told my friend that it should be announced at the beginning of every chupah that 1. All cell phones should be turned off; 2. There should be no talking during the chupah, and 3. If grandparents who are 70 or more will be walking down, then one is required to stand for them. I think if this were done at Chasanas it would soon become the norm. 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URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 06:39:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 14:39:50 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001b01d09170$1d5db6f0$581924d0$@org.uk> Rav Zylberstein in the Cheshukei Chemed on Daf 78a of Kesubos discusses the question as to whether a woman today who has lots of peros from her property can say to her husband - "you do not need to redeem me, and I will not give you the peros" - on the ground that the need for redemption today is not common ("lo schiach") - even though the gemora there says that she cannot avoid this trade as mandated by Chazal (despite her being able to avoid the trade between mezonos versus ma'aseh yadeha, again a takana of Chazal, as this last takana was done for her benefit). Rav Zylberstein brings a discussion based on various rishonim to show that actually, pidyon was not common even at the time of Chazal, or at the time of the rishonim, and hence the fact that it is not common today does not change the situation from that mandated by Chazal. He also adds in the position of the Ran, that the takana regarding pidyon is not just made for her benefit (as the mezonos one is) and hence something that can be waived by her, but is also for the benefit of the husband, as without her redemption, the husband doesn't have the benefit of her company and services, while with mezonos that doesn't apply. However, it seems to me that Rav Zylberstein is not in fact dealing with what strikes me as the fundamental question. That is, it is not a question of whether or not pidyon is not common today (indeed, I would be tempted dispute that it is in fact "lo schiach", despite Rav Zylberstein taking this for granted) - but rather that the job of pidyon today is one of those that has been appropriated away from family members such as husbands, and is now the province of governments. The decision as to whether an individual may or may not be redeemed from ISIS, or pirates off Africa, or wherever, is now one which governments take with regard to their citizens. Governments which are prepared to do deals, like France, redeem their citizens (albeit for astronomical sums). Governments, like the UK and the US, who refuse to do deals on the grounds that it just encourages terrorists - will not let individuals, including husbands, redeem, even if the sums could be raised individually, as a matter of general policy. Nobody assumed it was the job of Gilad Shalit's family to effect his release - except to the extent that they was required to lobby the Israeli government (it might even have been treason to go negotiating with Hamas directly). Release or non release negotiations therefore, including the price to be paid (whether by prisoner release or otherwise) is today a government price. So it seems to me that what in fact we have today is a situation where husbands are, for the most part, forbidden by law (dina d'malchusa dina) from redeeming their wives, ie from fulfilling their side of the takana of Chazal. In such circumstances - while one might argue that the state of which the woman is a citizen is entitled to (at least some portion of) the peros (taxes?) the real question then seems to become: on what basis does one say that the second half of the takana stands - not just in relation to a woman who tries to say "you do not need to redeem me", but in relation to any woman in this circumstance. Has anybody come across anybody discussing this question, and any thoughts on any justification for the retention of the husband's benefit if in fact husbands are not legally allowed to effect redemption? BTW on the question of the commonness of redemption - part of that would depend on the scope of the definition of "pidyon". Clearly redemption from ISIS or pirates in Africa falls within this category - but how about rescuing somebody who was trekking in Nepal at the time of the earthquake? Again this is something that governments are now regarded as having a responsibility to do (the British Government has been criticised for failing to do as much as others, such as the Israeli and US governments, have done). At first blush I can't see why flying somebody out of an earthquake zone would not fit within the pidyon definition - despite it being physical forces, such as landslides, rather than people, who may be trapping the individuals. How about a package tour company going bust? Again, the person in question would (absent ATOL and similar travel bonding schemes set up by the relevant governments) be trapped in a foreign country and need to be returned to their country of origin, as per the language of the takana/ketuba. So why would this not be a form of pidyon? But again, is not the fundamental responsibility now assumed to devolve onto the government in respect of its citizens? So while I am not actually sure that it is true that pidyon is in fact so extremely not common, it seems to me that the fundamental question is rather a different one. Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 05:15:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 12:15:18 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: <20150518.081518.3271.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Among the arguments that came up in the discussion of the Kosher > Switch was that it's zilzul Shabbos. > ... what does the fact that a community eruv is NOT zilzul > Shabbos say about the nature of zilzul Shabbos and its > applicability to nidon didan? Excellent point. And I'd like to add another point: There are those who have argued that the availability of various types of timers (including those with software and adjust themselves for varying sunset times) have made the Kosher Switch unnecessary. I disagree strongly. The Kosher Switch, and similar devices do not merely add convenience, but can do a lot for lessening tzaar, and that is a valid and recognized halachic consideration. There were many times when I went to bed earlier than planned, but the light would not go out for another hour, and it was keeping me awake. And there were many times when my seudah lasted longer than expected, but the lights had gone out and we benched in dim light. There were many times when I set the air conditioning for what was expected to be a very hot day, and when it turn out to be mild, we all froze in the cold house. And there were many times when I left the air conditioning off, and regretted it when the day turned hotter than expected. Of course, a couple of centuries ago, people did not have these conveniences, and they learned to cope with them. But I really believe that for us, who have gotten addicted to them, it is a real tzaar when we must do without. (None of the above should be construed as meaning that I endorse any particular sort of device. I'm only talking about devices which we are allowed to use on Shabbos.) [Email #2. -micha] R' Micha Berger asked: > When community eruvin got started, wasn't there a much easier > argument of zilzul? Why wasn't it made? I'm not sure which period of history you're referring to with the phrase "when community eruvin got started", but here's my attempt at an answer: Eruvin did not allow something which had been previously assur, the way timers do and the way the Shabbos Switch would (according to its supporters). Beginning in Moshe Rabenu's day, people were very careful not to carry from a Reshus Hayachid to a Reshus Harabim, or vice versa, or 4 amos within a Reshus Harabim. But everything else was no problem. People would carry from one home to another within the same chatzer without thinking twice. Or even to a home across the street, IF that street was NOT a Reshus Harabim. But over time, accidents started to happen, because it is not always so easy to determine what's a Reshus Harabim and what's not. So at a certain point (either by David Hamelech's beis din, or Shlomo's, I don't remember) TWO halachos were enacted, at the SAME tme: One, that hotzaah was forbidden in a wide variety of areas other than within one Reshus Hayachid. Two, that these other areas could be transformed into a Reshus Hayachid by following some specific rules. The net result is that after Hilchos Eruvin were instituted, there were NO actions which people could be done that were not being done before. No one said, "Now the neighborhood can have a picnic on Shabbos afternoon!", because they could have done this all along, if there was no Reshus Harabim running through. Thus, no one lamented the zilzul Shabbos caused by allowing picnics which had previously been forbidden, because they had NOT previously been forbidden. I suppose it is possible that in the beginning, these procedures were used only by small neighborhoods (chatzeros and not much larger), and it was only much later that they were used by entire communities. If that's what RMB was referring to, then I'll have to stop here and let a historian continue. Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 07:00:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 10:00:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Megilat Rut: The night of Boaz and Rut Revisited Message-ID: <20150518135955.4DC6C183869@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/kmyx55p YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 08:40:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 11:40:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> On Sun, May 17, 2015 at 1:32pm EDT, R/Prof. Yitzchok Levine wrote on Areivim: : Yesterday in shul I asked a 12 year-old boy who attends a good : yeshiva if he was willing to announce the Molad. He looked at me : incredulously and said "What's the Molad?" I replied, "You know, : when the new moon can be seen." He still didn't get it, and I had : to elaborate a bit. I want to get all nerdy with this. The molad is actually an average, not when you could first see the moon this particular month. From 1601 to 200 CE, the actual physical lunation could be 6h 21m shorter or 7h 15m longer. And, the average too changes over time. (As I've noted in the past, it is amazing to me that we had back in the days of Galus Bavel, a molad value that was most accurate in the same century R' Hillel II and his Sanhedrin crated a standard calendar, some 900 years later. Exact to within the unit of measure (the cheileq). Accurate when we needed the value, not when we first obtained it. Currently, the molad is around 108 chalaqim off. And that's just the time between the molads. Then you have to ask when in the cycle the moon could first be seen. How thin of a sliver is visible to the typical human eye? And which longitude's clock are you using? And we announce the time for this point on the globe using today's hour naming convension. If you look at (eg) the Rambam, you'd be seeing a clock which is restarted every day at sunset, making sunset 0:00, not a number various about 6pm. But that's only something to keep in mind when looking at older Sepharadi sefarim, and wouldn't impact understanding what it is we actually announce. It would seem the molad as we now announce it would be for Kandahar, Afghanistan. But that must be due to slippage because the molad is too long. If we go back to the 4th or 5th cent CE, the molad is being announced given the time around midway between the Nile and the far (south-east) end of the Euphrates, which would have been around the middle of Jewish settlement at the time. In any case, calling is Jerusalem Time is a misnomer. Anyway, because we don't know for sure what location on the globe the molad was defined for, and how much of the current location is due to slippage during centuries of molads growing ever longer, we cannot definitively translate molad time to your local standard time. We simply do not know the starting lattitude to convert from. Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 08:53:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 11:53:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 11:40 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. Sure we do. It's the motion of an "averaged moon" that orbits the earth in a perfect circle, and that, however fictional, forms the basis of our calendar. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 09:41:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 12:41:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150518164134.GC20828@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 11:53:42AM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : On 05/18/2015 11:40 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: : >Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. : Sure we do. It's the motion of an "averaged moon" that orbits the earth : in a perfect circle, and that, however fictional, forms the basis of our : calendar. Except we don't know how much of an idealized moon is supposed to be showing and where between the latitudes of Alexandria and Sura it would have been showing. IOW, we don't know when in the moon's cycle the molad is an idealization of. Note, though, that Rabban Gamliel quotes a mesorah from R' Gamliel haZaqein ("mibeis avi abba) that the molad varies. And in a second quote, that it will never be "less than" 29-1/2d 2/3h 73 chalaqim. (Shabbos 25a) And he uses this to question eidim, so this is a mesorah he accepts for re'iyah, not just computation. Redoing R' Gamaliel's fractions, and converting 73c = 4m 1c, we get 29d 4 hr, 44m, 1 c. Our molad. So Rabban Gamliel held our molad was a lower limit, not an average!? And recall, we'e talking re'iyah (see the sugya) and the actual lunation could be over 6hr easlier than the average. What am I missing? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 08:23:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 11:23:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: <001b01d09170$1d5db6f0$581924d0$@org.uk> References: <001b01d09170$1d5db6f0$581924d0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <555A0402.4060608@sero.name> It should be borne in mind that there are still countries (including ones with substantial Jewish communities) where the need for pidyon is at least as common now as it probably was in Chazal's day. Also that while in many countries paying ransoms may be technically illegal, hardly anybody who is r"l in that situation cares about this. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 09:35:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Riceman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 12:35:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <555A14EF.8070305@optimum.net> RMB: <. In particular, his very first source (see link to mar'eh meqomos sheet) Nissah 20b. Yalta, "Rebbetzin Nachman", asks her mar'os questions of Rabbah bar bar Chanah and Rabbi Yitzchaq bereih deR' Yehudah, not her husband. Similarly mishnah Nega'im 2:5 saying you can't pasen nega'im even of relatives, Bekhoros 31a about judging one's own bekhoros.>> The standard hiluq is is'hazek issura or not. See, e.g., Hochmas Adam H. Shechitah 1:10, Binas Adam ad. loc., and HA H. Nidah 109:6 and BA ad. loc. I think the issue is that hora'ah in the presence of hezkas issur is considered eidus. The argument of self interest raises some problems: 1. Do you know of cases where rabbis have referred questions about communal matters to experts elsewhere because they are self interested since they live in the community? For example, do Hachmai EY refer questions about communal safety (e.g., military matters) to rabbis in Hutz LaAretz because they are self interested? 2. Why shouldn't self interest be a psul in the absence of hezkas issur? I know people on this list have cited it to me in the case of restaurants certifying their own products. David Riceman From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 10:03:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 13:03:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518164134.GC20828@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> <20150518164134.GC20828@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555A1B64.8060409@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 12:41 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > What am I missing? That what we announce is *not* anything to do with the actual moon, which the eidim in RG's time would have claimed to have seen, but the notional averaged moon on which *our* calendar is based. The *real* molad, i.e. conjunction of moon and sun, does vary, because the real moon does not orbit the earth in a perfect circle; the notional molad on which we base our calendar, and which we announce every month (except, ironically, the one month when it actually matters), is perfectly regular. And "molad" does seem to mean the conjunction, not the moment when the first sliver is visible, because the gemara in RH seems to say that the first possible sighting of the new moon is six hours *after* the molad. So we do know exactly what we are announcing: the number on which the calendar is based. Given this Shabbos's announcement, one can easily calculate that next Rosh Hashana will be on a Monday, exactly as it should be. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 10:49:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 13:49:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> At 11:40 AM 5/18/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. Yet it says in the siddurim that it should be announced so people know when it is! My understanding is that what is announced is Jerusalem solar time and this is different from Jerusalem local time. YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 11:47:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 14:47:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150518184701.GD20828@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 01:03:32PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : On 05/18/2015 12:41 PM, Micha Berger wrote: : >What am I missing? : : That what we announce is *not* anything to do with the actual moon, which : the eidim in RG's time would have claimed to have seen, but the notional : averaged moon on which *our* calendar is based... First, as Zev noted to me in private, I meant RH 25a (not Mes' Shabbos). But the point I asked "what am I missing?" about was Rabbi Gamliel questioning what people thought they saw, not the average. In R' Gamliel's day, the length of the molad was pretty close to exact; even today it's closer than they had any way to measure. But that's still an average. And real values can be more than 6 hr earlier. So, how can R' Gamliel question someone's observation for being less than a molad, when in half of all months re'iyah will be early -- and many 5 or 6 hr early. : So we do know exactly what we are announcing: the number on which the : calendar is based. Given this Shabbos's announcement, one can easily : calculate that next Rosh Hashana will be on a Monday, exactly as it : should be. As I said in my previous post... Yes, that explans the length of the molad, but not the point in the idealized cycle. How much moon must be visible for it to be a new moon? Or more accurately, what was visible when the molad was al pi re'iyah that we are now using a simplified model to approximate? And we can't just calculate what it is the molad is approximating, because we don't know what clock to use. It looks to me like Hillel was using a point halfway between EY and Bavel, somewhere in the center of the contiguous Jewish settlement. But that's largely guesswork. On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 01:49:49PM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : My understanding is that what is announced is Jerusalem solar time : and this is different from Jerusalem local time. Which is why I left out the word standard, writing "Jerusalem Time" rather than Israel Standard Time. But as I wrote above, it's not. See also my first post (for Avodah) on this thread for more detail. In 1999, R Yisrael Medad posted something about this on MJ, after having R/Prof Ely Merbach, R/Prof Yaakov Loewinger and the Bar Ilan astronomy dept bad the question around. See They assume Jerusalem Mean Time, but they make the fundamental error of discussing mean conjunction -- no moon -- not the first sliver. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 13:31:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 16:31:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150518203148.GB4022@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 02:24:32PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : >Yes, that explans the length of the molad, but not the point in the : >idealized cycle. How much moon must be visible for it to be a new : >moon? [...] they make the fundamental error of discussing mean : >conjunction -- no moon -- not the first sliver. : : I don't think they made an error at all. The molad is the conjunction; : the earliest time at which the moon can be seen is six hours after : the molad. How do you know this? The Rambam (Qiddush Levana 6:1) appears to say it's the average of the first time the moon could be seen "kedei leida im yeira'eh hayarei'ach of lo yeira'eh.... bemahalakhtam ha'emtza'i, who haniqra 'molad'". And my whole point was that we didn't know how big of a sliver is "yeira'eh", but I'm willing to entertain the possibility that we announce when it cannot be seen, as a way of knowing by deduction when it could. I just can't see it as a given. Combining not knowing how much -- if any -- after the conjunction the molad is with not knowing which lattitude's clock is being used was the not knowing what the molad really means. You could move the lattitude by changing the size sliver. As for why we announce the molad... The Yerei'im gives the answer Zev did. The MA quotes the Yerei'im and says that mevorkhim hachodesh is lezeikher the real qiddush hachodesh by Sanhedrin. Which is why we stand. RMF (IM OC 1:142) says this is in imitation of the qehillah who would stand when answering "Mequdash! Mequdash!" I find the MA's answer more compelling, because it unlikely that it is to know when Rosh Chodesh should be, when the one RC that most depends on the molad isn't announced -- Tishrei. It also adds resonence for me when saying "Mi sheAsah Nissim", that before the chazan announces ther month, we ask for a return of the qiddush hachodesh being commemorated. And if truly "chaverim kol Yisrael" and we acted it, we would have a Sanhedrin. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 11:24:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 14:24:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 01:49 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > At 11:40 AM 5/18/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >> Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. > Yet it says in the siddurim that it should be announced so people know > when it is! It's the number used for calculating the calendar. That's all people need to know. > My understanding is that what is announced is Jerusalem solar time > and this is different from Jerusalem local time. No, it's different from J'm *standard* time, i.e. the modern time system invented by the railroads, which of course we take no notice of. On 05/18/2015 02:47 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > But the point I asked "what am I missing?" about was Rabbi Gamliel > questioning what people thought they saw, not the average. Why are you discussing that? The topic is the announcement in shul, which relates entirely to our calculated system, not to RG's system. You wrote that nobody knows what it is that's being announced, and I dispute that. RG is entirely irrelevant, since he was dealing with the actual moon, not the notional moon that our system deals with. > Yes, that explans the length of the molad, but not the point in the > idealized cycle. How much moon must be visible for it to be a new > moon? [...] they make the fundamental error of discussing mean > conjunction -- no moon -- not the first sliver. I don't think they made an error at all. The molad is the conjunction; the earliest time at which the moon can be seen is six hours after the molad. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 14:36:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 17:36:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518203148.GB4022@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> <20150518203148.GB4022@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555A5B79.2030308@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 04:31 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > > How do you know this? The Rambam (Qiddush Levana 6:1) appears to say > it's the average of the first time the moon could be seen "kedei leida im > yeira'eh hayarei'ach of lo yeira'eh.... bemahalakhtam ha'emtza'i, > who haniqra 'molad'". On the contrary, that Rambam says *explicitly* that the molad is the exact moment of the conjunction, which is *not* when it can be seen. Read it again and you will surely see this. > As for why we announce the molad... The Yerei'im gives the answer > Zev did.The MA quotes the Yerei'im and says that mevorkhim hachodesh > is lezeikher the real qiddush hachodesh by Sanhedrin. Which is why > we stand. RMF (IM OC 1:142) says this is in imitation of the qehillah > who would stand when answering "Mequdash! Mequdash!" Neither the Yere'im nor the MA even mention the announcement of the molad, let alone give any reason for it. All the Yere'im says is that the announcement of Rosh Chodesh in shul is not at all related to kidush hachodesh, but is merely so people should know when Rosh Chodesh will be. The MA adds that although this is true, the custom is to stand for it, as a zecher to kidush hachodesh, which was done standing. R Akiva Eger asks how this could be so, since we know that a beis din must sit, not stand. RMF answers thatkiddush hachodesh was done notby the BD, but by the audience, after hearing the BD's psak, and they were surely standing, and this is what the MA means. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 14:49:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 17:49:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: RMicha Berger wrote: >Among the arguments that came up in the discussion of the Kosher Switch was that it's zilzul Shabbos. >>The thought hit me, though... Refraining from operating electrical devices has only been a potential issue for 125 years or so. And except for Yekkes, most of our ancestors come from places where it has been less than a century since electricity became part of our lives. >So it's very hard to say that "not using electricity" is a defining feature of the Shabbos experience.< True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul Shabbos. (Of course, by this argument, putting an electric light on or off should be prohibited even if the use of electricity is not a m'lacha.) >Contrast this to hotza'ah, including haavarah, which take up what seems like 1/3 of chazal's discussion of issur melakhah (rough estimate from Berakhos and Eruvin in mishna, Tosefta, Y-mi and Bavli).< I assume that "Berakhos" should be replaced by "Shabbos." >When community eruvin got started, wasn't there a much easier argument of zilzul? Why wasn't it made? Indeed we use the general kelal of being meiqil WRT eiruvin to quite an extent to build one. And what does the fact that a community eruv is NOT zilzul Shabbos say about the nature of zilzul Shabbos and its applicability to nidon didan?< What tzuras hapesach and eiruv permit is not carrying prohibited by the Torah. Rather, it is, in effect, a built-in exception to the issurim imposed mid'rabbanan by two g'zeiros: the classification of certain areas, which min haTorah are m'kom p'tur, as a new entity called karmelis, and the imposing of a prohibition of hotza'a from one r'shus hayachid to another of different ownership. Both were in use long before there was a city eruv. E.g., persons sharing a two-family house with a common fenced yard would make an eruv to permit carrying to and from their living quarters to the others' and to the yard. Likewise, a house opening to an unfenced yard would make a tzuras hapesach to permit carrying between house and yard. And, of course, two houses opening to a common unfenced yard would make a tzuras hapesach to "enclose" the yard, and then an eruv to permit carrying among houses and yard. The city eruv was not an introduction of a new practice, but a larger-scale use of already common practices. How does this constitute zilzul Shabbos? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 14:31:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 22:31:48 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000001d091b2$0c5074f0$24f15ed0$@org.uk> RZS writes: >It should be borne in mind that there are still countries (including ones >with substantial Jewish communities) where the need for pidyon is at least >as common now as it probably was in Chazal's day. Are you thinking of South America? I confess that is what springs to mind from your suggestion, although how often ransom is really required in such countries I don't know. > Also that while in many countries paying ransoms may be technically illegal, hardly anybody who is >r"l in that situation cares about this. But presumably you are talking about the same ones (eg South America). My question relates solely to countries, like Britain and Israel, to which Rav Zylberstein was referring. He took it for granted that in fact it was exceedingly uncommon for pidyon to be needed. I am not so sure it is so uncommon, but I doubt very much that in these countries "hardly anybody who is r"l in that situation cares about this". That is, while I know from the press of numbers of cases in which pidyon has been needed for British and Israeli citizens, in none of these cases were private individuals allowed to redeem (despite them quite naturally wanting to, and possibly being willing to do so, if they had not been restrained, whether by circumstances or otherwise). Clearly if one lives in a place where pidyon is common, and where, whatever the technical law says, in practice individual family members redeem, neither my question nor Rav Zylberstein's gets off the ground. But I don't think the existence of a place in the world, that one would never contemplate living in (and is not the locus of the ketuba), is relevant to the obligations under that ketuba which must relate to the places that the couple live and the governments under which they live. Even when it might involve some less scrupulous situations - one of the mothers in our school in England had the situation that her sons were effectively kidnapped by her ex-husband and held in Russia. And while yes, ultimately she found where they were hidden by means of a private investigator, which cost her private money, she would never have been able to extract them had: (a) Russia not signed up to the Hague convention; (b) the Russian court given judgment in her favour; and (c) the Russian police at the bequest of the English government on the basis of the Russian judgment actually going in and retrieving the boys (whose location they had singularly failed to identify until the private investigator had provided the cast iron information as to where they were). And she would have struggled to have brought them back into England without the rulings of the Russian authorities. And even if an adult is different, I cannot see the British government allowing one of its citizens to go off and try and attempt pidyon of another of its citizens without its active involvement, it being seen as cutting across its foreign policy (even if this was occurring in a place where ransom payments amongst locals was common). >Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 15:53:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 18:53:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] measurement error In-Reply-To: <20150111185211.GA15414@aishdas.org> References: <54AD8B25.3010103@optimum.net> <20150111185211.GA15414@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150518225308.GA15666@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 01:52:11PM -0500, Micha Berger wrote: : In an appreciated bit of siyata dishmaya, my Arukh haShulchan yomi : sechedule brought me to a primary source : on this subject -- AhS OC 363:32-35. The he.WikiSource.org ("Vikiteqst") : copy is at ... : When dealing with mavui, where there is only one mavui and therefore one : measuring process to be used for everyone, the above applies. However, : when the measurement is only for one person's use, tbey should be : measuring for himself, with his own norms. : And here he adds a touch of subjectivity: a person should measure how : far he himself could walk. And the rule of carrying in rh"r a distance : of no more 4 of one's own amos is brought into that umbrella. : The reason for the general rule is to cover the personal amos of the : people who will be using the measuring. : BUT, and this is why I do not follow, he opened se'if 32 by telling us : the variability is 1/48 of the total (1/24 of an etzba per ammah). Which : is far less than the variability in forearm lengths in most groups of : people. For example, my own sukkah is used by Yoni, who stands 6'3" and by : my own 5'3" -- and my arms are on the shorter side, even proportionally. : When we hold up elbows together, my ammah ends just past his wrist. Not : within 47/48 of eachother. I came across another AhS datapoint for this thread, OC 586:14. He quotes the Rambam Shofar 1:5, discussing the minimum length of a shofar: that you can hold it in your hand and it's visible on either end. The AhS explains the intent as being the size of the toqei'ah's hand, but rather an average person's hands, "veshi'uro tefach sheheim 4 godelim". Then there is a debate whether the tefach has to be a generous one, so as to be visible (Tur, quoting Ri Gei'os) or a narrow one (Tur himself and SA), which is still visible if the toqei'ah uses four fingers -- after all, they'll still be narrower than 4 thumbs. So the shiur is neither personal nor really the standard tefach. It is literally as the gemara says, what can be held and still seen. Which is why there is a machloqes about where the tefach stands in relation to the real shiur. But, visible if hypothetically held by an average hand. And if the tqoei'ah has wide hands, he could hold a minimal shofar without it being visible, and it would still be kosher. The AhS also says this was already explained in Nidah 26b, which is a depressing gemara about miscarriages, and a tefach comes up in shiurim for tum'ah, but I didn't see where it mentionrs our topic of what kind of tefach is used. What I find even more interesting is that there is no chiluq being drawn between someone who blows in shul and someone who blows just for himself. Wouldn't the rule from OC 363 mean that someone in the latter situation should use what is visible when their own hand holds it? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 15:35:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 18:35:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: <000001d091b2$0c5074f0$24f15ed0$@org.uk> References: <000001d091b2$0c5074f0$24f15ed0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <555A6924.4010709@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 05:31 PM, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: > RZS writes: > >> It should be borne in mind that there are still countries (including ones >> with substantial Jewish communities) where the need for pidyon is at least >> as common now as it probably was in Chazal's day. > > Are you thinking of South America? Well, Latin America (so as to include Mexico). There are also other such countries, such as India, the Philippines, Nigeria, where the need for pidyon is common, but there are not a lot of Jews living there. > But I don't > think the existence of a place in the world, that one would never > contemplate living in (and is not the locus of the ketuba), is relevant to > the obligations under that ketuba which must relate to the places that the > couple live and the governments under which they live. Even a couple marrying in such a country must contemplate the possibility that one or both might one day travel to a country where kidnapping is common, and be kidnapped. Even in Chazal's day the danger was not so much where people lived as on the highways and the seas, where they might travel. Also, I am not at all sure that it is actually illegal in most normal countries to pay ransom. What is illegal is giving *anything* to groups that are officially listed by that country's government as terrorists. If the kidnappers are not on the list, so that it would be legal to give them a gift, then I don't think there's a law against paying them ransom. (Perhaps there should be.) -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 19 11:32:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joseph Kaplan via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 14:32:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Standing at a Chupah Message-ID: <004f01d09262$1f0388c0$5d0a9a40$@tenzerlunin.com> "Truth be told, I have seen the following many times. When the grandparents who are 70 or more years old walk down, no one stands for them. However, when the chosson and kallah walk down everyone stands for them." At almost every MO wedding I've attended over the past 5-10 years, everyone stood when the grandparents walked down whether they were older than 70 or not. But if, God willing, I'm around for my grandchildren's weddings, I plan to walk (or, if necessary, wheelchair) down the aisle whether anybody stands for me or not. Joseph -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 19 12:18:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 15:18:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150519191809.GA8642@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 05:49:16PM -0400, elazar teitz via Avodah wrote: :> So it's very hard to say that "not using electricity" is a defining :> feature of the Shabbos experience. : True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature : of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so : accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul : Shabbos. (Of course, by this argument, putting an electric light on or off : should be prohibited even if the use of electricity is not a m'lacha.) As would replacing gefilte fish with sushi? It's not that people from Sinai to around 100 years ago actually experienced avoiding the lightswitch, nor did they even consciously experience not having one -- since there was no conception of an alternative. Not using electricity, and saying that qedushas shabbos requires avoiding electricity are really two different things, experientially. 100 years ago we had an opportunity to do something new on Shabbos, much like when shomerei Shabbos first learned of sushi. The difference is that we did assur one new opportunity, and not the other. ... : What tzuras hapesach and eiruv permit is not carrying prohibited by : the Torah. Rather, it is, in effect, a built-in exception to the issurim : imposed mid'rabbanan by two g'zeiros... ... : The city eruv was not an introduction of a new practice, but a : larger-scale use of already common practices. How does this constitute : zilzul Shabbos? Yes, that explains why it's nothing clearer cut than zilzul Shabbos. AIUI, worrying about zilzul means that the mechanism is mutar, but the goal is one that cheapens Shabbos, removes some of the feeling of its qedushah. Like taking the pre-existing concept of eiruv as a way to have a reshus that was no included in Shelomo ubeis dino's original issur hotza'ah and stretching it to a much bigger area than ever before, so that most people never have reason to leave it most weeks. So that the entire issur goes from being one of the dominant features of Shabbos (judging just in blatt of discussion) to barely ever experienced. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 45th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Malchus: What is the beauty of Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity (on all levels of relationship)? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 19 12:46:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 22:46:01 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] donor egg Message-ID: "A 65-year-old Bnei Brak woman gave birth this week, becoming the oldest woman to give birth in Israel. The ultra-Orthodox woman and her 67-year-old husband had been battling infertility for 46 years before the birth at Kfar Sava?s Meir hospital. After fertility treatments abroad and with the help of a donor egg, the woman became pregnant, giving birth to a 2.685-kg baby in her 35th week of pregnancy. ?To the best of my knowledge, this is the oldest woman to give birth in Israel. It is extremely rare that pregnancy at this age ends well. The ultra-Orthodox circle from which the couple comes attributed the pregnancy and birth to a blessing the woman received from a Hassidic rabbi. " http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel/.premium-1.657230 Given all the halachic controversy of who is the halachic mother I am a little surprised -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 07:11:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 17:11:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? Message-ID: There is a famous Medrash that before offering the Torah to the Jewish people Hashem offered it to the other nations of the world. "First He approached the children of Esav and asked them, "Do you wish to accept the Torah?" They replied, "What is written in it?" "Do not murder." They said, "...Our father was assured that, 'By your sword will you live (Bereishit 27:40)!'" Next Hashem went to the children of Ammon and Moav, and asked, "Do you wish to accept the Torah?" They asked, "What is written in it?" "Do not commit sexual immorality." They responded, "Master of the Universe, our very existence is based on an immoral act!" Hashem then went to the children of Yishmael, and asked them, "Do you wish to accept the Torah?" They asked, "What is written in it?" "Do not steal." They responded, "Master of the Universe, the essence of our father was to be a bandit, as it is written, 'And he will be a man of the wild; his hand will be in all...'" (Bereishit 16:12)." Sifri, Ve'Zot HaBracha #343 However, the Medrash has an obvious question. All of the examples of Torah prohibitions given by the Medrash, are also prohibited by the 7 mitzvos of Bnei Noach. The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from murder so how would accepting the Torah make things worse for them? The same goes for arayos and stealing, these were already prohibited to them anyway so why does the medrash specifically pick these as examples for Torah prohibitions? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 11:16:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 14:16:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150520181647.GA15475@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 05:11:29PM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : However, the Medrash has an obvious question. All of the examples of Torah : prohibitions given by the Medrash, are also prohibited by the 7 mitzvos of : Bnei Noach. The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from murder so how would : accepting the Torah make things worse for them? The same goes for arayos : and stealing, these were already prohibited to them anyway so why does the : medrash specifically pick these as examples for Torah prohibitions? I raised this and a second question in : Hashem's answer to each of the nations is strange. Why choose the one sin their forefather was known for? Is that how you would do kiruv, starting with the hard stuff? By comparing this medrash to the opening pasuk in this week's parshah, [Lekh Lekha,] we can get a better understanding of the point of the story. "Hashem said to Avram, `Go for yourself from your homeland, from your birthplace and from your father's house to the land which I will show you'." (12:1) The first sentence recorded in the Torah of the Jewish mission on earth is a commandment for Avram to leave his home and his father. Avram didn't say, "I can't worship G-d because my very substance his idolatry, because my father, Terach, manufactures idols". Hashem orders Avram to leave the culture that made him, to leave his father's sphere of influence, and he does. Avram's reply was "And Avram went, just as G-d told him". (12:4) If Hashem said he could change, rise above Ur Casdim to become fit for both the land of Israel and the father of the people of Israel, then he goes. Is man a creature of fate or of destiny? Is his future foretold, etched in rock, unchangeable? Or can he rebuild himself into something greater than he was? Clearly the Torah insists on the latter. The very key to accepting the Torah is to be committed to use its ideas and its mitzvos to improve and to grow. This was the failing ascribed to the other nations in the medrash. They saw a given flaw in their national character as their substance, immutable. Hashem wasn't asking them about a particular prohibition, but about their commitment to leave their "father's house". If they do not believe they can change, what purpose can getting the Torah serve them? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 46th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Malchus: How can some forms of Fax: (270) 514-1507 "unity" be over domineering? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 11:48:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 14:48:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: <20150520181647.GA15475@aishdas.org> References: <20150520181647.GA15475@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555CD6E5.5000606@sero.name> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 05:11:29PM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from murder so how would : accepting the Torah make things worse for them? The same goes for arayos : and stealing, these were already prohibited to them anyway sowhy does the : medrash specifically pick these as examples for Torah prohibitions? Perhaps that was His point: you can't even keep the mitzvos you already have, so how can you want more? On 05/20/2015 02:16 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > I raised this and a second question in > : > Hashem's answer to each of the nations is strange. Why choose the one > sin their forefather was known for? Is that how you would do kiruv, > starting with the hard stuff? Why the premise that the purpose was kiruv? On the contrary, I think the medrash's intent is clear, that Hashem did *not* want them to accept His offer, and thus pitched it in the manner most likely to be rejected. The only purpose of making the offer in the first place was so they wouldn't be able to complain that they hadn't been given the chance. He wasn't trying to sell it to them, He was showing them why they didn't want it, and therefore shouldn't be upset that the Jews were getting it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 17:29:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 20:29:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] 65 Year-Old Woman Gives Birth to First Child in Bnei Brak In-Reply-To: <20150520.101659.17683.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150520.101659.17683.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150521002935.GC9522@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 02:16:59PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Areivim wrote: : If we were speaking Lashon Hakodesh, you'd be correct - Bar Mitzvah is : a noun, and only a noun. However, we are clearly speaking English, and : several dictionaries tell me that in English, "Bar Mitzvah" is both a noun : and a verb. See, for example, http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bar+mitzvah : which gives "bar mitzvahed" (and other forms) as examples. : Languages are funny this way. Stuff can change when a word enters a : new language. However, there is no real concept correspnding to the English word "bar mitzvahed". The borrowing was primarily done by non-traditional Jews, who think that being called up to the Torah changes your status. But in reality, "bar mitzvahed" makes as much sense as saying someone pubertied or menopaused. We O could borrow the word as shorthand for "became a bar mitzah" but since the original borrowing is really based on a misunderstanding of the Torah, why should we? It'll just make it harder to clear up the mistake. : If I'm not mistaken, the Yiddish word for "holiday" is pronounced : "yuntif", and it is spelled "yud vav memsofit blankspace tes vav beis", : and is considered a single word despite the fact... IIRC, on the NY State Yiddish Regents Examination in the late 1970s, it was spelled as it sounds, one word, yud-alef-nun-tes-eyin-ende fei (w/ a refuyah line over it). (R' Riskin, whose HS I attended, required a foreign language, and Hebrew doesn't count as "foreign". The Hebrew Regents exam was a separate requirement to graduate. As was Red Cross swimming certification and you could choose either CPR or First Aid. The latter two were because the HS is the father's shaliach for all of chinukh and education. Anyway, I already had some background in Yiddish, and I heard that the Yiddish regents eere easier than more popular languages like Spanish or French, so...) But the, Chassidishe Yiddish and YIVO Yiddish (the legacy of Litvishe Yiddishists) are different dialects. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 46th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Malchus: How can some forms of Fax: (270) 514-1507 "unity" be over domineering? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 17:53:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 20:53:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Admin: [Areivim] 65 Year-Old Woman Gives Birth to First Child in Bnei Brak In-Reply-To: <20150521002935.GC9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150520.101659.17683.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> <20150521002935.GC9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150521005329.GF9522@aishdas.org> The previous email was misdirected. Replies to it will not be accepted. (On Avodah. If Areivim's mods approve it, reply there.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 18:57:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 20:57:21 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <555D3B81.5030709@starways.net> I think the obvious answer is that midrash is midrash. One midrash doesn't have to be consistent with another. It's there to learn from, and the message of this one comes through regardless of the Noachide laws. On 5/20/2015 9:11 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > There is a famous Medrash that before offering the Torah to the Jewish > people Hashem offered it to the other nations of the world. > > However, the Medrash has an obvious question. All of the examples of > Torah prohibitions given by the Medrash, are also prohibited by the 7 > mitzvos of Bnei Noach. The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from > murder so how would accepting the Torah make things worse for them? > The same goes for arayos and stealing, these were already prohibited > to them anyway so why does the medrash specifically pick these as > examples for Torah prohibitions? > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 03:36:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 06:36:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: <555D3B81.5030709@starways.net> References: <555D3B81.5030709@starways.net> Message-ID: <20150521103619.GC7831@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 08:57:21PM -0500, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: : I think the obvious answer is that midrash is midrash. One midrash : doesn't have to be consistent with another. It's there to learn : from, and the message of this one comes through regardless of the : Noachide laws. I believe the question was finding internal consistency in a single medrash from the Yalqut Shim'oni. The medrash that says the nations were offered the Torah itself says the example mitzvos were ones they were already obligated in, and ones their ancestor was known for. So, what does that tell us about the message? To me, it says that the offer was more about testing one's willingness to change. Therefore, each is asked if they would be willing to refrain from something that they should already be avoiding, but is part of their current culture. And that, in turn, speaks to seeing the Torah as a tool for self-transformation. Which I mean in a manner vague enough to include both Chassidim and Litvaks. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 07:50:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 10:50:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Ways to find non-meat or non-milk Message-ID: <20150521145032.GH9522@aishdas.org> >From the founder of Machon Zomer, RYRosen, on possible ways to eat kosher meat and milk together without violating basar bechalav. -micha Shabbat B'Shabbato Translated by Moshe Goldberg Point Of View Bit of Reality from Sinai Rabbi Yisrael Rosen Dean of the Zomet Institute "This teaches you that scripture, the Mishna, halacha, tosefta, hagadda, and whatever a veteran scholar will teach in the future already exists, and it was all given as halacha to Moshe at Sinai" [Kohellet Rabba 1]. ... Recipes with Meat and Milk In honor of the holiday, we have pieced together for you, from the newest volume, some juicy samples of dairy halachot, as is fitting for the holiday of Shavuot, in order to fulfill the verse, "Honey and milk are under your tongue" [Shir Hashirim 4:11]. We will capture your interest for halachic sophistication by offering you, from this new volume of Techumin, a serving of meat cooked in milk (yes, you read that right!). Compare this to Rav Nachman, who gave his wife an udder soaked in milk in order to satisfy her desire to taste a combination of milk and meat (Chulin 109b). And what is our enticing menu item that fits this requirement? See below... (1) "Ben Pekua" -- It is an accepted halacha (admittedly quite odd) that if a cow is slaughtered in the eighth month of her pregnancy and the calf is found to be alive, it is called a "Ben Pekua" and there is no need to slaughter it. It can be eaten in any manner, including even taking off a limb while it is still alive (Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Dei'ah 13), even many years later, and there is no need to check if it has one of the faults that would render a normal animal unkosher. And now, here is the most surprising part: The offspring of a male and female "Ben Pekua" (both of the "parents must be of this type) will never require kosher slaughtering either, and this includes all subsequent generations. (However, if only one parent is a "Ben Pekua," the offspring cannot be made kosher, even by slaughtering!) Rabbi Meir Rabi from Australia published a dramatic article where he claims that by definition a Ben Pekua is not cattle (but is rather the same as fish), and therefore not only is there no need to remove the veins in the hind quarter, one is even permitted to cook it and eat it together with milk! To come to this conclusion, the rabbi bases his ruling on a Torah insight by the Meshech Chochma, that our Patriarch Avraham served his guests, the angels, "a calf (literally, the son of cattle, or a ben pekua!) that was tender and good," from the womb of a pregnant cow, and he gave them "butter and milk, and the calf" [Bereishit 18:8]. Rabbi Rabi went further, and acted on his ruling. Using this method he created male and female "sheep" and grew flocks from them, and he now has a culinary and halachic declaration -- these animals do not need to be slaughtered, their veins do not have to be removed, their fat is not prohibited -- and the rabbi has a long list of other benefits. However, modern rabbis do not accept this idea! In the new volume of Techumin, Rabbi Zev Vitman, the rabbi of Tenuvah (which sells milk, meat, and fish) vigorously opposes the novel ruling. Aside from the release from the requirement of ritual slaughtering (which is carried over from the mother or the grandmother of the calf), Rabbi Vitman disagrees with (almost) all the other conclusions. He finds no justification for defining the Ben Pekua as a "new and separate species." In addition, in volume 19 of Techumin, sixteen years ago, Sephardi Chief Rabbi Bakshi-Doron rejected a similar proposal that was sent to him by meat farmers on the Golan, fearing that it would lead to serious problems. Other prominent rabbis, such as Rabbi Shmuel Vazner and Rabbi Asher Weiss, warned against getting involved in this sophisticated and complex halachic problem. (2) We are thus left to search elsewhere for a combination of meat and milk: meat that has been cloned from stem cells! In a previous volume, Rev Tvi Reizman (a well-known businessman from Los Angeles who is also a Torah scholar well versed in matters of halacha and actuality) writes about an "artificial hamburger" which was created two years ago. This is produced from artificial meat made from stem cells of a cow which was not slaughtered or which was declared unkosher ("tereifa"). In principle, he concludes that clone meat is not real meat, and that it can therefore be cooked and eaten with milk! (The summary of the article includes many details which will not be repeated here. For example, the problem of appearances can be solved by proper packaging and declarations, as is done for soya milk.) However, my friends, I doubt that you should rush out after the holiday to search for an "artificial hamburger," in order to season it with honey and dip it in milk. Rabbi Yaacov Ariel opposes the idea in the new volume of Techumin. He concludes that such artificial meat can only be produced from a kosher animal, and that then "it will be considered meat for all intents and purposes, including the matter of cooking with milk." So, in the end we are left with the solution in the Talmud: Does anybody want some milk-saturated udders? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 08:36:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 11:36:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula Message-ID: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> In OC 196:1, the Rama mentions the minhag of blowing 30 qolos at the end of RH mussaf. "Ule'achar sheyatze'u bazeh, shuv ein litqua od bechinam." (Although a qatan, even higia lechinuch, may.) So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. As for being yotzei... Mitzvas shofar only requires tashra"t, tasha"t OR tara"t, 3 times. A point the AhS makes besheim the Rash besheim R' Hai Gaon (Shilhei RH), "delav sefeiqos gemuros hein", that Rav Avahu was mesaqein in order for everyone to do the same thing, not because otherwise you're not yotzei shemie'as qol shofar. The AhS criptically adds, "(ulevad zeh yeish bazeh inyan gadol)." So the question is whether you have to blow in numerous ways few other people use in order to fulfil a taqanah created to create uniformity of practice. But enough of the tirade, and back to the point: Being machmir in hilkhos shofar this way involves a qulah in hilkhos yom tov. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:25:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:25:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150521202527.GP9522@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 02:46:27PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : On 05/21/2015 11:36 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: :> In OC 196:1, the Rama mentions the minhag of blowing 30 qolos at the :> end of RH mussaf. "Ule'achar sheyatze'u bazeh, shuv ein litqua od :> bechinam." :> (Although a qatan, even higia lechinuch, may.) : : Not bechinam; for practice, so that he may one day blow for real. That's not what the Rama says, though. He says "you're allowed to tell him to blow (HaMagid, Hil' Shofar, pereq 2) and it's mutar to for him to blow all day (Or Zarua dRH)." The mishnah says "any me'qvim es hatinoqos militqoa, aval mis'asqim imahem ad sheyilmedu", which implies they are not stopped even after yilmedu. The gemara ad loc (RH 33a-b) says that a qatan higia' lechinukh is encouraged to blow to learn, but any child is not prevented from blowing. So I think the Rama is paralleling the gemara, and not saying the seifa is only for chinukh, or for a child who doesn't need to be stopped because he isn't ready yet. The AhS's wording is even further from your deduction. :> So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the :> qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, :> etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. : No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the : last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. They aren't to fulfill minhag. Hey, I didn't outright assur the practice, I said it relies on being meiqil, such as calling wanting to be chosheish for some minority opinion shitah a need to blow. In general, I'm increasingly uncomfortable with this concept of being machmir to be chosheish for ... It seems to reflect a lack of emunah in kelalei pesaq and the authority of pesaq. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 11:46:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 14:46:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 11:36 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > In OC 196:1, the Rama mentions the minhag of blowing 30 qolos at the > end of RH mussaf. "Ule'achar sheyatze'u bazeh, shuv ein litqua od > bechinam." > > (Although a qatan, even higia lechinuch, may.) Not bechinam; for practice, so that he may one day blow for real. > So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the > qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, > etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 05:09:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Arie Folger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 14:09:57 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: RMB wrote: > Yes, that explains why it's nothing clearer cut than zilzul Shabbos. > AIUI, worrying about zilzul means that the mechanism is mutar, but > the goal is one that cheapens Shabbos, removes some of the feeling > of its qedushah. > > Like taking the pre-existing concept of eiruv as a way to have a > reshus that was no included in Shelomo ubeis dino's original issur > hotza'ah and stretching it to a much bigger area than ever before, > so that most people never have reason to leave it most weeks. So > that the entire issur goes from being one of the dominant features > of Shabbos (judging just in blatt of discussion) to barely ever > experienced. RAW actually deals with this explicitly by citing IIRC Rambam on why Chazal legislated mutze. We are not all farmers or builders, not even cooks and bakers. Hence, many of us hardly ever come close to deoraitot of Shabbat. However, Shabbaton requires shevita hanikeret,so Chazal legislated muktze to create a shevita hanikeret. Says RAW, even if he is wrong on electricity being a deoraita (but he doesn't think he is wrong), nonetheless, the consensus of poskim on elecricity makes it into something akin to muktze. That never happened regarding gefillte fish [which outside Hungary hardly anyone ever ate except on Yom Tov, since what passes for gefillte fish is just the filling. ]. No one ever suggested it is chillul Shabbos to eat gevldige Sushi. At worst, some puerile yeshive boocher called it goiyishe maakhoolim. -- Arie Folger, Recent blog posts on http://ariefolger.wordpress.com/ * Kann man die Religion des anderen korrekt wahrnehmen? ? Zur Woche der Br?derlichkeit * ???? ???? ????? ? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ???? ??? * Ist Pessach f?r die Vergangenheit oder die Zukunft? * Frag den Rabbi ? Wie backte man Mazzot in der Bibel? * Frag den Rabbi ? Seit wann und warum bedecken j?dische m?nner beim gebet ihr haupt? * A Critique of Liberal Orthodox Approach to Halacha -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:38:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:38:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 02:46:27PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the : last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. Having 100 qolos as learned from Eim Sisera's 100 cries is a minhag recorded already in the Arukh, and is mentioned by Todafos and the Rosh in RH pereq 4. (AhS OC 596:1) The Tur that R' Amram Gaon mentions of minhag of a single teru'ah gedolah without a teqi'ah kedei le'arbeiv hasatan, but we do not have this minhag. The the AhS continues (se'if 2) with the already mentioned Rama, "ke'achar sheyatz'u bazeh, ein litqoa od bechinam". Which is why I said that blowing more than 100 qolos for reasons less than minhag requires a qula-dik reading of "chinam". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:31:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:31:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521202527.GP9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521202527.GP9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E409C.7080609@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 04:25 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > >:> So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the >:> qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, >:> etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. >: No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the >: last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. > They aren't to fulfill minhag. Hey, I didn't outright assur the practice, > I said it relies on being meiqil, such as calling wanting to be chosheish > for some minority opinion shitah a need to blow. That's not a kulah, because the issur is davka when it's bechinam, and so long as there's a reason it's not chinam. Their wish to hear shofar the way this rishon or that one wanted it heard is at least as good a reason as our "le`arvev es hasoton", or giving women a "nachas ruach". [Email #2. -micha] Follow-up: However, your chashash brings up an interesting suggestion. if they are worried about all possible chashshos, then maybe they should worry about yours too, and they can easily solve it: let them go on mivtzo'im and find Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all, and blow for them according to these opinions. That way, not only will they have heard shofar according to all possible opinions, and not only will they have the zechus of those Jews having heard shofar according to at least one opinion (which is certainly kosher, as you correctly point out), but their "extra" tekios will be with a bracha! -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:51:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:51:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E454E.60107@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 04:38 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 02:46:27PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: > : No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the > : last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. > > Having 100 qolos as learned from Eim Sisera's 100 cries is a minhag > recorded already in the Arukh, and is mentioned by Todafos and the > Rosh in RH pereq 4. (AhS OC 596:1) Yes, but what of the extra 30 kolos after davening? Those are not in the 100 kolos, they're just le'arvev es hasoton, and yet nobody seems to raise this objection to them. > The the AhS continues (se'if 2) with the already mentioned Rama, > "ke'achar sheyatz'u bazeh, ein litqoa od bechinam". Which is why I said > that blowing more than 100 qolos for reasons less than minhag requires > a qula-dik reading of "chinam". No, it's not kuladig, it's just what the word means. Any valid reason is not chinam. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:55:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:55:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <555E454E.60107@sero.name> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> <555E454E.60107@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150521205546.GA9166@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 04:51:26PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Yes, but what of the extra 30 kolos after davening? Those are not in the : 100 kolos, they're just le'arvev es hasoton, and yet nobody seems to raise : this objection to them. Actually, they were part of the 100 qolos, and in nusach Ashkenaz they still are. It's only because y'all starting blowing during chazaras hashatz that it's not obvious. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:44:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:44:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <555E43A6.3020602@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 08:09 AM, Arie Folger via Avodah wrote: > No one ever suggested it is chillul Shabbos to eat gevldige Sushi. At worst, some puerile yeshive boocher called it goiyishe maakhoolim. Chilul Shabbos, no, but I have heard people seriously claim that it's forbidden to eat milchigs on Shabbos because it's "not shabbosdik", and specifically citing as "obviously" ridiculous the idea of eating lasagna on Shabbos. Which struck me as funny, since I recall one Rosh Hashana, no less, being confronted with an excellent milchig lasagna, made with fake meat, and having to wait to eat it because I was still fleishig from lunch. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:52:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:52:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What do Chazal mean when they refer to "pashtei d'kra?" Message-ID: <20150521205201.GA6908@aishdas.org> Maybe one of you could help R' CHaim Brown, even if he did leave us over a decade ago. A recent blog post on his "Divrei Chaim" at or . I mean, we talk about different definitions of the concept of "peshat" often enough, perhaps maybe someone had something. Tir'u baTov! -Micha Divrei Chaim Wednesday, May 20, 2015 what do Chazal mean when they refer to "pashtei d'kra?" The gemara Archin 8b darshens that "tzikascha k'harerei E-l" refers to nigei adam, which Hashem in his mercy limits to affecting a person for a week. The continuation of the pasuk, "mishpatecha tehom rabbah," refers to nigei batim, where the punishment is more severe in that it can stretch out for three weeks. The gemara then asks, "Pashtei d'kra b'mai?" and brings two similar explanations to the pasuk that read it as saying that G-d shows great mercy in tempering and mitigating the verdict that strict justice would call for. What do Chazal mean when they refer to "pashtei d'kra?" Despite the word "pashtei" in there, it does not seem to mean what the Rishonim like Rashi call "pshat," because if you look at Rashi or the Metzudas David, they don't simply quote this gemara. It seems that the gemara's "pashtei d'kra" is itself a derasha, albeit a derasha that is closer to the plain meaning of the words than the derasha that links the pasuk to nega'im. So are there different levels of derashos? The term "pashtei d'kra" is not all that common, so are these isolated exceptional cases, or in general are there different levels of derash? Does it make any nafka minah (except in our understanding of things?) Posted by Chaim B. at 9:40 AM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 14:12:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 17:12:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521205546.GA9166@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> <555E454E.60107@sero.name> <20150521205546.GA9166@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E4A32.8030909@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 04:55 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 04:51:26PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : Yes, but what of the extra 30 kolos after davening? Those are not in the > : 100 kolos, they're just le'arvev es hasoton, and yet nobody seems to raise > : this objection to them. > > Actually, they were part of the 100 qolos, and in nusach Ashkenaz they > still are. It's only because y'all starting blowing during chazaras > hashatz that it's not obvious. No, these kolos are not part of the 100. These are an extra 30, *after* the 100, and their only purpose is le'arvev es hasoton. And yet that doesn't count as "bechinam". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 18:25:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 21:25:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Shulchan Aruch's "Beis Din" Message-ID: <20150522012546.GA28788@aishdas.org> We discussed a number of times the fact that the SA doesn't follow the rule in his haqdamah to OC about following the majority of the Rif, the Rambam and the Rosh. Less often, peoeple mention actual examples. So, in case you were looking for one, the AhS mentions on OC 606:8-9 the machloqes about whetherit's a mitzbvah to eat on erev YK. In se'if 8 we learn the the Rif, the Ramnam and the Smag omit this idea, and in se'if 9 he says the Rosh, Tur and SA (se'if 1) hold that it's a mitzvah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 20:02:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi, its Kosher! via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 13:02:42 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Ways to find non-meat or non-milk - The BP Project Message-ID: I am happy to engage in discussion regarding the Halachos of BP, with anyone who is interested. For the time being such discussions must be and remain private I can confirm that I have been in contact with R Chaim Kanievsky about this for some years now and that he supports the Lomdus and proofs that I have proposed. Best, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi *Its Kosher* and *Exodus Matza * *it's kosher Authority Pty Ltd **ABN: *77 160 144 374 rabbi at itskosher.com.au +61 0423 207 837 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 18:55:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 01:55:29 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula Message-ID: <20150521.215529.1991.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Actually, they were part of the 100 qolos, and in nusach Ashkenaz they > still are. It's only because y'all starting blowing during chazaras > hashatz that it's not obvious. R' Zev Sero responded: > No, these kolos are not part of the 100. These are an extra 30, > *after* the 100, and their only purpose is le'arvev es hasoton. > And yet that doesn't count as "bechinam". Okay, folks, I think it is clear that some of us have been exposed to minhagim that the others are unaware of. I suggest that we clarify the various minhagim, and tally up the different ways of dong it. >From what I've seen, the vast majority of Nusach Ashkenaz shuls blow 30 times before Musaf, 30 during Chazaras Hashatz, 40 during or after Kaddish Tiskabel, and that is the end, for a total of exactly 100. I have been in a Nusach Sfard shul where they blow 30 times before Musaf, 30 during the silent Musaf, 30 during Chazaras Hashatz, 10 during or after Kaddish Tiskabel, and that is the end, for a total of exactly 100. Here in Elizabeth, we blow 30 times before Musaf, 60 during Chazaras Hashatz, 10 during Kaddish Tiskabel, and that is the end, for a total of exactly 100. R' Zev, could you describe for us how the first 100 are blown, and when the extra 30 come in? And if anyone else wants to add to the list, please do so! Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/555e8cc570114cc51cdast04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 01:14:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 11:14:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat Message-ID: REMT wrote > True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature > of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so > accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul > Shabbos. (Of course, by this argument, putting an electric light on or off > should be prohibited even if the use of electricity is not a m'lacha.) In particular using an preset switch to turn lights and off should be prohibited. While RMF originally did object he later changed his mind when it became the norm. In fact even the kosher lamp might be prohibited Can someone come up with a definition of zilzul shabbat? Is every modern way of doing any melacha that does not technically violate hilchot shabbat zilzul? The gemara allows using the sun for cooking on shabbat - why isn't that zilzul shabbat? -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 07:59:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Sassoon via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 15:59:41 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003901d0949f$eed65840$cc8308c0$@org.uk> RZS writes: >That's not a kulah, because the issur is davka when it's bechinam, I don't think that is exactly the correct phrasing to explain the situation. Rather, there is the general blanket rabbinic issur on playing musical instruments on yom tov, into which sounding shofar prima facie falls. This general issur is pushed aside by the d'orisa positive mitzvah of blowing shofar (noting that, at least according to the famous Taz, because rabbinic power doesn't stretch far enough to allow the banning of something which is a mitzvah d'orisa in every circumstances in which it would occur, as this would do - but is only in allowed situations where only sometimes the mitzvah would not end up being performed, such as Rosh Hashana on shabbas). This rabbinic issur of playing musical instruments on yom tov vis a vis the shofar is also pushed aside in other rabbinically recognised circumstances - including (according to the majority rishonim, Shulchan Aruch and Rema, although there are major rishonic dissenters) nachas ruach d'nashim. The case of the katan may well be different, given that the fundamental issue with katanim is chinuch (which might perhaps be said to cut both ways here). > and so long as there's a reason it's not chinam. Their wish to hear shofar >the way this rishon or that one wanted it heard is at least as good a >reason as our "le`arvev es hasoton", or giving women a "nachas ruach". Leaving aside nachas ruach, which has (according to those who hold by it at least rabbinic weight - ie power to push aside at least rabbinic prohibitions) - what is the justification for le'arev es hasoton? My instincts are that, to the extent that le'arvev es hasoton is taken seriously, the argument there is one of pikuach nefesh, which of course would push aside the rabbinic issur of playing musical instruments (think about it, if you can get a few extra years out of confusing the soton, how could that not be considered pikuach nefesh)? Don't think that helps with being choshesh for minority shitos. >However, your chashash brings up an interesting suggestion. if they >are worried about all possible chashshos, then maybe they should worry >about yours too, and they can easily solve it: let them go on mivtzo'im >and find Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all, and blow for them >according to these opinions. That way, not only will they have heard >shofar according to all possible opinions, and not only will they have >the zechus of those Jews having heard shofar according to at least >one opinion (which is certainly kosher, as you correctly point out), >but their "extra" tekios will be with a bracha! But aren't they then denying those Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all the chance to hear shofar according to the majority opinions by only blowing for them according to the minority opinions? Or are you proposing that they *then* blow for them according to the majority opinions? Either way you seem to me to be opening a real can of worms. The principle on which somebody who has fulfilled their obligation can then fulfil the obligation of another is based on kol yisrael areivim zeh b'zeh. But to what extent is that applicable in a situation in which that person would never, had the situation been reversed, have accepted the form of fulfilment they are offering the other. Ie since the person who is blowing the shofar refused to have these alternative ways of blowing as the fundamental method of fulfilling their own mitzvah, is it really areivus to then foist that form of fulfilment on others? >Zev Sero zev at sero.name Shabbat Shalom Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 10:22:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 13:22:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What is the Law? Message-ID: <20150522172240.022581829C9@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/sivan_v.pdf YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 11:16:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 14:16:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula II Message-ID: <20150522181627.GA5977@aishdas.org> I came across another one, more inyana deyoma... According to the AhS (OC 494:3) we used to wait for "laylah mamash" to make Qiddush the first night of Shavu'os, so that the omer could be "sheva shabasos temimos". Presumably this is following the MGA who has us wait until tzeis for Qiddush, and the AhS's "laylah mamash" means tzeis. The Taz (494:haqdamah) and the MB (s"q 1) have us waiting for tzeis to start *Ma'ariv*. The Qorban Nesanel (on the Rosh, Pesachim 130b) brings the Rosh as a ra'ayah against the MGA. The Rosh says that even though on Shabbos *and the other YT-im* we add from the chol to the qodesh and eat before it gets dark, we do not do so for the seder night. So the QN QN takes the implication that "she'ar yamim tovim" includes Shavuos. So the QN treats Shavuos like Shabbos, and presumably let you daven maariv and make Qiddush right after pelag. The QN is machmir in omer, the MGA is machmir in tosefes YT. And each is being correspondingly meiqil in the other. I would presume that the silence in the Tur, the BY and the SA about any waiting means that the Tur, the Mechaber and the Rama hold like the QN and treat erev Shavuos like erev Shabbos, RH, Sukkos, etc... (But not Pesach.) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 48th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Malchus: What binds different Fax: (270) 514-1507 people together into one cohesive whole? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 08:55:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 11:55:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <003901d0949f$eed65840$cc8308c0$@org.uk> References: <003901d0949f$eed65840$cc8308c0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <555F517D.4080806@sero.name> On 05/22/2015 10:59 AM, Chana Sassoon via Avodah wrote: >> >However, your chashash brings up an interesting suggestion. if they >> >are worried about all possible chashshos, then maybe they should worry >> >about yours too, and they can easily solve it: let them go on mivtzo'im >> >and find Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all, and blow for them >> >according to these opinions. That way, not only will they have heard >> >shofar according to all possible opinions, and not only will they have >> >the zechus of those Jews having heard shofar according to at least >> >one opinion (which is certainly kosher, as you correctly point out), >> >but their "extra" tekios will be with a bracha! > But aren't they then denying those Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all > the chance to hear shofar according to the majority opinions by only blowing > for them according to the minority opinions? AFAIK everyone agrees that all these methods are kosher, so those Jews are definitely yotzei the mitzvah. > The principle on which > somebody who has fulfilled their obligation can then fulfil the obligation > of another is based on kol yisrael areivim zeh b'zeh. But to what extent is > that applicable in a situation in which that person would never, had the > situation been reversed, have accepted the form of fulfilment they are > offering the other. Ie since the person who is blowing the shofar refused > to have these alternative ways of blowing as the fundamental method of > fulfilling their own mitzvah, is it really areivus to then foist that form > of fulfilment on others? They're not foisting anything. The people they're blowing for would otherwise not hear shofar at all, so they're clearly better off hearing even some obscure form of it, so long as they're yotzei. On 05/21/2015 09:55 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > R' Zev, could you describe for us how the first 100 are blown, and when the extra 30 come in? And if anyone else wants to add to the list, please do so! I'm talking about 30 kolos blown at the very end of davening, just before going home, and well after all 100 kolos have already been heard (30 meyushav, 30 in each musaf, and 10 in kaddish). Their purpose is le'arvev es hasoton. And I've never heard it suggested that there is any chashash issur. Thus my conclusion that shofar-blowing is allowed on RH for *any* valid purpose, and the only blowing that remains forbidden as usual on Yomtov, is when it is truly "bechinam". -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 25 12:15:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 25 May 2015 19:15:59 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Brisker Theory of Everything Message-ID: 1. The gemara (Ketuvot 5b) discusses whether causing a certain type of blood flowing is considered a Sabbath violation. The first attempt to resolve the question turns on whether "mifkad pakid or chaburei mechbar" (is the blood in the womb stored up or is it the result of a wound?). Rashi there (please look) seems to define this as a physical question. Is this acceptable or must we say Rashi was leaving out the "obvious" philosophical/halachic question (i.e. the physical was known, it's a question of how to categorize it halachically)? 2. That gemara continues to try to resolve the question and is willing to entertain the possibility that the halacha is like Rabbi Yehuda (vs. Rabbi Shimon) in mekalkeil (destroying) and like Rabbi Shimon (vs. Rabbi Yehuda) in davar sheino mitkavein (the result was not the major one intended). If these two issues were interconnected, could the gemara entertain this possibility? 3. If the answer to 2 is no, must we assume that when the Shulchan Aruch said he would decide the psak based on majority 2 of big 3, did he really mean this as a primary tie breaker, or only when he did not have a clear understanding of the underlying philosophy that resulted in their final opinions. 4.Is it possible that R'YBS limited his "canon" to only a few major rishonim (in contradistinction to R" A Lichtenstein) because the more data points included in trying to determine the underlying theoretical construct, the more likely a single errant point would skew the results? Kt Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 25 19:35:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 02:35:10 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir Message-ID: <20150525.223510.2086.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> After Machlon and Kilyon died, we find in Ruth 1:8-13 that Naami tells both Orpah and Ruth to go back home. Didn't Naami realize that they would return to avodah zara if they'd do that? Even if they had not converted yet, wouldn't this be an example of Lifnei Iveir? One answer I can think of is that perhaps this eventuality didn't occur to Naami. But several pesukim later, in 1:15, Naami tells Ruth that Orpah has "returned to her people and to her god; go back with your sister-in-law." Naami persists not only in trying to convince Ruth to leave, but she explicitly urges Ruth to return to her former god! This question is certainly relevant according to those who understand that Orpah and Ruth converted prior to marrying Machlon and Kilyon. But it is relevant even to those who hold that Ruth did not convert until afterward. It is one thing to dissuade a prospective ger from joining us. But Ruth had been living with a Jewish family for ten years! How can Naami urge her to go back to avoda zara? I know that the meforshim give various reasons why Naami did not want them to accompany her back to Eretz Yisrael, but do those reasons justify this Lifnei Iveir? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 06:00:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 09:00:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Who Wrote the Mishna Brura? Message-ID: <20150526130054.4548818394C@nexus.stevens.edu> I am sure that most will answer "The Chofetz Chaim" Israel Meir (HaKohen) Kagan. However, he apparently did not write all of it. I have been reading Marc Shapiro's latest book "Changing the Immutable" How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites its History. See http://www.littman.co.uk/cat/shapiro-orthodox.html Shapiro points out that Rabbi Aryeh Leib Cohen, a son of the Chofetz Chaim, wrote in his biography of his father that he wrote parts of the Mishna Brura and that is why there are contradictions in some parts of the MB. Which parts Aryeh Leib wrote are not indicated. Does anyone know? YL PS. I have found this book an eye opener and recommend it highly. llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 10:19:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kaganoff via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 13:19:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 12:01 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 01:53:10PM -0400, Kaganoff via Avodah wrote: > : For many years i had extreme difficulty with R. Elchanan Wasserman > understanding > : as it conflicted with my belief that Judaism (and other religions) was > not > : logically provable (contra to Moshe Mendelssohn and his contemporaries) > and > : therefore required a "leap of faith" and that a disbeliever could not be > : faulted for failing to take such a jump. > > This is a false dichotomy. Logically proving things are not the only > way to justify belief in there. > > How do you know that (in a flat space) two parallel lines never meet? If > you're like me, you pictured it in your head. Even though infinite lines > don't exist in the real world. (Nor, does it turn out, does flat space.) Actually non-euclidean geometry is an excellent example. We cannot say with absolute certainty that two parallel lines will never meet or that there is only one line that goes through a particular point that is parallel to another line, as there is a well developed body of literature on non-Euclidean geometry (such as Riemannian Geometry). One might "feel" strongly that Euclidean Geometry is true and non-Euclidean Geometry is false. But someone might also feel that chocolate ice cream is superior to vanilla ice cream. But neither can be proven. > > Did you figure out that oppression was evil by logical proof, or by a > combination of imagination and empathy? > Calling anything "evil is not meant to be logical but rather to pull at an audiences' heartstrings. Evil is neither logical nor illogical. Nor can one "prove" that the Nazis are evil and that circumcision is not. However, that is a red herring. Again, emotions are not proof. Feelings are neither true nor false. > My favorite example is answering the question, "Do elephants have hair?" > A logical/verbal approach would be: Elephants are mammals, all mammals > have hair, and so unless elephants are the exception to the rule, they > must have hair. Elephants are well known and discussed animals. Could > they be an exception to the rule and I don't know it? Nah, they must > have hair. > > How it is more likely the question jogged your memory of elephants > you saw, or saw pictures of. The detail may be blurry, so you may have > to manipulate the picture a bit. Finally, a version of the picture > which has a tuft of hair at the tail, maybe (if your memory is good) > some downy hair around the eyes and ears, strikes you as the most > familiar, the most real. And again you could reach the conclusion that > elephants have hair. > That is a proveable thesis. One could prove either way whether or not elephants have hair. Unlike the two earlier examples. As for whether one could prove the existence or non-existance of God, I don't have time now to start that discussion. > > (See for some musings about > the two modes of thought I'm contrasting here.) > > In I compare > different versions of the Argument from Design from R' Aqiva's response > to the apiqoreis through the Rambam, through similar approaches based > on more modern science. > > "G-d created" (Gen. 1:1): A hereic came to Rabbi Aqiva and asked, > "Who made the universe?". Rabbi Aqiva answered, "HQBH". The heretic > said, "Prove it to me." Rabbi Aqiva said, "Come to me tomorrow". > > When the heretic returned, Rabbi Aqiva asked, "What is that you > are wearing?" > > "A garment", the unbeliever replied. > > "Who made it?" > > "A weaver." > > "Prove it to me." > > "What do you mean? How can I prove it to you? Here is the garment, > how can you not know that a weaver made it?" > > Rabbi Akiva said, "And here is the world; how can you not know that > Haqadosh barukh Hu made it?" > > After the heretic left, Rabbi Aqiva's students asked him, "But what is > the proof?" He said, "Even as a house proclaims its builder,a garment > its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the > Holy Blessed One Who created it. > > Not very rigorous. Rabbi Aqiva's reply revolves around giving a parable > to make the conclusion self-evident. Not contructing a deductive argument. > > The more rigorous we try making it, the more arguable the proof becomes. > R' Aqiva's argument is far more convincing than the Rambam's statement > based on how objects lose form over time, not gain it. Or a similar > argument based on thermodynamics or information theory. > > (Ironically, every formal / logical proof is built from givens taken > as self-evident for informal-reasoning reasons.) > > Anyway, that's how I understood REW. R' Elchanan argues that on an > informal level, the idea that the universe had to have a Creator is > as obvious as a Euclidean postulate or the injustice of oppression. > I believe that such an explanation is disrespectful to REW. I am assuming that REW believed what he wrote and wrote down clearly what he believed as opposed to assuming that REW believes one thing and wrote another. > > To not believe in G-d requires a formal proof, which one's negios then > determine if they find it sound or specious, and whether they accept > the postulates on which it's built. > To believe and to not believe in God can be pulled off without formal proofs. However, it is intellectually dishonest to state that one has an arguement for God's existance and than say that we are not talking about formal proofs when a counterarguement is made. > Notice I didn't invoke any leaps of faith. > > Tir'u baTov! > -Micha > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 12:25:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 15:25:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150526192512.GA22762@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 01:19:53PM -0400, Kaganoff wrote: : > How do you know that (in a flat space) two parallel lines never meet? If : > you're like me, you pictured it in your head. Even though infinite lines : > don't exist in the real world. (Nor, does it turn out, does flat space.) : : : Actually non-euclidean geometry is an excellent example. We cannot say with : absolute certainty that two parallel lines will never meet or that there is : only one line that goes through a particular point that is parallel to : another line, as there is a well developed body of literature on : non-Euclidean geometry (such as Riemannian Geometry). Well, if we know the curvature of the space we're dealing with, we know which Geometry to use. And only one is correct for that particular space. :> Did you figure out that oppression was evil by logical proof, or by a :> combination of imagination and empathy? : : Calling anything "evil is not meant to be logical but rather to pull at an : audiences' heartstrings. Evil is neither logical nor illogical. Nor can one : "prove" that the Nazis are evil and that circumcision is not. I disagree with your reisha. Evil is an objectively meaningful predicate. Yahadus wouldn't work is evil were subjective. As for your seifa... that's kind of my point: there are truths that can be justified even when they are not amenable to formal proofs. : However, that is a red herring. Again, emotions are not proof. Feelings are : neither true nor false. Although the notion that John is feeling happy at 2:55pm EST May 26, 2015 is either true or false. Or some fuzzy state in between. It is a predicate, even if it needn't be a boolean predicate. All three of these comments are interrelated: Euclidean geometry is the only accurate description of flat space. Not every space, but flat space. People may disagree about what is evil, and Nazis may be able to fool themselves about what the word means, but HQBH did create a concept of good that has an objective definition. Even if -- again -- we cannot find it via proof. : > My favorite example is answering the question, "Do elephants have hair?" : > A logical/verbal approach would be... : > How it is more likely the question jogged your memory of elephants : > you saw, or saw pictures of... : That is a proveable thesis. One could prove either way whether or not : elephants have hair. Unlike the two earlier examples. As I said in the first paragraph, before the first ellipses. However, in practice, people aren't likely to use proofs to reach the conclusion. We justify our belief that elephants have hair in a different way. : As for whether one could prove the existence or non-existance of God, I : don't have time now to start that discussion. But my whole point is that proof isn't the only grounds for justifying knowledge! ... : > Anyway, that's how I understood REW. R' Elchanan argues that on an : > informal level, the idea that the universe had to have a Creator is : > as obvious as a Euclidean postulate or the injustice of oppression. : I believe that such an explanation is disrespectful to REW. I am assuming : that REW believed what he wrote and wrote down clearly what he believed as : opposed to assuming that REW believes one thing and wrote another. Um... That /is/ what Rav Elchanan wrote. I'm arguing that he is being misread because they think that REW invoking the notion of knowledge (as opposed to belief) is equivalent to his invoking the notion of proof. Instead, he invokes the synthetic a priori, of the self-evident, or whatever your theory of justification is of R' Aqiva's answer to the atheist or that letters aren't the product of ink spilled on paper. AISI, REW is saying that humans know there is a G-d, without his saying anything about the possibility of proving it. And that people then go about creating proofs for His non-Existence or Deism, to hide from that knowledge. Or, to be more loyal to his original wording -- because they took shochad to buy into a proof against the obvious. He might be saying that at some level, that knowledge lingers, no matter how much someone buries it under layers of counter-proof and convincing themselves. But I don't see that in REW either. Quoting: Now, of course, we shouldn't be astonished that so many great philosophers had difficulty believing that the world was created by a Purposeful Creator. Their minds were surely great, but their desire to gain benefit from the pleasures of this world overcame their ability to think straight. Such a powerful bias can divert a person's mind to the point that he can say two plus two does not equal four... After my signature, I'll quote Qovetz Maamariv par 5-7 from a translation provided by Pirchei Shoshanim. You'll notice it's nothing like the Rambam's attempt to formally prove an Argument from Design in Moreh sec. II. Really, all he says is that monotheism woul be self-evident if people didn't want to escape its implications on their lifestyle. Not proven, self-evident, and not that those who argue against it are less than fully convinced of their atheism (or Deism, or polytheism). :> To not believe in G-d requires a formal proof, which one's negios then :> determine if they find it sound or specious, and whether they accept :> the postulates on which it's built. : To believe and to not believe in God can be pulled off without formal : proofs. : However, it is intellectually dishonest to state that one has an arguement : for God's existance and than say that we are not talking about formal : proofs when a counterarguement is made. Not "argument", any more than your acceptance of Euclidean (or Reimann) postulates are based on argument. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_justification#Theories_of_justification and http://www.iep.utm.edu/epistemo/#H3 may be clearer than I have been. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "Man wants to achieve greatness overnight, micha at aishdas.org and he wants to sleep well that night too." http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yosef Yozel Horwitz, Alter of Novarodok Fax: (270) 514-1507 5. If you ponder it, however, you shall find that the belief that the Holy One, blessed by He, created the world is self-understood by any intelligent being -- unless a person is a complete imbecile. And there is no need for any [knowledge of] philosophy to grasp this principle. The author of the Duties of the Heart (Shaar HaYichud 6) thus wrote: There are people who say that the world came into existence by chance, without a Creator who caused it and formed it. I wonder how any rational being in a normal state of mind can entertain such a notion. If one holding such a opinion would hear a person expressing a similar view in regard to a water-wheel that revolves in order to irrigate a portion of a field or garden -- and were to say that he thinks it had been set up without any intention on the part of a mechanic who labored to put it together and adjust it, using all his tools to obtain this useful result -- the hearer would wonder, be exceedingly astonished, and think the man who made such a statement extremely foolish. He would promptly charge him with lying, and would reject his assertion. Now, if such a statement is rejected in regard to a small and insignificant wheel, the fashioning of which requires but little contrivance and which serves for the improvement of but a small portion of the earth, how can anyone permit himself to harbor such a thought concerning the immense sphere that emcompasses the whole earth with all the creatures on it; which exhibits a wisdom so great that the minds of all living creatures, the intellects of all rational mortals, cannot comprehend it; which is appointed for the benefit of the whole earth and all its inhabitants – how can one say that it came into existence without a wise and mighty designer purposing and conceiving it? Whatever takes place without purpose shows, as is well known, no trace of wisdom or power. Do you not realize that if ink were poured out accidentally on a blank sheet of paper, it would be impossible that proper writing should result, legible lines such as are written with a pen? If a person brought us a fair copy of script that could only have been written with a pen, and said that ink had been spilt on paper and these written characters have come of themselves, we would charge him to his face with falsehood, for we would feel certain that this result could not have happened without an intelligent person's purposeful action to produce it. Since this appears to us an impossibility in the case of characters whose form is conventional, how can one assert that something far finer in its art, and which manifests in its fashioning a subtlety infinitely beyond our comprehension, could have happened without the purpose, power and wisdom of a wise and mighty designer? How could anyone say that the universe came into existence on its own, seeing that everywhere we look we see signs of such inconceivably profound wisdom? How wondrous is the wisdom and design in the human body, how wondrous the arrangement of its limbs and organs, as all doctors and surgeons attest. How is it possible to say, with regard to such a wondrous machine, that it came into existence on its own without a purposeful designer? If anyone would claim that a watch had just come into existence on its own, he would be considered insane. We see this in the Midrash (Midrash Temurah in Midrash Aggadot Bereshit): An athiest came to Rebbi Akiva. "Who created the world?", he queried. R. Akiva answered, "The Holy One, blessed be He." The athiest replied, "Show me proof." R. Akiva said, "Come back to me tomorrow and I shall prove it to you." When the man returned the following day, R. Akiva began by asking, "What is that you are wearing?""A piece of clothing,"the athiest replied."And who made it?" R. Akiva continued. "The weaver", he replied. "Show me proof", R. Akiva demanded. "But how can I show you proof if it isn't already obvious to you that it is the work of the weaver?!" With this R. Akiva said, "Have you not heard what your own lips have spoken? Isn't it obvious to you that the Holy One has created this world? Doesn't the clothing testify to the weaver; the house and the door to a builder and a carpenter? Just so does the world testity to the One who made it." Imagine a human being born with a fully developed intellect. We can't imagine his great astonishment upon seeing, suddenly, the heavens and their hosts, the earth and all that is upon it. What would this man's answer be to our question: Did the world that he is seeing now for the first time come into existence on its own, without any conscious intent, or is it the work of a wise Creator? Behold, without a doubt, after contemplating for a moment, he would respond that all this was made with wondrous wisdom and extremely subtle order (fine-tuning). [We find this concept expressed in any number places in our classical literature.] The Psalmist said, "The heavens declare the glory of G-d"(Psalms 19:2). [According the Duties of the Heart 2:5] this is also the meaning of Job's words when he declared, "From my flesh, I will see G-d!"(Job 19:26) [The Psalmist saw proof of G-d's existence in the magnitude of the universe. Job was saying that the very fact that something as wonderful as his body could exist demonstrates that it is the work of a wise Creator.] In view of all this it is therefore extremely puzzling, a great enigma: How could some of the greatest philosophers who ever lived have concluded that the world was brought into existence by chance? 6. The resolution of this enigma can be found in the Torah. The Torah reveals something profound about human psychology when it commands, "Do not take bribes, for bribery blinds the eyes of the wise!" (Deuteronomy 16:19). What is bribery? In legal terms, the smallest amount necessary to constitute a bribe is a "shaveh prutah"(not much more than a penny), similar to the minimum amount needed [for a court] to find a person guilty of stealing or of taking interest. This negative commandment, to never take a bribe, is directed not only at a judge, but at every man, even the wisest of men, even the most righteous, even Moses himself. Yes, if it could be imagined, even if Moses would take the tiniest bribe, a prutah, his perception of reality would be distorted; he would be incapable of bringing forth a just ruling. At first sight, this is nothing short of amazing. Can we imagine Moses or Aaron twisting the law and judging falsely merely for the sake of receiving such miniscule benefit? But the Torah itself testifies to the possibility, and "the testimony of G-d is trustworthy" (Psalms 19:8). We must therefore say that it is a psychological law: A person's will or desire [to gain some benefit] influences his mind [his ability to think straight]. Of course, it depends how strong the desire and how resolute the mind. A small desire will not exert much influence on a great mind, whereas on a lesser mind it will. A powerful desire [for gain] will exert even more influence. One thing is certain: no matter how miniscule, a desire for gain will always have some affect. Even the tiniest desire can cause the greatest mind to waver a fraction. This is exemplified in the Talmud (Ketuvot 105b): Rebbi Yishmael bar Yossi had a land tenant who used to bring him fruits from his [R. Yishmael's] orchard every Friday before Shabbat. Once, he came on a Thursday. R. Yishmael asked him: "What's changed this week?" "I have a court case this week", he answered."Since I was coming to town anyway, I thought I would bring you your fruits."R. Yishmael refused to take the fruits [even though they were his]. "I am disqualified from judging your case."Two [other] rabbis sat and began to hear the land tenant's case. R. Yishmael sat [on the sidelines] watching. At every turn in the discussion, R. Yishmael felt himself wanting to give advice to his land tenant. "If only he would say this now... if only he would say this..."After the case was decided, he exclaimed, "O that the spirit of those who take bribes would explode! I refused to take what was rightfully mine [and I still couldn't help being biased and wanting to see him come out winning]. How much more those who actually take what it is not theirs! It is known that the sages [of the Talmud] were angelic in terms of their expanded consciousness and saintly character. We nevertheless see that the smallest degree of bias could cause them to incline away from the truth. How much more so the rest of us who are sunken in the desires of this world! The desire for gain literally bribes us, saying, "Hey, look, the world is free to do with as you please!"How powerful this bias is! How easily it distorts our perception and blinds us! For when a person has "bought into"a certain bias, he is incapable of recognizing any truth that flies in the face of that bias. As far as that truth is concerned, he might just as well be in a drunken stupor. He doesn't recognize its existence. Now, of course, we shouldn't be astonished that so many great philosophers had difficulty believing that the world was created by a Purposeful Creator. Their minds were surely great, but their desire to gain benefit from the pleasures of this world overcame their ability to think straight. Such a powerful bias can divert a person's mind to the point that he can say two plus two does not equal four, but five. A person cannot judge whether something is true unless his mind is free from any distorting influence vis a vis the thing he wishes to judge. On the contrary, if recognizing a particular truth in any way contradicts a bias that a person has bought into, no amount of intellect, even the intellect of a great person, can remove or overcome that bias. 7. We learn from this that the foundations of true faith are simple and unquestionable for anyone who isn't an idiot. It is simply impossible to doubt their veracity. This is only true, however, on the condition that one does not allow oneself to be bribed. One must be disinterested in and free from the desires and allures of this world, and his own personal desires [for gain]. If so, the root of God-denial lies not in the distortion of the intellect in and of itself. It lies in the heart, i.e., in one's desire to gain benefit [from this world], which distorts and blinds the intellect. It is clear now why the Torah commands, "Do not stray after your hearts..." (Deuteronomy 15:39), concerning which the sages commented, "Do not follow after the heart's desire to deny G-d"(Sifri Shlach 15:70). A person is obligated to subdue and sublimate his desires [for personal gain], because this is the only way his intellect will be free of any blinding influence! He will then automatically recognize the truth of the existence of a Creator. This is what Rebbi Akiva meant when he said that the world attests to the Holy One, blessed be He, who created it. God-denial really has no place in a person's mind. Its place, if man allows it to exist there, is the heart; in a person's desire for gain. And if one would be careful not to allow his desires to overcome him, he could never come to deny G-d's existence or atttribute reality to any form of idolatry. It is a sign that one's desires have grown out of proportion if one is incapable of understanding this simple truth. And the commandment to believe in G-d? It is a commandment not to allow one's desires to overcome his intellect so that he will automatically come to believe. In other words, there is no need to struggle to believe. One must simply remove the obstacles that stand in the way of believing. It will then come naturally, of itself... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 11:11:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 14:11:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura? Message-ID: <20150526181117.9766A180F62@nexus.stevens.edu> Someone sent me the following which is also in Shapiro's book. "The first edition of Shemiras Shabbos K'Hilchasah had a footnote to the effect that some things in the MB had been written by the CC's son. See p. 263 n. 203. The full footnote is not in the later editions of SSK." Shapiro views this as part of the Chareidi attempt to keep certain information from the Chareidi public that they do want people to know. His book is filled with many examples of the "rewriting of history" to fit current Chareidi ideology. He also wrote "Rabbi Jacob J. Schachter wrote an article in The Torah U-Madda Journal about changes and mentioned the MB, the CC's son, and the original SSK footnote. See his "Facing the Truths of History" at http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/704426/Rabbi_Dr-_Jacob_J_Schacter/Facing_the_Truths_of_History (p. 225 and n. 114 on p. 264)." YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 12:44:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 15:44:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura? In-Reply-To: <20150526181117.9766A180F62@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150526181117.9766A180F62@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150526194413.GB22762@aishdas.org> And many of the books we consider the Gra's are students' records of his teachings. For that matter, people talk about what the Ari says in Peri Eitz Chaim or others of R' Chaim Vital's works. RALC piously takes blame for those occasions when he misunderstood his father's position, saying that these errors, rather than actual inconsistencies in the CC's shitah, is what you may find in the MB. But the CC takes ownership of the contents of the MB. See the title page (Warsaw 1884 ed.) "Ube'uri qarative besheim MISHNAH BERURAH..." ... kol eileh chibarti be'ezras H' yisbarakh, haChonen le'adam da'as, YISRAEL MEIR br' Aryeh Ze'ev haKohein zlh"h, mei'ir Radin." Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I long to accomplish a great and noble task, micha at aishdas.org but it is my chief duty to accomplish small http://www.aishdas.org tasks as if they were great and noble. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Helen Keller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 15:01:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 18:01:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150526220106.GA9900@aishdas.org> On Fri, May 22, 2015 at 11:14:15AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature :> of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so :> accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul :> Shabbos... : In particular using an preset switch to turn lights and off should : be prohibited. : While RMF originally did object he later changed his mind when it became : the norm. Actually, RMF's primary argument was mar'is ayin, which would naturally change as people know to blame lights turning on and off on "Shabbos clocks". : In fact even the kosher lamp might be prohibited Well, I would think that fits the zilzul Shabbos argument bewing used WRT the kosher switch. : Can someone come up with a definition of zilzul shabbat? The textbook case would be on Shabbos 6a: situating someone in a meqom petur so that someone in a reshus hayachid can hand items to them so that they could then hand it over to someone in a reshus harabim. Rashi ad loc explains "demezalzel be'isurei Shabbos". I think it's making a farce out of one of the issurim / chiyuvim of Shabbos. Notice that the case Rashi attributes to zilzul would otherwise be perfectly mutar. : Is every modern way of doing any melacha that does not technically : violate hilchot shabbat zilzul? : The gemara allows using the sun for cooking on shabbat - why isn't that : zilzul shabbat? I think the problem is more than just avoiding the issur, but making it trivial to entirely avoid it. Which is what I had in mind when I distinguished between eiruv, which is built into hotza'ah derabbanan, and community eruv, which takes that idea and stretches it until someone can pretty much ignore the whole topic of carmelis for years on end. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Strength does not come from winning. Your micha at aishdas.org struggles develop your strength When you go http://www.aishdas.org through hardship and decide not to surrender, Fax: (270) 514-1507 that is strength. - Arnold Schwarzenegger From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 16:14:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 19:14:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") Message-ID: In Avodah V33n82, RAM requested: > I suggest that we clarify the various minhagim, and tally up the different ways of dong it....And if anyone else wants to add to the list, please do so! < When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: -- 30 *dim'yushav* -- 10 *dim'umad* -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the post-"Aleinu" Qaddish) All the best from *Michael Poppers* * Elizabeth, NJ, USA -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 18:24:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 21:24:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir In-Reply-To: <20150525.223510.2086.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150525.223510.2086.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150527012443.GA5467@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 02:35:10AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : It is one thing to dissuade a prospective ger from joining us. But Ruth : had been living with a Jewish family for ten years! How can Naami urge : her to go back to avoda zara? I know that the meforshim give various : reasons why Naami did not want them to accompany her back to Eretz : Yisrael, but do those reasons justify this Lifnei Iveir? On a technical level, it would be mesayeia, not lifnei iver, and I'm not sure that mesayeia applies to 7 mitzvos benei Noach. But if you're just asking how it's moral... Just thinking off-the cuff. The timing is between eishes Shimshon and Shelomo's mistake with many of his wives. It would seem that women only pretending monotheism to join the Jewish People was common. If Rus was going to be a pagan either way, better not one who people would mistake for a geir. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet micha at aishdas.org about things most people don't watch even on http://www.aishdas.org Yom Kippur. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 00:25:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 10:25:26 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat Message-ID: <<: The gemara allows using the sun for cooking on shabbat - why isn't that : zilzul shabbat? I think the problem is more than just avoiding the issur, but making it trivial to entirely avoid it.>> In that case how about a "dud shemesh" according to the poskim that it is allowed because it uses the sun <> would there be a difference between doing this once and making this a standard procedure? -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 01:22:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:22:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <> The key word is "if" . That is the difference between math and physics. Math assumes axioms and from there everything is provable. Physics discusses the "real" world. This is based on observation and induction. Hence, physics is always subject to modification based on new observations. Hence, we have no proof of the curvature of the universe. <> Yahadus uses the Torah to define evil. Others don't accept this definition. Is ISIS beheading victims and their other acts "evil" ? They believe they are keeping the word of G-d. Destrying ancient monuments is viewed by the world as "evil" while they see it as destroying idols and hence a mitzvah. If we were to eradicate Amalek we would consider it a great mitzvah while the rest of thw world would bring us to the world court for genocide. <> But without a formal proof it is always debatable. You feel that the existence of G-d is obvious even without a formal proof (which doesn't exist) while Dawkins feels that anyone who believes in a diety that interacts with the world is a fool. You accept Torah mi-sinai while most academics are convinced the Torah was written during the late Bayit Rishon if not later -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 02:20:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 12:20:34 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] right and wrong Message-ID: Tangential to some of the recent discussions I wish to point out that the defintion of right and wrong is subjective and indeed changes through history. As one example consider the recent post on love from http://www.talmudology.com/ In the 1440s in England, Elizabeth Paston, the twenty-year old daughter of minor gentry, was told by her parents that she was to marry a man thirty years her senior. Oh, and he was disfigured by smallpox. When she refused, she was beaten "once in the week, or twice and her head broken in two or three places." This persuasive technique worked, and reflected a theme in Great Britain, where Lord Chief Baron Matthew Hale declared in 1662 that "by the law of God, of nature or of reason and by the Common Law, the will of the wife is subject to the will of the husband." Things weren't any better in the New Colonies, as Ann Little points out (in a gloriously titled article "*Shee would Bump his Mouldy Britch; Authority, Masculinity and the Harried Husbands of New Haven Colony 1638-1670.*) The governor of the New Haven Colony was found guilty of "not pressing ye rule upon his wife." What was obvious in one generation is no longer regarded as true today. Similar arguments apply to slavery -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 03:47:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 06:47:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 07:14:36PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: : -- 30 *dim'yushav* : -- 10 *dim'umad* : -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to blow. How do you do less than 10 *each*? Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 05:03:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 12:03:32 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir Message-ID: <20150527.080332.8051.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> I asked if Naami had violated Lifnei Iveir: : It is one thing to dissuade a prospective ger from joining us. : But Ruth had been living with a Jewish family for ten years! How : can Naami urge her to go back to avoda zara? R' Micha Berger answered: > On a technical level, it would be mesayeia, not lifnei iver, and > I'm not sure that mesayeia applies to 7 mitzvos benei Noach. Really? Perhaps I need a better understanding of the difference between the two. I thought that mesayeia was when the other person is going to violate the halacha anyway and I am merely helping him to do it. But in this case, the three of them have been living for ten years as a family unit, and regardless of the geirus (or lack of it) I presume there was no avodah zara under Naami's roof. This status quo could have continued for a long time, as we see even Orpah was reluctant to leave. But Naami urged and insisted, and it is difficult for me to imagine a bigger michshol. Pasuk 1:15 - "So [Naami] said: Look! Your sister in law has returned to her people and to her god. Go follow your sister in law." One of us might as well hand the car keys to our child on Shabbos and tell him to have a good time. Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:14:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:14:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527151410.GG27891@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 11:22:14AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : <> : : The key word is "if" . That is the difference between math and physics. : Math assumes axioms and from there everything is provable... Again, from a set of givens. The givens are accepted as the rules of the formal system. Which is why I spoke of the validity of Euclid's Postulates in the context of flat space. But my point was that there are things other than proof. : <> : : Yahadus uses the Torah to define evil. Others don't accept this definition. Nu, so they're wrong. We may not be able to prove to them they're wrong, but they are. Somewhere "out there" is a real objective definition. Regardless of someone's ability to know what they are, or to accept it if they did. : <> : : But without a formal proof it is always debatable... 1- That's a different topic. We're talking about how I justify my believing in something, not how I prove it to others. 2- There are synthetic a priori knowledge so self-evident people don't debate them. Which is why I dragged Euclid into this. EVERY proof STARTS with these givens. Logic is a means of combining postulates, not starting yeish mei'ayin. And thus no proof is actually more solid than its weakest postulate -- and that postulate is justified by something other than proof. And I brought up these notions because I think that without disentangling why I believe from how can I get others to believe, or the general concept of how knowlege is justified from the specific concepts of formal or experiment proof, we cannot get to what R Elchanan Wasserman means. REW says that if it were not for ulterior motive, G-d's existence would be as self evident as the conclusion that a calligraphied poem had an author and scribe (who may be the same person), and was not just spilled ink on a piece of paper. He doesn't yet talk about proof, and in fact, his language is that of informal justification, not proof. (I've blogged the notion that the more formal we make the Argument from Design the LESS solidly it justifies belief. See . For example, R Aqiva's -- or REW's -- version only requires common experience. The Rambam's requires dividing matter into Form and Substance and accepting certain postulates about Form and Time. Later versions will instead speak of entropy and time... But they all suffer from involving *more* givens and insisting they are self-evident and precede the attempt to prove anything.) REW then says that it's only ulterior motive that allows many of us to create arguments and proofs (validly drawn but from broken givens or flawed in reasoning) to let convince ourselves away from that default position. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When a king dies, his power ends, micha at aishdas.org but when a prophet dies, his influence is just http://www.aishdas.org beginning. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Soren Kierkegaard From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:33:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:33:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527153329.GH27891@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 11:48:03AM +0300, Saul Mashbaum wrote: : Very briefly, R. Rosner cites three approaches in the sources : : 1. Illustrating the truth - The Ran in Drashot HaRan drasha 5 - In this : approach, which severely limits the principle of eilu v'eilu, the Ran : states that actually only one of the opinions is true. The other opinion is : 'divrei Elokim chaim' only insofar as it serves to illustrate and elucidate : the other opinion, which is the real truth, as the dark enables us to : appreciate a candle... R/Dr Moshe Halbertal forms his opinion of the Ran's shitah on the haqdamah to haMafteiach leManulei haTalmud. He translates: It is a known fact that the entire Torah, written and oral, was transm itted to Moses, as it says in the tract ate Meggilah, R. Hiyya bar Abba said in the Name of R. Yohanan: The verse:...and on them was written according to all the words.." teaches that the Holy One blessed be He showed Moses the details prescribed by the Torah and by the Sages, including the innovations they would later enact. And what are those? the reading of Meggila. The 'details' provided by the rabbis are halakhic disputes and conflicting views held by the sa ges of Israel. Moses learned them all by divine word with no resolution every controversy in detail. Yet [God] also gave him a rule whose truth is manifest, i.e., 'Favor the majority opinion'....as the sages of that generation saw fit, for the decision had already been delegated to them as it is written: 'And you shall come to the priest the Levites, and to the judge that shall be in those days' and 'You shall not deviate....". (Quoted from . I do not know where to find the original, to see what's ellided or whether my own attempt to translate would agree.) This quote from the Ran pretty clearly backs the third position in RSR's survey: : 3. Multiple truths (Ritva in Eiruvin, Maharal) - Both opinions are true, : reflecting different perspectives of the subject at hand (IMO, this is : similar to the previous explanation, without establishing a hierarchy : between the truths expressed by the different opinions)... (BTW, I happen to agree with this parenthetic. ) OTOH, in Derashah #7, I think I could defend RSR's #2! To quote the Ran: We have been commanded to obey their decision whether it represents the tru th or its opposite ...for the power of decision-making has been entrusted to the halakhic authorities for each generation. Whatever they decide is what God has commanded. Compare: : 2. Levels of truth - R. Moshe in the hakdama to IM, and R. Yaakov to : Bereishit 26, the Netziv in his Hakadama to Haamek Sh'eila, his commentary : to the Sheiltot). Using R. Moshe's terminology. there is Emet Shamaymit, : and Emet L'Horaa. Both are correct, and in this world we are obligated to : follow the emet l'horaa even if it deviates from the ultimate, heavenly : truth. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You are where your thoughts are. micha at aishdas.org - Ramban, Igeres haQodesh, Ch. 5 http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:38:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:38:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5565E50A.4070406@sero.name> On 05/27/2015 04:22 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Yahadus uses the Torah to define evil. Others don't accept this definition. Why is that relevant? Objective truth doesn't depend on how many people are aware of it or accept it. It's true for everyone, whether they know and accept it or not. Those who don't know it are simply ignorant, and those who dispute it are simply wrong. Subjective truth is a very different matter. If a truth is subjective then those who dispute it are not wrong, it *isn't true* for them, and if someone insists it must be true for them then *he* is wrong. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:41:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:41:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] right and wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5565E599.6050709@sero.name> On 05/27/2015 05:20 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Tangential to some of the recent discussions I wish to point out that > the defintion of right and wrong is subjective and indeed changes > through history. No, it isn't and it doesn't. That the majority of people in the course of history have been wrong is no chiddush; the majority of people *today* are wrong. Truth isn't determined by democracy. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:42:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:42:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") In-Reply-To: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> References: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5565E5EC.7030806@sero.name> On 05/27/2015 06:47 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to > blow. How do you do less than 10*each*? Tashrat for Malchiyos, Tashat for Zichronos, and Tarat for Shofros. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 10:58:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 13:58:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Even More on Who Wrote the Mishnah Brurah Message-ID: <20150527175829.C3B57182454@nexus.stevens.edu> Someone on my email list spoke to a well-known Flatbush Rov and sent me the following: Reb Yitzchok I spoke to Rabbi XX this morning, and he did indeed confirm that the MB was not written only by the Chofetz Chaim. He said R. Moshe Feinstein told him that it is a work of a rabbim, not only a yochid. It seems that R. Arye Leib was not the only one to work on it. According to what R. XX heard the team also consisted of the CC's son in law and the mashgiach Rav Londinski. R. XX also told me that R. Henoch Liebowitz, the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim in Queens told him that his father Reb Dovid, who was a nephew of the CC, also wrote portions of the MB. So thank you for leading me towards this information. llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 12:38:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 15:38:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55661D24.8040207@gmail.com> Micha Berger: >> Rabbi Akiva said, ... "Even as a house proclaims its builder,a garment >> > its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the >> > Holy Blessed One Who created it. >> > >> >Not very rigorous. Rabbi Aqiva's reply revolves around giving a parable >> >to make the conclusion self-evident. Not contructing a deductive argument. >> > >> > ...there are truths that can >> be justified even when they are not amenable to formal proofs. >> ... I'll quote Qovetz Maamariv par 5-7 from a translation >> provided by Pirchei Shoshanim. You'll notice it's nothing like the >> Rambam's attempt to formally prove an Argument from Design in Moreh >> sec. II. Indeed, the Rambam himself in the Moreh Nevuchim recognizes this distinction and supports the superior validity of the non-formal approach. Chapters after he devotes chapters to formal philosophic proofs for Creation ex nihilo, he describes how a healthy (and unbiased) mind thinks: And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, /for one who is modeh al ha-ememmes/ (Ibn Tibbon; KPCH: /baal tsedek/; Pines: an equitable man) [contra Aristotle?see 2:20-23], is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an intender, and that such purposeful intent necessarily implies the production of something new [and not something that always existed along with the one who bears the purposeful intention for its existence]. (MN 3:13) Aristotle agreed to the premise that everything in Nature serves a certain purpose, and that every being contributes to the existence of still another being, but he refused to concede to the conclusion the Rambam considers something a /modeh al ha-emmess/baal tsedek/ is naturally convinced of. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 13:54:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 16:54:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <55661D24.8040207@gmail.com> References: <55661D24.8040207@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150527205440.GB22904@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 03:38:12PM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : Indeed, the Rambam himself in the Moreh Nevuchim recognizes this : distinction and supports the superior validity of the non-formal : approach. Chapters after he devotes chapters to formal philosophic : proofs for Creation ex nihilo, he describes how a healthy (and : unbiased) mind thinks: : : And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, ... : is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities : serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; : and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an : intender, and that such purposeful intent necessarily implies the : production of something new [and not something that always existed : along with the one who bears the purposeful intention for its : existence]. (MN 3:13) There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam recaps a point made in 2:19-20. And for that matter, if the Rambam was talking about not really needing formal proof, despite spending much of sec. II on just that, why would it be buried in a chapter that focuses on something else? 3:13 is about how the universe has its own purpose. It is not just an arena designed for the purpose of humans. He argues here with Aristo who says that plants exist for the purpose of animals, and in general, that things exist for the purpose of other things. Besides, the Rambam writes in 3:51 in the mashal of the palace, that people who believe because of tradition without having proof are like those who wander around the chatzer, whereas someone with a proof is like one who entered the prozdor. Not Aristo's epistomology didn't analyze issues of proof vs other justification. But clearly Reliabilism, trusting an idea found in a source that has already been found to be reliable (hama'aminim ... derekh qabalah), is not being considered good enough justification to fully accomplish life's goal. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 14:39:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 17:39:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527213945.GE22904@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 10:25:26AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> I think the problem is more than just avoiding the issur, but making :> it trivial to entirely avoid it. : : In that case how about a "dud shemesh" according to the poskim that it is : allowed because it uses the sun I don't know. Maybe because you still can't boil hot water if you wanted it, say, for your tea. :> The textbook case would be on Shabbos 6a: situating someone in a meqom :> petur so that someone in a reshus hayachid can hand items to them so :> that they could then hand it over to someone in a reshus harabim. :> Rashi ad loc explains "demezalzel be'isurei Shabbos".>> : would there be a difference between doing this once and making this a : standard procedure? Good question. I don't see "standard procedure" in the gemara, it looks like a one-off. It depends if we're talking about zilzul of kevod Shabbos, or zilzul of the melakhah, the latter being more of a "threat of slippery slope" problem. Rashi has "mezalzel be'isurei Shabbos". BH 337:2 "shelo yishtaberu" uses the same turn of phrase. Why would you be afraid of cheapening the issur if we aren't talking about that opening the door to future violation? The Tur OC 315, Beiur Halakah 344 and elsewhere talk about not doing things "shelo yavo'u lezalzel bo". Which clearly invokes a slippery slope argument; but not that zilzul is itself a slippery slope, rather than zilzul is such a problem, we avoid things that will slide us there. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is harder to eat the day before Yom Kippur micha at aishdas.org with the proper intent than to fast on Yom http://www.aishdas.org Kippur with that intent. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 14:49:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 17:49:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir In-Reply-To: <20150527.080332.8051.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150527.080332.8051.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150527214903.GF22904@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 12:03:32PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Micha Berger answered: :> On a technical level, it would be mesayeia, not lifnei iver, and :> I'm not sure that mesayeia applies to 7 mitzvos benei Noach. : Really? Perhaps I need a better understanding of the difference between : the two. I thought that mesayeia was when the other person is going to : violate the halacha anyway and I am merely helping him to do it... My understanding is that mesayeia is when the person was capable of doing the aveirah without you. Not "would" but "could". Whereas lifnei iveir is when the nazir is mei'eivar hanahar and you're giving him passage. The sugya is on AZ 6a-b. But, I see the Ran does say mesayeia apply to preventing a nakhri from violating the 7MBN. The Rama *YD 151:2) says we are meiqil and allow selling AZ items to nakhriim if they already own similar items or can buy them elsewhere, but there are machmirim. See the Shach YD 151:6-7, who discusses this machloqes rishonim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The mind is a wonderful organ micha at aishdas.org for justifying decisions http://www.aishdas.org the heart already reached. Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 18:33:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 21:33:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] measurement error Message-ID: <20150528013324.GA4749@aishdas.org> The topic I got caught up in has been the AhS and standard shiurim. The story so far.... Jan 8, when this thread was current, I wrote : > BTW, carrying 4 amos bereshus harabbim is 4 of one's own amos, assuming > they have mainstream bone structure. It's where I am in AhS Yomi. > But notice that we would naturally assume "amah" as unit of length, not > as a function of how far that particular person can reach. On Jan 11, I hit the topic again WRT eiruvin AhS OC 363:32-35, and wrote : > But then in se'if 34 he says something I do not follow, but key to > our discussion. > When dealing with mavui, where there is only one mavui and therefore one > measuring process to be used for everyone, the above applies. However, > when the measurement is only for one person's use, tbey should be > measuring for himself, with his own norms. > And here he adds a touch of subjectivity: a person should measure how > far he himself could walk. And the rule of carrying in rh"r a distance > of no more 4 of one's own amos is brought into that umbrella. > The reason for the general rule is to cover the personal amos of the > people who will be using the measuring. > BUT, and this is why I do not follow, he opened se'if 32 by telling us > the variability is 1/48 of the total (1/24 of an etzba per ammah). Which > is far less than the variability in forearm lengths in most groups of > people. For example, my own sukkah is used by Yoni, who stands 6'3" and by > my own 5'3" -- and my arms are on the shorter side, even proportionally. > When we hold up elbows together, my ammah ends just past his wrist. Not > within 47/48 of eachother. And then on May 18 I hit AhS OC 586:14 and tried reviving this thread . The topic was the minimum length for a shofar -- long enough to be seen on either side when being held in one hand. > So the shiur is neither personal nor really the standard tefach. It is > literally as the gemara says, what can be held and still seen. Which is > why there is a machloqes about where the tefach stands in relation to the > real shiur. But, visible if hypothetically held by an average hand. And > if the tqoei'ah has wide hands, he could hold a minimal shofar without > it being visible, and it would still be kosher. ... > What I find even more interesting is that there is no chiluq being drawn > between someone who blows in shul and someone who blows just for himself. > Wouldn't the rule from OC 363 mean that someone in the latter situation > should use what is visible when their own hand holds it? But today I seem to have hit an AhS which deals with shiurim that aren't human: revi'is, kezayis. According to OC 612:8, the shiur of drinking on YK is not a revi'is, but melo lugmav. And unlike akhilah, where there is one kezayis for everyone, melo lugmav is literally his own cheek. So it would seem that kezayis, and perhaps revi'is and other shiurim (beis se'ah) are not subjective. Which makes sense, since I can't figure out how to make a kezayis correspond to the person... Except RCVolozhiner's position, where it's the average kezayis then and there, and not a static shiur. Which could, literally, be the same shiur for all people (living there and then) and thus may be within the AhS's intent. Can't I get anyone else intrigued by this problem? Back on Jan 11, I was in hil' eiruvin, and hit upn the AhS's discussion of an ammah just as we were discussing the topic Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The purely righteous do not complain about evil, micha at aishdas.org but add justice, don't complain about heresy, http://www.aishdas.org but add faith, don't complain about ignorance, Fax: (270) 514-1507 but add wisdom. - R AY Kook, Arpelei Tohar From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:12:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:12:53 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul Message-ID: Micha wrote: The Tur OC 315, Beiur Halakah 344 and elsewhere talk about not doing things "shelo yavo'u lezalzel bo". Which clearly invokes a slippery slope argument; but not that zilzul is itself a slippery slope, rather than zilzul is such a problem, we avoid things that will slide us there. >> My apologies but I am still completely confused when one applies zilzul and when one says something is allowed as an exception to the rule. No purpose in giving examples as there are myriads of exceptions that are allowed. I have the same problem with "lo plug" sometimes something that would be allowed is prohibited because of "lo plug" and sometimes we simply say it is an exception. Perhaps the most famous example is lighting candles on leil yom tov. The wife of the Prisha says one should say the bracha first and then light since lighting (preexisting flame) is allowed on tomtov. The MA calls her names and says this is an obvious "lo plug". My impression is that most women follow the wife of the prisha. The question is what is the basis of the machloket either when do we say "lo plug" and when do we apply "zilzul" and when do we ignore these arguments -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 21:04:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 04:04:33 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir Message-ID: <20150528.000433.22403.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > My understanding is that mesayeia is when the person was capable > of doing the aveirah without you. Not "would" but "could". Whereas > lifnei iveir is when the nazir is mei'eivar hanahar and you're > giving him passage. > > The sugya is on AZ 6a-b. > > ... I will be the first to point out that Lifnei Iveir is one the many topics where my learning and expertise is severely lacking. Even so, I suspect that there is something missing from RMB's definition. In the simplest reading of the pasuk (Vayikra 19:14), Rashi says that Lifnei Iveir forbids one to give bad advice to another person. It is difficult to imagine a worse piece of advice than telling Ruth to follow Orpah back her her previous god. Googling the question "What is Lifnei Iveir" brought me to an interesting article by Rabbi Yirmiyohu Kaganoff (bio at http://rabbikaganoff.com/about) The full article is at http://tinyurl.com/ka3pwq6 and I would like to quote the part where he gives three different categories of Lifnei Iveir: > I. Inciting ? maiseis > > This occurs when a person was not even considering doing an > aveirah until someone encouraged him. Thus, the instigator incited > the performing of the aveirah and is therefore a maiseis. > > II. Encouraging ? chanufah > > One violates this prohibition by complimenting someone for doing a > sin, thus implying that sinning is acceptable. > > III. Enabling ? lifnei iveir > > One violates this prohibition if the sinner wanted to do the > aveirah, but was unable to do so without assistance. The person > who enables the performing of the aveirah violates lifnei iveir. > > IV. Even when none of these Torah prohibitions are involved, > helping the sinner do the aveirah sometimes violates the rabbinic > prohibition of mesaya?a y?dei ovrei aveirah, assisting someone who > is sinning. (It is unfortunate that the article did not cite a source or precedent for these categories, but please bear with me.) It seems to me that RMB is giving a useful tool to distinguish between category 3 and category 4, but that tool is useful only in the case where a person already has the *desire* to commit a sin, but it lacking the *ability* to some degree. If a person has only a mild inability to sin, then the enabler is merely mesayeia; but if the person has a severe inability, then the enabler is placing a real michshol. But what of the case where a person does *not* yet have a desire to sin? Rabbi Kaganoff is saying that one who incites or encourages him to do it is violating Lifnei Iveir. Even if the person already has the ability to do the sin, it was below his "bechirah point" until he was egged on to do it. Rabbi Kaganoff offers an example: > Inciting Someone to Sin ? maiseis > > The classic case of maiseis is when the nachash encouraged Chavah > to eat the forbidden fruit. Even though the nachash itself did > not eat, Hashem punished it for inciting Chavah to sin (Gemara > Sanhedrin 29a). Similarly, if Reuven incites Shimon to sin in a > way that Shimon had not considered, Reuven is a maiseis. And so my question can be rephrased: If the nachash was wrong to tell Chava to eat the fruit, wasn't Naami wrong to tell Ruth to follow Orpah back to her god? Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/556694205dac4141e6338st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 01:07:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:07:24 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim Message-ID: On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 07:14:36PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: : -- 30 **dim'yushav** : -- 10 **dim'umad** : -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the R' Micha Berger asked: "How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to blow. How do you do less than 10 **each**?" Many Rishonim (quoted by the Beis Yosef in Siman 592) hold that during Chazaras Hashatz in Musaf you blow Tashrat for malchiyos, Tashat for zichronos and Tarat for shofaros. In all of the Nusach Ashkenaz shuls that I have davened in they blew 30 before Musaf, 30 during chazaras hashatz and then 40 after Musaf adding up to 100. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:33:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:33:43 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: Micha wrote <> Well Micha and I agree on several points but still disagree on others. Agreed that people in real life don't use formal mathematical proofs. A sanhedrin can kill on a majority vote (OK there a little more than 50%) I also agree that if one is talking about oneself then feelings count. Saying they are wrong but I cant prove it works perfectly OK with regard to your own beliefs. It doesnt work when trying to convince others. Example: Your child comes home and says he learned that the world is billions of years old not about 5700 years. Or else your teenager tells you he doesn't believe G-d is loving because of the Holocaust or because of Amalek. You can tell him that whatever is in the Torah or Chazal is truth and its not open to discussion. That might work with some children. Alternatively you can give him/her one of the many answers that have been discussed on this list. That may or not convince him. There are no proofs that G-d exists or that G-d rules the universe or that G-d is just or loving. You can convince yourself but doing that to others is difficult, We have already argued about REW and I still can't accept it. The argument is that if someone else tells you why he doesn't accept G-d or that G-d rules the world whether for rational or emotional reasons the answer is that we don't believe him and say he is making up reasons. Of course he will say the same about your acceptance of Torah and mitzvot. To simply accuse the other of simply rationalizing his beliefs is simply not true. I have had enough lectures on why the Bible was written very late by many scribes to be convinced they really mean it. You may disagree but you can't accuse them of merely rationalizing their non-belief. In one class the professor said he would willing debate anyone who has a different opinion objectively. However, if you start that the Torah is from Sinai because of your belief then there is nothing to discuss. What is self-evident to you is self-evidently false to someone else. Again it is legitimate to disagree with that person but I claim it is not legitimate to state that he doesn't really believe in his own position. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:57:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:57:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura Message-ID: <> They state clearly these are things they heard from the Gra, Ari etc. No misleading. No different than RHS writing what he heard from RYBS and many other such seforim. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:55:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 05:55:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5566E62F.8040201@sero.name> On 05/28/2015 05:12 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > Perhaps the most famous example is lighting candles on leil yom tov. > The wife of the Prisha The MA's girsa in the Prisha is "mother", and the Machtzis Hashekel confirms that this is not a typo in the MA. > says one should say the bracha first and then > light since lighting (preexisting flame) is allowed on tomtov. > The MA calls her names He does not! He merely quotes the gemara Yoma 66b that "women only have wisdom with the spindle". Machtzis Hashekel says he is not even referring to the Drisha's mother, but to most women, who will not understand the distinction between Shabbos and Yomtov. > and says this is an obvious "lo plug". He doesn't just assert it, he cites clear sources that when a bracha must sometimes be said after the deed, we apply lo plug and always say it after the deed. Thus, he says, the same thing must apply here. (But see Dagul Mervava, who distinguishes this case because the bracha is different, and points out that if not for this distinction then the same should apply to the Chanukah lights). > My impression is that most women follow the wife of the prisha. Really? I'm surrprised. I'm also surprised that you've surveyed enough women to form an impression one way or the other. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:19:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 10:19:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:57:05PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> < teachings. For that matter, people talk about what the Ari says in Peri :> Eitz Chaim or others of R' Chaim Vital's works.>> : They state clearly these are things they heard from the Gra, Ari etc. No : misleading. I'm not sure about such disclaimers on the Gra's talmidim's writings, aside from Maaseh Rav. And if so, lo kol shekein in our case! Here we have the author of Shemiras haLashon -- someone known for thinking about what he said -- calling the MB "beiuri", "od tzarafti" "ki bo biarti", "upo hir'eisi", and "kol eileh chbarti..." on the title page. How can one argue he didn't oversee the entire work and checked the content? Nothing about parts being by Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger What you get by achieving your goals micha at aishdas.org is not as important as http://www.aishdas.org what you become by achieving your goals. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Henry David Thoreau From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:33:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 10:33:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528143339.GB4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:12:53PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : My apologies but I am still completely confused when one applies zilzul and : when one says something is allowed as an exception to the rule. No purpose : in giving examples as there are myriads of exceptions that are allowed. I think the reverse: the norm is to allow valid loopholes to the din, and it's only when the poseiq decides that the loophole would destroy some significant part of the feel of Shabbos (whether qedushas Shabbos or an entire melakhah) that we call it zilzul. ... : Perhaps the most famous example is lighting candles on leil yom tov. The : wife of the Prisha says one should say the bracha first and then light : since lighting (preexisting flame) is allowed on tomtov. The MA calls her : names and says this is an obvious "lo plug". : My impression is that most women follow the wife of the prisha. The AhS OC 263:3 does, citing the Perishah. Then he quotes the MA (s"q 12) and says "and many were choliq on him... vekhein iqar ledina." Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:45:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 10:45:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528144529.GC4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:33:43PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : Well Micha and I agree on several points but still disagree on others. : Agreed that people in real life don't use formal mathematical proofs... I would go further and say that far too many things /can't/ use formal proofs. And even further: even when you do have a formal proof, it is built from givens -- call them postulates or first principles. So, barring an infinite regress, even a formal proof is a structure atop things accepted without formal proof. I should point out that this a major subset of the field of epistomology. : It doesnt work when trying to convince others. True, but not relevant. We -- and more importantly to the origianl point, REW -- are talking about whether it's more natural to believe in G-d or not. Not whether a believer could then convince someone else. ... : We have already argued about REW and I still can't accept it. The argument : is that if someone else tells you why he doesn't accept G-d or that G-d : rules the world whether for rational or emotional reasons the answer is : that we don't believe him and say he is making up reasons. REW doesn't say that. I even cut-n-pasted a translation to support that point. REW says that he really doesn't believe, but he had to work against the natural state of seeing a world that shows obvious signs of a Designer. Someone can truly and honestly convince himself, or be convinced by others (including upbringing) that a poem really could emerge by someone spilling ink. But that's not what people would conclude if we lacked a strong desire to conclude that way -- the "shochad" of freedom if ein din ve'ein Dayan. There is nothing in that quote from Qovetz Maamarim about anyone not really believing what they think they believe. Rather, he ascribes a motive. : Of course he will say the same about your acceptance of Torah and mitzvot. Again, REW isn't speaking about the context of debate. Nor was I. By bringing it in, you complicate matters without addressing the original claim. REW is really just saying that the reason why believe is a fair topic of bechirah because on one side design is self-evident but on the other the desire to live without having to follow the Designer counterbalances it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger People were created to be loved. micha at aishdas.org Things were created to be used. http://www.aishdas.org The reason why the world is in chaos is that Fax: (270) 514-1507 things are being loved, people are being used. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:22:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 14:22:41 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> References: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, May 28, 2015, 5:19 PM Micha Berger wrote: > Here we have the author of Shemiras > haLashon -- someone known for thinking about what he said -- calling > the MB "beiuri", "od tzarafti" "ki bo biarti", "upo hir'eisi", and "kol > eileh chbarti..." on the title page. How can one argue he didn't oversee > the entire work and checked the content? Nothing about parts being by I agree he must have looked it over That leaves the question of contradictions And stories about minhagim of cc that are different than what is in mb From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:23:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:23:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150528152301.GE4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 02:22:41PM +0000, Eli Turkel wrote: : I agree he must have looked it over Which is why I think R/Dr MS is making too much ado over the actual authorship. : That leaves the question of contradictions Well, not every sheverer Rambam is a printing error either. Another case where the academic norm is to run far further with some fun concept than I'm comfortable with. Perhaps we should be looking for how the contradictions are only apparent. Or perhaps the CC felt than ruling al pi rov or safeiq lechumerah/lequlah in two different cases needn't results in consistencies between pesaqim. Before you spend too much time on that bothering you, recall when we daven minchah and maariv. If the tefillos are on two different days, you can end up following different definitions of evening on different days. : And stories about minhagim of cc that are different than what is in mb I thought R/Dr Seth Mandel's position is compelling. Look at the title page and the haqdamah. The CC never claims that the MB is a seifer of pesaq. Rather, he describes the work as a survey. From the title page, defining the MB (as opposed to the left column about the BH): I called my biur by the name MB since within it is explained (misbareir; c.f. "berurah") the words of the SA, every law by its reasoning and origins in the gemara and posqim that it not be like a sealed book. Also I will collect in it all the dinim, halakhos and biurim scattered amog the books of the acharonim, meforshim of the SA who are known (like MA, PMG, Birkhei Yoseif, Maamar Mordekhai and many such.) There are many of them after the Be'er Heitiv and they are not brought in shu"t because they are somwhat scattered in various places. All of these are compiled here, and all is in a straightforward and easy language and in proper order, with Hashem's help. And the BH: Also, I appended on its side some necessary inyanim titled under the name Biur Halakhah -- and as the name, so it is. For in it I sometimes explained the words of halakhah which are brought in summary in the MB without proof, and here I show (be"h) its source looking inall of gemara and the posqim. Also in it are sometimes explains the words of the SA at length in places which need explanation. (Sorry, just always wanted to bother translating that -- this thread was just my excuse.) So, the MB is a survey, and thus the halachic conclusions found in it (and explained in the BH) are purely what in theory the sources surveyed would indicate. It's not that the CC didn't believe in mimeticism, it's that the MB is a book of theory and therefore ignores mimeticism. The MB was written lehalakhah velo lemaaseh. Which makes it ironic that so many RYs of the mid- and late 20th cent worked so hard to make the work a "poseiq acharon" lemaaseh. Whereas he CC's own practice did reflect weighing shitos based on their acceptance. And so, unsurprisingly, in all the places I know of where his own practice didn't fit the MB (such as supporting a community eiruv, despite BH 364 "ve'achar") his practice does follow the AhS. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "The most prevalent illness of our generation is micha at aishdas.org excessive anxiety.... Emunah decreases anxiety: http://www.aishdas.org 'The Almighty is my source of salvation; I will Fax: (270) 514-1507 trust and not be afraid.'" (Isa 12) -Shalhevesya From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:11:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:11:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528151127.C0EE817F7D9@nexus.stevens.edu> At 10:33 AM 5/28/2015, R. Micha Berger wrote: >And if so, lo kol shekein in our case! Here we have the author of Shemiras >haLashon -- someone known for thinking about what he said -- calling >the MB "beiuri", "od tzarafti" "ki bo biarti", "upo hir'eisi", and "kol >eileh chbarti..." on the title page. How can one argue he didn't oversee >the entire work and checked the content? Nothing about parts being by I wonder if these words were on the title page of the first publication of each volume of the MB. After all, publishers do add things. One title page I found online for the second volume of the MB refers to the author as HaGaon. I doubt that the CC would have had this on the title page of the first printing. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:39:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:39:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: <20150528151127.C0EE817F7D9@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150528151127.C0EE817F7D9@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150528153911.GG4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 11:11:28AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : I wonder if these words were on the title page of the first : publication of each volume of the MB... Why wonder? Each volume: 1. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49623&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1884 2. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49624&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1895 3. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49625&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1891 4. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49626&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1898 5. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49627&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1902 6. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49628&pgnum=1 - Pietrekov 1907 (None call him ga'on, all have pretty much the same self description.) These fit the years of the first editions that wikipedia gives, based on "The Chafetz Chaim" by R MM Yoshor, pg 603. (But even if wiki has it wrong, they are editions published by the author.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Rescue me from the desire to win every micha at aishdas.org argument and to always be right. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Nassan of Breslav Fax: (270) 514-1507 Likutei Tefilos 94:964 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:10:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 08:10:56 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH Message-ID: http://menachemmendel.net/blog/are-you-a-mishnah-berurah-or-arukh-hashulhan-person/ see there also the r henkin review . he points out that the Oz Vhadar edition inherently has a difficulty in attributing notes to the [non-satmar oriented] relatives of the Aruch Hashulchan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 09:00:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:00:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the suggestion that a kosher lamp is zilzul shabbas. Isn't just a nice (and -- significantly -- *safer*) way of covering a lamp? If one were to make the argument that its convenience might make it zilzul shabbas, might one respond with "but safety"? Why do the rabbis deem the following to not be a case of zilzul yom tov: cooking a large pot of food on the afternoon of yom tov rishon, "in case people might stop by", and "I'll eat some of it" knowing there will be leftovers? -- Sholom -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 14:15:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 17:15:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") In-Reply-To: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> References: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> Message-ID: R'Micha asked: > How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to blow. How do you do less than 10 *each*? < 3 during Malch., 3 during Zichronos, and 4 during Shof'ros. On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 6:47 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 07:14:36PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: > : When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: > : -- 30 *dim'yushav* > : -- 10 *dim'umad* > : -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the > > How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to > blow. How do you do less than 10 *each*? > > Tir'u baTov! > -Micha > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 15:45:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 18:45:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528224528.GB28282@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:00:22PM -0400, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote: : I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the suggestion that a : kosher lamp is zilzul shabbas. That's okay, it's just a hava amina we raised here. No one AFAIK actually banned kosher lamps over zilzul Shabbos. The question was why a Kosher Switch (that claims to not even be grama) would be zilzul and not the Kosher Lamp. And then, many (most? the vast majority of posqim?) do not believe it actually avoids gerama, including the author of Shemiras Shabbos kehilkhisa. : Isn't just a nice (and -- significantly : -- *safer*) way of covering a lamp? Well, every case where one would discuss zilzul Shabbos would be one where there wasn't a more easily defined problem. So every discussion could be "isn't it just". I think the difference is that a kosher switch would mean being able to turn or off anything, whereas the Kosher Lamp is more limited, being a specific appliance. ... : Why do the rabbis deem the following to not be a : case of zilzul yom tov: cooking a large pot of food on the afternoon of : yom tov rishon, "in case people might stop by", and "I'll eat some of : it" knowing there will be leftovers? I would guess that similarly, because it's of limited utility. It doesn't totally destroy the concept of an issur of cooking on Yom Tov. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The fittingness of your matzos [for the seder] micha at aishdas.org isn't complete with being careful in the laws http://www.aishdas.org of Passover. One must also be very careful in Fax: (270) 514-1507 the laws of business. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 05:52:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 15:52:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Indeed in Europe before WWII the MB was not the "final" arbiter of halacha. Much changed when CI wrote in a letter that the MB has the halacha of a sanhedrin and one can't disagree with its conclusions. Of course CI himself disagreed with the MB and in fact there are published versions of the MB which include the disagreements of the CI. All to show that what is written in letters is not to be taken very literally. In any case that paid a large part of the change in attitude towards the MB. Certainly poskim of the previous generation who grew up before the war also did not take the MB as a final posek. As an example is RMF though I heard similar things from RYBS. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 08:24:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 11:24:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150529152455.GA5770@aishdas.org> R/Dr Haym Soloveitchik focused on the MB's more textualist slant vs the AhS giving weight to shitos that were common practice. Which fits R/DHS's thesis for that particular paper, the idea he was using that particular comparison to illustrate. But I do not believe it's the primary difference between them. I already gave what I saw was the primary difference. The AhS was written by a moreh de'asra to reflect halakhah lemaaseh. The MB was written by a tzasiq and a gaon as a survey of later shitos that weren't available to most people trying to learn halakhah. No focus (by the author, see below about others) on lemaaseh. I see this as the cause for the MB's lack of attention to halakhah as practiced. It wasn't so much that the CC was a textualist when it comes to pesaq, but that he wrote a book for discussing texts. A second difference is that the AhS's idea of understanding the halakhah is looking to see how the pesaq evolved from gemara (and Y-mi) to Rif, Rambam, Rosh to the Tur, BY, SA, and finally to the acharonim since. The MB is more focused on the halakhah in the acharonic period, and how to decide amongst them. Third, the AhS is willing to leave the halakhah fuzzy, and often comes to a range of conclusions rather than one clear-cut pesaq. Or, he will pasqen one way in one se'if, but in a slightly different case in a different se'if reopen the question: ... but if you hold like... The MB offers more clarity. An AhS fan might say that clarity is artificial, because the reality of halakhah isn't cut and dry with only one best pesaq for all people. But it does make it easier to open a MB than to try to decide what to do when you reach one of the fuzzier stretches of the AhS. Perhaps the clarity is really is artifice, and that's why we need LORs rather than thinking a book is our poseiq. On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 03:52:06PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : Indeed in Europe before WWII the MB was not the "final" arbiter of : halacha. Much changed when CI wrote in a letter that the MB has the : halacha of a sanhedrin and one can't disagree with its conclusions. : Of course CI himself disagreed with the MB... : All to show that what is written in letters is not to be taken very : literally... Although it wasn't only the CI, so it's not all about taking his letter overly literally. Rav Yaakov Kamenecki and R' Aharon Kotler called him the "poseiq acharon", and RAK went as far as making sure the MB would appear in photos of him. See also our 2006 discussion Aruch Hashulchan vs. Mishna berura OTOH, R YH Henkin testified about his famous grandfather ( quoting his own Bnei Banim vol. 2 page 31): AH saw the MB; see 11:22; 12:4; 28:23; 62:4; 268:6; and other places where he mentions Mishnah Berurah by name. In 79:11 and 319:22 and elsewhere he disagrees with him by name and in innumerable places he disagrees with him without mentioning his name: for instance, in 55:20 he is writing against the Mishnah Berurah and similarly in 370:13 -- this is obvious anyone who looks carefully. So it is a mitzvah to let people know that AH is not only a Sefer Halacha but also a response to the Mishnah Brerurah. OTOH, similarly R [Shmuel] Yaakov Weinberg (Ner Israel) considered the AhS the more authoritative. And minutes before my chupah (while waiting for the paper to burn to have ashes for my head), R' Dovid Lifshitz asked if I had one for my new home, because it was closer to halakhah as my ancestors held. (RDL knew my family back in Suvalk.) As for RMF, RDF and RRF both agreed that RMF gave priority to the AhS because R' Yechiel Michl Epstein had a qehillah, and therefore the more practiced poseiq of the two. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger People were created to be loved. micha at aishdas.org Things were created to be used. http://www.aishdas.org The reason why the world is in chaos is that Fax: (270) 514-1507 things are being loved, people are being used. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 30 16:03:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 00:03:21 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] : Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001f01d09b2c$d37ec030$7a7c4090$@org.uk> I wrote: >> But aren't they then denying those Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all >> the chance to hear shofar according to the majority opinions by only blowing >> for them according to the minority opinions? And RZS replied: >AFAIK everyone agrees that all these methods are kosher, so those Jews >are definitely yotzei the mitzvah. ... >They're not foisting anything. The people they're blowing for would >otherwise not hear shofar at all, so they're clearly better off hearing >even some obscure form of it, so long as they're yotzei. But if these people who want to hear the shofar blown according to minority shitos are capable of finding people who would otherwise not hear shofar at all and blowing for them, they are *also* capable of finding such people in circumstances where they then blow for them according to the majority shitos. For it to be true that "they're clearly better off hearing some obscure form of it, so long as they are yotzei" - you have to be assuming that the people doing the blowing would only be prepared to go to the trouble of blowing to fulfil their desire to fulfil minority shitos but NOT where the result is only to ensure that fellow Jews perform a mitzvah. You may be correct that indeed people are more concerned with making sure they themselves have fulfilled the mitzvah of shofar in every possible permutation than in making sure another Jew performs the mitzvah at all, but could anybody honestly regard that as praiseworthy? As a consequence, I then raised a halachic query: > The principle on which > somebody who has fulfilled their obligation can then fulfil the obligation > of another is based on kol yisrael areivim zeh b'zeh. But to what extent is > that applicable in a situation in which that person would never, had the > situation been reversed, have accepted the form of fulfilment they are > offering the other. Ie since the person who is blowing the shofar refused > to have these alternative ways of blowing as the fundamental method of > fulfilling their own mitzvah, is it really areivus to then foist that form > of fulfilment on others? RZS's assumption is that, so long as everybody agrees that a form of blowing is kosher bidieved, then areivus works, but I wonder whether this is necessarily true. Areivus is a fascinating halachic concept - it allows somebody who has already fulfilled a mitzvah to do it again, including (importantly) making brachos again (which they would otherwise not be permitted to do) on behalf of another. I went for a bit of a hunt over Yom Tov to see what I could find regarding areivus, but did not turn up much. First of all, the pasuk from the Torah regarding Areivus is brought in Shevuos 39a as being based on the Vayikra 26:37 [vchashlu ish b'achiv] - which is then explained as meaning that a man in *the sin* of his brother so as to teach that kol yisrael areivim ze l'zeh. But while that seems a valid source for what might be considered "negative" areivus or areivus in relation to lo ta'asehs (and the obligation to protest), it led me to wonder how straightforwardly that gets you to what might be called "positive" areivus - ie doing something, such as performing the mitzvah of shofar on behalf of another [not that I have seen this distinction between "negative" and "positive" areivus anywhere]. Ie while you can see that if is permitted to blow shofar for somebody who was otherwise unable to fulfil the mitzvah, and one failed to do so, one might then be considered to have stumbled into the sin of that person's omission - ie failure to perform an aseh - it seems a leap to therefore derive from this particular pasuk that one has the power to fulfil and make brachos on behalf of that person. If anything I would have thought perhaps v'ahavta re'echa k'mocha seemed more likely, but I couldn't find any reference. Note that areivus would seem not to be shlichus, as one can make a shaliach out of somebody who is themselves not commanded in a particular thing - whereas that is not applicable for areivus where the original level of obligation must be at least equal on the part of the arev. [This is all leaving aside the famous Rosh Brachos perek 3 siman 13 which states that areivus does not apply to women, which is clearly discussing what might be termed positive areivus ie making brachos on behalf of one another, and which the achronim generally limit to cases where there is no equal obligation, despite what may seem to be the simple pshat, or the Tosphos in Kidushin 70b that areivus does not apply to gerim - which must surely at most [and here it seems to me you need the definition of negative and positive areivus] to be only a reference to negative areivus - otherwise this would be raised as a problem of a ger making brachos on behalf of others - although given the source of the Tosphos in Sotah 37b, this would also seem to apply to women for the same reasons - ie the number count being made by reference to the 603,550 in the midbar not including the eruv rav, and not including women either]. The most I was able to find in my brief search over Yom Tov was a Birchei Yosef Orech Chaim siman 124 discussing the question as to whether a Ben Chutz L'Aretz who found himself in a village in Israel over Yom Tov (in the case quoted by the Birchei Yosef he had gone to Israel to bury his dead) where nobody besides him had the knowledge to be Shatz, and who had already davened at home on second day yom tov the second day yom tov davening, could be shatz for the community by saying the birchei chol amidah. But there seem to be lots of other reasons to permit (as the Birchei Yosef does) in this particular case. In particular it seems to me, besides all of the Birchei Yosef's arguments, if you were to say that areivus was linked to v'ahavta re'echa kamocha, you can see why, if circumstances were reversed, the ben chutz l'aretz would want the same as he is providing to the benei aretz (ie the mutuality of areivus). But in the case that RZS has outlined, where the people hearing only the minority shitos form of shofar blowing would surely want the majority position shofar blowing if they could get it, can the blower unilaterally choose to force them to fulfil their obligation via a set of minority shitos via areivus, or does the principle of areivus not stretch that far? More generally, if somebody holds a particular position as being the ikar, can they under the principle of areivus perform a mitzvah on behalf of somebody who holds by a contradictory position, so that what the arev is doing is, according to him, possul? How about the reverse situation? And that gets us to RZS's case, where it might be agreed that a particular form is kosher bidieved, but if the arev could provide a l'chatchila version and chooses not to, can he be genuinely be said to be a real arev? How good a guarantor must a guarantor be to be considered a guarantor at all? I am sure some achron has written a treatise on areivus which must cover these kinds of topics, but so far I haven't found it. Zev Sero zev at sero.name Shavuah tov Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 12:25:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 15:25:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] FORBIDDING WOMEN DRIVERS: A HALACHIC ANALYSIS Message-ID: <20150529192533.D89D0182BDA@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/nqnquzc The media has widely reported that a Belz Yeshiva in England has forbidden women from driving their children to Yeshiva. It was further reported that if the mothers do not comply, the children will be thrown out of Yeshiva. In a letter sent to parents last week, seen by the Jewish Chronicle, they say there has been an increase in the number of mothers driving their children to school and add that this has led to ?great resentment among parents of pupils of our [Hasidic] institutions?. The letter says the ban, to come into force in the summer, is based on the recommendations of Rabbi Yissachar Dov Rokeach, the Belzer spiritual leader in Israel. It says that if a mother has no other choice but to drive her child to school ? for medical reasons, for example ? she should ?submit a request to the special committee to this effect and the committee shall consider her request.? The question is what does halacha have to say about this? See the above URL for more. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 14:04:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 17:04:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <5568D45F.9010809@gmail.com> R. Micha Berger maintained that R. E. Wasserman was not positing a formal proof for G-d's existence, formal proofs not being the only way, or even the superior way, to establish truths. I cited a passage in the Moreh Nevuchim to support this concept. But as is occasionally the case, R. MB disagrees with me, even when I attempt to defend him: ZL: Indeed, the Rambam himself in the Moreh Nevuchim recognizes this : distinction and supports the superior validity of the non-formal : approach. Chapters after he devotes chapters to formal philosophic : proofs for Creation ex nihilo, he describes how a healthy (and : unbiased) mind thinks: : :And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, //for //one who ismodeh al ha-ememmes// (RMB substituted an ellipsis for this :crucial clause) :is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities :serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; :and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an :intender, and that such purposeful intent necessarily implies the :production of something new [and not something that always existed :along with the one who bears the purposeful intention for its :existence]. (MN 3:13) RMB: There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam recaps a point made in 2:19-20. In 2:19-20 Rambam makes no reference to each component or entity in nature providing a benefit for another, and certainly does not use that there as a proof for Creation ex nihilo. *(Section II is devoted to developing the argument against a naturally necessary eternal world based on ''particularization,'' the differing formations and behaviors of things despite their being made of the same materials.) * ** *Perhaps you are referring to the fact that in both the argument there and here the crucial concluding step invokes the mindset that purposeful intention on G-d's part (which Aristotle as well attributes to G-d) indicates *a changeable will on His part (which indication Aristotle denies) that allows for and indicates Creation ex nihilo. But just as in 3:13 the Rambam describes that crucial mindset as something that is possessed by those who are modeh al ha-emmess, so too in 2:19-20 the Rambam first describes it as something that is ''pashut'' (KPCH) or ''mevuar" (Ibn Tibbon), which he will then proceed to demonstrate through more formal proof: It has already been shown that according to Aristotle... the Universe is not the result of intent of choice and desire; for if this were the case, they would have been non-existing before the intent had been conceived. We [proponents of Judaism?ZL], however, hold that it is /pashut\mevuar/ that all things in the Universe are the result of intent-not-of necessity; and it is possible for that Intender to change them and have a different intent. But in this chapter, my intent is to show by arguments almost as forceful as real proofs, that the Universe gives compelling evidence of being [freely] intended by an Intender: RMB: And for that matter, if the Rambam was talking about not really needing formal proof, despite spending much of sec. II on just that, why would it be buried in a chapter that focuses on something else? I did not posit that the Rambam's intent was to make the point that formal proof is unnecessary. That indeed is not his purpose. After all, the explicitly stated primary purpose of the Moreh is for those (himself included) who yearned to defend and support the mesorah through philosophical approach of his day. He is not interested in dismissing the project. He explicitly describes this /modeh al ha-emmess/ statement /as a tangential interruption/: After that statement, he says, ''I will now return to the subject of this chapter, viz., the ultimate cause [i.e. the purpose behind the universe being as it is--ZL].'' My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows the non-formal mindset of those who are /modeh al ha-emmess/. It is a reference to those who do not restrict their acceptance of truth to things provable through formal logic, settling for healthy, unbiased reasoning (and who thereby see the truth of Creation ex-nihilo as a simple conclusion from the fact of the purposeful hierarchy of nature). RMB: 3:13 is about how the universe has its own purpose. It is not just an arena designed for the purpose of humans. He argues here with Aristo who says that plants exist for the purpose of animals, and in general, that things exist for the purpose of other things. He does not argue with Aristotle on this point, as is clear in the passage from 3:13 that I originally quoted, and as he elaborates in the introduction to his Mishnah commentary. The disagreement (outside of the parenthetically mentioned one) revolves around the /ultimate/ purpose behind the existence of everything, and the question of why the intermediate steps in this world that lead to its finale of the hierarchy must exist, rather than the finale existing alone. (According to Aristotle, every component of nature is simply a necessity whose non-existence is absolutely impossible. It is impossible for G-d to maintain anything but the universe and its entities as they are. According to the Rambam, although every sub lunar being contributes to the existence of another such being, until we get to Man (and then the Ish Shalem), G-d could nevertheless have created that final being directly, without creating the intermediary plants and animals. Why He in His wisdom decided to do it as He did, and why he decided to create the heavens as He did, we cannot know.) RMB: Besides, the Rambam writes in 3:51 in the mashal of the palace, that people who believe because of tradition without having proof are like those who wander around the chatzer, whereas someone with a proof is like one who entered the prozdor. The ''modeh al ha-emmess'' proof, building upon careful observation of the world and and its components and creatures and theorizing as to how it all works, is also a proof. The inferior knowledge that does not lead to optimum closeness to Hashem is pure tradition without proof. Not[e] Aristo's epistomology didn't analyze issues of proof vs other justification. But clearly Reliabilism, trusting an idea found in a source that has already been found to be reliable (hama'aminim ... derekh qabalah), is not being considered good enough justification to fully accomplish life's goal. I did not refer to emunah b'derech kaballah. That's not what I meant by ''ha-modeh al ha-emmess.'' I meant what I said: the healthy thinking of an unbiased mind, meaning the thinking of such a mind informed by knowledge of the things that exist in the world and their behaviors, and explanations of how they operate. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 30 20:04:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sat, 30 May 2015 23:04:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] : Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <001f01d09b2c$d37ec030$7a7c4090$@org.uk> References: <001f01d09b2c$d37ec030$7a7c4090$@org.uk> Message-ID: <556A7A27.3000006@sero.name> On 05/30/2015 07:03 PM, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: > RZS's assumption is that, so long as everybody agrees that a form of blowing > is kosher bidieved, then areivus works, Not just b'deiavad; my understanding is that all of these shitos are kosher lechatchilah, they're just not the way we do them lemaaseh. Let's say they're not mitzva min hamuvchar. Or "de`avad kemar `avad, ud`avad kemar `avad but we do kemar". > But in the case that RZS has outlined, where the people hearing > only the minority shitos form of shofar blowing would surely want the > majority position shofar blowing if they could get it, We're talking about people who have no particular desire to hear shofar at all, or they'd have done so. They didn't bother going to shul on Rosh Hashana, so they're probably not even aware that there are different shitos in how to blow shofar, let alone have a preferred shitah. Anything that is motzi them in the mitzvah is an improvement over what they would do otherwise, and is a benefit for them. And we're talking about potential blowers who currently don't go out and do this, they don't spend their precious Rosh Hashana hours bringing this zechus to fellow Jews who did not come themselves to hear shofar. So what I'm proposing is a win-win. They get to hear the obscure shitos they want to hear, and the people they're blowing for get the basic mitzvah as the Torah commanded it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 30 20:22:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 30 May 2015 23:22:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <556A7E8D.70007@gmail.com> I wrote: > > > > But as is occasionally the case, > R. MB disagrees with me, even when I attempt to defend him I should have put a smiley after that sentence, or maybe even explicated that it was meant as a humorous observation of irony. It meant to imply that RMB is interested in emmess and does not make it a personal issue. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 31 00:59:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 10:59:58 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura Message-ID: RHS has said many times in his shiurim that the MB was not written alone by the Chofetz Chaim and that is why there are sometimes contradictions. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 31 01:08:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 11:08:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: "Indeed in Europe before WWII the MB was not the "final" arbiter of halacha. Much changed when CI wrote in a letter that the MB has the halacha of a sanhedrin and one can't disagree with its conclusions." I believe it happened even a little later then that. RHS who grew up in the 1950s stated many times in shiur that when he learned halacha in the 1950s no one learned Mishna Berura, people either learned Chayei Adam or they learned Shulchan Aruch with Magen Avraham and the Taz. If you look at the European gedolim who came to America like R' Moshe, R' Ruderman, etc. even after WWII they almost never quoted the Mishna Berura. >From what I understand R' Aharon Kotler was very influential in America in promoting learning Mishna Berura. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 31 10:20:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 13:20:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Texualism and the Mishnah Berurah by R. Micha Berger Message-ID: <20150531172101.ED88B180CD0@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://www.aishdas.org/asp/texualism-and-the-mishnah-berurah The author [of the Mishnah Brurah, the Chofetz Chaim] is clear: the purpose of the book was not to provide his own ruling, but to survey the later posqim who have added complexity to the field so that someone looking to reach a decision knows who wrote on the matter. Yes, the CC (or his son or other students who worked with him) often gave his own opinion, including our ?ba?al nefesh yachmir?, but it is unclear to me he intended that opinion to be a pragmatic ruling rather than a theoretical statement. This would explain why the Mishnah Berurah?s rulings diverge from accepted practice so much more often than the Arukh haShulchan (a contemporary work from the same region). Halakhah lemaaseh, pragmatic rulings, need to take such precedent and continuity into account; discussions of textual theory do not. As further evidence that the Mishnah Berurah was not intended to be a practical law guide, we have a lot of testimony that shows that its own author often followed the common Lithuanian practice over his own ?ruling?. Despite the origin of wearing one?s tzitzis strings out being in the MB, the CC did not. His qiddush cup doesn?t hold as much wine as the MB would require. (It is still in the hands of the Zaks family and has been checked repeatedly.) He advocated for building city eiruvin for carrying on Shabbos despite BH 364 ?ve?achar?. The Chafeitz Chaim did not say ?Berikh Shemeih? when taking out the Torah. Etc 1 I am suggesting that the CC?s textualist and formal stance in the MB is simply because the MB was a book for studying texts. And he did not intend to deemphasize mimetic tradition (the flow of practice transmitted culturally). This shift happened when the Chazon Ish in Israel and a number of American rashei yeshiva (such as R? Aharon Kotler) promoted the idea of using the Mishnah Berurah as a poseiq acharon. See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 00:25:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 10:25:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <> I have a book "The Goldilocks Enigma" by Paul Davies (cosmolgist) on why is the universe just right for life. Most of the book is to show how unlikely it is that the universe has exactly the right properties for existence. The second part is a discussion as to why this happened. He goes through all the theories including the watchmaker etc. One possibility is a "creator" . He adnits that it is logically consistent but finds iy highly unlikely. His own preference is for the multi-verse. The idea is not whether you agree with him or not. Rather here is an intelligent human who has thought deeply about these problems and does not see any obvious signs of a designer. I would venture that that is the opinion of most physicists and certainly biologists. What you consider obvious he considers very unlikely. Again we come to the point that REW claims that anyone who really thinks about the problem and comes up with a different answer than he does simply has an ulterior motive. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 03:08:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 06:08:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150602100830.GA12384@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 10:25:05AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : The idea is not whether you agree with him or not. Rather here is an : intelligent human who has thought deeply about these problems and does not : see any obvious signs of a designer. I would venture that that is the : opinion of most physicists and certainly biologists. REW would say that he found it obvious that the world was created, something deep inside (to add my own 2c: of which he is likely unaware) didn't want to live in a world with a Creator, so he thought deeply about these problems until he could find an alternative. (For what it's worth, I think most physicists believe in G-d.) As you put it: : What you consider obvious he considers very unlikely. Again we come to the : point that REW claims that anyone who really thinks about the problem and : comes up with a different answer than he does simply has an ulterior motive. But that doesn't make the person any less convinced. For that matter, the believer also likely has an unlterior motive. (I said that, I doubt REW would. I am just saying it wouldn't rob him of his point.) REW is asserting that before you even get to bias, the obvious position is ours. Their atheism is the one that takes work, because it's explaining away the obvious. After all, there is no a priori, obvious-as-a-postulate version of the Anthropic Principle or other such atheistic explanations of the universe's design. No equivalent to REW's not attributing a poem to spilled ink or R' Aqiva's insisting that a garment or bread testify to their makers. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Friendship is like stone. A stone has no value, micha at aishdas.org but by rubbing one stone against another, http://www.aishdas.org sparks of fire emerge. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Mordechai of Lechovitz From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 08:40:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 11:40:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] women making a zimun In-Reply-To: <20150602125704.JHYM8162.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo306> References: <20150602125704.JHYM8162.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo306> Message-ID: <20150602154026.GF23551@aishdas.org> Bringing this thread to where this belongs. On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 08:56:59AM -0400, Sholom Simon via Areivim wrote: :> There was no family or community prior to the 20th century in :> which girls or women bentshed with a zimun. : I always wondered about that vis-a-vis the following: : The SA"HaRav (written by somebody who was certainly not a feminist) : at 199:6 writes that three women who are eating together (provided : there are less than 10 men) are permitted to break away and make : their own zimmun. (l'chelek l'zimun l'atzman). ... : What I've always wondered about was: is he writing entirely : theoretically, or was there a practice among some which led him to : clarify this issue? : Thoughts? : -- Sholom The SA haRav says that they must participate when 3 men make a zimun. If there are three women, no minyan of men, and want to separate off to make their own zimun, hareshus beyadam. Then he takes on the case of three women who are eating without men, again "hareshus beyadam" to make a zimun. (Similarly avadim, but not a mix of women and avadim because we we assume avadim are capable of peritzus. Given that the part about avadim couldn't have been a practice in the Baal haTanya's day, I wouldn't assume his mention of zimun for women makes any such implication. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Weeds are flowers too micha at aishdas.org once you get to know them. http://www.aishdas.org - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 08:49:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 11:49:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Modah Ani In-Reply-To: <20150602.081411.27008.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150602.081411.27008.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150602154924.GG23551@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 12:14:11PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Areivim wrote: : R' Micha Berger wrote: :> ... When I told them that traditionally we held that they're :> probably yotz'ot with saying Modah Ani once a day, ... : I noticed your very deliberate spelling here, and I can't help but : wonder: Was there any family or community prior to the late 20th century : in which girls or women said "modAh ani"? Talmidei haGra. The Siddur haGra also mentions "shelo asani nakhriah" (the Gra had "nakhri" for men) and "shelo asani shifcha". Speaking of new minhagim: Modeh Ani is likely the youngest prayer in most siddurim, even younger than Lekha Dodi. It exists to compensate moving "Elokai Neshamah" out of that spot. (Asher Yatzar doesn't open "barukh" because it's a berakhah hasemukhah lechaverta with haMapil -- one before sleep one after. When we moved it, many (including the Gra), made it semuchah to Asher Yazar -- thanking the Creator for both body and soul.) Which is why I find it unwarranted to treat its matbeia as unchangable even in the face of simply reconjugating. But in any case, I'm in favor of most changes that give one pause to think about what they're saying or doing. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow micha at aishdas.org man's soul and his own stomach; a pious Jew worries http://www.aishdas.org about his own soul and his fellow man's stomach. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 09:16:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 12:16:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <5568D45F.9010809@gmail.com> References: <5568D45F.9010809@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150602161633.GA15555@aishdas.org> On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 05:04:31PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: :> There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam :> recaps a point made in 2:19-20. : : In 2:19-20 Rambam makes no reference to each component or entity in : nature providing a benefit for another, and certainly does not use that : there as a proof for Creation ex nihilo... 2:20 marks the end of an Argument from Design, which is what I was referring to. As it opens: "According to Aristotle, none of the products of Nature are due to chance. His proof is this: That which is due to chance does not reappear constantly nor frequently, but all products of Nature reappear either constantly or at least frequently..." This is a formal argument, unlike R' Aqiva's or REW's own appeal to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. I am saying that 3:15, when it mentions in passing the bit that :: And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, //for :: //one who ismodeh al ha-ememmes// ... :: is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities :: serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; :: and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an :: [I]ntender.... This is reference to people being willing to accept a proven point, and not accepting something as true because of a justification system other than proof. ... RZL, continued: : He explicitly describes this /modeh al ha-emmess/ statement /as a : tangential interruption/: After that statement, he says, "I will now : return to the subject of this chapter, viz., the ultimate cause [i.e. : the purpose behind the universe being as it is--ZL]." : My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that : there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows : the non-formal mindset of those who are /modeh al ha-emmess/... Agreed it's tangential, which is why I doubt that if the Rambam did want to say something that signficant, this would be its only mention. But I don't think it makes the point you're making because the Rambam already made design the topic of a formal proof. So the current mention of design in this aside is talking about a proof, not another verification system. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is complex. micha at aishdas.org Decisions are complex. http://www.aishdas.org The Torah is complex. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' Binyamin Hecht From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 13:24:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2015 22:24:55 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <556E1117.1050507@zahav.net.il> That a text written such a short time ago could have questions about it authorship really nails down how hard it is to have definitive knowledge of the past. Ben On 5/31/2015 9:59 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > RHS has said many times in his shiurim that the MB was not written > alone by the Chofetz Chaim and that is why there are sometimes > contradictions. > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 13:27:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 16:27:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed Message-ID: <20150602202700.GA7449@aishdas.org> R/Dr Alan Brill recently carried this essay by comparatively new chaver, R' Ysoscher Katz. I am sharing here the essay in full (see or for R/D AB's biographical introduction) for two reeasons -- or one two-part reason: 1- I think this post could start a nice discussion of the fundamentals of each of our hashkafos; and 2- Comments are blocked on the post, so it's not like I am stealing a conversation that ought to happen there. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you won't be better tomorrow micha at aishdas.org than you were today, http://www.aishdas.org then what need do you have for tomorrow? Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rebbe Nachman of Breslov Torat Chaim Ve'Ahavat Chesed Ysoscher Katz I was raised in the chassidic community of Satmar. I should make it clear from the outset: I am modern but not Orthodox. Do not get me wrong, I am observant and my practice is orthodox but that is not who I am. In other words, I am orthodox-my practice is halakhic and my belief orthodox-but Orthodoxy is not me. It is not an integral part of my identity. My orthodoxy is merely a means towards a religious end. Keeping halakha and accepting orthodox faith-claims provides me with the infrastructure which allows my soul to strive and pursue perfection. Orthodoxy enables me to be who I really am: a Modern Chassidish Jew. As I mentioned, my identity is comprised of two parts, Modern and Chassidish. I inherited these identity markers from my parents, the modernity from my mother and the chassidut from my father. Here, I mean real Chassidic, and not Neo-Chassidic. How my chassidic, homemaking and sheitel-wearing mom made me modern is a conversation for another time. At the moment I wish to focus on my dad. My father is the most non-chassidish Chassid. He does not study "chassidus," nor does he want to "understand" it. The few times I tried to explain to him Moshe Idel's distinction between theosophy and theurgy, his eyes glazed over. Chassidut is what he does, not what he learns. From his perspective, Torah is for learning, chassidut for practicing. His aversion is not limited to the study of academic mysticism. He also stays away from traditional kabbalistic or chassidic texts. He never studied the Zohar nor did he ever read any of the Arizal's writings. Not only would he not read them, he also would not touch them. He is so intimidated by their sacredness; he fears that his touch would contaminate them. Yet, despite never having formally studied chassidic texts, he still is the quintessential chasid. Chassidut is his essence, part of his religious DNA, but it is a chassidut that is behavioral, not intellectual. Chassidut is how he lives his life. It is the prism through which he encounters the world and the ethos by which he lives by. He adores his wife, loves his children, cherishes his community and reveres and respects his neighbors and fellow human beings, Jew and non-Jew alike. While this practice is not special, many people love their family and surroundings, its flavor is unique. It is Chassidic love, deriving its passion from the Chassidic teachings he has absorbed throughout his life. These teachings have filled his being with a deep religiosity, which, in turn, infuses his actions and emotions with a deep and robust spirituality. His love of humanity is, therefore, a love that is sensualized by its spiritualized valance. Chassidut does not just spiritualize my father's interpersonal relationships, it also enhances his religious practices, particularly the yearly calendar. Chassidut allows him to infuse the annual cycle with a sensuous spirituality. Satmar is a Hungarian/Romanian Chassidut (The broad strokes difference between Hungarian Chassidut and the Polish and Russian versions is that the latter were intellectually inclined while the former was not. Hungarian Chassidut was predominantly behavioral. This is, of course, a generalization; the nuances are far more complex but outside the parameters of this presentation.) Hungarian Chassidim are nourished by an elaborate "sacred calendar." They have more days of note than the conventional Jewish calendar, and their holidays tend to be richer than your typical modern Jews' chag experience. A Satmar Chasid's year is thus replete with days of deep joy and periods of intense reflection. While the Jewish calendar has several biblical holidays and two Rabbinic ones, the Chasid's calendar records additional dates of importance. Every winter, the Hungarian Chasid has six to eight weeks of "shovavim," a period that usually falls sometime between Chanukah and Purim, which is dedicated to repentance and introspection, largely focusing on sexual impropriety; the days of awe continue through the end of Chanukah, the potential for repentance lasts for them for two more months; Purim celebrations begin three days earlier than usual; and (a modicum of) Pesach extends all the way to Shavuot (based on Nachmanides' notion that the interim weeks between Pesach and Shavuot are somewhat akin to a chol ha'moed of Pesach). Combined these add up to a significant number of additional days of awe and periods of celebration. Qualitatively, chassidic holidays are different as well. Although many things distinguish a chassidic chag, there is one distinction that is particularly noticeable to the keen observer: chassidic religious celebrations are comprised of a dissonant blend of joy and contemplation. Here are some examples: Shabbat in Satmar is an incredibly meaningful day, bookended by powerful contradictory modes. Friday night is a time of joy, where the spiritually and mystically rich Lecha Dodi chant inspires celebration of the metaphysical significance of the day. While this spirit carries through most of the Shabbat, towards the end of the Shabbat the Satmar Chasid shifts gears, switching modes from the celebratory to the reflective. This transition occurs in a much starker manner than it does in most other communities. A Satmar Shabbat never ends at "shekiah." Sehudah shlishit is always a two hour affair, spent singing and listening to the Rebbe's dvar torah. Speaking in highly evocative tones, he expounds on the weekly reading, spending close to an hour challenging and rebuking his followers. Growing up, this is exactly what Shabbat looked like for me. My dad's Shabbat was intense and complex. While the day began upbeat, it gradually shifted into the contemplative. But, my father's Shabbat, like his chassidut, is adamantly experiential, text and study play a minor role in the development of his religious persona. Kegavna (a section from the Zohar which Chassidim recite during Friday night prayers), is one of the most powerful kabbalistic liturgical texts. Utilizing the connection between Shabbat and the number seven, a prominent kabbalistic trope, it succinctly articulates the mystical value of Shabbat. It emphasizes that Shabbat is a day of heightened divine intimacy and advanced mystical union. I have begged my dad on many occasions to read this Zohar text with me. He refused each time. Sacred mystical texts are for the elite. The lay receive their nourishment residually, from the spiritualized environment created by those qualified to access those recondite sources. While he will not study Kegavna, he does recite it every Friday night as part of the Kabbalat Shabbat service. Notwithstanding that he does not fully grasp its meaning, he reads it with the pathos and passion it deserves. Kegavna's power for him is metaphysical, not intellectual. Purim provides another example of the intensity of Hungarian chassidic practice. Many Jews celebrate Purim, but not the chassidic Purim. The chassidic Purim is unique in its richness and multiplicity. Communally, preparations for the holiday start early. More than a week before Purim, one can already detect the arrival of the holiday, both, in the discourse of the scholars and activities of the laity. The learned discourse focuses on the legal and spiritual aspects of the chag, while the public sphere is filled with people making arrangements for every aspect of the day. When Purim finally arrives, it takes on a distinct theological flavor. Appropriating the Zoharic notion that Purim is analogous to Yom Kippur (Yom Kippurim), Satmar Chassidim created a unique Purim blend that is both frivolous and somber. This day of festivity is overlaid with practices of repentance and reflection. While I am nourished by my dad's behavioral Chassidut, personally it is not enough. Behavioral Chassidut gladdens my heart but does not stimulate my mind nor sufficiently satisfy my soul. I personally seek a religiosity which nourishes both pillars of my being, the mind and the heart. My personal journey is, therefore, informed by a combination of my father's passion and the academic's sophistication. Chassidus resonates with both of them, sometimes simultaneously, when the intellectual engagement and behavioral spiritual encounter complement one another, and sometimes separately, when I religiously shift back and forth between the intellectual and the experiential. Ultimately, the attraction to Chassidut is the fact that it can operate in different modes at different times, in the process offering up a variety of mechanisms to help spiritualize my life. It is precisely this multifacetedness which convinces me that Chassidut is the proper theology for us moderns. Its theology is perfectly situated to offer meaning and spirituality to the contemporary modern seeker. I feel strongly that it is our only hope. Chassidut today is not a luxury, it is a necessity. If the Torah-u'Madda project is to succeed Chassidut needs to become an integral part of its curriculum. Chassidut is of course a vast discipline, teaching all of it would be a daunting task. For the moment there are three aspects of chassidic theology that stand out as particularly suited for the world we live in today. 1) Truth. We live in a post-modern world where objective truth is rejected and absolute claims are frowned upon. I would go as far as to say that rationalism (in the general and colloquial sense) as a source for Emunah is bankrupt, it increasingly speaks to fewer people. It, therefore, behooves us to come up with alternative models. Chassidut could very well be that alternative model. Facts and empirical truth is not Chassidut's primary currency. While it does a priori accept the biblical theological faith statements, its goal is not to argue or prove the scientific veracity of the Bible's claims. Truth is not of primary concern for these thinkers. Chassidic theology has two main features. It is a-rational and a-historical. It is apathetic about Jewish historicity as a proactive theological stance. The Torah for Chassidim is there to teach us how to live life and serve God, the narrative qua narrative (the origin story) is mere background music. The narration parts of the Torah are, therefore, not of much theological significance to them, they are a-historical However, during those rare occasions when they do pay attention to the biblical "stories," their orientation is a-rational. They absolutely "believe" those stories, but their belief is internal: it is true because it happened in the Torah. That is where these events transpire and that is where these stories matter. Asking about their historicity is, as far as they are concerned, foolish and missing the point. At the same time, to the extent that the biblical narratives have religious and theological significance, they read those stories through the Rabbinic lens. So, for example, while Moshe's historicity is not historically relevant to them, his persona carries theological and ethical significance. The same is true for God's attributes. Chassidim are, by choice, apathetic about God as a scientific reality, his attributes and characteristics, however, are theologically highly significant to them. For that they did turn to the Bible, but the encounter with the Torah is filtered through Chazal. They see Chazal as essential to the understanding of the Torah. As believers in immanence they actually see the Sages as much more integral to the experience of the written Torah than the rationalists did. They did not think that the presence at Sinai (mamad har Sinai) ended at the giving of the Torah (mattan Torah). For them the Torah is perpetually and continuously revealed. The modern reader of chassidic texts would, therefore, not have to decide whether they scientifically accept these postulates in order to engage with them. Chassidut's goal is instead to describe an immanence which provides spiritual and emotional transcendence. Chassidut (informed, of course, by kabbalah) promotes a sophisticated immanence which results in a dramatic shift in Judaism's orientation towards God and His commandments. Prior to the emergence of chassidut on the historic scene, theology was convincing and Jewish observance was rewarding. Chassidut changed that. Chassidic theology offered meaning and kabbalistic observance provided sanctity. Personally, my rejection of the Maimonidean ethos and realization of the degree to which chassidut can speak to the modern searcher was a long and arduous process. It came about as a result of a deep sense of betrayal by Maimonides, the champion of Rationalist Judaism. I for many years was the object and fool of Maimonides "the seventh reason" as presented in his introduction to the Guide by not seeing his philosophic views. In that passage, Maimonides condones misleading the masses for their greater good, even to the point of advocating contradictory ideas for different audiences and then obscuring those contradictions. Growing up in Satmar and then Brisk, I was oblivious to his non-halakhic writings and led to believe that he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad. I was exposed to his other writings only later and when I did I felt cheated. I was part of that the masses, whom he thought could not handle his unconventional approach to theology and tradition. As much as I have read about him, I personally have not managed to reconcile his two sides. I do not find Prof. Isidore Twersky's harmonizing approach compelling or convincing. Realizing what a fool I was led me on a tortuous and circuitous search. As the Rabbis say about Yisro, ????? ??? ?? ??????; I explored all the options. I finally found the answer in kabbalah and chassidut, they speak a language which resonates with our current reality. They emphasize that which contemporary Judaism needs. The emphasis in chassidut on meaning and sacredness, are perfectly suited for our community. These are exactly the things our culture needs more of; holiness and meaning. This emphasis in Chassidut on immanence also generates a move towards spiritualization. 2) Spiritualization. As scholars have pointed out, chassidic teachings contain elements of spiritual psychology. They provide us with a language which helps us infuse our lives with meaning. One can point to many examples where this psychological spiritualization occurs in chassidut, I will mention two of them. Everybody sometimes has a bad hair day, when we wake up feeling less than optimal. Chassidut has a term to describe that mood; it calls it mochen de'katnus. While it technically means the same as a "bad hair day," the language is mystical. Mochen de'katnus describes a less than stellar spiritual state, a low energy level which does not allow us to engage in the usual religious pursuits we crave to pursue. Another example is Kabbalah's elaborate taxonomy of love and awe: Kabbalah and Chassidut talks about superior and inferior love (ahavah ela'e'e and ahavah tata'a) or superior and inferior awe (yirah ela'e'e and yira tata'a)While these terms primarily describe nuanced stages in our engagement with the Divine, they have traditionally been imported into the colloquial arena. They are used to describe varied emotional states which we experience in our interactions with our friends and loved ones. Contemporary life does not provide us with that many opportunities for encountering the Divine in our daily lives. Chassidut allows us to bring God in. Sprinkling our conversations with mystical and Chassidic terminology allows us to spiritualize our daily routines and infuse our mundane pursuits with meaning and spiritual significance. Besides enriching our personal encounters, adopting a chassidic ethos could also enhance our communal experiences. 3) Social Change. One of the most pressing tensions in the community is how to reconcile our values with our convictions; what to do when halakha points us in one direction and our values in another direction. We are tempted to follow our values but pulled to abide by our halakhic commitments. A proper resolution requires an emboldened stance towards tradition, one that allows us to cajole the tradition to reconcile itself with our modern sensibilities. [Using, of course, legitimate halakhic mechanisms developed by our predecessors when they were confronted with similar challenges.] Our values are so emboldened because they derive their power from Chaissdut. A chassidic life is a spiritualized life which infuses our values with powerful theological significance, and it allows us to aggressively challenge the tradition to reevaluate its assumptions and attempt to accommodate itself-when halakhically possible- to a changed modern reality. Chassidut is very explicit about the value of religious aggression. The following two quotes are often encountered in chassidic writings, "even a thief says a prayer before he breaks in to his victim's home" (quoted on the margin of Brachot 63A, from the Frankfurt manuscript), and "an aggressive stance towards the Divine bears results" (Sanhedrin 105A). While the provenance of these texts is Talmudic, they take on significant prominence in Chassidic theology. They become the impetus for an aggressive theology which is informed by a religiosity that sees itself driven by a Divine immanence which infuses our values and ethical intuitions with spiritual resonance, subsequently leading to radical societal change. Such change is actually an integral part of Chassidic social history. When one looks at recent major changes in traditional Jewish society it is hard not to notice that the forerunners were often Chassidim. The last sixty years have seen far reaching social and political change. The two most dramatic changes that have happened is that Jews are now sovereign and women have made significant progress in their pursuit of religious equality. The pioneers of both these changes were driven, at least in part, by a chassidic ethos. R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Rebbi of Lubavitch, was one of the first orthodox scholars to champion female Talmud scholarship, while R. Avraham Yitzchak Kook, a serious student of Chassidut, was an outspoken early proponent of a Zionist state. There is no doubt that their chassidic worldview, at least partially, informed their proactive stances towards these changes. Their adherence to a spiritualized religiosity allowed them to explore new religious vistas. Their unique theological outlook changed the religious and legal equation for them, simultaneously making their decisions more complex, but also more progressive. Their spiritualized worldview allowed them to see divinity in the ostensibly secular state or the seemingly illegitimate request of women for greater equality. Granted, this hybrid of chassidic spiritualization and robust religious creativity would be a 21^st century concoction, traditionally, these two do not go together. Chassidism, for the most part, frowns on change and rejects innovation. As a matter of fact, nineteenth century Hungarian Chassidim were vociferously opposed to any accommodations to modernity. Further, the contemporary thinker is not going to intuitively embrace spiritualized non-rational thought. It is, nevertheless, a match pregnant with immense potential and could go a long way towards reviving a dormant Modern Orthodoxy. Contemporary Modern Orthodoxy is struggling; a significant number of its adherents are abandoning yiddishkeit and many who stay no longer find it meaningful; inertia has set in. I suspect that Modern Orthodoxy's rationalist ethos is partially to blame. Current Modern Orthodox theology is Litvish and hyper-Maimonidean, it lacks a native spiritual core, and does not satisfy people's search for meaning. We are due for a change. Chassidus could be that change agent. I strongly believe that a chassidic theology combined with a sophisticated modern overlay could be the elixir for the dispassion and disinterest that ails our community. It will provide our community what it so desperately needs: a torat chaim ve'ahavt chesed; a Torah that stimulates our minds but at the same time also gladdens our neshamah. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 14:39:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:39:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> : > From: Micha Berger via Avodah > > [Rambam's statement (''And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, //for > :: //one who ismodeh al ha-ememmes// ... > :: is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities > :: serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; > :: and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an > :: [I]ntender...'') is not an informal argument, akin to R' Aqiva's or REW's appeal > to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. Rather,] it is a recap of a formal proof The Rambam made in 2:19-20... 2:20 marks the end of an Argument from Design. As it opens: "According to Aristotle, none of the products > of Nature are due to chance. His proof is this: That which is due to > chance does not reappear constantly nor frequently, but all products of > Nature reappear either constantly or at least frequently..." > > This is a formal argument, unlike R' Aqiva's or REW's own appeal > to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. Philosophers may disagree with classifying the argument made in 2:20 from ''frequency of appearance'' as ''an argument from design.'' But even if it is ''an'' argument from design, it's a different argument from the ''modeh al ha-emmess'' proof from the hierarchy of entities benefiting others. So the latter is not a recap of the former. And it does not necessarily follow that one who is modeh to the ''frequency'' argument considers the hierarchy argument ''one of the strongest.'' RZL, continued: : He explicitly describes this/modeh al ha-emmess/ statement /as a : tangential interruption/: After that statement, he says, "I will now : return to the subject of this chapter, viz., the ultimate cause [i.e. : the purpose behind the universe being as it is--ZL]." : My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that : there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows : the non-formal mindset of those who are/modeh al ha-emmess/... RMB: >Agreed it's tangential, which is why I doubt that if the Rambam did want to say something that signficant, this would be its only mention.< Again: Here, where the Rambam, for the first time, is about to bring up the hierarchy proof, he parenthetically mentions that it is intuitively understood by anyone unbiased. He does then go on to state the proof in a formal philosophic form. This is the most proper place to insert such a parenthetical remark parenthetically, and only once. It's not ''that significant'' for his purposes, because, as I had written, the entire purpose of the Moreh is to address people (including himself) concerned with hearing formal philosophic proofs and confronting the challenges that formal philosophic proofsbrought to the mesorah. Those interested in hearing an expanded version of the argument in informal form could find it in the Rambam's introduction to his his Mishnah commentary. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 16:04:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 19:04:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <103ab8.504f8d1e.429f9062@aol.com> From: Eli Turkel via Avodah >> I have a book "The Goldilocks Enigma" by Paul Davies (cosmolgist) on why is the universe just right for life. Most of the book is to show how unlikely it is that the universe has exactly the right properties for existence. The second part is a discussion as to why this happened. He goes through all the theories including the watchmaker etc. One possibility is a "creator" . He admits that it is logically consistent but finds it highly unlikely. His own preference is for the multi-verse. The idea is not whether you agree with him or not. Rather here is an intelligent human who has thought deeply about these problems and does not see any obvious signs of a designer..... << Eli Turkel >>>> On the contrary, he sees many signs of a Designer and he is so desperate to avoid the obvious conclusion -- because of his own prior philosophical biases -- that he adopts the currently trendy and absurd idea of "many universes" to escape from what he does not want to face. You see, if this is the only universe then it is so fantastically improbable that it can only be a miracle. But if it is only one of many universes, then it is not so strange that just one out of millions of universes would happen to have the conditions necessary for life. Normally the definition of "science" includes things like capable of observation or experiment, falsifiable, etc. But if you are desperate enough to escape G-d (and His moral demands) you will take something as airy-fairy, non-observable, not subject to any possible experiment, non-falsifiable as a "multi-verse" -- a product of the human mind that is as real as leprechauns -- and you will crown it with the noble name of "science"! I have a wonderful book in my house called *The Privileged Planet* that should be a science textbook in every yeshiva high school and Bais Yakov. Please please read it. It's by Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards. Here's the website with more information about the book and a video: http://www.privilegedplanet.com/ --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 00:03:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 10:03:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] MB Message-ID: The entry in wikepedia in Hebrew on Mishna Brura contains much of the information that we have been discussing. In particular it discusses the authorship of MB (ie the quote from his son) . MH vs AH and the change after the holocaust and other comments -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 05:39:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2015 08:39:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Standing at a Chupah Message-ID: <20150603123934.850661827E1@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is from today's Hakhel email bulletin. FROM A READER: Further on the point on standing at Chuppahs: Many think/say that it is because of Choson Domeh L'melech that they stand up for the Chosson. Yet, they should be aware that to my knowledge, HaRav Moshe Feinstein, Z'tl, never stood because he used to say, Doi-meh (L)melech NOT (Ke)melech. HaRav Yaakov Kamenetsky, Z'tl, stood but for a totally different reason. The question of L'melech or K'melech never entered into consideration as the Chosson is not a true Chosson until AFTER the Chuppah. Rather, HaRav Yaakov stood purely because of the Mishna in Bikurim (3:3), that discusses the bringing of Bikurim and the rule of standing Lif-Nai Oisei Mitzva, and since the Chosson is entering into a Chupah which will enable him to be mekayeim the mitzvah of P'ru U'revu, we stand. As to why we don't stand for everyone doing a mitzvah, it's for a mitzvah that is mei-kama zman l'zman, not a regular occurrence. The question remains as to a justification for why people stand for the Kallah, since she is not K'Malka (see HaRav Moshe and HaRav Yaakov above) and is peturah from Mitzvas Peru U'revu. HaRav Avraham Kamenetsky, HaRav Yaakov's son, told me that one can say that since the Chosson cannot be mekayeim the mitzvah without her, she has a chelek in the mitzvah and thus qualifies for Lif-Nai Oisei Mitzvah. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 06:57:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 09:57:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 05:39:33PM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : But even if it is "an" argument from design, it's a different argument : from the "modeh al ha-emmess" proof from the hierarchy of entities : benefiting others. So the latter is not a recap of the former. And : it does not necessarily follow that one who is modeh to the : "frequency" argument considers the hierarchy argument "one of the : strongest." I think our point of contention is simple: You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind justification that isn't a proof. Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. And therefore there is nothing in the Rambam about a justification that isn't a philosophical proof. For that matter, I would take his words to say this non-proof, being only meaningful to someone who is already "modeh al ha'emes", is not valid justification -- an instance of what I believe would be his general rule. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 10:58:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 10:58:33 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] ashtei-asar Message-ID: could someone explain please the ibn ezra in last weeks parsha ? someone asked about the origin of 'ashtei' and noted the this week mikshah is translated as eshet--- which must mean one solid piece so that must mean ashtei= one . but why not say achad asar ? [ he pointed out that 'eshet'= 770 , a number of completion ] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 14:23:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 17:23:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] ashtei-asar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150603212342.GA31632@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 03, 2015 at 10:58:33AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : someone asked about the origin of 'ashtei' and noted the this week : mikshah is translated as eshet--- which must mean one solid piece so : that must mean ashtei= on... The Akkadian for 11 is ishteneshret, ishten (one) + shret (ten). It is weird, though, that Hebrew would use a form of isheneshret without also using ishten. Then there's the idea in the Radaq (Mikhlol pg 140) that it was two that was collapsed from "ashtei" to "shtei". Which would explain why "shtayim" isn't "shesayim". The rule is that a sheva under the first letter is a sheva na (pronounced schwa), the legacy of the missing "i-" makes "shtei" an exception -- the sheva under the shin is nach (silent). Along these line, but presumably without the knowledge of Akkadian, the IE (Bamidbar 7:72, citing his own Sefer Me'oznayim) writes that "ashtei asar" is like "eshtenosav" -- that which were born from his thoughts. As though the 10 gave birth. "Vehu sod gadol". He then goes on to dismiss R' Yonah haSefaradi's theory that it means "el shtei asar". Because 1- "al shetei asar" would refer to the number AFTER 12, not before; and 2- "asar" (masc) would get "shnei" (masc), not "shtei" (fem). The gemara doesn't explain peshat, but interestingly R' Ashi's example (Sanhedrin 29a) of "kol hamosif goreia'" is how adding an ayin turns "shtei esrei yeri'os" into "ashtei esrei". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 15:16:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2015 18:16:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> On 6/3/2015 9:57 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > I think our point of contention is simple: > > You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind > justification that isn't a proof. I thought I was clear that I was taking it to be the same informal kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind. > > Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, > but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. I did not see this in your previous remarks that characterized the ''modeh-al-ha-emmess" as a formal proof/argument: :> There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam :> recaps a point made in 2:19-20. > 2:20 marks the end of an Argument from Design, which is what I was > referring to. ...This is a formal argument, unlike R' Aqiva's or REW's own appeal > to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. And I don't see how one can possibly interpret (MN 3:13 [not 3:15 as I mistakenly typed previously]) ''And know that one of the strongest /proofs/ (min /ha-gedolah sheh-b'ra'ayos/) for Creation ex nihilo, for one who is /modeh al ha-ememmes/, is his understanding the /proof/ (/hu mah sheya'amod alav ha-mofase/)...'' as meaning: > ''this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the emes, > look how nicely it works out.'' Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 16:37:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 19:37:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150603233708.GA7958@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 03, 2015 at 06:16:59PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: :> You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind :> justification that isn't a proof. : I thought I was clear that I was taking it to be the same informal : kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof : not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized : and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind. Then I did understand you correctly. When I say, "a kind justification that isn't a proof", I believe I mean the same thing as your "informal kind of proof". To me, the word "proof" implies formality. "Justification" is a general term for how we know something is true. (From Plato's definition of knowledge: "a justified and true belief.") :> Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, :> but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. : I did not see this in your previous remarks that characterized the : "modeh-al-ha-emmess" as a formal proof/argument: Because that's not what I am saying is the formal proof. I overused the word "this", which led to confusion. In addition "modeh al ha'ames" refers to a person, not an argument, so you lost me on that bit. AISI, it refers to the person who accepted the proof in 2:20, would find this point compelling. But since the point he's making here is not a formal proof, he doesn't expect it to convince, only to reinforce belief in those who already accepted the related proof. : And I don't see how one can possibly interpret (MN 3:13 [not 3:15 as : I mistakenly typed previously]) "And know that one of the : strongest /proofs/ (min /ha-gedolah sheh-b'ra'ayos/) for Creation ex : nihilo, for one who is /modeh al ha-ememmes/, is his understanding : the /proof/ (/hu mah sheya'amod alav ha-mofase/)..." as meaning: :> "this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the :> emes, look how nicely it works out." You are taking a sentence that says "One of the greatest proofs for creation for someone who accepts the truth is his understanding the wonder..." He is discussing a ra'ayah that someone who already believes would find compelling. Not a proof that would convince an unbiased seeker. Because I don't think the Rambam accepted that an informal justification other than philosophical proof could be a sounds reason to embrace a belief as true. (I see you consistently double the "s" in "emess". Why? If the sav had a dageish, it would be a tav, not "ss".) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are what we repeatedly do. micha at aishdas.org Thus excellence is not an event, http://www.aishdas.org but a habit. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Aristotle From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 4 15:16:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2015 18:16:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong Message-ID: <20150604221600.GA28870@aishdas.org> An Areivim conversation moved in topicality so that my reply really belongs here. Some background.... At some point, one person wrote, in part: | Right is right and wrong is wrong,... Speaking about moral correctness. To which someone else replied: > Really? ISTM that there is lots of grey in our world. People disagree > about right and wrong like they disagree about assur and mutar... And my reply, from Areivin: } This is why disputes about eilu va'eilu are so significant. Machloqes } can be between two approaches, two paths, one may take. Between different } strategies to obtaining the same goal. } Or it could be between a correct vs an incorrect understanding of the } halakhah. A process by which something becomes law, regardless of which } is right. } Or... } But if there is one right and one wrong, human decision-making wouldn't } change which is which. That second person wrote later in the conversation: > Sure am. Women learning Talmud was wrong, then it was right. In fact, > now it's both right (MO) and wrong (Hareidi). My response: } I don't consider that a good example. It is possible for something to } be right in one settting and wrong in another. Such as whether learning } Talmud is a good idea may depend on how women are being educated to relate } to knowledge in general. Since they aren't obligated to learn halachic } theory, such as gemara, they may be better off with a naive mimetic } faith. But if we have universal education, and an economic system that } demands a certain wordliness in both genders, such that naivite isn't } an option, then our choices are different. } Morality is like a Faucault's Pendulum; it keeps swinging the same } direction. The pendulum only looks like the direction changes over time } because the world rotates beneath it. Them again: > Zionism is right (DL) > and wrong (Satmar). You see the world as black and white; I see lots of > colors, including grey (and black and white sometimes as well). Me: } But gray too objectively exists. We may need to choose a response, } and thus have to fit it into a boolean black-white category. And then } someone may choose a strategy that categorizes it as white and someone } else as black. } But the grayness is not a matter of opinion. And also, from the same person, in an email between the two: > And my point was, the topic under discussion was not gravity ... > it was an issue that what people think about it is, in fact, relevant. My response, continued: } Is that true? } As far as I know, it's pretty basic to Judaism that the Creator has an } "Opinion" of what is moral and what isn't. That things run more smoothly } for everyone involved if we run with the design rather than do something } else. } Not only that, G-d put us on the same page once. } People may not be sure if there is an absolute moral standard, and those } who agree there is one, may not agree about what it looks like. } It's out there and as objectively real as gravity. } Even if you cannot prove it to others, and therefore will always be } subject to conflicting opinions -- some more right in some ways, some } more right in others, some simply wrong. } Your position implies an Empiricism that rules out revelation as a valid } source of truth! In which case, what's left of Torah? Futher down in the conversation, Lisa wrote of halakhah: : There are actually cases where opinions can establish right and : wrong. Tanuro shel Akhnai illustrates one. Actual reality is : *created* by the informed and considered opinions of the Sanhedrin. To which I responded: } Law, not reality. And Lisa, post #2: : I disagree. Torah *is* reality. Finally, some new material. R Chaim Brisker links "vechayei olam nata besokheinu" and "emes mei'eretz tatzmiach". Torah is the seed from which Emes grows, and not (leshitaso, but I bought into it) Emes itself. The Qetzos says something similar on the use of "emes mei'eretz" in the medrash about the 2 forces -- Emes and Shalom -- opposing the creation of humanity. Emes is thrown to the ground, to which the tanna says "emes meieretz tatzmiach". Emes will come out through the process of history. It's not with us yet. Torah is how HQBH leads us there. But in any case, I didn't speak of Torah, of "divrei E-lokim chaim", I spoke of halakhah. Or as RMF put it, I spoke of emes lehora'ah, not Emes as it is kelapei shamay galya. Continuing my reply to Lisa's 1st post: } And the reason why we only let the Sanhedrin vote is because the law is } expected to be consistent with the objective reality. There may be many } ways up Har Hashem, but you really only want people who know mapreading } and reconteuring figuring out which one is best. } And the mountain and its altitude are unchanged by people's decisions. Lisa's 2nd post, cont: : And what Hashem wanted the halakha to be was determined by people's : decisions. New material again: If we combine your insistance that halakhah is Truth with the idea that it is determined by people's decisions, you end up with Constructivism. Halakhah as a man made reality. Which makes sense -- you tend to side with the Rambam on this kind of thing. But if dinim bein adam lachaveiro define or at least shape morality, you are left with the OP's claim that opinion determines what is moral. Opinion as informed by kelalei pesaq, but still, morality isn't entirely absolute or objective. The position I was suggesting that there is an objective Morality that is part of Emes. Emes, with a capital "E", as in something that exists in Shamayim (a/k/a the Olam haEmes) but can't fit in this world among human minds. We have approximating models (Maharal), getting ever closer to the Emes (Qetzos). Halakhah is our means of approaching it, and the existence of multiple correct pesaqim reflects their being more than one viable path (R Chaim Brisker). Or more specifically: The path is on the meta-level, the evolution of the Oral Torah and its pesaqim is part of getting to Emes, not "only" the path taken by a life that follows that pesaqim. So that halakhah is not morality, it is a means of producing ever more moral people. Which makes sense in terms of my own Mussarly tendencies. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are great, and our foibles are great, micha at aishdas.org and therefore our troubles are great -- http://www.aishdas.org but our consolations will also be great. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi AY Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 4 19:55:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2015 22:55:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <20150603233708.GA7958@aishdas.org> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> <20150603233708.GA7958@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55710FAB.70107@gmail.com> On 6/3/2015 7:37 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Wed, Jun 03, 2015 at 06:16:59PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: > :> You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind > :> justification that isn't a proof. > > : I thought I was clear that I was taking it to be the same informal > : kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof > : not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized > : and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind. > > Then I did understand you correctly. > > When I say, "a kind justification that isn't a proof", I believe I mean > the same thing as your "informal kind of proof". To me, the word "proof" > implies formality. "Justification" is a general term for how we know > something is true. (From Plato's definition of knowledge: "a justified and > true belief.") Got it. > :> Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, > :> but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. > > : I did not see this in your previous remarks that characterized the > : "modeh-al-ha-emmess" as a formal proof/argument: > > Because that's not what I am saying is the formal proof. I overused the > word "this", which led to confusion. I''m even more confused now. What "this" that led to confusion was overused? I took you to mean that the ''emmess'' that a ''modeh al ha-emmess'' person was modeh to was the conclusion of a formal proof stated somewhere in 2:19-20. (And such a person would consider, as one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, the proof from the hierarchy of benefit of entities.) > In addition "modeh al ha'ames" refers to a person, not an argument, > so you lost me on that bit. When I wrote ''I was taking it to be the same informal kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind'' I was responding to you statement: :> You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind :> justification that isn't a proof. which was in response to my writing: : My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that : there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows : the non-formal mindset of those who are /modeh al ha-emmess/... I meant to say I was taking Rambam's remark to mean that someone whose thought process is normal and unbiased (i.e. a modeh al ha-emmess) recognizes (without the aid of formal proof) the fact of the hierarchy of benefit as compelling the conclusion of a freely intended Creation ex nihilo. Another way to crystallize our differing interpretations: You are taking the "emmess'' that the ''modeh al ha-emmess'' is modeh to, to be the correct fact. I'm taking it to be the correct process of thinking. > AISI, it refers to the person who accepted > the proof in 2:20, would find this point compelling. But since the point > he's making here is not a formal proof, he doesn't expect it to convince, > only to reinforce belief in those who already accepted the related proof. > > : And I don't see how one can possibly interpret (MN 3:13 [not 3:15 as > : I mistakenly typed previously]) "And know that one of the > : strongest /proofs/ (min /ha-gedolah sheh-b'ra'ayos/) for Creation ex > : nihilo, for one who is /modeh al ha-ememmes/, is his understanding > : the /proof/ (/hu mah sheya'amod alav ha-mofase/)..." as meaning: > > :> "this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the > :> emes, look how nicely it works out." > > You are taking a sentence that says "One of the greatest proofs for > creation for someone who accepts the truth is his understanding the > wonder..." He is discussing a ra'ayah that someone who already believes > would find compelling. Not a proof that would convince an unbiased > seeker. > > Because I don't think the Rambam accepted that an informal justification > other than philosophical proof could be a sounds reason to embrace a > belief as true. Your first paragraph is just restating your position and denying mine. I am saying otherwise, pointing out that saying that this person considers the hierarchy factor ''one of the greatest proofs for creation'' means '"this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out" is incompatible with the words. And /l'fi ta'amych,/ of your second paragraph: If the Rambam considers an informal justification vs philosophical proof an unsound reason to embrace a belief as true, then one would think he would not consider noteworthy a non-ra'ayah found compelling only by someone who already believes in the conclusion (stated or implied somewhere in 2:19-20, or in that previously stated formal ra'aya which /is/, or is not, compelling--I'm not sure which of these you're saying, but my objection applies regardless.) I think it may be productive for us to examine the 4 or 5 other places in MN where the Rambam uses the expression ''modeh al ha-emmess.'' (Curiously, the search of the Hebrewbooks.org MN in my Adobe Reader skips over the instance in 3:13!) > > (I see you consistently double the "s" in "emess". Why? If the sav had > a dageish, it would be a tav, not "ss".) It's to duplicate the /sound/ (not the lettering) of the word as it would be in English, for a careful English-reading person. (Not that I'm sure there are many of those around...) In contemporary English spelling, one "s" at the end of a word that ends in ''e'' is pronounced hard, like a ''z'' (shines, pines, processes); the soft ''s'' added to words that end in "e" is indicated by two ''s'' 's (process, ingress, mess). But we digreSS.... Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 5 03:54:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2015 06:54:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Science and Halachah - The Trumpeting Stone Message-ID: <20150605105427.GA27466@aishdas.org> This stone, at the excacations south of the Kotel, apparently marked a location where the shofar would be blown on Fri afternoon to warn people about the approaching and arrival of Shabbos. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trumpeting_Place_inscription It says "lebeis hateqi'ah lh[k?b?]" and was at the corner of Har haBayis. My obaervation is about the font. Notice the base of the lamed, which is a diagonal. The same is true of the Qumran texts and of texts from the Cairo Geniza. but this pushes the date for this tradition of script back to Herod's rebuilding of the BHMQ. This kind of lamed is also found in Kesav Vellish, that used in Sepharadi sta"m, but not in Kesav Beis Yoseif or the other Ashkenazi variants. http://sofercenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/different-ksavim.jpg Now, the stone is in far from the formal Ashuris required for Sifrei Torah, but if Kesav Beis Yoseif is correct, why aren't other fonts from the period more similar? If this does indicate a preference for one script over the other, we could discuss how the various approaches to Halakhah and Science would handle this case. {In terms of being yotzei, I think the only problem Ashkenazim have with the Sepharadi kesav is that variants that predate the Chida lack Rabbei Tam's qutzo shel yud. And since the popularity of the Ben Ish Chai, this issue has become very rare. Lehalakhah, the Tur, Noda biYhudah, Tzitz Eliezer and R' Ovadiah all alow using the other's sefer. Even with the spelling differences!) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is equipped with such far-reaching vision, micha at aishdas.org yet the smallest coin can obstruct his view. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 5 08:16:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2015 15:16:42 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong Message-ID: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Continuing the discussion from Areivim... R' Joseph Kaplan wrote: > About some things there is a right and a wrong; it is right > to fast on Yom Kippur and wrong to eat. But not everything > fits so neatly into categories of right and wrong. Micha > didn't like my example of Women learning Talmud was wrong, > then it was right. In fact, now it's both right (MO) and > wrong (Hareidi)." He argues that it is possible for > something to be right in one setting and wrong in another. I don't see the distinction between women learning vs eating on Yom Kippur. Women learning is right in some settings (such as where an unlearned woman would be in a spiritual sakana) and wrong in others (the ideal or traditional situation). In the same manner, eating on Yom Kippur is right in some settings (where the person would be in a medical sakana) and wrong in others (where the person is physically healthy). For that matter, learning is dependent on the setting even for a man: In most settings, it is right for a Jewish man to learn Torah, but not if he is in aveilus, or if he is davening, or if he is in other situations where the learning would conflict with another mitzvah. My point is that EVERYTHING depends on the setting. (I once tried to think of a positive or negative mitzvah which is totally independent of setting, and which always applies under all imaginable circumstances. The only one I could come up with is Avodah Zara. If anyone wants to continue that thought, please start a new thread.) Anyway, getting back to *this* thread, which is about whether right and wrong are absolutes decreed by G-d, or whether they are subject to the opinions of the Sanhedrin or others, I was reminded of an interesting gemara. As translated by http://www.torah.org/learning/maharal/p2m10part2.html it reads: > Eruvin (13b): For two and a half years Beith Shammai and > Beith Hillel argued. These [Beith Shammai] said "It is > better for man not to have been created than to have been > created." And those [Beith Hillel] said "It is better for > man to have been created." Together, they [reviewed the > opinions and] reached a consensus: ... I left out their conclusion, because it is not really so critical to this thread. What *IS* critical is the fact that they had the chutzpah to even discuss this question at all. There is a thought in this thread that if G-d does something, then it is good by definition. Yet Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai considered the possibility that G-d had another option which was even better than the option that He did choose. This sounds to me like a good argument for the view that people (or at least certain people, such as the Sanhedrin) CAN decide what is right and what is wrong. Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 5 14:41:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2015 17:41:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong In-Reply-To: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <557217A4.4010309@sero.name> On 06/05/2015 11:16 AM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: >> >Eruvin (13b): For two and a half years Beith Shammai and >> >Beith Hillel argued. These [Beith Shammai] said "It is >> >better for man not to have been created than to have been >> >created." And those [Beith Hillel] said "It is better for >> >man to have been created." > There is a thought in this thread that if G-d does something, then it > is good by definition. Yet Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai considered the > possibility that G-d had another option which was even better than the > option that He did choose. The discussion was not about what is good or right, but about what is better *for a person*. What is in the person's interest. "Noach lo le'adam". What G-d chooses for a person is right, but who says it's "noach lo"? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 12:49:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2015 21:49:38 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] Right/wrong In-Reply-To: <5571BB83.7010500@sero.name> References: <73824318-9EAD-43A2-924A-23983726765C@tenzerlunin.com> <55704A19.7000001@sero.name> <20150604182845.GA18772@aishdas.org> <557113ED.9080608@zahav.net.il> <5571BB83.7010500@sero.name> Message-ID: <55734ED2.8020702@zahav.net.il> Moved from Areivim. It is a case of muttar and assur, which in this case I am equating with right and wrong. For this person, something is muttar and for the other it is pasul. The way I see, it would be absolutely wrong for the wealthier person to eat his chicken, and absolutely wrong for the poorer person to throw his chicken away. Correct, popular opinion doesn't play a part in this one. Ben On 6/5/2015 5:08 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > > That's not a question of right and wrong, From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 17:19:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 01:19:52 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> R' Ysoscher Katz writes: ... <> And yet ironically RYK's experience in Satmar and Brisk would seem to confirm the sense of what Maimonides did. RYK was only the object and fool of Maimonides "seventh reason" because he was immersed in a society that had built very high walls against the risk of engaging with philosophy. Contrast his experience to mine. I read the Guide at fourteen - long before I had any real exposure to the Yad. Why? Because I grew up in a society in which it was more acceptable for girls to read philosophic texts than it was to learn and engage with halachic texts. And indeed, a translation of the Guide was published and available in English, in my shul library, whereas the Mishna Torah, which was no doubt there (I don't remember), was only in Hebrew and would have been in the "halachic" section that only boys (and scholarly boys at that) were expected to access. Even more, when I started asking questions, the librarian pointed me in the direction of the philosophy works, which included the Guide, that is how I got to it. It was just assumed that if somebody was asking theological questions, that was the place to go. So by the time, much, much later, that I read the relevant portions of the Mishna Torah, I already knew Maimonides' philosophic works in some depth, and layered them on to anything in the Yad. And yet Maimonides was surely right, had the Yad contained the opinions expressed in the Guide, in any detectable way, there is no way a society like Satmar and Brisk would have allowed it into their hallowed betei midrash - and what a loss to the halachic world that would have been. What occurred to RYK is merely a by-product and inevitable consequence (if you step outside) of what Satmar/Brisk have created. Not what Maimonides created. He created a work which, in any society that valued philosophy, would be available to those who sought it. And this is why RYK's experience is unlikely to occur in any true Modern Orthodox setting. Because curious, searching teenagers will inevitably take advantage of what is available in languages they can read in their local libraries (assuming they are encouraged to go there, and such libraries are not off limits), and hence, while they might (hopefully) be exposed to the Mishna Torah earlier than I was, they will certainly have the opportunity, and if that way inclined, are likely to take the opportunity of exploring at least the introduction to the Guide. <> Now this I find- well perhaps touchingly naive to the point of bizarre. Not the characterisation of the two most dramatic changes, necessarily, but the idea that "the pioneers of both these changes were driven, at least in part, by Chassidic ethos". Of the two, the claim regarding female Talmud scholarship is the most odd. Chassidic groups have been at the forefront of those fighting a rearguard action against women's exposure to any form of text, not least Talmudic and halachic text. Satmar in particular - I recall once standing in a bookshop in Boro Park, perusing a book (written clearly by somebody from the Satmar derech) who had gathered together all the sources on the evils of giving women access to any text - but most fundamentally, horror of horrors, to Rashi al haChumash. It was of course, an attack on what is taught in Beis Ya'akov. The position advocated being that at most, girls should be taught in school the stories of the Tanach, outside and without any recourse at all to reading in original. Lubavitch, I agree, was and is in this regard unusual amongst the Chassidic groups. But, growing up in Melbourne, a community heavily dominated by Lubvitchers, I am pretty well acquainted with what was allowed and not allowed vis a vis girls/women and learning from people with reasonably close connections with the Lubavitche Rebbe. Sure, streets ahead of the other Chassidic groups - but more open than the Beis Ya'akovs? - dubiously - although there was a fair bit of flexibility granted when dealing with potential ba'alei teshuva who (it was acknowledged) could be seriously put off by bans on access to knowledge of the nature of that on gemora. But what was granted begrudgingly and in a limited fashion in such circles were standard parts of the curriculum in Modern Orthodox schools (with Maimonides in Boston the flagship in this regard). How high a level a girl was taught in MO environments differed (especially given that often the overall level of kodesh education was not always that high in such schools), but the idea that any of this was driven fundamentally by the Lubavitcher Rebbe is ludicrous. And if you look at Israel and the explosion of women's learning there - not a chassid in sight. R' Kook and Zionism is a more justified charge. While it is hard to describe Rav Kook as a "pioneer" of political Zionism (there were many before him who saw political Zionism as logically arising out of their religious belief), he unquestionably provided serious theological underpinnings justifying the religious being involved in this endeavour, and much of what he wrote is rooted in chassidus. But note of course that the major thinker against was again the Satmar Rebbe - ie chassidus provided, yet again, the most reactionary response to this phenomenon. Which is more typical of chassidus - Rav Kook or the Satmar Rebbe? - I think it is far fairer to say that Rav Kook was the exception, despite his deep roots, and the Satmar Rebbe closer to the rule. And note, while we are on the subject of Rav Kook, that while he was "progressive" regarding political Zionism, he was "regressive" regarding woman voting. Was his attitude towards women's place in society also fuelled by his Chassidic studies? In general, while I do agree that Chassidic thinkers, such as Rav Kook, have a lot to say to "the world we live in today" and that there is something to be said for incorporating aspects of their theology in the pursuit of meaning, I suspect that trying to create "chassidish modern Jews" is an enterprise doomed to failure, and certainly not something that will be able to speak to the modern orthodox world. Why? Firstly because Chassidism is all embracing. I have watched many ba'alei teshuva embrace Chassidism (in lots of forms) over the years - as indeed it has a serious pull for many. I have rarely found one who is attracted that way who ends up in the modern orthodox camp. Where do they usually end up? Well amongst the most extreme Chassidic groups, where they can indulge to the fullest extent. Chassidism become so all embracing that it pushes everything else out. And while this phenomenon is already found amongst Modern Orthodox children going "black". It is certainly not going to save modern Orthodoxy. A further problem is articulated at the beginning of the piece, in relation to RYK's father: > My father is the most non-chassidish Chassid. He does not study > "chassidus," nor does he want to "understand" it. But, however you cut it, those with a modern orthodox upbringing are taught to want to "understand". They are brought up with the scientific method, even if some debunking then occurs in universities. For sure, there are those who reject that in favour of exploration of mystery and experience - but as suggested above, by and large those "go right" - further into the ultra orthodox world. By and large, while the ashrams of India are peopled by many Jews, I don't think very many of them are modern orthodox dropouts. The ones we are losing totally are going left, into the secular mundane world without religious input. Because while they are usually aware of the experiential, it appears to simultaneously contemplate a suffocation of the mind that they cannot swallow (as an ashram also does). Such people are never going to be comfortable in a world in which there is any expectation of not "wanting" to understand. They may perhaps be persuaded to find meaning in the writings of people like Rav Kook, or in other aspects of Chassidic writing, but are likely to be even more repelled by a world that implicitly or explicitly tells them to bin what is the attribute they have been taught to spend most of their life cultivating - their mind. I am probably going to be (metaphorically speaking) shot on this list for even mentioning it, but if you want to see what you get when you mix a modicum of Chassidic plus philosophic inspired thinking in a more "modern" context, you could always look at the German thinkers (including Reform thinkers) of the early twentieth century - people like (particularly) Franz Rosenzweig, not to mention Leo Baeck, Martin Buber, Hermann Cohen. What about Levinas? There is your post modern thinking (but note that it comes out of a Lithuanian background with existentialism and philosophical exploration rather than chassidus). But it is a long way from Maimonidian rationalism (despite of course Maimonides being the father of all this philosophy, but only after it has been through Kant and the existentialists). Avraham Yehoshua Heshel is another example of those attempting to integrate a Chassidic background with modern sensibilities. But since he operated out of the Jewish Theological Seminary, and was closely identified with the Conservative Movement, he probably did more to make such explorations treif to MO thinkers than he did to inspire them to explore. A bigger problem, I think, is that MO in America is so fixated on RYBS, and his particular brand of philosophy, that philosophy linked to Orthodoxy becomes identified only with his particular stance. But there is a much wider world out there, and a philosophical world that does not only relate to transcendence (as RYBS appears to do) but to imminence as well. Are those who speak of paradox/polarity of imminence and transcendence inspired by the imminence of the Chassidic world? Maybe, but it is attenuated, and no longer strictly Chassidic. Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 19:09:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 22:09:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Brisker Theory of Everything In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150607020921.GB7516@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 25, 2015 at 07:15:59PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : 1. The gemara (Ketuvot 5b) discusses whether causing a certain type : of blood flowing is considered a Sabbath violation. The first attempt : to resolve the question turns on whether "mifkad pakid or chaburei : mechbar" (is the blood in the womb stored up or is it the result of a : wound?). Rashi there (please look) seems to define this as a physical : question. Is this acceptable or must we say Rashi was leaving out the : "obvious" philosophical/halachic question (i.e. the physical was known, : it's a question of how to categorize it halachically)? It is very hard to identify a real machloqes in metzi'us. There is a machloqes in the Y-mi about whether rice flower and water makes chameitz. Pesachim 2:4, vilna 17a): Rabbi Yochanan ben Nuri said: Qarmis (millet or something similar) requires [giving] challah [from the dough to a kohein] because it can become chameitz or matzah. And the Rabbis say it doesn't because it can not become chameitz or matzah. So check it! They disagree about the essence of the check (iqar bediqasahh): RYBN said they checked it and found it can become chameitz or matzah. The Rabbanan said they checked it and they didn't find it can become chameitz or matzah. What looked like a machloqes about facts, that could just be checked experimentally, was a machloqes about how to categorize the physical reality. Is that dough a chimutz or a sirchon? I am sure that can be generalized. We could be arguing about metzi'us, but as the gemera asks, why not just check it? More likely, when the metzi'us is in the gray area, the machloqes is about: Where is the line between the categories? : 2. That gemara continues to try to resolve the question and is willing : to entertain the possibility that the halacha is like Rabbi Yehuda : (vs. Rabbi Shimon) in mekalkeil (destroying) and like Rabbi Shimon : (vs. Rabbi Yehuda) in davar sheino mitkavein (the result was not the : major one intended). If these two issues were interconnected, could the : gemara entertain this possibility? I think the gemara is consistent with two posibilities: 1- The two machloqesin are not interconnected. 2- The hava amina as that they were not connected, but the masqanah is that indeed they are. : 3. If the answer to 2 is no, must we assume that when the Shulchan : Aruch said he would decide the psak based on majority 2 of big 3, did : he really mean this as a primary tie breaker, or only when he did not : have a clear understanding of the underlying philosophy that resulted : in their final opinions. As I wrote in the past, I think it's easier to excuse the SA's exceptions to his rule by saying he was talking about the majority when counting consistent positions. Which means the rule is subject to which machloqesin the SA held were interconnected, and therefore which statements on other topics need to also be counted toward he majority. : 4.Is it possible that R'YBS limited his "canon" to only a few major : rishonim (in contradistinction to R" A Lichtenstein) because the more : data points included in trying to determine the underlying theoretical : construct, the more likely a single errant point would skew the results? I would think the reverse: How do you identify an outlier point without getting more full statistics on the data? Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger Worrying is like a rocking chair: micha at aishdas.org it gives you something to do for a while, http://www.aishdas.org but in the end it gets you nowhere. Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 19:16:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 22:16:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir In-Reply-To: <20150528.000433.22403.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150528.000433.22403.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150607021626.GC7516@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 04:04:33AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I will be the first to point out that Lifnei Iveir is one the many : topics where my learning and expertise is severely lacking. Even so, : I suspect that there is something missing from RMB's definition... : It seems to me that RMB is giving a useful tool to distinguish between : category 3 and category 4, but that tool is useful only in the case where : a person already has the *desire* to commit a sin, but it lacking the : *ability* to some degree... Correct. I was only thinking of the original question, and the gemara only discusses the one chiluq -- between lifnei iveir (deOraisa) and mesayeia' (deRabbanan). : But what of the case where a person does *not* yet have a desire to : sin? Rabbi Kaganoff is saying that one who incites or encourages him : to do it is violating Lifnei Iveir. Even if the person already has the : ability to do the sin, it was below his "bechirah point" until he was : egged on to do it... I didn't understand Orpah's offer that way. She was convinced her daughters-in-law "converted" for the sake of marriage; and depending which midrashim you quote, that likely wasn't even an actual conversion. But if Rus didn't really buy into Jewish beliefs, she would be better off not going through a pro-forma conversion than in the same boat as Delilah or Shelomo's wives. Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet micha at aishdas.org about things most people don't watch even on http://www.aishdas.org Yom Kippur. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 21:46:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 07:46:04 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] right/wrong Message-ID: <> comes back to the question of pluralism vs monistic vs tolerant monistic vs harmonism. As discussed before there are opinions on all sides -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 7 04:06:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 07:06:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] right/wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150607110645.GA7126@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jun 07, 2015 at 07:46:04AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : comes back to the question of pluralism vs monistic vs tolerant monistic vs : harmonism. Or, as R Moshe Halberatal cateogired halachic legal theories: Retrival, Accumulative, vs Constitutive. But it only starts there. Here the question is whether 1- any of these positions imply that halakhah is man-made more than the other positions would; and 2- does any of this conversation reflect on the absolute nature of right and wrong on a moral plane? Which also drags in the relationship between halakhah and morality. Divine Command Theory (morality is that which Hashem commanded) may well identify the two. But then, we were hard pressed to find an advocate for DCT, (outside contemporary popularizations). R/DR Y Leibowitz coms close, by saying we exist to follow halakhah, and any attempt to map halakhah to some other value system was one step toward AZ. Someone else might say that halakhah approximates morality, but since it's a blanket rule for all people in many situations, it's only an approximate. That said, once the halakhah is set, preserving it and the morality of the majority of cases has greater moral weight than one loses in the exceptional cases. But getting back to our question, while I consider the two related, I do not think the evolving nature of halakhah reflects morality being a human construction. Rather, I think it's because of two effects: 1- dialectics between concflicting values can yeild different strategies for finding balance between them One therefore finds that a machloqes is resolved by finding one strategy more appropriate for the culture asking the question than another. And if it is not resolved with finality, another culture may have the same question (eg mixes of immigrants with different precdent) and choose a different strategy. As I put it last time: choosing different paths up the mountain doesn't imply that the mountain's altitude is subjective. But this assumes that the linkage between halakhah and morality is that halakhah is a means to becoming moral. 2- changes in reality can cause two similar looking situations to have different moral outcomes. I think the vast majority of seemingly reopened questions are really of this sort. E.g. the categorization of today's dead mutes. We didn't change our belief that demands cannot be made of someone who cannot be taught them -- even if it means a consequent loss of priviliges (if being able to be motzi another is a privilege). The realia of the life of a cheiresh changed. (Over Shabbos I read which misses this point, creating a very bloated list of cases where R' JD Bleich, and most contemporary posqim, allow halakhah to "evolve".) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is our choices...that show what we truly are, micha at aishdas.org far more than our abilities. http://www.aishdas.org - J. K. Rowling Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 7 04:10:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 07:10:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong In-Reply-To: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150607111036.GB7126@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 05, 2015 at 03:16:42PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : There is a thought in this thread that if G-d does something, then it : is good by definition. Yet Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai considered the : possibility that G-d had another option which was even better than the : option that He did choose. Aside from Zev's point, that the machloqes is over which is pleasanter for the person, not which is good... I think the discussion is more what if HQBH tells us to do something, it is good by definition, necessarily good by implication, or somehow more distantly related to morality. (I guess someone could say halakhah is not connected to morality, but I don't see that coming up as an O hashkagah.) : This sounds to me like a good argument for the view that people (or at : least certain people, such as the Sanhedrin) CAN decide what is right : and what is wrong. Can determine, which is still different than the original idea on Areivim, that consensus *defines* morality. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger One who kills his inclination is as though he micha at aishdas.org brought an offering. But to bring an offering, http://www.aishdas.org you must know where to slaughter and what Fax: (270) 514-1507 parts to offer. - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 7 05:52:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2015 08:52:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Torah Scholars and Torah Education for the Masses Message-ID: <20150607125250.7E561182EA1@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is taken from Rav Schwab on Chumash, Parshas Acharei Mos. I have posted the entire selection at http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/tide_chumash_schwab.pdf At all times the Torah's unchanging teachings must be applied to the ever-changing derech eretz. All of our actions, attitudes, relationships to man and beast, and positions within nature and history are subject to the jurisdiction and evaluation of the Torah. What follows is that the Torah scholar should be well informed of the "ways of the Earth." The laws of nature and the paths of history should be known to him. He should be well aware of what happens in the world that surrounds him, for he is constantly called upon to apply the yardstick of halachah and the searchlight of hashkafah to the realities that confront him. What also follows is that the greater the wisdom of Torah, the more crucial it is that this wisdom be conveyed to the Jewish contemporary world. It must be transmitted in a language that our generation understands and that will attract the searching youth, the ignorant, the estranged and the potential ba1al teshuvah to a joyous acceptance of the yoke of Heaven. The Torah leader must be able to dispel the doubts of the doubter and to counter the cynicism of the agnostic. He must, therefore, speak their language masterfully so that he can convince and enlighten them. There is indeed a dire need for gedolei Torah, great Torah scholars, who devote their entire lives to the study and dissemination of Torah. The Jewish world today needs many talmidei chachamim whose life task is to enlighten and inspire it with the love and the fear of G-d. We are ready to accord to those "messengers of G-d" the highest respect and a loyal following. These are the kohanim and levi'im of today. Like the members of the Levitic tribe of old, they are to serve all the other tribes and teach them the living Torah. Yet education and leadership cannot function in a vacuum. Therefore it becomes mandatory for the present day "Tribe of Levi" to initiate and encourage an educational system that can serve the other "eleven tribes who comprise the vast majority of our people. It becomes mandatory for the Torah-conscious educator not to inspire fear of the world and hesitancy to meets its challenges, but rather, to fortify the vast majority of our youth to meet head-on the thousand and one pitfalls of professional and business life. Our youth must be inspired to courageously and intelligently brave the onslaught of scientific arrogance and the sensual poison that is masked as intellectual liberalism. The Divine purpose for which Yisrael was created can be served in every capacity, in every profession, in all human endeavors, as long as they are not excluded by the halachah. ---------- Unfortunately, I do not see many Torah scholars today who are "well informed of the "ways of the Earth." The laws of nature and the paths of history should be known to him. He should be well aware of what happens in the world that surrounds him, for he is constantly called upon to apply the yardstick of halachah and the searchlight of hashkafah to the realities that confront him." I also do not see our educational institutions serving "the other 'eleven tribes' who comprise the vast majority of our people. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 8 09:25:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2015 09:25:43 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] replacement value Message-ID: secular law [US] recognizes that one need is not liable replace a lost item with a new one ie if you lost my used IPAD [which happened in fact this month to us] you don't owe me the value of a new one , but rather some pro-rated amount accounting for wear and tear. what does bais din require? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 9 14:17:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2015 17:17:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] replacement value In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150609211745.GA4160@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 08, 2015 at 09:25:43AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : secular law [US] recognizes that one need is not liable replace a lost : item with a new one... what does bais din : require? According to the Business Halakhah Institute : Many years ago I borrowed a Chumash with commentaries from a local beis medrash. I forgot to return it and eventually misplaced the sefer and I do not recall which volume I borrowed. It was "borrowed", ie no reshus was asked. ... [Skipping from opening paragraph to bottom line...] Someone who borrowed a sefer without permission is obligated to return the sefer, the same as any other thief. Even if the owner despaired of retrieving it, e.g., he bought a new set, the obligation to return it remains in force (C.M. 354:2 and 360:5). If the sefers condition changed dramatically (shinui) or if it was lost altogether, the borrower is obligated to repay the value of the sefer (C.M. 360:5). In your case, since the sefer you borrowed is missing, there is no obligation to replace the actual sefer. Your obligation is to repay the beis medrash the sefers value at the time you borrowed it. In other words, you would pay the value of a used sefer rather than a new sefer, and there is no need to pay for a complete set. But then, maybe that's under Gittin 55b, not making a ganav tear down his house in order to return a stolen beam he built into it. But that halakhah is to facilitate teshuvah after theft. And so I won't generalized. Also for hezeq, I know a maziq pays for his damage, and therefore only has to pay replacement value -- what it would take to make things right again. But again, your case, a shomer or sho'el returning a lost item, could be different. I didn't yet find it. But I haven't entirely given up... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A cheerful disposition is an inestimable treasure. micha at aishdas.org It preserves health, promotes convalescence, http://www.aishdas.org and helps us cope with adversity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' SR Hirsch, "From the Wisdom of Mishlei" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 9 14:17:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2015 17:17:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] replacement value In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150609211745.GA4160@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 08, 2015 at 09:25:43AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : secular law [US] recognizes that one need is not liable replace a lost : item with a new one... what does bais din : require? According to the Business Halakhah Institute : Many years ago I borrowed a Chumash with commentaries from a local beis medrash. I forgot to return it and eventually misplaced the sefer and I do not recall which volume I borrowed. It was "borrowed", ie no reshus was asked. ... [Skipping from opening paragraph to bottom line...] Someone who borrowed a sefer without permission is obligated to return the sefer, the same as any other thief. Even if the owner despaired of retrieving it, e.g., he bought a new set, the obligation to return it remains in force (C.M. 354:2 and 360:5). If the sefers condition changed dramatically (shinui) or if it was lost altogether, the borrower is obligated to repay the value of the sefer (C.M. 360:5). In your case, since the sefer you borrowed is missing, there is no obligation to replace the actual sefer. Your obligation is to repay the beis medrash the sefers value at the time you borrowed it. In other words, you would pay the value of a used sefer rather than a new sefer, and there is no need to pay for a complete set. But then, maybe that's under Gittin 55b, not making a ganav tear down his house in order to return a stolen beam he built into it. But that halakhah is to facilitate teshuvah after theft. And so I won't generalized. Also for hezeq, I know a maziq pays for his damage, and therefore only has to pay replacement value -- what it would take to make things right again. But again, your case, a shomer or sho'el returning a lost item, could be different. I didn't yet find it. But I haven't entirely given up... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A cheerful disposition is an inestimable treasure. micha at aishdas.org It preserves health, promotes convalescence, http://www.aishdas.org and helps us cope with adversity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' SR Hirsch, "From the Wisdom of Mishlei" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 10 18:52:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 01:52:34 GMT Subject: [Avodah] 100% Vegetable oils etc. Message-ID: <20150610.215234.27464.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> On Areivim, R' Martin Brody wrote: > If any such ingredient of an ingredient was non-kosher, it would be > batel b'shishim, (more likely nullified by thousands). For those > that are interested, the London Beth Din is not concerned with > "flavourings" as an ingredient for this very reason. This surprises me. I would think that non-kosher flavorings cannot be batel. Bitul is a mathematical procedure by which we can presume that the non-kosher ingredient is not noticeable. But in the case of flavorings (and colorings and maamads), if its presence were not noticeable, then the manufacturer would not go to the trouble and expense of including it. Therefore (I would think) that its presence proves that it *is* noticable, overriding the presumption. Rabbi Binyomin Forst's "The Laws of Kashrus" (ArtScroll) says on page 98, "If, however, the mixture was sampled and the non-kosher taste was noticeable, the mixture may not be eaten, even though it was batel b'shishim. (Shach 98:4)" What other views are there? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5578ea0af09296a0a79abst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 07:41:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 10:41:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Worker or Craftsman Message-ID: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> How do we view the task of life? Is a person an po'el, paid for his time? Implying, it's our job to do good while here on earth, but the determining factor is the duration? Or is a person an uman, paid to get a particular job done. We're put on earth to get some specific accomplishment. The Zohar suggests something more like an uman when it uses an idiom like "ana avda deQBH". Admittedly an eved does not get paid for his time, but an eved is for the duration, whether until shemittah, until yovel, or for the rest of his life. However, in Shaar haGilgulim we get all this talk about a person having a tafqid, and how if they fail to get the job done, they could be given a second chance. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger What you get by achieving your goals micha at aishdas.org is not as important as http://www.aishdas.org what you become by achieving your goals. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Henry David Thoreau From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 07:46:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 10:46:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Color names In-Reply-To: <221167CA3A2A46908C9CA2A3474664EA@webhost.local> References: <221167CA3A2A46908C9CA2A3474664EA@webhost.local> Message-ID: <20150611144639.GF20169@aishdas.org> RZLampel and I discused this once, I think here. If not, the topic could be of interest anyway. So, rather than checking the archive (which is difficult, given the number of tekheiles discussions) I am just sharing either way. -micha Shabbat B'Shabbato Translated by Moshe Goldberg Machon Zomet ... What Is That Phrase? Green Sky? Yaacov Etzion At the end of this week's Torah portion, we are given a command, "Let them place on the tzitzit at the corner a thread of 'techelet.'" [Bamidbar 15:38]. Rashi explains that techelet is "the 'yarok' color of a snail." Any speaker of modern Hebrew can only wonder at this. Why does Rashi call the blue color of techelet "yarok" -- that is, green? Well, it is not only Rashi that calls techelet "yarok." It is an explicit ruling that appears in the Shulchan Aruch: "The color white is ritually pure, as is the look of 'yarok,' even if it has the look of wax or of gold. And this certainly includes the 'yarok' of leek or grass (and also the color that is called 'blue' is included in 'yarok')" [Hilchot Nidda, 188]. We are not interested at this point in the details of the halacha but rather in the fact that the RAMA writes that the color "blue" is called "yarok" in our traditional sources. Our sages spoke of four main colors: shachor (black), lavan (white), adom (red), and yarok. And "yarok" included yellow, orange, blue, and turquoise of today. For example, it happens quite often that a newborn baby is a bit yellow right after its birth. But the Tosefta calls this color "yarok." Rabbi Natan says the following: "When I was in the Land of Kapotakia, there was a woman who had given birth to boys... They brought him to me, and I saw that he was 'yarok'... I looked at him and did not find any blood for circumcision..." [Shabbat 134a]. Moreover, in the wording of the ROSH in his halachic rulings the word yarok as used by the sages is not our color green (which they call "yarok as a leek") but is yellow or orange. "This shows that the word yarok is similar to the yolk of an egg or to gold, which has a tinge of red." Among other sources, the ROSH bases his decision on the words of the verse, "the wings of a dove coated with silver and its limbs the 'yerakrak' of gold" [Tehillim 68:14]. Yerakrak is clearly the color of gold, that is, yellow. The words for orange (katom) and blue (kachol) were instituted in modern times by Zeev Yavetz. This was reported by David Yalin in the newspaper "Hatzevi" in 1887: "When I spoke to my uncle the illustrious rabbi and investigator Rabbi Zeev Yavetz, he said to me that he wants to fill what is missing in our language for the names of two colors, the color of techelet and the color of the yoke of an egg." Yavetz proposed that techelet should be called kachol and that the yoke should be called "ketem," which in the holy writings refers to gold or to the color of gold. (An example appears in the following verse: "Woe, the gold is dim, the good 'ketem' has changed" [Eichah 4:1].) Yavetz wanted to use the word katom for the color of yellow (which we call tzahov), since he felt that tzahov "includes a bit of red" (as per a note by Yalin). But as time went on, katom became the color orange, as we use it today. Thus, the word "yarok" changed in meaning during the years, as did "tzahov." However, "techelet" evidently kept its original meaning, and it remains similar to the color of the sea, which is similar to the color of the sky, and this reminds us of the Divine Throne of Glory. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 09:34:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 12:34:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Worker or Craftsman In-Reply-To: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> References: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5579B89C.8060902@sero.name> On 06/11/2015 10:41 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Is a person an po'el, paid for his time? Implying, it's our job to do > good while here on earth, but the determining factor is the duration? > > Or is a person an uman, paid to get a particular job done. We're put on > earth to get some specific accomplishment. Eruvin 65a: Anan po`alei diy'mamei anan. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 11:17:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 14:17:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> References: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> Message-ID: <20150611181746.GI20169@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 2, 2015 at 4:27pm I forwarded an essay by RYK that had appeared on R/Dr Alan Brill's blog, Kavvanah. In it he proposes from personal experience that MO would be enhanced by shifting away from its focus on RYBS's Briskkeit and in particular that elements of his Hungarian Chassidic birth community would be of great value. : Personally, my rejection of the Maimonidean ethos and realization of : the degree to which chassidut can speak to the modern searcher was a : long and arduous process. It came about as a result of a deep sense : of betrayal by Maimonides, the champion of Rationalist Judaism. I for : many years was the object and fool of Maimonides "the seventh reason" : as presented in his introduction to the Guide by not seeing his : philosophic views. In that passage, Maimonides condones misleading : the masses for their greater good, even to the point of advocating : contradictory ideas for different audiences and then obscuring those : contradictions. : Growing up in Satmar and then Brisk, I was oblivious to his : non-halakhic writings and led to believe that he fully and literally : believed every word he wrote in the Yad... I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." And in fact, that was the whole point of the project -- to outline all of halakhah, to document the TSBP. Not to hint at something for the meivinim without risking that the hoi palloi mistake his words in a heretical way. It's simply not meaningful concept for a book he titled Mishneh Torah. I am uncomfortably using the Rambam as a poster boy for rationalism. In the Rambam's day, science hadn't been invented yet. Claims about physics weren't based on emprical proof and experimental process. It was Natual Philosophy, and the weight of an a priori argument. A lot of it really ended up on reliabilism; deeming the Greeks as reliable sources on such things -- after 1,5000 years of their theories reigning. And therefore, quite honestly, much the same kind of thought that we use to accept mesorah. The word rationalism changed meaning. What I think we really mean is a willingness to be meqabel es ha'emes mimi she'omro, rather than take a maximalist attitude toward mesoretic and Torah-derived statements. But that's quite a bit meta from anyone today using the Moreh as a foundational element of their hashkafah. In particular, RYK mentions three items he believes would enhance MO: : 1) Truth. We live in a post-modern world where objective truth is : rejected and absolute claims are frowned upon. I would go as far as to : say that rationalism (in the general and colloquial sense) as a source : for Emunah is bankrupt, it increasingly speaks to fewer people... I don't think it ever worked. As one of my favorite truisms goes: The mind is a wonderful organ for justifying decisions the heart already reached. People accept the rational argument that fits the experiential justification that really underlies their beliefs. Aristo thought otherwise, which eventually led to the Qalam and the Scholasticists -- including R' Saadia Gaon and the Rambam. But then Scholasticism collapsed, the scientific method arose, leading to a dispute between the Empiricists and Idealists which in turn forced the discipline of philosophy away from belief in the reality of an objective rigorous proof. Experimental eproof, yes. Incontravertible objective philosopy, not so much. Kant then gets all transcendental, and talks about the synthetic a priori. (Knowing things without proof that don't simply boil down to a matter of translations. In the recent past, I mentioned how we know the Euclidean posulates hold in flat space, that Reimannian ones hold in a spherical space, and our knowledge about morality and ethics.) This was the zeitgeist when the Besh"t lived. (Besh"t 1698-1760; Kant 1724-1804.) Someone who is given a proof whose conclusions don't fit their experience is likely to reject the soundness of the givens / postulates / first principles on which it's based. Just as someone who accepts a proof is making synthetic judgments about the quality of the foundations of that proof before even making an analytic decision that the logic seems sound. So even if no one makes a logic error, every proof relies on interpretation of experience. RYBS was not a rationalist in this sense. Brisk is very experiential, to the point of eschewing the study of hashkafah altogether. They are rational when it comes to how to learn, but the value of learning is in the experience of learning. When RYBS does do philosophy, he calls it halachic hermeneutics. Neo-Kantian and Existentialist observations of what halakhah says to the one following it about life. He makes no claims about the function or cause of halakhah, he makes few theological observations. For example, to RYBS tzimtzum speaks mostly to the value of anavah as an emulation of His "Retreat" to give us room. RYBS's Neo-Kantianism is a very different project than the Rambam's Scholasticism. ... : However, during those rare occasions when they do pay attention to the : biblical "stories," their orientation is a-rational. They absolutely : "believe" those stories, but their belief is internal: it is true : because it happened in the Torah. That is where these events transpire : and that is where these stories matter. Asking about their historicity : is, as far as they are concerned, foolish and missing the point. And also a given. It may not be stated as the point, but the confidence given to authority which is a necessary component of the rebbe-chassid relationship means accepting Chazal's historical and scientific claims as being from ruach haqodesh. And not stam as meshalim. The kind of agnosticism about the historicity of medrashic material you are recommending we import Chassidus to justify would itself leave a chassid aghast. And even after citing the long chain of rishonim and acharonim who speak against assuming medrashic stories are historical, And you want to extend that beyond medrashic stories into foundational stories in Tanakh and maybe in the chumash as well? Given my above assertion that the only thread that runs consistently through "rationalism" from the Rambam to today is to choose qabel es ha'emes mimi she'omro over taking some baal mesorah's statement maximally, one actually needs what's left of the Rambam's hashkafic legacy to accomplish this, not Chassidus. : 2) Spiritualization. As scholars have pointed out, chassidic teachings : contain elements of spiritual psychology. They provide us with a : language which helps us infuse our lives with meaning. One can point : to many examples where this psychological spiritualization occurs in : chassidut, I will mention two of them. : 3) Social Change. One of the most pressing tensions in the community : is how to reconcile our values with our convictions; what to do : when halakha points us in one direction and our values in another : direction. We are tempted to follow our values but pulled to abide by : our halakhic commitments.... : Chassidut is very explicit about the value of religious aggression. The : following two quotes are often encountered in chassidic writings, : "even a thief says a prayer before he breaks in to his victim's home" : (quoted on the margin of Brachot 63A, from the Frankfurt manuscript), : and "an aggressive stance towards the Divine bears results" (Sanhedrin : 105A). While the provenance of these texts is Talmudic, they take on : significant prominence in Chassidic theology. They become the impetus : for an aggressive theology which is informed by a religiosity that : sees itself driven by a Divine immanence which infuses our values and : ethical intuitions with spiritual resonance, subsequently leading to : radical societal change. : Such change is actually an integral part of Chassidic social history. : When one looks at recent major changes in traditional Jewish society : it is hard not to notice that the forerunners were often Chassidim. The : last sixty years have seen far reaching social and political change. Both of these are not specific to Chassidus, but would be true of any Ism that draws attention fo the notion that halakhah is merely a "floor" rather than the sum total of behavioral expectations. For that matter, self development and societal needs are both more central to Mussar than chassidus. Pretty much its defning features, really. Which (aside being my own pony in this race) has the advantage of being closer to being consistent with MO's current gestalt; it's easier to get from here to there. OTOH Chaasidic maximalism means that statements made in the past have to be accepted as being from ruach haqodesh, and consequently change in these communities is minimized. Not only because isolation is part of the survival strategy, but because of reverence for and desire to emulate Chassidic isolation is indeed part of their survival stategy. It's hard to leave when you know no other social context and speak with an accent. And knowing that you stand for something greater than yourself in the eyes of those who see your uniform makes it harder to sin. (Harder, not impossible.) But it's not one of the three elements of Chassidus RYK wrote about. : The two most dramatic changes that have happened is that Jews are now : sovereign and women have made significant progress in their pursuit of : religious equality. The pioneers of both these changes were driven, at : least in part, by a chassidic ethos. R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson, : the Rebbi of Lubavitch, was one of the first orthodox scholars to : champion female Talmud scholarship, while R. Avraham Yitzchak Kook, : a serious student of Chassidut, was an outspoken early proponent of : a Zionist state. RAYK is a student of the Leshem, and thus of the Gra's school of Qabbalah. Not Chassidus. You might be able to make a more generic argument for a need for more Qabbalah in MO. Personally, I'm an engineer by inclination, not just training, and my own head doesn't lean that way. Although I had more success with the Leshem Haqdamos uShe'arim, which incidentally heavily draws from the Moreh and Yesodei haTorah, than I did with Qela"ch Pischei Chokhmah, the later parts of Derekh H' or Tomer Devorah after ch. 1. At least in the golah this might be true; in Israel, those of the DL community who are an appropriate audience for Qabbalah already have RAYK in numerous interpretations. Also, Chassidus's approach to Qabbalah puts the Ari Za"l on an even higher pedestal than the Gra did, and elevate R Chaim Vital from *a* talmid of the Ari to his sole authorized presenter. The Gra is willing to question something from RCV that chassidim would literally consider Torah min haShamayim. Which, for the more socially and humanistically minded, might well turn Eitz Chaim 49 ch. 3 into a show stopper. (But this isn't the place to discuss it.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Never must we think that the Jewish element micha at aishdas.org in us could exist without the human element http://www.aishdas.org or vice versa. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 06:48:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 09:48:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <20150611181746.GI20169@aishdas.org> References: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> <20150611181746.GI20169@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150612134802.GA12483@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 2:17 I wrote: : What I think we really mean is a willingness to be meqabel es ha'emes : mimi she'omro, rather than take a maximalist attitude toward mesoretic : and Torah-derived statements. But that's quite a bit meta from anyone : today using the Moreh as a foundational element of their hashkafah. ... : Given my above assertion that the only thread that runs consistently : through "rationalism" from the Rambam to today is to choose qabel es : ha'emes mimi she'omro over taking some baal mesorah's statement maximally... The thought hit me this morning that there is another and drastically different way to view this point. "Qabel es ha'ames mimi she'omro" is a bit of a circularity. Obviously we want to accept the truth from whomever says it, and not errors. So we're deciding what is true /before/ we decide to accept it, not /because/ we accept it. We could therefore say that the single consistent theme we associate with throwing the word "rationalism" about is critical thought. When we judge Aristo's, Copernicus's, Darwin's or Einstein's thought as true, do we second guess that asessment, or accept their ideas as true? And consequently we can phrase this chiluq a third way: As being abut how much authority we give rabbinic works in comparison to how much we trust our own critical thinking. The higher the pedestal we put the historical rabbinate, the more of their statements one would logically choose to suspend judgment and accept. (Not only accept, but accept as literal.) As for the original premise... Rather than looking to RYK's or anyone else's ideas as to what from Chassidus would most benefit MO, perhaps we should look at the Neo-Chassidic phenomenon to see de facto what MO Jews who are open to such experimentation are drawn to. And if those two questions yeild different answers, why? :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger What we do for ourselves dies with us. micha at aishdas.org What we do for others and the world, http://www.aishdas.org remains and is immortal. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Albert Pine From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 06:55:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 09:55:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What FDA Learned About Dark Chocolate and Milk Allergies In-Reply-To: <557A5564.7040807@zahav.net.il> References: <20150611174606.4DC6F181DFA@nexus.stevens.edu> <5579E680.2050607@zahav.net.il> <5579E319.7070103@sero.name> <557A5564.7040807@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <20150612135524.GC12483@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 05:43:32AM +0200, Ben Waxman via Areivim wrote: : This story came out here a few years ago when some kid had an : allergic reaction to parve chocolate. The product had a Badatz Eida : Chareidit heksher. The heksher was fine, they didn't make a mistake. : The amount of milk in the chocolate was much, much less than 1/60. Assuming the allergic reaction isn't lifethreatening so that the child is not prohibited from eating the chocolate on those grounds... Say they're a chocoholic and chose to eat the chocolate shortly after eating meat. Mi ma nafshach for everyone else it's batel. But do we say that since for them it's detectible, bitul doesn't apply? :-)BBii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 14:24:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 21:24:59 GMT Subject: [Avodah] What FDA Learned About Dark Chocolate and Milk Allergies Message-ID: <20150611.172459.6802.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 11:01:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 14:01:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If and When Message-ID: <20150612180148.GA7261@aishdas.org> R' Yishmael famously (Mechilta BaChodesh-Yisro 11, Mishpatim 182 or ) says that "im" usually means that the decision is up to you, but three times it's a chiyuv: - "Im mizbach avanim ta'aseh Li" (Shemos 20:21) - "Im kesef talveh es ami" (Shemos 22:24) - "Im taqriv minchas bikurim" (Vayiqra 2:14) This is often explained in English as saying that "im" usually means "if", but in these cases it takes on the rarer second meaning of "when". I would prefer to propose a single common interpretation. LAD, "im" introduces an implication -- X implies Y. When X is a conditional, then so will the Y that depends on it. When X is always obligated, then Y will also be always obligated, but the "allways" is because X is. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 13 19:40:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 04:40:37 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Why Chassidut Message-ID: <557CE9A5.6090303@zahav.net.il> From Rav Yehoshua Shapira (my quick translation) The idea that Chassidut?s positive atmosphere isn?t obligatory is a serious mistake. Not only is it obligatory, but it brings with it more obligations. Without emphasis on the Mitzvot of ahava and yirah, simcha and deveikut (which are the soul of the 613 mitzvot) the mitzvot remain external actions, technical, something which doesn?t affect or uplift the heart and soul. Those doreitta mitzvot, which are the pinimiot of all mitzvoth, demand from a person and from us to give their entire being when doing a mitzvah. . . .. In the performance of mitzvoth, God wants our hearts. Therefore, Chassidut definitely demands deep dedication. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 15:34:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ysoscher via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 18:34:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed Message-ID: <073EBBC1-7CA3-4E26-BA35-4A9007B1EAE4@gmail.com> Chana, Three quick points: 1) You are making the mistake many others are making as well, conflating chassidim with chassidut. Chassidic life today has very little to do with original chassidut. Early chassidut was a revolutionary theological movement which appealed to a small elitist group. As time went by more people started joining. As the masses joined, the theology became diluted. The theologically influenced practices reminded but the ethos became stagnant. Therefore, your attempt to disprove my thesis from the way Chassidim behave today is wrong. I'm advocating for chassidic theology which was prevalent during the first and second generation of the chassidic movement, people like the Besht, the Magid, the Toldos Yakov Yosef, Reb Nachaman, the Ba'al Hatanye and others. I have no doubt that their philosophy informed Rav Kook and Lubavitcher Rebbe when dealing with tensions between Halacha and modernity. And, their philosophy can help us today as well. Incorporating a chassidic ethos would allow us to infuse our encounters with modernity with kedusha and meaning. Which brings me to my second point. 2) Kabbakah and chassidut isn't about warmth and community. It's a highly sophisticated philosophical system which offers a nuanced alternative to the Maimonidean/rationalist approach. While the approach is a-rational, it isn't irrational. However, more to the point, the warmth and sense of community is a byproduct of this theology, not its primary focus. 3) Finally, I'm not sure I understand your point about the Rambam. The Rambam says that he believes it is justified to fool and mislead the masses. That to me is highly problematic. Rabbi Ysoscher Katz Chair, Department of Talmud, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School; Director of the Lindenbaum Center for Halakhic Studies; Educational Director of Judaic Studies, Luria Academy, Brooklyn, NY.; Rabbi, Prospect Heights Shul. E-mail: ysoscher at gmail.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 07:00:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 14:00:32 GMT Subject: [Avodah] If and When Message-ID: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > R' Yishmael famously (Mechilta BaChodesh-Yisro 11, Mishpatim 182 > or ) says that "im" usually means that the > decision is up to you, but three times it's a chiyuv: > - "Im mizbach avanim ta'aseh Li" (Shemos 20:21) > - "Im kesef talveh es ami" (Shemos 22:24) > - "Im taqriv minchas bikurim" (Vayiqra 2:14) ... > LAD, "im" introduces an implication -- X implies Y. ... > When X is always obligated, then Y will also be always > obligated, but the "always" is because X is. If I'm understanding you correctly, your logic will work only if there is another pasuk somewhere which *already* obligates us to build a mizbe'ach of stone, to lend money without interest, and to bring bikkurim in this manner. If so, then a fuller translation can be written with the word "if", and without the word "when", like this: : (You are already obligated to build a stone mizbe'ach, and) : if (today is the day that) you will build a stone mizbe'ach, : you will not build it from cut stones... But I thought that R' Yishmael's whole point is that THESE ARE the source pesukim for those mitzvos, and that there are NO other pesukim which obligate you to do these things. That's why R' Yishmael made the whole point of stressing that these "im"s really mean "when". His fear was that if we translate "im" as "if", then someone might think these pesukim are like Hilchos Gittin: "IF you get divorced, here is the right way to do it, and IF you make a stone mizbe'ach, here is the right way." R' Yishmael's point is that there is no "if" - you MUST do these things, and WHEN you do it, this is how. So over Shabbos, I tried to verify my idea. Thanks to RMB, who quoted not only the 3 pesukim, but identified their location, it was pretty simple to look them up in the Torah Temimah. But what I found was rather odd. Torah Temimah Shmos 20:127 quotes R' Yishmael in the Mechilta, pretty much the same way that RMB did, and points out that this is NOT the source for the obligation for build a stone mizbe'ach - that is in Ki Savo. This RMB's logic fits: "If (today is the day that) you build a stone mizbe'ach, don't build it of cut stones." Please note: In the excerpt of the Mechilta which the Torah Temimah quotes regarding the mizbe'ach, R' Yishmael says that there are 3 cases where "im" is not optional, but the other two are not specified. This is very different than the Torah Temimah about lending money. Torah Temimah Shmos 22:198 does quotes R' Yishmael in the Mechilta, but it doesn't mention the word "im" explicitly, nor is there any reference to two other cases. He simply asks whether it is a reshus or a chovah to lend money, and he answers that the obligation appears in Parshas Re'eh. I find it curious that this Mechilta is worded so differently than the previous one, but the message is clearly the same. Finally, we have the pasuk about bikkurim. It turns out that the Torah Temimah on this pasuk doesn't mention R' Yishmael at all. It does mention R' Yehudah, but from the Toras Kohanim, and not from the Mechilta. Further, my unlearned reading of R' Yehudah had little or nothing to do with the reshus/chovah question, but Torah Temimah Vayikra 2:80 DID see a reshus/chovah question that troubled R' Yehudah. I am left with several questions, the main one being whether or not Bikkurim really was R' Yishmael's third "im". And that's where I'll leave this thread, for more skilled minds to investigate should they be so inclined. Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/557d895b6e89195a4573st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 10:27:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 13:27:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If and When In-Reply-To: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150614172744.GA27133@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 02:00:32PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : > LAD, "im" introduces an implication -- X implies Y. : ... : > When X is always obligated, then Y will also be always : > obligated, but the "always" is because X is. : : If I'm understanding you correctly, your logic will work only if : there is another pasuk somewhere which *already* obligates us to build a : mizbe'ach of stone, to lend money without interest, and to bring bikkurim : in this manner. If so, then a fuller translation can be written with : the word "if", and without the word "when"... In reality, the cited Mechilta actually provides derahos to prove that there is nothing optional about the antecedants. But my point was to suggest that "im" has nothing to do with the maybe-ness of "if". Just the implication bit -- if X then Y, or whenever X then Y, or since X then Y, regardless of whether not-X is a possibility or option. Which would reduce what looks like two definitions for "im" into a single common meaning. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Time flies... micha at aishdas.org ... but you're the pilot. http://www.aishdas.org - R' Zelig Pliskin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 13 22:30:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ysoscher via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 01:30:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> R. Micha, you write "I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." This is pure conjecture, perhaps even wishful thinking. The Rambam shares the 7th principle in which he argues that one may disseminate untruths for the greater good of society. Once he believes that, we are left to wonder about everything he wrote: did he really believe that or was there a political (in the Aristotelian sense) agenda behind it. To then preference the yad over the moreh is a personal bias. You and I as Orthodox Jews would like to believe that he believed every word in the yad and that the stuff he says in the moreh, oftentimes contradicting Chazal and the mesorah, was only said for the greater good of society-he personally didn't believe them. The non-observant philosopher, on the other hand, would say the opposite, that in the Moreh he articulates what he really believed, not in the Yad. Ultimately there's no objective measure to determine who's right. R. Isidore Twersky in his book on the Rambam tried to argue that there is no stira, that the moreh and the yad compliment each other. I don't find his arguments compelling. These two sefarim are incompatible and, ultimately, we are left in the dark, never able to objectively determine which of the two Rambam's sefarim were written with ulterior motives. You then write "I am uncomfortably using the Rambam as a poster boy for rationalism." I am using "rationalism" in a loose colloquial sense. Rambam believed in an evidence based religiosity, that we believe in God because His existence can be proven. That project, IMHO, failed. For every proof proving existence there's a proof to the contrary. That is precisely why I believe that the non-rationalist/Kabbalist approach is a better option. They offer an a-rationalist approach ("a-rational," not to be confused with "irrational," they're not the same). They believe because they chose to believe not-because they are "convinced." Their mehalach is more appealing to our post/modern generation where few people believe in absolute truths, and, it's also truer to our tradition. We were always a a-rational tradition until Maimonides came along and changed that. Which brings me to my next point. You then write "...means accepting Chazal's historical and scientific claims as being from ruach haqodesh. And not stam as meshalim." implying that I believe that stories in Chazal or Torah are meshalim. [Chas lei lezar'eih deAvraham deleimru hakha]; God forbid that I should make such a suggestion. I am saying something radically different. We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims. A faith claim is a religious "belief" not a scientific claim. Two things distinguish the chasid's experience of reading Torah from the philosopher's experience. When the chasid reads those stories he or she a) doesn't pause to ask if it's "true" they just learn it. "Truth" isn't a primary orientation of their encounter with toras Ha'shem. B) In the event that he does pause to ask the "truth" question, his approach is a-rational and unscientific. The truth question, for him or her, is internal to the system as is the solution. It truthfully and absolutely happened in the Torah. It's not denying the claim, it's just ignoring the scientific objective layer. Because the chasid's yiddishkeit happens exclusively in the religious realm. I also think there's a lot of confusion between what I'm arguing and what you're responding to. Briefly: 1) As I wrote to Chana: Chassidim and chassidut is not same. Chassidim today have little to do with chassidut. Contemporary chassidic philosophy is a complete deviation from original chassidut. 2) A-rationalism isn't one iota less sophisticated than rationalism. These are two parallel philosophies each with their own set of nuanced assumptions, postulates, and assumptions. 3) My program has nothing to do with neo-chassidut. NC is a behaviorist movement with very little philosophical underpinning. I'm proposing a theological program which also happens to have behavioral implications. Rabbi Ysoscher Katz Chair, Department of Talmud, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School; Director of the Lindenbaum Center for Halakhic Studies; Educational Director of Judaic Studies, Luria Academy, Brooklyn, NY.; Rabbi, Prospect Heights Shul. E-mail: ysoscher at gmail.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 08:55:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 11:55:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] 100% Vegetable oils etc. (Walker Crisps) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <557DA3F6.8050406@sero.name> On Areivim, Kaganoff wrote: > Zev Sero wrote: >> Kaganoff wrote: >>> Zev Sero wrote: >>>> Kaganoff wrote: >>>>> I would be rather surprised if there was a genuine kashrus concern >>>>> from with the Walker Crisps from any meat contamination. >>>>> Any meat would be batel. >>>> It's flavouring. >>> We hold of bittul b'shishim. >> Only as a general assumption that at that dilution it can't be tasted. >> Not applicable to concentrated flavourings which are designed to be tasted >> at high dilution. > That is a chumrah that you could adopt, but should not force on others. Why do you call it a chumra? Do you deny that the din is about ta`am, not percentage, and bitul beshishim is merely a general assumption that at that level of dilution there is no ta`am? >>> And it's a not a flavoring for this particular product. So it is not >>> avida l'ta'amei, even at less than 60. >> Since when does the fact that it wasn't intended to be in this product make it >> not intended for its taste? > That is why companies spend thousands of dollars perfecting formulas > for what is and is not used in a product. If it is not used as an > ingredient, then it was not meant to flavor this product. Once again, so what? Where did you get this idea that it matters whether it was intended to be in this product? Perhaps you're thinking of nosen ta'am lifgam, and saying that even a pleasant flavour, if it was not intended to be in a particular dish, may be considered a pegam in that dish. But that doesn't work. Suppose a chef created a dish flavoured with lard, but made a mistake; he put in too much, or too little, or didn't cook it long enough, or cooked it too long, or at the wrong temperature, and the final flavour of the dish isn't what he was aiming for. It's pleasant, and the diners eat it up and compliment him, but he knows that it wasn't meant to taste like that, and his recipe needs work. Can you imagine calling that dish pagum, and allowing it to be eaten?! That's obviously not tenable. So how is this case any different? A pleasant and desirable flavour has made its way into a product that wasn't intended to have that flavour. Does that make it pagum?!! No. It's a good product, it's just not the product that's on the label. The product that's on the label is kosher, but the product that's inside the packet is treif, exactly as if a labelling error had occurred. >>>>> Stam Keilim Ain ben Yomo. >>>> Are you joking? That klal is clearly not true in any commercial setting. >>> Why do you assume that it is clearly not true. Or rather you are >>> assuming that in a majority of cases, meat is used the same day as >>> the kosher product. That strikes me as a bit extreme. >> It's not at all extreme. Everyone knows that commercial equipment is almost >> *never* idle for 24 hours at a time. And since the meat flavouring is a >> regular product it stands to reason that it's processed every day. > Do you know this for a fact about this particular plant? Otherwise, > it's an assumption that you can make, as per Chazal. Everyone knows that it's true about *all* commercial equipment. And we have no right to "assume" something we know not to be true. Stam keilim einom bnei yomam is simply not a valid rule in the context of commercial equipment today. >> In any case, the issue here isn't keilim, since the flavouring is cold, and >> sprayed on cold chips. If it were keilim then there would be no bittul >> beshishim, since stam keilim are more than 1/60 of their contents. No, >> the issue here is the residue of actual flavouring that remains in the >> equipment after the meat flavours are run, until it is cleaned. > Which again would be batel within the first few products of the new run. It might be, if we knew the order in which the flavours are run. But they refuse to disclose that information. What we do know is that the plain chips are run first, so they're acceptable. After that all bets are off. There is no way to be sure that the packet of non-meat-flavoured chips you are eating was not the first one off the rank immediately after a meat run. >>>>> It's not Avida L'Ta'amei, etc. >>>> It's precisely avida letaama -- it's a flavouring! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 16:53:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 19:53:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> References: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150614235339.GA15695@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 01:30:46AM -0400, Ysoscher via Avodah wrote: : R. Micha, you write "I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle : applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word : in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think : "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." : : This is pure conjecture, perhaps even wishful thinking. The Rambam : shares the 7th principle in which he argues that one may disseminate : untruths for the greater good of society.... Yes, but he says it in an introduction explaining a particular kind of book -- which the Moreh is, and the Yad isn't. Whereas the Yad self-describes as being Mishneh Torah, explanation, not obfuscation. So why look to the intro to the Moreh to muddle what the Rambam himself says was the point of the Yad? In either case, the Rambam describes Yad and the Peirush haMishnayos a explanations written to be comprehensible to the masses. Moreh 2:35 (el-Qafih ["Kapach"]): Kevar bi'arti likhlal benei adam ... veheivesi ra'ayos al kakh ubirartav bePeirush haMishnah ubeMishneh Torah... : You and I as Orthodox Jews would like to believe that he believed every : word in the yad and that the stuff he says in the moreh, oftentimes : contradicting Chazal and the mesorah, was only said for the greater : good of society-he personally didn't believe them. The non-observant : philosopher, on the other hand, would say the opposite, that in the : Moreh he articulates what he really believed, not in the Yad. Actually, I tend to side with the anti-Mamonidians. Mostly because his model of redemption leaves people like my son Shuby (who has Downs) wandering around the palace with no hope of getting in. (To paraphrase 3:51.) : You then write "I am uncomfortably using the Rambam as a poster boy : for rationalism." : : I am using "rationalism" in a loose colloquial sense... Which is so loose as to be meaningless. The Rambam predated science, and followed the secular authority. Rationalism today refers to emprical and other objective proof. : That project, IMHO, failed. For every proof : proving existence there's a proof to the contrary. That is precisely : why I believe that the non-rationalist/Kabbalist approach is a better : option. They offer an a-rationalist approach ("a-rational," not to be : confused with "irrational," they're not the same). They believe because : they chose to believe not-because they are "convinced." Yeah, but so does the Gra's Qabbalah or Mussar. Mussar in particular replaces the Rambam's akrasia based on knowlege / wisdom, and therefore redemption through getting the right knowledge, with talk of first-hand experience, emotions, subconscious, etc... : You then write "...means accepting Chazal's historical and scientific : claims as being from ruach haqodesh. And not stam as meshalim." implying : that I believe that stories in Chazal or Torah are meshalim. : : [Chas lei lezar'eih deAvraham deleimru hakha]; God forbid that I should : make such a suggestion. I am saying something radically different. Well, I wouldn't lump the two together. The Rambam is far from alone in considering aggadic stories to be meshalim repeated with not concern about historicity. Much like you wrote -- an authentic attitude toward such things would be to not care about what really happened. Not to assert they are or aren't historical. (Although the Rambam would tell you to assume the wilder ones aren't historical, lest you make a joke out of the Torah -- the first two of the three katim described in his haqdamah to mishnah Cheileq.) : We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims. A : faith claim is a religious "belief" not a scientific claim... Agreed. BUT... the kind of problem I thought you were trying to address was the person who felt the Torah and academia conflict. To invoke this dichotomy to resolve the issue would be to allow people to assert ahistoricity, rather than avoiding a position altogether. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The true measure of a man micha at aishdas.org is how he treats someone http://www.aishdas.org who can do him absolutely no good. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Samuel Johnson From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 06:49:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ken Bloom via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 09:49:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What FDA Learned About Dark Chocolate and Milk Allergies Message-ID: > > > Actually it sounds to me that one very much can rely on the > > label (from this example). The trace amounts [the LBD are] talking > > about are much, much less than 1/60. Completely bateil, > > totally parve, but enough to elicit an allergic reaction. > I remember learning about a machlokes concerning whether we hold dairy > can be batel to pareve, or whether we say that since there is no loss (at > least, not the total loss that we have when something becomes nonkosher) > we should simply consider it dairy. But I don't remember how we hold on > this issue. Anyone else? > And shouldn't these questions be on Avodah? > Akiva Miller What's the machloket? Doesn't the Rema YD 99:6 clearly hold that that milk is batel in parve? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 14:00:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 17:00:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safeik and Multivalent Logic Message-ID: <20150615210040.GA17358@aishdas.org> Back on Fri, 14 May 2004 10:45am EST (yes, 11 years ago) I wrote on the thread "Valid halachic change" I wrote: > I was at a yarchei (yarei'ach? shavu'ah -- since it was only a > week?) kallah during Elul in Boston where RYBS explicitly said is wasn't. > He also speaks about multivalent logic in halakhah in numorous places > in Ish haHalakhah. From the [yarchei kallah]: > An esrog that was used for the mitzvah is qadosh and assur behana'ah > that entire day. And since it's qadosh bein hashemashos, it's gadosh > part of the next day and therefore assur behan'ah the entire next day. > RYBS asked (as do many) mimanafshach: Either BhS is part of the first > day, and there's an isur hana'ah BhS. But in that case BhS isn't part > of the next day, and on that day han'ah should be mutar. Or, BhS is part > of the 2nd day, and the issur would end BhS! > Rather, for certain sefeiqos both chalosim apply. It's only when the > chalos turns into a pe'ulah that we are forced to choose. > Therefore, one can daven either minchah or ma'ariv BhS. Even switch off > between days. But not both in the same BhS. > This is why a woman who is from safeiq chalal history (Rashi and Tosafos > disagree on details of the case) is called an "almanas issah", the widow > of a dough, a mixture. > This shtims with the teshuvas RAEiger distinguishing kol deparish meiruba > parish and kol kavu'ah kemechtzah al mechtzah. When the question is one > of pasqening on an unknown situation, we follow rov. When one is trying > to resolve a question that arose after the pesaq, rov doesn't apply. > Rov is a non-boolean state, something between yes and no. Therefore, > it does not apply after we've taken the question from the realm of > machshavah to that of ma'aseh. > Also, Rav Tzadoq (Resisei Laylah 17) distringuishes between the logic of > machshavah and that of pe'ulah, saying that when it comes to machshavah, > it's impossible to consider one thing without also considering its > opposite. RThK then develops this idea to explain eilu va'eilu as being > about real plurality. (More on this when I summarize the articles whose > URLs have been posted to the list.) I'm repeating all this because, once again, AhS Yomi showed me that something I thought I understood was more complicated than I realized. AhS OC 638:5 distinguishes between muqtza machmas mitzvah and other forms of muqtza when it comes to migo de'isqatzei bein hashemashos, isqatza'ei lekhulei yoma. And so, sukkah and its decorations (the topic of OC 688) are muqtzah the following day. But beitzah shenoledah beYT rishon is not muqtzah on the next day. So the example RYBS brings of esrog fits this pattern too -- muqtzah machmas mitzvah is muqtzah the day after it's used for the mitzvah. However, RYBS used it to make a general point about the nature of BhS, and I surmized safeiq in general. I don't understand how we can, if even withint the topic of mutqzah we find BhS acting both like a mixture of states and being in one of the two states -- although we don't know which -- depending on the kind of muqtzah we're talking about. Thoughts, anyone? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The Maharal of Prague created a golem, and micha at aishdas.org this was a great wonder. But it is much more http://www.aishdas.org wonderful to transform a corporeal person into a Fax: (270) 514-1507 "mensch"! -Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 14:44:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 17:44:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Worker or Craftsman In-Reply-To: <5579B89C.8060902@sero.name> References: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> <5579B89C.8060902@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150615214430.GA17695@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 12:34:36PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Eruvin 65a: Anan po`alei diy'mamei anan. The context is talmud Torah, and speaks to the fact that when it comes to Torah, it's the amount of learning, not the success at comprehension, that matters most. See also the Me'iri ad loc, who says simply that R' Nachman bar Yitzchaq is saying we should learn the whole day, because that's the only way we'll fully understand. Which alines with R' Zeira's statement, when he was complemented "Mechadedan shema'iskha!" and he replied "diyemama ninhu." I do not think it can be applied to my question -- whether life is a job of "be good as long as you're here", or if we each have a specific task we were put here to accomplish. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Take time, micha at aishdas.org be exact, http://www.aishdas.org unclutter the mind. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 15:01:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 18:01:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] 100% Vegetable oils etc. In-Reply-To: <20150610.215234.27464.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150610.215234.27464.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150615220103.GB17695@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 01:52:34AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : ... I would think that non-kosher flavorings cannot be batel. Bitul : is a mathematical procedure by which we can presume that the non-kosher : ingredient is not noticeable... In fact, the only time the mishnah invokes bitul beshishim is with min bemino, so that you can't tell which of two identically tasting substances one is tasting. (Chullin 7:4-5, Zevachim 8:6) Rava (Chullin 97a-b) says that if a non-Jew can be asked to taste a substance, we rely on their statement, but if not (eg min bemino), then we use batel beshishim. In contrast, Bar Kaparah holds kol issurin shebiTorah is beshishim. Ta'am is just a derabbaanan that doesn't allow us to use the fundamental 1/60 bitul. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you're going through hell micha at aishdas.org keep going. http://www.aishdas.org - Winston Churchill Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 11:20:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 14:20:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> References: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150616182036.GA13263@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 6:34pm EDT, RYK wrote: : 1) You are making the mistake many others are making as well, conflating : chassidim with chassidut. Chassidic life today has very little to do with : original chassidut. Early chassidut was a revolutionary theological : movement which appealed to a small elitist group... I thought Chassidus started out a kiruv movement, designed to bring Judaism to the kind of people Litta's focus on learning left without religion. Like the story of the boy who played his prayers on his flute, or the one who recited the alef beis over and over and begged HQBH to weave them into the right words. But in any case, to get closer to the point I intended to make... ... : 2) Kabbalah and chassidut isn't about warmth and community. It's a highly : sophisticated philosophical system which offers a nuanced alternative : to the Maimonidean/rationalist approach. : While the approach is a-rational, it isn't irrational. I am not sure how you're using "a-rational". Even after your consequent explanation (posted Sun Jun 14, 1:30am EDT): : They offer an a-rationalist approach ("a-rational," not to be : confused with "irrational," they're not the same). They believe because : they chose to believe not-because they are "convinced." What is this a-rational stance that is also highly philosophical and yet not the experiential chassidus of the nostalgic memories with which you opened your blog post? I cannot figure out what you're getting at. Contining the first post: : 3) Finally, I'm not sure I understand your point about the Rambam. The : Rambam says that he believes it is justified to fool and mislead the : masses. That to me is highly problematic. And in the follow-up post he elaborated: : R. Micha, you write "I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle : applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word : in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think : "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." In an introduction to a philosophical book he thought was a bad idea to write that he produced as a necessary evil. Thus the title of the Moreh Nevuchim. It's a tactic he had to reveal the esoteric to those ready for it while keeping it esoteric. Recall, that while we think of Pardes's "sod" as Qabbalah, to him it was more like the Moreh. In the Pesichah the Rambam limits the need of obfuscation to the topics of Maaseh haMerkavah and Maaseh Bereishis. So, after the first 5 chapters of the Yad, the whole discussion in the pesichah and haqdamah of the Moreh wouldn't apply. ... : We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims... Just like I loathe using the word rationalism because it's so vague in meaning as to just add to the confusion, let me add the word "fact". We use it to mean (a) a truth, (b) an empirical/physical truth, (c) a truth established by evidence, (d) an empirical truth established by evidence, and in legal settings: (e) the empirical evidence itself ("let me present the facts of this case"). : We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims. A : faith claim is a religious "belief" not a scientific claim... ... and therefore there is a gap between religious beliefs and scientific claims. Belief is yet another dangerous word. Knowledge is classically (Plato) defined as a justified true belief. In that sense, anything you accept as true is a belief. Other times we use belief in contrast to knowledge. A usage that ends up undermining confidence in something we seem to overtly be claiming is true. After all, if you think it's true, and you think you have real reason to think it's true, why say "believe" rather than "know"? Which gets me back to the point, I hope. You talk about belief in chassidus being an act of will. Personally, I agree with Rihal when he has the chaver note that anything one philosopher can prove, another can prove the opposite. (Kuzari 1:13) Religion isn't amenable to proof, and that's why Scholasticism, the idea of giving religion a philosophical underpinning, lost momentum centuries ago. The reasons why are two-fold: First, negi'os. People cannot really objetively think about these topics. They end up liking proofs of disliking proofs based on where they already decided things should end up. Like one of the truisms in my signature file generator says: The mind is a wonderful organ for justifying decisions the heart already reached. So, whether or not you agree that some postulate is self-evident (Kant: synthetic a priori) and therefore the proof works will depend more on whether you want to believe than actual obviousness. Second, the experiences upon which religious belief gets justified are internal. Questions of whether Shabbos, kashrus, or some of the more elegant outcomes of lomdus statisfy my Search For Meaning (Frankl) is quite a bit more difficult (usually impossible) to duplicate for someone else. Unlike a getting someone else to experience something empirical that you did by repeating a science experiment. But I think chassidic belief, even as per your description of it, is rational rather than an act of will. It's not Scholastic, expecting the kind of proof that would have make R' Saadia Gaon or the Rambam happy, but it is based on deriving a conclusion that fits one's evidence (ie experiences). I would say "rational" but not "rationalist", except that just highlights how many problems we get into throwing around the word "rationalism". This is true about how emunah works whether speaking about why people become BT, go OTD, or even if we're speaking of the Rambam. The Rambam lived in a world that didn't value non-philosophical justification, so he felt that real emunah required Scholasticism. (There was a time, not that long ago, when most people's emunah was backed by Reliabilism. My parents and community have a track record of being reliable sources of truth, so I trust them on this too.) To my mind, the difference is whether someone values the chizuq emunah of affirming that conclusions with that half of the philosophical proofs that end up in the right place. The rationalist does so, thinking that's *why* he believes (despite the Kuzari). Some of us simply enjoy philoosphy or consider such explorations to be part of talmud Torah. And others simply don't need the exercise. : a) doesn't pause to ask if it's "true" they just learn it. "Truth" : isn't a primary orientation of their encounter with toras Ha'shem. B) In : the event that he does pause to ask the "truth" question, his approach : is a-rational and unscientific... Again, if it's taken for granted as being true, truth is still at issue. Moreso, they really don't discuss truth because trueh is a given. It's like water not being the primary orientation of fish. : It truthfully and absolutely : happened in the Torah. It's not denying the claim, it's just ignoring : the scientific objective layer. Because the chasid's yiddishkeit happens : exclusively in the religious realm. Lets plow through the words and just ask outright: A chassid would take it for granted that a time traveler would find the Yam Suf divided into 13 tunnels with everything you might want available to be plucked from the walls. No? You may deprecate the importance of that historical claim to the belief system of Chassidic Judaism. I would agree that chassidim do not consider the historicity important. But the belief is there, and for reasons that speak volumes about the gap between chassidus and MO as a potential target audience. Chassidim have to accept the historicity of this midrashic elaboration of Qerias Yam Suf because maximalism and acceptance of rabbinic authority run much stronger in comparison to confidence in one's own truthometer in chassidus. Part of the value of having a rebbe is to believe he has access to truths I don't. And similarly one's rebbe's rebbes, and so on through Chazal and whomever repeated that medrash. To a community that teaches the value of other sources of knowledge, such as secular historians or other professionals, such maximalism is impossible, and therefore bitul to a rebbe will always be limited. Yes, it would be of value to realize that historical claims are non-central to religion. It makes it much easier to table any questions one might have in those areas as not being important, therefore not very pressing. Things that can wait for an answer rather than being responded to now, with what I know now, or taken as an upshlug. ... : 3) My program has nothing to do with neo-chassidut. NC is a behaviorist : movement with very little philosophical underpinning. I'm proposing a : theological program which also happens to have behavioral implications. I understood this. However, NC is an indication of what elements of chassidus actually were found useful by MO Jews. You're theorizing which elements you thought would in theory be more useful. I am asking about the difference between the two. If your theory were correct about what MO could use, wouldn't the Neo-Chassidim have locked on to those three points? IOW, I know they are different, and some idea as to how -- but why? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Weeds are flowers too micha at aishdas.org once you get to know them. http://www.aishdas.org - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 11:53:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 18:53:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Asking your questions to one authority Message-ID: <45cbca92b332457591636332317a5855@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> I'm looking for sources concerning a requirement or good advice concerning asking all your questions to one authority. According to some commentaries the mishna (actually mentioned twice) in Avot concerning aseih lcha rav points in this direction as does the gemara in eiruvin on not picking all the leniencies of both beit hillel and shammai. OTOH the gemara in avodah zara about not asking 2 rabbis is interpreted as applying only to the particular question at hand. From a Brisker theory angle wouldn't the existence of overarching theoretical constructs argue that all your questions should go to one authority so as to avoid the possible tartei dsatrei on a meta-theory basis (i.e. psak in kashrut case a may share a construct with psak in business case b)? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 13:36:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 16:36:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Asking your questions to one authority In-Reply-To: <45cbca92b332457591636332317a5855@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> References: <45cbca92b332457591636332317a5855@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <558088EA.2070102@sero.name> On 06/16/2015 02:53 PM, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > From a Brisker theory angle wouldn?t the existence of overarching > theoretical constructs argue that all your questions should go to one > authority so as to avoid the possible tartei dsatrei on a meta-theory > basis (i.e. psak in kashrut case a may share a construct with psak in > business case b)? Hilchesa keRav be'isurei vechiShmuel bedinei. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 16:30:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 19:30:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why Chassidut In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150616233048.00B061836ED@nexus.stevens.edu> At 02:20 PM 6/16/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: > From Rav Yehoshua Shapira (my quick translation) > >The idea that Chassidut?s positive atmosphere isn?t obligatory is a >serious mistake. Not only is it obligatory, but it brings with it more >obligations. Without emphasis on the Mitzvot of ahava and yirah, simcha >and deveikut (which are the soul of the 613 mitzvot) the mitzvot remain >external actions, technical, something which doesn?t affect or uplift >the heart and soul. > >Those doreitta mitzvot, which are the pinimiot of all mitzvoth, demand >from a person and from us to give their entire being when doing a >mitzvah. . . .. In the performance of mitzvoth, God wants our hearts. >Therefore, Chassidut definitely demands deep dedication. > The following is from Rav Dr. Y. Breuer's Essay "Our Way" that appears in the collection of Rav Breuer's essays titled A Unique Perspective. One should not confuse Chassidus with the so-called Chassidic movement that began in Poland in the 18th century. The latter met the needs of the Jewish masses who lived in terrible misery, and thus spread rapidly. Tefillah was projected into the foreground, from which flowed strength and faith in God; dances and songs induced enthusiasm and joyfulness; the stress on human and hu- mane qualities increased the self-respect of the impoverished. Thus, without a doubt, Chassidism saved these Jewish masses. However, the resulting frequent neglect of Torah study led to justified protest by Torah giants and caused a regrettable inner rift, which was subsequently healed when a great Chassidic leader returned the study of Torah to its rightful central position. Genuine Chassidic Jewishness strives for Chassidus, which in itself is a lofty achievement on the ethical ladder which the Yehudi must attempt to climb. This is demonstrated for us by R. Pinchas ben Yair (Avodah Zarah 20b): Our highest duty is Torah and its study; this leads to carefulness which in turn leads to active striving; to guiltlessness; to purity; to holiness; to modesty; to the fear of sin; and, finally, to Chassidus. Accordingly, a Chassid is a Jew who gives himself in limitless love to the Divine Will and its realization, and to whom the welfare of his fellowmen constitutes the highest source of satisfaction (see Chorev, Ch. 14). Thus, in the Talmudic era, the title ?Chassid? was a mark of highest distinction ? and this is what it should be today. The so-called Chassid who confines his Avodah to prayer does not deserve this title, as this ?Avodah of the heart? does not call him to the Avodah of life where he must practice and apply the precepts of Chassidus. He does not deserve this title if he is particular regarding the kashrus of his food but fails to apply the precepts of conscientiousness and honesty to his business dealings. He does not deserve this title if his social life is not permeated by love and deep interest in the welfare of his fellowmen; if he does not shun quarreling, envy or even abominable lashon harah; if he does not earnestly strive to acquire those midos for which Rav Hirsch (in his Chorev) calls so eloquently. Certainly the mere exhibition of a certain type of clothing or the type of beard worn or even the adornment of long sideburns does not entitle the bearer to the title of honor?Chassid. These may be marks of distinction ? but they must be earned to be deserved. Even study of the Zohar does not necessarily signify the attainment of Chassidus. If this were so, only a few chosen ones would be eligible. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 23:03:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2015 09:03:25 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] If and When In-Reply-To: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 5:00 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > Please note: In the excerpt of the Mechilta which the Torah Temimah quotes > regarding the mizbe'ach, R' Yishmael says that there are 3 cases where "im" > is not optional, but the other two are not specified. This is very > different than the Torah Temimah about lending money. > > Torah Temimah Shmos 22:198 does quotes R' Yishmael in the Mechilta, but it > doesn't mention the word "im" explicitly, nor is there any reference to two > other cases. He simply asks whether it is a reshus or a chovah to lend > money, and he answers that the obligation appears in Parshas Re'eh. I find > it curious that this Mechilta is worded so differently than the previous > one, but the message is clearly the same. You see this quite often in the Torah Temima when a derasha says something about a number of pesukim in parallel. He quotes the same source in each place, but redacts it so that it appears to be referencing only that specific verse. An example in last week's parasha is the Yerushalmi that all 10 commandments are referenced in Kiryat Shma`, quoted on 15:39 and 41 (OK, not such a close parallel because in that case he does make the cross-reference and quotes the whole passage on Shemot 20:2, but there are plenty of other examples) In any case, inside the Mechilta on both verses in Shemot all three "im"s are listed each time, including bikkurim. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=38109&st=&pgnum=245 http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=38109&st=&pgnum=317 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 17 02:14:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2015 05:14:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Talks by Rav Shimon Schwab, ZT"L Message-ID: <20150617091410.A8547183759@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://torahdownloads.com/shiur-24386.html YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 17 04:00:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2015 07:00:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] =?iso-8859-1?q?Soul_Terminology=2C_and_Expressions_of_Lo?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ve=3A_Proper_Frum_Expression_In_The_Lens_of_the_Ashkenaz_T?= =?iso-8859-1?q?radition_=96_Gleanings__From_Rav_Shimon_Schwab?= Message-ID: <20150617110051.2F7B9183762@nexus.stevens.edu> Please see http://tinyurl.com/q64ehha YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 18 06:50:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2015 09:50:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Ishbaal's Jar Message-ID: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> According to TOI or , discusses finding a jar that dates to around 1020-980 BCE (Iron Age), breating the name the name of Ishbaal ben Beda. Ishbaal is Divrei HaYamim's name for the son of Shaul whom seifer Shemuel calls Ishboshet. (Probably because bearing the name of Baal is a bushah.) Allegedly "Among Judeans, personal names evoking Baal fell out of fashion after the 10th century, but not so among their Israelite cousins to the north." Lisa, does any of this relate to strengthening or weakening the case for revisionist dating? (Newcomers might wish to see the Jewish Action article Lisa has on her site at to understand why I asked.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person must be very patient micha at aishdas.org even with himself. http://www.aishdas.org - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 18 07:43:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2015 17:43:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Ishbaal's Jar In-Reply-To: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> References: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 4:50 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > According to TOI < > http://www.timesofisrael.com/inscription-bearing-name-from-davidic-era-found-at-ancient-site > > > or , discusses finding a jar that dates to around > 1020-980 BCE (Iron Age), breating the name the name of Ishbaal ben Beda. > See also http://bit.ly/1F2HFD9 (= https://www.academia.edu/12775087/The_%CA%BEI%C5%A1ba%CA%BFal_Inscription_from_Khirbet_Qeiyafa) for a more detailed excavation report. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 19 11:46:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 13:46:46 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Ishbaal's Jar In-Reply-To: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> References: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55846396.5000207@starways.net> On 6/18/2015 8:50 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > According to TOI > or , discusses finding a jar that dates to around > 1020-980 BCE (Iron Age), breating the name the name of Ishbaal ben Beda. > > Ishbaal is Divrei HaYamim's name for the son of Shaul whom seifer > Shemuel calls Ishboshet. (Probably because bearing the name of Baal > is a bushah.) The standard form for names in most of the ancient near east was DN-stem, or stem-DN, where DN is a divine name. We have this pattern ourselves with names like Chizki-Yahu and N'tan-El, or El-Chanan and Yeho-natan. From what I've seen, it wasn't unheard of for people to refer to the same person, but exchange the DN. So Ish-Boshet for Ish-Baal is in line with Hado-Ram (I Chron 18:10) for Yo-Ram (II Sam 8:10), or Hado-Ram (II Sam 20:24, I Kings 12:18, II Chron 10:18) for Adoni-Ram (I Kings 4:6, 5:28). I don't see any indication that this pattern of name was different towards the beginning or towards the end of the monarchy. That said, Baal in particular sort of declined after the time of Eliyahu. They had newer avodah zarahs to play with. I don't really see a lot of chronological significance here. Yes, they did some radiometric dating, but as always, I would take that with grain of salt until I saw the raw results. When you send something for carbon dating, you tell them first what your target date is, so that they can discard results that are off from that too significantly. Not very scientific, but I guess it's "science-y". Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 19 13:38:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 16:38:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Soul Terminology, and Expressions of Love: Proper Frum Expression In The Lens of the Ashkenaz Tradition ? Gleanings From Rav Shimon Schwab In-Reply-To: <20150617110051.2F7B9183762@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150617110051.2F7B9183762@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150619203804.GA23818@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 17, 2015 at 07:00:53AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Please see http://tinyurl.com/q64ehha On the second example, I'm reminded of the Soloveitchik tradition that emotions are the Qodesh haQadashim of avodas Hashem. And therefore while RSSschwab's position was depited as: > Nowadays one at times witnesses public statements, in the form of songs, > declarations, and even bumper stickers, proclaiming [HQBH anachnu ohavim > Osakh!] (Hashem, we love you), an expression that was not commonly heard > shouted aloud in the past in our circles. Is that in consonance with our > [Mesorah]? Rav Schwab (in his address entitled Internalizing Eternity) > states the following (after 33:20) Since Ahavas Hashem is such a strictly > personal matter, he who truly loves Hashem does not show his [Ahavah]. He > rather hides it. It is far too intimate to parade it in public. He is > mekayeim [vehatzneia lekhes im E-lokekha]. It is exclusively his private > affair, between him and his Creator. Briskers would not expose any emotion. And so, when RYBS left for Berlin, R' Moshe took him to the train station, but there was no emotional goodbye. Even though RMF didn't know if he would ever see his son (and chavrusah) again. RYBS said he knew his father's feelings at the moment, he just knew that he would never display it publicly. Just a simple "Leikh leshalom HQBH zul dir matzliach zein!" Story told far better, in RYBS's own words here In any case, the Brisker approach doesn't speak to too many people in this generation. I would bet many of us would consider it less-than-positive. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger One who kills his inclination is as though he micha at aishdas.org brought an offering. But to bring an offering, http://www.aishdas.org you must know where to slaughter and what Fax: (270) 514-1507 parts to offer. - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 22 06:53:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2015 09:53:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kuntros chasidei umos haolam Message-ID: <0ce401d0acf2$c108d8f0$431a8ad0$@com> The was once a link posted here to a Kuntros chasidei umos haolam (In hebrew) from a Rav in south Africa (I think he was an Ohr Samach graduate) Does anyone have it or a link to it? Thanks, mc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 22 14:32:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2015 17:32:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Two Levels of Bitachon Message-ID: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is from Rav Schwab on Chumash Parshas Shelach. We suggest the following explanation: Hashem demands bitachon of every Jew - trust in Hashem that everything will turn out for the best, without worrying about what the future might bring. Throughout the generations, devout Jews have walked this path. A person with bitachon ultimately will merit to see clearly that, indeed, "All that Hashem does is for the best." There are two types of bitachon. The first is trusting in Hashem with "closed eyes," with no speculation about what may develop. However, there is a second kind of bitachon that is even greater than the first. This is the bitachon of "open eyes." One who follows this path looks ahead and sees clearly that the future might entail great danger, that his life may be full of trials and tribulations. Nevertheless, he does not hesitate, relying on Hashem to help him deal with whatever the future will hold. This kind of bitachon is greater than the first, because someone who trusts in :Hashem with "open eyes" must elevate his bitachon to a much higher level in order to overcome his worries and quiet his concerns. However, as great as this second path is, it is fraught with danger. There is a strong possibility that instead of overcoming one's fears and worries, one will be vanquished by them. A "realistic" evaluation of the challenges could be so frightening as to cause one to lose his bitachon in Hashem altogether. Therefore, :although the bitachon of "open eyes" might be appropriate for certain great people, Hashem does not demand it of us. Hashem only requires us to have the bitachon of "closed eyes"; we need only trust that everything will turn out for the best, in accordance with His will, without considering what the future might hold. This is implied in the pasuk (Yeshayahu 12:2), 11) Behold the G-d of salvation; I shall trust in Him, and I will not fear. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 12:26:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 21:26:11 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Two Levels of Bitachon In-Reply-To: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <5589B2D3.5030908@zahav.net.il> I'm not sure what this is in reference to, the sin of the spies? What does it mean, to live ones life without worrying about the future? You trust in God so therefore you're calm (meaning you live your life the same way anyone else does, but you have inner peace)? Ben On 6/22/2015 11:32 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > We suggest the following explanation: Hashem demands bitachon of every > Jew - trust > in Hashem that everything will turn out for the best, without worrying > about > what the future might bring. Throughout the generations, devout Jews > have walked > this path. A person with bitachon ultimately will merit to see clearly > that, indeed, > "All that Hashem does is for the best." From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 14:34:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 17:34:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Two Levels of Bitachon In-Reply-To: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150623213434.GA30077@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 22, 2015 at 05:32:42PM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : The following is from Rav Schwab on Chumash Parshas Shelach. ... : There are two types of bitachon. The first is trusting in Hashem with "closed : eyes," with no speculation about what may develop. However, there is : a second kind : of bitachon that is even greater than the first. This is the : bitachon of "open eyes." : One who follows this path looks ahead and sees clearly that the : future might entail : great danger, that his life may be full of trials and tribulations. : Nevertheless, he : does not hesitate, relying on Hashem to help him deal with whatever : the future will : hold... I just want to point out that RSS here is assuming the descriptive bitachon of the CI, not the prescrictive bitachon of Novhardok (and many kiruv programs and religious fiction). The Alter of Novhardok taught that bitachon causes positive results. If you trust G-d enough, He will make things turn out the way you desire. And when you point out to said public speaker that indeed life doesn't work that way this idea gets modified into: Hashem will make things turn out the way you'll be happy with once you get to the end of the road. And while I'm being cynical about it, this is unassailable. If things don't yet have a happy ending, it just means the story isn't over yet. You can just push the long run out further and further until you find the happy outcome you promised. In Emunah uBitchon, the CI rejects this notion. He says that bitachon is belief that things are working out according to Divine Plan. A believe in how things run, not a belief that causes things to run right. Rather than the comfort of knowing that you'll like the results, one aims for the comfort that all of life's suffering has meaning and a purpose. RSS presumes the latter and appears to be saying that one can then take this trust in two different ways: - Since Hashem is driving, I don't need to bother looking out the windsheild, it will just stress me out for nothing. - Hashem and I are in partnership, so I cannot refrain from helping Him bring us to our destination, even when it involves heading for trials and tribulations. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is a stage and we are the actors, micha at aishdas.org but only some of us have the script. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Menachem Nissel Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 15:56:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Toby Katz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 18:56:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book Message-ID: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> I recently came across the issue of Jewish Action (the OU's quarterly magazine) of Fall 2000 and in that issue there was a remarkable article. It was a review of a two-volume book called *The Rav: The World of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik* by Rabbi Dr. Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff. The review article was written by R' Philip Weinberger. It was a very laudatory review, written by someone who admired and respected RYBS and who thought the book was excellent. It's important to note that he respected RYBS and admired the book, because when you see what I am going to quote from the review, you might think otherwise. But if you read the whole review you will clearly see that what looks like a negative to me is clearly seen as a positive by R' Weinberger. http://ou.org.s3.amazonaws.com/publications/ja/5761fall/BOOKS.PDF OK here goes -- the most interesting parts of the review (I have mostly dispensed with ellipses, which are distracting): --quote-- [The book] focused my attention on a paradox that confronts me every time a new book or article appears about the saintly Rabbi Soloveitchik, zt"l. In the latter part of the twentieth century, the Rav was one of the most outstanding rabbinic titans, teaching and leading the Jewish people. A master of communication, orally and in print, he left behind multitudes of devoted students and admirers who still hang on his every word. Yet the Rav seems to have left a legacy that is unclear and misunderstood, despite his gifted powers of communication. Among the numerous questions, debated passionately by those who represent themselves as knowing the Rav's authentic thinking, are: What was the Rav's view toward secular education; Torah u'Madda; new religious practices by women; reciting Hallel on Yom HaAtzma'ut; and Religious Zionism? There is a raging battle among his followers as to who may legitimately and authentically present the Rav's opinions, thoughts, ideas and teachings. How could so careful a teacher, who could literally spend hours at a time in shiurim defining with precision the meaning of a particular word or phrase, be misunderstood on so many basic and critical issues? The Rav himself, despite his best efforts, was misunderstood and misquoted in his lifetime by able people who presumably had the best of intentions. The Rav illustrates that he was misunderstood by journalists because of their lack of familiarity with the Rav's precise use of language and terminology, and because the Rav's thoughts, ideas and speech were extraordinarily nuanced, delicate, subtle and sophisticated. However, the book falls short, even on its own terms, in its failure to more deeply explore the complexity and nuances of the Rav's thoughts and insights that were influenced by the religious, existential, and personal tensions that the Rav experienced and talked about. Similarly, the book does not treat much of the controversy that sometimes surrounded the Rav in a meaningful way. There is no acknowledgment of how the Rav was inappropriately treated and often marginalized in the yeshivah universe because of his embracing secular studies and Religious Zionism (albeit in a disciplined and highly nuanced manner)... in a letter to Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Shragai, the Rav writes : "If I were to judge this matter (which party to associate with) based on pragmatic or political considerations, I would join the zealots who ask nothing of their members (not diligence in Torah study, not pure fear of Heaven, nor spending money on tzedakah, nor excessive care with regard to mitzvot) except to besmirch our movement. I could clothe myself with the mantle of a tzaddik and 'fighter of the Lord's battles.' " This and other letters to Rabbi Shragai show clearly what a man of principle the Rav was. ...Scholars and laymen alike are indebted to Rabbi Rakeffet for his vital work. --end quote-- Well, you can see why this review would interest me. Let's take a few points: [1] "The Rav seems to have left a legacy that is unclear and misunderstood, despite his gifted powers of communication." I would suggest that the end of the sentence is contradicted by the beginning of the sentence. The main thing that the Rav generally managed to communicate was that one could be a great Torah scholar and also be a brilliant intellectual in secular terms. This was not the text but the ur-text of much of what he wrote. I will add that he did this not for his own honor but for the honor of the Torah, which was often treated with contempt by mid-twentieth century Jews who were rapidly abandoning the Torah. But his opaque Germanic philosophical style of speaking and writing was by its very nature open to multiple interpretations, and could neither be summarized nor re-written in plain American English. [2] "Among the numerous questions, debated passionately by those who represent themselves as knowing the Rav's authentic thinking, are: What was the Rav's view toward secular education; Torah u'Madda; new religious practices by women; reciting Hallel on Yom HaAtzma'ut; and Religious Zionism?" I would have to say that this is a highly unusual thing to say of any gadol. Of which other gadol could it be said that after he taught and wrote for decades, no one could be sure what his position was on the most important issues of his day? [2A] "What was the Rav's view toward Religious Zionism?" and "his embracing Religious Zionism (albeit in a disciplined and highly nuanced manner)..." Those of us who have claimed (based admittedly, at times, on anecdotal evidence and oral reports) that RYBS was not really a Zionist have often been vilified. Yet here a great admirer of RYBS admits that his views were far from obvious, and subject to much disagreement even among his followers. That RYBS was a great lover of Eretz Yisrael -- of that there can be no doubt. That he really believed in the whole aschalta de'geulah ideology of RZ -- highly doubtful. The rest can be left for another time, or another book. [3] "How could so careful a teacher, who could literally spend hours at a time in shiurim defining with precision the meaning of a particular word or phrase, be misunderstood on so many basic and critical issues?" It may be that in a Gemara shiur, trying to define a word with great precision may lead to greater understanding, but out here in the larger world, such precise definitions tend to leave most people scratching their heads. Common everyday words lose their accepted, common meanings, and the many sentences used to define those words lead to greater obscurity rather than clarity. "When I use a word, it means precisely what I want it to mean." But his listeners or readers are often left in the dark. [4] "The Rav was misunderstood...because his thoughts, ideas and speech were extraordinarily nuanced, delicate, subtle and sophisticated." The impression left by all that subtlety and nuance is that he was trying to avoid saying anything controversial that could be quoted in a sound bite. [5] "There is no acknowledgment of how the Rav was inappropriately treated and often marginalized in the yeshivah universe" [6] "...the zealots who ask nothing of their members (not diligence in Torah study, not pure fear of Heaven, nor spending money on tzedakah, nor excessive care with regard to mitzvot) except to besmirch our movement. I could clothe myself with the mantle of a tzaddik and 'fighter of the Lord's battles...' " Maybe [6] at least partially explains [5]. Maybe the way he felt about them was reflected in the way they felt about him. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 17:52:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 00:52:25 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> References: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> Message-ID: Let's take a few points: [1] "The Rav seems to have left a legacy that is unclear and misunderstood, despite his gifted powers of communication." I would suggest that the end of the sentence is contradicted by the beginning of the sentence. [2] "Among the numerous questions, debated passionately by those who represent themselves as knowing the Rav's authentic thinking, are: What was the Rav's view toward secular education; Torah u'Madda; new religious practices by women; reciting Hallel on Yom HaAtzma'ut; and Religious Zionism?" [2A] "What was the Rav's view toward Religious Zionism?" and "his embracing Religious Zionism (albeit in a disciplined and highly nuanced manner)..." [3] "How could so careful a teacher, who could literally spend hours at a time in shiurim defining with precision the meaning of a particular word or phrase, be misunderstood on so many basic and critical issues?" [4] "The Rav was misunderstood...because his thoughts, ideas and speech were extraordinarily nuanced, delicate, subtle and sophisticated." The impression left by all that subtlety and nuance is that he was trying to avoid saying anything controversial that could be quoted in a sound bite. [5] "There is no acknowledgment of how the Rav was inappropriately treated and often marginalized in the yeshivah universe" [6] "...the zealots who ask nothing of their members (not diligence in Torah study, not pure fear of Heaven, nor spending money on tzedakah, nor excessive care with regard to mitzvot) except to besmirch our movement. I could clothe myself with the mantle of a tzaddik and 'fighter of the Lord's battles...' " Maybe [6] at least partially explains [5]. Maybe the way he felt about them was reflected in the way they felt about him. _______________________________________________ I remember reading the original review and being very surprised. [1]&[2]&[3] My general impression is that most of the lack of clarity and misunderstandings are on issues that have little to do with the style issue. I don't think many get concerned about whether Adam I and II ever resolve their dialectic . The main cause of misunderstandings imho can be generously stated as being caused by The Rav's being so sui generis that students could not assimilate the whole of his teachings. The less generous approach would be that some want to be toleh on an ilan gadol and project their own priorities and approaches on him. Could anyone who looked at his life as a whole have any doubt that he valued secular studies? That he was a non-messianic RZ lover of eretz Yisrael seems pretty clear. [4]Or how about the world is complex and our desire (btw very reflective of our host society) is to boil everything down to a sound bite goes against the educational need to understand how to look at complex issues [6]explaining [5] seems to me like the classic blaming the victim for "asking for it". I can only assume the fact that other roshei yeshiva didn't publically call for tolerance was that they did think he, and MO, was krum or they had higher priorities or didn't think their talmidim would listen to them. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 18:07:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 21:07:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: References: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> Message-ID: <20150624010730.GA18745@aishdas.org> Both Ishbitz and Chabad, Rushin and Satmar each beleive theirs is the most accurate understanding of Derekh haBhesh"t. Kelm, Novhardok and Slabodka have very different understandings of R Yisrael Salanter's teachings. RAYK's disagree over what their rebbe meant. Even Moshe Rabbeinu -- he had 70 front-row talmidim and ever since we have had 70 panim laTorah. Any gadol brilliant and subtle enough to be worth following will so outstrip his talmidim that each only grasps onto one facet and interpretation of a more complex original. This is far from unique to RYBS. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you're going through hell micha at aishdas.org keep going. http://www.aishdas.org - Winston Churchill Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 19:01:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 22:01:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: <20150624010730.GA18745@aishdas.org> References: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> <20150624010730.GA18745@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <558A0F65.7090501@sero.name> On 06/23/2015 09:07 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Both Ishbitz and Chabad, Rushin and Satmar each beleive theirs is the > most accurate understanding of Derekh haBhesh"t. Satmar doesn't believe this; rather, it believes that the BSh"T's torah has been lost. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 19:21:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 22:21:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kol Isha Twist Message-ID: <558A1421.3060009@gmail.com> See http://www.kikar.co.il/174128.html or http://www.totpi.com/2/ultra-orthodox-woman-performs-incognito-on-the-x-factor/ It's an interesting loophole: Since kol b'isha erva only applies when you know what a woman looks like, the heavy sunglasses and very modest dress may do the trick. Not middas chassidus, but perhaps on a technicality permitted. KT, YGB -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 07:35:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 10:35:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kol Isha Twist In-Reply-To: <558A1421.3060009@gmail.com> References: <558A1421.3060009@gmail.com> Message-ID: <558AC044.2010107@sero.name> On 06/23/2015 10:21 PM, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah wrote: > > It's an interesting loophole: Since kol b'isha erva only applies when > you know what a woman looks like, the heavy sunglasses and very > modest dress may do the trick. Not middas chassidus, but perhaps on a > technicality permitted. I don't see anything in the two linked articles about such a loophole. And I don't think it would work. Surely you can see enough of her to form some idea, perhaps mistaken, but enough for the yetzer hara to work with. I think the true heter for what she's doing is a lot simpler: she is not machshil anyone, because whoever is watching the show is already seeing and hearing enough women sing that one more makes no difference at all. If she didn't sing, then in all likelihood another woman would do so, wearing much less and acting more provocatively; or else a man would be giving some provocative performance that would be almost as bad. So really what has she done wrong? Those who don't normally watch should continue not to watch, and they won't be affected. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 08:33:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kaganoff via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 11:33:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating Message-ID: I am curious if anyone has written about a common practice. We assume that *Kaddish* is a *Devar she-Bikdusha* and requires a *minyan* to be recited. We require separate seating for a *Devar she-Bikdusha.* In many circles it is not uncommon to have a *siyyum* with a *kaddish *at a Bar Mitzvah or a Dinner even when there is mixed seating. Does anyone explicitly discuss this practice and permit it? Yonatan Kaganoff -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 11:38:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 14:38:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150624183849.GA2711@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 11:33:54AM -0400, Kaganoff via Avodah wrote: : We require separate seating for a *Devar she-Bikdusha.* This is news to me. Do those who say that zimmun with a minyan is a davar shebiqdushah (BY OC 199 "umah shekasav", MB s"q 15) require separate seating at my shabbos table? The AhS (200:6) refers to zimun with 10 as "shekhinta sharia", but I didn't see him mention minyan or davar shebiqdushah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 11:52:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 14:52:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating Message-ID: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> From: Kaganoff via Avodah We assume that *Kaddish* is a *Devar she-Bikdusha* and requires a *minyan* to be recited. We require separate seating for a *Devar she-Bikdusha.* In many circles it is not uncommon to have a *siyyum* with a *kaddish *at a Bar Mitzvah or a Dinner even when there is mixed seating. Does anyone explicitly discuss this practice and permit it? Yonatan Kaganoff >>>> You see something similar when people make an ad hoc minyan at a wedding (or an airport lounge). They don't put up a mechitza. Is this situation explicitly discussed in the halachic literature? It must be. Maybe what applies to one also applies to the other. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 12:32:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 15:32:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating In-Reply-To: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> References: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> Message-ID: <20150624193208.GA22316@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 2:52pm EDT, RnTK wrote: : From: Kaganoff via Avodah :> We assume that Kaddish is a Devar she-Bikdusha and requires a minyan :> to be recited. :> We require separate seating for a Devar she-Bikdusha. : You see something similar when people make an ad hoc minyan at a wedding : (or an airport lounge). They don't put up a mechitza... Slight topic change. You can have separate seating (or locations in general) without a mechitzah. I believe that minyanim were held at the kotel even when the Ottomans didn't let us put up a mechitzah by separating the genders even without one. I see R YH Henkin (Responsa on Contemporary Jewish Women's Issues, pg 124 ) rejects the hava amina that mechitzah is only for an established shul. He requires a mechitzah, not just separate seating at a temporary location for davening. While a minyan is there, the laws of mara miqdash apply. I do not whether he would advised the yishuv hayashan not to daven at the kotel. Tir'u baTov! -Micha Cc: RYHH -- Micha Berger The trick is learning to be passionate in one's micha at aishdas.org ideals, but compassionate to one's peers. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 12:21:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 19:21:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating In-Reply-To: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> References: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> Message-ID: <9d095a46ac044dd88d591c13b05195d1@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Yonatan Kaganoff >>>> You see something similar when people make an ad hoc minyan at a wedding (or an airport lounge). They don't put up a mechitza. Is this situation explicitly discussed in the halachic literature? It must be. Maybe what applies to one also applies to the other. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=922&st=&pgnum=66 where R' Moshe deals with the Mechitza issue but still requires that there not be intermingling. That's the part I'm unsure of. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 16:34:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 19:34:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safeik and Multivalent Logic In-Reply-To: <20150615210040.GA17358@aishdas.org> References: <20150615210040.GA17358@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150624233428.GA29242@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 15, 2015 at 05:00:40PM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : Back on Fri, 14 May 2004 10:45am EST (yes, 11 years ago) I wrote : on the thread : "Valid halachic change" I wrote: :> I was at a yarchei ... kallah during Elul in Boston where RYBS... :> An esrog that was used for the mitzvah is qadosh and assur behana'ah :> that entire day. And since it's qadosh bein hashemashos, it's gadosh :> part of the next day and therefore assur behan'ah the entire next day. ... :> Rov is a non-boolean state, something between yes and no. Therefore, :> it does not apply after we've taken the question from the realm of :> machshavah to that of ma'aseh. : I'm repeating all this because, once again, AhS Yomi showed me that : something I thought I understood was more complicated than I realized. : AhS OC 638:5 distinguishes between muqtza machmas : mitzvah and other forms of muqtza when it comes to migo de'isqatzei bein : hashemashos, isqatza'ei lekhulei yoma. : And so, sukkah and its decorations (the topic of OC 688) are muqtzah the : following day. But beitzah shenoledah beYT rishon is not muqtzah on the : next day. More info at AhS OC 667:1, which distinguishes between sukkah and 4 minim on Shemini Atzeres. Because sukkah would actually be used bein hashmeshos between the 7th day Sukkos and SA (speaking of EY now), a sukkah and its decorations are muqtzah on SA. The esrog, because the mitzvah would habe been done before BhS either way, is not. It would seem the point in 638:5 appears not to be that mutzah machamas mitzvah is special, but because the mitzvah would still apply BhS. : Thoughts, anyone? Still looking for other perspectives! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 25 02:54:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 09:54:58 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book Message-ID: <20150625.055458.3550.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Even Moshe Rabbeinu -- he had 70 front-row talmidim and ever since > we have had 70 panim laTorah. > > Any gadol brilliant and subtle enough to be worth following will > so outstrip his talmidim that each only grasps onto one facet and > interpretation of a more complex original. > > This is far from unique to RYBS. Here's my guess about what made RYBS unique in this regard: On the one hand, he did have his opinions about many things. But that was NOT what he tried to pass on to his talmidim. In fact, he is famous for NOT answering many of the questions posed to him. What RYBS wanted was for his talmidim to be able to decide for themselves. He never wanted to teach his talmidim WHAT to think, but HOW to think. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Buffett???s Warning for YOU 4 in 5 Americans aren???t taking his shocking advice. Click here now. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/558bd00ca32f7500c77efst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 25 08:10:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 11:10:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: <20150625.055458.3550.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150625.055458.3550.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150625151002.GD10708@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 25, 2015 at 09:54:58AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: :> This is far from unique to RYBS. : Here's my guess about what made RYBS unique in this regard: On the : one hand, he did have his opinions about many things. But that was NOT : what he tried to pass on to his talmidim. In fact, he is famous for NOT : answering many of the questions posed to him. What RYBS wanted was for : his talmidim to be able to decide for themselves. He never wanted to : teach his talmidim WHAT to think, but HOW to think. I realize that this is about to get meta, because I'm about to disagree with RAM about RYBS's position and why people disagree about what it was. I thin this is overplayed. Yes, he pushed fledgling rabbis to assert themselves as LOR and not defer every halachic question. But he didn't do this with every talmid, nor with every question. I think people are taking a pedagogic technique used for talmidim to scared to pasqen and turning it into a principle. Im kein ein ladavar sof, and there is no way to say he took positions for anyone but himself and his mispalelim in Boston and Moriah. No Qol Dodi Dofeiq promoting Zionism, no attack on RERackman's beis din, etc... And besides, we aren't talking about whether his talmidim vary, but why the talmidim's understandings of the rebbe's position varied. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Never must we think that the Jewish element micha at aishdas.org in us could exist without the human element http://www.aishdas.org or vice versa. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 25 08:56:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 15:56:25 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Hakarat Hatov Message-ID: Does Hakarat Hatov engender a measurable "liability" (e.g. require a marginally greater action) between the recipient and the provider of the "Tov", or is saying "Thank you, I appreciate it" the only requirement? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 26 01:19:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2015 11:19:39 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book Message-ID: <> In addition like many others RYBS gave different answers to different people depending on the person and circumstances. As a simple example he encouraged his talmidim to move to EY but told some to stay in the US. Also RYBS was big believer in everyone making their own decisions and not simply doing what they were told. Hence, he avoided certain statements so that his talmidim would make up their own minds. It is well known that all the children of RYBS got a PhD. Even his nephew R Meiselman the most charedi in the family received this degree from MIT. Nevertheless he never publically stressed this idea probably because he felt it was a very individual decision -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 27 19:37:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2015 22:37:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government Message-ID: Gut voch to all, What alternative texts exist for the tefillah l'shlom malchus? I have heard that other versions exist, perhaps more suited for a Republic than is "Hanosen teshua la-melachim", but the only version I could find comes from a Conservative source -- putting me in the same situation as R' Eliezer ben Hyrcanus upon hearing a good "vort" in the name of Ben Pandera. Can anyone point me to appropriate sources? --Chesky Salomon From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 27 20:29:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2015 23:29:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: An hour or so ago, I wrote: > What alternative texts exist for the tefillah l'shlom malchus? I remember this topic coming up in the past, though I have not been successful in searching the archives for it. I did find an article by Dr Jonathan Sarna, "A Forgotten 19th-Century Prayer for the United States Government: Its Meaning, Significance, and Surprising Author" [1] which pointed to the "Orthodox prayerbook for American Jews entitled Tefilot Yisra'el. Prayers of Israel. with an English Translation." The variant text Sarna discusses, "Ribbon kol ha-olamim", can be seen at -- but he makes the case that the prayer's author was Rabbi Max Lilienthal, leaving me in the same position as before. (As a side note: I recall one of the J-blogs mentioning a Tefillah for the State written for 1930s Germany under the Nazi government, but I cannot find the post again. Any help?) --Chesky Salomon [1]: http://www.brandeis.edu/hornstein/sarna/americanjewishcultureandscholarship/Archive3/AForgottenNineteenthCenturyPrayerfortheUnitedStatesGovenment.pdf From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 29 05:29:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mordechai Harris via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2015 07:29:07 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Here's the one I shard last time from the De Sola Pool Siddur. -Mordechai - Please excuse typos as this was sent from my cell phone. On Jun 28, 2015 2:59 PM, "Chesky Salomon via Avodah" wrote: > An hour or so ago, I wrote: >> What alternative texts exist for the tefillah l'shlom malchus? > I remember this topic coming up in the past, though I have not been > successful in searching the archives for it... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 29 15:15:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 01:15:23 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jun 29, 2015 at 3:29 PM, Mordechai Harris via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > Here's the one I shard last time from the De Sola Pool Siddur. > > Can you also share the publication details and/or title page of this siddur? What I know as the De Sola Pool Siddur is not the same as in this link. I have the second edition of 1977, and the title page says: BOOK OF PRAYER ACCORDING TO THE CUSTOM OF THE SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE JEWS Edited and translated by DAVID DE SOLA POOL Minister of the Congregation Shearith Israel in the City of New York PUBLISHED BY THE UNION OF SEPHARDIC CONGREGATIONS NEW YORK The prayer for the government begins with the usual "Hanoten teshu`a lamelachim" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 11:55:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Arie Folger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 20:55:34 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government Message-ID: Someone asked about alternate texts of the prayer for the government, more attuned to democracies. I have adapted the classic hanoten teshuah lamelakhim for the US, with variant readings for Canada, for inclusion in the still forthcoming new revised RCA Siddur. Send me a message through my web site (see the sig) and I will gladly share that text with you. -- Yours sincerely, Mit freundlichen Gr??en, Arie Folger blogging at http://www.rabbifolger.net/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 10:22:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Baruch Cohen via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 10:22:13 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] BIRCHAT KOHANIM AT THE KOTEL Message-ID: I plan on being in Israel for Sukkot, and hope to be at the Kotel for Birchat Kohanim. I usually daven early every morning, and the Birchat Kohanim occurs later in the morning. My question is: do I have a Chiyuv to "duchen" if I'm in the audience and the Shaliach Tzibbur announces on the loudspeaker the word: "Kohanim!" Does that trigger a halachic obligation for me to duchen, even if I am in the audience, in the back of the crowd? -- Respectfully, Baruch C. Cohen, Esq. e-mail: BCC4929 at gmail.com LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/baruchcohen From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 12:06:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 15:06:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] BIRCHAT KOHANIM AT THE KOTEL In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5592E8B9.5020201@sero.name> On 06/30/2015 01:22 PM, Baruch Cohen via Avodah wrote: > I usually daven early every morning, and the Birchat > Kohanim occurs later in the morning. My question is: do I have a Chiyuv to > "duchen" if I'm in the audience and the Shaliach Tzibbur announces on the > loudspeaker the word: "Kohanim!" Does that trigger a halachic obligation > for me to duchen No. If you have already duchened that day, you have no further chiyuv, even if you hear the chazan, and even if someone directly tells you to go up. However if you *choose* to duchen for a second (or third, etc) time that day, you may do so with a bracha. (SA OC 128:3) [Email #2. -micha] PS: This applies also in an ordinary shul where they duchen at shachris and musaf. Any cohen who duchened at shachris, and doesn't feel like doing it again at musaf, needn't leave the room. He has no obligation to answer the chazan's call. But those who do answer it duchen with a bracha, because that is takanas chachamim. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 12:26:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 19:26:26 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish Yasom Message-ID: <20150630.152626.19374.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> What is the rule for when we do or do not say Kaddish Yasom (Mourner's Kaddish)? >From what I've seen, it is NOT said even if a minyan says Birkas Hamazon, but it IS said when a minyan says Kiddush Levana. It is NOT said when a minyan says Tehillim even as an organized group, but it IS said on Yom Tov after the Megilla (Shir Hashirim, Rus, Koheles) is read. I do not see any pattern. Does anyone else know of a rule? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5592ed93bb00b6d93482cst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 15:03:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 18:03:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish Yasom In-Reply-To: <20150630.152626.19374.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150630.152626.19374.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5593124A.2040905@sero.name> On 06/30/2015 03:26 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > What is the rule for when we do or do not say Kaddish Yasom (Mourner's Kaddish)? > >>From what I've seen, it is NOT said even if a minyan says Birkas Hamazon, Why would it? > but it IS said when a minyan says Kiddush Levana. Probably because people are used to saying it after Alenu. > It is NOT said when a minyan says Tehillim even as an organized group, Where have you seen it not being said then? I'm surprised that this is your experience. > but it IS said on Yom Tov after the Megilla (Shir Hashirim, Rus, Koheles) is read. Yes, that is my experience as well. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 03:47:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 13:47:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] 13th century zeal Message-ID: I found the following story from R Kaganoff interesting not only for the halachic portion but also to show that community fights are not new The question regarding recital of *mei'ein sheva* when *Yom Tov* falls on Friday resulted in a very heated dispute during the era of the Rishonim. In the time of the *Rivash*, Rabbi Amram ben Meroam, a frequent correspondent of the *Rivash*, wrote him the following *shaylah*: Reuven was the *chazzan* for the Friday night *davening *on a *Shabbos* that immediately followed *Yom Tov*. He began reciting *mei'ein sheva*, when Shimon reprimanded him, contending that one should not recite this *bracha* when *Shabbos* follows *Yom Tov* -- since no one was working on Friday, the reason for the *takkanah* did not apply. Levi then got involved, saying that it is accepted that one *does* recite *mei'ein sheva*on Friday night following a *Yom Tov*. The *shul* then burst into a cacophony of voices, with Shimon's and Reuven's backers screaming at one another. Finally, Shimon shouted that Reuven was desecrating*Hashem's *holy Name, since he was willing to recite a *bracha* in vain, and that if he did, Shimon would declare him to be in *cherem*, excommunicated! Reuven did recite the *bracha mei'ein sheva,* and a day later, opened his door to find Shimon and twenty of his backers there to notify him that he had been excommunicated! The Rivash* was asked to rule whether Reuven was indeed in *cherem* because of Shimon's declaration that he recited a *bracha* in vain, or, perhaps, Shimon should be placed in *cherem* for excommunicating someone without proper cause. The *Rivash* ruled that Shimon was mistaken, and that one should recite *mei'ein sheva* when *Shabbos* follows *Yom Tov*. Therefore, he concluded that Reuven, who followed the correct *halachah*, could completely ignore the *cherem* placed on him. However, he also concluded that since Shimon thought he was acting correctly, we do not excommunicate Shimon for his actions (*Shut HaRivash* #34). -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 06:54:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 13:54:19 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos Message-ID: <20150401.095419.16600.0@webmail12.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitzchok Levine wrote: > Does not the SA say that a person who has trouble chewing > matzah can soak it in water and then eat it? If so, then > I fail to see why eating gebrokts should be a problem for > anyone. The answer will depend on what you mean by "SA". If "SA" refers specifically to the author of the Shulchan Aruch, Rav Yosef Karo, then the answer is that he is not the last word in halacha. There are other authorities, and someone who follows the others could have a problem even with something that the SA allows. If "SA" refers to the Shulchan Aruch in general, then I do not understand your question, since the problem of gebrokts *IS* mentioned by authorities other than Rav Karo. If I'm not mistaken, the Shaarei Teshuva (which is in the printed editions of Mishne Brurah) is a good example. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 11:05:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 14:05:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> I repeated on Areivim RSM's deduction that yayin kal is closest to the alcohol level of chazal's wine. On Wed, Apr 1, 2015 at 9:39am PDT, R Saul Newman wrote to Areivim: > interesting, when seeing in ktubot abaye's widow describing the size of > his wine vessel. by that Percentage, it wouldnt be toxic... Here's RSM's science, and it seems impeccable: By natural means, no alcoholic beverage can get above 12% -- at that level the yeast drowns in its own output. That's why beer and wine tend to be 12%. We can tweak that up to 16% with specially bred yeast, and/or control of temperature and humidity -- not options in Chazal's day. (Higher alcohol drinks are made by distilling out the alcohol from the original 12% liquid.) To add my 2 pence: Their barrels weren't perfect, which means there was more evaporation. But since alcohol evaporates faster than water, that will only lower the percentage alcohol. So we're still at about 12% max. RSM's original line of reasoning, continues: Mezigas hakos is typically at least 1:3, or 25% wine. So, the final product would be at most 3%. A third penny: Now let's discuss how big a revi'is was back then... But even without that, I have no idea how any of them would have gotten anywhere near drunk. Why would R' Yonah have a headache until shavu'os off some 16 oz total of 3% wine? Do we have to assume it was the alcohol? Maybe he was a later owner of Abayei's kos... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Mussar is like oil put in water, micha at aishdas.org eventually it will rise to the top. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 12:08:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 01 Apr 2015 15:08:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> On 04/01/2015 02:05 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Now let's discuss how big a revi'is was back then... But even without > that, I have no idea how any of them would have gotten anywhere near > drunk. Why would R' Yonah have a headache until shavu'os off some 16 oz > total of 3% wine? Do we have to assume it was the alcohol? Maybe he was > a later owner of Abayei's kos... I don't think it's at all plausible that it was the alcohol. I have long assumed that he had some sort of allergy or intolerance for some component of grapes or grape skins, or perhaps for the sulfites with which wine was (and is still) preserved. It's well known that there are people today who get headaches from sulfites. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 12:25:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mordechai Harris via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 14:25:38 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> Message-ID: There is a lot of info here: http://seforim.blogspot.com/2012/10/wine-strength-and-dilution.html Chag Kasher v'Samayach< Mordechai -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 12:30:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 22:30:53 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: There recently appeared a sefer "Keren Zavit" by Nadav Shenrav on parshat hashavua that has a very nice combination of science and Torah. On parshat Tzav he brings a question on the shitah of the Nodah BeYuhuda that eggs doubled in size. The Noda Beyehuda claims that there is a contradiction between two sugyot that find measurements based on either the size of the egg or from length (or volume) measurements. To answer the contradiction the Nodah Beyehuda assumes that our eggs are half the size of those in the days of chazal. (Actually modern eggs are larger than those in his day) The basic point is that in order to translate the measurements of chazal to modern measurements we need a fixed point, ie some measurement that has not changed over the generations. If everything can change we have only relative measurements and not absolute measurements. The Nodah BeYehuda assumes that the width of the thumb is constant. Question: Rambam (maaseh hakorbanot 13:14) states the kemitzah which cinsists of 3 fingers closed over the palm contains 2 kezatim. However 2 kezaytim of 50cc (ie 100cc) is impossible to enclose within 3 fingers. He brings that he saw this question in a series "Bet Aharon VeYisrael" and they answered "nishtanu hateva" i.e. their hands were bigger and could hold 100c of flour within 3 fingers. (In general the author is not impressed with the answer of "nishtane hateva" but he assumes it for this article). However, this leads to an internal contradiction, ie Noda Beyehuda assumes that the size of the thumb has not changed but is required to assume that the size of the hand was much larger in the days of chazal ie how is it possible that their hands were MUCH larger but the width of the thumb remained constant. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 14:11:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 17:11:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150401211129.GA23585@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 01, 2015 at 10:30:53PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : There recently appeared a sefer "Keren Zavit" by Nadav Shenrav on parshat : hashavua that has a very nice combination of science and Torah. : : On parshat Tzav he brings a question on the shitah of the Nodah BeYuhuda : that eggs doubled in size. AISI, there are three distinct questions that generally get lumped together in the annual kezayis discussion: 1- Is "kezayis" a constant volume, or is it pinned to the average olive, or perhaps the average among some subset of breeds of olive as breeding, care and climate change? R' Chaim Volozhiner and the Avnei Neizer say the latter. You might remember my post from last Jan at. . The AhS OC 363:34 says that lehalakhah an ammah is the person involved's forearm. E.g. when measuring 4 amos for tiltul, the din is more chamur for me than for taller people. When coming to mavui or techum, where you need a single pesaq for a whole town, you need a standardized ammah, "ameru chakhamim denimdod lechumerah" it's the length of the arm of some very high percentile of the people relying on it (and possibly 100%) -- "debevadei yeish anashim shezehu midasan". (Also, when dealing with someone with a handicap or amputation, you need to use estimates.) To me this seems to feed RCV's approach. Because both assume that measurements are not absolute, but based on the set of whatevers involved. For example, the AhS's position about the standard ammah would imply that a community that is atypically tall would use a longer ammah for techum than in a ghettod population whose malnutrition stunted their typical growth. 2- If kezayis is a constant volume, do all the accepted overestimates performed and accumulated one atop the other unwind when we have more information about chazal's zeisim? Or do we say that the bottom of the range of measurments that dominate common pratice in one's qehillah is binding as pesaq, and one can't just ignore the now huge safety margin? This is what I argued here when RNS's paper came out http://www.zootorah.org/RationalistJudaism/TheEvolutionOfTtheOlive.pdf (And if so, is that extra amount considered as deOraisa as the original olive volume, because it's a pesaq in a din deOraisa? Or is it a harchaqah, and thus derabban? 3- The actual specifics 3a- If the answe to #2 is that we do roll back the kezayis based on better information about what it was, the metzi'us specifics can still be argued. Such as asking (as I did in passing in #1) which subset of olives to average. 3b- And if the answer is that we don't, then there are halachic process details to ask about. But I think many discussions, including our own previous years' iterations, stuble because they blur these topics rather than keeping them separate, which in turn would force dealing with them in the sequence I gave as well. (Because #2 depends on one kind of answer to #1, and #3 has different flavors depending on #2.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 13:36:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 16:36:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Yaknehaz [was: The Quinoa - Kitniyos Conundrum] Message-ID: In a message dated 4/1/2015 6:28:31 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, micha at aishdas.org writes: On Wed, Apr 01, 2015 at 12:03am EDT, RnTK wrote: : It was the norm in my parental home and is what my husband does too. : In fact I have never seen anyone use a regular havdala candle at a seder! : (Or a single wick candle without joining it to another candle or to a match.) A local yeshiva qetana sells two-wick candles that otherwise look like Shabbos candles as a fundraiser. This way you don't have a fire lasting as long as whatever is left on your havdalah candle, and the whole problem is avoided. >>>>> I wasn't really clear. What my parents used to do (and we do similarly) was to take one Shabbos candle ot of the candlestick and hold its flame close to another Shabbos candle for the bracha, and then put it back in the candlestick it came out of. IOW we use the candles that are already burning on the table anyway. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 14:36:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 17:36:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] partnership - adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties Message-ID: partnership - adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties In describing why person would fast all Passover over and above Jewish Law Practice, you used the words "emotional attachment". In the seven years since that wording , perhaps the message is deeper. Salamone Rossi the Jewish Italian composer, became a hero of the assimilationist movement. See AJS Review volume 26 #1 where where a series of books by one Don Harran re Rossi is reviewed. Twice in Adon Olam, the series of fast phrases of excitement called Tritum or whatever is used twice ??? ???? ??? ???? ???? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ?_?? ??? ????? ???? ???? ... ???? ????? ???? ???? ?????? - ??? ???? ? ???? ???? ????? ??? ?? ?????? - ????? ?? ???? ??? ??? ????? - ??? ????? - ????? ???? - ???? ???? ??? ???? ???? ??? ???? ??????? - ???? ????? ????? ??? - ???? ?? ????? ??? ????? - ????? ????? ???? ?? ????? - ??? ???? ??? ???? ???? ?????? ????? ??? ????? - ?? - ???? ?_?? ??? ????? ???? ???? ... ?????? ?? ?? ??? ???? ??? ??? ?? ???? ???? - ??? ???? ?? ????? ?????? ... ?? ?? ???? ?? GLOOMY THOUGHT NEGATIVE CHARACTERIZATION The reviewer - a music professor at Northeastern U in Boston MA - illustrates that limitless exhaustive research did not turn up for M. Harran the fact that in the surrounding milieu which Mr. Rossi is immersed in - these patterns aare reserved for ttheir Trinity.. Lhavdil elef havdalot. Rossi as a Jew with beating Jewish Heart - in Adon Olam his famous composition - when it came to Our God - he proudly used the pattern of the ecstasy of the Tritium (apologies of not being able to look up - will scan and send but each moment I am in danger of interrruption - ) . Why Yeihareig ? Why not float with the waves? Answer - because it is identity of Jew - visceral reaction necessary! taht is Key! Common motif of Piyut - ?????? ????? ?????? ????? - countering their attempted invasion and depriving us of identity - the desperation of drowning brings us to keep our identity- baby will starve self to reserve independence - if it is deprived from baby Not in complete normal routine vassalry to Hashem. But it is the assertion of identity. Sneh Boeir - Papers of Adoption - of formation of Partnership - not the bylaws which may never be read - but the primary identity of Hasheem as responsible party specifically to act as parent re MY CHILD - thsi is basic bedrock Jew - as Rashi certainly subscribed, and rashbam, and likely R' Yonah even Ramban. For my money - when functioning as Jewish Natnion member - the Rambam himself, codifier of the Doctrinal Jew. Back to subject after rant - A JS Reviewer - just like they show reverence for their Hero - we show reverence for our Hero - One God - that the reviewer explained for the first - ??? ???? ??? ???? ???? ?????? What of second threesome - look in Tur for Ecstasy - OC 5 - ???? ?_?? ??? ????? ???? ???? takif..???? ??? ?????? ??? ????? ???? - ???? ?? ???? ??? ??? ????? ??? - ???? ?? ???? - ??? ???? ???? ?? - ??? ???? - ???? ???? - ??? ???? ??? ??? ???? ??????? ?? ??? - ??? ???? ?? ???? ???? ??? ????? ???? ???? - ?? ?? ??? ?? ???? ???? ?????? ???? ???? - ?? ?????? - ??? ?????? ????? ?????? ???? - ???? ???? ?? ??? ?? - ???? ??? ????? ????? ????? - ??? ??? ????? - ?????? ????? ????? ??? ????? - ?? ??? ??? ???? - ?? ??? ??? ????? - ??? ????? - ???? ?????? ?????? - ???? ???? ?????? ????? ?? ?? - ??? ?? ????? ??? ???? ????? ???? ????? ???? ????? ?????? 148-155 - ?_?_?_? ??? ?? - ????? ???? 148 ???? ???? ?????? - ?? ?????? - ??? ???? ??? ???? ?? ?????? - ??? ????? ????? ????? - ?? ??? ??? ???? ???? ?? ????? =- ??? ???????? ?????? ????? ????? - ?? ???? - ????? - ?????? - ???? ???? - ??? ??? ????? - ??? ??? ?? ????? - ????? ??? ??? ?????? - ??? ????? - ????? ??? ?????? ?????? - ???? ???? ?? ??????? ????? ??? - ????? - ???? ?????? ???? ??? ????? ?????? ???? ????? ??????? ????? ?? - ??? ???? ?????? ???? ??"? - ??? ????? ???? ???? ???? ??? ????? ??? ?? ???? - ???? ?? ??? ?? ???? ???-????? ?? ????? ?? ?? ?????? - ??? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ?? ??????? - EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT IS ZILZUL IN A COVENANT ???? ?????? ?? ??? ???? - ??? ??? ??? ? ?? ????? ????? ??? ?????? ??! ???? ????? - ?? ????? ???? ??? ???? ?? ???? ????? ??? ????? ????? - ?? ??? ??? ???? ????? ?? ??? -- David Wacholder Cell: 917-742-7838 Email: dwacholder at gmail.com dwacholder at optonline.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 18:24:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 12:24:45 +1100 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice Message-ID: Wine in those days was frequently (typically?) flavored with resins or spices, some of which are actually toxic. These resins seem to have had the same effect as hops do in beer: they discourage microbial growth and therefore prevent it from souring and spoiling. This was an important consideration before the invention of Pasteurisation. If R' Yonah was allergic or otherwise sensitive to these resins he may have ascribed his symptoms to the wine itself. Alternatively, perhapshe simply didn't have access to any untreated wine and perhaps he didn't consider raisin "wine" to be chashuv enough. Joe Slater -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 18:27:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 12:27:16 +1100 Subject: [Avodah] Yaknehaz [was: The Quinoa - Kitniyos Conundrum] Message-ID: Another data point: I asked my father O'H about this and he said he'd never heard of anyone using a Havdala candle for YAKNEHAZ, or even joining two flames together. He came from central Hungary, and his rabbi was a great-nephew of Maharam Schick. Joe Slater -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 20:32:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 01 Apr 2015 23:32:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> Message-ID: <551CB836.5040609@sero.name> On 04/01/2015 03:25 PM, Mordechai Harris wrote: > There is a lot of info here: http://seforim.blogspot.com/2012/10/wine-strength-and-dilution.html It is interesting, but I think the author may have made a simple mistake in assuming that when Rashi says their wines were "stronger" than ours, he meant "more alcoholic". That may be what he meant, in which case he was mistaken, but it seems to me that he may have meant "strong tasting", or to put it more bluntly, "sour". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 02:18:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 12:18:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kitniyot Message-ID: see a discussion at http://etzion.org.il/en/pesach-journal by Rav Brosky -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 07:53:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 02 Apr 2015 10:53:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Historic Practice Passover Offering Message-ID: <20150402145402.230A3183730@nexus.stevens.edu> See the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kgbRusmqjs A FILM OF THE PRACTICE PASSOVER OFFERING THE TEMPLE INSTITUTE CONDUCTS UNPRECEDENTED PASSOVER OFFERING PRACTICE DRILL As reported earlier, in preparation for the upcoming festival of Passover, this past Wednesday (5 Nisan - 25 March) the 'Priestly Training Academy' established by the Temple Institute held a Passover offering practice drill. This is a film that documents this event. This was the most accurate and authentic reenactment of this service to have taken place in nearly 2,000 years. ---------- It looks to me that they used machine matzos in this video. If I am correct, then I find this bizarre. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 13:36:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 16:36:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: How many swallows of Matzo are necessary? How many olive tree generations to Calendar Year Tohu and Gan Eden? The following came up last year: FEARLESS RULING FOR PERSON WITH DIFFICULTY EATING: Every average person's swallow is a Kezayit, the amount which fulfils the Mitzvah and is the measure for the Bracha on Achilas Matza. As a Hidur and to erase all doubt, a second normal swallow would be good. That is for Motzi-Matzah, where the first olive-size swallowed fulfils a Torah obligation. Additional for Afikoman one swallow is certainly enough. For a person struggling to eat, try to eat at least a taste. Any more than that is for those who tolerate Matzo well. I look at how much a person can swallow - one swallow. That would measure a Kezayit. 100% the person has fulfilled the Mitzvah after one swallow. For margin of error issues, add another second swallow. For those with difficulty eating, one may then stop. For Afikoman the one swallow is sufficient. This needs no authority to base it on. Chazon Ish gave his asembled family pieces about the size of his palm , as described by qualified dedicated observer in Orchos Rabeinu. Traditions vary. Some quoted Rav Chaim Valozhiner as saying - the size of an olive is an olive is an olive. Another tradition said one must use an egg-size as a base unit. On Atkins Low-Carb Diet, daily consumption was - for starting extreme levels - 30 grams per day - about an ounce. I cut the piece of Challah, which by volume probably was an olive, but the air pockets should have been counted, so the person could say Birkas Hamazon for themselves. Someone else was Motzi the dieter in Birkat Hamazon. Air pockets and weight issue The swallow size may be according the the air pockets normally contained in Matzo, not ground, and according to volume not weight. VOLUME NOT WEIGHT By weight, comparable amount of Chareidim Boro Park 5774 MATZOS weighed perhaps 7 grams compared to perhaps 30 grams of a heavy brand of Hand Matzo. Using volume measures as weight measures creates significant errors. The person had been using 30 grams of WEIGHT as the Standard, not 30 grams of volume. It was a reasonably filled sandwich bag. Also Matzo can absorb moisture from the air making it heavier, can be freshened in the oven, which will make it weigh less. Volume remains the same. Weighing your Matza introduces a major error factor. SHEKEIN NEHENEH According to Rav Elchanan Wasserman, even a non-believer fulfils the Mitzvah, Shekein Neheneh. I have doubts if Kavana Hafucha would even work. I certainly think a person should not have Kavana Hafucha in the sense of - only be Yotzei when Measurement X is reached. NOT THE AMOUNT TO FILL THE CHEEK This is neither cheekful nor yet a mouthful. Observe how your neighbor swallows his food eating calmly. [DW comment - this is a normal comfortable swallow, not a contestant requiring for safety a Hatzala person or Heimlich Maneuver needed to monitor. This is not a Superman-Swallower who attempts to swallow the size of all olives ever eaten, whose face turns red but comes out OK after a KAPITAL TEHILIM. That is Achila Shelo K'darkah, and certainly is not optimum. That eliminates the Double and Exponential/Logarithmic olives from consideration for a single swallow. Never swallow more than a comfortable amount. SUKKOT No custom requires swallowing all at once in the Sukkah. Others require an Egg Plus size. ARUCH HASHULCHAN Aruch Hashulchan functioned as a review of the other Poskim in Orach Chaim. He pointedly does not double the Kezayit. MISHNA BRURAH - to my reading - says the same. Indeed I grant the MB does not totally negate a double-size as having precedent. MY HANDWIDTHS On a flat table, I measured my keyboard's width two different ways. first, using all ten fingers flat on table, it was 4 hands wide. With thumbs in air and only the eight fingers flat on the table, my keyboard was 5.5 hands wide. The thumbs were sideways, so the width added drilled through the wrinkle on the back to the fold on the front. This would be the thumb measured in Halacha. I certainly am not a measurement specialist, so I appreciate all feedback. According to best knowledge, that through-thumb measurement is the one which is supposed to be 25 percent of the other four fingers. CHZON ISH Even the writings of CHzon Ish reflect a defensive stance. As a practical matter, the CI knew in his heart that a Zayis will not change in recorded history. Olive trees of 1000 years old are not uncommon, and one in EY is 2000 years old. They are propogated from plantings identical to the original. As little as three generations of trees in EY could easily reach Calender Year 1. RIDDLE - HOW MANY OLIVES TO EAT A KEZAYIT? RABI YOCHANAN ATE ONE OLIVE- and made bracha acharona. It was the big variety salad olive, or a large specimen of the oil olive. I was convinced by a strong presentation in a conference from several years ago. A Bar Ilan professor compared olives from various species and showed pictures of all the oldest olive trees in EY. The oil olives were in the 4 cc to 7 cc (4-7 grams volume). Salad olives - the kind whose seeds were commonly eaten in Masada - max out at 17 grams. He convincingly argued that double size super-olives would in all likelihood kill the trees. 4 ccs is well below an average swallow. Please double check my numbers, as I am writing from memory. -- David Wacholder From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 18:58:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 21:58:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] naive kitniyos question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150403015816.GA8090@aishdas.org> On Thu, Mar 26, 2015 at 12:34:15PM -0400, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote: : Re kitniyos: isn't the issur one of "cooking" with kitniyos? ... Take 2 at answering this question. My wife found http://ph.yhb.org.il/en/04-09-06 "6. Kitniyot That Never Touched Water and Kitniyot Oils" by R' Eliezer Melamed We are not stricter with kitniyot than we are with the five cereal grains, so whatever is acceptable regarding these grains is kosher for kitniyot, too. Thus, kitniyot that have not come into contact with water, or that have come into contact with water but were not left for more than 18 minutes before being cooked (like matza), may be eaten. Some poskim are stringent in this respect, but most are lenient.[4] ... [4] Most authorities are not stricter about kitniyot than about the cereal grains (SAH 453:5; ??ayei Adam 127:1; Responsa Maharsham 1:183; Be'er Yitzhak sec. 11; Responsa Marheshet sec. 3; and Rav Kook's Orah Mishpat sec. 111). Some, however, are more stringent (Sho'el U-meishiv 1:1:175 and Ma'amar Mordechai sec. 32). Their rationale is that no one would understand these distinctions since kitniyot do not become hametz. Additionally, they were concerned that making the kitniyot exactly like the cereal grains would mislead people to think they could use kitniyot to fulfill the mitzva of matza. As noted, though, most poskim are lenient, and in any dispute about a custom the halakha follows the lenient opinion. The Rishonim also debate whether or not scalding works for kitniyot, since scalding any of the five cereal grains technically eliminates the possibility of its leavening, though the Ge'onim agree that no one knows how to scald the grains properly (SA 454:3). However, according to Or Zaru'a 2:256, since the prohibition of kitniyot is just a custom, scalding the kitniyot is effective and permits them. Mordechai rules stringently, and Rabbeinu Peretz's glosses to Smak sec. 222 notes the lenient opinion but rules stringently. So it seems the pesaq I grew up with is, in REM's estimaton, the minority view. And if my sevara holds: It would mean the machloqes is a machloqes as to whether qitniyos are compared to wheat or to dough. Which again would be reflected in the various theories about what risk it is the minhag is trying to avoid: qitniyos includes things used like grain, which can cause confusion of chameitz with mutar legume products; qitniyos could have real flour on them (as per Rava's admonition to the reish galusa's household), etc... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of micha at aishdas.org greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, http://www.aishdas.org in fact, of our modesty. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Louis Kronenberger, writer (1904-1980) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 09:32:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 16:32:11 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Tan Du Message-ID: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> I think we've discussed R'YBS's famous statement on ontological chazakot on a number of occasions. I was glad to see that I have giant shoulders to stand on (hat tip-Isaac Newton): Tradition - Winter 2014 (Rabbi N. Helfgot) In a famous episode in 1975, the Rav strongly denounced a proposal raised by R. Emanuel Rackman, z"l to reevaluating the validity of the Talmudic dictum "a woman would always be rather married to anyone (even a scoundrel) than be alone" in the modern context. R. Rackman called on religious authorities to reevaluate the reach of this dictum as a way of addressing the scourge of modern day recalcitrant husbands who did not give their estranged spouses a get. The reevaluation of this principle might be an opening to examine the use of halakhic annulment of marriages. The Rav vigorously maintained that this principle, like all hazakot of Hazal, was "an ontological statement" about the nature of women, not subject to changing historical factors or changing social mores. R. Lichtenstein in both private conversation with a number of talmidim over the decades, including this author and in remarks in public shiurim, noted his disagreement with the Rav's assessment of this hazaka (and expressed astonishment at the vehemence of the Rav's opposition at the time) given the clear cut evidence in the Rishonim in Yevamot and other places in Shas which clearly indicated that this hazaka was not one that applied in all contexts and at all times and in all situations. I don't recall that R'YBS said this was true of all chazakot of Chazal but haven't listened to that audio in a long time. CKV"S Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 04:06:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 14:06:33 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] rabbits Message-ID: << But PS can someone remind me what a picture of a rabbit is doing in the : medieval illustrated Hagada? There is a fundamental reason why pictures of people were avoided. >> Yet many of the medieval haggadot had pictures of people and even (wow) women!. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 11:41:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 14:41:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] rabbits In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150403184143.GB11664@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 03, 2015 at 02:06:33PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> There is a fundamental reason why pictures of people were avoided. : : Yet many of the medieval haggadot had pictures of people.. The reason is still there. We don't all agree on halakhah and minhag, why would two people necessarily agree during the medieval period? :-)|,|ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger The true measure of a man micha at aishdas.org is how he treats someone http://www.aishdas.org who can do him absolutely no good. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Samuel Johnson From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 23:57:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 09:57:26 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kitniyot Message-ID: see http://ohr.edu/5390 and http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/5184 by Rabbi Spits He discusses Quinoa In the second article he discusses potatos both for kitniyot and bishul akum As for modern products that didnt exist in the days of the gezera he notes Shu"t Igros Moshe (O.C. vol. 3, 63). Others who accept peanuts for Pesach include the Seridei Aish (Shu"t vol. 2, 37, 2; new print vol. 1, 50 -- through a combination of factors), the Yeshuas Moshe (Shu"t vol. 1, 35; he opines that the Kitniyos prohibition never applied to legumes that are eaten raw, but concludes similar to Rav Moshe, that if one has an existing minhag not to eat peanuts on Pesach he still should not do so), and the Rivevos Efraim (Shu"t vol. 7, 257; only if it came still in its shell). [This logic is based on the Shulchan HaRav's understanding (O.C. 453, 5) that the prohibition of Kitniyos only applies when it gets wet). Other poskim who ruled that way (as how can Kitniyos be more stringent than grain -- which only can become chometz when wet) include the Chayei Adam (vol. 2, 128, 1) and Maharsham (Shu"t vol. 1, 183 and Daas Torah O.C. 453), who cites that Rav Shlomo Kluger (Nidrei Zerizin, 8) held this way as well. Those who were stringent include the Shoel U'Meishiv (Mahadura Kama vol. 1, 175), the Avnei Nezer (O.C. 373 and 533), the Maamar Mordechai (Shu"t 32), and the Sdei Chemed (Maareches Chometz U'Matza 6, 1). This was also one of the points of contention between Rav Kook and the Badatz Chasidim of Yerushalayim regarding the permissibility of sesame oil for Pesach -- see footnote 13]. See also Shu"t Atzei HaLevanon (vol. 1, 18) who also permits peanuts for Pesach; yet based on his description it seems he is referring to a pistachio (as per the Yeshuas Moshe ibid.). [Email #2. Subject: kitniyot - summary] After our discussion of kitniyot and the psak of RMF several personal observations 1) We all agree that psak of RMF is controversial. IMHO it is "half" accepted probably more in the US than in Israel 2) There is a separate machkoket about derivatives of kitniyot and especially oils of kitniyot. While there are relatively few ashkenazim who eat corn on the cob or peanuts there are many who combine the 2 positions and use oild and derivatives from "new: kitniyot. Thus there are many rabbis that allow Canola oil (and certainly cottenseed oil) using RMF and the debate over oils. Similarly it has been common in my community to use lecithin (liftit) in candies etc. My rabbi allows this together with most rabbis in my town based on major dati leumi rabbis. R Elyashiv came out strongly against all of this and so in the charedi community especially in Israel no kitniyot oils or lecithin is allowed and only walnut or olive oil is used. Bottom line in spite of the objections on this list that RMF is "wrong" in many communities his teshuva is accepted when combined with the debate of kitniyot derivatives. chag kasher vesameach. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 03:57:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 13:57:43 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos Message-ID: > But let's not get buried under the reports of RMF and R' Tuvia Goldstein, > and forget that we have conflict in reports about whether RSZA would > allow someone to start eating gebrochts after hataras nedarim. > So, while rumor might say he did, we have a first-hand report from R > Yisrael Herczeg that tells us to ignore the grapevine >> In Halichos Shlomo (p90) it states explicitly that one can change his custom and eat gebrochs after hatart nedarim. However, this should be done only if there is a good reason (tzorach chashuv) for the change. Thus, for a chatan he would allow the hatarat nedarim if keeping bebrochs would cause family difficulties. RSZA paskened that the wife follows the customs of the husband both for kula and chumra(without hatart nedarim). He explicitly states that this is different than one who moves to another location where he does need hatarat nedarim since a woman knows that she will eventually marry and might change her minhag. The husband has the right to relinguish his rights. This is prevalant with regard to the nuscah of davening. A Baal Teshuva should prferably keep the customs of his "original" community where the family belonged. However, if he is now connected to some rabbi or community he can choose to keep their customs instead. He also paskens (for EY) that one can cook kitniyot on the 7th day of Pesach for use on the shabbat right afterwards (ef this year). This is because some sefardi could come over for a visit and so the kitniyot are not mukza . The same applies to gebrochs even though it is the 7th day of Pesach. RSZA himself ate gebrochs though he would not eat anything that fell on the floor. He did not use potato starch or anything that rsembled a chametz cake On a different topic he allowed drinking regular water eg from the kinneret since one can't taste at all the taste of any possible chametz, [Email #2] >> So, while rumor might say he did, we have a first-hand report from R >> Yisrael Herczeg that tells us to ignore the grapevine. > Perhaps he changed his mind! It has happened before. In this case he didnt change his mind. He said that it depended on the circumstances. In theory one could do hatarat nedarim and eat Gebrochs but he advocated not using this heter unless there was a good reason to change the custom. Obviously for Yisrael Herczeg he didn't feel there was sufficient justification. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 04:15:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 14:15:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: > 1- Is "kezayis" a constant volume, or is it pinned to the average olive, > or perhaps the average among some subset of breeds of olive as breeding, > care and climate change? archaeology shows that the olive has not changed dramatically over the millenia > 2- If kezayis is a constant volume, do all the accepted overestimates > performed and accumulated one atop the other unwind when we have more > information about chazal's zeisim? Not all communities accepted these various shitot. I can understand some overestimates for being conservative but factors of 5-10 larger seem overdone. This is especially true if one stuffs the matza into ones mouth and swallows together which becomes "achila gasa". In general the problem with the huge shiurim is that it is very difficult for many people. > average. Which is the reason to be on the conservative side and use the largest size olives which is still on the order of 17cc and not 50cc. [Email #2] > Or do we say that the bottom of the > range of measurments that dominate common pratice in one's qehillah is > binding as pesaq, and one can't just ignore the now huge safety margin? Reminds of a story I read on the recent 20th yahrzeit of RSZA. RSZA came up with 2 chumrot for the seder both related to the length of maggid being a problem for kiddush bemkom seudah and the bracha over the wine. His mechutan R Elyashiv accepted the chumrot and rushed his maggid while RSZA didnt accept his own chumrot in practice on the grounds that this was not the minhag of Israel over the generations. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 15:16:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 22:16:11 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Historic Practice Passover Offering Message-ID: <20150403.181611.8008.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitzchok Levine posted: > See the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kgbRusmqjs > ... > As reported earlier, in preparation for the upcoming festival of > Passover, this past Wednesday (5 Nisan - 25 March) the 'Priestly > Training Academy' established by the Temple Institute held a > Passover offering practice drill. This is a film that documents > this event. This was the most accurate and authentic reenactment > of this service to have taken place in nearly 2,000 years. Two things in particular surprised me in this video: 1) The lambs were so small! Children carried them in! 2) At the very end, it shows and mentions that the korban pesach "is roasted whole and in a special oven." Special oven? What was special about it, and why an oven at all? I would think that the oven would (at least partially) bake it, whereas it was supposed to be roasted by the fire, and only by fire. I recall halachos of it being held by a pomegranate branch to avoid heat conduction by metal, and rotated like a rotisserie to avoid it being cooked even by its own juices. What's this oven about? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/551f117e86f4b117e0fdfst03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 12:22:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2015 15:22:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <551EE85D.1030908@sero.name> On 04/03/2015 06:57 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > He also paskens (for EY) that one can cook kitniyot on the 7th day of > Pesach for use on the shabbat right afterwards (ef this year). Yes, I'm surprised that anyone disagrees. It seems so obviously correct. I know that many people don't do so, and believe it to be forbidden, but I have never yet heard an argument for why it should be so. > This is because some sefardi could come over for a visit and so the kitniyot > are not mukza . The main issue would surely not be muktzeh, but cooking on yomtov. But the answer is the same: the hypothetical horde of hungry guests who might descend on one ten minutes before sunset on Friday, and for whom one is, in principle, cooking, might very well be sefardim. > The same applies to gebrochs even though it is the 7th day of > Pesach. Gebrochts, of course, applies in Chu"l as well (since almost everyone who doesn't eat it on the first 7 days does eat it on the last day). And lich'ora the above heter is not applicable. Kitniyos are gebrochts are not similar. Ashkenazim don't avoid kitniyos because of a concern that it might be chametz; they readily agree that there is no such concern, and that for Sefardim it is heter gamur. Thus there is no reason at all why an ashkenazi should not cook kitniyos for a sefardi, any more than there is a reason why a zar who is tahor should not cook terumah for a kohen. But those who avoid gebrochts do so because of an (admittedly remote) concern that it might be chametz. If so, then they should be equally concerned not to give it to someone else, even one who isn't worried about it, and thus shouldn't be able to claim on Friday that they are cooking for hypothetical guests who eat it. Lepoel this question comes up every time there is such a kevius, and there doesn't seem to be one psak about it. Perhaps it comes down to the different reasons people give for why it's OK on the last day. If one holds that the reason is "shelo lehotzi la'az" on those who eat gebrochts all Pesach, then it makes sense that on the first 7 days one should also not be "motzi la'az", and thus should be willing to cook gebrochts for those who eat it. Thus on Friday the 7th one can claim to be cooking for such guests. But if one holds that the reason for not eating gebrochts for 7 days and then eating it on the 8th is as a symbolic gesture towards the kabbalistic idea that on the 8th day one ought to eat chametz, so for 7 days we treat gebrochts *as if* it were chametz, and then eat it on the 8th day, then it would seem to follow that on the 7th day one may not cook it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 14:17:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 21:17:19 GMT Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: <20150403.171719.13613.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' David Wacholder posted: > Every average person's swallow is a Kezayit, the amount which > fulfils the Mitzvah and is the measure for the Bracha on Achilas > Matza. As a Hidur and to erase all doubt, a second normal swallow > would be good. That is for Motzi-Matzah, where the first olive- > size swallowed fulfils a Torah obligation. > ... > This needs no authority to base it on. ... WHY would it need no authority to base it on? If this were the halacha, wouldn't someone have mentioned it? Why did so many authorities struggle with the math and the biology and the physics if such a simple solution were at hand? > Air pockets and weight issue > > The swallow size may be according the the air pockets normally > contained in Matzo, not ground, and according to volume not weight. If a kezayis is a swallowfull, aren't the air pockets gone? Haven't they been lost in the chewing? I concede that by the time the chewed matza gets to the throat, much of the missing air has been replaced by saliva. Or perhaps the saliva even *more* than accounts for the missing air. I am not knowledgeable enough about this to venture a guess on the comparison of the volume of the matza before chewing vis a vis at swallowing. In any case, I've always been bothered by the problem of counting the air bubbles. Mishneh Berurah 208:48 says that when eating cookies, l'chatchilah, one must insure that he ate a kezayis of flour, WITHOUT counting the sugar, in order to say Al Hamichya. MB concedes that the minhag is to count all the ingrdients, but the Igros Moshe 1:71 says not to rely on that minhag. So here's my question: If they would prefer us NOT to count the other ingredients, which have substance, isn't it a simple kal vachomer not to count AIR, she'ayn bo mamash? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/551f039acb72539a4c49st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 13:08:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2015 16:08:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Special Pesach Edition -- Instantaneous Redemption Message-ID: <20150403200810.6EC28181C84@nexus.stevens.edu> [] Instantaneous Redemption HaShem took us out of Mitzrayim at the last minute before we slipped to the fiftieth level of impurity. Had we fallen to that level, we would have been irredeemable. In one moment, we went from darkness to light, from death to life, from slavery to freedom, from anguish to joy, and from impurity to holiness. Lesson: Just as that moment brought instantaneous redemption, so too, every moment of life has the potential to take us from darkness to light, from death to life, from slavery to freedom, from anguish to joy, and from impurity to holiness. App: May we all be encouraged by the miracles of Pesach, that HaShem again will instantaneously redeem us, and take us from darkness to light, from death to life, from slavery to freedom, from anguish to joy, and from impurity to holiness! (Based on Ohr Yahol, Rav Yehoshuah Leib Chousman) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 18:59:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2015 21:59:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geirut Message-ID: <20150406015903.GA15874@aishdas.org> (Ccing most of the participants in our 2008 and 2010 conversations.) You might be interested in On Conversion to Judaism, by Rabbi Dr. Chaim E. Schertz THE YU LAMDAN: The Wilf Campus Torah Journal http://yulamdan.com/2015/03/29/on-conversion-to-judaism-by-rabbi-dr-chaim-e-schertz or http://j.mp/1CIV5GN It starts slow, but R/Dr Schertz has a lot to say about Qabbalas Ol Mitzvos (QOM, or KOM if you prefer) and its role in geirus. Aside from other ideas that my be of interest, but it was QOM that has us going. :-)|,|ii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 22:22:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 01:22:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house Message-ID: <552217FE.4020103@sero.name> Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in EY after kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times. Does this mean that at a shiva house Sholom Rov is said even in shacharis (in EY on a non-Mon/Thu)? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 22:28:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 01:28:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" Message-ID: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the holy serafim's conclave. Nusach Ashkenaz, in the introduction to the kedusha of musaf, has a similar phrase: "kesod siach sarfei kodesh". But what does this mean? Every translation I have seen has rendered it as if it said "kesiach sod sarfei kodesh", but that's not what it says! Does anyone know, if "kesod siach" really means "kesiach sod", why they are reversed? Or, if that's not what it really means, can anyone explain what it does mean? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 22:32:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 01:32:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Moroccan nigunim Message-ID: <55221A63.3010303@sero.name> Do we have any experts here on the history of the Moroccan nigunei hatefilah? If so, can someone please explain when/how the Ashkenazi tune for Maoz Tzur got into the Moroccan liturgy as a tune for Mah Ashiv Lashem? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 03:38:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 13:38:02 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] free will Message-ID: We have discussed many times the opinion of Rav Dessler that a person doesn't always have free will. I recently saw a halachic discussion that may have some connection. On ketubot 51 the gemara discusses a case of a married woman who was raped but at the end was willing (techila be-ones ve-sofa be-ratzon). Shmuel's father forbids her to her husband while Rava allows her. One possibility of explaining Rava is that she is overwhelmed by her "yetzer" and so is still considered "anus" This is explicit in the words of R Zadok (tzidkat zaddik 43) that her desire is so great that it is impossible to overcome it and so she is considered anus gamur and so there is no punishment. Targum Yonatan (Devarim 22:26) holds that she is not punished by death but her husband must divorce her. Maharshal (yevamot 6:3) paskens that she is permitted to her husband only if she is "karka olam" However the Noda Beyehuda disagrees (tenina EH 150) and says she is always permitted to her husband because she is overwhelmed by her yetzer and so is not considered that she did it with her free will. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 05:13:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 12:13:44 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house Message-ID: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero asked: > Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in > EY after kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times. Does this > mean that at a shiva house Sholom Rov is said even in shacharis > (in EY on a non-Mon/Thu)? No, but I don't know why. I never thought of that question before, but here is a possibly-related question that I've wondered for years: If Shir Hamaalos is said whenever we skip Tachanun, should it always be said at the shiva house? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:25:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:25:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house In-Reply-To: <552217FE.4020103@sero.name> References: <552217FE.4020103@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150406182521.GC20912@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:22:06AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in EY after : kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times... This rule isn't 100%. Otherwise Sim Shalom would never be said when davening beyechidus. I think it's more lke Ashk uses Sim Shalom in tefillos where Birkhas Kohanim could be said, if we had opportunity. :-)||ii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:28:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:28:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:28:24AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam : siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the : holy serafim's conclave... Sod means conclave? I thought it was referring to the ofanim and chayos haqodesh who learn the secret of the siach of the sarfei qodesh, thereby are misna'asim le'umas serafim... :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 2nd day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Chesed: What is constricted Fax: (270) 514-1507 Chesed? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:37:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:37:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house In-Reply-To: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150406183751.GE20912@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 12:13:44PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I never thought of that question before, but here is a possibly-related : question that I've wondered for years: If Shir Hamaalos is said whenever : we skip Tachanun, should it always be said at the shiva house? We skip tachanun on shabbos and YT (or the week of 7 berakhos, the day of a beris...) because of the joy of the day being inconsistent with its mournful tenor. Shir haMaalos goes hand-in-hand with the joy of the day; if it's joyous enough to warrant looking toward the geulah rather than lamenting the churban with Al Naharos Bavel, then it's joyous enough for Tachanun not to fit either. But the key is joy, which has nothing to do with a beis avel. We skip tachanun in an aveil's home for the opposite kind of reason -- either because 1- we don't want to add to the aveilim's grief by harping on midas hadin, or 2- it is inappropriate to ask for mitigation of middas hadin in a home where din is being fully felt. :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 2nd day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Chesed: What is constricted Fax: (270) 514-1507 Chesed? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:42:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:42:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tan Du In-Reply-To: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> References: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20150406184227.GF20912@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 03, 2015 at 04:32:11PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Tradition - Winter 2014 (Rabbi N. Helfgot) ... : R. Lichtenstein in both private conversation with a number of talmidim : over the decades, including this author and in remarks in public shiurim, : noted his disagreement with the Rav's assessment of this hazaka (and : expressed astonishment at the vehemence of the Rav's opposition at the : time) given the clear cut evidence in the Rishonim in Yevamot and other : places in Shas which clearly indicated that this hazaka was not one that : applied in all contexts and at all times and in all situations. The way I heard RAL (recorded) was more that the large amount of material in Yevamos, much of the rest of seder Nashim, and the rishonim ad loc that such a proposal would make moot was itself RYBS's primary argument against R' Rackman's proposal. And that RAL understood the statement about tav lemeisiv and its ontological nature as a separate secondary argument RYBS made along the way. :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 2nd day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Chesed: What is constricted Fax: (270) 514-1507 Chesed? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:38:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 14:38:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5522D292.4070305@sero.name> On 04/06/2015 02:28 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:28:24AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam > : siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the > : holy serafim's conclave... > > Sod means conclave? Yes, as in "besodam al tavo nafshi". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:59:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 21:59:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 6, 2015 at 9:28 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:28:24AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam > : siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the > : holy serafim's conclave... > > Sod means conclave? > Yes, as in "besodam al tavo nafshi" in birkat Yaakov (Bereshit 49:6), where it's parallel to "kehalam", or more directly connected to kedusha Ps 89:8 "sod kedoshim". I couldn't say whether "conclave" is the original sense and "secret" a derived meaning, or vice versa -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:30:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 14:30:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house In-Reply-To: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5522D0BC.2010004@sero.name> On 04/06/2015 08:13 AM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > R' Zev Sero asked: > >> Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in >> EY after kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times. Does this >> mean that at a shiva house Sholom Rov is said even in shacharis >> (in EY on a non-Mon/Thu)? > No, but I don't know why. > > I never thought of that question before, but here is a > possibly-related question that I've wondered for years: If Shir > Hamaalos is said whenever we skip Tachanun, should it always be said > at the shiva house? The same question would apply in the afternoon of Erev Tish`a B'av. But the two questions can easily be distinguished. The substitution of Shir Hamaalos for Al Naharos Bavel is not caused by the lack of tachanun; rather both are caused by the same thing: the element of simcha on that day that makes mourning inappropriate. But the omission of tachanun at a shiva house is not because of simcha, but because we don't want to invoke divine judgment in a situation which is already fraught; thus Al Naharos Bavel is not inappropriate. And of course on Erev Tish`a B'av what could be more appropriate than Al Naharos Bavel? Sim Shalom, however, seems (in nusach Ahskenaz) to be directly linked to the conclusion of birchas kohanim, "veyasem lecha shalom". Thus it shouldn't matter why birchas kohanim is not being said; the mere fact that it's not said should be enough to cause the omission of sim shalom, and the substitution of shalom rav. Proof that this distinction is valid comes from the case of Tehilim #49, which is said at a shiva house on days when tachanun is said; on days when tachanun is omitted, #16 is substituted. But of course in a shiva house *every* day is a day when tachanun is omitted, so when does one say #49? The obvious answer is that on normal days omission of tachanun is related to the place, not to the day, and thus #49 is said; when the day has an element of simcha that makes #49 inappropriate, we substitute #16. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 16:23:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 19:23:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] partnership - adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties Message-ID: <001b01d070c0$b326a370$1973ea50$@com> Here is a step towards making my approach to the Relationship of Yisrael with Hashem more understandable. As always it is the feedback and exchange of ideas which contains so much creative force. AVOS WERE PARTNERS, THEIR DESCENDANTS WERE IN LIMBO RACHAMIM WAS DETERMINED INCLUSIVITY - ALL ARE INCLUDED INCLUDED INTO THE COVENANT - UNILATERAL COVENANT OF HASHEM WITH HIMSELF 2. G-d related to the Avos - Avraham Yitzchak Yaakov - as partners, whose faithful service he knew and trusted. The durability was unusual, but the basic partnership never was under question, as with partners who get along. 3. 4. Almost all could ask - we are individuals in a mass of Egyptian slaves, we have lost direct contact!! We cannot compare ourselves to a 70 member Covenant, which included Yaakov Avinu one of the Avos, who actually made every move based on direct prophecy. Even the 12 Shvatim had almost direct access to HASHEM himself. 5. The Crisis of Galus Mitzrayim - assuming all had learnt every Passuk in Breishis - was of uncertainty. - Yes Pakod Yifkod - but who am I? Will my generation merit to see what even the most elderly never saw with their eyes? Even were Moshe Rabeinu assured of membership in the Elite, he retained that uncertainty. On Pshat level, five minutes prior to the moment of noticing the Burning Bush, could ask that question. That vision began transforming Moshe Rabeinu into the instrument of G-d, the Goeil. The man who turned to check - was already entering Geula mode. 6. Machzor Vitri page 148 has a key piece called Pithron Nishmas Kol Chai. According to Psachim, the Nishmas Prayer should contain within it the essence of the message of Seder Night. Towards the end of Yishtabach - there treated as just the ending of Nishmas - RAABAN adds that the 15 praises parallel the 15 Dayeinus. 7. The piece de resistance - Chai Haolamim is explained Haya hoveh yihyeh, Ani Hashem lo Shanisi (from Malachi Haftara of Shabbos Hagadol). 8. Rashi here is one theme - as I would see it. Chai means involved with caring for his children right now - as fits in Chai Anochi leOlam Im shanosi brak charbi or a Shvuah. 9. Haolamim means until the end of time, as in a parent telling the child not to worry, the Parent is always here. 10. The piece on page 148 adds an extra word to Nishmas, to make a point sharper. V' Y H V H Shmo Eir Hineh lo yanum vlo yiyshan. The word Shmo - appears only in this one obscure manuscript, seemingly a Rashi arrow. 11. Here Rashi uses full expression - Hashem appeared to Avraham with the name E I L S H a D a Y but not the Name Y H V H. Avos were established Partners and employees. Now Hashem is showing his determination and leadership - new World Order - all eligible Jews will be included in the Geulah, no exceptions. 12. Hashem is taking on the eternal duty of guarding them, with no limits and no clause for rejection. Yes Hashem admits no such precedent existed. Only Hashem can overturn His Rules. 13. Bnei Yisrael are Unilaterally Covenanted to be Hashem's Bni Bchori. Just like He had focused since the word Breishis, bishvil Torh Shenikra Reishis, now all He wants is that His People be His only. Bni Bchori Yisrael! First Day Chol Hamoeid Pesach - we read these key Psukim. Tephillin wearers understand that Kadesh li kol bchor means singular devotion. 14. In our world, it would be a person seeking a marriage partner, then signing Adoption Papers. The parent chose - volitionally and with focus - to adopt this child. PARENTAL RIGHTS - FAMILY IDENTITY 15.It is a brand new family identity, which cannot be abrogated. Yes - there can be strains. But there cannot be a dissolution. It is stronger than marriage! 16. Rashbam says - He the King says about Himself Ehkeh, I will be. Yisrael as his subjects use the Third Person He Will Be. 17. It is not about Maaseh Breishis in Rashi. It refers to the instant covenant - My determination to Adopt You is irrevocable. 18. Ehkeh - becomes the Name He Calls Himself - totally devoted to watching over my Ben Bchor. Yihyeh is the Ben Bchor's confidence that He is watching me us. 19. The moment the Ben Bchor first uses the He will Care for Me - Hashem makes Ehkeh obsolete. The family has begun. 20. This is Rashi Rashbam. CONFIRMATION The Tzarfas Tosafos included Rabeinu Yosef Bchor Shor. He accepts Rashbam completely, except that HVYH is the holiest Name, not Ehkeh. The structure remains the same. 21. Hashem's Choice in Mitzraim was a Bnos TzlOphchad choice - choose which cousin and which time to marry. It is totally volitional and conscious. He chose adoption of all. Bachar Banu. 22. It means at a specific date signing Adoption Papers for 3,000,000 individuals. 23. Rashi says it means the special Adoption - family identity. That Adoption of all Bnei Yisrael had a specific moment, the Sneh. Those Name issues had meaning for Rashi and Rashbam. 24. Within the short timespan, all the Bnei Yisrael are Hashem's chosen children. Rishon in Emmes Vyatziv means since Ytzias Mitzrayim. Maaseh Breishis is not Primary to Rashi only secondary. 25. It is Family Commitment and Identity. Practical example, a secure Child can look his father in the eye. A secure Jew is able to have Hashem look him/her in the eye without flinching. I know this is my Father. 26. As the Midrash puts it - Yam Suf - I already met him when I was born and raised six months with no human being in sight. I know Him! 27. Ha'tishkach Isha ulahh - even a mother's love for her child cannot equal hashem's love. Hashem's Power is ever greater, but even His Love is stronger. 28. Woman says - Pesach is my adoption as Hashem's own Child - no Chametz ever! There is no bending on identity. This works on the visceral level. 29. Rashi in MV 148 does call it Rachamim - as in Rachamei Av al Banim. It is the strength of Inclusion in the Covenant. It is in its deepest essence - a Unilateral Covenant. Ehkeh Asher Ehkeh - just like in this oppression - in any other oppression. That is the Adoptive Parent's approach. Lo yanum vlo yiyshan shomeir Yisrael. 30. Rashi's approach is extremely strong. Rachamim is only possible as part of a relationship. Rashi makes the relationship primary and volitional. The secondary application of which rewards or concessions will be granted, secondary Rachamim, is put onto a solid base. Only chanun is left as a "nebbish" Midah - even from a cruel tyrant chein is possible. 31. Let adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties 32. 33. In describing why person would fast all Passover over and above Jewish Law Practice, you used the words "emotional attachment". In the seven years since that wording , perhaps the message is deeper. 34. This woman was looking at the strength of the Covenant - which is Identity. The bylaws are only secondary. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: AJS review of Rossi.PDF Type: application/pdf Size: 255404 bytes Desc: not available URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 8 05:37:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2015 08:37:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150408123715.GC8438@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 09:59:14PM +0300, Simon Montagu via Avodah wrote: : > Sod means conclave? : : Yes, as in "besodam al tavo nafshi" in birkat Yaakov (Bereshit 49:6), where : it's parallel to "kehalam", or more directly connected to kedusha Ps 89:8 : "sod kedoshim". To clarify: "Sod" *here* means conclave? I suggested an alternative, which I think fits the sentence better, as it makes "sod siach" a phrase, rather than trying to explain the interruption of "siach" in "sod ... sarfei". : I couldn't say whether "conclave" is the original sense and "secret" a : derived meaning, or vice versa Very different implications hashkafically, whether yesod would then be related to secrets (as foundations are in the ground) or a gathering of people (people as founders?). :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 4th day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Chesed: When is Chesed an Fax: (270) 514-1507 imposition on others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 04:58:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 14:58:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: Just saw a halacha that to me was a chiddush That one cannot (or should not) be yotzeh someone else for tefiilat haderech but everyone should say for them self. Those agreeing (at least lechatchila) include R Aviner R Nebenzahl R C Kanevsky R Tuvia Goldstein (who said he convinced RMF) R Belsky Not what I have seen in practice. Anyone know any opinion that does allow it -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 08:55:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 15:55:59 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: <20150412.115559.22172.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel asked: > Just saw a halacha that to me was a chiddush > That one cannot (or should not) be yotzeh someone else for > tefiilat haderech but everyone should say for them self. > Those agreeing (at least lechatchila) include > R Aviner > R Nebenzahl > R C Kanevsky > R Tuvia Goldstein (who said he convinced RMF) > R Belsky > Not what I have seen in practice. > Anyone know any opinion that does allow it Chidush to me too. I don't where to begin my comments. There's a GIGANTIC difference between "cannot" and "should not". "agreeing (at least lechatchila)" also allows a too-wide variety. And without some sort of reasoning, how can we throw out what we already know? Is there something special about Tefilas Haderech, or is this merely an example of how we have so little kavana nowadays that being motzi others is just too risky? I'm sure there are other sources I could quote, but for now, I will simply quote from "Halachically Speaking", vol 1, pg 75, by Rabbi Moishe Dovid Lebovits, published by Israel Bookshop. > One person can say the tefillah for everyone, as long as he has > everyone in mind and the others concentrate on the words.(20) > Horav Yisroel Belsky shlita maintains that every individual > should try to say tefillas haderech if he can.(21) If this is > not possible, one person can say it for everyone.(22) > 20) Kinyan Torah 2:119, Bais Avi 5:55, Opinion of Horav > Elyashiv shlita quoted in Darchei Ori page 279:2, > U'velechticha Baderech 2:footnote 26 quoting the opinion of > Horav Chaim Kanievesky shlita, see Darchei Ori page 259:1. It > is questionable whether someone who has already said tefilalas > haderech can repeat it for someone else. (Halichos Shlomo > Tefilah 21:5:footnote 9). > > 21) See Emes L'Yaakov page 65. > > 22) See Eishel Avraham Butchtach, Rivevos Ephraim 6:32:2, > Halichos Shlomo Tefilah page 245:5, Divrei Chachamim page > 76:192. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 06:33:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 09:33:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: <10b001d074db$3ad805c0$b0881140$@gmail.com> References: <20150407125218.216501835E4@nexus.stevens.edu> <10b001d074db$3ad805c0$b0881140$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150412133337.B25AB182ACC@nexus.stevens.edu> I am moving this to Avodah. YL At 12:43 AM 4/12/2015, R. Moshe Yehuda Gluck wrote: >R' YL: >Another person wrote to me > >"Chazal say that one is not allowed to daven outside (probably because of >kavana); >-------------------- >Does anyone have a mareh makom for this? > >KT, >MYG From http://www.dinonline.org/2012/07/11/davening-outdoors/ Is it problematic to daven outdoors? Thanks. Answer: One should not daven in an open area outdoors, and should daven in a closed building, or a sheltered area. Sources: The Gemara (Berachos 34b) writes that it is wrong (arrogant ? chatzuf) to daven in an open field. Rashi explains that in an open field, one doesn?t feel fear of the King, and one doesn?t pray with a broken heart. Tosafos, however, understands that the concern is for passers-by, who are liable to disturb a person?s davening. The Magen Avraham (90:6) rules that the problem is that davening outside makes a haughty statement: ?Even though there are passers-by, they will not disturb my intent in davening!? This is arrogant and wrong. The Shulchan Aruch (90:5) rules that one should not daven in an open place, and the Mishnah Berurah (11) adds that those who are always travelling should can daven in an open place, but should try to daven by a tree. Therefore, although it is not forbidden to daven outdoors, it is wrong to daven in an open area, and one should seek a sheltered place. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 09:54:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 19:54:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] reviit Message-ID: In the sefer of Rav Aviner he brings many examples of gedolim who used a kiddush cup the size of the shiur of R Chaim Naeh (86 CC) and not CI. He says he heard from RSZA that when RCN published his sefer on shiurim the rabbis of Yerushalayim were astounded at his chumra !! 1) cup if Chafetz Chaim (from his grandson R Hillel Zaks) 2) cup of GRA (baal eyanim le-mishpat who got it as an inheritance) 3) cup someone got from Ohr Sameach (mesoros she-avdu) 4) Rebbe of Gur - Pnei Menachem stated about the cup of his father Baal Imre Ha-emes 5) cup of R Salanter (Shut Teshuvot Vehanhagot) 6) Rav Dessler used a small cup that belonged to his wife's family. After she passed away he used a larger cup 7) cup of the father of the CI 8) Brother of CI used a cup he got from his father-in-law (Cheshek Shlomo of Vilna) and also had shiur RCN 9) R Elyashiv used a cup the size of CI but explained that he did so in honor of CI not because that is the halacha 10) In the sefer Meged Givat Olam second volume p34) someone showed RMF a cup holding about 88cc and RMF remarked that it was kosher lechatchila (not not the shiur published in his name) 11) In Divrei Yoel the Satmar rebbe is quoted as saying the shiur of reviit is 75 gram (!?) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 12:01:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 15:01:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] reviit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <552AC11F.8060605@sero.name> On 04/12/2015 12:54 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > 11) In Divrei Yoel the Satmar rebbe is quoted as saying the shiur of reviit is 75 gram (!?) > RACN assumed that the Rambam's dirham was the same as the Ottoman dirham used in his day, which was 3.1 g. But there's significant evidence that the Egyptian dirham of the Rambam's day was slightly smaller, about 2.8 g, which gives a revi'it of about 75 ml. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 12:15:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 15:15:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150413191514.GA19165@aishdas.org> R' Ari Kahn posted a transcript of that famous talk that people remember for RYBS's statement about tav lemeisiv. http://arikahn.blogspot.co.il/2013/03/rabbi-soloveitchik-talmud-torah-and.html As a teaser, here is all RYBS said on tev lemeis tan du: Let me add something that is very important: not only the halachos but also the chazakos [19] which chachmei chazal have introduced are indestructible. We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above. Let us take for example the chazaka that I was told about: the chazaka tav l'meisiv tan du mil'meisiv armalo [20] has absolutely nothing to do with the social and political status of women in antiquity. This chazaka is based not upon sociological factors, but upon a verse in breishis -- harba arbeh itz'voneich v'heironeich b'etzev teildi vanim v'el isheich t'shukaseich v'hu yimshal bach -- "I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy travail; in pain thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee" [21]. It is a metaphysical curse rooted in the feminine personality -- she suffers incomparably more that the male who is in solitude. Solitude to the male is not as terrible an experience, as horrifying an experience, as is solitude to the woman. And this will never change, mayid shamayim vaaretz [22]. This is not a psychological fact; it is an existential fact, which is due not to the inferior status of the woman, but rather to the difference, the basic distinction, between the female personality and the male personality. Loneliness frightens the woman, and an old spinster's life is much more miserable and tragic than the life of an old bachelor. This was true in antiquity; it is still true, and it will be true a thousand years from now. So, to say that tan du mil'meisiv armalo was or is due to the inferior political or social status of the woman is simply misinterpreting the chazaka tan du mil'meisiv armalo. No legislation can alleviate the pain of the single woman, and no legislation can change this role. She was burdened by the Almighty, after she violated the first [law]. Let me ask you a question -- ribono shel olam, G-d Almighty, if you should start modifying and reassessing the chazakos upon which a multitude of halachos rest, you will destroy yehadus. So instead of philosophizing, let us rather light a match and set fire to the beis yisrael, and get rid of our problems. What I think is more typical of the general thesis of this portion of his talk was the immediately prior statement: V'chen hakofer b'perusha v'hu torah she b'al peh v'hamach'chish magideha; he who denies the perfection and the truthfulness of chachmei chazal -- not of the Torah, but of the chachmei chazal as personalities, as real persona as far as their character, their philosophy, or their outlook on the world is concerned -- is a kofer. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 9th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 most appropriate? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 12:27:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 19:27:43 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150413191514.GA19165@aishdas.org> References: <20150413191514.GA19165@aishdas.org> Message-ID: What I think is more typical of the general thesis of this portion of his talk was the immediately prior statement: V'chen hakofer b'perusha v'hu torah she b'al peh v'hamach'chish magideha; he who denies the perfection and the truthfulness of chachmei chazal -- not of the Torah, but of the chachmei chazal as personalities, as real persona as far as their character, their philosophy, or their outlook on the world is concerned -- is a kofer. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The whole piece is worth hearing (even more than reading) - it seems to me that the debate echoes here: https://kavvanah.wordpress.com/2015/04/12/rabbi-ysoscher-katz-and-rabbi-ozer-glickman-rounds-one-and-two/ I do wonder whether one can avoid self awareness with a modern education. Another challenge is how to deal with recent "Chachmei Hamesorah" who don't seem to meet the perfection definition. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 13:56:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 13:56:37 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] support obligations Message-ID: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/193853#.VSwsUo6ZPAG interesting question . while in theory the ketuba and consequently the terms of marriage , mandate the husband support a wife , in practice that is not true in the kollel years [which in israel could last a prolonged time ]. here , a kollel man divorcing claims no income , and that the wife should support the children by getting a job . apart from secular courts, is there a positive chiyuv for a husband to leave 'torato umnato' to support his children ? does a get terminate his financial obligations halachically? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 14:23:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 17:23:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Philosophy and practice of shmita In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150413212344.GA3301@aishdas.org> On Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 10:09:02PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : What is the earliest source that ties shmita to the farmers using the : time to learn Torah?... I don't know about first, but the Seforno (Vayiqra 25:4, d"h "shabbos Lashem") writes: So that also those who work the earth, when they rest for this year, yis'oreru lidrosh es H' be'ofen mah. This is then quoted verbatum by R' Yaaqov Tzevi Mecklengburg (HaKesav behaQabbalah, early or mid-19th cent), who sites both the Sefornu and and "Raba"ch" -- who is eluding me. I didn't see it in Rabbeinu Bechayei, nor the Chizquni. Nor am I sure that "liderosh es H'" means learning. More recent is the Ari (as recorded by R' Shemu'el Vital, Shaar haPesuqim) based on the Zohar (vol II 20b). Haro'eh baShoshanim -- "Shoshanim" refers to the 6 shins in "usefarta lekha SHeva SHabasos SHanim, SHeva SHanim SHeva pe'amim". And from there haro'eh bashoshanim becomes: the one who dedicates the 7th year to learning finds G-d in all the 6 years of labor as well. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 9th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 most appropriate? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 14:28:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 17:28:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos In-Reply-To: <20150401084748.2445618205D@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150401084748.2445618205D@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150413212857.GB3301@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 01, 2015 at 04:47:45AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Does not the SA say that a person who has trouble chewing matzah can : soak it in water and then eat it? If so, then I fail to see why : eating gebrokts should be a problem for anyone. : The SA lived in the wrong qehillah for the minhag to be relevant. He would allow you to eat qitniyos too. And if we accept the SA haRav's explanation of gebrochts over the MB's, the Rama lived before we counted kneading time toward the 18 min, and gebrochts wasn't necessary yet. And since according to the SAhR's teshuvah, the minhag caught on after the Besh"t, meaning during the lifetime of its author and his readers, I am inclined to believe his version of the timing over someone who is reconstructing older history. : Also, were not the matzos that were used in the time of the SA : thicker than ours? Again, MB vs the SAhR as to whether that's at issue. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 9th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 most appropriate? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 14:33:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 17:33:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] support obligations In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150413213345.GC3301@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 01:56:37PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : apart from secular courts, is there a positive chiyuv for a husband to : leave 'torato umnato' to support his children ? does a get terminate his : financial obligations halachically? Assuming she didn't agree to the arrangement. Ortherwise, the wife willingly waved her claim to his income, and took on the obligation of self- and child-support. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 20:54:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 03:54:11 GMT Subject: [Avodah] support obligations Message-ID: <20150413.235411.14734.1@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Assuming she didn't agree to the arrangement. Ortherwise, the wife > willingly waved her claim to his income, and took on the obligation > of self- and child-support. I would argue that she accepted the financial responsibilities only in exchange for the s'char she gets from enabling her husband to learn Torah, and that once he ceases to be her husband, that arrangement ends, and the whole thing reverts to the usual. Phrased differently, once he stops giving her the s'char of sharing in his learning, he has to give her a more practical olam-hazeh sort of support. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552c8fb420d2bfb30fdest04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 20:45:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 03:45:47 GMT Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> [RAK gives credit to others in fn. 1. It is not his transcript. -micha] R' Micha Berger posted R' Ari Kahn's transcript of Rav YB Soloveitchik: > ... This is not a psychological > fact; it is an existential fact, which is due not to the inferior > status of the woman, but rather to the difference, the basic > distinction, between the female personality and the male personality. > Loneliness frightens the woman, and an old spinster's life is much > more miserable and tragic than the life of an old bachelor. This was > true in antiquity; it is still true, and it will be true a thousand > years from now. So, to say that tan du mil'meisiv armalo was or > is due to the inferior political or social status of the woman > is simply misinterpreting the chazaka tan du mil'meisiv armalo. ... From what I understand, the objection to hafkaas kiddushin comes from a presumption that a woman would prefer to stay with her husband, even if he seems to be a terrible person, and even if she tells us that in *her* opinion he is a terrible person -- and we have this presumption because of the chazaka of tan du. But I do not see Rav Soloveitchik making that case here. All he is saying is that "an old spinster's life is much more miserable and tragic than the life of an old bachelor." He does say that this relative perspective on singlehood is a "permanent ontological principle[s] rooted in the very depth of the human personality," and that it will never change, and that this information is Revealed in the words of Bereishis. But this refers ONLY to the misery and tragedy of a single woman as opposed to a single man. And that's NOT that argument against hafkaas kiddushin, at least not how I've heard it. The argument that I've heard -- that is to say, the supposed translation of "tav l'meisiv tan du" -- is that a woman would prefer living with ANY man rather than to be alone. I can easily understand opposition to Hafkaas Kiddushin on the grounds that widespread use would give *all* marriages a sort of "tentative" status. But that's not what people are referring to here, right? When they invoke "tan du" against Hafkaas Kidushin, they're saying that despite the wife's protestations, the wife would actually prefer to stay married, and that's why they're unable to annul the marriage. Or am I mistaken? Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 05:26:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 08:26:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <552D0792.4060709@sero.name> On 04/13/2015 11:45 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > From what I understand, the objection to hafkaas kiddushin comes from a > presumption that a woman would prefer to stay with her husband, even if > he seems to be a terrible person, and even if she tells us that in*her* > opinion he is a terrible person -- and we have this presumption because > of the chazaka of tan du. What she prefers is irrelevant. Obviously she wants to leave her husband; she is openly telling us so, and it's ridiculous to suppose she is not telling the truth. And even if she weren't, if the marriage is invalid then it's invalid, no matter what she wants. You're looking at the whole thing from the wrong direction. No objection is needed to annulling a marriage; what's needed is grounds *for* annulling it. The alleged grounds are that it has now become clear that this man was always such a bad person that had the woman known this when he proposed marriage she would have refused, and throughout the subsequent marriage there was never a point at which she was so happy that had she found out the truth she would have consented to stay with him. Now if the husband is bad enough (and it can be proved that he always was so), *and* the woman is such a catch that there was never a point at which she could not have found another husband, then this makes sense. Obviously she has always preferred a good husband to a bad one, and only married this man because she thought he was a good one. But what if refusing to marry him, or leaving him at some point during the marriage, were to expose her to the risk of remaining single forever? Would she still have turned him down or left him? The proponents of annulment say yes, of course she would, just as she has left him now. But, RYBS says, Chazal tell us that it's female nature to prefer a bad husband to none at all, so perhaps even if she had known the truth about this man she would have consented to marry him rather than risk remaining single; or perhaps there was a point after the event at which, had she learned the truth, she would have stayed with him rather than face a single future. > But I do not see Rav Soloveitchik making that case here. All he is saying > is that "an old spinster's life is much more miserable and tragic than > the life of an old bachelor." Yes, and therefore while a man might prefer to be single rather than live with a bad wife, a similarly situated woman will not. That this woman *now* tells us she would, doesn't prove that she always would have. > He does say that this relative perspective on singlehood is a "permanent > ontological principle[s] rooted in the very depth of the human > personality," and that it will never change, and that this information > is Revealed in the words of Bereishis. But this refers ONLY to the misery > and tragedy of a single woman as opposed to a single man. > > And that's NOT that argument against hafkaas kiddushin, at least not > how I've heard it. The argument that I've heard -- that is to say, the > supposed translation of "tav l'meisiv tan du" -- is that a woman would > prefer living with ANY man rather than to be alone. Yes. How is that not the same thing? Spinsterhood is terrible for women, so terrible that they'd prefer living with a bad man to it. > When they invoke "tan du" against Hafkaas Kidushin, they're saying that despite > the wife's protestations, the wife would actually prefer to stay married, > and that's why they're unable to annul the marriage. Or am I mistaken? Not that she'd prefer it now, but that she did prefer it earlier, when she was faced with the risk of never finding anyone else. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 06:44:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 09:44:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Could a New Gadget Change Shabbat Observance - Forever Message-ID: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/njr5j7a List of leading rabbis endorse 'Kosherswitch' to allow lights on Shabbat. High-voltage project could send a current through Jewish world. Will Shabbat observance change forever with a flick of a switch? A new gadget was released to the mass market on Monday promising Orthodox Jews a solution to the age-old problem of leaving lights on or off on Shabbat and then being prevented by Jewish law from flipping the switch. The new invention, dubbed "KosherSwitch," has been beta-tested since 2009 - but an indiegogo campaign launched Monday promises to bring the project to the masses. See the above URL for more as well as for a video explaining how this device works. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 07:59:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 10:59:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Could a New Gadget Change Shabbat Observance - Forever In-Reply-To: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150414145918.GA28845@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 09:44:04AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : From http://tinyurl.com/njr5j7a :> List of leading rabbis endorse 'Kosherswitch' to allow lights on :> Shabbat. High-voltage project could send a current through Jewish :> world. :> Will Shabbat observance change forever with a flick of a switch? Unlikely. They say this is new tech, which could be true since they got a [atenmt, but the How it Works page and the ptent describe something much like what Machon Zomet uses in their wheelchairs . Actually, Zomet makes sure their switch changes the amount of current, I see nothing in the patent about anything but turning the power on and off entirely -- it appears *more* problematic. The engineers among us can check out . As you can read on Zomet's site, R Neuwirth permits the wheelchair only because the issue is basic mobility. KosherSwitch.com shows you that that RYN signed on a "me too" to R' Pinchas Zabihi's haskamah. I have a notion that once things are clarified, the truth is more somewhere in between. When a house is on fire, and someone puts up a wall of pottery flasks filled with water to arrest its progress, geram kibui is mutar. See SA OC 334:22. The Rama either adds or explains (citing the Mordekhai), that this is bemaqom peseida. But gerama isn't suddenly mutar even without hefsed meruba or kevod haberios as a matir. So it all boils down to whether they really have a new tech that is more legitimate for them to call "un-grama" than Machon Zomet's design. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 07:12:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 10:12:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] =?iso-8859-1?q?The_Kosher_Switch=3A_A_Response_from_the_?= =?iso-8859-1?q?Tzomet_Institute=92s_Rabbi_Yisrael_Rosen?= Message-ID: <20150414141204.C79091830F4@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/ptcfckt The rabbinic world and blogosophere (see, for example, here) has been abuzz about the propriety of the Kosher Switch, which its producers claim allows one to halakhically turn on and off lights on shabbat. Attached here is the Hebrew response of Rabbi Yisrael Rosen, the prominent engineer who heads the Tzomet Institute, which includes (signed) clarifications of the positions of Rabbi Avigdor Nevenzahl and Rabbi Yehoshua Neuwirth. It is was sent on Tzomet stationery to Rabbi David Mescheloff, and is reprinted here with permission. Below is a rough English translation of the first page, which does not include some of the halakhic argumentation provided on the 2nd page of the original Hebrew. For all scholarly and halakhic purposes, and purposes of citation, only the original Hebrew letter should be seen as the authoritative writing of Rabbi Rosen. D. And here is the main part of my remarks: Yesterday I went to my teacher and rabbi HaGaon Rabbi Yehoshua Neuwirth, Shlita, and I asked him whether he permitted to use this switch to activate electricity on Shabbat for the purposes of Oneg Shabbat, etc He was really shocked and said he never permitted that. When I showed him the endorsement letter, he added in his handwriting: ?Only for medicine and security? (see photo in attached Hebrew article). Rabbi Avigdor Nebenzahl Shlita, who signed a similar letter, also told me yesterday that he does not recall ever signing anything like that, and expressed the opinion that there is no place for this and was puzzled about the whole thing. I suppose that whoever managed to get the signatures of important rabbis ?sold? them an invention that is a kind of a complex Gramma used for the purpose of medicine or security, and succeeded in skipping this condition when they signed. E. With regard to the claim, written in their accompanying halachic responsum, that it is permitted to use this Gramma switch to minimize the prohibition of those who willfully the violate the Shabbat, we have never heard of such rabbis who permit this. I am sure that those who ?agreed? did not see this argument, and this is an argument that should not be stated. See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 08:01:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joseph Kaplan via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 11:01:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <002d01d076c3$e98d8290$bca887b0$@tenzerlunin.com> "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above." Can anybody explain what this really means? That is, explain it to someone who doesn't use the word "ontological" in his/her normal speech. I have read it many many times but I still don't understand what the Rav is saying. Joseph -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 07:42:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 17:42:18 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: I guess I was a little too succinct in my last post. The major problem is that many consider tefillat haderech as a tefillah and not as a bracha. Thus while one can be motze other for a bracha one cannot do it for a tefillah. Hence, R Nebenzahl paskens that all those that know how to say by themselves should do so R C Kanevsky says it is preferable for each person to say by themself R Tuvia Goldstein says that one cannot be yotzeh someone else and claims that he convinced RMF of that R Belsky repeats that it is a tefillah and not a bracha and so it is appropriate (min ha-raui) that everyone says it for themself. R Aviner says that it is "rachamim" and therefore it is preferable that each one requests for themselves however bidieved one can be motzi others The sefer Piskei Teshuvot (siman 110-2) has a discussion whether one is required to say tefillat haderech in modern times. He concludes that one who does not say it on major roads has someone to rely on but someone who also says it has the reward of a tefilla even though we no longer have "listin" and wild animals on the roads. Instead we have a car accidents. Therefore one should also say tefillat haderech on railroads and planes. He claims that on small side roads that everyone paskens you need to say tefillat haderech -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 08:22:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 11:22:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150414152222.GD28845@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 03:45:47AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : From what I understand, the objection to hafkaas kiddushin comes from a : presumption that a woman would prefer to stay with her husband, even if : he seems to be a terrible person, and even if she tells us that in *her* : opinion he is a terrible person -- and we have this presumption because : of the chazaka of tan du. You phrased it as a psychological issue. RYBS says it's something existential or ontological -- and explicitly NOT pschological. I think he is saying that this vector exists in every woman's character. Even when current social reality provides other vectors that may submerge tav lemeisiv tan du, it is an entity present in her psyche (ontologically) still shaping her perception of reality (existential). And because of that element of her soul, inherited from Chavah, it's very hard to ever call a marriage a complete meqach ta'us on the bride's part. But again, my impression from RAL which is reinforced by this transcript, this particular argument was a side-bar, not RYBS's primary argument. Eg: ... : I can easily understand opposition to Hafkaas Kiddushin on the grounds : that widespread use would give *all* marriages a sort of "tentative" : status. But that's not what people are referring to here, right? ... RYBS discusses that issue at greater length than this one anyway. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 08:32:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 11:32:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] support obligations In-Reply-To: <20150413.235411.14734.1@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150413.235411.14734.1@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150414153245.GE28845@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 03:54:11AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Micha Berger wrote: : > Assuming she didn't agree to the arrangement. Ortherwise, the wife : > willingly waved her claim to his income, and took on the obligation : > of self- and child-support. : I would argue that she accepted the financial responsibilities only : in exchange for the s'char she gets from enabling her husband to learn : Torah, and that once he ceases to be her husband, that arrangement ends, : and the whole thing reverts to the usual. Phrased differently, once he : stops giving her the s'char of sharing in his learning, he has to give : her a more practical olam-hazeh sort of support. We are in the weird situation of talking about what the bride was agreeing to WRT a situation she never pictured arising. (I am reminded of Avodah discussions about what the Rambam would do if faced with what he perceives as a solid philosophical proof for a position he could not find a basis for in Torah. Would he declare something an allegory despite a lack of source in Chazal, would he dismiss the proof as flawed, perhaps even assuming the flaw had to be something he didn't yet find? The Rambam thought the situation was impossible.) So, I want to detour into a case more likely to have crossed the kallah's mind -- his death. If the husband predeceases her without having left kollel, she wouldn't expect him to leave her the same estate than if he had spent that time earning money. It may be equally valid to argue that the bride relinquishes claims to money even after he finishes learning, in exchange for supporting him while learning -- however long that lasts. I really don't know which way of looking at things is more valid. It's kind of like the old chestnut, "But if you did have a brother, would he like noodles?" Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 10:00:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Weiss via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 10:00:06 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3e97bfe1715ba4f18f42bf014d7ab62a.squirrel@mail.panix.com> > From http://www.dinonline.org/2012/07/11/davening-outdoors/ >> Is it problematic to daven outdoors? ... >> The Gemara (Berachos 34b) writes that it is wrong >> (arrogant - chatzuf) to daven in an open field. >> Rashi explains that in an open field, one doesn't >> feel fear of the King, and one doesn't pray with >> a broken heart. Tosafos, however, understands >> that the concern is for passers-by, who are >> liable to disturb a person's davening. >> The Magen Avraham (90:6) rules that the problem >> is that davening outside makes a haughty >> statement... ... >> Therefore, although it is not forbidden to daven >> outdoors, it is wrong to daven in an open area, >> and one should seek a sheltered place. As you see from the above it is the Lechatichilla not do daven in an open place, Last week we had a mincha minyan at the grand canyon, (to wait to a more appropriate place it would have been well after dark) When one davens in a large minyan and is surrounded by other people davening it is easier to concentrate on the tefilla. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 12:44:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 15:44:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd [TM]: Why Does God Test Us? Message-ID: <20150414194402.GB3303@aishdas.org> RGStudent recently posted a piece to answer the question "Why Does God Test Us?" The notion that the all-knowing God needs to test us to determine whether we will follow His command is absurd. He knows the future and therefore gains nothing from the exercise. Yet the Torah discusses in multiple places God's tests. For example, regarding the man (manna) that fell in the desert, God states: "So that I may test them, whether they will follow My law or not" (Ex. 16:4). The midrash (Tanchuma, Vayera 23) expresses the question aptly: ... I. Personal Growth The Kuzari (5:20), followed by the Ramban (Gen. 22:1; Ex. 16:4; Deut. 13:4; Toras Ha-Bayis in Kisvei Ha-Ramban, vol. 2 pp. 272-273), explains that God tests people in order to actualize their potential goodness.... II. Education Rambam (Moreh Nevukhim 3:24) takes an entirely different approach. He sees divine tests as a way to publicize, and thereby teach, the righteousness of an individual.... III. Adult Education I believe that, aside from midrashic sources and textual cues, Rambam had a more fundamental reason for taking a path different from that of the Kuzari and Ramban. The Gemara (Makkos 10a) says that Heaven takes you in the direction you wish to go. Similarly, another Gemara (Yoma 39a) says that someone who wishes to become pure (i.e. do good) is divinely assisted. Apparently, the Ramban takes this literally. ... IV. Self-Discovery Radal (ibid.) offers a third approach to understanding divine tests. Pirkei De-Rabbi Eliezer (31) says that the test was for Avraham to know his heart. God certainly know whether we will pass a test but poses it so that we learn our own abilities. Like a good coach, God pushes us farther than we think we can go. This, too, applies to adults who often underestimate their capacity for strength. God only tests those who will pass and by doing so teaches us the extent of our faith and endurance. ... -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 15:41:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 18:41:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] reviit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150414224153.GA9794@aishdas.org> On Sun, Apr 12, 2015 at 07:54:45PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : In the sefer of Rav Aviner he brings many examples of gedolim who used a : kiddush cup the size of the shiur of R Chaim Naeh (86 CC) and not CI. : He says he heard from RSZA that when RCN published his sefer on shiurim the : rabbis of Yerushalayim were astounded at his chumra !! Interesting, because I thought that RACN's agenda was to justify the accepted practice in his local, in EY in the early 20th cent. (Something I learned on-list 15 years ago.) Minhag Y-m is RACN's shiurim, because RACN started with the assumption that Minhag Y-m was roughly accuate, with the Sepharadim being the more precise. RACN himself was a Lubavitcher chassid of the Yishuva haYashan, born in Chevron. I do not know why people usually call him "Rav Chaim Naeh", ommitting his first name "Avraham". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 15:50:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 18:50:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: <3e97bfe1715ba4f18f42bf014d7ab62a.squirrel@mail.panix.com> References: <3e97bfe1715ba4f18f42bf014d7ab62a.squirrel@mail.panix.com> Message-ID: <20150414225006.GB9794@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 10:00:06AM -0700, Harry Weiss via Avodah wrote: : > From http://www.dinonline.org/2012/07/11/davening-outdoors/ : >> Is it problematic to daven outdoors? : ... : >> The Gemara (Berachos 34b) writes that it is wrong : >> (arrogant - chatzuf) to daven in an open field. : : >> Rashi explains that in an open field, one doesn't : >> feel fear of the King, and one doesn't pray with : >> a broken heart. Tosafos, however, understands : >> that the concern is for passers-by, who are : >> liable to disturb a person's davening. : : >> The Magen Avraham (90:6) rules that the problem : >> is that davening outside makes a haughty : >> statement... : ... : >> Therefore, although it is not forbidden to daven : >> outdoors, it is wrong to daven in an open area, : >> and one should seek a sheltered place. : .... : When one davens in a large minyan and is surrounded by other people : davening it is easier to concentrate on the tefilla. The Kotel Plaza doesn't suffer from any of these concerns, which is unsurprising because centuries of gedolim had no problem davening outside at the kotel. It's set up like a shul, so there is no special chutzpah or yuharah in davening there. Interruptions are likely, but generally for other mitzvos -- tzedaqah, or answering qaddish or qedushah from nearby minyanim. In terms And the location actively fosters yir'ah, koveid rosh and a broken heart. However, davening at Robinson's arch might suffer from the yuhara issue. (Personally, I find it more moving than the Kotel Plaza. One stands on the same road walked by oleh regel, among stones thrown off Har haBayis by the Roman Army (whether during the churban or when Hadrian had the har plowed, I do not know). Behind me are the ghosts of shopkeepers, ready to exchange my maaser sheini coins back to food, sell me flour for a qorban Todah or an animal for a differen qorban. The miqvah is a bit back, and to the left.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 16:12:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 23:12:56 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <20150414.191256.7783.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The major problem is that many consider tefillat haderech as a > tefillah and not as a bracha. Thus while one can be motze other > for a bracha one cannot do it for a tefillah. I am very confused. Many poskim recommend point out that Tefilas Haderech does not begin with "Baruch", so they recommend saying it after another bracha (such as Asher Yatzar, or a Bracha Acharona on food), so as to make it into a Bracha Hasemucha L'chvertah. But if Tefilas Haderech is not a bracha to begin with, then I do not see the advantage of such a procedure. According to "Halachically Speaking", vol 1 pg 76, the poskim who recommend the above procedure includes: Magen Avraham 110:13, Machatzis Hashekel 110:13, Be'er Hetev 110:10, Shulchan Aruch Harav 110:6, Mishneh Berurah 110:28, Aruch Hashulchan 110:14, Kaf Hachaim 110:51 -- but NOT the Chazon Ish (Orchos Rabenu 1:61). In addition, I recall learning of certain situations where it is recommended that one should say tefilas haderech, but omitting the chasima at the end. But if it's not a bracha at all even WITH the chasima, then what is gained by leaving it out? I suspect that I do not appreciate or understand the meaning of "as a tefillah and not as a bracha". Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552d9f0aeea561f0a2aa2st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 19:48:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 22:48:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Could a New Gadget Change Shabbat Observance - Forever In-Reply-To: <20150414145918.GA28845@aishdas.org> References: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150414145918.GA28845@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415024810.GA29474@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 10:59:18AM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 09:44:04AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : : From http://tinyurl.com/njr5j7a : : :> List of leading rabbis endorse 'Kosherswitch' to allow lights on : :> Shabbat. High-voltage project could send a current through Jewish : :> world. RGS just posted http://www.torahmusings.com/2015/04/will-the-kosher-switch-bring-mashiach-2 which also links to his earlier http://www.torahmusings.com/2011/09/in-defense-of-the-kosher-switch .... : As you can read on Zomet's site, R Neuwirth permits the wheelchair only : because the issue is basic mobility. KosherSwitch.com shows you that that : RYN signed on a "me too" to R' Pinchas Zabihi's haskamah. I have a notion : that once things are clarified, the truth is more somewhere in between. Actually, RGS determined that R Neuwirth didn't give his approval of the Kosher Switch outide of special circumstances. RGS writes: > The Kosher Switch adds uncertainty to the Gerama Switch. Every time the > device is supposed to send a light impulse, it calculates a random number > below 100 and only sends the impulse if the number passes a threshold > (usually over 50). However, there is a random element to Machon Zomet's switch too. Again, I do not see anything in the patent that makes this switch any less a simple case of gerama than Machon Zomet's switch. (In fact, R' Rosen of Zomet checked the posqim cited on KosherSwitch.com *because* he saw no reason why they would allow the Kosher Switch for general use and not Zomet's Grama Switch.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 19:26:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 02:26:43 GMT Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150414.222643.13892.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> R' Joseph Kaplan asked: > "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with > the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not > upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon > permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of > the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, > which is as changeless as the heavens above." > > Can anybody explain what this really means? That is, explain it > to someone who doesn?t use the word "ontological" in his/her > normal speech. I have read it many many times but I still > don?t understand what the Rav is saying. This is how I understand it: Just as a leopard cannot change its spots, and just as Shabbos comes each week whether society accepts it or not, so too, there are certain elements of the human condition which Chazal have identified as inherent and unchanging, not subject to variation by time, place, or culture. Or something like that. At any rate, one can agree or disagree about whether this assertion is true, and even among those who agree with it, there might be discussion of exactly which chazakos are unchanging and which are variable. Still, his point is that there are indeed some UNchanging aspects. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552dcca9d8e634ca96125st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 02:07:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 05:07:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's true position on kosher switch I regret that my father's position on the kosher switch was misrepresented by stating that he endorses it l'maaseh . His position is that there are 2 aspects in hilchos shabbos, one is issur melacha and then there is zilzul shabbos. My father's opinion is that there is no issur melacha or chilul shabbos. However , there is a concern about zilzul shabbos as he stated clearly on the video. Before it is used one should ask a shaila from his rav. Moshe Oelbaum Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:01:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:01:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld : regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. ... :> Moshe Oelbaum :> Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum Authentication? -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 23:10:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 09:10:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: The reason for not allowing to be motzi someone else is actually quite simple. The Gemara in Berachos (29b) clearly states that tefilas haderech is a tefila "Amar R' Chisda hayotzeh laderech tzarich lhispallel tefilas haderech". Therefore the general rule of tefilla should apply, namely that if you are a baki someone else cannot be motzi you. Since nowadays we are all considered bekiim and for example, we don't allow someone to be motzi us in tefilas mincha the same would apply to tefilas haderech. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:18:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:18:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:01 AM 4/15/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: >: Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld >: regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. >... >Authentication? What I posted was sent to me by someone on my email list whom I trust. I can send you his email address if you like. YL From http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/kosher-switch > moish3 at yahoo.com > Member > Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's true position on kosher switch . > I regret that my father's position on kosher switch was > misrepresented by stating that he endorses it l'maaseh . His position > is that there are 2 aspects in hilchos shabbos. One is issur melacha > and then there is zilzul shabbos. My father's opinion is that there > is no issur melacha or chilul shabbos. However , there is a concern > about zilzul shabbos as he stated clearly on the video. Before it is > used one should ask a shaila from his rav. > Moshe Oelbaum > Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:44:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:44:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 06:18:35AM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : What I posted was sent to me by someone on my email list whom I trust. : I can send you his email address if you like. YL ... : From http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/kosher-switch : > moish3 at yahoo.com : > Member Oh, I believe it really appeared in YWN, and that link can allow you to check that much for ourselves. What I'm asking is whether anyone contact R' Moshe Oelbaum or RNIO to authenticate that the post really was from his son. It is trivial to claim to be anyone in a YWN chatroom. I don't know RMO, but I can't picture R' NI Oelbaum promulgating his position via chatroom. Could be, if his son is a regular there anyway. The presence of a post really doesn't tell me much. No matter how honest the person reporting to you is, he can be duped unless he spoke to the parties himself. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:13:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:13:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150415101229.BCD31183613@nexus.stevens.edu> At 05:54 AM 4/15/2015, R. Harry Weiss wrote: >When one davens in a large minyan and is surrounded by other people >davening it is easier to concentrate on the tefilla. I do not find this to be true for me personally. I am not a "group person" and hence prefer to daven in a minyan that has between 20 and forty participants. This is the case where I daven during the week and also at the Hashkama Minyan at the YI of Ave J where I daven on Shabbos. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 06:34:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 09:34:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:44 AM 4/15/2015, Micha Berger wrote: > What I'm asking is whether >anyone contact R' Moshe Oelbaum or RNIO to authenticate that the >post really was from his son. It is trivial to claim to be anyone >in a YWN chatroom. I received this in an email from Moshe Deutsch I personally spoke to Rabbi & Rebbetzin Oelbaum who told me to publicize this. I was the one who made them aware that the person behind KosherSwitch is using his name in a way that Rabbi Oelbaum did not intend. Person behind KosherSwitch does not pick up the phone now when Rabbi Oelbaum calls. Moshe From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 07:21:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 10:21:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 09:34:32AM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : I received this in an email from Moshe Deutsch :> I personally spoke to Rabbi & Rebbetzin Oelbaum who told me to :> publicize this. I was the one who made them aware that the person :> behind KosherSwitch is using his name in a way that Rabbi Oelbaum did :> not intend... This still doesn't clear up my confusion, although it does confirm what the YWN post said (if not who authored it). I am trying to understand whether RNIO's problem with the appearance of his name on the KosherSwitch.com "approvers" list is because a- he feels that use of the switch is zilzul Shabbos, or b- he would hold it's gerama. What I am trying to understand is the tzad to say their switch isn't gerama. It appears to conform to the description of the Machon Zomet switch as it existed at the time R' Neuwirth consulted with RSZA who ruled it was. If RNIO holds it's "only" zilzul Shabbos, then clarifying what his position is was useful, but doesn't remove all my confusion. I was expecting that the posqim the Kosher Switch people are hearing overly optimistically (for their investment) would actually all end up agreeing with RSZA once we got clarification. Such as R' Neuwirth, whose approval was based on assuming the proposed use was a medical context. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 04:38:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 14:38:08 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <> On many birtchot hamitzva one can be motzeh others even when they are "experts". This includes shofar, megilla etc (not lulav or netillat yadaim which is considered as a mitzvah be-gufo) similarly for kiddush and havdala. Note that for sefirat haomer usually each person says the bracha himself/herself and also counts for themselves. There are opinions that if needed one can rely on the chazzan for the bracha but not the count. In birchat ha-nehenim usually each individual makes his own bracha. There are some which are a mixture including kiddush and motzi on shabbat on lechem mishne (note there are various minhagim on seder night). For birchat shevach eg lightning seeing great mountains etc each person says it by himself. OTOH the shliach tzibbur can be motzi others with shemone esre only if they cant say it themselves. Shemonei esrei is a tefillah (bakasha and shevach) even though shemonei esrei consists of brachot. The usual minhag is that each individual says birchat hagomel though I once heard from R Zilberstein that if many people need to say it then it is preferable for one person to be motzei everyone else ---------------------------------------- I am not sure if I have made things clearer - if not I leave it to someone else to explain exactly when one can be motze others lechatchila, bidieved or not at all -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 06:29:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 16:29:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: R' Akiva Miller wrote: > I suspect that I do not appreciate or understand the meaning of "as a > tefillah and not as a bracha". The difference between tefila and a beracha is whether you can be motzi a baki nowadays. With a beracha you can however with a tefilla you cannot which is why these poskim hold that each person should say tefilas haderech the same way every person davens shemoneh esrei. You also asked: > I am very confused. Many poskim recommend point out that Tefilas Haderech > does not begin with "Baruch", so they recommend saying it after another > bracha (such as Asher Yatzar, or a Bracha Acharona on food), so as to make > it into a Bracha Hasemucha L'chvertah. But if Tefilas Haderech is not a > bracha to begin with, then I do not see the advantage of such a procedure. Something can be both a beracha and a tefila at the same time, the prime example is shemoneh esrei which is tefilla par excellence but composed of 18 (19) berachos. Tefilas haderech is a tefila composed (possibly) in the form of a beracha and therefore the rules of tefilla would apply. [Email #2. -micha] R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The sefer Piskei Teshuvot (siman 110-2) has a discussion whether one is > required to say tefillat haderech in modern times. He concludes that one > who does not say it on major roads has someone to rely on but someone who > also says it has the reward of a tefilla even though we no longer have > "listin" and wild animals on the roads. It seems clear from the context of the gemara that tefilas haderech is a tefila b'eis tzara. The gemara mentions tefilas haderech right after it mentions that a person who is in a dangerous place says a tefila. The world has changed a lot since the time of chazal especially related to travel and we need to understand if these changes affect the din of tefilas haderech Here are some of the changes that have occurred relating to travel. 1. Most travel is no longer considered unsafe. When I get in my car every morning to drive to work I don't think twice about it 2. The distinction between in the city and out of the city is no longer true. Most people fell much safer driving in the Catskills then driving through Harlem. Driving on a highway from Brooklyn to Queens is in the city but driving in Monsey to the supermarket may be considered out of the city. 3. This is related to 1, people travel all the time. Most people commute some distance to work, this is normal and part of everyday life. In the time of chazal yotze laderech was a big deal. Given the above R' Shachter (in Nefesh Harav) says that R' Soloveitchik did not say tefilas haderech when he commuted from Boston to NY to give his shiurim. He felt that because it is a tefila b'eis tzara and nowadays there is no perceived danger and it is routine that there was no reason to say it. Recently, I heard a short shiur on tefilas haderech and was happy to hear that RSZA seems to say a very similar idea to RYBS. RSZA did not say tefilas haderech when he traveled from Yerushayim to Bnei Brak. He explained his reasoning as follows: 1. In many places it is not considered as if you left the yishuv for the following reasons: 1. There are many other cars on the road 2. The police regularly patrol the road 3. There are houses on the side of the road 2. Traveling by car/bus is a normal activity. Whan a person gets up and commutes to work he does not say he is going on a trip. The takana of tefilas haderech was for someone who was yotze laderech these kinds of trips are not considered ???? ????. 3. There is little or no danger of yotze laderech RSZA reasoning is very similar to RYBS. Basically, the world has changed and it is no longer unusual or dangerous to travel between cities and therefore the din of when you say tefilas haderech changes as well. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 05:05:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:05:17 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150414.222643.13892.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150414.222643.13892.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <0fa3e90282b94c0e95214067965f579a@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> This is how I understand it: Just as a leopard cannot change its spots, and just as Shabbos comes each week whether society accepts it or not, so too, there are certain elements of the human condition which Chazal have identified as inherent and unchanging, not subject to variation by time, place, or culture. Or something like that. At any rate, one can agree or disagree about whether this assertion is true, and even among those who agree with it, there might be discussion of exactly which chazakos are unchanging and which are variable. Still, his point is that there are indeed some UNchanging aspects. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ I would add an observation that individual exceptions may exist empirically but are ignored halachically Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 06:24:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 09:24:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tan Du In-Reply-To: <20150406184227.GF20912@aishdas.org> References: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150406184227.GF20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <552E669A.6000104@aishdas.org> I personally was always inclined to side with Rabbi Rackman over RYBS on tav l'meisav, but this article gives me pause: http://www.bbc.com/news/health-32303997 KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 07:57:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 10:57:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Message-ID: From: Joseph Kaplan via Avodah "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above." Can anybody explain what this really means? That is, explain it to someone who doesn't use the word "ontological" in his/her normal speech. I have read it many many times but I still don't understand what the Rav is saying. Joseph >>>>> If you leave out the word "ontological" here the sentence is perfectly clear: Human nature does not change. I'm sure you looked up the definition of "ontological" so no need to go there. But in this paragraph, the word "ontological" serves a subliminal purpose. Here it means, "Don't condescend to Orthodox Jews and do not assume we are backwards, primitive, and ignorant. One can be an intellectual and still believe the Torah is true and eternal." --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 08:12:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:12:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: From: Eli Turkel via Avodah >>The sefer Piskei Teshuvot (siman 110-2) has a discussion whether one is required to say tefillat haderech in modern times. He concludes that one who does not say it on major roads has someone to rely on but someone who also says it has the reward of a tefilla even though we no longer have "listin" and wild animals on the roads. Instead we have a car accidents. Therefore one should also say tefillat haderech on railroads and planes. He claims that on small side roads that everyone paskens you need to say tefillat haderech<< -- Eli Turkel >>>> Saying tefillas haderech "on major roads" -- does that mean even within one city, not just when traveling between cities? "On small side roads everyone paskens you need to say tefillas haderech"? What does that mean? Every time I get in the car to go to the grocery store in my own neighborhood? Or was the word "don't" inadvertently omitted from that sentence ("you don't need to say tefillat haderech")? I was driving someone to the cemetery for a levaya, we were on the highway doing 60 and all of a sudden it started to rain, but I mean a mabul, a hard, driving, blinding rain. I couldn't see at all in front of me. Of course I slowed down, as did everyone else, but it was still very frightening and certainly I couldn't just stop in the middle of the highway. My passenger, a BT, became very agitated and said, "I only know one perek of Tehillim by heart so I am going to say that." Then she recited Shir Hamaalos (from benching) out loud. The rain stopped immediately! A few miles further down the road, there was another sudden blinding outburst and she said Shir Hamaalos again. Again the rain immediately stopped. She was like a reverse Choni Hamaagel! I really think her emunah peshuta saved the day! But to veer back into Avodah territory -- would it have been appropriate to say Tefillas Haderech at that time? With shem umalchus? (I assume you can always say it without shem umalchus.) --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 08:34:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:34:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides Message-ID: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> There was a bachur next to me this morning whose retzu'os were painted black on both sides. And I believe I know why this is done, in case a retzu'ah gets flipped. Or perhaps to be chosheish for the Rambam's description of such retzu'os being "noi". The MB 933:21 tells us not to follow the Rambam, whereas the Keses haSofer (written by R' Ganzfried of the QSA) says even the *sides* should be black. But the site got me wondering: 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? 2- If the leather is soaked in dye untile its absorbed and the leather is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? R YS Elyashiv is reported by R' Mordeschai Friedlander (a noted sofer and poseiq, a reliable source) to hold they're fine. I am not challenging their kashrus. It just struck me that both seem valid concerns. I assume the talented chevrah can find holes in my problems. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:17:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:17:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> At 10:21 AM 4/15/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >I am trying to understand whether RNIO's problem with the appearance of >his name on the KosherSwitch.com "approvers" list is because >a- he feels that use of the switch is zilzul Shabbos, or >b- he would hold it's gerama. Does it really matter. He is saying that he does not approve of its use. Why do you need to know more? YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:32:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:32:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 12:17:02PM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : Does it really matter. He is saying that he does not approve of its : use. Why do you need to know more? For the sake of the switch, no. For the sake of understanding the concept of gerama -- Torah hi, velilamdah ani tzarikh! Saying this switch isn't gerama, and its use limited to cases where we can permit gerama, really defies my understanding of the concept. Or perhaps I misunderstand how it works, in which case the Electrical Engineer I studied to become (and the neti'ah that motivated the intent to become one) wants to know. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:07:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 17:07:04 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:34:00 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah > 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam > consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? > 2- If the leather is soaked in dye [until it's] absorbed and the leather > is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we > know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? 1. If it is just soaked, there is no problem of chatzitzah. (Did the fact that the pesiloth of the Tsits were soaked in techeles dye constitute a problem of chatsisoh? atmahah?) There may be a problem if it was subsequently glossed black - which it isn't. 2. Why shouldn't it be valid material after soaking? It's still leather. According to halachah, [have not checked this up right now - but if memory serves me] you can even use klaf [bdi'eved] for retsuos - as long as it is the skin of a kosher beheimoh, its kosher. Dovid [sofer] From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:13:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:13:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> References: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <552E8E18.4090201@sero.name> On 04/15/2015 11:34 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam > consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? Why would it be? It's part of the retzua. AFAIK everyone agrees that it's a hiddur, just not necessary, and most people don't bother. > 2- If the leather is soaked in dye untile its absorbed and the leather > is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we > know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? Why wouldn't it be? It's still leather, after all. Where does it say what colour the leather must be? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:57:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:57:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150415165733.GD6173@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:04PM +0100, D via Avodah wrote: : Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:34:00 -0400 : From: Micha Berger via Avodah :> 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam :> consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? : 1. If it is just soaked, there is no problem of chatzitzah. (Did the : fact that the pesiloth of the Tsits were soaked in techeles dye : constitute a problem of chatsisoh? atmahah?) ... So I believe your answer to my first question is that they don't paint the bottom, they only use my scenario two -- soaking the leather. About your parenthetical comment... If halakhah requires tekheiles, it requires blue wool. The completed product would be what the kohein shouldn't have a chatzitzah under. Not the undyed wool. :> 2- If the leather is soaked in dye [until it's] absorbed and the leather :> is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we :> know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? : 2. Why shouldn't it be valid material after soaking? It's still : leather.... But it's no longer entirely skin of a kosher beheimah, as the dye isn't made from skin. It is now a retzuah made of skin + dye. I could see that either way, and am asking how we (or the posqim among us) can just assume that this innovation is not a problem. Just as tekheiles is different than tzemer, perhaps dye-soaked leather is different in kind than leather. How did we determine it isn't? : Dovid [sofer] Thanks for chiming in. But could you kindly put your full name in your email header or signature once in a while, so that people know who we're talking to? One of Avodah's goals is to create chevraschaft, which is difficult when people are anonymous or partially so. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 10:28:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 17:28:55 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150415.132855.9927.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 12:17:02PM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : Does it really matter. He is saying that he does not approve of its : use. Why do you need to know more? This is like saying, about ANY situation, "He is saying that it is assur. Why do you need to know if it is d'Oraisa or d'rabanan?" The answer is very simple: There are some situations which would justify doing it if "merely" d'rabanan, but not otherwise. Similarly, there may be situations where RNIO would allow this it his svara was ABC, but not if his svara was XYZ. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552e9fe45804e1fe4411ast02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 12:42:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 19:42:24 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu>, <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> Message-ID: <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Saying this switch isn't gerama, and its use limited to cases where we can permit gerama, really defies my understanding of the concept. Or perhaps I misunderstand how it works, in which case the Electrical Engineer I studied to become (and the neti'ah that motivated the intent to become one) wants to know. Tir'u baTov! -Micha _______________________________________________ Sounds to me like r' asher weiss's makeh bpatish definition. Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 16:13:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 19:13:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 07:42:24PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Sounds to me like r' asher weiss's makeh bpatish definition. You lost me. I wasn't discussing which melakhah -- if any -- one violates by using electricity in an of itself, but how using this switch relates to that melakhah. For example, even if we say that electricity and electronics itself weren't an issue, the majority of these switches would be installed so as to turn on fluorescent or incandescent bulbs. Both of which heat filaments until glowing -- so there is a melakhah of bishul or hav'arah to discuss. And my question becomes: In that rather typical setting, how the switch not gerama of one of those two melakhos? (Or possibly both, if a glowing filament is hav'arah, and the resulting boiling of mercury in the fluorescent bulb, bishul.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 13:05:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 16:05:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: REliTurkel wrote: >Just saw a halacha that to me was a chiddush That one cannot (or should not) be yotzeh someone else for tefiilat haderech but everyone should say for them self. Those agreeing (at least lechatchila) include R Aviner R Nebenzahl R C Kanevsky R Tuvia Goldstein (who said he convinced RMF) R Belsky Not what I have seen in practice. Anyone know any opinion that does allow it< Is there any opinion, even of the five quoted, which holds that one is _not_ yotzei even b'diavad? As for RET's question, the Kol Bo on Aveilus, quoted in SSK, Perek 64, footnote 75, states that an onein is obligated in t'fillas haderech, but it is preferable that he be yotzei with another's b'racha. (I have not seen the SSK, but have seen it quoted.) EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 15:35:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 15:35:27 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach Message-ID: did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 17:00:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 20:00:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 6:35 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? I have a friend who does this. She once told me the origins but I forget where it came from. I remember that it was very obscure and non traditional. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 17:38:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 20:38:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150416003839.GD1638@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 03:35:27PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? What did it grow out of? Avoiding she'avar alav es hapesach? A way of avoiding chodosh, at least during the omer period? -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 17:44:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 20:44:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: <20150416003839.GD1638@aishdas.org> References: <20150416003839.GD1638@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 8:38 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 03:35:27PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: >: did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? > What did it grow out of? ... It had to do with chodosh and the omer/barley. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 22:05:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Weiss via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 22:05:46 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > From: Marty Bluke via Avodah > Given the above R' Shachter (in Nefesh Harav) says that R' Soloveitchik > did > not say tefilas haderech when he commuted from Boston to NY to give his > shiurim. He felt that because it is a tefila b'eis tzara and nowadays > there > is no perceived danger and it is routine that there was no reason to say > it. I was on a number of trips to Europe with RHS and every morning when the bus left town he said Tefillas Haderech over the loudspeaker. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 22:19:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 08:19:12 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: multipart/alternative Size: 369 bytes Desc: not available URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 07:15:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:15:53 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: Question: If one doesn't view eilu v'eilu as multiple truths but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which is which), how do you explain the approach to halachic process which ignores academic findings concerning texts or historical circumstances? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 07:16:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:16:49 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] =?windows-1252?q?Nikra_Choteih=94_or_=93Nikra_Rasha=94?= Message-ID: <34b0a662bcc7405695661d14e08ddcfd@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> The gemara uses the expression ?Nikra Choteih? or ?Nikra Rasha? from time to time. Has anyone seen anything written on the relative ranking of such categories? (e.g. since it doesn?t say ?assur?? does it mean it?s not a complete prohibition but something less?) KT Joel RIch THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 08:26:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 16:26:54 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I've never heard of the minhag but there is a chasidishe minhag to eat matsoh every time one washes for hamotsi during the Omer [see Chayim VeShoolom - Minhogim of Munkatche Rebbe] - which might be connected. (The source is the Ari who perceives the spiritual influx of Pesach to be repeated over the Omer; the state that warrants the eating of matsoh during Pesach carries over till Shovuos. Full 'maturity' that warrants the eating of chomets is only reached on Shovuos.) Dovid Rubin From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 10:13:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 17:13:44 GMT Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach Message-ID: <20150416.131344.1969.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> R' Dovid Rubin wrote: > (The source is the Ari who perceives the spiritual influx of Pesach > to be repeated over the Omer; the state that warrants the eating of > matsoh during Pesach carries over till Shovuos. This reminds me of the comment (which I've heard several times here on Avodah, but I don't think anywhere else) that in Moshiach's time, all of Sefira will be a sort of Chol Hamoed to Pesach. > Full 'maturity' that > warrants the eating of chomets is only reached on Shovuos.) Shavuos -- a.k.a. -- "Atzeres" -- is of course an entirely distinct holiday, unrelated to Pesach or to its seven-week long chol hamoed. Chometz would not be a problem on Shavuos any more than Sukkah is mandated on the other Atzeres. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552fede2bc7ec6de23df7st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 10:56:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 13:56:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: <20150416.131344.1969.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.131344.1969.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150416175612.GB10238@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 05:13:44PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Dovid Rubin wrote: :> Full 'maturity' that :> warrants the eating of chomets is only reached on Shovuos.) : Shavuos -- a.k.a. -- "Atzeres" -- is of course an entirely : distinct holiday, unrelated to Pesach or to its seven-week long chol : hamoed. Chometz would not be a problem on Shavuos any more than Sukkah : is mandated on the other Atzeres. Entirely distinct, yes. Unrelated.... The chag of cheirus finds its fruition with "charos - cheirus al haluchos." The connection between the issur chameitz of Pesach, the barley of the qorban omer, and the two loaves of chameitz wheat of the Shetei haLechem is at least as old as the Chinukh. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:22:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:22:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> Yesterday, at 7:13 pm EDT, I wrote: > And my question becomes: In that rather typical setting, how the > switch not gerama of one of those two melakhos? (Or possibly both, if > a glowing filament is hav'arah, and the resulting boiling of mercury > in > the fluorescent bulb, bishul.) And then "ssvarc" (RMSS) wrote on Torah Musings at 8:28 am or > In all likelihood, the Zomet one doesn?t have the light on a > randomized > timer (with indicators), nor the randomized chance for the light > pulse > to operate the switch. Now for an updated version of my response (not yet approved) there: Zomet's Grama Switch does have a randomizer on the LED whose light you may or may not block. As do Shabbos mode ovens. The Kosher Switch has a the same randomizer on the detector opposite the LED, but I don?t see how that makes anything more random. But now that you had me looking at their ?How it Works? page, the key difference has the description of a sefeiq sefeiqa. It?s far from clear what is meant. Here?s the quote from : > This creates two safeiks (Halachic uncertainty): the first, whether > or not the light pulse of the Light Pulse Pair will fail; the second, > whether the switch will fail in triggering the circuit based on the > results of the Light Pulse Pair. ?The switch will fail in triggering the circuit?? What are they doing to introduce this second safeiq? The best I can tell, it's a simple bit of software -- a randomizer that says "don't respond anyway". But that's just guessing, I'm not good enough at reading their patent to be sure. Also, in what sense is either a safeiq? Both will eventually happen, the question is when. I am not sure how ?sefeiq sefeiqa? applies to gerama, or to be more precise -- avoiding gerama. But at least I?m a step further in my understanding. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Here is the test to find whether your mission micha at aishdas.org on Earth is finished: http://www.aishdas.org if you're alive, it isn't. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Richard Bach From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:46:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:46:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> Message-ID: PS: On the relevance of random delay to gerama... AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is *geram* kibui". A case of gerama with a random time delay. But this is Yom Tov, where the laws against extinguishing are looser. The AhS refers you to OC 277:7, where we see that on Shabbos it's assur -- but because of a special gezeira to prevent people from doing the same when the wind *is* blowing. Not because of gerama. I also don't think the randomness of the length of the delay is necessarily relevant. Just pointing out halachic precedent. But it's certainly not "iffy" that we could invoke sefeiq sefeiqa. It's a random length delay, not a doubt whether or not the switch will eventually cause the outcome. The odds the wind will never come, or the randomizer(s) will never produce a combination that causes the switch to be honored, is ignorably small. (No one is selling a switch that may or may not shut the light.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:43:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:43:56 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: RJRich >>>Sounds to me like r' asher weiss's makeh bpatish definition. RMBerger >>>> You lost me. I wasn't discussing which melakhah -- if any -- one violates by using electricity in an of itself, but how using this switch relates to that melakhah. >>> IIAMN, the idea RJR is expressing is that the poseik has ad initio determined that the action in question is forbidden, and now is searching around for the category into which to place this prohibition. I have heard RAWeiss explicitly use this concept in classifying the use of electricity as makeh b'patish, based on a Yerushalmi - it's not an idea just made up by contemporary poskim. It does seem that some poskim are looking at the switch and saying "it *must *be assur somehow"; in any event that seems to me to be what RJR is suggesting is going on. Saul Mashbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:45:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:45:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55300361.8020803@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 02:22 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > "The switch will fail in triggering the circuit"? What are they > doing to introduce this second safeiq? The best I can tell, it's > a simple bit of software -- a randomizer that says "don't respond > anyway". But that's just guessing, I'm not good enough at reading their > patent to be sure. Yes, that's how I understood it. If and when the pulse is received, instead of automatically triggering the light to turn on, there's a gatekeeper that flips a coin, heads it obeys the request to turn on the light, tails it refuses. > Also, in what sense is either a safeiq? Both will eventually happen, > the question is when. In principle it might not ever happen. The basis of all this seems to be siman 277. There the concern is that even if the wind isn't blowing right now, it might start to blow *immediately* as you begin to open the door. This implies that if we can be sure that it won't start blowing until some time after the door has been opened it will be OK. But that whole discussion assumes that extinguishing the flame is not the purpose for which the door is being opened, it's just a possible side-effect. Is the halacha different if that was the intention? On 04/16/2015 02:46 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > > AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes > the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable > to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, > as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. > The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is > *geram* kibui". But there you're actively taking it to the place where the wind will blow. Here you're merely opening the door, so that if/when the wind blows the door won't protect the flame. > But it's certainly not "iffy" that we could invoke sefeiq sefeiqa. It's a > random length delay, not a doubt whether or not the switch will eventually > cause the outcome. The odds the wind will never come, or the randomizer(s) > will never produce a combination that causes the switch to be honored, > is ignorably small. (No one is selling a switch that may or may not shut > the light.) Why not? For the shabbos-keeping household, a switch that sometimes fails is better than no switch at all. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 12:12:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 15:12:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <55300361.8020803@sero.name> References: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 02:45:53PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : >Also, in what sense is either a safeiq? Both will eventually happen, : >the question is when. : : In principle it might not ever happen. ... : >But it's certainly not "iffy" that we could invoke sefeiq sefeiqa. It's a : >random length delay, not a doubt whether or not the switch will eventually : >cause the outcome. The odds the wind will never come, or the randomizer(s) : >will never produce a combination that causes the switch to be honored, : >is ignorably small. (No one is selling a switch that may or may not shut : >the light.) : : Why not? For the shabbos-keeping household, a switch that sometimes fails : is better than no switch at all. You want to ask them why not, feel free to do so. I'm not guessing why they're not setting the randomizers to make each even that unlikely. Still, they are repeatedly rolling the dice, the odds of repeatedly getting "no" falls off geometrically with the length of time in question. Ignoring milsa delo shekhicha, the light will indeed go on. They say the average is "several times" at . : The basis of all this seems to be siman 277. There the concern is that : even if the wind isn't blowing right now, it might start to blow : *immediately* as you begin to open the door. This implies that if we : can be sure that it won't start blowing until some time after the door : has been opened it will be OK. But that whole discussion assumes that : extinguishing the flame is not the purpose for which the door is being : opened, it's just a possible side-effect. Is the halacha different if : that was the intention? : >AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes : >the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable : >to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, : >as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. : >The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is : >*geram* kibui". : : But there you're actively taking it to the place where the wind will blow. : Here you're merely opening the door, so that if/when the wind blows the door : won't protect the flame. The AhS invites the comparison, not me. Clearly you're making a disinction that he holds is without a difference. BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at . To quote: An alternative Talmudic analogy: * There is a candle burning next to a closed window, and a strong wind blowing outside. Certainly, opening the window on Shabbat is forbidden, since the candle will be extinguished immediately. * There is a device that can determine if there's no wind currently blowing, and it can predict with 100% accuracy that no wind will be blowing for at least the next ~5 seconds. It lights up with a green light when it has determined this to be true. * On Shabbat, a person opens/closes the window while the device's indicator is green, knowing that a wind will ultimately blow and succeed in extinguishing the candle. * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to KosherSwitch (R). -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:55:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:55:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] {Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: > From: Marty Bluke via Avodah > Given the above R' Shachter (in Nefesh Harav) says that R' Soloveitchik > did > not say tefilas haderech when he commuted from Boston to NY to give his > shiurim. He felt that because it is a tefila b'eis tzara and nowadays > there > is no perceived danger and it is routine that there was no reason to say > it. RAsher Weiss, in a shiur on tefillat haderech, similarly expressed grave reservations about the recitation of tefillat haderech on routine trips which do not involve any particular acute danger, and indicated that his personal practice is not to say tefillat haderech (at least with a bracha) on said routine trips. OTOH, he was apparently very reluctant to issue a definitive psak that others should do the same, in the face of common established practice. Saul Mashbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 12:43:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 15:43:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> References: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 03:12 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > > BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at > . To quote: > > An alternative Talmudic analogy: > > * There is a candle burning next to a closed window, and a strong > wind blowing outside. Certainly, opening the window on Shabbat is > forbidden, since the candle will be extinguished immediately. > > * There is a device that can determine if there's no wind currently > blowing, and it can predict with 100% accuracy that no wind will be > blowing for at least the next ~5 seconds. It lights up with a > green light when it has determined this to be true. > > * On Shabbat, a person opens/closes the window while the device's > indicator is green, knowing that a wind will ultimately blow and > succeed in extinguishing the candle. > > * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind > is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time > when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts > of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they > miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're > able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to > KosherSwitch (R). Yes, and it seems from the SA that this would be permitted. The big difference, though, is that in the SA's case there is no intention to extinguish the flame, and here there is. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 12:53:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 15:53:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> References: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150416195347.GC11430@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 03:43:24PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: :> BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at :> . To quote: ... :> * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind :> is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time :> when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts :> of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they :> miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're :> able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to :> KosherSwitch (R). : Yes, and it seems from the SA that this would be permitted. The big : difference, though, is that in the SA's case there is no intention to : extinguish the flame, and here there is. Getting back to the post that started this tangent, the question was whether this last bullet item actualy is relevant. What's relevant is the probability of the wind eventually blowing the candle out or the switch turning the light off. If it's a rov or maybe a rube deruba, then it's gerama. At least, that's what was consensus decades ago when Machon Zomet first produced their switch technology and wheelchair. Whether you can break down the likelihood of the melakhah occuring into a union of the probability of a number of sub-steps or not doesn't seem to me to impact the question. Because this isn't a safeiq situation, it's whether your action can be blamed for the melakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 13:25:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 16:25:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150416195347.GC11430@aishdas.org> References: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> <20150416195347.GC11430@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55301AC6.7000807@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 03:53 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 03:43:24PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > :> BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at > :> . To quote: > ... > :> * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind > :> is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time > :> when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts > :> of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they > :> miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're > :> able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to > :> KosherSwitch (R). > > : Yes, and it seems from the SA that this would be permitted. The big > : difference, though, is that in the SA's case there is no intention to > : extinguish the flame, and here there is. > > Getting back to the post that started this tangent, the question was > whether this last bullet item actualy is relevant. According to the SA even the penultimate bullet item is permitted: >> * On Shabbat, a person opens/closes the window while the device's >> indicator is green, knowing that a wind will ultimately blow and >> succeed in extinguishing the candle Surely the last bullet item makes the heter much stronger. But again, the case discussed is where this is not one's intention. Note also, in the mashal, that not only is there no wind right now, there is no candle right now either. > What's relevant is the probability of the wind eventually blowing the > candle out or the switch turning the light off. If it's a rov or maybe > a rube deruba, then it's gerama. That doesn't seem to be what the SA says. But again, with the caveat that intention might make a difference. > Whether you can break down the likelihood of the melakhah occuring into > a union of the probability of a number of sub-steps or not doesn't seem > to me to impact the question. Because this isn't a safeiq situation, > it's whether your action can be blamed for the melakhah. It's putting further causal distance between "cause" and "effect". What if you had a series of these routines, each of which may or may not call the next one, until the last one which may or may not do something? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 14:05:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Samuel Svarc via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 17:05:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Apr 15, 2015 6:01 AM, "Micha Berger via Avodah" wrote: > On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > : Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld > : regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. > ... > :> Moshe Oelbaum > :> Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum > Authentication? Um, the fact that R' Oelbaum says the same thing on the KosherSwitch video ()? What I find very disturbing is that this information is in the public arena. Why are people commenting or conjecturing without looking at the companies materials? On Apr 16, 2015 2:46 PM, "Micha Berger" wrote: > PS: On the relevance of random delay to gerama... > AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes > the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable > to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, > as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. > The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is > *geram* kibui". > A case of gerama with a random time delay. But this is Yom Tov, where > the laws against extinguishing are looser. The AhS refers you to OC > 277:7, where we see that on Shabbos it's assur -- but because of a > special gezeira to prevent people from doing the same when the wind *is* > blowing. Not because of gerama. Take a look at R' Schapiro's teshuva (available on the KosherSwitch website) as well as listen to the shuir they link to (26 min.). KT, MSS From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 14:48:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 17:48:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150416214839.GC1824@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 04:25:42PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: :> What's relevant is the probability of the wind eventually blowing the :> candle out or the switch turning the light off. If it's a rov or maybe :> a rube deruba, then it's gerama. : That doesn't seem to be what the SA says. But again, with the caveat that : intention might make a difference. But we already know it does, according to RSZa and numerous other posqim. IOW, your seifa answers your reisha. : >Whether you can break down the likelihood of the melakhah occuring into : >a union of the probability of a number of sub-steps or not doesn't seem : >to me to impact the question. Because this isn't a safeiq situation, : >it's whether your action can be blamed for the melakhah. : It's putting further causal distance between "cause" and "effect". : What if you had a series of these routines, each of which may or may not : call the next one, until the last one which may or may not do something? That's exactly what I'm saying -- gerama is always a chain of events that can be subdivided according to your taste (how fine grained you wish to define the word "event"). There is an oft-discussed difference between melakhah and CM, where the latter subdivides into gerama (culpable) and garmi (no libability) but hilkhos Shabbos does not. And then even so, garmi is about number of human actions, not physical events. On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 05:05:38PM -0400, Samuel Svarc wrote: : On Apr 15, 2015 6:01 AM, "Micha Berger via Avodah" : wrote: :> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: :>: Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld :>: regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. :> ... :>:> Moshe Oelbaum :>:> Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum :> Authentication? : Um, the fact that R' Oelbaum says the same thing on the KosherSwitch video : ()? YOu misunderstand what I'm asking to be authenticated. Yes, I agree that RNIO talks about zilzul Shabbos. He does in the original alleged approbation in print (or PDF) as well. I was asking for authentication that RMO was really the one who said it's "only" zilzul Shabbos and not also gerama. There is nothing in his caveat about them avoiding melakhah that explains in what way shabbos is being cheapened. Could be uvda dechol, could be gerama, could be any other derabbanan or shevus. No? Not to verify the new "chumera", but to very he wasn't being even more machmir. That's a lot to glean from a post on a YWN chatroom that claims to be from his son. No one identity checks on YWN. : What I find very disturbing is that this information is in the public : arena. Why are people commenting or conjecturing without looking at the : companies materials? In the same post I cite the site in numerous ways, including commenting on parts of the patent application. It's not like I stinted on the research. Never blame until the possibility of miscommunication has been eliminated. No? : On Apr 16, 2015 2:46 PM, "Micha Berger" wrote: : Take a look at R' Schapiro's teshuva (available on the KosherSwitch : website) as well as listen to the shuir they link to (26 min.). One thing I had noted about the teshuvah is that he doesn't bother with the whole thing about a second randomizer. Which is why I was lost as to why anyone would think this is more mutar, and why people who generally follow RSZA more often than RZS would think this solves anything. See R' Neuwirth's summary rejection, repudiating the claim he backed their work . Consistent with what he reported besheim RSZA decades ago. I already noted OC 277, which is specific to geram kibui being mutar, with the exception of taking a candle outside while the wind is calm, lest someone not wait for the wind to be calm. And havarah or bishul? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 18:59:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:59:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150417015924.GA11845@aishdas.org> Here's the current state of my understnading, to start the conversation over by clearing the exchanges that got me there. Feel free to correct any misunderstandings, or even points that needn't necessarily be as I present them. 1- RSZA considers Zomet's Gerama Switch to be just that -- gerama, and therefore assur derabanan except in special cases. Randomly delayed changes to a circuit is, leshitaso, gerama. 2- KSTI considers their switch to be halachically different because their version of the Gerama Switch then goes into a second randomizer which determines whether or not it actually turns on or off your light. They invoke the words "sefeik sefeika", which I don't understand, since the random element is to insure an unknown delay, not a doubt about whether or not the switch eventually turns the light on. 3- Those who hold like RSZA -- R Neuwirth (obviously), R' Nebenzahl, R' Shternbuch -- gave the same ruling to the new switch. 4- Those who say this switch is gerama do not actually invoke the second random element. I found nothing in that wouldn't apply to Zomet's switch. I see them as simply disagreeing with RSZA and R' Yehoshua Neuwirth when they dealt with that question decades ago. Which, given the stature of RSZA and the acceptance of Shemiras Shabbos keHilhasah (and thus RYN), I don't think will get very far in terms of communal acceptance. 5- The Machloqes between RSZA and R Chaim Zvi Shapiro (to pick two representative names) appears to be over how to understand the distinction between two statements by the Rama: 334:22- Geram kibui is only allowed in special cases, and 514:3- You may put a cnandle next to an open window even in a windy area. RSZA distinguishes between whether the intent is kibui or not. RCZS makes the chiluq between whether the maaseh is one of kibui. But I still don't see how this makes the Kosher Switch not a maaseh kibui that we would group it with open windows, not the normal geram kibui. 6- You can't take a candle outside to a windy area even when there is no wind because of a gezeira atu not waiting for the wind to die down. This is different than the window, because one is moving the candle itself. Still, the Magein AvrahamA applies the gezeira to the window as well -- inlike the Rama. So my wondering about how the Kosher Switch isn't a maaseh kibui means that I also have no idea why the switch wouldn't be covered by the gezeira. And according to the MA, the gezeira definitely applies, regardless. If so, wouldn't you need the switch to be physically blocked when the response could be immediately, and not merely warned off with a red light? 6- R' Oelbaum is against general usage, due to zilzul Shabbos. (To my understanding, zilzul Shabbos means violating a shevus or other deRabbanan, chilul Shabbos means deOraisa.) According to he explicitly states "it is clear it is not a grama". So, my prior approach to figuring out what he holds was pointless. Regardless of whether the person in YWN's chatroom is his son or just someone pretending to be, ie whether that text is likely to reflect the nuances of his position. And regardless how one is medayeiq the difference between melakhah and zilzul, ie whether he considers geram melakhah a melakhah or a shevus. RNIO is in the same camp as R' Chaim Zvi Shapiro WRT the mechanics of gerama, but with RSZA it all in practice. But at least now my opening question has some kind of resolution: No poseiq makes a point about how the switches differ, its a machloqes about whether the switch is more like bringing a candle outside or opening a window. It may also be a machloqes about whether it's only geram kibui that is limited to acts of kibui, or even other melakhos. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 17:56:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 20:56:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <10e550.ca50480.4261b459@aol.com> From: Zev Sero via Avodah >> Why not? For the shabbos-keeping household, a switch that sometimes fails is better than no switch at all.<< -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name >>>>> Now that Shabbos lamps are readily available -- they work by covering the light rather than turning it off -- why do we need the Shabbos switch at all? --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 18:08:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 01:08:53 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150416.210853.21413.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> > But that whole discussion assumes that > extinguishing the flame is not the purpose for which the door is being > opened, it's just a possible side-effect. Is the halacha different if > that was the intention? If the operative principle were Psik Reisha, then intention certainly would matter. So here's a question: Is Grama a version of Aino Psik Reisha, or is it another principle entirely? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55305d31763705d3173a1st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 15:56:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 23:56:59 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This idea (that the days of the Omer are a type of chol hamoed) is mentioned in Avoidas Yisroel [Koznitse Maggid] and Ramban in Acharie Mois. Dovid Rubin From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 18:27:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:27:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] re Chametz post Pesach Message-ID: >What did it grow out of? Avoiding she'avar alav es hapesach? A way of avoiding chodosh, at least during the omer period?< Since chadash is grain which has taken root after the minchas ha'omer on the second day of Pesach, and it takes more than 7 weeks for newly-sown grain to be ready for harvest, how is it possible for chadash to exist between Pesach and Shavuos? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 19:22:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 02:22:34 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Joel Rich asked: > Question: If one doesn?t view eilu v?eilu as multiple truths > but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don?t know which > is which), ... You've lost me. Doesn't the grammar and definition of the words "eilu v'eilu" imply that the two things under discussion are equal? I just can't wrap my brain around a way to translate "eilu v'eilu" where one is truth and the other isn't. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 19:35:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 22:35:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150417015924.GA11845@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150417015924.GA11845@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5530716C.8070201@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 09:59 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > They invoke the words "sefeik sefeika", which I don't understand, since > the random element is to insure an unknown delay, not a doubt about > whether or not the switch eventually turns the light on. I assume they disagree with this characterisation. This is your editorial opinion, that since it's inevitable that sooner or later the ducks will all be in a row and the light will come on, all that it achieves is a delay of random length. They would say no, each time the sequence is triggered (let's say every minute) is a discrete event, in which there is a sfek-sfeka whether anything will happen, and the fact that in the next hour there will be 60 more such opportunities, one of which is "bound" to succeed, is irrelevant. They would also point out that there *is* in fact a doubt whether the light will ever turn on (before Shabbos is over or the owner decides to flip the switch back), and they would deny your premise that the tininess of that doubt renders it meaningless. *You* think it's halachically insignificant; they are not required to agree with you. > But at least now my opening question has some kind of resolution: > No poseiq makes a point about how the switches differ, its a machloqes > about whether the switch is more like bringing a candle outside or > opening a window. They seem to say that this is like a case where at the time you open the window there is neither a wind nor a candle, but you know that some time later a goy is likely to put a candle in front of the window, and that some time after that a wind is likely to blow and put it out. On 04/16/2015 08:56 PM, T613K at aol.com via Avodah wrote: > Now that Shabbos lamps are readily available -- they work by covering > the light rather than turning it off -- why do we need the Shabbos > switch at all? I assume 1. To save electricity 2. If you want a brighter light than you can get from a 15w CF light (which is the maximum that it's safe to put in a Shabbos lamp) 3. For applications other than lights -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 20:02:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 03:02:13 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel wrote: > On many birchot hamitzva one can be motzeh others even when they > are "experts". This includes shofar, megilla etc (not lulav or > netillat yadaim which is considered as a mitzvah be-gufo) > similarly for kiddush and havdala. > > Note that for sefirat haomer usually each person says the bracha > himself/herself and also counts for themselves. I am not aware of any situation where the halacha says that I cannot say a birkat hamitzva on your behalf, AND that the reason why I cannot do so is because you are a baki. (There might be other good reasons, depending on the situation, but I don't know that "being a baki" is ever such a reason.) That said, I do concede that the common practice is for one person to say the bracha on shofar and megilla for all the assembled, yet we all say our own brachos on lulav, hallel, and sefira. I have never seen this explanation, but I've always felt there was a very simple explanation for how this distinction developed: When I take the lulav, say hallel, or count sefira, I am doing the mitzvah myself. I am doing it in shul, among many other people, but we are each acting as individuals. I do the mitzvah myself, so I say the bracha on it myself. In contrast, I am dependent on someone else to blow the shofar or read the megillah. You can say that I am personally hearing the shofar with my own ears, and you can say that "shome'a k'oneh" means that I am actively doing the mitzvah of krias hamegillah -- but the bottom line, l'maaseh, is that if the guy on the bimah messes up, I've lost the mitzvah. I am dependent on him to get the mitzvah done. I have to do my share of the work too, of course, by paying attention etc etc, but that's not enough. We *both* have to do it right. Under such conditions, I really don't want to risk saying a bracha that could end up being l'vatala. I'd rather answer Amen to *his* birkas hamitzvah. Following that logic, someone who has his own kosher megila, and actually reads along with the baal kriah, ought to say his own Al Mikra Megila. I suppose so! This distinction appears in other brachos too, even brachos other than birchos hamitzvah. For example, at Kol Nidre, everyone says their own Shehecheyanu on the Yom Tov, because, why not? We all say our own Netilas Yadayim, and brachos on Talis and Tefilin, for the same reason. We all listen to one person say Kiddush, but I think that's mostly because only he/she has a cup from which to drink the required amount. But at the Seder, everyone has a cup, so (in many families) everyone says their own Kiddush. EXCEPTION: There are some brachos which *ought* to be said by each individual according to the above logic, but we rely on the other person because a few brachos got bundled together. For example, if we pass around the b'samim and candle at havdala, we should each say our own bracha on them, but most people don't, because it is part of havdala. Similarly, if you are at the Seder and don't have your own 2.5 matzos in front of you, you'll have to hear Hamotzi from someone because of Lechem Mishne, but why not say your own Al Achilas Matza after you have a piece in your hand, and the answer is because Motzi Matzah go together. All of the above is purely my own logic, and I'm sure many of you will be able to punch some good holes in it. And I'm looking forward to reading that! Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553077e61f4dd77e644e0st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 22:30:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 01:30:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] SF - Focus on the Good Message-ID: <20150417053029.35F10181384@nexus.stevens.edu> [] Focus on the Good In ancient days if a person spoke loshon horah he contracted tza'aras. The message was that just as he exposed the flaws of a person, so too, his flaws were exposed. His rectification was to go into isolation and introspect on his own shortcomings. Lesson: If we focus on the faults of others, we are held responsible to correct our own faults. If we focus of the good of others, HaShem will mercifully overlook our flaws and focus exclusively on our good. App: Avoid saying all unbecoming comments about others. (Based on the writings of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 02:52:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 05:52:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150417095237.GB2327@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 17, 2015 at 03:02:13AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I am not aware of any situation where the halacha says that I cannot : say a birkat hamitzva on your behalf, AND that the reason why I cannot : do so is because you are a baki. (There might be other good reasons, : depending on the situation, but I don't know that "being a baki" is ever : such a reason.) More than that, Beis Hillel (Berakhos 38a, brought lehalakhah AhS OC 298:28) gives *preference* to one person making havdalah for all than each person making their own, because of berov am hadras Melekh. Similarly, it is better to be yotzei qiddush from the baal habayis than each person make their own. (AhS OC 273:6, citing Berakhos 53a, and a din mentioned in most Hagados, because at the seder each person already has their own kos.) But when it comes to birkhas shevach and birkhos hanehenin (which are unattached to other berakhos, unlike the the borei peri hagafen of qiddush or havdalah), we do hold that it's better to make your own. (Berakhos 42a) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 13th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Gevurah: To what extent is judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 necessary for a good relationship? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 05:01:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 12:01:53 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150417.080153.18454.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero explained two views: > I assume they disagree with this characterisation. This is your > editorial opinion, that since it's inevitable that sooner or later > the ducks will all be in a row and the light will come on, all that > it achieves is a delay of random length. They would say no, each > time the sequence is triggered (let's say every minute) is a > discrete event, in which there is a sfek-sfeka whether anything > will happen, and the fact that in the next hour there will be 60 > more such opportunities, one of which is "bound" to succeed, is > irrelevant. They would also point out that there *is* in fact a > doubt whether the light will ever turn on (before Shabbos is over > or the owner decides to flip the switch back), and they would deny > your premise that the tininess of that doubt renders it > meaningless. *You* think it's halachically insignificant; they > are not required to agree with you. If I'm understanding this correctly, the difference of opinion centers on: how many links does the chain need, to reach a point where one end has no halachically significant effect on the other end. To me, this whole discussion is very reminiscent of another topic in hilchos Shabbos, namely, that the Gemara never gave any halachos about cooking in a Kli Shlishi. One view says: "A Kli Rishon obviously cooks, and we were told that some easily-cooked things are capable of being cooked in a Kli Sheni, but that's as far as they went, so obviously nothing can get cooked in a Kli Shlishi." The other view says: "A Kli Rishon obviously cooks, and we were told that some easily-cooked things are capable of being cooked even in other keilim, so you have to be careful with *any* keli that's above Yad Soledes." To me, both of those arguments are very logical, and we must follow our poskim to know which one Hashem wants us to follow. I imagine that this whole Grama discussion might be similar: Chazal laid out circumstances under which indirect action is still assur -- so does that mean that *all* indirect action is assur?, or perhaps I can structure an even more remote indirectness which is acceptably distant. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5530f6662145376662eacst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 06:04:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 09:04:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: A shabbos lamp is tiny. Do you have shabbos lamps to light up your dining room table or the main lighting on a timer? > On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 8:56 PM, via Avodah > wrote: > >> >> Now that Shabbos lamps are readily available -- they work by covering the >> light rather than turning it off -- why do we need the Shabbos switch at >> all? >> >> >> >> >> *--Toby Katzt613k at aol.com * >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 06:54:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 06:54:30 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] yom hazikaron origin Message-ID: http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/Parasha/tazria/Ahrend.pdf on rav goren's placement of yom hazikaron on 4 iyar, analogizing to the israeli shmini atzeret , where hakafot precedes yizkor... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 08:26:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 15:26:20 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: > Question: If one doesn?t view eilu v?eilu as multiple truths > but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don?t know which > is which), ... You've lost me. Doesn't the grammar and definition of the words "eilu v'eilu" imply that the two things under discussion are equal? I just can't wrap my brain around a way to translate "eilu v'eilu" where one is truth and the other isn't. ------------------------------------------------------ See here https://kavvanah.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/rav-soloveitchik-religious-definitions-of-man-and-his-social-institutions-part-1of-7-1958/ for a general approach (especially "Part III- Rav Soloveitchik?s God In Judaism, God himself is the hidden God, Jal Mistatar ? unknowable and unknown. The Jewish experience of God (shared by other religions is antithetic, a polarity. it has both remoteness and intimate closeness. How is that possible? Judaism does not use Aristotelian logic of excluded middle. Unlike classic physic, modern physics uses both waves and particles; modern physics does not use Aristotle. God is both remote and close- in our encounter we are bewildered and comforted. Since Creation is also revelation, the every tree also incomprehensible strange. " And here for some more specifics: http://nishma.org/articles/commentary/slifkinrevisted3print.pdf especially starting around page 11. KT Joel Rich (who still can't really understand the double slit experiment, yet it's there) THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 08:54:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 11:54:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150417155456.GA7366@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 02:15:53PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Question: If one doesn't view eilu v'eilu as multiple truths but rather : one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which is which), how do : you explain the approach to halachic process which ignores academic : findings concerning texts or historical circumstances? To quote myself from : Last week I drew the conclusion from the Qetzos haChoshen that Torah is not Truth, it -- combined with the Jewish People -- is the process by which "Truth will bloom from the earth".... Thus, "vechayei olam nata besokheinu" -- Emes is matzmiach from the Torah. Note that the Torah isn't actually identified with Emes, but the process to get there. ... Rav Moshe Feinstein discusses the halachic process and the role of poseiq in his introduction to Igros Mosheh. (The introduction itself deserves serious study.) He writes about "ha'emes lehora'ah umichuyav lehoros kein af al pi im be'etzem galyah kelapei shemaya galya she'eino kein hapeirush - the true ruling, and one is obligated to teach accordingly, even if in essence is it revealed in heaven that this isn't the correct eplanation!" The ideal is following the pesaq as according to the process. As proof, Rav Moshe brings the gemara in Shabbos 130. We rule that only the milah itself overrules Shabbos. All preparation before the milah must be done in advance. Rabbi Eliezer ruled that anything necessary for the milah, even cutting wood to make the fire to make the knife, etc... could also be done on Shabbos. There was a town in Israel that followed Rabbi Eliezer. The gemara says that Hashem rewarded them for their tenacity for the mitzvah of milah. No one in that town died an early death. And when the Romans passed a law in Israel against milah, they exempted that one town from the law! Who was right -- this town, which was rewarded for their position, or we, who rule differently? If we understand that the essence of halakhah is that it and the Jewish People become one in a process to make truth bloom in this world, we can understand how the answer could be "both". Torah, like life, is about becoming, not being. IOW, if Torah is a legal process to reach the truth, and halakhah is law rather than truths, then it would be reasonable for an truth foung by extra-legal means to be irrelevant. We aren't up to pursuing Truth directly yet, we pursue the law. Someday they'll be identical, and and the neti'ah of chayei olam will have been matzmiach into Emes. On Fri, Apr 17, 2015 at 02:22:34AM +0000, R' Akiva ("Kenneth") Miller replied to RJR: : You've lost me. Doesn't the grammar and definition of the words "eilu : v'eilu" imply that the two things under discussion are equal? I just : can't wrap my brain around a way to translate "eilu v'eilu" where one : is truth and the other isn't. RMF says they're equally balid legally, but not as Truths. Implied is that Divrei E-lokim Chaim are on the meta-level, instructions about about how to hunt for halakhah, not the individual halachic conclusions themselves. Eilu va'eilu follow Hashem's instructions for how to pasqen, but the halakhah is like Beis Hillel. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 13th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Gevurah: To what extent is judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 necessary for a good relationship? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 10:03:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 13:03:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Derech Eretz: What is it the sets man apart from the animal? Message-ID: <20150417170308.D3E50183221@nexus.stevens.edu> Perhaps if yeshiva students were taught again and again, RSRH's commentary about what sets man (and this refers to all men, not just Jews) apart from the animal, then they would realize that every human being is to be treated with Derech Eretz and thus proper respect. YL The following is from RSRH's commentary on Bereishis 2:7 7 Then God formed man, dust of the ground, and breathed into his countenance the breath of life, and thus man became a living personality. What is it that sets man apart from the animal? The living individuality of the animal depends on earthly matter; like its body, so its soul, too, was taken from the earth. Not so man. In the creation of man, only the inert material was taken from the earth; only when God breathed into him the breath of life did he become a living individual. Herein lies the nobility and immortality of man, and this is the whole source of his freedom . That which gives the animal its individuality emanates from the earth and must eventually return to the earth. Not so that which makes man a ?living personality.? Man?s preeminence over the animal is not only in his spirit, but also in his vitality. His vitality is linked not to his body, but to his spirit. When he received a spirit he received life, his soul adhering to the spirit. When the spirit departs from the body, the vital soul is not buried with the remains; for man?s soul is bound up with his spirit, not his body. This is why his physical survival and health do not depend on his body alone. Of the many dangers to the life of an animal, not all are dangers to man. The survival of a man cannot be predicted with the same degree of accuracy as the survival of an animal. Adom yesh lo mazel ( Bava Kamma 2b): there is something in man that defies prediction. A man?s spirit will sustain him, even if it appears that all hope is lost; for the spirit sustains life. Who can gauge the power of an unbroken spirit? Who can calculate how long it can keep the body alive? Thus man is composed of two elements that are completely different from each other. One of these was taken from the earth. But man does not belong to the earth; rather, the earth ? as its name, Adama, implies ? has been given to man to rule. So, too, man?s body, which is afar min Ha?Adomo, is subject to man?s control. His true, living, spiritual essence is not dependent on the body; hence, even while he is physically combined with the earthly element, he can and should exercise control over the earthly in him. The afar, the earthly element, in him cannot be released from the realm of physical compulsion and is subject to the influence of earthly factors. But the nishmas chaim, which God breathed into man and which first made man a human being, imparts to man of the dignity of its source and releases him from all physical compulsion; it grants him freedom and elevates his body, too, into the realm of freedom. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 11:45:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mordechai Harris via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 13:45:49 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: > > That said, I do concede that the common practice is for one person to say > the bracha on shofar and megilla for all the assembled, yet we all say our > own brachos on lulav, hallel, and sefira. In the case of Lulav (first day - which is D'Oraita) and counting Sefira, the Pasuk uses the word Lachem which teaches of the need for each individual to have/count their own. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 12:26:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 15:26:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <55315E57.30506@sero.name> On 04/17/2015 02:45 PM, Mordechai Harris via Avodah wrote: >> That said, I do concede that the common practice is for one person >> to say the bracha on shofar and megilla for all the assembled, yet >> we all say our own brachos on lulav, hallel, and sefira. > In the case of Lulav (first day - which is D'Oraita) and counting > Sefira, the Pasuk uses the word Lachem which teaches of the need for > each individual to have/count their own. What has this got to do with the bracha? I actually had meant to post about this, since I've been wondering for some time why it is that the world's minhag is for each person to say their own bracha on hallel and sefira, after hearing the chazan's bracha. Doesn't the usual rule of "berov am" mean that everyone should be yotzei with his bracha? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 13:47:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 16:47:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is from today's Halacha for Today http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ Erev Shabbos Kodesh Parashas Shemini (Parashiyos Tazria- Metzorah in Eretz Yisroel); Mevorchim Chodesh Iyar; Rosh Chodesh will be on Sunday and Monday 28 Nisan , 5775 April 17, 2015 CURRENT TOPIC: REVIEW OF HALACHOS OF SEFIRAS HA'OMER Halachos for Erev Shabbos Kodesh 1) The thirty third day of the Omer, the 18th of Iyar, is referred to as "Lag B'Omer" and the early sources already treat this day as a special day, as a kind of Yom Tov. (See Sefer Hamanhig page 91a and Meiri to Yevamos 62b) 2) The Tur (Siman 493:3) states that the Talmidim of Rav Akiva stopped dying on Lag B'Omer. However, the Talmud (Yevamos 62b) clearly states that they died from Pesach all the way until Shavuos. If that is so, what then is the significance of the 33rd day of the Omer and why does the Tur write that they stopped dying on that day? The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between the Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the days between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not say Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh Chodesh Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 days in all. Therefore they only died on 32 of the 49 days. As a commemoration of this, we designate the "33rd" day as the day that the dying stopped and we celebrate that day, but not that it totally stopped on Lag B'Omer. ---------- Note that according to the Maharil tachanun was originally said during Nissan except for the days indicated! I wonder when saying Tachanun during Nissan ended. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 14:10:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 21:10:04 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150417.171004.3030.1@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitchok Levine reposted: > The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between > the Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the > days between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not > say Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh > Chodesh Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 > days in all. > > Therefore they only died on 32 of the 49 days... ... There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in both of those. Therefore, there are not "17 days in all", but only 16, leaving 33 days on which they died. (And this presumes that none of the 3 Rosh Chodesh days was Shabbos.) In any case, I am very curious how the commemoration of this event ended up as 33 *somewhat* consecutive days, including Shabbos. If the talmidim really died only on the days cited, our procedure sounds like cheating, at least sort of. Granted that a commemoration does NOT have to follow all the details of the event being remembered, but this pushes the envelope on that, in my opinion. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55317717a31937717329dst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 13:58:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 20:58:03 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <20150417.165803.3030.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero asked: > I actually had meant to post about this, since I've been > wondering for some time why it is that the world's minhag is for > each person to say their own bracha on hallel and sefira, after > hearing the chazan's bracha. Doesn't the usual rule of "berov > am" mean that everyone should be yotzei with his bracha? In theory (="l'halacha"), yes, you are correct. But in practice (="l'maaseh") Rov Am gets beat by our lack of kavana. Rov Am is an important hidur, but the ikar is to insure that one is yotzay, and that is more easily insured by saying it oneself. (It's like if one is forced to choose between an esrog which is definitely kosher but only barely so, vs. one which is beautiful but *might* be pasul. To me, it's a no-brainer that one would choose the barely kosher one.) This explanation fits my previous post well: We are all yotzay with someone else's bracha on the shofar and megillah, but NOT because of Rov Am, only because the bracha is somewhat risky because I'm relying on someone else. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5531743bc92df743b2646st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Apr 18 18:34:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sat, 18 Apr 2015 21:34:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Correction to Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150419013412.5B7E7181C69@nexus.stevens.edu> I sent out a couple of days ago. The following is from today's Halacha for Today http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between the Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the days between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not say Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh Chodesh Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 days in all. Therefore they only died on 32 of the 49 days. As a commemoration of this, we designate the "33rd" day as the day that the dying stopped and we celebrate that day, but not that it totally stopped on Lag B'Omer. ---------- Note this calculation is wrong. If one counts 7 days of Pesach then one has included one Shabbos. This leaves 6 Shabbasos until Shavuous. Thus one has 7 days of Pesach, 6 Shabbasos, 2 days Rosh Chodesh Iyar and one day Rosh Chodesh Sivan. Hence 7+6+2+1 = 16 days on which Tachanun was not said. 49 -16 = 33, and this is where the 33 days of aveilus comes from. Thus Tachanun was said not only during Nissan except for the days that are excluded, but also on Lag B'Omer . YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Apr 18 21:19:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 00:19:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <55332CDA.60208@sero.name> > 2) The Tur (Siman 493:3) states that the Talmidim of Rav Akiva > stopped dying on Lag B'Omer. > > However, the Talmud (Yevamos 62b) clearly states that they died from > Pesach all the way until Shavuos. If that is so, what then is the > significance of the 33rd day of the Omer and why does the Tur write > that they stopped dying on that day? He does not say any such thing. He says that *some* people have haircuts from the 33rd day on, because *they say* that this is when the dying stopped. The long list of rishonim who hold this cite a medrash that disagrees with the gemara, and says the dying stopped 15 days before Shavuos. The Tur himself does not express an opinion on the matter. > The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between the > Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the days > between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not say > Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh Chodesh > Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 days in all.* This is *not* a Maharil! It's supposedly a Tosfos, I don't know where. But there seem to be two versions of what this Tosfos says, which is why it would be nice to see the original. Mahari Ibn Shuaib (a talmid of the Rashba, and the rebbe of the Tzeida Laderech) cites this Tosfos as saying that the mourning takes place on 33 days during the Omer, because there are 16 days when no mourning is appropriate. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=9416&pgnum=131 The Bach, however, cites "Acharonim" who cite this Tosfos as saying that they didn't die on these 16 days. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=14268&pgnum=330 On 04/17/2015 04:47 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > Note that according to the Maharil tachanun was originally said > during Nissan except for the days indicated! I wonder when saying > Tachanun during Nissan ended. YL Not Tachanun. Techina, i.e. Kel Erech Apayim, Lamnatzeach Ya`ancha, etc. According to minhag Ashkenaz these are said even on days when there is no nefilas apayim, but not on Yomtov, Chol Hamoed, Shabbos, or Rosh Chodesh. [Email #2. -micha] On 04/17/2015 05:10 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos > Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or > it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in > both of those. Indeed, the Bach noters this and corrects it. > In any case, I am very curious how the commemoration of this event > ended up as 33 *somewhat* consecutive days, including Shabbos. If the > talmidim really died only on the days cited, our procedure sounds > like cheating, at least sort of. Granted that a commemoration does > NOT have to follow all the details of the event being remembered, but > this pushes the envelope on that, in my opinion. Well, according to the Tosfos as Mahari ibn Shuaib quotes it, the common interpretation of 33 days is *wrong*, and the correct minhag is to mourn for 33 days during the sefirah, i.e. all days except Pesach, Shabbos, and Rosh Chodesh. He does *not* say that they only died on these days. The first place I've seen the idea that Tosfos says they only died on those days is in the Bach. He sees it as justifying our mourning for only 33 days, not 34, as we should if our source were the medrash that the dying stopped 15 days before Shavuos. And since they only died on 33 days, our mourning period only lasts 33 days, including Shabbos, even though (according to this view) they didn't die on Shabbos. How exactly we mourn on Shabbos I'm not sure, but I assume the idea is that we do, so we count it toward the 33 days. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 06:26:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 09:26:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <55332CDA.60208@sero.name> References: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> <55332CDA.60208@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150419132604.GB19240@aishdas.org> On Sun, Apr 19, 2015 at 12:19:38AM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : >Note that according to the Maharil tachanun was originally said : >during Nissan except for the days indicated! I wonder when saying : >Tachanun during Nissan ended. YL : : Not Tachanun. Techina, i.e. Kel Erech Apayim, Lamnatzeach Ya`ancha, etc. : According to minhag Ashkenaz these are said even on days when there is no : nefilas apayim, but not on Yomtov, Chol Hamoed, Shabbos, or Rosh Chodesh. I am now wondering: why those techinos and not Tachanun? After all, as the name implies (and the Gra emphasizes), Tachanun is itself the core techinah. (Or perhaps "Elokai, Netzor Leshoni" is more central, since that's the one we place immediately "basar tzelosana", before aqiras raglayim.) I would bet (if I had spare money to bet with) that's the same question as asking why we're nofeil apayim for one but not the other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 04:00:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 11:00:12 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150419.070012.19808.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> I wrote: > There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos > Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or > it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in > both of those. R' Zev Sero added: > Indeed, the Bach notes this and corrects it. Glad to hear that, thank you. But over Shabbos, I thought of another problem: R' Akiva's talmidim were in Eretz Yisrael. There would never be a year where Pesach contains 7 days of Sefira. Even when including Shabbos Chol Hamoed, that yields only 6 days. Add 6 post- Pesach Shabbosim, and 3 days of Rosh Chodesh, and you have only 15 days of no Tachanun, leaving 34 days of mourning. Perhaps this is why Mechaber 493:2 says that the mourning continues straight through Lag Baomer, and does not end until the morning of the 34th. Note that Mishne Brurah 493:7 says that although most of the dying stopped on the 33rd, some deaths did occur on the 34th. I must point out that the above is true only when Pesach begins on Sunday, Monday or Tuesday. In years when it begins on Shabbos, as it did this year, then Eretz Yisrael does have a full seven post-Pesach Sabbaths in Sefira, totalling 16 no-Tachanun days, leaving 33 for mourning. BUT - In years when Pesach begins on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday (and even nowadays Thursday is a real possibility), one of the Rosh Chodesh days will coincide with Shabbos. This lowers the count to 6 days of Pesach, 6 Shabbasos, and only 2 days of Rosh Chodesh - a total of only 14 no-Tachanun days, leaving 35 for mourning. I can't help but wonder how the calendar looked that particular year. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ 4 Fish to Never Eat Click to Learn 4 Fish to NEVER Eat (avoid these like the plague!) http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55338b0147138b0126d6st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 10:34:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 13:34:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <20150419.070012.19808.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150419.070012.19808.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5533E71A.9080700@sero.name> On 04/19/2015 07:00 AM, Kenneth Miller wrote: > I wrote: >> There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos >> Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or >> it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in >> both of those. > > R' Zev Sero added: >> Indeed, the Bach notes this and corrects it. > > Glad to hear that, thank you. But over Shabbos, I thought of another > problem: R' Akiva's talmidim were in Eretz Yisrael. There would never > be a year where Pesach contains 7 days of Sefira. Even when including > Shabbos Chol Hamoed, that yields only 6 days. Add 6 post- Pesach > Shabbosim, and 3 days of Rosh Chodesh, and you have only 15 days of > no Tachanun, leaving 34 days of mourning. Except, as you note, in a year like this one. > Perhaps this is why Mechaber 493:2 says that the mourning continues > straight through Lag Baomer, and does not end until the morning of > the 34th. No, the Mechaber had never heard of this Tosfos that the Bach cites in the name of the "Acharonim". On the contrary, the only Tosfos he seems aware of on topic is the one cited by Mahari ibn Shuaib, which says that the plague raged throughout the Sefira, but that we only mourn for 33 days, because we skip Yomtov, Shabbos, and Rosh Chodesh. The Mechaber's own minhag follows the medrash that the plague stopped 15 days before Shavuos, i.e. the 34th was the last day. Either there are two versions of this Tosfos, or the Acharonim whom the Bach quotes are talking about the same Tosfos as Mahari ibn Shuaib does, and one of them misunderstood it. It would be nice to find it inside (though of course that would not rule out a different girsa). -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 10:36:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 17:36:03 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150419.133603.21006.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero wrote: > Not Tachanun. Techina, i.e. Kel Erech Apayim, Lamnatzeach > Ya`ancha, etc. According to minhag Ashkenaz these are said even > on days when there is no nefilas apayim, but not on Yomtov, Chol > Hamoed, Shabbos, or Rosh Chodesh. R' Micha Berger wrote: > I am now wondering: why those techinos and not Tachanun? Let me add a few more data points: Common practice in Nusach Ashkenaz is to skip Tachanun even for all of the Sefira days of Nisan, and also for all of the pre-Shavuos days of Sivan. (Note that NONE of the various minhagim allow haircuts on ALL of those days. Sounds like a great proof that tachanun takes all the kulos, even contradictory ones.) I concede that this is davka nowadays, and I do not know what the practice was in previous centuries. However, it is difficult for me to imagine anyone ever saying Tachanun on Isru Chag. Perhaps that might answer the point I raised in my previous post about R' Akiva's talmidim being in EY, and that in EY there are only 6 days of Sefirah during Pesach; perhaps the "7" comes from including Isru Chag. I should also mention Pesach Sheni, although that could lead to a messy argument over whether that is really "a non-Tachanun day" or merely "a non-Tachanun afternoon". So I won't mention it. :-) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5533e7dd3196367dd4042st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 09:54:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 12:54:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L Message-ID: <20150419165450.42320180CA8@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is taken in part from Rav Shimon Schwab's Essay The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L that appears in Selected Writings pages 88 -93. Rav Hirsch is usually accepted as the exponent of the Torah im Derech Eretz philosophy. This principle is explained by his grandson, Dr. Isaac Breuer, as follows: "He was strictly opposed to compromise or reconciliation, or even a synthesis: he demanded full and uncompromising rulership of the Torah. The Torah cannot endure co-rulership, far less tolerate it. As a true revolutionary he seized the liberalistic individual, the liberalistic, humanitarian ideal, liberalistic capitalism, and the human intellect, celebrating orgies in the liberalistic science, and dragged them as "circumstances'', in the narrowest sense of the word, to the flaming fire of the Torah to be purified or, if need be, to be consumed. As a true revolutionary he solved the unbearable tension between the Torah and the new era which had dawned over the Jews of Western Europe. He invaded the new era with the weapons of the Torah, analyzed and dissected it down to its last ingredients, and then shaped and reformed it until it could be placed at the feet of the Torah, as new nourishment for the Divine fire. The proclamation of the rulership of the Torah over the new era was the historic achievement of Hirsch's life for his own contemporaries." -- ("Hirsch as a Guide to Jewish History'' in Fundamentals of Judaism, published by Feldheim, 1949.) Unfortunately, the principle of Torah im Derech Eretz is grossly misunderstood by our contemporary Jewish orthodoxy. It does not mean that one who is a full-fledged citizen of hedonistic America and at the same time keeps the laws of the Torah, is a follower of Torah im Derech Eretz. Not to violate the laws of the Torah certainly deserves praise and recognition but it is not an embodiment of the Hirschian philosophy. Likewise, an academy dedicated to the study of science and philosophy, not in order to serve the understanding of Torah or to further the aims of the Torah but as the independent search by the human intellect to understand and control the world around -- even when added to a department of profound and very scholarly Torah studies -this is not an outgrowth of the Torah im Derech Eretz Weltanschauung of Samson Raphael Hirsch. Also, a secular university in Israel, albeit under skullcap auspices, complete with Judaic studies, is extremely remote from a Torah im Derech Eretz school even if it has established a "Samson Raphael Hirsch chair" as part of its academic set-up, something which almost borders on blasphemy . The Orthodox professional who is not regularly "koveah ittim batorah", or otherwise lacks in the performance of mitzvahs, or who is immodest in dress or behavior, is not a follower of Samson Raphael Hirsch. From all of Hirsch's prolific writings, it becomes evident that his main concern was to establish the majesty of the Divine Word and the role of the Divine Will as revealed in the Torah, to dominate all the highways and by-ways of mundane life. Those who abuse Torah im Derech Eretz as a "hetter" to lead a life of easygoing and lenient "Yiddishkeit" or those who consider the Hirschian idea as a compromise between the right and the left in Jewish thinking have distorted the meaning of the principle as laid down in the Mishne, Avos, Perek 2, 2: "Beautiful is the study of Torah combined with Derech Eretz for the effort to attain both makes one forget to commit sins". The Torah is not a mere branch of human knowledge, one discipline amongst many others, but rather must the Torah dominate all secular knowledge and all worldly activities. Equally so, the community of Israel, Klal Yisroel, as well as all Kehillos and organized communities, be they local or international -- which are all segments of Klal Yisroel -- are not supposed to be mere branches of a neutral Israel but are to be totally independent. The Torah community is not beholden to any non-Torah community and it does not even recognize its authenticity. This is the essence of the Hirschian Austritt (separation) ideology. The so-called "Austritt" is the militant vigilance of the conscientious Jew defending the Torah community against all encroachments from the non-Torah powers that be. The "Austritt" and Torah im Derech Eretz go hand in hand, they form "one package", so to speak, and both these aspects of Hirschian thought have one aim: the total domination of Torah over all thinking and actions of individual and national life. He who separates the rule of the Torah over all facets of the communal life of Klal Yisroel from the rule of the Torah over all human knowledge, in short, he who separates the "Austritt" from Torah im Derech Eretz, renders a disservice to both. Instead of becoming an inspiration to serve G-d in the spirit of B'chol D'rochecha dahu, Torah im Derech Eretz is reduced to become an excuse for being "modern but frum", an excuse for the cultural assimilation which plagues the modern Orthodox Jew who considers this world a kosher pleasure cruise eventually resulting in all the sorry hangovers of our age. Let us therefore beware of some common misunderstandings. The motto does not have its accent on the last word but on the first word. It is TORAH -underscored for double emphasis -- with Derech Eretz. Furthermore, the leit-motif is neither Torah and Derech Eretz nor Torah U'Madoh -- the two are not equal partners -- nor must it be twisted around into Derech Eretz plus Torah. It is neither a synthesis of Torah with assimilation nor a bloodless orthopraxy blended with earthbound Americanism. It is none of these. It is Torah im Derech Eretz. It means G-d's Torah in its totality, utilizing Derech Eretz as the means to bring about the Torah's full realization. It means: Torah as a Divine nourishment and the human Derech Eretz as the aromatic ingredient to bring out the Torah's intrinsic flavor to its most perfect bloom. There are two schools of thought and they are both legitimate. One is "Torah Only" and the other is Torah im Derech Eretz. All Torah-conscious Jews work for the same goal. There are various methods and various avenues of approach. They all lead up to the ultimate end of: "Yisgadal v'yisgadash Shmei rabah" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 15:00:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 18:00:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <20150419.133603.21006.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150419.133603.21006.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <55342569.2000502@sero.name> On 04/19/2015 01:36 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > Common practice in Nusach Ashkenaz is to skip Tachanun even for all of the Sefira days of Nisan, This is not just nusach Ashkenaz, it's the universal minhag, originating in Masechet Sofrim 21:3. It's actually the chapter title of Shulchan Aruch OC 429, and AFAIK there is no dissenting opinion or minhag. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 15:08:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Avi Goldstein via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 18:08:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu va'eilu Message-ID: It has always been my understanding that eilu va'eilu means that both (or more than two) are, within the sphere of Torah, "true" as long as they emanate from a valid drashah. As the Rambam writes in Hilchos Mamrim, Perek 2, a Sanhedrin can overturn the ruling of a previous Sanhedrin if that ruling was made based on the yud gimmel middos or based on sevara. The Rambam states that the new ruling becomes normative. So, for example, if a Sanhedrin ruled that yeush shelo mida'as is yeush, that is now the d'oraisa rule. If a later Sanhedrin overturns the ruling, then the new ruling becomes normative. Both, however, are "true," because the Torah has shivim panim; the Torah is multifaceted and can countenance more than one truth. The Rambam seems to hold that Moshe Rabbeinu was merely given the methods by which to darshan; he was not given the various possible halachic outcomes. The Ritva (Eruvin 13b) states that at Sinai, Moshe Rabbeinu was shown 49 possibilities for each halachic situation. Either way, it is up to klal Yisrael to determine what the halacha is, but all the possible outcomes are divrei Elokim Chayim. Avi Goldstein From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 20:47:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 23:47:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L Message-ID: <11211.6b4edbb3.4265d0c0@aol.com> From: "Prof. Levine via Avodah" The following is taken in part from Rav Shimon Schwab's Essay The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L that appears in Selected Writings pages 88 -93. Rav Hirsch is usually accepted as the exponent of the Torah im Derech Eretz philosophy. This principle is explained by his grandson, Dr. Isaac Breuer, as follows: "He was strictly opposed to compromise or reconciliation, or even a synthesis: he demanded full and uncompromising rulership of the Torah. [snip] There are two schools of thought and they are both legitimate. One is "Torah Only" and the other is Torah im Derech Eretz. All Torah-conscious Jews work for the same goal. There are various methods and various avenues of approach. They all lead up to the ultimate end of: "Yisgadal v'yisgadash Shmei rabah" >>>> See the wonderful pamphlet by R' Shimon Schwab, "Eilu ve'Eilu," explaining the broad outlines of the differences between these two hashkafos, "Torah im Derech Eretz" and so-called "Torah-only." I try to re-read this 48-page pamphlet every year. http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/these_and_those.pdf I am grateful to RYL (Prof. Levine) for making this pamphlet available to the public as a pdf. However I note that he is often highly critical of the charedi world, and I believe that R' Hirsch would emphatically not have agreed with him. He would have honored and cherished the talmidei chachamim who devote their lives to limud haTorah, and would have educated his balabatim to take pride in the zechus of financially supporting the "black hat" yeshivos. In the so-called "Torah-only" world they may have disdain for balabatim, but we who believe in TIDE can respect and honor that world of sustained and focused Torah study without internalizing an inferior self-image. We believe in Yisachar and Zevulun even if Yisachar lacks proper respect for Zevulun. We believe in twelve shevatim, we believe in twelve paths through the sea. And we believe that without the shevet of full-time lomdei Torah and talmidei chachamim, the rest of Klal Yisrael would have no kiyum. I would also note that R' Hirsch would certainly not have shared RYL's dour view of present-day Eretz Yisrael. True, all the flaws and failings of Zionism are abundantly on display in the modern Medinah. But at the same time, it takes an almost willful blindness not to see the incredible miracles that have been taking place there over the past sixty years or so. Not the least of these miracles is a flourishing of Torah scholarship, be'eichus uvekamus, the likes of which has not been seen since the churban Bayis Sheni. We owe at least a small measure of gratitude to the Zionist government that helps provide the infrastructure for the Torah community to flourish, and a huge measure of gratitude to the Ribono Shel Olam for allowing us to live in a time in which the beginning of kibbutz galuyos is taking place before our eyes. The sight of thousands of men, young and old, from all corners of the world, streaming into the Mirrer Yeshiva each day, gives us a little foretaste of what it will be like to visit the Third Bais Hamikdash. Again, I urge everyone to read Rav Schwab's wonderful pamphlet, "Eilu ve'Eilu." http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/these_and_those.pdf --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 19:30:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 02:30:15 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: <20150419.223015.3015.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Joel Rich asked: > Question: If one doesn't view eilu v'eilu as multiple truths > but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which > is which), ... I didn't understand that 2nd view, so he suggested to look > here for some more specifics: > http://nishma.org/articles/commentary/slifkinrevisted3print.pdf > especially starting around page 11. On page 4 of that article, the author offers this explanation of the concept of Machlokes L'Shem Shamayim: > ... every individual striving mightily to gain truth and an > understanding of God's Will can only achieve what is possible > within the parameters of his/her own individual being. Since the > fullness of Torah extends beyond the comprehension of any one > individual, machloket must necessarily ensue. It is not simply > that machloket emerges because of the inherent limitations of > the human condition. It is only through the enunciation of > machloket that human beings effectively are able to express the > fullness and truth of the Divine wisdom of Torah. ... Within > this category of disagreement, the existence of differing views > is not a problem. It is actually positive. It is the natural > consequence of a limited humanity trying to encounter the > unlimited nature of God and Torah. Elsewhere in that article, I understood him to say: Because both Hillel and Shammai worked within the rules of how Torah is to be understood, their differing views are equally valid and equally true (notwithstanding the detail that for purely practical reasons, halacha l'maaseh has to go one way or the other). This much fits very well with what I've been taught: Hashem deliberately wrote and designed the Torah in such a way as to allow both Hillel and Shammai to reach those differing views, and when they did reach those views, and (lovingly) refused to yield to the other, they accomplished exactly what Hashem had intended. But RJR referred us specifically to page 11, and on that page, the author brings the two views that RJR had initially posted: > One significant question in this regard, though, that should be > presented is: whether kalpei Shemaya, from the perspective of > Heaven, one view may really be correct or not? How one answers > this question will affect whether one considers any position in > a machloket l'Shem Shamayim as ultimately able to be labeled > incorrect. Effectively the question would be: are all positions > in the disagreement theoretically, equally part of truth and a > decision rendered between the opposing views solely because of > practical necessity? Or is there a truly correct position ? > albeit only able to be ascertained by Heaven ? but we still > accept all positions as part of Torah, albeit some are mistaken, > as they all are equally the best that humanity can achieve and > the mistakes only arise from the actual limitation of the human > being? With all due respect, but it seems to me that this second view is illogical and mistaken. How can there be a view which was obtained by legitimate methods of learning the Torah, without any personal agenda, and the best that humanity can acheive -- and yet be one which Hashem did NOT want us to arrive at? If there is a view that is NOT truly correct, yet the incorrectness can be ascertained only by Heaven, then why did Hashem design the Torah in a manner which allowed us to reach that mistaken conclusion? If only He would have made one little change, if only the pasuk had said this instead of that, then we'd have darshened that pasuk differently, and would have avoided that mistake. But since He did not make that change, but rather He wrote the Torah as we have it, and Toras Hashem Temimah, then I believe that the conclusions reached cannot possibly be mistakes, but rather, this is exactly what we mean by Eilu V'Eilu Divrei Elokim Chayim. (Of course, I am referring only to drashos made with the proper tools, and in the proper manner, such as those made by Hillel and Shammai and others of similar caliber. I am not referring to people who are of lower caliber, or who were working with broken tools. And I'm certainly not referring to people who deliberately distort Torah for their own purposes.) But then, as I was reviewing this post, my mind turned to the Tanur Shel Achnai. R' Eliezer had a minority view, and R' Yehoshua was in the majority. I've got to believe that both views were firmly grounded; this machlokes was surely just as L'Shem Shamayim as any between Hillel and Shammai. I'd *like* to say that Klapei Shmaya, both views were Truth. But then what can I do with Hashem's response of "Nitzchuni banai"? It sure sounds to me like this Judge was not impartial. He was rooting for R' Eliezer! And yet He wrote a Torah that allowed for R' Eliezer's mistaken interpretation. Why would He do that? To paraphrase RJR's question from the very beginning of this post, Tanur Shel Achnai seems to be an example of "eilu v'eilu": At the time of their dispute, it was possible that both views were Truth, but we didn't know which was which, so for practical purposes they took a vote. But later, Eliyahu Hanavi revealed the fact that it was NOT multiple truths, but rather one truth (R' Eliezer) and one nice try (R' Yehoshua). TO RECAP: In the beginning of this post, I explained my logical basis for believing that every true Eilu V'Eilu is a case of multiple Truths. At the end, I brought an example of an Eilu V'Eilu which was "one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which is which)". I cannot reconcile the logic and the example. All I can do is to ask again: Would Hashem really write a Perfect Torah which allows for mistaken interpretation? Why would He do that? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553464ea69a2864ea0cc6st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 01:48:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 11:48:03 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: RMB: Rav Moshe Feinstein discusses the halachic process and the role of poseiq in his introduction to Igros Mosheh. (The introduction itself deserves serious study.) He writes about "ha'emes lehora'ah umichuyav lehoros kein af al pi im be'etzem galyah kelapei shemaya galya she'eino kein hapeirush - the true ruling, and one is obligated to teach accordingly, even if in essence is it revealed in heaven that this isn't the correct explanation!" The ideal is following the pesaq as according to the process. This passage in IM is cited by R. Shalom Rosner in a systematic discussion of the subject of eilu v'eilu in the course of a shiur on Ktuvot 57a at http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/720210/Rabbi_Shalom_Rosner/Kesubos57. Rashi in Ktuvot 57a invokes the principle of eilu 'v'eilu, (read and explained by R. Rosner stating at about 18:30 in the shiur) and R. Rosner elucidates this principle, starting at about 21:30 in the shiur, until about 29:40. For anyone interested in a very clear explanation of the various shittot about what eilu v'eilu means, I can't recommend this shiur highly enough. Very briefly, R. Rosner cites three approaches in the sources 1. Illustrating the truth - The Ran in Drashot HaRan drasha 5 - In this approach, which severely limits the principle of eilu v'eilu, the Ran states that actually only one of the opinions is true. The other opinion is 'divrei Elokim chaim' only insofar as it serves to illustrate and elucidate the other opinion, which is the real truth, as the dark enables us to appreciate a candle. The Chida in Petach Einayim, his commentary on Eiruvin where the principle of eilu v'eilu is cited by the Gemara, takes this approach as well. R. Rosner emphasizes that this is a minority opinion, and personally finds it hard to accept, as he explains in the shiur. 2. Levels of truth - R. Moshe in the hakdama to IM, and R. Yaakov to Bereishit 26, the Netziv in his Hakadama to Haamek Sh'eila, his commentary to the Sheiltot). Using R. Moshe's terminology. there is Emet Shamaymit, and Emet L'Horaa. Both are correct, and in this world we are obligated to follow the emet l'horaa even if it deviates from the ultimate, heavenly truth. 3. Multiple truths (Ritva in Eiruvin, Maharal) - Both opinions are true, reflecting different perspectives of the subject at hand (IMO, this is similar to the previous explanation, without establishing a hierarchy between the truths expressed by the different opinions). R. Rosner states that the Rashi in question on Ktuvot 57a takes this approach. R. Rosner's explanation of the shittot is very lucid and concise. He refers in his shiur to Ktuvot 57 to a previous, more comprehensive shiur he gave on the subject, but I don't know if that shiur is available online. Saul Mashbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 19:43:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 22:43:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] brochos from the amud (was: tefillat haderech) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420024354.CJVF30458.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo110> >R' Zev Sero asked: > > > I actually had meant to post about this, since I've been > > wondering for some time why it is that the world's minhag is for > > each person to say their own bracha on hallel and sefira, after > > hearing the chazan's bracha. Doesn't the usual rule of "berov > > am" mean that everyone should be yotzei with his bracha? R' Akiva Miller wrote: >In theory (="l'halacha"), yes, you are correct. But in practice >(="l'maaseh") Rov Am gets beat by our lack of kavana. Rov Am is an >important hidur, but the ikar is to insure that one is yotzay, and >that is more easily insured by saying it oneself. (It's like if one >is forced to choose between an esrog which is definitely kosher but >only barely so, vs. one which is beautiful but *might* be pasul. To >me, it's a no-brainer that one would choose the barely kosher one.) > >This explanation fits my previous post well: We are all yotzay with >someone else's bracha on the shofar and megillah, but NOT because of >Rov Am, only because the bracha is somewhat risky because I'm >relying on someone else. Slight change of topic: I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea that we don't seem to have a chashash of a brocha l'vatalah. I mean, you have a sh'tz up there, saying a brocho out loud -- and he's intentionally trying to be motzi _some_ others (whoever has missed a day) and everybody says amen, and then they say the brocho themselves. No chashash for an issur d'oraissa? Shomea k'onen doesn't apply at all? What if you are in the shul and you're not thinking about the issue of being yotzie, you're just thinking about which day it is, and/or you simply have stam kavanah. No chashash for an issur d'oraissa? Apparently not because almost everybody does that. But I don't get it. (To satisfy my own comfort level, my preferred action to is to focus and have kavanah to be yotzie with the brocho, say amen, and then I don't have any chashash here). -- Sholom From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 10:36:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 13:36:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 11:48:03AM +0300, Saul Mashbaum via Avodah wrote: : This passage in IM is cited by R. Shalom Rosner in a systematic discussion... : http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/720210/Rabbi_Shalom_Rosner/Kesubos57. ... : Very briefly, R. Rosner cites three approaches in the sources : : 1. Illustrating the truth - The Ran in Drashot HaRan drasha 5 - In this : approach, which severely limits the principle of eilu v'eilu, the Ran : states that actually only one of the opinions is true. The other opinion is : 'divrei Elokim chaim' only insofar as it serves to illustrate and elucidate : the other opinion... : 2. Levels of truth - R. Moshe in the hakdama to IM, and R. Yaakov to : Bereishit 26, the Netziv in his Hakadama to Haamek Sh'eila, his commentary : to the Sheiltot)... : 3. Multiple truths (Ritva in Eiruvin, Maharal) - Both opinions are true, : reflecting different perspectives of the subject at hand (IMO, this is : similar to the previous explanation, without establishing a hierarchy : between the truths expressed by the different opinions).. My opinion differs from yours. The Maharal is saying that what RMF calls emes shamamis (I think that conjugation is yours, no?) is actually too rich to fit in this universe, and certainly in a human mind. Therefore, two shitos can be correct descriptions of the Truth, because each are incomplete. Rather than invoke the 5 blind men and the elephant, I think it's more useful to use a mashal of an object and a shadow. Because a shadow is only 2D, information is lost. It could make you think the two opinions are describing differnt thing, but they don't. If you shine a light directly at the fact of a cube, the shadow is a square. If you shine it at a corner, the result is a hexagon. Beis Shamma could hold "hexagon" while Beis Hillel holds "square", and both are describing the same cube. It all depends on which direction you face the cube from. The difference is in the approach chosen, where one stands at the foothills when answering "mi ya'aleh beHar Hashem", not the emes kelapei shamayim. None of which involves separating abstract truth from law, as RMF does. The Maharal places eilu va'eilu entirely within our understanding of that abstract truth. RSR's analysis differs from the two I've discussed in the past, RMHalbertal's and R' Michel Rosensweig's. E.g. See v32n8 E.g. RMH describes the Ritva and the Ran as sharing what he calls "the Constitutive view" of what pesaq is (halakhah is constituted by pesaq, and there is no one pre-existing reality), and thus the notion of one right answer doesn't fit. Rather, his peshat in the Ran is more like RMF's opinion. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? : that the Rashi in question on Ktuvot 57a takes this approach. : : R. Rosner's explanation of the shittot is very lucid and concise. He : refers in his shiur to Ktuvot 57 to a previous, more comprehensive shiur he : gave on the subject, but I don't know if that shiur is available online. : : Saul Mashbaum : _______________________________________________ : Avodah mailing list : Avodah at lists.aishdas.org : http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 14:43:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:43:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] HaRav Aharon Lichtenstein zt"l Message-ID: <20150420214331.GA31537@aishdas.org> Today's blog post. ... Can't we find children who would have helped him and still know the gemara? Do we have to choose? I hope not; I believe not. Tir'u baTov! -Micha HaRav Aharon Lichtenstein zt"l Posted on April 20, 2015 - 1 Iyyar 5775 by micha When someone passes away, I try to find a life-lesson from their lives that I can incorporate into my own. This is rather easy with regard to Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, as the rosh yeshiva left the Centrist / Modern Orthodox / Religious Zionist community with a cheshbon hanefesh, an accounting of our communal soul. Things that he saw we as a community need to look at and improve. See "By His Light: Character and Values in the Service of God" by R' Reuvein Zeigler, notes of shiurim by Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, pp 220-252, which is available on-line at Yeshivat Har Etzion's Israel Koschitzky Virtual Beit Midrash, as the email shiur from the series "Developing a Torah Personality" Lecture 12: Centrist Orthodoxy: A Spiritual Accounting. Listing the rashei peraqim (subtitles): * The Shift To the Right * The Need for Soul-Searching * Commonalities and Differences With the Right * Shaking Our Confidence In General Culture * The Complexity of Experience * Literary, Psychological and Historical Sensitivity * Attitudes Toward Zionism * "Torah Only" or "Torah And" * The Possibility of Integration * Theory and Practice * Dialectical Tension or Tepid Indifference? * Instilling Passion * The Need for Spirituality * Diffusion and Dilution * The Ascendancy of the Moral Over the Intellectual * "Do Not Fear Any Man" Here's one piece near the end, that stays with me each time I read the article: ... Perhaps much of what I have said in relation to culture, quoting Arnold and Yeats and others, seems very rarefied. People may be asking themselves, "What does this have to do with us? We have to deal with children in elementary school or high school; this is not our concern." Nevertheless, I have related to culture at its apex, because the kind of vision which is maintained at the pinnacle has an impact, and should have an impact, upon what is done at lower levels. In this respect, the awareness of the evaluation of culture does have practical consequences for whatever level of education we are dealing with. Granted that, our challenge is to see to it that indeed we maintain our position with depth and gusto. Given our constituency, of course, we cannot instill many of our students with the optimal level of love of Torah; we know from where they come. But, within our overall community, and surely within its leadership, such a level should exist. Woe unto us, if the only choice lies between tepid compromise and arrogant kana'ut. A couple of years after we moved to Yerushalayim, I was once walking with my family in the Beit Yisrael neighborhood, where R. Isser Zalman Meltzer used to live. For the most part, it consists of narrow alleys. We came to a corner, and found a merchant stuck there with his car. The question came up as to how to help him; it was a clear case of perika u-te'ina (helping one load or unload his burden). There were some youngsters there from the neighborhood, who judging by their looks were probably ten or eleven years old. They saw that this merchant was not wearing a kippa. So they began a whole pilpul, based on the gemara in Pesachim (113b), about whether they should help him or not. They said, "If he walks around bareheaded, presumably he doesn't separate terumot u-ma'asrot, so he is suspect of eating and selling untithed produce..." I wrote R. Soloveitchik a letter at that time, and told him of the incident. I ended with the comment, "Children of that age from our camp would not have known the gemara, but they would have helped him." My feeling then was: Why, Ribbono shel Olam, must this be our choice? Can't we find children who would have helped him and still know the gemara? Do we have to choose? I hope not; I believe not. If forced to choose, however, I would have no doubts where my loyalties lie: I prefer that they know less gemara, but help him. If I can refer again to my experience over the last several decades, I think that one of the central points which has reinforced itself is the sense, in terms of values, of the ascendancy of the moral over the intellectual -- with all my love for and commitment to pure learning. But, when all is said and done, you have to be guided not by what you love; you have to be guided by Torah. And the Torah tells us what is good: He has told you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you: only to do justice, and to love goodness, and to walk modestly with your God. (Mikha 6:8) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 12:48:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 15:48:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L by Rav Shimon Schwab Message-ID: <20150420194854.40DD317FB85@nexus.stevens.edu> See The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 11:46:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 21:46:52 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] hidur Message-ID: <> - changed topic from tefillat hadrech There is a famois R Chaim that if one can use both etgrogim then one should first use the beautiful but *might* be pasul since if one uses the minimally kosher one then one has accomplished the mitzvah and there is no reason to choose a second one. I have seen some that disagree with R Chaim claiming that it is possible to take a better etrog for hidur even after having minimally done the motzvah. This has applications mehadrin of chanukah -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 14:52:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:52:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 09:46:52PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> It's like if one is forced to choose between an esrog which is definitely :> kosher but only barely so, vs. one which is beautiful but *might* be pasul. :> To me, it's a no-brainer that one would choose the barely kosher one.) >> - ... : There is a famois R Chaim that if one can use both etgrogim then one should : first use the beautiful but *might* be pasul since if one uses the : minimally kosher one then one has accomplished the mitzvah and there is no : reason to choose a second one. This presumes you can afford both, or have access to a friend who will give you a matanah al menas lehachzir of whichever you aren't buying. The post you're replying to is "if one is forced to choose". My own dilemma. Say I earmark $X (Y NIS, in your case) to spend on my esrog. And say the price of a definitely kosher (or at least, just as sure to be kosher) but not very hadar esrog is half that or less. Should I buy myself a mehudar, or should I buy two esrogim and give the other to someone hitting on hard times? Shouldn't the asei (tzedaqah, dei machsero) trump a "mere" hidur mitzvah (esrog)? And yet, we know many great rabbanim who didn't follow this calculus. What am I missing? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 15:25:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 18:25:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safeik as Metzi'us Message-ID: <20150420222502.GC1634@aishdas.org> The story so far: Briskers don't wear tzitzis outdoors on Shabbos in case the gemara does conclude that hatekheiles me'eaqes es halavan. (Dspite the tam mishnah, there is reason to wonder.) And if so, the tassels on your tallis or tallis qatan are not tzitzis, and wouldn't be tafeil to the beged. On Shabbos -- hotza'ah. I asked why, since I personally am wearing those tassels because of the safeiq, wouldn't that mean that in terms of my intent, they are hotza'ah? In general, when do we pasqen one din and then use that pesaq as the metzi'us for the next case? And when do we look at the internals of that din (in this case, the safeiq) and carry them through to the next din? Other examples collected so far: AhS OC 409:6 -- An eiruv techumin made with a safeiq tereifah is not an eiruv, because you can't eat a safeiq tereifah. We look to the pesaq, the meat is assur mishum safeiq, not the safeiq itself. (Where a parallel case in the se'if is ruled safeiq derabbanan lequlah.) AhS OC 416:8 -- A person wants to make 2 different eiruvei techumin, one for each day of YT in chu"l. You can't create an eiruv on day 2 that you cannot reach on day 1. We don't say mima nafshach -- if day 1 is YT, you don't need the eiruv, and if day 2 is, you were allowed to reach the food on day 1. Again, we look at the masqanah. Recently I noticed two more in the AhS: AhC OC 509:12 -- The Rama (se'if 5) allows libun on YT of a skewer that that they broiled non-salted meat on to allow using the skewer again that day. The AhS explains this is not a real tiqun keli, because mei'iqar hadin it doesn't need libun (cf YD 76), an therefore even if you could have done the libun on erev YT, you can still do it now. We DO NOT say that lemaaseh we are not nohagim to use the skewer without libun, so therefore the skewer went from usable to non-usable. This time we do look into the cause of the non-use. I am wondering if it's because beshe'as hadechaq, they would go to a rav and get a pesaq that they could use the skewer as is, so it's not fully unusable. AhS 581:18 -- If fruit are stored in a room that is built from uncemented bricks and the room breaks, the fruit are usable. We do not say they a muqtza, because the issur of disassembling the room was only derabbanan, so he didn't have full hesach hadaas. Notice that here he is saying that a person is aware of issur derabbanan being on a lesser level. The ruling is on the metzi'us, but with the understanding the the metzi'us reflects the wishy-washiness of the issur. RAM: Does any of this change your proposed sevaros? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 14:54:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:54:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5535759A.5020909@gmail.com> What would be the kilayim status of this combo? http://www.territorialseed.com/product/grafted-tomtato-ketchup-n-fries/new_for_spring_2015 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 15:57:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 18:57:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> On 04/20/2015 05:52 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > My own dilemma. Say I earmark $X (Y NIS, in your case) to spend on > my esrog. And say the price of a definitely kosher (or at least, just > as sure to be kosher) but not very hadar esrog is half that or less. > Should I buy myself a mehudar, or should I buy two esrogim and give the > other to someone hitting on hard times? Shouldn't the asei (tzedaqah, > dei machsero) trump a "mere" hidur mitzvah (esrog)? And yet, we know > many great rabbanim who didn't follow this calculus. What am I missing? Perhaps that they would then let the other person use their mehudardige esrog, so both benefit. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:21:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:21:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 06:57:15PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: :> ... Shouldn't the asei (tzedaqah, :> dei machsero) trump a "mere" hidur mitzvah (esrog)? And yet, we know :> many great rabbanim who didn't follow this calculus. What am I missing? : Perhaps that they would then let the other person use their mehudardige : esrog, so both benefit. So, both get the mitzvah of esrog with a hadar esrog. But I asked about fulling tzedaqah. How does a matanah al menas lehachzir qualify? And for someone used to having their own esrog, how is it "dei machsero"? Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:15:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:15:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Matza between Pesach and Shavuos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Somebody (either here or on Areivim) was asking about the minhag to eat matza between Pesach and Shavuos. I happened to pick up a sefer called "Bein Pesach u'Shavuos" (by R Zvi Cohn) and saw a few mentions about this. First, he cites the Gr"a that he never ate matza when it was not Pesach. I think the reasoning is that he didn't want to get hana'ah from it, but, rather, eat it only because it was a mitzvah. But then, later in the sefer, I saw reference to (a) a minhag (Belz and Chernobyl) to eat matza to eat matza on every shalosh seudos between Pesach and Shavuos, and wetting it with fish juice/gravy; and (b) v'yesh a minhag to eat matza *every* time one washes for bread, in order to combine "michlei d'm'heimnusa u'michlei d'asvasa" food/meal of emuna and food/meal of refuah (apologies for messing up the vowels). The footnote cites the sefer "Darchei Chayim v'Sholom" siman 633. And also to be m'dakdek to make one kugel for shabbos with matza and to pass it around, particularly on shalosh seudos after the z'miros. I don't translate so well, so if you want to see "inside" R Cohn's sefer, I put it here: http://s3.postimg.org/wukbartcj/matza.jpg [1] and if you look and find mistakes, please let the list (or at least me!) know! FWIW & Kol tuv, -- Sholom Links: ------ [1] http://s3.postimg.org/wukbartcj/matza.jpg -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 16:32:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 19:32:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> At 05:52 PM 4/20/2015, RN Toby Katz wrote: > >I am grateful to RYL (Prof. Levine) for making this pamphlet available to >the public as a pdf. However I note that he is often highly critical of >the charedi world, and I believe that R' Hirsch would emphatically not have >agreed with him. He would have honored and cherished the talmidei chachamim >who devote their lives to limud haTorah, and would have educated his >balabatim to take pride in the zechus of financially supporting the >"black hat" >yeshivos. This is pure speculation on your part. I believe that RSRH would have agreed with my views on this matter. Of course, this is pure speculation on my part. He certainly would not have agreed with the idea of not working to support one's family. See my article "The Obligation to Support a Family" The Jewish Press, February 18, 2015, front page. and the extensive quotes I have there from the writings of Rav Dr. Joseph Breuer, ZT"L, who was, of course, a grandson of RSRH and the foremost expositor of TIDE during his life time. > >I would also note that R' Hirsch would certainly not have shared RYL's dour > view of present-day Eretz Yisrael. True, all the flaws and failings of >Zionism are abundantly on display in the modern Medinah. But at the same >time, it takes an almost willful blindness not to see the >incredible miracles >that have been taking place there over the past sixty years or so. Not the >least of these miracles is a flourishing of Torah scholarship, be'eichus >uvekamus, the likes of which has not been seen since the churban Bayis >Sheni. We owe at least a small measure of gratitude to the >Zionist government >that helps provide the infrastructure for the Torah community to flourish, >and a huge measure of gratitude to the Ribono Shel Olam for allowing us to >live in a time in which the beginning of kibbutz galuyos is taking place >before our eyes. The sight of thousands of men, young and old, from all >corners of the world, streaming into the Mirrer Yeshiva each day, gives us a >little foretaste of what it will be like to visit the Third Bais Hamikdash. Again, I have to disagree. I suggest you read Rav Breuer's writings about EY in the book A Unique Perspective under the heading Eretz Yisroel. The following are some excerpts from his essay The State of Israel. The proclamation of a Jewish state would bring great joy to all the members of our people, if conditions were such that we could feel justified to call it a Kiddush Hashem. It pains us to say, and we have no illusions, that for the time being this is not the case. For every Torah-true Jew the word Kiddush Hashem is his utmost concern, while Chillul Hashem leaves him trembling. Thus the establishment of a Jewish state will fill him with misgivings and alarm. Anyone who is imbued with the eternal truth and validity of God's Torah will have to be aware that a state on God's holy soil will only be able to endure if the conditions that God has set down for a Jewish state on His holy soil are met. These conditions apply to the Jewish entity and to the life of every individual who declares himself a member of God's People. Again, please read Rav Breuer's essays on Eretz Yisroel in this book. Also, please read Rav Shimon Schwab's essay Zion or Zionism that I have placed at http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/zion_or_zionism.pdf Rav Schwab was most certainly a proponent of TIDE and the approach of RSRH. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 15:32:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 18:32:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> References: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 11:34 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > There was a bachur next to me this morning whose retzu'os were painted > black on both sides. And I believe I know why this is done, in case > a retzu'ah gets flipped. Or perhaps to be chosheish for the Rambam's > description of such retzu'os being "noi". I've only ever heard of the leather being soaked in dye; and the reason given was not for flipped retzu'os but for scratches: if the entire thickness of the strap has been dyed, a scratch will not expose undyed leather. (This does not address your actual question, though) ?Chesky Salomon From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:24:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:24:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <553598C0.6010209@sero.name> On 04/20/2015 08:21 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > So, both get the mitzvah of esrog with a hadar esrog. But I asked about > fulling tzedaqah. How does a matanah al menas lehachzir qualify? And > for someone used to having their own esrog, how is it "dei machsero"? At a time when an esrog was a luxury that most people could not afford and were not used to, how often would such a case come up? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:27:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:27:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <553598C0.6010209@sero.name> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> <553598C0.6010209@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150421002736.GA24420@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 08:24:32PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : At a time when an esrog was a luxury that most people could not afford : and were not used to, how often would such a case come up? ... and today? Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:58:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 00:58:13 GMT Subject: [Avodah] hidur Message-ID: <20150420.205813.23096.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> R'Zev Sero asked: > At a time when an esrog was a luxury that most people could > not afford and were not used to, how often would such a case > come up? But it could certainly come up nowadays. About 25 years ago, my budget was so tight that I had decided to share my lulav and esrog with my two sons, despite my having gotten them their own set in previous years. I don't remember whether one or both was still below bar mitzvah that year, but it doesn't really matter, because the point is that they were used to having their own, and that year we shared the one set. Suffice it to say that it was not fun. Baruch Hashem we've each had own own every year since then. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5535a0f9e88320f87fb2st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 18:23:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 01:23:34 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Self-control fatigue Message-ID: <20150420.212334.23096.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> On Areivim, SY Scher wrote: > A now large body of research shows that we can have "self-control > fatigue". Professor Roy Baumeister and his colleagues have > demonstrated experimentally that when people have previously had > to exert self-control, their ability to do so goes down. They > have also showed physiological correlates -- will-power/self- > control takes energy, and after exerting a lot of control, our > blood glucose level is lower. Replenishment of glucose (for > example, by drinking lemonade sweetened with sugar, but not > lemonade with artificial sweeteners) raises self-control ability > back up. > We all know that following the halacha often requires a good deal > of willpower, and I would imagine that for charedi adolescent boys, > that would be even more strongly so. So, the ability to control > the yetzer in outside situations may well be reduced. The muscle > is just too worn out! Is there any way fit this in with the idea that many mitzvos - kashrus in particular and chukim in general - seem designed to train us to *have* self-control? Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 03:14:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 06:14:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Self-control fatigue In-Reply-To: <20150420.212334.23096.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150420.212334.23096.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150421101422.GB7409@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 01:23:34AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : Is there any way fit this in with the idea that many mitzvos - kashrus : in particular and chukim in general - seem designed to train us to *have* : self-control? If (and that's a big if) we define the yeitzer hara as the effects on our souls of living within a mammalian body, then the ability to plan ahead and work toward delayed gratification, rather than just instinctively going for what's before us, is going to be a fundamental skill in rising above it. In R Yitchaq Sher's introduction to the Slabodka edition of Cheshbon haNefesh (Feldheim bilingual ed. ), the mashgiach speaks of the nefesh habehamis's "lack[ing the will to exercise choice" and therefore "the tzivui or azharah of an asei or a lo-sa'asei are not shayach to it at all" (par 2). He then gives guidelines about how to train it by taking examples from animal training (par 304). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 17th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Tifferes: What is the ultimate Fax: (270) 514-1507 state of harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 03:17:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 13:17:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> References: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 8:36 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > The Maharal is saying that what RMF calls emes shamamis (I think that > conjugation is yours, no?) is actually too rich to fit in this universe, > and certainly in a human mind. Therefore, two shitos can be correct > descriptions of the Truth, because each are incomplete. > Where does the Maharal say this? (Not a challenge, I just want to learn it inside) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 06:24:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 09:24:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: References: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150421132444.GD1634@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 01:17:49PM +0300, Simon Montagu wrote: : Where does the Maharal say this? (Not a challenge, I just want to learn it : inside) Be'er haGolah, be'er 1, pg 20 in the common edition, available on pg 94 the whole book) in the Harman edition, on hebrewbooks.org (Onward, I would print the 1[:6] off the link at the top for the whole sefer. R YD Hartman has a clearer edition, with copious footnotes.) I've been citing that Maharal for over a decade, so I had to search for the actual mar'eh maqom. On nice find was the discussion in Mishpat Ivri . I want to go through the whole chapter on machloqos (that hit is mid-chapter) before commenting, but I don't know when I'll get to it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 17th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Tifferes: What is the ultimate Fax: (270) 514-1507 state of harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 09:11:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 12:11:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150421132444.GD1634@aishdas.org> References: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> <20150421132444.GD1634@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55367699.9010203@sero.name> On 04/21/2015 09:24 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 01:17:49PM +0300, Simon Montagu wrote: > : Where does the Maharal say this? (Not a challenge, I just want to learn it > : inside) > > Be'er haGolah, be'er 1, pg 20 The introduction to the Hartman edition shows that the title is actually Be'er haGulah, with a melupum rather than a cholam. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 01:40:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 11:40:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu Message-ID: Sagi in his book on the topic brings 3 basic approaches (all with many supporters) to the sugya 1) Monism - only one truth as subfields we can be tolerant of other attempts or not 2) pluralism - there are many truths and one can't decide 3) harmonism - different views are just separate parts of the same truth R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is self-contradictory. According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint is monism ! He further points out that sometimes pluralism can be a chumra Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he doesn't accept the kashrut Answer: Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable Of course these are only typologies. In the real world anyone who believes in pluralism has some radius of acceptance. Few would accept Naziism or Isis as a legitimate viewpoint -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 01:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 11:53:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] hidur Message-ID: <> As usual R Chaim is asking a theoretical question - he was not a posek In fact I once heard from RYBS that in fact almost all etrogim are kosher bidieved. In Israel one can get a mehudar set for about 100 shekel ($25) see http://www.dafyomi.co.il/nazir/halachah/nz-hl-002.htm 2. Bava Kama 9a (R. Zeira citing Rav Huna): One must spend up to a third for Mitzvos. 3. Question: What does this mean? i. Suggestion: One must spend a third of his wealth to fulfil a Mitzvah. ii. Rejection: It is unreasonable that if he encounters three (expensive) Mitzvos, he must exhaust all his wealth! 4. Answer (R. Zeira): One must spend an extra third to beautify a Mitzvah. Shulchan Aruch (ibid.): Some say that if he finds two Esrogim to buy, and one of them is nicer than the other, he should buy the nicer one if the price difference is no more than a third of the other. i. Source (Beis Yosef DH Kaneh): Rashi (Bava Kama 9b DH b'Hidur) says that if one found two Sifrei Torah to buy, he should add a third of the price to buy the nicer one. ii. Kaf ha'Chayim (17): It seems that neither opinion requires one who bought an Esrog bigger than an egg to exchange it for a nicer one. However, the Rosh, Gra and Taz obligate doing so. The Magen Avraham says that perhaps the Shulchan Aruch holds like the Rosh. iii. Kaf ha'Chayim (18): One must add a third from an Esrog that one could bless on without Safek. Hidur depends on what people in the area consider nice. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 05:09:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 08:09:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55378F6E.2070708@sero.name> On 04/22/2015 04:40 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > 2) pluralism - there are many truths and one can't decide > > R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is self-contradictory. According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint is monism ! Not true. There are many truths, but not an infinite number. Or, as my father says, there are 70 panim latorah, but there are also 70 achor. Strict monism, which rejects the gemara's statement that "eilu va'eilu DACh", is by definition wrong. > Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he > doesn't accept the kashrut > Answer: > Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong > Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable It depends whether his concern is legitimate. If there is a legitimate opinion or minhag that forbids or refrains from whatever it is, or if he has a legitimate private chumra, then there is no question that it is assur to be machshil him. But if he is acting out of pure amhoratzus, then one needn't pander to it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 09:45:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 17:45:34 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Avodah: Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:54, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah wrote: > What would be the kilayim status of this combo? > http://www.territorialseed.com/product/grafted-tomtato-ketchup-n-fries/new_for_spring_2015 Though potato and tomato are from the same family, it is clear from mesechte Kilayim, fruit [or animals] that look different are treated as 2 different species. Hence, though the spuds and tomatoes would be permitted to eat - as with any grafted fruit - it would be ossur for a Yid to grow Dovid Rubin From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 10:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 13:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: <55378F6E.2070708@sero.name> References: <55378F6E.2070708@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150422175311.GA11663@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 08:09:18AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : On 04/22/2015 04:40 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : >2) pluralism - there are many truths and one can't decide : : >R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is :> self-contradictory. According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint :> is monism ! : Not true. There are many truths, but not an infinite number. Or, as my : father says, there are 70 panim latorah, but there are also 70 achor. I think RMA is referring to a paradox I've mentioned here once. While in principle, it's possible for a halachic pluralist to not include any halachic monist positions in his spectrum of eilu va'eilu, I do not know of a halachic pluralist who rules out the Rambam. Or a less absolute case of the same paradox: MO Jews will turn to chareidi gedolim for pesaqim despite those gedoim not believing that MO is within eilu va'eilu. So it would seem that to the MO Jew asking the she'eilah, the variant of chareidism that says MO is not within eilu va'eilu, is (in the MO Jew's opinion) itself within EvE! : Strict monism, which rejects the gemara's statement that "eilu va'eilu DACh", : is by definition wrong. Or, understand it in terms of following HQBH's word, as opposed to being right. As per the Rambam or RMF, for example. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 18th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Tifferes: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 balance? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 11:53:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 14:53:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Chilul Hashem of Disrespecting Non-Jews Message-ID: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/kb4v525 This idea connects with something that has bothered me for some time: the wanton, unprovoked use of disparaging, racist comments among our youth. Over the years I have either heard directly or been made aware of many such comments by students. When I asked why they had expressed themselves in this manner, they could offer no meaningful response. All I could glean was that they were apparently parroting similar remarks they had heard elsewhere, without having given much thought to their words. Many of these students had few if any relationships or even interactions with individuals from the groups they were mocking. See the above URL for the entire article. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:32:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 15:32:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Chilul Hashem of Disrespecting Non-Jews In-Reply-To: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150422193201.GD11663@aishdas.org> One of my many pet peeves is the use of "chilul hasheim" to teach ehrlachkeit. It may win the battle -- historically, it hasn't -- but it does so by avoiding the war. Mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro as important as mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro. Derekh eretz is important as Chazal literally call it a prerequisite for Torah. Worrying about the bein adam laMaqom effects of the cheit misses the point. And perhaps the reason why past attempts to change behavior by talking about chillul hasheim haven't worked is that one is not teaching the centrality of ehrlachkeit as a *primary* value. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 18th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Tifferes: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 balance? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:43:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 21:43:09 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <5537F9CD.7000409@zahav.net.il> How did Rav Breuer work to ensure the conditions that "we could feel justified to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? Ben On 4/21/2015 1:32 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > > Again, I have to disagree. I suggest you read Rav Breuer's writings > about EY in the book A Unique Perspective under the heading Eretz Yisroel. > > The proclamation of a Jewish state would bring great joy to all > the members of our people, if conditions were such that we could > feel justified to call it a Kiddush Hashem. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:36:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 15:36:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Avodah: Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150422193627.GE11663@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 05:45:34PM +0100, D via Avodah wrote: : Hence, though the spuds and tomatoes would be permitted to eat - as : with any grafted fruit - it would be ossur for a Yid to grow I think it would be mutar to buy already grafted, and then grow. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:53:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 22:53:04 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Avodah: Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 7:45 PM, D via Avodah wrote: > Though potato and tomato are from the same family, it is clear from > mesechte Kilayim, fruit [or animals] that look different are treated as 2 > different species. > Hence, though the spuds and tomatoes would be permitted to eat - as with > any grafted fruit - it would be ossur for a Yid to grow > Do you mean because the potato and tomato that we eat look different? You're not comparing apples to apples (pun intended). The fruits of a potato plant look very similar to the fruits of a tomato plant! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 13:07:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joel Schnur via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 16:07:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos Message-ID: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> My understanding is that Briskers don't wear a talis katan outside the house on shabbos because the shiur is "ad habirchaim" according to the Gaon as brought in Keser Rosh by talmidei Reb Chaim Voloshiner. And since "until the knees" is a subjective criterion depending upon each person's height, there is no specific "one size fits all" length. Interestingly, Rav Moshe Shternbuch brings a Rav Moshe that says that the source is unreliable and the Gaon never said such a thing. -- ___________________________ Joel Schnur, Senior VP Government Affairs/Public Relations Schnur Associates, Inc. 25 West 45th Street, Suite 1405 New York, NY 10036 Tel. 212-489-0600 x204 Fax. 212-489-0203 joel at schnurassociates.com www.schnurassociates.com http://www.schnurassociates.com/joels-corner/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 14:57:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 17:57:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Chilul Hashem of Disrespecting Non-Jews In-Reply-To: <20150422193201.GD11663@aishdas.org> References: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150422193201.GD11663@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150422215739.6F5F0180576@nexus.stevens.edu> At 03:32 PM 4/22/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >Mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro as important as mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro. I believe that this sentence is wrong. I believe you meant to write that mitzvos bein adam l'Chaveiro are just as important as mitzvos bein adam l'makom. RSRH points out that the Luchos contained 5 mitzvos bein adam l'Chaveiro and 5 mitzvos bein Adam l"Makom on each side, and that both sides of the Luchos were the same size! >Derekh eretz is important as Chazal literally call it a prerequisite >for Torah. And hence may one deduce that those who do not have proper Derech Eretz do not have Torah? If so, then I guess we should not be surprised at the actions of some so-called Jews that are a Chilul Hashem. They do not have any Torah. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 13:46:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 20:46:08 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos In-Reply-To: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> References: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> Message-ID: <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> On Wednesday, April 22, 2015 3:33 PM, Joel Schnur wrote: > My understanding is that Briskers don't wear a talis katan outside the > house on shabbos because the shiur is "ad habirchaim" according to the > Gaon as brought in Keser Rosh by talmidei Reb Chaim Voloshiner.... > Interestingly, Rav Moshe Shternbuch brings a Rav Moshe that says that > the source is unreliable and the Gaon never said such a thing. The reason that Briskers don't where Tzitzes on Shabbos is because they are Choshesh for the Shita of the Baal HaMeor who says that Techiels is Me'akev the Lavan. As such -- by wearing these now unnecessary 'strings' in Reshus Harabim they will be Oveir the Lav of Hotza'ah on Shabbos, an Issur D'Oraisa and a capital offense. Inetrestingly, accroding to the Baal HaMeor, wearing a Beged of Daled Kanfos using Tzitzs without Techiles is a violation -- same as if he were wearing it without Tzitzis at all. I'm told that the Gra did not wear a woolen Beged for his Talis Katan for that reason. Because wool has a Chiuv D'Oraisa for Tzitzs whereas cotton is only D'Rabbanan. HM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 17:05:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 20:05:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <5537F9CD.7000409@zahav.net.il> References: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> <5537F9CD.7000409@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <5538373F.4000900@aishdas.org> On 04/22/2015 03:43 PM, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: > On 4/21/2015 1:32 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: >> Again, I have to disagree. I suggest you read Rav Breuer's writings >> about EY in the book A Unique Perspective under the heading Eretz >> Yisroel. >> The proclamation of a Jewish state would bring great joy to all >> the members of our people, if conditions were such that we could >> feel justified to call it a Kiddush Hashem. > How did Rav Breuer work to ensure the conditions that "we could feel > justified to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? He thought his late brother's Poalei Agudah might accomplish it. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 03:06:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 06:06:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos In-Reply-To: <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> References: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20150423100635.GA26841@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 08:46:08PM +0000, Harry Maryles via Avodah wrote: : The reason that Briskers don't where Tzitzes on Shabbos is because they : are Choshesh for the Shita of the Baal HaMeor who says that Techiels is : Me'akev the Lavan. : : As such -- by wearing these now unnecessary 'strings' in Reshus Harabim : they will be Oveir the Lav of Hotza'ah on Shabbos... In the opening post, I referred to the BhM's reason. Since there appears to be interest, I will spell it out. The mishnah (Menachos 4:1, 38a) says that techeiles is not me'aqeves the lavan, and v.v. Seems kind of open and shut, and that's what we hold lehalakhah. And so R' Yitzchaq says that R Yochanan ben Nuri says (beraisa , quoted on 39b) that if you have no tekheiles, you make all strings lavan. But, Rebbe is choleiq, and says the mishnah means sequence. Normally the lavan strings have to be put on first, or on a tekheiles garment, the tekheiles string first. And the mishnah is saying that if you put on the other color first, it's not me'aqeiv. According to Rebbe, though, you can't be yotzei without putting on tekheiles altogether. Getting to this understanding of the mishnah is an amud lonq chaqla vetarya in which Levi, Shemu'el and Rami bar Chama defend Rebbe's position. : Interestingly, according to the Baal HaMeor, wearing a Beged of Daled : Kanfos using Tzitzs without Techiles is a violation -- same as if he : were wearing it without Tzitzis at all. Not really. It's an asei, not a lav. So, if tekheiles truly is unavailable, why wouldn't it be mutar, if pointless? However, if you feel there is any possibility whatsoever that the murex derived dye is indeed tekheiles, safeiq de'oraisa lechumerah would force one to choose between not wearing tzitzis and wearing the dye. And there are those who hold it's garua to wear invalid dye, so combine the shitos right, and the discovery of a possible tekheiles would make it better not to wear tzitzis. IF we held like the BhM. But not even Briskers do, me'iqar hadin -- they are merely chosheish for his position as a chumerah. : I'm told that the Gra did not wear a woolen Beged for his Talis Katan : for that reason. Because wool has a Chiuv D'Oraisa for Tzitzs whereas : cotton is only D'Rabbanan. As usual for the Gra -- clever! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 19th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Tifferes: When does harmony promote Fax: (270) 514-1507 withdrawal and submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 02:45:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Allan Engel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 10:45:42 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos In-Reply-To: <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> References: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: So what was his Tallis Godol made of? On 22 April 2015 at 21:46, Harry Maryles via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote:. > > > Inetrestingly, accroding to the Baal HaMeor, wearing a Beged of Daled > Kanfos using Tzitzs without Techiles is a violation -- same as if he > were wearing it without Tzitzis at all. > > I'm told that the Gra did not wear a woolen Beged for his Talis Katan > for that reason. Because wool has a Chiuv D'Oraisa for Tzitzs whereas > cotton is only D'Rabbanan. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 05:07:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 12:07:10 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >> R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is self-contradictory. >> According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint is monism ! ... > Strict monism, which rejects the gemara's statement that "eilu va'eilu > DACh", is by definition wrong. Monism doesn't reject the gemara just interprets it different That was the shiur >> Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he >> doesn't accept the kashrut >> Answer: >> Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong >> Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable > It depends whether his concern is legitimate. If there is a legitimate > opinion or minhag that forbids or refrains from whatever it is, or if he > has a legitimate private chumra, then there is no question that it is assur > to be machshil him. No question is your opinion a true monist Would argue that there are no other legitimate opinions hence the other is wrong and you are not machshil him [Email #2, also in reply to this latter quote. -micha] You are not being machshil by offering food that he won't eat because of his minhag or chumrot you are mikayem shalach Manot even if he doesn't accept the kashrut From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 09:11:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 12:11:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L Message-ID: <20150423161105.DF2701836D1@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:13 AM 4/23/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: >How did Rav Breuer work to ensure the conditions that "we could feel >justified to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? I really have no specifics. but I do know that Rav Breuer was busy here in the US building a model Kehilla and educating Baalei Batim. I know that some of those from his Kehilla did move to EY. In particular, I know one person who was a professional and a follower of TIDE who moved to EY. I am sure that he did whatever he could to strengthen Yahadus in EY. But let me ask a related question. What are the observant now living in EY doing "to ensure the conditions that 'we could feel justifies to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 09:49:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 12:49:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55392297.20909@sero.name> On 04/23/2015 08:07 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > >>> >>Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he >>> >>doesn't accept the kashrut >>> >>Answer: >>> >>Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong >>> >>Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable >> >It depends whether his concern is legitimate. If there is a legitimate >> >opinion or minhag that forbids or refrains from whatever it is, or if he >> >has a legitimate private chumra, then there is no question that it is assur >> >to be machshil him. > No question is your opinion a true monist > Would argue that there are no other legitimate opinions hence the other > is wrong and you are not machshil him Even if there is only one truth, you don't necessarily know for sure what it is. You make your best guess, but someone else makes his, and for all you know he may have hit on the truth, even if only by accident, while you, with all your careful analysis of the evidence, may have been led astray. Let's take medicine, where there really is only one truth, but often we don't know for sure what it is. Does gluten in the diet negatively affect the health of most normal people? There doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence for that proposition, but it can't be ruled out. Maybe in 20 years we will observe that those who have followed the gluten-free fad really are healthier, and someone will discover how it is that gluten harms a person. Or maybe it will be established that it's exactly the mishguas that it appears to be. But until then we are just guessing, and if you hold that it's a mishugas but someone else is worried about it, you have to consider the possibility that he may be right, and by tricking him into eating gluten you may actually be harming him. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 10:54:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 17:54:52 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] A Papal Honor for an Orthodox Rabbi. Message-ID: <393104521.3643892.1429811692300.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> JTA is reporting that Pope Francis will be bestowing Papal Knighthood upon Rabbi Arthur Schneier (who I believe is an Orthodox Rabbi) for (among other things) his work in promoting a positive relationship with the Church. According to JTA,?Schneier will formally become a knight of Saint Sylvester at a ceremony on April 27.Isn't there a Halachic probelm with this? It would seem to me that becoming a 'knight' in the Catholic church ?would at least be Avak Avodah Zara - even though it is just honorary? HM??Want Emes and Emunah in your life? Try this: http://haemtza.blogspot.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 16:14:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 19:14:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early Message-ID: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin (or ate the food already, the food went bad, etc...) who for some reason can not rely on the rabbi's communal failsafe eruv (perhaps he isn't in a neighborhood with an observant community) do for lighting Shabbos candles? So, the BY (OC 537:19) permits, but he says "veyeish oserin". The AhS (se'if 28) names the oserim as the Rosh and the Ran, and that the SA names the Rambam (via a diyuq halashon)as his source lehatir. The AhS then questions the diyuq, but says it should be allowed anyway, since one gets hana'ah from the neiros while on YT too. So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, ones you used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making a berakhah on? Yes, there is light for enjoying the Shabbos meal, all the same shalom bayis. But there is no actual pe'ulah to make the berakhah on. Is there? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 19th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Tifferes: When does harmony promote Fax: (270) 514-1507 withdrawal and submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 16:21:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Daniel M. Israel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 16:21:06 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> References: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <33e302272e45c742ee54349bcfddc40a@kolberamah.org> On 2015-04-23 16:14, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin... > ... do for lighting Shabbos candles? > So, the BY (OC 537:19) permits... The AhS > then questions the diyuq, but says it should be allowed anyway, since > one gets hana'ah from the neiros while on YT too. > So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, ones you > used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making a berakhah on? Off the cuff hypothesis: Perhaps for the one lighting, it becomes Shabbos immediately, so the hadlakah is for Shabbos and there is a beracha. But for others in the house, they likely don't take on Shabbos until davening, and therefor they enjoy it on YT. Which would be enough to matir her lighting them. But I have no source. -- Daniel Israel dmi1 at cornell.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 16:27:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 19:27:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: <33e302272e45c742ee54349bcfddc40a@kolberamah.org> References: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> <33e302272e45c742ee54349bcfddc40a@kolberamah.org> Message-ID: <20150423232727.GB23492@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 04:21:06PM -0700, Daniel M. Israel wrote: : Perhaps for the one lighting, it becomes Shabbos immediately, so the : hadlakah is for Shabbos and there is a beracha. But for others in the : house, they likely don't take on Shabbos until davening, and therefor : they enjoy it on YT. Which would be enough to matir her lighting them. Not bad, if we don't read too much into the AhS not limiting this solution to cases where the candle-lighter isn't alone in the home. Nor does he mention having to use candles lit after pelag, nor her making a berakhah upon lighting and having an issur melakhah... Could be, but I find it dachuq. -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 17:58:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2015 00:58:48 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early Message-ID: <20150423.205848.16124.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger asked: > What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin (or > ate the food already, the food went bad, etc...) who for some > reason can not rely on the rabbi's communal failsafe eruv > (perhaps he isn't in a neighborhood with an observant community) > do for lighting Shabbos candles? Another problem this person will have is what to eat on Shabbos. There are several ideas offered by the poskim, and one of them is to cook extra food on Yom Tov, and the extra will be for Shabbos. This can be done even without an Eiruv Tavshilin, IIRC, because the melacha is not being done exclusively for Shabbos. > So, the BY (OC 537:19) [that should be 527:19 - Akiva] permits, > but he says "veyeish oserin". The AhS (se'if 28) names the oserim > as the Rosh and the Ran, and that the SA names the Rambam (via a > diyuq halashon)as his source lehatir. The AhS then questions the > diyuq, but says it should be allowed anyway, since one gets > hana'ah from the neiros while on YT too. This sounds to me the same as above. The lighting is not being done exclusively for Shabbos, and therefore may be done on YT. I would note that at no point in that se'if, does the AhS explicitly refers to the *mitzvah* of lighting Shabbos neros. Rather, his focus is on the practical need to light them in the late afternoon, both because it is *already* getting dark and hard to see without some artifical light, and because we won't be able to light anything later on. Truth be told, if lighting Shabbos candles is allowed only with an Eruv Tavshilin, then this whole se'if is needed even for a person who DID remember to make an Eruv, because (l'chatchila) one must do his Shabbos preparations early in the day, in a manner in which the melacha is -- or at least *could* be -- for tzorchei Yom Tov, and not exclusively for Shabbos. > So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, > ones you used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making > a berakhah on? Yes, there is light for enjoying the Shabbos meal, > all the same shalom bayis. But there is no actual pe'ulah to make > the berakhah on. Is there? I don't know where you see anything like this in the AhS. The AhS is explicitly talking about lighting after mincha, when it is already dark and the light is already useful. I concede that perhaps one should omit the bracha, because it explicitly declares one's intentions to be of a hachana nature, but that is a separate question not raised by the AhS. The main point I want to make in this paragraph is that the AhS never suggested that one might be yotzay Mitzvas Ner Shabbos via the candle that he lit in the early afternoon; it must be lit after Plag, with the intention that it will be burning into Shabbos. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55399563ca1dd156333b3st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 23:18:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2015 02:18:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Turning Jealousy into Progress Message-ID: Envy - Jealousy ? Kin?ah ? is an obvious theme for Parshas Mtzora. Paraphrasing freely (from L?chai Ro?-EY page 184), Midrash Tehillim/Shochar Tov on 37:1 parallel of TiTCHaR and TeKaNNEi. Do not fall victim to despondence those plotting evil, do not emulate those who succeed in career of crime. Rashi BMiDBar 25:11 neatly ties both into a General Theory of Jealousy. KoL LaSHON KiNAH HU HaMiTCHaReH LiNKom NiKMaS DaVaR. Rashi?s keyword is worth a thousand words. Rashi expects that we know Tanach and Midrash references. To catch Rashi?s nuance, always, I consult my paper Milon Gur [also in HebrewBooks.com]. HaMiTCHaReH is the exotic addition to our vocabulary. My trusty dictionary comes through here. Milon Gur pages 310 311 on CHaRaH: CHaRaH intransitive verb, showing outwardly as Ca_US or KaTZUF. ? foaming and frothing anger, against a traitor or hated enemy. determination to avenge and restore the Balance of Justice. HiTLaHeiV burning simmering anger, pressure like volcanic eruption. Hashem to Yonah ? are you truly upset ? HaHeYTeiV CHaRaH LCHa YoNaH? Divine CHaRON AF boiling or simmering anger is satisfied only by repentance, not by punishment. CHaRUCHA [burnt like over done fire-roast, long term anger leads to burn-through and burn-out. CHaRUL thorny tangle Milon Gur page 1088 McharCher RIV ? drum up strife and enmity CHaRCHuR ? disease of loss of muscle and strength. MChaRCHer Riv, CharumAf [nose ?bent out of shape? inset into face] and for Tacharut as resentment destroyed relationship. Rashi in Machzor Vitri 148 uses CHeReTZ in a unique way. Hashem jealously and with energy demands perfection from the world. Why does the Creator demand perfection? Rashi believes that Hashem cares strongly about the world. When the Adam attempts to be good, but falls short, He uses Rachamim, parenting skills, looking to the potential of ?You will worship Elokim on this mountain?. identification with the world demands perfection. When the world tries but falls short, fails to perform, Hashem uses Rachamim, flexibility, patience, empathy. He settles for potential. When the world rebels against Hashem, refuses to acknowledge Him at all, or mocking Him, rejecting their Father, breaking up the family, then there is Charon Af, red faced simmering anger. Rav Avraham Ruby authored the ?Tzilusa DiShmaata? series, focusing on chapters of the Baba-s routinely learnt Afternoon Seder which are master-works of Lamdus. Rav Moshe Shmuel Shapiro of Be?eir Yaakov was a talented teacher, and R? Ruby is an extremely able student. This year R? Ruby has turned his talents to creating the same sort of succinct and sharp presentation on Chumash.[L?chai Ro?-EY on Vayikra, self published 5775, contact me.]. Each Parsha offers an eclectic collection of solid sources. The organization is always unique and refreshing. L?chai Ro?-EY 185 shows the constructive power of ambition. Identity, membership,self-image, pride, place in society are all motivators of constructive behavior. Kinah jealousy is secondary, when there is an insult or threat to Hashem?s identity, or the individual?s. Ideally our self-image should include praise of Hashem and hatred of all insults against the Honor of Hashem. Only live in a town with Jewish services, and help create them. Your material ambitions include the dimension of Mitzvos and Kidush Hashem. A higher level of identity, ambition and constructive jealousy is aspiring to your neighbor?s higher spiritual levels. Even the Heavenly angels and even Avraham Avinu found mentors to emulate. Of course, the type of destructive strife we often see has other roots. Building a Jewish family is much easier with stronger spiritual models. -- David Wacholder Cell: 917-742-7838 Email: dwacholder at gmail.com dwacholder at optonline.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 24 08:42:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2015 11:42:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Beautiful Vort Message-ID: I recently came upon the following, listening to a hesped for Rabbi Mordechai Fachler zt?l, who was nift?r in November 2010. The hesped (one of many for Rav Fachler) was delivered by Rabbi Moshe Shirkin of England. This is just one part that caught my attention and was very touching. In previous generations the g?dolei Yisroel were discussing what?s the function of a Rav? The Rosh Yeshiva in Grodna (at the time) said the task of the Rav is to give shiurim. The Rav of Kovna, poisek oilam, said the task of the Rav is to pasken shailas. They came to Reb Chayim of Brisk and asked him what is the task of the Rav. His impressive response was: To give shiurim, you have a Rosh Yeshiva. To pasken shailas, you have a dayan. The task of the Rav is to do chesed with his oilam. A clergyman comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comfortable. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Apr 25 12:31:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 25 Apr 2015 21:31:27 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150423161105.DF2701836D1@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150423161105.DF2701836D1@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <553BEB8F.8040802@zahav.net.il> On 4/23/2015 6:11 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > But let me ask a related question. What are the observant now living > in EY doing "to ensure the conditions that 'we could feel justifies > to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? I gave an answer on Areivim, but I saw a couple of things on Shabbat which warrant an Avodah response. The first is from Yoma 86:A, Rashi, B'Amor Lehem (my translation): "Evil comes to chassidim and chachamim because "They desecrated My Holy name" (note: Rashi is of course assuming that they didn't do any particular sin to warrant what happened to them). How did they desecrate (God's name)? In those places to where they were exiled, the non-Jews say "These are the people of God" and He can't redeem them. Conclusion: God's name has been desecrated." End quote. Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem. Rav Soloveitch tz"l wrote about this point in Kol Dodi Dofek and in his drashot for the Kinot, as did Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook tz"l. However, I don't want to leave it at that. Rav Cherki (father of Shalom HY"D) wrote the following in this week's Shabbat B'shabato: "And this leads us to a moral question: How can it be that with respect to the most significant event in all of history, the redemption, the existence or lack of good deeds has no effect at all? This tension between the inevitability of redemption and arbitrary choices made by man is what makes it necessary for the nation of Yisrael to observe all the mitzvot in detail, in order to avoid creating a dissonance between the need for justice (which appears in the covenant in the Torah portion of Bechukotai) and the values of the path of unification, which insists that G-d is always working to glorify His name, no matter what else is happening. And that is why the Haftarah ends with the adamant demand of the Holy One, Blessed be He: "I am your G-d. Follow My laws and maintain My just actions and perform them, and sanctify my Shabbat and let it be a symbol between Me and you, in order to know that I am your G-d." [Yechezkel 20:19-20]." No one, not the most hard core DL around, says that there is nothing wrong with the State, that there isn't what that needs changing, from the level of how people get on a bus to the national agenda. In his hesped, Rav Cherki mentioned that his son Shalom went to the navy to help start a hesder unit for the navy, even though he knew that the religious level in the navy wasn't as high as it was in other units. He went there for the greater good, to help make the IDF a bit more Torah oriented, period. Rav Cherki went on to say that the answer to Shalom's murder was to add Kiddush HaShem. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 13:28:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 20:28:49 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lashon Hara and the Internet Message-ID: <20150426.162849.2967.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> On Areivim, there were some posts speaking about the residents of a certain area or areas. Someone commented: > I'm a little surprised at this exchange. Sefer Chafetz Chaim is > pretty clear about not saying loshen hara on a place or the > residents of a place. Someone else responded: > I am no expert on what is LH and what is not, but with the Internet > I think that some of the halachos probably do not apply to today's > world. Find me a sefer that deals with LH and the Internet, and > then we will talk. I too am no expert in Sefer Chafetz Chaim, but I clearly remember it talking about Lashon Hara via the written word, such as in personal letters to friends and relatives, or by publishing books and newspapers. Can someone find those sources and tell us where they are? I find it difficult to imagine that today's world is so different from that of a hundred years ago "that some of the halachos probably do not apply to today's world." But without quoting actual sources, it's simply a case of my imagination vs that of the other poster. So I am hoping that someone can help with the source material, "and then we will talk." Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553d4ab51dc554ab54c25st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 15:02:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 18:02:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] YIDDISHKEIT WITHOUT IDEOLOGY: A LETTER TO My SON Message-ID: <20150426220229.D93E41836B2@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://traditionarchive.org/news/originals/Volume%2036/No.%202/Yiddishkeit%20Without.pdf Let me be absolutely clear: where the demands of halacha are unambiguous, you must submit to them. But how does one navigate between much less well-defined traditional attitudes and strong personal inclinations? When I was your age I didn't know the answer-I still don't-but one proposition that seemed self-evident to me at the time was that it was essential to be consistent. In other words, I felt that I had to some- how make sure that the way I defined Yiddishkeit and the way I defined my commitments given my own inclinations would be perfectly aligned. I'm now convinced that that commitment to consistency was utter- ly wrong-headed and is the key to all that is wrong with institutional Yiddishkeit. I shouldn't have been defining either Yiddishkeit or my commitments at al. To do so is to reduce Yiddishkeit to ideology which is exactly what it is not. See the above UL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 16:54:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 19:54:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150426235424.BD633182CE0@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:52 PM 4/26/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: I gave an answer on Areivim, but I saw a couple of things on Shabbat which warrant an Avodah response. The first is from Yoma 86:A, Rashi, B'Amor Lehem (my translation): "Evil comes to chassidim and chachamim because "They desecrated My Holy name" (note: Rashi is of course assuming that they didn't do any particular sin to warrant what happened to them). How did they desecrate (God's name)? In those places to where they were exiled, the non-Jews say "These are the people of God" and He can't redeem them. Conclusion: God's name has been desecrated." End quote. >Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem. >Rav Soloveitch tz"l wrote about this point in Kol Dodi Dofek and in his >drashot for the Kinot, as did Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook tz"l. We all know that there were great Torah scholars who disagreed with the assertion that " the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." to name just 3, the Satmar Rebbe, Rav Breuer, and Rav Schwab. They were also most certainly familiar with the gemara you quote and the RASHI. If you had written, "Therefore, according to some Torah scholars the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." I would not disagree. However, your blanket statement, "Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." is IMO is not valid. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 12:36:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Jay F. Shachter via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 19:36:27 +0000 (WET DST) Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: from "via Avodah" at Apr 26, 2015 03:52:29 pm Message-ID: <14300949890.C90dE41.4028@m5.chicago.il.us> > > What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin (or ate > the food already, the food went bad, etc...) who for some reason can > not rely on the rabbi's communal failsafe eruv (perhaps he isn't in > a neighborhood with an observant community) do for lighting Shabbos > candles? > You light one candle, after plag hamminxa of course, and you say the appropriate brakha, lhadliq ner shel shabbath. You don't need an `eruv tavshilin to light one candle, because the Rabbinic prohibition of performing mlakha on Yom Tov for Shabbath was not intended to override the Rabbinic commandment of lighting one candle for use on Shabbath. Since (unlike in ancient times, and unlike a hundred years ago also) you don't need to have candles burning on Shabbath for their light, because you already have electric lights in your house that will stay on, or that will come on, during Shabbath, you therefore have no reason to light more than one candle (except for minhag, which you can dispense with when needed), so you don't. One candle is the Rabbinic commandment. Lighting two candles is a recent frumkeit, or yhiruth, that started among German Jews and is less than 900 years old. Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter 6424 N Whipple St Chicago IL 60645-4111 (1-773)7613784 landline (1-410)9964737 GoogleVoice jay at m5.chicago.il.us http://m5.chicago.il.us "The umbrella of the gardener's aunt is in the house" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 04:58:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 12:58:34 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001901d080e1$7d6fcbe0$784f63a0$@org.uk> RMB wrote: <> As I have written before, what I find intensely frustrating about this is that RYBS's invocation of tan du appears to itself involve a form of tampering with the chazakos and by implication the denial of the perfection and truthfulness of chachmei chazal that is then claimed to be kefira. The gemora in discussing tan du is very clear - both in Yevamos 118b and Kesuvos 75a: a woman in a tan du marriage commits adultery - "kulan mezanos"! - THAT is the chazaka from Chazal regarding the nature of women. Now this could mean: (a) the sort of woman who is prepared to enter a tan du marriage is prepared to and will commit adultery; or (b) all women will take a tan du marriage (RYBS), but if they find themselves in a tan du marriage - the existential loneliness that RYBS identifies as being the particular province of women will also, according to Chazal, inevitably drive them to adultery; But you can't get away from the fact that Chazal set this up as a chazaka. And if you take these chazakos in the way that RYBS says to do, then there are inevitable conclusions: A Beis Din faced with what can now clearly be seen as a tan du marriage HAS to assume adultery as a consequence - that being the chazaka. If you hold that these statements of Chazal are perhaps limited in time and place to the times of Chazal, and the nature of women then, then we cannot necessarily generalise to today, and despite a woman today being demonstratably in a tan du marriage, one cannot necessarily jump to conclusions regarding her faithfulness. But if these chazakos are immutable - then the only question must surely be, was there the possibility of adultery - and given the freedom of movement of women today, I do not see how anybody can say that opportunity was not available. Therefore the result, and the consequence for the marriage, was a foregone conclusion. A beis din, if it does not treat this marriage as a mekach taus (because the woman is one who would not have entered a tan du marriage), has to treat it as one in which the woman has committed adultery and is therefore forbidden to her husband, and under which the husband is clearly under a Torah obligation to divorce, according to all opinions ("dvar erva"). And yet note that there is none of this in RBYS's analysis. Women's loneliness and spiritual pain, yes - a full facing of the consequences of what is therefore, according to Chazal, endemic in our society and in the nature of Bnos Yisroel, no. There is a complete glossing over of the fundamental conclusion by Chazal regarding the consequence of a tan du marriage. And yet how can you write about tan du as an absolute immutable principle and yet not mention what, according to Chazal, is the cast iron result of that absolute immutable principl? Note by the way that this chazaka, if indeed it is immutable in the nature of women, has another consequence. Given that having women commit adultery is clearly (how shall I put this mildly) a highly destructive thing for society - having women enter into marriages where this is the inevitable consequence is a very bad thing. Surely any Rabbi who is mesader kedushin at such a wedding, any eidim at such a wedding, etc have as a matter of fact engaged in lifnei iver lo titen michshol in the full biblical sense. This isn't, according to Chazal, a maybe or a possibility, this is an inevitability. Surely it is obligatory on any Rabbi who agrees to be mesader kiddushin and on any shadchanim and eidim to investigate very carefully that this marriage is not of the tan du nature? That is if, as Rav Lichtenstein is quoted as saying "given the clear cut evidence in the Rishonim in Yevamot and other places in Shas which clearly indicated that this hazaka was not one that applied in all contexts and at all times and in all situations" - then these concerns would be significantly diminished. After all, any marriage presented to a mesader kedushin would then at the very least be a sfek sfeka - perhaps this isn't a tan du marriage, and if it is, perhaps the woman might not commit adultery. But if it is an inevitable chazaka that a woman in a tan du marriage will commit adultery, then there is only one safek in relation to a serious issur d'orisa - in which case must it not be the responsibility of all those who enable such a marriage to occur to make sure that it is not a tan du marriage and they are not enabling such adultery to take place? To my mind, indeed, that is precisely what Chazal were really getting at. A genuine acknowledgement that - at least in some societies and some environments, women are pressured into inappropriate marriages and give in to that pressure. And that where a woman does indeed give in to such an inappropriate marriage, the consequences are really, really bad for the general society and we need all to be on guard to try and prevent such marriages occurring. That to me demonstrates far more clearly the "perfection and truthfulness of Chazal" than trying to squish them in to some metaphysical understanding of womenkind that does not reverberate as true to many. But if one is going to apply this particular analysis to this particular statement of Chazal, it would seem important to do it honestly while facing the totality of what it is that Chazal actually said. >-Micha Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 11:00:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 18:00:12 GMT Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabal as Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150427.140012.4336.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Rav YB Soloveitchik zt"l was quoted: > ... Let us take for example the chazaka that I was told > about: the chazaka tav l'meisiv tan du mil'meisiv armalo > [20] has absolutely nothing to do with the social and > political status of women in antiquity. This chazaka is > based not upon sociological factors, but upon a verse in > breishis -- harba arbeh itz'voneich v'heironeich b'etzev > teildi vanim v'el isheich t'shukaseich v'hu yimshal bach > -- "I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy travail; in > pain thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall > be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee" [21]. It > is a metaphysical curse rooted in the feminine personality > -- she suffers incomparably more that the male who is in > solitude. Solitude to the male is not as terrible an > experience, as horrifying an experience, as is solitude to > the woman. And this will never change, mayid shamayim > vaaretz [22]. This is not a psychological fact; it is an > existential fact, ... In our discussions of this idea, that the chazaka is "an existential fact" and "based not upon sociological factors", there seems to be a general assumption that the Rav was speaking of ALL chazakos. However, it seems possible to me, or perhaps even likely, that he was singling this chazaka out as different from others. Note that he does not merely assert this chazaka to be existential, but he cites a pasuk as proof. To me, this is significant, because we would then be allowed to treat any NON-pasuk-based chazaka as sociological. I don't know what implications this might have for the chazaka of extramarital relations that R"n Chana Luntz mentioned, or for any other chazakos, but I wanted to mention it in case anyone else wants to comment. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553e7973421b079735cf5st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 14:53:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 17:53:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabal as Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150427.140012.4336.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150427.140012.4336.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150427215316.GA27558@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 06:00:12PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : In our discussions of this idea, that the chazaka is "an existential : fact" and "based not upon sociological factors", there seems to be a : general assumption that the Rav was speaking of ALL chazakos. However, : it seems possible to me, or perhaps even likely, that he was singling : this chazaka out as different from others. I suggested a third possiliblity. The shiur was all about Talmud Torah and Qabbalas Ol Malkhus Shamayim. This was a couple of off topic lines in what was basically a complaint that RER didn't respect the halachic process (as RYBS saw it). RAL reports that this was RYBS's primary argument against RER's beis din; I am suggesting that this quick assertion was an example of that argument, not an independent second reason to reject. It fits better as an efshar lomar than an actual assertion. How do you know you can simply repeal this chazaqah? What if it's an existential statement about the human condition; is it, after all, mentioned in a pasuq! Not so much that tav lemeisav was necessarily an existential and unchanging fact, but that it could be. That one can't simply reason in a vacuum and buck the trend of millennia of pesaq. But in any case, RYBS did say it belashon rabbim: "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above. Let us take for example the chazaka that I was told about: the chazaka tav l'meisiv tan du...." RYBS discusses tav lemeisiv as an example of a general principle not to tamper with chazaqos. Not as a single case. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 23rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Netzach: How does my domination Fax: (270) 514-1507 stifle others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 11:10:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 14:10:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A Halachik analysis of the kosher status of vitamins and medicines. Message-ID: <20150427181040.6E1171834B6@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/osf4fh7 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 12:51:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 21:51:46 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150426235424.BD633182CE0@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150426235424.BD633182CE0@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <553E9352.3030802@zahav.net.il> 1) I have to admit I don't get your answer. You asked in what way could the state be considered a Kiddush Hashem and I gave you an answer. Now you reply that various rabbis wouldn't agree with that answer. Ok, but az mah? 2) The Satmar Rebbe wouldn't have said that anything about the state is a Kiddush Hashem, no matter what it did, so I don't understand why you included him. 3) Lastly, the reply that you gave reminds me of something that Rav AY Kook wrote in Orot, Orot HaTechiya, Chapter 20. He was addressing the question of whether or not the religious should join forces with the non-religious in order to work together for the Zionist cause. Rav Kook used the story of the two women claiming to be the mother of a baby as example of people revealing their true intentions. The woman who agreed that the baby should be cut in half was in effect saying (according to RK) that there shouldn't be babies. She used others claims as way of hiding her true intent, but when the decisive moment came, the truth came out. Meaning - was the demand that the religious not work with the secular the issue or was that a cover story used to mask people's opposition to Zionism? Or in this case, is the demand that the creation of the state be a Kiddush HaShem in the eyes of all rabbanim a real demand or is it simply a cover? If the Breuer community want the state to reflect certain values, than please, make it happen. If they don't want to make it happen or aren't willing, than the demand is (at best) an exercise in dissimulation. Ben On 4/27/2015 1:54 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > We all know that there were great Torah scholars who disagreed with the assertion that " the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." to name just 3, the Satmar Rebbe, Rav Breuer, and Rav Schwab. They were also most certainly familiar with the gemara you quote and the RASHI. > > If you had written, "Therefore, according to some Torah scholars the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." I would not disagree. However, your blanket statement, "Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." is IMO is not valid. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 14:59:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 22:59:07 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] ashkenazi married to sefardi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003e01d08135$629ef9e0$27dceda0$@org.uk> RET writes: <> Note that the Bnei Banim in Chelek 3 siman 29 brings an objection to this position of RMF, based on the Rema in Even HaEzer siman 75 si'if 1. The discussion there is regarding the situation where the man literally comes from one country and the woman comes from another, who can force whom to move? And while the majority of the rishonim (including the Tashbetz) hold (absent special considerations such as Eretz Yisrael versus non Eretz Yisrael) that the man can force the woman to move to his country, Rabbanu Tam holds the opposite, that the woman can force the man to move. And the Rema holds l'halacha that we should be choshesh for the position of Rabbanu Tam, and hence neither can force the other to move. The Bnei Banim points out that if one cannot force the wife to physically move to the locale of the husband, l'halacha, how can she be considered to have moved to his place by mere dint of the marriage? After all, if she has in fact, halachically, moved to his place by entering the chuppah, what possible objection can there possibly be to her being made to up sticks and actually go to his country, Rabbanu Tam or no Rabbanu Tam? So while the Tashbez is in fact being consistent - being a rishon who holds that in fact she is required to physically move to the husband's country, the Bene Banim argues that by being choshesh for Rabbanu Tam, the Rema is clearly not poskening like RMF and the Tashbetz. The Bene Banim also discusses other arguments brought by the Tashbetz (such as ishto k'gufo) - but again rejects this, given that a woman does not take over her husband's chiyuvim and nedarim (with the possible exception of Channukah Candles). >In addition ROY states a similar psak in several places. One can argue that ROY is in a stronger position than RMF, on the grounds that he solely follows the Mechaber, and hence not the Rema, and might hold that one can force a country change. The Bnei Banim also brings, however, that while ROY comes out straightforwardly like the Tashbetz in Yabiat Omer chelek 5 siman 37 (there he is discussing an Ashkenazi woman who married a Sephardi man and whether she can eat rice on Pesach - answer of course, yes), in Or Torah Iyar 4751 ROY writes (quotation taken from the Bene Banim, I don't have access to the original): ?????? ??? ???? ????? ????? ????? ?????? ?????? ???? ??????? ????? ?????? ??? ????? ????? ???? ??? ???? ?? ?"? ????, ?? ???? ??????? ???? ???? ???? ?????? ???? ????? ????? ???? ?' ?? ?????? ????? ???? )??? ?' ???? ?"?(. ??? ?????? ???? ???? ?? ???? ??? ???? ???? ????? ?? ??? ????, ??? ??? ???? ????? ????? ????? ???? ???? ???? ???? ????? ???? ????? ????? ???? ?? ?? ?? ?????. ???? ?? ?????? ?????? ?????? ???? ????? ????? ????? ??, ????? ?? ???? ????? ?? ????. ??? ?? ?? ????? ????? ??? ??? ????? ??? ????? ????? ????? ?????. ???? ???? ???? ??????, ?? ??? ????? ?? ???? ?????? ???? ????? ????? ???? ????? ??? ???? ????? ?? ??? ?????? ????, ??? ??? ????? ???? ???? ????? ??? ?????? ??? ??????? ??? ????? ????? ???"?. ??? ??? ???? ???? ?????? ???????? ?????? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ?? ??? ??? "??? ???" ???? ?? ???, ????? ????? ?? ???? " customs that are required of the husband of necessity because of the tradition of his fathers like the Sephardim who accepted on themselves the rulings of Maran [the Shulchan Aruch] and are not able to be lenient against his opinion even by way of hatarah, it is required of an Ashkenazi woman to go after her husband and even to conduct herself leniently like the custom of her husband like that which I wrote in Yabiat Omer (chelek 5 siman 37). But stringencies that the husband has placed on himself that if he wants he is able to nullify them by way of hatarah, there is no need for the woman to conduct herself like him and he is not able to force on her a stringency that she does not want to accept as there is to her on whom to rely. Therefore if she wants to continue to use Tenuva milk she is able to do this, and the husband if he wants can be stringent upon himself. But not use any form of compulsion that also she be stringent that there not enter their house the products of Tenuva. And this is the law with the fruit of shmitta, if she relies on the heter mechira since there are many great ones of the world who hold to leniency she is also able to continue to be lenient, and so she is not forced to accept upon herself the stringency of not using products which do not have on them the hashgacha of the Badatz. And if the husband is not able to continue his stringencies when the woman does not want to accept he should do hatarah on that which he did not say ?bli neder? and be lenient also he, as great is the peace of a house." The Bnei Banim notes however that ROY does not bring any lamdus to defend the distinction he makes here between longstanding community customs (such as rice on pesach or glatt meat) and more recent customs - such as not eating Tenuva or relying on the heter mechira. To expand on this comment of the Bnei Banim, one might say that if you base the reason for a woman taking on the customs of the husband because she moves to his place, why should it make a difference whether the customs he has established in his place are longstanding ones, such as eating rice on pesach, or not using the products of Tenuva? The customs of his place are the customs of his place. And yet ROY is, in this, reflecting a common (if perhaps inconsistent) practice. In all the debate regarding husbands not using the eruv and relying on their wives doing so, and how it shows a lack of derech eretz etc, nobody suggests that actually it is assur for the wife to use the eruv, on the grounds that she has moved to the husband's place, and his custom is not to do so, and so she is stuck with the stringencies of his house. The Bnei Banim concludes his teshuva by stating: ?????? ???? ??? ????? ???? ????? ???? ??????? ?????? ??? ???? ?????? ?????? ???? ?? ????, ?? ????? ?? ????? ?? ???? ????"? ????? ??? ???? ??"? ???? ????? ???? ????? ???? ?? ????? ??? ????? ?????? ?????? ??? ???? ???? ?? ?? ???? ??? ???? ???? ???????? ??? ???? ???, ??? ?? ?????? ?? ???? ???? ??????? ?????? ????? ??????. "And l?halacha anyway one should not push aside the custom of the world that a woman frees herself from the customs of her father?s household and conduct herself according to the customs of her husband if she wants, but she is able also to rely on the words of [Rav Ovadiah Yosef] in the ma?amer and so it seems to me that when there isn?t in it [a matter] between him and her, and there isn?t a matter of inui nefesh she is able to continue like the customs of the house of her father since behold also if she vowed them from anew after the marriage the husband could not annul [such vows], and she may make a condition with her husband before the marriage that she will continue to conduct herself in accordance with her customs." This point of the Bnei Banim regarding innui nefesh and matters beno uvena is interesting. What he is referring to is the fact that a husband can be mafer (ie nullify) the nedarim of his wife, but only those that either constitute inui nefesh or are considered beno u'vena (Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah Diman 234 si?if 55). And it seems to me that you can therefore deal with the Tashbetz's point (as strongly re-iterated by ROY) regarding food issues - ie that they cannot eat together at the same table where what is permitted for one is prohibited for the other - with the use of this concept, without needing to come on to place changes. Because one of the definitions of inui nefesh brought in the Shulchan Aruch (Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah Diman 234 si?if 60-61) is if the woman forbids an item of food on herself (although the Shulchan Aruch there in si'if 60 notes that the Rambam considers this a matter not of inui nefesh but of beno u'vena). So that, certainly from the perspective of a Sephardi husband, a woman who has has the practice of not eating rice and kitniyot on Pesach is engaging in inui nefesh - and if you follow the Rav Poelim I brought in an earlier post, that if one is forbidden to eat something, one is forbidden to cook it on yom tov for others who may eat it, then the woman could not cook rice or kitniyot for the husband either - making the matter clearly one beno u'vena. So it seems like the whole question of differences in food do not need discussions of place, they can more readily be handled within the context of the existing halachic framework surrounding marriage, and what is and is not appropriate to be waived in the context of a healthy marriage. That set me thinking about the fact that actually we are talking about a whole range of different forms of minhagim - and it seems to me that as a first stab, we are dealing here with four different categories: a) minhagim that really have no impact on the husband - such as whether she benches and davens minhag Ashkenaz or minhag Edot Hamizrach (but will have a major impact on her should she be required to change, both in terms of the huge learning curve, and also in terms of the emotional impact, eg of the kol nidrei tunes). One might perhaps say that if she davens a different nusach, she will want to go to shul to a different place - but she is in a different place from the husband anyway, by virtue of the mechitza, and of course many women do not have the custom to go at all, so real impact would seem to be minimal. That seems to be the underlying message of the Bene Banim. b) minhagim that involve inui nefesh of the woman (which the halacha defines as having an impact on the husband, and which includes her having prohibitions on food) and those beno u'vena. We already have a halachic framework to determine these - the relevant sections of Yoreh Deah siman 234. For example, it doesn't seem to me to be a stretch to say that if he has the minhag of putting food with a majority of solid on the blech on shabbas, and she has a minhag not to, then her following that minhag will impact beno u'vena in terms of what gets provided at the shabbas table, and therefore would fall within the category of minhagim that ought to change in the interests of a unified household. c) minhagim that impact the husband financially. The interesting thing is that these *are* dealt with in the gemora and the halacha based on the principle "olah imo v'ana yoredes imo" - she goes up with him but does not go down with him. The case discussed on Kesubos 48a is regarding what it is necessary for him to hire for her funeral (in the way of flute players and wailers) where the custom between her family and his family is different. And while it might have been the case that it was different because they were from a different socio-economic class, it may also be because she came from a different place where the custom was to spend more on funerals and even so (once you accept that the same rule applies in death as it does in life) he is required to fund the difference - there is no assumption that because she has moved to his place, she is only entitled to the funeral according to the custom of his place. It would therefore seem that the straightforward pshat of this gemora is against the Tashbetz. Similarly the Shulchan Aruch rules in Even HaEzer siman 80 si'if 10 that the various forms of work that are required of a woman for her husband are only required if it is the derech of both her family and his family for a woman to do this - ie it is the intersection of the two sets of minhagim that make the requirement binding. d) minhagim of the husband that cause her tzar: this is in many ways the flip side of b), in that in b) we are talking about a situation where what she has been accustomed to doing all her life is, from the perspective of the husband, a form of inui nefesh, while here, the customs of the husband are what to her might well seem inui nefesh. This could also perhaps be said to be dealt with by the gemora. The gemora in Kesubos 61a discusses the situation where there is a dispute between him and her regarding whether she should nurse their baby in situations where it is the custom of her family but not his or vice versa. The question has a financial aspect, if she does not, then the husband will be put to the expense of hiring a wet nurse, and also, it would appear, a status/beauty aspect (the husband may not want her to, either because only lower class women do this, or because it might make her less beautiful in his eyes). In terms of the financial and status aspect, the gemora again brings the position of olah imo v'ana yoredes imo as per c), but there are also other aspects. For example, in the case where she wants to nurse, and the husband does not want her to, the gemora assumes that it is straightforward that, if she wishes to nurse, we listen to her, on the grounds that "tzara dedei hu" - it is her pain. Now Rashi understands this as the physical pain of having milk and having no-one feed - but it could also be understood to be psychological. However, it is hard to know how far to extend this case, nursing might well be considered sui generis, because (a) it is something very specific to a woman that a man will never do (regardless of what the women in his family did) and (b) there are very specific, unusual, physical and/or psychological factors which are not necessarily duplicated elsewhere. Refraining from specific foods (despite it being considered inui nefesh) would seem to be a far less significant matter. What might perhaps be of more general application is the discussion that immediately follows the nursing question - in which the gemora attempts to find a Torah source for the idea of olah imo v'ana yoredes imo. Rav Huna learns it out of "He beulas ba'al" (Breishis 20:3) [Reference to Sarah Imanu vis a vis Avimelech] and therefore "beilaso shel baal v'lo yoredaso" - she goes up with the husband and not down with him while Rabbi Eliezer learns it out from "ki who eim kol chai" [Breishis 3:20] and therefore "l'chaim nitna vlo l'tzar nitna" - she was given for life and not for tzar. Now the Pnei Yehoshua and the Mahrasha attempt to learn different nafka minas from the bringing of these two different sources - but it seems to me that a straightforward nafka mina is that the first source appears to understand the question primarily as being one of financial or perhaps spiritual improvement (however one understands "going up" rather than "going down"). While the second source seems rather to focus on the idea that marriage is supposed to bring with it life rather than pain. So under the first source one might understand, if one understands prishus from particular foods or activities as a form of greater spirituality, then a woman ought to follow her husband in that, even if it is considered innui nefesh, while following the second source, the key would seem more to be a question of tzar, and inui nefesh must surely be considered at least some aspect of tzar. On some level that does seem to be what is driving ROY in his discussion of customs such as not using tenuva milk or not relying on the heter mechira - both cases deal with the situation where the man is the stringent one, and her custom is towards leniency. But where this question would seem to really bite, is, for example, in the case of a Sephardi woman contemplating marrying an Ashkenazi man - where she has grown up eating and cooking rice and kitniyot on Pesach. I know a number of little Sephardi girls who have told me that they would not contemplate marrying an Ashkenazi man because of this. Now maybe they will grow out of it - but it does seem to me to a really bad reason to be rejecting a potential suitor - and yet the sense of tzar is there, that is what they are saying, I don't want the tzar of making Pesach, which for many women is tzar enough already, totally different from the way I grew up and have been taught - especially when it comes with countless greater stringencies. And even if she does ignore this in practice and accepts such a marriage, one can easily see a level of resentment bubbling to the surface at what can be in any event a very stressful time ("it is your fault that it is so darn difficult so the least you can do is be more helpful"). And if one could in fact understand a fundamental halachic principle to be taken into consideration as that of l'chaim nitna vlo l'tzar nitna - you might end up with something in keeping with the shalom bayis needs of klal yisrael. >Eli Turkel Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 15:12:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 18:12:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: <20150423.205848.16124.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150423.205848.16124.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150427221257.GA6982@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 24, 2015 at 12:58:48AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : > So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, : > ones you used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making : > a berakhah on? Yes, there is light for enjoying the Shabbos meal, : > all the same shalom bayis. But there is no actual pe'ulah to make : > the berakhah on. Is there? : I don't know where you see anything like this in the AhS. The AhS : is explicitly talking about lighting after mincha, when it is already : dark and the light is already useful... And was used or at least "used" before Shabbos (in some halachic rather than commonsensical sense), even if just for seconds, since that's the AhS's grounds for allowing the person who made no eiruv tavshilin to light her Shabbos candles. So, how can she make a berakhah on candles she was only permitted to light because they would be used before Shabbos? What hadlaqah for Shabbos itself occured? > omit the bracha, because it explicitly declares one's intentions to be > of a hachana nature, but that is a separate question not raised by the > AhS... I'm taking his silence, the AhS not telling her to light without a berakhah, as implication that there is no change from the usual WRT berakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 23rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Netzach: How does my domination Fax: (270) 514-1507 stifle others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:01:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:01:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428160119.GA8805@aishdas.org> On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 01:53:10PM -0400, Kaganoff via Avodah wrote: : For many years i had extreme difficulty with R. Elchanan Wasserman understanding : as it conflicted with my belief that Judaism (and other religions) was not : logically provable (contra to Moshe Mendelssohn and his contemporaries) and : therefore required a "leap of faith" and that a disbeliever could not be : faulted for failing to take such a jump. This is a false dichotomy. Logically proving things are not the only way to justify belief in there. How do you know that (in a flat space) two parallel lines never meet? If you're like me, you pictured it in your head. Even though infinite lines don't exist in the real world. (Nor, does it turn out, does flat space.) Did you figure out that oppression was evil by logical proof, or by a combination of imagination and empathy? My favorite example is answering the question, "Do elephants have hair?" A logical/verbal approach would be: Elephants are mammals, all mammals have hair, and so unless elephants are the exception to the rule, they must have hair. Elephants are well known and discussed animals. Could they be an exception to the rule and I don't know it? Nah, they must have hair. How it is more likely the question jogged your memory of elephants you saw, or saw pictures of. The detail may be blurry, so you may have to manipulate the picture a bit. Finally, a version of the picture which has a tuft of hair at the tail, maybe (if your memory is good) some downy hair around the eyes and ears, strikes you as the most familiar, the most real. And again you could reach the conclusion that elephants have hair. (See for some musings about the two modes of thought I'm contrasting here.) In I compare different versions of the Argument from Design from R' Aqiva's response to the apiqoreis through the Rambam, through similar approaches based on more modern science. "G-d created" (Gen. 1:1): A hereic came to Rabbi Aqiva and asked, "Who made the universe?". Rabbi Aqiva answered, "HQBH". The heretic said, "Prove it to me." Rabbi Aqiva said, "Come to me tomorrow". When the heretic returned, Rabbi Aqiva asked, "What is that you are wearing?" "A garment", the unbeliever replied. "Who made it?" "A weaver." "Prove it to me." "What do you mean? How can I prove it to you? Here is the garment, how can you not know that a weaver made it?" Rabbi Akiva said, "And here is the world; how can you not know that Haqadosh barukh Hu made it?" After the heretic left, Rabbi Aqiva's students asked him, "But what is the proof?" He said, "Even as a house proclaims its builder,a garment its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the Holy Blessed One Who created it. Not very rigorous. Rabbi Aqiva's reply revolves around giving a parable to make the conclusion self-evident. Not contructing a deductive argument. The more rigorous we try making it, the more arguable the proof becomes. R' Aqiva's argument is far more convincing than the Rambam's statement based on how objects lose form over time, not gain it. Or a similar argument based on thermodynamics or information theory. (Ironically, every formal / logical proof is built from givens taken as self-evident for informal-reasoning reasons.) Anyway, that's how I understood REW. R' Elchanan argues that on an informal level, the idea that the universe had to have a Creator is as obvious as a Euclidean postulate or the injustice of oppression. To not believe in G-d requires a formal proof, which one's negios then determine if they find it sound or specious, and whether they accept the postulates on which it's built. Notice I didn't invoke any leaps of faith. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:24:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:24:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Peshat and Drash (Was: Re: Meshech Chochmah on Kedushah) In-Reply-To: <5518BD49.3000508@gmail.com> References: <54FC792A.4080400@gmail.com> <20150324195248.GD29350@aishdas.org> <5518BD49.3000508@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150428162406.GB8805@aishdas.org> On Sun, Mar 29, 2015 at 11:04:41PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : But there were such instances where "one said this was how halakhah : was understood miSinai and another says that this is new." One : example (noted by the Chavos Yair in his Teshuva 192) is a 3-way : machlokess in Zevachim 110b, where one Amora says Nissuch HaMayyim : is miDrabannan, another says it is derived from a posuk, and another : says it was a halacha l'Moshe MiSinai. Rambam (Temidim uMussafim : 10:6 ) poskens it is a halacha l'Moshe MiSinai. This is consistent : with the concept that, as the Rambam writes, "once someone says 'so : have I received,' there is no more debate." The reason is that once : one of our sages can demonstrate he is a recipient of explicit data : originating with Moshe Rabbeynu, a HLMS, it is naturally accepted as : fact. I thought it was well accepted that the Rambam's position in HLMS is inconsistent, that he mentions numberous machloqesin in dinim he himself labeled HLMS. I don't have time to summarize the Chavor Ya'ir teshuvah 192, but I gave up waiting until I did. The examples are numerous. Possible resolutions: - No machloqesin in the essence of the matter, but there can be in details. (the CY's conclusion.) - Im halakhah hi neqabel -- no machloqesin in something both sides agree are HLMS. And what I suggested: That we should distinguish between disputes due to lack of knowledge and formal machloqesin, with the Rambam saying the legal term "machloqes" with all the usual rules of pesaq only apply to the latter. Other disputes, while called machloqes in the colloquial sense, are resolved using the rules of safeiq -- because (leshitaso) ignorance does not create a real machloqes (in the technical sense). And the Rambam here is saying that real machloqes is limited to conflicting deductions and extrapolations from existing law to new places. And thus disputes in laws that date back to Sinai can't have real machloqesin. I know I'm repeating myself, but it's been "forever" ago in email list time since I sat on this post awaiting the time to study the CY. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:33:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:33:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] free will In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428163338.GC8805@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 1:38pm IDT, R Eli Turkel wrote: : We have discussed many times the opinion of Rav Dessler that a person : doesn't always have free will. : I recently saw a halachic discussion that may have some connection. : On ketubot 51 the gemara discusses a case of a married woman who was raped : but at the end was willing... : One possibility of explaining Rava is that she is overwhelmed by her : "yetzer" and so is still considered ["anusah"]... While RET's suggested example is consistent REED's concept of nequdas habechirah, the way RET phrased REED's position kept this email on my to-do list for the last 3 weeks. REED's point is one that's pretty consistent with first-hand experience of making choices. We do not feel in control of our subconscious decisions. All the opportunities we filter out before we even are aware of thinking about it. He then says that the decisions that rise to the level of consciousness, and thus we have some control over, are ones that generate internal conflict. The "battlefront" in his metaphor, where the yh"t and yh"r are balanced. But once you accept the notion of non-conscious thought, REED's conclusion is unavoidable. And a person does always have free will, he just isn't aware of every choice he makes to know to exercise it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:41:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:41:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428164110.GD8805@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 04:29:11PM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The world has changed a lot since the time of chazal especially related to : travel... : : 1. Most travel is no longer considered unsafe. When I get in my car every : morning to drive to work I don't think twice about it : 2. The distinction between in the city and out of the city is no longer : true... : Recently, I heard a short shiur on tefilas haderech and was happy to hear : that RSZA seems to say a very similar idea to RYBS. In contrast, the qorban todah and birkhas hagomel depend not only on surviving a dangerous situation but also on reliving one of the four sorts of yeshu'os tehillim ascribes to yetzi'as Mitzrayim: crossing a desert, the sea, bring freed from jail or recovering from illness. So, if we deem flying over the Great Lakes or the Mediterranean (to pick shorter flights over mayim she'ein lahem sof) to be too safe to warrant tefillas haderekh, would one end up in a situation that calls for no tefillas haderekh beforehand, but benching gomel afterward? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:45:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:45:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428164537.GE8805@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 11:12am EDT, RnTK asked: : But to veer back into Avodah territory -- would it have been appropriate to : say Tefillas Haderech at that time? With shem umalchus? (I assume you : can always say it without shem umalchus.) Tefilas haDerekh is never said besheim umalkhus. Sheim, yes, but not malkhus: "Barukh atah H', shomeia tefillah." No mention of "E-lokeinu Melekh ha'olam". Also, when speaking about berakhah vs tefillah, Tefillas haDerekh refers to itself as a tefillah. And notice also the chasimah is about hearing the baqashah, not about the shemirah we're requesting itself. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:58:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:58:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150419.223015.3015.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150419.223015.3015.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150428165812.GF8805@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 02:30:15AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : But then, as I was reviewing this post, my mind turned to the Tanur : Shel Achnai. R' Eliezer had a minority view, and R' Yehoshua was in : the majority. I've got to believe that both views were firmly grounded; : this machlokes was surely just as L'Shem Shamayim as any between Hillel : and Shammai. I'd *like* to say that Klapei Shmaya, both views were Truth. And if not, how would we justify following the majority over Divinely revealed truth? We discussed bas qol, and why we follow the bas qol that says "vehalakhah kebeis Hillel" despite the anur shel achnai story. I listed the opinions in the Encyc Talmudit here It's not 100% accepted that the bas qol was really endorsing R' Eliezer's opinion in this particular machloqes, rather than defending his shitah in general -- "halakhah kemoso bekhol maqom", or that it was a test. Both suggested by R' Nissim gaon. Similarly one of the answers in Tosafos is that it was about R' Eliezer's kavod, and not a Divine statement to be taken literally about din. All three would imply that we would follow a bas qol over halachic process, and so they had to explain how the tanur story wasn't an example. Thus implying that what we are searching for is the truth rather than legal authority. RNG's position on the tanur shel achanai story supports RMHalbertal's theory that in the geonic era, the Retrieval theory of halakhah dominated. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:12:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:12:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] brochos from the amud (was: tefillat haderech) In-Reply-To: <20150420024354.CJVF30458.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo110> References: <20150420024354.CJVF30458.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo110> Message-ID: <20150428171200.GG8805@aishdas.org> On Sun, Apr 19, 2015 at 10:43:47PM -0400, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote: : Slight change of topic: I'm still trying to wrap my head around the : idea that we don't seem to have a chashash of a brocha l'vatalah. I : mean, you have a sh'tz up there, saying a brocho out loud -- and : he's intentionally trying to be motzi _some_ others... But only those who had in mind to be yotzei. : Shomea k'oneh : doesn't apply at all? What if you are in the shul and you're not : thinking about the issue of being yotzie, you're just thinking about : which day it is, and/or you simply have stam kavanah. No chashash : for an issur d'oraissa? RYBS says in the context of the berakhah on Hallel that because mitzvos einum tzerikhos kavanah, if you have no kavanah one way or the other, you would be yotzei. To avoid being yotzei would require having explicit kavanah not to be yotzei. He then continues that the idea of having intent not to want to do a mitzvah bothers him, and so RYBS said he says the berakhah on Hallel along with the chazan. (Which is what my father does, and what I grew up with.) I assume the same would be true here. (Although I don't recall what my father does, I say the berakhah along with the chazan.) I would have thought that interrupting with "barukh Hu uvarukh shemo" should also work. Recall that R Chaim was very against answering BHUBS to chazaras hashatz because one is being yotzei tefillat hatzibur. (Above and beyond one's own chiyuv of tefillah.) While listing my hunches, I believe that intent to say it yourself qualified as kavanah not to be yotzeir. So the default is kavanah not to be yotzei, not an absense of kavanah one way or the other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:44:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:44:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428164445.5B05B18384C@nexus.stevens.edu> At 12:24 PM 4/28/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: >Meaning - was the demand that the religious not work with the >secular the issue or was that a cover story used to mask people's >opposition to Zionism? This was an issue, and there was also opposition to Zionism. The opposition to Zionism was not masked at all. Please read http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/zion_or_zionism.pdf to see what Zionism really is according to Rav Schwab, ZT"L and others who think like him. >Or in this case, is the demand that the creation >of the state be a Kiddush HaShem in the eyes of all rabbanim a real >demand or is it simply a cover? I have never heard of "the demand that the creation of the state be a Kiddush HaShem in the eyes of all rabbanim " Who demanded this? > If the Breuer community want the state >to reflect certain values, than please, make it happen. And how do you propose that they do this? I asked you in an earlier email what the Orthodox Jews in EY and you in particular are doing to make this happen, and I received no response. > If they don't >want to make it happen or aren't willing, than the demand is (at best) >an exercise in dissimulation. Do you really believe that the Breuer's community at the time when Rav Breuer and Rav Schwab has the wherewithal to make the State reflect certain values? Even those living in EY at this time could not do this. There was (and still is) a large non-religious contingent of Jews living in EY. Do you really think that anyone can "make" them change their views or their behavior? YL YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:32:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:32:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eretz Yisrael vs Medinat Yisrael [was: The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L] Message-ID: <125cff.585c1330.42711e42@aol.com> R. Ben Waxman wrote: >Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem. >Rav Soloveitch tz"l wrote about this point in Kol Dodi Dofek and in his >drashot for the Kinot, as did Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook tz"l. RYL wrote: >> We all know that there were great Torah scholars who disagreed with >> the assertion that " the creation of the State is, in of itself, a >> Kiddush Hashem." >>>>> I will have to re-read Kol Dodi Dofek because I don't remember such a forthright quote -- "The creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." But in any case it isn't exactly an either-or question. The Medinah -- the secular socialist Russian government of Israel -- is hardly a kiddush Hashem. Indeed it arouses waves of hatred from the goyim all over the world, on a daily basis. RBW also wrote: >>....The first is from Yoma 86:A, Rashi, B'Amor Lehem: "Evil comes to chassidim and chachamim because "They desecrated My Holy name." How did they desecrate (God's name)? In those places to where they were exiled, the non-Jews say "These are the people of God" and He can't redeem them. Conclusion: God's name has been desecrated." End quote.<< The establishment of a government that is hated and vilified by the whole world is not, it would seem, a kiddush Hashem. Plus the fact that the country is under constant military threat and cannot, apparently, provide security to its inhabitants, also would not seem to be a kiddush Hashem. But I think these facts -- the constant physical attacks, the world-wide moral opprobrium -- are the cosmic result of the fact that the Medinah is determinedly secular and consciously rejects Torah as a guiding principle. HOWEVER, on the other side, RBW's Rashi quote does have a bearing on the current situation in Eretz Yisrael. There is no denying that the flourishing of Eretz Yisrael, after two thousand years of desolation, is miraculous. The continued existence of the country, despite the constant waves of physical and diplomatic attacks, is also miraculous. And the fact that all Jews can go and live in Eretz Yisrael, and that millions actually do live there, is also a huge miracle. I said there is no denying the miraculous aspects and yet I am aware that the Satmar Rebbe did deny it. He admitted that there was a supernatural aspect to Israel's recent history but ascribed the miracles to the Satan, blinding our eyes. He never joined Agudas Yisrael, the world-wide umbrella organization for all Orthodox Jews, because he was on one side and all the other gedolim in the world were on the other side. All the others rejected the ideology of secular Zionism while gratefully acknowledging chasdei Hashem in allowing the Land to be built up, allowing the Torah communities to grow and flourish, allowing millions of Jews to live in our ancient homeland. The Lubavitcher Rebbe also never joined the Agudah -- I refer not to the Israeli political party but to the world-wide umbrella organization. He had other reasons, perhaps for another time. I think he wanted Chabad to be THE world-wide organization, he did not want it to be one of many competing Orthodox groups and derachim. But he agreed with the basic ideology of the Agudah vis-a-vis the state of Israel -- the nuanced view of ohr vechoshech. And so did the Yekkes, very much so! In fact they were instrumental in founding and guiding the Agudah, for decades! Their attitude towards Israel after the founding of the Medinah and the beginning of kibbutz galuyos was very much the same as the whole rest of the Agudah -- grateful acknowledgment of the positive, hakaras hatov to the Ribono Shel Olam, opposition to the negative, working to improve the moral status of Eretz Yisrael, e.g., when it came to forced autopsies (B'H the charedim won that bitterly fought battle), giyus banos and other issues. But the Yekkes in Israel do vote, do participate in running the country, do daven at the kosel (unlike the Satmar and Neturei Karta), do thank Hashem for protecting Eretz Yisrael and daven for continued Divine protection. RYL considers himself the premier acolyte of RSRH but he and I have some fundamental disagreements about what the Hirschian legacy really is. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 11:59:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 20:59:46 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150428164445.5B05B18384C@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150428164445.5B05B18384C@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <553FD8A2.1060306@zahav.net.il> Regarding the second question, yes I did. Please see the previous emails. Regarding the first, all I can say is that it won't be done from New York. Regarding the other points, I addressed them so I won't repeat myself this round. Ben On 4/28/2015 6:44 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > And how do you propose that they do this? > > I asked you in an earlier email what the Orthodox Jews in EY and you > in particular are doing to make this happen, and I received no response. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:59:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:59:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Message-ID: <126fc1.37d9c7fc.4271247d@aol.com> From: Chana Luntz via Avodah >> As I have written before, what I find intensely frustrating about this is that RYBS's invocation of tan du appears to itself involve a form of tampering with the chazakos and by implication the denial of the perfection and truthfulness of chachmei chazal that is then claimed to be kefira. The gemora in discussing tan du is very clear - both in Yevamos 118b and Kesuvos 75a: a woman in a tan du marriage commits adultery - "kulan mezanos"! - THAT is the chazaka from Chazal regarding the nature of women. [snip] But you can't get away from the fact that Chazal set this up as a chazaka. And if you take these chazakos in the way that RYBS says to do, then there are inevitable conclusions: A Beis Din faced with what can now clearly be seen as a tan du marriage HAS to assume adultery as a consequence - that being the chazaka. [snip] Surely it is obligatory on any Rabbi who agrees to be mesader kiddushin and on any shadchanim and eidim to investigate very carefully that this marriage is not of the tan du nature? [snip] But if it is an inevitable chazaka that a woman in a tan du marriage will commit adultery, then there is only one safek in relation to a serious issur d'orisa - in which case must it not be the responsibility of all those who enable such a marriage to occur to make sure that it is not a tan du marriage and they are not enabling such adultery to take place? >>>>> There is brilliant yet convoluted logic behind this post. I hesitate to tangle with someone like R'n CL who is so erudite, yet I truly believe she has misunderstood this Gemara. Yes, a woman in a loveless marriage is much more tempted to commit adultery, given the right set of circumstances, but it is certainly not inevitable. Nor is it correct to deduce that a rav must make sure, before he marries a couple, that the woman is not entering a loveless marriage! He doesn't have to creep into her heart and mind before conducting the wedding, doesn't have to fathom the depths of her motives in marrying this man. There are so many motives, so many emotions, how could you ever fathom them all? I think "kulan mezanos" refers to all women, and it means all women can be seduced, though obviously it will be easier to seduce a woman who does not love her husband. All women potentially can be seduced. IIRC Beruria the wife of R' Meir -- and you can't claim that was a "tan duu marriage"! -- thought she was an exception to this rule about human nature, or feminine nature. And found out she was wrong! Even she, a brilliant and pious woman married to a great man, could be seduced. Without the Gemara most of us would assume that men are more likely to be unfaithful than women, and I do think that is true. I don't know how to square what we see before us -- that men cheat more than women do -- with what the Gemara says. In any case in Torah homes fidelity between husbands and wives is the norm, Baruch Hashem. All those fences -- laws of yichud, negiah, tznius and so on -- really do protect us. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 15:58:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 23:58:31 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos Message-ID: <001b01d081d6$cb2e0680$618a1380$@org.uk> Sorry, been away, and am therefore very behind in Avodah On 04/03/2015 06:57 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >> He also paskens (for EY) that one can cook kitniyot on the 7th day of >> Pesach for use on the shabbat right afterwards (ef this year). And RZS replied: >Yes, I'm surprised that anyone disagrees. It seems so obviously correct. >I know that many people don't do so, and believe it to be forbidden, >but I have never yet heard an argument for why it should be so. Well the arguments to prohibit can be found in Rav Poelim chelek 3 Orech Chaim siman 30 - he brings two: one based on the prohibition of a person who is fasting on yom tov to cook for others - as per the Rema in Shulchan Aruch Orech Chaim siman 527 si'if 20 as explained by the Magen Avraham there and an additional reason added by the Magen Avraham there in si'if katan 22. The Ben Ish Chai in Rav Poelim was discussing whether a person whose custom (in Bagdad) was not to eat rice on Pesach could cook rice for those who do. He rejected the first rationale provided by the Magen Avraham) as being applicable to this case, but accepted the second reason as applicable (although he also cites a number of achronim who accept the first reason as a reason to prohibit)- and therefore held that those who had the custom of treating rice as assur on pesach could not cook rice for those who had the custom of eating rice on yom tov of Pesach for so long as they had this custom of treating rice as assur (although he held that those who had this custom not to eat rice in Bagdad could do hatarat nedarim and be able to eat, and hence cook, rice on pesach so as to solve the problem). >> This is because some sefardi could come over for a visit and so the >> kitniyot are not mukza . >The main issue would surely not be muktzeh, but cooking on yomtov. >But the answer is the same: the hypothetical horde of hungry guests who >might descend on one ten minutes before sunset on Friday, and for whom >one is, in principle, cooking, might very well be sefardim. Yes, but according to the position of the Rav Poelim, Askenazim can never, when cooking for Sephardim on pesach, cook them dishes that they, the Ashkenazim, cannot eat, hence hoeil does not apply. The same ought presumably to apply to gebrochts according to the Ben Ish Chai - if you can't eat it on shvii shel pesach, you can't cook it for others, including hungry guests, and so cannot effectively cook it for shabbas based on hoeil, your shabbas food would have to consist of something else you could eat on shvii shel pesach. >Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 11:03:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Toby Katz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 14:03:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <127300.4be2c63a.42712586@aol.com> In a message dated 4/28/2015 12:45:47 P.M. EDT, micha at aishdas.org writes: > Tefilas haDerekh is never said besheim umalkhus. You are correct, I should have caught that myself. > Also, when speaking about berakhah vs tefillah, Tefillas haDerekh > refers to itself as a tefillah. And notice also the chasimah is about > hearing the baqashah, not about the shemirah we're requesting itself. zsh:1: command not found: Fmt --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 11:34:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 14:34:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: <127300.4be2c63a.42712586@aol.com> References: <127300.4be2c63a.42712586@aol.com> Message-ID: <20150428183420.GA25835@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 02:03:50PM -0400, T613K at aol.com wrote: : >> Also, when speaking about berakhah vs tefillah, Tefillas haDerekh refers : to itself as a tefillah. And notice also the chasimah is about hearing : the baqashah, not about the shemirah we're requesting itself.<< : : That doesn't answer the question of whether it is appropriate to recite : Tefillas HaDerech during a blinding rainstorm on the highway in your own city, : which was my question. It doesn't fully answer your question, but it does point a bit toward saying it. After all, it turns out that the only berakhah is about Hashem hearing baqashos. The body of the tefillah is only a formalized equivalent to saying "Please G-d, just get me home safe, healthy and in one piece!" or some other spontaneous cry for help. So, if you're scared on the road, tefillah is appropriate. Why would thanking G-d for listening to such tefillos depend on rules about travel? Add to that the fact that it's only half a berakhah, which indicates that it's shevach (like Shomeia Tefillah in Shemoneh Esrei), as another small indicator in favor of saying it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 12:58:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 15:58:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <001901d080e1$7d6fcbe0$784f63a0$@org.uk> References: <001901d080e1$7d6fcbe0$784f63a0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <20150428195810.GC25835@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 12:05:17PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: [RAM:] : > At any rate, one can agree or disagree about : > whether this assertion is true, and even among those who agree with : > it, there might be discussion of exactly which chazakos are unchanging : > and which are variable. Still, his point is that there are indeed some : > UNchanging aspects. : I would add an observation that individual exceptions may exist : empirically but are ignored halachically This is the classic case of affirming a chazaqah (or rov) when there is ika rei'usa. No? On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 12:58:34PM +0100, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: : The gemora in discussing tan du is very clear - both in Yevamos 118b and : Kesuvos 75a: a woman in a tan du marriage commits adultery - "kulan : mezanos"! - THAT is the chazaka from Chazal regarding the nature of women. : : Now this could mean: (a) the sort of woman who is prepared to enter a tan : du marriage is prepared to and will commit adultery; or : (b) all women will take a tan du marriage : (RYBS), but if they find themselves in a tan du marriage - the existential : loneliness that RYBS identifies as being the particular province of women : will also, according to Chazal, inevitably drive them to adultery; : But you can't get away from the fact that Chazal set this up as a chazaka. As the gemara was taught to me, what they set up as a chazaqah was pretty much as RYBS describes it. Women feel the loneliness of singlehood more. The flow of the sugya in the two gemaras are quite similar, from the point where Reish Laqish is quoted staying "tav lemeisiv" onward. RL, illustrated with meshalim by Abayei, R' Papa, and R' Ashi, followed by a tana saying that they all are mezanos and then blame their husbands. So, it would seem that tav lemeisiv is about a desire to be married. This has nothing to do with romance or eros, since we are told that a woman who is just married so s not to be like a widow (milemeisiv armelu) do tend to end up cheating. But tav lemeisiv isn't about the affairs, it's about (Yevamos) why hamezakeh gett le'ishto in the middle is not valid. Because it's not a pure zekhus for her, you cannot say zakhin le'adam shelo befanav (or befanehah, as the case may be). There is nothing about "being driven to" adultery by the loneliness, but by having tav lemeisiv alone satisfied by her marriage. Perhaps the reverse of your formulation. (I think the idea that tav lemeisiv means women are more likely to be sexually lonely would be really hard to support, even in a culture where husbands, not wives, have a chiyuv onah.) Or (Kesuvos) it is used (in a complex case I'm too lazy to spell out) why a man might wish not to be married, lest he later be prohibited to her relatives, but in the flipside case, we do not assume the same of the woman. The bit about mezanos vetolos beba'aleihen is not the basis for any halakhos. I have no reason to believe it's a chazaqah. Tangentially... On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 07:27:43PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Another challenge is how to deal with recent "Chachmei Hamesorah" : who don't seem to meet the perfection definition. I have two suggestions that work for me: 1- Make a list of current chakhmei hamesorah that don't pose such a challenge for you. Once you start, you'll likely find it's a longwer list than you had thought. Focus on them, and ignore the rest, no matter how popular as gedolim they may be. 2- Separate the current rabbinate from one's own ties to the mesorah with a project like Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:01:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 23:01:17 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) Message-ID: <553FF51D.6070804@zahav.net.il> Putting the question of Hallel aside, I don't understand the line below. I looked through the Beit Yosef OH 131 where he discusses the days on which Tachanun isn't said. The BY does not list all the days that we skip (like Purim Qatan or Pesach Sheni). These came later. So when did this idea (that we can't change when Tachanun is said or not said) start? Ben On 4/28/2015 12:31 PM, Prof. Levine via Areivim wrote: > Shemone Esrei is followed > by Chazaras Hashatz, which is followed by Tachanun, and then followed > by Ashrei and U'va' Letzion--and we do not have the right or > privilege of changing that, he opined. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:28:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:28:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early Message-ID: The statement was made that "Lighting two candles is a recent frumkeit, or yhiruth, that started among German Jews and is less than 900 years old.." Isn't it also yohara to stand in judgment of a minhag mentioned in the Tur and Shulchan Aruch and observed virtually without exception by klal Yisraeil? EMT From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 13:50:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 16:50:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eretz Yisrael vs Medinat Yisrael [was: The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L] In-Reply-To: <125cff.585c1330.42711e42@aol.com> References: <125cff.585c1330.42711e42@aol.com> Message-ID: <553FF29D.4030208@sero.name> On 04/28/2015 01:32 PM, via Avodah wrote: > The Lubavitcher Rebbe also never joined the Agudah -- I refer not to > the Israeli political party but to the world-wide umbrella > organization. He had other reasons, perhaps for another time. I > think he wanted Chabad to be THE world-wide organization, he did not > want it to be one of many competing Orthodox groups and derachim. The Lubavitcher Rebbe at the time the Agudah was founded was the Rashab, who in matters of askonus generally took his lead from R Chaim Brisker. Lubavitch was a member of the Agudah's precursor, Machzikei Hadas, but when MH merged with the Yekkes to form the Agudah, R Chaim put 18 conditions on his participation, and since they weren't satisfied both Brisk and Lubavitch stayed out. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:22:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 17:22:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Peshat and Drash (Was: Re: Meshech Chochmah on Kedushah) In-Reply-To: <20150428162406.GB8805@aishdas.org> References: <54FC792A.4080400@gmail.com> <20150324195248.GD29350@aishdas.org> <5518BD49.3000508@gmail.com> <20150428162406.GB8805@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <553FFA2E.6000809@gmail.com> On 4/28/2015 12:24 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > I thought it was well accepted that the Rambam's position in HLMS > is inconsistent, that he mentions numberous machloqesin in dinim > he himself labeled HLMS.... Chavor Ya'ir teshuvah 192...examples are numerous. > > Possible resolutions: > > - No machloqesin in the essence of the matter, but there can be in > details. (the CY's conclusion.) I don't think that is the Chavos Yair's conclusion. He leaves the matter bewildered, as Rambam appears incomprehensible and self-contradictory. > - Im halakhah hi neqabel -- no machloqesin in something both sides agree > are HLMS. With the modification of the word "against" in place of the word ''in,'' this is my conclusion, and that of the Maharatz Chayos. The Rambam is addressing the Karaite argument that even Chazal did not really consider the laws they called "payrushim mekuballim" and HLMS (the latter being payrushim mekuballim that lack indications planted in the Torah) to have literally come from Moshe Rabbeynu. That's why, the Karaites argued, Chazal felt free to dispute them. The Rambam explains that Chazal never disputed laws that made it to them from Sinai. The disputes are over issues ''branching out'' from them. Thus, '' There is no machlokess against any payrush that is known to have come from Sinai.'' This understanding fits very well in the Rambam's words, in the context of which he was talking and the issues he confronted; and eliminates what would certainly be a mess of the self-contradictions and open contradictions from the Talmud that the CY lists. Another concern raised by the CY is the fact that the Rambam seems inconsistent between the Mishneh Torah and his list in the hakdama to his Mishneh commentary in that some laws he labels as HLMS in one work he does not in other. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:28:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 17:28:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Renewal Role of Sarah Schenirer Message-ID: <20150428212818.DEBA1182F93@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/njwrn2g There was a major difference, however, between the Bais Yaacov of Williamsburg and the Bais Yaacov of Poland in pre-war Europe. The Bais Yaacov movement in Poland emphasized the universal Torah teachings of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, while the Bais Yaacov of Williamsburg did not give Rabbi Hirsch's teachings the same emphasis. Why were Rabbi Hirsch's teachings regarding the Torah's universal vision no longer the main focus? Most of the teachers and students at the American Bais Yaakov were Holocaust survivors who felt a need to turn inward after experiencing the hatred of the Gentiles around them and the horrors of the Holocaust. They knew that most of the "humanistic" intellectuals and artists of Germany actively supported the brutal persecution of the Jewish people. They also knew that most of the "enlightened" countries closed their doors to Jews who were trying to escape the Holocaust. In addition, they knew that most of the Christian religious leaders of Europe did not protest the organized murder of millions of Jewish men, women, and children; moreover, many Christians in the countries occupied by the Germans actively assisted the Germans in rounding up the Jews for the death camps. In fact, a number of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust who returned to Poland after the war were murdered in Polish pogroms! It is understandable that these survivors felt the need to first heal themselves before worrying about the world which had abandoned their suffering people. In addition, these survivors did not have the strong attraction to secular western culture which an earlier generation of Bais Yaakov students had once experienced, and their feelings are expressed in the following memoir of Dr. Judith Grunfeld: "Almost seventy years have passed since, and we have today most unfortunately an easy enough means of demonstrating that all cultures which we then venerated have revealed themselves to be nothing but a flimsy veneer covering over diabolical inhumanity. European humanitarian ideas so prevalent then, so much on the tip of everyone's tongue, preached by leading university representatives, have been proven utterly hollow. For they did not succeed in preventing, and indeed could be said to be frequently instrumental in strirring up the raging, terrible fire of man's inhumanity to man." ("Rebbitzen Grunfeld" by Miriam Dansky, p. 72) Nevertheless, our sages teach that Torah - the Divine wisdom - is the blueprint of creation, and that the Creator looked into the Torah when He created the world (Genesis Rabbah 1:1). If our Creator looked into the Torah and created the world, then when we look into the Torah we can rediscover this world. In addition, the Torah reveals that we have the potential to become holy vessels with the spiritual power to transform and elevate the world; thus, no matter how much we turn inward, the study of Torah reminds us that we must eventually turn outward. This may be one of the reasons why a growing number of Torah-committed Jews in our generation are rediscovering the writings of Rabbi Hirsch, as a major theme of his teachings is the universal goal of the Torah path. The Bais Yaacov High School of Baltimore, under the leadership of its principal, Rabbi Binyamin Steinberg, gave renewed emphasis to the universal vision of the Torah. Rabbi Steinberg himself was a Holocaust survivor, and in one of his talks to his students about respect for other peoples, he reminded them of the Compassionate One's promise to Abraham that "through you all the families of the earth will be blessed" (Genesis 12:3). The following is an excerpt from his talk: "All the families of the earth," he declared. 'Who cares about all the families of the earth?' you ask. Nevertheless, that's what the Torah says...The people of Israel will be a blessing for all the families of the earth. That means the Albanians, the Greeks, the Chinese, the Indonesians, the African Americans - all the families of the earth. That's what it says in my Torah! " (A Matter of Principal - a biography of Rabbi Binyamin Steinberg by Hanoch Teller). Before we can become a blessing to others, however, we first need to turn inward in order to develop our unique strengths. As Sarah Schneirer realized, we first have to renew ourselves before we can renew the world. As the Prophet Isaiah proclaimed to our people: "O House of Jacob: Come, let us walk by the light of Hashem! " (Isaiah 2:5) See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:59:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 22:59:29 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <002d01d081fe$99c5fcb0$cd51f610$@org.uk> RMB writes: >As the gemara was taught to me, what they set up as a chazaqah was >pretty much as RYBS describes it. Women feel the loneliness of singlehood >more. >The flow of the sugya in the two gemaras are quite similar, from the >point where Reish Laqish is quoted staying "tav lemeisiv" onward. RL, >illustrated with meshalim by Abayei, R' Papa, and R' Ashi, followed by >a tana saying that they all are mezanos and then blame their husbands. >So, it would seem that tav lemeisiv is about a desire to be married. >This has nothing to do with romance or eros, since we are told that a >woman who is just married so s not to be like a widow (milemeisiv >armelu) do tend to end up cheating. >But tav lemeisiv isn't about the affairs, I agree that tav lemeisiv is not brought initially to refer to the issue of affairs, but rather indeed about a desire to be married which is then brought to make a halachic point within another context (eg maezakeh get l'eishto) - but once the gemora is discussing tav lemeisiv marriages - it then takes the time out, twice, to explain what these marriages mean. And it explains, after going through the flow of Abaye etc, that these marriages mean inevitable adultery. Ie according the gemora a tav l'meisiv marriage = adultery. Now, that means, the more tav l'meisiv marriages there are, the more adultery there is. So the more you stress that the world is full of tav l'meisiv marriages, the more you are saying that the world is full of Bnos Yisrael committing adultery. That tav l'meisiv marriage results in adultery is clearly part and parcel of the definition of what a tav l'meisiv marriage is - one where a woman will prefer to be married than to be alone. And it is not a disputed statement, it is a concluding statement rounding up the discussion of what a tav l'meisiv marriage is. In order to break the equation, you have to say that Chazal didn't really mean what they said, or that they were talking about their time and place, but women today are different - but that means denying the truthfulness and accuracy of Chazal's statements (or understanding them differently) in exactly the way that RYBS objects to as kefira. You can't say that a woman prefers to be married than to be alone is a universal truth because it was stated by Chazal, and simultaneously that women in tav lemeisiv marriages commit adultery is not a universal truth, as they are bound up in the same discussion and you are picking and choosing your Chazalic statements - this one I like, this one I don't, and not just any statement, but the concluding statement rounding up the discussion defining the concept. .... >The bit about mezanos vetolos beba'aleihen is not the basis for any >halakhos. I have no reason to believe it's a chazaqah. So why did Chazal say it? For the fun of casting aspersions on Bnos Yisrael? Twice? In the context of a halachic discussion? If this was any other discussion, would anybody dream of suggesting that when Chazal said that something inevitably happened in the context of a halachic discussion they were not, at the very least, postulating a chazaka (albeit perhaps a rebuttable one) and possibly something even stronger? One might say - well nature has changed (eg kol treifos), or one might say - we have to treat something as halachically following Chazal's statement, even if we know or suspect the metzius is different (hence my line about a Beis Din being required to treat a tav l'meisiv marriage as one where adultery has been committed, and those enabling such a marriage being prohibited from so doing based on lifnei iver). That is the way we generally treat Chazalic statements of this nature. In this case, of course, we have another option, if tav l'meisiv marriages themselves do not occur very often, then we do not necessarily have to worry about, as common, the adultery which is part and parcel of their definition. But if they are in fact common and inevitable where the husband is not as a matter of fact suitable for the wife, then I cannot see how you can claim that this is not a significant societal and halachic concern. Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 15:14:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 18:14:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <002d01d081fe$99c5fcb0$cd51f610$@org.uk> References: <002d01d081fe$99c5fcb0$cd51f610$@org.uk> Message-ID: <20150428221418.GF11656@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 10:59:29PM +0100, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: :> The bit about mezanos vetolos beba'aleihen is not the basis for any :> halakhos. I have no reason to believe it's a chazaqah. : : So why did Chazal say it? For the fun of casting aspersions on Bnos : Yisrael? Twice? In the context of a halachic discussion? Well, it's really one conversation quoted twice. But it emphasizes the point. Tav lemeisiv is considered a reason why a gett would not be zakhin le'adam shelo befanav, even though the marriage would too likely lead to sin. The desire not to be husbandless, even by an insufficient husband, is being described as very profound. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 01:56:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 11:56:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith Message-ID: <> the Euclidean postulates are based on everyone's daily experience. In fact we know they are not true in other circumstances (eg on a globe) The injustice of oppression is more debatable. Surely ISIS believes that destroying ancient culture and cutting off heads of nonbelievers is a "mitzvah" As such the belief in a creator is obvious to one with a religious upbringing. For years scientists (and ancient philosophers) believed in an infinitely old world. Even today some scientists are attemping to justify a big bang without a creator (infinite big bangs , other universes etc.). The whole idea of axioms/postulates are that they are not provable. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 06:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 09:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150429135311.GA11332@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 11:56:31AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : the Euclidean postulates are based on everyone's daily experience... I picked the one about parallel lines because no one ever experienced infinitely long parallel lines. They are based on imagining an extrapolation from experience. : we know they are not true in other circumstances (eg on a globe) Thus my parenthetic remarks about flat space. It also doesn't work in Einsteinian Spacetime, as space is no longer believed to be flat. ... : As such the belief in a creator is obvious to one with a religious : upbringing. For years scientists (and ancient philosophers) believed in an : infinitely old world. Even today some scientists are attemping to justify a : big bang without a creator (infinite big bangs , other universes etc.). : : The whole idea of axioms/postulates are that they are not provable. My point exactly -- there are third options between logical proofs and leaps of faith. Logical proofs are only one way to justify belief. The Kuzari points to tradition, which may boil down to reliabilism. (Something you learned from a source that has a track record of being reliable.) I was saying that REW, like R' Aqiva, appealed to the self-evident nature of the universe having a Designer. Closer to the way we accept our postulates than a proof. And that this is so obvious look around at what was created, that belief is the default state for humans. And then REW continues that it takes an act of will to accept a counter-proof despite the self-evidence. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 25th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Netzach: When is domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control too extreme? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 02:02:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 10:02:27 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torahand Kabalas Ol Malchus In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000401d0825b$37ef5150$a7cdf3f0$@org.uk> RTK writes: > I think "kulan mezanos" refers to all women, and it means all women can > be seduced, You may be able to derive, from other contexts, that all women can be seduced - but that is not what is being discussed in the specific gemorros referred to. Our gemora is discussing what happens specifically in tav l'meisiv marriages - it gives examples of such marriages, and then concludes that such marriages result in adultery (and consequent hidden mamzerim). There is just no way of reading what you want to read into this piece > Yes, a woman in a loveless marriage is much more tempted to commit > adultery, given the right set of circumstances, but >it is certainly not inevitable. Nor is it correct to deduce that a rav must >make sure, before he marries a couple, that the woman is not entering a >loveless marriage! He doesn't have to creep into her heart and mind before >conducting the wedding, doesn't have to fathom the depths of her motives in >marrying this man. There are so many motives, so many emotions, how could >you ever fathom them all? Remember, none of what I have described is necessarily a consequence of these gemoros unless you read the gemora with the chiddush of RYBS: that inherent in the existential condition of womankind is that if a woman is offered only an inappropriate marriage she will take it because she cannot bear not to be married. If you understand it merely that there are and have been women, in some times and places, who when offered an inappropriate marriage, will sometimes take it because she cannot bear not to be married, but in other circumstances and times and places there are women who would refuse such a marriage - you have no idea what you are faced with in any given circumstance. And it is of course possible that she knows what she is doing and has seen what you cannot see, meaning that in fact the marriage will indeed be a good one. And it would be, as you describe, inappropriate to creep into her heart and try and fathom what is going on there. But according to RYBS we know what is going on there, in the woman's heart - we know it from RYBS's understanding of the pasuk in Breishis (one certainly does not have to understand the pasuk in Breishis the way RYBS does, but he is darshaning a pasuk to tell us about the human condition). A woman wants to be married above all else because she cannot bear to be alone, she is not capable of making an assessment that any given marriage, without alternative, may not be the best thing. She is never capable of that, according to RYBS's understanding of Chazal, this being an existential condition of womankind. In which case what happens if an outsider is capable of assessing the reality of the marriage in question as being one where the parties are fundamentally incompatible? Does he have an obligation to try and stop the marriage given that the woman is incapable of protecting herself? Well one might say - tough luck, it is not an outsider's job, any more than it is an outsider's job to protect others from a bad bargain in business. But that is where this further statement of the gemora comes in. A marriage which the woman has only entered into because she cannot existentially bear to be unmarried is one with the consequence that such marriage will not in fact be enough for her and she will commit adultery and produce mamzerim who are attributed incorrectly to the husband. So if the outsider does not intervene, he is not just failing to protect the woman from herself, he is failing to protect society from inherent danger. That raises the stakes considerably, and would seem to mean that outsiders (such as Rabbaim, shadchanim etc) do need to be vigilant, and not enable such marriages, so long as what RYBS says is true, in order to protect our society. Now I don't think we need a Rav to check a marriage out, before he marries a couple, to try and determine it is not a tav l'meisiv marriage. But that is because I think it relatively rare, in our society, that a woman will take a loveless marriage merely because she cannot bear to be alone (and I certainly do not think it is a irrebuttable presumption as per RYBS. Nor, as Rav Lichtenstein says, does the halacha over the centuries take this as an irrebuttable presumption despite RYBS's vehemence). And we don't have spend our lives worrying about uncommon cases even if we acknowledge that such cases may exist (and even if, in hindsight, if a marriage turns out to be unquestionably inappropriate, we might need to consider whether perhaps the woman in question *might* have been willing to go through with it anyway). But if RYBS were right and it is indeed a fundamental existential part of a woman's nature, unchanging throughout time and not infrequently occurring, to take whatever marriage is on offer, then we as a society do need such safeguards, because of the potential consequences, and if there is any hint that in fact this might be a tav l'meisiv marriage, since the woman is not able, according to RYBS, to protect herself from it, the Rav/shadchan etc would seem to have the obligation to investigate and if in doubt, to protect our society by preventing the marriage. >Toby Katz >t613k at aol.com Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 04:37:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 11:37:18 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: <20150429.073718.25006.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> I wrote: : But then, as I was reviewing this post, my mind turned to the Tanur : Shel Achnai. R' Eliezer had a minority view, and R' Yehoshua was in : the majority. I've got to believe that both views were firmly grounded; : this machlokes was surely just as L'Shem Shamayim as any between Hillel : and Shammai. I'd *like* to say that Klapei Shmaya, both views were Truth. R' Micha Berger responded: > We discussed bas qol, and why we follow the bas qol that says > "vehalakhah kebeis Hillel" despite the anur shel achnai story. I > listed the opinions in the Encyc Talmudit here > > > It's not 100% accepted that the bas qol was really endorsing R' > Eliezer's opinion in this particular machloqes, rather than > defending his shitah in general -- "halakhah kemoso bekhol maqom", > or that it was a test. ... I apologize for not being clear enough. I was not refering to the Bas Kol part of the story. Rather, I was referring to the end of the story, when Eliyahu Hanavi was asked for Hashem's take on the incident, and he quoted Hashem as laughing, "Nitzchuni banai!" Regardless of how the Bas Kol might be interpreted, is there any way to understand "Nitzchuni banai!" other than Hashem personally siding with one of the litigants, and losing? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540c29a485cf429a1a7cst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 04:46:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 11:46:38 GMT Subject: [Avodah] brochos from the amud (was: tefillat haderech) Message-ID: <20150429.074638.25006.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > RYBS ... then continues that the idea of having intent not > to want to do a mitzvah bothers him, and so RYBS said he > says the berakhah on Hallel along with the chazan. (Which > is what my father does, and what I grew up with.) Data point: Although I have not noticed people doing this for the bracha on Hallel, this IS the common practice for the Shehecheyanu at Kol Nidre, at least according to the ArtScroll and Koren machzorim. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540c4bfde4b244bf3c8cst03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 02:53:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 09:53:19 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) Message-ID: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Reposted from Hakhel: > ... Rav Soloveitchik, obviously upset, instead gave Shiur > on the importance of keeping the Tzuras HaTefillah intact. > Shemone Esrei is followed by Chazaras Hashatz, which is > followed by Tachanun, and then followed by Ashrei and U'va' > Letzion--and we do not have the right or privilege of > changing that, he opined. ... R' Ben Waxman asked: > I looked through the Beit Yosef OH 131 where he discusses > the days on which Tachanun isn't said. The BY does not > list all the days that we skip (like Purim Qatan or Pesach > Sheni). These came later. > > So when did this idea (that we can't change when Tachanun > is said or not said) start? I'm not sure if you are asking the correct question. You presume there was a time when Tachanun was *said* on Purim Katan, and then Tachanun was *omitted* on Purim Katan. I see another possibility, but I must point out that this idea stems from my total ignorance of the History Of Tachanun. Perhaps, since the day when Tachanun first began, the list of days has never changed. What did happen (perhaps) is that some places said it on Purim Katan, and some places did not. Over time, the minhag of skipping it spread to more and more places, but that's somewhat different than if a community would suddenly decide that they had a new appreciation for the significance of the day, and hence wanted to stop saying Tachanun. But either way, I'm not sure of the exact nature of RYBS's objection. It is one thing for a community to change its mind about the significance of the day (as in RMB's example of Purim Katan), and quite another for the day itself to acquire a new significance - as in the example of Yom Haatzma'ut. Shulchan Aruch already establishes the ability for a community to establish holidays, and this has been done many times. A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS insist that they say Tachanun on such days? Thus, I am drawn to conclude that RYBS must not be taken as too absolutist. He cannot have meant that the current list of Tachanun days must remain enshrined in stone forever. I beleive that he must have meant that the question of saying Tachanun on Yom Haatzma'ut is a serious one, to be dealt with seriously by the poskim and leaders of the community. Alas, I personally have seen many cases of where it is decided by those who attend the minyan, on a purely emotional basis, with no thought to the halachos involved, and with no consultation with the LOR. On the other hand, among the many tasks the LOR must deal with, is deciding when he should or should not get involved with the tzibur's choices. Although it does not address Tachanun, I would like to close with a reference to The Rav's opinions about a different tefilah which he "opposed, on halachic grounds". R' Mike Gerver wrote on Mail Jewish (http://www.ottmall.com/mj_ht_arch/v38/mj_v38i49.html) in January 2003: > (This is a continuation of my previous e-mail summarizing > the talk given on "The Rav and Medinat Yisrael" by Rabbi > J. J. Shachter on motzei shabbat, Jan. 25, at Lechu > Neranana in Raanana.) > ... ... ... > Rabbi Shachter quoted Rabbi Walter Wurzberger zt"l as > saying that the Rav's attitude toward Israel was > completely opposed to messianism, to the idea that the > founding of the State was an initial step to the geula > [final redemption]. Thus the Rav did not approve of Gush > Emunim. He even opposed, on halachic grounds, saying the > tefillah for the State of Israel in shul on Shabbat > morning, which only speaks of the State as "reishit > tzmichat geulateinu" [the beginning of the sprouting of > our redemption]. Rabbi Shachter, knowing this, assumed > that the tefillah for the State of Israel would not be > said at the Shabbat morning minyan held at Maimonides > School, a minyan that the Rav started in 1962, and which > generally did things according to his minhag. When Rabbi > Shachter was appointed to his position as director of the > Soloveitchik Institute a couple of years ago, and took > over as rabbi of the Maimonides School Shabbat minyan, he > was surprised to find that they were saying the tefillah > for the State of Israel. He asked someone why, and the > answer was interesting. One Shabbat morning, when the Rav > was still alive and in good health, someone started saying > the tefillah for the State of Israel. The Rav turned to > someone next to him and said {Rabbi Shachter imitated the > Rav's accent) "You would have thought they would have > asked me!" That was all. He didn't make any attempt to > stop them from saying the tefillah for the State of Israel, > and didn't think it was his place to ask the congregation > not to say it if they wanted to. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540aa3d6d7282a3d2b95st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 07:23:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 14:23:25 GMT Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith Message-ID: <20150429.102325.12106.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > I picked the one about parallel lines because no one ever > experienced infinitely long parallel lines. They are based > on imagining an extrapolation from experience. Parallel lines are not provable, but it's not because they are based on experience. Rather, they are based on definition. Find a pair of parallel lines that DO meet (such as on a sphere) and we'll simply say, "What I really meant was parallel lines on a *flat* surface." See more at "No true Scotsman". My choice for something which is unprovable because it is based on personal experience is, "Is there someone whom you love? Prove it to me." Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540e9944d22f699426abst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 12:11:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 15:11:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) In-Reply-To: <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> References: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <20150429191153.GG2666@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 08:53:00PM +0200, Ben Waxman wrote: :> #2 A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate :> the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS :> insist that they say Tachanun on such days? : I had the same question. I bet he said tachanun on the Gra's or R' Chaim's (Volozhin or Brisk) yahrzeit, etc... For people who are seeking his pesaq, it's very likely he would inist on Tachanun on days like that. But I think he would refuse to pasqen for them. Implied in your question is that it's a rav's job to comment and rank other derakhim, an idea RYBS did not share. He even limited his own right to 2nd guess a talmid serving as moreh de'asra. (Stories differ as to how much he insisted on such autonomy of the LOR, depending on which student.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 25th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Netzach: When is domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control too extreme? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 11:53:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 20:53:00 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) In-Reply-To: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> On 4/29/2015 11:53 AM, Kenneth Miller wrote: > #1 Perhaps, since the day when Tachanun first began, the list of days > has never changed. What did happen (perhaps) is that some places said it > on Purim Katan, and some places did not. Over time, the minhag of > skipping it spread to more and more places, but that's somewhat > different than if a community would suddenly decide that they had a new > appreciation for the significance of the day, and hence wanted to stop > saying Tachanun. I don't think so. The Rambam, Hilchot Tefila 5:15 lists the days that one doesn't say Tachanun (or nifilat ah'payim in his words) and the list is much more restricted than our list (Shabbat, Chaggim, Rosh Chodesh, Chanukka, Purim, and the Mincha before them). He writes that this is the minhag b'kol yisrael. I am not a Rambam expert so I don't know what to make of those three words (minhag, b'kol yisrael). If it is a minhag does that mean that it can change? What is b'kol yisrael (I realize that at the time of the Rambam, Ashkenaz was the middle of nowhere)? But it would seem from the Rambam that at his time, the Jewish world didn't skip those other days. > #2 A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate > the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS insist > that they say Tachanun on such days? I had the same question. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 12:25:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 15:25:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) In-Reply-To: <20150429191153.GG2666@aishdas.org> References: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> <20150429191153.GG2666@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55413040.4080903@sero.name> On 04/29/2015 03:11 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 08:53:00PM +0200, Ben Waxman wrote: > :> #2 A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate > :> the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS > :> insist that they say Tachanun on such days? > > : I had the same question. > > I bet he said tachanun on the Gra's or R' Chaim's (Volozhin or Brisk) > yahrzeit, etc... For people who are seeking his pesaq, it's very likely > he would inist on Tachanun on days like that. Of course he said tachanun on their yortzeits, why wouldn't he? The whole concept of turning a yortzeit into a holiday wasn't native to his world. The question is what he would do on a day they had been saved from some danger, and had observed as a private yomtov, or on a day that his community had adopted as a local "purim" to commemorate being saved from danger, as was a common practise among Jewish communities. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 30 01:53:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 30 Apr 2015 04:53:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Netziv, Reading Newspapers on Shabbos & Censorship (Part Two) Message-ID: <20150430085311.F372F183218@nexus.stevens.edu> Please see the article at http://tinyurl.com/oqujmba From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 1 10:09:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 1 May 2015 13:09:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] kol isha In-Reply-To: <842c75958dedf20875dfdece45b65e31@aishdas.org> References: <842c75958dedf20875dfdece45b65e31@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150501170943.GA13995@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 30, 2015 at 5:54pm EDT, R Sholom Simon replied to me on Areivim :> The fact that some ... Jews seem to think the gemara :> didn't realy mean it is something the ... community should have a :> cheshbon hanfesh about. : Gemara? Don't the ge'onim take the gemara to : mean that kol isha is a problem during krias sh'ema? (Which is, after : all, the context of its appearance in Berachos). : (Granted, halacha has : gone much further since then, but you were focused on the gemara) You're thinking of Berakhos 24a, where the gemara concludes that R' Yitchaq's tefach be'ishah ervah is to even include one's own wife during qeri'as Shama. (We knew about other women not during qeri'as shema from R' Sheishes.) And then R' Chisda continues with shoq be'ishah, Shemu'el says qol be'ishah ervah and R Sheishes adds sei'ar be'ishah. >From which one may conclude that all of them are in the same context as R' Yitchaq. R' Hai Gaon (Otar haGeonim Berakhos, peirushin #102), R Yehudai Gaon (acc. to the Yeriem 392), the Behag (1:3). the Eshkol (vol 1, pg 15), the Rivra (Berakhos ad loc) and his father (?), Rabbeinu Yonah (17a), the Shitah meQubetzes (ad loc), only speak of this rule WRT qeri'as shema. Interestlingly, one might also have concluded that all of them were about eishes ish, for the same reason that sei'ar be'ishah is only about eishes ish, but I don't think anyone does understand the gemara that way. But there is also Qiddushin 70a, where R' Yehudah refuses to relay regards from R Nachman to Yala (Mrs Nachman) citing Shemu'el's qol be'ishah ervah. It was this gemara I was remembering (due to recently re-encountering it). Pisqei haRid (Berakhos p' 3), Ri haChasid (Berakhos ad loc), Tosafos haRosh (ad loc) and the Rosh (Berakhos 3:37), say the rule is in general. The Rambam has qol be'ishah ervah in Isurei Bi'ah (21:2), not Hil' QS. Similarly the Tur has nothing about it in QS, but has it in EhE 21. (But then, since his father [the Rosh] and the Rambam do the same, that's no surprise.) And from there -- the Rif is silent, the Rambam and the Rosh agree it's in general -- the SA conforms to his rules and prohibits in general. I think it's a machloqes whether we hold like Shemu'el, who was indeed oly talking about Shema (but not only married women) or like R' Yehudah's extrapolation from Shemu'el. Al pi din, we do hold like the gemara in Qidushin. But it's not as much of a given as I had thought when writing. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 27th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in relationship? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 2 12:29:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 02 May 2015 21:29:39 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Kook on Sports Message-ID: <554525A3.2060408@zahav.net.il> He most certainly did! http://www.yeshiva.org.il/midrash/4234 The article is an examination of Rav Kook's writing on the subject. RK very much supported exercise and sport, and of course he opposed breaking Shabbat to play football (soccer). One quote/translation (mine): Exercise . . . .improves the spiritual strength of the greatest tzaddiqim, those involved in the Unification of God's name, including bringing the Light of God into the world, and no revelation of Light can happen without all the required components. Ben On 5/1/2015 3:36 AM, via Areivim wrote: > and I wonder if it is true that Rav Kook ascribed positive value to sports. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 3 03:01:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 3 May 2015 13:01:40 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Michael Avraham Message-ID: After another shiur with R Michael Avraham (RMA) I wish to clear up some of my previous posts. Apologies for repeating some material but I wish to make it self contained. 1) With regard to Pluaralism, Monism and Harmonism these are typologies. As with any typology real people are combinations and pure members of these groups. Avi Sagi has a book on the topic with listing on many reabbis on each side of the topic. Pluralism means that one accepts ALL opinions as true and legitimate. There is no one single truth Certainly as long as it doesn't harm someone else. RMA pointed out that pure pluralism is not consistent as it would mean accepting monism as also a legitimate truth Nevertheless it is popular in some circles 2) Monism says there is only one truth. I accept that one truth based on the normal rules of halacha, eg majority, chazakah etc. Nothing is ever known with 100% certainty both that is irrelevant. 2b) accepting monism (savlanut in Hebrew) . Though there is only one truth we accommodate those within a certain radius of the real truth even though they are wrong Normally we view pluralism as being more "mekil" than monism. However he considered the case of giving someone food that I consider kosher and he doesn't . The pluralist won't do it because his position is also truth and he doesnt consider the food kosher. However the pure monist has no trouble giving it to someone else. He is wrong and I am right and so the food is kosher (again the fact that he might be right is irrelevant - a bet din can kill based on rov and certainly for shabbat and kosher food we work on majority) The accepting monist won't give the food to someone else. Even though he is wrong I respect his being wrong as long as he is within my radius - ie he relies on someone I consider legitimate and not just an idiotic opinion. OTOH I would give him the food if I feel his "chumra" is too wild fetched and beyond my radius as distinct from the pluralist 3) Harmonism states that both sides are only part of the real truth. Rav Kook and others bring the second gemara about "Elu V-elu". The gemara in Gittin discusses why the man from Binyamin killed his mistress)(pilegesh be-givah) - after an amoraic argument the truth was both were right either because he found a fly in his soup but got angry only he found a hair in the soup. So both views were ight and "Elu V-elu" Based on this RMA had a different interpretation of the argument between Bet Hillel and Bet Shamai Both sides presented arguments supporting their position. Both sides agreed that all the arguments were legitimate. However, in the end one has to make a decision when there are legitimate arguments on both sides and Bet Shamai and Bet Hillel arrived at opposite conclusins. The Harmonism implies that both sides have legitimate arguments. Hoever, in the end there is only one truth that comes out of contradictory arguments. The harmonism means that both sides are right (pluralism) on the basic stands. But only one side is right (monism) in the final decision. As stated before the one truth is found based on standard halachic grounds. Nothing is ever known 100% but that doesnt matter. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 3 18:46:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 11:46:53 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] A halachic problem in measuring wholemeal flour Message-ID: I have recently become aware of a practical halachic problem with measuring wholemeal flour for the shiurim of challah and the kezeitim of matzot mitzva. I don't think this issue is generally recognised, and I hope Areivim members will be able to bring it to appropriate authorities' attention. Traditional flour mills produced a mixture of white flour and bran by grinding whole grains between millstones. This mixture was sifted to produce finer or coarser grades of flour by removing more or less bran, respectively. Halachically, the bran that is removed has changed its status: dough produced from bran is not subject to challah. Furthermore, mixing bran back into its flour does not restore its status: the bran and flour are not "mitztaref". (See Challah 2:6) This was not an issue with traditional mills: nobody would sift bran out of flour and then ruin the white flour by replacing the bran. This is not the case today, though. Modern flour mills do not grind flour between stones. They use a series of graduated rollers that crack the grain into progressively-smaller particles, and the bran is separated off at an early stage of the process. Millers make wholemeal flour by adding bran back to the fine flour near the end of the milling process. You can find a description and video of the process here: http://www.fabflour.co.uk/fab-flour/how-flour-is-milled/ If modern wholemeal flour is halachically considered a mixture of flour and bran, as it seems, then to be obliged in challah one would need a greater shiur of wholemeal than of regular flour, and to fulfil one?s obligation of eating matza one would need to eat more than a kezayit of wholemeal matza. (See S.A. Y.D. 324:3 and M.A. & SAHR O.C 454:1,2) It is not possible to state a definite ratio of bran to white flour, as this will vary between species of grain and between varieties of each species. The relevant shiurim are not measured by weight but by volume, which is affected by the fineness of the bran compared to the fineness of the white flour. Furthermore, the amount of grain removed as bran will depend on the operation of the mill. My research indicates that up to a quarter of each grain of wheat (by weight) consists of bran. If we take this as a rule of thumb then a shiur of wholemeal wheat flour would be one and a third times as large as a shiur of white flour. As a practical matter, I think people making wholemeal bread should probably avoid doubt and bake either less than a minimal shiur (for which, consult your LOR) or bake sufficiently more than one and a third shiurim. Many people deliberately try to use enough flour to require the taking of challah: they consequently use just over a regular shiur and need to be warned about this. With respect to wholemeal matzot mitzva, I presume that people would have noticed and queried any reintroduction of bran to flour ground using modern methods. None the less, it would be very good to establish this for each bakery. Joe Slater Melbourne, Australia -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 3 20:42:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 06:42:58 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RMA Message-ID: On another issue I had quoted RMA as saying that one who doesnt believe in a creator has no punishment or reward for keeping mitzvot. After 120 years he will be punished only for being an atheist but for each individual sin. Hence, there is no problem of "lifne iver" . In particular in the frequent case a religious doctor can ask an atheist to take over for him on shabbat (wouldnt apply to a chiloni doctor who does beleive in G-d) This applies only to mitzvot like shabbat. Of course an atheist can't claim that he is not bound by sins like murder because he doesnt believe in G-d. An atheist will be punished for all moral sins that he commits and all usual laws of :lifne iver" etc apply to all moral commandments. ------------------------ He is now starting a series on religious autonomy. In particular he holds that one goes to a rabbi for a psak only if he is in doubt. If one has seriously learned the halachaot and is convinced of the "truth" then he should follow his own psak and there is no need to go to a "higher authority". He was asked what if the personal psak goes against the generally accepted psak. His answer was that in theory the same holds. However, a person should have enough humility that if he is a "daas yachid" he better be awfully sure that he is right. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 04:47:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 11:47:38 GMT Subject: [Avodah] A married sister Message-ID: <20150504.074738.29327.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, and becomes part of her husband's family. Thus, she is no longer part of her brother's family. But what about her father? According to the above logic, her father may not be m'tamei for her either. And in fact, she *has* left her father's family in the sense that if her husband is not a kohen, then she has been disallowed terumah ever since the wedding. Yet the halacha is that her father *may* be m'tamei for her, despite that change in status. So, in very simple terms, here's my question: If a Bas Kohen is married and then dies, why is it that her father may attend the funeral, but her brother may not? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55475caae730f5caa5375st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 07:42:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 17:42:10 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] A halachic problem in measuring wholemeal flour In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, May 4, 2015 at 4:46 AM, Joe Slater via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > I have recently become aware of a practical halachic problem with > measuring wholemeal flour for the shiurim of challah and the kezeitim of > matzot mitzva. I don't think this issue is generally recognised, and I hope > Areivim members will be able to bring it to appropriate authorities' > attention. > > Traditional flour mills produced a mixture of white flour and bran by > grinding whole grains between millstones. This mixture was sifted to > produce finer or coarser grades of flour by removing more or less bran, > respectively. Halachically, the bran that is removed has changed its > status: dough produced from bran is not subject to challah. Furthermore, > mixing bran back into its flour does not restore its status: the bran and > flour are not "mitztaref". (See Challah 2:6) > > This was not an issue with traditional mills: nobody would sift bran out > of flour and then ruin the white flour by replacing the bran. This is not > the case today, though. > Just a thought: perhaps the halacha that the bran and flour are not mitztaref depended on the metziu't that nobody would return bran to white flour? So if returning the bran to the flour is now the normal way of producing wholemeal flour, maybe today they are mitztaref? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 09:45:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 12:45:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs In-Reply-To: <20150330.221259.10345.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 11:47:38AM +0000, RAM wrote on the thread "A married sister": : In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself : for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I : used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves : the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, : and becomes part of her husband's family... But Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 02:12:59AM +0000, RAM wrote on this subject: > I once heard an interesting argument against Rav Moshe's logic on > this point. He is viewing the wife as the one who is moving to a new > location, but we have an explicit pasuk that takes the opposite view: > Bereshis 2:24 - "Therefore, a man will desert his father and his mother, > and stick to his wife." (The woman may of may not leave her parents, > but the man explicitly does.) > Granted that there are other arguments for the wife taking the husband's > minhagim - terumah is the first that comes to my mind. But if Rav Moshe's > main argument is Minhag Hamakom, I wonder how he would have defended it > against this pasuk. Anyone else see one answering the other? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 30th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Hod: When does capitulation Fax: (270) 514-1507 result in holding back from others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 10:11:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 04 May 2015 13:11:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs In-Reply-To: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> On 05/04/2015 12:45 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 11:47:38AM +0000, RAM wrote on the thread > "A married sister": > : In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself > : for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I > : used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves > : the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, > : and becomes part of her husband's family... > > But Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 02:12:59AM +0000, RAM wrote on this subject: >> I once heard an interesting argument against Rav Moshe's logic on >> this point. He is viewing the wife as the one who is moving to a new >> location, but we have an explicit pasuk that takes the opposite view: >> Bereshis 2:24 - "Therefore, a man will desert his father and his mother, >> and stick to his wife." (The woman may of may not leave her parents, >> but the man explicitly does.) > >> Granted that there are other arguments for the wife taking the husband's >> minhagim - terumah is the first that comes to my mind. But if Rav Moshe's >> main argument is Minhag Hamakom, I wonder how he would have defended it >> against this pasuk. > > Anyone else see one answering the other? Not at all. Her father must still become tamei for her. Only her brothers may not. What's more, suppose her husband dies without issue. She returns to her father's house, and is once more entitled to eat terumah and kodshim. Now suppose the father dies; she continues to eat the terumah and kodshim that her brothers bring home. When she dies the brothers are the only people left who sit shiva for her, and yet they are not allowed to become tamei for her unless there is literally nobody else who can do it! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 10:24:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 17:24:33 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs Message-ID: <20150504.132433.5362.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger asked: > Anyone else see one answering the other? You make a good point, but as I see it, they don't *answer* each other as much as they illustrate how complicated this subject is. For example, consider the case of a Bas Kohen who marries a Yisrael, or a Bas Yisrael who marries a Kohen. Her status changes upon marriage, but it will revert upon the death of her husband. - Unless there is a child, in which case her status will *not* revert. - Unless the child died too, in which case her status *will* revert. - Unless there is a grandchild, in which case she keeps her status even though her own child did not survive. (I probably messed up some of those details, but my point is that itis a very complex topic.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5547ab96da8f82b966b58st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 11:01:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 14:01:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A married sister Message-ID: <1fbaa.22f534a3.42790de1@aol.com> From: Kenneth Miller via Avodah In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, and becomes part of her husband's family. Thus, she is no longer part of her brother's family. But what about her father? [snip] So, in very simple terms, here's my question: If a Bas Kohen is married and then dies, why is it that her father may attend the funeral, but her brother may not? Akiva Miller >>>>> I don't know why the bond between brother and sister seems to be lessened when the sister marries, but we do have other evidence that the bond between father and daughter is never severed: If a man has no sons, only daughters, his daughters inherit his property -- even if they are married. The fact that they are married does not annul the fact that they are still his daughters. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 12:50:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 22:50:54 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith Message-ID: <> A more practical problem based on personal experience is that of defining colors (to a human not in terms of wavelengths). There is no way for 2 people to confirm they are seeing the same colors. One practical application is to examining cloths for a niddah - ketem. I again refer to an article in Keren Zavit by Nadav Shinrav on parshat tazria In particular I learned that brown is not a color -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 13:43:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 16:43:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150504204354.GA2628@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 10:50:54PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : A more practical problem based on personal experience is that of defining : colors (to a human not in terms of wavelengths). There is no way for 2 : people to confirm they are seeing the same colors. Even further: there is no wavelength corrsponding to pink or brown, they only exist as our mind combines wavelengths. Pink is weirder, because it resides on the color wheel where you would glue the two extremes of the spectrum together to close the circle. Colors other than the three in the middle of the sensitivity range of each of the types of cone in your eye can be seen two ways. For example: you could make orange by mixing two parts red with one part green, or by looking at light of one color, that is at the right frequency to trigger your red cones twice as much as they trigger the green. The topic we're discussing is qualia, and color is a favorite sort of quale to use for illustration (pun intended). A quale is the "what it's like to see red". In my example about orange, we have two different physics, but both could end up producing the same experience, the same exact shade and brightness of orange. So orange is not 1:1 any specific wavelength. Asude from the question RET raises, a popular thought experiment among philosophers is Mary the Color Scientist (Frank Jackson 1982): Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor. She specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose, all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes, or the sky, and use terms like 'red', 'blue', and so on. She discovers, for example, just which wavelength combinations from the sky stimulate the retina, and exactly how this produces via the central nervous system the contraction of the vocal chords and expulsion of air from the lungs that results in the uttering of the sentence 'The sky is blue'.... What will happen when Mary is released from her black and white room or is given a color television monitor? Will she learn anything or not? It seems just obvious that she will learn something about the world and our visual experience of it. But then is it inescapable that her previous knowledge was incomplete. But she had all the physical information. Ergo there is more to have than that, and Physicalism is false. And so Jackson concludes that the world can't be reduced to physics. This is also what I was talking about when I referred to justifying a belief based on comparing imagination to memory. Koach hadimyon does mean "imagination", but what Ariso meant by Imagination, or the rishonim by dimyon, includes qualia in general. The image of red while you're seeing it, not just when you're dreaming it up. And I would argue that even when we make rigorous logical proofs, those proofs are conclusions drawn from a set of givens, and those givens end up resting on koach hadimyon anyway. The formally proven theological statement is therefore less conclusive than one based on an appeal to dimyon directly, such as R' Aqiva's argument. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 30th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Hod: When does capitulation Fax: (270) 514-1507 result in holding back from others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 15:25:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 04 May 2015 18:25:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs In-Reply-To: <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> Message-ID: <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> On 05/04/2015 01:11 PM, I wrote: > > What's more, suppose her husband dies without issue. She returns to her > father's house, and is once more entitled to eat terumah and kodshim. This is not quite correct. She returns to eat teruma, but not kodshim. "Milechem, velo kol lechem". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 16:07:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Mon, 04 May 2015 19:07:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy In-Reply-To: <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> Message-ID: <5547FB97.5020203@aishdas.org> Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, d'hashta) would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? Thanks! KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 18:11:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 01:11:49 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy Message-ID: <20150504.211149.15174.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer asked: > Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, > d'hashta) would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? My first knee-jerk reaction is to say that they DON'T relate. Chazakos are all about law, and what the law will *presume* the reality to have been. We found a piece of meat on the street, or we bought it and forgot where, or any of a million similar questions. We don't really know whether it is kosher or not, and to a certain extent we don't really care. What we really care about is whether halacha allows us to *presume* that it is kosher. Schroedinger's Cat and similar ventures are attempts to establish what the *reality* is. The Cat is a thought experiment, but do not make the mistake of thinking that it is mere philosophizing. The whole point of the experiment is to establish what is really and actually happening inside the box, and the answer (that they've come up with) is that two contradictory truths (the cat is alive, the cat is dead) are both true at the same time. This is a question of physics and reality, not a question of legal presumptions. The subject line of this thread says that you're "looking for help with an analogy". Could you tell us more about what you're working on? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5548190613cab19056408st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 19:10:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rafael Jason Hecht via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 22:10:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How Kosher is the Kosher Switch? Message-ID: Last Motzei Shabbos I was among the crowd that was saying Kiddush Levana out in the open. While davening I overheard someone making a joke about using a Kosher Switch (my guess was to place light on the outside so people could better read). I did my own reading and research before that and couldn't tell if the gentleman was joking or being serious. To put it lightly, the development and marketing Kosher Switch has caused a major controversy in the Torah Jewish community. The Kosher Switch, a device purportedly meant to ease the constraints of Sabbath observance, is not the first of its kind. The Grama switch by Zomet Institute, as well as the Zman switch have been created for emergency situations of pikuach nefesh. However, this switch has caused an uproar in the Jewish community. Why? Before going on, let me state that while I am far from an expert in the field of electrical engineering or Hilchos Shabbos (nor am I a certified Rabbi), I treasure Shabbos and am always looking for ways to enhance it. That said, I did my own personal research and humbly present my findings. Before I go on, let me first state that the topic of electricity on Shabbos is far more extensive than what I'm laying out, and that I am not (intentionally) offering my own Psak, just a compilation of "what's out there." Read more: http://www.mywesternwall.net/2015/04/30/how-kosher-is-the-kosher-switch.html Best Regards, Rafi Hecht *rhecht at gmail.com* ------------------------------------------------------- *LinkedIN:* *http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rafihecht* *Facebook:* *http://www.facebook.com/rhecht* *Twitter:* *https://www.twitter.com/#!/rafihecht* *Personal Site:* *www.rafihecht.com* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 12:47:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Shalom Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 22:47:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired Message-ID: I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a woman is owned by her husband, the language of the Mishna notwithstanding. Can anyone point to a clear statement by Hazal or rishonim that supports my supposition? My thanks, Shalom Z. Berger -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 13:51:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 16:51:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150505205140.GA20122@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 05, 2015 at 10:47:20PM +0300, Shalom Berger via Avodah wrote: : I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a : woman is owned by her husband, the language of the Mishna notwithstanding. : Can anyone point to a clear statement by Hazal or rishonim that supports my : supposition? First, the halakhos of qiddushin do not conform to that of purchase. Qinyan is a broader concept than purchase; for example, not that long ago you probably performed a qinyan sudar to appoint your rav as a shaliach to sell your chameitz. Some differences: - no din of ona'ah, a shaveh perutah is sufficient for all - you give the perutah to the woman, not her former "owner" - she has to agree to the qinyan, despite not being the former "owner" - she has to make a qinyan on the money - money needn't exchange hands; she could pardon a loan to effect a marriage. However, qinyan bekesef does require such an exchange. - Hilkhos gittin is a lot more complicated than just calling hefqer. - the wife gets to decide whether to give him her earnings in exchange for being supported. If she were property, he would get her earnings wheter or not *he* chose to support here. Now that I got that out of my system, to answer your question: Qiddushin 6b: ... and if an eved kenaani, whose body he was qoneh, if he says to him [in a shetar shichrur] "you are hereby your own" it means legmaei, ishah DELO QANI LEIH GUFAH, lo qol shekein! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 31st day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Hod: What level of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 results in harmony and balance? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 12:12:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 15:12:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun Message-ID: In Avodah V33n70, RZS responded to R'Micha: >> I bet [RYBS] said tachanun on the Gra's or R' Chaim's (Volozhin or Brisk) >> yahrzeit, etc... For people who are seeking his pesaq, it's very likely >> he would insist on Tachanun on days like that. > Of course he said tachanun on their yortzeits, why wouldn't he? The whole > concept of turning a yortzeit into a holiday wasn't native to his world. > The question is what he would do on a day they had been saved from some > danger, and had observed as a private yomtov, or on a day that his > community had adopted as a local "purim" to commemorate being saved from > danger, as was a common practise among Jewish communities. ...or on Pesach Sheini? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 11:47:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 05 May 2015 13:47:08 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Tree of 40 Fruits Message-ID: <5549102C.40808@starways.net> http://www.sciencealert.com/news/20142107-25892.html What's the halakha regarding eating fruit from one of these trees? Since the grafting was done by a non-Jew, is it okay to eat? Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 14:01:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 21:01:39 GMT Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired Message-ID: <20150505.170139.16146.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Shalom Berger wrote: <<< I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a woman is owned by her husband, ... >>> That depends on what you mean by "own". I own my shoes. This gives me certain rights, such as wearing them to the exclusion of anyone else, or the choice of who I might lend them to. I also have certain responsibilities; I cannot simply destroy them for no reason. I own my tefillin too. But the things I can do with my tefillin are much more limited than whast I can do with my shoes. I have certain rights and responsibilities vis a vis my wife as well. Do I own her? I don't know. Is there a real nafka mina, or is it just semantics? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55492fe2678522fe2353bst03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 15:46:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 05 May 2015 18:46:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Scrolling Down the Pages of Jewish History Message-ID: <20150505224615.83B27181E37@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/ocl2bqe his story appears in R. Yechiel Spero?s Pesach Haggadah: Touched by Our Story (pp. 88-91) and is republished here with permission from the copyright holders (ArtScroll / Mesorah Publications, Ltd.). The pictures below ? of the Tur Shulchan Aruch (printed in Berlin 1702) which belonged to Rabbi Yaakov Emden (Germany, 1697-1776) ? were taken by R. Akiva Males, and are republished with permission of Columbia University?s Rare Book and Manuscript Library. See the above URL for much more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 00:23:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 03:23:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] All About Tehillim Message-ID: <20150506072350.7A9B4181522@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/mxoucvn From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 02:02:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 05:02:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Disappearing Doctor of Iyyar: Virtual Vanishing of a Venerable Minhog Message-ID: <20150506090255.CB5C5182D80@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/mdz6883 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 03:13:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 06:13:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Disappearing Doctor of Iyyar: Virtual Vanishing of a Venerable Minhog In-Reply-To: <20150506090255.CB5C5182D80@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150506090255.CB5C5182D80@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150506101327.GA19813@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 06, 2015 at 05:02:54AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : See http://tinyurl.com/mdz6883 Quoting the Treasures of Ashkenaz blog [transliterations mine]: > The aleph stands for ani, the two yuds for HQBH, and the reish? fo > rofekha. The month is thereby depicted as a month of healing. The vort > seemingly is based on an old minhog of many generations among Yidden, > in which the letters yud-yud (sans hyphen) are used to represent the > venerated name of Hashem However, even yud-yud is not the original minhag. In older manuscripts they used three yuds, with the middle one slightly above the line, making a triangle. Preserved in this printed edition of Siddur R' Saadia Gaon . I suggested two possible reasons for the third yud's disappearance: - The printing press made that middle yud hard to insert into books, because it would require a special letter in the type box. I find this one less than compelling, because they kept an alef-lamed ligature in the type box, and that got less usage. - Xians read their own significance into the three letters. This would be clearner, if there were any evidence of them actually doing so. So the two-yud notation was just one step along the way. The general question of why non-chassidic Ashkenazim (or non-Chida-influenced Sepharadim) suddenly started writing out the sheim in siddurim is compelling, but the two-yud notation isn't necessarily some venerable alternative. The three yuds was often explained as beind the initial letters of Birkhas Kohanim; the yuds from Yevarekhekha, Ya'er, and Yisa. Some suggest that the two yuds represent the first and last letters of an intertwined sheim havayah and sheim adnus: YUD alef HEI dalet ... HEI yud. Itself heavily al pi qabbalah. And associating the two yuds with the transliteration into Hebrew of an Akkadian month name (Ayyaru = n. blossom) requires even more omnisignificance and mysticism than does finding significance in presenting sheim havayah written out. Where I really see this change as a problem is not because of venerable minhagim, but because books have less shelf life now than in the past. Cheap printing means also cheaper paper, not to mention faster replacement. And if generations past wanted to minimize their sheimos problems, al achas kamah vekamah we should. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 00:31:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 10:31:51 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: In some circles it is common for men to keep long peyot (as an aside it has become common also in some chardal circles) The book Keren Zavit says he doesn't understand the custom. The problem is not in long sidebruns but rather that the hair from under the ear rarely grows long. The long "peyot" usually grow from hair above the ear and so has no connection to peyot and in fact come from part of the head where there is no prohibition to shave -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 06:38:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Shalom Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 16:38:38 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired In-Reply-To: <20150505205140.GA20122@aishdas.org> References: <20150505205140.GA20122@aishdas.org> Message-ID: While Micha is correct that the Gemara clearly states "ishah DELO QANI LEIH GUFAH" and that there are many, many differences between true ownership and marriage, this does not keep the Tosafot HaRosh (Ketubot 2a sv Nistahpa Sadeihu) from concluding: "ha-isha kinyan kaspo shel ha-ish kemo avdo ve-shoro va-hamoro." I would like to find a source in the rishonim that clearly rejects the approach of the Tosafot HaRosh. Shalom Rabbi Shalom Z. Berger, Ed.D. The Lookstein Center for Jewish Education Bar-Ilan University http://www.lookstein.org https://www.facebook.com/groups/lookjed/ Follow me on Twitter: @szberger NETWORK*LEARN*GROW From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 09:26:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 12:26:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tree of 40 fruits Message-ID: The question was asked, "What's the halakha regarding eating fruit from one of these trees? Since the grafting was done by a non-Jew, is it okay to eat?" The only issur achila of kilayim is kilei hakerem. Anything else may be eaten. With regard to the fruits of a graft, the explicit halacha in Yoreh Deiah (295:7) is that it may be eaten even by the one who violated the prohibition by performing the graft. (That halacha also continues that one may take a branch from the graft and plant it.) As to the original question about the potato-tomato combination, grafting is prohibited: even though neither is a tree (295:3), but as above, the resulting product may be eaten. EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 10:28:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 13:28:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs Message-ID: The din of a kohein's daughter not eating t'ruma upon marriage to a non-kohein was mentioned in conjunction with this topic. However, I submit that perquisites of k'huna are unrelated to the adoption of one's spouse's customs. How else can we understand the din that a person can give the parts of a slaughtered animal due to the kohein (z'roa, l'chayayim v'keiva) even to a kohein's daughter married to a Yisraeil, or, for that matter, even to her Yisraeil husband (and according to one opinion, the same is true for pidyon habein)? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 10:37:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 13:37:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy Message-ID: <72706.56a00b87.427bab69@aol.com> From: Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, d'hashta) would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? Thanks! KT, YGB >>>>> Not sure where you're going with this but you seem to be saying that chazakos have no independent, objective reality. That a chazaka is in the eye of the beholder. Oops. Looks like you've let the cat out of the bag... --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 11:13:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 14:13:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Strange History of Lag B'Omer Message-ID: <20150506181455.D4FFC1836BF@nexus.stevens.edu> There is an interesting talk by Dr. Shnayer Leiman with the above title at http://yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/734356/ Yitzchok Levine -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 11:48:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 14:48:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy In-Reply-To: <5547FB97.5020203@aishdas.org> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> <5547FB97.5020203@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150506184838.GA4624@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 7:07pm EDT, RYGB wrote: : Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, d'hashta) : would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? Quantum Uncertainty is more similar to rov than chazaqah. And it could model how we can embrace conflicting majorities. Such as in the case of two pieces of shuman and one of cheilev, and being able to eat all three one after the other. (Or perhaps even in a ta'aroves, but that just complicates the picture.) It would fit if we treat the physical state of each piece of fat as ( 2 |shuman> + |cheilev) / 3 rather than as a 67% chance of being shuman. And then those things that were observed are immune from such weirdness, much like qavu'ah. That said: The notion that wavefunction collapse is due to observation, the Copenhagen Interpretation, was once taken as a given. But alternatives involving entanglement, wave function collapse, multiuniverse theory, etc.. have been gaining ground for decades. This parallel to qavu'ah could be illusory. On Tue, May 05, 2015 at 1:11am GMT, R Akive Miller wrote: : My first knee-jerk reaction is to say that they DON'T relate. Chazakos : are all about law, and what the law will *presume* the reality to have : been... : Schroedinger's Cat and similar ventures are attempts to establish what : the *reality* is... I am very inclined to agree. R' Aqiva Eiger (teshuvah $136) makes a chiluq between sefeiqos in the metzi'us and sefeiqos in din. Rov holds when we have sefeiqos in the metzi'us. So we can pasqen about something that is rov-kasher. But if someone knew the metzi'us, then there was a din established for the fat. Now that we don't know what it was, we have a safeiq as to what that din is. LAD, the whole thing is about human experience. See , which has 10 posts covering things like chazaqah (both types), rov, qavu'ah, terei mekei'ah (which I argue ignores rov for the same reason as qavu'ah), nosein ta'am, using tequfas Shemu'el for birkhas hachamah, microsopic bugs etc.... The hashkafic premise is that the goal of halakhah is to shape the self (whether into a tamim, a shelaim, to acheive deveiqus, etc...) And therefore the metzi'us a din has to work with is how we experience reality (and thus birur when we're in doubt) and how we can experience it (only visible bugs count). And not how the universe works in ways we can only understand in the abstract. The most lomdishe consequence of my whole edifice is that it manages to explain why a chazaqah trumps a migo in a case where there are also trei utrei eidim, but why a migo trumps a chazaqah when there are no eidim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 12:13:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 15:13:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150506191353.GB4624@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 06, 2015 at 10:31:51AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : The book Keren Zavit says he doesn't understand the custom. The problem is : not in long sidebruns but rather that the hair from under the ear rarely : grows long. The long "peyot" usually grow from hair above the ear and so : has no connection to peyot and in fact come from part of the head where : there is no prohibition to shave The custom is shared by Chassidim, Chidah-influenced Sepharadim (those with many Qabbalah-based pesaqim) and Teimanim. So there seems to be an ancient maqor unrelated to any reasons given al pi qabbalah by the first two groups. R' Chaim Kanievsky is a living example of a minhag/hanhagah that was once more common -- not combing one's peyos because of the hairs plucked out. Rav Dovid Lifshitz, so now we're talking Litta, had two thick blocks of hair going back from his temples to over his ear. According to the SA YD 181:9, peyos run as high as the hairline above the forehead until the bottom of the ear, where the earlobe detaches from the face. So the prohibition does include the area the KZ is asking about -- there are inches of hair between the top of the ear until you get parallel to the hairline. And this is the very area that the majority of the hair in long peyos grows from. I therefore don't understand the KZ's question. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 12:40:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 22:40:23 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: >From : B. Highest Point. The location of the highest point on the head that the peyos extend is described in Shulchan Aruch (181:9) as "across from the hair on is forehead". There are two basic opinions as to the precise location the Shulchan Aruch refers to: 1. Rabbi Yisroel Belsky (Shulchan Halevi page 122) writes that he had heard directly from Rav Yakov Kaminetzky zt"l that the upper limit of the peyos ha'rosh begins "at the highest point of the hairline as it arches over the ear and extends in a slightly curved line across to where the hairline of the forehead turns sharply downwards towards the sideburns. All the hair from the imaginary line that connect these two points and below comprises the peyos ha'rosh". 2. Rabbi Belsky also quotes "some rabbonim have a mesora, a tradition from their Rabbis, that the peyos do not extend above the upper cartilage of the ear (tenuch ha'ozen) at all. According to their mesorah, the imaginary line extends horizontally from the point in the hairline above the foremost part of ear almost until where the downward slope of the frontal hairline angles back towards the ear. For a picture see -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 13:42:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joel Schnur via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 16:42:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun Message-ID: <554A7CBF.3020300@schnurassociates.com> No one says tachnun on the Gra's yarhzeit. it's 3rd day chol hamoed succos ___________________________ Joel Schnur, Senior VP Government Affairs/Public Relations Schnur Associates, Inc. 25 West 45th Street, Suite 1405 New York, NY 10036 Tel. 212-489-0600 x204 Fax. 212-489-0203 joel at schnurassociates.com www.schnurassociates.com http://www.schnurassociates.com/joels-corner/ From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 14:13:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 17:13:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired In-Reply-To: <20150505.170139.16146.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150505.170139.16146.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150506211338.GB27781@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 5, 2015 at 9:01pm GMT, R Akiva Miller wrote: :> I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that :> a woman is owned by her husband, ... : That depends on what you mean by "own". : : I own my shoes. This gives me certain rights... I suggested more than once in the past that baalus has more to do with responsibility than western notions of property. Which is why yorshim do not inherit chameitz on Pesach. Even though the father owned chameitz in the sense of bal yeira'eh bal yimatzei, he lacked ba'alus at the time of his passing. Or why a rentor has a chiyuv to hang a mezuzah -- he has some measure of ba'alus, despite not being an owner. RAF (CCed) shared my post on Facebook, and since I have no idea what can be seen by the public, I'll paraphrase a couple of responses I thought would be of interest. On my line that "qinyan is a broader concept than purchase", one person compared the mishnah in Avos "qeneih lekha chaver". This morning, at 8:59am PDT, R Shalom Z Berger asked for a rishon who clearly rejected the Tosafos haRosh's statement (Kesuvos 2a "nitapecha sadeihu) that "ha'ishah qinyan kaspo shel ha'ish, kemo avdo veshoro vechamoro". Someone else on FB noted that the Rashba, in his chiddushim on the first pereq of Qiddushin, repeatedly points out that all the rishonim other than the Rosh reject the idea out of hand. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 15:09:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 15:09:17 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes Message-ID: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Shabbat-microphones-catching-on-among-orthodox-despite-taboos-402173 i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at hadchak /bedieved -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 17:12:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 20:12:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150507001204.GA31766@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 06, 2015 at 03:09:17PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Shabbat-microphones-catching-on-among-orthodox-despite-taboos-402173 : : i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at hadchak /bedieved Gerama devices, yes. But a passive element microphone feeding a PA system that is never entirely off -- so it's never turned off or on -- and has no lit indicators is an entirely different beast. (Most microphones generate current when vibrated; a passive element microphone changes resistance.) Still not an open-and-shut heter, as this article makes it sound. And there are more grounds for Sepharadim to be meiqil then Ashkenazim, based on a machloqes between the Mechaber and the Rama in OC 252:5. R' Ovadia was matir. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 18:18:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 01:18:22 GMT Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes Message-ID: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> R' Saul Newman asked: > i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at > hadchak /bedieved I've never read any of their material, but I'm pretty sure that they have MANY halachic "tools" in their arsenal, and not all of them carry the same restrictions. For example, a grama switch would only be useful for a very limited number of situations, as would a pen that writes with disappearing ink. But if you can make an electronic device that generates zero heat and zero light, it just *might* be acceptable for general use. Exhibit A: Hearing aids. I'll admit that a hearing aid is not the same thing as a loudspeaker system. But without getting into a whole discussion, the only point I'm making is that you have to look at the thing, and not just reject it out of hand. One might say that "Hearing aids are by definition for a shaas hadchak; how can this technology help the average person? So I bring you Exhibit B: Sabbath Mode ovens. Without any doubt, one DOES manipulate the electric circuit with these gadgets. If not on Shabbos, then at least on Yom Tov. But I think that the real answer to your question might be: "If the people in shul can't hear the rabbi or the chazan, that IS a shaas hadchak." In any case, about 15 years ago I happened to spend Shabbos at a shul that used one of these systems, and there were two large notices by the entrance to the main sanctuary, pointing out that the system was designed by Zomet. If I remember correctly, there was also a letter on the wall giving more halachic details about it. Which is the bigger chumra: To avoid using such devices, or to insure that even the hard-of-hearing can follow hear? Or, if you prefer, which is the bigger kula: To use such devices, or to disenfranchise part of the tzibur? (I'm not taking sides, just illustrating the issues. If you want answers, ask your LOR.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554abd8864c633d88019cst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 18:45:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 01:45:24 GMT Subject: [Avodah] The Disappearing Doctor of Iyyar: Virtual Vanishing of a Venerable Minhog Message-ID: <20150506.214524.14329.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitzchok Levine posted: > See http://tinyurl.com/mdz6883 That article has only slight relevance to anything medical. It is actually about the practice of abbreviating HaShem's Name with a double (or triple) Yud in siddurim, and how this practice is losing ground recently, with more siddurim using the Four-Lettered Name. That article says: > ... even in the printing of siddurim, where in the past, Shem > Hashem was not written out explicitly, based on venerable, old > practice. In other words, the spelling out of the letters, Yud > ? Kay ? Vov ? Kay in the past was done in Biblical texts, such > as Sifrei Torah and Sifrei Nach. In texts of tefilos, however, > it was not done. Instead, Yud ? Yud was substituted. I am very curious why this distinction was made, that the siddurim use the Yuds, while the printed Tanachs do use the Four Lettered Name. I note that towards the end of that article, he refers to an "Azharah L'Madfisim (Warning To Printers)" on this topic, written by the son-in-law of the Nesivos Hamishpat. Curiously, he writes that the Two Yuds should be printed in siddurim *and* *chumashim*. On the other hand, a few lines later, the Azharah explains a point I've long wondered about. The Four Lettered Name is just one of the *seven* Names Which May Not Be Erased. Why did this abbreviation arise for the Four Lettered Name and not for any of the others? I always figured it was because this one is *truly* a Name; "the Most Holy among equals" one might say. But the Azharah gives an entirely different explanation. Namely, the difference between this Name and the other six is that no matter how you spell it, it is not to be pronounced normally, so what is to be gained by using the correct letters? Therefore, find an abbreviation of some sort for this one, but the others should be spelled as they will be pronounced. Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554ac3e5a6e0843e34b38st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 19:34:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 22:34:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: <85279.31aefae5.427c294a@aol.com> From: Eli Turkel via Avodah In some circles it is common for men to keep long peyot (as an aside it has become common also in some chardal circles) The book Keren Zavit says he doesn't understand the custom.... -- Eli Turkel >>>> Yemenites have long payos, so this must be a very old custom, not some recent chumra. They don't call them "payos" but "simanim," which I find charming. They are signs that a man is a Jew, proud and obvious signs. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 02:13:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 12:13:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: In addition to the points brought up by R' Eli Turkel against long peyot, I would like to raise the following: The shiur given by all of the poskim for each hair is very very short, and in fact because it is a lo taase there is probably not even an inyan of hidur mitzvah. Therefore it is not clear why there would be any inyan to grow long peyot. The truth is it would be much better to be machmir on the shiur of where peyot harosh ends (maybe the very bottom of the ear) which is a safek issur d'oraysa then to grow long peyot which has no kiyum al pi din. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 20:33:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 23:33:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired Message-ID: <86422.6a1e08b9.427c3711@aol.com> [1] I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a woman is owned by her husband, the language of the Mishna notwithstanding. Can anyone point to a clear statement by Hazal or rishonim that supports my supposition? My thanks, Shalom Z. Berger [2] I own my shoes. This gives me certain rights, such as wearing them to the exclusion of anyone else, or the choice of who I might lend them to. I also have certain responsibilities; I cannot simply destroy them for no reason. I own my tefillin too. But the things I can do with my tefillin are much more limited than what I can do with my shoes. I have certain rights and responsibilities vis a vis my wife as well. Do I own her? I don't know. Is there a real nafka mina, or is it just semantics? Akiva Miller >>>> [1] Along the lines of what R' Micha Berger posted. On Ber 24:57 -- "Let us call the maiden and ask her what she wants to do" -- Rashi says, "Mikan she'ein masi'in es ha'isha ela mida'ata -- from here we learn that one does not [or may not, or cannot] marry a woman without her consent." I think he's quoting Kesubos 57b. I can't think of any kind of property whose consent is required before the property can be acquired. [2] The analogy to tefillin is flawed. You do not have any obligations or responsibilities to your tefillin. Rather, in regards to your tefillin, you have obligations towards your Maker! He has told you what you must do, may do, or must not do, with your tefillin. A better analogy would have been to your ox or your dog, where you do actually have obligations to your animals, an obligation, for example, to feed the animal before you eat your own meal. And a still better analogy would have been to acquiring a slave, about which the Talmud says "One who acquires a Jewish slave is like one who has acquired a master! (Kiddushin 20a)" -- because of all the obligations he incurs towards his slave. So there does seem to be some kind of ownership that a husband has vis-a-vis his wife, but then, she also in some sense owns him. Certainly she has the right to make specific claims on him, because he has specific obligations towards her. Shir Hashirim speaks about the love between Hakadosh Baruch Hu and Am Yisrael in an extended poetic analogy to the love between a husband and a wife. What does the wife say about her husband? Dodi li ve'ani lo -- He belongs to me, and I belong to Him. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 23:25:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 02:25:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Princess and I: Academic Kabbalists/Kabbalist Academics Message-ID: <20150507062523.18EF01826EC@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/km8kf2n The last few decades have witnessed the veritable explosion of "new perspectives" and horizons in the academic study of Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism. From the pioneering work of the late Professor Gershom Scholem, and the establishment of the study of Jewish Mysticism as a legitimate scholarly pursuit, we witness a scene nowadays populated by men and women, Jews and non-Jews, who have challenged, (re)constructed, and expanded upon Scholem's work.[2] These men and women themselves have been variously praised and criticized themselves for sometimes blurring the lines between academician and practitioner of Kabbalah and mysticism.[3] Professor Boaz Huss of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has done extensive work in this area.[4] One of the most impressive examples of this fusion of identities is Professor Yehuda Liebes (Jerusalem, 1947-) of Hebrew University, who completed his doctoral studies under Scholem, and rose to prominence himself by challenging scholarly orthodoxies established by his mentor. See the above URL for more. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 23:29:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 02:29:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Shabbat microphones catching on among orthodox despite taboos Message-ID: <20150507062953.0C966182FF8@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/men8bez Relying upon rulings by decision makers such as Rabbi Shaul Yisraeli, Isser Yehuda Unterman and Rav Haim David HaLevi, the Zomet microphone uses only transistors "without any glowing [or 'burning'] elements;" is turned on by an automatic "Shabbat timer;" and, once turned on, "current flows continuously in the system," according to technical notes on the setup released on the group's website. According to Zomet executive director Rabbi Dan Marans, the system has come into use in 15 synagogues in Baltimore, Montreal, West Stamford and other locations, as well as in 18 old-age homes. Leading American poskim, or decidors of Halacha, have even "stipulated in contracts with synagogues that they change the system to our system so that the RCA [will be] able to send rabbis." "I've not heard comments [against it]. If anything, people find the service more enjoyable and more elevating," agreed Schneier, adding that "We must get a dozen calls a year from rabbis contemplating putting this system into their synagogues. "I believe within 25 years it will be commonplace in Orthodox synagogues here in the Northeast." See the above URL for more. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 07:01:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 10:01:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Transferring my comments to Avodah At 04:00 PM 5/6/2015, R Saul Newman wrote on Areivim: >http://www.sharelive.tv/sharlive_Heb/SL27948.html I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire 33rd day, and they wait until the 34th day to take a haircut. Does this not imply that the entire 33rd day is part of Sefirah and the restrictions hold the entire 33rd day? Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva. However, the micktzas starts in the morning of the 7th day, not on the night of the 7th day. Thus, even according to Ashkenazim the night of Lag B'Omer is bound by the restrictions of Sefirah. So how can they make such gatherings on the night of the 33rd day? And, of course there is this post that I made on from Fri, 26 Apr 2013 based on comments by Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel. According to RSRH there is a major difference between the way the uses the terminology un-Jewish and non-Jewish. Un-Jewish things are things that are incompatible with Yahadus, whereas non-Jewish things are things of non-Jewish origin that are compatible with Yahadus. YL The following is from http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol11/v11n014.shtml#17 Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 11:37:58 -0400 From: "Seth Mandel" Subject: Re: bonfires on Lag Ba'Omer From: Phyllos... at aol.com Obviously, the bones of people who believe that there is a s'gullo in making fires . As I have had fun telling people, the _only_ bonfire that was an ancient Jewish tradition was the Simchas Torah bonfire in Ashk'naz, which is attested from the 14th century up until the 19th century, but has gone out of style. The Lag Ba'omer bonfire is a very recent phenomenon among most Jews. Indeed, the word bonfire is from "fire of bones." The term was used primarily in various pagan ceremonies which then were transferred to christianity, for a funeral pyre, and in burning infidels or books (like The Gaon of Vilna or MOAG). The bones used, if 'twere not a pyre, were primarily animal bones. Here's an early quotation (1493): "in worshyppe of saynte John the people waked at home and made all maner of fyres. One was clene bones and no woode, and that is called a bone fyre." From Marlowe in 1586: "Making bonfires for my overthrow. But, ere I die, those foul idolators Shall make me bonfires with their filthy bones." (Think that would get by the moderators on Areivim, R. SBA?) 1689: "The dead corps is buried. They of old made a bone-fire and therein burnt it." 1622: "Their holy Bibles cast into Bone-fires." The term became used for any large fires used for celebrations, although the practice and term continued to be used especially for those associated with various christian saints, particularly John and Peter. From a 1570 history: "Then doth the joyfull feast of John the Baptist take his turne, When bonfiers great with loftie flame, in every towne doe burne." From a constitution of the association of the cooks of Newcastle, 1575: "The said Felloship of Cookes shall yearelie. mainteigne and keep the Bone-fires. that is to say, one Bone-fire on the Even of the Feast of the Nativitie of St. John Baptist. and the other on the Even of the Feast of St. Peter the Apostle." These quotations start in the 15th century, because that is as far back as the term bone-fire goes, but the practice of making a bonfire in honor of Christian saints goes back to ancient times in England (and in France as well). Another practice that goes back to ancient times in Christian Europe is making pilgrimages to "qivrei tzaddiqim" and donating alms at the qever; this practice is well known from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Most Christian scholars attribute the association of the bonfires with celebrations of the feast of a saint to pagan, pre-christian practices which were later adopted by the local people to their new religion. Indeed, the Celtics made bonfires to honor some of their deities and spirits. No one would ever claim that these practices, going back into old Anglo-Saxon England, are of Jewish origin. The Arabs of EY, Syria, and Lebanon, as is well-known, honored the Christian and Jewish "saints" (everyone knows that the qever of Sh'muel haNavi has been a "holy" site to the Arabs for hundreds of years, and they built a mosque there; the site is called "anNabi Samwil"). They made pilgrimages to them, like the Christians did, and they made large celebrations to honor the festival of the saint. The Arab pilgrims who came did various things to honor the saint. They gave alms (a big mitzva in Islam), usually done by the practice of cutting the hair of their children (which they had let grow from before the pilgrimage), then weighing it and giving the same weight in gold or silver for alms. They also made large bonfires to honor the saint. The custom of making pilgrimages, giving alms, and making bonfires may have been borrowed from the christians, since a) they originally appeared among the Arabs of EY, Lebanon and Syria, AFAIK; b) they are first recorded after the time of the Crusades (although the giving of gold or silver in the weight of the hair seems to have been from the Middle East). However there is no clear proof that they did not arise from another source. But they are attested in Arabic sources going back to the 15th century, and probably before. Can the custom of bonfires on Lag Ba'omer have arisen among the Jews separately and independently from the non-Jewish sources? Theoretically it's possible. Books like Minhag Yisruel Toyre he brings all sorts of reasons from various chasidic rebbes and from the book Ta'amei haMinhogim for the origin of the bonfires on Lag Ba'omer. The problem with all the explanations is that a) they are all of recent origin, and b) they somehow ignore the fact that the custom was completely unknown to any Jews up until the time when it is recorded in EY in the 16th century. Furthermore, it was the custom there of only one group of Jews, the Musta'ribim, about whom other Jews complained that they had adopted a lot of Arab customs (the very name mean "Arabicized). From contemporary documents we learn the Muslims (and a few Jews) cut the hair of children as well as lit a bonfires on the yohrtzeit (28 of Iyyar) of non other than the aforementioned Shmu'el haNavi. However, in the 1560s the Arab authorities forbad Jews to go there. Shortly afterwards, we have the testimony of R. Chaim Vital that he was told by R. Yonatan Sagiz that a year before he started learning by the Ari, in the Ari's first year after he immigrated from his homeland of Egypt (also 1570), that "Mori v'Rabbi Z'L took his small son and all of his family there [to the celebration on RaShBY 's yohtzeit in Meron] and there he cut his hair in accordance with the custom." R. Chaim Vital is careful to note, however, that "I do not know whether at that time he was expert and knowledgable in this wondrous wisdom [Qabbolo] as he became after that." IOW, R. Chaim Vital himself is cautioning the reader that he has doubts about whether the Ari did this in accordance with his views in Qabbolo, or just because it was a popular celebration, and he might not have participated had he already been an expert in Qabbolo. Some historians believe that once the Musta'ribim were forbidden to go to the qever of Sh'muel haNavi, they transferred their celebration to Meron and the date to Lag Ba'Omer. Others claim that the custom at Meron predated 1570. But both groups agree that both of these customs, cutting the hair of the children and making bonfires, were practiced by the Arabs and the Musta 'ribim, but not by any of the Ashk'nazi and S'faradi Jews in Israel. Of great interest is that the local rabbis in Tz'fat, who had the practice of going to the all the known q'vorim of the Tano'im from the middle of Iyyar until Shavu'os and having a seder in learning there, opposed the celebrations of the Musta'ribim on Lag ba'Omer and tried to forbid it. They made little headway, and once it became known that the Ari participated one year, any opposition was swept away. We know from travelers to EY in the 18th and 19th centuries that the "hilula" at Meron on Lag Ba'Omer with bonfires and the cutting of children's hair had become an affair of the masses. A well known talmid chochom from Europe, R. Avrohom Rozanes, writes that in his visit to EY in 1867 he saw an Ashk'nazi Jew who had taken his son to the "hilula" and was giving him a haircut. R. Rozanes says that he could not restrain himself, and went to that Jew and tried to dissuade him but was unsuccessful, and that most of the Ashk'nazi and S'faradi Jews of EY participate in this "craziness," with "drinking and dancing and fires." The custom of giving the son his first haircut at that celebration, originally called "halaqa" by the Jews of EY (apparently because there was an established Arabic term but no Jewish term for the custom) was later mixed with the custom of making a celebration when a son reached 3 and began learning Torah. The two customs were combined by many, and resulted in the boy's haircut being delayed until he was 3, and not specifically on Lag ba' Omer. A chasidish rebbe, R. Yehudah Leibush Horenstein, who emigrated to EY in the middle of the 19th century writes that "this haircut, called halaqe, is done by the S'faradim in Yerushalayim at the qever of RaShB'Y during the summer, but during the winter they take the boy to the synagogue or Bet Medrash and perform the haircut with great celebration and parties, something _that is unknown to the Jews in Europe_. and at that point they start him growing his pe'ot. it is incomprehensible why this is not done outside of EY [as well]" [emphasis mine]. Indeed, the custom was adopted by shortly thereafter by chasidim in Europe to imitate the custom of the S'faradim in EY, and the custom of lighting bonfires on Lag Ba'Omer also was adopted at that time by chasidic communities in Europe. The Jews in Europe, knowing no Arabic and having no Yiddish name for the custom of the haircut, called it by a normal Yiddish word for cutting off the hair: opsheren. Both customs are less than 150 years old among Ashk'naz Jews, including chasidim. Now we scarcely can expect to find a historical document that says "we, the undersigned Jews, have decided that there is nothing wrong with copying the Muslim celebrations in honor of saints, and we will participate in them." So you're never going to find better historical evidence for Jewish borrowing of non-Jewish customs than this: that a custom that was previously unknown to any group of Jews arose among a group of Jews known to copy various Arab customs in a time and place that the custom is attested among the Arabs from independent evidence. Is there anything osur about a bonfire on Lag Ba'Omer, or waiting to give a son a haircut until he is 3 or until you go to Meron? Certainly not. As I believe R. SBA has noted, the opsheren provides an excuse for a party that is connected with the boy's beginning to learn; it could be done without the haircut, but if people feel that it is important to give a haircut as well, there is no issur. Certainly no one who lights bonfires or celebrates opsheren has any idea that the source of these customs is extremely questionable. And after 130 years most Jews forget the origin of customs anyway and just assume they are old Jewish customs.. However, those who studiously avoid eating turkey on Thanksgiving should know that the origin of the customs of the bonfire on Lag ba'Omer and halaqa/opsheren are much more suspect. Seth Mandel ---------- So I really do not understand this entire affair at Meron. To add to this see the pictures of Lag B'Omer from many years ago at http://tinyurl.com/khmhcz4 I do not see even one bonfire! YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:07:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 13:07:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 10:01:44AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown : which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. : The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire : 33rd day... : Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last : day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva... Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. Yes, many of us know that the PEC really says Lag baOmer is yom simchas Rashbi, which may or may not be his yahrzeit. "Yom shemeis" is a typo that reached later editions via a dropped ches. See http://seforim.blogspot.com/2011/05/printing-mistake-and-mysterious-origins.html But (as per previous conversations), that also doesn't rule out the possibility that the day of Rashbi's joy is his yahrzeit. But even if the Ari said it's the day he started the Zohar, finished it, left the cave, or whatever, it's still a day the Ari considered worth celebrating. And yes, many of us also know that the whole upsherin-at-the-qever thing was originally on the 43rd in/to the omer, at Nabi Samwel. (See shu"t haRadvaz 2:608.) Which makes sense -- Shemu'el was a nazir, and he lived in the BHMQ starting at age 3. The move to Meron and Lag baOmer happened when the Ottomans restricted access to the qever in the 1500s. The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) and ABD. But the version of the minhag he recorded would not pose the question -- observe the first "half" of the omer, and then a haircut a week before Shavuos isn't a problem. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:07:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 13:07:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 10:01:44AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown : which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. : The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire : 33rd day... : Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last : day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva... Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. Yes, many of us know that the PEC really says Lag baOmer is yom simchas Rashbi, which may or may not be his yahrzeit. "Yom shemeis" is a typo that reached later editions via a dropped ches. See http://seforim.blogspot.com/2011/05/printing-mistake-and-mysterious-origins.html But (as per previous conversations), that also doesn't rule out the possibility that the day of Rashbi's joy is his yahrzeit. But even if the Ari said it's the day he started the Zohar, finished it, left the cave, or whatever, it's still a day the Ari considered worth celebrating. And yes, many of us also know that the whole upsherin-at-the-qever thing was originally on the 43rd in/to the omer, at Nabi Samwel. (See shu"t haRadvaz 2:608.) Which makes sense -- Shemu'el was a nazir, and he lived in the BHMQ starting at age 3. The move to Meron and Lag baOmer happened when the Ottomans restricted access to the qever in the 1500s. The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) and ABD. But the version of the minhag he recorded would not pose the question -- observe the first "half" of the omer, and then a haircut a week before Shavuos isn't a problem. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 08:22:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 11:22:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554B8340.3090001@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 10:01 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > > > The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire 33rd day, and they wait until the 34th day to take a haircut. Does this not imply that the entire 33rd day is part of Sefirah and the restrictions hold the entire 33rd day? > > Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva. However, the micktzas starts in the morning of the 7th day, not on the night of the 7th day. Thus, even according to Ashkenazim the night of Lag B'Omer is bound by the restrictions of Sefirah. So how can they make such gatherings on the night of the 33rd day? That all applies if you regard Lag Ba'omer as simply marking the end of mourning. But as we discussed a few weeks ago, that doesn't really make sense. According to both shitos quoted by the BY there is no such thing as Lag Ba'omer -- the last day on which they died was either the 34th of the Omer or the 49th. Even according to the Tosfos as the Bach quotes it, that they only died for 33 days, Lag Ba'omer was one of the 33, and not the last one! And even if one will find a shita somewhere that they died only on the first 33 days, who makes a party on the last day of shiva? You stop active mourning, you don't go dancing! All of which points to the fact that Lag Ba'omer is *not* about the end of mourning, but a happy day in its own right, the simcha of Rashbi. (The silly discussion over whether the word is "simchas" or "shemeis" is irrelevant here. Either way it's his simcha, which he asked people to celebrate.) This simcha *overrides* the mourning of sefira, no matter which shita one follows. This way of looking at things also explains whether one should say tachanun at mincha of erev Lag Ba'omer. If it's just "the end of shiva", that starts in the morning, so one should say tachanun at the previous mincha, just as one does on erev Pesach Sheni (which also starts in the morning), erev Erev RH and erev Erev YK, and if we said tachanun in Nissan we would also say it at mincha of erev Erev Pesach, because it too starts in the morning. But once we regard Lag Ba'omer as a day of simcha in its own right, then it starts at night, and so we omit tachanun in the previous mincha. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 07:19:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 09:19:59 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] The Princess and I: Academic Kabbalists/Kabbalist Academics In-Reply-To: <20150507062523.18EF01826EC@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507062523.18EF01826EC@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554B748F.8080508@starways.net> On 5/7/2015 1:25 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > From http://tinyurl.com/km8kf2n >> The last few decades have witnessed the veritable explosion of "new >> perspectives" and horizons in the academic study of Kabbalah and >> Jewish Mysticism. From the pioneering work of the late Professor >> Gershom Scholem, and the establishment of the study of Jewish >> Mysticism as a legitimate scholarly pursuit, we witness a scene >> nowadays populated by men and women, Jews and non-Jews, who have >> challenged, (re)constructed, and expanded upon Scholem's work.[2] ... R' Adin Steinsalz once said about the Kabbalah Center type of Kabbalah that it bore the same relationship to real Kabbalah that pornography does to love. This "academic Kabbalah" bears the same relationship to real Kabbalah that an anatomy book does to love. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:32:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 13:32:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> At 01:07 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 10:01:44AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: >: I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown >: which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. > >: The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire >: 33rd day... >: Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last >: day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva... > >Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to >get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would >mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. Indeed, I think one should be. Truth be told my mother, A"H, told me that once a child is at least one year old and can say a few words, then his hair gets cut. This is what I did with my sons, and I am sure it is an old minhag. >Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the >Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning >on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in >the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke >qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to >last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. Indeed, this is where the New Religion is coming from. Years ago someone asked Rav S. Schwab, ZT"L, about certain things that certain chassidishe women do when they are pregnant and if they were valid. His forceful reply was, "My mother never knew about such things, my grandmother never knew about such things, and my great grandmother never knew about such things. These people are making up a religion!!!!!" I am not comfortable with people making up a religion, particularly since RSRH says definitively the Judaism is not a religion, to the New Religion is not Judaism by definition. >The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, >who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where >he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) >and ABD. But the version of the minhag he recorded would not pose the >question -- observe the first "half" of the omer, and then a haircut a >week before Shavuos isn't a problem. The MB points out that the minhag in Vilna was to start the restrictions of Sefirah on the first day of Rosh Chodesh Iyar and then they end in the morning of the first of the 3 days before Shavuous. I took a haircut shortly before Rosh Chodesh Iyar. There were no crowds to contend with and I had no waiting. This morning I trimmed my mustache and the hair that grows under my neck below my beard at shortly after sunrise. I will take a haircut on 3 or 4 Sivan. Again, there will be no crowds to contend with. This has worked and continues to work for me. YL PS. My wife has asked more than once, " How can they observe the aveilus restrictions of Sefirah during Pesach when it is a Yom Tov?" My reply is, "I do not know." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 13:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507175311.GC1758@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 01:32:05PM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : >Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to : >get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would : >mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. : Indeed, I think one should be. Maqor? Since when do we expect 3 yr olds to conform to minhag? ... : >Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the : >Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning : >on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in : >the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke : >qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to : >last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. : : Indeed, this is where the New Religion is coming from.... The PEC is older than RSRH. If you want to label any particular change as a "New Religion", you dwell in a glass house. ... : The MB points out that the minhag in Vilna was to start the : restrictions of Sefirah on the first day of Rosh Chodesh Iyar and : then they end in the morning of the first of the 3 days before : Shavuous. I took a haircut shortly before Rosh Chodesh Iyar. There : were no crowds to contend with and I had no waiting. And the Radbaz predates the SA, never mind the MB. : This has worked and continues to work for me... Good. What I'm objecting to is your insistnce in telling others that what works for them is "New Religion". : PS. My wife has asked more than once, " How can they observe the : aveilus restrictions of Sefirah during Pesach when it is a Yom Tov?" : My reply is, "I do not know." You can't get married on Pesach, not even ch"m either. Nor get a haircut. So you're asking about parties with live music. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:49:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 13:49:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <554BA59A.5040905@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 01:07 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, > who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where > he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) Who taught the Ari, who cut his son's hair at Meron on Lag Ba'omer. Does anyone know whether the Shita Mekubetzes, beside being the Ari's rebbe, was also related to him? I haven't seen this anywhere, but how many Ashkenazi families could there have been in Egypt at that time? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 11:41:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Herbert Basser via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 18:41:42 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah Message-ID: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> A recent post claims the Islamic "opsherin" was called "halaqah". What is the evidence for this claim? The only meaning of arabic "halaqah" I know is "learning circle". Zvi Basser -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 14:31:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 17:31:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Upsherin Message-ID: <20150507213225.D3EDA181A25@nexus.stevens.edu> Since Upsherin is done on Lag B'Omer at Meron, I think one should understand the source for this too. The following is from Shorshei Minhag Ashkenaz, Minhag Ashkenaz: Sources and Roots by Rabbi Binyamin Shlomo Hamburger, Synopsis of Volumes I-IV. YL The German custom to bring a young boy to the synagogue with a wirnpel (wrapping for t he Torah scroll) has no connection whatsoever to the practice of the chalaka (the Arabic term for Upsherin) observed by Sepharadirn and later ad opted by many Chasidirn. Th e custom of holding a special celebration marking the boy's first haircut developed among these groups. The celebration takes place at a specific age, usually three. Th e festivity is customarily held near the gravesite of a tzadik or in a synagogue. *This custom was unknown in ancient Sephardic and Ashkenazic communities.* (Emphasis added by me.) The earliest reports of the chalaka [upsherin] celebration are found in accounts written by Sepharadim early in the period of the Acharonim. Some three centuries later, we find the first indications that the custom had made its way into Chasidic circles. The most important source concerning the chalaka is the account of the celebration in which the Ari-zal is involved. The details of this story are somewhat vague, and it is unclear whether the Ari-zal made a chalaka for his son, or whether the account refers to his disciple, Rabbi Yonatan Sagish. There is also some question as to whether the Ari-zal participated in Lag Ba 'omer events in Meron after his kabalistic insights because the custom to conduct a chalaka on Lag Ba 'omer runs in opposition to the Ari-zal' s final ruling that forbade hair cutting during the orner period. Furthermore, the custom of the chalaka has given rise to some questions as to the propriety of hair cutting at a gravesite or synagogue, which might constitute an infringement upon the sanctity of the site. Some have also questioned the permissibility of haircutting on Lag Ba 'omer, during bein ha-rnetzarirn (the three weeks before Tisha B' A v) or during Chol Ha 'rno 'ed. Yet another concern was the immodest behavior that occasionally accompanied this event. Most Sephardic and Chasidic rabbis applauded, or at least defended the practices observed in their circles, though there were those who forbade the custom in this manner. Rabbi Yitzchak Zev Soloveitchik of Brisk (1889-1960) disapproved of bringing children to rabbis on their third birthday for the chalaka, claiming that this practice "has no reason or basis." He noted that there are sources indicating that one should introduce the child to matters of Torah at the age of three, but none that involve haircutting. Rabbi Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky [the "Steipler Ga'on," (1899-1985)] also opposed this practice, and would send away parents who brought their children to him for the chalaka haircut. The tendency among Ashkenazi communities to refrain from this practice stems, according to one view, from the concern that the chalaka transgresses the prohibition of imitating pagan practices. Cutting a child's hair at the age of three was a well-known custom among several nations in ancient times, and thus observing this practice may constitute an imitation of pagan ritual. Some, however, dismissed this argument, claiming that to the contrary, the chalaka perhaps began as an ancient Jewish practice which was later adopted by the gentiles. There are some older customs, originating in the times of Chazal and the Ge'onim, such as fasting on Erev Rosh Hashana and the ceremony of Kapaprot on Erev Yom Kippur which were opposed by some rabbis since they feared that their origins could be found in pagan rites. In any event, although some communities accepted this custom, Ashkenazi communities were never aware of such a practice. They did not receive this tradition from their forebears, and they found no mention of it in the writings of the Rishonim. The ancient tradition among Ashkenazi communities was to cut a boy's hair at a very young age. In fact, during the times of Chazal, parents would cut an infant's hair not long after birth, and they even permitted cutting a baby's overgrown hair on Chol Ha 'mo' ed. In the times of the Rishonim, too, boys' hair in Ashkenaz was cut already within the first several months after birth. The phenomenon of children with overgrown hair simply did not exist in Germany, and a boy with overgrown hair would have been mistaken for a girl. The custom of chalaka was never accepted in Ashkenazic countries or other regions in Western Europe, not even among the Sephardic communities in these areas. The practice earned acceptance in Eastern Europe among certain Chasidic circles, but only in later generations. Among other circles, boys' hair was cut when they began speaking, and no special affair was held to celebrate the event. .. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 14:31:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 17:31:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554BD9C6.9000803@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 01:32 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > > Indeed, this is where the New Religion is coming from. Years ago > someone asked Rav S. Schwab, ZT"L, about certain things that certain > chassidishe women do when they are pregnant and if they were valid. > His forceful reply was, "My mother never knew about such things, my > grandmother never knew about such things, and my great grandmother > never knew about such things. These people are making up a religion!!!!!" With all due respect to R Schwab's great-grandmother, there are more things in Yiddishkeit than were dreamt of in her philosophy. My great-grandmother did know about such things, and I'm sure her tzidkus and wisdom was no less than hers. And following the Ari's teachings is the very opposite of making up a religion. > I am not comfortable with people making up a religion, particularly > since RSRH says definitively the Judaism is not a religion, to the > New Religion is not Judaism by definition. You're the one assigning to it the word "religion", and then, in what can only be called an act of verbal ju-jitsu, you pull out a definition of that word which (you claim) does not fit Yiddishkeit, and declare that anything called a "religion" must not be Yiddishkeit. I might as well say that since my aunt is a secretary, a secretary is a kind of desk, and Jesus was a carpenter, therefore Jesus made my aunt! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 14:10:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 17:10:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> At 01:07 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. But doesn't "evolving" mean that there is an existing minhag, and it evolves? Here we are talking about a new minhag which no one knew about. The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was appropriate. People certainly can make up new customs whenever they like. But bonfires on Lag Ba'omer are no more or no less than parades on Yom haAtzmaut for those who celebrate it: They have nothing to do with religion. Some Jews have even invented a custom to put up a tree on Chanukkah. But do not try to tell us it then becomes a "religious minhag" and "minhag Hamokom." Everything that Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel wrote in his post is true. There were no rabbonim at the time who approved of the custom. Indeed it is true is that there were no rabbonim who approved of the custom at the time, nor at the time of the Ari and R. Chaim Vital. While they did not say it should be stopped, they gave no support either. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 15:42:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 18:42:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507224237.GA15428@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 05:10:31PM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : At 01:07 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: :> Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. : But doesn't "evolving" mean that there is an existing minhag, and it : evolves? ... The essence of mourning during the omer is not making a wedding, since nissuin, or a se'udas eirusin at the time of eirusin, is the act of simchah par exellance. Then the bit about haircuts crept in, and later, parties with music. Perhaps music as a whole, perhaps instrumental music, perhaps only parties -- machloqes acharonim. That's the minhag I'm talking about evolving. So, people found reason to poke a hole in a minhag that was otherwise growing. As I said, minhagim evolve. : The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was : appropriate. What? The Ari PARTICIPATED in it himself! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 16:39:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 19:39:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Upsherin In-Reply-To: <20150507213225.D3EDA181A25@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507213225.D3EDA181A25@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554BF7A0.10800@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 05:31 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > The earliest reports of the chalaka [upsherin] celebration are found in >accounts written by Sepharadim early in the period of the Acharonim. Indeed it is. For instance, see Gan Hamelech ch 62. http://www.otzar.org/wotzar/book.aspx?64092 This takes it back to at least the 17th century, and he refers to it as a well-known minhag that he doesn't have to explain. The Gan Hamelech is surely himself sufficient authority even if we had no other. And while he was Sefardi, he had a great influence on Ashkenazi psak. > The most important source concerning the chalaka is the account of > the celebration in which the Ari-zal is involved. The details of this > story are somewhat vague, and it is unclear whether the Ari-zal made > a chalaka for his son, or whether the account refers to his disciple, > Rabbi Yonatan Sagish. There is nothing vague about it. It's clear from the context that R Yonatan told R Chaim what the Ari had done a year before he, R Chaim, became the Ari's talmid. > Some have also questioned the permissibility of haircutting on Lag > Ba'omer, during bein ha-metzarirn or during Chol Hamo'ed. Gan Hamelech not only permits it on Chol Hamoed but even permits *delaying* it to Chol Hamoed so as to increase the simcha! And this psak is quoted lehalacha by the Baer Hetev. > The custom of /chalaka /was never accepted in /Ashkenazic /countries or > other regions in Western Europe, not even among the /Sephardic > /communities in these areas. The practice earned acceptance in Eastern > Europe among certain /Chasidic /circles, but only in later generations. This is untrue. It was already accepted in the Baal Shem Tov's time. The only time the Alter Rebbe saw the Baal Shem Tov was on his third birthday, when his parents brought him to have his hair cut. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 16:45:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 19:45:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554BF921.5070409@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 05:10 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was appropriate. On the contrary, he wrote that he personally saw the Ari take his whole family there and stay three days! > There were no rabbonim at the time who approved of the custom. The Ari was not a rov?! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 21:35:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 04:35:03 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Israeli carrots and peppers Message-ID: <20150508.003503.13248.1@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> Om Areivim, R' Yitzchok Levine posted this alert: > Shemitta: Carrots & Peppers from Israel > in Neighborhood Stores > > Please be aware that carrots (including Dorot Farms brand), > peppers, and other vegetables from Israel are consistently > being sold in the Baltimore area at produce markets in our > neighborhood, which are frequented by members of our community. > From the numerous inquiries we have received, it is apparent > that many consumers are unaware of this when shopping. > > The packages or labels state "Product of Israel." These > vegetables likely have Kedushas Shviis and require special > care. If you bought them, contact your local Orthodox rabbi > for further guidance. > > Seven Mile Market in Baltimore is monitored by Star-K and > produce sold there does not have this issue. My question is this: Why does the alert mention only the problem of Kedushas Shviis? If one is concerned about Kedushas Shviis, wouldn't he also be concerned about Sefichin, which (more than merely requiring "special care") is an issur achila? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554c3d3271e3c3d3240a3st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 21:11:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 04:11:14 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Meron live Message-ID: <20150508.001114.13248.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero wrote: > This way of looking at things also explains whether one should > say tachanun at mincha of erev Lag Ba'omer. If it's just "the > end of shiva", that starts in the morning, so one should say > tachanun at the previous mincha, just as one does on erev Pesach > Sheni (which also starts in the morning), erev Erev RH and erev > Erev YK, and if we said tachanun in Nissan we would also say it > at mincha of erev Erev Pesach, because it too starts in the > morning. But once we regard Lag Ba'omer as a day of simcha in > its own right, then it starts at night, and so we omit tachanun > in the previous mincha. I don't follow any of what RZS is saying about Lag Ba'omer, so I'll neither agree nor disagree. But my understanding of the nature of Pesach Sheni is very different from his: As it was explained to me, there's nothing special about the morning of Pesach Sheni. Pesach Sheni exists only on the afternoon of 14 Iyar and the following night. We omit Tachanun on the morning of 14 Iyar NOT because it is a holiday, but because it is the Tachanun *before* the holiday. Alternatively, one might say that the morning of 14 Iyar actually *is* Erev Pesach Sheni. Either way, the afternoon of 13 Iyar is too far removed to be significant enough to warrant skipping Tachanun. It is similar to how the *afternoon* of Erev RH and Erev YK are special enough to skip Tachanun, and this is extended even to the morning, but to say that the entirety of those days are so special that we would skip Tachanun even at the preceding Mincha -- No, that just doesn't fly. This leaves us with three days, at most, when we skip Tachanun at Shacharis, but we *do* say it at the preceding Mincha. (And many siddurim - ArtScroll, for example - explicitly list these three days as exceptions to the general rule.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554c37b79791d37b756e9st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 01:40:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 04:40:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507224237.GA15428@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507224237.GA15428@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150508084208.2D02F182131@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:42 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: > The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was >: appropriate. > >What? The Ari PARTICIPATED in it himself! From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upsherin Rabbi Chaim Vital wrote in Sha'ar Ha-Kavanot that "Isaac Luria, cut his son's hair on Lag BaOmer, according to the well-known custom." However, the age of his son is not mentioned. An obvious problem raised by Avraham Yaari, in an article in Tarbiz 22 (1951), is that many sources cite that the Arizal held one should not cut one's hair for the entire sefirah ? including Lag BaOmer, (see Shaarei Teshuva, O.C. 493, 8). YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 01:44:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 04:44:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Better Version of Upsherin Message-ID: <20150508084606.6189F180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> There were some editorial problems with what I sent out earlier about this topic from Shorshei Minhag Ashkenaz. See http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/shorshei_hair_cutting.pdf for a better version. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 21:02:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 06:02:54 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah In-Reply-To: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> References: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> Message-ID: <554C356E.2030103@zahav.net.il> On 5/7/2015 8:41 PM, Herbert Basser via Avodah wrote: > A recent post claims the Islamic "opsherin" was called "halaqah". What > is the evidence for this claim? The only meaning of arabic "halaqah" I > know is "learning circle". A (Tunisian) Arab told me that it means hair cut. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 01:54:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 04:54:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening in a Large or Small Shul Message-ID: <20150508085532.23F97182131@nexus.stevens.edu> From today's http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ 1)It is a Mitzvah to daven in a Shul that has a large amount of people, as the Pasuk (Mishlei 14:28) says "Brov Am Hadras Melech - with a large assemblage the glory of the King [Hashem] is multiplied." (See Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) 2)There are various exceptions to this rule, and certain times it is deemed Halachically superior to daven in a smaller place and forego the "Brov Am Hadras Melech". A few examples of the many such exceptions: a)Davening in a Bais HaMidrash or Yeshiva , where people learn Torah all [or a large part of the] day (even if you yourself do not learn there) is better than davening in a Shul (i.e. Bais Hakneses that is used only for Tefilah), even if there are more people in the Shul than in the Bais HaMidrash. (See Talmud Brachos 8a. See Chayei Adam Klal 17:1 and Mishna Berura Siman 90 S:K 55) b)If one is on the way to a big Shul, and is stopped by someone and asked to be the tenth man [or any part of the 10] in their Minyan (either in a shiva house, or a smaller Shul whose members cannot go to the larger Shul due to their health or age, or any similar situation) he should stay with them and not refuse based on "Brov Am Hadras Melech" (Psak of Maran Harav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv Zatzal, quoted in Sefer Tefilah K'Hilchasa Perek 2 footnote 29, who maintains that doing a Chesed is just as big a Mitzvah, if not bigger, than fulfilling "Brov Am Hadras Melech") c) If one can concentrate and daven better in a smaller Shul he should daven there, rather than in a bigger Shul where he may not daven as well. (Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) The Aruch Hashulchan (Siman 90:15) rules that if in the larger Shul there are people who talk and converse during the Tefilah (which is a terrible sin, as we have discussed many times, and will iy"H discuss again more thoroughly in the near future), it is better to daven in a small Shul where it is quiet and the proper respect for Tefilah is exhibited. (The Sefer Tefilah K'Hilchasa Perek 2 footnote 28 writes that Rav Shlomo Zalmen Auerbach Zatzal even went so far as to Pasken that if by leaving the Shul with the talking you will end up missing Krias HaTorah or having to leave davening early, one should still avoid the Shul with the talking!) d) Naturally, if by davening in the larger Shul one will miss the proper time for davening (Zman Tefilah), he may daven in an earlier Minyan or Shul even if it is significantly smaller. (See Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) ---------- I think that today there is a move away from davening in large shuls. This is certainly true here in Brooklyn where many of the larger shuls are at times struggling to maintain their congregants. Part of it has to do with the fact that most large shuls daven Ashkenaz, and this is not viewed favorably in Brooklyn. I personally prefer to daven in a minyan consisting of between 20 and forty people. It is much easier to maintain decorum in such a minyan than in a shul where 100 or more people are davening. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 05:14:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 12:14:58 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Davening in a Large or Small Shul In-Reply-To: <20150508085532.23F97182131@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150508085532.23F97182131@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <5f05607383324977a92361bd65ab804c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> From today's http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ 1)It is a Mitzvah to daven in a Shul that has a large amount of people, as the Pasuk (Mishlei 14:28) says "Brov Am Hadras Melech - with a large assemblage the glory of the King [Hashem] is multiplied." (See Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) 2)There are various exceptions to this rule, and certain times it is deemed Halachically superior to daven in a smaller place and forego the "Brov Am Hadras Melech". A few examples of the many such exceptions:....................... ================================================ I wonder if this write up is indicative of a trend seen in "The halachos of X" works, likutim which seem to have become more popular (did they exist 40 years ago?). As Rav Aharon Lichtenstein learned at Harvard, life is complex. Of course there are overarching priorities which need to be learned, but specific applications are hard to summarize in an algorithmic form (see hilchot lashon hara and tzedaka for some obvious examples). Maybe in an internet age we have no choice but to try to put everything on line but what you really need IMHO is a live mentor. KT Joel RIch THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 08:21:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 11:21:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] minhagei S'fira (was "Meron live") Message-ID: In Avodah V33n74, R'Micha replied to RDrYL: : PS. My wife has asked more than once, " How can they observe the : aveilus restrictions of Sefirah during Pesach when it is a Yom Tov?" : My reply is, "I do not know." > You can't get married on Pesach, not even ch"m either. Nor get a haircut. So you're asking about parties with live music. < If one is asking about *minhagei aveilus* during the "first days", one can also ask about the "second days" custom to observe *minhagei aveilus* whenever Tachanun is said, as the number of such days does not come close to 33 and one has to include Shabbos as well as either R'Ch'Iyyar or the *shloshes y'mei hagbala* (all days when Tachanun is _not_ said) in the number. All the best from *Michael Poppers* * Elizabeth, NJ, USA -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 11:39:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 14:39:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] minhagei S'fira (was "Meron live") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150508183940.GA11944@aishdas.org> On Fri, May 08, 2015 at 11:21:28AM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : If one is asking about *minhagei aveilus* during the "first days", one can : also ask about the "second days" custom to observe *minhagei aveilus* whenever : Tachanun is said... Which makes it a good time to remind people of my tweak of RAM's survey of 11 different shitos (12, if we include one that isn't followed) of omer mourning periods It's an interesting side-note that two opinions do not include the night of Lag baOmer. But neither end then. :-)BBii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 11:58:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 14:58:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] minhagei S'fira (was "Meron live") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <554D0756.4070105@sero.name> On 05/08/2015 11:21 AM, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: > If one is asking about /minhagei aveilus/ during the "first days", > one can also ask about the "second days" custom to observe /minhagei > aveilus/ whenever Tachanun is said, as the number of such days does > not come close to 33 and one has to include Shabbos as well as either > R'Ch'Iyyar or the /shloshes y'mei hagbala/ (all days when Tachanun is > _not_ said) in the number. Whose custom is that? This sounds like the shita of Tosfos as quoted by Mahari ibn Shuaib, which is that they died all 49 days, but we observe aveilus only on those days when we don't say *techina*, which comes to exactly 33 days (including Lag Ba'omer, which according to this shita is not a special day at all). -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 9 03:38:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Sat, 9 May 2015 20:38:40 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Upsherin Message-ID: > > R' Levin wrote: The German custom to bring a young boy to the synagogue > with a wimpel > (wrapping for the Torah scroll) has no connection whatsoever to the > practice of the chalaka [...] > This is the way KAJ recommends This the way KAJ recommends Not with the bangs but a wimpel. Joe Slater -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 9 05:12:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sat, 9 May 2015 22:12:16 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <418AFCD6-9213-453C-A268-58AFB75BB81A@balb.in> I didn't know my family Minhag until I chanced on a picture before the war with my grandfather and two of his sons, both with long hair. Using the mimetic tradition my sons and grandsons had an upsherin. It's interesting that mention was made of The Griz. As is well known followers of the Vilna Gaon (including Mori VRabbi Rav Hershel Schachter) don't go to the Beis HaChaim and neither did Rav YD Soloveitchik until in his words he felt compelled to visit his wife's Tziyun. How many know that the Griz asked some Talmidim to go to the Rashbi's grave and pray when the Griz was on his death bed? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 9 12:23:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 9 May 2015 22:23:58 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar Message-ID: The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article They show how Seder Olam is self consistent and in particular it frequently takes people in Tanach whom seem to be different and conflates them. In sefer shoftim they take everything literally that each judge was for 40 years and no gaps between them etc. They then address the difference between the secular and seder olam dates. They also point out the difficulty in the sefer Isuah from chapter 39 onwards (Deutero-Isaiah) 1) the sudden change from rebuke and sestruction to comfort (many years before the destruction) 2) Koresh is listed explicitly twice while prophecy tends to be general 3) Yeshayahu is mention 15 times in the first part but never is mentioned in the second part They conclude that the secular dates are correct (as an aside archaeologists decide on these dates based on astronomical events and carbon 14 dating of pollen seeds which are short lived) They then explain seder olam dating 1) seder olam was not written as a historical text but has a moral side 2) seder olam ignores periods of time when nothing of Jewish importance occurs In particular the Persian era until Shimon Hagadol did not live up to the expectations. Hence, the prophecy of Isaiah-II (name unknown) was simply added to an existing sefer 3) as with its practice conflates Darius I with Darius III. 4) The new Greek calendar (shtarot) was exactly 1000 years after the exodus. In order to achieve this goal parts of the Persian history had to be changed including the order of some kings, again conflating several separate Persian kings which leads to a much shortened Persian kingdom. Finally it removes 6 years from Alexander the great (ie seder olam states Alexander ruled for 6 years in Greece and 6 years in Persia) See above article for more details -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 10 16:49:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 May 2015 18:49:22 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <554FEE82.8090903@starways.net> I think this is tragic. Rather than allow the blasphemous thought that the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their minds, they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple frauds and told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern Orthodox Jews have regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic. Lisa On 5/9/2015 2:23 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a > series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar > > http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see > achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article > > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 10 17:27:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 May 2015 20:27:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <554FF779.8010200@aishdas.org> I cannot believe TABC allowed this to be published as is. /Shreklach!/ KT, YGB On 05/09/2015 03:23 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a > series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar > > http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see > achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 02:19:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 12:19:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebre calendar Message-ID: <> I don't see how you can call this "blasphemous" R. Schwab once suggested that Chazal purposely changed the facts for a good reason. While he later retracted it would be hard to call his original opinion "blasphemous" . Furthermore several current Orthodox rabbis such as R. Leibtag do accept the secular dating. In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some examples 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu As a curios it makes Eliyahu some 700 years old when he runs in front of Achav's chariot. It gives a different meaning to Achav's accusations against Eliyahu when Eliyahu actually worked together with Moshe Rabbenu. Besiades the fact that Eliyahu was from Gilad and worked in the northern kingdom it leaves the halachic question whether a cohen gadol can resign and even leave the land of Israel for various tasks. It is clear from Tanach that Eli and other were the high priest in later generations 2) Ezta = Malachi because both dealt with the problem of foreign wives 3) Nechemia = Zerubavel R. Yaakov Embden already points out that both are mentioned in the same pasuk 4) Daniel = Hatach = Sashvezer Ibn Ezra already doesnt accept this 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta This is part of the missing years controversy. Note that there are several ancient Persian inscriptions that list them as separate kings Note that Ibn Ezra identifies Achashverosh as Artachashasta 6) Conflates Kaleb ben Chetron married to Efrat with Kalen ben Yefuneh married to Miriam Ibn Ezra disagrees and also see the Gra -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 10 23:38:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 09:38:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah In-Reply-To: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> References: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> Message-ID: On Thu, May 7, 2015 at 9:41 PM, Herbert Basser via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > A recent post claims the Islamic "opsherin" was called "halaqah". What > is the evidence for this claim? The only meaning of arabic "halaqah" I know > is "learning circle". > Disclaimer: my knowledge of Arabic doesn't go much beyond being able to look up words in the dictionary, but from doing that the root h-l-q seems to mean both "shave", "form a circle" and "round off". This makes sense to me: after all, "lehakkif" in Biblical Hebrew has the same semantic range. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 03:06:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 06:06:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] He is my G-d Message-ID: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> From Today's Hakhel email bulletin. Hakhel Note: The following is excerpted from Rav Schwab on Prayer, and was related by Rav Schwab at a Shiur he gave on Tefillah: I heard a story from Rav Yosef Breuer, Shlita, which he told about his father, my Rebbe, Rav Shlomo Zalman (Solomon) Breuer. The elder Rav Breuer was a very good friend of Rav Shimon Sofer, the Rav of Cracow, a brother of the Ksav Sofer, and a son of the Chasam Sofer. Once when the two friends met, Rav Shimon Sofer asked Rav Breuer to tell him a short ?vort" from his father-in-law, Rav Shamshon R. Hirsch. Upon which, Rav Breuer told him that Rav Hirsch would point out that while Adon Olam described the unfathomable eternity and omnipotence of Hashem, it nevertheless makes a reference to Him in a very personal way--VeHu Kaili, He is my G-d. Each person in his Tefillah says: I have a personal relationship with HaKadosh Baruch HU, He is my personal G-d. Therefore, whenever a person says the word Ado--i, my Master, no matter how small he thinks he is, he is averring that he is in direct contact with Hashem. This thought is in the introduction to any individual's Iyun Tefillah, concentration on Prayer. There is nothing mystical or supernatural about it. It should be the most natural thing in the world. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 06:38:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 13:38:51 GMT Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebre calendar Message-ID: <20150511.093851.15442.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel wrote: > In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that > Chazal had a tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some > examples > 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu I rarely, if ever, come across the word "conflate", except here on Avodah. When it is used here, it seems to be pejorative, indicating that someone confused or merged two things that really ought to stay distinct. RET, is that what you mean here? Do you feel that it was wrong for Chazal to associate Pinchas and Eliyahu in the way that they did? Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5550b1061639931057a29st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 07:16:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joseph Kaplan via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 10:16:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar Message-ID: <002a01d08bf5$1a951290$4fbf37b0$@tenzerlunin.com> On 5/9/2015 2:23 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a > series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar > > http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see > achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article > There were (so far) two responses: "I think this is tragic. Rather than allow the blasphemous thought that the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their minds, they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple frauds and told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern Orthodox Jews have regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic." "I cannot believe TABC allowed this to be published as is. /Shreklach!/" When I read this when it came out I remember thinking: what a refreshing concept. Letting students use the educational tools they have been given to think on their own and then to publish the results which (to my extremely non-expert eyes) appears to be a nice bit of research and analysis - whether correct or not. Joseph -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 07:30:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 09:30:18 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebre calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> On 5/11/2015 4:19 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > < that the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their > minds, they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple > frauds and told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern > Orthodox Jews have regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic.>> > > I don't see how you can call this "blasphemous" R. Schwab once > suggested that Chazal purposely changed the facts for a good reason. > While he later retracted it would be hard to call his original opinion > "blasphemous" . Furthermore several current Orthodox rabbis such as R. > Leibtag do accept the secular dating. I didn't call it blasphemous. I referred to doubting secular scholarship as blasphemy, tongue in cheek, because that seems to be the way it's viewed by some of the secular thinking Modern Orthodox. R' Schwab once wrote a thought experiment, which was one huge hava amina. What if, he said, we were faced with absolute proof that the historiography of Chazal was wrong? And he gave an idea. He was horrified by the way in which the secular thinking Modern Orthodox misread what he wrote as an actual position, opposing the veracity of Chazal, and wrote, not a retraction, but a clarification that he had *never* espoused the position that was being attributed to him. If R' Leibtag accepts the secular dating, then my comments about the tragedy of Modern Orthodox Jews bowing to the modern idol of secular scholarship apply there as well. > In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a > tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some examples > > 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu > As a curios it makes Eliyahu some 700 years old when he runs in front > of Achav's chariot. > It gives a different meaning to Achav's accusations against Eliyahu > when Eliyahu actually worked together with Moshe Rabbenu. Wrong again. There's no historiography going on here. No chronological framework of any kind. It's Midrash. Like Moshe Rabbenu jumping 10 amot into the air when fighting Og. Like Pharaoh's daughter having a stretchy, Fantastic Four kind of arm. Midrashim are all true. They aren't all true in the literal sense. Pinchas was not literally Aharon's grandson Pinchas ben Elazar. That's quite different from throwing away the entirety of Chazal's historiography, which is internally consistent all the way through, and which *Chazal clearly believed to be literally true*. If you want to say they were wrong, that they were ignorant of the facts, go ahead and do so. But please, don't play games by imagining that they intentionally fudged the facts. > Besiades the fact that Eliyahu was from Gilad and worked in the > northern kingdom it leaves the halachic question whether a cohen gadol > can resign and even leave the land of Israel for various tasks. It is > clear from Tanach that Eli and other were the high priest in later > generations Again, he wasn't Kohen Gadol. No one holds that he was. Let me try and explain a little more about Midrash. Chazal bring Midrashim that contradict one another. For example, there's a Midrash that says Esther never slept with Achashveirosh. That Hashem sent a mal'ach that took her place. That conflicts with "Esther karka hayta", as well as with the Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son. None of this is problematic. Because the truth of Midrashim is not in their concretes. Like analogies, Midrashim are abstractions which are anchored with concretes, but are not defined by those concretes. > 2) Ezta = Malachi because both dealt with the problem of foreign wives And maybe Ezra was Malachi. And maybe he wasn't. I don't see much of a nafka mina either way. Do you? > 3) Nechemia = Zerubavel > R. Yaakov Embden already points out that both are mentioned in the > same pasuk Ditto. Not one single example you're bringing has anything to do with a massive chronological framework that Chazal clearly knew to be the way things happened. Megillat Esther took place *before* Bayit Sheni was built, and not after. Baruch ben Neriah was the talmid of Yirmiyahu and the rav of Ezra, and if you throw that away, you literally snap the chain of tradition from Sinai, rendering all of Judaism stuff and nonsense. > 4) Daniel = Hatach = Sashvezer > Ibn Ezra already doesnt accept this Again, l'mai nafka mina? > 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta > This is part of the missing years controversy. Note that there are > several ancient Persian inscriptions that list them as separate kings > Note that Ibn Ezra identifies Achashverosh as Artachashasta It's not part of the missing years anything. You need to read what Chazal say about that inside. As far as Achashveirosh being Artachshasta, Chazal say Artaxerxes was a throne name. And in fact, Greek sources say that both Artaxerxes II and III adopted it as a throne name. Furthermore, the Septuagint version of Esther refers to the king as Artaxerxes, so saying that Ahasuerus is Artaxerxes is a truism that has nothing to do with chronology. > 6) Conflates Kaleb ben Chetron married to Efrat > with Kalen ben Yefuneh married to Miriam > Ibn Ezra disagrees and also see the Gra I'll go further. R' Moshe Eisenmann's Divrei HaYamim for Artscroll (one of the few books in the Artscroll Tanakh series which I consider to be of inestimable value) has an entire section on the Kalevs. I highly recommend it. But again, Midrash is Midrash, and there's zero relevance here. Let me ask a simple question. Was Baruch ben Neriya Ezra's teacher? As Chazal say, and as Iggeret Rav Shrira Gaon and Rambam and others bring down. Or not? And if not, how do you feel about *not* having a chain of tradition going back to Sinai? Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 08:17:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 11:17:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: <20150511.093851.15442.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150511.093851.15442.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150511151732.GA15699@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 01:38:51PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I rarely, if ever, come across the word "conflate", except here on : Avodah. When it is used here, it seems to be pejorative, indicating that : someone confused or merged two things that really ought to stay distinct. I think that's my doing; I like the word. And yeah, it is merging two things that may be helpful in another context to keep distinct, but without being as pejorative as saying they confused them. If one assumes that Chazal's statements about the past are intended to be about how the past should have happened rather than caring about actual historicity, then their saying that Pinchas is Eliyahu is the identification of what Pinechas means to us with what Eliyahu means, and giving us a license to treat the two are a single symbol. With no intent to imply they were historically the same very-long-lived human being. I would also want a little more clarity from those who object to claims about missing years between levels of objection. Do you mean: 1- This isn't my derekh. 2- I cannot see this even as eilu va'eilu, it's simply false. 3- It is heretical. At least one of us used the latter language, and I don't see it. We have a definition of heresy, three definitions of three subtypes of heres, anyway (kofer, apiqreis, min). Is anyone actually intending to claim that it violates an iqar emunah to take Chazal's dating of events in the Galus Paras uMadai and early Bayis Sheini period as ahistorical, meant for some hashkafic reason? Or is it an epistomological thing? If you believe the academic community's interpretation of the evidence and will create new peshatim to fit in this case, you've bought into a system that would equally argue for kefirah? And for the two people who dismiss the Greek version of Persian history: What do you do with the astronomical state points thrown in that actually work? As RET noted last year, around Purim time, if you read Ezra and Nechemiah literally, ignoring Sefer Olam, it is more consistent with Greek historians than Chazal. I found he gave details in 1999 (v2n176) To quote: ... proofs for the secular history 1. external proofs A. The history of Herodotus (485-425 BCE) discusses in detail the lives of Cyrus, Cambyses,Darius and Xerxes and briefly Atraxerxes who was a contemporary of Herodutus. It is hard to conceive that he wrote about contedmporay figures or recent history who did not exist. Note that according to Chazal the Persians did not come into power until 350 BCE 75 years after the death of Herodutus !!! Thucydides (460-400 BCE) starts with Cyrus and goes through Darius II and the fights between Athens and Sparta and the Peloponnesian Wars. Again according to Seder Olam Rabbah there was no time for all these wars and so probably many of these Athenian and Spartan leaders did not exist. Ctesias (430-380) was a physician in the court of Artaxerxes and describes the 7 kings from Cyrus through Artaxerxes II. There are also later Greek historians who give the complete picture. Josephus also includes more kings than Chazal but not the entire Greek list. Moderchai Breuer in his history accepts the Greek dating. See Parker&Dubberstein, Babylonian Chronology for more details. Note: No modern historian claims that all facts in these histories are true. That is a far cry from stating that the entire history and not just certain details are fabrications and that all these kings never existed. B. Archaological evidence has uncovered many ancient Persian (cuneform) enscriptions (see for example The Persian Empire by J.M. Cook). For example one at the Persian palace in Persepolis says "I, Artaxerxes the son of Artaxerxes the son of Darius the son of Artaxerxes the son of Xerxes the son of Darius the son of Hystaspes" (Darius was not the son of Cambyses). Greek names have used for the original Persian names. There are other earlier enscriptions which are similar. These all conform to the Greek dating. C. There are letters from the Jewish community in Elephantine confirming the Greek position. D. I recently read of the history of the Assyrians. In their history they describe the reign of Sancherub and of a major eclipse of the sun during some battle. Astronomical calaculations confirm that the only full eclipse of the sun in that region occurred exactly during the dates of Sancherub according to the Greek chronology. 2. Internal Proofs A. Ezra 45,7 describes Koresh, Daryavesh, Achasverosh, Artachasta. These exactly parallel the Greek chronology with Achasversh=Xerxes. If one looks at the Persian writing rather than the Greek names then Xerxes is called khshayarsha which is close to Achashverosh (note Cambyses is left out probably because nothing of importance to Ezra occured during that reign). Note that Daat Mikrah on Ezra 4 assumes the secular dates. B. Nehemia 12:10 lists 6 High Priests, son after son, between Yehosua and Yadua. This is hard to explain if the whole period was on 52 years. It is even worse if one assumes that Shimon haTzaddik was the high Priest at the time of Alexander as that adds at least one more high Priest in the 52 years According to Ben Sira Shimon was the son of Johanan which would make of total of at least 8 high priests in 52 years all presumably sons of the previous one. C. Comparing Divrei Hayaim I: 3:19-24 with Ezra 8:2 and Nehemia 3:29 it seems that Ezra and Nehemis lived many years after Zerubbavel. Note: Daniel 11:2 seems more in line with chronology of Chazal. Second Note: According to Seder Olam Purim occured before the rebuilding of the second Temple while according to the secular chronology Achashverosh was the son of Darius and so the Temple was already in existence. According to Chazal, Daniel, Zerubavel, Ezra, Nehemia, Mordecai, Hagai, Zerchahiah and Malachi and even Shimon haTzaddik were basically contemporaries or within 1 to 2 generations of each other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 37th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Yesod: When does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 require one to be strict with another? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 06:52:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 09:52:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun on Pesach Sheni (was Meron Live) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150511135043.8781C182131@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:31 AM 5/11/2015, R. Akiva Miller wrote: >As it was explained to me, there's nothing special about the morning >of Pesach Sheni. Pesach Sheni exists only on the afternoon of 14 >Iyar and the following night. We omit Tachanun on the morning of 14 >Iyar NOT because it is a holiday, but because it is the Tachanun >*before* the holiday. Alternatively, one might say that the morning >of 14 Iyar actually *is* Erev Pesach Sheni. Either way, the >afternoon of 13 Iyar is too far removed to be significant enough to >warrant skipping Tachanun. From http://tinyurl.com/ln7le2m Some say Tachanun on Pesach Sheni (14 Iyar); some do not; some do not say Tachanun on 14 & 15 Iyar. What are the sources for these customs? Those who do say Tachanun probably do so because 14 Iyar is not listed as a day where Tachanun was customarily omitted by the Tur, anyone quoted in the Beit Yosef or Bach, by the Shulchan Aruch and its Mapah, the Levush, the Eliya Rabba, the Taz, the Magen Avraham, the Beiur haGra, the Chayei Adam, the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, the Mishna Berura and others. The Aruch haShulchan notes the custom of omitting Tachanun as foreign to Ashkenaz and deems it a 'wonder' (Pelah ). And from http://www.dinonline.org/2010/04/27/tachanun-on-erev-pesach-sheni/ Do we say Tachanun at minchah on Erev Pesach Sheni? Answer Yes [Shulchan Aruch Harav, Piskei Hassidur, end of Hilchos Krias Shema uTefilloh] YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 07:00:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 10:00:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening in a Large or Small Shul In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150511135900.11012181E6C@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:31 AM 5/11/2015, R. Joel Rich wrote: >I wonder if this write up is indicative of a trend seen in "The >halachos of X" works, likutim which seem to have become more popular >(did they exist 40 years ago?). As Rav Aharon Lichtenstein learned >at Harvard, life is complex. Of course there are overarching >priorities which need to be learned, but specific applications are >hard to summarize in an algorithmic form (see hilchot lashon hara >and tzedaka for some obvious examples). Maybe in an internet age we >have no choice but to try to put everything on line but what you >really need IMHO is a live mentor. Did R. Aharon Lichtenstein really not know that life is complex before he went to Harvard? I am very sure that a man as intelligent as he was knew that life was complex long before he went to Harvard. I never went to Harvard, but I knew by 12 or 13 years old that life in indeed complex. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 09:45:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 12:45:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] He is my G-d In-Reply-To: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150511164501.GA29539@aishdas.org> *On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 06:06:53AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : From Today's Hakhel email bulletin. : :> Hakhel Note: The following is excerpted from Rav Schwab on Prayer, :> and was related by Rav Schwab at a Shiur he gave on Tefillah... We need a source, and such a well documented lineage for the source, to point out what the words say? Does no one try translating a poem they've recited since childhood (and that's true even for many BTs)? "Adon Olam" through "velo ha'oz vehamisrah", the first 2/3 or so, talks about how transcendent HQBH is. Then the poet (usually attributed to Ibn Geveirol, 11th cent CE) abruptly switches to "VeHu Keili ... Hashem li velo ira" -- that despite that transcendence, I am still capable of having a personal relationship with Him. Li nir'eh this is the key to understanding sheim havayah: 1- The tetragrammaton is a contraction of "Yihyeh, Hoveh, veHayah -- Will Be, Is and Was", referring to Hashem being timeless and beyond the created. An el, when used in the secular sense, is a legislative ruler, so that Elokeinu, is a declaration that He is our Lawgiver -- the Author of both moral law and physical law. Havayah denotes connotes a vision of Deity that is very Other, the philosopher's G-d; Elokus is One who relates to man. 2- The very remoteness of the name Havayah also implies Divine Mercy. Which is how Chazal describe its usage in chumash. This is not intuitive, however the need to create law comes from a person's limited ability to deal with many individual cases. A teacher with few students is effective, one with more students, less so. To manage a country, we need laws and policies, since we do not have infinite time and attention to cover every decision on a case-by-case basis. Therefore, it is only because Hashem is Infinite that Divine Mercy is possible. Therefore, this expression can be seen as a declaration of the unity of G-d, despite the different appearances of Mercy and Strict Justice. We can each say "veHu Keili" *because* "velo ha'oz vehamisrah". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 37th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Yesod: When does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 require one to be strict with another? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 09:06:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 19:06:59 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] He is my G-d In-Reply-To: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 1:06 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > From Today's Hakhel email bulletin. > > Hakhel Note: The following is excerpted from *Rav Schwab on Prayer*, and > was related by Rav Schwab at a Shiur he gave on Tefillah: > ... > *whenever a person says the word Ado--i, my Master, no matter how small he > thinks he is, he is averring that he is in direct contact with Hashem*. > This thought is in the introduction to any individual's Iyun Tefillah, > concentration on Prayer. There is nothing mystical or supernatural about > it. It should be the most natural thing in the world. > I understand that "Rav Schwab on Prayer" was edited from recordings of RSS' shiurim, and I suspect that there is some misunderstanding here. If this is not mystical and supernatural, what is? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 11:12:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Herbert Basser via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 18:12:16 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah Message-ID: <1431367937499.87948@queensu.ca> Friendly amendment: When all else fails consult a dictionary-- where I found the root h-l-q both in hebrew and in arabic means "to make smooth" (no surprises here) and (surprise) a note after that indicating arabic h-l-q also applies to making the chin and the head smooth (hairless), i.e. "shaving".-- Not from the idea of rounding but from the idea of smoothing. Like in bereshit (27:11) esav was hairy and yaakov halaq. Zvi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 12:33:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 15:33:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150511193132.F24041829B7@nexus.stevens.edu> At 02:57 PM 5/11/2015, R. Eli Turkel wrote: ><the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their minds, >they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple frauds and >told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern Orthodox Jews have >regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic.>> > >I don't see how you can call this "blasphemous" R. Schwab once suggested >that Chazal purposely changed the facts for a good reason. While he later >retracted it would be hard to call his original opinion "blasphemous" . >Furthermore several current Orthodox rabbis such as R. Leibtag do accept >the secular dating. > >In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a >tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. The most definitive study on this topic is the recent book (2014) The Challenge of Jewish History: The Bible, The Greeks & The Missing 168 Years by Rabbi Alexander Hool From http://tinyurl.com/p42uvvj There is a well-known conundrum concerning Jewish history: The conventional chronology of the Western world - and academia - is in direct conflict with traditional Jewish sources over the history of ... history. Incredibly, there is a gap of roughly 200 years: For instance, the Talmud says the Second Temple stood for roughly 400 years, while mainstream historians today conclude that it stood for almost 600 years. This conflict has major implications on what occurred to who, and when. It also seems to question the accuracy of the entire Jewish tradition as accepted dating methods seem to contradict core parts of the traditional Jewish narrative. In presenting fresh and startling astronomical, mathematical and archaeological evidence, Rabbi Alexander Hool has charted new ground in his quest to find the solution to this ancient problem. The Challenge of Jewish History is revolutionary: it questions all assumptions, dispels unfounded myths, and transports us back in time over 2,500 years. With a subject of great significance and fascination to all those interested in history, and a wealth of scholarship and sources to impress academics, this intriguing book gives us a new perspective on .... This is a highly researched book based on Jewish and non-Jewish sources. the author concludes that there are no missing years and seems to prove his conclusion. I suggest that anyone who is really interested in this topic purchase this book. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 13:10:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Herbert Basser via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 20:10:00 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] chronology Message-ID: <1431375000749.45056@queensu.ca> [Transliteration mine. -micha] Seder Olam: Mahadurah Mada'it Peirush uMavo me'et Chaim Milikovsky's Makhor Yitzchaq ben Zvi shenei chalaqim, 326+711 amudim See Chaim Milikovsky's edition of Seder Olam for a very detailed explanation of all these issues in chazal's chronology and a critical edition of the readings of all extant manuscripts. The issues of chazal's chronologies were first highlighted at length by Azariah de Rossi's Meor Eynayim and should be settled by Milikowski's volume which took about 35 years to research. Chazal were great men but not modern historians, doctors, scientists, or nevi'im -- and certainly not liars. Zvi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 14:46:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 14:46:24 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] explanation Message-ID: the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not PC by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation for some shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a heterodox clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read those passages] . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other than the chok aspect] that the RBSO was looking from the perspective of the kahal and their kovod, and how they would react or be distracted by a baal mum. can someone supply a better take ? thanks -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 18:12:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 21:12:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150429.073718.25006.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150429.073718.25006.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150512011220.GA19224@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 11:37:18AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : Regardless of how the Bas Kol might be interpreted, is there any way : to understand "Nitzchuni banai!" other than Hashem personally siding : with one of the litigants, and losing? I don't see the closing of the story adding any problems the nissim themselves didn't. If you think they were about Hashem backing one side, then "nitzchui banai" is about that sice being defeated. If not, then it's whatever over reason He had for presenting misleading evidence that was defeated. Leshitas those who don't take eilu va'eilu literally and intead use a more classical logic with a law of contradition, the whole story is about HQBH choosing the process as a whole over the correctness of this one particular ruling. HQBH rejoicing that the chakhamim maintained the kelalei pesaq as they should rather than pay attention to His interferance. As the Maharitz Chayes understands it, by keeping the process viable, they keep the Torah eternal, capable of speaking to new circumstances as the world changes. "Nitzchuni banai -- My children have made Me eternal!" Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 37th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Yesod: When does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 require one to be strict with another? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 17:57:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 20:57:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55514FDD.4000100@sero.name> On 05/11/2015 05:46 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not > PC by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation > for some shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a > heterodox clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read > those passages] . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other > than the chok aspect] that the RBSO was looking from the perspective > of the kahal and their kovod, and how they would react or be > distracted by a baal mum. > > can someone supply a better take ? What's the difficulty? Hakriveihu no lefechosecho. The dignity of a king, and especially of The King, demands that all who serve Him be perfect in all respects. People with physical imperfections may be wonderful in many ways, but they are just that, imperfect. The current political correctness that refuses to acknowledge this is literally insane. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 15:31:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 23:31:27 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 12:19:57 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah > In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a > tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some examples > 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu ... > Besiades the fact that Eliyahu was from Gilad and worked in the northern > kingdom it leaves the halachic question whether a cohen gadol can resign > and even leave the land of Israel for various tasks. It is clear from > Tanach that Eli and other were the high priest in later generations Re Pinchos = Eliyohu The Ari says clearly [through the pen of R. Chaim Vital] in Shaar HaGilgulim that this refers to a gilgul neshomoh, not that he was literally the same person in body as well. DR From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 23:21:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 09:21:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar Message-ID: R' YGB writes: "I cannot believe TABC allowed this to be published as is. /Shreklach!/" Should we just bury our heads in the sand and not address these kinds of issues? Its very hard to hide information today, what happens when these kids get to college and find about the missing 165 years. What are they going to think? The fact is that Rabbi S. Schwab found this discrepancy a ?truly vexing problem? and wrote that the historical chronological dating: "?can hardly be doubted for they appear to be the result of painstaking research by hundreds of scholars and are borne out by profound erudition and by ever increasing authoritative evidence ... we are compelled to admit that the Bayis Sheni must have existed for no less than 586 years.? (Hakira A Y2K Solution to the Chronology Problem). If we don't address these kinds of questions (torah and science, the documentary hypothesis, etc.) then the implication that will be drawn by many people is that we don't have answers and we know what happens then. The Seforim blog (http://seforim.blogspot.com/2015/01/blog-post.html) not long ago reviewed a Sefer by R' Amnon Bazak, Ad Hayom Hazeh, which deals with many of the the issues that academia brings up related to Tanach. Are his answers compelling? Many times not. But at least he deals with the issues. A commentator there made a very important point, for those who have been exposed to these questions, we need seforim like this that at least attempt to deal with the issues raised and not simply bury our heads in the sand. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 01:36:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 11:36:40 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> References: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> Message-ID: > 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta <> Do these Greek sources explain how Koresh and Daryavush are the same person? Besides you use the parts of the Greek sources that you like and reject those that dont fit your thesis Now you rely on the Septuagint? Almost everyone else identifies Achashverosh with Xerxes, Besides the are several inscriptions in ancient Persian that give a detailed list of kings eg Artaxerxes the great king, king of kings king of peoples king on this earth son od Darius the king Darius son of Artaxerxes the king, Xerxes son of Darius the king Darius son of Hystapes the Archaemend proclaims .. As an aside modern chronology of Eygpt has been confirmed by recent carbon 14 dating. Dates of Sishak and other Assyrina and Babylonian kings have been confirmed by their writings combined with various astronomical events mentioned in their writings. <> That's your opinion. In fact many achronim take these conflating of names very seriously. While you claim Eliyahu wasn't a cohen gadol there is in fact a halachic literature whether he was or not and whether a cohen gadol can resign. For example see hebrewbooks Magen Tzvi siman 36 page 388 where he concludes that a Cohen Gadol (annointed by oil) who resigns still has all the laws of a cohen gadol You wrote "Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son " . However Darius's own version (Behustan) states that he was not the son of the previous king (see also above inscription on a wall) -------------------------- separately Marty Blake mentioned the sefer of R Amnon Bazak. The shiurim are also available in English http://etzion.org.il/en/topics/fundamental-issues-study-tanakh As Marty mentioned he discusses fundamental issues as are all pesukim in the Torah from Moshe Rabbenu, archaeology, accuracy of the text, Bible criticism, peshat and drash, sins of Biblical figures and many other controversial topics. I am sure that many of his solutions are also controversial. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 19:20:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 02:20:37 GMT Subject: [Avodah] explanation Message-ID: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero wrote: <<< The dignity of a king, and especially of The King, demands that all who serve Him be perfect in all respects. People with physical imperfections may be wonderful in many ways, but they are just that, imperfect. >>> "... in all respects." Really? Where will you find such a person? No, that's an impossible task. For practicality's sake, He cannot and does not demand that all who serve Him be perfect in ALL respects. So instead, there is a set of criteria, and a set of shiurim by which to determine if one is *adequately* perfect. I can't imagine that anyone would disagree with what I wrote thus far. But then we'll go the next step, and study what sorts of things are on that list of criteria. For example, if one is a Mechalel Shabbos, or a murderer, he is disqualified from Birkas Kohanim, so I'd bet that he's disqualified from the avodah too. But those aren't the sort of mumim that the previous poster's Shabbos guests were asking about. They were asking about physical abnormalities. I hope it is okay if I rephrase their question to something like this: It is reasonable for The King to insist on a certain degree of moral perfection, but why is physical perfection relevant? Or to phrase it more bluntly, the kohanim should not be judged by the shape of their nose, but by the content of their character. (Of course, we are not disputing the halacha. The question is WHY the Torah considers physical abnormalities to be disqualifications.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/555163bfd843b63bf2454st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 22:43:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 01:43:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah Message-ID: R? Zvi Basser points out ? H-L-Q was the haircut celebrated Lag B?Omer. Yes! Perhaps Chalak evokes Yaakov Avinu, aka Ish Chalak. An older version of Ibn Ezra's famous Tzama Nafshi has alternate ending stanzas. H?alo Chelk?cha Meirosh ? Addressing Hashem directly Chalak ? that is Yaakov Avinu the weak brother ? and his endless generations of martyrs Damo Darosh ? avenge and right the wrongs Shfoch HHamas Af al Rosh Hasa-ir Hachai ? let your anger pour over its proper target - . Ibn Ezra means that Hashem can grant Dveikus, Nevuah or Ruach Hakodesh. The Ibn Ezra 's philosophical approach ? said that the Nefesh ? as a Spiritual Heavenly entity ? can encounter the Ultimate Hashem ? directly. The alternate ? higher level of Hashkafa ? Tzama Nafshi has a verse ? now found in some better editions ? After dealing with Hagar rebelling against Sara (Shifha no-emmes) H?alo Chelk?cha Meirosh ? Chalak ? that is Yaakov ? and his endless generations of martyrs Damo Darosh ? avenge and right the wrongs Shfoch HHamas Af al Rosh Hasa-ir Hachai ? let your anger pour over its proper target - . -- Two other points ? the first verse in the alternat version of Tzama Nafshi: (See Kol Kisvei RAIE) Eil Chayy Bera-ani ? To my mind this means ? the always watching and involved One watching over us. Compare ? Chai Anochi LeOlam Im Shanosi Brak Charbi ? in Parshas Haazinu ? anger to avenge. Perhaps in Inquisitorial times ? Eil Echad Bera-ani was more relevant. Also fascinating ? The Ayin verse substitutes ? Al Kol Chasadecha ? Techadeish Eidecha!! References Iyov 10:17, where Ibn ezra refers to leprous blemishes. Posei-ach es Yadecha umasbia lechol chai ? directly allow Life, Deveikus and attachment to His Essence ? not the simple meaning of providing food . Earlier Ibn Ezra had said - Ki lo yir-ani ha-adam vachayy - no man can see Hashem and Chai ? no complete experience of Hashem. His Creation is Ne-elama hidden in its wisdom. Parshas Tazria has many multiple references to live healthy skin ? Basar Hachayy - as opposed to leprous skin. I would believe there are multiple references to Tazria Metzora. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 03:51:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 06:51:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150512105130.GC3499@aishdas.org> Lakol zeman va'eis... There is a time to force people to change their reflect reactions, and a time when the focus should be elsewhere. There are two kinds of mummim WRT kehunah (see Bechoros 43b): 1- mar'is ayin -- one whose appearance is repulsive to the people 2- eino shaveh bezar'o shel Aharon -- someone who is unique in appearance to the people (see Rambam, Bi'as haMiqdash 6:6) A kohein in the mar'is ayin category would pasl the avodah bedi'eved, one who is eino shaveh would violate an asei, but the avodah is kasher. Notice that both are defined by their impact on the observer. Presumably the point is that attention should be on avodah, not thoughts about the kohein performing it, or negative judgments of who is fit for service. But notice this is only for the Avodah.... a kohein with a baal mum was still expected to show up with his mishmar and do other necessary jobs. I am not even sure he is pasul from lighting the menorah. After all, we learn these mumim from the animals for qorbanos; it may apply to qorbanos in particular. So to me, the question is why isn't mid-qorban a good time to acclimate Kelal Yisrael away from such visceral reactions. But since I cannot get my head into the mindset of someone bringing a qorban, I leave the question tabled until I have the opportunity to learn what a qorban is like firsthand, bb"a. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 38th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Yesod: How does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 promote harmony in life and relationships? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 09:24:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 12:24:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: <20150512105130.GC3499@aishdas.org> References: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> <20150512105130.GC3499@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150512162421.GA13065@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 6:51am EDT, I wrote: : There is a time to force people to change their reflect reactions, and a : time when the focus should be elsewhere. ... To add, there are TWO reactions that would distract from the purpose of the qorban: Both the person who is turned off by how Hashem made this particular kohein (either through birth, disease, or allowing him to suffer an acctident), and the person who would then turn his qorban into a bein adam lachaveiro rather than a qorban. The one who would be thinking about how touching it was the such a person overcame disability to help them bring it. Rather than simply thinking about G-d. Even according to R' Chaim Volozhiner or R' Shimon Shkop, who see bein adam lachaveiro as the ultimate purpose of life, and thus presumably bein adam laMaqom as a derived value, there is a time to care for the goose, rather than everything being about collecting the golden eggs. In fact, the farmer is likely to spend nearly al of his time into caring for the goose rather than the ultimate payoff. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 38th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Yesod: How does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 promote harmony in life and relationships? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 06:17:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 08:17:09 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: References: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> Message-ID: <5551FD55.5090900@starways.net> On 5/12/2015 3:36 AM, Eli Turkel wrote: > 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta > < was a throne name. And in fact, Greek sources say that both > Artaxerxes II and III adopted it as a throne name. Furthermore, the > Septuagint version of Esther refers to the king as Artaxerxes, so > saying that Ahasuerus is Artaxerxes is a truism that has nothing to do > with chronology >> > Do these Greek sources explain how Koresh and Daryavush are the same > person? Fortunately, they don't have to, since that's just Midrash and has no nafka mina l'maaseh. > Besides you use the parts of the Greek sources that you like and > reject those that dont fit your thesis Of course I do. The Greek sources aren't what we would call "history" today. Herodotus collected folklore and picked the versions he liked to make a more entertaining story. He says himself that he heard 4 different and conflicting stories about Cyrus's backstory, and chose the one he liked best. He didn't even preserve the other three so that we could make our own decisions. He made his living in Greece by entertaining his patron(s) with exotic stories from exotic lands. > Now you rely on the Septuagint? Almost everyone else identifies > Achashverosh with Xerxes, Not so. Everyone recognizes that the *name* Achashveirosh is the same as the *name* Xerxes. Or rather, that both names are transliterations of the original Persian Khshayarsha. To say that "almost everyone else identifies Achashverosh with Xerxes" indicates that you aren't particularly well versed in the subject. I mean, at the very least, read the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahasuerus which notes which sources have identified him as which kings. > Besides the are several inscriptions in ancient Persian that give a > detailed list of kings eg > Artaxerxes the great king, king of kings king of peoples king on this > earth son od Darius the king Darius son of Artaxerxes the king, Xerxes > son of Darius the king Darius son of Hystapes the Archaemend proclaims .. Have you read the Behistun Inscription? Darius son of Hystaspes had it inscribed. In it, he talks about Babylonian kings who weren't actually Babylonian kings. At least not by our standards. They were pretenders, since Babylon had fallen to the Medes and Persians. But they gave themselves royal titles and claimed descent from Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus and the rest. From their point of view, they *were* kings of Babylon. From the Persian point of view, they were pretenders. Similarly, what do you think happened to Persia when Alexander conquered it? From one day to the next, Persia vaporized? Persia covered a huge area. Professor Levine posted about Rabbi Alexander Hool's book "The Challenge of Jewish History". I don't agree with all of his conclusions, and I'm embarrassingly late completing a review of the book, but he posits the Persian line continuing even after Alexander whupped Darius at Gaugamela. And in fact, the Parthian Empire, which started only about 70-80 years after the Alexandrian conquest, claimed descent from the Achaemenids of the Persian Empire. As did the later Sassanids. Names like Ardashir are just Late Persian versions of the Old Persian Artaxerxes. That's completely aside from the fact that we *know* there were forgeries perpetrated in ancient times for the purpose of establishing royal descent. Check out Roland Kent's article "The Present Status of Old Persian Studies" in /Journal of the American Oriental Society, /1936, vol. 56, p. 215ff. (http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/594668?uid=3739656&uid=2134&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21106376285721). A couple of inscriptions that are nothing but royal titles with no actual content to them is kind of flimsy evidence. Certainly not something strong enough to trash Chazal's entire picture of such an important period in our history. > As an aside modern chronology of Eygpt has been confirmed by recent > carbon 14 dating. Source. Because you may not be aware of this, but when you bring items in for carbon dating, you have to tell them -- up front -- what the rough date is that you think they're from. So that they can throw away any results that skew too far from that as "contaminated". The rest are subject to a fudge factor (sorry: correction factor) to help make them fit. But I'd like to see the source you have for carbon dating of modern Egyptian chronology. > Dates of Sishak and other Assyrina and Babylonian kings have been > confirmed by their writings combined with various astronomical events > mentioned in their writings. Assuming Sosenk = Shishak, which is iffy, considering that Sosenk only claims to have campaigned in the north of Israel, which would be odd for Shishak, whose son-in-law Yeravam was ruling there. The rest of what you're talking about is pure confirmation bias. They have a model and they shoehorn any evidence they find into that model, even if they have to kind of mush it in there. > < and explain a little more about Midrash. Chazal bring Midrashim that > contradict one another. For example, there's a Midrash that says > Esther never slept with Achashveirosh. That Hashem sent a mal'ach that > took her place. That conflicts with "Esther karka hayta", as well as > with the Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son. None of > this is problematic. Because the truth of Midrashim is not in their > concretes. Like analogies, Midrashim are abstractions which are > anchored with concretes, but are not defined by those concretes.>> > That's your opinion. In fact many achronim take these conflating of > names very seriously. While you claim Eliyahu wasn't a cohen gadol > there is in fact a halachic literature whether he was or not and > whether a cohen gadol can resign. > For example see hebrewbooks Magen Tzvi siman 36 page 388 where he > concludes that a Cohen Gadol (annointed by oil) who resigns still has > all the laws of a cohen gadol Midrash. And if it were something more solid than that, you'd have more than just some achronim saying so. > You wrote "Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son " . > However Darius's own version (Behustan) states that he was not the son > of the previous king (see also above inscription on a wall) So what? I'm confused. I'm saying that Midrash isn't necessarily the literal fact, and you pick out a phrase from what I wrote and point out that it isn't the literal fact? It seems like you're trying to make a point, but I'm not seeing what it is. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 10:18:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 13:18:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I commend you for having such guests at your table! > the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not PC by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation for some shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a heterodox clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read those passages] . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other than the chok aspect] that the RBSO was looking from the perspective of the kahal and their kovod, and how they would react or be distracted by a baal mum. can someone supply a better take ? This is, indeed, a difficult passage. R Jonathan Sacks has a good take on it -- which is generally along the lines of what you suggested, but a slightly different (and more big-picture) take, and, of course articulated extremely well. An excerpt: > Kugel also writes, "Most people, when they see someone ravaged by chemotherapy, just tend to keep their distance." He quotes Psalm 38:12, "My friends and companions stand back at the sight of my affliction; even those closest to me keep their distance." Although the physical reactions to chemotherapy are quite different from a skin disease or a bodily abnormality, they tend to generate the same feeling in others, part of which has to do with the thought "This could happen to me." They remind us of the "thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to." > > This is the logic - if logic is the right word - of Tumah. It has nothing to do with rationality and everything to do with emotion (Recall Pascal's remark that "the heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing"). Tumah does not mean defilement. It means that which distracts from eternity and infinity by making us forcibly aware of mortality, of the fact that we are physical beings in a physical world. If the above interests you at all, I encourage you to read the whole thing: http://www.aish.com/tp/i/sacks/149811775.html [1] -- Sholom Links: ------ [1] http://www.aish.com/tp/i/sacks/149811775.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 09:51:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Dov Weinstock via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 12:51:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Explanation Message-ID: On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 12:27 PM, via Avodah wrote: > the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not PC > by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation for some > shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a heterodox > clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read those passages] > . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other than the chok aspect] > that the RBSO was looking from the perspective of the kahal and their > kovod, and how they would react or be distracted by a baal mum. > > can someone supply a better take ? > May I suggest the following: http://rabbidovlinzer.blogspot.com/2014_04_27_archive.html Dov Weinstock -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 03:09:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 06:09:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: <20150513100956.GA14377@aishdas.org> Among the arguments that came up in the discussion of the Kosher Switch was that it's zilzul Shabbos. The thought hit me, though... Refraining from operating electrical devices has only been a potential issue for 125 years or so. And except for Yekkes, most of our ancestors come from places where it has been less than a century since electricity became part of our lives. So it's very hard to say that "not using electricity" is a defining feature of the Shabbos experience. Contrast this to hotza'ah, including haavarah, which take up what seems like 1/3 of chazal's discussion of issur melakhah (rough estimate from Berakhos and Eruvin in mishna, Tosefta, Y-mi and Bavli). When community eruvin got started, wasn't there a much easier argument of zilzul? Why wasn't it made? Indeed we use the general kelal of being meiqil WRT eiruvin to quite an extent to build one. And what does the fact that a community eruv is NOT zilzul Shabbos say about the nature of zilzul Shabbos and its applicability to nidon didan? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 12:26:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 15:26:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 06:42:58AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : He is now starting a series on religious autonomy. In particular he holds : that one goes to a rabbi for a psak only if he is in doubt. If one has : seriously learned the halachaot and is convinced of the "truth" then he : should follow his own psak and there is no need to go to a "higher : authority". Interesting. Does "seriously learned the halakhos" translate to higi'ah lehora'ah, or something less? RHS requires a certainly level of general knowledge. See Sanhedrin 5a-b. But it also fits RHS's hashkafah that halakhah is an inseperable whole. And so Rebbe doesn't just tell us that night Shema can be said at sundown, he ties it to the law of tevul yom. And RHS similarly advises his talmidim to look to gedolim from their own camp because one with whom they disagree hashkafically is likely to see even apparenty unrelated halakhos differently. Listen to (RAM transcripted other snippets from this talk for one of our many discussions of da'as Torah at .) For that matter, 5b talks about the need to get a heter hora'ah even if one knows enough to pasqen. But then, the gemara is discussing deciding for others, not only oneself. OTOH, pasqening for oneself has a major problem that one doesn't face when answering others' questions -- vested interest vs objectivity. Listen to R Jonathan Ziring's shiur on the topic at . In particular, his very first source (see link to mar'eh meqomos sheet) Nissah 20b. Yalta, "Rebbetzin Nachman", asks her mar'os questions of Rabbah bar bar Chanah and Rabbi Yitzchaq bereih deR' Yehudah, not her husband. Similarly mishnah Nega'im 2:5 saying you can't pasen nega'im even of relatives, Bekhoros 31a about judging one's own bekhoros. So, I would think that not being in doubt is too easily a delusion. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 12:54:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 15:54:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes In-Reply-To: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150513195451.GA16146@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 01:18:22AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Saul Newman asked: :> i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at :> hadchak /bedieved : ... : But I think that the real answer to your question might be: "If the people : in shul can't hear the rabbi or the chazan, that IS a shaas hadchak." Both letzorekh mitzvah and tzarkhei tzibbur are usually classified with she'as hadechaq and hefsed meruba. The two combined is why shuls have such wide lattitude with amira le'akum. (And perhaps either alone? I dunno.) So if a properly designed PA system is a shevus or other derabannan, why not permit this too? BTW, R/Dr Yisrael Rozen of Machon Zomet makes a point of noting that the issues seem to be the same whether the PA system is electrical or based on air pressure. See Microphones and Amplifiers on Shabbat Rabbi Yisrael Rozen C. Microphones Operating on Air Pressure 1. System Description Recently, the idea of a microphone which operates on air pressure, rather than electricity, has been proposed. A company in the United States is in the process of developing this "air-mike," although to the best of my knowledge, the project is still in the experimental stage. The device consists of a container of compressed air[12] and a system of pipes in which the compressed air flows. After one speaks into a horn-like input, his voice is carried on the stream of compressed air in the pipes. Acoustic adjustment (which apparently lies at the heart of the idea) then causes the voice waves to be amplified... 2. Comparison to an Electronic Microphone Several rabbis have permitted the use of air microphones on Shabbat, viewing it as an appropriate means of sound amplification for a synagogue. I question the distinction between an air microphone and a regular microphone - if we permit one, we must permit the other... Let me explain. We have shown that, given the current technology, the main problems with using a microphone on Shabbat have nothing to do with the fact that it runs on electricity. The problems concern the decree of klei shir, the fear that one will repair it, hashma'at kol like a water mill, avsha milta, denigration of Shabbat, and the suspicion of onlookers. Regarding all but the last of these, I see no difference between an air microphone and a regular microphone. In my opinion, an air microphone is a kli shir exactly like a shofar or trumpet; it creates a loud noise like a water mill; there exists the possibility that one will try to adjust it etc.. If you wish to claim that it is not a kli shir because it transmits speech; that we should not innovate a decree of "lest one repair it;" that it does not resemble a water mill because everyone knows that there is no Shabbat violation involved - then the same considerations should apply to a regular microphone as well. Only regarding the suspicion of onlookers might there be a difference between the two types of microphones; with an electric microphone, onlookers may think that an electric circuit was created on Shabbat. But we have already explained that even if one would turn on existing equipment on Shabbat, he would violate only a rabbinic prohibition, and we are not concerned with creating suspicion regarding rabbinic prohibitions. We also noted above that "everyone knows" that the equipment was turned on either before Shabbat or by means of a timer, and thus resembles a chiming clock (which is permitted). I have heard that there are those who permit the air microphone since the speaker's original voice is carried through the pipes (although clearly the majority of the sound waves reaching the audience's ears comes from the air pumped by the compressor). I am astonished at this claim: even in an actual musical instrument (such as a trumpet) the player's breath is mixed in, and nevertheless it is forbidden! In many musical instruments, the sound comes mainly from an "echo chamber," whose geometry shapes and amplifies the sound. To the best of my understanding, an air microphone operates on the same principle.[13] In my opinion, halachic definitions (in all fields) do not stem from scientific, physical, or technical definitions. The definitions of klei shir and hashma'at kol are not based on the technology of sound production, wave dispersion, or other acoustic considerations. The question at hand is whether these devices are included in the rabbinic decree of klei shir or not. In this regard, it does not matter whether one makes his voice heard by means of an electric or an air microphone. Some of those who give a blanket permit to use an air microphone claim that it does not amplify the speaker's voice, but merely carries it. On the basis of material I have received from the factory, I find this claim to be mistaken. Therefore, as far as klei shir and hashma'at kol are concerned, the two types of microphones are identical. ... 3. Responsa Which Erred in the Realia ... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 13:14:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 16:14:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes In-Reply-To: <20150513195451.GA16146@aishdas.org> References: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> <20150513195451.GA16146@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5553B099.7090100@sero.name> On 05/13/2015 03:54 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Both letzorekh mitzvah and tzarkhei tzibbur are usually classified with > she'as hadechaq and hefsed meruba. The two combined is why shuls have such > wide lattitude with amira le'akum. (And perhaps either alone? I dunno.) Letzorech mitzvah is not enough to justify amira lenochri for an issur derabanan, unless the mitzvah absolutely cannot be fulfilled without it. For instance, if one is pitch darkness one may ask a nochri to bring a lit candle through a communal chatzer that has no eruv, because oneg shabbos is impossible in complete darkness; but if there is already at least dim lighting, so that some minimal oneg shabbos is possible, one is *not* allowed to have a nochri bring another candle. Tzorchei tzibbur, OTOH, seems to justify amira lenochri for almost anything. [Quoting R Rosen] > The problems concern the decree of klei shir, the fear that one will > repair it, hashma'at kol like a water mill, avsha milta, denigration > of Shabbat, and the suspicion of onlookers. He's listing the same thing multiple times. "Hashma'at kol like a water mill" *is* "avsha milsa", i.e. passersby will hear it running and know that a Jew's business is operating on Shabbos, and the problem with that is that they will think the Jew is transgressing amira lenochri. These are not separate issues. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 13:32:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 23:32:51 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> References: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <> I understand the concern. However, there is no halacha that a rabbi can't pasken on his own chicken. In fact in real life we all pasken for ourselves on some level. Anytime one has a shabbat question \he can't always run to the LOR. One usually ends up paskening based on whatever knowledge and mesorah one has. This is what makes the life of a Baal Teshuva very difficult. Certainly what RMA and many others are against is running to the LOR or even gadol hador with every question. I have heard complaints from shul rabbis that some congregants come with questions they could easily look upo themselves but prefer to ask the rabbi so that the rabbi notes how serious they are. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 14:35:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 21:35:43 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> Message-ID: . I have heard complaints from shul rabbis that some congregants come with questions they could easily look upo themselves but prefer to ask the rabbi so that the rabbi notes how serious they are. ---------------------- True, but sometimes it may be to establish a connection (yes, funny coming from me-but it is true) KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 15:04:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 18:04:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150513220422.GC10395@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 13, 2015 at 11:32:51PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> OTOH, pasqening for oneself has a major problem that one doesn't face when :> answering others' questions -- vested interest vs objectivity. : : I understand the concern. However, there is no halacha that a rabbi can't : pasken on his own chicken. : In fact in real life we all pasken for ourselves on some level. Anytime one : has a shabbat question he can't always run to the LOR... I was using "pesaq" to refer specifically to open questions that require shiqul hada'as. Your typical Shabbos question is about a devar mishnah. To quote Rt Chana Luntz from Mon, 7 Sep 1998, 8:33pm BDT: 20:33:38 +0100, a post about not combining chumeros: > ... the Rashba on our daf in Chullin [43b], who hold that a Rav only > needs to pay if there is shikul hadaas and not a mistake in a dvar > mishna, are forced to conclude from this that Rava's mistake was in > shikul hadaas - see there]. It would seem that a devar mishnah is not a pesaq that the rav is as responsible for our following his teaching rather than getting the halakhah correctly from some other source. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 15 08:55:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 15 May 2015 11:55:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Laasok beDivrei Sorah Message-ID: <4c752525c83edeb17b85f6670479b9c0@aishdas.org> >From R' Eliezer Eisenberg's blog Beis Vaad L'Chachamim (highly recommended), at http://beisvaad.blogspot.com/2015/05/bechukosai-at-my-grandsons-bar-mitzva.html A couple of personal comments ellided, mostly to save myself the bother of transliterating more Hebrew text. A belated mazal tov to the author, G'Shabbos to all, -micha Friday, May 15, 2015 Bechukosai. At my grandson's Bar Mitzva Drasha at the Bar Mitzva of Avraham Jofen, 5/14/15 ... The Gemara (Brachos 11b) and the rishonim there talk about the issue of hefsek in Birkas HaTorah. There are those that hold that if a person stops learning, he has to make a new bracha when he begins again, because it is a hefsek from the first bracha. The Rishonim, the Agur and the Rosh, say that it is not a hefsek, because even when you are not actually learning, you have to consider what you can and cannot do according to the dinim of the Torah. Even when you are in a place where you cannot learn, you have to behave in a manner that is prescribed in the Torah. As the Hafla'ah says, when you do business, it is not a hefsek, because you are learning Choshen Mishpat. Every decision you make is examined in the light of the Torah, so that is not a hefsek in limud. I would put it this way. Torah is only a mitzvah when you learn al menas laasos. Al menas laasos means that you don't learn superficially, you make the Torah a part of who you are. On the contrary, if what you learn is just on the surface, the learning itself is bitul Torah. If the Mitzva of limud hatorah requires that it should make you into a different person, do you think that carefully living the life of an ehrilcheh ben Torah is a hefsek in limud hatorah? It's not a hefsek, it is a hemshech, it is a kiyum, of the mitzvah of limud hatorah. My father Ztz'l was very friendly with his lawyer, Bill Rosenthal. Bill was an assimilated Jew. The only contact he had with the Jewish religion was when he shook hands with my father. Nonetheless, he and my father were good friends and respected each other. A lawyer for a mortgage company once asked him which university my father studied at, because he could brilliantly analyze contracts. Bill told him that my father studied at Slabodka U. He once asked my father, "You and I are very ethical and honest men. I wouldn't take a penny that wasn't mine, and I have the highest standards of behavior in business. You, too, are very moral, but you do it because of your religious beliefs. Is there really any difference between us? My father told him, on the spot, that there are three differences. One is that for you, a dollar is a small matter, and a question involving a million dollars is a big matter. To me, there is no difference. The principal, the law, is what matters, and the sum of money is irrelevant. Another difference is that let's say you carefully think an issue through, and you decide the other side is right, and you let them win. you will toss and turn at night, ,thinking that maybe you were really right. I, on the other hand, if I decide that I am right, and I keep something that had been disputed, I won't be able to sleep at night our of a concern that maybe my decision was influenced by self interest. The third difference is that while you and I are both successful people,, and we've both made a lot of money, you think that you made the money yourself, and it's 100% yours to do with as you please. I believe that God decided that I should have the money, and God gave me the money, and every dollar that was given to me was given so that I use it in the right way. So it's true, my father learned how to do business at Slabodka U. Because he learned how to do business at Slabodka U, he was able to give, on the spot, three excellent and lomdusheh chilukim about the difference between Bill Rosenthal's moral code and his own moral code. Doing business like that is not a hefsek in the mitzva of limud hatorah. Farkert, it is the biggest kiyum and chizuk of limud hatorah and mussar and yashrus. This is a kiyum of the passuk [im bechuqosai seleikhu], as Rashi explains, [shetihyu ameilim baTorah]. It is this mesora which we bequeath to the Bar Mitzvah. ... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 15 13:39:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 15 May 2015 16:39:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Learning Chumash with the Trop Message-ID: <20150515203756.96751182847@nexus.stevens.edu> My 6 year-old grandson who is in the first grade was taught the trop at the same time he was being taught Chumash. The bottom line is that when he says the Pesukim he has studies in yeshiva, he says each word with the trop. I think this makes it easier for him to remember the Pesukim. When he davens, he says Shma with the trop! I can only wonder why this is not done in all yeshivas. When it will come time for him to lein at his Bar Mitzvah, it should be much easier for him than for those boys who are taught Chumash without the trop. YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 06:37:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 09:37:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Standing at a Chupah Message-ID: <20150518133702.1FA0A18392A@nexus.stevens.edu> Yesterday a friend of mine told be that the Rov where he davened said that he knew of grandparents who did not want to walk down at their grandchildren's Chassana, because they knew that the people attending the chupah would not stand for them even though they were 70 + years old. They did not want to be involved in lifnei Iver. Truth be told, I have seen the following many times. When the grandparents who are 70 or more years old walk down, no one stands for them. However, when the chosson and kallah walk down everyone stands for them. It is, of course, a positive mitzvah to stand up for any person 70 years old or more. See See http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/35165/standing-for-someone-whos-turned-seventy It is questionable if one has to stand for the chosson and kallah. See http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/levine/standing_chasuna.pdf I told my friend that it should be announced at the beginning of every chupah that 1. All cell phones should be turned off; 2. There should be no talking during the chupah, and 3. If grandparents who are 70 or more will be walking down, then one is required to stand for them. I think if this were done at Chasanas it would soon become the norm. 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URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 06:39:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 14:39:50 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001b01d09170$1d5db6f0$581924d0$@org.uk> Rav Zylberstein in the Cheshukei Chemed on Daf 78a of Kesubos discusses the question as to whether a woman today who has lots of peros from her property can say to her husband - "you do not need to redeem me, and I will not give you the peros" - on the ground that the need for redemption today is not common ("lo schiach") - even though the gemora there says that she cannot avoid this trade as mandated by Chazal (despite her being able to avoid the trade between mezonos versus ma'aseh yadeha, again a takana of Chazal, as this last takana was done for her benefit). Rav Zylberstein brings a discussion based on various rishonim to show that actually, pidyon was not common even at the time of Chazal, or at the time of the rishonim, and hence the fact that it is not common today does not change the situation from that mandated by Chazal. He also adds in the position of the Ran, that the takana regarding pidyon is not just made for her benefit (as the mezonos one is) and hence something that can be waived by her, but is also for the benefit of the husband, as without her redemption, the husband doesn't have the benefit of her company and services, while with mezonos that doesn't apply. However, it seems to me that Rav Zylberstein is not in fact dealing with what strikes me as the fundamental question. That is, it is not a question of whether or not pidyon is not common today (indeed, I would be tempted dispute that it is in fact "lo schiach", despite Rav Zylberstein taking this for granted) - but rather that the job of pidyon today is one of those that has been appropriated away from family members such as husbands, and is now the province of governments. The decision as to whether an individual may or may not be redeemed from ISIS, or pirates off Africa, or wherever, is now one which governments take with regard to their citizens. Governments which are prepared to do deals, like France, redeem their citizens (albeit for astronomical sums). Governments, like the UK and the US, who refuse to do deals on the grounds that it just encourages terrorists - will not let individuals, including husbands, redeem, even if the sums could be raised individually, as a matter of general policy. Nobody assumed it was the job of Gilad Shalit's family to effect his release - except to the extent that they was required to lobby the Israeli government (it might even have been treason to go negotiating with Hamas directly). Release or non release negotiations therefore, including the price to be paid (whether by prisoner release or otherwise) is today a government price. So it seems to me that what in fact we have today is a situation where husbands are, for the most part, forbidden by law (dina d'malchusa dina) from redeeming their wives, ie from fulfilling their side of the takana of Chazal. In such circumstances - while one might argue that the state of which the woman is a citizen is entitled to (at least some portion of) the peros (taxes?) the real question then seems to become: on what basis does one say that the second half of the takana stands - not just in relation to a woman who tries to say "you do not need to redeem me", but in relation to any woman in this circumstance. Has anybody come across anybody discussing this question, and any thoughts on any justification for the retention of the husband's benefit if in fact husbands are not legally allowed to effect redemption? BTW on the question of the commonness of redemption - part of that would depend on the scope of the definition of "pidyon". Clearly redemption from ISIS or pirates in Africa falls within this category - but how about rescuing somebody who was trekking in Nepal at the time of the earthquake? Again this is something that governments are now regarded as having a responsibility to do (the British Government has been criticised for failing to do as much as others, such as the Israeli and US governments, have done). At first blush I can't see why flying somebody out of an earthquake zone would not fit within the pidyon definition - despite it being physical forces, such as landslides, rather than people, who may be trapping the individuals. How about a package tour company going bust? Again, the person in question would (absent ATOL and similar travel bonding schemes set up by the relevant governments) be trapped in a foreign country and need to be returned to their country of origin, as per the language of the takana/ketuba. So why would this not be a form of pidyon? But again, is not the fundamental responsibility now assumed to devolve onto the government in respect of its citizens? So while I am not actually sure that it is true that pidyon is in fact so extremely not common, it seems to me that the fundamental question is rather a different one. Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 05:15:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 12:15:18 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: <20150518.081518.3271.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Among the arguments that came up in the discussion of the Kosher > Switch was that it's zilzul Shabbos. > ... what does the fact that a community eruv is NOT zilzul > Shabbos say about the nature of zilzul Shabbos and its > applicability to nidon didan? Excellent point. And I'd like to add another point: There are those who have argued that the availability of various types of timers (including those with software and adjust themselves for varying sunset times) have made the Kosher Switch unnecessary. I disagree strongly. The Kosher Switch, and similar devices do not merely add convenience, but can do a lot for lessening tzaar, and that is a valid and recognized halachic consideration. There were many times when I went to bed earlier than planned, but the light would not go out for another hour, and it was keeping me awake. And there were many times when my seudah lasted longer than expected, but the lights had gone out and we benched in dim light. There were many times when I set the air conditioning for what was expected to be a very hot day, and when it turn out to be mild, we all froze in the cold house. And there were many times when I left the air conditioning off, and regretted it when the day turned hotter than expected. Of course, a couple of centuries ago, people did not have these conveniences, and they learned to cope with them. But I really believe that for us, who have gotten addicted to them, it is a real tzaar when we must do without. (None of the above should be construed as meaning that I endorse any particular sort of device. I'm only talking about devices which we are allowed to use on Shabbos.) [Email #2. -micha] R' Micha Berger asked: > When community eruvin got started, wasn't there a much easier > argument of zilzul? Why wasn't it made? I'm not sure which period of history you're referring to with the phrase "when community eruvin got started", but here's my attempt at an answer: Eruvin did not allow something which had been previously assur, the way timers do and the way the Shabbos Switch would (according to its supporters). Beginning in Moshe Rabenu's day, people were very careful not to carry from a Reshus Hayachid to a Reshus Harabim, or vice versa, or 4 amos within a Reshus Harabim. But everything else was no problem. People would carry from one home to another within the same chatzer without thinking twice. Or even to a home across the street, IF that street was NOT a Reshus Harabim. But over time, accidents started to happen, because it is not always so easy to determine what's a Reshus Harabim and what's not. So at a certain point (either by David Hamelech's beis din, or Shlomo's, I don't remember) TWO halachos were enacted, at the SAME tme: One, that hotzaah was forbidden in a wide variety of areas other than within one Reshus Hayachid. Two, that these other areas could be transformed into a Reshus Hayachid by following some specific rules. The net result is that after Hilchos Eruvin were instituted, there were NO actions which people could be done that were not being done before. No one said, "Now the neighborhood can have a picnic on Shabbos afternoon!", because they could have done this all along, if there was no Reshus Harabim running through. Thus, no one lamented the zilzul Shabbos caused by allowing picnics which had previously been forbidden, because they had NOT previously been forbidden. I suppose it is possible that in the beginning, these procedures were used only by small neighborhoods (chatzeros and not much larger), and it was only much later that they were used by entire communities. If that's what RMB was referring to, then I'll have to stop here and let a historian continue. Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 07:00:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 10:00:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Megilat Rut: The night of Boaz and Rut Revisited Message-ID: <20150518135955.4DC6C183869@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/kmyx55p YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 08:40:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 11:40:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> On Sun, May 17, 2015 at 1:32pm EDT, R/Prof. Yitzchok Levine wrote on Areivim: : Yesterday in shul I asked a 12 year-old boy who attends a good : yeshiva if he was willing to announce the Molad. He looked at me : incredulously and said "What's the Molad?" I replied, "You know, : when the new moon can be seen." He still didn't get it, and I had : to elaborate a bit. I want to get all nerdy with this. The molad is actually an average, not when you could first see the moon this particular month. From 1601 to 200 CE, the actual physical lunation could be 6h 21m shorter or 7h 15m longer. And, the average too changes over time. (As I've noted in the past, it is amazing to me that we had back in the days of Galus Bavel, a molad value that was most accurate in the same century R' Hillel II and his Sanhedrin crated a standard calendar, some 900 years later. Exact to within the unit of measure (the cheileq). Accurate when we needed the value, not when we first obtained it. Currently, the molad is around 108 chalaqim off. And that's just the time between the molads. Then you have to ask when in the cycle the moon could first be seen. How thin of a sliver is visible to the typical human eye? And which longitude's clock are you using? And we announce the time for this point on the globe using today's hour naming convension. If you look at (eg) the Rambam, you'd be seeing a clock which is restarted every day at sunset, making sunset 0:00, not a number various about 6pm. But that's only something to keep in mind when looking at older Sepharadi sefarim, and wouldn't impact understanding what it is we actually announce. It would seem the molad as we now announce it would be for Kandahar, Afghanistan. But that must be due to slippage because the molad is too long. If we go back to the 4th or 5th cent CE, the molad is being announced given the time around midway between the Nile and the far (south-east) end of the Euphrates, which would have been around the middle of Jewish settlement at the time. In any case, calling is Jerusalem Time is a misnomer. Anyway, because we don't know for sure what location on the globe the molad was defined for, and how much of the current location is due to slippage during centuries of molads growing ever longer, we cannot definitively translate molad time to your local standard time. We simply do not know the starting lattitude to convert from. Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 08:53:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 11:53:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 11:40 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. Sure we do. It's the motion of an "averaged moon" that orbits the earth in a perfect circle, and that, however fictional, forms the basis of our calendar. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 09:41:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 12:41:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150518164134.GC20828@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 11:53:42AM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : On 05/18/2015 11:40 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: : >Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. : Sure we do. It's the motion of an "averaged moon" that orbits the earth : in a perfect circle, and that, however fictional, forms the basis of our : calendar. Except we don't know how much of an idealized moon is supposed to be showing and where between the latitudes of Alexandria and Sura it would have been showing. IOW, we don't know when in the moon's cycle the molad is an idealization of. Note, though, that Rabban Gamliel quotes a mesorah from R' Gamliel haZaqein ("mibeis avi abba) that the molad varies. And in a second quote, that it will never be "less than" 29-1/2d 2/3h 73 chalaqim. (Shabbos 25a) And he uses this to question eidim, so this is a mesorah he accepts for re'iyah, not just computation. Redoing R' Gamaliel's fractions, and converting 73c = 4m 1c, we get 29d 4 hr, 44m, 1 c. Our molad. So Rabban Gamliel held our molad was a lower limit, not an average!? And recall, we'e talking re'iyah (see the sugya) and the actual lunation could be over 6hr easlier than the average. What am I missing? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 08:23:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 11:23:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: <001b01d09170$1d5db6f0$581924d0$@org.uk> References: <001b01d09170$1d5db6f0$581924d0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <555A0402.4060608@sero.name> It should be borne in mind that there are still countries (including ones with substantial Jewish communities) where the need for pidyon is at least as common now as it probably was in Chazal's day. Also that while in many countries paying ransoms may be technically illegal, hardly anybody who is r"l in that situation cares about this. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 09:35:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Riceman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 12:35:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <555A14EF.8070305@optimum.net> RMB: <. In particular, his very first source (see link to mar'eh meqomos sheet) Nissah 20b. Yalta, "Rebbetzin Nachman", asks her mar'os questions of Rabbah bar bar Chanah and Rabbi Yitzchaq bereih deR' Yehudah, not her husband. Similarly mishnah Nega'im 2:5 saying you can't pasen nega'im even of relatives, Bekhoros 31a about judging one's own bekhoros.>> The standard hiluq is is'hazek issura or not. See, e.g., Hochmas Adam H. Shechitah 1:10, Binas Adam ad. loc., and HA H. Nidah 109:6 and BA ad. loc. I think the issue is that hora'ah in the presence of hezkas issur is considered eidus. The argument of self interest raises some problems: 1. Do you know of cases where rabbis have referred questions about communal matters to experts elsewhere because they are self interested since they live in the community? For example, do Hachmai EY refer questions about communal safety (e.g., military matters) to rabbis in Hutz LaAretz because they are self interested? 2. Why shouldn't self interest be a psul in the absence of hezkas issur? I know people on this list have cited it to me in the case of restaurants certifying their own products. David Riceman From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 10:03:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 13:03:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518164134.GC20828@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> <20150518164134.GC20828@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555A1B64.8060409@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 12:41 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > What am I missing? That what we announce is *not* anything to do with the actual moon, which the eidim in RG's time would have claimed to have seen, but the notional averaged moon on which *our* calendar is based. The *real* molad, i.e. conjunction of moon and sun, does vary, because the real moon does not orbit the earth in a perfect circle; the notional molad on which we base our calendar, and which we announce every month (except, ironically, the one month when it actually matters), is perfectly regular. And "molad" does seem to mean the conjunction, not the moment when the first sliver is visible, because the gemara in RH seems to say that the first possible sighting of the new moon is six hours *after* the molad. So we do know exactly what we are announcing: the number on which the calendar is based. Given this Shabbos's announcement, one can easily calculate that next Rosh Hashana will be on a Monday, exactly as it should be. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 10:49:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 13:49:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> At 11:40 AM 5/18/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. Yet it says in the siddurim that it should be announced so people know when it is! My understanding is that what is announced is Jerusalem solar time and this is different from Jerusalem local time. YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 11:47:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 14:47:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150518184701.GD20828@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 01:03:32PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : On 05/18/2015 12:41 PM, Micha Berger wrote: : >What am I missing? : : That what we announce is *not* anything to do with the actual moon, which : the eidim in RG's time would have claimed to have seen, but the notional : averaged moon on which *our* calendar is based... First, as Zev noted to me in private, I meant RH 25a (not Mes' Shabbos). But the point I asked "what am I missing?" about was Rabbi Gamliel questioning what people thought they saw, not the average. In R' Gamliel's day, the length of the molad was pretty close to exact; even today it's closer than they had any way to measure. But that's still an average. And real values can be more than 6 hr earlier. So, how can R' Gamliel question someone's observation for being less than a molad, when in half of all months re'iyah will be early -- and many 5 or 6 hr early. : So we do know exactly what we are announcing: the number on which the : calendar is based. Given this Shabbos's announcement, one can easily : calculate that next Rosh Hashana will be on a Monday, exactly as it : should be. As I said in my previous post... Yes, that explans the length of the molad, but not the point in the idealized cycle. How much moon must be visible for it to be a new moon? Or more accurately, what was visible when the molad was al pi re'iyah that we are now using a simplified model to approximate? And we can't just calculate what it is the molad is approximating, because we don't know what clock to use. It looks to me like Hillel was using a point halfway between EY and Bavel, somewhere in the center of the contiguous Jewish settlement. But that's largely guesswork. On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 01:49:49PM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : My understanding is that what is announced is Jerusalem solar time : and this is different from Jerusalem local time. Which is why I left out the word standard, writing "Jerusalem Time" rather than Israel Standard Time. But as I wrote above, it's not. See also my first post (for Avodah) on this thread for more detail. In 1999, R Yisrael Medad posted something about this on MJ, after having R/Prof Ely Merbach, R/Prof Yaakov Loewinger and the Bar Ilan astronomy dept bad the question around. See They assume Jerusalem Mean Time, but they make the fundamental error of discussing mean conjunction -- no moon -- not the first sliver. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 13:31:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 16:31:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150518203148.GB4022@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 02:24:32PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : >Yes, that explans the length of the molad, but not the point in the : >idealized cycle. How much moon must be visible for it to be a new : >moon? [...] they make the fundamental error of discussing mean : >conjunction -- no moon -- not the first sliver. : : I don't think they made an error at all. The molad is the conjunction; : the earliest time at which the moon can be seen is six hours after : the molad. How do you know this? The Rambam (Qiddush Levana 6:1) appears to say it's the average of the first time the moon could be seen "kedei leida im yeira'eh hayarei'ach of lo yeira'eh.... bemahalakhtam ha'emtza'i, who haniqra 'molad'". And my whole point was that we didn't know how big of a sliver is "yeira'eh", but I'm willing to entertain the possibility that we announce when it cannot be seen, as a way of knowing by deduction when it could. I just can't see it as a given. Combining not knowing how much -- if any -- after the conjunction the molad is with not knowing which lattitude's clock is being used was the not knowing what the molad really means. You could move the lattitude by changing the size sliver. As for why we announce the molad... The Yerei'im gives the answer Zev did. The MA quotes the Yerei'im and says that mevorkhim hachodesh is lezeikher the real qiddush hachodesh by Sanhedrin. Which is why we stand. RMF (IM OC 1:142) says this is in imitation of the qehillah who would stand when answering "Mequdash! Mequdash!" I find the MA's answer more compelling, because it unlikely that it is to know when Rosh Chodesh should be, when the one RC that most depends on the molad isn't announced -- Tishrei. It also adds resonence for me when saying "Mi sheAsah Nissim", that before the chazan announces ther month, we ask for a return of the qiddush hachodesh being commemorated. And if truly "chaverim kol Yisrael" and we acted it, we would have a Sanhedrin. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 11:24:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 14:24:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 01:49 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > At 11:40 AM 5/18/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >> Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. > Yet it says in the siddurim that it should be announced so people know > when it is! It's the number used for calculating the calendar. That's all people need to know. > My understanding is that what is announced is Jerusalem solar time > and this is different from Jerusalem local time. No, it's different from J'm *standard* time, i.e. the modern time system invented by the railroads, which of course we take no notice of. On 05/18/2015 02:47 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > But the point I asked "what am I missing?" about was Rabbi Gamliel > questioning what people thought they saw, not the average. Why are you discussing that? The topic is the announcement in shul, which relates entirely to our calculated system, not to RG's system. You wrote that nobody knows what it is that's being announced, and I dispute that. RG is entirely irrelevant, since he was dealing with the actual moon, not the notional moon that our system deals with. > Yes, that explans the length of the molad, but not the point in the > idealized cycle. How much moon must be visible for it to be a new > moon? [...] they make the fundamental error of discussing mean > conjunction -- no moon -- not the first sliver. I don't think they made an error at all. The molad is the conjunction; the earliest time at which the moon can be seen is six hours after the molad. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 14:36:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 17:36:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518203148.GB4022@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> <20150518203148.GB4022@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555A5B79.2030308@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 04:31 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > > How do you know this? The Rambam (Qiddush Levana 6:1) appears to say > it's the average of the first time the moon could be seen "kedei leida im > yeira'eh hayarei'ach of lo yeira'eh.... bemahalakhtam ha'emtza'i, > who haniqra 'molad'". On the contrary, that Rambam says *explicitly* that the molad is the exact moment of the conjunction, which is *not* when it can be seen. Read it again and you will surely see this. > As for why we announce the molad... The Yerei'im gives the answer > Zev did.The MA quotes the Yerei'im and says that mevorkhim hachodesh > is lezeikher the real qiddush hachodesh by Sanhedrin. Which is why > we stand. RMF (IM OC 1:142) says this is in imitation of the qehillah > who would stand when answering "Mequdash! Mequdash!" Neither the Yere'im nor the MA even mention the announcement of the molad, let alone give any reason for it. All the Yere'im says is that the announcement of Rosh Chodesh in shul is not at all related to kidush hachodesh, but is merely so people should know when Rosh Chodesh will be. The MA adds that although this is true, the custom is to stand for it, as a zecher to kidush hachodesh, which was done standing. R Akiva Eger asks how this could be so, since we know that a beis din must sit, not stand. RMF answers thatkiddush hachodesh was done notby the BD, but by the audience, after hearing the BD's psak, and they were surely standing, and this is what the MA means. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 14:49:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 17:49:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: RMicha Berger wrote: >Among the arguments that came up in the discussion of the Kosher Switch was that it's zilzul Shabbos. >>The thought hit me, though... Refraining from operating electrical devices has only been a potential issue for 125 years or so. And except for Yekkes, most of our ancestors come from places where it has been less than a century since electricity became part of our lives. >So it's very hard to say that "not using electricity" is a defining feature of the Shabbos experience.< True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul Shabbos. (Of course, by this argument, putting an electric light on or off should be prohibited even if the use of electricity is not a m'lacha.) >Contrast this to hotza'ah, including haavarah, which take up what seems like 1/3 of chazal's discussion of issur melakhah (rough estimate from Berakhos and Eruvin in mishna, Tosefta, Y-mi and Bavli).< I assume that "Berakhos" should be replaced by "Shabbos." >When community eruvin got started, wasn't there a much easier argument of zilzul? Why wasn't it made? Indeed we use the general kelal of being meiqil WRT eiruvin to quite an extent to build one. And what does the fact that a community eruv is NOT zilzul Shabbos say about the nature of zilzul Shabbos and its applicability to nidon didan?< What tzuras hapesach and eiruv permit is not carrying prohibited by the Torah. Rather, it is, in effect, a built-in exception to the issurim imposed mid'rabbanan by two g'zeiros: the classification of certain areas, which min haTorah are m'kom p'tur, as a new entity called karmelis, and the imposing of a prohibition of hotza'a from one r'shus hayachid to another of different ownership. Both were in use long before there was a city eruv. E.g., persons sharing a two-family house with a common fenced yard would make an eruv to permit carrying to and from their living quarters to the others' and to the yard. Likewise, a house opening to an unfenced yard would make a tzuras hapesach to permit carrying between house and yard. And, of course, two houses opening to a common unfenced yard would make a tzuras hapesach to "enclose" the yard, and then an eruv to permit carrying among houses and yard. The city eruv was not an introduction of a new practice, but a larger-scale use of already common practices. How does this constitute zilzul Shabbos? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 14:31:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 22:31:48 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000001d091b2$0c5074f0$24f15ed0$@org.uk> RZS writes: >It should be borne in mind that there are still countries (including ones >with substantial Jewish communities) where the need for pidyon is at least >as common now as it probably was in Chazal's day. Are you thinking of South America? I confess that is what springs to mind from your suggestion, although how often ransom is really required in such countries I don't know. > Also that while in many countries paying ransoms may be technically illegal, hardly anybody who is >r"l in that situation cares about this. But presumably you are talking about the same ones (eg South America). My question relates solely to countries, like Britain and Israel, to which Rav Zylberstein was referring. He took it for granted that in fact it was exceedingly uncommon for pidyon to be needed. I am not so sure it is so uncommon, but I doubt very much that in these countries "hardly anybody who is r"l in that situation cares about this". That is, while I know from the press of numbers of cases in which pidyon has been needed for British and Israeli citizens, in none of these cases were private individuals allowed to redeem (despite them quite naturally wanting to, and possibly being willing to do so, if they had not been restrained, whether by circumstances or otherwise). Clearly if one lives in a place where pidyon is common, and where, whatever the technical law says, in practice individual family members redeem, neither my question nor Rav Zylberstein's gets off the ground. But I don't think the existence of a place in the world, that one would never contemplate living in (and is not the locus of the ketuba), is relevant to the obligations under that ketuba which must relate to the places that the couple live and the governments under which they live. Even when it might involve some less scrupulous situations - one of the mothers in our school in England had the situation that her sons were effectively kidnapped by her ex-husband and held in Russia. And while yes, ultimately she found where they were hidden by means of a private investigator, which cost her private money, she would never have been able to extract them had: (a) Russia not signed up to the Hague convention; (b) the Russian court given judgment in her favour; and (c) the Russian police at the bequest of the English government on the basis of the Russian judgment actually going in and retrieving the boys (whose location they had singularly failed to identify until the private investigator had provided the cast iron information as to where they were). And she would have struggled to have brought them back into England without the rulings of the Russian authorities. And even if an adult is different, I cannot see the British government allowing one of its citizens to go off and try and attempt pidyon of another of its citizens without its active involvement, it being seen as cutting across its foreign policy (even if this was occurring in a place where ransom payments amongst locals was common). >Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 15:53:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 18:53:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] measurement error In-Reply-To: <20150111185211.GA15414@aishdas.org> References: <54AD8B25.3010103@optimum.net> <20150111185211.GA15414@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150518225308.GA15666@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 01:52:11PM -0500, Micha Berger wrote: : In an appreciated bit of siyata dishmaya, my Arukh haShulchan yomi : sechedule brought me to a primary source : on this subject -- AhS OC 363:32-35. The he.WikiSource.org ("Vikiteqst") : copy is at ... : When dealing with mavui, where there is only one mavui and therefore one : measuring process to be used for everyone, the above applies. However, : when the measurement is only for one person's use, tbey should be : measuring for himself, with his own norms. : And here he adds a touch of subjectivity: a person should measure how : far he himself could walk. And the rule of carrying in rh"r a distance : of no more 4 of one's own amos is brought into that umbrella. : The reason for the general rule is to cover the personal amos of the : people who will be using the measuring. : BUT, and this is why I do not follow, he opened se'if 32 by telling us : the variability is 1/48 of the total (1/24 of an etzba per ammah). Which : is far less than the variability in forearm lengths in most groups of : people. For example, my own sukkah is used by Yoni, who stands 6'3" and by : my own 5'3" -- and my arms are on the shorter side, even proportionally. : When we hold up elbows together, my ammah ends just past his wrist. Not : within 47/48 of eachother. I came across another AhS datapoint for this thread, OC 586:14. He quotes the Rambam Shofar 1:5, discussing the minimum length of a shofar: that you can hold it in your hand and it's visible on either end. The AhS explains the intent as being the size of the toqei'ah's hand, but rather an average person's hands, "veshi'uro tefach sheheim 4 godelim". Then there is a debate whether the tefach has to be a generous one, so as to be visible (Tur, quoting Ri Gei'os) or a narrow one (Tur himself and SA), which is still visible if the toqei'ah uses four fingers -- after all, they'll still be narrower than 4 thumbs. So the shiur is neither personal nor really the standard tefach. It is literally as the gemara says, what can be held and still seen. Which is why there is a machloqes about where the tefach stands in relation to the real shiur. But, visible if hypothetically held by an average hand. And if the tqoei'ah has wide hands, he could hold a minimal shofar without it being visible, and it would still be kosher. The AhS also says this was already explained in Nidah 26b, which is a depressing gemara about miscarriages, and a tefach comes up in shiurim for tum'ah, but I didn't see where it mentionrs our topic of what kind of tefach is used. What I find even more interesting is that there is no chiluq being drawn between someone who blows in shul and someone who blows just for himself. Wouldn't the rule from OC 363 mean that someone in the latter situation should use what is visible when their own hand holds it? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 15:35:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 18:35:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: <000001d091b2$0c5074f0$24f15ed0$@org.uk> References: <000001d091b2$0c5074f0$24f15ed0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <555A6924.4010709@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 05:31 PM, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: > RZS writes: > >> It should be borne in mind that there are still countries (including ones >> with substantial Jewish communities) where the need for pidyon is at least >> as common now as it probably was in Chazal's day. > > Are you thinking of South America? Well, Latin America (so as to include Mexico). There are also other such countries, such as India, the Philippines, Nigeria, where the need for pidyon is common, but there are not a lot of Jews living there. > But I don't > think the existence of a place in the world, that one would never > contemplate living in (and is not the locus of the ketuba), is relevant to > the obligations under that ketuba which must relate to the places that the > couple live and the governments under which they live. Even a couple marrying in such a country must contemplate the possibility that one or both might one day travel to a country where kidnapping is common, and be kidnapped. Even in Chazal's day the danger was not so much where people lived as on the highways and the seas, where they might travel. Also, I am not at all sure that it is actually illegal in most normal countries to pay ransom. What is illegal is giving *anything* to groups that are officially listed by that country's government as terrorists. If the kidnappers are not on the list, so that it would be legal to give them a gift, then I don't think there's a law against paying them ransom. (Perhaps there should be.) -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 19 11:32:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joseph Kaplan via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 14:32:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Standing at a Chupah Message-ID: <004f01d09262$1f0388c0$5d0a9a40$@tenzerlunin.com> "Truth be told, I have seen the following many times. When the grandparents who are 70 or more years old walk down, no one stands for them. However, when the chosson and kallah walk down everyone stands for them." At almost every MO wedding I've attended over the past 5-10 years, everyone stood when the grandparents walked down whether they were older than 70 or not. But if, God willing, I'm around for my grandchildren's weddings, I plan to walk (or, if necessary, wheelchair) down the aisle whether anybody stands for me or not. Joseph -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 19 12:18:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 15:18:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150519191809.GA8642@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 05:49:16PM -0400, elazar teitz via Avodah wrote: :> So it's very hard to say that "not using electricity" is a defining :> feature of the Shabbos experience. : True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature : of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so : accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul : Shabbos. (Of course, by this argument, putting an electric light on or off : should be prohibited even if the use of electricity is not a m'lacha.) As would replacing gefilte fish with sushi? It's not that people from Sinai to around 100 years ago actually experienced avoiding the lightswitch, nor did they even consciously experience not having one -- since there was no conception of an alternative. Not using electricity, and saying that qedushas shabbos requires avoiding electricity are really two different things, experientially. 100 years ago we had an opportunity to do something new on Shabbos, much like when shomerei Shabbos first learned of sushi. The difference is that we did assur one new opportunity, and not the other. ... : What tzuras hapesach and eiruv permit is not carrying prohibited by : the Torah. Rather, it is, in effect, a built-in exception to the issurim : imposed mid'rabbanan by two g'zeiros... ... : The city eruv was not an introduction of a new practice, but a : larger-scale use of already common practices. How does this constitute : zilzul Shabbos? Yes, that explains why it's nothing clearer cut than zilzul Shabbos. AIUI, worrying about zilzul means that the mechanism is mutar, but the goal is one that cheapens Shabbos, removes some of the feeling of its qedushah. Like taking the pre-existing concept of eiruv as a way to have a reshus that was no included in Shelomo ubeis dino's original issur hotza'ah and stretching it to a much bigger area than ever before, so that most people never have reason to leave it most weeks. So that the entire issur goes from being one of the dominant features of Shabbos (judging just in blatt of discussion) to barely ever experienced. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 45th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Malchus: What is the beauty of Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity (on all levels of relationship)? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 19 12:46:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 22:46:01 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] donor egg Message-ID: "A 65-year-old Bnei Brak woman gave birth this week, becoming the oldest woman to give birth in Israel. The ultra-Orthodox woman and her 67-year-old husband had been battling infertility for 46 years before the birth at Kfar Sava?s Meir hospital. After fertility treatments abroad and with the help of a donor egg, the woman became pregnant, giving birth to a 2.685-kg baby in her 35th week of pregnancy. ?To the best of my knowledge, this is the oldest woman to give birth in Israel. It is extremely rare that pregnancy at this age ends well. The ultra-Orthodox circle from which the couple comes attributed the pregnancy and birth to a blessing the woman received from a Hassidic rabbi. " http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel/.premium-1.657230 Given all the halachic controversy of who is the halachic mother I am a little surprised -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 07:11:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 17:11:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? Message-ID: There is a famous Medrash that before offering the Torah to the Jewish people Hashem offered it to the other nations of the world. "First He approached the children of Esav and asked them, "Do you wish to accept the Torah?" They replied, "What is written in it?" "Do not murder." They said, "...Our father was assured that, 'By your sword will you live (Bereishit 27:40)!'" Next Hashem went to the children of Ammon and Moav, and asked, "Do you wish to accept the Torah?" They asked, "What is written in it?" "Do not commit sexual immorality." They responded, "Master of the Universe, our very existence is based on an immoral act!" Hashem then went to the children of Yishmael, and asked them, "Do you wish to accept the Torah?" They asked, "What is written in it?" "Do not steal." They responded, "Master of the Universe, the essence of our father was to be a bandit, as it is written, 'And he will be a man of the wild; his hand will be in all...'" (Bereishit 16:12)." Sifri, Ve'Zot HaBracha #343 However, the Medrash has an obvious question. All of the examples of Torah prohibitions given by the Medrash, are also prohibited by the 7 mitzvos of Bnei Noach. The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from murder so how would accepting the Torah make things worse for them? The same goes for arayos and stealing, these were already prohibited to them anyway so why does the medrash specifically pick these as examples for Torah prohibitions? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 11:16:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 14:16:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150520181647.GA15475@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 05:11:29PM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : However, the Medrash has an obvious question. All of the examples of Torah : prohibitions given by the Medrash, are also prohibited by the 7 mitzvos of : Bnei Noach. The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from murder so how would : accepting the Torah make things worse for them? The same goes for arayos : and stealing, these were already prohibited to them anyway so why does the : medrash specifically pick these as examples for Torah prohibitions? I raised this and a second question in : Hashem's answer to each of the nations is strange. Why choose the one sin their forefather was known for? Is that how you would do kiruv, starting with the hard stuff? By comparing this medrash to the opening pasuk in this week's parshah, [Lekh Lekha,] we can get a better understanding of the point of the story. "Hashem said to Avram, `Go for yourself from your homeland, from your birthplace and from your father's house to the land which I will show you'." (12:1) The first sentence recorded in the Torah of the Jewish mission on earth is a commandment for Avram to leave his home and his father. Avram didn't say, "I can't worship G-d because my very substance his idolatry, because my father, Terach, manufactures idols". Hashem orders Avram to leave the culture that made him, to leave his father's sphere of influence, and he does. Avram's reply was "And Avram went, just as G-d told him". (12:4) If Hashem said he could change, rise above Ur Casdim to become fit for both the land of Israel and the father of the people of Israel, then he goes. Is man a creature of fate or of destiny? Is his future foretold, etched in rock, unchangeable? Or can he rebuild himself into something greater than he was? Clearly the Torah insists on the latter. The very key to accepting the Torah is to be committed to use its ideas and its mitzvos to improve and to grow. This was the failing ascribed to the other nations in the medrash. They saw a given flaw in their national character as their substance, immutable. Hashem wasn't asking them about a particular prohibition, but about their commitment to leave their "father's house". If they do not believe they can change, what purpose can getting the Torah serve them? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 46th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Malchus: How can some forms of Fax: (270) 514-1507 "unity" be over domineering? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 11:48:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 14:48:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: <20150520181647.GA15475@aishdas.org> References: <20150520181647.GA15475@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555CD6E5.5000606@sero.name> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 05:11:29PM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from murder so how would : accepting the Torah make things worse for them? The same goes for arayos : and stealing, these were already prohibited to them anyway sowhy does the : medrash specifically pick these as examples for Torah prohibitions? Perhaps that was His point: you can't even keep the mitzvos you already have, so how can you want more? On 05/20/2015 02:16 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > I raised this and a second question in > : > Hashem's answer to each of the nations is strange. Why choose the one > sin their forefather was known for? Is that how you would do kiruv, > starting with the hard stuff? Why the premise that the purpose was kiruv? On the contrary, I think the medrash's intent is clear, that Hashem did *not* want them to accept His offer, and thus pitched it in the manner most likely to be rejected. The only purpose of making the offer in the first place was so they wouldn't be able to complain that they hadn't been given the chance. He wasn't trying to sell it to them, He was showing them why they didn't want it, and therefore shouldn't be upset that the Jews were getting it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 17:29:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 20:29:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] 65 Year-Old Woman Gives Birth to First Child in Bnei Brak In-Reply-To: <20150520.101659.17683.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150520.101659.17683.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150521002935.GC9522@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 02:16:59PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Areivim wrote: : If we were speaking Lashon Hakodesh, you'd be correct - Bar Mitzvah is : a noun, and only a noun. However, we are clearly speaking English, and : several dictionaries tell me that in English, "Bar Mitzvah" is both a noun : and a verb. See, for example, http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bar+mitzvah : which gives "bar mitzvahed" (and other forms) as examples. : Languages are funny this way. Stuff can change when a word enters a : new language. However, there is no real concept correspnding to the English word "bar mitzvahed". The borrowing was primarily done by non-traditional Jews, who think that being called up to the Torah changes your status. But in reality, "bar mitzvahed" makes as much sense as saying someone pubertied or menopaused. We O could borrow the word as shorthand for "became a bar mitzah" but since the original borrowing is really based on a misunderstanding of the Torah, why should we? It'll just make it harder to clear up the mistake. : If I'm not mistaken, the Yiddish word for "holiday" is pronounced : "yuntif", and it is spelled "yud vav memsofit blankspace tes vav beis", : and is considered a single word despite the fact... IIRC, on the NY State Yiddish Regents Examination in the late 1970s, it was spelled as it sounds, one word, yud-alef-nun-tes-eyin-ende fei (w/ a refuyah line over it). (R' Riskin, whose HS I attended, required a foreign language, and Hebrew doesn't count as "foreign". The Hebrew Regents exam was a separate requirement to graduate. As was Red Cross swimming certification and you could choose either CPR or First Aid. The latter two were because the HS is the father's shaliach for all of chinukh and education. Anyway, I already had some background in Yiddish, and I heard that the Yiddish regents eere easier than more popular languages like Spanish or French, so...) But the, Chassidishe Yiddish and YIVO Yiddish (the legacy of Litvishe Yiddishists) are different dialects. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 46th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Malchus: How can some forms of Fax: (270) 514-1507 "unity" be over domineering? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 17:53:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 20:53:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Admin: [Areivim] 65 Year-Old Woman Gives Birth to First Child in Bnei Brak In-Reply-To: <20150521002935.GC9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150520.101659.17683.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> <20150521002935.GC9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150521005329.GF9522@aishdas.org> The previous email was misdirected. Replies to it will not be accepted. (On Avodah. If Areivim's mods approve it, reply there.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 18:57:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 20:57:21 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <555D3B81.5030709@starways.net> I think the obvious answer is that midrash is midrash. One midrash doesn't have to be consistent with another. It's there to learn from, and the message of this one comes through regardless of the Noachide laws. On 5/20/2015 9:11 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > There is a famous Medrash that before offering the Torah to the Jewish > people Hashem offered it to the other nations of the world. > > However, the Medrash has an obvious question. All of the examples of > Torah prohibitions given by the Medrash, are also prohibited by the 7 > mitzvos of Bnei Noach. The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from > murder so how would accepting the Torah make things worse for them? > The same goes for arayos and stealing, these were already prohibited > to them anyway so why does the medrash specifically pick these as > examples for Torah prohibitions? > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 03:36:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 06:36:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: <555D3B81.5030709@starways.net> References: <555D3B81.5030709@starways.net> Message-ID: <20150521103619.GC7831@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 08:57:21PM -0500, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: : I think the obvious answer is that midrash is midrash. One midrash : doesn't have to be consistent with another. It's there to learn : from, and the message of this one comes through regardless of the : Noachide laws. I believe the question was finding internal consistency in a single medrash from the Yalqut Shim'oni. The medrash that says the nations were offered the Torah itself says the example mitzvos were ones they were already obligated in, and ones their ancestor was known for. So, what does that tell us about the message? To me, it says that the offer was more about testing one's willingness to change. Therefore, each is asked if they would be willing to refrain from something that they should already be avoiding, but is part of their current culture. And that, in turn, speaks to seeing the Torah as a tool for self-transformation. Which I mean in a manner vague enough to include both Chassidim and Litvaks. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 07:50:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 10:50:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Ways to find non-meat or non-milk Message-ID: <20150521145032.GH9522@aishdas.org> >From the founder of Machon Zomer, RYRosen, on possible ways to eat kosher meat and milk together without violating basar bechalav. -micha Shabbat B'Shabbato Translated by Moshe Goldberg Point Of View Bit of Reality from Sinai Rabbi Yisrael Rosen Dean of the Zomet Institute "This teaches you that scripture, the Mishna, halacha, tosefta, hagadda, and whatever a veteran scholar will teach in the future already exists, and it was all given as halacha to Moshe at Sinai" [Kohellet Rabba 1]. ... Recipes with Meat and Milk In honor of the holiday, we have pieced together for you, from the newest volume, some juicy samples of dairy halachot, as is fitting for the holiday of Shavuot, in order to fulfill the verse, "Honey and milk are under your tongue" [Shir Hashirim 4:11]. We will capture your interest for halachic sophistication by offering you, from this new volume of Techumin, a serving of meat cooked in milk (yes, you read that right!). Compare this to Rav Nachman, who gave his wife an udder soaked in milk in order to satisfy her desire to taste a combination of milk and meat (Chulin 109b). And what is our enticing menu item that fits this requirement? See below... (1) "Ben Pekua" -- It is an accepted halacha (admittedly quite odd) that if a cow is slaughtered in the eighth month of her pregnancy and the calf is found to be alive, it is called a "Ben Pekua" and there is no need to slaughter it. It can be eaten in any manner, including even taking off a limb while it is still alive (Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Dei'ah 13), even many years later, and there is no need to check if it has one of the faults that would render a normal animal unkosher. And now, here is the most surprising part: The offspring of a male and female "Ben Pekua" (both of the "parents must be of this type) will never require kosher slaughtering either, and this includes all subsequent generations. (However, if only one parent is a "Ben Pekua," the offspring cannot be made kosher, even by slaughtering!) Rabbi Meir Rabi from Australia published a dramatic article where he claims that by definition a Ben Pekua is not cattle (but is rather the same as fish), and therefore not only is there no need to remove the veins in the hind quarter, one is even permitted to cook it and eat it together with milk! To come to this conclusion, the rabbi bases his ruling on a Torah insight by the Meshech Chochma, that our Patriarch Avraham served his guests, the angels, "a calf (literally, the son of cattle, or a ben pekua!) that was tender and good," from the womb of a pregnant cow, and he gave them "butter and milk, and the calf" [Bereishit 18:8]. Rabbi Rabi went further, and acted on his ruling. Using this method he created male and female "sheep" and grew flocks from them, and he now has a culinary and halachic declaration -- these animals do not need to be slaughtered, their veins do not have to be removed, their fat is not prohibited -- and the rabbi has a long list of other benefits. However, modern rabbis do not accept this idea! In the new volume of Techumin, Rabbi Zev Vitman, the rabbi of Tenuvah (which sells milk, meat, and fish) vigorously opposes the novel ruling. Aside from the release from the requirement of ritual slaughtering (which is carried over from the mother or the grandmother of the calf), Rabbi Vitman disagrees with (almost) all the other conclusions. He finds no justification for defining the Ben Pekua as a "new and separate species." In addition, in volume 19 of Techumin, sixteen years ago, Sephardi Chief Rabbi Bakshi-Doron rejected a similar proposal that was sent to him by meat farmers on the Golan, fearing that it would lead to serious problems. Other prominent rabbis, such as Rabbi Shmuel Vazner and Rabbi Asher Weiss, warned against getting involved in this sophisticated and complex halachic problem. (2) We are thus left to search elsewhere for a combination of meat and milk: meat that has been cloned from stem cells! In a previous volume, Rev Tvi Reizman (a well-known businessman from Los Angeles who is also a Torah scholar well versed in matters of halacha and actuality) writes about an "artificial hamburger" which was created two years ago. This is produced from artificial meat made from stem cells of a cow which was not slaughtered or which was declared unkosher ("tereifa"). In principle, he concludes that clone meat is not real meat, and that it can therefore be cooked and eaten with milk! (The summary of the article includes many details which will not be repeated here. For example, the problem of appearances can be solved by proper packaging and declarations, as is done for soya milk.) However, my friends, I doubt that you should rush out after the holiday to search for an "artificial hamburger," in order to season it with honey and dip it in milk. Rabbi Yaacov Ariel opposes the idea in the new volume of Techumin. He concludes that such artificial meat can only be produced from a kosher animal, and that then "it will be considered meat for all intents and purposes, including the matter of cooking with milk." So, in the end we are left with the solution in the Talmud: Does anybody want some milk-saturated udders? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 08:36:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 11:36:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula Message-ID: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> In OC 196:1, the Rama mentions the minhag of blowing 30 qolos at the end of RH mussaf. "Ule'achar sheyatze'u bazeh, shuv ein litqua od bechinam." (Although a qatan, even higia lechinuch, may.) So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. As for being yotzei... Mitzvas shofar only requires tashra"t, tasha"t OR tara"t, 3 times. A point the AhS makes besheim the Rash besheim R' Hai Gaon (Shilhei RH), "delav sefeiqos gemuros hein", that Rav Avahu was mesaqein in order for everyone to do the same thing, not because otherwise you're not yotzei shemie'as qol shofar. The AhS criptically adds, "(ulevad zeh yeish bazeh inyan gadol)." So the question is whether you have to blow in numerous ways few other people use in order to fulfil a taqanah created to create uniformity of practice. But enough of the tirade, and back to the point: Being machmir in hilkhos shofar this way involves a qulah in hilkhos yom tov. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:25:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:25:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150521202527.GP9522@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 02:46:27PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : On 05/21/2015 11:36 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: :> In OC 196:1, the Rama mentions the minhag of blowing 30 qolos at the :> end of RH mussaf. "Ule'achar sheyatze'u bazeh, shuv ein litqua od :> bechinam." :> (Although a qatan, even higia lechinuch, may.) : : Not bechinam; for practice, so that he may one day blow for real. That's not what the Rama says, though. He says "you're allowed to tell him to blow (HaMagid, Hil' Shofar, pereq 2) and it's mutar to for him to blow all day (Or Zarua dRH)." The mishnah says "any me'qvim es hatinoqos militqoa, aval mis'asqim imahem ad sheyilmedu", which implies they are not stopped even after yilmedu. The gemara ad loc (RH 33a-b) says that a qatan higia' lechinukh is encouraged to blow to learn, but any child is not prevented from blowing. So I think the Rama is paralleling the gemara, and not saying the seifa is only for chinukh, or for a child who doesn't need to be stopped because he isn't ready yet. The AhS's wording is even further from your deduction. :> So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the :> qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, :> etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. : No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the : last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. They aren't to fulfill minhag. Hey, I didn't outright assur the practice, I said it relies on being meiqil, such as calling wanting to be chosheish for some minority opinion shitah a need to blow. In general, I'm increasingly uncomfortable with this concept of being machmir to be chosheish for ... It seems to reflect a lack of emunah in kelalei pesaq and the authority of pesaq. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 11:46:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 14:46:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 11:36 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > In OC 196:1, the Rama mentions the minhag of blowing 30 qolos at the > end of RH mussaf. "Ule'achar sheyatze'u bazeh, shuv ein litqua od > bechinam." > > (Although a qatan, even higia lechinuch, may.) Not bechinam; for practice, so that he may one day blow for real. > So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the > qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, > etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 05:09:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Arie Folger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 14:09:57 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: RMB wrote: > Yes, that explains why it's nothing clearer cut than zilzul Shabbos. > AIUI, worrying about zilzul means that the mechanism is mutar, but > the goal is one that cheapens Shabbos, removes some of the feeling > of its qedushah. > > Like taking the pre-existing concept of eiruv as a way to have a > reshus that was no included in Shelomo ubeis dino's original issur > hotza'ah and stretching it to a much bigger area than ever before, > so that most people never have reason to leave it most weeks. So > that the entire issur goes from being one of the dominant features > of Shabbos (judging just in blatt of discussion) to barely ever > experienced. RAW actually deals with this explicitly by citing IIRC Rambam on why Chazal legislated mutze. We are not all farmers or builders, not even cooks and bakers. Hence, many of us hardly ever come close to deoraitot of Shabbat. However, Shabbaton requires shevita hanikeret,so Chazal legislated muktze to create a shevita hanikeret. Says RAW, even if he is wrong on electricity being a deoraita (but he doesn't think he is wrong), nonetheless, the consensus of poskim on elecricity makes it into something akin to muktze. That never happened regarding gefillte fish [which outside Hungary hardly anyone ever ate except on Yom Tov, since what passes for gefillte fish is just the filling. ]. No one ever suggested it is chillul Shabbos to eat gevldige Sushi. At worst, some puerile yeshive boocher called it goiyishe maakhoolim. -- Arie Folger, Recent blog posts on http://ariefolger.wordpress.com/ * Kann man die Religion des anderen korrekt wahrnehmen? ? Zur Woche der Br?derlichkeit * ???? ???? ????? ? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ???? ??? * Ist Pessach f?r die Vergangenheit oder die Zukunft? * Frag den Rabbi ? Wie backte man Mazzot in der Bibel? * Frag den Rabbi ? Seit wann und warum bedecken j?dische m?nner beim gebet ihr haupt? * A Critique of Liberal Orthodox Approach to Halacha -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:38:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:38:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 02:46:27PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the : last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. Having 100 qolos as learned from Eim Sisera's 100 cries is a minhag recorded already in the Arukh, and is mentioned by Todafos and the Rosh in RH pereq 4. (AhS OC 596:1) The Tur that R' Amram Gaon mentions of minhag of a single teru'ah gedolah without a teqi'ah kedei le'arbeiv hasatan, but we do not have this minhag. The the AhS continues (se'if 2) with the already mentioned Rama, "ke'achar sheyatz'u bazeh, ein litqoa od bechinam". Which is why I said that blowing more than 100 qolos for reasons less than minhag requires a qula-dik reading of "chinam". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:31:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:31:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521202527.GP9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521202527.GP9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E409C.7080609@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 04:25 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > >:> So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the >:> qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, >:> etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. >: No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the >: last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. > They aren't to fulfill minhag. Hey, I didn't outright assur the practice, > I said it relies on being meiqil, such as calling wanting to be chosheish > for some minority opinion shitah a need to blow. That's not a kulah, because the issur is davka when it's bechinam, and so long as there's a reason it's not chinam. Their wish to hear shofar the way this rishon or that one wanted it heard is at least as good a reason as our "le`arvev es hasoton", or giving women a "nachas ruach". [Email #2. -micha] Follow-up: However, your chashash brings up an interesting suggestion. if they are worried about all possible chashshos, then maybe they should worry about yours too, and they can easily solve it: let them go on mivtzo'im and find Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all, and blow for them according to these opinions. That way, not only will they have heard shofar according to all possible opinions, and not only will they have the zechus of those Jews having heard shofar according to at least one opinion (which is certainly kosher, as you correctly point out), but their "extra" tekios will be with a bracha! -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:51:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:51:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E454E.60107@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 04:38 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 02:46:27PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: > : No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the > : last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. > > Having 100 qolos as learned from Eim Sisera's 100 cries is a minhag > recorded already in the Arukh, and is mentioned by Todafos and the > Rosh in RH pereq 4. (AhS OC 596:1) Yes, but what of the extra 30 kolos after davening? Those are not in the 100 kolos, they're just le'arvev es hasoton, and yet nobody seems to raise this objection to them. > The the AhS continues (se'if 2) with the already mentioned Rama, > "ke'achar sheyatz'u bazeh, ein litqoa od bechinam". Which is why I said > that blowing more than 100 qolos for reasons less than minhag requires > a qula-dik reading of "chinam". No, it's not kuladig, it's just what the word means. Any valid reason is not chinam. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:55:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:55:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <555E454E.60107@sero.name> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> <555E454E.60107@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150521205546.GA9166@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 04:51:26PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Yes, but what of the extra 30 kolos after davening? Those are not in the : 100 kolos, they're just le'arvev es hasoton, and yet nobody seems to raise : this objection to them. Actually, they were part of the 100 qolos, and in nusach Ashkenaz they still are. It's only because y'all starting blowing during chazaras hashatz that it's not obvious. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:44:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:44:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <555E43A6.3020602@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 08:09 AM, Arie Folger via Avodah wrote: > No one ever suggested it is chillul Shabbos to eat gevldige Sushi. At worst, some puerile yeshive boocher called it goiyishe maakhoolim. Chilul Shabbos, no, but I have heard people seriously claim that it's forbidden to eat milchigs on Shabbos because it's "not shabbosdik", and specifically citing as "obviously" ridiculous the idea of eating lasagna on Shabbos. Which struck me as funny, since I recall one Rosh Hashana, no less, being confronted with an excellent milchig lasagna, made with fake meat, and having to wait to eat it because I was still fleishig from lunch. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:52:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:52:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What do Chazal mean when they refer to "pashtei d'kra?" Message-ID: <20150521205201.GA6908@aishdas.org> Maybe one of you could help R' CHaim Brown, even if he did leave us over a decade ago. A recent blog post on his "Divrei Chaim" at or . I mean, we talk about different definitions of the concept of "peshat" often enough, perhaps maybe someone had something. Tir'u baTov! -Micha Divrei Chaim Wednesday, May 20, 2015 what do Chazal mean when they refer to "pashtei d'kra?" The gemara Archin 8b darshens that "tzikascha k'harerei E-l" refers to nigei adam, which Hashem in his mercy limits to affecting a person for a week. The continuation of the pasuk, "mishpatecha tehom rabbah," refers to nigei batim, where the punishment is more severe in that it can stretch out for three weeks. The gemara then asks, "Pashtei d'kra b'mai?" and brings two similar explanations to the pasuk that read it as saying that G-d shows great mercy in tempering and mitigating the verdict that strict justice would call for. What do Chazal mean when they refer to "pashtei d'kra?" Despite the word "pashtei" in there, it does not seem to mean what the Rishonim like Rashi call "pshat," because if you look at Rashi or the Metzudas David, they don't simply quote this gemara. It seems that the gemara's "pashtei d'kra" is itself a derasha, albeit a derasha that is closer to the plain meaning of the words than the derasha that links the pasuk to nega'im. So are there different levels of derashos? The term "pashtei d'kra" is not all that common, so are these isolated exceptional cases, or in general are there different levels of derash? Does it make any nafka minah (except in our understanding of things?) Posted by Chaim B. at 9:40 AM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 14:12:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 17:12:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521205546.GA9166@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> <555E454E.60107@sero.name> <20150521205546.GA9166@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E4A32.8030909@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 04:55 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 04:51:26PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : Yes, but what of the extra 30 kolos after davening? Those are not in the > : 100 kolos, they're just le'arvev es hasoton, and yet nobody seems to raise > : this objection to them. > > Actually, they were part of the 100 qolos, and in nusach Ashkenaz they > still are. It's only because y'all starting blowing during chazaras > hashatz that it's not obvious. No, these kolos are not part of the 100. These are an extra 30, *after* the 100, and their only purpose is le'arvev es hasoton. And yet that doesn't count as "bechinam". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 18:25:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 21:25:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Shulchan Aruch's "Beis Din" Message-ID: <20150522012546.GA28788@aishdas.org> We discussed a number of times the fact that the SA doesn't follow the rule in his haqdamah to OC about following the majority of the Rif, the Rambam and the Rosh. Less often, peoeple mention actual examples. So, in case you were looking for one, the AhS mentions on OC 606:8-9 the machloqes about whetherit's a mitzbvah to eat on erev YK. In se'if 8 we learn the the Rif, the Ramnam and the Smag omit this idea, and in se'if 9 he says the Rosh, Tur and SA (se'if 1) hold that it's a mitzvah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 20:02:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi, its Kosher! via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 13:02:42 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Ways to find non-meat or non-milk - The BP Project Message-ID: I am happy to engage in discussion regarding the Halachos of BP, with anyone who is interested. For the time being such discussions must be and remain private I can confirm that I have been in contact with R Chaim Kanievsky about this for some years now and that he supports the Lomdus and proofs that I have proposed. Best, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi *Its Kosher* and *Exodus Matza * *it's kosher Authority Pty Ltd **ABN: *77 160 144 374 rabbi at itskosher.com.au +61 0423 207 837 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 18:55:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 01:55:29 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula Message-ID: <20150521.215529.1991.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Actually, they were part of the 100 qolos, and in nusach Ashkenaz they > still are. It's only because y'all starting blowing during chazaras > hashatz that it's not obvious. R' Zev Sero responded: > No, these kolos are not part of the 100. These are an extra 30, > *after* the 100, and their only purpose is le'arvev es hasoton. > And yet that doesn't count as "bechinam". Okay, folks, I think it is clear that some of us have been exposed to minhagim that the others are unaware of. I suggest that we clarify the various minhagim, and tally up the different ways of dong it. >From what I've seen, the vast majority of Nusach Ashkenaz shuls blow 30 times before Musaf, 30 during Chazaras Hashatz, 40 during or after Kaddish Tiskabel, and that is the end, for a total of exactly 100. I have been in a Nusach Sfard shul where they blow 30 times before Musaf, 30 during the silent Musaf, 30 during Chazaras Hashatz, 10 during or after Kaddish Tiskabel, and that is the end, for a total of exactly 100. Here in Elizabeth, we blow 30 times before Musaf, 60 during Chazaras Hashatz, 10 during Kaddish Tiskabel, and that is the end, for a total of exactly 100. R' Zev, could you describe for us how the first 100 are blown, and when the extra 30 come in? And if anyone else wants to add to the list, please do so! Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/555e8cc570114cc51cdast04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 01:14:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 11:14:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat Message-ID: REMT wrote > True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature > of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so > accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul > Shabbos. (Of course, by this argument, putting an electric light on or off > should be prohibited even if the use of electricity is not a m'lacha.) In particular using an preset switch to turn lights and off should be prohibited. While RMF originally did object he later changed his mind when it became the norm. In fact even the kosher lamp might be prohibited Can someone come up with a definition of zilzul shabbat? Is every modern way of doing any melacha that does not technically violate hilchot shabbat zilzul? The gemara allows using the sun for cooking on shabbat - why isn't that zilzul shabbat? -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 07:59:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Sassoon via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 15:59:41 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003901d0949f$eed65840$cc8308c0$@org.uk> RZS writes: >That's not a kulah, because the issur is davka when it's bechinam, I don't think that is exactly the correct phrasing to explain the situation. Rather, there is the general blanket rabbinic issur on playing musical instruments on yom tov, into which sounding shofar prima facie falls. This general issur is pushed aside by the d'orisa positive mitzvah of blowing shofar (noting that, at least according to the famous Taz, because rabbinic power doesn't stretch far enough to allow the banning of something which is a mitzvah d'orisa in every circumstances in which it would occur, as this would do - but is only in allowed situations where only sometimes the mitzvah would not end up being performed, such as Rosh Hashana on shabbas). This rabbinic issur of playing musical instruments on yom tov vis a vis the shofar is also pushed aside in other rabbinically recognised circumstances - including (according to the majority rishonim, Shulchan Aruch and Rema, although there are major rishonic dissenters) nachas ruach d'nashim. The case of the katan may well be different, given that the fundamental issue with katanim is chinuch (which might perhaps be said to cut both ways here). > and so long as there's a reason it's not chinam. Their wish to hear shofar >the way this rishon or that one wanted it heard is at least as good a >reason as our "le`arvev es hasoton", or giving women a "nachas ruach". Leaving aside nachas ruach, which has (according to those who hold by it at least rabbinic weight - ie power to push aside at least rabbinic prohibitions) - what is the justification for le'arev es hasoton? My instincts are that, to the extent that le'arvev es hasoton is taken seriously, the argument there is one of pikuach nefesh, which of course would push aside the rabbinic issur of playing musical instruments (think about it, if you can get a few extra years out of confusing the soton, how could that not be considered pikuach nefesh)? Don't think that helps with being choshesh for minority shitos. >However, your chashash brings up an interesting suggestion. if they >are worried about all possible chashshos, then maybe they should worry >about yours too, and they can easily solve it: let them go on mivtzo'im >and find Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all, and blow for them >according to these opinions. That way, not only will they have heard >shofar according to all possible opinions, and not only will they have >the zechus of those Jews having heard shofar according to at least >one opinion (which is certainly kosher, as you correctly point out), >but their "extra" tekios will be with a bracha! But aren't they then denying those Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all the chance to hear shofar according to the majority opinions by only blowing for them according to the minority opinions? Or are you proposing that they *then* blow for them according to the majority opinions? Either way you seem to me to be opening a real can of worms. The principle on which somebody who has fulfilled their obligation can then fulfil the obligation of another is based on kol yisrael areivim zeh b'zeh. But to what extent is that applicable in a situation in which that person would never, had the situation been reversed, have accepted the form of fulfilment they are offering the other. Ie since the person who is blowing the shofar refused to have these alternative ways of blowing as the fundamental method of fulfilling their own mitzvah, is it really areivus to then foist that form of fulfilment on others? >Zev Sero zev at sero.name Shabbat Shalom Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 10:22:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 13:22:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What is the Law? Message-ID: <20150522172240.022581829C9@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/sivan_v.pdf YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 11:16:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 14:16:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula II Message-ID: <20150522181627.GA5977@aishdas.org> I came across another one, more inyana deyoma... According to the AhS (OC 494:3) we used to wait for "laylah mamash" to make Qiddush the first night of Shavu'os, so that the omer could be "sheva shabasos temimos". Presumably this is following the MGA who has us wait until tzeis for Qiddush, and the AhS's "laylah mamash" means tzeis. The Taz (494:haqdamah) and the MB (s"q 1) have us waiting for tzeis to start *Ma'ariv*. The Qorban Nesanel (on the Rosh, Pesachim 130b) brings the Rosh as a ra'ayah against the MGA. The Rosh says that even though on Shabbos *and the other YT-im* we add from the chol to the qodesh and eat before it gets dark, we do not do so for the seder night. So the QN QN takes the implication that "she'ar yamim tovim" includes Shavuos. So the QN treats Shavuos like Shabbos, and presumably let you daven maariv and make Qiddush right after pelag. The QN is machmir in omer, the MGA is machmir in tosefes YT. And each is being correspondingly meiqil in the other. I would presume that the silence in the Tur, the BY and the SA about any waiting means that the Tur, the Mechaber and the Rama hold like the QN and treat erev Shavuos like erev Shabbos, RH, Sukkos, etc... (But not Pesach.) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 48th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Malchus: What binds different Fax: (270) 514-1507 people together into one cohesive whole? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 08:55:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 11:55:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <003901d0949f$eed65840$cc8308c0$@org.uk> References: <003901d0949f$eed65840$cc8308c0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <555F517D.4080806@sero.name> On 05/22/2015 10:59 AM, Chana Sassoon via Avodah wrote: >> >However, your chashash brings up an interesting suggestion. if they >> >are worried about all possible chashshos, then maybe they should worry >> >about yours too, and they can easily solve it: let them go on mivtzo'im >> >and find Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all, and blow for them >> >according to these opinions. That way, not only will they have heard >> >shofar according to all possible opinions, and not only will they have >> >the zechus of those Jews having heard shofar according to at least >> >one opinion (which is certainly kosher, as you correctly point out), >> >but their "extra" tekios will be with a bracha! > But aren't they then denying those Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all > the chance to hear shofar according to the majority opinions by only blowing > for them according to the minority opinions? AFAIK everyone agrees that all these methods are kosher, so those Jews are definitely yotzei the mitzvah. > The principle on which > somebody who has fulfilled their obligation can then fulfil the obligation > of another is based on kol yisrael areivim zeh b'zeh. But to what extent is > that applicable in a situation in which that person would never, had the > situation been reversed, have accepted the form of fulfilment they are > offering the other. Ie since the person who is blowing the shofar refused > to have these alternative ways of blowing as the fundamental method of > fulfilling their own mitzvah, is it really areivus to then foist that form > of fulfilment on others? They're not foisting anything. The people they're blowing for would otherwise not hear shofar at all, so they're clearly better off hearing even some obscure form of it, so long as they're yotzei. On 05/21/2015 09:55 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > R' Zev, could you describe for us how the first 100 are blown, and when the extra 30 come in? And if anyone else wants to add to the list, please do so! I'm talking about 30 kolos blown at the very end of davening, just before going home, and well after all 100 kolos have already been heard (30 meyushav, 30 in each musaf, and 10 in kaddish). Their purpose is le'arvev es hasoton. And I've never heard it suggested that there is any chashash issur. Thus my conclusion that shofar-blowing is allowed on RH for *any* valid purpose, and the only blowing that remains forbidden as usual on Yomtov, is when it is truly "bechinam". -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 25 12:15:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 25 May 2015 19:15:59 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Brisker Theory of Everything Message-ID: 1. The gemara (Ketuvot 5b) discusses whether causing a certain type of blood flowing is considered a Sabbath violation. The first attempt to resolve the question turns on whether "mifkad pakid or chaburei mechbar" (is the blood in the womb stored up or is it the result of a wound?). Rashi there (please look) seems to define this as a physical question. Is this acceptable or must we say Rashi was leaving out the "obvious" philosophical/halachic question (i.e. the physical was known, it's a question of how to categorize it halachically)? 2. That gemara continues to try to resolve the question and is willing to entertain the possibility that the halacha is like Rabbi Yehuda (vs. Rabbi Shimon) in mekalkeil (destroying) and like Rabbi Shimon (vs. Rabbi Yehuda) in davar sheino mitkavein (the result was not the major one intended). If these two issues were interconnected, could the gemara entertain this possibility? 3. If the answer to 2 is no, must we assume that when the Shulchan Aruch said he would decide the psak based on majority 2 of big 3, did he really mean this as a primary tie breaker, or only when he did not have a clear understanding of the underlying philosophy that resulted in their final opinions. 4.Is it possible that R'YBS limited his "canon" to only a few major rishonim (in contradistinction to R" A Lichtenstein) because the more data points included in trying to determine the underlying theoretical construct, the more likely a single errant point would skew the results? Kt Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 25 19:35:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 02:35:10 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir Message-ID: <20150525.223510.2086.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> After Machlon and Kilyon died, we find in Ruth 1:8-13 that Naami tells both Orpah and Ruth to go back home. Didn't Naami realize that they would return to avodah zara if they'd do that? Even if they had not converted yet, wouldn't this be an example of Lifnei Iveir? One answer I can think of is that perhaps this eventuality didn't occur to Naami. But several pesukim later, in 1:15, Naami tells Ruth that Orpah has "returned to her people and to her god; go back with your sister-in-law." Naami persists not only in trying to convince Ruth to leave, but she explicitly urges Ruth to return to her former god! This question is certainly relevant according to those who understand that Orpah and Ruth converted prior to marrying Machlon and Kilyon. But it is relevant even to those who hold that Ruth did not convert until afterward. It is one thing to dissuade a prospective ger from joining us. But Ruth had been living with a Jewish family for ten years! How can Naami urge her to go back to avoda zara? I know that the meforshim give various reasons why Naami did not want them to accompany her back to Eretz Yisrael, but do those reasons justify this Lifnei Iveir? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 06:00:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 09:00:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Who Wrote the Mishna Brura? Message-ID: <20150526130054.4548818394C@nexus.stevens.edu> I am sure that most will answer "The Chofetz Chaim" Israel Meir (HaKohen) Kagan. However, he apparently did not write all of it. I have been reading Marc Shapiro's latest book "Changing the Immutable" How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites its History. See http://www.littman.co.uk/cat/shapiro-orthodox.html Shapiro points out that Rabbi Aryeh Leib Cohen, a son of the Chofetz Chaim, wrote in his biography of his father that he wrote parts of the Mishna Brura and that is why there are contradictions in some parts of the MB. Which parts Aryeh Leib wrote are not indicated. Does anyone know? YL PS. I have found this book an eye opener and recommend it highly. llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 10:19:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kaganoff via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 13:19:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 12:01 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 01:53:10PM -0400, Kaganoff via Avodah wrote: > : For many years i had extreme difficulty with R. Elchanan Wasserman > understanding > : as it conflicted with my belief that Judaism (and other religions) was > not > : logically provable (contra to Moshe Mendelssohn and his contemporaries) > and > : therefore required a "leap of faith" and that a disbeliever could not be > : faulted for failing to take such a jump. > > This is a false dichotomy. Logically proving things are not the only > way to justify belief in there. > > How do you know that (in a flat space) two parallel lines never meet? If > you're like me, you pictured it in your head. Even though infinite lines > don't exist in the real world. (Nor, does it turn out, does flat space.) Actually non-euclidean geometry is an excellent example. We cannot say with absolute certainty that two parallel lines will never meet or that there is only one line that goes through a particular point that is parallel to another line, as there is a well developed body of literature on non-Euclidean geometry (such as Riemannian Geometry). One might "feel" strongly that Euclidean Geometry is true and non-Euclidean Geometry is false. But someone might also feel that chocolate ice cream is superior to vanilla ice cream. But neither can be proven. > > Did you figure out that oppression was evil by logical proof, or by a > combination of imagination and empathy? > Calling anything "evil is not meant to be logical but rather to pull at an audiences' heartstrings. Evil is neither logical nor illogical. Nor can one "prove" that the Nazis are evil and that circumcision is not. However, that is a red herring. Again, emotions are not proof. Feelings are neither true nor false. > My favorite example is answering the question, "Do elephants have hair?" > A logical/verbal approach would be: Elephants are mammals, all mammals > have hair, and so unless elephants are the exception to the rule, they > must have hair. Elephants are well known and discussed animals. Could > they be an exception to the rule and I don't know it? Nah, they must > have hair. > > How it is more likely the question jogged your memory of elephants > you saw, or saw pictures of. The detail may be blurry, so you may have > to manipulate the picture a bit. Finally, a version of the picture > which has a tuft of hair at the tail, maybe (if your memory is good) > some downy hair around the eyes and ears, strikes you as the most > familiar, the most real. And again you could reach the conclusion that > elephants have hair. > That is a proveable thesis. One could prove either way whether or not elephants have hair. Unlike the two earlier examples. As for whether one could prove the existence or non-existance of God, I don't have time now to start that discussion. > > (See for some musings about > the two modes of thought I'm contrasting here.) > > In I compare > different versions of the Argument from Design from R' Aqiva's response > to the apiqoreis through the Rambam, through similar approaches based > on more modern science. > > "G-d created" (Gen. 1:1): A hereic came to Rabbi Aqiva and asked, > "Who made the universe?". Rabbi Aqiva answered, "HQBH". The heretic > said, "Prove it to me." Rabbi Aqiva said, "Come to me tomorrow". > > When the heretic returned, Rabbi Aqiva asked, "What is that you > are wearing?" > > "A garment", the unbeliever replied. > > "Who made it?" > > "A weaver." > > "Prove it to me." > > "What do you mean? How can I prove it to you? Here is the garment, > how can you not know that a weaver made it?" > > Rabbi Akiva said, "And here is the world; how can you not know that > Haqadosh barukh Hu made it?" > > After the heretic left, Rabbi Aqiva's students asked him, "But what is > the proof?" He said, "Even as a house proclaims its builder,a garment > its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the > Holy Blessed One Who created it. > > Not very rigorous. Rabbi Aqiva's reply revolves around giving a parable > to make the conclusion self-evident. Not contructing a deductive argument. > > The more rigorous we try making it, the more arguable the proof becomes. > R' Aqiva's argument is far more convincing than the Rambam's statement > based on how objects lose form over time, not gain it. Or a similar > argument based on thermodynamics or information theory. > > (Ironically, every formal / logical proof is built from givens taken > as self-evident for informal-reasoning reasons.) > > Anyway, that's how I understood REW. R' Elchanan argues that on an > informal level, the idea that the universe had to have a Creator is > as obvious as a Euclidean postulate or the injustice of oppression. > I believe that such an explanation is disrespectful to REW. I am assuming that REW believed what he wrote and wrote down clearly what he believed as opposed to assuming that REW believes one thing and wrote another. > > To not believe in G-d requires a formal proof, which one's negios then > determine if they find it sound or specious, and whether they accept > the postulates on which it's built. > To believe and to not believe in God can be pulled off without formal proofs. However, it is intellectually dishonest to state that one has an arguement for God's existance and than say that we are not talking about formal proofs when a counterarguement is made. > Notice I didn't invoke any leaps of faith. > > Tir'u baTov! > -Micha > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 12:25:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 15:25:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150526192512.GA22762@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 01:19:53PM -0400, Kaganoff wrote: : > How do you know that (in a flat space) two parallel lines never meet? If : > you're like me, you pictured it in your head. Even though infinite lines : > don't exist in the real world. (Nor, does it turn out, does flat space.) : : : Actually non-euclidean geometry is an excellent example. We cannot say with : absolute certainty that two parallel lines will never meet or that there is : only one line that goes through a particular point that is parallel to : another line, as there is a well developed body of literature on : non-Euclidean geometry (such as Riemannian Geometry). Well, if we know the curvature of the space we're dealing with, we know which Geometry to use. And only one is correct for that particular space. :> Did you figure out that oppression was evil by logical proof, or by a :> combination of imagination and empathy? : : Calling anything "evil is not meant to be logical but rather to pull at an : audiences' heartstrings. Evil is neither logical nor illogical. Nor can one : "prove" that the Nazis are evil and that circumcision is not. I disagree with your reisha. Evil is an objectively meaningful predicate. Yahadus wouldn't work is evil were subjective. As for your seifa... that's kind of my point: there are truths that can be justified even when they are not amenable to formal proofs. : However, that is a red herring. Again, emotions are not proof. Feelings are : neither true nor false. Although the notion that John is feeling happy at 2:55pm EST May 26, 2015 is either true or false. Or some fuzzy state in between. It is a predicate, even if it needn't be a boolean predicate. All three of these comments are interrelated: Euclidean geometry is the only accurate description of flat space. Not every space, but flat space. People may disagree about what is evil, and Nazis may be able to fool themselves about what the word means, but HQBH did create a concept of good that has an objective definition. Even if -- again -- we cannot find it via proof. : > My favorite example is answering the question, "Do elephants have hair?" : > A logical/verbal approach would be... : > How it is more likely the question jogged your memory of elephants : > you saw, or saw pictures of... : That is a proveable thesis. One could prove either way whether or not : elephants have hair. Unlike the two earlier examples. As I said in the first paragraph, before the first ellipses. However, in practice, people aren't likely to use proofs to reach the conclusion. We justify our belief that elephants have hair in a different way. : As for whether one could prove the existence or non-existance of God, I : don't have time now to start that discussion. But my whole point is that proof isn't the only grounds for justifying knowledge! ... : > Anyway, that's how I understood REW. R' Elchanan argues that on an : > informal level, the idea that the universe had to have a Creator is : > as obvious as a Euclidean postulate or the injustice of oppression. : I believe that such an explanation is disrespectful to REW. I am assuming : that REW believed what he wrote and wrote down clearly what he believed as : opposed to assuming that REW believes one thing and wrote another. Um... That /is/ what Rav Elchanan wrote. I'm arguing that he is being misread because they think that REW invoking the notion of knowledge (as opposed to belief) is equivalent to his invoking the notion of proof. Instead, he invokes the synthetic a priori, of the self-evident, or whatever your theory of justification is of R' Aqiva's answer to the atheist or that letters aren't the product of ink spilled on paper. AISI, REW is saying that humans know there is a G-d, without his saying anything about the possibility of proving it. And that people then go about creating proofs for His non-Existence or Deism, to hide from that knowledge. Or, to be more loyal to his original wording -- because they took shochad to buy into a proof against the obvious. He might be saying that at some level, that knowledge lingers, no matter how much someone buries it under layers of counter-proof and convincing themselves. But I don't see that in REW either. Quoting: Now, of course, we shouldn't be astonished that so many great philosophers had difficulty believing that the world was created by a Purposeful Creator. Their minds were surely great, but their desire to gain benefit from the pleasures of this world overcame their ability to think straight. Such a powerful bias can divert a person's mind to the point that he can say two plus two does not equal four... After my signature, I'll quote Qovetz Maamariv par 5-7 from a translation provided by Pirchei Shoshanim. You'll notice it's nothing like the Rambam's attempt to formally prove an Argument from Design in Moreh sec. II. Really, all he says is that monotheism woul be self-evident if people didn't want to escape its implications on their lifestyle. Not proven, self-evident, and not that those who argue against it are less than fully convinced of their atheism (or Deism, or polytheism). :> To not believe in G-d requires a formal proof, which one's negios then :> determine if they find it sound or specious, and whether they accept :> the postulates on which it's built. : To believe and to not believe in God can be pulled off without formal : proofs. : However, it is intellectually dishonest to state that one has an arguement : for God's existance and than say that we are not talking about formal : proofs when a counterarguement is made. Not "argument", any more than your acceptance of Euclidean (or Reimann) postulates are based on argument. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_justification#Theories_of_justification and http://www.iep.utm.edu/epistemo/#H3 may be clearer than I have been. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "Man wants to achieve greatness overnight, micha at aishdas.org and he wants to sleep well that night too." http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yosef Yozel Horwitz, Alter of Novarodok Fax: (270) 514-1507 5. If you ponder it, however, you shall find that the belief that the Holy One, blessed by He, created the world is self-understood by any intelligent being -- unless a person is a complete imbecile. And there is no need for any [knowledge of] philosophy to grasp this principle. The author of the Duties of the Heart (Shaar HaYichud 6) thus wrote: There are people who say that the world came into existence by chance, without a Creator who caused it and formed it. I wonder how any rational being in a normal state of mind can entertain such a notion. If one holding such a opinion would hear a person expressing a similar view in regard to a water-wheel that revolves in order to irrigate a portion of a field or garden -- and were to say that he thinks it had been set up without any intention on the part of a mechanic who labored to put it together and adjust it, using all his tools to obtain this useful result -- the hearer would wonder, be exceedingly astonished, and think the man who made such a statement extremely foolish. He would promptly charge him with lying, and would reject his assertion. Now, if such a statement is rejected in regard to a small and insignificant wheel, the fashioning of which requires but little contrivance and which serves for the improvement of but a small portion of the earth, how can anyone permit himself to harbor such a thought concerning the immense sphere that emcompasses the whole earth with all the creatures on it; which exhibits a wisdom so great that the minds of all living creatures, the intellects of all rational mortals, cannot comprehend it; which is appointed for the benefit of the whole earth and all its inhabitants – how can one say that it came into existence without a wise and mighty designer purposing and conceiving it? Whatever takes place without purpose shows, as is well known, no trace of wisdom or power. Do you not realize that if ink were poured out accidentally on a blank sheet of paper, it would be impossible that proper writing should result, legible lines such as are written with a pen? If a person brought us a fair copy of script that could only have been written with a pen, and said that ink had been spilt on paper and these written characters have come of themselves, we would charge him to his face with falsehood, for we would feel certain that this result could not have happened without an intelligent person's purposeful action to produce it. Since this appears to us an impossibility in the case of characters whose form is conventional, how can one assert that something far finer in its art, and which manifests in its fashioning a subtlety infinitely beyond our comprehension, could have happened without the purpose, power and wisdom of a wise and mighty designer? How could anyone say that the universe came into existence on its own, seeing that everywhere we look we see signs of such inconceivably profound wisdom? How wondrous is the wisdom and design in the human body, how wondrous the arrangement of its limbs and organs, as all doctors and surgeons attest. How is it possible to say, with regard to such a wondrous machine, that it came into existence on its own without a purposeful designer? If anyone would claim that a watch had just come into existence on its own, he would be considered insane. We see this in the Midrash (Midrash Temurah in Midrash Aggadot Bereshit): An athiest came to Rebbi Akiva. "Who created the world?", he queried. R. Akiva answered, "The Holy One, blessed be He." The athiest replied, "Show me proof." R. Akiva said, "Come back to me tomorrow and I shall prove it to you." When the man returned the following day, R. Akiva began by asking, "What is that you are wearing?""A piece of clothing,"the athiest replied."And who made it?" R. Akiva continued. "The weaver", he replied. "Show me proof", R. Akiva demanded. "But how can I show you proof if it isn't already obvious to you that it is the work of the weaver?!" With this R. Akiva said, "Have you not heard what your own lips have spoken? Isn't it obvious to you that the Holy One has created this world? Doesn't the clothing testify to the weaver; the house and the door to a builder and a carpenter? Just so does the world testity to the One who made it." Imagine a human being born with a fully developed intellect. We can't imagine his great astonishment upon seeing, suddenly, the heavens and their hosts, the earth and all that is upon it. What would this man's answer be to our question: Did the world that he is seeing now for the first time come into existence on its own, without any conscious intent, or is it the work of a wise Creator? Behold, without a doubt, after contemplating for a moment, he would respond that all this was made with wondrous wisdom and extremely subtle order (fine-tuning). [We find this concept expressed in any number places in our classical literature.] The Psalmist said, "The heavens declare the glory of G-d"(Psalms 19:2). [According the Duties of the Heart 2:5] this is also the meaning of Job's words when he declared, "From my flesh, I will see G-d!"(Job 19:26) [The Psalmist saw proof of G-d's existence in the magnitude of the universe. Job was saying that the very fact that something as wonderful as his body could exist demonstrates that it is the work of a wise Creator.] In view of all this it is therefore extremely puzzling, a great enigma: How could some of the greatest philosophers who ever lived have concluded that the world was brought into existence by chance? 6. The resolution of this enigma can be found in the Torah. The Torah reveals something profound about human psychology when it commands, "Do not take bribes, for bribery blinds the eyes of the wise!" (Deuteronomy 16:19). What is bribery? In legal terms, the smallest amount necessary to constitute a bribe is a "shaveh prutah"(not much more than a penny), similar to the minimum amount needed [for a court] to find a person guilty of stealing or of taking interest. This negative commandment, to never take a bribe, is directed not only at a judge, but at every man, even the wisest of men, even the most righteous, even Moses himself. Yes, if it could be imagined, even if Moses would take the tiniest bribe, a prutah, his perception of reality would be distorted; he would be incapable of bringing forth a just ruling. At first sight, this is nothing short of amazing. Can we imagine Moses or Aaron twisting the law and judging falsely merely for the sake of receiving such miniscule benefit? But the Torah itself testifies to the possibility, and "the testimony of G-d is trustworthy" (Psalms 19:8). We must therefore say that it is a psychological law: A person's will or desire [to gain some benefit] influences his mind [his ability to think straight]. Of course, it depends how strong the desire and how resolute the mind. A small desire will not exert much influence on a great mind, whereas on a lesser mind it will. A powerful desire [for gain] will exert even more influence. One thing is certain: no matter how miniscule, a desire for gain will always have some affect. Even the tiniest desire can cause the greatest mind to waver a fraction. This is exemplified in the Talmud (Ketuvot 105b): Rebbi Yishmael bar Yossi had a land tenant who used to bring him fruits from his [R. Yishmael's] orchard every Friday before Shabbat. Once, he came on a Thursday. R. Yishmael asked him: "What's changed this week?" "I have a court case this week", he answered."Since I was coming to town anyway, I thought I would bring you your fruits."R. Yishmael refused to take the fruits [even though they were his]. "I am disqualified from judging your case."Two [other] rabbis sat and began to hear the land tenant's case. R. Yishmael sat [on the sidelines] watching. At every turn in the discussion, R. Yishmael felt himself wanting to give advice to his land tenant. "If only he would say this now... if only he would say this..."After the case was decided, he exclaimed, "O that the spirit of those who take bribes would explode! I refused to take what was rightfully mine [and I still couldn't help being biased and wanting to see him come out winning]. How much more those who actually take what it is not theirs! It is known that the sages [of the Talmud] were angelic in terms of their expanded consciousness and saintly character. We nevertheless see that the smallest degree of bias could cause them to incline away from the truth. How much more so the rest of us who are sunken in the desires of this world! The desire for gain literally bribes us, saying, "Hey, look, the world is free to do with as you please!"How powerful this bias is! How easily it distorts our perception and blinds us! For when a person has "bought into"a certain bias, he is incapable of recognizing any truth that flies in the face of that bias. As far as that truth is concerned, he might just as well be in a drunken stupor. He doesn't recognize its existence. Now, of course, we shouldn't be astonished that so many great philosophers had difficulty believing that the world was created by a Purposeful Creator. Their minds were surely great, but their desire to gain benefit from the pleasures of this world overcame their ability to think straight. Such a powerful bias can divert a person's mind to the point that he can say two plus two does not equal four, but five. A person cannot judge whether something is true unless his mind is free from any distorting influence vis a vis the thing he wishes to judge. On the contrary, if recognizing a particular truth in any way contradicts a bias that a person has bought into, no amount of intellect, even the intellect of a great person, can remove or overcome that bias. 7. We learn from this that the foundations of true faith are simple and unquestionable for anyone who isn't an idiot. It is simply impossible to doubt their veracity. This is only true, however, on the condition that one does not allow oneself to be bribed. One must be disinterested in and free from the desires and allures of this world, and his own personal desires [for gain]. If so, the root of God-denial lies not in the distortion of the intellect in and of itself. It lies in the heart, i.e., in one's desire to gain benefit [from this world], which distorts and blinds the intellect. It is clear now why the Torah commands, "Do not stray after your hearts..." (Deuteronomy 15:39), concerning which the sages commented, "Do not follow after the heart's desire to deny G-d"(Sifri Shlach 15:70). A person is obligated to subdue and sublimate his desires [for personal gain], because this is the only way his intellect will be free of any blinding influence! He will then automatically recognize the truth of the existence of a Creator. This is what Rebbi Akiva meant when he said that the world attests to the Holy One, blessed be He, who created it. God-denial really has no place in a person's mind. Its place, if man allows it to exist there, is the heart; in a person's desire for gain. And if one would be careful not to allow his desires to overcome him, he could never come to deny G-d's existence or atttribute reality to any form of idolatry. It is a sign that one's desires have grown out of proportion if one is incapable of understanding this simple truth. And the commandment to believe in G-d? It is a commandment not to allow one's desires to overcome his intellect so that he will automatically come to believe. In other words, there is no need to struggle to believe. One must simply remove the obstacles that stand in the way of believing. It will then come naturally, of itself... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 11:11:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 14:11:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura? Message-ID: <20150526181117.9766A180F62@nexus.stevens.edu> Someone sent me the following which is also in Shapiro's book. "The first edition of Shemiras Shabbos K'Hilchasah had a footnote to the effect that some things in the MB had been written by the CC's son. See p. 263 n. 203. The full footnote is not in the later editions of SSK." Shapiro views this as part of the Chareidi attempt to keep certain information from the Chareidi public that they do want people to know. His book is filled with many examples of the "rewriting of history" to fit current Chareidi ideology. He also wrote "Rabbi Jacob J. Schachter wrote an article in The Torah U-Madda Journal about changes and mentioned the MB, the CC's son, and the original SSK footnote. See his "Facing the Truths of History" at http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/704426/Rabbi_Dr-_Jacob_J_Schacter/Facing_the_Truths_of_History (p. 225 and n. 114 on p. 264)." YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 12:44:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 15:44:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura? In-Reply-To: <20150526181117.9766A180F62@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150526181117.9766A180F62@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150526194413.GB22762@aishdas.org> And many of the books we consider the Gra's are students' records of his teachings. For that matter, people talk about what the Ari says in Peri Eitz Chaim or others of R' Chaim Vital's works. RALC piously takes blame for those occasions when he misunderstood his father's position, saying that these errors, rather than actual inconsistencies in the CC's shitah, is what you may find in the MB. But the CC takes ownership of the contents of the MB. See the title page (Warsaw 1884 ed.) "Ube'uri qarative besheim MISHNAH BERURAH..." ... kol eileh chibarti be'ezras H' yisbarakh, haChonen le'adam da'as, YISRAEL MEIR br' Aryeh Ze'ev haKohein zlh"h, mei'ir Radin." Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I long to accomplish a great and noble task, micha at aishdas.org but it is my chief duty to accomplish small http://www.aishdas.org tasks as if they were great and noble. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Helen Keller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 15:01:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 18:01:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150526220106.GA9900@aishdas.org> On Fri, May 22, 2015 at 11:14:15AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature :> of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so :> accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul :> Shabbos... : In particular using an preset switch to turn lights and off should : be prohibited. : While RMF originally did object he later changed his mind when it became : the norm. Actually, RMF's primary argument was mar'is ayin, which would naturally change as people know to blame lights turning on and off on "Shabbos clocks". : In fact even the kosher lamp might be prohibited Well, I would think that fits the zilzul Shabbos argument bewing used WRT the kosher switch. : Can someone come up with a definition of zilzul shabbat? The textbook case would be on Shabbos 6a: situating someone in a meqom petur so that someone in a reshus hayachid can hand items to them so that they could then hand it over to someone in a reshus harabim. Rashi ad loc explains "demezalzel be'isurei Shabbos". I think it's making a farce out of one of the issurim / chiyuvim of Shabbos. Notice that the case Rashi attributes to zilzul would otherwise be perfectly mutar. : Is every modern way of doing any melacha that does not technically : violate hilchot shabbat zilzul? : The gemara allows using the sun for cooking on shabbat - why isn't that : zilzul shabbat? I think the problem is more than just avoiding the issur, but making it trivial to entirely avoid it. Which is what I had in mind when I distinguished between eiruv, which is built into hotza'ah derabbanan, and community eruv, which takes that idea and stretches it until someone can pretty much ignore the whole topic of carmelis for years on end. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Strength does not come from winning. Your micha at aishdas.org struggles develop your strength When you go http://www.aishdas.org through hardship and decide not to surrender, Fax: (270) 514-1507 that is strength. - Arnold Schwarzenegger From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 16:14:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 19:14:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") Message-ID: In Avodah V33n82, RAM requested: > I suggest that we clarify the various minhagim, and tally up the different ways of dong it....And if anyone else wants to add to the list, please do so! < When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: -- 30 *dim'yushav* -- 10 *dim'umad* -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the post-"Aleinu" Qaddish) All the best from *Michael Poppers* * Elizabeth, NJ, USA -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 18:24:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 21:24:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir In-Reply-To: <20150525.223510.2086.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150525.223510.2086.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150527012443.GA5467@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 02:35:10AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : It is one thing to dissuade a prospective ger from joining us. But Ruth : had been living with a Jewish family for ten years! How can Naami urge : her to go back to avoda zara? I know that the meforshim give various : reasons why Naami did not want them to accompany her back to Eretz : Yisrael, but do those reasons justify this Lifnei Iveir? On a technical level, it would be mesayeia, not lifnei iver, and I'm not sure that mesayeia applies to 7 mitzvos benei Noach. But if you're just asking how it's moral... Just thinking off-the cuff. The timing is between eishes Shimshon and Shelomo's mistake with many of his wives. It would seem that women only pretending monotheism to join the Jewish People was common. If Rus was going to be a pagan either way, better not one who people would mistake for a geir. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet micha at aishdas.org about things most people don't watch even on http://www.aishdas.org Yom Kippur. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 00:25:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 10:25:26 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat Message-ID: <<: The gemara allows using the sun for cooking on shabbat - why isn't that : zilzul shabbat? I think the problem is more than just avoiding the issur, but making it trivial to entirely avoid it.>> In that case how about a "dud shemesh" according to the poskim that it is allowed because it uses the sun <> would there be a difference between doing this once and making this a standard procedure? -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 01:22:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:22:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <> The key word is "if" . That is the difference between math and physics. Math assumes axioms and from there everything is provable. Physics discusses the "real" world. This is based on observation and induction. Hence, physics is always subject to modification based on new observations. Hence, we have no proof of the curvature of the universe. <> Yahadus uses the Torah to define evil. Others don't accept this definition. Is ISIS beheading victims and their other acts "evil" ? They believe they are keeping the word of G-d. Destrying ancient monuments is viewed by the world as "evil" while they see it as destroying idols and hence a mitzvah. If we were to eradicate Amalek we would consider it a great mitzvah while the rest of thw world would bring us to the world court for genocide. <> But without a formal proof it is always debatable. You feel that the existence of G-d is obvious even without a formal proof (which doesn't exist) while Dawkins feels that anyone who believes in a diety that interacts with the world is a fool. You accept Torah mi-sinai while most academics are convinced the Torah was written during the late Bayit Rishon if not later -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 02:20:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 12:20:34 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] right and wrong Message-ID: Tangential to some of the recent discussions I wish to point out that the defintion of right and wrong is subjective and indeed changes through history. As one example consider the recent post on love from http://www.talmudology.com/ In the 1440s in England, Elizabeth Paston, the twenty-year old daughter of minor gentry, was told by her parents that she was to marry a man thirty years her senior. Oh, and he was disfigured by smallpox. When she refused, she was beaten "once in the week, or twice and her head broken in two or three places." This persuasive technique worked, and reflected a theme in Great Britain, where Lord Chief Baron Matthew Hale declared in 1662 that "by the law of God, of nature or of reason and by the Common Law, the will of the wife is subject to the will of the husband." Things weren't any better in the New Colonies, as Ann Little points out (in a gloriously titled article "*Shee would Bump his Mouldy Britch; Authority, Masculinity and the Harried Husbands of New Haven Colony 1638-1670.*) The governor of the New Haven Colony was found guilty of "not pressing ye rule upon his wife." What was obvious in one generation is no longer regarded as true today. Similar arguments apply to slavery -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 03:47:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 06:47:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 07:14:36PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: : -- 30 *dim'yushav* : -- 10 *dim'umad* : -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to blow. How do you do less than 10 *each*? Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 05:03:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 12:03:32 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir Message-ID: <20150527.080332.8051.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> I asked if Naami had violated Lifnei Iveir: : It is one thing to dissuade a prospective ger from joining us. : But Ruth had been living with a Jewish family for ten years! How : can Naami urge her to go back to avoda zara? R' Micha Berger answered: > On a technical level, it would be mesayeia, not lifnei iver, and > I'm not sure that mesayeia applies to 7 mitzvos benei Noach. Really? Perhaps I need a better understanding of the difference between the two. I thought that mesayeia was when the other person is going to violate the halacha anyway and I am merely helping him to do it. But in this case, the three of them have been living for ten years as a family unit, and regardless of the geirus (or lack of it) I presume there was no avodah zara under Naami's roof. This status quo could have continued for a long time, as we see even Orpah was reluctant to leave. But Naami urged and insisted, and it is difficult for me to imagine a bigger michshol. Pasuk 1:15 - "So [Naami] said: Look! Your sister in law has returned to her people and to her god. Go follow your sister in law." One of us might as well hand the car keys to our child on Shabbos and tell him to have a good time. Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:14:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:14:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527151410.GG27891@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 11:22:14AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : <> : : The key word is "if" . That is the difference between math and physics. : Math assumes axioms and from there everything is provable... Again, from a set of givens. The givens are accepted as the rules of the formal system. Which is why I spoke of the validity of Euclid's Postulates in the context of flat space. But my point was that there are things other than proof. : <> : : Yahadus uses the Torah to define evil. Others don't accept this definition. Nu, so they're wrong. We may not be able to prove to them they're wrong, but they are. Somewhere "out there" is a real objective definition. Regardless of someone's ability to know what they are, or to accept it if they did. : <> : : But without a formal proof it is always debatable... 1- That's a different topic. We're talking about how I justify my believing in something, not how I prove it to others. 2- There are synthetic a priori knowledge so self-evident people don't debate them. Which is why I dragged Euclid into this. EVERY proof STARTS with these givens. Logic is a means of combining postulates, not starting yeish mei'ayin. And thus no proof is actually more solid than its weakest postulate -- and that postulate is justified by something other than proof. And I brought up these notions because I think that without disentangling why I believe from how can I get others to believe, or the general concept of how knowlege is justified from the specific concepts of formal or experiment proof, we cannot get to what R Elchanan Wasserman means. REW says that if it were not for ulterior motive, G-d's existence would be as self evident as the conclusion that a calligraphied poem had an author and scribe (who may be the same person), and was not just spilled ink on a piece of paper. He doesn't yet talk about proof, and in fact, his language is that of informal justification, not proof. (I've blogged the notion that the more formal we make the Argument from Design the LESS solidly it justifies belief. See . For example, R Aqiva's -- or REW's -- version only requires common experience. The Rambam's requires dividing matter into Form and Substance and accepting certain postulates about Form and Time. Later versions will instead speak of entropy and time... But they all suffer from involving *more* givens and insisting they are self-evident and precede the attempt to prove anything.) REW then says that it's only ulterior motive that allows many of us to create arguments and proofs (validly drawn but from broken givens or flawed in reasoning) to let convince ourselves away from that default position. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When a king dies, his power ends, micha at aishdas.org but when a prophet dies, his influence is just http://www.aishdas.org beginning. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Soren Kierkegaard From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:33:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:33:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527153329.GH27891@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 11:48:03AM +0300, Saul Mashbaum wrote: : Very briefly, R. Rosner cites three approaches in the sources : : 1. Illustrating the truth - The Ran in Drashot HaRan drasha 5 - In this : approach, which severely limits the principle of eilu v'eilu, the Ran : states that actually only one of the opinions is true. The other opinion is : 'divrei Elokim chaim' only insofar as it serves to illustrate and elucidate : the other opinion, which is the real truth, as the dark enables us to : appreciate a candle... R/Dr Moshe Halbertal forms his opinion of the Ran's shitah on the haqdamah to haMafteiach leManulei haTalmud. He translates: It is a known fact that the entire Torah, written and oral, was transm itted to Moses, as it says in the tract ate Meggilah, R. Hiyya bar Abba said in the Name of R. Yohanan: The verse:...and on them was written according to all the words.." teaches that the Holy One blessed be He showed Moses the details prescribed by the Torah and by the Sages, including the innovations they would later enact. And what are those? the reading of Meggila. The 'details' provided by the rabbis are halakhic disputes and conflicting views held by the sa ges of Israel. Moses learned them all by divine word with no resolution every controversy in detail. Yet [God] also gave him a rule whose truth is manifest, i.e., 'Favor the majority opinion'....as the sages of that generation saw fit, for the decision had already been delegated to them as it is written: 'And you shall come to the priest the Levites, and to the judge that shall be in those days' and 'You shall not deviate....". (Quoted from . I do not know where to find the original, to see what's ellided or whether my own attempt to translate would agree.) This quote from the Ran pretty clearly backs the third position in RSR's survey: : 3. Multiple truths (Ritva in Eiruvin, Maharal) - Both opinions are true, : reflecting different perspectives of the subject at hand (IMO, this is : similar to the previous explanation, without establishing a hierarchy : between the truths expressed by the different opinions)... (BTW, I happen to agree with this parenthetic. ) OTOH, in Derashah #7, I think I could defend RSR's #2! To quote the Ran: We have been commanded to obey their decision whether it represents the tru th or its opposite ...for the power of decision-making has been entrusted to the halakhic authorities for each generation. Whatever they decide is what God has commanded. Compare: : 2. Levels of truth - R. Moshe in the hakdama to IM, and R. Yaakov to : Bereishit 26, the Netziv in his Hakadama to Haamek Sh'eila, his commentary : to the Sheiltot). Using R. Moshe's terminology. there is Emet Shamaymit, : and Emet L'Horaa. Both are correct, and in this world we are obligated to : follow the emet l'horaa even if it deviates from the ultimate, heavenly : truth. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You are where your thoughts are. micha at aishdas.org - Ramban, Igeres haQodesh, Ch. 5 http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:38:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:38:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5565E50A.4070406@sero.name> On 05/27/2015 04:22 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Yahadus uses the Torah to define evil. Others don't accept this definition. Why is that relevant? Objective truth doesn't depend on how many people are aware of it or accept it. It's true for everyone, whether they know and accept it or not. Those who don't know it are simply ignorant, and those who dispute it are simply wrong. Subjective truth is a very different matter. If a truth is subjective then those who dispute it are not wrong, it *isn't true* for them, and if someone insists it must be true for them then *he* is wrong. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:41:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:41:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] right and wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5565E599.6050709@sero.name> On 05/27/2015 05:20 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Tangential to some of the recent discussions I wish to point out that > the defintion of right and wrong is subjective and indeed changes > through history. No, it isn't and it doesn't. That the majority of people in the course of history have been wrong is no chiddush; the majority of people *today* are wrong. Truth isn't determined by democracy. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:42:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:42:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") In-Reply-To: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> References: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5565E5EC.7030806@sero.name> On 05/27/2015 06:47 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to > blow. How do you do less than 10*each*? Tashrat for Malchiyos, Tashat for Zichronos, and Tarat for Shofros. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 10:58:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 13:58:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Even More on Who Wrote the Mishnah Brurah Message-ID: <20150527175829.C3B57182454@nexus.stevens.edu> Someone on my email list spoke to a well-known Flatbush Rov and sent me the following: Reb Yitzchok I spoke to Rabbi XX this morning, and he did indeed confirm that the MB was not written only by the Chofetz Chaim. He said R. Moshe Feinstein told him that it is a work of a rabbim, not only a yochid. It seems that R. Arye Leib was not the only one to work on it. According to what R. XX heard the team also consisted of the CC's son in law and the mashgiach Rav Londinski. R. XX also told me that R. Henoch Liebowitz, the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim in Queens told him that his father Reb Dovid, who was a nephew of the CC, also wrote portions of the MB. So thank you for leading me towards this information. llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 12:38:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 15:38:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55661D24.8040207@gmail.com> Micha Berger: >> Rabbi Akiva said, ... "Even as a house proclaims its builder,a garment >> > its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the >> > Holy Blessed One Who created it. >> > >> >Not very rigorous. Rabbi Aqiva's reply revolves around giving a parable >> >to make the conclusion self-evident. Not contructing a deductive argument. >> > >> > ...there are truths that can >> be justified even when they are not amenable to formal proofs. >> ... I'll quote Qovetz Maamariv par 5-7 from a translation >> provided by Pirchei Shoshanim. You'll notice it's nothing like the >> Rambam's attempt to formally prove an Argument from Design in Moreh >> sec. II. Indeed, the Rambam himself in the Moreh Nevuchim recognizes this distinction and supports the superior validity of the non-formal approach. Chapters after he devotes chapters to formal philosophic proofs for Creation ex nihilo, he describes how a healthy (and unbiased) mind thinks: And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, /for one who is modeh al ha-ememmes/ (Ibn Tibbon; KPCH: /baal tsedek/; Pines: an equitable man) [contra Aristotle?see 2:20-23], is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an intender, and that such purposeful intent necessarily implies the production of something new [and not something that always existed along with the one who bears the purposeful intention for its existence]. (MN 3:13) Aristotle agreed to the premise that everything in Nature serves a certain purpose, and that every being contributes to the existence of still another being, but he refused to concede to the conclusion the Rambam considers something a /modeh al ha-emmess/baal tsedek/ is naturally convinced of. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 13:54:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 16:54:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <55661D24.8040207@gmail.com> References: <55661D24.8040207@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150527205440.GB22904@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 03:38:12PM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : Indeed, the Rambam himself in the Moreh Nevuchim recognizes this : distinction and supports the superior validity of the non-formal : approach. Chapters after he devotes chapters to formal philosophic : proofs for Creation ex nihilo, he describes how a healthy (and : unbiased) mind thinks: : : And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, ... : is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities : serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; : and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an : intender, and that such purposeful intent necessarily implies the : production of something new [and not something that always existed : along with the one who bears the purposeful intention for its : existence]. (MN 3:13) There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam recaps a point made in 2:19-20. And for that matter, if the Rambam was talking about not really needing formal proof, despite spending much of sec. II on just that, why would it be buried in a chapter that focuses on something else? 3:13 is about how the universe has its own purpose. It is not just an arena designed for the purpose of humans. He argues here with Aristo who says that plants exist for the purpose of animals, and in general, that things exist for the purpose of other things. Besides, the Rambam writes in 3:51 in the mashal of the palace, that people who believe because of tradition without having proof are like those who wander around the chatzer, whereas someone with a proof is like one who entered the prozdor. Not Aristo's epistomology didn't analyze issues of proof vs other justification. But clearly Reliabilism, trusting an idea found in a source that has already been found to be reliable (hama'aminim ... derekh qabalah), is not being considered good enough justification to fully accomplish life's goal. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 14:39:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 17:39:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527213945.GE22904@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 10:25:26AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> I think the problem is more than just avoiding the issur, but making :> it trivial to entirely avoid it. : : In that case how about a "dud shemesh" according to the poskim that it is : allowed because it uses the sun I don't know. Maybe because you still can't boil hot water if you wanted it, say, for your tea. :> The textbook case would be on Shabbos 6a: situating someone in a meqom :> petur so that someone in a reshus hayachid can hand items to them so :> that they could then hand it over to someone in a reshus harabim. :> Rashi ad loc explains "demezalzel be'isurei Shabbos".>> : would there be a difference between doing this once and making this a : standard procedure? Good question. I don't see "standard procedure" in the gemara, it looks like a one-off. It depends if we're talking about zilzul of kevod Shabbos, or zilzul of the melakhah, the latter being more of a "threat of slippery slope" problem. Rashi has "mezalzel be'isurei Shabbos". BH 337:2 "shelo yishtaberu" uses the same turn of phrase. Why would you be afraid of cheapening the issur if we aren't talking about that opening the door to future violation? The Tur OC 315, Beiur Halakah 344 and elsewhere talk about not doing things "shelo yavo'u lezalzel bo". Which clearly invokes a slippery slope argument; but not that zilzul is itself a slippery slope, rather than zilzul is such a problem, we avoid things that will slide us there. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is harder to eat the day before Yom Kippur micha at aishdas.org with the proper intent than to fast on Yom http://www.aishdas.org Kippur with that intent. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 14:49:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 17:49:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir In-Reply-To: <20150527.080332.8051.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150527.080332.8051.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150527214903.GF22904@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 12:03:32PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Micha Berger answered: :> On a technical level, it would be mesayeia, not lifnei iver, and :> I'm not sure that mesayeia applies to 7 mitzvos benei Noach. : Really? Perhaps I need a better understanding of the difference between : the two. I thought that mesayeia was when the other person is going to : violate the halacha anyway and I am merely helping him to do it... My understanding is that mesayeia is when the person was capable of doing the aveirah without you. Not "would" but "could". Whereas lifnei iveir is when the nazir is mei'eivar hanahar and you're giving him passage. The sugya is on AZ 6a-b. But, I see the Ran does say mesayeia apply to preventing a nakhri from violating the 7MBN. The Rama *YD 151:2) says we are meiqil and allow selling AZ items to nakhriim if they already own similar items or can buy them elsewhere, but there are machmirim. See the Shach YD 151:6-7, who discusses this machloqes rishonim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The mind is a wonderful organ micha at aishdas.org for justifying decisions http://www.aishdas.org the heart already reached. Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 18:33:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 21:33:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] measurement error Message-ID: <20150528013324.GA4749@aishdas.org> The topic I got caught up in has been the AhS and standard shiurim. The story so far.... Jan 8, when this thread was current, I wrote : > BTW, carrying 4 amos bereshus harabbim is 4 of one's own amos, assuming > they have mainstream bone structure. It's where I am in AhS Yomi. > But notice that we would naturally assume "amah" as unit of length, not > as a function of how far that particular person can reach. On Jan 11, I hit the topic again WRT eiruvin AhS OC 363:32-35, and wrote : > But then in se'if 34 he says something I do not follow, but key to > our discussion. > When dealing with mavui, where there is only one mavui and therefore one > measuring process to be used for everyone, the above applies. However, > when the measurement is only for one person's use, tbey should be > measuring for himself, with his own norms. > And here he adds a touch of subjectivity: a person should measure how > far he himself could walk. And the rule of carrying in rh"r a distance > of no more 4 of one's own amos is brought into that umbrella. > The reason for the general rule is to cover the personal amos of the > people who will be using the measuring. > BUT, and this is why I do not follow, he opened se'if 32 by telling us > the variability is 1/48 of the total (1/24 of an etzba per ammah). Which > is far less than the variability in forearm lengths in most groups of > people. For example, my own sukkah is used by Yoni, who stands 6'3" and by > my own 5'3" -- and my arms are on the shorter side, even proportionally. > When we hold up elbows together, my ammah ends just past his wrist. Not > within 47/48 of eachother. And then on May 18 I hit AhS OC 586:14 and tried reviving this thread . The topic was the minimum length for a shofar -- long enough to be seen on either side when being held in one hand. > So the shiur is neither personal nor really the standard tefach. It is > literally as the gemara says, what can be held and still seen. Which is > why there is a machloqes about where the tefach stands in relation to the > real shiur. But, visible if hypothetically held by an average hand. And > if the tqoei'ah has wide hands, he could hold a minimal shofar without > it being visible, and it would still be kosher. ... > What I find even more interesting is that there is no chiluq being drawn > between someone who blows in shul and someone who blows just for himself. > Wouldn't the rule from OC 363 mean that someone in the latter situation > should use what is visible when their own hand holds it? But today I seem to have hit an AhS which deals with shiurim that aren't human: revi'is, kezayis. According to OC 612:8, the shiur of drinking on YK is not a revi'is, but melo lugmav. And unlike akhilah, where there is one kezayis for everyone, melo lugmav is literally his own cheek. So it would seem that kezayis, and perhaps revi'is and other shiurim (beis se'ah) are not subjective. Which makes sense, since I can't figure out how to make a kezayis correspond to the person... Except RCVolozhiner's position, where it's the average kezayis then and there, and not a static shiur. Which could, literally, be the same shiur for all people (living there and then) and thus may be within the AhS's intent. Can't I get anyone else intrigued by this problem? Back on Jan 11, I was in hil' eiruvin, and hit upn the AhS's discussion of an ammah just as we were discussing the topic Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The purely righteous do not complain about evil, micha at aishdas.org but add justice, don't complain about heresy, http://www.aishdas.org but add faith, don't complain about ignorance, Fax: (270) 514-1507 but add wisdom. - R AY Kook, Arpelei Tohar From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:12:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:12:53 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul Message-ID: Micha wrote: The Tur OC 315, Beiur Halakah 344 and elsewhere talk about not doing things "shelo yavo'u lezalzel bo". Which clearly invokes a slippery slope argument; but not that zilzul is itself a slippery slope, rather than zilzul is such a problem, we avoid things that will slide us there. >> My apologies but I am still completely confused when one applies zilzul and when one says something is allowed as an exception to the rule. No purpose in giving examples as there are myriads of exceptions that are allowed. I have the same problem with "lo plug" sometimes something that would be allowed is prohibited because of "lo plug" and sometimes we simply say it is an exception. Perhaps the most famous example is lighting candles on leil yom tov. The wife of the Prisha says one should say the bracha first and then light since lighting (preexisting flame) is allowed on tomtov. The MA calls her names and says this is an obvious "lo plug". My impression is that most women follow the wife of the prisha. The question is what is the basis of the machloket either when do we say "lo plug" and when do we apply "zilzul" and when do we ignore these arguments -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 21:04:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 04:04:33 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir Message-ID: <20150528.000433.22403.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > My understanding is that mesayeia is when the person was capable > of doing the aveirah without you. Not "would" but "could". Whereas > lifnei iveir is when the nazir is mei'eivar hanahar and you're > giving him passage. > > The sugya is on AZ 6a-b. > > ... I will be the first to point out that Lifnei Iveir is one the many topics where my learning and expertise is severely lacking. Even so, I suspect that there is something missing from RMB's definition. In the simplest reading of the pasuk (Vayikra 19:14), Rashi says that Lifnei Iveir forbids one to give bad advice to another person. It is difficult to imagine a worse piece of advice than telling Ruth to follow Orpah back her her previous god. Googling the question "What is Lifnei Iveir" brought me to an interesting article by Rabbi Yirmiyohu Kaganoff (bio at http://rabbikaganoff.com/about) The full article is at http://tinyurl.com/ka3pwq6 and I would like to quote the part where he gives three different categories of Lifnei Iveir: > I. Inciting ? maiseis > > This occurs when a person was not even considering doing an > aveirah until someone encouraged him. Thus, the instigator incited > the performing of the aveirah and is therefore a maiseis. > > II. Encouraging ? chanufah > > One violates this prohibition by complimenting someone for doing a > sin, thus implying that sinning is acceptable. > > III. Enabling ? lifnei iveir > > One violates this prohibition if the sinner wanted to do the > aveirah, but was unable to do so without assistance. The person > who enables the performing of the aveirah violates lifnei iveir. > > IV. Even when none of these Torah prohibitions are involved, > helping the sinner do the aveirah sometimes violates the rabbinic > prohibition of mesaya?a y?dei ovrei aveirah, assisting someone who > is sinning. (It is unfortunate that the article did not cite a source or precedent for these categories, but please bear with me.) It seems to me that RMB is giving a useful tool to distinguish between category 3 and category 4, but that tool is useful only in the case where a person already has the *desire* to commit a sin, but it lacking the *ability* to some degree. If a person has only a mild inability to sin, then the enabler is merely mesayeia; but if the person has a severe inability, then the enabler is placing a real michshol. But what of the case where a person does *not* yet have a desire to sin? Rabbi Kaganoff is saying that one who incites or encourages him to do it is violating Lifnei Iveir. Even if the person already has the ability to do the sin, it was below his "bechirah point" until he was egged on to do it. Rabbi Kaganoff offers an example: > Inciting Someone to Sin ? maiseis > > The classic case of maiseis is when the nachash encouraged Chavah > to eat the forbidden fruit. Even though the nachash itself did > not eat, Hashem punished it for inciting Chavah to sin (Gemara > Sanhedrin 29a). Similarly, if Reuven incites Shimon to sin in a > way that Shimon had not considered, Reuven is a maiseis. And so my question can be rephrased: If the nachash was wrong to tell Chava to eat the fruit, wasn't Naami wrong to tell Ruth to follow Orpah back to her god? Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/556694205dac4141e6338st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 01:07:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:07:24 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim Message-ID: On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 07:14:36PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: : -- 30 **dim'yushav** : -- 10 **dim'umad** : -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the R' Micha Berger asked: "How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to blow. How do you do less than 10 **each**?" Many Rishonim (quoted by the Beis Yosef in Siman 592) hold that during Chazaras Hashatz in Musaf you blow Tashrat for malchiyos, Tashat for zichronos and Tarat for shofaros. In all of the Nusach Ashkenaz shuls that I have davened in they blew 30 before Musaf, 30 during chazaras hashatz and then 40 after Musaf adding up to 100. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:33:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:33:43 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: Micha wrote <> Well Micha and I agree on several points but still disagree on others. Agreed that people in real life don't use formal mathematical proofs. A sanhedrin can kill on a majority vote (OK there a little more than 50%) I also agree that if one is talking about oneself then feelings count. Saying they are wrong but I cant prove it works perfectly OK with regard to your own beliefs. It doesnt work when trying to convince others. Example: Your child comes home and says he learned that the world is billions of years old not about 5700 years. Or else your teenager tells you he doesn't believe G-d is loving because of the Holocaust or because of Amalek. You can tell him that whatever is in the Torah or Chazal is truth and its not open to discussion. That might work with some children. Alternatively you can give him/her one of the many answers that have been discussed on this list. That may or not convince him. There are no proofs that G-d exists or that G-d rules the universe or that G-d is just or loving. You can convince yourself but doing that to others is difficult, We have already argued about REW and I still can't accept it. The argument is that if someone else tells you why he doesn't accept G-d or that G-d rules the world whether for rational or emotional reasons the answer is that we don't believe him and say he is making up reasons. Of course he will say the same about your acceptance of Torah and mitzvot. To simply accuse the other of simply rationalizing his beliefs is simply not true. I have had enough lectures on why the Bible was written very late by many scribes to be convinced they really mean it. You may disagree but you can't accuse them of merely rationalizing their non-belief. In one class the professor said he would willing debate anyone who has a different opinion objectively. However, if you start that the Torah is from Sinai because of your belief then there is nothing to discuss. What is self-evident to you is self-evidently false to someone else. Again it is legitimate to disagree with that person but I claim it is not legitimate to state that he doesn't really believe in his own position. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:57:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:57:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura Message-ID: <> They state clearly these are things they heard from the Gra, Ari etc. No misleading. No different than RHS writing what he heard from RYBS and many other such seforim. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:55:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 05:55:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5566E62F.8040201@sero.name> On 05/28/2015 05:12 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > Perhaps the most famous example is lighting candles on leil yom tov. > The wife of the Prisha The MA's girsa in the Prisha is "mother", and the Machtzis Hashekel confirms that this is not a typo in the MA. > says one should say the bracha first and then > light since lighting (preexisting flame) is allowed on tomtov. > The MA calls her names He does not! He merely quotes the gemara Yoma 66b that "women only have wisdom with the spindle". Machtzis Hashekel says he is not even referring to the Drisha's mother, but to most women, who will not understand the distinction between Shabbos and Yomtov. > and says this is an obvious "lo plug". He doesn't just assert it, he cites clear sources that when a bracha must sometimes be said after the deed, we apply lo plug and always say it after the deed. Thus, he says, the same thing must apply here. (But see Dagul Mervava, who distinguishes this case because the bracha is different, and points out that if not for this distinction then the same should apply to the Chanukah lights). > My impression is that most women follow the wife of the prisha. Really? I'm surrprised. I'm also surprised that you've surveyed enough women to form an impression one way or the other. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:19:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 10:19:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:57:05PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> < teachings. For that matter, people talk about what the Ari says in Peri :> Eitz Chaim or others of R' Chaim Vital's works.>> : They state clearly these are things they heard from the Gra, Ari etc. No : misleading. I'm not sure about such disclaimers on the Gra's talmidim's writings, aside from Maaseh Rav. And if so, lo kol shekein in our case! Here we have the author of Shemiras haLashon -- someone known for thinking about what he said -- calling the MB "beiuri", "od tzarafti" "ki bo biarti", "upo hir'eisi", and "kol eileh chbarti..." on the title page. How can one argue he didn't oversee the entire work and checked the content? Nothing about parts being by Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger What you get by achieving your goals micha at aishdas.org is not as important as http://www.aishdas.org what you become by achieving your goals. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Henry David Thoreau From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:33:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 10:33:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528143339.GB4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:12:53PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : My apologies but I am still completely confused when one applies zilzul and : when one says something is allowed as an exception to the rule. No purpose : in giving examples as there are myriads of exceptions that are allowed. I think the reverse: the norm is to allow valid loopholes to the din, and it's only when the poseiq decides that the loophole would destroy some significant part of the feel of Shabbos (whether qedushas Shabbos or an entire melakhah) that we call it zilzul. ... : Perhaps the most famous example is lighting candles on leil yom tov. The : wife of the Prisha says one should say the bracha first and then light : since lighting (preexisting flame) is allowed on tomtov. The MA calls her : names and says this is an obvious "lo plug". : My impression is that most women follow the wife of the prisha. The AhS OC 263:3 does, citing the Perishah. Then he quotes the MA (s"q 12) and says "and many were choliq on him... vekhein iqar ledina." Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:45:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 10:45:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528144529.GC4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:33:43PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : Well Micha and I agree on several points but still disagree on others. : Agreed that people in real life don't use formal mathematical proofs... I would go further and say that far too many things /can't/ use formal proofs. And even further: even when you do have a formal proof, it is built from givens -- call them postulates or first principles. So, barring an infinite regress, even a formal proof is a structure atop things accepted without formal proof. I should point out that this a major subset of the field of epistomology. : It doesnt work when trying to convince others. True, but not relevant. We -- and more importantly to the origianl point, REW -- are talking about whether it's more natural to believe in G-d or not. Not whether a believer could then convince someone else. ... : We have already argued about REW and I still can't accept it. The argument : is that if someone else tells you why he doesn't accept G-d or that G-d : rules the world whether for rational or emotional reasons the answer is : that we don't believe him and say he is making up reasons. REW doesn't say that. I even cut-n-pasted a translation to support that point. REW says that he really doesn't believe, but he had to work against the natural state of seeing a world that shows obvious signs of a Designer. Someone can truly and honestly convince himself, or be convinced by others (including upbringing) that a poem really could emerge by someone spilling ink. But that's not what people would conclude if we lacked a strong desire to conclude that way -- the "shochad" of freedom if ein din ve'ein Dayan. There is nothing in that quote from Qovetz Maamarim about anyone not really believing what they think they believe. Rather, he ascribes a motive. : Of course he will say the same about your acceptance of Torah and mitzvot. Again, REW isn't speaking about the context of debate. Nor was I. By bringing it in, you complicate matters without addressing the original claim. REW is really just saying that the reason why believe is a fair topic of bechirah because on one side design is self-evident but on the other the desire to live without having to follow the Designer counterbalances it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger People were created to be loved. micha at aishdas.org Things were created to be used. http://www.aishdas.org The reason why the world is in chaos is that Fax: (270) 514-1507 things are being loved, people are being used. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:22:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 14:22:41 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> References: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, May 28, 2015, 5:19 PM Micha Berger wrote: > Here we have the author of Shemiras > haLashon -- someone known for thinking about what he said -- calling > the MB "beiuri", "od tzarafti" "ki bo biarti", "upo hir'eisi", and "kol > eileh chbarti..." on the title page. How can one argue he didn't oversee > the entire work and checked the content? Nothing about parts being by I agree he must have looked it over That leaves the question of contradictions And stories about minhagim of cc that are different than what is in mb From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:23:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:23:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150528152301.GE4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 02:22:41PM +0000, Eli Turkel wrote: : I agree he must have looked it over Which is why I think R/Dr MS is making too much ado over the actual authorship. : That leaves the question of contradictions Well, not every sheverer Rambam is a printing error either. Another case where the academic norm is to run far further with some fun concept than I'm comfortable with. Perhaps we should be looking for how the contradictions are only apparent. Or perhaps the CC felt than ruling al pi rov or safeiq lechumerah/lequlah in two different cases needn't results in consistencies between pesaqim. Before you spend too much time on that bothering you, recall when we daven minchah and maariv. If the tefillos are on two different days, you can end up following different definitions of evening on different days. : And stories about minhagim of cc that are different than what is in mb I thought R/Dr Seth Mandel's position is compelling. Look at the title page and the haqdamah. The CC never claims that the MB is a seifer of pesaq. Rather, he describes the work as a survey. From the title page, defining the MB (as opposed to the left column about the BH): I called my biur by the name MB since within it is explained (misbareir; c.f. "berurah") the words of the SA, every law by its reasoning and origins in the gemara and posqim that it not be like a sealed book. Also I will collect in it all the dinim, halakhos and biurim scattered amog the books of the acharonim, meforshim of the SA who are known (like MA, PMG, Birkhei Yoseif, Maamar Mordekhai and many such.) There are many of them after the Be'er Heitiv and they are not brought in shu"t because they are somwhat scattered in various places. All of these are compiled here, and all is in a straightforward and easy language and in proper order, with Hashem's help. And the BH: Also, I appended on its side some necessary inyanim titled under the name Biur Halakhah -- and as the name, so it is. For in it I sometimes explained the words of halakhah which are brought in summary in the MB without proof, and here I show (be"h) its source looking inall of gemara and the posqim. Also in it are sometimes explains the words of the SA at length in places which need explanation. (Sorry, just always wanted to bother translating that -- this thread was just my excuse.) So, the MB is a survey, and thus the halachic conclusions found in it (and explained in the BH) are purely what in theory the sources surveyed would indicate. It's not that the CC didn't believe in mimeticism, it's that the MB is a book of theory and therefore ignores mimeticism. The MB was written lehalakhah velo lemaaseh. Which makes it ironic that so many RYs of the mid- and late 20th cent worked so hard to make the work a "poseiq acharon" lemaaseh. Whereas he CC's own practice did reflect weighing shitos based on their acceptance. And so, unsurprisingly, in all the places I know of where his own practice didn't fit the MB (such as supporting a community eiruv, despite BH 364 "ve'achar") his practice does follow the AhS. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "The most prevalent illness of our generation is micha at aishdas.org excessive anxiety.... Emunah decreases anxiety: http://www.aishdas.org 'The Almighty is my source of salvation; I will Fax: (270) 514-1507 trust and not be afraid.'" (Isa 12) -Shalhevesya From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:11:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:11:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528151127.C0EE817F7D9@nexus.stevens.edu> At 10:33 AM 5/28/2015, R. Micha Berger wrote: >And if so, lo kol shekein in our case! Here we have the author of Shemiras >haLashon -- someone known for thinking about what he said -- calling >the MB "beiuri", "od tzarafti" "ki bo biarti", "upo hir'eisi", and "kol >eileh chbarti..." on the title page. How can one argue he didn't oversee >the entire work and checked the content? Nothing about parts being by I wonder if these words were on the title page of the first publication of each volume of the MB. After all, publishers do add things. One title page I found online for the second volume of the MB refers to the author as HaGaon. I doubt that the CC would have had this on the title page of the first printing. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:39:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:39:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: <20150528151127.C0EE817F7D9@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150528151127.C0EE817F7D9@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150528153911.GG4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 11:11:28AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : I wonder if these words were on the title page of the first : publication of each volume of the MB... Why wonder? Each volume: 1. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49623&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1884 2. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49624&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1895 3. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49625&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1891 4. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49626&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1898 5. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49627&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1902 6. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49628&pgnum=1 - Pietrekov 1907 (None call him ga'on, all have pretty much the same self description.) These fit the years of the first editions that wikipedia gives, based on "The Chafetz Chaim" by R MM Yoshor, pg 603. (But even if wiki has it wrong, they are editions published by the author.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Rescue me from the desire to win every micha at aishdas.org argument and to always be right. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Nassan of Breslav Fax: (270) 514-1507 Likutei Tefilos 94:964 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:10:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 08:10:56 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH Message-ID: http://menachemmendel.net/blog/are-you-a-mishnah-berurah-or-arukh-hashulhan-person/ see there also the r henkin review . he points out that the Oz Vhadar edition inherently has a difficulty in attributing notes to the [non-satmar oriented] relatives of the Aruch Hashulchan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 09:00:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:00:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the suggestion that a kosher lamp is zilzul shabbas. Isn't just a nice (and -- significantly -- *safer*) way of covering a lamp? If one were to make the argument that its convenience might make it zilzul shabbas, might one respond with "but safety"? Why do the rabbis deem the following to not be a case of zilzul yom tov: cooking a large pot of food on the afternoon of yom tov rishon, "in case people might stop by", and "I'll eat some of it" knowing there will be leftovers? -- Sholom -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 14:15:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 17:15:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") In-Reply-To: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> References: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> Message-ID: R'Micha asked: > How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to blow. How do you do less than 10 *each*? < 3 during Malch., 3 during Zichronos, and 4 during Shof'ros. On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 6:47 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 07:14:36PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: > : When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: > : -- 30 *dim'yushav* > : -- 10 *dim'umad* > : -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the > > How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to > blow. How do you do less than 10 *each*? > > Tir'u baTov! > -Micha > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 15:45:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 18:45:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528224528.GB28282@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:00:22PM -0400, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote: : I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the suggestion that a : kosher lamp is zilzul shabbas. That's okay, it's just a hava amina we raised here. No one AFAIK actually banned kosher lamps over zilzul Shabbos. The question was why a Kosher Switch (that claims to not even be grama) would be zilzul and not the Kosher Lamp. And then, many (most? the vast majority of posqim?) do not believe it actually avoids gerama, including the author of Shemiras Shabbos kehilkhisa. : Isn't just a nice (and -- significantly : -- *safer*) way of covering a lamp? Well, every case where one would discuss zilzul Shabbos would be one where there wasn't a more easily defined problem. So every discussion could be "isn't it just". I think the difference is that a kosher switch would mean being able to turn or off anything, whereas the Kosher Lamp is more limited, being a specific appliance. ... : Why do the rabbis deem the following to not be a : case of zilzul yom tov: cooking a large pot of food on the afternoon of : yom tov rishon, "in case people might stop by", and "I'll eat some of : it" knowing there will be leftovers? I would guess that similarly, because it's of limited utility. It doesn't totally destroy the concept of an issur of cooking on Yom Tov. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The fittingness of your matzos [for the seder] micha at aishdas.org isn't complete with being careful in the laws http://www.aishdas.org of Passover. One must also be very careful in Fax: (270) 514-1507 the laws of business. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 05:52:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 15:52:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Indeed in Europe before WWII the MB was not the "final" arbiter of halacha. Much changed when CI wrote in a letter that the MB has the halacha of a sanhedrin and one can't disagree with its conclusions. Of course CI himself disagreed with the MB and in fact there are published versions of the MB which include the disagreements of the CI. All to show that what is written in letters is not to be taken very literally. In any case that paid a large part of the change in attitude towards the MB. Certainly poskim of the previous generation who grew up before the war also did not take the MB as a final posek. As an example is RMF though I heard similar things from RYBS. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 08:24:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 11:24:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150529152455.GA5770@aishdas.org> R/Dr Haym Soloveitchik focused on the MB's more textualist slant vs the AhS giving weight to shitos that were common practice. Which fits R/DHS's thesis for that particular paper, the idea he was using that particular comparison to illustrate. But I do not believe it's the primary difference between them. I already gave what I saw was the primary difference. The AhS was written by a moreh de'asra to reflect halakhah lemaaseh. The MB was written by a tzasiq and a gaon as a survey of later shitos that weren't available to most people trying to learn halakhah. No focus (by the author, see below about others) on lemaaseh. I see this as the cause for the MB's lack of attention to halakhah as practiced. It wasn't so much that the CC was a textualist when it comes to pesaq, but that he wrote a book for discussing texts. A second difference is that the AhS's idea of understanding the halakhah is looking to see how the pesaq evolved from gemara (and Y-mi) to Rif, Rambam, Rosh to the Tur, BY, SA, and finally to the acharonim since. The MB is more focused on the halakhah in the acharonic period, and how to decide amongst them. Third, the AhS is willing to leave the halakhah fuzzy, and often comes to a range of conclusions rather than one clear-cut pesaq. Or, he will pasqen one way in one se'if, but in a slightly different case in a different se'if reopen the question: ... but if you hold like... The MB offers more clarity. An AhS fan might say that clarity is artificial, because the reality of halakhah isn't cut and dry with only one best pesaq for all people. But it does make it easier to open a MB than to try to decide what to do when you reach one of the fuzzier stretches of the AhS. Perhaps the clarity is really is artifice, and that's why we need LORs rather than thinking a book is our poseiq. On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 03:52:06PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : Indeed in Europe before WWII the MB was not the "final" arbiter of : halacha. Much changed when CI wrote in a letter that the MB has the : halacha of a sanhedrin and one can't disagree with its conclusions. : Of course CI himself disagreed with the MB... : All to show that what is written in letters is not to be taken very : literally... Although it wasn't only the CI, so it's not all about taking his letter overly literally. Rav Yaakov Kamenecki and R' Aharon Kotler called him the "poseiq acharon", and RAK went as far as making sure the MB would appear in photos of him. See also our 2006 discussion Aruch Hashulchan vs. Mishna berura OTOH, R YH Henkin testified about his famous grandfather ( quoting his own Bnei Banim vol. 2 page 31): AH saw the MB; see 11:22; 12:4; 28:23; 62:4; 268:6; and other places where he mentions Mishnah Berurah by name. In 79:11 and 319:22 and elsewhere he disagrees with him by name and in innumerable places he disagrees with him without mentioning his name: for instance, in 55:20 he is writing against the Mishnah Berurah and similarly in 370:13 -- this is obvious anyone who looks carefully. So it is a mitzvah to let people know that AH is not only a Sefer Halacha but also a response to the Mishnah Brerurah. OTOH, similarly R [Shmuel] Yaakov Weinberg (Ner Israel) considered the AhS the more authoritative. And minutes before my chupah (while waiting for the paper to burn to have ashes for my head), R' Dovid Lifshitz asked if I had one for my new home, because it was closer to halakhah as my ancestors held. (RDL knew my family back in Suvalk.) As for RMF, RDF and RRF both agreed that RMF gave priority to the AhS because R' Yechiel Michl Epstein had a qehillah, and therefore the more practiced poseiq of the two. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger People were created to be loved. micha at aishdas.org Things were created to be used. http://www.aishdas.org The reason why the world is in chaos is that Fax: (270) 514-1507 things are being loved, people are being used. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 30 16:03:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 00:03:21 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] : Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001f01d09b2c$d37ec030$7a7c4090$@org.uk> I wrote: >> But aren't they then denying those Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all >> the chance to hear shofar according to the majority opinions by only blowing >> for them according to the minority opinions? And RZS replied: >AFAIK everyone agrees that all these methods are kosher, so those Jews >are definitely yotzei the mitzvah. ... >They're not foisting anything. The people they're blowing for would >otherwise not hear shofar at all, so they're clearly better off hearing >even some obscure form of it, so long as they're yotzei. But if these people who want to hear the shofar blown according to minority shitos are capable of finding people who would otherwise not hear shofar at all and blowing for them, they are *also* capable of finding such people in circumstances where they then blow for them according to the majority shitos. For it to be true that "they're clearly better off hearing some obscure form of it, so long as they are yotzei" - you have to be assuming that the people doing the blowing would only be prepared to go to the trouble of blowing to fulfil their desire to fulfil minority shitos but NOT where the result is only to ensure that fellow Jews perform a mitzvah. You may be correct that indeed people are more concerned with making sure they themselves have fulfilled the mitzvah of shofar in every possible permutation than in making sure another Jew performs the mitzvah at all, but could anybody honestly regard that as praiseworthy? As a consequence, I then raised a halachic query: > The principle on which > somebody who has fulfilled their obligation can then fulfil the obligation > of another is based on kol yisrael areivim zeh b'zeh. But to what extent is > that applicable in a situation in which that person would never, had the > situation been reversed, have accepted the form of fulfilment they are > offering the other. Ie since the person who is blowing the shofar refused > to have these alternative ways of blowing as the fundamental method of > fulfilling their own mitzvah, is it really areivus to then foist that form > of fulfilment on others? RZS's assumption is that, so long as everybody agrees that a form of blowing is kosher bidieved, then areivus works, but I wonder whether this is necessarily true. Areivus is a fascinating halachic concept - it allows somebody who has already fulfilled a mitzvah to do it again, including (importantly) making brachos again (which they would otherwise not be permitted to do) on behalf of another. I went for a bit of a hunt over Yom Tov to see what I could find regarding areivus, but did not turn up much. First of all, the pasuk from the Torah regarding Areivus is brought in Shevuos 39a as being based on the Vayikra 26:37 [vchashlu ish b'achiv] - which is then explained as meaning that a man in *the sin* of his brother so as to teach that kol yisrael areivim ze l'zeh. But while that seems a valid source for what might be considered "negative" areivus or areivus in relation to lo ta'asehs (and the obligation to protest), it led me to wonder how straightforwardly that gets you to what might be called "positive" areivus - ie doing something, such as performing the mitzvah of shofar on behalf of another [not that I have seen this distinction between "negative" and "positive" areivus anywhere]. Ie while you can see that if is permitted to blow shofar for somebody who was otherwise unable to fulfil the mitzvah, and one failed to do so, one might then be considered to have stumbled into the sin of that person's omission - ie failure to perform an aseh - it seems a leap to therefore derive from this particular pasuk that one has the power to fulfil and make brachos on behalf of that person. If anything I would have thought perhaps v'ahavta re'echa k'mocha seemed more likely, but I couldn't find any reference. Note that areivus would seem not to be shlichus, as one can make a shaliach out of somebody who is themselves not commanded in a particular thing - whereas that is not applicable for areivus where the original level of obligation must be at least equal on the part of the arev. [This is all leaving aside the famous Rosh Brachos perek 3 siman 13 which states that areivus does not apply to women, which is clearly discussing what might be termed positive areivus ie making brachos on behalf of one another, and which the achronim generally limit to cases where there is no equal obligation, despite what may seem to be the simple pshat, or the Tosphos in Kidushin 70b that areivus does not apply to gerim - which must surely at most [and here it seems to me you need the definition of negative and positive areivus] to be only a reference to negative areivus - otherwise this would be raised as a problem of a ger making brachos on behalf of others - although given the source of the Tosphos in Sotah 37b, this would also seem to apply to women for the same reasons - ie the number count being made by reference to the 603,550 in the midbar not including the eruv rav, and not including women either]. The most I was able to find in my brief search over Yom Tov was a Birchei Yosef Orech Chaim siman 124 discussing the question as to whether a Ben Chutz L'Aretz who found himself in a village in Israel over Yom Tov (in the case quoted by the Birchei Yosef he had gone to Israel to bury his dead) where nobody besides him had the knowledge to be Shatz, and who had already davened at home on second day yom tov the second day yom tov davening, could be shatz for the community by saying the birchei chol amidah. But there seem to be lots of other reasons to permit (as the Birchei Yosef does) in this particular case. In particular it seems to me, besides all of the Birchei Yosef's arguments, if you were to say that areivus was linked to v'ahavta re'echa kamocha, you can see why, if circumstances were reversed, the ben chutz l'aretz would want the same as he is providing to the benei aretz (ie the mutuality of areivus). But in the case that RZS has outlined, where the people hearing only the minority shitos form of shofar blowing would surely want the majority position shofar blowing if they could get it, can the blower unilaterally choose to force them to fulfil their obligation via a set of minority shitos via areivus, or does the principle of areivus not stretch that far? More generally, if somebody holds a particular position as being the ikar, can they under the principle of areivus perform a mitzvah on behalf of somebody who holds by a contradictory position, so that what the arev is doing is, according to him, possul? How about the reverse situation? And that gets us to RZS's case, where it might be agreed that a particular form is kosher bidieved, but if the arev could provide a l'chatchila version and chooses not to, can he be genuinely be said to be a real arev? How good a guarantor must a guarantor be to be considered a guarantor at all? I am sure some achron has written a treatise on areivus which must cover these kinds of topics, but so far I haven't found it. Zev Sero zev at sero.name Shavuah tov Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 12:25:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 15:25:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] FORBIDDING WOMEN DRIVERS: A HALACHIC ANALYSIS Message-ID: <20150529192533.D89D0182BDA@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/nqnquzc The media has widely reported that a Belz Yeshiva in England has forbidden women from driving their children to Yeshiva. It was further reported that if the mothers do not comply, the children will be thrown out of Yeshiva. In a letter sent to parents last week, seen by the Jewish Chronicle, they say there has been an increase in the number of mothers driving their children to school and add that this has led to ?great resentment among parents of pupils of our [Hasidic] institutions?. The letter says the ban, to come into force in the summer, is based on the recommendations of Rabbi Yissachar Dov Rokeach, the Belzer spiritual leader in Israel. It says that if a mother has no other choice but to drive her child to school ? for medical reasons, for example ? she should ?submit a request to the special committee to this effect and the committee shall consider her request.? The question is what does halacha have to say about this? See the above URL for more. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 14:04:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 17:04:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <5568D45F.9010809@gmail.com> R. Micha Berger maintained that R. E. Wasserman was not positing a formal proof for G-d's existence, formal proofs not being the only way, or even the superior way, to establish truths. I cited a passage in the Moreh Nevuchim to support this concept. But as is occasionally the case, R. MB disagrees with me, even when I attempt to defend him: ZL: Indeed, the Rambam himself in the Moreh Nevuchim recognizes this : distinction and supports the superior validity of the non-formal : approach. Chapters after he devotes chapters to formal philosophic : proofs for Creation ex nihilo, he describes how a healthy (and : unbiased) mind thinks: : :And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, //for //one who ismodeh al ha-ememmes// (RMB substituted an ellipsis for this :crucial clause) :is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities :serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; :and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an :intender, and that such purposeful intent necessarily implies the :production of something new [and not something that always existed :along with the one who bears the purposeful intention for its :existence]. (MN 3:13) RMB: There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam recaps a point made in 2:19-20. In 2:19-20 Rambam makes no reference to each component or entity in nature providing a benefit for another, and certainly does not use that there as a proof for Creation ex nihilo. *(Section II is devoted to developing the argument against a naturally necessary eternal world based on ''particularization,'' the differing formations and behaviors of things despite their being made of the same materials.) * ** *Perhaps you are referring to the fact that in both the argument there and here the crucial concluding step invokes the mindset that purposeful intention on G-d's part (which Aristotle as well attributes to G-d) indicates *a changeable will on His part (which indication Aristotle denies) that allows for and indicates Creation ex nihilo. But just as in 3:13 the Rambam describes that crucial mindset as something that is possessed by those who are modeh al ha-emmess, so too in 2:19-20 the Rambam first describes it as something that is ''pashut'' (KPCH) or ''mevuar" (Ibn Tibbon), which he will then proceed to demonstrate through more formal proof: It has already been shown that according to Aristotle... the Universe is not the result of intent of choice and desire; for if this were the case, they would have been non-existing before the intent had been conceived. We [proponents of Judaism?ZL], however, hold that it is /pashut\mevuar/ that all things in the Universe are the result of intent-not-of necessity; and it is possible for that Intender to change them and have a different intent. But in this chapter, my intent is to show by arguments almost as forceful as real proofs, that the Universe gives compelling evidence of being [freely] intended by an Intender: RMB: And for that matter, if the Rambam was talking about not really needing formal proof, despite spending much of sec. II on just that, why would it be buried in a chapter that focuses on something else? I did not posit that the Rambam's intent was to make the point that formal proof is unnecessary. That indeed is not his purpose. After all, the explicitly stated primary purpose of the Moreh is for those (himself included) who yearned to defend and support the mesorah through philosophical approach of his day. He is not interested in dismissing the project. He explicitly describes this /modeh al ha-emmess/ statement /as a tangential interruption/: After that statement, he says, ''I will now return to the subject of this chapter, viz., the ultimate cause [i.e. the purpose behind the universe being as it is--ZL].'' My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows the non-formal mindset of those who are /modeh al ha-emmess/. It is a reference to those who do not restrict their acceptance of truth to things provable through formal logic, settling for healthy, unbiased reasoning (and who thereby see the truth of Creation ex-nihilo as a simple conclusion from the fact of the purposeful hierarchy of nature). RMB: 3:13 is about how the universe has its own purpose. It is not just an arena designed for the purpose of humans. He argues here with Aristo who says that plants exist for the purpose of animals, and in general, that things exist for the purpose of other things. He does not argue with Aristotle on this point, as is clear in the passage from 3:13 that I originally quoted, and as he elaborates in the introduction to his Mishnah commentary. The disagreement (outside of the parenthetically mentioned one) revolves around the /ultimate/ purpose behind the existence of everything, and the question of why the intermediate steps in this world that lead to its finale of the hierarchy must exist, rather than the finale existing alone. (According to Aristotle, every component of nature is simply a necessity whose non-existence is absolutely impossible. It is impossible for G-d to maintain anything but the universe and its entities as they are. According to the Rambam, although every sub lunar being contributes to the existence of another such being, until we get to Man (and then the Ish Shalem), G-d could nevertheless have created that final being directly, without creating the intermediary plants and animals. Why He in His wisdom decided to do it as He did, and why he decided to create the heavens as He did, we cannot know.) RMB: Besides, the Rambam writes in 3:51 in the mashal of the palace, that people who believe because of tradition without having proof are like those who wander around the chatzer, whereas someone with a proof is like one who entered the prozdor. The ''modeh al ha-emmess'' proof, building upon careful observation of the world and and its components and creatures and theorizing as to how it all works, is also a proof. The inferior knowledge that does not lead to optimum closeness to Hashem is pure tradition without proof. Not[e] Aristo's epistomology didn't analyze issues of proof vs other justification. But clearly Reliabilism, trusting an idea found in a source that has already been found to be reliable (hama'aminim ... derekh qabalah), is not being considered good enough justification to fully accomplish life's goal. I did not refer to emunah b'derech kaballah. That's not what I meant by ''ha-modeh al ha-emmess.'' I meant what I said: the healthy thinking of an unbiased mind, meaning the thinking of such a mind informed by knowledge of the things that exist in the world and their behaviors, and explanations of how they operate. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 30 20:04:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sat, 30 May 2015 23:04:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] : Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <001f01d09b2c$d37ec030$7a7c4090$@org.uk> References: <001f01d09b2c$d37ec030$7a7c4090$@org.uk> Message-ID: <556A7A27.3000006@sero.name> On 05/30/2015 07:03 PM, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: > RZS's assumption is that, so long as everybody agrees that a form of blowing > is kosher bidieved, then areivus works, Not just b'deiavad; my understanding is that all of these shitos are kosher lechatchilah, they're just not the way we do them lemaaseh. Let's say they're not mitzva min hamuvchar. Or "de`avad kemar `avad, ud`avad kemar `avad but we do kemar". > But in the case that RZS has outlined, where the people hearing > only the minority shitos form of shofar blowing would surely want the > majority position shofar blowing if they could get it, We're talking about people who have no particular desire to hear shofar at all, or they'd have done so. They didn't bother going to shul on Rosh Hashana, so they're probably not even aware that there are different shitos in how to blow shofar, let alone have a preferred shitah. Anything that is motzi them in the mitzvah is an improvement over what they would do otherwise, and is a benefit for them. And we're talking about potential blowers who currently don't go out and do this, they don't spend their precious Rosh Hashana hours bringing this zechus to fellow Jews who did not come themselves to hear shofar. So what I'm proposing is a win-win. They get to hear the obscure shitos they want to hear, and the people they're blowing for get the basic mitzvah as the Torah commanded it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 30 20:22:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 30 May 2015 23:22:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <556A7E8D.70007@gmail.com> I wrote: > > > > But as is occasionally the case, > R. MB disagrees with me, even when I attempt to defend him I should have put a smiley after that sentence, or maybe even explicated that it was meant as a humorous observation of irony. It meant to imply that RMB is interested in emmess and does not make it a personal issue. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 31 00:59:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 10:59:58 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura Message-ID: RHS has said many times in his shiurim that the MB was not written alone by the Chofetz Chaim and that is why there are sometimes contradictions. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 31 01:08:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 11:08:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: "Indeed in Europe before WWII the MB was not the "final" arbiter of halacha. Much changed when CI wrote in a letter that the MB has the halacha of a sanhedrin and one can't disagree with its conclusions." I believe it happened even a little later then that. RHS who grew up in the 1950s stated many times in shiur that when he learned halacha in the 1950s no one learned Mishna Berura, people either learned Chayei Adam or they learned Shulchan Aruch with Magen Avraham and the Taz. If you look at the European gedolim who came to America like R' Moshe, R' Ruderman, etc. even after WWII they almost never quoted the Mishna Berura. >From what I understand R' Aharon Kotler was very influential in America in promoting learning Mishna Berura. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 31 10:20:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 13:20:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Texualism and the Mishnah Berurah by R. Micha Berger Message-ID: <20150531172101.ED88B180CD0@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://www.aishdas.org/asp/texualism-and-the-mishnah-berurah The author [of the Mishnah Brurah, the Chofetz Chaim] is clear: the purpose of the book was not to provide his own ruling, but to survey the later posqim who have added complexity to the field so that someone looking to reach a decision knows who wrote on the matter. Yes, the CC (or his son or other students who worked with him) often gave his own opinion, including our ?ba?al nefesh yachmir?, but it is unclear to me he intended that opinion to be a pragmatic ruling rather than a theoretical statement. This would explain why the Mishnah Berurah?s rulings diverge from accepted practice so much more often than the Arukh haShulchan (a contemporary work from the same region). Halakhah lemaaseh, pragmatic rulings, need to take such precedent and continuity into account; discussions of textual theory do not. As further evidence that the Mishnah Berurah was not intended to be a practical law guide, we have a lot of testimony that shows that its own author often followed the common Lithuanian practice over his own ?ruling?. Despite the origin of wearing one?s tzitzis strings out being in the MB, the CC did not. His qiddush cup doesn?t hold as much wine as the MB would require. (It is still in the hands of the Zaks family and has been checked repeatedly.) He advocated for building city eiruvin for carrying on Shabbos despite BH 364 ?ve?achar?. The Chafeitz Chaim did not say ?Berikh Shemeih? when taking out the Torah. Etc 1 I am suggesting that the CC?s textualist and formal stance in the MB is simply because the MB was a book for studying texts. And he did not intend to deemphasize mimetic tradition (the flow of practice transmitted culturally). This shift happened when the Chazon Ish in Israel and a number of American rashei yeshiva (such as R? Aharon Kotler) promoted the idea of using the Mishnah Berurah as a poseiq acharon. See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 00:25:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 10:25:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <> I have a book "The Goldilocks Enigma" by Paul Davies (cosmolgist) on why is the universe just right for life. Most of the book is to show how unlikely it is that the universe has exactly the right properties for existence. The second part is a discussion as to why this happened. He goes through all the theories including the watchmaker etc. One possibility is a "creator" . He adnits that it is logically consistent but finds iy highly unlikely. His own preference is for the multi-verse. The idea is not whether you agree with him or not. Rather here is an intelligent human who has thought deeply about these problems and does not see any obvious signs of a designer. I would venture that that is the opinion of most physicists and certainly biologists. What you consider obvious he considers very unlikely. Again we come to the point that REW claims that anyone who really thinks about the problem and comes up with a different answer than he does simply has an ulterior motive. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 03:08:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 06:08:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150602100830.GA12384@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 10:25:05AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : The idea is not whether you agree with him or not. Rather here is an : intelligent human who has thought deeply about these problems and does not : see any obvious signs of a designer. I would venture that that is the : opinion of most physicists and certainly biologists. REW would say that he found it obvious that the world was created, something deep inside (to add my own 2c: of which he is likely unaware) didn't want to live in a world with a Creator, so he thought deeply about these problems until he could find an alternative. (For what it's worth, I think most physicists believe in G-d.) As you put it: : What you consider obvious he considers very unlikely. Again we come to the : point that REW claims that anyone who really thinks about the problem and : comes up with a different answer than he does simply has an ulterior motive. But that doesn't make the person any less convinced. For that matter, the believer also likely has an unlterior motive. (I said that, I doubt REW would. I am just saying it wouldn't rob him of his point.) REW is asserting that before you even get to bias, the obvious position is ours. Their atheism is the one that takes work, because it's explaining away the obvious. After all, there is no a priori, obvious-as-a-postulate version of the Anthropic Principle or other such atheistic explanations of the universe's design. No equivalent to REW's not attributing a poem to spilled ink or R' Aqiva's insisting that a garment or bread testify to their makers. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Friendship is like stone. A stone has no value, micha at aishdas.org but by rubbing one stone against another, http://www.aishdas.org sparks of fire emerge. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Mordechai of Lechovitz From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 08:40:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 11:40:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] women making a zimun In-Reply-To: <20150602125704.JHYM8162.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo306> References: <20150602125704.JHYM8162.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo306> Message-ID: <20150602154026.GF23551@aishdas.org> Bringing this thread to where this belongs. On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 08:56:59AM -0400, Sholom Simon via Areivim wrote: :> There was no family or community prior to the 20th century in :> which girls or women bentshed with a zimun. : I always wondered about that vis-a-vis the following: : The SA"HaRav (written by somebody who was certainly not a feminist) : at 199:6 writes that three women who are eating together (provided : there are less than 10 men) are permitted to break away and make : their own zimmun. (l'chelek l'zimun l'atzman). ... : What I've always wondered about was: is he writing entirely : theoretically, or was there a practice among some which led him to : clarify this issue? : Thoughts? : -- Sholom The SA haRav says that they must participate when 3 men make a zimun. If there are three women, no minyan of men, and want to separate off to make their own zimun, hareshus beyadam. Then he takes on the case of three women who are eating without men, again "hareshus beyadam" to make a zimun. (Similarly avadim, but not a mix of women and avadim because we we assume avadim are capable of peritzus. Given that the part about avadim couldn't have been a practice in the Baal haTanya's day, I wouldn't assume his mention of zimun for women makes any such implication. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Weeds are flowers too micha at aishdas.org once you get to know them. http://www.aishdas.org - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 08:49:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 11:49:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Modah Ani In-Reply-To: <20150602.081411.27008.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150602.081411.27008.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150602154924.GG23551@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 12:14:11PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Areivim wrote: : R' Micha Berger wrote: :> ... When I told them that traditionally we held that they're :> probably yotz'ot with saying Modah Ani once a day, ... : I noticed your very deliberate spelling here, and I can't help but : wonder: Was there any family or community prior to the late 20th century : in which girls or women said "modAh ani"? Talmidei haGra. The Siddur haGra also mentions "shelo asani nakhriah" (the Gra had "nakhri" for men) and "shelo asani shifcha". Speaking of new minhagim: Modeh Ani is likely the youngest prayer in most siddurim, even younger than Lekha Dodi. It exists to compensate moving "Elokai Neshamah" out of that spot. (Asher Yatzar doesn't open "barukh" because it's a berakhah hasemukhah lechaverta with haMapil -- one before sleep one after. When we moved it, many (including the Gra), made it semuchah to Asher Yazar -- thanking the Creator for both body and soul.) Which is why I find it unwarranted to treat its matbeia as unchangable even in the face of simply reconjugating. But in any case, I'm in favor of most changes that give one pause to think about what they're saying or doing. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow micha at aishdas.org man's soul and his own stomach; a pious Jew worries http://www.aishdas.org about his own soul and his fellow man's stomach. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 09:16:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 12:16:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <5568D45F.9010809@gmail.com> References: <5568D45F.9010809@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150602161633.GA15555@aishdas.org> On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 05:04:31PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: :> There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam :> recaps a point made in 2:19-20. : : In 2:19-20 Rambam makes no reference to each component or entity in : nature providing a benefit for another, and certainly does not use that : there as a proof for Creation ex nihilo... 2:20 marks the end of an Argument from Design, which is what I was referring to. As it opens: "According to Aristotle, none of the products of Nature are due to chance. His proof is this: That which is due to chance does not reappear constantly nor frequently, but all products of Nature reappear either constantly or at least frequently..." This is a formal argument, unlike R' Aqiva's or REW's own appeal to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. I am saying that 3:15, when it mentions in passing the bit that :: And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, //for :: //one who ismodeh al ha-ememmes// ... :: is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities :: serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; :: and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an :: [I]ntender.... This is reference to people being willing to accept a proven point, and not accepting something as true because of a justification system other than proof. ... RZL, continued: : He explicitly describes this /modeh al ha-emmess/ statement /as a : tangential interruption/: After that statement, he says, "I will now : return to the subject of this chapter, viz., the ultimate cause [i.e. : the purpose behind the universe being as it is--ZL]." : My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that : there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows : the non-formal mindset of those who are /modeh al ha-emmess/... Agreed it's tangential, which is why I doubt that if the Rambam did want to say something that signficant, this would be its only mention. But I don't think it makes the point you're making because the Rambam already made design the topic of a formal proof. So the current mention of design in this aside is talking about a proof, not another verification system. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is complex. micha at aishdas.org Decisions are complex. http://www.aishdas.org The Torah is complex. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' Binyamin Hecht From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 13:24:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2015 22:24:55 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <556E1117.1050507@zahav.net.il> That a text written such a short time ago could have questions about it authorship really nails down how hard it is to have definitive knowledge of the past. Ben On 5/31/2015 9:59 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > RHS has said many times in his shiurim that the MB was not written > alone by the Chofetz Chaim and that is why there are sometimes > contradictions. > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 13:27:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 16:27:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed Message-ID: <20150602202700.GA7449@aishdas.org> R/Dr Alan Brill recently carried this essay by comparatively new chaver, R' Ysoscher Katz. I am sharing here the essay in full (see or for R/D AB's biographical introduction) for two reeasons -- or one two-part reason: 1- I think this post could start a nice discussion of the fundamentals of each of our hashkafos; and 2- Comments are blocked on the post, so it's not like I am stealing a conversation that ought to happen there. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you won't be better tomorrow micha at aishdas.org than you were today, http://www.aishdas.org then what need do you have for tomorrow? Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rebbe Nachman of Breslov Torat Chaim Ve'Ahavat Chesed Ysoscher Katz I was raised in the chassidic community of Satmar. I should make it clear from the outset: I am modern but not Orthodox. Do not get me wrong, I am observant and my practice is orthodox but that is not who I am. In other words, I am orthodox-my practice is halakhic and my belief orthodox-but Orthodoxy is not me. It is not an integral part of my identity. My orthodoxy is merely a means towards a religious end. Keeping halakha and accepting orthodox faith-claims provides me with the infrastructure which allows my soul to strive and pursue perfection. Orthodoxy enables me to be who I really am: a Modern Chassidish Jew. As I mentioned, my identity is comprised of two parts, Modern and Chassidish. I inherited these identity markers from my parents, the modernity from my mother and the chassidut from my father. Here, I mean real Chassidic, and not Neo-Chassidic. How my chassidic, homemaking and sheitel-wearing mom made me modern is a conversation for another time. At the moment I wish to focus on my dad. My father is the most non-chassidish Chassid. He does not study "chassidus," nor does he want to "understand" it. The few times I tried to explain to him Moshe Idel's distinction between theosophy and theurgy, his eyes glazed over. Chassidut is what he does, not what he learns. From his perspective, Torah is for learning, chassidut for practicing. His aversion is not limited to the study of academic mysticism. He also stays away from traditional kabbalistic or chassidic texts. He never studied the Zohar nor did he ever read any of the Arizal's writings. Not only would he not read them, he also would not touch them. He is so intimidated by their sacredness; he fears that his touch would contaminate them. Yet, despite never having formally studied chassidic texts, he still is the quintessential chasid. Chassidut is his essence, part of his religious DNA, but it is a chassidut that is behavioral, not intellectual. Chassidut is how he lives his life. It is the prism through which he encounters the world and the ethos by which he lives by. He adores his wife, loves his children, cherishes his community and reveres and respects his neighbors and fellow human beings, Jew and non-Jew alike. While this practice is not special, many people love their family and surroundings, its flavor is unique. It is Chassidic love, deriving its passion from the Chassidic teachings he has absorbed throughout his life. These teachings have filled his being with a deep religiosity, which, in turn, infuses his actions and emotions with a deep and robust spirituality. His love of humanity is, therefore, a love that is sensualized by its spiritualized valance. Chassidut does not just spiritualize my father's interpersonal relationships, it also enhances his religious practices, particularly the yearly calendar. Chassidut allows him to infuse the annual cycle with a sensuous spirituality. Satmar is a Hungarian/Romanian Chassidut (The broad strokes difference between Hungarian Chassidut and the Polish and Russian versions is that the latter were intellectually inclined while the former was not. Hungarian Chassidut was predominantly behavioral. This is, of course, a generalization; the nuances are far more complex but outside the parameters of this presentation.) Hungarian Chassidim are nourished by an elaborate "sacred calendar." They have more days of note than the conventional Jewish calendar, and their holidays tend to be richer than your typical modern Jews' chag experience. A Satmar Chasid's year is thus replete with days of deep joy and periods of intense reflection. While the Jewish calendar has several biblical holidays and two Rabbinic ones, the Chasid's calendar records additional dates of importance. Every winter, the Hungarian Chasid has six to eight weeks of "shovavim," a period that usually falls sometime between Chanukah and Purim, which is dedicated to repentance and introspection, largely focusing on sexual impropriety; the days of awe continue through the end of Chanukah, the potential for repentance lasts for them for two more months; Purim celebrations begin three days earlier than usual; and (a modicum of) Pesach extends all the way to Shavuot (based on Nachmanides' notion that the interim weeks between Pesach and Shavuot are somewhat akin to a chol ha'moed of Pesach). Combined these add up to a significant number of additional days of awe and periods of celebration. Qualitatively, chassidic holidays are different as well. Although many things distinguish a chassidic chag, there is one distinction that is particularly noticeable to the keen observer: chassidic religious celebrations are comprised of a dissonant blend of joy and contemplation. Here are some examples: Shabbat in Satmar is an incredibly meaningful day, bookended by powerful contradictory modes. Friday night is a time of joy, where the spiritually and mystically rich Lecha Dodi chant inspires celebration of the metaphysical significance of the day. While this spirit carries through most of the Shabbat, towards the end of the Shabbat the Satmar Chasid shifts gears, switching modes from the celebratory to the reflective. This transition occurs in a much starker manner than it does in most other communities. A Satmar Shabbat never ends at "shekiah." Sehudah shlishit is always a two hour affair, spent singing and listening to the Rebbe's dvar torah. Speaking in highly evocative tones, he expounds on the weekly reading, spending close to an hour challenging and rebuking his followers. Growing up, this is exactly what Shabbat looked like for me. My dad's Shabbat was intense and complex. While the day began upbeat, it gradually shifted into the contemplative. But, my father's Shabbat, like his chassidut, is adamantly experiential, text and study play a minor role in the development of his religious persona. Kegavna (a section from the Zohar which Chassidim recite during Friday night prayers), is one of the most powerful kabbalistic liturgical texts. Utilizing the connection between Shabbat and the number seven, a prominent kabbalistic trope, it succinctly articulates the mystical value of Shabbat. It emphasizes that Shabbat is a day of heightened divine intimacy and advanced mystical union. I have begged my dad on many occasions to read this Zohar text with me. He refused each time. Sacred mystical texts are for the elite. The lay receive their nourishment residually, from the spiritualized environment created by those qualified to access those recondite sources. While he will not study Kegavna, he does recite it every Friday night as part of the Kabbalat Shabbat service. Notwithstanding that he does not fully grasp its meaning, he reads it with the pathos and passion it deserves. Kegavna's power for him is metaphysical, not intellectual. Purim provides another example of the intensity of Hungarian chassidic practice. Many Jews celebrate Purim, but not the chassidic Purim. The chassidic Purim is unique in its richness and multiplicity. Communally, preparations for the holiday start early. More than a week before Purim, one can already detect the arrival of the holiday, both, in the discourse of the scholars and activities of the laity. The learned discourse focuses on the legal and spiritual aspects of the chag, while the public sphere is filled with people making arrangements for every aspect of the day. When Purim finally arrives, it takes on a distinct theological flavor. Appropriating the Zoharic notion that Purim is analogous to Yom Kippur (Yom Kippurim), Satmar Chassidim created a unique Purim blend that is both frivolous and somber. This day of festivity is overlaid with practices of repentance and reflection. While I am nourished by my dad's behavioral Chassidut, personally it is not enough. Behavioral Chassidut gladdens my heart but does not stimulate my mind nor sufficiently satisfy my soul. I personally seek a religiosity which nourishes both pillars of my being, the mind and the heart. My personal journey is, therefore, informed by a combination of my father's passion and the academic's sophistication. Chassidus resonates with both of them, sometimes simultaneously, when the intellectual engagement and behavioral spiritual encounter complement one another, and sometimes separately, when I religiously shift back and forth between the intellectual and the experiential. Ultimately, the attraction to Chassidut is the fact that it can operate in different modes at different times, in the process offering up a variety of mechanisms to help spiritualize my life. It is precisely this multifacetedness which convinces me that Chassidut is the proper theology for us moderns. Its theology is perfectly situated to offer meaning and spirituality to the contemporary modern seeker. I feel strongly that it is our only hope. Chassidut today is not a luxury, it is a necessity. If the Torah-u'Madda project is to succeed Chassidut needs to become an integral part of its curriculum. Chassidut is of course a vast discipline, teaching all of it would be a daunting task. For the moment there are three aspects of chassidic theology that stand out as particularly suited for the world we live in today. 1) Truth. We live in a post-modern world where objective truth is rejected and absolute claims are frowned upon. I would go as far as to say that rationalism (in the general and colloquial sense) as a source for Emunah is bankrupt, it increasingly speaks to fewer people. It, therefore, behooves us to come up with alternative models. Chassidut could very well be that alternative model. Facts and empirical truth is not Chassidut's primary currency. While it does a priori accept the biblical theological faith statements, its goal is not to argue or prove the scientific veracity of the Bible's claims. Truth is not of primary concern for these thinkers. Chassidic theology has two main features. It is a-rational and a-historical. It is apathetic about Jewish historicity as a proactive theological stance. The Torah for Chassidim is there to teach us how to live life and serve God, the narrative qua narrative (the origin story) is mere background music. The narration parts of the Torah are, therefore, not of much theological significance to them, they are a-historical However, during those rare occasions when they do pay attention to the biblical "stories," their orientation is a-rational. They absolutely "believe" those stories, but their belief is internal: it is true because it happened in the Torah. That is where these events transpire and that is where these stories matter. Asking about their historicity is, as far as they are concerned, foolish and missing the point. At the same time, to the extent that the biblical narratives have religious and theological significance, they read those stories through the Rabbinic lens. So, for example, while Moshe's historicity is not historically relevant to them, his persona carries theological and ethical significance. The same is true for God's attributes. Chassidim are, by choice, apathetic about God as a scientific reality, his attributes and characteristics, however, are theologically highly significant to them. For that they did turn to the Bible, but the encounter with the Torah is filtered through Chazal. They see Chazal as essential to the understanding of the Torah. As believers in immanence they actually see the Sages as much more integral to the experience of the written Torah than the rationalists did. They did not think that the presence at Sinai (mamad har Sinai) ended at the giving of the Torah (mattan Torah). For them the Torah is perpetually and continuously revealed. The modern reader of chassidic texts would, therefore, not have to decide whether they scientifically accept these postulates in order to engage with them. Chassidut's goal is instead to describe an immanence which provides spiritual and emotional transcendence. Chassidut (informed, of course, by kabbalah) promotes a sophisticated immanence which results in a dramatic shift in Judaism's orientation towards God and His commandments. Prior to the emergence of chassidut on the historic scene, theology was convincing and Jewish observance was rewarding. Chassidut changed that. Chassidic theology offered meaning and kabbalistic observance provided sanctity. Personally, my rejection of the Maimonidean ethos and realization of the degree to which chassidut can speak to the modern searcher was a long and arduous process. It came about as a result of a deep sense of betrayal by Maimonides, the champion of Rationalist Judaism. I for many years was the object and fool of Maimonides "the seventh reason" as presented in his introduction to the Guide by not seeing his philosophic views. In that passage, Maimonides condones misleading the masses for their greater good, even to the point of advocating contradictory ideas for different audiences and then obscuring those contradictions. Growing up in Satmar and then Brisk, I was oblivious to his non-halakhic writings and led to believe that he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad. I was exposed to his other writings only later and when I did I felt cheated. I was part of that the masses, whom he thought could not handle his unconventional approach to theology and tradition. As much as I have read about him, I personally have not managed to reconcile his two sides. I do not find Prof. Isidore Twersky's harmonizing approach compelling or convincing. Realizing what a fool I was led me on a tortuous and circuitous search. As the Rabbis say about Yisro, ????? ??? ?? ??????; I explored all the options. I finally found the answer in kabbalah and chassidut, they speak a language which resonates with our current reality. They emphasize that which contemporary Judaism needs. The emphasis in chassidut on meaning and sacredness, are perfectly suited for our community. These are exactly the things our culture needs more of; holiness and meaning. This emphasis in Chassidut on immanence also generates a move towards spiritualization. 2) Spiritualization. As scholars have pointed out, chassidic teachings contain elements of spiritual psychology. They provide us with a language which helps us infuse our lives with meaning. One can point to many examples where this psychological spiritualization occurs in chassidut, I will mention two of them. Everybody sometimes has a bad hair day, when we wake up feeling less than optimal. Chassidut has a term to describe that mood; it calls it mochen de'katnus. While it technically means the same as a "bad hair day," the language is mystical. Mochen de'katnus describes a less than stellar spiritual state, a low energy level which does not allow us to engage in the usual religious pursuits we crave to pursue. Another example is Kabbalah's elaborate taxonomy of love and awe: Kabbalah and Chassidut talks about superior and inferior love (ahavah ela'e'e and ahavah tata'a) or superior and inferior awe (yirah ela'e'e and yira tata'a)While these terms primarily describe nuanced stages in our engagement with the Divine, they have traditionally been imported into the colloquial arena. They are used to describe varied emotional states which we experience in our interactions with our friends and loved ones. Contemporary life does not provide us with that many opportunities for encountering the Divine in our daily lives. Chassidut allows us to bring God in. Sprinkling our conversations with mystical and Chassidic terminology allows us to spiritualize our daily routines and infuse our mundane pursuits with meaning and spiritual significance. Besides enriching our personal encounters, adopting a chassidic ethos could also enhance our communal experiences. 3) Social Change. One of the most pressing tensions in the community is how to reconcile our values with our convictions; what to do when halakha points us in one direction and our values in another direction. We are tempted to follow our values but pulled to abide by our halakhic commitments. A proper resolution requires an emboldened stance towards tradition, one that allows us to cajole the tradition to reconcile itself with our modern sensibilities. [Using, of course, legitimate halakhic mechanisms developed by our predecessors when they were confronted with similar challenges.] Our values are so emboldened because they derive their power from Chaissdut. A chassidic life is a spiritualized life which infuses our values with powerful theological significance, and it allows us to aggressively challenge the tradition to reevaluate its assumptions and attempt to accommodate itself-when halakhically possible- to a changed modern reality. Chassidut is very explicit about the value of religious aggression. The following two quotes are often encountered in chassidic writings, "even a thief says a prayer before he breaks in to his victim's home" (quoted on the margin of Brachot 63A, from the Frankfurt manuscript), and "an aggressive stance towards the Divine bears results" (Sanhedrin 105A). While the provenance of these texts is Talmudic, they take on significant prominence in Chassidic theology. They become the impetus for an aggressive theology which is informed by a religiosity that sees itself driven by a Divine immanence which infuses our values and ethical intuitions with spiritual resonance, subsequently leading to radical societal change. Such change is actually an integral part of Chassidic social history. When one looks at recent major changes in traditional Jewish society it is hard not to notice that the forerunners were often Chassidim. The last sixty years have seen far reaching social and political change. The two most dramatic changes that have happened is that Jews are now sovereign and women have made significant progress in their pursuit of religious equality. The pioneers of both these changes were driven, at least in part, by a chassidic ethos. R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Rebbi of Lubavitch, was one of the first orthodox scholars to champion female Talmud scholarship, while R. Avraham Yitzchak Kook, a serious student of Chassidut, was an outspoken early proponent of a Zionist state. There is no doubt that their chassidic worldview, at least partially, informed their proactive stances towards these changes. Their adherence to a spiritualized religiosity allowed them to explore new religious vistas. Their unique theological outlook changed the religious and legal equation for them, simultaneously making their decisions more complex, but also more progressive. Their spiritualized worldview allowed them to see divinity in the ostensibly secular state or the seemingly illegitimate request of women for greater equality. Granted, this hybrid of chassidic spiritualization and robust religious creativity would be a 21^st century concoction, traditionally, these two do not go together. Chassidism, for the most part, frowns on change and rejects innovation. As a matter of fact, nineteenth century Hungarian Chassidim were vociferously opposed to any accommodations to modernity. Further, the contemporary thinker is not going to intuitively embrace spiritualized non-rational thought. It is, nevertheless, a match pregnant with immense potential and could go a long way towards reviving a dormant Modern Orthodoxy. Contemporary Modern Orthodoxy is struggling; a significant number of its adherents are abandoning yiddishkeit and many who stay no longer find it meaningful; inertia has set in. I suspect that Modern Orthodoxy's rationalist ethos is partially to blame. Current Modern Orthodox theology is Litvish and hyper-Maimonidean, it lacks a native spiritual core, and does not satisfy people's search for meaning. We are due for a change. Chassidus could be that change agent. I strongly believe that a chassidic theology combined with a sophisticated modern overlay could be the elixir for the dispassion and disinterest that ails our community. It will provide our community what it so desperately needs: a torat chaim ve'ahavt chesed; a Torah that stimulates our minds but at the same time also gladdens our neshamah. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 14:39:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:39:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> : > From: Micha Berger via Avodah > > [Rambam's statement (''And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, //for > :: //one who ismodeh al ha-ememmes// ... > :: is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities > :: serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; > :: and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an > :: [I]ntender...'') is not an informal argument, akin to R' Aqiva's or REW's appeal > to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. Rather,] it is a recap of a formal proof The Rambam made in 2:19-20... 2:20 marks the end of an Argument from Design. As it opens: "According to Aristotle, none of the products > of Nature are due to chance. His proof is this: That which is due to > chance does not reappear constantly nor frequently, but all products of > Nature reappear either constantly or at least frequently..." > > This is a formal argument, unlike R' Aqiva's or REW's own appeal > to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. Philosophers may disagree with classifying the argument made in 2:20 from ''frequency of appearance'' as ''an argument from design.'' But even if it is ''an'' argument from design, it's a different argument from the ''modeh al ha-emmess'' proof from the hierarchy of entities benefiting others. So the latter is not a recap of the former. And it does not necessarily follow that one who is modeh to the ''frequency'' argument considers the hierarchy argument ''one of the strongest.'' RZL, continued: : He explicitly describes this/modeh al ha-emmess/ statement /as a : tangential interruption/: After that statement, he says, "I will now : return to the subject of this chapter, viz., the ultimate cause [i.e. : the purpose behind the universe being as it is--ZL]." : My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that : there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows : the non-formal mindset of those who are/modeh al ha-emmess/... RMB: >Agreed it's tangential, which is why I doubt that if the Rambam did want to say something that signficant, this would be its only mention.< Again: Here, where the Rambam, for the first time, is about to bring up the hierarchy proof, he parenthetically mentions that it is intuitively understood by anyone unbiased. He does then go on to state the proof in a formal philosophic form. This is the most proper place to insert such a parenthetical remark parenthetically, and only once. It's not ''that significant'' for his purposes, because, as I had written, the entire purpose of the Moreh is to address people (including himself) concerned with hearing formal philosophic proofs and confronting the challenges that formal philosophic proofsbrought to the mesorah. Those interested in hearing an expanded version of the argument in informal form could find it in the Rambam's introduction to his his Mishnah commentary. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 16:04:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 19:04:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <103ab8.504f8d1e.429f9062@aol.com> From: Eli Turkel via Avodah >> I have a book "The Goldilocks Enigma" by Paul Davies (cosmolgist) on why is the universe just right for life. Most of the book is to show how unlikely it is that the universe has exactly the right properties for existence. The second part is a discussion as to why this happened. He goes through all the theories including the watchmaker etc. One possibility is a "creator" . He admits that it is logically consistent but finds it highly unlikely. His own preference is for the multi-verse. The idea is not whether you agree with him or not. Rather here is an intelligent human who has thought deeply about these problems and does not see any obvious signs of a designer..... << Eli Turkel >>>> On the contrary, he sees many signs of a Designer and he is so desperate to avoid the obvious conclusion -- because of his own prior philosophical biases -- that he adopts the currently trendy and absurd idea of "many universes" to escape from what he does not want to face. You see, if this is the only universe then it is so fantastically improbable that it can only be a miracle. But if it is only one of many universes, then it is not so strange that just one out of millions of universes would happen to have the conditions necessary for life. Normally the definition of "science" includes things like capable of observation or experiment, falsifiable, etc. But if you are desperate enough to escape G-d (and His moral demands) you will take something as airy-fairy, non-observable, not subject to any possible experiment, non-falsifiable as a "multi-verse" -- a product of the human mind that is as real as leprechauns -- and you will crown it with the noble name of "science"! I have a wonderful book in my house called *The Privileged Planet* that should be a science textbook in every yeshiva high school and Bais Yakov. Please please read it. It's by Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards. Here's the website with more information about the book and a video: http://www.privilegedplanet.com/ --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 00:03:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 10:03:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] MB Message-ID: The entry in wikepedia in Hebrew on Mishna Brura contains much of the information that we have been discussing. In particular it discusses the authorship of MB (ie the quote from his son) . MH vs AH and the change after the holocaust and other comments -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 05:39:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2015 08:39:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Standing at a Chupah Message-ID: <20150603123934.850661827E1@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is from today's Hakhel email bulletin. FROM A READER: Further on the point on standing at Chuppahs: Many think/say that it is because of Choson Domeh L'melech that they stand up for the Chosson. Yet, they should be aware that to my knowledge, HaRav Moshe Feinstein, Z'tl, never stood because he used to say, Doi-meh (L)melech NOT (Ke)melech. HaRav Yaakov Kamenetsky, Z'tl, stood but for a totally different reason. The question of L'melech or K'melech never entered into consideration as the Chosson is not a true Chosson until AFTER the Chuppah. Rather, HaRav Yaakov stood purely because of the Mishna in Bikurim (3:3), that discusses the bringing of Bikurim and the rule of standing Lif-Nai Oisei Mitzva, and since the Chosson is entering into a Chupah which will enable him to be mekayeim the mitzvah of P'ru U'revu, we stand. As to why we don't stand for everyone doing a mitzvah, it's for a mitzvah that is mei-kama zman l'zman, not a regular occurrence. The question remains as to a justification for why people stand for the Kallah, since she is not K'Malka (see HaRav Moshe and HaRav Yaakov above) and is peturah from Mitzvas Peru U'revu. HaRav Avraham Kamenetsky, HaRav Yaakov's son, told me that one can say that since the Chosson cannot be mekayeim the mitzvah without her, she has a chelek in the mitzvah and thus qualifies for Lif-Nai Oisei Mitzvah. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 06:57:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 09:57:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 05:39:33PM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : But even if it is "an" argument from design, it's a different argument : from the "modeh al ha-emmess" proof from the hierarchy of entities : benefiting others. So the latter is not a recap of the former. And : it does not necessarily follow that one who is modeh to the : "frequency" argument considers the hierarchy argument "one of the : strongest." I think our point of contention is simple: You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind justification that isn't a proof. Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. And therefore there is nothing in the Rambam about a justification that isn't a philosophical proof. For that matter, I would take his words to say this non-proof, being only meaningful to someone who is already "modeh al ha'emes", is not valid justification -- an instance of what I believe would be his general rule. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 10:58:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 10:58:33 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] ashtei-asar Message-ID: could someone explain please the ibn ezra in last weeks parsha ? someone asked about the origin of 'ashtei' and noted the this week mikshah is translated as eshet--- which must mean one solid piece so that must mean ashtei= one . but why not say achad asar ? [ he pointed out that 'eshet'= 770 , a number of completion ] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 14:23:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 17:23:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] ashtei-asar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150603212342.GA31632@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 03, 2015 at 10:58:33AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : someone asked about the origin of 'ashtei' and noted the this week : mikshah is translated as eshet--- which must mean one solid piece so : that must mean ashtei= on... The Akkadian for 11 is ishteneshret, ishten (one) + shret (ten). It is weird, though, that Hebrew would use a form of isheneshret without also using ishten. Then there's the idea in the Radaq (Mikhlol pg 140) that it was two that was collapsed from "ashtei" to "shtei". Which would explain why "shtayim" isn't "shesayim". The rule is that a sheva under the first letter is a sheva na (pronounced schwa), the legacy of the missing "i-" makes "shtei" an exception -- the sheva under the shin is nach (silent). Along these line, but presumably without the knowledge of Akkadian, the IE (Bamidbar 7:72, citing his own Sefer Me'oznayim) writes that "ashtei asar" is like "eshtenosav" -- that which were born from his thoughts. As though the 10 gave birth. "Vehu sod gadol". He then goes on to dismiss R' Yonah haSefaradi's theory that it means "el shtei asar". Because 1- "al shetei asar" would refer to the number AFTER 12, not before; and 2- "asar" (masc) would get "shnei" (masc), not "shtei" (fem). The gemara doesn't explain peshat, but interestingly R' Ashi's example (Sanhedrin 29a) of "kol hamosif goreia'" is how adding an ayin turns "shtei esrei yeri'os" into "ashtei esrei". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 15:16:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2015 18:16:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> On 6/3/2015 9:57 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > I think our point of contention is simple: > > You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind > justification that isn't a proof. I thought I was clear that I was taking it to be the same informal kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind. > > Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, > but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. I did not see this in your previous remarks that characterized the ''modeh-al-ha-emmess" as a formal proof/argument: :> There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam :> recaps a point made in 2:19-20. > 2:20 marks the end of an Argument from Design, which is what I was > referring to. ...This is a formal argument, unlike R' Aqiva's or REW's own appeal > to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. And I don't see how one can possibly interpret (MN 3:13 [not 3:15 as I mistakenly typed previously]) ''And know that one of the strongest /proofs/ (min /ha-gedolah sheh-b'ra'ayos/) for Creation ex nihilo, for one who is /modeh al ha-ememmes/, is his understanding the /proof/ (/hu mah sheya'amod alav ha-mofase/)...'' as meaning: > ''this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the emes, > look how nicely it works out.'' Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 16:37:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 19:37:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150603233708.GA7958@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 03, 2015 at 06:16:59PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: :> You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind :> justification that isn't a proof. : I thought I was clear that I was taking it to be the same informal : kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof : not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized : and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind. Then I did understand you correctly. When I say, "a kind justification that isn't a proof", I believe I mean the same thing as your "informal kind of proof". To me, the word "proof" implies formality. "Justification" is a general term for how we know something is true. (From Plato's definition of knowledge: "a justified and true belief.") :> Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, :> but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. : I did not see this in your previous remarks that characterized the : "modeh-al-ha-emmess" as a formal proof/argument: Because that's not what I am saying is the formal proof. I overused the word "this", which led to confusion. In addition "modeh al ha'ames" refers to a person, not an argument, so you lost me on that bit. AISI, it refers to the person who accepted the proof in 2:20, would find this point compelling. But since the point he's making here is not a formal proof, he doesn't expect it to convince, only to reinforce belief in those who already accepted the related proof. : And I don't see how one can possibly interpret (MN 3:13 [not 3:15 as : I mistakenly typed previously]) "And know that one of the : strongest /proofs/ (min /ha-gedolah sheh-b'ra'ayos/) for Creation ex : nihilo, for one who is /modeh al ha-ememmes/, is his understanding : the /proof/ (/hu mah sheya'amod alav ha-mofase/)..." as meaning: :> "this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the :> emes, look how nicely it works out." You are taking a sentence that says "One of the greatest proofs for creation for someone who accepts the truth is his understanding the wonder..." He is discussing a ra'ayah that someone who already believes would find compelling. Not a proof that would convince an unbiased seeker. Because I don't think the Rambam accepted that an informal justification other than philosophical proof could be a sounds reason to embrace a belief as true. (I see you consistently double the "s" in "emess". Why? If the sav had a dageish, it would be a tav, not "ss".) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are what we repeatedly do. micha at aishdas.org Thus excellence is not an event, http://www.aishdas.org but a habit. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Aristotle From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 4 15:16:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2015 18:16:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong Message-ID: <20150604221600.GA28870@aishdas.org> An Areivim conversation moved in topicality so that my reply really belongs here. Some background.... At some point, one person wrote, in part: | Right is right and wrong is wrong,... Speaking about moral correctness. To which someone else replied: > Really? ISTM that there is lots of grey in our world. People disagree > about right and wrong like they disagree about assur and mutar... And my reply, from Areivin: } This is why disputes about eilu va'eilu are so significant. Machloqes } can be between two approaches, two paths, one may take. Between different } strategies to obtaining the same goal. } Or it could be between a correct vs an incorrect understanding of the } halakhah. A process by which something becomes law, regardless of which } is right. } Or... } But if there is one right and one wrong, human decision-making wouldn't } change which is which. That second person wrote later in the conversation: > Sure am. Women learning Talmud was wrong, then it was right. In fact, > now it's both right (MO) and wrong (Hareidi). My response: } I don't consider that a good example. It is possible for something to } be right in one settting and wrong in another. Such as whether learning } Talmud is a good idea may depend on how women are being educated to relate } to knowledge in general. Since they aren't obligated to learn halachic } theory, such as gemara, they may be better off with a naive mimetic } faith. But if we have universal education, and an economic system that } demands a certain wordliness in both genders, such that naivite isn't } an option, then our choices are different. } Morality is like a Faucault's Pendulum; it keeps swinging the same } direction. The pendulum only looks like the direction changes over time } because the world rotates beneath it. Them again: > Zionism is right (DL) > and wrong (Satmar). You see the world as black and white; I see lots of > colors, including grey (and black and white sometimes as well). Me: } But gray too objectively exists. We may need to choose a response, } and thus have to fit it into a boolean black-white category. And then } someone may choose a strategy that categorizes it as white and someone } else as black. } But the grayness is not a matter of opinion. And also, from the same person, in an email between the two: > And my point was, the topic under discussion was not gravity ... > it was an issue that what people think about it is, in fact, relevant. My response, continued: } Is that true? } As far as I know, it's pretty basic to Judaism that the Creator has an } "Opinion" of what is moral and what isn't. That things run more smoothly } for everyone involved if we run with the design rather than do something } else. } Not only that, G-d put us on the same page once. } People may not be sure if there is an absolute moral standard, and those } who agree there is one, may not agree about what it looks like. } It's out there and as objectively real as gravity. } Even if you cannot prove it to others, and therefore will always be } subject to conflicting opinions -- some more right in some ways, some } more right in others, some simply wrong. } Your position implies an Empiricism that rules out revelation as a valid } source of truth! In which case, what's left of Torah? Futher down in the conversation, Lisa wrote of halakhah: : There are actually cases where opinions can establish right and : wrong. Tanuro shel Akhnai illustrates one. Actual reality is : *created* by the informed and considered opinions of the Sanhedrin. To which I responded: } Law, not reality. And Lisa, post #2: : I disagree. Torah *is* reality. Finally, some new material. R Chaim Brisker links "vechayei olam nata besokheinu" and "emes mei'eretz tatzmiach". Torah is the seed from which Emes grows, and not (leshitaso, but I bought into it) Emes itself. The Qetzos says something similar on the use of "emes mei'eretz" in the medrash about the 2 forces -- Emes and Shalom -- opposing the creation of humanity. Emes is thrown to the ground, to which the tanna says "emes meieretz tatzmiach". Emes will come out through the process of history. It's not with us yet. Torah is how HQBH leads us there. But in any case, I didn't speak of Torah, of "divrei E-lokim chaim", I spoke of halakhah. Or as RMF put it, I spoke of emes lehora'ah, not Emes as it is kelapei shamay galya. Continuing my reply to Lisa's 1st post: } And the reason why we only let the Sanhedrin vote is because the law is } expected to be consistent with the objective reality. There may be many } ways up Har Hashem, but you really only want people who know mapreading } and reconteuring figuring out which one is best. } And the mountain and its altitude are unchanged by people's decisions. Lisa's 2nd post, cont: : And what Hashem wanted the halakha to be was determined by people's : decisions. New material again: If we combine your insistance that halakhah is Truth with the idea that it is determined by people's decisions, you end up with Constructivism. Halakhah as a man made reality. Which makes sense -- you tend to side with the Rambam on this kind of thing. But if dinim bein adam lachaveiro define or at least shape morality, you are left with the OP's claim that opinion determines what is moral. Opinion as informed by kelalei pesaq, but still, morality isn't entirely absolute or objective. The position I was suggesting that there is an objective Morality that is part of Emes. Emes, with a capital "E", as in something that exists in Shamayim (a/k/a the Olam haEmes) but can't fit in this world among human minds. We have approximating models (Maharal), getting ever closer to the Emes (Qetzos). Halakhah is our means of approaching it, and the existence of multiple correct pesaqim reflects their being more than one viable path (R Chaim Brisker). Or more specifically: The path is on the meta-level, the evolution of the Oral Torah and its pesaqim is part of getting to Emes, not "only" the path taken by a life that follows that pesaqim. So that halakhah is not morality, it is a means of producing ever more moral people. Which makes sense in terms of my own Mussarly tendencies. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are great, and our foibles are great, micha at aishdas.org and therefore our troubles are great -- http://www.aishdas.org but our consolations will also be great. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi AY Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 4 19:55:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2015 22:55:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <20150603233708.GA7958@aishdas.org> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> <20150603233708.GA7958@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55710FAB.70107@gmail.com> On 6/3/2015 7:37 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Wed, Jun 03, 2015 at 06:16:59PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: > :> You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind > :> justification that isn't a proof. > > : I thought I was clear that I was taking it to be the same informal > : kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof > : not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized > : and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind. > > Then I did understand you correctly. > > When I say, "a kind justification that isn't a proof", I believe I mean > the same thing as your "informal kind of proof". To me, the word "proof" > implies formality. "Justification" is a general term for how we know > something is true. (From Plato's definition of knowledge: "a justified and > true belief.") Got it. > :> Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, > :> but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. > > : I did not see this in your previous remarks that characterized the > : "modeh-al-ha-emmess" as a formal proof/argument: > > Because that's not what I am saying is the formal proof. I overused the > word "this", which led to confusion. I''m even more confused now. What "this" that led to confusion was overused? I took you to mean that the ''emmess'' that a ''modeh al ha-emmess'' person was modeh to was the conclusion of a formal proof stated somewhere in 2:19-20. (And such a person would consider, as one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, the proof from the hierarchy of benefit of entities.) > In addition "modeh al ha'ames" refers to a person, not an argument, > so you lost me on that bit. When I wrote ''I was taking it to be the same informal kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind'' I was responding to you statement: :> You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind :> justification that isn't a proof. which was in response to my writing: : My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that : there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows : the non-formal mindset of those who are /modeh al ha-emmess/... I meant to say I was taking Rambam's remark to mean that someone whose thought process is normal and unbiased (i.e. a modeh al ha-emmess) recognizes (without the aid of formal proof) the fact of the hierarchy of benefit as compelling the conclusion of a freely intended Creation ex nihilo. Another way to crystallize our differing interpretations: You are taking the "emmess'' that the ''modeh al ha-emmess'' is modeh to, to be the correct fact. I'm taking it to be the correct process of thinking. > AISI, it refers to the person who accepted > the proof in 2:20, would find this point compelling. But since the point > he's making here is not a formal proof, he doesn't expect it to convince, > only to reinforce belief in those who already accepted the related proof. > > : And I don't see how one can possibly interpret (MN 3:13 [not 3:15 as > : I mistakenly typed previously]) "And know that one of the > : strongest /proofs/ (min /ha-gedolah sheh-b'ra'ayos/) for Creation ex > : nihilo, for one who is /modeh al ha-ememmes/, is his understanding > : the /proof/ (/hu mah sheya'amod alav ha-mofase/)..." as meaning: > > :> "this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the > :> emes, look how nicely it works out." > > You are taking a sentence that says "One of the greatest proofs for > creation for someone who accepts the truth is his understanding the > wonder..." He is discussing a ra'ayah that someone who already believes > would find compelling. Not a proof that would convince an unbiased > seeker. > > Because I don't think the Rambam accepted that an informal justification > other than philosophical proof could be a sounds reason to embrace a > belief as true. Your first paragraph is just restating your position and denying mine. I am saying otherwise, pointing out that saying that this person considers the hierarchy factor ''one of the greatest proofs for creation'' means '"this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out" is incompatible with the words. And /l'fi ta'amych,/ of your second paragraph: If the Rambam considers an informal justification vs philosophical proof an unsound reason to embrace a belief as true, then one would think he would not consider noteworthy a non-ra'ayah found compelling only by someone who already believes in the conclusion (stated or implied somewhere in 2:19-20, or in that previously stated formal ra'aya which /is/, or is not, compelling--I'm not sure which of these you're saying, but my objection applies regardless.) I think it may be productive for us to examine the 4 or 5 other places in MN where the Rambam uses the expression ''modeh al ha-emmess.'' (Curiously, the search of the Hebrewbooks.org MN in my Adobe Reader skips over the instance in 3:13!) > > (I see you consistently double the "s" in "emess". Why? If the sav had > a dageish, it would be a tav, not "ss".) It's to duplicate the /sound/ (not the lettering) of the word as it would be in English, for a careful English-reading person. (Not that I'm sure there are many of those around...) In contemporary English spelling, one "s" at the end of a word that ends in ''e'' is pronounced hard, like a ''z'' (shines, pines, processes); the soft ''s'' added to words that end in "e" is indicated by two ''s'' 's (process, ingress, mess). But we digreSS.... Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 5 03:54:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2015 06:54:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Science and Halachah - The Trumpeting Stone Message-ID: <20150605105427.GA27466@aishdas.org> This stone, at the excacations south of the Kotel, apparently marked a location where the shofar would be blown on Fri afternoon to warn people about the approaching and arrival of Shabbos. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trumpeting_Place_inscription It says "lebeis hateqi'ah lh[k?b?]" and was at the corner of Har haBayis. My obaervation is about the font. Notice the base of the lamed, which is a diagonal. The same is true of the Qumran texts and of texts from the Cairo Geniza. but this pushes the date for this tradition of script back to Herod's rebuilding of the BHMQ. This kind of lamed is also found in Kesav Vellish, that used in Sepharadi sta"m, but not in Kesav Beis Yoseif or the other Ashkenazi variants. http://sofercenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/different-ksavim.jpg Now, the stone is in far from the formal Ashuris required for Sifrei Torah, but if Kesav Beis Yoseif is correct, why aren't other fonts from the period more similar? If this does indicate a preference for one script over the other, we could discuss how the various approaches to Halakhah and Science would handle this case. {In terms of being yotzei, I think the only problem Ashkenazim have with the Sepharadi kesav is that variants that predate the Chida lack Rabbei Tam's qutzo shel yud. And since the popularity of the Ben Ish Chai, this issue has become very rare. Lehalakhah, the Tur, Noda biYhudah, Tzitz Eliezer and R' Ovadiah all alow using the other's sefer. Even with the spelling differences!) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is equipped with such far-reaching vision, micha at aishdas.org yet the smallest coin can obstruct his view. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 5 08:16:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2015 15:16:42 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong Message-ID: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Continuing the discussion from Areivim... R' Joseph Kaplan wrote: > About some things there is a right and a wrong; it is right > to fast on Yom Kippur and wrong to eat. But not everything > fits so neatly into categories of right and wrong. Micha > didn't like my example of Women learning Talmud was wrong, > then it was right. In fact, now it's both right (MO) and > wrong (Hareidi)." He argues that it is possible for > something to be right in one setting and wrong in another. I don't see the distinction between women learning vs eating on Yom Kippur. Women learning is right in some settings (such as where an unlearned woman would be in a spiritual sakana) and wrong in others (the ideal or traditional situation). In the same manner, eating on Yom Kippur is right in some settings (where the person would be in a medical sakana) and wrong in others (where the person is physically healthy). For that matter, learning is dependent on the setting even for a man: In most settings, it is right for a Jewish man to learn Torah, but not if he is in aveilus, or if he is davening, or if he is in other situations where the learning would conflict with another mitzvah. My point is that EVERYTHING depends on the setting. (I once tried to think of a positive or negative mitzvah which is totally independent of setting, and which always applies under all imaginable circumstances. The only one I could come up with is Avodah Zara. If anyone wants to continue that thought, please start a new thread.) Anyway, getting back to *this* thread, which is about whether right and wrong are absolutes decreed by G-d, or whether they are subject to the opinions of the Sanhedrin or others, I was reminded of an interesting gemara. As translated by http://www.torah.org/learning/maharal/p2m10part2.html it reads: > Eruvin (13b): For two and a half years Beith Shammai and > Beith Hillel argued. These [Beith Shammai] said "It is > better for man not to have been created than to have been > created." And those [Beith Hillel] said "It is better for > man to have been created." Together, they [reviewed the > opinions and] reached a consensus: ... I left out their conclusion, because it is not really so critical to this thread. What *IS* critical is the fact that they had the chutzpah to even discuss this question at all. There is a thought in this thread that if G-d does something, then it is good by definition. Yet Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai considered the possibility that G-d had another option which was even better than the option that He did choose. This sounds to me like a good argument for the view that people (or at least certain people, such as the Sanhedrin) CAN decide what is right and what is wrong. Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 5 14:41:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2015 17:41:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong In-Reply-To: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <557217A4.4010309@sero.name> On 06/05/2015 11:16 AM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: >> >Eruvin (13b): For two and a half years Beith Shammai and >> >Beith Hillel argued. These [Beith Shammai] said "It is >> >better for man not to have been created than to have been >> >created." And those [Beith Hillel] said "It is better for >> >man to have been created." > There is a thought in this thread that if G-d does something, then it > is good by definition. Yet Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai considered the > possibility that G-d had another option which was even better than the > option that He did choose. The discussion was not about what is good or right, but about what is better *for a person*. What is in the person's interest. "Noach lo le'adam". What G-d chooses for a person is right, but who says it's "noach lo"? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 12:49:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2015 21:49:38 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] Right/wrong In-Reply-To: <5571BB83.7010500@sero.name> References: <73824318-9EAD-43A2-924A-23983726765C@tenzerlunin.com> <55704A19.7000001@sero.name> <20150604182845.GA18772@aishdas.org> <557113ED.9080608@zahav.net.il> <5571BB83.7010500@sero.name> Message-ID: <55734ED2.8020702@zahav.net.il> Moved from Areivim. It is a case of muttar and assur, which in this case I am equating with right and wrong. For this person, something is muttar and for the other it is pasul. The way I see, it would be absolutely wrong for the wealthier person to eat his chicken, and absolutely wrong for the poorer person to throw his chicken away. Correct, popular opinion doesn't play a part in this one. Ben On 6/5/2015 5:08 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > > That's not a question of right and wrong, From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 17:19:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 01:19:52 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> R' Ysoscher Katz writes: ... <> And yet ironically RYK's experience in Satmar and Brisk would seem to confirm the sense of what Maimonides did. RYK was only the object and fool of Maimonides "seventh reason" because he was immersed in a society that had built very high walls against the risk of engaging with philosophy. Contrast his experience to mine. I read the Guide at fourteen - long before I had any real exposure to the Yad. Why? Because I grew up in a society in which it was more acceptable for girls to read philosophic texts than it was to learn and engage with halachic texts. And indeed, a translation of the Guide was published and available in English, in my shul library, whereas the Mishna Torah, which was no doubt there (I don't remember), was only in Hebrew and would have been in the "halachic" section that only boys (and scholarly boys at that) were expected to access. Even more, when I started asking questions, the librarian pointed me in the direction of the philosophy works, which included the Guide, that is how I got to it. It was just assumed that if somebody was asking theological questions, that was the place to go. So by the time, much, much later, that I read the relevant portions of the Mishna Torah, I already knew Maimonides' philosophic works in some depth, and layered them on to anything in the Yad. And yet Maimonides was surely right, had the Yad contained the opinions expressed in the Guide, in any detectable way, there is no way a society like Satmar and Brisk would have allowed it into their hallowed betei midrash - and what a loss to the halachic world that would have been. What occurred to RYK is merely a by-product and inevitable consequence (if you step outside) of what Satmar/Brisk have created. Not what Maimonides created. He created a work which, in any society that valued philosophy, would be available to those who sought it. And this is why RYK's experience is unlikely to occur in any true Modern Orthodox setting. Because curious, searching teenagers will inevitably take advantage of what is available in languages they can read in their local libraries (assuming they are encouraged to go there, and such libraries are not off limits), and hence, while they might (hopefully) be exposed to the Mishna Torah earlier than I was, they will certainly have the opportunity, and if that way inclined, are likely to take the opportunity of exploring at least the introduction to the Guide. <> Now this I find- well perhaps touchingly naive to the point of bizarre. Not the characterisation of the two most dramatic changes, necessarily, but the idea that "the pioneers of both these changes were driven, at least in part, by Chassidic ethos". Of the two, the claim regarding female Talmud scholarship is the most odd. Chassidic groups have been at the forefront of those fighting a rearguard action against women's exposure to any form of text, not least Talmudic and halachic text. Satmar in particular - I recall once standing in a bookshop in Boro Park, perusing a book (written clearly by somebody from the Satmar derech) who had gathered together all the sources on the evils of giving women access to any text - but most fundamentally, horror of horrors, to Rashi al haChumash. It was of course, an attack on what is taught in Beis Ya'akov. The position advocated being that at most, girls should be taught in school the stories of the Tanach, outside and without any recourse at all to reading in original. Lubavitch, I agree, was and is in this regard unusual amongst the Chassidic groups. But, growing up in Melbourne, a community heavily dominated by Lubvitchers, I am pretty well acquainted with what was allowed and not allowed vis a vis girls/women and learning from people with reasonably close connections with the Lubavitche Rebbe. Sure, streets ahead of the other Chassidic groups - but more open than the Beis Ya'akovs? - dubiously - although there was a fair bit of flexibility granted when dealing with potential ba'alei teshuva who (it was acknowledged) could be seriously put off by bans on access to knowledge of the nature of that on gemora. But what was granted begrudgingly and in a limited fashion in such circles were standard parts of the curriculum in Modern Orthodox schools (with Maimonides in Boston the flagship in this regard). How high a level a girl was taught in MO environments differed (especially given that often the overall level of kodesh education was not always that high in such schools), but the idea that any of this was driven fundamentally by the Lubavitcher Rebbe is ludicrous. And if you look at Israel and the explosion of women's learning there - not a chassid in sight. R' Kook and Zionism is a more justified charge. While it is hard to describe Rav Kook as a "pioneer" of political Zionism (there were many before him who saw political Zionism as logically arising out of their religious belief), he unquestionably provided serious theological underpinnings justifying the religious being involved in this endeavour, and much of what he wrote is rooted in chassidus. But note of course that the major thinker against was again the Satmar Rebbe - ie chassidus provided, yet again, the most reactionary response to this phenomenon. Which is more typical of chassidus - Rav Kook or the Satmar Rebbe? - I think it is far fairer to say that Rav Kook was the exception, despite his deep roots, and the Satmar Rebbe closer to the rule. And note, while we are on the subject of Rav Kook, that while he was "progressive" regarding political Zionism, he was "regressive" regarding woman voting. Was his attitude towards women's place in society also fuelled by his Chassidic studies? In general, while I do agree that Chassidic thinkers, such as Rav Kook, have a lot to say to "the world we live in today" and that there is something to be said for incorporating aspects of their theology in the pursuit of meaning, I suspect that trying to create "chassidish modern Jews" is an enterprise doomed to failure, and certainly not something that will be able to speak to the modern orthodox world. Why? Firstly because Chassidism is all embracing. I have watched many ba'alei teshuva embrace Chassidism (in lots of forms) over the years - as indeed it has a serious pull for many. I have rarely found one who is attracted that way who ends up in the modern orthodox camp. Where do they usually end up? Well amongst the most extreme Chassidic groups, where they can indulge to the fullest extent. Chassidism become so all embracing that it pushes everything else out. And while this phenomenon is already found amongst Modern Orthodox children going "black". It is certainly not going to save modern Orthodoxy. A further problem is articulated at the beginning of the piece, in relation to RYK's father: > My father is the most non-chassidish Chassid. He does not study > "chassidus," nor does he want to "understand" it. But, however you cut it, those with a modern orthodox upbringing are taught to want to "understand". They are brought up with the scientific method, even if some debunking then occurs in universities. For sure, there are those who reject that in favour of exploration of mystery and experience - but as suggested above, by and large those "go right" - further into the ultra orthodox world. By and large, while the ashrams of India are peopled by many Jews, I don't think very many of them are modern orthodox dropouts. The ones we are losing totally are going left, into the secular mundane world without religious input. Because while they are usually aware of the experiential, it appears to simultaneously contemplate a suffocation of the mind that they cannot swallow (as an ashram also does). Such people are never going to be comfortable in a world in which there is any expectation of not "wanting" to understand. They may perhaps be persuaded to find meaning in the writings of people like Rav Kook, or in other aspects of Chassidic writing, but are likely to be even more repelled by a world that implicitly or explicitly tells them to bin what is the attribute they have been taught to spend most of their life cultivating - their mind. I am probably going to be (metaphorically speaking) shot on this list for even mentioning it, but if you want to see what you get when you mix a modicum of Chassidic plus philosophic inspired thinking in a more "modern" context, you could always look at the German thinkers (including Reform thinkers) of the early twentieth century - people like (particularly) Franz Rosenzweig, not to mention Leo Baeck, Martin Buber, Hermann Cohen. What about Levinas? There is your post modern thinking (but note that it comes out of a Lithuanian background with existentialism and philosophical exploration rather than chassidus). But it is a long way from Maimonidian rationalism (despite of course Maimonides being the father of all this philosophy, but only after it has been through Kant and the existentialists). Avraham Yehoshua Heshel is another example of those attempting to integrate a Chassidic background with modern sensibilities. But since he operated out of the Jewish Theological Seminary, and was closely identified with the Conservative Movement, he probably did more to make such explorations treif to MO thinkers than he did to inspire them to explore. A bigger problem, I think, is that MO in America is so fixated on RYBS, and his particular brand of philosophy, that philosophy linked to Orthodoxy becomes identified only with his particular stance. But there is a much wider world out there, and a philosophical world that does not only relate to transcendence (as RYBS appears to do) but to imminence as well. Are those who speak of paradox/polarity of imminence and transcendence inspired by the imminence of the Chassidic world? Maybe, but it is attenuated, and no longer strictly Chassidic. Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 19:09:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 22:09:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Brisker Theory of Everything In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150607020921.GB7516@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 25, 2015 at 07:15:59PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : 1. The gemara (Ketuvot 5b) discusses whether causing a certain type : of blood flowing is considered a Sabbath violation. The first attempt : to resolve the question turns on whether "mifkad pakid or chaburei : mechbar" (is the blood in the womb stored up or is it the result of a : wound?). Rashi there (please look) seems to define this as a physical : question. Is this acceptable or must we say Rashi was leaving out the : "obvious" philosophical/halachic question (i.e. the physical was known, : it's a question of how to categorize it halachically)? It is very hard to identify a real machloqes in metzi'us. There is a machloqes in the Y-mi about whether rice flower and water makes chameitz. Pesachim 2:4, vilna 17a): Rabbi Yochanan ben Nuri said: Qarmis (millet or something similar) requires [giving] challah [from the dough to a kohein] because it can become chameitz or matzah. And the Rabbis say it doesn't because it can not become chameitz or matzah. So check it! They disagree about the essence of the check (iqar bediqasahh): RYBN said they checked it and found it can become chameitz or matzah. The Rabbanan said they checked it and they didn't find it can become chameitz or matzah. What looked like a machloqes about facts, that could just be checked experimentally, was a machloqes about how to categorize the physical reality. Is that dough a chimutz or a sirchon? I am sure that can be generalized. We could be arguing about metzi'us, but as the gemera asks, why not just check it? More likely, when the metzi'us is in the gray area, the machloqes is about: Where is the line between the categories? : 2. That gemara continues to try to resolve the question and is willing : to entertain the possibility that the halacha is like Rabbi Yehuda : (vs. Rabbi Shimon) in mekalkeil (destroying) and like Rabbi Shimon : (vs. Rabbi Yehuda) in davar sheino mitkavein (the result was not the : major one intended). If these two issues were interconnected, could the : gemara entertain this possibility? I think the gemara is consistent with two posibilities: 1- The two machloqesin are not interconnected. 2- The hava amina as that they were not connected, but the masqanah is that indeed they are. : 3. If the answer to 2 is no, must we assume that when the Shulchan : Aruch said he would decide the psak based on majority 2 of big 3, did : he really mean this as a primary tie breaker, or only when he did not : have a clear understanding of the underlying philosophy that resulted : in their final opinions. As I wrote in the past, I think it's easier to excuse the SA's exceptions to his rule by saying he was talking about the majority when counting consistent positions. Which means the rule is subject to which machloqesin the SA held were interconnected, and therefore which statements on other topics need to also be counted toward he majority. : 4.Is it possible that R'YBS limited his "canon" to only a few major : rishonim (in contradistinction to R" A Lichtenstein) because the more : data points included in trying to determine the underlying theoretical : construct, the more likely a single errant point would skew the results? I would think the reverse: How do you identify an outlier point without getting more full statistics on the data? Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger Worrying is like a rocking chair: micha at aishdas.org it gives you something to do for a while, http://www.aishdas.org but in the end it gets you nowhere. Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 19:16:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 22:16:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir In-Reply-To: <20150528.000433.22403.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150528.000433.22403.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150607021626.GC7516@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 04:04:33AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I will be the first to point out that Lifnei Iveir is one the many : topics where my learning and expertise is severely lacking. Even so, : I suspect that there is something missing from RMB's definition... : It seems to me that RMB is giving a useful tool to distinguish between : category 3 and category 4, but that tool is useful only in the case where : a person already has the *desire* to commit a sin, but it lacking the : *ability* to some degree... Correct. I was only thinking of the original question, and the gemara only discusses the one chiluq -- between lifnei iveir (deOraisa) and mesayeia' (deRabbanan). : But what of the case where a person does *not* yet have a desire to : sin? Rabbi Kaganoff is saying that one who incites or encourages him : to do it is violating Lifnei Iveir. Even if the person already has the : ability to do the sin, it was below his "bechirah point" until he was : egged on to do it... I didn't understand Orpah's offer that way. She was convinced her daughters-in-law "converted" for the sake of marriage; and depending which midrashim you quote, that likely wasn't even an actual conversion. But if Rus didn't really buy into Jewish beliefs, she would be better off not going through a pro-forma conversion than in the same boat as Delilah or Shelomo's wives. Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet micha at aishdas.org about things most people don't watch even on http://www.aishdas.org Yom Kippur. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 21:46:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 07:46:04 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] right/wrong Message-ID: <> comes back to the question of pluralism vs monistic vs tolerant monistic vs harmonism. As discussed before there are opinions on all sides -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 7 04:06:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 07:06:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] right/wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150607110645.GA7126@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jun 07, 2015 at 07:46:04AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : comes back to the question of pluralism vs monistic vs tolerant monistic vs : harmonism. Or, as R Moshe Halberatal cateogired halachic legal theories: Retrival, Accumulative, vs Constitutive. But it only starts there. Here the question is whether 1- any of these positions imply that halakhah is man-made more than the other positions would; and 2- does any of this conversation reflect on the absolute nature of right and wrong on a moral plane? Which also drags in the relationship between halakhah and morality. Divine Command Theory (morality is that which Hashem commanded) may well identify the two. But then, we were hard pressed to find an advocate for DCT, (outside contemporary popularizations). R/DR Y Leibowitz coms close, by saying we exist to follow halakhah, and any attempt to map halakhah to some other value system was one step toward AZ. Someone else might say that halakhah approximates morality, but since it's a blanket rule for all people in many situations, it's only an approximate. That said, once the halakhah is set, preserving it and the morality of the majority of cases has greater moral weight than one loses in the exceptional cases. But getting back to our question, while I consider the two related, I do not think the evolving nature of halakhah reflects morality being a human construction. Rather, I think it's because of two effects: 1- dialectics between concflicting values can yeild different strategies for finding balance between them One therefore finds that a machloqes is resolved by finding one strategy more appropriate for the culture asking the question than another. And if it is not resolved with finality, another culture may have the same question (eg mixes of immigrants with different precdent) and choose a different strategy. As I put it last time: choosing different paths up the mountain doesn't imply that the mountain's altitude is subjective. But this assumes that the linkage between halakhah and morality is that halakhah is a means to becoming moral. 2- changes in reality can cause two similar looking situations to have different moral outcomes. I think the vast majority of seemingly reopened questions are really of this sort. E.g. the categorization of today's dead mutes. We didn't change our belief that demands cannot be made of someone who cannot be taught them -- even if it means a consequent loss of priviliges (if being able to be motzi another is a privilege). The realia of the life of a cheiresh changed. (Over Shabbos I read which misses this point, creating a very bloated list of cases where R' JD Bleich, and most contemporary posqim, allow halakhah to "evolve".) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is our choices...that show what we truly are, micha at aishdas.org far more than our abilities. http://www.aishdas.org - J. K. Rowling Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 7 04:10:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 07:10:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong In-Reply-To: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150607111036.GB7126@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 05, 2015 at 03:16:42PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : There is a thought in this thread that if G-d does something, then it : is good by definition. Yet Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai considered the : possibility that G-d had another option which was even better than the : option that He did choose. Aside from Zev's point, that the machloqes is over which is pleasanter for the person, not which is good... I think the discussion is more what if HQBH tells us to do something, it is good by definition, necessarily good by implication, or somehow more distantly related to morality. (I guess someone could say halakhah is not connected to morality, but I don't see that coming up as an O hashkagah.) : This sounds to me like a good argument for the view that people (or at : least certain people, such as the Sanhedrin) CAN decide what is right : and what is wrong. Can determine, which is still different than the original idea on Areivim, that consensus *defines* morality. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger One who kills his inclination is as though he micha at aishdas.org brought an offering. But to bring an offering, http://www.aishdas.org you must know where to slaughter and what Fax: (270) 514-1507 parts to offer. - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 7 05:52:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2015 08:52:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Torah Scholars and Torah Education for the Masses Message-ID: <20150607125250.7E561182EA1@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is taken from Rav Schwab on Chumash, Parshas Acharei Mos. I have posted the entire selection at http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/tide_chumash_schwab.pdf At all times the Torah's unchanging teachings must be applied to the ever-changing derech eretz. All of our actions, attitudes, relationships to man and beast, and positions within nature and history are subject to the jurisdiction and evaluation of the Torah. What follows is that the Torah scholar should be well informed of the "ways of the Earth." The laws of nature and the paths of history should be known to him. He should be well aware of what happens in the world that surrounds him, for he is constantly called upon to apply the yardstick of halachah and the searchlight of hashkafah to the realities that confront him. What also follows is that the greater the wisdom of Torah, the more crucial it is that this wisdom be conveyed to the Jewish contemporary world. It must be transmitted in a language that our generation understands and that will attract the searching youth, the ignorant, the estranged and the potential ba1al teshuvah to a joyous acceptance of the yoke of Heaven. The Torah leader must be able to dispel the doubts of the doubter and to counter the cynicism of the agnostic. He must, therefore, speak their language masterfully so that he can convince and enlighten them. There is indeed a dire need for gedolei Torah, great Torah scholars, who devote their entire lives to the study and dissemination of Torah. The Jewish world today needs many talmidei chachamim whose life task is to enlighten and inspire it with the love and the fear of G-d. We are ready to accord to those "messengers of G-d" the highest respect and a loyal following. These are the kohanim and levi'im of today. Like the members of the Levitic tribe of old, they are to serve all the other tribes and teach them the living Torah. Yet education and leadership cannot function in a vacuum. Therefore it becomes mandatory for the present day "Tribe of Levi" to initiate and encourage an educational system that can serve the other "eleven tribes who comprise the vast majority of our people. It becomes mandatory for the Torah-conscious educator not to inspire fear of the world and hesitancy to meets its challenges, but rather, to fortify the vast majority of our youth to meet head-on the thousand and one pitfalls of professional and business life. Our youth must be inspired to courageously and intelligently brave the onslaught of scientific arrogance and the sensual poison that is masked as intellectual liberalism. The Divine purpose for which Yisrael was created can be served in every capacity, in every profession, in all human endeavors, as long as they are not excluded by the halachah. ---------- Unfortunately, I do not see many Torah scholars today who are "well informed of the "ways of the Earth." The laws of nature and the paths of history should be known to him. He should be well aware of what happens in the world that surrounds him, for he is constantly called upon to apply the yardstick of halachah and the searchlight of hashkafah to the realities that confront him." I also do not see our educational institutions serving "the other 'eleven tribes' who comprise the vast majority of our people. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 8 09:25:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2015 09:25:43 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] replacement value Message-ID: secular law [US] recognizes that one need is not liable replace a lost item with a new one ie if you lost my used IPAD [which happened in fact this month to us] you don't owe me the value of a new one , but rather some pro-rated amount accounting for wear and tear. what does bais din require? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 9 14:17:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2015 17:17:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] replacement value In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150609211745.GA4160@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 08, 2015 at 09:25:43AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : secular law [US] recognizes that one need is not liable replace a lost : item with a new one... what does bais din : require? According to the Business Halakhah Institute : Many years ago I borrowed a Chumash with commentaries from a local beis medrash. I forgot to return it and eventually misplaced the sefer and I do not recall which volume I borrowed. It was "borrowed", ie no reshus was asked. ... [Skipping from opening paragraph to bottom line...] Someone who borrowed a sefer without permission is obligated to return the sefer, the same as any other thief. Even if the owner despaired of retrieving it, e.g., he bought a new set, the obligation to return it remains in force (C.M. 354:2 and 360:5). If the sefers condition changed dramatically (shinui) or if it was lost altogether, the borrower is obligated to repay the value of the sefer (C.M. 360:5). In your case, since the sefer you borrowed is missing, there is no obligation to replace the actual sefer. Your obligation is to repay the beis medrash the sefers value at the time you borrowed it. In other words, you would pay the value of a used sefer rather than a new sefer, and there is no need to pay for a complete set. But then, maybe that's under Gittin 55b, not making a ganav tear down his house in order to return a stolen beam he built into it. But that halakhah is to facilitate teshuvah after theft. And so I won't generalized. Also for hezeq, I know a maziq pays for his damage, and therefore only has to pay replacement value -- what it would take to make things right again. But again, your case, a shomer or sho'el returning a lost item, could be different. I didn't yet find it. But I haven't entirely given up... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A cheerful disposition is an inestimable treasure. micha at aishdas.org It preserves health, promotes convalescence, http://www.aishdas.org and helps us cope with adversity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' SR Hirsch, "From the Wisdom of Mishlei" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 9 14:17:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2015 17:17:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] replacement value In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150609211745.GA4160@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 08, 2015 at 09:25:43AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : secular law [US] recognizes that one need is not liable replace a lost : item with a new one... what does bais din : require? According to the Business Halakhah Institute : Many years ago I borrowed a Chumash with commentaries from a local beis medrash. I forgot to return it and eventually misplaced the sefer and I do not recall which volume I borrowed. It was "borrowed", ie no reshus was asked. ... [Skipping from opening paragraph to bottom line...] Someone who borrowed a sefer without permission is obligated to return the sefer, the same as any other thief. Even if the owner despaired of retrieving it, e.g., he bought a new set, the obligation to return it remains in force (C.M. 354:2 and 360:5). If the sefers condition changed dramatically (shinui) or if it was lost altogether, the borrower is obligated to repay the value of the sefer (C.M. 360:5). In your case, since the sefer you borrowed is missing, there is no obligation to replace the actual sefer. Your obligation is to repay the beis medrash the sefers value at the time you borrowed it. In other words, you would pay the value of a used sefer rather than a new sefer, and there is no need to pay for a complete set. But then, maybe that's under Gittin 55b, not making a ganav tear down his house in order to return a stolen beam he built into it. But that halakhah is to facilitate teshuvah after theft. And so I won't generalized. Also for hezeq, I know a maziq pays for his damage, and therefore only has to pay replacement value -- what it would take to make things right again. But again, your case, a shomer or sho'el returning a lost item, could be different. I didn't yet find it. But I haven't entirely given up... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A cheerful disposition is an inestimable treasure. micha at aishdas.org It preserves health, promotes convalescence, http://www.aishdas.org and helps us cope with adversity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' SR Hirsch, "From the Wisdom of Mishlei" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 10 18:52:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 01:52:34 GMT Subject: [Avodah] 100% Vegetable oils etc. Message-ID: <20150610.215234.27464.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> On Areivim, R' Martin Brody wrote: > If any such ingredient of an ingredient was non-kosher, it would be > batel b'shishim, (more likely nullified by thousands). For those > that are interested, the London Beth Din is not concerned with > "flavourings" as an ingredient for this very reason. This surprises me. I would think that non-kosher flavorings cannot be batel. Bitul is a mathematical procedure by which we can presume that the non-kosher ingredient is not noticeable. But in the case of flavorings (and colorings and maamads), if its presence were not noticeable, then the manufacturer would not go to the trouble and expense of including it. Therefore (I would think) that its presence proves that it *is* noticable, overriding the presumption. Rabbi Binyomin Forst's "The Laws of Kashrus" (ArtScroll) says on page 98, "If, however, the mixture was sampled and the non-kosher taste was noticeable, the mixture may not be eaten, even though it was batel b'shishim. (Shach 98:4)" What other views are there? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5578ea0af09296a0a79abst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 07:41:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 10:41:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Worker or Craftsman Message-ID: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> How do we view the task of life? Is a person an po'el, paid for his time? Implying, it's our job to do good while here on earth, but the determining factor is the duration? Or is a person an uman, paid to get a particular job done. We're put on earth to get some specific accomplishment. The Zohar suggests something more like an uman when it uses an idiom like "ana avda deQBH". Admittedly an eved does not get paid for his time, but an eved is for the duration, whether until shemittah, until yovel, or for the rest of his life. However, in Shaar haGilgulim we get all this talk about a person having a tafqid, and how if they fail to get the job done, they could be given a second chance. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger What you get by achieving your goals micha at aishdas.org is not as important as http://www.aishdas.org what you become by achieving your goals. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Henry David Thoreau From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 07:46:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 10:46:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Color names In-Reply-To: <221167CA3A2A46908C9CA2A3474664EA@webhost.local> References: <221167CA3A2A46908C9CA2A3474664EA@webhost.local> Message-ID: <20150611144639.GF20169@aishdas.org> RZLampel and I discused this once, I think here. If not, the topic could be of interest anyway. So, rather than checking the archive (which is difficult, given the number of tekheiles discussions) I am just sharing either way. -micha Shabbat B'Shabbato Translated by Moshe Goldberg Machon Zomet ... What Is That Phrase? Green Sky? Yaacov Etzion At the end of this week's Torah portion, we are given a command, "Let them place on the tzitzit at the corner a thread of 'techelet.'" [Bamidbar 15:38]. Rashi explains that techelet is "the 'yarok' color of a snail." Any speaker of modern Hebrew can only wonder at this. Why does Rashi call the blue color of techelet "yarok" -- that is, green? Well, it is not only Rashi that calls techelet "yarok." It is an explicit ruling that appears in the Shulchan Aruch: "The color white is ritually pure, as is the look of 'yarok,' even if it has the look of wax or of gold. And this certainly includes the 'yarok' of leek or grass (and also the color that is called 'blue' is included in 'yarok')" [Hilchot Nidda, 188]. We are not interested at this point in the details of the halacha but rather in the fact that the RAMA writes that the color "blue" is called "yarok" in our traditional sources. Our sages spoke of four main colors: shachor (black), lavan (white), adom (red), and yarok. And "yarok" included yellow, orange, blue, and turquoise of today. For example, it happens quite often that a newborn baby is a bit yellow right after its birth. But the Tosefta calls this color "yarok." Rabbi Natan says the following: "When I was in the Land of Kapotakia, there was a woman who had given birth to boys... They brought him to me, and I saw that he was 'yarok'... I looked at him and did not find any blood for circumcision..." [Shabbat 134a]. Moreover, in the wording of the ROSH in his halachic rulings the word yarok as used by the sages is not our color green (which they call "yarok as a leek") but is yellow or orange. "This shows that the word yarok is similar to the yolk of an egg or to gold, which has a tinge of red." Among other sources, the ROSH bases his decision on the words of the verse, "the wings of a dove coated with silver and its limbs the 'yerakrak' of gold" [Tehillim 68:14]. Yerakrak is clearly the color of gold, that is, yellow. The words for orange (katom) and blue (kachol) were instituted in modern times by Zeev Yavetz. This was reported by David Yalin in the newspaper "Hatzevi" in 1887: "When I spoke to my uncle the illustrious rabbi and investigator Rabbi Zeev Yavetz, he said to me that he wants to fill what is missing in our language for the names of two colors, the color of techelet and the color of the yoke of an egg." Yavetz proposed that techelet should be called kachol and that the yoke should be called "ketem," which in the holy writings refers to gold or to the color of gold. (An example appears in the following verse: "Woe, the gold is dim, the good 'ketem' has changed" [Eichah 4:1].) Yavetz wanted to use the word katom for the color of yellow (which we call tzahov), since he felt that tzahov "includes a bit of red" (as per a note by Yalin). But as time went on, katom became the color orange, as we use it today. Thus, the word "yarok" changed in meaning during the years, as did "tzahov." However, "techelet" evidently kept its original meaning, and it remains similar to the color of the sea, which is similar to the color of the sky, and this reminds us of the Divine Throne of Glory. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 09:34:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 12:34:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Worker or Craftsman In-Reply-To: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> References: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5579B89C.8060902@sero.name> On 06/11/2015 10:41 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Is a person an po'el, paid for his time? Implying, it's our job to do > good while here on earth, but the determining factor is the duration? > > Or is a person an uman, paid to get a particular job done. We're put on > earth to get some specific accomplishment. Eruvin 65a: Anan po`alei diy'mamei anan. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 11:17:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 14:17:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> References: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> Message-ID: <20150611181746.GI20169@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 2, 2015 at 4:27pm I forwarded an essay by RYK that had appeared on R/Dr Alan Brill's blog, Kavvanah. In it he proposes from personal experience that MO would be enhanced by shifting away from its focus on RYBS's Briskkeit and in particular that elements of his Hungarian Chassidic birth community would be of great value. : Personally, my rejection of the Maimonidean ethos and realization of : the degree to which chassidut can speak to the modern searcher was a : long and arduous process. It came about as a result of a deep sense : of betrayal by Maimonides, the champion of Rationalist Judaism. I for : many years was the object and fool of Maimonides "the seventh reason" : as presented in his introduction to the Guide by not seeing his : philosophic views. In that passage, Maimonides condones misleading : the masses for their greater good, even to the point of advocating : contradictory ideas for different audiences and then obscuring those : contradictions. : Growing up in Satmar and then Brisk, I was oblivious to his : non-halakhic writings and led to believe that he fully and literally : believed every word he wrote in the Yad... I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." And in fact, that was the whole point of the project -- to outline all of halakhah, to document the TSBP. Not to hint at something for the meivinim without risking that the hoi palloi mistake his words in a heretical way. It's simply not meaningful concept for a book he titled Mishneh Torah. I am uncomfortably using the Rambam as a poster boy for rationalism. In the Rambam's day, science hadn't been invented yet. Claims about physics weren't based on emprical proof and experimental process. It was Natual Philosophy, and the weight of an a priori argument. A lot of it really ended up on reliabilism; deeming the Greeks as reliable sources on such things -- after 1,5000 years of their theories reigning. And therefore, quite honestly, much the same kind of thought that we use to accept mesorah. The word rationalism changed meaning. What I think we really mean is a willingness to be meqabel es ha'emes mimi she'omro, rather than take a maximalist attitude toward mesoretic and Torah-derived statements. But that's quite a bit meta from anyone today using the Moreh as a foundational element of their hashkafah. In particular, RYK mentions three items he believes would enhance MO: : 1) Truth. We live in a post-modern world where objective truth is : rejected and absolute claims are frowned upon. I would go as far as to : say that rationalism (in the general and colloquial sense) as a source : for Emunah is bankrupt, it increasingly speaks to fewer people... I don't think it ever worked. As one of my favorite truisms goes: The mind is a wonderful organ for justifying decisions the heart already reached. People accept the rational argument that fits the experiential justification that really underlies their beliefs. Aristo thought otherwise, which eventually led to the Qalam and the Scholasticists -- including R' Saadia Gaon and the Rambam. But then Scholasticism collapsed, the scientific method arose, leading to a dispute between the Empiricists and Idealists which in turn forced the discipline of philosophy away from belief in the reality of an objective rigorous proof. Experimental eproof, yes. Incontravertible objective philosopy, not so much. Kant then gets all transcendental, and talks about the synthetic a priori. (Knowing things without proof that don't simply boil down to a matter of translations. In the recent past, I mentioned how we know the Euclidean posulates hold in flat space, that Reimannian ones hold in a spherical space, and our knowledge about morality and ethics.) This was the zeitgeist when the Besh"t lived. (Besh"t 1698-1760; Kant 1724-1804.) Someone who is given a proof whose conclusions don't fit their experience is likely to reject the soundness of the givens / postulates / first principles on which it's based. Just as someone who accepts a proof is making synthetic judgments about the quality of the foundations of that proof before even making an analytic decision that the logic seems sound. So even if no one makes a logic error, every proof relies on interpretation of experience. RYBS was not a rationalist in this sense. Brisk is very experiential, to the point of eschewing the study of hashkafah altogether. They are rational when it comes to how to learn, but the value of learning is in the experience of learning. When RYBS does do philosophy, he calls it halachic hermeneutics. Neo-Kantian and Existentialist observations of what halakhah says to the one following it about life. He makes no claims about the function or cause of halakhah, he makes few theological observations. For example, to RYBS tzimtzum speaks mostly to the value of anavah as an emulation of His "Retreat" to give us room. RYBS's Neo-Kantianism is a very different project than the Rambam's Scholasticism. ... : However, during those rare occasions when they do pay attention to the : biblical "stories," their orientation is a-rational. They absolutely : "believe" those stories, but their belief is internal: it is true : because it happened in the Torah. That is where these events transpire : and that is where these stories matter. Asking about their historicity : is, as far as they are concerned, foolish and missing the point. And also a given. It may not be stated as the point, but the confidence given to authority which is a necessary component of the rebbe-chassid relationship means accepting Chazal's historical and scientific claims as being from ruach haqodesh. And not stam as meshalim. The kind of agnosticism about the historicity of medrashic material you are recommending we import Chassidus to justify would itself leave a chassid aghast. And even after citing the long chain of rishonim and acharonim who speak against assuming medrashic stories are historical, And you want to extend that beyond medrashic stories into foundational stories in Tanakh and maybe in the chumash as well? Given my above assertion that the only thread that runs consistently through "rationalism" from the Rambam to today is to choose qabel es ha'emes mimi she'omro over taking some baal mesorah's statement maximally, one actually needs what's left of the Rambam's hashkafic legacy to accomplish this, not Chassidus. : 2) Spiritualization. As scholars have pointed out, chassidic teachings : contain elements of spiritual psychology. They provide us with a : language which helps us infuse our lives with meaning. One can point : to many examples where this psychological spiritualization occurs in : chassidut, I will mention two of them. : 3) Social Change. One of the most pressing tensions in the community : is how to reconcile our values with our convictions; what to do : when halakha points us in one direction and our values in another : direction. We are tempted to follow our values but pulled to abide by : our halakhic commitments.... : Chassidut is very explicit about the value of religious aggression. The : following two quotes are often encountered in chassidic writings, : "even a thief says a prayer before he breaks in to his victim's home" : (quoted on the margin of Brachot 63A, from the Frankfurt manuscript), : and "an aggressive stance towards the Divine bears results" (Sanhedrin : 105A). While the provenance of these texts is Talmudic, they take on : significant prominence in Chassidic theology. They become the impetus : for an aggressive theology which is informed by a religiosity that : sees itself driven by a Divine immanence which infuses our values and : ethical intuitions with spiritual resonance, subsequently leading to : radical societal change. : Such change is actually an integral part of Chassidic social history. : When one looks at recent major changes in traditional Jewish society : it is hard not to notice that the forerunners were often Chassidim. The : last sixty years have seen far reaching social and political change. Both of these are not specific to Chassidus, but would be true of any Ism that draws attention fo the notion that halakhah is merely a "floor" rather than the sum total of behavioral expectations. For that matter, self development and societal needs are both more central to Mussar than chassidus. Pretty much its defning features, really. Which (aside being my own pony in this race) has the advantage of being closer to being consistent with MO's current gestalt; it's easier to get from here to there. OTOH Chaasidic maximalism means that statements made in the past have to be accepted as being from ruach haqodesh, and consequently change in these communities is minimized. Not only because isolation is part of the survival strategy, but because of reverence for and desire to emulate Chassidic isolation is indeed part of their survival stategy. It's hard to leave when you know no other social context and speak with an accent. And knowing that you stand for something greater than yourself in the eyes of those who see your uniform makes it harder to sin. (Harder, not impossible.) But it's not one of the three elements of Chassidus RYK wrote about. : The two most dramatic changes that have happened is that Jews are now : sovereign and women have made significant progress in their pursuit of : religious equality. The pioneers of both these changes were driven, at : least in part, by a chassidic ethos. R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson, : the Rebbi of Lubavitch, was one of the first orthodox scholars to : champion female Talmud scholarship, while R. Avraham Yitzchak Kook, : a serious student of Chassidut, was an outspoken early proponent of : a Zionist state. RAYK is a student of the Leshem, and thus of the Gra's school of Qabbalah. Not Chassidus. You might be able to make a more generic argument for a need for more Qabbalah in MO. Personally, I'm an engineer by inclination, not just training, and my own head doesn't lean that way. Although I had more success with the Leshem Haqdamos uShe'arim, which incidentally heavily draws from the Moreh and Yesodei haTorah, than I did with Qela"ch Pischei Chokhmah, the later parts of Derekh H' or Tomer Devorah after ch. 1. At least in the golah this might be true; in Israel, those of the DL community who are an appropriate audience for Qabbalah already have RAYK in numerous interpretations. Also, Chassidus's approach to Qabbalah puts the Ari Za"l on an even higher pedestal than the Gra did, and elevate R Chaim Vital from *a* talmid of the Ari to his sole authorized presenter. The Gra is willing to question something from RCV that chassidim would literally consider Torah min haShamayim. Which, for the more socially and humanistically minded, might well turn Eitz Chaim 49 ch. 3 into a show stopper. (But this isn't the place to discuss it.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Never must we think that the Jewish element micha at aishdas.org in us could exist without the human element http://www.aishdas.org or vice versa. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 06:48:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 09:48:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <20150611181746.GI20169@aishdas.org> References: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> <20150611181746.GI20169@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150612134802.GA12483@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 2:17 I wrote: : What I think we really mean is a willingness to be meqabel es ha'emes : mimi she'omro, rather than take a maximalist attitude toward mesoretic : and Torah-derived statements. But that's quite a bit meta from anyone : today using the Moreh as a foundational element of their hashkafah. ... : Given my above assertion that the only thread that runs consistently : through "rationalism" from the Rambam to today is to choose qabel es : ha'emes mimi she'omro over taking some baal mesorah's statement maximally... The thought hit me this morning that there is another and drastically different way to view this point. "Qabel es ha'ames mimi she'omro" is a bit of a circularity. Obviously we want to accept the truth from whomever says it, and not errors. So we're deciding what is true /before/ we decide to accept it, not /because/ we accept it. We could therefore say that the single consistent theme we associate with throwing the word "rationalism" about is critical thought. When we judge Aristo's, Copernicus's, Darwin's or Einstein's thought as true, do we second guess that asessment, or accept their ideas as true? And consequently we can phrase this chiluq a third way: As being abut how much authority we give rabbinic works in comparison to how much we trust our own critical thinking. The higher the pedestal we put the historical rabbinate, the more of their statements one would logically choose to suspend judgment and accept. (Not only accept, but accept as literal.) As for the original premise... Rather than looking to RYK's or anyone else's ideas as to what from Chassidus would most benefit MO, perhaps we should look at the Neo-Chassidic phenomenon to see de facto what MO Jews who are open to such experimentation are drawn to. And if those two questions yeild different answers, why? :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger What we do for ourselves dies with us. micha at aishdas.org What we do for others and the world, http://www.aishdas.org remains and is immortal. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Albert Pine From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 06:55:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 09:55:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What FDA Learned About Dark Chocolate and Milk Allergies In-Reply-To: <557A5564.7040807@zahav.net.il> References: <20150611174606.4DC6F181DFA@nexus.stevens.edu> <5579E680.2050607@zahav.net.il> <5579E319.7070103@sero.name> <557A5564.7040807@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <20150612135524.GC12483@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 05:43:32AM +0200, Ben Waxman via Areivim wrote: : This story came out here a few years ago when some kid had an : allergic reaction to parve chocolate. The product had a Badatz Eida : Chareidit heksher. The heksher was fine, they didn't make a mistake. : The amount of milk in the chocolate was much, much less than 1/60. Assuming the allergic reaction isn't lifethreatening so that the child is not prohibited from eating the chocolate on those grounds... Say they're a chocoholic and chose to eat the chocolate shortly after eating meat. Mi ma nafshach for everyone else it's batel. But do we say that since for them it's detectible, bitul doesn't apply? :-)BBii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 14:24:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 21:24:59 GMT Subject: [Avodah] What FDA Learned About Dark Chocolate and Milk Allergies Message-ID: <20150611.172459.6802.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 11:01:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 14:01:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If and When Message-ID: <20150612180148.GA7261@aishdas.org> R' Yishmael famously (Mechilta BaChodesh-Yisro 11, Mishpatim 182 or ) says that "im" usually means that the decision is up to you, but three times it's a chiyuv: - "Im mizbach avanim ta'aseh Li" (Shemos 20:21) - "Im kesef talveh es ami" (Shemos 22:24) - "Im taqriv minchas bikurim" (Vayiqra 2:14) This is often explained in English as saying that "im" usually means "if", but in these cases it takes on the rarer second meaning of "when". I would prefer to propose a single common interpretation. LAD, "im" introduces an implication -- X implies Y. When X is a conditional, then so will the Y that depends on it. When X is always obligated, then Y will also be always obligated, but the "allways" is because X is. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 13 19:40:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 04:40:37 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Why Chassidut Message-ID: <557CE9A5.6090303@zahav.net.il> From Rav Yehoshua Shapira (my quick translation) The idea that Chassidut?s positive atmosphere isn?t obligatory is a serious mistake. Not only is it obligatory, but it brings with it more obligations. Without emphasis on the Mitzvot of ahava and yirah, simcha and deveikut (which are the soul of the 613 mitzvot) the mitzvot remain external actions, technical, something which doesn?t affect or uplift the heart and soul. Those doreitta mitzvot, which are the pinimiot of all mitzvoth, demand from a person and from us to give their entire being when doing a mitzvah. . . .. In the performance of mitzvoth, God wants our hearts. Therefore, Chassidut definitely demands deep dedication. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 15:34:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ysoscher via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 18:34:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed Message-ID: <073EBBC1-7CA3-4E26-BA35-4A9007B1EAE4@gmail.com> Chana, Three quick points: 1) You are making the mistake many others are making as well, conflating chassidim with chassidut. Chassidic life today has very little to do with original chassidut. Early chassidut was a revolutionary theological movement which appealed to a small elitist group. As time went by more people started joining. As the masses joined, the theology became diluted. The theologically influenced practices reminded but the ethos became stagnant. Therefore, your attempt to disprove my thesis from the way Chassidim behave today is wrong. I'm advocating for chassidic theology which was prevalent during the first and second generation of the chassidic movement, people like the Besht, the Magid, the Toldos Yakov Yosef, Reb Nachaman, the Ba'al Hatanye and others. I have no doubt that their philosophy informed Rav Kook and Lubavitcher Rebbe when dealing with tensions between Halacha and modernity. And, their philosophy can help us today as well. Incorporating a chassidic ethos would allow us to infuse our encounters with modernity with kedusha and meaning. Which brings me to my second point. 2) Kabbakah and chassidut isn't about warmth and community. It's a highly sophisticated philosophical system which offers a nuanced alternative to the Maimonidean/rationalist approach. While the approach is a-rational, it isn't irrational. However, more to the point, the warmth and sense of community is a byproduct of this theology, not its primary focus. 3) Finally, I'm not sure I understand your point about the Rambam. The Rambam says that he believes it is justified to fool and mislead the masses. That to me is highly problematic. Rabbi Ysoscher Katz Chair, Department of Talmud, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School; Director of the Lindenbaum Center for Halakhic Studies; Educational Director of Judaic Studies, Luria Academy, Brooklyn, NY.; Rabbi, Prospect Heights Shul. E-mail: ysoscher at gmail.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 07:00:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 14:00:32 GMT Subject: [Avodah] If and When Message-ID: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > R' Yishmael famously (Mechilta BaChodesh-Yisro 11, Mishpatim 182 > or ) says that "im" usually means that the > decision is up to you, but three times it's a chiyuv: > - "Im mizbach avanim ta'aseh Li" (Shemos 20:21) > - "Im kesef talveh es ami" (Shemos 22:24) > - "Im taqriv minchas bikurim" (Vayiqra 2:14) ... > LAD, "im" introduces an implication -- X implies Y. ... > When X is always obligated, then Y will also be always > obligated, but the "always" is because X is. If I'm understanding you correctly, your logic will work only if there is another pasuk somewhere which *already* obligates us to build a mizbe'ach of stone, to lend money without interest, and to bring bikkurim in this manner. If so, then a fuller translation can be written with the word "if", and without the word "when", like this: : (You are already obligated to build a stone mizbe'ach, and) : if (today is the day that) you will build a stone mizbe'ach, : you will not build it from cut stones... But I thought that R' Yishmael's whole point is that THESE ARE the source pesukim for those mitzvos, and that there are NO other pesukim which obligate you to do these things. That's why R' Yishmael made the whole point of stressing that these "im"s really mean "when". His fear was that if we translate "im" as "if", then someone might think these pesukim are like Hilchos Gittin: "IF you get divorced, here is the right way to do it, and IF you make a stone mizbe'ach, here is the right way." R' Yishmael's point is that there is no "if" - you MUST do these things, and WHEN you do it, this is how. So over Shabbos, I tried to verify my idea. Thanks to RMB, who quoted not only the 3 pesukim, but identified their location, it was pretty simple to look them up in the Torah Temimah. But what I found was rather odd. Torah Temimah Shmos 20:127 quotes R' Yishmael in the Mechilta, pretty much the same way that RMB did, and points out that this is NOT the source for the obligation for build a stone mizbe'ach - that is in Ki Savo. This RMB's logic fits: "If (today is the day that) you build a stone mizbe'ach, don't build it of cut stones." Please note: In the excerpt of the Mechilta which the Torah Temimah quotes regarding the mizbe'ach, R' Yishmael says that there are 3 cases where "im" is not optional, but the other two are not specified. This is very different than the Torah Temimah about lending money. Torah Temimah Shmos 22:198 does quotes R' Yishmael in the Mechilta, but it doesn't mention the word "im" explicitly, nor is there any reference to two other cases. He simply asks whether it is a reshus or a chovah to lend money, and he answers that the obligation appears in Parshas Re'eh. I find it curious that this Mechilta is worded so differently than the previous one, but the message is clearly the same. Finally, we have the pasuk about bikkurim. It turns out that the Torah Temimah on this pasuk doesn't mention R' Yishmael at all. It does mention R' Yehudah, but from the Toras Kohanim, and not from the Mechilta. Further, my unlearned reading of R' Yehudah had little or nothing to do with the reshus/chovah question, but Torah Temimah Vayikra 2:80 DID see a reshus/chovah question that troubled R' Yehudah. I am left with several questions, the main one being whether or not Bikkurim really was R' Yishmael's third "im". And that's where I'll leave this thread, for more skilled minds to investigate should they be so inclined. Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/557d895b6e89195a4573st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 10:27:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 13:27:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If and When In-Reply-To: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150614172744.GA27133@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 02:00:32PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : > LAD, "im" introduces an implication -- X implies Y. : ... : > When X is always obligated, then Y will also be always : > obligated, but the "always" is because X is. : : If I'm understanding you correctly, your logic will work only if : there is another pasuk somewhere which *already* obligates us to build a : mizbe'ach of stone, to lend money without interest, and to bring bikkurim : in this manner. If so, then a fuller translation can be written with : the word "if", and without the word "when"... In reality, the cited Mechilta actually provides derahos to prove that there is nothing optional about the antecedants. But my point was to suggest that "im" has nothing to do with the maybe-ness of "if". Just the implication bit -- if X then Y, or whenever X then Y, or since X then Y, regardless of whether not-X is a possibility or option. Which would reduce what looks like two definitions for "im" into a single common meaning. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Time flies... micha at aishdas.org ... but you're the pilot. http://www.aishdas.org - R' Zelig Pliskin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 13 22:30:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ysoscher via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 01:30:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> R. Micha, you write "I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." This is pure conjecture, perhaps even wishful thinking. The Rambam shares the 7th principle in which he argues that one may disseminate untruths for the greater good of society. Once he believes that, we are left to wonder about everything he wrote: did he really believe that or was there a political (in the Aristotelian sense) agenda behind it. To then preference the yad over the moreh is a personal bias. You and I as Orthodox Jews would like to believe that he believed every word in the yad and that the stuff he says in the moreh, oftentimes contradicting Chazal and the mesorah, was only said for the greater good of society-he personally didn't believe them. The non-observant philosopher, on the other hand, would say the opposite, that in the Moreh he articulates what he really believed, not in the Yad. Ultimately there's no objective measure to determine who's right. R. Isidore Twersky in his book on the Rambam tried to argue that there is no stira, that the moreh and the yad compliment each other. I don't find his arguments compelling. These two sefarim are incompatible and, ultimately, we are left in the dark, never able to objectively determine which of the two Rambam's sefarim were written with ulterior motives. You then write "I am uncomfortably using the Rambam as a poster boy for rationalism." I am using "rationalism" in a loose colloquial sense. Rambam believed in an evidence based religiosity, that we believe in God because His existence can be proven. That project, IMHO, failed. For every proof proving existence there's a proof to the contrary. That is precisely why I believe that the non-rationalist/Kabbalist approach is a better option. They offer an a-rationalist approach ("a-rational," not to be confused with "irrational," they're not the same). They believe because they chose to believe not-because they are "convinced." Their mehalach is more appealing to our post/modern generation where few people believe in absolute truths, and, it's also truer to our tradition. We were always a a-rational tradition until Maimonides came along and changed that. Which brings me to my next point. You then write "...means accepting Chazal's historical and scientific claims as being from ruach haqodesh. And not stam as meshalim." implying that I believe that stories in Chazal or Torah are meshalim. [Chas lei lezar'eih deAvraham deleimru hakha]; God forbid that I should make such a suggestion. I am saying something radically different. We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims. A faith claim is a religious "belief" not a scientific claim. Two things distinguish the chasid's experience of reading Torah from the philosopher's experience. When the chasid reads those stories he or she a) doesn't pause to ask if it's "true" they just learn it. "Truth" isn't a primary orientation of their encounter with toras Ha'shem. B) In the event that he does pause to ask the "truth" question, his approach is a-rational and unscientific. The truth question, for him or her, is internal to the system as is the solution. It truthfully and absolutely happened in the Torah. It's not denying the claim, it's just ignoring the scientific objective layer. Because the chasid's yiddishkeit happens exclusively in the religious realm. I also think there's a lot of confusion between what I'm arguing and what you're responding to. Briefly: 1) As I wrote to Chana: Chassidim and chassidut is not same. Chassidim today have little to do with chassidut. Contemporary chassidic philosophy is a complete deviation from original chassidut. 2) A-rationalism isn't one iota less sophisticated than rationalism. These are two parallel philosophies each with their own set of nuanced assumptions, postulates, and assumptions. 3) My program has nothing to do with neo-chassidut. NC is a behaviorist movement with very little philosophical underpinning. I'm proposing a theological program which also happens to have behavioral implications. Rabbi Ysoscher Katz Chair, Department of Talmud, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School; Director of the Lindenbaum Center for Halakhic Studies; Educational Director of Judaic Studies, Luria Academy, Brooklyn, NY.; Rabbi, Prospect Heights Shul. E-mail: ysoscher at gmail.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 08:55:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 11:55:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] 100% Vegetable oils etc. (Walker Crisps) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <557DA3F6.8050406@sero.name> On Areivim, Kaganoff wrote: > Zev Sero wrote: >> Kaganoff wrote: >>> Zev Sero wrote: >>>> Kaganoff wrote: >>>>> I would be rather surprised if there was a genuine kashrus concern >>>>> from with the Walker Crisps from any meat contamination. >>>>> Any meat would be batel. >>>> It's flavouring. >>> We hold of bittul b'shishim. >> Only as a general assumption that at that dilution it can't be tasted. >> Not applicable to concentrated flavourings which are designed to be tasted >> at high dilution. > That is a chumrah that you could adopt, but should not force on others. Why do you call it a chumra? Do you deny that the din is about ta`am, not percentage, and bitul beshishim is merely a general assumption that at that level of dilution there is no ta`am? >>> And it's a not a flavoring for this particular product. So it is not >>> avida l'ta'amei, even at less than 60. >> Since when does the fact that it wasn't intended to be in this product make it >> not intended for its taste? > That is why companies spend thousands of dollars perfecting formulas > for what is and is not used in a product. If it is not used as an > ingredient, then it was not meant to flavor this product. Once again, so what? Where did you get this idea that it matters whether it was intended to be in this product? Perhaps you're thinking of nosen ta'am lifgam, and saying that even a pleasant flavour, if it was not intended to be in a particular dish, may be considered a pegam in that dish. But that doesn't work. Suppose a chef created a dish flavoured with lard, but made a mistake; he put in too much, or too little, or didn't cook it long enough, or cooked it too long, or at the wrong temperature, and the final flavour of the dish isn't what he was aiming for. It's pleasant, and the diners eat it up and compliment him, but he knows that it wasn't meant to taste like that, and his recipe needs work. Can you imagine calling that dish pagum, and allowing it to be eaten?! That's obviously not tenable. So how is this case any different? A pleasant and desirable flavour has made its way into a product that wasn't intended to have that flavour. Does that make it pagum?!! No. It's a good product, it's just not the product that's on the label. The product that's on the label is kosher, but the product that's inside the packet is treif, exactly as if a labelling error had occurred. >>>>> Stam Keilim Ain ben Yomo. >>>> Are you joking? That klal is clearly not true in any commercial setting. >>> Why do you assume that it is clearly not true. Or rather you are >>> assuming that in a majority of cases, meat is used the same day as >>> the kosher product. That strikes me as a bit extreme. >> It's not at all extreme. Everyone knows that commercial equipment is almost >> *never* idle for 24 hours at a time. And since the meat flavouring is a >> regular product it stands to reason that it's processed every day. > Do you know this for a fact about this particular plant? Otherwise, > it's an assumption that you can make, as per Chazal. Everyone knows that it's true about *all* commercial equipment. And we have no right to "assume" something we know not to be true. Stam keilim einom bnei yomam is simply not a valid rule in the context of commercial equipment today. >> In any case, the issue here isn't keilim, since the flavouring is cold, and >> sprayed on cold chips. If it were keilim then there would be no bittul >> beshishim, since stam keilim are more than 1/60 of their contents. No, >> the issue here is the residue of actual flavouring that remains in the >> equipment after the meat flavours are run, until it is cleaned. > Which again would be batel within the first few products of the new run. It might be, if we knew the order in which the flavours are run. But they refuse to disclose that information. What we do know is that the plain chips are run first, so they're acceptable. After that all bets are off. There is no way to be sure that the packet of non-meat-flavoured chips you are eating was not the first one off the rank immediately after a meat run. >>>>> It's not Avida L'Ta'amei, etc. >>>> It's precisely avida letaama -- it's a flavouring! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 16:53:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 19:53:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> References: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150614235339.GA15695@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 01:30:46AM -0400, Ysoscher via Avodah wrote: : R. Micha, you write "I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle : applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word : in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think : "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." : : This is pure conjecture, perhaps even wishful thinking. The Rambam : shares the 7th principle in which he argues that one may disseminate : untruths for the greater good of society.... Yes, but he says it in an introduction explaining a particular kind of book -- which the Moreh is, and the Yad isn't. Whereas the Yad self-describes as being Mishneh Torah, explanation, not obfuscation. So why look to the intro to the Moreh to muddle what the Rambam himself says was the point of the Yad? In either case, the Rambam describes Yad and the Peirush haMishnayos a explanations written to be comprehensible to the masses. Moreh 2:35 (el-Qafih ["Kapach"]): Kevar bi'arti likhlal benei adam ... veheivesi ra'ayos al kakh ubirartav bePeirush haMishnah ubeMishneh Torah... : You and I as Orthodox Jews would like to believe that he believed every : word in the yad and that the stuff he says in the moreh, oftentimes : contradicting Chazal and the mesorah, was only said for the greater : good of society-he personally didn't believe them. The non-observant : philosopher, on the other hand, would say the opposite, that in the : Moreh he articulates what he really believed, not in the Yad. Actually, I tend to side with the anti-Mamonidians. Mostly because his model of redemption leaves people like my son Shuby (who has Downs) wandering around the palace with no hope of getting in. (To paraphrase 3:51.) : You then write "I am uncomfortably using the Rambam as a poster boy : for rationalism." : : I am using "rationalism" in a loose colloquial sense... Which is so loose as to be meaningless. The Rambam predated science, and followed the secular authority. Rationalism today refers to emprical and other objective proof. : That project, IMHO, failed. For every proof : proving existence there's a proof to the contrary. That is precisely : why I believe that the non-rationalist/Kabbalist approach is a better : option. They offer an a-rationalist approach ("a-rational," not to be : confused with "irrational," they're not the same). They believe because : they chose to believe not-because they are "convinced." Yeah, but so does the Gra's Qabbalah or Mussar. Mussar in particular replaces the Rambam's akrasia based on knowlege / wisdom, and therefore redemption through getting the right knowledge, with talk of first-hand experience, emotions, subconscious, etc... : You then write "...means accepting Chazal's historical and scientific : claims as being from ruach haqodesh. And not stam as meshalim." implying : that I believe that stories in Chazal or Torah are meshalim. : : [Chas lei lezar'eih deAvraham deleimru hakha]; God forbid that I should : make such a suggestion. I am saying something radically different. Well, I wouldn't lump the two together. The Rambam is far from alone in considering aggadic stories to be meshalim repeated with not concern about historicity. Much like you wrote -- an authentic attitude toward such things would be to not care about what really happened. Not to assert they are or aren't historical. (Although the Rambam would tell you to assume the wilder ones aren't historical, lest you make a joke out of the Torah -- the first two of the three katim described in his haqdamah to mishnah Cheileq.) : We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims. A : faith claim is a religious "belief" not a scientific claim... Agreed. BUT... the kind of problem I thought you were trying to address was the person who felt the Torah and academia conflict. To invoke this dichotomy to resolve the issue would be to allow people to assert ahistoricity, rather than avoiding a position altogether. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The true measure of a man micha at aishdas.org is how he treats someone http://www.aishdas.org who can do him absolutely no good. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Samuel Johnson From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 06:49:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ken Bloom via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 09:49:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What FDA Learned About Dark Chocolate and Milk Allergies Message-ID: > > > Actually it sounds to me that one very much can rely on the > > label (from this example). The trace amounts [the LBD are] talking > > about are much, much less than 1/60. Completely bateil, > > totally parve, but enough to elicit an allergic reaction. > I remember learning about a machlokes concerning whether we hold dairy > can be batel to pareve, or whether we say that since there is no loss (at > least, not the total loss that we have when something becomes nonkosher) > we should simply consider it dairy. But I don't remember how we hold on > this issue. Anyone else? > And shouldn't these questions be on Avodah? > Akiva Miller What's the machloket? Doesn't the Rema YD 99:6 clearly hold that that milk is batel in parve? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 14:00:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 17:00:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safeik and Multivalent Logic Message-ID: <20150615210040.GA17358@aishdas.org> Back on Fri, 14 May 2004 10:45am EST (yes, 11 years ago) I wrote on the thread "Valid halachic change" I wrote: > I was at a yarchei (yarei'ach? shavu'ah -- since it was only a > week?) kallah during Elul in Boston where RYBS explicitly said is wasn't. > He also speaks about multivalent logic in halakhah in numorous places > in Ish haHalakhah. From the [yarchei kallah]: > An esrog that was used for the mitzvah is qadosh and assur behana'ah > that entire day. And since it's qadosh bein hashemashos, it's gadosh > part of the next day and therefore assur behan'ah the entire next day. > RYBS asked (as do many) mimanafshach: Either BhS is part of the first > day, and there's an isur hana'ah BhS. But in that case BhS isn't part > of the next day, and on that day han'ah should be mutar. Or, BhS is part > of the 2nd day, and the issur would end BhS! > Rather, for certain sefeiqos both chalosim apply. It's only when the > chalos turns into a pe'ulah that we are forced to choose. > Therefore, one can daven either minchah or ma'ariv BhS. Even switch off > between days. But not both in the same BhS. > This is why a woman who is from safeiq chalal history (Rashi and Tosafos > disagree on details of the case) is called an "almanas issah", the widow > of a dough, a mixture. > This shtims with the teshuvas RAEiger distinguishing kol deparish meiruba > parish and kol kavu'ah kemechtzah al mechtzah. When the question is one > of pasqening on an unknown situation, we follow rov. When one is trying > to resolve a question that arose after the pesaq, rov doesn't apply. > Rov is a non-boolean state, something between yes and no. Therefore, > it does not apply after we've taken the question from the realm of > machshavah to that of ma'aseh. > Also, Rav Tzadoq (Resisei Laylah 17) distringuishes between the logic of > machshavah and that of pe'ulah, saying that when it comes to machshavah, > it's impossible to consider one thing without also considering its > opposite. RThK then develops this idea to explain eilu va'eilu as being > about real plurality. (More on this when I summarize the articles whose > URLs have been posted to the list.) I'm repeating all this because, once again, AhS Yomi showed me that something I thought I understood was more complicated than I realized. AhS OC 638:5 distinguishes between muqtza machmas mitzvah and other forms of muqtza when it comes to migo de'isqatzei bein hashemashos, isqatza'ei lekhulei yoma. And so, sukkah and its decorations (the topic of OC 688) are muqtzah the following day. But beitzah shenoledah beYT rishon is not muqtzah on the next day. So the example RYBS brings of esrog fits this pattern too -- muqtzah machmas mitzvah is muqtzah the day after it's used for the mitzvah. However, RYBS used it to make a general point about the nature of BhS, and I surmized safeiq in general. I don't understand how we can, if even withint the topic of mutqzah we find BhS acting both like a mixture of states and being in one of the two states -- although we don't know which -- depending on the kind of muqtzah we're talking about. Thoughts, anyone? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The Maharal of Prague created a golem, and micha at aishdas.org this was a great wonder. But it is much more http://www.aishdas.org wonderful to transform a corporeal person into a Fax: (270) 514-1507 "mensch"! -Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 14:44:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 17:44:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Worker or Craftsman In-Reply-To: <5579B89C.8060902@sero.name> References: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> <5579B89C.8060902@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150615214430.GA17695@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 12:34:36PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Eruvin 65a: Anan po`alei diy'mamei anan. The context is talmud Torah, and speaks to the fact that when it comes to Torah, it's the amount of learning, not the success at comprehension, that matters most. See also the Me'iri ad loc, who says simply that R' Nachman bar Yitzchaq is saying we should learn the whole day, because that's the only way we'll fully understand. Which alines with R' Zeira's statement, when he was complemented "Mechadedan shema'iskha!" and he replied "diyemama ninhu." I do not think it can be applied to my question -- whether life is a job of "be good as long as you're here", or if we each have a specific task we were put here to accomplish. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Take time, micha at aishdas.org be exact, http://www.aishdas.org unclutter the mind. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 15:01:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 18:01:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] 100% Vegetable oils etc. In-Reply-To: <20150610.215234.27464.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150610.215234.27464.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150615220103.GB17695@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 01:52:34AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : ... I would think that non-kosher flavorings cannot be batel. Bitul : is a mathematical procedure by which we can presume that the non-kosher : ingredient is not noticeable... In fact, the only time the mishnah invokes bitul beshishim is with min bemino, so that you can't tell which of two identically tasting substances one is tasting. (Chullin 7:4-5, Zevachim 8:6) Rava (Chullin 97a-b) says that if a non-Jew can be asked to taste a substance, we rely on their statement, but if not (eg min bemino), then we use batel beshishim. In contrast, Bar Kaparah holds kol issurin shebiTorah is beshishim. Ta'am is just a derabbaanan that doesn't allow us to use the fundamental 1/60 bitul. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you're going through hell micha at aishdas.org keep going. http://www.aishdas.org - Winston Churchill Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 11:20:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 14:20:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> References: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150616182036.GA13263@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 6:34pm EDT, RYK wrote: : 1) You are making the mistake many others are making as well, conflating : chassidim with chassidut. Chassidic life today has very little to do with : original chassidut. Early chassidut was a revolutionary theological : movement which appealed to a small elitist group... I thought Chassidus started out a kiruv movement, designed to bring Judaism to the kind of people Litta's focus on learning left without religion. Like the story of the boy who played his prayers on his flute, or the one who recited the alef beis over and over and begged HQBH to weave them into the right words. But in any case, to get closer to the point I intended to make... ... : 2) Kabbalah and chassidut isn't about warmth and community. It's a highly : sophisticated philosophical system which offers a nuanced alternative : to the Maimonidean/rationalist approach. : While the approach is a-rational, it isn't irrational. I am not sure how you're using "a-rational". Even after your consequent explanation (posted Sun Jun 14, 1:30am EDT): : They offer an a-rationalist approach ("a-rational," not to be : confused with "irrational," they're not the same). They believe because : they chose to believe not-because they are "convinced." What is this a-rational stance that is also highly philosophical and yet not the experiential chassidus of the nostalgic memories with which you opened your blog post? I cannot figure out what you're getting at. Contining the first post: : 3) Finally, I'm not sure I understand your point about the Rambam. The : Rambam says that he believes it is justified to fool and mislead the : masses. That to me is highly problematic. And in the follow-up post he elaborated: : R. Micha, you write "I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle : applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word : in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think : "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." In an introduction to a philosophical book he thought was a bad idea to write that he produced as a necessary evil. Thus the title of the Moreh Nevuchim. It's a tactic he had to reveal the esoteric to those ready for it while keeping it esoteric. Recall, that while we think of Pardes's "sod" as Qabbalah, to him it was more like the Moreh. In the Pesichah the Rambam limits the need of obfuscation to the topics of Maaseh haMerkavah and Maaseh Bereishis. So, after the first 5 chapters of the Yad, the whole discussion in the pesichah and haqdamah of the Moreh wouldn't apply. ... : We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims... Just like I loathe using the word rationalism because it's so vague in meaning as to just add to the confusion, let me add the word "fact". We use it to mean (a) a truth, (b) an empirical/physical truth, (c) a truth established by evidence, (d) an empirical truth established by evidence, and in legal settings: (e) the empirical evidence itself ("let me present the facts of this case"). : We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims. A : faith claim is a religious "belief" not a scientific claim... ... and therefore there is a gap between religious beliefs and scientific claims. Belief is yet another dangerous word. Knowledge is classically (Plato) defined as a justified true belief. In that sense, anything you accept as true is a belief. Other times we use belief in contrast to knowledge. A usage that ends up undermining confidence in something we seem to overtly be claiming is true. After all, if you think it's true, and you think you have real reason to think it's true, why say "believe" rather than "know"? Which gets me back to the point, I hope. You talk about belief in chassidus being an act of will. Personally, I agree with Rihal when he has the chaver note that anything one philosopher can prove, another can prove the opposite. (Kuzari 1:13) Religion isn't amenable to proof, and that's why Scholasticism, the idea of giving religion a philosophical underpinning, lost momentum centuries ago. The reasons why are two-fold: First, negi'os. People cannot really objetively think about these topics. They end up liking proofs of disliking proofs based on where they already decided things should end up. Like one of the truisms in my signature file generator says: The mind is a wonderful organ for justifying decisions the heart already reached. So, whether or not you agree that some postulate is self-evident (Kant: synthetic a priori) and therefore the proof works will depend more on whether you want to believe than actual obviousness. Second, the experiences upon which religious belief gets justified are internal. Questions of whether Shabbos, kashrus, or some of the more elegant outcomes of lomdus statisfy my Search For Meaning (Frankl) is quite a bit more difficult (usually impossible) to duplicate for someone else. Unlike a getting someone else to experience something empirical that you did by repeating a science experiment. But I think chassidic belief, even as per your description of it, is rational rather than an act of will. It's not Scholastic, expecting the kind of proof that would have make R' Saadia Gaon or the Rambam happy, but it is based on deriving a conclusion that fits one's evidence (ie experiences). I would say "rational" but not "rationalist", except that just highlights how many problems we get into throwing around the word "rationalism". This is true about how emunah works whether speaking about why people become BT, go OTD, or even if we're speaking of the Rambam. The Rambam lived in a world that didn't value non-philosophical justification, so he felt that real emunah required Scholasticism. (There was a time, not that long ago, when most people's emunah was backed by Reliabilism. My parents and community have a track record of being reliable sources of truth, so I trust them on this too.) To my mind, the difference is whether someone values the chizuq emunah of affirming that conclusions with that half of the philosophical proofs that end up in the right place. The rationalist does so, thinking that's *why* he believes (despite the Kuzari). Some of us simply enjoy philoosphy or consider such explorations to be part of talmud Torah. And others simply don't need the exercise. : a) doesn't pause to ask if it's "true" they just learn it. "Truth" : isn't a primary orientation of their encounter with toras Ha'shem. B) In : the event that he does pause to ask the "truth" question, his approach : is a-rational and unscientific... Again, if it's taken for granted as being true, truth is still at issue. Moreso, they really don't discuss truth because trueh is a given. It's like water not being the primary orientation of fish. : It truthfully and absolutely : happened in the Torah. It's not denying the claim, it's just ignoring : the scientific objective layer. Because the chasid's yiddishkeit happens : exclusively in the religious realm. Lets plow through the words and just ask outright: A chassid would take it for granted that a time traveler would find the Yam Suf divided into 13 tunnels with everything you might want available to be plucked from the walls. No? You may deprecate the importance of that historical claim to the belief system of Chassidic Judaism. I would agree that chassidim do not consider the historicity important. But the belief is there, and for reasons that speak volumes about the gap between chassidus and MO as a potential target audience. Chassidim have to accept the historicity of this midrashic elaboration of Qerias Yam Suf because maximalism and acceptance of rabbinic authority run much stronger in comparison to confidence in one's own truthometer in chassidus. Part of the value of having a rebbe is to believe he has access to truths I don't. And similarly one's rebbe's rebbes, and so on through Chazal and whomever repeated that medrash. To a community that teaches the value of other sources of knowledge, such as secular historians or other professionals, such maximalism is impossible, and therefore bitul to a rebbe will always be limited. Yes, it would be of value to realize that historical claims are non-central to religion. It makes it much easier to table any questions one might have in those areas as not being important, therefore not very pressing. Things that can wait for an answer rather than being responded to now, with what I know now, or taken as an upshlug. ... : 3) My program has nothing to do with neo-chassidut. NC is a behaviorist : movement with very little philosophical underpinning. I'm proposing a : theological program which also happens to have behavioral implications. I understood this. However, NC is an indication of what elements of chassidus actually were found useful by MO Jews. You're theorizing which elements you thought would in theory be more useful. I am asking about the difference between the two. If your theory were correct about what MO could use, wouldn't the Neo-Chassidim have locked on to those three points? IOW, I know they are different, and some idea as to how -- but why? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Weeds are flowers too micha at aishdas.org once you get to know them. http://www.aishdas.org - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 11:53:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 18:53:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Asking your questions to one authority Message-ID: <45cbca92b332457591636332317a5855@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> I'm looking for sources concerning a requirement or good advice concerning asking all your questions to one authority. According to some commentaries the mishna (actually mentioned twice) in Avot concerning aseih lcha rav points in this direction as does the gemara in eiruvin on not picking all the leniencies of both beit hillel and shammai. OTOH the gemara in avodah zara about not asking 2 rabbis is interpreted as applying only to the particular question at hand. From a Brisker theory angle wouldn't the existence of overarching theoretical constructs argue that all your questions should go to one authority so as to avoid the possible tartei dsatrei on a meta-theory basis (i.e. psak in kashrut case a may share a construct with psak in business case b)? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 13:36:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 16:36:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Asking your questions to one authority In-Reply-To: <45cbca92b332457591636332317a5855@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> References: <45cbca92b332457591636332317a5855@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <558088EA.2070102@sero.name> On 06/16/2015 02:53 PM, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > From a Brisker theory angle wouldn?t the existence of overarching > theoretical constructs argue that all your questions should go to one > authority so as to avoid the possible tartei dsatrei on a meta-theory > basis (i.e. psak in kashrut case a may share a construct with psak in > business case b)? Hilchesa keRav be'isurei vechiShmuel bedinei. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 16:30:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 19:30:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why Chassidut In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150616233048.00B061836ED@nexus.stevens.edu> At 02:20 PM 6/16/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: > From Rav Yehoshua Shapira (my quick translation) > >The idea that Chassidut?s positive atmosphere isn?t obligatory is a >serious mistake. Not only is it obligatory, but it brings with it more >obligations. Without emphasis on the Mitzvot of ahava and yirah, simcha >and deveikut (which are the soul of the 613 mitzvot) the mitzvot remain >external actions, technical, something which doesn?t affect or uplift >the heart and soul. > >Those doreitta mitzvot, which are the pinimiot of all mitzvoth, demand >from a person and from us to give their entire being when doing a >mitzvah. . . .. In the performance of mitzvoth, God wants our hearts. >Therefore, Chassidut definitely demands deep dedication. > The following is from Rav Dr. Y. Breuer's Essay "Our Way" that appears in the collection of Rav Breuer's essays titled A Unique Perspective. One should not confuse Chassidus with the so-called Chassidic movement that began in Poland in the 18th century. The latter met the needs of the Jewish masses who lived in terrible misery, and thus spread rapidly. Tefillah was projected into the foreground, from which flowed strength and faith in God; dances and songs induced enthusiasm and joyfulness; the stress on human and hu- mane qualities increased the self-respect of the impoverished. Thus, without a doubt, Chassidism saved these Jewish masses. However, the resulting frequent neglect of Torah study led to justified protest by Torah giants and caused a regrettable inner rift, which was subsequently healed when a great Chassidic leader returned the study of Torah to its rightful central position. Genuine Chassidic Jewishness strives for Chassidus, which in itself is a lofty achievement on the ethical ladder which the Yehudi must attempt to climb. This is demonstrated for us by R. Pinchas ben Yair (Avodah Zarah 20b): Our highest duty is Torah and its study; this leads to carefulness which in turn leads to active striving; to guiltlessness; to purity; to holiness; to modesty; to the fear of sin; and, finally, to Chassidus. Accordingly, a Chassid is a Jew who gives himself in limitless love to the Divine Will and its realization, and to whom the welfare of his fellowmen constitutes the highest source of satisfaction (see Chorev, Ch. 14). Thus, in the Talmudic era, the title ?Chassid? was a mark of highest distinction ? and this is what it should be today. The so-called Chassid who confines his Avodah to prayer does not deserve this title, as this ?Avodah of the heart? does not call him to the Avodah of life where he must practice and apply the precepts of Chassidus. He does not deserve this title if he is particular regarding the kashrus of his food but fails to apply the precepts of conscientiousness and honesty to his business dealings. He does not deserve this title if his social life is not permeated by love and deep interest in the welfare of his fellowmen; if he does not shun quarreling, envy or even abominable lashon harah; if he does not earnestly strive to acquire those midos for which Rav Hirsch (in his Chorev) calls so eloquently. Certainly the mere exhibition of a certain type of clothing or the type of beard worn or even the adornment of long sideburns does not entitle the bearer to the title of honor?Chassid. These may be marks of distinction ? but they must be earned to be deserved. Even study of the Zohar does not necessarily signify the attainment of Chassidus. If this were so, only a few chosen ones would be eligible. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 23:03:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2015 09:03:25 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] If and When In-Reply-To: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 5:00 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > Please note: In the excerpt of the Mechilta which the Torah Temimah quotes > regarding the mizbe'ach, R' Yishmael says that there are 3 cases where "im" > is not optional, but the other two are not specified. This is very > different than the Torah Temimah about lending money. > > Torah Temimah Shmos 22:198 does quotes R' Yishmael in the Mechilta, but it > doesn't mention the word "im" explicitly, nor is there any reference to two > other cases. He simply asks whether it is a reshus or a chovah to lend > money, and he answers that the obligation appears in Parshas Re'eh. I find > it curious that this Mechilta is worded so differently than the previous > one, but the message is clearly the same. You see this quite often in the Torah Temima when a derasha says something about a number of pesukim in parallel. He quotes the same source in each place, but redacts it so that it appears to be referencing only that specific verse. An example in last week's parasha is the Yerushalmi that all 10 commandments are referenced in Kiryat Shma`, quoted on 15:39 and 41 (OK, not such a close parallel because in that case he does make the cross-reference and quotes the whole passage on Shemot 20:2, but there are plenty of other examples) In any case, inside the Mechilta on both verses in Shemot all three "im"s are listed each time, including bikkurim. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=38109&st=&pgnum=245 http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=38109&st=&pgnum=317 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 17 02:14:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2015 05:14:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Talks by Rav Shimon Schwab, ZT"L Message-ID: <20150617091410.A8547183759@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://torahdownloads.com/shiur-24386.html YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 17 04:00:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2015 07:00:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] =?iso-8859-1?q?Soul_Terminology=2C_and_Expressions_of_Lo?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ve=3A_Proper_Frum_Expression_In_The_Lens_of_the_Ashkenaz_T?= =?iso-8859-1?q?radition_=96_Gleanings__From_Rav_Shimon_Schwab?= Message-ID: <20150617110051.2F7B9183762@nexus.stevens.edu> Please see http://tinyurl.com/q64ehha YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 18 06:50:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2015 09:50:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Ishbaal's Jar Message-ID: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> According to TOI or , discusses finding a jar that dates to around 1020-980 BCE (Iron Age), breating the name the name of Ishbaal ben Beda. Ishbaal is Divrei HaYamim's name for the son of Shaul whom seifer Shemuel calls Ishboshet. (Probably because bearing the name of Baal is a bushah.) Allegedly "Among Judeans, personal names evoking Baal fell out of fashion after the 10th century, but not so among their Israelite cousins to the north." Lisa, does any of this relate to strengthening or weakening the case for revisionist dating? (Newcomers might wish to see the Jewish Action article Lisa has on her site at to understand why I asked.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person must be very patient micha at aishdas.org even with himself. http://www.aishdas.org - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 18 07:43:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2015 17:43:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Ishbaal's Jar In-Reply-To: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> References: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 4:50 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > According to TOI < > http://www.timesofisrael.com/inscription-bearing-name-from-davidic-era-found-at-ancient-site > > > or , discusses finding a jar that dates to around > 1020-980 BCE (Iron Age), breating the name the name of Ishbaal ben Beda. > See also http://bit.ly/1F2HFD9 (= https://www.academia.edu/12775087/The_%CA%BEI%C5%A1ba%CA%BFal_Inscription_from_Khirbet_Qeiyafa) for a more detailed excavation report. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 19 11:46:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 13:46:46 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Ishbaal's Jar In-Reply-To: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> References: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55846396.5000207@starways.net> On 6/18/2015 8:50 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > According to TOI > or , discusses finding a jar that dates to around > 1020-980 BCE (Iron Age), breating the name the name of Ishbaal ben Beda. > > Ishbaal is Divrei HaYamim's name for the son of Shaul whom seifer > Shemuel calls Ishboshet. (Probably because bearing the name of Baal > is a bushah.) The standard form for names in most of the ancient near east was DN-stem, or stem-DN, where DN is a divine name. We have this pattern ourselves with names like Chizki-Yahu and N'tan-El, or El-Chanan and Yeho-natan. From what I've seen, it wasn't unheard of for people to refer to the same person, but exchange the DN. So Ish-Boshet for Ish-Baal is in line with Hado-Ram (I Chron 18:10) for Yo-Ram (II Sam 8:10), or Hado-Ram (II Sam 20:24, I Kings 12:18, II Chron 10:18) for Adoni-Ram (I Kings 4:6, 5:28). I don't see any indication that this pattern of name was different towards the beginning or towards the end of the monarchy. That said, Baal in particular sort of declined after the time of Eliyahu. They had newer avodah zarahs to play with. I don't really see a lot of chronological significance here. Yes, they did some radiometric dating, but as always, I would take that with grain of salt until I saw the raw results. When you send something for carbon dating, you tell them first what your target date is, so that they can discard results that are off from that too significantly. Not very scientific, but I guess it's "science-y". Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 19 13:38:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 16:38:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Soul Terminology, and Expressions of Love: Proper Frum Expression In The Lens of the Ashkenaz Tradition ? Gleanings From Rav Shimon Schwab In-Reply-To: <20150617110051.2F7B9183762@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150617110051.2F7B9183762@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150619203804.GA23818@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 17, 2015 at 07:00:53AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Please see http://tinyurl.com/q64ehha On the second example, I'm reminded of the Soloveitchik tradition that emotions are the Qodesh haQadashim of avodas Hashem. And therefore while RSSschwab's position was depited as: > Nowadays one at times witnesses public statements, in the form of songs, > declarations, and even bumper stickers, proclaiming [HQBH anachnu ohavim > Osakh!] (Hashem, we love you), an expression that was not commonly heard > shouted aloud in the past in our circles. Is that in consonance with our > [Mesorah]? Rav Schwab (in his address entitled Internalizing Eternity) > states the following (after 33:20) Since Ahavas Hashem is such a strictly > personal matter, he who truly loves Hashem does not show his [Ahavah]. He > rather hides it. It is far too intimate to parade it in public. He is > mekayeim [vehatzneia lekhes im E-lokekha]. It is exclusively his private > affair, between him and his Creator. Briskers would not expose any emotion. And so, when RYBS left for Berlin, R' Moshe took him to the train station, but there was no emotional goodbye. Even though RMF didn't know if he would ever see his son (and chavrusah) again. RYBS said he knew his father's feelings at the moment, he just knew that he would never display it publicly. Just a simple "Leikh leshalom HQBH zul dir matzliach zein!" Story told far better, in RYBS's own words here In any case, the Brisker approach doesn't speak to too many people in this generation. I would bet many of us would consider it less-than-positive. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger One who kills his inclination is as though he micha at aishdas.org brought an offering. But to bring an offering, http://www.aishdas.org you must know where to slaughter and what Fax: (270) 514-1507 parts to offer. - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 22 06:53:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2015 09:53:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kuntros chasidei umos haolam Message-ID: <0ce401d0acf2$c108d8f0$431a8ad0$@com> The was once a link posted here to a Kuntros chasidei umos haolam (In hebrew) from a Rav in south Africa (I think he was an Ohr Samach graduate) Does anyone have it or a link to it? Thanks, mc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 22 14:32:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2015 17:32:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Two Levels of Bitachon Message-ID: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is from Rav Schwab on Chumash Parshas Shelach. We suggest the following explanation: Hashem demands bitachon of every Jew - trust in Hashem that everything will turn out for the best, without worrying about what the future might bring. Throughout the generations, devout Jews have walked this path. A person with bitachon ultimately will merit to see clearly that, indeed, "All that Hashem does is for the best." There are two types of bitachon. The first is trusting in Hashem with "closed eyes," with no speculation about what may develop. However, there is a second kind of bitachon that is even greater than the first. This is the bitachon of "open eyes." One who follows this path looks ahead and sees clearly that the future might entail great danger, that his life may be full of trials and tribulations. Nevertheless, he does not hesitate, relying on Hashem to help him deal with whatever the future will hold. This kind of bitachon is greater than the first, because someone who trusts in :Hashem with "open eyes" must elevate his bitachon to a much higher level in order to overcome his worries and quiet his concerns. However, as great as this second path is, it is fraught with danger. There is a strong possibility that instead of overcoming one's fears and worries, one will be vanquished by them. A "realistic" evaluation of the challenges could be so frightening as to cause one to lose his bitachon in Hashem altogether. Therefore, :although the bitachon of "open eyes" might be appropriate for certain great people, Hashem does not demand it of us. Hashem only requires us to have the bitachon of "closed eyes"; we need only trust that everything will turn out for the best, in accordance with His will, without considering what the future might hold. This is implied in the pasuk (Yeshayahu 12:2), 11) Behold the G-d of salvation; I shall trust in Him, and I will not fear. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 12:26:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 21:26:11 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Two Levels of Bitachon In-Reply-To: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <5589B2D3.5030908@zahav.net.il> I'm not sure what this is in reference to, the sin of the spies? What does it mean, to live ones life without worrying about the future? You trust in God so therefore you're calm (meaning you live your life the same way anyone else does, but you have inner peace)? Ben On 6/22/2015 11:32 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > We suggest the following explanation: Hashem demands bitachon of every > Jew - trust > in Hashem that everything will turn out for the best, without worrying > about > what the future might bring. Throughout the generations, devout Jews > have walked > this path. A person with bitachon ultimately will merit to see clearly > that, indeed, > "All that Hashem does is for the best." From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 14:34:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 17:34:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Two Levels of Bitachon In-Reply-To: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150623213434.GA30077@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 22, 2015 at 05:32:42PM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : The following is from Rav Schwab on Chumash Parshas Shelach. ... : There are two types of bitachon. The first is trusting in Hashem with "closed : eyes," with no speculation about what may develop. However, there is : a second kind : of bitachon that is even greater than the first. This is the : bitachon of "open eyes." : One who follows this path looks ahead and sees clearly that the : future might entail : great danger, that his life may be full of trials and tribulations. : Nevertheless, he : does not hesitate, relying on Hashem to help him deal with whatever : the future will : hold... I just want to point out that RSS here is assuming the descriptive bitachon of the CI, not the prescrictive bitachon of Novhardok (and many kiruv programs and religious fiction). The Alter of Novhardok taught that bitachon causes positive results. If you trust G-d enough, He will make things turn out the way you desire. And when you point out to said public speaker that indeed life doesn't work that way this idea gets modified into: Hashem will make things turn out the way you'll be happy with once you get to the end of the road. And while I'm being cynical about it, this is unassailable. If things don't yet have a happy ending, it just means the story isn't over yet. You can just push the long run out further and further until you find the happy outcome you promised. In Emunah uBitchon, the CI rejects this notion. He says that bitachon is belief that things are working out according to Divine Plan. A believe in how things run, not a belief that causes things to run right. Rather than the comfort of knowing that you'll like the results, one aims for the comfort that all of life's suffering has meaning and a purpose. RSS presumes the latter and appears to be saying that one can then take this trust in two different ways: - Since Hashem is driving, I don't need to bother looking out the windsheild, it will just stress me out for nothing. - Hashem and I are in partnership, so I cannot refrain from helping Him bring us to our destination, even when it involves heading for trials and tribulations. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is a stage and we are the actors, micha at aishdas.org but only some of us have the script. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Menachem Nissel Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 15:56:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Toby Katz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 18:56:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book Message-ID: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> I recently came across the issue of Jewish Action (the OU's quarterly magazine) of Fall 2000 and in that issue there was a remarkable article. It was a review of a two-volume book called *The Rav: The World of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik* by Rabbi Dr. Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff. The review article was written by R' Philip Weinberger. It was a very laudatory review, written by someone who admired and respected RYBS and who thought the book was excellent. It's important to note that he respected RYBS and admired the book, because when you see what I am going to quote from the review, you might think otherwise. But if you read the whole review you will clearly see that what looks like a negative to me is clearly seen as a positive by R' Weinberger. http://ou.org.s3.amazonaws.com/publications/ja/5761fall/BOOKS.PDF OK here goes -- the most interesting parts of the review (I have mostly dispensed with ellipses, which are distracting): --quote-- [The book] focused my attention on a paradox that confronts me every time a new book or article appears about the saintly Rabbi Soloveitchik, zt"l. In the latter part of the twentieth century, the Rav was one of the most outstanding rabbinic titans, teaching and leading the Jewish people. A master of communication, orally and in print, he left behind multitudes of devoted students and admirers who still hang on his every word. Yet the Rav seems to have left a legacy that is unclear and misunderstood, despite his gifted powers of communication. Among the numerous questions, debated passionately by those who represent themselves as knowing the Rav's authentic thinking, are: What was the Rav's view toward secular education; Torah u'Madda; new religious practices by women; reciting Hallel on Yom HaAtzma'ut; and Religious Zionism? There is a raging battle among his followers as to who may legitimately and authentically present the Rav's opinions, thoughts, ideas and teachings. How could so careful a teacher, who could literally spend hours at a time in shiurim defining with precision the meaning of a particular word or phrase, be misunderstood on so many basic and critical issues? The Rav himself, despite his best efforts, was misunderstood and misquoted in his lifetime by able people who presumably had the best of intentions. The Rav illustrates that he was misunderstood by journalists because of their lack of familiarity with the Rav's precise use of language and terminology, and because the Rav's thoughts, ideas and speech were extraordinarily nuanced, delicate, subtle and sophisticated. However, the book falls short, even on its own terms, in its failure to more deeply explore the complexity and nuances of the Rav's thoughts and insights that were influenced by the religious, existential, and personal tensions that the Rav experienced and talked about. Similarly, the book does not treat much of the controversy that sometimes surrounded the Rav in a meaningful way. There is no acknowledgment of how the Rav was inappropriately treated and often marginalized in the yeshivah universe because of his embracing secular studies and Religious Zionism (albeit in a disciplined and highly nuanced manner)... in a letter to Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Shragai, the Rav writes : "If I were to judge this matter (which party to associate with) based on pragmatic or political considerations, I would join the zealots who ask nothing of their members (not diligence in Torah study, not pure fear of Heaven, nor spending money on tzedakah, nor excessive care with regard to mitzvot) except to besmirch our movement. I could clothe myself with the mantle of a tzaddik and 'fighter of the Lord's battles.' " This and other letters to Rabbi Shragai show clearly what a man of principle the Rav was. ...Scholars and laymen alike are indebted to Rabbi Rakeffet for his vital work. --end quote-- Well, you can see why this review would interest me. Let's take a few points: [1] "The Rav seems to have left a legacy that is unclear and misunderstood, despite his gifted powers of communication." I would suggest that the end of the sentence is contradicted by the beginning of the sentence. The main thing that the Rav generally managed to communicate was that one could be a great Torah scholar and also be a brilliant intellectual in secular terms. This was not the text but the ur-text of much of what he wrote. I will add that he did this not for his own honor but for the honor of the Torah, which was often treated with contempt by mid-twentieth century Jews who were rapidly abandoning the Torah. But his opaque Germanic philosophical style of speaking and writing was by its very nature open to multiple interpretations, and could neither be summarized nor re-written in plain American English. [2] "Among the numerous questions, debated passionately by those who represent themselves as knowing the Rav's authentic thinking, are: What was the Rav's view toward secular education; Torah u'Madda; new religious practices by women; reciting Hallel on Yom HaAtzma'ut; and Religious Zionism?" I would have to say that this is a highly unusual thing to say of any gadol. Of which other gadol could it be said that after he taught and wrote for decades, no one could be sure what his position was on the most important issues of his day? [2A] "What was the Rav's view toward Religious Zionism?" and "his embracing Religious Zionism (albeit in a disciplined and highly nuanced manner)..." Those of us who have claimed (based admittedly, at times, on anecdotal evidence and oral reports) that RYBS was not really a Zionist have often been vilified. Yet here a great admirer of RYBS admits that his views were far from obvious, and subject to much disagreement even among his followers. That RYBS was a great lover of Eretz Yisrael -- of that there can be no doubt. That he really believed in the whole aschalta de'geulah ideology of RZ -- highly doubtful. The rest can be left for another time, or another book. [3] "How could so careful a teacher, who could literally spend hours at a time in shiurim defining with precision the meaning of a particular word or phrase, be misunderstood on so many basic and critical issues?" It may be that in a Gemara shiur, trying to define a word with great precision may lead to greater understanding, but out here in the larger world, such precise definitions tend to leave most people scratching their heads. Common everyday words lose their accepted, common meanings, and the many sentences used to define those words lead to greater obscurity rather than clarity. "When I use a word, it means precisely what I want it to mean." But his listeners or readers are often left in the dark. [4] "The Rav was misunderstood...because his thoughts, ideas and speech were extraordinarily nuanced, delicate, subtle and sophisticated." The impression left by all that subtlety and nuance is that he was trying to avoid saying anything controversial that could be quoted in a sound bite. [5] "There is no acknowledgment of how the Rav was inappropriately treated and often marginalized in the yeshivah universe" [6] "...the zealots who ask nothing of their members (not diligence in Torah study, not pure fear of Heaven, nor spending money on tzedakah, nor excessive care with regard to mitzvot) except to besmirch our movement. I could clothe myself with the mantle of a tzaddik and 'fighter of the Lord's battles...' " Maybe [6] at least partially explains [5]. Maybe the way he felt about them was reflected in the way they felt about him. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 17:52:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 00:52:25 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> References: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> Message-ID: Let's take a few points: [1] "The Rav seems to have left a legacy that is unclear and misunderstood, despite his gifted powers of communication." I would suggest that the end of the sentence is contradicted by the beginning of the sentence. [2] "Among the numerous questions, debated passionately by those who represent themselves as knowing the Rav's authentic thinking, are: What was the Rav's view toward secular education; Torah u'Madda; new religious practices by women; reciting Hallel on Yom HaAtzma'ut; and Religious Zionism?" [2A] "What was the Rav's view toward Religious Zionism?" and "his embracing Religious Zionism (albeit in a disciplined and highly nuanced manner)..." [3] "How could so careful a teacher, who could literally spend hours at a time in shiurim defining with precision the meaning of a particular word or phrase, be misunderstood on so many basic and critical issues?" [4] "The Rav was misunderstood...because his thoughts, ideas and speech were extraordinarily nuanced, delicate, subtle and sophisticated." The impression left by all that subtlety and nuance is that he was trying to avoid saying anything controversial that could be quoted in a sound bite. [5] "There is no acknowledgment of how the Rav was inappropriately treated and often marginalized in the yeshivah universe" [6] "...the zealots who ask nothing of their members (not diligence in Torah study, not pure fear of Heaven, nor spending money on tzedakah, nor excessive care with regard to mitzvot) except to besmirch our movement. I could clothe myself with the mantle of a tzaddik and 'fighter of the Lord's battles...' " Maybe [6] at least partially explains [5]. Maybe the way he felt about them was reflected in the way they felt about him. _______________________________________________ I remember reading the original review and being very surprised. [1]&[2]&[3] My general impression is that most of the lack of clarity and misunderstandings are on issues that have little to do with the style issue. I don't think many get concerned about whether Adam I and II ever resolve their dialectic . The main cause of misunderstandings imho can be generously stated as being caused by The Rav's being so sui generis that students could not assimilate the whole of his teachings. The less generous approach would be that some want to be toleh on an ilan gadol and project their own priorities and approaches on him. Could anyone who looked at his life as a whole have any doubt that he valued secular studies? That he was a non-messianic RZ lover of eretz Yisrael seems pretty clear. [4]Or how about the world is complex and our desire (btw very reflective of our host society) is to boil everything down to a sound bite goes against the educational need to understand how to look at complex issues [6]explaining [5] seems to me like the classic blaming the victim for "asking for it". I can only assume the fact that other roshei yeshiva didn't publically call for tolerance was that they did think he, and MO, was krum or they had higher priorities or didn't think their talmidim would listen to them. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 18:07:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 21:07:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: References: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> Message-ID: <20150624010730.GA18745@aishdas.org> Both Ishbitz and Chabad, Rushin and Satmar each beleive theirs is the most accurate understanding of Derekh haBhesh"t. Kelm, Novhardok and Slabodka have very different understandings of R Yisrael Salanter's teachings. RAYK's disagree over what their rebbe meant. Even Moshe Rabbeinu -- he had 70 front-row talmidim and ever since we have had 70 panim laTorah. Any gadol brilliant and subtle enough to be worth following will so outstrip his talmidim that each only grasps onto one facet and interpretation of a more complex original. This is far from unique to RYBS. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you're going through hell micha at aishdas.org keep going. http://www.aishdas.org - Winston Churchill Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 19:01:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 22:01:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: <20150624010730.GA18745@aishdas.org> References: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> <20150624010730.GA18745@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <558A0F65.7090501@sero.name> On 06/23/2015 09:07 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Both Ishbitz and Chabad, Rushin and Satmar each beleive theirs is the > most accurate understanding of Derekh haBhesh"t. Satmar doesn't believe this; rather, it believes that the BSh"T's torah has been lost. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 19:21:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 22:21:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kol Isha Twist Message-ID: <558A1421.3060009@gmail.com> See http://www.kikar.co.il/174128.html or http://www.totpi.com/2/ultra-orthodox-woman-performs-incognito-on-the-x-factor/ It's an interesting loophole: Since kol b'isha erva only applies when you know what a woman looks like, the heavy sunglasses and very modest dress may do the trick. Not middas chassidus, but perhaps on a technicality permitted. KT, YGB -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 07:35:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 10:35:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kol Isha Twist In-Reply-To: <558A1421.3060009@gmail.com> References: <558A1421.3060009@gmail.com> Message-ID: <558AC044.2010107@sero.name> On 06/23/2015 10:21 PM, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah wrote: > > It's an interesting loophole: Since kol b'isha erva only applies when > you know what a woman looks like, the heavy sunglasses and very > modest dress may do the trick. Not middas chassidus, but perhaps on a > technicality permitted. I don't see anything in the two linked articles about such a loophole. And I don't think it would work. Surely you can see enough of her to form some idea, perhaps mistaken, but enough for the yetzer hara to work with. I think the true heter for what she's doing is a lot simpler: she is not machshil anyone, because whoever is watching the show is already seeing and hearing enough women sing that one more makes no difference at all. If she didn't sing, then in all likelihood another woman would do so, wearing much less and acting more provocatively; or else a man would be giving some provocative performance that would be almost as bad. So really what has she done wrong? Those who don't normally watch should continue not to watch, and they won't be affected. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 08:33:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kaganoff via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 11:33:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating Message-ID: I am curious if anyone has written about a common practice. We assume that *Kaddish* is a *Devar she-Bikdusha* and requires a *minyan* to be recited. We require separate seating for a *Devar she-Bikdusha.* In many circles it is not uncommon to have a *siyyum* with a *kaddish *at a Bar Mitzvah or a Dinner even when there is mixed seating. Does anyone explicitly discuss this practice and permit it? Yonatan Kaganoff -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 11:38:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 14:38:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150624183849.GA2711@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 11:33:54AM -0400, Kaganoff via Avodah wrote: : We require separate seating for a *Devar she-Bikdusha.* This is news to me. Do those who say that zimmun with a minyan is a davar shebiqdushah (BY OC 199 "umah shekasav", MB s"q 15) require separate seating at my shabbos table? The AhS (200:6) refers to zimun with 10 as "shekhinta sharia", but I didn't see him mention minyan or davar shebiqdushah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 11:52:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 14:52:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating Message-ID: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> From: Kaganoff via Avodah We assume that *Kaddish* is a *Devar she-Bikdusha* and requires a *minyan* to be recited. We require separate seating for a *Devar she-Bikdusha.* In many circles it is not uncommon to have a *siyyum* with a *kaddish *at a Bar Mitzvah or a Dinner even when there is mixed seating. Does anyone explicitly discuss this practice and permit it? Yonatan Kaganoff >>>> You see something similar when people make an ad hoc minyan at a wedding (or an airport lounge). They don't put up a mechitza. Is this situation explicitly discussed in the halachic literature? It must be. Maybe what applies to one also applies to the other. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 12:32:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 15:32:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating In-Reply-To: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> References: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> Message-ID: <20150624193208.GA22316@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 2:52pm EDT, RnTK wrote: : From: Kaganoff via Avodah :> We assume that Kaddish is a Devar she-Bikdusha and requires a minyan :> to be recited. :> We require separate seating for a Devar she-Bikdusha. : You see something similar when people make an ad hoc minyan at a wedding : (or an airport lounge). They don't put up a mechitza... Slight topic change. You can have separate seating (or locations in general) without a mechitzah. I believe that minyanim were held at the kotel even when the Ottomans didn't let us put up a mechitzah by separating the genders even without one. I see R YH Henkin (Responsa on Contemporary Jewish Women's Issues, pg 124 ) rejects the hava amina that mechitzah is only for an established shul. He requires a mechitzah, not just separate seating at a temporary location for davening. While a minyan is there, the laws of mara miqdash apply. I do not whether he would advised the yishuv hayashan not to daven at the kotel. Tir'u baTov! -Micha Cc: RYHH -- Micha Berger The trick is learning to be passionate in one's micha at aishdas.org ideals, but compassionate to one's peers. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 12:21:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 19:21:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating In-Reply-To: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> References: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> Message-ID: <9d095a46ac044dd88d591c13b05195d1@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Yonatan Kaganoff >>>> You see something similar when people make an ad hoc minyan at a wedding (or an airport lounge). They don't put up a mechitza. Is this situation explicitly discussed in the halachic literature? It must be. Maybe what applies to one also applies to the other. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=922&st=&pgnum=66 where R' Moshe deals with the Mechitza issue but still requires that there not be intermingling. That's the part I'm unsure of. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 16:34:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 19:34:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safeik and Multivalent Logic In-Reply-To: <20150615210040.GA17358@aishdas.org> References: <20150615210040.GA17358@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150624233428.GA29242@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 15, 2015 at 05:00:40PM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : Back on Fri, 14 May 2004 10:45am EST (yes, 11 years ago) I wrote : on the thread : "Valid halachic change" I wrote: :> I was at a yarchei ... kallah during Elul in Boston where RYBS... :> An esrog that was used for the mitzvah is qadosh and assur behana'ah :> that entire day. And since it's qadosh bein hashemashos, it's gadosh :> part of the next day and therefore assur behan'ah the entire next day. ... :> Rov is a non-boolean state, something between yes and no. Therefore, :> it does not apply after we've taken the question from the realm of :> machshavah to that of ma'aseh. : I'm repeating all this because, once again, AhS Yomi showed me that : something I thought I understood was more complicated than I realized. : AhS OC 638:5 distinguishes between muqtza machmas : mitzvah and other forms of muqtza when it comes to migo de'isqatzei bein : hashemashos, isqatza'ei lekhulei yoma. : And so, sukkah and its decorations (the topic of OC 688) are muqtzah the : following day. But beitzah shenoledah beYT rishon is not muqtzah on the : next day. More info at AhS OC 667:1, which distinguishes between sukkah and 4 minim on Shemini Atzeres. Because sukkah would actually be used bein hashmeshos between the 7th day Sukkos and SA (speaking of EY now), a sukkah and its decorations are muqtzah on SA. The esrog, because the mitzvah would habe been done before BhS either way, is not. It would seem the point in 638:5 appears not to be that mutzah machamas mitzvah is special, but because the mitzvah would still apply BhS. : Thoughts, anyone? Still looking for other perspectives! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 25 02:54:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 09:54:58 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book Message-ID: <20150625.055458.3550.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Even Moshe Rabbeinu -- he had 70 front-row talmidim and ever since > we have had 70 panim laTorah. > > Any gadol brilliant and subtle enough to be worth following will > so outstrip his talmidim that each only grasps onto one facet and > interpretation of a more complex original. > > This is far from unique to RYBS. Here's my guess about what made RYBS unique in this regard: On the one hand, he did have his opinions about many things. But that was NOT what he tried to pass on to his talmidim. In fact, he is famous for NOT answering many of the questions posed to him. What RYBS wanted was for his talmidim to be able to decide for themselves. He never wanted to teach his talmidim WHAT to think, but HOW to think. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Buffett???s Warning for YOU 4 in 5 Americans aren???t taking his shocking advice. Click here now. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/558bd00ca32f7500c77efst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 25 08:10:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 11:10:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: <20150625.055458.3550.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150625.055458.3550.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150625151002.GD10708@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 25, 2015 at 09:54:58AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: :> This is far from unique to RYBS. : Here's my guess about what made RYBS unique in this regard: On the : one hand, he did have his opinions about many things. But that was NOT : what he tried to pass on to his talmidim. In fact, he is famous for NOT : answering many of the questions posed to him. What RYBS wanted was for : his talmidim to be able to decide for themselves. He never wanted to : teach his talmidim WHAT to think, but HOW to think. I realize that this is about to get meta, because I'm about to disagree with RAM about RYBS's position and why people disagree about what it was. I thin this is overplayed. Yes, he pushed fledgling rabbis to assert themselves as LOR and not defer every halachic question. But he didn't do this with every talmid, nor with every question. I think people are taking a pedagogic technique used for talmidim to scared to pasqen and turning it into a principle. Im kein ein ladavar sof, and there is no way to say he took positions for anyone but himself and his mispalelim in Boston and Moriah. No Qol Dodi Dofeiq promoting Zionism, no attack on RERackman's beis din, etc... And besides, we aren't talking about whether his talmidim vary, but why the talmidim's understandings of the rebbe's position varied. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Never must we think that the Jewish element micha at aishdas.org in us could exist without the human element http://www.aishdas.org or vice versa. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 25 08:56:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 15:56:25 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Hakarat Hatov Message-ID: Does Hakarat Hatov engender a measurable "liability" (e.g. require a marginally greater action) between the recipient and the provider of the "Tov", or is saying "Thank you, I appreciate it" the only requirement? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 26 01:19:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2015 11:19:39 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book Message-ID: <> In addition like many others RYBS gave different answers to different people depending on the person and circumstances. As a simple example he encouraged his talmidim to move to EY but told some to stay in the US. Also RYBS was big believer in everyone making their own decisions and not simply doing what they were told. Hence, he avoided certain statements so that his talmidim would make up their own minds. It is well known that all the children of RYBS got a PhD. Even his nephew R Meiselman the most charedi in the family received this degree from MIT. Nevertheless he never publically stressed this idea probably because he felt it was a very individual decision -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 27 19:37:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2015 22:37:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government Message-ID: Gut voch to all, What alternative texts exist for the tefillah l'shlom malchus? I have heard that other versions exist, perhaps more suited for a Republic than is "Hanosen teshua la-melachim", but the only version I could find comes from a Conservative source -- putting me in the same situation as R' Eliezer ben Hyrcanus upon hearing a good "vort" in the name of Ben Pandera. Can anyone point me to appropriate sources? --Chesky Salomon From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 27 20:29:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2015 23:29:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: An hour or so ago, I wrote: > What alternative texts exist for the tefillah l'shlom malchus? I remember this topic coming up in the past, though I have not been successful in searching the archives for it. I did find an article by Dr Jonathan Sarna, "A Forgotten 19th-Century Prayer for the United States Government: Its Meaning, Significance, and Surprising Author" [1] which pointed to the "Orthodox prayerbook for American Jews entitled Tefilot Yisra'el. Prayers of Israel. with an English Translation." The variant text Sarna discusses, "Ribbon kol ha-olamim", can be seen at -- but he makes the case that the prayer's author was Rabbi Max Lilienthal, leaving me in the same position as before. (As a side note: I recall one of the J-blogs mentioning a Tefillah for the State written for 1930s Germany under the Nazi government, but I cannot find the post again. Any help?) --Chesky Salomon [1]: http://www.brandeis.edu/hornstein/sarna/americanjewishcultureandscholarship/Archive3/AForgottenNineteenthCenturyPrayerfortheUnitedStatesGovenment.pdf From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 29 05:29:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mordechai Harris via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2015 07:29:07 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Here's the one I shard last time from the De Sola Pool Siddur. -Mordechai - Please excuse typos as this was sent from my cell phone. On Jun 28, 2015 2:59 PM, "Chesky Salomon via Avodah" wrote: > An hour or so ago, I wrote: >> What alternative texts exist for the tefillah l'shlom malchus? > I remember this topic coming up in the past, though I have not been > successful in searching the archives for it... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 29 15:15:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 01:15:23 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jun 29, 2015 at 3:29 PM, Mordechai Harris via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > Here's the one I shard last time from the De Sola Pool Siddur. > > Can you also share the publication details and/or title page of this siddur? What I know as the De Sola Pool Siddur is not the same as in this link. I have the second edition of 1977, and the title page says: BOOK OF PRAYER ACCORDING TO THE CUSTOM OF THE SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE JEWS Edited and translated by DAVID DE SOLA POOL Minister of the Congregation Shearith Israel in the City of New York PUBLISHED BY THE UNION OF SEPHARDIC CONGREGATIONS NEW YORK The prayer for the government begins with the usual "Hanoten teshu`a lamelachim" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 11:55:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Arie Folger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 20:55:34 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government Message-ID: Someone asked about alternate texts of the prayer for the government, more attuned to democracies. I have adapted the classic hanoten teshuah lamelakhim for the US, with variant readings for Canada, for inclusion in the still forthcoming new revised RCA Siddur. Send me a message through my web site (see the sig) and I will gladly share that text with you. -- Yours sincerely, Mit freundlichen Gr??en, Arie Folger blogging at http://www.rabbifolger.net/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 10:22:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Baruch Cohen via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 10:22:13 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] BIRCHAT KOHANIM AT THE KOTEL Message-ID: I plan on being in Israel for Sukkot, and hope to be at the Kotel for Birchat Kohanim. I usually daven early every morning, and the Birchat Kohanim occurs later in the morning. My question is: do I have a Chiyuv to "duchen" if I'm in the audience and the Shaliach Tzibbur announces on the loudspeaker the word: "Kohanim!" Does that trigger a halachic obligation for me to duchen, even if I am in the audience, in the back of the crowd? -- Respectfully, Baruch C. Cohen, Esq. e-mail: BCC4929 at gmail.com LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/baruchcohen From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 12:06:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 15:06:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] BIRCHAT KOHANIM AT THE KOTEL In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5592E8B9.5020201@sero.name> On 06/30/2015 01:22 PM, Baruch Cohen via Avodah wrote: > I usually daven early every morning, and the Birchat > Kohanim occurs later in the morning. My question is: do I have a Chiyuv to > "duchen" if I'm in the audience and the Shaliach Tzibbur announces on the > loudspeaker the word: "Kohanim!" Does that trigger a halachic obligation > for me to duchen No. If you have already duchened that day, you have no further chiyuv, even if you hear the chazan, and even if someone directly tells you to go up. However if you *choose* to duchen for a second (or third, etc) time that day, you may do so with a bracha. (SA OC 128:3) [Email #2. -micha] PS: This applies also in an ordinary shul where they duchen at shachris and musaf. Any cohen who duchened at shachris, and doesn't feel like doing it again at musaf, needn't leave the room. He has no obligation to answer the chazan's call. But those who do answer it duchen with a bracha, because that is takanas chachamim. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 12:26:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 19:26:26 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish Yasom Message-ID: <20150630.152626.19374.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> What is the rule for when we do or do not say Kaddish Yasom (Mourner's Kaddish)? >From what I've seen, it is NOT said even if a minyan says Birkas Hamazon, but it IS said when a minyan says Kiddush Levana. It is NOT said when a minyan says Tehillim even as an organized group, but it IS said on Yom Tov after the Megilla (Shir Hashirim, Rus, Koheles) is read. I do not see any pattern. Does anyone else know of a rule? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5592ed93bb00b6d93482cst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 15:03:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 18:03:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish Yasom In-Reply-To: <20150630.152626.19374.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150630.152626.19374.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5593124A.2040905@sero.name> On 06/30/2015 03:26 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > What is the rule for when we do or do not say Kaddish Yasom (Mourner's Kaddish)? > >>From what I've seen, it is NOT said even if a minyan says Birkas Hamazon, Why would it? > but it IS said when a minyan says Kiddush Levana. Probably because people are used to saying it after Alenu. > It is NOT said when a minyan says Tehillim even as an organized group, Where have you seen it not being said then? I'm surprised that this is your experience. > but it IS said on Yom Tov after the Megilla (Shir Hashirim, Rus, Koheles) is read. Yes, that is my experience as well. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 03:47:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 13:47:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] 13th century zeal Message-ID: I found the following story from R Kaganoff interesting not only for the halachic portion but also to show that community fights are not new The question regarding recital of *mei'ein sheva* when *Yom Tov* falls on Friday resulted in a very heated dispute during the era of the Rishonim. In the time of the *Rivash*, Rabbi Amram ben Meroam, a frequent correspondent of the *Rivash*, wrote him the following *shaylah*: Reuven was the *chazzan* for the Friday night *davening *on a *Shabbos* that immediately followed *Yom Tov*. He began reciting *mei'ein sheva*, when Shimon reprimanded him, contending that one should not recite this *bracha* when *Shabbos* follows *Yom Tov* -- since no one was working on Friday, the reason for the *takkanah* did not apply. Levi then got involved, saying that it is accepted that one *does* recite *mei'ein sheva*on Friday night following a *Yom Tov*. The *shul* then burst into a cacophony of voices, with Shimon's and Reuven's backers screaming at one another. Finally, Shimon shouted that Reuven was desecrating*Hashem's *holy Name, since he was willing to recite a *bracha* in vain, and that if he did, Shimon would declare him to be in *cherem*, excommunicated! Reuven did recite the *bracha mei'ein sheva,* and a day later, opened his door to find Shimon and twenty of his backers there to notify him that he had been excommunicated! The Rivash* was asked to rule whether Reuven was indeed in *cherem* because of Shimon's declaration that he recited a *bracha* in vain, or, perhaps, Shimon should be placed in *cherem* for excommunicating someone without proper cause. The *Rivash* ruled that Shimon was mistaken, and that one should recite *mei'ein sheva* when *Shabbos* follows *Yom Tov*. Therefore, he concluded that Reuven, who followed the correct *halachah*, could completely ignore the *cherem* placed on him. However, he also concluded that since Shimon thought he was acting correctly, we do not excommunicate Shimon for his actions (*Shut HaRivash* #34). -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 06:54:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 13:54:19 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos Message-ID: <20150401.095419.16600.0@webmail12.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitzchok Levine wrote: > Does not the SA say that a person who has trouble chewing > matzah can soak it in water and then eat it? If so, then > I fail to see why eating gebrokts should be a problem for > anyone. The answer will depend on what you mean by "SA". If "SA" refers specifically to the author of the Shulchan Aruch, Rav Yosef Karo, then the answer is that he is not the last word in halacha. There are other authorities, and someone who follows the others could have a problem even with something that the SA allows. If "SA" refers to the Shulchan Aruch in general, then I do not understand your question, since the problem of gebrokts *IS* mentioned by authorities other than Rav Karo. If I'm not mistaken, the Shaarei Teshuva (which is in the printed editions of Mishne Brurah) is a good example. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 11:05:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 14:05:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> I repeated on Areivim RSM's deduction that yayin kal is closest to the alcohol level of chazal's wine. On Wed, Apr 1, 2015 at 9:39am PDT, R Saul Newman wrote to Areivim: > interesting, when seeing in ktubot abaye's widow describing the size of > his wine vessel. by that Percentage, it wouldnt be toxic... Here's RSM's science, and it seems impeccable: By natural means, no alcoholic beverage can get above 12% -- at that level the yeast drowns in its own output. That's why beer and wine tend to be 12%. We can tweak that up to 16% with specially bred yeast, and/or control of temperature and humidity -- not options in Chazal's day. (Higher alcohol drinks are made by distilling out the alcohol from the original 12% liquid.) To add my 2 pence: Their barrels weren't perfect, which means there was more evaporation. But since alcohol evaporates faster than water, that will only lower the percentage alcohol. So we're still at about 12% max. RSM's original line of reasoning, continues: Mezigas hakos is typically at least 1:3, or 25% wine. So, the final product would be at most 3%. A third penny: Now let's discuss how big a revi'is was back then... But even without that, I have no idea how any of them would have gotten anywhere near drunk. Why would R' Yonah have a headache until shavu'os off some 16 oz total of 3% wine? Do we have to assume it was the alcohol? Maybe he was a later owner of Abayei's kos... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Mussar is like oil put in water, micha at aishdas.org eventually it will rise to the top. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 12:08:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 01 Apr 2015 15:08:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> On 04/01/2015 02:05 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Now let's discuss how big a revi'is was back then... But even without > that, I have no idea how any of them would have gotten anywhere near > drunk. Why would R' Yonah have a headache until shavu'os off some 16 oz > total of 3% wine? Do we have to assume it was the alcohol? Maybe he was > a later owner of Abayei's kos... I don't think it's at all plausible that it was the alcohol. I have long assumed that he had some sort of allergy or intolerance for some component of grapes or grape skins, or perhaps for the sulfites with which wine was (and is still) preserved. It's well known that there are people today who get headaches from sulfites. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 12:25:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mordechai Harris via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 14:25:38 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> Message-ID: There is a lot of info here: http://seforim.blogspot.com/2012/10/wine-strength-and-dilution.html Chag Kasher v'Samayach< Mordechai -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 12:30:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 22:30:53 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: There recently appeared a sefer "Keren Zavit" by Nadav Shenrav on parshat hashavua that has a very nice combination of science and Torah. On parshat Tzav he brings a question on the shitah of the Nodah BeYuhuda that eggs doubled in size. The Noda Beyehuda claims that there is a contradiction between two sugyot that find measurements based on either the size of the egg or from length (or volume) measurements. To answer the contradiction the Nodah Beyehuda assumes that our eggs are half the size of those in the days of chazal. (Actually modern eggs are larger than those in his day) The basic point is that in order to translate the measurements of chazal to modern measurements we need a fixed point, ie some measurement that has not changed over the generations. If everything can change we have only relative measurements and not absolute measurements. The Nodah BeYehuda assumes that the width of the thumb is constant. Question: Rambam (maaseh hakorbanot 13:14) states the kemitzah which cinsists of 3 fingers closed over the palm contains 2 kezatim. However 2 kezaytim of 50cc (ie 100cc) is impossible to enclose within 3 fingers. He brings that he saw this question in a series "Bet Aharon VeYisrael" and they answered "nishtanu hateva" i.e. their hands were bigger and could hold 100c of flour within 3 fingers. (In general the author is not impressed with the answer of "nishtane hateva" but he assumes it for this article). However, this leads to an internal contradiction, ie Noda Beyehuda assumes that the size of the thumb has not changed but is required to assume that the size of the hand was much larger in the days of chazal ie how is it possible that their hands were MUCH larger but the width of the thumb remained constant. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 14:11:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 17:11:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150401211129.GA23585@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 01, 2015 at 10:30:53PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : There recently appeared a sefer "Keren Zavit" by Nadav Shenrav on parshat : hashavua that has a very nice combination of science and Torah. : : On parshat Tzav he brings a question on the shitah of the Nodah BeYuhuda : that eggs doubled in size. AISI, there are three distinct questions that generally get lumped together in the annual kezayis discussion: 1- Is "kezayis" a constant volume, or is it pinned to the average olive, or perhaps the average among some subset of breeds of olive as breeding, care and climate change? R' Chaim Volozhiner and the Avnei Neizer say the latter. You might remember my post from last Jan at. . The AhS OC 363:34 says that lehalakhah an ammah is the person involved's forearm. E.g. when measuring 4 amos for tiltul, the din is more chamur for me than for taller people. When coming to mavui or techum, where you need a single pesaq for a whole town, you need a standardized ammah, "ameru chakhamim denimdod lechumerah" it's the length of the arm of some very high percentile of the people relying on it (and possibly 100%) -- "debevadei yeish anashim shezehu midasan". (Also, when dealing with someone with a handicap or amputation, you need to use estimates.) To me this seems to feed RCV's approach. Because both assume that measurements are not absolute, but based on the set of whatevers involved. For example, the AhS's position about the standard ammah would imply that a community that is atypically tall would use a longer ammah for techum than in a ghettod population whose malnutrition stunted their typical growth. 2- If kezayis is a constant volume, do all the accepted overestimates performed and accumulated one atop the other unwind when we have more information about chazal's zeisim? Or do we say that the bottom of the range of measurments that dominate common pratice in one's qehillah is binding as pesaq, and one can't just ignore the now huge safety margin? This is what I argued here when RNS's paper came out http://www.zootorah.org/RationalistJudaism/TheEvolutionOfTtheOlive.pdf (And if so, is that extra amount considered as deOraisa as the original olive volume, because it's a pesaq in a din deOraisa? Or is it a harchaqah, and thus derabban? 3- The actual specifics 3a- If the answe to #2 is that we do roll back the kezayis based on better information about what it was, the metzi'us specifics can still be argued. Such as asking (as I did in passing in #1) which subset of olives to average. 3b- And if the answer is that we don't, then there are halachic process details to ask about. But I think many discussions, including our own previous years' iterations, stuble because they blur these topics rather than keeping them separate, which in turn would force dealing with them in the sequence I gave as well. (Because #2 depends on one kind of answer to #1, and #3 has different flavors depending on #2.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 13:36:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 16:36:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Yaknehaz [was: The Quinoa - Kitniyos Conundrum] Message-ID: In a message dated 4/1/2015 6:28:31 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, micha at aishdas.org writes: On Wed, Apr 01, 2015 at 12:03am EDT, RnTK wrote: : It was the norm in my parental home and is what my husband does too. : In fact I have never seen anyone use a regular havdala candle at a seder! : (Or a single wick candle without joining it to another candle or to a match.) A local yeshiva qetana sells two-wick candles that otherwise look like Shabbos candles as a fundraiser. This way you don't have a fire lasting as long as whatever is left on your havdalah candle, and the whole problem is avoided. >>>>> I wasn't really clear. What my parents used to do (and we do similarly) was to take one Shabbos candle ot of the candlestick and hold its flame close to another Shabbos candle for the bracha, and then put it back in the candlestick it came out of. IOW we use the candles that are already burning on the table anyway. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 14:36:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 17:36:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] partnership - adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties Message-ID: partnership - adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties In describing why person would fast all Passover over and above Jewish Law Practice, you used the words "emotional attachment". In the seven years since that wording , perhaps the message is deeper. Salamone Rossi the Jewish Italian composer, became a hero of the assimilationist movement. See AJS Review volume 26 #1 where where a series of books by one Don Harran re Rossi is reviewed. Twice in Adon Olam, the series of fast phrases of excitement called Tritum or whatever is used twice ??? ???? ??? ???? ???? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ?_?? ??? ????? ???? ???? ... ???? ????? ???? ???? ?????? - ??? ???? ? ???? ???? ????? ??? ?? ?????? - ????? ?? ???? ??? ??? ????? - ??? ????? - ????? ???? - ???? ???? ??? ???? ???? ??? ???? ??????? - ???? ????? ????? ??? - ???? ?? ????? ??? ????? - ????? ????? ???? ?? ????? - ??? ???? ??? ???? ???? ?????? ????? ??? ????? - ?? - ???? ?_?? ??? ????? ???? ???? ... ?????? ?? ?? ??? ???? ??? ??? ?? ???? ???? - ??? ???? ?? ????? ?????? ... ?? ?? ???? ?? GLOOMY THOUGHT NEGATIVE CHARACTERIZATION The reviewer - a music professor at Northeastern U in Boston MA - illustrates that limitless exhaustive research did not turn up for M. Harran the fact that in the surrounding milieu which Mr. Rossi is immersed in - these patterns aare reserved for ttheir Trinity.. Lhavdil elef havdalot. Rossi as a Jew with beating Jewish Heart - in Adon Olam his famous composition - when it came to Our God - he proudly used the pattern of the ecstasy of the Tritium (apologies of not being able to look up - will scan and send but each moment I am in danger of interrruption - ) . Why Yeihareig ? Why not float with the waves? Answer - because it is identity of Jew - visceral reaction necessary! taht is Key! Common motif of Piyut - ?????? ????? ?????? ????? - countering their attempted invasion and depriving us of identity - the desperation of drowning brings us to keep our identity- baby will starve self to reserve independence - if it is deprived from baby Not in complete normal routine vassalry to Hashem. But it is the assertion of identity. Sneh Boeir - Papers of Adoption - of formation of Partnership - not the bylaws which may never be read - but the primary identity of Hasheem as responsible party specifically to act as parent re MY CHILD - thsi is basic bedrock Jew - as Rashi certainly subscribed, and rashbam, and likely R' Yonah even Ramban. For my money - when functioning as Jewish Natnion member - the Rambam himself, codifier of the Doctrinal Jew. Back to subject after rant - A JS Reviewer - just like they show reverence for their Hero - we show reverence for our Hero - One God - that the reviewer explained for the first - ??? ???? ??? ???? ???? ?????? What of second threesome - look in Tur for Ecstasy - OC 5 - ???? ?_?? ??? ????? ???? ???? takif..???? ??? ?????? ??? ????? ???? - ???? ?? ???? ??? ??? ????? ??? - ???? ?? ???? - ??? ???? ???? ?? - ??? ???? - ???? ???? - ??? ???? ??? ??? ???? ??????? ?? ??? - ??? ???? ?? ???? ???? ??? ????? ???? ???? - ?? ?? ??? ?? ???? ???? ?????? ???? ???? - ?? ?????? - ??? ?????? ????? ?????? ???? - ???? ???? ?? ??? ?? - ???? ??? ????? ????? ????? - ??? ??? ????? - ?????? ????? ????? ??? ????? - ?? ??? ??? ???? - ?? ??? ??? ????? - ??? ????? - ???? ?????? ?????? - ???? ???? ?????? ????? ?? ?? - ??? ?? ????? ??? ???? ????? ???? ????? ???? ????? ?????? 148-155 - ?_?_?_? ??? ?? - ????? ???? 148 ???? ???? ?????? - ?? ?????? - ??? ???? ??? ???? ?? ?????? - ??? ????? ????? ????? - ?? ??? ??? ???? ???? ?? ????? =- ??? ???????? ?????? ????? ????? - ?? ???? - ????? - ?????? - ???? ???? - ??? ??? ????? - ??? ??? ?? ????? - ????? ??? ??? ?????? - ??? ????? - ????? ??? ?????? ?????? - ???? ???? ?? ??????? ????? ??? - ????? - ???? ?????? ???? ??? ????? ?????? ???? ????? ??????? ????? ?? - ??? ???? ?????? ???? ??"? - ??? ????? ???? ???? ???? ??? ????? ??? ?? ???? - ???? ?? ??? ?? ???? ???-????? ?? ????? ?? ?? ?????? - ??? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ?? ??????? - EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT IS ZILZUL IN A COVENANT ???? ?????? ?? ??? ???? - ??? ??? ??? ? ?? ????? ????? ??? ?????? ??! ???? ????? - ?? ????? ???? ??? ???? ?? ???? ????? ??? ????? ????? - ?? ??? ??? ???? ????? ?? ??? -- David Wacholder Cell: 917-742-7838 Email: dwacholder at gmail.com dwacholder at optonline.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 18:24:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 12:24:45 +1100 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice Message-ID: Wine in those days was frequently (typically?) flavored with resins or spices, some of which are actually toxic. These resins seem to have had the same effect as hops do in beer: they discourage microbial growth and therefore prevent it from souring and spoiling. This was an important consideration before the invention of Pasteurisation. If R' Yonah was allergic or otherwise sensitive to these resins he may have ascribed his symptoms to the wine itself. Alternatively, perhapshe simply didn't have access to any untreated wine and perhaps he didn't consider raisin "wine" to be chashuv enough. Joe Slater -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 18:27:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 12:27:16 +1100 Subject: [Avodah] Yaknehaz [was: The Quinoa - Kitniyos Conundrum] Message-ID: Another data point: I asked my father O'H about this and he said he'd never heard of anyone using a Havdala candle for YAKNEHAZ, or even joining two flames together. He came from central Hungary, and his rabbi was a great-nephew of Maharam Schick. Joe Slater -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 20:32:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 01 Apr 2015 23:32:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> Message-ID: <551CB836.5040609@sero.name> On 04/01/2015 03:25 PM, Mordechai Harris wrote: > There is a lot of info here: http://seforim.blogspot.com/2012/10/wine-strength-and-dilution.html It is interesting, but I think the author may have made a simple mistake in assuming that when Rashi says their wines were "stronger" than ours, he meant "more alcoholic". That may be what he meant, in which case he was mistaken, but it seems to me that he may have meant "strong tasting", or to put it more bluntly, "sour". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 02:18:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 12:18:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kitniyot Message-ID: see a discussion at http://etzion.org.il/en/pesach-journal by Rav Brosky -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 07:53:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 02 Apr 2015 10:53:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Historic Practice Passover Offering Message-ID: <20150402145402.230A3183730@nexus.stevens.edu> See the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kgbRusmqjs A FILM OF THE PRACTICE PASSOVER OFFERING THE TEMPLE INSTITUTE CONDUCTS UNPRECEDENTED PASSOVER OFFERING PRACTICE DRILL As reported earlier, in preparation for the upcoming festival of Passover, this past Wednesday (5 Nisan - 25 March) the 'Priestly Training Academy' established by the Temple Institute held a Passover offering practice drill. This is a film that documents this event. This was the most accurate and authentic reenactment of this service to have taken place in nearly 2,000 years. ---------- It looks to me that they used machine matzos in this video. If I am correct, then I find this bizarre. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 13:36:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 16:36:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: How many swallows of Matzo are necessary? How many olive tree generations to Calendar Year Tohu and Gan Eden? The following came up last year: FEARLESS RULING FOR PERSON WITH DIFFICULTY EATING: Every average person's swallow is a Kezayit, the amount which fulfils the Mitzvah and is the measure for the Bracha on Achilas Matza. As a Hidur and to erase all doubt, a second normal swallow would be good. That is for Motzi-Matzah, where the first olive-size swallowed fulfils a Torah obligation. Additional for Afikoman one swallow is certainly enough. For a person struggling to eat, try to eat at least a taste. Any more than that is for those who tolerate Matzo well. I look at how much a person can swallow - one swallow. That would measure a Kezayit. 100% the person has fulfilled the Mitzvah after one swallow. For margin of error issues, add another second swallow. For those with difficulty eating, one may then stop. For Afikoman the one swallow is sufficient. This needs no authority to base it on. Chazon Ish gave his asembled family pieces about the size of his palm , as described by qualified dedicated observer in Orchos Rabeinu. Traditions vary. Some quoted Rav Chaim Valozhiner as saying - the size of an olive is an olive is an olive. Another tradition said one must use an egg-size as a base unit. On Atkins Low-Carb Diet, daily consumption was - for starting extreme levels - 30 grams per day - about an ounce. I cut the piece of Challah, which by volume probably was an olive, but the air pockets should have been counted, so the person could say Birkas Hamazon for themselves. Someone else was Motzi the dieter in Birkat Hamazon. Air pockets and weight issue The swallow size may be according the the air pockets normally contained in Matzo, not ground, and according to volume not weight. VOLUME NOT WEIGHT By weight, comparable amount of Chareidim Boro Park 5774 MATZOS weighed perhaps 7 grams compared to perhaps 30 grams of a heavy brand of Hand Matzo. Using volume measures as weight measures creates significant errors. The person had been using 30 grams of WEIGHT as the Standard, not 30 grams of volume. It was a reasonably filled sandwich bag. Also Matzo can absorb moisture from the air making it heavier, can be freshened in the oven, which will make it weigh less. Volume remains the same. Weighing your Matza introduces a major error factor. SHEKEIN NEHENEH According to Rav Elchanan Wasserman, even a non-believer fulfils the Mitzvah, Shekein Neheneh. I have doubts if Kavana Hafucha would even work. I certainly think a person should not have Kavana Hafucha in the sense of - only be Yotzei when Measurement X is reached. NOT THE AMOUNT TO FILL THE CHEEK This is neither cheekful nor yet a mouthful. Observe how your neighbor swallows his food eating calmly. [DW comment - this is a normal comfortable swallow, not a contestant requiring for safety a Hatzala person or Heimlich Maneuver needed to monitor. This is not a Superman-Swallower who attempts to swallow the size of all olives ever eaten, whose face turns red but comes out OK after a KAPITAL TEHILIM. That is Achila Shelo K'darkah, and certainly is not optimum. That eliminates the Double and Exponential/Logarithmic olives from consideration for a single swallow. Never swallow more than a comfortable amount. SUKKOT No custom requires swallowing all at once in the Sukkah. Others require an Egg Plus size. ARUCH HASHULCHAN Aruch Hashulchan functioned as a review of the other Poskim in Orach Chaim. He pointedly does not double the Kezayit. MISHNA BRURAH - to my reading - says the same. Indeed I grant the MB does not totally negate a double-size as having precedent. MY HANDWIDTHS On a flat table, I measured my keyboard's width two different ways. first, using all ten fingers flat on table, it was 4 hands wide. With thumbs in air and only the eight fingers flat on the table, my keyboard was 5.5 hands wide. The thumbs were sideways, so the width added drilled through the wrinkle on the back to the fold on the front. This would be the thumb measured in Halacha. I certainly am not a measurement specialist, so I appreciate all feedback. According to best knowledge, that through-thumb measurement is the one which is supposed to be 25 percent of the other four fingers. CHZON ISH Even the writings of CHzon Ish reflect a defensive stance. As a practical matter, the CI knew in his heart that a Zayis will not change in recorded history. Olive trees of 1000 years old are not uncommon, and one in EY is 2000 years old. They are propogated from plantings identical to the original. As little as three generations of trees in EY could easily reach Calender Year 1. RIDDLE - HOW MANY OLIVES TO EAT A KEZAYIT? RABI YOCHANAN ATE ONE OLIVE- and made bracha acharona. It was the big variety salad olive, or a large specimen of the oil olive. I was convinced by a strong presentation in a conference from several years ago. A Bar Ilan professor compared olives from various species and showed pictures of all the oldest olive trees in EY. The oil olives were in the 4 cc to 7 cc (4-7 grams volume). Salad olives - the kind whose seeds were commonly eaten in Masada - max out at 17 grams. He convincingly argued that double size super-olives would in all likelihood kill the trees. 4 ccs is well below an average swallow. Please double check my numbers, as I am writing from memory. -- David Wacholder From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 18:58:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 21:58:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] naive kitniyos question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150403015816.GA8090@aishdas.org> On Thu, Mar 26, 2015 at 12:34:15PM -0400, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote: : Re kitniyos: isn't the issur one of "cooking" with kitniyos? ... Take 2 at answering this question. My wife found http://ph.yhb.org.il/en/04-09-06 "6. Kitniyot That Never Touched Water and Kitniyot Oils" by R' Eliezer Melamed We are not stricter with kitniyot than we are with the five cereal grains, so whatever is acceptable regarding these grains is kosher for kitniyot, too. Thus, kitniyot that have not come into contact with water, or that have come into contact with water but were not left for more than 18 minutes before being cooked (like matza), may be eaten. Some poskim are stringent in this respect, but most are lenient.[4] ... [4] Most authorities are not stricter about kitniyot than about the cereal grains (SAH 453:5; ??ayei Adam 127:1; Responsa Maharsham 1:183; Be'er Yitzhak sec. 11; Responsa Marheshet sec. 3; and Rav Kook's Orah Mishpat sec. 111). Some, however, are more stringent (Sho'el U-meishiv 1:1:175 and Ma'amar Mordechai sec. 32). Their rationale is that no one would understand these distinctions since kitniyot do not become hametz. Additionally, they were concerned that making the kitniyot exactly like the cereal grains would mislead people to think they could use kitniyot to fulfill the mitzva of matza. As noted, though, most poskim are lenient, and in any dispute about a custom the halakha follows the lenient opinion. The Rishonim also debate whether or not scalding works for kitniyot, since scalding any of the five cereal grains technically eliminates the possibility of its leavening, though the Ge'onim agree that no one knows how to scald the grains properly (SA 454:3). However, according to Or Zaru'a 2:256, since the prohibition of kitniyot is just a custom, scalding the kitniyot is effective and permits them. Mordechai rules stringently, and Rabbeinu Peretz's glosses to Smak sec. 222 notes the lenient opinion but rules stringently. So it seems the pesaq I grew up with is, in REM's estimaton, the minority view. And if my sevara holds: It would mean the machloqes is a machloqes as to whether qitniyos are compared to wheat or to dough. Which again would be reflected in the various theories about what risk it is the minhag is trying to avoid: qitniyos includes things used like grain, which can cause confusion of chameitz with mutar legume products; qitniyos could have real flour on them (as per Rava's admonition to the reish galusa's household), etc... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of micha at aishdas.org greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, http://www.aishdas.org in fact, of our modesty. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Louis Kronenberger, writer (1904-1980) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 09:32:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 16:32:11 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Tan Du Message-ID: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> I think we've discussed R'YBS's famous statement on ontological chazakot on a number of occasions. I was glad to see that I have giant shoulders to stand on (hat tip-Isaac Newton): Tradition - Winter 2014 (Rabbi N. Helfgot) In a famous episode in 1975, the Rav strongly denounced a proposal raised by R. Emanuel Rackman, z"l to reevaluating the validity of the Talmudic dictum "a woman would always be rather married to anyone (even a scoundrel) than be alone" in the modern context. R. Rackman called on religious authorities to reevaluate the reach of this dictum as a way of addressing the scourge of modern day recalcitrant husbands who did not give their estranged spouses a get. The reevaluation of this principle might be an opening to examine the use of halakhic annulment of marriages. The Rav vigorously maintained that this principle, like all hazakot of Hazal, was "an ontological statement" about the nature of women, not subject to changing historical factors or changing social mores. R. Lichtenstein in both private conversation with a number of talmidim over the decades, including this author and in remarks in public shiurim, noted his disagreement with the Rav's assessment of this hazaka (and expressed astonishment at the vehemence of the Rav's opposition at the time) given the clear cut evidence in the Rishonim in Yevamot and other places in Shas which clearly indicated that this hazaka was not one that applied in all contexts and at all times and in all situations. I don't recall that R'YBS said this was true of all chazakot of Chazal but haven't listened to that audio in a long time. CKV"S Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 04:06:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 14:06:33 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] rabbits Message-ID: << But PS can someone remind me what a picture of a rabbit is doing in the : medieval illustrated Hagada? There is a fundamental reason why pictures of people were avoided. >> Yet many of the medieval haggadot had pictures of people and even (wow) women!. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 11:41:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 14:41:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] rabbits In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150403184143.GB11664@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 03, 2015 at 02:06:33PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> There is a fundamental reason why pictures of people were avoided. : : Yet many of the medieval haggadot had pictures of people.. The reason is still there. We don't all agree on halakhah and minhag, why would two people necessarily agree during the medieval period? :-)|,|ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger The true measure of a man micha at aishdas.org is how he treats someone http://www.aishdas.org who can do him absolutely no good. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Samuel Johnson From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 23:57:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 09:57:26 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kitniyot Message-ID: see http://ohr.edu/5390 and http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/5184 by Rabbi Spits He discusses Quinoa In the second article he discusses potatos both for kitniyot and bishul akum As for modern products that didnt exist in the days of the gezera he notes Shu"t Igros Moshe (O.C. vol. 3, 63). Others who accept peanuts for Pesach include the Seridei Aish (Shu"t vol. 2, 37, 2; new print vol. 1, 50 -- through a combination of factors), the Yeshuas Moshe (Shu"t vol. 1, 35; he opines that the Kitniyos prohibition never applied to legumes that are eaten raw, but concludes similar to Rav Moshe, that if one has an existing minhag not to eat peanuts on Pesach he still should not do so), and the Rivevos Efraim (Shu"t vol. 7, 257; only if it came still in its shell). [This logic is based on the Shulchan HaRav's understanding (O.C. 453, 5) that the prohibition of Kitniyos only applies when it gets wet). Other poskim who ruled that way (as how can Kitniyos be more stringent than grain -- which only can become chometz when wet) include the Chayei Adam (vol. 2, 128, 1) and Maharsham (Shu"t vol. 1, 183 and Daas Torah O.C. 453), who cites that Rav Shlomo Kluger (Nidrei Zerizin, 8) held this way as well. Those who were stringent include the Shoel U'Meishiv (Mahadura Kama vol. 1, 175), the Avnei Nezer (O.C. 373 and 533), the Maamar Mordechai (Shu"t 32), and the Sdei Chemed (Maareches Chometz U'Matza 6, 1). This was also one of the points of contention between Rav Kook and the Badatz Chasidim of Yerushalayim regarding the permissibility of sesame oil for Pesach -- see footnote 13]. See also Shu"t Atzei HaLevanon (vol. 1, 18) who also permits peanuts for Pesach; yet based on his description it seems he is referring to a pistachio (as per the Yeshuas Moshe ibid.). [Email #2. Subject: kitniyot - summary] After our discussion of kitniyot and the psak of RMF several personal observations 1) We all agree that psak of RMF is controversial. IMHO it is "half" accepted probably more in the US than in Israel 2) There is a separate machkoket about derivatives of kitniyot and especially oils of kitniyot. While there are relatively few ashkenazim who eat corn on the cob or peanuts there are many who combine the 2 positions and use oild and derivatives from "new: kitniyot. Thus there are many rabbis that allow Canola oil (and certainly cottenseed oil) using RMF and the debate over oils. Similarly it has been common in my community to use lecithin (liftit) in candies etc. My rabbi allows this together with most rabbis in my town based on major dati leumi rabbis. R Elyashiv came out strongly against all of this and so in the charedi community especially in Israel no kitniyot oils or lecithin is allowed and only walnut or olive oil is used. Bottom line in spite of the objections on this list that RMF is "wrong" in many communities his teshuva is accepted when combined with the debate of kitniyot derivatives. chag kasher vesameach. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 03:57:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 13:57:43 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos Message-ID: > But let's not get buried under the reports of RMF and R' Tuvia Goldstein, > and forget that we have conflict in reports about whether RSZA would > allow someone to start eating gebrochts after hataras nedarim. > So, while rumor might say he did, we have a first-hand report from R > Yisrael Herczeg that tells us to ignore the grapevine >> In Halichos Shlomo (p90) it states explicitly that one can change his custom and eat gebrochs after hatart nedarim. However, this should be done only if there is a good reason (tzorach chashuv) for the change. Thus, for a chatan he would allow the hatarat nedarim if keeping bebrochs would cause family difficulties. RSZA paskened that the wife follows the customs of the husband both for kula and chumra(without hatart nedarim). He explicitly states that this is different than one who moves to another location where he does need hatarat nedarim since a woman knows that she will eventually marry and might change her minhag. The husband has the right to relinguish his rights. This is prevalant with regard to the nuscah of davening. A Baal Teshuva should prferably keep the customs of his "original" community where the family belonged. However, if he is now connected to some rabbi or community he can choose to keep their customs instead. He also paskens (for EY) that one can cook kitniyot on the 7th day of Pesach for use on the shabbat right afterwards (ef this year). This is because some sefardi could come over for a visit and so the kitniyot are not mukza . The same applies to gebrochs even though it is the 7th day of Pesach. RSZA himself ate gebrochs though he would not eat anything that fell on the floor. He did not use potato starch or anything that rsembled a chametz cake On a different topic he allowed drinking regular water eg from the kinneret since one can't taste at all the taste of any possible chametz, [Email #2] >> So, while rumor might say he did, we have a first-hand report from R >> Yisrael Herczeg that tells us to ignore the grapevine. > Perhaps he changed his mind! It has happened before. In this case he didnt change his mind. He said that it depended on the circumstances. In theory one could do hatarat nedarim and eat Gebrochs but he advocated not using this heter unless there was a good reason to change the custom. Obviously for Yisrael Herczeg he didn't feel there was sufficient justification. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 04:15:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 14:15:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: > 1- Is "kezayis" a constant volume, or is it pinned to the average olive, > or perhaps the average among some subset of breeds of olive as breeding, > care and climate change? archaeology shows that the olive has not changed dramatically over the millenia > 2- If kezayis is a constant volume, do all the accepted overestimates > performed and accumulated one atop the other unwind when we have more > information about chazal's zeisim? Not all communities accepted these various shitot. I can understand some overestimates for being conservative but factors of 5-10 larger seem overdone. This is especially true if one stuffs the matza into ones mouth and swallows together which becomes "achila gasa". In general the problem with the huge shiurim is that it is very difficult for many people. > average. Which is the reason to be on the conservative side and use the largest size olives which is still on the order of 17cc and not 50cc. [Email #2] > Or do we say that the bottom of the > range of measurments that dominate common pratice in one's qehillah is > binding as pesaq, and one can't just ignore the now huge safety margin? Reminds of a story I read on the recent 20th yahrzeit of RSZA. RSZA came up with 2 chumrot for the seder both related to the length of maggid being a problem for kiddush bemkom seudah and the bracha over the wine. His mechutan R Elyashiv accepted the chumrot and rushed his maggid while RSZA didnt accept his own chumrot in practice on the grounds that this was not the minhag of Israel over the generations. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 15:16:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 22:16:11 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Historic Practice Passover Offering Message-ID: <20150403.181611.8008.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitzchok Levine posted: > See the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kgbRusmqjs > ... > As reported earlier, in preparation for the upcoming festival of > Passover, this past Wednesday (5 Nisan - 25 March) the 'Priestly > Training Academy' established by the Temple Institute held a > Passover offering practice drill. This is a film that documents > this event. This was the most accurate and authentic reenactment > of this service to have taken place in nearly 2,000 years. Two things in particular surprised me in this video: 1) The lambs were so small! Children carried them in! 2) At the very end, it shows and mentions that the korban pesach "is roasted whole and in a special oven." Special oven? What was special about it, and why an oven at all? I would think that the oven would (at least partially) bake it, whereas it was supposed to be roasted by the fire, and only by fire. I recall halachos of it being held by a pomegranate branch to avoid heat conduction by metal, and rotated like a rotisserie to avoid it being cooked even by its own juices. What's this oven about? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/551f117e86f4b117e0fdfst03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 12:22:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2015 15:22:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <551EE85D.1030908@sero.name> On 04/03/2015 06:57 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > He also paskens (for EY) that one can cook kitniyot on the 7th day of > Pesach for use on the shabbat right afterwards (ef this year). Yes, I'm surprised that anyone disagrees. It seems so obviously correct. I know that many people don't do so, and believe it to be forbidden, but I have never yet heard an argument for why it should be so. > This is because some sefardi could come over for a visit and so the kitniyot > are not mukza . The main issue would surely not be muktzeh, but cooking on yomtov. But the answer is the same: the hypothetical horde of hungry guests who might descend on one ten minutes before sunset on Friday, and for whom one is, in principle, cooking, might very well be sefardim. > The same applies to gebrochs even though it is the 7th day of > Pesach. Gebrochts, of course, applies in Chu"l as well (since almost everyone who doesn't eat it on the first 7 days does eat it on the last day). And lich'ora the above heter is not applicable. Kitniyos are gebrochts are not similar. Ashkenazim don't avoid kitniyos because of a concern that it might be chametz; they readily agree that there is no such concern, and that for Sefardim it is heter gamur. Thus there is no reason at all why an ashkenazi should not cook kitniyos for a sefardi, any more than there is a reason why a zar who is tahor should not cook terumah for a kohen. But those who avoid gebrochts do so because of an (admittedly remote) concern that it might be chametz. If so, then they should be equally concerned not to give it to someone else, even one who isn't worried about it, and thus shouldn't be able to claim on Friday that they are cooking for hypothetical guests who eat it. Lepoel this question comes up every time there is such a kevius, and there doesn't seem to be one psak about it. Perhaps it comes down to the different reasons people give for why it's OK on the last day. If one holds that the reason is "shelo lehotzi la'az" on those who eat gebrochts all Pesach, then it makes sense that on the first 7 days one should also not be "motzi la'az", and thus should be willing to cook gebrochts for those who eat it. Thus on Friday the 7th one can claim to be cooking for such guests. But if one holds that the reason for not eating gebrochts for 7 days and then eating it on the 8th is as a symbolic gesture towards the kabbalistic idea that on the 8th day one ought to eat chametz, so for 7 days we treat gebrochts *as if* it were chametz, and then eat it on the 8th day, then it would seem to follow that on the 7th day one may not cook it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 14:17:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 21:17:19 GMT Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: <20150403.171719.13613.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' David Wacholder posted: > Every average person's swallow is a Kezayit, the amount which > fulfils the Mitzvah and is the measure for the Bracha on Achilas > Matza. As a Hidur and to erase all doubt, a second normal swallow > would be good. That is for Motzi-Matzah, where the first olive- > size swallowed fulfils a Torah obligation. > ... > This needs no authority to base it on. ... WHY would it need no authority to base it on? If this were the halacha, wouldn't someone have mentioned it? Why did so many authorities struggle with the math and the biology and the physics if such a simple solution were at hand? > Air pockets and weight issue > > The swallow size may be according the the air pockets normally > contained in Matzo, not ground, and according to volume not weight. If a kezayis is a swallowfull, aren't the air pockets gone? Haven't they been lost in the chewing? I concede that by the time the chewed matza gets to the throat, much of the missing air has been replaced by saliva. Or perhaps the saliva even *more* than accounts for the missing air. I am not knowledgeable enough about this to venture a guess on the comparison of the volume of the matza before chewing vis a vis at swallowing. In any case, I've always been bothered by the problem of counting the air bubbles. Mishneh Berurah 208:48 says that when eating cookies, l'chatchilah, one must insure that he ate a kezayis of flour, WITHOUT counting the sugar, in order to say Al Hamichya. MB concedes that the minhag is to count all the ingrdients, but the Igros Moshe 1:71 says not to rely on that minhag. So here's my question: If they would prefer us NOT to count the other ingredients, which have substance, isn't it a simple kal vachomer not to count AIR, she'ayn bo mamash? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/551f039acb72539a4c49st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 13:08:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2015 16:08:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Special Pesach Edition -- Instantaneous Redemption Message-ID: <20150403200810.6EC28181C84@nexus.stevens.edu> [] Instantaneous Redemption HaShem took us out of Mitzrayim at the last minute before we slipped to the fiftieth level of impurity. Had we fallen to that level, we would have been irredeemable. In one moment, we went from darkness to light, from death to life, from slavery to freedom, from anguish to joy, and from impurity to holiness. Lesson: Just as that moment brought instantaneous redemption, so too, every moment of life has the potential to take us from darkness to light, from death to life, from slavery to freedom, from anguish to joy, and from impurity to holiness. App: May we all be encouraged by the miracles of Pesach, that HaShem again will instantaneously redeem us, and take us from darkness to light, from death to life, from slavery to freedom, from anguish to joy, and from impurity to holiness! (Based on Ohr Yahol, Rav Yehoshuah Leib Chousman) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 18:59:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2015 21:59:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geirut Message-ID: <20150406015903.GA15874@aishdas.org> (Ccing most of the participants in our 2008 and 2010 conversations.) You might be interested in On Conversion to Judaism, by Rabbi Dr. Chaim E. Schertz THE YU LAMDAN: The Wilf Campus Torah Journal http://yulamdan.com/2015/03/29/on-conversion-to-judaism-by-rabbi-dr-chaim-e-schertz or http://j.mp/1CIV5GN It starts slow, but R/Dr Schertz has a lot to say about Qabbalas Ol Mitzvos (QOM, or KOM if you prefer) and its role in geirus. Aside from other ideas that my be of interest, but it was QOM that has us going. :-)|,|ii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 22:22:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 01:22:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house Message-ID: <552217FE.4020103@sero.name> Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in EY after kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times. Does this mean that at a shiva house Sholom Rov is said even in shacharis (in EY on a non-Mon/Thu)? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 22:28:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 01:28:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" Message-ID: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the holy serafim's conclave. Nusach Ashkenaz, in the introduction to the kedusha of musaf, has a similar phrase: "kesod siach sarfei kodesh". But what does this mean? Every translation I have seen has rendered it as if it said "kesiach sod sarfei kodesh", but that's not what it says! Does anyone know, if "kesod siach" really means "kesiach sod", why they are reversed? Or, if that's not what it really means, can anyone explain what it does mean? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 22:32:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 01:32:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Moroccan nigunim Message-ID: <55221A63.3010303@sero.name> Do we have any experts here on the history of the Moroccan nigunei hatefilah? If so, can someone please explain when/how the Ashkenazi tune for Maoz Tzur got into the Moroccan liturgy as a tune for Mah Ashiv Lashem? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 03:38:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 13:38:02 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] free will Message-ID: We have discussed many times the opinion of Rav Dessler that a person doesn't always have free will. I recently saw a halachic discussion that may have some connection. On ketubot 51 the gemara discusses a case of a married woman who was raped but at the end was willing (techila be-ones ve-sofa be-ratzon). Shmuel's father forbids her to her husband while Rava allows her. One possibility of explaining Rava is that she is overwhelmed by her "yetzer" and so is still considered "anus" This is explicit in the words of R Zadok (tzidkat zaddik 43) that her desire is so great that it is impossible to overcome it and so she is considered anus gamur and so there is no punishment. Targum Yonatan (Devarim 22:26) holds that she is not punished by death but her husband must divorce her. Maharshal (yevamot 6:3) paskens that she is permitted to her husband only if she is "karka olam" However the Noda Beyehuda disagrees (tenina EH 150) and says she is always permitted to her husband because she is overwhelmed by her yetzer and so is not considered that she did it with her free will. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 05:13:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 12:13:44 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house Message-ID: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero asked: > Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in > EY after kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times. Does this > mean that at a shiva house Sholom Rov is said even in shacharis > (in EY on a non-Mon/Thu)? No, but I don't know why. I never thought of that question before, but here is a possibly-related question that I've wondered for years: If Shir Hamaalos is said whenever we skip Tachanun, should it always be said at the shiva house? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:25:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:25:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house In-Reply-To: <552217FE.4020103@sero.name> References: <552217FE.4020103@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150406182521.GC20912@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:22:06AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in EY after : kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times... This rule isn't 100%. Otherwise Sim Shalom would never be said when davening beyechidus. I think it's more lke Ashk uses Sim Shalom in tefillos where Birkhas Kohanim could be said, if we had opportunity. :-)||ii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:28:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:28:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:28:24AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam : siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the : holy serafim's conclave... Sod means conclave? I thought it was referring to the ofanim and chayos haqodesh who learn the secret of the siach of the sarfei qodesh, thereby are misna'asim le'umas serafim... :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 2nd day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Chesed: What is constricted Fax: (270) 514-1507 Chesed? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:37:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:37:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house In-Reply-To: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150406183751.GE20912@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 12:13:44PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I never thought of that question before, but here is a possibly-related : question that I've wondered for years: If Shir Hamaalos is said whenever : we skip Tachanun, should it always be said at the shiva house? We skip tachanun on shabbos and YT (or the week of 7 berakhos, the day of a beris...) because of the joy of the day being inconsistent with its mournful tenor. Shir haMaalos goes hand-in-hand with the joy of the day; if it's joyous enough to warrant looking toward the geulah rather than lamenting the churban with Al Naharos Bavel, then it's joyous enough for Tachanun not to fit either. But the key is joy, which has nothing to do with a beis avel. We skip tachanun in an aveil's home for the opposite kind of reason -- either because 1- we don't want to add to the aveilim's grief by harping on midas hadin, or 2- it is inappropriate to ask for mitigation of middas hadin in a home where din is being fully felt. :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 2nd day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Chesed: What is constricted Fax: (270) 514-1507 Chesed? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:42:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:42:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tan Du In-Reply-To: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> References: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20150406184227.GF20912@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 03, 2015 at 04:32:11PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Tradition - Winter 2014 (Rabbi N. Helfgot) ... : R. Lichtenstein in both private conversation with a number of talmidim : over the decades, including this author and in remarks in public shiurim, : noted his disagreement with the Rav's assessment of this hazaka (and : expressed astonishment at the vehemence of the Rav's opposition at the : time) given the clear cut evidence in the Rishonim in Yevamot and other : places in Shas which clearly indicated that this hazaka was not one that : applied in all contexts and at all times and in all situations. The way I heard RAL (recorded) was more that the large amount of material in Yevamos, much of the rest of seder Nashim, and the rishonim ad loc that such a proposal would make moot was itself RYBS's primary argument against R' Rackman's proposal. And that RAL understood the statement about tav lemeisiv and its ontological nature as a separate secondary argument RYBS made along the way. :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 2nd day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Chesed: What is constricted Fax: (270) 514-1507 Chesed? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:38:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 14:38:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5522D292.4070305@sero.name> On 04/06/2015 02:28 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:28:24AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam > : siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the > : holy serafim's conclave... > > Sod means conclave? Yes, as in "besodam al tavo nafshi". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:59:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 21:59:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 6, 2015 at 9:28 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:28:24AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam > : siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the > : holy serafim's conclave... > > Sod means conclave? > Yes, as in "besodam al tavo nafshi" in birkat Yaakov (Bereshit 49:6), where it's parallel to "kehalam", or more directly connected to kedusha Ps 89:8 "sod kedoshim". I couldn't say whether "conclave" is the original sense and "secret" a derived meaning, or vice versa -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:30:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 14:30:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house In-Reply-To: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5522D0BC.2010004@sero.name> On 04/06/2015 08:13 AM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > R' Zev Sero asked: > >> Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in >> EY after kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times. Does this >> mean that at a shiva house Sholom Rov is said even in shacharis >> (in EY on a non-Mon/Thu)? > No, but I don't know why. > > I never thought of that question before, but here is a > possibly-related question that I've wondered for years: If Shir > Hamaalos is said whenever we skip Tachanun, should it always be said > at the shiva house? The same question would apply in the afternoon of Erev Tish`a B'av. But the two questions can easily be distinguished. The substitution of Shir Hamaalos for Al Naharos Bavel is not caused by the lack of tachanun; rather both are caused by the same thing: the element of simcha on that day that makes mourning inappropriate. But the omission of tachanun at a shiva house is not because of simcha, but because we don't want to invoke divine judgment in a situation which is already fraught; thus Al Naharos Bavel is not inappropriate. And of course on Erev Tish`a B'av what could be more appropriate than Al Naharos Bavel? Sim Shalom, however, seems (in nusach Ahskenaz) to be directly linked to the conclusion of birchas kohanim, "veyasem lecha shalom". Thus it shouldn't matter why birchas kohanim is not being said; the mere fact that it's not said should be enough to cause the omission of sim shalom, and the substitution of shalom rav. Proof that this distinction is valid comes from the case of Tehilim #49, which is said at a shiva house on days when tachanun is said; on days when tachanun is omitted, #16 is substituted. But of course in a shiva house *every* day is a day when tachanun is omitted, so when does one say #49? The obvious answer is that on normal days omission of tachanun is related to the place, not to the day, and thus #49 is said; when the day has an element of simcha that makes #49 inappropriate, we substitute #16. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 16:23:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 19:23:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] partnership - adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties Message-ID: <001b01d070c0$b326a370$1973ea50$@com> Here is a step towards making my approach to the Relationship of Yisrael with Hashem more understandable. As always it is the feedback and exchange of ideas which contains so much creative force. AVOS WERE PARTNERS, THEIR DESCENDANTS WERE IN LIMBO RACHAMIM WAS DETERMINED INCLUSIVITY - ALL ARE INCLUDED INCLUDED INTO THE COVENANT - UNILATERAL COVENANT OF HASHEM WITH HIMSELF 2. G-d related to the Avos - Avraham Yitzchak Yaakov - as partners, whose faithful service he knew and trusted. The durability was unusual, but the basic partnership never was under question, as with partners who get along. 3. 4. Almost all could ask - we are individuals in a mass of Egyptian slaves, we have lost direct contact!! We cannot compare ourselves to a 70 member Covenant, which included Yaakov Avinu one of the Avos, who actually made every move based on direct prophecy. Even the 12 Shvatim had almost direct access to HASHEM himself. 5. The Crisis of Galus Mitzrayim - assuming all had learnt every Passuk in Breishis - was of uncertainty. - Yes Pakod Yifkod - but who am I? Will my generation merit to see what even the most elderly never saw with their eyes? Even were Moshe Rabeinu assured of membership in the Elite, he retained that uncertainty. On Pshat level, five minutes prior to the moment of noticing the Burning Bush, could ask that question. That vision began transforming Moshe Rabeinu into the instrument of G-d, the Goeil. The man who turned to check - was already entering Geula mode. 6. Machzor Vitri page 148 has a key piece called Pithron Nishmas Kol Chai. According to Psachim, the Nishmas Prayer should contain within it the essence of the message of Seder Night. Towards the end of Yishtabach - there treated as just the ending of Nishmas - RAABAN adds that the 15 praises parallel the 15 Dayeinus. 7. The piece de resistance - Chai Haolamim is explained Haya hoveh yihyeh, Ani Hashem lo Shanisi (from Malachi Haftara of Shabbos Hagadol). 8. Rashi here is one theme - as I would see it. Chai means involved with caring for his children right now - as fits in Chai Anochi leOlam Im shanosi brak charbi or a Shvuah. 9. Haolamim means until the end of time, as in a parent telling the child not to worry, the Parent is always here. 10. The piece on page 148 adds an extra word to Nishmas, to make a point sharper. V' Y H V H Shmo Eir Hineh lo yanum vlo yiyshan. The word Shmo - appears only in this one obscure manuscript, seemingly a Rashi arrow. 11. Here Rashi uses full expression - Hashem appeared to Avraham with the name E I L S H a D a Y but not the Name Y H V H. Avos were established Partners and employees. Now Hashem is showing his determination and leadership - new World Order - all eligible Jews will be included in the Geulah, no exceptions. 12. Hashem is taking on the eternal duty of guarding them, with no limits and no clause for rejection. Yes Hashem admits no such precedent existed. Only Hashem can overturn His Rules. 13. Bnei Yisrael are Unilaterally Covenanted to be Hashem's Bni Bchori. Just like He had focused since the word Breishis, bishvil Torh Shenikra Reishis, now all He wants is that His People be His only. Bni Bchori Yisrael! First Day Chol Hamoeid Pesach - we read these key Psukim. Tephillin wearers understand that Kadesh li kol bchor means singular devotion. 14. In our world, it would be a person seeking a marriage partner, then signing Adoption Papers. The parent chose - volitionally and with focus - to adopt this child. PARENTAL RIGHTS - FAMILY IDENTITY 15.It is a brand new family identity, which cannot be abrogated. Yes - there can be strains. But there cannot be a dissolution. It is stronger than marriage! 16. Rashbam says - He the King says about Himself Ehkeh, I will be. Yisrael as his subjects use the Third Person He Will Be. 17. It is not about Maaseh Breishis in Rashi. It refers to the instant covenant - My determination to Adopt You is irrevocable. 18. Ehkeh - becomes the Name He Calls Himself - totally devoted to watching over my Ben Bchor. Yihyeh is the Ben Bchor's confidence that He is watching me us. 19. The moment the Ben Bchor first uses the He will Care for Me - Hashem makes Ehkeh obsolete. The family has begun. 20. This is Rashi Rashbam. CONFIRMATION The Tzarfas Tosafos included Rabeinu Yosef Bchor Shor. He accepts Rashbam completely, except that HVYH is the holiest Name, not Ehkeh. The structure remains the same. 21. Hashem's Choice in Mitzraim was a Bnos TzlOphchad choice - choose which cousin and which time to marry. It is totally volitional and conscious. He chose adoption of all. Bachar Banu. 22. It means at a specific date signing Adoption Papers for 3,000,000 individuals. 23. Rashi says it means the special Adoption - family identity. That Adoption of all Bnei Yisrael had a specific moment, the Sneh. Those Name issues had meaning for Rashi and Rashbam. 24. Within the short timespan, all the Bnei Yisrael are Hashem's chosen children. Rishon in Emmes Vyatziv means since Ytzias Mitzrayim. Maaseh Breishis is not Primary to Rashi only secondary. 25. It is Family Commitment and Identity. Practical example, a secure Child can look his father in the eye. A secure Jew is able to have Hashem look him/her in the eye without flinching. I know this is my Father. 26. As the Midrash puts it - Yam Suf - I already met him when I was born and raised six months with no human being in sight. I know Him! 27. Ha'tishkach Isha ulahh - even a mother's love for her child cannot equal hashem's love. Hashem's Power is ever greater, but even His Love is stronger. 28. Woman says - Pesach is my adoption as Hashem's own Child - no Chametz ever! There is no bending on identity. This works on the visceral level. 29. Rashi in MV 148 does call it Rachamim - as in Rachamei Av al Banim. It is the strength of Inclusion in the Covenant. It is in its deepest essence - a Unilateral Covenant. Ehkeh Asher Ehkeh - just like in this oppression - in any other oppression. That is the Adoptive Parent's approach. Lo yanum vlo yiyshan shomeir Yisrael. 30. Rashi's approach is extremely strong. Rachamim is only possible as part of a relationship. Rashi makes the relationship primary and volitional. The secondary application of which rewards or concessions will be granted, secondary Rachamim, is put onto a solid base. Only chanun is left as a "nebbish" Midah - even from a cruel tyrant chein is possible. 31. Let adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties 32. 33. In describing why person would fast all Passover over and above Jewish Law Practice, you used the words "emotional attachment". In the seven years since that wording , perhaps the message is deeper. 34. This woman was looking at the strength of the Covenant - which is Identity. The bylaws are only secondary. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: AJS review of Rossi.PDF Type: application/pdf Size: 255404 bytes Desc: not available URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 8 05:37:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2015 08:37:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150408123715.GC8438@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 09:59:14PM +0300, Simon Montagu via Avodah wrote: : > Sod means conclave? : : Yes, as in "besodam al tavo nafshi" in birkat Yaakov (Bereshit 49:6), where : it's parallel to "kehalam", or more directly connected to kedusha Ps 89:8 : "sod kedoshim". To clarify: "Sod" *here* means conclave? I suggested an alternative, which I think fits the sentence better, as it makes "sod siach" a phrase, rather than trying to explain the interruption of "siach" in "sod ... sarfei". : I couldn't say whether "conclave" is the original sense and "secret" a : derived meaning, or vice versa Very different implications hashkafically, whether yesod would then be related to secrets (as foundations are in the ground) or a gathering of people (people as founders?). :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 4th day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Chesed: When is Chesed an Fax: (270) 514-1507 imposition on others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 04:58:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 14:58:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: Just saw a halacha that to me was a chiddush That one cannot (or should not) be yotzeh someone else for tefiilat haderech but everyone should say for them self. Those agreeing (at least lechatchila) include R Aviner R Nebenzahl R C Kanevsky R Tuvia Goldstein (who said he convinced RMF) R Belsky Not what I have seen in practice. Anyone know any opinion that does allow it -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 08:55:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 15:55:59 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: <20150412.115559.22172.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel asked: > Just saw a halacha that to me was a chiddush > That one cannot (or should not) be yotzeh someone else for > tefiilat haderech but everyone should say for them self. > Those agreeing (at least lechatchila) include > R Aviner > R Nebenzahl > R C Kanevsky > R Tuvia Goldstein (who said he convinced RMF) > R Belsky > Not what I have seen in practice. > Anyone know any opinion that does allow it Chidush to me too. I don't where to begin my comments. There's a GIGANTIC difference between "cannot" and "should not". "agreeing (at least lechatchila)" also allows a too-wide variety. And without some sort of reasoning, how can we throw out what we already know? Is there something special about Tefilas Haderech, or is this merely an example of how we have so little kavana nowadays that being motzi others is just too risky? I'm sure there are other sources I could quote, but for now, I will simply quote from "Halachically Speaking", vol 1, pg 75, by Rabbi Moishe Dovid Lebovits, published by Israel Bookshop. > One person can say the tefillah for everyone, as long as he has > everyone in mind and the others concentrate on the words.(20) > Horav Yisroel Belsky shlita maintains that every individual > should try to say tefillas haderech if he can.(21) If this is > not possible, one person can say it for everyone.(22) > 20) Kinyan Torah 2:119, Bais Avi 5:55, Opinion of Horav > Elyashiv shlita quoted in Darchei Ori page 279:2, > U'velechticha Baderech 2:footnote 26 quoting the opinion of > Horav Chaim Kanievesky shlita, see Darchei Ori page 259:1. It > is questionable whether someone who has already said tefilalas > haderech can repeat it for someone else. (Halichos Shlomo > Tefilah 21:5:footnote 9). > > 21) See Emes L'Yaakov page 65. > > 22) See Eishel Avraham Butchtach, Rivevos Ephraim 6:32:2, > Halichos Shlomo Tefilah page 245:5, Divrei Chachamim page > 76:192. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 06:33:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 09:33:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: <10b001d074db$3ad805c0$b0881140$@gmail.com> References: <20150407125218.216501835E4@nexus.stevens.edu> <10b001d074db$3ad805c0$b0881140$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150412133337.B25AB182ACC@nexus.stevens.edu> I am moving this to Avodah. YL At 12:43 AM 4/12/2015, R. Moshe Yehuda Gluck wrote: >R' YL: >Another person wrote to me > >"Chazal say that one is not allowed to daven outside (probably because of >kavana); >-------------------- >Does anyone have a mareh makom for this? > >KT, >MYG From http://www.dinonline.org/2012/07/11/davening-outdoors/ Is it problematic to daven outdoors? Thanks. Answer: One should not daven in an open area outdoors, and should daven in a closed building, or a sheltered area. Sources: The Gemara (Berachos 34b) writes that it is wrong (arrogant ? chatzuf) to daven in an open field. Rashi explains that in an open field, one doesn?t feel fear of the King, and one doesn?t pray with a broken heart. Tosafos, however, understands that the concern is for passers-by, who are liable to disturb a person?s davening. The Magen Avraham (90:6) rules that the problem is that davening outside makes a haughty statement: ?Even though there are passers-by, they will not disturb my intent in davening!? This is arrogant and wrong. The Shulchan Aruch (90:5) rules that one should not daven in an open place, and the Mishnah Berurah (11) adds that those who are always travelling should can daven in an open place, but should try to daven by a tree. Therefore, although it is not forbidden to daven outdoors, it is wrong to daven in an open area, and one should seek a sheltered place. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 09:54:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 19:54:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] reviit Message-ID: In the sefer of Rav Aviner he brings many examples of gedolim who used a kiddush cup the size of the shiur of R Chaim Naeh (86 CC) and not CI. He says he heard from RSZA that when RCN published his sefer on shiurim the rabbis of Yerushalayim were astounded at his chumra !! 1) cup if Chafetz Chaim (from his grandson R Hillel Zaks) 2) cup of GRA (baal eyanim le-mishpat who got it as an inheritance) 3) cup someone got from Ohr Sameach (mesoros she-avdu) 4) Rebbe of Gur - Pnei Menachem stated about the cup of his father Baal Imre Ha-emes 5) cup of R Salanter (Shut Teshuvot Vehanhagot) 6) Rav Dessler used a small cup that belonged to his wife's family. After she passed away he used a larger cup 7) cup of the father of the CI 8) Brother of CI used a cup he got from his father-in-law (Cheshek Shlomo of Vilna) and also had shiur RCN 9) R Elyashiv used a cup the size of CI but explained that he did so in honor of CI not because that is the halacha 10) In the sefer Meged Givat Olam second volume p34) someone showed RMF a cup holding about 88cc and RMF remarked that it was kosher lechatchila (not not the shiur published in his name) 11) In Divrei Yoel the Satmar rebbe is quoted as saying the shiur of reviit is 75 gram (!?) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 12:01:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 15:01:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] reviit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <552AC11F.8060605@sero.name> On 04/12/2015 12:54 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > 11) In Divrei Yoel the Satmar rebbe is quoted as saying the shiur of reviit is 75 gram (!?) > RACN assumed that the Rambam's dirham was the same as the Ottoman dirham used in his day, which was 3.1 g. But there's significant evidence that the Egyptian dirham of the Rambam's day was slightly smaller, about 2.8 g, which gives a revi'it of about 75 ml. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 12:15:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 15:15:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150413191514.GA19165@aishdas.org> R' Ari Kahn posted a transcript of that famous talk that people remember for RYBS's statement about tav lemeisiv. http://arikahn.blogspot.co.il/2013/03/rabbi-soloveitchik-talmud-torah-and.html As a teaser, here is all RYBS said on tev lemeis tan du: Let me add something that is very important: not only the halachos but also the chazakos [19] which chachmei chazal have introduced are indestructible. We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above. Let us take for example the chazaka that I was told about: the chazaka tav l'meisiv tan du mil'meisiv armalo [20] has absolutely nothing to do with the social and political status of women in antiquity. This chazaka is based not upon sociological factors, but upon a verse in breishis -- harba arbeh itz'voneich v'heironeich b'etzev teildi vanim v'el isheich t'shukaseich v'hu yimshal bach -- "I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy travail; in pain thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee" [21]. It is a metaphysical curse rooted in the feminine personality -- she suffers incomparably more that the male who is in solitude. Solitude to the male is not as terrible an experience, as horrifying an experience, as is solitude to the woman. And this will never change, mayid shamayim vaaretz [22]. This is not a psychological fact; it is an existential fact, which is due not to the inferior status of the woman, but rather to the difference, the basic distinction, between the female personality and the male personality. Loneliness frightens the woman, and an old spinster's life is much more miserable and tragic than the life of an old bachelor. This was true in antiquity; it is still true, and it will be true a thousand years from now. So, to say that tan du mil'meisiv armalo was or is due to the inferior political or social status of the woman is simply misinterpreting the chazaka tan du mil'meisiv armalo. No legislation can alleviate the pain of the single woman, and no legislation can change this role. She was burdened by the Almighty, after she violated the first [law]. Let me ask you a question -- ribono shel olam, G-d Almighty, if you should start modifying and reassessing the chazakos upon which a multitude of halachos rest, you will destroy yehadus. So instead of philosophizing, let us rather light a match and set fire to the beis yisrael, and get rid of our problems. What I think is more typical of the general thesis of this portion of his talk was the immediately prior statement: V'chen hakofer b'perusha v'hu torah she b'al peh v'hamach'chish magideha; he who denies the perfection and the truthfulness of chachmei chazal -- not of the Torah, but of the chachmei chazal as personalities, as real persona as far as their character, their philosophy, or their outlook on the world is concerned -- is a kofer. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 9th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 most appropriate? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 12:27:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 19:27:43 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150413191514.GA19165@aishdas.org> References: <20150413191514.GA19165@aishdas.org> Message-ID: What I think is more typical of the general thesis of this portion of his talk was the immediately prior statement: V'chen hakofer b'perusha v'hu torah she b'al peh v'hamach'chish magideha; he who denies the perfection and the truthfulness of chachmei chazal -- not of the Torah, but of the chachmei chazal as personalities, as real persona as far as their character, their philosophy, or their outlook on the world is concerned -- is a kofer. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The whole piece is worth hearing (even more than reading) - it seems to me that the debate echoes here: https://kavvanah.wordpress.com/2015/04/12/rabbi-ysoscher-katz-and-rabbi-ozer-glickman-rounds-one-and-two/ I do wonder whether one can avoid self awareness with a modern education. Another challenge is how to deal with recent "Chachmei Hamesorah" who don't seem to meet the perfection definition. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 13:56:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 13:56:37 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] support obligations Message-ID: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/193853#.VSwsUo6ZPAG interesting question . while in theory the ketuba and consequently the terms of marriage , mandate the husband support a wife , in practice that is not true in the kollel years [which in israel could last a prolonged time ]. here , a kollel man divorcing claims no income , and that the wife should support the children by getting a job . apart from secular courts, is there a positive chiyuv for a husband to leave 'torato umnato' to support his children ? does a get terminate his financial obligations halachically? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 14:23:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 17:23:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Philosophy and practice of shmita In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150413212344.GA3301@aishdas.org> On Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 10:09:02PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : What is the earliest source that ties shmita to the farmers using the : time to learn Torah?... I don't know about first, but the Seforno (Vayiqra 25:4, d"h "shabbos Lashem") writes: So that also those who work the earth, when they rest for this year, yis'oreru lidrosh es H' be'ofen mah. This is then quoted verbatum by R' Yaaqov Tzevi Mecklengburg (HaKesav behaQabbalah, early or mid-19th cent), who sites both the Sefornu and and "Raba"ch" -- who is eluding me. I didn't see it in Rabbeinu Bechayei, nor the Chizquni. Nor am I sure that "liderosh es H'" means learning. More recent is the Ari (as recorded by R' Shemu'el Vital, Shaar haPesuqim) based on the Zohar (vol II 20b). Haro'eh baShoshanim -- "Shoshanim" refers to the 6 shins in "usefarta lekha SHeva SHabasos SHanim, SHeva SHanim SHeva pe'amim". And from there haro'eh bashoshanim becomes: the one who dedicates the 7th year to learning finds G-d in all the 6 years of labor as well. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 9th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 most appropriate? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 14:28:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 17:28:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos In-Reply-To: <20150401084748.2445618205D@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150401084748.2445618205D@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150413212857.GB3301@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 01, 2015 at 04:47:45AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Does not the SA say that a person who has trouble chewing matzah can : soak it in water and then eat it? If so, then I fail to see why : eating gebrokts should be a problem for anyone. : The SA lived in the wrong qehillah for the minhag to be relevant. He would allow you to eat qitniyos too. And if we accept the SA haRav's explanation of gebrochts over the MB's, the Rama lived before we counted kneading time toward the 18 min, and gebrochts wasn't necessary yet. And since according to the SAhR's teshuvah, the minhag caught on after the Besh"t, meaning during the lifetime of its author and his readers, I am inclined to believe his version of the timing over someone who is reconstructing older history. : Also, were not the matzos that were used in the time of the SA : thicker than ours? Again, MB vs the SAhR as to whether that's at issue. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 9th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 most appropriate? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 14:33:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 17:33:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] support obligations In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150413213345.GC3301@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 01:56:37PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : apart from secular courts, is there a positive chiyuv for a husband to : leave 'torato umnato' to support his children ? does a get terminate his : financial obligations halachically? Assuming she didn't agree to the arrangement. Ortherwise, the wife willingly waved her claim to his income, and took on the obligation of self- and child-support. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 20:54:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 03:54:11 GMT Subject: [Avodah] support obligations Message-ID: <20150413.235411.14734.1@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Assuming she didn't agree to the arrangement. Ortherwise, the wife > willingly waved her claim to his income, and took on the obligation > of self- and child-support. I would argue that she accepted the financial responsibilities only in exchange for the s'char she gets from enabling her husband to learn Torah, and that once he ceases to be her husband, that arrangement ends, and the whole thing reverts to the usual. Phrased differently, once he stops giving her the s'char of sharing in his learning, he has to give her a more practical olam-hazeh sort of support. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552c8fb420d2bfb30fdest04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 20:45:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 03:45:47 GMT Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> [RAK gives credit to others in fn. 1. It is not his transcript. -micha] R' Micha Berger posted R' Ari Kahn's transcript of Rav YB Soloveitchik: > ... This is not a psychological > fact; it is an existential fact, which is due not to the inferior > status of the woman, but rather to the difference, the basic > distinction, between the female personality and the male personality. > Loneliness frightens the woman, and an old spinster's life is much > more miserable and tragic than the life of an old bachelor. This was > true in antiquity; it is still true, and it will be true a thousand > years from now. So, to say that tan du mil'meisiv armalo was or > is due to the inferior political or social status of the woman > is simply misinterpreting the chazaka tan du mil'meisiv armalo. ... From what I understand, the objection to hafkaas kiddushin comes from a presumption that a woman would prefer to stay with her husband, even if he seems to be a terrible person, and even if she tells us that in *her* opinion he is a terrible person -- and we have this presumption because of the chazaka of tan du. But I do not see Rav Soloveitchik making that case here. All he is saying is that "an old spinster's life is much more miserable and tragic than the life of an old bachelor." He does say that this relative perspective on singlehood is a "permanent ontological principle[s] rooted in the very depth of the human personality," and that it will never change, and that this information is Revealed in the words of Bereishis. But this refers ONLY to the misery and tragedy of a single woman as opposed to a single man. And that's NOT that argument against hafkaas kiddushin, at least not how I've heard it. The argument that I've heard -- that is to say, the supposed translation of "tav l'meisiv tan du" -- is that a woman would prefer living with ANY man rather than to be alone. I can easily understand opposition to Hafkaas Kiddushin on the grounds that widespread use would give *all* marriages a sort of "tentative" status. But that's not what people are referring to here, right? When they invoke "tan du" against Hafkaas Kidushin, they're saying that despite the wife's protestations, the wife would actually prefer to stay married, and that's why they're unable to annul the marriage. Or am I mistaken? Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 05:26:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 08:26:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <552D0792.4060709@sero.name> On 04/13/2015 11:45 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > From what I understand, the objection to hafkaas kiddushin comes from a > presumption that a woman would prefer to stay with her husband, even if > he seems to be a terrible person, and even if she tells us that in*her* > opinion he is a terrible person -- and we have this presumption because > of the chazaka of tan du. What she prefers is irrelevant. Obviously she wants to leave her husband; she is openly telling us so, and it's ridiculous to suppose she is not telling the truth. And even if she weren't, if the marriage is invalid then it's invalid, no matter what she wants. You're looking at the whole thing from the wrong direction. No objection is needed to annulling a marriage; what's needed is grounds *for* annulling it. The alleged grounds are that it has now become clear that this man was always such a bad person that had the woman known this when he proposed marriage she would have refused, and throughout the subsequent marriage there was never a point at which she was so happy that had she found out the truth she would have consented to stay with him. Now if the husband is bad enough (and it can be proved that he always was so), *and* the woman is such a catch that there was never a point at which she could not have found another husband, then this makes sense. Obviously she has always preferred a good husband to a bad one, and only married this man because she thought he was a good one. But what if refusing to marry him, or leaving him at some point during the marriage, were to expose her to the risk of remaining single forever? Would she still have turned him down or left him? The proponents of annulment say yes, of course she would, just as she has left him now. But, RYBS says, Chazal tell us that it's female nature to prefer a bad husband to none at all, so perhaps even if she had known the truth about this man she would have consented to marry him rather than risk remaining single; or perhaps there was a point after the event at which, had she learned the truth, she would have stayed with him rather than face a single future. > But I do not see Rav Soloveitchik making that case here. All he is saying > is that "an old spinster's life is much more miserable and tragic than > the life of an old bachelor." Yes, and therefore while a man might prefer to be single rather than live with a bad wife, a similarly situated woman will not. That this woman *now* tells us she would, doesn't prove that she always would have. > He does say that this relative perspective on singlehood is a "permanent > ontological principle[s] rooted in the very depth of the human > personality," and that it will never change, and that this information > is Revealed in the words of Bereishis. But this refers ONLY to the misery > and tragedy of a single woman as opposed to a single man. > > And that's NOT that argument against hafkaas kiddushin, at least not > how I've heard it. The argument that I've heard -- that is to say, the > supposed translation of "tav l'meisiv tan du" -- is that a woman would > prefer living with ANY man rather than to be alone. Yes. How is that not the same thing? Spinsterhood is terrible for women, so terrible that they'd prefer living with a bad man to it. > When they invoke "tan du" against Hafkaas Kidushin, they're saying that despite > the wife's protestations, the wife would actually prefer to stay married, > and that's why they're unable to annul the marriage. Or am I mistaken? Not that she'd prefer it now, but that she did prefer it earlier, when she was faced with the risk of never finding anyone else. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 06:44:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 09:44:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Could a New Gadget Change Shabbat Observance - Forever Message-ID: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/njr5j7a List of leading rabbis endorse 'Kosherswitch' to allow lights on Shabbat. High-voltage project could send a current through Jewish world. Will Shabbat observance change forever with a flick of a switch? A new gadget was released to the mass market on Monday promising Orthodox Jews a solution to the age-old problem of leaving lights on or off on Shabbat and then being prevented by Jewish law from flipping the switch. The new invention, dubbed "KosherSwitch," has been beta-tested since 2009 - but an indiegogo campaign launched Monday promises to bring the project to the masses. See the above URL for more as well as for a video explaining how this device works. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 07:59:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 10:59:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Could a New Gadget Change Shabbat Observance - Forever In-Reply-To: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150414145918.GA28845@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 09:44:04AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : From http://tinyurl.com/njr5j7a :> List of leading rabbis endorse 'Kosherswitch' to allow lights on :> Shabbat. High-voltage project could send a current through Jewish :> world. :> Will Shabbat observance change forever with a flick of a switch? Unlikely. They say this is new tech, which could be true since they got a [atenmt, but the How it Works page and the ptent describe something much like what Machon Zomet uses in their wheelchairs . Actually, Zomet makes sure their switch changes the amount of current, I see nothing in the patent about anything but turning the power on and off entirely -- it appears *more* problematic. The engineers among us can check out . As you can read on Zomet's site, R Neuwirth permits the wheelchair only because the issue is basic mobility. KosherSwitch.com shows you that that RYN signed on a "me too" to R' Pinchas Zabihi's haskamah. I have a notion that once things are clarified, the truth is more somewhere in between. When a house is on fire, and someone puts up a wall of pottery flasks filled with water to arrest its progress, geram kibui is mutar. See SA OC 334:22. The Rama either adds or explains (citing the Mordekhai), that this is bemaqom peseida. But gerama isn't suddenly mutar even without hefsed meruba or kevod haberios as a matir. So it all boils down to whether they really have a new tech that is more legitimate for them to call "un-grama" than Machon Zomet's design. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 07:12:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 10:12:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] =?iso-8859-1?q?The_Kosher_Switch=3A_A_Response_from_the_?= =?iso-8859-1?q?Tzomet_Institute=92s_Rabbi_Yisrael_Rosen?= Message-ID: <20150414141204.C79091830F4@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/ptcfckt The rabbinic world and blogosophere (see, for example, here) has been abuzz about the propriety of the Kosher Switch, which its producers claim allows one to halakhically turn on and off lights on shabbat. Attached here is the Hebrew response of Rabbi Yisrael Rosen, the prominent engineer who heads the Tzomet Institute, which includes (signed) clarifications of the positions of Rabbi Avigdor Nevenzahl and Rabbi Yehoshua Neuwirth. It is was sent on Tzomet stationery to Rabbi David Mescheloff, and is reprinted here with permission. Below is a rough English translation of the first page, which does not include some of the halakhic argumentation provided on the 2nd page of the original Hebrew. For all scholarly and halakhic purposes, and purposes of citation, only the original Hebrew letter should be seen as the authoritative writing of Rabbi Rosen. D. And here is the main part of my remarks: Yesterday I went to my teacher and rabbi HaGaon Rabbi Yehoshua Neuwirth, Shlita, and I asked him whether he permitted to use this switch to activate electricity on Shabbat for the purposes of Oneg Shabbat, etc He was really shocked and said he never permitted that. When I showed him the endorsement letter, he added in his handwriting: ?Only for medicine and security? (see photo in attached Hebrew article). Rabbi Avigdor Nebenzahl Shlita, who signed a similar letter, also told me yesterday that he does not recall ever signing anything like that, and expressed the opinion that there is no place for this and was puzzled about the whole thing. I suppose that whoever managed to get the signatures of important rabbis ?sold? them an invention that is a kind of a complex Gramma used for the purpose of medicine or security, and succeeded in skipping this condition when they signed. E. With regard to the claim, written in their accompanying halachic responsum, that it is permitted to use this Gramma switch to minimize the prohibition of those who willfully the violate the Shabbat, we have never heard of such rabbis who permit this. I am sure that those who ?agreed? did not see this argument, and this is an argument that should not be stated. See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 08:01:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joseph Kaplan via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 11:01:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <002d01d076c3$e98d8290$bca887b0$@tenzerlunin.com> "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above." Can anybody explain what this really means? That is, explain it to someone who doesn't use the word "ontological" in his/her normal speech. I have read it many many times but I still don't understand what the Rav is saying. Joseph -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 07:42:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 17:42:18 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: I guess I was a little too succinct in my last post. The major problem is that many consider tefillat haderech as a tefillah and not as a bracha. Thus while one can be motze other for a bracha one cannot do it for a tefillah. Hence, R Nebenzahl paskens that all those that know how to say by themselves should do so R C Kanevsky says it is preferable for each person to say by themself R Tuvia Goldstein says that one cannot be yotzeh someone else and claims that he convinced RMF of that R Belsky repeats that it is a tefillah and not a bracha and so it is appropriate (min ha-raui) that everyone says it for themself. R Aviner says that it is "rachamim" and therefore it is preferable that each one requests for themselves however bidieved one can be motzi others The sefer Piskei Teshuvot (siman 110-2) has a discussion whether one is required to say tefillat haderech in modern times. He concludes that one who does not say it on major roads has someone to rely on but someone who also says it has the reward of a tefilla even though we no longer have "listin" and wild animals on the roads. Instead we have a car accidents. Therefore one should also say tefillat haderech on railroads and planes. He claims that on small side roads that everyone paskens you need to say tefillat haderech -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 08:22:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 11:22:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150414152222.GD28845@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 03:45:47AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : From what I understand, the objection to hafkaas kiddushin comes from a : presumption that a woman would prefer to stay with her husband, even if : he seems to be a terrible person, and even if she tells us that in *her* : opinion he is a terrible person -- and we have this presumption because : of the chazaka of tan du. You phrased it as a psychological issue. RYBS says it's something existential or ontological -- and explicitly NOT pschological. I think he is saying that this vector exists in every woman's character. Even when current social reality provides other vectors that may submerge tav lemeisiv tan du, it is an entity present in her psyche (ontologically) still shaping her perception of reality (existential). And because of that element of her soul, inherited from Chavah, it's very hard to ever call a marriage a complete meqach ta'us on the bride's part. But again, my impression from RAL which is reinforced by this transcript, this particular argument was a side-bar, not RYBS's primary argument. Eg: ... : I can easily understand opposition to Hafkaas Kiddushin on the grounds : that widespread use would give *all* marriages a sort of "tentative" : status. But that's not what people are referring to here, right? ... RYBS discusses that issue at greater length than this one anyway. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 08:32:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 11:32:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] support obligations In-Reply-To: <20150413.235411.14734.1@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150413.235411.14734.1@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150414153245.GE28845@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 03:54:11AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Micha Berger wrote: : > Assuming she didn't agree to the arrangement. Ortherwise, the wife : > willingly waved her claim to his income, and took on the obligation : > of self- and child-support. : I would argue that she accepted the financial responsibilities only : in exchange for the s'char she gets from enabling her husband to learn : Torah, and that once he ceases to be her husband, that arrangement ends, : and the whole thing reverts to the usual. Phrased differently, once he : stops giving her the s'char of sharing in his learning, he has to give : her a more practical olam-hazeh sort of support. We are in the weird situation of talking about what the bride was agreeing to WRT a situation she never pictured arising. (I am reminded of Avodah discussions about what the Rambam would do if faced with what he perceives as a solid philosophical proof for a position he could not find a basis for in Torah. Would he declare something an allegory despite a lack of source in Chazal, would he dismiss the proof as flawed, perhaps even assuming the flaw had to be something he didn't yet find? The Rambam thought the situation was impossible.) So, I want to detour into a case more likely to have crossed the kallah's mind -- his death. If the husband predeceases her without having left kollel, she wouldn't expect him to leave her the same estate than if he had spent that time earning money. It may be equally valid to argue that the bride relinquishes claims to money even after he finishes learning, in exchange for supporting him while learning -- however long that lasts. I really don't know which way of looking at things is more valid. It's kind of like the old chestnut, "But if you did have a brother, would he like noodles?" Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 10:00:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Weiss via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 10:00:06 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3e97bfe1715ba4f18f42bf014d7ab62a.squirrel@mail.panix.com> > From http://www.dinonline.org/2012/07/11/davening-outdoors/ >> Is it problematic to daven outdoors? ... >> The Gemara (Berachos 34b) writes that it is wrong >> (arrogant - chatzuf) to daven in an open field. >> Rashi explains that in an open field, one doesn't >> feel fear of the King, and one doesn't pray with >> a broken heart. Tosafos, however, understands >> that the concern is for passers-by, who are >> liable to disturb a person's davening. >> The Magen Avraham (90:6) rules that the problem >> is that davening outside makes a haughty >> statement... ... >> Therefore, although it is not forbidden to daven >> outdoors, it is wrong to daven in an open area, >> and one should seek a sheltered place. As you see from the above it is the Lechatichilla not do daven in an open place, Last week we had a mincha minyan at the grand canyon, (to wait to a more appropriate place it would have been well after dark) When one davens in a large minyan and is surrounded by other people davening it is easier to concentrate on the tefilla. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 12:44:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 15:44:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd [TM]: Why Does God Test Us? Message-ID: <20150414194402.GB3303@aishdas.org> RGStudent recently posted a piece to answer the question "Why Does God Test Us?" The notion that the all-knowing God needs to test us to determine whether we will follow His command is absurd. He knows the future and therefore gains nothing from the exercise. Yet the Torah discusses in multiple places God's tests. For example, regarding the man (manna) that fell in the desert, God states: "So that I may test them, whether they will follow My law or not" (Ex. 16:4). The midrash (Tanchuma, Vayera 23) expresses the question aptly: ... I. Personal Growth The Kuzari (5:20), followed by the Ramban (Gen. 22:1; Ex. 16:4; Deut. 13:4; Toras Ha-Bayis in Kisvei Ha-Ramban, vol. 2 pp. 272-273), explains that God tests people in order to actualize their potential goodness.... II. Education Rambam (Moreh Nevukhim 3:24) takes an entirely different approach. He sees divine tests as a way to publicize, and thereby teach, the righteousness of an individual.... III. Adult Education I believe that, aside from midrashic sources and textual cues, Rambam had a more fundamental reason for taking a path different from that of the Kuzari and Ramban. The Gemara (Makkos 10a) says that Heaven takes you in the direction you wish to go. Similarly, another Gemara (Yoma 39a) says that someone who wishes to become pure (i.e. do good) is divinely assisted. Apparently, the Ramban takes this literally. ... IV. Self-Discovery Radal (ibid.) offers a third approach to understanding divine tests. Pirkei De-Rabbi Eliezer (31) says that the test was for Avraham to know his heart. God certainly know whether we will pass a test but poses it so that we learn our own abilities. Like a good coach, God pushes us farther than we think we can go. This, too, applies to adults who often underestimate their capacity for strength. God only tests those who will pass and by doing so teaches us the extent of our faith and endurance. ... -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 15:41:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 18:41:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] reviit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150414224153.GA9794@aishdas.org> On Sun, Apr 12, 2015 at 07:54:45PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : In the sefer of Rav Aviner he brings many examples of gedolim who used a : kiddush cup the size of the shiur of R Chaim Naeh (86 CC) and not CI. : He says he heard from RSZA that when RCN published his sefer on shiurim the : rabbis of Yerushalayim were astounded at his chumra !! Interesting, because I thought that RACN's agenda was to justify the accepted practice in his local, in EY in the early 20th cent. (Something I learned on-list 15 years ago.) Minhag Y-m is RACN's shiurim, because RACN started with the assumption that Minhag Y-m was roughly accuate, with the Sepharadim being the more precise. RACN himself was a Lubavitcher chassid of the Yishuva haYashan, born in Chevron. I do not know why people usually call him "Rav Chaim Naeh", ommitting his first name "Avraham". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 15:50:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 18:50:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: <3e97bfe1715ba4f18f42bf014d7ab62a.squirrel@mail.panix.com> References: <3e97bfe1715ba4f18f42bf014d7ab62a.squirrel@mail.panix.com> Message-ID: <20150414225006.GB9794@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 10:00:06AM -0700, Harry Weiss via Avodah wrote: : > From http://www.dinonline.org/2012/07/11/davening-outdoors/ : >> Is it problematic to daven outdoors? : ... : >> The Gemara (Berachos 34b) writes that it is wrong : >> (arrogant - chatzuf) to daven in an open field. : : >> Rashi explains that in an open field, one doesn't : >> feel fear of the King, and one doesn't pray with : >> a broken heart. Tosafos, however, understands : >> that the concern is for passers-by, who are : >> liable to disturb a person's davening. : : >> The Magen Avraham (90:6) rules that the problem : >> is that davening outside makes a haughty : >> statement... : ... : >> Therefore, although it is not forbidden to daven : >> outdoors, it is wrong to daven in an open area, : >> and one should seek a sheltered place. : .... : When one davens in a large minyan and is surrounded by other people : davening it is easier to concentrate on the tefilla. The Kotel Plaza doesn't suffer from any of these concerns, which is unsurprising because centuries of gedolim had no problem davening outside at the kotel. It's set up like a shul, so there is no special chutzpah or yuharah in davening there. Interruptions are likely, but generally for other mitzvos -- tzedaqah, or answering qaddish or qedushah from nearby minyanim. In terms And the location actively fosters yir'ah, koveid rosh and a broken heart. However, davening at Robinson's arch might suffer from the yuhara issue. (Personally, I find it more moving than the Kotel Plaza. One stands on the same road walked by oleh regel, among stones thrown off Har haBayis by the Roman Army (whether during the churban or when Hadrian had the har plowed, I do not know). Behind me are the ghosts of shopkeepers, ready to exchange my maaser sheini coins back to food, sell me flour for a qorban Todah or an animal for a differen qorban. The miqvah is a bit back, and to the left.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 16:12:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 23:12:56 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <20150414.191256.7783.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The major problem is that many consider tefillat haderech as a > tefillah and not as a bracha. Thus while one can be motze other > for a bracha one cannot do it for a tefillah. I am very confused. Many poskim recommend point out that Tefilas Haderech does not begin with "Baruch", so they recommend saying it after another bracha (such as Asher Yatzar, or a Bracha Acharona on food), so as to make it into a Bracha Hasemucha L'chvertah. But if Tefilas Haderech is not a bracha to begin with, then I do not see the advantage of such a procedure. According to "Halachically Speaking", vol 1 pg 76, the poskim who recommend the above procedure includes: Magen Avraham 110:13, Machatzis Hashekel 110:13, Be'er Hetev 110:10, Shulchan Aruch Harav 110:6, Mishneh Berurah 110:28, Aruch Hashulchan 110:14, Kaf Hachaim 110:51 -- but NOT the Chazon Ish (Orchos Rabenu 1:61). In addition, I recall learning of certain situations where it is recommended that one should say tefilas haderech, but omitting the chasima at the end. But if it's not a bracha at all even WITH the chasima, then what is gained by leaving it out? I suspect that I do not appreciate or understand the meaning of "as a tefillah and not as a bracha". Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552d9f0aeea561f0a2aa2st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 19:48:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 22:48:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Could a New Gadget Change Shabbat Observance - Forever In-Reply-To: <20150414145918.GA28845@aishdas.org> References: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150414145918.GA28845@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415024810.GA29474@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 10:59:18AM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 09:44:04AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : : From http://tinyurl.com/njr5j7a : : :> List of leading rabbis endorse 'Kosherswitch' to allow lights on : :> Shabbat. High-voltage project could send a current through Jewish : :> world. RGS just posted http://www.torahmusings.com/2015/04/will-the-kosher-switch-bring-mashiach-2 which also links to his earlier http://www.torahmusings.com/2011/09/in-defense-of-the-kosher-switch .... : As you can read on Zomet's site, R Neuwirth permits the wheelchair only : because the issue is basic mobility. KosherSwitch.com shows you that that : RYN signed on a "me too" to R' Pinchas Zabihi's haskamah. I have a notion : that once things are clarified, the truth is more somewhere in between. Actually, RGS determined that R Neuwirth didn't give his approval of the Kosher Switch outide of special circumstances. RGS writes: > The Kosher Switch adds uncertainty to the Gerama Switch. Every time the > device is supposed to send a light impulse, it calculates a random number > below 100 and only sends the impulse if the number passes a threshold > (usually over 50). However, there is a random element to Machon Zomet's switch too. Again, I do not see anything in the patent that makes this switch any less a simple case of gerama than Machon Zomet's switch. (In fact, R' Rosen of Zomet checked the posqim cited on KosherSwitch.com *because* he saw no reason why they would allow the Kosher Switch for general use and not Zomet's Grama Switch.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 19:26:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 02:26:43 GMT Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150414.222643.13892.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> R' Joseph Kaplan asked: > "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with > the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not > upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon > permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of > the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, > which is as changeless as the heavens above." > > Can anybody explain what this really means? That is, explain it > to someone who doesn?t use the word "ontological" in his/her > normal speech. I have read it many many times but I still > don?t understand what the Rav is saying. This is how I understand it: Just as a leopard cannot change its spots, and just as Shabbos comes each week whether society accepts it or not, so too, there are certain elements of the human condition which Chazal have identified as inherent and unchanging, not subject to variation by time, place, or culture. Or something like that. At any rate, one can agree or disagree about whether this assertion is true, and even among those who agree with it, there might be discussion of exactly which chazakos are unchanging and which are variable. Still, his point is that there are indeed some UNchanging aspects. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552dcca9d8e634ca96125st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 02:07:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 05:07:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's true position on kosher switch I regret that my father's position on the kosher switch was misrepresented by stating that he endorses it l'maaseh . His position is that there are 2 aspects in hilchos shabbos, one is issur melacha and then there is zilzul shabbos. My father's opinion is that there is no issur melacha or chilul shabbos. However , there is a concern about zilzul shabbos as he stated clearly on the video. Before it is used one should ask a shaila from his rav. Moshe Oelbaum Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:01:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:01:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld : regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. ... :> Moshe Oelbaum :> Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum Authentication? -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 23:10:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 09:10:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: The reason for not allowing to be motzi someone else is actually quite simple. The Gemara in Berachos (29b) clearly states that tefilas haderech is a tefila "Amar R' Chisda hayotzeh laderech tzarich lhispallel tefilas haderech". Therefore the general rule of tefilla should apply, namely that if you are a baki someone else cannot be motzi you. Since nowadays we are all considered bekiim and for example, we don't allow someone to be motzi us in tefilas mincha the same would apply to tefilas haderech. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:18:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:18:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:01 AM 4/15/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: >: Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld >: regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. >... >Authentication? What I posted was sent to me by someone on my email list whom I trust. I can send you his email address if you like. YL From http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/kosher-switch > moish3 at yahoo.com > Member > Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's true position on kosher switch . > I regret that my father's position on kosher switch was > misrepresented by stating that he endorses it l'maaseh . His position > is that there are 2 aspects in hilchos shabbos. One is issur melacha > and then there is zilzul shabbos. My father's opinion is that there > is no issur melacha or chilul shabbos. However , there is a concern > about zilzul shabbos as he stated clearly on the video. Before it is > used one should ask a shaila from his rav. > Moshe Oelbaum > Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:44:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:44:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 06:18:35AM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : What I posted was sent to me by someone on my email list whom I trust. : I can send you his email address if you like. YL ... : From http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/kosher-switch : > moish3 at yahoo.com : > Member Oh, I believe it really appeared in YWN, and that link can allow you to check that much for ourselves. What I'm asking is whether anyone contact R' Moshe Oelbaum or RNIO to authenticate that the post really was from his son. It is trivial to claim to be anyone in a YWN chatroom. I don't know RMO, but I can't picture R' NI Oelbaum promulgating his position via chatroom. Could be, if his son is a regular there anyway. The presence of a post really doesn't tell me much. No matter how honest the person reporting to you is, he can be duped unless he spoke to the parties himself. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:13:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:13:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150415101229.BCD31183613@nexus.stevens.edu> At 05:54 AM 4/15/2015, R. Harry Weiss wrote: >When one davens in a large minyan and is surrounded by other people >davening it is easier to concentrate on the tefilla. I do not find this to be true for me personally. I am not a "group person" and hence prefer to daven in a minyan that has between 20 and forty participants. This is the case where I daven during the week and also at the Hashkama Minyan at the YI of Ave J where I daven on Shabbos. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 06:34:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 09:34:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:44 AM 4/15/2015, Micha Berger wrote: > What I'm asking is whether >anyone contact R' Moshe Oelbaum or RNIO to authenticate that the >post really was from his son. It is trivial to claim to be anyone >in a YWN chatroom. I received this in an email from Moshe Deutsch I personally spoke to Rabbi & Rebbetzin Oelbaum who told me to publicize this. I was the one who made them aware that the person behind KosherSwitch is using his name in a way that Rabbi Oelbaum did not intend. Person behind KosherSwitch does not pick up the phone now when Rabbi Oelbaum calls. Moshe From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 07:21:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 10:21:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 09:34:32AM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : I received this in an email from Moshe Deutsch :> I personally spoke to Rabbi & Rebbetzin Oelbaum who told me to :> publicize this. I was the one who made them aware that the person :> behind KosherSwitch is using his name in a way that Rabbi Oelbaum did :> not intend... This still doesn't clear up my confusion, although it does confirm what the YWN post said (if not who authored it). I am trying to understand whether RNIO's problem with the appearance of his name on the KosherSwitch.com "approvers" list is because a- he feels that use of the switch is zilzul Shabbos, or b- he would hold it's gerama. What I am trying to understand is the tzad to say their switch isn't gerama. It appears to conform to the description of the Machon Zomet switch as it existed at the time R' Neuwirth consulted with RSZA who ruled it was. If RNIO holds it's "only" zilzul Shabbos, then clarifying what his position is was useful, but doesn't remove all my confusion. I was expecting that the posqim the Kosher Switch people are hearing overly optimistically (for their investment) would actually all end up agreeing with RSZA once we got clarification. Such as R' Neuwirth, whose approval was based on assuming the proposed use was a medical context. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 04:38:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 14:38:08 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <> On many birtchot hamitzva one can be motzeh others even when they are "experts". This includes shofar, megilla etc (not lulav or netillat yadaim which is considered as a mitzvah be-gufo) similarly for kiddush and havdala. Note that for sefirat haomer usually each person says the bracha himself/herself and also counts for themselves. There are opinions that if needed one can rely on the chazzan for the bracha but not the count. In birchat ha-nehenim usually each individual makes his own bracha. There are some which are a mixture including kiddush and motzi on shabbat on lechem mishne (note there are various minhagim on seder night). For birchat shevach eg lightning seeing great mountains etc each person says it by himself. OTOH the shliach tzibbur can be motzi others with shemone esre only if they cant say it themselves. Shemonei esrei is a tefillah (bakasha and shevach) even though shemonei esrei consists of brachot. The usual minhag is that each individual says birchat hagomel though I once heard from R Zilberstein that if many people need to say it then it is preferable for one person to be motzei everyone else ---------------------------------------- I am not sure if I have made things clearer - if not I leave it to someone else to explain exactly when one can be motze others lechatchila, bidieved or not at all -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 06:29:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 16:29:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: R' Akiva Miller wrote: > I suspect that I do not appreciate or understand the meaning of "as a > tefillah and not as a bracha". The difference between tefila and a beracha is whether you can be motzi a baki nowadays. With a beracha you can however with a tefilla you cannot which is why these poskim hold that each person should say tefilas haderech the same way every person davens shemoneh esrei. You also asked: > I am very confused. Many poskim recommend point out that Tefilas Haderech > does not begin with "Baruch", so they recommend saying it after another > bracha (such as Asher Yatzar, or a Bracha Acharona on food), so as to make > it into a Bracha Hasemucha L'chvertah. But if Tefilas Haderech is not a > bracha to begin with, then I do not see the advantage of such a procedure. Something can be both a beracha and a tefila at the same time, the prime example is shemoneh esrei which is tefilla par excellence but composed of 18 (19) berachos. Tefilas haderech is a tefila composed (possibly) in the form of a beracha and therefore the rules of tefilla would apply. [Email #2. -micha] R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The sefer Piskei Teshuvot (siman 110-2) has a discussion whether one is > required to say tefillat haderech in modern times. He concludes that one > who does not say it on major roads has someone to rely on but someone who > also says it has the reward of a tefilla even though we no longer have > "listin" and wild animals on the roads. It seems clear from the context of the gemara that tefilas haderech is a tefila b'eis tzara. The gemara mentions tefilas haderech right after it mentions that a person who is in a dangerous place says a tefila. The world has changed a lot since the time of chazal especially related to travel and we need to understand if these changes affect the din of tefilas haderech Here are some of the changes that have occurred relating to travel. 1. Most travel is no longer considered unsafe. When I get in my car every morning to drive to work I don't think twice about it 2. The distinction between in the city and out of the city is no longer true. Most people fell much safer driving in the Catskills then driving through Harlem. Driving on a highway from Brooklyn to Queens is in the city but driving in Monsey to the supermarket may be considered out of the city. 3. This is related to 1, people travel all the time. Most people commute some distance to work, this is normal and part of everyday life. In the time of chazal yotze laderech was a big deal. Given the above R' Shachter (in Nefesh Harav) says that R' Soloveitchik did not say tefilas haderech when he commuted from Boston to NY to give his shiurim. He felt that because it is a tefila b'eis tzara and nowadays there is no perceived danger and it is routine that there was no reason to say it. Recently, I heard a short shiur on tefilas haderech and was happy to hear that RSZA seems to say a very similar idea to RYBS. RSZA did not say tefilas haderech when he traveled from Yerushayim to Bnei Brak. He explained his reasoning as follows: 1. In many places it is not considered as if you left the yishuv for the following reasons: 1. There are many other cars on the road 2. The police regularly patrol the road 3. There are houses on the side of the road 2. Traveling by car/bus is a normal activity. Whan a person gets up and commutes to work he does not say he is going on a trip. The takana of tefilas haderech was for someone who was yotze laderech these kinds of trips are not considered ???? ????. 3. There is little or no danger of yotze laderech RSZA reasoning is very similar to RYBS. Basically, the world has changed and it is no longer unusual or dangerous to travel between cities and therefore the din of when you say tefilas haderech changes as well. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 05:05:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:05:17 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150414.222643.13892.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150414.222643.13892.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <0fa3e90282b94c0e95214067965f579a@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> This is how I understand it: Just as a leopard cannot change its spots, and just as Shabbos comes each week whether society accepts it or not, so too, there are certain elements of the human condition which Chazal have identified as inherent and unchanging, not subject to variation by time, place, or culture. Or something like that. At any rate, one can agree or disagree about whether this assertion is true, and even among those who agree with it, there might be discussion of exactly which chazakos are unchanging and which are variable. Still, his point is that there are indeed some UNchanging aspects. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ I would add an observation that individual exceptions may exist empirically but are ignored halachically Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 06:24:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 09:24:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tan Du In-Reply-To: <20150406184227.GF20912@aishdas.org> References: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150406184227.GF20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <552E669A.6000104@aishdas.org> I personally was always inclined to side with Rabbi Rackman over RYBS on tav l'meisav, but this article gives me pause: http://www.bbc.com/news/health-32303997 KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 07:57:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 10:57:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Message-ID: From: Joseph Kaplan via Avodah "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above." Can anybody explain what this really means? That is, explain it to someone who doesn't use the word "ontological" in his/her normal speech. I have read it many many times but I still don't understand what the Rav is saying. Joseph >>>>> If you leave out the word "ontological" here the sentence is perfectly clear: Human nature does not change. I'm sure you looked up the definition of "ontological" so no need to go there. But in this paragraph, the word "ontological" serves a subliminal purpose. Here it means, "Don't condescend to Orthodox Jews and do not assume we are backwards, primitive, and ignorant. One can be an intellectual and still believe the Torah is true and eternal." --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 08:12:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:12:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: From: Eli Turkel via Avodah >>The sefer Piskei Teshuvot (siman 110-2) has a discussion whether one is required to say tefillat haderech in modern times. He concludes that one who does not say it on major roads has someone to rely on but someone who also says it has the reward of a tefilla even though we no longer have "listin" and wild animals on the roads. Instead we have a car accidents. Therefore one should also say tefillat haderech on railroads and planes. He claims that on small side roads that everyone paskens you need to say tefillat haderech<< -- Eli Turkel >>>> Saying tefillas haderech "on major roads" -- does that mean even within one city, not just when traveling between cities? "On small side roads everyone paskens you need to say tefillas haderech"? What does that mean? Every time I get in the car to go to the grocery store in my own neighborhood? Or was the word "don't" inadvertently omitted from that sentence ("you don't need to say tefillat haderech")? I was driving someone to the cemetery for a levaya, we were on the highway doing 60 and all of a sudden it started to rain, but I mean a mabul, a hard, driving, blinding rain. I couldn't see at all in front of me. Of course I slowed down, as did everyone else, but it was still very frightening and certainly I couldn't just stop in the middle of the highway. My passenger, a BT, became very agitated and said, "I only know one perek of Tehillim by heart so I am going to say that." Then she recited Shir Hamaalos (from benching) out loud. The rain stopped immediately! A few miles further down the road, there was another sudden blinding outburst and she said Shir Hamaalos again. Again the rain immediately stopped. She was like a reverse Choni Hamaagel! I really think her emunah peshuta saved the day! But to veer back into Avodah territory -- would it have been appropriate to say Tefillas Haderech at that time? With shem umalchus? (I assume you can always say it without shem umalchus.) --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 08:34:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:34:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides Message-ID: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> There was a bachur next to me this morning whose retzu'os were painted black on both sides. And I believe I know why this is done, in case a retzu'ah gets flipped. Or perhaps to be chosheish for the Rambam's description of such retzu'os being "noi". The MB 933:21 tells us not to follow the Rambam, whereas the Keses haSofer (written by R' Ganzfried of the QSA) says even the *sides* should be black. But the site got me wondering: 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? 2- If the leather is soaked in dye untile its absorbed and the leather is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? R YS Elyashiv is reported by R' Mordeschai Friedlander (a noted sofer and poseiq, a reliable source) to hold they're fine. I am not challenging their kashrus. It just struck me that both seem valid concerns. I assume the talented chevrah can find holes in my problems. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:17:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:17:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> At 10:21 AM 4/15/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >I am trying to understand whether RNIO's problem with the appearance of >his name on the KosherSwitch.com "approvers" list is because >a- he feels that use of the switch is zilzul Shabbos, or >b- he would hold it's gerama. Does it really matter. He is saying that he does not approve of its use. Why do you need to know more? YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:32:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:32:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 12:17:02PM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : Does it really matter. He is saying that he does not approve of its : use. Why do you need to know more? For the sake of the switch, no. For the sake of understanding the concept of gerama -- Torah hi, velilamdah ani tzarikh! Saying this switch isn't gerama, and its use limited to cases where we can permit gerama, really defies my understanding of the concept. Or perhaps I misunderstand how it works, in which case the Electrical Engineer I studied to become (and the neti'ah that motivated the intent to become one) wants to know. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:07:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 17:07:04 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:34:00 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah > 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam > consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? > 2- If the leather is soaked in dye [until it's] absorbed and the leather > is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we > know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? 1. If it is just soaked, there is no problem of chatzitzah. (Did the fact that the pesiloth of the Tsits were soaked in techeles dye constitute a problem of chatsisoh? atmahah?) There may be a problem if it was subsequently glossed black - which it isn't. 2. Why shouldn't it be valid material after soaking? It's still leather. According to halachah, [have not checked this up right now - but if memory serves me] you can even use klaf [bdi'eved] for retsuos - as long as it is the skin of a kosher beheimoh, its kosher. Dovid [sofer] From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:13:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:13:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> References: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <552E8E18.4090201@sero.name> On 04/15/2015 11:34 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam > consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? Why would it be? It's part of the retzua. AFAIK everyone agrees that it's a hiddur, just not necessary, and most people don't bother. > 2- If the leather is soaked in dye untile its absorbed and the leather > is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we > know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? Why wouldn't it be? It's still leather, after all. Where does it say what colour the leather must be? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:57:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:57:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150415165733.GD6173@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:04PM +0100, D via Avodah wrote: : Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:34:00 -0400 : From: Micha Berger via Avodah :> 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam :> consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? : 1. If it is just soaked, there is no problem of chatzitzah. (Did the : fact that the pesiloth of the Tsits were soaked in techeles dye : constitute a problem of chatsisoh? atmahah?) ... So I believe your answer to my first question is that they don't paint the bottom, they only use my scenario two -- soaking the leather. About your parenthetical comment... If halakhah requires tekheiles, it requires blue wool. The completed product would be what the kohein shouldn't have a chatzitzah under. Not the undyed wool. :> 2- If the leather is soaked in dye [until it's] absorbed and the leather :> is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we :> know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? : 2. Why shouldn't it be valid material after soaking? It's still : leather.... But it's no longer entirely skin of a kosher beheimah, as the dye isn't made from skin. It is now a retzuah made of skin + dye. I could see that either way, and am asking how we (or the posqim among us) can just assume that this innovation is not a problem. Just as tekheiles is different than tzemer, perhaps dye-soaked leather is different in kind than leather. How did we determine it isn't? : Dovid [sofer] Thanks for chiming in. But could you kindly put your full name in your email header or signature once in a while, so that people know who we're talking to? One of Avodah's goals is to create chevraschaft, which is difficult when people are anonymous or partially so. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 10:28:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 17:28:55 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150415.132855.9927.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 12:17:02PM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : Does it really matter. He is saying that he does not approve of its : use. Why do you need to know more? This is like saying, about ANY situation, "He is saying that it is assur. Why do you need to know if it is d'Oraisa or d'rabanan?" The answer is very simple: There are some situations which would justify doing it if "merely" d'rabanan, but not otherwise. Similarly, there may be situations where RNIO would allow this it his svara was ABC, but not if his svara was XYZ. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552e9fe45804e1fe4411ast02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 12:42:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 19:42:24 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu>, <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> Message-ID: <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Saying this switch isn't gerama, and its use limited to cases where we can permit gerama, really defies my understanding of the concept. Or perhaps I misunderstand how it works, in which case the Electrical Engineer I studied to become (and the neti'ah that motivated the intent to become one) wants to know. Tir'u baTov! -Micha _______________________________________________ Sounds to me like r' asher weiss's makeh bpatish definition. Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 16:13:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 19:13:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 07:42:24PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Sounds to me like r' asher weiss's makeh bpatish definition. You lost me. I wasn't discussing which melakhah -- if any -- one violates by using electricity in an of itself, but how using this switch relates to that melakhah. For example, even if we say that electricity and electronics itself weren't an issue, the majority of these switches would be installed so as to turn on fluorescent or incandescent bulbs. Both of which heat filaments until glowing -- so there is a melakhah of bishul or hav'arah to discuss. And my question becomes: In that rather typical setting, how the switch not gerama of one of those two melakhos? (Or possibly both, if a glowing filament is hav'arah, and the resulting boiling of mercury in the fluorescent bulb, bishul.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 13:05:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 16:05:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: REliTurkel wrote: >Just saw a halacha that to me was a chiddush That one cannot (or should not) be yotzeh someone else for tefiilat haderech but everyone should say for them self. Those agreeing (at least lechatchila) include R Aviner R Nebenzahl R C Kanevsky R Tuvia Goldstein (who said he convinced RMF) R Belsky Not what I have seen in practice. Anyone know any opinion that does allow it< Is there any opinion, even of the five quoted, which holds that one is _not_ yotzei even b'diavad? As for RET's question, the Kol Bo on Aveilus, quoted in SSK, Perek 64, footnote 75, states that an onein is obligated in t'fillas haderech, but it is preferable that he be yotzei with another's b'racha. (I have not seen the SSK, but have seen it quoted.) EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 15:35:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 15:35:27 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach Message-ID: did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 17:00:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 20:00:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 6:35 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? I have a friend who does this. She once told me the origins but I forget where it came from. I remember that it was very obscure and non traditional. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 17:38:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 20:38:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150416003839.GD1638@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 03:35:27PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? What did it grow out of? Avoiding she'avar alav es hapesach? A way of avoiding chodosh, at least during the omer period? -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 17:44:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 20:44:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: <20150416003839.GD1638@aishdas.org> References: <20150416003839.GD1638@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 8:38 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 03:35:27PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: >: did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? > What did it grow out of? ... It had to do with chodosh and the omer/barley. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 22:05:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Weiss via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 22:05:46 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > From: Marty Bluke via Avodah > Given the above R' Shachter (in Nefesh Harav) says that R' Soloveitchik > did > not say tefilas haderech when he commuted from Boston to NY to give his > shiurim. He felt that because it is a tefila b'eis tzara and nowadays > there > is no perceived danger and it is routine that there was no reason to say > it. I was on a number of trips to Europe with RHS and every morning when the bus left town he said Tefillas Haderech over the loudspeaker. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 22:19:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 08:19:12 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: multipart/alternative Size: 369 bytes Desc: not available URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 07:15:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:15:53 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: Question: If one doesn't view eilu v'eilu as multiple truths but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which is which), how do you explain the approach to halachic process which ignores academic findings concerning texts or historical circumstances? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 07:16:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:16:49 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] =?windows-1252?q?Nikra_Choteih=94_or_=93Nikra_Rasha=94?= Message-ID: <34b0a662bcc7405695661d14e08ddcfd@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> The gemara uses the expression ?Nikra Choteih? or ?Nikra Rasha? from time to time. Has anyone seen anything written on the relative ranking of such categories? (e.g. since it doesn?t say ?assur?? does it mean it?s not a complete prohibition but something less?) KT Joel RIch THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 08:26:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 16:26:54 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I've never heard of the minhag but there is a chasidishe minhag to eat matsoh every time one washes for hamotsi during the Omer [see Chayim VeShoolom - Minhogim of Munkatche Rebbe] - which might be connected. (The source is the Ari who perceives the spiritual influx of Pesach to be repeated over the Omer; the state that warrants the eating of matsoh during Pesach carries over till Shovuos. Full 'maturity' that warrants the eating of chomets is only reached on Shovuos.) Dovid Rubin From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 10:13:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 17:13:44 GMT Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach Message-ID: <20150416.131344.1969.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> R' Dovid Rubin wrote: > (The source is the Ari who perceives the spiritual influx of Pesach > to be repeated over the Omer; the state that warrants the eating of > matsoh during Pesach carries over till Shovuos. This reminds me of the comment (which I've heard several times here on Avodah, but I don't think anywhere else) that in Moshiach's time, all of Sefira will be a sort of Chol Hamoed to Pesach. > Full 'maturity' that > warrants the eating of chomets is only reached on Shovuos.) Shavuos -- a.k.a. -- "Atzeres" -- is of course an entirely distinct holiday, unrelated to Pesach or to its seven-week long chol hamoed. Chometz would not be a problem on Shavuos any more than Sukkah is mandated on the other Atzeres. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552fede2bc7ec6de23df7st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 10:56:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 13:56:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: <20150416.131344.1969.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.131344.1969.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150416175612.GB10238@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 05:13:44PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Dovid Rubin wrote: :> Full 'maturity' that :> warrants the eating of chomets is only reached on Shovuos.) : Shavuos -- a.k.a. -- "Atzeres" -- is of course an entirely : distinct holiday, unrelated to Pesach or to its seven-week long chol : hamoed. Chometz would not be a problem on Shavuos any more than Sukkah : is mandated on the other Atzeres. Entirely distinct, yes. Unrelated.... The chag of cheirus finds its fruition with "charos - cheirus al haluchos." The connection between the issur chameitz of Pesach, the barley of the qorban omer, and the two loaves of chameitz wheat of the Shetei haLechem is at least as old as the Chinukh. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:22:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:22:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> Yesterday, at 7:13 pm EDT, I wrote: > And my question becomes: In that rather typical setting, how the > switch not gerama of one of those two melakhos? (Or possibly both, if > a glowing filament is hav'arah, and the resulting boiling of mercury > in > the fluorescent bulb, bishul.) And then "ssvarc" (RMSS) wrote on Torah Musings at 8:28 am or > In all likelihood, the Zomet one doesn?t have the light on a > randomized > timer (with indicators), nor the randomized chance for the light > pulse > to operate the switch. Now for an updated version of my response (not yet approved) there: Zomet's Grama Switch does have a randomizer on the LED whose light you may or may not block. As do Shabbos mode ovens. The Kosher Switch has a the same randomizer on the detector opposite the LED, but I don?t see how that makes anything more random. But now that you had me looking at their ?How it Works? page, the key difference has the description of a sefeiq sefeiqa. It?s far from clear what is meant. Here?s the quote from : > This creates two safeiks (Halachic uncertainty): the first, whether > or not the light pulse of the Light Pulse Pair will fail; the second, > whether the switch will fail in triggering the circuit based on the > results of the Light Pulse Pair. ?The switch will fail in triggering the circuit?? What are they doing to introduce this second safeiq? The best I can tell, it's a simple bit of software -- a randomizer that says "don't respond anyway". But that's just guessing, I'm not good enough at reading their patent to be sure. Also, in what sense is either a safeiq? Both will eventually happen, the question is when. I am not sure how ?sefeiq sefeiqa? applies to gerama, or to be more precise -- avoiding gerama. But at least I?m a step further in my understanding. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Here is the test to find whether your mission micha at aishdas.org on Earth is finished: http://www.aishdas.org if you're alive, it isn't. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Richard Bach From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:46:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:46:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> Message-ID: PS: On the relevance of random delay to gerama... AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is *geram* kibui". A case of gerama with a random time delay. But this is Yom Tov, where the laws against extinguishing are looser. The AhS refers you to OC 277:7, where we see that on Shabbos it's assur -- but because of a special gezeira to prevent people from doing the same when the wind *is* blowing. Not because of gerama. I also don't think the randomness of the length of the delay is necessarily relevant. Just pointing out halachic precedent. But it's certainly not "iffy" that we could invoke sefeiq sefeiqa. It's a random length delay, not a doubt whether or not the switch will eventually cause the outcome. The odds the wind will never come, or the randomizer(s) will never produce a combination that causes the switch to be honored, is ignorably small. (No one is selling a switch that may or may not shut the light.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:43:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:43:56 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: RJRich >>>Sounds to me like r' asher weiss's makeh bpatish definition. RMBerger >>>> You lost me. I wasn't discussing which melakhah -- if any -- one violates by using electricity in an of itself, but how using this switch relates to that melakhah. >>> IIAMN, the idea RJR is expressing is that the poseik has ad initio determined that the action in question is forbidden, and now is searching around for the category into which to place this prohibition. I have heard RAWeiss explicitly use this concept in classifying the use of electricity as makeh b'patish, based on a Yerushalmi - it's not an idea just made up by contemporary poskim. It does seem that some poskim are looking at the switch and saying "it *must *be assur somehow"; in any event that seems to me to be what RJR is suggesting is going on. Saul Mashbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:45:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:45:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55300361.8020803@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 02:22 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > "The switch will fail in triggering the circuit"? What are they > doing to introduce this second safeiq? The best I can tell, it's > a simple bit of software -- a randomizer that says "don't respond > anyway". But that's just guessing, I'm not good enough at reading their > patent to be sure. Yes, that's how I understood it. If and when the pulse is received, instead of automatically triggering the light to turn on, there's a gatekeeper that flips a coin, heads it obeys the request to turn on the light, tails it refuses. > Also, in what sense is either a safeiq? Both will eventually happen, > the question is when. In principle it might not ever happen. The basis of all this seems to be siman 277. There the concern is that even if the wind isn't blowing right now, it might start to blow *immediately* as you begin to open the door. This implies that if we can be sure that it won't start blowing until some time after the door has been opened it will be OK. But that whole discussion assumes that extinguishing the flame is not the purpose for which the door is being opened, it's just a possible side-effect. Is the halacha different if that was the intention? On 04/16/2015 02:46 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > > AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes > the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable > to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, > as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. > The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is > *geram* kibui". But there you're actively taking it to the place where the wind will blow. Here you're merely opening the door, so that if/when the wind blows the door won't protect the flame. > But it's certainly not "iffy" that we could invoke sefeiq sefeiqa. It's a > random length delay, not a doubt whether or not the switch will eventually > cause the outcome. The odds the wind will never come, or the randomizer(s) > will never produce a combination that causes the switch to be honored, > is ignorably small. (No one is selling a switch that may or may not shut > the light.) Why not? For the shabbos-keeping household, a switch that sometimes fails is better than no switch at all. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 12:12:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 15:12:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <55300361.8020803@sero.name> References: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 02:45:53PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : >Also, in what sense is either a safeiq? Both will eventually happen, : >the question is when. : : In principle it might not ever happen. ... : >But it's certainly not "iffy" that we could invoke sefeiq sefeiqa. It's a : >random length delay, not a doubt whether or not the switch will eventually : >cause the outcome. The odds the wind will never come, or the randomizer(s) : >will never produce a combination that causes the switch to be honored, : >is ignorably small. (No one is selling a switch that may or may not shut : >the light.) : : Why not? For the shabbos-keeping household, a switch that sometimes fails : is better than no switch at all. You want to ask them why not, feel free to do so. I'm not guessing why they're not setting the randomizers to make each even that unlikely. Still, they are repeatedly rolling the dice, the odds of repeatedly getting "no" falls off geometrically with the length of time in question. Ignoring milsa delo shekhicha, the light will indeed go on. They say the average is "several times" at . : The basis of all this seems to be siman 277. There the concern is that : even if the wind isn't blowing right now, it might start to blow : *immediately* as you begin to open the door. This implies that if we : can be sure that it won't start blowing until some time after the door : has been opened it will be OK. But that whole discussion assumes that : extinguishing the flame is not the purpose for which the door is being : opened, it's just a possible side-effect. Is the halacha different if : that was the intention? : >AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes : >the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable : >to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, : >as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. : >The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is : >*geram* kibui". : : But there you're actively taking it to the place where the wind will blow. : Here you're merely opening the door, so that if/when the wind blows the door : won't protect the flame. The AhS invites the comparison, not me. Clearly you're making a disinction that he holds is without a difference. BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at . To quote: An alternative Talmudic analogy: * There is a candle burning next to a closed window, and a strong wind blowing outside. Certainly, opening the window on Shabbat is forbidden, since the candle will be extinguished immediately. * There is a device that can determine if there's no wind currently blowing, and it can predict with 100% accuracy that no wind will be blowing for at least the next ~5 seconds. It lights up with a green light when it has determined this to be true. * On Shabbat, a person opens/closes the window while the device's indicator is green, knowing that a wind will ultimately blow and succeed in extinguishing the candle. * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to KosherSwitch (R). -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:55:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:55:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] {Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: > From: Marty Bluke via Avodah > Given the above R' Shachter (in Nefesh Harav) says that R' Soloveitchik > did > not say tefilas haderech when he commuted from Boston to NY to give his > shiurim. He felt that because it is a tefila b'eis tzara and nowadays > there > is no perceived danger and it is routine that there was no reason to say > it. RAsher Weiss, in a shiur on tefillat haderech, similarly expressed grave reservations about the recitation of tefillat haderech on routine trips which do not involve any particular acute danger, and indicated that his personal practice is not to say tefillat haderech (at least with a bracha) on said routine trips. OTOH, he was apparently very reluctant to issue a definitive psak that others should do the same, in the face of common established practice. Saul Mashbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 12:43:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 15:43:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> References: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 03:12 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > > BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at > . To quote: > > An alternative Talmudic analogy: > > * There is a candle burning next to a closed window, and a strong > wind blowing outside. Certainly, opening the window on Shabbat is > forbidden, since the candle will be extinguished immediately. > > * There is a device that can determine if there's no wind currently > blowing, and it can predict with 100% accuracy that no wind will be > blowing for at least the next ~5 seconds. It lights up with a > green light when it has determined this to be true. > > * On Shabbat, a person opens/closes the window while the device's > indicator is green, knowing that a wind will ultimately blow and > succeed in extinguishing the candle. > > * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind > is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time > when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts > of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they > miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're > able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to > KosherSwitch (R). Yes, and it seems from the SA that this would be permitted. The big difference, though, is that in the SA's case there is no intention to extinguish the flame, and here there is. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 12:53:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 15:53:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> References: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150416195347.GC11430@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 03:43:24PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: :> BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at :> . To quote: ... :> * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind :> is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time :> when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts :> of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they :> miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're :> able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to :> KosherSwitch (R). : Yes, and it seems from the SA that this would be permitted. The big : difference, though, is that in the SA's case there is no intention to : extinguish the flame, and here there is. Getting back to the post that started this tangent, the question was whether this last bullet item actualy is relevant. What's relevant is the probability of the wind eventually blowing the candle out or the switch turning the light off. If it's a rov or maybe a rube deruba, then it's gerama. At least, that's what was consensus decades ago when Machon Zomet first produced their switch technology and wheelchair. Whether you can break down the likelihood of the melakhah occuring into a union of the probability of a number of sub-steps or not doesn't seem to me to impact the question. Because this isn't a safeiq situation, it's whether your action can be blamed for the melakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 13:25:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 16:25:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150416195347.GC11430@aishdas.org> References: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> <20150416195347.GC11430@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55301AC6.7000807@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 03:53 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 03:43:24PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > :> BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at > :> . To quote: > ... > :> * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind > :> is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time > :> when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts > :> of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they > :> miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're > :> able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to > :> KosherSwitch (R). > > : Yes, and it seems from the SA that this would be permitted. The big > : difference, though, is that in the SA's case there is no intention to > : extinguish the flame, and here there is. > > Getting back to the post that started this tangent, the question was > whether this last bullet item actualy is relevant. According to the SA even the penultimate bullet item is permitted: >> * On Shabbat, a person opens/closes the window while the device's >> indicator is green, knowing that a wind will ultimately blow and >> succeed in extinguishing the candle Surely the last bullet item makes the heter much stronger. But again, the case discussed is where this is not one's intention. Note also, in the mashal, that not only is there no wind right now, there is no candle right now either. > What's relevant is the probability of the wind eventually blowing the > candle out or the switch turning the light off. If it's a rov or maybe > a rube deruba, then it's gerama. That doesn't seem to be what the SA says. But again, with the caveat that intention might make a difference. > Whether you can break down the likelihood of the melakhah occuring into > a union of the probability of a number of sub-steps or not doesn't seem > to me to impact the question. Because this isn't a safeiq situation, > it's whether your action can be blamed for the melakhah. It's putting further causal distance between "cause" and "effect". What if you had a series of these routines, each of which may or may not call the next one, until the last one which may or may not do something? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 14:05:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Samuel Svarc via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 17:05:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Apr 15, 2015 6:01 AM, "Micha Berger via Avodah" wrote: > On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > : Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld > : regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. > ... > :> Moshe Oelbaum > :> Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum > Authentication? Um, the fact that R' Oelbaum says the same thing on the KosherSwitch video ()? What I find very disturbing is that this information is in the public arena. Why are people commenting or conjecturing without looking at the companies materials? On Apr 16, 2015 2:46 PM, "Micha Berger" wrote: > PS: On the relevance of random delay to gerama... > AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes > the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable > to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, > as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. > The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is > *geram* kibui". > A case of gerama with a random time delay. But this is Yom Tov, where > the laws against extinguishing are looser. The AhS refers you to OC > 277:7, where we see that on Shabbos it's assur -- but because of a > special gezeira to prevent people from doing the same when the wind *is* > blowing. Not because of gerama. Take a look at R' Schapiro's teshuva (available on the KosherSwitch website) as well as listen to the shuir they link to (26 min.). KT, MSS From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 14:48:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 17:48:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150416214839.GC1824@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 04:25:42PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: :> What's relevant is the probability of the wind eventually blowing the :> candle out or the switch turning the light off. If it's a rov or maybe :> a rube deruba, then it's gerama. : That doesn't seem to be what the SA says. But again, with the caveat that : intention might make a difference. But we already know it does, according to RSZa and numerous other posqim. IOW, your seifa answers your reisha. : >Whether you can break down the likelihood of the melakhah occuring into : >a union of the probability of a number of sub-steps or not doesn't seem : >to me to impact the question. Because this isn't a safeiq situation, : >it's whether your action can be blamed for the melakhah. : It's putting further causal distance between "cause" and "effect". : What if you had a series of these routines, each of which may or may not : call the next one, until the last one which may or may not do something? That's exactly what I'm saying -- gerama is always a chain of events that can be subdivided according to your taste (how fine grained you wish to define the word "event"). There is an oft-discussed difference between melakhah and CM, where the latter subdivides into gerama (culpable) and garmi (no libability) but hilkhos Shabbos does not. And then even so, garmi is about number of human actions, not physical events. On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 05:05:38PM -0400, Samuel Svarc wrote: : On Apr 15, 2015 6:01 AM, "Micha Berger via Avodah" : wrote: :> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: :>: Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld :>: regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. :> ... :>:> Moshe Oelbaum :>:> Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum :> Authentication? : Um, the fact that R' Oelbaum says the same thing on the KosherSwitch video : ()? YOu misunderstand what I'm asking to be authenticated. Yes, I agree that RNIO talks about zilzul Shabbos. He does in the original alleged approbation in print (or PDF) as well. I was asking for authentication that RMO was really the one who said it's "only" zilzul Shabbos and not also gerama. There is nothing in his caveat about them avoiding melakhah that explains in what way shabbos is being cheapened. Could be uvda dechol, could be gerama, could be any other derabbanan or shevus. No? Not to verify the new "chumera", but to very he wasn't being even more machmir. That's a lot to glean from a post on a YWN chatroom that claims to be from his son. No one identity checks on YWN. : What I find very disturbing is that this information is in the public : arena. Why are people commenting or conjecturing without looking at the : companies materials? In the same post I cite the site in numerous ways, including commenting on parts of the patent application. It's not like I stinted on the research. Never blame until the possibility of miscommunication has been eliminated. No? : On Apr 16, 2015 2:46 PM, "Micha Berger" wrote: : Take a look at R' Schapiro's teshuva (available on the KosherSwitch : website) as well as listen to the shuir they link to (26 min.). One thing I had noted about the teshuvah is that he doesn't bother with the whole thing about a second randomizer. Which is why I was lost as to why anyone would think this is more mutar, and why people who generally follow RSZA more often than RZS would think this solves anything. See R' Neuwirth's summary rejection, repudiating the claim he backed their work . Consistent with what he reported besheim RSZA decades ago. I already noted OC 277, which is specific to geram kibui being mutar, with the exception of taking a candle outside while the wind is calm, lest someone not wait for the wind to be calm. And havarah or bishul? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 18:59:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:59:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150417015924.GA11845@aishdas.org> Here's the current state of my understnading, to start the conversation over by clearing the exchanges that got me there. Feel free to correct any misunderstandings, or even points that needn't necessarily be as I present them. 1- RSZA considers Zomet's Gerama Switch to be just that -- gerama, and therefore assur derabanan except in special cases. Randomly delayed changes to a circuit is, leshitaso, gerama. 2- KSTI considers their switch to be halachically different because their version of the Gerama Switch then goes into a second randomizer which determines whether or not it actually turns on or off your light. They invoke the words "sefeik sefeika", which I don't understand, since the random element is to insure an unknown delay, not a doubt about whether or not the switch eventually turns the light on. 3- Those who hold like RSZA -- R Neuwirth (obviously), R' Nebenzahl, R' Shternbuch -- gave the same ruling to the new switch. 4- Those who say this switch is gerama do not actually invoke the second random element. I found nothing in that wouldn't apply to Zomet's switch. I see them as simply disagreeing with RSZA and R' Yehoshua Neuwirth when they dealt with that question decades ago. Which, given the stature of RSZA and the acceptance of Shemiras Shabbos keHilhasah (and thus RYN), I don't think will get very far in terms of communal acceptance. 5- The Machloqes between RSZA and R Chaim Zvi Shapiro (to pick two representative names) appears to be over how to understand the distinction between two statements by the Rama: 334:22- Geram kibui is only allowed in special cases, and 514:3- You may put a cnandle next to an open window even in a windy area. RSZA distinguishes between whether the intent is kibui or not. RCZS makes the chiluq between whether the maaseh is one of kibui. But I still don't see how this makes the Kosher Switch not a maaseh kibui that we would group it with open windows, not the normal geram kibui. 6- You can't take a candle outside to a windy area even when there is no wind because of a gezeira atu not waiting for the wind to die down. This is different than the window, because one is moving the candle itself. Still, the Magein AvrahamA applies the gezeira to the window as well -- inlike the Rama. So my wondering about how the Kosher Switch isn't a maaseh kibui means that I also have no idea why the switch wouldn't be covered by the gezeira. And according to the MA, the gezeira definitely applies, regardless. If so, wouldn't you need the switch to be physically blocked when the response could be immediately, and not merely warned off with a red light? 6- R' Oelbaum is against general usage, due to zilzul Shabbos. (To my understanding, zilzul Shabbos means violating a shevus or other deRabbanan, chilul Shabbos means deOraisa.) According to he explicitly states "it is clear it is not a grama". So, my prior approach to figuring out what he holds was pointless. Regardless of whether the person in YWN's chatroom is his son or just someone pretending to be, ie whether that text is likely to reflect the nuances of his position. And regardless how one is medayeiq the difference between melakhah and zilzul, ie whether he considers geram melakhah a melakhah or a shevus. RNIO is in the same camp as R' Chaim Zvi Shapiro WRT the mechanics of gerama, but with RSZA it all in practice. But at least now my opening question has some kind of resolution: No poseiq makes a point about how the switches differ, its a machloqes about whether the switch is more like bringing a candle outside or opening a window. It may also be a machloqes about whether it's only geram kibui that is limited to acts of kibui, or even other melakhos. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 17:56:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 20:56:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <10e550.ca50480.4261b459@aol.com> From: Zev Sero via Avodah >> Why not? For the shabbos-keeping household, a switch that sometimes fails is better than no switch at all.<< -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name >>>>> Now that Shabbos lamps are readily available -- they work by covering the light rather than turning it off -- why do we need the Shabbos switch at all? --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 18:08:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 01:08:53 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150416.210853.21413.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> > But that whole discussion assumes that > extinguishing the flame is not the purpose for which the door is being > opened, it's just a possible side-effect. Is the halacha different if > that was the intention? If the operative principle were Psik Reisha, then intention certainly would matter. So here's a question: Is Grama a version of Aino Psik Reisha, or is it another principle entirely? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55305d31763705d3173a1st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 15:56:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 23:56:59 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This idea (that the days of the Omer are a type of chol hamoed) is mentioned in Avoidas Yisroel [Koznitse Maggid] and Ramban in Acharie Mois. Dovid Rubin From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 18:27:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:27:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] re Chametz post Pesach Message-ID: >What did it grow out of? Avoiding she'avar alav es hapesach? A way of avoiding chodosh, at least during the omer period?< Since chadash is grain which has taken root after the minchas ha'omer on the second day of Pesach, and it takes more than 7 weeks for newly-sown grain to be ready for harvest, how is it possible for chadash to exist between Pesach and Shavuos? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 19:22:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 02:22:34 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Joel Rich asked: > Question: If one doesn?t view eilu v?eilu as multiple truths > but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don?t know which > is which), ... You've lost me. Doesn't the grammar and definition of the words "eilu v'eilu" imply that the two things under discussion are equal? I just can't wrap my brain around a way to translate "eilu v'eilu" where one is truth and the other isn't. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 19:35:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 22:35:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150417015924.GA11845@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150417015924.GA11845@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5530716C.8070201@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 09:59 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > They invoke the words "sefeik sefeika", which I don't understand, since > the random element is to insure an unknown delay, not a doubt about > whether or not the switch eventually turns the light on. I assume they disagree with this characterisation. This is your editorial opinion, that since it's inevitable that sooner or later the ducks will all be in a row and the light will come on, all that it achieves is a delay of random length. They would say no, each time the sequence is triggered (let's say every minute) is a discrete event, in which there is a sfek-sfeka whether anything will happen, and the fact that in the next hour there will be 60 more such opportunities, one of which is "bound" to succeed, is irrelevant. They would also point out that there *is* in fact a doubt whether the light will ever turn on (before Shabbos is over or the owner decides to flip the switch back), and they would deny your premise that the tininess of that doubt renders it meaningless. *You* think it's halachically insignificant; they are not required to agree with you. > But at least now my opening question has some kind of resolution: > No poseiq makes a point about how the switches differ, its a machloqes > about whether the switch is more like bringing a candle outside or > opening a window. They seem to say that this is like a case where at the time you open the window there is neither a wind nor a candle, but you know that some time later a goy is likely to put a candle in front of the window, and that some time after that a wind is likely to blow and put it out. On 04/16/2015 08:56 PM, T613K at aol.com via Avodah wrote: > Now that Shabbos lamps are readily available -- they work by covering > the light rather than turning it off -- why do we need the Shabbos > switch at all? I assume 1. To save electricity 2. If you want a brighter light than you can get from a 15w CF light (which is the maximum that it's safe to put in a Shabbos lamp) 3. For applications other than lights -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 20:02:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 03:02:13 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel wrote: > On many birchot hamitzva one can be motzeh others even when they > are "experts". This includes shofar, megilla etc (not lulav or > netillat yadaim which is considered as a mitzvah be-gufo) > similarly for kiddush and havdala. > > Note that for sefirat haomer usually each person says the bracha > himself/herself and also counts for themselves. I am not aware of any situation where the halacha says that I cannot say a birkat hamitzva on your behalf, AND that the reason why I cannot do so is because you are a baki. (There might be other good reasons, depending on the situation, but I don't know that "being a baki" is ever such a reason.) That said, I do concede that the common practice is for one person to say the bracha on shofar and megilla for all the assembled, yet we all say our own brachos on lulav, hallel, and sefira. I have never seen this explanation, but I've always felt there was a very simple explanation for how this distinction developed: When I take the lulav, say hallel, or count sefira, I am doing the mitzvah myself. I am doing it in shul, among many other people, but we are each acting as individuals. I do the mitzvah myself, so I say the bracha on it myself. In contrast, I am dependent on someone else to blow the shofar or read the megillah. You can say that I am personally hearing the shofar with my own ears, and you can say that "shome'a k'oneh" means that I am actively doing the mitzvah of krias hamegillah -- but the bottom line, l'maaseh, is that if the guy on the bimah messes up, I've lost the mitzvah. I am dependent on him to get the mitzvah done. I have to do my share of the work too, of course, by paying attention etc etc, but that's not enough. We *both* have to do it right. Under such conditions, I really don't want to risk saying a bracha that could end up being l'vatala. I'd rather answer Amen to *his* birkas hamitzvah. Following that logic, someone who has his own kosher megila, and actually reads along with the baal kriah, ought to say his own Al Mikra Megila. I suppose so! This distinction appears in other brachos too, even brachos other than birchos hamitzvah. For example, at Kol Nidre, everyone says their own Shehecheyanu on the Yom Tov, because, why not? We all say our own Netilas Yadayim, and brachos on Talis and Tefilin, for the same reason. We all listen to one person say Kiddush, but I think that's mostly because only he/she has a cup from which to drink the required amount. But at the Seder, everyone has a cup, so (in many families) everyone says their own Kiddush. EXCEPTION: There are some brachos which *ought* to be said by each individual according to the above logic, but we rely on the other person because a few brachos got bundled together. For example, if we pass around the b'samim and candle at havdala, we should each say our own bracha on them, but most people don't, because it is part of havdala. Similarly, if you are at the Seder and don't have your own 2.5 matzos in front of you, you'll have to hear Hamotzi from someone because of Lechem Mishne, but why not say your own Al Achilas Matza after you have a piece in your hand, and the answer is because Motzi Matzah go together. All of the above is purely my own logic, and I'm sure many of you will be able to punch some good holes in it. And I'm looking forward to reading that! Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553077e61f4dd77e644e0st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 22:30:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 01:30:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] SF - Focus on the Good Message-ID: <20150417053029.35F10181384@nexus.stevens.edu> [] Focus on the Good In ancient days if a person spoke loshon horah he contracted tza'aras. The message was that just as he exposed the flaws of a person, so too, his flaws were exposed. His rectification was to go into isolation and introspect on his own shortcomings. Lesson: If we focus on the faults of others, we are held responsible to correct our own faults. If we focus of the good of others, HaShem will mercifully overlook our flaws and focus exclusively on our good. App: Avoid saying all unbecoming comments about others. (Based on the writings of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 02:52:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 05:52:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150417095237.GB2327@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 17, 2015 at 03:02:13AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I am not aware of any situation where the halacha says that I cannot : say a birkat hamitzva on your behalf, AND that the reason why I cannot : do so is because you are a baki. (There might be other good reasons, : depending on the situation, but I don't know that "being a baki" is ever : such a reason.) More than that, Beis Hillel (Berakhos 38a, brought lehalakhah AhS OC 298:28) gives *preference* to one person making havdalah for all than each person making their own, because of berov am hadras Melekh. Similarly, it is better to be yotzei qiddush from the baal habayis than each person make their own. (AhS OC 273:6, citing Berakhos 53a, and a din mentioned in most Hagados, because at the seder each person already has their own kos.) But when it comes to birkhas shevach and birkhos hanehenin (which are unattached to other berakhos, unlike the the borei peri hagafen of qiddush or havdalah), we do hold that it's better to make your own. (Berakhos 42a) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 13th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Gevurah: To what extent is judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 necessary for a good relationship? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 05:01:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 12:01:53 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150417.080153.18454.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero explained two views: > I assume they disagree with this characterisation. This is your > editorial opinion, that since it's inevitable that sooner or later > the ducks will all be in a row and the light will come on, all that > it achieves is a delay of random length. They would say no, each > time the sequence is triggered (let's say every minute) is a > discrete event, in which there is a sfek-sfeka whether anything > will happen, and the fact that in the next hour there will be 60 > more such opportunities, one of which is "bound" to succeed, is > irrelevant. They would also point out that there *is* in fact a > doubt whether the light will ever turn on (before Shabbos is over > or the owner decides to flip the switch back), and they would deny > your premise that the tininess of that doubt renders it > meaningless. *You* think it's halachically insignificant; they > are not required to agree with you. If I'm understanding this correctly, the difference of opinion centers on: how many links does the chain need, to reach a point where one end has no halachically significant effect on the other end. To me, this whole discussion is very reminiscent of another topic in hilchos Shabbos, namely, that the Gemara never gave any halachos about cooking in a Kli Shlishi. One view says: "A Kli Rishon obviously cooks, and we were told that some easily-cooked things are capable of being cooked in a Kli Sheni, but that's as far as they went, so obviously nothing can get cooked in a Kli Shlishi." The other view says: "A Kli Rishon obviously cooks, and we were told that some easily-cooked things are capable of being cooked even in other keilim, so you have to be careful with *any* keli that's above Yad Soledes." To me, both of those arguments are very logical, and we must follow our poskim to know which one Hashem wants us to follow. I imagine that this whole Grama discussion might be similar: Chazal laid out circumstances under which indirect action is still assur -- so does that mean that *all* indirect action is assur?, or perhaps I can structure an even more remote indirectness which is acceptably distant. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5530f6662145376662eacst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 06:04:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 09:04:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: A shabbos lamp is tiny. Do you have shabbos lamps to light up your dining room table or the main lighting on a timer? > On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 8:56 PM, via Avodah > wrote: > >> >> Now that Shabbos lamps are readily available -- they work by covering the >> light rather than turning it off -- why do we need the Shabbos switch at >> all? >> >> >> >> >> *--Toby Katzt613k at aol.com * >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 06:54:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 06:54:30 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] yom hazikaron origin Message-ID: http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/Parasha/tazria/Ahrend.pdf on rav goren's placement of yom hazikaron on 4 iyar, analogizing to the israeli shmini atzeret , where hakafot precedes yizkor... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 08:26:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 15:26:20 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: > Question: If one doesn?t view eilu v?eilu as multiple truths > but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don?t know which > is which), ... You've lost me. Doesn't the grammar and definition of the words "eilu v'eilu" imply that the two things under discussion are equal? I just can't wrap my brain around a way to translate "eilu v'eilu" where one is truth and the other isn't. ------------------------------------------------------ See here https://kavvanah.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/rav-soloveitchik-religious-definitions-of-man-and-his-social-institutions-part-1of-7-1958/ for a general approach (especially "Part III- Rav Soloveitchik?s God In Judaism, God himself is the hidden God, Jal Mistatar ? unknowable and unknown. The Jewish experience of God (shared by other religions is antithetic, a polarity. it has both remoteness and intimate closeness. How is that possible? Judaism does not use Aristotelian logic of excluded middle. Unlike classic physic, modern physics uses both waves and particles; modern physics does not use Aristotle. God is both remote and close- in our encounter we are bewildered and comforted. Since Creation is also revelation, the every tree also incomprehensible strange. " And here for some more specifics: http://nishma.org/articles/commentary/slifkinrevisted3print.pdf especially starting around page 11. KT Joel Rich (who still can't really understand the double slit experiment, yet it's there) THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 08:54:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 11:54:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150417155456.GA7366@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 02:15:53PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Question: If one doesn't view eilu v'eilu as multiple truths but rather : one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which is which), how do : you explain the approach to halachic process which ignores academic : findings concerning texts or historical circumstances? To quote myself from : Last week I drew the conclusion from the Qetzos haChoshen that Torah is not Truth, it -- combined with the Jewish People -- is the process by which "Truth will bloom from the earth".... Thus, "vechayei olam nata besokheinu" -- Emes is matzmiach from the Torah. Note that the Torah isn't actually identified with Emes, but the process to get there. ... Rav Moshe Feinstein discusses the halachic process and the role of poseiq in his introduction to Igros Mosheh. (The introduction itself deserves serious study.) He writes about "ha'emes lehora'ah umichuyav lehoros kein af al pi im be'etzem galyah kelapei shemaya galya she'eino kein hapeirush - the true ruling, and one is obligated to teach accordingly, even if in essence is it revealed in heaven that this isn't the correct eplanation!" The ideal is following the pesaq as according to the process. As proof, Rav Moshe brings the gemara in Shabbos 130. We rule that only the milah itself overrules Shabbos. All preparation before the milah must be done in advance. Rabbi Eliezer ruled that anything necessary for the milah, even cutting wood to make the fire to make the knife, etc... could also be done on Shabbos. There was a town in Israel that followed Rabbi Eliezer. The gemara says that Hashem rewarded them for their tenacity for the mitzvah of milah. No one in that town died an early death. And when the Romans passed a law in Israel against milah, they exempted that one town from the law! Who was right -- this town, which was rewarded for their position, or we, who rule differently? If we understand that the essence of halakhah is that it and the Jewish People become one in a process to make truth bloom in this world, we can understand how the answer could be "both". Torah, like life, is about becoming, not being. IOW, if Torah is a legal process to reach the truth, and halakhah is law rather than truths, then it would be reasonable for an truth foung by extra-legal means to be irrelevant. We aren't up to pursuing Truth directly yet, we pursue the law. Someday they'll be identical, and and the neti'ah of chayei olam will have been matzmiach into Emes. On Fri, Apr 17, 2015 at 02:22:34AM +0000, R' Akiva ("Kenneth") Miller replied to RJR: : You've lost me. Doesn't the grammar and definition of the words "eilu : v'eilu" imply that the two things under discussion are equal? I just : can't wrap my brain around a way to translate "eilu v'eilu" where one : is truth and the other isn't. RMF says they're equally balid legally, but not as Truths. Implied is that Divrei E-lokim Chaim are on the meta-level, instructions about about how to hunt for halakhah, not the individual halachic conclusions themselves. Eilu va'eilu follow Hashem's instructions for how to pasqen, but the halakhah is like Beis Hillel. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 13th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Gevurah: To what extent is judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 necessary for a good relationship? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 10:03:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 13:03:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Derech Eretz: What is it the sets man apart from the animal? Message-ID: <20150417170308.D3E50183221@nexus.stevens.edu> Perhaps if yeshiva students were taught again and again, RSRH's commentary about what sets man (and this refers to all men, not just Jews) apart from the animal, then they would realize that every human being is to be treated with Derech Eretz and thus proper respect. YL The following is from RSRH's commentary on Bereishis 2:7 7 Then God formed man, dust of the ground, and breathed into his countenance the breath of life, and thus man became a living personality. What is it that sets man apart from the animal? The living individuality of the animal depends on earthly matter; like its body, so its soul, too, was taken from the earth. Not so man. In the creation of man, only the inert material was taken from the earth; only when God breathed into him the breath of life did he become a living individual. Herein lies the nobility and immortality of man, and this is the whole source of his freedom . That which gives the animal its individuality emanates from the earth and must eventually return to the earth. Not so that which makes man a ?living personality.? Man?s preeminence over the animal is not only in his spirit, but also in his vitality. His vitality is linked not to his body, but to his spirit. When he received a spirit he received life, his soul adhering to the spirit. When the spirit departs from the body, the vital soul is not buried with the remains; for man?s soul is bound up with his spirit, not his body. This is why his physical survival and health do not depend on his body alone. Of the many dangers to the life of an animal, not all are dangers to man. The survival of a man cannot be predicted with the same degree of accuracy as the survival of an animal. Adom yesh lo mazel ( Bava Kamma 2b): there is something in man that defies prediction. A man?s spirit will sustain him, even if it appears that all hope is lost; for the spirit sustains life. Who can gauge the power of an unbroken spirit? Who can calculate how long it can keep the body alive? Thus man is composed of two elements that are completely different from each other. One of these was taken from the earth. But man does not belong to the earth; rather, the earth ? as its name, Adama, implies ? has been given to man to rule. So, too, man?s body, which is afar min Ha?Adomo, is subject to man?s control. His true, living, spiritual essence is not dependent on the body; hence, even while he is physically combined with the earthly element, he can and should exercise control over the earthly in him. The afar, the earthly element, in him cannot be released from the realm of physical compulsion and is subject to the influence of earthly factors. But the nishmas chaim, which God breathed into man and which first made man a human being, imparts to man of the dignity of its source and releases him from all physical compulsion; it grants him freedom and elevates his body, too, into the realm of freedom. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 11:45:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mordechai Harris via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 13:45:49 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: > > That said, I do concede that the common practice is for one person to say > the bracha on shofar and megilla for all the assembled, yet we all say our > own brachos on lulav, hallel, and sefira. In the case of Lulav (first day - which is D'Oraita) and counting Sefira, the Pasuk uses the word Lachem which teaches of the need for each individual to have/count their own. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 12:26:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 15:26:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <55315E57.30506@sero.name> On 04/17/2015 02:45 PM, Mordechai Harris via Avodah wrote: >> That said, I do concede that the common practice is for one person >> to say the bracha on shofar and megilla for all the assembled, yet >> we all say our own brachos on lulav, hallel, and sefira. > In the case of Lulav (first day - which is D'Oraita) and counting > Sefira, the Pasuk uses the word Lachem which teaches of the need for > each individual to have/count their own. What has this got to do with the bracha? I actually had meant to post about this, since I've been wondering for some time why it is that the world's minhag is for each person to say their own bracha on hallel and sefira, after hearing the chazan's bracha. Doesn't the usual rule of "berov am" mean that everyone should be yotzei with his bracha? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 13:47:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 16:47:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is from today's Halacha for Today http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ Erev Shabbos Kodesh Parashas Shemini (Parashiyos Tazria- Metzorah in Eretz Yisroel); Mevorchim Chodesh Iyar; Rosh Chodesh will be on Sunday and Monday 28 Nisan , 5775 April 17, 2015 CURRENT TOPIC: REVIEW OF HALACHOS OF SEFIRAS HA'OMER Halachos for Erev Shabbos Kodesh 1) The thirty third day of the Omer, the 18th of Iyar, is referred to as "Lag B'Omer" and the early sources already treat this day as a special day, as a kind of Yom Tov. (See Sefer Hamanhig page 91a and Meiri to Yevamos 62b) 2) The Tur (Siman 493:3) states that the Talmidim of Rav Akiva stopped dying on Lag B'Omer. However, the Talmud (Yevamos 62b) clearly states that they died from Pesach all the way until Shavuos. If that is so, what then is the significance of the 33rd day of the Omer and why does the Tur write that they stopped dying on that day? The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between the Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the days between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not say Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh Chodesh Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 days in all. Therefore they only died on 32 of the 49 days. As a commemoration of this, we designate the "33rd" day as the day that the dying stopped and we celebrate that day, but not that it totally stopped on Lag B'Omer. ---------- Note that according to the Maharil tachanun was originally said during Nissan except for the days indicated! I wonder when saying Tachanun during Nissan ended. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 14:10:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 21:10:04 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150417.171004.3030.1@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitchok Levine reposted: > The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between > the Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the > days between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not > say Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh > Chodesh Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 > days in all. > > Therefore they only died on 32 of the 49 days... ... There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in both of those. Therefore, there are not "17 days in all", but only 16, leaving 33 days on which they died. (And this presumes that none of the 3 Rosh Chodesh days was Shabbos.) In any case, I am very curious how the commemoration of this event ended up as 33 *somewhat* consecutive days, including Shabbos. If the talmidim really died only on the days cited, our procedure sounds like cheating, at least sort of. Granted that a commemoration does NOT have to follow all the details of the event being remembered, but this pushes the envelope on that, in my opinion. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55317717a31937717329dst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 13:58:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 20:58:03 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <20150417.165803.3030.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero asked: > I actually had meant to post about this, since I've been > wondering for some time why it is that the world's minhag is for > each person to say their own bracha on hallel and sefira, after > hearing the chazan's bracha. Doesn't the usual rule of "berov > am" mean that everyone should be yotzei with his bracha? In theory (="l'halacha"), yes, you are correct. But in practice (="l'maaseh") Rov Am gets beat by our lack of kavana. Rov Am is an important hidur, but the ikar is to insure that one is yotzay, and that is more easily insured by saying it oneself. (It's like if one is forced to choose between an esrog which is definitely kosher but only barely so, vs. one which is beautiful but *might* be pasul. To me, it's a no-brainer that one would choose the barely kosher one.) This explanation fits my previous post well: We are all yotzay with someone else's bracha on the shofar and megillah, but NOT because of Rov Am, only because the bracha is somewhat risky because I'm relying on someone else. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5531743bc92df743b2646st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Apr 18 18:34:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sat, 18 Apr 2015 21:34:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Correction to Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150419013412.5B7E7181C69@nexus.stevens.edu> I sent out a couple of days ago. The following is from today's Halacha for Today http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between the Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the days between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not say Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh Chodesh Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 days in all. Therefore they only died on 32 of the 49 days. As a commemoration of this, we designate the "33rd" day as the day that the dying stopped and we celebrate that day, but not that it totally stopped on Lag B'Omer. ---------- Note this calculation is wrong. If one counts 7 days of Pesach then one has included one Shabbos. This leaves 6 Shabbasos until Shavuous. Thus one has 7 days of Pesach, 6 Shabbasos, 2 days Rosh Chodesh Iyar and one day Rosh Chodesh Sivan. Hence 7+6+2+1 = 16 days on which Tachanun was not said. 49 -16 = 33, and this is where the 33 days of aveilus comes from. Thus Tachanun was said not only during Nissan except for the days that are excluded, but also on Lag B'Omer . YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Apr 18 21:19:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 00:19:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <55332CDA.60208@sero.name> > 2) The Tur (Siman 493:3) states that the Talmidim of Rav Akiva > stopped dying on Lag B'Omer. > > However, the Talmud (Yevamos 62b) clearly states that they died from > Pesach all the way until Shavuos. If that is so, what then is the > significance of the 33rd day of the Omer and why does the Tur write > that they stopped dying on that day? He does not say any such thing. He says that *some* people have haircuts from the 33rd day on, because *they say* that this is when the dying stopped. The long list of rishonim who hold this cite a medrash that disagrees with the gemara, and says the dying stopped 15 days before Shavuos. The Tur himself does not express an opinion on the matter. > The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between the > Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the days > between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not say > Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh Chodesh > Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 days in all.* This is *not* a Maharil! It's supposedly a Tosfos, I don't know where. But there seem to be two versions of what this Tosfos says, which is why it would be nice to see the original. Mahari Ibn Shuaib (a talmid of the Rashba, and the rebbe of the Tzeida Laderech) cites this Tosfos as saying that the mourning takes place on 33 days during the Omer, because there are 16 days when no mourning is appropriate. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=9416&pgnum=131 The Bach, however, cites "Acharonim" who cite this Tosfos as saying that they didn't die on these 16 days. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=14268&pgnum=330 On 04/17/2015 04:47 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > Note that according to the Maharil tachanun was originally said > during Nissan except for the days indicated! I wonder when saying > Tachanun during Nissan ended. YL Not Tachanun. Techina, i.e. Kel Erech Apayim, Lamnatzeach Ya`ancha, etc. According to minhag Ashkenaz these are said even on days when there is no nefilas apayim, but not on Yomtov, Chol Hamoed, Shabbos, or Rosh Chodesh. [Email #2. -micha] On 04/17/2015 05:10 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos > Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or > it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in > both of those. Indeed, the Bach noters this and corrects it. > In any case, I am very curious how the commemoration of this event > ended up as 33 *somewhat* consecutive days, including Shabbos. If the > talmidim really died only on the days cited, our procedure sounds > like cheating, at least sort of. Granted that a commemoration does > NOT have to follow all the details of the event being remembered, but > this pushes the envelope on that, in my opinion. Well, according to the Tosfos as Mahari ibn Shuaib quotes it, the common interpretation of 33 days is *wrong*, and the correct minhag is to mourn for 33 days during the sefirah, i.e. all days except Pesach, Shabbos, and Rosh Chodesh. He does *not* say that they only died on these days. The first place I've seen the idea that Tosfos says they only died on those days is in the Bach. He sees it as justifying our mourning for only 33 days, not 34, as we should if our source were the medrash that the dying stopped 15 days before Shavuos. And since they only died on 33 days, our mourning period only lasts 33 days, including Shabbos, even though (according to this view) they didn't die on Shabbos. How exactly we mourn on Shabbos I'm not sure, but I assume the idea is that we do, so we count it toward the 33 days. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 06:26:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 09:26:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <55332CDA.60208@sero.name> References: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> <55332CDA.60208@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150419132604.GB19240@aishdas.org> On Sun, Apr 19, 2015 at 12:19:38AM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : >Note that according to the Maharil tachanun was originally said : >during Nissan except for the days indicated! I wonder when saying : >Tachanun during Nissan ended. YL : : Not Tachanun. Techina, i.e. Kel Erech Apayim, Lamnatzeach Ya`ancha, etc. : According to minhag Ashkenaz these are said even on days when there is no : nefilas apayim, but not on Yomtov, Chol Hamoed, Shabbos, or Rosh Chodesh. I am now wondering: why those techinos and not Tachanun? After all, as the name implies (and the Gra emphasizes), Tachanun is itself the core techinah. (Or perhaps "Elokai, Netzor Leshoni" is more central, since that's the one we place immediately "basar tzelosana", before aqiras raglayim.) I would bet (if I had spare money to bet with) that's the same question as asking why we're nofeil apayim for one but not the other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 04:00:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 11:00:12 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150419.070012.19808.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> I wrote: > There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos > Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or > it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in > both of those. R' Zev Sero added: > Indeed, the Bach notes this and corrects it. Glad to hear that, thank you. But over Shabbos, I thought of another problem: R' Akiva's talmidim were in Eretz Yisrael. There would never be a year where Pesach contains 7 days of Sefira. Even when including Shabbos Chol Hamoed, that yields only 6 days. Add 6 post- Pesach Shabbosim, and 3 days of Rosh Chodesh, and you have only 15 days of no Tachanun, leaving 34 days of mourning. Perhaps this is why Mechaber 493:2 says that the mourning continues straight through Lag Baomer, and does not end until the morning of the 34th. Note that Mishne Brurah 493:7 says that although most of the dying stopped on the 33rd, some deaths did occur on the 34th. I must point out that the above is true only when Pesach begins on Sunday, Monday or Tuesday. In years when it begins on Shabbos, as it did this year, then Eretz Yisrael does have a full seven post-Pesach Sabbaths in Sefira, totalling 16 no-Tachanun days, leaving 33 for mourning. BUT - In years when Pesach begins on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday (and even nowadays Thursday is a real possibility), one of the Rosh Chodesh days will coincide with Shabbos. This lowers the count to 6 days of Pesach, 6 Shabbasos, and only 2 days of Rosh Chodesh - a total of only 14 no-Tachanun days, leaving 35 for mourning. I can't help but wonder how the calendar looked that particular year. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ 4 Fish to Never Eat Click to Learn 4 Fish to NEVER Eat (avoid these like the plague!) http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55338b0147138b0126d6st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 10:34:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 13:34:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <20150419.070012.19808.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150419.070012.19808.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5533E71A.9080700@sero.name> On 04/19/2015 07:00 AM, Kenneth Miller wrote: > I wrote: >> There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos >> Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or >> it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in >> both of those. > > R' Zev Sero added: >> Indeed, the Bach notes this and corrects it. > > Glad to hear that, thank you. But over Shabbos, I thought of another > problem: R' Akiva's talmidim were in Eretz Yisrael. There would never > be a year where Pesach contains 7 days of Sefira. Even when including > Shabbos Chol Hamoed, that yields only 6 days. Add 6 post- Pesach > Shabbosim, and 3 days of Rosh Chodesh, and you have only 15 days of > no Tachanun, leaving 34 days of mourning. Except, as you note, in a year like this one. > Perhaps this is why Mechaber 493:2 says that the mourning continues > straight through Lag Baomer, and does not end until the morning of > the 34th. No, the Mechaber had never heard of this Tosfos that the Bach cites in the name of the "Acharonim". On the contrary, the only Tosfos he seems aware of on topic is the one cited by Mahari ibn Shuaib, which says that the plague raged throughout the Sefira, but that we only mourn for 33 days, because we skip Yomtov, Shabbos, and Rosh Chodesh. The Mechaber's own minhag follows the medrash that the plague stopped 15 days before Shavuos, i.e. the 34th was the last day. Either there are two versions of this Tosfos, or the Acharonim whom the Bach quotes are talking about the same Tosfos as Mahari ibn Shuaib does, and one of them misunderstood it. It would be nice to find it inside (though of course that would not rule out a different girsa). -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 10:36:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 17:36:03 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150419.133603.21006.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero wrote: > Not Tachanun. Techina, i.e. Kel Erech Apayim, Lamnatzeach > Ya`ancha, etc. According to minhag Ashkenaz these are said even > on days when there is no nefilas apayim, but not on Yomtov, Chol > Hamoed, Shabbos, or Rosh Chodesh. R' Micha Berger wrote: > I am now wondering: why those techinos and not Tachanun? Let me add a few more data points: Common practice in Nusach Ashkenaz is to skip Tachanun even for all of the Sefira days of Nisan, and also for all of the pre-Shavuos days of Sivan. (Note that NONE of the various minhagim allow haircuts on ALL of those days. Sounds like a great proof that tachanun takes all the kulos, even contradictory ones.) I concede that this is davka nowadays, and I do not know what the practice was in previous centuries. However, it is difficult for me to imagine anyone ever saying Tachanun on Isru Chag. Perhaps that might answer the point I raised in my previous post about R' Akiva's talmidim being in EY, and that in EY there are only 6 days of Sefirah during Pesach; perhaps the "7" comes from including Isru Chag. I should also mention Pesach Sheni, although that could lead to a messy argument over whether that is really "a non-Tachanun day" or merely "a non-Tachanun afternoon". So I won't mention it. :-) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5533e7dd3196367dd4042st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 09:54:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 12:54:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L Message-ID: <20150419165450.42320180CA8@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is taken in part from Rav Shimon Schwab's Essay The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L that appears in Selected Writings pages 88 -93. Rav Hirsch is usually accepted as the exponent of the Torah im Derech Eretz philosophy. This principle is explained by his grandson, Dr. Isaac Breuer, as follows: "He was strictly opposed to compromise or reconciliation, or even a synthesis: he demanded full and uncompromising rulership of the Torah. The Torah cannot endure co-rulership, far less tolerate it. As a true revolutionary he seized the liberalistic individual, the liberalistic, humanitarian ideal, liberalistic capitalism, and the human intellect, celebrating orgies in the liberalistic science, and dragged them as "circumstances'', in the narrowest sense of the word, to the flaming fire of the Torah to be purified or, if need be, to be consumed. As a true revolutionary he solved the unbearable tension between the Torah and the new era which had dawned over the Jews of Western Europe. He invaded the new era with the weapons of the Torah, analyzed and dissected it down to its last ingredients, and then shaped and reformed it until it could be placed at the feet of the Torah, as new nourishment for the Divine fire. The proclamation of the rulership of the Torah over the new era was the historic achievement of Hirsch's life for his own contemporaries." -- ("Hirsch as a Guide to Jewish History'' in Fundamentals of Judaism, published by Feldheim, 1949.) Unfortunately, the principle of Torah im Derech Eretz is grossly misunderstood by our contemporary Jewish orthodoxy. It does not mean that one who is a full-fledged citizen of hedonistic America and at the same time keeps the laws of the Torah, is a follower of Torah im Derech Eretz. Not to violate the laws of the Torah certainly deserves praise and recognition but it is not an embodiment of the Hirschian philosophy. Likewise, an academy dedicated to the study of science and philosophy, not in order to serve the understanding of Torah or to further the aims of the Torah but as the independent search by the human intellect to understand and control the world around -- even when added to a department of profound and very scholarly Torah studies -this is not an outgrowth of the Torah im Derech Eretz Weltanschauung of Samson Raphael Hirsch. Also, a secular university in Israel, albeit under skullcap auspices, complete with Judaic studies, is extremely remote from a Torah im Derech Eretz school even if it has established a "Samson Raphael Hirsch chair" as part of its academic set-up, something which almost borders on blasphemy . The Orthodox professional who is not regularly "koveah ittim batorah", or otherwise lacks in the performance of mitzvahs, or who is immodest in dress or behavior, is not a follower of Samson Raphael Hirsch. From all of Hirsch's prolific writings, it becomes evident that his main concern was to establish the majesty of the Divine Word and the role of the Divine Will as revealed in the Torah, to dominate all the highways and by-ways of mundane life. Those who abuse Torah im Derech Eretz as a "hetter" to lead a life of easygoing and lenient "Yiddishkeit" or those who consider the Hirschian idea as a compromise between the right and the left in Jewish thinking have distorted the meaning of the principle as laid down in the Mishne, Avos, Perek 2, 2: "Beautiful is the study of Torah combined with Derech Eretz for the effort to attain both makes one forget to commit sins". The Torah is not a mere branch of human knowledge, one discipline amongst many others, but rather must the Torah dominate all secular knowledge and all worldly activities. Equally so, the community of Israel, Klal Yisroel, as well as all Kehillos and organized communities, be they local or international -- which are all segments of Klal Yisroel -- are not supposed to be mere branches of a neutral Israel but are to be totally independent. The Torah community is not beholden to any non-Torah community and it does not even recognize its authenticity. This is the essence of the Hirschian Austritt (separation) ideology. The so-called "Austritt" is the militant vigilance of the conscientious Jew defending the Torah community against all encroachments from the non-Torah powers that be. The "Austritt" and Torah im Derech Eretz go hand in hand, they form "one package", so to speak, and both these aspects of Hirschian thought have one aim: the total domination of Torah over all thinking and actions of individual and national life. He who separates the rule of the Torah over all facets of the communal life of Klal Yisroel from the rule of the Torah over all human knowledge, in short, he who separates the "Austritt" from Torah im Derech Eretz, renders a disservice to both. Instead of becoming an inspiration to serve G-d in the spirit of B'chol D'rochecha dahu, Torah im Derech Eretz is reduced to become an excuse for being "modern but frum", an excuse for the cultural assimilation which plagues the modern Orthodox Jew who considers this world a kosher pleasure cruise eventually resulting in all the sorry hangovers of our age. Let us therefore beware of some common misunderstandings. The motto does not have its accent on the last word but on the first word. It is TORAH -underscored for double emphasis -- with Derech Eretz. Furthermore, the leit-motif is neither Torah and Derech Eretz nor Torah U'Madoh -- the two are not equal partners -- nor must it be twisted around into Derech Eretz plus Torah. It is neither a synthesis of Torah with assimilation nor a bloodless orthopraxy blended with earthbound Americanism. It is none of these. It is Torah im Derech Eretz. It means G-d's Torah in its totality, utilizing Derech Eretz as the means to bring about the Torah's full realization. It means: Torah as a Divine nourishment and the human Derech Eretz as the aromatic ingredient to bring out the Torah's intrinsic flavor to its most perfect bloom. There are two schools of thought and they are both legitimate. One is "Torah Only" and the other is Torah im Derech Eretz. All Torah-conscious Jews work for the same goal. There are various methods and various avenues of approach. They all lead up to the ultimate end of: "Yisgadal v'yisgadash Shmei rabah" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 15:00:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 18:00:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <20150419.133603.21006.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150419.133603.21006.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <55342569.2000502@sero.name> On 04/19/2015 01:36 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > Common practice in Nusach Ashkenaz is to skip Tachanun even for all of the Sefira days of Nisan, This is not just nusach Ashkenaz, it's the universal minhag, originating in Masechet Sofrim 21:3. It's actually the chapter title of Shulchan Aruch OC 429, and AFAIK there is no dissenting opinion or minhag. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 15:08:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Avi Goldstein via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 18:08:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu va'eilu Message-ID: It has always been my understanding that eilu va'eilu means that both (or more than two) are, within the sphere of Torah, "true" as long as they emanate from a valid drashah. As the Rambam writes in Hilchos Mamrim, Perek 2, a Sanhedrin can overturn the ruling of a previous Sanhedrin if that ruling was made based on the yud gimmel middos or based on sevara. The Rambam states that the new ruling becomes normative. So, for example, if a Sanhedrin ruled that yeush shelo mida'as is yeush, that is now the d'oraisa rule. If a later Sanhedrin overturns the ruling, then the new ruling becomes normative. Both, however, are "true," because the Torah has shivim panim; the Torah is multifaceted and can countenance more than one truth. The Rambam seems to hold that Moshe Rabbeinu was merely given the methods by which to darshan; he was not given the various possible halachic outcomes. The Ritva (Eruvin 13b) states that at Sinai, Moshe Rabbeinu was shown 49 possibilities for each halachic situation. Either way, it is up to klal Yisrael to determine what the halacha is, but all the possible outcomes are divrei Elokim Chayim. Avi Goldstein From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 20:47:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 23:47:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L Message-ID: <11211.6b4edbb3.4265d0c0@aol.com> From: "Prof. Levine via Avodah" The following is taken in part from Rav Shimon Schwab's Essay The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L that appears in Selected Writings pages 88 -93. Rav Hirsch is usually accepted as the exponent of the Torah im Derech Eretz philosophy. This principle is explained by his grandson, Dr. Isaac Breuer, as follows: "He was strictly opposed to compromise or reconciliation, or even a synthesis: he demanded full and uncompromising rulership of the Torah. [snip] There are two schools of thought and they are both legitimate. One is "Torah Only" and the other is Torah im Derech Eretz. All Torah-conscious Jews work for the same goal. There are various methods and various avenues of approach. They all lead up to the ultimate end of: "Yisgadal v'yisgadash Shmei rabah" >>>> See the wonderful pamphlet by R' Shimon Schwab, "Eilu ve'Eilu," explaining the broad outlines of the differences between these two hashkafos, "Torah im Derech Eretz" and so-called "Torah-only." I try to re-read this 48-page pamphlet every year. http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/these_and_those.pdf I am grateful to RYL (Prof. Levine) for making this pamphlet available to the public as a pdf. However I note that he is often highly critical of the charedi world, and I believe that R' Hirsch would emphatically not have agreed with him. He would have honored and cherished the talmidei chachamim who devote their lives to limud haTorah, and would have educated his balabatim to take pride in the zechus of financially supporting the "black hat" yeshivos. In the so-called "Torah-only" world they may have disdain for balabatim, but we who believe in TIDE can respect and honor that world of sustained and focused Torah study without internalizing an inferior self-image. We believe in Yisachar and Zevulun even if Yisachar lacks proper respect for Zevulun. We believe in twelve shevatim, we believe in twelve paths through the sea. And we believe that without the shevet of full-time lomdei Torah and talmidei chachamim, the rest of Klal Yisrael would have no kiyum. I would also note that R' Hirsch would certainly not have shared RYL's dour view of present-day Eretz Yisrael. True, all the flaws and failings of Zionism are abundantly on display in the modern Medinah. But at the same time, it takes an almost willful blindness not to see the incredible miracles that have been taking place there over the past sixty years or so. Not the least of these miracles is a flourishing of Torah scholarship, be'eichus uvekamus, the likes of which has not been seen since the churban Bayis Sheni. We owe at least a small measure of gratitude to the Zionist government that helps provide the infrastructure for the Torah community to flourish, and a huge measure of gratitude to the Ribono Shel Olam for allowing us to live in a time in which the beginning of kibbutz galuyos is taking place before our eyes. The sight of thousands of men, young and old, from all corners of the world, streaming into the Mirrer Yeshiva each day, gives us a little foretaste of what it will be like to visit the Third Bais Hamikdash. Again, I urge everyone to read Rav Schwab's wonderful pamphlet, "Eilu ve'Eilu." http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/these_and_those.pdf --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 19:30:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 02:30:15 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: <20150419.223015.3015.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Joel Rich asked: > Question: If one doesn't view eilu v'eilu as multiple truths > but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which > is which), ... I didn't understand that 2nd view, so he suggested to look > here for some more specifics: > http://nishma.org/articles/commentary/slifkinrevisted3print.pdf > especially starting around page 11. On page 4 of that article, the author offers this explanation of the concept of Machlokes L'Shem Shamayim: > ... every individual striving mightily to gain truth and an > understanding of God's Will can only achieve what is possible > within the parameters of his/her own individual being. Since the > fullness of Torah extends beyond the comprehension of any one > individual, machloket must necessarily ensue. It is not simply > that machloket emerges because of the inherent limitations of > the human condition. It is only through the enunciation of > machloket that human beings effectively are able to express the > fullness and truth of the Divine wisdom of Torah. ... Within > this category of disagreement, the existence of differing views > is not a problem. It is actually positive. It is the natural > consequence of a limited humanity trying to encounter the > unlimited nature of God and Torah. Elsewhere in that article, I understood him to say: Because both Hillel and Shammai worked within the rules of how Torah is to be understood, their differing views are equally valid and equally true (notwithstanding the detail that for purely practical reasons, halacha l'maaseh has to go one way or the other). This much fits very well with what I've been taught: Hashem deliberately wrote and designed the Torah in such a way as to allow both Hillel and Shammai to reach those differing views, and when they did reach those views, and (lovingly) refused to yield to the other, they accomplished exactly what Hashem had intended. But RJR referred us specifically to page 11, and on that page, the author brings the two views that RJR had initially posted: > One significant question in this regard, though, that should be > presented is: whether kalpei Shemaya, from the perspective of > Heaven, one view may really be correct or not? How one answers > this question will affect whether one considers any position in > a machloket l'Shem Shamayim as ultimately able to be labeled > incorrect. Effectively the question would be: are all positions > in the disagreement theoretically, equally part of truth and a > decision rendered between the opposing views solely because of > practical necessity? Or is there a truly correct position ? > albeit only able to be ascertained by Heaven ? but we still > accept all positions as part of Torah, albeit some are mistaken, > as they all are equally the best that humanity can achieve and > the mistakes only arise from the actual limitation of the human > being? With all due respect, but it seems to me that this second view is illogical and mistaken. How can there be a view which was obtained by legitimate methods of learning the Torah, without any personal agenda, and the best that humanity can acheive -- and yet be one which Hashem did NOT want us to arrive at? If there is a view that is NOT truly correct, yet the incorrectness can be ascertained only by Heaven, then why did Hashem design the Torah in a manner which allowed us to reach that mistaken conclusion? If only He would have made one little change, if only the pasuk had said this instead of that, then we'd have darshened that pasuk differently, and would have avoided that mistake. But since He did not make that change, but rather He wrote the Torah as we have it, and Toras Hashem Temimah, then I believe that the conclusions reached cannot possibly be mistakes, but rather, this is exactly what we mean by Eilu V'Eilu Divrei Elokim Chayim. (Of course, I am referring only to drashos made with the proper tools, and in the proper manner, such as those made by Hillel and Shammai and others of similar caliber. I am not referring to people who are of lower caliber, or who were working with broken tools. And I'm certainly not referring to people who deliberately distort Torah for their own purposes.) But then, as I was reviewing this post, my mind turned to the Tanur Shel Achnai. R' Eliezer had a minority view, and R' Yehoshua was in the majority. I've got to believe that both views were firmly grounded; this machlokes was surely just as L'Shem Shamayim as any between Hillel and Shammai. I'd *like* to say that Klapei Shmaya, both views were Truth. But then what can I do with Hashem's response of "Nitzchuni banai"? It sure sounds to me like this Judge was not impartial. He was rooting for R' Eliezer! And yet He wrote a Torah that allowed for R' Eliezer's mistaken interpretation. Why would He do that? To paraphrase RJR's question from the very beginning of this post, Tanur Shel Achnai seems to be an example of "eilu v'eilu": At the time of their dispute, it was possible that both views were Truth, but we didn't know which was which, so for practical purposes they took a vote. But later, Eliyahu Hanavi revealed the fact that it was NOT multiple truths, but rather one truth (R' Eliezer) and one nice try (R' Yehoshua). TO RECAP: In the beginning of this post, I explained my logical basis for believing that every true Eilu V'Eilu is a case of multiple Truths. At the end, I brought an example of an Eilu V'Eilu which was "one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which is which)". I cannot reconcile the logic and the example. All I can do is to ask again: Would Hashem really write a Perfect Torah which allows for mistaken interpretation? Why would He do that? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553464ea69a2864ea0cc6st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 01:48:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 11:48:03 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: RMB: Rav Moshe Feinstein discusses the halachic process and the role of poseiq in his introduction to Igros Mosheh. (The introduction itself deserves serious study.) He writes about "ha'emes lehora'ah umichuyav lehoros kein af al pi im be'etzem galyah kelapei shemaya galya she'eino kein hapeirush - the true ruling, and one is obligated to teach accordingly, even if in essence is it revealed in heaven that this isn't the correct explanation!" The ideal is following the pesaq as according to the process. This passage in IM is cited by R. Shalom Rosner in a systematic discussion of the subject of eilu v'eilu in the course of a shiur on Ktuvot 57a at http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/720210/Rabbi_Shalom_Rosner/Kesubos57. Rashi in Ktuvot 57a invokes the principle of eilu 'v'eilu, (read and explained by R. Rosner stating at about 18:30 in the shiur) and R. Rosner elucidates this principle, starting at about 21:30 in the shiur, until about 29:40. For anyone interested in a very clear explanation of the various shittot about what eilu v'eilu means, I can't recommend this shiur highly enough. Very briefly, R. Rosner cites three approaches in the sources 1. Illustrating the truth - The Ran in Drashot HaRan drasha 5 - In this approach, which severely limits the principle of eilu v'eilu, the Ran states that actually only one of the opinions is true. The other opinion is 'divrei Elokim chaim' only insofar as it serves to illustrate and elucidate the other opinion, which is the real truth, as the dark enables us to appreciate a candle. The Chida in Petach Einayim, his commentary on Eiruvin where the principle of eilu v'eilu is cited by the Gemara, takes this approach as well. R. Rosner emphasizes that this is a minority opinion, and personally finds it hard to accept, as he explains in the shiur. 2. Levels of truth - R. Moshe in the hakdama to IM, and R. Yaakov to Bereishit 26, the Netziv in his Hakadama to Haamek Sh'eila, his commentary to the Sheiltot). Using R. Moshe's terminology. there is Emet Shamaymit, and Emet L'Horaa. Both are correct, and in this world we are obligated to follow the emet l'horaa even if it deviates from the ultimate, heavenly truth. 3. Multiple truths (Ritva in Eiruvin, Maharal) - Both opinions are true, reflecting different perspectives of the subject at hand (IMO, this is similar to the previous explanation, without establishing a hierarchy between the truths expressed by the different opinions). R. Rosner states that the Rashi in question on Ktuvot 57a takes this approach. R. Rosner's explanation of the shittot is very lucid and concise. He refers in his shiur to Ktuvot 57 to a previous, more comprehensive shiur he gave on the subject, but I don't know if that shiur is available online. Saul Mashbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 19:43:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 22:43:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] brochos from the amud (was: tefillat haderech) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420024354.CJVF30458.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo110> >R' Zev Sero asked: > > > I actually had meant to post about this, since I've been > > wondering for some time why it is that the world's minhag is for > > each person to say their own bracha on hallel and sefira, after > > hearing the chazan's bracha. Doesn't the usual rule of "berov > > am" mean that everyone should be yotzei with his bracha? R' Akiva Miller wrote: >In theory (="l'halacha"), yes, you are correct. But in practice >(="l'maaseh") Rov Am gets beat by our lack of kavana. Rov Am is an >important hidur, but the ikar is to insure that one is yotzay, and >that is more easily insured by saying it oneself. (It's like if one >is forced to choose between an esrog which is definitely kosher but >only barely so, vs. one which is beautiful but *might* be pasul. To >me, it's a no-brainer that one would choose the barely kosher one.) > >This explanation fits my previous post well: We are all yotzay with >someone else's bracha on the shofar and megillah, but NOT because of >Rov Am, only because the bracha is somewhat risky because I'm >relying on someone else. Slight change of topic: I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea that we don't seem to have a chashash of a brocha l'vatalah. I mean, you have a sh'tz up there, saying a brocho out loud -- and he's intentionally trying to be motzi _some_ others (whoever has missed a day) and everybody says amen, and then they say the brocho themselves. No chashash for an issur d'oraissa? Shomea k'onen doesn't apply at all? What if you are in the shul and you're not thinking about the issue of being yotzie, you're just thinking about which day it is, and/or you simply have stam kavanah. No chashash for an issur d'oraissa? Apparently not because almost everybody does that. But I don't get it. (To satisfy my own comfort level, my preferred action to is to focus and have kavanah to be yotzie with the brocho, say amen, and then I don't have any chashash here). -- Sholom From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 10:36:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 13:36:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 11:48:03AM +0300, Saul Mashbaum via Avodah wrote: : This passage in IM is cited by R. Shalom Rosner in a systematic discussion... : http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/720210/Rabbi_Shalom_Rosner/Kesubos57. ... : Very briefly, R. Rosner cites three approaches in the sources : : 1. Illustrating the truth - The Ran in Drashot HaRan drasha 5 - In this : approach, which severely limits the principle of eilu v'eilu, the Ran : states that actually only one of the opinions is true. The other opinion is : 'divrei Elokim chaim' only insofar as it serves to illustrate and elucidate : the other opinion... : 2. Levels of truth - R. Moshe in the hakdama to IM, and R. Yaakov to : Bereishit 26, the Netziv in his Hakadama to Haamek Sh'eila, his commentary : to the Sheiltot)... : 3. Multiple truths (Ritva in Eiruvin, Maharal) - Both opinions are true, : reflecting different perspectives of the subject at hand (IMO, this is : similar to the previous explanation, without establishing a hierarchy : between the truths expressed by the different opinions).. My opinion differs from yours. The Maharal is saying that what RMF calls emes shamamis (I think that conjugation is yours, no?) is actually too rich to fit in this universe, and certainly in a human mind. Therefore, two shitos can be correct descriptions of the Truth, because each are incomplete. Rather than invoke the 5 blind men and the elephant, I think it's more useful to use a mashal of an object and a shadow. Because a shadow is only 2D, information is lost. It could make you think the two opinions are describing differnt thing, but they don't. If you shine a light directly at the fact of a cube, the shadow is a square. If you shine it at a corner, the result is a hexagon. Beis Shamma could hold "hexagon" while Beis Hillel holds "square", and both are describing the same cube. It all depends on which direction you face the cube from. The difference is in the approach chosen, where one stands at the foothills when answering "mi ya'aleh beHar Hashem", not the emes kelapei shamayim. None of which involves separating abstract truth from law, as RMF does. The Maharal places eilu va'eilu entirely within our understanding of that abstract truth. RSR's analysis differs from the two I've discussed in the past, RMHalbertal's and R' Michel Rosensweig's. E.g. See v32n8 E.g. RMH describes the Ritva and the Ran as sharing what he calls "the Constitutive view" of what pesaq is (halakhah is constituted by pesaq, and there is no one pre-existing reality), and thus the notion of one right answer doesn't fit. Rather, his peshat in the Ran is more like RMF's opinion. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? : that the Rashi in question on Ktuvot 57a takes this approach. : : R. Rosner's explanation of the shittot is very lucid and concise. He : refers in his shiur to Ktuvot 57 to a previous, more comprehensive shiur he : gave on the subject, but I don't know if that shiur is available online. : : Saul Mashbaum : _______________________________________________ : Avodah mailing list : Avodah at lists.aishdas.org : http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 14:43:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:43:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] HaRav Aharon Lichtenstein zt"l Message-ID: <20150420214331.GA31537@aishdas.org> Today's blog post. ... Can't we find children who would have helped him and still know the gemara? Do we have to choose? I hope not; I believe not. Tir'u baTov! -Micha HaRav Aharon Lichtenstein zt"l Posted on April 20, 2015 - 1 Iyyar 5775 by micha When someone passes away, I try to find a life-lesson from their lives that I can incorporate into my own. This is rather easy with regard to Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, as the rosh yeshiva left the Centrist / Modern Orthodox / Religious Zionist community with a cheshbon hanefesh, an accounting of our communal soul. Things that he saw we as a community need to look at and improve. See "By His Light: Character and Values in the Service of God" by R' Reuvein Zeigler, notes of shiurim by Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, pp 220-252, which is available on-line at Yeshivat Har Etzion's Israel Koschitzky Virtual Beit Midrash, as the email shiur from the series "Developing a Torah Personality" Lecture 12: Centrist Orthodoxy: A Spiritual Accounting. Listing the rashei peraqim (subtitles): * The Shift To the Right * The Need for Soul-Searching * Commonalities and Differences With the Right * Shaking Our Confidence In General Culture * The Complexity of Experience * Literary, Psychological and Historical Sensitivity * Attitudes Toward Zionism * "Torah Only" or "Torah And" * The Possibility of Integration * Theory and Practice * Dialectical Tension or Tepid Indifference? * Instilling Passion * The Need for Spirituality * Diffusion and Dilution * The Ascendancy of the Moral Over the Intellectual * "Do Not Fear Any Man" Here's one piece near the end, that stays with me each time I read the article: ... Perhaps much of what I have said in relation to culture, quoting Arnold and Yeats and others, seems very rarefied. People may be asking themselves, "What does this have to do with us? We have to deal with children in elementary school or high school; this is not our concern." Nevertheless, I have related to culture at its apex, because the kind of vision which is maintained at the pinnacle has an impact, and should have an impact, upon what is done at lower levels. In this respect, the awareness of the evaluation of culture does have practical consequences for whatever level of education we are dealing with. Granted that, our challenge is to see to it that indeed we maintain our position with depth and gusto. Given our constituency, of course, we cannot instill many of our students with the optimal level of love of Torah; we know from where they come. But, within our overall community, and surely within its leadership, such a level should exist. Woe unto us, if the only choice lies between tepid compromise and arrogant kana'ut. A couple of years after we moved to Yerushalayim, I was once walking with my family in the Beit Yisrael neighborhood, where R. Isser Zalman Meltzer used to live. For the most part, it consists of narrow alleys. We came to a corner, and found a merchant stuck there with his car. The question came up as to how to help him; it was a clear case of perika u-te'ina (helping one load or unload his burden). There were some youngsters there from the neighborhood, who judging by their looks were probably ten or eleven years old. They saw that this merchant was not wearing a kippa. So they began a whole pilpul, based on the gemara in Pesachim (113b), about whether they should help him or not. They said, "If he walks around bareheaded, presumably he doesn't separate terumot u-ma'asrot, so he is suspect of eating and selling untithed produce..." I wrote R. Soloveitchik a letter at that time, and told him of the incident. I ended with the comment, "Children of that age from our camp would not have known the gemara, but they would have helped him." My feeling then was: Why, Ribbono shel Olam, must this be our choice? Can't we find children who would have helped him and still know the gemara? Do we have to choose? I hope not; I believe not. If forced to choose, however, I would have no doubts where my loyalties lie: I prefer that they know less gemara, but help him. If I can refer again to my experience over the last several decades, I think that one of the central points which has reinforced itself is the sense, in terms of values, of the ascendancy of the moral over the intellectual -- with all my love for and commitment to pure learning. But, when all is said and done, you have to be guided not by what you love; you have to be guided by Torah. And the Torah tells us what is good: He has told you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you: only to do justice, and to love goodness, and to walk modestly with your God. (Mikha 6:8) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 12:48:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 15:48:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L by Rav Shimon Schwab Message-ID: <20150420194854.40DD317FB85@nexus.stevens.edu> See The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 11:46:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 21:46:52 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] hidur Message-ID: <> - changed topic from tefillat hadrech There is a famois R Chaim that if one can use both etgrogim then one should first use the beautiful but *might* be pasul since if one uses the minimally kosher one then one has accomplished the mitzvah and there is no reason to choose a second one. I have seen some that disagree with R Chaim claiming that it is possible to take a better etrog for hidur even after having minimally done the motzvah. This has applications mehadrin of chanukah -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 14:52:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:52:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 09:46:52PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> It's like if one is forced to choose between an esrog which is definitely :> kosher but only barely so, vs. one which is beautiful but *might* be pasul. :> To me, it's a no-brainer that one would choose the barely kosher one.) >> - ... : There is a famois R Chaim that if one can use both etgrogim then one should : first use the beautiful but *might* be pasul since if one uses the : minimally kosher one then one has accomplished the mitzvah and there is no : reason to choose a second one. This presumes you can afford both, or have access to a friend who will give you a matanah al menas lehachzir of whichever you aren't buying. The post you're replying to is "if one is forced to choose". My own dilemma. Say I earmark $X (Y NIS, in your case) to spend on my esrog. And say the price of a definitely kosher (or at least, just as sure to be kosher) but not very hadar esrog is half that or less. Should I buy myself a mehudar, or should I buy two esrogim and give the other to someone hitting on hard times? Shouldn't the asei (tzedaqah, dei machsero) trump a "mere" hidur mitzvah (esrog)? And yet, we know many great rabbanim who didn't follow this calculus. What am I missing? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 15:25:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 18:25:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safeik as Metzi'us Message-ID: <20150420222502.GC1634@aishdas.org> The story so far: Briskers don't wear tzitzis outdoors on Shabbos in case the gemara does conclude that hatekheiles me'eaqes es halavan. (Dspite the tam mishnah, there is reason to wonder.) And if so, the tassels on your tallis or tallis qatan are not tzitzis, and wouldn't be tafeil to the beged. On Shabbos -- hotza'ah. I asked why, since I personally am wearing those tassels because of the safeiq, wouldn't that mean that in terms of my intent, they are hotza'ah? In general, when do we pasqen one din and then use that pesaq as the metzi'us for the next case? And when do we look at the internals of that din (in this case, the safeiq) and carry them through to the next din? Other examples collected so far: AhS OC 409:6 -- An eiruv techumin made with a safeiq tereifah is not an eiruv, because you can't eat a safeiq tereifah. We look to the pesaq, the meat is assur mishum safeiq, not the safeiq itself. (Where a parallel case in the se'if is ruled safeiq derabbanan lequlah.) AhS OC 416:8 -- A person wants to make 2 different eiruvei techumin, one for each day of YT in chu"l. You can't create an eiruv on day 2 that you cannot reach on day 1. We don't say mima nafshach -- if day 1 is YT, you don't need the eiruv, and if day 2 is, you were allowed to reach the food on day 1. Again, we look at the masqanah. Recently I noticed two more in the AhS: AhC OC 509:12 -- The Rama (se'if 5) allows libun on YT of a skewer that that they broiled non-salted meat on to allow using the skewer again that day. The AhS explains this is not a real tiqun keli, because mei'iqar hadin it doesn't need libun (cf YD 76), an therefore even if you could have done the libun on erev YT, you can still do it now. We DO NOT say that lemaaseh we are not nohagim to use the skewer without libun, so therefore the skewer went from usable to non-usable. This time we do look into the cause of the non-use. I am wondering if it's because beshe'as hadechaq, they would go to a rav and get a pesaq that they could use the skewer as is, so it's not fully unusable. AhS 581:18 -- If fruit are stored in a room that is built from uncemented bricks and the room breaks, the fruit are usable. We do not say they a muqtza, because the issur of disassembling the room was only derabbanan, so he didn't have full hesach hadaas. Notice that here he is saying that a person is aware of issur derabbanan being on a lesser level. The ruling is on the metzi'us, but with the understanding the the metzi'us reflects the wishy-washiness of the issur. RAM: Does any of this change your proposed sevaros? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 14:54:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:54:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5535759A.5020909@gmail.com> What would be the kilayim status of this combo? http://www.territorialseed.com/product/grafted-tomtato-ketchup-n-fries/new_for_spring_2015 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 15:57:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 18:57:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> On 04/20/2015 05:52 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > My own dilemma. Say I earmark $X (Y NIS, in your case) to spend on > my esrog. And say the price of a definitely kosher (or at least, just > as sure to be kosher) but not very hadar esrog is half that or less. > Should I buy myself a mehudar, or should I buy two esrogim and give the > other to someone hitting on hard times? Shouldn't the asei (tzedaqah, > dei machsero) trump a "mere" hidur mitzvah (esrog)? And yet, we know > many great rabbanim who didn't follow this calculus. What am I missing? Perhaps that they would then let the other person use their mehudardige esrog, so both benefit. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:21:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:21:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 06:57:15PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: :> ... Shouldn't the asei (tzedaqah, :> dei machsero) trump a "mere" hidur mitzvah (esrog)? And yet, we know :> many great rabbanim who didn't follow this calculus. What am I missing? : Perhaps that they would then let the other person use their mehudardige : esrog, so both benefit. So, both get the mitzvah of esrog with a hadar esrog. But I asked about fulling tzedaqah. How does a matanah al menas lehachzir qualify? And for someone used to having their own esrog, how is it "dei machsero"? Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:15:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:15:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Matza between Pesach and Shavuos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Somebody (either here or on Areivim) was asking about the minhag to eat matza between Pesach and Shavuos. I happened to pick up a sefer called "Bein Pesach u'Shavuos" (by R Zvi Cohn) and saw a few mentions about this. First, he cites the Gr"a that he never ate matza when it was not Pesach. I think the reasoning is that he didn't want to get hana'ah from it, but, rather, eat it only because it was a mitzvah. But then, later in the sefer, I saw reference to (a) a minhag (Belz and Chernobyl) to eat matza to eat matza on every shalosh seudos between Pesach and Shavuos, and wetting it with fish juice/gravy; and (b) v'yesh a minhag to eat matza *every* time one washes for bread, in order to combine "michlei d'm'heimnusa u'michlei d'asvasa" food/meal of emuna and food/meal of refuah (apologies for messing up the vowels). The footnote cites the sefer "Darchei Chayim v'Sholom" siman 633. And also to be m'dakdek to make one kugel for shabbos with matza and to pass it around, particularly on shalosh seudos after the z'miros. I don't translate so well, so if you want to see "inside" R Cohn's sefer, I put it here: http://s3.postimg.org/wukbartcj/matza.jpg [1] and if you look and find mistakes, please let the list (or at least me!) know! FWIW & Kol tuv, -- Sholom Links: ------ [1] http://s3.postimg.org/wukbartcj/matza.jpg -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 16:32:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 19:32:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> At 05:52 PM 4/20/2015, RN Toby Katz wrote: > >I am grateful to RYL (Prof. Levine) for making this pamphlet available to >the public as a pdf. However I note that he is often highly critical of >the charedi world, and I believe that R' Hirsch would emphatically not have >agreed with him. He would have honored and cherished the talmidei chachamim >who devote their lives to limud haTorah, and would have educated his >balabatim to take pride in the zechus of financially supporting the >"black hat" >yeshivos. This is pure speculation on your part. I believe that RSRH would have agreed with my views on this matter. Of course, this is pure speculation on my part. He certainly would not have agreed with the idea of not working to support one's family. See my article "The Obligation to Support a Family" The Jewish Press, February 18, 2015, front page. and the extensive quotes I have there from the writings of Rav Dr. Joseph Breuer, ZT"L, who was, of course, a grandson of RSRH and the foremost expositor of TIDE during his life time. > >I would also note that R' Hirsch would certainly not have shared RYL's dour > view of present-day Eretz Yisrael. True, all the flaws and failings of >Zionism are abundantly on display in the modern Medinah. But at the same >time, it takes an almost willful blindness not to see the >incredible miracles >that have been taking place there over the past sixty years or so. Not the >least of these miracles is a flourishing of Torah scholarship, be'eichus >uvekamus, the likes of which has not been seen since the churban Bayis >Sheni. We owe at least a small measure of gratitude to the >Zionist government >that helps provide the infrastructure for the Torah community to flourish, >and a huge measure of gratitude to the Ribono Shel Olam for allowing us to >live in a time in which the beginning of kibbutz galuyos is taking place >before our eyes. The sight of thousands of men, young and old, from all >corners of the world, streaming into the Mirrer Yeshiva each day, gives us a >little foretaste of what it will be like to visit the Third Bais Hamikdash. Again, I have to disagree. I suggest you read Rav Breuer's writings about EY in the book A Unique Perspective under the heading Eretz Yisroel. The following are some excerpts from his essay The State of Israel. The proclamation of a Jewish state would bring great joy to all the members of our people, if conditions were such that we could feel justified to call it a Kiddush Hashem. It pains us to say, and we have no illusions, that for the time being this is not the case. For every Torah-true Jew the word Kiddush Hashem is his utmost concern, while Chillul Hashem leaves him trembling. Thus the establishment of a Jewish state will fill him with misgivings and alarm. Anyone who is imbued with the eternal truth and validity of God's Torah will have to be aware that a state on God's holy soil will only be able to endure if the conditions that God has set down for a Jewish state on His holy soil are met. These conditions apply to the Jewish entity and to the life of every individual who declares himself a member of God's People. Again, please read Rav Breuer's essays on Eretz Yisroel in this book. Also, please read Rav Shimon Schwab's essay Zion or Zionism that I have placed at http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/zion_or_zionism.pdf Rav Schwab was most certainly a proponent of TIDE and the approach of RSRH. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 15:32:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 18:32:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> References: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 11:34 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > There was a bachur next to me this morning whose retzu'os were painted > black on both sides. And I believe I know why this is done, in case > a retzu'ah gets flipped. Or perhaps to be chosheish for the Rambam's > description of such retzu'os being "noi". I've only ever heard of the leather being soaked in dye; and the reason given was not for flipped retzu'os but for scratches: if the entire thickness of the strap has been dyed, a scratch will not expose undyed leather. (This does not address your actual question, though) ?Chesky Salomon From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:24:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:24:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <553598C0.6010209@sero.name> On 04/20/2015 08:21 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > So, both get the mitzvah of esrog with a hadar esrog. But I asked about > fulling tzedaqah. How does a matanah al menas lehachzir qualify? And > for someone used to having their own esrog, how is it "dei machsero"? At a time when an esrog was a luxury that most people could not afford and were not used to, how often would such a case come up? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:27:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:27:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <553598C0.6010209@sero.name> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> <553598C0.6010209@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150421002736.GA24420@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 08:24:32PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : At a time when an esrog was a luxury that most people could not afford : and were not used to, how often would such a case come up? ... and today? Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:58:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 00:58:13 GMT Subject: [Avodah] hidur Message-ID: <20150420.205813.23096.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> R'Zev Sero asked: > At a time when an esrog was a luxury that most people could > not afford and were not used to, how often would such a case > come up? But it could certainly come up nowadays. About 25 years ago, my budget was so tight that I had decided to share my lulav and esrog with my two sons, despite my having gotten them their own set in previous years. I don't remember whether one or both was still below bar mitzvah that year, but it doesn't really matter, because the point is that they were used to having their own, and that year we shared the one set. Suffice it to say that it was not fun. Baruch Hashem we've each had own own every year since then. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5535a0f9e88320f87fb2st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 18:23:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 01:23:34 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Self-control fatigue Message-ID: <20150420.212334.23096.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> On Areivim, SY Scher wrote: > A now large body of research shows that we can have "self-control > fatigue". Professor Roy Baumeister and his colleagues have > demonstrated experimentally that when people have previously had > to exert self-control, their ability to do so goes down. They > have also showed physiological correlates -- will-power/self- > control takes energy, and after exerting a lot of control, our > blood glucose level is lower. Replenishment of glucose (for > example, by drinking lemonade sweetened with sugar, but not > lemonade with artificial sweeteners) raises self-control ability > back up. > We all know that following the halacha often requires a good deal > of willpower, and I would imagine that for charedi adolescent boys, > that would be even more strongly so. So, the ability to control > the yetzer in outside situations may well be reduced. The muscle > is just too worn out! Is there any way fit this in with the idea that many mitzvos - kashrus in particular and chukim in general - seem designed to train us to *have* self-control? Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 03:14:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 06:14:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Self-control fatigue In-Reply-To: <20150420.212334.23096.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150420.212334.23096.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150421101422.GB7409@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 01:23:34AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : Is there any way fit this in with the idea that many mitzvos - kashrus : in particular and chukim in general - seem designed to train us to *have* : self-control? If (and that's a big if) we define the yeitzer hara as the effects on our souls of living within a mammalian body, then the ability to plan ahead and work toward delayed gratification, rather than just instinctively going for what's before us, is going to be a fundamental skill in rising above it. In R Yitchaq Sher's introduction to the Slabodka edition of Cheshbon haNefesh (Feldheim bilingual ed. ), the mashgiach speaks of the nefesh habehamis's "lack[ing the will to exercise choice" and therefore "the tzivui or azharah of an asei or a lo-sa'asei are not shayach to it at all" (par 2). He then gives guidelines about how to train it by taking examples from animal training (par 304). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 17th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Tifferes: What is the ultimate Fax: (270) 514-1507 state of harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 03:17:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 13:17:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> References: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 8:36 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > The Maharal is saying that what RMF calls emes shamamis (I think that > conjugation is yours, no?) is actually too rich to fit in this universe, > and certainly in a human mind. Therefore, two shitos can be correct > descriptions of the Truth, because each are incomplete. > Where does the Maharal say this? (Not a challenge, I just want to learn it inside) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 06:24:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 09:24:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: References: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150421132444.GD1634@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 01:17:49PM +0300, Simon Montagu wrote: : Where does the Maharal say this? (Not a challenge, I just want to learn it : inside) Be'er haGolah, be'er 1, pg 20 in the common edition, available on pg 94 the whole book) in the Harman edition, on hebrewbooks.org (Onward, I would print the 1[:6] off the link at the top for the whole sefer. R YD Hartman has a clearer edition, with copious footnotes.) I've been citing that Maharal for over a decade, so I had to search for the actual mar'eh maqom. On nice find was the discussion in Mishpat Ivri . I want to go through the whole chapter on machloqos (that hit is mid-chapter) before commenting, but I don't know when I'll get to it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 17th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Tifferes: What is the ultimate Fax: (270) 514-1507 state of harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 09:11:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 12:11:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150421132444.GD1634@aishdas.org> References: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> <20150421132444.GD1634@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55367699.9010203@sero.name> On 04/21/2015 09:24 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 01:17:49PM +0300, Simon Montagu wrote: > : Where does the Maharal say this? (Not a challenge, I just want to learn it > : inside) > > Be'er haGolah, be'er 1, pg 20 The introduction to the Hartman edition shows that the title is actually Be'er haGulah, with a melupum rather than a cholam. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 01:40:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 11:40:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu Message-ID: Sagi in his book on the topic brings 3 basic approaches (all with many supporters) to the sugya 1) Monism - only one truth as subfields we can be tolerant of other attempts or not 2) pluralism - there are many truths and one can't decide 3) harmonism - different views are just separate parts of the same truth R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is self-contradictory. According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint is monism ! He further points out that sometimes pluralism can be a chumra Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he doesn't accept the kashrut Answer: Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable Of course these are only typologies. In the real world anyone who believes in pluralism has some radius of acceptance. Few would accept Naziism or Isis as a legitimate viewpoint -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 01:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 11:53:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] hidur Message-ID: <> As usual R Chaim is asking a theoretical question - he was not a posek In fact I once heard from RYBS that in fact almost all etrogim are kosher bidieved. In Israel one can get a mehudar set for about 100 shekel ($25) see http://www.dafyomi.co.il/nazir/halachah/nz-hl-002.htm 2. Bava Kama 9a (R. Zeira citing Rav Huna): One must spend up to a third for Mitzvos. 3. Question: What does this mean? i. Suggestion: One must spend a third of his wealth to fulfil a Mitzvah. ii. Rejection: It is unreasonable that if he encounters three (expensive) Mitzvos, he must exhaust all his wealth! 4. Answer (R. Zeira): One must spend an extra third to beautify a Mitzvah. Shulchan Aruch (ibid.): Some say that if he finds two Esrogim to buy, and one of them is nicer than the other, he should buy the nicer one if the price difference is no more than a third of the other. i. Source (Beis Yosef DH Kaneh): Rashi (Bava Kama 9b DH b'Hidur) says that if one found two Sifrei Torah to buy, he should add a third of the price to buy the nicer one. ii. Kaf ha'Chayim (17): It seems that neither opinion requires one who bought an Esrog bigger than an egg to exchange it for a nicer one. However, the Rosh, Gra and Taz obligate doing so. The Magen Avraham says that perhaps the Shulchan Aruch holds like the Rosh. iii. Kaf ha'Chayim (18): One must add a third from an Esrog that one could bless on without Safek. Hidur depends on what people in the area consider nice. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 05:09:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 08:09:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55378F6E.2070708@sero.name> On 04/22/2015 04:40 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > 2) pluralism - there are many truths and one can't decide > > R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is self-contradictory. According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint is monism ! Not true. There are many truths, but not an infinite number. Or, as my father says, there are 70 panim latorah, but there are also 70 achor. Strict monism, which rejects the gemara's statement that "eilu va'eilu DACh", is by definition wrong. > Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he > doesn't accept the kashrut > Answer: > Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong > Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable It depends whether his concern is legitimate. If there is a legitimate opinion or minhag that forbids or refrains from whatever it is, or if he has a legitimate private chumra, then there is no question that it is assur to be machshil him. But if he is acting out of pure amhoratzus, then one needn't pander to it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 09:45:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 17:45:34 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Avodah: Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:54, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah wrote: > What would be the kilayim status of this combo? > http://www.territorialseed.com/product/grafted-tomtato-ketchup-n-fries/new_for_spring_2015 Though potato and tomato are from the same family, it is clear from mesechte Kilayim, fruit [or animals] that look different are treated as 2 different species. Hence, though the spuds and tomatoes would be permitted to eat - as with any grafted fruit - it would be ossur for a Yid to grow Dovid Rubin From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 10:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 13:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: <55378F6E.2070708@sero.name> References: <55378F6E.2070708@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150422175311.GA11663@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 08:09:18AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : On 04/22/2015 04:40 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : >2) pluralism - there are many truths and one can't decide : : >R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is :> self-contradictory. According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint :> is monism ! : Not true. There are many truths, but not an infinite number. Or, as my : father says, there are 70 panim latorah, but there are also 70 achor. I think RMA is referring to a paradox I've mentioned here once. While in principle, it's possible for a halachic pluralist to not include any halachic monist positions in his spectrum of eilu va'eilu, I do not know of a halachic pluralist who rules out the Rambam. Or a less absolute case of the same paradox: MO Jews will turn to chareidi gedolim for pesaqim despite those gedoim not believing that MO is within eilu va'eilu. So it would seem that to the MO Jew asking the she'eilah, the variant of chareidism that says MO is not within eilu va'eilu, is (in the MO Jew's opinion) itself within EvE! : Strict monism, which rejects the gemara's statement that "eilu va'eilu DACh", : is by definition wrong. Or, understand it in terms of following HQBH's word, as opposed to being right. As per the Rambam or RMF, for example. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 18th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Tifferes: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 balance? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 11:53:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 14:53:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Chilul Hashem of Disrespecting Non-Jews Message-ID: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/kb4v525 This idea connects with something that has bothered me for some time: the wanton, unprovoked use of disparaging, racist comments among our youth. Over the years I have either heard directly or been made aware of many such comments by students. When I asked why they had expressed themselves in this manner, they could offer no meaningful response. All I could glean was that they were apparently parroting similar remarks they had heard elsewhere, without having given much thought to their words. Many of these students had few if any relationships or even interactions with individuals from the groups they were mocking. See the above URL for the entire article. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:32:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 15:32:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Chilul Hashem of Disrespecting Non-Jews In-Reply-To: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150422193201.GD11663@aishdas.org> One of my many pet peeves is the use of "chilul hasheim" to teach ehrlachkeit. It may win the battle -- historically, it hasn't -- but it does so by avoiding the war. Mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro as important as mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro. Derekh eretz is important as Chazal literally call it a prerequisite for Torah. Worrying about the bein adam laMaqom effects of the cheit misses the point. And perhaps the reason why past attempts to change behavior by talking about chillul hasheim haven't worked is that one is not teaching the centrality of ehrlachkeit as a *primary* value. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 18th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Tifferes: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 balance? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:43:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 21:43:09 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <5537F9CD.7000409@zahav.net.il> How did Rav Breuer work to ensure the conditions that "we could feel justified to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? Ben On 4/21/2015 1:32 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > > Again, I have to disagree. I suggest you read Rav Breuer's writings > about EY in the book A Unique Perspective under the heading Eretz Yisroel. > > The proclamation of a Jewish state would bring great joy to all > the members of our people, if conditions were such that we could > feel justified to call it a Kiddush Hashem. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:36:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 15:36:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Avodah: Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150422193627.GE11663@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 05:45:34PM +0100, D via Avodah wrote: : Hence, though the spuds and tomatoes would be permitted to eat - as : with any grafted fruit - it would be ossur for a Yid to grow I think it would be mutar to buy already grafted, and then grow. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:53:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 22:53:04 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Avodah: Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 7:45 PM, D via Avodah wrote: > Though potato and tomato are from the same family, it is clear from > mesechte Kilayim, fruit [or animals] that look different are treated as 2 > different species. > Hence, though the spuds and tomatoes would be permitted to eat - as with > any grafted fruit - it would be ossur for a Yid to grow > Do you mean because the potato and tomato that we eat look different? You're not comparing apples to apples (pun intended). The fruits of a potato plant look very similar to the fruits of a tomato plant! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 13:07:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joel Schnur via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 16:07:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos Message-ID: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> My understanding is that Briskers don't wear a talis katan outside the house on shabbos because the shiur is "ad habirchaim" according to the Gaon as brought in Keser Rosh by talmidei Reb Chaim Voloshiner. And since "until the knees" is a subjective criterion depending upon each person's height, there is no specific "one size fits all" length. Interestingly, Rav Moshe Shternbuch brings a Rav Moshe that says that the source is unreliable and the Gaon never said such a thing. -- ___________________________ Joel Schnur, Senior VP Government Affairs/Public Relations Schnur Associates, Inc. 25 West 45th Street, Suite 1405 New York, NY 10036 Tel. 212-489-0600 x204 Fax. 212-489-0203 joel at schnurassociates.com www.schnurassociates.com http://www.schnurassociates.com/joels-corner/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 14:57:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 17:57:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Chilul Hashem of Disrespecting Non-Jews In-Reply-To: <20150422193201.GD11663@aishdas.org> References: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150422193201.GD11663@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150422215739.6F5F0180576@nexus.stevens.edu> At 03:32 PM 4/22/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >Mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro as important as mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro. I believe that this sentence is wrong. I believe you meant to write that mitzvos bein adam l'Chaveiro are just as important as mitzvos bein adam l'makom. RSRH points out that the Luchos contained 5 mitzvos bein adam l'Chaveiro and 5 mitzvos bein Adam l"Makom on each side, and that both sides of the Luchos were the same size! >Derekh eretz is important as Chazal literally call it a prerequisite >for Torah. And hence may one deduce that those who do not have proper Derech Eretz do not have Torah? If so, then I guess we should not be surprised at the actions of some so-called Jews that are a Chilul Hashem. They do not have any Torah. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 13:46:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 20:46:08 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos In-Reply-To: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> References: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> Message-ID: <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> On Wednesday, April 22, 2015 3:33 PM, Joel Schnur wrote: > My understanding is that Briskers don't wear a talis katan outside the > house on shabbos because the shiur is "ad habirchaim" according to the > Gaon as brought in Keser Rosh by talmidei Reb Chaim Voloshiner.... > Interestingly, Rav Moshe Shternbuch brings a Rav Moshe that says that > the source is unreliable and the Gaon never said such a thing. The reason that Briskers don't where Tzitzes on Shabbos is because they are Choshesh for the Shita of the Baal HaMeor who says that Techiels is Me'akev the Lavan. As such -- by wearing these now unnecessary 'strings' in Reshus Harabim they will be Oveir the Lav of Hotza'ah on Shabbos, an Issur D'Oraisa and a capital offense. Inetrestingly, accroding to the Baal HaMeor, wearing a Beged of Daled Kanfos using Tzitzs without Techiles is a violation -- same as if he were wearing it without Tzitzis at all. I'm told that the Gra did not wear a woolen Beged for his Talis Katan for that reason. Because wool has a Chiuv D'Oraisa for Tzitzs whereas cotton is only D'Rabbanan. HM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 17:05:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 20:05:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <5537F9CD.7000409@zahav.net.il> References: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> <5537F9CD.7000409@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <5538373F.4000900@aishdas.org> On 04/22/2015 03:43 PM, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: > On 4/21/2015 1:32 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: >> Again, I have to disagree. I suggest you read Rav Breuer's writings >> about EY in the book A Unique Perspective under the heading Eretz >> Yisroel. >> The proclamation of a Jewish state would bring great joy to all >> the members of our people, if conditions were such that we could >> feel justified to call it a Kiddush Hashem. > How did Rav Breuer work to ensure the conditions that "we could feel > justified to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? He thought his late brother's Poalei Agudah might accomplish it. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 03:06:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 06:06:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos In-Reply-To: <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> References: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20150423100635.GA26841@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 08:46:08PM +0000, Harry Maryles via Avodah wrote: : The reason that Briskers don't where Tzitzes on Shabbos is because they : are Choshesh for the Shita of the Baal HaMeor who says that Techiels is : Me'akev the Lavan. : : As such -- by wearing these now unnecessary 'strings' in Reshus Harabim : they will be Oveir the Lav of Hotza'ah on Shabbos... In the opening post, I referred to the BhM's reason. Since there appears to be interest, I will spell it out. The mishnah (Menachos 4:1, 38a) says that techeiles is not me'aqeves the lavan, and v.v. Seems kind of open and shut, and that's what we hold lehalakhah. And so R' Yitzchaq says that R Yochanan ben Nuri says (beraisa , quoted on 39b) that if you have no tekheiles, you make all strings lavan. But, Rebbe is choleiq, and says the mishnah means sequence. Normally the lavan strings have to be put on first, or on a tekheiles garment, the tekheiles string first. And the mishnah is saying that if you put on the other color first, it's not me'aqeiv. According to Rebbe, though, you can't be yotzei without putting on tekheiles altogether. Getting to this understanding of the mishnah is an amud lonq chaqla vetarya in which Levi, Shemu'el and Rami bar Chama defend Rebbe's position. : Interestingly, according to the Baal HaMeor, wearing a Beged of Daled : Kanfos using Tzitzs without Techiles is a violation -- same as if he : were wearing it without Tzitzis at all. Not really. It's an asei, not a lav. So, if tekheiles truly is unavailable, why wouldn't it be mutar, if pointless? However, if you feel there is any possibility whatsoever that the murex derived dye is indeed tekheiles, safeiq de'oraisa lechumerah would force one to choose between not wearing tzitzis and wearing the dye. And there are those who hold it's garua to wear invalid dye, so combine the shitos right, and the discovery of a possible tekheiles would make it better not to wear tzitzis. IF we held like the BhM. But not even Briskers do, me'iqar hadin -- they are merely chosheish for his position as a chumerah. : I'm told that the Gra did not wear a woolen Beged for his Talis Katan : for that reason. Because wool has a Chiuv D'Oraisa for Tzitzs whereas : cotton is only D'Rabbanan. As usual for the Gra -- clever! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 19th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Tifferes: When does harmony promote Fax: (270) 514-1507 withdrawal and submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 02:45:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Allan Engel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 10:45:42 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos In-Reply-To: <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> References: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: So what was his Tallis Godol made of? On 22 April 2015 at 21:46, Harry Maryles via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote:. > > > Inetrestingly, accroding to the Baal HaMeor, wearing a Beged of Daled > Kanfos using Tzitzs without Techiles is a violation -- same as if he > were wearing it without Tzitzis at all. > > I'm told that the Gra did not wear a woolen Beged for his Talis Katan > for that reason. Because wool has a Chiuv D'Oraisa for Tzitzs whereas > cotton is only D'Rabbanan. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 05:07:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 12:07:10 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >> R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is self-contradictory. >> According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint is monism ! ... > Strict monism, which rejects the gemara's statement that "eilu va'eilu > DACh", is by definition wrong. Monism doesn't reject the gemara just interprets it different That was the shiur >> Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he >> doesn't accept the kashrut >> Answer: >> Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong >> Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable > It depends whether his concern is legitimate. If there is a legitimate > opinion or minhag that forbids or refrains from whatever it is, or if he > has a legitimate private chumra, then there is no question that it is assur > to be machshil him. No question is your opinion a true monist Would argue that there are no other legitimate opinions hence the other is wrong and you are not machshil him [Email #2, also in reply to this latter quote. -micha] You are not being machshil by offering food that he won't eat because of his minhag or chumrot you are mikayem shalach Manot even if he doesn't accept the kashrut From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 09:11:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 12:11:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L Message-ID: <20150423161105.DF2701836D1@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:13 AM 4/23/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: >How did Rav Breuer work to ensure the conditions that "we could feel >justified to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? I really have no specifics. but I do know that Rav Breuer was busy here in the US building a model Kehilla and educating Baalei Batim. I know that some of those from his Kehilla did move to EY. In particular, I know one person who was a professional and a follower of TIDE who moved to EY. I am sure that he did whatever he could to strengthen Yahadus in EY. But let me ask a related question. What are the observant now living in EY doing "to ensure the conditions that 'we could feel justifies to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 09:49:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 12:49:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55392297.20909@sero.name> On 04/23/2015 08:07 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > >>> >>Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he >>> >>doesn't accept the kashrut >>> >>Answer: >>> >>Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong >>> >>Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable >> >It depends whether his concern is legitimate. If there is a legitimate >> >opinion or minhag that forbids or refrains from whatever it is, or if he >> >has a legitimate private chumra, then there is no question that it is assur >> >to be machshil him. > No question is your opinion a true monist > Would argue that there are no other legitimate opinions hence the other > is wrong and you are not machshil him Even if there is only one truth, you don't necessarily know for sure what it is. You make your best guess, but someone else makes his, and for all you know he may have hit on the truth, even if only by accident, while you, with all your careful analysis of the evidence, may have been led astray. Let's take medicine, where there really is only one truth, but often we don't know for sure what it is. Does gluten in the diet negatively affect the health of most normal people? There doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence for that proposition, but it can't be ruled out. Maybe in 20 years we will observe that those who have followed the gluten-free fad really are healthier, and someone will discover how it is that gluten harms a person. Or maybe it will be established that it's exactly the mishguas that it appears to be. But until then we are just guessing, and if you hold that it's a mishugas but someone else is worried about it, you have to consider the possibility that he may be right, and by tricking him into eating gluten you may actually be harming him. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 10:54:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 17:54:52 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] A Papal Honor for an Orthodox Rabbi. Message-ID: <393104521.3643892.1429811692300.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> JTA is reporting that Pope Francis will be bestowing Papal Knighthood upon Rabbi Arthur Schneier (who I believe is an Orthodox Rabbi) for (among other things) his work in promoting a positive relationship with the Church. According to JTA,?Schneier will formally become a knight of Saint Sylvester at a ceremony on April 27.Isn't there a Halachic probelm with this? It would seem to me that becoming a 'knight' in the Catholic church ?would at least be Avak Avodah Zara - even though it is just honorary? HM??Want Emes and Emunah in your life? Try this: http://haemtza.blogspot.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 16:14:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 19:14:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early Message-ID: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin (or ate the food already, the food went bad, etc...) who for some reason can not rely on the rabbi's communal failsafe eruv (perhaps he isn't in a neighborhood with an observant community) do for lighting Shabbos candles? So, the BY (OC 537:19) permits, but he says "veyeish oserin". The AhS (se'if 28) names the oserim as the Rosh and the Ran, and that the SA names the Rambam (via a diyuq halashon)as his source lehatir. The AhS then questions the diyuq, but says it should be allowed anyway, since one gets hana'ah from the neiros while on YT too. So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, ones you used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making a berakhah on? Yes, there is light for enjoying the Shabbos meal, all the same shalom bayis. But there is no actual pe'ulah to make the berakhah on. Is there? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 19th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Tifferes: When does harmony promote Fax: (270) 514-1507 withdrawal and submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 16:21:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Daniel M. Israel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 16:21:06 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> References: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <33e302272e45c742ee54349bcfddc40a@kolberamah.org> On 2015-04-23 16:14, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin... > ... do for lighting Shabbos candles? > So, the BY (OC 537:19) permits... The AhS > then questions the diyuq, but says it should be allowed anyway, since > one gets hana'ah from the neiros while on YT too. > So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, ones you > used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making a berakhah on? Off the cuff hypothesis: Perhaps for the one lighting, it becomes Shabbos immediately, so the hadlakah is for Shabbos and there is a beracha. But for others in the house, they likely don't take on Shabbos until davening, and therefor they enjoy it on YT. Which would be enough to matir her lighting them. But I have no source. -- Daniel Israel dmi1 at cornell.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 16:27:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 19:27:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: <33e302272e45c742ee54349bcfddc40a@kolberamah.org> References: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> <33e302272e45c742ee54349bcfddc40a@kolberamah.org> Message-ID: <20150423232727.GB23492@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 04:21:06PM -0700, Daniel M. Israel wrote: : Perhaps for the one lighting, it becomes Shabbos immediately, so the : hadlakah is for Shabbos and there is a beracha. But for others in the : house, they likely don't take on Shabbos until davening, and therefor : they enjoy it on YT. Which would be enough to matir her lighting them. Not bad, if we don't read too much into the AhS not limiting this solution to cases where the candle-lighter isn't alone in the home. Nor does he mention having to use candles lit after pelag, nor her making a berakhah upon lighting and having an issur melakhah... Could be, but I find it dachuq. -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 17:58:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2015 00:58:48 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early Message-ID: <20150423.205848.16124.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger asked: > What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin (or > ate the food already, the food went bad, etc...) who for some > reason can not rely on the rabbi's communal failsafe eruv > (perhaps he isn't in a neighborhood with an observant community) > do for lighting Shabbos candles? Another problem this person will have is what to eat on Shabbos. There are several ideas offered by the poskim, and one of them is to cook extra food on Yom Tov, and the extra will be for Shabbos. This can be done even without an Eiruv Tavshilin, IIRC, because the melacha is not being done exclusively for Shabbos. > So, the BY (OC 537:19) [that should be 527:19 - Akiva] permits, > but he says "veyeish oserin". The AhS (se'if 28) names the oserim > as the Rosh and the Ran, and that the SA names the Rambam (via a > diyuq halashon)as his source lehatir. The AhS then questions the > diyuq, but says it should be allowed anyway, since one gets > hana'ah from the neiros while on YT too. This sounds to me the same as above. The lighting is not being done exclusively for Shabbos, and therefore may be done on YT. I would note that at no point in that se'if, does the AhS explicitly refers to the *mitzvah* of lighting Shabbos neros. Rather, his focus is on the practical need to light them in the late afternoon, both because it is *already* getting dark and hard to see without some artifical light, and because we won't be able to light anything later on. Truth be told, if lighting Shabbos candles is allowed only with an Eruv Tavshilin, then this whole se'if is needed even for a person who DID remember to make an Eruv, because (l'chatchila) one must do his Shabbos preparations early in the day, in a manner in which the melacha is -- or at least *could* be -- for tzorchei Yom Tov, and not exclusively for Shabbos. > So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, > ones you used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making > a berakhah on? Yes, there is light for enjoying the Shabbos meal, > all the same shalom bayis. But there is no actual pe'ulah to make > the berakhah on. Is there? I don't know where you see anything like this in the AhS. The AhS is explicitly talking about lighting after mincha, when it is already dark and the light is already useful. I concede that perhaps one should omit the bracha, because it explicitly declares one's intentions to be of a hachana nature, but that is a separate question not raised by the AhS. The main point I want to make in this paragraph is that the AhS never suggested that one might be yotzay Mitzvas Ner Shabbos via the candle that he lit in the early afternoon; it must be lit after Plag, with the intention that it will be burning into Shabbos. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55399563ca1dd156333b3st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 23:18:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2015 02:18:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Turning Jealousy into Progress Message-ID: Envy - Jealousy ? Kin?ah ? is an obvious theme for Parshas Mtzora. Paraphrasing freely (from L?chai Ro?-EY page 184), Midrash Tehillim/Shochar Tov on 37:1 parallel of TiTCHaR and TeKaNNEi. Do not fall victim to despondence those plotting evil, do not emulate those who succeed in career of crime. Rashi BMiDBar 25:11 neatly ties both into a General Theory of Jealousy. KoL LaSHON KiNAH HU HaMiTCHaReH LiNKom NiKMaS DaVaR. Rashi?s keyword is worth a thousand words. Rashi expects that we know Tanach and Midrash references. To catch Rashi?s nuance, always, I consult my paper Milon Gur [also in HebrewBooks.com]. HaMiTCHaReH is the exotic addition to our vocabulary. My trusty dictionary comes through here. Milon Gur pages 310 311 on CHaRaH: CHaRaH intransitive verb, showing outwardly as Ca_US or KaTZUF. ? foaming and frothing anger, against a traitor or hated enemy. determination to avenge and restore the Balance of Justice. HiTLaHeiV burning simmering anger, pressure like volcanic eruption. Hashem to Yonah ? are you truly upset ? HaHeYTeiV CHaRaH LCHa YoNaH? Divine CHaRON AF boiling or simmering anger is satisfied only by repentance, not by punishment. CHaRUCHA [burnt like over done fire-roast, long term anger leads to burn-through and burn-out. CHaRUL thorny tangle Milon Gur page 1088 McharCher RIV ? drum up strife and enmity CHaRCHuR ? disease of loss of muscle and strength. MChaRCHer Riv, CharumAf [nose ?bent out of shape? inset into face] and for Tacharut as resentment destroyed relationship. Rashi in Machzor Vitri 148 uses CHeReTZ in a unique way. Hashem jealously and with energy demands perfection from the world. Why does the Creator demand perfection? Rashi believes that Hashem cares strongly about the world. When the Adam attempts to be good, but falls short, He uses Rachamim, parenting skills, looking to the potential of ?You will worship Elokim on this mountain?. identification with the world demands perfection. When the world tries but falls short, fails to perform, Hashem uses Rachamim, flexibility, patience, empathy. He settles for potential. When the world rebels against Hashem, refuses to acknowledge Him at all, or mocking Him, rejecting their Father, breaking up the family, then there is Charon Af, red faced simmering anger. Rav Avraham Ruby authored the ?Tzilusa DiShmaata? series, focusing on chapters of the Baba-s routinely learnt Afternoon Seder which are master-works of Lamdus. Rav Moshe Shmuel Shapiro of Be?eir Yaakov was a talented teacher, and R? Ruby is an extremely able student. This year R? Ruby has turned his talents to creating the same sort of succinct and sharp presentation on Chumash.[L?chai Ro?-EY on Vayikra, self published 5775, contact me.]. Each Parsha offers an eclectic collection of solid sources. The organization is always unique and refreshing. L?chai Ro?-EY 185 shows the constructive power of ambition. Identity, membership,self-image, pride, place in society are all motivators of constructive behavior. Kinah jealousy is secondary, when there is an insult or threat to Hashem?s identity, or the individual?s. Ideally our self-image should include praise of Hashem and hatred of all insults against the Honor of Hashem. Only live in a town with Jewish services, and help create them. Your material ambitions include the dimension of Mitzvos and Kidush Hashem. A higher level of identity, ambition and constructive jealousy is aspiring to your neighbor?s higher spiritual levels. Even the Heavenly angels and even Avraham Avinu found mentors to emulate. Of course, the type of destructive strife we often see has other roots. Building a Jewish family is much easier with stronger spiritual models. -- David Wacholder Cell: 917-742-7838 Email: dwacholder at gmail.com dwacholder at optonline.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 24 08:42:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2015 11:42:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Beautiful Vort Message-ID: I recently came upon the following, listening to a hesped for Rabbi Mordechai Fachler zt?l, who was nift?r in November 2010. The hesped (one of many for Rav Fachler) was delivered by Rabbi Moshe Shirkin of England. This is just one part that caught my attention and was very touching. In previous generations the g?dolei Yisroel were discussing what?s the function of a Rav? The Rosh Yeshiva in Grodna (at the time) said the task of the Rav is to give shiurim. The Rav of Kovna, poisek oilam, said the task of the Rav is to pasken shailas. They came to Reb Chayim of Brisk and asked him what is the task of the Rav. His impressive response was: To give shiurim, you have a Rosh Yeshiva. To pasken shailas, you have a dayan. The task of the Rav is to do chesed with his oilam. A clergyman comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comfortable. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Apr 25 12:31:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 25 Apr 2015 21:31:27 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150423161105.DF2701836D1@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150423161105.DF2701836D1@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <553BEB8F.8040802@zahav.net.il> On 4/23/2015 6:11 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > But let me ask a related question. What are the observant now living > in EY doing "to ensure the conditions that 'we could feel justifies > to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? I gave an answer on Areivim, but I saw a couple of things on Shabbat which warrant an Avodah response. The first is from Yoma 86:A, Rashi, B'Amor Lehem (my translation): "Evil comes to chassidim and chachamim because "They desecrated My Holy name" (note: Rashi is of course assuming that they didn't do any particular sin to warrant what happened to them). How did they desecrate (God's name)? In those places to where they were exiled, the non-Jews say "These are the people of God" and He can't redeem them. Conclusion: God's name has been desecrated." End quote. Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem. Rav Soloveitch tz"l wrote about this point in Kol Dodi Dofek and in his drashot for the Kinot, as did Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook tz"l. However, I don't want to leave it at that. Rav Cherki (father of Shalom HY"D) wrote the following in this week's Shabbat B'shabato: "And this leads us to a moral question: How can it be that with respect to the most significant event in all of history, the redemption, the existence or lack of good deeds has no effect at all? This tension between the inevitability of redemption and arbitrary choices made by man is what makes it necessary for the nation of Yisrael to observe all the mitzvot in detail, in order to avoid creating a dissonance between the need for justice (which appears in the covenant in the Torah portion of Bechukotai) and the values of the path of unification, which insists that G-d is always working to glorify His name, no matter what else is happening. And that is why the Haftarah ends with the adamant demand of the Holy One, Blessed be He: "I am your G-d. Follow My laws and maintain My just actions and perform them, and sanctify my Shabbat and let it be a symbol between Me and you, in order to know that I am your G-d." [Yechezkel 20:19-20]." No one, not the most hard core DL around, says that there is nothing wrong with the State, that there isn't what that needs changing, from the level of how people get on a bus to the national agenda. In his hesped, Rav Cherki mentioned that his son Shalom went to the navy to help start a hesder unit for the navy, even though he knew that the religious level in the navy wasn't as high as it was in other units. He went there for the greater good, to help make the IDF a bit more Torah oriented, period. Rav Cherki went on to say that the answer to Shalom's murder was to add Kiddush HaShem. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 13:28:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 20:28:49 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lashon Hara and the Internet Message-ID: <20150426.162849.2967.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> On Areivim, there were some posts speaking about the residents of a certain area or areas. Someone commented: > I'm a little surprised at this exchange. Sefer Chafetz Chaim is > pretty clear about not saying loshen hara on a place or the > residents of a place. Someone else responded: > I am no expert on what is LH and what is not, but with the Internet > I think that some of the halachos probably do not apply to today's > world. Find me a sefer that deals with LH and the Internet, and > then we will talk. I too am no expert in Sefer Chafetz Chaim, but I clearly remember it talking about Lashon Hara via the written word, such as in personal letters to friends and relatives, or by publishing books and newspapers. Can someone find those sources and tell us where they are? I find it difficult to imagine that today's world is so different from that of a hundred years ago "that some of the halachos probably do not apply to today's world." But without quoting actual sources, it's simply a case of my imagination vs that of the other poster. So I am hoping that someone can help with the source material, "and then we will talk." Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553d4ab51dc554ab54c25st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 15:02:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 18:02:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] YIDDISHKEIT WITHOUT IDEOLOGY: A LETTER TO My SON Message-ID: <20150426220229.D93E41836B2@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://traditionarchive.org/news/originals/Volume%2036/No.%202/Yiddishkeit%20Without.pdf Let me be absolutely clear: where the demands of halacha are unambiguous, you must submit to them. But how does one navigate between much less well-defined traditional attitudes and strong personal inclinations? When I was your age I didn't know the answer-I still don't-but one proposition that seemed self-evident to me at the time was that it was essential to be consistent. In other words, I felt that I had to some- how make sure that the way I defined Yiddishkeit and the way I defined my commitments given my own inclinations would be perfectly aligned. I'm now convinced that that commitment to consistency was utter- ly wrong-headed and is the key to all that is wrong with institutional Yiddishkeit. I shouldn't have been defining either Yiddishkeit or my commitments at al. To do so is to reduce Yiddishkeit to ideology which is exactly what it is not. See the above UL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 16:54:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 19:54:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150426235424.BD633182CE0@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:52 PM 4/26/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: I gave an answer on Areivim, but I saw a couple of things on Shabbat which warrant an Avodah response. The first is from Yoma 86:A, Rashi, B'Amor Lehem (my translation): "Evil comes to chassidim and chachamim because "They desecrated My Holy name" (note: Rashi is of course assuming that they didn't do any particular sin to warrant what happened to them). How did they desecrate (God's name)? In those places to where they were exiled, the non-Jews say "These are the people of God" and He can't redeem them. Conclusion: God's name has been desecrated." End quote. >Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem. >Rav Soloveitch tz"l wrote about this point in Kol Dodi Dofek and in his >drashot for the Kinot, as did Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook tz"l. We all know that there were great Torah scholars who disagreed with the assertion that " the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." to name just 3, the Satmar Rebbe, Rav Breuer, and Rav Schwab. They were also most certainly familiar with the gemara you quote and the RASHI. If you had written, "Therefore, according to some Torah scholars the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." I would not disagree. However, your blanket statement, "Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." is IMO is not valid. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 12:36:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Jay F. Shachter via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 19:36:27 +0000 (WET DST) Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: from "via Avodah" at Apr 26, 2015 03:52:29 pm Message-ID: <14300949890.C90dE41.4028@m5.chicago.il.us> > > What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin (or ate > the food already, the food went bad, etc...) who for some reason can > not rely on the rabbi's communal failsafe eruv (perhaps he isn't in > a neighborhood with an observant community) do for lighting Shabbos > candles? > You light one candle, after plag hamminxa of course, and you say the appropriate brakha, lhadliq ner shel shabbath. You don't need an `eruv tavshilin to light one candle, because the Rabbinic prohibition of performing mlakha on Yom Tov for Shabbath was not intended to override the Rabbinic commandment of lighting one candle for use on Shabbath. Since (unlike in ancient times, and unlike a hundred years ago also) you don't need to have candles burning on Shabbath for their light, because you already have electric lights in your house that will stay on, or that will come on, during Shabbath, you therefore have no reason to light more than one candle (except for minhag, which you can dispense with when needed), so you don't. One candle is the Rabbinic commandment. Lighting two candles is a recent frumkeit, or yhiruth, that started among German Jews and is less than 900 years old. Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter 6424 N Whipple St Chicago IL 60645-4111 (1-773)7613784 landline (1-410)9964737 GoogleVoice jay at m5.chicago.il.us http://m5.chicago.il.us "The umbrella of the gardener's aunt is in the house" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 04:58:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 12:58:34 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001901d080e1$7d6fcbe0$784f63a0$@org.uk> RMB wrote: <> As I have written before, what I find intensely frustrating about this is that RYBS's invocation of tan du appears to itself involve a form of tampering with the chazakos and by implication the denial of the perfection and truthfulness of chachmei chazal that is then claimed to be kefira. The gemora in discussing tan du is very clear - both in Yevamos 118b and Kesuvos 75a: a woman in a tan du marriage commits adultery - "kulan mezanos"! - THAT is the chazaka from Chazal regarding the nature of women. Now this could mean: (a) the sort of woman who is prepared to enter a tan du marriage is prepared to and will commit adultery; or (b) all women will take a tan du marriage (RYBS), but if they find themselves in a tan du marriage - the existential loneliness that RYBS identifies as being the particular province of women will also, according to Chazal, inevitably drive them to adultery; But you can't get away from the fact that Chazal set this up as a chazaka. And if you take these chazakos in the way that RYBS says to do, then there are inevitable conclusions: A Beis Din faced with what can now clearly be seen as a tan du marriage HAS to assume adultery as a consequence - that being the chazaka. If you hold that these statements of Chazal are perhaps limited in time and place to the times of Chazal, and the nature of women then, then we cannot necessarily generalise to today, and despite a woman today being demonstratably in a tan du marriage, one cannot necessarily jump to conclusions regarding her faithfulness. But if these chazakos are immutable - then the only question must surely be, was there the possibility of adultery - and given the freedom of movement of women today, I do not see how anybody can say that opportunity was not available. Therefore the result, and the consequence for the marriage, was a foregone conclusion. A beis din, if it does not treat this marriage as a mekach taus (because the woman is one who would not have entered a tan du marriage), has to treat it as one in which the woman has committed adultery and is therefore forbidden to her husband, and under which the husband is clearly under a Torah obligation to divorce, according to all opinions ("dvar erva"). And yet note that there is none of this in RBYS's analysis. Women's loneliness and spiritual pain, yes - a full facing of the consequences of what is therefore, according to Chazal, endemic in our society and in the nature of Bnos Yisroel, no. There is a complete glossing over of the fundamental conclusion by Chazal regarding the consequence of a tan du marriage. And yet how can you write about tan du as an absolute immutable principle and yet not mention what, according to Chazal, is the cast iron result of that absolute immutable principl? Note by the way that this chazaka, if indeed it is immutable in the nature of women, has another consequence. Given that having women commit adultery is clearly (how shall I put this mildly) a highly destructive thing for society - having women enter into marriages where this is the inevitable consequence is a very bad thing. Surely any Rabbi who is mesader kedushin at such a wedding, any eidim at such a wedding, etc have as a matter of fact engaged in lifnei iver lo titen michshol in the full biblical sense. This isn't, according to Chazal, a maybe or a possibility, this is an inevitability. Surely it is obligatory on any Rabbi who agrees to be mesader kiddushin and on any shadchanim and eidim to investigate very carefully that this marriage is not of the tan du nature? That is if, as Rav Lichtenstein is quoted as saying "given the clear cut evidence in the Rishonim in Yevamot and other places in Shas which clearly indicated that this hazaka was not one that applied in all contexts and at all times and in all situations" - then these concerns would be significantly diminished. After all, any marriage presented to a mesader kedushin would then at the very least be a sfek sfeka - perhaps this isn't a tan du marriage, and if it is, perhaps the woman might not commit adultery. But if it is an inevitable chazaka that a woman in a tan du marriage will commit adultery, then there is only one safek in relation to a serious issur d'orisa - in which case must it not be the responsibility of all those who enable such a marriage to occur to make sure that it is not a tan du marriage and they are not enabling such adultery to take place? To my mind, indeed, that is precisely what Chazal were really getting at. A genuine acknowledgement that - at least in some societies and some environments, women are pressured into inappropriate marriages and give in to that pressure. And that where a woman does indeed give in to such an inappropriate marriage, the consequences are really, really bad for the general society and we need all to be on guard to try and prevent such marriages occurring. That to me demonstrates far more clearly the "perfection and truthfulness of Chazal" than trying to squish them in to some metaphysical understanding of womenkind that does not reverberate as true to many. But if one is going to apply this particular analysis to this particular statement of Chazal, it would seem important to do it honestly while facing the totality of what it is that Chazal actually said. >-Micha Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 11:00:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 18:00:12 GMT Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabal as Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150427.140012.4336.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Rav YB Soloveitchik zt"l was quoted: > ... Let us take for example the chazaka that I was told > about: the chazaka tav l'meisiv tan du mil'meisiv armalo > [20] has absolutely nothing to do with the social and > political status of women in antiquity. This chazaka is > based not upon sociological factors, but upon a verse in > breishis -- harba arbeh itz'voneich v'heironeich b'etzev > teildi vanim v'el isheich t'shukaseich v'hu yimshal bach > -- "I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy travail; in > pain thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall > be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee" [21]. It > is a metaphysical curse rooted in the feminine personality > -- she suffers incomparably more that the male who is in > solitude. Solitude to the male is not as terrible an > experience, as horrifying an experience, as is solitude to > the woman. And this will never change, mayid shamayim > vaaretz [22]. This is not a psychological fact; it is an > existential fact, ... In our discussions of this idea, that the chazaka is "an existential fact" and "based not upon sociological factors", there seems to be a general assumption that the Rav was speaking of ALL chazakos. However, it seems possible to me, or perhaps even likely, that he was singling this chazaka out as different from others. Note that he does not merely assert this chazaka to be existential, but he cites a pasuk as proof. To me, this is significant, because we would then be allowed to treat any NON-pasuk-based chazaka as sociological. I don't know what implications this might have for the chazaka of extramarital relations that R"n Chana Luntz mentioned, or for any other chazakos, but I wanted to mention it in case anyone else wants to comment. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553e7973421b079735cf5st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 14:53:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 17:53:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabal as Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150427.140012.4336.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150427.140012.4336.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150427215316.GA27558@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 06:00:12PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : In our discussions of this idea, that the chazaka is "an existential : fact" and "based not upon sociological factors", there seems to be a : general assumption that the Rav was speaking of ALL chazakos. However, : it seems possible to me, or perhaps even likely, that he was singling : this chazaka out as different from others. I suggested a third possiliblity. The shiur was all about Talmud Torah and Qabbalas Ol Malkhus Shamayim. This was a couple of off topic lines in what was basically a complaint that RER didn't respect the halachic process (as RYBS saw it). RAL reports that this was RYBS's primary argument against RER's beis din; I am suggesting that this quick assertion was an example of that argument, not an independent second reason to reject. It fits better as an efshar lomar than an actual assertion. How do you know you can simply repeal this chazaqah? What if it's an existential statement about the human condition; is it, after all, mentioned in a pasuq! Not so much that tav lemeisav was necessarily an existential and unchanging fact, but that it could be. That one can't simply reason in a vacuum and buck the trend of millennia of pesaq. But in any case, RYBS did say it belashon rabbim: "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above. Let us take for example the chazaka that I was told about: the chazaka tav l'meisiv tan du...." RYBS discusses tav lemeisiv as an example of a general principle not to tamper with chazaqos. Not as a single case. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 23rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Netzach: How does my domination Fax: (270) 514-1507 stifle others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 11:10:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 14:10:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A Halachik analysis of the kosher status of vitamins and medicines. Message-ID: <20150427181040.6E1171834B6@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/osf4fh7 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 12:51:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 21:51:46 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150426235424.BD633182CE0@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150426235424.BD633182CE0@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <553E9352.3030802@zahav.net.il> 1) I have to admit I don't get your answer. You asked in what way could the state be considered a Kiddush Hashem and I gave you an answer. Now you reply that various rabbis wouldn't agree with that answer. Ok, but az mah? 2) The Satmar Rebbe wouldn't have said that anything about the state is a Kiddush Hashem, no matter what it did, so I don't understand why you included him. 3) Lastly, the reply that you gave reminds me of something that Rav AY Kook wrote in Orot, Orot HaTechiya, Chapter 20. He was addressing the question of whether or not the religious should join forces with the non-religious in order to work together for the Zionist cause. Rav Kook used the story of the two women claiming to be the mother of a baby as example of people revealing their true intentions. The woman who agreed that the baby should be cut in half was in effect saying (according to RK) that there shouldn't be babies. She used others claims as way of hiding her true intent, but when the decisive moment came, the truth came out. Meaning - was the demand that the religious not work with the secular the issue or was that a cover story used to mask people's opposition to Zionism? Or in this case, is the demand that the creation of the state be a Kiddush HaShem in the eyes of all rabbanim a real demand or is it simply a cover? If the Breuer community want the state to reflect certain values, than please, make it happen. If they don't want to make it happen or aren't willing, than the demand is (at best) an exercise in dissimulation. Ben On 4/27/2015 1:54 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > We all know that there were great Torah scholars who disagreed with the assertion that " the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." to name just 3, the Satmar Rebbe, Rav Breuer, and Rav Schwab. They were also most certainly familiar with the gemara you quote and the RASHI. > > If you had written, "Therefore, according to some Torah scholars the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." I would not disagree. However, your blanket statement, "Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." is IMO is not valid. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 14:59:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 22:59:07 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] ashkenazi married to sefardi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003e01d08135$629ef9e0$27dceda0$@org.uk> RET writes: <> Note that the Bnei Banim in Chelek 3 siman 29 brings an objection to this position of RMF, based on the Rema in Even HaEzer siman 75 si'if 1. The discussion there is regarding the situation where the man literally comes from one country and the woman comes from another, who can force whom to move? And while the majority of the rishonim (including the Tashbetz) hold (absent special considerations such as Eretz Yisrael versus non Eretz Yisrael) that the man can force the woman to move to his country, Rabbanu Tam holds the opposite, that the woman can force the man to move. And the Rema holds l'halacha that we should be choshesh for the position of Rabbanu Tam, and hence neither can force the other to move. The Bnei Banim points out that if one cannot force the wife to physically move to the locale of the husband, l'halacha, how can she be considered to have moved to his place by mere dint of the marriage? After all, if she has in fact, halachically, moved to his place by entering the chuppah, what possible objection can there possibly be to her being made to up sticks and actually go to his country, Rabbanu Tam or no Rabbanu Tam? So while the Tashbez is in fact being consistent - being a rishon who holds that in fact she is required to physically move to the husband's country, the Bene Banim argues that by being choshesh for Rabbanu Tam, the Rema is clearly not poskening like RMF and the Tashbetz. The Bene Banim also discusses other arguments brought by the Tashbetz (such as ishto k'gufo) - but again rejects this, given that a woman does not take over her husband's chiyuvim and nedarim (with the possible exception of Channukah Candles). >In addition ROY states a similar psak in several places. One can argue that ROY is in a stronger position than RMF, on the grounds that he solely follows the Mechaber, and hence not the Rema, and might hold that one can force a country change. The Bnei Banim also brings, however, that while ROY comes out straightforwardly like the Tashbetz in Yabiat Omer chelek 5 siman 37 (there he is discussing an Ashkenazi woman who married a Sephardi man and whether she can eat rice on Pesach - answer of course, yes), in Or Torah Iyar 4751 ROY writes (quotation taken from the Bene Banim, I don't have access to the original): ?????? ??? ???? ????? ????? ????? ?????? ?????? ???? ??????? ????? ?????? ??? ????? ????? ???? ??? ???? ?? ?"? ????, ?? ???? ??????? ???? ???? ???? ?????? ???? ????? ????? ???? ?' ?? ?????? ????? ???? )??? ?' ???? ?"?(. ??? ?????? ???? ???? ?? ???? ??? ???? ???? ????? ?? ??? ????, ??? ??? ???? ????? ????? ????? ???? ???? ???? ???? ????? ???? ????? ????? ???? ?? ?? ?? ?????. ???? ?? ?????? ?????? ?????? ???? ????? ????? ????? ??, ????? ?? ???? ????? ?? ????. ??? ?? ?? ????? ????? ??? ??? ????? ??? ????? ????? ????? ?????. ???? ???? ???? ??????, ?? ??? ????? ?? ???? ?????? ???? ????? ????? ???? ????? ??? ???? ????? ?? ??? ?????? ????, ??? ??? ????? ???? ???? ????? ??? ?????? ??? ??????? ??? ????? ????? ???"?. ??? ??? ???? ???? ?????? ???????? ?????? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ?? ??? ??? "??? ???" ???? ?? ???, ????? ????? ?? ???? " customs that are required of the husband of necessity because of the tradition of his fathers like the Sephardim who accepted on themselves the rulings of Maran [the Shulchan Aruch] and are not able to be lenient against his opinion even by way of hatarah, it is required of an Ashkenazi woman to go after her husband and even to conduct herself leniently like the custom of her husband like that which I wrote in Yabiat Omer (chelek 5 siman 37). But stringencies that the husband has placed on himself that if he wants he is able to nullify them by way of hatarah, there is no need for the woman to conduct herself like him and he is not able to force on her a stringency that she does not want to accept as there is to her on whom to rely. Therefore if she wants to continue to use Tenuva milk she is able to do this, and the husband if he wants can be stringent upon himself. But not use any form of compulsion that also she be stringent that there not enter their house the products of Tenuva. And this is the law with the fruit of shmitta, if she relies on the heter mechira since there are many great ones of the world who hold to leniency she is also able to continue to be lenient, and so she is not forced to accept upon herself the stringency of not using products which do not have on them the hashgacha of the Badatz. And if the husband is not able to continue his stringencies when the woman does not want to accept he should do hatarah on that which he did not say ?bli neder? and be lenient also he, as great is the peace of a house." The Bnei Banim notes however that ROY does not bring any lamdus to defend the distinction he makes here between longstanding community customs (such as rice on pesach or glatt meat) and more recent customs - such as not eating Tenuva or relying on the heter mechira. To expand on this comment of the Bnei Banim, one might say that if you base the reason for a woman taking on the customs of the husband because she moves to his place, why should it make a difference whether the customs he has established in his place are longstanding ones, such as eating rice on pesach, or not using the products of Tenuva? The customs of his place are the customs of his place. And yet ROY is, in this, reflecting a common (if perhaps inconsistent) practice. In all the debate regarding husbands not using the eruv and relying on their wives doing so, and how it shows a lack of derech eretz etc, nobody suggests that actually it is assur for the wife to use the eruv, on the grounds that she has moved to the husband's place, and his custom is not to do so, and so she is stuck with the stringencies of his house. The Bnei Banim concludes his teshuva by stating: ?????? ???? ??? ????? ???? ????? ???? ??????? ?????? ??? ???? ?????? ?????? ???? ?? ????, ?? ????? ?? ????? ?? ???? ????"? ????? ??? ???? ??"? ???? ????? ???? ????? ???? ?? ????? ??? ????? ?????? ?????? ??? ???? ???? ?? ?? ???? ??? ???? ???? ???????? ??? ???? ???, ??? ?? ?????? ?? ???? ???? ??????? ?????? ????? ??????. "And l?halacha anyway one should not push aside the custom of the world that a woman frees herself from the customs of her father?s household and conduct herself according to the customs of her husband if she wants, but she is able also to rely on the words of [Rav Ovadiah Yosef] in the ma?amer and so it seems to me that when there isn?t in it [a matter] between him and her, and there isn?t a matter of inui nefesh she is able to continue like the customs of the house of her father since behold also if she vowed them from anew after the marriage the husband could not annul [such vows], and she may make a condition with her husband before the marriage that she will continue to conduct herself in accordance with her customs." This point of the Bnei Banim regarding innui nefesh and matters beno uvena is interesting. What he is referring to is the fact that a husband can be mafer (ie nullify) the nedarim of his wife, but only those that either constitute inui nefesh or are considered beno u'vena (Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah Diman 234 si?if 55). And it seems to me that you can therefore deal with the Tashbetz's point (as strongly re-iterated by ROY) regarding food issues - ie that they cannot eat together at the same table where what is permitted for one is prohibited for the other - with the use of this concept, without needing to come on to place changes. Because one of the definitions of inui nefesh brought in the Shulchan Aruch (Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah Diman 234 si?if 60-61) is if the woman forbids an item of food on herself (although the Shulchan Aruch there in si'if 60 notes that the Rambam considers this a matter not of inui nefesh but of beno u'vena). So that, certainly from the perspective of a Sephardi husband, a woman who has has the practice of not eating rice and kitniyot on Pesach is engaging in inui nefesh - and if you follow the Rav Poelim I brought in an earlier post, that if one is forbidden to eat something, one is forbidden to cook it on yom tov for others who may eat it, then the woman could not cook rice or kitniyot for the husband either - making the matter clearly one beno u'vena. So it seems like the whole question of differences in food do not need discussions of place, they can more readily be handled within the context of the existing halachic framework surrounding marriage, and what is and is not appropriate to be waived in the context of a healthy marriage. That set me thinking about the fact that actually we are talking about a whole range of different forms of minhagim - and it seems to me that as a first stab, we are dealing here with four different categories: a) minhagim that really have no impact on the husband - such as whether she benches and davens minhag Ashkenaz or minhag Edot Hamizrach (but will have a major impact on her should she be required to change, both in terms of the huge learning curve, and also in terms of the emotional impact, eg of the kol nidrei tunes). One might perhaps say that if she davens a different nusach, she will want to go to shul to a different place - but she is in a different place from the husband anyway, by virtue of the mechitza, and of course many women do not have the custom to go at all, so real impact would seem to be minimal. That seems to be the underlying message of the Bene Banim. b) minhagim that involve inui nefesh of the woman (which the halacha defines as having an impact on the husband, and which includes her having prohibitions on food) and those beno u'vena. We already have a halachic framework to determine these - the relevant sections of Yoreh Deah siman 234. For example, it doesn't seem to me to be a stretch to say that if he has the minhag of putting food with a majority of solid on the blech on shabbas, and she has a minhag not to, then her following that minhag will impact beno u'vena in terms of what gets provided at the shabbas table, and therefore would fall within the category of minhagim that ought to change in the interests of a unified household. c) minhagim that impact the husband financially. The interesting thing is that these *are* dealt with in the gemora and the halacha based on the principle "olah imo v'ana yoredes imo" - she goes up with him but does not go down with him. The case discussed on Kesubos 48a is regarding what it is necessary for him to hire for her funeral (in the way of flute players and wailers) where the custom between her family and his family is different. And while it might have been the case that it was different because they were from a different socio-economic class, it may also be because she came from a different place where the custom was to spend more on funerals and even so (once you accept that the same rule applies in death as it does in life) he is required to fund the difference - there is no assumption that because she has moved to his place, she is only entitled to the funeral according to the custom of his place. It would therefore seem that the straightforward pshat of this gemora is against the Tashbetz. Similarly the Shulchan Aruch rules in Even HaEzer siman 80 si'if 10 that the various forms of work that are required of a woman for her husband are only required if it is the derech of both her family and his family for a woman to do this - ie it is the intersection of the two sets of minhagim that make the requirement binding. d) minhagim of the husband that cause her tzar: this is in many ways the flip side of b), in that in b) we are talking about a situation where what she has been accustomed to doing all her life is, from the perspective of the husband, a form of inui nefesh, while here, the customs of the husband are what to her might well seem inui nefesh. This could also perhaps be said to be dealt with by the gemora. The gemora in Kesubos 61a discusses the situation where there is a dispute between him and her regarding whether she should nurse their baby in situations where it is the custom of her family but not his or vice versa. The question has a financial aspect, if she does not, then the husband will be put to the expense of hiring a wet nurse, and also, it would appear, a status/beauty aspect (the husband may not want her to, either because only lower class women do this, or because it might make her less beautiful in his eyes). In terms of the financial and status aspect, the gemora again brings the position of olah imo v'ana yoredes imo as per c), but there are also other aspects. For example, in the case where she wants to nurse, and the husband does not want her to, the gemora assumes that it is straightforward that, if she wishes to nurse, we listen to her, on the grounds that "tzara dedei hu" - it is her pain. Now Rashi understands this as the physical pain of having milk and having no-one feed - but it could also be understood to be psychological. However, it is hard to know how far to extend this case, nursing might well be considered sui generis, because (a) it is something very specific to a woman that a man will never do (regardless of what the women in his family did) and (b) there are very specific, unusual, physical and/or psychological factors which are not necessarily duplicated elsewhere. Refraining from specific foods (despite it being considered inui nefesh) would seem to be a far less significant matter. What might perhaps be of more general application is the discussion that immediately follows the nursing question - in which the gemora attempts to find a Torah source for the idea of olah imo v'ana yoredes imo. Rav Huna learns it out of "He beulas ba'al" (Breishis 20:3) [Reference to Sarah Imanu vis a vis Avimelech] and therefore "beilaso shel baal v'lo yoredaso" - she goes up with the husband and not down with him while Rabbi Eliezer learns it out from "ki who eim kol chai" [Breishis 3:20] and therefore "l'chaim nitna vlo l'tzar nitna" - she was given for life and not for tzar. Now the Pnei Yehoshua and the Mahrasha attempt to learn different nafka minas from the bringing of these two different sources - but it seems to me that a straightforward nafka mina is that the first source appears to understand the question primarily as being one of financial or perhaps spiritual improvement (however one understands "going up" rather than "going down"). While the second source seems rather to focus on the idea that marriage is supposed to bring with it life rather than pain. So under the first source one might understand, if one understands prishus from particular foods or activities as a form of greater spirituality, then a woman ought to follow her husband in that, even if it is considered innui nefesh, while following the second source, the key would seem more to be a question of tzar, and inui nefesh must surely be considered at least some aspect of tzar. On some level that does seem to be what is driving ROY in his discussion of customs such as not using tenuva milk or not relying on the heter mechira - both cases deal with the situation where the man is the stringent one, and her custom is towards leniency. But where this question would seem to really bite, is, for example, in the case of a Sephardi woman contemplating marrying an Ashkenazi man - where she has grown up eating and cooking rice and kitniyot on Pesach. I know a number of little Sephardi girls who have told me that they would not contemplate marrying an Ashkenazi man because of this. Now maybe they will grow out of it - but it does seem to me to a really bad reason to be rejecting a potential suitor - and yet the sense of tzar is there, that is what they are saying, I don't want the tzar of making Pesach, which for many women is tzar enough already, totally different from the way I grew up and have been taught - especially when it comes with countless greater stringencies. And even if she does ignore this in practice and accepts such a marriage, one can easily see a level of resentment bubbling to the surface at what can be in any event a very stressful time ("it is your fault that it is so darn difficult so the least you can do is be more helpful"). And if one could in fact understand a fundamental halachic principle to be taken into consideration as that of l'chaim nitna vlo l'tzar nitna - you might end up with something in keeping with the shalom bayis needs of klal yisrael. >Eli Turkel Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 15:12:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 18:12:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: <20150423.205848.16124.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150423.205848.16124.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150427221257.GA6982@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 24, 2015 at 12:58:48AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : > So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, : > ones you used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making : > a berakhah on? Yes, there is light for enjoying the Shabbos meal, : > all the same shalom bayis. But there is no actual pe'ulah to make : > the berakhah on. Is there? : I don't know where you see anything like this in the AhS. The AhS : is explicitly talking about lighting after mincha, when it is already : dark and the light is already useful... And was used or at least "used" before Shabbos (in some halachic rather than commonsensical sense), even if just for seconds, since that's the AhS's grounds for allowing the person who made no eiruv tavshilin to light her Shabbos candles. So, how can she make a berakhah on candles she was only permitted to light because they would be used before Shabbos? What hadlaqah for Shabbos itself occured? > omit the bracha, because it explicitly declares one's intentions to be > of a hachana nature, but that is a separate question not raised by the > AhS... I'm taking his silence, the AhS not telling her to light without a berakhah, as implication that there is no change from the usual WRT berakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 23rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Netzach: How does my domination Fax: (270) 514-1507 stifle others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:01:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:01:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428160119.GA8805@aishdas.org> On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 01:53:10PM -0400, Kaganoff via Avodah wrote: : For many years i had extreme difficulty with R. Elchanan Wasserman understanding : as it conflicted with my belief that Judaism (and other religions) was not : logically provable (contra to Moshe Mendelssohn and his contemporaries) and : therefore required a "leap of faith" and that a disbeliever could not be : faulted for failing to take such a jump. This is a false dichotomy. Logically proving things are not the only way to justify belief in there. How do you know that (in a flat space) two parallel lines never meet? If you're like me, you pictured it in your head. Even though infinite lines don't exist in the real world. (Nor, does it turn out, does flat space.) Did you figure out that oppression was evil by logical proof, or by a combination of imagination and empathy? My favorite example is answering the question, "Do elephants have hair?" A logical/verbal approach would be: Elephants are mammals, all mammals have hair, and so unless elephants are the exception to the rule, they must have hair. Elephants are well known and discussed animals. Could they be an exception to the rule and I don't know it? Nah, they must have hair. How it is more likely the question jogged your memory of elephants you saw, or saw pictures of. The detail may be blurry, so you may have to manipulate the picture a bit. Finally, a version of the picture which has a tuft of hair at the tail, maybe (if your memory is good) some downy hair around the eyes and ears, strikes you as the most familiar, the most real. And again you could reach the conclusion that elephants have hair. (See for some musings about the two modes of thought I'm contrasting here.) In I compare different versions of the Argument from Design from R' Aqiva's response to the apiqoreis through the Rambam, through similar approaches based on more modern science. "G-d created" (Gen. 1:1): A hereic came to Rabbi Aqiva and asked, "Who made the universe?". Rabbi Aqiva answered, "HQBH". The heretic said, "Prove it to me." Rabbi Aqiva said, "Come to me tomorrow". When the heretic returned, Rabbi Aqiva asked, "What is that you are wearing?" "A garment", the unbeliever replied. "Who made it?" "A weaver." "Prove it to me." "What do you mean? How can I prove it to you? Here is the garment, how can you not know that a weaver made it?" Rabbi Akiva said, "And here is the world; how can you not know that Haqadosh barukh Hu made it?" After the heretic left, Rabbi Aqiva's students asked him, "But what is the proof?" He said, "Even as a house proclaims its builder,a garment its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the Holy Blessed One Who created it. Not very rigorous. Rabbi Aqiva's reply revolves around giving a parable to make the conclusion self-evident. Not contructing a deductive argument. The more rigorous we try making it, the more arguable the proof becomes. R' Aqiva's argument is far more convincing than the Rambam's statement based on how objects lose form over time, not gain it. Or a similar argument based on thermodynamics or information theory. (Ironically, every formal / logical proof is built from givens taken as self-evident for informal-reasoning reasons.) Anyway, that's how I understood REW. R' Elchanan argues that on an informal level, the idea that the universe had to have a Creator is as obvious as a Euclidean postulate or the injustice of oppression. To not believe in G-d requires a formal proof, which one's negios then determine if they find it sound or specious, and whether they accept the postulates on which it's built. Notice I didn't invoke any leaps of faith. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:24:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:24:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Peshat and Drash (Was: Re: Meshech Chochmah on Kedushah) In-Reply-To: <5518BD49.3000508@gmail.com> References: <54FC792A.4080400@gmail.com> <20150324195248.GD29350@aishdas.org> <5518BD49.3000508@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150428162406.GB8805@aishdas.org> On Sun, Mar 29, 2015 at 11:04:41PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : But there were such instances where "one said this was how halakhah : was understood miSinai and another says that this is new." One : example (noted by the Chavos Yair in his Teshuva 192) is a 3-way : machlokess in Zevachim 110b, where one Amora says Nissuch HaMayyim : is miDrabannan, another says it is derived from a posuk, and another : says it was a halacha l'Moshe MiSinai. Rambam (Temidim uMussafim : 10:6 ) poskens it is a halacha l'Moshe MiSinai. This is consistent : with the concept that, as the Rambam writes, "once someone says 'so : have I received,' there is no more debate." The reason is that once : one of our sages can demonstrate he is a recipient of explicit data : originating with Moshe Rabbeynu, a HLMS, it is naturally accepted as : fact. I thought it was well accepted that the Rambam's position in HLMS is inconsistent, that he mentions numberous machloqesin in dinim he himself labeled HLMS. I don't have time to summarize the Chavor Ya'ir teshuvah 192, but I gave up waiting until I did. The examples are numerous. Possible resolutions: - No machloqesin in the essence of the matter, but there can be in details. (the CY's conclusion.) - Im halakhah hi neqabel -- no machloqesin in something both sides agree are HLMS. And what I suggested: That we should distinguish between disputes due to lack of knowledge and formal machloqesin, with the Rambam saying the legal term "machloqes" with all the usual rules of pesaq only apply to the latter. Other disputes, while called machloqes in the colloquial sense, are resolved using the rules of safeiq -- because (leshitaso) ignorance does not create a real machloqes (in the technical sense). And the Rambam here is saying that real machloqes is limited to conflicting deductions and extrapolations from existing law to new places. And thus disputes in laws that date back to Sinai can't have real machloqesin. I know I'm repeating myself, but it's been "forever" ago in email list time since I sat on this post awaiting the time to study the CY. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:33:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:33:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] free will In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428163338.GC8805@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 1:38pm IDT, R Eli Turkel wrote: : We have discussed many times the opinion of Rav Dessler that a person : doesn't always have free will. : I recently saw a halachic discussion that may have some connection. : On ketubot 51 the gemara discusses a case of a married woman who was raped : but at the end was willing... : One possibility of explaining Rava is that she is overwhelmed by her : "yetzer" and so is still considered ["anusah"]... While RET's suggested example is consistent REED's concept of nequdas habechirah, the way RET phrased REED's position kept this email on my to-do list for the last 3 weeks. REED's point is one that's pretty consistent with first-hand experience of making choices. We do not feel in control of our subconscious decisions. All the opportunities we filter out before we even are aware of thinking about it. He then says that the decisions that rise to the level of consciousness, and thus we have some control over, are ones that generate internal conflict. The "battlefront" in his metaphor, where the yh"t and yh"r are balanced. But once you accept the notion of non-conscious thought, REED's conclusion is unavoidable. And a person does always have free will, he just isn't aware of every choice he makes to know to exercise it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:41:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:41:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428164110.GD8805@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 04:29:11PM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The world has changed a lot since the time of chazal especially related to : travel... : : 1. Most travel is no longer considered unsafe. When I get in my car every : morning to drive to work I don't think twice about it : 2. The distinction between in the city and out of the city is no longer : true... : Recently, I heard a short shiur on tefilas haderech and was happy to hear : that RSZA seems to say a very similar idea to RYBS. In contrast, the qorban todah and birkhas hagomel depend not only on surviving a dangerous situation but also on reliving one of the four sorts of yeshu'os tehillim ascribes to yetzi'as Mitzrayim: crossing a desert, the sea, bring freed from jail or recovering from illness. So, if we deem flying over the Great Lakes or the Mediterranean (to pick shorter flights over mayim she'ein lahem sof) to be too safe to warrant tefillas haderekh, would one end up in a situation that calls for no tefillas haderekh beforehand, but benching gomel afterward? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:45:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:45:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428164537.GE8805@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 11:12am EDT, RnTK asked: : But to veer back into Avodah territory -- would it have been appropriate to : say Tefillas Haderech at that time? With shem umalchus? (I assume you : can always say it without shem umalchus.) Tefilas haDerekh is never said besheim umalkhus. Sheim, yes, but not malkhus: "Barukh atah H', shomeia tefillah." No mention of "E-lokeinu Melekh ha'olam". Also, when speaking about berakhah vs tefillah, Tefillas haDerekh refers to itself as a tefillah. And notice also the chasimah is about hearing the baqashah, not about the shemirah we're requesting itself. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:58:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:58:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150419.223015.3015.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150419.223015.3015.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150428165812.GF8805@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 02:30:15AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : But then, as I was reviewing this post, my mind turned to the Tanur : Shel Achnai. R' Eliezer had a minority view, and R' Yehoshua was in : the majority. I've got to believe that both views were firmly grounded; : this machlokes was surely just as L'Shem Shamayim as any between Hillel : and Shammai. I'd *like* to say that Klapei Shmaya, both views were Truth. And if not, how would we justify following the majority over Divinely revealed truth? We discussed bas qol, and why we follow the bas qol that says "vehalakhah kebeis Hillel" despite the anur shel achnai story. I listed the opinions in the Encyc Talmudit here It's not 100% accepted that the bas qol was really endorsing R' Eliezer's opinion in this particular machloqes, rather than defending his shitah in general -- "halakhah kemoso bekhol maqom", or that it was a test. Both suggested by R' Nissim gaon. Similarly one of the answers in Tosafos is that it was about R' Eliezer's kavod, and not a Divine statement to be taken literally about din. All three would imply that we would follow a bas qol over halachic process, and so they had to explain how the tanur story wasn't an example. Thus implying that what we are searching for is the truth rather than legal authority. RNG's position on the tanur shel achanai story supports RMHalbertal's theory that in the geonic era, the Retrieval theory of halakhah dominated. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:12:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:12:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] brochos from the amud (was: tefillat haderech) In-Reply-To: <20150420024354.CJVF30458.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo110> References: <20150420024354.CJVF30458.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo110> Message-ID: <20150428171200.GG8805@aishdas.org> On Sun, Apr 19, 2015 at 10:43:47PM -0400, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote: : Slight change of topic: I'm still trying to wrap my head around the : idea that we don't seem to have a chashash of a brocha l'vatalah. I : mean, you have a sh'tz up there, saying a brocho out loud -- and : he's intentionally trying to be motzi _some_ others... But only those who had in mind to be yotzei. : Shomea k'oneh : doesn't apply at all? What if you are in the shul and you're not : thinking about the issue of being yotzie, you're just thinking about : which day it is, and/or you simply have stam kavanah. No chashash : for an issur d'oraissa? RYBS says in the context of the berakhah on Hallel that because mitzvos einum tzerikhos kavanah, if you have no kavanah one way or the other, you would be yotzei. To avoid being yotzei would require having explicit kavanah not to be yotzei. He then continues that the idea of having intent not to want to do a mitzvah bothers him, and so RYBS said he says the berakhah on Hallel along with the chazan. (Which is what my father does, and what I grew up with.) I assume the same would be true here. (Although I don't recall what my father does, I say the berakhah along with the chazan.) I would have thought that interrupting with "barukh Hu uvarukh shemo" should also work. Recall that R Chaim was very against answering BHUBS to chazaras hashatz because one is being yotzei tefillat hatzibur. (Above and beyond one's own chiyuv of tefillah.) While listing my hunches, I believe that intent to say it yourself qualified as kavanah not to be yotzeir. So the default is kavanah not to be yotzei, not an absense of kavanah one way or the other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:44:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:44:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428164445.5B05B18384C@nexus.stevens.edu> At 12:24 PM 4/28/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: >Meaning - was the demand that the religious not work with the >secular the issue or was that a cover story used to mask people's >opposition to Zionism? This was an issue, and there was also opposition to Zionism. The opposition to Zionism was not masked at all. Please read http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/zion_or_zionism.pdf to see what Zionism really is according to Rav Schwab, ZT"L and others who think like him. >Or in this case, is the demand that the creation >of the state be a Kiddush HaShem in the eyes of all rabbanim a real >demand or is it simply a cover? I have never heard of "the demand that the creation of the state be a Kiddush HaShem in the eyes of all rabbanim " Who demanded this? > If the Breuer community want the state >to reflect certain values, than please, make it happen. And how do you propose that they do this? I asked you in an earlier email what the Orthodox Jews in EY and you in particular are doing to make this happen, and I received no response. > If they don't >want to make it happen or aren't willing, than the demand is (at best) >an exercise in dissimulation. Do you really believe that the Breuer's community at the time when Rav Breuer and Rav Schwab has the wherewithal to make the State reflect certain values? Even those living in EY at this time could not do this. There was (and still is) a large non-religious contingent of Jews living in EY. Do you really think that anyone can "make" them change their views or their behavior? YL YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:32:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:32:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eretz Yisrael vs Medinat Yisrael [was: The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L] Message-ID: <125cff.585c1330.42711e42@aol.com> R. Ben Waxman wrote: >Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem. >Rav Soloveitch tz"l wrote about this point in Kol Dodi Dofek and in his >drashot for the Kinot, as did Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook tz"l. RYL wrote: >> We all know that there were great Torah scholars who disagreed with >> the assertion that " the creation of the State is, in of itself, a >> Kiddush Hashem." >>>>> I will have to re-read Kol Dodi Dofek because I don't remember such a forthright quote -- "The creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." But in any case it isn't exactly an either-or question. The Medinah -- the secular socialist Russian government of Israel -- is hardly a kiddush Hashem. Indeed it arouses waves of hatred from the goyim all over the world, on a daily basis. RBW also wrote: >>....The first is from Yoma 86:A, Rashi, B'Amor Lehem: "Evil comes to chassidim and chachamim because "They desecrated My Holy name." How did they desecrate (God's name)? In those places to where they were exiled, the non-Jews say "These are the people of God" and He can't redeem them. Conclusion: God's name has been desecrated." End quote.<< The establishment of a government that is hated and vilified by the whole world is not, it would seem, a kiddush Hashem. Plus the fact that the country is under constant military threat and cannot, apparently, provide security to its inhabitants, also would not seem to be a kiddush Hashem. But I think these facts -- the constant physical attacks, the world-wide moral opprobrium -- are the cosmic result of the fact that the Medinah is determinedly secular and consciously rejects Torah as a guiding principle. HOWEVER, on the other side, RBW's Rashi quote does have a bearing on the current situation in Eretz Yisrael. There is no denying that the flourishing of Eretz Yisrael, after two thousand years of desolation, is miraculous. The continued existence of the country, despite the constant waves of physical and diplomatic attacks, is also miraculous. And the fact that all Jews can go and live in Eretz Yisrael, and that millions actually do live there, is also a huge miracle. I said there is no denying the miraculous aspects and yet I am aware that the Satmar Rebbe did deny it. He admitted that there was a supernatural aspect to Israel's recent history but ascribed the miracles to the Satan, blinding our eyes. He never joined Agudas Yisrael, the world-wide umbrella organization for all Orthodox Jews, because he was on one side and all the other gedolim in the world were on the other side. All the others rejected the ideology of secular Zionism while gratefully acknowledging chasdei Hashem in allowing the Land to be built up, allowing the Torah communities to grow and flourish, allowing millions of Jews to live in our ancient homeland. The Lubavitcher Rebbe also never joined the Agudah -- I refer not to the Israeli political party but to the world-wide umbrella organization. He had other reasons, perhaps for another time. I think he wanted Chabad to be THE world-wide organization, he did not want it to be one of many competing Orthodox groups and derachim. But he agreed with the basic ideology of the Agudah vis-a-vis the state of Israel -- the nuanced view of ohr vechoshech. And so did the Yekkes, very much so! In fact they were instrumental in founding and guiding the Agudah, for decades! Their attitude towards Israel after the founding of the Medinah and the beginning of kibbutz galuyos was very much the same as the whole rest of the Agudah -- grateful acknowledgment of the positive, hakaras hatov to the Ribono Shel Olam, opposition to the negative, working to improve the moral status of Eretz Yisrael, e.g., when it came to forced autopsies (B'H the charedim won that bitterly fought battle), giyus banos and other issues. But the Yekkes in Israel do vote, do participate in running the country, do daven at the kosel (unlike the Satmar and Neturei Karta), do thank Hashem for protecting Eretz Yisrael and daven for continued Divine protection. RYL considers himself the premier acolyte of RSRH but he and I have some fundamental disagreements about what the Hirschian legacy really is. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 11:59:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 20:59:46 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150428164445.5B05B18384C@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150428164445.5B05B18384C@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <553FD8A2.1060306@zahav.net.il> Regarding the second question, yes I did. Please see the previous emails. Regarding the first, all I can say is that it won't be done from New York. Regarding the other points, I addressed them so I won't repeat myself this round. Ben On 4/28/2015 6:44 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > And how do you propose that they do this? > > I asked you in an earlier email what the Orthodox Jews in EY and you > in particular are doing to make this happen, and I received no response. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:59:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:59:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Message-ID: <126fc1.37d9c7fc.4271247d@aol.com> From: Chana Luntz via Avodah >> As I have written before, what I find intensely frustrating about this is that RYBS's invocation of tan du appears to itself involve a form of tampering with the chazakos and by implication the denial of the perfection and truthfulness of chachmei chazal that is then claimed to be kefira. The gemora in discussing tan du is very clear - both in Yevamos 118b and Kesuvos 75a: a woman in a tan du marriage commits adultery - "kulan mezanos"! - THAT is the chazaka from Chazal regarding the nature of women. [snip] But you can't get away from the fact that Chazal set this up as a chazaka. And if you take these chazakos in the way that RYBS says to do, then there are inevitable conclusions: A Beis Din faced with what can now clearly be seen as a tan du marriage HAS to assume adultery as a consequence - that being the chazaka. [snip] Surely it is obligatory on any Rabbi who agrees to be mesader kiddushin and on any shadchanim and eidim to investigate very carefully that this marriage is not of the tan du nature? [snip] But if it is an inevitable chazaka that a woman in a tan du marriage will commit adultery, then there is only one safek in relation to a serious issur d'orisa - in which case must it not be the responsibility of all those who enable such a marriage to occur to make sure that it is not a tan du marriage and they are not enabling such adultery to take place? >>>>> There is brilliant yet convoluted logic behind this post. I hesitate to tangle with someone like R'n CL who is so erudite, yet I truly believe she has misunderstood this Gemara. Yes, a woman in a loveless marriage is much more tempted to commit adultery, given the right set of circumstances, but it is certainly not inevitable. Nor is it correct to deduce that a rav must make sure, before he marries a couple, that the woman is not entering a loveless marriage! He doesn't have to creep into her heart and mind before conducting the wedding, doesn't have to fathom the depths of her motives in marrying this man. There are so many motives, so many emotions, how could you ever fathom them all? I think "kulan mezanos" refers to all women, and it means all women can be seduced, though obviously it will be easier to seduce a woman who does not love her husband. All women potentially can be seduced. IIRC Beruria the wife of R' Meir -- and you can't claim that was a "tan duu marriage"! -- thought she was an exception to this rule about human nature, or feminine nature. And found out she was wrong! Even she, a brilliant and pious woman married to a great man, could be seduced. Without the Gemara most of us would assume that men are more likely to be unfaithful than women, and I do think that is true. I don't know how to square what we see before us -- that men cheat more than women do -- with what the Gemara says. In any case in Torah homes fidelity between husbands and wives is the norm, Baruch Hashem. All those fences -- laws of yichud, negiah, tznius and so on -- really do protect us. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 15:58:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 23:58:31 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos Message-ID: <001b01d081d6$cb2e0680$618a1380$@org.uk> Sorry, been away, and am therefore very behind in Avodah On 04/03/2015 06:57 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >> He also paskens (for EY) that one can cook kitniyot on the 7th day of >> Pesach for use on the shabbat right afterwards (ef this year). And RZS replied: >Yes, I'm surprised that anyone disagrees. It seems so obviously correct. >I know that many people don't do so, and believe it to be forbidden, >but I have never yet heard an argument for why it should be so. Well the arguments to prohibit can be found in Rav Poelim chelek 3 Orech Chaim siman 30 - he brings two: one based on the prohibition of a person who is fasting on yom tov to cook for others - as per the Rema in Shulchan Aruch Orech Chaim siman 527 si'if 20 as explained by the Magen Avraham there and an additional reason added by the Magen Avraham there in si'if katan 22. The Ben Ish Chai in Rav Poelim was discussing whether a person whose custom (in Bagdad) was not to eat rice on Pesach could cook rice for those who do. He rejected the first rationale provided by the Magen Avraham) as being applicable to this case, but accepted the second reason as applicable (although he also cites a number of achronim who accept the first reason as a reason to prohibit)- and therefore held that those who had the custom of treating rice as assur on pesach could not cook rice for those who had the custom of eating rice on yom tov of Pesach for so long as they had this custom of treating rice as assur (although he held that those who had this custom not to eat rice in Bagdad could do hatarat nedarim and be able to eat, and hence cook, rice on pesach so as to solve the problem). >> This is because some sefardi could come over for a visit and so the >> kitniyot are not mukza . >The main issue would surely not be muktzeh, but cooking on yomtov. >But the answer is the same: the hypothetical horde of hungry guests who >might descend on one ten minutes before sunset on Friday, and for whom >one is, in principle, cooking, might very well be sefardim. Yes, but according to the position of the Rav Poelim, Askenazim can never, when cooking for Sephardim on pesach, cook them dishes that they, the Ashkenazim, cannot eat, hence hoeil does not apply. The same ought presumably to apply to gebrochts according to the Ben Ish Chai - if you can't eat it on shvii shel pesach, you can't cook it for others, including hungry guests, and so cannot effectively cook it for shabbas based on hoeil, your shabbas food would have to consist of something else you could eat on shvii shel pesach. >Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 11:03:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Toby Katz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 14:03:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <127300.4be2c63a.42712586@aol.com> In a message dated 4/28/2015 12:45:47 P.M. EDT, micha at aishdas.org writes: > Tefilas haDerekh is never said besheim umalkhus. You are correct, I should have caught that myself. > Also, when speaking about berakhah vs tefillah, Tefillas haDerekh > refers to itself as a tefillah. And notice also the chasimah is about > hearing the baqashah, not about the shemirah we're requesting itself. zsh:1: command not found: Fmt --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 11:34:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 14:34:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: <127300.4be2c63a.42712586@aol.com> References: <127300.4be2c63a.42712586@aol.com> Message-ID: <20150428183420.GA25835@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 02:03:50PM -0400, T613K at aol.com wrote: : >> Also, when speaking about berakhah vs tefillah, Tefillas haDerekh refers : to itself as a tefillah. And notice also the chasimah is about hearing : the baqashah, not about the shemirah we're requesting itself.<< : : That doesn't answer the question of whether it is appropriate to recite : Tefillas HaDerech during a blinding rainstorm on the highway in your own city, : which was my question. It doesn't fully answer your question, but it does point a bit toward saying it. After all, it turns out that the only berakhah is about Hashem hearing baqashos. The body of the tefillah is only a formalized equivalent to saying "Please G-d, just get me home safe, healthy and in one piece!" or some other spontaneous cry for help. So, if you're scared on the road, tefillah is appropriate. Why would thanking G-d for listening to such tefillos depend on rules about travel? Add to that the fact that it's only half a berakhah, which indicates that it's shevach (like Shomeia Tefillah in Shemoneh Esrei), as another small indicator in favor of saying it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 12:58:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 15:58:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <001901d080e1$7d6fcbe0$784f63a0$@org.uk> References: <001901d080e1$7d6fcbe0$784f63a0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <20150428195810.GC25835@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 12:05:17PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: [RAM:] : > At any rate, one can agree or disagree about : > whether this assertion is true, and even among those who agree with : > it, there might be discussion of exactly which chazakos are unchanging : > and which are variable. Still, his point is that there are indeed some : > UNchanging aspects. : I would add an observation that individual exceptions may exist : empirically but are ignored halachically This is the classic case of affirming a chazaqah (or rov) when there is ika rei'usa. No? On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 12:58:34PM +0100, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: : The gemora in discussing tan du is very clear - both in Yevamos 118b and : Kesuvos 75a: a woman in a tan du marriage commits adultery - "kulan : mezanos"! - THAT is the chazaka from Chazal regarding the nature of women. : : Now this could mean: (a) the sort of woman who is prepared to enter a tan : du marriage is prepared to and will commit adultery; or : (b) all women will take a tan du marriage : (RYBS), but if they find themselves in a tan du marriage - the existential : loneliness that RYBS identifies as being the particular province of women : will also, according to Chazal, inevitably drive them to adultery; : But you can't get away from the fact that Chazal set this up as a chazaka. As the gemara was taught to me, what they set up as a chazaqah was pretty much as RYBS describes it. Women feel the loneliness of singlehood more. The flow of the sugya in the two gemaras are quite similar, from the point where Reish Laqish is quoted staying "tav lemeisiv" onward. RL, illustrated with meshalim by Abayei, R' Papa, and R' Ashi, followed by a tana saying that they all are mezanos and then blame their husbands. So, it would seem that tav lemeisiv is about a desire to be married. This has nothing to do with romance or eros, since we are told that a woman who is just married so s not to be like a widow (milemeisiv armelu) do tend to end up cheating. But tav lemeisiv isn't about the affairs, it's about (Yevamos) why hamezakeh gett le'ishto in the middle is not valid. Because it's not a pure zekhus for her, you cannot say zakhin le'adam shelo befanav (or befanehah, as the case may be). There is nothing about "being driven to" adultery by the loneliness, but by having tav lemeisiv alone satisfied by her marriage. Perhaps the reverse of your formulation. (I think the idea that tav lemeisiv means women are more likely to be sexually lonely would be really hard to support, even in a culture where husbands, not wives, have a chiyuv onah.) Or (Kesuvos) it is used (in a complex case I'm too lazy to spell out) why a man might wish not to be married, lest he later be prohibited to her relatives, but in the flipside case, we do not assume the same of the woman. The bit about mezanos vetolos beba'aleihen is not the basis for any halakhos. I have no reason to believe it's a chazaqah. Tangentially... On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 07:27:43PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Another challenge is how to deal with recent "Chachmei Hamesorah" : who don't seem to meet the perfection definition. I have two suggestions that work for me: 1- Make a list of current chakhmei hamesorah that don't pose such a challenge for you. Once you start, you'll likely find it's a longwer list than you had thought. Focus on them, and ignore the rest, no matter how popular as gedolim they may be. 2- Separate the current rabbinate from one's own ties to the mesorah with a project like Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:01:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 23:01:17 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) Message-ID: <553FF51D.6070804@zahav.net.il> Putting the question of Hallel aside, I don't understand the line below. I looked through the Beit Yosef OH 131 where he discusses the days on which Tachanun isn't said. The BY does not list all the days that we skip (like Purim Qatan or Pesach Sheni). These came later. So when did this idea (that we can't change when Tachanun is said or not said) start? Ben On 4/28/2015 12:31 PM, Prof. Levine via Areivim wrote: > Shemone Esrei is followed > by Chazaras Hashatz, which is followed by Tachanun, and then followed > by Ashrei and U'va' Letzion--and we do not have the right or > privilege of changing that, he opined. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:28:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:28:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early Message-ID: The statement was made that "Lighting two candles is a recent frumkeit, or yhiruth, that started among German Jews and is less than 900 years old.." Isn't it also yohara to stand in judgment of a minhag mentioned in the Tur and Shulchan Aruch and observed virtually without exception by klal Yisraeil? EMT From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 13:50:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 16:50:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eretz Yisrael vs Medinat Yisrael [was: The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L] In-Reply-To: <125cff.585c1330.42711e42@aol.com> References: <125cff.585c1330.42711e42@aol.com> Message-ID: <553FF29D.4030208@sero.name> On 04/28/2015 01:32 PM, via Avodah wrote: > The Lubavitcher Rebbe also never joined the Agudah -- I refer not to > the Israeli political party but to the world-wide umbrella > organization. He had other reasons, perhaps for another time. I > think he wanted Chabad to be THE world-wide organization, he did not > want it to be one of many competing Orthodox groups and derachim. The Lubavitcher Rebbe at the time the Agudah was founded was the Rashab, who in matters of askonus generally took his lead from R Chaim Brisker. Lubavitch was a member of the Agudah's precursor, Machzikei Hadas, but when MH merged with the Yekkes to form the Agudah, R Chaim put 18 conditions on his participation, and since they weren't satisfied both Brisk and Lubavitch stayed out. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:22:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 17:22:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Peshat and Drash (Was: Re: Meshech Chochmah on Kedushah) In-Reply-To: <20150428162406.GB8805@aishdas.org> References: <54FC792A.4080400@gmail.com> <20150324195248.GD29350@aishdas.org> <5518BD49.3000508@gmail.com> <20150428162406.GB8805@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <553FFA2E.6000809@gmail.com> On 4/28/2015 12:24 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > I thought it was well accepted that the Rambam's position in HLMS > is inconsistent, that he mentions numberous machloqesin in dinim > he himself labeled HLMS.... Chavor Ya'ir teshuvah 192...examples are numerous. > > Possible resolutions: > > - No machloqesin in the essence of the matter, but there can be in > details. (the CY's conclusion.) I don't think that is the Chavos Yair's conclusion. He leaves the matter bewildered, as Rambam appears incomprehensible and self-contradictory. > - Im halakhah hi neqabel -- no machloqesin in something both sides agree > are HLMS. With the modification of the word "against" in place of the word ''in,'' this is my conclusion, and that of the Maharatz Chayos. The Rambam is addressing the Karaite argument that even Chazal did not really consider the laws they called "payrushim mekuballim" and HLMS (the latter being payrushim mekuballim that lack indications planted in the Torah) to have literally come from Moshe Rabbeynu. That's why, the Karaites argued, Chazal felt free to dispute them. The Rambam explains that Chazal never disputed laws that made it to them from Sinai. The disputes are over issues ''branching out'' from them. Thus, '' There is no machlokess against any payrush that is known to have come from Sinai.'' This understanding fits very well in the Rambam's words, in the context of which he was talking and the issues he confronted; and eliminates what would certainly be a mess of the self-contradictions and open contradictions from the Talmud that the CY lists. Another concern raised by the CY is the fact that the Rambam seems inconsistent between the Mishneh Torah and his list in the hakdama to his Mishneh commentary in that some laws he labels as HLMS in one work he does not in other. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:28:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 17:28:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Renewal Role of Sarah Schenirer Message-ID: <20150428212818.DEBA1182F93@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/njwrn2g There was a major difference, however, between the Bais Yaacov of Williamsburg and the Bais Yaacov of Poland in pre-war Europe. The Bais Yaacov movement in Poland emphasized the universal Torah teachings of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, while the Bais Yaacov of Williamsburg did not give Rabbi Hirsch's teachings the same emphasis. Why were Rabbi Hirsch's teachings regarding the Torah's universal vision no longer the main focus? Most of the teachers and students at the American Bais Yaakov were Holocaust survivors who felt a need to turn inward after experiencing the hatred of the Gentiles around them and the horrors of the Holocaust. They knew that most of the "humanistic" intellectuals and artists of Germany actively supported the brutal persecution of the Jewish people. They also knew that most of the "enlightened" countries closed their doors to Jews who were trying to escape the Holocaust. In addition, they knew that most of the Christian religious leaders of Europe did not protest the organized murder of millions of Jewish men, women, and children; moreover, many Christians in the countries occupied by the Germans actively assisted the Germans in rounding up the Jews for the death camps. In fact, a number of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust who returned to Poland after the war were murdered in Polish pogroms! It is understandable that these survivors felt the need to first heal themselves before worrying about the world which had abandoned their suffering people. In addition, these survivors did not have the strong attraction to secular western culture which an earlier generation of Bais Yaakov students had once experienced, and their feelings are expressed in the following memoir of Dr. Judith Grunfeld: "Almost seventy years have passed since, and we have today most unfortunately an easy enough means of demonstrating that all cultures which we then venerated have revealed themselves to be nothing but a flimsy veneer covering over diabolical inhumanity. European humanitarian ideas so prevalent then, so much on the tip of everyone's tongue, preached by leading university representatives, have been proven utterly hollow. For they did not succeed in preventing, and indeed could be said to be frequently instrumental in strirring up the raging, terrible fire of man's inhumanity to man." ("Rebbitzen Grunfeld" by Miriam Dansky, p. 72) Nevertheless, our sages teach that Torah - the Divine wisdom - is the blueprint of creation, and that the Creator looked into the Torah when He created the world (Genesis Rabbah 1:1). If our Creator looked into the Torah and created the world, then when we look into the Torah we can rediscover this world. In addition, the Torah reveals that we have the potential to become holy vessels with the spiritual power to transform and elevate the world; thus, no matter how much we turn inward, the study of Torah reminds us that we must eventually turn outward. This may be one of the reasons why a growing number of Torah-committed Jews in our generation are rediscovering the writings of Rabbi Hirsch, as a major theme of his teachings is the universal goal of the Torah path. The Bais Yaacov High School of Baltimore, under the leadership of its principal, Rabbi Binyamin Steinberg, gave renewed emphasis to the universal vision of the Torah. Rabbi Steinberg himself was a Holocaust survivor, and in one of his talks to his students about respect for other peoples, he reminded them of the Compassionate One's promise to Abraham that "through you all the families of the earth will be blessed" (Genesis 12:3). The following is an excerpt from his talk: "All the families of the earth," he declared. 'Who cares about all the families of the earth?' you ask. Nevertheless, that's what the Torah says...The people of Israel will be a blessing for all the families of the earth. That means the Albanians, the Greeks, the Chinese, the Indonesians, the African Americans - all the families of the earth. That's what it says in my Torah! " (A Matter of Principal - a biography of Rabbi Binyamin Steinberg by Hanoch Teller). Before we can become a blessing to others, however, we first need to turn inward in order to develop our unique strengths. As Sarah Schneirer realized, we first have to renew ourselves before we can renew the world. As the Prophet Isaiah proclaimed to our people: "O House of Jacob: Come, let us walk by the light of Hashem! " (Isaiah 2:5) See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:59:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 22:59:29 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <002d01d081fe$99c5fcb0$cd51f610$@org.uk> RMB writes: >As the gemara was taught to me, what they set up as a chazaqah was >pretty much as RYBS describes it. Women feel the loneliness of singlehood >more. >The flow of the sugya in the two gemaras are quite similar, from the >point where Reish Laqish is quoted staying "tav lemeisiv" onward. RL, >illustrated with meshalim by Abayei, R' Papa, and R' Ashi, followed by >a tana saying that they all are mezanos and then blame their husbands. >So, it would seem that tav lemeisiv is about a desire to be married. >This has nothing to do with romance or eros, since we are told that a >woman who is just married so s not to be like a widow (milemeisiv >armelu) do tend to end up cheating. >But tav lemeisiv isn't about the affairs, I agree that tav lemeisiv is not brought initially to refer to the issue of affairs, but rather indeed about a desire to be married which is then brought to make a halachic point within another context (eg maezakeh get l'eishto) - but once the gemora is discussing tav lemeisiv marriages - it then takes the time out, twice, to explain what these marriages mean. And it explains, after going through the flow of Abaye etc, that these marriages mean inevitable adultery. Ie according the gemora a tav l'meisiv marriage = adultery. Now, that means, the more tav l'meisiv marriages there are, the more adultery there is. So the more you stress that the world is full of tav l'meisiv marriages, the more you are saying that the world is full of Bnos Yisrael committing adultery. That tav l'meisiv marriage results in adultery is clearly part and parcel of the definition of what a tav l'meisiv marriage is - one where a woman will prefer to be married than to be alone. And it is not a disputed statement, it is a concluding statement rounding up the discussion of what a tav l'meisiv marriage is. In order to break the equation, you have to say that Chazal didn't really mean what they said, or that they were talking about their time and place, but women today are different - but that means denying the truthfulness and accuracy of Chazal's statements (or understanding them differently) in exactly the way that RYBS objects to as kefira. You can't say that a woman prefers to be married than to be alone is a universal truth because it was stated by Chazal, and simultaneously that women in tav lemeisiv marriages commit adultery is not a universal truth, as they are bound up in the same discussion and you are picking and choosing your Chazalic statements - this one I like, this one I don't, and not just any statement, but the concluding statement rounding up the discussion defining the concept. .... >The bit about mezanos vetolos beba'aleihen is not the basis for any >halakhos. I have no reason to believe it's a chazaqah. So why did Chazal say it? For the fun of casting aspersions on Bnos Yisrael? Twice? In the context of a halachic discussion? If this was any other discussion, would anybody dream of suggesting that when Chazal said that something inevitably happened in the context of a halachic discussion they were not, at the very least, postulating a chazaka (albeit perhaps a rebuttable one) and possibly something even stronger? One might say - well nature has changed (eg kol treifos), or one might say - we have to treat something as halachically following Chazal's statement, even if we know or suspect the metzius is different (hence my line about a Beis Din being required to treat a tav l'meisiv marriage as one where adultery has been committed, and those enabling such a marriage being prohibited from so doing based on lifnei iver). That is the way we generally treat Chazalic statements of this nature. In this case, of course, we have another option, if tav l'meisiv marriages themselves do not occur very often, then we do not necessarily have to worry about, as common, the adultery which is part and parcel of their definition. But if they are in fact common and inevitable where the husband is not as a matter of fact suitable for the wife, then I cannot see how you can claim that this is not a significant societal and halachic concern. Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 15:14:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 18:14:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <002d01d081fe$99c5fcb0$cd51f610$@org.uk> References: <002d01d081fe$99c5fcb0$cd51f610$@org.uk> Message-ID: <20150428221418.GF11656@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 10:59:29PM +0100, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: :> The bit about mezanos vetolos beba'aleihen is not the basis for any :> halakhos. I have no reason to believe it's a chazaqah. : : So why did Chazal say it? For the fun of casting aspersions on Bnos : Yisrael? Twice? In the context of a halachic discussion? Well, it's really one conversation quoted twice. But it emphasizes the point. Tav lemeisiv is considered a reason why a gett would not be zakhin le'adam shelo befanav, even though the marriage would too likely lead to sin. The desire not to be husbandless, even by an insufficient husband, is being described as very profound. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 01:56:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 11:56:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith Message-ID: <> the Euclidean postulates are based on everyone's daily experience. In fact we know they are not true in other circumstances (eg on a globe) The injustice of oppression is more debatable. Surely ISIS believes that destroying ancient culture and cutting off heads of nonbelievers is a "mitzvah" As such the belief in a creator is obvious to one with a religious upbringing. For years scientists (and ancient philosophers) believed in an infinitely old world. Even today some scientists are attemping to justify a big bang without a creator (infinite big bangs , other universes etc.). The whole idea of axioms/postulates are that they are not provable. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 06:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 09:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150429135311.GA11332@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 11:56:31AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : the Euclidean postulates are based on everyone's daily experience... I picked the one about parallel lines because no one ever experienced infinitely long parallel lines. They are based on imagining an extrapolation from experience. : we know they are not true in other circumstances (eg on a globe) Thus my parenthetic remarks about flat space. It also doesn't work in Einsteinian Spacetime, as space is no longer believed to be flat. ... : As such the belief in a creator is obvious to one with a religious : upbringing. For years scientists (and ancient philosophers) believed in an : infinitely old world. Even today some scientists are attemping to justify a : big bang without a creator (infinite big bangs , other universes etc.). : : The whole idea of axioms/postulates are that they are not provable. My point exactly -- there are third options between logical proofs and leaps of faith. Logical proofs are only one way to justify belief. The Kuzari points to tradition, which may boil down to reliabilism. (Something you learned from a source that has a track record of being reliable.) I was saying that REW, like R' Aqiva, appealed to the self-evident nature of the universe having a Designer. Closer to the way we accept our postulates than a proof. And that this is so obvious look around at what was created, that belief is the default state for humans. And then REW continues that it takes an act of will to accept a counter-proof despite the self-evidence. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 25th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Netzach: When is domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control too extreme? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 02:02:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 10:02:27 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torahand Kabalas Ol Malchus In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000401d0825b$37ef5150$a7cdf3f0$@org.uk> RTK writes: > I think "kulan mezanos" refers to all women, and it means all women can > be seduced, You may be able to derive, from other contexts, that all women can be seduced - but that is not what is being discussed in the specific gemorros referred to. Our gemora is discussing what happens specifically in tav l'meisiv marriages - it gives examples of such marriages, and then concludes that such marriages result in adultery (and consequent hidden mamzerim). There is just no way of reading what you want to read into this piece > Yes, a woman in a loveless marriage is much more tempted to commit > adultery, given the right set of circumstances, but >it is certainly not inevitable. Nor is it correct to deduce that a rav must >make sure, before he marries a couple, that the woman is not entering a >loveless marriage! He doesn't have to creep into her heart and mind before >conducting the wedding, doesn't have to fathom the depths of her motives in >marrying this man. There are so many motives, so many emotions, how could >you ever fathom them all? Remember, none of what I have described is necessarily a consequence of these gemoros unless you read the gemora with the chiddush of RYBS: that inherent in the existential condition of womankind is that if a woman is offered only an inappropriate marriage she will take it because she cannot bear not to be married. If you understand it merely that there are and have been women, in some times and places, who when offered an inappropriate marriage, will sometimes take it because she cannot bear not to be married, but in other circumstances and times and places there are women who would refuse such a marriage - you have no idea what you are faced with in any given circumstance. And it is of course possible that she knows what she is doing and has seen what you cannot see, meaning that in fact the marriage will indeed be a good one. And it would be, as you describe, inappropriate to creep into her heart and try and fathom what is going on there. But according to RYBS we know what is going on there, in the woman's heart - we know it from RYBS's understanding of the pasuk in Breishis (one certainly does not have to understand the pasuk in Breishis the way RYBS does, but he is darshaning a pasuk to tell us about the human condition). A woman wants to be married above all else because she cannot bear to be alone, she is not capable of making an assessment that any given marriage, without alternative, may not be the best thing. She is never capable of that, according to RYBS's understanding of Chazal, this being an existential condition of womankind. In which case what happens if an outsider is capable of assessing the reality of the marriage in question as being one where the parties are fundamentally incompatible? Does he have an obligation to try and stop the marriage given that the woman is incapable of protecting herself? Well one might say - tough luck, it is not an outsider's job, any more than it is an outsider's job to protect others from a bad bargain in business. But that is where this further statement of the gemora comes in. A marriage which the woman has only entered into because she cannot existentially bear to be unmarried is one with the consequence that such marriage will not in fact be enough for her and she will commit adultery and produce mamzerim who are attributed incorrectly to the husband. So if the outsider does not intervene, he is not just failing to protect the woman from herself, he is failing to protect society from inherent danger. That raises the stakes considerably, and would seem to mean that outsiders (such as Rabbaim, shadchanim etc) do need to be vigilant, and not enable such marriages, so long as what RYBS says is true, in order to protect our society. Now I don't think we need a Rav to check a marriage out, before he marries a couple, to try and determine it is not a tav l'meisiv marriage. But that is because I think it relatively rare, in our society, that a woman will take a loveless marriage merely because she cannot bear to be alone (and I certainly do not think it is a irrebuttable presumption as per RYBS. Nor, as Rav Lichtenstein says, does the halacha over the centuries take this as an irrebuttable presumption despite RYBS's vehemence). And we don't have spend our lives worrying about uncommon cases even if we acknowledge that such cases may exist (and even if, in hindsight, if a marriage turns out to be unquestionably inappropriate, we might need to consider whether perhaps the woman in question *might* have been willing to go through with it anyway). But if RYBS were right and it is indeed a fundamental existential part of a woman's nature, unchanging throughout time and not infrequently occurring, to take whatever marriage is on offer, then we as a society do need such safeguards, because of the potential consequences, and if there is any hint that in fact this might be a tav l'meisiv marriage, since the woman is not able, according to RYBS, to protect herself from it, the Rav/shadchan etc would seem to have the obligation to investigate and if in doubt, to protect our society by preventing the marriage. >Toby Katz >t613k at aol.com Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 04:37:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 11:37:18 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: <20150429.073718.25006.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> I wrote: : But then, as I was reviewing this post, my mind turned to the Tanur : Shel Achnai. R' Eliezer had a minority view, and R' Yehoshua was in : the majority. I've got to believe that both views were firmly grounded; : this machlokes was surely just as L'Shem Shamayim as any between Hillel : and Shammai. I'd *like* to say that Klapei Shmaya, both views were Truth. R' Micha Berger responded: > We discussed bas qol, and why we follow the bas qol that says > "vehalakhah kebeis Hillel" despite the anur shel achnai story. I > listed the opinions in the Encyc Talmudit here > > > It's not 100% accepted that the bas qol was really endorsing R' > Eliezer's opinion in this particular machloqes, rather than > defending his shitah in general -- "halakhah kemoso bekhol maqom", > or that it was a test. ... I apologize for not being clear enough. I was not refering to the Bas Kol part of the story. Rather, I was referring to the end of the story, when Eliyahu Hanavi was asked for Hashem's take on the incident, and he quoted Hashem as laughing, "Nitzchuni banai!" Regardless of how the Bas Kol might be interpreted, is there any way to understand "Nitzchuni banai!" other than Hashem personally siding with one of the litigants, and losing? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540c29a485cf429a1a7cst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 04:46:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 11:46:38 GMT Subject: [Avodah] brochos from the amud (was: tefillat haderech) Message-ID: <20150429.074638.25006.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > RYBS ... then continues that the idea of having intent not > to want to do a mitzvah bothers him, and so RYBS said he > says the berakhah on Hallel along with the chazan. (Which > is what my father does, and what I grew up with.) Data point: Although I have not noticed people doing this for the bracha on Hallel, this IS the common practice for the Shehecheyanu at Kol Nidre, at least according to the ArtScroll and Koren machzorim. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540c4bfde4b244bf3c8cst03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 02:53:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 09:53:19 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) Message-ID: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Reposted from Hakhel: > ... Rav Soloveitchik, obviously upset, instead gave Shiur > on the importance of keeping the Tzuras HaTefillah intact. > Shemone Esrei is followed by Chazaras Hashatz, which is > followed by Tachanun, and then followed by Ashrei and U'va' > Letzion--and we do not have the right or privilege of > changing that, he opined. ... R' Ben Waxman asked: > I looked through the Beit Yosef OH 131 where he discusses > the days on which Tachanun isn't said. The BY does not > list all the days that we skip (like Purim Qatan or Pesach > Sheni). These came later. > > So when did this idea (that we can't change when Tachanun > is said or not said) start? I'm not sure if you are asking the correct question. You presume there was a time when Tachanun was *said* on Purim Katan, and then Tachanun was *omitted* on Purim Katan. I see another possibility, but I must point out that this idea stems from my total ignorance of the History Of Tachanun. Perhaps, since the day when Tachanun first began, the list of days has never changed. What did happen (perhaps) is that some places said it on Purim Katan, and some places did not. Over time, the minhag of skipping it spread to more and more places, but that's somewhat different than if a community would suddenly decide that they had a new appreciation for the significance of the day, and hence wanted to stop saying Tachanun. But either way, I'm not sure of the exact nature of RYBS's objection. It is one thing for a community to change its mind about the significance of the day (as in RMB's example of Purim Katan), and quite another for the day itself to acquire a new significance - as in the example of Yom Haatzma'ut. Shulchan Aruch already establishes the ability for a community to establish holidays, and this has been done many times. A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS insist that they say Tachanun on such days? Thus, I am drawn to conclude that RYBS must not be taken as too absolutist. He cannot have meant that the current list of Tachanun days must remain enshrined in stone forever. I beleive that he must have meant that the question of saying Tachanun on Yom Haatzma'ut is a serious one, to be dealt with seriously by the poskim and leaders of the community. Alas, I personally have seen many cases of where it is decided by those who attend the minyan, on a purely emotional basis, with no thought to the halachos involved, and with no consultation with the LOR. On the other hand, among the many tasks the LOR must deal with, is deciding when he should or should not get involved with the tzibur's choices. Although it does not address Tachanun, I would like to close with a reference to The Rav's opinions about a different tefilah which he "opposed, on halachic grounds". R' Mike Gerver wrote on Mail Jewish (http://www.ottmall.com/mj_ht_arch/v38/mj_v38i49.html) in January 2003: > (This is a continuation of my previous e-mail summarizing > the talk given on "The Rav and Medinat Yisrael" by Rabbi > J. J. Shachter on motzei shabbat, Jan. 25, at Lechu > Neranana in Raanana.) > ... ... ... > Rabbi Shachter quoted Rabbi Walter Wurzberger zt"l as > saying that the Rav's attitude toward Israel was > completely opposed to messianism, to the idea that the > founding of the State was an initial step to the geula > [final redemption]. Thus the Rav did not approve of Gush > Emunim. He even opposed, on halachic grounds, saying the > tefillah for the State of Israel in shul on Shabbat > morning, which only speaks of the State as "reishit > tzmichat geulateinu" [the beginning of the sprouting of > our redemption]. Rabbi Shachter, knowing this, assumed > that the tefillah for the State of Israel would not be > said at the Shabbat morning minyan held at Maimonides > School, a minyan that the Rav started in 1962, and which > generally did things according to his minhag. When Rabbi > Shachter was appointed to his position as director of the > Soloveitchik Institute a couple of years ago, and took > over as rabbi of the Maimonides School Shabbat minyan, he > was surprised to find that they were saying the tefillah > for the State of Israel. He asked someone why, and the > answer was interesting. One Shabbat morning, when the Rav > was still alive and in good health, someone started saying > the tefillah for the State of Israel. The Rav turned to > someone next to him and said {Rabbi Shachter imitated the > Rav's accent) "You would have thought they would have > asked me!" That was all. He didn't make any attempt to > stop them from saying the tefillah for the State of Israel, > and didn't think it was his place to ask the congregation > not to say it if they wanted to. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540aa3d6d7282a3d2b95st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 07:23:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 14:23:25 GMT Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith Message-ID: <20150429.102325.12106.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > I picked the one about parallel lines because no one ever > experienced infinitely long parallel lines. They are based > on imagining an extrapolation from experience. Parallel lines are not provable, but it's not because they are based on experience. Rather, they are based on definition. Find a pair of parallel lines that DO meet (such as on a sphere) and we'll simply say, "What I really meant was parallel lines on a *flat* surface." See more at "No true Scotsman". My choice for something which is unprovable because it is based on personal experience is, "Is there someone whom you love? Prove it to me." Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540e9944d22f699426abst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 12:11:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 15:11:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) In-Reply-To: <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> References: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <20150429191153.GG2666@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 08:53:00PM +0200, Ben Waxman wrote: :> #2 A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate :> the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS :> insist that they say Tachanun on such days? : I had the same question. I bet he said tachanun on the Gra's or R' Chaim's (Volozhin or Brisk) yahrzeit, etc... For people who are seeking his pesaq, it's very likely he would inist on Tachanun on days like that. But I think he would refuse to pasqen for them. Implied in your question is that it's a rav's job to comment and rank other derakhim, an idea RYBS did not share. He even limited his own right to 2nd guess a talmid serving as moreh de'asra. (Stories differ as to how much he insisted on such autonomy of the LOR, depending on which student.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 25th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Netzach: When is domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control too extreme? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 11:53:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 20:53:00 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) In-Reply-To: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> On 4/29/2015 11:53 AM, Kenneth Miller wrote: > #1 Perhaps, since the day when Tachanun first began, the list of days > has never changed. What did happen (perhaps) is that some places said it > on Purim Katan, and some places did not. Over time, the minhag of > skipping it spread to more and more places, but that's somewhat > different than if a community would suddenly decide that they had a new > appreciation for the significance of the day, and hence wanted to stop > saying Tachanun. I don't think so. The Rambam, Hilchot Tefila 5:15 lists the days that one doesn't say Tachanun (or nifilat ah'payim in his words) and the list is much more restricted than our list (Shabbat, Chaggim, Rosh Chodesh, Chanukka, Purim, and the Mincha before them). He writes that this is the minhag b'kol yisrael. I am not a Rambam expert so I don't know what to make of those three words (minhag, b'kol yisrael). If it is a minhag does that mean that it can change? What is b'kol yisrael (I realize that at the time of the Rambam, Ashkenaz was the middle of nowhere)? But it would seem from the Rambam that at his time, the Jewish world didn't skip those other days. > #2 A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate > the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS insist > that they say Tachanun on such days? I had the same question. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 12:25:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 15:25:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) In-Reply-To: <20150429191153.GG2666@aishdas.org> References: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> <20150429191153.GG2666@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55413040.4080903@sero.name> On 04/29/2015 03:11 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 08:53:00PM +0200, Ben Waxman wrote: > :> #2 A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate > :> the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS > :> insist that they say Tachanun on such days? > > : I had the same question. > > I bet he said tachanun on the Gra's or R' Chaim's (Volozhin or Brisk) > yahrzeit, etc... For people who are seeking his pesaq, it's very likely > he would inist on Tachanun on days like that. Of course he said tachanun on their yortzeits, why wouldn't he? The whole concept of turning a yortzeit into a holiday wasn't native to his world. The question is what he would do on a day they had been saved from some danger, and had observed as a private yomtov, or on a day that his community had adopted as a local "purim" to commemorate being saved from danger, as was a common practise among Jewish communities. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 30 01:53:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 30 Apr 2015 04:53:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Netziv, Reading Newspapers on Shabbos & Censorship (Part Two) Message-ID: <20150430085311.F372F183218@nexus.stevens.edu> Please see the article at http://tinyurl.com/oqujmba From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 1 10:09:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 1 May 2015 13:09:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] kol isha In-Reply-To: <842c75958dedf20875dfdece45b65e31@aishdas.org> References: <842c75958dedf20875dfdece45b65e31@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150501170943.GA13995@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 30, 2015 at 5:54pm EDT, R Sholom Simon replied to me on Areivim :> The fact that some ... Jews seem to think the gemara :> didn't realy mean it is something the ... community should have a :> cheshbon hanfesh about. : Gemara? Don't the ge'onim take the gemara to : mean that kol isha is a problem during krias sh'ema? (Which is, after : all, the context of its appearance in Berachos). : (Granted, halacha has : gone much further since then, but you were focused on the gemara) You're thinking of Berakhos 24a, where the gemara concludes that R' Yitchaq's tefach be'ishah ervah is to even include one's own wife during qeri'as Shama. (We knew about other women not during qeri'as shema from R' Sheishes.) And then R' Chisda continues with shoq be'ishah, Shemu'el says qol be'ishah ervah and R Sheishes adds sei'ar be'ishah. >From which one may conclude that all of them are in the same context as R' Yitchaq. R' Hai Gaon (Otar haGeonim Berakhos, peirushin #102), R Yehudai Gaon (acc. to the Yeriem 392), the Behag (1:3). the Eshkol (vol 1, pg 15), the Rivra (Berakhos ad loc) and his father (?), Rabbeinu Yonah (17a), the Shitah meQubetzes (ad loc), only speak of this rule WRT qeri'as shema. Interestlingly, one might also have concluded that all of them were about eishes ish, for the same reason that sei'ar be'ishah is only about eishes ish, but I don't think anyone does understand the gemara that way. But there is also Qiddushin 70a, where R' Yehudah refuses to relay regards from R Nachman to Yala (Mrs Nachman) citing Shemu'el's qol be'ishah ervah. It was this gemara I was remembering (due to recently re-encountering it). Pisqei haRid (Berakhos p' 3), Ri haChasid (Berakhos ad loc), Tosafos haRosh (ad loc) and the Rosh (Berakhos 3:37), say the rule is in general. The Rambam has qol be'ishah ervah in Isurei Bi'ah (21:2), not Hil' QS. Similarly the Tur has nothing about it in QS, but has it in EhE 21. (But then, since his father [the Rosh] and the Rambam do the same, that's no surprise.) And from there -- the Rif is silent, the Rambam and the Rosh agree it's in general -- the SA conforms to his rules and prohibits in general. I think it's a machloqes whether we hold like Shemu'el, who was indeed oly talking about Shema (but not only married women) or like R' Yehudah's extrapolation from Shemu'el. Al pi din, we do hold like the gemara in Qidushin. But it's not as much of a given as I had thought when writing. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 27th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in relationship? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 2 12:29:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 02 May 2015 21:29:39 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Kook on Sports Message-ID: <554525A3.2060408@zahav.net.il> He most certainly did! http://www.yeshiva.org.il/midrash/4234 The article is an examination of Rav Kook's writing on the subject. RK very much supported exercise and sport, and of course he opposed breaking Shabbat to play football (soccer). One quote/translation (mine): Exercise . . . .improves the spiritual strength of the greatest tzaddiqim, those involved in the Unification of God's name, including bringing the Light of God into the world, and no revelation of Light can happen without all the required components. Ben On 5/1/2015 3:36 AM, via Areivim wrote: > and I wonder if it is true that Rav Kook ascribed positive value to sports. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 3 03:01:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 3 May 2015 13:01:40 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Michael Avraham Message-ID: After another shiur with R Michael Avraham (RMA) I wish to clear up some of my previous posts. Apologies for repeating some material but I wish to make it self contained. 1) With regard to Pluaralism, Monism and Harmonism these are typologies. As with any typology real people are combinations and pure members of these groups. Avi Sagi has a book on the topic with listing on many reabbis on each side of the topic. Pluralism means that one accepts ALL opinions as true and legitimate. There is no one single truth Certainly as long as it doesn't harm someone else. RMA pointed out that pure pluralism is not consistent as it would mean accepting monism as also a legitimate truth Nevertheless it is popular in some circles 2) Monism says there is only one truth. I accept that one truth based on the normal rules of halacha, eg majority, chazakah etc. Nothing is ever known with 100% certainty both that is irrelevant. 2b) accepting monism (savlanut in Hebrew) . Though there is only one truth we accommodate those within a certain radius of the real truth even though they are wrong Normally we view pluralism as being more "mekil" than monism. However he considered the case of giving someone food that I consider kosher and he doesn't . The pluralist won't do it because his position is also truth and he doesnt consider the food kosher. However the pure monist has no trouble giving it to someone else. He is wrong and I am right and so the food is kosher (again the fact that he might be right is irrelevant - a bet din can kill based on rov and certainly for shabbat and kosher food we work on majority) The accepting monist won't give the food to someone else. Even though he is wrong I respect his being wrong as long as he is within my radius - ie he relies on someone I consider legitimate and not just an idiotic opinion. OTOH I would give him the food if I feel his "chumra" is too wild fetched and beyond my radius as distinct from the pluralist 3) Harmonism states that both sides are only part of the real truth. Rav Kook and others bring the second gemara about "Elu V-elu". The gemara in Gittin discusses why the man from Binyamin killed his mistress)(pilegesh be-givah) - after an amoraic argument the truth was both were right either because he found a fly in his soup but got angry only he found a hair in the soup. So both views were ight and "Elu V-elu" Based on this RMA had a different interpretation of the argument between Bet Hillel and Bet Shamai Both sides presented arguments supporting their position. Both sides agreed that all the arguments were legitimate. However, in the end one has to make a decision when there are legitimate arguments on both sides and Bet Shamai and Bet Hillel arrived at opposite conclusins. The Harmonism implies that both sides have legitimate arguments. Hoever, in the end there is only one truth that comes out of contradictory arguments. The harmonism means that both sides are right (pluralism) on the basic stands. But only one side is right (monism) in the final decision. As stated before the one truth is found based on standard halachic grounds. Nothing is ever known 100% but that doesnt matter. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 3 18:46:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 11:46:53 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] A halachic problem in measuring wholemeal flour Message-ID: I have recently become aware of a practical halachic problem with measuring wholemeal flour for the shiurim of challah and the kezeitim of matzot mitzva. I don't think this issue is generally recognised, and I hope Areivim members will be able to bring it to appropriate authorities' attention. Traditional flour mills produced a mixture of white flour and bran by grinding whole grains between millstones. This mixture was sifted to produce finer or coarser grades of flour by removing more or less bran, respectively. Halachically, the bran that is removed has changed its status: dough produced from bran is not subject to challah. Furthermore, mixing bran back into its flour does not restore its status: the bran and flour are not "mitztaref". (See Challah 2:6) This was not an issue with traditional mills: nobody would sift bran out of flour and then ruin the white flour by replacing the bran. This is not the case today, though. Modern flour mills do not grind flour between stones. They use a series of graduated rollers that crack the grain into progressively-smaller particles, and the bran is separated off at an early stage of the process. Millers make wholemeal flour by adding bran back to the fine flour near the end of the milling process. You can find a description and video of the process here: http://www.fabflour.co.uk/fab-flour/how-flour-is-milled/ If modern wholemeal flour is halachically considered a mixture of flour and bran, as it seems, then to be obliged in challah one would need a greater shiur of wholemeal than of regular flour, and to fulfil one?s obligation of eating matza one would need to eat more than a kezayit of wholemeal matza. (See S.A. Y.D. 324:3 and M.A. & SAHR O.C 454:1,2) It is not possible to state a definite ratio of bran to white flour, as this will vary between species of grain and between varieties of each species. The relevant shiurim are not measured by weight but by volume, which is affected by the fineness of the bran compared to the fineness of the white flour. Furthermore, the amount of grain removed as bran will depend on the operation of the mill. My research indicates that up to a quarter of each grain of wheat (by weight) consists of bran. If we take this as a rule of thumb then a shiur of wholemeal wheat flour would be one and a third times as large as a shiur of white flour. As a practical matter, I think people making wholemeal bread should probably avoid doubt and bake either less than a minimal shiur (for which, consult your LOR) or bake sufficiently more than one and a third shiurim. Many people deliberately try to use enough flour to require the taking of challah: they consequently use just over a regular shiur and need to be warned about this. With respect to wholemeal matzot mitzva, I presume that people would have noticed and queried any reintroduction of bran to flour ground using modern methods. None the less, it would be very good to establish this for each bakery. Joe Slater Melbourne, Australia -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 3 20:42:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 06:42:58 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RMA Message-ID: On another issue I had quoted RMA as saying that one who doesnt believe in a creator has no punishment or reward for keeping mitzvot. After 120 years he will be punished only for being an atheist but for each individual sin. Hence, there is no problem of "lifne iver" . In particular in the frequent case a religious doctor can ask an atheist to take over for him on shabbat (wouldnt apply to a chiloni doctor who does beleive in G-d) This applies only to mitzvot like shabbat. Of course an atheist can't claim that he is not bound by sins like murder because he doesnt believe in G-d. An atheist will be punished for all moral sins that he commits and all usual laws of :lifne iver" etc apply to all moral commandments. ------------------------ He is now starting a series on religious autonomy. In particular he holds that one goes to a rabbi for a psak only if he is in doubt. If one has seriously learned the halachaot and is convinced of the "truth" then he should follow his own psak and there is no need to go to a "higher authority". He was asked what if the personal psak goes against the generally accepted psak. His answer was that in theory the same holds. However, a person should have enough humility that if he is a "daas yachid" he better be awfully sure that he is right. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 04:47:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 11:47:38 GMT Subject: [Avodah] A married sister Message-ID: <20150504.074738.29327.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, and becomes part of her husband's family. Thus, she is no longer part of her brother's family. But what about her father? According to the above logic, her father may not be m'tamei for her either. And in fact, she *has* left her father's family in the sense that if her husband is not a kohen, then she has been disallowed terumah ever since the wedding. Yet the halacha is that her father *may* be m'tamei for her, despite that change in status. So, in very simple terms, here's my question: If a Bas Kohen is married and then dies, why is it that her father may attend the funeral, but her brother may not? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55475caae730f5caa5375st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 07:42:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 17:42:10 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] A halachic problem in measuring wholemeal flour In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, May 4, 2015 at 4:46 AM, Joe Slater via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > I have recently become aware of a practical halachic problem with > measuring wholemeal flour for the shiurim of challah and the kezeitim of > matzot mitzva. I don't think this issue is generally recognised, and I hope > Areivim members will be able to bring it to appropriate authorities' > attention. > > Traditional flour mills produced a mixture of white flour and bran by > grinding whole grains between millstones. This mixture was sifted to > produce finer or coarser grades of flour by removing more or less bran, > respectively. Halachically, the bran that is removed has changed its > status: dough produced from bran is not subject to challah. Furthermore, > mixing bran back into its flour does not restore its status: the bran and > flour are not "mitztaref". (See Challah 2:6) > > This was not an issue with traditional mills: nobody would sift bran out > of flour and then ruin the white flour by replacing the bran. This is not > the case today, though. > Just a thought: perhaps the halacha that the bran and flour are not mitztaref depended on the metziu't that nobody would return bran to white flour? So if returning the bran to the flour is now the normal way of producing wholemeal flour, maybe today they are mitztaref? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 09:45:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 12:45:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs In-Reply-To: <20150330.221259.10345.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 11:47:38AM +0000, RAM wrote on the thread "A married sister": : In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself : for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I : used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves : the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, : and becomes part of her husband's family... But Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 02:12:59AM +0000, RAM wrote on this subject: > I once heard an interesting argument against Rav Moshe's logic on > this point. He is viewing the wife as the one who is moving to a new > location, but we have an explicit pasuk that takes the opposite view: > Bereshis 2:24 - "Therefore, a man will desert his father and his mother, > and stick to his wife." (The woman may of may not leave her parents, > but the man explicitly does.) > Granted that there are other arguments for the wife taking the husband's > minhagim - terumah is the first that comes to my mind. But if Rav Moshe's > main argument is Minhag Hamakom, I wonder how he would have defended it > against this pasuk. Anyone else see one answering the other? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 30th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Hod: When does capitulation Fax: (270) 514-1507 result in holding back from others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 10:11:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 04 May 2015 13:11:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs In-Reply-To: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> On 05/04/2015 12:45 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 11:47:38AM +0000, RAM wrote on the thread > "A married sister": > : In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself > : for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I > : used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves > : the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, > : and becomes part of her husband's family... > > But Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 02:12:59AM +0000, RAM wrote on this subject: >> I once heard an interesting argument against Rav Moshe's logic on >> this point. He is viewing the wife as the one who is moving to a new >> location, but we have an explicit pasuk that takes the opposite view: >> Bereshis 2:24 - "Therefore, a man will desert his father and his mother, >> and stick to his wife." (The woman may of may not leave her parents, >> but the man explicitly does.) > >> Granted that there are other arguments for the wife taking the husband's >> minhagim - terumah is the first that comes to my mind. But if Rav Moshe's >> main argument is Minhag Hamakom, I wonder how he would have defended it >> against this pasuk. > > Anyone else see one answering the other? Not at all. Her father must still become tamei for her. Only her brothers may not. What's more, suppose her husband dies without issue. She returns to her father's house, and is once more entitled to eat terumah and kodshim. Now suppose the father dies; she continues to eat the terumah and kodshim that her brothers bring home. When she dies the brothers are the only people left who sit shiva for her, and yet they are not allowed to become tamei for her unless there is literally nobody else who can do it! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 10:24:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 17:24:33 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs Message-ID: <20150504.132433.5362.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger asked: > Anyone else see one answering the other? You make a good point, but as I see it, they don't *answer* each other as much as they illustrate how complicated this subject is. For example, consider the case of a Bas Kohen who marries a Yisrael, or a Bas Yisrael who marries a Kohen. Her status changes upon marriage, but it will revert upon the death of her husband. - Unless there is a child, in which case her status will *not* revert. - Unless the child died too, in which case her status *will* revert. - Unless there is a grandchild, in which case she keeps her status even though her own child did not survive. (I probably messed up some of those details, but my point is that itis a very complex topic.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5547ab96da8f82b966b58st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 11:01:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 14:01:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A married sister Message-ID: <1fbaa.22f534a3.42790de1@aol.com> From: Kenneth Miller via Avodah In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, and becomes part of her husband's family. Thus, she is no longer part of her brother's family. But what about her father? [snip] So, in very simple terms, here's my question: If a Bas Kohen is married and then dies, why is it that her father may attend the funeral, but her brother may not? Akiva Miller >>>>> I don't know why the bond between brother and sister seems to be lessened when the sister marries, but we do have other evidence that the bond between father and daughter is never severed: If a man has no sons, only daughters, his daughters inherit his property -- even if they are married. The fact that they are married does not annul the fact that they are still his daughters. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 12:50:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 22:50:54 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith Message-ID: <> A more practical problem based on personal experience is that of defining colors (to a human not in terms of wavelengths). There is no way for 2 people to confirm they are seeing the same colors. One practical application is to examining cloths for a niddah - ketem. I again refer to an article in Keren Zavit by Nadav Shinrav on parshat tazria In particular I learned that brown is not a color -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 13:43:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 16:43:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150504204354.GA2628@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 10:50:54PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : A more practical problem based on personal experience is that of defining : colors (to a human not in terms of wavelengths). There is no way for 2 : people to confirm they are seeing the same colors. Even further: there is no wavelength corrsponding to pink or brown, they only exist as our mind combines wavelengths. Pink is weirder, because it resides on the color wheel where you would glue the two extremes of the spectrum together to close the circle. Colors other than the three in the middle of the sensitivity range of each of the types of cone in your eye can be seen two ways. For example: you could make orange by mixing two parts red with one part green, or by looking at light of one color, that is at the right frequency to trigger your red cones twice as much as they trigger the green. The topic we're discussing is qualia, and color is a favorite sort of quale to use for illustration (pun intended). A quale is the "what it's like to see red". In my example about orange, we have two different physics, but both could end up producing the same experience, the same exact shade and brightness of orange. So orange is not 1:1 any specific wavelength. Asude from the question RET raises, a popular thought experiment among philosophers is Mary the Color Scientist (Frank Jackson 1982): Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor. She specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose, all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes, or the sky, and use terms like 'red', 'blue', and so on. She discovers, for example, just which wavelength combinations from the sky stimulate the retina, and exactly how this produces via the central nervous system the contraction of the vocal chords and expulsion of air from the lungs that results in the uttering of the sentence 'The sky is blue'.... What will happen when Mary is released from her black and white room or is given a color television monitor? Will she learn anything or not? It seems just obvious that she will learn something about the world and our visual experience of it. But then is it inescapable that her previous knowledge was incomplete. But she had all the physical information. Ergo there is more to have than that, and Physicalism is false. And so Jackson concludes that the world can't be reduced to physics. This is also what I was talking about when I referred to justifying a belief based on comparing imagination to memory. Koach hadimyon does mean "imagination", but what Ariso meant by Imagination, or the rishonim by dimyon, includes qualia in general. The image of red while you're seeing it, not just when you're dreaming it up. And I would argue that even when we make rigorous logical proofs, those proofs are conclusions drawn from a set of givens, and those givens end up resting on koach hadimyon anyway. The formally proven theological statement is therefore less conclusive than one based on an appeal to dimyon directly, such as R' Aqiva's argument. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 30th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Hod: When does capitulation Fax: (270) 514-1507 result in holding back from others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 15:25:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 04 May 2015 18:25:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs In-Reply-To: <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> Message-ID: <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> On 05/04/2015 01:11 PM, I wrote: > > What's more, suppose her husband dies without issue. She returns to her > father's house, and is once more entitled to eat terumah and kodshim. This is not quite correct. She returns to eat teruma, but not kodshim. "Milechem, velo kol lechem". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 16:07:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Mon, 04 May 2015 19:07:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy In-Reply-To: <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> Message-ID: <5547FB97.5020203@aishdas.org> Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, d'hashta) would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? Thanks! KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 18:11:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 01:11:49 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy Message-ID: <20150504.211149.15174.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer asked: > Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, > d'hashta) would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? My first knee-jerk reaction is to say that they DON'T relate. Chazakos are all about law, and what the law will *presume* the reality to have been. We found a piece of meat on the street, or we bought it and forgot where, or any of a million similar questions. We don't really know whether it is kosher or not, and to a certain extent we don't really care. What we really care about is whether halacha allows us to *presume* that it is kosher. Schroedinger's Cat and similar ventures are attempts to establish what the *reality* is. The Cat is a thought experiment, but do not make the mistake of thinking that it is mere philosophizing. The whole point of the experiment is to establish what is really and actually happening inside the box, and the answer (that they've come up with) is that two contradictory truths (the cat is alive, the cat is dead) are both true at the same time. This is a question of physics and reality, not a question of legal presumptions. The subject line of this thread says that you're "looking for help with an analogy". Could you tell us more about what you're working on? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5548190613cab19056408st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 19:10:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rafael Jason Hecht via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 22:10:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How Kosher is the Kosher Switch? Message-ID: Last Motzei Shabbos I was among the crowd that was saying Kiddush Levana out in the open. While davening I overheard someone making a joke about using a Kosher Switch (my guess was to place light on the outside so people could better read). I did my own reading and research before that and couldn't tell if the gentleman was joking or being serious. To put it lightly, the development and marketing Kosher Switch has caused a major controversy in the Torah Jewish community. The Kosher Switch, a device purportedly meant to ease the constraints of Sabbath observance, is not the first of its kind. The Grama switch by Zomet Institute, as well as the Zman switch have been created for emergency situations of pikuach nefesh. However, this switch has caused an uproar in the Jewish community. Why? Before going on, let me state that while I am far from an expert in the field of electrical engineering or Hilchos Shabbos (nor am I a certified Rabbi), I treasure Shabbos and am always looking for ways to enhance it. That said, I did my own personal research and humbly present my findings. Before I go on, let me first state that the topic of electricity on Shabbos is far more extensive than what I'm laying out, and that I am not (intentionally) offering my own Psak, just a compilation of "what's out there." Read more: http://www.mywesternwall.net/2015/04/30/how-kosher-is-the-kosher-switch.html Best Regards, Rafi Hecht *rhecht at gmail.com* ------------------------------------------------------- *LinkedIN:* *http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rafihecht* *Facebook:* *http://www.facebook.com/rhecht* *Twitter:* *https://www.twitter.com/#!/rafihecht* *Personal Site:* *www.rafihecht.com* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 12:47:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Shalom Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 22:47:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired Message-ID: I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a woman is owned by her husband, the language of the Mishna notwithstanding. Can anyone point to a clear statement by Hazal or rishonim that supports my supposition? My thanks, Shalom Z. Berger -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 13:51:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 16:51:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150505205140.GA20122@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 05, 2015 at 10:47:20PM +0300, Shalom Berger via Avodah wrote: : I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a : woman is owned by her husband, the language of the Mishna notwithstanding. : Can anyone point to a clear statement by Hazal or rishonim that supports my : supposition? First, the halakhos of qiddushin do not conform to that of purchase. Qinyan is a broader concept than purchase; for example, not that long ago you probably performed a qinyan sudar to appoint your rav as a shaliach to sell your chameitz. Some differences: - no din of ona'ah, a shaveh perutah is sufficient for all - you give the perutah to the woman, not her former "owner" - she has to agree to the qinyan, despite not being the former "owner" - she has to make a qinyan on the money - money needn't exchange hands; she could pardon a loan to effect a marriage. However, qinyan bekesef does require such an exchange. - Hilkhos gittin is a lot more complicated than just calling hefqer. - the wife gets to decide whether to give him her earnings in exchange for being supported. If she were property, he would get her earnings wheter or not *he* chose to support here. Now that I got that out of my system, to answer your question: Qiddushin 6b: ... and if an eved kenaani, whose body he was qoneh, if he says to him [in a shetar shichrur] "you are hereby your own" it means legmaei, ishah DELO QANI LEIH GUFAH, lo qol shekein! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 31st day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Hod: What level of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 results in harmony and balance? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 12:12:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 15:12:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun Message-ID: In Avodah V33n70, RZS responded to R'Micha: >> I bet [RYBS] said tachanun on the Gra's or R' Chaim's (Volozhin or Brisk) >> yahrzeit, etc... For people who are seeking his pesaq, it's very likely >> he would insist on Tachanun on days like that. > Of course he said tachanun on their yortzeits, why wouldn't he? The whole > concept of turning a yortzeit into a holiday wasn't native to his world. > The question is what he would do on a day they had been saved from some > danger, and had observed as a private yomtov, or on a day that his > community had adopted as a local "purim" to commemorate being saved from > danger, as was a common practise among Jewish communities. ...or on Pesach Sheini? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 11:47:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 05 May 2015 13:47:08 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Tree of 40 Fruits Message-ID: <5549102C.40808@starways.net> http://www.sciencealert.com/news/20142107-25892.html What's the halakha regarding eating fruit from one of these trees? Since the grafting was done by a non-Jew, is it okay to eat? Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 14:01:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 21:01:39 GMT Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired Message-ID: <20150505.170139.16146.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Shalom Berger wrote: <<< I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a woman is owned by her husband, ... >>> That depends on what you mean by "own". I own my shoes. This gives me certain rights, such as wearing them to the exclusion of anyone else, or the choice of who I might lend them to. I also have certain responsibilities; I cannot simply destroy them for no reason. I own my tefillin too. But the things I can do with my tefillin are much more limited than whast I can do with my shoes. I have certain rights and responsibilities vis a vis my wife as well. Do I own her? I don't know. Is there a real nafka mina, or is it just semantics? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55492fe2678522fe2353bst03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 15:46:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 05 May 2015 18:46:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Scrolling Down the Pages of Jewish History Message-ID: <20150505224615.83B27181E37@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/ocl2bqe his story appears in R. Yechiel Spero?s Pesach Haggadah: Touched by Our Story (pp. 88-91) and is republished here with permission from the copyright holders (ArtScroll / Mesorah Publications, Ltd.). The pictures below ? of the Tur Shulchan Aruch (printed in Berlin 1702) which belonged to Rabbi Yaakov Emden (Germany, 1697-1776) ? were taken by R. Akiva Males, and are republished with permission of Columbia University?s Rare Book and Manuscript Library. See the above URL for much more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 00:23:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 03:23:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] All About Tehillim Message-ID: <20150506072350.7A9B4181522@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/mxoucvn From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 02:02:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 05:02:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Disappearing Doctor of Iyyar: Virtual Vanishing of a Venerable Minhog Message-ID: <20150506090255.CB5C5182D80@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/mdz6883 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 03:13:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 06:13:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Disappearing Doctor of Iyyar: Virtual Vanishing of a Venerable Minhog In-Reply-To: <20150506090255.CB5C5182D80@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150506090255.CB5C5182D80@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150506101327.GA19813@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 06, 2015 at 05:02:54AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : See http://tinyurl.com/mdz6883 Quoting the Treasures of Ashkenaz blog [transliterations mine]: > The aleph stands for ani, the two yuds for HQBH, and the reish? fo > rofekha. The month is thereby depicted as a month of healing. The vort > seemingly is based on an old minhog of many generations among Yidden, > in which the letters yud-yud (sans hyphen) are used to represent the > venerated name of Hashem However, even yud-yud is not the original minhag. In older manuscripts they used three yuds, with the middle one slightly above the line, making a triangle. Preserved in this printed edition of Siddur R' Saadia Gaon . I suggested two possible reasons for the third yud's disappearance: - The printing press made that middle yud hard to insert into books, because it would require a special letter in the type box. I find this one less than compelling, because they kept an alef-lamed ligature in the type box, and that got less usage. - Xians read their own significance into the three letters. This would be clearner, if there were any evidence of them actually doing so. So the two-yud notation was just one step along the way. The general question of why non-chassidic Ashkenazim (or non-Chida-influenced Sepharadim) suddenly started writing out the sheim in siddurim is compelling, but the two-yud notation isn't necessarily some venerable alternative. The three yuds was often explained as beind the initial letters of Birkhas Kohanim; the yuds from Yevarekhekha, Ya'er, and Yisa. Some suggest that the two yuds represent the first and last letters of an intertwined sheim havayah and sheim adnus: YUD alef HEI dalet ... HEI yud. Itself heavily al pi qabbalah. And associating the two yuds with the transliteration into Hebrew of an Akkadian month name (Ayyaru = n. blossom) requires even more omnisignificance and mysticism than does finding significance in presenting sheim havayah written out. Where I really see this change as a problem is not because of venerable minhagim, but because books have less shelf life now than in the past. Cheap printing means also cheaper paper, not to mention faster replacement. And if generations past wanted to minimize their sheimos problems, al achas kamah vekamah we should. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 00:31:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 10:31:51 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: In some circles it is common for men to keep long peyot (as an aside it has become common also in some chardal circles) The book Keren Zavit says he doesn't understand the custom. The problem is not in long sidebruns but rather that the hair from under the ear rarely grows long. The long "peyot" usually grow from hair above the ear and so has no connection to peyot and in fact come from part of the head where there is no prohibition to shave -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 06:38:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Shalom Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 16:38:38 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired In-Reply-To: <20150505205140.GA20122@aishdas.org> References: <20150505205140.GA20122@aishdas.org> Message-ID: While Micha is correct that the Gemara clearly states "ishah DELO QANI LEIH GUFAH" and that there are many, many differences between true ownership and marriage, this does not keep the Tosafot HaRosh (Ketubot 2a sv Nistahpa Sadeihu) from concluding: "ha-isha kinyan kaspo shel ha-ish kemo avdo ve-shoro va-hamoro." I would like to find a source in the rishonim that clearly rejects the approach of the Tosafot HaRosh. Shalom Rabbi Shalom Z. Berger, Ed.D. The Lookstein Center for Jewish Education Bar-Ilan University http://www.lookstein.org https://www.facebook.com/groups/lookjed/ Follow me on Twitter: @szberger NETWORK*LEARN*GROW From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 09:26:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 12:26:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tree of 40 fruits Message-ID: The question was asked, "What's the halakha regarding eating fruit from one of these trees? Since the grafting was done by a non-Jew, is it okay to eat?" The only issur achila of kilayim is kilei hakerem. Anything else may be eaten. With regard to the fruits of a graft, the explicit halacha in Yoreh Deiah (295:7) is that it may be eaten even by the one who violated the prohibition by performing the graft. (That halacha also continues that one may take a branch from the graft and plant it.) As to the original question about the potato-tomato combination, grafting is prohibited: even though neither is a tree (295:3), but as above, the resulting product may be eaten. EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 10:28:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 13:28:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs Message-ID: The din of a kohein's daughter not eating t'ruma upon marriage to a non-kohein was mentioned in conjunction with this topic. However, I submit that perquisites of k'huna are unrelated to the adoption of one's spouse's customs. How else can we understand the din that a person can give the parts of a slaughtered animal due to the kohein (z'roa, l'chayayim v'keiva) even to a kohein's daughter married to a Yisraeil, or, for that matter, even to her Yisraeil husband (and according to one opinion, the same is true for pidyon habein)? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 10:37:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 13:37:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy Message-ID: <72706.56a00b87.427bab69@aol.com> From: Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, d'hashta) would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? Thanks! KT, YGB >>>>> Not sure where you're going with this but you seem to be saying that chazakos have no independent, objective reality. That a chazaka is in the eye of the beholder. Oops. Looks like you've let the cat out of the bag... --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 11:13:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 14:13:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Strange History of Lag B'Omer Message-ID: <20150506181455.D4FFC1836BF@nexus.stevens.edu> There is an interesting talk by Dr. Shnayer Leiman with the above title at http://yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/734356/ Yitzchok Levine -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 11:48:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 14:48:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy In-Reply-To: <5547FB97.5020203@aishdas.org> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> <5547FB97.5020203@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150506184838.GA4624@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 7:07pm EDT, RYGB wrote: : Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, d'hashta) : would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? Quantum Uncertainty is more similar to rov than chazaqah. And it could model how we can embrace conflicting majorities. Such as in the case of two pieces of shuman and one of cheilev, and being able to eat all three one after the other. (Or perhaps even in a ta'aroves, but that just complicates the picture.) It would fit if we treat the physical state of each piece of fat as ( 2 |shuman> + |cheilev) / 3 rather than as a 67% chance of being shuman. And then those things that were observed are immune from such weirdness, much like qavu'ah. That said: The notion that wavefunction collapse is due to observation, the Copenhagen Interpretation, was once taken as a given. But alternatives involving entanglement, wave function collapse, multiuniverse theory, etc.. have been gaining ground for decades. This parallel to qavu'ah could be illusory. On Tue, May 05, 2015 at 1:11am GMT, R Akive Miller wrote: : My first knee-jerk reaction is to say that they DON'T relate. Chazakos : are all about law, and what the law will *presume* the reality to have : been... : Schroedinger's Cat and similar ventures are attempts to establish what : the *reality* is... I am very inclined to agree. R' Aqiva Eiger (teshuvah $136) makes a chiluq between sefeiqos in the metzi'us and sefeiqos in din. Rov holds when we have sefeiqos in the metzi'us. So we can pasqen about something that is rov-kasher. But if someone knew the metzi'us, then there was a din established for the fat. Now that we don't know what it was, we have a safeiq as to what that din is. LAD, the whole thing is about human experience. See , which has 10 posts covering things like chazaqah (both types), rov, qavu'ah, terei mekei'ah (which I argue ignores rov for the same reason as qavu'ah), nosein ta'am, using tequfas Shemu'el for birkhas hachamah, microsopic bugs etc.... The hashkafic premise is that the goal of halakhah is to shape the self (whether into a tamim, a shelaim, to acheive deveiqus, etc...) And therefore the metzi'us a din has to work with is how we experience reality (and thus birur when we're in doubt) and how we can experience it (only visible bugs count). And not how the universe works in ways we can only understand in the abstract. The most lomdishe consequence of my whole edifice is that it manages to explain why a chazaqah trumps a migo in a case where there are also trei utrei eidim, but why a migo trumps a chazaqah when there are no eidim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 12:13:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 15:13:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150506191353.GB4624@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 06, 2015 at 10:31:51AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : The book Keren Zavit says he doesn't understand the custom. The problem is : not in long sidebruns but rather that the hair from under the ear rarely : grows long. The long "peyot" usually grow from hair above the ear and so : has no connection to peyot and in fact come from part of the head where : there is no prohibition to shave The custom is shared by Chassidim, Chidah-influenced Sepharadim (those with many Qabbalah-based pesaqim) and Teimanim. So there seems to be an ancient maqor unrelated to any reasons given al pi qabbalah by the first two groups. R' Chaim Kanievsky is a living example of a minhag/hanhagah that was once more common -- not combing one's peyos because of the hairs plucked out. Rav Dovid Lifshitz, so now we're talking Litta, had two thick blocks of hair going back from his temples to over his ear. According to the SA YD 181:9, peyos run as high as the hairline above the forehead until the bottom of the ear, where the earlobe detaches from the face. So the prohibition does include the area the KZ is asking about -- there are inches of hair between the top of the ear until you get parallel to the hairline. And this is the very area that the majority of the hair in long peyos grows from. I therefore don't understand the KZ's question. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 12:40:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 22:40:23 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: >From : B. Highest Point. The location of the highest point on the head that the peyos extend is described in Shulchan Aruch (181:9) as "across from the hair on is forehead". There are two basic opinions as to the precise location the Shulchan Aruch refers to: 1. Rabbi Yisroel Belsky (Shulchan Halevi page 122) writes that he had heard directly from Rav Yakov Kaminetzky zt"l that the upper limit of the peyos ha'rosh begins "at the highest point of the hairline as it arches over the ear and extends in a slightly curved line across to where the hairline of the forehead turns sharply downwards towards the sideburns. All the hair from the imaginary line that connect these two points and below comprises the peyos ha'rosh". 2. Rabbi Belsky also quotes "some rabbonim have a mesora, a tradition from their Rabbis, that the peyos do not extend above the upper cartilage of the ear (tenuch ha'ozen) at all. According to their mesorah, the imaginary line extends horizontally from the point in the hairline above the foremost part of ear almost until where the downward slope of the frontal hairline angles back towards the ear. For a picture see -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 13:42:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joel Schnur via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 16:42:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun Message-ID: <554A7CBF.3020300@schnurassociates.com> No one says tachnun on the Gra's yarhzeit. it's 3rd day chol hamoed succos ___________________________ Joel Schnur, Senior VP Government Affairs/Public Relations Schnur Associates, Inc. 25 West 45th Street, Suite 1405 New York, NY 10036 Tel. 212-489-0600 x204 Fax. 212-489-0203 joel at schnurassociates.com www.schnurassociates.com http://www.schnurassociates.com/joels-corner/ From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 14:13:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 17:13:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired In-Reply-To: <20150505.170139.16146.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150505.170139.16146.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150506211338.GB27781@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 5, 2015 at 9:01pm GMT, R Akiva Miller wrote: :> I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that :> a woman is owned by her husband, ... : That depends on what you mean by "own". : : I own my shoes. This gives me certain rights... I suggested more than once in the past that baalus has more to do with responsibility than western notions of property. Which is why yorshim do not inherit chameitz on Pesach. Even though the father owned chameitz in the sense of bal yeira'eh bal yimatzei, he lacked ba'alus at the time of his passing. Or why a rentor has a chiyuv to hang a mezuzah -- he has some measure of ba'alus, despite not being an owner. RAF (CCed) shared my post on Facebook, and since I have no idea what can be seen by the public, I'll paraphrase a couple of responses I thought would be of interest. On my line that "qinyan is a broader concept than purchase", one person compared the mishnah in Avos "qeneih lekha chaver". This morning, at 8:59am PDT, R Shalom Z Berger asked for a rishon who clearly rejected the Tosafos haRosh's statement (Kesuvos 2a "nitapecha sadeihu) that "ha'ishah qinyan kaspo shel ha'ish, kemo avdo veshoro vechamoro". Someone else on FB noted that the Rashba, in his chiddushim on the first pereq of Qiddushin, repeatedly points out that all the rishonim other than the Rosh reject the idea out of hand. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 15:09:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 15:09:17 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes Message-ID: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Shabbat-microphones-catching-on-among-orthodox-despite-taboos-402173 i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at hadchak /bedieved -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 17:12:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 20:12:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150507001204.GA31766@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 06, 2015 at 03:09:17PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Shabbat-microphones-catching-on-among-orthodox-despite-taboos-402173 : : i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at hadchak /bedieved Gerama devices, yes. But a passive element microphone feeding a PA system that is never entirely off -- so it's never turned off or on -- and has no lit indicators is an entirely different beast. (Most microphones generate current when vibrated; a passive element microphone changes resistance.) Still not an open-and-shut heter, as this article makes it sound. And there are more grounds for Sepharadim to be meiqil then Ashkenazim, based on a machloqes between the Mechaber and the Rama in OC 252:5. R' Ovadia was matir. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 18:18:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 01:18:22 GMT Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes Message-ID: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> R' Saul Newman asked: > i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at > hadchak /bedieved I've never read any of their material, but I'm pretty sure that they have MANY halachic "tools" in their arsenal, and not all of them carry the same restrictions. For example, a grama switch would only be useful for a very limited number of situations, as would a pen that writes with disappearing ink. But if you can make an electronic device that generates zero heat and zero light, it just *might* be acceptable for general use. Exhibit A: Hearing aids. I'll admit that a hearing aid is not the same thing as a loudspeaker system. But without getting into a whole discussion, the only point I'm making is that you have to look at the thing, and not just reject it out of hand. One might say that "Hearing aids are by definition for a shaas hadchak; how can this technology help the average person? So I bring you Exhibit B: Sabbath Mode ovens. Without any doubt, one DOES manipulate the electric circuit with these gadgets. If not on Shabbos, then at least on Yom Tov. But I think that the real answer to your question might be: "If the people in shul can't hear the rabbi or the chazan, that IS a shaas hadchak." In any case, about 15 years ago I happened to spend Shabbos at a shul that used one of these systems, and there were two large notices by the entrance to the main sanctuary, pointing out that the system was designed by Zomet. If I remember correctly, there was also a letter on the wall giving more halachic details about it. Which is the bigger chumra: To avoid using such devices, or to insure that even the hard-of-hearing can follow hear? Or, if you prefer, which is the bigger kula: To use such devices, or to disenfranchise part of the tzibur? (I'm not taking sides, just illustrating the issues. If you want answers, ask your LOR.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554abd8864c633d88019cst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 18:45:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 01:45:24 GMT Subject: [Avodah] The Disappearing Doctor of Iyyar: Virtual Vanishing of a Venerable Minhog Message-ID: <20150506.214524.14329.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitzchok Levine posted: > See http://tinyurl.com/mdz6883 That article has only slight relevance to anything medical. It is actually about the practice of abbreviating HaShem's Name with a double (or triple) Yud in siddurim, and how this practice is losing ground recently, with more siddurim using the Four-Lettered Name. That article says: > ... even in the printing of siddurim, where in the past, Shem > Hashem was not written out explicitly, based on venerable, old > practice. In other words, the spelling out of the letters, Yud > ? Kay ? Vov ? Kay in the past was done in Biblical texts, such > as Sifrei Torah and Sifrei Nach. In texts of tefilos, however, > it was not done. Instead, Yud ? Yud was substituted. I am very curious why this distinction was made, that the siddurim use the Yuds, while the printed Tanachs do use the Four Lettered Name. I note that towards the end of that article, he refers to an "Azharah L'Madfisim (Warning To Printers)" on this topic, written by the son-in-law of the Nesivos Hamishpat. Curiously, he writes that the Two Yuds should be printed in siddurim *and* *chumashim*. On the other hand, a few lines later, the Azharah explains a point I've long wondered about. The Four Lettered Name is just one of the *seven* Names Which May Not Be Erased. Why did this abbreviation arise for the Four Lettered Name and not for any of the others? I always figured it was because this one is *truly* a Name; "the Most Holy among equals" one might say. But the Azharah gives an entirely different explanation. Namely, the difference between this Name and the other six is that no matter how you spell it, it is not to be pronounced normally, so what is to be gained by using the correct letters? Therefore, find an abbreviation of some sort for this one, but the others should be spelled as they will be pronounced. Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554ac3e5a6e0843e34b38st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 19:34:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 22:34:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: <85279.31aefae5.427c294a@aol.com> From: Eli Turkel via Avodah In some circles it is common for men to keep long peyot (as an aside it has become common also in some chardal circles) The book Keren Zavit says he doesn't understand the custom.... -- Eli Turkel >>>> Yemenites have long payos, so this must be a very old custom, not some recent chumra. They don't call them "payos" but "simanim," which I find charming. They are signs that a man is a Jew, proud and obvious signs. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 02:13:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 12:13:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: In addition to the points brought up by R' Eli Turkel against long peyot, I would like to raise the following: The shiur given by all of the poskim for each hair is very very short, and in fact because it is a lo taase there is probably not even an inyan of hidur mitzvah. Therefore it is not clear why there would be any inyan to grow long peyot. The truth is it would be much better to be machmir on the shiur of where peyot harosh ends (maybe the very bottom of the ear) which is a safek issur d'oraysa then to grow long peyot which has no kiyum al pi din. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 20:33:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 23:33:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired Message-ID: <86422.6a1e08b9.427c3711@aol.com> [1] I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a woman is owned by her husband, the language of the Mishna notwithstanding. Can anyone point to a clear statement by Hazal or rishonim that supports my supposition? My thanks, Shalom Z. Berger [2] I own my shoes. This gives me certain rights, such as wearing them to the exclusion of anyone else, or the choice of who I might lend them to. I also have certain responsibilities; I cannot simply destroy them for no reason. I own my tefillin too. But the things I can do with my tefillin are much more limited than what I can do with my shoes. I have certain rights and responsibilities vis a vis my wife as well. Do I own her? I don't know. Is there a real nafka mina, or is it just semantics? Akiva Miller >>>> [1] Along the lines of what R' Micha Berger posted. On Ber 24:57 -- "Let us call the maiden and ask her what she wants to do" -- Rashi says, "Mikan she'ein masi'in es ha'isha ela mida'ata -- from here we learn that one does not [or may not, or cannot] marry a woman without her consent." I think he's quoting Kesubos 57b. I can't think of any kind of property whose consent is required before the property can be acquired. [2] The analogy to tefillin is flawed. You do not have any obligations or responsibilities to your tefillin. Rather, in regards to your tefillin, you have obligations towards your Maker! He has told you what you must do, may do, or must not do, with your tefillin. A better analogy would have been to your ox or your dog, where you do actually have obligations to your animals, an obligation, for example, to feed the animal before you eat your own meal. And a still better analogy would have been to acquiring a slave, about which the Talmud says "One who acquires a Jewish slave is like one who has acquired a master! (Kiddushin 20a)" -- because of all the obligations he incurs towards his slave. So there does seem to be some kind of ownership that a husband has vis-a-vis his wife, but then, she also in some sense owns him. Certainly she has the right to make specific claims on him, because he has specific obligations towards her. Shir Hashirim speaks about the love between Hakadosh Baruch Hu and Am Yisrael in an extended poetic analogy to the love between a husband and a wife. What does the wife say about her husband? Dodi li ve'ani lo -- He belongs to me, and I belong to Him. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 23:25:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 02:25:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Princess and I: Academic Kabbalists/Kabbalist Academics Message-ID: <20150507062523.18EF01826EC@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/km8kf2n The last few decades have witnessed the veritable explosion of "new perspectives" and horizons in the academic study of Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism. From the pioneering work of the late Professor Gershom Scholem, and the establishment of the study of Jewish Mysticism as a legitimate scholarly pursuit, we witness a scene nowadays populated by men and women, Jews and non-Jews, who have challenged, (re)constructed, and expanded upon Scholem's work.[2] These men and women themselves have been variously praised and criticized themselves for sometimes blurring the lines between academician and practitioner of Kabbalah and mysticism.[3] Professor Boaz Huss of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has done extensive work in this area.[4] One of the most impressive examples of this fusion of identities is Professor Yehuda Liebes (Jerusalem, 1947-) of Hebrew University, who completed his doctoral studies under Scholem, and rose to prominence himself by challenging scholarly orthodoxies established by his mentor. See the above URL for more. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 23:29:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 02:29:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Shabbat microphones catching on among orthodox despite taboos Message-ID: <20150507062953.0C966182FF8@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/men8bez Relying upon rulings by decision makers such as Rabbi Shaul Yisraeli, Isser Yehuda Unterman and Rav Haim David HaLevi, the Zomet microphone uses only transistors "without any glowing [or 'burning'] elements;" is turned on by an automatic "Shabbat timer;" and, once turned on, "current flows continuously in the system," according to technical notes on the setup released on the group's website. According to Zomet executive director Rabbi Dan Marans, the system has come into use in 15 synagogues in Baltimore, Montreal, West Stamford and other locations, as well as in 18 old-age homes. Leading American poskim, or decidors of Halacha, have even "stipulated in contracts with synagogues that they change the system to our system so that the RCA [will be] able to send rabbis." "I've not heard comments [against it]. If anything, people find the service more enjoyable and more elevating," agreed Schneier, adding that "We must get a dozen calls a year from rabbis contemplating putting this system into their synagogues. "I believe within 25 years it will be commonplace in Orthodox synagogues here in the Northeast." See the above URL for more. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 07:01:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 10:01:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Transferring my comments to Avodah At 04:00 PM 5/6/2015, R Saul Newman wrote on Areivim: >http://www.sharelive.tv/sharlive_Heb/SL27948.html I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire 33rd day, and they wait until the 34th day to take a haircut. Does this not imply that the entire 33rd day is part of Sefirah and the restrictions hold the entire 33rd day? Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva. However, the micktzas starts in the morning of the 7th day, not on the night of the 7th day. Thus, even according to Ashkenazim the night of Lag B'Omer is bound by the restrictions of Sefirah. So how can they make such gatherings on the night of the 33rd day? And, of course there is this post that I made on from Fri, 26 Apr 2013 based on comments by Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel. According to RSRH there is a major difference between the way the uses the terminology un-Jewish and non-Jewish. Un-Jewish things are things that are incompatible with Yahadus, whereas non-Jewish things are things of non-Jewish origin that are compatible with Yahadus. YL The following is from http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol11/v11n014.shtml#17 Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 11:37:58 -0400 From: "Seth Mandel" Subject: Re: bonfires on Lag Ba'Omer From: Phyllos... at aol.com Obviously, the bones of people who believe that there is a s'gullo in making fires . As I have had fun telling people, the _only_ bonfire that was an ancient Jewish tradition was the Simchas Torah bonfire in Ashk'naz, which is attested from the 14th century up until the 19th century, but has gone out of style. The Lag Ba'omer bonfire is a very recent phenomenon among most Jews. Indeed, the word bonfire is from "fire of bones." The term was used primarily in various pagan ceremonies which then were transferred to christianity, for a funeral pyre, and in burning infidels or books (like The Gaon of Vilna or MOAG). The bones used, if 'twere not a pyre, were primarily animal bones. Here's an early quotation (1493): "in worshyppe of saynte John the people waked at home and made all maner of fyres. One was clene bones and no woode, and that is called a bone fyre." From Marlowe in 1586: "Making bonfires for my overthrow. But, ere I die, those foul idolators Shall make me bonfires with their filthy bones." (Think that would get by the moderators on Areivim, R. SBA?) 1689: "The dead corps is buried. They of old made a bone-fire and therein burnt it." 1622: "Their holy Bibles cast into Bone-fires." The term became used for any large fires used for celebrations, although the practice and term continued to be used especially for those associated with various christian saints, particularly John and Peter. From a 1570 history: "Then doth the joyfull feast of John the Baptist take his turne, When bonfiers great with loftie flame, in every towne doe burne." From a constitution of the association of the cooks of Newcastle, 1575: "The said Felloship of Cookes shall yearelie. mainteigne and keep the Bone-fires. that is to say, one Bone-fire on the Even of the Feast of the Nativitie of St. John Baptist. and the other on the Even of the Feast of St. Peter the Apostle." These quotations start in the 15th century, because that is as far back as the term bone-fire goes, but the practice of making a bonfire in honor of Christian saints goes back to ancient times in England (and in France as well). Another practice that goes back to ancient times in Christian Europe is making pilgrimages to "qivrei tzaddiqim" and donating alms at the qever; this practice is well known from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Most Christian scholars attribute the association of the bonfires with celebrations of the feast of a saint to pagan, pre-christian practices which were later adopted by the local people to their new religion. Indeed, the Celtics made bonfires to honor some of their deities and spirits. No one would ever claim that these practices, going back into old Anglo-Saxon England, are of Jewish origin. The Arabs of EY, Syria, and Lebanon, as is well-known, honored the Christian and Jewish "saints" (everyone knows that the qever of Sh'muel haNavi has been a "holy" site to the Arabs for hundreds of years, and they built a mosque there; the site is called "anNabi Samwil"). They made pilgrimages to them, like the Christians did, and they made large celebrations to honor the festival of the saint. The Arab pilgrims who came did various things to honor the saint. They gave alms (a big mitzva in Islam), usually done by the practice of cutting the hair of their children (which they had let grow from before the pilgrimage), then weighing it and giving the same weight in gold or silver for alms. They also made large bonfires to honor the saint. The custom of making pilgrimages, giving alms, and making bonfires may have been borrowed from the christians, since a) they originally appeared among the Arabs of EY, Lebanon and Syria, AFAIK; b) they are first recorded after the time of the Crusades (although the giving of gold or silver in the weight of the hair seems to have been from the Middle East). However there is no clear proof that they did not arise from another source. But they are attested in Arabic sources going back to the 15th century, and probably before. Can the custom of bonfires on Lag Ba'omer have arisen among the Jews separately and independently from the non-Jewish sources? Theoretically it's possible. Books like Minhag Yisruel Toyre he brings all sorts of reasons from various chasidic rebbes and from the book Ta'amei haMinhogim for the origin of the bonfires on Lag Ba'omer. The problem with all the explanations is that a) they are all of recent origin, and b) they somehow ignore the fact that the custom was completely unknown to any Jews up until the time when it is recorded in EY in the 16th century. Furthermore, it was the custom there of only one group of Jews, the Musta'ribim, about whom other Jews complained that they had adopted a lot of Arab customs (the very name mean "Arabicized). From contemporary documents we learn the Muslims (and a few Jews) cut the hair of children as well as lit a bonfires on the yohrtzeit (28 of Iyyar) of non other than the aforementioned Shmu'el haNavi. However, in the 1560s the Arab authorities forbad Jews to go there. Shortly afterwards, we have the testimony of R. Chaim Vital that he was told by R. Yonatan Sagiz that a year before he started learning by the Ari, in the Ari's first year after he immigrated from his homeland of Egypt (also 1570), that "Mori v'Rabbi Z'L took his small son and all of his family there [to the celebration on RaShBY 's yohtzeit in Meron] and there he cut his hair in accordance with the custom." R. Chaim Vital is careful to note, however, that "I do not know whether at that time he was expert and knowledgable in this wondrous wisdom [Qabbolo] as he became after that." IOW, R. Chaim Vital himself is cautioning the reader that he has doubts about whether the Ari did this in accordance with his views in Qabbolo, or just because it was a popular celebration, and he might not have participated had he already been an expert in Qabbolo. Some historians believe that once the Musta'ribim were forbidden to go to the qever of Sh'muel haNavi, they transferred their celebration to Meron and the date to Lag Ba'Omer. Others claim that the custom at Meron predated 1570. But both groups agree that both of these customs, cutting the hair of the children and making bonfires, were practiced by the Arabs and the Musta 'ribim, but not by any of the Ashk'nazi and S'faradi Jews in Israel. Of great interest is that the local rabbis in Tz'fat, who had the practice of going to the all the known q'vorim of the Tano'im from the middle of Iyyar until Shavu'os and having a seder in learning there, opposed the celebrations of the Musta'ribim on Lag ba'Omer and tried to forbid it. They made little headway, and once it became known that the Ari participated one year, any opposition was swept away. We know from travelers to EY in the 18th and 19th centuries that the "hilula" at Meron on Lag Ba'Omer with bonfires and the cutting of children's hair had become an affair of the masses. A well known talmid chochom from Europe, R. Avrohom Rozanes, writes that in his visit to EY in 1867 he saw an Ashk'nazi Jew who had taken his son to the "hilula" and was giving him a haircut. R. Rozanes says that he could not restrain himself, and went to that Jew and tried to dissuade him but was unsuccessful, and that most of the Ashk'nazi and S'faradi Jews of EY participate in this "craziness," with "drinking and dancing and fires." The custom of giving the son his first haircut at that celebration, originally called "halaqa" by the Jews of EY (apparently because there was an established Arabic term but no Jewish term for the custom) was later mixed with the custom of making a celebration when a son reached 3 and began learning Torah. The two customs were combined by many, and resulted in the boy's haircut being delayed until he was 3, and not specifically on Lag ba' Omer. A chasidish rebbe, R. Yehudah Leibush Horenstein, who emigrated to EY in the middle of the 19th century writes that "this haircut, called halaqe, is done by the S'faradim in Yerushalayim at the qever of RaShB'Y during the summer, but during the winter they take the boy to the synagogue or Bet Medrash and perform the haircut with great celebration and parties, something _that is unknown to the Jews in Europe_. and at that point they start him growing his pe'ot. it is incomprehensible why this is not done outside of EY [as well]" [emphasis mine]. Indeed, the custom was adopted by shortly thereafter by chasidim in Europe to imitate the custom of the S'faradim in EY, and the custom of lighting bonfires on Lag Ba'Omer also was adopted at that time by chasidic communities in Europe. The Jews in Europe, knowing no Arabic and having no Yiddish name for the custom of the haircut, called it by a normal Yiddish word for cutting off the hair: opsheren. Both customs are less than 150 years old among Ashk'naz Jews, including chasidim. Now we scarcely can expect to find a historical document that says "we, the undersigned Jews, have decided that there is nothing wrong with copying the Muslim celebrations in honor of saints, and we will participate in them." So you're never going to find better historical evidence for Jewish borrowing of non-Jewish customs than this: that a custom that was previously unknown to any group of Jews arose among a group of Jews known to copy various Arab customs in a time and place that the custom is attested among the Arabs from independent evidence. Is there anything osur about a bonfire on Lag Ba'Omer, or waiting to give a son a haircut until he is 3 or until you go to Meron? Certainly not. As I believe R. SBA has noted, the opsheren provides an excuse for a party that is connected with the boy's beginning to learn; it could be done without the haircut, but if people feel that it is important to give a haircut as well, there is no issur. Certainly no one who lights bonfires or celebrates opsheren has any idea that the source of these customs is extremely questionable. And after 130 years most Jews forget the origin of customs anyway and just assume they are old Jewish customs.. However, those who studiously avoid eating turkey on Thanksgiving should know that the origin of the customs of the bonfire on Lag ba'Omer and halaqa/opsheren are much more suspect. Seth Mandel ---------- So I really do not understand this entire affair at Meron. To add to this see the pictures of Lag B'Omer from many years ago at http://tinyurl.com/khmhcz4 I do not see even one bonfire! YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:07:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 13:07:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 10:01:44AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown : which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. : The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire : 33rd day... : Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last : day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva... Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. Yes, many of us know that the PEC really says Lag baOmer is yom simchas Rashbi, which may or may not be his yahrzeit. "Yom shemeis" is a typo that reached later editions via a dropped ches. See http://seforim.blogspot.com/2011/05/printing-mistake-and-mysterious-origins.html But (as per previous conversations), that also doesn't rule out the possibility that the day of Rashbi's joy is his yahrzeit. But even if the Ari said it's the day he started the Zohar, finished it, left the cave, or whatever, it's still a day the Ari considered worth celebrating. And yes, many of us also know that the whole upsherin-at-the-qever thing was originally on the 43rd in/to the omer, at Nabi Samwel. (See shu"t haRadvaz 2:608.) Which makes sense -- Shemu'el was a nazir, and he lived in the BHMQ starting at age 3. The move to Meron and Lag baOmer happened when the Ottomans restricted access to the qever in the 1500s. The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) and ABD. But the version of the minhag he recorded would not pose the question -- observe the first "half" of the omer, and then a haircut a week before Shavuos isn't a problem. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:07:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 13:07:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 10:01:44AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown : which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. : The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire : 33rd day... : Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last : day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva... Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. Yes, many of us know that the PEC really says Lag baOmer is yom simchas Rashbi, which may or may not be his yahrzeit. "Yom shemeis" is a typo that reached later editions via a dropped ches. See http://seforim.blogspot.com/2011/05/printing-mistake-and-mysterious-origins.html But (as per previous conversations), that also doesn't rule out the possibility that the day of Rashbi's joy is his yahrzeit. But even if the Ari said it's the day he started the Zohar, finished it, left the cave, or whatever, it's still a day the Ari considered worth celebrating. And yes, many of us also know that the whole upsherin-at-the-qever thing was originally on the 43rd in/to the omer, at Nabi Samwel. (See shu"t haRadvaz 2:608.) Which makes sense -- Shemu'el was a nazir, and he lived in the BHMQ starting at age 3. The move to Meron and Lag baOmer happened when the Ottomans restricted access to the qever in the 1500s. The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) and ABD. But the version of the minhag he recorded would not pose the question -- observe the first "half" of the omer, and then a haircut a week before Shavuos isn't a problem. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 08:22:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 11:22:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554B8340.3090001@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 10:01 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > > > The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire 33rd day, and they wait until the 34th day to take a haircut. Does this not imply that the entire 33rd day is part of Sefirah and the restrictions hold the entire 33rd day? > > Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva. However, the micktzas starts in the morning of the 7th day, not on the night of the 7th day. Thus, even according to Ashkenazim the night of Lag B'Omer is bound by the restrictions of Sefirah. So how can they make such gatherings on the night of the 33rd day? That all applies if you regard Lag Ba'omer as simply marking the end of mourning. But as we discussed a few weeks ago, that doesn't really make sense. According to both shitos quoted by the BY there is no such thing as Lag Ba'omer -- the last day on which they died was either the 34th of the Omer or the 49th. Even according to the Tosfos as the Bach quotes it, that they only died for 33 days, Lag Ba'omer was one of the 33, and not the last one! And even if one will find a shita somewhere that they died only on the first 33 days, who makes a party on the last day of shiva? You stop active mourning, you don't go dancing! All of which points to the fact that Lag Ba'omer is *not* about the end of mourning, but a happy day in its own right, the simcha of Rashbi. (The silly discussion over whether the word is "simchas" or "shemeis" is irrelevant here. Either way it's his simcha, which he asked people to celebrate.) This simcha *overrides* the mourning of sefira, no matter which shita one follows. This way of looking at things also explains whether one should say tachanun at mincha of erev Lag Ba'omer. If it's just "the end of shiva", that starts in the morning, so one should say tachanun at the previous mincha, just as one does on erev Pesach Sheni (which also starts in the morning), erev Erev RH and erev Erev YK, and if we said tachanun in Nissan we would also say it at mincha of erev Erev Pesach, because it too starts in the morning. But once we regard Lag Ba'omer as a day of simcha in its own right, then it starts at night, and so we omit tachanun in the previous mincha. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 07:19:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 09:19:59 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] The Princess and I: Academic Kabbalists/Kabbalist Academics In-Reply-To: <20150507062523.18EF01826EC@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507062523.18EF01826EC@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554B748F.8080508@starways.net> On 5/7/2015 1:25 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > From http://tinyurl.com/km8kf2n >> The last few decades have witnessed the veritable explosion of "new >> perspectives" and horizons in the academic study of Kabbalah and >> Jewish Mysticism. From the pioneering work of the late Professor >> Gershom Scholem, and the establishment of the study of Jewish >> Mysticism as a legitimate scholarly pursuit, we witness a scene >> nowadays populated by men and women, Jews and non-Jews, who have >> challenged, (re)constructed, and expanded upon Scholem's work.[2] ... R' Adin Steinsalz once said about the Kabbalah Center type of Kabbalah that it bore the same relationship to real Kabbalah that pornography does to love. This "academic Kabbalah" bears the same relationship to real Kabbalah that an anatomy book does to love. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:32:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 13:32:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> At 01:07 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 10:01:44AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: >: I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown >: which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. > >: The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire >: 33rd day... >: Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last >: day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva... > >Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to >get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would >mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. Indeed, I think one should be. Truth be told my mother, A"H, told me that once a child is at least one year old and can say a few words, then his hair gets cut. This is what I did with my sons, and I am sure it is an old minhag. >Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the >Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning >on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in >the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke >qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to >last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. Indeed, this is where the New Religion is coming from. Years ago someone asked Rav S. Schwab, ZT"L, about certain things that certain chassidishe women do when they are pregnant and if they were valid. His forceful reply was, "My mother never knew about such things, my grandmother never knew about such things, and my great grandmother never knew about such things. These people are making up a religion!!!!!" I am not comfortable with people making up a religion, particularly since RSRH says definitively the Judaism is not a religion, to the New Religion is not Judaism by definition. >The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, >who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where >he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) >and ABD. But the version of the minhag he recorded would not pose the >question -- observe the first "half" of the omer, and then a haircut a >week before Shavuos isn't a problem. The MB points out that the minhag in Vilna was to start the restrictions of Sefirah on the first day of Rosh Chodesh Iyar and then they end in the morning of the first of the 3 days before Shavuous. I took a haircut shortly before Rosh Chodesh Iyar. There were no crowds to contend with and I had no waiting. This morning I trimmed my mustache and the hair that grows under my neck below my beard at shortly after sunrise. I will take a haircut on 3 or 4 Sivan. Again, there will be no crowds to contend with. This has worked and continues to work for me. YL PS. My wife has asked more than once, " How can they observe the aveilus restrictions of Sefirah during Pesach when it is a Yom Tov?" My reply is, "I do not know." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 13:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507175311.GC1758@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 01:32:05PM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : >Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to : >get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would : >mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. : Indeed, I think one should be. Maqor? Since when do we expect 3 yr olds to conform to minhag? ... : >Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the : >Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning : >on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in : >the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke : >qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to : >last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. : : Indeed, this is where the New Religion is coming from.... The PEC is older than RSRH. If you want to label any particular change as a "New Religion", you dwell in a glass house. ... : The MB points out that the minhag in Vilna was to start the : restrictions of Sefirah on the first day of Rosh Chodesh Iyar and : then they end in the morning of the first of the 3 days before : Shavuous. I took a haircut shortly before Rosh Chodesh Iyar. There : were no crowds to contend with and I had no waiting. And the Radbaz predates the SA, never mind the MB. : This has worked and continues to work for me... Good. What I'm objecting to is your insistnce in telling others that what works for them is "New Religion". : PS. My wife has asked more than once, " How can they observe the : aveilus restrictions of Sefirah during Pesach when it is a Yom Tov?" : My reply is, "I do not know." You can't get married on Pesach, not even ch"m either. Nor get a haircut. So you're asking about parties with live music. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:49:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 13:49:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <554BA59A.5040905@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 01:07 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, > who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where > he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) Who taught the Ari, who cut his son's hair at Meron on Lag Ba'omer. Does anyone know whether the Shita Mekubetzes, beside being the Ari's rebbe, was also related to him? I haven't seen this anywhere, but how many Ashkenazi families could there have been in Egypt at that time? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 11:41:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Herbert Basser via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 18:41:42 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah Message-ID: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> A recent post claims the Islamic "opsherin" was called "halaqah". What is the evidence for this claim? The only meaning of arabic "halaqah" I know is "learning circle". Zvi Basser -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 14:31:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 17:31:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Upsherin Message-ID: <20150507213225.D3EDA181A25@nexus.stevens.edu> Since Upsherin is done on Lag B'Omer at Meron, I think one should understand the source for this too. The following is from Shorshei Minhag Ashkenaz, Minhag Ashkenaz: Sources and Roots by Rabbi Binyamin Shlomo Hamburger, Synopsis of Volumes I-IV. YL The German custom to bring a young boy to the synagogue with a wirnpel (wrapping for t he Torah scroll) has no connection whatsoever to the practice of the chalaka (the Arabic term for Upsherin) observed by Sepharadirn and later ad opted by many Chasidirn. Th e custom of holding a special celebration marking the boy's first haircut developed among these groups. The celebration takes place at a specific age, usually three. Th e festivity is customarily held near the gravesite of a tzadik or in a synagogue. *This custom was unknown in ancient Sephardic and Ashkenazic communities.* (Emphasis added by me.) The earliest reports of the chalaka [upsherin] celebration are found in accounts written by Sepharadim early in the period of the Acharonim. Some three centuries later, we find the first indications that the custom had made its way into Chasidic circles. The most important source concerning the chalaka is the account of the celebration in which the Ari-zal is involved. The details of this story are somewhat vague, and it is unclear whether the Ari-zal made a chalaka for his son, or whether the account refers to his disciple, Rabbi Yonatan Sagish. There is also some question as to whether the Ari-zal participated in Lag Ba 'omer events in Meron after his kabalistic insights because the custom to conduct a chalaka on Lag Ba 'omer runs in opposition to the Ari-zal' s final ruling that forbade hair cutting during the orner period. Furthermore, the custom of the chalaka has given rise to some questions as to the propriety of hair cutting at a gravesite or synagogue, which might constitute an infringement upon the sanctity of the site. Some have also questioned the permissibility of haircutting on Lag Ba 'omer, during bein ha-rnetzarirn (the three weeks before Tisha B' A v) or during Chol Ha 'rno 'ed. Yet another concern was the immodest behavior that occasionally accompanied this event. Most Sephardic and Chasidic rabbis applauded, or at least defended the practices observed in their circles, though there were those who forbade the custom in this manner. Rabbi Yitzchak Zev Soloveitchik of Brisk (1889-1960) disapproved of bringing children to rabbis on their third birthday for the chalaka, claiming that this practice "has no reason or basis." He noted that there are sources indicating that one should introduce the child to matters of Torah at the age of three, but none that involve haircutting. Rabbi Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky [the "Steipler Ga'on," (1899-1985)] also opposed this practice, and would send away parents who brought their children to him for the chalaka haircut. The tendency among Ashkenazi communities to refrain from this practice stems, according to one view, from the concern that the chalaka transgresses the prohibition of imitating pagan practices. Cutting a child's hair at the age of three was a well-known custom among several nations in ancient times, and thus observing this practice may constitute an imitation of pagan ritual. Some, however, dismissed this argument, claiming that to the contrary, the chalaka perhaps began as an ancient Jewish practice which was later adopted by the gentiles. There are some older customs, originating in the times of Chazal and the Ge'onim, such as fasting on Erev Rosh Hashana and the ceremony of Kapaprot on Erev Yom Kippur which were opposed by some rabbis since they feared that their origins could be found in pagan rites. In any event, although some communities accepted this custom, Ashkenazi communities were never aware of such a practice. They did not receive this tradition from their forebears, and they found no mention of it in the writings of the Rishonim. The ancient tradition among Ashkenazi communities was to cut a boy's hair at a very young age. In fact, during the times of Chazal, parents would cut an infant's hair not long after birth, and they even permitted cutting a baby's overgrown hair on Chol Ha 'mo' ed. In the times of the Rishonim, too, boys' hair in Ashkenaz was cut already within the first several months after birth. The phenomenon of children with overgrown hair simply did not exist in Germany, and a boy with overgrown hair would have been mistaken for a girl. The custom of chalaka was never accepted in Ashkenazic countries or other regions in Western Europe, not even among the Sephardic communities in these areas. The practice earned acceptance in Eastern Europe among certain Chasidic circles, but only in later generations. Among other circles, boys' hair was cut when they began speaking, and no special affair was held to celebrate the event. .. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 14:31:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 17:31:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554BD9C6.9000803@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 01:32 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > > Indeed, this is where the New Religion is coming from. Years ago > someone asked Rav S. Schwab, ZT"L, about certain things that certain > chassidishe women do when they are pregnant and if they were valid. > His forceful reply was, "My mother never knew about such things, my > grandmother never knew about such things, and my great grandmother > never knew about such things. These people are making up a religion!!!!!" With all due respect to R Schwab's great-grandmother, there are more things in Yiddishkeit than were dreamt of in her philosophy. My great-grandmother did know about such things, and I'm sure her tzidkus and wisdom was no less than hers. And following the Ari's teachings is the very opposite of making up a religion. > I am not comfortable with people making up a religion, particularly > since RSRH says definitively the Judaism is not a religion, to the > New Religion is not Judaism by definition. You're the one assigning to it the word "religion", and then, in what can only be called an act of verbal ju-jitsu, you pull out a definition of that word which (you claim) does not fit Yiddishkeit, and declare that anything called a "religion" must not be Yiddishkeit. I might as well say that since my aunt is a secretary, a secretary is a kind of desk, and Jesus was a carpenter, therefore Jesus made my aunt! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 14:10:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 17:10:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> At 01:07 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. But doesn't "evolving" mean that there is an existing minhag, and it evolves? Here we are talking about a new minhag which no one knew about. The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was appropriate. People certainly can make up new customs whenever they like. But bonfires on Lag Ba'omer are no more or no less than parades on Yom haAtzmaut for those who celebrate it: They have nothing to do with religion. Some Jews have even invented a custom to put up a tree on Chanukkah. But do not try to tell us it then becomes a "religious minhag" and "minhag Hamokom." Everything that Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel wrote in his post is true. There were no rabbonim at the time who approved of the custom. Indeed it is true is that there were no rabbonim who approved of the custom at the time, nor at the time of the Ari and R. Chaim Vital. While they did not say it should be stopped, they gave no support either. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 15:42:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 18:42:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507224237.GA15428@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 05:10:31PM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : At 01:07 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: :> Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. : But doesn't "evolving" mean that there is an existing minhag, and it : evolves? ... The essence of mourning during the omer is not making a wedding, since nissuin, or a se'udas eirusin at the time of eirusin, is the act of simchah par exellance. Then the bit about haircuts crept in, and later, parties with music. Perhaps music as a whole, perhaps instrumental music, perhaps only parties -- machloqes acharonim. That's the minhag I'm talking about evolving. So, people found reason to poke a hole in a minhag that was otherwise growing. As I said, minhagim evolve. : The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was : appropriate. What? The Ari PARTICIPATED in it himself! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 16:39:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 19:39:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Upsherin In-Reply-To: <20150507213225.D3EDA181A25@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507213225.D3EDA181A25@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554BF7A0.10800@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 05:31 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > The earliest reports of the chalaka [upsherin] celebration are found in >accounts written by Sepharadim early in the period of the Acharonim. Indeed it is. For instance, see Gan Hamelech ch 62. http://www.otzar.org/wotzar/book.aspx?64092 This takes it back to at least the 17th century, and he refers to it as a well-known minhag that he doesn't have to explain. The Gan Hamelech is surely himself sufficient authority even if we had no other. And while he was Sefardi, he had a great influence on Ashkenazi psak. > The most important source concerning the chalaka is the account of > the celebration in which the Ari-zal is involved. The details of this > story are somewhat vague, and it is unclear whether the Ari-zal made > a chalaka for his son, or whether the account refers to his disciple, > Rabbi Yonatan Sagish. There is nothing vague about it. It's clear from the context that R Yonatan told R Chaim what the Ari had done a year before he, R Chaim, became the Ari's talmid. > Some have also questioned the permissibility of haircutting on Lag > Ba'omer, during bein ha-metzarirn or during Chol Hamo'ed. Gan Hamelech not only permits it on Chol Hamoed but even permits *delaying* it to Chol Hamoed so as to increase the simcha! And this psak is quoted lehalacha by the Baer Hetev. > The custom of /chalaka /was never accepted in /Ashkenazic /countries or > other regions in Western Europe, not even among the /Sephardic > /communities in these areas. The practice earned acceptance in Eastern > Europe among certain /Chasidic /circles, but only in later generations. This is untrue. It was already accepted in the Baal Shem Tov's time. The only time the Alter Rebbe saw the Baal Shem Tov was on his third birthday, when his parents brought him to have his hair cut. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 16:45:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 19:45:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554BF921.5070409@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 05:10 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was appropriate. On the contrary, he wrote that he personally saw the Ari take his whole family there and stay three days! > There were no rabbonim at the time who approved of the custom. The Ari was not a rov?! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 21:35:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 04:35:03 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Israeli carrots and peppers Message-ID: <20150508.003503.13248.1@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> Om Areivim, R' Yitzchok Levine posted this alert: > Shemitta: Carrots & Peppers from Israel > in Neighborhood Stores > > Please be aware that carrots (including Dorot Farms brand), > peppers, and other vegetables from Israel are consistently > being sold in the Baltimore area at produce markets in our > neighborhood, which are frequented by members of our community. > From the numerous inquiries we have received, it is apparent > that many consumers are unaware of this when shopping. > > The packages or labels state "Product of Israel." These > vegetables likely have Kedushas Shviis and require special > care. If you bought them, contact your local Orthodox rabbi > for further guidance. > > Seven Mile Market in Baltimore is monitored by Star-K and > produce sold there does not have this issue. My question is this: Why does the alert mention only the problem of Kedushas Shviis? If one is concerned about Kedushas Shviis, wouldn't he also be concerned about Sefichin, which (more than merely requiring "special care") is an issur achila? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554c3d3271e3c3d3240a3st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 21:11:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 04:11:14 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Meron live Message-ID: <20150508.001114.13248.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero wrote: > This way of looking at things also explains whether one should > say tachanun at mincha of erev Lag Ba'omer. If it's just "the > end of shiva", that starts in the morning, so one should say > tachanun at the previous mincha, just as one does on erev Pesach > Sheni (which also starts in the morning), erev Erev RH and erev > Erev YK, and if we said tachanun in Nissan we would also say it > at mincha of erev Erev Pesach, because it too starts in the > morning. But once we regard Lag Ba'omer as a day of simcha in > its own right, then it starts at night, and so we omit tachanun > in the previous mincha. I don't follow any of what RZS is saying about Lag Ba'omer, so I'll neither agree nor disagree. But my understanding of the nature of Pesach Sheni is very different from his: As it was explained to me, there's nothing special about the morning of Pesach Sheni. Pesach Sheni exists only on the afternoon of 14 Iyar and the following night. We omit Tachanun on the morning of 14 Iyar NOT because it is a holiday, but because it is the Tachanun *before* the holiday. Alternatively, one might say that the morning of 14 Iyar actually *is* Erev Pesach Sheni. Either way, the afternoon of 13 Iyar is too far removed to be significant enough to warrant skipping Tachanun. It is similar to how the *afternoon* of Erev RH and Erev YK are special enough to skip Tachanun, and this is extended even to the morning, but to say that the entirety of those days are so special that we would skip Tachanun even at the preceding Mincha -- No, that just doesn't fly. This leaves us with three days, at most, when we skip Tachanun at Shacharis, but we *do* say it at the preceding Mincha. (And many siddurim - ArtScroll, for example - explicitly list these three days as exceptions to the general rule.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554c37b79791d37b756e9st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 01:40:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 04:40:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507224237.GA15428@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507224237.GA15428@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150508084208.2D02F182131@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:42 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: > The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was >: appropriate. > >What? The Ari PARTICIPATED in it himself! From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upsherin Rabbi Chaim Vital wrote in Sha'ar Ha-Kavanot that "Isaac Luria, cut his son's hair on Lag BaOmer, according to the well-known custom." However, the age of his son is not mentioned. An obvious problem raised by Avraham Yaari, in an article in Tarbiz 22 (1951), is that many sources cite that the Arizal held one should not cut one's hair for the entire sefirah ? including Lag BaOmer, (see Shaarei Teshuva, O.C. 493, 8). YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 01:44:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 04:44:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Better Version of Upsherin Message-ID: <20150508084606.6189F180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> There were some editorial problems with what I sent out earlier about this topic from Shorshei Minhag Ashkenaz. See http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/shorshei_hair_cutting.pdf for a better version. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 21:02:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 06:02:54 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah In-Reply-To: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> References: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> Message-ID: <554C356E.2030103@zahav.net.il> On 5/7/2015 8:41 PM, Herbert Basser via Avodah wrote: > A recent post claims the Islamic "opsherin" was called "halaqah". What > is the evidence for this claim? The only meaning of arabic "halaqah" I > know is "learning circle". A (Tunisian) Arab told me that it means hair cut. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 01:54:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 04:54:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening in a Large or Small Shul Message-ID: <20150508085532.23F97182131@nexus.stevens.edu> From today's http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ 1)It is a Mitzvah to daven in a Shul that has a large amount of people, as the Pasuk (Mishlei 14:28) says "Brov Am Hadras Melech - with a large assemblage the glory of the King [Hashem] is multiplied." (See Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) 2)There are various exceptions to this rule, and certain times it is deemed Halachically superior to daven in a smaller place and forego the "Brov Am Hadras Melech". A few examples of the many such exceptions: a)Davening in a Bais HaMidrash or Yeshiva , where people learn Torah all [or a large part of the] day (even if you yourself do not learn there) is better than davening in a Shul (i.e. Bais Hakneses that is used only for Tefilah), even if there are more people in the Shul than in the Bais HaMidrash. (See Talmud Brachos 8a. See Chayei Adam Klal 17:1 and Mishna Berura Siman 90 S:K 55) b)If one is on the way to a big Shul, and is stopped by someone and asked to be the tenth man [or any part of the 10] in their Minyan (either in a shiva house, or a smaller Shul whose members cannot go to the larger Shul due to their health or age, or any similar situation) he should stay with them and not refuse based on "Brov Am Hadras Melech" (Psak of Maran Harav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv Zatzal, quoted in Sefer Tefilah K'Hilchasa Perek 2 footnote 29, who maintains that doing a Chesed is just as big a Mitzvah, if not bigger, than fulfilling "Brov Am Hadras Melech") c) If one can concentrate and daven better in a smaller Shul he should daven there, rather than in a bigger Shul where he may not daven as well. (Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) The Aruch Hashulchan (Siman 90:15) rules that if in the larger Shul there are people who talk and converse during the Tefilah (which is a terrible sin, as we have discussed many times, and will iy"H discuss again more thoroughly in the near future), it is better to daven in a small Shul where it is quiet and the proper respect for Tefilah is exhibited. (The Sefer Tefilah K'Hilchasa Perek 2 footnote 28 writes that Rav Shlomo Zalmen Auerbach Zatzal even went so far as to Pasken that if by leaving the Shul with the talking you will end up missing Krias HaTorah or having to leave davening early, one should still avoid the Shul with the talking!) d) Naturally, if by davening in the larger Shul one will miss the proper time for davening (Zman Tefilah), he may daven in an earlier Minyan or Shul even if it is significantly smaller. (See Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) ---------- I think that today there is a move away from davening in large shuls. This is certainly true here in Brooklyn where many of the larger shuls are at times struggling to maintain their congregants. Part of it has to do with the fact that most large shuls daven Ashkenaz, and this is not viewed favorably in Brooklyn. I personally prefer to daven in a minyan consisting of between 20 and forty people. It is much easier to maintain decorum in such a minyan than in a shul where 100 or more people are davening. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 05:14:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 12:14:58 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Davening in a Large or Small Shul In-Reply-To: <20150508085532.23F97182131@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150508085532.23F97182131@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <5f05607383324977a92361bd65ab804c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> From today's http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ 1)It is a Mitzvah to daven in a Shul that has a large amount of people, as the Pasuk (Mishlei 14:28) says "Brov Am Hadras Melech - with a large assemblage the glory of the King [Hashem] is multiplied." (See Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) 2)There are various exceptions to this rule, and certain times it is deemed Halachically superior to daven in a smaller place and forego the "Brov Am Hadras Melech". A few examples of the many such exceptions:....................... ================================================ I wonder if this write up is indicative of a trend seen in "The halachos of X" works, likutim which seem to have become more popular (did they exist 40 years ago?). As Rav Aharon Lichtenstein learned at Harvard, life is complex. Of course there are overarching priorities which need to be learned, but specific applications are hard to summarize in an algorithmic form (see hilchot lashon hara and tzedaka for some obvious examples). Maybe in an internet age we have no choice but to try to put everything on line but what you really need IMHO is a live mentor. KT Joel RIch THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 08:21:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 11:21:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] minhagei S'fira (was "Meron live") Message-ID: In Avodah V33n74, R'Micha replied to RDrYL: : PS. My wife has asked more than once, " How can they observe the : aveilus restrictions of Sefirah during Pesach when it is a Yom Tov?" : My reply is, "I do not know." > You can't get married on Pesach, not even ch"m either. Nor get a haircut. So you're asking about parties with live music. < If one is asking about *minhagei aveilus* during the "first days", one can also ask about the "second days" custom to observe *minhagei aveilus* whenever Tachanun is said, as the number of such days does not come close to 33 and one has to include Shabbos as well as either R'Ch'Iyyar or the *shloshes y'mei hagbala* (all days when Tachanun is _not_ said) in the number. All the best from *Michael Poppers* * Elizabeth, NJ, USA -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 11:39:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 14:39:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] minhagei S'fira (was "Meron live") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150508183940.GA11944@aishdas.org> On Fri, May 08, 2015 at 11:21:28AM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : If one is asking about *minhagei aveilus* during the "first days", one can : also ask about the "second days" custom to observe *minhagei aveilus* whenever : Tachanun is said... Which makes it a good time to remind people of my tweak of RAM's survey of 11 different shitos (12, if we include one that isn't followed) of omer mourning periods It's an interesting side-note that two opinions do not include the night of Lag baOmer. But neither end then. :-)BBii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 11:58:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 14:58:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] minhagei S'fira (was "Meron live") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <554D0756.4070105@sero.name> On 05/08/2015 11:21 AM, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: > If one is asking about /minhagei aveilus/ during the "first days", > one can also ask about the "second days" custom to observe /minhagei > aveilus/ whenever Tachanun is said, as the number of such days does > not come close to 33 and one has to include Shabbos as well as either > R'Ch'Iyyar or the /shloshes y'mei hagbala/ (all days when Tachanun is > _not_ said) in the number. Whose custom is that? This sounds like the shita of Tosfos as quoted by Mahari ibn Shuaib, which is that they died all 49 days, but we observe aveilus only on those days when we don't say *techina*, which comes to exactly 33 days (including Lag Ba'omer, which according to this shita is not a special day at all). -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 9 03:38:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Sat, 9 May 2015 20:38:40 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Upsherin Message-ID: > > R' Levin wrote: The German custom to bring a young boy to the synagogue > with a wimpel > (wrapping for the Torah scroll) has no connection whatsoever to the > practice of the chalaka [...] > This is the way KAJ recommends This the way KAJ recommends Not with the bangs but a wimpel. Joe Slater -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 9 05:12:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sat, 9 May 2015 22:12:16 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <418AFCD6-9213-453C-A268-58AFB75BB81A@balb.in> I didn't know my family Minhag until I chanced on a picture before the war with my grandfather and two of his sons, both with long hair. Using the mimetic tradition my sons and grandsons had an upsherin. It's interesting that mention was made of The Griz. As is well known followers of the Vilna Gaon (including Mori VRabbi Rav Hershel Schachter) don't go to the Beis HaChaim and neither did Rav YD Soloveitchik until in his words he felt compelled to visit his wife's Tziyun. How many know that the Griz asked some Talmidim to go to the Rashbi's grave and pray when the Griz was on his death bed? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 9 12:23:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 9 May 2015 22:23:58 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar Message-ID: The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article They show how Seder Olam is self consistent and in particular it frequently takes people in Tanach whom seem to be different and conflates them. In sefer shoftim they take everything literally that each judge was for 40 years and no gaps between them etc. They then address the difference between the secular and seder olam dates. They also point out the difficulty in the sefer Isuah from chapter 39 onwards (Deutero-Isaiah) 1) the sudden change from rebuke and sestruction to comfort (many years before the destruction) 2) Koresh is listed explicitly twice while prophecy tends to be general 3) Yeshayahu is mention 15 times in the first part but never is mentioned in the second part They conclude that the secular dates are correct (as an aside archaeologists decide on these dates based on astronomical events and carbon 14 dating of pollen seeds which are short lived) They then explain seder olam dating 1) seder olam was not written as a historical text but has a moral side 2) seder olam ignores periods of time when nothing of Jewish importance occurs In particular the Persian era until Shimon Hagadol did not live up to the expectations. Hence, the prophecy of Isaiah-II (name unknown) was simply added to an existing sefer 3) as with its practice conflates Darius I with Darius III. 4) The new Greek calendar (shtarot) was exactly 1000 years after the exodus. In order to achieve this goal parts of the Persian history had to be changed including the order of some kings, again conflating several separate Persian kings which leads to a much shortened Persian kingdom. Finally it removes 6 years from Alexander the great (ie seder olam states Alexander ruled for 6 years in Greece and 6 years in Persia) See above article for more details -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 10 16:49:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 May 2015 18:49:22 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <554FEE82.8090903@starways.net> I think this is tragic. Rather than allow the blasphemous thought that the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their minds, they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple frauds and told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern Orthodox Jews have regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic. Lisa On 5/9/2015 2:23 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a > series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar > > http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see > achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article > > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 10 17:27:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 May 2015 20:27:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <554FF779.8010200@aishdas.org> I cannot believe TABC allowed this to be published as is. /Shreklach!/ KT, YGB On 05/09/2015 03:23 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a > series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar > > http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see > achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 02:19:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 12:19:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebre calendar Message-ID: <> I don't see how you can call this "blasphemous" R. Schwab once suggested that Chazal purposely changed the facts for a good reason. While he later retracted it would be hard to call his original opinion "blasphemous" . Furthermore several current Orthodox rabbis such as R. Leibtag do accept the secular dating. In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some examples 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu As a curios it makes Eliyahu some 700 years old when he runs in front of Achav's chariot. It gives a different meaning to Achav's accusations against Eliyahu when Eliyahu actually worked together with Moshe Rabbenu. Besiades the fact that Eliyahu was from Gilad and worked in the northern kingdom it leaves the halachic question whether a cohen gadol can resign and even leave the land of Israel for various tasks. It is clear from Tanach that Eli and other were the high priest in later generations 2) Ezta = Malachi because both dealt with the problem of foreign wives 3) Nechemia = Zerubavel R. Yaakov Embden already points out that both are mentioned in the same pasuk 4) Daniel = Hatach = Sashvezer Ibn Ezra already doesnt accept this 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta This is part of the missing years controversy. Note that there are several ancient Persian inscriptions that list them as separate kings Note that Ibn Ezra identifies Achashverosh as Artachashasta 6) Conflates Kaleb ben Chetron married to Efrat with Kalen ben Yefuneh married to Miriam Ibn Ezra disagrees and also see the Gra -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 10 23:38:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 09:38:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah In-Reply-To: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> References: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> Message-ID: On Thu, May 7, 2015 at 9:41 PM, Herbert Basser via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > A recent post claims the Islamic "opsherin" was called "halaqah". What > is the evidence for this claim? The only meaning of arabic "halaqah" I know > is "learning circle". > Disclaimer: my knowledge of Arabic doesn't go much beyond being able to look up words in the dictionary, but from doing that the root h-l-q seems to mean both "shave", "form a circle" and "round off". This makes sense to me: after all, "lehakkif" in Biblical Hebrew has the same semantic range. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 03:06:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 06:06:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] He is my G-d Message-ID: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> From Today's Hakhel email bulletin. Hakhel Note: The following is excerpted from Rav Schwab on Prayer, and was related by Rav Schwab at a Shiur he gave on Tefillah: I heard a story from Rav Yosef Breuer, Shlita, which he told about his father, my Rebbe, Rav Shlomo Zalman (Solomon) Breuer. The elder Rav Breuer was a very good friend of Rav Shimon Sofer, the Rav of Cracow, a brother of the Ksav Sofer, and a son of the Chasam Sofer. Once when the two friends met, Rav Shimon Sofer asked Rav Breuer to tell him a short ?vort" from his father-in-law, Rav Shamshon R. Hirsch. Upon which, Rav Breuer told him that Rav Hirsch would point out that while Adon Olam described the unfathomable eternity and omnipotence of Hashem, it nevertheless makes a reference to Him in a very personal way--VeHu Kaili, He is my G-d. Each person in his Tefillah says: I have a personal relationship with HaKadosh Baruch HU, He is my personal G-d. Therefore, whenever a person says the word Ado--i, my Master, no matter how small he thinks he is, he is averring that he is in direct contact with Hashem. This thought is in the introduction to any individual's Iyun Tefillah, concentration on Prayer. There is nothing mystical or supernatural about it. It should be the most natural thing in the world. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 06:38:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 13:38:51 GMT Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebre calendar Message-ID: <20150511.093851.15442.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel wrote: > In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that > Chazal had a tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some > examples > 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu I rarely, if ever, come across the word "conflate", except here on Avodah. When it is used here, it seems to be pejorative, indicating that someone confused or merged two things that really ought to stay distinct. RET, is that what you mean here? Do you feel that it was wrong for Chazal to associate Pinchas and Eliyahu in the way that they did? Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5550b1061639931057a29st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 07:16:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joseph Kaplan via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 10:16:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar Message-ID: <002a01d08bf5$1a951290$4fbf37b0$@tenzerlunin.com> On 5/9/2015 2:23 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a > series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar > > http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see > achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article > There were (so far) two responses: "I think this is tragic. Rather than allow the blasphemous thought that the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their minds, they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple frauds and told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern Orthodox Jews have regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic." "I cannot believe TABC allowed this to be published as is. /Shreklach!/" When I read this when it came out I remember thinking: what a refreshing concept. Letting students use the educational tools they have been given to think on their own and then to publish the results which (to my extremely non-expert eyes) appears to be a nice bit of research and analysis - whether correct or not. Joseph -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 07:30:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 09:30:18 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebre calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> On 5/11/2015 4:19 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > < that the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their > minds, they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple > frauds and told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern > Orthodox Jews have regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic.>> > > I don't see how you can call this "blasphemous" R. Schwab once > suggested that Chazal purposely changed the facts for a good reason. > While he later retracted it would be hard to call his original opinion > "blasphemous" . Furthermore several current Orthodox rabbis such as R. > Leibtag do accept the secular dating. I didn't call it blasphemous. I referred to doubting secular scholarship as blasphemy, tongue in cheek, because that seems to be the way it's viewed by some of the secular thinking Modern Orthodox. R' Schwab once wrote a thought experiment, which was one huge hava amina. What if, he said, we were faced with absolute proof that the historiography of Chazal was wrong? And he gave an idea. He was horrified by the way in which the secular thinking Modern Orthodox misread what he wrote as an actual position, opposing the veracity of Chazal, and wrote, not a retraction, but a clarification that he had *never* espoused the position that was being attributed to him. If R' Leibtag accepts the secular dating, then my comments about the tragedy of Modern Orthodox Jews bowing to the modern idol of secular scholarship apply there as well. > In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a > tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some examples > > 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu > As a curios it makes Eliyahu some 700 years old when he runs in front > of Achav's chariot. > It gives a different meaning to Achav's accusations against Eliyahu > when Eliyahu actually worked together with Moshe Rabbenu. Wrong again. There's no historiography going on here. No chronological framework of any kind. It's Midrash. Like Moshe Rabbenu jumping 10 amot into the air when fighting Og. Like Pharaoh's daughter having a stretchy, Fantastic Four kind of arm. Midrashim are all true. They aren't all true in the literal sense. Pinchas was not literally Aharon's grandson Pinchas ben Elazar. That's quite different from throwing away the entirety of Chazal's historiography, which is internally consistent all the way through, and which *Chazal clearly believed to be literally true*. If you want to say they were wrong, that they were ignorant of the facts, go ahead and do so. But please, don't play games by imagining that they intentionally fudged the facts. > Besiades the fact that Eliyahu was from Gilad and worked in the > northern kingdom it leaves the halachic question whether a cohen gadol > can resign and even leave the land of Israel for various tasks. It is > clear from Tanach that Eli and other were the high priest in later > generations Again, he wasn't Kohen Gadol. No one holds that he was. Let me try and explain a little more about Midrash. Chazal bring Midrashim that contradict one another. For example, there's a Midrash that says Esther never slept with Achashveirosh. That Hashem sent a mal'ach that took her place. That conflicts with "Esther karka hayta", as well as with the Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son. None of this is problematic. Because the truth of Midrashim is not in their concretes. Like analogies, Midrashim are abstractions which are anchored with concretes, but are not defined by those concretes. > 2) Ezta = Malachi because both dealt with the problem of foreign wives And maybe Ezra was Malachi. And maybe he wasn't. I don't see much of a nafka mina either way. Do you? > 3) Nechemia = Zerubavel > R. Yaakov Embden already points out that both are mentioned in the > same pasuk Ditto. Not one single example you're bringing has anything to do with a massive chronological framework that Chazal clearly knew to be the way things happened. Megillat Esther took place *before* Bayit Sheni was built, and not after. Baruch ben Neriah was the talmid of Yirmiyahu and the rav of Ezra, and if you throw that away, you literally snap the chain of tradition from Sinai, rendering all of Judaism stuff and nonsense. > 4) Daniel = Hatach = Sashvezer > Ibn Ezra already doesnt accept this Again, l'mai nafka mina? > 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta > This is part of the missing years controversy. Note that there are > several ancient Persian inscriptions that list them as separate kings > Note that Ibn Ezra identifies Achashverosh as Artachashasta It's not part of the missing years anything. You need to read what Chazal say about that inside. As far as Achashveirosh being Artachshasta, Chazal say Artaxerxes was a throne name. And in fact, Greek sources say that both Artaxerxes II and III adopted it as a throne name. Furthermore, the Septuagint version of Esther refers to the king as Artaxerxes, so saying that Ahasuerus is Artaxerxes is a truism that has nothing to do with chronology. > 6) Conflates Kaleb ben Chetron married to Efrat > with Kalen ben Yefuneh married to Miriam > Ibn Ezra disagrees and also see the Gra I'll go further. R' Moshe Eisenmann's Divrei HaYamim for Artscroll (one of the few books in the Artscroll Tanakh series which I consider to be of inestimable value) has an entire section on the Kalevs. I highly recommend it. But again, Midrash is Midrash, and there's zero relevance here. Let me ask a simple question. Was Baruch ben Neriya Ezra's teacher? As Chazal say, and as Iggeret Rav Shrira Gaon and Rambam and others bring down. Or not? And if not, how do you feel about *not* having a chain of tradition going back to Sinai? Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 08:17:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 11:17:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: <20150511.093851.15442.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150511.093851.15442.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150511151732.GA15699@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 01:38:51PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I rarely, if ever, come across the word "conflate", except here on : Avodah. When it is used here, it seems to be pejorative, indicating that : someone confused or merged two things that really ought to stay distinct. I think that's my doing; I like the word. And yeah, it is merging two things that may be helpful in another context to keep distinct, but without being as pejorative as saying they confused them. If one assumes that Chazal's statements about the past are intended to be about how the past should have happened rather than caring about actual historicity, then their saying that Pinchas is Eliyahu is the identification of what Pinechas means to us with what Eliyahu means, and giving us a license to treat the two are a single symbol. With no intent to imply they were historically the same very-long-lived human being. I would also want a little more clarity from those who object to claims about missing years between levels of objection. Do you mean: 1- This isn't my derekh. 2- I cannot see this even as eilu va'eilu, it's simply false. 3- It is heretical. At least one of us used the latter language, and I don't see it. We have a definition of heresy, three definitions of three subtypes of heres, anyway (kofer, apiqreis, min). Is anyone actually intending to claim that it violates an iqar emunah to take Chazal's dating of events in the Galus Paras uMadai and early Bayis Sheini period as ahistorical, meant for some hashkafic reason? Or is it an epistomological thing? If you believe the academic community's interpretation of the evidence and will create new peshatim to fit in this case, you've bought into a system that would equally argue for kefirah? And for the two people who dismiss the Greek version of Persian history: What do you do with the astronomical state points thrown in that actually work? As RET noted last year, around Purim time, if you read Ezra and Nechemiah literally, ignoring Sefer Olam, it is more consistent with Greek historians than Chazal. I found he gave details in 1999 (v2n176) To quote: ... proofs for the secular history 1. external proofs A. The history of Herodotus (485-425 BCE) discusses in detail the lives of Cyrus, Cambyses,Darius and Xerxes and briefly Atraxerxes who was a contemporary of Herodutus. It is hard to conceive that he wrote about contedmporay figures or recent history who did not exist. Note that according to Chazal the Persians did not come into power until 350 BCE 75 years after the death of Herodutus !!! Thucydides (460-400 BCE) starts with Cyrus and goes through Darius II and the fights between Athens and Sparta and the Peloponnesian Wars. Again according to Seder Olam Rabbah there was no time for all these wars and so probably many of these Athenian and Spartan leaders did not exist. Ctesias (430-380) was a physician in the court of Artaxerxes and describes the 7 kings from Cyrus through Artaxerxes II. There are also later Greek historians who give the complete picture. Josephus also includes more kings than Chazal but not the entire Greek list. Moderchai Breuer in his history accepts the Greek dating. See Parker&Dubberstein, Babylonian Chronology for more details. Note: No modern historian claims that all facts in these histories are true. That is a far cry from stating that the entire history and not just certain details are fabrications and that all these kings never existed. B. Archaological evidence has uncovered many ancient Persian (cuneform) enscriptions (see for example The Persian Empire by J.M. Cook). For example one at the Persian palace in Persepolis says "I, Artaxerxes the son of Artaxerxes the son of Darius the son of Artaxerxes the son of Xerxes the son of Darius the son of Hystaspes" (Darius was not the son of Cambyses). Greek names have used for the original Persian names. There are other earlier enscriptions which are similar. These all conform to the Greek dating. C. There are letters from the Jewish community in Elephantine confirming the Greek position. D. I recently read of the history of the Assyrians. In their history they describe the reign of Sancherub and of a major eclipse of the sun during some battle. Astronomical calaculations confirm that the only full eclipse of the sun in that region occurred exactly during the dates of Sancherub according to the Greek chronology. 2. Internal Proofs A. Ezra 45,7 describes Koresh, Daryavesh, Achasverosh, Artachasta. These exactly parallel the Greek chronology with Achasversh=Xerxes. If one looks at the Persian writing rather than the Greek names then Xerxes is called khshayarsha which is close to Achashverosh (note Cambyses is left out probably because nothing of importance to Ezra occured during that reign). Note that Daat Mikrah on Ezra 4 assumes the secular dates. B. Nehemia 12:10 lists 6 High Priests, son after son, between Yehosua and Yadua. This is hard to explain if the whole period was on 52 years. It is even worse if one assumes that Shimon haTzaddik was the high Priest at the time of Alexander as that adds at least one more high Priest in the 52 years According to Ben Sira Shimon was the son of Johanan which would make of total of at least 8 high priests in 52 years all presumably sons of the previous one. C. Comparing Divrei Hayaim I: 3:19-24 with Ezra 8:2 and Nehemia 3:29 it seems that Ezra and Nehemis lived many years after Zerubbavel. Note: Daniel 11:2 seems more in line with chronology of Chazal. Second Note: According to Seder Olam Purim occured before the rebuilding of the second Temple while according to the secular chronology Achashverosh was the son of Darius and so the Temple was already in existence. According to Chazal, Daniel, Zerubavel, Ezra, Nehemia, Mordecai, Hagai, Zerchahiah and Malachi and even Shimon haTzaddik were basically contemporaries or within 1 to 2 generations of each other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 37th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Yesod: When does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 require one to be strict with another? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 06:52:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 09:52:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun on Pesach Sheni (was Meron Live) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150511135043.8781C182131@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:31 AM 5/11/2015, R. Akiva Miller wrote: >As it was explained to me, there's nothing special about the morning >of Pesach Sheni. Pesach Sheni exists only on the afternoon of 14 >Iyar and the following night. We omit Tachanun on the morning of 14 >Iyar NOT because it is a holiday, but because it is the Tachanun >*before* the holiday. Alternatively, one might say that the morning >of 14 Iyar actually *is* Erev Pesach Sheni. Either way, the >afternoon of 13 Iyar is too far removed to be significant enough to >warrant skipping Tachanun. From http://tinyurl.com/ln7le2m Some say Tachanun on Pesach Sheni (14 Iyar); some do not; some do not say Tachanun on 14 & 15 Iyar. What are the sources for these customs? Those who do say Tachanun probably do so because 14 Iyar is not listed as a day where Tachanun was customarily omitted by the Tur, anyone quoted in the Beit Yosef or Bach, by the Shulchan Aruch and its Mapah, the Levush, the Eliya Rabba, the Taz, the Magen Avraham, the Beiur haGra, the Chayei Adam, the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, the Mishna Berura and others. The Aruch haShulchan notes the custom of omitting Tachanun as foreign to Ashkenaz and deems it a 'wonder' (Pelah ). And from http://www.dinonline.org/2010/04/27/tachanun-on-erev-pesach-sheni/ Do we say Tachanun at minchah on Erev Pesach Sheni? Answer Yes [Shulchan Aruch Harav, Piskei Hassidur, end of Hilchos Krias Shema uTefilloh] YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 07:00:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 10:00:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening in a Large or Small Shul In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150511135900.11012181E6C@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:31 AM 5/11/2015, R. Joel Rich wrote: >I wonder if this write up is indicative of a trend seen in "The >halachos of X" works, likutim which seem to have become more popular >(did they exist 40 years ago?). As Rav Aharon Lichtenstein learned >at Harvard, life is complex. Of course there are overarching >priorities which need to be learned, but specific applications are >hard to summarize in an algorithmic form (see hilchot lashon hara >and tzedaka for some obvious examples). Maybe in an internet age we >have no choice but to try to put everything on line but what you >really need IMHO is a live mentor. Did R. Aharon Lichtenstein really not know that life is complex before he went to Harvard? I am very sure that a man as intelligent as he was knew that life was complex long before he went to Harvard. I never went to Harvard, but I knew by 12 or 13 years old that life in indeed complex. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 09:45:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 12:45:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] He is my G-d In-Reply-To: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150511164501.GA29539@aishdas.org> *On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 06:06:53AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : From Today's Hakhel email bulletin. : :> Hakhel Note: The following is excerpted from Rav Schwab on Prayer, :> and was related by Rav Schwab at a Shiur he gave on Tefillah... We need a source, and such a well documented lineage for the source, to point out what the words say? Does no one try translating a poem they've recited since childhood (and that's true even for many BTs)? "Adon Olam" through "velo ha'oz vehamisrah", the first 2/3 or so, talks about how transcendent HQBH is. Then the poet (usually attributed to Ibn Geveirol, 11th cent CE) abruptly switches to "VeHu Keili ... Hashem li velo ira" -- that despite that transcendence, I am still capable of having a personal relationship with Him. Li nir'eh this is the key to understanding sheim havayah: 1- The tetragrammaton is a contraction of "Yihyeh, Hoveh, veHayah -- Will Be, Is and Was", referring to Hashem being timeless and beyond the created. An el, when used in the secular sense, is a legislative ruler, so that Elokeinu, is a declaration that He is our Lawgiver -- the Author of both moral law and physical law. Havayah denotes connotes a vision of Deity that is very Other, the philosopher's G-d; Elokus is One who relates to man. 2- The very remoteness of the name Havayah also implies Divine Mercy. Which is how Chazal describe its usage in chumash. This is not intuitive, however the need to create law comes from a person's limited ability to deal with many individual cases. A teacher with few students is effective, one with more students, less so. To manage a country, we need laws and policies, since we do not have infinite time and attention to cover every decision on a case-by-case basis. Therefore, it is only because Hashem is Infinite that Divine Mercy is possible. Therefore, this expression can be seen as a declaration of the unity of G-d, despite the different appearances of Mercy and Strict Justice. We can each say "veHu Keili" *because* "velo ha'oz vehamisrah". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 37th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Yesod: When does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 require one to be strict with another? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 09:06:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 19:06:59 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] He is my G-d In-Reply-To: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 1:06 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > From Today's Hakhel email bulletin. > > Hakhel Note: The following is excerpted from *Rav Schwab on Prayer*, and > was related by Rav Schwab at a Shiur he gave on Tefillah: > ... > *whenever a person says the word Ado--i, my Master, no matter how small he > thinks he is, he is averring that he is in direct contact with Hashem*. > This thought is in the introduction to any individual's Iyun Tefillah, > concentration on Prayer. There is nothing mystical or supernatural about > it. It should be the most natural thing in the world. > I understand that "Rav Schwab on Prayer" was edited from recordings of RSS' shiurim, and I suspect that there is some misunderstanding here. If this is not mystical and supernatural, what is? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 11:12:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Herbert Basser via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 18:12:16 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah Message-ID: <1431367937499.87948@queensu.ca> Friendly amendment: When all else fails consult a dictionary-- where I found the root h-l-q both in hebrew and in arabic means "to make smooth" (no surprises here) and (surprise) a note after that indicating arabic h-l-q also applies to making the chin and the head smooth (hairless), i.e. "shaving".-- Not from the idea of rounding but from the idea of smoothing. Like in bereshit (27:11) esav was hairy and yaakov halaq. Zvi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 12:33:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 15:33:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150511193132.F24041829B7@nexus.stevens.edu> At 02:57 PM 5/11/2015, R. Eli Turkel wrote: ><the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their minds, >they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple frauds and >told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern Orthodox Jews have >regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic.>> > >I don't see how you can call this "blasphemous" R. Schwab once suggested >that Chazal purposely changed the facts for a good reason. While he later >retracted it would be hard to call his original opinion "blasphemous" . >Furthermore several current Orthodox rabbis such as R. Leibtag do accept >the secular dating. > >In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a >tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. The most definitive study on this topic is the recent book (2014) The Challenge of Jewish History: The Bible, The Greeks & The Missing 168 Years by Rabbi Alexander Hool From http://tinyurl.com/p42uvvj There is a well-known conundrum concerning Jewish history: The conventional chronology of the Western world - and academia - is in direct conflict with traditional Jewish sources over the history of ... history. Incredibly, there is a gap of roughly 200 years: For instance, the Talmud says the Second Temple stood for roughly 400 years, while mainstream historians today conclude that it stood for almost 600 years. This conflict has major implications on what occurred to who, and when. It also seems to question the accuracy of the entire Jewish tradition as accepted dating methods seem to contradict core parts of the traditional Jewish narrative. In presenting fresh and startling astronomical, mathematical and archaeological evidence, Rabbi Alexander Hool has charted new ground in his quest to find the solution to this ancient problem. The Challenge of Jewish History is revolutionary: it questions all assumptions, dispels unfounded myths, and transports us back in time over 2,500 years. With a subject of great significance and fascination to all those interested in history, and a wealth of scholarship and sources to impress academics, this intriguing book gives us a new perspective on .... This is a highly researched book based on Jewish and non-Jewish sources. the author concludes that there are no missing years and seems to prove his conclusion. I suggest that anyone who is really interested in this topic purchase this book. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 13:10:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Herbert Basser via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 20:10:00 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] chronology Message-ID: <1431375000749.45056@queensu.ca> [Transliteration mine. -micha] Seder Olam: Mahadurah Mada'it Peirush uMavo me'et Chaim Milikovsky's Makhor Yitzchaq ben Zvi shenei chalaqim, 326+711 amudim See Chaim Milikovsky's edition of Seder Olam for a very detailed explanation of all these issues in chazal's chronology and a critical edition of the readings of all extant manuscripts. The issues of chazal's chronologies were first highlighted at length by Azariah de Rossi's Meor Eynayim and should be settled by Milikowski's volume which took about 35 years to research. Chazal were great men but not modern historians, doctors, scientists, or nevi'im -- and certainly not liars. Zvi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 14:46:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 14:46:24 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] explanation Message-ID: the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not PC by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation for some shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a heterodox clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read those passages] . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other than the chok aspect] that the RBSO was looking from the perspective of the kahal and their kovod, and how they would react or be distracted by a baal mum. can someone supply a better take ? thanks -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 18:12:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 21:12:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150429.073718.25006.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150429.073718.25006.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150512011220.GA19224@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 11:37:18AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : Regardless of how the Bas Kol might be interpreted, is there any way : to understand "Nitzchuni banai!" other than Hashem personally siding : with one of the litigants, and losing? I don't see the closing of the story adding any problems the nissim themselves didn't. If you think they were about Hashem backing one side, then "nitzchui banai" is about that sice being defeated. If not, then it's whatever over reason He had for presenting misleading evidence that was defeated. Leshitas those who don't take eilu va'eilu literally and intead use a more classical logic with a law of contradition, the whole story is about HQBH choosing the process as a whole over the correctness of this one particular ruling. HQBH rejoicing that the chakhamim maintained the kelalei pesaq as they should rather than pay attention to His interferance. As the Maharitz Chayes understands it, by keeping the process viable, they keep the Torah eternal, capable of speaking to new circumstances as the world changes. "Nitzchuni banai -- My children have made Me eternal!" Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 37th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Yesod: When does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 require one to be strict with another? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 17:57:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 20:57:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55514FDD.4000100@sero.name> On 05/11/2015 05:46 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not > PC by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation > for some shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a > heterodox clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read > those passages] . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other > than the chok aspect] that the RBSO was looking from the perspective > of the kahal and their kovod, and how they would react or be > distracted by a baal mum. > > can someone supply a better take ? What's the difficulty? Hakriveihu no lefechosecho. The dignity of a king, and especially of The King, demands that all who serve Him be perfect in all respects. People with physical imperfections may be wonderful in many ways, but they are just that, imperfect. The current political correctness that refuses to acknowledge this is literally insane. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 15:31:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 23:31:27 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 12:19:57 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah > In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a > tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some examples > 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu ... > Besiades the fact that Eliyahu was from Gilad and worked in the northern > kingdom it leaves the halachic question whether a cohen gadol can resign > and even leave the land of Israel for various tasks. It is clear from > Tanach that Eli and other were the high priest in later generations Re Pinchos = Eliyohu The Ari says clearly [through the pen of R. Chaim Vital] in Shaar HaGilgulim that this refers to a gilgul neshomoh, not that he was literally the same person in body as well. DR From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 23:21:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 09:21:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar Message-ID: R' YGB writes: "I cannot believe TABC allowed this to be published as is. /Shreklach!/" Should we just bury our heads in the sand and not address these kinds of issues? Its very hard to hide information today, what happens when these kids get to college and find about the missing 165 years. What are they going to think? The fact is that Rabbi S. Schwab found this discrepancy a ?truly vexing problem? and wrote that the historical chronological dating: "?can hardly be doubted for they appear to be the result of painstaking research by hundreds of scholars and are borne out by profound erudition and by ever increasing authoritative evidence ... we are compelled to admit that the Bayis Sheni must have existed for no less than 586 years.? (Hakira A Y2K Solution to the Chronology Problem). If we don't address these kinds of questions (torah and science, the documentary hypothesis, etc.) then the implication that will be drawn by many people is that we don't have answers and we know what happens then. The Seforim blog (http://seforim.blogspot.com/2015/01/blog-post.html) not long ago reviewed a Sefer by R' Amnon Bazak, Ad Hayom Hazeh, which deals with many of the the issues that academia brings up related to Tanach. Are his answers compelling? Many times not. But at least he deals with the issues. A commentator there made a very important point, for those who have been exposed to these questions, we need seforim like this that at least attempt to deal with the issues raised and not simply bury our heads in the sand. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 01:36:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 11:36:40 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> References: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> Message-ID: > 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta <> Do these Greek sources explain how Koresh and Daryavush are the same person? Besides you use the parts of the Greek sources that you like and reject those that dont fit your thesis Now you rely on the Septuagint? Almost everyone else identifies Achashverosh with Xerxes, Besides the are several inscriptions in ancient Persian that give a detailed list of kings eg Artaxerxes the great king, king of kings king of peoples king on this earth son od Darius the king Darius son of Artaxerxes the king, Xerxes son of Darius the king Darius son of Hystapes the Archaemend proclaims .. As an aside modern chronology of Eygpt has been confirmed by recent carbon 14 dating. Dates of Sishak and other Assyrina and Babylonian kings have been confirmed by their writings combined with various astronomical events mentioned in their writings. <> That's your opinion. In fact many achronim take these conflating of names very seriously. While you claim Eliyahu wasn't a cohen gadol there is in fact a halachic literature whether he was or not and whether a cohen gadol can resign. For example see hebrewbooks Magen Tzvi siman 36 page 388 where he concludes that a Cohen Gadol (annointed by oil) who resigns still has all the laws of a cohen gadol You wrote "Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son " . However Darius's own version (Behustan) states that he was not the son of the previous king (see also above inscription on a wall) -------------------------- separately Marty Blake mentioned the sefer of R Amnon Bazak. The shiurim are also available in English http://etzion.org.il/en/topics/fundamental-issues-study-tanakh As Marty mentioned he discusses fundamental issues as are all pesukim in the Torah from Moshe Rabbenu, archaeology, accuracy of the text, Bible criticism, peshat and drash, sins of Biblical figures and many other controversial topics. I am sure that many of his solutions are also controversial. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 19:20:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 02:20:37 GMT Subject: [Avodah] explanation Message-ID: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero wrote: <<< The dignity of a king, and especially of The King, demands that all who serve Him be perfect in all respects. People with physical imperfections may be wonderful in many ways, but they are just that, imperfect. >>> "... in all respects." Really? Where will you find such a person? No, that's an impossible task. For practicality's sake, He cannot and does not demand that all who serve Him be perfect in ALL respects. So instead, there is a set of criteria, and a set of shiurim by which to determine if one is *adequately* perfect. I can't imagine that anyone would disagree with what I wrote thus far. But then we'll go the next step, and study what sorts of things are on that list of criteria. For example, if one is a Mechalel Shabbos, or a murderer, he is disqualified from Birkas Kohanim, so I'd bet that he's disqualified from the avodah too. But those aren't the sort of mumim that the previous poster's Shabbos guests were asking about. They were asking about physical abnormalities. I hope it is okay if I rephrase their question to something like this: It is reasonable for The King to insist on a certain degree of moral perfection, but why is physical perfection relevant? Or to phrase it more bluntly, the kohanim should not be judged by the shape of their nose, but by the content of their character. (Of course, we are not disputing the halacha. The question is WHY the Torah considers physical abnormalities to be disqualifications.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/555163bfd843b63bf2454st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 22:43:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 01:43:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah Message-ID: R? Zvi Basser points out ? H-L-Q was the haircut celebrated Lag B?Omer. Yes! Perhaps Chalak evokes Yaakov Avinu, aka Ish Chalak. An older version of Ibn Ezra's famous Tzama Nafshi has alternate ending stanzas. H?alo Chelk?cha Meirosh ? Addressing Hashem directly Chalak ? that is Yaakov Avinu the weak brother ? and his endless generations of martyrs Damo Darosh ? avenge and right the wrongs Shfoch HHamas Af al Rosh Hasa-ir Hachai ? let your anger pour over its proper target - . Ibn Ezra means that Hashem can grant Dveikus, Nevuah or Ruach Hakodesh. The Ibn Ezra 's philosophical approach ? said that the Nefesh ? as a Spiritual Heavenly entity ? can encounter the Ultimate Hashem ? directly. The alternate ? higher level of Hashkafa ? Tzama Nafshi has a verse ? now found in some better editions ? After dealing with Hagar rebelling against Sara (Shifha no-emmes) H?alo Chelk?cha Meirosh ? Chalak ? that is Yaakov ? and his endless generations of martyrs Damo Darosh ? avenge and right the wrongs Shfoch HHamas Af al Rosh Hasa-ir Hachai ? let your anger pour over its proper target - . -- Two other points ? the first verse in the alternat version of Tzama Nafshi: (See Kol Kisvei RAIE) Eil Chayy Bera-ani ? To my mind this means ? the always watching and involved One watching over us. Compare ? Chai Anochi LeOlam Im Shanosi Brak Charbi ? in Parshas Haazinu ? anger to avenge. Perhaps in Inquisitorial times ? Eil Echad Bera-ani was more relevant. Also fascinating ? The Ayin verse substitutes ? Al Kol Chasadecha ? Techadeish Eidecha!! References Iyov 10:17, where Ibn ezra refers to leprous blemishes. Posei-ach es Yadecha umasbia lechol chai ? directly allow Life, Deveikus and attachment to His Essence ? not the simple meaning of providing food . Earlier Ibn Ezra had said - Ki lo yir-ani ha-adam vachayy - no man can see Hashem and Chai ? no complete experience of Hashem. His Creation is Ne-elama hidden in its wisdom. Parshas Tazria has many multiple references to live healthy skin ? Basar Hachayy - as opposed to leprous skin. I would believe there are multiple references to Tazria Metzora. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 03:51:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 06:51:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150512105130.GC3499@aishdas.org> Lakol zeman va'eis... There is a time to force people to change their reflect reactions, and a time when the focus should be elsewhere. There are two kinds of mummim WRT kehunah (see Bechoros 43b): 1- mar'is ayin -- one whose appearance is repulsive to the people 2- eino shaveh bezar'o shel Aharon -- someone who is unique in appearance to the people (see Rambam, Bi'as haMiqdash 6:6) A kohein in the mar'is ayin category would pasl the avodah bedi'eved, one who is eino shaveh would violate an asei, but the avodah is kasher. Notice that both are defined by their impact on the observer. Presumably the point is that attention should be on avodah, not thoughts about the kohein performing it, or negative judgments of who is fit for service. But notice this is only for the Avodah.... a kohein with a baal mum was still expected to show up with his mishmar and do other necessary jobs. I am not even sure he is pasul from lighting the menorah. After all, we learn these mumim from the animals for qorbanos; it may apply to qorbanos in particular. So to me, the question is why isn't mid-qorban a good time to acclimate Kelal Yisrael away from such visceral reactions. But since I cannot get my head into the mindset of someone bringing a qorban, I leave the question tabled until I have the opportunity to learn what a qorban is like firsthand, bb"a. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 38th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Yesod: How does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 promote harmony in life and relationships? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 09:24:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 12:24:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: <20150512105130.GC3499@aishdas.org> References: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> <20150512105130.GC3499@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150512162421.GA13065@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 6:51am EDT, I wrote: : There is a time to force people to change their reflect reactions, and a : time when the focus should be elsewhere. ... To add, there are TWO reactions that would distract from the purpose of the qorban: Both the person who is turned off by how Hashem made this particular kohein (either through birth, disease, or allowing him to suffer an acctident), and the person who would then turn his qorban into a bein adam lachaveiro rather than a qorban. The one who would be thinking about how touching it was the such a person overcame disability to help them bring it. Rather than simply thinking about G-d. Even according to R' Chaim Volozhiner or R' Shimon Shkop, who see bein adam lachaveiro as the ultimate purpose of life, and thus presumably bein adam laMaqom as a derived value, there is a time to care for the goose, rather than everything being about collecting the golden eggs. In fact, the farmer is likely to spend nearly al of his time into caring for the goose rather than the ultimate payoff. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 38th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Yesod: How does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 promote harmony in life and relationships? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 06:17:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 08:17:09 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: References: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> Message-ID: <5551FD55.5090900@starways.net> On 5/12/2015 3:36 AM, Eli Turkel wrote: > 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta > < was a throne name. And in fact, Greek sources say that both > Artaxerxes II and III adopted it as a throne name. Furthermore, the > Septuagint version of Esther refers to the king as Artaxerxes, so > saying that Ahasuerus is Artaxerxes is a truism that has nothing to do > with chronology >> > Do these Greek sources explain how Koresh and Daryavush are the same > person? Fortunately, they don't have to, since that's just Midrash and has no nafka mina l'maaseh. > Besides you use the parts of the Greek sources that you like and > reject those that dont fit your thesis Of course I do. The Greek sources aren't what we would call "history" today. Herodotus collected folklore and picked the versions he liked to make a more entertaining story. He says himself that he heard 4 different and conflicting stories about Cyrus's backstory, and chose the one he liked best. He didn't even preserve the other three so that we could make our own decisions. He made his living in Greece by entertaining his patron(s) with exotic stories from exotic lands. > Now you rely on the Septuagint? Almost everyone else identifies > Achashverosh with Xerxes, Not so. Everyone recognizes that the *name* Achashveirosh is the same as the *name* Xerxes. Or rather, that both names are transliterations of the original Persian Khshayarsha. To say that "almost everyone else identifies Achashverosh with Xerxes" indicates that you aren't particularly well versed in the subject. I mean, at the very least, read the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahasuerus which notes which sources have identified him as which kings. > Besides the are several inscriptions in ancient Persian that give a > detailed list of kings eg > Artaxerxes the great king, king of kings king of peoples king on this > earth son od Darius the king Darius son of Artaxerxes the king, Xerxes > son of Darius the king Darius son of Hystapes the Archaemend proclaims .. Have you read the Behistun Inscription? Darius son of Hystaspes had it inscribed. In it, he talks about Babylonian kings who weren't actually Babylonian kings. At least not by our standards. They were pretenders, since Babylon had fallen to the Medes and Persians. But they gave themselves royal titles and claimed descent from Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus and the rest. From their point of view, they *were* kings of Babylon. From the Persian point of view, they were pretenders. Similarly, what do you think happened to Persia when Alexander conquered it? From one day to the next, Persia vaporized? Persia covered a huge area. Professor Levine posted about Rabbi Alexander Hool's book "The Challenge of Jewish History". I don't agree with all of his conclusions, and I'm embarrassingly late completing a review of the book, but he posits the Persian line continuing even after Alexander whupped Darius at Gaugamela. And in fact, the Parthian Empire, which started only about 70-80 years after the Alexandrian conquest, claimed descent from the Achaemenids of the Persian Empire. As did the later Sassanids. Names like Ardashir are just Late Persian versions of the Old Persian Artaxerxes. That's completely aside from the fact that we *know* there were forgeries perpetrated in ancient times for the purpose of establishing royal descent. Check out Roland Kent's article "The Present Status of Old Persian Studies" in /Journal of the American Oriental Society, /1936, vol. 56, p. 215ff. (http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/594668?uid=3739656&uid=2134&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21106376285721). A couple of inscriptions that are nothing but royal titles with no actual content to them is kind of flimsy evidence. Certainly not something strong enough to trash Chazal's entire picture of such an important period in our history. > As an aside modern chronology of Eygpt has been confirmed by recent > carbon 14 dating. Source. Because you may not be aware of this, but when you bring items in for carbon dating, you have to tell them -- up front -- what the rough date is that you think they're from. So that they can throw away any results that skew too far from that as "contaminated". The rest are subject to a fudge factor (sorry: correction factor) to help make them fit. But I'd like to see the source you have for carbon dating of modern Egyptian chronology. > Dates of Sishak and other Assyrina and Babylonian kings have been > confirmed by their writings combined with various astronomical events > mentioned in their writings. Assuming Sosenk = Shishak, which is iffy, considering that Sosenk only claims to have campaigned in the north of Israel, which would be odd for Shishak, whose son-in-law Yeravam was ruling there. The rest of what you're talking about is pure confirmation bias. They have a model and they shoehorn any evidence they find into that model, even if they have to kind of mush it in there. > < and explain a little more about Midrash. Chazal bring Midrashim that > contradict one another. For example, there's a Midrash that says > Esther never slept with Achashveirosh. That Hashem sent a mal'ach that > took her place. That conflicts with "Esther karka hayta", as well as > with the Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son. None of > this is problematic. Because the truth of Midrashim is not in their > concretes. Like analogies, Midrashim are abstractions which are > anchored with concretes, but are not defined by those concretes.>> > That's your opinion. In fact many achronim take these conflating of > names very seriously. While you claim Eliyahu wasn't a cohen gadol > there is in fact a halachic literature whether he was or not and > whether a cohen gadol can resign. > For example see hebrewbooks Magen Tzvi siman 36 page 388 where he > concludes that a Cohen Gadol (annointed by oil) who resigns still has > all the laws of a cohen gadol Midrash. And if it were something more solid than that, you'd have more than just some achronim saying so. > You wrote "Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son " . > However Darius's own version (Behustan) states that he was not the son > of the previous king (see also above inscription on a wall) So what? I'm confused. I'm saying that Midrash isn't necessarily the literal fact, and you pick out a phrase from what I wrote and point out that it isn't the literal fact? It seems like you're trying to make a point, but I'm not seeing what it is. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 10:18:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 13:18:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I commend you for having such guests at your table! > the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not PC by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation for some shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a heterodox clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read those passages] . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other than the chok aspect] that the RBSO was looking from the perspective of the kahal and their kovod, and how they would react or be distracted by a baal mum. can someone supply a better take ? This is, indeed, a difficult passage. R Jonathan Sacks has a good take on it -- which is generally along the lines of what you suggested, but a slightly different (and more big-picture) take, and, of course articulated extremely well. An excerpt: > Kugel also writes, "Most people, when they see someone ravaged by chemotherapy, just tend to keep their distance." He quotes Psalm 38:12, "My friends and companions stand back at the sight of my affliction; even those closest to me keep their distance." Although the physical reactions to chemotherapy are quite different from a skin disease or a bodily abnormality, they tend to generate the same feeling in others, part of which has to do with the thought "This could happen to me." They remind us of the "thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to." > > This is the logic - if logic is the right word - of Tumah. It has nothing to do with rationality and everything to do with emotion (Recall Pascal's remark that "the heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing"). Tumah does not mean defilement. It means that which distracts from eternity and infinity by making us forcibly aware of mortality, of the fact that we are physical beings in a physical world. If the above interests you at all, I encourage you to read the whole thing: http://www.aish.com/tp/i/sacks/149811775.html [1] -- Sholom Links: ------ [1] http://www.aish.com/tp/i/sacks/149811775.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 09:51:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Dov Weinstock via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 12:51:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Explanation Message-ID: On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 12:27 PM, via Avodah wrote: > the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not PC > by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation for some > shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a heterodox > clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read those passages] > . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other than the chok aspect] > that the RBSO was looking from the perspective of the kahal and their > kovod, and how they would react or be distracted by a baal mum. > > can someone supply a better take ? > May I suggest the following: http://rabbidovlinzer.blogspot.com/2014_04_27_archive.html Dov Weinstock -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 03:09:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 06:09:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: <20150513100956.GA14377@aishdas.org> Among the arguments that came up in the discussion of the Kosher Switch was that it's zilzul Shabbos. The thought hit me, though... Refraining from operating electrical devices has only been a potential issue for 125 years or so. And except for Yekkes, most of our ancestors come from places where it has been less than a century since electricity became part of our lives. So it's very hard to say that "not using electricity" is a defining feature of the Shabbos experience. Contrast this to hotza'ah, including haavarah, which take up what seems like 1/3 of chazal's discussion of issur melakhah (rough estimate from Berakhos and Eruvin in mishna, Tosefta, Y-mi and Bavli). When community eruvin got started, wasn't there a much easier argument of zilzul? Why wasn't it made? Indeed we use the general kelal of being meiqil WRT eiruvin to quite an extent to build one. And what does the fact that a community eruv is NOT zilzul Shabbos say about the nature of zilzul Shabbos and its applicability to nidon didan? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 12:26:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 15:26:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 06:42:58AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : He is now starting a series on religious autonomy. In particular he holds : that one goes to a rabbi for a psak only if he is in doubt. If one has : seriously learned the halachaot and is convinced of the "truth" then he : should follow his own psak and there is no need to go to a "higher : authority". Interesting. Does "seriously learned the halakhos" translate to higi'ah lehora'ah, or something less? RHS requires a certainly level of general knowledge. See Sanhedrin 5a-b. But it also fits RHS's hashkafah that halakhah is an inseperable whole. And so Rebbe doesn't just tell us that night Shema can be said at sundown, he ties it to the law of tevul yom. And RHS similarly advises his talmidim to look to gedolim from their own camp because one with whom they disagree hashkafically is likely to see even apparenty unrelated halakhos differently. Listen to (RAM transcripted other snippets from this talk for one of our many discussions of da'as Torah at .) For that matter, 5b talks about the need to get a heter hora'ah even if one knows enough to pasqen. But then, the gemara is discussing deciding for others, not only oneself. OTOH, pasqening for oneself has a major problem that one doesn't face when answering others' questions -- vested interest vs objectivity. Listen to R Jonathan Ziring's shiur on the topic at . In particular, his very first source (see link to mar'eh meqomos sheet) Nissah 20b. Yalta, "Rebbetzin Nachman", asks her mar'os questions of Rabbah bar bar Chanah and Rabbi Yitzchaq bereih deR' Yehudah, not her husband. Similarly mishnah Nega'im 2:5 saying you can't pasen nega'im even of relatives, Bekhoros 31a about judging one's own bekhoros. So, I would think that not being in doubt is too easily a delusion. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 12:54:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 15:54:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes In-Reply-To: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150513195451.GA16146@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 01:18:22AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Saul Newman asked: :> i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at :> hadchak /bedieved : ... : But I think that the real answer to your question might be: "If the people : in shul can't hear the rabbi or the chazan, that IS a shaas hadchak." Both letzorekh mitzvah and tzarkhei tzibbur are usually classified with she'as hadechaq and hefsed meruba. The two combined is why shuls have such wide lattitude with amira le'akum. (And perhaps either alone? I dunno.) So if a properly designed PA system is a shevus or other derabannan, why not permit this too? BTW, R/Dr Yisrael Rozen of Machon Zomet makes a point of noting that the issues seem to be the same whether the PA system is electrical or based on air pressure. See Microphones and Amplifiers on Shabbat Rabbi Yisrael Rozen C. Microphones Operating on Air Pressure 1. System Description Recently, the idea of a microphone which operates on air pressure, rather than electricity, has been proposed. A company in the United States is in the process of developing this "air-mike," although to the best of my knowledge, the project is still in the experimental stage. The device consists of a container of compressed air[12] and a system of pipes in which the compressed air flows. After one speaks into a horn-like input, his voice is carried on the stream of compressed air in the pipes. Acoustic adjustment (which apparently lies at the heart of the idea) then causes the voice waves to be amplified... 2. Comparison to an Electronic Microphone Several rabbis have permitted the use of air microphones on Shabbat, viewing it as an appropriate means of sound amplification for a synagogue. I question the distinction between an air microphone and a regular microphone - if we permit one, we must permit the other... Let me explain. We have shown that, given the current technology, the main problems with using a microphone on Shabbat have nothing to do with the fact that it runs on electricity. The problems concern the decree of klei shir, the fear that one will repair it, hashma'at kol like a water mill, avsha milta, denigration of Shabbat, and the suspicion of onlookers. Regarding all but the last of these, I see no difference between an air microphone and a regular microphone. In my opinion, an air microphone is a kli shir exactly like a shofar or trumpet; it creates a loud noise like a water mill; there exists the possibility that one will try to adjust it etc.. If you wish to claim that it is not a kli shir because it transmits speech; that we should not innovate a decree of "lest one repair it;" that it does not resemble a water mill because everyone knows that there is no Shabbat violation involved - then the same considerations should apply to a regular microphone as well. Only regarding the suspicion of onlookers might there be a difference between the two types of microphones; with an electric microphone, onlookers may think that an electric circuit was created on Shabbat. But we have already explained that even if one would turn on existing equipment on Shabbat, he would violate only a rabbinic prohibition, and we are not concerned with creating suspicion regarding rabbinic prohibitions. We also noted above that "everyone knows" that the equipment was turned on either before Shabbat or by means of a timer, and thus resembles a chiming clock (which is permitted). I have heard that there are those who permit the air microphone since the speaker's original voice is carried through the pipes (although clearly the majority of the sound waves reaching the audience's ears comes from the air pumped by the compressor). I am astonished at this claim: even in an actual musical instrument (such as a trumpet) the player's breath is mixed in, and nevertheless it is forbidden! In many musical instruments, the sound comes mainly from an "echo chamber," whose geometry shapes and amplifies the sound. To the best of my understanding, an air microphone operates on the same principle.[13] In my opinion, halachic definitions (in all fields) do not stem from scientific, physical, or technical definitions. The definitions of klei shir and hashma'at kol are not based on the technology of sound production, wave dispersion, or other acoustic considerations. The question at hand is whether these devices are included in the rabbinic decree of klei shir or not. In this regard, it does not matter whether one makes his voice heard by means of an electric or an air microphone. Some of those who give a blanket permit to use an air microphone claim that it does not amplify the speaker's voice, but merely carries it. On the basis of material I have received from the factory, I find this claim to be mistaken. Therefore, as far as klei shir and hashma'at kol are concerned, the two types of microphones are identical. ... 3. Responsa Which Erred in the Realia ... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 13:14:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 16:14:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes In-Reply-To: <20150513195451.GA16146@aishdas.org> References: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> <20150513195451.GA16146@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5553B099.7090100@sero.name> On 05/13/2015 03:54 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Both letzorekh mitzvah and tzarkhei tzibbur are usually classified with > she'as hadechaq and hefsed meruba. The two combined is why shuls have such > wide lattitude with amira le'akum. (And perhaps either alone? I dunno.) Letzorech mitzvah is not enough to justify amira lenochri for an issur derabanan, unless the mitzvah absolutely cannot be fulfilled without it. For instance, if one is pitch darkness one may ask a nochri to bring a lit candle through a communal chatzer that has no eruv, because oneg shabbos is impossible in complete darkness; but if there is already at least dim lighting, so that some minimal oneg shabbos is possible, one is *not* allowed to have a nochri bring another candle. Tzorchei tzibbur, OTOH, seems to justify amira lenochri for almost anything. [Quoting R Rosen] > The problems concern the decree of klei shir, the fear that one will > repair it, hashma'at kol like a water mill, avsha milta, denigration > of Shabbat, and the suspicion of onlookers. He's listing the same thing multiple times. "Hashma'at kol like a water mill" *is* "avsha milsa", i.e. passersby will hear it running and know that a Jew's business is operating on Shabbos, and the problem with that is that they will think the Jew is transgressing amira lenochri. These are not separate issues. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 13:32:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 23:32:51 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> References: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <> I understand the concern. However, there is no halacha that a rabbi can't pasken on his own chicken. In fact in real life we all pasken for ourselves on some level. Anytime one has a shabbat question \he can't always run to the LOR. One usually ends up paskening based on whatever knowledge and mesorah one has. This is what makes the life of a Baal Teshuva very difficult. Certainly what RMA and many others are against is running to the LOR or even gadol hador with every question. I have heard complaints from shul rabbis that some congregants come with questions they could easily look upo themselves but prefer to ask the rabbi so that the rabbi notes how serious they are. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 14:35:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 21:35:43 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> Message-ID: . I have heard complaints from shul rabbis that some congregants come with questions they could easily look upo themselves but prefer to ask the rabbi so that the rabbi notes how serious they are. ---------------------- True, but sometimes it may be to establish a connection (yes, funny coming from me-but it is true) KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 15:04:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 18:04:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150513220422.GC10395@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 13, 2015 at 11:32:51PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> OTOH, pasqening for oneself has a major problem that one doesn't face when :> answering others' questions -- vested interest vs objectivity. : : I understand the concern. However, there is no halacha that a rabbi can't : pasken on his own chicken. : In fact in real life we all pasken for ourselves on some level. Anytime one : has a shabbat question he can't always run to the LOR... I was using "pesaq" to refer specifically to open questions that require shiqul hada'as. Your typical Shabbos question is about a devar mishnah. To quote Rt Chana Luntz from Mon, 7 Sep 1998, 8:33pm BDT: 20:33:38 +0100, a post about not combining chumeros: > ... the Rashba on our daf in Chullin [43b], who hold that a Rav only > needs to pay if there is shikul hadaas and not a mistake in a dvar > mishna, are forced to conclude from this that Rava's mistake was in > shikul hadaas - see there]. It would seem that a devar mishnah is not a pesaq that the rav is as responsible for our following his teaching rather than getting the halakhah correctly from some other source. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 15 08:55:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 15 May 2015 11:55:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Laasok beDivrei Sorah Message-ID: <4c752525c83edeb17b85f6670479b9c0@aishdas.org> >From R' Eliezer Eisenberg's blog Beis Vaad L'Chachamim (highly recommended), at http://beisvaad.blogspot.com/2015/05/bechukosai-at-my-grandsons-bar-mitzva.html A couple of personal comments ellided, mostly to save myself the bother of transliterating more Hebrew text. A belated mazal tov to the author, G'Shabbos to all, -micha Friday, May 15, 2015 Bechukosai. At my grandson's Bar Mitzva Drasha at the Bar Mitzva of Avraham Jofen, 5/14/15 ... The Gemara (Brachos 11b) and the rishonim there talk about the issue of hefsek in Birkas HaTorah. There are those that hold that if a person stops learning, he has to make a new bracha when he begins again, because it is a hefsek from the first bracha. The Rishonim, the Agur and the Rosh, say that it is not a hefsek, because even when you are not actually learning, you have to consider what you can and cannot do according to the dinim of the Torah. Even when you are in a place where you cannot learn, you have to behave in a manner that is prescribed in the Torah. As the Hafla'ah says, when you do business, it is not a hefsek, because you are learning Choshen Mishpat. Every decision you make is examined in the light of the Torah, so that is not a hefsek in limud. I would put it this way. Torah is only a mitzvah when you learn al menas laasos. Al menas laasos means that you don't learn superficially, you make the Torah a part of who you are. On the contrary, if what you learn is just on the surface, the learning itself is bitul Torah. If the Mitzva of limud hatorah requires that it should make you into a different person, do you think that carefully living the life of an ehrilcheh ben Torah is a hefsek in limud hatorah? It's not a hefsek, it is a hemshech, it is a kiyum, of the mitzvah of limud hatorah. My father Ztz'l was very friendly with his lawyer, Bill Rosenthal. Bill was an assimilated Jew. The only contact he had with the Jewish religion was when he shook hands with my father. Nonetheless, he and my father were good friends and respected each other. A lawyer for a mortgage company once asked him which university my father studied at, because he could brilliantly analyze contracts. Bill told him that my father studied at Slabodka U. He once asked my father, "You and I are very ethical and honest men. I wouldn't take a penny that wasn't mine, and I have the highest standards of behavior in business. You, too, are very moral, but you do it because of your religious beliefs. Is there really any difference between us? My father told him, on the spot, that there are three differences. One is that for you, a dollar is a small matter, and a question involving a million dollars is a big matter. To me, there is no difference. The principal, the law, is what matters, and the sum of money is irrelevant. Another difference is that let's say you carefully think an issue through, and you decide the other side is right, and you let them win. you will toss and turn at night, ,thinking that maybe you were really right. I, on the other hand, if I decide that I am right, and I keep something that had been disputed, I won't be able to sleep at night our of a concern that maybe my decision was influenced by self interest. The third difference is that while you and I are both successful people,, and we've both made a lot of money, you think that you made the money yourself, and it's 100% yours to do with as you please. I believe that God decided that I should have the money, and God gave me the money, and every dollar that was given to me was given so that I use it in the right way. So it's true, my father learned how to do business at Slabodka U. Because he learned how to do business at Slabodka U, he was able to give, on the spot, three excellent and lomdusheh chilukim about the difference between Bill Rosenthal's moral code and his own moral code. Doing business like that is not a hefsek in the mitzva of limud hatorah. Farkert, it is the biggest kiyum and chizuk of limud hatorah and mussar and yashrus. This is a kiyum of the passuk [im bechuqosai seleikhu], as Rashi explains, [shetihyu ameilim baTorah]. It is this mesora which we bequeath to the Bar Mitzvah. ... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 15 13:39:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 15 May 2015 16:39:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Learning Chumash with the Trop Message-ID: <20150515203756.96751182847@nexus.stevens.edu> My 6 year-old grandson who is in the first grade was taught the trop at the same time he was being taught Chumash. The bottom line is that when he says the Pesukim he has studies in yeshiva, he says each word with the trop. I think this makes it easier for him to remember the Pesukim. When he davens, he says Shma with the trop! I can only wonder why this is not done in all yeshivas. When it will come time for him to lein at his Bar Mitzvah, it should be much easier for him than for those boys who are taught Chumash without the trop. YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 06:37:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 09:37:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Standing at a Chupah Message-ID: <20150518133702.1FA0A18392A@nexus.stevens.edu> Yesterday a friend of mine told be that the Rov where he davened said that he knew of grandparents who did not want to walk down at their grandchildren's Chassana, because they knew that the people attending the chupah would not stand for them even though they were 70 + years old. They did not want to be involved in lifnei Iver. Truth be told, I have seen the following many times. When the grandparents who are 70 or more years old walk down, no one stands for them. However, when the chosson and kallah walk down everyone stands for them. It is, of course, a positive mitzvah to stand up for any person 70 years old or more. See See http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/35165/standing-for-someone-whos-turned-seventy It is questionable if one has to stand for the chosson and kallah. See http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/levine/standing_chasuna.pdf I told my friend that it should be announced at the beginning of every chupah that 1. All cell phones should be turned off; 2. There should be no talking during the chupah, and 3. If grandparents who are 70 or more will be walking down, then one is required to stand for them. I think if this were done at Chasanas it would soon become the norm. 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URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 06:39:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 14:39:50 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001b01d09170$1d5db6f0$581924d0$@org.uk> Rav Zylberstein in the Cheshukei Chemed on Daf 78a of Kesubos discusses the question as to whether a woman today who has lots of peros from her property can say to her husband - "you do not need to redeem me, and I will not give you the peros" - on the ground that the need for redemption today is not common ("lo schiach") - even though the gemora there says that she cannot avoid this trade as mandated by Chazal (despite her being able to avoid the trade between mezonos versus ma'aseh yadeha, again a takana of Chazal, as this last takana was done for her benefit). Rav Zylberstein brings a discussion based on various rishonim to show that actually, pidyon was not common even at the time of Chazal, or at the time of the rishonim, and hence the fact that it is not common today does not change the situation from that mandated by Chazal. He also adds in the position of the Ran, that the takana regarding pidyon is not just made for her benefit (as the mezonos one is) and hence something that can be waived by her, but is also for the benefit of the husband, as without her redemption, the husband doesn't have the benefit of her company and services, while with mezonos that doesn't apply. However, it seems to me that Rav Zylberstein is not in fact dealing with what strikes me as the fundamental question. That is, it is not a question of whether or not pidyon is not common today (indeed, I would be tempted dispute that it is in fact "lo schiach", despite Rav Zylberstein taking this for granted) - but rather that the job of pidyon today is one of those that has been appropriated away from family members such as husbands, and is now the province of governments. The decision as to whether an individual may or may not be redeemed from ISIS, or pirates off Africa, or wherever, is now one which governments take with regard to their citizens. Governments which are prepared to do deals, like France, redeem their citizens (albeit for astronomical sums). Governments, like the UK and the US, who refuse to do deals on the grounds that it just encourages terrorists - will not let individuals, including husbands, redeem, even if the sums could be raised individually, as a matter of general policy. Nobody assumed it was the job of Gilad Shalit's family to effect his release - except to the extent that they was required to lobby the Israeli government (it might even have been treason to go negotiating with Hamas directly). Release or non release negotiations therefore, including the price to be paid (whether by prisoner release or otherwise) is today a government price. So it seems to me that what in fact we have today is a situation where husbands are, for the most part, forbidden by law (dina d'malchusa dina) from redeeming their wives, ie from fulfilling their side of the takana of Chazal. In such circumstances - while one might argue that the state of which the woman is a citizen is entitled to (at least some portion of) the peros (taxes?) the real question then seems to become: on what basis does one say that the second half of the takana stands - not just in relation to a woman who tries to say "you do not need to redeem me", but in relation to any woman in this circumstance. Has anybody come across anybody discussing this question, and any thoughts on any justification for the retention of the husband's benefit if in fact husbands are not legally allowed to effect redemption? BTW on the question of the commonness of redemption - part of that would depend on the scope of the definition of "pidyon". Clearly redemption from ISIS or pirates in Africa falls within this category - but how about rescuing somebody who was trekking in Nepal at the time of the earthquake? Again this is something that governments are now regarded as having a responsibility to do (the British Government has been criticised for failing to do as much as others, such as the Israeli and US governments, have done). At first blush I can't see why flying somebody out of an earthquake zone would not fit within the pidyon definition - despite it being physical forces, such as landslides, rather than people, who may be trapping the individuals. How about a package tour company going bust? Again, the person in question would (absent ATOL and similar travel bonding schemes set up by the relevant governments) be trapped in a foreign country and need to be returned to their country of origin, as per the language of the takana/ketuba. So why would this not be a form of pidyon? But again, is not the fundamental responsibility now assumed to devolve onto the government in respect of its citizens? So while I am not actually sure that it is true that pidyon is in fact so extremely not common, it seems to me that the fundamental question is rather a different one. Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 05:15:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 12:15:18 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: <20150518.081518.3271.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Among the arguments that came up in the discussion of the Kosher > Switch was that it's zilzul Shabbos. > ... what does the fact that a community eruv is NOT zilzul > Shabbos say about the nature of zilzul Shabbos and its > applicability to nidon didan? Excellent point. And I'd like to add another point: There are those who have argued that the availability of various types of timers (including those with software and adjust themselves for varying sunset times) have made the Kosher Switch unnecessary. I disagree strongly. The Kosher Switch, and similar devices do not merely add convenience, but can do a lot for lessening tzaar, and that is a valid and recognized halachic consideration. There were many times when I went to bed earlier than planned, but the light would not go out for another hour, and it was keeping me awake. And there were many times when my seudah lasted longer than expected, but the lights had gone out and we benched in dim light. There were many times when I set the air conditioning for what was expected to be a very hot day, and when it turn out to be mild, we all froze in the cold house. And there were many times when I left the air conditioning off, and regretted it when the day turned hotter than expected. Of course, a couple of centuries ago, people did not have these conveniences, and they learned to cope with them. But I really believe that for us, who have gotten addicted to them, it is a real tzaar when we must do without. (None of the above should be construed as meaning that I endorse any particular sort of device. I'm only talking about devices which we are allowed to use on Shabbos.) [Email #2. -micha] R' Micha Berger asked: > When community eruvin got started, wasn't there a much easier > argument of zilzul? Why wasn't it made? I'm not sure which period of history you're referring to with the phrase "when community eruvin got started", but here's my attempt at an answer: Eruvin did not allow something which had been previously assur, the way timers do and the way the Shabbos Switch would (according to its supporters). Beginning in Moshe Rabenu's day, people were very careful not to carry from a Reshus Hayachid to a Reshus Harabim, or vice versa, or 4 amos within a Reshus Harabim. But everything else was no problem. People would carry from one home to another within the same chatzer without thinking twice. Or even to a home across the street, IF that street was NOT a Reshus Harabim. But over time, accidents started to happen, because it is not always so easy to determine what's a Reshus Harabim and what's not. So at a certain point (either by David Hamelech's beis din, or Shlomo's, I don't remember) TWO halachos were enacted, at the SAME tme: One, that hotzaah was forbidden in a wide variety of areas other than within one Reshus Hayachid. Two, that these other areas could be transformed into a Reshus Hayachid by following some specific rules. The net result is that after Hilchos Eruvin were instituted, there were NO actions which people could be done that were not being done before. No one said, "Now the neighborhood can have a picnic on Shabbos afternoon!", because they could have done this all along, if there was no Reshus Harabim running through. Thus, no one lamented the zilzul Shabbos caused by allowing picnics which had previously been forbidden, because they had NOT previously been forbidden. I suppose it is possible that in the beginning, these procedures were used only by small neighborhoods (chatzeros and not much larger), and it was only much later that they were used by entire communities. If that's what RMB was referring to, then I'll have to stop here and let a historian continue. Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 07:00:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 10:00:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Megilat Rut: The night of Boaz and Rut Revisited Message-ID: <20150518135955.4DC6C183869@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/kmyx55p YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 08:40:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 11:40:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> On Sun, May 17, 2015 at 1:32pm EDT, R/Prof. Yitzchok Levine wrote on Areivim: : Yesterday in shul I asked a 12 year-old boy who attends a good : yeshiva if he was willing to announce the Molad. He looked at me : incredulously and said "What's the Molad?" I replied, "You know, : when the new moon can be seen." He still didn't get it, and I had : to elaborate a bit. I want to get all nerdy with this. The molad is actually an average, not when you could first see the moon this particular month. From 1601 to 200 CE, the actual physical lunation could be 6h 21m shorter or 7h 15m longer. And, the average too changes over time. (As I've noted in the past, it is amazing to me that we had back in the days of Galus Bavel, a molad value that was most accurate in the same century R' Hillel II and his Sanhedrin crated a standard calendar, some 900 years later. Exact to within the unit of measure (the cheileq). Accurate when we needed the value, not when we first obtained it. Currently, the molad is around 108 chalaqim off. And that's just the time between the molads. Then you have to ask when in the cycle the moon could first be seen. How thin of a sliver is visible to the typical human eye? And which longitude's clock are you using? And we announce the time for this point on the globe using today's hour naming convension. If you look at (eg) the Rambam, you'd be seeing a clock which is restarted every day at sunset, making sunset 0:00, not a number various about 6pm. But that's only something to keep in mind when looking at older Sepharadi sefarim, and wouldn't impact understanding what it is we actually announce. It would seem the molad as we now announce it would be for Kandahar, Afghanistan. But that must be due to slippage because the molad is too long. If we go back to the 4th or 5th cent CE, the molad is being announced given the time around midway between the Nile and the far (south-east) end of the Euphrates, which would have been around the middle of Jewish settlement at the time. In any case, calling is Jerusalem Time is a misnomer. Anyway, because we don't know for sure what location on the globe the molad was defined for, and how much of the current location is due to slippage during centuries of molads growing ever longer, we cannot definitively translate molad time to your local standard time. We simply do not know the starting lattitude to convert from. Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 08:53:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 11:53:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 11:40 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. Sure we do. It's the motion of an "averaged moon" that orbits the earth in a perfect circle, and that, however fictional, forms the basis of our calendar. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 09:41:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 12:41:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150518164134.GC20828@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 11:53:42AM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : On 05/18/2015 11:40 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: : >Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. : Sure we do. It's the motion of an "averaged moon" that orbits the earth : in a perfect circle, and that, however fictional, forms the basis of our : calendar. Except we don't know how much of an idealized moon is supposed to be showing and where between the latitudes of Alexandria and Sura it would have been showing. IOW, we don't know when in the moon's cycle the molad is an idealization of. Note, though, that Rabban Gamliel quotes a mesorah from R' Gamliel haZaqein ("mibeis avi abba) that the molad varies. And in a second quote, that it will never be "less than" 29-1/2d 2/3h 73 chalaqim. (Shabbos 25a) And he uses this to question eidim, so this is a mesorah he accepts for re'iyah, not just computation. Redoing R' Gamaliel's fractions, and converting 73c = 4m 1c, we get 29d 4 hr, 44m, 1 c. Our molad. So Rabban Gamliel held our molad was a lower limit, not an average!? And recall, we'e talking re'iyah (see the sugya) and the actual lunation could be over 6hr easlier than the average. What am I missing? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 08:23:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 11:23:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: <001b01d09170$1d5db6f0$581924d0$@org.uk> References: <001b01d09170$1d5db6f0$581924d0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <555A0402.4060608@sero.name> It should be borne in mind that there are still countries (including ones with substantial Jewish communities) where the need for pidyon is at least as common now as it probably was in Chazal's day. Also that while in many countries paying ransoms may be technically illegal, hardly anybody who is r"l in that situation cares about this. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 09:35:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Riceman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 12:35:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <555A14EF.8070305@optimum.net> RMB: <. In particular, his very first source (see link to mar'eh meqomos sheet) Nissah 20b. Yalta, "Rebbetzin Nachman", asks her mar'os questions of Rabbah bar bar Chanah and Rabbi Yitzchaq bereih deR' Yehudah, not her husband. Similarly mishnah Nega'im 2:5 saying you can't pasen nega'im even of relatives, Bekhoros 31a about judging one's own bekhoros.>> The standard hiluq is is'hazek issura or not. See, e.g., Hochmas Adam H. Shechitah 1:10, Binas Adam ad. loc., and HA H. Nidah 109:6 and BA ad. loc. I think the issue is that hora'ah in the presence of hezkas issur is considered eidus. The argument of self interest raises some problems: 1. Do you know of cases where rabbis have referred questions about communal matters to experts elsewhere because they are self interested since they live in the community? For example, do Hachmai EY refer questions about communal safety (e.g., military matters) to rabbis in Hutz LaAretz because they are self interested? 2. Why shouldn't self interest be a psul in the absence of hezkas issur? I know people on this list have cited it to me in the case of restaurants certifying their own products. David Riceman From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 10:03:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 13:03:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518164134.GC20828@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> <20150518164134.GC20828@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555A1B64.8060409@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 12:41 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > What am I missing? That what we announce is *not* anything to do with the actual moon, which the eidim in RG's time would have claimed to have seen, but the notional averaged moon on which *our* calendar is based. The *real* molad, i.e. conjunction of moon and sun, does vary, because the real moon does not orbit the earth in a perfect circle; the notional molad on which we base our calendar, and which we announce every month (except, ironically, the one month when it actually matters), is perfectly regular. And "molad" does seem to mean the conjunction, not the moment when the first sliver is visible, because the gemara in RH seems to say that the first possible sighting of the new moon is six hours *after* the molad. So we do know exactly what we are announcing: the number on which the calendar is based. Given this Shabbos's announcement, one can easily calculate that next Rosh Hashana will be on a Monday, exactly as it should be. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 10:49:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 13:49:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> At 11:40 AM 5/18/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. Yet it says in the siddurim that it should be announced so people know when it is! My understanding is that what is announced is Jerusalem solar time and this is different from Jerusalem local time. YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 11:47:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 14:47:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150518184701.GD20828@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 01:03:32PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : On 05/18/2015 12:41 PM, Micha Berger wrote: : >What am I missing? : : That what we announce is *not* anything to do with the actual moon, which : the eidim in RG's time would have claimed to have seen, but the notional : averaged moon on which *our* calendar is based... First, as Zev noted to me in private, I meant RH 25a (not Mes' Shabbos). But the point I asked "what am I missing?" about was Rabbi Gamliel questioning what people thought they saw, not the average. In R' Gamliel's day, the length of the molad was pretty close to exact; even today it's closer than they had any way to measure. But that's still an average. And real values can be more than 6 hr earlier. So, how can R' Gamliel question someone's observation for being less than a molad, when in half of all months re'iyah will be early -- and many 5 or 6 hr early. : So we do know exactly what we are announcing: the number on which the : calendar is based. Given this Shabbos's announcement, one can easily : calculate that next Rosh Hashana will be on a Monday, exactly as it : should be. As I said in my previous post... Yes, that explans the length of the molad, but not the point in the idealized cycle. How much moon must be visible for it to be a new moon? Or more accurately, what was visible when the molad was al pi re'iyah that we are now using a simplified model to approximate? And we can't just calculate what it is the molad is approximating, because we don't know what clock to use. It looks to me like Hillel was using a point halfway between EY and Bavel, somewhere in the center of the contiguous Jewish settlement. But that's largely guesswork. On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 01:49:49PM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : My understanding is that what is announced is Jerusalem solar time : and this is different from Jerusalem local time. Which is why I left out the word standard, writing "Jerusalem Time" rather than Israel Standard Time. But as I wrote above, it's not. See also my first post (for Avodah) on this thread for more detail. In 1999, R Yisrael Medad posted something about this on MJ, after having R/Prof Ely Merbach, R/Prof Yaakov Loewinger and the Bar Ilan astronomy dept bad the question around. See They assume Jerusalem Mean Time, but they make the fundamental error of discussing mean conjunction -- no moon -- not the first sliver. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 13:31:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 16:31:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150518203148.GB4022@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 02:24:32PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : >Yes, that explans the length of the molad, but not the point in the : >idealized cycle. How much moon must be visible for it to be a new : >moon? [...] they make the fundamental error of discussing mean : >conjunction -- no moon -- not the first sliver. : : I don't think they made an error at all. The molad is the conjunction; : the earliest time at which the moon can be seen is six hours after : the molad. How do you know this? The Rambam (Qiddush Levana 6:1) appears to say it's the average of the first time the moon could be seen "kedei leida im yeira'eh hayarei'ach of lo yeira'eh.... bemahalakhtam ha'emtza'i, who haniqra 'molad'". And my whole point was that we didn't know how big of a sliver is "yeira'eh", but I'm willing to entertain the possibility that we announce when it cannot be seen, as a way of knowing by deduction when it could. I just can't see it as a given. Combining not knowing how much -- if any -- after the conjunction the molad is with not knowing which lattitude's clock is being used was the not knowing what the molad really means. You could move the lattitude by changing the size sliver. As for why we announce the molad... The Yerei'im gives the answer Zev did. The MA quotes the Yerei'im and says that mevorkhim hachodesh is lezeikher the real qiddush hachodesh by Sanhedrin. Which is why we stand. RMF (IM OC 1:142) says this is in imitation of the qehillah who would stand when answering "Mequdash! Mequdash!" I find the MA's answer more compelling, because it unlikely that it is to know when Rosh Chodesh should be, when the one RC that most depends on the molad isn't announced -- Tishrei. It also adds resonence for me when saying "Mi sheAsah Nissim", that before the chazan announces ther month, we ask for a return of the qiddush hachodesh being commemorated. And if truly "chaverim kol Yisrael" and we acted it, we would have a Sanhedrin. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 11:24:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 14:24:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 01:49 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > At 11:40 AM 5/18/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >> Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. > Yet it says in the siddurim that it should be announced so people know > when it is! It's the number used for calculating the calendar. That's all people need to know. > My understanding is that what is announced is Jerusalem solar time > and this is different from Jerusalem local time. No, it's different from J'm *standard* time, i.e. the modern time system invented by the railroads, which of course we take no notice of. On 05/18/2015 02:47 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > But the point I asked "what am I missing?" about was Rabbi Gamliel > questioning what people thought they saw, not the average. Why are you discussing that? The topic is the announcement in shul, which relates entirely to our calculated system, not to RG's system. You wrote that nobody knows what it is that's being announced, and I dispute that. RG is entirely irrelevant, since he was dealing with the actual moon, not the notional moon that our system deals with. > Yes, that explans the length of the molad, but not the point in the > idealized cycle. How much moon must be visible for it to be a new > moon? [...] they make the fundamental error of discussing mean > conjunction -- no moon -- not the first sliver. I don't think they made an error at all. The molad is the conjunction; the earliest time at which the moon can be seen is six hours after the molad. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 14:36:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 17:36:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518203148.GB4022@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> <20150518203148.GB4022@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555A5B79.2030308@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 04:31 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > > How do you know this? The Rambam (Qiddush Levana 6:1) appears to say > it's the average of the first time the moon could be seen "kedei leida im > yeira'eh hayarei'ach of lo yeira'eh.... bemahalakhtam ha'emtza'i, > who haniqra 'molad'". On the contrary, that Rambam says *explicitly* that the molad is the exact moment of the conjunction, which is *not* when it can be seen. Read it again and you will surely see this. > As for why we announce the molad... The Yerei'im gives the answer > Zev did.The MA quotes the Yerei'im and says that mevorkhim hachodesh > is lezeikher the real qiddush hachodesh by Sanhedrin. Which is why > we stand. RMF (IM OC 1:142) says this is in imitation of the qehillah > who would stand when answering "Mequdash! Mequdash!" Neither the Yere'im nor the MA even mention the announcement of the molad, let alone give any reason for it. All the Yere'im says is that the announcement of Rosh Chodesh in shul is not at all related to kidush hachodesh, but is merely so people should know when Rosh Chodesh will be. The MA adds that although this is true, the custom is to stand for it, as a zecher to kidush hachodesh, which was done standing. R Akiva Eger asks how this could be so, since we know that a beis din must sit, not stand. RMF answers thatkiddush hachodesh was done notby the BD, but by the audience, after hearing the BD's psak, and they were surely standing, and this is what the MA means. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 14:49:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 17:49:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: RMicha Berger wrote: >Among the arguments that came up in the discussion of the Kosher Switch was that it's zilzul Shabbos. >>The thought hit me, though... Refraining from operating electrical devices has only been a potential issue for 125 years or so. And except for Yekkes, most of our ancestors come from places where it has been less than a century since electricity became part of our lives. >So it's very hard to say that "not using electricity" is a defining feature of the Shabbos experience.< True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul Shabbos. (Of course, by this argument, putting an electric light on or off should be prohibited even if the use of electricity is not a m'lacha.) >Contrast this to hotza'ah, including haavarah, which take up what seems like 1/3 of chazal's discussion of issur melakhah (rough estimate from Berakhos and Eruvin in mishna, Tosefta, Y-mi and Bavli).< I assume that "Berakhos" should be replaced by "Shabbos." >When community eruvin got started, wasn't there a much easier argument of zilzul? Why wasn't it made? Indeed we use the general kelal of being meiqil WRT eiruvin to quite an extent to build one. And what does the fact that a community eruv is NOT zilzul Shabbos say about the nature of zilzul Shabbos and its applicability to nidon didan?< What tzuras hapesach and eiruv permit is not carrying prohibited by the Torah. Rather, it is, in effect, a built-in exception to the issurim imposed mid'rabbanan by two g'zeiros: the classification of certain areas, which min haTorah are m'kom p'tur, as a new entity called karmelis, and the imposing of a prohibition of hotza'a from one r'shus hayachid to another of different ownership. Both were in use long before there was a city eruv. E.g., persons sharing a two-family house with a common fenced yard would make an eruv to permit carrying to and from their living quarters to the others' and to the yard. Likewise, a house opening to an unfenced yard would make a tzuras hapesach to permit carrying between house and yard. And, of course, two houses opening to a common unfenced yard would make a tzuras hapesach to "enclose" the yard, and then an eruv to permit carrying among houses and yard. The city eruv was not an introduction of a new practice, but a larger-scale use of already common practices. How does this constitute zilzul Shabbos? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 14:31:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 22:31:48 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000001d091b2$0c5074f0$24f15ed0$@org.uk> RZS writes: >It should be borne in mind that there are still countries (including ones >with substantial Jewish communities) where the need for pidyon is at least >as common now as it probably was in Chazal's day. Are you thinking of South America? I confess that is what springs to mind from your suggestion, although how often ransom is really required in such countries I don't know. > Also that while in many countries paying ransoms may be technically illegal, hardly anybody who is >r"l in that situation cares about this. But presumably you are talking about the same ones (eg South America). My question relates solely to countries, like Britain and Israel, to which Rav Zylberstein was referring. He took it for granted that in fact it was exceedingly uncommon for pidyon to be needed. I am not so sure it is so uncommon, but I doubt very much that in these countries "hardly anybody who is r"l in that situation cares about this". That is, while I know from the press of numbers of cases in which pidyon has been needed for British and Israeli citizens, in none of these cases were private individuals allowed to redeem (despite them quite naturally wanting to, and possibly being willing to do so, if they had not been restrained, whether by circumstances or otherwise). Clearly if one lives in a place where pidyon is common, and where, whatever the technical law says, in practice individual family members redeem, neither my question nor Rav Zylberstein's gets off the ground. But I don't think the existence of a place in the world, that one would never contemplate living in (and is not the locus of the ketuba), is relevant to the obligations under that ketuba which must relate to the places that the couple live and the governments under which they live. Even when it might involve some less scrupulous situations - one of the mothers in our school in England had the situation that her sons were effectively kidnapped by her ex-husband and held in Russia. And while yes, ultimately she found where they were hidden by means of a private investigator, which cost her private money, she would never have been able to extract them had: (a) Russia not signed up to the Hague convention; (b) the Russian court given judgment in her favour; and (c) the Russian police at the bequest of the English government on the basis of the Russian judgment actually going in and retrieving the boys (whose location they had singularly failed to identify until the private investigator had provided the cast iron information as to where they were). And she would have struggled to have brought them back into England without the rulings of the Russian authorities. And even if an adult is different, I cannot see the British government allowing one of its citizens to go off and try and attempt pidyon of another of its citizens without its active involvement, it being seen as cutting across its foreign policy (even if this was occurring in a place where ransom payments amongst locals was common). >Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 15:53:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 18:53:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] measurement error In-Reply-To: <20150111185211.GA15414@aishdas.org> References: <54AD8B25.3010103@optimum.net> <20150111185211.GA15414@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150518225308.GA15666@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 01:52:11PM -0500, Micha Berger wrote: : In an appreciated bit of siyata dishmaya, my Arukh haShulchan yomi : sechedule brought me to a primary source : on this subject -- AhS OC 363:32-35. The he.WikiSource.org ("Vikiteqst") : copy is at ... : When dealing with mavui, where there is only one mavui and therefore one : measuring process to be used for everyone, the above applies. However, : when the measurement is only for one person's use, tbey should be : measuring for himself, with his own norms. : And here he adds a touch of subjectivity: a person should measure how : far he himself could walk. And the rule of carrying in rh"r a distance : of no more 4 of one's own amos is brought into that umbrella. : The reason for the general rule is to cover the personal amos of the : people who will be using the measuring. : BUT, and this is why I do not follow, he opened se'if 32 by telling us : the variability is 1/48 of the total (1/24 of an etzba per ammah). Which : is far less than the variability in forearm lengths in most groups of : people. For example, my own sukkah is used by Yoni, who stands 6'3" and by : my own 5'3" -- and my arms are on the shorter side, even proportionally. : When we hold up elbows together, my ammah ends just past his wrist. Not : within 47/48 of eachother. I came across another AhS datapoint for this thread, OC 586:14. He quotes the Rambam Shofar 1:5, discussing the minimum length of a shofar: that you can hold it in your hand and it's visible on either end. The AhS explains the intent as being the size of the toqei'ah's hand, but rather an average person's hands, "veshi'uro tefach sheheim 4 godelim". Then there is a debate whether the tefach has to be a generous one, so as to be visible (Tur, quoting Ri Gei'os) or a narrow one (Tur himself and SA), which is still visible if the toqei'ah uses four fingers -- after all, they'll still be narrower than 4 thumbs. So the shiur is neither personal nor really the standard tefach. It is literally as the gemara says, what can be held and still seen. Which is why there is a machloqes about where the tefach stands in relation to the real shiur. But, visible if hypothetically held by an average hand. And if the tqoei'ah has wide hands, he could hold a minimal shofar without it being visible, and it would still be kosher. The AhS also says this was already explained in Nidah 26b, which is a depressing gemara about miscarriages, and a tefach comes up in shiurim for tum'ah, but I didn't see where it mentionrs our topic of what kind of tefach is used. What I find even more interesting is that there is no chiluq being drawn between someone who blows in shul and someone who blows just for himself. Wouldn't the rule from OC 363 mean that someone in the latter situation should use what is visible when their own hand holds it? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 15:35:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 18:35:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: <000001d091b2$0c5074f0$24f15ed0$@org.uk> References: <000001d091b2$0c5074f0$24f15ed0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <555A6924.4010709@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 05:31 PM, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: > RZS writes: > >> It should be borne in mind that there are still countries (including ones >> with substantial Jewish communities) where the need for pidyon is at least >> as common now as it probably was in Chazal's day. > > Are you thinking of South America? Well, Latin America (so as to include Mexico). There are also other such countries, such as India, the Philippines, Nigeria, where the need for pidyon is common, but there are not a lot of Jews living there. > But I don't > think the existence of a place in the world, that one would never > contemplate living in (and is not the locus of the ketuba), is relevant to > the obligations under that ketuba which must relate to the places that the > couple live and the governments under which they live. Even a couple marrying in such a country must contemplate the possibility that one or both might one day travel to a country where kidnapping is common, and be kidnapped. Even in Chazal's day the danger was not so much where people lived as on the highways and the seas, where they might travel. Also, I am not at all sure that it is actually illegal in most normal countries to pay ransom. What is illegal is giving *anything* to groups that are officially listed by that country's government as terrorists. If the kidnappers are not on the list, so that it would be legal to give them a gift, then I don't think there's a law against paying them ransom. (Perhaps there should be.) -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 19 11:32:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joseph Kaplan via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 14:32:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Standing at a Chupah Message-ID: <004f01d09262$1f0388c0$5d0a9a40$@tenzerlunin.com> "Truth be told, I have seen the following many times. When the grandparents who are 70 or more years old walk down, no one stands for them. However, when the chosson and kallah walk down everyone stands for them." At almost every MO wedding I've attended over the past 5-10 years, everyone stood when the grandparents walked down whether they were older than 70 or not. But if, God willing, I'm around for my grandchildren's weddings, I plan to walk (or, if necessary, wheelchair) down the aisle whether anybody stands for me or not. Joseph -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 19 12:18:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 15:18:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150519191809.GA8642@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 05:49:16PM -0400, elazar teitz via Avodah wrote: :> So it's very hard to say that "not using electricity" is a defining :> feature of the Shabbos experience. : True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature : of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so : accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul : Shabbos. (Of course, by this argument, putting an electric light on or off : should be prohibited even if the use of electricity is not a m'lacha.) As would replacing gefilte fish with sushi? It's not that people from Sinai to around 100 years ago actually experienced avoiding the lightswitch, nor did they even consciously experience not having one -- since there was no conception of an alternative. Not using electricity, and saying that qedushas shabbos requires avoiding electricity are really two different things, experientially. 100 years ago we had an opportunity to do something new on Shabbos, much like when shomerei Shabbos first learned of sushi. The difference is that we did assur one new opportunity, and not the other. ... : What tzuras hapesach and eiruv permit is not carrying prohibited by : the Torah. Rather, it is, in effect, a built-in exception to the issurim : imposed mid'rabbanan by two g'zeiros... ... : The city eruv was not an introduction of a new practice, but a : larger-scale use of already common practices. How does this constitute : zilzul Shabbos? Yes, that explains why it's nothing clearer cut than zilzul Shabbos. AIUI, worrying about zilzul means that the mechanism is mutar, but the goal is one that cheapens Shabbos, removes some of the feeling of its qedushah. Like taking the pre-existing concept of eiruv as a way to have a reshus that was no included in Shelomo ubeis dino's original issur hotza'ah and stretching it to a much bigger area than ever before, so that most people never have reason to leave it most weeks. So that the entire issur goes from being one of the dominant features of Shabbos (judging just in blatt of discussion) to barely ever experienced. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 45th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Malchus: What is the beauty of Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity (on all levels of relationship)? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 19 12:46:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 22:46:01 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] donor egg Message-ID: "A 65-year-old Bnei Brak woman gave birth this week, becoming the oldest woman to give birth in Israel. The ultra-Orthodox woman and her 67-year-old husband had been battling infertility for 46 years before the birth at Kfar Sava?s Meir hospital. After fertility treatments abroad and with the help of a donor egg, the woman became pregnant, giving birth to a 2.685-kg baby in her 35th week of pregnancy. ?To the best of my knowledge, this is the oldest woman to give birth in Israel. It is extremely rare that pregnancy at this age ends well. The ultra-Orthodox circle from which the couple comes attributed the pregnancy and birth to a blessing the woman received from a Hassidic rabbi. " http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel/.premium-1.657230 Given all the halachic controversy of who is the halachic mother I am a little surprised -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 07:11:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 17:11:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? Message-ID: There is a famous Medrash that before offering the Torah to the Jewish people Hashem offered it to the other nations of the world. "First He approached the children of Esav and asked them, "Do you wish to accept the Torah?" They replied, "What is written in it?" "Do not murder." They said, "...Our father was assured that, 'By your sword will you live (Bereishit 27:40)!'" Next Hashem went to the children of Ammon and Moav, and asked, "Do you wish to accept the Torah?" They asked, "What is written in it?" "Do not commit sexual immorality." They responded, "Master of the Universe, our very existence is based on an immoral act!" Hashem then went to the children of Yishmael, and asked them, "Do you wish to accept the Torah?" They asked, "What is written in it?" "Do not steal." They responded, "Master of the Universe, the essence of our father was to be a bandit, as it is written, 'And he will be a man of the wild; his hand will be in all...'" (Bereishit 16:12)." Sifri, Ve'Zot HaBracha #343 However, the Medrash has an obvious question. All of the examples of Torah prohibitions given by the Medrash, are also prohibited by the 7 mitzvos of Bnei Noach. The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from murder so how would accepting the Torah make things worse for them? The same goes for arayos and stealing, these were already prohibited to them anyway so why does the medrash specifically pick these as examples for Torah prohibitions? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 11:16:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 14:16:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150520181647.GA15475@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 05:11:29PM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : However, the Medrash has an obvious question. All of the examples of Torah : prohibitions given by the Medrash, are also prohibited by the 7 mitzvos of : Bnei Noach. The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from murder so how would : accepting the Torah make things worse for them? The same goes for arayos : and stealing, these were already prohibited to them anyway so why does the : medrash specifically pick these as examples for Torah prohibitions? I raised this and a second question in : Hashem's answer to each of the nations is strange. Why choose the one sin their forefather was known for? Is that how you would do kiruv, starting with the hard stuff? By comparing this medrash to the opening pasuk in this week's parshah, [Lekh Lekha,] we can get a better understanding of the point of the story. "Hashem said to Avram, `Go for yourself from your homeland, from your birthplace and from your father's house to the land which I will show you'." (12:1) The first sentence recorded in the Torah of the Jewish mission on earth is a commandment for Avram to leave his home and his father. Avram didn't say, "I can't worship G-d because my very substance his idolatry, because my father, Terach, manufactures idols". Hashem orders Avram to leave the culture that made him, to leave his father's sphere of influence, and he does. Avram's reply was "And Avram went, just as G-d told him". (12:4) If Hashem said he could change, rise above Ur Casdim to become fit for both the land of Israel and the father of the people of Israel, then he goes. Is man a creature of fate or of destiny? Is his future foretold, etched in rock, unchangeable? Or can he rebuild himself into something greater than he was? Clearly the Torah insists on the latter. The very key to accepting the Torah is to be committed to use its ideas and its mitzvos to improve and to grow. This was the failing ascribed to the other nations in the medrash. They saw a given flaw in their national character as their substance, immutable. Hashem wasn't asking them about a particular prohibition, but about their commitment to leave their "father's house". If they do not believe they can change, what purpose can getting the Torah serve them? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 46th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Malchus: How can some forms of Fax: (270) 514-1507 "unity" be over domineering? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 11:48:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 14:48:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: <20150520181647.GA15475@aishdas.org> References: <20150520181647.GA15475@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555CD6E5.5000606@sero.name> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 05:11:29PM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from murder so how would : accepting the Torah make things worse for them? The same goes for arayos : and stealing, these were already prohibited to them anyway sowhy does the : medrash specifically pick these as examples for Torah prohibitions? Perhaps that was His point: you can't even keep the mitzvos you already have, so how can you want more? On 05/20/2015 02:16 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > I raised this and a second question in > : > Hashem's answer to each of the nations is strange. Why choose the one > sin their forefather was known for? Is that how you would do kiruv, > starting with the hard stuff? Why the premise that the purpose was kiruv? On the contrary, I think the medrash's intent is clear, that Hashem did *not* want them to accept His offer, and thus pitched it in the manner most likely to be rejected. The only purpose of making the offer in the first place was so they wouldn't be able to complain that they hadn't been given the chance. He wasn't trying to sell it to them, He was showing them why they didn't want it, and therefore shouldn't be upset that the Jews were getting it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 17:29:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 20:29:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] 65 Year-Old Woman Gives Birth to First Child in Bnei Brak In-Reply-To: <20150520.101659.17683.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150520.101659.17683.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150521002935.GC9522@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 02:16:59PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Areivim wrote: : If we were speaking Lashon Hakodesh, you'd be correct - Bar Mitzvah is : a noun, and only a noun. However, we are clearly speaking English, and : several dictionaries tell me that in English, "Bar Mitzvah" is both a noun : and a verb. See, for example, http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bar+mitzvah : which gives "bar mitzvahed" (and other forms) as examples. : Languages are funny this way. Stuff can change when a word enters a : new language. However, there is no real concept correspnding to the English word "bar mitzvahed". The borrowing was primarily done by non-traditional Jews, who think that being called up to the Torah changes your status. But in reality, "bar mitzvahed" makes as much sense as saying someone pubertied or menopaused. We O could borrow the word as shorthand for "became a bar mitzah" but since the original borrowing is really based on a misunderstanding of the Torah, why should we? It'll just make it harder to clear up the mistake. : If I'm not mistaken, the Yiddish word for "holiday" is pronounced : "yuntif", and it is spelled "yud vav memsofit blankspace tes vav beis", : and is considered a single word despite the fact... IIRC, on the NY State Yiddish Regents Examination in the late 1970s, it was spelled as it sounds, one word, yud-alef-nun-tes-eyin-ende fei (w/ a refuyah line over it). (R' Riskin, whose HS I attended, required a foreign language, and Hebrew doesn't count as "foreign". The Hebrew Regents exam was a separate requirement to graduate. As was Red Cross swimming certification and you could choose either CPR or First Aid. The latter two were because the HS is the father's shaliach for all of chinukh and education. Anyway, I already had some background in Yiddish, and I heard that the Yiddish regents eere easier than more popular languages like Spanish or French, so...) But the, Chassidishe Yiddish and YIVO Yiddish (the legacy of Litvishe Yiddishists) are different dialects. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 46th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Malchus: How can some forms of Fax: (270) 514-1507 "unity" be over domineering? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 17:53:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 20:53:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Admin: [Areivim] 65 Year-Old Woman Gives Birth to First Child in Bnei Brak In-Reply-To: <20150521002935.GC9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150520.101659.17683.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> <20150521002935.GC9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150521005329.GF9522@aishdas.org> The previous email was misdirected. Replies to it will not be accepted. (On Avodah. If Areivim's mods approve it, reply there.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 18:57:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 20:57:21 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <555D3B81.5030709@starways.net> I think the obvious answer is that midrash is midrash. One midrash doesn't have to be consistent with another. It's there to learn from, and the message of this one comes through regardless of the Noachide laws. On 5/20/2015 9:11 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > There is a famous Medrash that before offering the Torah to the Jewish > people Hashem offered it to the other nations of the world. > > However, the Medrash has an obvious question. All of the examples of > Torah prohibitions given by the Medrash, are also prohibited by the 7 > mitzvos of Bnei Noach. The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from > murder so how would accepting the Torah make things worse for them? > The same goes for arayos and stealing, these were already prohibited > to them anyway so why does the medrash specifically pick these as > examples for Torah prohibitions? > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 03:36:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 06:36:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: <555D3B81.5030709@starways.net> References: <555D3B81.5030709@starways.net> Message-ID: <20150521103619.GC7831@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 08:57:21PM -0500, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: : I think the obvious answer is that midrash is midrash. One midrash : doesn't have to be consistent with another. It's there to learn : from, and the message of this one comes through regardless of the : Noachide laws. I believe the question was finding internal consistency in a single medrash from the Yalqut Shim'oni. The medrash that says the nations were offered the Torah itself says the example mitzvos were ones they were already obligated in, and ones their ancestor was known for. So, what does that tell us about the message? To me, it says that the offer was more about testing one's willingness to change. Therefore, each is asked if they would be willing to refrain from something that they should already be avoiding, but is part of their current culture. And that, in turn, speaks to seeing the Torah as a tool for self-transformation. Which I mean in a manner vague enough to include both Chassidim and Litvaks. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 07:50:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 10:50:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Ways to find non-meat or non-milk Message-ID: <20150521145032.GH9522@aishdas.org> >From the founder of Machon Zomer, RYRosen, on possible ways to eat kosher meat and milk together without violating basar bechalav. -micha Shabbat B'Shabbato Translated by Moshe Goldberg Point Of View Bit of Reality from Sinai Rabbi Yisrael Rosen Dean of the Zomet Institute "This teaches you that scripture, the Mishna, halacha, tosefta, hagadda, and whatever a veteran scholar will teach in the future already exists, and it was all given as halacha to Moshe at Sinai" [Kohellet Rabba 1]. ... Recipes with Meat and Milk In honor of the holiday, we have pieced together for you, from the newest volume, some juicy samples of dairy halachot, as is fitting for the holiday of Shavuot, in order to fulfill the verse, "Honey and milk are under your tongue" [Shir Hashirim 4:11]. We will capture your interest for halachic sophistication by offering you, from this new volume of Techumin, a serving of meat cooked in milk (yes, you read that right!). Compare this to Rav Nachman, who gave his wife an udder soaked in milk in order to satisfy her desire to taste a combination of milk and meat (Chulin 109b). And what is our enticing menu item that fits this requirement? See below... (1) "Ben Pekua" -- It is an accepted halacha (admittedly quite odd) that if a cow is slaughtered in the eighth month of her pregnancy and the calf is found to be alive, it is called a "Ben Pekua" and there is no need to slaughter it. It can be eaten in any manner, including even taking off a limb while it is still alive (Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Dei'ah 13), even many years later, and there is no need to check if it has one of the faults that would render a normal animal unkosher. And now, here is the most surprising part: The offspring of a male and female "Ben Pekua" (both of the "parents must be of this type) will never require kosher slaughtering either, and this includes all subsequent generations. (However, if only one parent is a "Ben Pekua," the offspring cannot be made kosher, even by slaughtering!) Rabbi Meir Rabi from Australia published a dramatic article where he claims that by definition a Ben Pekua is not cattle (but is rather the same as fish), and therefore not only is there no need to remove the veins in the hind quarter, one is even permitted to cook it and eat it together with milk! To come to this conclusion, the rabbi bases his ruling on a Torah insight by the Meshech Chochma, that our Patriarch Avraham served his guests, the angels, "a calf (literally, the son of cattle, or a ben pekua!) that was tender and good," from the womb of a pregnant cow, and he gave them "butter and milk, and the calf" [Bereishit 18:8]. Rabbi Rabi went further, and acted on his ruling. Using this method he created male and female "sheep" and grew flocks from them, and he now has a culinary and halachic declaration -- these animals do not need to be slaughtered, their veins do not have to be removed, their fat is not prohibited -- and the rabbi has a long list of other benefits. However, modern rabbis do not accept this idea! In the new volume of Techumin, Rabbi Zev Vitman, the rabbi of Tenuvah (which sells milk, meat, and fish) vigorously opposes the novel ruling. Aside from the release from the requirement of ritual slaughtering (which is carried over from the mother or the grandmother of the calf), Rabbi Vitman disagrees with (almost) all the other conclusions. He finds no justification for defining the Ben Pekua as a "new and separate species." In addition, in volume 19 of Techumin, sixteen years ago, Sephardi Chief Rabbi Bakshi-Doron rejected a similar proposal that was sent to him by meat farmers on the Golan, fearing that it would lead to serious problems. Other prominent rabbis, such as Rabbi Shmuel Vazner and Rabbi Asher Weiss, warned against getting involved in this sophisticated and complex halachic problem. (2) We are thus left to search elsewhere for a combination of meat and milk: meat that has been cloned from stem cells! In a previous volume, Rev Tvi Reizman (a well-known businessman from Los Angeles who is also a Torah scholar well versed in matters of halacha and actuality) writes about an "artificial hamburger" which was created two years ago. This is produced from artificial meat made from stem cells of a cow which was not slaughtered or which was declared unkosher ("tereifa"). In principle, he concludes that clone meat is not real meat, and that it can therefore be cooked and eaten with milk! (The summary of the article includes many details which will not be repeated here. For example, the problem of appearances can be solved by proper packaging and declarations, as is done for soya milk.) However, my friends, I doubt that you should rush out after the holiday to search for an "artificial hamburger," in order to season it with honey and dip it in milk. Rabbi Yaacov Ariel opposes the idea in the new volume of Techumin. He concludes that such artificial meat can only be produced from a kosher animal, and that then "it will be considered meat for all intents and purposes, including the matter of cooking with milk." So, in the end we are left with the solution in the Talmud: Does anybody want some milk-saturated udders? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 08:36:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 11:36:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula Message-ID: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> In OC 196:1, the Rama mentions the minhag of blowing 30 qolos at the end of RH mussaf. "Ule'achar sheyatze'u bazeh, shuv ein litqua od bechinam." (Although a qatan, even higia lechinuch, may.) So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. As for being yotzei... Mitzvas shofar only requires tashra"t, tasha"t OR tara"t, 3 times. A point the AhS makes besheim the Rash besheim R' Hai Gaon (Shilhei RH), "delav sefeiqos gemuros hein", that Rav Avahu was mesaqein in order for everyone to do the same thing, not because otherwise you're not yotzei shemie'as qol shofar. The AhS criptically adds, "(ulevad zeh yeish bazeh inyan gadol)." So the question is whether you have to blow in numerous ways few other people use in order to fulfil a taqanah created to create uniformity of practice. But enough of the tirade, and back to the point: Being machmir in hilkhos shofar this way involves a qulah in hilkhos yom tov. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:25:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:25:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150521202527.GP9522@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 02:46:27PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : On 05/21/2015 11:36 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: :> In OC 196:1, the Rama mentions the minhag of blowing 30 qolos at the :> end of RH mussaf. "Ule'achar sheyatze'u bazeh, shuv ein litqua od :> bechinam." :> (Although a qatan, even higia lechinuch, may.) : : Not bechinam; for practice, so that he may one day blow for real. That's not what the Rama says, though. He says "you're allowed to tell him to blow (HaMagid, Hil' Shofar, pereq 2) and it's mutar to for him to blow all day (Or Zarua dRH)." The mishnah says "any me'qvim es hatinoqos militqoa, aval mis'asqim imahem ad sheyilmedu", which implies they are not stopped even after yilmedu. The gemara ad loc (RH 33a-b) says that a qatan higia' lechinukh is encouraged to blow to learn, but any child is not prevented from blowing. So I think the Rama is paralleling the gemara, and not saying the seifa is only for chinukh, or for a child who doesn't need to be stopped because he isn't ready yet. The AhS's wording is even further from your deduction. :> So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the :> qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, :> etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. : No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the : last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. They aren't to fulfill minhag. Hey, I didn't outright assur the practice, I said it relies on being meiqil, such as calling wanting to be chosheish for some minority opinion shitah a need to blow. In general, I'm increasingly uncomfortable with this concept of being machmir to be chosheish for ... It seems to reflect a lack of emunah in kelalei pesaq and the authority of pesaq. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 11:46:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 14:46:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 11:36 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > In OC 196:1, the Rama mentions the minhag of blowing 30 qolos at the > end of RH mussaf. "Ule'achar sheyatze'u bazeh, shuv ein litqua od > bechinam." > > (Although a qatan, even higia lechinuch, may.) Not bechinam; for practice, so that he may one day blow for real. > So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the > qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, > etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 05:09:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Arie Folger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 14:09:57 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: RMB wrote: > Yes, that explains why it's nothing clearer cut than zilzul Shabbos. > AIUI, worrying about zilzul means that the mechanism is mutar, but > the goal is one that cheapens Shabbos, removes some of the feeling > of its qedushah. > > Like taking the pre-existing concept of eiruv as a way to have a > reshus that was no included in Shelomo ubeis dino's original issur > hotza'ah and stretching it to a much bigger area than ever before, > so that most people never have reason to leave it most weeks. So > that the entire issur goes from being one of the dominant features > of Shabbos (judging just in blatt of discussion) to barely ever > experienced. RAW actually deals with this explicitly by citing IIRC Rambam on why Chazal legislated mutze. We are not all farmers or builders, not even cooks and bakers. Hence, many of us hardly ever come close to deoraitot of Shabbat. However, Shabbaton requires shevita hanikeret,so Chazal legislated muktze to create a shevita hanikeret. Says RAW, even if he is wrong on electricity being a deoraita (but he doesn't think he is wrong), nonetheless, the consensus of poskim on elecricity makes it into something akin to muktze. That never happened regarding gefillte fish [which outside Hungary hardly anyone ever ate except on Yom Tov, since what passes for gefillte fish is just the filling. ]. No one ever suggested it is chillul Shabbos to eat gevldige Sushi. At worst, some puerile yeshive boocher called it goiyishe maakhoolim. -- Arie Folger, Recent blog posts on http://ariefolger.wordpress.com/ * Kann man die Religion des anderen korrekt wahrnehmen? ? Zur Woche der Br?derlichkeit * ???? ???? ????? ? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ???? ??? * Ist Pessach f?r die Vergangenheit oder die Zukunft? * Frag den Rabbi ? Wie backte man Mazzot in der Bibel? * Frag den Rabbi ? Seit wann und warum bedecken j?dische m?nner beim gebet ihr haupt? * A Critique of Liberal Orthodox Approach to Halacha -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:38:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:38:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 02:46:27PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the : last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. Having 100 qolos as learned from Eim Sisera's 100 cries is a minhag recorded already in the Arukh, and is mentioned by Todafos and the Rosh in RH pereq 4. (AhS OC 596:1) The Tur that R' Amram Gaon mentions of minhag of a single teru'ah gedolah without a teqi'ah kedei le'arbeiv hasatan, but we do not have this minhag. The the AhS continues (se'if 2) with the already mentioned Rama, "ke'achar sheyatz'u bazeh, ein litqoa od bechinam". Which is why I said that blowing more than 100 qolos for reasons less than minhag requires a qula-dik reading of "chinam". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:31:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:31:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521202527.GP9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521202527.GP9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E409C.7080609@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 04:25 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > >:> So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the >:> qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, >:> etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. >: No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the >: last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. > They aren't to fulfill minhag. Hey, I didn't outright assur the practice, > I said it relies on being meiqil, such as calling wanting to be chosheish > for some minority opinion shitah a need to blow. That's not a kulah, because the issur is davka when it's bechinam, and so long as there's a reason it's not chinam. Their wish to hear shofar the way this rishon or that one wanted it heard is at least as good a reason as our "le`arvev es hasoton", or giving women a "nachas ruach". [Email #2. -micha] Follow-up: However, your chashash brings up an interesting suggestion. if they are worried about all possible chashshos, then maybe they should worry about yours too, and they can easily solve it: let them go on mivtzo'im and find Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all, and blow for them according to these opinions. That way, not only will they have heard shofar according to all possible opinions, and not only will they have the zechus of those Jews having heard shofar according to at least one opinion (which is certainly kosher, as you correctly point out), but their "extra" tekios will be with a bracha! -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:51:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:51:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E454E.60107@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 04:38 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 02:46:27PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: > : No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the > : last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. > > Having 100 qolos as learned from Eim Sisera's 100 cries is a minhag > recorded already in the Arukh, and is mentioned by Todafos and the > Rosh in RH pereq 4. (AhS OC 596:1) Yes, but what of the extra 30 kolos after davening? Those are not in the 100 kolos, they're just le'arvev es hasoton, and yet nobody seems to raise this objection to them. > The the AhS continues (se'if 2) with the already mentioned Rama, > "ke'achar sheyatz'u bazeh, ein litqoa od bechinam". Which is why I said > that blowing more than 100 qolos for reasons less than minhag requires > a qula-dik reading of "chinam". No, it's not kuladig, it's just what the word means. Any valid reason is not chinam. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:55:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:55:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <555E454E.60107@sero.name> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> <555E454E.60107@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150521205546.GA9166@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 04:51:26PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Yes, but what of the extra 30 kolos after davening? Those are not in the : 100 kolos, they're just le'arvev es hasoton, and yet nobody seems to raise : this objection to them. Actually, they were part of the 100 qolos, and in nusach Ashkenaz they still are. It's only because y'all starting blowing during chazaras hashatz that it's not obvious. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:44:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:44:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <555E43A6.3020602@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 08:09 AM, Arie Folger via Avodah wrote: > No one ever suggested it is chillul Shabbos to eat gevldige Sushi. At worst, some puerile yeshive boocher called it goiyishe maakhoolim. Chilul Shabbos, no, but I have heard people seriously claim that it's forbidden to eat milchigs on Shabbos because it's "not shabbosdik", and specifically citing as "obviously" ridiculous the idea of eating lasagna on Shabbos. Which struck me as funny, since I recall one Rosh Hashana, no less, being confronted with an excellent milchig lasagna, made with fake meat, and having to wait to eat it because I was still fleishig from lunch. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:52:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:52:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What do Chazal mean when they refer to "pashtei d'kra?" Message-ID: <20150521205201.GA6908@aishdas.org> Maybe one of you could help R' CHaim Brown, even if he did leave us over a decade ago. A recent blog post on his "Divrei Chaim" at or . I mean, we talk about different definitions of the concept of "peshat" often enough, perhaps maybe someone had something. Tir'u baTov! -Micha Divrei Chaim Wednesday, May 20, 2015 what do Chazal mean when they refer to "pashtei d'kra?" The gemara Archin 8b darshens that "tzikascha k'harerei E-l" refers to nigei adam, which Hashem in his mercy limits to affecting a person for a week. The continuation of the pasuk, "mishpatecha tehom rabbah," refers to nigei batim, where the punishment is more severe in that it can stretch out for three weeks. The gemara then asks, "Pashtei d'kra b'mai?" and brings two similar explanations to the pasuk that read it as saying that G-d shows great mercy in tempering and mitigating the verdict that strict justice would call for. What do Chazal mean when they refer to "pashtei d'kra?" Despite the word "pashtei" in there, it does not seem to mean what the Rishonim like Rashi call "pshat," because if you look at Rashi or the Metzudas David, they don't simply quote this gemara. It seems that the gemara's "pashtei d'kra" is itself a derasha, albeit a derasha that is closer to the plain meaning of the words than the derasha that links the pasuk to nega'im. So are there different levels of derashos? The term "pashtei d'kra" is not all that common, so are these isolated exceptional cases, or in general are there different levels of derash? Does it make any nafka minah (except in our understanding of things?) Posted by Chaim B. at 9:40 AM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 14:12:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 17:12:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521205546.GA9166@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> <555E454E.60107@sero.name> <20150521205546.GA9166@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E4A32.8030909@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 04:55 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 04:51:26PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : Yes, but what of the extra 30 kolos after davening? Those are not in the > : 100 kolos, they're just le'arvev es hasoton, and yet nobody seems to raise > : this objection to them. > > Actually, they were part of the 100 qolos, and in nusach Ashkenaz they > still are. It's only because y'all starting blowing during chazaras > hashatz that it's not obvious. No, these kolos are not part of the 100. These are an extra 30, *after* the 100, and their only purpose is le'arvev es hasoton. And yet that doesn't count as "bechinam". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 18:25:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 21:25:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Shulchan Aruch's "Beis Din" Message-ID: <20150522012546.GA28788@aishdas.org> We discussed a number of times the fact that the SA doesn't follow the rule in his haqdamah to OC about following the majority of the Rif, the Rambam and the Rosh. Less often, peoeple mention actual examples. So, in case you were looking for one, the AhS mentions on OC 606:8-9 the machloqes about whetherit's a mitzbvah to eat on erev YK. In se'if 8 we learn the the Rif, the Ramnam and the Smag omit this idea, and in se'if 9 he says the Rosh, Tur and SA (se'if 1) hold that it's a mitzvah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 20:02:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi, its Kosher! via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 13:02:42 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Ways to find non-meat or non-milk - The BP Project Message-ID: I am happy to engage in discussion regarding the Halachos of BP, with anyone who is interested. For the time being such discussions must be and remain private I can confirm that I have been in contact with R Chaim Kanievsky about this for some years now and that he supports the Lomdus and proofs that I have proposed. Best, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi *Its Kosher* and *Exodus Matza * *it's kosher Authority Pty Ltd **ABN: *77 160 144 374 rabbi at itskosher.com.au +61 0423 207 837 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 18:55:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 01:55:29 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula Message-ID: <20150521.215529.1991.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Actually, they were part of the 100 qolos, and in nusach Ashkenaz they > still are. It's only because y'all starting blowing during chazaras > hashatz that it's not obvious. R' Zev Sero responded: > No, these kolos are not part of the 100. These are an extra 30, > *after* the 100, and their only purpose is le'arvev es hasoton. > And yet that doesn't count as "bechinam". Okay, folks, I think it is clear that some of us have been exposed to minhagim that the others are unaware of. I suggest that we clarify the various minhagim, and tally up the different ways of dong it. >From what I've seen, the vast majority of Nusach Ashkenaz shuls blow 30 times before Musaf, 30 during Chazaras Hashatz, 40 during or after Kaddish Tiskabel, and that is the end, for a total of exactly 100. I have been in a Nusach Sfard shul where they blow 30 times before Musaf, 30 during the silent Musaf, 30 during Chazaras Hashatz, 10 during or after Kaddish Tiskabel, and that is the end, for a total of exactly 100. Here in Elizabeth, we blow 30 times before Musaf, 60 during Chazaras Hashatz, 10 during Kaddish Tiskabel, and that is the end, for a total of exactly 100. R' Zev, could you describe for us how the first 100 are blown, and when the extra 30 come in? And if anyone else wants to add to the list, please do so! Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/555e8cc570114cc51cdast04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 01:14:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 11:14:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat Message-ID: REMT wrote > True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature > of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so > accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul > Shabbos. (Of course, by this argument, putting an electric light on or off > should be prohibited even if the use of electricity is not a m'lacha.) In particular using an preset switch to turn lights and off should be prohibited. While RMF originally did object he later changed his mind when it became the norm. In fact even the kosher lamp might be prohibited Can someone come up with a definition of zilzul shabbat? Is every modern way of doing any melacha that does not technically violate hilchot shabbat zilzul? The gemara allows using the sun for cooking on shabbat - why isn't that zilzul shabbat? -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 07:59:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Sassoon via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 15:59:41 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003901d0949f$eed65840$cc8308c0$@org.uk> RZS writes: >That's not a kulah, because the issur is davka when it's bechinam, I don't think that is exactly the correct phrasing to explain the situation. Rather, there is the general blanket rabbinic issur on playing musical instruments on yom tov, into which sounding shofar prima facie falls. This general issur is pushed aside by the d'orisa positive mitzvah of blowing shofar (noting that, at least according to the famous Taz, because rabbinic power doesn't stretch far enough to allow the banning of something which is a mitzvah d'orisa in every circumstances in which it would occur, as this would do - but is only in allowed situations where only sometimes the mitzvah would not end up being performed, such as Rosh Hashana on shabbas). This rabbinic issur of playing musical instruments on yom tov vis a vis the shofar is also pushed aside in other rabbinically recognised circumstances - including (according to the majority rishonim, Shulchan Aruch and Rema, although there are major rishonic dissenters) nachas ruach d'nashim. The case of the katan may well be different, given that the fundamental issue with katanim is chinuch (which might perhaps be said to cut both ways here). > and so long as there's a reason it's not chinam. Their wish to hear shofar >the way this rishon or that one wanted it heard is at least as good a >reason as our "le`arvev es hasoton", or giving women a "nachas ruach". Leaving aside nachas ruach, which has (according to those who hold by it at least rabbinic weight - ie power to push aside at least rabbinic prohibitions) - what is the justification for le'arev es hasoton? My instincts are that, to the extent that le'arvev es hasoton is taken seriously, the argument there is one of pikuach nefesh, which of course would push aside the rabbinic issur of playing musical instruments (think about it, if you can get a few extra years out of confusing the soton, how could that not be considered pikuach nefesh)? Don't think that helps with being choshesh for minority shitos. >However, your chashash brings up an interesting suggestion. if they >are worried about all possible chashshos, then maybe they should worry >about yours too, and they can easily solve it: let them go on mivtzo'im >and find Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all, and blow for them >according to these opinions. That way, not only will they have heard >shofar according to all possible opinions, and not only will they have >the zechus of those Jews having heard shofar according to at least >one opinion (which is certainly kosher, as you correctly point out), >but their "extra" tekios will be with a bracha! But aren't they then denying those Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all the chance to hear shofar according to the majority opinions by only blowing for them according to the minority opinions? Or are you proposing that they *then* blow for them according to the majority opinions? Either way you seem to me to be opening a real can of worms. The principle on which somebody who has fulfilled their obligation can then fulfil the obligation of another is based on kol yisrael areivim zeh b'zeh. But to what extent is that applicable in a situation in which that person would never, had the situation been reversed, have accepted the form of fulfilment they are offering the other. Ie since the person who is blowing the shofar refused to have these alternative ways of blowing as the fundamental method of fulfilling their own mitzvah, is it really areivus to then foist that form of fulfilment on others? >Zev Sero zev at sero.name Shabbat Shalom Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 10:22:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 13:22:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What is the Law? Message-ID: <20150522172240.022581829C9@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/sivan_v.pdf YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 11:16:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 14:16:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula II Message-ID: <20150522181627.GA5977@aishdas.org> I came across another one, more inyana deyoma... According to the AhS (OC 494:3) we used to wait for "laylah mamash" to make Qiddush the first night of Shavu'os, so that the omer could be "sheva shabasos temimos". Presumably this is following the MGA who has us wait until tzeis for Qiddush, and the AhS's "laylah mamash" means tzeis. The Taz (494:haqdamah) and the MB (s"q 1) have us waiting for tzeis to start *Ma'ariv*. The Qorban Nesanel (on the Rosh, Pesachim 130b) brings the Rosh as a ra'ayah against the MGA. The Rosh says that even though on Shabbos *and the other YT-im* we add from the chol to the qodesh and eat before it gets dark, we do not do so for the seder night. So the QN QN takes the implication that "she'ar yamim tovim" includes Shavuos. So the QN treats Shavuos like Shabbos, and presumably let you daven maariv and make Qiddush right after pelag. The QN is machmir in omer, the MGA is machmir in tosefes YT. And each is being correspondingly meiqil in the other. I would presume that the silence in the Tur, the BY and the SA about any waiting means that the Tur, the Mechaber and the Rama hold like the QN and treat erev Shavuos like erev Shabbos, RH, Sukkos, etc... (But not Pesach.) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 48th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Malchus: What binds different Fax: (270) 514-1507 people together into one cohesive whole? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 08:55:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 11:55:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <003901d0949f$eed65840$cc8308c0$@org.uk> References: <003901d0949f$eed65840$cc8308c0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <555F517D.4080806@sero.name> On 05/22/2015 10:59 AM, Chana Sassoon via Avodah wrote: >> >However, your chashash brings up an interesting suggestion. if they >> >are worried about all possible chashshos, then maybe they should worry >> >about yours too, and they can easily solve it: let them go on mivtzo'im >> >and find Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all, and blow for them >> >according to these opinions. That way, not only will they have heard >> >shofar according to all possible opinions, and not only will they have >> >the zechus of those Jews having heard shofar according to at least >> >one opinion (which is certainly kosher, as you correctly point out), >> >but their "extra" tekios will be with a bracha! > But aren't they then denying those Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all > the chance to hear shofar according to the majority opinions by only blowing > for them according to the minority opinions? AFAIK everyone agrees that all these methods are kosher, so those Jews are definitely yotzei the mitzvah. > The principle on which > somebody who has fulfilled their obligation can then fulfil the obligation > of another is based on kol yisrael areivim zeh b'zeh. But to what extent is > that applicable in a situation in which that person would never, had the > situation been reversed, have accepted the form of fulfilment they are > offering the other. Ie since the person who is blowing the shofar refused > to have these alternative ways of blowing as the fundamental method of > fulfilling their own mitzvah, is it really areivus to then foist that form > of fulfilment on others? They're not foisting anything. The people they're blowing for would otherwise not hear shofar at all, so they're clearly better off hearing even some obscure form of it, so long as they're yotzei. On 05/21/2015 09:55 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > R' Zev, could you describe for us how the first 100 are blown, and when the extra 30 come in? And if anyone else wants to add to the list, please do so! I'm talking about 30 kolos blown at the very end of davening, just before going home, and well after all 100 kolos have already been heard (30 meyushav, 30 in each musaf, and 10 in kaddish). Their purpose is le'arvev es hasoton. And I've never heard it suggested that there is any chashash issur. Thus my conclusion that shofar-blowing is allowed on RH for *any* valid purpose, and the only blowing that remains forbidden as usual on Yomtov, is when it is truly "bechinam". -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 25 12:15:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 25 May 2015 19:15:59 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Brisker Theory of Everything Message-ID: 1. The gemara (Ketuvot 5b) discusses whether causing a certain type of blood flowing is considered a Sabbath violation. The first attempt to resolve the question turns on whether "mifkad pakid or chaburei mechbar" (is the blood in the womb stored up or is it the result of a wound?). Rashi there (please look) seems to define this as a physical question. Is this acceptable or must we say Rashi was leaving out the "obvious" philosophical/halachic question (i.e. the physical was known, it's a question of how to categorize it halachically)? 2. That gemara continues to try to resolve the question and is willing to entertain the possibility that the halacha is like Rabbi Yehuda (vs. Rabbi Shimon) in mekalkeil (destroying) and like Rabbi Shimon (vs. Rabbi Yehuda) in davar sheino mitkavein (the result was not the major one intended). If these two issues were interconnected, could the gemara entertain this possibility? 3. If the answer to 2 is no, must we assume that when the Shulchan Aruch said he would decide the psak based on majority 2 of big 3, did he really mean this as a primary tie breaker, or only when he did not have a clear understanding of the underlying philosophy that resulted in their final opinions. 4.Is it possible that R'YBS limited his "canon" to only a few major rishonim (in contradistinction to R" A Lichtenstein) because the more data points included in trying to determine the underlying theoretical construct, the more likely a single errant point would skew the results? Kt Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 25 19:35:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 02:35:10 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir Message-ID: <20150525.223510.2086.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> After Machlon and Kilyon died, we find in Ruth 1:8-13 that Naami tells both Orpah and Ruth to go back home. Didn't Naami realize that they would return to avodah zara if they'd do that? Even if they had not converted yet, wouldn't this be an example of Lifnei Iveir? One answer I can think of is that perhaps this eventuality didn't occur to Naami. But several pesukim later, in 1:15, Naami tells Ruth that Orpah has "returned to her people and to her god; go back with your sister-in-law." Naami persists not only in trying to convince Ruth to leave, but she explicitly urges Ruth to return to her former god! This question is certainly relevant according to those who understand that Orpah and Ruth converted prior to marrying Machlon and Kilyon. But it is relevant even to those who hold that Ruth did not convert until afterward. It is one thing to dissuade a prospective ger from joining us. But Ruth had been living with a Jewish family for ten years! How can Naami urge her to go back to avoda zara? I know that the meforshim give various reasons why Naami did not want them to accompany her back to Eretz Yisrael, but do those reasons justify this Lifnei Iveir? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 06:00:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 09:00:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Who Wrote the Mishna Brura? Message-ID: <20150526130054.4548818394C@nexus.stevens.edu> I am sure that most will answer "The Chofetz Chaim" Israel Meir (HaKohen) Kagan. However, he apparently did not write all of it. I have been reading Marc Shapiro's latest book "Changing the Immutable" How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites its History. See http://www.littman.co.uk/cat/shapiro-orthodox.html Shapiro points out that Rabbi Aryeh Leib Cohen, a son of the Chofetz Chaim, wrote in his biography of his father that he wrote parts of the Mishna Brura and that is why there are contradictions in some parts of the MB. Which parts Aryeh Leib wrote are not indicated. Does anyone know? YL PS. I have found this book an eye opener and recommend it highly. llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 10:19:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kaganoff via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 13:19:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 12:01 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 01:53:10PM -0400, Kaganoff via Avodah wrote: > : For many years i had extreme difficulty with R. Elchanan Wasserman > understanding > : as it conflicted with my belief that Judaism (and other religions) was > not > : logically provable (contra to Moshe Mendelssohn and his contemporaries) > and > : therefore required a "leap of faith" and that a disbeliever could not be > : faulted for failing to take such a jump. > > This is a false dichotomy. Logically proving things are not the only > way to justify belief in there. > > How do you know that (in a flat space) two parallel lines never meet? If > you're like me, you pictured it in your head. Even though infinite lines > don't exist in the real world. (Nor, does it turn out, does flat space.) Actually non-euclidean geometry is an excellent example. We cannot say with absolute certainty that two parallel lines will never meet or that there is only one line that goes through a particular point that is parallel to another line, as there is a well developed body of literature on non-Euclidean geometry (such as Riemannian Geometry). One might "feel" strongly that Euclidean Geometry is true and non-Euclidean Geometry is false. But someone might also feel that chocolate ice cream is superior to vanilla ice cream. But neither can be proven. > > Did you figure out that oppression was evil by logical proof, or by a > combination of imagination and empathy? > Calling anything "evil is not meant to be logical but rather to pull at an audiences' heartstrings. Evil is neither logical nor illogical. Nor can one "prove" that the Nazis are evil and that circumcision is not. However, that is a red herring. Again, emotions are not proof. Feelings are neither true nor false. > My favorite example is answering the question, "Do elephants have hair?" > A logical/verbal approach would be: Elephants are mammals, all mammals > have hair, and so unless elephants are the exception to the rule, they > must have hair. Elephants are well known and discussed animals. Could > they be an exception to the rule and I don't know it? Nah, they must > have hair. > > How it is more likely the question jogged your memory of elephants > you saw, or saw pictures of. The detail may be blurry, so you may have > to manipulate the picture a bit. Finally, a version of the picture > which has a tuft of hair at the tail, maybe (if your memory is good) > some downy hair around the eyes and ears, strikes you as the most > familiar, the most real. And again you could reach the conclusion that > elephants have hair. > That is a proveable thesis. One could prove either way whether or not elephants have hair. Unlike the two earlier examples. As for whether one could prove the existence or non-existance of God, I don't have time now to start that discussion. > > (See for some musings about > the two modes of thought I'm contrasting here.) > > In I compare > different versions of the Argument from Design from R' Aqiva's response > to the apiqoreis through the Rambam, through similar approaches based > on more modern science. > > "G-d created" (Gen. 1:1): A hereic came to Rabbi Aqiva and asked, > "Who made the universe?". Rabbi Aqiva answered, "HQBH". The heretic > said, "Prove it to me." Rabbi Aqiva said, "Come to me tomorrow". > > When the heretic returned, Rabbi Aqiva asked, "What is that you > are wearing?" > > "A garment", the unbeliever replied. > > "Who made it?" > > "A weaver." > > "Prove it to me." > > "What do you mean? How can I prove it to you? Here is the garment, > how can you not know that a weaver made it?" > > Rabbi Akiva said, "And here is the world; how can you not know that > Haqadosh barukh Hu made it?" > > After the heretic left, Rabbi Aqiva's students asked him, "But what is > the proof?" He said, "Even as a house proclaims its builder,a garment > its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the > Holy Blessed One Who created it. > > Not very rigorous. Rabbi Aqiva's reply revolves around giving a parable > to make the conclusion self-evident. Not contructing a deductive argument. > > The more rigorous we try making it, the more arguable the proof becomes. > R' Aqiva's argument is far more convincing than the Rambam's statement > based on how objects lose form over time, not gain it. Or a similar > argument based on thermodynamics or information theory. > > (Ironically, every formal / logical proof is built from givens taken > as self-evident for informal-reasoning reasons.) > > Anyway, that's how I understood REW. R' Elchanan argues that on an > informal level, the idea that the universe had to have a Creator is > as obvious as a Euclidean postulate or the injustice of oppression. > I believe that such an explanation is disrespectful to REW. I am assuming that REW believed what he wrote and wrote down clearly what he believed as opposed to assuming that REW believes one thing and wrote another. > > To not believe in G-d requires a formal proof, which one's negios then > determine if they find it sound or specious, and whether they accept > the postulates on which it's built. > To believe and to not believe in God can be pulled off without formal proofs. However, it is intellectually dishonest to state that one has an arguement for God's existance and than say that we are not talking about formal proofs when a counterarguement is made. > Notice I didn't invoke any leaps of faith. > > Tir'u baTov! > -Micha > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 12:25:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 15:25:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150526192512.GA22762@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 01:19:53PM -0400, Kaganoff wrote: : > How do you know that (in a flat space) two parallel lines never meet? If : > you're like me, you pictured it in your head. Even though infinite lines : > don't exist in the real world. (Nor, does it turn out, does flat space.) : : : Actually non-euclidean geometry is an excellent example. We cannot say with : absolute certainty that two parallel lines will never meet or that there is : only one line that goes through a particular point that is parallel to : another line, as there is a well developed body of literature on : non-Euclidean geometry (such as Riemannian Geometry). Well, if we know the curvature of the space we're dealing with, we know which Geometry to use. And only one is correct for that particular space. :> Did you figure out that oppression was evil by logical proof, or by a :> combination of imagination and empathy? : : Calling anything "evil is not meant to be logical but rather to pull at an : audiences' heartstrings. Evil is neither logical nor illogical. Nor can one : "prove" that the Nazis are evil and that circumcision is not. I disagree with your reisha. Evil is an objectively meaningful predicate. Yahadus wouldn't work is evil were subjective. As for your seifa... that's kind of my point: there are truths that can be justified even when they are not amenable to formal proofs. : However, that is a red herring. Again, emotions are not proof. Feelings are : neither true nor false. Although the notion that John is feeling happy at 2:55pm EST May 26, 2015 is either true or false. Or some fuzzy state in between. It is a predicate, even if it needn't be a boolean predicate. All three of these comments are interrelated: Euclidean geometry is the only accurate description of flat space. Not every space, but flat space. People may disagree about what is evil, and Nazis may be able to fool themselves about what the word means, but HQBH did create a concept of good that has an objective definition. Even if -- again -- we cannot find it via proof. : > My favorite example is answering the question, "Do elephants have hair?" : > A logical/verbal approach would be... : > How it is more likely the question jogged your memory of elephants : > you saw, or saw pictures of... : That is a proveable thesis. One could prove either way whether or not : elephants have hair. Unlike the two earlier examples. As I said in the first paragraph, before the first ellipses. However, in practice, people aren't likely to use proofs to reach the conclusion. We justify our belief that elephants have hair in a different way. : As for whether one could prove the existence or non-existance of God, I : don't have time now to start that discussion. But my whole point is that proof isn't the only grounds for justifying knowledge! ... : > Anyway, that's how I understood REW. R' Elchanan argues that on an : > informal level, the idea that the universe had to have a Creator is : > as obvious as a Euclidean postulate or the injustice of oppression. : I believe that such an explanation is disrespectful to REW. I am assuming : that REW believed what he wrote and wrote down clearly what he believed as : opposed to assuming that REW believes one thing and wrote another. Um... That /is/ what Rav Elchanan wrote. I'm arguing that he is being misread because they think that REW invoking the notion of knowledge (as opposed to belief) is equivalent to his invoking the notion of proof. Instead, he invokes the synthetic a priori, of the self-evident, or whatever your theory of justification is of R' Aqiva's answer to the atheist or that letters aren't the product of ink spilled on paper. AISI, REW is saying that humans know there is a G-d, without his saying anything about the possibility of proving it. And that people then go about creating proofs for His non-Existence or Deism, to hide from that knowledge. Or, to be more loyal to his original wording -- because they took shochad to buy into a proof against the obvious. He might be saying that at some level, that knowledge lingers, no matter how much someone buries it under layers of counter-proof and convincing themselves. But I don't see that in REW either. Quoting: Now, of course, we shouldn't be astonished that so many great philosophers had difficulty believing that the world was created by a Purposeful Creator. Their minds were surely great, but their desire to gain benefit from the pleasures of this world overcame their ability to think straight. Such a powerful bias can divert a person's mind to the point that he can say two plus two does not equal four... After my signature, I'll quote Qovetz Maamariv par 5-7 from a translation provided by Pirchei Shoshanim. You'll notice it's nothing like the Rambam's attempt to formally prove an Argument from Design in Moreh sec. II. Really, all he says is that monotheism woul be self-evident if people didn't want to escape its implications on their lifestyle. Not proven, self-evident, and not that those who argue against it are less than fully convinced of their atheism (or Deism, or polytheism). :> To not believe in G-d requires a formal proof, which one's negios then :> determine if they find it sound or specious, and whether they accept :> the postulates on which it's built. : To believe and to not believe in God can be pulled off without formal : proofs. : However, it is intellectually dishonest to state that one has an arguement : for God's existance and than say that we are not talking about formal : proofs when a counterarguement is made. Not "argument", any more than your acceptance of Euclidean (or Reimann) postulates are based on argument. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_justification#Theories_of_justification and http://www.iep.utm.edu/epistemo/#H3 may be clearer than I have been. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "Man wants to achieve greatness overnight, micha at aishdas.org and he wants to sleep well that night too." http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yosef Yozel Horwitz, Alter of Novarodok Fax: (270) 514-1507 5. If you ponder it, however, you shall find that the belief that the Holy One, blessed by He, created the world is self-understood by any intelligent being -- unless a person is a complete imbecile. And there is no need for any [knowledge of] philosophy to grasp this principle. The author of the Duties of the Heart (Shaar HaYichud 6) thus wrote: There are people who say that the world came into existence by chance, without a Creator who caused it and formed it. I wonder how any rational being in a normal state of mind can entertain such a notion. If one holding such a opinion would hear a person expressing a similar view in regard to a water-wheel that revolves in order to irrigate a portion of a field or garden -- and were to say that he thinks it had been set up without any intention on the part of a mechanic who labored to put it together and adjust it, using all his tools to obtain this useful result -- the hearer would wonder, be exceedingly astonished, and think the man who made such a statement extremely foolish. He would promptly charge him with lying, and would reject his assertion. Now, if such a statement is rejected in regard to a small and insignificant wheel, the fashioning of which requires but little contrivance and which serves for the improvement of but a small portion of the earth, how can anyone permit himself to harbor such a thought concerning the immense sphere that emcompasses the whole earth with all the creatures on it; which exhibits a wisdom so great that the minds of all living creatures, the intellects of all rational mortals, cannot comprehend it; which is appointed for the benefit of the whole earth and all its inhabitants – how can one say that it came into existence without a wise and mighty designer purposing and conceiving it? Whatever takes place without purpose shows, as is well known, no trace of wisdom or power. Do you not realize that if ink were poured out accidentally on a blank sheet of paper, it would be impossible that proper writing should result, legible lines such as are written with a pen? If a person brought us a fair copy of script that could only have been written with a pen, and said that ink had been spilt on paper and these written characters have come of themselves, we would charge him to his face with falsehood, for we would feel certain that this result could not have happened without an intelligent person's purposeful action to produce it. Since this appears to us an impossibility in the case of characters whose form is conventional, how can one assert that something far finer in its art, and which manifests in its fashioning a subtlety infinitely beyond our comprehension, could have happened without the purpose, power and wisdom of a wise and mighty designer? How could anyone say that the universe came into existence on its own, seeing that everywhere we look we see signs of such inconceivably profound wisdom? How wondrous is the wisdom and design in the human body, how wondrous the arrangement of its limbs and organs, as all doctors and surgeons attest. How is it possible to say, with regard to such a wondrous machine, that it came into existence on its own without a purposeful designer? If anyone would claim that a watch had just come into existence on its own, he would be considered insane. We see this in the Midrash (Midrash Temurah in Midrash Aggadot Bereshit): An athiest came to Rebbi Akiva. "Who created the world?", he queried. R. Akiva answered, "The Holy One, blessed be He." The athiest replied, "Show me proof." R. Akiva said, "Come back to me tomorrow and I shall prove it to you." When the man returned the following day, R. Akiva began by asking, "What is that you are wearing?""A piece of clothing,"the athiest replied."And who made it?" R. Akiva continued. "The weaver", he replied. "Show me proof", R. Akiva demanded. "But how can I show you proof if it isn't already obvious to you that it is the work of the weaver?!" With this R. Akiva said, "Have you not heard what your own lips have spoken? Isn't it obvious to you that the Holy One has created this world? Doesn't the clothing testify to the weaver; the house and the door to a builder and a carpenter? Just so does the world testity to the One who made it." Imagine a human being born with a fully developed intellect. We can't imagine his great astonishment upon seeing, suddenly, the heavens and their hosts, the earth and all that is upon it. What would this man's answer be to our question: Did the world that he is seeing now for the first time come into existence on its own, without any conscious intent, or is it the work of a wise Creator? Behold, without a doubt, after contemplating for a moment, he would respond that all this was made with wondrous wisdom and extremely subtle order (fine-tuning). [We find this concept expressed in any number places in our classical literature.] The Psalmist said, "The heavens declare the glory of G-d"(Psalms 19:2). [According the Duties of the Heart 2:5] this is also the meaning of Job's words when he declared, "From my flesh, I will see G-d!"(Job 19:26) [The Psalmist saw proof of G-d's existence in the magnitude of the universe. Job was saying that the very fact that something as wonderful as his body could exist demonstrates that it is the work of a wise Creator.] In view of all this it is therefore extremely puzzling, a great enigma: How could some of the greatest philosophers who ever lived have concluded that the world was brought into existence by chance? 6. The resolution of this enigma can be found in the Torah. The Torah reveals something profound about human psychology when it commands, "Do not take bribes, for bribery blinds the eyes of the wise!" (Deuteronomy 16:19). What is bribery? In legal terms, the smallest amount necessary to constitute a bribe is a "shaveh prutah"(not much more than a penny), similar to the minimum amount needed [for a court] to find a person guilty of stealing or of taking interest. This negative commandment, to never take a bribe, is directed not only at a judge, but at every man, even the wisest of men, even the most righteous, even Moses himself. Yes, if it could be imagined, even if Moses would take the tiniest bribe, a prutah, his perception of reality would be distorted; he would be incapable of bringing forth a just ruling. At first sight, this is nothing short of amazing. Can we imagine Moses or Aaron twisting the law and judging falsely merely for the sake of receiving such miniscule benefit? But the Torah itself testifies to the possibility, and "the testimony of G-d is trustworthy" (Psalms 19:8). We must therefore say that it is a psychological law: A person's will or desire [to gain some benefit] influences his mind [his ability to think straight]. Of course, it depends how strong the desire and how resolute the mind. A small desire will not exert much influence on a great mind, whereas on a lesser mind it will. A powerful desire [for gain] will exert even more influence. One thing is certain: no matter how miniscule, a desire for gain will always have some affect. Even the tiniest desire can cause the greatest mind to waver a fraction. This is exemplified in the Talmud (Ketuvot 105b): Rebbi Yishmael bar Yossi had a land tenant who used to bring him fruits from his [R. Yishmael's] orchard every Friday before Shabbat. Once, he came on a Thursday. R. Yishmael asked him: "What's changed this week?" "I have a court case this week", he answered."Since I was coming to town anyway, I thought I would bring you your fruits."R. Yishmael refused to take the fruits [even though they were his]. "I am disqualified from judging your case."Two [other] rabbis sat and began to hear the land tenant's case. R. Yishmael sat [on the sidelines] watching. At every turn in the discussion, R. Yishmael felt himself wanting to give advice to his land tenant. "If only he would say this now... if only he would say this..."After the case was decided, he exclaimed, "O that the spirit of those who take bribes would explode! I refused to take what was rightfully mine [and I still couldn't help being biased and wanting to see him come out winning]. How much more those who actually take what it is not theirs! It is known that the sages [of the Talmud] were angelic in terms of their expanded consciousness and saintly character. We nevertheless see that the smallest degree of bias could cause them to incline away from the truth. How much more so the rest of us who are sunken in the desires of this world! The desire for gain literally bribes us, saying, "Hey, look, the world is free to do with as you please!"How powerful this bias is! How easily it distorts our perception and blinds us! For when a person has "bought into"a certain bias, he is incapable of recognizing any truth that flies in the face of that bias. As far as that truth is concerned, he might just as well be in a drunken stupor. He doesn't recognize its existence. Now, of course, we shouldn't be astonished that so many great philosophers had difficulty believing that the world was created by a Purposeful Creator. Their minds were surely great, but their desire to gain benefit from the pleasures of this world overcame their ability to think straight. Such a powerful bias can divert a person's mind to the point that he can say two plus two does not equal four, but five. A person cannot judge whether something is true unless his mind is free from any distorting influence vis a vis the thing he wishes to judge. On the contrary, if recognizing a particular truth in any way contradicts a bias that a person has bought into, no amount of intellect, even the intellect of a great person, can remove or overcome that bias. 7. We learn from this that the foundations of true faith are simple and unquestionable for anyone who isn't an idiot. It is simply impossible to doubt their veracity. This is only true, however, on the condition that one does not allow oneself to be bribed. One must be disinterested in and free from the desires and allures of this world, and his own personal desires [for gain]. If so, the root of God-denial lies not in the distortion of the intellect in and of itself. It lies in the heart, i.e., in one's desire to gain benefit [from this world], which distorts and blinds the intellect. It is clear now why the Torah commands, "Do not stray after your hearts..." (Deuteronomy 15:39), concerning which the sages commented, "Do not follow after the heart's desire to deny G-d"(Sifri Shlach 15:70). A person is obligated to subdue and sublimate his desires [for personal gain], because this is the only way his intellect will be free of any blinding influence! He will then automatically recognize the truth of the existence of a Creator. This is what Rebbi Akiva meant when he said that the world attests to the Holy One, blessed be He, who created it. God-denial really has no place in a person's mind. Its place, if man allows it to exist there, is the heart; in a person's desire for gain. And if one would be careful not to allow his desires to overcome him, he could never come to deny G-d's existence or atttribute reality to any form of idolatry. It is a sign that one's desires have grown out of proportion if one is incapable of understanding this simple truth. And the commandment to believe in G-d? It is a commandment not to allow one's desires to overcome his intellect so that he will automatically come to believe. In other words, there is no need to struggle to believe. One must simply remove the obstacles that stand in the way of believing. It will then come naturally, of itself... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 11:11:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 14:11:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura? Message-ID: <20150526181117.9766A180F62@nexus.stevens.edu> Someone sent me the following which is also in Shapiro's book. "The first edition of Shemiras Shabbos K'Hilchasah had a footnote to the effect that some things in the MB had been written by the CC's son. See p. 263 n. 203. The full footnote is not in the later editions of SSK." Shapiro views this as part of the Chareidi attempt to keep certain information from the Chareidi public that they do want people to know. His book is filled with many examples of the "rewriting of history" to fit current Chareidi ideology. He also wrote "Rabbi Jacob J. Schachter wrote an article in The Torah U-Madda Journal about changes and mentioned the MB, the CC's son, and the original SSK footnote. See his "Facing the Truths of History" at http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/704426/Rabbi_Dr-_Jacob_J_Schacter/Facing_the_Truths_of_History (p. 225 and n. 114 on p. 264)." YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 12:44:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 15:44:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura? In-Reply-To: <20150526181117.9766A180F62@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150526181117.9766A180F62@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150526194413.GB22762@aishdas.org> And many of the books we consider the Gra's are students' records of his teachings. For that matter, people talk about what the Ari says in Peri Eitz Chaim or others of R' Chaim Vital's works. RALC piously takes blame for those occasions when he misunderstood his father's position, saying that these errors, rather than actual inconsistencies in the CC's shitah, is what you may find in the MB. But the CC takes ownership of the contents of the MB. See the title page (Warsaw 1884 ed.) "Ube'uri qarative besheim MISHNAH BERURAH..." ... kol eileh chibarti be'ezras H' yisbarakh, haChonen le'adam da'as, YISRAEL MEIR br' Aryeh Ze'ev haKohein zlh"h, mei'ir Radin." Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I long to accomplish a great and noble task, micha at aishdas.org but it is my chief duty to accomplish small http://www.aishdas.org tasks as if they were great and noble. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Helen Keller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 15:01:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 18:01:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150526220106.GA9900@aishdas.org> On Fri, May 22, 2015 at 11:14:15AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature :> of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so :> accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul :> Shabbos... : In particular using an preset switch to turn lights and off should : be prohibited. : While RMF originally did object he later changed his mind when it became : the norm. Actually, RMF's primary argument was mar'is ayin, which would naturally change as people know to blame lights turning on and off on "Shabbos clocks". : In fact even the kosher lamp might be prohibited Well, I would think that fits the zilzul Shabbos argument bewing used WRT the kosher switch. : Can someone come up with a definition of zilzul shabbat? The textbook case would be on Shabbos 6a: situating someone in a meqom petur so that someone in a reshus hayachid can hand items to them so that they could then hand it over to someone in a reshus harabim. Rashi ad loc explains "demezalzel be'isurei Shabbos". I think it's making a farce out of one of the issurim / chiyuvim of Shabbos. Notice that the case Rashi attributes to zilzul would otherwise be perfectly mutar. : Is every modern way of doing any melacha that does not technically : violate hilchot shabbat zilzul? : The gemara allows using the sun for cooking on shabbat - why isn't that : zilzul shabbat? I think the problem is more than just avoiding the issur, but making it trivial to entirely avoid it. Which is what I had in mind when I distinguished between eiruv, which is built into hotza'ah derabbanan, and community eruv, which takes that idea and stretches it until someone can pretty much ignore the whole topic of carmelis for years on end. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Strength does not come from winning. Your micha at aishdas.org struggles develop your strength When you go http://www.aishdas.org through hardship and decide not to surrender, Fax: (270) 514-1507 that is strength. - Arnold Schwarzenegger From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 16:14:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 19:14:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") Message-ID: In Avodah V33n82, RAM requested: > I suggest that we clarify the various minhagim, and tally up the different ways of dong it....And if anyone else wants to add to the list, please do so! < When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: -- 30 *dim'yushav* -- 10 *dim'umad* -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the post-"Aleinu" Qaddish) All the best from *Michael Poppers* * Elizabeth, NJ, USA -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 18:24:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 21:24:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir In-Reply-To: <20150525.223510.2086.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150525.223510.2086.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150527012443.GA5467@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 02:35:10AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : It is one thing to dissuade a prospective ger from joining us. But Ruth : had been living with a Jewish family for ten years! How can Naami urge : her to go back to avoda zara? I know that the meforshim give various : reasons why Naami did not want them to accompany her back to Eretz : Yisrael, but do those reasons justify this Lifnei Iveir? On a technical level, it would be mesayeia, not lifnei iver, and I'm not sure that mesayeia applies to 7 mitzvos benei Noach. But if you're just asking how it's moral... Just thinking off-the cuff. The timing is between eishes Shimshon and Shelomo's mistake with many of his wives. It would seem that women only pretending monotheism to join the Jewish People was common. If Rus was going to be a pagan either way, better not one who people would mistake for a geir. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet micha at aishdas.org about things most people don't watch even on http://www.aishdas.org Yom Kippur. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 00:25:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 10:25:26 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat Message-ID: <<: The gemara allows using the sun for cooking on shabbat - why isn't that : zilzul shabbat? I think the problem is more than just avoiding the issur, but making it trivial to entirely avoid it.>> In that case how about a "dud shemesh" according to the poskim that it is allowed because it uses the sun <> would there be a difference between doing this once and making this a standard procedure? -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 01:22:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:22:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <> The key word is "if" . That is the difference between math and physics. Math assumes axioms and from there everything is provable. Physics discusses the "real" world. This is based on observation and induction. Hence, physics is always subject to modification based on new observations. Hence, we have no proof of the curvature of the universe. <> Yahadus uses the Torah to define evil. Others don't accept this definition. Is ISIS beheading victims and their other acts "evil" ? They believe they are keeping the word of G-d. Destrying ancient monuments is viewed by the world as "evil" while they see it as destroying idols and hence a mitzvah. If we were to eradicate Amalek we would consider it a great mitzvah while the rest of thw world would bring us to the world court for genocide. <> But without a formal proof it is always debatable. You feel that the existence of G-d is obvious even without a formal proof (which doesn't exist) while Dawkins feels that anyone who believes in a diety that interacts with the world is a fool. You accept Torah mi-sinai while most academics are convinced the Torah was written during the late Bayit Rishon if not later -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 02:20:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 12:20:34 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] right and wrong Message-ID: Tangential to some of the recent discussions I wish to point out that the defintion of right and wrong is subjective and indeed changes through history. As one example consider the recent post on love from http://www.talmudology.com/ In the 1440s in England, Elizabeth Paston, the twenty-year old daughter of minor gentry, was told by her parents that she was to marry a man thirty years her senior. Oh, and he was disfigured by smallpox. When she refused, she was beaten "once in the week, or twice and her head broken in two or three places." This persuasive technique worked, and reflected a theme in Great Britain, where Lord Chief Baron Matthew Hale declared in 1662 that "by the law of God, of nature or of reason and by the Common Law, the will of the wife is subject to the will of the husband." Things weren't any better in the New Colonies, as Ann Little points out (in a gloriously titled article "*Shee would Bump his Mouldy Britch; Authority, Masculinity and the Harried Husbands of New Haven Colony 1638-1670.*) The governor of the New Haven Colony was found guilty of "not pressing ye rule upon his wife." What was obvious in one generation is no longer regarded as true today. Similar arguments apply to slavery -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 03:47:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 06:47:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 07:14:36PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: : -- 30 *dim'yushav* : -- 10 *dim'umad* : -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to blow. How do you do less than 10 *each*? Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 05:03:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 12:03:32 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir Message-ID: <20150527.080332.8051.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> I asked if Naami had violated Lifnei Iveir: : It is one thing to dissuade a prospective ger from joining us. : But Ruth had been living with a Jewish family for ten years! How : can Naami urge her to go back to avoda zara? R' Micha Berger answered: > On a technical level, it would be mesayeia, not lifnei iver, and > I'm not sure that mesayeia applies to 7 mitzvos benei Noach. Really? Perhaps I need a better understanding of the difference between the two. I thought that mesayeia was when the other person is going to violate the halacha anyway and I am merely helping him to do it. But in this case, the three of them have been living for ten years as a family unit, and regardless of the geirus (or lack of it) I presume there was no avodah zara under Naami's roof. This status quo could have continued for a long time, as we see even Orpah was reluctant to leave. But Naami urged and insisted, and it is difficult for me to imagine a bigger michshol. Pasuk 1:15 - "So [Naami] said: Look! Your sister in law has returned to her people and to her god. Go follow your sister in law." One of us might as well hand the car keys to our child on Shabbos and tell him to have a good time. Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:14:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:14:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527151410.GG27891@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 11:22:14AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : <> : : The key word is "if" . That is the difference between math and physics. : Math assumes axioms and from there everything is provable... Again, from a set of givens. The givens are accepted as the rules of the formal system. Which is why I spoke of the validity of Euclid's Postulates in the context of flat space. But my point was that there are things other than proof. : <> : : Yahadus uses the Torah to define evil. Others don't accept this definition. Nu, so they're wrong. We may not be able to prove to them they're wrong, but they are. Somewhere "out there" is a real objective definition. Regardless of someone's ability to know what they are, or to accept it if they did. : <> : : But without a formal proof it is always debatable... 1- That's a different topic. We're talking about how I justify my believing in something, not how I prove it to others. 2- There are synthetic a priori knowledge so self-evident people don't debate them. Which is why I dragged Euclid into this. EVERY proof STARTS with these givens. Logic is a means of combining postulates, not starting yeish mei'ayin. And thus no proof is actually more solid than its weakest postulate -- and that postulate is justified by something other than proof. And I brought up these notions because I think that without disentangling why I believe from how can I get others to believe, or the general concept of how knowlege is justified from the specific concepts of formal or experiment proof, we cannot get to what R Elchanan Wasserman means. REW says that if it were not for ulterior motive, G-d's existence would be as self evident as the conclusion that a calligraphied poem had an author and scribe (who may be the same person), and was not just spilled ink on a piece of paper. He doesn't yet talk about proof, and in fact, his language is that of informal justification, not proof. (I've blogged the notion that the more formal we make the Argument from Design the LESS solidly it justifies belief. See . For example, R Aqiva's -- or REW's -- version only requires common experience. The Rambam's requires dividing matter into Form and Substance and accepting certain postulates about Form and Time. Later versions will instead speak of entropy and time... But they all suffer from involving *more* givens and insisting they are self-evident and precede the attempt to prove anything.) REW then says that it's only ulterior motive that allows many of us to create arguments and proofs (validly drawn but from broken givens or flawed in reasoning) to let convince ourselves away from that default position. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When a king dies, his power ends, micha at aishdas.org but when a prophet dies, his influence is just http://www.aishdas.org beginning. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Soren Kierkegaard From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:33:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:33:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527153329.GH27891@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 11:48:03AM +0300, Saul Mashbaum wrote: : Very briefly, R. Rosner cites three approaches in the sources : : 1. Illustrating the truth - The Ran in Drashot HaRan drasha 5 - In this : approach, which severely limits the principle of eilu v'eilu, the Ran : states that actually only one of the opinions is true. The other opinion is : 'divrei Elokim chaim' only insofar as it serves to illustrate and elucidate : the other opinion, which is the real truth, as the dark enables us to : appreciate a candle... R/Dr Moshe Halbertal forms his opinion of the Ran's shitah on the haqdamah to haMafteiach leManulei haTalmud. He translates: It is a known fact that the entire Torah, written and oral, was transm itted to Moses, as it says in the tract ate Meggilah, R. Hiyya bar Abba said in the Name of R. Yohanan: The verse:...and on them was written according to all the words.." teaches that the Holy One blessed be He showed Moses the details prescribed by the Torah and by the Sages, including the innovations they would later enact. And what are those? the reading of Meggila. The 'details' provided by the rabbis are halakhic disputes and conflicting views held by the sa ges of Israel. Moses learned them all by divine word with no resolution every controversy in detail. Yet [God] also gave him a rule whose truth is manifest, i.e., 'Favor the majority opinion'....as the sages of that generation saw fit, for the decision had already been delegated to them as it is written: 'And you shall come to the priest the Levites, and to the judge that shall be in those days' and 'You shall not deviate....". (Quoted from . I do not know where to find the original, to see what's ellided or whether my own attempt to translate would agree.) This quote from the Ran pretty clearly backs the third position in RSR's survey: : 3. Multiple truths (Ritva in Eiruvin, Maharal) - Both opinions are true, : reflecting different perspectives of the subject at hand (IMO, this is : similar to the previous explanation, without establishing a hierarchy : between the truths expressed by the different opinions)... (BTW, I happen to agree with this parenthetic. ) OTOH, in Derashah #7, I think I could defend RSR's #2! To quote the Ran: We have been commanded to obey their decision whether it represents the tru th or its opposite ...for the power of decision-making has been entrusted to the halakhic authorities for each generation. Whatever they decide is what God has commanded. Compare: : 2. Levels of truth - R. Moshe in the hakdama to IM, and R. Yaakov to : Bereishit 26, the Netziv in his Hakadama to Haamek Sh'eila, his commentary : to the Sheiltot). Using R. Moshe's terminology. there is Emet Shamaymit, : and Emet L'Horaa. Both are correct, and in this world we are obligated to : follow the emet l'horaa even if it deviates from the ultimate, heavenly : truth. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You are where your thoughts are. micha at aishdas.org - Ramban, Igeres haQodesh, Ch. 5 http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:38:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:38:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5565E50A.4070406@sero.name> On 05/27/2015 04:22 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Yahadus uses the Torah to define evil. Others don't accept this definition. Why is that relevant? Objective truth doesn't depend on how many people are aware of it or accept it. It's true for everyone, whether they know and accept it or not. Those who don't know it are simply ignorant, and those who dispute it are simply wrong. Subjective truth is a very different matter. If a truth is subjective then those who dispute it are not wrong, it *isn't true* for them, and if someone insists it must be true for them then *he* is wrong. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:41:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:41:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] right and wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5565E599.6050709@sero.name> On 05/27/2015 05:20 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Tangential to some of the recent discussions I wish to point out that > the defintion of right and wrong is subjective and indeed changes > through history. No, it isn't and it doesn't. That the majority of people in the course of history have been wrong is no chiddush; the majority of people *today* are wrong. Truth isn't determined by democracy. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:42:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:42:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") In-Reply-To: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> References: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5565E5EC.7030806@sero.name> On 05/27/2015 06:47 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to > blow. How do you do less than 10*each*? Tashrat for Malchiyos, Tashat for Zichronos, and Tarat for Shofros. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 10:58:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 13:58:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Even More on Who Wrote the Mishnah Brurah Message-ID: <20150527175829.C3B57182454@nexus.stevens.edu> Someone on my email list spoke to a well-known Flatbush Rov and sent me the following: Reb Yitzchok I spoke to Rabbi XX this morning, and he did indeed confirm that the MB was not written only by the Chofetz Chaim. He said R. Moshe Feinstein told him that it is a work of a rabbim, not only a yochid. It seems that R. Arye Leib was not the only one to work on it. According to what R. XX heard the team also consisted of the CC's son in law and the mashgiach Rav Londinski. R. XX also told me that R. Henoch Liebowitz, the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim in Queens told him that his father Reb Dovid, who was a nephew of the CC, also wrote portions of the MB. So thank you for leading me towards this information. llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 12:38:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 15:38:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55661D24.8040207@gmail.com> Micha Berger: >> Rabbi Akiva said, ... "Even as a house proclaims its builder,a garment >> > its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the >> > Holy Blessed One Who created it. >> > >> >Not very rigorous. Rabbi Aqiva's reply revolves around giving a parable >> >to make the conclusion self-evident. Not contructing a deductive argument. >> > >> > ...there are truths that can >> be justified even when they are not amenable to formal proofs. >> ... I'll quote Qovetz Maamariv par 5-7 from a translation >> provided by Pirchei Shoshanim. You'll notice it's nothing like the >> Rambam's attempt to formally prove an Argument from Design in Moreh >> sec. II. Indeed, the Rambam himself in the Moreh Nevuchim recognizes this distinction and supports the superior validity of the non-formal approach. Chapters after he devotes chapters to formal philosophic proofs for Creation ex nihilo, he describes how a healthy (and unbiased) mind thinks: And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, /for one who is modeh al ha-ememmes/ (Ibn Tibbon; KPCH: /baal tsedek/; Pines: an equitable man) [contra Aristotle?see 2:20-23], is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an intender, and that such purposeful intent necessarily implies the production of something new [and not something that always existed along with the one who bears the purposeful intention for its existence]. (MN 3:13) Aristotle agreed to the premise that everything in Nature serves a certain purpose, and that every being contributes to the existence of still another being, but he refused to concede to the conclusion the Rambam considers something a /modeh al ha-emmess/baal tsedek/ is naturally convinced of. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 13:54:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 16:54:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <55661D24.8040207@gmail.com> References: <55661D24.8040207@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150527205440.GB22904@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 03:38:12PM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : Indeed, the Rambam himself in the Moreh Nevuchim recognizes this : distinction and supports the superior validity of the non-formal : approach. Chapters after he devotes chapters to formal philosophic : proofs for Creation ex nihilo, he describes how a healthy (and : unbiased) mind thinks: : : And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, ... : is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities : serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; : and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an : intender, and that such purposeful intent necessarily implies the : production of something new [and not something that always existed : along with the one who bears the purposeful intention for its : existence]. (MN 3:13) There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam recaps a point made in 2:19-20. And for that matter, if the Rambam was talking about not really needing formal proof, despite spending much of sec. II on just that, why would it be buried in a chapter that focuses on something else? 3:13 is about how the universe has its own purpose. It is not just an arena designed for the purpose of humans. He argues here with Aristo who says that plants exist for the purpose of animals, and in general, that things exist for the purpose of other things. Besides, the Rambam writes in 3:51 in the mashal of the palace, that people who believe because of tradition without having proof are like those who wander around the chatzer, whereas someone with a proof is like one who entered the prozdor. Not Aristo's epistomology didn't analyze issues of proof vs other justification. But clearly Reliabilism, trusting an idea found in a source that has already been found to be reliable (hama'aminim ... derekh qabalah), is not being considered good enough justification to fully accomplish life's goal. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 14:39:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 17:39:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527213945.GE22904@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 10:25:26AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> I think the problem is more than just avoiding the issur, but making :> it trivial to entirely avoid it. : : In that case how about a "dud shemesh" according to the poskim that it is : allowed because it uses the sun I don't know. Maybe because you still can't boil hot water if you wanted it, say, for your tea. :> The textbook case would be on Shabbos 6a: situating someone in a meqom :> petur so that someone in a reshus hayachid can hand items to them so :> that they could then hand it over to someone in a reshus harabim. :> Rashi ad loc explains "demezalzel be'isurei Shabbos".>> : would there be a difference between doing this once and making this a : standard procedure? Good question. I don't see "standard procedure" in the gemara, it looks like a one-off. It depends if we're talking about zilzul of kevod Shabbos, or zilzul of the melakhah, the latter being more of a "threat of slippery slope" problem. Rashi has "mezalzel be'isurei Shabbos". BH 337:2 "shelo yishtaberu" uses the same turn of phrase. Why would you be afraid of cheapening the issur if we aren't talking about that opening the door to future violation? The Tur OC 315, Beiur Halakah 344 and elsewhere talk about not doing things "shelo yavo'u lezalzel bo". Which clearly invokes a slippery slope argument; but not that zilzul is itself a slippery slope, rather than zilzul is such a problem, we avoid things that will slide us there. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is harder to eat the day before Yom Kippur micha at aishdas.org with the proper intent than to fast on Yom http://www.aishdas.org Kippur with that intent. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 14:49:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 17:49:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir In-Reply-To: <20150527.080332.8051.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150527.080332.8051.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150527214903.GF22904@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 12:03:32PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Micha Berger answered: :> On a technical level, it would be mesayeia, not lifnei iver, and :> I'm not sure that mesayeia applies to 7 mitzvos benei Noach. : Really? Perhaps I need a better understanding of the difference between : the two. I thought that mesayeia was when the other person is going to : violate the halacha anyway and I am merely helping him to do it... My understanding is that mesayeia is when the person was capable of doing the aveirah without you. Not "would" but "could". Whereas lifnei iveir is when the nazir is mei'eivar hanahar and you're giving him passage. The sugya is on AZ 6a-b. But, I see the Ran does say mesayeia apply to preventing a nakhri from violating the 7MBN. The Rama *YD 151:2) says we are meiqil and allow selling AZ items to nakhriim if they already own similar items or can buy them elsewhere, but there are machmirim. See the Shach YD 151:6-7, who discusses this machloqes rishonim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The mind is a wonderful organ micha at aishdas.org for justifying decisions http://www.aishdas.org the heart already reached. Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 18:33:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 21:33:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] measurement error Message-ID: <20150528013324.GA4749@aishdas.org> The topic I got caught up in has been the AhS and standard shiurim. The story so far.... Jan 8, when this thread was current, I wrote : > BTW, carrying 4 amos bereshus harabbim is 4 of one's own amos, assuming > they have mainstream bone structure. It's where I am in AhS Yomi. > But notice that we would naturally assume "amah" as unit of length, not > as a function of how far that particular person can reach. On Jan 11, I hit the topic again WRT eiruvin AhS OC 363:32-35, and wrote : > But then in se'if 34 he says something I do not follow, but key to > our discussion. > When dealing with mavui, where there is only one mavui and therefore one > measuring process to be used for everyone, the above applies. However, > when the measurement is only for one person's use, tbey should be > measuring for himself, with his own norms. > And here he adds a touch of subjectivity: a person should measure how > far he himself could walk. And the rule of carrying in rh"r a distance > of no more 4 of one's own amos is brought into that umbrella. > The reason for the general rule is to cover the personal amos of the > people who will be using the measuring. > BUT, and this is why I do not follow, he opened se'if 32 by telling us > the variability is 1/48 of the total (1/24 of an etzba per ammah). Which > is far less than the variability in forearm lengths in most groups of > people. For example, my own sukkah is used by Yoni, who stands 6'3" and by > my own 5'3" -- and my arms are on the shorter side, even proportionally. > When we hold up elbows together, my ammah ends just past his wrist. Not > within 47/48 of eachother. And then on May 18 I hit AhS OC 586:14 and tried reviving this thread . The topic was the minimum length for a shofar -- long enough to be seen on either side when being held in one hand. > So the shiur is neither personal nor really the standard tefach. It is > literally as the gemara says, what can be held and still seen. Which is > why there is a machloqes about where the tefach stands in relation to the > real shiur. But, visible if hypothetically held by an average hand. And > if the tqoei'ah has wide hands, he could hold a minimal shofar without > it being visible, and it would still be kosher. ... > What I find even more interesting is that there is no chiluq being drawn > between someone who blows in shul and someone who blows just for himself. > Wouldn't the rule from OC 363 mean that someone in the latter situation > should use what is visible when their own hand holds it? But today I seem to have hit an AhS which deals with shiurim that aren't human: revi'is, kezayis. According to OC 612:8, the shiur of drinking on YK is not a revi'is, but melo lugmav. And unlike akhilah, where there is one kezayis for everyone, melo lugmav is literally his own cheek. So it would seem that kezayis, and perhaps revi'is and other shiurim (beis se'ah) are not subjective. Which makes sense, since I can't figure out how to make a kezayis correspond to the person... Except RCVolozhiner's position, where it's the average kezayis then and there, and not a static shiur. Which could, literally, be the same shiur for all people (living there and then) and thus may be within the AhS's intent. Can't I get anyone else intrigued by this problem? Back on Jan 11, I was in hil' eiruvin, and hit upn the AhS's discussion of an ammah just as we were discussing the topic Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The purely righteous do not complain about evil, micha at aishdas.org but add justice, don't complain about heresy, http://www.aishdas.org but add faith, don't complain about ignorance, Fax: (270) 514-1507 but add wisdom. - R AY Kook, Arpelei Tohar From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:12:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:12:53 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul Message-ID: Micha wrote: The Tur OC 315, Beiur Halakah 344 and elsewhere talk about not doing things "shelo yavo'u lezalzel bo". Which clearly invokes a slippery slope argument; but not that zilzul is itself a slippery slope, rather than zilzul is such a problem, we avoid things that will slide us there. >> My apologies but I am still completely confused when one applies zilzul and when one says something is allowed as an exception to the rule. No purpose in giving examples as there are myriads of exceptions that are allowed. I have the same problem with "lo plug" sometimes something that would be allowed is prohibited because of "lo plug" and sometimes we simply say it is an exception. Perhaps the most famous example is lighting candles on leil yom tov. The wife of the Prisha says one should say the bracha first and then light since lighting (preexisting flame) is allowed on tomtov. The MA calls her names and says this is an obvious "lo plug". My impression is that most women follow the wife of the prisha. The question is what is the basis of the machloket either when do we say "lo plug" and when do we apply "zilzul" and when do we ignore these arguments -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 21:04:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 04:04:33 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir Message-ID: <20150528.000433.22403.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > My understanding is that mesayeia is when the person was capable > of doing the aveirah without you. Not "would" but "could". Whereas > lifnei iveir is when the nazir is mei'eivar hanahar and you're > giving him passage. > > The sugya is on AZ 6a-b. > > ... I will be the first to point out that Lifnei Iveir is one the many topics where my learning and expertise is severely lacking. Even so, I suspect that there is something missing from RMB's definition. In the simplest reading of the pasuk (Vayikra 19:14), Rashi says that Lifnei Iveir forbids one to give bad advice to another person. It is difficult to imagine a worse piece of advice than telling Ruth to follow Orpah back her her previous god. Googling the question "What is Lifnei Iveir" brought me to an interesting article by Rabbi Yirmiyohu Kaganoff (bio at http://rabbikaganoff.com/about) The full article is at http://tinyurl.com/ka3pwq6 and I would like to quote the part where he gives three different categories of Lifnei Iveir: > I. Inciting ? maiseis > > This occurs when a person was not even considering doing an > aveirah until someone encouraged him. Thus, the instigator incited > the performing of the aveirah and is therefore a maiseis. > > II. Encouraging ? chanufah > > One violates this prohibition by complimenting someone for doing a > sin, thus implying that sinning is acceptable. > > III. Enabling ? lifnei iveir > > One violates this prohibition if the sinner wanted to do the > aveirah, but was unable to do so without assistance. The person > who enables the performing of the aveirah violates lifnei iveir. > > IV. Even when none of these Torah prohibitions are involved, > helping the sinner do the aveirah sometimes violates the rabbinic > prohibition of mesaya?a y?dei ovrei aveirah, assisting someone who > is sinning. (It is unfortunate that the article did not cite a source or precedent for these categories, but please bear with me.) It seems to me that RMB is giving a useful tool to distinguish between category 3 and category 4, but that tool is useful only in the case where a person already has the *desire* to commit a sin, but it lacking the *ability* to some degree. If a person has only a mild inability to sin, then the enabler is merely mesayeia; but if the person has a severe inability, then the enabler is placing a real michshol. But what of the case where a person does *not* yet have a desire to sin? Rabbi Kaganoff is saying that one who incites or encourages him to do it is violating Lifnei Iveir. Even if the person already has the ability to do the sin, it was below his "bechirah point" until he was egged on to do it. Rabbi Kaganoff offers an example: > Inciting Someone to Sin ? maiseis > > The classic case of maiseis is when the nachash encouraged Chavah > to eat the forbidden fruit. Even though the nachash itself did > not eat, Hashem punished it for inciting Chavah to sin (Gemara > Sanhedrin 29a). Similarly, if Reuven incites Shimon to sin in a > way that Shimon had not considered, Reuven is a maiseis. And so my question can be rephrased: If the nachash was wrong to tell Chava to eat the fruit, wasn't Naami wrong to tell Ruth to follow Orpah back to her god? Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/556694205dac4141e6338st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 01:07:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:07:24 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim Message-ID: On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 07:14:36PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: : -- 30 **dim'yushav** : -- 10 **dim'umad** : -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the R' Micha Berger asked: "How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to blow. How do you do less than 10 **each**?" Many Rishonim (quoted by the Beis Yosef in Siman 592) hold that during Chazaras Hashatz in Musaf you blow Tashrat for malchiyos, Tashat for zichronos and Tarat for shofaros. In all of the Nusach Ashkenaz shuls that I have davened in they blew 30 before Musaf, 30 during chazaras hashatz and then 40 after Musaf adding up to 100. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:33:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:33:43 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: Micha wrote <> Well Micha and I agree on several points but still disagree on others. Agreed that people in real life don't use formal mathematical proofs. A sanhedrin can kill on a majority vote (OK there a little more than 50%) I also agree that if one is talking about oneself then feelings count. Saying they are wrong but I cant prove it works perfectly OK with regard to your own beliefs. It doesnt work when trying to convince others. Example: Your child comes home and says he learned that the world is billions of years old not about 5700 years. Or else your teenager tells you he doesn't believe G-d is loving because of the Holocaust or because of Amalek. You can tell him that whatever is in the Torah or Chazal is truth and its not open to discussion. That might work with some children. Alternatively you can give him/her one of the many answers that have been discussed on this list. That may or not convince him. There are no proofs that G-d exists or that G-d rules the universe or that G-d is just or loving. You can convince yourself but doing that to others is difficult, We have already argued about REW and I still can't accept it. The argument is that if someone else tells you why he doesn't accept G-d or that G-d rules the world whether for rational or emotional reasons the answer is that we don't believe him and say he is making up reasons. Of course he will say the same about your acceptance of Torah and mitzvot. To simply accuse the other of simply rationalizing his beliefs is simply not true. I have had enough lectures on why the Bible was written very late by many scribes to be convinced they really mean it. You may disagree but you can't accuse them of merely rationalizing their non-belief. In one class the professor said he would willing debate anyone who has a different opinion objectively. However, if you start that the Torah is from Sinai because of your belief then there is nothing to discuss. What is self-evident to you is self-evidently false to someone else. Again it is legitimate to disagree with that person but I claim it is not legitimate to state that he doesn't really believe in his own position. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:57:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:57:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura Message-ID: <> They state clearly these are things they heard from the Gra, Ari etc. No misleading. No different than RHS writing what he heard from RYBS and many other such seforim. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:55:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 05:55:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5566E62F.8040201@sero.name> On 05/28/2015 05:12 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > Perhaps the most famous example is lighting candles on leil yom tov. > The wife of the Prisha The MA's girsa in the Prisha is "mother", and the Machtzis Hashekel confirms that this is not a typo in the MA. > says one should say the bracha first and then > light since lighting (preexisting flame) is allowed on tomtov. > The MA calls her names He does not! He merely quotes the gemara Yoma 66b that "women only have wisdom with the spindle". Machtzis Hashekel says he is not even referring to the Drisha's mother, but to most women, who will not understand the distinction between Shabbos and Yomtov. > and says this is an obvious "lo plug". He doesn't just assert it, he cites clear sources that when a bracha must sometimes be said after the deed, we apply lo plug and always say it after the deed. Thus, he says, the same thing must apply here. (But see Dagul Mervava, who distinguishes this case because the bracha is different, and points out that if not for this distinction then the same should apply to the Chanukah lights). > My impression is that most women follow the wife of the prisha. Really? I'm surrprised. I'm also surprised that you've surveyed enough women to form an impression one way or the other. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:19:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 10:19:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:57:05PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> < teachings. For that matter, people talk about what the Ari says in Peri :> Eitz Chaim or others of R' Chaim Vital's works.>> : They state clearly these are things they heard from the Gra, Ari etc. No : misleading. I'm not sure about such disclaimers on the Gra's talmidim's writings, aside from Maaseh Rav. And if so, lo kol shekein in our case! Here we have the author of Shemiras haLashon -- someone known for thinking about what he said -- calling the MB "beiuri", "od tzarafti" "ki bo biarti", "upo hir'eisi", and "kol eileh chbarti..." on the title page. How can one argue he didn't oversee the entire work and checked the content? Nothing about parts being by Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger What you get by achieving your goals micha at aishdas.org is not as important as http://www.aishdas.org what you become by achieving your goals. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Henry David Thoreau From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:33:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 10:33:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528143339.GB4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:12:53PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : My apologies but I am still completely confused when one applies zilzul and : when one says something is allowed as an exception to the rule. No purpose : in giving examples as there are myriads of exceptions that are allowed. I think the reverse: the norm is to allow valid loopholes to the din, and it's only when the poseiq decides that the loophole would destroy some significant part of the feel of Shabbos (whether qedushas Shabbos or an entire melakhah) that we call it zilzul. ... : Perhaps the most famous example is lighting candles on leil yom tov. The : wife of the Prisha says one should say the bracha first and then light : since lighting (preexisting flame) is allowed on tomtov. The MA calls her : names and says this is an obvious "lo plug". : My impression is that most women follow the wife of the prisha. The AhS OC 263:3 does, citing the Perishah. Then he quotes the MA (s"q 12) and says "and many were choliq on him... vekhein iqar ledina." Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:45:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 10:45:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528144529.GC4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:33:43PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : Well Micha and I agree on several points but still disagree on others. : Agreed that people in real life don't use formal mathematical proofs... I would go further and say that far too many things /can't/ use formal proofs. And even further: even when you do have a formal proof, it is built from givens -- call them postulates or first principles. So, barring an infinite regress, even a formal proof is a structure atop things accepted without formal proof. I should point out that this a major subset of the field of epistomology. : It doesnt work when trying to convince others. True, but not relevant. We -- and more importantly to the origianl point, REW -- are talking about whether it's more natural to believe in G-d or not. Not whether a believer could then convince someone else. ... : We have already argued about REW and I still can't accept it. The argument : is that if someone else tells you why he doesn't accept G-d or that G-d : rules the world whether for rational or emotional reasons the answer is : that we don't believe him and say he is making up reasons. REW doesn't say that. I even cut-n-pasted a translation to support that point. REW says that he really doesn't believe, but he had to work against the natural state of seeing a world that shows obvious signs of a Designer. Someone can truly and honestly convince himself, or be convinced by others (including upbringing) that a poem really could emerge by someone spilling ink. But that's not what people would conclude if we lacked a strong desire to conclude that way -- the "shochad" of freedom if ein din ve'ein Dayan. There is nothing in that quote from Qovetz Maamarim about anyone not really believing what they think they believe. Rather, he ascribes a motive. : Of course he will say the same about your acceptance of Torah and mitzvot. Again, REW isn't speaking about the context of debate. Nor was I. By bringing it in, you complicate matters without addressing the original claim. REW is really just saying that the reason why believe is a fair topic of bechirah because on one side design is self-evident but on the other the desire to live without having to follow the Designer counterbalances it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger People were created to be loved. micha at aishdas.org Things were created to be used. http://www.aishdas.org The reason why the world is in chaos is that Fax: (270) 514-1507 things are being loved, people are being used. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:22:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 14:22:41 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> References: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, May 28, 2015, 5:19 PM Micha Berger wrote: > Here we have the author of Shemiras > haLashon -- someone known for thinking about what he said -- calling > the MB "beiuri", "od tzarafti" "ki bo biarti", "upo hir'eisi", and "kol > eileh chbarti..." on the title page. How can one argue he didn't oversee > the entire work and checked the content? Nothing about parts being by I agree he must have looked it over That leaves the question of contradictions And stories about minhagim of cc that are different than what is in mb From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:23:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:23:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150528152301.GE4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 02:22:41PM +0000, Eli Turkel wrote: : I agree he must have looked it over Which is why I think R/Dr MS is making too much ado over the actual authorship. : That leaves the question of contradictions Well, not every sheverer Rambam is a printing error either. Another case where the academic norm is to run far further with some fun concept than I'm comfortable with. Perhaps we should be looking for how the contradictions are only apparent. Or perhaps the CC felt than ruling al pi rov or safeiq lechumerah/lequlah in two different cases needn't results in consistencies between pesaqim. Before you spend too much time on that bothering you, recall when we daven minchah and maariv. If the tefillos are on two different days, you can end up following different definitions of evening on different days. : And stories about minhagim of cc that are different than what is in mb I thought R/Dr Seth Mandel's position is compelling. Look at the title page and the haqdamah. The CC never claims that the MB is a seifer of pesaq. Rather, he describes the work as a survey. From the title page, defining the MB (as opposed to the left column about the BH): I called my biur by the name MB since within it is explained (misbareir; c.f. "berurah") the words of the SA, every law by its reasoning and origins in the gemara and posqim that it not be like a sealed book. Also I will collect in it all the dinim, halakhos and biurim scattered amog the books of the acharonim, meforshim of the SA who are known (like MA, PMG, Birkhei Yoseif, Maamar Mordekhai and many such.) There are many of them after the Be'er Heitiv and they are not brought in shu"t because they are somwhat scattered in various places. All of these are compiled here, and all is in a straightforward and easy language and in proper order, with Hashem's help. And the BH: Also, I appended on its side some necessary inyanim titled under the name Biur Halakhah -- and as the name, so it is. For in it I sometimes explained the words of halakhah which are brought in summary in the MB without proof, and here I show (be"h) its source looking inall of gemara and the posqim. Also in it are sometimes explains the words of the SA at length in places which need explanation. (Sorry, just always wanted to bother translating that -- this thread was just my excuse.) So, the MB is a survey, and thus the halachic conclusions found in it (and explained in the BH) are purely what in theory the sources surveyed would indicate. It's not that the CC didn't believe in mimeticism, it's that the MB is a book of theory and therefore ignores mimeticism. The MB was written lehalakhah velo lemaaseh. Which makes it ironic that so many RYs of the mid- and late 20th cent worked so hard to make the work a "poseiq acharon" lemaaseh. Whereas he CC's own practice did reflect weighing shitos based on their acceptance. And so, unsurprisingly, in all the places I know of where his own practice didn't fit the MB (such as supporting a community eiruv, despite BH 364 "ve'achar") his practice does follow the AhS. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "The most prevalent illness of our generation is micha at aishdas.org excessive anxiety.... Emunah decreases anxiety: http://www.aishdas.org 'The Almighty is my source of salvation; I will Fax: (270) 514-1507 trust and not be afraid.'" (Isa 12) -Shalhevesya From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:11:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:11:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528151127.C0EE817F7D9@nexus.stevens.edu> At 10:33 AM 5/28/2015, R. Micha Berger wrote: >And if so, lo kol shekein in our case! Here we have the author of Shemiras >haLashon -- someone known for thinking about what he said -- calling >the MB "beiuri", "od tzarafti" "ki bo biarti", "upo hir'eisi", and "kol >eileh chbarti..." on the title page. How can one argue he didn't oversee >the entire work and checked the content? Nothing about parts being by I wonder if these words were on the title page of the first publication of each volume of the MB. After all, publishers do add things. One title page I found online for the second volume of the MB refers to the author as HaGaon. I doubt that the CC would have had this on the title page of the first printing. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:39:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:39:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: <20150528151127.C0EE817F7D9@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150528151127.C0EE817F7D9@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150528153911.GG4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 11:11:28AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : I wonder if these words were on the title page of the first : publication of each volume of the MB... Why wonder? Each volume: 1. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49623&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1884 2. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49624&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1895 3. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49625&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1891 4. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49626&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1898 5. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49627&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1902 6. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49628&pgnum=1 - Pietrekov 1907 (None call him ga'on, all have pretty much the same self description.) These fit the years of the first editions that wikipedia gives, based on "The Chafetz Chaim" by R MM Yoshor, pg 603. (But even if wiki has it wrong, they are editions published by the author.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Rescue me from the desire to win every micha at aishdas.org argument and to always be right. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Nassan of Breslav Fax: (270) 514-1507 Likutei Tefilos 94:964 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:10:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 08:10:56 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH Message-ID: http://menachemmendel.net/blog/are-you-a-mishnah-berurah-or-arukh-hashulhan-person/ see there also the r henkin review . he points out that the Oz Vhadar edition inherently has a difficulty in attributing notes to the [non-satmar oriented] relatives of the Aruch Hashulchan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 09:00:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:00:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the suggestion that a kosher lamp is zilzul shabbas. Isn't just a nice (and -- significantly -- *safer*) way of covering a lamp? If one were to make the argument that its convenience might make it zilzul shabbas, might one respond with "but safety"? Why do the rabbis deem the following to not be a case of zilzul yom tov: cooking a large pot of food on the afternoon of yom tov rishon, "in case people might stop by", and "I'll eat some of it" knowing there will be leftovers? -- Sholom -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 14:15:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 17:15:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") In-Reply-To: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> References: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> Message-ID: R'Micha asked: > How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to blow. How do you do less than 10 *each*? < 3 during Malch., 3 during Zichronos, and 4 during Shof'ros. On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 6:47 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 07:14:36PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: > : When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: > : -- 30 *dim'yushav* > : -- 10 *dim'umad* > : -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the > > How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to > blow. How do you do less than 10 *each*? > > Tir'u baTov! > -Micha > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 15:45:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 18:45:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528224528.GB28282@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:00:22PM -0400, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote: : I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the suggestion that a : kosher lamp is zilzul shabbas. That's okay, it's just a hava amina we raised here. No one AFAIK actually banned kosher lamps over zilzul Shabbos. The question was why a Kosher Switch (that claims to not even be grama) would be zilzul and not the Kosher Lamp. And then, many (most? the vast majority of posqim?) do not believe it actually avoids gerama, including the author of Shemiras Shabbos kehilkhisa. : Isn't just a nice (and -- significantly : -- *safer*) way of covering a lamp? Well, every case where one would discuss zilzul Shabbos would be one where there wasn't a more easily defined problem. So every discussion could be "isn't it just". I think the difference is that a kosher switch would mean being able to turn or off anything, whereas the Kosher Lamp is more limited, being a specific appliance. ... : Why do the rabbis deem the following to not be a : case of zilzul yom tov: cooking a large pot of food on the afternoon of : yom tov rishon, "in case people might stop by", and "I'll eat some of : it" knowing there will be leftovers? I would guess that similarly, because it's of limited utility. It doesn't totally destroy the concept of an issur of cooking on Yom Tov. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The fittingness of your matzos [for the seder] micha at aishdas.org isn't complete with being careful in the laws http://www.aishdas.org of Passover. One must also be very careful in Fax: (270) 514-1507 the laws of business. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 05:52:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 15:52:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Indeed in Europe before WWII the MB was not the "final" arbiter of halacha. Much changed when CI wrote in a letter that the MB has the halacha of a sanhedrin and one can't disagree with its conclusions. Of course CI himself disagreed with the MB and in fact there are published versions of the MB which include the disagreements of the CI. All to show that what is written in letters is not to be taken very literally. In any case that paid a large part of the change in attitude towards the MB. Certainly poskim of the previous generation who grew up before the war also did not take the MB as a final posek. As an example is RMF though I heard similar things from RYBS. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 08:24:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 11:24:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150529152455.GA5770@aishdas.org> R/Dr Haym Soloveitchik focused on the MB's more textualist slant vs the AhS giving weight to shitos that were common practice. Which fits R/DHS's thesis for that particular paper, the idea he was using that particular comparison to illustrate. But I do not believe it's the primary difference between them. I already gave what I saw was the primary difference. The AhS was written by a moreh de'asra to reflect halakhah lemaaseh. The MB was written by a tzasiq and a gaon as a survey of later shitos that weren't available to most people trying to learn halakhah. No focus (by the author, see below about others) on lemaaseh. I see this as the cause for the MB's lack of attention to halakhah as practiced. It wasn't so much that the CC was a textualist when it comes to pesaq, but that he wrote a book for discussing texts. A second difference is that the AhS's idea of understanding the halakhah is looking to see how the pesaq evolved from gemara (and Y-mi) to Rif, Rambam, Rosh to the Tur, BY, SA, and finally to the acharonim since. The MB is more focused on the halakhah in the acharonic period, and how to decide amongst them. Third, the AhS is willing to leave the halakhah fuzzy, and often comes to a range of conclusions rather than one clear-cut pesaq. Or, he will pasqen one way in one se'if, but in a slightly different case in a different se'if reopen the question: ... but if you hold like... The MB offers more clarity. An AhS fan might say that clarity is artificial, because the reality of halakhah isn't cut and dry with only one best pesaq for all people. But it does make it easier to open a MB than to try to decide what to do when you reach one of the fuzzier stretches of the AhS. Perhaps the clarity is really is artifice, and that's why we need LORs rather than thinking a book is our poseiq. On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 03:52:06PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : Indeed in Europe before WWII the MB was not the "final" arbiter of : halacha. Much changed when CI wrote in a letter that the MB has the : halacha of a sanhedrin and one can't disagree with its conclusions. : Of course CI himself disagreed with the MB... : All to show that what is written in letters is not to be taken very : literally... Although it wasn't only the CI, so it's not all about taking his letter overly literally. Rav Yaakov Kamenecki and R' Aharon Kotler called him the "poseiq acharon", and RAK went as far as making sure the MB would appear in photos of him. See also our 2006 discussion Aruch Hashulchan vs. Mishna berura OTOH, R YH Henkin testified about his famous grandfather ( quoting his own Bnei Banim vol. 2 page 31): AH saw the MB; see 11:22; 12:4; 28:23; 62:4; 268:6; and other places where he mentions Mishnah Berurah by name. In 79:11 and 319:22 and elsewhere he disagrees with him by name and in innumerable places he disagrees with him without mentioning his name: for instance, in 55:20 he is writing against the Mishnah Berurah and similarly in 370:13 -- this is obvious anyone who looks carefully. So it is a mitzvah to let people know that AH is not only a Sefer Halacha but also a response to the Mishnah Brerurah. OTOH, similarly R [Shmuel] Yaakov Weinberg (Ner Israel) considered the AhS the more authoritative. And minutes before my chupah (while waiting for the paper to burn to have ashes for my head), R' Dovid Lifshitz asked if I had one for my new home, because it was closer to halakhah as my ancestors held. (RDL knew my family back in Suvalk.) As for RMF, RDF and RRF both agreed that RMF gave priority to the AhS because R' Yechiel Michl Epstein had a qehillah, and therefore the more practiced poseiq of the two. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger People were created to be loved. micha at aishdas.org Things were created to be used. http://www.aishdas.org The reason why the world is in chaos is that Fax: (270) 514-1507 things are being loved, people are being used. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 30 16:03:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 00:03:21 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] : Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001f01d09b2c$d37ec030$7a7c4090$@org.uk> I wrote: >> But aren't they then denying those Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all >> the chance to hear shofar according to the majority opinions by only blowing >> for them according to the minority opinions? And RZS replied: >AFAIK everyone agrees that all these methods are kosher, so those Jews >are definitely yotzei the mitzvah. ... >They're not foisting anything. The people they're blowing for would >otherwise not hear shofar at all, so they're clearly better off hearing >even some obscure form of it, so long as they're yotzei. But if these people who want to hear the shofar blown according to minority shitos are capable of finding people who would otherwise not hear shofar at all and blowing for them, they are *also* capable of finding such people in circumstances where they then blow for them according to the majority shitos. For it to be true that "they're clearly better off hearing some obscure form of it, so long as they are yotzei" - you have to be assuming that the people doing the blowing would only be prepared to go to the trouble of blowing to fulfil their desire to fulfil minority shitos but NOT where the result is only to ensure that fellow Jews perform a mitzvah. You may be correct that indeed people are more concerned with making sure they themselves have fulfilled the mitzvah of shofar in every possible permutation than in making sure another Jew performs the mitzvah at all, but could anybody honestly regard that as praiseworthy? As a consequence, I then raised a halachic query: > The principle on which > somebody who has fulfilled their obligation can then fulfil the obligation > of another is based on kol yisrael areivim zeh b'zeh. But to what extent is > that applicable in a situation in which that person would never, had the > situation been reversed, have accepted the form of fulfilment they are > offering the other. Ie since the person who is blowing the shofar refused > to have these alternative ways of blowing as the fundamental method of > fulfilling their own mitzvah, is it really areivus to then foist that form > of fulfilment on others? RZS's assumption is that, so long as everybody agrees that a form of blowing is kosher bidieved, then areivus works, but I wonder whether this is necessarily true. Areivus is a fascinating halachic concept - it allows somebody who has already fulfilled a mitzvah to do it again, including (importantly) making brachos again (which they would otherwise not be permitted to do) on behalf of another. I went for a bit of a hunt over Yom Tov to see what I could find regarding areivus, but did not turn up much. First of all, the pasuk from the Torah regarding Areivus is brought in Shevuos 39a as being based on the Vayikra 26:37 [vchashlu ish b'achiv] - which is then explained as meaning that a man in *the sin* of his brother so as to teach that kol yisrael areivim ze l'zeh. But while that seems a valid source for what might be considered "negative" areivus or areivus in relation to lo ta'asehs (and the obligation to protest), it led me to wonder how straightforwardly that gets you to what might be called "positive" areivus - ie doing something, such as performing the mitzvah of shofar on behalf of another [not that I have seen this distinction between "negative" and "positive" areivus anywhere]. Ie while you can see that if is permitted to blow shofar for somebody who was otherwise unable to fulfil the mitzvah, and one failed to do so, one might then be considered to have stumbled into the sin of that person's omission - ie failure to perform an aseh - it seems a leap to therefore derive from this particular pasuk that one has the power to fulfil and make brachos on behalf of that person. If anything I would have thought perhaps v'ahavta re'echa k'mocha seemed more likely, but I couldn't find any reference. Note that areivus would seem not to be shlichus, as one can make a shaliach out of somebody who is themselves not commanded in a particular thing - whereas that is not applicable for areivus where the original level of obligation must be at least equal on the part of the arev. [This is all leaving aside the famous Rosh Brachos perek 3 siman 13 which states that areivus does not apply to women, which is clearly discussing what might be termed positive areivus ie making brachos on behalf of one another, and which the achronim generally limit to cases where there is no equal obligation, despite what may seem to be the simple pshat, or the Tosphos in Kidushin 70b that areivus does not apply to gerim - which must surely at most [and here it seems to me you need the definition of negative and positive areivus] to be only a reference to negative areivus - otherwise this would be raised as a problem of a ger making brachos on behalf of others - although given the source of the Tosphos in Sotah 37b, this would also seem to apply to women for the same reasons - ie the number count being made by reference to the 603,550 in the midbar not including the eruv rav, and not including women either]. The most I was able to find in my brief search over Yom Tov was a Birchei Yosef Orech Chaim siman 124 discussing the question as to whether a Ben Chutz L'Aretz who found himself in a village in Israel over Yom Tov (in the case quoted by the Birchei Yosef he had gone to Israel to bury his dead) where nobody besides him had the knowledge to be Shatz, and who had already davened at home on second day yom tov the second day yom tov davening, could be shatz for the community by saying the birchei chol amidah. But there seem to be lots of other reasons to permit (as the Birchei Yosef does) in this particular case. In particular it seems to me, besides all of the Birchei Yosef's arguments, if you were to say that areivus was linked to v'ahavta re'echa kamocha, you can see why, if circumstances were reversed, the ben chutz l'aretz would want the same as he is providing to the benei aretz (ie the mutuality of areivus). But in the case that RZS has outlined, where the people hearing only the minority shitos form of shofar blowing would surely want the majority position shofar blowing if they could get it, can the blower unilaterally choose to force them to fulfil their obligation via a set of minority shitos via areivus, or does the principle of areivus not stretch that far? More generally, if somebody holds a particular position as being the ikar, can they under the principle of areivus perform a mitzvah on behalf of somebody who holds by a contradictory position, so that what the arev is doing is, according to him, possul? How about the reverse situation? And that gets us to RZS's case, where it might be agreed that a particular form is kosher bidieved, but if the arev could provide a l'chatchila version and chooses not to, can he be genuinely be said to be a real arev? How good a guarantor must a guarantor be to be considered a guarantor at all? I am sure some achron has written a treatise on areivus which must cover these kinds of topics, but so far I haven't found it. Zev Sero zev at sero.name Shavuah tov Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 12:25:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 15:25:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] FORBIDDING WOMEN DRIVERS: A HALACHIC ANALYSIS Message-ID: <20150529192533.D89D0182BDA@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/nqnquzc The media has widely reported that a Belz Yeshiva in England has forbidden women from driving their children to Yeshiva. It was further reported that if the mothers do not comply, the children will be thrown out of Yeshiva. In a letter sent to parents last week, seen by the Jewish Chronicle, they say there has been an increase in the number of mothers driving their children to school and add that this has led to ?great resentment among parents of pupils of our [Hasidic] institutions?. The letter says the ban, to come into force in the summer, is based on the recommendations of Rabbi Yissachar Dov Rokeach, the Belzer spiritual leader in Israel. It says that if a mother has no other choice but to drive her child to school ? for medical reasons, for example ? she should ?submit a request to the special committee to this effect and the committee shall consider her request.? The question is what does halacha have to say about this? See the above URL for more. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 14:04:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 17:04:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <5568D45F.9010809@gmail.com> R. Micha Berger maintained that R. E. Wasserman was not positing a formal proof for G-d's existence, formal proofs not being the only way, or even the superior way, to establish truths. I cited a passage in the Moreh Nevuchim to support this concept. But as is occasionally the case, R. MB disagrees with me, even when I attempt to defend him: ZL: Indeed, the Rambam himself in the Moreh Nevuchim recognizes this : distinction and supports the superior validity of the non-formal : approach. Chapters after he devotes chapters to formal philosophic : proofs for Creation ex nihilo, he describes how a healthy (and : unbiased) mind thinks: : :And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, //for //one who ismodeh al ha-ememmes// (RMB substituted an ellipsis for this :crucial clause) :is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities :serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; :and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an :intender, and that such purposeful intent necessarily implies the :production of something new [and not something that always existed :along with the one who bears the purposeful intention for its :existence]. (MN 3:13) RMB: There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam recaps a point made in 2:19-20. In 2:19-20 Rambam makes no reference to each component or entity in nature providing a benefit for another, and certainly does not use that there as a proof for Creation ex nihilo. *(Section II is devoted to developing the argument against a naturally necessary eternal world based on ''particularization,'' the differing formations and behaviors of things despite their being made of the same materials.) * ** *Perhaps you are referring to the fact that in both the argument there and here the crucial concluding step invokes the mindset that purposeful intention on G-d's part (which Aristotle as well attributes to G-d) indicates *a changeable will on His part (which indication Aristotle denies) that allows for and indicates Creation ex nihilo. But just as in 3:13 the Rambam describes that crucial mindset as something that is possessed by those who are modeh al ha-emmess, so too in 2:19-20 the Rambam first describes it as something that is ''pashut'' (KPCH) or ''mevuar" (Ibn Tibbon), which he will then proceed to demonstrate through more formal proof: It has already been shown that according to Aristotle... the Universe is not the result of intent of choice and desire; for if this were the case, they would have been non-existing before the intent had been conceived. We [proponents of Judaism?ZL], however, hold that it is /pashut\mevuar/ that all things in the Universe are the result of intent-not-of necessity; and it is possible for that Intender to change them and have a different intent. But in this chapter, my intent is to show by arguments almost as forceful as real proofs, that the Universe gives compelling evidence of being [freely] intended by an Intender: RMB: And for that matter, if the Rambam was talking about not really needing formal proof, despite spending much of sec. II on just that, why would it be buried in a chapter that focuses on something else? I did not posit that the Rambam's intent was to make the point that formal proof is unnecessary. That indeed is not his purpose. After all, the explicitly stated primary purpose of the Moreh is for those (himself included) who yearned to defend and support the mesorah through philosophical approach of his day. He is not interested in dismissing the project. He explicitly describes this /modeh al ha-emmess/ statement /as a tangential interruption/: After that statement, he says, ''I will now return to the subject of this chapter, viz., the ultimate cause [i.e. the purpose behind the universe being as it is--ZL].'' My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows the non-formal mindset of those who are /modeh al ha-emmess/. It is a reference to those who do not restrict their acceptance of truth to things provable through formal logic, settling for healthy, unbiased reasoning (and who thereby see the truth of Creation ex-nihilo as a simple conclusion from the fact of the purposeful hierarchy of nature). RMB: 3:13 is about how the universe has its own purpose. It is not just an arena designed for the purpose of humans. He argues here with Aristo who says that plants exist for the purpose of animals, and in general, that things exist for the purpose of other things. He does not argue with Aristotle on this point, as is clear in the passage from 3:13 that I originally quoted, and as he elaborates in the introduction to his Mishnah commentary. The disagreement (outside of the parenthetically mentioned one) revolves around the /ultimate/ purpose behind the existence of everything, and the question of why the intermediate steps in this world that lead to its finale of the hierarchy must exist, rather than the finale existing alone. (According to Aristotle, every component of nature is simply a necessity whose non-existence is absolutely impossible. It is impossible for G-d to maintain anything but the universe and its entities as they are. According to the Rambam, although every sub lunar being contributes to the existence of another such being, until we get to Man (and then the Ish Shalem), G-d could nevertheless have created that final being directly, without creating the intermediary plants and animals. Why He in His wisdom decided to do it as He did, and why he decided to create the heavens as He did, we cannot know.) RMB: Besides, the Rambam writes in 3:51 in the mashal of the palace, that people who believe because of tradition without having proof are like those who wander around the chatzer, whereas someone with a proof is like one who entered the prozdor. The ''modeh al ha-emmess'' proof, building upon careful observation of the world and and its components and creatures and theorizing as to how it all works, is also a proof. The inferior knowledge that does not lead to optimum closeness to Hashem is pure tradition without proof. Not[e] Aristo's epistomology didn't analyze issues of proof vs other justification. But clearly Reliabilism, trusting an idea found in a source that has already been found to be reliable (hama'aminim ... derekh qabalah), is not being considered good enough justification to fully accomplish life's goal. I did not refer to emunah b'derech kaballah. That's not what I meant by ''ha-modeh al ha-emmess.'' I meant what I said: the healthy thinking of an unbiased mind, meaning the thinking of such a mind informed by knowledge of the things that exist in the world and their behaviors, and explanations of how they operate. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 30 20:04:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sat, 30 May 2015 23:04:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] : Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <001f01d09b2c$d37ec030$7a7c4090$@org.uk> References: <001f01d09b2c$d37ec030$7a7c4090$@org.uk> Message-ID: <556A7A27.3000006@sero.name> On 05/30/2015 07:03 PM, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: > RZS's assumption is that, so long as everybody agrees that a form of blowing > is kosher bidieved, then areivus works, Not just b'deiavad; my understanding is that all of these shitos are kosher lechatchilah, they're just not the way we do them lemaaseh. Let's say they're not mitzva min hamuvchar. Or "de`avad kemar `avad, ud`avad kemar `avad but we do kemar". > But in the case that RZS has outlined, where the people hearing > only the minority shitos form of shofar blowing would surely want the > majority position shofar blowing if they could get it, We're talking about people who have no particular desire to hear shofar at all, or they'd have done so. They didn't bother going to shul on Rosh Hashana, so they're probably not even aware that there are different shitos in how to blow shofar, let alone have a preferred shitah. Anything that is motzi them in the mitzvah is an improvement over what they would do otherwise, and is a benefit for them. And we're talking about potential blowers who currently don't go out and do this, they don't spend their precious Rosh Hashana hours bringing this zechus to fellow Jews who did not come themselves to hear shofar. So what I'm proposing is a win-win. They get to hear the obscure shitos they want to hear, and the people they're blowing for get the basic mitzvah as the Torah commanded it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 30 20:22:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 30 May 2015 23:22:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <556A7E8D.70007@gmail.com> I wrote: > > > > But as is occasionally the case, > R. MB disagrees with me, even when I attempt to defend him I should have put a smiley after that sentence, or maybe even explicated that it was meant as a humorous observation of irony. It meant to imply that RMB is interested in emmess and does not make it a personal issue. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 31 00:59:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 10:59:58 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura Message-ID: RHS has said many times in his shiurim that the MB was not written alone by the Chofetz Chaim and that is why there are sometimes contradictions. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 31 01:08:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 11:08:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: "Indeed in Europe before WWII the MB was not the "final" arbiter of halacha. Much changed when CI wrote in a letter that the MB has the halacha of a sanhedrin and one can't disagree with its conclusions." I believe it happened even a little later then that. RHS who grew up in the 1950s stated many times in shiur that when he learned halacha in the 1950s no one learned Mishna Berura, people either learned Chayei Adam or they learned Shulchan Aruch with Magen Avraham and the Taz. If you look at the European gedolim who came to America like R' Moshe, R' Ruderman, etc. even after WWII they almost never quoted the Mishna Berura. >From what I understand R' Aharon Kotler was very influential in America in promoting learning Mishna Berura. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 31 10:20:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 13:20:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Texualism and the Mishnah Berurah by R. Micha Berger Message-ID: <20150531172101.ED88B180CD0@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://www.aishdas.org/asp/texualism-and-the-mishnah-berurah The author [of the Mishnah Brurah, the Chofetz Chaim] is clear: the purpose of the book was not to provide his own ruling, but to survey the later posqim who have added complexity to the field so that someone looking to reach a decision knows who wrote on the matter. Yes, the CC (or his son or other students who worked with him) often gave his own opinion, including our ?ba?al nefesh yachmir?, but it is unclear to me he intended that opinion to be a pragmatic ruling rather than a theoretical statement. This would explain why the Mishnah Berurah?s rulings diverge from accepted practice so much more often than the Arukh haShulchan (a contemporary work from the same region). Halakhah lemaaseh, pragmatic rulings, need to take such precedent and continuity into account; discussions of textual theory do not. As further evidence that the Mishnah Berurah was not intended to be a practical law guide, we have a lot of testimony that shows that its own author often followed the common Lithuanian practice over his own ?ruling?. Despite the origin of wearing one?s tzitzis strings out being in the MB, the CC did not. His qiddush cup doesn?t hold as much wine as the MB would require. (It is still in the hands of the Zaks family and has been checked repeatedly.) He advocated for building city eiruvin for carrying on Shabbos despite BH 364 ?ve?achar?. The Chafeitz Chaim did not say ?Berikh Shemeih? when taking out the Torah. Etc 1 I am suggesting that the CC?s textualist and formal stance in the MB is simply because the MB was a book for studying texts. And he did not intend to deemphasize mimetic tradition (the flow of practice transmitted culturally). This shift happened when the Chazon Ish in Israel and a number of American rashei yeshiva (such as R? Aharon Kotler) promoted the idea of using the Mishnah Berurah as a poseiq acharon. See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 00:25:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 10:25:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <> I have a book "The Goldilocks Enigma" by Paul Davies (cosmolgist) on why is the universe just right for life. Most of the book is to show how unlikely it is that the universe has exactly the right properties for existence. The second part is a discussion as to why this happened. He goes through all the theories including the watchmaker etc. One possibility is a "creator" . He adnits that it is logically consistent but finds iy highly unlikely. His own preference is for the multi-verse. The idea is not whether you agree with him or not. Rather here is an intelligent human who has thought deeply about these problems and does not see any obvious signs of a designer. I would venture that that is the opinion of most physicists and certainly biologists. What you consider obvious he considers very unlikely. Again we come to the point that REW claims that anyone who really thinks about the problem and comes up with a different answer than he does simply has an ulterior motive. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 03:08:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 06:08:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150602100830.GA12384@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 10:25:05AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : The idea is not whether you agree with him or not. Rather here is an : intelligent human who has thought deeply about these problems and does not : see any obvious signs of a designer. I would venture that that is the : opinion of most physicists and certainly biologists. REW would say that he found it obvious that the world was created, something deep inside (to add my own 2c: of which he is likely unaware) didn't want to live in a world with a Creator, so he thought deeply about these problems until he could find an alternative. (For what it's worth, I think most physicists believe in G-d.) As you put it: : What you consider obvious he considers very unlikely. Again we come to the : point that REW claims that anyone who really thinks about the problem and : comes up with a different answer than he does simply has an ulterior motive. But that doesn't make the person any less convinced. For that matter, the believer also likely has an unlterior motive. (I said that, I doubt REW would. I am just saying it wouldn't rob him of his point.) REW is asserting that before you even get to bias, the obvious position is ours. Their atheism is the one that takes work, because it's explaining away the obvious. After all, there is no a priori, obvious-as-a-postulate version of the Anthropic Principle or other such atheistic explanations of the universe's design. No equivalent to REW's not attributing a poem to spilled ink or R' Aqiva's insisting that a garment or bread testify to their makers. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Friendship is like stone. A stone has no value, micha at aishdas.org but by rubbing one stone against another, http://www.aishdas.org sparks of fire emerge. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Mordechai of Lechovitz From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 08:40:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 11:40:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] women making a zimun In-Reply-To: <20150602125704.JHYM8162.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo306> References: <20150602125704.JHYM8162.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo306> Message-ID: <20150602154026.GF23551@aishdas.org> Bringing this thread to where this belongs. On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 08:56:59AM -0400, Sholom Simon via Areivim wrote: :> There was no family or community prior to the 20th century in :> which girls or women bentshed with a zimun. : I always wondered about that vis-a-vis the following: : The SA"HaRav (written by somebody who was certainly not a feminist) : at 199:6 writes that three women who are eating together (provided : there are less than 10 men) are permitted to break away and make : their own zimmun. (l'chelek l'zimun l'atzman). ... : What I've always wondered about was: is he writing entirely : theoretically, or was there a practice among some which led him to : clarify this issue? : Thoughts? : -- Sholom The SA haRav says that they must participate when 3 men make a zimun. If there are three women, no minyan of men, and want to separate off to make their own zimun, hareshus beyadam. Then he takes on the case of three women who are eating without men, again "hareshus beyadam" to make a zimun. (Similarly avadim, but not a mix of women and avadim because we we assume avadim are capable of peritzus. Given that the part about avadim couldn't have been a practice in the Baal haTanya's day, I wouldn't assume his mention of zimun for women makes any such implication. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Weeds are flowers too micha at aishdas.org once you get to know them. http://www.aishdas.org - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 08:49:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 11:49:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Modah Ani In-Reply-To: <20150602.081411.27008.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150602.081411.27008.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150602154924.GG23551@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 12:14:11PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Areivim wrote: : R' Micha Berger wrote: :> ... When I told them that traditionally we held that they're :> probably yotz'ot with saying Modah Ani once a day, ... : I noticed your very deliberate spelling here, and I can't help but : wonder: Was there any family or community prior to the late 20th century : in which girls or women said "modAh ani"? Talmidei haGra. The Siddur haGra also mentions "shelo asani nakhriah" (the Gra had "nakhri" for men) and "shelo asani shifcha". Speaking of new minhagim: Modeh Ani is likely the youngest prayer in most siddurim, even younger than Lekha Dodi. It exists to compensate moving "Elokai Neshamah" out of that spot. (Asher Yatzar doesn't open "barukh" because it's a berakhah hasemukhah lechaverta with haMapil -- one before sleep one after. When we moved it, many (including the Gra), made it semuchah to Asher Yazar -- thanking the Creator for both body and soul.) Which is why I find it unwarranted to treat its matbeia as unchangable even in the face of simply reconjugating. But in any case, I'm in favor of most changes that give one pause to think about what they're saying or doing. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow micha at aishdas.org man's soul and his own stomach; a pious Jew worries http://www.aishdas.org about his own soul and his fellow man's stomach. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 09:16:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 12:16:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <5568D45F.9010809@gmail.com> References: <5568D45F.9010809@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150602161633.GA15555@aishdas.org> On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 05:04:31PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: :> There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam :> recaps a point made in 2:19-20. : : In 2:19-20 Rambam makes no reference to each component or entity in : nature providing a benefit for another, and certainly does not use that : there as a proof for Creation ex nihilo... 2:20 marks the end of an Argument from Design, which is what I was referring to. As it opens: "According to Aristotle, none of the products of Nature are due to chance. His proof is this: That which is due to chance does not reappear constantly nor frequently, but all products of Nature reappear either constantly or at least frequently..." This is a formal argument, unlike R' Aqiva's or REW's own appeal to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. I am saying that 3:15, when it mentions in passing the bit that :: And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, //for :: //one who ismodeh al ha-ememmes// ... :: is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities :: serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; :: and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an :: [I]ntender.... This is reference to people being willing to accept a proven point, and not accepting something as true because of a justification system other than proof. ... RZL, continued: : He explicitly describes this /modeh al ha-emmess/ statement /as a : tangential interruption/: After that statement, he says, "I will now : return to the subject of this chapter, viz., the ultimate cause [i.e. : the purpose behind the universe being as it is--ZL]." : My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that : there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows : the non-formal mindset of those who are /modeh al ha-emmess/... Agreed it's tangential, which is why I doubt that if the Rambam did want to say something that signficant, this would be its only mention. But I don't think it makes the point you're making because the Rambam already made design the topic of a formal proof. So the current mention of design in this aside is talking about a proof, not another verification system. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is complex. micha at aishdas.org Decisions are complex. http://www.aishdas.org The Torah is complex. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' Binyamin Hecht From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 13:24:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2015 22:24:55 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <556E1117.1050507@zahav.net.il> That a text written such a short time ago could have questions about it authorship really nails down how hard it is to have definitive knowledge of the past. Ben On 5/31/2015 9:59 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > RHS has said many times in his shiurim that the MB was not written > alone by the Chofetz Chaim and that is why there are sometimes > contradictions. > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 13:27:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 16:27:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed Message-ID: <20150602202700.GA7449@aishdas.org> R/Dr Alan Brill recently carried this essay by comparatively new chaver, R' Ysoscher Katz. I am sharing here the essay in full (see or for R/D AB's biographical introduction) for two reeasons -- or one two-part reason: 1- I think this post could start a nice discussion of the fundamentals of each of our hashkafos; and 2- Comments are blocked on the post, so it's not like I am stealing a conversation that ought to happen there. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you won't be better tomorrow micha at aishdas.org than you were today, http://www.aishdas.org then what need do you have for tomorrow? Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rebbe Nachman of Breslov Torat Chaim Ve'Ahavat Chesed Ysoscher Katz I was raised in the chassidic community of Satmar. I should make it clear from the outset: I am modern but not Orthodox. Do not get me wrong, I am observant and my practice is orthodox but that is not who I am. In other words, I am orthodox-my practice is halakhic and my belief orthodox-but Orthodoxy is not me. It is not an integral part of my identity. My orthodoxy is merely a means towards a religious end. Keeping halakha and accepting orthodox faith-claims provides me with the infrastructure which allows my soul to strive and pursue perfection. Orthodoxy enables me to be who I really am: a Modern Chassidish Jew. As I mentioned, my identity is comprised of two parts, Modern and Chassidish. I inherited these identity markers from my parents, the modernity from my mother and the chassidut from my father. Here, I mean real Chassidic, and not Neo-Chassidic. How my chassidic, homemaking and sheitel-wearing mom made me modern is a conversation for another time. At the moment I wish to focus on my dad. My father is the most non-chassidish Chassid. He does not study "chassidus," nor does he want to "understand" it. The few times I tried to explain to him Moshe Idel's distinction between theosophy and theurgy, his eyes glazed over. Chassidut is what he does, not what he learns. From his perspective, Torah is for learning, chassidut for practicing. His aversion is not limited to the study of academic mysticism. He also stays away from traditional kabbalistic or chassidic texts. He never studied the Zohar nor did he ever read any of the Arizal's writings. Not only would he not read them, he also would not touch them. He is so intimidated by their sacredness; he fears that his touch would contaminate them. Yet, despite never having formally studied chassidic texts, he still is the quintessential chasid. Chassidut is his essence, part of his religious DNA, but it is a chassidut that is behavioral, not intellectual. Chassidut is how he lives his life. It is the prism through which he encounters the world and the ethos by which he lives by. He adores his wife, loves his children, cherishes his community and reveres and respects his neighbors and fellow human beings, Jew and non-Jew alike. While this practice is not special, many people love their family and surroundings, its flavor is unique. It is Chassidic love, deriving its passion from the Chassidic teachings he has absorbed throughout his life. These teachings have filled his being with a deep religiosity, which, in turn, infuses his actions and emotions with a deep and robust spirituality. His love of humanity is, therefore, a love that is sensualized by its spiritualized valance. Chassidut does not just spiritualize my father's interpersonal relationships, it also enhances his religious practices, particularly the yearly calendar. Chassidut allows him to infuse the annual cycle with a sensuous spirituality. Satmar is a Hungarian/Romanian Chassidut (The broad strokes difference between Hungarian Chassidut and the Polish and Russian versions is that the latter were intellectually inclined while the former was not. Hungarian Chassidut was predominantly behavioral. This is, of course, a generalization; the nuances are far more complex but outside the parameters of this presentation.) Hungarian Chassidim are nourished by an elaborate "sacred calendar." They have more days of note than the conventional Jewish calendar, and their holidays tend to be richer than your typical modern Jews' chag experience. A Satmar Chasid's year is thus replete with days of deep joy and periods of intense reflection. While the Jewish calendar has several biblical holidays and two Rabbinic ones, the Chasid's calendar records additional dates of importance. Every winter, the Hungarian Chasid has six to eight weeks of "shovavim," a period that usually falls sometime between Chanukah and Purim, which is dedicated to repentance and introspection, largely focusing on sexual impropriety; the days of awe continue through the end of Chanukah, the potential for repentance lasts for them for two more months; Purim celebrations begin three days earlier than usual; and (a modicum of) Pesach extends all the way to Shavuot (based on Nachmanides' notion that the interim weeks between Pesach and Shavuot are somewhat akin to a chol ha'moed of Pesach). Combined these add up to a significant number of additional days of awe and periods of celebration. Qualitatively, chassidic holidays are different as well. Although many things distinguish a chassidic chag, there is one distinction that is particularly noticeable to the keen observer: chassidic religious celebrations are comprised of a dissonant blend of joy and contemplation. Here are some examples: Shabbat in Satmar is an incredibly meaningful day, bookended by powerful contradictory modes. Friday night is a time of joy, where the spiritually and mystically rich Lecha Dodi chant inspires celebration of the metaphysical significance of the day. While this spirit carries through most of the Shabbat, towards the end of the Shabbat the Satmar Chasid shifts gears, switching modes from the celebratory to the reflective. This transition occurs in a much starker manner than it does in most other communities. A Satmar Shabbat never ends at "shekiah." Sehudah shlishit is always a two hour affair, spent singing and listening to the Rebbe's dvar torah. Speaking in highly evocative tones, he expounds on the weekly reading, spending close to an hour challenging and rebuking his followers. Growing up, this is exactly what Shabbat looked like for me. My dad's Shabbat was intense and complex. While the day began upbeat, it gradually shifted into the contemplative. But, my father's Shabbat, like his chassidut, is adamantly experiential, text and study play a minor role in the development of his religious persona. Kegavna (a section from the Zohar which Chassidim recite during Friday night prayers), is one of the most powerful kabbalistic liturgical texts. Utilizing the connection between Shabbat and the number seven, a prominent kabbalistic trope, it succinctly articulates the mystical value of Shabbat. It emphasizes that Shabbat is a day of heightened divine intimacy and advanced mystical union. I have begged my dad on many occasions to read this Zohar text with me. He refused each time. Sacred mystical texts are for the elite. The lay receive their nourishment residually, from the spiritualized environment created by those qualified to access those recondite sources. While he will not study Kegavna, he does recite it every Friday night as part of the Kabbalat Shabbat service. Notwithstanding that he does not fully grasp its meaning, he reads it with the pathos and passion it deserves. Kegavna's power for him is metaphysical, not intellectual. Purim provides another example of the intensity of Hungarian chassidic practice. Many Jews celebrate Purim, but not the chassidic Purim. The chassidic Purim is unique in its richness and multiplicity. Communally, preparations for the holiday start early. More than a week before Purim, one can already detect the arrival of the holiday, both, in the discourse of the scholars and activities of the laity. The learned discourse focuses on the legal and spiritual aspects of the chag, while the public sphere is filled with people making arrangements for every aspect of the day. When Purim finally arrives, it takes on a distinct theological flavor. Appropriating the Zoharic notion that Purim is analogous to Yom Kippur (Yom Kippurim), Satmar Chassidim created a unique Purim blend that is both frivolous and somber. This day of festivity is overlaid with practices of repentance and reflection. While I am nourished by my dad's behavioral Chassidut, personally it is not enough. Behavioral Chassidut gladdens my heart but does not stimulate my mind nor sufficiently satisfy my soul. I personally seek a religiosity which nourishes both pillars of my being, the mind and the heart. My personal journey is, therefore, informed by a combination of my father's passion and the academic's sophistication. Chassidus resonates with both of them, sometimes simultaneously, when the intellectual engagement and behavioral spiritual encounter complement one another, and sometimes separately, when I religiously shift back and forth between the intellectual and the experiential. Ultimately, the attraction to Chassidut is the fact that it can operate in different modes at different times, in the process offering up a variety of mechanisms to help spiritualize my life. It is precisely this multifacetedness which convinces me that Chassidut is the proper theology for us moderns. Its theology is perfectly situated to offer meaning and spirituality to the contemporary modern seeker. I feel strongly that it is our only hope. Chassidut today is not a luxury, it is a necessity. If the Torah-u'Madda project is to succeed Chassidut needs to become an integral part of its curriculum. Chassidut is of course a vast discipline, teaching all of it would be a daunting task. For the moment there are three aspects of chassidic theology that stand out as particularly suited for the world we live in today. 1) Truth. We live in a post-modern world where objective truth is rejected and absolute claims are frowned upon. I would go as far as to say that rationalism (in the general and colloquial sense) as a source for Emunah is bankrupt, it increasingly speaks to fewer people. It, therefore, behooves us to come up with alternative models. Chassidut could very well be that alternative model. Facts and empirical truth is not Chassidut's primary currency. While it does a priori accept the biblical theological faith statements, its goal is not to argue or prove the scientific veracity of the Bible's claims. Truth is not of primary concern for these thinkers. Chassidic theology has two main features. It is a-rational and a-historical. It is apathetic about Jewish historicity as a proactive theological stance. The Torah for Chassidim is there to teach us how to live life and serve God, the narrative qua narrative (the origin story) is mere background music. The narration parts of the Torah are, therefore, not of much theological significance to them, they are a-historical However, during those rare occasions when they do pay attention to the biblical "stories," their orientation is a-rational. They absolutely "believe" those stories, but their belief is internal: it is true because it happened in the Torah. That is where these events transpire and that is where these stories matter. Asking about their historicity is, as far as they are concerned, foolish and missing the point. At the same time, to the extent that the biblical narratives have religious and theological significance, they read those stories through the Rabbinic lens. So, for example, while Moshe's historicity is not historically relevant to them, his persona carries theological and ethical significance. The same is true for God's attributes. Chassidim are, by choice, apathetic about God as a scientific reality, his attributes and characteristics, however, are theologically highly significant to them. For that they did turn to the Bible, but the encounter with the Torah is filtered through Chazal. They see Chazal as essential to the understanding of the Torah. As believers in immanence they actually see the Sages as much more integral to the experience of the written Torah than the rationalists did. They did not think that the presence at Sinai (mamad har Sinai) ended at the giving of the Torah (mattan Torah). For them the Torah is perpetually and continuously revealed. The modern reader of chassidic texts would, therefore, not have to decide whether they scientifically accept these postulates in order to engage with them. Chassidut's goal is instead to describe an immanence which provides spiritual and emotional transcendence. Chassidut (informed, of course, by kabbalah) promotes a sophisticated immanence which results in a dramatic shift in Judaism's orientation towards God and His commandments. Prior to the emergence of chassidut on the historic scene, theology was convincing and Jewish observance was rewarding. Chassidut changed that. Chassidic theology offered meaning and kabbalistic observance provided sanctity. Personally, my rejection of the Maimonidean ethos and realization of the degree to which chassidut can speak to the modern searcher was a long and arduous process. It came about as a result of a deep sense of betrayal by Maimonides, the champion of Rationalist Judaism. I for many years was the object and fool of Maimonides "the seventh reason" as presented in his introduction to the Guide by not seeing his philosophic views. In that passage, Maimonides condones misleading the masses for their greater good, even to the point of advocating contradictory ideas for different audiences and then obscuring those contradictions. Growing up in Satmar and then Brisk, I was oblivious to his non-halakhic writings and led to believe that he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad. I was exposed to his other writings only later and when I did I felt cheated. I was part of that the masses, whom he thought could not handle his unconventional approach to theology and tradition. As much as I have read about him, I personally have not managed to reconcile his two sides. I do not find Prof. Isidore Twersky's harmonizing approach compelling or convincing. Realizing what a fool I was led me on a tortuous and circuitous search. As the Rabbis say about Yisro, ????? ??? ?? ??????; I explored all the options. I finally found the answer in kabbalah and chassidut, they speak a language which resonates with our current reality. They emphasize that which contemporary Judaism needs. The emphasis in chassidut on meaning and sacredness, are perfectly suited for our community. These are exactly the things our culture needs more of; holiness and meaning. This emphasis in Chassidut on immanence also generates a move towards spiritualization. 2) Spiritualization. As scholars have pointed out, chassidic teachings contain elements of spiritual psychology. They provide us with a language which helps us infuse our lives with meaning. One can point to many examples where this psychological spiritualization occurs in chassidut, I will mention two of them. Everybody sometimes has a bad hair day, when we wake up feeling less than optimal. Chassidut has a term to describe that mood; it calls it mochen de'katnus. While it technically means the same as a "bad hair day," the language is mystical. Mochen de'katnus describes a less than stellar spiritual state, a low energy level which does not allow us to engage in the usual religious pursuits we crave to pursue. Another example is Kabbalah's elaborate taxonomy of love and awe: Kabbalah and Chassidut talks about superior and inferior love (ahavah ela'e'e and ahavah tata'a) or superior and inferior awe (yirah ela'e'e and yira tata'a)While these terms primarily describe nuanced stages in our engagement with the Divine, they have traditionally been imported into the colloquial arena. They are used to describe varied emotional states which we experience in our interactions with our friends and loved ones. Contemporary life does not provide us with that many opportunities for encountering the Divine in our daily lives. Chassidut allows us to bring God in. Sprinkling our conversations with mystical and Chassidic terminology allows us to spiritualize our daily routines and infuse our mundane pursuits with meaning and spiritual significance. Besides enriching our personal encounters, adopting a chassidic ethos could also enhance our communal experiences. 3) Social Change. One of the most pressing tensions in the community is how to reconcile our values with our convictions; what to do when halakha points us in one direction and our values in another direction. We are tempted to follow our values but pulled to abide by our halakhic commitments. A proper resolution requires an emboldened stance towards tradition, one that allows us to cajole the tradition to reconcile itself with our modern sensibilities. [Using, of course, legitimate halakhic mechanisms developed by our predecessors when they were confronted with similar challenges.] Our values are so emboldened because they derive their power from Chaissdut. A chassidic life is a spiritualized life which infuses our values with powerful theological significance, and it allows us to aggressively challenge the tradition to reevaluate its assumptions and attempt to accommodate itself-when halakhically possible- to a changed modern reality. Chassidut is very explicit about the value of religious aggression. The following two quotes are often encountered in chassidic writings, "even a thief says a prayer before he breaks in to his victim's home" (quoted on the margin of Brachot 63A, from the Frankfurt manuscript), and "an aggressive stance towards the Divine bears results" (Sanhedrin 105A). While the provenance of these texts is Talmudic, they take on significant prominence in Chassidic theology. They become the impetus for an aggressive theology which is informed by a religiosity that sees itself driven by a Divine immanence which infuses our values and ethical intuitions with spiritual resonance, subsequently leading to radical societal change. Such change is actually an integral part of Chassidic social history. When one looks at recent major changes in traditional Jewish society it is hard not to notice that the forerunners were often Chassidim. The last sixty years have seen far reaching social and political change. The two most dramatic changes that have happened is that Jews are now sovereign and women have made significant progress in their pursuit of religious equality. The pioneers of both these changes were driven, at least in part, by a chassidic ethos. R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Rebbi of Lubavitch, was one of the first orthodox scholars to champion female Talmud scholarship, while R. Avraham Yitzchak Kook, a serious student of Chassidut, was an outspoken early proponent of a Zionist state. There is no doubt that their chassidic worldview, at least partially, informed their proactive stances towards these changes. Their adherence to a spiritualized religiosity allowed them to explore new religious vistas. Their unique theological outlook changed the religious and legal equation for them, simultaneously making their decisions more complex, but also more progressive. Their spiritualized worldview allowed them to see divinity in the ostensibly secular state or the seemingly illegitimate request of women for greater equality. Granted, this hybrid of chassidic spiritualization and robust religious creativity would be a 21^st century concoction, traditionally, these two do not go together. Chassidism, for the most part, frowns on change and rejects innovation. As a matter of fact, nineteenth century Hungarian Chassidim were vociferously opposed to any accommodations to modernity. Further, the contemporary thinker is not going to intuitively embrace spiritualized non-rational thought. It is, nevertheless, a match pregnant with immense potential and could go a long way towards reviving a dormant Modern Orthodoxy. Contemporary Modern Orthodoxy is struggling; a significant number of its adherents are abandoning yiddishkeit and many who stay no longer find it meaningful; inertia has set in. I suspect that Modern Orthodoxy's rationalist ethos is partially to blame. Current Modern Orthodox theology is Litvish and hyper-Maimonidean, it lacks a native spiritual core, and does not satisfy people's search for meaning. We are due for a change. Chassidus could be that change agent. I strongly believe that a chassidic theology combined with a sophisticated modern overlay could be the elixir for the dispassion and disinterest that ails our community. It will provide our community what it so desperately needs: a torat chaim ve'ahavt chesed; a Torah that stimulates our minds but at the same time also gladdens our neshamah. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 14:39:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:39:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> : > From: Micha Berger via Avodah > > [Rambam's statement (''And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, //for > :: //one who ismodeh al ha-ememmes// ... > :: is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities > :: serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; > :: and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an > :: [I]ntender...'') is not an informal argument, akin to R' Aqiva's or REW's appeal > to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. Rather,] it is a recap of a formal proof The Rambam made in 2:19-20... 2:20 marks the end of an Argument from Design. As it opens: "According to Aristotle, none of the products > of Nature are due to chance. His proof is this: That which is due to > chance does not reappear constantly nor frequently, but all products of > Nature reappear either constantly or at least frequently..." > > This is a formal argument, unlike R' Aqiva's or REW's own appeal > to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. Philosophers may disagree with classifying the argument made in 2:20 from ''frequency of appearance'' as ''an argument from design.'' But even if it is ''an'' argument from design, it's a different argument from the ''modeh al ha-emmess'' proof from the hierarchy of entities benefiting others. So the latter is not a recap of the former. And it does not necessarily follow that one who is modeh to the ''frequency'' argument considers the hierarchy argument ''one of the strongest.'' RZL, continued: : He explicitly describes this/modeh al ha-emmess/ statement /as a : tangential interruption/: After that statement, he says, "I will now : return to the subject of this chapter, viz., the ultimate cause [i.e. : the purpose behind the universe being as it is--ZL]." : My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that : there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows : the non-formal mindset of those who are/modeh al ha-emmess/... RMB: >Agreed it's tangential, which is why I doubt that if the Rambam did want to say something that signficant, this would be its only mention.< Again: Here, where the Rambam, for the first time, is about to bring up the hierarchy proof, he parenthetically mentions that it is intuitively understood by anyone unbiased. He does then go on to state the proof in a formal philosophic form. This is the most proper place to insert such a parenthetical remark parenthetically, and only once. It's not ''that significant'' for his purposes, because, as I had written, the entire purpose of the Moreh is to address people (including himself) concerned with hearing formal philosophic proofs and confronting the challenges that formal philosophic proofsbrought to the mesorah. Those interested in hearing an expanded version of the argument in informal form could find it in the Rambam's introduction to his his Mishnah commentary. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 16:04:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 19:04:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <103ab8.504f8d1e.429f9062@aol.com> From: Eli Turkel via Avodah >> I have a book "The Goldilocks Enigma" by Paul Davies (cosmolgist) on why is the universe just right for life. Most of the book is to show how unlikely it is that the universe has exactly the right properties for existence. The second part is a discussion as to why this happened. He goes through all the theories including the watchmaker etc. One possibility is a "creator" . He admits that it is logically consistent but finds it highly unlikely. His own preference is for the multi-verse. The idea is not whether you agree with him or not. Rather here is an intelligent human who has thought deeply about these problems and does not see any obvious signs of a designer..... << Eli Turkel >>>> On the contrary, he sees many signs of a Designer and he is so desperate to avoid the obvious conclusion -- because of his own prior philosophical biases -- that he adopts the currently trendy and absurd idea of "many universes" to escape from what he does not want to face. You see, if this is the only universe then it is so fantastically improbable that it can only be a miracle. But if it is only one of many universes, then it is not so strange that just one out of millions of universes would happen to have the conditions necessary for life. Normally the definition of "science" includes things like capable of observation or experiment, falsifiable, etc. But if you are desperate enough to escape G-d (and His moral demands) you will take something as airy-fairy, non-observable, not subject to any possible experiment, non-falsifiable as a "multi-verse" -- a product of the human mind that is as real as leprechauns -- and you will crown it with the noble name of "science"! I have a wonderful book in my house called *The Privileged Planet* that should be a science textbook in every yeshiva high school and Bais Yakov. Please please read it. It's by Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards. Here's the website with more information about the book and a video: http://www.privilegedplanet.com/ --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 00:03:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 10:03:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] MB Message-ID: The entry in wikepedia in Hebrew on Mishna Brura contains much of the information that we have been discussing. In particular it discusses the authorship of MB (ie the quote from his son) . MH vs AH and the change after the holocaust and other comments -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 05:39:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2015 08:39:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Standing at a Chupah Message-ID: <20150603123934.850661827E1@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is from today's Hakhel email bulletin. FROM A READER: Further on the point on standing at Chuppahs: Many think/say that it is because of Choson Domeh L'melech that they stand up for the Chosson. Yet, they should be aware that to my knowledge, HaRav Moshe Feinstein, Z'tl, never stood because he used to say, Doi-meh (L)melech NOT (Ke)melech. HaRav Yaakov Kamenetsky, Z'tl, stood but for a totally different reason. The question of L'melech or K'melech never entered into consideration as the Chosson is not a true Chosson until AFTER the Chuppah. Rather, HaRav Yaakov stood purely because of the Mishna in Bikurim (3:3), that discusses the bringing of Bikurim and the rule of standing Lif-Nai Oisei Mitzva, and since the Chosson is entering into a Chupah which will enable him to be mekayeim the mitzvah of P'ru U'revu, we stand. As to why we don't stand for everyone doing a mitzvah, it's for a mitzvah that is mei-kama zman l'zman, not a regular occurrence. The question remains as to a justification for why people stand for the Kallah, since she is not K'Malka (see HaRav Moshe and HaRav Yaakov above) and is peturah from Mitzvas Peru U'revu. HaRav Avraham Kamenetsky, HaRav Yaakov's son, told me that one can say that since the Chosson cannot be mekayeim the mitzvah without her, she has a chelek in the mitzvah and thus qualifies for Lif-Nai Oisei Mitzvah. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 06:57:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 09:57:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 05:39:33PM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : But even if it is "an" argument from design, it's a different argument : from the "modeh al ha-emmess" proof from the hierarchy of entities : benefiting others. So the latter is not a recap of the former. And : it does not necessarily follow that one who is modeh to the : "frequency" argument considers the hierarchy argument "one of the : strongest." I think our point of contention is simple: You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind justification that isn't a proof. Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. And therefore there is nothing in the Rambam about a justification that isn't a philosophical proof. For that matter, I would take his words to say this non-proof, being only meaningful to someone who is already "modeh al ha'emes", is not valid justification -- an instance of what I believe would be his general rule. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 10:58:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 10:58:33 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] ashtei-asar Message-ID: could someone explain please the ibn ezra in last weeks parsha ? someone asked about the origin of 'ashtei' and noted the this week mikshah is translated as eshet--- which must mean one solid piece so that must mean ashtei= one . but why not say achad asar ? [ he pointed out that 'eshet'= 770 , a number of completion ] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 14:23:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 17:23:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] ashtei-asar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150603212342.GA31632@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 03, 2015 at 10:58:33AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : someone asked about the origin of 'ashtei' and noted the this week : mikshah is translated as eshet--- which must mean one solid piece so : that must mean ashtei= on... The Akkadian for 11 is ishteneshret, ishten (one) + shret (ten). It is weird, though, that Hebrew would use a form of isheneshret without also using ishten. Then there's the idea in the Radaq (Mikhlol pg 140) that it was two that was collapsed from "ashtei" to "shtei". Which would explain why "shtayim" isn't "shesayim". The rule is that a sheva under the first letter is a sheva na (pronounced schwa), the legacy of the missing "i-" makes "shtei" an exception -- the sheva under the shin is nach (silent). Along these line, but presumably without the knowledge of Akkadian, the IE (Bamidbar 7:72, citing his own Sefer Me'oznayim) writes that "ashtei asar" is like "eshtenosav" -- that which were born from his thoughts. As though the 10 gave birth. "Vehu sod gadol". He then goes on to dismiss R' Yonah haSefaradi's theory that it means "el shtei asar". Because 1- "al shetei asar" would refer to the number AFTER 12, not before; and 2- "asar" (masc) would get "shnei" (masc), not "shtei" (fem). The gemara doesn't explain peshat, but interestingly R' Ashi's example (Sanhedrin 29a) of "kol hamosif goreia'" is how adding an ayin turns "shtei esrei yeri'os" into "ashtei esrei". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 15:16:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2015 18:16:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> On 6/3/2015 9:57 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > I think our point of contention is simple: > > You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind > justification that isn't a proof. I thought I was clear that I was taking it to be the same informal kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind. > > Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, > but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. I did not see this in your previous remarks that characterized the ''modeh-al-ha-emmess" as a formal proof/argument: :> There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam :> recaps a point made in 2:19-20. > 2:20 marks the end of an Argument from Design, which is what I was > referring to. ...This is a formal argument, unlike R' Aqiva's or REW's own appeal > to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. And I don't see how one can possibly interpret (MN 3:13 [not 3:15 as I mistakenly typed previously]) ''And know that one of the strongest /proofs/ (min /ha-gedolah sheh-b'ra'ayos/) for Creation ex nihilo, for one who is /modeh al ha-ememmes/, is his understanding the /proof/ (/hu mah sheya'amod alav ha-mofase/)...'' as meaning: > ''this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the emes, > look how nicely it works out.'' Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 16:37:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 19:37:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150603233708.GA7958@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 03, 2015 at 06:16:59PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: :> You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind :> justification that isn't a proof. : I thought I was clear that I was taking it to be the same informal : kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof : not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized : and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind. Then I did understand you correctly. When I say, "a kind justification that isn't a proof", I believe I mean the same thing as your "informal kind of proof". To me, the word "proof" implies formality. "Justification" is a general term for how we know something is true. (From Plato's definition of knowledge: "a justified and true belief.") :> Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, :> but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. : I did not see this in your previous remarks that characterized the : "modeh-al-ha-emmess" as a formal proof/argument: Because that's not what I am saying is the formal proof. I overused the word "this", which led to confusion. In addition "modeh al ha'ames" refers to a person, not an argument, so you lost me on that bit. AISI, it refers to the person who accepted the proof in 2:20, would find this point compelling. But since the point he's making here is not a formal proof, he doesn't expect it to convince, only to reinforce belief in those who already accepted the related proof. : And I don't see how one can possibly interpret (MN 3:13 [not 3:15 as : I mistakenly typed previously]) "And know that one of the : strongest /proofs/ (min /ha-gedolah sheh-b'ra'ayos/) for Creation ex : nihilo, for one who is /modeh al ha-ememmes/, is his understanding : the /proof/ (/hu mah sheya'amod alav ha-mofase/)..." as meaning: :> "this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the :> emes, look how nicely it works out." You are taking a sentence that says "One of the greatest proofs for creation for someone who accepts the truth is his understanding the wonder..." He is discussing a ra'ayah that someone who already believes would find compelling. Not a proof that would convince an unbiased seeker. Because I don't think the Rambam accepted that an informal justification other than philosophical proof could be a sounds reason to embrace a belief as true. (I see you consistently double the "s" in "emess". Why? If the sav had a dageish, it would be a tav, not "ss".) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are what we repeatedly do. micha at aishdas.org Thus excellence is not an event, http://www.aishdas.org but a habit. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Aristotle From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 4 15:16:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2015 18:16:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong Message-ID: <20150604221600.GA28870@aishdas.org> An Areivim conversation moved in topicality so that my reply really belongs here. Some background.... At some point, one person wrote, in part: | Right is right and wrong is wrong,... Speaking about moral correctness. To which someone else replied: > Really? ISTM that there is lots of grey in our world. People disagree > about right and wrong like they disagree about assur and mutar... And my reply, from Areivin: } This is why disputes about eilu va'eilu are so significant. Machloqes } can be between two approaches, two paths, one may take. Between different } strategies to obtaining the same goal. } Or it could be between a correct vs an incorrect understanding of the } halakhah. A process by which something becomes law, regardless of which } is right. } Or... } But if there is one right and one wrong, human decision-making wouldn't } change which is which. That second person wrote later in the conversation: > Sure am. Women learning Talmud was wrong, then it was right. In fact, > now it's both right (MO) and wrong (Hareidi). My response: } I don't consider that a good example. It is possible for something to } be right in one settting and wrong in another. Such as whether learning } Talmud is a good idea may depend on how women are being educated to relate } to knowledge in general. Since they aren't obligated to learn halachic } theory, such as gemara, they may be better off with a naive mimetic } faith. But if we have universal education, and an economic system that } demands a certain wordliness in both genders, such that naivite isn't } an option, then our choices are different. } Morality is like a Faucault's Pendulum; it keeps swinging the same } direction. The pendulum only looks like the direction changes over time } because the world rotates beneath it. Them again: > Zionism is right (DL) > and wrong (Satmar). You see the world as black and white; I see lots of > colors, including grey (and black and white sometimes as well). Me: } But gray too objectively exists. We may need to choose a response, } and thus have to fit it into a boolean black-white category. And then } someone may choose a strategy that categorizes it as white and someone } else as black. } But the grayness is not a matter of opinion. And also, from the same person, in an email between the two: > And my point was, the topic under discussion was not gravity ... > it was an issue that what people think about it is, in fact, relevant. My response, continued: } Is that true? } As far as I know, it's pretty basic to Judaism that the Creator has an } "Opinion" of what is moral and what isn't. That things run more smoothly } for everyone involved if we run with the design rather than do something } else. } Not only that, G-d put us on the same page once. } People may not be sure if there is an absolute moral standard, and those } who agree there is one, may not agree about what it looks like. } It's out there and as objectively real as gravity. } Even if you cannot prove it to others, and therefore will always be } subject to conflicting opinions -- some more right in some ways, some } more right in others, some simply wrong. } Your position implies an Empiricism that rules out revelation as a valid } source of truth! In which case, what's left of Torah? Futher down in the conversation, Lisa wrote of halakhah: : There are actually cases where opinions can establish right and : wrong. Tanuro shel Akhnai illustrates one. Actual reality is : *created* by the informed and considered opinions of the Sanhedrin. To which I responded: } Law, not reality. And Lisa, post #2: : I disagree. Torah *is* reality. Finally, some new material. R Chaim Brisker links "vechayei olam nata besokheinu" and "emes mei'eretz tatzmiach". Torah is the seed from which Emes grows, and not (leshitaso, but I bought into it) Emes itself. The Qetzos says something similar on the use of "emes mei'eretz" in the medrash about the 2 forces -- Emes and Shalom -- opposing the creation of humanity. Emes is thrown to the ground, to which the tanna says "emes meieretz tatzmiach". Emes will come out through the process of history. It's not with us yet. Torah is how HQBH leads us there. But in any case, I didn't speak of Torah, of "divrei E-lokim chaim", I spoke of halakhah. Or as RMF put it, I spoke of emes lehora'ah, not Emes as it is kelapei shamay galya. Continuing my reply to Lisa's 1st post: } And the reason why we only let the Sanhedrin vote is because the law is } expected to be consistent with the objective reality. There may be many } ways up Har Hashem, but you really only want people who know mapreading } and reconteuring figuring out which one is best. } And the mountain and its altitude are unchanged by people's decisions. Lisa's 2nd post, cont: : And what Hashem wanted the halakha to be was determined by people's : decisions. New material again: If we combine your insistance that halakhah is Truth with the idea that it is determined by people's decisions, you end up with Constructivism. Halakhah as a man made reality. Which makes sense -- you tend to side with the Rambam on this kind of thing. But if dinim bein adam lachaveiro define or at least shape morality, you are left with the OP's claim that opinion determines what is moral. Opinion as informed by kelalei pesaq, but still, morality isn't entirely absolute or objective. The position I was suggesting that there is an objective Morality that is part of Emes. Emes, with a capital "E", as in something that exists in Shamayim (a/k/a the Olam haEmes) but can't fit in this world among human minds. We have approximating models (Maharal), getting ever closer to the Emes (Qetzos). Halakhah is our means of approaching it, and the existence of multiple correct pesaqim reflects their being more than one viable path (R Chaim Brisker). Or more specifically: The path is on the meta-level, the evolution of the Oral Torah and its pesaqim is part of getting to Emes, not "only" the path taken by a life that follows that pesaqim. So that halakhah is not morality, it is a means of producing ever more moral people. Which makes sense in terms of my own Mussarly tendencies. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are great, and our foibles are great, micha at aishdas.org and therefore our troubles are great -- http://www.aishdas.org but our consolations will also be great. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi AY Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 4 19:55:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2015 22:55:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <20150603233708.GA7958@aishdas.org> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> <20150603233708.GA7958@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55710FAB.70107@gmail.com> On 6/3/2015 7:37 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Wed, Jun 03, 2015 at 06:16:59PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: > :> You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind > :> justification that isn't a proof. > > : I thought I was clear that I was taking it to be the same informal > : kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof > : not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized > : and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind. > > Then I did understand you correctly. > > When I say, "a kind justification that isn't a proof", I believe I mean > the same thing as your "informal kind of proof". To me, the word "proof" > implies formality. "Justification" is a general term for how we know > something is true. (From Plato's definition of knowledge: "a justified and > true belief.") Got it. > :> Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, > :> but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. > > : I did not see this in your previous remarks that characterized the > : "modeh-al-ha-emmess" as a formal proof/argument: > > Because that's not what I am saying is the formal proof. I overused the > word "this", which led to confusion. I''m even more confused now. What "this" that led to confusion was overused? I took you to mean that the ''emmess'' that a ''modeh al ha-emmess'' person was modeh to was the conclusion of a formal proof stated somewhere in 2:19-20. (And such a person would consider, as one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, the proof from the hierarchy of benefit of entities.) > In addition "modeh al ha'ames" refers to a person, not an argument, > so you lost me on that bit. When I wrote ''I was taking it to be the same informal kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind'' I was responding to you statement: :> You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind :> justification that isn't a proof. which was in response to my writing: : My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that : there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows : the non-formal mindset of those who are /modeh al ha-emmess/... I meant to say I was taking Rambam's remark to mean that someone whose thought process is normal and unbiased (i.e. a modeh al ha-emmess) recognizes (without the aid of formal proof) the fact of the hierarchy of benefit as compelling the conclusion of a freely intended Creation ex nihilo. Another way to crystallize our differing interpretations: You are taking the "emmess'' that the ''modeh al ha-emmess'' is modeh to, to be the correct fact. I'm taking it to be the correct process of thinking. > AISI, it refers to the person who accepted > the proof in 2:20, would find this point compelling. But since the point > he's making here is not a formal proof, he doesn't expect it to convince, > only to reinforce belief in those who already accepted the related proof. > > : And I don't see how one can possibly interpret (MN 3:13 [not 3:15 as > : I mistakenly typed previously]) "And know that one of the > : strongest /proofs/ (min /ha-gedolah sheh-b'ra'ayos/) for Creation ex > : nihilo, for one who is /modeh al ha-ememmes/, is his understanding > : the /proof/ (/hu mah sheya'amod alav ha-mofase/)..." as meaning: > > :> "this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the > :> emes, look how nicely it works out." > > You are taking a sentence that says "One of the greatest proofs for > creation for someone who accepts the truth is his understanding the > wonder..." He is discussing a ra'ayah that someone who already believes > would find compelling. Not a proof that would convince an unbiased > seeker. > > Because I don't think the Rambam accepted that an informal justification > other than philosophical proof could be a sounds reason to embrace a > belief as true. Your first paragraph is just restating your position and denying mine. I am saying otherwise, pointing out that saying that this person considers the hierarchy factor ''one of the greatest proofs for creation'' means '"this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out" is incompatible with the words. And /l'fi ta'amych,/ of your second paragraph: If the Rambam considers an informal justification vs philosophical proof an unsound reason to embrace a belief as true, then one would think he would not consider noteworthy a non-ra'ayah found compelling only by someone who already believes in the conclusion (stated or implied somewhere in 2:19-20, or in that previously stated formal ra'aya which /is/, or is not, compelling--I'm not sure which of these you're saying, but my objection applies regardless.) I think it may be productive for us to examine the 4 or 5 other places in MN where the Rambam uses the expression ''modeh al ha-emmess.'' (Curiously, the search of the Hebrewbooks.org MN in my Adobe Reader skips over the instance in 3:13!) > > (I see you consistently double the "s" in "emess". Why? If the sav had > a dageish, it would be a tav, not "ss".) It's to duplicate the /sound/ (not the lettering) of the word as it would be in English, for a careful English-reading person. (Not that I'm sure there are many of those around...) In contemporary English spelling, one "s" at the end of a word that ends in ''e'' is pronounced hard, like a ''z'' (shines, pines, processes); the soft ''s'' added to words that end in "e" is indicated by two ''s'' 's (process, ingress, mess). But we digreSS.... Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 5 03:54:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2015 06:54:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Science and Halachah - The Trumpeting Stone Message-ID: <20150605105427.GA27466@aishdas.org> This stone, at the excacations south of the Kotel, apparently marked a location where the shofar would be blown on Fri afternoon to warn people about the approaching and arrival of Shabbos. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trumpeting_Place_inscription It says "lebeis hateqi'ah lh[k?b?]" and was at the corner of Har haBayis. My obaervation is about the font. Notice the base of the lamed, which is a diagonal. The same is true of the Qumran texts and of texts from the Cairo Geniza. but this pushes the date for this tradition of script back to Herod's rebuilding of the BHMQ. This kind of lamed is also found in Kesav Vellish, that used in Sepharadi sta"m, but not in Kesav Beis Yoseif or the other Ashkenazi variants. http://sofercenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/different-ksavim.jpg Now, the stone is in far from the formal Ashuris required for Sifrei Torah, but if Kesav Beis Yoseif is correct, why aren't other fonts from the period more similar? If this does indicate a preference for one script over the other, we could discuss how the various approaches to Halakhah and Science would handle this case. {In terms of being yotzei, I think the only problem Ashkenazim have with the Sepharadi kesav is that variants that predate the Chida lack Rabbei Tam's qutzo shel yud. And since the popularity of the Ben Ish Chai, this issue has become very rare. Lehalakhah, the Tur, Noda biYhudah, Tzitz Eliezer and R' Ovadiah all alow using the other's sefer. Even with the spelling differences!) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is equipped with such far-reaching vision, micha at aishdas.org yet the smallest coin can obstruct his view. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 5 08:16:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2015 15:16:42 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong Message-ID: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Continuing the discussion from Areivim... R' Joseph Kaplan wrote: > About some things there is a right and a wrong; it is right > to fast on Yom Kippur and wrong to eat. But not everything > fits so neatly into categories of right and wrong. Micha > didn't like my example of Women learning Talmud was wrong, > then it was right. In fact, now it's both right (MO) and > wrong (Hareidi)." He argues that it is possible for > something to be right in one setting and wrong in another. I don't see the distinction between women learning vs eating on Yom Kippur. Women learning is right in some settings (such as where an unlearned woman would be in a spiritual sakana) and wrong in others (the ideal or traditional situation). In the same manner, eating on Yom Kippur is right in some settings (where the person would be in a medical sakana) and wrong in others (where the person is physically healthy). For that matter, learning is dependent on the setting even for a man: In most settings, it is right for a Jewish man to learn Torah, but not if he is in aveilus, or if he is davening, or if he is in other situations where the learning would conflict with another mitzvah. My point is that EVERYTHING depends on the setting. (I once tried to think of a positive or negative mitzvah which is totally independent of setting, and which always applies under all imaginable circumstances. The only one I could come up with is Avodah Zara. If anyone wants to continue that thought, please start a new thread.) Anyway, getting back to *this* thread, which is about whether right and wrong are absolutes decreed by G-d, or whether they are subject to the opinions of the Sanhedrin or others, I was reminded of an interesting gemara. As translated by http://www.torah.org/learning/maharal/p2m10part2.html it reads: > Eruvin (13b): For two and a half years Beith Shammai and > Beith Hillel argued. These [Beith Shammai] said "It is > better for man not to have been created than to have been > created." And those [Beith Hillel] said "It is better for > man to have been created." Together, they [reviewed the > opinions and] reached a consensus: ... I left out their conclusion, because it is not really so critical to this thread. What *IS* critical is the fact that they had the chutzpah to even discuss this question at all. There is a thought in this thread that if G-d does something, then it is good by definition. Yet Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai considered the possibility that G-d had another option which was even better than the option that He did choose. This sounds to me like a good argument for the view that people (or at least certain people, such as the Sanhedrin) CAN decide what is right and what is wrong. Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 5 14:41:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2015 17:41:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong In-Reply-To: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <557217A4.4010309@sero.name> On 06/05/2015 11:16 AM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: >> >Eruvin (13b): For two and a half years Beith Shammai and >> >Beith Hillel argued. These [Beith Shammai] said "It is >> >better for man not to have been created than to have been >> >created." And those [Beith Hillel] said "It is better for >> >man to have been created." > There is a thought in this thread that if G-d does something, then it > is good by definition. Yet Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai considered the > possibility that G-d had another option which was even better than the > option that He did choose. The discussion was not about what is good or right, but about what is better *for a person*. What is in the person's interest. "Noach lo le'adam". What G-d chooses for a person is right, but who says it's "noach lo"? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 12:49:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2015 21:49:38 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] Right/wrong In-Reply-To: <5571BB83.7010500@sero.name> References: <73824318-9EAD-43A2-924A-23983726765C@tenzerlunin.com> <55704A19.7000001@sero.name> <20150604182845.GA18772@aishdas.org> <557113ED.9080608@zahav.net.il> <5571BB83.7010500@sero.name> Message-ID: <55734ED2.8020702@zahav.net.il> Moved from Areivim. It is a case of muttar and assur, which in this case I am equating with right and wrong. For this person, something is muttar and for the other it is pasul. The way I see, it would be absolutely wrong for the wealthier person to eat his chicken, and absolutely wrong for the poorer person to throw his chicken away. Correct, popular opinion doesn't play a part in this one. Ben On 6/5/2015 5:08 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > > That's not a question of right and wrong, From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 17:19:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 01:19:52 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> R' Ysoscher Katz writes: ... <> And yet ironically RYK's experience in Satmar and Brisk would seem to confirm the sense of what Maimonides did. RYK was only the object and fool of Maimonides "seventh reason" because he was immersed in a society that had built very high walls against the risk of engaging with philosophy. Contrast his experience to mine. I read the Guide at fourteen - long before I had any real exposure to the Yad. Why? Because I grew up in a society in which it was more acceptable for girls to read philosophic texts than it was to learn and engage with halachic texts. And indeed, a translation of the Guide was published and available in English, in my shul library, whereas the Mishna Torah, which was no doubt there (I don't remember), was only in Hebrew and would have been in the "halachic" section that only boys (and scholarly boys at that) were expected to access. Even more, when I started asking questions, the librarian pointed me in the direction of the philosophy works, which included the Guide, that is how I got to it. It was just assumed that if somebody was asking theological questions, that was the place to go. So by the time, much, much later, that I read the relevant portions of the Mishna Torah, I already knew Maimonides' philosophic works in some depth, and layered them on to anything in the Yad. And yet Maimonides was surely right, had the Yad contained the opinions expressed in the Guide, in any detectable way, there is no way a society like Satmar and Brisk would have allowed it into their hallowed betei midrash - and what a loss to the halachic world that would have been. What occurred to RYK is merely a by-product and inevitable consequence (if you step outside) of what Satmar/Brisk have created. Not what Maimonides created. He created a work which, in any society that valued philosophy, would be available to those who sought it. And this is why RYK's experience is unlikely to occur in any true Modern Orthodox setting. Because curious, searching teenagers will inevitably take advantage of what is available in languages they can read in their local libraries (assuming they are encouraged to go there, and such libraries are not off limits), and hence, while they might (hopefully) be exposed to the Mishna Torah earlier than I was, they will certainly have the opportunity, and if that way inclined, are likely to take the opportunity of exploring at least the introduction to the Guide. <> Now this I find- well perhaps touchingly naive to the point of bizarre. Not the characterisation of the two most dramatic changes, necessarily, but the idea that "the pioneers of both these changes were driven, at least in part, by Chassidic ethos". Of the two, the claim regarding female Talmud scholarship is the most odd. Chassidic groups have been at the forefront of those fighting a rearguard action against women's exposure to any form of text, not least Talmudic and halachic text. Satmar in particular - I recall once standing in a bookshop in Boro Park, perusing a book (written clearly by somebody from the Satmar derech) who had gathered together all the sources on the evils of giving women access to any text - but most fundamentally, horror of horrors, to Rashi al haChumash. It was of course, an attack on what is taught in Beis Ya'akov. The position advocated being that at most, girls should be taught in school the stories of the Tanach, outside and without any recourse at all to reading in original. Lubavitch, I agree, was and is in this regard unusual amongst the Chassidic groups. But, growing up in Melbourne, a community heavily dominated by Lubvitchers, I am pretty well acquainted with what was allowed and not allowed vis a vis girls/women and learning from people with reasonably close connections with the Lubavitche Rebbe. Sure, streets ahead of the other Chassidic groups - but more open than the Beis Ya'akovs? - dubiously - although there was a fair bit of flexibility granted when dealing with potential ba'alei teshuva who (it was acknowledged) could be seriously put off by bans on access to knowledge of the nature of that on gemora. But what was granted begrudgingly and in a limited fashion in such circles were standard parts of the curriculum in Modern Orthodox schools (with Maimonides in Boston the flagship in this regard). How high a level a girl was taught in MO environments differed (especially given that often the overall level of kodesh education was not always that high in such schools), but the idea that any of this was driven fundamentally by the Lubavitcher Rebbe is ludicrous. And if you look at Israel and the explosion of women's learning there - not a chassid in sight. R' Kook and Zionism is a more justified charge. While it is hard to describe Rav Kook as a "pioneer" of political Zionism (there were many before him who saw political Zionism as logically arising out of their religious belief), he unquestionably provided serious theological underpinnings justifying the religious being involved in this endeavour, and much of what he wrote is rooted in chassidus. But note of course that the major thinker against was again the Satmar Rebbe - ie chassidus provided, yet again, the most reactionary response to this phenomenon. Which is more typical of chassidus - Rav Kook or the Satmar Rebbe? - I think it is far fairer to say that Rav Kook was the exception, despite his deep roots, and the Satmar Rebbe closer to the rule. And note, while we are on the subject of Rav Kook, that while he was "progressive" regarding political Zionism, he was "regressive" regarding woman voting. Was his attitude towards women's place in society also fuelled by his Chassidic studies? In general, while I do agree that Chassidic thinkers, such as Rav Kook, have a lot to say to "the world we live in today" and that there is something to be said for incorporating aspects of their theology in the pursuit of meaning, I suspect that trying to create "chassidish modern Jews" is an enterprise doomed to failure, and certainly not something that will be able to speak to the modern orthodox world. Why? Firstly because Chassidism is all embracing. I have watched many ba'alei teshuva embrace Chassidism (in lots of forms) over the years - as indeed it has a serious pull for many. I have rarely found one who is attracted that way who ends up in the modern orthodox camp. Where do they usually end up? Well amongst the most extreme Chassidic groups, where they can indulge to the fullest extent. Chassidism become so all embracing that it pushes everything else out. And while this phenomenon is already found amongst Modern Orthodox children going "black". It is certainly not going to save modern Orthodoxy. A further problem is articulated at the beginning of the piece, in relation to RYK's father: > My father is the most non-chassidish Chassid. He does not study > "chassidus," nor does he want to "understand" it. But, however you cut it, those with a modern orthodox upbringing are taught to want to "understand". They are brought up with the scientific method, even if some debunking then occurs in universities. For sure, there are those who reject that in favour of exploration of mystery and experience - but as suggested above, by and large those "go right" - further into the ultra orthodox world. By and large, while the ashrams of India are peopled by many Jews, I don't think very many of them are modern orthodox dropouts. The ones we are losing totally are going left, into the secular mundane world without religious input. Because while they are usually aware of the experiential, it appears to simultaneously contemplate a suffocation of the mind that they cannot swallow (as an ashram also does). Such people are never going to be comfortable in a world in which there is any expectation of not "wanting" to understand. They may perhaps be persuaded to find meaning in the writings of people like Rav Kook, or in other aspects of Chassidic writing, but are likely to be even more repelled by a world that implicitly or explicitly tells them to bin what is the attribute they have been taught to spend most of their life cultivating - their mind. I am probably going to be (metaphorically speaking) shot on this list for even mentioning it, but if you want to see what you get when you mix a modicum of Chassidic plus philosophic inspired thinking in a more "modern" context, you could always look at the German thinkers (including Reform thinkers) of the early twentieth century - people like (particularly) Franz Rosenzweig, not to mention Leo Baeck, Martin Buber, Hermann Cohen. What about Levinas? There is your post modern thinking (but note that it comes out of a Lithuanian background with existentialism and philosophical exploration rather than chassidus). But it is a long way from Maimonidian rationalism (despite of course Maimonides being the father of all this philosophy, but only after it has been through Kant and the existentialists). Avraham Yehoshua Heshel is another example of those attempting to integrate a Chassidic background with modern sensibilities. But since he operated out of the Jewish Theological Seminary, and was closely identified with the Conservative Movement, he probably did more to make such explorations treif to MO thinkers than he did to inspire them to explore. A bigger problem, I think, is that MO in America is so fixated on RYBS, and his particular brand of philosophy, that philosophy linked to Orthodoxy becomes identified only with his particular stance. But there is a much wider world out there, and a philosophical world that does not only relate to transcendence (as RYBS appears to do) but to imminence as well. Are those who speak of paradox/polarity of imminence and transcendence inspired by the imminence of the Chassidic world? Maybe, but it is attenuated, and no longer strictly Chassidic. Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 19:09:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 22:09:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Brisker Theory of Everything In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150607020921.GB7516@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 25, 2015 at 07:15:59PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : 1. The gemara (Ketuvot 5b) discusses whether causing a certain type : of blood flowing is considered a Sabbath violation. The first attempt : to resolve the question turns on whether "mifkad pakid or chaburei : mechbar" (is the blood in the womb stored up or is it the result of a : wound?). Rashi there (please look) seems to define this as a physical : question. Is this acceptable or must we say Rashi was leaving out the : "obvious" philosophical/halachic question (i.e. the physical was known, : it's a question of how to categorize it halachically)? It is very hard to identify a real machloqes in metzi'us. There is a machloqes in the Y-mi about whether rice flower and water makes chameitz. Pesachim 2:4, vilna 17a): Rabbi Yochanan ben Nuri said: Qarmis (millet or something similar) requires [giving] challah [from the dough to a kohein] because it can become chameitz or matzah. And the Rabbis say it doesn't because it can not become chameitz or matzah. So check it! They disagree about the essence of the check (iqar bediqasahh): RYBN said they checked it and found it can become chameitz or matzah. The Rabbanan said they checked it and they didn't find it can become chameitz or matzah. What looked like a machloqes about facts, that could just be checked experimentally, was a machloqes about how to categorize the physical reality. Is that dough a chimutz or a sirchon? I am sure that can be generalized. We could be arguing about metzi'us, but as the gemera asks, why not just check it? More likely, when the metzi'us is in the gray area, the machloqes is about: Where is the line between the categories? : 2. That gemara continues to try to resolve the question and is willing : to entertain the possibility that the halacha is like Rabbi Yehuda : (vs. Rabbi Shimon) in mekalkeil (destroying) and like Rabbi Shimon : (vs. Rabbi Yehuda) in davar sheino mitkavein (the result was not the : major one intended). If these two issues were interconnected, could the : gemara entertain this possibility? I think the gemara is consistent with two posibilities: 1- The two machloqesin are not interconnected. 2- The hava amina as that they were not connected, but the masqanah is that indeed they are. : 3. If the answer to 2 is no, must we assume that when the Shulchan : Aruch said he would decide the psak based on majority 2 of big 3, did : he really mean this as a primary tie breaker, or only when he did not : have a clear understanding of the underlying philosophy that resulted : in their final opinions. As I wrote in the past, I think it's easier to excuse the SA's exceptions to his rule by saying he was talking about the majority when counting consistent positions. Which means the rule is subject to which machloqesin the SA held were interconnected, and therefore which statements on other topics need to also be counted toward he majority. : 4.Is it possible that R'YBS limited his "canon" to only a few major : rishonim (in contradistinction to R" A Lichtenstein) because the more : data points included in trying to determine the underlying theoretical : construct, the more likely a single errant point would skew the results? I would think the reverse: How do you identify an outlier point without getting more full statistics on the data? Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger Worrying is like a rocking chair: micha at aishdas.org it gives you something to do for a while, http://www.aishdas.org but in the end it gets you nowhere. Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 19:16:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 22:16:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir In-Reply-To: <20150528.000433.22403.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150528.000433.22403.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150607021626.GC7516@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 04:04:33AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I will be the first to point out that Lifnei Iveir is one the many : topics where my learning and expertise is severely lacking. Even so, : I suspect that there is something missing from RMB's definition... : It seems to me that RMB is giving a useful tool to distinguish between : category 3 and category 4, but that tool is useful only in the case where : a person already has the *desire* to commit a sin, but it lacking the : *ability* to some degree... Correct. I was only thinking of the original question, and the gemara only discusses the one chiluq -- between lifnei iveir (deOraisa) and mesayeia' (deRabbanan). : But what of the case where a person does *not* yet have a desire to : sin? Rabbi Kaganoff is saying that one who incites or encourages him : to do it is violating Lifnei Iveir. Even if the person already has the : ability to do the sin, it was below his "bechirah point" until he was : egged on to do it... I didn't understand Orpah's offer that way. She was convinced her daughters-in-law "converted" for the sake of marriage; and depending which midrashim you quote, that likely wasn't even an actual conversion. But if Rus didn't really buy into Jewish beliefs, she would be better off not going through a pro-forma conversion than in the same boat as Delilah or Shelomo's wives. Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet micha at aishdas.org about things most people don't watch even on http://www.aishdas.org Yom Kippur. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 21:46:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 07:46:04 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] right/wrong Message-ID: <> comes back to the question of pluralism vs monistic vs tolerant monistic vs harmonism. As discussed before there are opinions on all sides -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 7 04:06:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 07:06:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] right/wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150607110645.GA7126@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jun 07, 2015 at 07:46:04AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : comes back to the question of pluralism vs monistic vs tolerant monistic vs : harmonism. Or, as R Moshe Halberatal cateogired halachic legal theories: Retrival, Accumulative, vs Constitutive. But it only starts there. Here the question is whether 1- any of these positions imply that halakhah is man-made more than the other positions would; and 2- does any of this conversation reflect on the absolute nature of right and wrong on a moral plane? Which also drags in the relationship between halakhah and morality. Divine Command Theory (morality is that which Hashem commanded) may well identify the two. But then, we were hard pressed to find an advocate for DCT, (outside contemporary popularizations). R/DR Y Leibowitz coms close, by saying we exist to follow halakhah, and any attempt to map halakhah to some other value system was one step toward AZ. Someone else might say that halakhah approximates morality, but since it's a blanket rule for all people in many situations, it's only an approximate. That said, once the halakhah is set, preserving it and the morality of the majority of cases has greater moral weight than one loses in the exceptional cases. But getting back to our question, while I consider the two related, I do not think the evolving nature of halakhah reflects morality being a human construction. Rather, I think it's because of two effects: 1- dialectics between concflicting values can yeild different strategies for finding balance between them One therefore finds that a machloqes is resolved by finding one strategy more appropriate for the culture asking the question than another. And if it is not resolved with finality, another culture may have the same question (eg mixes of immigrants with different precdent) and choose a different strategy. As I put it last time: choosing different paths up the mountain doesn't imply that the mountain's altitude is subjective. But this assumes that the linkage between halakhah and morality is that halakhah is a means to becoming moral. 2- changes in reality can cause two similar looking situations to have different moral outcomes. I think the vast majority of seemingly reopened questions are really of this sort. E.g. the categorization of today's dead mutes. We didn't change our belief that demands cannot be made of someone who cannot be taught them -- even if it means a consequent loss of priviliges (if being able to be motzi another is a privilege). The realia of the life of a cheiresh changed. (Over Shabbos I read which misses this point, creating a very bloated list of cases where R' JD Bleich, and most contemporary posqim, allow halakhah to "evolve".) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is our choices...that show what we truly are, micha at aishdas.org far more than our abilities. http://www.aishdas.org - J. K. Rowling Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 7 04:10:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 07:10:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong In-Reply-To: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150607111036.GB7126@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 05, 2015 at 03:16:42PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : There is a thought in this thread that if G-d does something, then it : is good by definition. Yet Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai considered the : possibility that G-d had another option which was even better than the : option that He did choose. Aside from Zev's point, that the machloqes is over which is pleasanter for the person, not which is good... I think the discussion is more what if HQBH tells us to do something, it is good by definition, necessarily good by implication, or somehow more distantly related to morality. (I guess someone could say halakhah is not connected to morality, but I don't see that coming up as an O hashkagah.) : This sounds to me like a good argument for the view that people (or at : least certain people, such as the Sanhedrin) CAN decide what is right : and what is wrong. Can determine, which is still different than the original idea on Areivim, that consensus *defines* morality. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger One who kills his inclination is as though he micha at aishdas.org brought an offering. But to bring an offering, http://www.aishdas.org you must know where to slaughter and what Fax: (270) 514-1507 parts to offer. - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 7 05:52:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2015 08:52:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Torah Scholars and Torah Education for the Masses Message-ID: <20150607125250.7E561182EA1@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is taken from Rav Schwab on Chumash, Parshas Acharei Mos. I have posted the entire selection at http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/tide_chumash_schwab.pdf At all times the Torah's unchanging teachings must be applied to the ever-changing derech eretz. All of our actions, attitudes, relationships to man and beast, and positions within nature and history are subject to the jurisdiction and evaluation of the Torah. What follows is that the Torah scholar should be well informed of the "ways of the Earth." The laws of nature and the paths of history should be known to him. He should be well aware of what happens in the world that surrounds him, for he is constantly called upon to apply the yardstick of halachah and the searchlight of hashkafah to the realities that confront him. What also follows is that the greater the wisdom of Torah, the more crucial it is that this wisdom be conveyed to the Jewish contemporary world. It must be transmitted in a language that our generation understands and that will attract the searching youth, the ignorant, the estranged and the potential ba1al teshuvah to a joyous acceptance of the yoke of Heaven. The Torah leader must be able to dispel the doubts of the doubter and to counter the cynicism of the agnostic. He must, therefore, speak their language masterfully so that he can convince and enlighten them. There is indeed a dire need for gedolei Torah, great Torah scholars, who devote their entire lives to the study and dissemination of Torah. The Jewish world today needs many talmidei chachamim whose life task is to enlighten and inspire it with the love and the fear of G-d. We are ready to accord to those "messengers of G-d" the highest respect and a loyal following. These are the kohanim and levi'im of today. Like the members of the Levitic tribe of old, they are to serve all the other tribes and teach them the living Torah. Yet education and leadership cannot function in a vacuum. Therefore it becomes mandatory for the present day "Tribe of Levi" to initiate and encourage an educational system that can serve the other "eleven tribes who comprise the vast majority of our people. It becomes mandatory for the Torah-conscious educator not to inspire fear of the world and hesitancy to meets its challenges, but rather, to fortify the vast majority of our youth to meet head-on the thousand and one pitfalls of professional and business life. Our youth must be inspired to courageously and intelligently brave the onslaught of scientific arrogance and the sensual poison that is masked as intellectual liberalism. The Divine purpose for which Yisrael was created can be served in every capacity, in every profession, in all human endeavors, as long as they are not excluded by the halachah. ---------- Unfortunately, I do not see many Torah scholars today who are "well informed of the "ways of the Earth." The laws of nature and the paths of history should be known to him. He should be well aware of what happens in the world that surrounds him, for he is constantly called upon to apply the yardstick of halachah and the searchlight of hashkafah to the realities that confront him." I also do not see our educational institutions serving "the other 'eleven tribes' who comprise the vast majority of our people. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 8 09:25:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2015 09:25:43 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] replacement value Message-ID: secular law [US] recognizes that one need is not liable replace a lost item with a new one ie if you lost my used IPAD [which happened in fact this month to us] you don't owe me the value of a new one , but rather some pro-rated amount accounting for wear and tear. what does bais din require? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 9 14:17:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2015 17:17:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] replacement value In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150609211745.GA4160@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 08, 2015 at 09:25:43AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : secular law [US] recognizes that one need is not liable replace a lost : item with a new one... what does bais din : require? According to the Business Halakhah Institute : Many years ago I borrowed a Chumash with commentaries from a local beis medrash. I forgot to return it and eventually misplaced the sefer and I do not recall which volume I borrowed. It was "borrowed", ie no reshus was asked. ... [Skipping from opening paragraph to bottom line...] Someone who borrowed a sefer without permission is obligated to return the sefer, the same as any other thief. Even if the owner despaired of retrieving it, e.g., he bought a new set, the obligation to return it remains in force (C.M. 354:2 and 360:5). If the sefers condition changed dramatically (shinui) or if it was lost altogether, the borrower is obligated to repay the value of the sefer (C.M. 360:5). In your case, since the sefer you borrowed is missing, there is no obligation to replace the actual sefer. Your obligation is to repay the beis medrash the sefers value at the time you borrowed it. In other words, you would pay the value of a used sefer rather than a new sefer, and there is no need to pay for a complete set. But then, maybe that's under Gittin 55b, not making a ganav tear down his house in order to return a stolen beam he built into it. But that halakhah is to facilitate teshuvah after theft. And so I won't generalized. Also for hezeq, I know a maziq pays for his damage, and therefore only has to pay replacement value -- what it would take to make things right again. But again, your case, a shomer or sho'el returning a lost item, could be different. I didn't yet find it. But I haven't entirely given up... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A cheerful disposition is an inestimable treasure. micha at aishdas.org It preserves health, promotes convalescence, http://www.aishdas.org and helps us cope with adversity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' SR Hirsch, "From the Wisdom of Mishlei" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 9 14:17:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2015 17:17:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] replacement value In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150609211745.GA4160@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 08, 2015 at 09:25:43AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : secular law [US] recognizes that one need is not liable replace a lost : item with a new one... what does bais din : require? According to the Business Halakhah Institute : Many years ago I borrowed a Chumash with commentaries from a local beis medrash. I forgot to return it and eventually misplaced the sefer and I do not recall which volume I borrowed. It was "borrowed", ie no reshus was asked. ... [Skipping from opening paragraph to bottom line...] Someone who borrowed a sefer without permission is obligated to return the sefer, the same as any other thief. Even if the owner despaired of retrieving it, e.g., he bought a new set, the obligation to return it remains in force (C.M. 354:2 and 360:5). If the sefers condition changed dramatically (shinui) or if it was lost altogether, the borrower is obligated to repay the value of the sefer (C.M. 360:5). In your case, since the sefer you borrowed is missing, there is no obligation to replace the actual sefer. Your obligation is to repay the beis medrash the sefers value at the time you borrowed it. In other words, you would pay the value of a used sefer rather than a new sefer, and there is no need to pay for a complete set. But then, maybe that's under Gittin 55b, not making a ganav tear down his house in order to return a stolen beam he built into it. But that halakhah is to facilitate teshuvah after theft. And so I won't generalized. Also for hezeq, I know a maziq pays for his damage, and therefore only has to pay replacement value -- what it would take to make things right again. But again, your case, a shomer or sho'el returning a lost item, could be different. I didn't yet find it. But I haven't entirely given up... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A cheerful disposition is an inestimable treasure. micha at aishdas.org It preserves health, promotes convalescence, http://www.aishdas.org and helps us cope with adversity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' SR Hirsch, "From the Wisdom of Mishlei" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 10 18:52:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 01:52:34 GMT Subject: [Avodah] 100% Vegetable oils etc. Message-ID: <20150610.215234.27464.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> On Areivim, R' Martin Brody wrote: > If any such ingredient of an ingredient was non-kosher, it would be > batel b'shishim, (more likely nullified by thousands). For those > that are interested, the London Beth Din is not concerned with > "flavourings" as an ingredient for this very reason. This surprises me. I would think that non-kosher flavorings cannot be batel. Bitul is a mathematical procedure by which we can presume that the non-kosher ingredient is not noticeable. But in the case of flavorings (and colorings and maamads), if its presence were not noticeable, then the manufacturer would not go to the trouble and expense of including it. Therefore (I would think) that its presence proves that it *is* noticable, overriding the presumption. Rabbi Binyomin Forst's "The Laws of Kashrus" (ArtScroll) says on page 98, "If, however, the mixture was sampled and the non-kosher taste was noticeable, the mixture may not be eaten, even though it was batel b'shishim. (Shach 98:4)" What other views are there? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5578ea0af09296a0a79abst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 07:41:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 10:41:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Worker or Craftsman Message-ID: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> How do we view the task of life? Is a person an po'el, paid for his time? Implying, it's our job to do good while here on earth, but the determining factor is the duration? Or is a person an uman, paid to get a particular job done. We're put on earth to get some specific accomplishment. The Zohar suggests something more like an uman when it uses an idiom like "ana avda deQBH". Admittedly an eved does not get paid for his time, but an eved is for the duration, whether until shemittah, until yovel, or for the rest of his life. However, in Shaar haGilgulim we get all this talk about a person having a tafqid, and how if they fail to get the job done, they could be given a second chance. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger What you get by achieving your goals micha at aishdas.org is not as important as http://www.aishdas.org what you become by achieving your goals. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Henry David Thoreau From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 07:46:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 10:46:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Color names In-Reply-To: <221167CA3A2A46908C9CA2A3474664EA@webhost.local> References: <221167CA3A2A46908C9CA2A3474664EA@webhost.local> Message-ID: <20150611144639.GF20169@aishdas.org> RZLampel and I discused this once, I think here. If not, the topic could be of interest anyway. So, rather than checking the archive (which is difficult, given the number of tekheiles discussions) I am just sharing either way. -micha Shabbat B'Shabbato Translated by Moshe Goldberg Machon Zomet ... What Is That Phrase? Green Sky? Yaacov Etzion At the end of this week's Torah portion, we are given a command, "Let them place on the tzitzit at the corner a thread of 'techelet.'" [Bamidbar 15:38]. Rashi explains that techelet is "the 'yarok' color of a snail." Any speaker of modern Hebrew can only wonder at this. Why does Rashi call the blue color of techelet "yarok" -- that is, green? Well, it is not only Rashi that calls techelet "yarok." It is an explicit ruling that appears in the Shulchan Aruch: "The color white is ritually pure, as is the look of 'yarok,' even if it has the look of wax or of gold. And this certainly includes the 'yarok' of leek or grass (and also the color that is called 'blue' is included in 'yarok')" [Hilchot Nidda, 188]. We are not interested at this point in the details of the halacha but rather in the fact that the RAMA writes that the color "blue" is called "yarok" in our traditional sources. Our sages spoke of four main colors: shachor (black), lavan (white), adom (red), and yarok. And "yarok" included yellow, orange, blue, and turquoise of today. For example, it happens quite often that a newborn baby is a bit yellow right after its birth. But the Tosefta calls this color "yarok." Rabbi Natan says the following: "When I was in the Land of Kapotakia, there was a woman who had given birth to boys... They brought him to me, and I saw that he was 'yarok'... I looked at him and did not find any blood for circumcision..." [Shabbat 134a]. Moreover, in the wording of the ROSH in his halachic rulings the word yarok as used by the sages is not our color green (which they call "yarok as a leek") but is yellow or orange. "This shows that the word yarok is similar to the yolk of an egg or to gold, which has a tinge of red." Among other sources, the ROSH bases his decision on the words of the verse, "the wings of a dove coated with silver and its limbs the 'yerakrak' of gold" [Tehillim 68:14]. Yerakrak is clearly the color of gold, that is, yellow. The words for orange (katom) and blue (kachol) were instituted in modern times by Zeev Yavetz. This was reported by David Yalin in the newspaper "Hatzevi" in 1887: "When I spoke to my uncle the illustrious rabbi and investigator Rabbi Zeev Yavetz, he said to me that he wants to fill what is missing in our language for the names of two colors, the color of techelet and the color of the yoke of an egg." Yavetz proposed that techelet should be called kachol and that the yoke should be called "ketem," which in the holy writings refers to gold or to the color of gold. (An example appears in the following verse: "Woe, the gold is dim, the good 'ketem' has changed" [Eichah 4:1].) Yavetz wanted to use the word katom for the color of yellow (which we call tzahov), since he felt that tzahov "includes a bit of red" (as per a note by Yalin). But as time went on, katom became the color orange, as we use it today. Thus, the word "yarok" changed in meaning during the years, as did "tzahov." However, "techelet" evidently kept its original meaning, and it remains similar to the color of the sea, which is similar to the color of the sky, and this reminds us of the Divine Throne of Glory. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 09:34:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 12:34:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Worker or Craftsman In-Reply-To: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> References: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5579B89C.8060902@sero.name> On 06/11/2015 10:41 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Is a person an po'el, paid for his time? Implying, it's our job to do > good while here on earth, but the determining factor is the duration? > > Or is a person an uman, paid to get a particular job done. We're put on > earth to get some specific accomplishment. Eruvin 65a: Anan po`alei diy'mamei anan. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 11:17:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 14:17:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> References: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> Message-ID: <20150611181746.GI20169@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 2, 2015 at 4:27pm I forwarded an essay by RYK that had appeared on R/Dr Alan Brill's blog, Kavvanah. In it he proposes from personal experience that MO would be enhanced by shifting away from its focus on RYBS's Briskkeit and in particular that elements of his Hungarian Chassidic birth community would be of great value. : Personally, my rejection of the Maimonidean ethos and realization of : the degree to which chassidut can speak to the modern searcher was a : long and arduous process. It came about as a result of a deep sense : of betrayal by Maimonides, the champion of Rationalist Judaism. I for : many years was the object and fool of Maimonides "the seventh reason" : as presented in his introduction to the Guide by not seeing his : philosophic views. In that passage, Maimonides condones misleading : the masses for their greater good, even to the point of advocating : contradictory ideas for different audiences and then obscuring those : contradictions. : Growing up in Satmar and then Brisk, I was oblivious to his : non-halakhic writings and led to believe that he fully and literally : believed every word he wrote in the Yad... I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." And in fact, that was the whole point of the project -- to outline all of halakhah, to document the TSBP. Not to hint at something for the meivinim without risking that the hoi palloi mistake his words in a heretical way. It's simply not meaningful concept for a book he titled Mishneh Torah. I am uncomfortably using the Rambam as a poster boy for rationalism. In the Rambam's day, science hadn't been invented yet. Claims about physics weren't based on emprical proof and experimental process. It was Natual Philosophy, and the weight of an a priori argument. A lot of it really ended up on reliabilism; deeming the Greeks as reliable sources on such things -- after 1,5000 years of their theories reigning. And therefore, quite honestly, much the same kind of thought that we use to accept mesorah. The word rationalism changed meaning. What I think we really mean is a willingness to be meqabel es ha'emes mimi she'omro, rather than take a maximalist attitude toward mesoretic and Torah-derived statements. But that's quite a bit meta from anyone today using the Moreh as a foundational element of their hashkafah. In particular, RYK mentions three items he believes would enhance MO: : 1) Truth. We live in a post-modern world where objective truth is : rejected and absolute claims are frowned upon. I would go as far as to : say that rationalism (in the general and colloquial sense) as a source : for Emunah is bankrupt, it increasingly speaks to fewer people... I don't think it ever worked. As one of my favorite truisms goes: The mind is a wonderful organ for justifying decisions the heart already reached. People accept the rational argument that fits the experiential justification that really underlies their beliefs. Aristo thought otherwise, which eventually led to the Qalam and the Scholasticists -- including R' Saadia Gaon and the Rambam. But then Scholasticism collapsed, the scientific method arose, leading to a dispute between the Empiricists and Idealists which in turn forced the discipline of philosophy away from belief in the reality of an objective rigorous proof. Experimental eproof, yes. Incontravertible objective philosopy, not so much. Kant then gets all transcendental, and talks about the synthetic a priori. (Knowing things without proof that don't simply boil down to a matter of translations. In the recent past, I mentioned how we know the Euclidean posulates hold in flat space, that Reimannian ones hold in a spherical space, and our knowledge about morality and ethics.) This was the zeitgeist when the Besh"t lived. (Besh"t 1698-1760; Kant 1724-1804.) Someone who is given a proof whose conclusions don't fit their experience is likely to reject the soundness of the givens / postulates / first principles on which it's based. Just as someone who accepts a proof is making synthetic judgments about the quality of the foundations of that proof before even making an analytic decision that the logic seems sound. So even if no one makes a logic error, every proof relies on interpretation of experience. RYBS was not a rationalist in this sense. Brisk is very experiential, to the point of eschewing the study of hashkafah altogether. They are rational when it comes to how to learn, but the value of learning is in the experience of learning. When RYBS does do philosophy, he calls it halachic hermeneutics. Neo-Kantian and Existentialist observations of what halakhah says to the one following it about life. He makes no claims about the function or cause of halakhah, he makes few theological observations. For example, to RYBS tzimtzum speaks mostly to the value of anavah as an emulation of His "Retreat" to give us room. RYBS's Neo-Kantianism is a very different project than the Rambam's Scholasticism. ... : However, during those rare occasions when they do pay attention to the : biblical "stories," their orientation is a-rational. They absolutely : "believe" those stories, but their belief is internal: it is true : because it happened in the Torah. That is where these events transpire : and that is where these stories matter. Asking about their historicity : is, as far as they are concerned, foolish and missing the point. And also a given. It may not be stated as the point, but the confidence given to authority which is a necessary component of the rebbe-chassid relationship means accepting Chazal's historical and scientific claims as being from ruach haqodesh. And not stam as meshalim. The kind of agnosticism about the historicity of medrashic material you are recommending we import Chassidus to justify would itself leave a chassid aghast. And even after citing the long chain of rishonim and acharonim who speak against assuming medrashic stories are historical, And you want to extend that beyond medrashic stories into foundational stories in Tanakh and maybe in the chumash as well? Given my above assertion that the only thread that runs consistently through "rationalism" from the Rambam to today is to choose qabel es ha'emes mimi she'omro over taking some baal mesorah's statement maximally, one actually needs what's left of the Rambam's hashkafic legacy to accomplish this, not Chassidus. : 2) Spiritualization. As scholars have pointed out, chassidic teachings : contain elements of spiritual psychology. They provide us with a : language which helps us infuse our lives with meaning. One can point : to many examples where this psychological spiritualization occurs in : chassidut, I will mention two of them. : 3) Social Change. One of the most pressing tensions in the community : is how to reconcile our values with our convictions; what to do : when halakha points us in one direction and our values in another : direction. We are tempted to follow our values but pulled to abide by : our halakhic commitments.... : Chassidut is very explicit about the value of religious aggression. The : following two quotes are often encountered in chassidic writings, : "even a thief says a prayer before he breaks in to his victim's home" : (quoted on the margin of Brachot 63A, from the Frankfurt manuscript), : and "an aggressive stance towards the Divine bears results" (Sanhedrin : 105A). While the provenance of these texts is Talmudic, they take on : significant prominence in Chassidic theology. They become the impetus : for an aggressive theology which is informed by a religiosity that : sees itself driven by a Divine immanence which infuses our values and : ethical intuitions with spiritual resonance, subsequently leading to : radical societal change. : Such change is actually an integral part of Chassidic social history. : When one looks at recent major changes in traditional Jewish society : it is hard not to notice that the forerunners were often Chassidim. The : last sixty years have seen far reaching social and political change. Both of these are not specific to Chassidus, but would be true of any Ism that draws attention fo the notion that halakhah is merely a "floor" rather than the sum total of behavioral expectations. For that matter, self development and societal needs are both more central to Mussar than chassidus. Pretty much its defning features, really. Which (aside being my own pony in this race) has the advantage of being closer to being consistent with MO's current gestalt; it's easier to get from here to there. OTOH Chaasidic maximalism means that statements made in the past have to be accepted as being from ruach haqodesh, and consequently change in these communities is minimized. Not only because isolation is part of the survival strategy, but because of reverence for and desire to emulate Chassidic isolation is indeed part of their survival stategy. It's hard to leave when you know no other social context and speak with an accent. And knowing that you stand for something greater than yourself in the eyes of those who see your uniform makes it harder to sin. (Harder, not impossible.) But it's not one of the three elements of Chassidus RYK wrote about. : The two most dramatic changes that have happened is that Jews are now : sovereign and women have made significant progress in their pursuit of : religious equality. The pioneers of both these changes were driven, at : least in part, by a chassidic ethos. R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson, : the Rebbi of Lubavitch, was one of the first orthodox scholars to : champion female Talmud scholarship, while R. Avraham Yitzchak Kook, : a serious student of Chassidut, was an outspoken early proponent of : a Zionist state. RAYK is a student of the Leshem, and thus of the Gra's school of Qabbalah. Not Chassidus. You might be able to make a more generic argument for a need for more Qabbalah in MO. Personally, I'm an engineer by inclination, not just training, and my own head doesn't lean that way. Although I had more success with the Leshem Haqdamos uShe'arim, which incidentally heavily draws from the Moreh and Yesodei haTorah, than I did with Qela"ch Pischei Chokhmah, the later parts of Derekh H' or Tomer Devorah after ch. 1. At least in the golah this might be true; in Israel, those of the DL community who are an appropriate audience for Qabbalah already have RAYK in numerous interpretations. Also, Chassidus's approach to Qabbalah puts the Ari Za"l on an even higher pedestal than the Gra did, and elevate R Chaim Vital from *a* talmid of the Ari to his sole authorized presenter. The Gra is willing to question something from RCV that chassidim would literally consider Torah min haShamayim. Which, for the more socially and humanistically minded, might well turn Eitz Chaim 49 ch. 3 into a show stopper. (But this isn't the place to discuss it.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Never must we think that the Jewish element micha at aishdas.org in us could exist without the human element http://www.aishdas.org or vice versa. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 06:48:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 09:48:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <20150611181746.GI20169@aishdas.org> References: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> <20150611181746.GI20169@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150612134802.GA12483@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 2:17 I wrote: : What I think we really mean is a willingness to be meqabel es ha'emes : mimi she'omro, rather than take a maximalist attitude toward mesoretic : and Torah-derived statements. But that's quite a bit meta from anyone : today using the Moreh as a foundational element of their hashkafah. ... : Given my above assertion that the only thread that runs consistently : through "rationalism" from the Rambam to today is to choose qabel es : ha'emes mimi she'omro over taking some baal mesorah's statement maximally... The thought hit me this morning that there is another and drastically different way to view this point. "Qabel es ha'ames mimi she'omro" is a bit of a circularity. Obviously we want to accept the truth from whomever says it, and not errors. So we're deciding what is true /before/ we decide to accept it, not /because/ we accept it. We could therefore say that the single consistent theme we associate with throwing the word "rationalism" about is critical thought. When we judge Aristo's, Copernicus's, Darwin's or Einstein's thought as true, do we second guess that asessment, or accept their ideas as true? And consequently we can phrase this chiluq a third way: As being abut how much authority we give rabbinic works in comparison to how much we trust our own critical thinking. The higher the pedestal we put the historical rabbinate, the more of their statements one would logically choose to suspend judgment and accept. (Not only accept, but accept as literal.) As for the original premise... Rather than looking to RYK's or anyone else's ideas as to what from Chassidus would most benefit MO, perhaps we should look at the Neo-Chassidic phenomenon to see de facto what MO Jews who are open to such experimentation are drawn to. And if those two questions yeild different answers, why? :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger What we do for ourselves dies with us. micha at aishdas.org What we do for others and the world, http://www.aishdas.org remains and is immortal. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Albert Pine From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 06:55:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 09:55:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What FDA Learned About Dark Chocolate and Milk Allergies In-Reply-To: <557A5564.7040807@zahav.net.il> References: <20150611174606.4DC6F181DFA@nexus.stevens.edu> <5579E680.2050607@zahav.net.il> <5579E319.7070103@sero.name> <557A5564.7040807@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <20150612135524.GC12483@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 05:43:32AM +0200, Ben Waxman via Areivim wrote: : This story came out here a few years ago when some kid had an : allergic reaction to parve chocolate. The product had a Badatz Eida : Chareidit heksher. The heksher was fine, they didn't make a mistake. : The amount of milk in the chocolate was much, much less than 1/60. Assuming the allergic reaction isn't lifethreatening so that the child is not prohibited from eating the chocolate on those grounds... Say they're a chocoholic and chose to eat the chocolate shortly after eating meat. Mi ma nafshach for everyone else it's batel. But do we say that since for them it's detectible, bitul doesn't apply? :-)BBii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 14:24:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 21:24:59 GMT Subject: [Avodah] What FDA Learned About Dark Chocolate and Milk Allergies Message-ID: <20150611.172459.6802.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 11:01:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 14:01:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If and When Message-ID: <20150612180148.GA7261@aishdas.org> R' Yishmael famously (Mechilta BaChodesh-Yisro 11, Mishpatim 182 or ) says that "im" usually means that the decision is up to you, but three times it's a chiyuv: - "Im mizbach avanim ta'aseh Li" (Shemos 20:21) - "Im kesef talveh es ami" (Shemos 22:24) - "Im taqriv minchas bikurim" (Vayiqra 2:14) This is often explained in English as saying that "im" usually means "if", but in these cases it takes on the rarer second meaning of "when". I would prefer to propose a single common interpretation. LAD, "im" introduces an implication -- X implies Y. When X is a conditional, then so will the Y that depends on it. When X is always obligated, then Y will also be always obligated, but the "allways" is because X is. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 13 19:40:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 04:40:37 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Why Chassidut Message-ID: <557CE9A5.6090303@zahav.net.il> From Rav Yehoshua Shapira (my quick translation) The idea that Chassidut?s positive atmosphere isn?t obligatory is a serious mistake. Not only is it obligatory, but it brings with it more obligations. Without emphasis on the Mitzvot of ahava and yirah, simcha and deveikut (which are the soul of the 613 mitzvot) the mitzvot remain external actions, technical, something which doesn?t affect or uplift the heart and soul. Those doreitta mitzvot, which are the pinimiot of all mitzvoth, demand from a person and from us to give their entire being when doing a mitzvah. . . .. In the performance of mitzvoth, God wants our hearts. Therefore, Chassidut definitely demands deep dedication. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 15:34:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ysoscher via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 18:34:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed Message-ID: <073EBBC1-7CA3-4E26-BA35-4A9007B1EAE4@gmail.com> Chana, Three quick points: 1) You are making the mistake many others are making as well, conflating chassidim with chassidut. Chassidic life today has very little to do with original chassidut. Early chassidut was a revolutionary theological movement which appealed to a small elitist group. As time went by more people started joining. As the masses joined, the theology became diluted. The theologically influenced practices reminded but the ethos became stagnant. Therefore, your attempt to disprove my thesis from the way Chassidim behave today is wrong. I'm advocating for chassidic theology which was prevalent during the first and second generation of the chassidic movement, people like the Besht, the Magid, the Toldos Yakov Yosef, Reb Nachaman, the Ba'al Hatanye and others. I have no doubt that their philosophy informed Rav Kook and Lubavitcher Rebbe when dealing with tensions between Halacha and modernity. And, their philosophy can help us today as well. Incorporating a chassidic ethos would allow us to infuse our encounters with modernity with kedusha and meaning. Which brings me to my second point. 2) Kabbakah and chassidut isn't about warmth and community. It's a highly sophisticated philosophical system which offers a nuanced alternative to the Maimonidean/rationalist approach. While the approach is a-rational, it isn't irrational. However, more to the point, the warmth and sense of community is a byproduct of this theology, not its primary focus. 3) Finally, I'm not sure I understand your point about the Rambam. The Rambam says that he believes it is justified to fool and mislead the masses. That to me is highly problematic. Rabbi Ysoscher Katz Chair, Department of Talmud, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School; Director of the Lindenbaum Center for Halakhic Studies; Educational Director of Judaic Studies, Luria Academy, Brooklyn, NY.; Rabbi, Prospect Heights Shul. E-mail: ysoscher at gmail.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 07:00:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 14:00:32 GMT Subject: [Avodah] If and When Message-ID: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > R' Yishmael famously (Mechilta BaChodesh-Yisro 11, Mishpatim 182 > or ) says that "im" usually means that the > decision is up to you, but three times it's a chiyuv: > - "Im mizbach avanim ta'aseh Li" (Shemos 20:21) > - "Im kesef talveh es ami" (Shemos 22:24) > - "Im taqriv minchas bikurim" (Vayiqra 2:14) ... > LAD, "im" introduces an implication -- X implies Y. ... > When X is always obligated, then Y will also be always > obligated, but the "always" is because X is. If I'm understanding you correctly, your logic will work only if there is another pasuk somewhere which *already* obligates us to build a mizbe'ach of stone, to lend money without interest, and to bring bikkurim in this manner. If so, then a fuller translation can be written with the word "if", and without the word "when", like this: : (You are already obligated to build a stone mizbe'ach, and) : if (today is the day that) you will build a stone mizbe'ach, : you will not build it from cut stones... But I thought that R' Yishmael's whole point is that THESE ARE the source pesukim for those mitzvos, and that there are NO other pesukim which obligate you to do these things. That's why R' Yishmael made the whole point of stressing that these "im"s really mean "when". His fear was that if we translate "im" as "if", then someone might think these pesukim are like Hilchos Gittin: "IF you get divorced, here is the right way to do it, and IF you make a stone mizbe'ach, here is the right way." R' Yishmael's point is that there is no "if" - you MUST do these things, and WHEN you do it, this is how. So over Shabbos, I tried to verify my idea. Thanks to RMB, who quoted not only the 3 pesukim, but identified their location, it was pretty simple to look them up in the Torah Temimah. But what I found was rather odd. Torah Temimah Shmos 20:127 quotes R' Yishmael in the Mechilta, pretty much the same way that RMB did, and points out that this is NOT the source for the obligation for build a stone mizbe'ach - that is in Ki Savo. This RMB's logic fits: "If (today is the day that) you build a stone mizbe'ach, don't build it of cut stones." Please note: In the excerpt of the Mechilta which the Torah Temimah quotes regarding the mizbe'ach, R' Yishmael says that there are 3 cases where "im" is not optional, but the other two are not specified. This is very different than the Torah Temimah about lending money. Torah Temimah Shmos 22:198 does quotes R' Yishmael in the Mechilta, but it doesn't mention the word "im" explicitly, nor is there any reference to two other cases. He simply asks whether it is a reshus or a chovah to lend money, and he answers that the obligation appears in Parshas Re'eh. I find it curious that this Mechilta is worded so differently than the previous one, but the message is clearly the same. Finally, we have the pasuk about bikkurim. It turns out that the Torah Temimah on this pasuk doesn't mention R' Yishmael at all. It does mention R' Yehudah, but from the Toras Kohanim, and not from the Mechilta. Further, my unlearned reading of R' Yehudah had little or nothing to do with the reshus/chovah question, but Torah Temimah Vayikra 2:80 DID see a reshus/chovah question that troubled R' Yehudah. I am left with several questions, the main one being whether or not Bikkurim really was R' Yishmael's third "im". And that's where I'll leave this thread, for more skilled minds to investigate should they be so inclined. Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/557d895b6e89195a4573st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 10:27:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 13:27:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If and When In-Reply-To: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150614172744.GA27133@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 02:00:32PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : > LAD, "im" introduces an implication -- X implies Y. : ... : > When X is always obligated, then Y will also be always : > obligated, but the "always" is because X is. : : If I'm understanding you correctly, your logic will work only if : there is another pasuk somewhere which *already* obligates us to build a : mizbe'ach of stone, to lend money without interest, and to bring bikkurim : in this manner. If so, then a fuller translation can be written with : the word "if", and without the word "when"... In reality, the cited Mechilta actually provides derahos to prove that there is nothing optional about the antecedants. But my point was to suggest that "im" has nothing to do with the maybe-ness of "if". Just the implication bit -- if X then Y, or whenever X then Y, or since X then Y, regardless of whether not-X is a possibility or option. Which would reduce what looks like two definitions for "im" into a single common meaning. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Time flies... micha at aishdas.org ... but you're the pilot. http://www.aishdas.org - R' Zelig Pliskin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 13 22:30:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ysoscher via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 01:30:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> R. Micha, you write "I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." This is pure conjecture, perhaps even wishful thinking. The Rambam shares the 7th principle in which he argues that one may disseminate untruths for the greater good of society. Once he believes that, we are left to wonder about everything he wrote: did he really believe that or was there a political (in the Aristotelian sense) agenda behind it. To then preference the yad over the moreh is a personal bias. You and I as Orthodox Jews would like to believe that he believed every word in the yad and that the stuff he says in the moreh, oftentimes contradicting Chazal and the mesorah, was only said for the greater good of society-he personally didn't believe them. The non-observant philosopher, on the other hand, would say the opposite, that in the Moreh he articulates what he really believed, not in the Yad. Ultimately there's no objective measure to determine who's right. R. Isidore Twersky in his book on the Rambam tried to argue that there is no stira, that the moreh and the yad compliment each other. I don't find his arguments compelling. These two sefarim are incompatible and, ultimately, we are left in the dark, never able to objectively determine which of the two Rambam's sefarim were written with ulterior motives. You then write "I am uncomfortably using the Rambam as a poster boy for rationalism." I am using "rationalism" in a loose colloquial sense. Rambam believed in an evidence based religiosity, that we believe in God because His existence can be proven. That project, IMHO, failed. For every proof proving existence there's a proof to the contrary. That is precisely why I believe that the non-rationalist/Kabbalist approach is a better option. They offer an a-rationalist approach ("a-rational," not to be confused with "irrational," they're not the same). They believe because they chose to believe not-because they are "convinced." Their mehalach is more appealing to our post/modern generation where few people believe in absolute truths, and, it's also truer to our tradition. We were always a a-rational tradition until Maimonides came along and changed that. Which brings me to my next point. You then write "...means accepting Chazal's historical and scientific claims as being from ruach haqodesh. And not stam as meshalim." implying that I believe that stories in Chazal or Torah are meshalim. [Chas lei lezar'eih deAvraham deleimru hakha]; God forbid that I should make such a suggestion. I am saying something radically different. We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims. A faith claim is a religious "belief" not a scientific claim. Two things distinguish the chasid's experience of reading Torah from the philosopher's experience. When the chasid reads those stories he or she a) doesn't pause to ask if it's "true" they just learn it. "Truth" isn't a primary orientation of their encounter with toras Ha'shem. B) In the event that he does pause to ask the "truth" question, his approach is a-rational and unscientific. The truth question, for him or her, is internal to the system as is the solution. It truthfully and absolutely happened in the Torah. It's not denying the claim, it's just ignoring the scientific objective layer. Because the chasid's yiddishkeit happens exclusively in the religious realm. I also think there's a lot of confusion between what I'm arguing and what you're responding to. Briefly: 1) As I wrote to Chana: Chassidim and chassidut is not same. Chassidim today have little to do with chassidut. Contemporary chassidic philosophy is a complete deviation from original chassidut. 2) A-rationalism isn't one iota less sophisticated than rationalism. These are two parallel philosophies each with their own set of nuanced assumptions, postulates, and assumptions. 3) My program has nothing to do with neo-chassidut. NC is a behaviorist movement with very little philosophical underpinning. I'm proposing a theological program which also happens to have behavioral implications. Rabbi Ysoscher Katz Chair, Department of Talmud, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School; Director of the Lindenbaum Center for Halakhic Studies; Educational Director of Judaic Studies, Luria Academy, Brooklyn, NY.; Rabbi, Prospect Heights Shul. E-mail: ysoscher at gmail.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 08:55:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 11:55:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] 100% Vegetable oils etc. (Walker Crisps) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <557DA3F6.8050406@sero.name> On Areivim, Kaganoff wrote: > Zev Sero wrote: >> Kaganoff wrote: >>> Zev Sero wrote: >>>> Kaganoff wrote: >>>>> I would be rather surprised if there was a genuine kashrus concern >>>>> from with the Walker Crisps from any meat contamination. >>>>> Any meat would be batel. >>>> It's flavouring. >>> We hold of bittul b'shishim. >> Only as a general assumption that at that dilution it can't be tasted. >> Not applicable to concentrated flavourings which are designed to be tasted >> at high dilution. > That is a chumrah that you could adopt, but should not force on others. Why do you call it a chumra? Do you deny that the din is about ta`am, not percentage, and bitul beshishim is merely a general assumption that at that level of dilution there is no ta`am? >>> And it's a not a flavoring for this particular product. So it is not >>> avida l'ta'amei, even at less than 60. >> Since when does the fact that it wasn't intended to be in this product make it >> not intended for its taste? > That is why companies spend thousands of dollars perfecting formulas > for what is and is not used in a product. If it is not used as an > ingredient, then it was not meant to flavor this product. Once again, so what? Where did you get this idea that it matters whether it was intended to be in this product? Perhaps you're thinking of nosen ta'am lifgam, and saying that even a pleasant flavour, if it was not intended to be in a particular dish, may be considered a pegam in that dish. But that doesn't work. Suppose a chef created a dish flavoured with lard, but made a mistake; he put in too much, or too little, or didn't cook it long enough, or cooked it too long, or at the wrong temperature, and the final flavour of the dish isn't what he was aiming for. It's pleasant, and the diners eat it up and compliment him, but he knows that it wasn't meant to taste like that, and his recipe needs work. Can you imagine calling that dish pagum, and allowing it to be eaten?! That's obviously not tenable. So how is this case any different? A pleasant and desirable flavour has made its way into a product that wasn't intended to have that flavour. Does that make it pagum?!! No. It's a good product, it's just not the product that's on the label. The product that's on the label is kosher, but the product that's inside the packet is treif, exactly as if a labelling error had occurred. >>>>> Stam Keilim Ain ben Yomo. >>>> Are you joking? That klal is clearly not true in any commercial setting. >>> Why do you assume that it is clearly not true. Or rather you are >>> assuming that in a majority of cases, meat is used the same day as >>> the kosher product. That strikes me as a bit extreme. >> It's not at all extreme. Everyone knows that commercial equipment is almost >> *never* idle for 24 hours at a time. And since the meat flavouring is a >> regular product it stands to reason that it's processed every day. > Do you know this for a fact about this particular plant? Otherwise, > it's an assumption that you can make, as per Chazal. Everyone knows that it's true about *all* commercial equipment. And we have no right to "assume" something we know not to be true. Stam keilim einom bnei yomam is simply not a valid rule in the context of commercial equipment today. >> In any case, the issue here isn't keilim, since the flavouring is cold, and >> sprayed on cold chips. If it were keilim then there would be no bittul >> beshishim, since stam keilim are more than 1/60 of their contents. No, >> the issue here is the residue of actual flavouring that remains in the >> equipment after the meat flavours are run, until it is cleaned. > Which again would be batel within the first few products of the new run. It might be, if we knew the order in which the flavours are run. But they refuse to disclose that information. What we do know is that the plain chips are run first, so they're acceptable. After that all bets are off. There is no way to be sure that the packet of non-meat-flavoured chips you are eating was not the first one off the rank immediately after a meat run. >>>>> It's not Avida L'Ta'amei, etc. >>>> It's precisely avida letaama -- it's a flavouring! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 16:53:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 19:53:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> References: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150614235339.GA15695@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 01:30:46AM -0400, Ysoscher via Avodah wrote: : R. Micha, you write "I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle : applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word : in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think : "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." : : This is pure conjecture, perhaps even wishful thinking. The Rambam : shares the 7th principle in which he argues that one may disseminate : untruths for the greater good of society.... Yes, but he says it in an introduction explaining a particular kind of book -- which the Moreh is, and the Yad isn't. Whereas the Yad self-describes as being Mishneh Torah, explanation, not obfuscation. So why look to the intro to the Moreh to muddle what the Rambam himself says was the point of the Yad? In either case, the Rambam describes Yad and the Peirush haMishnayos a explanations written to be comprehensible to the masses. Moreh 2:35 (el-Qafih ["Kapach"]): Kevar bi'arti likhlal benei adam ... veheivesi ra'ayos al kakh ubirartav bePeirush haMishnah ubeMishneh Torah... : You and I as Orthodox Jews would like to believe that he believed every : word in the yad and that the stuff he says in the moreh, oftentimes : contradicting Chazal and the mesorah, was only said for the greater : good of society-he personally didn't believe them. The non-observant : philosopher, on the other hand, would say the opposite, that in the : Moreh he articulates what he really believed, not in the Yad. Actually, I tend to side with the anti-Mamonidians. Mostly because his model of redemption leaves people like my son Shuby (who has Downs) wandering around the palace with no hope of getting in. (To paraphrase 3:51.) : You then write "I am uncomfortably using the Rambam as a poster boy : for rationalism." : : I am using "rationalism" in a loose colloquial sense... Which is so loose as to be meaningless. The Rambam predated science, and followed the secular authority. Rationalism today refers to emprical and other objective proof. : That project, IMHO, failed. For every proof : proving existence there's a proof to the contrary. That is precisely : why I believe that the non-rationalist/Kabbalist approach is a better : option. They offer an a-rationalist approach ("a-rational," not to be : confused with "irrational," they're not the same). They believe because : they chose to believe not-because they are "convinced." Yeah, but so does the Gra's Qabbalah or Mussar. Mussar in particular replaces the Rambam's akrasia based on knowlege / wisdom, and therefore redemption through getting the right knowledge, with talk of first-hand experience, emotions, subconscious, etc... : You then write "...means accepting Chazal's historical and scientific : claims as being from ruach haqodesh. And not stam as meshalim." implying : that I believe that stories in Chazal or Torah are meshalim. : : [Chas lei lezar'eih deAvraham deleimru hakha]; God forbid that I should : make such a suggestion. I am saying something radically different. Well, I wouldn't lump the two together. The Rambam is far from alone in considering aggadic stories to be meshalim repeated with not concern about historicity. Much like you wrote -- an authentic attitude toward such things would be to not care about what really happened. Not to assert they are or aren't historical. (Although the Rambam would tell you to assume the wilder ones aren't historical, lest you make a joke out of the Torah -- the first two of the three katim described in his haqdamah to mishnah Cheileq.) : We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims. A : faith claim is a religious "belief" not a scientific claim... Agreed. BUT... the kind of problem I thought you were trying to address was the person who felt the Torah and academia conflict. To invoke this dichotomy to resolve the issue would be to allow people to assert ahistoricity, rather than avoiding a position altogether. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The true measure of a man micha at aishdas.org is how he treats someone http://www.aishdas.org who can do him absolutely no good. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Samuel Johnson From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 06:49:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ken Bloom via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 09:49:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What FDA Learned About Dark Chocolate and Milk Allergies Message-ID: > > > Actually it sounds to me that one very much can rely on the > > label (from this example). The trace amounts [the LBD are] talking > > about are much, much less than 1/60. Completely bateil, > > totally parve, but enough to elicit an allergic reaction. > I remember learning about a machlokes concerning whether we hold dairy > can be batel to pareve, or whether we say that since there is no loss (at > least, not the total loss that we have when something becomes nonkosher) > we should simply consider it dairy. But I don't remember how we hold on > this issue. Anyone else? > And shouldn't these questions be on Avodah? > Akiva Miller What's the machloket? Doesn't the Rema YD 99:6 clearly hold that that milk is batel in parve? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 14:00:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 17:00:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safeik and Multivalent Logic Message-ID: <20150615210040.GA17358@aishdas.org> Back on Fri, 14 May 2004 10:45am EST (yes, 11 years ago) I wrote on the thread "Valid halachic change" I wrote: > I was at a yarchei (yarei'ach? shavu'ah -- since it was only a > week?) kallah during Elul in Boston where RYBS explicitly said is wasn't. > He also speaks about multivalent logic in halakhah in numorous places > in Ish haHalakhah. From the [yarchei kallah]: > An esrog that was used for the mitzvah is qadosh and assur behana'ah > that entire day. And since it's qadosh bein hashemashos, it's gadosh > part of the next day and therefore assur behan'ah the entire next day. > RYBS asked (as do many) mimanafshach: Either BhS is part of the first > day, and there's an isur hana'ah BhS. But in that case BhS isn't part > of the next day, and on that day han'ah should be mutar. Or, BhS is part > of the 2nd day, and the issur would end BhS! > Rather, for certain sefeiqos both chalosim apply. It's only when the > chalos turns into a pe'ulah that we are forced to choose. > Therefore, one can daven either minchah or ma'ariv BhS. Even switch off > between days. But not both in the same BhS. > This is why a woman who is from safeiq chalal history (Rashi and Tosafos > disagree on details of the case) is called an "almanas issah", the widow > of a dough, a mixture. > This shtims with the teshuvas RAEiger distinguishing kol deparish meiruba > parish and kol kavu'ah kemechtzah al mechtzah. When the question is one > of pasqening on an unknown situation, we follow rov. When one is trying > to resolve a question that arose after the pesaq, rov doesn't apply. > Rov is a non-boolean state, something between yes and no. Therefore, > it does not apply after we've taken the question from the realm of > machshavah to that of ma'aseh. > Also, Rav Tzadoq (Resisei Laylah 17) distringuishes between the logic of > machshavah and that of pe'ulah, saying that when it comes to machshavah, > it's impossible to consider one thing without also considering its > opposite. RThK then develops this idea to explain eilu va'eilu as being > about real plurality. (More on this when I summarize the articles whose > URLs have been posted to the list.) I'm repeating all this because, once again, AhS Yomi showed me that something I thought I understood was more complicated than I realized. AhS OC 638:5 distinguishes between muqtza machmas mitzvah and other forms of muqtza when it comes to migo de'isqatzei bein hashemashos, isqatza'ei lekhulei yoma. And so, sukkah and its decorations (the topic of OC 688) are muqtzah the following day. But beitzah shenoledah beYT rishon is not muqtzah on the next day. So the example RYBS brings of esrog fits this pattern too -- muqtzah machmas mitzvah is muqtzah the day after it's used for the mitzvah. However, RYBS used it to make a general point about the nature of BhS, and I surmized safeiq in general. I don't understand how we can, if even withint the topic of mutqzah we find BhS acting both like a mixture of states and being in one of the two states -- although we don't know which -- depending on the kind of muqtzah we're talking about. Thoughts, anyone? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The Maharal of Prague created a golem, and micha at aishdas.org this was a great wonder. But it is much more http://www.aishdas.org wonderful to transform a corporeal person into a Fax: (270) 514-1507 "mensch"! -Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 14:44:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 17:44:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Worker or Craftsman In-Reply-To: <5579B89C.8060902@sero.name> References: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> <5579B89C.8060902@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150615214430.GA17695@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 12:34:36PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Eruvin 65a: Anan po`alei diy'mamei anan. The context is talmud Torah, and speaks to the fact that when it comes to Torah, it's the amount of learning, not the success at comprehension, that matters most. See also the Me'iri ad loc, who says simply that R' Nachman bar Yitzchaq is saying we should learn the whole day, because that's the only way we'll fully understand. Which alines with R' Zeira's statement, when he was complemented "Mechadedan shema'iskha!" and he replied "diyemama ninhu." I do not think it can be applied to my question -- whether life is a job of "be good as long as you're here", or if we each have a specific task we were put here to accomplish. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Take time, micha at aishdas.org be exact, http://www.aishdas.org unclutter the mind. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 15:01:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 18:01:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] 100% Vegetable oils etc. In-Reply-To: <20150610.215234.27464.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150610.215234.27464.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150615220103.GB17695@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 01:52:34AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : ... I would think that non-kosher flavorings cannot be batel. Bitul : is a mathematical procedure by which we can presume that the non-kosher : ingredient is not noticeable... In fact, the only time the mishnah invokes bitul beshishim is with min bemino, so that you can't tell which of two identically tasting substances one is tasting. (Chullin 7:4-5, Zevachim 8:6) Rava (Chullin 97a-b) says that if a non-Jew can be asked to taste a substance, we rely on their statement, but if not (eg min bemino), then we use batel beshishim. In contrast, Bar Kaparah holds kol issurin shebiTorah is beshishim. Ta'am is just a derabbaanan that doesn't allow us to use the fundamental 1/60 bitul. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you're going through hell micha at aishdas.org keep going. http://www.aishdas.org - Winston Churchill Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 11:20:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 14:20:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> References: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150616182036.GA13263@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 6:34pm EDT, RYK wrote: : 1) You are making the mistake many others are making as well, conflating : chassidim with chassidut. Chassidic life today has very little to do with : original chassidut. Early chassidut was a revolutionary theological : movement which appealed to a small elitist group... I thought Chassidus started out a kiruv movement, designed to bring Judaism to the kind of people Litta's focus on learning left without religion. Like the story of the boy who played his prayers on his flute, or the one who recited the alef beis over and over and begged HQBH to weave them into the right words. But in any case, to get closer to the point I intended to make... ... : 2) Kabbalah and chassidut isn't about warmth and community. It's a highly : sophisticated philosophical system which offers a nuanced alternative : to the Maimonidean/rationalist approach. : While the approach is a-rational, it isn't irrational. I am not sure how you're using "a-rational". Even after your consequent explanation (posted Sun Jun 14, 1:30am EDT): : They offer an a-rationalist approach ("a-rational," not to be : confused with "irrational," they're not the same). They believe because : they chose to believe not-because they are "convinced." What is this a-rational stance that is also highly philosophical and yet not the experiential chassidus of the nostalgic memories with which you opened your blog post? I cannot figure out what you're getting at. Contining the first post: : 3) Finally, I'm not sure I understand your point about the Rambam. The : Rambam says that he believes it is justified to fool and mislead the : masses. That to me is highly problematic. And in the follow-up post he elaborated: : R. Micha, you write "I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle : applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word : in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think : "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." In an introduction to a philosophical book he thought was a bad idea to write that he produced as a necessary evil. Thus the title of the Moreh Nevuchim. It's a tactic he had to reveal the esoteric to those ready for it while keeping it esoteric. Recall, that while we think of Pardes's "sod" as Qabbalah, to him it was more like the Moreh. In the Pesichah the Rambam limits the need of obfuscation to the topics of Maaseh haMerkavah and Maaseh Bereishis. So, after the first 5 chapters of the Yad, the whole discussion in the pesichah and haqdamah of the Moreh wouldn't apply. ... : We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims... Just like I loathe using the word rationalism because it's so vague in meaning as to just add to the confusion, let me add the word "fact". We use it to mean (a) a truth, (b) an empirical/physical truth, (c) a truth established by evidence, (d) an empirical truth established by evidence, and in legal settings: (e) the empirical evidence itself ("let me present the facts of this case"). : We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims. A : faith claim is a religious "belief" not a scientific claim... ... and therefore there is a gap between religious beliefs and scientific claims. Belief is yet another dangerous word. Knowledge is classically (Plato) defined as a justified true belief. In that sense, anything you accept as true is a belief. Other times we use belief in contrast to knowledge. A usage that ends up undermining confidence in something we seem to overtly be claiming is true. After all, if you think it's true, and you think you have real reason to think it's true, why say "believe" rather than "know"? Which gets me back to the point, I hope. You talk about belief in chassidus being an act of will. Personally, I agree with Rihal when he has the chaver note that anything one philosopher can prove, another can prove the opposite. (Kuzari 1:13) Religion isn't amenable to proof, and that's why Scholasticism, the idea of giving religion a philosophical underpinning, lost momentum centuries ago. The reasons why are two-fold: First, negi'os. People cannot really objetively think about these topics. They end up liking proofs of disliking proofs based on where they already decided things should end up. Like one of the truisms in my signature file generator says: The mind is a wonderful organ for justifying decisions the heart already reached. So, whether or not you agree that some postulate is self-evident (Kant: synthetic a priori) and therefore the proof works will depend more on whether you want to believe than actual obviousness. Second, the experiences upon which religious belief gets justified are internal. Questions of whether Shabbos, kashrus, or some of the more elegant outcomes of lomdus statisfy my Search For Meaning (Frankl) is quite a bit more difficult (usually impossible) to duplicate for someone else. Unlike a getting someone else to experience something empirical that you did by repeating a science experiment. But I think chassidic belief, even as per your description of it, is rational rather than an act of will. It's not Scholastic, expecting the kind of proof that would have make R' Saadia Gaon or the Rambam happy, but it is based on deriving a conclusion that fits one's evidence (ie experiences). I would say "rational" but not "rationalist", except that just highlights how many problems we get into throwing around the word "rationalism". This is true about how emunah works whether speaking about why people become BT, go OTD, or even if we're speaking of the Rambam. The Rambam lived in a world that didn't value non-philosophical justification, so he felt that real emunah required Scholasticism. (There was a time, not that long ago, when most people's emunah was backed by Reliabilism. My parents and community have a track record of being reliable sources of truth, so I trust them on this too.) To my mind, the difference is whether someone values the chizuq emunah of affirming that conclusions with that half of the philosophical proofs that end up in the right place. The rationalist does so, thinking that's *why* he believes (despite the Kuzari). Some of us simply enjoy philoosphy or consider such explorations to be part of talmud Torah. And others simply don't need the exercise. : a) doesn't pause to ask if it's "true" they just learn it. "Truth" : isn't a primary orientation of their encounter with toras Ha'shem. B) In : the event that he does pause to ask the "truth" question, his approach : is a-rational and unscientific... Again, if it's taken for granted as being true, truth is still at issue. Moreso, they really don't discuss truth because trueh is a given. It's like water not being the primary orientation of fish. : It truthfully and absolutely : happened in the Torah. It's not denying the claim, it's just ignoring : the scientific objective layer. Because the chasid's yiddishkeit happens : exclusively in the religious realm. Lets plow through the words and just ask outright: A chassid would take it for granted that a time traveler would find the Yam Suf divided into 13 tunnels with everything you might want available to be plucked from the walls. No? You may deprecate the importance of that historical claim to the belief system of Chassidic Judaism. I would agree that chassidim do not consider the historicity important. But the belief is there, and for reasons that speak volumes about the gap between chassidus and MO as a potential target audience. Chassidim have to accept the historicity of this midrashic elaboration of Qerias Yam Suf because maximalism and acceptance of rabbinic authority run much stronger in comparison to confidence in one's own truthometer in chassidus. Part of the value of having a rebbe is to believe he has access to truths I don't. And similarly one's rebbe's rebbes, and so on through Chazal and whomever repeated that medrash. To a community that teaches the value of other sources of knowledge, such as secular historians or other professionals, such maximalism is impossible, and therefore bitul to a rebbe will always be limited. Yes, it would be of value to realize that historical claims are non-central to religion. It makes it much easier to table any questions one might have in those areas as not being important, therefore not very pressing. Things that can wait for an answer rather than being responded to now, with what I know now, or taken as an upshlug. ... : 3) My program has nothing to do with neo-chassidut. NC is a behaviorist : movement with very little philosophical underpinning. I'm proposing a : theological program which also happens to have behavioral implications. I understood this. However, NC is an indication of what elements of chassidus actually were found useful by MO Jews. You're theorizing which elements you thought would in theory be more useful. I am asking about the difference between the two. If your theory were correct about what MO could use, wouldn't the Neo-Chassidim have locked on to those three points? IOW, I know they are different, and some idea as to how -- but why? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Weeds are flowers too micha at aishdas.org once you get to know them. http://www.aishdas.org - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 11:53:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 18:53:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Asking your questions to one authority Message-ID: <45cbca92b332457591636332317a5855@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> I'm looking for sources concerning a requirement or good advice concerning asking all your questions to one authority. According to some commentaries the mishna (actually mentioned twice) in Avot concerning aseih lcha rav points in this direction as does the gemara in eiruvin on not picking all the leniencies of both beit hillel and shammai. OTOH the gemara in avodah zara about not asking 2 rabbis is interpreted as applying only to the particular question at hand. From a Brisker theory angle wouldn't the existence of overarching theoretical constructs argue that all your questions should go to one authority so as to avoid the possible tartei dsatrei on a meta-theory basis (i.e. psak in kashrut case a may share a construct with psak in business case b)? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 13:36:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 16:36:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Asking your questions to one authority In-Reply-To: <45cbca92b332457591636332317a5855@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> References: <45cbca92b332457591636332317a5855@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <558088EA.2070102@sero.name> On 06/16/2015 02:53 PM, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > From a Brisker theory angle wouldn?t the existence of overarching > theoretical constructs argue that all your questions should go to one > authority so as to avoid the possible tartei dsatrei on a meta-theory > basis (i.e. psak in kashrut case a may share a construct with psak in > business case b)? Hilchesa keRav be'isurei vechiShmuel bedinei. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 16:30:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 19:30:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why Chassidut In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150616233048.00B061836ED@nexus.stevens.edu> At 02:20 PM 6/16/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: > From Rav Yehoshua Shapira (my quick translation) > >The idea that Chassidut?s positive atmosphere isn?t obligatory is a >serious mistake. Not only is it obligatory, but it brings with it more >obligations. Without emphasis on the Mitzvot of ahava and yirah, simcha >and deveikut (which are the soul of the 613 mitzvot) the mitzvot remain >external actions, technical, something which doesn?t affect or uplift >the heart and soul. > >Those doreitta mitzvot, which are the pinimiot of all mitzvoth, demand >from a person and from us to give their entire being when doing a >mitzvah. . . .. In the performance of mitzvoth, God wants our hearts. >Therefore, Chassidut definitely demands deep dedication. > The following is from Rav Dr. Y. Breuer's Essay "Our Way" that appears in the collection of Rav Breuer's essays titled A Unique Perspective. One should not confuse Chassidus with the so-called Chassidic movement that began in Poland in the 18th century. The latter met the needs of the Jewish masses who lived in terrible misery, and thus spread rapidly. Tefillah was projected into the foreground, from which flowed strength and faith in God; dances and songs induced enthusiasm and joyfulness; the stress on human and hu- mane qualities increased the self-respect of the impoverished. Thus, without a doubt, Chassidism saved these Jewish masses. However, the resulting frequent neglect of Torah study led to justified protest by Torah giants and caused a regrettable inner rift, which was subsequently healed when a great Chassidic leader returned the study of Torah to its rightful central position. Genuine Chassidic Jewishness strives for Chassidus, which in itself is a lofty achievement on the ethical ladder which the Yehudi must attempt to climb. This is demonstrated for us by R. Pinchas ben Yair (Avodah Zarah 20b): Our highest duty is Torah and its study; this leads to carefulness which in turn leads to active striving; to guiltlessness; to purity; to holiness; to modesty; to the fear of sin; and, finally, to Chassidus. Accordingly, a Chassid is a Jew who gives himself in limitless love to the Divine Will and its realization, and to whom the welfare of his fellowmen constitutes the highest source of satisfaction (see Chorev, Ch. 14). Thus, in the Talmudic era, the title ?Chassid? was a mark of highest distinction ? and this is what it should be today. The so-called Chassid who confines his Avodah to prayer does not deserve this title, as this ?Avodah of the heart? does not call him to the Avodah of life where he must practice and apply the precepts of Chassidus. He does not deserve this title if he is particular regarding the kashrus of his food but fails to apply the precepts of conscientiousness and honesty to his business dealings. He does not deserve this title if his social life is not permeated by love and deep interest in the welfare of his fellowmen; if he does not shun quarreling, envy or even abominable lashon harah; if he does not earnestly strive to acquire those midos for which Rav Hirsch (in his Chorev) calls so eloquently. Certainly the mere exhibition of a certain type of clothing or the type of beard worn or even the adornment of long sideburns does not entitle the bearer to the title of honor?Chassid. These may be marks of distinction ? but they must be earned to be deserved. Even study of the Zohar does not necessarily signify the attainment of Chassidus. If this were so, only a few chosen ones would be eligible. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 23:03:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2015 09:03:25 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] If and When In-Reply-To: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 5:00 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > Please note: In the excerpt of the Mechilta which the Torah Temimah quotes > regarding the mizbe'ach, R' Yishmael says that there are 3 cases where "im" > is not optional, but the other two are not specified. This is very > different than the Torah Temimah about lending money. > > Torah Temimah Shmos 22:198 does quotes R' Yishmael in the Mechilta, but it > doesn't mention the word "im" explicitly, nor is there any reference to two > other cases. He simply asks whether it is a reshus or a chovah to lend > money, and he answers that the obligation appears in Parshas Re'eh. I find > it curious that this Mechilta is worded so differently than the previous > one, but the message is clearly the same. You see this quite often in the Torah Temima when a derasha says something about a number of pesukim in parallel. He quotes the same source in each place, but redacts it so that it appears to be referencing only that specific verse. An example in last week's parasha is the Yerushalmi that all 10 commandments are referenced in Kiryat Shma`, quoted on 15:39 and 41 (OK, not such a close parallel because in that case he does make the cross-reference and quotes the whole passage on Shemot 20:2, but there are plenty of other examples) In any case, inside the Mechilta on both verses in Shemot all three "im"s are listed each time, including bikkurim. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=38109&st=&pgnum=245 http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=38109&st=&pgnum=317 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 17 02:14:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2015 05:14:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Talks by Rav Shimon Schwab, ZT"L Message-ID: <20150617091410.A8547183759@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://torahdownloads.com/shiur-24386.html YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 17 04:00:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2015 07:00:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] =?iso-8859-1?q?Soul_Terminology=2C_and_Expressions_of_Lo?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ve=3A_Proper_Frum_Expression_In_The_Lens_of_the_Ashkenaz_T?= =?iso-8859-1?q?radition_=96_Gleanings__From_Rav_Shimon_Schwab?= Message-ID: <20150617110051.2F7B9183762@nexus.stevens.edu> Please see http://tinyurl.com/q64ehha YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 18 06:50:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2015 09:50:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Ishbaal's Jar Message-ID: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> According to TOI or , discusses finding a jar that dates to around 1020-980 BCE (Iron Age), breating the name the name of Ishbaal ben Beda. Ishbaal is Divrei HaYamim's name for the son of Shaul whom seifer Shemuel calls Ishboshet. (Probably because bearing the name of Baal is a bushah.) Allegedly "Among Judeans, personal names evoking Baal fell out of fashion after the 10th century, but not so among their Israelite cousins to the north." Lisa, does any of this relate to strengthening or weakening the case for revisionist dating? (Newcomers might wish to see the Jewish Action article Lisa has on her site at to understand why I asked.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person must be very patient micha at aishdas.org even with himself. http://www.aishdas.org - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 18 07:43:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2015 17:43:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Ishbaal's Jar In-Reply-To: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> References: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 4:50 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > According to TOI < > http://www.timesofisrael.com/inscription-bearing-name-from-davidic-era-found-at-ancient-site > > > or , discusses finding a jar that dates to around > 1020-980 BCE (Iron Age), breating the name the name of Ishbaal ben Beda. > See also http://bit.ly/1F2HFD9 (= https://www.academia.edu/12775087/The_%CA%BEI%C5%A1ba%CA%BFal_Inscription_from_Khirbet_Qeiyafa) for a more detailed excavation report. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 19 11:46:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 13:46:46 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Ishbaal's Jar In-Reply-To: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> References: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55846396.5000207@starways.net> On 6/18/2015 8:50 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > According to TOI > or , discusses finding a jar that dates to around > 1020-980 BCE (Iron Age), breating the name the name of Ishbaal ben Beda. > > Ishbaal is Divrei HaYamim's name for the son of Shaul whom seifer > Shemuel calls Ishboshet. (Probably because bearing the name of Baal > is a bushah.) The standard form for names in most of the ancient near east was DN-stem, or stem-DN, where DN is a divine name. We have this pattern ourselves with names like Chizki-Yahu and N'tan-El, or El-Chanan and Yeho-natan. From what I've seen, it wasn't unheard of for people to refer to the same person, but exchange the DN. So Ish-Boshet for Ish-Baal is in line with Hado-Ram (I Chron 18:10) for Yo-Ram (II Sam 8:10), or Hado-Ram (II Sam 20:24, I Kings 12:18, II Chron 10:18) for Adoni-Ram (I Kings 4:6, 5:28). I don't see any indication that this pattern of name was different towards the beginning or towards the end of the monarchy. That said, Baal in particular sort of declined after the time of Eliyahu. They had newer avodah zarahs to play with. I don't really see a lot of chronological significance here. Yes, they did some radiometric dating, but as always, I would take that with grain of salt until I saw the raw results. When you send something for carbon dating, you tell them first what your target date is, so that they can discard results that are off from that too significantly. Not very scientific, but I guess it's "science-y". Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 19 13:38:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 16:38:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Soul Terminology, and Expressions of Love: Proper Frum Expression In The Lens of the Ashkenaz Tradition ? Gleanings From Rav Shimon Schwab In-Reply-To: <20150617110051.2F7B9183762@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150617110051.2F7B9183762@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150619203804.GA23818@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 17, 2015 at 07:00:53AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Please see http://tinyurl.com/q64ehha On the second example, I'm reminded of the Soloveitchik tradition that emotions are the Qodesh haQadashim of avodas Hashem. And therefore while RSSschwab's position was depited as: > Nowadays one at times witnesses public statements, in the form of songs, > declarations, and even bumper stickers, proclaiming [HQBH anachnu ohavim > Osakh!] (Hashem, we love you), an expression that was not commonly heard > shouted aloud in the past in our circles. Is that in consonance with our > [Mesorah]? Rav Schwab (in his address entitled Internalizing Eternity) > states the following (after 33:20) Since Ahavas Hashem is such a strictly > personal matter, he who truly loves Hashem does not show his [Ahavah]. He > rather hides it. It is far too intimate to parade it in public. He is > mekayeim [vehatzneia lekhes im E-lokekha]. It is exclusively his private > affair, between him and his Creator. Briskers would not expose any emotion. And so, when RYBS left for Berlin, R' Moshe took him to the train station, but there was no emotional goodbye. Even though RMF didn't know if he would ever see his son (and chavrusah) again. RYBS said he knew his father's feelings at the moment, he just knew that he would never display it publicly. Just a simple "Leikh leshalom HQBH zul dir matzliach zein!" Story told far better, in RYBS's own words here In any case, the Brisker approach doesn't speak to too many people in this generation. I would bet many of us would consider it less-than-positive. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger One who kills his inclination is as though he micha at aishdas.org brought an offering. But to bring an offering, http://www.aishdas.org you must know where to slaughter and what Fax: (270) 514-1507 parts to offer. - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 22 06:53:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2015 09:53:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kuntros chasidei umos haolam Message-ID: <0ce401d0acf2$c108d8f0$431a8ad0$@com> The was once a link posted here to a Kuntros chasidei umos haolam (In hebrew) from a Rav in south Africa (I think he was an Ohr Samach graduate) Does anyone have it or a link to it? Thanks, mc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 22 14:32:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2015 17:32:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Two Levels of Bitachon Message-ID: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is from Rav Schwab on Chumash Parshas Shelach. We suggest the following explanation: Hashem demands bitachon of every Jew - trust in Hashem that everything will turn out for the best, without worrying about what the future might bring. Throughout the generations, devout Jews have walked this path. A person with bitachon ultimately will merit to see clearly that, indeed, "All that Hashem does is for the best." There are two types of bitachon. The first is trusting in Hashem with "closed eyes," with no speculation about what may develop. However, there is a second kind of bitachon that is even greater than the first. This is the bitachon of "open eyes." One who follows this path looks ahead and sees clearly that the future might entail great danger, that his life may be full of trials and tribulations. Nevertheless, he does not hesitate, relying on Hashem to help him deal with whatever the future will hold. This kind of bitachon is greater than the first, because someone who trusts in :Hashem with "open eyes" must elevate his bitachon to a much higher level in order to overcome his worries and quiet his concerns. However, as great as this second path is, it is fraught with danger. There is a strong possibility that instead of overcoming one's fears and worries, one will be vanquished by them. A "realistic" evaluation of the challenges could be so frightening as to cause one to lose his bitachon in Hashem altogether. Therefore, :although the bitachon of "open eyes" might be appropriate for certain great people, Hashem does not demand it of us. Hashem only requires us to have the bitachon of "closed eyes"; we need only trust that everything will turn out for the best, in accordance with His will, without considering what the future might hold. This is implied in the pasuk (Yeshayahu 12:2), 11) Behold the G-d of salvation; I shall trust in Him, and I will not fear. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 12:26:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 21:26:11 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Two Levels of Bitachon In-Reply-To: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <5589B2D3.5030908@zahav.net.il> I'm not sure what this is in reference to, the sin of the spies? What does it mean, to live ones life without worrying about the future? You trust in God so therefore you're calm (meaning you live your life the same way anyone else does, but you have inner peace)? Ben On 6/22/2015 11:32 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > We suggest the following explanation: Hashem demands bitachon of every > Jew - trust > in Hashem that everything will turn out for the best, without worrying > about > what the future might bring. Throughout the generations, devout Jews > have walked > this path. A person with bitachon ultimately will merit to see clearly > that, indeed, > "All that Hashem does is for the best." From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 14:34:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 17:34:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Two Levels of Bitachon In-Reply-To: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150623213434.GA30077@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 22, 2015 at 05:32:42PM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : The following is from Rav Schwab on Chumash Parshas Shelach. ... : There are two types of bitachon. The first is trusting in Hashem with "closed : eyes," with no speculation about what may develop. However, there is : a second kind : of bitachon that is even greater than the first. This is the : bitachon of "open eyes." : One who follows this path looks ahead and sees clearly that the : future might entail : great danger, that his life may be full of trials and tribulations. : Nevertheless, he : does not hesitate, relying on Hashem to help him deal with whatever : the future will : hold... I just want to point out that RSS here is assuming the descriptive bitachon of the CI, not the prescrictive bitachon of Novhardok (and many kiruv programs and religious fiction). The Alter of Novhardok taught that bitachon causes positive results. If you trust G-d enough, He will make things turn out the way you desire. And when you point out to said public speaker that indeed life doesn't work that way this idea gets modified into: Hashem will make things turn out the way you'll be happy with once you get to the end of the road. And while I'm being cynical about it, this is unassailable. If things don't yet have a happy ending, it just means the story isn't over yet. You can just push the long run out further and further until you find the happy outcome you promised. In Emunah uBitchon, the CI rejects this notion. He says that bitachon is belief that things are working out according to Divine Plan. A believe in how things run, not a belief that causes things to run right. Rather than the comfort of knowing that you'll like the results, one aims for the comfort that all of life's suffering has meaning and a purpose. RSS presumes the latter and appears to be saying that one can then take this trust in two different ways: - Since Hashem is driving, I don't need to bother looking out the windsheild, it will just stress me out for nothing. - Hashem and I are in partnership, so I cannot refrain from helping Him bring us to our destination, even when it involves heading for trials and tribulations. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is a stage and we are the actors, micha at aishdas.org but only some of us have the script. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Menachem Nissel Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 15:56:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Toby Katz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 18:56:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book Message-ID: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> I recently came across the issue of Jewish Action (the OU's quarterly magazine) of Fall 2000 and in that issue there was a remarkable article. It was a review of a two-volume book called *The Rav: The World of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik* by Rabbi Dr. Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff. The review article was written by R' Philip Weinberger. It was a very laudatory review, written by someone who admired and respected RYBS and who thought the book was excellent. It's important to note that he respected RYBS and admired the book, because when you see what I am going to quote from the review, you might think otherwise. But if you read the whole review you will clearly see that what looks like a negative to me is clearly seen as a positive by R' Weinberger. http://ou.org.s3.amazonaws.com/publications/ja/5761fall/BOOKS.PDF OK here goes -- the most interesting parts of the review (I have mostly dispensed with ellipses, which are distracting): --quote-- [The book] focused my attention on a paradox that confronts me every time a new book or article appears about the saintly Rabbi Soloveitchik, zt"l. In the latter part of the twentieth century, the Rav was one of the most outstanding rabbinic titans, teaching and leading the Jewish people. A master of communication, orally and in print, he left behind multitudes of devoted students and admirers who still hang on his every word. Yet the Rav seems to have left a legacy that is unclear and misunderstood, despite his gifted powers of communication. Among the numerous questions, debated passionately by those who represent themselves as knowing the Rav's authentic thinking, are: What was the Rav's view toward secular education; Torah u'Madda; new religious practices by women; reciting Hallel on Yom HaAtzma'ut; and Religious Zionism? There is a raging battle among his followers as to who may legitimately and authentically present the Rav's opinions, thoughts, ideas and teachings. How could so careful a teacher, who could literally spend hours at a time in shiurim defining with precision the meaning of a particular word or phrase, be misunderstood on so many basic and critical issues? The Rav himself, despite his best efforts, was misunderstood and misquoted in his lifetime by able people who presumably had the best of intentions. The Rav illustrates that he was misunderstood by journalists because of their lack of familiarity with the Rav's precise use of language and terminology, and because the Rav's thoughts, ideas and speech were extraordinarily nuanced, delicate, subtle and sophisticated. However, the book falls short, even on its own terms, in its failure to more deeply explore the complexity and nuances of the Rav's thoughts and insights that were influenced by the religious, existential, and personal tensions that the Rav experienced and talked about. Similarly, the book does not treat much of the controversy that sometimes surrounded the Rav in a meaningful way. There is no acknowledgment of how the Rav was inappropriately treated and often marginalized in the yeshivah universe because of his embracing secular studies and Religious Zionism (albeit in a disciplined and highly nuanced manner)... in a letter to Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Shragai, the Rav writes : "If I were to judge this matter (which party to associate with) based on pragmatic or political considerations, I would join the zealots who ask nothing of their members (not diligence in Torah study, not pure fear of Heaven, nor spending money on tzedakah, nor excessive care with regard to mitzvot) except to besmirch our movement. I could clothe myself with the mantle of a tzaddik and 'fighter of the Lord's battles.' " This and other letters to Rabbi Shragai show clearly what a man of principle the Rav was. ...Scholars and laymen alike are indebted to Rabbi Rakeffet for his vital work. --end quote-- Well, you can see why this review would interest me. Let's take a few points: [1] "The Rav seems to have left a legacy that is unclear and misunderstood, despite his gifted powers of communication." I would suggest that the end of the sentence is contradicted by the beginning of the sentence. The main thing that the Rav generally managed to communicate was that one could be a great Torah scholar and also be a brilliant intellectual in secular terms. This was not the text but the ur-text of much of what he wrote. I will add that he did this not for his own honor but for the honor of the Torah, which was often treated with contempt by mid-twentieth century Jews who were rapidly abandoning the Torah. But his opaque Germanic philosophical style of speaking and writing was by its very nature open to multiple interpretations, and could neither be summarized nor re-written in plain American English. [2] "Among the numerous questions, debated passionately by those who represent themselves as knowing the Rav's authentic thinking, are: What was the Rav's view toward secular education; Torah u'Madda; new religious practices by women; reciting Hallel on Yom HaAtzma'ut; and Religious Zionism?" I would have to say that this is a highly unusual thing to say of any gadol. Of which other gadol could it be said that after he taught and wrote for decades, no one could be sure what his position was on the most important issues of his day? [2A] "What was the Rav's view toward Religious Zionism?" and "his embracing Religious Zionism (albeit in a disciplined and highly nuanced manner)..." Those of us who have claimed (based admittedly, at times, on anecdotal evidence and oral reports) that RYBS was not really a Zionist have often been vilified. Yet here a great admirer of RYBS admits that his views were far from obvious, and subject to much disagreement even among his followers. That RYBS was a great lover of Eretz Yisrael -- of that there can be no doubt. That he really believed in the whole aschalta de'geulah ideology of RZ -- highly doubtful. The rest can be left for another time, or another book. [3] "How could so careful a teacher, who could literally spend hours at a time in shiurim defining with precision the meaning of a particular word or phrase, be misunderstood on so many basic and critical issues?" It may be that in a Gemara shiur, trying to define a word with great precision may lead to greater understanding, but out here in the larger world, such precise definitions tend to leave most people scratching their heads. Common everyday words lose their accepted, common meanings, and the many sentences used to define those words lead to greater obscurity rather than clarity. "When I use a word, it means precisely what I want it to mean." But his listeners or readers are often left in the dark. [4] "The Rav was misunderstood...because his thoughts, ideas and speech were extraordinarily nuanced, delicate, subtle and sophisticated." The impression left by all that subtlety and nuance is that he was trying to avoid saying anything controversial that could be quoted in a sound bite. [5] "There is no acknowledgment of how the Rav was inappropriately treated and often marginalized in the yeshivah universe" [6] "...the zealots who ask nothing of their members (not diligence in Torah study, not pure fear of Heaven, nor spending money on tzedakah, nor excessive care with regard to mitzvot) except to besmirch our movement. I could clothe myself with the mantle of a tzaddik and 'fighter of the Lord's battles...' " Maybe [6] at least partially explains [5]. Maybe the way he felt about them was reflected in the way they felt about him. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 17:52:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 00:52:25 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> References: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> Message-ID: Let's take a few points: [1] "The Rav seems to have left a legacy that is unclear and misunderstood, despite his gifted powers of communication." I would suggest that the end of the sentence is contradicted by the beginning of the sentence. [2] "Among the numerous questions, debated passionately by those who represent themselves as knowing the Rav's authentic thinking, are: What was the Rav's view toward secular education; Torah u'Madda; new religious practices by women; reciting Hallel on Yom HaAtzma'ut; and Religious Zionism?" [2A] "What was the Rav's view toward Religious Zionism?" and "his embracing Religious Zionism (albeit in a disciplined and highly nuanced manner)..." [3] "How could so careful a teacher, who could literally spend hours at a time in shiurim defining with precision the meaning of a particular word or phrase, be misunderstood on so many basic and critical issues?" [4] "The Rav was misunderstood...because his thoughts, ideas and speech were extraordinarily nuanced, delicate, subtle and sophisticated." The impression left by all that subtlety and nuance is that he was trying to avoid saying anything controversial that could be quoted in a sound bite. [5] "There is no acknowledgment of how the Rav was inappropriately treated and often marginalized in the yeshivah universe" [6] "...the zealots who ask nothing of their members (not diligence in Torah study, not pure fear of Heaven, nor spending money on tzedakah, nor excessive care with regard to mitzvot) except to besmirch our movement. I could clothe myself with the mantle of a tzaddik and 'fighter of the Lord's battles...' " Maybe [6] at least partially explains [5]. Maybe the way he felt about them was reflected in the way they felt about him. _______________________________________________ I remember reading the original review and being very surprised. [1]&[2]&[3] My general impression is that most of the lack of clarity and misunderstandings are on issues that have little to do with the style issue. I don't think many get concerned about whether Adam I and II ever resolve their dialectic . The main cause of misunderstandings imho can be generously stated as being caused by The Rav's being so sui generis that students could not assimilate the whole of his teachings. The less generous approach would be that some want to be toleh on an ilan gadol and project their own priorities and approaches on him. Could anyone who looked at his life as a whole have any doubt that he valued secular studies? That he was a non-messianic RZ lover of eretz Yisrael seems pretty clear. [4]Or how about the world is complex and our desire (btw very reflective of our host society) is to boil everything down to a sound bite goes against the educational need to understand how to look at complex issues [6]explaining [5] seems to me like the classic blaming the victim for "asking for it". I can only assume the fact that other roshei yeshiva didn't publically call for tolerance was that they did think he, and MO, was krum or they had higher priorities or didn't think their talmidim would listen to them. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 18:07:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 21:07:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: References: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> Message-ID: <20150624010730.GA18745@aishdas.org> Both Ishbitz and Chabad, Rushin and Satmar each beleive theirs is the most accurate understanding of Derekh haBhesh"t. Kelm, Novhardok and Slabodka have very different understandings of R Yisrael Salanter's teachings. RAYK's disagree over what their rebbe meant. Even Moshe Rabbeinu -- he had 70 front-row talmidim and ever since we have had 70 panim laTorah. Any gadol brilliant and subtle enough to be worth following will so outstrip his talmidim that each only grasps onto one facet and interpretation of a more complex original. This is far from unique to RYBS. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you're going through hell micha at aishdas.org keep going. http://www.aishdas.org - Winston Churchill Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 19:01:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 22:01:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: <20150624010730.GA18745@aishdas.org> References: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> <20150624010730.GA18745@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <558A0F65.7090501@sero.name> On 06/23/2015 09:07 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Both Ishbitz and Chabad, Rushin and Satmar each beleive theirs is the > most accurate understanding of Derekh haBhesh"t. Satmar doesn't believe this; rather, it believes that the BSh"T's torah has been lost. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 19:21:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 22:21:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kol Isha Twist Message-ID: <558A1421.3060009@gmail.com> See http://www.kikar.co.il/174128.html or http://www.totpi.com/2/ultra-orthodox-woman-performs-incognito-on-the-x-factor/ It's an interesting loophole: Since kol b'isha erva only applies when you know what a woman looks like, the heavy sunglasses and very modest dress may do the trick. Not middas chassidus, but perhaps on a technicality permitted. KT, YGB -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 07:35:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 10:35:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kol Isha Twist In-Reply-To: <558A1421.3060009@gmail.com> References: <558A1421.3060009@gmail.com> Message-ID: <558AC044.2010107@sero.name> On 06/23/2015 10:21 PM, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah wrote: > > It's an interesting loophole: Since kol b'isha erva only applies when > you know what a woman looks like, the heavy sunglasses and very > modest dress may do the trick. Not middas chassidus, but perhaps on a > technicality permitted. I don't see anything in the two linked articles about such a loophole. And I don't think it would work. Surely you can see enough of her to form some idea, perhaps mistaken, but enough for the yetzer hara to work with. I think the true heter for what she's doing is a lot simpler: she is not machshil anyone, because whoever is watching the show is already seeing and hearing enough women sing that one more makes no difference at all. If she didn't sing, then in all likelihood another woman would do so, wearing much less and acting more provocatively; or else a man would be giving some provocative performance that would be almost as bad. So really what has she done wrong? Those who don't normally watch should continue not to watch, and they won't be affected. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 08:33:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kaganoff via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 11:33:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating Message-ID: I am curious if anyone has written about a common practice. We assume that *Kaddish* is a *Devar she-Bikdusha* and requires a *minyan* to be recited. We require separate seating for a *Devar she-Bikdusha.* In many circles it is not uncommon to have a *siyyum* with a *kaddish *at a Bar Mitzvah or a Dinner even when there is mixed seating. Does anyone explicitly discuss this practice and permit it? Yonatan Kaganoff -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 11:38:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 14:38:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150624183849.GA2711@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 11:33:54AM -0400, Kaganoff via Avodah wrote: : We require separate seating for a *Devar she-Bikdusha.* This is news to me. Do those who say that zimmun with a minyan is a davar shebiqdushah (BY OC 199 "umah shekasav", MB s"q 15) require separate seating at my shabbos table? The AhS (200:6) refers to zimun with 10 as "shekhinta sharia", but I didn't see him mention minyan or davar shebiqdushah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 11:52:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 14:52:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating Message-ID: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> From: Kaganoff via Avodah We assume that *Kaddish* is a *Devar she-Bikdusha* and requires a *minyan* to be recited. We require separate seating for a *Devar she-Bikdusha.* In many circles it is not uncommon to have a *siyyum* with a *kaddish *at a Bar Mitzvah or a Dinner even when there is mixed seating. Does anyone explicitly discuss this practice and permit it? Yonatan Kaganoff >>>> You see something similar when people make an ad hoc minyan at a wedding (or an airport lounge). They don't put up a mechitza. Is this situation explicitly discussed in the halachic literature? It must be. Maybe what applies to one also applies to the other. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 12:32:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 15:32:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating In-Reply-To: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> References: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> Message-ID: <20150624193208.GA22316@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 2:52pm EDT, RnTK wrote: : From: Kaganoff via Avodah :> We assume that Kaddish is a Devar she-Bikdusha and requires a minyan :> to be recited. :> We require separate seating for a Devar she-Bikdusha. : You see something similar when people make an ad hoc minyan at a wedding : (or an airport lounge). They don't put up a mechitza... Slight topic change. You can have separate seating (or locations in general) without a mechitzah. I believe that minyanim were held at the kotel even when the Ottomans didn't let us put up a mechitzah by separating the genders even without one. I see R YH Henkin (Responsa on Contemporary Jewish Women's Issues, pg 124 ) rejects the hava amina that mechitzah is only for an established shul. He requires a mechitzah, not just separate seating at a temporary location for davening. While a minyan is there, the laws of mara miqdash apply. I do not whether he would advised the yishuv hayashan not to daven at the kotel. Tir'u baTov! -Micha Cc: RYHH -- Micha Berger The trick is learning to be passionate in one's micha at aishdas.org ideals, but compassionate to one's peers. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 12:21:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 19:21:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating In-Reply-To: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> References: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> Message-ID: <9d095a46ac044dd88d591c13b05195d1@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Yonatan Kaganoff >>>> You see something similar when people make an ad hoc minyan at a wedding (or an airport lounge). They don't put up a mechitza. Is this situation explicitly discussed in the halachic literature? It must be. Maybe what applies to one also applies to the other. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=922&st=&pgnum=66 where R' Moshe deals with the Mechitza issue but still requires that there not be intermingling. That's the part I'm unsure of. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 16:34:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 19:34:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safeik and Multivalent Logic In-Reply-To: <20150615210040.GA17358@aishdas.org> References: <20150615210040.GA17358@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150624233428.GA29242@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 15, 2015 at 05:00:40PM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : Back on Fri, 14 May 2004 10:45am EST (yes, 11 years ago) I wrote : on the thread : "Valid halachic change" I wrote: :> I was at a yarchei ... kallah during Elul in Boston where RYBS... :> An esrog that was used for the mitzvah is qadosh and assur behana'ah :> that entire day. And since it's qadosh bein hashemashos, it's gadosh :> part of the next day and therefore assur behan'ah the entire next day. ... :> Rov is a non-boolean state, something between yes and no. Therefore, :> it does not apply after we've taken the question from the realm of :> machshavah to that of ma'aseh. : I'm repeating all this because, once again, AhS Yomi showed me that : something I thought I understood was more complicated than I realized. : AhS OC 638:5 distinguishes between muqtza machmas : mitzvah and other forms of muqtza when it comes to migo de'isqatzei bein : hashemashos, isqatza'ei lekhulei yoma. : And so, sukkah and its decorations (the topic of OC 688) are muqtzah the : following day. But beitzah shenoledah beYT rishon is not muqtzah on the : next day. More info at AhS OC 667:1, which distinguishes between sukkah and 4 minim on Shemini Atzeres. Because sukkah would actually be used bein hashmeshos between the 7th day Sukkos and SA (speaking of EY now), a sukkah and its decorations are muqtzah on SA. The esrog, because the mitzvah would habe been done before BhS either way, is not. It would seem the point in 638:5 appears not to be that mutzah machamas mitzvah is special, but because the mitzvah would still apply BhS. : Thoughts, anyone? Still looking for other perspectives! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 25 02:54:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 09:54:58 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book Message-ID: <20150625.055458.3550.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Even Moshe Rabbeinu -- he had 70 front-row talmidim and ever since > we have had 70 panim laTorah. > > Any gadol brilliant and subtle enough to be worth following will > so outstrip his talmidim that each only grasps onto one facet and > interpretation of a more complex original. > > This is far from unique to RYBS. Here's my guess about what made RYBS unique in this regard: On the one hand, he did have his opinions about many things. But that was NOT what he tried to pass on to his talmidim. In fact, he is famous for NOT answering many of the questions posed to him. What RYBS wanted was for his talmidim to be able to decide for themselves. He never wanted to teach his talmidim WHAT to think, but HOW to think. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Buffett???s Warning for YOU 4 in 5 Americans aren???t taking his shocking advice. Click here now. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/558bd00ca32f7500c77efst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 25 08:10:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 11:10:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: <20150625.055458.3550.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150625.055458.3550.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150625151002.GD10708@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 25, 2015 at 09:54:58AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: :> This is far from unique to RYBS. : Here's my guess about what made RYBS unique in this regard: On the : one hand, he did have his opinions about many things. But that was NOT : what he tried to pass on to his talmidim. In fact, he is famous for NOT : answering many of the questions posed to him. What RYBS wanted was for : his talmidim to be able to decide for themselves. He never wanted to : teach his talmidim WHAT to think, but HOW to think. I realize that this is about to get meta, because I'm about to disagree with RAM about RYBS's position and why people disagree about what it was. I thin this is overplayed. Yes, he pushed fledgling rabbis to assert themselves as LOR and not defer every halachic question. But he didn't do this with every talmid, nor with every question. I think people are taking a pedagogic technique used for talmidim to scared to pasqen and turning it into a principle. Im kein ein ladavar sof, and there is no way to say he took positions for anyone but himself and his mispalelim in Boston and Moriah. No Qol Dodi Dofeiq promoting Zionism, no attack on RERackman's beis din, etc... And besides, we aren't talking about whether his talmidim vary, but why the talmidim's understandings of the rebbe's position varied. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Never must we think that the Jewish element micha at aishdas.org in us could exist without the human element http://www.aishdas.org or vice versa. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 25 08:56:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 15:56:25 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Hakarat Hatov Message-ID: Does Hakarat Hatov engender a measurable "liability" (e.g. require a marginally greater action) between the recipient and the provider of the "Tov", or is saying "Thank you, I appreciate it" the only requirement? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 26 01:19:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2015 11:19:39 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book Message-ID: <> In addition like many others RYBS gave different answers to different people depending on the person and circumstances. As a simple example he encouraged his talmidim to move to EY but told some to stay in the US. Also RYBS was big believer in everyone making their own decisions and not simply doing what they were told. Hence, he avoided certain statements so that his talmidim would make up their own minds. It is well known that all the children of RYBS got a PhD. Even his nephew R Meiselman the most charedi in the family received this degree from MIT. Nevertheless he never publically stressed this idea probably because he felt it was a very individual decision -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 27 19:37:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2015 22:37:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government Message-ID: Gut voch to all, What alternative texts exist for the tefillah l'shlom malchus? I have heard that other versions exist, perhaps more suited for a Republic than is "Hanosen teshua la-melachim", but the only version I could find comes from a Conservative source -- putting me in the same situation as R' Eliezer ben Hyrcanus upon hearing a good "vort" in the name of Ben Pandera. Can anyone point me to appropriate sources? --Chesky Salomon From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 27 20:29:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2015 23:29:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: An hour or so ago, I wrote: > What alternative texts exist for the tefillah l'shlom malchus? I remember this topic coming up in the past, though I have not been successful in searching the archives for it. I did find an article by Dr Jonathan Sarna, "A Forgotten 19th-Century Prayer for the United States Government: Its Meaning, Significance, and Surprising Author" [1] which pointed to the "Orthodox prayerbook for American Jews entitled Tefilot Yisra'el. Prayers of Israel. with an English Translation." The variant text Sarna discusses, "Ribbon kol ha-olamim", can be seen at -- but he makes the case that the prayer's author was Rabbi Max Lilienthal, leaving me in the same position as before. (As a side note: I recall one of the J-blogs mentioning a Tefillah for the State written for 1930s Germany under the Nazi government, but I cannot find the post again. Any help?) --Chesky Salomon [1]: http://www.brandeis.edu/hornstein/sarna/americanjewishcultureandscholarship/Archive3/AForgottenNineteenthCenturyPrayerfortheUnitedStatesGovenment.pdf From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 29 05:29:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mordechai Harris via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2015 07:29:07 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Here's the one I shard last time from the De Sola Pool Siddur. -Mordechai - Please excuse typos as this was sent from my cell phone. On Jun 28, 2015 2:59 PM, "Chesky Salomon via Avodah" wrote: > An hour or so ago, I wrote: >> What alternative texts exist for the tefillah l'shlom malchus? > I remember this topic coming up in the past, though I have not been > successful in searching the archives for it... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 29 15:15:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 01:15:23 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jun 29, 2015 at 3:29 PM, Mordechai Harris via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > Here's the one I shard last time from the De Sola Pool Siddur. > > Can you also share the publication details and/or title page of this siddur? What I know as the De Sola Pool Siddur is not the same as in this link. I have the second edition of 1977, and the title page says: BOOK OF PRAYER ACCORDING TO THE CUSTOM OF THE SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE JEWS Edited and translated by DAVID DE SOLA POOL Minister of the Congregation Shearith Israel in the City of New York PUBLISHED BY THE UNION OF SEPHARDIC CONGREGATIONS NEW YORK The prayer for the government begins with the usual "Hanoten teshu`a lamelachim" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 11:55:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Arie Folger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 20:55:34 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government Message-ID: Someone asked about alternate texts of the prayer for the government, more attuned to democracies. I have adapted the classic hanoten teshuah lamelakhim for the US, with variant readings for Canada, for inclusion in the still forthcoming new revised RCA Siddur. Send me a message through my web site (see the sig) and I will gladly share that text with you. -- Yours sincerely, Mit freundlichen Gr??en, Arie Folger blogging at http://www.rabbifolger.net/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 10:22:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Baruch Cohen via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 10:22:13 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] BIRCHAT KOHANIM AT THE KOTEL Message-ID: I plan on being in Israel for Sukkot, and hope to be at the Kotel for Birchat Kohanim. I usually daven early every morning, and the Birchat Kohanim occurs later in the morning. My question is: do I have a Chiyuv to "duchen" if I'm in the audience and the Shaliach Tzibbur announces on the loudspeaker the word: "Kohanim!" Does that trigger a halachic obligation for me to duchen, even if I am in the audience, in the back of the crowd? -- Respectfully, Baruch C. Cohen, Esq. e-mail: BCC4929 at gmail.com LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/baruchcohen From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 12:06:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 15:06:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] BIRCHAT KOHANIM AT THE KOTEL In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5592E8B9.5020201@sero.name> On 06/30/2015 01:22 PM, Baruch Cohen via Avodah wrote: > I usually daven early every morning, and the Birchat > Kohanim occurs later in the morning. My question is: do I have a Chiyuv to > "duchen" if I'm in the audience and the Shaliach Tzibbur announces on the > loudspeaker the word: "Kohanim!" Does that trigger a halachic obligation > for me to duchen No. If you have already duchened that day, you have no further chiyuv, even if you hear the chazan, and even if someone directly tells you to go up. However if you *choose* to duchen for a second (or third, etc) time that day, you may do so with a bracha. (SA OC 128:3) [Email #2. -micha] PS: This applies also in an ordinary shul where they duchen at shachris and musaf. Any cohen who duchened at shachris, and doesn't feel like doing it again at musaf, needn't leave the room. He has no obligation to answer the chazan's call. But those who do answer it duchen with a bracha, because that is takanas chachamim. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 12:26:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 19:26:26 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish Yasom Message-ID: <20150630.152626.19374.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> What is the rule for when we do or do not say Kaddish Yasom (Mourner's Kaddish)? >From what I've seen, it is NOT said even if a minyan says Birkas Hamazon, but it IS said when a minyan says Kiddush Levana. It is NOT said when a minyan says Tehillim even as an organized group, but it IS said on Yom Tov after the Megilla (Shir Hashirim, Rus, Koheles) is read. I do not see any pattern. Does anyone else know of a rule? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5592ed93bb00b6d93482cst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 15:03:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 18:03:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish Yasom In-Reply-To: <20150630.152626.19374.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150630.152626.19374.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5593124A.2040905@sero.name> On 06/30/2015 03:26 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > What is the rule for when we do or do not say Kaddish Yasom (Mourner's Kaddish)? > >>From what I've seen, it is NOT said even if a minyan says Birkas Hamazon, Why would it? > but it IS said when a minyan says Kiddush Levana. Probably because people are used to saying it after Alenu. > It is NOT said when a minyan says Tehillim even as an organized group, Where have you seen it not being said then? I'm surprised that this is your experience. > but it IS said on Yom Tov after the Megilla (Shir Hashirim, Rus, Koheles) is read. Yes, that is my experience as well. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 03:47:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 13:47:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] 13th century zeal Message-ID: I found the following story from R Kaganoff interesting not only for the halachic portion but also to show that community fights are not new The question regarding recital of *mei'ein sheva* when *Yom Tov* falls on Friday resulted in a very heated dispute during the era of the Rishonim. In the time of the *Rivash*, Rabbi Amram ben Meroam, a frequent correspondent of the *Rivash*, wrote him the following *shaylah*: Reuven was the *chazzan* for the Friday night *davening *on a *Shabbos* that immediately followed *Yom Tov*. He began reciting *mei'ein sheva*, when Shimon reprimanded him, contending that one should not recite this *bracha* when *Shabbos* follows *Yom Tov* -- since no one was working on Friday, the reason for the *takkanah* did not apply. Levi then got involved, saying that it is accepted that one *does* recite *mei'ein sheva*on Friday night following a *Yom Tov*. The *shul* then burst into a cacophony of voices, with Shimon's and Reuven's backers screaming at one another. Finally, Shimon shouted that Reuven was desecrating*Hashem's *holy Name, since he was willing to recite a *bracha* in vain, and that if he did, Shimon would declare him to be in *cherem*, excommunicated! Reuven did recite the *bracha mei'ein sheva,* and a day later, opened his door to find Shimon and twenty of his backers there to notify him that he had been excommunicated! The Rivash* was asked to rule whether Reuven was indeed in *cherem* because of Shimon's declaration that he recited a *bracha* in vain, or, perhaps, Shimon should be placed in *cherem* for excommunicating someone without proper cause. The *Rivash* ruled that Shimon was mistaken, and that one should recite *mei'ein sheva* when *Shabbos* follows *Yom Tov*. Therefore, he concluded that Reuven, who followed the correct *halachah*, could completely ignore the *cherem* placed on him. However, he also concluded that since Shimon thought he was acting correctly, we do not excommunicate Shimon for his actions (*Shut HaRivash* #34). -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 06:54:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 13:54:19 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos Message-ID: <20150401.095419.16600.0@webmail12.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitzchok Levine wrote: > Does not the SA say that a person who has trouble chewing > matzah can soak it in water and then eat it? If so, then > I fail to see why eating gebrokts should be a problem for > anyone. The answer will depend on what you mean by "SA". If "SA" refers specifically to the author of the Shulchan Aruch, Rav Yosef Karo, then the answer is that he is not the last word in halacha. There are other authorities, and someone who follows the others could have a problem even with something that the SA allows. If "SA" refers to the Shulchan Aruch in general, then I do not understand your question, since the problem of gebrokts *IS* mentioned by authorities other than Rav Karo. If I'm not mistaken, the Shaarei Teshuva (which is in the printed editions of Mishne Brurah) is a good example. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 11:05:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 14:05:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> I repeated on Areivim RSM's deduction that yayin kal is closest to the alcohol level of chazal's wine. On Wed, Apr 1, 2015 at 9:39am PDT, R Saul Newman wrote to Areivim: > interesting, when seeing in ktubot abaye's widow describing the size of > his wine vessel. by that Percentage, it wouldnt be toxic... Here's RSM's science, and it seems impeccable: By natural means, no alcoholic beverage can get above 12% -- at that level the yeast drowns in its own output. That's why beer and wine tend to be 12%. We can tweak that up to 16% with specially bred yeast, and/or control of temperature and humidity -- not options in Chazal's day. (Higher alcohol drinks are made by distilling out the alcohol from the original 12% liquid.) To add my 2 pence: Their barrels weren't perfect, which means there was more evaporation. But since alcohol evaporates faster than water, that will only lower the percentage alcohol. So we're still at about 12% max. RSM's original line of reasoning, continues: Mezigas hakos is typically at least 1:3, or 25% wine. So, the final product would be at most 3%. A third penny: Now let's discuss how big a revi'is was back then... But even without that, I have no idea how any of them would have gotten anywhere near drunk. Why would R' Yonah have a headache until shavu'os off some 16 oz total of 3% wine? Do we have to assume it was the alcohol? Maybe he was a later owner of Abayei's kos... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Mussar is like oil put in water, micha at aishdas.org eventually it will rise to the top. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 12:08:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 01 Apr 2015 15:08:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> On 04/01/2015 02:05 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Now let's discuss how big a revi'is was back then... But even without > that, I have no idea how any of them would have gotten anywhere near > drunk. Why would R' Yonah have a headache until shavu'os off some 16 oz > total of 3% wine? Do we have to assume it was the alcohol? Maybe he was > a later owner of Abayei's kos... I don't think it's at all plausible that it was the alcohol. I have long assumed that he had some sort of allergy or intolerance for some component of grapes or grape skins, or perhaps for the sulfites with which wine was (and is still) preserved. It's well known that there are people today who get headaches from sulfites. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 12:25:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mordechai Harris via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 14:25:38 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> Message-ID: There is a lot of info here: http://seforim.blogspot.com/2012/10/wine-strength-and-dilution.html Chag Kasher v'Samayach< Mordechai -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 12:30:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 22:30:53 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: There recently appeared a sefer "Keren Zavit" by Nadav Shenrav on parshat hashavua that has a very nice combination of science and Torah. On parshat Tzav he brings a question on the shitah of the Nodah BeYuhuda that eggs doubled in size. The Noda Beyehuda claims that there is a contradiction between two sugyot that find measurements based on either the size of the egg or from length (or volume) measurements. To answer the contradiction the Nodah Beyehuda assumes that our eggs are half the size of those in the days of chazal. (Actually modern eggs are larger than those in his day) The basic point is that in order to translate the measurements of chazal to modern measurements we need a fixed point, ie some measurement that has not changed over the generations. If everything can change we have only relative measurements and not absolute measurements. The Nodah BeYehuda assumes that the width of the thumb is constant. Question: Rambam (maaseh hakorbanot 13:14) states the kemitzah which cinsists of 3 fingers closed over the palm contains 2 kezatim. However 2 kezaytim of 50cc (ie 100cc) is impossible to enclose within 3 fingers. He brings that he saw this question in a series "Bet Aharon VeYisrael" and they answered "nishtanu hateva" i.e. their hands were bigger and could hold 100c of flour within 3 fingers. (In general the author is not impressed with the answer of "nishtane hateva" but he assumes it for this article). However, this leads to an internal contradiction, ie Noda Beyehuda assumes that the size of the thumb has not changed but is required to assume that the size of the hand was much larger in the days of chazal ie how is it possible that their hands were MUCH larger but the width of the thumb remained constant. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 14:11:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 17:11:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150401211129.GA23585@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 01, 2015 at 10:30:53PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : There recently appeared a sefer "Keren Zavit" by Nadav Shenrav on parshat : hashavua that has a very nice combination of science and Torah. : : On parshat Tzav he brings a question on the shitah of the Nodah BeYuhuda : that eggs doubled in size. AISI, there are three distinct questions that generally get lumped together in the annual kezayis discussion: 1- Is "kezayis" a constant volume, or is it pinned to the average olive, or perhaps the average among some subset of breeds of olive as breeding, care and climate change? R' Chaim Volozhiner and the Avnei Neizer say the latter. You might remember my post from last Jan at. . The AhS OC 363:34 says that lehalakhah an ammah is the person involved's forearm. E.g. when measuring 4 amos for tiltul, the din is more chamur for me than for taller people. When coming to mavui or techum, where you need a single pesaq for a whole town, you need a standardized ammah, "ameru chakhamim denimdod lechumerah" it's the length of the arm of some very high percentile of the people relying on it (and possibly 100%) -- "debevadei yeish anashim shezehu midasan". (Also, when dealing with someone with a handicap or amputation, you need to use estimates.) To me this seems to feed RCV's approach. Because both assume that measurements are not absolute, but based on the set of whatevers involved. For example, the AhS's position about the standard ammah would imply that a community that is atypically tall would use a longer ammah for techum than in a ghettod population whose malnutrition stunted their typical growth. 2- If kezayis is a constant volume, do all the accepted overestimates performed and accumulated one atop the other unwind when we have more information about chazal's zeisim? Or do we say that the bottom of the range of measurments that dominate common pratice in one's qehillah is binding as pesaq, and one can't just ignore the now huge safety margin? This is what I argued here when RNS's paper came out http://www.zootorah.org/RationalistJudaism/TheEvolutionOfTtheOlive.pdf (And if so, is that extra amount considered as deOraisa as the original olive volume, because it's a pesaq in a din deOraisa? Or is it a harchaqah, and thus derabban? 3- The actual specifics 3a- If the answe to #2 is that we do roll back the kezayis based on better information about what it was, the metzi'us specifics can still be argued. Such as asking (as I did in passing in #1) which subset of olives to average. 3b- And if the answer is that we don't, then there are halachic process details to ask about. But I think many discussions, including our own previous years' iterations, stuble because they blur these topics rather than keeping them separate, which in turn would force dealing with them in the sequence I gave as well. (Because #2 depends on one kind of answer to #1, and #3 has different flavors depending on #2.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 13:36:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 16:36:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Yaknehaz [was: The Quinoa - Kitniyos Conundrum] Message-ID: In a message dated 4/1/2015 6:28:31 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, micha at aishdas.org writes: On Wed, Apr 01, 2015 at 12:03am EDT, RnTK wrote: : It was the norm in my parental home and is what my husband does too. : In fact I have never seen anyone use a regular havdala candle at a seder! : (Or a single wick candle without joining it to another candle or to a match.) A local yeshiva qetana sells two-wick candles that otherwise look like Shabbos candles as a fundraiser. This way you don't have a fire lasting as long as whatever is left on your havdalah candle, and the whole problem is avoided. >>>>> I wasn't really clear. What my parents used to do (and we do similarly) was to take one Shabbos candle ot of the candlestick and hold its flame close to another Shabbos candle for the bracha, and then put it back in the candlestick it came out of. IOW we use the candles that are already burning on the table anyway. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 14:36:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 17:36:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] partnership - adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties Message-ID: partnership - adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties In describing why person would fast all Passover over and above Jewish Law Practice, you used the words "emotional attachment". In the seven years since that wording , perhaps the message is deeper. Salamone Rossi the Jewish Italian composer, became a hero of the assimilationist movement. See AJS Review volume 26 #1 where where a series of books by one Don Harran re Rossi is reviewed. Twice in Adon Olam, the series of fast phrases of excitement called Tritum or whatever is used twice ??? ???? ??? ???? ???? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ?_?? ??? ????? ???? ???? ... ???? ????? ???? ???? ?????? - ??? ???? ? ???? ???? ????? ??? ?? ?????? - ????? ?? ???? ??? ??? ????? - ??? ????? - ????? ???? - ???? ???? ??? ???? ???? ??? ???? ??????? - ???? ????? ????? ??? - ???? ?? ????? ??? ????? - ????? ????? ???? ?? ????? - ??? ???? ??? ???? ???? ?????? ????? ??? ????? - ?? - ???? ?_?? ??? ????? ???? ???? ... ?????? ?? ?? ??? ???? ??? ??? ?? ???? ???? - ??? ???? ?? ????? ?????? ... ?? ?? ???? ?? GLOOMY THOUGHT NEGATIVE CHARACTERIZATION The reviewer - a music professor at Northeastern U in Boston MA - illustrates that limitless exhaustive research did not turn up for M. Harran the fact that in the surrounding milieu which Mr. Rossi is immersed in - these patterns aare reserved for ttheir Trinity.. Lhavdil elef havdalot. Rossi as a Jew with beating Jewish Heart - in Adon Olam his famous composition - when it came to Our God - he proudly used the pattern of the ecstasy of the Tritium (apologies of not being able to look up - will scan and send but each moment I am in danger of interrruption - ) . Why Yeihareig ? Why not float with the waves? Answer - because it is identity of Jew - visceral reaction necessary! taht is Key! Common motif of Piyut - ?????? ????? ?????? ????? - countering their attempted invasion and depriving us of identity - the desperation of drowning brings us to keep our identity- baby will starve self to reserve independence - if it is deprived from baby Not in complete normal routine vassalry to Hashem. But it is the assertion of identity. Sneh Boeir - Papers of Adoption - of formation of Partnership - not the bylaws which may never be read - but the primary identity of Hasheem as responsible party specifically to act as parent re MY CHILD - thsi is basic bedrock Jew - as Rashi certainly subscribed, and rashbam, and likely R' Yonah even Ramban. For my money - when functioning as Jewish Natnion member - the Rambam himself, codifier of the Doctrinal Jew. Back to subject after rant - A JS Reviewer - just like they show reverence for their Hero - we show reverence for our Hero - One God - that the reviewer explained for the first - ??? ???? ??? ???? ???? ?????? What of second threesome - look in Tur for Ecstasy - OC 5 - ???? ?_?? ??? ????? ???? ???? takif..???? ??? ?????? ??? ????? ???? - ???? ?? ???? ??? ??? ????? ??? - ???? ?? ???? - ??? ???? ???? ?? - ??? ???? - ???? ???? - ??? ???? ??? ??? ???? ??????? ?? ??? - ??? ???? ?? ???? ???? ??? ????? ???? ???? - ?? ?? ??? ?? ???? ???? ?????? ???? ???? - ?? ?????? - ??? ?????? ????? ?????? ???? - ???? ???? ?? ??? ?? - ???? ??? ????? ????? ????? - ??? ??? ????? - ?????? ????? ????? ??? ????? - ?? ??? ??? ???? - ?? ??? ??? ????? - ??? ????? - ???? ?????? ?????? - ???? ???? ?????? ????? ?? ?? - ??? ?? ????? ??? ???? ????? ???? ????? ???? ????? ?????? 148-155 - ?_?_?_? ??? ?? - ????? ???? 148 ???? ???? ?????? - ?? ?????? - ??? ???? ??? ???? ?? ?????? - ??? ????? ????? ????? - ?? ??? ??? ???? ???? ?? ????? =- ??? ???????? ?????? ????? ????? - ?? ???? - ????? - ?????? - ???? ???? - ??? ??? ????? - ??? ??? ?? ????? - ????? ??? ??? ?????? - ??? ????? - ????? ??? ?????? ?????? - ???? ???? ?? ??????? ????? ??? - ????? - ???? ?????? ???? ??? ????? ?????? ???? ????? ??????? ????? ?? - ??? ???? ?????? ???? ??"? - ??? ????? ???? ???? ???? ??? ????? ??? ?? ???? - ???? ?? ??? ?? ???? ???-????? ?? ????? ?? ?? ?????? - ??? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ?? ??????? - EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT IS ZILZUL IN A COVENANT ???? ?????? ?? ??? ???? - ??? ??? ??? ? ?? ????? ????? ??? ?????? ??! ???? ????? - ?? ????? ???? ??? ???? ?? ???? ????? ??? ????? ????? - ?? ??? ??? ???? ????? ?? ??? -- David Wacholder Cell: 917-742-7838 Email: dwacholder at gmail.com dwacholder at optonline.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 18:24:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 12:24:45 +1100 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice Message-ID: Wine in those days was frequently (typically?) flavored with resins or spices, some of which are actually toxic. These resins seem to have had the same effect as hops do in beer: they discourage microbial growth and therefore prevent it from souring and spoiling. This was an important consideration before the invention of Pasteurisation. If R' Yonah was allergic or otherwise sensitive to these resins he may have ascribed his symptoms to the wine itself. Alternatively, perhapshe simply didn't have access to any untreated wine and perhaps he didn't consider raisin "wine" to be chashuv enough. Joe Slater -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 18:27:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 12:27:16 +1100 Subject: [Avodah] Yaknehaz [was: The Quinoa - Kitniyos Conundrum] Message-ID: Another data point: I asked my father O'H about this and he said he'd never heard of anyone using a Havdala candle for YAKNEHAZ, or even joining two flames together. He came from central Hungary, and his rabbi was a great-nephew of Maharam Schick. Joe Slater -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 20:32:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 01 Apr 2015 23:32:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> Message-ID: <551CB836.5040609@sero.name> On 04/01/2015 03:25 PM, Mordechai Harris wrote: > There is a lot of info here: http://seforim.blogspot.com/2012/10/wine-strength-and-dilution.html It is interesting, but I think the author may have made a simple mistake in assuming that when Rashi says their wines were "stronger" than ours, he meant "more alcoholic". That may be what he meant, in which case he was mistaken, but it seems to me that he may have meant "strong tasting", or to put it more bluntly, "sour". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 02:18:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 12:18:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kitniyot Message-ID: see a discussion at http://etzion.org.il/en/pesach-journal by Rav Brosky -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 07:53:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 02 Apr 2015 10:53:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Historic Practice Passover Offering Message-ID: <20150402145402.230A3183730@nexus.stevens.edu> See the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kgbRusmqjs A FILM OF THE PRACTICE PASSOVER OFFERING THE TEMPLE INSTITUTE CONDUCTS UNPRECEDENTED PASSOVER OFFERING PRACTICE DRILL As reported earlier, in preparation for the upcoming festival of Passover, this past Wednesday (5 Nisan - 25 March) the 'Priestly Training Academy' established by the Temple Institute held a Passover offering practice drill. This is a film that documents this event. This was the most accurate and authentic reenactment of this service to have taken place in nearly 2,000 years. ---------- It looks to me that they used machine matzos in this video. If I am correct, then I find this bizarre. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 13:36:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 16:36:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: How many swallows of Matzo are necessary? How many olive tree generations to Calendar Year Tohu and Gan Eden? The following came up last year: FEARLESS RULING FOR PERSON WITH DIFFICULTY EATING: Every average person's swallow is a Kezayit, the amount which fulfils the Mitzvah and is the measure for the Bracha on Achilas Matza. As a Hidur and to erase all doubt, a second normal swallow would be good. That is for Motzi-Matzah, where the first olive-size swallowed fulfils a Torah obligation. Additional for Afikoman one swallow is certainly enough. For a person struggling to eat, try to eat at least a taste. Any more than that is for those who tolerate Matzo well. I look at how much a person can swallow - one swallow. That would measure a Kezayit. 100% the person has fulfilled the Mitzvah after one swallow. For margin of error issues, add another second swallow. For those with difficulty eating, one may then stop. For Afikoman the one swallow is sufficient. This needs no authority to base it on. Chazon Ish gave his asembled family pieces about the size of his palm , as described by qualified dedicated observer in Orchos Rabeinu. Traditions vary. Some quoted Rav Chaim Valozhiner as saying - the size of an olive is an olive is an olive. Another tradition said one must use an egg-size as a base unit. On Atkins Low-Carb Diet, daily consumption was - for starting extreme levels - 30 grams per day - about an ounce. I cut the piece of Challah, which by volume probably was an olive, but the air pockets should have been counted, so the person could say Birkas Hamazon for themselves. Someone else was Motzi the dieter in Birkat Hamazon. Air pockets and weight issue The swallow size may be according the the air pockets normally contained in Matzo, not ground, and according to volume not weight. VOLUME NOT WEIGHT By weight, comparable amount of Chareidim Boro Park 5774 MATZOS weighed perhaps 7 grams compared to perhaps 30 grams of a heavy brand of Hand Matzo. Using volume measures as weight measures creates significant errors. The person had been using 30 grams of WEIGHT as the Standard, not 30 grams of volume. It was a reasonably filled sandwich bag. Also Matzo can absorb moisture from the air making it heavier, can be freshened in the oven, which will make it weigh less. Volume remains the same. Weighing your Matza introduces a major error factor. SHEKEIN NEHENEH According to Rav Elchanan Wasserman, even a non-believer fulfils the Mitzvah, Shekein Neheneh. I have doubts if Kavana Hafucha would even work. I certainly think a person should not have Kavana Hafucha in the sense of - only be Yotzei when Measurement X is reached. NOT THE AMOUNT TO FILL THE CHEEK This is neither cheekful nor yet a mouthful. Observe how your neighbor swallows his food eating calmly. [DW comment - this is a normal comfortable swallow, not a contestant requiring for safety a Hatzala person or Heimlich Maneuver needed to monitor. This is not a Superman-Swallower who attempts to swallow the size of all olives ever eaten, whose face turns red but comes out OK after a KAPITAL TEHILIM. That is Achila Shelo K'darkah, and certainly is not optimum. That eliminates the Double and Exponential/Logarithmic olives from consideration for a single swallow. Never swallow more than a comfortable amount. SUKKOT No custom requires swallowing all at once in the Sukkah. Others require an Egg Plus size. ARUCH HASHULCHAN Aruch Hashulchan functioned as a review of the other Poskim in Orach Chaim. He pointedly does not double the Kezayit. MISHNA BRURAH - to my reading - says the same. Indeed I grant the MB does not totally negate a double-size as having precedent. MY HANDWIDTHS On a flat table, I measured my keyboard's width two different ways. first, using all ten fingers flat on table, it was 4 hands wide. With thumbs in air and only the eight fingers flat on the table, my keyboard was 5.5 hands wide. The thumbs were sideways, so the width added drilled through the wrinkle on the back to the fold on the front. This would be the thumb measured in Halacha. I certainly am not a measurement specialist, so I appreciate all feedback. According to best knowledge, that through-thumb measurement is the one which is supposed to be 25 percent of the other four fingers. CHZON ISH Even the writings of CHzon Ish reflect a defensive stance. As a practical matter, the CI knew in his heart that a Zayis will not change in recorded history. Olive trees of 1000 years old are not uncommon, and one in EY is 2000 years old. They are propogated from plantings identical to the original. As little as three generations of trees in EY could easily reach Calender Year 1. RIDDLE - HOW MANY OLIVES TO EAT A KEZAYIT? RABI YOCHANAN ATE ONE OLIVE- and made bracha acharona. It was the big variety salad olive, or a large specimen of the oil olive. I was convinced by a strong presentation in a conference from several years ago. A Bar Ilan professor compared olives from various species and showed pictures of all the oldest olive trees in EY. The oil olives were in the 4 cc to 7 cc (4-7 grams volume). Salad olives - the kind whose seeds were commonly eaten in Masada - max out at 17 grams. He convincingly argued that double size super-olives would in all likelihood kill the trees. 4 ccs is well below an average swallow. Please double check my numbers, as I am writing from memory. -- David Wacholder From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 18:58:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 21:58:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] naive kitniyos question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150403015816.GA8090@aishdas.org> On Thu, Mar 26, 2015 at 12:34:15PM -0400, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote: : Re kitniyos: isn't the issur one of "cooking" with kitniyos? ... Take 2 at answering this question. My wife found http://ph.yhb.org.il/en/04-09-06 "6. Kitniyot That Never Touched Water and Kitniyot Oils" by R' Eliezer Melamed We are not stricter with kitniyot than we are with the five cereal grains, so whatever is acceptable regarding these grains is kosher for kitniyot, too. Thus, kitniyot that have not come into contact with water, or that have come into contact with water but were not left for more than 18 minutes before being cooked (like matza), may be eaten. Some poskim are stringent in this respect, but most are lenient.[4] ... [4] Most authorities are not stricter about kitniyot than about the cereal grains (SAH 453:5; ??ayei Adam 127:1; Responsa Maharsham 1:183; Be'er Yitzhak sec. 11; Responsa Marheshet sec. 3; and Rav Kook's Orah Mishpat sec. 111). Some, however, are more stringent (Sho'el U-meishiv 1:1:175 and Ma'amar Mordechai sec. 32). Their rationale is that no one would understand these distinctions since kitniyot do not become hametz. Additionally, they were concerned that making the kitniyot exactly like the cereal grains would mislead people to think they could use kitniyot to fulfill the mitzva of matza. As noted, though, most poskim are lenient, and in any dispute about a custom the halakha follows the lenient opinion. The Rishonim also debate whether or not scalding works for kitniyot, since scalding any of the five cereal grains technically eliminates the possibility of its leavening, though the Ge'onim agree that no one knows how to scald the grains properly (SA 454:3). However, according to Or Zaru'a 2:256, since the prohibition of kitniyot is just a custom, scalding the kitniyot is effective and permits them. Mordechai rules stringently, and Rabbeinu Peretz's glosses to Smak sec. 222 notes the lenient opinion but rules stringently. So it seems the pesaq I grew up with is, in REM's estimaton, the minority view. And if my sevara holds: It would mean the machloqes is a machloqes as to whether qitniyos are compared to wheat or to dough. Which again would be reflected in the various theories about what risk it is the minhag is trying to avoid: qitniyos includes things used like grain, which can cause confusion of chameitz with mutar legume products; qitniyos could have real flour on them (as per Rava's admonition to the reish galusa's household), etc... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of micha at aishdas.org greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, http://www.aishdas.org in fact, of our modesty. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Louis Kronenberger, writer (1904-1980) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 09:32:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 16:32:11 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Tan Du Message-ID: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> I think we've discussed R'YBS's famous statement on ontological chazakot on a number of occasions. I was glad to see that I have giant shoulders to stand on (hat tip-Isaac Newton): Tradition - Winter 2014 (Rabbi N. Helfgot) In a famous episode in 1975, the Rav strongly denounced a proposal raised by R. Emanuel Rackman, z"l to reevaluating the validity of the Talmudic dictum "a woman would always be rather married to anyone (even a scoundrel) than be alone" in the modern context. R. Rackman called on religious authorities to reevaluate the reach of this dictum as a way of addressing the scourge of modern day recalcitrant husbands who did not give their estranged spouses a get. The reevaluation of this principle might be an opening to examine the use of halakhic annulment of marriages. The Rav vigorously maintained that this principle, like all hazakot of Hazal, was "an ontological statement" about the nature of women, not subject to changing historical factors or changing social mores. R. Lichtenstein in both private conversation with a number of talmidim over the decades, including this author and in remarks in public shiurim, noted his disagreement with the Rav's assessment of this hazaka (and expressed astonishment at the vehemence of the Rav's opposition at the time) given the clear cut evidence in the Rishonim in Yevamot and other places in Shas which clearly indicated that this hazaka was not one that applied in all contexts and at all times and in all situations. I don't recall that R'YBS said this was true of all chazakot of Chazal but haven't listened to that audio in a long time. CKV"S Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 04:06:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 14:06:33 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] rabbits Message-ID: << But PS can someone remind me what a picture of a rabbit is doing in the : medieval illustrated Hagada? There is a fundamental reason why pictures of people were avoided. >> Yet many of the medieval haggadot had pictures of people and even (wow) women!. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 11:41:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 14:41:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] rabbits In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150403184143.GB11664@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 03, 2015 at 02:06:33PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> There is a fundamental reason why pictures of people were avoided. : : Yet many of the medieval haggadot had pictures of people.. The reason is still there. We don't all agree on halakhah and minhag, why would two people necessarily agree during the medieval period? :-)|,|ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger The true measure of a man micha at aishdas.org is how he treats someone http://www.aishdas.org who can do him absolutely no good. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Samuel Johnson From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 23:57:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 09:57:26 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kitniyot Message-ID: see http://ohr.edu/5390 and http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/5184 by Rabbi Spits He discusses Quinoa In the second article he discusses potatos both for kitniyot and bishul akum As for modern products that didnt exist in the days of the gezera he notes Shu"t Igros Moshe (O.C. vol. 3, 63). Others who accept peanuts for Pesach include the Seridei Aish (Shu"t vol. 2, 37, 2; new print vol. 1, 50 -- through a combination of factors), the Yeshuas Moshe (Shu"t vol. 1, 35; he opines that the Kitniyos prohibition never applied to legumes that are eaten raw, but concludes similar to Rav Moshe, that if one has an existing minhag not to eat peanuts on Pesach he still should not do so), and the Rivevos Efraim (Shu"t vol. 7, 257; only if it came still in its shell). [This logic is based on the Shulchan HaRav's understanding (O.C. 453, 5) that the prohibition of Kitniyos only applies when it gets wet). Other poskim who ruled that way (as how can Kitniyos be more stringent than grain -- which only can become chometz when wet) include the Chayei Adam (vol. 2, 128, 1) and Maharsham (Shu"t vol. 1, 183 and Daas Torah O.C. 453), who cites that Rav Shlomo Kluger (Nidrei Zerizin, 8) held this way as well. Those who were stringent include the Shoel U'Meishiv (Mahadura Kama vol. 1, 175), the Avnei Nezer (O.C. 373 and 533), the Maamar Mordechai (Shu"t 32), and the Sdei Chemed (Maareches Chometz U'Matza 6, 1). This was also one of the points of contention between Rav Kook and the Badatz Chasidim of Yerushalayim regarding the permissibility of sesame oil for Pesach -- see footnote 13]. See also Shu"t Atzei HaLevanon (vol. 1, 18) who also permits peanuts for Pesach; yet based on his description it seems he is referring to a pistachio (as per the Yeshuas Moshe ibid.). [Email #2. Subject: kitniyot - summary] After our discussion of kitniyot and the psak of RMF several personal observations 1) We all agree that psak of RMF is controversial. IMHO it is "half" accepted probably more in the US than in Israel 2) There is a separate machkoket about derivatives of kitniyot and especially oils of kitniyot. While there are relatively few ashkenazim who eat corn on the cob or peanuts there are many who combine the 2 positions and use oild and derivatives from "new: kitniyot. Thus there are many rabbis that allow Canola oil (and certainly cottenseed oil) using RMF and the debate over oils. Similarly it has been common in my community to use lecithin (liftit) in candies etc. My rabbi allows this together with most rabbis in my town based on major dati leumi rabbis. R Elyashiv came out strongly against all of this and so in the charedi community especially in Israel no kitniyot oils or lecithin is allowed and only walnut or olive oil is used. Bottom line in spite of the objections on this list that RMF is "wrong" in many communities his teshuva is accepted when combined with the debate of kitniyot derivatives. chag kasher vesameach. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 03:57:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 13:57:43 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos Message-ID: > But let's not get buried under the reports of RMF and R' Tuvia Goldstein, > and forget that we have conflict in reports about whether RSZA would > allow someone to start eating gebrochts after hataras nedarim. > So, while rumor might say he did, we have a first-hand report from R > Yisrael Herczeg that tells us to ignore the grapevine >> In Halichos Shlomo (p90) it states explicitly that one can change his custom and eat gebrochs after hatart nedarim. However, this should be done only if there is a good reason (tzorach chashuv) for the change. Thus, for a chatan he would allow the hatarat nedarim if keeping bebrochs would cause family difficulties. RSZA paskened that the wife follows the customs of the husband both for kula and chumra(without hatart nedarim). He explicitly states that this is different than one who moves to another location where he does need hatarat nedarim since a woman knows that she will eventually marry and might change her minhag. The husband has the right to relinguish his rights. This is prevalant with regard to the nuscah of davening. A Baal Teshuva should prferably keep the customs of his "original" community where the family belonged. However, if he is now connected to some rabbi or community he can choose to keep their customs instead. He also paskens (for EY) that one can cook kitniyot on the 7th day of Pesach for use on the shabbat right afterwards (ef this year). This is because some sefardi could come over for a visit and so the kitniyot are not mukza . The same applies to gebrochs even though it is the 7th day of Pesach. RSZA himself ate gebrochs though he would not eat anything that fell on the floor. He did not use potato starch or anything that rsembled a chametz cake On a different topic he allowed drinking regular water eg from the kinneret since one can't taste at all the taste of any possible chametz, [Email #2] >> So, while rumor might say he did, we have a first-hand report from R >> Yisrael Herczeg that tells us to ignore the grapevine. > Perhaps he changed his mind! It has happened before. In this case he didnt change his mind. He said that it depended on the circumstances. In theory one could do hatarat nedarim and eat Gebrochs but he advocated not using this heter unless there was a good reason to change the custom. Obviously for Yisrael Herczeg he didn't feel there was sufficient justification. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 04:15:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 14:15:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: > 1- Is "kezayis" a constant volume, or is it pinned to the average olive, > or perhaps the average among some subset of breeds of olive as breeding, > care and climate change? archaeology shows that the olive has not changed dramatically over the millenia > 2- If kezayis is a constant volume, do all the accepted overestimates > performed and accumulated one atop the other unwind when we have more > information about chazal's zeisim? Not all communities accepted these various shitot. I can understand some overestimates for being conservative but factors of 5-10 larger seem overdone. This is especially true if one stuffs the matza into ones mouth and swallows together which becomes "achila gasa". In general the problem with the huge shiurim is that it is very difficult for many people. > average. Which is the reason to be on the conservative side and use the largest size olives which is still on the order of 17cc and not 50cc. [Email #2] > Or do we say that the bottom of the > range of measurments that dominate common pratice in one's qehillah is > binding as pesaq, and one can't just ignore the now huge safety margin? Reminds of a story I read on the recent 20th yahrzeit of RSZA. RSZA came up with 2 chumrot for the seder both related to the length of maggid being a problem for kiddush bemkom seudah and the bracha over the wine. His mechutan R Elyashiv accepted the chumrot and rushed his maggid while RSZA didnt accept his own chumrot in practice on the grounds that this was not the minhag of Israel over the generations. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 15:16:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 22:16:11 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Historic Practice Passover Offering Message-ID: <20150403.181611.8008.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitzchok Levine posted: > See the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kgbRusmqjs > ... > As reported earlier, in preparation for the upcoming festival of > Passover, this past Wednesday (5 Nisan - 25 March) the 'Priestly > Training Academy' established by the Temple Institute held a > Passover offering practice drill. This is a film that documents > this event. This was the most accurate and authentic reenactment > of this service to have taken place in nearly 2,000 years. Two things in particular surprised me in this video: 1) The lambs were so small! Children carried them in! 2) At the very end, it shows and mentions that the korban pesach "is roasted whole and in a special oven." Special oven? What was special about it, and why an oven at all? I would think that the oven would (at least partially) bake it, whereas it was supposed to be roasted by the fire, and only by fire. I recall halachos of it being held by a pomegranate branch to avoid heat conduction by metal, and rotated like a rotisserie to avoid it being cooked even by its own juices. What's this oven about? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/551f117e86f4b117e0fdfst03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 12:22:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2015 15:22:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <551EE85D.1030908@sero.name> On 04/03/2015 06:57 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > He also paskens (for EY) that one can cook kitniyot on the 7th day of > Pesach for use on the shabbat right afterwards (ef this year). Yes, I'm surprised that anyone disagrees. It seems so obviously correct. I know that many people don't do so, and believe it to be forbidden, but I have never yet heard an argument for why it should be so. > This is because some sefardi could come over for a visit and so the kitniyot > are not mukza . The main issue would surely not be muktzeh, but cooking on yomtov. But the answer is the same: the hypothetical horde of hungry guests who might descend on one ten minutes before sunset on Friday, and for whom one is, in principle, cooking, might very well be sefardim. > The same applies to gebrochs even though it is the 7th day of > Pesach. Gebrochts, of course, applies in Chu"l as well (since almost everyone who doesn't eat it on the first 7 days does eat it on the last day). And lich'ora the above heter is not applicable. Kitniyos are gebrochts are not similar. Ashkenazim don't avoid kitniyos because of a concern that it might be chametz; they readily agree that there is no such concern, and that for Sefardim it is heter gamur. Thus there is no reason at all why an ashkenazi should not cook kitniyos for a sefardi, any more than there is a reason why a zar who is tahor should not cook terumah for a kohen. But those who avoid gebrochts do so because of an (admittedly remote) concern that it might be chametz. If so, then they should be equally concerned not to give it to someone else, even one who isn't worried about it, and thus shouldn't be able to claim on Friday that they are cooking for hypothetical guests who eat it. Lepoel this question comes up every time there is such a kevius, and there doesn't seem to be one psak about it. Perhaps it comes down to the different reasons people give for why it's OK on the last day. If one holds that the reason is "shelo lehotzi la'az" on those who eat gebrochts all Pesach, then it makes sense that on the first 7 days one should also not be "motzi la'az", and thus should be willing to cook gebrochts for those who eat it. Thus on Friday the 7th one can claim to be cooking for such guests. But if one holds that the reason for not eating gebrochts for 7 days and then eating it on the 8th is as a symbolic gesture towards the kabbalistic idea that on the 8th day one ought to eat chametz, so for 7 days we treat gebrochts *as if* it were chametz, and then eat it on the 8th day, then it would seem to follow that on the 7th day one may not cook it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 14:17:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 21:17:19 GMT Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: <20150403.171719.13613.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' David Wacholder posted: > Every average person's swallow is a Kezayit, the amount which > fulfils the Mitzvah and is the measure for the Bracha on Achilas > Matza. As a Hidur and to erase all doubt, a second normal swallow > would be good. That is for Motzi-Matzah, where the first olive- > size swallowed fulfils a Torah obligation. > ... > This needs no authority to base it on. ... WHY would it need no authority to base it on? If this were the halacha, wouldn't someone have mentioned it? Why did so many authorities struggle with the math and the biology and the physics if such a simple solution were at hand? > Air pockets and weight issue > > The swallow size may be according the the air pockets normally > contained in Matzo, not ground, and according to volume not weight. If a kezayis is a swallowfull, aren't the air pockets gone? Haven't they been lost in the chewing? I concede that by the time the chewed matza gets to the throat, much of the missing air has been replaced by saliva. Or perhaps the saliva even *more* than accounts for the missing air. I am not knowledgeable enough about this to venture a guess on the comparison of the volume of the matza before chewing vis a vis at swallowing. In any case, I've always been bothered by the problem of counting the air bubbles. Mishneh Berurah 208:48 says that when eating cookies, l'chatchilah, one must insure that he ate a kezayis of flour, WITHOUT counting the sugar, in order to say Al Hamichya. MB concedes that the minhag is to count all the ingrdients, but the Igros Moshe 1:71 says not to rely on that minhag. So here's my question: If they would prefer us NOT to count the other ingredients, which have substance, isn't it a simple kal vachomer not to count AIR, she'ayn bo mamash? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/551f039acb72539a4c49st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 13:08:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2015 16:08:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Special Pesach Edition -- Instantaneous Redemption Message-ID: <20150403200810.6EC28181C84@nexus.stevens.edu> [] Instantaneous Redemption HaShem took us out of Mitzrayim at the last minute before we slipped to the fiftieth level of impurity. Had we fallen to that level, we would have been irredeemable. In one moment, we went from darkness to light, from death to life, from slavery to freedom, from anguish to joy, and from impurity to holiness. Lesson: Just as that moment brought instantaneous redemption, so too, every moment of life has the potential to take us from darkness to light, from death to life, from slavery to freedom, from anguish to joy, and from impurity to holiness. App: May we all be encouraged by the miracles of Pesach, that HaShem again will instantaneously redeem us, and take us from darkness to light, from death to life, from slavery to freedom, from anguish to joy, and from impurity to holiness! (Based on Ohr Yahol, Rav Yehoshuah Leib Chousman) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 18:59:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2015 21:59:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geirut Message-ID: <20150406015903.GA15874@aishdas.org> (Ccing most of the participants in our 2008 and 2010 conversations.) You might be interested in On Conversion to Judaism, by Rabbi Dr. Chaim E. Schertz THE YU LAMDAN: The Wilf Campus Torah Journal http://yulamdan.com/2015/03/29/on-conversion-to-judaism-by-rabbi-dr-chaim-e-schertz or http://j.mp/1CIV5GN It starts slow, but R/Dr Schertz has a lot to say about Qabbalas Ol Mitzvos (QOM, or KOM if you prefer) and its role in geirus. Aside from other ideas that my be of interest, but it was QOM that has us going. :-)|,|ii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 22:22:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 01:22:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house Message-ID: <552217FE.4020103@sero.name> Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in EY after kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times. Does this mean that at a shiva house Sholom Rov is said even in shacharis (in EY on a non-Mon/Thu)? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 22:28:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 01:28:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" Message-ID: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the holy serafim's conclave. Nusach Ashkenaz, in the introduction to the kedusha of musaf, has a similar phrase: "kesod siach sarfei kodesh". But what does this mean? Every translation I have seen has rendered it as if it said "kesiach sod sarfei kodesh", but that's not what it says! Does anyone know, if "kesod siach" really means "kesiach sod", why they are reversed? Or, if that's not what it really means, can anyone explain what it does mean? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 22:32:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 01:32:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Moroccan nigunim Message-ID: <55221A63.3010303@sero.name> Do we have any experts here on the history of the Moroccan nigunei hatefilah? If so, can someone please explain when/how the Ashkenazi tune for Maoz Tzur got into the Moroccan liturgy as a tune for Mah Ashiv Lashem? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 03:38:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 13:38:02 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] free will Message-ID: We have discussed many times the opinion of Rav Dessler that a person doesn't always have free will. I recently saw a halachic discussion that may have some connection. On ketubot 51 the gemara discusses a case of a married woman who was raped but at the end was willing (techila be-ones ve-sofa be-ratzon). Shmuel's father forbids her to her husband while Rava allows her. One possibility of explaining Rava is that she is overwhelmed by her "yetzer" and so is still considered "anus" This is explicit in the words of R Zadok (tzidkat zaddik 43) that her desire is so great that it is impossible to overcome it and so she is considered anus gamur and so there is no punishment. Targum Yonatan (Devarim 22:26) holds that she is not punished by death but her husband must divorce her. Maharshal (yevamot 6:3) paskens that she is permitted to her husband only if she is "karka olam" However the Noda Beyehuda disagrees (tenina EH 150) and says she is always permitted to her husband because she is overwhelmed by her yetzer and so is not considered that she did it with her free will. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 05:13:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 12:13:44 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house Message-ID: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero asked: > Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in > EY after kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times. Does this > mean that at a shiva house Sholom Rov is said even in shacharis > (in EY on a non-Mon/Thu)? No, but I don't know why. I never thought of that question before, but here is a possibly-related question that I've wondered for years: If Shir Hamaalos is said whenever we skip Tachanun, should it always be said at the shiva house? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:25:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:25:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house In-Reply-To: <552217FE.4020103@sero.name> References: <552217FE.4020103@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150406182521.GC20912@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:22:06AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in EY after : kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times... This rule isn't 100%. Otherwise Sim Shalom would never be said when davening beyechidus. I think it's more lke Ashk uses Sim Shalom in tefillos where Birkhas Kohanim could be said, if we had opportunity. :-)||ii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:28:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:28:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:28:24AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam : siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the : holy serafim's conclave... Sod means conclave? I thought it was referring to the ofanim and chayos haqodesh who learn the secret of the siach of the sarfei qodesh, thereby are misna'asim le'umas serafim... :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 2nd day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Chesed: What is constricted Fax: (270) 514-1507 Chesed? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:37:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:37:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house In-Reply-To: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150406183751.GE20912@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 12:13:44PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I never thought of that question before, but here is a possibly-related : question that I've wondered for years: If Shir Hamaalos is said whenever : we skip Tachanun, should it always be said at the shiva house? We skip tachanun on shabbos and YT (or the week of 7 berakhos, the day of a beris...) because of the joy of the day being inconsistent with its mournful tenor. Shir haMaalos goes hand-in-hand with the joy of the day; if it's joyous enough to warrant looking toward the geulah rather than lamenting the churban with Al Naharos Bavel, then it's joyous enough for Tachanun not to fit either. But the key is joy, which has nothing to do with a beis avel. We skip tachanun in an aveil's home for the opposite kind of reason -- either because 1- we don't want to add to the aveilim's grief by harping on midas hadin, or 2- it is inappropriate to ask for mitigation of middas hadin in a home where din is being fully felt. :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 2nd day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Chesed: What is constricted Fax: (270) 514-1507 Chesed? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:42:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:42:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tan Du In-Reply-To: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> References: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20150406184227.GF20912@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 03, 2015 at 04:32:11PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Tradition - Winter 2014 (Rabbi N. Helfgot) ... : R. Lichtenstein in both private conversation with a number of talmidim : over the decades, including this author and in remarks in public shiurim, : noted his disagreement with the Rav's assessment of this hazaka (and : expressed astonishment at the vehemence of the Rav's opposition at the : time) given the clear cut evidence in the Rishonim in Yevamot and other : places in Shas which clearly indicated that this hazaka was not one that : applied in all contexts and at all times and in all situations. The way I heard RAL (recorded) was more that the large amount of material in Yevamos, much of the rest of seder Nashim, and the rishonim ad loc that such a proposal would make moot was itself RYBS's primary argument against R' Rackman's proposal. And that RAL understood the statement about tav lemeisiv and its ontological nature as a separate secondary argument RYBS made along the way. :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 2nd day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Chesed: What is constricted Fax: (270) 514-1507 Chesed? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:38:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 14:38:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5522D292.4070305@sero.name> On 04/06/2015 02:28 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:28:24AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam > : siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the > : holy serafim's conclave... > > Sod means conclave? Yes, as in "besodam al tavo nafshi". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:59:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 21:59:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 6, 2015 at 9:28 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:28:24AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam > : siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the > : holy serafim's conclave... > > Sod means conclave? > Yes, as in "besodam al tavo nafshi" in birkat Yaakov (Bereshit 49:6), where it's parallel to "kehalam", or more directly connected to kedusha Ps 89:8 "sod kedoshim". I couldn't say whether "conclave" is the original sense and "secret" a derived meaning, or vice versa -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:30:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 14:30:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house In-Reply-To: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5522D0BC.2010004@sero.name> On 04/06/2015 08:13 AM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > R' Zev Sero asked: > >> Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in >> EY after kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times. Does this >> mean that at a shiva house Sholom Rov is said even in shacharis >> (in EY on a non-Mon/Thu)? > No, but I don't know why. > > I never thought of that question before, but here is a > possibly-related question that I've wondered for years: If Shir > Hamaalos is said whenever we skip Tachanun, should it always be said > at the shiva house? The same question would apply in the afternoon of Erev Tish`a B'av. But the two questions can easily be distinguished. The substitution of Shir Hamaalos for Al Naharos Bavel is not caused by the lack of tachanun; rather both are caused by the same thing: the element of simcha on that day that makes mourning inappropriate. But the omission of tachanun at a shiva house is not because of simcha, but because we don't want to invoke divine judgment in a situation which is already fraught; thus Al Naharos Bavel is not inappropriate. And of course on Erev Tish`a B'av what could be more appropriate than Al Naharos Bavel? Sim Shalom, however, seems (in nusach Ahskenaz) to be directly linked to the conclusion of birchas kohanim, "veyasem lecha shalom". Thus it shouldn't matter why birchas kohanim is not being said; the mere fact that it's not said should be enough to cause the omission of sim shalom, and the substitution of shalom rav. Proof that this distinction is valid comes from the case of Tehilim #49, which is said at a shiva house on days when tachanun is said; on days when tachanun is omitted, #16 is substituted. But of course in a shiva house *every* day is a day when tachanun is omitted, so when does one say #49? The obvious answer is that on normal days omission of tachanun is related to the place, not to the day, and thus #49 is said; when the day has an element of simcha that makes #49 inappropriate, we substitute #16. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 16:23:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 19:23:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] partnership - adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties Message-ID: <001b01d070c0$b326a370$1973ea50$@com> Here is a step towards making my approach to the Relationship of Yisrael with Hashem more understandable. As always it is the feedback and exchange of ideas which contains so much creative force. AVOS WERE PARTNERS, THEIR DESCENDANTS WERE IN LIMBO RACHAMIM WAS DETERMINED INCLUSIVITY - ALL ARE INCLUDED INCLUDED INTO THE COVENANT - UNILATERAL COVENANT OF HASHEM WITH HIMSELF 2. G-d related to the Avos - Avraham Yitzchak Yaakov - as partners, whose faithful service he knew and trusted. The durability was unusual, but the basic partnership never was under question, as with partners who get along. 3. 4. Almost all could ask - we are individuals in a mass of Egyptian slaves, we have lost direct contact!! We cannot compare ourselves to a 70 member Covenant, which included Yaakov Avinu one of the Avos, who actually made every move based on direct prophecy. Even the 12 Shvatim had almost direct access to HASHEM himself. 5. The Crisis of Galus Mitzrayim - assuming all had learnt every Passuk in Breishis - was of uncertainty. - Yes Pakod Yifkod - but who am I? Will my generation merit to see what even the most elderly never saw with their eyes? Even were Moshe Rabeinu assured of membership in the Elite, he retained that uncertainty. On Pshat level, five minutes prior to the moment of noticing the Burning Bush, could ask that question. That vision began transforming Moshe Rabeinu into the instrument of G-d, the Goeil. The man who turned to check - was already entering Geula mode. 6. Machzor Vitri page 148 has a key piece called Pithron Nishmas Kol Chai. According to Psachim, the Nishmas Prayer should contain within it the essence of the message of Seder Night. Towards the end of Yishtabach - there treated as just the ending of Nishmas - RAABAN adds that the 15 praises parallel the 15 Dayeinus. 7. The piece de resistance - Chai Haolamim is explained Haya hoveh yihyeh, Ani Hashem lo Shanisi (from Malachi Haftara of Shabbos Hagadol). 8. Rashi here is one theme - as I would see it. Chai means involved with caring for his children right now - as fits in Chai Anochi leOlam Im shanosi brak charbi or a Shvuah. 9. Haolamim means until the end of time, as in a parent telling the child not to worry, the Parent is always here. 10. The piece on page 148 adds an extra word to Nishmas, to make a point sharper. V' Y H V H Shmo Eir Hineh lo yanum vlo yiyshan. The word Shmo - appears only in this one obscure manuscript, seemingly a Rashi arrow. 11. Here Rashi uses full expression - Hashem appeared to Avraham with the name E I L S H a D a Y but not the Name Y H V H. Avos were established Partners and employees. Now Hashem is showing his determination and leadership - new World Order - all eligible Jews will be included in the Geulah, no exceptions. 12. Hashem is taking on the eternal duty of guarding them, with no limits and no clause for rejection. Yes Hashem admits no such precedent existed. Only Hashem can overturn His Rules. 13. Bnei Yisrael are Unilaterally Covenanted to be Hashem's Bni Bchori. Just like He had focused since the word Breishis, bishvil Torh Shenikra Reishis, now all He wants is that His People be His only. Bni Bchori Yisrael! First Day Chol Hamoeid Pesach - we read these key Psukim. Tephillin wearers understand that Kadesh li kol bchor means singular devotion. 14. In our world, it would be a person seeking a marriage partner, then signing Adoption Papers. The parent chose - volitionally and with focus - to adopt this child. PARENTAL RIGHTS - FAMILY IDENTITY 15.It is a brand new family identity, which cannot be abrogated. Yes - there can be strains. But there cannot be a dissolution. It is stronger than marriage! 16. Rashbam says - He the King says about Himself Ehkeh, I will be. Yisrael as his subjects use the Third Person He Will Be. 17. It is not about Maaseh Breishis in Rashi. It refers to the instant covenant - My determination to Adopt You is irrevocable. 18. Ehkeh - becomes the Name He Calls Himself - totally devoted to watching over my Ben Bchor. Yihyeh is the Ben Bchor's confidence that He is watching me us. 19. The moment the Ben Bchor first uses the He will Care for Me - Hashem makes Ehkeh obsolete. The family has begun. 20. This is Rashi Rashbam. CONFIRMATION The Tzarfas Tosafos included Rabeinu Yosef Bchor Shor. He accepts Rashbam completely, except that HVYH is the holiest Name, not Ehkeh. The structure remains the same. 21. Hashem's Choice in Mitzraim was a Bnos TzlOphchad choice - choose which cousin and which time to marry. It is totally volitional and conscious. He chose adoption of all. Bachar Banu. 22. It means at a specific date signing Adoption Papers for 3,000,000 individuals. 23. Rashi says it means the special Adoption - family identity. That Adoption of all Bnei Yisrael had a specific moment, the Sneh. Those Name issues had meaning for Rashi and Rashbam. 24. Within the short timespan, all the Bnei Yisrael are Hashem's chosen children. Rishon in Emmes Vyatziv means since Ytzias Mitzrayim. Maaseh Breishis is not Primary to Rashi only secondary. 25. It is Family Commitment and Identity. Practical example, a secure Child can look his father in the eye. A secure Jew is able to have Hashem look him/her in the eye without flinching. I know this is my Father. 26. As the Midrash puts it - Yam Suf - I already met him when I was born and raised six months with no human being in sight. I know Him! 27. Ha'tishkach Isha ulahh - even a mother's love for her child cannot equal hashem's love. Hashem's Power is ever greater, but even His Love is stronger. 28. Woman says - Pesach is my adoption as Hashem's own Child - no Chametz ever! There is no bending on identity. This works on the visceral level. 29. Rashi in MV 148 does call it Rachamim - as in Rachamei Av al Banim. It is the strength of Inclusion in the Covenant. It is in its deepest essence - a Unilateral Covenant. Ehkeh Asher Ehkeh - just like in this oppression - in any other oppression. That is the Adoptive Parent's approach. Lo yanum vlo yiyshan shomeir Yisrael. 30. Rashi's approach is extremely strong. Rachamim is only possible as part of a relationship. Rashi makes the relationship primary and volitional. The secondary application of which rewards or concessions will be granted, secondary Rachamim, is put onto a solid base. Only chanun is left as a "nebbish" Midah - even from a cruel tyrant chein is possible. 31. Let adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties 32. 33. In describing why person would fast all Passover over and above Jewish Law Practice, you used the words "emotional attachment". In the seven years since that wording , perhaps the message is deeper. 34. This woman was looking at the strength of the Covenant - which is Identity. The bylaws are only secondary. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: AJS review of Rossi.PDF Type: application/pdf Size: 255404 bytes Desc: not available URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 8 05:37:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2015 08:37:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150408123715.GC8438@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 09:59:14PM +0300, Simon Montagu via Avodah wrote: : > Sod means conclave? : : Yes, as in "besodam al tavo nafshi" in birkat Yaakov (Bereshit 49:6), where : it's parallel to "kehalam", or more directly connected to kedusha Ps 89:8 : "sod kedoshim". To clarify: "Sod" *here* means conclave? I suggested an alternative, which I think fits the sentence better, as it makes "sod siach" a phrase, rather than trying to explain the interruption of "siach" in "sod ... sarfei". : I couldn't say whether "conclave" is the original sense and "secret" a : derived meaning, or vice versa Very different implications hashkafically, whether yesod would then be related to secrets (as foundations are in the ground) or a gathering of people (people as founders?). :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 4th day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Chesed: When is Chesed an Fax: (270) 514-1507 imposition on others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 04:58:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 14:58:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: Just saw a halacha that to me was a chiddush That one cannot (or should not) be yotzeh someone else for tefiilat haderech but everyone should say for them self. Those agreeing (at least lechatchila) include R Aviner R Nebenzahl R C Kanevsky R Tuvia Goldstein (who said he convinced RMF) R Belsky Not what I have seen in practice. Anyone know any opinion that does allow it -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 08:55:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 15:55:59 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: <20150412.115559.22172.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel asked: > Just saw a halacha that to me was a chiddush > That one cannot (or should not) be yotzeh someone else for > tefiilat haderech but everyone should say for them self. > Those agreeing (at least lechatchila) include > R Aviner > R Nebenzahl > R C Kanevsky > R Tuvia Goldstein (who said he convinced RMF) > R Belsky > Not what I have seen in practice. > Anyone know any opinion that does allow it Chidush to me too. I don't where to begin my comments. There's a GIGANTIC difference between "cannot" and "should not". "agreeing (at least lechatchila)" also allows a too-wide variety. And without some sort of reasoning, how can we throw out what we already know? Is there something special about Tefilas Haderech, or is this merely an example of how we have so little kavana nowadays that being motzi others is just too risky? I'm sure there are other sources I could quote, but for now, I will simply quote from "Halachically Speaking", vol 1, pg 75, by Rabbi Moishe Dovid Lebovits, published by Israel Bookshop. > One person can say the tefillah for everyone, as long as he has > everyone in mind and the others concentrate on the words.(20) > Horav Yisroel Belsky shlita maintains that every individual > should try to say tefillas haderech if he can.(21) If this is > not possible, one person can say it for everyone.(22) > 20) Kinyan Torah 2:119, Bais Avi 5:55, Opinion of Horav > Elyashiv shlita quoted in Darchei Ori page 279:2, > U'velechticha Baderech 2:footnote 26 quoting the opinion of > Horav Chaim Kanievesky shlita, see Darchei Ori page 259:1. It > is questionable whether someone who has already said tefilalas > haderech can repeat it for someone else. (Halichos Shlomo > Tefilah 21:5:footnote 9). > > 21) See Emes L'Yaakov page 65. > > 22) See Eishel Avraham Butchtach, Rivevos Ephraim 6:32:2, > Halichos Shlomo Tefilah page 245:5, Divrei Chachamim page > 76:192. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 06:33:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 09:33:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: <10b001d074db$3ad805c0$b0881140$@gmail.com> References: <20150407125218.216501835E4@nexus.stevens.edu> <10b001d074db$3ad805c0$b0881140$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150412133337.B25AB182ACC@nexus.stevens.edu> I am moving this to Avodah. YL At 12:43 AM 4/12/2015, R. Moshe Yehuda Gluck wrote: >R' YL: >Another person wrote to me > >"Chazal say that one is not allowed to daven outside (probably because of >kavana); >-------------------- >Does anyone have a mareh makom for this? > >KT, >MYG From http://www.dinonline.org/2012/07/11/davening-outdoors/ Is it problematic to daven outdoors? Thanks. Answer: One should not daven in an open area outdoors, and should daven in a closed building, or a sheltered area. Sources: The Gemara (Berachos 34b) writes that it is wrong (arrogant ? chatzuf) to daven in an open field. Rashi explains that in an open field, one doesn?t feel fear of the King, and one doesn?t pray with a broken heart. Tosafos, however, understands that the concern is for passers-by, who are liable to disturb a person?s davening. The Magen Avraham (90:6) rules that the problem is that davening outside makes a haughty statement: ?Even though there are passers-by, they will not disturb my intent in davening!? This is arrogant and wrong. The Shulchan Aruch (90:5) rules that one should not daven in an open place, and the Mishnah Berurah (11) adds that those who are always travelling should can daven in an open place, but should try to daven by a tree. Therefore, although it is not forbidden to daven outdoors, it is wrong to daven in an open area, and one should seek a sheltered place. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 09:54:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 19:54:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] reviit Message-ID: In the sefer of Rav Aviner he brings many examples of gedolim who used a kiddush cup the size of the shiur of R Chaim Naeh (86 CC) and not CI. He says he heard from RSZA that when RCN published his sefer on shiurim the rabbis of Yerushalayim were astounded at his chumra !! 1) cup if Chafetz Chaim (from his grandson R Hillel Zaks) 2) cup of GRA (baal eyanim le-mishpat who got it as an inheritance) 3) cup someone got from Ohr Sameach (mesoros she-avdu) 4) Rebbe of Gur - Pnei Menachem stated about the cup of his father Baal Imre Ha-emes 5) cup of R Salanter (Shut Teshuvot Vehanhagot) 6) Rav Dessler used a small cup that belonged to his wife's family. After she passed away he used a larger cup 7) cup of the father of the CI 8) Brother of CI used a cup he got from his father-in-law (Cheshek Shlomo of Vilna) and also had shiur RCN 9) R Elyashiv used a cup the size of CI but explained that he did so in honor of CI not because that is the halacha 10) In the sefer Meged Givat Olam second volume p34) someone showed RMF a cup holding about 88cc and RMF remarked that it was kosher lechatchila (not not the shiur published in his name) 11) In Divrei Yoel the Satmar rebbe is quoted as saying the shiur of reviit is 75 gram (!?) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 12:01:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 15:01:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] reviit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <552AC11F.8060605@sero.name> On 04/12/2015 12:54 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > 11) In Divrei Yoel the Satmar rebbe is quoted as saying the shiur of reviit is 75 gram (!?) > RACN assumed that the Rambam's dirham was the same as the Ottoman dirham used in his day, which was 3.1 g. But there's significant evidence that the Egyptian dirham of the Rambam's day was slightly smaller, about 2.8 g, which gives a revi'it of about 75 ml. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 12:15:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 15:15:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150413191514.GA19165@aishdas.org> R' Ari Kahn posted a transcript of that famous talk that people remember for RYBS's statement about tav lemeisiv. http://arikahn.blogspot.co.il/2013/03/rabbi-soloveitchik-talmud-torah-and.html As a teaser, here is all RYBS said on tev lemeis tan du: Let me add something that is very important: not only the halachos but also the chazakos [19] which chachmei chazal have introduced are indestructible. We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above. Let us take for example the chazaka that I was told about: the chazaka tav l'meisiv tan du mil'meisiv armalo [20] has absolutely nothing to do with the social and political status of women in antiquity. This chazaka is based not upon sociological factors, but upon a verse in breishis -- harba arbeh itz'voneich v'heironeich b'etzev teildi vanim v'el isheich t'shukaseich v'hu yimshal bach -- "I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy travail; in pain thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee" [21]. It is a metaphysical curse rooted in the feminine personality -- she suffers incomparably more that the male who is in solitude. Solitude to the male is not as terrible an experience, as horrifying an experience, as is solitude to the woman. And this will never change, mayid shamayim vaaretz [22]. This is not a psychological fact; it is an existential fact, which is due not to the inferior status of the woman, but rather to the difference, the basic distinction, between the female personality and the male personality. Loneliness frightens the woman, and an old spinster's life is much more miserable and tragic than the life of an old bachelor. This was true in antiquity; it is still true, and it will be true a thousand years from now. So, to say that tan du mil'meisiv armalo was or is due to the inferior political or social status of the woman is simply misinterpreting the chazaka tan du mil'meisiv armalo. No legislation can alleviate the pain of the single woman, and no legislation can change this role. She was burdened by the Almighty, after she violated the first [law]. Let me ask you a question -- ribono shel olam, G-d Almighty, if you should start modifying and reassessing the chazakos upon which a multitude of halachos rest, you will destroy yehadus. So instead of philosophizing, let us rather light a match and set fire to the beis yisrael, and get rid of our problems. What I think is more typical of the general thesis of this portion of his talk was the immediately prior statement: V'chen hakofer b'perusha v'hu torah she b'al peh v'hamach'chish magideha; he who denies the perfection and the truthfulness of chachmei chazal -- not of the Torah, but of the chachmei chazal as personalities, as real persona as far as their character, their philosophy, or their outlook on the world is concerned -- is a kofer. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 9th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 most appropriate? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 12:27:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 19:27:43 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150413191514.GA19165@aishdas.org> References: <20150413191514.GA19165@aishdas.org> Message-ID: What I think is more typical of the general thesis of this portion of his talk was the immediately prior statement: V'chen hakofer b'perusha v'hu torah she b'al peh v'hamach'chish magideha; he who denies the perfection and the truthfulness of chachmei chazal -- not of the Torah, but of the chachmei chazal as personalities, as real persona as far as their character, their philosophy, or their outlook on the world is concerned -- is a kofer. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The whole piece is worth hearing (even more than reading) - it seems to me that the debate echoes here: https://kavvanah.wordpress.com/2015/04/12/rabbi-ysoscher-katz-and-rabbi-ozer-glickman-rounds-one-and-two/ I do wonder whether one can avoid self awareness with a modern education. Another challenge is how to deal with recent "Chachmei Hamesorah" who don't seem to meet the perfection definition. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 13:56:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 13:56:37 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] support obligations Message-ID: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/193853#.VSwsUo6ZPAG interesting question . while in theory the ketuba and consequently the terms of marriage , mandate the husband support a wife , in practice that is not true in the kollel years [which in israel could last a prolonged time ]. here , a kollel man divorcing claims no income , and that the wife should support the children by getting a job . apart from secular courts, is there a positive chiyuv for a husband to leave 'torato umnato' to support his children ? does a get terminate his financial obligations halachically? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 14:23:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 17:23:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Philosophy and practice of shmita In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150413212344.GA3301@aishdas.org> On Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 10:09:02PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : What is the earliest source that ties shmita to the farmers using the : time to learn Torah?... I don't know about first, but the Seforno (Vayiqra 25:4, d"h "shabbos Lashem") writes: So that also those who work the earth, when they rest for this year, yis'oreru lidrosh es H' be'ofen mah. This is then quoted verbatum by R' Yaaqov Tzevi Mecklengburg (HaKesav behaQabbalah, early or mid-19th cent), who sites both the Sefornu and and "Raba"ch" -- who is eluding me. I didn't see it in Rabbeinu Bechayei, nor the Chizquni. Nor am I sure that "liderosh es H'" means learning. More recent is the Ari (as recorded by R' Shemu'el Vital, Shaar haPesuqim) based on the Zohar (vol II 20b). Haro'eh baShoshanim -- "Shoshanim" refers to the 6 shins in "usefarta lekha SHeva SHabasos SHanim, SHeva SHanim SHeva pe'amim". And from there haro'eh bashoshanim becomes: the one who dedicates the 7th year to learning finds G-d in all the 6 years of labor as well. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 9th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 most appropriate? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 14:28:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 17:28:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos In-Reply-To: <20150401084748.2445618205D@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150401084748.2445618205D@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150413212857.GB3301@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 01, 2015 at 04:47:45AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Does not the SA say that a person who has trouble chewing matzah can : soak it in water and then eat it? If so, then I fail to see why : eating gebrokts should be a problem for anyone. : The SA lived in the wrong qehillah for the minhag to be relevant. He would allow you to eat qitniyos too. And if we accept the SA haRav's explanation of gebrochts over the MB's, the Rama lived before we counted kneading time toward the 18 min, and gebrochts wasn't necessary yet. And since according to the SAhR's teshuvah, the minhag caught on after the Besh"t, meaning during the lifetime of its author and his readers, I am inclined to believe his version of the timing over someone who is reconstructing older history. : Also, were not the matzos that were used in the time of the SA : thicker than ours? Again, MB vs the SAhR as to whether that's at issue. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 9th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 most appropriate? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 14:33:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 17:33:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] support obligations In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150413213345.GC3301@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 01:56:37PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : apart from secular courts, is there a positive chiyuv for a husband to : leave 'torato umnato' to support his children ? does a get terminate his : financial obligations halachically? Assuming she didn't agree to the arrangement. Ortherwise, the wife willingly waved her claim to his income, and took on the obligation of self- and child-support. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 20:54:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 03:54:11 GMT Subject: [Avodah] support obligations Message-ID: <20150413.235411.14734.1@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Assuming she didn't agree to the arrangement. Ortherwise, the wife > willingly waved her claim to his income, and took on the obligation > of self- and child-support. I would argue that she accepted the financial responsibilities only in exchange for the s'char she gets from enabling her husband to learn Torah, and that once he ceases to be her husband, that arrangement ends, and the whole thing reverts to the usual. Phrased differently, once he stops giving her the s'char of sharing in his learning, he has to give her a more practical olam-hazeh sort of support. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552c8fb420d2bfb30fdest04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 20:45:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 03:45:47 GMT Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> [RAK gives credit to others in fn. 1. It is not his transcript. -micha] R' Micha Berger posted R' Ari Kahn's transcript of Rav YB Soloveitchik: > ... This is not a psychological > fact; it is an existential fact, which is due not to the inferior > status of the woman, but rather to the difference, the basic > distinction, between the female personality and the male personality. > Loneliness frightens the woman, and an old spinster's life is much > more miserable and tragic than the life of an old bachelor. This was > true in antiquity; it is still true, and it will be true a thousand > years from now. So, to say that tan du mil'meisiv armalo was or > is due to the inferior political or social status of the woman > is simply misinterpreting the chazaka tan du mil'meisiv armalo. ... From what I understand, the objection to hafkaas kiddushin comes from a presumption that a woman would prefer to stay with her husband, even if he seems to be a terrible person, and even if she tells us that in *her* opinion he is a terrible person -- and we have this presumption because of the chazaka of tan du. But I do not see Rav Soloveitchik making that case here. All he is saying is that "an old spinster's life is much more miserable and tragic than the life of an old bachelor." He does say that this relative perspective on singlehood is a "permanent ontological principle[s] rooted in the very depth of the human personality," and that it will never change, and that this information is Revealed in the words of Bereishis. But this refers ONLY to the misery and tragedy of a single woman as opposed to a single man. And that's NOT that argument against hafkaas kiddushin, at least not how I've heard it. The argument that I've heard -- that is to say, the supposed translation of "tav l'meisiv tan du" -- is that a woman would prefer living with ANY man rather than to be alone. I can easily understand opposition to Hafkaas Kiddushin on the grounds that widespread use would give *all* marriages a sort of "tentative" status. But that's not what people are referring to here, right? When they invoke "tan du" against Hafkaas Kidushin, they're saying that despite the wife's protestations, the wife would actually prefer to stay married, and that's why they're unable to annul the marriage. Or am I mistaken? Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 05:26:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 08:26:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <552D0792.4060709@sero.name> On 04/13/2015 11:45 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > From what I understand, the objection to hafkaas kiddushin comes from a > presumption that a woman would prefer to stay with her husband, even if > he seems to be a terrible person, and even if she tells us that in*her* > opinion he is a terrible person -- and we have this presumption because > of the chazaka of tan du. What she prefers is irrelevant. Obviously she wants to leave her husband; she is openly telling us so, and it's ridiculous to suppose she is not telling the truth. And even if she weren't, if the marriage is invalid then it's invalid, no matter what she wants. You're looking at the whole thing from the wrong direction. No objection is needed to annulling a marriage; what's needed is grounds *for* annulling it. The alleged grounds are that it has now become clear that this man was always such a bad person that had the woman known this when he proposed marriage she would have refused, and throughout the subsequent marriage there was never a point at which she was so happy that had she found out the truth she would have consented to stay with him. Now if the husband is bad enough (and it can be proved that he always was so), *and* the woman is such a catch that there was never a point at which she could not have found another husband, then this makes sense. Obviously she has always preferred a good husband to a bad one, and only married this man because she thought he was a good one. But what if refusing to marry him, or leaving him at some point during the marriage, were to expose her to the risk of remaining single forever? Would she still have turned him down or left him? The proponents of annulment say yes, of course she would, just as she has left him now. But, RYBS says, Chazal tell us that it's female nature to prefer a bad husband to none at all, so perhaps even if she had known the truth about this man she would have consented to marry him rather than risk remaining single; or perhaps there was a point after the event at which, had she learned the truth, she would have stayed with him rather than face a single future. > But I do not see Rav Soloveitchik making that case here. All he is saying > is that "an old spinster's life is much more miserable and tragic than > the life of an old bachelor." Yes, and therefore while a man might prefer to be single rather than live with a bad wife, a similarly situated woman will not. That this woman *now* tells us she would, doesn't prove that she always would have. > He does say that this relative perspective on singlehood is a "permanent > ontological principle[s] rooted in the very depth of the human > personality," and that it will never change, and that this information > is Revealed in the words of Bereishis. But this refers ONLY to the misery > and tragedy of a single woman as opposed to a single man. > > And that's NOT that argument against hafkaas kiddushin, at least not > how I've heard it. The argument that I've heard -- that is to say, the > supposed translation of "tav l'meisiv tan du" -- is that a woman would > prefer living with ANY man rather than to be alone. Yes. How is that not the same thing? Spinsterhood is terrible for women, so terrible that they'd prefer living with a bad man to it. > When they invoke "tan du" against Hafkaas Kidushin, they're saying that despite > the wife's protestations, the wife would actually prefer to stay married, > and that's why they're unable to annul the marriage. Or am I mistaken? Not that she'd prefer it now, but that she did prefer it earlier, when she was faced with the risk of never finding anyone else. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 06:44:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 09:44:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Could a New Gadget Change Shabbat Observance - Forever Message-ID: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/njr5j7a List of leading rabbis endorse 'Kosherswitch' to allow lights on Shabbat. High-voltage project could send a current through Jewish world. Will Shabbat observance change forever with a flick of a switch? A new gadget was released to the mass market on Monday promising Orthodox Jews a solution to the age-old problem of leaving lights on or off on Shabbat and then being prevented by Jewish law from flipping the switch. The new invention, dubbed "KosherSwitch," has been beta-tested since 2009 - but an indiegogo campaign launched Monday promises to bring the project to the masses. See the above URL for more as well as for a video explaining how this device works. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 07:59:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 10:59:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Could a New Gadget Change Shabbat Observance - Forever In-Reply-To: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150414145918.GA28845@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 09:44:04AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : From http://tinyurl.com/njr5j7a :> List of leading rabbis endorse 'Kosherswitch' to allow lights on :> Shabbat. High-voltage project could send a current through Jewish :> world. :> Will Shabbat observance change forever with a flick of a switch? Unlikely. They say this is new tech, which could be true since they got a [atenmt, but the How it Works page and the ptent describe something much like what Machon Zomet uses in their wheelchairs . Actually, Zomet makes sure their switch changes the amount of current, I see nothing in the patent about anything but turning the power on and off entirely -- it appears *more* problematic. The engineers among us can check out . As you can read on Zomet's site, R Neuwirth permits the wheelchair only because the issue is basic mobility. KosherSwitch.com shows you that that RYN signed on a "me too" to R' Pinchas Zabihi's haskamah. I have a notion that once things are clarified, the truth is more somewhere in between. When a house is on fire, and someone puts up a wall of pottery flasks filled with water to arrest its progress, geram kibui is mutar. See SA OC 334:22. The Rama either adds or explains (citing the Mordekhai), that this is bemaqom peseida. But gerama isn't suddenly mutar even without hefsed meruba or kevod haberios as a matir. So it all boils down to whether they really have a new tech that is more legitimate for them to call "un-grama" than Machon Zomet's design. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 07:12:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 10:12:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] =?iso-8859-1?q?The_Kosher_Switch=3A_A_Response_from_the_?= =?iso-8859-1?q?Tzomet_Institute=92s_Rabbi_Yisrael_Rosen?= Message-ID: <20150414141204.C79091830F4@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/ptcfckt The rabbinic world and blogosophere (see, for example, here) has been abuzz about the propriety of the Kosher Switch, which its producers claim allows one to halakhically turn on and off lights on shabbat. Attached here is the Hebrew response of Rabbi Yisrael Rosen, the prominent engineer who heads the Tzomet Institute, which includes (signed) clarifications of the positions of Rabbi Avigdor Nevenzahl and Rabbi Yehoshua Neuwirth. It is was sent on Tzomet stationery to Rabbi David Mescheloff, and is reprinted here with permission. Below is a rough English translation of the first page, which does not include some of the halakhic argumentation provided on the 2nd page of the original Hebrew. For all scholarly and halakhic purposes, and purposes of citation, only the original Hebrew letter should be seen as the authoritative writing of Rabbi Rosen. D. And here is the main part of my remarks: Yesterday I went to my teacher and rabbi HaGaon Rabbi Yehoshua Neuwirth, Shlita, and I asked him whether he permitted to use this switch to activate electricity on Shabbat for the purposes of Oneg Shabbat, etc He was really shocked and said he never permitted that. When I showed him the endorsement letter, he added in his handwriting: ?Only for medicine and security? (see photo in attached Hebrew article). Rabbi Avigdor Nebenzahl Shlita, who signed a similar letter, also told me yesterday that he does not recall ever signing anything like that, and expressed the opinion that there is no place for this and was puzzled about the whole thing. I suppose that whoever managed to get the signatures of important rabbis ?sold? them an invention that is a kind of a complex Gramma used for the purpose of medicine or security, and succeeded in skipping this condition when they signed. E. With regard to the claim, written in their accompanying halachic responsum, that it is permitted to use this Gramma switch to minimize the prohibition of those who willfully the violate the Shabbat, we have never heard of such rabbis who permit this. I am sure that those who ?agreed? did not see this argument, and this is an argument that should not be stated. See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 08:01:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joseph Kaplan via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 11:01:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <002d01d076c3$e98d8290$bca887b0$@tenzerlunin.com> "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above." Can anybody explain what this really means? That is, explain it to someone who doesn't use the word "ontological" in his/her normal speech. I have read it many many times but I still don't understand what the Rav is saying. Joseph -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 07:42:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 17:42:18 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: I guess I was a little too succinct in my last post. The major problem is that many consider tefillat haderech as a tefillah and not as a bracha. Thus while one can be motze other for a bracha one cannot do it for a tefillah. Hence, R Nebenzahl paskens that all those that know how to say by themselves should do so R C Kanevsky says it is preferable for each person to say by themself R Tuvia Goldstein says that one cannot be yotzeh someone else and claims that he convinced RMF of that R Belsky repeats that it is a tefillah and not a bracha and so it is appropriate (min ha-raui) that everyone says it for themself. R Aviner says that it is "rachamim" and therefore it is preferable that each one requests for themselves however bidieved one can be motzi others The sefer Piskei Teshuvot (siman 110-2) has a discussion whether one is required to say tefillat haderech in modern times. He concludes that one who does not say it on major roads has someone to rely on but someone who also says it has the reward of a tefilla even though we no longer have "listin" and wild animals on the roads. Instead we have a car accidents. Therefore one should also say tefillat haderech on railroads and planes. He claims that on small side roads that everyone paskens you need to say tefillat haderech -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 08:22:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 11:22:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150414152222.GD28845@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 03:45:47AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : From what I understand, the objection to hafkaas kiddushin comes from a : presumption that a woman would prefer to stay with her husband, even if : he seems to be a terrible person, and even if she tells us that in *her* : opinion he is a terrible person -- and we have this presumption because : of the chazaka of tan du. You phrased it as a psychological issue. RYBS says it's something existential or ontological -- and explicitly NOT pschological. I think he is saying that this vector exists in every woman's character. Even when current social reality provides other vectors that may submerge tav lemeisiv tan du, it is an entity present in her psyche (ontologically) still shaping her perception of reality (existential). And because of that element of her soul, inherited from Chavah, it's very hard to ever call a marriage a complete meqach ta'us on the bride's part. But again, my impression from RAL which is reinforced by this transcript, this particular argument was a side-bar, not RYBS's primary argument. Eg: ... : I can easily understand opposition to Hafkaas Kiddushin on the grounds : that widespread use would give *all* marriages a sort of "tentative" : status. But that's not what people are referring to here, right? ... RYBS discusses that issue at greater length than this one anyway. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 08:32:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 11:32:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] support obligations In-Reply-To: <20150413.235411.14734.1@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150413.235411.14734.1@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150414153245.GE28845@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 03:54:11AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Micha Berger wrote: : > Assuming she didn't agree to the arrangement. Ortherwise, the wife : > willingly waved her claim to his income, and took on the obligation : > of self- and child-support. : I would argue that she accepted the financial responsibilities only : in exchange for the s'char she gets from enabling her husband to learn : Torah, and that once he ceases to be her husband, that arrangement ends, : and the whole thing reverts to the usual. Phrased differently, once he : stops giving her the s'char of sharing in his learning, he has to give : her a more practical olam-hazeh sort of support. We are in the weird situation of talking about what the bride was agreeing to WRT a situation she never pictured arising. (I am reminded of Avodah discussions about what the Rambam would do if faced with what he perceives as a solid philosophical proof for a position he could not find a basis for in Torah. Would he declare something an allegory despite a lack of source in Chazal, would he dismiss the proof as flawed, perhaps even assuming the flaw had to be something he didn't yet find? The Rambam thought the situation was impossible.) So, I want to detour into a case more likely to have crossed the kallah's mind -- his death. If the husband predeceases her without having left kollel, she wouldn't expect him to leave her the same estate than if he had spent that time earning money. It may be equally valid to argue that the bride relinquishes claims to money even after he finishes learning, in exchange for supporting him while learning -- however long that lasts. I really don't know which way of looking at things is more valid. It's kind of like the old chestnut, "But if you did have a brother, would he like noodles?" Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 10:00:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Weiss via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 10:00:06 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3e97bfe1715ba4f18f42bf014d7ab62a.squirrel@mail.panix.com> > From http://www.dinonline.org/2012/07/11/davening-outdoors/ >> Is it problematic to daven outdoors? ... >> The Gemara (Berachos 34b) writes that it is wrong >> (arrogant - chatzuf) to daven in an open field. >> Rashi explains that in an open field, one doesn't >> feel fear of the King, and one doesn't pray with >> a broken heart. Tosafos, however, understands >> that the concern is for passers-by, who are >> liable to disturb a person's davening. >> The Magen Avraham (90:6) rules that the problem >> is that davening outside makes a haughty >> statement... ... >> Therefore, although it is not forbidden to daven >> outdoors, it is wrong to daven in an open area, >> and one should seek a sheltered place. As you see from the above it is the Lechatichilla not do daven in an open place, Last week we had a mincha minyan at the grand canyon, (to wait to a more appropriate place it would have been well after dark) When one davens in a large minyan and is surrounded by other people davening it is easier to concentrate on the tefilla. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 12:44:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 15:44:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd [TM]: Why Does God Test Us? Message-ID: <20150414194402.GB3303@aishdas.org> RGStudent recently posted a piece to answer the question "Why Does God Test Us?" The notion that the all-knowing God needs to test us to determine whether we will follow His command is absurd. He knows the future and therefore gains nothing from the exercise. Yet the Torah discusses in multiple places God's tests. For example, regarding the man (manna) that fell in the desert, God states: "So that I may test them, whether they will follow My law or not" (Ex. 16:4). The midrash (Tanchuma, Vayera 23) expresses the question aptly: ... I. Personal Growth The Kuzari (5:20), followed by the Ramban (Gen. 22:1; Ex. 16:4; Deut. 13:4; Toras Ha-Bayis in Kisvei Ha-Ramban, vol. 2 pp. 272-273), explains that God tests people in order to actualize their potential goodness.... II. Education Rambam (Moreh Nevukhim 3:24) takes an entirely different approach. He sees divine tests as a way to publicize, and thereby teach, the righteousness of an individual.... III. Adult Education I believe that, aside from midrashic sources and textual cues, Rambam had a more fundamental reason for taking a path different from that of the Kuzari and Ramban. The Gemara (Makkos 10a) says that Heaven takes you in the direction you wish to go. Similarly, another Gemara (Yoma 39a) says that someone who wishes to become pure (i.e. do good) is divinely assisted. Apparently, the Ramban takes this literally. ... IV. Self-Discovery Radal (ibid.) offers a third approach to understanding divine tests. Pirkei De-Rabbi Eliezer (31) says that the test was for Avraham to know his heart. God certainly know whether we will pass a test but poses it so that we learn our own abilities. Like a good coach, God pushes us farther than we think we can go. This, too, applies to adults who often underestimate their capacity for strength. God only tests those who will pass and by doing so teaches us the extent of our faith and endurance. ... -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 15:41:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 18:41:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] reviit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150414224153.GA9794@aishdas.org> On Sun, Apr 12, 2015 at 07:54:45PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : In the sefer of Rav Aviner he brings many examples of gedolim who used a : kiddush cup the size of the shiur of R Chaim Naeh (86 CC) and not CI. : He says he heard from RSZA that when RCN published his sefer on shiurim the : rabbis of Yerushalayim were astounded at his chumra !! Interesting, because I thought that RACN's agenda was to justify the accepted practice in his local, in EY in the early 20th cent. (Something I learned on-list 15 years ago.) Minhag Y-m is RACN's shiurim, because RACN started with the assumption that Minhag Y-m was roughly accuate, with the Sepharadim being the more precise. RACN himself was a Lubavitcher chassid of the Yishuva haYashan, born in Chevron. I do not know why people usually call him "Rav Chaim Naeh", ommitting his first name "Avraham". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 15:50:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 18:50:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: <3e97bfe1715ba4f18f42bf014d7ab62a.squirrel@mail.panix.com> References: <3e97bfe1715ba4f18f42bf014d7ab62a.squirrel@mail.panix.com> Message-ID: <20150414225006.GB9794@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 10:00:06AM -0700, Harry Weiss via Avodah wrote: : > From http://www.dinonline.org/2012/07/11/davening-outdoors/ : >> Is it problematic to daven outdoors? : ... : >> The Gemara (Berachos 34b) writes that it is wrong : >> (arrogant - chatzuf) to daven in an open field. : : >> Rashi explains that in an open field, one doesn't : >> feel fear of the King, and one doesn't pray with : >> a broken heart. Tosafos, however, understands : >> that the concern is for passers-by, who are : >> liable to disturb a person's davening. : : >> The Magen Avraham (90:6) rules that the problem : >> is that davening outside makes a haughty : >> statement... : ... : >> Therefore, although it is not forbidden to daven : >> outdoors, it is wrong to daven in an open area, : >> and one should seek a sheltered place. : .... : When one davens in a large minyan and is surrounded by other people : davening it is easier to concentrate on the tefilla. The Kotel Plaza doesn't suffer from any of these concerns, which is unsurprising because centuries of gedolim had no problem davening outside at the kotel. It's set up like a shul, so there is no special chutzpah or yuharah in davening there. Interruptions are likely, but generally for other mitzvos -- tzedaqah, or answering qaddish or qedushah from nearby minyanim. In terms And the location actively fosters yir'ah, koveid rosh and a broken heart. However, davening at Robinson's arch might suffer from the yuhara issue. (Personally, I find it more moving than the Kotel Plaza. One stands on the same road walked by oleh regel, among stones thrown off Har haBayis by the Roman Army (whether during the churban or when Hadrian had the har plowed, I do not know). Behind me are the ghosts of shopkeepers, ready to exchange my maaser sheini coins back to food, sell me flour for a qorban Todah or an animal for a differen qorban. The miqvah is a bit back, and to the left.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 16:12:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 23:12:56 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <20150414.191256.7783.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The major problem is that many consider tefillat haderech as a > tefillah and not as a bracha. Thus while one can be motze other > for a bracha one cannot do it for a tefillah. I am very confused. Many poskim recommend point out that Tefilas Haderech does not begin with "Baruch", so they recommend saying it after another bracha (such as Asher Yatzar, or a Bracha Acharona on food), so as to make it into a Bracha Hasemucha L'chvertah. But if Tefilas Haderech is not a bracha to begin with, then I do not see the advantage of such a procedure. According to "Halachically Speaking", vol 1 pg 76, the poskim who recommend the above procedure includes: Magen Avraham 110:13, Machatzis Hashekel 110:13, Be'er Hetev 110:10, Shulchan Aruch Harav 110:6, Mishneh Berurah 110:28, Aruch Hashulchan 110:14, Kaf Hachaim 110:51 -- but NOT the Chazon Ish (Orchos Rabenu 1:61). In addition, I recall learning of certain situations where it is recommended that one should say tefilas haderech, but omitting the chasima at the end. But if it's not a bracha at all even WITH the chasima, then what is gained by leaving it out? I suspect that I do not appreciate or understand the meaning of "as a tefillah and not as a bracha". Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552d9f0aeea561f0a2aa2st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 19:48:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 22:48:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Could a New Gadget Change Shabbat Observance - Forever In-Reply-To: <20150414145918.GA28845@aishdas.org> References: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150414145918.GA28845@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415024810.GA29474@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 10:59:18AM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 09:44:04AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : : From http://tinyurl.com/njr5j7a : : :> List of leading rabbis endorse 'Kosherswitch' to allow lights on : :> Shabbat. High-voltage project could send a current through Jewish : :> world. RGS just posted http://www.torahmusings.com/2015/04/will-the-kosher-switch-bring-mashiach-2 which also links to his earlier http://www.torahmusings.com/2011/09/in-defense-of-the-kosher-switch .... : As you can read on Zomet's site, R Neuwirth permits the wheelchair only : because the issue is basic mobility. KosherSwitch.com shows you that that : RYN signed on a "me too" to R' Pinchas Zabihi's haskamah. I have a notion : that once things are clarified, the truth is more somewhere in between. Actually, RGS determined that R Neuwirth didn't give his approval of the Kosher Switch outide of special circumstances. RGS writes: > The Kosher Switch adds uncertainty to the Gerama Switch. Every time the > device is supposed to send a light impulse, it calculates a random number > below 100 and only sends the impulse if the number passes a threshold > (usually over 50). However, there is a random element to Machon Zomet's switch too. Again, I do not see anything in the patent that makes this switch any less a simple case of gerama than Machon Zomet's switch. (In fact, R' Rosen of Zomet checked the posqim cited on KosherSwitch.com *because* he saw no reason why they would allow the Kosher Switch for general use and not Zomet's Grama Switch.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 19:26:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 02:26:43 GMT Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150414.222643.13892.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> R' Joseph Kaplan asked: > "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with > the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not > upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon > permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of > the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, > which is as changeless as the heavens above." > > Can anybody explain what this really means? That is, explain it > to someone who doesn?t use the word "ontological" in his/her > normal speech. I have read it many many times but I still > don?t understand what the Rav is saying. This is how I understand it: Just as a leopard cannot change its spots, and just as Shabbos comes each week whether society accepts it or not, so too, there are certain elements of the human condition which Chazal have identified as inherent and unchanging, not subject to variation by time, place, or culture. Or something like that. At any rate, one can agree or disagree about whether this assertion is true, and even among those who agree with it, there might be discussion of exactly which chazakos are unchanging and which are variable. Still, his point is that there are indeed some UNchanging aspects. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552dcca9d8e634ca96125st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 02:07:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 05:07:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's true position on kosher switch I regret that my father's position on the kosher switch was misrepresented by stating that he endorses it l'maaseh . His position is that there are 2 aspects in hilchos shabbos, one is issur melacha and then there is zilzul shabbos. My father's opinion is that there is no issur melacha or chilul shabbos. However , there is a concern about zilzul shabbos as he stated clearly on the video. Before it is used one should ask a shaila from his rav. Moshe Oelbaum Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:01:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:01:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld : regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. ... :> Moshe Oelbaum :> Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum Authentication? -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 23:10:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 09:10:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: The reason for not allowing to be motzi someone else is actually quite simple. The Gemara in Berachos (29b) clearly states that tefilas haderech is a tefila "Amar R' Chisda hayotzeh laderech tzarich lhispallel tefilas haderech". Therefore the general rule of tefilla should apply, namely that if you are a baki someone else cannot be motzi you. Since nowadays we are all considered bekiim and for example, we don't allow someone to be motzi us in tefilas mincha the same would apply to tefilas haderech. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:18:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:18:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:01 AM 4/15/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: >: Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld >: regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. >... >Authentication? What I posted was sent to me by someone on my email list whom I trust. I can send you his email address if you like. YL From http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/kosher-switch > moish3 at yahoo.com > Member > Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's true position on kosher switch . > I regret that my father's position on kosher switch was > misrepresented by stating that he endorses it l'maaseh . His position > is that there are 2 aspects in hilchos shabbos. One is issur melacha > and then there is zilzul shabbos. My father's opinion is that there > is no issur melacha or chilul shabbos. However , there is a concern > about zilzul shabbos as he stated clearly on the video. Before it is > used one should ask a shaila from his rav. > Moshe Oelbaum > Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:44:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:44:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 06:18:35AM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : What I posted was sent to me by someone on my email list whom I trust. : I can send you his email address if you like. YL ... : From http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/kosher-switch : > moish3 at yahoo.com : > Member Oh, I believe it really appeared in YWN, and that link can allow you to check that much for ourselves. What I'm asking is whether anyone contact R' Moshe Oelbaum or RNIO to authenticate that the post really was from his son. It is trivial to claim to be anyone in a YWN chatroom. I don't know RMO, but I can't picture R' NI Oelbaum promulgating his position via chatroom. Could be, if his son is a regular there anyway. The presence of a post really doesn't tell me much. No matter how honest the person reporting to you is, he can be duped unless he spoke to the parties himself. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:13:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:13:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150415101229.BCD31183613@nexus.stevens.edu> At 05:54 AM 4/15/2015, R. Harry Weiss wrote: >When one davens in a large minyan and is surrounded by other people >davening it is easier to concentrate on the tefilla. I do not find this to be true for me personally. I am not a "group person" and hence prefer to daven in a minyan that has between 20 and forty participants. This is the case where I daven during the week and also at the Hashkama Minyan at the YI of Ave J where I daven on Shabbos. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 06:34:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 09:34:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:44 AM 4/15/2015, Micha Berger wrote: > What I'm asking is whether >anyone contact R' Moshe Oelbaum or RNIO to authenticate that the >post really was from his son. It is trivial to claim to be anyone >in a YWN chatroom. I received this in an email from Moshe Deutsch I personally spoke to Rabbi & Rebbetzin Oelbaum who told me to publicize this. I was the one who made them aware that the person behind KosherSwitch is using his name in a way that Rabbi Oelbaum did not intend. Person behind KosherSwitch does not pick up the phone now when Rabbi Oelbaum calls. Moshe From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 07:21:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 10:21:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 09:34:32AM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : I received this in an email from Moshe Deutsch :> I personally spoke to Rabbi & Rebbetzin Oelbaum who told me to :> publicize this. I was the one who made them aware that the person :> behind KosherSwitch is using his name in a way that Rabbi Oelbaum did :> not intend... This still doesn't clear up my confusion, although it does confirm what the YWN post said (if not who authored it). I am trying to understand whether RNIO's problem with the appearance of his name on the KosherSwitch.com "approvers" list is because a- he feels that use of the switch is zilzul Shabbos, or b- he would hold it's gerama. What I am trying to understand is the tzad to say their switch isn't gerama. It appears to conform to the description of the Machon Zomet switch as it existed at the time R' Neuwirth consulted with RSZA who ruled it was. If RNIO holds it's "only" zilzul Shabbos, then clarifying what his position is was useful, but doesn't remove all my confusion. I was expecting that the posqim the Kosher Switch people are hearing overly optimistically (for their investment) would actually all end up agreeing with RSZA once we got clarification. Such as R' Neuwirth, whose approval was based on assuming the proposed use was a medical context. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 04:38:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 14:38:08 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <> On many birtchot hamitzva one can be motzeh others even when they are "experts". This includes shofar, megilla etc (not lulav or netillat yadaim which is considered as a mitzvah be-gufo) similarly for kiddush and havdala. Note that for sefirat haomer usually each person says the bracha himself/herself and also counts for themselves. There are opinions that if needed one can rely on the chazzan for the bracha but not the count. In birchat ha-nehenim usually each individual makes his own bracha. There are some which are a mixture including kiddush and motzi on shabbat on lechem mishne (note there are various minhagim on seder night). For birchat shevach eg lightning seeing great mountains etc each person says it by himself. OTOH the shliach tzibbur can be motzi others with shemone esre only if they cant say it themselves. Shemonei esrei is a tefillah (bakasha and shevach) even though shemonei esrei consists of brachot. The usual minhag is that each individual says birchat hagomel though I once heard from R Zilberstein that if many people need to say it then it is preferable for one person to be motzei everyone else ---------------------------------------- I am not sure if I have made things clearer - if not I leave it to someone else to explain exactly when one can be motze others lechatchila, bidieved or not at all -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 06:29:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 16:29:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: R' Akiva Miller wrote: > I suspect that I do not appreciate or understand the meaning of "as a > tefillah and not as a bracha". The difference between tefila and a beracha is whether you can be motzi a baki nowadays. With a beracha you can however with a tefilla you cannot which is why these poskim hold that each person should say tefilas haderech the same way every person davens shemoneh esrei. You also asked: > I am very confused. Many poskim recommend point out that Tefilas Haderech > does not begin with "Baruch", so they recommend saying it after another > bracha (such as Asher Yatzar, or a Bracha Acharona on food), so as to make > it into a Bracha Hasemucha L'chvertah. But if Tefilas Haderech is not a > bracha to begin with, then I do not see the advantage of such a procedure. Something can be both a beracha and a tefila at the same time, the prime example is shemoneh esrei which is tefilla par excellence but composed of 18 (19) berachos. Tefilas haderech is a tefila composed (possibly) in the form of a beracha and therefore the rules of tefilla would apply. [Email #2. -micha] R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The sefer Piskei Teshuvot (siman 110-2) has a discussion whether one is > required to say tefillat haderech in modern times. He concludes that one > who does not say it on major roads has someone to rely on but someone who > also says it has the reward of a tefilla even though we no longer have > "listin" and wild animals on the roads. It seems clear from the context of the gemara that tefilas haderech is a tefila b'eis tzara. The gemara mentions tefilas haderech right after it mentions that a person who is in a dangerous place says a tefila. The world has changed a lot since the time of chazal especially related to travel and we need to understand if these changes affect the din of tefilas haderech Here are some of the changes that have occurred relating to travel. 1. Most travel is no longer considered unsafe. When I get in my car every morning to drive to work I don't think twice about it 2. The distinction between in the city and out of the city is no longer true. Most people fell much safer driving in the Catskills then driving through Harlem. Driving on a highway from Brooklyn to Queens is in the city but driving in Monsey to the supermarket may be considered out of the city. 3. This is related to 1, people travel all the time. Most people commute some distance to work, this is normal and part of everyday life. In the time of chazal yotze laderech was a big deal. Given the above R' Shachter (in Nefesh Harav) says that R' Soloveitchik did not say tefilas haderech when he commuted from Boston to NY to give his shiurim. He felt that because it is a tefila b'eis tzara and nowadays there is no perceived danger and it is routine that there was no reason to say it. Recently, I heard a short shiur on tefilas haderech and was happy to hear that RSZA seems to say a very similar idea to RYBS. RSZA did not say tefilas haderech when he traveled from Yerushayim to Bnei Brak. He explained his reasoning as follows: 1. In many places it is not considered as if you left the yishuv for the following reasons: 1. There are many other cars on the road 2. The police regularly patrol the road 3. There are houses on the side of the road 2. Traveling by car/bus is a normal activity. Whan a person gets up and commutes to work he does not say he is going on a trip. The takana of tefilas haderech was for someone who was yotze laderech these kinds of trips are not considered ???? ????. 3. There is little or no danger of yotze laderech RSZA reasoning is very similar to RYBS. Basically, the world has changed and it is no longer unusual or dangerous to travel between cities and therefore the din of when you say tefilas haderech changes as well. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 05:05:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:05:17 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150414.222643.13892.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150414.222643.13892.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <0fa3e90282b94c0e95214067965f579a@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> This is how I understand it: Just as a leopard cannot change its spots, and just as Shabbos comes each week whether society accepts it or not, so too, there are certain elements of the human condition which Chazal have identified as inherent and unchanging, not subject to variation by time, place, or culture. Or something like that. At any rate, one can agree or disagree about whether this assertion is true, and even among those who agree with it, there might be discussion of exactly which chazakos are unchanging and which are variable. Still, his point is that there are indeed some UNchanging aspects. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ I would add an observation that individual exceptions may exist empirically but are ignored halachically Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 06:24:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 09:24:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tan Du In-Reply-To: <20150406184227.GF20912@aishdas.org> References: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150406184227.GF20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <552E669A.6000104@aishdas.org> I personally was always inclined to side with Rabbi Rackman over RYBS on tav l'meisav, but this article gives me pause: http://www.bbc.com/news/health-32303997 KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 07:57:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 10:57:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Message-ID: From: Joseph Kaplan via Avodah "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above." Can anybody explain what this really means? That is, explain it to someone who doesn't use the word "ontological" in his/her normal speech. I have read it many many times but I still don't understand what the Rav is saying. Joseph >>>>> If you leave out the word "ontological" here the sentence is perfectly clear: Human nature does not change. I'm sure you looked up the definition of "ontological" so no need to go there. But in this paragraph, the word "ontological" serves a subliminal purpose. Here it means, "Don't condescend to Orthodox Jews and do not assume we are backwards, primitive, and ignorant. One can be an intellectual and still believe the Torah is true and eternal." --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 08:12:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:12:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: From: Eli Turkel via Avodah >>The sefer Piskei Teshuvot (siman 110-2) has a discussion whether one is required to say tefillat haderech in modern times. He concludes that one who does not say it on major roads has someone to rely on but someone who also says it has the reward of a tefilla even though we no longer have "listin" and wild animals on the roads. Instead we have a car accidents. Therefore one should also say tefillat haderech on railroads and planes. He claims that on small side roads that everyone paskens you need to say tefillat haderech<< -- Eli Turkel >>>> Saying tefillas haderech "on major roads" -- does that mean even within one city, not just when traveling between cities? "On small side roads everyone paskens you need to say tefillas haderech"? What does that mean? Every time I get in the car to go to the grocery store in my own neighborhood? Or was the word "don't" inadvertently omitted from that sentence ("you don't need to say tefillat haderech")? I was driving someone to the cemetery for a levaya, we were on the highway doing 60 and all of a sudden it started to rain, but I mean a mabul, a hard, driving, blinding rain. I couldn't see at all in front of me. Of course I slowed down, as did everyone else, but it was still very frightening and certainly I couldn't just stop in the middle of the highway. My passenger, a BT, became very agitated and said, "I only know one perek of Tehillim by heart so I am going to say that." Then she recited Shir Hamaalos (from benching) out loud. The rain stopped immediately! A few miles further down the road, there was another sudden blinding outburst and she said Shir Hamaalos again. Again the rain immediately stopped. She was like a reverse Choni Hamaagel! I really think her emunah peshuta saved the day! But to veer back into Avodah territory -- would it have been appropriate to say Tefillas Haderech at that time? With shem umalchus? (I assume you can always say it without shem umalchus.) --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 08:34:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:34:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides Message-ID: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> There was a bachur next to me this morning whose retzu'os were painted black on both sides. And I believe I know why this is done, in case a retzu'ah gets flipped. Or perhaps to be chosheish for the Rambam's description of such retzu'os being "noi". The MB 933:21 tells us not to follow the Rambam, whereas the Keses haSofer (written by R' Ganzfried of the QSA) says even the *sides* should be black. But the site got me wondering: 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? 2- If the leather is soaked in dye untile its absorbed and the leather is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? R YS Elyashiv is reported by R' Mordeschai Friedlander (a noted sofer and poseiq, a reliable source) to hold they're fine. I am not challenging their kashrus. It just struck me that both seem valid concerns. I assume the talented chevrah can find holes in my problems. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:17:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:17:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> At 10:21 AM 4/15/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >I am trying to understand whether RNIO's problem with the appearance of >his name on the KosherSwitch.com "approvers" list is because >a- he feels that use of the switch is zilzul Shabbos, or >b- he would hold it's gerama. Does it really matter. He is saying that he does not approve of its use. Why do you need to know more? YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:32:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:32:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 12:17:02PM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : Does it really matter. He is saying that he does not approve of its : use. Why do you need to know more? For the sake of the switch, no. For the sake of understanding the concept of gerama -- Torah hi, velilamdah ani tzarikh! Saying this switch isn't gerama, and its use limited to cases where we can permit gerama, really defies my understanding of the concept. Or perhaps I misunderstand how it works, in which case the Electrical Engineer I studied to become (and the neti'ah that motivated the intent to become one) wants to know. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:07:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 17:07:04 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:34:00 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah > 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam > consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? > 2- If the leather is soaked in dye [until it's] absorbed and the leather > is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we > know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? 1. If it is just soaked, there is no problem of chatzitzah. (Did the fact that the pesiloth of the Tsits were soaked in techeles dye constitute a problem of chatsisoh? atmahah?) There may be a problem if it was subsequently glossed black - which it isn't. 2. Why shouldn't it be valid material after soaking? It's still leather. According to halachah, [have not checked this up right now - but if memory serves me] you can even use klaf [bdi'eved] for retsuos - as long as it is the skin of a kosher beheimoh, its kosher. Dovid [sofer] From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:13:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:13:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> References: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <552E8E18.4090201@sero.name> On 04/15/2015 11:34 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam > consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? Why would it be? It's part of the retzua. AFAIK everyone agrees that it's a hiddur, just not necessary, and most people don't bother. > 2- If the leather is soaked in dye untile its absorbed and the leather > is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we > know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? Why wouldn't it be? It's still leather, after all. Where does it say what colour the leather must be? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:57:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:57:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150415165733.GD6173@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:04PM +0100, D via Avodah wrote: : Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:34:00 -0400 : From: Micha Berger via Avodah :> 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam :> consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? : 1. If it is just soaked, there is no problem of chatzitzah. (Did the : fact that the pesiloth of the Tsits were soaked in techeles dye : constitute a problem of chatsisoh? atmahah?) ... So I believe your answer to my first question is that they don't paint the bottom, they only use my scenario two -- soaking the leather. About your parenthetical comment... If halakhah requires tekheiles, it requires blue wool. The completed product would be what the kohein shouldn't have a chatzitzah under. Not the undyed wool. :> 2- If the leather is soaked in dye [until it's] absorbed and the leather :> is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we :> know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? : 2. Why shouldn't it be valid material after soaking? It's still : leather.... But it's no longer entirely skin of a kosher beheimah, as the dye isn't made from skin. It is now a retzuah made of skin + dye. I could see that either way, and am asking how we (or the posqim among us) can just assume that this innovation is not a problem. Just as tekheiles is different than tzemer, perhaps dye-soaked leather is different in kind than leather. How did we determine it isn't? : Dovid [sofer] Thanks for chiming in. But could you kindly put your full name in your email header or signature once in a while, so that people know who we're talking to? One of Avodah's goals is to create chevraschaft, which is difficult when people are anonymous or partially so. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 10:28:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 17:28:55 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150415.132855.9927.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 12:17:02PM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : Does it really matter. He is saying that he does not approve of its : use. Why do you need to know more? This is like saying, about ANY situation, "He is saying that it is assur. Why do you need to know if it is d'Oraisa or d'rabanan?" The answer is very simple: There are some situations which would justify doing it if "merely" d'rabanan, but not otherwise. Similarly, there may be situations where RNIO would allow this it his svara was ABC, but not if his svara was XYZ. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552e9fe45804e1fe4411ast02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 12:42:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 19:42:24 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu>, <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> Message-ID: <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Saying this switch isn't gerama, and its use limited to cases where we can permit gerama, really defies my understanding of the concept. Or perhaps I misunderstand how it works, in which case the Electrical Engineer I studied to become (and the neti'ah that motivated the intent to become one) wants to know. Tir'u baTov! -Micha _______________________________________________ Sounds to me like r' asher weiss's makeh bpatish definition. Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 16:13:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 19:13:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 07:42:24PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Sounds to me like r' asher weiss's makeh bpatish definition. You lost me. I wasn't discussing which melakhah -- if any -- one violates by using electricity in an of itself, but how using this switch relates to that melakhah. For example, even if we say that electricity and electronics itself weren't an issue, the majority of these switches would be installed so as to turn on fluorescent or incandescent bulbs. Both of which heat filaments until glowing -- so there is a melakhah of bishul or hav'arah to discuss. And my question becomes: In that rather typical setting, how the switch not gerama of one of those two melakhos? (Or possibly both, if a glowing filament is hav'arah, and the resulting boiling of mercury in the fluorescent bulb, bishul.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 13:05:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 16:05:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: REliTurkel wrote: >Just saw a halacha that to me was a chiddush That one cannot (or should not) be yotzeh someone else for tefiilat haderech but everyone should say for them self. Those agreeing (at least lechatchila) include R Aviner R Nebenzahl R C Kanevsky R Tuvia Goldstein (who said he convinced RMF) R Belsky Not what I have seen in practice. Anyone know any opinion that does allow it< Is there any opinion, even of the five quoted, which holds that one is _not_ yotzei even b'diavad? As for RET's question, the Kol Bo on Aveilus, quoted in SSK, Perek 64, footnote 75, states that an onein is obligated in t'fillas haderech, but it is preferable that he be yotzei with another's b'racha. (I have not seen the SSK, but have seen it quoted.) EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 15:35:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 15:35:27 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach Message-ID: did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 17:00:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 20:00:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 6:35 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? I have a friend who does this. She once told me the origins but I forget where it came from. I remember that it was very obscure and non traditional. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 17:38:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 20:38:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150416003839.GD1638@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 03:35:27PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? What did it grow out of? Avoiding she'avar alav es hapesach? A way of avoiding chodosh, at least during the omer period? -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 17:44:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 20:44:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: <20150416003839.GD1638@aishdas.org> References: <20150416003839.GD1638@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 8:38 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 03:35:27PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: >: did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? > What did it grow out of? ... It had to do with chodosh and the omer/barley. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 22:05:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Weiss via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 22:05:46 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > From: Marty Bluke via Avodah > Given the above R' Shachter (in Nefesh Harav) says that R' Soloveitchik > did > not say tefilas haderech when he commuted from Boston to NY to give his > shiurim. He felt that because it is a tefila b'eis tzara and nowadays > there > is no perceived danger and it is routine that there was no reason to say > it. I was on a number of trips to Europe with RHS and every morning when the bus left town he said Tefillas Haderech over the loudspeaker. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 22:19:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 08:19:12 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: multipart/alternative Size: 369 bytes Desc: not available URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 07:15:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:15:53 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: Question: If one doesn't view eilu v'eilu as multiple truths but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which is which), how do you explain the approach to halachic process which ignores academic findings concerning texts or historical circumstances? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 07:16:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:16:49 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] =?windows-1252?q?Nikra_Choteih=94_or_=93Nikra_Rasha=94?= Message-ID: <34b0a662bcc7405695661d14e08ddcfd@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> The gemara uses the expression ?Nikra Choteih? or ?Nikra Rasha? from time to time. Has anyone seen anything written on the relative ranking of such categories? (e.g. since it doesn?t say ?assur?? does it mean it?s not a complete prohibition but something less?) KT Joel RIch THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 08:26:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 16:26:54 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I've never heard of the minhag but there is a chasidishe minhag to eat matsoh every time one washes for hamotsi during the Omer [see Chayim VeShoolom - Minhogim of Munkatche Rebbe] - which might be connected. (The source is the Ari who perceives the spiritual influx of Pesach to be repeated over the Omer; the state that warrants the eating of matsoh during Pesach carries over till Shovuos. Full 'maturity' that warrants the eating of chomets is only reached on Shovuos.) Dovid Rubin From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 10:13:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 17:13:44 GMT Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach Message-ID: <20150416.131344.1969.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> R' Dovid Rubin wrote: > (The source is the Ari who perceives the spiritual influx of Pesach > to be repeated over the Omer; the state that warrants the eating of > matsoh during Pesach carries over till Shovuos. This reminds me of the comment (which I've heard several times here on Avodah, but I don't think anywhere else) that in Moshiach's time, all of Sefira will be a sort of Chol Hamoed to Pesach. > Full 'maturity' that > warrants the eating of chomets is only reached on Shovuos.) Shavuos -- a.k.a. -- "Atzeres" -- is of course an entirely distinct holiday, unrelated to Pesach or to its seven-week long chol hamoed. Chometz would not be a problem on Shavuos any more than Sukkah is mandated on the other Atzeres. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552fede2bc7ec6de23df7st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 10:56:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 13:56:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: <20150416.131344.1969.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.131344.1969.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150416175612.GB10238@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 05:13:44PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Dovid Rubin wrote: :> Full 'maturity' that :> warrants the eating of chomets is only reached on Shovuos.) : Shavuos -- a.k.a. -- "Atzeres" -- is of course an entirely : distinct holiday, unrelated to Pesach or to its seven-week long chol : hamoed. Chometz would not be a problem on Shavuos any more than Sukkah : is mandated on the other Atzeres. Entirely distinct, yes. Unrelated.... The chag of cheirus finds its fruition with "charos - cheirus al haluchos." The connection between the issur chameitz of Pesach, the barley of the qorban omer, and the two loaves of chameitz wheat of the Shetei haLechem is at least as old as the Chinukh. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:22:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:22:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> Yesterday, at 7:13 pm EDT, I wrote: > And my question becomes: In that rather typical setting, how the > switch not gerama of one of those two melakhos? (Or possibly both, if > a glowing filament is hav'arah, and the resulting boiling of mercury > in > the fluorescent bulb, bishul.) And then "ssvarc" (RMSS) wrote on Torah Musings at 8:28 am or > In all likelihood, the Zomet one doesn?t have the light on a > randomized > timer (with indicators), nor the randomized chance for the light > pulse > to operate the switch. Now for an updated version of my response (not yet approved) there: Zomet's Grama Switch does have a randomizer on the LED whose light you may or may not block. As do Shabbos mode ovens. The Kosher Switch has a the same randomizer on the detector opposite the LED, but I don?t see how that makes anything more random. But now that you had me looking at their ?How it Works? page, the key difference has the description of a sefeiq sefeiqa. It?s far from clear what is meant. Here?s the quote from : > This creates two safeiks (Halachic uncertainty): the first, whether > or not the light pulse of the Light Pulse Pair will fail; the second, > whether the switch will fail in triggering the circuit based on the > results of the Light Pulse Pair. ?The switch will fail in triggering the circuit?? What are they doing to introduce this second safeiq? The best I can tell, it's a simple bit of software -- a randomizer that says "don't respond anyway". But that's just guessing, I'm not good enough at reading their patent to be sure. Also, in what sense is either a safeiq? Both will eventually happen, the question is when. I am not sure how ?sefeiq sefeiqa? applies to gerama, or to be more precise -- avoiding gerama. But at least I?m a step further in my understanding. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Here is the test to find whether your mission micha at aishdas.org on Earth is finished: http://www.aishdas.org if you're alive, it isn't. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Richard Bach From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:46:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:46:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> Message-ID: PS: On the relevance of random delay to gerama... AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is *geram* kibui". A case of gerama with a random time delay. But this is Yom Tov, where the laws against extinguishing are looser. The AhS refers you to OC 277:7, where we see that on Shabbos it's assur -- but because of a special gezeira to prevent people from doing the same when the wind *is* blowing. Not because of gerama. I also don't think the randomness of the length of the delay is necessarily relevant. Just pointing out halachic precedent. But it's certainly not "iffy" that we could invoke sefeiq sefeiqa. It's a random length delay, not a doubt whether or not the switch will eventually cause the outcome. The odds the wind will never come, or the randomizer(s) will never produce a combination that causes the switch to be honored, is ignorably small. (No one is selling a switch that may or may not shut the light.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:43:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:43:56 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: RJRich >>>Sounds to me like r' asher weiss's makeh bpatish definition. RMBerger >>>> You lost me. I wasn't discussing which melakhah -- if any -- one violates by using electricity in an of itself, but how using this switch relates to that melakhah. >>> IIAMN, the idea RJR is expressing is that the poseik has ad initio determined that the action in question is forbidden, and now is searching around for the category into which to place this prohibition. I have heard RAWeiss explicitly use this concept in classifying the use of electricity as makeh b'patish, based on a Yerushalmi - it's not an idea just made up by contemporary poskim. It does seem that some poskim are looking at the switch and saying "it *must *be assur somehow"; in any event that seems to me to be what RJR is suggesting is going on. Saul Mashbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:45:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:45:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55300361.8020803@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 02:22 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > "The switch will fail in triggering the circuit"? What are they > doing to introduce this second safeiq? The best I can tell, it's > a simple bit of software -- a randomizer that says "don't respond > anyway". But that's just guessing, I'm not good enough at reading their > patent to be sure. Yes, that's how I understood it. If and when the pulse is received, instead of automatically triggering the light to turn on, there's a gatekeeper that flips a coin, heads it obeys the request to turn on the light, tails it refuses. > Also, in what sense is either a safeiq? Both will eventually happen, > the question is when. In principle it might not ever happen. The basis of all this seems to be siman 277. There the concern is that even if the wind isn't blowing right now, it might start to blow *immediately* as you begin to open the door. This implies that if we can be sure that it won't start blowing until some time after the door has been opened it will be OK. But that whole discussion assumes that extinguishing the flame is not the purpose for which the door is being opened, it's just a possible side-effect. Is the halacha different if that was the intention? On 04/16/2015 02:46 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > > AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes > the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable > to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, > as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. > The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is > *geram* kibui". But there you're actively taking it to the place where the wind will blow. Here you're merely opening the door, so that if/when the wind blows the door won't protect the flame. > But it's certainly not "iffy" that we could invoke sefeiq sefeiqa. It's a > random length delay, not a doubt whether or not the switch will eventually > cause the outcome. The odds the wind will never come, or the randomizer(s) > will never produce a combination that causes the switch to be honored, > is ignorably small. (No one is selling a switch that may or may not shut > the light.) Why not? For the shabbos-keeping household, a switch that sometimes fails is better than no switch at all. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 12:12:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 15:12:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <55300361.8020803@sero.name> References: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 02:45:53PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : >Also, in what sense is either a safeiq? Both will eventually happen, : >the question is when. : : In principle it might not ever happen. ... : >But it's certainly not "iffy" that we could invoke sefeiq sefeiqa. It's a : >random length delay, not a doubt whether or not the switch will eventually : >cause the outcome. The odds the wind will never come, or the randomizer(s) : >will never produce a combination that causes the switch to be honored, : >is ignorably small. (No one is selling a switch that may or may not shut : >the light.) : : Why not? For the shabbos-keeping household, a switch that sometimes fails : is better than no switch at all. You want to ask them why not, feel free to do so. I'm not guessing why they're not setting the randomizers to make each even that unlikely. Still, they are repeatedly rolling the dice, the odds of repeatedly getting "no" falls off geometrically with the length of time in question. Ignoring milsa delo shekhicha, the light will indeed go on. They say the average is "several times" at . : The basis of all this seems to be siman 277. There the concern is that : even if the wind isn't blowing right now, it might start to blow : *immediately* as you begin to open the door. This implies that if we : can be sure that it won't start blowing until some time after the door : has been opened it will be OK. But that whole discussion assumes that : extinguishing the flame is not the purpose for which the door is being : opened, it's just a possible side-effect. Is the halacha different if : that was the intention? : >AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes : >the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable : >to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, : >as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. : >The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is : >*geram* kibui". : : But there you're actively taking it to the place where the wind will blow. : Here you're merely opening the door, so that if/when the wind blows the door : won't protect the flame. The AhS invites the comparison, not me. Clearly you're making a disinction that he holds is without a difference. BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at . To quote: An alternative Talmudic analogy: * There is a candle burning next to a closed window, and a strong wind blowing outside. Certainly, opening the window on Shabbat is forbidden, since the candle will be extinguished immediately. * There is a device that can determine if there's no wind currently blowing, and it can predict with 100% accuracy that no wind will be blowing for at least the next ~5 seconds. It lights up with a green light when it has determined this to be true. * On Shabbat, a person opens/closes the window while the device's indicator is green, knowing that a wind will ultimately blow and succeed in extinguishing the candle. * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to KosherSwitch (R). -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:55:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:55:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] {Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: > From: Marty Bluke via Avodah > Given the above R' Shachter (in Nefesh Harav) says that R' Soloveitchik > did > not say tefilas haderech when he commuted from Boston to NY to give his > shiurim. He felt that because it is a tefila b'eis tzara and nowadays > there > is no perceived danger and it is routine that there was no reason to say > it. RAsher Weiss, in a shiur on tefillat haderech, similarly expressed grave reservations about the recitation of tefillat haderech on routine trips which do not involve any particular acute danger, and indicated that his personal practice is not to say tefillat haderech (at least with a bracha) on said routine trips. OTOH, he was apparently very reluctant to issue a definitive psak that others should do the same, in the face of common established practice. Saul Mashbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 12:43:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 15:43:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> References: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 03:12 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > > BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at > . To quote: > > An alternative Talmudic analogy: > > * There is a candle burning next to a closed window, and a strong > wind blowing outside. Certainly, opening the window on Shabbat is > forbidden, since the candle will be extinguished immediately. > > * There is a device that can determine if there's no wind currently > blowing, and it can predict with 100% accuracy that no wind will be > blowing for at least the next ~5 seconds. It lights up with a > green light when it has determined this to be true. > > * On Shabbat, a person opens/closes the window while the device's > indicator is green, knowing that a wind will ultimately blow and > succeed in extinguishing the candle. > > * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind > is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time > when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts > of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they > miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're > able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to > KosherSwitch (R). Yes, and it seems from the SA that this would be permitted. The big difference, though, is that in the SA's case there is no intention to extinguish the flame, and here there is. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 12:53:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 15:53:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> References: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150416195347.GC11430@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 03:43:24PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: :> BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at :> . To quote: ... :> * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind :> is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time :> when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts :> of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they :> miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're :> able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to :> KosherSwitch (R). : Yes, and it seems from the SA that this would be permitted. The big : difference, though, is that in the SA's case there is no intention to : extinguish the flame, and here there is. Getting back to the post that started this tangent, the question was whether this last bullet item actualy is relevant. What's relevant is the probability of the wind eventually blowing the candle out or the switch turning the light off. If it's a rov or maybe a rube deruba, then it's gerama. At least, that's what was consensus decades ago when Machon Zomet first produced their switch technology and wheelchair. Whether you can break down the likelihood of the melakhah occuring into a union of the probability of a number of sub-steps or not doesn't seem to me to impact the question. Because this isn't a safeiq situation, it's whether your action can be blamed for the melakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 13:25:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 16:25:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150416195347.GC11430@aishdas.org> References: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> <20150416195347.GC11430@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55301AC6.7000807@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 03:53 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 03:43:24PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > :> BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at > :> . To quote: > ... > :> * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind > :> is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time > :> when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts > :> of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they > :> miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're > :> able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to > :> KosherSwitch (R). > > : Yes, and it seems from the SA that this would be permitted. The big > : difference, though, is that in the SA's case there is no intention to > : extinguish the flame, and here there is. > > Getting back to the post that started this tangent, the question was > whether this last bullet item actualy is relevant. According to the SA even the penultimate bullet item is permitted: >> * On Shabbat, a person opens/closes the window while the device's >> indicator is green, knowing that a wind will ultimately blow and >> succeed in extinguishing the candle Surely the last bullet item makes the heter much stronger. But again, the case discussed is where this is not one's intention. Note also, in the mashal, that not only is there no wind right now, there is no candle right now either. > What's relevant is the probability of the wind eventually blowing the > candle out or the switch turning the light off. If it's a rov or maybe > a rube deruba, then it's gerama. That doesn't seem to be what the SA says. But again, with the caveat that intention might make a difference. > Whether you can break down the likelihood of the melakhah occuring into > a union of the probability of a number of sub-steps or not doesn't seem > to me to impact the question. Because this isn't a safeiq situation, > it's whether your action can be blamed for the melakhah. It's putting further causal distance between "cause" and "effect". What if you had a series of these routines, each of which may or may not call the next one, until the last one which may or may not do something? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 14:05:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Samuel Svarc via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 17:05:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Apr 15, 2015 6:01 AM, "Micha Berger via Avodah" wrote: > On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > : Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld > : regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. > ... > :> Moshe Oelbaum > :> Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum > Authentication? Um, the fact that R' Oelbaum says the same thing on the KosherSwitch video ()? What I find very disturbing is that this information is in the public arena. Why are people commenting or conjecturing without looking at the companies materials? On Apr 16, 2015 2:46 PM, "Micha Berger" wrote: > PS: On the relevance of random delay to gerama... > AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes > the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable > to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, > as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. > The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is > *geram* kibui". > A case of gerama with a random time delay. But this is Yom Tov, where > the laws against extinguishing are looser. The AhS refers you to OC > 277:7, where we see that on Shabbos it's assur -- but because of a > special gezeira to prevent people from doing the same when the wind *is* > blowing. Not because of gerama. Take a look at R' Schapiro's teshuva (available on the KosherSwitch website) as well as listen to the shuir they link to (26 min.). KT, MSS From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 14:48:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 17:48:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150416214839.GC1824@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 04:25:42PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: :> What's relevant is the probability of the wind eventually blowing the :> candle out or the switch turning the light off. If it's a rov or maybe :> a rube deruba, then it's gerama. : That doesn't seem to be what the SA says. But again, with the caveat that : intention might make a difference. But we already know it does, according to RSZa and numerous other posqim. IOW, your seifa answers your reisha. : >Whether you can break down the likelihood of the melakhah occuring into : >a union of the probability of a number of sub-steps or not doesn't seem : >to me to impact the question. Because this isn't a safeiq situation, : >it's whether your action can be blamed for the melakhah. : It's putting further causal distance between "cause" and "effect". : What if you had a series of these routines, each of which may or may not : call the next one, until the last one which may or may not do something? That's exactly what I'm saying -- gerama is always a chain of events that can be subdivided according to your taste (how fine grained you wish to define the word "event"). There is an oft-discussed difference between melakhah and CM, where the latter subdivides into gerama (culpable) and garmi (no libability) but hilkhos Shabbos does not. And then even so, garmi is about number of human actions, not physical events. On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 05:05:38PM -0400, Samuel Svarc wrote: : On Apr 15, 2015 6:01 AM, "Micha Berger via Avodah" : wrote: :> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: :>: Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld :>: regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. :> ... :>:> Moshe Oelbaum :>:> Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum :> Authentication? : Um, the fact that R' Oelbaum says the same thing on the KosherSwitch video : ()? YOu misunderstand what I'm asking to be authenticated. Yes, I agree that RNIO talks about zilzul Shabbos. He does in the original alleged approbation in print (or PDF) as well. I was asking for authentication that RMO was really the one who said it's "only" zilzul Shabbos and not also gerama. There is nothing in his caveat about them avoiding melakhah that explains in what way shabbos is being cheapened. Could be uvda dechol, could be gerama, could be any other derabbanan or shevus. No? Not to verify the new "chumera", but to very he wasn't being even more machmir. That's a lot to glean from a post on a YWN chatroom that claims to be from his son. No one identity checks on YWN. : What I find very disturbing is that this information is in the public : arena. Why are people commenting or conjecturing without looking at the : companies materials? In the same post I cite the site in numerous ways, including commenting on parts of the patent application. It's not like I stinted on the research. Never blame until the possibility of miscommunication has been eliminated. No? : On Apr 16, 2015 2:46 PM, "Micha Berger" wrote: : Take a look at R' Schapiro's teshuva (available on the KosherSwitch : website) as well as listen to the shuir they link to (26 min.). One thing I had noted about the teshuvah is that he doesn't bother with the whole thing about a second randomizer. Which is why I was lost as to why anyone would think this is more mutar, and why people who generally follow RSZA more often than RZS would think this solves anything. See R' Neuwirth's summary rejection, repudiating the claim he backed their work . Consistent with what he reported besheim RSZA decades ago. I already noted OC 277, which is specific to geram kibui being mutar, with the exception of taking a candle outside while the wind is calm, lest someone not wait for the wind to be calm. And havarah or bishul? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 18:59:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:59:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150417015924.GA11845@aishdas.org> Here's the current state of my understnading, to start the conversation over by clearing the exchanges that got me there. Feel free to correct any misunderstandings, or even points that needn't necessarily be as I present them. 1- RSZA considers Zomet's Gerama Switch to be just that -- gerama, and therefore assur derabanan except in special cases. Randomly delayed changes to a circuit is, leshitaso, gerama. 2- KSTI considers their switch to be halachically different because their version of the Gerama Switch then goes into a second randomizer which determines whether or not it actually turns on or off your light. They invoke the words "sefeik sefeika", which I don't understand, since the random element is to insure an unknown delay, not a doubt about whether or not the switch eventually turns the light on. 3- Those who hold like RSZA -- R Neuwirth (obviously), R' Nebenzahl, R' Shternbuch -- gave the same ruling to the new switch. 4- Those who say this switch is gerama do not actually invoke the second random element. I found nothing in that wouldn't apply to Zomet's switch. I see them as simply disagreeing with RSZA and R' Yehoshua Neuwirth when they dealt with that question decades ago. Which, given the stature of RSZA and the acceptance of Shemiras Shabbos keHilhasah (and thus RYN), I don't think will get very far in terms of communal acceptance. 5- The Machloqes between RSZA and R Chaim Zvi Shapiro (to pick two representative names) appears to be over how to understand the distinction between two statements by the Rama: 334:22- Geram kibui is only allowed in special cases, and 514:3- You may put a cnandle next to an open window even in a windy area. RSZA distinguishes between whether the intent is kibui or not. RCZS makes the chiluq between whether the maaseh is one of kibui. But I still don't see how this makes the Kosher Switch not a maaseh kibui that we would group it with open windows, not the normal geram kibui. 6- You can't take a candle outside to a windy area even when there is no wind because of a gezeira atu not waiting for the wind to die down. This is different than the window, because one is moving the candle itself. Still, the Magein AvrahamA applies the gezeira to the window as well -- inlike the Rama. So my wondering about how the Kosher Switch isn't a maaseh kibui means that I also have no idea why the switch wouldn't be covered by the gezeira. And according to the MA, the gezeira definitely applies, regardless. If so, wouldn't you need the switch to be physically blocked when the response could be immediately, and not merely warned off with a red light? 6- R' Oelbaum is against general usage, due to zilzul Shabbos. (To my understanding, zilzul Shabbos means violating a shevus or other deRabbanan, chilul Shabbos means deOraisa.) According to he explicitly states "it is clear it is not a grama". So, my prior approach to figuring out what he holds was pointless. Regardless of whether the person in YWN's chatroom is his son or just someone pretending to be, ie whether that text is likely to reflect the nuances of his position. And regardless how one is medayeiq the difference between melakhah and zilzul, ie whether he considers geram melakhah a melakhah or a shevus. RNIO is in the same camp as R' Chaim Zvi Shapiro WRT the mechanics of gerama, but with RSZA it all in practice. But at least now my opening question has some kind of resolution: No poseiq makes a point about how the switches differ, its a machloqes about whether the switch is more like bringing a candle outside or opening a window. It may also be a machloqes about whether it's only geram kibui that is limited to acts of kibui, or even other melakhos. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 17:56:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 20:56:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <10e550.ca50480.4261b459@aol.com> From: Zev Sero via Avodah >> Why not? For the shabbos-keeping household, a switch that sometimes fails is better than no switch at all.<< -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name >>>>> Now that Shabbos lamps are readily available -- they work by covering the light rather than turning it off -- why do we need the Shabbos switch at all? --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 18:08:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 01:08:53 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150416.210853.21413.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> > But that whole discussion assumes that > extinguishing the flame is not the purpose for which the door is being > opened, it's just a possible side-effect. Is the halacha different if > that was the intention? If the operative principle were Psik Reisha, then intention certainly would matter. So here's a question: Is Grama a version of Aino Psik Reisha, or is it another principle entirely? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55305d31763705d3173a1st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 15:56:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 23:56:59 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This idea (that the days of the Omer are a type of chol hamoed) is mentioned in Avoidas Yisroel [Koznitse Maggid] and Ramban in Acharie Mois. Dovid Rubin From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 18:27:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:27:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] re Chametz post Pesach Message-ID: >What did it grow out of? Avoiding she'avar alav es hapesach? A way of avoiding chodosh, at least during the omer period?< Since chadash is grain which has taken root after the minchas ha'omer on the second day of Pesach, and it takes more than 7 weeks for newly-sown grain to be ready for harvest, how is it possible for chadash to exist between Pesach and Shavuos? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 19:22:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 02:22:34 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Joel Rich asked: > Question: If one doesn?t view eilu v?eilu as multiple truths > but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don?t know which > is which), ... You've lost me. Doesn't the grammar and definition of the words "eilu v'eilu" imply that the two things under discussion are equal? I just can't wrap my brain around a way to translate "eilu v'eilu" where one is truth and the other isn't. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 19:35:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 22:35:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150417015924.GA11845@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150417015924.GA11845@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5530716C.8070201@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 09:59 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > They invoke the words "sefeik sefeika", which I don't understand, since > the random element is to insure an unknown delay, not a doubt about > whether or not the switch eventually turns the light on. I assume they disagree with this characterisation. This is your editorial opinion, that since it's inevitable that sooner or later the ducks will all be in a row and the light will come on, all that it achieves is a delay of random length. They would say no, each time the sequence is triggered (let's say every minute) is a discrete event, in which there is a sfek-sfeka whether anything will happen, and the fact that in the next hour there will be 60 more such opportunities, one of which is "bound" to succeed, is irrelevant. They would also point out that there *is* in fact a doubt whether the light will ever turn on (before Shabbos is over or the owner decides to flip the switch back), and they would deny your premise that the tininess of that doubt renders it meaningless. *You* think it's halachically insignificant; they are not required to agree with you. > But at least now my opening question has some kind of resolution: > No poseiq makes a point about how the switches differ, its a machloqes > about whether the switch is more like bringing a candle outside or > opening a window. They seem to say that this is like a case where at the time you open the window there is neither a wind nor a candle, but you know that some time later a goy is likely to put a candle in front of the window, and that some time after that a wind is likely to blow and put it out. On 04/16/2015 08:56 PM, T613K at aol.com via Avodah wrote: > Now that Shabbos lamps are readily available -- they work by covering > the light rather than turning it off -- why do we need the Shabbos > switch at all? I assume 1. To save electricity 2. If you want a brighter light than you can get from a 15w CF light (which is the maximum that it's safe to put in a Shabbos lamp) 3. For applications other than lights -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 20:02:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 03:02:13 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel wrote: > On many birchot hamitzva one can be motzeh others even when they > are "experts". This includes shofar, megilla etc (not lulav or > netillat yadaim which is considered as a mitzvah be-gufo) > similarly for kiddush and havdala. > > Note that for sefirat haomer usually each person says the bracha > himself/herself and also counts for themselves. I am not aware of any situation where the halacha says that I cannot say a birkat hamitzva on your behalf, AND that the reason why I cannot do so is because you are a baki. (There might be other good reasons, depending on the situation, but I don't know that "being a baki" is ever such a reason.) That said, I do concede that the common practice is for one person to say the bracha on shofar and megilla for all the assembled, yet we all say our own brachos on lulav, hallel, and sefira. I have never seen this explanation, but I've always felt there was a very simple explanation for how this distinction developed: When I take the lulav, say hallel, or count sefira, I am doing the mitzvah myself. I am doing it in shul, among many other people, but we are each acting as individuals. I do the mitzvah myself, so I say the bracha on it myself. In contrast, I am dependent on someone else to blow the shofar or read the megillah. You can say that I am personally hearing the shofar with my own ears, and you can say that "shome'a k'oneh" means that I am actively doing the mitzvah of krias hamegillah -- but the bottom line, l'maaseh, is that if the guy on the bimah messes up, I've lost the mitzvah. I am dependent on him to get the mitzvah done. I have to do my share of the work too, of course, by paying attention etc etc, but that's not enough. We *both* have to do it right. Under such conditions, I really don't want to risk saying a bracha that could end up being l'vatala. I'd rather answer Amen to *his* birkas hamitzvah. Following that logic, someone who has his own kosher megila, and actually reads along with the baal kriah, ought to say his own Al Mikra Megila. I suppose so! This distinction appears in other brachos too, even brachos other than birchos hamitzvah. For example, at Kol Nidre, everyone says their own Shehecheyanu on the Yom Tov, because, why not? We all say our own Netilas Yadayim, and brachos on Talis and Tefilin, for the same reason. We all listen to one person say Kiddush, but I think that's mostly because only he/she has a cup from which to drink the required amount. But at the Seder, everyone has a cup, so (in many families) everyone says their own Kiddush. EXCEPTION: There are some brachos which *ought* to be said by each individual according to the above logic, but we rely on the other person because a few brachos got bundled together. For example, if we pass around the b'samim and candle at havdala, we should each say our own bracha on them, but most people don't, because it is part of havdala. Similarly, if you are at the Seder and don't have your own 2.5 matzos in front of you, you'll have to hear Hamotzi from someone because of Lechem Mishne, but why not say your own Al Achilas Matza after you have a piece in your hand, and the answer is because Motzi Matzah go together. All of the above is purely my own logic, and I'm sure many of you will be able to punch some good holes in it. And I'm looking forward to reading that! Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553077e61f4dd77e644e0st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 22:30:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 01:30:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] SF - Focus on the Good Message-ID: <20150417053029.35F10181384@nexus.stevens.edu> [] Focus on the Good In ancient days if a person spoke loshon horah he contracted tza'aras. The message was that just as he exposed the flaws of a person, so too, his flaws were exposed. His rectification was to go into isolation and introspect on his own shortcomings. Lesson: If we focus on the faults of others, we are held responsible to correct our own faults. If we focus of the good of others, HaShem will mercifully overlook our flaws and focus exclusively on our good. App: Avoid saying all unbecoming comments about others. (Based on the writings of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 02:52:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 05:52:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150417095237.GB2327@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 17, 2015 at 03:02:13AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I am not aware of any situation where the halacha says that I cannot : say a birkat hamitzva on your behalf, AND that the reason why I cannot : do so is because you are a baki. (There might be other good reasons, : depending on the situation, but I don't know that "being a baki" is ever : such a reason.) More than that, Beis Hillel (Berakhos 38a, brought lehalakhah AhS OC 298:28) gives *preference* to one person making havdalah for all than each person making their own, because of berov am hadras Melekh. Similarly, it is better to be yotzei qiddush from the baal habayis than each person make their own. (AhS OC 273:6, citing Berakhos 53a, and a din mentioned in most Hagados, because at the seder each person already has their own kos.) But when it comes to birkhas shevach and birkhos hanehenin (which are unattached to other berakhos, unlike the the borei peri hagafen of qiddush or havdalah), we do hold that it's better to make your own. (Berakhos 42a) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 13th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Gevurah: To what extent is judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 necessary for a good relationship? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 05:01:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 12:01:53 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150417.080153.18454.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero explained two views: > I assume they disagree with this characterisation. This is your > editorial opinion, that since it's inevitable that sooner or later > the ducks will all be in a row and the light will come on, all that > it achieves is a delay of random length. They would say no, each > time the sequence is triggered (let's say every minute) is a > discrete event, in which there is a sfek-sfeka whether anything > will happen, and the fact that in the next hour there will be 60 > more such opportunities, one of which is "bound" to succeed, is > irrelevant. They would also point out that there *is* in fact a > doubt whether the light will ever turn on (before Shabbos is over > or the owner decides to flip the switch back), and they would deny > your premise that the tininess of that doubt renders it > meaningless. *You* think it's halachically insignificant; they > are not required to agree with you. If I'm understanding this correctly, the difference of opinion centers on: how many links does the chain need, to reach a point where one end has no halachically significant effect on the other end. To me, this whole discussion is very reminiscent of another topic in hilchos Shabbos, namely, that the Gemara never gave any halachos about cooking in a Kli Shlishi. One view says: "A Kli Rishon obviously cooks, and we were told that some easily-cooked things are capable of being cooked in a Kli Sheni, but that's as far as they went, so obviously nothing can get cooked in a Kli Shlishi." The other view says: "A Kli Rishon obviously cooks, and we were told that some easily-cooked things are capable of being cooked even in other keilim, so you have to be careful with *any* keli that's above Yad Soledes." To me, both of those arguments are very logical, and we must follow our poskim to know which one Hashem wants us to follow. I imagine that this whole Grama discussion might be similar: Chazal laid out circumstances under which indirect action is still assur -- so does that mean that *all* indirect action is assur?, or perhaps I can structure an even more remote indirectness which is acceptably distant. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5530f6662145376662eacst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 06:04:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 09:04:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: A shabbos lamp is tiny. Do you have shabbos lamps to light up your dining room table or the main lighting on a timer? > On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 8:56 PM, via Avodah > wrote: > >> >> Now that Shabbos lamps are readily available -- they work by covering the >> light rather than turning it off -- why do we need the Shabbos switch at >> all? >> >> >> >> >> *--Toby Katzt613k at aol.com * >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 06:54:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 06:54:30 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] yom hazikaron origin Message-ID: http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/Parasha/tazria/Ahrend.pdf on rav goren's placement of yom hazikaron on 4 iyar, analogizing to the israeli shmini atzeret , where hakafot precedes yizkor... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 08:26:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 15:26:20 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: > Question: If one doesn?t view eilu v?eilu as multiple truths > but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don?t know which > is which), ... You've lost me. Doesn't the grammar and definition of the words "eilu v'eilu" imply that the two things under discussion are equal? I just can't wrap my brain around a way to translate "eilu v'eilu" where one is truth and the other isn't. ------------------------------------------------------ See here https://kavvanah.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/rav-soloveitchik-religious-definitions-of-man-and-his-social-institutions-part-1of-7-1958/ for a general approach (especially "Part III- Rav Soloveitchik?s God In Judaism, God himself is the hidden God, Jal Mistatar ? unknowable and unknown. The Jewish experience of God (shared by other religions is antithetic, a polarity. it has both remoteness and intimate closeness. How is that possible? Judaism does not use Aristotelian logic of excluded middle. Unlike classic physic, modern physics uses both waves and particles; modern physics does not use Aristotle. God is both remote and close- in our encounter we are bewildered and comforted. Since Creation is also revelation, the every tree also incomprehensible strange. " And here for some more specifics: http://nishma.org/articles/commentary/slifkinrevisted3print.pdf especially starting around page 11. KT Joel Rich (who still can't really understand the double slit experiment, yet it's there) THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 08:54:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 11:54:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150417155456.GA7366@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 02:15:53PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Question: If one doesn't view eilu v'eilu as multiple truths but rather : one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which is which), how do : you explain the approach to halachic process which ignores academic : findings concerning texts or historical circumstances? To quote myself from : Last week I drew the conclusion from the Qetzos haChoshen that Torah is not Truth, it -- combined with the Jewish People -- is the process by which "Truth will bloom from the earth".... Thus, "vechayei olam nata besokheinu" -- Emes is matzmiach from the Torah. Note that the Torah isn't actually identified with Emes, but the process to get there. ... Rav Moshe Feinstein discusses the halachic process and the role of poseiq in his introduction to Igros Mosheh. (The introduction itself deserves serious study.) He writes about "ha'emes lehora'ah umichuyav lehoros kein af al pi im be'etzem galyah kelapei shemaya galya she'eino kein hapeirush - the true ruling, and one is obligated to teach accordingly, even if in essence is it revealed in heaven that this isn't the correct eplanation!" The ideal is following the pesaq as according to the process. As proof, Rav Moshe brings the gemara in Shabbos 130. We rule that only the milah itself overrules Shabbos. All preparation before the milah must be done in advance. Rabbi Eliezer ruled that anything necessary for the milah, even cutting wood to make the fire to make the knife, etc... could also be done on Shabbos. There was a town in Israel that followed Rabbi Eliezer. The gemara says that Hashem rewarded them for their tenacity for the mitzvah of milah. No one in that town died an early death. And when the Romans passed a law in Israel against milah, they exempted that one town from the law! Who was right -- this town, which was rewarded for their position, or we, who rule differently? If we understand that the essence of halakhah is that it and the Jewish People become one in a process to make truth bloom in this world, we can understand how the answer could be "both". Torah, like life, is about becoming, not being. IOW, if Torah is a legal process to reach the truth, and halakhah is law rather than truths, then it would be reasonable for an truth foung by extra-legal means to be irrelevant. We aren't up to pursuing Truth directly yet, we pursue the law. Someday they'll be identical, and and the neti'ah of chayei olam will have been matzmiach into Emes. On Fri, Apr 17, 2015 at 02:22:34AM +0000, R' Akiva ("Kenneth") Miller replied to RJR: : You've lost me. Doesn't the grammar and definition of the words "eilu : v'eilu" imply that the two things under discussion are equal? I just : can't wrap my brain around a way to translate "eilu v'eilu" where one : is truth and the other isn't. RMF says they're equally balid legally, but not as Truths. Implied is that Divrei E-lokim Chaim are on the meta-level, instructions about about how to hunt for halakhah, not the individual halachic conclusions themselves. Eilu va'eilu follow Hashem's instructions for how to pasqen, but the halakhah is like Beis Hillel. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 13th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Gevurah: To what extent is judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 necessary for a good relationship? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 10:03:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 13:03:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Derech Eretz: What is it the sets man apart from the animal? Message-ID: <20150417170308.D3E50183221@nexus.stevens.edu> Perhaps if yeshiva students were taught again and again, RSRH's commentary about what sets man (and this refers to all men, not just Jews) apart from the animal, then they would realize that every human being is to be treated with Derech Eretz and thus proper respect. YL The following is from RSRH's commentary on Bereishis 2:7 7 Then God formed man, dust of the ground, and breathed into his countenance the breath of life, and thus man became a living personality. What is it that sets man apart from the animal? The living individuality of the animal depends on earthly matter; like its body, so its soul, too, was taken from the earth. Not so man. In the creation of man, only the inert material was taken from the earth; only when God breathed into him the breath of life did he become a living individual. Herein lies the nobility and immortality of man, and this is the whole source of his freedom . That which gives the animal its individuality emanates from the earth and must eventually return to the earth. Not so that which makes man a ?living personality.? Man?s preeminence over the animal is not only in his spirit, but also in his vitality. His vitality is linked not to his body, but to his spirit. When he received a spirit he received life, his soul adhering to the spirit. When the spirit departs from the body, the vital soul is not buried with the remains; for man?s soul is bound up with his spirit, not his body. This is why his physical survival and health do not depend on his body alone. Of the many dangers to the life of an animal, not all are dangers to man. The survival of a man cannot be predicted with the same degree of accuracy as the survival of an animal. Adom yesh lo mazel ( Bava Kamma 2b): there is something in man that defies prediction. A man?s spirit will sustain him, even if it appears that all hope is lost; for the spirit sustains life. Who can gauge the power of an unbroken spirit? Who can calculate how long it can keep the body alive? Thus man is composed of two elements that are completely different from each other. One of these was taken from the earth. But man does not belong to the earth; rather, the earth ? as its name, Adama, implies ? has been given to man to rule. So, too, man?s body, which is afar min Ha?Adomo, is subject to man?s control. His true, living, spiritual essence is not dependent on the body; hence, even while he is physically combined with the earthly element, he can and should exercise control over the earthly in him. The afar, the earthly element, in him cannot be released from the realm of physical compulsion and is subject to the influence of earthly factors. But the nishmas chaim, which God breathed into man and which first made man a human being, imparts to man of the dignity of its source and releases him from all physical compulsion; it grants him freedom and elevates his body, too, into the realm of freedom. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 11:45:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mordechai Harris via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 13:45:49 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: > > That said, I do concede that the common practice is for one person to say > the bracha on shofar and megilla for all the assembled, yet we all say our > own brachos on lulav, hallel, and sefira. In the case of Lulav (first day - which is D'Oraita) and counting Sefira, the Pasuk uses the word Lachem which teaches of the need for each individual to have/count their own. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 12:26:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 15:26:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <55315E57.30506@sero.name> On 04/17/2015 02:45 PM, Mordechai Harris via Avodah wrote: >> That said, I do concede that the common practice is for one person >> to say the bracha on shofar and megilla for all the assembled, yet >> we all say our own brachos on lulav, hallel, and sefira. > In the case of Lulav (first day - which is D'Oraita) and counting > Sefira, the Pasuk uses the word Lachem which teaches of the need for > each individual to have/count their own. What has this got to do with the bracha? I actually had meant to post about this, since I've been wondering for some time why it is that the world's minhag is for each person to say their own bracha on hallel and sefira, after hearing the chazan's bracha. Doesn't the usual rule of "berov am" mean that everyone should be yotzei with his bracha? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 13:47:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 16:47:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is from today's Halacha for Today http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ Erev Shabbos Kodesh Parashas Shemini (Parashiyos Tazria- Metzorah in Eretz Yisroel); Mevorchim Chodesh Iyar; Rosh Chodesh will be on Sunday and Monday 28 Nisan , 5775 April 17, 2015 CURRENT TOPIC: REVIEW OF HALACHOS OF SEFIRAS HA'OMER Halachos for Erev Shabbos Kodesh 1) The thirty third day of the Omer, the 18th of Iyar, is referred to as "Lag B'Omer" and the early sources already treat this day as a special day, as a kind of Yom Tov. (See Sefer Hamanhig page 91a and Meiri to Yevamos 62b) 2) The Tur (Siman 493:3) states that the Talmidim of Rav Akiva stopped dying on Lag B'Omer. However, the Talmud (Yevamos 62b) clearly states that they died from Pesach all the way until Shavuos. If that is so, what then is the significance of the 33rd day of the Omer and why does the Tur write that they stopped dying on that day? The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between the Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the days between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not say Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh Chodesh Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 days in all. Therefore they only died on 32 of the 49 days. As a commemoration of this, we designate the "33rd" day as the day that the dying stopped and we celebrate that day, but not that it totally stopped on Lag B'Omer. ---------- Note that according to the Maharil tachanun was originally said during Nissan except for the days indicated! I wonder when saying Tachanun during Nissan ended. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 14:10:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 21:10:04 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150417.171004.3030.1@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitchok Levine reposted: > The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between > the Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the > days between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not > say Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh > Chodesh Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 > days in all. > > Therefore they only died on 32 of the 49 days... ... There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in both of those. Therefore, there are not "17 days in all", but only 16, leaving 33 days on which they died. (And this presumes that none of the 3 Rosh Chodesh days was Shabbos.) In any case, I am very curious how the commemoration of this event ended up as 33 *somewhat* consecutive days, including Shabbos. If the talmidim really died only on the days cited, our procedure sounds like cheating, at least sort of. Granted that a commemoration does NOT have to follow all the details of the event being remembered, but this pushes the envelope on that, in my opinion. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55317717a31937717329dst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 13:58:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 20:58:03 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <20150417.165803.3030.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero asked: > I actually had meant to post about this, since I've been > wondering for some time why it is that the world's minhag is for > each person to say their own bracha on hallel and sefira, after > hearing the chazan's bracha. Doesn't the usual rule of "berov > am" mean that everyone should be yotzei with his bracha? In theory (="l'halacha"), yes, you are correct. But in practice (="l'maaseh") Rov Am gets beat by our lack of kavana. Rov Am is an important hidur, but the ikar is to insure that one is yotzay, and that is more easily insured by saying it oneself. (It's like if one is forced to choose between an esrog which is definitely kosher but only barely so, vs. one which is beautiful but *might* be pasul. To me, it's a no-brainer that one would choose the barely kosher one.) This explanation fits my previous post well: We are all yotzay with someone else's bracha on the shofar and megillah, but NOT because of Rov Am, only because the bracha is somewhat risky because I'm relying on someone else. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5531743bc92df743b2646st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Apr 18 18:34:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sat, 18 Apr 2015 21:34:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Correction to Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150419013412.5B7E7181C69@nexus.stevens.edu> I sent out a couple of days ago. The following is from today's Halacha for Today http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between the Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the days between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not say Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh Chodesh Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 days in all. Therefore they only died on 32 of the 49 days. As a commemoration of this, we designate the "33rd" day as the day that the dying stopped and we celebrate that day, but not that it totally stopped on Lag B'Omer. ---------- Note this calculation is wrong. If one counts 7 days of Pesach then one has included one Shabbos. This leaves 6 Shabbasos until Shavuous. Thus one has 7 days of Pesach, 6 Shabbasos, 2 days Rosh Chodesh Iyar and one day Rosh Chodesh Sivan. Hence 7+6+2+1 = 16 days on which Tachanun was not said. 49 -16 = 33, and this is where the 33 days of aveilus comes from. Thus Tachanun was said not only during Nissan except for the days that are excluded, but also on Lag B'Omer . YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Apr 18 21:19:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 00:19:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <55332CDA.60208@sero.name> > 2) The Tur (Siman 493:3) states that the Talmidim of Rav Akiva > stopped dying on Lag B'Omer. > > However, the Talmud (Yevamos 62b) clearly states that they died from > Pesach all the way until Shavuos. If that is so, what then is the > significance of the 33rd day of the Omer and why does the Tur write > that they stopped dying on that day? He does not say any such thing. He says that *some* people have haircuts from the 33rd day on, because *they say* that this is when the dying stopped. The long list of rishonim who hold this cite a medrash that disagrees with the gemara, and says the dying stopped 15 days before Shavuos. The Tur himself does not express an opinion on the matter. > The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between the > Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the days > between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not say > Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh Chodesh > Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 days in all.* This is *not* a Maharil! It's supposedly a Tosfos, I don't know where. But there seem to be two versions of what this Tosfos says, which is why it would be nice to see the original. Mahari Ibn Shuaib (a talmid of the Rashba, and the rebbe of the Tzeida Laderech) cites this Tosfos as saying that the mourning takes place on 33 days during the Omer, because there are 16 days when no mourning is appropriate. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=9416&pgnum=131 The Bach, however, cites "Acharonim" who cite this Tosfos as saying that they didn't die on these 16 days. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=14268&pgnum=330 On 04/17/2015 04:47 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > Note that according to the Maharil tachanun was originally said > during Nissan except for the days indicated! I wonder when saying > Tachanun during Nissan ended. YL Not Tachanun. Techina, i.e. Kel Erech Apayim, Lamnatzeach Ya`ancha, etc. According to minhag Ashkenaz these are said even on days when there is no nefilas apayim, but not on Yomtov, Chol Hamoed, Shabbos, or Rosh Chodesh. [Email #2. -micha] On 04/17/2015 05:10 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos > Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or > it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in > both of those. Indeed, the Bach noters this and corrects it. > In any case, I am very curious how the commemoration of this event > ended up as 33 *somewhat* consecutive days, including Shabbos. If the > talmidim really died only on the days cited, our procedure sounds > like cheating, at least sort of. Granted that a commemoration does > NOT have to follow all the details of the event being remembered, but > this pushes the envelope on that, in my opinion. Well, according to the Tosfos as Mahari ibn Shuaib quotes it, the common interpretation of 33 days is *wrong*, and the correct minhag is to mourn for 33 days during the sefirah, i.e. all days except Pesach, Shabbos, and Rosh Chodesh. He does *not* say that they only died on these days. The first place I've seen the idea that Tosfos says they only died on those days is in the Bach. He sees it as justifying our mourning for only 33 days, not 34, as we should if our source were the medrash that the dying stopped 15 days before Shavuos. And since they only died on 33 days, our mourning period only lasts 33 days, including Shabbos, even though (according to this view) they didn't die on Shabbos. How exactly we mourn on Shabbos I'm not sure, but I assume the idea is that we do, so we count it toward the 33 days. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 06:26:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 09:26:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <55332CDA.60208@sero.name> References: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> <55332CDA.60208@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150419132604.GB19240@aishdas.org> On Sun, Apr 19, 2015 at 12:19:38AM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : >Note that according to the Maharil tachanun was originally said : >during Nissan except for the days indicated! I wonder when saying : >Tachanun during Nissan ended. YL : : Not Tachanun. Techina, i.e. Kel Erech Apayim, Lamnatzeach Ya`ancha, etc. : According to minhag Ashkenaz these are said even on days when there is no : nefilas apayim, but not on Yomtov, Chol Hamoed, Shabbos, or Rosh Chodesh. I am now wondering: why those techinos and not Tachanun? After all, as the name implies (and the Gra emphasizes), Tachanun is itself the core techinah. (Or perhaps "Elokai, Netzor Leshoni" is more central, since that's the one we place immediately "basar tzelosana", before aqiras raglayim.) I would bet (if I had spare money to bet with) that's the same question as asking why we're nofeil apayim for one but not the other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 04:00:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 11:00:12 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150419.070012.19808.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> I wrote: > There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos > Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or > it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in > both of those. R' Zev Sero added: > Indeed, the Bach notes this and corrects it. Glad to hear that, thank you. But over Shabbos, I thought of another problem: R' Akiva's talmidim were in Eretz Yisrael. There would never be a year where Pesach contains 7 days of Sefira. Even when including Shabbos Chol Hamoed, that yields only 6 days. Add 6 post- Pesach Shabbosim, and 3 days of Rosh Chodesh, and you have only 15 days of no Tachanun, leaving 34 days of mourning. Perhaps this is why Mechaber 493:2 says that the mourning continues straight through Lag Baomer, and does not end until the morning of the 34th. Note that Mishne Brurah 493:7 says that although most of the dying stopped on the 33rd, some deaths did occur on the 34th. I must point out that the above is true only when Pesach begins on Sunday, Monday or Tuesday. In years when it begins on Shabbos, as it did this year, then Eretz Yisrael does have a full seven post-Pesach Sabbaths in Sefira, totalling 16 no-Tachanun days, leaving 33 for mourning. BUT - In years when Pesach begins on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday (and even nowadays Thursday is a real possibility), one of the Rosh Chodesh days will coincide with Shabbos. This lowers the count to 6 days of Pesach, 6 Shabbasos, and only 2 days of Rosh Chodesh - a total of only 14 no-Tachanun days, leaving 35 for mourning. I can't help but wonder how the calendar looked that particular year. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ 4 Fish to Never Eat Click to Learn 4 Fish to NEVER Eat (avoid these like the plague!) http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55338b0147138b0126d6st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 10:34:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 13:34:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <20150419.070012.19808.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150419.070012.19808.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5533E71A.9080700@sero.name> On 04/19/2015 07:00 AM, Kenneth Miller wrote: > I wrote: >> There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos >> Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or >> it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in >> both of those. > > R' Zev Sero added: >> Indeed, the Bach notes this and corrects it. > > Glad to hear that, thank you. But over Shabbos, I thought of another > problem: R' Akiva's talmidim were in Eretz Yisrael. There would never > be a year where Pesach contains 7 days of Sefira. Even when including > Shabbos Chol Hamoed, that yields only 6 days. Add 6 post- Pesach > Shabbosim, and 3 days of Rosh Chodesh, and you have only 15 days of > no Tachanun, leaving 34 days of mourning. Except, as you note, in a year like this one. > Perhaps this is why Mechaber 493:2 says that the mourning continues > straight through Lag Baomer, and does not end until the morning of > the 34th. No, the Mechaber had never heard of this Tosfos that the Bach cites in the name of the "Acharonim". On the contrary, the only Tosfos he seems aware of on topic is the one cited by Mahari ibn Shuaib, which says that the plague raged throughout the Sefira, but that we only mourn for 33 days, because we skip Yomtov, Shabbos, and Rosh Chodesh. The Mechaber's own minhag follows the medrash that the plague stopped 15 days before Shavuos, i.e. the 34th was the last day. Either there are two versions of this Tosfos, or the Acharonim whom the Bach quotes are talking about the same Tosfos as Mahari ibn Shuaib does, and one of them misunderstood it. It would be nice to find it inside (though of course that would not rule out a different girsa). -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 10:36:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 17:36:03 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150419.133603.21006.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero wrote: > Not Tachanun. Techina, i.e. Kel Erech Apayim, Lamnatzeach > Ya`ancha, etc. According to minhag Ashkenaz these are said even > on days when there is no nefilas apayim, but not on Yomtov, Chol > Hamoed, Shabbos, or Rosh Chodesh. R' Micha Berger wrote: > I am now wondering: why those techinos and not Tachanun? Let me add a few more data points: Common practice in Nusach Ashkenaz is to skip Tachanun even for all of the Sefira days of Nisan, and also for all of the pre-Shavuos days of Sivan. (Note that NONE of the various minhagim allow haircuts on ALL of those days. Sounds like a great proof that tachanun takes all the kulos, even contradictory ones.) I concede that this is davka nowadays, and I do not know what the practice was in previous centuries. However, it is difficult for me to imagine anyone ever saying Tachanun on Isru Chag. Perhaps that might answer the point I raised in my previous post about R' Akiva's talmidim being in EY, and that in EY there are only 6 days of Sefirah during Pesach; perhaps the "7" comes from including Isru Chag. I should also mention Pesach Sheni, although that could lead to a messy argument over whether that is really "a non-Tachanun day" or merely "a non-Tachanun afternoon". So I won't mention it. :-) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5533e7dd3196367dd4042st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 09:54:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 12:54:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L Message-ID: <20150419165450.42320180CA8@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is taken in part from Rav Shimon Schwab's Essay The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L that appears in Selected Writings pages 88 -93. Rav Hirsch is usually accepted as the exponent of the Torah im Derech Eretz philosophy. This principle is explained by his grandson, Dr. Isaac Breuer, as follows: "He was strictly opposed to compromise or reconciliation, or even a synthesis: he demanded full and uncompromising rulership of the Torah. The Torah cannot endure co-rulership, far less tolerate it. As a true revolutionary he seized the liberalistic individual, the liberalistic, humanitarian ideal, liberalistic capitalism, and the human intellect, celebrating orgies in the liberalistic science, and dragged them as "circumstances'', in the narrowest sense of the word, to the flaming fire of the Torah to be purified or, if need be, to be consumed. As a true revolutionary he solved the unbearable tension between the Torah and the new era which had dawned over the Jews of Western Europe. He invaded the new era with the weapons of the Torah, analyzed and dissected it down to its last ingredients, and then shaped and reformed it until it could be placed at the feet of the Torah, as new nourishment for the Divine fire. The proclamation of the rulership of the Torah over the new era was the historic achievement of Hirsch's life for his own contemporaries." -- ("Hirsch as a Guide to Jewish History'' in Fundamentals of Judaism, published by Feldheim, 1949.) Unfortunately, the principle of Torah im Derech Eretz is grossly misunderstood by our contemporary Jewish orthodoxy. It does not mean that one who is a full-fledged citizen of hedonistic America and at the same time keeps the laws of the Torah, is a follower of Torah im Derech Eretz. Not to violate the laws of the Torah certainly deserves praise and recognition but it is not an embodiment of the Hirschian philosophy. Likewise, an academy dedicated to the study of science and philosophy, not in order to serve the understanding of Torah or to further the aims of the Torah but as the independent search by the human intellect to understand and control the world around -- even when added to a department of profound and very scholarly Torah studies -this is not an outgrowth of the Torah im Derech Eretz Weltanschauung of Samson Raphael Hirsch. Also, a secular university in Israel, albeit under skullcap auspices, complete with Judaic studies, is extremely remote from a Torah im Derech Eretz school even if it has established a "Samson Raphael Hirsch chair" as part of its academic set-up, something which almost borders on blasphemy . The Orthodox professional who is not regularly "koveah ittim batorah", or otherwise lacks in the performance of mitzvahs, or who is immodest in dress or behavior, is not a follower of Samson Raphael Hirsch. From all of Hirsch's prolific writings, it becomes evident that his main concern was to establish the majesty of the Divine Word and the role of the Divine Will as revealed in the Torah, to dominate all the highways and by-ways of mundane life. Those who abuse Torah im Derech Eretz as a "hetter" to lead a life of easygoing and lenient "Yiddishkeit" or those who consider the Hirschian idea as a compromise between the right and the left in Jewish thinking have distorted the meaning of the principle as laid down in the Mishne, Avos, Perek 2, 2: "Beautiful is the study of Torah combined with Derech Eretz for the effort to attain both makes one forget to commit sins". The Torah is not a mere branch of human knowledge, one discipline amongst many others, but rather must the Torah dominate all secular knowledge and all worldly activities. Equally so, the community of Israel, Klal Yisroel, as well as all Kehillos and organized communities, be they local or international -- which are all segments of Klal Yisroel -- are not supposed to be mere branches of a neutral Israel but are to be totally independent. The Torah community is not beholden to any non-Torah community and it does not even recognize its authenticity. This is the essence of the Hirschian Austritt (separation) ideology. The so-called "Austritt" is the militant vigilance of the conscientious Jew defending the Torah community against all encroachments from the non-Torah powers that be. The "Austritt" and Torah im Derech Eretz go hand in hand, they form "one package", so to speak, and both these aspects of Hirschian thought have one aim: the total domination of Torah over all thinking and actions of individual and national life. He who separates the rule of the Torah over all facets of the communal life of Klal Yisroel from the rule of the Torah over all human knowledge, in short, he who separates the "Austritt" from Torah im Derech Eretz, renders a disservice to both. Instead of becoming an inspiration to serve G-d in the spirit of B'chol D'rochecha dahu, Torah im Derech Eretz is reduced to become an excuse for being "modern but frum", an excuse for the cultural assimilation which plagues the modern Orthodox Jew who considers this world a kosher pleasure cruise eventually resulting in all the sorry hangovers of our age. Let us therefore beware of some common misunderstandings. The motto does not have its accent on the last word but on the first word. It is TORAH -underscored for double emphasis -- with Derech Eretz. Furthermore, the leit-motif is neither Torah and Derech Eretz nor Torah U'Madoh -- the two are not equal partners -- nor must it be twisted around into Derech Eretz plus Torah. It is neither a synthesis of Torah with assimilation nor a bloodless orthopraxy blended with earthbound Americanism. It is none of these. It is Torah im Derech Eretz. It means G-d's Torah in its totality, utilizing Derech Eretz as the means to bring about the Torah's full realization. It means: Torah as a Divine nourishment and the human Derech Eretz as the aromatic ingredient to bring out the Torah's intrinsic flavor to its most perfect bloom. There are two schools of thought and they are both legitimate. One is "Torah Only" and the other is Torah im Derech Eretz. All Torah-conscious Jews work for the same goal. There are various methods and various avenues of approach. They all lead up to the ultimate end of: "Yisgadal v'yisgadash Shmei rabah" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 15:00:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 18:00:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <20150419.133603.21006.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150419.133603.21006.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <55342569.2000502@sero.name> On 04/19/2015 01:36 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > Common practice in Nusach Ashkenaz is to skip Tachanun even for all of the Sefira days of Nisan, This is not just nusach Ashkenaz, it's the universal minhag, originating in Masechet Sofrim 21:3. It's actually the chapter title of Shulchan Aruch OC 429, and AFAIK there is no dissenting opinion or minhag. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 15:08:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Avi Goldstein via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 18:08:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu va'eilu Message-ID: It has always been my understanding that eilu va'eilu means that both (or more than two) are, within the sphere of Torah, "true" as long as they emanate from a valid drashah. As the Rambam writes in Hilchos Mamrim, Perek 2, a Sanhedrin can overturn the ruling of a previous Sanhedrin if that ruling was made based on the yud gimmel middos or based on sevara. The Rambam states that the new ruling becomes normative. So, for example, if a Sanhedrin ruled that yeush shelo mida'as is yeush, that is now the d'oraisa rule. If a later Sanhedrin overturns the ruling, then the new ruling becomes normative. Both, however, are "true," because the Torah has shivim panim; the Torah is multifaceted and can countenance more than one truth. The Rambam seems to hold that Moshe Rabbeinu was merely given the methods by which to darshan; he was not given the various possible halachic outcomes. The Ritva (Eruvin 13b) states that at Sinai, Moshe Rabbeinu was shown 49 possibilities for each halachic situation. Either way, it is up to klal Yisrael to determine what the halacha is, but all the possible outcomes are divrei Elokim Chayim. Avi Goldstein From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 20:47:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 23:47:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L Message-ID: <11211.6b4edbb3.4265d0c0@aol.com> From: "Prof. Levine via Avodah" The following is taken in part from Rav Shimon Schwab's Essay The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L that appears in Selected Writings pages 88 -93. Rav Hirsch is usually accepted as the exponent of the Torah im Derech Eretz philosophy. This principle is explained by his grandson, Dr. Isaac Breuer, as follows: "He was strictly opposed to compromise or reconciliation, or even a synthesis: he demanded full and uncompromising rulership of the Torah. [snip] There are two schools of thought and they are both legitimate. One is "Torah Only" and the other is Torah im Derech Eretz. All Torah-conscious Jews work for the same goal. There are various methods and various avenues of approach. They all lead up to the ultimate end of: "Yisgadal v'yisgadash Shmei rabah" >>>> See the wonderful pamphlet by R' Shimon Schwab, "Eilu ve'Eilu," explaining the broad outlines of the differences between these two hashkafos, "Torah im Derech Eretz" and so-called "Torah-only." I try to re-read this 48-page pamphlet every year. http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/these_and_those.pdf I am grateful to RYL (Prof. Levine) for making this pamphlet available to the public as a pdf. However I note that he is often highly critical of the charedi world, and I believe that R' Hirsch would emphatically not have agreed with him. He would have honored and cherished the talmidei chachamim who devote their lives to limud haTorah, and would have educated his balabatim to take pride in the zechus of financially supporting the "black hat" yeshivos. In the so-called "Torah-only" world they may have disdain for balabatim, but we who believe in TIDE can respect and honor that world of sustained and focused Torah study without internalizing an inferior self-image. We believe in Yisachar and Zevulun even if Yisachar lacks proper respect for Zevulun. We believe in twelve shevatim, we believe in twelve paths through the sea. And we believe that without the shevet of full-time lomdei Torah and talmidei chachamim, the rest of Klal Yisrael would have no kiyum. I would also note that R' Hirsch would certainly not have shared RYL's dour view of present-day Eretz Yisrael. True, all the flaws and failings of Zionism are abundantly on display in the modern Medinah. But at the same time, it takes an almost willful blindness not to see the incredible miracles that have been taking place there over the past sixty years or so. Not the least of these miracles is a flourishing of Torah scholarship, be'eichus uvekamus, the likes of which has not been seen since the churban Bayis Sheni. We owe at least a small measure of gratitude to the Zionist government that helps provide the infrastructure for the Torah community to flourish, and a huge measure of gratitude to the Ribono Shel Olam for allowing us to live in a time in which the beginning of kibbutz galuyos is taking place before our eyes. The sight of thousands of men, young and old, from all corners of the world, streaming into the Mirrer Yeshiva each day, gives us a little foretaste of what it will be like to visit the Third Bais Hamikdash. Again, I urge everyone to read Rav Schwab's wonderful pamphlet, "Eilu ve'Eilu." http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/these_and_those.pdf --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 19:30:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 02:30:15 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: <20150419.223015.3015.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Joel Rich asked: > Question: If one doesn't view eilu v'eilu as multiple truths > but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which > is which), ... I didn't understand that 2nd view, so he suggested to look > here for some more specifics: > http://nishma.org/articles/commentary/slifkinrevisted3print.pdf > especially starting around page 11. On page 4 of that article, the author offers this explanation of the concept of Machlokes L'Shem Shamayim: > ... every individual striving mightily to gain truth and an > understanding of God's Will can only achieve what is possible > within the parameters of his/her own individual being. Since the > fullness of Torah extends beyond the comprehension of any one > individual, machloket must necessarily ensue. It is not simply > that machloket emerges because of the inherent limitations of > the human condition. It is only through the enunciation of > machloket that human beings effectively are able to express the > fullness and truth of the Divine wisdom of Torah. ... Within > this category of disagreement, the existence of differing views > is not a problem. It is actually positive. It is the natural > consequence of a limited humanity trying to encounter the > unlimited nature of God and Torah. Elsewhere in that article, I understood him to say: Because both Hillel and Shammai worked within the rules of how Torah is to be understood, their differing views are equally valid and equally true (notwithstanding the detail that for purely practical reasons, halacha l'maaseh has to go one way or the other). This much fits very well with what I've been taught: Hashem deliberately wrote and designed the Torah in such a way as to allow both Hillel and Shammai to reach those differing views, and when they did reach those views, and (lovingly) refused to yield to the other, they accomplished exactly what Hashem had intended. But RJR referred us specifically to page 11, and on that page, the author brings the two views that RJR had initially posted: > One significant question in this regard, though, that should be > presented is: whether kalpei Shemaya, from the perspective of > Heaven, one view may really be correct or not? How one answers > this question will affect whether one considers any position in > a machloket l'Shem Shamayim as ultimately able to be labeled > incorrect. Effectively the question would be: are all positions > in the disagreement theoretically, equally part of truth and a > decision rendered between the opposing views solely because of > practical necessity? Or is there a truly correct position ? > albeit only able to be ascertained by Heaven ? but we still > accept all positions as part of Torah, albeit some are mistaken, > as they all are equally the best that humanity can achieve and > the mistakes only arise from the actual limitation of the human > being? With all due respect, but it seems to me that this second view is illogical and mistaken. How can there be a view which was obtained by legitimate methods of learning the Torah, without any personal agenda, and the best that humanity can acheive -- and yet be one which Hashem did NOT want us to arrive at? If there is a view that is NOT truly correct, yet the incorrectness can be ascertained only by Heaven, then why did Hashem design the Torah in a manner which allowed us to reach that mistaken conclusion? If only He would have made one little change, if only the pasuk had said this instead of that, then we'd have darshened that pasuk differently, and would have avoided that mistake. But since He did not make that change, but rather He wrote the Torah as we have it, and Toras Hashem Temimah, then I believe that the conclusions reached cannot possibly be mistakes, but rather, this is exactly what we mean by Eilu V'Eilu Divrei Elokim Chayim. (Of course, I am referring only to drashos made with the proper tools, and in the proper manner, such as those made by Hillel and Shammai and others of similar caliber. I am not referring to people who are of lower caliber, or who were working with broken tools. And I'm certainly not referring to people who deliberately distort Torah for their own purposes.) But then, as I was reviewing this post, my mind turned to the Tanur Shel Achnai. R' Eliezer had a minority view, and R' Yehoshua was in the majority. I've got to believe that both views were firmly grounded; this machlokes was surely just as L'Shem Shamayim as any between Hillel and Shammai. I'd *like* to say that Klapei Shmaya, both views were Truth. But then what can I do with Hashem's response of "Nitzchuni banai"? It sure sounds to me like this Judge was not impartial. He was rooting for R' Eliezer! And yet He wrote a Torah that allowed for R' Eliezer's mistaken interpretation. Why would He do that? To paraphrase RJR's question from the very beginning of this post, Tanur Shel Achnai seems to be an example of "eilu v'eilu": At the time of their dispute, it was possible that both views were Truth, but we didn't know which was which, so for practical purposes they took a vote. But later, Eliyahu Hanavi revealed the fact that it was NOT multiple truths, but rather one truth (R' Eliezer) and one nice try (R' Yehoshua). TO RECAP: In the beginning of this post, I explained my logical basis for believing that every true Eilu V'Eilu is a case of multiple Truths. At the end, I brought an example of an Eilu V'Eilu which was "one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which is which)". I cannot reconcile the logic and the example. All I can do is to ask again: Would Hashem really write a Perfect Torah which allows for mistaken interpretation? Why would He do that? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553464ea69a2864ea0cc6st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 01:48:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 11:48:03 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: RMB: Rav Moshe Feinstein discusses the halachic process and the role of poseiq in his introduction to Igros Mosheh. (The introduction itself deserves serious study.) He writes about "ha'emes lehora'ah umichuyav lehoros kein af al pi im be'etzem galyah kelapei shemaya galya she'eino kein hapeirush - the true ruling, and one is obligated to teach accordingly, even if in essence is it revealed in heaven that this isn't the correct explanation!" The ideal is following the pesaq as according to the process. This passage in IM is cited by R. Shalom Rosner in a systematic discussion of the subject of eilu v'eilu in the course of a shiur on Ktuvot 57a at http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/720210/Rabbi_Shalom_Rosner/Kesubos57. Rashi in Ktuvot 57a invokes the principle of eilu 'v'eilu, (read and explained by R. Rosner stating at about 18:30 in the shiur) and R. Rosner elucidates this principle, starting at about 21:30 in the shiur, until about 29:40. For anyone interested in a very clear explanation of the various shittot about what eilu v'eilu means, I can't recommend this shiur highly enough. Very briefly, R. Rosner cites three approaches in the sources 1. Illustrating the truth - The Ran in Drashot HaRan drasha 5 - In this approach, which severely limits the principle of eilu v'eilu, the Ran states that actually only one of the opinions is true. The other opinion is 'divrei Elokim chaim' only insofar as it serves to illustrate and elucidate the other opinion, which is the real truth, as the dark enables us to appreciate a candle. The Chida in Petach Einayim, his commentary on Eiruvin where the principle of eilu v'eilu is cited by the Gemara, takes this approach as well. R. Rosner emphasizes that this is a minority opinion, and personally finds it hard to accept, as he explains in the shiur. 2. Levels of truth - R. Moshe in the hakdama to IM, and R. Yaakov to Bereishit 26, the Netziv in his Hakadama to Haamek Sh'eila, his commentary to the Sheiltot). Using R. Moshe's terminology. there is Emet Shamaymit, and Emet L'Horaa. Both are correct, and in this world we are obligated to follow the emet l'horaa even if it deviates from the ultimate, heavenly truth. 3. Multiple truths (Ritva in Eiruvin, Maharal) - Both opinions are true, reflecting different perspectives of the subject at hand (IMO, this is similar to the previous explanation, without establishing a hierarchy between the truths expressed by the different opinions). R. Rosner states that the Rashi in question on Ktuvot 57a takes this approach. R. Rosner's explanation of the shittot is very lucid and concise. He refers in his shiur to Ktuvot 57 to a previous, more comprehensive shiur he gave on the subject, but I don't know if that shiur is available online. Saul Mashbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 19:43:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 22:43:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] brochos from the amud (was: tefillat haderech) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420024354.CJVF30458.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo110> >R' Zev Sero asked: > > > I actually had meant to post about this, since I've been > > wondering for some time why it is that the world's minhag is for > > each person to say their own bracha on hallel and sefira, after > > hearing the chazan's bracha. Doesn't the usual rule of "berov > > am" mean that everyone should be yotzei with his bracha? R' Akiva Miller wrote: >In theory (="l'halacha"), yes, you are correct. But in practice >(="l'maaseh") Rov Am gets beat by our lack of kavana. Rov Am is an >important hidur, but the ikar is to insure that one is yotzay, and >that is more easily insured by saying it oneself. (It's like if one >is forced to choose between an esrog which is definitely kosher but >only barely so, vs. one which is beautiful but *might* be pasul. To >me, it's a no-brainer that one would choose the barely kosher one.) > >This explanation fits my previous post well: We are all yotzay with >someone else's bracha on the shofar and megillah, but NOT because of >Rov Am, only because the bracha is somewhat risky because I'm >relying on someone else. Slight change of topic: I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea that we don't seem to have a chashash of a brocha l'vatalah. I mean, you have a sh'tz up there, saying a brocho out loud -- and he's intentionally trying to be motzi _some_ others (whoever has missed a day) and everybody says amen, and then they say the brocho themselves. No chashash for an issur d'oraissa? Shomea k'onen doesn't apply at all? What if you are in the shul and you're not thinking about the issue of being yotzie, you're just thinking about which day it is, and/or you simply have stam kavanah. No chashash for an issur d'oraissa? Apparently not because almost everybody does that. But I don't get it. (To satisfy my own comfort level, my preferred action to is to focus and have kavanah to be yotzie with the brocho, say amen, and then I don't have any chashash here). -- Sholom From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 10:36:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 13:36:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 11:48:03AM +0300, Saul Mashbaum via Avodah wrote: : This passage in IM is cited by R. Shalom Rosner in a systematic discussion... : http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/720210/Rabbi_Shalom_Rosner/Kesubos57. ... : Very briefly, R. Rosner cites three approaches in the sources : : 1. Illustrating the truth - The Ran in Drashot HaRan drasha 5 - In this : approach, which severely limits the principle of eilu v'eilu, the Ran : states that actually only one of the opinions is true. The other opinion is : 'divrei Elokim chaim' only insofar as it serves to illustrate and elucidate : the other opinion... : 2. Levels of truth - R. Moshe in the hakdama to IM, and R. Yaakov to : Bereishit 26, the Netziv in his Hakadama to Haamek Sh'eila, his commentary : to the Sheiltot)... : 3. Multiple truths (Ritva in Eiruvin, Maharal) - Both opinions are true, : reflecting different perspectives of the subject at hand (IMO, this is : similar to the previous explanation, without establishing a hierarchy : between the truths expressed by the different opinions).. My opinion differs from yours. The Maharal is saying that what RMF calls emes shamamis (I think that conjugation is yours, no?) is actually too rich to fit in this universe, and certainly in a human mind. Therefore, two shitos can be correct descriptions of the Truth, because each are incomplete. Rather than invoke the 5 blind men and the elephant, I think it's more useful to use a mashal of an object and a shadow. Because a shadow is only 2D, information is lost. It could make you think the two opinions are describing differnt thing, but they don't. If you shine a light directly at the fact of a cube, the shadow is a square. If you shine it at a corner, the result is a hexagon. Beis Shamma could hold "hexagon" while Beis Hillel holds "square", and both are describing the same cube. It all depends on which direction you face the cube from. The difference is in the approach chosen, where one stands at the foothills when answering "mi ya'aleh beHar Hashem", not the emes kelapei shamayim. None of which involves separating abstract truth from law, as RMF does. The Maharal places eilu va'eilu entirely within our understanding of that abstract truth. RSR's analysis differs from the two I've discussed in the past, RMHalbertal's and R' Michel Rosensweig's. E.g. See v32n8 E.g. RMH describes the Ritva and the Ran as sharing what he calls "the Constitutive view" of what pesaq is (halakhah is constituted by pesaq, and there is no one pre-existing reality), and thus the notion of one right answer doesn't fit. Rather, his peshat in the Ran is more like RMF's opinion. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? : that the Rashi in question on Ktuvot 57a takes this approach. : : R. Rosner's explanation of the shittot is very lucid and concise. He : refers in his shiur to Ktuvot 57 to a previous, more comprehensive shiur he : gave on the subject, but I don't know if that shiur is available online. : : Saul Mashbaum : _______________________________________________ : Avodah mailing list : Avodah at lists.aishdas.org : http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 14:43:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:43:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] HaRav Aharon Lichtenstein zt"l Message-ID: <20150420214331.GA31537@aishdas.org> Today's blog post. ... Can't we find children who would have helped him and still know the gemara? Do we have to choose? I hope not; I believe not. Tir'u baTov! -Micha HaRav Aharon Lichtenstein zt"l Posted on April 20, 2015 - 1 Iyyar 5775 by micha When someone passes away, I try to find a life-lesson from their lives that I can incorporate into my own. This is rather easy with regard to Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, as the rosh yeshiva left the Centrist / Modern Orthodox / Religious Zionist community with a cheshbon hanefesh, an accounting of our communal soul. Things that he saw we as a community need to look at and improve. See "By His Light: Character and Values in the Service of God" by R' Reuvein Zeigler, notes of shiurim by Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, pp 220-252, which is available on-line at Yeshivat Har Etzion's Israel Koschitzky Virtual Beit Midrash, as the email shiur from the series "Developing a Torah Personality" Lecture 12: Centrist Orthodoxy: A Spiritual Accounting. Listing the rashei peraqim (subtitles): * The Shift To the Right * The Need for Soul-Searching * Commonalities and Differences With the Right * Shaking Our Confidence In General Culture * The Complexity of Experience * Literary, Psychological and Historical Sensitivity * Attitudes Toward Zionism * "Torah Only" or "Torah And" * The Possibility of Integration * Theory and Practice * Dialectical Tension or Tepid Indifference? * Instilling Passion * The Need for Spirituality * Diffusion and Dilution * The Ascendancy of the Moral Over the Intellectual * "Do Not Fear Any Man" Here's one piece near the end, that stays with me each time I read the article: ... Perhaps much of what I have said in relation to culture, quoting Arnold and Yeats and others, seems very rarefied. People may be asking themselves, "What does this have to do with us? We have to deal with children in elementary school or high school; this is not our concern." Nevertheless, I have related to culture at its apex, because the kind of vision which is maintained at the pinnacle has an impact, and should have an impact, upon what is done at lower levels. In this respect, the awareness of the evaluation of culture does have practical consequences for whatever level of education we are dealing with. Granted that, our challenge is to see to it that indeed we maintain our position with depth and gusto. Given our constituency, of course, we cannot instill many of our students with the optimal level of love of Torah; we know from where they come. But, within our overall community, and surely within its leadership, such a level should exist. Woe unto us, if the only choice lies between tepid compromise and arrogant kana'ut. A couple of years after we moved to Yerushalayim, I was once walking with my family in the Beit Yisrael neighborhood, where R. Isser Zalman Meltzer used to live. For the most part, it consists of narrow alleys. We came to a corner, and found a merchant stuck there with his car. The question came up as to how to help him; it was a clear case of perika u-te'ina (helping one load or unload his burden). There were some youngsters there from the neighborhood, who judging by their looks were probably ten or eleven years old. They saw that this merchant was not wearing a kippa. So they began a whole pilpul, based on the gemara in Pesachim (113b), about whether they should help him or not. They said, "If he walks around bareheaded, presumably he doesn't separate terumot u-ma'asrot, so he is suspect of eating and selling untithed produce..." I wrote R. Soloveitchik a letter at that time, and told him of the incident. I ended with the comment, "Children of that age from our camp would not have known the gemara, but they would have helped him." My feeling then was: Why, Ribbono shel Olam, must this be our choice? Can't we find children who would have helped him and still know the gemara? Do we have to choose? I hope not; I believe not. If forced to choose, however, I would have no doubts where my loyalties lie: I prefer that they know less gemara, but help him. If I can refer again to my experience over the last several decades, I think that one of the central points which has reinforced itself is the sense, in terms of values, of the ascendancy of the moral over the intellectual -- with all my love for and commitment to pure learning. But, when all is said and done, you have to be guided not by what you love; you have to be guided by Torah. And the Torah tells us what is good: He has told you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you: only to do justice, and to love goodness, and to walk modestly with your God. (Mikha 6:8) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 12:48:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 15:48:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L by Rav Shimon Schwab Message-ID: <20150420194854.40DD317FB85@nexus.stevens.edu> See The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 11:46:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 21:46:52 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] hidur Message-ID: <> - changed topic from tefillat hadrech There is a famois R Chaim that if one can use both etgrogim then one should first use the beautiful but *might* be pasul since if one uses the minimally kosher one then one has accomplished the mitzvah and there is no reason to choose a second one. I have seen some that disagree with R Chaim claiming that it is possible to take a better etrog for hidur even after having minimally done the motzvah. This has applications mehadrin of chanukah -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 14:52:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:52:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 09:46:52PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> It's like if one is forced to choose between an esrog which is definitely :> kosher but only barely so, vs. one which is beautiful but *might* be pasul. :> To me, it's a no-brainer that one would choose the barely kosher one.) >> - ... : There is a famois R Chaim that if one can use both etgrogim then one should : first use the beautiful but *might* be pasul since if one uses the : minimally kosher one then one has accomplished the mitzvah and there is no : reason to choose a second one. This presumes you can afford both, or have access to a friend who will give you a matanah al menas lehachzir of whichever you aren't buying. The post you're replying to is "if one is forced to choose". My own dilemma. Say I earmark $X (Y NIS, in your case) to spend on my esrog. And say the price of a definitely kosher (or at least, just as sure to be kosher) but not very hadar esrog is half that or less. Should I buy myself a mehudar, or should I buy two esrogim and give the other to someone hitting on hard times? Shouldn't the asei (tzedaqah, dei machsero) trump a "mere" hidur mitzvah (esrog)? And yet, we know many great rabbanim who didn't follow this calculus. What am I missing? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 15:25:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 18:25:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safeik as Metzi'us Message-ID: <20150420222502.GC1634@aishdas.org> The story so far: Briskers don't wear tzitzis outdoors on Shabbos in case the gemara does conclude that hatekheiles me'eaqes es halavan. (Dspite the tam mishnah, there is reason to wonder.) And if so, the tassels on your tallis or tallis qatan are not tzitzis, and wouldn't be tafeil to the beged. On Shabbos -- hotza'ah. I asked why, since I personally am wearing those tassels because of the safeiq, wouldn't that mean that in terms of my intent, they are hotza'ah? In general, when do we pasqen one din and then use that pesaq as the metzi'us for the next case? And when do we look at the internals of that din (in this case, the safeiq) and carry them through to the next din? Other examples collected so far: AhS OC 409:6 -- An eiruv techumin made with a safeiq tereifah is not an eiruv, because you can't eat a safeiq tereifah. We look to the pesaq, the meat is assur mishum safeiq, not the safeiq itself. (Where a parallel case in the se'if is ruled safeiq derabbanan lequlah.) AhS OC 416:8 -- A person wants to make 2 different eiruvei techumin, one for each day of YT in chu"l. You can't create an eiruv on day 2 that you cannot reach on day 1. We don't say mima nafshach -- if day 1 is YT, you don't need the eiruv, and if day 2 is, you were allowed to reach the food on day 1. Again, we look at the masqanah. Recently I noticed two more in the AhS: AhC OC 509:12 -- The Rama (se'if 5) allows libun on YT of a skewer that that they broiled non-salted meat on to allow using the skewer again that day. The AhS explains this is not a real tiqun keli, because mei'iqar hadin it doesn't need libun (cf YD 76), an therefore even if you could have done the libun on erev YT, you can still do it now. We DO NOT say that lemaaseh we are not nohagim to use the skewer without libun, so therefore the skewer went from usable to non-usable. This time we do look into the cause of the non-use. I am wondering if it's because beshe'as hadechaq, they would go to a rav and get a pesaq that they could use the skewer as is, so it's not fully unusable. AhS 581:18 -- If fruit are stored in a room that is built from uncemented bricks and the room breaks, the fruit are usable. We do not say they a muqtza, because the issur of disassembling the room was only derabbanan, so he didn't have full hesach hadaas. Notice that here he is saying that a person is aware of issur derabbanan being on a lesser level. The ruling is on the metzi'us, but with the understanding the the metzi'us reflects the wishy-washiness of the issur. RAM: Does any of this change your proposed sevaros? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 14:54:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:54:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5535759A.5020909@gmail.com> What would be the kilayim status of this combo? http://www.territorialseed.com/product/grafted-tomtato-ketchup-n-fries/new_for_spring_2015 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 15:57:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 18:57:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> On 04/20/2015 05:52 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > My own dilemma. Say I earmark $X (Y NIS, in your case) to spend on > my esrog. And say the price of a definitely kosher (or at least, just > as sure to be kosher) but not very hadar esrog is half that or less. > Should I buy myself a mehudar, or should I buy two esrogim and give the > other to someone hitting on hard times? Shouldn't the asei (tzedaqah, > dei machsero) trump a "mere" hidur mitzvah (esrog)? And yet, we know > many great rabbanim who didn't follow this calculus. What am I missing? Perhaps that they would then let the other person use their mehudardige esrog, so both benefit. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:21:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:21:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 06:57:15PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: :> ... Shouldn't the asei (tzedaqah, :> dei machsero) trump a "mere" hidur mitzvah (esrog)? And yet, we know :> many great rabbanim who didn't follow this calculus. What am I missing? : Perhaps that they would then let the other person use their mehudardige : esrog, so both benefit. So, both get the mitzvah of esrog with a hadar esrog. But I asked about fulling tzedaqah. How does a matanah al menas lehachzir qualify? And for someone used to having their own esrog, how is it "dei machsero"? Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:15:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:15:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Matza between Pesach and Shavuos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Somebody (either here or on Areivim) was asking about the minhag to eat matza between Pesach and Shavuos. I happened to pick up a sefer called "Bein Pesach u'Shavuos" (by R Zvi Cohn) and saw a few mentions about this. First, he cites the Gr"a that he never ate matza when it was not Pesach. I think the reasoning is that he didn't want to get hana'ah from it, but, rather, eat it only because it was a mitzvah. But then, later in the sefer, I saw reference to (a) a minhag (Belz and Chernobyl) to eat matza to eat matza on every shalosh seudos between Pesach and Shavuos, and wetting it with fish juice/gravy; and (b) v'yesh a minhag to eat matza *every* time one washes for bread, in order to combine "michlei d'm'heimnusa u'michlei d'asvasa" food/meal of emuna and food/meal of refuah (apologies for messing up the vowels). The footnote cites the sefer "Darchei Chayim v'Sholom" siman 633. And also to be m'dakdek to make one kugel for shabbos with matza and to pass it around, particularly on shalosh seudos after the z'miros. I don't translate so well, so if you want to see "inside" R Cohn's sefer, I put it here: http://s3.postimg.org/wukbartcj/matza.jpg [1] and if you look and find mistakes, please let the list (or at least me!) know! FWIW & Kol tuv, -- Sholom Links: ------ [1] http://s3.postimg.org/wukbartcj/matza.jpg -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 16:32:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 19:32:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> At 05:52 PM 4/20/2015, RN Toby Katz wrote: > >I am grateful to RYL (Prof. Levine) for making this pamphlet available to >the public as a pdf. However I note that he is often highly critical of >the charedi world, and I believe that R' Hirsch would emphatically not have >agreed with him. He would have honored and cherished the talmidei chachamim >who devote their lives to limud haTorah, and would have educated his >balabatim to take pride in the zechus of financially supporting the >"black hat" >yeshivos. This is pure speculation on your part. I believe that RSRH would have agreed with my views on this matter. Of course, this is pure speculation on my part. He certainly would not have agreed with the idea of not working to support one's family. See my article "The Obligation to Support a Family" The Jewish Press, February 18, 2015, front page. and the extensive quotes I have there from the writings of Rav Dr. Joseph Breuer, ZT"L, who was, of course, a grandson of RSRH and the foremost expositor of TIDE during his life time. > >I would also note that R' Hirsch would certainly not have shared RYL's dour > view of present-day Eretz Yisrael. True, all the flaws and failings of >Zionism are abundantly on display in the modern Medinah. But at the same >time, it takes an almost willful blindness not to see the >incredible miracles >that have been taking place there over the past sixty years or so. Not the >least of these miracles is a flourishing of Torah scholarship, be'eichus >uvekamus, the likes of which has not been seen since the churban Bayis >Sheni. We owe at least a small measure of gratitude to the >Zionist government >that helps provide the infrastructure for the Torah community to flourish, >and a huge measure of gratitude to the Ribono Shel Olam for allowing us to >live in a time in which the beginning of kibbutz galuyos is taking place >before our eyes. The sight of thousands of men, young and old, from all >corners of the world, streaming into the Mirrer Yeshiva each day, gives us a >little foretaste of what it will be like to visit the Third Bais Hamikdash. Again, I have to disagree. I suggest you read Rav Breuer's writings about EY in the book A Unique Perspective under the heading Eretz Yisroel. The following are some excerpts from his essay The State of Israel. The proclamation of a Jewish state would bring great joy to all the members of our people, if conditions were such that we could feel justified to call it a Kiddush Hashem. It pains us to say, and we have no illusions, that for the time being this is not the case. For every Torah-true Jew the word Kiddush Hashem is his utmost concern, while Chillul Hashem leaves him trembling. Thus the establishment of a Jewish state will fill him with misgivings and alarm. Anyone who is imbued with the eternal truth and validity of God's Torah will have to be aware that a state on God's holy soil will only be able to endure if the conditions that God has set down for a Jewish state on His holy soil are met. These conditions apply to the Jewish entity and to the life of every individual who declares himself a member of God's People. Again, please read Rav Breuer's essays on Eretz Yisroel in this book. Also, please read Rav Shimon Schwab's essay Zion or Zionism that I have placed at http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/zion_or_zionism.pdf Rav Schwab was most certainly a proponent of TIDE and the approach of RSRH. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 15:32:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 18:32:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> References: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 11:34 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > There was a bachur next to me this morning whose retzu'os were painted > black on both sides. And I believe I know why this is done, in case > a retzu'ah gets flipped. Or perhaps to be chosheish for the Rambam's > description of such retzu'os being "noi". I've only ever heard of the leather being soaked in dye; and the reason given was not for flipped retzu'os but for scratches: if the entire thickness of the strap has been dyed, a scratch will not expose undyed leather. (This does not address your actual question, though) ?Chesky Salomon From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:24:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:24:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <553598C0.6010209@sero.name> On 04/20/2015 08:21 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > So, both get the mitzvah of esrog with a hadar esrog. But I asked about > fulling tzedaqah. How does a matanah al menas lehachzir qualify? And > for someone used to having their own esrog, how is it "dei machsero"? At a time when an esrog was a luxury that most people could not afford and were not used to, how often would such a case come up? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:27:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:27:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <553598C0.6010209@sero.name> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> <553598C0.6010209@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150421002736.GA24420@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 08:24:32PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : At a time when an esrog was a luxury that most people could not afford : and were not used to, how often would such a case come up? ... and today? Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:58:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 00:58:13 GMT Subject: [Avodah] hidur Message-ID: <20150420.205813.23096.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> R'Zev Sero asked: > At a time when an esrog was a luxury that most people could > not afford and were not used to, how often would such a case > come up? But it could certainly come up nowadays. About 25 years ago, my budget was so tight that I had decided to share my lulav and esrog with my two sons, despite my having gotten them their own set in previous years. I don't remember whether one or both was still below bar mitzvah that year, but it doesn't really matter, because the point is that they were used to having their own, and that year we shared the one set. Suffice it to say that it was not fun. Baruch Hashem we've each had own own every year since then. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5535a0f9e88320f87fb2st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 18:23:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 01:23:34 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Self-control fatigue Message-ID: <20150420.212334.23096.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> On Areivim, SY Scher wrote: > A now large body of research shows that we can have "self-control > fatigue". Professor Roy Baumeister and his colleagues have > demonstrated experimentally that when people have previously had > to exert self-control, their ability to do so goes down. They > have also showed physiological correlates -- will-power/self- > control takes energy, and after exerting a lot of control, our > blood glucose level is lower. Replenishment of glucose (for > example, by drinking lemonade sweetened with sugar, but not > lemonade with artificial sweeteners) raises self-control ability > back up. > We all know that following the halacha often requires a good deal > of willpower, and I would imagine that for charedi adolescent boys, > that would be even more strongly so. So, the ability to control > the yetzer in outside situations may well be reduced. The muscle > is just too worn out! Is there any way fit this in with the idea that many mitzvos - kashrus in particular and chukim in general - seem designed to train us to *have* self-control? Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 03:14:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 06:14:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Self-control fatigue In-Reply-To: <20150420.212334.23096.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150420.212334.23096.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150421101422.GB7409@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 01:23:34AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : Is there any way fit this in with the idea that many mitzvos - kashrus : in particular and chukim in general - seem designed to train us to *have* : self-control? If (and that's a big if) we define the yeitzer hara as the effects on our souls of living within a mammalian body, then the ability to plan ahead and work toward delayed gratification, rather than just instinctively going for what's before us, is going to be a fundamental skill in rising above it. In R Yitchaq Sher's introduction to the Slabodka edition of Cheshbon haNefesh (Feldheim bilingual ed. ), the mashgiach speaks of the nefesh habehamis's "lack[ing the will to exercise choice" and therefore "the tzivui or azharah of an asei or a lo-sa'asei are not shayach to it at all" (par 2). He then gives guidelines about how to train it by taking examples from animal training (par 304). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 17th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Tifferes: What is the ultimate Fax: (270) 514-1507 state of harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 03:17:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 13:17:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> References: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 8:36 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > The Maharal is saying that what RMF calls emes shamamis (I think that > conjugation is yours, no?) is actually too rich to fit in this universe, > and certainly in a human mind. Therefore, two shitos can be correct > descriptions of the Truth, because each are incomplete. > Where does the Maharal say this? (Not a challenge, I just want to learn it inside) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 06:24:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 09:24:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: References: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150421132444.GD1634@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 01:17:49PM +0300, Simon Montagu wrote: : Where does the Maharal say this? (Not a challenge, I just want to learn it : inside) Be'er haGolah, be'er 1, pg 20 in the common edition, available on pg 94 the whole book) in the Harman edition, on hebrewbooks.org (Onward, I would print the 1[:6] off the link at the top for the whole sefer. R YD Hartman has a clearer edition, with copious footnotes.) I've been citing that Maharal for over a decade, so I had to search for the actual mar'eh maqom. On nice find was the discussion in Mishpat Ivri . I want to go through the whole chapter on machloqos (that hit is mid-chapter) before commenting, but I don't know when I'll get to it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 17th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Tifferes: What is the ultimate Fax: (270) 514-1507 state of harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 09:11:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 12:11:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150421132444.GD1634@aishdas.org> References: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> <20150421132444.GD1634@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55367699.9010203@sero.name> On 04/21/2015 09:24 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 01:17:49PM +0300, Simon Montagu wrote: > : Where does the Maharal say this? (Not a challenge, I just want to learn it > : inside) > > Be'er haGolah, be'er 1, pg 20 The introduction to the Hartman edition shows that the title is actually Be'er haGulah, with a melupum rather than a cholam. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 01:40:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 11:40:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu Message-ID: Sagi in his book on the topic brings 3 basic approaches (all with many supporters) to the sugya 1) Monism - only one truth as subfields we can be tolerant of other attempts or not 2) pluralism - there are many truths and one can't decide 3) harmonism - different views are just separate parts of the same truth R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is self-contradictory. According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint is monism ! He further points out that sometimes pluralism can be a chumra Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he doesn't accept the kashrut Answer: Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable Of course these are only typologies. In the real world anyone who believes in pluralism has some radius of acceptance. Few would accept Naziism or Isis as a legitimate viewpoint -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 01:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 11:53:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] hidur Message-ID: <> As usual R Chaim is asking a theoretical question - he was not a posek In fact I once heard from RYBS that in fact almost all etrogim are kosher bidieved. In Israel one can get a mehudar set for about 100 shekel ($25) see http://www.dafyomi.co.il/nazir/halachah/nz-hl-002.htm 2. Bava Kama 9a (R. Zeira citing Rav Huna): One must spend up to a third for Mitzvos. 3. Question: What does this mean? i. Suggestion: One must spend a third of his wealth to fulfil a Mitzvah. ii. Rejection: It is unreasonable that if he encounters three (expensive) Mitzvos, he must exhaust all his wealth! 4. Answer (R. Zeira): One must spend an extra third to beautify a Mitzvah. Shulchan Aruch (ibid.): Some say that if he finds two Esrogim to buy, and one of them is nicer than the other, he should buy the nicer one if the price difference is no more than a third of the other. i. Source (Beis Yosef DH Kaneh): Rashi (Bava Kama 9b DH b'Hidur) says that if one found two Sifrei Torah to buy, he should add a third of the price to buy the nicer one. ii. Kaf ha'Chayim (17): It seems that neither opinion requires one who bought an Esrog bigger than an egg to exchange it for a nicer one. However, the Rosh, Gra and Taz obligate doing so. The Magen Avraham says that perhaps the Shulchan Aruch holds like the Rosh. iii. Kaf ha'Chayim (18): One must add a third from an Esrog that one could bless on without Safek. Hidur depends on what people in the area consider nice. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 05:09:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 08:09:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55378F6E.2070708@sero.name> On 04/22/2015 04:40 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > 2) pluralism - there are many truths and one can't decide > > R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is self-contradictory. According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint is monism ! Not true. There are many truths, but not an infinite number. Or, as my father says, there are 70 panim latorah, but there are also 70 achor. Strict monism, which rejects the gemara's statement that "eilu va'eilu DACh", is by definition wrong. > Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he > doesn't accept the kashrut > Answer: > Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong > Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable It depends whether his concern is legitimate. If there is a legitimate opinion or minhag that forbids or refrains from whatever it is, or if he has a legitimate private chumra, then there is no question that it is assur to be machshil him. But if he is acting out of pure amhoratzus, then one needn't pander to it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 09:45:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 17:45:34 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Avodah: Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:54, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah wrote: > What would be the kilayim status of this combo? > http://www.territorialseed.com/product/grafted-tomtato-ketchup-n-fries/new_for_spring_2015 Though potato and tomato are from the same family, it is clear from mesechte Kilayim, fruit [or animals] that look different are treated as 2 different species. Hence, though the spuds and tomatoes would be permitted to eat - as with any grafted fruit - it would be ossur for a Yid to grow Dovid Rubin From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 10:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 13:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: <55378F6E.2070708@sero.name> References: <55378F6E.2070708@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150422175311.GA11663@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 08:09:18AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : On 04/22/2015 04:40 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : >2) pluralism - there are many truths and one can't decide : : >R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is :> self-contradictory. According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint :> is monism ! : Not true. There are many truths, but not an infinite number. Or, as my : father says, there are 70 panim latorah, but there are also 70 achor. I think RMA is referring to a paradox I've mentioned here once. While in principle, it's possible for a halachic pluralist to not include any halachic monist positions in his spectrum of eilu va'eilu, I do not know of a halachic pluralist who rules out the Rambam. Or a less absolute case of the same paradox: MO Jews will turn to chareidi gedolim for pesaqim despite those gedoim not believing that MO is within eilu va'eilu. So it would seem that to the MO Jew asking the she'eilah, the variant of chareidism that says MO is not within eilu va'eilu, is (in the MO Jew's opinion) itself within EvE! : Strict monism, which rejects the gemara's statement that "eilu va'eilu DACh", : is by definition wrong. Or, understand it in terms of following HQBH's word, as opposed to being right. As per the Rambam or RMF, for example. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 18th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Tifferes: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 balance? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 11:53:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 14:53:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Chilul Hashem of Disrespecting Non-Jews Message-ID: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/kb4v525 This idea connects with something that has bothered me for some time: the wanton, unprovoked use of disparaging, racist comments among our youth. Over the years I have either heard directly or been made aware of many such comments by students. When I asked why they had expressed themselves in this manner, they could offer no meaningful response. All I could glean was that they were apparently parroting similar remarks they had heard elsewhere, without having given much thought to their words. Many of these students had few if any relationships or even interactions with individuals from the groups they were mocking. See the above URL for the entire article. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:32:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 15:32:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Chilul Hashem of Disrespecting Non-Jews In-Reply-To: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150422193201.GD11663@aishdas.org> One of my many pet peeves is the use of "chilul hasheim" to teach ehrlachkeit. It may win the battle -- historically, it hasn't -- but it does so by avoiding the war. Mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro as important as mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro. Derekh eretz is important as Chazal literally call it a prerequisite for Torah. Worrying about the bein adam laMaqom effects of the cheit misses the point. And perhaps the reason why past attempts to change behavior by talking about chillul hasheim haven't worked is that one is not teaching the centrality of ehrlachkeit as a *primary* value. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 18th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Tifferes: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 balance? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:43:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 21:43:09 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <5537F9CD.7000409@zahav.net.il> How did Rav Breuer work to ensure the conditions that "we could feel justified to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? Ben On 4/21/2015 1:32 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > > Again, I have to disagree. I suggest you read Rav Breuer's writings > about EY in the book A Unique Perspective under the heading Eretz Yisroel. > > The proclamation of a Jewish state would bring great joy to all > the members of our people, if conditions were such that we could > feel justified to call it a Kiddush Hashem. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:36:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 15:36:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Avodah: Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150422193627.GE11663@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 05:45:34PM +0100, D via Avodah wrote: : Hence, though the spuds and tomatoes would be permitted to eat - as : with any grafted fruit - it would be ossur for a Yid to grow I think it would be mutar to buy already grafted, and then grow. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:53:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 22:53:04 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Avodah: Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 7:45 PM, D via Avodah wrote: > Though potato and tomato are from the same family, it is clear from > mesechte Kilayim, fruit [or animals] that look different are treated as 2 > different species. > Hence, though the spuds and tomatoes would be permitted to eat - as with > any grafted fruit - it would be ossur for a Yid to grow > Do you mean because the potato and tomato that we eat look different? You're not comparing apples to apples (pun intended). The fruits of a potato plant look very similar to the fruits of a tomato plant! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 13:07:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joel Schnur via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 16:07:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos Message-ID: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> My understanding is that Briskers don't wear a talis katan outside the house on shabbos because the shiur is "ad habirchaim" according to the Gaon as brought in Keser Rosh by talmidei Reb Chaim Voloshiner. And since "until the knees" is a subjective criterion depending upon each person's height, there is no specific "one size fits all" length. Interestingly, Rav Moshe Shternbuch brings a Rav Moshe that says that the source is unreliable and the Gaon never said such a thing. -- ___________________________ Joel Schnur, Senior VP Government Affairs/Public Relations Schnur Associates, Inc. 25 West 45th Street, Suite 1405 New York, NY 10036 Tel. 212-489-0600 x204 Fax. 212-489-0203 joel at schnurassociates.com www.schnurassociates.com http://www.schnurassociates.com/joels-corner/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 14:57:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 17:57:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Chilul Hashem of Disrespecting Non-Jews In-Reply-To: <20150422193201.GD11663@aishdas.org> References: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150422193201.GD11663@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150422215739.6F5F0180576@nexus.stevens.edu> At 03:32 PM 4/22/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >Mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro as important as mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro. I believe that this sentence is wrong. I believe you meant to write that mitzvos bein adam l'Chaveiro are just as important as mitzvos bein adam l'makom. RSRH points out that the Luchos contained 5 mitzvos bein adam l'Chaveiro and 5 mitzvos bein Adam l"Makom on each side, and that both sides of the Luchos were the same size! >Derekh eretz is important as Chazal literally call it a prerequisite >for Torah. And hence may one deduce that those who do not have proper Derech Eretz do not have Torah? If so, then I guess we should not be surprised at the actions of some so-called Jews that are a Chilul Hashem. They do not have any Torah. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 13:46:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 20:46:08 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos In-Reply-To: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> References: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> Message-ID: <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> On Wednesday, April 22, 2015 3:33 PM, Joel Schnur wrote: > My understanding is that Briskers don't wear a talis katan outside the > house on shabbos because the shiur is "ad habirchaim" according to the > Gaon as brought in Keser Rosh by talmidei Reb Chaim Voloshiner.... > Interestingly, Rav Moshe Shternbuch brings a Rav Moshe that says that > the source is unreliable and the Gaon never said such a thing. The reason that Briskers don't where Tzitzes on Shabbos is because they are Choshesh for the Shita of the Baal HaMeor who says that Techiels is Me'akev the Lavan. As such -- by wearing these now unnecessary 'strings' in Reshus Harabim they will be Oveir the Lav of Hotza'ah on Shabbos, an Issur D'Oraisa and a capital offense. Inetrestingly, accroding to the Baal HaMeor, wearing a Beged of Daled Kanfos using Tzitzs without Techiles is a violation -- same as if he were wearing it without Tzitzis at all. I'm told that the Gra did not wear a woolen Beged for his Talis Katan for that reason. Because wool has a Chiuv D'Oraisa for Tzitzs whereas cotton is only D'Rabbanan. HM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 17:05:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 20:05:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <5537F9CD.7000409@zahav.net.il> References: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> <5537F9CD.7000409@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <5538373F.4000900@aishdas.org> On 04/22/2015 03:43 PM, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: > On 4/21/2015 1:32 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: >> Again, I have to disagree. I suggest you read Rav Breuer's writings >> about EY in the book A Unique Perspective under the heading Eretz >> Yisroel. >> The proclamation of a Jewish state would bring great joy to all >> the members of our people, if conditions were such that we could >> feel justified to call it a Kiddush Hashem. > How did Rav Breuer work to ensure the conditions that "we could feel > justified to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? He thought his late brother's Poalei Agudah might accomplish it. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 03:06:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 06:06:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos In-Reply-To: <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> References: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20150423100635.GA26841@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 08:46:08PM +0000, Harry Maryles via Avodah wrote: : The reason that Briskers don't where Tzitzes on Shabbos is because they : are Choshesh for the Shita of the Baal HaMeor who says that Techiels is : Me'akev the Lavan. : : As such -- by wearing these now unnecessary 'strings' in Reshus Harabim : they will be Oveir the Lav of Hotza'ah on Shabbos... In the opening post, I referred to the BhM's reason. Since there appears to be interest, I will spell it out. The mishnah (Menachos 4:1, 38a) says that techeiles is not me'aqeves the lavan, and v.v. Seems kind of open and shut, and that's what we hold lehalakhah. And so R' Yitzchaq says that R Yochanan ben Nuri says (beraisa , quoted on 39b) that if you have no tekheiles, you make all strings lavan. But, Rebbe is choleiq, and says the mishnah means sequence. Normally the lavan strings have to be put on first, or on a tekheiles garment, the tekheiles string first. And the mishnah is saying that if you put on the other color first, it's not me'aqeiv. According to Rebbe, though, you can't be yotzei without putting on tekheiles altogether. Getting to this understanding of the mishnah is an amud lonq chaqla vetarya in which Levi, Shemu'el and Rami bar Chama defend Rebbe's position. : Interestingly, according to the Baal HaMeor, wearing a Beged of Daled : Kanfos using Tzitzs without Techiles is a violation -- same as if he : were wearing it without Tzitzis at all. Not really. It's an asei, not a lav. So, if tekheiles truly is unavailable, why wouldn't it be mutar, if pointless? However, if you feel there is any possibility whatsoever that the murex derived dye is indeed tekheiles, safeiq de'oraisa lechumerah would force one to choose between not wearing tzitzis and wearing the dye. And there are those who hold it's garua to wear invalid dye, so combine the shitos right, and the discovery of a possible tekheiles would make it better not to wear tzitzis. IF we held like the BhM. But not even Briskers do, me'iqar hadin -- they are merely chosheish for his position as a chumerah. : I'm told that the Gra did not wear a woolen Beged for his Talis Katan : for that reason. Because wool has a Chiuv D'Oraisa for Tzitzs whereas : cotton is only D'Rabbanan. As usual for the Gra -- clever! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 19th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Tifferes: When does harmony promote Fax: (270) 514-1507 withdrawal and submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 02:45:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Allan Engel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 10:45:42 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos In-Reply-To: <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> References: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: So what was his Tallis Godol made of? On 22 April 2015 at 21:46, Harry Maryles via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote:. > > > Inetrestingly, accroding to the Baal HaMeor, wearing a Beged of Daled > Kanfos using Tzitzs without Techiles is a violation -- same as if he > were wearing it without Tzitzis at all. > > I'm told that the Gra did not wear a woolen Beged for his Talis Katan > for that reason. Because wool has a Chiuv D'Oraisa for Tzitzs whereas > cotton is only D'Rabbanan. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 05:07:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 12:07:10 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >> R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is self-contradictory. >> According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint is monism ! ... > Strict monism, which rejects the gemara's statement that "eilu va'eilu > DACh", is by definition wrong. Monism doesn't reject the gemara just interprets it different That was the shiur >> Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he >> doesn't accept the kashrut >> Answer: >> Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong >> Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable > It depends whether his concern is legitimate. If there is a legitimate > opinion or minhag that forbids or refrains from whatever it is, or if he > has a legitimate private chumra, then there is no question that it is assur > to be machshil him. No question is your opinion a true monist Would argue that there are no other legitimate opinions hence the other is wrong and you are not machshil him [Email #2, also in reply to this latter quote. -micha] You are not being machshil by offering food that he won't eat because of his minhag or chumrot you are mikayem shalach Manot even if he doesn't accept the kashrut From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 09:11:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 12:11:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L Message-ID: <20150423161105.DF2701836D1@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:13 AM 4/23/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: >How did Rav Breuer work to ensure the conditions that "we could feel >justified to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? I really have no specifics. but I do know that Rav Breuer was busy here in the US building a model Kehilla and educating Baalei Batim. I know that some of those from his Kehilla did move to EY. In particular, I know one person who was a professional and a follower of TIDE who moved to EY. I am sure that he did whatever he could to strengthen Yahadus in EY. But let me ask a related question. What are the observant now living in EY doing "to ensure the conditions that 'we could feel justifies to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 09:49:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 12:49:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55392297.20909@sero.name> On 04/23/2015 08:07 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > >>> >>Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he >>> >>doesn't accept the kashrut >>> >>Answer: >>> >>Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong >>> >>Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable >> >It depends whether his concern is legitimate. If there is a legitimate >> >opinion or minhag that forbids or refrains from whatever it is, or if he >> >has a legitimate private chumra, then there is no question that it is assur >> >to be machshil him. > No question is your opinion a true monist > Would argue that there are no other legitimate opinions hence the other > is wrong and you are not machshil him Even if there is only one truth, you don't necessarily know for sure what it is. You make your best guess, but someone else makes his, and for all you know he may have hit on the truth, even if only by accident, while you, with all your careful analysis of the evidence, may have been led astray. Let's take medicine, where there really is only one truth, but often we don't know for sure what it is. Does gluten in the diet negatively affect the health of most normal people? There doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence for that proposition, but it can't be ruled out. Maybe in 20 years we will observe that those who have followed the gluten-free fad really are healthier, and someone will discover how it is that gluten harms a person. Or maybe it will be established that it's exactly the mishguas that it appears to be. But until then we are just guessing, and if you hold that it's a mishugas but someone else is worried about it, you have to consider the possibility that he may be right, and by tricking him into eating gluten you may actually be harming him. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 10:54:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 17:54:52 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] A Papal Honor for an Orthodox Rabbi. Message-ID: <393104521.3643892.1429811692300.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> JTA is reporting that Pope Francis will be bestowing Papal Knighthood upon Rabbi Arthur Schneier (who I believe is an Orthodox Rabbi) for (among other things) his work in promoting a positive relationship with the Church. According to JTA,?Schneier will formally become a knight of Saint Sylvester at a ceremony on April 27.Isn't there a Halachic probelm with this? It would seem to me that becoming a 'knight' in the Catholic church ?would at least be Avak Avodah Zara - even though it is just honorary? HM??Want Emes and Emunah in your life? Try this: http://haemtza.blogspot.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 16:14:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 19:14:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early Message-ID: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin (or ate the food already, the food went bad, etc...) who for some reason can not rely on the rabbi's communal failsafe eruv (perhaps he isn't in a neighborhood with an observant community) do for lighting Shabbos candles? So, the BY (OC 537:19) permits, but he says "veyeish oserin". The AhS (se'if 28) names the oserim as the Rosh and the Ran, and that the SA names the Rambam (via a diyuq halashon)as his source lehatir. The AhS then questions the diyuq, but says it should be allowed anyway, since one gets hana'ah from the neiros while on YT too. So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, ones you used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making a berakhah on? Yes, there is light for enjoying the Shabbos meal, all the same shalom bayis. But there is no actual pe'ulah to make the berakhah on. Is there? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 19th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Tifferes: When does harmony promote Fax: (270) 514-1507 withdrawal and submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 16:21:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Daniel M. Israel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 16:21:06 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> References: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <33e302272e45c742ee54349bcfddc40a@kolberamah.org> On 2015-04-23 16:14, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin... > ... do for lighting Shabbos candles? > So, the BY (OC 537:19) permits... The AhS > then questions the diyuq, but says it should be allowed anyway, since > one gets hana'ah from the neiros while on YT too. > So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, ones you > used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making a berakhah on? Off the cuff hypothesis: Perhaps for the one lighting, it becomes Shabbos immediately, so the hadlakah is for Shabbos and there is a beracha. But for others in the house, they likely don't take on Shabbos until davening, and therefor they enjoy it on YT. Which would be enough to matir her lighting them. But I have no source. -- Daniel Israel dmi1 at cornell.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 16:27:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 19:27:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: <33e302272e45c742ee54349bcfddc40a@kolberamah.org> References: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> <33e302272e45c742ee54349bcfddc40a@kolberamah.org> Message-ID: <20150423232727.GB23492@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 04:21:06PM -0700, Daniel M. Israel wrote: : Perhaps for the one lighting, it becomes Shabbos immediately, so the : hadlakah is for Shabbos and there is a beracha. But for others in the : house, they likely don't take on Shabbos until davening, and therefor : they enjoy it on YT. Which would be enough to matir her lighting them. Not bad, if we don't read too much into the AhS not limiting this solution to cases where the candle-lighter isn't alone in the home. Nor does he mention having to use candles lit after pelag, nor her making a berakhah upon lighting and having an issur melakhah... Could be, but I find it dachuq. -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 17:58:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2015 00:58:48 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early Message-ID: <20150423.205848.16124.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger asked: > What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin (or > ate the food already, the food went bad, etc...) who for some > reason can not rely on the rabbi's communal failsafe eruv > (perhaps he isn't in a neighborhood with an observant community) > do for lighting Shabbos candles? Another problem this person will have is what to eat on Shabbos. There are several ideas offered by the poskim, and one of them is to cook extra food on Yom Tov, and the extra will be for Shabbos. This can be done even without an Eiruv Tavshilin, IIRC, because the melacha is not being done exclusively for Shabbos. > So, the BY (OC 537:19) [that should be 527:19 - Akiva] permits, > but he says "veyeish oserin". The AhS (se'if 28) names the oserim > as the Rosh and the Ran, and that the SA names the Rambam (via a > diyuq halashon)as his source lehatir. The AhS then questions the > diyuq, but says it should be allowed anyway, since one gets > hana'ah from the neiros while on YT too. This sounds to me the same as above. The lighting is not being done exclusively for Shabbos, and therefore may be done on YT. I would note that at no point in that se'if, does the AhS explicitly refers to the *mitzvah* of lighting Shabbos neros. Rather, his focus is on the practical need to light them in the late afternoon, both because it is *already* getting dark and hard to see without some artifical light, and because we won't be able to light anything later on. Truth be told, if lighting Shabbos candles is allowed only with an Eruv Tavshilin, then this whole se'if is needed even for a person who DID remember to make an Eruv, because (l'chatchila) one must do his Shabbos preparations early in the day, in a manner in which the melacha is -- or at least *could* be -- for tzorchei Yom Tov, and not exclusively for Shabbos. > So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, > ones you used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making > a berakhah on? Yes, there is light for enjoying the Shabbos meal, > all the same shalom bayis. But there is no actual pe'ulah to make > the berakhah on. Is there? I don't know where you see anything like this in the AhS. The AhS is explicitly talking about lighting after mincha, when it is already dark and the light is already useful. I concede that perhaps one should omit the bracha, because it explicitly declares one's intentions to be of a hachana nature, but that is a separate question not raised by the AhS. The main point I want to make in this paragraph is that the AhS never suggested that one might be yotzay Mitzvas Ner Shabbos via the candle that he lit in the early afternoon; it must be lit after Plag, with the intention that it will be burning into Shabbos. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55399563ca1dd156333b3st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 23:18:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2015 02:18:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Turning Jealousy into Progress Message-ID: Envy - Jealousy ? Kin?ah ? is an obvious theme for Parshas Mtzora. Paraphrasing freely (from L?chai Ro?-EY page 184), Midrash Tehillim/Shochar Tov on 37:1 parallel of TiTCHaR and TeKaNNEi. Do not fall victim to despondence those plotting evil, do not emulate those who succeed in career of crime. Rashi BMiDBar 25:11 neatly ties both into a General Theory of Jealousy. KoL LaSHON KiNAH HU HaMiTCHaReH LiNKom NiKMaS DaVaR. Rashi?s keyword is worth a thousand words. Rashi expects that we know Tanach and Midrash references. To catch Rashi?s nuance, always, I consult my paper Milon Gur [also in HebrewBooks.com]. HaMiTCHaReH is the exotic addition to our vocabulary. My trusty dictionary comes through here. Milon Gur pages 310 311 on CHaRaH: CHaRaH intransitive verb, showing outwardly as Ca_US or KaTZUF. ? foaming and frothing anger, against a traitor or hated enemy. determination to avenge and restore the Balance of Justice. HiTLaHeiV burning simmering anger, pressure like volcanic eruption. Hashem to Yonah ? are you truly upset ? HaHeYTeiV CHaRaH LCHa YoNaH? Divine CHaRON AF boiling or simmering anger is satisfied only by repentance, not by punishment. CHaRUCHA [burnt like over done fire-roast, long term anger leads to burn-through and burn-out. CHaRUL thorny tangle Milon Gur page 1088 McharCher RIV ? drum up strife and enmity CHaRCHuR ? disease of loss of muscle and strength. MChaRCHer Riv, CharumAf [nose ?bent out of shape? inset into face] and for Tacharut as resentment destroyed relationship. Rashi in Machzor Vitri 148 uses CHeReTZ in a unique way. Hashem jealously and with energy demands perfection from the world. Why does the Creator demand perfection? Rashi believes that Hashem cares strongly about the world. When the Adam attempts to be good, but falls short, He uses Rachamim, parenting skills, looking to the potential of ?You will worship Elokim on this mountain?. identification with the world demands perfection. When the world tries but falls short, fails to perform, Hashem uses Rachamim, flexibility, patience, empathy. He settles for potential. When the world rebels against Hashem, refuses to acknowledge Him at all, or mocking Him, rejecting their Father, breaking up the family, then there is Charon Af, red faced simmering anger. Rav Avraham Ruby authored the ?Tzilusa DiShmaata? series, focusing on chapters of the Baba-s routinely learnt Afternoon Seder which are master-works of Lamdus. Rav Moshe Shmuel Shapiro of Be?eir Yaakov was a talented teacher, and R? Ruby is an extremely able student. This year R? Ruby has turned his talents to creating the same sort of succinct and sharp presentation on Chumash.[L?chai Ro?-EY on Vayikra, self published 5775, contact me.]. Each Parsha offers an eclectic collection of solid sources. The organization is always unique and refreshing. L?chai Ro?-EY 185 shows the constructive power of ambition. Identity, membership,self-image, pride, place in society are all motivators of constructive behavior. Kinah jealousy is secondary, when there is an insult or threat to Hashem?s identity, or the individual?s. Ideally our self-image should include praise of Hashem and hatred of all insults against the Honor of Hashem. Only live in a town with Jewish services, and help create them. Your material ambitions include the dimension of Mitzvos and Kidush Hashem. A higher level of identity, ambition and constructive jealousy is aspiring to your neighbor?s higher spiritual levels. Even the Heavenly angels and even Avraham Avinu found mentors to emulate. Of course, the type of destructive strife we often see has other roots. Building a Jewish family is much easier with stronger spiritual models. -- David Wacholder Cell: 917-742-7838 Email: dwacholder at gmail.com dwacholder at optonline.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 24 08:42:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2015 11:42:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Beautiful Vort Message-ID: I recently came upon the following, listening to a hesped for Rabbi Mordechai Fachler zt?l, who was nift?r in November 2010. The hesped (one of many for Rav Fachler) was delivered by Rabbi Moshe Shirkin of England. This is just one part that caught my attention and was very touching. In previous generations the g?dolei Yisroel were discussing what?s the function of a Rav? The Rosh Yeshiva in Grodna (at the time) said the task of the Rav is to give shiurim. The Rav of Kovna, poisek oilam, said the task of the Rav is to pasken shailas. They came to Reb Chayim of Brisk and asked him what is the task of the Rav. His impressive response was: To give shiurim, you have a Rosh Yeshiva. To pasken shailas, you have a dayan. The task of the Rav is to do chesed with his oilam. A clergyman comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comfortable. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Apr 25 12:31:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 25 Apr 2015 21:31:27 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150423161105.DF2701836D1@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150423161105.DF2701836D1@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <553BEB8F.8040802@zahav.net.il> On 4/23/2015 6:11 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > But let me ask a related question. What are the observant now living > in EY doing "to ensure the conditions that 'we could feel justifies > to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? I gave an answer on Areivim, but I saw a couple of things on Shabbat which warrant an Avodah response. The first is from Yoma 86:A, Rashi, B'Amor Lehem (my translation): "Evil comes to chassidim and chachamim because "They desecrated My Holy name" (note: Rashi is of course assuming that they didn't do any particular sin to warrant what happened to them). How did they desecrate (God's name)? In those places to where they were exiled, the non-Jews say "These are the people of God" and He can't redeem them. Conclusion: God's name has been desecrated." End quote. Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem. Rav Soloveitch tz"l wrote about this point in Kol Dodi Dofek and in his drashot for the Kinot, as did Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook tz"l. However, I don't want to leave it at that. Rav Cherki (father of Shalom HY"D) wrote the following in this week's Shabbat B'shabato: "And this leads us to a moral question: How can it be that with respect to the most significant event in all of history, the redemption, the existence or lack of good deeds has no effect at all? This tension between the inevitability of redemption and arbitrary choices made by man is what makes it necessary for the nation of Yisrael to observe all the mitzvot in detail, in order to avoid creating a dissonance between the need for justice (which appears in the covenant in the Torah portion of Bechukotai) and the values of the path of unification, which insists that G-d is always working to glorify His name, no matter what else is happening. And that is why the Haftarah ends with the adamant demand of the Holy One, Blessed be He: "I am your G-d. Follow My laws and maintain My just actions and perform them, and sanctify my Shabbat and let it be a symbol between Me and you, in order to know that I am your G-d." [Yechezkel 20:19-20]." No one, not the most hard core DL around, says that there is nothing wrong with the State, that there isn't what that needs changing, from the level of how people get on a bus to the national agenda. In his hesped, Rav Cherki mentioned that his son Shalom went to the navy to help start a hesder unit for the navy, even though he knew that the religious level in the navy wasn't as high as it was in other units. He went there for the greater good, to help make the IDF a bit more Torah oriented, period. Rav Cherki went on to say that the answer to Shalom's murder was to add Kiddush HaShem. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 13:28:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 20:28:49 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lashon Hara and the Internet Message-ID: <20150426.162849.2967.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> On Areivim, there were some posts speaking about the residents of a certain area or areas. Someone commented: > I'm a little surprised at this exchange. Sefer Chafetz Chaim is > pretty clear about not saying loshen hara on a place or the > residents of a place. Someone else responded: > I am no expert on what is LH and what is not, but with the Internet > I think that some of the halachos probably do not apply to today's > world. Find me a sefer that deals with LH and the Internet, and > then we will talk. I too am no expert in Sefer Chafetz Chaim, but I clearly remember it talking about Lashon Hara via the written word, such as in personal letters to friends and relatives, or by publishing books and newspapers. Can someone find those sources and tell us where they are? I find it difficult to imagine that today's world is so different from that of a hundred years ago "that some of the halachos probably do not apply to today's world." But without quoting actual sources, it's simply a case of my imagination vs that of the other poster. So I am hoping that someone can help with the source material, "and then we will talk." Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553d4ab51dc554ab54c25st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 15:02:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 18:02:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] YIDDISHKEIT WITHOUT IDEOLOGY: A LETTER TO My SON Message-ID: <20150426220229.D93E41836B2@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://traditionarchive.org/news/originals/Volume%2036/No.%202/Yiddishkeit%20Without.pdf Let me be absolutely clear: where the demands of halacha are unambiguous, you must submit to them. But how does one navigate between much less well-defined traditional attitudes and strong personal inclinations? When I was your age I didn't know the answer-I still don't-but one proposition that seemed self-evident to me at the time was that it was essential to be consistent. In other words, I felt that I had to some- how make sure that the way I defined Yiddishkeit and the way I defined my commitments given my own inclinations would be perfectly aligned. I'm now convinced that that commitment to consistency was utter- ly wrong-headed and is the key to all that is wrong with institutional Yiddishkeit. I shouldn't have been defining either Yiddishkeit or my commitments at al. To do so is to reduce Yiddishkeit to ideology which is exactly what it is not. See the above UL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 16:54:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 19:54:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150426235424.BD633182CE0@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:52 PM 4/26/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: I gave an answer on Areivim, but I saw a couple of things on Shabbat which warrant an Avodah response. The first is from Yoma 86:A, Rashi, B'Amor Lehem (my translation): "Evil comes to chassidim and chachamim because "They desecrated My Holy name" (note: Rashi is of course assuming that they didn't do any particular sin to warrant what happened to them). How did they desecrate (God's name)? In those places to where they were exiled, the non-Jews say "These are the people of God" and He can't redeem them. Conclusion: God's name has been desecrated." End quote. >Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem. >Rav Soloveitch tz"l wrote about this point in Kol Dodi Dofek and in his >drashot for the Kinot, as did Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook tz"l. We all know that there were great Torah scholars who disagreed with the assertion that " the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." to name just 3, the Satmar Rebbe, Rav Breuer, and Rav Schwab. They were also most certainly familiar with the gemara you quote and the RASHI. If you had written, "Therefore, according to some Torah scholars the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." I would not disagree. However, your blanket statement, "Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." is IMO is not valid. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 12:36:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Jay F. Shachter via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 19:36:27 +0000 (WET DST) Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: from "via Avodah" at Apr 26, 2015 03:52:29 pm Message-ID: <14300949890.C90dE41.4028@m5.chicago.il.us> > > What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin (or ate > the food already, the food went bad, etc...) who for some reason can > not rely on the rabbi's communal failsafe eruv (perhaps he isn't in > a neighborhood with an observant community) do for lighting Shabbos > candles? > You light one candle, after plag hamminxa of course, and you say the appropriate brakha, lhadliq ner shel shabbath. You don't need an `eruv tavshilin to light one candle, because the Rabbinic prohibition of performing mlakha on Yom Tov for Shabbath was not intended to override the Rabbinic commandment of lighting one candle for use on Shabbath. Since (unlike in ancient times, and unlike a hundred years ago also) you don't need to have candles burning on Shabbath for their light, because you already have electric lights in your house that will stay on, or that will come on, during Shabbath, you therefore have no reason to light more than one candle (except for minhag, which you can dispense with when needed), so you don't. One candle is the Rabbinic commandment. Lighting two candles is a recent frumkeit, or yhiruth, that started among German Jews and is less than 900 years old. Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter 6424 N Whipple St Chicago IL 60645-4111 (1-773)7613784 landline (1-410)9964737 GoogleVoice jay at m5.chicago.il.us http://m5.chicago.il.us "The umbrella of the gardener's aunt is in the house" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 04:58:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 12:58:34 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001901d080e1$7d6fcbe0$784f63a0$@org.uk> RMB wrote: <> As I have written before, what I find intensely frustrating about this is that RYBS's invocation of tan du appears to itself involve a form of tampering with the chazakos and by implication the denial of the perfection and truthfulness of chachmei chazal that is then claimed to be kefira. The gemora in discussing tan du is very clear - both in Yevamos 118b and Kesuvos 75a: a woman in a tan du marriage commits adultery - "kulan mezanos"! - THAT is the chazaka from Chazal regarding the nature of women. Now this could mean: (a) the sort of woman who is prepared to enter a tan du marriage is prepared to and will commit adultery; or (b) all women will take a tan du marriage (RYBS), but if they find themselves in a tan du marriage - the existential loneliness that RYBS identifies as being the particular province of women will also, according to Chazal, inevitably drive them to adultery; But you can't get away from the fact that Chazal set this up as a chazaka. And if you take these chazakos in the way that RYBS says to do, then there are inevitable conclusions: A Beis Din faced with what can now clearly be seen as a tan du marriage HAS to assume adultery as a consequence - that being the chazaka. If you hold that these statements of Chazal are perhaps limited in time and place to the times of Chazal, and the nature of women then, then we cannot necessarily generalise to today, and despite a woman today being demonstratably in a tan du marriage, one cannot necessarily jump to conclusions regarding her faithfulness. But if these chazakos are immutable - then the only question must surely be, was there the possibility of adultery - and given the freedom of movement of women today, I do not see how anybody can say that opportunity was not available. Therefore the result, and the consequence for the marriage, was a foregone conclusion. A beis din, if it does not treat this marriage as a mekach taus (because the woman is one who would not have entered a tan du marriage), has to treat it as one in which the woman has committed adultery and is therefore forbidden to her husband, and under which the husband is clearly under a Torah obligation to divorce, according to all opinions ("dvar erva"). And yet note that there is none of this in RBYS's analysis. Women's loneliness and spiritual pain, yes - a full facing of the consequences of what is therefore, according to Chazal, endemic in our society and in the nature of Bnos Yisroel, no. There is a complete glossing over of the fundamental conclusion by Chazal regarding the consequence of a tan du marriage. And yet how can you write about tan du as an absolute immutable principle and yet not mention what, according to Chazal, is the cast iron result of that absolute immutable principl? Note by the way that this chazaka, if indeed it is immutable in the nature of women, has another consequence. Given that having women commit adultery is clearly (how shall I put this mildly) a highly destructive thing for society - having women enter into marriages where this is the inevitable consequence is a very bad thing. Surely any Rabbi who is mesader kedushin at such a wedding, any eidim at such a wedding, etc have as a matter of fact engaged in lifnei iver lo titen michshol in the full biblical sense. This isn't, according to Chazal, a maybe or a possibility, this is an inevitability. Surely it is obligatory on any Rabbi who agrees to be mesader kiddushin and on any shadchanim and eidim to investigate very carefully that this marriage is not of the tan du nature? That is if, as Rav Lichtenstein is quoted as saying "given the clear cut evidence in the Rishonim in Yevamot and other places in Shas which clearly indicated that this hazaka was not one that applied in all contexts and at all times and in all situations" - then these concerns would be significantly diminished. After all, any marriage presented to a mesader kedushin would then at the very least be a sfek sfeka - perhaps this isn't a tan du marriage, and if it is, perhaps the woman might not commit adultery. But if it is an inevitable chazaka that a woman in a tan du marriage will commit adultery, then there is only one safek in relation to a serious issur d'orisa - in which case must it not be the responsibility of all those who enable such a marriage to occur to make sure that it is not a tan du marriage and they are not enabling such adultery to take place? To my mind, indeed, that is precisely what Chazal were really getting at. A genuine acknowledgement that - at least in some societies and some environments, women are pressured into inappropriate marriages and give in to that pressure. And that where a woman does indeed give in to such an inappropriate marriage, the consequences are really, really bad for the general society and we need all to be on guard to try and prevent such marriages occurring. That to me demonstrates far more clearly the "perfection and truthfulness of Chazal" than trying to squish them in to some metaphysical understanding of womenkind that does not reverberate as true to many. But if one is going to apply this particular analysis to this particular statement of Chazal, it would seem important to do it honestly while facing the totality of what it is that Chazal actually said. >-Micha Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 11:00:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 18:00:12 GMT Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabal as Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150427.140012.4336.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Rav YB Soloveitchik zt"l was quoted: > ... Let us take for example the chazaka that I was told > about: the chazaka tav l'meisiv tan du mil'meisiv armalo > [20] has absolutely nothing to do with the social and > political status of women in antiquity. This chazaka is > based not upon sociological factors, but upon a verse in > breishis -- harba arbeh itz'voneich v'heironeich b'etzev > teildi vanim v'el isheich t'shukaseich v'hu yimshal bach > -- "I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy travail; in > pain thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall > be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee" [21]. It > is a metaphysical curse rooted in the feminine personality > -- she suffers incomparably more that the male who is in > solitude. Solitude to the male is not as terrible an > experience, as horrifying an experience, as is solitude to > the woman. And this will never change, mayid shamayim > vaaretz [22]. This is not a psychological fact; it is an > existential fact, ... In our discussions of this idea, that the chazaka is "an existential fact" and "based not upon sociological factors", there seems to be a general assumption that the Rav was speaking of ALL chazakos. However, it seems possible to me, or perhaps even likely, that he was singling this chazaka out as different from others. Note that he does not merely assert this chazaka to be existential, but he cites a pasuk as proof. To me, this is significant, because we would then be allowed to treat any NON-pasuk-based chazaka as sociological. I don't know what implications this might have for the chazaka of extramarital relations that R"n Chana Luntz mentioned, or for any other chazakos, but I wanted to mention it in case anyone else wants to comment. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553e7973421b079735cf5st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 14:53:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 17:53:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabal as Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150427.140012.4336.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150427.140012.4336.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150427215316.GA27558@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 06:00:12PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : In our discussions of this idea, that the chazaka is "an existential : fact" and "based not upon sociological factors", there seems to be a : general assumption that the Rav was speaking of ALL chazakos. However, : it seems possible to me, or perhaps even likely, that he was singling : this chazaka out as different from others. I suggested a third possiliblity. The shiur was all about Talmud Torah and Qabbalas Ol Malkhus Shamayim. This was a couple of off topic lines in what was basically a complaint that RER didn't respect the halachic process (as RYBS saw it). RAL reports that this was RYBS's primary argument against RER's beis din; I am suggesting that this quick assertion was an example of that argument, not an independent second reason to reject. It fits better as an efshar lomar than an actual assertion. How do you know you can simply repeal this chazaqah? What if it's an existential statement about the human condition; is it, after all, mentioned in a pasuq! Not so much that tav lemeisav was necessarily an existential and unchanging fact, but that it could be. That one can't simply reason in a vacuum and buck the trend of millennia of pesaq. But in any case, RYBS did say it belashon rabbim: "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above. Let us take for example the chazaka that I was told about: the chazaka tav l'meisiv tan du...." RYBS discusses tav lemeisiv as an example of a general principle not to tamper with chazaqos. Not as a single case. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 23rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Netzach: How does my domination Fax: (270) 514-1507 stifle others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 11:10:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 14:10:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A Halachik analysis of the kosher status of vitamins and medicines. Message-ID: <20150427181040.6E1171834B6@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/osf4fh7 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 12:51:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 21:51:46 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150426235424.BD633182CE0@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150426235424.BD633182CE0@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <553E9352.3030802@zahav.net.il> 1) I have to admit I don't get your answer. You asked in what way could the state be considered a Kiddush Hashem and I gave you an answer. Now you reply that various rabbis wouldn't agree with that answer. Ok, but az mah? 2) The Satmar Rebbe wouldn't have said that anything about the state is a Kiddush Hashem, no matter what it did, so I don't understand why you included him. 3) Lastly, the reply that you gave reminds me of something that Rav AY Kook wrote in Orot, Orot HaTechiya, Chapter 20. He was addressing the question of whether or not the religious should join forces with the non-religious in order to work together for the Zionist cause. Rav Kook used the story of the two women claiming to be the mother of a baby as example of people revealing their true intentions. The woman who agreed that the baby should be cut in half was in effect saying (according to RK) that there shouldn't be babies. She used others claims as way of hiding her true intent, but when the decisive moment came, the truth came out. Meaning - was the demand that the religious not work with the secular the issue or was that a cover story used to mask people's opposition to Zionism? Or in this case, is the demand that the creation of the state be a Kiddush HaShem in the eyes of all rabbanim a real demand or is it simply a cover? If the Breuer community want the state to reflect certain values, than please, make it happen. If they don't want to make it happen or aren't willing, than the demand is (at best) an exercise in dissimulation. Ben On 4/27/2015 1:54 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > We all know that there were great Torah scholars who disagreed with the assertion that " the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." to name just 3, the Satmar Rebbe, Rav Breuer, and Rav Schwab. They were also most certainly familiar with the gemara you quote and the RASHI. > > If you had written, "Therefore, according to some Torah scholars the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." I would not disagree. However, your blanket statement, "Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." is IMO is not valid. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 14:59:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 22:59:07 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] ashkenazi married to sefardi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003e01d08135$629ef9e0$27dceda0$@org.uk> RET writes: <> Note that the Bnei Banim in Chelek 3 siman 29 brings an objection to this position of RMF, based on the Rema in Even HaEzer siman 75 si'if 1. The discussion there is regarding the situation where the man literally comes from one country and the woman comes from another, who can force whom to move? And while the majority of the rishonim (including the Tashbetz) hold (absent special considerations such as Eretz Yisrael versus non Eretz Yisrael) that the man can force the woman to move to his country, Rabbanu Tam holds the opposite, that the woman can force the man to move. And the Rema holds l'halacha that we should be choshesh for the position of Rabbanu Tam, and hence neither can force the other to move. The Bnei Banim points out that if one cannot force the wife to physically move to the locale of the husband, l'halacha, how can she be considered to have moved to his place by mere dint of the marriage? After all, if she has in fact, halachically, moved to his place by entering the chuppah, what possible objection can there possibly be to her being made to up sticks and actually go to his country, Rabbanu Tam or no Rabbanu Tam? So while the Tashbez is in fact being consistent - being a rishon who holds that in fact she is required to physically move to the husband's country, the Bene Banim argues that by being choshesh for Rabbanu Tam, the Rema is clearly not poskening like RMF and the Tashbetz. The Bene Banim also discusses other arguments brought by the Tashbetz (such as ishto k'gufo) - but again rejects this, given that a woman does not take over her husband's chiyuvim and nedarim (with the possible exception of Channukah Candles). >In addition ROY states a similar psak in several places. One can argue that ROY is in a stronger position than RMF, on the grounds that he solely follows the Mechaber, and hence not the Rema, and might hold that one can force a country change. The Bnei Banim also brings, however, that while ROY comes out straightforwardly like the Tashbetz in Yabiat Omer chelek 5 siman 37 (there he is discussing an Ashkenazi woman who married a Sephardi man and whether she can eat rice on Pesach - answer of course, yes), in Or Torah Iyar 4751 ROY writes (quotation taken from the Bene Banim, I don't have access to the original): ?????? ??? ???? ????? ????? ????? ?????? ?????? ???? ??????? ????? ?????? ??? ????? ????? ???? ??? ???? ?? ?"? ????, ?? ???? ??????? ???? ???? ???? ?????? ???? ????? ????? ???? ?' ?? ?????? ????? ???? )??? ?' ???? ?"?(. ??? ?????? ???? ???? ?? ???? ??? ???? ???? ????? ?? ??? ????, ??? ??? ???? ????? ????? ????? ???? ???? ???? ???? ????? ???? ????? ????? ???? ?? ?? ?? ?????. ???? ?? ?????? ?????? ?????? ???? ????? ????? ????? ??, ????? ?? ???? ????? ?? ????. ??? ?? ?? ????? ????? ??? ??? ????? ??? ????? ????? ????? ?????. ???? ???? ???? ??????, ?? ??? ????? ?? ???? ?????? ???? ????? ????? ???? ????? ??? ???? ????? ?? ??? ?????? ????, ??? ??? ????? ???? ???? ????? ??? ?????? ??? ??????? ??? ????? ????? ???"?. ??? ??? ???? ???? ?????? ???????? ?????? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ?? ??? ??? "??? ???" ???? ?? ???, ????? ????? ?? ???? " customs that are required of the husband of necessity because of the tradition of his fathers like the Sephardim who accepted on themselves the rulings of Maran [the Shulchan Aruch] and are not able to be lenient against his opinion even by way of hatarah, it is required of an Ashkenazi woman to go after her husband and even to conduct herself leniently like the custom of her husband like that which I wrote in Yabiat Omer (chelek 5 siman 37). But stringencies that the husband has placed on himself that if he wants he is able to nullify them by way of hatarah, there is no need for the woman to conduct herself like him and he is not able to force on her a stringency that she does not want to accept as there is to her on whom to rely. Therefore if she wants to continue to use Tenuva milk she is able to do this, and the husband if he wants can be stringent upon himself. But not use any form of compulsion that also she be stringent that there not enter their house the products of Tenuva. And this is the law with the fruit of shmitta, if she relies on the heter mechira since there are many great ones of the world who hold to leniency she is also able to continue to be lenient, and so she is not forced to accept upon herself the stringency of not using products which do not have on them the hashgacha of the Badatz. And if the husband is not able to continue his stringencies when the woman does not want to accept he should do hatarah on that which he did not say ?bli neder? and be lenient also he, as great is the peace of a house." The Bnei Banim notes however that ROY does not bring any lamdus to defend the distinction he makes here between longstanding community customs (such as rice on pesach or glatt meat) and more recent customs - such as not eating Tenuva or relying on the heter mechira. To expand on this comment of the Bnei Banim, one might say that if you base the reason for a woman taking on the customs of the husband because she moves to his place, why should it make a difference whether the customs he has established in his place are longstanding ones, such as eating rice on pesach, or not using the products of Tenuva? The customs of his place are the customs of his place. And yet ROY is, in this, reflecting a common (if perhaps inconsistent) practice. In all the debate regarding husbands not using the eruv and relying on their wives doing so, and how it shows a lack of derech eretz etc, nobody suggests that actually it is assur for the wife to use the eruv, on the grounds that she has moved to the husband's place, and his custom is not to do so, and so she is stuck with the stringencies of his house. The Bnei Banim concludes his teshuva by stating: ?????? ???? ??? ????? ???? ????? ???? ??????? ?????? ??? ???? ?????? ?????? ???? ?? ????, ?? ????? ?? ????? ?? ???? ????"? ????? ??? ???? ??"? ???? ????? ???? ????? ???? ?? ????? ??? ????? ?????? ?????? ??? ???? ???? ?? ?? ???? ??? ???? ???? ???????? ??? ???? ???, ??? ?? ?????? ?? ???? ???? ??????? ?????? ????? ??????. "And l?halacha anyway one should not push aside the custom of the world that a woman frees herself from the customs of her father?s household and conduct herself according to the customs of her husband if she wants, but she is able also to rely on the words of [Rav Ovadiah Yosef] in the ma?amer and so it seems to me that when there isn?t in it [a matter] between him and her, and there isn?t a matter of inui nefesh she is able to continue like the customs of the house of her father since behold also if she vowed them from anew after the marriage the husband could not annul [such vows], and she may make a condition with her husband before the marriage that she will continue to conduct herself in accordance with her customs." This point of the Bnei Banim regarding innui nefesh and matters beno uvena is interesting. What he is referring to is the fact that a husband can be mafer (ie nullify) the nedarim of his wife, but only those that either constitute inui nefesh or are considered beno u'vena (Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah Diman 234 si?if 55). And it seems to me that you can therefore deal with the Tashbetz's point (as strongly re-iterated by ROY) regarding food issues - ie that they cannot eat together at the same table where what is permitted for one is prohibited for the other - with the use of this concept, without needing to come on to place changes. Because one of the definitions of inui nefesh brought in the Shulchan Aruch (Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah Diman 234 si?if 60-61) is if the woman forbids an item of food on herself (although the Shulchan Aruch there in si'if 60 notes that the Rambam considers this a matter not of inui nefesh but of beno u'vena). So that, certainly from the perspective of a Sephardi husband, a woman who has has the practice of not eating rice and kitniyot on Pesach is engaging in inui nefesh - and if you follow the Rav Poelim I brought in an earlier post, that if one is forbidden to eat something, one is forbidden to cook it on yom tov for others who may eat it, then the woman could not cook rice or kitniyot for the husband either - making the matter clearly one beno u'vena. So it seems like the whole question of differences in food do not need discussions of place, they can more readily be handled within the context of the existing halachic framework surrounding marriage, and what is and is not appropriate to be waived in the context of a healthy marriage. That set me thinking about the fact that actually we are talking about a whole range of different forms of minhagim - and it seems to me that as a first stab, we are dealing here with four different categories: a) minhagim that really have no impact on the husband - such as whether she benches and davens minhag Ashkenaz or minhag Edot Hamizrach (but will have a major impact on her should she be required to change, both in terms of the huge learning curve, and also in terms of the emotional impact, eg of the kol nidrei tunes). One might perhaps say that if she davens a different nusach, she will want to go to shul to a different place - but she is in a different place from the husband anyway, by virtue of the mechitza, and of course many women do not have the custom to go at all, so real impact would seem to be minimal. That seems to be the underlying message of the Bene Banim. b) minhagim that involve inui nefesh of the woman (which the halacha defines as having an impact on the husband, and which includes her having prohibitions on food) and those beno u'vena. We already have a halachic framework to determine these - the relevant sections of Yoreh Deah siman 234. For example, it doesn't seem to me to be a stretch to say that if he has the minhag of putting food with a majority of solid on the blech on shabbas, and she has a minhag not to, then her following that minhag will impact beno u'vena in terms of what gets provided at the shabbas table, and therefore would fall within the category of minhagim that ought to change in the interests of a unified household. c) minhagim that impact the husband financially. The interesting thing is that these *are* dealt with in the gemora and the halacha based on the principle "olah imo v'ana yoredes imo" - she goes up with him but does not go down with him. The case discussed on Kesubos 48a is regarding what it is necessary for him to hire for her funeral (in the way of flute players and wailers) where the custom between her family and his family is different. And while it might have been the case that it was different because they were from a different socio-economic class, it may also be because she came from a different place where the custom was to spend more on funerals and even so (once you accept that the same rule applies in death as it does in life) he is required to fund the difference - there is no assumption that because she has moved to his place, she is only entitled to the funeral according to the custom of his place. It would therefore seem that the straightforward pshat of this gemora is against the Tashbetz. Similarly the Shulchan Aruch rules in Even HaEzer siman 80 si'if 10 that the various forms of work that are required of a woman for her husband are only required if it is the derech of both her family and his family for a woman to do this - ie it is the intersection of the two sets of minhagim that make the requirement binding. d) minhagim of the husband that cause her tzar: this is in many ways the flip side of b), in that in b) we are talking about a situation where what she has been accustomed to doing all her life is, from the perspective of the husband, a form of inui nefesh, while here, the customs of the husband are what to her might well seem inui nefesh. This could also perhaps be said to be dealt with by the gemora. The gemora in Kesubos 61a discusses the situation where there is a dispute between him and her regarding whether she should nurse their baby in situations where it is the custom of her family but not his or vice versa. The question has a financial aspect, if she does not, then the husband will be put to the expense of hiring a wet nurse, and also, it would appear, a status/beauty aspect (the husband may not want her to, either because only lower class women do this, or because it might make her less beautiful in his eyes). In terms of the financial and status aspect, the gemora again brings the position of olah imo v'ana yoredes imo as per c), but there are also other aspects. For example, in the case where she wants to nurse, and the husband does not want her to, the gemora assumes that it is straightforward that, if she wishes to nurse, we listen to her, on the grounds that "tzara dedei hu" - it is her pain. Now Rashi understands this as the physical pain of having milk and having no-one feed - but it could also be understood to be psychological. However, it is hard to know how far to extend this case, nursing might well be considered sui generis, because (a) it is something very specific to a woman that a man will never do (regardless of what the women in his family did) and (b) there are very specific, unusual, physical and/or psychological factors which are not necessarily duplicated elsewhere. Refraining from specific foods (despite it being considered inui nefesh) would seem to be a far less significant matter. What might perhaps be of more general application is the discussion that immediately follows the nursing question - in which the gemora attempts to find a Torah source for the idea of olah imo v'ana yoredes imo. Rav Huna learns it out of "He beulas ba'al" (Breishis 20:3) [Reference to Sarah Imanu vis a vis Avimelech] and therefore "beilaso shel baal v'lo yoredaso" - she goes up with the husband and not down with him while Rabbi Eliezer learns it out from "ki who eim kol chai" [Breishis 3:20] and therefore "l'chaim nitna vlo l'tzar nitna" - she was given for life and not for tzar. Now the Pnei Yehoshua and the Mahrasha attempt to learn different nafka minas from the bringing of these two different sources - but it seems to me that a straightforward nafka mina is that the first source appears to understand the question primarily as being one of financial or perhaps spiritual improvement (however one understands "going up" rather than "going down"). While the second source seems rather to focus on the idea that marriage is supposed to bring with it life rather than pain. So under the first source one might understand, if one understands prishus from particular foods or activities as a form of greater spirituality, then a woman ought to follow her husband in that, even if it is considered innui nefesh, while following the second source, the key would seem more to be a question of tzar, and inui nefesh must surely be considered at least some aspect of tzar. On some level that does seem to be what is driving ROY in his discussion of customs such as not using tenuva milk or not relying on the heter mechira - both cases deal with the situation where the man is the stringent one, and her custom is towards leniency. But where this question would seem to really bite, is, for example, in the case of a Sephardi woman contemplating marrying an Ashkenazi man - where she has grown up eating and cooking rice and kitniyot on Pesach. I know a number of little Sephardi girls who have told me that they would not contemplate marrying an Ashkenazi man because of this. Now maybe they will grow out of it - but it does seem to me to a really bad reason to be rejecting a potential suitor - and yet the sense of tzar is there, that is what they are saying, I don't want the tzar of making Pesach, which for many women is tzar enough already, totally different from the way I grew up and have been taught - especially when it comes with countless greater stringencies. And even if she does ignore this in practice and accepts such a marriage, one can easily see a level of resentment bubbling to the surface at what can be in any event a very stressful time ("it is your fault that it is so darn difficult so the least you can do is be more helpful"). And if one could in fact understand a fundamental halachic principle to be taken into consideration as that of l'chaim nitna vlo l'tzar nitna - you might end up with something in keeping with the shalom bayis needs of klal yisrael. >Eli Turkel Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 15:12:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 18:12:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: <20150423.205848.16124.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150423.205848.16124.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150427221257.GA6982@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 24, 2015 at 12:58:48AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : > So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, : > ones you used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making : > a berakhah on? Yes, there is light for enjoying the Shabbos meal, : > all the same shalom bayis. But there is no actual pe'ulah to make : > the berakhah on. Is there? : I don't know where you see anything like this in the AhS. The AhS : is explicitly talking about lighting after mincha, when it is already : dark and the light is already useful... And was used or at least "used" before Shabbos (in some halachic rather than commonsensical sense), even if just for seconds, since that's the AhS's grounds for allowing the person who made no eiruv tavshilin to light her Shabbos candles. So, how can she make a berakhah on candles she was only permitted to light because they would be used before Shabbos? What hadlaqah for Shabbos itself occured? > omit the bracha, because it explicitly declares one's intentions to be > of a hachana nature, but that is a separate question not raised by the > AhS... I'm taking his silence, the AhS not telling her to light without a berakhah, as implication that there is no change from the usual WRT berakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 23rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Netzach: How does my domination Fax: (270) 514-1507 stifle others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:01:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:01:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428160119.GA8805@aishdas.org> On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 01:53:10PM -0400, Kaganoff via Avodah wrote: : For many years i had extreme difficulty with R. Elchanan Wasserman understanding : as it conflicted with my belief that Judaism (and other religions) was not : logically provable (contra to Moshe Mendelssohn and his contemporaries) and : therefore required a "leap of faith" and that a disbeliever could not be : faulted for failing to take such a jump. This is a false dichotomy. Logically proving things are not the only way to justify belief in there. How do you know that (in a flat space) two parallel lines never meet? If you're like me, you pictured it in your head. Even though infinite lines don't exist in the real world. (Nor, does it turn out, does flat space.) Did you figure out that oppression was evil by logical proof, or by a combination of imagination and empathy? My favorite example is answering the question, "Do elephants have hair?" A logical/verbal approach would be: Elephants are mammals, all mammals have hair, and so unless elephants are the exception to the rule, they must have hair. Elephants are well known and discussed animals. Could they be an exception to the rule and I don't know it? Nah, they must have hair. How it is more likely the question jogged your memory of elephants you saw, or saw pictures of. The detail may be blurry, so you may have to manipulate the picture a bit. Finally, a version of the picture which has a tuft of hair at the tail, maybe (if your memory is good) some downy hair around the eyes and ears, strikes you as the most familiar, the most real. And again you could reach the conclusion that elephants have hair. (See for some musings about the two modes of thought I'm contrasting here.) In I compare different versions of the Argument from Design from R' Aqiva's response to the apiqoreis through the Rambam, through similar approaches based on more modern science. "G-d created" (Gen. 1:1): A hereic came to Rabbi Aqiva and asked, "Who made the universe?". Rabbi Aqiva answered, "HQBH". The heretic said, "Prove it to me." Rabbi Aqiva said, "Come to me tomorrow". When the heretic returned, Rabbi Aqiva asked, "What is that you are wearing?" "A garment", the unbeliever replied. "Who made it?" "A weaver." "Prove it to me." "What do you mean? How can I prove it to you? Here is the garment, how can you not know that a weaver made it?" Rabbi Akiva said, "And here is the world; how can you not know that Haqadosh barukh Hu made it?" After the heretic left, Rabbi Aqiva's students asked him, "But what is the proof?" He said, "Even as a house proclaims its builder,a garment its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the Holy Blessed One Who created it. Not very rigorous. Rabbi Aqiva's reply revolves around giving a parable to make the conclusion self-evident. Not contructing a deductive argument. The more rigorous we try making it, the more arguable the proof becomes. R' Aqiva's argument is far more convincing than the Rambam's statement based on how objects lose form over time, not gain it. Or a similar argument based on thermodynamics or information theory. (Ironically, every formal / logical proof is built from givens taken as self-evident for informal-reasoning reasons.) Anyway, that's how I understood REW. R' Elchanan argues that on an informal level, the idea that the universe had to have a Creator is as obvious as a Euclidean postulate or the injustice of oppression. To not believe in G-d requires a formal proof, which one's negios then determine if they find it sound or specious, and whether they accept the postulates on which it's built. Notice I didn't invoke any leaps of faith. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:24:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:24:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Peshat and Drash (Was: Re: Meshech Chochmah on Kedushah) In-Reply-To: <5518BD49.3000508@gmail.com> References: <54FC792A.4080400@gmail.com> <20150324195248.GD29350@aishdas.org> <5518BD49.3000508@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150428162406.GB8805@aishdas.org> On Sun, Mar 29, 2015 at 11:04:41PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : But there were such instances where "one said this was how halakhah : was understood miSinai and another says that this is new." One : example (noted by the Chavos Yair in his Teshuva 192) is a 3-way : machlokess in Zevachim 110b, where one Amora says Nissuch HaMayyim : is miDrabannan, another says it is derived from a posuk, and another : says it was a halacha l'Moshe MiSinai. Rambam (Temidim uMussafim : 10:6 ) poskens it is a halacha l'Moshe MiSinai. This is consistent : with the concept that, as the Rambam writes, "once someone says 'so : have I received,' there is no more debate." The reason is that once : one of our sages can demonstrate he is a recipient of explicit data : originating with Moshe Rabbeynu, a HLMS, it is naturally accepted as : fact. I thought it was well accepted that the Rambam's position in HLMS is inconsistent, that he mentions numberous machloqesin in dinim he himself labeled HLMS. I don't have time to summarize the Chavor Ya'ir teshuvah 192, but I gave up waiting until I did. The examples are numerous. Possible resolutions: - No machloqesin in the essence of the matter, but there can be in details. (the CY's conclusion.) - Im halakhah hi neqabel -- no machloqesin in something both sides agree are HLMS. And what I suggested: That we should distinguish between disputes due to lack of knowledge and formal machloqesin, with the Rambam saying the legal term "machloqes" with all the usual rules of pesaq only apply to the latter. Other disputes, while called machloqes in the colloquial sense, are resolved using the rules of safeiq -- because (leshitaso) ignorance does not create a real machloqes (in the technical sense). And the Rambam here is saying that real machloqes is limited to conflicting deductions and extrapolations from existing law to new places. And thus disputes in laws that date back to Sinai can't have real machloqesin. I know I'm repeating myself, but it's been "forever" ago in email list time since I sat on this post awaiting the time to study the CY. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:33:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:33:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] free will In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428163338.GC8805@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 1:38pm IDT, R Eli Turkel wrote: : We have discussed many times the opinion of Rav Dessler that a person : doesn't always have free will. : I recently saw a halachic discussion that may have some connection. : On ketubot 51 the gemara discusses a case of a married woman who was raped : but at the end was willing... : One possibility of explaining Rava is that she is overwhelmed by her : "yetzer" and so is still considered ["anusah"]... While RET's suggested example is consistent REED's concept of nequdas habechirah, the way RET phrased REED's position kept this email on my to-do list for the last 3 weeks. REED's point is one that's pretty consistent with first-hand experience of making choices. We do not feel in control of our subconscious decisions. All the opportunities we filter out before we even are aware of thinking about it. He then says that the decisions that rise to the level of consciousness, and thus we have some control over, are ones that generate internal conflict. The "battlefront" in his metaphor, where the yh"t and yh"r are balanced. But once you accept the notion of non-conscious thought, REED's conclusion is unavoidable. And a person does always have free will, he just isn't aware of every choice he makes to know to exercise it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:41:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:41:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428164110.GD8805@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 04:29:11PM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The world has changed a lot since the time of chazal especially related to : travel... : : 1. Most travel is no longer considered unsafe. When I get in my car every : morning to drive to work I don't think twice about it : 2. The distinction between in the city and out of the city is no longer : true... : Recently, I heard a short shiur on tefilas haderech and was happy to hear : that RSZA seems to say a very similar idea to RYBS. In contrast, the qorban todah and birkhas hagomel depend not only on surviving a dangerous situation but also on reliving one of the four sorts of yeshu'os tehillim ascribes to yetzi'as Mitzrayim: crossing a desert, the sea, bring freed from jail or recovering from illness. So, if we deem flying over the Great Lakes or the Mediterranean (to pick shorter flights over mayim she'ein lahem sof) to be too safe to warrant tefillas haderekh, would one end up in a situation that calls for no tefillas haderekh beforehand, but benching gomel afterward? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:45:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:45:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428164537.GE8805@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 11:12am EDT, RnTK asked: : But to veer back into Avodah territory -- would it have been appropriate to : say Tefillas Haderech at that time? With shem umalchus? (I assume you : can always say it without shem umalchus.) Tefilas haDerekh is never said besheim umalkhus. Sheim, yes, but not malkhus: "Barukh atah H', shomeia tefillah." No mention of "E-lokeinu Melekh ha'olam". Also, when speaking about berakhah vs tefillah, Tefillas haDerekh refers to itself as a tefillah. And notice also the chasimah is about hearing the baqashah, not about the shemirah we're requesting itself. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:58:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:58:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150419.223015.3015.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150419.223015.3015.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150428165812.GF8805@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 02:30:15AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : But then, as I was reviewing this post, my mind turned to the Tanur : Shel Achnai. R' Eliezer had a minority view, and R' Yehoshua was in : the majority. I've got to believe that both views were firmly grounded; : this machlokes was surely just as L'Shem Shamayim as any between Hillel : and Shammai. I'd *like* to say that Klapei Shmaya, both views were Truth. And if not, how would we justify following the majority over Divinely revealed truth? We discussed bas qol, and why we follow the bas qol that says "vehalakhah kebeis Hillel" despite the anur shel achnai story. I listed the opinions in the Encyc Talmudit here It's not 100% accepted that the bas qol was really endorsing R' Eliezer's opinion in this particular machloqes, rather than defending his shitah in general -- "halakhah kemoso bekhol maqom", or that it was a test. Both suggested by R' Nissim gaon. Similarly one of the answers in Tosafos is that it was about R' Eliezer's kavod, and not a Divine statement to be taken literally about din. All three would imply that we would follow a bas qol over halachic process, and so they had to explain how the tanur story wasn't an example. Thus implying that what we are searching for is the truth rather than legal authority. RNG's position on the tanur shel achanai story supports RMHalbertal's theory that in the geonic era, the Retrieval theory of halakhah dominated. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:12:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:12:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] brochos from the amud (was: tefillat haderech) In-Reply-To: <20150420024354.CJVF30458.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo110> References: <20150420024354.CJVF30458.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo110> Message-ID: <20150428171200.GG8805@aishdas.org> On Sun, Apr 19, 2015 at 10:43:47PM -0400, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote: : Slight change of topic: I'm still trying to wrap my head around the : idea that we don't seem to have a chashash of a brocha l'vatalah. I : mean, you have a sh'tz up there, saying a brocho out loud -- and : he's intentionally trying to be motzi _some_ others... But only those who had in mind to be yotzei. : Shomea k'oneh : doesn't apply at all? What if you are in the shul and you're not : thinking about the issue of being yotzie, you're just thinking about : which day it is, and/or you simply have stam kavanah. No chashash : for an issur d'oraissa? RYBS says in the context of the berakhah on Hallel that because mitzvos einum tzerikhos kavanah, if you have no kavanah one way or the other, you would be yotzei. To avoid being yotzei would require having explicit kavanah not to be yotzei. He then continues that the idea of having intent not to want to do a mitzvah bothers him, and so RYBS said he says the berakhah on Hallel along with the chazan. (Which is what my father does, and what I grew up with.) I assume the same would be true here. (Although I don't recall what my father does, I say the berakhah along with the chazan.) I would have thought that interrupting with "barukh Hu uvarukh shemo" should also work. Recall that R Chaim was very against answering BHUBS to chazaras hashatz because one is being yotzei tefillat hatzibur. (Above and beyond one's own chiyuv of tefillah.) While listing my hunches, I believe that intent to say it yourself qualified as kavanah not to be yotzeir. So the default is kavanah not to be yotzei, not an absense of kavanah one way or the other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:44:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:44:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428164445.5B05B18384C@nexus.stevens.edu> At 12:24 PM 4/28/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: >Meaning - was the demand that the religious not work with the >secular the issue or was that a cover story used to mask people's >opposition to Zionism? This was an issue, and there was also opposition to Zionism. The opposition to Zionism was not masked at all. Please read http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/zion_or_zionism.pdf to see what Zionism really is according to Rav Schwab, ZT"L and others who think like him. >Or in this case, is the demand that the creation >of the state be a Kiddush HaShem in the eyes of all rabbanim a real >demand or is it simply a cover? I have never heard of "the demand that the creation of the state be a Kiddush HaShem in the eyes of all rabbanim " Who demanded this? > If the Breuer community want the state >to reflect certain values, than please, make it happen. And how do you propose that they do this? I asked you in an earlier email what the Orthodox Jews in EY and you in particular are doing to make this happen, and I received no response. > If they don't >want to make it happen or aren't willing, than the demand is (at best) >an exercise in dissimulation. Do you really believe that the Breuer's community at the time when Rav Breuer and Rav Schwab has the wherewithal to make the State reflect certain values? Even those living in EY at this time could not do this. There was (and still is) a large non-religious contingent of Jews living in EY. Do you really think that anyone can "make" them change their views or their behavior? YL YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:32:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:32:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eretz Yisrael vs Medinat Yisrael [was: The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L] Message-ID: <125cff.585c1330.42711e42@aol.com> R. Ben Waxman wrote: >Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem. >Rav Soloveitch tz"l wrote about this point in Kol Dodi Dofek and in his >drashot for the Kinot, as did Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook tz"l. RYL wrote: >> We all know that there were great Torah scholars who disagreed with >> the assertion that " the creation of the State is, in of itself, a >> Kiddush Hashem." >>>>> I will have to re-read Kol Dodi Dofek because I don't remember such a forthright quote -- "The creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." But in any case it isn't exactly an either-or question. The Medinah -- the secular socialist Russian government of Israel -- is hardly a kiddush Hashem. Indeed it arouses waves of hatred from the goyim all over the world, on a daily basis. RBW also wrote: >>....The first is from Yoma 86:A, Rashi, B'Amor Lehem: "Evil comes to chassidim and chachamim because "They desecrated My Holy name." How did they desecrate (God's name)? In those places to where they were exiled, the non-Jews say "These are the people of God" and He can't redeem them. Conclusion: God's name has been desecrated." End quote.<< The establishment of a government that is hated and vilified by the whole world is not, it would seem, a kiddush Hashem. Plus the fact that the country is under constant military threat and cannot, apparently, provide security to its inhabitants, also would not seem to be a kiddush Hashem. But I think these facts -- the constant physical attacks, the world-wide moral opprobrium -- are the cosmic result of the fact that the Medinah is determinedly secular and consciously rejects Torah as a guiding principle. HOWEVER, on the other side, RBW's Rashi quote does have a bearing on the current situation in Eretz Yisrael. There is no denying that the flourishing of Eretz Yisrael, after two thousand years of desolation, is miraculous. The continued existence of the country, despite the constant waves of physical and diplomatic attacks, is also miraculous. And the fact that all Jews can go and live in Eretz Yisrael, and that millions actually do live there, is also a huge miracle. I said there is no denying the miraculous aspects and yet I am aware that the Satmar Rebbe did deny it. He admitted that there was a supernatural aspect to Israel's recent history but ascribed the miracles to the Satan, blinding our eyes. He never joined Agudas Yisrael, the world-wide umbrella organization for all Orthodox Jews, because he was on one side and all the other gedolim in the world were on the other side. All the others rejected the ideology of secular Zionism while gratefully acknowledging chasdei Hashem in allowing the Land to be built up, allowing the Torah communities to grow and flourish, allowing millions of Jews to live in our ancient homeland. The Lubavitcher Rebbe also never joined the Agudah -- I refer not to the Israeli political party but to the world-wide umbrella organization. He had other reasons, perhaps for another time. I think he wanted Chabad to be THE world-wide organization, he did not want it to be one of many competing Orthodox groups and derachim. But he agreed with the basic ideology of the Agudah vis-a-vis the state of Israel -- the nuanced view of ohr vechoshech. And so did the Yekkes, very much so! In fact they were instrumental in founding and guiding the Agudah, for decades! Their attitude towards Israel after the founding of the Medinah and the beginning of kibbutz galuyos was very much the same as the whole rest of the Agudah -- grateful acknowledgment of the positive, hakaras hatov to the Ribono Shel Olam, opposition to the negative, working to improve the moral status of Eretz Yisrael, e.g., when it came to forced autopsies (B'H the charedim won that bitterly fought battle), giyus banos and other issues. But the Yekkes in Israel do vote, do participate in running the country, do daven at the kosel (unlike the Satmar and Neturei Karta), do thank Hashem for protecting Eretz Yisrael and daven for continued Divine protection. RYL considers himself the premier acolyte of RSRH but he and I have some fundamental disagreements about what the Hirschian legacy really is. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 11:59:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 20:59:46 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150428164445.5B05B18384C@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150428164445.5B05B18384C@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <553FD8A2.1060306@zahav.net.il> Regarding the second question, yes I did. Please see the previous emails. Regarding the first, all I can say is that it won't be done from New York. Regarding the other points, I addressed them so I won't repeat myself this round. Ben On 4/28/2015 6:44 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > And how do you propose that they do this? > > I asked you in an earlier email what the Orthodox Jews in EY and you > in particular are doing to make this happen, and I received no response. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:59:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:59:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Message-ID: <126fc1.37d9c7fc.4271247d@aol.com> From: Chana Luntz via Avodah >> As I have written before, what I find intensely frustrating about this is that RYBS's invocation of tan du appears to itself involve a form of tampering with the chazakos and by implication the denial of the perfection and truthfulness of chachmei chazal that is then claimed to be kefira. The gemora in discussing tan du is very clear - both in Yevamos 118b and Kesuvos 75a: a woman in a tan du marriage commits adultery - "kulan mezanos"! - THAT is the chazaka from Chazal regarding the nature of women. [snip] But you can't get away from the fact that Chazal set this up as a chazaka. And if you take these chazakos in the way that RYBS says to do, then there are inevitable conclusions: A Beis Din faced with what can now clearly be seen as a tan du marriage HAS to assume adultery as a consequence - that being the chazaka. [snip] Surely it is obligatory on any Rabbi who agrees to be mesader kiddushin and on any shadchanim and eidim to investigate very carefully that this marriage is not of the tan du nature? [snip] But if it is an inevitable chazaka that a woman in a tan du marriage will commit adultery, then there is only one safek in relation to a serious issur d'orisa - in which case must it not be the responsibility of all those who enable such a marriage to occur to make sure that it is not a tan du marriage and they are not enabling such adultery to take place? >>>>> There is brilliant yet convoluted logic behind this post. I hesitate to tangle with someone like R'n CL who is so erudite, yet I truly believe she has misunderstood this Gemara. Yes, a woman in a loveless marriage is much more tempted to commit adultery, given the right set of circumstances, but it is certainly not inevitable. Nor is it correct to deduce that a rav must make sure, before he marries a couple, that the woman is not entering a loveless marriage! He doesn't have to creep into her heart and mind before conducting the wedding, doesn't have to fathom the depths of her motives in marrying this man. There are so many motives, so many emotions, how could you ever fathom them all? I think "kulan mezanos" refers to all women, and it means all women can be seduced, though obviously it will be easier to seduce a woman who does not love her husband. All women potentially can be seduced. IIRC Beruria the wife of R' Meir -- and you can't claim that was a "tan duu marriage"! -- thought she was an exception to this rule about human nature, or feminine nature. And found out she was wrong! Even she, a brilliant and pious woman married to a great man, could be seduced. Without the Gemara most of us would assume that men are more likely to be unfaithful than women, and I do think that is true. I don't know how to square what we see before us -- that men cheat more than women do -- with what the Gemara says. In any case in Torah homes fidelity between husbands and wives is the norm, Baruch Hashem. All those fences -- laws of yichud, negiah, tznius and so on -- really do protect us. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 15:58:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 23:58:31 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos Message-ID: <001b01d081d6$cb2e0680$618a1380$@org.uk> Sorry, been away, and am therefore very behind in Avodah On 04/03/2015 06:57 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >> He also paskens (for EY) that one can cook kitniyot on the 7th day of >> Pesach for use on the shabbat right afterwards (ef this year). And RZS replied: >Yes, I'm surprised that anyone disagrees. It seems so obviously correct. >I know that many people don't do so, and believe it to be forbidden, >but I have never yet heard an argument for why it should be so. Well the arguments to prohibit can be found in Rav Poelim chelek 3 Orech Chaim siman 30 - he brings two: one based on the prohibition of a person who is fasting on yom tov to cook for others - as per the Rema in Shulchan Aruch Orech Chaim siman 527 si'if 20 as explained by the Magen Avraham there and an additional reason added by the Magen Avraham there in si'if katan 22. The Ben Ish Chai in Rav Poelim was discussing whether a person whose custom (in Bagdad) was not to eat rice on Pesach could cook rice for those who do. He rejected the first rationale provided by the Magen Avraham) as being applicable to this case, but accepted the second reason as applicable (although he also cites a number of achronim who accept the first reason as a reason to prohibit)- and therefore held that those who had the custom of treating rice as assur on pesach could not cook rice for those who had the custom of eating rice on yom tov of Pesach for so long as they had this custom of treating rice as assur (although he held that those who had this custom not to eat rice in Bagdad could do hatarat nedarim and be able to eat, and hence cook, rice on pesach so as to solve the problem). >> This is because some sefardi could come over for a visit and so the >> kitniyot are not mukza . >The main issue would surely not be muktzeh, but cooking on yomtov. >But the answer is the same: the hypothetical horde of hungry guests who >might descend on one ten minutes before sunset on Friday, and for whom >one is, in principle, cooking, might very well be sefardim. Yes, but according to the position of the Rav Poelim, Askenazim can never, when cooking for Sephardim on pesach, cook them dishes that they, the Ashkenazim, cannot eat, hence hoeil does not apply. The same ought presumably to apply to gebrochts according to the Ben Ish Chai - if you can't eat it on shvii shel pesach, you can't cook it for others, including hungry guests, and so cannot effectively cook it for shabbas based on hoeil, your shabbas food would have to consist of something else you could eat on shvii shel pesach. >Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 11:03:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Toby Katz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 14:03:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <127300.4be2c63a.42712586@aol.com> In a message dated 4/28/2015 12:45:47 P.M. EDT, micha at aishdas.org writes: > Tefilas haDerekh is never said besheim umalkhus. You are correct, I should have caught that myself. > Also, when speaking about berakhah vs tefillah, Tefillas haDerekh > refers to itself as a tefillah. And notice also the chasimah is about > hearing the baqashah, not about the shemirah we're requesting itself. zsh:1: command not found: Fmt --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 11:34:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 14:34:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: <127300.4be2c63a.42712586@aol.com> References: <127300.4be2c63a.42712586@aol.com> Message-ID: <20150428183420.GA25835@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 02:03:50PM -0400, T613K at aol.com wrote: : >> Also, when speaking about berakhah vs tefillah, Tefillas haDerekh refers : to itself as a tefillah. And notice also the chasimah is about hearing : the baqashah, not about the shemirah we're requesting itself.<< : : That doesn't answer the question of whether it is appropriate to recite : Tefillas HaDerech during a blinding rainstorm on the highway in your own city, : which was my question. It doesn't fully answer your question, but it does point a bit toward saying it. After all, it turns out that the only berakhah is about Hashem hearing baqashos. The body of the tefillah is only a formalized equivalent to saying "Please G-d, just get me home safe, healthy and in one piece!" or some other spontaneous cry for help. So, if you're scared on the road, tefillah is appropriate. Why would thanking G-d for listening to such tefillos depend on rules about travel? Add to that the fact that it's only half a berakhah, which indicates that it's shevach (like Shomeia Tefillah in Shemoneh Esrei), as another small indicator in favor of saying it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 12:58:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 15:58:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <001901d080e1$7d6fcbe0$784f63a0$@org.uk> References: <001901d080e1$7d6fcbe0$784f63a0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <20150428195810.GC25835@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 12:05:17PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: [RAM:] : > At any rate, one can agree or disagree about : > whether this assertion is true, and even among those who agree with : > it, there might be discussion of exactly which chazakos are unchanging : > and which are variable. Still, his point is that there are indeed some : > UNchanging aspects. : I would add an observation that individual exceptions may exist : empirically but are ignored halachically This is the classic case of affirming a chazaqah (or rov) when there is ika rei'usa. No? On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 12:58:34PM +0100, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: : The gemora in discussing tan du is very clear - both in Yevamos 118b and : Kesuvos 75a: a woman in a tan du marriage commits adultery - "kulan : mezanos"! - THAT is the chazaka from Chazal regarding the nature of women. : : Now this could mean: (a) the sort of woman who is prepared to enter a tan : du marriage is prepared to and will commit adultery; or : (b) all women will take a tan du marriage : (RYBS), but if they find themselves in a tan du marriage - the existential : loneliness that RYBS identifies as being the particular province of women : will also, according to Chazal, inevitably drive them to adultery; : But you can't get away from the fact that Chazal set this up as a chazaka. As the gemara was taught to me, what they set up as a chazaqah was pretty much as RYBS describes it. Women feel the loneliness of singlehood more. The flow of the sugya in the two gemaras are quite similar, from the point where Reish Laqish is quoted staying "tav lemeisiv" onward. RL, illustrated with meshalim by Abayei, R' Papa, and R' Ashi, followed by a tana saying that they all are mezanos and then blame their husbands. So, it would seem that tav lemeisiv is about a desire to be married. This has nothing to do with romance or eros, since we are told that a woman who is just married so s not to be like a widow (milemeisiv armelu) do tend to end up cheating. But tav lemeisiv isn't about the affairs, it's about (Yevamos) why hamezakeh gett le'ishto in the middle is not valid. Because it's not a pure zekhus for her, you cannot say zakhin le'adam shelo befanav (or befanehah, as the case may be). There is nothing about "being driven to" adultery by the loneliness, but by having tav lemeisiv alone satisfied by her marriage. Perhaps the reverse of your formulation. (I think the idea that tav lemeisiv means women are more likely to be sexually lonely would be really hard to support, even in a culture where husbands, not wives, have a chiyuv onah.) Or (Kesuvos) it is used (in a complex case I'm too lazy to spell out) why a man might wish not to be married, lest he later be prohibited to her relatives, but in the flipside case, we do not assume the same of the woman. The bit about mezanos vetolos beba'aleihen is not the basis for any halakhos. I have no reason to believe it's a chazaqah. Tangentially... On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 07:27:43PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Another challenge is how to deal with recent "Chachmei Hamesorah" : who don't seem to meet the perfection definition. I have two suggestions that work for me: 1- Make a list of current chakhmei hamesorah that don't pose such a challenge for you. Once you start, you'll likely find it's a longwer list than you had thought. Focus on them, and ignore the rest, no matter how popular as gedolim they may be. 2- Separate the current rabbinate from one's own ties to the mesorah with a project like Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:01:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 23:01:17 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) Message-ID: <553FF51D.6070804@zahav.net.il> Putting the question of Hallel aside, I don't understand the line below. I looked through the Beit Yosef OH 131 where he discusses the days on which Tachanun isn't said. The BY does not list all the days that we skip (like Purim Qatan or Pesach Sheni). These came later. So when did this idea (that we can't change when Tachanun is said or not said) start? Ben On 4/28/2015 12:31 PM, Prof. Levine via Areivim wrote: > Shemone Esrei is followed > by Chazaras Hashatz, which is followed by Tachanun, and then followed > by Ashrei and U'va' Letzion--and we do not have the right or > privilege of changing that, he opined. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:28:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:28:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early Message-ID: The statement was made that "Lighting two candles is a recent frumkeit, or yhiruth, that started among German Jews and is less than 900 years old.." Isn't it also yohara to stand in judgment of a minhag mentioned in the Tur and Shulchan Aruch and observed virtually without exception by klal Yisraeil? EMT From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 13:50:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 16:50:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eretz Yisrael vs Medinat Yisrael [was: The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L] In-Reply-To: <125cff.585c1330.42711e42@aol.com> References: <125cff.585c1330.42711e42@aol.com> Message-ID: <553FF29D.4030208@sero.name> On 04/28/2015 01:32 PM, via Avodah wrote: > The Lubavitcher Rebbe also never joined the Agudah -- I refer not to > the Israeli political party but to the world-wide umbrella > organization. He had other reasons, perhaps for another time. I > think he wanted Chabad to be THE world-wide organization, he did not > want it to be one of many competing Orthodox groups and derachim. The Lubavitcher Rebbe at the time the Agudah was founded was the Rashab, who in matters of askonus generally took his lead from R Chaim Brisker. Lubavitch was a member of the Agudah's precursor, Machzikei Hadas, but when MH merged with the Yekkes to form the Agudah, R Chaim put 18 conditions on his participation, and since they weren't satisfied both Brisk and Lubavitch stayed out. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:22:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 17:22:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Peshat and Drash (Was: Re: Meshech Chochmah on Kedushah) In-Reply-To: <20150428162406.GB8805@aishdas.org> References: <54FC792A.4080400@gmail.com> <20150324195248.GD29350@aishdas.org> <5518BD49.3000508@gmail.com> <20150428162406.GB8805@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <553FFA2E.6000809@gmail.com> On 4/28/2015 12:24 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > I thought it was well accepted that the Rambam's position in HLMS > is inconsistent, that he mentions numberous machloqesin in dinim > he himself labeled HLMS.... Chavor Ya'ir teshuvah 192...examples are numerous. > > Possible resolutions: > > - No machloqesin in the essence of the matter, but there can be in > details. (the CY's conclusion.) I don't think that is the Chavos Yair's conclusion. He leaves the matter bewildered, as Rambam appears incomprehensible and self-contradictory. > - Im halakhah hi neqabel -- no machloqesin in something both sides agree > are HLMS. With the modification of the word "against" in place of the word ''in,'' this is my conclusion, and that of the Maharatz Chayos. The Rambam is addressing the Karaite argument that even Chazal did not really consider the laws they called "payrushim mekuballim" and HLMS (the latter being payrushim mekuballim that lack indications planted in the Torah) to have literally come from Moshe Rabbeynu. That's why, the Karaites argued, Chazal felt free to dispute them. The Rambam explains that Chazal never disputed laws that made it to them from Sinai. The disputes are over issues ''branching out'' from them. Thus, '' There is no machlokess against any payrush that is known to have come from Sinai.'' This understanding fits very well in the Rambam's words, in the context of which he was talking and the issues he confronted; and eliminates what would certainly be a mess of the self-contradictions and open contradictions from the Talmud that the CY lists. Another concern raised by the CY is the fact that the Rambam seems inconsistent between the Mishneh Torah and his list in the hakdama to his Mishneh commentary in that some laws he labels as HLMS in one work he does not in other. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:28:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 17:28:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Renewal Role of Sarah Schenirer Message-ID: <20150428212818.DEBA1182F93@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/njwrn2g There was a major difference, however, between the Bais Yaacov of Williamsburg and the Bais Yaacov of Poland in pre-war Europe. The Bais Yaacov movement in Poland emphasized the universal Torah teachings of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, while the Bais Yaacov of Williamsburg did not give Rabbi Hirsch's teachings the same emphasis. Why were Rabbi Hirsch's teachings regarding the Torah's universal vision no longer the main focus? Most of the teachers and students at the American Bais Yaakov were Holocaust survivors who felt a need to turn inward after experiencing the hatred of the Gentiles around them and the horrors of the Holocaust. They knew that most of the "humanistic" intellectuals and artists of Germany actively supported the brutal persecution of the Jewish people. They also knew that most of the "enlightened" countries closed their doors to Jews who were trying to escape the Holocaust. In addition, they knew that most of the Christian religious leaders of Europe did not protest the organized murder of millions of Jewish men, women, and children; moreover, many Christians in the countries occupied by the Germans actively assisted the Germans in rounding up the Jews for the death camps. In fact, a number of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust who returned to Poland after the war were murdered in Polish pogroms! It is understandable that these survivors felt the need to first heal themselves before worrying about the world which had abandoned their suffering people. In addition, these survivors did not have the strong attraction to secular western culture which an earlier generation of Bais Yaakov students had once experienced, and their feelings are expressed in the following memoir of Dr. Judith Grunfeld: "Almost seventy years have passed since, and we have today most unfortunately an easy enough means of demonstrating that all cultures which we then venerated have revealed themselves to be nothing but a flimsy veneer covering over diabolical inhumanity. European humanitarian ideas so prevalent then, so much on the tip of everyone's tongue, preached by leading university representatives, have been proven utterly hollow. For they did not succeed in preventing, and indeed could be said to be frequently instrumental in strirring up the raging, terrible fire of man's inhumanity to man." ("Rebbitzen Grunfeld" by Miriam Dansky, p. 72) Nevertheless, our sages teach that Torah - the Divine wisdom - is the blueprint of creation, and that the Creator looked into the Torah when He created the world (Genesis Rabbah 1:1). If our Creator looked into the Torah and created the world, then when we look into the Torah we can rediscover this world. In addition, the Torah reveals that we have the potential to become holy vessels with the spiritual power to transform and elevate the world; thus, no matter how much we turn inward, the study of Torah reminds us that we must eventually turn outward. This may be one of the reasons why a growing number of Torah-committed Jews in our generation are rediscovering the writings of Rabbi Hirsch, as a major theme of his teachings is the universal goal of the Torah path. The Bais Yaacov High School of Baltimore, under the leadership of its principal, Rabbi Binyamin Steinberg, gave renewed emphasis to the universal vision of the Torah. Rabbi Steinberg himself was a Holocaust survivor, and in one of his talks to his students about respect for other peoples, he reminded them of the Compassionate One's promise to Abraham that "through you all the families of the earth will be blessed" (Genesis 12:3). The following is an excerpt from his talk: "All the families of the earth," he declared. 'Who cares about all the families of the earth?' you ask. Nevertheless, that's what the Torah says...The people of Israel will be a blessing for all the families of the earth. That means the Albanians, the Greeks, the Chinese, the Indonesians, the African Americans - all the families of the earth. That's what it says in my Torah! " (A Matter of Principal - a biography of Rabbi Binyamin Steinberg by Hanoch Teller). Before we can become a blessing to others, however, we first need to turn inward in order to develop our unique strengths. As Sarah Schneirer realized, we first have to renew ourselves before we can renew the world. As the Prophet Isaiah proclaimed to our people: "O House of Jacob: Come, let us walk by the light of Hashem! " (Isaiah 2:5) See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:59:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 22:59:29 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <002d01d081fe$99c5fcb0$cd51f610$@org.uk> RMB writes: >As the gemara was taught to me, what they set up as a chazaqah was >pretty much as RYBS describes it. Women feel the loneliness of singlehood >more. >The flow of the sugya in the two gemaras are quite similar, from the >point where Reish Laqish is quoted staying "tav lemeisiv" onward. RL, >illustrated with meshalim by Abayei, R' Papa, and R' Ashi, followed by >a tana saying that they all are mezanos and then blame their husbands. >So, it would seem that tav lemeisiv is about a desire to be married. >This has nothing to do with romance or eros, since we are told that a >woman who is just married so s not to be like a widow (milemeisiv >armelu) do tend to end up cheating. >But tav lemeisiv isn't about the affairs, I agree that tav lemeisiv is not brought initially to refer to the issue of affairs, but rather indeed about a desire to be married which is then brought to make a halachic point within another context (eg maezakeh get l'eishto) - but once the gemora is discussing tav lemeisiv marriages - it then takes the time out, twice, to explain what these marriages mean. And it explains, after going through the flow of Abaye etc, that these marriages mean inevitable adultery. Ie according the gemora a tav l'meisiv marriage = adultery. Now, that means, the more tav l'meisiv marriages there are, the more adultery there is. So the more you stress that the world is full of tav l'meisiv marriages, the more you are saying that the world is full of Bnos Yisrael committing adultery. That tav l'meisiv marriage results in adultery is clearly part and parcel of the definition of what a tav l'meisiv marriage is - one where a woman will prefer to be married than to be alone. And it is not a disputed statement, it is a concluding statement rounding up the discussion of what a tav l'meisiv marriage is. In order to break the equation, you have to say that Chazal didn't really mean what they said, or that they were talking about their time and place, but women today are different - but that means denying the truthfulness and accuracy of Chazal's statements (or understanding them differently) in exactly the way that RYBS objects to as kefira. You can't say that a woman prefers to be married than to be alone is a universal truth because it was stated by Chazal, and simultaneously that women in tav lemeisiv marriages commit adultery is not a universal truth, as they are bound up in the same discussion and you are picking and choosing your Chazalic statements - this one I like, this one I don't, and not just any statement, but the concluding statement rounding up the discussion defining the concept. .... >The bit about mezanos vetolos beba'aleihen is not the basis for any >halakhos. I have no reason to believe it's a chazaqah. So why did Chazal say it? For the fun of casting aspersions on Bnos Yisrael? Twice? In the context of a halachic discussion? If this was any other discussion, would anybody dream of suggesting that when Chazal said that something inevitably happened in the context of a halachic discussion they were not, at the very least, postulating a chazaka (albeit perhaps a rebuttable one) and possibly something even stronger? One might say - well nature has changed (eg kol treifos), or one might say - we have to treat something as halachically following Chazal's statement, even if we know or suspect the metzius is different (hence my line about a Beis Din being required to treat a tav l'meisiv marriage as one where adultery has been committed, and those enabling such a marriage being prohibited from so doing based on lifnei iver). That is the way we generally treat Chazalic statements of this nature. In this case, of course, we have another option, if tav l'meisiv marriages themselves do not occur very often, then we do not necessarily have to worry about, as common, the adultery which is part and parcel of their definition. But if they are in fact common and inevitable where the husband is not as a matter of fact suitable for the wife, then I cannot see how you can claim that this is not a significant societal and halachic concern. Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 15:14:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 18:14:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <002d01d081fe$99c5fcb0$cd51f610$@org.uk> References: <002d01d081fe$99c5fcb0$cd51f610$@org.uk> Message-ID: <20150428221418.GF11656@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 10:59:29PM +0100, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: :> The bit about mezanos vetolos beba'aleihen is not the basis for any :> halakhos. I have no reason to believe it's a chazaqah. : : So why did Chazal say it? For the fun of casting aspersions on Bnos : Yisrael? Twice? In the context of a halachic discussion? Well, it's really one conversation quoted twice. But it emphasizes the point. Tav lemeisiv is considered a reason why a gett would not be zakhin le'adam shelo befanav, even though the marriage would too likely lead to sin. The desire not to be husbandless, even by an insufficient husband, is being described as very profound. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 01:56:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 11:56:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith Message-ID: <> the Euclidean postulates are based on everyone's daily experience. In fact we know they are not true in other circumstances (eg on a globe) The injustice of oppression is more debatable. Surely ISIS believes that destroying ancient culture and cutting off heads of nonbelievers is a "mitzvah" As such the belief in a creator is obvious to one with a religious upbringing. For years scientists (and ancient philosophers) believed in an infinitely old world. Even today some scientists are attemping to justify a big bang without a creator (infinite big bangs , other universes etc.). The whole idea of axioms/postulates are that they are not provable. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 06:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 09:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150429135311.GA11332@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 11:56:31AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : the Euclidean postulates are based on everyone's daily experience... I picked the one about parallel lines because no one ever experienced infinitely long parallel lines. They are based on imagining an extrapolation from experience. : we know they are not true in other circumstances (eg on a globe) Thus my parenthetic remarks about flat space. It also doesn't work in Einsteinian Spacetime, as space is no longer believed to be flat. ... : As such the belief in a creator is obvious to one with a religious : upbringing. For years scientists (and ancient philosophers) believed in an : infinitely old world. Even today some scientists are attemping to justify a : big bang without a creator (infinite big bangs , other universes etc.). : : The whole idea of axioms/postulates are that they are not provable. My point exactly -- there are third options between logical proofs and leaps of faith. Logical proofs are only one way to justify belief. The Kuzari points to tradition, which may boil down to reliabilism. (Something you learned from a source that has a track record of being reliable.) I was saying that REW, like R' Aqiva, appealed to the self-evident nature of the universe having a Designer. Closer to the way we accept our postulates than a proof. And that this is so obvious look around at what was created, that belief is the default state for humans. And then REW continues that it takes an act of will to accept a counter-proof despite the self-evidence. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 25th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Netzach: When is domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control too extreme? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 02:02:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 10:02:27 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torahand Kabalas Ol Malchus In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000401d0825b$37ef5150$a7cdf3f0$@org.uk> RTK writes: > I think "kulan mezanos" refers to all women, and it means all women can > be seduced, You may be able to derive, from other contexts, that all women can be seduced - but that is not what is being discussed in the specific gemorros referred to. Our gemora is discussing what happens specifically in tav l'meisiv marriages - it gives examples of such marriages, and then concludes that such marriages result in adultery (and consequent hidden mamzerim). There is just no way of reading what you want to read into this piece > Yes, a woman in a loveless marriage is much more tempted to commit > adultery, given the right set of circumstances, but >it is certainly not inevitable. Nor is it correct to deduce that a rav must >make sure, before he marries a couple, that the woman is not entering a >loveless marriage! He doesn't have to creep into her heart and mind before >conducting the wedding, doesn't have to fathom the depths of her motives in >marrying this man. There are so many motives, so many emotions, how could >you ever fathom them all? Remember, none of what I have described is necessarily a consequence of these gemoros unless you read the gemora with the chiddush of RYBS: that inherent in the existential condition of womankind is that if a woman is offered only an inappropriate marriage she will take it because she cannot bear not to be married. If you understand it merely that there are and have been women, in some times and places, who when offered an inappropriate marriage, will sometimes take it because she cannot bear not to be married, but in other circumstances and times and places there are women who would refuse such a marriage - you have no idea what you are faced with in any given circumstance. And it is of course possible that she knows what she is doing and has seen what you cannot see, meaning that in fact the marriage will indeed be a good one. And it would be, as you describe, inappropriate to creep into her heart and try and fathom what is going on there. But according to RYBS we know what is going on there, in the woman's heart - we know it from RYBS's understanding of the pasuk in Breishis (one certainly does not have to understand the pasuk in Breishis the way RYBS does, but he is darshaning a pasuk to tell us about the human condition). A woman wants to be married above all else because she cannot bear to be alone, she is not capable of making an assessment that any given marriage, without alternative, may not be the best thing. She is never capable of that, according to RYBS's understanding of Chazal, this being an existential condition of womankind. In which case what happens if an outsider is capable of assessing the reality of the marriage in question as being one where the parties are fundamentally incompatible? Does he have an obligation to try and stop the marriage given that the woman is incapable of protecting herself? Well one might say - tough luck, it is not an outsider's job, any more than it is an outsider's job to protect others from a bad bargain in business. But that is where this further statement of the gemora comes in. A marriage which the woman has only entered into because she cannot existentially bear to be unmarried is one with the consequence that such marriage will not in fact be enough for her and she will commit adultery and produce mamzerim who are attributed incorrectly to the husband. So if the outsider does not intervene, he is not just failing to protect the woman from herself, he is failing to protect society from inherent danger. That raises the stakes considerably, and would seem to mean that outsiders (such as Rabbaim, shadchanim etc) do need to be vigilant, and not enable such marriages, so long as what RYBS says is true, in order to protect our society. Now I don't think we need a Rav to check a marriage out, before he marries a couple, to try and determine it is not a tav l'meisiv marriage. But that is because I think it relatively rare, in our society, that a woman will take a loveless marriage merely because she cannot bear to be alone (and I certainly do not think it is a irrebuttable presumption as per RYBS. Nor, as Rav Lichtenstein says, does the halacha over the centuries take this as an irrebuttable presumption despite RYBS's vehemence). And we don't have spend our lives worrying about uncommon cases even if we acknowledge that such cases may exist (and even if, in hindsight, if a marriage turns out to be unquestionably inappropriate, we might need to consider whether perhaps the woman in question *might* have been willing to go through with it anyway). But if RYBS were right and it is indeed a fundamental existential part of a woman's nature, unchanging throughout time and not infrequently occurring, to take whatever marriage is on offer, then we as a society do need such safeguards, because of the potential consequences, and if there is any hint that in fact this might be a tav l'meisiv marriage, since the woman is not able, according to RYBS, to protect herself from it, the Rav/shadchan etc would seem to have the obligation to investigate and if in doubt, to protect our society by preventing the marriage. >Toby Katz >t613k at aol.com Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 04:37:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 11:37:18 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: <20150429.073718.25006.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> I wrote: : But then, as I was reviewing this post, my mind turned to the Tanur : Shel Achnai. R' Eliezer had a minority view, and R' Yehoshua was in : the majority. I've got to believe that both views were firmly grounded; : this machlokes was surely just as L'Shem Shamayim as any between Hillel : and Shammai. I'd *like* to say that Klapei Shmaya, both views were Truth. R' Micha Berger responded: > We discussed bas qol, and why we follow the bas qol that says > "vehalakhah kebeis Hillel" despite the anur shel achnai story. I > listed the opinions in the Encyc Talmudit here > > > It's not 100% accepted that the bas qol was really endorsing R' > Eliezer's opinion in this particular machloqes, rather than > defending his shitah in general -- "halakhah kemoso bekhol maqom", > or that it was a test. ... I apologize for not being clear enough. I was not refering to the Bas Kol part of the story. Rather, I was referring to the end of the story, when Eliyahu Hanavi was asked for Hashem's take on the incident, and he quoted Hashem as laughing, "Nitzchuni banai!" Regardless of how the Bas Kol might be interpreted, is there any way to understand "Nitzchuni banai!" other than Hashem personally siding with one of the litigants, and losing? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540c29a485cf429a1a7cst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 04:46:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 11:46:38 GMT Subject: [Avodah] brochos from the amud (was: tefillat haderech) Message-ID: <20150429.074638.25006.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > RYBS ... then continues that the idea of having intent not > to want to do a mitzvah bothers him, and so RYBS said he > says the berakhah on Hallel along with the chazan. (Which > is what my father does, and what I grew up with.) Data point: Although I have not noticed people doing this for the bracha on Hallel, this IS the common practice for the Shehecheyanu at Kol Nidre, at least according to the ArtScroll and Koren machzorim. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540c4bfde4b244bf3c8cst03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 02:53:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 09:53:19 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) Message-ID: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Reposted from Hakhel: > ... Rav Soloveitchik, obviously upset, instead gave Shiur > on the importance of keeping the Tzuras HaTefillah intact. > Shemone Esrei is followed by Chazaras Hashatz, which is > followed by Tachanun, and then followed by Ashrei and U'va' > Letzion--and we do not have the right or privilege of > changing that, he opined. ... R' Ben Waxman asked: > I looked through the Beit Yosef OH 131 where he discusses > the days on which Tachanun isn't said. The BY does not > list all the days that we skip (like Purim Qatan or Pesach > Sheni). These came later. > > So when did this idea (that we can't change when Tachanun > is said or not said) start? I'm not sure if you are asking the correct question. You presume there was a time when Tachanun was *said* on Purim Katan, and then Tachanun was *omitted* on Purim Katan. I see another possibility, but I must point out that this idea stems from my total ignorance of the History Of Tachanun. Perhaps, since the day when Tachanun first began, the list of days has never changed. What did happen (perhaps) is that some places said it on Purim Katan, and some places did not. Over time, the minhag of skipping it spread to more and more places, but that's somewhat different than if a community would suddenly decide that they had a new appreciation for the significance of the day, and hence wanted to stop saying Tachanun. But either way, I'm not sure of the exact nature of RYBS's objection. It is one thing for a community to change its mind about the significance of the day (as in RMB's example of Purim Katan), and quite another for the day itself to acquire a new significance - as in the example of Yom Haatzma'ut. Shulchan Aruch already establishes the ability for a community to establish holidays, and this has been done many times. A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS insist that they say Tachanun on such days? Thus, I am drawn to conclude that RYBS must not be taken as too absolutist. He cannot have meant that the current list of Tachanun days must remain enshrined in stone forever. I beleive that he must have meant that the question of saying Tachanun on Yom Haatzma'ut is a serious one, to be dealt with seriously by the poskim and leaders of the community. Alas, I personally have seen many cases of where it is decided by those who attend the minyan, on a purely emotional basis, with no thought to the halachos involved, and with no consultation with the LOR. On the other hand, among the many tasks the LOR must deal with, is deciding when he should or should not get involved with the tzibur's choices. Although it does not address Tachanun, I would like to close with a reference to The Rav's opinions about a different tefilah which he "opposed, on halachic grounds". R' Mike Gerver wrote on Mail Jewish (http://www.ottmall.com/mj_ht_arch/v38/mj_v38i49.html) in January 2003: > (This is a continuation of my previous e-mail summarizing > the talk given on "The Rav and Medinat Yisrael" by Rabbi > J. J. Shachter on motzei shabbat, Jan. 25, at Lechu > Neranana in Raanana.) > ... ... ... > Rabbi Shachter quoted Rabbi Walter Wurzberger zt"l as > saying that the Rav's attitude toward Israel was > completely opposed to messianism, to the idea that the > founding of the State was an initial step to the geula > [final redemption]. Thus the Rav did not approve of Gush > Emunim. He even opposed, on halachic grounds, saying the > tefillah for the State of Israel in shul on Shabbat > morning, which only speaks of the State as "reishit > tzmichat geulateinu" [the beginning of the sprouting of > our redemption]. Rabbi Shachter, knowing this, assumed > that the tefillah for the State of Israel would not be > said at the Shabbat morning minyan held at Maimonides > School, a minyan that the Rav started in 1962, and which > generally did things according to his minhag. When Rabbi > Shachter was appointed to his position as director of the > Soloveitchik Institute a couple of years ago, and took > over as rabbi of the Maimonides School Shabbat minyan, he > was surprised to find that they were saying the tefillah > for the State of Israel. He asked someone why, and the > answer was interesting. One Shabbat morning, when the Rav > was still alive and in good health, someone started saying > the tefillah for the State of Israel. The Rav turned to > someone next to him and said {Rabbi Shachter imitated the > Rav's accent) "You would have thought they would have > asked me!" That was all. He didn't make any attempt to > stop them from saying the tefillah for the State of Israel, > and didn't think it was his place to ask the congregation > not to say it if they wanted to. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540aa3d6d7282a3d2b95st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 07:23:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 14:23:25 GMT Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith Message-ID: <20150429.102325.12106.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > I picked the one about parallel lines because no one ever > experienced infinitely long parallel lines. They are based > on imagining an extrapolation from experience. Parallel lines are not provable, but it's not because they are based on experience. Rather, they are based on definition. Find a pair of parallel lines that DO meet (such as on a sphere) and we'll simply say, "What I really meant was parallel lines on a *flat* surface." See more at "No true Scotsman". My choice for something which is unprovable because it is based on personal experience is, "Is there someone whom you love? Prove it to me." Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540e9944d22f699426abst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 12:11:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 15:11:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) In-Reply-To: <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> References: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <20150429191153.GG2666@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 08:53:00PM +0200, Ben Waxman wrote: :> #2 A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate :> the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS :> insist that they say Tachanun on such days? : I had the same question. I bet he said tachanun on the Gra's or R' Chaim's (Volozhin or Brisk) yahrzeit, etc... For people who are seeking his pesaq, it's very likely he would inist on Tachanun on days like that. But I think he would refuse to pasqen for them. Implied in your question is that it's a rav's job to comment and rank other derakhim, an idea RYBS did not share. He even limited his own right to 2nd guess a talmid serving as moreh de'asra. (Stories differ as to how much he insisted on such autonomy of the LOR, depending on which student.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 25th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Netzach: When is domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control too extreme? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 11:53:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 20:53:00 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) In-Reply-To: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> On 4/29/2015 11:53 AM, Kenneth Miller wrote: > #1 Perhaps, since the day when Tachanun first began, the list of days > has never changed. What did happen (perhaps) is that some places said it > on Purim Katan, and some places did not. Over time, the minhag of > skipping it spread to more and more places, but that's somewhat > different than if a community would suddenly decide that they had a new > appreciation for the significance of the day, and hence wanted to stop > saying Tachanun. I don't think so. The Rambam, Hilchot Tefila 5:15 lists the days that one doesn't say Tachanun (or nifilat ah'payim in his words) and the list is much more restricted than our list (Shabbat, Chaggim, Rosh Chodesh, Chanukka, Purim, and the Mincha before them). He writes that this is the minhag b'kol yisrael. I am not a Rambam expert so I don't know what to make of those three words (minhag, b'kol yisrael). If it is a minhag does that mean that it can change? What is b'kol yisrael (I realize that at the time of the Rambam, Ashkenaz was the middle of nowhere)? But it would seem from the Rambam that at his time, the Jewish world didn't skip those other days. > #2 A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate > the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS insist > that they say Tachanun on such days? I had the same question. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 12:25:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 15:25:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) In-Reply-To: <20150429191153.GG2666@aishdas.org> References: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> <20150429191153.GG2666@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55413040.4080903@sero.name> On 04/29/2015 03:11 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 08:53:00PM +0200, Ben Waxman wrote: > :> #2 A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate > :> the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS > :> insist that they say Tachanun on such days? > > : I had the same question. > > I bet he said tachanun on the Gra's or R' Chaim's (Volozhin or Brisk) > yahrzeit, etc... For people who are seeking his pesaq, it's very likely > he would inist on Tachanun on days like that. Of course he said tachanun on their yortzeits, why wouldn't he? The whole concept of turning a yortzeit into a holiday wasn't native to his world. The question is what he would do on a day they had been saved from some danger, and had observed as a private yomtov, or on a day that his community had adopted as a local "purim" to commemorate being saved from danger, as was a common practise among Jewish communities. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 30 01:53:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 30 Apr 2015 04:53:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Netziv, Reading Newspapers on Shabbos & Censorship (Part Two) Message-ID: <20150430085311.F372F183218@nexus.stevens.edu> Please see the article at http://tinyurl.com/oqujmba From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 1 10:09:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 1 May 2015 13:09:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] kol isha In-Reply-To: <842c75958dedf20875dfdece45b65e31@aishdas.org> References: <842c75958dedf20875dfdece45b65e31@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150501170943.GA13995@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 30, 2015 at 5:54pm EDT, R Sholom Simon replied to me on Areivim :> The fact that some ... Jews seem to think the gemara :> didn't realy mean it is something the ... community should have a :> cheshbon hanfesh about. : Gemara? Don't the ge'onim take the gemara to : mean that kol isha is a problem during krias sh'ema? (Which is, after : all, the context of its appearance in Berachos). : (Granted, halacha has : gone much further since then, but you were focused on the gemara) You're thinking of Berakhos 24a, where the gemara concludes that R' Yitchaq's tefach be'ishah ervah is to even include one's own wife during qeri'as Shama. (We knew about other women not during qeri'as shema from R' Sheishes.) And then R' Chisda continues with shoq be'ishah, Shemu'el says qol be'ishah ervah and R Sheishes adds sei'ar be'ishah. >From which one may conclude that all of them are in the same context as R' Yitchaq. R' Hai Gaon (Otar haGeonim Berakhos, peirushin #102), R Yehudai Gaon (acc. to the Yeriem 392), the Behag (1:3). the Eshkol (vol 1, pg 15), the Rivra (Berakhos ad loc) and his father (?), Rabbeinu Yonah (17a), the Shitah meQubetzes (ad loc), only speak of this rule WRT qeri'as shema. Interestlingly, one might also have concluded that all of them were about eishes ish, for the same reason that sei'ar be'ishah is only about eishes ish, but I don't think anyone does understand the gemara that way. But there is also Qiddushin 70a, where R' Yehudah refuses to relay regards from R Nachman to Yala (Mrs Nachman) citing Shemu'el's qol be'ishah ervah. It was this gemara I was remembering (due to recently re-encountering it). Pisqei haRid (Berakhos p' 3), Ri haChasid (Berakhos ad loc), Tosafos haRosh (ad loc) and the Rosh (Berakhos 3:37), say the rule is in general. The Rambam has qol be'ishah ervah in Isurei Bi'ah (21:2), not Hil' QS. Similarly the Tur has nothing about it in QS, but has it in EhE 21. (But then, since his father [the Rosh] and the Rambam do the same, that's no surprise.) And from there -- the Rif is silent, the Rambam and the Rosh agree it's in general -- the SA conforms to his rules and prohibits in general. I think it's a machloqes whether we hold like Shemu'el, who was indeed oly talking about Shema (but not only married women) or like R' Yehudah's extrapolation from Shemu'el. Al pi din, we do hold like the gemara in Qidushin. But it's not as much of a given as I had thought when writing. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 27th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in relationship? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 2 12:29:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 02 May 2015 21:29:39 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Kook on Sports Message-ID: <554525A3.2060408@zahav.net.il> He most certainly did! http://www.yeshiva.org.il/midrash/4234 The article is an examination of Rav Kook's writing on the subject. RK very much supported exercise and sport, and of course he opposed breaking Shabbat to play football (soccer). One quote/translation (mine): Exercise . . . .improves the spiritual strength of the greatest tzaddiqim, those involved in the Unification of God's name, including bringing the Light of God into the world, and no revelation of Light can happen without all the required components. Ben On 5/1/2015 3:36 AM, via Areivim wrote: > and I wonder if it is true that Rav Kook ascribed positive value to sports. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 3 03:01:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 3 May 2015 13:01:40 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Michael Avraham Message-ID: After another shiur with R Michael Avraham (RMA) I wish to clear up some of my previous posts. Apologies for repeating some material but I wish to make it self contained. 1) With regard to Pluaralism, Monism and Harmonism these are typologies. As with any typology real people are combinations and pure members of these groups. Avi Sagi has a book on the topic with listing on many reabbis on each side of the topic. Pluralism means that one accepts ALL opinions as true and legitimate. There is no one single truth Certainly as long as it doesn't harm someone else. RMA pointed out that pure pluralism is not consistent as it would mean accepting monism as also a legitimate truth Nevertheless it is popular in some circles 2) Monism says there is only one truth. I accept that one truth based on the normal rules of halacha, eg majority, chazakah etc. Nothing is ever known with 100% certainty both that is irrelevant. 2b) accepting monism (savlanut in Hebrew) . Though there is only one truth we accommodate those within a certain radius of the real truth even though they are wrong Normally we view pluralism as being more "mekil" than monism. However he considered the case of giving someone food that I consider kosher and he doesn't . The pluralist won't do it because his position is also truth and he doesnt consider the food kosher. However the pure monist has no trouble giving it to someone else. He is wrong and I am right and so the food is kosher (again the fact that he might be right is irrelevant - a bet din can kill based on rov and certainly for shabbat and kosher food we work on majority) The accepting monist won't give the food to someone else. Even though he is wrong I respect his being wrong as long as he is within my radius - ie he relies on someone I consider legitimate and not just an idiotic opinion. OTOH I would give him the food if I feel his "chumra" is too wild fetched and beyond my radius as distinct from the pluralist 3) Harmonism states that both sides are only part of the real truth. Rav Kook and others bring the second gemara about "Elu V-elu". The gemara in Gittin discusses why the man from Binyamin killed his mistress)(pilegesh be-givah) - after an amoraic argument the truth was both were right either because he found a fly in his soup but got angry only he found a hair in the soup. So both views were ight and "Elu V-elu" Based on this RMA had a different interpretation of the argument between Bet Hillel and Bet Shamai Both sides presented arguments supporting their position. Both sides agreed that all the arguments were legitimate. However, in the end one has to make a decision when there are legitimate arguments on both sides and Bet Shamai and Bet Hillel arrived at opposite conclusins. The Harmonism implies that both sides have legitimate arguments. Hoever, in the end there is only one truth that comes out of contradictory arguments. The harmonism means that both sides are right (pluralism) on the basic stands. But only one side is right (monism) in the final decision. As stated before the one truth is found based on standard halachic grounds. Nothing is ever known 100% but that doesnt matter. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 3 18:46:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 11:46:53 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] A halachic problem in measuring wholemeal flour Message-ID: I have recently become aware of a practical halachic problem with measuring wholemeal flour for the shiurim of challah and the kezeitim of matzot mitzva. I don't think this issue is generally recognised, and I hope Areivim members will be able to bring it to appropriate authorities' attention. Traditional flour mills produced a mixture of white flour and bran by grinding whole grains between millstones. This mixture was sifted to produce finer or coarser grades of flour by removing more or less bran, respectively. Halachically, the bran that is removed has changed its status: dough produced from bran is not subject to challah. Furthermore, mixing bran back into its flour does not restore its status: the bran and flour are not "mitztaref". (See Challah 2:6) This was not an issue with traditional mills: nobody would sift bran out of flour and then ruin the white flour by replacing the bran. This is not the case today, though. Modern flour mills do not grind flour between stones. They use a series of graduated rollers that crack the grain into progressively-smaller particles, and the bran is separated off at an early stage of the process. Millers make wholemeal flour by adding bran back to the fine flour near the end of the milling process. You can find a description and video of the process here: http://www.fabflour.co.uk/fab-flour/how-flour-is-milled/ If modern wholemeal flour is halachically considered a mixture of flour and bran, as it seems, then to be obliged in challah one would need a greater shiur of wholemeal than of regular flour, and to fulfil one?s obligation of eating matza one would need to eat more than a kezayit of wholemeal matza. (See S.A. Y.D. 324:3 and M.A. & SAHR O.C 454:1,2) It is not possible to state a definite ratio of bran to white flour, as this will vary between species of grain and between varieties of each species. The relevant shiurim are not measured by weight but by volume, which is affected by the fineness of the bran compared to the fineness of the white flour. Furthermore, the amount of grain removed as bran will depend on the operation of the mill. My research indicates that up to a quarter of each grain of wheat (by weight) consists of bran. If we take this as a rule of thumb then a shiur of wholemeal wheat flour would be one and a third times as large as a shiur of white flour. As a practical matter, I think people making wholemeal bread should probably avoid doubt and bake either less than a minimal shiur (for which, consult your LOR) or bake sufficiently more than one and a third shiurim. Many people deliberately try to use enough flour to require the taking of challah: they consequently use just over a regular shiur and need to be warned about this. With respect to wholemeal matzot mitzva, I presume that people would have noticed and queried any reintroduction of bran to flour ground using modern methods. None the less, it would be very good to establish this for each bakery. Joe Slater Melbourne, Australia -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 3 20:42:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 06:42:58 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RMA Message-ID: On another issue I had quoted RMA as saying that one who doesnt believe in a creator has no punishment or reward for keeping mitzvot. After 120 years he will be punished only for being an atheist but for each individual sin. Hence, there is no problem of "lifne iver" . In particular in the frequent case a religious doctor can ask an atheist to take over for him on shabbat (wouldnt apply to a chiloni doctor who does beleive in G-d) This applies only to mitzvot like shabbat. Of course an atheist can't claim that he is not bound by sins like murder because he doesnt believe in G-d. An atheist will be punished for all moral sins that he commits and all usual laws of :lifne iver" etc apply to all moral commandments. ------------------------ He is now starting a series on religious autonomy. In particular he holds that one goes to a rabbi for a psak only if he is in doubt. If one has seriously learned the halachaot and is convinced of the "truth" then he should follow his own psak and there is no need to go to a "higher authority". He was asked what if the personal psak goes against the generally accepted psak. His answer was that in theory the same holds. However, a person should have enough humility that if he is a "daas yachid" he better be awfully sure that he is right. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 04:47:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 11:47:38 GMT Subject: [Avodah] A married sister Message-ID: <20150504.074738.29327.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, and becomes part of her husband's family. Thus, she is no longer part of her brother's family. But what about her father? According to the above logic, her father may not be m'tamei for her either. And in fact, she *has* left her father's family in the sense that if her husband is not a kohen, then she has been disallowed terumah ever since the wedding. Yet the halacha is that her father *may* be m'tamei for her, despite that change in status. So, in very simple terms, here's my question: If a Bas Kohen is married and then dies, why is it that her father may attend the funeral, but her brother may not? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55475caae730f5caa5375st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 07:42:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 17:42:10 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] A halachic problem in measuring wholemeal flour In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, May 4, 2015 at 4:46 AM, Joe Slater via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > I have recently become aware of a practical halachic problem with > measuring wholemeal flour for the shiurim of challah and the kezeitim of > matzot mitzva. I don't think this issue is generally recognised, and I hope > Areivim members will be able to bring it to appropriate authorities' > attention. > > Traditional flour mills produced a mixture of white flour and bran by > grinding whole grains between millstones. This mixture was sifted to > produce finer or coarser grades of flour by removing more or less bran, > respectively. Halachically, the bran that is removed has changed its > status: dough produced from bran is not subject to challah. Furthermore, > mixing bran back into its flour does not restore its status: the bran and > flour are not "mitztaref". (See Challah 2:6) > > This was not an issue with traditional mills: nobody would sift bran out > of flour and then ruin the white flour by replacing the bran. This is not > the case today, though. > Just a thought: perhaps the halacha that the bran and flour are not mitztaref depended on the metziu't that nobody would return bran to white flour? So if returning the bran to the flour is now the normal way of producing wholemeal flour, maybe today they are mitztaref? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 09:45:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 12:45:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs In-Reply-To: <20150330.221259.10345.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 11:47:38AM +0000, RAM wrote on the thread "A married sister": : In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself : for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I : used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves : the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, : and becomes part of her husband's family... But Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 02:12:59AM +0000, RAM wrote on this subject: > I once heard an interesting argument against Rav Moshe's logic on > this point. He is viewing the wife as the one who is moving to a new > location, but we have an explicit pasuk that takes the opposite view: > Bereshis 2:24 - "Therefore, a man will desert his father and his mother, > and stick to his wife." (The woman may of may not leave her parents, > but the man explicitly does.) > Granted that there are other arguments for the wife taking the husband's > minhagim - terumah is the first that comes to my mind. But if Rav Moshe's > main argument is Minhag Hamakom, I wonder how he would have defended it > against this pasuk. Anyone else see one answering the other? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 30th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Hod: When does capitulation Fax: (270) 514-1507 result in holding back from others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 10:11:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 04 May 2015 13:11:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs In-Reply-To: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> On 05/04/2015 12:45 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 11:47:38AM +0000, RAM wrote on the thread > "A married sister": > : In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself > : for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I > : used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves > : the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, > : and becomes part of her husband's family... > > But Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 02:12:59AM +0000, RAM wrote on this subject: >> I once heard an interesting argument against Rav Moshe's logic on >> this point. He is viewing the wife as the one who is moving to a new >> location, but we have an explicit pasuk that takes the opposite view: >> Bereshis 2:24 - "Therefore, a man will desert his father and his mother, >> and stick to his wife." (The woman may of may not leave her parents, >> but the man explicitly does.) > >> Granted that there are other arguments for the wife taking the husband's >> minhagim - terumah is the first that comes to my mind. But if Rav Moshe's >> main argument is Minhag Hamakom, I wonder how he would have defended it >> against this pasuk. > > Anyone else see one answering the other? Not at all. Her father must still become tamei for her. Only her brothers may not. What's more, suppose her husband dies without issue. She returns to her father's house, and is once more entitled to eat terumah and kodshim. Now suppose the father dies; she continues to eat the terumah and kodshim that her brothers bring home. When she dies the brothers are the only people left who sit shiva for her, and yet they are not allowed to become tamei for her unless there is literally nobody else who can do it! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 10:24:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 17:24:33 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs Message-ID: <20150504.132433.5362.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger asked: > Anyone else see one answering the other? You make a good point, but as I see it, they don't *answer* each other as much as they illustrate how complicated this subject is. For example, consider the case of a Bas Kohen who marries a Yisrael, or a Bas Yisrael who marries a Kohen. Her status changes upon marriage, but it will revert upon the death of her husband. - Unless there is a child, in which case her status will *not* revert. - Unless the child died too, in which case her status *will* revert. - Unless there is a grandchild, in which case she keeps her status even though her own child did not survive. (I probably messed up some of those details, but my point is that itis a very complex topic.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5547ab96da8f82b966b58st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 11:01:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 14:01:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A married sister Message-ID: <1fbaa.22f534a3.42790de1@aol.com> From: Kenneth Miller via Avodah In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, and becomes part of her husband's family. Thus, she is no longer part of her brother's family. But what about her father? [snip] So, in very simple terms, here's my question: If a Bas Kohen is married and then dies, why is it that her father may attend the funeral, but her brother may not? Akiva Miller >>>>> I don't know why the bond between brother and sister seems to be lessened when the sister marries, but we do have other evidence that the bond between father and daughter is never severed: If a man has no sons, only daughters, his daughters inherit his property -- even if they are married. The fact that they are married does not annul the fact that they are still his daughters. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 12:50:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 22:50:54 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith Message-ID: <> A more practical problem based on personal experience is that of defining colors (to a human not in terms of wavelengths). There is no way for 2 people to confirm they are seeing the same colors. One practical application is to examining cloths for a niddah - ketem. I again refer to an article in Keren Zavit by Nadav Shinrav on parshat tazria In particular I learned that brown is not a color -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 13:43:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 16:43:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150504204354.GA2628@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 10:50:54PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : A more practical problem based on personal experience is that of defining : colors (to a human not in terms of wavelengths). There is no way for 2 : people to confirm they are seeing the same colors. Even further: there is no wavelength corrsponding to pink or brown, they only exist as our mind combines wavelengths. Pink is weirder, because it resides on the color wheel where you would glue the two extremes of the spectrum together to close the circle. Colors other than the three in the middle of the sensitivity range of each of the types of cone in your eye can be seen two ways. For example: you could make orange by mixing two parts red with one part green, or by looking at light of one color, that is at the right frequency to trigger your red cones twice as much as they trigger the green. The topic we're discussing is qualia, and color is a favorite sort of quale to use for illustration (pun intended). A quale is the "what it's like to see red". In my example about orange, we have two different physics, but both could end up producing the same experience, the same exact shade and brightness of orange. So orange is not 1:1 any specific wavelength. Asude from the question RET raises, a popular thought experiment among philosophers is Mary the Color Scientist (Frank Jackson 1982): Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor. She specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose, all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes, or the sky, and use terms like 'red', 'blue', and so on. She discovers, for example, just which wavelength combinations from the sky stimulate the retina, and exactly how this produces via the central nervous system the contraction of the vocal chords and expulsion of air from the lungs that results in the uttering of the sentence 'The sky is blue'.... What will happen when Mary is released from her black and white room or is given a color television monitor? Will she learn anything or not? It seems just obvious that she will learn something about the world and our visual experience of it. But then is it inescapable that her previous knowledge was incomplete. But she had all the physical information. Ergo there is more to have than that, and Physicalism is false. And so Jackson concludes that the world can't be reduced to physics. This is also what I was talking about when I referred to justifying a belief based on comparing imagination to memory. Koach hadimyon does mean "imagination", but what Ariso meant by Imagination, or the rishonim by dimyon, includes qualia in general. The image of red while you're seeing it, not just when you're dreaming it up. And I would argue that even when we make rigorous logical proofs, those proofs are conclusions drawn from a set of givens, and those givens end up resting on koach hadimyon anyway. The formally proven theological statement is therefore less conclusive than one based on an appeal to dimyon directly, such as R' Aqiva's argument. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 30th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Hod: When does capitulation Fax: (270) 514-1507 result in holding back from others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 15:25:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 04 May 2015 18:25:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs In-Reply-To: <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> Message-ID: <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> On 05/04/2015 01:11 PM, I wrote: > > What's more, suppose her husband dies without issue. She returns to her > father's house, and is once more entitled to eat terumah and kodshim. This is not quite correct. She returns to eat teruma, but not kodshim. "Milechem, velo kol lechem". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 16:07:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Mon, 04 May 2015 19:07:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy In-Reply-To: <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> Message-ID: <5547FB97.5020203@aishdas.org> Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, d'hashta) would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? Thanks! KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 18:11:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 01:11:49 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy Message-ID: <20150504.211149.15174.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer asked: > Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, > d'hashta) would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? My first knee-jerk reaction is to say that they DON'T relate. Chazakos are all about law, and what the law will *presume* the reality to have been. We found a piece of meat on the street, or we bought it and forgot where, or any of a million similar questions. We don't really know whether it is kosher or not, and to a certain extent we don't really care. What we really care about is whether halacha allows us to *presume* that it is kosher. Schroedinger's Cat and similar ventures are attempts to establish what the *reality* is. The Cat is a thought experiment, but do not make the mistake of thinking that it is mere philosophizing. The whole point of the experiment is to establish what is really and actually happening inside the box, and the answer (that they've come up with) is that two contradictory truths (the cat is alive, the cat is dead) are both true at the same time. This is a question of physics and reality, not a question of legal presumptions. The subject line of this thread says that you're "looking for help with an analogy". Could you tell us more about what you're working on? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5548190613cab19056408st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 19:10:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rafael Jason Hecht via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 22:10:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How Kosher is the Kosher Switch? Message-ID: Last Motzei Shabbos I was among the crowd that was saying Kiddush Levana out in the open. While davening I overheard someone making a joke about using a Kosher Switch (my guess was to place light on the outside so people could better read). I did my own reading and research before that and couldn't tell if the gentleman was joking or being serious. To put it lightly, the development and marketing Kosher Switch has caused a major controversy in the Torah Jewish community. The Kosher Switch, a device purportedly meant to ease the constraints of Sabbath observance, is not the first of its kind. The Grama switch by Zomet Institute, as well as the Zman switch have been created for emergency situations of pikuach nefesh. However, this switch has caused an uproar in the Jewish community. Why? Before going on, let me state that while I am far from an expert in the field of electrical engineering or Hilchos Shabbos (nor am I a certified Rabbi), I treasure Shabbos and am always looking for ways to enhance it. That said, I did my own personal research and humbly present my findings. Before I go on, let me first state that the topic of electricity on Shabbos is far more extensive than what I'm laying out, and that I am not (intentionally) offering my own Psak, just a compilation of "what's out there." Read more: http://www.mywesternwall.net/2015/04/30/how-kosher-is-the-kosher-switch.html Best Regards, Rafi Hecht *rhecht at gmail.com* ------------------------------------------------------- *LinkedIN:* *http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rafihecht* *Facebook:* *http://www.facebook.com/rhecht* *Twitter:* *https://www.twitter.com/#!/rafihecht* *Personal Site:* *www.rafihecht.com* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 12:47:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Shalom Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 22:47:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired Message-ID: I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a woman is owned by her husband, the language of the Mishna notwithstanding. Can anyone point to a clear statement by Hazal or rishonim that supports my supposition? My thanks, Shalom Z. Berger -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 13:51:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 16:51:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150505205140.GA20122@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 05, 2015 at 10:47:20PM +0300, Shalom Berger via Avodah wrote: : I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a : woman is owned by her husband, the language of the Mishna notwithstanding. : Can anyone point to a clear statement by Hazal or rishonim that supports my : supposition? First, the halakhos of qiddushin do not conform to that of purchase. Qinyan is a broader concept than purchase; for example, not that long ago you probably performed a qinyan sudar to appoint your rav as a shaliach to sell your chameitz. Some differences: - no din of ona'ah, a shaveh perutah is sufficient for all - you give the perutah to the woman, not her former "owner" - she has to agree to the qinyan, despite not being the former "owner" - she has to make a qinyan on the money - money needn't exchange hands; she could pardon a loan to effect a marriage. However, qinyan bekesef does require such an exchange. - Hilkhos gittin is a lot more complicated than just calling hefqer. - the wife gets to decide whether to give him her earnings in exchange for being supported. If she were property, he would get her earnings wheter or not *he* chose to support here. Now that I got that out of my system, to answer your question: Qiddushin 6b: ... and if an eved kenaani, whose body he was qoneh, if he says to him [in a shetar shichrur] "you are hereby your own" it means legmaei, ishah DELO QANI LEIH GUFAH, lo qol shekein! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 31st day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Hod: What level of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 results in harmony and balance? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 12:12:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 15:12:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun Message-ID: In Avodah V33n70, RZS responded to R'Micha: >> I bet [RYBS] said tachanun on the Gra's or R' Chaim's (Volozhin or Brisk) >> yahrzeit, etc... For people who are seeking his pesaq, it's very likely >> he would insist on Tachanun on days like that. > Of course he said tachanun on their yortzeits, why wouldn't he? The whole > concept of turning a yortzeit into a holiday wasn't native to his world. > The question is what he would do on a day they had been saved from some > danger, and had observed as a private yomtov, or on a day that his > community had adopted as a local "purim" to commemorate being saved from > danger, as was a common practise among Jewish communities. ...or on Pesach Sheini? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 11:47:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 05 May 2015 13:47:08 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Tree of 40 Fruits Message-ID: <5549102C.40808@starways.net> http://www.sciencealert.com/news/20142107-25892.html What's the halakha regarding eating fruit from one of these trees? Since the grafting was done by a non-Jew, is it okay to eat? Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 14:01:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 21:01:39 GMT Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired Message-ID: <20150505.170139.16146.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Shalom Berger wrote: <<< I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a woman is owned by her husband, ... >>> That depends on what you mean by "own". I own my shoes. This gives me certain rights, such as wearing them to the exclusion of anyone else, or the choice of who I might lend them to. I also have certain responsibilities; I cannot simply destroy them for no reason. I own my tefillin too. But the things I can do with my tefillin are much more limited than whast I can do with my shoes. I have certain rights and responsibilities vis a vis my wife as well. Do I own her? I don't know. Is there a real nafka mina, or is it just semantics? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55492fe2678522fe2353bst03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 15:46:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 05 May 2015 18:46:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Scrolling Down the Pages of Jewish History Message-ID: <20150505224615.83B27181E37@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/ocl2bqe his story appears in R. Yechiel Spero?s Pesach Haggadah: Touched by Our Story (pp. 88-91) and is republished here with permission from the copyright holders (ArtScroll / Mesorah Publications, Ltd.). The pictures below ? of the Tur Shulchan Aruch (printed in Berlin 1702) which belonged to Rabbi Yaakov Emden (Germany, 1697-1776) ? were taken by R. Akiva Males, and are republished with permission of Columbia University?s Rare Book and Manuscript Library. See the above URL for much more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 00:23:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 03:23:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] All About Tehillim Message-ID: <20150506072350.7A9B4181522@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/mxoucvn From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 02:02:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 05:02:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Disappearing Doctor of Iyyar: Virtual Vanishing of a Venerable Minhog Message-ID: <20150506090255.CB5C5182D80@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/mdz6883 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 03:13:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 06:13:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Disappearing Doctor of Iyyar: Virtual Vanishing of a Venerable Minhog In-Reply-To: <20150506090255.CB5C5182D80@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150506090255.CB5C5182D80@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150506101327.GA19813@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 06, 2015 at 05:02:54AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : See http://tinyurl.com/mdz6883 Quoting the Treasures of Ashkenaz blog [transliterations mine]: > The aleph stands for ani, the two yuds for HQBH, and the reish? fo > rofekha. The month is thereby depicted as a month of healing. The vort > seemingly is based on an old minhog of many generations among Yidden, > in which the letters yud-yud (sans hyphen) are used to represent the > venerated name of Hashem However, even yud-yud is not the original minhag. In older manuscripts they used three yuds, with the middle one slightly above the line, making a triangle. Preserved in this printed edition of Siddur R' Saadia Gaon . I suggested two possible reasons for the third yud's disappearance: - The printing press made that middle yud hard to insert into books, because it would require a special letter in the type box. I find this one less than compelling, because they kept an alef-lamed ligature in the type box, and that got less usage. - Xians read their own significance into the three letters. This would be clearner, if there were any evidence of them actually doing so. So the two-yud notation was just one step along the way. The general question of why non-chassidic Ashkenazim (or non-Chida-influenced Sepharadim) suddenly started writing out the sheim in siddurim is compelling, but the two-yud notation isn't necessarily some venerable alternative. The three yuds was often explained as beind the initial letters of Birkhas Kohanim; the yuds from Yevarekhekha, Ya'er, and Yisa. Some suggest that the two yuds represent the first and last letters of an intertwined sheim havayah and sheim adnus: YUD alef HEI dalet ... HEI yud. Itself heavily al pi qabbalah. And associating the two yuds with the transliteration into Hebrew of an Akkadian month name (Ayyaru = n. blossom) requires even more omnisignificance and mysticism than does finding significance in presenting sheim havayah written out. Where I really see this change as a problem is not because of venerable minhagim, but because books have less shelf life now than in the past. Cheap printing means also cheaper paper, not to mention faster replacement. And if generations past wanted to minimize their sheimos problems, al achas kamah vekamah we should. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 00:31:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 10:31:51 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: In some circles it is common for men to keep long peyot (as an aside it has become common also in some chardal circles) The book Keren Zavit says he doesn't understand the custom. The problem is not in long sidebruns but rather that the hair from under the ear rarely grows long. The long "peyot" usually grow from hair above the ear and so has no connection to peyot and in fact come from part of the head where there is no prohibition to shave -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 06:38:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Shalom Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 16:38:38 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired In-Reply-To: <20150505205140.GA20122@aishdas.org> References: <20150505205140.GA20122@aishdas.org> Message-ID: While Micha is correct that the Gemara clearly states "ishah DELO QANI LEIH GUFAH" and that there are many, many differences between true ownership and marriage, this does not keep the Tosafot HaRosh (Ketubot 2a sv Nistahpa Sadeihu) from concluding: "ha-isha kinyan kaspo shel ha-ish kemo avdo ve-shoro va-hamoro." I would like to find a source in the rishonim that clearly rejects the approach of the Tosafot HaRosh. Shalom Rabbi Shalom Z. Berger, Ed.D. The Lookstein Center for Jewish Education Bar-Ilan University http://www.lookstein.org https://www.facebook.com/groups/lookjed/ Follow me on Twitter: @szberger NETWORK*LEARN*GROW From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 09:26:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 12:26:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tree of 40 fruits Message-ID: The question was asked, "What's the halakha regarding eating fruit from one of these trees? Since the grafting was done by a non-Jew, is it okay to eat?" The only issur achila of kilayim is kilei hakerem. Anything else may be eaten. With regard to the fruits of a graft, the explicit halacha in Yoreh Deiah (295:7) is that it may be eaten even by the one who violated the prohibition by performing the graft. (That halacha also continues that one may take a branch from the graft and plant it.) As to the original question about the potato-tomato combination, grafting is prohibited: even though neither is a tree (295:3), but as above, the resulting product may be eaten. EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 10:28:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 13:28:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs Message-ID: The din of a kohein's daughter not eating t'ruma upon marriage to a non-kohein was mentioned in conjunction with this topic. However, I submit that perquisites of k'huna are unrelated to the adoption of one's spouse's customs. How else can we understand the din that a person can give the parts of a slaughtered animal due to the kohein (z'roa, l'chayayim v'keiva) even to a kohein's daughter married to a Yisraeil, or, for that matter, even to her Yisraeil husband (and according to one opinion, the same is true for pidyon habein)? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 10:37:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 13:37:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy Message-ID: <72706.56a00b87.427bab69@aol.com> From: Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, d'hashta) would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? Thanks! KT, YGB >>>>> Not sure where you're going with this but you seem to be saying that chazakos have no independent, objective reality. That a chazaka is in the eye of the beholder. Oops. Looks like you've let the cat out of the bag... --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 11:13:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 14:13:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Strange History of Lag B'Omer Message-ID: <20150506181455.D4FFC1836BF@nexus.stevens.edu> There is an interesting talk by Dr. Shnayer Leiman with the above title at http://yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/734356/ Yitzchok Levine -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 11:48:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 14:48:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy In-Reply-To: <5547FB97.5020203@aishdas.org> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> <5547FB97.5020203@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150506184838.GA4624@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 7:07pm EDT, RYGB wrote: : Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, d'hashta) : would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? Quantum Uncertainty is more similar to rov than chazaqah. And it could model how we can embrace conflicting majorities. Such as in the case of two pieces of shuman and one of cheilev, and being able to eat all three one after the other. (Or perhaps even in a ta'aroves, but that just complicates the picture.) It would fit if we treat the physical state of each piece of fat as ( 2 |shuman> + |cheilev) / 3 rather than as a 67% chance of being shuman. And then those things that were observed are immune from such weirdness, much like qavu'ah. That said: The notion that wavefunction collapse is due to observation, the Copenhagen Interpretation, was once taken as a given. But alternatives involving entanglement, wave function collapse, multiuniverse theory, etc.. have been gaining ground for decades. This parallel to qavu'ah could be illusory. On Tue, May 05, 2015 at 1:11am GMT, R Akive Miller wrote: : My first knee-jerk reaction is to say that they DON'T relate. Chazakos : are all about law, and what the law will *presume* the reality to have : been... : Schroedinger's Cat and similar ventures are attempts to establish what : the *reality* is... I am very inclined to agree. R' Aqiva Eiger (teshuvah $136) makes a chiluq between sefeiqos in the metzi'us and sefeiqos in din. Rov holds when we have sefeiqos in the metzi'us. So we can pasqen about something that is rov-kasher. But if someone knew the metzi'us, then there was a din established for the fat. Now that we don't know what it was, we have a safeiq as to what that din is. LAD, the whole thing is about human experience. See , which has 10 posts covering things like chazaqah (both types), rov, qavu'ah, terei mekei'ah (which I argue ignores rov for the same reason as qavu'ah), nosein ta'am, using tequfas Shemu'el for birkhas hachamah, microsopic bugs etc.... The hashkafic premise is that the goal of halakhah is to shape the self (whether into a tamim, a shelaim, to acheive deveiqus, etc...) And therefore the metzi'us a din has to work with is how we experience reality (and thus birur when we're in doubt) and how we can experience it (only visible bugs count). And not how the universe works in ways we can only understand in the abstract. The most lomdishe consequence of my whole edifice is that it manages to explain why a chazaqah trumps a migo in a case where there are also trei utrei eidim, but why a migo trumps a chazaqah when there are no eidim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 12:13:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 15:13:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150506191353.GB4624@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 06, 2015 at 10:31:51AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : The book Keren Zavit says he doesn't understand the custom. The problem is : not in long sidebruns but rather that the hair from under the ear rarely : grows long. The long "peyot" usually grow from hair above the ear and so : has no connection to peyot and in fact come from part of the head where : there is no prohibition to shave The custom is shared by Chassidim, Chidah-influenced Sepharadim (those with many Qabbalah-based pesaqim) and Teimanim. So there seems to be an ancient maqor unrelated to any reasons given al pi qabbalah by the first two groups. R' Chaim Kanievsky is a living example of a minhag/hanhagah that was once more common -- not combing one's peyos because of the hairs plucked out. Rav Dovid Lifshitz, so now we're talking Litta, had two thick blocks of hair going back from his temples to over his ear. According to the SA YD 181:9, peyos run as high as the hairline above the forehead until the bottom of the ear, where the earlobe detaches from the face. So the prohibition does include the area the KZ is asking about -- there are inches of hair between the top of the ear until you get parallel to the hairline. And this is the very area that the majority of the hair in long peyos grows from. I therefore don't understand the KZ's question. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 12:40:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 22:40:23 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: >From : B. Highest Point. The location of the highest point on the head that the peyos extend is described in Shulchan Aruch (181:9) as "across from the hair on is forehead". There are two basic opinions as to the precise location the Shulchan Aruch refers to: 1. Rabbi Yisroel Belsky (Shulchan Halevi page 122) writes that he had heard directly from Rav Yakov Kaminetzky zt"l that the upper limit of the peyos ha'rosh begins "at the highest point of the hairline as it arches over the ear and extends in a slightly curved line across to where the hairline of the forehead turns sharply downwards towards the sideburns. All the hair from the imaginary line that connect these two points and below comprises the peyos ha'rosh". 2. Rabbi Belsky also quotes "some rabbonim have a mesora, a tradition from their Rabbis, that the peyos do not extend above the upper cartilage of the ear (tenuch ha'ozen) at all. According to their mesorah, the imaginary line extends horizontally from the point in the hairline above the foremost part of ear almost until where the downward slope of the frontal hairline angles back towards the ear. For a picture see -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 13:42:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joel Schnur via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 16:42:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun Message-ID: <554A7CBF.3020300@schnurassociates.com> No one says tachnun on the Gra's yarhzeit. it's 3rd day chol hamoed succos ___________________________ Joel Schnur, Senior VP Government Affairs/Public Relations Schnur Associates, Inc. 25 West 45th Street, Suite 1405 New York, NY 10036 Tel. 212-489-0600 x204 Fax. 212-489-0203 joel at schnurassociates.com www.schnurassociates.com http://www.schnurassociates.com/joels-corner/ From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 14:13:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 17:13:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired In-Reply-To: <20150505.170139.16146.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150505.170139.16146.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150506211338.GB27781@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 5, 2015 at 9:01pm GMT, R Akiva Miller wrote: :> I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that :> a woman is owned by her husband, ... : That depends on what you mean by "own". : : I own my shoes. This gives me certain rights... I suggested more than once in the past that baalus has more to do with responsibility than western notions of property. Which is why yorshim do not inherit chameitz on Pesach. Even though the father owned chameitz in the sense of bal yeira'eh bal yimatzei, he lacked ba'alus at the time of his passing. Or why a rentor has a chiyuv to hang a mezuzah -- he has some measure of ba'alus, despite not being an owner. RAF (CCed) shared my post on Facebook, and since I have no idea what can be seen by the public, I'll paraphrase a couple of responses I thought would be of interest. On my line that "qinyan is a broader concept than purchase", one person compared the mishnah in Avos "qeneih lekha chaver". This morning, at 8:59am PDT, R Shalom Z Berger asked for a rishon who clearly rejected the Tosafos haRosh's statement (Kesuvos 2a "nitapecha sadeihu) that "ha'ishah qinyan kaspo shel ha'ish, kemo avdo veshoro vechamoro". Someone else on FB noted that the Rashba, in his chiddushim on the first pereq of Qiddushin, repeatedly points out that all the rishonim other than the Rosh reject the idea out of hand. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 15:09:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 15:09:17 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes Message-ID: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Shabbat-microphones-catching-on-among-orthodox-despite-taboos-402173 i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at hadchak /bedieved -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 17:12:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 20:12:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150507001204.GA31766@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 06, 2015 at 03:09:17PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Shabbat-microphones-catching-on-among-orthodox-despite-taboos-402173 : : i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at hadchak /bedieved Gerama devices, yes. But a passive element microphone feeding a PA system that is never entirely off -- so it's never turned off or on -- and has no lit indicators is an entirely different beast. (Most microphones generate current when vibrated; a passive element microphone changes resistance.) Still not an open-and-shut heter, as this article makes it sound. And there are more grounds for Sepharadim to be meiqil then Ashkenazim, based on a machloqes between the Mechaber and the Rama in OC 252:5. R' Ovadia was matir. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 18:18:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 01:18:22 GMT Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes Message-ID: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> R' Saul Newman asked: > i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at > hadchak /bedieved I've never read any of their material, but I'm pretty sure that they have MANY halachic "tools" in their arsenal, and not all of them carry the same restrictions. For example, a grama switch would only be useful for a very limited number of situations, as would a pen that writes with disappearing ink. But if you can make an electronic device that generates zero heat and zero light, it just *might* be acceptable for general use. Exhibit A: Hearing aids. I'll admit that a hearing aid is not the same thing as a loudspeaker system. But without getting into a whole discussion, the only point I'm making is that you have to look at the thing, and not just reject it out of hand. One might say that "Hearing aids are by definition for a shaas hadchak; how can this technology help the average person? So I bring you Exhibit B: Sabbath Mode ovens. Without any doubt, one DOES manipulate the electric circuit with these gadgets. If not on Shabbos, then at least on Yom Tov. But I think that the real answer to your question might be: "If the people in shul can't hear the rabbi or the chazan, that IS a shaas hadchak." In any case, about 15 years ago I happened to spend Shabbos at a shul that used one of these systems, and there were two large notices by the entrance to the main sanctuary, pointing out that the system was designed by Zomet. If I remember correctly, there was also a letter on the wall giving more halachic details about it. Which is the bigger chumra: To avoid using such devices, or to insure that even the hard-of-hearing can follow hear? Or, if you prefer, which is the bigger kula: To use such devices, or to disenfranchise part of the tzibur? (I'm not taking sides, just illustrating the issues. If you want answers, ask your LOR.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554abd8864c633d88019cst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 18:45:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 01:45:24 GMT Subject: [Avodah] The Disappearing Doctor of Iyyar: Virtual Vanishing of a Venerable Minhog Message-ID: <20150506.214524.14329.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitzchok Levine posted: > See http://tinyurl.com/mdz6883 That article has only slight relevance to anything medical. It is actually about the practice of abbreviating HaShem's Name with a double (or triple) Yud in siddurim, and how this practice is losing ground recently, with more siddurim using the Four-Lettered Name. That article says: > ... even in the printing of siddurim, where in the past, Shem > Hashem was not written out explicitly, based on venerable, old > practice. In other words, the spelling out of the letters, Yud > ? Kay ? Vov ? Kay in the past was done in Biblical texts, such > as Sifrei Torah and Sifrei Nach. In texts of tefilos, however, > it was not done. Instead, Yud ? Yud was substituted. I am very curious why this distinction was made, that the siddurim use the Yuds, while the printed Tanachs do use the Four Lettered Name. I note that towards the end of that article, he refers to an "Azharah L'Madfisim (Warning To Printers)" on this topic, written by the son-in-law of the Nesivos Hamishpat. Curiously, he writes that the Two Yuds should be printed in siddurim *and* *chumashim*. On the other hand, a few lines later, the Azharah explains a point I've long wondered about. The Four Lettered Name is just one of the *seven* Names Which May Not Be Erased. Why did this abbreviation arise for the Four Lettered Name and not for any of the others? I always figured it was because this one is *truly* a Name; "the Most Holy among equals" one might say. But the Azharah gives an entirely different explanation. Namely, the difference between this Name and the other six is that no matter how you spell it, it is not to be pronounced normally, so what is to be gained by using the correct letters? Therefore, find an abbreviation of some sort for this one, but the others should be spelled as they will be pronounced. Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554ac3e5a6e0843e34b38st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 19:34:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 22:34:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: <85279.31aefae5.427c294a@aol.com> From: Eli Turkel via Avodah In some circles it is common for men to keep long peyot (as an aside it has become common also in some chardal circles) The book Keren Zavit says he doesn't understand the custom.... -- Eli Turkel >>>> Yemenites have long payos, so this must be a very old custom, not some recent chumra. They don't call them "payos" but "simanim," which I find charming. They are signs that a man is a Jew, proud and obvious signs. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 02:13:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 12:13:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: In addition to the points brought up by R' Eli Turkel against long peyot, I would like to raise the following: The shiur given by all of the poskim for each hair is very very short, and in fact because it is a lo taase there is probably not even an inyan of hidur mitzvah. Therefore it is not clear why there would be any inyan to grow long peyot. The truth is it would be much better to be machmir on the shiur of where peyot harosh ends (maybe the very bottom of the ear) which is a safek issur d'oraysa then to grow long peyot which has no kiyum al pi din. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 20:33:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 23:33:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired Message-ID: <86422.6a1e08b9.427c3711@aol.com> [1] I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a woman is owned by her husband, the language of the Mishna notwithstanding. Can anyone point to a clear statement by Hazal or rishonim that supports my supposition? My thanks, Shalom Z. Berger [2] I own my shoes. This gives me certain rights, such as wearing them to the exclusion of anyone else, or the choice of who I might lend them to. I also have certain responsibilities; I cannot simply destroy them for no reason. I own my tefillin too. But the things I can do with my tefillin are much more limited than what I can do with my shoes. I have certain rights and responsibilities vis a vis my wife as well. Do I own her? I don't know. Is there a real nafka mina, or is it just semantics? Akiva Miller >>>> [1] Along the lines of what R' Micha Berger posted. On Ber 24:57 -- "Let us call the maiden and ask her what she wants to do" -- Rashi says, "Mikan she'ein masi'in es ha'isha ela mida'ata -- from here we learn that one does not [or may not, or cannot] marry a woman without her consent." I think he's quoting Kesubos 57b. I can't think of any kind of property whose consent is required before the property can be acquired. [2] The analogy to tefillin is flawed. You do not have any obligations or responsibilities to your tefillin. Rather, in regards to your tefillin, you have obligations towards your Maker! He has told you what you must do, may do, or must not do, with your tefillin. A better analogy would have been to your ox or your dog, where you do actually have obligations to your animals, an obligation, for example, to feed the animal before you eat your own meal. And a still better analogy would have been to acquiring a slave, about which the Talmud says "One who acquires a Jewish slave is like one who has acquired a master! (Kiddushin 20a)" -- because of all the obligations he incurs towards his slave. So there does seem to be some kind of ownership that a husband has vis-a-vis his wife, but then, she also in some sense owns him. Certainly she has the right to make specific claims on him, because he has specific obligations towards her. Shir Hashirim speaks about the love between Hakadosh Baruch Hu and Am Yisrael in an extended poetic analogy to the love between a husband and a wife. What does the wife say about her husband? Dodi li ve'ani lo -- He belongs to me, and I belong to Him. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 23:25:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 02:25:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Princess and I: Academic Kabbalists/Kabbalist Academics Message-ID: <20150507062523.18EF01826EC@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/km8kf2n The last few decades have witnessed the veritable explosion of "new perspectives" and horizons in the academic study of Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism. From the pioneering work of the late Professor Gershom Scholem, and the establishment of the study of Jewish Mysticism as a legitimate scholarly pursuit, we witness a scene nowadays populated by men and women, Jews and non-Jews, who have challenged, (re)constructed, and expanded upon Scholem's work.[2] These men and women themselves have been variously praised and criticized themselves for sometimes blurring the lines between academician and practitioner of Kabbalah and mysticism.[3] Professor Boaz Huss of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has done extensive work in this area.[4] One of the most impressive examples of this fusion of identities is Professor Yehuda Liebes (Jerusalem, 1947-) of Hebrew University, who completed his doctoral studies under Scholem, and rose to prominence himself by challenging scholarly orthodoxies established by his mentor. See the above URL for more. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 23:29:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 02:29:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Shabbat microphones catching on among orthodox despite taboos Message-ID: <20150507062953.0C966182FF8@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/men8bez Relying upon rulings by decision makers such as Rabbi Shaul Yisraeli, Isser Yehuda Unterman and Rav Haim David HaLevi, the Zomet microphone uses only transistors "without any glowing [or 'burning'] elements;" is turned on by an automatic "Shabbat timer;" and, once turned on, "current flows continuously in the system," according to technical notes on the setup released on the group's website. According to Zomet executive director Rabbi Dan Marans, the system has come into use in 15 synagogues in Baltimore, Montreal, West Stamford and other locations, as well as in 18 old-age homes. Leading American poskim, or decidors of Halacha, have even "stipulated in contracts with synagogues that they change the system to our system so that the RCA [will be] able to send rabbis." "I've not heard comments [against it]. If anything, people find the service more enjoyable and more elevating," agreed Schneier, adding that "We must get a dozen calls a year from rabbis contemplating putting this system into their synagogues. "I believe within 25 years it will be commonplace in Orthodox synagogues here in the Northeast." See the above URL for more. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 07:01:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 10:01:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Transferring my comments to Avodah At 04:00 PM 5/6/2015, R Saul Newman wrote on Areivim: >http://www.sharelive.tv/sharlive_Heb/SL27948.html I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire 33rd day, and they wait until the 34th day to take a haircut. Does this not imply that the entire 33rd day is part of Sefirah and the restrictions hold the entire 33rd day? Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva. However, the micktzas starts in the morning of the 7th day, not on the night of the 7th day. Thus, even according to Ashkenazim the night of Lag B'Omer is bound by the restrictions of Sefirah. So how can they make such gatherings on the night of the 33rd day? And, of course there is this post that I made on from Fri, 26 Apr 2013 based on comments by Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel. According to RSRH there is a major difference between the way the uses the terminology un-Jewish and non-Jewish. Un-Jewish things are things that are incompatible with Yahadus, whereas non-Jewish things are things of non-Jewish origin that are compatible with Yahadus. YL The following is from http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol11/v11n014.shtml#17 Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 11:37:58 -0400 From: "Seth Mandel" Subject: Re: bonfires on Lag Ba'Omer From: Phyllos... at aol.com Obviously, the bones of people who believe that there is a s'gullo in making fires . As I have had fun telling people, the _only_ bonfire that was an ancient Jewish tradition was the Simchas Torah bonfire in Ashk'naz, which is attested from the 14th century up until the 19th century, but has gone out of style. The Lag Ba'omer bonfire is a very recent phenomenon among most Jews. Indeed, the word bonfire is from "fire of bones." The term was used primarily in various pagan ceremonies which then were transferred to christianity, for a funeral pyre, and in burning infidels or books (like The Gaon of Vilna or MOAG). The bones used, if 'twere not a pyre, were primarily animal bones. Here's an early quotation (1493): "in worshyppe of saynte John the people waked at home and made all maner of fyres. One was clene bones and no woode, and that is called a bone fyre." From Marlowe in 1586: "Making bonfires for my overthrow. But, ere I die, those foul idolators Shall make me bonfires with their filthy bones." (Think that would get by the moderators on Areivim, R. SBA?) 1689: "The dead corps is buried. They of old made a bone-fire and therein burnt it." 1622: "Their holy Bibles cast into Bone-fires." The term became used for any large fires used for celebrations, although the practice and term continued to be used especially for those associated with various christian saints, particularly John and Peter. From a 1570 history: "Then doth the joyfull feast of John the Baptist take his turne, When bonfiers great with loftie flame, in every towne doe burne." From a constitution of the association of the cooks of Newcastle, 1575: "The said Felloship of Cookes shall yearelie. mainteigne and keep the Bone-fires. that is to say, one Bone-fire on the Even of the Feast of the Nativitie of St. John Baptist. and the other on the Even of the Feast of St. Peter the Apostle." These quotations start in the 15th century, because that is as far back as the term bone-fire goes, but the practice of making a bonfire in honor of Christian saints goes back to ancient times in England (and in France as well). Another practice that goes back to ancient times in Christian Europe is making pilgrimages to "qivrei tzaddiqim" and donating alms at the qever; this practice is well known from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Most Christian scholars attribute the association of the bonfires with celebrations of the feast of a saint to pagan, pre-christian practices which were later adopted by the local people to their new religion. Indeed, the Celtics made bonfires to honor some of their deities and spirits. No one would ever claim that these practices, going back into old Anglo-Saxon England, are of Jewish origin. The Arabs of EY, Syria, and Lebanon, as is well-known, honored the Christian and Jewish "saints" (everyone knows that the qever of Sh'muel haNavi has been a "holy" site to the Arabs for hundreds of years, and they built a mosque there; the site is called "anNabi Samwil"). They made pilgrimages to them, like the Christians did, and they made large celebrations to honor the festival of the saint. The Arab pilgrims who came did various things to honor the saint. They gave alms (a big mitzva in Islam), usually done by the practice of cutting the hair of their children (which they had let grow from before the pilgrimage), then weighing it and giving the same weight in gold or silver for alms. They also made large bonfires to honor the saint. The custom of making pilgrimages, giving alms, and making bonfires may have been borrowed from the christians, since a) they originally appeared among the Arabs of EY, Lebanon and Syria, AFAIK; b) they are first recorded after the time of the Crusades (although the giving of gold or silver in the weight of the hair seems to have been from the Middle East). However there is no clear proof that they did not arise from another source. But they are attested in Arabic sources going back to the 15th century, and probably before. Can the custom of bonfires on Lag Ba'omer have arisen among the Jews separately and independently from the non-Jewish sources? Theoretically it's possible. Books like Minhag Yisruel Toyre he brings all sorts of reasons from various chasidic rebbes and from the book Ta'amei haMinhogim for the origin of the bonfires on Lag Ba'omer. The problem with all the explanations is that a) they are all of recent origin, and b) they somehow ignore the fact that the custom was completely unknown to any Jews up until the time when it is recorded in EY in the 16th century. Furthermore, it was the custom there of only one group of Jews, the Musta'ribim, about whom other Jews complained that they had adopted a lot of Arab customs (the very name mean "Arabicized). From contemporary documents we learn the Muslims (and a few Jews) cut the hair of children as well as lit a bonfires on the yohrtzeit (28 of Iyyar) of non other than the aforementioned Shmu'el haNavi. However, in the 1560s the Arab authorities forbad Jews to go there. Shortly afterwards, we have the testimony of R. Chaim Vital that he was told by R. Yonatan Sagiz that a year before he started learning by the Ari, in the Ari's first year after he immigrated from his homeland of Egypt (also 1570), that "Mori v'Rabbi Z'L took his small son and all of his family there [to the celebration on RaShBY 's yohtzeit in Meron] and there he cut his hair in accordance with the custom." R. Chaim Vital is careful to note, however, that "I do not know whether at that time he was expert and knowledgable in this wondrous wisdom [Qabbolo] as he became after that." IOW, R. Chaim Vital himself is cautioning the reader that he has doubts about whether the Ari did this in accordance with his views in Qabbolo, or just because it was a popular celebration, and he might not have participated had he already been an expert in Qabbolo. Some historians believe that once the Musta'ribim were forbidden to go to the qever of Sh'muel haNavi, they transferred their celebration to Meron and the date to Lag Ba'Omer. Others claim that the custom at Meron predated 1570. But both groups agree that both of these customs, cutting the hair of the children and making bonfires, were practiced by the Arabs and the Musta 'ribim, but not by any of the Ashk'nazi and S'faradi Jews in Israel. Of great interest is that the local rabbis in Tz'fat, who had the practice of going to the all the known q'vorim of the Tano'im from the middle of Iyyar until Shavu'os and having a seder in learning there, opposed the celebrations of the Musta'ribim on Lag ba'Omer and tried to forbid it. They made little headway, and once it became known that the Ari participated one year, any opposition was swept away. We know from travelers to EY in the 18th and 19th centuries that the "hilula" at Meron on Lag Ba'Omer with bonfires and the cutting of children's hair had become an affair of the masses. A well known talmid chochom from Europe, R. Avrohom Rozanes, writes that in his visit to EY in 1867 he saw an Ashk'nazi Jew who had taken his son to the "hilula" and was giving him a haircut. R. Rozanes says that he could not restrain himself, and went to that Jew and tried to dissuade him but was unsuccessful, and that most of the Ashk'nazi and S'faradi Jews of EY participate in this "craziness," with "drinking and dancing and fires." The custom of giving the son his first haircut at that celebration, originally called "halaqa" by the Jews of EY (apparently because there was an established Arabic term but no Jewish term for the custom) was later mixed with the custom of making a celebration when a son reached 3 and began learning Torah. The two customs were combined by many, and resulted in the boy's haircut being delayed until he was 3, and not specifically on Lag ba' Omer. A chasidish rebbe, R. Yehudah Leibush Horenstein, who emigrated to EY in the middle of the 19th century writes that "this haircut, called halaqe, is done by the S'faradim in Yerushalayim at the qever of RaShB'Y during the summer, but during the winter they take the boy to the synagogue or Bet Medrash and perform the haircut with great celebration and parties, something _that is unknown to the Jews in Europe_. and at that point they start him growing his pe'ot. it is incomprehensible why this is not done outside of EY [as well]" [emphasis mine]. Indeed, the custom was adopted by shortly thereafter by chasidim in Europe to imitate the custom of the S'faradim in EY, and the custom of lighting bonfires on Lag Ba'Omer also was adopted at that time by chasidic communities in Europe. The Jews in Europe, knowing no Arabic and having no Yiddish name for the custom of the haircut, called it by a normal Yiddish word for cutting off the hair: opsheren. Both customs are less than 150 years old among Ashk'naz Jews, including chasidim. Now we scarcely can expect to find a historical document that says "we, the undersigned Jews, have decided that there is nothing wrong with copying the Muslim celebrations in honor of saints, and we will participate in them." So you're never going to find better historical evidence for Jewish borrowing of non-Jewish customs than this: that a custom that was previously unknown to any group of Jews arose among a group of Jews known to copy various Arab customs in a time and place that the custom is attested among the Arabs from independent evidence. Is there anything osur about a bonfire on Lag Ba'Omer, or waiting to give a son a haircut until he is 3 or until you go to Meron? Certainly not. As I believe R. SBA has noted, the opsheren provides an excuse for a party that is connected with the boy's beginning to learn; it could be done without the haircut, but if people feel that it is important to give a haircut as well, there is no issur. Certainly no one who lights bonfires or celebrates opsheren has any idea that the source of these customs is extremely questionable. And after 130 years most Jews forget the origin of customs anyway and just assume they are old Jewish customs.. However, those who studiously avoid eating turkey on Thanksgiving should know that the origin of the customs of the bonfire on Lag ba'Omer and halaqa/opsheren are much more suspect. Seth Mandel ---------- So I really do not understand this entire affair at Meron. To add to this see the pictures of Lag B'Omer from many years ago at http://tinyurl.com/khmhcz4 I do not see even one bonfire! YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:07:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 13:07:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 10:01:44AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown : which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. : The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire : 33rd day... : Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last : day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva... Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. Yes, many of us know that the PEC really says Lag baOmer is yom simchas Rashbi, which may or may not be his yahrzeit. "Yom shemeis" is a typo that reached later editions via a dropped ches. See http://seforim.blogspot.com/2011/05/printing-mistake-and-mysterious-origins.html But (as per previous conversations), that also doesn't rule out the possibility that the day of Rashbi's joy is his yahrzeit. But even if the Ari said it's the day he started the Zohar, finished it, left the cave, or whatever, it's still a day the Ari considered worth celebrating. And yes, many of us also know that the whole upsherin-at-the-qever thing was originally on the 43rd in/to the omer, at Nabi Samwel. (See shu"t haRadvaz 2:608.) Which makes sense -- Shemu'el was a nazir, and he lived in the BHMQ starting at age 3. The move to Meron and Lag baOmer happened when the Ottomans restricted access to the qever in the 1500s. The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) and ABD. But the version of the minhag he recorded would not pose the question -- observe the first "half" of the omer, and then a haircut a week before Shavuos isn't a problem. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:07:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 13:07:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 10:01:44AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown : which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. : The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire : 33rd day... : Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last : day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva... Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. Yes, many of us know that the PEC really says Lag baOmer is yom simchas Rashbi, which may or may not be his yahrzeit. "Yom shemeis" is a typo that reached later editions via a dropped ches. See http://seforim.blogspot.com/2011/05/printing-mistake-and-mysterious-origins.html But (as per previous conversations), that also doesn't rule out the possibility that the day of Rashbi's joy is his yahrzeit. But even if the Ari said it's the day he started the Zohar, finished it, left the cave, or whatever, it's still a day the Ari considered worth celebrating. And yes, many of us also know that the whole upsherin-at-the-qever thing was originally on the 43rd in/to the omer, at Nabi Samwel. (See shu"t haRadvaz 2:608.) Which makes sense -- Shemu'el was a nazir, and he lived in the BHMQ starting at age 3. The move to Meron and Lag baOmer happened when the Ottomans restricted access to the qever in the 1500s. The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) and ABD. But the version of the minhag he recorded would not pose the question -- observe the first "half" of the omer, and then a haircut a week before Shavuos isn't a problem. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 08:22:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 11:22:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554B8340.3090001@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 10:01 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > > > The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire 33rd day, and they wait until the 34th day to take a haircut. Does this not imply that the entire 33rd day is part of Sefirah and the restrictions hold the entire 33rd day? > > Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva. However, the micktzas starts in the morning of the 7th day, not on the night of the 7th day. Thus, even according to Ashkenazim the night of Lag B'Omer is bound by the restrictions of Sefirah. So how can they make such gatherings on the night of the 33rd day? That all applies if you regard Lag Ba'omer as simply marking the end of mourning. But as we discussed a few weeks ago, that doesn't really make sense. According to both shitos quoted by the BY there is no such thing as Lag Ba'omer -- the last day on which they died was either the 34th of the Omer or the 49th. Even according to the Tosfos as the Bach quotes it, that they only died for 33 days, Lag Ba'omer was one of the 33, and not the last one! And even if one will find a shita somewhere that they died only on the first 33 days, who makes a party on the last day of shiva? You stop active mourning, you don't go dancing! All of which points to the fact that Lag Ba'omer is *not* about the end of mourning, but a happy day in its own right, the simcha of Rashbi. (The silly discussion over whether the word is "simchas" or "shemeis" is irrelevant here. Either way it's his simcha, which he asked people to celebrate.) This simcha *overrides* the mourning of sefira, no matter which shita one follows. This way of looking at things also explains whether one should say tachanun at mincha of erev Lag Ba'omer. If it's just "the end of shiva", that starts in the morning, so one should say tachanun at the previous mincha, just as one does on erev Pesach Sheni (which also starts in the morning), erev Erev RH and erev Erev YK, and if we said tachanun in Nissan we would also say it at mincha of erev Erev Pesach, because it too starts in the morning. But once we regard Lag Ba'omer as a day of simcha in its own right, then it starts at night, and so we omit tachanun in the previous mincha. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 07:19:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 09:19:59 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] The Princess and I: Academic Kabbalists/Kabbalist Academics In-Reply-To: <20150507062523.18EF01826EC@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507062523.18EF01826EC@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554B748F.8080508@starways.net> On 5/7/2015 1:25 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > From http://tinyurl.com/km8kf2n >> The last few decades have witnessed the veritable explosion of "new >> perspectives" and horizons in the academic study of Kabbalah and >> Jewish Mysticism. From the pioneering work of the late Professor >> Gershom Scholem, and the establishment of the study of Jewish >> Mysticism as a legitimate scholarly pursuit, we witness a scene >> nowadays populated by men and women, Jews and non-Jews, who have >> challenged, (re)constructed, and expanded upon Scholem's work.[2] ... R' Adin Steinsalz once said about the Kabbalah Center type of Kabbalah that it bore the same relationship to real Kabbalah that pornography does to love. This "academic Kabbalah" bears the same relationship to real Kabbalah that an anatomy book does to love. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:32:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 13:32:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> At 01:07 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 10:01:44AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: >: I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown >: which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. > >: The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire >: 33rd day... >: Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last >: day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva... > >Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to >get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would >mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. Indeed, I think one should be. Truth be told my mother, A"H, told me that once a child is at least one year old and can say a few words, then his hair gets cut. This is what I did with my sons, and I am sure it is an old minhag. >Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the >Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning >on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in >the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke >qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to >last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. Indeed, this is where the New Religion is coming from. Years ago someone asked Rav S. Schwab, ZT"L, about certain things that certain chassidishe women do when they are pregnant and if they were valid. His forceful reply was, "My mother never knew about such things, my grandmother never knew about such things, and my great grandmother never knew about such things. These people are making up a religion!!!!!" I am not comfortable with people making up a religion, particularly since RSRH says definitively the Judaism is not a religion, to the New Religion is not Judaism by definition. >The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, >who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where >he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) >and ABD. But the version of the minhag he recorded would not pose the >question -- observe the first "half" of the omer, and then a haircut a >week before Shavuos isn't a problem. The MB points out that the minhag in Vilna was to start the restrictions of Sefirah on the first day of Rosh Chodesh Iyar and then they end in the morning of the first of the 3 days before Shavuous. I took a haircut shortly before Rosh Chodesh Iyar. There were no crowds to contend with and I had no waiting. This morning I trimmed my mustache and the hair that grows under my neck below my beard at shortly after sunrise. I will take a haircut on 3 or 4 Sivan. Again, there will be no crowds to contend with. This has worked and continues to work for me. YL PS. My wife has asked more than once, " How can they observe the aveilus restrictions of Sefirah during Pesach when it is a Yom Tov?" My reply is, "I do not know." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 13:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507175311.GC1758@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 01:32:05PM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : >Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to : >get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would : >mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. : Indeed, I think one should be. Maqor? Since when do we expect 3 yr olds to conform to minhag? ... : >Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the : >Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning : >on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in : >the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke : >qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to : >last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. : : Indeed, this is where the New Religion is coming from.... The PEC is older than RSRH. If you want to label any particular change as a "New Religion", you dwell in a glass house. ... : The MB points out that the minhag in Vilna was to start the : restrictions of Sefirah on the first day of Rosh Chodesh Iyar and : then they end in the morning of the first of the 3 days before : Shavuous. I took a haircut shortly before Rosh Chodesh Iyar. There : were no crowds to contend with and I had no waiting. And the Radbaz predates the SA, never mind the MB. : This has worked and continues to work for me... Good. What I'm objecting to is your insistnce in telling others that what works for them is "New Religion". : PS. My wife has asked more than once, " How can they observe the : aveilus restrictions of Sefirah during Pesach when it is a Yom Tov?" : My reply is, "I do not know." You can't get married on Pesach, not even ch"m either. Nor get a haircut. So you're asking about parties with live music. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:49:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 13:49:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <554BA59A.5040905@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 01:07 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, > who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where > he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) Who taught the Ari, who cut his son's hair at Meron on Lag Ba'omer. Does anyone know whether the Shita Mekubetzes, beside being the Ari's rebbe, was also related to him? I haven't seen this anywhere, but how many Ashkenazi families could there have been in Egypt at that time? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 11:41:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Herbert Basser via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 18:41:42 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah Message-ID: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> A recent post claims the Islamic "opsherin" was called "halaqah". What is the evidence for this claim? The only meaning of arabic "halaqah" I know is "learning circle". Zvi Basser -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 14:31:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 17:31:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Upsherin Message-ID: <20150507213225.D3EDA181A25@nexus.stevens.edu> Since Upsherin is done on Lag B'Omer at Meron, I think one should understand the source for this too. The following is from Shorshei Minhag Ashkenaz, Minhag Ashkenaz: Sources and Roots by Rabbi Binyamin Shlomo Hamburger, Synopsis of Volumes I-IV. YL The German custom to bring a young boy to the synagogue with a wirnpel (wrapping for t he Torah scroll) has no connection whatsoever to the practice of the chalaka (the Arabic term for Upsherin) observed by Sepharadirn and later ad opted by many Chasidirn. Th e custom of holding a special celebration marking the boy's first haircut developed among these groups. The celebration takes place at a specific age, usually three. Th e festivity is customarily held near the gravesite of a tzadik or in a synagogue. *This custom was unknown in ancient Sephardic and Ashkenazic communities.* (Emphasis added by me.) The earliest reports of the chalaka [upsherin] celebration are found in accounts written by Sepharadim early in the period of the Acharonim. Some three centuries later, we find the first indications that the custom had made its way into Chasidic circles. The most important source concerning the chalaka is the account of the celebration in which the Ari-zal is involved. The details of this story are somewhat vague, and it is unclear whether the Ari-zal made a chalaka for his son, or whether the account refers to his disciple, Rabbi Yonatan Sagish. There is also some question as to whether the Ari-zal participated in Lag Ba 'omer events in Meron after his kabalistic insights because the custom to conduct a chalaka on Lag Ba 'omer runs in opposition to the Ari-zal' s final ruling that forbade hair cutting during the orner period. Furthermore, the custom of the chalaka has given rise to some questions as to the propriety of hair cutting at a gravesite or synagogue, which might constitute an infringement upon the sanctity of the site. Some have also questioned the permissibility of haircutting on Lag Ba 'omer, during bein ha-rnetzarirn (the three weeks before Tisha B' A v) or during Chol Ha 'rno 'ed. Yet another concern was the immodest behavior that occasionally accompanied this event. Most Sephardic and Chasidic rabbis applauded, or at least defended the practices observed in their circles, though there were those who forbade the custom in this manner. Rabbi Yitzchak Zev Soloveitchik of Brisk (1889-1960) disapproved of bringing children to rabbis on their third birthday for the chalaka, claiming that this practice "has no reason or basis." He noted that there are sources indicating that one should introduce the child to matters of Torah at the age of three, but none that involve haircutting. Rabbi Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky [the "Steipler Ga'on," (1899-1985)] also opposed this practice, and would send away parents who brought their children to him for the chalaka haircut. The tendency among Ashkenazi communities to refrain from this practice stems, according to one view, from the concern that the chalaka transgresses the prohibition of imitating pagan practices. Cutting a child's hair at the age of three was a well-known custom among several nations in ancient times, and thus observing this practice may constitute an imitation of pagan ritual. Some, however, dismissed this argument, claiming that to the contrary, the chalaka perhaps began as an ancient Jewish practice which was later adopted by the gentiles. There are some older customs, originating in the times of Chazal and the Ge'onim, such as fasting on Erev Rosh Hashana and the ceremony of Kapaprot on Erev Yom Kippur which were opposed by some rabbis since they feared that their origins could be found in pagan rites. In any event, although some communities accepted this custom, Ashkenazi communities were never aware of such a practice. They did not receive this tradition from their forebears, and they found no mention of it in the writings of the Rishonim. The ancient tradition among Ashkenazi communities was to cut a boy's hair at a very young age. In fact, during the times of Chazal, parents would cut an infant's hair not long after birth, and they even permitted cutting a baby's overgrown hair on Chol Ha 'mo' ed. In the times of the Rishonim, too, boys' hair in Ashkenaz was cut already within the first several months after birth. The phenomenon of children with overgrown hair simply did not exist in Germany, and a boy with overgrown hair would have been mistaken for a girl. The custom of chalaka was never accepted in Ashkenazic countries or other regions in Western Europe, not even among the Sephardic communities in these areas. The practice earned acceptance in Eastern Europe among certain Chasidic circles, but only in later generations. Among other circles, boys' hair was cut when they began speaking, and no special affair was held to celebrate the event. .. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 14:31:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 17:31:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554BD9C6.9000803@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 01:32 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > > Indeed, this is where the New Religion is coming from. Years ago > someone asked Rav S. Schwab, ZT"L, about certain things that certain > chassidishe women do when they are pregnant and if they were valid. > His forceful reply was, "My mother never knew about such things, my > grandmother never knew about such things, and my great grandmother > never knew about such things. These people are making up a religion!!!!!" With all due respect to R Schwab's great-grandmother, there are more things in Yiddishkeit than were dreamt of in her philosophy. My great-grandmother did know about such things, and I'm sure her tzidkus and wisdom was no less than hers. And following the Ari's teachings is the very opposite of making up a religion. > I am not comfortable with people making up a religion, particularly > since RSRH says definitively the Judaism is not a religion, to the > New Religion is not Judaism by definition. You're the one assigning to it the word "religion", and then, in what can only be called an act of verbal ju-jitsu, you pull out a definition of that word which (you claim) does not fit Yiddishkeit, and declare that anything called a "religion" must not be Yiddishkeit. I might as well say that since my aunt is a secretary, a secretary is a kind of desk, and Jesus was a carpenter, therefore Jesus made my aunt! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 14:10:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 17:10:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> At 01:07 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. But doesn't "evolving" mean that there is an existing minhag, and it evolves? Here we are talking about a new minhag which no one knew about. The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was appropriate. People certainly can make up new customs whenever they like. But bonfires on Lag Ba'omer are no more or no less than parades on Yom haAtzmaut for those who celebrate it: They have nothing to do with religion. Some Jews have even invented a custom to put up a tree on Chanukkah. But do not try to tell us it then becomes a "religious minhag" and "minhag Hamokom." Everything that Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel wrote in his post is true. There were no rabbonim at the time who approved of the custom. Indeed it is true is that there were no rabbonim who approved of the custom at the time, nor at the time of the Ari and R. Chaim Vital. While they did not say it should be stopped, they gave no support either. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 15:42:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 18:42:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507224237.GA15428@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 05:10:31PM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : At 01:07 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: :> Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. : But doesn't "evolving" mean that there is an existing minhag, and it : evolves? ... The essence of mourning during the omer is not making a wedding, since nissuin, or a se'udas eirusin at the time of eirusin, is the act of simchah par exellance. Then the bit about haircuts crept in, and later, parties with music. Perhaps music as a whole, perhaps instrumental music, perhaps only parties -- machloqes acharonim. That's the minhag I'm talking about evolving. So, people found reason to poke a hole in a minhag that was otherwise growing. As I said, minhagim evolve. : The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was : appropriate. What? The Ari PARTICIPATED in it himself! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 16:39:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 19:39:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Upsherin In-Reply-To: <20150507213225.D3EDA181A25@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507213225.D3EDA181A25@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554BF7A0.10800@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 05:31 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > The earliest reports of the chalaka [upsherin] celebration are found in >accounts written by Sepharadim early in the period of the Acharonim. Indeed it is. For instance, see Gan Hamelech ch 62. http://www.otzar.org/wotzar/book.aspx?64092 This takes it back to at least the 17th century, and he refers to it as a well-known minhag that he doesn't have to explain. The Gan Hamelech is surely himself sufficient authority even if we had no other. And while he was Sefardi, he had a great influence on Ashkenazi psak. > The most important source concerning the chalaka is the account of > the celebration in which the Ari-zal is involved. The details of this > story are somewhat vague, and it is unclear whether the Ari-zal made > a chalaka for his son, or whether the account refers to his disciple, > Rabbi Yonatan Sagish. There is nothing vague about it. It's clear from the context that R Yonatan told R Chaim what the Ari had done a year before he, R Chaim, became the Ari's talmid. > Some have also questioned the permissibility of haircutting on Lag > Ba'omer, during bein ha-metzarirn or during Chol Hamo'ed. Gan Hamelech not only permits it on Chol Hamoed but even permits *delaying* it to Chol Hamoed so as to increase the simcha! And this psak is quoted lehalacha by the Baer Hetev. > The custom of /chalaka /was never accepted in /Ashkenazic /countries or > other regions in Western Europe, not even among the /Sephardic > /communities in these areas. The practice earned acceptance in Eastern > Europe among certain /Chasidic /circles, but only in later generations. This is untrue. It was already accepted in the Baal Shem Tov's time. The only time the Alter Rebbe saw the Baal Shem Tov was on his third birthday, when his parents brought him to have his hair cut. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 16:45:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 19:45:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554BF921.5070409@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 05:10 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was appropriate. On the contrary, he wrote that he personally saw the Ari take his whole family there and stay three days! > There were no rabbonim at the time who approved of the custom. The Ari was not a rov?! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 21:35:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 04:35:03 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Israeli carrots and peppers Message-ID: <20150508.003503.13248.1@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> Om Areivim, R' Yitzchok Levine posted this alert: > Shemitta: Carrots & Peppers from Israel > in Neighborhood Stores > > Please be aware that carrots (including Dorot Farms brand), > peppers, and other vegetables from Israel are consistently > being sold in the Baltimore area at produce markets in our > neighborhood, which are frequented by members of our community. > From the numerous inquiries we have received, it is apparent > that many consumers are unaware of this when shopping. > > The packages or labels state "Product of Israel." These > vegetables likely have Kedushas Shviis and require special > care. If you bought them, contact your local Orthodox rabbi > for further guidance. > > Seven Mile Market in Baltimore is monitored by Star-K and > produce sold there does not have this issue. My question is this: Why does the alert mention only the problem of Kedushas Shviis? If one is concerned about Kedushas Shviis, wouldn't he also be concerned about Sefichin, which (more than merely requiring "special care") is an issur achila? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554c3d3271e3c3d3240a3st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 21:11:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 04:11:14 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Meron live Message-ID: <20150508.001114.13248.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero wrote: > This way of looking at things also explains whether one should > say tachanun at mincha of erev Lag Ba'omer. If it's just "the > end of shiva", that starts in the morning, so one should say > tachanun at the previous mincha, just as one does on erev Pesach > Sheni (which also starts in the morning), erev Erev RH and erev > Erev YK, and if we said tachanun in Nissan we would also say it > at mincha of erev Erev Pesach, because it too starts in the > morning. But once we regard Lag Ba'omer as a day of simcha in > its own right, then it starts at night, and so we omit tachanun > in the previous mincha. I don't follow any of what RZS is saying about Lag Ba'omer, so I'll neither agree nor disagree. But my understanding of the nature of Pesach Sheni is very different from his: As it was explained to me, there's nothing special about the morning of Pesach Sheni. Pesach Sheni exists only on the afternoon of 14 Iyar and the following night. We omit Tachanun on the morning of 14 Iyar NOT because it is a holiday, but because it is the Tachanun *before* the holiday. Alternatively, one might say that the morning of 14 Iyar actually *is* Erev Pesach Sheni. Either way, the afternoon of 13 Iyar is too far removed to be significant enough to warrant skipping Tachanun. It is similar to how the *afternoon* of Erev RH and Erev YK are special enough to skip Tachanun, and this is extended even to the morning, but to say that the entirety of those days are so special that we would skip Tachanun even at the preceding Mincha -- No, that just doesn't fly. This leaves us with three days, at most, when we skip Tachanun at Shacharis, but we *do* say it at the preceding Mincha. (And many siddurim - ArtScroll, for example - explicitly list these three days as exceptions to the general rule.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554c37b79791d37b756e9st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 01:40:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 04:40:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507224237.GA15428@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507224237.GA15428@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150508084208.2D02F182131@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:42 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: > The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was >: appropriate. > >What? The Ari PARTICIPATED in it himself! From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upsherin Rabbi Chaim Vital wrote in Sha'ar Ha-Kavanot that "Isaac Luria, cut his son's hair on Lag BaOmer, according to the well-known custom." However, the age of his son is not mentioned. An obvious problem raised by Avraham Yaari, in an article in Tarbiz 22 (1951), is that many sources cite that the Arizal held one should not cut one's hair for the entire sefirah ? including Lag BaOmer, (see Shaarei Teshuva, O.C. 493, 8). YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 01:44:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 04:44:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Better Version of Upsherin Message-ID: <20150508084606.6189F180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> There were some editorial problems with what I sent out earlier about this topic from Shorshei Minhag Ashkenaz. See http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/shorshei_hair_cutting.pdf for a better version. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 21:02:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 06:02:54 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah In-Reply-To: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> References: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> Message-ID: <554C356E.2030103@zahav.net.il> On 5/7/2015 8:41 PM, Herbert Basser via Avodah wrote: > A recent post claims the Islamic "opsherin" was called "halaqah". What > is the evidence for this claim? The only meaning of arabic "halaqah" I > know is "learning circle". A (Tunisian) Arab told me that it means hair cut. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 01:54:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 04:54:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening in a Large or Small Shul Message-ID: <20150508085532.23F97182131@nexus.stevens.edu> From today's http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ 1)It is a Mitzvah to daven in a Shul that has a large amount of people, as the Pasuk (Mishlei 14:28) says "Brov Am Hadras Melech - with a large assemblage the glory of the King [Hashem] is multiplied." (See Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) 2)There are various exceptions to this rule, and certain times it is deemed Halachically superior to daven in a smaller place and forego the "Brov Am Hadras Melech". A few examples of the many such exceptions: a)Davening in a Bais HaMidrash or Yeshiva , where people learn Torah all [or a large part of the] day (even if you yourself do not learn there) is better than davening in a Shul (i.e. Bais Hakneses that is used only for Tefilah), even if there are more people in the Shul than in the Bais HaMidrash. (See Talmud Brachos 8a. See Chayei Adam Klal 17:1 and Mishna Berura Siman 90 S:K 55) b)If one is on the way to a big Shul, and is stopped by someone and asked to be the tenth man [or any part of the 10] in their Minyan (either in a shiva house, or a smaller Shul whose members cannot go to the larger Shul due to their health or age, or any similar situation) he should stay with them and not refuse based on "Brov Am Hadras Melech" (Psak of Maran Harav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv Zatzal, quoted in Sefer Tefilah K'Hilchasa Perek 2 footnote 29, who maintains that doing a Chesed is just as big a Mitzvah, if not bigger, than fulfilling "Brov Am Hadras Melech") c) If one can concentrate and daven better in a smaller Shul he should daven there, rather than in a bigger Shul where he may not daven as well. (Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) The Aruch Hashulchan (Siman 90:15) rules that if in the larger Shul there are people who talk and converse during the Tefilah (which is a terrible sin, as we have discussed many times, and will iy"H discuss again more thoroughly in the near future), it is better to daven in a small Shul where it is quiet and the proper respect for Tefilah is exhibited. (The Sefer Tefilah K'Hilchasa Perek 2 footnote 28 writes that Rav Shlomo Zalmen Auerbach Zatzal even went so far as to Pasken that if by leaving the Shul with the talking you will end up missing Krias HaTorah or having to leave davening early, one should still avoid the Shul with the talking!) d) Naturally, if by davening in the larger Shul one will miss the proper time for davening (Zman Tefilah), he may daven in an earlier Minyan or Shul even if it is significantly smaller. (See Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) ---------- I think that today there is a move away from davening in large shuls. This is certainly true here in Brooklyn where many of the larger shuls are at times struggling to maintain their congregants. Part of it has to do with the fact that most large shuls daven Ashkenaz, and this is not viewed favorably in Brooklyn. I personally prefer to daven in a minyan consisting of between 20 and forty people. It is much easier to maintain decorum in such a minyan than in a shul where 100 or more people are davening. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 05:14:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 12:14:58 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Davening in a Large or Small Shul In-Reply-To: <20150508085532.23F97182131@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150508085532.23F97182131@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <5f05607383324977a92361bd65ab804c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> From today's http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ 1)It is a Mitzvah to daven in a Shul that has a large amount of people, as the Pasuk (Mishlei 14:28) says "Brov Am Hadras Melech - with a large assemblage the glory of the King [Hashem] is multiplied." (See Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) 2)There are various exceptions to this rule, and certain times it is deemed Halachically superior to daven in a smaller place and forego the "Brov Am Hadras Melech". A few examples of the many such exceptions:....................... ================================================ I wonder if this write up is indicative of a trend seen in "The halachos of X" works, likutim which seem to have become more popular (did they exist 40 years ago?). As Rav Aharon Lichtenstein learned at Harvard, life is complex. Of course there are overarching priorities which need to be learned, but specific applications are hard to summarize in an algorithmic form (see hilchot lashon hara and tzedaka for some obvious examples). Maybe in an internet age we have no choice but to try to put everything on line but what you really need IMHO is a live mentor. KT Joel RIch THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 08:21:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 11:21:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] minhagei S'fira (was "Meron live") Message-ID: In Avodah V33n74, R'Micha replied to RDrYL: : PS. My wife has asked more than once, " How can they observe the : aveilus restrictions of Sefirah during Pesach when it is a Yom Tov?" : My reply is, "I do not know." > You can't get married on Pesach, not even ch"m either. Nor get a haircut. So you're asking about parties with live music. < If one is asking about *minhagei aveilus* during the "first days", one can also ask about the "second days" custom to observe *minhagei aveilus* whenever Tachanun is said, as the number of such days does not come close to 33 and one has to include Shabbos as well as either R'Ch'Iyyar or the *shloshes y'mei hagbala* (all days when Tachanun is _not_ said) in the number. All the best from *Michael Poppers* * Elizabeth, NJ, USA -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 11:39:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 14:39:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] minhagei S'fira (was "Meron live") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150508183940.GA11944@aishdas.org> On Fri, May 08, 2015 at 11:21:28AM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : If one is asking about *minhagei aveilus* during the "first days", one can : also ask about the "second days" custom to observe *minhagei aveilus* whenever : Tachanun is said... Which makes it a good time to remind people of my tweak of RAM's survey of 11 different shitos (12, if we include one that isn't followed) of omer mourning periods It's an interesting side-note that two opinions do not include the night of Lag baOmer. But neither end then. :-)BBii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 11:58:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 14:58:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] minhagei S'fira (was "Meron live") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <554D0756.4070105@sero.name> On 05/08/2015 11:21 AM, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: > If one is asking about /minhagei aveilus/ during the "first days", > one can also ask about the "second days" custom to observe /minhagei > aveilus/ whenever Tachanun is said, as the number of such days does > not come close to 33 and one has to include Shabbos as well as either > R'Ch'Iyyar or the /shloshes y'mei hagbala/ (all days when Tachanun is > _not_ said) in the number. Whose custom is that? This sounds like the shita of Tosfos as quoted by Mahari ibn Shuaib, which is that they died all 49 days, but we observe aveilus only on those days when we don't say *techina*, which comes to exactly 33 days (including Lag Ba'omer, which according to this shita is not a special day at all). -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 9 03:38:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Sat, 9 May 2015 20:38:40 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Upsherin Message-ID: > > R' Levin wrote: The German custom to bring a young boy to the synagogue > with a wimpel > (wrapping for the Torah scroll) has no connection whatsoever to the > practice of the chalaka [...] > This is the way KAJ recommends This the way KAJ recommends Not with the bangs but a wimpel. Joe Slater -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 9 05:12:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sat, 9 May 2015 22:12:16 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <418AFCD6-9213-453C-A268-58AFB75BB81A@balb.in> I didn't know my family Minhag until I chanced on a picture before the war with my grandfather and two of his sons, both with long hair. Using the mimetic tradition my sons and grandsons had an upsherin. It's interesting that mention was made of The Griz. As is well known followers of the Vilna Gaon (including Mori VRabbi Rav Hershel Schachter) don't go to the Beis HaChaim and neither did Rav YD Soloveitchik until in his words he felt compelled to visit his wife's Tziyun. How many know that the Griz asked some Talmidim to go to the Rashbi's grave and pray when the Griz was on his death bed? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 9 12:23:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 9 May 2015 22:23:58 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar Message-ID: The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article They show how Seder Olam is self consistent and in particular it frequently takes people in Tanach whom seem to be different and conflates them. In sefer shoftim they take everything literally that each judge was for 40 years and no gaps between them etc. They then address the difference between the secular and seder olam dates. They also point out the difficulty in the sefer Isuah from chapter 39 onwards (Deutero-Isaiah) 1) the sudden change from rebuke and sestruction to comfort (many years before the destruction) 2) Koresh is listed explicitly twice while prophecy tends to be general 3) Yeshayahu is mention 15 times in the first part but never is mentioned in the second part They conclude that the secular dates are correct (as an aside archaeologists decide on these dates based on astronomical events and carbon 14 dating of pollen seeds which are short lived) They then explain seder olam dating 1) seder olam was not written as a historical text but has a moral side 2) seder olam ignores periods of time when nothing of Jewish importance occurs In particular the Persian era until Shimon Hagadol did not live up to the expectations. Hence, the prophecy of Isaiah-II (name unknown) was simply added to an existing sefer 3) as with its practice conflates Darius I with Darius III. 4) The new Greek calendar (shtarot) was exactly 1000 years after the exodus. In order to achieve this goal parts of the Persian history had to be changed including the order of some kings, again conflating several separate Persian kings which leads to a much shortened Persian kingdom. Finally it removes 6 years from Alexander the great (ie seder olam states Alexander ruled for 6 years in Greece and 6 years in Persia) See above article for more details -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 10 16:49:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 May 2015 18:49:22 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <554FEE82.8090903@starways.net> I think this is tragic. Rather than allow the blasphemous thought that the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their minds, they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple frauds and told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern Orthodox Jews have regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic. Lisa On 5/9/2015 2:23 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a > series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar > > http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see > achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article > > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 10 17:27:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 May 2015 20:27:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <554FF779.8010200@aishdas.org> I cannot believe TABC allowed this to be published as is. /Shreklach!/ KT, YGB On 05/09/2015 03:23 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a > series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar > > http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see > achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 02:19:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 12:19:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebre calendar Message-ID: <> I don't see how you can call this "blasphemous" R. Schwab once suggested that Chazal purposely changed the facts for a good reason. While he later retracted it would be hard to call his original opinion "blasphemous" . Furthermore several current Orthodox rabbis such as R. Leibtag do accept the secular dating. In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some examples 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu As a curios it makes Eliyahu some 700 years old when he runs in front of Achav's chariot. It gives a different meaning to Achav's accusations against Eliyahu when Eliyahu actually worked together with Moshe Rabbenu. Besiades the fact that Eliyahu was from Gilad and worked in the northern kingdom it leaves the halachic question whether a cohen gadol can resign and even leave the land of Israel for various tasks. It is clear from Tanach that Eli and other were the high priest in later generations 2) Ezta = Malachi because both dealt with the problem of foreign wives 3) Nechemia = Zerubavel R. Yaakov Embden already points out that both are mentioned in the same pasuk 4) Daniel = Hatach = Sashvezer Ibn Ezra already doesnt accept this 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta This is part of the missing years controversy. Note that there are several ancient Persian inscriptions that list them as separate kings Note that Ibn Ezra identifies Achashverosh as Artachashasta 6) Conflates Kaleb ben Chetron married to Efrat with Kalen ben Yefuneh married to Miriam Ibn Ezra disagrees and also see the Gra -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 10 23:38:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 09:38:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah In-Reply-To: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> References: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> Message-ID: On Thu, May 7, 2015 at 9:41 PM, Herbert Basser via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > A recent post claims the Islamic "opsherin" was called "halaqah". What > is the evidence for this claim? The only meaning of arabic "halaqah" I know > is "learning circle". > Disclaimer: my knowledge of Arabic doesn't go much beyond being able to look up words in the dictionary, but from doing that the root h-l-q seems to mean both "shave", "form a circle" and "round off". This makes sense to me: after all, "lehakkif" in Biblical Hebrew has the same semantic range. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 03:06:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 06:06:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] He is my G-d Message-ID: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> From Today's Hakhel email bulletin. Hakhel Note: The following is excerpted from Rav Schwab on Prayer, and was related by Rav Schwab at a Shiur he gave on Tefillah: I heard a story from Rav Yosef Breuer, Shlita, which he told about his father, my Rebbe, Rav Shlomo Zalman (Solomon) Breuer. The elder Rav Breuer was a very good friend of Rav Shimon Sofer, the Rav of Cracow, a brother of the Ksav Sofer, and a son of the Chasam Sofer. Once when the two friends met, Rav Shimon Sofer asked Rav Breuer to tell him a short ?vort" from his father-in-law, Rav Shamshon R. Hirsch. Upon which, Rav Breuer told him that Rav Hirsch would point out that while Adon Olam described the unfathomable eternity and omnipotence of Hashem, it nevertheless makes a reference to Him in a very personal way--VeHu Kaili, He is my G-d. Each person in his Tefillah says: I have a personal relationship with HaKadosh Baruch HU, He is my personal G-d. Therefore, whenever a person says the word Ado--i, my Master, no matter how small he thinks he is, he is averring that he is in direct contact with Hashem. This thought is in the introduction to any individual's Iyun Tefillah, concentration on Prayer. There is nothing mystical or supernatural about it. It should be the most natural thing in the world. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 06:38:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 13:38:51 GMT Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebre calendar Message-ID: <20150511.093851.15442.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel wrote: > In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that > Chazal had a tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some > examples > 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu I rarely, if ever, come across the word "conflate", except here on Avodah. When it is used here, it seems to be pejorative, indicating that someone confused or merged two things that really ought to stay distinct. RET, is that what you mean here? Do you feel that it was wrong for Chazal to associate Pinchas and Eliyahu in the way that they did? Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5550b1061639931057a29st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 07:16:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joseph Kaplan via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 10:16:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar Message-ID: <002a01d08bf5$1a951290$4fbf37b0$@tenzerlunin.com> On 5/9/2015 2:23 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a > series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar > > http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see > achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article > There were (so far) two responses: "I think this is tragic. Rather than allow the blasphemous thought that the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their minds, they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple frauds and told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern Orthodox Jews have regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic." "I cannot believe TABC allowed this to be published as is. /Shreklach!/" When I read this when it came out I remember thinking: what a refreshing concept. Letting students use the educational tools they have been given to think on their own and then to publish the results which (to my extremely non-expert eyes) appears to be a nice bit of research and analysis - whether correct or not. Joseph -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 07:30:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 09:30:18 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebre calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> On 5/11/2015 4:19 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > < that the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their > minds, they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple > frauds and told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern > Orthodox Jews have regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic.>> > > I don't see how you can call this "blasphemous" R. Schwab once > suggested that Chazal purposely changed the facts for a good reason. > While he later retracted it would be hard to call his original opinion > "blasphemous" . Furthermore several current Orthodox rabbis such as R. > Leibtag do accept the secular dating. I didn't call it blasphemous. I referred to doubting secular scholarship as blasphemy, tongue in cheek, because that seems to be the way it's viewed by some of the secular thinking Modern Orthodox. R' Schwab once wrote a thought experiment, which was one huge hava amina. What if, he said, we were faced with absolute proof that the historiography of Chazal was wrong? And he gave an idea. He was horrified by the way in which the secular thinking Modern Orthodox misread what he wrote as an actual position, opposing the veracity of Chazal, and wrote, not a retraction, but a clarification that he had *never* espoused the position that was being attributed to him. If R' Leibtag accepts the secular dating, then my comments about the tragedy of Modern Orthodox Jews bowing to the modern idol of secular scholarship apply there as well. > In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a > tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some examples > > 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu > As a curios it makes Eliyahu some 700 years old when he runs in front > of Achav's chariot. > It gives a different meaning to Achav's accusations against Eliyahu > when Eliyahu actually worked together with Moshe Rabbenu. Wrong again. There's no historiography going on here. No chronological framework of any kind. It's Midrash. Like Moshe Rabbenu jumping 10 amot into the air when fighting Og. Like Pharaoh's daughter having a stretchy, Fantastic Four kind of arm. Midrashim are all true. They aren't all true in the literal sense. Pinchas was not literally Aharon's grandson Pinchas ben Elazar. That's quite different from throwing away the entirety of Chazal's historiography, which is internally consistent all the way through, and which *Chazal clearly believed to be literally true*. If you want to say they were wrong, that they were ignorant of the facts, go ahead and do so. But please, don't play games by imagining that they intentionally fudged the facts. > Besiades the fact that Eliyahu was from Gilad and worked in the > northern kingdom it leaves the halachic question whether a cohen gadol > can resign and even leave the land of Israel for various tasks. It is > clear from Tanach that Eli and other were the high priest in later > generations Again, he wasn't Kohen Gadol. No one holds that he was. Let me try and explain a little more about Midrash. Chazal bring Midrashim that contradict one another. For example, there's a Midrash that says Esther never slept with Achashveirosh. That Hashem sent a mal'ach that took her place. That conflicts with "Esther karka hayta", as well as with the Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son. None of this is problematic. Because the truth of Midrashim is not in their concretes. Like analogies, Midrashim are abstractions which are anchored with concretes, but are not defined by those concretes. > 2) Ezta = Malachi because both dealt with the problem of foreign wives And maybe Ezra was Malachi. And maybe he wasn't. I don't see much of a nafka mina either way. Do you? > 3) Nechemia = Zerubavel > R. Yaakov Embden already points out that both are mentioned in the > same pasuk Ditto. Not one single example you're bringing has anything to do with a massive chronological framework that Chazal clearly knew to be the way things happened. Megillat Esther took place *before* Bayit Sheni was built, and not after. Baruch ben Neriah was the talmid of Yirmiyahu and the rav of Ezra, and if you throw that away, you literally snap the chain of tradition from Sinai, rendering all of Judaism stuff and nonsense. > 4) Daniel = Hatach = Sashvezer > Ibn Ezra already doesnt accept this Again, l'mai nafka mina? > 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta > This is part of the missing years controversy. Note that there are > several ancient Persian inscriptions that list them as separate kings > Note that Ibn Ezra identifies Achashverosh as Artachashasta It's not part of the missing years anything. You need to read what Chazal say about that inside. As far as Achashveirosh being Artachshasta, Chazal say Artaxerxes was a throne name. And in fact, Greek sources say that both Artaxerxes II and III adopted it as a throne name. Furthermore, the Septuagint version of Esther refers to the king as Artaxerxes, so saying that Ahasuerus is Artaxerxes is a truism that has nothing to do with chronology. > 6) Conflates Kaleb ben Chetron married to Efrat > with Kalen ben Yefuneh married to Miriam > Ibn Ezra disagrees and also see the Gra I'll go further. R' Moshe Eisenmann's Divrei HaYamim for Artscroll (one of the few books in the Artscroll Tanakh series which I consider to be of inestimable value) has an entire section on the Kalevs. I highly recommend it. But again, Midrash is Midrash, and there's zero relevance here. Let me ask a simple question. Was Baruch ben Neriya Ezra's teacher? As Chazal say, and as Iggeret Rav Shrira Gaon and Rambam and others bring down. Or not? And if not, how do you feel about *not* having a chain of tradition going back to Sinai? Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 08:17:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 11:17:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: <20150511.093851.15442.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150511.093851.15442.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150511151732.GA15699@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 01:38:51PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I rarely, if ever, come across the word "conflate", except here on : Avodah. When it is used here, it seems to be pejorative, indicating that : someone confused or merged two things that really ought to stay distinct. I think that's my doing; I like the word. And yeah, it is merging two things that may be helpful in another context to keep distinct, but without being as pejorative as saying they confused them. If one assumes that Chazal's statements about the past are intended to be about how the past should have happened rather than caring about actual historicity, then their saying that Pinchas is Eliyahu is the identification of what Pinechas means to us with what Eliyahu means, and giving us a license to treat the two are a single symbol. With no intent to imply they were historically the same very-long-lived human being. I would also want a little more clarity from those who object to claims about missing years between levels of objection. Do you mean: 1- This isn't my derekh. 2- I cannot see this even as eilu va'eilu, it's simply false. 3- It is heretical. At least one of us used the latter language, and I don't see it. We have a definition of heresy, three definitions of three subtypes of heres, anyway (kofer, apiqreis, min). Is anyone actually intending to claim that it violates an iqar emunah to take Chazal's dating of events in the Galus Paras uMadai and early Bayis Sheini period as ahistorical, meant for some hashkafic reason? Or is it an epistomological thing? If you believe the academic community's interpretation of the evidence and will create new peshatim to fit in this case, you've bought into a system that would equally argue for kefirah? And for the two people who dismiss the Greek version of Persian history: What do you do with the astronomical state points thrown in that actually work? As RET noted last year, around Purim time, if you read Ezra and Nechemiah literally, ignoring Sefer Olam, it is more consistent with Greek historians than Chazal. I found he gave details in 1999 (v2n176) To quote: ... proofs for the secular history 1. external proofs A. The history of Herodotus (485-425 BCE) discusses in detail the lives of Cyrus, Cambyses,Darius and Xerxes and briefly Atraxerxes who was a contemporary of Herodutus. It is hard to conceive that he wrote about contedmporay figures or recent history who did not exist. Note that according to Chazal the Persians did not come into power until 350 BCE 75 years after the death of Herodutus !!! Thucydides (460-400 BCE) starts with Cyrus and goes through Darius II and the fights between Athens and Sparta and the Peloponnesian Wars. Again according to Seder Olam Rabbah there was no time for all these wars and so probably many of these Athenian and Spartan leaders did not exist. Ctesias (430-380) was a physician in the court of Artaxerxes and describes the 7 kings from Cyrus through Artaxerxes II. There are also later Greek historians who give the complete picture. Josephus also includes more kings than Chazal but not the entire Greek list. Moderchai Breuer in his history accepts the Greek dating. See Parker&Dubberstein, Babylonian Chronology for more details. Note: No modern historian claims that all facts in these histories are true. That is a far cry from stating that the entire history and not just certain details are fabrications and that all these kings never existed. B. Archaological evidence has uncovered many ancient Persian (cuneform) enscriptions (see for example The Persian Empire by J.M. Cook). For example one at the Persian palace in Persepolis says "I, Artaxerxes the son of Artaxerxes the son of Darius the son of Artaxerxes the son of Xerxes the son of Darius the son of Hystaspes" (Darius was not the son of Cambyses). Greek names have used for the original Persian names. There are other earlier enscriptions which are similar. These all conform to the Greek dating. C. There are letters from the Jewish community in Elephantine confirming the Greek position. D. I recently read of the history of the Assyrians. In their history they describe the reign of Sancherub and of a major eclipse of the sun during some battle. Astronomical calaculations confirm that the only full eclipse of the sun in that region occurred exactly during the dates of Sancherub according to the Greek chronology. 2. Internal Proofs A. Ezra 45,7 describes Koresh, Daryavesh, Achasverosh, Artachasta. These exactly parallel the Greek chronology with Achasversh=Xerxes. If one looks at the Persian writing rather than the Greek names then Xerxes is called khshayarsha which is close to Achashverosh (note Cambyses is left out probably because nothing of importance to Ezra occured during that reign). Note that Daat Mikrah on Ezra 4 assumes the secular dates. B. Nehemia 12:10 lists 6 High Priests, son after son, between Yehosua and Yadua. This is hard to explain if the whole period was on 52 years. It is even worse if one assumes that Shimon haTzaddik was the high Priest at the time of Alexander as that adds at least one more high Priest in the 52 years According to Ben Sira Shimon was the son of Johanan which would make of total of at least 8 high priests in 52 years all presumably sons of the previous one. C. Comparing Divrei Hayaim I: 3:19-24 with Ezra 8:2 and Nehemia 3:29 it seems that Ezra and Nehemis lived many years after Zerubbavel. Note: Daniel 11:2 seems more in line with chronology of Chazal. Second Note: According to Seder Olam Purim occured before the rebuilding of the second Temple while according to the secular chronology Achashverosh was the son of Darius and so the Temple was already in existence. According to Chazal, Daniel, Zerubavel, Ezra, Nehemia, Mordecai, Hagai, Zerchahiah and Malachi and even Shimon haTzaddik were basically contemporaries or within 1 to 2 generations of each other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 37th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Yesod: When does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 require one to be strict with another? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 06:52:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 09:52:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun on Pesach Sheni (was Meron Live) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150511135043.8781C182131@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:31 AM 5/11/2015, R. Akiva Miller wrote: >As it was explained to me, there's nothing special about the morning >of Pesach Sheni. Pesach Sheni exists only on the afternoon of 14 >Iyar and the following night. We omit Tachanun on the morning of 14 >Iyar NOT because it is a holiday, but because it is the Tachanun >*before* the holiday. Alternatively, one might say that the morning >of 14 Iyar actually *is* Erev Pesach Sheni. Either way, the >afternoon of 13 Iyar is too far removed to be significant enough to >warrant skipping Tachanun. From http://tinyurl.com/ln7le2m Some say Tachanun on Pesach Sheni (14 Iyar); some do not; some do not say Tachanun on 14 & 15 Iyar. What are the sources for these customs? Those who do say Tachanun probably do so because 14 Iyar is not listed as a day where Tachanun was customarily omitted by the Tur, anyone quoted in the Beit Yosef or Bach, by the Shulchan Aruch and its Mapah, the Levush, the Eliya Rabba, the Taz, the Magen Avraham, the Beiur haGra, the Chayei Adam, the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, the Mishna Berura and others. The Aruch haShulchan notes the custom of omitting Tachanun as foreign to Ashkenaz and deems it a 'wonder' (Pelah ). And from http://www.dinonline.org/2010/04/27/tachanun-on-erev-pesach-sheni/ Do we say Tachanun at minchah on Erev Pesach Sheni? Answer Yes [Shulchan Aruch Harav, Piskei Hassidur, end of Hilchos Krias Shema uTefilloh] YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 07:00:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 10:00:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening in a Large or Small Shul In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150511135900.11012181E6C@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:31 AM 5/11/2015, R. Joel Rich wrote: >I wonder if this write up is indicative of a trend seen in "The >halachos of X" works, likutim which seem to have become more popular >(did they exist 40 years ago?). As Rav Aharon Lichtenstein learned >at Harvard, life is complex. Of course there are overarching >priorities which need to be learned, but specific applications are >hard to summarize in an algorithmic form (see hilchot lashon hara >and tzedaka for some obvious examples). Maybe in an internet age we >have no choice but to try to put everything on line but what you >really need IMHO is a live mentor. Did R. Aharon Lichtenstein really not know that life is complex before he went to Harvard? I am very sure that a man as intelligent as he was knew that life was complex long before he went to Harvard. I never went to Harvard, but I knew by 12 or 13 years old that life in indeed complex. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 09:45:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 12:45:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] He is my G-d In-Reply-To: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150511164501.GA29539@aishdas.org> *On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 06:06:53AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : From Today's Hakhel email bulletin. : :> Hakhel Note: The following is excerpted from Rav Schwab on Prayer, :> and was related by Rav Schwab at a Shiur he gave on Tefillah... We need a source, and such a well documented lineage for the source, to point out what the words say? Does no one try translating a poem they've recited since childhood (and that's true even for many BTs)? "Adon Olam" through "velo ha'oz vehamisrah", the first 2/3 or so, talks about how transcendent HQBH is. Then the poet (usually attributed to Ibn Geveirol, 11th cent CE) abruptly switches to "VeHu Keili ... Hashem li velo ira" -- that despite that transcendence, I am still capable of having a personal relationship with Him. Li nir'eh this is the key to understanding sheim havayah: 1- The tetragrammaton is a contraction of "Yihyeh, Hoveh, veHayah -- Will Be, Is and Was", referring to Hashem being timeless and beyond the created. An el, when used in the secular sense, is a legislative ruler, so that Elokeinu, is a declaration that He is our Lawgiver -- the Author of both moral law and physical law. Havayah denotes connotes a vision of Deity that is very Other, the philosopher's G-d; Elokus is One who relates to man. 2- The very remoteness of the name Havayah also implies Divine Mercy. Which is how Chazal describe its usage in chumash. This is not intuitive, however the need to create law comes from a person's limited ability to deal with many individual cases. A teacher with few students is effective, one with more students, less so. To manage a country, we need laws and policies, since we do not have infinite time and attention to cover every decision on a case-by-case basis. Therefore, it is only because Hashem is Infinite that Divine Mercy is possible. Therefore, this expression can be seen as a declaration of the unity of G-d, despite the different appearances of Mercy and Strict Justice. We can each say "veHu Keili" *because* "velo ha'oz vehamisrah". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 37th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Yesod: When does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 require one to be strict with another? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 09:06:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 19:06:59 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] He is my G-d In-Reply-To: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 1:06 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > From Today's Hakhel email bulletin. > > Hakhel Note: The following is excerpted from *Rav Schwab on Prayer*, and > was related by Rav Schwab at a Shiur he gave on Tefillah: > ... > *whenever a person says the word Ado--i, my Master, no matter how small he > thinks he is, he is averring that he is in direct contact with Hashem*. > This thought is in the introduction to any individual's Iyun Tefillah, > concentration on Prayer. There is nothing mystical or supernatural about > it. It should be the most natural thing in the world. > I understand that "Rav Schwab on Prayer" was edited from recordings of RSS' shiurim, and I suspect that there is some misunderstanding here. If this is not mystical and supernatural, what is? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 11:12:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Herbert Basser via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 18:12:16 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah Message-ID: <1431367937499.87948@queensu.ca> Friendly amendment: When all else fails consult a dictionary-- where I found the root h-l-q both in hebrew and in arabic means "to make smooth" (no surprises here) and (surprise) a note after that indicating arabic h-l-q also applies to making the chin and the head smooth (hairless), i.e. "shaving".-- Not from the idea of rounding but from the idea of smoothing. Like in bereshit (27:11) esav was hairy and yaakov halaq. Zvi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 12:33:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 15:33:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150511193132.F24041829B7@nexus.stevens.edu> At 02:57 PM 5/11/2015, R. Eli Turkel wrote: ><the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their minds, >they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple frauds and >told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern Orthodox Jews have >regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic.>> > >I don't see how you can call this "blasphemous" R. Schwab once suggested >that Chazal purposely changed the facts for a good reason. While he later >retracted it would be hard to call his original opinion "blasphemous" . >Furthermore several current Orthodox rabbis such as R. Leibtag do accept >the secular dating. > >In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a >tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. The most definitive study on this topic is the recent book (2014) The Challenge of Jewish History: The Bible, The Greeks & The Missing 168 Years by Rabbi Alexander Hool From http://tinyurl.com/p42uvvj There is a well-known conundrum concerning Jewish history: The conventional chronology of the Western world - and academia - is in direct conflict with traditional Jewish sources over the history of ... history. Incredibly, there is a gap of roughly 200 years: For instance, the Talmud says the Second Temple stood for roughly 400 years, while mainstream historians today conclude that it stood for almost 600 years. This conflict has major implications on what occurred to who, and when. It also seems to question the accuracy of the entire Jewish tradition as accepted dating methods seem to contradict core parts of the traditional Jewish narrative. In presenting fresh and startling astronomical, mathematical and archaeological evidence, Rabbi Alexander Hool has charted new ground in his quest to find the solution to this ancient problem. The Challenge of Jewish History is revolutionary: it questions all assumptions, dispels unfounded myths, and transports us back in time over 2,500 years. With a subject of great significance and fascination to all those interested in history, and a wealth of scholarship and sources to impress academics, this intriguing book gives us a new perspective on .... This is a highly researched book based on Jewish and non-Jewish sources. the author concludes that there are no missing years and seems to prove his conclusion. I suggest that anyone who is really interested in this topic purchase this book. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 13:10:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Herbert Basser via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 20:10:00 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] chronology Message-ID: <1431375000749.45056@queensu.ca> [Transliteration mine. -micha] Seder Olam: Mahadurah Mada'it Peirush uMavo me'et Chaim Milikovsky's Makhor Yitzchaq ben Zvi shenei chalaqim, 326+711 amudim See Chaim Milikovsky's edition of Seder Olam for a very detailed explanation of all these issues in chazal's chronology and a critical edition of the readings of all extant manuscripts. The issues of chazal's chronologies were first highlighted at length by Azariah de Rossi's Meor Eynayim and should be settled by Milikowski's volume which took about 35 years to research. Chazal were great men but not modern historians, doctors, scientists, or nevi'im -- and certainly not liars. Zvi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 14:46:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 14:46:24 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] explanation Message-ID: the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not PC by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation for some shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a heterodox clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read those passages] . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other than the chok aspect] that the RBSO was looking from the perspective of the kahal and their kovod, and how they would react or be distracted by a baal mum. can someone supply a better take ? thanks -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 18:12:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 21:12:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150429.073718.25006.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150429.073718.25006.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150512011220.GA19224@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 11:37:18AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : Regardless of how the Bas Kol might be interpreted, is there any way : to understand "Nitzchuni banai!" other than Hashem personally siding : with one of the litigants, and losing? I don't see the closing of the story adding any problems the nissim themselves didn't. If you think they were about Hashem backing one side, then "nitzchui banai" is about that sice being defeated. If not, then it's whatever over reason He had for presenting misleading evidence that was defeated. Leshitas those who don't take eilu va'eilu literally and intead use a more classical logic with a law of contradition, the whole story is about HQBH choosing the process as a whole over the correctness of this one particular ruling. HQBH rejoicing that the chakhamim maintained the kelalei pesaq as they should rather than pay attention to His interferance. As the Maharitz Chayes understands it, by keeping the process viable, they keep the Torah eternal, capable of speaking to new circumstances as the world changes. "Nitzchuni banai -- My children have made Me eternal!" Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 37th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Yesod: When does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 require one to be strict with another? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 17:57:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 20:57:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55514FDD.4000100@sero.name> On 05/11/2015 05:46 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not > PC by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation > for some shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a > heterodox clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read > those passages] . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other > than the chok aspect] that the RBSO was looking from the perspective > of the kahal and their kovod, and how they would react or be > distracted by a baal mum. > > can someone supply a better take ? What's the difficulty? Hakriveihu no lefechosecho. The dignity of a king, and especially of The King, demands that all who serve Him be perfect in all respects. People with physical imperfections may be wonderful in many ways, but they are just that, imperfect. The current political correctness that refuses to acknowledge this is literally insane. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 15:31:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 23:31:27 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 12:19:57 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah > In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a > tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some examples > 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu ... > Besiades the fact that Eliyahu was from Gilad and worked in the northern > kingdom it leaves the halachic question whether a cohen gadol can resign > and even leave the land of Israel for various tasks. It is clear from > Tanach that Eli and other were the high priest in later generations Re Pinchos = Eliyohu The Ari says clearly [through the pen of R. Chaim Vital] in Shaar HaGilgulim that this refers to a gilgul neshomoh, not that he was literally the same person in body as well. DR From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 23:21:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 09:21:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar Message-ID: R' YGB writes: "I cannot believe TABC allowed this to be published as is. /Shreklach!/" Should we just bury our heads in the sand and not address these kinds of issues? Its very hard to hide information today, what happens when these kids get to college and find about the missing 165 years. What are they going to think? The fact is that Rabbi S. Schwab found this discrepancy a ?truly vexing problem? and wrote that the historical chronological dating: "?can hardly be doubted for they appear to be the result of painstaking research by hundreds of scholars and are borne out by profound erudition and by ever increasing authoritative evidence ... we are compelled to admit that the Bayis Sheni must have existed for no less than 586 years.? (Hakira A Y2K Solution to the Chronology Problem). If we don't address these kinds of questions (torah and science, the documentary hypothesis, etc.) then the implication that will be drawn by many people is that we don't have answers and we know what happens then. The Seforim blog (http://seforim.blogspot.com/2015/01/blog-post.html) not long ago reviewed a Sefer by R' Amnon Bazak, Ad Hayom Hazeh, which deals with many of the the issues that academia brings up related to Tanach. Are his answers compelling? Many times not. But at least he deals with the issues. A commentator there made a very important point, for those who have been exposed to these questions, we need seforim like this that at least attempt to deal with the issues raised and not simply bury our heads in the sand. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 01:36:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 11:36:40 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> References: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> Message-ID: > 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta <> Do these Greek sources explain how Koresh and Daryavush are the same person? Besides you use the parts of the Greek sources that you like and reject those that dont fit your thesis Now you rely on the Septuagint? Almost everyone else identifies Achashverosh with Xerxes, Besides the are several inscriptions in ancient Persian that give a detailed list of kings eg Artaxerxes the great king, king of kings king of peoples king on this earth son od Darius the king Darius son of Artaxerxes the king, Xerxes son of Darius the king Darius son of Hystapes the Archaemend proclaims .. As an aside modern chronology of Eygpt has been confirmed by recent carbon 14 dating. Dates of Sishak and other Assyrina and Babylonian kings have been confirmed by their writings combined with various astronomical events mentioned in their writings. <> That's your opinion. In fact many achronim take these conflating of names very seriously. While you claim Eliyahu wasn't a cohen gadol there is in fact a halachic literature whether he was or not and whether a cohen gadol can resign. For example see hebrewbooks Magen Tzvi siman 36 page 388 where he concludes that a Cohen Gadol (annointed by oil) who resigns still has all the laws of a cohen gadol You wrote "Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son " . However Darius's own version (Behustan) states that he was not the son of the previous king (see also above inscription on a wall) -------------------------- separately Marty Blake mentioned the sefer of R Amnon Bazak. The shiurim are also available in English http://etzion.org.il/en/topics/fundamental-issues-study-tanakh As Marty mentioned he discusses fundamental issues as are all pesukim in the Torah from Moshe Rabbenu, archaeology, accuracy of the text, Bible criticism, peshat and drash, sins of Biblical figures and many other controversial topics. I am sure that many of his solutions are also controversial. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 19:20:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 02:20:37 GMT Subject: [Avodah] explanation Message-ID: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero wrote: <<< The dignity of a king, and especially of The King, demands that all who serve Him be perfect in all respects. People with physical imperfections may be wonderful in many ways, but they are just that, imperfect. >>> "... in all respects." Really? Where will you find such a person? No, that's an impossible task. For practicality's sake, He cannot and does not demand that all who serve Him be perfect in ALL respects. So instead, there is a set of criteria, and a set of shiurim by which to determine if one is *adequately* perfect. I can't imagine that anyone would disagree with what I wrote thus far. But then we'll go the next step, and study what sorts of things are on that list of criteria. For example, if one is a Mechalel Shabbos, or a murderer, he is disqualified from Birkas Kohanim, so I'd bet that he's disqualified from the avodah too. But those aren't the sort of mumim that the previous poster's Shabbos guests were asking about. They were asking about physical abnormalities. I hope it is okay if I rephrase their question to something like this: It is reasonable for The King to insist on a certain degree of moral perfection, but why is physical perfection relevant? Or to phrase it more bluntly, the kohanim should not be judged by the shape of their nose, but by the content of their character. (Of course, we are not disputing the halacha. The question is WHY the Torah considers physical abnormalities to be disqualifications.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/555163bfd843b63bf2454st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 22:43:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 01:43:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah Message-ID: R? Zvi Basser points out ? H-L-Q was the haircut celebrated Lag B?Omer. Yes! Perhaps Chalak evokes Yaakov Avinu, aka Ish Chalak. An older version of Ibn Ezra's famous Tzama Nafshi has alternate ending stanzas. H?alo Chelk?cha Meirosh ? Addressing Hashem directly Chalak ? that is Yaakov Avinu the weak brother ? and his endless generations of martyrs Damo Darosh ? avenge and right the wrongs Shfoch HHamas Af al Rosh Hasa-ir Hachai ? let your anger pour over its proper target - . Ibn Ezra means that Hashem can grant Dveikus, Nevuah or Ruach Hakodesh. The Ibn Ezra 's philosophical approach ? said that the Nefesh ? as a Spiritual Heavenly entity ? can encounter the Ultimate Hashem ? directly. The alternate ? higher level of Hashkafa ? Tzama Nafshi has a verse ? now found in some better editions ? After dealing with Hagar rebelling against Sara (Shifha no-emmes) H?alo Chelk?cha Meirosh ? Chalak ? that is Yaakov ? and his endless generations of martyrs Damo Darosh ? avenge and right the wrongs Shfoch HHamas Af al Rosh Hasa-ir Hachai ? let your anger pour over its proper target - . -- Two other points ? the first verse in the alternat version of Tzama Nafshi: (See Kol Kisvei RAIE) Eil Chayy Bera-ani ? To my mind this means ? the always watching and involved One watching over us. Compare ? Chai Anochi LeOlam Im Shanosi Brak Charbi ? in Parshas Haazinu ? anger to avenge. Perhaps in Inquisitorial times ? Eil Echad Bera-ani was more relevant. Also fascinating ? The Ayin verse substitutes ? Al Kol Chasadecha ? Techadeish Eidecha!! References Iyov 10:17, where Ibn ezra refers to leprous blemishes. Posei-ach es Yadecha umasbia lechol chai ? directly allow Life, Deveikus and attachment to His Essence ? not the simple meaning of providing food . Earlier Ibn Ezra had said - Ki lo yir-ani ha-adam vachayy - no man can see Hashem and Chai ? no complete experience of Hashem. His Creation is Ne-elama hidden in its wisdom. Parshas Tazria has many multiple references to live healthy skin ? Basar Hachayy - as opposed to leprous skin. I would believe there are multiple references to Tazria Metzora. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 03:51:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 06:51:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150512105130.GC3499@aishdas.org> Lakol zeman va'eis... There is a time to force people to change their reflect reactions, and a time when the focus should be elsewhere. There are two kinds of mummim WRT kehunah (see Bechoros 43b): 1- mar'is ayin -- one whose appearance is repulsive to the people 2- eino shaveh bezar'o shel Aharon -- someone who is unique in appearance to the people (see Rambam, Bi'as haMiqdash 6:6) A kohein in the mar'is ayin category would pasl the avodah bedi'eved, one who is eino shaveh would violate an asei, but the avodah is kasher. Notice that both are defined by their impact on the observer. Presumably the point is that attention should be on avodah, not thoughts about the kohein performing it, or negative judgments of who is fit for service. But notice this is only for the Avodah.... a kohein with a baal mum was still expected to show up with his mishmar and do other necessary jobs. I am not even sure he is pasul from lighting the menorah. After all, we learn these mumim from the animals for qorbanos; it may apply to qorbanos in particular. So to me, the question is why isn't mid-qorban a good time to acclimate Kelal Yisrael away from such visceral reactions. But since I cannot get my head into the mindset of someone bringing a qorban, I leave the question tabled until I have the opportunity to learn what a qorban is like firsthand, bb"a. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 38th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Yesod: How does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 promote harmony in life and relationships? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 09:24:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 12:24:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: <20150512105130.GC3499@aishdas.org> References: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> <20150512105130.GC3499@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150512162421.GA13065@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 6:51am EDT, I wrote: : There is a time to force people to change their reflect reactions, and a : time when the focus should be elsewhere. ... To add, there are TWO reactions that would distract from the purpose of the qorban: Both the person who is turned off by how Hashem made this particular kohein (either through birth, disease, or allowing him to suffer an acctident), and the person who would then turn his qorban into a bein adam lachaveiro rather than a qorban. The one who would be thinking about how touching it was the such a person overcame disability to help them bring it. Rather than simply thinking about G-d. Even according to R' Chaim Volozhiner or R' Shimon Shkop, who see bein adam lachaveiro as the ultimate purpose of life, and thus presumably bein adam laMaqom as a derived value, there is a time to care for the goose, rather than everything being about collecting the golden eggs. In fact, the farmer is likely to spend nearly al of his time into caring for the goose rather than the ultimate payoff. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 38th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Yesod: How does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 promote harmony in life and relationships? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 06:17:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 08:17:09 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: References: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> Message-ID: <5551FD55.5090900@starways.net> On 5/12/2015 3:36 AM, Eli Turkel wrote: > 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta > < was a throne name. And in fact, Greek sources say that both > Artaxerxes II and III adopted it as a throne name. Furthermore, the > Septuagint version of Esther refers to the king as Artaxerxes, so > saying that Ahasuerus is Artaxerxes is a truism that has nothing to do > with chronology >> > Do these Greek sources explain how Koresh and Daryavush are the same > person? Fortunately, they don't have to, since that's just Midrash and has no nafka mina l'maaseh. > Besides you use the parts of the Greek sources that you like and > reject those that dont fit your thesis Of course I do. The Greek sources aren't what we would call "history" today. Herodotus collected folklore and picked the versions he liked to make a more entertaining story. He says himself that he heard 4 different and conflicting stories about Cyrus's backstory, and chose the one he liked best. He didn't even preserve the other three so that we could make our own decisions. He made his living in Greece by entertaining his patron(s) with exotic stories from exotic lands. > Now you rely on the Septuagint? Almost everyone else identifies > Achashverosh with Xerxes, Not so. Everyone recognizes that the *name* Achashveirosh is the same as the *name* Xerxes. Or rather, that both names are transliterations of the original Persian Khshayarsha. To say that "almost everyone else identifies Achashverosh with Xerxes" indicates that you aren't particularly well versed in the subject. I mean, at the very least, read the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahasuerus which notes which sources have identified him as which kings. > Besides the are several inscriptions in ancient Persian that give a > detailed list of kings eg > Artaxerxes the great king, king of kings king of peoples king on this > earth son od Darius the king Darius son of Artaxerxes the king, Xerxes > son of Darius the king Darius son of Hystapes the Archaemend proclaims .. Have you read the Behistun Inscription? Darius son of Hystaspes had it inscribed. In it, he talks about Babylonian kings who weren't actually Babylonian kings. At least not by our standards. They were pretenders, since Babylon had fallen to the Medes and Persians. But they gave themselves royal titles and claimed descent from Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus and the rest. From their point of view, they *were* kings of Babylon. From the Persian point of view, they were pretenders. Similarly, what do you think happened to Persia when Alexander conquered it? From one day to the next, Persia vaporized? Persia covered a huge area. Professor Levine posted about Rabbi Alexander Hool's book "The Challenge of Jewish History". I don't agree with all of his conclusions, and I'm embarrassingly late completing a review of the book, but he posits the Persian line continuing even after Alexander whupped Darius at Gaugamela. And in fact, the Parthian Empire, which started only about 70-80 years after the Alexandrian conquest, claimed descent from the Achaemenids of the Persian Empire. As did the later Sassanids. Names like Ardashir are just Late Persian versions of the Old Persian Artaxerxes. That's completely aside from the fact that we *know* there were forgeries perpetrated in ancient times for the purpose of establishing royal descent. Check out Roland Kent's article "The Present Status of Old Persian Studies" in /Journal of the American Oriental Society, /1936, vol. 56, p. 215ff. (http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/594668?uid=3739656&uid=2134&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21106376285721). A couple of inscriptions that are nothing but royal titles with no actual content to them is kind of flimsy evidence. Certainly not something strong enough to trash Chazal's entire picture of such an important period in our history. > As an aside modern chronology of Eygpt has been confirmed by recent > carbon 14 dating. Source. Because you may not be aware of this, but when you bring items in for carbon dating, you have to tell them -- up front -- what the rough date is that you think they're from. So that they can throw away any results that skew too far from that as "contaminated". The rest are subject to a fudge factor (sorry: correction factor) to help make them fit. But I'd like to see the source you have for carbon dating of modern Egyptian chronology. > Dates of Sishak and other Assyrina and Babylonian kings have been > confirmed by their writings combined with various astronomical events > mentioned in their writings. Assuming Sosenk = Shishak, which is iffy, considering that Sosenk only claims to have campaigned in the north of Israel, which would be odd for Shishak, whose son-in-law Yeravam was ruling there. The rest of what you're talking about is pure confirmation bias. They have a model and they shoehorn any evidence they find into that model, even if they have to kind of mush it in there. > < and explain a little more about Midrash. Chazal bring Midrashim that > contradict one another. For example, there's a Midrash that says > Esther never slept with Achashveirosh. That Hashem sent a mal'ach that > took her place. That conflicts with "Esther karka hayta", as well as > with the Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son. None of > this is problematic. Because the truth of Midrashim is not in their > concretes. Like analogies, Midrashim are abstractions which are > anchored with concretes, but are not defined by those concretes.>> > That's your opinion. In fact many achronim take these conflating of > names very seriously. While you claim Eliyahu wasn't a cohen gadol > there is in fact a halachic literature whether he was or not and > whether a cohen gadol can resign. > For example see hebrewbooks Magen Tzvi siman 36 page 388 where he > concludes that a Cohen Gadol (annointed by oil) who resigns still has > all the laws of a cohen gadol Midrash. And if it were something more solid than that, you'd have more than just some achronim saying so. > You wrote "Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son " . > However Darius's own version (Behustan) states that he was not the son > of the previous king (see also above inscription on a wall) So what? I'm confused. I'm saying that Midrash isn't necessarily the literal fact, and you pick out a phrase from what I wrote and point out that it isn't the literal fact? It seems like you're trying to make a point, but I'm not seeing what it is. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 10:18:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 13:18:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I commend you for having such guests at your table! > the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not PC by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation for some shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a heterodox clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read those passages] . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other than the chok aspect] that the RBSO was looking from the perspective of the kahal and their kovod, and how they would react or be distracted by a baal mum. can someone supply a better take ? This is, indeed, a difficult passage. R Jonathan Sacks has a good take on it -- which is generally along the lines of what you suggested, but a slightly different (and more big-picture) take, and, of course articulated extremely well. An excerpt: > Kugel also writes, "Most people, when they see someone ravaged by chemotherapy, just tend to keep their distance." He quotes Psalm 38:12, "My friends and companions stand back at the sight of my affliction; even those closest to me keep their distance." Although the physical reactions to chemotherapy are quite different from a skin disease or a bodily abnormality, they tend to generate the same feeling in others, part of which has to do with the thought "This could happen to me." They remind us of the "thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to." > > This is the logic - if logic is the right word - of Tumah. It has nothing to do with rationality and everything to do with emotion (Recall Pascal's remark that "the heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing"). Tumah does not mean defilement. It means that which distracts from eternity and infinity by making us forcibly aware of mortality, of the fact that we are physical beings in a physical world. If the above interests you at all, I encourage you to read the whole thing: http://www.aish.com/tp/i/sacks/149811775.html [1] -- Sholom Links: ------ [1] http://www.aish.com/tp/i/sacks/149811775.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 09:51:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Dov Weinstock via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 12:51:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Explanation Message-ID: On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 12:27 PM, via Avodah wrote: > the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not PC > by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation for some > shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a heterodox > clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read those passages] > . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other than the chok aspect] > that the RBSO was looking from the perspective of the kahal and their > kovod, and how they would react or be distracted by a baal mum. > > can someone supply a better take ? > May I suggest the following: http://rabbidovlinzer.blogspot.com/2014_04_27_archive.html Dov Weinstock -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 03:09:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 06:09:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: <20150513100956.GA14377@aishdas.org> Among the arguments that came up in the discussion of the Kosher Switch was that it's zilzul Shabbos. The thought hit me, though... Refraining from operating electrical devices has only been a potential issue for 125 years or so. And except for Yekkes, most of our ancestors come from places where it has been less than a century since electricity became part of our lives. So it's very hard to say that "not using electricity" is a defining feature of the Shabbos experience. Contrast this to hotza'ah, including haavarah, which take up what seems like 1/3 of chazal's discussion of issur melakhah (rough estimate from Berakhos and Eruvin in mishna, Tosefta, Y-mi and Bavli). When community eruvin got started, wasn't there a much easier argument of zilzul? Why wasn't it made? Indeed we use the general kelal of being meiqil WRT eiruvin to quite an extent to build one. And what does the fact that a community eruv is NOT zilzul Shabbos say about the nature of zilzul Shabbos and its applicability to nidon didan? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 12:26:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 15:26:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 06:42:58AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : He is now starting a series on religious autonomy. In particular he holds : that one goes to a rabbi for a psak only if he is in doubt. If one has : seriously learned the halachaot and is convinced of the "truth" then he : should follow his own psak and there is no need to go to a "higher : authority". Interesting. Does "seriously learned the halakhos" translate to higi'ah lehora'ah, or something less? RHS requires a certainly level of general knowledge. See Sanhedrin 5a-b. But it also fits RHS's hashkafah that halakhah is an inseperable whole. And so Rebbe doesn't just tell us that night Shema can be said at sundown, he ties it to the law of tevul yom. And RHS similarly advises his talmidim to look to gedolim from their own camp because one with whom they disagree hashkafically is likely to see even apparenty unrelated halakhos differently. Listen to (RAM transcripted other snippets from this talk for one of our many discussions of da'as Torah at .) For that matter, 5b talks about the need to get a heter hora'ah even if one knows enough to pasqen. But then, the gemara is discussing deciding for others, not only oneself. OTOH, pasqening for oneself has a major problem that one doesn't face when answering others' questions -- vested interest vs objectivity. Listen to R Jonathan Ziring's shiur on the topic at . In particular, his very first source (see link to mar'eh meqomos sheet) Nissah 20b. Yalta, "Rebbetzin Nachman", asks her mar'os questions of Rabbah bar bar Chanah and Rabbi Yitzchaq bereih deR' Yehudah, not her husband. Similarly mishnah Nega'im 2:5 saying you can't pasen nega'im even of relatives, Bekhoros 31a about judging one's own bekhoros. So, I would think that not being in doubt is too easily a delusion. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 12:54:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 15:54:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes In-Reply-To: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150513195451.GA16146@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 01:18:22AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Saul Newman asked: :> i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at :> hadchak /bedieved : ... : But I think that the real answer to your question might be: "If the people : in shul can't hear the rabbi or the chazan, that IS a shaas hadchak." Both letzorekh mitzvah and tzarkhei tzibbur are usually classified with she'as hadechaq and hefsed meruba. The two combined is why shuls have such wide lattitude with amira le'akum. (And perhaps either alone? I dunno.) So if a properly designed PA system is a shevus or other derabannan, why not permit this too? BTW, R/Dr Yisrael Rozen of Machon Zomet makes a point of noting that the issues seem to be the same whether the PA system is electrical or based on air pressure. See Microphones and Amplifiers on Shabbat Rabbi Yisrael Rozen C. Microphones Operating on Air Pressure 1. System Description Recently, the idea of a microphone which operates on air pressure, rather than electricity, has been proposed. A company in the United States is in the process of developing this "air-mike," although to the best of my knowledge, the project is still in the experimental stage. The device consists of a container of compressed air[12] and a system of pipes in which the compressed air flows. After one speaks into a horn-like input, his voice is carried on the stream of compressed air in the pipes. Acoustic adjustment (which apparently lies at the heart of the idea) then causes the voice waves to be amplified... 2. Comparison to an Electronic Microphone Several rabbis have permitted the use of air microphones on Shabbat, viewing it as an appropriate means of sound amplification for a synagogue. I question the distinction between an air microphone and a regular microphone - if we permit one, we must permit the other... Let me explain. We have shown that, given the current technology, the main problems with using a microphone on Shabbat have nothing to do with the fact that it runs on electricity. The problems concern the decree of klei shir, the fear that one will repair it, hashma'at kol like a water mill, avsha milta, denigration of Shabbat, and the suspicion of onlookers. Regarding all but the last of these, I see no difference between an air microphone and a regular microphone. In my opinion, an air microphone is a kli shir exactly like a shofar or trumpet; it creates a loud noise like a water mill; there exists the possibility that one will try to adjust it etc.. If you wish to claim that it is not a kli shir because it transmits speech; that we should not innovate a decree of "lest one repair it;" that it does not resemble a water mill because everyone knows that there is no Shabbat violation involved - then the same considerations should apply to a regular microphone as well. Only regarding the suspicion of onlookers might there be a difference between the two types of microphones; with an electric microphone, onlookers may think that an electric circuit was created on Shabbat. But we have already explained that even if one would turn on existing equipment on Shabbat, he would violate only a rabbinic prohibition, and we are not concerned with creating suspicion regarding rabbinic prohibitions. We also noted above that "everyone knows" that the equipment was turned on either before Shabbat or by means of a timer, and thus resembles a chiming clock (which is permitted). I have heard that there are those who permit the air microphone since the speaker's original voice is carried through the pipes (although clearly the majority of the sound waves reaching the audience's ears comes from the air pumped by the compressor). I am astonished at this claim: even in an actual musical instrument (such as a trumpet) the player's breath is mixed in, and nevertheless it is forbidden! In many musical instruments, the sound comes mainly from an "echo chamber," whose geometry shapes and amplifies the sound. To the best of my understanding, an air microphone operates on the same principle.[13] In my opinion, halachic definitions (in all fields) do not stem from scientific, physical, or technical definitions. The definitions of klei shir and hashma'at kol are not based on the technology of sound production, wave dispersion, or other acoustic considerations. The question at hand is whether these devices are included in the rabbinic decree of klei shir or not. In this regard, it does not matter whether one makes his voice heard by means of an electric or an air microphone. Some of those who give a blanket permit to use an air microphone claim that it does not amplify the speaker's voice, but merely carries it. On the basis of material I have received from the factory, I find this claim to be mistaken. Therefore, as far as klei shir and hashma'at kol are concerned, the two types of microphones are identical. ... 3. Responsa Which Erred in the Realia ... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 13:14:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 16:14:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes In-Reply-To: <20150513195451.GA16146@aishdas.org> References: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> <20150513195451.GA16146@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5553B099.7090100@sero.name> On 05/13/2015 03:54 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Both letzorekh mitzvah and tzarkhei tzibbur are usually classified with > she'as hadechaq and hefsed meruba. The two combined is why shuls have such > wide lattitude with amira le'akum. (And perhaps either alone? I dunno.) Letzorech mitzvah is not enough to justify amira lenochri for an issur derabanan, unless the mitzvah absolutely cannot be fulfilled without it. For instance, if one is pitch darkness one may ask a nochri to bring a lit candle through a communal chatzer that has no eruv, because oneg shabbos is impossible in complete darkness; but if there is already at least dim lighting, so that some minimal oneg shabbos is possible, one is *not* allowed to have a nochri bring another candle. Tzorchei tzibbur, OTOH, seems to justify amira lenochri for almost anything. [Quoting R Rosen] > The problems concern the decree of klei shir, the fear that one will > repair it, hashma'at kol like a water mill, avsha milta, denigration > of Shabbat, and the suspicion of onlookers. He's listing the same thing multiple times. "Hashma'at kol like a water mill" *is* "avsha milsa", i.e. passersby will hear it running and know that a Jew's business is operating on Shabbos, and the problem with that is that they will think the Jew is transgressing amira lenochri. These are not separate issues. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 13:32:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 23:32:51 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> References: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <> I understand the concern. However, there is no halacha that a rabbi can't pasken on his own chicken. In fact in real life we all pasken for ourselves on some level. Anytime one has a shabbat question \he can't always run to the LOR. One usually ends up paskening based on whatever knowledge and mesorah one has. This is what makes the life of a Baal Teshuva very difficult. Certainly what RMA and many others are against is running to the LOR or even gadol hador with every question. I have heard complaints from shul rabbis that some congregants come with questions they could easily look upo themselves but prefer to ask the rabbi so that the rabbi notes how serious they are. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 14:35:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 21:35:43 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> Message-ID: . I have heard complaints from shul rabbis that some congregants come with questions they could easily look upo themselves but prefer to ask the rabbi so that the rabbi notes how serious they are. ---------------------- True, but sometimes it may be to establish a connection (yes, funny coming from me-but it is true) KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 15:04:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 18:04:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150513220422.GC10395@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 13, 2015 at 11:32:51PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> OTOH, pasqening for oneself has a major problem that one doesn't face when :> answering others' questions -- vested interest vs objectivity. : : I understand the concern. However, there is no halacha that a rabbi can't : pasken on his own chicken. : In fact in real life we all pasken for ourselves on some level. Anytime one : has a shabbat question he can't always run to the LOR... I was using "pesaq" to refer specifically to open questions that require shiqul hada'as. Your typical Shabbos question is about a devar mishnah. To quote Rt Chana Luntz from Mon, 7 Sep 1998, 8:33pm BDT: 20:33:38 +0100, a post about not combining chumeros: > ... the Rashba on our daf in Chullin [43b], who hold that a Rav only > needs to pay if there is shikul hadaas and not a mistake in a dvar > mishna, are forced to conclude from this that Rava's mistake was in > shikul hadaas - see there]. It would seem that a devar mishnah is not a pesaq that the rav is as responsible for our following his teaching rather than getting the halakhah correctly from some other source. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 15 08:55:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 15 May 2015 11:55:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Laasok beDivrei Sorah Message-ID: <4c752525c83edeb17b85f6670479b9c0@aishdas.org> >From R' Eliezer Eisenberg's blog Beis Vaad L'Chachamim (highly recommended), at http://beisvaad.blogspot.com/2015/05/bechukosai-at-my-grandsons-bar-mitzva.html A couple of personal comments ellided, mostly to save myself the bother of transliterating more Hebrew text. A belated mazal tov to the author, G'Shabbos to all, -micha Friday, May 15, 2015 Bechukosai. At my grandson's Bar Mitzva Drasha at the Bar Mitzva of Avraham Jofen, 5/14/15 ... The Gemara (Brachos 11b) and the rishonim there talk about the issue of hefsek in Birkas HaTorah. There are those that hold that if a person stops learning, he has to make a new bracha when he begins again, because it is a hefsek from the first bracha. The Rishonim, the Agur and the Rosh, say that it is not a hefsek, because even when you are not actually learning, you have to consider what you can and cannot do according to the dinim of the Torah. Even when you are in a place where you cannot learn, you have to behave in a manner that is prescribed in the Torah. As the Hafla'ah says, when you do business, it is not a hefsek, because you are learning Choshen Mishpat. Every decision you make is examined in the light of the Torah, so that is not a hefsek in limud. I would put it this way. Torah is only a mitzvah when you learn al menas laasos. Al menas laasos means that you don't learn superficially, you make the Torah a part of who you are. On the contrary, if what you learn is just on the surface, the learning itself is bitul Torah. If the Mitzva of limud hatorah requires that it should make you into a different person, do you think that carefully living the life of an ehrilcheh ben Torah is a hefsek in limud hatorah? It's not a hefsek, it is a hemshech, it is a kiyum, of the mitzvah of limud hatorah. My father Ztz'l was very friendly with his lawyer, Bill Rosenthal. Bill was an assimilated Jew. The only contact he had with the Jewish religion was when he shook hands with my father. Nonetheless, he and my father were good friends and respected each other. A lawyer for a mortgage company once asked him which university my father studied at, because he could brilliantly analyze contracts. Bill told him that my father studied at Slabodka U. He once asked my father, "You and I are very ethical and honest men. I wouldn't take a penny that wasn't mine, and I have the highest standards of behavior in business. You, too, are very moral, but you do it because of your religious beliefs. Is there really any difference between us? My father told him, on the spot, that there are three differences. One is that for you, a dollar is a small matter, and a question involving a million dollars is a big matter. To me, there is no difference. The principal, the law, is what matters, and the sum of money is irrelevant. Another difference is that let's say you carefully think an issue through, and you decide the other side is right, and you let them win. you will toss and turn at night, ,thinking that maybe you were really right. I, on the other hand, if I decide that I am right, and I keep something that had been disputed, I won't be able to sleep at night our of a concern that maybe my decision was influenced by self interest. The third difference is that while you and I are both successful people,, and we've both made a lot of money, you think that you made the money yourself, and it's 100% yours to do with as you please. I believe that God decided that I should have the money, and God gave me the money, and every dollar that was given to me was given so that I use it in the right way. So it's true, my father learned how to do business at Slabodka U. Because he learned how to do business at Slabodka U, he was able to give, on the spot, three excellent and lomdusheh chilukim about the difference between Bill Rosenthal's moral code and his own moral code. Doing business like that is not a hefsek in the mitzva of limud hatorah. Farkert, it is the biggest kiyum and chizuk of limud hatorah and mussar and yashrus. This is a kiyum of the passuk [im bechuqosai seleikhu], as Rashi explains, [shetihyu ameilim baTorah]. It is this mesora which we bequeath to the Bar Mitzvah. ... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 15 13:39:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 15 May 2015 16:39:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Learning Chumash with the Trop Message-ID: <20150515203756.96751182847@nexus.stevens.edu> My 6 year-old grandson who is in the first grade was taught the trop at the same time he was being taught Chumash. The bottom line is that when he says the Pesukim he has studies in yeshiva, he says each word with the trop. I think this makes it easier for him to remember the Pesukim. When he davens, he says Shma with the trop! I can only wonder why this is not done in all yeshivas. When it will come time for him to lein at his Bar Mitzvah, it should be much easier for him than for those boys who are taught Chumash without the trop. YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 06:37:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 09:37:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Standing at a Chupah Message-ID: <20150518133702.1FA0A18392A@nexus.stevens.edu> Yesterday a friend of mine told be that the Rov where he davened said that he knew of grandparents who did not want to walk down at their grandchildren's Chassana, because they knew that the people attending the chupah would not stand for them even though they were 70 + years old. They did not want to be involved in lifnei Iver. Truth be told, I have seen the following many times. When the grandparents who are 70 or more years old walk down, no one stands for them. However, when the chosson and kallah walk down everyone stands for them. It is, of course, a positive mitzvah to stand up for any person 70 years old or more. See See http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/35165/standing-for-someone-whos-turned-seventy It is questionable if one has to stand for the chosson and kallah. See http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/levine/standing_chasuna.pdf I told my friend that it should be announced at the beginning of every chupah that 1. All cell phones should be turned off; 2. There should be no talking during the chupah, and 3. If grandparents who are 70 or more will be walking down, then one is required to stand for them. I think if this were done at Chasanas it would soon become the norm. 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URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 06:39:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 14:39:50 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001b01d09170$1d5db6f0$581924d0$@org.uk> Rav Zylberstein in the Cheshukei Chemed on Daf 78a of Kesubos discusses the question as to whether a woman today who has lots of peros from her property can say to her husband - "you do not need to redeem me, and I will not give you the peros" - on the ground that the need for redemption today is not common ("lo schiach") - even though the gemora there says that she cannot avoid this trade as mandated by Chazal (despite her being able to avoid the trade between mezonos versus ma'aseh yadeha, again a takana of Chazal, as this last takana was done for her benefit). Rav Zylberstein brings a discussion based on various rishonim to show that actually, pidyon was not common even at the time of Chazal, or at the time of the rishonim, and hence the fact that it is not common today does not change the situation from that mandated by Chazal. He also adds in the position of the Ran, that the takana regarding pidyon is not just made for her benefit (as the mezonos one is) and hence something that can be waived by her, but is also for the benefit of the husband, as without her redemption, the husband doesn't have the benefit of her company and services, while with mezonos that doesn't apply. However, it seems to me that Rav Zylberstein is not in fact dealing with what strikes me as the fundamental question. That is, it is not a question of whether or not pidyon is not common today (indeed, I would be tempted dispute that it is in fact "lo schiach", despite Rav Zylberstein taking this for granted) - but rather that the job of pidyon today is one of those that has been appropriated away from family members such as husbands, and is now the province of governments. The decision as to whether an individual may or may not be redeemed from ISIS, or pirates off Africa, or wherever, is now one which governments take with regard to their citizens. Governments which are prepared to do deals, like France, redeem their citizens (albeit for astronomical sums). Governments, like the UK and the US, who refuse to do deals on the grounds that it just encourages terrorists - will not let individuals, including husbands, redeem, even if the sums could be raised individually, as a matter of general policy. Nobody assumed it was the job of Gilad Shalit's family to effect his release - except to the extent that they was required to lobby the Israeli government (it might even have been treason to go negotiating with Hamas directly). Release or non release negotiations therefore, including the price to be paid (whether by prisoner release or otherwise) is today a government price. So it seems to me that what in fact we have today is a situation where husbands are, for the most part, forbidden by law (dina d'malchusa dina) from redeeming their wives, ie from fulfilling their side of the takana of Chazal. In such circumstances - while one might argue that the state of which the woman is a citizen is entitled to (at least some portion of) the peros (taxes?) the real question then seems to become: on what basis does one say that the second half of the takana stands - not just in relation to a woman who tries to say "you do not need to redeem me", but in relation to any woman in this circumstance. Has anybody come across anybody discussing this question, and any thoughts on any justification for the retention of the husband's benefit if in fact husbands are not legally allowed to effect redemption? BTW on the question of the commonness of redemption - part of that would depend on the scope of the definition of "pidyon". Clearly redemption from ISIS or pirates in Africa falls within this category - but how about rescuing somebody who was trekking in Nepal at the time of the earthquake? Again this is something that governments are now regarded as having a responsibility to do (the British Government has been criticised for failing to do as much as others, such as the Israeli and US governments, have done). At first blush I can't see why flying somebody out of an earthquake zone would not fit within the pidyon definition - despite it being physical forces, such as landslides, rather than people, who may be trapping the individuals. How about a package tour company going bust? Again, the person in question would (absent ATOL and similar travel bonding schemes set up by the relevant governments) be trapped in a foreign country and need to be returned to their country of origin, as per the language of the takana/ketuba. So why would this not be a form of pidyon? But again, is not the fundamental responsibility now assumed to devolve onto the government in respect of its citizens? So while I am not actually sure that it is true that pidyon is in fact so extremely not common, it seems to me that the fundamental question is rather a different one. Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 05:15:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 12:15:18 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: <20150518.081518.3271.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Among the arguments that came up in the discussion of the Kosher > Switch was that it's zilzul Shabbos. > ... what does the fact that a community eruv is NOT zilzul > Shabbos say about the nature of zilzul Shabbos and its > applicability to nidon didan? Excellent point. And I'd like to add another point: There are those who have argued that the availability of various types of timers (including those with software and adjust themselves for varying sunset times) have made the Kosher Switch unnecessary. I disagree strongly. The Kosher Switch, and similar devices do not merely add convenience, but can do a lot for lessening tzaar, and that is a valid and recognized halachic consideration. There were many times when I went to bed earlier than planned, but the light would not go out for another hour, and it was keeping me awake. And there were many times when my seudah lasted longer than expected, but the lights had gone out and we benched in dim light. There were many times when I set the air conditioning for what was expected to be a very hot day, and when it turn out to be mild, we all froze in the cold house. And there were many times when I left the air conditioning off, and regretted it when the day turned hotter than expected. Of course, a couple of centuries ago, people did not have these conveniences, and they learned to cope with them. But I really believe that for us, who have gotten addicted to them, it is a real tzaar when we must do without. (None of the above should be construed as meaning that I endorse any particular sort of device. I'm only talking about devices which we are allowed to use on Shabbos.) [Email #2. -micha] R' Micha Berger asked: > When community eruvin got started, wasn't there a much easier > argument of zilzul? Why wasn't it made? I'm not sure which period of history you're referring to with the phrase "when community eruvin got started", but here's my attempt at an answer: Eruvin did not allow something which had been previously assur, the way timers do and the way the Shabbos Switch would (according to its supporters). Beginning in Moshe Rabenu's day, people were very careful not to carry from a Reshus Hayachid to a Reshus Harabim, or vice versa, or 4 amos within a Reshus Harabim. But everything else was no problem. People would carry from one home to another within the same chatzer without thinking twice. Or even to a home across the street, IF that street was NOT a Reshus Harabim. But over time, accidents started to happen, because it is not always so easy to determine what's a Reshus Harabim and what's not. So at a certain point (either by David Hamelech's beis din, or Shlomo's, I don't remember) TWO halachos were enacted, at the SAME tme: One, that hotzaah was forbidden in a wide variety of areas other than within one Reshus Hayachid. Two, that these other areas could be transformed into a Reshus Hayachid by following some specific rules. The net result is that after Hilchos Eruvin were instituted, there were NO actions which people could be done that were not being done before. No one said, "Now the neighborhood can have a picnic on Shabbos afternoon!", because they could have done this all along, if there was no Reshus Harabim running through. Thus, no one lamented the zilzul Shabbos caused by allowing picnics which had previously been forbidden, because they had NOT previously been forbidden. I suppose it is possible that in the beginning, these procedures were used only by small neighborhoods (chatzeros and not much larger), and it was only much later that they were used by entire communities. If that's what RMB was referring to, then I'll have to stop here and let a historian continue. Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 07:00:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 10:00:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Megilat Rut: The night of Boaz and Rut Revisited Message-ID: <20150518135955.4DC6C183869@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/kmyx55p YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 08:40:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 11:40:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> On Sun, May 17, 2015 at 1:32pm EDT, R/Prof. Yitzchok Levine wrote on Areivim: : Yesterday in shul I asked a 12 year-old boy who attends a good : yeshiva if he was willing to announce the Molad. He looked at me : incredulously and said "What's the Molad?" I replied, "You know, : when the new moon can be seen." He still didn't get it, and I had : to elaborate a bit. I want to get all nerdy with this. The molad is actually an average, not when you could first see the moon this particular month. From 1601 to 200 CE, the actual physical lunation could be 6h 21m shorter or 7h 15m longer. And, the average too changes over time. (As I've noted in the past, it is amazing to me that we had back in the days of Galus Bavel, a molad value that was most accurate in the same century R' Hillel II and his Sanhedrin crated a standard calendar, some 900 years later. Exact to within the unit of measure (the cheileq). Accurate when we needed the value, not when we first obtained it. Currently, the molad is around 108 chalaqim off. And that's just the time between the molads. Then you have to ask when in the cycle the moon could first be seen. How thin of a sliver is visible to the typical human eye? And which longitude's clock are you using? And we announce the time for this point on the globe using today's hour naming convension. If you look at (eg) the Rambam, you'd be seeing a clock which is restarted every day at sunset, making sunset 0:00, not a number various about 6pm. But that's only something to keep in mind when looking at older Sepharadi sefarim, and wouldn't impact understanding what it is we actually announce. It would seem the molad as we now announce it would be for Kandahar, Afghanistan. But that must be due to slippage because the molad is too long. If we go back to the 4th or 5th cent CE, the molad is being announced given the time around midway between the Nile and the far (south-east) end of the Euphrates, which would have been around the middle of Jewish settlement at the time. In any case, calling is Jerusalem Time is a misnomer. Anyway, because we don't know for sure what location on the globe the molad was defined for, and how much of the current location is due to slippage during centuries of molads growing ever longer, we cannot definitively translate molad time to your local standard time. We simply do not know the starting lattitude to convert from. Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 08:53:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 11:53:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 11:40 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. Sure we do. It's the motion of an "averaged moon" that orbits the earth in a perfect circle, and that, however fictional, forms the basis of our calendar. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 09:41:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 12:41:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150518164134.GC20828@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 11:53:42AM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : On 05/18/2015 11:40 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: : >Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. : Sure we do. It's the motion of an "averaged moon" that orbits the earth : in a perfect circle, and that, however fictional, forms the basis of our : calendar. Except we don't know how much of an idealized moon is supposed to be showing and where between the latitudes of Alexandria and Sura it would have been showing. IOW, we don't know when in the moon's cycle the molad is an idealization of. Note, though, that Rabban Gamliel quotes a mesorah from R' Gamliel haZaqein ("mibeis avi abba) that the molad varies. And in a second quote, that it will never be "less than" 29-1/2d 2/3h 73 chalaqim. (Shabbos 25a) And he uses this to question eidim, so this is a mesorah he accepts for re'iyah, not just computation. Redoing R' Gamaliel's fractions, and converting 73c = 4m 1c, we get 29d 4 hr, 44m, 1 c. Our molad. So Rabban Gamliel held our molad was a lower limit, not an average!? And recall, we'e talking re'iyah (see the sugya) and the actual lunation could be over 6hr easlier than the average. What am I missing? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 08:23:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 11:23:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: <001b01d09170$1d5db6f0$581924d0$@org.uk> References: <001b01d09170$1d5db6f0$581924d0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <555A0402.4060608@sero.name> It should be borne in mind that there are still countries (including ones with substantial Jewish communities) where the need for pidyon is at least as common now as it probably was in Chazal's day. Also that while in many countries paying ransoms may be technically illegal, hardly anybody who is r"l in that situation cares about this. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 09:35:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Riceman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 12:35:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <555A14EF.8070305@optimum.net> RMB: <. In particular, his very first source (see link to mar'eh meqomos sheet) Nissah 20b. Yalta, "Rebbetzin Nachman", asks her mar'os questions of Rabbah bar bar Chanah and Rabbi Yitzchaq bereih deR' Yehudah, not her husband. Similarly mishnah Nega'im 2:5 saying you can't pasen nega'im even of relatives, Bekhoros 31a about judging one's own bekhoros.>> The standard hiluq is is'hazek issura or not. See, e.g., Hochmas Adam H. Shechitah 1:10, Binas Adam ad. loc., and HA H. Nidah 109:6 and BA ad. loc. I think the issue is that hora'ah in the presence of hezkas issur is considered eidus. The argument of self interest raises some problems: 1. Do you know of cases where rabbis have referred questions about communal matters to experts elsewhere because they are self interested since they live in the community? For example, do Hachmai EY refer questions about communal safety (e.g., military matters) to rabbis in Hutz LaAretz because they are self interested? 2. Why shouldn't self interest be a psul in the absence of hezkas issur? I know people on this list have cited it to me in the case of restaurants certifying their own products. David Riceman From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 10:03:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 13:03:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518164134.GC20828@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> <20150518164134.GC20828@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555A1B64.8060409@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 12:41 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > What am I missing? That what we announce is *not* anything to do with the actual moon, which the eidim in RG's time would have claimed to have seen, but the notional averaged moon on which *our* calendar is based. The *real* molad, i.e. conjunction of moon and sun, does vary, because the real moon does not orbit the earth in a perfect circle; the notional molad on which we base our calendar, and which we announce every month (except, ironically, the one month when it actually matters), is perfectly regular. And "molad" does seem to mean the conjunction, not the moment when the first sliver is visible, because the gemara in RH seems to say that the first possible sighting of the new moon is six hours *after* the molad. So we do know exactly what we are announcing: the number on which the calendar is based. Given this Shabbos's announcement, one can easily calculate that next Rosh Hashana will be on a Monday, exactly as it should be. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 10:49:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 13:49:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> At 11:40 AM 5/18/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. Yet it says in the siddurim that it should be announced so people know when it is! My understanding is that what is announced is Jerusalem solar time and this is different from Jerusalem local time. YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 11:47:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 14:47:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150518184701.GD20828@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 01:03:32PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : On 05/18/2015 12:41 PM, Micha Berger wrote: : >What am I missing? : : That what we announce is *not* anything to do with the actual moon, which : the eidim in RG's time would have claimed to have seen, but the notional : averaged moon on which *our* calendar is based... First, as Zev noted to me in private, I meant RH 25a (not Mes' Shabbos). But the point I asked "what am I missing?" about was Rabbi Gamliel questioning what people thought they saw, not the average. In R' Gamliel's day, the length of the molad was pretty close to exact; even today it's closer than they had any way to measure. But that's still an average. And real values can be more than 6 hr earlier. So, how can R' Gamliel question someone's observation for being less than a molad, when in half of all months re'iyah will be early -- and many 5 or 6 hr early. : So we do know exactly what we are announcing: the number on which the : calendar is based. Given this Shabbos's announcement, one can easily : calculate that next Rosh Hashana will be on a Monday, exactly as it : should be. As I said in my previous post... Yes, that explans the length of the molad, but not the point in the idealized cycle. How much moon must be visible for it to be a new moon? Or more accurately, what was visible when the molad was al pi re'iyah that we are now using a simplified model to approximate? And we can't just calculate what it is the molad is approximating, because we don't know what clock to use. It looks to me like Hillel was using a point halfway between EY and Bavel, somewhere in the center of the contiguous Jewish settlement. But that's largely guesswork. On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 01:49:49PM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : My understanding is that what is announced is Jerusalem solar time : and this is different from Jerusalem local time. Which is why I left out the word standard, writing "Jerusalem Time" rather than Israel Standard Time. But as I wrote above, it's not. See also my first post (for Avodah) on this thread for more detail. In 1999, R Yisrael Medad posted something about this on MJ, after having R/Prof Ely Merbach, R/Prof Yaakov Loewinger and the Bar Ilan astronomy dept bad the question around. See They assume Jerusalem Mean Time, but they make the fundamental error of discussing mean conjunction -- no moon -- not the first sliver. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 13:31:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 16:31:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150518203148.GB4022@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 02:24:32PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : >Yes, that explans the length of the molad, but not the point in the : >idealized cycle. How much moon must be visible for it to be a new : >moon? [...] they make the fundamental error of discussing mean : >conjunction -- no moon -- not the first sliver. : : I don't think they made an error at all. The molad is the conjunction; : the earliest time at which the moon can be seen is six hours after : the molad. How do you know this? The Rambam (Qiddush Levana 6:1) appears to say it's the average of the first time the moon could be seen "kedei leida im yeira'eh hayarei'ach of lo yeira'eh.... bemahalakhtam ha'emtza'i, who haniqra 'molad'". And my whole point was that we didn't know how big of a sliver is "yeira'eh", but I'm willing to entertain the possibility that we announce when it cannot be seen, as a way of knowing by deduction when it could. I just can't see it as a given. Combining not knowing how much -- if any -- after the conjunction the molad is with not knowing which lattitude's clock is being used was the not knowing what the molad really means. You could move the lattitude by changing the size sliver. As for why we announce the molad... The Yerei'im gives the answer Zev did. The MA quotes the Yerei'im and says that mevorkhim hachodesh is lezeikher the real qiddush hachodesh by Sanhedrin. Which is why we stand. RMF (IM OC 1:142) says this is in imitation of the qehillah who would stand when answering "Mequdash! Mequdash!" I find the MA's answer more compelling, because it unlikely that it is to know when Rosh Chodesh should be, when the one RC that most depends on the molad isn't announced -- Tishrei. It also adds resonence for me when saying "Mi sheAsah Nissim", that before the chazan announces ther month, we ask for a return of the qiddush hachodesh being commemorated. And if truly "chaverim kol Yisrael" and we acted it, we would have a Sanhedrin. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 11:24:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 14:24:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 01:49 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > At 11:40 AM 5/18/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >> Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. > Yet it says in the siddurim that it should be announced so people know > when it is! It's the number used for calculating the calendar. That's all people need to know. > My understanding is that what is announced is Jerusalem solar time > and this is different from Jerusalem local time. No, it's different from J'm *standard* time, i.e. the modern time system invented by the railroads, which of course we take no notice of. On 05/18/2015 02:47 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > But the point I asked "what am I missing?" about was Rabbi Gamliel > questioning what people thought they saw, not the average. Why are you discussing that? The topic is the announcement in shul, which relates entirely to our calculated system, not to RG's system. You wrote that nobody knows what it is that's being announced, and I dispute that. RG is entirely irrelevant, since he was dealing with the actual moon, not the notional moon that our system deals with. > Yes, that explans the length of the molad, but not the point in the > idealized cycle. How much moon must be visible for it to be a new > moon? [...] they make the fundamental error of discussing mean > conjunction -- no moon -- not the first sliver. I don't think they made an error at all. The molad is the conjunction; the earliest time at which the moon can be seen is six hours after the molad. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 14:36:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 17:36:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518203148.GB4022@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> <20150518203148.GB4022@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555A5B79.2030308@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 04:31 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > > How do you know this? The Rambam (Qiddush Levana 6:1) appears to say > it's the average of the first time the moon could be seen "kedei leida im > yeira'eh hayarei'ach of lo yeira'eh.... bemahalakhtam ha'emtza'i, > who haniqra 'molad'". On the contrary, that Rambam says *explicitly* that the molad is the exact moment of the conjunction, which is *not* when it can be seen. Read it again and you will surely see this. > As for why we announce the molad... The Yerei'im gives the answer > Zev did.The MA quotes the Yerei'im and says that mevorkhim hachodesh > is lezeikher the real qiddush hachodesh by Sanhedrin. Which is why > we stand. RMF (IM OC 1:142) says this is in imitation of the qehillah > who would stand when answering "Mequdash! Mequdash!" Neither the Yere'im nor the MA even mention the announcement of the molad, let alone give any reason for it. All the Yere'im says is that the announcement of Rosh Chodesh in shul is not at all related to kidush hachodesh, but is merely so people should know when Rosh Chodesh will be. The MA adds that although this is true, the custom is to stand for it, as a zecher to kidush hachodesh, which was done standing. R Akiva Eger asks how this could be so, since we know that a beis din must sit, not stand. RMF answers thatkiddush hachodesh was done notby the BD, but by the audience, after hearing the BD's psak, and they were surely standing, and this is what the MA means. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 14:49:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 17:49:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: RMicha Berger wrote: >Among the arguments that came up in the discussion of the Kosher Switch was that it's zilzul Shabbos. >>The thought hit me, though... Refraining from operating electrical devices has only been a potential issue for 125 years or so. And except for Yekkes, most of our ancestors come from places where it has been less than a century since electricity became part of our lives. >So it's very hard to say that "not using electricity" is a defining feature of the Shabbos experience.< True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul Shabbos. (Of course, by this argument, putting an electric light on or off should be prohibited even if the use of electricity is not a m'lacha.) >Contrast this to hotza'ah, including haavarah, which take up what seems like 1/3 of chazal's discussion of issur melakhah (rough estimate from Berakhos and Eruvin in mishna, Tosefta, Y-mi and Bavli).< I assume that "Berakhos" should be replaced by "Shabbos." >When community eruvin got started, wasn't there a much easier argument of zilzul? Why wasn't it made? Indeed we use the general kelal of being meiqil WRT eiruvin to quite an extent to build one. And what does the fact that a community eruv is NOT zilzul Shabbos say about the nature of zilzul Shabbos and its applicability to nidon didan?< What tzuras hapesach and eiruv permit is not carrying prohibited by the Torah. Rather, it is, in effect, a built-in exception to the issurim imposed mid'rabbanan by two g'zeiros: the classification of certain areas, which min haTorah are m'kom p'tur, as a new entity called karmelis, and the imposing of a prohibition of hotza'a from one r'shus hayachid to another of different ownership. Both were in use long before there was a city eruv. E.g., persons sharing a two-family house with a common fenced yard would make an eruv to permit carrying to and from their living quarters to the others' and to the yard. Likewise, a house opening to an unfenced yard would make a tzuras hapesach to permit carrying between house and yard. And, of course, two houses opening to a common unfenced yard would make a tzuras hapesach to "enclose" the yard, and then an eruv to permit carrying among houses and yard. The city eruv was not an introduction of a new practice, but a larger-scale use of already common practices. How does this constitute zilzul Shabbos? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 14:31:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 22:31:48 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000001d091b2$0c5074f0$24f15ed0$@org.uk> RZS writes: >It should be borne in mind that there are still countries (including ones >with substantial Jewish communities) where the need for pidyon is at least >as common now as it probably was in Chazal's day. Are you thinking of South America? I confess that is what springs to mind from your suggestion, although how often ransom is really required in such countries I don't know. > Also that while in many countries paying ransoms may be technically illegal, hardly anybody who is >r"l in that situation cares about this. But presumably you are talking about the same ones (eg South America). My question relates solely to countries, like Britain and Israel, to which Rav Zylberstein was referring. He took it for granted that in fact it was exceedingly uncommon for pidyon to be needed. I am not so sure it is so uncommon, but I doubt very much that in these countries "hardly anybody who is r"l in that situation cares about this". That is, while I know from the press of numbers of cases in which pidyon has been needed for British and Israeli citizens, in none of these cases were private individuals allowed to redeem (despite them quite naturally wanting to, and possibly being willing to do so, if they had not been restrained, whether by circumstances or otherwise). Clearly if one lives in a place where pidyon is common, and where, whatever the technical law says, in practice individual family members redeem, neither my question nor Rav Zylberstein's gets off the ground. But I don't think the existence of a place in the world, that one would never contemplate living in (and is not the locus of the ketuba), is relevant to the obligations under that ketuba which must relate to the places that the couple live and the governments under which they live. Even when it might involve some less scrupulous situations - one of the mothers in our school in England had the situation that her sons were effectively kidnapped by her ex-husband and held in Russia. And while yes, ultimately she found where they were hidden by means of a private investigator, which cost her private money, she would never have been able to extract them had: (a) Russia not signed up to the Hague convention; (b) the Russian court given judgment in her favour; and (c) the Russian police at the bequest of the English government on the basis of the Russian judgment actually going in and retrieving the boys (whose location they had singularly failed to identify until the private investigator had provided the cast iron information as to where they were). And she would have struggled to have brought them back into England without the rulings of the Russian authorities. And even if an adult is different, I cannot see the British government allowing one of its citizens to go off and try and attempt pidyon of another of its citizens without its active involvement, it being seen as cutting across its foreign policy (even if this was occurring in a place where ransom payments amongst locals was common). >Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 15:53:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 18:53:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] measurement error In-Reply-To: <20150111185211.GA15414@aishdas.org> References: <54AD8B25.3010103@optimum.net> <20150111185211.GA15414@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150518225308.GA15666@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 01:52:11PM -0500, Micha Berger wrote: : In an appreciated bit of siyata dishmaya, my Arukh haShulchan yomi : sechedule brought me to a primary source : on this subject -- AhS OC 363:32-35. The he.WikiSource.org ("Vikiteqst") : copy is at ... : When dealing with mavui, where there is only one mavui and therefore one : measuring process to be used for everyone, the above applies. However, : when the measurement is only for one person's use, tbey should be : measuring for himself, with his own norms. : And here he adds a touch of subjectivity: a person should measure how : far he himself could walk. And the rule of carrying in rh"r a distance : of no more 4 of one's own amos is brought into that umbrella. : The reason for the general rule is to cover the personal amos of the : people who will be using the measuring. : BUT, and this is why I do not follow, he opened se'if 32 by telling us : the variability is 1/48 of the total (1/24 of an etzba per ammah). Which : is far less than the variability in forearm lengths in most groups of : people. For example, my own sukkah is used by Yoni, who stands 6'3" and by : my own 5'3" -- and my arms are on the shorter side, even proportionally. : When we hold up elbows together, my ammah ends just past his wrist. Not : within 47/48 of eachother. I came across another AhS datapoint for this thread, OC 586:14. He quotes the Rambam Shofar 1:5, discussing the minimum length of a shofar: that you can hold it in your hand and it's visible on either end. The AhS explains the intent as being the size of the toqei'ah's hand, but rather an average person's hands, "veshi'uro tefach sheheim 4 godelim". Then there is a debate whether the tefach has to be a generous one, so as to be visible (Tur, quoting Ri Gei'os) or a narrow one (Tur himself and SA), which is still visible if the toqei'ah uses four fingers -- after all, they'll still be narrower than 4 thumbs. So the shiur is neither personal nor really the standard tefach. It is literally as the gemara says, what can be held and still seen. Which is why there is a machloqes about where the tefach stands in relation to the real shiur. But, visible if hypothetically held by an average hand. And if the tqoei'ah has wide hands, he could hold a minimal shofar without it being visible, and it would still be kosher. The AhS also says this was already explained in Nidah 26b, which is a depressing gemara about miscarriages, and a tefach comes up in shiurim for tum'ah, but I didn't see where it mentionrs our topic of what kind of tefach is used. What I find even more interesting is that there is no chiluq being drawn between someone who blows in shul and someone who blows just for himself. Wouldn't the rule from OC 363 mean that someone in the latter situation should use what is visible when their own hand holds it? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 15:35:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 18:35:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: <000001d091b2$0c5074f0$24f15ed0$@org.uk> References: <000001d091b2$0c5074f0$24f15ed0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <555A6924.4010709@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 05:31 PM, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: > RZS writes: > >> It should be borne in mind that there are still countries (including ones >> with substantial Jewish communities) where the need for pidyon is at least >> as common now as it probably was in Chazal's day. > > Are you thinking of South America? Well, Latin America (so as to include Mexico). There are also other such countries, such as India, the Philippines, Nigeria, where the need for pidyon is common, but there are not a lot of Jews living there. > But I don't > think the existence of a place in the world, that one would never > contemplate living in (and is not the locus of the ketuba), is relevant to > the obligations under that ketuba which must relate to the places that the > couple live and the governments under which they live. Even a couple marrying in such a country must contemplate the possibility that one or both might one day travel to a country where kidnapping is common, and be kidnapped. Even in Chazal's day the danger was not so much where people lived as on the highways and the seas, where they might travel. Also, I am not at all sure that it is actually illegal in most normal countries to pay ransom. What is illegal is giving *anything* to groups that are officially listed by that country's government as terrorists. If the kidnappers are not on the list, so that it would be legal to give them a gift, then I don't think there's a law against paying them ransom. (Perhaps there should be.) -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 19 11:32:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joseph Kaplan via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 14:32:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Standing at a Chupah Message-ID: <004f01d09262$1f0388c0$5d0a9a40$@tenzerlunin.com> "Truth be told, I have seen the following many times. When the grandparents who are 70 or more years old walk down, no one stands for them. However, when the chosson and kallah walk down everyone stands for them." At almost every MO wedding I've attended over the past 5-10 years, everyone stood when the grandparents walked down whether they were older than 70 or not. But if, God willing, I'm around for my grandchildren's weddings, I plan to walk (or, if necessary, wheelchair) down the aisle whether anybody stands for me or not. Joseph -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 19 12:18:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 15:18:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150519191809.GA8642@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 05:49:16PM -0400, elazar teitz via Avodah wrote: :> So it's very hard to say that "not using electricity" is a defining :> feature of the Shabbos experience. : True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature : of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so : accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul : Shabbos. (Of course, by this argument, putting an electric light on or off : should be prohibited even if the use of electricity is not a m'lacha.) As would replacing gefilte fish with sushi? It's not that people from Sinai to around 100 years ago actually experienced avoiding the lightswitch, nor did they even consciously experience not having one -- since there was no conception of an alternative. Not using electricity, and saying that qedushas shabbos requires avoiding electricity are really two different things, experientially. 100 years ago we had an opportunity to do something new on Shabbos, much like when shomerei Shabbos first learned of sushi. The difference is that we did assur one new opportunity, and not the other. ... : What tzuras hapesach and eiruv permit is not carrying prohibited by : the Torah. Rather, it is, in effect, a built-in exception to the issurim : imposed mid'rabbanan by two g'zeiros... ... : The city eruv was not an introduction of a new practice, but a : larger-scale use of already common practices. How does this constitute : zilzul Shabbos? Yes, that explains why it's nothing clearer cut than zilzul Shabbos. AIUI, worrying about zilzul means that the mechanism is mutar, but the goal is one that cheapens Shabbos, removes some of the feeling of its qedushah. Like taking the pre-existing concept of eiruv as a way to have a reshus that was no included in Shelomo ubeis dino's original issur hotza'ah and stretching it to a much bigger area than ever before, so that most people never have reason to leave it most weeks. So that the entire issur goes from being one of the dominant features of Shabbos (judging just in blatt of discussion) to barely ever experienced. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 45th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Malchus: What is the beauty of Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity (on all levels of relationship)? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 19 12:46:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 22:46:01 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] donor egg Message-ID: "A 65-year-old Bnei Brak woman gave birth this week, becoming the oldest woman to give birth in Israel. The ultra-Orthodox woman and her 67-year-old husband had been battling infertility for 46 years before the birth at Kfar Sava?s Meir hospital. After fertility treatments abroad and with the help of a donor egg, the woman became pregnant, giving birth to a 2.685-kg baby in her 35th week of pregnancy. ?To the best of my knowledge, this is the oldest woman to give birth in Israel. It is extremely rare that pregnancy at this age ends well. The ultra-Orthodox circle from which the couple comes attributed the pregnancy and birth to a blessing the woman received from a Hassidic rabbi. " http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel/.premium-1.657230 Given all the halachic controversy of who is the halachic mother I am a little surprised -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 07:11:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 17:11:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? Message-ID: There is a famous Medrash that before offering the Torah to the Jewish people Hashem offered it to the other nations of the world. "First He approached the children of Esav and asked them, "Do you wish to accept the Torah?" They replied, "What is written in it?" "Do not murder." They said, "...Our father was assured that, 'By your sword will you live (Bereishit 27:40)!'" Next Hashem went to the children of Ammon and Moav, and asked, "Do you wish to accept the Torah?" They asked, "What is written in it?" "Do not commit sexual immorality." They responded, "Master of the Universe, our very existence is based on an immoral act!" Hashem then went to the children of Yishmael, and asked them, "Do you wish to accept the Torah?" They asked, "What is written in it?" "Do not steal." They responded, "Master of the Universe, the essence of our father was to be a bandit, as it is written, 'And he will be a man of the wild; his hand will be in all...'" (Bereishit 16:12)." Sifri, Ve'Zot HaBracha #343 However, the Medrash has an obvious question. All of the examples of Torah prohibitions given by the Medrash, are also prohibited by the 7 mitzvos of Bnei Noach. The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from murder so how would accepting the Torah make things worse for them? The same goes for arayos and stealing, these were already prohibited to them anyway so why does the medrash specifically pick these as examples for Torah prohibitions? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 11:16:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 14:16:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150520181647.GA15475@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 05:11:29PM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : However, the Medrash has an obvious question. All of the examples of Torah : prohibitions given by the Medrash, are also prohibited by the 7 mitzvos of : Bnei Noach. The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from murder so how would : accepting the Torah make things worse for them? The same goes for arayos : and stealing, these were already prohibited to them anyway so why does the : medrash specifically pick these as examples for Torah prohibitions? I raised this and a second question in : Hashem's answer to each of the nations is strange. Why choose the one sin their forefather was known for? Is that how you would do kiruv, starting with the hard stuff? By comparing this medrash to the opening pasuk in this week's parshah, [Lekh Lekha,] we can get a better understanding of the point of the story. "Hashem said to Avram, `Go for yourself from your homeland, from your birthplace and from your father's house to the land which I will show you'." (12:1) The first sentence recorded in the Torah of the Jewish mission on earth is a commandment for Avram to leave his home and his father. Avram didn't say, "I can't worship G-d because my very substance his idolatry, because my father, Terach, manufactures idols". Hashem orders Avram to leave the culture that made him, to leave his father's sphere of influence, and he does. Avram's reply was "And Avram went, just as G-d told him". (12:4) If Hashem said he could change, rise above Ur Casdim to become fit for both the land of Israel and the father of the people of Israel, then he goes. Is man a creature of fate or of destiny? Is his future foretold, etched in rock, unchangeable? Or can he rebuild himself into something greater than he was? Clearly the Torah insists on the latter. The very key to accepting the Torah is to be committed to use its ideas and its mitzvos to improve and to grow. This was the failing ascribed to the other nations in the medrash. They saw a given flaw in their national character as their substance, immutable. Hashem wasn't asking them about a particular prohibition, but about their commitment to leave their "father's house". If they do not believe they can change, what purpose can getting the Torah serve them? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 46th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Malchus: How can some forms of Fax: (270) 514-1507 "unity" be over domineering? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 11:48:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 14:48:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: <20150520181647.GA15475@aishdas.org> References: <20150520181647.GA15475@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555CD6E5.5000606@sero.name> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 05:11:29PM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from murder so how would : accepting the Torah make things worse for them? The same goes for arayos : and stealing, these were already prohibited to them anyway sowhy does the : medrash specifically pick these as examples for Torah prohibitions? Perhaps that was His point: you can't even keep the mitzvos you already have, so how can you want more? On 05/20/2015 02:16 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > I raised this and a second question in > : > Hashem's answer to each of the nations is strange. Why choose the one > sin their forefather was known for? Is that how you would do kiruv, > starting with the hard stuff? Why the premise that the purpose was kiruv? On the contrary, I think the medrash's intent is clear, that Hashem did *not* want them to accept His offer, and thus pitched it in the manner most likely to be rejected. The only purpose of making the offer in the first place was so they wouldn't be able to complain that they hadn't been given the chance. He wasn't trying to sell it to them, He was showing them why they didn't want it, and therefore shouldn't be upset that the Jews were getting it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 17:29:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 20:29:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] 65 Year-Old Woman Gives Birth to First Child in Bnei Brak In-Reply-To: <20150520.101659.17683.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150520.101659.17683.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150521002935.GC9522@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 02:16:59PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Areivim wrote: : If we were speaking Lashon Hakodesh, you'd be correct - Bar Mitzvah is : a noun, and only a noun. However, we are clearly speaking English, and : several dictionaries tell me that in English, "Bar Mitzvah" is both a noun : and a verb. See, for example, http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bar+mitzvah : which gives "bar mitzvahed" (and other forms) as examples. : Languages are funny this way. Stuff can change when a word enters a : new language. However, there is no real concept correspnding to the English word "bar mitzvahed". The borrowing was primarily done by non-traditional Jews, who think that being called up to the Torah changes your status. But in reality, "bar mitzvahed" makes as much sense as saying someone pubertied or menopaused. We O could borrow the word as shorthand for "became a bar mitzah" but since the original borrowing is really based on a misunderstanding of the Torah, why should we? It'll just make it harder to clear up the mistake. : If I'm not mistaken, the Yiddish word for "holiday" is pronounced : "yuntif", and it is spelled "yud vav memsofit blankspace tes vav beis", : and is considered a single word despite the fact... IIRC, on the NY State Yiddish Regents Examination in the late 1970s, it was spelled as it sounds, one word, yud-alef-nun-tes-eyin-ende fei (w/ a refuyah line over it). (R' Riskin, whose HS I attended, required a foreign language, and Hebrew doesn't count as "foreign". The Hebrew Regents exam was a separate requirement to graduate. As was Red Cross swimming certification and you could choose either CPR or First Aid. The latter two were because the HS is the father's shaliach for all of chinukh and education. Anyway, I already had some background in Yiddish, and I heard that the Yiddish regents eere easier than more popular languages like Spanish or French, so...) But the, Chassidishe Yiddish and YIVO Yiddish (the legacy of Litvishe Yiddishists) are different dialects. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 46th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Malchus: How can some forms of Fax: (270) 514-1507 "unity" be over domineering? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 17:53:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 20:53:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Admin: [Areivim] 65 Year-Old Woman Gives Birth to First Child in Bnei Brak In-Reply-To: <20150521002935.GC9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150520.101659.17683.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> <20150521002935.GC9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150521005329.GF9522@aishdas.org> The previous email was misdirected. Replies to it will not be accepted. (On Avodah. If Areivim's mods approve it, reply there.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 18:57:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 20:57:21 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <555D3B81.5030709@starways.net> I think the obvious answer is that midrash is midrash. One midrash doesn't have to be consistent with another. It's there to learn from, and the message of this one comes through regardless of the Noachide laws. On 5/20/2015 9:11 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > There is a famous Medrash that before offering the Torah to the Jewish > people Hashem offered it to the other nations of the world. > > However, the Medrash has an obvious question. All of the examples of > Torah prohibitions given by the Medrash, are also prohibited by the 7 > mitzvos of Bnei Noach. The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from > murder so how would accepting the Torah make things worse for them? > The same goes for arayos and stealing, these were already prohibited > to them anyway so why does the medrash specifically pick these as > examples for Torah prohibitions? > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 03:36:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 06:36:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: <555D3B81.5030709@starways.net> References: <555D3B81.5030709@starways.net> Message-ID: <20150521103619.GC7831@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 08:57:21PM -0500, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: : I think the obvious answer is that midrash is midrash. One midrash : doesn't have to be consistent with another. It's there to learn : from, and the message of this one comes through regardless of the : Noachide laws. I believe the question was finding internal consistency in a single medrash from the Yalqut Shim'oni. The medrash that says the nations were offered the Torah itself says the example mitzvos were ones they were already obligated in, and ones their ancestor was known for. So, what does that tell us about the message? To me, it says that the offer was more about testing one's willingness to change. Therefore, each is asked if they would be willing to refrain from something that they should already be avoiding, but is part of their current culture. And that, in turn, speaks to seeing the Torah as a tool for self-transformation. Which I mean in a manner vague enough to include both Chassidim and Litvaks. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 07:50:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 10:50:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Ways to find non-meat or non-milk Message-ID: <20150521145032.GH9522@aishdas.org> >From the founder of Machon Zomer, RYRosen, on possible ways to eat kosher meat and milk together without violating basar bechalav. -micha Shabbat B'Shabbato Translated by Moshe Goldberg Point Of View Bit of Reality from Sinai Rabbi Yisrael Rosen Dean of the Zomet Institute "This teaches you that scripture, the Mishna, halacha, tosefta, hagadda, and whatever a veteran scholar will teach in the future already exists, and it was all given as halacha to Moshe at Sinai" [Kohellet Rabba 1]. ... Recipes with Meat and Milk In honor of the holiday, we have pieced together for you, from the newest volume, some juicy samples of dairy halachot, as is fitting for the holiday of Shavuot, in order to fulfill the verse, "Honey and milk are under your tongue" [Shir Hashirim 4:11]. We will capture your interest for halachic sophistication by offering you, from this new volume of Techumin, a serving of meat cooked in milk (yes, you read that right!). Compare this to Rav Nachman, who gave his wife an udder soaked in milk in order to satisfy her desire to taste a combination of milk and meat (Chulin 109b). And what is our enticing menu item that fits this requirement? See below... (1) "Ben Pekua" -- It is an accepted halacha (admittedly quite odd) that if a cow is slaughtered in the eighth month of her pregnancy and the calf is found to be alive, it is called a "Ben Pekua" and there is no need to slaughter it. It can be eaten in any manner, including even taking off a limb while it is still alive (Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Dei'ah 13), even many years later, and there is no need to check if it has one of the faults that would render a normal animal unkosher. And now, here is the most surprising part: The offspring of a male and female "Ben Pekua" (both of the "parents must be of this type) will never require kosher slaughtering either, and this includes all subsequent generations. (However, if only one parent is a "Ben Pekua," the offspring cannot be made kosher, even by slaughtering!) Rabbi Meir Rabi from Australia published a dramatic article where he claims that by definition a Ben Pekua is not cattle (but is rather the same as fish), and therefore not only is there no need to remove the veins in the hind quarter, one is even permitted to cook it and eat it together with milk! To come to this conclusion, the rabbi bases his ruling on a Torah insight by the Meshech Chochma, that our Patriarch Avraham served his guests, the angels, "a calf (literally, the son of cattle, or a ben pekua!) that was tender and good," from the womb of a pregnant cow, and he gave them "butter and milk, and the calf" [Bereishit 18:8]. Rabbi Rabi went further, and acted on his ruling. Using this method he created male and female "sheep" and grew flocks from them, and he now has a culinary and halachic declaration -- these animals do not need to be slaughtered, their veins do not have to be removed, their fat is not prohibited -- and the rabbi has a long list of other benefits. However, modern rabbis do not accept this idea! In the new volume of Techumin, Rabbi Zev Vitman, the rabbi of Tenuvah (which sells milk, meat, and fish) vigorously opposes the novel ruling. Aside from the release from the requirement of ritual slaughtering (which is carried over from the mother or the grandmother of the calf), Rabbi Vitman disagrees with (almost) all the other conclusions. He finds no justification for defining the Ben Pekua as a "new and separate species." In addition, in volume 19 of Techumin, sixteen years ago, Sephardi Chief Rabbi Bakshi-Doron rejected a similar proposal that was sent to him by meat farmers on the Golan, fearing that it would lead to serious problems. Other prominent rabbis, such as Rabbi Shmuel Vazner and Rabbi Asher Weiss, warned against getting involved in this sophisticated and complex halachic problem. (2) We are thus left to search elsewhere for a combination of meat and milk: meat that has been cloned from stem cells! In a previous volume, Rev Tvi Reizman (a well-known businessman from Los Angeles who is also a Torah scholar well versed in matters of halacha and actuality) writes about an "artificial hamburger" which was created two years ago. This is produced from artificial meat made from stem cells of a cow which was not slaughtered or which was declared unkosher ("tereifa"). In principle, he concludes that clone meat is not real meat, and that it can therefore be cooked and eaten with milk! (The summary of the article includes many details which will not be repeated here. For example, the problem of appearances can be solved by proper packaging and declarations, as is done for soya milk.) However, my friends, I doubt that you should rush out after the holiday to search for an "artificial hamburger," in order to season it with honey and dip it in milk. Rabbi Yaacov Ariel opposes the idea in the new volume of Techumin. He concludes that such artificial meat can only be produced from a kosher animal, and that then "it will be considered meat for all intents and purposes, including the matter of cooking with milk." So, in the end we are left with the solution in the Talmud: Does anybody want some milk-saturated udders? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 08:36:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 11:36:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula Message-ID: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> In OC 196:1, the Rama mentions the minhag of blowing 30 qolos at the end of RH mussaf. "Ule'achar sheyatze'u bazeh, shuv ein litqua od bechinam." (Although a qatan, even higia lechinuch, may.) So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. As for being yotzei... Mitzvas shofar only requires tashra"t, tasha"t OR tara"t, 3 times. A point the AhS makes besheim the Rash besheim R' Hai Gaon (Shilhei RH), "delav sefeiqos gemuros hein", that Rav Avahu was mesaqein in order for everyone to do the same thing, not because otherwise you're not yotzei shemie'as qol shofar. The AhS criptically adds, "(ulevad zeh yeish bazeh inyan gadol)." So the question is whether you have to blow in numerous ways few other people use in order to fulfil a taqanah created to create uniformity of practice. But enough of the tirade, and back to the point: Being machmir in hilkhos shofar this way involves a qulah in hilkhos yom tov. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:25:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:25:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150521202527.GP9522@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 02:46:27PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : On 05/21/2015 11:36 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: :> In OC 196:1, the Rama mentions the minhag of blowing 30 qolos at the :> end of RH mussaf. "Ule'achar sheyatze'u bazeh, shuv ein litqua od :> bechinam." :> (Although a qatan, even higia lechinuch, may.) : : Not bechinam; for practice, so that he may one day blow for real. That's not what the Rama says, though. He says "you're allowed to tell him to blow (HaMagid, Hil' Shofar, pereq 2) and it's mutar to for him to blow all day (Or Zarua dRH)." The mishnah says "any me'qvim es hatinoqos militqoa, aval mis'asqim imahem ad sheyilmedu", which implies they are not stopped even after yilmedu. The gemara ad loc (RH 33a-b) says that a qatan higia' lechinukh is encouraged to blow to learn, but any child is not prevented from blowing. So I think the Rama is paralleling the gemara, and not saying the seifa is only for chinukh, or for a child who doesn't need to be stopped because he isn't ready yet. The AhS's wording is even further from your deduction. :> So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the :> qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, :> etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. : No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the : last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. They aren't to fulfill minhag. Hey, I didn't outright assur the practice, I said it relies on being meiqil, such as calling wanting to be chosheish for some minority opinion shitah a need to blow. In general, I'm increasingly uncomfortable with this concept of being machmir to be chosheish for ... It seems to reflect a lack of emunah in kelalei pesaq and the authority of pesaq. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 11:46:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 14:46:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 11:36 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > In OC 196:1, the Rama mentions the minhag of blowing 30 qolos at the > end of RH mussaf. "Ule'achar sheyatze'u bazeh, shuv ein litqua od > bechinam." > > (Although a qatan, even higia lechinuch, may.) Not bechinam; for practice, so that he may one day blow for real. > So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the > qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, > etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 05:09:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Arie Folger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 14:09:57 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: RMB wrote: > Yes, that explains why it's nothing clearer cut than zilzul Shabbos. > AIUI, worrying about zilzul means that the mechanism is mutar, but > the goal is one that cheapens Shabbos, removes some of the feeling > of its qedushah. > > Like taking the pre-existing concept of eiruv as a way to have a > reshus that was no included in Shelomo ubeis dino's original issur > hotza'ah and stretching it to a much bigger area than ever before, > so that most people never have reason to leave it most weeks. So > that the entire issur goes from being one of the dominant features > of Shabbos (judging just in blatt of discussion) to barely ever > experienced. RAW actually deals with this explicitly by citing IIRC Rambam on why Chazal legislated mutze. We are not all farmers or builders, not even cooks and bakers. Hence, many of us hardly ever come close to deoraitot of Shabbat. However, Shabbaton requires shevita hanikeret,so Chazal legislated muktze to create a shevita hanikeret. Says RAW, even if he is wrong on electricity being a deoraita (but he doesn't think he is wrong), nonetheless, the consensus of poskim on elecricity makes it into something akin to muktze. That never happened regarding gefillte fish [which outside Hungary hardly anyone ever ate except on Yom Tov, since what passes for gefillte fish is just the filling. ]. No one ever suggested it is chillul Shabbos to eat gevldige Sushi. At worst, some puerile yeshive boocher called it goiyishe maakhoolim. -- Arie Folger, Recent blog posts on http://ariefolger.wordpress.com/ * Kann man die Religion des anderen korrekt wahrnehmen? ? Zur Woche der Br?derlichkeit * ???? ???? ????? ? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ???? ??? * Ist Pessach f?r die Vergangenheit oder die Zukunft? * Frag den Rabbi ? Wie backte man Mazzot in der Bibel? * Frag den Rabbi ? Seit wann und warum bedecken j?dische m?nner beim gebet ihr haupt? * A Critique of Liberal Orthodox Approach to Halacha -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:38:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:38:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 02:46:27PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the : last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. Having 100 qolos as learned from Eim Sisera's 100 cries is a minhag recorded already in the Arukh, and is mentioned by Todafos and the Rosh in RH pereq 4. (AhS OC 596:1) The Tur that R' Amram Gaon mentions of minhag of a single teru'ah gedolah without a teqi'ah kedei le'arbeiv hasatan, but we do not have this minhag. The the AhS continues (se'if 2) with the already mentioned Rama, "ke'achar sheyatz'u bazeh, ein litqoa od bechinam". Which is why I said that blowing more than 100 qolos for reasons less than minhag requires a qula-dik reading of "chinam". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:31:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:31:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521202527.GP9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521202527.GP9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E409C.7080609@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 04:25 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > >:> So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the >:> qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, >:> etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. >: No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the >: last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. > They aren't to fulfill minhag. Hey, I didn't outright assur the practice, > I said it relies on being meiqil, such as calling wanting to be chosheish > for some minority opinion shitah a need to blow. That's not a kulah, because the issur is davka when it's bechinam, and so long as there's a reason it's not chinam. Their wish to hear shofar the way this rishon or that one wanted it heard is at least as good a reason as our "le`arvev es hasoton", or giving women a "nachas ruach". [Email #2. -micha] Follow-up: However, your chashash brings up an interesting suggestion. if they are worried about all possible chashshos, then maybe they should worry about yours too, and they can easily solve it: let them go on mivtzo'im and find Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all, and blow for them according to these opinions. That way, not only will they have heard shofar according to all possible opinions, and not only will they have the zechus of those Jews having heard shofar according to at least one opinion (which is certainly kosher, as you correctly point out), but their "extra" tekios will be with a bracha! -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:51:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:51:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E454E.60107@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 04:38 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 02:46:27PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: > : No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the > : last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. > > Having 100 qolos as learned from Eim Sisera's 100 cries is a minhag > recorded already in the Arukh, and is mentioned by Todafos and the > Rosh in RH pereq 4. (AhS OC 596:1) Yes, but what of the extra 30 kolos after davening? Those are not in the 100 kolos, they're just le'arvev es hasoton, and yet nobody seems to raise this objection to them. > The the AhS continues (se'if 2) with the already mentioned Rama, > "ke'achar sheyatz'u bazeh, ein litqoa od bechinam". Which is why I said > that blowing more than 100 qolos for reasons less than minhag requires > a qula-dik reading of "chinam". No, it's not kuladig, it's just what the word means. Any valid reason is not chinam. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:55:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:55:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <555E454E.60107@sero.name> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> <555E454E.60107@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150521205546.GA9166@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 04:51:26PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Yes, but what of the extra 30 kolos after davening? Those are not in the : 100 kolos, they're just le'arvev es hasoton, and yet nobody seems to raise : this objection to them. Actually, they were part of the 100 qolos, and in nusach Ashkenaz they still are. It's only because y'all starting blowing during chazaras hashatz that it's not obvious. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:44:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:44:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <555E43A6.3020602@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 08:09 AM, Arie Folger via Avodah wrote: > No one ever suggested it is chillul Shabbos to eat gevldige Sushi. At worst, some puerile yeshive boocher called it goiyishe maakhoolim. Chilul Shabbos, no, but I have heard people seriously claim that it's forbidden to eat milchigs on Shabbos because it's "not shabbosdik", and specifically citing as "obviously" ridiculous the idea of eating lasagna on Shabbos. Which struck me as funny, since I recall one Rosh Hashana, no less, being confronted with an excellent milchig lasagna, made with fake meat, and having to wait to eat it because I was still fleishig from lunch. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:52:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:52:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What do Chazal mean when they refer to "pashtei d'kra?" Message-ID: <20150521205201.GA6908@aishdas.org> Maybe one of you could help R' CHaim Brown, even if he did leave us over a decade ago. A recent blog post on his "Divrei Chaim" at or . I mean, we talk about different definitions of the concept of "peshat" often enough, perhaps maybe someone had something. Tir'u baTov! -Micha Divrei Chaim Wednesday, May 20, 2015 what do Chazal mean when they refer to "pashtei d'kra?" The gemara Archin 8b darshens that "tzikascha k'harerei E-l" refers to nigei adam, which Hashem in his mercy limits to affecting a person for a week. The continuation of the pasuk, "mishpatecha tehom rabbah," refers to nigei batim, where the punishment is more severe in that it can stretch out for three weeks. The gemara then asks, "Pashtei d'kra b'mai?" and brings two similar explanations to the pasuk that read it as saying that G-d shows great mercy in tempering and mitigating the verdict that strict justice would call for. What do Chazal mean when they refer to "pashtei d'kra?" Despite the word "pashtei" in there, it does not seem to mean what the Rishonim like Rashi call "pshat," because if you look at Rashi or the Metzudas David, they don't simply quote this gemara. It seems that the gemara's "pashtei d'kra" is itself a derasha, albeit a derasha that is closer to the plain meaning of the words than the derasha that links the pasuk to nega'im. So are there different levels of derashos? The term "pashtei d'kra" is not all that common, so are these isolated exceptional cases, or in general are there different levels of derash? Does it make any nafka minah (except in our understanding of things?) Posted by Chaim B. at 9:40 AM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 14:12:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 17:12:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521205546.GA9166@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> <555E454E.60107@sero.name> <20150521205546.GA9166@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E4A32.8030909@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 04:55 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 04:51:26PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : Yes, but what of the extra 30 kolos after davening? Those are not in the > : 100 kolos, they're just le'arvev es hasoton, and yet nobody seems to raise > : this objection to them. > > Actually, they were part of the 100 qolos, and in nusach Ashkenaz they > still are. It's only because y'all starting blowing during chazaras > hashatz that it's not obvious. No, these kolos are not part of the 100. These are an extra 30, *after* the 100, and their only purpose is le'arvev es hasoton. And yet that doesn't count as "bechinam". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 18:25:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 21:25:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Shulchan Aruch's "Beis Din" Message-ID: <20150522012546.GA28788@aishdas.org> We discussed a number of times the fact that the SA doesn't follow the rule in his haqdamah to OC about following the majority of the Rif, the Rambam and the Rosh. Less often, peoeple mention actual examples. So, in case you were looking for one, the AhS mentions on OC 606:8-9 the machloqes about whetherit's a mitzbvah to eat on erev YK. In se'if 8 we learn the the Rif, the Ramnam and the Smag omit this idea, and in se'if 9 he says the Rosh, Tur and SA (se'if 1) hold that it's a mitzvah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 20:02:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi, its Kosher! via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 13:02:42 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Ways to find non-meat or non-milk - The BP Project Message-ID: I am happy to engage in discussion regarding the Halachos of BP, with anyone who is interested. For the time being such discussions must be and remain private I can confirm that I have been in contact with R Chaim Kanievsky about this for some years now and that he supports the Lomdus and proofs that I have proposed. Best, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi *Its Kosher* and *Exodus Matza * *it's kosher Authority Pty Ltd **ABN: *77 160 144 374 rabbi at itskosher.com.au +61 0423 207 837 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 18:55:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 01:55:29 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula Message-ID: <20150521.215529.1991.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Actually, they were part of the 100 qolos, and in nusach Ashkenaz they > still are. It's only because y'all starting blowing during chazaras > hashatz that it's not obvious. R' Zev Sero responded: > No, these kolos are not part of the 100. These are an extra 30, > *after* the 100, and their only purpose is le'arvev es hasoton. > And yet that doesn't count as "bechinam". Okay, folks, I think it is clear that some of us have been exposed to minhagim that the others are unaware of. I suggest that we clarify the various minhagim, and tally up the different ways of dong it. >From what I've seen, the vast majority of Nusach Ashkenaz shuls blow 30 times before Musaf, 30 during Chazaras Hashatz, 40 during or after Kaddish Tiskabel, and that is the end, for a total of exactly 100. I have been in a Nusach Sfard shul where they blow 30 times before Musaf, 30 during the silent Musaf, 30 during Chazaras Hashatz, 10 during or after Kaddish Tiskabel, and that is the end, for a total of exactly 100. Here in Elizabeth, we blow 30 times before Musaf, 60 during Chazaras Hashatz, 10 during Kaddish Tiskabel, and that is the end, for a total of exactly 100. R' Zev, could you describe for us how the first 100 are blown, and when the extra 30 come in? And if anyone else wants to add to the list, please do so! Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/555e8cc570114cc51cdast04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 01:14:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 11:14:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat Message-ID: REMT wrote > True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature > of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so > accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul > Shabbos. (Of course, by this argument, putting an electric light on or off > should be prohibited even if the use of electricity is not a m'lacha.) In particular using an preset switch to turn lights and off should be prohibited. While RMF originally did object he later changed his mind when it became the norm. In fact even the kosher lamp might be prohibited Can someone come up with a definition of zilzul shabbat? Is every modern way of doing any melacha that does not technically violate hilchot shabbat zilzul? The gemara allows using the sun for cooking on shabbat - why isn't that zilzul shabbat? -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 07:59:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Sassoon via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 15:59:41 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003901d0949f$eed65840$cc8308c0$@org.uk> RZS writes: >That's not a kulah, because the issur is davka when it's bechinam, I don't think that is exactly the correct phrasing to explain the situation. Rather, there is the general blanket rabbinic issur on playing musical instruments on yom tov, into which sounding shofar prima facie falls. This general issur is pushed aside by the d'orisa positive mitzvah of blowing shofar (noting that, at least according to the famous Taz, because rabbinic power doesn't stretch far enough to allow the banning of something which is a mitzvah d'orisa in every circumstances in which it would occur, as this would do - but is only in allowed situations where only sometimes the mitzvah would not end up being performed, such as Rosh Hashana on shabbas). This rabbinic issur of playing musical instruments on yom tov vis a vis the shofar is also pushed aside in other rabbinically recognised circumstances - including (according to the majority rishonim, Shulchan Aruch and Rema, although there are major rishonic dissenters) nachas ruach d'nashim. The case of the katan may well be different, given that the fundamental issue with katanim is chinuch (which might perhaps be said to cut both ways here). > and so long as there's a reason it's not chinam. Their wish to hear shofar >the way this rishon or that one wanted it heard is at least as good a >reason as our "le`arvev es hasoton", or giving women a "nachas ruach". Leaving aside nachas ruach, which has (according to those who hold by it at least rabbinic weight - ie power to push aside at least rabbinic prohibitions) - what is the justification for le'arev es hasoton? My instincts are that, to the extent that le'arvev es hasoton is taken seriously, the argument there is one of pikuach nefesh, which of course would push aside the rabbinic issur of playing musical instruments (think about it, if you can get a few extra years out of confusing the soton, how could that not be considered pikuach nefesh)? Don't think that helps with being choshesh for minority shitos. >However, your chashash brings up an interesting suggestion. if they >are worried about all possible chashshos, then maybe they should worry >about yours too, and they can easily solve it: let them go on mivtzo'im >and find Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all, and blow for them >according to these opinions. That way, not only will they have heard >shofar according to all possible opinions, and not only will they have >the zechus of those Jews having heard shofar according to at least >one opinion (which is certainly kosher, as you correctly point out), >but their "extra" tekios will be with a bracha! But aren't they then denying those Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all the chance to hear shofar according to the majority opinions by only blowing for them according to the minority opinions? Or are you proposing that they *then* blow for them according to the majority opinions? Either way you seem to me to be opening a real can of worms. The principle on which somebody who has fulfilled their obligation can then fulfil the obligation of another is based on kol yisrael areivim zeh b'zeh. But to what extent is that applicable in a situation in which that person would never, had the situation been reversed, have accepted the form of fulfilment they are offering the other. Ie since the person who is blowing the shofar refused to have these alternative ways of blowing as the fundamental method of fulfilling their own mitzvah, is it really areivus to then foist that form of fulfilment on others? >Zev Sero zev at sero.name Shabbat Shalom Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 10:22:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 13:22:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What is the Law? Message-ID: <20150522172240.022581829C9@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/sivan_v.pdf YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 11:16:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 14:16:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula II Message-ID: <20150522181627.GA5977@aishdas.org> I came across another one, more inyana deyoma... According to the AhS (OC 494:3) we used to wait for "laylah mamash" to make Qiddush the first night of Shavu'os, so that the omer could be "sheva shabasos temimos". Presumably this is following the MGA who has us wait until tzeis for Qiddush, and the AhS's "laylah mamash" means tzeis. The Taz (494:haqdamah) and the MB (s"q 1) have us waiting for tzeis to start *Ma'ariv*. The Qorban Nesanel (on the Rosh, Pesachim 130b) brings the Rosh as a ra'ayah against the MGA. The Rosh says that even though on Shabbos *and the other YT-im* we add from the chol to the qodesh and eat before it gets dark, we do not do so for the seder night. So the QN QN takes the implication that "she'ar yamim tovim" includes Shavuos. So the QN treats Shavuos like Shabbos, and presumably let you daven maariv and make Qiddush right after pelag. The QN is machmir in omer, the MGA is machmir in tosefes YT. And each is being correspondingly meiqil in the other. I would presume that the silence in the Tur, the BY and the SA about any waiting means that the Tur, the Mechaber and the Rama hold like the QN and treat erev Shavuos like erev Shabbos, RH, Sukkos, etc... (But not Pesach.) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 48th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Malchus: What binds different Fax: (270) 514-1507 people together into one cohesive whole? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 08:55:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 11:55:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <003901d0949f$eed65840$cc8308c0$@org.uk> References: <003901d0949f$eed65840$cc8308c0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <555F517D.4080806@sero.name> On 05/22/2015 10:59 AM, Chana Sassoon via Avodah wrote: >> >However, your chashash brings up an interesting suggestion. if they >> >are worried about all possible chashshos, then maybe they should worry >> >about yours too, and they can easily solve it: let them go on mivtzo'im >> >and find Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all, and blow for them >> >according to these opinions. That way, not only will they have heard >> >shofar according to all possible opinions, and not only will they have >> >the zechus of those Jews having heard shofar according to at least >> >one opinion (which is certainly kosher, as you correctly point out), >> >but their "extra" tekios will be with a bracha! > But aren't they then denying those Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all > the chance to hear shofar according to the majority opinions by only blowing > for them according to the minority opinions? AFAIK everyone agrees that all these methods are kosher, so those Jews are definitely yotzei the mitzvah. > The principle on which > somebody who has fulfilled their obligation can then fulfil the obligation > of another is based on kol yisrael areivim zeh b'zeh. But to what extent is > that applicable in a situation in which that person would never, had the > situation been reversed, have accepted the form of fulfilment they are > offering the other. Ie since the person who is blowing the shofar refused > to have these alternative ways of blowing as the fundamental method of > fulfilling their own mitzvah, is it really areivus to then foist that form > of fulfilment on others? They're not foisting anything. The people they're blowing for would otherwise not hear shofar at all, so they're clearly better off hearing even some obscure form of it, so long as they're yotzei. On 05/21/2015 09:55 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > R' Zev, could you describe for us how the first 100 are blown, and when the extra 30 come in? And if anyone else wants to add to the list, please do so! I'm talking about 30 kolos blown at the very end of davening, just before going home, and well after all 100 kolos have already been heard (30 meyushav, 30 in each musaf, and 10 in kaddish). Their purpose is le'arvev es hasoton. And I've never heard it suggested that there is any chashash issur. Thus my conclusion that shofar-blowing is allowed on RH for *any* valid purpose, and the only blowing that remains forbidden as usual on Yomtov, is when it is truly "bechinam". -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 25 12:15:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 25 May 2015 19:15:59 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Brisker Theory of Everything Message-ID: 1. The gemara (Ketuvot 5b) discusses whether causing a certain type of blood flowing is considered a Sabbath violation. The first attempt to resolve the question turns on whether "mifkad pakid or chaburei mechbar" (is the blood in the womb stored up or is it the result of a wound?). Rashi there (please look) seems to define this as a physical question. Is this acceptable or must we say Rashi was leaving out the "obvious" philosophical/halachic question (i.e. the physical was known, it's a question of how to categorize it halachically)? 2. That gemara continues to try to resolve the question and is willing to entertain the possibility that the halacha is like Rabbi Yehuda (vs. Rabbi Shimon) in mekalkeil (destroying) and like Rabbi Shimon (vs. Rabbi Yehuda) in davar sheino mitkavein (the result was not the major one intended). If these two issues were interconnected, could the gemara entertain this possibility? 3. If the answer to 2 is no, must we assume that when the Shulchan Aruch said he would decide the psak based on majority 2 of big 3, did he really mean this as a primary tie breaker, or only when he did not have a clear understanding of the underlying philosophy that resulted in their final opinions. 4.Is it possible that R'YBS limited his "canon" to only a few major rishonim (in contradistinction to R" A Lichtenstein) because the more data points included in trying to determine the underlying theoretical construct, the more likely a single errant point would skew the results? Kt Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 25 19:35:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 02:35:10 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir Message-ID: <20150525.223510.2086.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> After Machlon and Kilyon died, we find in Ruth 1:8-13 that Naami tells both Orpah and Ruth to go back home. Didn't Naami realize that they would return to avodah zara if they'd do that? Even if they had not converted yet, wouldn't this be an example of Lifnei Iveir? One answer I can think of is that perhaps this eventuality didn't occur to Naami. But several pesukim later, in 1:15, Naami tells Ruth that Orpah has "returned to her people and to her god; go back with your sister-in-law." Naami persists not only in trying to convince Ruth to leave, but she explicitly urges Ruth to return to her former god! This question is certainly relevant according to those who understand that Orpah and Ruth converted prior to marrying Machlon and Kilyon. But it is relevant even to those who hold that Ruth did not convert until afterward. It is one thing to dissuade a prospective ger from joining us. But Ruth had been living with a Jewish family for ten years! How can Naami urge her to go back to avoda zara? I know that the meforshim give various reasons why Naami did not want them to accompany her back to Eretz Yisrael, but do those reasons justify this Lifnei Iveir? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 06:00:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 09:00:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Who Wrote the Mishna Brura? Message-ID: <20150526130054.4548818394C@nexus.stevens.edu> I am sure that most will answer "The Chofetz Chaim" Israel Meir (HaKohen) Kagan. However, he apparently did not write all of it. I have been reading Marc Shapiro's latest book "Changing the Immutable" How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites its History. See http://www.littman.co.uk/cat/shapiro-orthodox.html Shapiro points out that Rabbi Aryeh Leib Cohen, a son of the Chofetz Chaim, wrote in his biography of his father that he wrote parts of the Mishna Brura and that is why there are contradictions in some parts of the MB. Which parts Aryeh Leib wrote are not indicated. Does anyone know? YL PS. I have found this book an eye opener and recommend it highly. llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 10:19:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kaganoff via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 13:19:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 12:01 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 01:53:10PM -0400, Kaganoff via Avodah wrote: > : For many years i had extreme difficulty with R. Elchanan Wasserman > understanding > : as it conflicted with my belief that Judaism (and other religions) was > not > : logically provable (contra to Moshe Mendelssohn and his contemporaries) > and > : therefore required a "leap of faith" and that a disbeliever could not be > : faulted for failing to take such a jump. > > This is a false dichotomy. Logically proving things are not the only > way to justify belief in there. > > How do you know that (in a flat space) two parallel lines never meet? If > you're like me, you pictured it in your head. Even though infinite lines > don't exist in the real world. (Nor, does it turn out, does flat space.) Actually non-euclidean geometry is an excellent example. We cannot say with absolute certainty that two parallel lines will never meet or that there is only one line that goes through a particular point that is parallel to another line, as there is a well developed body of literature on non-Euclidean geometry (such as Riemannian Geometry). One might "feel" strongly that Euclidean Geometry is true and non-Euclidean Geometry is false. But someone might also feel that chocolate ice cream is superior to vanilla ice cream. But neither can be proven. > > Did you figure out that oppression was evil by logical proof, or by a > combination of imagination and empathy? > Calling anything "evil is not meant to be logical but rather to pull at an audiences' heartstrings. Evil is neither logical nor illogical. Nor can one "prove" that the Nazis are evil and that circumcision is not. However, that is a red herring. Again, emotions are not proof. Feelings are neither true nor false. > My favorite example is answering the question, "Do elephants have hair?" > A logical/verbal approach would be: Elephants are mammals, all mammals > have hair, and so unless elephants are the exception to the rule, they > must have hair. Elephants are well known and discussed animals. Could > they be an exception to the rule and I don't know it? Nah, they must > have hair. > > How it is more likely the question jogged your memory of elephants > you saw, or saw pictures of. The detail may be blurry, so you may have > to manipulate the picture a bit. Finally, a version of the picture > which has a tuft of hair at the tail, maybe (if your memory is good) > some downy hair around the eyes and ears, strikes you as the most > familiar, the most real. And again you could reach the conclusion that > elephants have hair. > That is a proveable thesis. One could prove either way whether or not elephants have hair. Unlike the two earlier examples. As for whether one could prove the existence or non-existance of God, I don't have time now to start that discussion. > > (See for some musings about > the two modes of thought I'm contrasting here.) > > In I compare > different versions of the Argument from Design from R' Aqiva's response > to the apiqoreis through the Rambam, through similar approaches based > on more modern science. > > "G-d created" (Gen. 1:1): A hereic came to Rabbi Aqiva and asked, > "Who made the universe?". Rabbi Aqiva answered, "HQBH". The heretic > said, "Prove it to me." Rabbi Aqiva said, "Come to me tomorrow". > > When the heretic returned, Rabbi Aqiva asked, "What is that you > are wearing?" > > "A garment", the unbeliever replied. > > "Who made it?" > > "A weaver." > > "Prove it to me." > > "What do you mean? How can I prove it to you? Here is the garment, > how can you not know that a weaver made it?" > > Rabbi Akiva said, "And here is the world; how can you not know that > Haqadosh barukh Hu made it?" > > After the heretic left, Rabbi Aqiva's students asked him, "But what is > the proof?" He said, "Even as a house proclaims its builder,a garment > its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the > Holy Blessed One Who created it. > > Not very rigorous. Rabbi Aqiva's reply revolves around giving a parable > to make the conclusion self-evident. Not contructing a deductive argument. > > The more rigorous we try making it, the more arguable the proof becomes. > R' Aqiva's argument is far more convincing than the Rambam's statement > based on how objects lose form over time, not gain it. Or a similar > argument based on thermodynamics or information theory. > > (Ironically, every formal / logical proof is built from givens taken > as self-evident for informal-reasoning reasons.) > > Anyway, that's how I understood REW. R' Elchanan argues that on an > informal level, the idea that the universe had to have a Creator is > as obvious as a Euclidean postulate or the injustice of oppression. > I believe that such an explanation is disrespectful to REW. I am assuming that REW believed what he wrote and wrote down clearly what he believed as opposed to assuming that REW believes one thing and wrote another. > > To not believe in G-d requires a formal proof, which one's negios then > determine if they find it sound or specious, and whether they accept > the postulates on which it's built. > To believe and to not believe in God can be pulled off without formal proofs. However, it is intellectually dishonest to state that one has an arguement for God's existance and than say that we are not talking about formal proofs when a counterarguement is made. > Notice I didn't invoke any leaps of faith. > > Tir'u baTov! > -Micha > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 12:25:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 15:25:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150526192512.GA22762@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 01:19:53PM -0400, Kaganoff wrote: : > How do you know that (in a flat space) two parallel lines never meet? If : > you're like me, you pictured it in your head. Even though infinite lines : > don't exist in the real world. (Nor, does it turn out, does flat space.) : : : Actually non-euclidean geometry is an excellent example. We cannot say with : absolute certainty that two parallel lines will never meet or that there is : only one line that goes through a particular point that is parallel to : another line, as there is a well developed body of literature on : non-Euclidean geometry (such as Riemannian Geometry). Well, if we know the curvature of the space we're dealing with, we know which Geometry to use. And only one is correct for that particular space. :> Did you figure out that oppression was evil by logical proof, or by a :> combination of imagination and empathy? : : Calling anything "evil is not meant to be logical but rather to pull at an : audiences' heartstrings. Evil is neither logical nor illogical. Nor can one : "prove" that the Nazis are evil and that circumcision is not. I disagree with your reisha. Evil is an objectively meaningful predicate. Yahadus wouldn't work is evil were subjective. As for your seifa... that's kind of my point: there are truths that can be justified even when they are not amenable to formal proofs. : However, that is a red herring. Again, emotions are not proof. Feelings are : neither true nor false. Although the notion that John is feeling happy at 2:55pm EST May 26, 2015 is either true or false. Or some fuzzy state in between. It is a predicate, even if it needn't be a boolean predicate. All three of these comments are interrelated: Euclidean geometry is the only accurate description of flat space. Not every space, but flat space. People may disagree about what is evil, and Nazis may be able to fool themselves about what the word means, but HQBH did create a concept of good that has an objective definition. Even if -- again -- we cannot find it via proof. : > My favorite example is answering the question, "Do elephants have hair?" : > A logical/verbal approach would be... : > How it is more likely the question jogged your memory of elephants : > you saw, or saw pictures of... : That is a proveable thesis. One could prove either way whether or not : elephants have hair. Unlike the two earlier examples. As I said in the first paragraph, before the first ellipses. However, in practice, people aren't likely to use proofs to reach the conclusion. We justify our belief that elephants have hair in a different way. : As for whether one could prove the existence or non-existance of God, I : don't have time now to start that discussion. But my whole point is that proof isn't the only grounds for justifying knowledge! ... : > Anyway, that's how I understood REW. R' Elchanan argues that on an : > informal level, the idea that the universe had to have a Creator is : > as obvious as a Euclidean postulate or the injustice of oppression. : I believe that such an explanation is disrespectful to REW. I am assuming : that REW believed what he wrote and wrote down clearly what he believed as : opposed to assuming that REW believes one thing and wrote another. Um... That /is/ what Rav Elchanan wrote. I'm arguing that he is being misread because they think that REW invoking the notion of knowledge (as opposed to belief) is equivalent to his invoking the notion of proof. Instead, he invokes the synthetic a priori, of the self-evident, or whatever your theory of justification is of R' Aqiva's answer to the atheist or that letters aren't the product of ink spilled on paper. AISI, REW is saying that humans know there is a G-d, without his saying anything about the possibility of proving it. And that people then go about creating proofs for His non-Existence or Deism, to hide from that knowledge. Or, to be more loyal to his original wording -- because they took shochad to buy into a proof against the obvious. He might be saying that at some level, that knowledge lingers, no matter how much someone buries it under layers of counter-proof and convincing themselves. But I don't see that in REW either. Quoting: Now, of course, we shouldn't be astonished that so many great philosophers had difficulty believing that the world was created by a Purposeful Creator. Their minds were surely great, but their desire to gain benefit from the pleasures of this world overcame their ability to think straight. Such a powerful bias can divert a person's mind to the point that he can say two plus two does not equal four... After my signature, I'll quote Qovetz Maamariv par 5-7 from a translation provided by Pirchei Shoshanim. You'll notice it's nothing like the Rambam's attempt to formally prove an Argument from Design in Moreh sec. II. Really, all he says is that monotheism woul be self-evident if people didn't want to escape its implications on their lifestyle. Not proven, self-evident, and not that those who argue against it are less than fully convinced of their atheism (or Deism, or polytheism). :> To not believe in G-d requires a formal proof, which one's negios then :> determine if they find it sound or specious, and whether they accept :> the postulates on which it's built. : To believe and to not believe in God can be pulled off without formal : proofs. : However, it is intellectually dishonest to state that one has an arguement : for God's existance and than say that we are not talking about formal : proofs when a counterarguement is made. Not "argument", any more than your acceptance of Euclidean (or Reimann) postulates are based on argument. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_justification#Theories_of_justification and http://www.iep.utm.edu/epistemo/#H3 may be clearer than I have been. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "Man wants to achieve greatness overnight, micha at aishdas.org and he wants to sleep well that night too." http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yosef Yozel Horwitz, Alter of Novarodok Fax: (270) 514-1507 5. If you ponder it, however, you shall find that the belief that the Holy One, blessed by He, created the world is self-understood by any intelligent being -- unless a person is a complete imbecile. And there is no need for any [knowledge of] philosophy to grasp this principle. The author of the Duties of the Heart (Shaar HaYichud 6) thus wrote: There are people who say that the world came into existence by chance, without a Creator who caused it and formed it. I wonder how any rational being in a normal state of mind can entertain such a notion. If one holding such a opinion would hear a person expressing a similar view in regard to a water-wheel that revolves in order to irrigate a portion of a field or garden -- and were to say that he thinks it had been set up without any intention on the part of a mechanic who labored to put it together and adjust it, using all his tools to obtain this useful result -- the hearer would wonder, be exceedingly astonished, and think the man who made such a statement extremely foolish. He would promptly charge him with lying, and would reject his assertion. Now, if such a statement is rejected in regard to a small and insignificant wheel, the fashioning of which requires but little contrivance and which serves for the improvement of but a small portion of the earth, how can anyone permit himself to harbor such a thought concerning the immense sphere that emcompasses the whole earth with all the creatures on it; which exhibits a wisdom so great that the minds of all living creatures, the intellects of all rational mortals, cannot comprehend it; which is appointed for the benefit of the whole earth and all its inhabitants – how can one say that it came into existence without a wise and mighty designer purposing and conceiving it? Whatever takes place without purpose shows, as is well known, no trace of wisdom or power. Do you not realize that if ink were poured out accidentally on a blank sheet of paper, it would be impossible that proper writing should result, legible lines such as are written with a pen? If a person brought us a fair copy of script that could only have been written with a pen, and said that ink had been spilt on paper and these written characters have come of themselves, we would charge him to his face with falsehood, for we would feel certain that this result could not have happened without an intelligent person's purposeful action to produce it. Since this appears to us an impossibility in the case of characters whose form is conventional, how can one assert that something far finer in its art, and which manifests in its fashioning a subtlety infinitely beyond our comprehension, could have happened without the purpose, power and wisdom of a wise and mighty designer? How could anyone say that the universe came into existence on its own, seeing that everywhere we look we see signs of such inconceivably profound wisdom? How wondrous is the wisdom and design in the human body, how wondrous the arrangement of its limbs and organs, as all doctors and surgeons attest. How is it possible to say, with regard to such a wondrous machine, that it came into existence on its own without a purposeful designer? If anyone would claim that a watch had just come into existence on its own, he would be considered insane. We see this in the Midrash (Midrash Temurah in Midrash Aggadot Bereshit): An athiest came to Rebbi Akiva. "Who created the world?", he queried. R. Akiva answered, "The Holy One, blessed be He." The athiest replied, "Show me proof." R. Akiva said, "Come back to me tomorrow and I shall prove it to you." When the man returned the following day, R. Akiva began by asking, "What is that you are wearing?""A piece of clothing,"the athiest replied."And who made it?" R. Akiva continued. "The weaver", he replied. "Show me proof", R. Akiva demanded. "But how can I show you proof if it isn't already obvious to you that it is the work of the weaver?!" With this R. Akiva said, "Have you not heard what your own lips have spoken? Isn't it obvious to you that the Holy One has created this world? Doesn't the clothing testify to the weaver; the house and the door to a builder and a carpenter? Just so does the world testity to the One who made it." Imagine a human being born with a fully developed intellect. We can't imagine his great astonishment upon seeing, suddenly, the heavens and their hosts, the earth and all that is upon it. What would this man's answer be to our question: Did the world that he is seeing now for the first time come into existence on its own, without any conscious intent, or is it the work of a wise Creator? Behold, without a doubt, after contemplating for a moment, he would respond that all this was made with wondrous wisdom and extremely subtle order (fine-tuning). [We find this concept expressed in any number places in our classical literature.] The Psalmist said, "The heavens declare the glory of G-d"(Psalms 19:2). [According the Duties of the Heart 2:5] this is also the meaning of Job's words when he declared, "From my flesh, I will see G-d!"(Job 19:26) [The Psalmist saw proof of G-d's existence in the magnitude of the universe. Job was saying that the very fact that something as wonderful as his body could exist demonstrates that it is the work of a wise Creator.] In view of all this it is therefore extremely puzzling, a great enigma: How could some of the greatest philosophers who ever lived have concluded that the world was brought into existence by chance? 6. The resolution of this enigma can be found in the Torah. The Torah reveals something profound about human psychology when it commands, "Do not take bribes, for bribery blinds the eyes of the wise!" (Deuteronomy 16:19). What is bribery? In legal terms, the smallest amount necessary to constitute a bribe is a "shaveh prutah"(not much more than a penny), similar to the minimum amount needed [for a court] to find a person guilty of stealing or of taking interest. This negative commandment, to never take a bribe, is directed not only at a judge, but at every man, even the wisest of men, even the most righteous, even Moses himself. Yes, if it could be imagined, even if Moses would take the tiniest bribe, a prutah, his perception of reality would be distorted; he would be incapable of bringing forth a just ruling. At first sight, this is nothing short of amazing. Can we imagine Moses or Aaron twisting the law and judging falsely merely for the sake of receiving such miniscule benefit? But the Torah itself testifies to the possibility, and "the testimony of G-d is trustworthy" (Psalms 19:8). We must therefore say that it is a psychological law: A person's will or desire [to gain some benefit] influences his mind [his ability to think straight]. Of course, it depends how strong the desire and how resolute the mind. A small desire will not exert much influence on a great mind, whereas on a lesser mind it will. A powerful desire [for gain] will exert even more influence. One thing is certain: no matter how miniscule, a desire for gain will always have some affect. Even the tiniest desire can cause the greatest mind to waver a fraction. This is exemplified in the Talmud (Ketuvot 105b): Rebbi Yishmael bar Yossi had a land tenant who used to bring him fruits from his [R. Yishmael's] orchard every Friday before Shabbat. Once, he came on a Thursday. R. Yishmael asked him: "What's changed this week?" "I have a court case this week", he answered."Since I was coming to town anyway, I thought I would bring you your fruits."R. Yishmael refused to take the fruits [even though they were his]. "I am disqualified from judging your case."Two [other] rabbis sat and began to hear the land tenant's case. R. Yishmael sat [on the sidelines] watching. At every turn in the discussion, R. Yishmael felt himself wanting to give advice to his land tenant. "If only he would say this now... if only he would say this..."After the case was decided, he exclaimed, "O that the spirit of those who take bribes would explode! I refused to take what was rightfully mine [and I still couldn't help being biased and wanting to see him come out winning]. How much more those who actually take what it is not theirs! It is known that the sages [of the Talmud] were angelic in terms of their expanded consciousness and saintly character. We nevertheless see that the smallest degree of bias could cause them to incline away from the truth. How much more so the rest of us who are sunken in the desires of this world! The desire for gain literally bribes us, saying, "Hey, look, the world is free to do with as you please!"How powerful this bias is! How easily it distorts our perception and blinds us! For when a person has "bought into"a certain bias, he is incapable of recognizing any truth that flies in the face of that bias. As far as that truth is concerned, he might just as well be in a drunken stupor. He doesn't recognize its existence. Now, of course, we shouldn't be astonished that so many great philosophers had difficulty believing that the world was created by a Purposeful Creator. Their minds were surely great, but their desire to gain benefit from the pleasures of this world overcame their ability to think straight. Such a powerful bias can divert a person's mind to the point that he can say two plus two does not equal four, but five. A person cannot judge whether something is true unless his mind is free from any distorting influence vis a vis the thing he wishes to judge. On the contrary, if recognizing a particular truth in any way contradicts a bias that a person has bought into, no amount of intellect, even the intellect of a great person, can remove or overcome that bias. 7. We learn from this that the foundations of true faith are simple and unquestionable for anyone who isn't an idiot. It is simply impossible to doubt their veracity. This is only true, however, on the condition that one does not allow oneself to be bribed. One must be disinterested in and free from the desires and allures of this world, and his own personal desires [for gain]. If so, the root of God-denial lies not in the distortion of the intellect in and of itself. It lies in the heart, i.e., in one's desire to gain benefit [from this world], which distorts and blinds the intellect. It is clear now why the Torah commands, "Do not stray after your hearts..." (Deuteronomy 15:39), concerning which the sages commented, "Do not follow after the heart's desire to deny G-d"(Sifri Shlach 15:70). A person is obligated to subdue and sublimate his desires [for personal gain], because this is the only way his intellect will be free of any blinding influence! He will then automatically recognize the truth of the existence of a Creator. This is what Rebbi Akiva meant when he said that the world attests to the Holy One, blessed be He, who created it. God-denial really has no place in a person's mind. Its place, if man allows it to exist there, is the heart; in a person's desire for gain. And if one would be careful not to allow his desires to overcome him, he could never come to deny G-d's existence or atttribute reality to any form of idolatry. It is a sign that one's desires have grown out of proportion if one is incapable of understanding this simple truth. And the commandment to believe in G-d? It is a commandment not to allow one's desires to overcome his intellect so that he will automatically come to believe. In other words, there is no need to struggle to believe. One must simply remove the obstacles that stand in the way of believing. It will then come naturally, of itself... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 11:11:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 14:11:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura? Message-ID: <20150526181117.9766A180F62@nexus.stevens.edu> Someone sent me the following which is also in Shapiro's book. "The first edition of Shemiras Shabbos K'Hilchasah had a footnote to the effect that some things in the MB had been written by the CC's son. See p. 263 n. 203. The full footnote is not in the later editions of SSK." Shapiro views this as part of the Chareidi attempt to keep certain information from the Chareidi public that they do want people to know. His book is filled with many examples of the "rewriting of history" to fit current Chareidi ideology. He also wrote "Rabbi Jacob J. Schachter wrote an article in The Torah U-Madda Journal about changes and mentioned the MB, the CC's son, and the original SSK footnote. See his "Facing the Truths of History" at http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/704426/Rabbi_Dr-_Jacob_J_Schacter/Facing_the_Truths_of_History (p. 225 and n. 114 on p. 264)." YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 12:44:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 15:44:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura? In-Reply-To: <20150526181117.9766A180F62@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150526181117.9766A180F62@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150526194413.GB22762@aishdas.org> And many of the books we consider the Gra's are students' records of his teachings. For that matter, people talk about what the Ari says in Peri Eitz Chaim or others of R' Chaim Vital's works. RALC piously takes blame for those occasions when he misunderstood his father's position, saying that these errors, rather than actual inconsistencies in the CC's shitah, is what you may find in the MB. But the CC takes ownership of the contents of the MB. See the title page (Warsaw 1884 ed.) "Ube'uri qarative besheim MISHNAH BERURAH..." ... kol eileh chibarti be'ezras H' yisbarakh, haChonen le'adam da'as, YISRAEL MEIR br' Aryeh Ze'ev haKohein zlh"h, mei'ir Radin." Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I long to accomplish a great and noble task, micha at aishdas.org but it is my chief duty to accomplish small http://www.aishdas.org tasks as if they were great and noble. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Helen Keller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 15:01:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 18:01:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150526220106.GA9900@aishdas.org> On Fri, May 22, 2015 at 11:14:15AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature :> of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so :> accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul :> Shabbos... : In particular using an preset switch to turn lights and off should : be prohibited. : While RMF originally did object he later changed his mind when it became : the norm. Actually, RMF's primary argument was mar'is ayin, which would naturally change as people know to blame lights turning on and off on "Shabbos clocks". : In fact even the kosher lamp might be prohibited Well, I would think that fits the zilzul Shabbos argument bewing used WRT the kosher switch. : Can someone come up with a definition of zilzul shabbat? The textbook case would be on Shabbos 6a: situating someone in a meqom petur so that someone in a reshus hayachid can hand items to them so that they could then hand it over to someone in a reshus harabim. Rashi ad loc explains "demezalzel be'isurei Shabbos". I think it's making a farce out of one of the issurim / chiyuvim of Shabbos. Notice that the case Rashi attributes to zilzul would otherwise be perfectly mutar. : Is every modern way of doing any melacha that does not technically : violate hilchot shabbat zilzul? : The gemara allows using the sun for cooking on shabbat - why isn't that : zilzul shabbat? I think the problem is more than just avoiding the issur, but making it trivial to entirely avoid it. Which is what I had in mind when I distinguished between eiruv, which is built into hotza'ah derabbanan, and community eruv, which takes that idea and stretches it until someone can pretty much ignore the whole topic of carmelis for years on end. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Strength does not come from winning. Your micha at aishdas.org struggles develop your strength When you go http://www.aishdas.org through hardship and decide not to surrender, Fax: (270) 514-1507 that is strength. - Arnold Schwarzenegger From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 16:14:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 19:14:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") Message-ID: In Avodah V33n82, RAM requested: > I suggest that we clarify the various minhagim, and tally up the different ways of dong it....And if anyone else wants to add to the list, please do so! < When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: -- 30 *dim'yushav* -- 10 *dim'umad* -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the post-"Aleinu" Qaddish) All the best from *Michael Poppers* * Elizabeth, NJ, USA -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 18:24:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 21:24:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir In-Reply-To: <20150525.223510.2086.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150525.223510.2086.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150527012443.GA5467@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 02:35:10AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : It is one thing to dissuade a prospective ger from joining us. But Ruth : had been living with a Jewish family for ten years! How can Naami urge : her to go back to avoda zara? I know that the meforshim give various : reasons why Naami did not want them to accompany her back to Eretz : Yisrael, but do those reasons justify this Lifnei Iveir? On a technical level, it would be mesayeia, not lifnei iver, and I'm not sure that mesayeia applies to 7 mitzvos benei Noach. But if you're just asking how it's moral... Just thinking off-the cuff. The timing is between eishes Shimshon and Shelomo's mistake with many of his wives. It would seem that women only pretending monotheism to join the Jewish People was common. If Rus was going to be a pagan either way, better not one who people would mistake for a geir. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet micha at aishdas.org about things most people don't watch even on http://www.aishdas.org Yom Kippur. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 00:25:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 10:25:26 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat Message-ID: <<: The gemara allows using the sun for cooking on shabbat - why isn't that : zilzul shabbat? I think the problem is more than just avoiding the issur, but making it trivial to entirely avoid it.>> In that case how about a "dud shemesh" according to the poskim that it is allowed because it uses the sun <> would there be a difference between doing this once and making this a standard procedure? -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 01:22:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:22:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <> The key word is "if" . That is the difference between math and physics. Math assumes axioms and from there everything is provable. Physics discusses the "real" world. This is based on observation and induction. Hence, physics is always subject to modification based on new observations. Hence, we have no proof of the curvature of the universe. <> Yahadus uses the Torah to define evil. Others don't accept this definition. Is ISIS beheading victims and their other acts "evil" ? They believe they are keeping the word of G-d. Destrying ancient monuments is viewed by the world as "evil" while they see it as destroying idols and hence a mitzvah. If we were to eradicate Amalek we would consider it a great mitzvah while the rest of thw world would bring us to the world court for genocide. <> But without a formal proof it is always debatable. You feel that the existence of G-d is obvious even without a formal proof (which doesn't exist) while Dawkins feels that anyone who believes in a diety that interacts with the world is a fool. You accept Torah mi-sinai while most academics are convinced the Torah was written during the late Bayit Rishon if not later -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 02:20:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 12:20:34 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] right and wrong Message-ID: Tangential to some of the recent discussions I wish to point out that the defintion of right and wrong is subjective and indeed changes through history. As one example consider the recent post on love from http://www.talmudology.com/ In the 1440s in England, Elizabeth Paston, the twenty-year old daughter of minor gentry, was told by her parents that she was to marry a man thirty years her senior. Oh, and he was disfigured by smallpox. When she refused, she was beaten "once in the week, or twice and her head broken in two or three places." This persuasive technique worked, and reflected a theme in Great Britain, where Lord Chief Baron Matthew Hale declared in 1662 that "by the law of God, of nature or of reason and by the Common Law, the will of the wife is subject to the will of the husband." Things weren't any better in the New Colonies, as Ann Little points out (in a gloriously titled article "*Shee would Bump his Mouldy Britch; Authority, Masculinity and the Harried Husbands of New Haven Colony 1638-1670.*) The governor of the New Haven Colony was found guilty of "not pressing ye rule upon his wife." What was obvious in one generation is no longer regarded as true today. Similar arguments apply to slavery -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 03:47:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 06:47:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 07:14:36PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: : -- 30 *dim'yushav* : -- 10 *dim'umad* : -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to blow. How do you do less than 10 *each*? Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 05:03:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 12:03:32 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir Message-ID: <20150527.080332.8051.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> I asked if Naami had violated Lifnei Iveir: : It is one thing to dissuade a prospective ger from joining us. : But Ruth had been living with a Jewish family for ten years! How : can Naami urge her to go back to avoda zara? R' Micha Berger answered: > On a technical level, it would be mesayeia, not lifnei iver, and > I'm not sure that mesayeia applies to 7 mitzvos benei Noach. Really? Perhaps I need a better understanding of the difference between the two. I thought that mesayeia was when the other person is going to violate the halacha anyway and I am merely helping him to do it. But in this case, the three of them have been living for ten years as a family unit, and regardless of the geirus (or lack of it) I presume there was no avodah zara under Naami's roof. This status quo could have continued for a long time, as we see even Orpah was reluctant to leave. But Naami urged and insisted, and it is difficult for me to imagine a bigger michshol. Pasuk 1:15 - "So [Naami] said: Look! Your sister in law has returned to her people and to her god. Go follow your sister in law." One of us might as well hand the car keys to our child on Shabbos and tell him to have a good time. Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:14:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:14:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527151410.GG27891@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 11:22:14AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : <> : : The key word is "if" . That is the difference between math and physics. : Math assumes axioms and from there everything is provable... Again, from a set of givens. The givens are accepted as the rules of the formal system. Which is why I spoke of the validity of Euclid's Postulates in the context of flat space. But my point was that there are things other than proof. : <> : : Yahadus uses the Torah to define evil. Others don't accept this definition. Nu, so they're wrong. We may not be able to prove to them they're wrong, but they are. Somewhere "out there" is a real objective definition. Regardless of someone's ability to know what they are, or to accept it if they did. : <> : : But without a formal proof it is always debatable... 1- That's a different topic. We're talking about how I justify my believing in something, not how I prove it to others. 2- There are synthetic a priori knowledge so self-evident people don't debate them. Which is why I dragged Euclid into this. EVERY proof STARTS with these givens. Logic is a means of combining postulates, not starting yeish mei'ayin. And thus no proof is actually more solid than its weakest postulate -- and that postulate is justified by something other than proof. And I brought up these notions because I think that without disentangling why I believe from how can I get others to believe, or the general concept of how knowlege is justified from the specific concepts of formal or experiment proof, we cannot get to what R Elchanan Wasserman means. REW says that if it were not for ulterior motive, G-d's existence would be as self evident as the conclusion that a calligraphied poem had an author and scribe (who may be the same person), and was not just spilled ink on a piece of paper. He doesn't yet talk about proof, and in fact, his language is that of informal justification, not proof. (I've blogged the notion that the more formal we make the Argument from Design the LESS solidly it justifies belief. See . For example, R Aqiva's -- or REW's -- version only requires common experience. The Rambam's requires dividing matter into Form and Substance and accepting certain postulates about Form and Time. Later versions will instead speak of entropy and time... But they all suffer from involving *more* givens and insisting they are self-evident and precede the attempt to prove anything.) REW then says that it's only ulterior motive that allows many of us to create arguments and proofs (validly drawn but from broken givens or flawed in reasoning) to let convince ourselves away from that default position. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When a king dies, his power ends, micha at aishdas.org but when a prophet dies, his influence is just http://www.aishdas.org beginning. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Soren Kierkegaard From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:33:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:33:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527153329.GH27891@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 11:48:03AM +0300, Saul Mashbaum wrote: : Very briefly, R. Rosner cites three approaches in the sources : : 1. Illustrating the truth - The Ran in Drashot HaRan drasha 5 - In this : approach, which severely limits the principle of eilu v'eilu, the Ran : states that actually only one of the opinions is true. The other opinion is : 'divrei Elokim chaim' only insofar as it serves to illustrate and elucidate : the other opinion, which is the real truth, as the dark enables us to : appreciate a candle... R/Dr Moshe Halbertal forms his opinion of the Ran's shitah on the haqdamah to haMafteiach leManulei haTalmud. He translates: It is a known fact that the entire Torah, written and oral, was transm itted to Moses, as it says in the tract ate Meggilah, R. Hiyya bar Abba said in the Name of R. Yohanan: The verse:...and on them was written according to all the words.." teaches that the Holy One blessed be He showed Moses the details prescribed by the Torah and by the Sages, including the innovations they would later enact. And what are those? the reading of Meggila. The 'details' provided by the rabbis are halakhic disputes and conflicting views held by the sa ges of Israel. Moses learned them all by divine word with no resolution every controversy in detail. Yet [God] also gave him a rule whose truth is manifest, i.e., 'Favor the majority opinion'....as the sages of that generation saw fit, for the decision had already been delegated to them as it is written: 'And you shall come to the priest the Levites, and to the judge that shall be in those days' and 'You shall not deviate....". (Quoted from . I do not know where to find the original, to see what's ellided or whether my own attempt to translate would agree.) This quote from the Ran pretty clearly backs the third position in RSR's survey: : 3. Multiple truths (Ritva in Eiruvin, Maharal) - Both opinions are true, : reflecting different perspectives of the subject at hand (IMO, this is : similar to the previous explanation, without establishing a hierarchy : between the truths expressed by the different opinions)... (BTW, I happen to agree with this parenthetic. ) OTOH, in Derashah #7, I think I could defend RSR's #2! To quote the Ran: We have been commanded to obey their decision whether it represents the tru th or its opposite ...for the power of decision-making has been entrusted to the halakhic authorities for each generation. Whatever they decide is what God has commanded. Compare: : 2. Levels of truth - R. Moshe in the hakdama to IM, and R. Yaakov to : Bereishit 26, the Netziv in his Hakadama to Haamek Sh'eila, his commentary : to the Sheiltot). Using R. Moshe's terminology. there is Emet Shamaymit, : and Emet L'Horaa. Both are correct, and in this world we are obligated to : follow the emet l'horaa even if it deviates from the ultimate, heavenly : truth. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You are where your thoughts are. micha at aishdas.org - Ramban, Igeres haQodesh, Ch. 5 http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:38:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:38:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5565E50A.4070406@sero.name> On 05/27/2015 04:22 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Yahadus uses the Torah to define evil. Others don't accept this definition. Why is that relevant? Objective truth doesn't depend on how many people are aware of it or accept it. It's true for everyone, whether they know and accept it or not. Those who don't know it are simply ignorant, and those who dispute it are simply wrong. Subjective truth is a very different matter. If a truth is subjective then those who dispute it are not wrong, it *isn't true* for them, and if someone insists it must be true for them then *he* is wrong. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:41:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:41:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] right and wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5565E599.6050709@sero.name> On 05/27/2015 05:20 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Tangential to some of the recent discussions I wish to point out that > the defintion of right and wrong is subjective and indeed changes > through history. No, it isn't and it doesn't. That the majority of people in the course of history have been wrong is no chiddush; the majority of people *today* are wrong. Truth isn't determined by democracy. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:42:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:42:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") In-Reply-To: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> References: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5565E5EC.7030806@sero.name> On 05/27/2015 06:47 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to > blow. How do you do less than 10*each*? Tashrat for Malchiyos, Tashat for Zichronos, and Tarat for Shofros. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 10:58:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 13:58:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Even More on Who Wrote the Mishnah Brurah Message-ID: <20150527175829.C3B57182454@nexus.stevens.edu> Someone on my email list spoke to a well-known Flatbush Rov and sent me the following: Reb Yitzchok I spoke to Rabbi XX this morning, and he did indeed confirm that the MB was not written only by the Chofetz Chaim. He said R. Moshe Feinstein told him that it is a work of a rabbim, not only a yochid. It seems that R. Arye Leib was not the only one to work on it. According to what R. XX heard the team also consisted of the CC's son in law and the mashgiach Rav Londinski. R. XX also told me that R. Henoch Liebowitz, the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim in Queens told him that his father Reb Dovid, who was a nephew of the CC, also wrote portions of the MB. So thank you for leading me towards this information. llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 12:38:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 15:38:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55661D24.8040207@gmail.com> Micha Berger: >> Rabbi Akiva said, ... "Even as a house proclaims its builder,a garment >> > its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the >> > Holy Blessed One Who created it. >> > >> >Not very rigorous. Rabbi Aqiva's reply revolves around giving a parable >> >to make the conclusion self-evident. Not contructing a deductive argument. >> > >> > ...there are truths that can >> be justified even when they are not amenable to formal proofs. >> ... I'll quote Qovetz Maamariv par 5-7 from a translation >> provided by Pirchei Shoshanim. You'll notice it's nothing like the >> Rambam's attempt to formally prove an Argument from Design in Moreh >> sec. II. Indeed, the Rambam himself in the Moreh Nevuchim recognizes this distinction and supports the superior validity of the non-formal approach. Chapters after he devotes chapters to formal philosophic proofs for Creation ex nihilo, he describes how a healthy (and unbiased) mind thinks: And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, /for one who is modeh al ha-ememmes/ (Ibn Tibbon; KPCH: /baal tsedek/; Pines: an equitable man) [contra Aristotle?see 2:20-23], is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an intender, and that such purposeful intent necessarily implies the production of something new [and not something that always existed along with the one who bears the purposeful intention for its existence]. (MN 3:13) Aristotle agreed to the premise that everything in Nature serves a certain purpose, and that every being contributes to the existence of still another being, but he refused to concede to the conclusion the Rambam considers something a /modeh al ha-emmess/baal tsedek/ is naturally convinced of. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 13:54:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 16:54:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <55661D24.8040207@gmail.com> References: <55661D24.8040207@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150527205440.GB22904@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 03:38:12PM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : Indeed, the Rambam himself in the Moreh Nevuchim recognizes this : distinction and supports the superior validity of the non-formal : approach. Chapters after he devotes chapters to formal philosophic : proofs for Creation ex nihilo, he describes how a healthy (and : unbiased) mind thinks: : : And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, ... : is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities : serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; : and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an : intender, and that such purposeful intent necessarily implies the : production of something new [and not something that always existed : along with the one who bears the purposeful intention for its : existence]. (MN 3:13) There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam recaps a point made in 2:19-20. And for that matter, if the Rambam was talking about not really needing formal proof, despite spending much of sec. II on just that, why would it be buried in a chapter that focuses on something else? 3:13 is about how the universe has its own purpose. It is not just an arena designed for the purpose of humans. He argues here with Aristo who says that plants exist for the purpose of animals, and in general, that things exist for the purpose of other things. Besides, the Rambam writes in 3:51 in the mashal of the palace, that people who believe because of tradition without having proof are like those who wander around the chatzer, whereas someone with a proof is like one who entered the prozdor. Not Aristo's epistomology didn't analyze issues of proof vs other justification. But clearly Reliabilism, trusting an idea found in a source that has already been found to be reliable (hama'aminim ... derekh qabalah), is not being considered good enough justification to fully accomplish life's goal. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 14:39:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 17:39:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527213945.GE22904@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 10:25:26AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> I think the problem is more than just avoiding the issur, but making :> it trivial to entirely avoid it. : : In that case how about a "dud shemesh" according to the poskim that it is : allowed because it uses the sun I don't know. Maybe because you still can't boil hot water if you wanted it, say, for your tea. :> The textbook case would be on Shabbos 6a: situating someone in a meqom :> petur so that someone in a reshus hayachid can hand items to them so :> that they could then hand it over to someone in a reshus harabim. :> Rashi ad loc explains "demezalzel be'isurei Shabbos".>> : would there be a difference between doing this once and making this a : standard procedure? Good question. I don't see "standard procedure" in the gemara, it looks like a one-off. It depends if we're talking about zilzul of kevod Shabbos, or zilzul of the melakhah, the latter being more of a "threat of slippery slope" problem. Rashi has "mezalzel be'isurei Shabbos". BH 337:2 "shelo yishtaberu" uses the same turn of phrase. Why would you be afraid of cheapening the issur if we aren't talking about that opening the door to future violation? The Tur OC 315, Beiur Halakah 344 and elsewhere talk about not doing things "shelo yavo'u lezalzel bo". Which clearly invokes a slippery slope argument; but not that zilzul is itself a slippery slope, rather than zilzul is such a problem, we avoid things that will slide us there. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is harder to eat the day before Yom Kippur micha at aishdas.org with the proper intent than to fast on Yom http://www.aishdas.org Kippur with that intent. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 14:49:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 17:49:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir In-Reply-To: <20150527.080332.8051.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150527.080332.8051.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150527214903.GF22904@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 12:03:32PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Micha Berger answered: :> On a technical level, it would be mesayeia, not lifnei iver, and :> I'm not sure that mesayeia applies to 7 mitzvos benei Noach. : Really? Perhaps I need a better understanding of the difference between : the two. I thought that mesayeia was when the other person is going to : violate the halacha anyway and I am merely helping him to do it... My understanding is that mesayeia is when the person was capable of doing the aveirah without you. Not "would" but "could". Whereas lifnei iveir is when the nazir is mei'eivar hanahar and you're giving him passage. The sugya is on AZ 6a-b. But, I see the Ran does say mesayeia apply to preventing a nakhri from violating the 7MBN. The Rama *YD 151:2) says we are meiqil and allow selling AZ items to nakhriim if they already own similar items or can buy them elsewhere, but there are machmirim. See the Shach YD 151:6-7, who discusses this machloqes rishonim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The mind is a wonderful organ micha at aishdas.org for justifying decisions http://www.aishdas.org the heart already reached. Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 18:33:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 21:33:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] measurement error Message-ID: <20150528013324.GA4749@aishdas.org> The topic I got caught up in has been the AhS and standard shiurim. The story so far.... Jan 8, when this thread was current, I wrote : > BTW, carrying 4 amos bereshus harabbim is 4 of one's own amos, assuming > they have mainstream bone structure. It's where I am in AhS Yomi. > But notice that we would naturally assume "amah" as unit of length, not > as a function of how far that particular person can reach. On Jan 11, I hit the topic again WRT eiruvin AhS OC 363:32-35, and wrote : > But then in se'if 34 he says something I do not follow, but key to > our discussion. > When dealing with mavui, where there is only one mavui and therefore one > measuring process to be used for everyone, the above applies. However, > when the measurement is only for one person's use, tbey should be > measuring for himself, with his own norms. > And here he adds a touch of subjectivity: a person should measure how > far he himself could walk. And the rule of carrying in rh"r a distance > of no more 4 of one's own amos is brought into that umbrella. > The reason for the general rule is to cover the personal amos of the > people who will be using the measuring. > BUT, and this is why I do not follow, he opened se'if 32 by telling us > the variability is 1/48 of the total (1/24 of an etzba per ammah). Which > is far less than the variability in forearm lengths in most groups of > people. For example, my own sukkah is used by Yoni, who stands 6'3" and by > my own 5'3" -- and my arms are on the shorter side, even proportionally. > When we hold up elbows together, my ammah ends just past his wrist. Not > within 47/48 of eachother. And then on May 18 I hit AhS OC 586:14 and tried reviving this thread . The topic was the minimum length for a shofar -- long enough to be seen on either side when being held in one hand. > So the shiur is neither personal nor really the standard tefach. It is > literally as the gemara says, what can be held and still seen. Which is > why there is a machloqes about where the tefach stands in relation to the > real shiur. But, visible if hypothetically held by an average hand. And > if the tqoei'ah has wide hands, he could hold a minimal shofar without > it being visible, and it would still be kosher. ... > What I find even more interesting is that there is no chiluq being drawn > between someone who blows in shul and someone who blows just for himself. > Wouldn't the rule from OC 363 mean that someone in the latter situation > should use what is visible when their own hand holds it? But today I seem to have hit an AhS which deals with shiurim that aren't human: revi'is, kezayis. According to OC 612:8, the shiur of drinking on YK is not a revi'is, but melo lugmav. And unlike akhilah, where there is one kezayis for everyone, melo lugmav is literally his own cheek. So it would seem that kezayis, and perhaps revi'is and other shiurim (beis se'ah) are not subjective. Which makes sense, since I can't figure out how to make a kezayis correspond to the person... Except RCVolozhiner's position, where it's the average kezayis then and there, and not a static shiur. Which could, literally, be the same shiur for all people (living there and then) and thus may be within the AhS's intent. Can't I get anyone else intrigued by this problem? Back on Jan 11, I was in hil' eiruvin, and hit upn the AhS's discussion of an ammah just as we were discussing the topic Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The purely righteous do not complain about evil, micha at aishdas.org but add justice, don't complain about heresy, http://www.aishdas.org but add faith, don't complain about ignorance, Fax: (270) 514-1507 but add wisdom. - R AY Kook, Arpelei Tohar From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:12:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:12:53 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul Message-ID: Micha wrote: The Tur OC 315, Beiur Halakah 344 and elsewhere talk about not doing things "shelo yavo'u lezalzel bo". Which clearly invokes a slippery slope argument; but not that zilzul is itself a slippery slope, rather than zilzul is such a problem, we avoid things that will slide us there. >> My apologies but I am still completely confused when one applies zilzul and when one says something is allowed as an exception to the rule. No purpose in giving examples as there are myriads of exceptions that are allowed. I have the same problem with "lo plug" sometimes something that would be allowed is prohibited because of "lo plug" and sometimes we simply say it is an exception. Perhaps the most famous example is lighting candles on leil yom tov. The wife of the Prisha says one should say the bracha first and then light since lighting (preexisting flame) is allowed on tomtov. The MA calls her names and says this is an obvious "lo plug". My impression is that most women follow the wife of the prisha. The question is what is the basis of the machloket either when do we say "lo plug" and when do we apply "zilzul" and when do we ignore these arguments -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 21:04:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 04:04:33 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir Message-ID: <20150528.000433.22403.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > My understanding is that mesayeia is when the person was capable > of doing the aveirah without you. Not "would" but "could". Whereas > lifnei iveir is when the nazir is mei'eivar hanahar and you're > giving him passage. > > The sugya is on AZ 6a-b. > > ... I will be the first to point out that Lifnei Iveir is one the many topics where my learning and expertise is severely lacking. Even so, I suspect that there is something missing from RMB's definition. In the simplest reading of the pasuk (Vayikra 19:14), Rashi says that Lifnei Iveir forbids one to give bad advice to another person. It is difficult to imagine a worse piece of advice than telling Ruth to follow Orpah back her her previous god. Googling the question "What is Lifnei Iveir" brought me to an interesting article by Rabbi Yirmiyohu Kaganoff (bio at http://rabbikaganoff.com/about) The full article is at http://tinyurl.com/ka3pwq6 and I would like to quote the part where he gives three different categories of Lifnei Iveir: > I. Inciting ? maiseis > > This occurs when a person was not even considering doing an > aveirah until someone encouraged him. Thus, the instigator incited > the performing of the aveirah and is therefore a maiseis. > > II. Encouraging ? chanufah > > One violates this prohibition by complimenting someone for doing a > sin, thus implying that sinning is acceptable. > > III. Enabling ? lifnei iveir > > One violates this prohibition if the sinner wanted to do the > aveirah, but was unable to do so without assistance. The person > who enables the performing of the aveirah violates lifnei iveir. > > IV. Even when none of these Torah prohibitions are involved, > helping the sinner do the aveirah sometimes violates the rabbinic > prohibition of mesaya?a y?dei ovrei aveirah, assisting someone who > is sinning. (It is unfortunate that the article did not cite a source or precedent for these categories, but please bear with me.) It seems to me that RMB is giving a useful tool to distinguish between category 3 and category 4, but that tool is useful only in the case where a person already has the *desire* to commit a sin, but it lacking the *ability* to some degree. If a person has only a mild inability to sin, then the enabler is merely mesayeia; but if the person has a severe inability, then the enabler is placing a real michshol. But what of the case where a person does *not* yet have a desire to sin? Rabbi Kaganoff is saying that one who incites or encourages him to do it is violating Lifnei Iveir. Even if the person already has the ability to do the sin, it was below his "bechirah point" until he was egged on to do it. Rabbi Kaganoff offers an example: > Inciting Someone to Sin ? maiseis > > The classic case of maiseis is when the nachash encouraged Chavah > to eat the forbidden fruit. Even though the nachash itself did > not eat, Hashem punished it for inciting Chavah to sin (Gemara > Sanhedrin 29a). Similarly, if Reuven incites Shimon to sin in a > way that Shimon had not considered, Reuven is a maiseis. And so my question can be rephrased: If the nachash was wrong to tell Chava to eat the fruit, wasn't Naami wrong to tell Ruth to follow Orpah back to her god? Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/556694205dac4141e6338st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 01:07:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:07:24 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim Message-ID: On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 07:14:36PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: : -- 30 **dim'yushav** : -- 10 **dim'umad** : -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the R' Micha Berger asked: "How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to blow. How do you do less than 10 **each**?" Many Rishonim (quoted by the Beis Yosef in Siman 592) hold that during Chazaras Hashatz in Musaf you blow Tashrat for malchiyos, Tashat for zichronos and Tarat for shofaros. In all of the Nusach Ashkenaz shuls that I have davened in they blew 30 before Musaf, 30 during chazaras hashatz and then 40 after Musaf adding up to 100. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:33:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:33:43 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: Micha wrote <> Well Micha and I agree on several points but still disagree on others. Agreed that people in real life don't use formal mathematical proofs. A sanhedrin can kill on a majority vote (OK there a little more than 50%) I also agree that if one is talking about oneself then feelings count. Saying they are wrong but I cant prove it works perfectly OK with regard to your own beliefs. It doesnt work when trying to convince others. Example: Your child comes home and says he learned that the world is billions of years old not about 5700 years. Or else your teenager tells you he doesn't believe G-d is loving because of the Holocaust or because of Amalek. You can tell him that whatever is in the Torah or Chazal is truth and its not open to discussion. That might work with some children. Alternatively you can give him/her one of the many answers that have been discussed on this list. That may or not convince him. There are no proofs that G-d exists or that G-d rules the universe or that G-d is just or loving. You can convince yourself but doing that to others is difficult, We have already argued about REW and I still can't accept it. The argument is that if someone else tells you why he doesn't accept G-d or that G-d rules the world whether for rational or emotional reasons the answer is that we don't believe him and say he is making up reasons. Of course he will say the same about your acceptance of Torah and mitzvot. To simply accuse the other of simply rationalizing his beliefs is simply not true. I have had enough lectures on why the Bible was written very late by many scribes to be convinced they really mean it. You may disagree but you can't accuse them of merely rationalizing their non-belief. In one class the professor said he would willing debate anyone who has a different opinion objectively. However, if you start that the Torah is from Sinai because of your belief then there is nothing to discuss. What is self-evident to you is self-evidently false to someone else. Again it is legitimate to disagree with that person but I claim it is not legitimate to state that he doesn't really believe in his own position. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:57:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:57:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura Message-ID: <> They state clearly these are things they heard from the Gra, Ari etc. No misleading. No different than RHS writing what he heard from RYBS and many other such seforim. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:55:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 05:55:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5566E62F.8040201@sero.name> On 05/28/2015 05:12 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > Perhaps the most famous example is lighting candles on leil yom tov. > The wife of the Prisha The MA's girsa in the Prisha is "mother", and the Machtzis Hashekel confirms that this is not a typo in the MA. > says one should say the bracha first and then > light since lighting (preexisting flame) is allowed on tomtov. > The MA calls her names He does not! He merely quotes the gemara Yoma 66b that "women only have wisdom with the spindle". Machtzis Hashekel says he is not even referring to the Drisha's mother, but to most women, who will not understand the distinction between Shabbos and Yomtov. > and says this is an obvious "lo plug". He doesn't just assert it, he cites clear sources that when a bracha must sometimes be said after the deed, we apply lo plug and always say it after the deed. Thus, he says, the same thing must apply here. (But see Dagul Mervava, who distinguishes this case because the bracha is different, and points out that if not for this distinction then the same should apply to the Chanukah lights). > My impression is that most women follow the wife of the prisha. Really? I'm surrprised. I'm also surprised that you've surveyed enough women to form an impression one way or the other. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:19:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 10:19:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:57:05PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> < teachings. For that matter, people talk about what the Ari says in Peri :> Eitz Chaim or others of R' Chaim Vital's works.>> : They state clearly these are things they heard from the Gra, Ari etc. No : misleading. I'm not sure about such disclaimers on the Gra's talmidim's writings, aside from Maaseh Rav. And if so, lo kol shekein in our case! Here we have the author of Shemiras haLashon -- someone known for thinking about what he said -- calling the MB "beiuri", "od tzarafti" "ki bo biarti", "upo hir'eisi", and "kol eileh chbarti..." on the title page. How can one argue he didn't oversee the entire work and checked the content? Nothing about parts being by Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger What you get by achieving your goals micha at aishdas.org is not as important as http://www.aishdas.org what you become by achieving your goals. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Henry David Thoreau From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:33:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 10:33:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528143339.GB4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:12:53PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : My apologies but I am still completely confused when one applies zilzul and : when one says something is allowed as an exception to the rule. No purpose : in giving examples as there are myriads of exceptions that are allowed. I think the reverse: the norm is to allow valid loopholes to the din, and it's only when the poseiq decides that the loophole would destroy some significant part of the feel of Shabbos (whether qedushas Shabbos or an entire melakhah) that we call it zilzul. ... : Perhaps the most famous example is lighting candles on leil yom tov. The : wife of the Prisha says one should say the bracha first and then light : since lighting (preexisting flame) is allowed on tomtov. The MA calls her : names and says this is an obvious "lo plug". : My impression is that most women follow the wife of the prisha. The AhS OC 263:3 does, citing the Perishah. Then he quotes the MA (s"q 12) and says "and many were choliq on him... vekhein iqar ledina." Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:45:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 10:45:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528144529.GC4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:33:43PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : Well Micha and I agree on several points but still disagree on others. : Agreed that people in real life don't use formal mathematical proofs... I would go further and say that far too many things /can't/ use formal proofs. And even further: even when you do have a formal proof, it is built from givens -- call them postulates or first principles. So, barring an infinite regress, even a formal proof is a structure atop things accepted without formal proof. I should point out that this a major subset of the field of epistomology. : It doesnt work when trying to convince others. True, but not relevant. We -- and more importantly to the origianl point, REW -- are talking about whether it's more natural to believe in G-d or not. Not whether a believer could then convince someone else. ... : We have already argued about REW and I still can't accept it. The argument : is that if someone else tells you why he doesn't accept G-d or that G-d : rules the world whether for rational or emotional reasons the answer is : that we don't believe him and say he is making up reasons. REW doesn't say that. I even cut-n-pasted a translation to support that point. REW says that he really doesn't believe, but he had to work against the natural state of seeing a world that shows obvious signs of a Designer. Someone can truly and honestly convince himself, or be convinced by others (including upbringing) that a poem really could emerge by someone spilling ink. But that's not what people would conclude if we lacked a strong desire to conclude that way -- the "shochad" of freedom if ein din ve'ein Dayan. There is nothing in that quote from Qovetz Maamarim about anyone not really believing what they think they believe. Rather, he ascribes a motive. : Of course he will say the same about your acceptance of Torah and mitzvot. Again, REW isn't speaking about the context of debate. Nor was I. By bringing it in, you complicate matters without addressing the original claim. REW is really just saying that the reason why believe is a fair topic of bechirah because on one side design is self-evident but on the other the desire to live without having to follow the Designer counterbalances it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger People were created to be loved. micha at aishdas.org Things were created to be used. http://www.aishdas.org The reason why the world is in chaos is that Fax: (270) 514-1507 things are being loved, people are being used. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:22:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 14:22:41 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> References: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, May 28, 2015, 5:19 PM Micha Berger wrote: > Here we have the author of Shemiras > haLashon -- someone known for thinking about what he said -- calling > the MB "beiuri", "od tzarafti" "ki bo biarti", "upo hir'eisi", and "kol > eileh chbarti..." on the title page. How can one argue he didn't oversee > the entire work and checked the content? Nothing about parts being by I agree he must have looked it over That leaves the question of contradictions And stories about minhagim of cc that are different than what is in mb From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:23:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:23:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150528152301.GE4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 02:22:41PM +0000, Eli Turkel wrote: : I agree he must have looked it over Which is why I think R/Dr MS is making too much ado over the actual authorship. : That leaves the question of contradictions Well, not every sheverer Rambam is a printing error either. Another case where the academic norm is to run far further with some fun concept than I'm comfortable with. Perhaps we should be looking for how the contradictions are only apparent. Or perhaps the CC felt than ruling al pi rov or safeiq lechumerah/lequlah in two different cases needn't results in consistencies between pesaqim. Before you spend too much time on that bothering you, recall when we daven minchah and maariv. If the tefillos are on two different days, you can end up following different definitions of evening on different days. : And stories about minhagim of cc that are different than what is in mb I thought R/Dr Seth Mandel's position is compelling. Look at the title page and the haqdamah. The CC never claims that the MB is a seifer of pesaq. Rather, he describes the work as a survey. From the title page, defining the MB (as opposed to the left column about the BH): I called my biur by the name MB since within it is explained (misbareir; c.f. "berurah") the words of the SA, every law by its reasoning and origins in the gemara and posqim that it not be like a sealed book. Also I will collect in it all the dinim, halakhos and biurim scattered amog the books of the acharonim, meforshim of the SA who are known (like MA, PMG, Birkhei Yoseif, Maamar Mordekhai and many such.) There are many of them after the Be'er Heitiv and they are not brought in shu"t because they are somwhat scattered in various places. All of these are compiled here, and all is in a straightforward and easy language and in proper order, with Hashem's help. And the BH: Also, I appended on its side some necessary inyanim titled under the name Biur Halakhah -- and as the name, so it is. For in it I sometimes explained the words of halakhah which are brought in summary in the MB without proof, and here I show (be"h) its source looking inall of gemara and the posqim. Also in it are sometimes explains the words of the SA at length in places which need explanation. (Sorry, just always wanted to bother translating that -- this thread was just my excuse.) So, the MB is a survey, and thus the halachic conclusions found in it (and explained in the BH) are purely what in theory the sources surveyed would indicate. It's not that the CC didn't believe in mimeticism, it's that the MB is a book of theory and therefore ignores mimeticism. The MB was written lehalakhah velo lemaaseh. Which makes it ironic that so many RYs of the mid- and late 20th cent worked so hard to make the work a "poseiq acharon" lemaaseh. Whereas he CC's own practice did reflect weighing shitos based on their acceptance. And so, unsurprisingly, in all the places I know of where his own practice didn't fit the MB (such as supporting a community eiruv, despite BH 364 "ve'achar") his practice does follow the AhS. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "The most prevalent illness of our generation is micha at aishdas.org excessive anxiety.... Emunah decreases anxiety: http://www.aishdas.org 'The Almighty is my source of salvation; I will Fax: (270) 514-1507 trust and not be afraid.'" (Isa 12) -Shalhevesya From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:11:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:11:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528151127.C0EE817F7D9@nexus.stevens.edu> At 10:33 AM 5/28/2015, R. Micha Berger wrote: >And if so, lo kol shekein in our case! Here we have the author of Shemiras >haLashon -- someone known for thinking about what he said -- calling >the MB "beiuri", "od tzarafti" "ki bo biarti", "upo hir'eisi", and "kol >eileh chbarti..." on the title page. How can one argue he didn't oversee >the entire work and checked the content? Nothing about parts being by I wonder if these words were on the title page of the first publication of each volume of the MB. After all, publishers do add things. One title page I found online for the second volume of the MB refers to the author as HaGaon. I doubt that the CC would have had this on the title page of the first printing. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:39:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:39:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: <20150528151127.C0EE817F7D9@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150528151127.C0EE817F7D9@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150528153911.GG4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 11:11:28AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : I wonder if these words were on the title page of the first : publication of each volume of the MB... Why wonder? Each volume: 1. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49623&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1884 2. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49624&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1895 3. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49625&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1891 4. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49626&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1898 5. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49627&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1902 6. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49628&pgnum=1 - Pietrekov 1907 (None call him ga'on, all have pretty much the same self description.) These fit the years of the first editions that wikipedia gives, based on "The Chafetz Chaim" by R MM Yoshor, pg 603. (But even if wiki has it wrong, they are editions published by the author.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Rescue me from the desire to win every micha at aishdas.org argument and to always be right. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Nassan of Breslav Fax: (270) 514-1507 Likutei Tefilos 94:964 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:10:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 08:10:56 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH Message-ID: http://menachemmendel.net/blog/are-you-a-mishnah-berurah-or-arukh-hashulhan-person/ see there also the r henkin review . he points out that the Oz Vhadar edition inherently has a difficulty in attributing notes to the [non-satmar oriented] relatives of the Aruch Hashulchan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 09:00:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:00:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the suggestion that a kosher lamp is zilzul shabbas. Isn't just a nice (and -- significantly -- *safer*) way of covering a lamp? If one were to make the argument that its convenience might make it zilzul shabbas, might one respond with "but safety"? Why do the rabbis deem the following to not be a case of zilzul yom tov: cooking a large pot of food on the afternoon of yom tov rishon, "in case people might stop by", and "I'll eat some of it" knowing there will be leftovers? -- Sholom -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 14:15:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 17:15:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") In-Reply-To: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> References: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> Message-ID: R'Micha asked: > How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to blow. How do you do less than 10 *each*? < 3 during Malch., 3 during Zichronos, and 4 during Shof'ros. On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 6:47 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 07:14:36PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: > : When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: > : -- 30 *dim'yushav* > : -- 10 *dim'umad* > : -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the > > How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to > blow. How do you do less than 10 *each*? > > Tir'u baTov! > -Micha > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 15:45:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 18:45:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528224528.GB28282@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:00:22PM -0400, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote: : I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the suggestion that a : kosher lamp is zilzul shabbas. That's okay, it's just a hava amina we raised here. No one AFAIK actually banned kosher lamps over zilzul Shabbos. The question was why a Kosher Switch (that claims to not even be grama) would be zilzul and not the Kosher Lamp. And then, many (most? the vast majority of posqim?) do not believe it actually avoids gerama, including the author of Shemiras Shabbos kehilkhisa. : Isn't just a nice (and -- significantly : -- *safer*) way of covering a lamp? Well, every case where one would discuss zilzul Shabbos would be one where there wasn't a more easily defined problem. So every discussion could be "isn't it just". I think the difference is that a kosher switch would mean being able to turn or off anything, whereas the Kosher Lamp is more limited, being a specific appliance. ... : Why do the rabbis deem the following to not be a : case of zilzul yom tov: cooking a large pot of food on the afternoon of : yom tov rishon, "in case people might stop by", and "I'll eat some of : it" knowing there will be leftovers? I would guess that similarly, because it's of limited utility. It doesn't totally destroy the concept of an issur of cooking on Yom Tov. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The fittingness of your matzos [for the seder] micha at aishdas.org isn't complete with being careful in the laws http://www.aishdas.org of Passover. One must also be very careful in Fax: (270) 514-1507 the laws of business. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 05:52:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 15:52:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Indeed in Europe before WWII the MB was not the "final" arbiter of halacha. Much changed when CI wrote in a letter that the MB has the halacha of a sanhedrin and one can't disagree with its conclusions. Of course CI himself disagreed with the MB and in fact there are published versions of the MB which include the disagreements of the CI. All to show that what is written in letters is not to be taken very literally. In any case that paid a large part of the change in attitude towards the MB. Certainly poskim of the previous generation who grew up before the war also did not take the MB as a final posek. As an example is RMF though I heard similar things from RYBS. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 08:24:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 11:24:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150529152455.GA5770@aishdas.org> R/Dr Haym Soloveitchik focused on the MB's more textualist slant vs the AhS giving weight to shitos that were common practice. Which fits R/DHS's thesis for that particular paper, the idea he was using that particular comparison to illustrate. But I do not believe it's the primary difference between them. I already gave what I saw was the primary difference. The AhS was written by a moreh de'asra to reflect halakhah lemaaseh. The MB was written by a tzasiq and a gaon as a survey of later shitos that weren't available to most people trying to learn halakhah. No focus (by the author, see below about others) on lemaaseh. I see this as the cause for the MB's lack of attention to halakhah as practiced. It wasn't so much that the CC was a textualist when it comes to pesaq, but that he wrote a book for discussing texts. A second difference is that the AhS's idea of understanding the halakhah is looking to see how the pesaq evolved from gemara (and Y-mi) to Rif, Rambam, Rosh to the Tur, BY, SA, and finally to the acharonim since. The MB is more focused on the halakhah in the acharonic period, and how to decide amongst them. Third, the AhS is willing to leave the halakhah fuzzy, and often comes to a range of conclusions rather than one clear-cut pesaq. Or, he will pasqen one way in one se'if, but in a slightly different case in a different se'if reopen the question: ... but if you hold like... The MB offers more clarity. An AhS fan might say that clarity is artificial, because the reality of halakhah isn't cut and dry with only one best pesaq for all people. But it does make it easier to open a MB than to try to decide what to do when you reach one of the fuzzier stretches of the AhS. Perhaps the clarity is really is artifice, and that's why we need LORs rather than thinking a book is our poseiq. On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 03:52:06PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : Indeed in Europe before WWII the MB was not the "final" arbiter of : halacha. Much changed when CI wrote in a letter that the MB has the : halacha of a sanhedrin and one can't disagree with its conclusions. : Of course CI himself disagreed with the MB... : All to show that what is written in letters is not to be taken very : literally... Although it wasn't only the CI, so it's not all about taking his letter overly literally. Rav Yaakov Kamenecki and R' Aharon Kotler called him the "poseiq acharon", and RAK went as far as making sure the MB would appear in photos of him. See also our 2006 discussion Aruch Hashulchan vs. Mishna berura OTOH, R YH Henkin testified about his famous grandfather ( quoting his own Bnei Banim vol. 2 page 31): AH saw the MB; see 11:22; 12:4; 28:23; 62:4; 268:6; and other places where he mentions Mishnah Berurah by name. In 79:11 and 319:22 and elsewhere he disagrees with him by name and in innumerable places he disagrees with him without mentioning his name: for instance, in 55:20 he is writing against the Mishnah Berurah and similarly in 370:13 -- this is obvious anyone who looks carefully. So it is a mitzvah to let people know that AH is not only a Sefer Halacha but also a response to the Mishnah Brerurah. OTOH, similarly R [Shmuel] Yaakov Weinberg (Ner Israel) considered the AhS the more authoritative. And minutes before my chupah (while waiting for the paper to burn to have ashes for my head), R' Dovid Lifshitz asked if I had one for my new home, because it was closer to halakhah as my ancestors held. (RDL knew my family back in Suvalk.) As for RMF, RDF and RRF both agreed that RMF gave priority to the AhS because R' Yechiel Michl Epstein had a qehillah, and therefore the more practiced poseiq of the two. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger People were created to be loved. micha at aishdas.org Things were created to be used. http://www.aishdas.org The reason why the world is in chaos is that Fax: (270) 514-1507 things are being loved, people are being used. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 30 16:03:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 00:03:21 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] : Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001f01d09b2c$d37ec030$7a7c4090$@org.uk> I wrote: >> But aren't they then denying those Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all >> the chance to hear shofar according to the majority opinions by only blowing >> for them according to the minority opinions? And RZS replied: >AFAIK everyone agrees that all these methods are kosher, so those Jews >are definitely yotzei the mitzvah. ... >They're not foisting anything. The people they're blowing for would >otherwise not hear shofar at all, so they're clearly better off hearing >even some obscure form of it, so long as they're yotzei. But if these people who want to hear the shofar blown according to minority shitos are capable of finding people who would otherwise not hear shofar at all and blowing for them, they are *also* capable of finding such people in circumstances where they then blow for them according to the majority shitos. For it to be true that "they're clearly better off hearing some obscure form of it, so long as they are yotzei" - you have to be assuming that the people doing the blowing would only be prepared to go to the trouble of blowing to fulfil their desire to fulfil minority shitos but NOT where the result is only to ensure that fellow Jews perform a mitzvah. You may be correct that indeed people are more concerned with making sure they themselves have fulfilled the mitzvah of shofar in every possible permutation than in making sure another Jew performs the mitzvah at all, but could anybody honestly regard that as praiseworthy? As a consequence, I then raised a halachic query: > The principle on which > somebody who has fulfilled their obligation can then fulfil the obligation > of another is based on kol yisrael areivim zeh b'zeh. But to what extent is > that applicable in a situation in which that person would never, had the > situation been reversed, have accepted the form of fulfilment they are > offering the other. Ie since the person who is blowing the shofar refused > to have these alternative ways of blowing as the fundamental method of > fulfilling their own mitzvah, is it really areivus to then foist that form > of fulfilment on others? RZS's assumption is that, so long as everybody agrees that a form of blowing is kosher bidieved, then areivus works, but I wonder whether this is necessarily true. Areivus is a fascinating halachic concept - it allows somebody who has already fulfilled a mitzvah to do it again, including (importantly) making brachos again (which they would otherwise not be permitted to do) on behalf of another. I went for a bit of a hunt over Yom Tov to see what I could find regarding areivus, but did not turn up much. First of all, the pasuk from the Torah regarding Areivus is brought in Shevuos 39a as being based on the Vayikra 26:37 [vchashlu ish b'achiv] - which is then explained as meaning that a man in *the sin* of his brother so as to teach that kol yisrael areivim ze l'zeh. But while that seems a valid source for what might be considered "negative" areivus or areivus in relation to lo ta'asehs (and the obligation to protest), it led me to wonder how straightforwardly that gets you to what might be called "positive" areivus - ie doing something, such as performing the mitzvah of shofar on behalf of another [not that I have seen this distinction between "negative" and "positive" areivus anywhere]. Ie while you can see that if is permitted to blow shofar for somebody who was otherwise unable to fulfil the mitzvah, and one failed to do so, one might then be considered to have stumbled into the sin of that person's omission - ie failure to perform an aseh - it seems a leap to therefore derive from this particular pasuk that one has the power to fulfil and make brachos on behalf of that person. If anything I would have thought perhaps v'ahavta re'echa k'mocha seemed more likely, but I couldn't find any reference. Note that areivus would seem not to be shlichus, as one can make a shaliach out of somebody who is themselves not commanded in a particular thing - whereas that is not applicable for areivus where the original level of obligation must be at least equal on the part of the arev. [This is all leaving aside the famous Rosh Brachos perek 3 siman 13 which states that areivus does not apply to women, which is clearly discussing what might be termed positive areivus ie making brachos on behalf of one another, and which the achronim generally limit to cases where there is no equal obligation, despite what may seem to be the simple pshat, or the Tosphos in Kidushin 70b that areivus does not apply to gerim - which must surely at most [and here it seems to me you need the definition of negative and positive areivus] to be only a reference to negative areivus - otherwise this would be raised as a problem of a ger making brachos on behalf of others - although given the source of the Tosphos in Sotah 37b, this would also seem to apply to women for the same reasons - ie the number count being made by reference to the 603,550 in the midbar not including the eruv rav, and not including women either]. The most I was able to find in my brief search over Yom Tov was a Birchei Yosef Orech Chaim siman 124 discussing the question as to whether a Ben Chutz L'Aretz who found himself in a village in Israel over Yom Tov (in the case quoted by the Birchei Yosef he had gone to Israel to bury his dead) where nobody besides him had the knowledge to be Shatz, and who had already davened at home on second day yom tov the second day yom tov davening, could be shatz for the community by saying the birchei chol amidah. But there seem to be lots of other reasons to permit (as the Birchei Yosef does) in this particular case. In particular it seems to me, besides all of the Birchei Yosef's arguments, if you were to say that areivus was linked to v'ahavta re'echa kamocha, you can see why, if circumstances were reversed, the ben chutz l'aretz would want the same as he is providing to the benei aretz (ie the mutuality of areivus). But in the case that RZS has outlined, where the people hearing only the minority shitos form of shofar blowing would surely want the majority position shofar blowing if they could get it, can the blower unilaterally choose to force them to fulfil their obligation via a set of minority shitos via areivus, or does the principle of areivus not stretch that far? More generally, if somebody holds a particular position as being the ikar, can they under the principle of areivus perform a mitzvah on behalf of somebody who holds by a contradictory position, so that what the arev is doing is, according to him, possul? How about the reverse situation? And that gets us to RZS's case, where it might be agreed that a particular form is kosher bidieved, but if the arev could provide a l'chatchila version and chooses not to, can he be genuinely be said to be a real arev? How good a guarantor must a guarantor be to be considered a guarantor at all? I am sure some achron has written a treatise on areivus which must cover these kinds of topics, but so far I haven't found it. Zev Sero zev at sero.name Shavuah tov Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 12:25:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 15:25:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] FORBIDDING WOMEN DRIVERS: A HALACHIC ANALYSIS Message-ID: <20150529192533.D89D0182BDA@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/nqnquzc The media has widely reported that a Belz Yeshiva in England has forbidden women from driving their children to Yeshiva. It was further reported that if the mothers do not comply, the children will be thrown out of Yeshiva. In a letter sent to parents last week, seen by the Jewish Chronicle, they say there has been an increase in the number of mothers driving their children to school and add that this has led to ?great resentment among parents of pupils of our [Hasidic] institutions?. The letter says the ban, to come into force in the summer, is based on the recommendations of Rabbi Yissachar Dov Rokeach, the Belzer spiritual leader in Israel. It says that if a mother has no other choice but to drive her child to school ? for medical reasons, for example ? she should ?submit a request to the special committee to this effect and the committee shall consider her request.? The question is what does halacha have to say about this? See the above URL for more. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 14:04:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 17:04:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <5568D45F.9010809@gmail.com> R. Micha Berger maintained that R. E. Wasserman was not positing a formal proof for G-d's existence, formal proofs not being the only way, or even the superior way, to establish truths. I cited a passage in the Moreh Nevuchim to support this concept. But as is occasionally the case, R. MB disagrees with me, even when I attempt to defend him: ZL: Indeed, the Rambam himself in the Moreh Nevuchim recognizes this : distinction and supports the superior validity of the non-formal : approach. Chapters after he devotes chapters to formal philosophic : proofs for Creation ex nihilo, he describes how a healthy (and : unbiased) mind thinks: : :And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, //for //one who ismodeh al ha-ememmes// (RMB substituted an ellipsis for this :crucial clause) :is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities :serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; :and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an :intender, and that such purposeful intent necessarily implies the :production of something new [and not something that always existed :along with the one who bears the purposeful intention for its :existence]. (MN 3:13) RMB: There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam recaps a point made in 2:19-20. In 2:19-20 Rambam makes no reference to each component or entity in nature providing a benefit for another, and certainly does not use that there as a proof for Creation ex nihilo. *(Section II is devoted to developing the argument against a naturally necessary eternal world based on ''particularization,'' the differing formations and behaviors of things despite their being made of the same materials.) * ** *Perhaps you are referring to the fact that in both the argument there and here the crucial concluding step invokes the mindset that purposeful intention on G-d's part (which Aristotle as well attributes to G-d) indicates *a changeable will on His part (which indication Aristotle denies) that allows for and indicates Creation ex nihilo. But just as in 3:13 the Rambam describes that crucial mindset as something that is possessed by those who are modeh al ha-emmess, so too in 2:19-20 the Rambam first describes it as something that is ''pashut'' (KPCH) or ''mevuar" (Ibn Tibbon), which he will then proceed to demonstrate through more formal proof: It has already been shown that according to Aristotle... the Universe is not the result of intent of choice and desire; for if this were the case, they would have been non-existing before the intent had been conceived. We [proponents of Judaism?ZL], however, hold that it is /pashut\mevuar/ that all things in the Universe are the result of intent-not-of necessity; and it is possible for that Intender to change them and have a different intent. But in this chapter, my intent is to show by arguments almost as forceful as real proofs, that the Universe gives compelling evidence of being [freely] intended by an Intender: RMB: And for that matter, if the Rambam was talking about not really needing formal proof, despite spending much of sec. II on just that, why would it be buried in a chapter that focuses on something else? I did not posit that the Rambam's intent was to make the point that formal proof is unnecessary. That indeed is not his purpose. After all, the explicitly stated primary purpose of the Moreh is for those (himself included) who yearned to defend and support the mesorah through philosophical approach of his day. He is not interested in dismissing the project. He explicitly describes this /modeh al ha-emmess/ statement /as a tangential interruption/: After that statement, he says, ''I will now return to the subject of this chapter, viz., the ultimate cause [i.e. the purpose behind the universe being as it is--ZL].'' My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows the non-formal mindset of those who are /modeh al ha-emmess/. It is a reference to those who do not restrict their acceptance of truth to things provable through formal logic, settling for healthy, unbiased reasoning (and who thereby see the truth of Creation ex-nihilo as a simple conclusion from the fact of the purposeful hierarchy of nature). RMB: 3:13 is about how the universe has its own purpose. It is not just an arena designed for the purpose of humans. He argues here with Aristo who says that plants exist for the purpose of animals, and in general, that things exist for the purpose of other things. He does not argue with Aristotle on this point, as is clear in the passage from 3:13 that I originally quoted, and as he elaborates in the introduction to his Mishnah commentary. The disagreement (outside of the parenthetically mentioned one) revolves around the /ultimate/ purpose behind the existence of everything, and the question of why the intermediate steps in this world that lead to its finale of the hierarchy must exist, rather than the finale existing alone. (According to Aristotle, every component of nature is simply a necessity whose non-existence is absolutely impossible. It is impossible for G-d to maintain anything but the universe and its entities as they are. According to the Rambam, although every sub lunar being contributes to the existence of another such being, until we get to Man (and then the Ish Shalem), G-d could nevertheless have created that final being directly, without creating the intermediary plants and animals. Why He in His wisdom decided to do it as He did, and why he decided to create the heavens as He did, we cannot know.) RMB: Besides, the Rambam writes in 3:51 in the mashal of the palace, that people who believe because of tradition without having proof are like those who wander around the chatzer, whereas someone with a proof is like one who entered the prozdor. The ''modeh al ha-emmess'' proof, building upon careful observation of the world and and its components and creatures and theorizing as to how it all works, is also a proof. The inferior knowledge that does not lead to optimum closeness to Hashem is pure tradition without proof. Not[e] Aristo's epistomology didn't analyze issues of proof vs other justification. But clearly Reliabilism, trusting an idea found in a source that has already been found to be reliable (hama'aminim ... derekh qabalah), is not being considered good enough justification to fully accomplish life's goal. I did not refer to emunah b'derech kaballah. That's not what I meant by ''ha-modeh al ha-emmess.'' I meant what I said: the healthy thinking of an unbiased mind, meaning the thinking of such a mind informed by knowledge of the things that exist in the world and their behaviors, and explanations of how they operate. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 30 20:04:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sat, 30 May 2015 23:04:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] : Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <001f01d09b2c$d37ec030$7a7c4090$@org.uk> References: <001f01d09b2c$d37ec030$7a7c4090$@org.uk> Message-ID: <556A7A27.3000006@sero.name> On 05/30/2015 07:03 PM, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: > RZS's assumption is that, so long as everybody agrees that a form of blowing > is kosher bidieved, then areivus works, Not just b'deiavad; my understanding is that all of these shitos are kosher lechatchilah, they're just not the way we do them lemaaseh. Let's say they're not mitzva min hamuvchar. Or "de`avad kemar `avad, ud`avad kemar `avad but we do kemar". > But in the case that RZS has outlined, where the people hearing > only the minority shitos form of shofar blowing would surely want the > majority position shofar blowing if they could get it, We're talking about people who have no particular desire to hear shofar at all, or they'd have done so. They didn't bother going to shul on Rosh Hashana, so they're probably not even aware that there are different shitos in how to blow shofar, let alone have a preferred shitah. Anything that is motzi them in the mitzvah is an improvement over what they would do otherwise, and is a benefit for them. And we're talking about potential blowers who currently don't go out and do this, they don't spend their precious Rosh Hashana hours bringing this zechus to fellow Jews who did not come themselves to hear shofar. So what I'm proposing is a win-win. They get to hear the obscure shitos they want to hear, and the people they're blowing for get the basic mitzvah as the Torah commanded it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 30 20:22:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 30 May 2015 23:22:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <556A7E8D.70007@gmail.com> I wrote: > > > > But as is occasionally the case, > R. MB disagrees with me, even when I attempt to defend him I should have put a smiley after that sentence, or maybe even explicated that it was meant as a humorous observation of irony. It meant to imply that RMB is interested in emmess and does not make it a personal issue. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 31 00:59:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 10:59:58 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura Message-ID: RHS has said many times in his shiurim that the MB was not written alone by the Chofetz Chaim and that is why there are sometimes contradictions. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 31 01:08:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 11:08:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: "Indeed in Europe before WWII the MB was not the "final" arbiter of halacha. Much changed when CI wrote in a letter that the MB has the halacha of a sanhedrin and one can't disagree with its conclusions." I believe it happened even a little later then that. RHS who grew up in the 1950s stated many times in shiur that when he learned halacha in the 1950s no one learned Mishna Berura, people either learned Chayei Adam or they learned Shulchan Aruch with Magen Avraham and the Taz. If you look at the European gedolim who came to America like R' Moshe, R' Ruderman, etc. even after WWII they almost never quoted the Mishna Berura. >From what I understand R' Aharon Kotler was very influential in America in promoting learning Mishna Berura. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 31 10:20:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 13:20:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Texualism and the Mishnah Berurah by R. Micha Berger Message-ID: <20150531172101.ED88B180CD0@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://www.aishdas.org/asp/texualism-and-the-mishnah-berurah The author [of the Mishnah Brurah, the Chofetz Chaim] is clear: the purpose of the book was not to provide his own ruling, but to survey the later posqim who have added complexity to the field so that someone looking to reach a decision knows who wrote on the matter. Yes, the CC (or his son or other students who worked with him) often gave his own opinion, including our ?ba?al nefesh yachmir?, but it is unclear to me he intended that opinion to be a pragmatic ruling rather than a theoretical statement. This would explain why the Mishnah Berurah?s rulings diverge from accepted practice so much more often than the Arukh haShulchan (a contemporary work from the same region). Halakhah lemaaseh, pragmatic rulings, need to take such precedent and continuity into account; discussions of textual theory do not. As further evidence that the Mishnah Berurah was not intended to be a practical law guide, we have a lot of testimony that shows that its own author often followed the common Lithuanian practice over his own ?ruling?. Despite the origin of wearing one?s tzitzis strings out being in the MB, the CC did not. His qiddush cup doesn?t hold as much wine as the MB would require. (It is still in the hands of the Zaks family and has been checked repeatedly.) He advocated for building city eiruvin for carrying on Shabbos despite BH 364 ?ve?achar?. The Chafeitz Chaim did not say ?Berikh Shemeih? when taking out the Torah. Etc 1 I am suggesting that the CC?s textualist and formal stance in the MB is simply because the MB was a book for studying texts. And he did not intend to deemphasize mimetic tradition (the flow of practice transmitted culturally). This shift happened when the Chazon Ish in Israel and a number of American rashei yeshiva (such as R? Aharon Kotler) promoted the idea of using the Mishnah Berurah as a poseiq acharon. See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 00:25:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 10:25:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <> I have a book "The Goldilocks Enigma" by Paul Davies (cosmolgist) on why is the universe just right for life. Most of the book is to show how unlikely it is that the universe has exactly the right properties for existence. The second part is a discussion as to why this happened. He goes through all the theories including the watchmaker etc. One possibility is a "creator" . He adnits that it is logically consistent but finds iy highly unlikely. His own preference is for the multi-verse. The idea is not whether you agree with him or not. Rather here is an intelligent human who has thought deeply about these problems and does not see any obvious signs of a designer. I would venture that that is the opinion of most physicists and certainly biologists. What you consider obvious he considers very unlikely. Again we come to the point that REW claims that anyone who really thinks about the problem and comes up with a different answer than he does simply has an ulterior motive. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 03:08:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 06:08:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150602100830.GA12384@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 10:25:05AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : The idea is not whether you agree with him or not. Rather here is an : intelligent human who has thought deeply about these problems and does not : see any obvious signs of a designer. I would venture that that is the : opinion of most physicists and certainly biologists. REW would say that he found it obvious that the world was created, something deep inside (to add my own 2c: of which he is likely unaware) didn't want to live in a world with a Creator, so he thought deeply about these problems until he could find an alternative. (For what it's worth, I think most physicists believe in G-d.) As you put it: : What you consider obvious he considers very unlikely. Again we come to the : point that REW claims that anyone who really thinks about the problem and : comes up with a different answer than he does simply has an ulterior motive. But that doesn't make the person any less convinced. For that matter, the believer also likely has an unlterior motive. (I said that, I doubt REW would. I am just saying it wouldn't rob him of his point.) REW is asserting that before you even get to bias, the obvious position is ours. Their atheism is the one that takes work, because it's explaining away the obvious. After all, there is no a priori, obvious-as-a-postulate version of the Anthropic Principle or other such atheistic explanations of the universe's design. No equivalent to REW's not attributing a poem to spilled ink or R' Aqiva's insisting that a garment or bread testify to their makers. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Friendship is like stone. A stone has no value, micha at aishdas.org but by rubbing one stone against another, http://www.aishdas.org sparks of fire emerge. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Mordechai of Lechovitz From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 08:40:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 11:40:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] women making a zimun In-Reply-To: <20150602125704.JHYM8162.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo306> References: <20150602125704.JHYM8162.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo306> Message-ID: <20150602154026.GF23551@aishdas.org> Bringing this thread to where this belongs. On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 08:56:59AM -0400, Sholom Simon via Areivim wrote: :> There was no family or community prior to the 20th century in :> which girls or women bentshed with a zimun. : I always wondered about that vis-a-vis the following: : The SA"HaRav (written by somebody who was certainly not a feminist) : at 199:6 writes that three women who are eating together (provided : there are less than 10 men) are permitted to break away and make : their own zimmun. (l'chelek l'zimun l'atzman). ... : What I've always wondered about was: is he writing entirely : theoretically, or was there a practice among some which led him to : clarify this issue? : Thoughts? : -- Sholom The SA haRav says that they must participate when 3 men make a zimun. If there are three women, no minyan of men, and want to separate off to make their own zimun, hareshus beyadam. Then he takes on the case of three women who are eating without men, again "hareshus beyadam" to make a zimun. (Similarly avadim, but not a mix of women and avadim because we we assume avadim are capable of peritzus. Given that the part about avadim couldn't have been a practice in the Baal haTanya's day, I wouldn't assume his mention of zimun for women makes any such implication. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Weeds are flowers too micha at aishdas.org once you get to know them. http://www.aishdas.org - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 08:49:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 11:49:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Modah Ani In-Reply-To: <20150602.081411.27008.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150602.081411.27008.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150602154924.GG23551@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 12:14:11PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Areivim wrote: : R' Micha Berger wrote: :> ... When I told them that traditionally we held that they're :> probably yotz'ot with saying Modah Ani once a day, ... : I noticed your very deliberate spelling here, and I can't help but : wonder: Was there any family or community prior to the late 20th century : in which girls or women said "modAh ani"? Talmidei haGra. The Siddur haGra also mentions "shelo asani nakhriah" (the Gra had "nakhri" for men) and "shelo asani shifcha". Speaking of new minhagim: Modeh Ani is likely the youngest prayer in most siddurim, even younger than Lekha Dodi. It exists to compensate moving "Elokai Neshamah" out of that spot. (Asher Yatzar doesn't open "barukh" because it's a berakhah hasemukhah lechaverta with haMapil -- one before sleep one after. When we moved it, many (including the Gra), made it semuchah to Asher Yazar -- thanking the Creator for both body and soul.) Which is why I find it unwarranted to treat its matbeia as unchangable even in the face of simply reconjugating. But in any case, I'm in favor of most changes that give one pause to think about what they're saying or doing. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow micha at aishdas.org man's soul and his own stomach; a pious Jew worries http://www.aishdas.org about his own soul and his fellow man's stomach. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 09:16:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 12:16:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <5568D45F.9010809@gmail.com> References: <5568D45F.9010809@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150602161633.GA15555@aishdas.org> On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 05:04:31PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: :> There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam :> recaps a point made in 2:19-20. : : In 2:19-20 Rambam makes no reference to each component or entity in : nature providing a benefit for another, and certainly does not use that : there as a proof for Creation ex nihilo... 2:20 marks the end of an Argument from Design, which is what I was referring to. As it opens: "According to Aristotle, none of the products of Nature are due to chance. His proof is this: That which is due to chance does not reappear constantly nor frequently, but all products of Nature reappear either constantly or at least frequently..." This is a formal argument, unlike R' Aqiva's or REW's own appeal to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. I am saying that 3:15, when it mentions in passing the bit that :: And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, //for :: //one who ismodeh al ha-ememmes// ... :: is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities :: serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; :: and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an :: [I]ntender.... This is reference to people being willing to accept a proven point, and not accepting something as true because of a justification system other than proof. ... RZL, continued: : He explicitly describes this /modeh al ha-emmess/ statement /as a : tangential interruption/: After that statement, he says, "I will now : return to the subject of this chapter, viz., the ultimate cause [i.e. : the purpose behind the universe being as it is--ZL]." : My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that : there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows : the non-formal mindset of those who are /modeh al ha-emmess/... Agreed it's tangential, which is why I doubt that if the Rambam did want to say something that signficant, this would be its only mention. But I don't think it makes the point you're making because the Rambam already made design the topic of a formal proof. So the current mention of design in this aside is talking about a proof, not another verification system. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is complex. micha at aishdas.org Decisions are complex. http://www.aishdas.org The Torah is complex. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' Binyamin Hecht From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 13:24:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2015 22:24:55 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <556E1117.1050507@zahav.net.il> That a text written such a short time ago could have questions about it authorship really nails down how hard it is to have definitive knowledge of the past. Ben On 5/31/2015 9:59 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > RHS has said many times in his shiurim that the MB was not written > alone by the Chofetz Chaim and that is why there are sometimes > contradictions. > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 13:27:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 16:27:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed Message-ID: <20150602202700.GA7449@aishdas.org> R/Dr Alan Brill recently carried this essay by comparatively new chaver, R' Ysoscher Katz. I am sharing here the essay in full (see or for R/D AB's biographical introduction) for two reeasons -- or one two-part reason: 1- I think this post could start a nice discussion of the fundamentals of each of our hashkafos; and 2- Comments are blocked on the post, so it's not like I am stealing a conversation that ought to happen there. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you won't be better tomorrow micha at aishdas.org than you were today, http://www.aishdas.org then what need do you have for tomorrow? Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rebbe Nachman of Breslov Torat Chaim Ve'Ahavat Chesed Ysoscher Katz I was raised in the chassidic community of Satmar. I should make it clear from the outset: I am modern but not Orthodox. Do not get me wrong, I am observant and my practice is orthodox but that is not who I am. In other words, I am orthodox-my practice is halakhic and my belief orthodox-but Orthodoxy is not me. It is not an integral part of my identity. My orthodoxy is merely a means towards a religious end. Keeping halakha and accepting orthodox faith-claims provides me with the infrastructure which allows my soul to strive and pursue perfection. Orthodoxy enables me to be who I really am: a Modern Chassidish Jew. As I mentioned, my identity is comprised of two parts, Modern and Chassidish. I inherited these identity markers from my parents, the modernity from my mother and the chassidut from my father. Here, I mean real Chassidic, and not Neo-Chassidic. How my chassidic, homemaking and sheitel-wearing mom made me modern is a conversation for another time. At the moment I wish to focus on my dad. My father is the most non-chassidish Chassid. He does not study "chassidus," nor does he want to "understand" it. The few times I tried to explain to him Moshe Idel's distinction between theosophy and theurgy, his eyes glazed over. Chassidut is what he does, not what he learns. From his perspective, Torah is for learning, chassidut for practicing. His aversion is not limited to the study of academic mysticism. He also stays away from traditional kabbalistic or chassidic texts. He never studied the Zohar nor did he ever read any of the Arizal's writings. Not only would he not read them, he also would not touch them. He is so intimidated by their sacredness; he fears that his touch would contaminate them. Yet, despite never having formally studied chassidic texts, he still is the quintessential chasid. Chassidut is his essence, part of his religious DNA, but it is a chassidut that is behavioral, not intellectual. Chassidut is how he lives his life. It is the prism through which he encounters the world and the ethos by which he lives by. He adores his wife, loves his children, cherishes his community and reveres and respects his neighbors and fellow human beings, Jew and non-Jew alike. While this practice is not special, many people love their family and surroundings, its flavor is unique. It is Chassidic love, deriving its passion from the Chassidic teachings he has absorbed throughout his life. These teachings have filled his being with a deep religiosity, which, in turn, infuses his actions and emotions with a deep and robust spirituality. His love of humanity is, therefore, a love that is sensualized by its spiritualized valance. Chassidut does not just spiritualize my father's interpersonal relationships, it also enhances his religious practices, particularly the yearly calendar. Chassidut allows him to infuse the annual cycle with a sensuous spirituality. Satmar is a Hungarian/Romanian Chassidut (The broad strokes difference between Hungarian Chassidut and the Polish and Russian versions is that the latter were intellectually inclined while the former was not. Hungarian Chassidut was predominantly behavioral. This is, of course, a generalization; the nuances are far more complex but outside the parameters of this presentation.) Hungarian Chassidim are nourished by an elaborate "sacred calendar." They have more days of note than the conventional Jewish calendar, and their holidays tend to be richer than your typical modern Jews' chag experience. A Satmar Chasid's year is thus replete with days of deep joy and periods of intense reflection. While the Jewish calendar has several biblical holidays and two Rabbinic ones, the Chasid's calendar records additional dates of importance. Every winter, the Hungarian Chasid has six to eight weeks of "shovavim," a period that usually falls sometime between Chanukah and Purim, which is dedicated to repentance and introspection, largely focusing on sexual impropriety; the days of awe continue through the end of Chanukah, the potential for repentance lasts for them for two more months; Purim celebrations begin three days earlier than usual; and (a modicum of) Pesach extends all the way to Shavuot (based on Nachmanides' notion that the interim weeks between Pesach and Shavuot are somewhat akin to a chol ha'moed of Pesach). Combined these add up to a significant number of additional days of awe and periods of celebration. Qualitatively, chassidic holidays are different as well. Although many things distinguish a chassidic chag, there is one distinction that is particularly noticeable to the keen observer: chassidic religious celebrations are comprised of a dissonant blend of joy and contemplation. Here are some examples: Shabbat in Satmar is an incredibly meaningful day, bookended by powerful contradictory modes. Friday night is a time of joy, where the spiritually and mystically rich Lecha Dodi chant inspires celebration of the metaphysical significance of the day. While this spirit carries through most of the Shabbat, towards the end of the Shabbat the Satmar Chasid shifts gears, switching modes from the celebratory to the reflective. This transition occurs in a much starker manner than it does in most other communities. A Satmar Shabbat never ends at "shekiah." Sehudah shlishit is always a two hour affair, spent singing and listening to the Rebbe's dvar torah. Speaking in highly evocative tones, he expounds on the weekly reading, spending close to an hour challenging and rebuking his followers. Growing up, this is exactly what Shabbat looked like for me. My dad's Shabbat was intense and complex. While the day began upbeat, it gradually shifted into the contemplative. But, my father's Shabbat, like his chassidut, is adamantly experiential, text and study play a minor role in the development of his religious persona. Kegavna (a section from the Zohar which Chassidim recite during Friday night prayers), is one of the most powerful kabbalistic liturgical texts. Utilizing the connection between Shabbat and the number seven, a prominent kabbalistic trope, it succinctly articulates the mystical value of Shabbat. It emphasizes that Shabbat is a day of heightened divine intimacy and advanced mystical union. I have begged my dad on many occasions to read this Zohar text with me. He refused each time. Sacred mystical texts are for the elite. The lay receive their nourishment residually, from the spiritualized environment created by those qualified to access those recondite sources. While he will not study Kegavna, he does recite it every Friday night as part of the Kabbalat Shabbat service. Notwithstanding that he does not fully grasp its meaning, he reads it with the pathos and passion it deserves. Kegavna's power for him is metaphysical, not intellectual. Purim provides another example of the intensity of Hungarian chassidic practice. Many Jews celebrate Purim, but not the chassidic Purim. The chassidic Purim is unique in its richness and multiplicity. Communally, preparations for the holiday start early. More than a week before Purim, one can already detect the arrival of the holiday, both, in the discourse of the scholars and activities of the laity. The learned discourse focuses on the legal and spiritual aspects of the chag, while the public sphere is filled with people making arrangements for every aspect of the day. When Purim finally arrives, it takes on a distinct theological flavor. Appropriating the Zoharic notion that Purim is analogous to Yom Kippur (Yom Kippurim), Satmar Chassidim created a unique Purim blend that is both frivolous and somber. This day of festivity is overlaid with practices of repentance and reflection. While I am nourished by my dad's behavioral Chassidut, personally it is not enough. Behavioral Chassidut gladdens my heart but does not stimulate my mind nor sufficiently satisfy my soul. I personally seek a religiosity which nourishes both pillars of my being, the mind and the heart. My personal journey is, therefore, informed by a combination of my father's passion and the academic's sophistication. Chassidus resonates with both of them, sometimes simultaneously, when the intellectual engagement and behavioral spiritual encounter complement one another, and sometimes separately, when I religiously shift back and forth between the intellectual and the experiential. Ultimately, the attraction to Chassidut is the fact that it can operate in different modes at different times, in the process offering up a variety of mechanisms to help spiritualize my life. It is precisely this multifacetedness which convinces me that Chassidut is the proper theology for us moderns. Its theology is perfectly situated to offer meaning and spirituality to the contemporary modern seeker. I feel strongly that it is our only hope. Chassidut today is not a luxury, it is a necessity. If the Torah-u'Madda project is to succeed Chassidut needs to become an integral part of its curriculum. Chassidut is of course a vast discipline, teaching all of it would be a daunting task. For the moment there are three aspects of chassidic theology that stand out as particularly suited for the world we live in today. 1) Truth. We live in a post-modern world where objective truth is rejected and absolute claims are frowned upon. I would go as far as to say that rationalism (in the general and colloquial sense) as a source for Emunah is bankrupt, it increasingly speaks to fewer people. It, therefore, behooves us to come up with alternative models. Chassidut could very well be that alternative model. Facts and empirical truth is not Chassidut's primary currency. While it does a priori accept the biblical theological faith statements, its goal is not to argue or prove the scientific veracity of the Bible's claims. Truth is not of primary concern for these thinkers. Chassidic theology has two main features. It is a-rational and a-historical. It is apathetic about Jewish historicity as a proactive theological stance. The Torah for Chassidim is there to teach us how to live life and serve God, the narrative qua narrative (the origin story) is mere background music. The narration parts of the Torah are, therefore, not of much theological significance to them, they are a-historical However, during those rare occasions when they do pay attention to the biblical "stories," their orientation is a-rational. They absolutely "believe" those stories, but their belief is internal: it is true because it happened in the Torah. That is where these events transpire and that is where these stories matter. Asking about their historicity is, as far as they are concerned, foolish and missing the point. At the same time, to the extent that the biblical narratives have religious and theological significance, they read those stories through the Rabbinic lens. So, for example, while Moshe's historicity is not historically relevant to them, his persona carries theological and ethical significance. The same is true for God's attributes. Chassidim are, by choice, apathetic about God as a scientific reality, his attributes and characteristics, however, are theologically highly significant to them. For that they did turn to the Bible, but the encounter with the Torah is filtered through Chazal. They see Chazal as essential to the understanding of the Torah. As believers in immanence they actually see the Sages as much more integral to the experience of the written Torah than the rationalists did. They did not think that the presence at Sinai (mamad har Sinai) ended at the giving of the Torah (mattan Torah). For them the Torah is perpetually and continuously revealed. The modern reader of chassidic texts would, therefore, not have to decide whether they scientifically accept these postulates in order to engage with them. Chassidut's goal is instead to describe an immanence which provides spiritual and emotional transcendence. Chassidut (informed, of course, by kabbalah) promotes a sophisticated immanence which results in a dramatic shift in Judaism's orientation towards God and His commandments. Prior to the emergence of chassidut on the historic scene, theology was convincing and Jewish observance was rewarding. Chassidut changed that. Chassidic theology offered meaning and kabbalistic observance provided sanctity. Personally, my rejection of the Maimonidean ethos and realization of the degree to which chassidut can speak to the modern searcher was a long and arduous process. It came about as a result of a deep sense of betrayal by Maimonides, the champion of Rationalist Judaism. I for many years was the object and fool of Maimonides "the seventh reason" as presented in his introduction to the Guide by not seeing his philosophic views. In that passage, Maimonides condones misleading the masses for their greater good, even to the point of advocating contradictory ideas for different audiences and then obscuring those contradictions. Growing up in Satmar and then Brisk, I was oblivious to his non-halakhic writings and led to believe that he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad. I was exposed to his other writings only later and when I did I felt cheated. I was part of that the masses, whom he thought could not handle his unconventional approach to theology and tradition. As much as I have read about him, I personally have not managed to reconcile his two sides. I do not find Prof. Isidore Twersky's harmonizing approach compelling or convincing. Realizing what a fool I was led me on a tortuous and circuitous search. As the Rabbis say about Yisro, ????? ??? ?? ??????; I explored all the options. I finally found the answer in kabbalah and chassidut, they speak a language which resonates with our current reality. They emphasize that which contemporary Judaism needs. The emphasis in chassidut on meaning and sacredness, are perfectly suited for our community. These are exactly the things our culture needs more of; holiness and meaning. This emphasis in Chassidut on immanence also generates a move towards spiritualization. 2) Spiritualization. As scholars have pointed out, chassidic teachings contain elements of spiritual psychology. They provide us with a language which helps us infuse our lives with meaning. One can point to many examples where this psychological spiritualization occurs in chassidut, I will mention two of them. Everybody sometimes has a bad hair day, when we wake up feeling less than optimal. Chassidut has a term to describe that mood; it calls it mochen de'katnus. While it technically means the same as a "bad hair day," the language is mystical. Mochen de'katnus describes a less than stellar spiritual state, a low energy level which does not allow us to engage in the usual religious pursuits we crave to pursue. Another example is Kabbalah's elaborate taxonomy of love and awe: Kabbalah and Chassidut talks about superior and inferior love (ahavah ela'e'e and ahavah tata'a) or superior and inferior awe (yirah ela'e'e and yira tata'a)While these terms primarily describe nuanced stages in our engagement with the Divine, they have traditionally been imported into the colloquial arena. They are used to describe varied emotional states which we experience in our interactions with our friends and loved ones. Contemporary life does not provide us with that many opportunities for encountering the Divine in our daily lives. Chassidut allows us to bring God in. Sprinkling our conversations with mystical and Chassidic terminology allows us to spiritualize our daily routines and infuse our mundane pursuits with meaning and spiritual significance. Besides enriching our personal encounters, adopting a chassidic ethos could also enhance our communal experiences. 3) Social Change. One of the most pressing tensions in the community is how to reconcile our values with our convictions; what to do when halakha points us in one direction and our values in another direction. We are tempted to follow our values but pulled to abide by our halakhic commitments. A proper resolution requires an emboldened stance towards tradition, one that allows us to cajole the tradition to reconcile itself with our modern sensibilities. [Using, of course, legitimate halakhic mechanisms developed by our predecessors when they were confronted with similar challenges.] Our values are so emboldened because they derive their power from Chaissdut. A chassidic life is a spiritualized life which infuses our values with powerful theological significance, and it allows us to aggressively challenge the tradition to reevaluate its assumptions and attempt to accommodate itself-when halakhically possible- to a changed modern reality. Chassidut is very explicit about the value of religious aggression. The following two quotes are often encountered in chassidic writings, "even a thief says a prayer before he breaks in to his victim's home" (quoted on the margin of Brachot 63A, from the Frankfurt manuscript), and "an aggressive stance towards the Divine bears results" (Sanhedrin 105A). While the provenance of these texts is Talmudic, they take on significant prominence in Chassidic theology. They become the impetus for an aggressive theology which is informed by a religiosity that sees itself driven by a Divine immanence which infuses our values and ethical intuitions with spiritual resonance, subsequently leading to radical societal change. Such change is actually an integral part of Chassidic social history. When one looks at recent major changes in traditional Jewish society it is hard not to notice that the forerunners were often Chassidim. The last sixty years have seen far reaching social and political change. The two most dramatic changes that have happened is that Jews are now sovereign and women have made significant progress in their pursuit of religious equality. The pioneers of both these changes were driven, at least in part, by a chassidic ethos. R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Rebbi of Lubavitch, was one of the first orthodox scholars to champion female Talmud scholarship, while R. Avraham Yitzchak Kook, a serious student of Chassidut, was an outspoken early proponent of a Zionist state. There is no doubt that their chassidic worldview, at least partially, informed their proactive stances towards these changes. Their adherence to a spiritualized religiosity allowed them to explore new religious vistas. Their unique theological outlook changed the religious and legal equation for them, simultaneously making their decisions more complex, but also more progressive. Their spiritualized worldview allowed them to see divinity in the ostensibly secular state or the seemingly illegitimate request of women for greater equality. Granted, this hybrid of chassidic spiritualization and robust religious creativity would be a 21^st century concoction, traditionally, these two do not go together. Chassidism, for the most part, frowns on change and rejects innovation. As a matter of fact, nineteenth century Hungarian Chassidim were vociferously opposed to any accommodations to modernity. Further, the contemporary thinker is not going to intuitively embrace spiritualized non-rational thought. It is, nevertheless, a match pregnant with immense potential and could go a long way towards reviving a dormant Modern Orthodoxy. Contemporary Modern Orthodoxy is struggling; a significant number of its adherents are abandoning yiddishkeit and many who stay no longer find it meaningful; inertia has set in. I suspect that Modern Orthodoxy's rationalist ethos is partially to blame. Current Modern Orthodox theology is Litvish and hyper-Maimonidean, it lacks a native spiritual core, and does not satisfy people's search for meaning. We are due for a change. Chassidus could be that change agent. I strongly believe that a chassidic theology combined with a sophisticated modern overlay could be the elixir for the dispassion and disinterest that ails our community. It will provide our community what it so desperately needs: a torat chaim ve'ahavt chesed; a Torah that stimulates our minds but at the same time also gladdens our neshamah. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 14:39:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:39:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> : > From: Micha Berger via Avodah > > [Rambam's statement (''And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, //for > :: //one who ismodeh al ha-ememmes// ... > :: is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities > :: serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; > :: and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an > :: [I]ntender...'') is not an informal argument, akin to R' Aqiva's or REW's appeal > to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. Rather,] it is a recap of a formal proof The Rambam made in 2:19-20... 2:20 marks the end of an Argument from Design. As it opens: "According to Aristotle, none of the products > of Nature are due to chance. His proof is this: That which is due to > chance does not reappear constantly nor frequently, but all products of > Nature reappear either constantly or at least frequently..." > > This is a formal argument, unlike R' Aqiva's or REW's own appeal > to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. Philosophers may disagree with classifying the argument made in 2:20 from ''frequency of appearance'' as ''an argument from design.'' But even if it is ''an'' argument from design, it's a different argument from the ''modeh al ha-emmess'' proof from the hierarchy of entities benefiting others. So the latter is not a recap of the former. And it does not necessarily follow that one who is modeh to the ''frequency'' argument considers the hierarchy argument ''one of the strongest.'' RZL, continued: : He explicitly describes this/modeh al ha-emmess/ statement /as a : tangential interruption/: After that statement, he says, "I will now : return to the subject of this chapter, viz., the ultimate cause [i.e. : the purpose behind the universe being as it is--ZL]." : My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that : there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows : the non-formal mindset of those who are/modeh al ha-emmess/... RMB: >Agreed it's tangential, which is why I doubt that if the Rambam did want to say something that signficant, this would be its only mention.< Again: Here, where the Rambam, for the first time, is about to bring up the hierarchy proof, he parenthetically mentions that it is intuitively understood by anyone unbiased. He does then go on to state the proof in a formal philosophic form. This is the most proper place to insert such a parenthetical remark parenthetically, and only once. It's not ''that significant'' for his purposes, because, as I had written, the entire purpose of the Moreh is to address people (including himself) concerned with hearing formal philosophic proofs and confronting the challenges that formal philosophic proofsbrought to the mesorah. Those interested in hearing an expanded version of the argument in informal form could find it in the Rambam's introduction to his his Mishnah commentary. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 16:04:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 19:04:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <103ab8.504f8d1e.429f9062@aol.com> From: Eli Turkel via Avodah >> I have a book "The Goldilocks Enigma" by Paul Davies (cosmolgist) on why is the universe just right for life. Most of the book is to show how unlikely it is that the universe has exactly the right properties for existence. The second part is a discussion as to why this happened. He goes through all the theories including the watchmaker etc. One possibility is a "creator" . He admits that it is logically consistent but finds it highly unlikely. His own preference is for the multi-verse. The idea is not whether you agree with him or not. Rather here is an intelligent human who has thought deeply about these problems and does not see any obvious signs of a designer..... << Eli Turkel >>>> On the contrary, he sees many signs of a Designer and he is so desperate to avoid the obvious conclusion -- because of his own prior philosophical biases -- that he adopts the currently trendy and absurd idea of "many universes" to escape from what he does not want to face. You see, if this is the only universe then it is so fantastically improbable that it can only be a miracle. But if it is only one of many universes, then it is not so strange that just one out of millions of universes would happen to have the conditions necessary for life. Normally the definition of "science" includes things like capable of observation or experiment, falsifiable, etc. But if you are desperate enough to escape G-d (and His moral demands) you will take something as airy-fairy, non-observable, not subject to any possible experiment, non-falsifiable as a "multi-verse" -- a product of the human mind that is as real as leprechauns -- and you will crown it with the noble name of "science"! I have a wonderful book in my house called *The Privileged Planet* that should be a science textbook in every yeshiva high school and Bais Yakov. Please please read it. It's by Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards. Here's the website with more information about the book and a video: http://www.privilegedplanet.com/ --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 00:03:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 10:03:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] MB Message-ID: The entry in wikepedia in Hebrew on Mishna Brura contains much of the information that we have been discussing. In particular it discusses the authorship of MB (ie the quote from his son) . MH vs AH and the change after the holocaust and other comments -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 05:39:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2015 08:39:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Standing at a Chupah Message-ID: <20150603123934.850661827E1@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is from today's Hakhel email bulletin. FROM A READER: Further on the point on standing at Chuppahs: Many think/say that it is because of Choson Domeh L'melech that they stand up for the Chosson. Yet, they should be aware that to my knowledge, HaRav Moshe Feinstein, Z'tl, never stood because he used to say, Doi-meh (L)melech NOT (Ke)melech. HaRav Yaakov Kamenetsky, Z'tl, stood but for a totally different reason. The question of L'melech or K'melech never entered into consideration as the Chosson is not a true Chosson until AFTER the Chuppah. Rather, HaRav Yaakov stood purely because of the Mishna in Bikurim (3:3), that discusses the bringing of Bikurim and the rule of standing Lif-Nai Oisei Mitzva, and since the Chosson is entering into a Chupah which will enable him to be mekayeim the mitzvah of P'ru U'revu, we stand. As to why we don't stand for everyone doing a mitzvah, it's for a mitzvah that is mei-kama zman l'zman, not a regular occurrence. The question remains as to a justification for why people stand for the Kallah, since she is not K'Malka (see HaRav Moshe and HaRav Yaakov above) and is peturah from Mitzvas Peru U'revu. HaRav Avraham Kamenetsky, HaRav Yaakov's son, told me that one can say that since the Chosson cannot be mekayeim the mitzvah without her, she has a chelek in the mitzvah and thus qualifies for Lif-Nai Oisei Mitzvah. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 06:57:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 09:57:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 05:39:33PM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : But even if it is "an" argument from design, it's a different argument : from the "modeh al ha-emmess" proof from the hierarchy of entities : benefiting others. So the latter is not a recap of the former. And : it does not necessarily follow that one who is modeh to the : "frequency" argument considers the hierarchy argument "one of the : strongest." I think our point of contention is simple: You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind justification that isn't a proof. Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. And therefore there is nothing in the Rambam about a justification that isn't a philosophical proof. For that matter, I would take his words to say this non-proof, being only meaningful to someone who is already "modeh al ha'emes", is not valid justification -- an instance of what I believe would be his general rule. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 10:58:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 10:58:33 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] ashtei-asar Message-ID: could someone explain please the ibn ezra in last weeks parsha ? someone asked about the origin of 'ashtei' and noted the this week mikshah is translated as eshet--- which must mean one solid piece so that must mean ashtei= one . but why not say achad asar ? [ he pointed out that 'eshet'= 770 , a number of completion ] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 14:23:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 17:23:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] ashtei-asar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150603212342.GA31632@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 03, 2015 at 10:58:33AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : someone asked about the origin of 'ashtei' and noted the this week : mikshah is translated as eshet--- which must mean one solid piece so : that must mean ashtei= on... The Akkadian for 11 is ishteneshret, ishten (one) + shret (ten). It is weird, though, that Hebrew would use a form of isheneshret without also using ishten. Then there's the idea in the Radaq (Mikhlol pg 140) that it was two that was collapsed from "ashtei" to "shtei". Which would explain why "shtayim" isn't "shesayim". The rule is that a sheva under the first letter is a sheva na (pronounced schwa), the legacy of the missing "i-" makes "shtei" an exception -- the sheva under the shin is nach (silent). Along these line, but presumably without the knowledge of Akkadian, the IE (Bamidbar 7:72, citing his own Sefer Me'oznayim) writes that "ashtei asar" is like "eshtenosav" -- that which were born from his thoughts. As though the 10 gave birth. "Vehu sod gadol". He then goes on to dismiss R' Yonah haSefaradi's theory that it means "el shtei asar". Because 1- "al shetei asar" would refer to the number AFTER 12, not before; and 2- "asar" (masc) would get "shnei" (masc), not "shtei" (fem). The gemara doesn't explain peshat, but interestingly R' Ashi's example (Sanhedrin 29a) of "kol hamosif goreia'" is how adding an ayin turns "shtei esrei yeri'os" into "ashtei esrei". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 15:16:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2015 18:16:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> On 6/3/2015 9:57 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > I think our point of contention is simple: > > You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind > justification that isn't a proof. I thought I was clear that I was taking it to be the same informal kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind. > > Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, > but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. I did not see this in your previous remarks that characterized the ''modeh-al-ha-emmess" as a formal proof/argument: :> There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam :> recaps a point made in 2:19-20. > 2:20 marks the end of an Argument from Design, which is what I was > referring to. ...This is a formal argument, unlike R' Aqiva's or REW's own appeal > to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. And I don't see how one can possibly interpret (MN 3:13 [not 3:15 as I mistakenly typed previously]) ''And know that one of the strongest /proofs/ (min /ha-gedolah sheh-b'ra'ayos/) for Creation ex nihilo, for one who is /modeh al ha-ememmes/, is his understanding the /proof/ (/hu mah sheya'amod alav ha-mofase/)...'' as meaning: > ''this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the emes, > look how nicely it works out.'' Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 16:37:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 19:37:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150603233708.GA7958@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 03, 2015 at 06:16:59PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: :> You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind :> justification that isn't a proof. : I thought I was clear that I was taking it to be the same informal : kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof : not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized : and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind. Then I did understand you correctly. When I say, "a kind justification that isn't a proof", I believe I mean the same thing as your "informal kind of proof". To me, the word "proof" implies formality. "Justification" is a general term for how we know something is true. (From Plato's definition of knowledge: "a justified and true belief.") :> Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, :> but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. : I did not see this in your previous remarks that characterized the : "modeh-al-ha-emmess" as a formal proof/argument: Because that's not what I am saying is the formal proof. I overused the word "this", which led to confusion. In addition "modeh al ha'ames" refers to a person, not an argument, so you lost me on that bit. AISI, it refers to the person who accepted the proof in 2:20, would find this point compelling. But since the point he's making here is not a formal proof, he doesn't expect it to convince, only to reinforce belief in those who already accepted the related proof. : And I don't see how one can possibly interpret (MN 3:13 [not 3:15 as : I mistakenly typed previously]) "And know that one of the : strongest /proofs/ (min /ha-gedolah sheh-b'ra'ayos/) for Creation ex : nihilo, for one who is /modeh al ha-ememmes/, is his understanding : the /proof/ (/hu mah sheya'amod alav ha-mofase/)..." as meaning: :> "this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the :> emes, look how nicely it works out." You are taking a sentence that says "One of the greatest proofs for creation for someone who accepts the truth is his understanding the wonder..." He is discussing a ra'ayah that someone who already believes would find compelling. Not a proof that would convince an unbiased seeker. Because I don't think the Rambam accepted that an informal justification other than philosophical proof could be a sounds reason to embrace a belief as true. (I see you consistently double the "s" in "emess". Why? If the sav had a dageish, it would be a tav, not "ss".) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are what we repeatedly do. micha at aishdas.org Thus excellence is not an event, http://www.aishdas.org but a habit. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Aristotle From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 4 15:16:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2015 18:16:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong Message-ID: <20150604221600.GA28870@aishdas.org> An Areivim conversation moved in topicality so that my reply really belongs here. Some background.... At some point, one person wrote, in part: | Right is right and wrong is wrong,... Speaking about moral correctness. To which someone else replied: > Really? ISTM that there is lots of grey in our world. People disagree > about right and wrong like they disagree about assur and mutar... And my reply, from Areivin: } This is why disputes about eilu va'eilu are so significant. Machloqes } can be between two approaches, two paths, one may take. Between different } strategies to obtaining the same goal. } Or it could be between a correct vs an incorrect understanding of the } halakhah. A process by which something becomes law, regardless of which } is right. } Or... } But if there is one right and one wrong, human decision-making wouldn't } change which is which. That second person wrote later in the conversation: > Sure am. Women learning Talmud was wrong, then it was right. In fact, > now it's both right (MO) and wrong (Hareidi). My response: } I don't consider that a good example. It is possible for something to } be right in one settting and wrong in another. Such as whether learning } Talmud is a good idea may depend on how women are being educated to relate } to knowledge in general. Since they aren't obligated to learn halachic } theory, such as gemara, they may be better off with a naive mimetic } faith. But if we have universal education, and an economic system that } demands a certain wordliness in both genders, such that naivite isn't } an option, then our choices are different. } Morality is like a Faucault's Pendulum; it keeps swinging the same } direction. The pendulum only looks like the direction changes over time } because the world rotates beneath it. Them again: > Zionism is right (DL) > and wrong (Satmar). You see the world as black and white; I see lots of > colors, including grey (and black and white sometimes as well). Me: } But gray too objectively exists. We may need to choose a response, } and thus have to fit it into a boolean black-white category. And then } someone may choose a strategy that categorizes it as white and someone } else as black. } But the grayness is not a matter of opinion. And also, from the same person, in an email between the two: > And my point was, the topic under discussion was not gravity ... > it was an issue that what people think about it is, in fact, relevant. My response, continued: } Is that true? } As far as I know, it's pretty basic to Judaism that the Creator has an } "Opinion" of what is moral and what isn't. That things run more smoothly } for everyone involved if we run with the design rather than do something } else. } Not only that, G-d put us on the same page once. } People may not be sure if there is an absolute moral standard, and those } who agree there is one, may not agree about what it looks like. } It's out there and as objectively real as gravity. } Even if you cannot prove it to others, and therefore will always be } subject to conflicting opinions -- some more right in some ways, some } more right in others, some simply wrong. } Your position implies an Empiricism that rules out revelation as a valid } source of truth! In which case, what's left of Torah? Futher down in the conversation, Lisa wrote of halakhah: : There are actually cases where opinions can establish right and : wrong. Tanuro shel Akhnai illustrates one. Actual reality is : *created* by the informed and considered opinions of the Sanhedrin. To which I responded: } Law, not reality. And Lisa, post #2: : I disagree. Torah *is* reality. Finally, some new material. R Chaim Brisker links "vechayei olam nata besokheinu" and "emes mei'eretz tatzmiach". Torah is the seed from which Emes grows, and not (leshitaso, but I bought into it) Emes itself. The Qetzos says something similar on the use of "emes mei'eretz" in the medrash about the 2 forces -- Emes and Shalom -- opposing the creation of humanity. Emes is thrown to the ground, to which the tanna says "emes meieretz tatzmiach". Emes will come out through the process of history. It's not with us yet. Torah is how HQBH leads us there. But in any case, I didn't speak of Torah, of "divrei E-lokim chaim", I spoke of halakhah. Or as RMF put it, I spoke of emes lehora'ah, not Emes as it is kelapei shamay galya. Continuing my reply to Lisa's 1st post: } And the reason why we only let the Sanhedrin vote is because the law is } expected to be consistent with the objective reality. There may be many } ways up Har Hashem, but you really only want people who know mapreading } and reconteuring figuring out which one is best. } And the mountain and its altitude are unchanged by people's decisions. Lisa's 2nd post, cont: : And what Hashem wanted the halakha to be was determined by people's : decisions. New material again: If we combine your insistance that halakhah is Truth with the idea that it is determined by people's decisions, you end up with Constructivism. Halakhah as a man made reality. Which makes sense -- you tend to side with the Rambam on this kind of thing. But if dinim bein adam lachaveiro define or at least shape morality, you are left with the OP's claim that opinion determines what is moral. Opinion as informed by kelalei pesaq, but still, morality isn't entirely absolute or objective. The position I was suggesting that there is an objective Morality that is part of Emes. Emes, with a capital "E", as in something that exists in Shamayim (a/k/a the Olam haEmes) but can't fit in this world among human minds. We have approximating models (Maharal), getting ever closer to the Emes (Qetzos). Halakhah is our means of approaching it, and the existence of multiple correct pesaqim reflects their being more than one viable path (R Chaim Brisker). Or more specifically: The path is on the meta-level, the evolution of the Oral Torah and its pesaqim is part of getting to Emes, not "only" the path taken by a life that follows that pesaqim. So that halakhah is not morality, it is a means of producing ever more moral people. Which makes sense in terms of my own Mussarly tendencies. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are great, and our foibles are great, micha at aishdas.org and therefore our troubles are great -- http://www.aishdas.org but our consolations will also be great. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi AY Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 4 19:55:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2015 22:55:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <20150603233708.GA7958@aishdas.org> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> <20150603233708.GA7958@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55710FAB.70107@gmail.com> On 6/3/2015 7:37 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Wed, Jun 03, 2015 at 06:16:59PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: > :> You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind > :> justification that isn't a proof. > > : I thought I was clear that I was taking it to be the same informal > : kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof > : not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized > : and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind. > > Then I did understand you correctly. > > When I say, "a kind justification that isn't a proof", I believe I mean > the same thing as your "informal kind of proof". To me, the word "proof" > implies formality. "Justification" is a general term for how we know > something is true. (From Plato's definition of knowledge: "a justified and > true belief.") Got it. > :> Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, > :> but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. > > : I did not see this in your previous remarks that characterized the > : "modeh-al-ha-emmess" as a formal proof/argument: > > Because that's not what I am saying is the formal proof. I overused the > word "this", which led to confusion. I''m even more confused now. What "this" that led to confusion was overused? I took you to mean that the ''emmess'' that a ''modeh al ha-emmess'' person was modeh to was the conclusion of a formal proof stated somewhere in 2:19-20. (And such a person would consider, as one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, the proof from the hierarchy of benefit of entities.) > In addition "modeh al ha'ames" refers to a person, not an argument, > so you lost me on that bit. When I wrote ''I was taking it to be the same informal kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind'' I was responding to you statement: :> You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind :> justification that isn't a proof. which was in response to my writing: : My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that : there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows : the non-formal mindset of those who are /modeh al ha-emmess/... I meant to say I was taking Rambam's remark to mean that someone whose thought process is normal and unbiased (i.e. a modeh al ha-emmess) recognizes (without the aid of formal proof) the fact of the hierarchy of benefit as compelling the conclusion of a freely intended Creation ex nihilo. Another way to crystallize our differing interpretations: You are taking the "emmess'' that the ''modeh al ha-emmess'' is modeh to, to be the correct fact. I'm taking it to be the correct process of thinking. > AISI, it refers to the person who accepted > the proof in 2:20, would find this point compelling. But since the point > he's making here is not a formal proof, he doesn't expect it to convince, > only to reinforce belief in those who already accepted the related proof. > > : And I don't see how one can possibly interpret (MN 3:13 [not 3:15 as > : I mistakenly typed previously]) "And know that one of the > : strongest /proofs/ (min /ha-gedolah sheh-b'ra'ayos/) for Creation ex > : nihilo, for one who is /modeh al ha-ememmes/, is his understanding > : the /proof/ (/hu mah sheya'amod alav ha-mofase/)..." as meaning: > > :> "this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the > :> emes, look how nicely it works out." > > You are taking a sentence that says "One of the greatest proofs for > creation for someone who accepts the truth is his understanding the > wonder..." He is discussing a ra'ayah that someone who already believes > would find compelling. Not a proof that would convince an unbiased > seeker. > > Because I don't think the Rambam accepted that an informal justification > other than philosophical proof could be a sounds reason to embrace a > belief as true. Your first paragraph is just restating your position and denying mine. I am saying otherwise, pointing out that saying that this person considers the hierarchy factor ''one of the greatest proofs for creation'' means '"this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out" is incompatible with the words. And /l'fi ta'amych,/ of your second paragraph: If the Rambam considers an informal justification vs philosophical proof an unsound reason to embrace a belief as true, then one would think he would not consider noteworthy a non-ra'ayah found compelling only by someone who already believes in the conclusion (stated or implied somewhere in 2:19-20, or in that previously stated formal ra'aya which /is/, or is not, compelling--I'm not sure which of these you're saying, but my objection applies regardless.) I think it may be productive for us to examine the 4 or 5 other places in MN where the Rambam uses the expression ''modeh al ha-emmess.'' (Curiously, the search of the Hebrewbooks.org MN in my Adobe Reader skips over the instance in 3:13!) > > (I see you consistently double the "s" in "emess". Why? If the sav had > a dageish, it would be a tav, not "ss".) It's to duplicate the /sound/ (not the lettering) of the word as it would be in English, for a careful English-reading person. (Not that I'm sure there are many of those around...) In contemporary English spelling, one "s" at the end of a word that ends in ''e'' is pronounced hard, like a ''z'' (shines, pines, processes); the soft ''s'' added to words that end in "e" is indicated by two ''s'' 's (process, ingress, mess). But we digreSS.... Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 5 03:54:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2015 06:54:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Science and Halachah - The Trumpeting Stone Message-ID: <20150605105427.GA27466@aishdas.org> This stone, at the excacations south of the Kotel, apparently marked a location where the shofar would be blown on Fri afternoon to warn people about the approaching and arrival of Shabbos. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trumpeting_Place_inscription It says "lebeis hateqi'ah lh[k?b?]" and was at the corner of Har haBayis. My obaervation is about the font. Notice the base of the lamed, which is a diagonal. The same is true of the Qumran texts and of texts from the Cairo Geniza. but this pushes the date for this tradition of script back to Herod's rebuilding of the BHMQ. This kind of lamed is also found in Kesav Vellish, that used in Sepharadi sta"m, but not in Kesav Beis Yoseif or the other Ashkenazi variants. http://sofercenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/different-ksavim.jpg Now, the stone is in far from the formal Ashuris required for Sifrei Torah, but if Kesav Beis Yoseif is correct, why aren't other fonts from the period more similar? If this does indicate a preference for one script over the other, we could discuss how the various approaches to Halakhah and Science would handle this case. {In terms of being yotzei, I think the only problem Ashkenazim have with the Sepharadi kesav is that variants that predate the Chida lack Rabbei Tam's qutzo shel yud. And since the popularity of the Ben Ish Chai, this issue has become very rare. Lehalakhah, the Tur, Noda biYhudah, Tzitz Eliezer and R' Ovadiah all alow using the other's sefer. Even with the spelling differences!) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is equipped with such far-reaching vision, micha at aishdas.org yet the smallest coin can obstruct his view. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 5 08:16:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2015 15:16:42 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong Message-ID: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Continuing the discussion from Areivim... R' Joseph Kaplan wrote: > About some things there is a right and a wrong; it is right > to fast on Yom Kippur and wrong to eat. But not everything > fits so neatly into categories of right and wrong. Micha > didn't like my example of Women learning Talmud was wrong, > then it was right. In fact, now it's both right (MO) and > wrong (Hareidi)." He argues that it is possible for > something to be right in one setting and wrong in another. I don't see the distinction between women learning vs eating on Yom Kippur. Women learning is right in some settings (such as where an unlearned woman would be in a spiritual sakana) and wrong in others (the ideal or traditional situation). In the same manner, eating on Yom Kippur is right in some settings (where the person would be in a medical sakana) and wrong in others (where the person is physically healthy). For that matter, learning is dependent on the setting even for a man: In most settings, it is right for a Jewish man to learn Torah, but not if he is in aveilus, or if he is davening, or if he is in other situations where the learning would conflict with another mitzvah. My point is that EVERYTHING depends on the setting. (I once tried to think of a positive or negative mitzvah which is totally independent of setting, and which always applies under all imaginable circumstances. The only one I could come up with is Avodah Zara. If anyone wants to continue that thought, please start a new thread.) Anyway, getting back to *this* thread, which is about whether right and wrong are absolutes decreed by G-d, or whether they are subject to the opinions of the Sanhedrin or others, I was reminded of an interesting gemara. As translated by http://www.torah.org/learning/maharal/p2m10part2.html it reads: > Eruvin (13b): For two and a half years Beith Shammai and > Beith Hillel argued. These [Beith Shammai] said "It is > better for man not to have been created than to have been > created." And those [Beith Hillel] said "It is better for > man to have been created." Together, they [reviewed the > opinions and] reached a consensus: ... I left out their conclusion, because it is not really so critical to this thread. What *IS* critical is the fact that they had the chutzpah to even discuss this question at all. There is a thought in this thread that if G-d does something, then it is good by definition. Yet Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai considered the possibility that G-d had another option which was even better than the option that He did choose. This sounds to me like a good argument for the view that people (or at least certain people, such as the Sanhedrin) CAN decide what is right and what is wrong. Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 5 14:41:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2015 17:41:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong In-Reply-To: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <557217A4.4010309@sero.name> On 06/05/2015 11:16 AM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: >> >Eruvin (13b): For two and a half years Beith Shammai and >> >Beith Hillel argued. These [Beith Shammai] said "It is >> >better for man not to have been created than to have been >> >created." And those [Beith Hillel] said "It is better for >> >man to have been created." > There is a thought in this thread that if G-d does something, then it > is good by definition. Yet Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai considered the > possibility that G-d had another option which was even better than the > option that He did choose. The discussion was not about what is good or right, but about what is better *for a person*. What is in the person's interest. "Noach lo le'adam". What G-d chooses for a person is right, but who says it's "noach lo"? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 12:49:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2015 21:49:38 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] Right/wrong In-Reply-To: <5571BB83.7010500@sero.name> References: <73824318-9EAD-43A2-924A-23983726765C@tenzerlunin.com> <55704A19.7000001@sero.name> <20150604182845.GA18772@aishdas.org> <557113ED.9080608@zahav.net.il> <5571BB83.7010500@sero.name> Message-ID: <55734ED2.8020702@zahav.net.il> Moved from Areivim. It is a case of muttar and assur, which in this case I am equating with right and wrong. For this person, something is muttar and for the other it is pasul. The way I see, it would be absolutely wrong for the wealthier person to eat his chicken, and absolutely wrong for the poorer person to throw his chicken away. Correct, popular opinion doesn't play a part in this one. Ben On 6/5/2015 5:08 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > > That's not a question of right and wrong, From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 17:19:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 01:19:52 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> R' Ysoscher Katz writes: ... <> And yet ironically RYK's experience in Satmar and Brisk would seem to confirm the sense of what Maimonides did. RYK was only the object and fool of Maimonides "seventh reason" because he was immersed in a society that had built very high walls against the risk of engaging with philosophy. Contrast his experience to mine. I read the Guide at fourteen - long before I had any real exposure to the Yad. Why? Because I grew up in a society in which it was more acceptable for girls to read philosophic texts than it was to learn and engage with halachic texts. And indeed, a translation of the Guide was published and available in English, in my shul library, whereas the Mishna Torah, which was no doubt there (I don't remember), was only in Hebrew and would have been in the "halachic" section that only boys (and scholarly boys at that) were expected to access. Even more, when I started asking questions, the librarian pointed me in the direction of the philosophy works, which included the Guide, that is how I got to it. It was just assumed that if somebody was asking theological questions, that was the place to go. So by the time, much, much later, that I read the relevant portions of the Mishna Torah, I already knew Maimonides' philosophic works in some depth, and layered them on to anything in the Yad. And yet Maimonides was surely right, had the Yad contained the opinions expressed in the Guide, in any detectable way, there is no way a society like Satmar and Brisk would have allowed it into their hallowed betei midrash - and what a loss to the halachic world that would have been. What occurred to RYK is merely a by-product and inevitable consequence (if you step outside) of what Satmar/Brisk have created. Not what Maimonides created. He created a work which, in any society that valued philosophy, would be available to those who sought it. And this is why RYK's experience is unlikely to occur in any true Modern Orthodox setting. Because curious, searching teenagers will inevitably take advantage of what is available in languages they can read in their local libraries (assuming they are encouraged to go there, and such libraries are not off limits), and hence, while they might (hopefully) be exposed to the Mishna Torah earlier than I was, they will certainly have the opportunity, and if that way inclined, are likely to take the opportunity of exploring at least the introduction to the Guide. <> Now this I find- well perhaps touchingly naive to the point of bizarre. Not the characterisation of the two most dramatic changes, necessarily, but the idea that "the pioneers of both these changes were driven, at least in part, by Chassidic ethos". Of the two, the claim regarding female Talmud scholarship is the most odd. Chassidic groups have been at the forefront of those fighting a rearguard action against women's exposure to any form of text, not least Talmudic and halachic text. Satmar in particular - I recall once standing in a bookshop in Boro Park, perusing a book (written clearly by somebody from the Satmar derech) who had gathered together all the sources on the evils of giving women access to any text - but most fundamentally, horror of horrors, to Rashi al haChumash. It was of course, an attack on what is taught in Beis Ya'akov. The position advocated being that at most, girls should be taught in school the stories of the Tanach, outside and without any recourse at all to reading in original. Lubavitch, I agree, was and is in this regard unusual amongst the Chassidic groups. But, growing up in Melbourne, a community heavily dominated by Lubvitchers, I am pretty well acquainted with what was allowed and not allowed vis a vis girls/women and learning from people with reasonably close connections with the Lubavitche Rebbe. Sure, streets ahead of the other Chassidic groups - but more open than the Beis Ya'akovs? - dubiously - although there was a fair bit of flexibility granted when dealing with potential ba'alei teshuva who (it was acknowledged) could be seriously put off by bans on access to knowledge of the nature of that on gemora. But what was granted begrudgingly and in a limited fashion in such circles were standard parts of the curriculum in Modern Orthodox schools (with Maimonides in Boston the flagship in this regard). How high a level a girl was taught in MO environments differed (especially given that often the overall level of kodesh education was not always that high in such schools), but the idea that any of this was driven fundamentally by the Lubavitcher Rebbe is ludicrous. And if you look at Israel and the explosion of women's learning there - not a chassid in sight. R' Kook and Zionism is a more justified charge. While it is hard to describe Rav Kook as a "pioneer" of political Zionism (there were many before him who saw political Zionism as logically arising out of their religious belief), he unquestionably provided serious theological underpinnings justifying the religious being involved in this endeavour, and much of what he wrote is rooted in chassidus. But note of course that the major thinker against was again the Satmar Rebbe - ie chassidus provided, yet again, the most reactionary response to this phenomenon. Which is more typical of chassidus - Rav Kook or the Satmar Rebbe? - I think it is far fairer to say that Rav Kook was the exception, despite his deep roots, and the Satmar Rebbe closer to the rule. And note, while we are on the subject of Rav Kook, that while he was "progressive" regarding political Zionism, he was "regressive" regarding woman voting. Was his attitude towards women's place in society also fuelled by his Chassidic studies? In general, while I do agree that Chassidic thinkers, such as Rav Kook, have a lot to say to "the world we live in today" and that there is something to be said for incorporating aspects of their theology in the pursuit of meaning, I suspect that trying to create "chassidish modern Jews" is an enterprise doomed to failure, and certainly not something that will be able to speak to the modern orthodox world. Why? Firstly because Chassidism is all embracing. I have watched many ba'alei teshuva embrace Chassidism (in lots of forms) over the years - as indeed it has a serious pull for many. I have rarely found one who is attracted that way who ends up in the modern orthodox camp. Where do they usually end up? Well amongst the most extreme Chassidic groups, where they can indulge to the fullest extent. Chassidism become so all embracing that it pushes everything else out. And while this phenomenon is already found amongst Modern Orthodox children going "black". It is certainly not going to save modern Orthodoxy. A further problem is articulated at the beginning of the piece, in relation to RYK's father: > My father is the most non-chassidish Chassid. He does not study > "chassidus," nor does he want to "understand" it. But, however you cut it, those with a modern orthodox upbringing are taught to want to "understand". They are brought up with the scientific method, even if some debunking then occurs in universities. For sure, there are those who reject that in favour of exploration of mystery and experience - but as suggested above, by and large those "go right" - further into the ultra orthodox world. By and large, while the ashrams of India are peopled by many Jews, I don't think very many of them are modern orthodox dropouts. The ones we are losing totally are going left, into the secular mundane world without religious input. Because while they are usually aware of the experiential, it appears to simultaneously contemplate a suffocation of the mind that they cannot swallow (as an ashram also does). Such people are never going to be comfortable in a world in which there is any expectation of not "wanting" to understand. They may perhaps be persuaded to find meaning in the writings of people like Rav Kook, or in other aspects of Chassidic writing, but are likely to be even more repelled by a world that implicitly or explicitly tells them to bin what is the attribute they have been taught to spend most of their life cultivating - their mind. I am probably going to be (metaphorically speaking) shot on this list for even mentioning it, but if you want to see what you get when you mix a modicum of Chassidic plus philosophic inspired thinking in a more "modern" context, you could always look at the German thinkers (including Reform thinkers) of the early twentieth century - people like (particularly) Franz Rosenzweig, not to mention Leo Baeck, Martin Buber, Hermann Cohen. What about Levinas? There is your post modern thinking (but note that it comes out of a Lithuanian background with existentialism and philosophical exploration rather than chassidus). But it is a long way from Maimonidian rationalism (despite of course Maimonides being the father of all this philosophy, but only after it has been through Kant and the existentialists). Avraham Yehoshua Heshel is another example of those attempting to integrate a Chassidic background with modern sensibilities. But since he operated out of the Jewish Theological Seminary, and was closely identified with the Conservative Movement, he probably did more to make such explorations treif to MO thinkers than he did to inspire them to explore. A bigger problem, I think, is that MO in America is so fixated on RYBS, and his particular brand of philosophy, that philosophy linked to Orthodoxy becomes identified only with his particular stance. But there is a much wider world out there, and a philosophical world that does not only relate to transcendence (as RYBS appears to do) but to imminence as well. Are those who speak of paradox/polarity of imminence and transcendence inspired by the imminence of the Chassidic world? Maybe, but it is attenuated, and no longer strictly Chassidic. Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 19:09:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 22:09:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Brisker Theory of Everything In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150607020921.GB7516@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 25, 2015 at 07:15:59PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : 1. The gemara (Ketuvot 5b) discusses whether causing a certain type : of blood flowing is considered a Sabbath violation. The first attempt : to resolve the question turns on whether "mifkad pakid or chaburei : mechbar" (is the blood in the womb stored up or is it the result of a : wound?). Rashi there (please look) seems to define this as a physical : question. Is this acceptable or must we say Rashi was leaving out the : "obvious" philosophical/halachic question (i.e. the physical was known, : it's a question of how to categorize it halachically)? It is very hard to identify a real machloqes in metzi'us. There is a machloqes in the Y-mi about whether rice flower and water makes chameitz. Pesachim 2:4, vilna 17a): Rabbi Yochanan ben Nuri said: Qarmis (millet or something similar) requires [giving] challah [from the dough to a kohein] because it can become chameitz or matzah. And the Rabbis say it doesn't because it can not become chameitz or matzah. So check it! They disagree about the essence of the check (iqar bediqasahh): RYBN said they checked it and found it can become chameitz or matzah. The Rabbanan said they checked it and they didn't find it can become chameitz or matzah. What looked like a machloqes about facts, that could just be checked experimentally, was a machloqes about how to categorize the physical reality. Is that dough a chimutz or a sirchon? I am sure that can be generalized. We could be arguing about metzi'us, but as the gemera asks, why not just check it? More likely, when the metzi'us is in the gray area, the machloqes is about: Where is the line between the categories? : 2. That gemara continues to try to resolve the question and is willing : to entertain the possibility that the halacha is like Rabbi Yehuda : (vs. Rabbi Shimon) in mekalkeil (destroying) and like Rabbi Shimon : (vs. Rabbi Yehuda) in davar sheino mitkavein (the result was not the : major one intended). If these two issues were interconnected, could the : gemara entertain this possibility? I think the gemara is consistent with two posibilities: 1- The two machloqesin are not interconnected. 2- The hava amina as that they were not connected, but the masqanah is that indeed they are. : 3. If the answer to 2 is no, must we assume that when the Shulchan : Aruch said he would decide the psak based on majority 2 of big 3, did : he really mean this as a primary tie breaker, or only when he did not : have a clear understanding of the underlying philosophy that resulted : in their final opinions. As I wrote in the past, I think it's easier to excuse the SA's exceptions to his rule by saying he was talking about the majority when counting consistent positions. Which means the rule is subject to which machloqesin the SA held were interconnected, and therefore which statements on other topics need to also be counted toward he majority. : 4.Is it possible that R'YBS limited his "canon" to only a few major : rishonim (in contradistinction to R" A Lichtenstein) because the more : data points included in trying to determine the underlying theoretical : construct, the more likely a single errant point would skew the results? I would think the reverse: How do you identify an outlier point without getting more full statistics on the data? Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger Worrying is like a rocking chair: micha at aishdas.org it gives you something to do for a while, http://www.aishdas.org but in the end it gets you nowhere. Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 19:16:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 22:16:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir In-Reply-To: <20150528.000433.22403.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150528.000433.22403.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150607021626.GC7516@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 04:04:33AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I will be the first to point out that Lifnei Iveir is one the many : topics where my learning and expertise is severely lacking. Even so, : I suspect that there is something missing from RMB's definition... : It seems to me that RMB is giving a useful tool to distinguish between : category 3 and category 4, but that tool is useful only in the case where : a person already has the *desire* to commit a sin, but it lacking the : *ability* to some degree... Correct. I was only thinking of the original question, and the gemara only discusses the one chiluq -- between lifnei iveir (deOraisa) and mesayeia' (deRabbanan). : But what of the case where a person does *not* yet have a desire to : sin? Rabbi Kaganoff is saying that one who incites or encourages him : to do it is violating Lifnei Iveir. Even if the person already has the : ability to do the sin, it was below his "bechirah point" until he was : egged on to do it... I didn't understand Orpah's offer that way. She was convinced her daughters-in-law "converted" for the sake of marriage; and depending which midrashim you quote, that likely wasn't even an actual conversion. But if Rus didn't really buy into Jewish beliefs, she would be better off not going through a pro-forma conversion than in the same boat as Delilah or Shelomo's wives. Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet micha at aishdas.org about things most people don't watch even on http://www.aishdas.org Yom Kippur. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 21:46:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 07:46:04 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] right/wrong Message-ID: <> comes back to the question of pluralism vs monistic vs tolerant monistic vs harmonism. As discussed before there are opinions on all sides -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 7 04:06:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 07:06:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] right/wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150607110645.GA7126@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jun 07, 2015 at 07:46:04AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : comes back to the question of pluralism vs monistic vs tolerant monistic vs : harmonism. Or, as R Moshe Halberatal cateogired halachic legal theories: Retrival, Accumulative, vs Constitutive. But it only starts there. Here the question is whether 1- any of these positions imply that halakhah is man-made more than the other positions would; and 2- does any of this conversation reflect on the absolute nature of right and wrong on a moral plane? Which also drags in the relationship between halakhah and morality. Divine Command Theory (morality is that which Hashem commanded) may well identify the two. But then, we were hard pressed to find an advocate for DCT, (outside contemporary popularizations). R/DR Y Leibowitz coms close, by saying we exist to follow halakhah, and any attempt to map halakhah to some other value system was one step toward AZ. Someone else might say that halakhah approximates morality, but since it's a blanket rule for all people in many situations, it's only an approximate. That said, once the halakhah is set, preserving it and the morality of the majority of cases has greater moral weight than one loses in the exceptional cases. But getting back to our question, while I consider the two related, I do not think the evolving nature of halakhah reflects morality being a human construction. Rather, I think it's because of two effects: 1- dialectics between concflicting values can yeild different strategies for finding balance between them One therefore finds that a machloqes is resolved by finding one strategy more appropriate for the culture asking the question than another. And if it is not resolved with finality, another culture may have the same question (eg mixes of immigrants with different precdent) and choose a different strategy. As I put it last time: choosing different paths up the mountain doesn't imply that the mountain's altitude is subjective. But this assumes that the linkage between halakhah and morality is that halakhah is a means to becoming moral. 2- changes in reality can cause two similar looking situations to have different moral outcomes. I think the vast majority of seemingly reopened questions are really of this sort. E.g. the categorization of today's dead mutes. We didn't change our belief that demands cannot be made of someone who cannot be taught them -- even if it means a consequent loss of priviliges (if being able to be motzi another is a privilege). The realia of the life of a cheiresh changed. (Over Shabbos I read which misses this point, creating a very bloated list of cases where R' JD Bleich, and most contemporary posqim, allow halakhah to "evolve".) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is our choices...that show what we truly are, micha at aishdas.org far more than our abilities. http://www.aishdas.org - J. K. Rowling Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 7 04:10:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 07:10:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong In-Reply-To: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150607111036.GB7126@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 05, 2015 at 03:16:42PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : There is a thought in this thread that if G-d does something, then it : is good by definition. Yet Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai considered the : possibility that G-d had another option which was even better than the : option that He did choose. Aside from Zev's point, that the machloqes is over which is pleasanter for the person, not which is good... I think the discussion is more what if HQBH tells us to do something, it is good by definition, necessarily good by implication, or somehow more distantly related to morality. (I guess someone could say halakhah is not connected to morality, but I don't see that coming up as an O hashkagah.) : This sounds to me like a good argument for the view that people (or at : least certain people, such as the Sanhedrin) CAN decide what is right : and what is wrong. Can determine, which is still different than the original idea on Areivim, that consensus *defines* morality. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger One who kills his inclination is as though he micha at aishdas.org brought an offering. But to bring an offering, http://www.aishdas.org you must know where to slaughter and what Fax: (270) 514-1507 parts to offer. - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 7 05:52:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2015 08:52:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Torah Scholars and Torah Education for the Masses Message-ID: <20150607125250.7E561182EA1@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is taken from Rav Schwab on Chumash, Parshas Acharei Mos. I have posted the entire selection at http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/tide_chumash_schwab.pdf At all times the Torah's unchanging teachings must be applied to the ever-changing derech eretz. All of our actions, attitudes, relationships to man and beast, and positions within nature and history are subject to the jurisdiction and evaluation of the Torah. What follows is that the Torah scholar should be well informed of the "ways of the Earth." The laws of nature and the paths of history should be known to him. He should be well aware of what happens in the world that surrounds him, for he is constantly called upon to apply the yardstick of halachah and the searchlight of hashkafah to the realities that confront him. What also follows is that the greater the wisdom of Torah, the more crucial it is that this wisdom be conveyed to the Jewish contemporary world. It must be transmitted in a language that our generation understands and that will attract the searching youth, the ignorant, the estranged and the potential ba1al teshuvah to a joyous acceptance of the yoke of Heaven. The Torah leader must be able to dispel the doubts of the doubter and to counter the cynicism of the agnostic. He must, therefore, speak their language masterfully so that he can convince and enlighten them. There is indeed a dire need for gedolei Torah, great Torah scholars, who devote their entire lives to the study and dissemination of Torah. The Jewish world today needs many talmidei chachamim whose life task is to enlighten and inspire it with the love and the fear of G-d. We are ready to accord to those "messengers of G-d" the highest respect and a loyal following. These are the kohanim and levi'im of today. Like the members of the Levitic tribe of old, they are to serve all the other tribes and teach them the living Torah. Yet education and leadership cannot function in a vacuum. Therefore it becomes mandatory for the present day "Tribe of Levi" to initiate and encourage an educational system that can serve the other "eleven tribes who comprise the vast majority of our people. It becomes mandatory for the Torah-conscious educator not to inspire fear of the world and hesitancy to meets its challenges, but rather, to fortify the vast majority of our youth to meet head-on the thousand and one pitfalls of professional and business life. Our youth must be inspired to courageously and intelligently brave the onslaught of scientific arrogance and the sensual poison that is masked as intellectual liberalism. The Divine purpose for which Yisrael was created can be served in every capacity, in every profession, in all human endeavors, as long as they are not excluded by the halachah. ---------- Unfortunately, I do not see many Torah scholars today who are "well informed of the "ways of the Earth." The laws of nature and the paths of history should be known to him. He should be well aware of what happens in the world that surrounds him, for he is constantly called upon to apply the yardstick of halachah and the searchlight of hashkafah to the realities that confront him." I also do not see our educational institutions serving "the other 'eleven tribes' who comprise the vast majority of our people. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 8 09:25:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2015 09:25:43 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] replacement value Message-ID: secular law [US] recognizes that one need is not liable replace a lost item with a new one ie if you lost my used IPAD [which happened in fact this month to us] you don't owe me the value of a new one , but rather some pro-rated amount accounting for wear and tear. what does bais din require? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 9 14:17:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2015 17:17:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] replacement value In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150609211745.GA4160@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 08, 2015 at 09:25:43AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : secular law [US] recognizes that one need is not liable replace a lost : item with a new one... what does bais din : require? According to the Business Halakhah Institute : Many years ago I borrowed a Chumash with commentaries from a local beis medrash. I forgot to return it and eventually misplaced the sefer and I do not recall which volume I borrowed. It was "borrowed", ie no reshus was asked. ... [Skipping from opening paragraph to bottom line...] Someone who borrowed a sefer without permission is obligated to return the sefer, the same as any other thief. Even if the owner despaired of retrieving it, e.g., he bought a new set, the obligation to return it remains in force (C.M. 354:2 and 360:5). If the sefers condition changed dramatically (shinui) or if it was lost altogether, the borrower is obligated to repay the value of the sefer (C.M. 360:5). In your case, since the sefer you borrowed is missing, there is no obligation to replace the actual sefer. Your obligation is to repay the beis medrash the sefers value at the time you borrowed it. In other words, you would pay the value of a used sefer rather than a new sefer, and there is no need to pay for a complete set. But then, maybe that's under Gittin 55b, not making a ganav tear down his house in order to return a stolen beam he built into it. But that halakhah is to facilitate teshuvah after theft. And so I won't generalized. Also for hezeq, I know a maziq pays for his damage, and therefore only has to pay replacement value -- what it would take to make things right again. But again, your case, a shomer or sho'el returning a lost item, could be different. I didn't yet find it. But I haven't entirely given up... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A cheerful disposition is an inestimable treasure. micha at aishdas.org It preserves health, promotes convalescence, http://www.aishdas.org and helps us cope with adversity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' SR Hirsch, "From the Wisdom of Mishlei" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 9 14:17:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2015 17:17:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] replacement value In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150609211745.GA4160@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 08, 2015 at 09:25:43AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : secular law [US] recognizes that one need is not liable replace a lost : item with a new one... what does bais din : require? According to the Business Halakhah Institute : Many years ago I borrowed a Chumash with commentaries from a local beis medrash. I forgot to return it and eventually misplaced the sefer and I do not recall which volume I borrowed. It was "borrowed", ie no reshus was asked. ... [Skipping from opening paragraph to bottom line...] Someone who borrowed a sefer without permission is obligated to return the sefer, the same as any other thief. Even if the owner despaired of retrieving it, e.g., he bought a new set, the obligation to return it remains in force (C.M. 354:2 and 360:5). If the sefers condition changed dramatically (shinui) or if it was lost altogether, the borrower is obligated to repay the value of the sefer (C.M. 360:5). In your case, since the sefer you borrowed is missing, there is no obligation to replace the actual sefer. Your obligation is to repay the beis medrash the sefers value at the time you borrowed it. In other words, you would pay the value of a used sefer rather than a new sefer, and there is no need to pay for a complete set. But then, maybe that's under Gittin 55b, not making a ganav tear down his house in order to return a stolen beam he built into it. But that halakhah is to facilitate teshuvah after theft. And so I won't generalized. Also for hezeq, I know a maziq pays for his damage, and therefore only has to pay replacement value -- what it would take to make things right again. But again, your case, a shomer or sho'el returning a lost item, could be different. I didn't yet find it. But I haven't entirely given up... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A cheerful disposition is an inestimable treasure. micha at aishdas.org It preserves health, promotes convalescence, http://www.aishdas.org and helps us cope with adversity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' SR Hirsch, "From the Wisdom of Mishlei" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 10 18:52:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 01:52:34 GMT Subject: [Avodah] 100% Vegetable oils etc. Message-ID: <20150610.215234.27464.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> On Areivim, R' Martin Brody wrote: > If any such ingredient of an ingredient was non-kosher, it would be > batel b'shishim, (more likely nullified by thousands). For those > that are interested, the London Beth Din is not concerned with > "flavourings" as an ingredient for this very reason. This surprises me. I would think that non-kosher flavorings cannot be batel. Bitul is a mathematical procedure by which we can presume that the non-kosher ingredient is not noticeable. But in the case of flavorings (and colorings and maamads), if its presence were not noticeable, then the manufacturer would not go to the trouble and expense of including it. Therefore (I would think) that its presence proves that it *is* noticable, overriding the presumption. Rabbi Binyomin Forst's "The Laws of Kashrus" (ArtScroll) says on page 98, "If, however, the mixture was sampled and the non-kosher taste was noticeable, the mixture may not be eaten, even though it was batel b'shishim. (Shach 98:4)" What other views are there? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5578ea0af09296a0a79abst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 07:41:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 10:41:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Worker or Craftsman Message-ID: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> How do we view the task of life? Is a person an po'el, paid for his time? Implying, it's our job to do good while here on earth, but the determining factor is the duration? Or is a person an uman, paid to get a particular job done. We're put on earth to get some specific accomplishment. The Zohar suggests something more like an uman when it uses an idiom like "ana avda deQBH". Admittedly an eved does not get paid for his time, but an eved is for the duration, whether until shemittah, until yovel, or for the rest of his life. However, in Shaar haGilgulim we get all this talk about a person having a tafqid, and how if they fail to get the job done, they could be given a second chance. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger What you get by achieving your goals micha at aishdas.org is not as important as http://www.aishdas.org what you become by achieving your goals. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Henry David Thoreau From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 07:46:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 10:46:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Color names In-Reply-To: <221167CA3A2A46908C9CA2A3474664EA@webhost.local> References: <221167CA3A2A46908C9CA2A3474664EA@webhost.local> Message-ID: <20150611144639.GF20169@aishdas.org> RZLampel and I discused this once, I think here. If not, the topic could be of interest anyway. So, rather than checking the archive (which is difficult, given the number of tekheiles discussions) I am just sharing either way. -micha Shabbat B'Shabbato Translated by Moshe Goldberg Machon Zomet ... What Is That Phrase? Green Sky? Yaacov Etzion At the end of this week's Torah portion, we are given a command, "Let them place on the tzitzit at the corner a thread of 'techelet.'" [Bamidbar 15:38]. Rashi explains that techelet is "the 'yarok' color of a snail." Any speaker of modern Hebrew can only wonder at this. Why does Rashi call the blue color of techelet "yarok" -- that is, green? Well, it is not only Rashi that calls techelet "yarok." It is an explicit ruling that appears in the Shulchan Aruch: "The color white is ritually pure, as is the look of 'yarok,' even if it has the look of wax or of gold. And this certainly includes the 'yarok' of leek or grass (and also the color that is called 'blue' is included in 'yarok')" [Hilchot Nidda, 188]. We are not interested at this point in the details of the halacha but rather in the fact that the RAMA writes that the color "blue" is called "yarok" in our traditional sources. Our sages spoke of four main colors: shachor (black), lavan (white), adom (red), and yarok. And "yarok" included yellow, orange, blue, and turquoise of today. For example, it happens quite often that a newborn baby is a bit yellow right after its birth. But the Tosefta calls this color "yarok." Rabbi Natan says the following: "When I was in the Land of Kapotakia, there was a woman who had given birth to boys... They brought him to me, and I saw that he was 'yarok'... I looked at him and did not find any blood for circumcision..." [Shabbat 134a]. Moreover, in the wording of the ROSH in his halachic rulings the word yarok as used by the sages is not our color green (which they call "yarok as a leek") but is yellow or orange. "This shows that the word yarok is similar to the yolk of an egg or to gold, which has a tinge of red." Among other sources, the ROSH bases his decision on the words of the verse, "the wings of a dove coated with silver and its limbs the 'yerakrak' of gold" [Tehillim 68:14]. Yerakrak is clearly the color of gold, that is, yellow. The words for orange (katom) and blue (kachol) were instituted in modern times by Zeev Yavetz. This was reported by David Yalin in the newspaper "Hatzevi" in 1887: "When I spoke to my uncle the illustrious rabbi and investigator Rabbi Zeev Yavetz, he said to me that he wants to fill what is missing in our language for the names of two colors, the color of techelet and the color of the yoke of an egg." Yavetz proposed that techelet should be called kachol and that the yoke should be called "ketem," which in the holy writings refers to gold or to the color of gold. (An example appears in the following verse: "Woe, the gold is dim, the good 'ketem' has changed" [Eichah 4:1].) Yavetz wanted to use the word katom for the color of yellow (which we call tzahov), since he felt that tzahov "includes a bit of red" (as per a note by Yalin). But as time went on, katom became the color orange, as we use it today. Thus, the word "yarok" changed in meaning during the years, as did "tzahov." However, "techelet" evidently kept its original meaning, and it remains similar to the color of the sea, which is similar to the color of the sky, and this reminds us of the Divine Throne of Glory. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 09:34:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 12:34:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Worker or Craftsman In-Reply-To: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> References: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5579B89C.8060902@sero.name> On 06/11/2015 10:41 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Is a person an po'el, paid for his time? Implying, it's our job to do > good while here on earth, but the determining factor is the duration? > > Or is a person an uman, paid to get a particular job done. We're put on > earth to get some specific accomplishment. Eruvin 65a: Anan po`alei diy'mamei anan. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 11:17:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 14:17:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> References: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> Message-ID: <20150611181746.GI20169@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 2, 2015 at 4:27pm I forwarded an essay by RYK that had appeared on R/Dr Alan Brill's blog, Kavvanah. In it he proposes from personal experience that MO would be enhanced by shifting away from its focus on RYBS's Briskkeit and in particular that elements of his Hungarian Chassidic birth community would be of great value. : Personally, my rejection of the Maimonidean ethos and realization of : the degree to which chassidut can speak to the modern searcher was a : long and arduous process. It came about as a result of a deep sense : of betrayal by Maimonides, the champion of Rationalist Judaism. I for : many years was the object and fool of Maimonides "the seventh reason" : as presented in his introduction to the Guide by not seeing his : philosophic views. In that passage, Maimonides condones misleading : the masses for their greater good, even to the point of advocating : contradictory ideas for different audiences and then obscuring those : contradictions. : Growing up in Satmar and then Brisk, I was oblivious to his : non-halakhic writings and led to believe that he fully and literally : believed every word he wrote in the Yad... I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." And in fact, that was the whole point of the project -- to outline all of halakhah, to document the TSBP. Not to hint at something for the meivinim without risking that the hoi palloi mistake his words in a heretical way. It's simply not meaningful concept for a book he titled Mishneh Torah. I am uncomfortably using the Rambam as a poster boy for rationalism. In the Rambam's day, science hadn't been invented yet. Claims about physics weren't based on emprical proof and experimental process. It was Natual Philosophy, and the weight of an a priori argument. A lot of it really ended up on reliabilism; deeming the Greeks as reliable sources on such things -- after 1,5000 years of their theories reigning. And therefore, quite honestly, much the same kind of thought that we use to accept mesorah. The word rationalism changed meaning. What I think we really mean is a willingness to be meqabel es ha'emes mimi she'omro, rather than take a maximalist attitude toward mesoretic and Torah-derived statements. But that's quite a bit meta from anyone today using the Moreh as a foundational element of their hashkafah. In particular, RYK mentions three items he believes would enhance MO: : 1) Truth. We live in a post-modern world where objective truth is : rejected and absolute claims are frowned upon. I would go as far as to : say that rationalism (in the general and colloquial sense) as a source : for Emunah is bankrupt, it increasingly speaks to fewer people... I don't think it ever worked. As one of my favorite truisms goes: The mind is a wonderful organ for justifying decisions the heart already reached. People accept the rational argument that fits the experiential justification that really underlies their beliefs. Aristo thought otherwise, which eventually led to the Qalam and the Scholasticists -- including R' Saadia Gaon and the Rambam. But then Scholasticism collapsed, the scientific method arose, leading to a dispute between the Empiricists and Idealists which in turn forced the discipline of philosophy away from belief in the reality of an objective rigorous proof. Experimental eproof, yes. Incontravertible objective philosopy, not so much. Kant then gets all transcendental, and talks about the synthetic a priori. (Knowing things without proof that don't simply boil down to a matter of translations. In the recent past, I mentioned how we know the Euclidean posulates hold in flat space, that Reimannian ones hold in a spherical space, and our knowledge about morality and ethics.) This was the zeitgeist when the Besh"t lived. (Besh"t 1698-1760; Kant 1724-1804.) Someone who is given a proof whose conclusions don't fit their experience is likely to reject the soundness of the givens / postulates / first principles on which it's based. Just as someone who accepts a proof is making synthetic judgments about the quality of the foundations of that proof before even making an analytic decision that the logic seems sound. So even if no one makes a logic error, every proof relies on interpretation of experience. RYBS was not a rationalist in this sense. Brisk is very experiential, to the point of eschewing the study of hashkafah altogether. They are rational when it comes to how to learn, but the value of learning is in the experience of learning. When RYBS does do philosophy, he calls it halachic hermeneutics. Neo-Kantian and Existentialist observations of what halakhah says to the one following it about life. He makes no claims about the function or cause of halakhah, he makes few theological observations. For example, to RYBS tzimtzum speaks mostly to the value of anavah as an emulation of His "Retreat" to give us room. RYBS's Neo-Kantianism is a very different project than the Rambam's Scholasticism. ... : However, during those rare occasions when they do pay attention to the : biblical "stories," their orientation is a-rational. They absolutely : "believe" those stories, but their belief is internal: it is true : because it happened in the Torah. That is where these events transpire : and that is where these stories matter. Asking about their historicity : is, as far as they are concerned, foolish and missing the point. And also a given. It may not be stated as the point, but the confidence given to authority which is a necessary component of the rebbe-chassid relationship means accepting Chazal's historical and scientific claims as being from ruach haqodesh. And not stam as meshalim. The kind of agnosticism about the historicity of medrashic material you are recommending we import Chassidus to justify would itself leave a chassid aghast. And even after citing the long chain of rishonim and acharonim who speak against assuming medrashic stories are historical, And you want to extend that beyond medrashic stories into foundational stories in Tanakh and maybe in the chumash as well? Given my above assertion that the only thread that runs consistently through "rationalism" from the Rambam to today is to choose qabel es ha'emes mimi she'omro over taking some baal mesorah's statement maximally, one actually needs what's left of the Rambam's hashkafic legacy to accomplish this, not Chassidus. : 2) Spiritualization. As scholars have pointed out, chassidic teachings : contain elements of spiritual psychology. They provide us with a : language which helps us infuse our lives with meaning. One can point : to many examples where this psychological spiritualization occurs in : chassidut, I will mention two of them. : 3) Social Change. One of the most pressing tensions in the community : is how to reconcile our values with our convictions; what to do : when halakha points us in one direction and our values in another : direction. We are tempted to follow our values but pulled to abide by : our halakhic commitments.... : Chassidut is very explicit about the value of religious aggression. The : following two quotes are often encountered in chassidic writings, : "even a thief says a prayer before he breaks in to his victim's home" : (quoted on the margin of Brachot 63A, from the Frankfurt manuscript), : and "an aggressive stance towards the Divine bears results" (Sanhedrin : 105A). While the provenance of these texts is Talmudic, they take on : significant prominence in Chassidic theology. They become the impetus : for an aggressive theology which is informed by a religiosity that : sees itself driven by a Divine immanence which infuses our values and : ethical intuitions with spiritual resonance, subsequently leading to : radical societal change. : Such change is actually an integral part of Chassidic social history. : When one looks at recent major changes in traditional Jewish society : it is hard not to notice that the forerunners were often Chassidim. The : last sixty years have seen far reaching social and political change. Both of these are not specific to Chassidus, but would be true of any Ism that draws attention fo the notion that halakhah is merely a "floor" rather than the sum total of behavioral expectations. For that matter, self development and societal needs are both more central to Mussar than chassidus. Pretty much its defning features, really. Which (aside being my own pony in this race) has the advantage of being closer to being consistent with MO's current gestalt; it's easier to get from here to there. OTOH Chaasidic maximalism means that statements made in the past have to be accepted as being from ruach haqodesh, and consequently change in these communities is minimized. Not only because isolation is part of the survival strategy, but because of reverence for and desire to emulate Chassidic isolation is indeed part of their survival stategy. It's hard to leave when you know no other social context and speak with an accent. And knowing that you stand for something greater than yourself in the eyes of those who see your uniform makes it harder to sin. (Harder, not impossible.) But it's not one of the three elements of Chassidus RYK wrote about. : The two most dramatic changes that have happened is that Jews are now : sovereign and women have made significant progress in their pursuit of : religious equality. The pioneers of both these changes were driven, at : least in part, by a chassidic ethos. R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson, : the Rebbi of Lubavitch, was one of the first orthodox scholars to : champion female Talmud scholarship, while R. Avraham Yitzchak Kook, : a serious student of Chassidut, was an outspoken early proponent of : a Zionist state. RAYK is a student of the Leshem, and thus of the Gra's school of Qabbalah. Not Chassidus. You might be able to make a more generic argument for a need for more Qabbalah in MO. Personally, I'm an engineer by inclination, not just training, and my own head doesn't lean that way. Although I had more success with the Leshem Haqdamos uShe'arim, which incidentally heavily draws from the Moreh and Yesodei haTorah, than I did with Qela"ch Pischei Chokhmah, the later parts of Derekh H' or Tomer Devorah after ch. 1. At least in the golah this might be true; in Israel, those of the DL community who are an appropriate audience for Qabbalah already have RAYK in numerous interpretations. Also, Chassidus's approach to Qabbalah puts the Ari Za"l on an even higher pedestal than the Gra did, and elevate R Chaim Vital from *a* talmid of the Ari to his sole authorized presenter. The Gra is willing to question something from RCV that chassidim would literally consider Torah min haShamayim. Which, for the more socially and humanistically minded, might well turn Eitz Chaim 49 ch. 3 into a show stopper. (But this isn't the place to discuss it.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Never must we think that the Jewish element micha at aishdas.org in us could exist without the human element http://www.aishdas.org or vice versa. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 06:48:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 09:48:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <20150611181746.GI20169@aishdas.org> References: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> <20150611181746.GI20169@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150612134802.GA12483@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 2:17 I wrote: : What I think we really mean is a willingness to be meqabel es ha'emes : mimi she'omro, rather than take a maximalist attitude toward mesoretic : and Torah-derived statements. But that's quite a bit meta from anyone : today using the Moreh as a foundational element of their hashkafah. ... : Given my above assertion that the only thread that runs consistently : through "rationalism" from the Rambam to today is to choose qabel es : ha'emes mimi she'omro over taking some baal mesorah's statement maximally... The thought hit me this morning that there is another and drastically different way to view this point. "Qabel es ha'ames mimi she'omro" is a bit of a circularity. Obviously we want to accept the truth from whomever says it, and not errors. So we're deciding what is true /before/ we decide to accept it, not /because/ we accept it. We could therefore say that the single consistent theme we associate with throwing the word "rationalism" about is critical thought. When we judge Aristo's, Copernicus's, Darwin's or Einstein's thought as true, do we second guess that asessment, or accept their ideas as true? And consequently we can phrase this chiluq a third way: As being abut how much authority we give rabbinic works in comparison to how much we trust our own critical thinking. The higher the pedestal we put the historical rabbinate, the more of their statements one would logically choose to suspend judgment and accept. (Not only accept, but accept as literal.) As for the original premise... Rather than looking to RYK's or anyone else's ideas as to what from Chassidus would most benefit MO, perhaps we should look at the Neo-Chassidic phenomenon to see de facto what MO Jews who are open to such experimentation are drawn to. And if those two questions yeild different answers, why? :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger What we do for ourselves dies with us. micha at aishdas.org What we do for others and the world, http://www.aishdas.org remains and is immortal. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Albert Pine From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 06:55:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 09:55:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What FDA Learned About Dark Chocolate and Milk Allergies In-Reply-To: <557A5564.7040807@zahav.net.il> References: <20150611174606.4DC6F181DFA@nexus.stevens.edu> <5579E680.2050607@zahav.net.il> <5579E319.7070103@sero.name> <557A5564.7040807@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <20150612135524.GC12483@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 05:43:32AM +0200, Ben Waxman via Areivim wrote: : This story came out here a few years ago when some kid had an : allergic reaction to parve chocolate. The product had a Badatz Eida : Chareidit heksher. The heksher was fine, they didn't make a mistake. : The amount of milk in the chocolate was much, much less than 1/60. Assuming the allergic reaction isn't lifethreatening so that the child is not prohibited from eating the chocolate on those grounds... Say they're a chocoholic and chose to eat the chocolate shortly after eating meat. Mi ma nafshach for everyone else it's batel. But do we say that since for them it's detectible, bitul doesn't apply? :-)BBii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 14:24:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 21:24:59 GMT Subject: [Avodah] What FDA Learned About Dark Chocolate and Milk Allergies Message-ID: <20150611.172459.6802.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 11:01:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 14:01:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If and When Message-ID: <20150612180148.GA7261@aishdas.org> R' Yishmael famously (Mechilta BaChodesh-Yisro 11, Mishpatim 182 or ) says that "im" usually means that the decision is up to you, but three times it's a chiyuv: - "Im mizbach avanim ta'aseh Li" (Shemos 20:21) - "Im kesef talveh es ami" (Shemos 22:24) - "Im taqriv minchas bikurim" (Vayiqra 2:14) This is often explained in English as saying that "im" usually means "if", but in these cases it takes on the rarer second meaning of "when". I would prefer to propose a single common interpretation. LAD, "im" introduces an implication -- X implies Y. When X is a conditional, then so will the Y that depends on it. When X is always obligated, then Y will also be always obligated, but the "allways" is because X is. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 13 19:40:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 04:40:37 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Why Chassidut Message-ID: <557CE9A5.6090303@zahav.net.il> From Rav Yehoshua Shapira (my quick translation) The idea that Chassidut?s positive atmosphere isn?t obligatory is a serious mistake. Not only is it obligatory, but it brings with it more obligations. Without emphasis on the Mitzvot of ahava and yirah, simcha and deveikut (which are the soul of the 613 mitzvot) the mitzvot remain external actions, technical, something which doesn?t affect or uplift the heart and soul. Those doreitta mitzvot, which are the pinimiot of all mitzvoth, demand from a person and from us to give their entire being when doing a mitzvah. . . .. In the performance of mitzvoth, God wants our hearts. Therefore, Chassidut definitely demands deep dedication. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 15:34:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ysoscher via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 18:34:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed Message-ID: <073EBBC1-7CA3-4E26-BA35-4A9007B1EAE4@gmail.com> Chana, Three quick points: 1) You are making the mistake many others are making as well, conflating chassidim with chassidut. Chassidic life today has very little to do with original chassidut. Early chassidut was a revolutionary theological movement which appealed to a small elitist group. As time went by more people started joining. As the masses joined, the theology became diluted. The theologically influenced practices reminded but the ethos became stagnant. Therefore, your attempt to disprove my thesis from the way Chassidim behave today is wrong. I'm advocating for chassidic theology which was prevalent during the first and second generation of the chassidic movement, people like the Besht, the Magid, the Toldos Yakov Yosef, Reb Nachaman, the Ba'al Hatanye and others. I have no doubt that their philosophy informed Rav Kook and Lubavitcher Rebbe when dealing with tensions between Halacha and modernity. And, their philosophy can help us today as well. Incorporating a chassidic ethos would allow us to infuse our encounters with modernity with kedusha and meaning. Which brings me to my second point. 2) Kabbakah and chassidut isn't about warmth and community. It's a highly sophisticated philosophical system which offers a nuanced alternative to the Maimonidean/rationalist approach. While the approach is a-rational, it isn't irrational. However, more to the point, the warmth and sense of community is a byproduct of this theology, not its primary focus. 3) Finally, I'm not sure I understand your point about the Rambam. The Rambam says that he believes it is justified to fool and mislead the masses. That to me is highly problematic. Rabbi Ysoscher Katz Chair, Department of Talmud, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School; Director of the Lindenbaum Center for Halakhic Studies; Educational Director of Judaic Studies, Luria Academy, Brooklyn, NY.; Rabbi, Prospect Heights Shul. E-mail: ysoscher at gmail.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 07:00:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 14:00:32 GMT Subject: [Avodah] If and When Message-ID: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > R' Yishmael famously (Mechilta BaChodesh-Yisro 11, Mishpatim 182 > or ) says that "im" usually means that the > decision is up to you, but three times it's a chiyuv: > - "Im mizbach avanim ta'aseh Li" (Shemos 20:21) > - "Im kesef talveh es ami" (Shemos 22:24) > - "Im taqriv minchas bikurim" (Vayiqra 2:14) ... > LAD, "im" introduces an implication -- X implies Y. ... > When X is always obligated, then Y will also be always > obligated, but the "always" is because X is. If I'm understanding you correctly, your logic will work only if there is another pasuk somewhere which *already* obligates us to build a mizbe'ach of stone, to lend money without interest, and to bring bikkurim in this manner. If so, then a fuller translation can be written with the word "if", and without the word "when", like this: : (You are already obligated to build a stone mizbe'ach, and) : if (today is the day that) you will build a stone mizbe'ach, : you will not build it from cut stones... But I thought that R' Yishmael's whole point is that THESE ARE the source pesukim for those mitzvos, and that there are NO other pesukim which obligate you to do these things. That's why R' Yishmael made the whole point of stressing that these "im"s really mean "when". His fear was that if we translate "im" as "if", then someone might think these pesukim are like Hilchos Gittin: "IF you get divorced, here is the right way to do it, and IF you make a stone mizbe'ach, here is the right way." R' Yishmael's point is that there is no "if" - you MUST do these things, and WHEN you do it, this is how. So over Shabbos, I tried to verify my idea. Thanks to RMB, who quoted not only the 3 pesukim, but identified their location, it was pretty simple to look them up in the Torah Temimah. But what I found was rather odd. Torah Temimah Shmos 20:127 quotes R' Yishmael in the Mechilta, pretty much the same way that RMB did, and points out that this is NOT the source for the obligation for build a stone mizbe'ach - that is in Ki Savo. This RMB's logic fits: "If (today is the day that) you build a stone mizbe'ach, don't build it of cut stones." Please note: In the excerpt of the Mechilta which the Torah Temimah quotes regarding the mizbe'ach, R' Yishmael says that there are 3 cases where "im" is not optional, but the other two are not specified. This is very different than the Torah Temimah about lending money. Torah Temimah Shmos 22:198 does quotes R' Yishmael in the Mechilta, but it doesn't mention the word "im" explicitly, nor is there any reference to two other cases. He simply asks whether it is a reshus or a chovah to lend money, and he answers that the obligation appears in Parshas Re'eh. I find it curious that this Mechilta is worded so differently than the previous one, but the message is clearly the same. Finally, we have the pasuk about bikkurim. It turns out that the Torah Temimah on this pasuk doesn't mention R' Yishmael at all. It does mention R' Yehudah, but from the Toras Kohanim, and not from the Mechilta. Further, my unlearned reading of R' Yehudah had little or nothing to do with the reshus/chovah question, but Torah Temimah Vayikra 2:80 DID see a reshus/chovah question that troubled R' Yehudah. I am left with several questions, the main one being whether or not Bikkurim really was R' Yishmael's third "im". And that's where I'll leave this thread, for more skilled minds to investigate should they be so inclined. Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/557d895b6e89195a4573st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 10:27:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 13:27:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If and When In-Reply-To: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150614172744.GA27133@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 02:00:32PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : > LAD, "im" introduces an implication -- X implies Y. : ... : > When X is always obligated, then Y will also be always : > obligated, but the "always" is because X is. : : If I'm understanding you correctly, your logic will work only if : there is another pasuk somewhere which *already* obligates us to build a : mizbe'ach of stone, to lend money without interest, and to bring bikkurim : in this manner. If so, then a fuller translation can be written with : the word "if", and without the word "when"... In reality, the cited Mechilta actually provides derahos to prove that there is nothing optional about the antecedants. But my point was to suggest that "im" has nothing to do with the maybe-ness of "if". Just the implication bit -- if X then Y, or whenever X then Y, or since X then Y, regardless of whether not-X is a possibility or option. Which would reduce what looks like two definitions for "im" into a single common meaning. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Time flies... micha at aishdas.org ... but you're the pilot. http://www.aishdas.org - R' Zelig Pliskin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 13 22:30:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ysoscher via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 01:30:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> R. Micha, you write "I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." This is pure conjecture, perhaps even wishful thinking. The Rambam shares the 7th principle in which he argues that one may disseminate untruths for the greater good of society. Once he believes that, we are left to wonder about everything he wrote: did he really believe that or was there a political (in the Aristotelian sense) agenda behind it. To then preference the yad over the moreh is a personal bias. You and I as Orthodox Jews would like to believe that he believed every word in the yad and that the stuff he says in the moreh, oftentimes contradicting Chazal and the mesorah, was only said for the greater good of society-he personally didn't believe them. The non-observant philosopher, on the other hand, would say the opposite, that in the Moreh he articulates what he really believed, not in the Yad. Ultimately there's no objective measure to determine who's right. R. Isidore Twersky in his book on the Rambam tried to argue that there is no stira, that the moreh and the yad compliment each other. I don't find his arguments compelling. These two sefarim are incompatible and, ultimately, we are left in the dark, never able to objectively determine which of the two Rambam's sefarim were written with ulterior motives. You then write "I am uncomfortably using the Rambam as a poster boy for rationalism." I am using "rationalism" in a loose colloquial sense. Rambam believed in an evidence based religiosity, that we believe in God because His existence can be proven. That project, IMHO, failed. For every proof proving existence there's a proof to the contrary. That is precisely why I believe that the non-rationalist/Kabbalist approach is a better option. They offer an a-rationalist approach ("a-rational," not to be confused with "irrational," they're not the same). They believe because they chose to believe not-because they are "convinced." Their mehalach is more appealing to our post/modern generation where few people believe in absolute truths, and, it's also truer to our tradition. We were always a a-rational tradition until Maimonides came along and changed that. Which brings me to my next point. You then write "...means accepting Chazal's historical and scientific claims as being from ruach haqodesh. And not stam as meshalim." implying that I believe that stories in Chazal or Torah are meshalim. [Chas lei lezar'eih deAvraham deleimru hakha]; God forbid that I should make such a suggestion. I am saying something radically different. We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims. A faith claim is a religious "belief" not a scientific claim. Two things distinguish the chasid's experience of reading Torah from the philosopher's experience. When the chasid reads those stories he or she a) doesn't pause to ask if it's "true" they just learn it. "Truth" isn't a primary orientation of their encounter with toras Ha'shem. B) In the event that he does pause to ask the "truth" question, his approach is a-rational and unscientific. The truth question, for him or her, is internal to the system as is the solution. It truthfully and absolutely happened in the Torah. It's not denying the claim, it's just ignoring the scientific objective layer. Because the chasid's yiddishkeit happens exclusively in the religious realm. I also think there's a lot of confusion between what I'm arguing and what you're responding to. Briefly: 1) As I wrote to Chana: Chassidim and chassidut is not same. Chassidim today have little to do with chassidut. Contemporary chassidic philosophy is a complete deviation from original chassidut. 2) A-rationalism isn't one iota less sophisticated than rationalism. These are two parallel philosophies each with their own set of nuanced assumptions, postulates, and assumptions. 3) My program has nothing to do with neo-chassidut. NC is a behaviorist movement with very little philosophical underpinning. I'm proposing a theological program which also happens to have behavioral implications. Rabbi Ysoscher Katz Chair, Department of Talmud, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School; Director of the Lindenbaum Center for Halakhic Studies; Educational Director of Judaic Studies, Luria Academy, Brooklyn, NY.; Rabbi, Prospect Heights Shul. E-mail: ysoscher at gmail.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 08:55:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 11:55:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] 100% Vegetable oils etc. (Walker Crisps) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <557DA3F6.8050406@sero.name> On Areivim, Kaganoff wrote: > Zev Sero wrote: >> Kaganoff wrote: >>> Zev Sero wrote: >>>> Kaganoff wrote: >>>>> I would be rather surprised if there was a genuine kashrus concern >>>>> from with the Walker Crisps from any meat contamination. >>>>> Any meat would be batel. >>>> It's flavouring. >>> We hold of bittul b'shishim. >> Only as a general assumption that at that dilution it can't be tasted. >> Not applicable to concentrated flavourings which are designed to be tasted >> at high dilution. > That is a chumrah that you could adopt, but should not force on others. Why do you call it a chumra? Do you deny that the din is about ta`am, not percentage, and bitul beshishim is merely a general assumption that at that level of dilution there is no ta`am? >>> And it's a not a flavoring for this particular product. So it is not >>> avida l'ta'amei, even at less than 60. >> Since when does the fact that it wasn't intended to be in this product make it >> not intended for its taste? > That is why companies spend thousands of dollars perfecting formulas > for what is and is not used in a product. If it is not used as an > ingredient, then it was not meant to flavor this product. Once again, so what? Where did you get this idea that it matters whether it was intended to be in this product? Perhaps you're thinking of nosen ta'am lifgam, and saying that even a pleasant flavour, if it was not intended to be in a particular dish, may be considered a pegam in that dish. But that doesn't work. Suppose a chef created a dish flavoured with lard, but made a mistake; he put in too much, or too little, or didn't cook it long enough, or cooked it too long, or at the wrong temperature, and the final flavour of the dish isn't what he was aiming for. It's pleasant, and the diners eat it up and compliment him, but he knows that it wasn't meant to taste like that, and his recipe needs work. Can you imagine calling that dish pagum, and allowing it to be eaten?! That's obviously not tenable. So how is this case any different? A pleasant and desirable flavour has made its way into a product that wasn't intended to have that flavour. Does that make it pagum?!! No. It's a good product, it's just not the product that's on the label. The product that's on the label is kosher, but the product that's inside the packet is treif, exactly as if a labelling error had occurred. >>>>> Stam Keilim Ain ben Yomo. >>>> Are you joking? That klal is clearly not true in any commercial setting. >>> Why do you assume that it is clearly not true. Or rather you are >>> assuming that in a majority of cases, meat is used the same day as >>> the kosher product. That strikes me as a bit extreme. >> It's not at all extreme. Everyone knows that commercial equipment is almost >> *never* idle for 24 hours at a time. And since the meat flavouring is a >> regular product it stands to reason that it's processed every day. > Do you know this for a fact about this particular plant? Otherwise, > it's an assumption that you can make, as per Chazal. Everyone knows that it's true about *all* commercial equipment. And we have no right to "assume" something we know not to be true. Stam keilim einom bnei yomam is simply not a valid rule in the context of commercial equipment today. >> In any case, the issue here isn't keilim, since the flavouring is cold, and >> sprayed on cold chips. If it were keilim then there would be no bittul >> beshishim, since stam keilim are more than 1/60 of their contents. No, >> the issue here is the residue of actual flavouring that remains in the >> equipment after the meat flavours are run, until it is cleaned. > Which again would be batel within the first few products of the new run. It might be, if we knew the order in which the flavours are run. But they refuse to disclose that information. What we do know is that the plain chips are run first, so they're acceptable. After that all bets are off. There is no way to be sure that the packet of non-meat-flavoured chips you are eating was not the first one off the rank immediately after a meat run. >>>>> It's not Avida L'Ta'amei, etc. >>>> It's precisely avida letaama -- it's a flavouring! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 16:53:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 19:53:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> References: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150614235339.GA15695@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 01:30:46AM -0400, Ysoscher via Avodah wrote: : R. Micha, you write "I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle : applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word : in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think : "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." : : This is pure conjecture, perhaps even wishful thinking. The Rambam : shares the 7th principle in which he argues that one may disseminate : untruths for the greater good of society.... Yes, but he says it in an introduction explaining a particular kind of book -- which the Moreh is, and the Yad isn't. Whereas the Yad self-describes as being Mishneh Torah, explanation, not obfuscation. So why look to the intro to the Moreh to muddle what the Rambam himself says was the point of the Yad? In either case, the Rambam describes Yad and the Peirush haMishnayos a explanations written to be comprehensible to the masses. Moreh 2:35 (el-Qafih ["Kapach"]): Kevar bi'arti likhlal benei adam ... veheivesi ra'ayos al kakh ubirartav bePeirush haMishnah ubeMishneh Torah... : You and I as Orthodox Jews would like to believe that he believed every : word in the yad and that the stuff he says in the moreh, oftentimes : contradicting Chazal and the mesorah, was only said for the greater : good of society-he personally didn't believe them. The non-observant : philosopher, on the other hand, would say the opposite, that in the : Moreh he articulates what he really believed, not in the Yad. Actually, I tend to side with the anti-Mamonidians. Mostly because his model of redemption leaves people like my son Shuby (who has Downs) wandering around the palace with no hope of getting in. (To paraphrase 3:51.) : You then write "I am uncomfortably using the Rambam as a poster boy : for rationalism." : : I am using "rationalism" in a loose colloquial sense... Which is so loose as to be meaningless. The Rambam predated science, and followed the secular authority. Rationalism today refers to emprical and other objective proof. : That project, IMHO, failed. For every proof : proving existence there's a proof to the contrary. That is precisely : why I believe that the non-rationalist/Kabbalist approach is a better : option. They offer an a-rationalist approach ("a-rational," not to be : confused with "irrational," they're not the same). They believe because : they chose to believe not-because they are "convinced." Yeah, but so does the Gra's Qabbalah or Mussar. Mussar in particular replaces the Rambam's akrasia based on knowlege / wisdom, and therefore redemption through getting the right knowledge, with talk of first-hand experience, emotions, subconscious, etc... : You then write "...means accepting Chazal's historical and scientific : claims as being from ruach haqodesh. And not stam as meshalim." implying : that I believe that stories in Chazal or Torah are meshalim. : : [Chas lei lezar'eih deAvraham deleimru hakha]; God forbid that I should : make such a suggestion. I am saying something radically different. Well, I wouldn't lump the two together. The Rambam is far from alone in considering aggadic stories to be meshalim repeated with not concern about historicity. Much like you wrote -- an authentic attitude toward such things would be to not care about what really happened. Not to assert they are or aren't historical. (Although the Rambam would tell you to assume the wilder ones aren't historical, lest you make a joke out of the Torah -- the first two of the three katim described in his haqdamah to mishnah Cheileq.) : We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims. A : faith claim is a religious "belief" not a scientific claim... Agreed. BUT... the kind of problem I thought you were trying to address was the person who felt the Torah and academia conflict. To invoke this dichotomy to resolve the issue would be to allow people to assert ahistoricity, rather than avoiding a position altogether. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The true measure of a man micha at aishdas.org is how he treats someone http://www.aishdas.org who can do him absolutely no good. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Samuel Johnson From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 06:49:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ken Bloom via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 09:49:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What FDA Learned About Dark Chocolate and Milk Allergies Message-ID: > > > Actually it sounds to me that one very much can rely on the > > label (from this example). The trace amounts [the LBD are] talking > > about are much, much less than 1/60. Completely bateil, > > totally parve, but enough to elicit an allergic reaction. > I remember learning about a machlokes concerning whether we hold dairy > can be batel to pareve, or whether we say that since there is no loss (at > least, not the total loss that we have when something becomes nonkosher) > we should simply consider it dairy. But I don't remember how we hold on > this issue. Anyone else? > And shouldn't these questions be on Avodah? > Akiva Miller What's the machloket? Doesn't the Rema YD 99:6 clearly hold that that milk is batel in parve? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 14:00:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 17:00:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safeik and Multivalent Logic Message-ID: <20150615210040.GA17358@aishdas.org> Back on Fri, 14 May 2004 10:45am EST (yes, 11 years ago) I wrote on the thread "Valid halachic change" I wrote: > I was at a yarchei (yarei'ach? shavu'ah -- since it was only a > week?) kallah during Elul in Boston where RYBS explicitly said is wasn't. > He also speaks about multivalent logic in halakhah in numorous places > in Ish haHalakhah. From the [yarchei kallah]: > An esrog that was used for the mitzvah is qadosh and assur behana'ah > that entire day. And since it's qadosh bein hashemashos, it's gadosh > part of the next day and therefore assur behan'ah the entire next day. > RYBS asked (as do many) mimanafshach: Either BhS is part of the first > day, and there's an isur hana'ah BhS. But in that case BhS isn't part > of the next day, and on that day han'ah should be mutar. Or, BhS is part > of the 2nd day, and the issur would end BhS! > Rather, for certain sefeiqos both chalosim apply. It's only when the > chalos turns into a pe'ulah that we are forced to choose. > Therefore, one can daven either minchah or ma'ariv BhS. Even switch off > between days. But not both in the same BhS. > This is why a woman who is from safeiq chalal history (Rashi and Tosafos > disagree on details of the case) is called an "almanas issah", the widow > of a dough, a mixture. > This shtims with the teshuvas RAEiger distinguishing kol deparish meiruba > parish and kol kavu'ah kemechtzah al mechtzah. When the question is one > of pasqening on an unknown situation, we follow rov. When one is trying > to resolve a question that arose after the pesaq, rov doesn't apply. > Rov is a non-boolean state, something between yes and no. Therefore, > it does not apply after we've taken the question from the realm of > machshavah to that of ma'aseh. > Also, Rav Tzadoq (Resisei Laylah 17) distringuishes between the logic of > machshavah and that of pe'ulah, saying that when it comes to machshavah, > it's impossible to consider one thing without also considering its > opposite. RThK then develops this idea to explain eilu va'eilu as being > about real plurality. (More on this when I summarize the articles whose > URLs have been posted to the list.) I'm repeating all this because, once again, AhS Yomi showed me that something I thought I understood was more complicated than I realized. AhS OC 638:5 distinguishes between muqtza machmas mitzvah and other forms of muqtza when it comes to migo de'isqatzei bein hashemashos, isqatza'ei lekhulei yoma. And so, sukkah and its decorations (the topic of OC 688) are muqtzah the following day. But beitzah shenoledah beYT rishon is not muqtzah on the next day. So the example RYBS brings of esrog fits this pattern too -- muqtzah machmas mitzvah is muqtzah the day after it's used for the mitzvah. However, RYBS used it to make a general point about the nature of BhS, and I surmized safeiq in general. I don't understand how we can, if even withint the topic of mutqzah we find BhS acting both like a mixture of states and being in one of the two states -- although we don't know which -- depending on the kind of muqtzah we're talking about. Thoughts, anyone? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The Maharal of Prague created a golem, and micha at aishdas.org this was a great wonder. But it is much more http://www.aishdas.org wonderful to transform a corporeal person into a Fax: (270) 514-1507 "mensch"! -Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 14:44:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 17:44:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Worker or Craftsman In-Reply-To: <5579B89C.8060902@sero.name> References: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> <5579B89C.8060902@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150615214430.GA17695@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 12:34:36PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Eruvin 65a: Anan po`alei diy'mamei anan. The context is talmud Torah, and speaks to the fact that when it comes to Torah, it's the amount of learning, not the success at comprehension, that matters most. See also the Me'iri ad loc, who says simply that R' Nachman bar Yitzchaq is saying we should learn the whole day, because that's the only way we'll fully understand. Which alines with R' Zeira's statement, when he was complemented "Mechadedan shema'iskha!" and he replied "diyemama ninhu." I do not think it can be applied to my question -- whether life is a job of "be good as long as you're here", or if we each have a specific task we were put here to accomplish. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Take time, micha at aishdas.org be exact, http://www.aishdas.org unclutter the mind. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 15:01:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 18:01:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] 100% Vegetable oils etc. In-Reply-To: <20150610.215234.27464.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150610.215234.27464.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150615220103.GB17695@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 01:52:34AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : ... I would think that non-kosher flavorings cannot be batel. Bitul : is a mathematical procedure by which we can presume that the non-kosher : ingredient is not noticeable... In fact, the only time the mishnah invokes bitul beshishim is with min bemino, so that you can't tell which of two identically tasting substances one is tasting. (Chullin 7:4-5, Zevachim 8:6) Rava (Chullin 97a-b) says that if a non-Jew can be asked to taste a substance, we rely on their statement, but if not (eg min bemino), then we use batel beshishim. In contrast, Bar Kaparah holds kol issurin shebiTorah is beshishim. Ta'am is just a derabbaanan that doesn't allow us to use the fundamental 1/60 bitul. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you're going through hell micha at aishdas.org keep going. http://www.aishdas.org - Winston Churchill Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 11:20:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 14:20:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> References: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150616182036.GA13263@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 6:34pm EDT, RYK wrote: : 1) You are making the mistake many others are making as well, conflating : chassidim with chassidut. Chassidic life today has very little to do with : original chassidut. Early chassidut was a revolutionary theological : movement which appealed to a small elitist group... I thought Chassidus started out a kiruv movement, designed to bring Judaism to the kind of people Litta's focus on learning left without religion. Like the story of the boy who played his prayers on his flute, or the one who recited the alef beis over and over and begged HQBH to weave them into the right words. But in any case, to get closer to the point I intended to make... ... : 2) Kabbalah and chassidut isn't about warmth and community. It's a highly : sophisticated philosophical system which offers a nuanced alternative : to the Maimonidean/rationalist approach. : While the approach is a-rational, it isn't irrational. I am not sure how you're using "a-rational". Even after your consequent explanation (posted Sun Jun 14, 1:30am EDT): : They offer an a-rationalist approach ("a-rational," not to be : confused with "irrational," they're not the same). They believe because : they chose to believe not-because they are "convinced." What is this a-rational stance that is also highly philosophical and yet not the experiential chassidus of the nostalgic memories with which you opened your blog post? I cannot figure out what you're getting at. Contining the first post: : 3) Finally, I'm not sure I understand your point about the Rambam. The : Rambam says that he believes it is justified to fool and mislead the : masses. That to me is highly problematic. And in the follow-up post he elaborated: : R. Micha, you write "I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle : applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word : in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think : "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." In an introduction to a philosophical book he thought was a bad idea to write that he produced as a necessary evil. Thus the title of the Moreh Nevuchim. It's a tactic he had to reveal the esoteric to those ready for it while keeping it esoteric. Recall, that while we think of Pardes's "sod" as Qabbalah, to him it was more like the Moreh. In the Pesichah the Rambam limits the need of obfuscation to the topics of Maaseh haMerkavah and Maaseh Bereishis. So, after the first 5 chapters of the Yad, the whole discussion in the pesichah and haqdamah of the Moreh wouldn't apply. ... : We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims... Just like I loathe using the word rationalism because it's so vague in meaning as to just add to the confusion, let me add the word "fact". We use it to mean (a) a truth, (b) an empirical/physical truth, (c) a truth established by evidence, (d) an empirical truth established by evidence, and in legal settings: (e) the empirical evidence itself ("let me present the facts of this case"). : We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims. A : faith claim is a religious "belief" not a scientific claim... ... and therefore there is a gap between religious beliefs and scientific claims. Belief is yet another dangerous word. Knowledge is classically (Plato) defined as a justified true belief. In that sense, anything you accept as true is a belief. Other times we use belief in contrast to knowledge. A usage that ends up undermining confidence in something we seem to overtly be claiming is true. After all, if you think it's true, and you think you have real reason to think it's true, why say "believe" rather than "know"? Which gets me back to the point, I hope. You talk about belief in chassidus being an act of will. Personally, I agree with Rihal when he has the chaver note that anything one philosopher can prove, another can prove the opposite. (Kuzari 1:13) Religion isn't amenable to proof, and that's why Scholasticism, the idea of giving religion a philosophical underpinning, lost momentum centuries ago. The reasons why are two-fold: First, negi'os. People cannot really objetively think about these topics. They end up liking proofs of disliking proofs based on where they already decided things should end up. Like one of the truisms in my signature file generator says: The mind is a wonderful organ for justifying decisions the heart already reached. So, whether or not you agree that some postulate is self-evident (Kant: synthetic a priori) and therefore the proof works will depend more on whether you want to believe than actual obviousness. Second, the experiences upon which religious belief gets justified are internal. Questions of whether Shabbos, kashrus, or some of the more elegant outcomes of lomdus statisfy my Search For Meaning (Frankl) is quite a bit more difficult (usually impossible) to duplicate for someone else. Unlike a getting someone else to experience something empirical that you did by repeating a science experiment. But I think chassidic belief, even as per your description of it, is rational rather than an act of will. It's not Scholastic, expecting the kind of proof that would have make R' Saadia Gaon or the Rambam happy, but it is based on deriving a conclusion that fits one's evidence (ie experiences). I would say "rational" but not "rationalist", except that just highlights how many problems we get into throwing around the word "rationalism". This is true about how emunah works whether speaking about why people become BT, go OTD, or even if we're speaking of the Rambam. The Rambam lived in a world that didn't value non-philosophical justification, so he felt that real emunah required Scholasticism. (There was a time, not that long ago, when most people's emunah was backed by Reliabilism. My parents and community have a track record of being reliable sources of truth, so I trust them on this too.) To my mind, the difference is whether someone values the chizuq emunah of affirming that conclusions with that half of the philosophical proofs that end up in the right place. The rationalist does so, thinking that's *why* he believes (despite the Kuzari). Some of us simply enjoy philoosphy or consider such explorations to be part of talmud Torah. And others simply don't need the exercise. : a) doesn't pause to ask if it's "true" they just learn it. "Truth" : isn't a primary orientation of their encounter with toras Ha'shem. B) In : the event that he does pause to ask the "truth" question, his approach : is a-rational and unscientific... Again, if it's taken for granted as being true, truth is still at issue. Moreso, they really don't discuss truth because trueh is a given. It's like water not being the primary orientation of fish. : It truthfully and absolutely : happened in the Torah. It's not denying the claim, it's just ignoring : the scientific objective layer. Because the chasid's yiddishkeit happens : exclusively in the religious realm. Lets plow through the words and just ask outright: A chassid would take it for granted that a time traveler would find the Yam Suf divided into 13 tunnels with everything you might want available to be plucked from the walls. No? You may deprecate the importance of that historical claim to the belief system of Chassidic Judaism. I would agree that chassidim do not consider the historicity important. But the belief is there, and for reasons that speak volumes about the gap between chassidus and MO as a potential target audience. Chassidim have to accept the historicity of this midrashic elaboration of Qerias Yam Suf because maximalism and acceptance of rabbinic authority run much stronger in comparison to confidence in one's own truthometer in chassidus. Part of the value of having a rebbe is to believe he has access to truths I don't. And similarly one's rebbe's rebbes, and so on through Chazal and whomever repeated that medrash. To a community that teaches the value of other sources of knowledge, such as secular historians or other professionals, such maximalism is impossible, and therefore bitul to a rebbe will always be limited. Yes, it would be of value to realize that historical claims are non-central to religion. It makes it much easier to table any questions one might have in those areas as not being important, therefore not very pressing. Things that can wait for an answer rather than being responded to now, with what I know now, or taken as an upshlug. ... : 3) My program has nothing to do with neo-chassidut. NC is a behaviorist : movement with very little philosophical underpinning. I'm proposing a : theological program which also happens to have behavioral implications. I understood this. However, NC is an indication of what elements of chassidus actually were found useful by MO Jews. You're theorizing which elements you thought would in theory be more useful. I am asking about the difference between the two. If your theory were correct about what MO could use, wouldn't the Neo-Chassidim have locked on to those three points? IOW, I know they are different, and some idea as to how -- but why? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Weeds are flowers too micha at aishdas.org once you get to know them. http://www.aishdas.org - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 11:53:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 18:53:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Asking your questions to one authority Message-ID: <45cbca92b332457591636332317a5855@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> I'm looking for sources concerning a requirement or good advice concerning asking all your questions to one authority. According to some commentaries the mishna (actually mentioned twice) in Avot concerning aseih lcha rav points in this direction as does the gemara in eiruvin on not picking all the leniencies of both beit hillel and shammai. OTOH the gemara in avodah zara about not asking 2 rabbis is interpreted as applying only to the particular question at hand. From a Brisker theory angle wouldn't the existence of overarching theoretical constructs argue that all your questions should go to one authority so as to avoid the possible tartei dsatrei on a meta-theory basis (i.e. psak in kashrut case a may share a construct with psak in business case b)? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 13:36:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 16:36:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Asking your questions to one authority In-Reply-To: <45cbca92b332457591636332317a5855@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> References: <45cbca92b332457591636332317a5855@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <558088EA.2070102@sero.name> On 06/16/2015 02:53 PM, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > From a Brisker theory angle wouldn?t the existence of overarching > theoretical constructs argue that all your questions should go to one > authority so as to avoid the possible tartei dsatrei on a meta-theory > basis (i.e. psak in kashrut case a may share a construct with psak in > business case b)? Hilchesa keRav be'isurei vechiShmuel bedinei. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 16:30:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 19:30:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why Chassidut In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150616233048.00B061836ED@nexus.stevens.edu> At 02:20 PM 6/16/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: > From Rav Yehoshua Shapira (my quick translation) > >The idea that Chassidut?s positive atmosphere isn?t obligatory is a >serious mistake. Not only is it obligatory, but it brings with it more >obligations. Without emphasis on the Mitzvot of ahava and yirah, simcha >and deveikut (which are the soul of the 613 mitzvot) the mitzvot remain >external actions, technical, something which doesn?t affect or uplift >the heart and soul. > >Those doreitta mitzvot, which are the pinimiot of all mitzvoth, demand >from a person and from us to give their entire being when doing a >mitzvah. . . .. In the performance of mitzvoth, God wants our hearts. >Therefore, Chassidut definitely demands deep dedication. > The following is from Rav Dr. Y. Breuer's Essay "Our Way" that appears in the collection of Rav Breuer's essays titled A Unique Perspective. One should not confuse Chassidus with the so-called Chassidic movement that began in Poland in the 18th century. The latter met the needs of the Jewish masses who lived in terrible misery, and thus spread rapidly. Tefillah was projected into the foreground, from which flowed strength and faith in God; dances and songs induced enthusiasm and joyfulness; the stress on human and hu- mane qualities increased the self-respect of the impoverished. Thus, without a doubt, Chassidism saved these Jewish masses. However, the resulting frequent neglect of Torah study led to justified protest by Torah giants and caused a regrettable inner rift, which was subsequently healed when a great Chassidic leader returned the study of Torah to its rightful central position. Genuine Chassidic Jewishness strives for Chassidus, which in itself is a lofty achievement on the ethical ladder which the Yehudi must attempt to climb. This is demonstrated for us by R. Pinchas ben Yair (Avodah Zarah 20b): Our highest duty is Torah and its study; this leads to carefulness which in turn leads to active striving; to guiltlessness; to purity; to holiness; to modesty; to the fear of sin; and, finally, to Chassidus. Accordingly, a Chassid is a Jew who gives himself in limitless love to the Divine Will and its realization, and to whom the welfare of his fellowmen constitutes the highest source of satisfaction (see Chorev, Ch. 14). Thus, in the Talmudic era, the title ?Chassid? was a mark of highest distinction ? and this is what it should be today. The so-called Chassid who confines his Avodah to prayer does not deserve this title, as this ?Avodah of the heart? does not call him to the Avodah of life where he must practice and apply the precepts of Chassidus. He does not deserve this title if he is particular regarding the kashrus of his food but fails to apply the precepts of conscientiousness and honesty to his business dealings. He does not deserve this title if his social life is not permeated by love and deep interest in the welfare of his fellowmen; if he does not shun quarreling, envy or even abominable lashon harah; if he does not earnestly strive to acquire those midos for which Rav Hirsch (in his Chorev) calls so eloquently. Certainly the mere exhibition of a certain type of clothing or the type of beard worn or even the adornment of long sideburns does not entitle the bearer to the title of honor?Chassid. These may be marks of distinction ? but they must be earned to be deserved. Even study of the Zohar does not necessarily signify the attainment of Chassidus. If this were so, only a few chosen ones would be eligible. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 23:03:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2015 09:03:25 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] If and When In-Reply-To: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 5:00 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > Please note: In the excerpt of the Mechilta which the Torah Temimah quotes > regarding the mizbe'ach, R' Yishmael says that there are 3 cases where "im" > is not optional, but the other two are not specified. This is very > different than the Torah Temimah about lending money. > > Torah Temimah Shmos 22:198 does quotes R' Yishmael in the Mechilta, but it > doesn't mention the word "im" explicitly, nor is there any reference to two > other cases. He simply asks whether it is a reshus or a chovah to lend > money, and he answers that the obligation appears in Parshas Re'eh. I find > it curious that this Mechilta is worded so differently than the previous > one, but the message is clearly the same. You see this quite often in the Torah Temima when a derasha says something about a number of pesukim in parallel. He quotes the same source in each place, but redacts it so that it appears to be referencing only that specific verse. An example in last week's parasha is the Yerushalmi that all 10 commandments are referenced in Kiryat Shma`, quoted on 15:39 and 41 (OK, not such a close parallel because in that case he does make the cross-reference and quotes the whole passage on Shemot 20:2, but there are plenty of other examples) In any case, inside the Mechilta on both verses in Shemot all three "im"s are listed each time, including bikkurim. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=38109&st=&pgnum=245 http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=38109&st=&pgnum=317 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 17 02:14:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2015 05:14:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Talks by Rav Shimon Schwab, ZT"L Message-ID: <20150617091410.A8547183759@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://torahdownloads.com/shiur-24386.html YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 17 04:00:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2015 07:00:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] =?iso-8859-1?q?Soul_Terminology=2C_and_Expressions_of_Lo?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ve=3A_Proper_Frum_Expression_In_The_Lens_of_the_Ashkenaz_T?= =?iso-8859-1?q?radition_=96_Gleanings__From_Rav_Shimon_Schwab?= Message-ID: <20150617110051.2F7B9183762@nexus.stevens.edu> Please see http://tinyurl.com/q64ehha YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 18 06:50:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2015 09:50:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Ishbaal's Jar Message-ID: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> According to TOI or , discusses finding a jar that dates to around 1020-980 BCE (Iron Age), breating the name the name of Ishbaal ben Beda. Ishbaal is Divrei HaYamim's name for the son of Shaul whom seifer Shemuel calls Ishboshet. (Probably because bearing the name of Baal is a bushah.) Allegedly "Among Judeans, personal names evoking Baal fell out of fashion after the 10th century, but not so among their Israelite cousins to the north." Lisa, does any of this relate to strengthening or weakening the case for revisionist dating? (Newcomers might wish to see the Jewish Action article Lisa has on her site at to understand why I asked.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person must be very patient micha at aishdas.org even with himself. http://www.aishdas.org - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 18 07:43:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2015 17:43:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Ishbaal's Jar In-Reply-To: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> References: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 4:50 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > According to TOI < > http://www.timesofisrael.com/inscription-bearing-name-from-davidic-era-found-at-ancient-site > > > or , discusses finding a jar that dates to around > 1020-980 BCE (Iron Age), breating the name the name of Ishbaal ben Beda. > See also http://bit.ly/1F2HFD9 (= https://www.academia.edu/12775087/The_%CA%BEI%C5%A1ba%CA%BFal_Inscription_from_Khirbet_Qeiyafa) for a more detailed excavation report. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 19 11:46:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 13:46:46 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Ishbaal's Jar In-Reply-To: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> References: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55846396.5000207@starways.net> On 6/18/2015 8:50 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > According to TOI > or , discusses finding a jar that dates to around > 1020-980 BCE (Iron Age), breating the name the name of Ishbaal ben Beda. > > Ishbaal is Divrei HaYamim's name for the son of Shaul whom seifer > Shemuel calls Ishboshet. (Probably because bearing the name of Baal > is a bushah.) The standard form for names in most of the ancient near east was DN-stem, or stem-DN, where DN is a divine name. We have this pattern ourselves with names like Chizki-Yahu and N'tan-El, or El-Chanan and Yeho-natan. From what I've seen, it wasn't unheard of for people to refer to the same person, but exchange the DN. So Ish-Boshet for Ish-Baal is in line with Hado-Ram (I Chron 18:10) for Yo-Ram (II Sam 8:10), or Hado-Ram (II Sam 20:24, I Kings 12:18, II Chron 10:18) for Adoni-Ram (I Kings 4:6, 5:28). I don't see any indication that this pattern of name was different towards the beginning or towards the end of the monarchy. That said, Baal in particular sort of declined after the time of Eliyahu. They had newer avodah zarahs to play with. I don't really see a lot of chronological significance here. Yes, they did some radiometric dating, but as always, I would take that with grain of salt until I saw the raw results. When you send something for carbon dating, you tell them first what your target date is, so that they can discard results that are off from that too significantly. Not very scientific, but I guess it's "science-y". Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 19 13:38:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 16:38:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Soul Terminology, and Expressions of Love: Proper Frum Expression In The Lens of the Ashkenaz Tradition ? Gleanings From Rav Shimon Schwab In-Reply-To: <20150617110051.2F7B9183762@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150617110051.2F7B9183762@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150619203804.GA23818@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 17, 2015 at 07:00:53AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Please see http://tinyurl.com/q64ehha On the second example, I'm reminded of the Soloveitchik tradition that emotions are the Qodesh haQadashim of avodas Hashem. And therefore while RSSschwab's position was depited as: > Nowadays one at times witnesses public statements, in the form of songs, > declarations, and even bumper stickers, proclaiming [HQBH anachnu ohavim > Osakh!] (Hashem, we love you), an expression that was not commonly heard > shouted aloud in the past in our circles. Is that in consonance with our > [Mesorah]? Rav Schwab (in his address entitled Internalizing Eternity) > states the following (after 33:20) Since Ahavas Hashem is such a strictly > personal matter, he who truly loves Hashem does not show his [Ahavah]. He > rather hides it. It is far too intimate to parade it in public. He is > mekayeim [vehatzneia lekhes im E-lokekha]. It is exclusively his private > affair, between him and his Creator. Briskers would not expose any emotion. And so, when RYBS left for Berlin, R' Moshe took him to the train station, but there was no emotional goodbye. Even though RMF didn't know if he would ever see his son (and chavrusah) again. RYBS said he knew his father's feelings at the moment, he just knew that he would never display it publicly. Just a simple "Leikh leshalom HQBH zul dir matzliach zein!" Story told far better, in RYBS's own words here In any case, the Brisker approach doesn't speak to too many people in this generation. I would bet many of us would consider it less-than-positive. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger One who kills his inclination is as though he micha at aishdas.org brought an offering. But to bring an offering, http://www.aishdas.org you must know where to slaughter and what Fax: (270) 514-1507 parts to offer. - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 22 06:53:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2015 09:53:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kuntros chasidei umos haolam Message-ID: <0ce401d0acf2$c108d8f0$431a8ad0$@com> The was once a link posted here to a Kuntros chasidei umos haolam (In hebrew) from a Rav in south Africa (I think he was an Ohr Samach graduate) Does anyone have it or a link to it? Thanks, mc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 22 14:32:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2015 17:32:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Two Levels of Bitachon Message-ID: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is from Rav Schwab on Chumash Parshas Shelach. We suggest the following explanation: Hashem demands bitachon of every Jew - trust in Hashem that everything will turn out for the best, without worrying about what the future might bring. Throughout the generations, devout Jews have walked this path. A person with bitachon ultimately will merit to see clearly that, indeed, "All that Hashem does is for the best." There are two types of bitachon. The first is trusting in Hashem with "closed eyes," with no speculation about what may develop. However, there is a second kind of bitachon that is even greater than the first. This is the bitachon of "open eyes." One who follows this path looks ahead and sees clearly that the future might entail great danger, that his life may be full of trials and tribulations. Nevertheless, he does not hesitate, relying on Hashem to help him deal with whatever the future will hold. This kind of bitachon is greater than the first, because someone who trusts in :Hashem with "open eyes" must elevate his bitachon to a much higher level in order to overcome his worries and quiet his concerns. However, as great as this second path is, it is fraught with danger. There is a strong possibility that instead of overcoming one's fears and worries, one will be vanquished by them. A "realistic" evaluation of the challenges could be so frightening as to cause one to lose his bitachon in Hashem altogether. Therefore, :although the bitachon of "open eyes" might be appropriate for certain great people, Hashem does not demand it of us. Hashem only requires us to have the bitachon of "closed eyes"; we need only trust that everything will turn out for the best, in accordance with His will, without considering what the future might hold. This is implied in the pasuk (Yeshayahu 12:2), 11) Behold the G-d of salvation; I shall trust in Him, and I will not fear. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 12:26:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 21:26:11 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Two Levels of Bitachon In-Reply-To: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <5589B2D3.5030908@zahav.net.il> I'm not sure what this is in reference to, the sin of the spies? What does it mean, to live ones life without worrying about the future? You trust in God so therefore you're calm (meaning you live your life the same way anyone else does, but you have inner peace)? Ben On 6/22/2015 11:32 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > We suggest the following explanation: Hashem demands bitachon of every > Jew - trust > in Hashem that everything will turn out for the best, without worrying > about > what the future might bring. Throughout the generations, devout Jews > have walked > this path. A person with bitachon ultimately will merit to see clearly > that, indeed, > "All that Hashem does is for the best." From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 14:34:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 17:34:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Two Levels of Bitachon In-Reply-To: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150623213434.GA30077@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 22, 2015 at 05:32:42PM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : The following is from Rav Schwab on Chumash Parshas Shelach. ... : There are two types of bitachon. The first is trusting in Hashem with "closed : eyes," with no speculation about what may develop. However, there is : a second kind : of bitachon that is even greater than the first. This is the : bitachon of "open eyes." : One who follows this path looks ahead and sees clearly that the : future might entail : great danger, that his life may be full of trials and tribulations. : Nevertheless, he : does not hesitate, relying on Hashem to help him deal with whatever : the future will : hold... I just want to point out that RSS here is assuming the descriptive bitachon of the CI, not the prescrictive bitachon of Novhardok (and many kiruv programs and religious fiction). The Alter of Novhardok taught that bitachon causes positive results. If you trust G-d enough, He will make things turn out the way you desire. And when you point out to said public speaker that indeed life doesn't work that way this idea gets modified into: Hashem will make things turn out the way you'll be happy with once you get to the end of the road. And while I'm being cynical about it, this is unassailable. If things don't yet have a happy ending, it just means the story isn't over yet. You can just push the long run out further and further until you find the happy outcome you promised. In Emunah uBitchon, the CI rejects this notion. He says that bitachon is belief that things are working out according to Divine Plan. A believe in how things run, not a belief that causes things to run right. Rather than the comfort of knowing that you'll like the results, one aims for the comfort that all of life's suffering has meaning and a purpose. RSS presumes the latter and appears to be saying that one can then take this trust in two different ways: - Since Hashem is driving, I don't need to bother looking out the windsheild, it will just stress me out for nothing. - Hashem and I are in partnership, so I cannot refrain from helping Him bring us to our destination, even when it involves heading for trials and tribulations. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is a stage and we are the actors, micha at aishdas.org but only some of us have the script. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Menachem Nissel Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 15:56:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Toby Katz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 18:56:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book Message-ID: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> I recently came across the issue of Jewish Action (the OU's quarterly magazine) of Fall 2000 and in that issue there was a remarkable article. It was a review of a two-volume book called *The Rav: The World of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik* by Rabbi Dr. Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff. The review article was written by R' Philip Weinberger. It was a very laudatory review, written by someone who admired and respected RYBS and who thought the book was excellent. It's important to note that he respected RYBS and admired the book, because when you see what I am going to quote from the review, you might think otherwise. But if you read the whole review you will clearly see that what looks like a negative to me is clearly seen as a positive by R' Weinberger. http://ou.org.s3.amazonaws.com/publications/ja/5761fall/BOOKS.PDF OK here goes -- the most interesting parts of the review (I have mostly dispensed with ellipses, which are distracting): --quote-- [The book] focused my attention on a paradox that confronts me every time a new book or article appears about the saintly Rabbi Soloveitchik, zt"l. In the latter part of the twentieth century, the Rav was one of the most outstanding rabbinic titans, teaching and leading the Jewish people. A master of communication, orally and in print, he left behind multitudes of devoted students and admirers who still hang on his every word. Yet the Rav seems to have left a legacy that is unclear and misunderstood, despite his gifted powers of communication. Among the numerous questions, debated passionately by those who represent themselves as knowing the Rav's authentic thinking, are: What was the Rav's view toward secular education; Torah u'Madda; new religious practices by women; reciting Hallel on Yom HaAtzma'ut; and Religious Zionism? There is a raging battle among his followers as to who may legitimately and authentically present the Rav's opinions, thoughts, ideas and teachings. How could so careful a teacher, who could literally spend hours at a time in shiurim defining with precision the meaning of a particular word or phrase, be misunderstood on so many basic and critical issues? The Rav himself, despite his best efforts, was misunderstood and misquoted in his lifetime by able people who presumably had the best of intentions. The Rav illustrates that he was misunderstood by journalists because of their lack of familiarity with the Rav's precise use of language and terminology, and because the Rav's thoughts, ideas and speech were extraordinarily nuanced, delicate, subtle and sophisticated. However, the book falls short, even on its own terms, in its failure to more deeply explore the complexity and nuances of the Rav's thoughts and insights that were influenced by the religious, existential, and personal tensions that the Rav experienced and talked about. Similarly, the book does not treat much of the controversy that sometimes surrounded the Rav in a meaningful way. There is no acknowledgment of how the Rav was inappropriately treated and often marginalized in the yeshivah universe because of his embracing secular studies and Religious Zionism (albeit in a disciplined and highly nuanced manner)... in a letter to Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Shragai, the Rav writes : "If I were to judge this matter (which party to associate with) based on pragmatic or political considerations, I would join the zealots who ask nothing of their members (not diligence in Torah study, not pure fear of Heaven, nor spending money on tzedakah, nor excessive care with regard to mitzvot) except to besmirch our movement. I could clothe myself with the mantle of a tzaddik and 'fighter of the Lord's battles.' " This and other letters to Rabbi Shragai show clearly what a man of principle the Rav was. ...Scholars and laymen alike are indebted to Rabbi Rakeffet for his vital work. --end quote-- Well, you can see why this review would interest me. Let's take a few points: [1] "The Rav seems to have left a legacy that is unclear and misunderstood, despite his gifted powers of communication." I would suggest that the end of the sentence is contradicted by the beginning of the sentence. The main thing that the Rav generally managed to communicate was that one could be a great Torah scholar and also be a brilliant intellectual in secular terms. This was not the text but the ur-text of much of what he wrote. I will add that he did this not for his own honor but for the honor of the Torah, which was often treated with contempt by mid-twentieth century Jews who were rapidly abandoning the Torah. But his opaque Germanic philosophical style of speaking and writing was by its very nature open to multiple interpretations, and could neither be summarized nor re-written in plain American English. [2] "Among the numerous questions, debated passionately by those who represent themselves as knowing the Rav's authentic thinking, are: What was the Rav's view toward secular education; Torah u'Madda; new religious practices by women; reciting Hallel on Yom HaAtzma'ut; and Religious Zionism?" I would have to say that this is a highly unusual thing to say of any gadol. Of which other gadol could it be said that after he taught and wrote for decades, no one could be sure what his position was on the most important issues of his day? [2A] "What was the Rav's view toward Religious Zionism?" and "his embracing Religious Zionism (albeit in a disciplined and highly nuanced manner)..." Those of us who have claimed (based admittedly, at times, on anecdotal evidence and oral reports) that RYBS was not really a Zionist have often been vilified. Yet here a great admirer of RYBS admits that his views were far from obvious, and subject to much disagreement even among his followers. That RYBS was a great lover of Eretz Yisrael -- of that there can be no doubt. That he really believed in the whole aschalta de'geulah ideology of RZ -- highly doubtful. The rest can be left for another time, or another book. [3] "How could so careful a teacher, who could literally spend hours at a time in shiurim defining with precision the meaning of a particular word or phrase, be misunderstood on so many basic and critical issues?" It may be that in a Gemara shiur, trying to define a word with great precision may lead to greater understanding, but out here in the larger world, such precise definitions tend to leave most people scratching their heads. Common everyday words lose their accepted, common meanings, and the many sentences used to define those words lead to greater obscurity rather than clarity. "When I use a word, it means precisely what I want it to mean." But his listeners or readers are often left in the dark. [4] "The Rav was misunderstood...because his thoughts, ideas and speech were extraordinarily nuanced, delicate, subtle and sophisticated." The impression left by all that subtlety and nuance is that he was trying to avoid saying anything controversial that could be quoted in a sound bite. [5] "There is no acknowledgment of how the Rav was inappropriately treated and often marginalized in the yeshivah universe" [6] "...the zealots who ask nothing of their members (not diligence in Torah study, not pure fear of Heaven, nor spending money on tzedakah, nor excessive care with regard to mitzvot) except to besmirch our movement. I could clothe myself with the mantle of a tzaddik and 'fighter of the Lord's battles...' " Maybe [6] at least partially explains [5]. Maybe the way he felt about them was reflected in the way they felt about him. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 17:52:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 00:52:25 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> References: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> Message-ID: Let's take a few points: [1] "The Rav seems to have left a legacy that is unclear and misunderstood, despite his gifted powers of communication." I would suggest that the end of the sentence is contradicted by the beginning of the sentence. [2] "Among the numerous questions, debated passionately by those who represent themselves as knowing the Rav's authentic thinking, are: What was the Rav's view toward secular education; Torah u'Madda; new religious practices by women; reciting Hallel on Yom HaAtzma'ut; and Religious Zionism?" [2A] "What was the Rav's view toward Religious Zionism?" and "his embracing Religious Zionism (albeit in a disciplined and highly nuanced manner)..." [3] "How could so careful a teacher, who could literally spend hours at a time in shiurim defining with precision the meaning of a particular word or phrase, be misunderstood on so many basic and critical issues?" [4] "The Rav was misunderstood...because his thoughts, ideas and speech were extraordinarily nuanced, delicate, subtle and sophisticated." The impression left by all that subtlety and nuance is that he was trying to avoid saying anything controversial that could be quoted in a sound bite. [5] "There is no acknowledgment of how the Rav was inappropriately treated and often marginalized in the yeshivah universe" [6] "...the zealots who ask nothing of their members (not diligence in Torah study, not pure fear of Heaven, nor spending money on tzedakah, nor excessive care with regard to mitzvot) except to besmirch our movement. I could clothe myself with the mantle of a tzaddik and 'fighter of the Lord's battles...' " Maybe [6] at least partially explains [5]. Maybe the way he felt about them was reflected in the way they felt about him. _______________________________________________ I remember reading the original review and being very surprised. [1]&[2]&[3] My general impression is that most of the lack of clarity and misunderstandings are on issues that have little to do with the style issue. I don't think many get concerned about whether Adam I and II ever resolve their dialectic . The main cause of misunderstandings imho can be generously stated as being caused by The Rav's being so sui generis that students could not assimilate the whole of his teachings. The less generous approach would be that some want to be toleh on an ilan gadol and project their own priorities and approaches on him. Could anyone who looked at his life as a whole have any doubt that he valued secular studies? That he was a non-messianic RZ lover of eretz Yisrael seems pretty clear. [4]Or how about the world is complex and our desire (btw very reflective of our host society) is to boil everything down to a sound bite goes against the educational need to understand how to look at complex issues [6]explaining [5] seems to me like the classic blaming the victim for "asking for it". I can only assume the fact that other roshei yeshiva didn't publically call for tolerance was that they did think he, and MO, was krum or they had higher priorities or didn't think their talmidim would listen to them. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 18:07:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 21:07:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: References: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> Message-ID: <20150624010730.GA18745@aishdas.org> Both Ishbitz and Chabad, Rushin and Satmar each beleive theirs is the most accurate understanding of Derekh haBhesh"t. Kelm, Novhardok and Slabodka have very different understandings of R Yisrael Salanter's teachings. RAYK's disagree over what their rebbe meant. Even Moshe Rabbeinu -- he had 70 front-row talmidim and ever since we have had 70 panim laTorah. Any gadol brilliant and subtle enough to be worth following will so outstrip his talmidim that each only grasps onto one facet and interpretation of a more complex original. This is far from unique to RYBS. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you're going through hell micha at aishdas.org keep going. http://www.aishdas.org - Winston Churchill Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 19:01:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 22:01:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: <20150624010730.GA18745@aishdas.org> References: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> <20150624010730.GA18745@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <558A0F65.7090501@sero.name> On 06/23/2015 09:07 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Both Ishbitz and Chabad, Rushin and Satmar each beleive theirs is the > most accurate understanding of Derekh haBhesh"t. Satmar doesn't believe this; rather, it believes that the BSh"T's torah has been lost. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 19:21:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 22:21:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kol Isha Twist Message-ID: <558A1421.3060009@gmail.com> See http://www.kikar.co.il/174128.html or http://www.totpi.com/2/ultra-orthodox-woman-performs-incognito-on-the-x-factor/ It's an interesting loophole: Since kol b'isha erva only applies when you know what a woman looks like, the heavy sunglasses and very modest dress may do the trick. Not middas chassidus, but perhaps on a technicality permitted. KT, YGB -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 07:35:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 10:35:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kol Isha Twist In-Reply-To: <558A1421.3060009@gmail.com> References: <558A1421.3060009@gmail.com> Message-ID: <558AC044.2010107@sero.name> On 06/23/2015 10:21 PM, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah wrote: > > It's an interesting loophole: Since kol b'isha erva only applies when > you know what a woman looks like, the heavy sunglasses and very > modest dress may do the trick. Not middas chassidus, but perhaps on a > technicality permitted. I don't see anything in the two linked articles about such a loophole. And I don't think it would work. Surely you can see enough of her to form some idea, perhaps mistaken, but enough for the yetzer hara to work with. I think the true heter for what she's doing is a lot simpler: she is not machshil anyone, because whoever is watching the show is already seeing and hearing enough women sing that one more makes no difference at all. If she didn't sing, then in all likelihood another woman would do so, wearing much less and acting more provocatively; or else a man would be giving some provocative performance that would be almost as bad. So really what has she done wrong? Those who don't normally watch should continue not to watch, and they won't be affected. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 08:33:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kaganoff via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 11:33:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating Message-ID: I am curious if anyone has written about a common practice. We assume that *Kaddish* is a *Devar she-Bikdusha* and requires a *minyan* to be recited. We require separate seating for a *Devar she-Bikdusha.* In many circles it is not uncommon to have a *siyyum* with a *kaddish *at a Bar Mitzvah or a Dinner even when there is mixed seating. Does anyone explicitly discuss this practice and permit it? Yonatan Kaganoff -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 11:38:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 14:38:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150624183849.GA2711@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 11:33:54AM -0400, Kaganoff via Avodah wrote: : We require separate seating for a *Devar she-Bikdusha.* This is news to me. Do those who say that zimmun with a minyan is a davar shebiqdushah (BY OC 199 "umah shekasav", MB s"q 15) require separate seating at my shabbos table? The AhS (200:6) refers to zimun with 10 as "shekhinta sharia", but I didn't see him mention minyan or davar shebiqdushah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 11:52:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 14:52:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating Message-ID: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> From: Kaganoff via Avodah We assume that *Kaddish* is a *Devar she-Bikdusha* and requires a *minyan* to be recited. We require separate seating for a *Devar she-Bikdusha.* In many circles it is not uncommon to have a *siyyum* with a *kaddish *at a Bar Mitzvah or a Dinner even when there is mixed seating. Does anyone explicitly discuss this practice and permit it? Yonatan Kaganoff >>>> You see something similar when people make an ad hoc minyan at a wedding (or an airport lounge). They don't put up a mechitza. Is this situation explicitly discussed in the halachic literature? It must be. Maybe what applies to one also applies to the other. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 12:32:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 15:32:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating In-Reply-To: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> References: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> Message-ID: <20150624193208.GA22316@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 2:52pm EDT, RnTK wrote: : From: Kaganoff via Avodah :> We assume that Kaddish is a Devar she-Bikdusha and requires a minyan :> to be recited. :> We require separate seating for a Devar she-Bikdusha. : You see something similar when people make an ad hoc minyan at a wedding : (or an airport lounge). They don't put up a mechitza... Slight topic change. You can have separate seating (or locations in general) without a mechitzah. I believe that minyanim were held at the kotel even when the Ottomans didn't let us put up a mechitzah by separating the genders even without one. I see R YH Henkin (Responsa on Contemporary Jewish Women's Issues, pg 124 ) rejects the hava amina that mechitzah is only for an established shul. He requires a mechitzah, not just separate seating at a temporary location for davening. While a minyan is there, the laws of mara miqdash apply. I do not whether he would advised the yishuv hayashan not to daven at the kotel. Tir'u baTov! -Micha Cc: RYHH -- Micha Berger The trick is learning to be passionate in one's micha at aishdas.org ideals, but compassionate to one's peers. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 12:21:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 19:21:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating In-Reply-To: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> References: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> Message-ID: <9d095a46ac044dd88d591c13b05195d1@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Yonatan Kaganoff >>>> You see something similar when people make an ad hoc minyan at a wedding (or an airport lounge). They don't put up a mechitza. Is this situation explicitly discussed in the halachic literature? It must be. Maybe what applies to one also applies to the other. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=922&st=&pgnum=66 where R' Moshe deals with the Mechitza issue but still requires that there not be intermingling. That's the part I'm unsure of. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 16:34:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 19:34:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safeik and Multivalent Logic In-Reply-To: <20150615210040.GA17358@aishdas.org> References: <20150615210040.GA17358@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150624233428.GA29242@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 15, 2015 at 05:00:40PM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : Back on Fri, 14 May 2004 10:45am EST (yes, 11 years ago) I wrote : on the thread : "Valid halachic change" I wrote: :> I was at a yarchei ... kallah during Elul in Boston where RYBS... :> An esrog that was used for the mitzvah is qadosh and assur behana'ah :> that entire day. And since it's qadosh bein hashemashos, it's gadosh :> part of the next day and therefore assur behan'ah the entire next day. ... :> Rov is a non-boolean state, something between yes and no. Therefore, :> it does not apply after we've taken the question from the realm of :> machshavah to that of ma'aseh. : I'm repeating all this because, once again, AhS Yomi showed me that : something I thought I understood was more complicated than I realized. : AhS OC 638:5 distinguishes between muqtza machmas : mitzvah and other forms of muqtza when it comes to migo de'isqatzei bein : hashemashos, isqatza'ei lekhulei yoma. : And so, sukkah and its decorations (the topic of OC 688) are muqtzah the : following day. But beitzah shenoledah beYT rishon is not muqtzah on the : next day. More info at AhS OC 667:1, which distinguishes between sukkah and 4 minim on Shemini Atzeres. Because sukkah would actually be used bein hashmeshos between the 7th day Sukkos and SA (speaking of EY now), a sukkah and its decorations are muqtzah on SA. The esrog, because the mitzvah would habe been done before BhS either way, is not. It would seem the point in 638:5 appears not to be that mutzah machamas mitzvah is special, but because the mitzvah would still apply BhS. : Thoughts, anyone? Still looking for other perspectives! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 25 02:54:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 09:54:58 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book Message-ID: <20150625.055458.3550.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Even Moshe Rabbeinu -- he had 70 front-row talmidim and ever since > we have had 70 panim laTorah. > > Any gadol brilliant and subtle enough to be worth following will > so outstrip his talmidim that each only grasps onto one facet and > interpretation of a more complex original. > > This is far from unique to RYBS. Here's my guess about what made RYBS unique in this regard: On the one hand, he did have his opinions about many things. But that was NOT what he tried to pass on to his talmidim. In fact, he is famous for NOT answering many of the questions posed to him. What RYBS wanted was for his talmidim to be able to decide for themselves. He never wanted to teach his talmidim WHAT to think, but HOW to think. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Buffett???s Warning for YOU 4 in 5 Americans aren???t taking his shocking advice. Click here now. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/558bd00ca32f7500c77efst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 25 08:10:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 11:10:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: <20150625.055458.3550.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150625.055458.3550.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150625151002.GD10708@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 25, 2015 at 09:54:58AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: :> This is far from unique to RYBS. : Here's my guess about what made RYBS unique in this regard: On the : one hand, he did have his opinions about many things. But that was NOT : what he tried to pass on to his talmidim. In fact, he is famous for NOT : answering many of the questions posed to him. What RYBS wanted was for : his talmidim to be able to decide for themselves. He never wanted to : teach his talmidim WHAT to think, but HOW to think. I realize that this is about to get meta, because I'm about to disagree with RAM about RYBS's position and why people disagree about what it was. I thin this is overplayed. Yes, he pushed fledgling rabbis to assert themselves as LOR and not defer every halachic question. But he didn't do this with every talmid, nor with every question. I think people are taking a pedagogic technique used for talmidim to scared to pasqen and turning it into a principle. Im kein ein ladavar sof, and there is no way to say he took positions for anyone but himself and his mispalelim in Boston and Moriah. No Qol Dodi Dofeiq promoting Zionism, no attack on RERackman's beis din, etc... And besides, we aren't talking about whether his talmidim vary, but why the talmidim's understandings of the rebbe's position varied. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Never must we think that the Jewish element micha at aishdas.org in us could exist without the human element http://www.aishdas.org or vice versa. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 25 08:56:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 15:56:25 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Hakarat Hatov Message-ID: Does Hakarat Hatov engender a measurable "liability" (e.g. require a marginally greater action) between the recipient and the provider of the "Tov", or is saying "Thank you, I appreciate it" the only requirement? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 26 01:19:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2015 11:19:39 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book Message-ID: <> In addition like many others RYBS gave different answers to different people depending on the person and circumstances. As a simple example he encouraged his talmidim to move to EY but told some to stay in the US. Also RYBS was big believer in everyone making their own decisions and not simply doing what they were told. Hence, he avoided certain statements so that his talmidim would make up their own minds. It is well known that all the children of RYBS got a PhD. Even his nephew R Meiselman the most charedi in the family received this degree from MIT. Nevertheless he never publically stressed this idea probably because he felt it was a very individual decision -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 27 19:37:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2015 22:37:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government Message-ID: Gut voch to all, What alternative texts exist for the tefillah l'shlom malchus? I have heard that other versions exist, perhaps more suited for a Republic than is "Hanosen teshua la-melachim", but the only version I could find comes from a Conservative source -- putting me in the same situation as R' Eliezer ben Hyrcanus upon hearing a good "vort" in the name of Ben Pandera. Can anyone point me to appropriate sources? --Chesky Salomon From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 27 20:29:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2015 23:29:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: An hour or so ago, I wrote: > What alternative texts exist for the tefillah l'shlom malchus? I remember this topic coming up in the past, though I have not been successful in searching the archives for it. I did find an article by Dr Jonathan Sarna, "A Forgotten 19th-Century Prayer for the United States Government: Its Meaning, Significance, and Surprising Author" [1] which pointed to the "Orthodox prayerbook for American Jews entitled Tefilot Yisra'el. Prayers of Israel. with an English Translation." The variant text Sarna discusses, "Ribbon kol ha-olamim", can be seen at -- but he makes the case that the prayer's author was Rabbi Max Lilienthal, leaving me in the same position as before. (As a side note: I recall one of the J-blogs mentioning a Tefillah for the State written for 1930s Germany under the Nazi government, but I cannot find the post again. Any help?) --Chesky Salomon [1]: http://www.brandeis.edu/hornstein/sarna/americanjewishcultureandscholarship/Archive3/AForgottenNineteenthCenturyPrayerfortheUnitedStatesGovenment.pdf From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 29 05:29:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mordechai Harris via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2015 07:29:07 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Here's the one I shard last time from the De Sola Pool Siddur. -Mordechai - Please excuse typos as this was sent from my cell phone. On Jun 28, 2015 2:59 PM, "Chesky Salomon via Avodah" wrote: > An hour or so ago, I wrote: >> What alternative texts exist for the tefillah l'shlom malchus? > I remember this topic coming up in the past, though I have not been > successful in searching the archives for it... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 29 15:15:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 01:15:23 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jun 29, 2015 at 3:29 PM, Mordechai Harris via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > Here's the one I shard last time from the De Sola Pool Siddur. > > Can you also share the publication details and/or title page of this siddur? What I know as the De Sola Pool Siddur is not the same as in this link. I have the second edition of 1977, and the title page says: BOOK OF PRAYER ACCORDING TO THE CUSTOM OF THE SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE JEWS Edited and translated by DAVID DE SOLA POOL Minister of the Congregation Shearith Israel in the City of New York PUBLISHED BY THE UNION OF SEPHARDIC CONGREGATIONS NEW YORK The prayer for the government begins with the usual "Hanoten teshu`a lamelachim" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 11:55:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Arie Folger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 20:55:34 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government Message-ID: Someone asked about alternate texts of the prayer for the government, more attuned to democracies. I have adapted the classic hanoten teshuah lamelakhim for the US, with variant readings for Canada, for inclusion in the still forthcoming new revised RCA Siddur. Send me a message through my web site (see the sig) and I will gladly share that text with you. -- Yours sincerely, Mit freundlichen Gr??en, Arie Folger blogging at http://www.rabbifolger.net/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 10:22:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Baruch Cohen via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 10:22:13 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] BIRCHAT KOHANIM AT THE KOTEL Message-ID: I plan on being in Israel for Sukkot, and hope to be at the Kotel for Birchat Kohanim. I usually daven early every morning, and the Birchat Kohanim occurs later in the morning. My question is: do I have a Chiyuv to "duchen" if I'm in the audience and the Shaliach Tzibbur announces on the loudspeaker the word: "Kohanim!" Does that trigger a halachic obligation for me to duchen, even if I am in the audience, in the back of the crowd? -- Respectfully, Baruch C. Cohen, Esq. e-mail: BCC4929 at gmail.com LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/baruchcohen From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 12:06:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 15:06:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] BIRCHAT KOHANIM AT THE KOTEL In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5592E8B9.5020201@sero.name> On 06/30/2015 01:22 PM, Baruch Cohen via Avodah wrote: > I usually daven early every morning, and the Birchat > Kohanim occurs later in the morning. My question is: do I have a Chiyuv to > "duchen" if I'm in the audience and the Shaliach Tzibbur announces on the > loudspeaker the word: "Kohanim!" Does that trigger a halachic obligation > for me to duchen No. If you have already duchened that day, you have no further chiyuv, even if you hear the chazan, and even if someone directly tells you to go up. However if you *choose* to duchen for a second (or third, etc) time that day, you may do so with a bracha. (SA OC 128:3) [Email #2. -micha] PS: This applies also in an ordinary shul where they duchen at shachris and musaf. Any cohen who duchened at shachris, and doesn't feel like doing it again at musaf, needn't leave the room. He has no obligation to answer the chazan's call. But those who do answer it duchen with a bracha, because that is takanas chachamim. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 12:26:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 19:26:26 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish Yasom Message-ID: <20150630.152626.19374.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> What is the rule for when we do or do not say Kaddish Yasom (Mourner's Kaddish)? >From what I've seen, it is NOT said even if a minyan says Birkas Hamazon, but it IS said when a minyan says Kiddush Levana. It is NOT said when a minyan says Tehillim even as an organized group, but it IS said on Yom Tov after the Megilla (Shir Hashirim, Rus, Koheles) is read. I do not see any pattern. Does anyone else know of a rule? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5592ed93bb00b6d93482cst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 15:03:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 18:03:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish Yasom In-Reply-To: <20150630.152626.19374.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150630.152626.19374.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5593124A.2040905@sero.name> On 06/30/2015 03:26 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > What is the rule for when we do or do not say Kaddish Yasom (Mourner's Kaddish)? > >>From what I've seen, it is NOT said even if a minyan says Birkas Hamazon, Why would it? > but it IS said when a minyan says Kiddush Levana. Probably because people are used to saying it after Alenu. > It is NOT said when a minyan says Tehillim even as an organized group, Where have you seen it not being said then? I'm surprised that this is your experience. > but it IS said on Yom Tov after the Megilla (Shir Hashirim, Rus, Koheles) is read. Yes, that is my experience as well. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 03:47:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 13:47:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] 13th century zeal Message-ID: I found the following story from R Kaganoff interesting not only for the halachic portion but also to show that community fights are not new The question regarding recital of *mei'ein sheva* when *Yom Tov* falls on Friday resulted in a very heated dispute during the era of the Rishonim. In the time of the *Rivash*, Rabbi Amram ben Meroam, a frequent correspondent of the *Rivash*, wrote him the following *shaylah*: Reuven was the *chazzan* for the Friday night *davening *on a *Shabbos* that immediately followed *Yom Tov*. He began reciting *mei'ein sheva*, when Shimon reprimanded him, contending that one should not recite this *bracha* when *Shabbos* follows *Yom Tov* -- since no one was working on Friday, the reason for the *takkanah* did not apply. Levi then got involved, saying that it is accepted that one *does* recite *mei'ein sheva*on Friday night following a *Yom Tov*. The *shul* then burst into a cacophony of voices, with Shimon's and Reuven's backers screaming at one another. Finally, Shimon shouted that Reuven was desecrating*Hashem's *holy Name, since he was willing to recite a *bracha* in vain, and that if he did, Shimon would declare him to be in *cherem*, excommunicated! Reuven did recite the *bracha mei'ein sheva,* and a day later, opened his door to find Shimon and twenty of his backers there to notify him that he had been excommunicated! The Rivash* was asked to rule whether Reuven was indeed in *cherem* because of Shimon's declaration that he recited a *bracha* in vain, or, perhaps, Shimon should be placed in *cherem* for excommunicating someone without proper cause. The *Rivash* ruled that Shimon was mistaken, and that one should recite *mei'ein sheva* when *Shabbos* follows *Yom Tov*. Therefore, he concluded that Reuven, who followed the correct *halachah*, could completely ignore the *cherem* placed on him. However, he also concluded that since Shimon thought he was acting correctly, we do not excommunicate Shimon for his actions (*Shut HaRivash* #34). -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 06:54:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 13:54:19 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos Message-ID: <20150401.095419.16600.0@webmail12.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitzchok Levine wrote: > Does not the SA say that a person who has trouble chewing > matzah can soak it in water and then eat it? If so, then > I fail to see why eating gebrokts should be a problem for > anyone. The answer will depend on what you mean by "SA". If "SA" refers specifically to the author of the Shulchan Aruch, Rav Yosef Karo, then the answer is that he is not the last word in halacha. There are other authorities, and someone who follows the others could have a problem even with something that the SA allows. If "SA" refers to the Shulchan Aruch in general, then I do not understand your question, since the problem of gebrokts *IS* mentioned by authorities other than Rav Karo. If I'm not mistaken, the Shaarei Teshuva (which is in the printed editions of Mishne Brurah) is a good example. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 11:05:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 14:05:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> I repeated on Areivim RSM's deduction that yayin kal is closest to the alcohol level of chazal's wine. On Wed, Apr 1, 2015 at 9:39am PDT, R Saul Newman wrote to Areivim: > interesting, when seeing in ktubot abaye's widow describing the size of > his wine vessel. by that Percentage, it wouldnt be toxic... Here's RSM's science, and it seems impeccable: By natural means, no alcoholic beverage can get above 12% -- at that level the yeast drowns in its own output. That's why beer and wine tend to be 12%. We can tweak that up to 16% with specially bred yeast, and/or control of temperature and humidity -- not options in Chazal's day. (Higher alcohol drinks are made by distilling out the alcohol from the original 12% liquid.) To add my 2 pence: Their barrels weren't perfect, which means there was more evaporation. But since alcohol evaporates faster than water, that will only lower the percentage alcohol. So we're still at about 12% max. RSM's original line of reasoning, continues: Mezigas hakos is typically at least 1:3, or 25% wine. So, the final product would be at most 3%. A third penny: Now let's discuss how big a revi'is was back then... But even without that, I have no idea how any of them would have gotten anywhere near drunk. Why would R' Yonah have a headache until shavu'os off some 16 oz total of 3% wine? Do we have to assume it was the alcohol? Maybe he was a later owner of Abayei's kos... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Mussar is like oil put in water, micha at aishdas.org eventually it will rise to the top. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 12:08:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 01 Apr 2015 15:08:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> On 04/01/2015 02:05 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Now let's discuss how big a revi'is was back then... But even without > that, I have no idea how any of them would have gotten anywhere near > drunk. Why would R' Yonah have a headache until shavu'os off some 16 oz > total of 3% wine? Do we have to assume it was the alcohol? Maybe he was > a later owner of Abayei's kos... I don't think it's at all plausible that it was the alcohol. I have long assumed that he had some sort of allergy or intolerance for some component of grapes or grape skins, or perhaps for the sulfites with which wine was (and is still) preserved. It's well known that there are people today who get headaches from sulfites. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 12:25:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mordechai Harris via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 14:25:38 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> Message-ID: There is a lot of info here: http://seforim.blogspot.com/2012/10/wine-strength-and-dilution.html Chag Kasher v'Samayach< Mordechai -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 12:30:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 22:30:53 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: There recently appeared a sefer "Keren Zavit" by Nadav Shenrav on parshat hashavua that has a very nice combination of science and Torah. On parshat Tzav he brings a question on the shitah of the Nodah BeYuhuda that eggs doubled in size. The Noda Beyehuda claims that there is a contradiction between two sugyot that find measurements based on either the size of the egg or from length (or volume) measurements. To answer the contradiction the Nodah Beyehuda assumes that our eggs are half the size of those in the days of chazal. (Actually modern eggs are larger than those in his day) The basic point is that in order to translate the measurements of chazal to modern measurements we need a fixed point, ie some measurement that has not changed over the generations. If everything can change we have only relative measurements and not absolute measurements. The Nodah BeYehuda assumes that the width of the thumb is constant. Question: Rambam (maaseh hakorbanot 13:14) states the kemitzah which cinsists of 3 fingers closed over the palm contains 2 kezatim. However 2 kezaytim of 50cc (ie 100cc) is impossible to enclose within 3 fingers. He brings that he saw this question in a series "Bet Aharon VeYisrael" and they answered "nishtanu hateva" i.e. their hands were bigger and could hold 100c of flour within 3 fingers. (In general the author is not impressed with the answer of "nishtane hateva" but he assumes it for this article). However, this leads to an internal contradiction, ie Noda Beyehuda assumes that the size of the thumb has not changed but is required to assume that the size of the hand was much larger in the days of chazal ie how is it possible that their hands were MUCH larger but the width of the thumb remained constant. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 14:11:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 17:11:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150401211129.GA23585@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 01, 2015 at 10:30:53PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : There recently appeared a sefer "Keren Zavit" by Nadav Shenrav on parshat : hashavua that has a very nice combination of science and Torah. : : On parshat Tzav he brings a question on the shitah of the Nodah BeYuhuda : that eggs doubled in size. AISI, there are three distinct questions that generally get lumped together in the annual kezayis discussion: 1- Is "kezayis" a constant volume, or is it pinned to the average olive, or perhaps the average among some subset of breeds of olive as breeding, care and climate change? R' Chaim Volozhiner and the Avnei Neizer say the latter. You might remember my post from last Jan at. . The AhS OC 363:34 says that lehalakhah an ammah is the person involved's forearm. E.g. when measuring 4 amos for tiltul, the din is more chamur for me than for taller people. When coming to mavui or techum, where you need a single pesaq for a whole town, you need a standardized ammah, "ameru chakhamim denimdod lechumerah" it's the length of the arm of some very high percentile of the people relying on it (and possibly 100%) -- "debevadei yeish anashim shezehu midasan". (Also, when dealing with someone with a handicap or amputation, you need to use estimates.) To me this seems to feed RCV's approach. Because both assume that measurements are not absolute, but based on the set of whatevers involved. For example, the AhS's position about the standard ammah would imply that a community that is atypically tall would use a longer ammah for techum than in a ghettod population whose malnutrition stunted their typical growth. 2- If kezayis is a constant volume, do all the accepted overestimates performed and accumulated one atop the other unwind when we have more information about chazal's zeisim? Or do we say that the bottom of the range of measurments that dominate common pratice in one's qehillah is binding as pesaq, and one can't just ignore the now huge safety margin? This is what I argued here when RNS's paper came out http://www.zootorah.org/RationalistJudaism/TheEvolutionOfTtheOlive.pdf (And if so, is that extra amount considered as deOraisa as the original olive volume, because it's a pesaq in a din deOraisa? Or is it a harchaqah, and thus derabban? 3- The actual specifics 3a- If the answe to #2 is that we do roll back the kezayis based on better information about what it was, the metzi'us specifics can still be argued. Such as asking (as I did in passing in #1) which subset of olives to average. 3b- And if the answer is that we don't, then there are halachic process details to ask about. But I think many discussions, including our own previous years' iterations, stuble because they blur these topics rather than keeping them separate, which in turn would force dealing with them in the sequence I gave as well. (Because #2 depends on one kind of answer to #1, and #3 has different flavors depending on #2.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 13:36:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 16:36:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Yaknehaz [was: The Quinoa - Kitniyos Conundrum] Message-ID: In a message dated 4/1/2015 6:28:31 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, micha at aishdas.org writes: On Wed, Apr 01, 2015 at 12:03am EDT, RnTK wrote: : It was the norm in my parental home and is what my husband does too. : In fact I have never seen anyone use a regular havdala candle at a seder! : (Or a single wick candle without joining it to another candle or to a match.) A local yeshiva qetana sells two-wick candles that otherwise look like Shabbos candles as a fundraiser. This way you don't have a fire lasting as long as whatever is left on your havdalah candle, and the whole problem is avoided. >>>>> I wasn't really clear. What my parents used to do (and we do similarly) was to take one Shabbos candle ot of the candlestick and hold its flame close to another Shabbos candle for the bracha, and then put it back in the candlestick it came out of. IOW we use the candles that are already burning on the table anyway. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 14:36:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 17:36:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] partnership - adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties Message-ID: partnership - adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties In describing why person would fast all Passover over and above Jewish Law Practice, you used the words "emotional attachment". In the seven years since that wording , perhaps the message is deeper. Salamone Rossi the Jewish Italian composer, became a hero of the assimilationist movement. See AJS Review volume 26 #1 where where a series of books by one Don Harran re Rossi is reviewed. Twice in Adon Olam, the series of fast phrases of excitement called Tritum or whatever is used twice ??? ???? ??? ???? ???? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ?_?? ??? ????? ???? ???? ... ???? ????? ???? ???? ?????? - ??? ???? ? ???? ???? ????? ??? ?? ?????? - ????? ?? ???? ??? ??? ????? - ??? ????? - ????? ???? - ???? ???? ??? ???? ???? ??? ???? ??????? - ???? ????? ????? ??? - ???? ?? ????? ??? ????? - ????? ????? ???? ?? ????? - ??? ???? ??? ???? ???? ?????? ????? ??? ????? - ?? - ???? ?_?? ??? ????? ???? ???? ... ?????? ?? ?? ??? ???? ??? ??? ?? ???? ???? - ??? ???? ?? ????? ?????? ... ?? ?? ???? ?? GLOOMY THOUGHT NEGATIVE CHARACTERIZATION The reviewer - a music professor at Northeastern U in Boston MA - illustrates that limitless exhaustive research did not turn up for M. Harran the fact that in the surrounding milieu which Mr. Rossi is immersed in - these patterns aare reserved for ttheir Trinity.. Lhavdil elef havdalot. Rossi as a Jew with beating Jewish Heart - in Adon Olam his famous composition - when it came to Our God - he proudly used the pattern of the ecstasy of the Tritium (apologies of not being able to look up - will scan and send but each moment I am in danger of interrruption - ) . Why Yeihareig ? Why not float with the waves? Answer - because it is identity of Jew - visceral reaction necessary! taht is Key! Common motif of Piyut - ?????? ????? ?????? ????? - countering their attempted invasion and depriving us of identity - the desperation of drowning brings us to keep our identity- baby will starve self to reserve independence - if it is deprived from baby Not in complete normal routine vassalry to Hashem. But it is the assertion of identity. Sneh Boeir - Papers of Adoption - of formation of Partnership - not the bylaws which may never be read - but the primary identity of Hasheem as responsible party specifically to act as parent re MY CHILD - thsi is basic bedrock Jew - as Rashi certainly subscribed, and rashbam, and likely R' Yonah even Ramban. For my money - when functioning as Jewish Natnion member - the Rambam himself, codifier of the Doctrinal Jew. Back to subject after rant - A JS Reviewer - just like they show reverence for their Hero - we show reverence for our Hero - One God - that the reviewer explained for the first - ??? ???? ??? ???? ???? ?????? What of second threesome - look in Tur for Ecstasy - OC 5 - ???? ?_?? ??? ????? ???? ???? takif..???? ??? ?????? ??? ????? ???? - ???? ?? ???? ??? ??? ????? ??? - ???? ?? ???? - ??? ???? ???? ?? - ??? ???? - ???? ???? - ??? ???? ??? ??? ???? ??????? ?? ??? - ??? ???? ?? ???? ???? ??? ????? ???? ???? - ?? ?? ??? ?? ???? ???? ?????? ???? ???? - ?? ?????? - ??? ?????? ????? ?????? ???? - ???? ???? ?? ??? ?? - ???? ??? ????? ????? ????? - ??? ??? ????? - ?????? ????? ????? ??? ????? - ?? ??? ??? ???? - ?? ??? ??? ????? - ??? ????? - ???? ?????? ?????? - ???? ???? ?????? ????? ?? ?? - ??? ?? ????? ??? ???? ????? ???? ????? ???? ????? ?????? 148-155 - ?_?_?_? ??? ?? - ????? ???? 148 ???? ???? ?????? - ?? ?????? - ??? ???? ??? ???? ?? ?????? - ??? ????? ????? ????? - ?? ??? ??? ???? ???? ?? ????? =- ??? ???????? ?????? ????? ????? - ?? ???? - ????? - ?????? - ???? ???? - ??? ??? ????? - ??? ??? ?? ????? - ????? ??? ??? ?????? - ??? ????? - ????? ??? ?????? ?????? - ???? ???? ?? ??????? ????? ??? - ????? - ???? ?????? ???? ??? ????? ?????? ???? ????? ??????? ????? ?? - ??? ???? ?????? ???? ??"? - ??? ????? ???? ???? ???? ??? ????? ??? ?? ???? - ???? ?? ??? ?? ???? ???-????? ?? ????? ?? ?? ?????? - ??? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ?? ??????? - EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT IS ZILZUL IN A COVENANT ???? ?????? ?? ??? ???? - ??? ??? ??? ? ?? ????? ????? ??? ?????? ??! ???? ????? - ?? ????? ???? ??? ???? ?? ???? ????? ??? ????? ????? - ?? ??? ??? ???? ????? ?? ??? -- David Wacholder Cell: 917-742-7838 Email: dwacholder at gmail.com dwacholder at optonline.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 18:24:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 12:24:45 +1100 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice Message-ID: Wine in those days was frequently (typically?) flavored with resins or spices, some of which are actually toxic. These resins seem to have had the same effect as hops do in beer: they discourage microbial growth and therefore prevent it from souring and spoiling. This was an important consideration before the invention of Pasteurisation. If R' Yonah was allergic or otherwise sensitive to these resins he may have ascribed his symptoms to the wine itself. Alternatively, perhapshe simply didn't have access to any untreated wine and perhaps he didn't consider raisin "wine" to be chashuv enough. Joe Slater -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 18:27:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 12:27:16 +1100 Subject: [Avodah] Yaknehaz [was: The Quinoa - Kitniyos Conundrum] Message-ID: Another data point: I asked my father O'H about this and he said he'd never heard of anyone using a Havdala candle for YAKNEHAZ, or even joining two flames together. He came from central Hungary, and his rabbi was a great-nephew of Maharam Schick. Joe Slater -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 20:32:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 01 Apr 2015 23:32:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> Message-ID: <551CB836.5040609@sero.name> On 04/01/2015 03:25 PM, Mordechai Harris wrote: > There is a lot of info here: http://seforim.blogspot.com/2012/10/wine-strength-and-dilution.html It is interesting, but I think the author may have made a simple mistake in assuming that when Rashi says their wines were "stronger" than ours, he meant "more alcoholic". That may be what he meant, in which case he was mistaken, but it seems to me that he may have meant "strong tasting", or to put it more bluntly, "sour". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 02:18:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 12:18:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kitniyot Message-ID: see a discussion at http://etzion.org.il/en/pesach-journal by Rav Brosky -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 07:53:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 02 Apr 2015 10:53:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Historic Practice Passover Offering Message-ID: <20150402145402.230A3183730@nexus.stevens.edu> See the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kgbRusmqjs A FILM OF THE PRACTICE PASSOVER OFFERING THE TEMPLE INSTITUTE CONDUCTS UNPRECEDENTED PASSOVER OFFERING PRACTICE DRILL As reported earlier, in preparation for the upcoming festival of Passover, this past Wednesday (5 Nisan - 25 March) the 'Priestly Training Academy' established by the Temple Institute held a Passover offering practice drill. This is a film that documents this event. This was the most accurate and authentic reenactment of this service to have taken place in nearly 2,000 years. ---------- It looks to me that they used machine matzos in this video. If I am correct, then I find this bizarre. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 13:36:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 16:36:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: How many swallows of Matzo are necessary? How many olive tree generations to Calendar Year Tohu and Gan Eden? The following came up last year: FEARLESS RULING FOR PERSON WITH DIFFICULTY EATING: Every average person's swallow is a Kezayit, the amount which fulfils the Mitzvah and is the measure for the Bracha on Achilas Matza. As a Hidur and to erase all doubt, a second normal swallow would be good. That is for Motzi-Matzah, where the first olive-size swallowed fulfils a Torah obligation. Additional for Afikoman one swallow is certainly enough. For a person struggling to eat, try to eat at least a taste. Any more than that is for those who tolerate Matzo well. I look at how much a person can swallow - one swallow. That would measure a Kezayit. 100% the person has fulfilled the Mitzvah after one swallow. For margin of error issues, add another second swallow. For those with difficulty eating, one may then stop. For Afikoman the one swallow is sufficient. This needs no authority to base it on. Chazon Ish gave his asembled family pieces about the size of his palm , as described by qualified dedicated observer in Orchos Rabeinu. Traditions vary. Some quoted Rav Chaim Valozhiner as saying - the size of an olive is an olive is an olive. Another tradition said one must use an egg-size as a base unit. On Atkins Low-Carb Diet, daily consumption was - for starting extreme levels - 30 grams per day - about an ounce. I cut the piece of Challah, which by volume probably was an olive, but the air pockets should have been counted, so the person could say Birkas Hamazon for themselves. Someone else was Motzi the dieter in Birkat Hamazon. Air pockets and weight issue The swallow size may be according the the air pockets normally contained in Matzo, not ground, and according to volume not weight. VOLUME NOT WEIGHT By weight, comparable amount of Chareidim Boro Park 5774 MATZOS weighed perhaps 7 grams compared to perhaps 30 grams of a heavy brand of Hand Matzo. Using volume measures as weight measures creates significant errors. The person had been using 30 grams of WEIGHT as the Standard, not 30 grams of volume. It was a reasonably filled sandwich bag. Also Matzo can absorb moisture from the air making it heavier, can be freshened in the oven, which will make it weigh less. Volume remains the same. Weighing your Matza introduces a major error factor. SHEKEIN NEHENEH According to Rav Elchanan Wasserman, even a non-believer fulfils the Mitzvah, Shekein Neheneh. I have doubts if Kavana Hafucha would even work. I certainly think a person should not have Kavana Hafucha in the sense of - only be Yotzei when Measurement X is reached. NOT THE AMOUNT TO FILL THE CHEEK This is neither cheekful nor yet a mouthful. Observe how your neighbor swallows his food eating calmly. [DW comment - this is a normal comfortable swallow, not a contestant requiring for safety a Hatzala person or Heimlich Maneuver needed to monitor. This is not a Superman-Swallower who attempts to swallow the size of all olives ever eaten, whose face turns red but comes out OK after a KAPITAL TEHILIM. That is Achila Shelo K'darkah, and certainly is not optimum. That eliminates the Double and Exponential/Logarithmic olives from consideration for a single swallow. Never swallow more than a comfortable amount. SUKKOT No custom requires swallowing all at once in the Sukkah. Others require an Egg Plus size. ARUCH HASHULCHAN Aruch Hashulchan functioned as a review of the other Poskim in Orach Chaim. He pointedly does not double the Kezayit. MISHNA BRURAH - to my reading - says the same. Indeed I grant the MB does not totally negate a double-size as having precedent. MY HANDWIDTHS On a flat table, I measured my keyboard's width two different ways. first, using all ten fingers flat on table, it was 4 hands wide. With thumbs in air and only the eight fingers flat on the table, my keyboard was 5.5 hands wide. The thumbs were sideways, so the width added drilled through the wrinkle on the back to the fold on the front. This would be the thumb measured in Halacha. I certainly am not a measurement specialist, so I appreciate all feedback. According to best knowledge, that through-thumb measurement is the one which is supposed to be 25 percent of the other four fingers. CHZON ISH Even the writings of CHzon Ish reflect a defensive stance. As a practical matter, the CI knew in his heart that a Zayis will not change in recorded history. Olive trees of 1000 years old are not uncommon, and one in EY is 2000 years old. They are propogated from plantings identical to the original. As little as three generations of trees in EY could easily reach Calender Year 1. RIDDLE - HOW MANY OLIVES TO EAT A KEZAYIT? RABI YOCHANAN ATE ONE OLIVE- and made bracha acharona. It was the big variety salad olive, or a large specimen of the oil olive. I was convinced by a strong presentation in a conference from several years ago. A Bar Ilan professor compared olives from various species and showed pictures of all the oldest olive trees in EY. The oil olives were in the 4 cc to 7 cc (4-7 grams volume). Salad olives - the kind whose seeds were commonly eaten in Masada - max out at 17 grams. He convincingly argued that double size super-olives would in all likelihood kill the trees. 4 ccs is well below an average swallow. Please double check my numbers, as I am writing from memory. -- David Wacholder From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 18:58:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 21:58:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] naive kitniyos question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150403015816.GA8090@aishdas.org> On Thu, Mar 26, 2015 at 12:34:15PM -0400, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote: : Re kitniyos: isn't the issur one of "cooking" with kitniyos? ... Take 2 at answering this question. My wife found http://ph.yhb.org.il/en/04-09-06 "6. Kitniyot That Never Touched Water and Kitniyot Oils" by R' Eliezer Melamed We are not stricter with kitniyot than we are with the five cereal grains, so whatever is acceptable regarding these grains is kosher for kitniyot, too. Thus, kitniyot that have not come into contact with water, or that have come into contact with water but were not left for more than 18 minutes before being cooked (like matza), may be eaten. Some poskim are stringent in this respect, but most are lenient.[4] ... [4] Most authorities are not stricter about kitniyot than about the cereal grains (SAH 453:5; ??ayei Adam 127:1; Responsa Maharsham 1:183; Be'er Yitzhak sec. 11; Responsa Marheshet sec. 3; and Rav Kook's Orah Mishpat sec. 111). Some, however, are more stringent (Sho'el U-meishiv 1:1:175 and Ma'amar Mordechai sec. 32). Their rationale is that no one would understand these distinctions since kitniyot do not become hametz. Additionally, they were concerned that making the kitniyot exactly like the cereal grains would mislead people to think they could use kitniyot to fulfill the mitzva of matza. As noted, though, most poskim are lenient, and in any dispute about a custom the halakha follows the lenient opinion. The Rishonim also debate whether or not scalding works for kitniyot, since scalding any of the five cereal grains technically eliminates the possibility of its leavening, though the Ge'onim agree that no one knows how to scald the grains properly (SA 454:3). However, according to Or Zaru'a 2:256, since the prohibition of kitniyot is just a custom, scalding the kitniyot is effective and permits them. Mordechai rules stringently, and Rabbeinu Peretz's glosses to Smak sec. 222 notes the lenient opinion but rules stringently. So it seems the pesaq I grew up with is, in REM's estimaton, the minority view. And if my sevara holds: It would mean the machloqes is a machloqes as to whether qitniyos are compared to wheat or to dough. Which again would be reflected in the various theories about what risk it is the minhag is trying to avoid: qitniyos includes things used like grain, which can cause confusion of chameitz with mutar legume products; qitniyos could have real flour on them (as per Rava's admonition to the reish galusa's household), etc... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of micha at aishdas.org greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, http://www.aishdas.org in fact, of our modesty. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Louis Kronenberger, writer (1904-1980) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 09:32:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 16:32:11 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Tan Du Message-ID: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> I think we've discussed R'YBS's famous statement on ontological chazakot on a number of occasions. I was glad to see that I have giant shoulders to stand on (hat tip-Isaac Newton): Tradition - Winter 2014 (Rabbi N. Helfgot) In a famous episode in 1975, the Rav strongly denounced a proposal raised by R. Emanuel Rackman, z"l to reevaluating the validity of the Talmudic dictum "a woman would always be rather married to anyone (even a scoundrel) than be alone" in the modern context. R. Rackman called on religious authorities to reevaluate the reach of this dictum as a way of addressing the scourge of modern day recalcitrant husbands who did not give their estranged spouses a get. The reevaluation of this principle might be an opening to examine the use of halakhic annulment of marriages. The Rav vigorously maintained that this principle, like all hazakot of Hazal, was "an ontological statement" about the nature of women, not subject to changing historical factors or changing social mores. R. Lichtenstein in both private conversation with a number of talmidim over the decades, including this author and in remarks in public shiurim, noted his disagreement with the Rav's assessment of this hazaka (and expressed astonishment at the vehemence of the Rav's opposition at the time) given the clear cut evidence in the Rishonim in Yevamot and other places in Shas which clearly indicated that this hazaka was not one that applied in all contexts and at all times and in all situations. I don't recall that R'YBS said this was true of all chazakot of Chazal but haven't listened to that audio in a long time. CKV"S Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 04:06:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 14:06:33 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] rabbits Message-ID: << But PS can someone remind me what a picture of a rabbit is doing in the : medieval illustrated Hagada? There is a fundamental reason why pictures of people were avoided. >> Yet many of the medieval haggadot had pictures of people and even (wow) women!. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 11:41:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 14:41:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] rabbits In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150403184143.GB11664@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 03, 2015 at 02:06:33PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> There is a fundamental reason why pictures of people were avoided. : : Yet many of the medieval haggadot had pictures of people.. The reason is still there. We don't all agree on halakhah and minhag, why would two people necessarily agree during the medieval period? :-)|,|ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger The true measure of a man micha at aishdas.org is how he treats someone http://www.aishdas.org who can do him absolutely no good. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Samuel Johnson From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 23:57:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 09:57:26 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kitniyot Message-ID: see http://ohr.edu/5390 and http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/5184 by Rabbi Spits He discusses Quinoa In the second article he discusses potatos both for kitniyot and bishul akum As for modern products that didnt exist in the days of the gezera he notes Shu"t Igros Moshe (O.C. vol. 3, 63). Others who accept peanuts for Pesach include the Seridei Aish (Shu"t vol. 2, 37, 2; new print vol. 1, 50 -- through a combination of factors), the Yeshuas Moshe (Shu"t vol. 1, 35; he opines that the Kitniyos prohibition never applied to legumes that are eaten raw, but concludes similar to Rav Moshe, that if one has an existing minhag not to eat peanuts on Pesach he still should not do so), and the Rivevos Efraim (Shu"t vol. 7, 257; only if it came still in its shell). [This logic is based on the Shulchan HaRav's understanding (O.C. 453, 5) that the prohibition of Kitniyos only applies when it gets wet). Other poskim who ruled that way (as how can Kitniyos be more stringent than grain -- which only can become chometz when wet) include the Chayei Adam (vol. 2, 128, 1) and Maharsham (Shu"t vol. 1, 183 and Daas Torah O.C. 453), who cites that Rav Shlomo Kluger (Nidrei Zerizin, 8) held this way as well. Those who were stringent include the Shoel U'Meishiv (Mahadura Kama vol. 1, 175), the Avnei Nezer (O.C. 373 and 533), the Maamar Mordechai (Shu"t 32), and the Sdei Chemed (Maareches Chometz U'Matza 6, 1). This was also one of the points of contention between Rav Kook and the Badatz Chasidim of Yerushalayim regarding the permissibility of sesame oil for Pesach -- see footnote 13]. See also Shu"t Atzei HaLevanon (vol. 1, 18) who also permits peanuts for Pesach; yet based on his description it seems he is referring to a pistachio (as per the Yeshuas Moshe ibid.). [Email #2. Subject: kitniyot - summary] After our discussion of kitniyot and the psak of RMF several personal observations 1) We all agree that psak of RMF is controversial. IMHO it is "half" accepted probably more in the US than in Israel 2) There is a separate machkoket about derivatives of kitniyot and especially oils of kitniyot. While there are relatively few ashkenazim who eat corn on the cob or peanuts there are many who combine the 2 positions and use oild and derivatives from "new: kitniyot. Thus there are many rabbis that allow Canola oil (and certainly cottenseed oil) using RMF and the debate over oils. Similarly it has been common in my community to use lecithin (liftit) in candies etc. My rabbi allows this together with most rabbis in my town based on major dati leumi rabbis. R Elyashiv came out strongly against all of this and so in the charedi community especially in Israel no kitniyot oils or lecithin is allowed and only walnut or olive oil is used. Bottom line in spite of the objections on this list that RMF is "wrong" in many communities his teshuva is accepted when combined with the debate of kitniyot derivatives. chag kasher vesameach. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 03:57:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 13:57:43 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos Message-ID: > But let's not get buried under the reports of RMF and R' Tuvia Goldstein, > and forget that we have conflict in reports about whether RSZA would > allow someone to start eating gebrochts after hataras nedarim. > So, while rumor might say he did, we have a first-hand report from R > Yisrael Herczeg that tells us to ignore the grapevine >> In Halichos Shlomo (p90) it states explicitly that one can change his custom and eat gebrochs after hatart nedarim. However, this should be done only if there is a good reason (tzorach chashuv) for the change. Thus, for a chatan he would allow the hatarat nedarim if keeping bebrochs would cause family difficulties. RSZA paskened that the wife follows the customs of the husband both for kula and chumra(without hatart nedarim). He explicitly states that this is different than one who moves to another location where he does need hatarat nedarim since a woman knows that she will eventually marry and might change her minhag. The husband has the right to relinguish his rights. This is prevalant with regard to the nuscah of davening. A Baal Teshuva should prferably keep the customs of his "original" community where the family belonged. However, if he is now connected to some rabbi or community he can choose to keep their customs instead. He also paskens (for EY) that one can cook kitniyot on the 7th day of Pesach for use on the shabbat right afterwards (ef this year). This is because some sefardi could come over for a visit and so the kitniyot are not mukza . The same applies to gebrochs even though it is the 7th day of Pesach. RSZA himself ate gebrochs though he would not eat anything that fell on the floor. He did not use potato starch or anything that rsembled a chametz cake On a different topic he allowed drinking regular water eg from the kinneret since one can't taste at all the taste of any possible chametz, [Email #2] >> So, while rumor might say he did, we have a first-hand report from R >> Yisrael Herczeg that tells us to ignore the grapevine. > Perhaps he changed his mind! It has happened before. In this case he didnt change his mind. He said that it depended on the circumstances. In theory one could do hatarat nedarim and eat Gebrochs but he advocated not using this heter unless there was a good reason to change the custom. Obviously for Yisrael Herczeg he didn't feel there was sufficient justification. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 04:15:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 14:15:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: > 1- Is "kezayis" a constant volume, or is it pinned to the average olive, > or perhaps the average among some subset of breeds of olive as breeding, > care and climate change? archaeology shows that the olive has not changed dramatically over the millenia > 2- If kezayis is a constant volume, do all the accepted overestimates > performed and accumulated one atop the other unwind when we have more > information about chazal's zeisim? Not all communities accepted these various shitot. I can understand some overestimates for being conservative but factors of 5-10 larger seem overdone. This is especially true if one stuffs the matza into ones mouth and swallows together which becomes "achila gasa". In general the problem with the huge shiurim is that it is very difficult for many people. > average. Which is the reason to be on the conservative side and use the largest size olives which is still on the order of 17cc and not 50cc. [Email #2] > Or do we say that the bottom of the > range of measurments that dominate common pratice in one's qehillah is > binding as pesaq, and one can't just ignore the now huge safety margin? Reminds of a story I read on the recent 20th yahrzeit of RSZA. RSZA came up with 2 chumrot for the seder both related to the length of maggid being a problem for kiddush bemkom seudah and the bracha over the wine. His mechutan R Elyashiv accepted the chumrot and rushed his maggid while RSZA didnt accept his own chumrot in practice on the grounds that this was not the minhag of Israel over the generations. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 15:16:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 22:16:11 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Historic Practice Passover Offering Message-ID: <20150403.181611.8008.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitzchok Levine posted: > See the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kgbRusmqjs > ... > As reported earlier, in preparation for the upcoming festival of > Passover, this past Wednesday (5 Nisan - 25 March) the 'Priestly > Training Academy' established by the Temple Institute held a > Passover offering practice drill. This is a film that documents > this event. This was the most accurate and authentic reenactment > of this service to have taken place in nearly 2,000 years. Two things in particular surprised me in this video: 1) The lambs were so small! Children carried them in! 2) At the very end, it shows and mentions that the korban pesach "is roasted whole and in a special oven." Special oven? What was special about it, and why an oven at all? I would think that the oven would (at least partially) bake it, whereas it was supposed to be roasted by the fire, and only by fire. I recall halachos of it being held by a pomegranate branch to avoid heat conduction by metal, and rotated like a rotisserie to avoid it being cooked even by its own juices. What's this oven about? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/551f117e86f4b117e0fdfst03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 12:22:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2015 15:22:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <551EE85D.1030908@sero.name> On 04/03/2015 06:57 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > He also paskens (for EY) that one can cook kitniyot on the 7th day of > Pesach for use on the shabbat right afterwards (ef this year). Yes, I'm surprised that anyone disagrees. It seems so obviously correct. I know that many people don't do so, and believe it to be forbidden, but I have never yet heard an argument for why it should be so. > This is because some sefardi could come over for a visit and so the kitniyot > are not mukza . The main issue would surely not be muktzeh, but cooking on yomtov. But the answer is the same: the hypothetical horde of hungry guests who might descend on one ten minutes before sunset on Friday, and for whom one is, in principle, cooking, might very well be sefardim. > The same applies to gebrochs even though it is the 7th day of > Pesach. Gebrochts, of course, applies in Chu"l as well (since almost everyone who doesn't eat it on the first 7 days does eat it on the last day). And lich'ora the above heter is not applicable. Kitniyos are gebrochts are not similar. Ashkenazim don't avoid kitniyos because of a concern that it might be chametz; they readily agree that there is no such concern, and that for Sefardim it is heter gamur. Thus there is no reason at all why an ashkenazi should not cook kitniyos for a sefardi, any more than there is a reason why a zar who is tahor should not cook terumah for a kohen. But those who avoid gebrochts do so because of an (admittedly remote) concern that it might be chametz. If so, then they should be equally concerned not to give it to someone else, even one who isn't worried about it, and thus shouldn't be able to claim on Friday that they are cooking for hypothetical guests who eat it. Lepoel this question comes up every time there is such a kevius, and there doesn't seem to be one psak about it. Perhaps it comes down to the different reasons people give for why it's OK on the last day. If one holds that the reason is "shelo lehotzi la'az" on those who eat gebrochts all Pesach, then it makes sense that on the first 7 days one should also not be "motzi la'az", and thus should be willing to cook gebrochts for those who eat it. Thus on Friday the 7th one can claim to be cooking for such guests. But if one holds that the reason for not eating gebrochts for 7 days and then eating it on the 8th is as a symbolic gesture towards the kabbalistic idea that on the 8th day one ought to eat chametz, so for 7 days we treat gebrochts *as if* it were chametz, and then eat it on the 8th day, then it would seem to follow that on the 7th day one may not cook it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 14:17:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 21:17:19 GMT Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: <20150403.171719.13613.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' David Wacholder posted: > Every average person's swallow is a Kezayit, the amount which > fulfils the Mitzvah and is the measure for the Bracha on Achilas > Matza. As a Hidur and to erase all doubt, a second normal swallow > would be good. That is for Motzi-Matzah, where the first olive- > size swallowed fulfils a Torah obligation. > ... > This needs no authority to base it on. ... WHY would it need no authority to base it on? If this were the halacha, wouldn't someone have mentioned it? Why did so many authorities struggle with the math and the biology and the physics if such a simple solution were at hand? > Air pockets and weight issue > > The swallow size may be according the the air pockets normally > contained in Matzo, not ground, and according to volume not weight. If a kezayis is a swallowfull, aren't the air pockets gone? Haven't they been lost in the chewing? I concede that by the time the chewed matza gets to the throat, much of the missing air has been replaced by saliva. Or perhaps the saliva even *more* than accounts for the missing air. I am not knowledgeable enough about this to venture a guess on the comparison of the volume of the matza before chewing vis a vis at swallowing. In any case, I've always been bothered by the problem of counting the air bubbles. Mishneh Berurah 208:48 says that when eating cookies, l'chatchilah, one must insure that he ate a kezayis of flour, WITHOUT counting the sugar, in order to say Al Hamichya. MB concedes that the minhag is to count all the ingrdients, but the Igros Moshe 1:71 says not to rely on that minhag. So here's my question: If they would prefer us NOT to count the other ingredients, which have substance, isn't it a simple kal vachomer not to count AIR, she'ayn bo mamash? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/551f039acb72539a4c49st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 13:08:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2015 16:08:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Special Pesach Edition -- Instantaneous Redemption Message-ID: <20150403200810.6EC28181C84@nexus.stevens.edu> [] Instantaneous Redemption HaShem took us out of Mitzrayim at the last minute before we slipped to the fiftieth level of impurity. Had we fallen to that level, we would have been irredeemable. In one moment, we went from darkness to light, from death to life, from slavery to freedom, from anguish to joy, and from impurity to holiness. Lesson: Just as that moment brought instantaneous redemption, so too, every moment of life has the potential to take us from darkness to light, from death to life, from slavery to freedom, from anguish to joy, and from impurity to holiness. App: May we all be encouraged by the miracles of Pesach, that HaShem again will instantaneously redeem us, and take us from darkness to light, from death to life, from slavery to freedom, from anguish to joy, and from impurity to holiness! (Based on Ohr Yahol, Rav Yehoshuah Leib Chousman) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 18:59:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2015 21:59:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geirut Message-ID: <20150406015903.GA15874@aishdas.org> (Ccing most of the participants in our 2008 and 2010 conversations.) You might be interested in On Conversion to Judaism, by Rabbi Dr. Chaim E. Schertz THE YU LAMDAN: The Wilf Campus Torah Journal http://yulamdan.com/2015/03/29/on-conversion-to-judaism-by-rabbi-dr-chaim-e-schertz or http://j.mp/1CIV5GN It starts slow, but R/Dr Schertz has a lot to say about Qabbalas Ol Mitzvos (QOM, or KOM if you prefer) and its role in geirus. Aside from other ideas that my be of interest, but it was QOM that has us going. :-)|,|ii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 22:22:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 01:22:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house Message-ID: <552217FE.4020103@sero.name> Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in EY after kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times. Does this mean that at a shiva house Sholom Rov is said even in shacharis (in EY on a non-Mon/Thu)? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 22:28:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 01:28:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" Message-ID: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the holy serafim's conclave. Nusach Ashkenaz, in the introduction to the kedusha of musaf, has a similar phrase: "kesod siach sarfei kodesh". But what does this mean? Every translation I have seen has rendered it as if it said "kesiach sod sarfei kodesh", but that's not what it says! Does anyone know, if "kesod siach" really means "kesiach sod", why they are reversed? Or, if that's not what it really means, can anyone explain what it does mean? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 22:32:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 01:32:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Moroccan nigunim Message-ID: <55221A63.3010303@sero.name> Do we have any experts here on the history of the Moroccan nigunei hatefilah? If so, can someone please explain when/how the Ashkenazi tune for Maoz Tzur got into the Moroccan liturgy as a tune for Mah Ashiv Lashem? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 03:38:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 13:38:02 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] free will Message-ID: We have discussed many times the opinion of Rav Dessler that a person doesn't always have free will. I recently saw a halachic discussion that may have some connection. On ketubot 51 the gemara discusses a case of a married woman who was raped but at the end was willing (techila be-ones ve-sofa be-ratzon). Shmuel's father forbids her to her husband while Rava allows her. One possibility of explaining Rava is that she is overwhelmed by her "yetzer" and so is still considered "anus" This is explicit in the words of R Zadok (tzidkat zaddik 43) that her desire is so great that it is impossible to overcome it and so she is considered anus gamur and so there is no punishment. Targum Yonatan (Devarim 22:26) holds that she is not punished by death but her husband must divorce her. Maharshal (yevamot 6:3) paskens that she is permitted to her husband only if she is "karka olam" However the Noda Beyehuda disagrees (tenina EH 150) and says she is always permitted to her husband because she is overwhelmed by her yetzer and so is not considered that she did it with her free will. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 05:13:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 12:13:44 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house Message-ID: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero asked: > Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in > EY after kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times. Does this > mean that at a shiva house Sholom Rov is said even in shacharis > (in EY on a non-Mon/Thu)? No, but I don't know why. I never thought of that question before, but here is a possibly-related question that I've wondered for years: If Shir Hamaalos is said whenever we skip Tachanun, should it always be said at the shiva house? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:25:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:25:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house In-Reply-To: <552217FE.4020103@sero.name> References: <552217FE.4020103@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150406182521.GC20912@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:22:06AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in EY after : kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times... This rule isn't 100%. Otherwise Sim Shalom would never be said when davening beyechidus. I think it's more lke Ashk uses Sim Shalom in tefillos where Birkhas Kohanim could be said, if we had opportunity. :-)||ii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:28:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:28:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:28:24AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam : siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the : holy serafim's conclave... Sod means conclave? I thought it was referring to the ofanim and chayos haqodesh who learn the secret of the siach of the sarfei qodesh, thereby are misna'asim le'umas serafim... :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 2nd day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Chesed: What is constricted Fax: (270) 514-1507 Chesed? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:37:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:37:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house In-Reply-To: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150406183751.GE20912@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 12:13:44PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I never thought of that question before, but here is a possibly-related : question that I've wondered for years: If Shir Hamaalos is said whenever : we skip Tachanun, should it always be said at the shiva house? We skip tachanun on shabbos and YT (or the week of 7 berakhos, the day of a beris...) because of the joy of the day being inconsistent with its mournful tenor. Shir haMaalos goes hand-in-hand with the joy of the day; if it's joyous enough to warrant looking toward the geulah rather than lamenting the churban with Al Naharos Bavel, then it's joyous enough for Tachanun not to fit either. But the key is joy, which has nothing to do with a beis avel. We skip tachanun in an aveil's home for the opposite kind of reason -- either because 1- we don't want to add to the aveilim's grief by harping on midas hadin, or 2- it is inappropriate to ask for mitigation of middas hadin in a home where din is being fully felt. :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 2nd day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Chesed: What is constricted Fax: (270) 514-1507 Chesed? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:42:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:42:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tan Du In-Reply-To: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> References: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20150406184227.GF20912@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 03, 2015 at 04:32:11PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Tradition - Winter 2014 (Rabbi N. Helfgot) ... : R. Lichtenstein in both private conversation with a number of talmidim : over the decades, including this author and in remarks in public shiurim, : noted his disagreement with the Rav's assessment of this hazaka (and : expressed astonishment at the vehemence of the Rav's opposition at the : time) given the clear cut evidence in the Rishonim in Yevamot and other : places in Shas which clearly indicated that this hazaka was not one that : applied in all contexts and at all times and in all situations. The way I heard RAL (recorded) was more that the large amount of material in Yevamos, much of the rest of seder Nashim, and the rishonim ad loc that such a proposal would make moot was itself RYBS's primary argument against R' Rackman's proposal. And that RAL understood the statement about tav lemeisiv and its ontological nature as a separate secondary argument RYBS made along the way. :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 2nd day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Chesed: What is constricted Fax: (270) 514-1507 Chesed? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:38:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 14:38:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5522D292.4070305@sero.name> On 04/06/2015 02:28 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:28:24AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam > : siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the > : holy serafim's conclave... > > Sod means conclave? Yes, as in "besodam al tavo nafshi". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:59:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 21:59:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 6, 2015 at 9:28 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:28:24AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam > : siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the > : holy serafim's conclave... > > Sod means conclave? > Yes, as in "besodam al tavo nafshi" in birkat Yaakov (Bereshit 49:6), where it's parallel to "kehalam", or more directly connected to kedusha Ps 89:8 "sod kedoshim". I couldn't say whether "conclave" is the original sense and "secret" a derived meaning, or vice versa -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:30:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 14:30:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house In-Reply-To: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5522D0BC.2010004@sero.name> On 04/06/2015 08:13 AM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > R' Zev Sero asked: > >> Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in >> EY after kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times. Does this >> mean that at a shiva house Sholom Rov is said even in shacharis >> (in EY on a non-Mon/Thu)? > No, but I don't know why. > > I never thought of that question before, but here is a > possibly-related question that I've wondered for years: If Shir > Hamaalos is said whenever we skip Tachanun, should it always be said > at the shiva house? The same question would apply in the afternoon of Erev Tish`a B'av. But the two questions can easily be distinguished. The substitution of Shir Hamaalos for Al Naharos Bavel is not caused by the lack of tachanun; rather both are caused by the same thing: the element of simcha on that day that makes mourning inappropriate. But the omission of tachanun at a shiva house is not because of simcha, but because we don't want to invoke divine judgment in a situation which is already fraught; thus Al Naharos Bavel is not inappropriate. And of course on Erev Tish`a B'av what could be more appropriate than Al Naharos Bavel? Sim Shalom, however, seems (in nusach Ahskenaz) to be directly linked to the conclusion of birchas kohanim, "veyasem lecha shalom". Thus it shouldn't matter why birchas kohanim is not being said; the mere fact that it's not said should be enough to cause the omission of sim shalom, and the substitution of shalom rav. Proof that this distinction is valid comes from the case of Tehilim #49, which is said at a shiva house on days when tachanun is said; on days when tachanun is omitted, #16 is substituted. But of course in a shiva house *every* day is a day when tachanun is omitted, so when does one say #49? The obvious answer is that on normal days omission of tachanun is related to the place, not to the day, and thus #49 is said; when the day has an element of simcha that makes #49 inappropriate, we substitute #16. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 16:23:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 19:23:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] partnership - adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties Message-ID: <001b01d070c0$b326a370$1973ea50$@com> Here is a step towards making my approach to the Relationship of Yisrael with Hashem more understandable. As always it is the feedback and exchange of ideas which contains so much creative force. AVOS WERE PARTNERS, THEIR DESCENDANTS WERE IN LIMBO RACHAMIM WAS DETERMINED INCLUSIVITY - ALL ARE INCLUDED INCLUDED INTO THE COVENANT - UNILATERAL COVENANT OF HASHEM WITH HIMSELF 2. G-d related to the Avos - Avraham Yitzchak Yaakov - as partners, whose faithful service he knew and trusted. The durability was unusual, but the basic partnership never was under question, as with partners who get along. 3. 4. Almost all could ask - we are individuals in a mass of Egyptian slaves, we have lost direct contact!! We cannot compare ourselves to a 70 member Covenant, which included Yaakov Avinu one of the Avos, who actually made every move based on direct prophecy. Even the 12 Shvatim had almost direct access to HASHEM himself. 5. The Crisis of Galus Mitzrayim - assuming all had learnt every Passuk in Breishis - was of uncertainty. - Yes Pakod Yifkod - but who am I? Will my generation merit to see what even the most elderly never saw with their eyes? Even were Moshe Rabeinu assured of membership in the Elite, he retained that uncertainty. On Pshat level, five minutes prior to the moment of noticing the Burning Bush, could ask that question. That vision began transforming Moshe Rabeinu into the instrument of G-d, the Goeil. The man who turned to check - was already entering Geula mode. 6. Machzor Vitri page 148 has a key piece called Pithron Nishmas Kol Chai. According to Psachim, the Nishmas Prayer should contain within it the essence of the message of Seder Night. Towards the end of Yishtabach - there treated as just the ending of Nishmas - RAABAN adds that the 15 praises parallel the 15 Dayeinus. 7. The piece de resistance - Chai Haolamim is explained Haya hoveh yihyeh, Ani Hashem lo Shanisi (from Malachi Haftara of Shabbos Hagadol). 8. Rashi here is one theme - as I would see it. Chai means involved with caring for his children right now - as fits in Chai Anochi leOlam Im shanosi brak charbi or a Shvuah. 9. Haolamim means until the end of time, as in a parent telling the child not to worry, the Parent is always here. 10. The piece on page 148 adds an extra word to Nishmas, to make a point sharper. V' Y H V H Shmo Eir Hineh lo yanum vlo yiyshan. The word Shmo - appears only in this one obscure manuscript, seemingly a Rashi arrow. 11. Here Rashi uses full expression - Hashem appeared to Avraham with the name E I L S H a D a Y but not the Name Y H V H. Avos were established Partners and employees. Now Hashem is showing his determination and leadership - new World Order - all eligible Jews will be included in the Geulah, no exceptions. 12. Hashem is taking on the eternal duty of guarding them, with no limits and no clause for rejection. Yes Hashem admits no such precedent existed. Only Hashem can overturn His Rules. 13. Bnei Yisrael are Unilaterally Covenanted to be Hashem's Bni Bchori. Just like He had focused since the word Breishis, bishvil Torh Shenikra Reishis, now all He wants is that His People be His only. Bni Bchori Yisrael! First Day Chol Hamoeid Pesach - we read these key Psukim. Tephillin wearers understand that Kadesh li kol bchor means singular devotion. 14. In our world, it would be a person seeking a marriage partner, then signing Adoption Papers. The parent chose - volitionally and with focus - to adopt this child. PARENTAL RIGHTS - FAMILY IDENTITY 15.It is a brand new family identity, which cannot be abrogated. Yes - there can be strains. But there cannot be a dissolution. It is stronger than marriage! 16. Rashbam says - He the King says about Himself Ehkeh, I will be. Yisrael as his subjects use the Third Person He Will Be. 17. It is not about Maaseh Breishis in Rashi. It refers to the instant covenant - My determination to Adopt You is irrevocable. 18. Ehkeh - becomes the Name He Calls Himself - totally devoted to watching over my Ben Bchor. Yihyeh is the Ben Bchor's confidence that He is watching me us. 19. The moment the Ben Bchor first uses the He will Care for Me - Hashem makes Ehkeh obsolete. The family has begun. 20. This is Rashi Rashbam. CONFIRMATION The Tzarfas Tosafos included Rabeinu Yosef Bchor Shor. He accepts Rashbam completely, except that HVYH is the holiest Name, not Ehkeh. The structure remains the same. 21. Hashem's Choice in Mitzraim was a Bnos TzlOphchad choice - choose which cousin and which time to marry. It is totally volitional and conscious. He chose adoption of all. Bachar Banu. 22. It means at a specific date signing Adoption Papers for 3,000,000 individuals. 23. Rashi says it means the special Adoption - family identity. That Adoption of all Bnei Yisrael had a specific moment, the Sneh. Those Name issues had meaning for Rashi and Rashbam. 24. Within the short timespan, all the Bnei Yisrael are Hashem's chosen children. Rishon in Emmes Vyatziv means since Ytzias Mitzrayim. Maaseh Breishis is not Primary to Rashi only secondary. 25. It is Family Commitment and Identity. Practical example, a secure Child can look his father in the eye. A secure Jew is able to have Hashem look him/her in the eye without flinching. I know this is my Father. 26. As the Midrash puts it - Yam Suf - I already met him when I was born and raised six months with no human being in sight. I know Him! 27. Ha'tishkach Isha ulahh - even a mother's love for her child cannot equal hashem's love. Hashem's Power is ever greater, but even His Love is stronger. 28. Woman says - Pesach is my adoption as Hashem's own Child - no Chametz ever! There is no bending on identity. This works on the visceral level. 29. Rashi in MV 148 does call it Rachamim - as in Rachamei Av al Banim. It is the strength of Inclusion in the Covenant. It is in its deepest essence - a Unilateral Covenant. Ehkeh Asher Ehkeh - just like in this oppression - in any other oppression. That is the Adoptive Parent's approach. Lo yanum vlo yiyshan shomeir Yisrael. 30. Rashi's approach is extremely strong. Rachamim is only possible as part of a relationship. Rashi makes the relationship primary and volitional. The secondary application of which rewards or concessions will be granted, secondary Rachamim, is put onto a solid base. Only chanun is left as a "nebbish" Midah - even from a cruel tyrant chein is possible. 31. Let adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties 32. 33. In describing why person would fast all Passover over and above Jewish Law Practice, you used the words "emotional attachment". In the seven years since that wording , perhaps the message is deeper. 34. This woman was looking at the strength of the Covenant - which is Identity. The bylaws are only secondary. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: AJS review of Rossi.PDF Type: application/pdf Size: 255404 bytes Desc: not available URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 8 05:37:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2015 08:37:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150408123715.GC8438@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 09:59:14PM +0300, Simon Montagu via Avodah wrote: : > Sod means conclave? : : Yes, as in "besodam al tavo nafshi" in birkat Yaakov (Bereshit 49:6), where : it's parallel to "kehalam", or more directly connected to kedusha Ps 89:8 : "sod kedoshim". To clarify: "Sod" *here* means conclave? I suggested an alternative, which I think fits the sentence better, as it makes "sod siach" a phrase, rather than trying to explain the interruption of "siach" in "sod ... sarfei". : I couldn't say whether "conclave" is the original sense and "secret" a : derived meaning, or vice versa Very different implications hashkafically, whether yesod would then be related to secrets (as foundations are in the ground) or a gathering of people (people as founders?). :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 4th day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Chesed: When is Chesed an Fax: (270) 514-1507 imposition on others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 04:58:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 14:58:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: Just saw a halacha that to me was a chiddush That one cannot (or should not) be yotzeh someone else for tefiilat haderech but everyone should say for them self. Those agreeing (at least lechatchila) include R Aviner R Nebenzahl R C Kanevsky R Tuvia Goldstein (who said he convinced RMF) R Belsky Not what I have seen in practice. Anyone know any opinion that does allow it -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 08:55:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 15:55:59 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: <20150412.115559.22172.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel asked: > Just saw a halacha that to me was a chiddush > That one cannot (or should not) be yotzeh someone else for > tefiilat haderech but everyone should say for them self. > Those agreeing (at least lechatchila) include > R Aviner > R Nebenzahl > R C Kanevsky > R Tuvia Goldstein (who said he convinced RMF) > R Belsky > Not what I have seen in practice. > Anyone know any opinion that does allow it Chidush to me too. I don't where to begin my comments. There's a GIGANTIC difference between "cannot" and "should not". "agreeing (at least lechatchila)" also allows a too-wide variety. And without some sort of reasoning, how can we throw out what we already know? Is there something special about Tefilas Haderech, or is this merely an example of how we have so little kavana nowadays that being motzi others is just too risky? I'm sure there are other sources I could quote, but for now, I will simply quote from "Halachically Speaking", vol 1, pg 75, by Rabbi Moishe Dovid Lebovits, published by Israel Bookshop. > One person can say the tefillah for everyone, as long as he has > everyone in mind and the others concentrate on the words.(20) > Horav Yisroel Belsky shlita maintains that every individual > should try to say tefillas haderech if he can.(21) If this is > not possible, one person can say it for everyone.(22) > 20) Kinyan Torah 2:119, Bais Avi 5:55, Opinion of Horav > Elyashiv shlita quoted in Darchei Ori page 279:2, > U'velechticha Baderech 2:footnote 26 quoting the opinion of > Horav Chaim Kanievesky shlita, see Darchei Ori page 259:1. It > is questionable whether someone who has already said tefilalas > haderech can repeat it for someone else. (Halichos Shlomo > Tefilah 21:5:footnote 9). > > 21) See Emes L'Yaakov page 65. > > 22) See Eishel Avraham Butchtach, Rivevos Ephraim 6:32:2, > Halichos Shlomo Tefilah page 245:5, Divrei Chachamim page > 76:192. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 06:33:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 09:33:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: <10b001d074db$3ad805c0$b0881140$@gmail.com> References: <20150407125218.216501835E4@nexus.stevens.edu> <10b001d074db$3ad805c0$b0881140$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150412133337.B25AB182ACC@nexus.stevens.edu> I am moving this to Avodah. YL At 12:43 AM 4/12/2015, R. Moshe Yehuda Gluck wrote: >R' YL: >Another person wrote to me > >"Chazal say that one is not allowed to daven outside (probably because of >kavana); >-------------------- >Does anyone have a mareh makom for this? > >KT, >MYG From http://www.dinonline.org/2012/07/11/davening-outdoors/ Is it problematic to daven outdoors? Thanks. Answer: One should not daven in an open area outdoors, and should daven in a closed building, or a sheltered area. Sources: The Gemara (Berachos 34b) writes that it is wrong (arrogant ? chatzuf) to daven in an open field. Rashi explains that in an open field, one doesn?t feel fear of the King, and one doesn?t pray with a broken heart. Tosafos, however, understands that the concern is for passers-by, who are liable to disturb a person?s davening. The Magen Avraham (90:6) rules that the problem is that davening outside makes a haughty statement: ?Even though there are passers-by, they will not disturb my intent in davening!? This is arrogant and wrong. The Shulchan Aruch (90:5) rules that one should not daven in an open place, and the Mishnah Berurah (11) adds that those who are always travelling should can daven in an open place, but should try to daven by a tree. Therefore, although it is not forbidden to daven outdoors, it is wrong to daven in an open area, and one should seek a sheltered place. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 09:54:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 19:54:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] reviit Message-ID: In the sefer of Rav Aviner he brings many examples of gedolim who used a kiddush cup the size of the shiur of R Chaim Naeh (86 CC) and not CI. He says he heard from RSZA that when RCN published his sefer on shiurim the rabbis of Yerushalayim were astounded at his chumra !! 1) cup if Chafetz Chaim (from his grandson R Hillel Zaks) 2) cup of GRA (baal eyanim le-mishpat who got it as an inheritance) 3) cup someone got from Ohr Sameach (mesoros she-avdu) 4) Rebbe of Gur - Pnei Menachem stated about the cup of his father Baal Imre Ha-emes 5) cup of R Salanter (Shut Teshuvot Vehanhagot) 6) Rav Dessler used a small cup that belonged to his wife's family. After she passed away he used a larger cup 7) cup of the father of the CI 8) Brother of CI used a cup he got from his father-in-law (Cheshek Shlomo of Vilna) and also had shiur RCN 9) R Elyashiv used a cup the size of CI but explained that he did so in honor of CI not because that is the halacha 10) In the sefer Meged Givat Olam second volume p34) someone showed RMF a cup holding about 88cc and RMF remarked that it was kosher lechatchila (not not the shiur published in his name) 11) In Divrei Yoel the Satmar rebbe is quoted as saying the shiur of reviit is 75 gram (!?) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 12:01:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 15:01:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] reviit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <552AC11F.8060605@sero.name> On 04/12/2015 12:54 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > 11) In Divrei Yoel the Satmar rebbe is quoted as saying the shiur of reviit is 75 gram (!?) > RACN assumed that the Rambam's dirham was the same as the Ottoman dirham used in his day, which was 3.1 g. But there's significant evidence that the Egyptian dirham of the Rambam's day was slightly smaller, about 2.8 g, which gives a revi'it of about 75 ml. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 12:15:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 15:15:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150413191514.GA19165@aishdas.org> R' Ari Kahn posted a transcript of that famous talk that people remember for RYBS's statement about tav lemeisiv. http://arikahn.blogspot.co.il/2013/03/rabbi-soloveitchik-talmud-torah-and.html As a teaser, here is all RYBS said on tev lemeis tan du: Let me add something that is very important: not only the halachos but also the chazakos [19] which chachmei chazal have introduced are indestructible. We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above. Let us take for example the chazaka that I was told about: the chazaka tav l'meisiv tan du mil'meisiv armalo [20] has absolutely nothing to do with the social and political status of women in antiquity. This chazaka is based not upon sociological factors, but upon a verse in breishis -- harba arbeh itz'voneich v'heironeich b'etzev teildi vanim v'el isheich t'shukaseich v'hu yimshal bach -- "I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy travail; in pain thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee" [21]. It is a metaphysical curse rooted in the feminine personality -- she suffers incomparably more that the male who is in solitude. Solitude to the male is not as terrible an experience, as horrifying an experience, as is solitude to the woman. And this will never change, mayid shamayim vaaretz [22]. This is not a psychological fact; it is an existential fact, which is due not to the inferior status of the woman, but rather to the difference, the basic distinction, between the female personality and the male personality. Loneliness frightens the woman, and an old spinster's life is much more miserable and tragic than the life of an old bachelor. This was true in antiquity; it is still true, and it will be true a thousand years from now. So, to say that tan du mil'meisiv armalo was or is due to the inferior political or social status of the woman is simply misinterpreting the chazaka tan du mil'meisiv armalo. No legislation can alleviate the pain of the single woman, and no legislation can change this role. She was burdened by the Almighty, after she violated the first [law]. Let me ask you a question -- ribono shel olam, G-d Almighty, if you should start modifying and reassessing the chazakos upon which a multitude of halachos rest, you will destroy yehadus. So instead of philosophizing, let us rather light a match and set fire to the beis yisrael, and get rid of our problems. What I think is more typical of the general thesis of this portion of his talk was the immediately prior statement: V'chen hakofer b'perusha v'hu torah she b'al peh v'hamach'chish magideha; he who denies the perfection and the truthfulness of chachmei chazal -- not of the Torah, but of the chachmei chazal as personalities, as real persona as far as their character, their philosophy, or their outlook on the world is concerned -- is a kofer. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 9th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 most appropriate? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 12:27:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 19:27:43 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150413191514.GA19165@aishdas.org> References: <20150413191514.GA19165@aishdas.org> Message-ID: What I think is more typical of the general thesis of this portion of his talk was the immediately prior statement: V'chen hakofer b'perusha v'hu torah she b'al peh v'hamach'chish magideha; he who denies the perfection and the truthfulness of chachmei chazal -- not of the Torah, but of the chachmei chazal as personalities, as real persona as far as their character, their philosophy, or their outlook on the world is concerned -- is a kofer. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The whole piece is worth hearing (even more than reading) - it seems to me that the debate echoes here: https://kavvanah.wordpress.com/2015/04/12/rabbi-ysoscher-katz-and-rabbi-ozer-glickman-rounds-one-and-two/ I do wonder whether one can avoid self awareness with a modern education. Another challenge is how to deal with recent "Chachmei Hamesorah" who don't seem to meet the perfection definition. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 13:56:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 13:56:37 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] support obligations Message-ID: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/193853#.VSwsUo6ZPAG interesting question . while in theory the ketuba and consequently the terms of marriage , mandate the husband support a wife , in practice that is not true in the kollel years [which in israel could last a prolonged time ]. here , a kollel man divorcing claims no income , and that the wife should support the children by getting a job . apart from secular courts, is there a positive chiyuv for a husband to leave 'torato umnato' to support his children ? does a get terminate his financial obligations halachically? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 14:23:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 17:23:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Philosophy and practice of shmita In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150413212344.GA3301@aishdas.org> On Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 10:09:02PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : What is the earliest source that ties shmita to the farmers using the : time to learn Torah?... I don't know about first, but the Seforno (Vayiqra 25:4, d"h "shabbos Lashem") writes: So that also those who work the earth, when they rest for this year, yis'oreru lidrosh es H' be'ofen mah. This is then quoted verbatum by R' Yaaqov Tzevi Mecklengburg (HaKesav behaQabbalah, early or mid-19th cent), who sites both the Sefornu and and "Raba"ch" -- who is eluding me. I didn't see it in Rabbeinu Bechayei, nor the Chizquni. Nor am I sure that "liderosh es H'" means learning. More recent is the Ari (as recorded by R' Shemu'el Vital, Shaar haPesuqim) based on the Zohar (vol II 20b). Haro'eh baShoshanim -- "Shoshanim" refers to the 6 shins in "usefarta lekha SHeva SHabasos SHanim, SHeva SHanim SHeva pe'amim". And from there haro'eh bashoshanim becomes: the one who dedicates the 7th year to learning finds G-d in all the 6 years of labor as well. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 9th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 most appropriate? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 14:28:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 17:28:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos In-Reply-To: <20150401084748.2445618205D@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150401084748.2445618205D@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150413212857.GB3301@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 01, 2015 at 04:47:45AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Does not the SA say that a person who has trouble chewing matzah can : soak it in water and then eat it? If so, then I fail to see why : eating gebrokts should be a problem for anyone. : The SA lived in the wrong qehillah for the minhag to be relevant. He would allow you to eat qitniyos too. And if we accept the SA haRav's explanation of gebrochts over the MB's, the Rama lived before we counted kneading time toward the 18 min, and gebrochts wasn't necessary yet. And since according to the SAhR's teshuvah, the minhag caught on after the Besh"t, meaning during the lifetime of its author and his readers, I am inclined to believe his version of the timing over someone who is reconstructing older history. : Also, were not the matzos that were used in the time of the SA : thicker than ours? Again, MB vs the SAhR as to whether that's at issue. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 9th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 most appropriate? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 14:33:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 17:33:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] support obligations In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150413213345.GC3301@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 01:56:37PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : apart from secular courts, is there a positive chiyuv for a husband to : leave 'torato umnato' to support his children ? does a get terminate his : financial obligations halachically? Assuming she didn't agree to the arrangement. Ortherwise, the wife willingly waved her claim to his income, and took on the obligation of self- and child-support. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 20:54:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 03:54:11 GMT Subject: [Avodah] support obligations Message-ID: <20150413.235411.14734.1@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Assuming she didn't agree to the arrangement. Ortherwise, the wife > willingly waved her claim to his income, and took on the obligation > of self- and child-support. I would argue that she accepted the financial responsibilities only in exchange for the s'char she gets from enabling her husband to learn Torah, and that once he ceases to be her husband, that arrangement ends, and the whole thing reverts to the usual. Phrased differently, once he stops giving her the s'char of sharing in his learning, he has to give her a more practical olam-hazeh sort of support. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552c8fb420d2bfb30fdest04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 20:45:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 03:45:47 GMT Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> [RAK gives credit to others in fn. 1. It is not his transcript. -micha] R' Micha Berger posted R' Ari Kahn's transcript of Rav YB Soloveitchik: > ... This is not a psychological > fact; it is an existential fact, which is due not to the inferior > status of the woman, but rather to the difference, the basic > distinction, between the female personality and the male personality. > Loneliness frightens the woman, and an old spinster's life is much > more miserable and tragic than the life of an old bachelor. This was > true in antiquity; it is still true, and it will be true a thousand > years from now. So, to say that tan du mil'meisiv armalo was or > is due to the inferior political or social status of the woman > is simply misinterpreting the chazaka tan du mil'meisiv armalo. ... From what I understand, the objection to hafkaas kiddushin comes from a presumption that a woman would prefer to stay with her husband, even if he seems to be a terrible person, and even if she tells us that in *her* opinion he is a terrible person -- and we have this presumption because of the chazaka of tan du. But I do not see Rav Soloveitchik making that case here. All he is saying is that "an old spinster's life is much more miserable and tragic than the life of an old bachelor." He does say that this relative perspective on singlehood is a "permanent ontological principle[s] rooted in the very depth of the human personality," and that it will never change, and that this information is Revealed in the words of Bereishis. But this refers ONLY to the misery and tragedy of a single woman as opposed to a single man. And that's NOT that argument against hafkaas kiddushin, at least not how I've heard it. The argument that I've heard -- that is to say, the supposed translation of "tav l'meisiv tan du" -- is that a woman would prefer living with ANY man rather than to be alone. I can easily understand opposition to Hafkaas Kiddushin on the grounds that widespread use would give *all* marriages a sort of "tentative" status. But that's not what people are referring to here, right? When they invoke "tan du" against Hafkaas Kidushin, they're saying that despite the wife's protestations, the wife would actually prefer to stay married, and that's why they're unable to annul the marriage. Or am I mistaken? Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 05:26:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 08:26:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <552D0792.4060709@sero.name> On 04/13/2015 11:45 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > From what I understand, the objection to hafkaas kiddushin comes from a > presumption that a woman would prefer to stay with her husband, even if > he seems to be a terrible person, and even if she tells us that in*her* > opinion he is a terrible person -- and we have this presumption because > of the chazaka of tan du. What she prefers is irrelevant. Obviously she wants to leave her husband; she is openly telling us so, and it's ridiculous to suppose she is not telling the truth. And even if she weren't, if the marriage is invalid then it's invalid, no matter what she wants. You're looking at the whole thing from the wrong direction. No objection is needed to annulling a marriage; what's needed is grounds *for* annulling it. The alleged grounds are that it has now become clear that this man was always such a bad person that had the woman known this when he proposed marriage she would have refused, and throughout the subsequent marriage there was never a point at which she was so happy that had she found out the truth she would have consented to stay with him. Now if the husband is bad enough (and it can be proved that he always was so), *and* the woman is such a catch that there was never a point at which she could not have found another husband, then this makes sense. Obviously she has always preferred a good husband to a bad one, and only married this man because she thought he was a good one. But what if refusing to marry him, or leaving him at some point during the marriage, were to expose her to the risk of remaining single forever? Would she still have turned him down or left him? The proponents of annulment say yes, of course she would, just as she has left him now. But, RYBS says, Chazal tell us that it's female nature to prefer a bad husband to none at all, so perhaps even if she had known the truth about this man she would have consented to marry him rather than risk remaining single; or perhaps there was a point after the event at which, had she learned the truth, she would have stayed with him rather than face a single future. > But I do not see Rav Soloveitchik making that case here. All he is saying > is that "an old spinster's life is much more miserable and tragic than > the life of an old bachelor." Yes, and therefore while a man might prefer to be single rather than live with a bad wife, a similarly situated woman will not. That this woman *now* tells us she would, doesn't prove that she always would have. > He does say that this relative perspective on singlehood is a "permanent > ontological principle[s] rooted in the very depth of the human > personality," and that it will never change, and that this information > is Revealed in the words of Bereishis. But this refers ONLY to the misery > and tragedy of a single woman as opposed to a single man. > > And that's NOT that argument against hafkaas kiddushin, at least not > how I've heard it. The argument that I've heard -- that is to say, the > supposed translation of "tav l'meisiv tan du" -- is that a woman would > prefer living with ANY man rather than to be alone. Yes. How is that not the same thing? Spinsterhood is terrible for women, so terrible that they'd prefer living with a bad man to it. > When they invoke "tan du" against Hafkaas Kidushin, they're saying that despite > the wife's protestations, the wife would actually prefer to stay married, > and that's why they're unable to annul the marriage. Or am I mistaken? Not that she'd prefer it now, but that she did prefer it earlier, when she was faced with the risk of never finding anyone else. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 06:44:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 09:44:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Could a New Gadget Change Shabbat Observance - Forever Message-ID: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/njr5j7a List of leading rabbis endorse 'Kosherswitch' to allow lights on Shabbat. High-voltage project could send a current through Jewish world. Will Shabbat observance change forever with a flick of a switch? A new gadget was released to the mass market on Monday promising Orthodox Jews a solution to the age-old problem of leaving lights on or off on Shabbat and then being prevented by Jewish law from flipping the switch. The new invention, dubbed "KosherSwitch," has been beta-tested since 2009 - but an indiegogo campaign launched Monday promises to bring the project to the masses. See the above URL for more as well as for a video explaining how this device works. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 07:59:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 10:59:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Could a New Gadget Change Shabbat Observance - Forever In-Reply-To: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150414145918.GA28845@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 09:44:04AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : From http://tinyurl.com/njr5j7a :> List of leading rabbis endorse 'Kosherswitch' to allow lights on :> Shabbat. High-voltage project could send a current through Jewish :> world. :> Will Shabbat observance change forever with a flick of a switch? Unlikely. They say this is new tech, which could be true since they got a [atenmt, but the How it Works page and the ptent describe something much like what Machon Zomet uses in their wheelchairs . Actually, Zomet makes sure their switch changes the amount of current, I see nothing in the patent about anything but turning the power on and off entirely -- it appears *more* problematic. The engineers among us can check out . As you can read on Zomet's site, R Neuwirth permits the wheelchair only because the issue is basic mobility. KosherSwitch.com shows you that that RYN signed on a "me too" to R' Pinchas Zabihi's haskamah. I have a notion that once things are clarified, the truth is more somewhere in between. When a house is on fire, and someone puts up a wall of pottery flasks filled with water to arrest its progress, geram kibui is mutar. See SA OC 334:22. The Rama either adds or explains (citing the Mordekhai), that this is bemaqom peseida. But gerama isn't suddenly mutar even without hefsed meruba or kevod haberios as a matir. So it all boils down to whether they really have a new tech that is more legitimate for them to call "un-grama" than Machon Zomet's design. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 07:12:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 10:12:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] =?iso-8859-1?q?The_Kosher_Switch=3A_A_Response_from_the_?= =?iso-8859-1?q?Tzomet_Institute=92s_Rabbi_Yisrael_Rosen?= Message-ID: <20150414141204.C79091830F4@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/ptcfckt The rabbinic world and blogosophere (see, for example, here) has been abuzz about the propriety of the Kosher Switch, which its producers claim allows one to halakhically turn on and off lights on shabbat. Attached here is the Hebrew response of Rabbi Yisrael Rosen, the prominent engineer who heads the Tzomet Institute, which includes (signed) clarifications of the positions of Rabbi Avigdor Nevenzahl and Rabbi Yehoshua Neuwirth. It is was sent on Tzomet stationery to Rabbi David Mescheloff, and is reprinted here with permission. Below is a rough English translation of the first page, which does not include some of the halakhic argumentation provided on the 2nd page of the original Hebrew. For all scholarly and halakhic purposes, and purposes of citation, only the original Hebrew letter should be seen as the authoritative writing of Rabbi Rosen. D. And here is the main part of my remarks: Yesterday I went to my teacher and rabbi HaGaon Rabbi Yehoshua Neuwirth, Shlita, and I asked him whether he permitted to use this switch to activate electricity on Shabbat for the purposes of Oneg Shabbat, etc He was really shocked and said he never permitted that. When I showed him the endorsement letter, he added in his handwriting: ?Only for medicine and security? (see photo in attached Hebrew article). Rabbi Avigdor Nebenzahl Shlita, who signed a similar letter, also told me yesterday that he does not recall ever signing anything like that, and expressed the opinion that there is no place for this and was puzzled about the whole thing. I suppose that whoever managed to get the signatures of important rabbis ?sold? them an invention that is a kind of a complex Gramma used for the purpose of medicine or security, and succeeded in skipping this condition when they signed. E. With regard to the claim, written in their accompanying halachic responsum, that it is permitted to use this Gramma switch to minimize the prohibition of those who willfully the violate the Shabbat, we have never heard of such rabbis who permit this. I am sure that those who ?agreed? did not see this argument, and this is an argument that should not be stated. See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 08:01:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joseph Kaplan via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 11:01:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <002d01d076c3$e98d8290$bca887b0$@tenzerlunin.com> "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above." Can anybody explain what this really means? That is, explain it to someone who doesn't use the word "ontological" in his/her normal speech. I have read it many many times but I still don't understand what the Rav is saying. Joseph -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 07:42:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 17:42:18 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: I guess I was a little too succinct in my last post. The major problem is that many consider tefillat haderech as a tefillah and not as a bracha. Thus while one can be motze other for a bracha one cannot do it for a tefillah. Hence, R Nebenzahl paskens that all those that know how to say by themselves should do so R C Kanevsky says it is preferable for each person to say by themself R Tuvia Goldstein says that one cannot be yotzeh someone else and claims that he convinced RMF of that R Belsky repeats that it is a tefillah and not a bracha and so it is appropriate (min ha-raui) that everyone says it for themself. R Aviner says that it is "rachamim" and therefore it is preferable that each one requests for themselves however bidieved one can be motzi others The sefer Piskei Teshuvot (siman 110-2) has a discussion whether one is required to say tefillat haderech in modern times. He concludes that one who does not say it on major roads has someone to rely on but someone who also says it has the reward of a tefilla even though we no longer have "listin" and wild animals on the roads. Instead we have a car accidents. Therefore one should also say tefillat haderech on railroads and planes. He claims that on small side roads that everyone paskens you need to say tefillat haderech -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 08:22:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 11:22:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150414152222.GD28845@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 03:45:47AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : From what I understand, the objection to hafkaas kiddushin comes from a : presumption that a woman would prefer to stay with her husband, even if : he seems to be a terrible person, and even if she tells us that in *her* : opinion he is a terrible person -- and we have this presumption because : of the chazaka of tan du. You phrased it as a psychological issue. RYBS says it's something existential or ontological -- and explicitly NOT pschological. I think he is saying that this vector exists in every woman's character. Even when current social reality provides other vectors that may submerge tav lemeisiv tan du, it is an entity present in her psyche (ontologically) still shaping her perception of reality (existential). And because of that element of her soul, inherited from Chavah, it's very hard to ever call a marriage a complete meqach ta'us on the bride's part. But again, my impression from RAL which is reinforced by this transcript, this particular argument was a side-bar, not RYBS's primary argument. Eg: ... : I can easily understand opposition to Hafkaas Kiddushin on the grounds : that widespread use would give *all* marriages a sort of "tentative" : status. But that's not what people are referring to here, right? ... RYBS discusses that issue at greater length than this one anyway. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 08:32:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 11:32:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] support obligations In-Reply-To: <20150413.235411.14734.1@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150413.235411.14734.1@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150414153245.GE28845@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 03:54:11AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Micha Berger wrote: : > Assuming she didn't agree to the arrangement. Ortherwise, the wife : > willingly waved her claim to his income, and took on the obligation : > of self- and child-support. : I would argue that she accepted the financial responsibilities only : in exchange for the s'char she gets from enabling her husband to learn : Torah, and that once he ceases to be her husband, that arrangement ends, : and the whole thing reverts to the usual. Phrased differently, once he : stops giving her the s'char of sharing in his learning, he has to give : her a more practical olam-hazeh sort of support. We are in the weird situation of talking about what the bride was agreeing to WRT a situation she never pictured arising. (I am reminded of Avodah discussions about what the Rambam would do if faced with what he perceives as a solid philosophical proof for a position he could not find a basis for in Torah. Would he declare something an allegory despite a lack of source in Chazal, would he dismiss the proof as flawed, perhaps even assuming the flaw had to be something he didn't yet find? The Rambam thought the situation was impossible.) So, I want to detour into a case more likely to have crossed the kallah's mind -- his death. If the husband predeceases her without having left kollel, she wouldn't expect him to leave her the same estate than if he had spent that time earning money. It may be equally valid to argue that the bride relinquishes claims to money even after he finishes learning, in exchange for supporting him while learning -- however long that lasts. I really don't know which way of looking at things is more valid. It's kind of like the old chestnut, "But if you did have a brother, would he like noodles?" Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 10:00:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Weiss via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 10:00:06 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3e97bfe1715ba4f18f42bf014d7ab62a.squirrel@mail.panix.com> > From http://www.dinonline.org/2012/07/11/davening-outdoors/ >> Is it problematic to daven outdoors? ... >> The Gemara (Berachos 34b) writes that it is wrong >> (arrogant - chatzuf) to daven in an open field. >> Rashi explains that in an open field, one doesn't >> feel fear of the King, and one doesn't pray with >> a broken heart. Tosafos, however, understands >> that the concern is for passers-by, who are >> liable to disturb a person's davening. >> The Magen Avraham (90:6) rules that the problem >> is that davening outside makes a haughty >> statement... ... >> Therefore, although it is not forbidden to daven >> outdoors, it is wrong to daven in an open area, >> and one should seek a sheltered place. As you see from the above it is the Lechatichilla not do daven in an open place, Last week we had a mincha minyan at the grand canyon, (to wait to a more appropriate place it would have been well after dark) When one davens in a large minyan and is surrounded by other people davening it is easier to concentrate on the tefilla. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 12:44:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 15:44:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd [TM]: Why Does God Test Us? Message-ID: <20150414194402.GB3303@aishdas.org> RGStudent recently posted a piece to answer the question "Why Does God Test Us?" The notion that the all-knowing God needs to test us to determine whether we will follow His command is absurd. He knows the future and therefore gains nothing from the exercise. Yet the Torah discusses in multiple places God's tests. For example, regarding the man (manna) that fell in the desert, God states: "So that I may test them, whether they will follow My law or not" (Ex. 16:4). The midrash (Tanchuma, Vayera 23) expresses the question aptly: ... I. Personal Growth The Kuzari (5:20), followed by the Ramban (Gen. 22:1; Ex. 16:4; Deut. 13:4; Toras Ha-Bayis in Kisvei Ha-Ramban, vol. 2 pp. 272-273), explains that God tests people in order to actualize their potential goodness.... II. Education Rambam (Moreh Nevukhim 3:24) takes an entirely different approach. He sees divine tests as a way to publicize, and thereby teach, the righteousness of an individual.... III. Adult Education I believe that, aside from midrashic sources and textual cues, Rambam had a more fundamental reason for taking a path different from that of the Kuzari and Ramban. The Gemara (Makkos 10a) says that Heaven takes you in the direction you wish to go. Similarly, another Gemara (Yoma 39a) says that someone who wishes to become pure (i.e. do good) is divinely assisted. Apparently, the Ramban takes this literally. ... IV. Self-Discovery Radal (ibid.) offers a third approach to understanding divine tests. Pirkei De-Rabbi Eliezer (31) says that the test was for Avraham to know his heart. God certainly know whether we will pass a test but poses it so that we learn our own abilities. Like a good coach, God pushes us farther than we think we can go. This, too, applies to adults who often underestimate their capacity for strength. God only tests those who will pass and by doing so teaches us the extent of our faith and endurance. ... -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 15:41:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 18:41:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] reviit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150414224153.GA9794@aishdas.org> On Sun, Apr 12, 2015 at 07:54:45PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : In the sefer of Rav Aviner he brings many examples of gedolim who used a : kiddush cup the size of the shiur of R Chaim Naeh (86 CC) and not CI. : He says he heard from RSZA that when RCN published his sefer on shiurim the : rabbis of Yerushalayim were astounded at his chumra !! Interesting, because I thought that RACN's agenda was to justify the accepted practice in his local, in EY in the early 20th cent. (Something I learned on-list 15 years ago.) Minhag Y-m is RACN's shiurim, because RACN started with the assumption that Minhag Y-m was roughly accuate, with the Sepharadim being the more precise. RACN himself was a Lubavitcher chassid of the Yishuva haYashan, born in Chevron. I do not know why people usually call him "Rav Chaim Naeh", ommitting his first name "Avraham". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 15:50:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 18:50:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: <3e97bfe1715ba4f18f42bf014d7ab62a.squirrel@mail.panix.com> References: <3e97bfe1715ba4f18f42bf014d7ab62a.squirrel@mail.panix.com> Message-ID: <20150414225006.GB9794@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 10:00:06AM -0700, Harry Weiss via Avodah wrote: : > From http://www.dinonline.org/2012/07/11/davening-outdoors/ : >> Is it problematic to daven outdoors? : ... : >> The Gemara (Berachos 34b) writes that it is wrong : >> (arrogant - chatzuf) to daven in an open field. : : >> Rashi explains that in an open field, one doesn't : >> feel fear of the King, and one doesn't pray with : >> a broken heart. Tosafos, however, understands : >> that the concern is for passers-by, who are : >> liable to disturb a person's davening. : : >> The Magen Avraham (90:6) rules that the problem : >> is that davening outside makes a haughty : >> statement... : ... : >> Therefore, although it is not forbidden to daven : >> outdoors, it is wrong to daven in an open area, : >> and one should seek a sheltered place. : .... : When one davens in a large minyan and is surrounded by other people : davening it is easier to concentrate on the tefilla. The Kotel Plaza doesn't suffer from any of these concerns, which is unsurprising because centuries of gedolim had no problem davening outside at the kotel. It's set up like a shul, so there is no special chutzpah or yuharah in davening there. Interruptions are likely, but generally for other mitzvos -- tzedaqah, or answering qaddish or qedushah from nearby minyanim. In terms And the location actively fosters yir'ah, koveid rosh and a broken heart. However, davening at Robinson's arch might suffer from the yuhara issue. (Personally, I find it more moving than the Kotel Plaza. One stands on the same road walked by oleh regel, among stones thrown off Har haBayis by the Roman Army (whether during the churban or when Hadrian had the har plowed, I do not know). Behind me are the ghosts of shopkeepers, ready to exchange my maaser sheini coins back to food, sell me flour for a qorban Todah or an animal for a differen qorban. The miqvah is a bit back, and to the left.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 16:12:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 23:12:56 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <20150414.191256.7783.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The major problem is that many consider tefillat haderech as a > tefillah and not as a bracha. Thus while one can be motze other > for a bracha one cannot do it for a tefillah. I am very confused. Many poskim recommend point out that Tefilas Haderech does not begin with "Baruch", so they recommend saying it after another bracha (such as Asher Yatzar, or a Bracha Acharona on food), so as to make it into a Bracha Hasemucha L'chvertah. But if Tefilas Haderech is not a bracha to begin with, then I do not see the advantage of such a procedure. According to "Halachically Speaking", vol 1 pg 76, the poskim who recommend the above procedure includes: Magen Avraham 110:13, Machatzis Hashekel 110:13, Be'er Hetev 110:10, Shulchan Aruch Harav 110:6, Mishneh Berurah 110:28, Aruch Hashulchan 110:14, Kaf Hachaim 110:51 -- but NOT the Chazon Ish (Orchos Rabenu 1:61). In addition, I recall learning of certain situations where it is recommended that one should say tefilas haderech, but omitting the chasima at the end. But if it's not a bracha at all even WITH the chasima, then what is gained by leaving it out? I suspect that I do not appreciate or understand the meaning of "as a tefillah and not as a bracha". Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552d9f0aeea561f0a2aa2st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 19:48:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 22:48:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Could a New Gadget Change Shabbat Observance - Forever In-Reply-To: <20150414145918.GA28845@aishdas.org> References: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150414145918.GA28845@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415024810.GA29474@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 10:59:18AM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 09:44:04AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : : From http://tinyurl.com/njr5j7a : : :> List of leading rabbis endorse 'Kosherswitch' to allow lights on : :> Shabbat. High-voltage project could send a current through Jewish : :> world. RGS just posted http://www.torahmusings.com/2015/04/will-the-kosher-switch-bring-mashiach-2 which also links to his earlier http://www.torahmusings.com/2011/09/in-defense-of-the-kosher-switch .... : As you can read on Zomet's site, R Neuwirth permits the wheelchair only : because the issue is basic mobility. KosherSwitch.com shows you that that : RYN signed on a "me too" to R' Pinchas Zabihi's haskamah. I have a notion : that once things are clarified, the truth is more somewhere in between. Actually, RGS determined that R Neuwirth didn't give his approval of the Kosher Switch outide of special circumstances. RGS writes: > The Kosher Switch adds uncertainty to the Gerama Switch. Every time the > device is supposed to send a light impulse, it calculates a random number > below 100 and only sends the impulse if the number passes a threshold > (usually over 50). However, there is a random element to Machon Zomet's switch too. Again, I do not see anything in the patent that makes this switch any less a simple case of gerama than Machon Zomet's switch. (In fact, R' Rosen of Zomet checked the posqim cited on KosherSwitch.com *because* he saw no reason why they would allow the Kosher Switch for general use and not Zomet's Grama Switch.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 19:26:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 02:26:43 GMT Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150414.222643.13892.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> R' Joseph Kaplan asked: > "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with > the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not > upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon > permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of > the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, > which is as changeless as the heavens above." > > Can anybody explain what this really means? That is, explain it > to someone who doesn?t use the word "ontological" in his/her > normal speech. I have read it many many times but I still > don?t understand what the Rav is saying. This is how I understand it: Just as a leopard cannot change its spots, and just as Shabbos comes each week whether society accepts it or not, so too, there are certain elements of the human condition which Chazal have identified as inherent and unchanging, not subject to variation by time, place, or culture. Or something like that. At any rate, one can agree or disagree about whether this assertion is true, and even among those who agree with it, there might be discussion of exactly which chazakos are unchanging and which are variable. Still, his point is that there are indeed some UNchanging aspects. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552dcca9d8e634ca96125st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 02:07:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 05:07:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's true position on kosher switch I regret that my father's position on the kosher switch was misrepresented by stating that he endorses it l'maaseh . His position is that there are 2 aspects in hilchos shabbos, one is issur melacha and then there is zilzul shabbos. My father's opinion is that there is no issur melacha or chilul shabbos. However , there is a concern about zilzul shabbos as he stated clearly on the video. Before it is used one should ask a shaila from his rav. Moshe Oelbaum Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:01:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:01:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld : regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. ... :> Moshe Oelbaum :> Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum Authentication? -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 23:10:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 09:10:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: The reason for not allowing to be motzi someone else is actually quite simple. The Gemara in Berachos (29b) clearly states that tefilas haderech is a tefila "Amar R' Chisda hayotzeh laderech tzarich lhispallel tefilas haderech". Therefore the general rule of tefilla should apply, namely that if you are a baki someone else cannot be motzi you. Since nowadays we are all considered bekiim and for example, we don't allow someone to be motzi us in tefilas mincha the same would apply to tefilas haderech. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:18:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:18:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:01 AM 4/15/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: >: Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld >: regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. >... >Authentication? What I posted was sent to me by someone on my email list whom I trust. I can send you his email address if you like. YL From http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/kosher-switch > moish3 at yahoo.com > Member > Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's true position on kosher switch . > I regret that my father's position on kosher switch was > misrepresented by stating that he endorses it l'maaseh . His position > is that there are 2 aspects in hilchos shabbos. One is issur melacha > and then there is zilzul shabbos. My father's opinion is that there > is no issur melacha or chilul shabbos. However , there is a concern > about zilzul shabbos as he stated clearly on the video. Before it is > used one should ask a shaila from his rav. > Moshe Oelbaum > Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:44:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:44:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 06:18:35AM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : What I posted was sent to me by someone on my email list whom I trust. : I can send you his email address if you like. YL ... : From http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/kosher-switch : > moish3 at yahoo.com : > Member Oh, I believe it really appeared in YWN, and that link can allow you to check that much for ourselves. What I'm asking is whether anyone contact R' Moshe Oelbaum or RNIO to authenticate that the post really was from his son. It is trivial to claim to be anyone in a YWN chatroom. I don't know RMO, but I can't picture R' NI Oelbaum promulgating his position via chatroom. Could be, if his son is a regular there anyway. The presence of a post really doesn't tell me much. No matter how honest the person reporting to you is, he can be duped unless he spoke to the parties himself. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:13:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:13:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150415101229.BCD31183613@nexus.stevens.edu> At 05:54 AM 4/15/2015, R. Harry Weiss wrote: >When one davens in a large minyan and is surrounded by other people >davening it is easier to concentrate on the tefilla. I do not find this to be true for me personally. I am not a "group person" and hence prefer to daven in a minyan that has between 20 and forty participants. This is the case where I daven during the week and also at the Hashkama Minyan at the YI of Ave J where I daven on Shabbos. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 06:34:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 09:34:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:44 AM 4/15/2015, Micha Berger wrote: > What I'm asking is whether >anyone contact R' Moshe Oelbaum or RNIO to authenticate that the >post really was from his son. It is trivial to claim to be anyone >in a YWN chatroom. I received this in an email from Moshe Deutsch I personally spoke to Rabbi & Rebbetzin Oelbaum who told me to publicize this. I was the one who made them aware that the person behind KosherSwitch is using his name in a way that Rabbi Oelbaum did not intend. Person behind KosherSwitch does not pick up the phone now when Rabbi Oelbaum calls. Moshe From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 07:21:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 10:21:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 09:34:32AM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : I received this in an email from Moshe Deutsch :> I personally spoke to Rabbi & Rebbetzin Oelbaum who told me to :> publicize this. I was the one who made them aware that the person :> behind KosherSwitch is using his name in a way that Rabbi Oelbaum did :> not intend... This still doesn't clear up my confusion, although it does confirm what the YWN post said (if not who authored it). I am trying to understand whether RNIO's problem with the appearance of his name on the KosherSwitch.com "approvers" list is because a- he feels that use of the switch is zilzul Shabbos, or b- he would hold it's gerama. What I am trying to understand is the tzad to say their switch isn't gerama. It appears to conform to the description of the Machon Zomet switch as it existed at the time R' Neuwirth consulted with RSZA who ruled it was. If RNIO holds it's "only" zilzul Shabbos, then clarifying what his position is was useful, but doesn't remove all my confusion. I was expecting that the posqim the Kosher Switch people are hearing overly optimistically (for their investment) would actually all end up agreeing with RSZA once we got clarification. Such as R' Neuwirth, whose approval was based on assuming the proposed use was a medical context. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 04:38:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 14:38:08 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <> On many birtchot hamitzva one can be motzeh others even when they are "experts". This includes shofar, megilla etc (not lulav or netillat yadaim which is considered as a mitzvah be-gufo) similarly for kiddush and havdala. Note that for sefirat haomer usually each person says the bracha himself/herself and also counts for themselves. There are opinions that if needed one can rely on the chazzan for the bracha but not the count. In birchat ha-nehenim usually each individual makes his own bracha. There are some which are a mixture including kiddush and motzi on shabbat on lechem mishne (note there are various minhagim on seder night). For birchat shevach eg lightning seeing great mountains etc each person says it by himself. OTOH the shliach tzibbur can be motzi others with shemone esre only if they cant say it themselves. Shemonei esrei is a tefillah (bakasha and shevach) even though shemonei esrei consists of brachot. The usual minhag is that each individual says birchat hagomel though I once heard from R Zilberstein that if many people need to say it then it is preferable for one person to be motzei everyone else ---------------------------------------- I am not sure if I have made things clearer - if not I leave it to someone else to explain exactly when one can be motze others lechatchila, bidieved or not at all -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 06:29:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 16:29:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: R' Akiva Miller wrote: > I suspect that I do not appreciate or understand the meaning of "as a > tefillah and not as a bracha". The difference between tefila and a beracha is whether you can be motzi a baki nowadays. With a beracha you can however with a tefilla you cannot which is why these poskim hold that each person should say tefilas haderech the same way every person davens shemoneh esrei. You also asked: > I am very confused. Many poskim recommend point out that Tefilas Haderech > does not begin with "Baruch", so they recommend saying it after another > bracha (such as Asher Yatzar, or a Bracha Acharona on food), so as to make > it into a Bracha Hasemucha L'chvertah. But if Tefilas Haderech is not a > bracha to begin with, then I do not see the advantage of such a procedure. Something can be both a beracha and a tefila at the same time, the prime example is shemoneh esrei which is tefilla par excellence but composed of 18 (19) berachos. Tefilas haderech is a tefila composed (possibly) in the form of a beracha and therefore the rules of tefilla would apply. [Email #2. -micha] R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The sefer Piskei Teshuvot (siman 110-2) has a discussion whether one is > required to say tefillat haderech in modern times. He concludes that one > who does not say it on major roads has someone to rely on but someone who > also says it has the reward of a tefilla even though we no longer have > "listin" and wild animals on the roads. It seems clear from the context of the gemara that tefilas haderech is a tefila b'eis tzara. The gemara mentions tefilas haderech right after it mentions that a person who is in a dangerous place says a tefila. The world has changed a lot since the time of chazal especially related to travel and we need to understand if these changes affect the din of tefilas haderech Here are some of the changes that have occurred relating to travel. 1. Most travel is no longer considered unsafe. When I get in my car every morning to drive to work I don't think twice about it 2. The distinction between in the city and out of the city is no longer true. Most people fell much safer driving in the Catskills then driving through Harlem. Driving on a highway from Brooklyn to Queens is in the city but driving in Monsey to the supermarket may be considered out of the city. 3. This is related to 1, people travel all the time. Most people commute some distance to work, this is normal and part of everyday life. In the time of chazal yotze laderech was a big deal. Given the above R' Shachter (in Nefesh Harav) says that R' Soloveitchik did not say tefilas haderech when he commuted from Boston to NY to give his shiurim. He felt that because it is a tefila b'eis tzara and nowadays there is no perceived danger and it is routine that there was no reason to say it. Recently, I heard a short shiur on tefilas haderech and was happy to hear that RSZA seems to say a very similar idea to RYBS. RSZA did not say tefilas haderech when he traveled from Yerushayim to Bnei Brak. He explained his reasoning as follows: 1. In many places it is not considered as if you left the yishuv for the following reasons: 1. There are many other cars on the road 2. The police regularly patrol the road 3. There are houses on the side of the road 2. Traveling by car/bus is a normal activity. Whan a person gets up and commutes to work he does not say he is going on a trip. The takana of tefilas haderech was for someone who was yotze laderech these kinds of trips are not considered ???? ????. 3. There is little or no danger of yotze laderech RSZA reasoning is very similar to RYBS. Basically, the world has changed and it is no longer unusual or dangerous to travel between cities and therefore the din of when you say tefilas haderech changes as well. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 05:05:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:05:17 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150414.222643.13892.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150414.222643.13892.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <0fa3e90282b94c0e95214067965f579a@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> This is how I understand it: Just as a leopard cannot change its spots, and just as Shabbos comes each week whether society accepts it or not, so too, there are certain elements of the human condition which Chazal have identified as inherent and unchanging, not subject to variation by time, place, or culture. Or something like that. At any rate, one can agree or disagree about whether this assertion is true, and even among those who agree with it, there might be discussion of exactly which chazakos are unchanging and which are variable. Still, his point is that there are indeed some UNchanging aspects. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ I would add an observation that individual exceptions may exist empirically but are ignored halachically Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 06:24:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 09:24:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tan Du In-Reply-To: <20150406184227.GF20912@aishdas.org> References: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150406184227.GF20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <552E669A.6000104@aishdas.org> I personally was always inclined to side with Rabbi Rackman over RYBS on tav l'meisav, but this article gives me pause: http://www.bbc.com/news/health-32303997 KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 07:57:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 10:57:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Message-ID: From: Joseph Kaplan via Avodah "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above." Can anybody explain what this really means? That is, explain it to someone who doesn't use the word "ontological" in his/her normal speech. I have read it many many times but I still don't understand what the Rav is saying. Joseph >>>>> If you leave out the word "ontological" here the sentence is perfectly clear: Human nature does not change. I'm sure you looked up the definition of "ontological" so no need to go there. But in this paragraph, the word "ontological" serves a subliminal purpose. Here it means, "Don't condescend to Orthodox Jews and do not assume we are backwards, primitive, and ignorant. One can be an intellectual and still believe the Torah is true and eternal." --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 08:12:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:12:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: From: Eli Turkel via Avodah >>The sefer Piskei Teshuvot (siman 110-2) has a discussion whether one is required to say tefillat haderech in modern times. He concludes that one who does not say it on major roads has someone to rely on but someone who also says it has the reward of a tefilla even though we no longer have "listin" and wild animals on the roads. Instead we have a car accidents. Therefore one should also say tefillat haderech on railroads and planes. He claims that on small side roads that everyone paskens you need to say tefillat haderech<< -- Eli Turkel >>>> Saying tefillas haderech "on major roads" -- does that mean even within one city, not just when traveling between cities? "On small side roads everyone paskens you need to say tefillas haderech"? What does that mean? Every time I get in the car to go to the grocery store in my own neighborhood? Or was the word "don't" inadvertently omitted from that sentence ("you don't need to say tefillat haderech")? I was driving someone to the cemetery for a levaya, we were on the highway doing 60 and all of a sudden it started to rain, but I mean a mabul, a hard, driving, blinding rain. I couldn't see at all in front of me. Of course I slowed down, as did everyone else, but it was still very frightening and certainly I couldn't just stop in the middle of the highway. My passenger, a BT, became very agitated and said, "I only know one perek of Tehillim by heart so I am going to say that." Then she recited Shir Hamaalos (from benching) out loud. The rain stopped immediately! A few miles further down the road, there was another sudden blinding outburst and she said Shir Hamaalos again. Again the rain immediately stopped. She was like a reverse Choni Hamaagel! I really think her emunah peshuta saved the day! But to veer back into Avodah territory -- would it have been appropriate to say Tefillas Haderech at that time? With shem umalchus? (I assume you can always say it without shem umalchus.) --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 08:34:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:34:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides Message-ID: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> There was a bachur next to me this morning whose retzu'os were painted black on both sides. And I believe I know why this is done, in case a retzu'ah gets flipped. Or perhaps to be chosheish for the Rambam's description of such retzu'os being "noi". The MB 933:21 tells us not to follow the Rambam, whereas the Keses haSofer (written by R' Ganzfried of the QSA) says even the *sides* should be black. But the site got me wondering: 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? 2- If the leather is soaked in dye untile its absorbed and the leather is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? R YS Elyashiv is reported by R' Mordeschai Friedlander (a noted sofer and poseiq, a reliable source) to hold they're fine. I am not challenging their kashrus. It just struck me that both seem valid concerns. I assume the talented chevrah can find holes in my problems. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:17:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:17:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> At 10:21 AM 4/15/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >I am trying to understand whether RNIO's problem with the appearance of >his name on the KosherSwitch.com "approvers" list is because >a- he feels that use of the switch is zilzul Shabbos, or >b- he would hold it's gerama. Does it really matter. He is saying that he does not approve of its use. Why do you need to know more? YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:32:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:32:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 12:17:02PM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : Does it really matter. He is saying that he does not approve of its : use. Why do you need to know more? For the sake of the switch, no. For the sake of understanding the concept of gerama -- Torah hi, velilamdah ani tzarikh! Saying this switch isn't gerama, and its use limited to cases where we can permit gerama, really defies my understanding of the concept. Or perhaps I misunderstand how it works, in which case the Electrical Engineer I studied to become (and the neti'ah that motivated the intent to become one) wants to know. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:07:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 17:07:04 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:34:00 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah > 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam > consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? > 2- If the leather is soaked in dye [until it's] absorbed and the leather > is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we > know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? 1. If it is just soaked, there is no problem of chatzitzah. (Did the fact that the pesiloth of the Tsits were soaked in techeles dye constitute a problem of chatsisoh? atmahah?) There may be a problem if it was subsequently glossed black - which it isn't. 2. Why shouldn't it be valid material after soaking? It's still leather. According to halachah, [have not checked this up right now - but if memory serves me] you can even use klaf [bdi'eved] for retsuos - as long as it is the skin of a kosher beheimoh, its kosher. Dovid [sofer] From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:13:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:13:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> References: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <552E8E18.4090201@sero.name> On 04/15/2015 11:34 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam > consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? Why would it be? It's part of the retzua. AFAIK everyone agrees that it's a hiddur, just not necessary, and most people don't bother. > 2- If the leather is soaked in dye untile its absorbed and the leather > is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we > know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? Why wouldn't it be? It's still leather, after all. Where does it say what colour the leather must be? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:57:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:57:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150415165733.GD6173@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:04PM +0100, D via Avodah wrote: : Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:34:00 -0400 : From: Micha Berger via Avodah :> 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam :> consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? : 1. If it is just soaked, there is no problem of chatzitzah. (Did the : fact that the pesiloth of the Tsits were soaked in techeles dye : constitute a problem of chatsisoh? atmahah?) ... So I believe your answer to my first question is that they don't paint the bottom, they only use my scenario two -- soaking the leather. About your parenthetical comment... If halakhah requires tekheiles, it requires blue wool. The completed product would be what the kohein shouldn't have a chatzitzah under. Not the undyed wool. :> 2- If the leather is soaked in dye [until it's] absorbed and the leather :> is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we :> know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? : 2. Why shouldn't it be valid material after soaking? It's still : leather.... But it's no longer entirely skin of a kosher beheimah, as the dye isn't made from skin. It is now a retzuah made of skin + dye. I could see that either way, and am asking how we (or the posqim among us) can just assume that this innovation is not a problem. Just as tekheiles is different than tzemer, perhaps dye-soaked leather is different in kind than leather. How did we determine it isn't? : Dovid [sofer] Thanks for chiming in. But could you kindly put your full name in your email header or signature once in a while, so that people know who we're talking to? One of Avodah's goals is to create chevraschaft, which is difficult when people are anonymous or partially so. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 10:28:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 17:28:55 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150415.132855.9927.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 12:17:02PM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : Does it really matter. He is saying that he does not approve of its : use. Why do you need to know more? This is like saying, about ANY situation, "He is saying that it is assur. Why do you need to know if it is d'Oraisa or d'rabanan?" The answer is very simple: There are some situations which would justify doing it if "merely" d'rabanan, but not otherwise. Similarly, there may be situations where RNIO would allow this it his svara was ABC, but not if his svara was XYZ. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552e9fe45804e1fe4411ast02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 12:42:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 19:42:24 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu>, <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> Message-ID: <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Saying this switch isn't gerama, and its use limited to cases where we can permit gerama, really defies my understanding of the concept. Or perhaps I misunderstand how it works, in which case the Electrical Engineer I studied to become (and the neti'ah that motivated the intent to become one) wants to know. Tir'u baTov! -Micha _______________________________________________ Sounds to me like r' asher weiss's makeh bpatish definition. Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 16:13:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 19:13:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 07:42:24PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Sounds to me like r' asher weiss's makeh bpatish definition. You lost me. I wasn't discussing which melakhah -- if any -- one violates by using electricity in an of itself, but how using this switch relates to that melakhah. For example, even if we say that electricity and electronics itself weren't an issue, the majority of these switches would be installed so as to turn on fluorescent or incandescent bulbs. Both of which heat filaments until glowing -- so there is a melakhah of bishul or hav'arah to discuss. And my question becomes: In that rather typical setting, how the switch not gerama of one of those two melakhos? (Or possibly both, if a glowing filament is hav'arah, and the resulting boiling of mercury in the fluorescent bulb, bishul.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 13:05:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 16:05:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: REliTurkel wrote: >Just saw a halacha that to me was a chiddush That one cannot (or should not) be yotzeh someone else for tefiilat haderech but everyone should say for them self. Those agreeing (at least lechatchila) include R Aviner R Nebenzahl R C Kanevsky R Tuvia Goldstein (who said he convinced RMF) R Belsky Not what I have seen in practice. Anyone know any opinion that does allow it< Is there any opinion, even of the five quoted, which holds that one is _not_ yotzei even b'diavad? As for RET's question, the Kol Bo on Aveilus, quoted in SSK, Perek 64, footnote 75, states that an onein is obligated in t'fillas haderech, but it is preferable that he be yotzei with another's b'racha. (I have not seen the SSK, but have seen it quoted.) EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 15:35:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 15:35:27 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach Message-ID: did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 17:00:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 20:00:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 6:35 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? I have a friend who does this. She once told me the origins but I forget where it came from. I remember that it was very obscure and non traditional. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 17:38:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 20:38:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150416003839.GD1638@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 03:35:27PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? What did it grow out of? Avoiding she'avar alav es hapesach? A way of avoiding chodosh, at least during the omer period? -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 17:44:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 20:44:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: <20150416003839.GD1638@aishdas.org> References: <20150416003839.GD1638@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 8:38 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 03:35:27PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: >: did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? > What did it grow out of? ... It had to do with chodosh and the omer/barley. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 22:05:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Weiss via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 22:05:46 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > From: Marty Bluke via Avodah > Given the above R' Shachter (in Nefesh Harav) says that R' Soloveitchik > did > not say tefilas haderech when he commuted from Boston to NY to give his > shiurim. He felt that because it is a tefila b'eis tzara and nowadays > there > is no perceived danger and it is routine that there was no reason to say > it. I was on a number of trips to Europe with RHS and every morning when the bus left town he said Tefillas Haderech over the loudspeaker. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 22:19:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 08:19:12 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: multipart/alternative Size: 369 bytes Desc: not available URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 07:15:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:15:53 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: Question: If one doesn't view eilu v'eilu as multiple truths but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which is which), how do you explain the approach to halachic process which ignores academic findings concerning texts or historical circumstances? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 07:16:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:16:49 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] =?windows-1252?q?Nikra_Choteih=94_or_=93Nikra_Rasha=94?= Message-ID: <34b0a662bcc7405695661d14e08ddcfd@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> The gemara uses the expression ?Nikra Choteih? or ?Nikra Rasha? from time to time. Has anyone seen anything written on the relative ranking of such categories? (e.g. since it doesn?t say ?assur?? does it mean it?s not a complete prohibition but something less?) KT Joel RIch THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 08:26:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 16:26:54 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I've never heard of the minhag but there is a chasidishe minhag to eat matsoh every time one washes for hamotsi during the Omer [see Chayim VeShoolom - Minhogim of Munkatche Rebbe] - which might be connected. (The source is the Ari who perceives the spiritual influx of Pesach to be repeated over the Omer; the state that warrants the eating of matsoh during Pesach carries over till Shovuos. Full 'maturity' that warrants the eating of chomets is only reached on Shovuos.) Dovid Rubin From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 10:13:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 17:13:44 GMT Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach Message-ID: <20150416.131344.1969.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> R' Dovid Rubin wrote: > (The source is the Ari who perceives the spiritual influx of Pesach > to be repeated over the Omer; the state that warrants the eating of > matsoh during Pesach carries over till Shovuos. This reminds me of the comment (which I've heard several times here on Avodah, but I don't think anywhere else) that in Moshiach's time, all of Sefira will be a sort of Chol Hamoed to Pesach. > Full 'maturity' that > warrants the eating of chomets is only reached on Shovuos.) Shavuos -- a.k.a. -- "Atzeres" -- is of course an entirely distinct holiday, unrelated to Pesach or to its seven-week long chol hamoed. Chometz would not be a problem on Shavuos any more than Sukkah is mandated on the other Atzeres. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552fede2bc7ec6de23df7st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 10:56:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 13:56:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: <20150416.131344.1969.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.131344.1969.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150416175612.GB10238@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 05:13:44PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Dovid Rubin wrote: :> Full 'maturity' that :> warrants the eating of chomets is only reached on Shovuos.) : Shavuos -- a.k.a. -- "Atzeres" -- is of course an entirely : distinct holiday, unrelated to Pesach or to its seven-week long chol : hamoed. Chometz would not be a problem on Shavuos any more than Sukkah : is mandated on the other Atzeres. Entirely distinct, yes. Unrelated.... The chag of cheirus finds its fruition with "charos - cheirus al haluchos." The connection between the issur chameitz of Pesach, the barley of the qorban omer, and the two loaves of chameitz wheat of the Shetei haLechem is at least as old as the Chinukh. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:22:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:22:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> Yesterday, at 7:13 pm EDT, I wrote: > And my question becomes: In that rather typical setting, how the > switch not gerama of one of those two melakhos? (Or possibly both, if > a glowing filament is hav'arah, and the resulting boiling of mercury > in > the fluorescent bulb, bishul.) And then "ssvarc" (RMSS) wrote on Torah Musings at 8:28 am or > In all likelihood, the Zomet one doesn?t have the light on a > randomized > timer (with indicators), nor the randomized chance for the light > pulse > to operate the switch. Now for an updated version of my response (not yet approved) there: Zomet's Grama Switch does have a randomizer on the LED whose light you may or may not block. As do Shabbos mode ovens. The Kosher Switch has a the same randomizer on the detector opposite the LED, but I don?t see how that makes anything more random. But now that you had me looking at their ?How it Works? page, the key difference has the description of a sefeiq sefeiqa. It?s far from clear what is meant. Here?s the quote from : > This creates two safeiks (Halachic uncertainty): the first, whether > or not the light pulse of the Light Pulse Pair will fail; the second, > whether the switch will fail in triggering the circuit based on the > results of the Light Pulse Pair. ?The switch will fail in triggering the circuit?? What are they doing to introduce this second safeiq? The best I can tell, it's a simple bit of software -- a randomizer that says "don't respond anyway". But that's just guessing, I'm not good enough at reading their patent to be sure. Also, in what sense is either a safeiq? Both will eventually happen, the question is when. I am not sure how ?sefeiq sefeiqa? applies to gerama, or to be more precise -- avoiding gerama. But at least I?m a step further in my understanding. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Here is the test to find whether your mission micha at aishdas.org on Earth is finished: http://www.aishdas.org if you're alive, it isn't. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Richard Bach From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:46:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:46:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> Message-ID: PS: On the relevance of random delay to gerama... AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is *geram* kibui". A case of gerama with a random time delay. But this is Yom Tov, where the laws against extinguishing are looser. The AhS refers you to OC 277:7, where we see that on Shabbos it's assur -- but because of a special gezeira to prevent people from doing the same when the wind *is* blowing. Not because of gerama. I also don't think the randomness of the length of the delay is necessarily relevant. Just pointing out halachic precedent. But it's certainly not "iffy" that we could invoke sefeiq sefeiqa. It's a random length delay, not a doubt whether or not the switch will eventually cause the outcome. The odds the wind will never come, or the randomizer(s) will never produce a combination that causes the switch to be honored, is ignorably small. (No one is selling a switch that may or may not shut the light.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:43:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:43:56 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: RJRich >>>Sounds to me like r' asher weiss's makeh bpatish definition. RMBerger >>>> You lost me. I wasn't discussing which melakhah -- if any -- one violates by using electricity in an of itself, but how using this switch relates to that melakhah. >>> IIAMN, the idea RJR is expressing is that the poseik has ad initio determined that the action in question is forbidden, and now is searching around for the category into which to place this prohibition. I have heard RAWeiss explicitly use this concept in classifying the use of electricity as makeh b'patish, based on a Yerushalmi - it's not an idea just made up by contemporary poskim. It does seem that some poskim are looking at the switch and saying "it *must *be assur somehow"; in any event that seems to me to be what RJR is suggesting is going on. Saul Mashbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:45:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:45:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55300361.8020803@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 02:22 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > "The switch will fail in triggering the circuit"? What are they > doing to introduce this second safeiq? The best I can tell, it's > a simple bit of software -- a randomizer that says "don't respond > anyway". But that's just guessing, I'm not good enough at reading their > patent to be sure. Yes, that's how I understood it. If and when the pulse is received, instead of automatically triggering the light to turn on, there's a gatekeeper that flips a coin, heads it obeys the request to turn on the light, tails it refuses. > Also, in what sense is either a safeiq? Both will eventually happen, > the question is when. In principle it might not ever happen. The basis of all this seems to be siman 277. There the concern is that even if the wind isn't blowing right now, it might start to blow *immediately* as you begin to open the door. This implies that if we can be sure that it won't start blowing until some time after the door has been opened it will be OK. But that whole discussion assumes that extinguishing the flame is not the purpose for which the door is being opened, it's just a possible side-effect. Is the halacha different if that was the intention? On 04/16/2015 02:46 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > > AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes > the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable > to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, > as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. > The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is > *geram* kibui". But there you're actively taking it to the place where the wind will blow. Here you're merely opening the door, so that if/when the wind blows the door won't protect the flame. > But it's certainly not "iffy" that we could invoke sefeiq sefeiqa. It's a > random length delay, not a doubt whether or not the switch will eventually > cause the outcome. The odds the wind will never come, or the randomizer(s) > will never produce a combination that causes the switch to be honored, > is ignorably small. (No one is selling a switch that may or may not shut > the light.) Why not? For the shabbos-keeping household, a switch that sometimes fails is better than no switch at all. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 12:12:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 15:12:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <55300361.8020803@sero.name> References: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 02:45:53PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : >Also, in what sense is either a safeiq? Both will eventually happen, : >the question is when. : : In principle it might not ever happen. ... : >But it's certainly not "iffy" that we could invoke sefeiq sefeiqa. It's a : >random length delay, not a doubt whether or not the switch will eventually : >cause the outcome. The odds the wind will never come, or the randomizer(s) : >will never produce a combination that causes the switch to be honored, : >is ignorably small. (No one is selling a switch that may or may not shut : >the light.) : : Why not? For the shabbos-keeping household, a switch that sometimes fails : is better than no switch at all. You want to ask them why not, feel free to do so. I'm not guessing why they're not setting the randomizers to make each even that unlikely. Still, they are repeatedly rolling the dice, the odds of repeatedly getting "no" falls off geometrically with the length of time in question. Ignoring milsa delo shekhicha, the light will indeed go on. They say the average is "several times" at . : The basis of all this seems to be siman 277. There the concern is that : even if the wind isn't blowing right now, it might start to blow : *immediately* as you begin to open the door. This implies that if we : can be sure that it won't start blowing until some time after the door : has been opened it will be OK. But that whole discussion assumes that : extinguishing the flame is not the purpose for which the door is being : opened, it's just a possible side-effect. Is the halacha different if : that was the intention? : >AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes : >the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable : >to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, : >as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. : >The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is : >*geram* kibui". : : But there you're actively taking it to the place where the wind will blow. : Here you're merely opening the door, so that if/when the wind blows the door : won't protect the flame. The AhS invites the comparison, not me. Clearly you're making a disinction that he holds is without a difference. BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at . To quote: An alternative Talmudic analogy: * There is a candle burning next to a closed window, and a strong wind blowing outside. Certainly, opening the window on Shabbat is forbidden, since the candle will be extinguished immediately. * There is a device that can determine if there's no wind currently blowing, and it can predict with 100% accuracy that no wind will be blowing for at least the next ~5 seconds. It lights up with a green light when it has determined this to be true. * On Shabbat, a person opens/closes the window while the device's indicator is green, knowing that a wind will ultimately blow and succeed in extinguishing the candle. * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to KosherSwitch (R). -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:55:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:55:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] {Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: > From: Marty Bluke via Avodah > Given the above R' Shachter (in Nefesh Harav) says that R' Soloveitchik > did > not say tefilas haderech when he commuted from Boston to NY to give his > shiurim. He felt that because it is a tefila b'eis tzara and nowadays > there > is no perceived danger and it is routine that there was no reason to say > it. RAsher Weiss, in a shiur on tefillat haderech, similarly expressed grave reservations about the recitation of tefillat haderech on routine trips which do not involve any particular acute danger, and indicated that his personal practice is not to say tefillat haderech (at least with a bracha) on said routine trips. OTOH, he was apparently very reluctant to issue a definitive psak that others should do the same, in the face of common established practice. Saul Mashbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 12:43:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 15:43:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> References: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 03:12 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > > BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at > . To quote: > > An alternative Talmudic analogy: > > * There is a candle burning next to a closed window, and a strong > wind blowing outside. Certainly, opening the window on Shabbat is > forbidden, since the candle will be extinguished immediately. > > * There is a device that can determine if there's no wind currently > blowing, and it can predict with 100% accuracy that no wind will be > blowing for at least the next ~5 seconds. It lights up with a > green light when it has determined this to be true. > > * On Shabbat, a person opens/closes the window while the device's > indicator is green, knowing that a wind will ultimately blow and > succeed in extinguishing the candle. > > * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind > is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time > when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts > of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they > miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're > able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to > KosherSwitch (R). Yes, and it seems from the SA that this would be permitted. The big difference, though, is that in the SA's case there is no intention to extinguish the flame, and here there is. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 12:53:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 15:53:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> References: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150416195347.GC11430@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 03:43:24PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: :> BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at :> . To quote: ... :> * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind :> is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time :> when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts :> of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they :> miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're :> able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to :> KosherSwitch (R). : Yes, and it seems from the SA that this would be permitted. The big : difference, though, is that in the SA's case there is no intention to : extinguish the flame, and here there is. Getting back to the post that started this tangent, the question was whether this last bullet item actualy is relevant. What's relevant is the probability of the wind eventually blowing the candle out or the switch turning the light off. If it's a rov or maybe a rube deruba, then it's gerama. At least, that's what was consensus decades ago when Machon Zomet first produced their switch technology and wheelchair. Whether you can break down the likelihood of the melakhah occuring into a union of the probability of a number of sub-steps or not doesn't seem to me to impact the question. Because this isn't a safeiq situation, it's whether your action can be blamed for the melakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 13:25:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 16:25:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150416195347.GC11430@aishdas.org> References: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> <20150416195347.GC11430@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55301AC6.7000807@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 03:53 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 03:43:24PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > :> BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at > :> . To quote: > ... > :> * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind > :> is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time > :> when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts > :> of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they > :> miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're > :> able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to > :> KosherSwitch (R). > > : Yes, and it seems from the SA that this would be permitted. The big > : difference, though, is that in the SA's case there is no intention to > : extinguish the flame, and here there is. > > Getting back to the post that started this tangent, the question was > whether this last bullet item actualy is relevant. According to the SA even the penultimate bullet item is permitted: >> * On Shabbat, a person opens/closes the window while the device's >> indicator is green, knowing that a wind will ultimately blow and >> succeed in extinguishing the candle Surely the last bullet item makes the heter much stronger. But again, the case discussed is where this is not one's intention. Note also, in the mashal, that not only is there no wind right now, there is no candle right now either. > What's relevant is the probability of the wind eventually blowing the > candle out or the switch turning the light off. If it's a rov or maybe > a rube deruba, then it's gerama. That doesn't seem to be what the SA says. But again, with the caveat that intention might make a difference. > Whether you can break down the likelihood of the melakhah occuring into > a union of the probability of a number of sub-steps or not doesn't seem > to me to impact the question. Because this isn't a safeiq situation, > it's whether your action can be blamed for the melakhah. It's putting further causal distance between "cause" and "effect". What if you had a series of these routines, each of which may or may not call the next one, until the last one which may or may not do something? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 14:05:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Samuel Svarc via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 17:05:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Apr 15, 2015 6:01 AM, "Micha Berger via Avodah" wrote: > On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > : Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld > : regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. > ... > :> Moshe Oelbaum > :> Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum > Authentication? Um, the fact that R' Oelbaum says the same thing on the KosherSwitch video ()? What I find very disturbing is that this information is in the public arena. Why are people commenting or conjecturing without looking at the companies materials? On Apr 16, 2015 2:46 PM, "Micha Berger" wrote: > PS: On the relevance of random delay to gerama... > AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes > the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable > to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, > as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. > The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is > *geram* kibui". > A case of gerama with a random time delay. But this is Yom Tov, where > the laws against extinguishing are looser. The AhS refers you to OC > 277:7, where we see that on Shabbos it's assur -- but because of a > special gezeira to prevent people from doing the same when the wind *is* > blowing. Not because of gerama. Take a look at R' Schapiro's teshuva (available on the KosherSwitch website) as well as listen to the shuir they link to (26 min.). KT, MSS From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 14:48:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 17:48:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150416214839.GC1824@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 04:25:42PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: :> What's relevant is the probability of the wind eventually blowing the :> candle out or the switch turning the light off. If it's a rov or maybe :> a rube deruba, then it's gerama. : That doesn't seem to be what the SA says. But again, with the caveat that : intention might make a difference. But we already know it does, according to RSZa and numerous other posqim. IOW, your seifa answers your reisha. : >Whether you can break down the likelihood of the melakhah occuring into : >a union of the probability of a number of sub-steps or not doesn't seem : >to me to impact the question. Because this isn't a safeiq situation, : >it's whether your action can be blamed for the melakhah. : It's putting further causal distance between "cause" and "effect". : What if you had a series of these routines, each of which may or may not : call the next one, until the last one which may or may not do something? That's exactly what I'm saying -- gerama is always a chain of events that can be subdivided according to your taste (how fine grained you wish to define the word "event"). There is an oft-discussed difference between melakhah and CM, where the latter subdivides into gerama (culpable) and garmi (no libability) but hilkhos Shabbos does not. And then even so, garmi is about number of human actions, not physical events. On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 05:05:38PM -0400, Samuel Svarc wrote: : On Apr 15, 2015 6:01 AM, "Micha Berger via Avodah" : wrote: :> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: :>: Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld :>: regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. :> ... :>:> Moshe Oelbaum :>:> Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum :> Authentication? : Um, the fact that R' Oelbaum says the same thing on the KosherSwitch video : ()? YOu misunderstand what I'm asking to be authenticated. Yes, I agree that RNIO talks about zilzul Shabbos. He does in the original alleged approbation in print (or PDF) as well. I was asking for authentication that RMO was really the one who said it's "only" zilzul Shabbos and not also gerama. There is nothing in his caveat about them avoiding melakhah that explains in what way shabbos is being cheapened. Could be uvda dechol, could be gerama, could be any other derabbanan or shevus. No? Not to verify the new "chumera", but to very he wasn't being even more machmir. That's a lot to glean from a post on a YWN chatroom that claims to be from his son. No one identity checks on YWN. : What I find very disturbing is that this information is in the public : arena. Why are people commenting or conjecturing without looking at the : companies materials? In the same post I cite the site in numerous ways, including commenting on parts of the patent application. It's not like I stinted on the research. Never blame until the possibility of miscommunication has been eliminated. No? : On Apr 16, 2015 2:46 PM, "Micha Berger" wrote: : Take a look at R' Schapiro's teshuva (available on the KosherSwitch : website) as well as listen to the shuir they link to (26 min.). One thing I had noted about the teshuvah is that he doesn't bother with the whole thing about a second randomizer. Which is why I was lost as to why anyone would think this is more mutar, and why people who generally follow RSZA more often than RZS would think this solves anything. See R' Neuwirth's summary rejection, repudiating the claim he backed their work . Consistent with what he reported besheim RSZA decades ago. I already noted OC 277, which is specific to geram kibui being mutar, with the exception of taking a candle outside while the wind is calm, lest someone not wait for the wind to be calm. And havarah or bishul? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 18:59:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:59:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150417015924.GA11845@aishdas.org> Here's the current state of my understnading, to start the conversation over by clearing the exchanges that got me there. Feel free to correct any misunderstandings, or even points that needn't necessarily be as I present them. 1- RSZA considers Zomet's Gerama Switch to be just that -- gerama, and therefore assur derabanan except in special cases. Randomly delayed changes to a circuit is, leshitaso, gerama. 2- KSTI considers their switch to be halachically different because their version of the Gerama Switch then goes into a second randomizer which determines whether or not it actually turns on or off your light. They invoke the words "sefeik sefeika", which I don't understand, since the random element is to insure an unknown delay, not a doubt about whether or not the switch eventually turns the light on. 3- Those who hold like RSZA -- R Neuwirth (obviously), R' Nebenzahl, R' Shternbuch -- gave the same ruling to the new switch. 4- Those who say this switch is gerama do not actually invoke the second random element. I found nothing in that wouldn't apply to Zomet's switch. I see them as simply disagreeing with RSZA and R' Yehoshua Neuwirth when they dealt with that question decades ago. Which, given the stature of RSZA and the acceptance of Shemiras Shabbos keHilhasah (and thus RYN), I don't think will get very far in terms of communal acceptance. 5- The Machloqes between RSZA and R Chaim Zvi Shapiro (to pick two representative names) appears to be over how to understand the distinction between two statements by the Rama: 334:22- Geram kibui is only allowed in special cases, and 514:3- You may put a cnandle next to an open window even in a windy area. RSZA distinguishes between whether the intent is kibui or not. RCZS makes the chiluq between whether the maaseh is one of kibui. But I still don't see how this makes the Kosher Switch not a maaseh kibui that we would group it with open windows, not the normal geram kibui. 6- You can't take a candle outside to a windy area even when there is no wind because of a gezeira atu not waiting for the wind to die down. This is different than the window, because one is moving the candle itself. Still, the Magein AvrahamA applies the gezeira to the window as well -- inlike the Rama. So my wondering about how the Kosher Switch isn't a maaseh kibui means that I also have no idea why the switch wouldn't be covered by the gezeira. And according to the MA, the gezeira definitely applies, regardless. If so, wouldn't you need the switch to be physically blocked when the response could be immediately, and not merely warned off with a red light? 6- R' Oelbaum is against general usage, due to zilzul Shabbos. (To my understanding, zilzul Shabbos means violating a shevus or other deRabbanan, chilul Shabbos means deOraisa.) According to he explicitly states "it is clear it is not a grama". So, my prior approach to figuring out what he holds was pointless. Regardless of whether the person in YWN's chatroom is his son or just someone pretending to be, ie whether that text is likely to reflect the nuances of his position. And regardless how one is medayeiq the difference between melakhah and zilzul, ie whether he considers geram melakhah a melakhah or a shevus. RNIO is in the same camp as R' Chaim Zvi Shapiro WRT the mechanics of gerama, but with RSZA it all in practice. But at least now my opening question has some kind of resolution: No poseiq makes a point about how the switches differ, its a machloqes about whether the switch is more like bringing a candle outside or opening a window. It may also be a machloqes about whether it's only geram kibui that is limited to acts of kibui, or even other melakhos. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 17:56:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 20:56:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <10e550.ca50480.4261b459@aol.com> From: Zev Sero via Avodah >> Why not? For the shabbos-keeping household, a switch that sometimes fails is better than no switch at all.<< -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name >>>>> Now that Shabbos lamps are readily available -- they work by covering the light rather than turning it off -- why do we need the Shabbos switch at all? --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 18:08:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 01:08:53 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150416.210853.21413.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> > But that whole discussion assumes that > extinguishing the flame is not the purpose for which the door is being > opened, it's just a possible side-effect. Is the halacha different if > that was the intention? If the operative principle were Psik Reisha, then intention certainly would matter. So here's a question: Is Grama a version of Aino Psik Reisha, or is it another principle entirely? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55305d31763705d3173a1st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 15:56:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 23:56:59 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This idea (that the days of the Omer are a type of chol hamoed) is mentioned in Avoidas Yisroel [Koznitse Maggid] and Ramban in Acharie Mois. Dovid Rubin From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 18:27:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:27:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] re Chametz post Pesach Message-ID: >What did it grow out of? Avoiding she'avar alav es hapesach? A way of avoiding chodosh, at least during the omer period?< Since chadash is grain which has taken root after the minchas ha'omer on the second day of Pesach, and it takes more than 7 weeks for newly-sown grain to be ready for harvest, how is it possible for chadash to exist between Pesach and Shavuos? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 19:22:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 02:22:34 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Joel Rich asked: > Question: If one doesn?t view eilu v?eilu as multiple truths > but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don?t know which > is which), ... You've lost me. Doesn't the grammar and definition of the words "eilu v'eilu" imply that the two things under discussion are equal? I just can't wrap my brain around a way to translate "eilu v'eilu" where one is truth and the other isn't. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 19:35:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 22:35:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150417015924.GA11845@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150417015924.GA11845@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5530716C.8070201@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 09:59 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > They invoke the words "sefeik sefeika", which I don't understand, since > the random element is to insure an unknown delay, not a doubt about > whether or not the switch eventually turns the light on. I assume they disagree with this characterisation. This is your editorial opinion, that since it's inevitable that sooner or later the ducks will all be in a row and the light will come on, all that it achieves is a delay of random length. They would say no, each time the sequence is triggered (let's say every minute) is a discrete event, in which there is a sfek-sfeka whether anything will happen, and the fact that in the next hour there will be 60 more such opportunities, one of which is "bound" to succeed, is irrelevant. They would also point out that there *is* in fact a doubt whether the light will ever turn on (before Shabbos is over or the owner decides to flip the switch back), and they would deny your premise that the tininess of that doubt renders it meaningless. *You* think it's halachically insignificant; they are not required to agree with you. > But at least now my opening question has some kind of resolution: > No poseiq makes a point about how the switches differ, its a machloqes > about whether the switch is more like bringing a candle outside or > opening a window. They seem to say that this is like a case where at the time you open the window there is neither a wind nor a candle, but you know that some time later a goy is likely to put a candle in front of the window, and that some time after that a wind is likely to blow and put it out. On 04/16/2015 08:56 PM, T613K at aol.com via Avodah wrote: > Now that Shabbos lamps are readily available -- they work by covering > the light rather than turning it off -- why do we need the Shabbos > switch at all? I assume 1. To save electricity 2. If you want a brighter light than you can get from a 15w CF light (which is the maximum that it's safe to put in a Shabbos lamp) 3. For applications other than lights -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 20:02:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 03:02:13 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel wrote: > On many birchot hamitzva one can be motzeh others even when they > are "experts". This includes shofar, megilla etc (not lulav or > netillat yadaim which is considered as a mitzvah be-gufo) > similarly for kiddush and havdala. > > Note that for sefirat haomer usually each person says the bracha > himself/herself and also counts for themselves. I am not aware of any situation where the halacha says that I cannot say a birkat hamitzva on your behalf, AND that the reason why I cannot do so is because you are a baki. (There might be other good reasons, depending on the situation, but I don't know that "being a baki" is ever such a reason.) That said, I do concede that the common practice is for one person to say the bracha on shofar and megilla for all the assembled, yet we all say our own brachos on lulav, hallel, and sefira. I have never seen this explanation, but I've always felt there was a very simple explanation for how this distinction developed: When I take the lulav, say hallel, or count sefira, I am doing the mitzvah myself. I am doing it in shul, among many other people, but we are each acting as individuals. I do the mitzvah myself, so I say the bracha on it myself. In contrast, I am dependent on someone else to blow the shofar or read the megillah. You can say that I am personally hearing the shofar with my own ears, and you can say that "shome'a k'oneh" means that I am actively doing the mitzvah of krias hamegillah -- but the bottom line, l'maaseh, is that if the guy on the bimah messes up, I've lost the mitzvah. I am dependent on him to get the mitzvah done. I have to do my share of the work too, of course, by paying attention etc etc, but that's not enough. We *both* have to do it right. Under such conditions, I really don't want to risk saying a bracha that could end up being l'vatala. I'd rather answer Amen to *his* birkas hamitzvah. Following that logic, someone who has his own kosher megila, and actually reads along with the baal kriah, ought to say his own Al Mikra Megila. I suppose so! This distinction appears in other brachos too, even brachos other than birchos hamitzvah. For example, at Kol Nidre, everyone says their own Shehecheyanu on the Yom Tov, because, why not? We all say our own Netilas Yadayim, and brachos on Talis and Tefilin, for the same reason. We all listen to one person say Kiddush, but I think that's mostly because only he/she has a cup from which to drink the required amount. But at the Seder, everyone has a cup, so (in many families) everyone says their own Kiddush. EXCEPTION: There are some brachos which *ought* to be said by each individual according to the above logic, but we rely on the other person because a few brachos got bundled together. For example, if we pass around the b'samim and candle at havdala, we should each say our own bracha on them, but most people don't, because it is part of havdala. Similarly, if you are at the Seder and don't have your own 2.5 matzos in front of you, you'll have to hear Hamotzi from someone because of Lechem Mishne, but why not say your own Al Achilas Matza after you have a piece in your hand, and the answer is because Motzi Matzah go together. All of the above is purely my own logic, and I'm sure many of you will be able to punch some good holes in it. And I'm looking forward to reading that! Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553077e61f4dd77e644e0st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 22:30:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 01:30:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] SF - Focus on the Good Message-ID: <20150417053029.35F10181384@nexus.stevens.edu> [] Focus on the Good In ancient days if a person spoke loshon horah he contracted tza'aras. The message was that just as he exposed the flaws of a person, so too, his flaws were exposed. His rectification was to go into isolation and introspect on his own shortcomings. Lesson: If we focus on the faults of others, we are held responsible to correct our own faults. If we focus of the good of others, HaShem will mercifully overlook our flaws and focus exclusively on our good. App: Avoid saying all unbecoming comments about others. (Based on the writings of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 02:52:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 05:52:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150417095237.GB2327@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 17, 2015 at 03:02:13AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I am not aware of any situation where the halacha says that I cannot : say a birkat hamitzva on your behalf, AND that the reason why I cannot : do so is because you are a baki. (There might be other good reasons, : depending on the situation, but I don't know that "being a baki" is ever : such a reason.) More than that, Beis Hillel (Berakhos 38a, brought lehalakhah AhS OC 298:28) gives *preference* to one person making havdalah for all than each person making their own, because of berov am hadras Melekh. Similarly, it is better to be yotzei qiddush from the baal habayis than each person make their own. (AhS OC 273:6, citing Berakhos 53a, and a din mentioned in most Hagados, because at the seder each person already has their own kos.) But when it comes to birkhas shevach and birkhos hanehenin (which are unattached to other berakhos, unlike the the borei peri hagafen of qiddush or havdalah), we do hold that it's better to make your own. (Berakhos 42a) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 13th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Gevurah: To what extent is judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 necessary for a good relationship? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 05:01:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 12:01:53 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150417.080153.18454.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero explained two views: > I assume they disagree with this characterisation. This is your > editorial opinion, that since it's inevitable that sooner or later > the ducks will all be in a row and the light will come on, all that > it achieves is a delay of random length. They would say no, each > time the sequence is triggered (let's say every minute) is a > discrete event, in which there is a sfek-sfeka whether anything > will happen, and the fact that in the next hour there will be 60 > more such opportunities, one of which is "bound" to succeed, is > irrelevant. They would also point out that there *is* in fact a > doubt whether the light will ever turn on (before Shabbos is over > or the owner decides to flip the switch back), and they would deny > your premise that the tininess of that doubt renders it > meaningless. *You* think it's halachically insignificant; they > are not required to agree with you. If I'm understanding this correctly, the difference of opinion centers on: how many links does the chain need, to reach a point where one end has no halachically significant effect on the other end. To me, this whole discussion is very reminiscent of another topic in hilchos Shabbos, namely, that the Gemara never gave any halachos about cooking in a Kli Shlishi. One view says: "A Kli Rishon obviously cooks, and we were told that some easily-cooked things are capable of being cooked in a Kli Sheni, but that's as far as they went, so obviously nothing can get cooked in a Kli Shlishi." The other view says: "A Kli Rishon obviously cooks, and we were told that some easily-cooked things are capable of being cooked even in other keilim, so you have to be careful with *any* keli that's above Yad Soledes." To me, both of those arguments are very logical, and we must follow our poskim to know which one Hashem wants us to follow. I imagine that this whole Grama discussion might be similar: Chazal laid out circumstances under which indirect action is still assur -- so does that mean that *all* indirect action is assur?, or perhaps I can structure an even more remote indirectness which is acceptably distant. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5530f6662145376662eacst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 06:04:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 09:04:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: A shabbos lamp is tiny. Do you have shabbos lamps to light up your dining room table or the main lighting on a timer? > On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 8:56 PM, via Avodah > wrote: > >> >> Now that Shabbos lamps are readily available -- they work by covering the >> light rather than turning it off -- why do we need the Shabbos switch at >> all? >> >> >> >> >> *--Toby Katzt613k at aol.com * >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 06:54:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 06:54:30 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] yom hazikaron origin Message-ID: http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/Parasha/tazria/Ahrend.pdf on rav goren's placement of yom hazikaron on 4 iyar, analogizing to the israeli shmini atzeret , where hakafot precedes yizkor... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 08:26:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 15:26:20 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: > Question: If one doesn?t view eilu v?eilu as multiple truths > but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don?t know which > is which), ... You've lost me. Doesn't the grammar and definition of the words "eilu v'eilu" imply that the two things under discussion are equal? I just can't wrap my brain around a way to translate "eilu v'eilu" where one is truth and the other isn't. ------------------------------------------------------ See here https://kavvanah.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/rav-soloveitchik-religious-definitions-of-man-and-his-social-institutions-part-1of-7-1958/ for a general approach (especially "Part III- Rav Soloveitchik?s God In Judaism, God himself is the hidden God, Jal Mistatar ? unknowable and unknown. The Jewish experience of God (shared by other religions is antithetic, a polarity. it has both remoteness and intimate closeness. How is that possible? Judaism does not use Aristotelian logic of excluded middle. Unlike classic physic, modern physics uses both waves and particles; modern physics does not use Aristotle. God is both remote and close- in our encounter we are bewildered and comforted. Since Creation is also revelation, the every tree also incomprehensible strange. " And here for some more specifics: http://nishma.org/articles/commentary/slifkinrevisted3print.pdf especially starting around page 11. KT Joel Rich (who still can't really understand the double slit experiment, yet it's there) THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 08:54:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 11:54:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150417155456.GA7366@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 02:15:53PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Question: If one doesn't view eilu v'eilu as multiple truths but rather : one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which is which), how do : you explain the approach to halachic process which ignores academic : findings concerning texts or historical circumstances? To quote myself from : Last week I drew the conclusion from the Qetzos haChoshen that Torah is not Truth, it -- combined with the Jewish People -- is the process by which "Truth will bloom from the earth".... Thus, "vechayei olam nata besokheinu" -- Emes is matzmiach from the Torah. Note that the Torah isn't actually identified with Emes, but the process to get there. ... Rav Moshe Feinstein discusses the halachic process and the role of poseiq in his introduction to Igros Mosheh. (The introduction itself deserves serious study.) He writes about "ha'emes lehora'ah umichuyav lehoros kein af al pi im be'etzem galyah kelapei shemaya galya she'eino kein hapeirush - the true ruling, and one is obligated to teach accordingly, even if in essence is it revealed in heaven that this isn't the correct eplanation!" The ideal is following the pesaq as according to the process. As proof, Rav Moshe brings the gemara in Shabbos 130. We rule that only the milah itself overrules Shabbos. All preparation before the milah must be done in advance. Rabbi Eliezer ruled that anything necessary for the milah, even cutting wood to make the fire to make the knife, etc... could also be done on Shabbos. There was a town in Israel that followed Rabbi Eliezer. The gemara says that Hashem rewarded them for their tenacity for the mitzvah of milah. No one in that town died an early death. And when the Romans passed a law in Israel against milah, they exempted that one town from the law! Who was right -- this town, which was rewarded for their position, or we, who rule differently? If we understand that the essence of halakhah is that it and the Jewish People become one in a process to make truth bloom in this world, we can understand how the answer could be "both". Torah, like life, is about becoming, not being. IOW, if Torah is a legal process to reach the truth, and halakhah is law rather than truths, then it would be reasonable for an truth foung by extra-legal means to be irrelevant. We aren't up to pursuing Truth directly yet, we pursue the law. Someday they'll be identical, and and the neti'ah of chayei olam will have been matzmiach into Emes. On Fri, Apr 17, 2015 at 02:22:34AM +0000, R' Akiva ("Kenneth") Miller replied to RJR: : You've lost me. Doesn't the grammar and definition of the words "eilu : v'eilu" imply that the two things under discussion are equal? I just : can't wrap my brain around a way to translate "eilu v'eilu" where one : is truth and the other isn't. RMF says they're equally balid legally, but not as Truths. Implied is that Divrei E-lokim Chaim are on the meta-level, instructions about about how to hunt for halakhah, not the individual halachic conclusions themselves. Eilu va'eilu follow Hashem's instructions for how to pasqen, but the halakhah is like Beis Hillel. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 13th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Gevurah: To what extent is judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 necessary for a good relationship? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 10:03:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 13:03:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Derech Eretz: What is it the sets man apart from the animal? Message-ID: <20150417170308.D3E50183221@nexus.stevens.edu> Perhaps if yeshiva students were taught again and again, RSRH's commentary about what sets man (and this refers to all men, not just Jews) apart from the animal, then they would realize that every human being is to be treated with Derech Eretz and thus proper respect. YL The following is from RSRH's commentary on Bereishis 2:7 7 Then God formed man, dust of the ground, and breathed into his countenance the breath of life, and thus man became a living personality. What is it that sets man apart from the animal? The living individuality of the animal depends on earthly matter; like its body, so its soul, too, was taken from the earth. Not so man. In the creation of man, only the inert material was taken from the earth; only when God breathed into him the breath of life did he become a living individual. Herein lies the nobility and immortality of man, and this is the whole source of his freedom . That which gives the animal its individuality emanates from the earth and must eventually return to the earth. Not so that which makes man a ?living personality.? Man?s preeminence over the animal is not only in his spirit, but also in his vitality. His vitality is linked not to his body, but to his spirit. When he received a spirit he received life, his soul adhering to the spirit. When the spirit departs from the body, the vital soul is not buried with the remains; for man?s soul is bound up with his spirit, not his body. This is why his physical survival and health do not depend on his body alone. Of the many dangers to the life of an animal, not all are dangers to man. The survival of a man cannot be predicted with the same degree of accuracy as the survival of an animal. Adom yesh lo mazel ( Bava Kamma 2b): there is something in man that defies prediction. A man?s spirit will sustain him, even if it appears that all hope is lost; for the spirit sustains life. Who can gauge the power of an unbroken spirit? Who can calculate how long it can keep the body alive? Thus man is composed of two elements that are completely different from each other. One of these was taken from the earth. But man does not belong to the earth; rather, the earth ? as its name, Adama, implies ? has been given to man to rule. So, too, man?s body, which is afar min Ha?Adomo, is subject to man?s control. His true, living, spiritual essence is not dependent on the body; hence, even while he is physically combined with the earthly element, he can and should exercise control over the earthly in him. The afar, the earthly element, in him cannot be released from the realm of physical compulsion and is subject to the influence of earthly factors. But the nishmas chaim, which God breathed into man and which first made man a human being, imparts to man of the dignity of its source and releases him from all physical compulsion; it grants him freedom and elevates his body, too, into the realm of freedom. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 11:45:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mordechai Harris via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 13:45:49 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: > > That said, I do concede that the common practice is for one person to say > the bracha on shofar and megilla for all the assembled, yet we all say our > own brachos on lulav, hallel, and sefira. In the case of Lulav (first day - which is D'Oraita) and counting Sefira, the Pasuk uses the word Lachem which teaches of the need for each individual to have/count their own. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 12:26:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 15:26:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <55315E57.30506@sero.name> On 04/17/2015 02:45 PM, Mordechai Harris via Avodah wrote: >> That said, I do concede that the common practice is for one person >> to say the bracha on shofar and megilla for all the assembled, yet >> we all say our own brachos on lulav, hallel, and sefira. > In the case of Lulav (first day - which is D'Oraita) and counting > Sefira, the Pasuk uses the word Lachem which teaches of the need for > each individual to have/count their own. What has this got to do with the bracha? I actually had meant to post about this, since I've been wondering for some time why it is that the world's minhag is for each person to say their own bracha on hallel and sefira, after hearing the chazan's bracha. Doesn't the usual rule of "berov am" mean that everyone should be yotzei with his bracha? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 13:47:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 16:47:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is from today's Halacha for Today http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ Erev Shabbos Kodesh Parashas Shemini (Parashiyos Tazria- Metzorah in Eretz Yisroel); Mevorchim Chodesh Iyar; Rosh Chodesh will be on Sunday and Monday 28 Nisan , 5775 April 17, 2015 CURRENT TOPIC: REVIEW OF HALACHOS OF SEFIRAS HA'OMER Halachos for Erev Shabbos Kodesh 1) The thirty third day of the Omer, the 18th of Iyar, is referred to as "Lag B'Omer" and the early sources already treat this day as a special day, as a kind of Yom Tov. (See Sefer Hamanhig page 91a and Meiri to Yevamos 62b) 2) The Tur (Siman 493:3) states that the Talmidim of Rav Akiva stopped dying on Lag B'Omer. However, the Talmud (Yevamos 62b) clearly states that they died from Pesach all the way until Shavuos. If that is so, what then is the significance of the 33rd day of the Omer and why does the Tur write that they stopped dying on that day? The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between the Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the days between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not say Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh Chodesh Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 days in all. Therefore they only died on 32 of the 49 days. As a commemoration of this, we designate the "33rd" day as the day that the dying stopped and we celebrate that day, but not that it totally stopped on Lag B'Omer. ---------- Note that according to the Maharil tachanun was originally said during Nissan except for the days indicated! I wonder when saying Tachanun during Nissan ended. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 14:10:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 21:10:04 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150417.171004.3030.1@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitchok Levine reposted: > The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between > the Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the > days between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not > say Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh > Chodesh Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 > days in all. > > Therefore they only died on 32 of the 49 days... ... There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in both of those. Therefore, there are not "17 days in all", but only 16, leaving 33 days on which they died. (And this presumes that none of the 3 Rosh Chodesh days was Shabbos.) In any case, I am very curious how the commemoration of this event ended up as 33 *somewhat* consecutive days, including Shabbos. If the talmidim really died only on the days cited, our procedure sounds like cheating, at least sort of. Granted that a commemoration does NOT have to follow all the details of the event being remembered, but this pushes the envelope on that, in my opinion. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55317717a31937717329dst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 13:58:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 20:58:03 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <20150417.165803.3030.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero asked: > I actually had meant to post about this, since I've been > wondering for some time why it is that the world's minhag is for > each person to say their own bracha on hallel and sefira, after > hearing the chazan's bracha. Doesn't the usual rule of "berov > am" mean that everyone should be yotzei with his bracha? In theory (="l'halacha"), yes, you are correct. But in practice (="l'maaseh") Rov Am gets beat by our lack of kavana. Rov Am is an important hidur, but the ikar is to insure that one is yotzay, and that is more easily insured by saying it oneself. (It's like if one is forced to choose between an esrog which is definitely kosher but only barely so, vs. one which is beautiful but *might* be pasul. To me, it's a no-brainer that one would choose the barely kosher one.) This explanation fits my previous post well: We are all yotzay with someone else's bracha on the shofar and megillah, but NOT because of Rov Am, only because the bracha is somewhat risky because I'm relying on someone else. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5531743bc92df743b2646st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Apr 18 18:34:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sat, 18 Apr 2015 21:34:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Correction to Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150419013412.5B7E7181C69@nexus.stevens.edu> I sent out a couple of days ago. The following is from today's Halacha for Today http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between the Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the days between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not say Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh Chodesh Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 days in all. Therefore they only died on 32 of the 49 days. As a commemoration of this, we designate the "33rd" day as the day that the dying stopped and we celebrate that day, but not that it totally stopped on Lag B'Omer. ---------- Note this calculation is wrong. If one counts 7 days of Pesach then one has included one Shabbos. This leaves 6 Shabbasos until Shavuous. Thus one has 7 days of Pesach, 6 Shabbasos, 2 days Rosh Chodesh Iyar and one day Rosh Chodesh Sivan. Hence 7+6+2+1 = 16 days on which Tachanun was not said. 49 -16 = 33, and this is where the 33 days of aveilus comes from. Thus Tachanun was said not only during Nissan except for the days that are excluded, but also on Lag B'Omer . YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Apr 18 21:19:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 00:19:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <55332CDA.60208@sero.name> > 2) The Tur (Siman 493:3) states that the Talmidim of Rav Akiva > stopped dying on Lag B'Omer. > > However, the Talmud (Yevamos 62b) clearly states that they died from > Pesach all the way until Shavuos. If that is so, what then is the > significance of the 33rd day of the Omer and why does the Tur write > that they stopped dying on that day? He does not say any such thing. He says that *some* people have haircuts from the 33rd day on, because *they say* that this is when the dying stopped. The long list of rishonim who hold this cite a medrash that disagrees with the gemara, and says the dying stopped 15 days before Shavuos. The Tur himself does not express an opinion on the matter. > The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between the > Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the days > between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not say > Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh Chodesh > Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 days in all.* This is *not* a Maharil! It's supposedly a Tosfos, I don't know where. But there seem to be two versions of what this Tosfos says, which is why it would be nice to see the original. Mahari Ibn Shuaib (a talmid of the Rashba, and the rebbe of the Tzeida Laderech) cites this Tosfos as saying that the mourning takes place on 33 days during the Omer, because there are 16 days when no mourning is appropriate. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=9416&pgnum=131 The Bach, however, cites "Acharonim" who cite this Tosfos as saying that they didn't die on these 16 days. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=14268&pgnum=330 On 04/17/2015 04:47 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > Note that according to the Maharil tachanun was originally said > during Nissan except for the days indicated! I wonder when saying > Tachanun during Nissan ended. YL Not Tachanun. Techina, i.e. Kel Erech Apayim, Lamnatzeach Ya`ancha, etc. According to minhag Ashkenaz these are said even on days when there is no nefilas apayim, but not on Yomtov, Chol Hamoed, Shabbos, or Rosh Chodesh. [Email #2. -micha] On 04/17/2015 05:10 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos > Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or > it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in > both of those. Indeed, the Bach noters this and corrects it. > In any case, I am very curious how the commemoration of this event > ended up as 33 *somewhat* consecutive days, including Shabbos. If the > talmidim really died only on the days cited, our procedure sounds > like cheating, at least sort of. Granted that a commemoration does > NOT have to follow all the details of the event being remembered, but > this pushes the envelope on that, in my opinion. Well, according to the Tosfos as Mahari ibn Shuaib quotes it, the common interpretation of 33 days is *wrong*, and the correct minhag is to mourn for 33 days during the sefirah, i.e. all days except Pesach, Shabbos, and Rosh Chodesh. He does *not* say that they only died on these days. The first place I've seen the idea that Tosfos says they only died on those days is in the Bach. He sees it as justifying our mourning for only 33 days, not 34, as we should if our source were the medrash that the dying stopped 15 days before Shavuos. And since they only died on 33 days, our mourning period only lasts 33 days, including Shabbos, even though (according to this view) they didn't die on Shabbos. How exactly we mourn on Shabbos I'm not sure, but I assume the idea is that we do, so we count it toward the 33 days. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 06:26:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 09:26:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <55332CDA.60208@sero.name> References: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> <55332CDA.60208@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150419132604.GB19240@aishdas.org> On Sun, Apr 19, 2015 at 12:19:38AM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : >Note that according to the Maharil tachanun was originally said : >during Nissan except for the days indicated! I wonder when saying : >Tachanun during Nissan ended. YL : : Not Tachanun. Techina, i.e. Kel Erech Apayim, Lamnatzeach Ya`ancha, etc. : According to minhag Ashkenaz these are said even on days when there is no : nefilas apayim, but not on Yomtov, Chol Hamoed, Shabbos, or Rosh Chodesh. I am now wondering: why those techinos and not Tachanun? After all, as the name implies (and the Gra emphasizes), Tachanun is itself the core techinah. (Or perhaps "Elokai, Netzor Leshoni" is more central, since that's the one we place immediately "basar tzelosana", before aqiras raglayim.) I would bet (if I had spare money to bet with) that's the same question as asking why we're nofeil apayim for one but not the other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 04:00:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 11:00:12 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150419.070012.19808.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> I wrote: > There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos > Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or > it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in > both of those. R' Zev Sero added: > Indeed, the Bach notes this and corrects it. Glad to hear that, thank you. But over Shabbos, I thought of another problem: R' Akiva's talmidim were in Eretz Yisrael. There would never be a year where Pesach contains 7 days of Sefira. Even when including Shabbos Chol Hamoed, that yields only 6 days. Add 6 post- Pesach Shabbosim, and 3 days of Rosh Chodesh, and you have only 15 days of no Tachanun, leaving 34 days of mourning. Perhaps this is why Mechaber 493:2 says that the mourning continues straight through Lag Baomer, and does not end until the morning of the 34th. Note that Mishne Brurah 493:7 says that although most of the dying stopped on the 33rd, some deaths did occur on the 34th. I must point out that the above is true only when Pesach begins on Sunday, Monday or Tuesday. In years when it begins on Shabbos, as it did this year, then Eretz Yisrael does have a full seven post-Pesach Sabbaths in Sefira, totalling 16 no-Tachanun days, leaving 33 for mourning. BUT - In years when Pesach begins on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday (and even nowadays Thursday is a real possibility), one of the Rosh Chodesh days will coincide with Shabbos. This lowers the count to 6 days of Pesach, 6 Shabbasos, and only 2 days of Rosh Chodesh - a total of only 14 no-Tachanun days, leaving 35 for mourning. I can't help but wonder how the calendar looked that particular year. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ 4 Fish to Never Eat Click to Learn 4 Fish to NEVER Eat (avoid these like the plague!) http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55338b0147138b0126d6st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 10:34:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 13:34:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <20150419.070012.19808.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150419.070012.19808.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5533E71A.9080700@sero.name> On 04/19/2015 07:00 AM, Kenneth Miller wrote: > I wrote: >> There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos >> Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or >> it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in >> both of those. > > R' Zev Sero added: >> Indeed, the Bach notes this and corrects it. > > Glad to hear that, thank you. But over Shabbos, I thought of another > problem: R' Akiva's talmidim were in Eretz Yisrael. There would never > be a year where Pesach contains 7 days of Sefira. Even when including > Shabbos Chol Hamoed, that yields only 6 days. Add 6 post- Pesach > Shabbosim, and 3 days of Rosh Chodesh, and you have only 15 days of > no Tachanun, leaving 34 days of mourning. Except, as you note, in a year like this one. > Perhaps this is why Mechaber 493:2 says that the mourning continues > straight through Lag Baomer, and does not end until the morning of > the 34th. No, the Mechaber had never heard of this Tosfos that the Bach cites in the name of the "Acharonim". On the contrary, the only Tosfos he seems aware of on topic is the one cited by Mahari ibn Shuaib, which says that the plague raged throughout the Sefira, but that we only mourn for 33 days, because we skip Yomtov, Shabbos, and Rosh Chodesh. The Mechaber's own minhag follows the medrash that the plague stopped 15 days before Shavuos, i.e. the 34th was the last day. Either there are two versions of this Tosfos, or the Acharonim whom the Bach quotes are talking about the same Tosfos as Mahari ibn Shuaib does, and one of them misunderstood it. It would be nice to find it inside (though of course that would not rule out a different girsa). -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 10:36:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 17:36:03 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150419.133603.21006.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero wrote: > Not Tachanun. Techina, i.e. Kel Erech Apayim, Lamnatzeach > Ya`ancha, etc. According to minhag Ashkenaz these are said even > on days when there is no nefilas apayim, but not on Yomtov, Chol > Hamoed, Shabbos, or Rosh Chodesh. R' Micha Berger wrote: > I am now wondering: why those techinos and not Tachanun? Let me add a few more data points: Common practice in Nusach Ashkenaz is to skip Tachanun even for all of the Sefira days of Nisan, and also for all of the pre-Shavuos days of Sivan. (Note that NONE of the various minhagim allow haircuts on ALL of those days. Sounds like a great proof that tachanun takes all the kulos, even contradictory ones.) I concede that this is davka nowadays, and I do not know what the practice was in previous centuries. However, it is difficult for me to imagine anyone ever saying Tachanun on Isru Chag. Perhaps that might answer the point I raised in my previous post about R' Akiva's talmidim being in EY, and that in EY there are only 6 days of Sefirah during Pesach; perhaps the "7" comes from including Isru Chag. I should also mention Pesach Sheni, although that could lead to a messy argument over whether that is really "a non-Tachanun day" or merely "a non-Tachanun afternoon". So I won't mention it. :-) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5533e7dd3196367dd4042st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 09:54:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 12:54:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L Message-ID: <20150419165450.42320180CA8@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is taken in part from Rav Shimon Schwab's Essay The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L that appears in Selected Writings pages 88 -93. Rav Hirsch is usually accepted as the exponent of the Torah im Derech Eretz philosophy. This principle is explained by his grandson, Dr. Isaac Breuer, as follows: "He was strictly opposed to compromise or reconciliation, or even a synthesis: he demanded full and uncompromising rulership of the Torah. The Torah cannot endure co-rulership, far less tolerate it. As a true revolutionary he seized the liberalistic individual, the liberalistic, humanitarian ideal, liberalistic capitalism, and the human intellect, celebrating orgies in the liberalistic science, and dragged them as "circumstances'', in the narrowest sense of the word, to the flaming fire of the Torah to be purified or, if need be, to be consumed. As a true revolutionary he solved the unbearable tension between the Torah and the new era which had dawned over the Jews of Western Europe. He invaded the new era with the weapons of the Torah, analyzed and dissected it down to its last ingredients, and then shaped and reformed it until it could be placed at the feet of the Torah, as new nourishment for the Divine fire. The proclamation of the rulership of the Torah over the new era was the historic achievement of Hirsch's life for his own contemporaries." -- ("Hirsch as a Guide to Jewish History'' in Fundamentals of Judaism, published by Feldheim, 1949.) Unfortunately, the principle of Torah im Derech Eretz is grossly misunderstood by our contemporary Jewish orthodoxy. It does not mean that one who is a full-fledged citizen of hedonistic America and at the same time keeps the laws of the Torah, is a follower of Torah im Derech Eretz. Not to violate the laws of the Torah certainly deserves praise and recognition but it is not an embodiment of the Hirschian philosophy. Likewise, an academy dedicated to the study of science and philosophy, not in order to serve the understanding of Torah or to further the aims of the Torah but as the independent search by the human intellect to understand and control the world around -- even when added to a department of profound and very scholarly Torah studies -this is not an outgrowth of the Torah im Derech Eretz Weltanschauung of Samson Raphael Hirsch. Also, a secular university in Israel, albeit under skullcap auspices, complete with Judaic studies, is extremely remote from a Torah im Derech Eretz school even if it has established a "Samson Raphael Hirsch chair" as part of its academic set-up, something which almost borders on blasphemy . The Orthodox professional who is not regularly "koveah ittim batorah", or otherwise lacks in the performance of mitzvahs, or who is immodest in dress or behavior, is not a follower of Samson Raphael Hirsch. From all of Hirsch's prolific writings, it becomes evident that his main concern was to establish the majesty of the Divine Word and the role of the Divine Will as revealed in the Torah, to dominate all the highways and by-ways of mundane life. Those who abuse Torah im Derech Eretz as a "hetter" to lead a life of easygoing and lenient "Yiddishkeit" or those who consider the Hirschian idea as a compromise between the right and the left in Jewish thinking have distorted the meaning of the principle as laid down in the Mishne, Avos, Perek 2, 2: "Beautiful is the study of Torah combined with Derech Eretz for the effort to attain both makes one forget to commit sins". The Torah is not a mere branch of human knowledge, one discipline amongst many others, but rather must the Torah dominate all secular knowledge and all worldly activities. Equally so, the community of Israel, Klal Yisroel, as well as all Kehillos and organized communities, be they local or international -- which are all segments of Klal Yisroel -- are not supposed to be mere branches of a neutral Israel but are to be totally independent. The Torah community is not beholden to any non-Torah community and it does not even recognize its authenticity. This is the essence of the Hirschian Austritt (separation) ideology. The so-called "Austritt" is the militant vigilance of the conscientious Jew defending the Torah community against all encroachments from the non-Torah powers that be. The "Austritt" and Torah im Derech Eretz go hand in hand, they form "one package", so to speak, and both these aspects of Hirschian thought have one aim: the total domination of Torah over all thinking and actions of individual and national life. He who separates the rule of the Torah over all facets of the communal life of Klal Yisroel from the rule of the Torah over all human knowledge, in short, he who separates the "Austritt" from Torah im Derech Eretz, renders a disservice to both. Instead of becoming an inspiration to serve G-d in the spirit of B'chol D'rochecha dahu, Torah im Derech Eretz is reduced to become an excuse for being "modern but frum", an excuse for the cultural assimilation which plagues the modern Orthodox Jew who considers this world a kosher pleasure cruise eventually resulting in all the sorry hangovers of our age. Let us therefore beware of some common misunderstandings. The motto does not have its accent on the last word but on the first word. It is TORAH -underscored for double emphasis -- with Derech Eretz. Furthermore, the leit-motif is neither Torah and Derech Eretz nor Torah U'Madoh -- the two are not equal partners -- nor must it be twisted around into Derech Eretz plus Torah. It is neither a synthesis of Torah with assimilation nor a bloodless orthopraxy blended with earthbound Americanism. It is none of these. It is Torah im Derech Eretz. It means G-d's Torah in its totality, utilizing Derech Eretz as the means to bring about the Torah's full realization. It means: Torah as a Divine nourishment and the human Derech Eretz as the aromatic ingredient to bring out the Torah's intrinsic flavor to its most perfect bloom. There are two schools of thought and they are both legitimate. One is "Torah Only" and the other is Torah im Derech Eretz. All Torah-conscious Jews work for the same goal. There are various methods and various avenues of approach. They all lead up to the ultimate end of: "Yisgadal v'yisgadash Shmei rabah" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 15:00:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 18:00:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <20150419.133603.21006.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150419.133603.21006.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <55342569.2000502@sero.name> On 04/19/2015 01:36 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > Common practice in Nusach Ashkenaz is to skip Tachanun even for all of the Sefira days of Nisan, This is not just nusach Ashkenaz, it's the universal minhag, originating in Masechet Sofrim 21:3. It's actually the chapter title of Shulchan Aruch OC 429, and AFAIK there is no dissenting opinion or minhag. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 15:08:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Avi Goldstein via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 18:08:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu va'eilu Message-ID: It has always been my understanding that eilu va'eilu means that both (or more than two) are, within the sphere of Torah, "true" as long as they emanate from a valid drashah. As the Rambam writes in Hilchos Mamrim, Perek 2, a Sanhedrin can overturn the ruling of a previous Sanhedrin if that ruling was made based on the yud gimmel middos or based on sevara. The Rambam states that the new ruling becomes normative. So, for example, if a Sanhedrin ruled that yeush shelo mida'as is yeush, that is now the d'oraisa rule. If a later Sanhedrin overturns the ruling, then the new ruling becomes normative. Both, however, are "true," because the Torah has shivim panim; the Torah is multifaceted and can countenance more than one truth. The Rambam seems to hold that Moshe Rabbeinu was merely given the methods by which to darshan; he was not given the various possible halachic outcomes. The Ritva (Eruvin 13b) states that at Sinai, Moshe Rabbeinu was shown 49 possibilities for each halachic situation. Either way, it is up to klal Yisrael to determine what the halacha is, but all the possible outcomes are divrei Elokim Chayim. Avi Goldstein From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 20:47:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 23:47:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L Message-ID: <11211.6b4edbb3.4265d0c0@aol.com> From: "Prof. Levine via Avodah" The following is taken in part from Rav Shimon Schwab's Essay The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L that appears in Selected Writings pages 88 -93. Rav Hirsch is usually accepted as the exponent of the Torah im Derech Eretz philosophy. This principle is explained by his grandson, Dr. Isaac Breuer, as follows: "He was strictly opposed to compromise or reconciliation, or even a synthesis: he demanded full and uncompromising rulership of the Torah. [snip] There are two schools of thought and they are both legitimate. One is "Torah Only" and the other is Torah im Derech Eretz. All Torah-conscious Jews work for the same goal. There are various methods and various avenues of approach. They all lead up to the ultimate end of: "Yisgadal v'yisgadash Shmei rabah" >>>> See the wonderful pamphlet by R' Shimon Schwab, "Eilu ve'Eilu," explaining the broad outlines of the differences between these two hashkafos, "Torah im Derech Eretz" and so-called "Torah-only." I try to re-read this 48-page pamphlet every year. http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/these_and_those.pdf I am grateful to RYL (Prof. Levine) for making this pamphlet available to the public as a pdf. However I note that he is often highly critical of the charedi world, and I believe that R' Hirsch would emphatically not have agreed with him. He would have honored and cherished the talmidei chachamim who devote their lives to limud haTorah, and would have educated his balabatim to take pride in the zechus of financially supporting the "black hat" yeshivos. In the so-called "Torah-only" world they may have disdain for balabatim, but we who believe in TIDE can respect and honor that world of sustained and focused Torah study without internalizing an inferior self-image. We believe in Yisachar and Zevulun even if Yisachar lacks proper respect for Zevulun. We believe in twelve shevatim, we believe in twelve paths through the sea. And we believe that without the shevet of full-time lomdei Torah and talmidei chachamim, the rest of Klal Yisrael would have no kiyum. I would also note that R' Hirsch would certainly not have shared RYL's dour view of present-day Eretz Yisrael. True, all the flaws and failings of Zionism are abundantly on display in the modern Medinah. But at the same time, it takes an almost willful blindness not to see the incredible miracles that have been taking place there over the past sixty years or so. Not the least of these miracles is a flourishing of Torah scholarship, be'eichus uvekamus, the likes of which has not been seen since the churban Bayis Sheni. We owe at least a small measure of gratitude to the Zionist government that helps provide the infrastructure for the Torah community to flourish, and a huge measure of gratitude to the Ribono Shel Olam for allowing us to live in a time in which the beginning of kibbutz galuyos is taking place before our eyes. The sight of thousands of men, young and old, from all corners of the world, streaming into the Mirrer Yeshiva each day, gives us a little foretaste of what it will be like to visit the Third Bais Hamikdash. Again, I urge everyone to read Rav Schwab's wonderful pamphlet, "Eilu ve'Eilu." http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/these_and_those.pdf --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 19:30:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 02:30:15 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: <20150419.223015.3015.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Joel Rich asked: > Question: If one doesn't view eilu v'eilu as multiple truths > but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which > is which), ... I didn't understand that 2nd view, so he suggested to look > here for some more specifics: > http://nishma.org/articles/commentary/slifkinrevisted3print.pdf > especially starting around page 11. On page 4 of that article, the author offers this explanation of the concept of Machlokes L'Shem Shamayim: > ... every individual striving mightily to gain truth and an > understanding of God's Will can only achieve what is possible > within the parameters of his/her own individual being. Since the > fullness of Torah extends beyond the comprehension of any one > individual, machloket must necessarily ensue. It is not simply > that machloket emerges because of the inherent limitations of > the human condition. It is only through the enunciation of > machloket that human beings effectively are able to express the > fullness and truth of the Divine wisdom of Torah. ... Within > this category of disagreement, the existence of differing views > is not a problem. It is actually positive. It is the natural > consequence of a limited humanity trying to encounter the > unlimited nature of God and Torah. Elsewhere in that article, I understood him to say: Because both Hillel and Shammai worked within the rules of how Torah is to be understood, their differing views are equally valid and equally true (notwithstanding the detail that for purely practical reasons, halacha l'maaseh has to go one way or the other). This much fits very well with what I've been taught: Hashem deliberately wrote and designed the Torah in such a way as to allow both Hillel and Shammai to reach those differing views, and when they did reach those views, and (lovingly) refused to yield to the other, they accomplished exactly what Hashem had intended. But RJR referred us specifically to page 11, and on that page, the author brings the two views that RJR had initially posted: > One significant question in this regard, though, that should be > presented is: whether kalpei Shemaya, from the perspective of > Heaven, one view may really be correct or not? How one answers > this question will affect whether one considers any position in > a machloket l'Shem Shamayim as ultimately able to be labeled > incorrect. Effectively the question would be: are all positions > in the disagreement theoretically, equally part of truth and a > decision rendered between the opposing views solely because of > practical necessity? Or is there a truly correct position ? > albeit only able to be ascertained by Heaven ? but we still > accept all positions as part of Torah, albeit some are mistaken, > as they all are equally the best that humanity can achieve and > the mistakes only arise from the actual limitation of the human > being? With all due respect, but it seems to me that this second view is illogical and mistaken. How can there be a view which was obtained by legitimate methods of learning the Torah, without any personal agenda, and the best that humanity can acheive -- and yet be one which Hashem did NOT want us to arrive at? If there is a view that is NOT truly correct, yet the incorrectness can be ascertained only by Heaven, then why did Hashem design the Torah in a manner which allowed us to reach that mistaken conclusion? If only He would have made one little change, if only the pasuk had said this instead of that, then we'd have darshened that pasuk differently, and would have avoided that mistake. But since He did not make that change, but rather He wrote the Torah as we have it, and Toras Hashem Temimah, then I believe that the conclusions reached cannot possibly be mistakes, but rather, this is exactly what we mean by Eilu V'Eilu Divrei Elokim Chayim. (Of course, I am referring only to drashos made with the proper tools, and in the proper manner, such as those made by Hillel and Shammai and others of similar caliber. I am not referring to people who are of lower caliber, or who were working with broken tools. And I'm certainly not referring to people who deliberately distort Torah for their own purposes.) But then, as I was reviewing this post, my mind turned to the Tanur Shel Achnai. R' Eliezer had a minority view, and R' Yehoshua was in the majority. I've got to believe that both views were firmly grounded; this machlokes was surely just as L'Shem Shamayim as any between Hillel and Shammai. I'd *like* to say that Klapei Shmaya, both views were Truth. But then what can I do with Hashem's response of "Nitzchuni banai"? It sure sounds to me like this Judge was not impartial. He was rooting for R' Eliezer! And yet He wrote a Torah that allowed for R' Eliezer's mistaken interpretation. Why would He do that? To paraphrase RJR's question from the very beginning of this post, Tanur Shel Achnai seems to be an example of "eilu v'eilu": At the time of their dispute, it was possible that both views were Truth, but we didn't know which was which, so for practical purposes they took a vote. But later, Eliyahu Hanavi revealed the fact that it was NOT multiple truths, but rather one truth (R' Eliezer) and one nice try (R' Yehoshua). TO RECAP: In the beginning of this post, I explained my logical basis for believing that every true Eilu V'Eilu is a case of multiple Truths. At the end, I brought an example of an Eilu V'Eilu which was "one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which is which)". I cannot reconcile the logic and the example. All I can do is to ask again: Would Hashem really write a Perfect Torah which allows for mistaken interpretation? Why would He do that? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553464ea69a2864ea0cc6st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 01:48:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 11:48:03 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: RMB: Rav Moshe Feinstein discusses the halachic process and the role of poseiq in his introduction to Igros Mosheh. (The introduction itself deserves serious study.) He writes about "ha'emes lehora'ah umichuyav lehoros kein af al pi im be'etzem galyah kelapei shemaya galya she'eino kein hapeirush - the true ruling, and one is obligated to teach accordingly, even if in essence is it revealed in heaven that this isn't the correct explanation!" The ideal is following the pesaq as according to the process. This passage in IM is cited by R. Shalom Rosner in a systematic discussion of the subject of eilu v'eilu in the course of a shiur on Ktuvot 57a at http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/720210/Rabbi_Shalom_Rosner/Kesubos57. Rashi in Ktuvot 57a invokes the principle of eilu 'v'eilu, (read and explained by R. Rosner stating at about 18:30 in the shiur) and R. Rosner elucidates this principle, starting at about 21:30 in the shiur, until about 29:40. For anyone interested in a very clear explanation of the various shittot about what eilu v'eilu means, I can't recommend this shiur highly enough. Very briefly, R. Rosner cites three approaches in the sources 1. Illustrating the truth - The Ran in Drashot HaRan drasha 5 - In this approach, which severely limits the principle of eilu v'eilu, the Ran states that actually only one of the opinions is true. The other opinion is 'divrei Elokim chaim' only insofar as it serves to illustrate and elucidate the other opinion, which is the real truth, as the dark enables us to appreciate a candle. The Chida in Petach Einayim, his commentary on Eiruvin where the principle of eilu v'eilu is cited by the Gemara, takes this approach as well. R. Rosner emphasizes that this is a minority opinion, and personally finds it hard to accept, as he explains in the shiur. 2. Levels of truth - R. Moshe in the hakdama to IM, and R. Yaakov to Bereishit 26, the Netziv in his Hakadama to Haamek Sh'eila, his commentary to the Sheiltot). Using R. Moshe's terminology. there is Emet Shamaymit, and Emet L'Horaa. Both are correct, and in this world we are obligated to follow the emet l'horaa even if it deviates from the ultimate, heavenly truth. 3. Multiple truths (Ritva in Eiruvin, Maharal) - Both opinions are true, reflecting different perspectives of the subject at hand (IMO, this is similar to the previous explanation, without establishing a hierarchy between the truths expressed by the different opinions). R. Rosner states that the Rashi in question on Ktuvot 57a takes this approach. R. Rosner's explanation of the shittot is very lucid and concise. He refers in his shiur to Ktuvot 57 to a previous, more comprehensive shiur he gave on the subject, but I don't know if that shiur is available online. Saul Mashbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 19:43:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 22:43:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] brochos from the amud (was: tefillat haderech) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420024354.CJVF30458.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo110> >R' Zev Sero asked: > > > I actually had meant to post about this, since I've been > > wondering for some time why it is that the world's minhag is for > > each person to say their own bracha on hallel and sefira, after > > hearing the chazan's bracha. Doesn't the usual rule of "berov > > am" mean that everyone should be yotzei with his bracha? R' Akiva Miller wrote: >In theory (="l'halacha"), yes, you are correct. But in practice >(="l'maaseh") Rov Am gets beat by our lack of kavana. Rov Am is an >important hidur, but the ikar is to insure that one is yotzay, and >that is more easily insured by saying it oneself. (It's like if one >is forced to choose between an esrog which is definitely kosher but >only barely so, vs. one which is beautiful but *might* be pasul. To >me, it's a no-brainer that one would choose the barely kosher one.) > >This explanation fits my previous post well: We are all yotzay with >someone else's bracha on the shofar and megillah, but NOT because of >Rov Am, only because the bracha is somewhat risky because I'm >relying on someone else. Slight change of topic: I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea that we don't seem to have a chashash of a brocha l'vatalah. I mean, you have a sh'tz up there, saying a brocho out loud -- and he's intentionally trying to be motzi _some_ others (whoever has missed a day) and everybody says amen, and then they say the brocho themselves. No chashash for an issur d'oraissa? Shomea k'onen doesn't apply at all? What if you are in the shul and you're not thinking about the issue of being yotzie, you're just thinking about which day it is, and/or you simply have stam kavanah. No chashash for an issur d'oraissa? Apparently not because almost everybody does that. But I don't get it. (To satisfy my own comfort level, my preferred action to is to focus and have kavanah to be yotzie with the brocho, say amen, and then I don't have any chashash here). -- Sholom From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 10:36:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 13:36:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 11:48:03AM +0300, Saul Mashbaum via Avodah wrote: : This passage in IM is cited by R. Shalom Rosner in a systematic discussion... : http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/720210/Rabbi_Shalom_Rosner/Kesubos57. ... : Very briefly, R. Rosner cites three approaches in the sources : : 1. Illustrating the truth - The Ran in Drashot HaRan drasha 5 - In this : approach, which severely limits the principle of eilu v'eilu, the Ran : states that actually only one of the opinions is true. The other opinion is : 'divrei Elokim chaim' only insofar as it serves to illustrate and elucidate : the other opinion... : 2. Levels of truth - R. Moshe in the hakdama to IM, and R. Yaakov to : Bereishit 26, the Netziv in his Hakadama to Haamek Sh'eila, his commentary : to the Sheiltot)... : 3. Multiple truths (Ritva in Eiruvin, Maharal) - Both opinions are true, : reflecting different perspectives of the subject at hand (IMO, this is : similar to the previous explanation, without establishing a hierarchy : between the truths expressed by the different opinions).. My opinion differs from yours. The Maharal is saying that what RMF calls emes shamamis (I think that conjugation is yours, no?) is actually too rich to fit in this universe, and certainly in a human mind. Therefore, two shitos can be correct descriptions of the Truth, because each are incomplete. Rather than invoke the 5 blind men and the elephant, I think it's more useful to use a mashal of an object and a shadow. Because a shadow is only 2D, information is lost. It could make you think the two opinions are describing differnt thing, but they don't. If you shine a light directly at the fact of a cube, the shadow is a square. If you shine it at a corner, the result is a hexagon. Beis Shamma could hold "hexagon" while Beis Hillel holds "square", and both are describing the same cube. It all depends on which direction you face the cube from. The difference is in the approach chosen, where one stands at the foothills when answering "mi ya'aleh beHar Hashem", not the emes kelapei shamayim. None of which involves separating abstract truth from law, as RMF does. The Maharal places eilu va'eilu entirely within our understanding of that abstract truth. RSR's analysis differs from the two I've discussed in the past, RMHalbertal's and R' Michel Rosensweig's. E.g. See v32n8 E.g. RMH describes the Ritva and the Ran as sharing what he calls "the Constitutive view" of what pesaq is (halakhah is constituted by pesaq, and there is no one pre-existing reality), and thus the notion of one right answer doesn't fit. Rather, his peshat in the Ran is more like RMF's opinion. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? : that the Rashi in question on Ktuvot 57a takes this approach. : : R. Rosner's explanation of the shittot is very lucid and concise. He : refers in his shiur to Ktuvot 57 to a previous, more comprehensive shiur he : gave on the subject, but I don't know if that shiur is available online. : : Saul Mashbaum : _______________________________________________ : Avodah mailing list : Avodah at lists.aishdas.org : http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 14:43:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:43:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] HaRav Aharon Lichtenstein zt"l Message-ID: <20150420214331.GA31537@aishdas.org> Today's blog post. ... Can't we find children who would have helped him and still know the gemara? Do we have to choose? I hope not; I believe not. Tir'u baTov! -Micha HaRav Aharon Lichtenstein zt"l Posted on April 20, 2015 - 1 Iyyar 5775 by micha When someone passes away, I try to find a life-lesson from their lives that I can incorporate into my own. This is rather easy with regard to Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, as the rosh yeshiva left the Centrist / Modern Orthodox / Religious Zionist community with a cheshbon hanefesh, an accounting of our communal soul. Things that he saw we as a community need to look at and improve. See "By His Light: Character and Values in the Service of God" by R' Reuvein Zeigler, notes of shiurim by Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, pp 220-252, which is available on-line at Yeshivat Har Etzion's Israel Koschitzky Virtual Beit Midrash, as the email shiur from the series "Developing a Torah Personality" Lecture 12: Centrist Orthodoxy: A Spiritual Accounting. Listing the rashei peraqim (subtitles): * The Shift To the Right * The Need for Soul-Searching * Commonalities and Differences With the Right * Shaking Our Confidence In General Culture * The Complexity of Experience * Literary, Psychological and Historical Sensitivity * Attitudes Toward Zionism * "Torah Only" or "Torah And" * The Possibility of Integration * Theory and Practice * Dialectical Tension or Tepid Indifference? * Instilling Passion * The Need for Spirituality * Diffusion and Dilution * The Ascendancy of the Moral Over the Intellectual * "Do Not Fear Any Man" Here's one piece near the end, that stays with me each time I read the article: ... Perhaps much of what I have said in relation to culture, quoting Arnold and Yeats and others, seems very rarefied. People may be asking themselves, "What does this have to do with us? We have to deal with children in elementary school or high school; this is not our concern." Nevertheless, I have related to culture at its apex, because the kind of vision which is maintained at the pinnacle has an impact, and should have an impact, upon what is done at lower levels. In this respect, the awareness of the evaluation of culture does have practical consequences for whatever level of education we are dealing with. Granted that, our challenge is to see to it that indeed we maintain our position with depth and gusto. Given our constituency, of course, we cannot instill many of our students with the optimal level of love of Torah; we know from where they come. But, within our overall community, and surely within its leadership, such a level should exist. Woe unto us, if the only choice lies between tepid compromise and arrogant kana'ut. A couple of years after we moved to Yerushalayim, I was once walking with my family in the Beit Yisrael neighborhood, where R. Isser Zalman Meltzer used to live. For the most part, it consists of narrow alleys. We came to a corner, and found a merchant stuck there with his car. The question came up as to how to help him; it was a clear case of perika u-te'ina (helping one load or unload his burden). There were some youngsters there from the neighborhood, who judging by their looks were probably ten or eleven years old. They saw that this merchant was not wearing a kippa. So they began a whole pilpul, based on the gemara in Pesachim (113b), about whether they should help him or not. They said, "If he walks around bareheaded, presumably he doesn't separate terumot u-ma'asrot, so he is suspect of eating and selling untithed produce..." I wrote R. Soloveitchik a letter at that time, and told him of the incident. I ended with the comment, "Children of that age from our camp would not have known the gemara, but they would have helped him." My feeling then was: Why, Ribbono shel Olam, must this be our choice? Can't we find children who would have helped him and still know the gemara? Do we have to choose? I hope not; I believe not. If forced to choose, however, I would have no doubts where my loyalties lie: I prefer that they know less gemara, but help him. If I can refer again to my experience over the last several decades, I think that one of the central points which has reinforced itself is the sense, in terms of values, of the ascendancy of the moral over the intellectual -- with all my love for and commitment to pure learning. But, when all is said and done, you have to be guided not by what you love; you have to be guided by Torah. And the Torah tells us what is good: He has told you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you: only to do justice, and to love goodness, and to walk modestly with your God. (Mikha 6:8) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 12:48:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 15:48:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L by Rav Shimon Schwab Message-ID: <20150420194854.40DD317FB85@nexus.stevens.edu> See The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 11:46:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 21:46:52 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] hidur Message-ID: <> - changed topic from tefillat hadrech There is a famois R Chaim that if one can use both etgrogim then one should first use the beautiful but *might* be pasul since if one uses the minimally kosher one then one has accomplished the mitzvah and there is no reason to choose a second one. I have seen some that disagree with R Chaim claiming that it is possible to take a better etrog for hidur even after having minimally done the motzvah. This has applications mehadrin of chanukah -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 14:52:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:52:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 09:46:52PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> It's like if one is forced to choose between an esrog which is definitely :> kosher but only barely so, vs. one which is beautiful but *might* be pasul. :> To me, it's a no-brainer that one would choose the barely kosher one.) >> - ... : There is a famois R Chaim that if one can use both etgrogim then one should : first use the beautiful but *might* be pasul since if one uses the : minimally kosher one then one has accomplished the mitzvah and there is no : reason to choose a second one. This presumes you can afford both, or have access to a friend who will give you a matanah al menas lehachzir of whichever you aren't buying. The post you're replying to is "if one is forced to choose". My own dilemma. Say I earmark $X (Y NIS, in your case) to spend on my esrog. And say the price of a definitely kosher (or at least, just as sure to be kosher) but not very hadar esrog is half that or less. Should I buy myself a mehudar, or should I buy two esrogim and give the other to someone hitting on hard times? Shouldn't the asei (tzedaqah, dei machsero) trump a "mere" hidur mitzvah (esrog)? And yet, we know many great rabbanim who didn't follow this calculus. What am I missing? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 15:25:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 18:25:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safeik as Metzi'us Message-ID: <20150420222502.GC1634@aishdas.org> The story so far: Briskers don't wear tzitzis outdoors on Shabbos in case the gemara does conclude that hatekheiles me'eaqes es halavan. (Dspite the tam mishnah, there is reason to wonder.) And if so, the tassels on your tallis or tallis qatan are not tzitzis, and wouldn't be tafeil to the beged. On Shabbos -- hotza'ah. I asked why, since I personally am wearing those tassels because of the safeiq, wouldn't that mean that in terms of my intent, they are hotza'ah? In general, when do we pasqen one din and then use that pesaq as the metzi'us for the next case? And when do we look at the internals of that din (in this case, the safeiq) and carry them through to the next din? Other examples collected so far: AhS OC 409:6 -- An eiruv techumin made with a safeiq tereifah is not an eiruv, because you can't eat a safeiq tereifah. We look to the pesaq, the meat is assur mishum safeiq, not the safeiq itself. (Where a parallel case in the se'if is ruled safeiq derabbanan lequlah.) AhS OC 416:8 -- A person wants to make 2 different eiruvei techumin, one for each day of YT in chu"l. You can't create an eiruv on day 2 that you cannot reach on day 1. We don't say mima nafshach -- if day 1 is YT, you don't need the eiruv, and if day 2 is, you were allowed to reach the food on day 1. Again, we look at the masqanah. Recently I noticed two more in the AhS: AhC OC 509:12 -- The Rama (se'if 5) allows libun on YT of a skewer that that they broiled non-salted meat on to allow using the skewer again that day. The AhS explains this is not a real tiqun keli, because mei'iqar hadin it doesn't need libun (cf YD 76), an therefore even if you could have done the libun on erev YT, you can still do it now. We DO NOT say that lemaaseh we are not nohagim to use the skewer without libun, so therefore the skewer went from usable to non-usable. This time we do look into the cause of the non-use. I am wondering if it's because beshe'as hadechaq, they would go to a rav and get a pesaq that they could use the skewer as is, so it's not fully unusable. AhS 581:18 -- If fruit are stored in a room that is built from uncemented bricks and the room breaks, the fruit are usable. We do not say they a muqtza, because the issur of disassembling the room was only derabbanan, so he didn't have full hesach hadaas. Notice that here he is saying that a person is aware of issur derabbanan being on a lesser level. The ruling is on the metzi'us, but with the understanding the the metzi'us reflects the wishy-washiness of the issur. RAM: Does any of this change your proposed sevaros? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 14:54:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:54:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5535759A.5020909@gmail.com> What would be the kilayim status of this combo? http://www.territorialseed.com/product/grafted-tomtato-ketchup-n-fries/new_for_spring_2015 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 15:57:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 18:57:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> On 04/20/2015 05:52 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > My own dilemma. Say I earmark $X (Y NIS, in your case) to spend on > my esrog. And say the price of a definitely kosher (or at least, just > as sure to be kosher) but not very hadar esrog is half that or less. > Should I buy myself a mehudar, or should I buy two esrogim and give the > other to someone hitting on hard times? Shouldn't the asei (tzedaqah, > dei machsero) trump a "mere" hidur mitzvah (esrog)? And yet, we know > many great rabbanim who didn't follow this calculus. What am I missing? Perhaps that they would then let the other person use their mehudardige esrog, so both benefit. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:21:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:21:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 06:57:15PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: :> ... Shouldn't the asei (tzedaqah, :> dei machsero) trump a "mere" hidur mitzvah (esrog)? And yet, we know :> many great rabbanim who didn't follow this calculus. What am I missing? : Perhaps that they would then let the other person use their mehudardige : esrog, so both benefit. So, both get the mitzvah of esrog with a hadar esrog. But I asked about fulling tzedaqah. How does a matanah al menas lehachzir qualify? And for someone used to having their own esrog, how is it "dei machsero"? Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:15:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:15:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Matza between Pesach and Shavuos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Somebody (either here or on Areivim) was asking about the minhag to eat matza between Pesach and Shavuos. I happened to pick up a sefer called "Bein Pesach u'Shavuos" (by R Zvi Cohn) and saw a few mentions about this. First, he cites the Gr"a that he never ate matza when it was not Pesach. I think the reasoning is that he didn't want to get hana'ah from it, but, rather, eat it only because it was a mitzvah. But then, later in the sefer, I saw reference to (a) a minhag (Belz and Chernobyl) to eat matza to eat matza on every shalosh seudos between Pesach and Shavuos, and wetting it with fish juice/gravy; and (b) v'yesh a minhag to eat matza *every* time one washes for bread, in order to combine "michlei d'm'heimnusa u'michlei d'asvasa" food/meal of emuna and food/meal of refuah (apologies for messing up the vowels). The footnote cites the sefer "Darchei Chayim v'Sholom" siman 633. And also to be m'dakdek to make one kugel for shabbos with matza and to pass it around, particularly on shalosh seudos after the z'miros. I don't translate so well, so if you want to see "inside" R Cohn's sefer, I put it here: http://s3.postimg.org/wukbartcj/matza.jpg [1] and if you look and find mistakes, please let the list (or at least me!) know! FWIW & Kol tuv, -- Sholom Links: ------ [1] http://s3.postimg.org/wukbartcj/matza.jpg -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 16:32:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 19:32:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> At 05:52 PM 4/20/2015, RN Toby Katz wrote: > >I am grateful to RYL (Prof. Levine) for making this pamphlet available to >the public as a pdf. However I note that he is often highly critical of >the charedi world, and I believe that R' Hirsch would emphatically not have >agreed with him. He would have honored and cherished the talmidei chachamim >who devote their lives to limud haTorah, and would have educated his >balabatim to take pride in the zechus of financially supporting the >"black hat" >yeshivos. This is pure speculation on your part. I believe that RSRH would have agreed with my views on this matter. Of course, this is pure speculation on my part. He certainly would not have agreed with the idea of not working to support one's family. See my article "The Obligation to Support a Family" The Jewish Press, February 18, 2015, front page. and the extensive quotes I have there from the writings of Rav Dr. Joseph Breuer, ZT"L, who was, of course, a grandson of RSRH and the foremost expositor of TIDE during his life time. > >I would also note that R' Hirsch would certainly not have shared RYL's dour > view of present-day Eretz Yisrael. True, all the flaws and failings of >Zionism are abundantly on display in the modern Medinah. But at the same >time, it takes an almost willful blindness not to see the >incredible miracles >that have been taking place there over the past sixty years or so. Not the >least of these miracles is a flourishing of Torah scholarship, be'eichus >uvekamus, the likes of which has not been seen since the churban Bayis >Sheni. We owe at least a small measure of gratitude to the >Zionist government >that helps provide the infrastructure for the Torah community to flourish, >and a huge measure of gratitude to the Ribono Shel Olam for allowing us to >live in a time in which the beginning of kibbutz galuyos is taking place >before our eyes. The sight of thousands of men, young and old, from all >corners of the world, streaming into the Mirrer Yeshiva each day, gives us a >little foretaste of what it will be like to visit the Third Bais Hamikdash. Again, I have to disagree. I suggest you read Rav Breuer's writings about EY in the book A Unique Perspective under the heading Eretz Yisroel. The following are some excerpts from his essay The State of Israel. The proclamation of a Jewish state would bring great joy to all the members of our people, if conditions were such that we could feel justified to call it a Kiddush Hashem. It pains us to say, and we have no illusions, that for the time being this is not the case. For every Torah-true Jew the word Kiddush Hashem is his utmost concern, while Chillul Hashem leaves him trembling. Thus the establishment of a Jewish state will fill him with misgivings and alarm. Anyone who is imbued with the eternal truth and validity of God's Torah will have to be aware that a state on God's holy soil will only be able to endure if the conditions that God has set down for a Jewish state on His holy soil are met. These conditions apply to the Jewish entity and to the life of every individual who declares himself a member of God's People. Again, please read Rav Breuer's essays on Eretz Yisroel in this book. Also, please read Rav Shimon Schwab's essay Zion or Zionism that I have placed at http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/zion_or_zionism.pdf Rav Schwab was most certainly a proponent of TIDE and the approach of RSRH. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 15:32:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 18:32:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> References: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 11:34 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > There was a bachur next to me this morning whose retzu'os were painted > black on both sides. And I believe I know why this is done, in case > a retzu'ah gets flipped. Or perhaps to be chosheish for the Rambam's > description of such retzu'os being "noi". I've only ever heard of the leather being soaked in dye; and the reason given was not for flipped retzu'os but for scratches: if the entire thickness of the strap has been dyed, a scratch will not expose undyed leather. (This does not address your actual question, though) ?Chesky Salomon From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:24:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:24:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <553598C0.6010209@sero.name> On 04/20/2015 08:21 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > So, both get the mitzvah of esrog with a hadar esrog. But I asked about > fulling tzedaqah. How does a matanah al menas lehachzir qualify? And > for someone used to having their own esrog, how is it "dei machsero"? At a time when an esrog was a luxury that most people could not afford and were not used to, how often would such a case come up? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:27:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:27:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <553598C0.6010209@sero.name> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> <553598C0.6010209@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150421002736.GA24420@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 08:24:32PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : At a time when an esrog was a luxury that most people could not afford : and were not used to, how often would such a case come up? ... and today? Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:58:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 00:58:13 GMT Subject: [Avodah] hidur Message-ID: <20150420.205813.23096.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> R'Zev Sero asked: > At a time when an esrog was a luxury that most people could > not afford and were not used to, how often would such a case > come up? But it could certainly come up nowadays. About 25 years ago, my budget was so tight that I had decided to share my lulav and esrog with my two sons, despite my having gotten them their own set in previous years. I don't remember whether one or both was still below bar mitzvah that year, but it doesn't really matter, because the point is that they were used to having their own, and that year we shared the one set. Suffice it to say that it was not fun. Baruch Hashem we've each had own own every year since then. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5535a0f9e88320f87fb2st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 18:23:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 01:23:34 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Self-control fatigue Message-ID: <20150420.212334.23096.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> On Areivim, SY Scher wrote: > A now large body of research shows that we can have "self-control > fatigue". Professor Roy Baumeister and his colleagues have > demonstrated experimentally that when people have previously had > to exert self-control, their ability to do so goes down. They > have also showed physiological correlates -- will-power/self- > control takes energy, and after exerting a lot of control, our > blood glucose level is lower. Replenishment of glucose (for > example, by drinking lemonade sweetened with sugar, but not > lemonade with artificial sweeteners) raises self-control ability > back up. > We all know that following the halacha often requires a good deal > of willpower, and I would imagine that for charedi adolescent boys, > that would be even more strongly so. So, the ability to control > the yetzer in outside situations may well be reduced. The muscle > is just too worn out! Is there any way fit this in with the idea that many mitzvos - kashrus in particular and chukim in general - seem designed to train us to *have* self-control? Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 03:14:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 06:14:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Self-control fatigue In-Reply-To: <20150420.212334.23096.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150420.212334.23096.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150421101422.GB7409@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 01:23:34AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : Is there any way fit this in with the idea that many mitzvos - kashrus : in particular and chukim in general - seem designed to train us to *have* : self-control? If (and that's a big if) we define the yeitzer hara as the effects on our souls of living within a mammalian body, then the ability to plan ahead and work toward delayed gratification, rather than just instinctively going for what's before us, is going to be a fundamental skill in rising above it. In R Yitchaq Sher's introduction to the Slabodka edition of Cheshbon haNefesh (Feldheim bilingual ed. ), the mashgiach speaks of the nefesh habehamis's "lack[ing the will to exercise choice" and therefore "the tzivui or azharah of an asei or a lo-sa'asei are not shayach to it at all" (par 2). He then gives guidelines about how to train it by taking examples from animal training (par 304). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 17th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Tifferes: What is the ultimate Fax: (270) 514-1507 state of harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 03:17:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 13:17:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> References: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 8:36 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > The Maharal is saying that what RMF calls emes shamamis (I think that > conjugation is yours, no?) is actually too rich to fit in this universe, > and certainly in a human mind. Therefore, two shitos can be correct > descriptions of the Truth, because each are incomplete. > Where does the Maharal say this? (Not a challenge, I just want to learn it inside) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 06:24:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 09:24:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: References: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150421132444.GD1634@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 01:17:49PM +0300, Simon Montagu wrote: : Where does the Maharal say this? (Not a challenge, I just want to learn it : inside) Be'er haGolah, be'er 1, pg 20 in the common edition, available on pg 94 the whole book) in the Harman edition, on hebrewbooks.org (Onward, I would print the 1[:6] off the link at the top for the whole sefer. R YD Hartman has a clearer edition, with copious footnotes.) I've been citing that Maharal for over a decade, so I had to search for the actual mar'eh maqom. On nice find was the discussion in Mishpat Ivri . I want to go through the whole chapter on machloqos (that hit is mid-chapter) before commenting, but I don't know when I'll get to it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 17th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Tifferes: What is the ultimate Fax: (270) 514-1507 state of harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 09:11:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 12:11:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150421132444.GD1634@aishdas.org> References: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> <20150421132444.GD1634@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55367699.9010203@sero.name> On 04/21/2015 09:24 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 01:17:49PM +0300, Simon Montagu wrote: > : Where does the Maharal say this? (Not a challenge, I just want to learn it > : inside) > > Be'er haGolah, be'er 1, pg 20 The introduction to the Hartman edition shows that the title is actually Be'er haGulah, with a melupum rather than a cholam. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 01:40:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 11:40:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu Message-ID: Sagi in his book on the topic brings 3 basic approaches (all with many supporters) to the sugya 1) Monism - only one truth as subfields we can be tolerant of other attempts or not 2) pluralism - there are many truths and one can't decide 3) harmonism - different views are just separate parts of the same truth R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is self-contradictory. According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint is monism ! He further points out that sometimes pluralism can be a chumra Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he doesn't accept the kashrut Answer: Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable Of course these are only typologies. In the real world anyone who believes in pluralism has some radius of acceptance. Few would accept Naziism or Isis as a legitimate viewpoint -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 01:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 11:53:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] hidur Message-ID: <> As usual R Chaim is asking a theoretical question - he was not a posek In fact I once heard from RYBS that in fact almost all etrogim are kosher bidieved. In Israel one can get a mehudar set for about 100 shekel ($25) see http://www.dafyomi.co.il/nazir/halachah/nz-hl-002.htm 2. Bava Kama 9a (R. Zeira citing Rav Huna): One must spend up to a third for Mitzvos. 3. Question: What does this mean? i. Suggestion: One must spend a third of his wealth to fulfil a Mitzvah. ii. Rejection: It is unreasonable that if he encounters three (expensive) Mitzvos, he must exhaust all his wealth! 4. Answer (R. Zeira): One must spend an extra third to beautify a Mitzvah. Shulchan Aruch (ibid.): Some say that if he finds two Esrogim to buy, and one of them is nicer than the other, he should buy the nicer one if the price difference is no more than a third of the other. i. Source (Beis Yosef DH Kaneh): Rashi (Bava Kama 9b DH b'Hidur) says that if one found two Sifrei Torah to buy, he should add a third of the price to buy the nicer one. ii. Kaf ha'Chayim (17): It seems that neither opinion requires one who bought an Esrog bigger than an egg to exchange it for a nicer one. However, the Rosh, Gra and Taz obligate doing so. The Magen Avraham says that perhaps the Shulchan Aruch holds like the Rosh. iii. Kaf ha'Chayim (18): One must add a third from an Esrog that one could bless on without Safek. Hidur depends on what people in the area consider nice. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 05:09:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 08:09:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55378F6E.2070708@sero.name> On 04/22/2015 04:40 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > 2) pluralism - there are many truths and one can't decide > > R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is self-contradictory. According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint is monism ! Not true. There are many truths, but not an infinite number. Or, as my father says, there are 70 panim latorah, but there are also 70 achor. Strict monism, which rejects the gemara's statement that "eilu va'eilu DACh", is by definition wrong. > Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he > doesn't accept the kashrut > Answer: > Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong > Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable It depends whether his concern is legitimate. If there is a legitimate opinion or minhag that forbids or refrains from whatever it is, or if he has a legitimate private chumra, then there is no question that it is assur to be machshil him. But if he is acting out of pure amhoratzus, then one needn't pander to it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 09:45:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 17:45:34 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Avodah: Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:54, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah wrote: > What would be the kilayim status of this combo? > http://www.territorialseed.com/product/grafted-tomtato-ketchup-n-fries/new_for_spring_2015 Though potato and tomato are from the same family, it is clear from mesechte Kilayim, fruit [or animals] that look different are treated as 2 different species. Hence, though the spuds and tomatoes would be permitted to eat - as with any grafted fruit - it would be ossur for a Yid to grow Dovid Rubin From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 10:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 13:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: <55378F6E.2070708@sero.name> References: <55378F6E.2070708@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150422175311.GA11663@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 08:09:18AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : On 04/22/2015 04:40 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : >2) pluralism - there are many truths and one can't decide : : >R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is :> self-contradictory. According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint :> is monism ! : Not true. There are many truths, but not an infinite number. Or, as my : father says, there are 70 panim latorah, but there are also 70 achor. I think RMA is referring to a paradox I've mentioned here once. While in principle, it's possible for a halachic pluralist to not include any halachic monist positions in his spectrum of eilu va'eilu, I do not know of a halachic pluralist who rules out the Rambam. Or a less absolute case of the same paradox: MO Jews will turn to chareidi gedolim for pesaqim despite those gedoim not believing that MO is within eilu va'eilu. So it would seem that to the MO Jew asking the she'eilah, the variant of chareidism that says MO is not within eilu va'eilu, is (in the MO Jew's opinion) itself within EvE! : Strict monism, which rejects the gemara's statement that "eilu va'eilu DACh", : is by definition wrong. Or, understand it in terms of following HQBH's word, as opposed to being right. As per the Rambam or RMF, for example. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 18th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Tifferes: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 balance? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 11:53:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 14:53:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Chilul Hashem of Disrespecting Non-Jews Message-ID: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/kb4v525 This idea connects with something that has bothered me for some time: the wanton, unprovoked use of disparaging, racist comments among our youth. Over the years I have either heard directly or been made aware of many such comments by students. When I asked why they had expressed themselves in this manner, they could offer no meaningful response. All I could glean was that they were apparently parroting similar remarks they had heard elsewhere, without having given much thought to their words. Many of these students had few if any relationships or even interactions with individuals from the groups they were mocking. See the above URL for the entire article. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:32:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 15:32:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Chilul Hashem of Disrespecting Non-Jews In-Reply-To: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150422193201.GD11663@aishdas.org> One of my many pet peeves is the use of "chilul hasheim" to teach ehrlachkeit. It may win the battle -- historically, it hasn't -- but it does so by avoiding the war. Mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro as important as mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro. Derekh eretz is important as Chazal literally call it a prerequisite for Torah. Worrying about the bein adam laMaqom effects of the cheit misses the point. And perhaps the reason why past attempts to change behavior by talking about chillul hasheim haven't worked is that one is not teaching the centrality of ehrlachkeit as a *primary* value. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 18th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Tifferes: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 balance? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:43:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 21:43:09 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <5537F9CD.7000409@zahav.net.il> How did Rav Breuer work to ensure the conditions that "we could feel justified to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? Ben On 4/21/2015 1:32 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > > Again, I have to disagree. I suggest you read Rav Breuer's writings > about EY in the book A Unique Perspective under the heading Eretz Yisroel. > > The proclamation of a Jewish state would bring great joy to all > the members of our people, if conditions were such that we could > feel justified to call it a Kiddush Hashem. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:36:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 15:36:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Avodah: Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150422193627.GE11663@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 05:45:34PM +0100, D via Avodah wrote: : Hence, though the spuds and tomatoes would be permitted to eat - as : with any grafted fruit - it would be ossur for a Yid to grow I think it would be mutar to buy already grafted, and then grow. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:53:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 22:53:04 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Avodah: Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 7:45 PM, D via Avodah wrote: > Though potato and tomato are from the same family, it is clear from > mesechte Kilayim, fruit [or animals] that look different are treated as 2 > different species. > Hence, though the spuds and tomatoes would be permitted to eat - as with > any grafted fruit - it would be ossur for a Yid to grow > Do you mean because the potato and tomato that we eat look different? You're not comparing apples to apples (pun intended). The fruits of a potato plant look very similar to the fruits of a tomato plant! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 13:07:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joel Schnur via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 16:07:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos Message-ID: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> My understanding is that Briskers don't wear a talis katan outside the house on shabbos because the shiur is "ad habirchaim" according to the Gaon as brought in Keser Rosh by talmidei Reb Chaim Voloshiner. And since "until the knees" is a subjective criterion depending upon each person's height, there is no specific "one size fits all" length. Interestingly, Rav Moshe Shternbuch brings a Rav Moshe that says that the source is unreliable and the Gaon never said such a thing. -- ___________________________ Joel Schnur, Senior VP Government Affairs/Public Relations Schnur Associates, Inc. 25 West 45th Street, Suite 1405 New York, NY 10036 Tel. 212-489-0600 x204 Fax. 212-489-0203 joel at schnurassociates.com www.schnurassociates.com http://www.schnurassociates.com/joels-corner/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 14:57:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 17:57:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Chilul Hashem of Disrespecting Non-Jews In-Reply-To: <20150422193201.GD11663@aishdas.org> References: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150422193201.GD11663@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150422215739.6F5F0180576@nexus.stevens.edu> At 03:32 PM 4/22/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >Mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro as important as mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro. I believe that this sentence is wrong. I believe you meant to write that mitzvos bein adam l'Chaveiro are just as important as mitzvos bein adam l'makom. RSRH points out that the Luchos contained 5 mitzvos bein adam l'Chaveiro and 5 mitzvos bein Adam l"Makom on each side, and that both sides of the Luchos were the same size! >Derekh eretz is important as Chazal literally call it a prerequisite >for Torah. And hence may one deduce that those who do not have proper Derech Eretz do not have Torah? If so, then I guess we should not be surprised at the actions of some so-called Jews that are a Chilul Hashem. They do not have any Torah. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 13:46:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 20:46:08 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos In-Reply-To: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> References: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> Message-ID: <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> On Wednesday, April 22, 2015 3:33 PM, Joel Schnur wrote: > My understanding is that Briskers don't wear a talis katan outside the > house on shabbos because the shiur is "ad habirchaim" according to the > Gaon as brought in Keser Rosh by talmidei Reb Chaim Voloshiner.... > Interestingly, Rav Moshe Shternbuch brings a Rav Moshe that says that > the source is unreliable and the Gaon never said such a thing. The reason that Briskers don't where Tzitzes on Shabbos is because they are Choshesh for the Shita of the Baal HaMeor who says that Techiels is Me'akev the Lavan. As such -- by wearing these now unnecessary 'strings' in Reshus Harabim they will be Oveir the Lav of Hotza'ah on Shabbos, an Issur D'Oraisa and a capital offense. Inetrestingly, accroding to the Baal HaMeor, wearing a Beged of Daled Kanfos using Tzitzs without Techiles is a violation -- same as if he were wearing it without Tzitzis at all. I'm told that the Gra did not wear a woolen Beged for his Talis Katan for that reason. Because wool has a Chiuv D'Oraisa for Tzitzs whereas cotton is only D'Rabbanan. HM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 17:05:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 20:05:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <5537F9CD.7000409@zahav.net.il> References: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> <5537F9CD.7000409@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <5538373F.4000900@aishdas.org> On 04/22/2015 03:43 PM, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: > On 4/21/2015 1:32 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: >> Again, I have to disagree. I suggest you read Rav Breuer's writings >> about EY in the book A Unique Perspective under the heading Eretz >> Yisroel. >> The proclamation of a Jewish state would bring great joy to all >> the members of our people, if conditions were such that we could >> feel justified to call it a Kiddush Hashem. > How did Rav Breuer work to ensure the conditions that "we could feel > justified to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? He thought his late brother's Poalei Agudah might accomplish it. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 03:06:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 06:06:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos In-Reply-To: <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> References: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20150423100635.GA26841@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 08:46:08PM +0000, Harry Maryles via Avodah wrote: : The reason that Briskers don't where Tzitzes on Shabbos is because they : are Choshesh for the Shita of the Baal HaMeor who says that Techiels is : Me'akev the Lavan. : : As such -- by wearing these now unnecessary 'strings' in Reshus Harabim : they will be Oveir the Lav of Hotza'ah on Shabbos... In the opening post, I referred to the BhM's reason. Since there appears to be interest, I will spell it out. The mishnah (Menachos 4:1, 38a) says that techeiles is not me'aqeves the lavan, and v.v. Seems kind of open and shut, and that's what we hold lehalakhah. And so R' Yitzchaq says that R Yochanan ben Nuri says (beraisa , quoted on 39b) that if you have no tekheiles, you make all strings lavan. But, Rebbe is choleiq, and says the mishnah means sequence. Normally the lavan strings have to be put on first, or on a tekheiles garment, the tekheiles string first. And the mishnah is saying that if you put on the other color first, it's not me'aqeiv. According to Rebbe, though, you can't be yotzei without putting on tekheiles altogether. Getting to this understanding of the mishnah is an amud lonq chaqla vetarya in which Levi, Shemu'el and Rami bar Chama defend Rebbe's position. : Interestingly, according to the Baal HaMeor, wearing a Beged of Daled : Kanfos using Tzitzs without Techiles is a violation -- same as if he : were wearing it without Tzitzis at all. Not really. It's an asei, not a lav. So, if tekheiles truly is unavailable, why wouldn't it be mutar, if pointless? However, if you feel there is any possibility whatsoever that the murex derived dye is indeed tekheiles, safeiq de'oraisa lechumerah would force one to choose between not wearing tzitzis and wearing the dye. And there are those who hold it's garua to wear invalid dye, so combine the shitos right, and the discovery of a possible tekheiles would make it better not to wear tzitzis. IF we held like the BhM. But not even Briskers do, me'iqar hadin -- they are merely chosheish for his position as a chumerah. : I'm told that the Gra did not wear a woolen Beged for his Talis Katan : for that reason. Because wool has a Chiuv D'Oraisa for Tzitzs whereas : cotton is only D'Rabbanan. As usual for the Gra -- clever! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 19th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Tifferes: When does harmony promote Fax: (270) 514-1507 withdrawal and submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 02:45:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Allan Engel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 10:45:42 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos In-Reply-To: <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> References: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: So what was his Tallis Godol made of? On 22 April 2015 at 21:46, Harry Maryles via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote:. > > > Inetrestingly, accroding to the Baal HaMeor, wearing a Beged of Daled > Kanfos using Tzitzs without Techiles is a violation -- same as if he > were wearing it without Tzitzis at all. > > I'm told that the Gra did not wear a woolen Beged for his Talis Katan > for that reason. Because wool has a Chiuv D'Oraisa for Tzitzs whereas > cotton is only D'Rabbanan. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 05:07:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 12:07:10 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >> R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is self-contradictory. >> According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint is monism ! ... > Strict monism, which rejects the gemara's statement that "eilu va'eilu > DACh", is by definition wrong. Monism doesn't reject the gemara just interprets it different That was the shiur >> Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he >> doesn't accept the kashrut >> Answer: >> Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong >> Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable > It depends whether his concern is legitimate. If there is a legitimate > opinion or minhag that forbids or refrains from whatever it is, or if he > has a legitimate private chumra, then there is no question that it is assur > to be machshil him. No question is your opinion a true monist Would argue that there are no other legitimate opinions hence the other is wrong and you are not machshil him [Email #2, also in reply to this latter quote. -micha] You are not being machshil by offering food that he won't eat because of his minhag or chumrot you are mikayem shalach Manot even if he doesn't accept the kashrut From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 09:11:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 12:11:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L Message-ID: <20150423161105.DF2701836D1@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:13 AM 4/23/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: >How did Rav Breuer work to ensure the conditions that "we could feel >justified to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? I really have no specifics. but I do know that Rav Breuer was busy here in the US building a model Kehilla and educating Baalei Batim. I know that some of those from his Kehilla did move to EY. In particular, I know one person who was a professional and a follower of TIDE who moved to EY. I am sure that he did whatever he could to strengthen Yahadus in EY. But let me ask a related question. What are the observant now living in EY doing "to ensure the conditions that 'we could feel justifies to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 09:49:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 12:49:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55392297.20909@sero.name> On 04/23/2015 08:07 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > >>> >>Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he >>> >>doesn't accept the kashrut >>> >>Answer: >>> >>Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong >>> >>Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable >> >It depends whether his concern is legitimate. If there is a legitimate >> >opinion or minhag that forbids or refrains from whatever it is, or if he >> >has a legitimate private chumra, then there is no question that it is assur >> >to be machshil him. > No question is your opinion a true monist > Would argue that there are no other legitimate opinions hence the other > is wrong and you are not machshil him Even if there is only one truth, you don't necessarily know for sure what it is. You make your best guess, but someone else makes his, and for all you know he may have hit on the truth, even if only by accident, while you, with all your careful analysis of the evidence, may have been led astray. Let's take medicine, where there really is only one truth, but often we don't know for sure what it is. Does gluten in the diet negatively affect the health of most normal people? There doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence for that proposition, but it can't be ruled out. Maybe in 20 years we will observe that those who have followed the gluten-free fad really are healthier, and someone will discover how it is that gluten harms a person. Or maybe it will be established that it's exactly the mishguas that it appears to be. But until then we are just guessing, and if you hold that it's a mishugas but someone else is worried about it, you have to consider the possibility that he may be right, and by tricking him into eating gluten you may actually be harming him. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 10:54:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 17:54:52 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] A Papal Honor for an Orthodox Rabbi. Message-ID: <393104521.3643892.1429811692300.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> JTA is reporting that Pope Francis will be bestowing Papal Knighthood upon Rabbi Arthur Schneier (who I believe is an Orthodox Rabbi) for (among other things) his work in promoting a positive relationship with the Church. According to JTA,?Schneier will formally become a knight of Saint Sylvester at a ceremony on April 27.Isn't there a Halachic probelm with this? It would seem to me that becoming a 'knight' in the Catholic church ?would at least be Avak Avodah Zara - even though it is just honorary? HM??Want Emes and Emunah in your life? Try this: http://haemtza.blogspot.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 16:14:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 19:14:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early Message-ID: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin (or ate the food already, the food went bad, etc...) who for some reason can not rely on the rabbi's communal failsafe eruv (perhaps he isn't in a neighborhood with an observant community) do for lighting Shabbos candles? So, the BY (OC 537:19) permits, but he says "veyeish oserin". The AhS (se'if 28) names the oserim as the Rosh and the Ran, and that the SA names the Rambam (via a diyuq halashon)as his source lehatir. The AhS then questions the diyuq, but says it should be allowed anyway, since one gets hana'ah from the neiros while on YT too. So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, ones you used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making a berakhah on? Yes, there is light for enjoying the Shabbos meal, all the same shalom bayis. But there is no actual pe'ulah to make the berakhah on. Is there? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 19th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Tifferes: When does harmony promote Fax: (270) 514-1507 withdrawal and submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 16:21:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Daniel M. Israel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 16:21:06 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> References: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <33e302272e45c742ee54349bcfddc40a@kolberamah.org> On 2015-04-23 16:14, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin... > ... do for lighting Shabbos candles? > So, the BY (OC 537:19) permits... The AhS > then questions the diyuq, but says it should be allowed anyway, since > one gets hana'ah from the neiros while on YT too. > So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, ones you > used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making a berakhah on? Off the cuff hypothesis: Perhaps for the one lighting, it becomes Shabbos immediately, so the hadlakah is for Shabbos and there is a beracha. But for others in the house, they likely don't take on Shabbos until davening, and therefor they enjoy it on YT. Which would be enough to matir her lighting them. But I have no source. -- Daniel Israel dmi1 at cornell.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 16:27:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 19:27:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: <33e302272e45c742ee54349bcfddc40a@kolberamah.org> References: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> <33e302272e45c742ee54349bcfddc40a@kolberamah.org> Message-ID: <20150423232727.GB23492@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 04:21:06PM -0700, Daniel M. Israel wrote: : Perhaps for the one lighting, it becomes Shabbos immediately, so the : hadlakah is for Shabbos and there is a beracha. But for others in the : house, they likely don't take on Shabbos until davening, and therefor : they enjoy it on YT. Which would be enough to matir her lighting them. Not bad, if we don't read too much into the AhS not limiting this solution to cases where the candle-lighter isn't alone in the home. Nor does he mention having to use candles lit after pelag, nor her making a berakhah upon lighting and having an issur melakhah... Could be, but I find it dachuq. -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 17:58:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2015 00:58:48 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early Message-ID: <20150423.205848.16124.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger asked: > What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin (or > ate the food already, the food went bad, etc...) who for some > reason can not rely on the rabbi's communal failsafe eruv > (perhaps he isn't in a neighborhood with an observant community) > do for lighting Shabbos candles? Another problem this person will have is what to eat on Shabbos. There are several ideas offered by the poskim, and one of them is to cook extra food on Yom Tov, and the extra will be for Shabbos. This can be done even without an Eiruv Tavshilin, IIRC, because the melacha is not being done exclusively for Shabbos. > So, the BY (OC 537:19) [that should be 527:19 - Akiva] permits, > but he says "veyeish oserin". The AhS (se'if 28) names the oserim > as the Rosh and the Ran, and that the SA names the Rambam (via a > diyuq halashon)as his source lehatir. The AhS then questions the > diyuq, but says it should be allowed anyway, since one gets > hana'ah from the neiros while on YT too. This sounds to me the same as above. The lighting is not being done exclusively for Shabbos, and therefore may be done on YT. I would note that at no point in that se'if, does the AhS explicitly refers to the *mitzvah* of lighting Shabbos neros. Rather, his focus is on the practical need to light them in the late afternoon, both because it is *already* getting dark and hard to see without some artifical light, and because we won't be able to light anything later on. Truth be told, if lighting Shabbos candles is allowed only with an Eruv Tavshilin, then this whole se'if is needed even for a person who DID remember to make an Eruv, because (l'chatchila) one must do his Shabbos preparations early in the day, in a manner in which the melacha is -- or at least *could* be -- for tzorchei Yom Tov, and not exclusively for Shabbos. > So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, > ones you used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making > a berakhah on? Yes, there is light for enjoying the Shabbos meal, > all the same shalom bayis. But there is no actual pe'ulah to make > the berakhah on. Is there? I don't know where you see anything like this in the AhS. The AhS is explicitly talking about lighting after mincha, when it is already dark and the light is already useful. I concede that perhaps one should omit the bracha, because it explicitly declares one's intentions to be of a hachana nature, but that is a separate question not raised by the AhS. The main point I want to make in this paragraph is that the AhS never suggested that one might be yotzay Mitzvas Ner Shabbos via the candle that he lit in the early afternoon; it must be lit after Plag, with the intention that it will be burning into Shabbos. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55399563ca1dd156333b3st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 23:18:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2015 02:18:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Turning Jealousy into Progress Message-ID: Envy - Jealousy ? Kin?ah ? is an obvious theme for Parshas Mtzora. Paraphrasing freely (from L?chai Ro?-EY page 184), Midrash Tehillim/Shochar Tov on 37:1 parallel of TiTCHaR and TeKaNNEi. Do not fall victim to despondence those plotting evil, do not emulate those who succeed in career of crime. Rashi BMiDBar 25:11 neatly ties both into a General Theory of Jealousy. KoL LaSHON KiNAH HU HaMiTCHaReH LiNKom NiKMaS DaVaR. Rashi?s keyword is worth a thousand words. Rashi expects that we know Tanach and Midrash references. To catch Rashi?s nuance, always, I consult my paper Milon Gur [also in HebrewBooks.com]. HaMiTCHaReH is the exotic addition to our vocabulary. My trusty dictionary comes through here. Milon Gur pages 310 311 on CHaRaH: CHaRaH intransitive verb, showing outwardly as Ca_US or KaTZUF. ? foaming and frothing anger, against a traitor or hated enemy. determination to avenge and restore the Balance of Justice. HiTLaHeiV burning simmering anger, pressure like volcanic eruption. Hashem to Yonah ? are you truly upset ? HaHeYTeiV CHaRaH LCHa YoNaH? Divine CHaRON AF boiling or simmering anger is satisfied only by repentance, not by punishment. CHaRUCHA [burnt like over done fire-roast, long term anger leads to burn-through and burn-out. CHaRUL thorny tangle Milon Gur page 1088 McharCher RIV ? drum up strife and enmity CHaRCHuR ? disease of loss of muscle and strength. MChaRCHer Riv, CharumAf [nose ?bent out of shape? inset into face] and for Tacharut as resentment destroyed relationship. Rashi in Machzor Vitri 148 uses CHeReTZ in a unique way. Hashem jealously and with energy demands perfection from the world. Why does the Creator demand perfection? Rashi believes that Hashem cares strongly about the world. When the Adam attempts to be good, but falls short, He uses Rachamim, parenting skills, looking to the potential of ?You will worship Elokim on this mountain?. identification with the world demands perfection. When the world tries but falls short, fails to perform, Hashem uses Rachamim, flexibility, patience, empathy. He settles for potential. When the world rebels against Hashem, refuses to acknowledge Him at all, or mocking Him, rejecting their Father, breaking up the family, then there is Charon Af, red faced simmering anger. Rav Avraham Ruby authored the ?Tzilusa DiShmaata? series, focusing on chapters of the Baba-s routinely learnt Afternoon Seder which are master-works of Lamdus. Rav Moshe Shmuel Shapiro of Be?eir Yaakov was a talented teacher, and R? Ruby is an extremely able student. This year R? Ruby has turned his talents to creating the same sort of succinct and sharp presentation on Chumash.[L?chai Ro?-EY on Vayikra, self published 5775, contact me.]. Each Parsha offers an eclectic collection of solid sources. The organization is always unique and refreshing. L?chai Ro?-EY 185 shows the constructive power of ambition. Identity, membership,self-image, pride, place in society are all motivators of constructive behavior. Kinah jealousy is secondary, when there is an insult or threat to Hashem?s identity, or the individual?s. Ideally our self-image should include praise of Hashem and hatred of all insults against the Honor of Hashem. Only live in a town with Jewish services, and help create them. Your material ambitions include the dimension of Mitzvos and Kidush Hashem. A higher level of identity, ambition and constructive jealousy is aspiring to your neighbor?s higher spiritual levels. Even the Heavenly angels and even Avraham Avinu found mentors to emulate. Of course, the type of destructive strife we often see has other roots. Building a Jewish family is much easier with stronger spiritual models. -- David Wacholder Cell: 917-742-7838 Email: dwacholder at gmail.com dwacholder at optonline.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 24 08:42:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2015 11:42:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Beautiful Vort Message-ID: I recently came upon the following, listening to a hesped for Rabbi Mordechai Fachler zt?l, who was nift?r in November 2010. The hesped (one of many for Rav Fachler) was delivered by Rabbi Moshe Shirkin of England. This is just one part that caught my attention and was very touching. In previous generations the g?dolei Yisroel were discussing what?s the function of a Rav? The Rosh Yeshiva in Grodna (at the time) said the task of the Rav is to give shiurim. The Rav of Kovna, poisek oilam, said the task of the Rav is to pasken shailas. They came to Reb Chayim of Brisk and asked him what is the task of the Rav. His impressive response was: To give shiurim, you have a Rosh Yeshiva. To pasken shailas, you have a dayan. The task of the Rav is to do chesed with his oilam. A clergyman comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comfortable. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Apr 25 12:31:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 25 Apr 2015 21:31:27 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150423161105.DF2701836D1@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150423161105.DF2701836D1@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <553BEB8F.8040802@zahav.net.il> On 4/23/2015 6:11 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > But let me ask a related question. What are the observant now living > in EY doing "to ensure the conditions that 'we could feel justifies > to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? I gave an answer on Areivim, but I saw a couple of things on Shabbat which warrant an Avodah response. The first is from Yoma 86:A, Rashi, B'Amor Lehem (my translation): "Evil comes to chassidim and chachamim because "They desecrated My Holy name" (note: Rashi is of course assuming that they didn't do any particular sin to warrant what happened to them). How did they desecrate (God's name)? In those places to where they were exiled, the non-Jews say "These are the people of God" and He can't redeem them. Conclusion: God's name has been desecrated." End quote. Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem. Rav Soloveitch tz"l wrote about this point in Kol Dodi Dofek and in his drashot for the Kinot, as did Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook tz"l. However, I don't want to leave it at that. Rav Cherki (father of Shalom HY"D) wrote the following in this week's Shabbat B'shabato: "And this leads us to a moral question: How can it be that with respect to the most significant event in all of history, the redemption, the existence or lack of good deeds has no effect at all? This tension between the inevitability of redemption and arbitrary choices made by man is what makes it necessary for the nation of Yisrael to observe all the mitzvot in detail, in order to avoid creating a dissonance between the need for justice (which appears in the covenant in the Torah portion of Bechukotai) and the values of the path of unification, which insists that G-d is always working to glorify His name, no matter what else is happening. And that is why the Haftarah ends with the adamant demand of the Holy One, Blessed be He: "I am your G-d. Follow My laws and maintain My just actions and perform them, and sanctify my Shabbat and let it be a symbol between Me and you, in order to know that I am your G-d." [Yechezkel 20:19-20]." No one, not the most hard core DL around, says that there is nothing wrong with the State, that there isn't what that needs changing, from the level of how people get on a bus to the national agenda. In his hesped, Rav Cherki mentioned that his son Shalom went to the navy to help start a hesder unit for the navy, even though he knew that the religious level in the navy wasn't as high as it was in other units. He went there for the greater good, to help make the IDF a bit more Torah oriented, period. Rav Cherki went on to say that the answer to Shalom's murder was to add Kiddush HaShem. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 13:28:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 20:28:49 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lashon Hara and the Internet Message-ID: <20150426.162849.2967.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> On Areivim, there were some posts speaking about the residents of a certain area or areas. Someone commented: > I'm a little surprised at this exchange. Sefer Chafetz Chaim is > pretty clear about not saying loshen hara on a place or the > residents of a place. Someone else responded: > I am no expert on what is LH and what is not, but with the Internet > I think that some of the halachos probably do not apply to today's > world. Find me a sefer that deals with LH and the Internet, and > then we will talk. I too am no expert in Sefer Chafetz Chaim, but I clearly remember it talking about Lashon Hara via the written word, such as in personal letters to friends and relatives, or by publishing books and newspapers. Can someone find those sources and tell us where they are? I find it difficult to imagine that today's world is so different from that of a hundred years ago "that some of the halachos probably do not apply to today's world." But without quoting actual sources, it's simply a case of my imagination vs that of the other poster. So I am hoping that someone can help with the source material, "and then we will talk." Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553d4ab51dc554ab54c25st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 15:02:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 18:02:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] YIDDISHKEIT WITHOUT IDEOLOGY: A LETTER TO My SON Message-ID: <20150426220229.D93E41836B2@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://traditionarchive.org/news/originals/Volume%2036/No.%202/Yiddishkeit%20Without.pdf Let me be absolutely clear: where the demands of halacha are unambiguous, you must submit to them. But how does one navigate between much less well-defined traditional attitudes and strong personal inclinations? When I was your age I didn't know the answer-I still don't-but one proposition that seemed self-evident to me at the time was that it was essential to be consistent. In other words, I felt that I had to some- how make sure that the way I defined Yiddishkeit and the way I defined my commitments given my own inclinations would be perfectly aligned. I'm now convinced that that commitment to consistency was utter- ly wrong-headed and is the key to all that is wrong with institutional Yiddishkeit. I shouldn't have been defining either Yiddishkeit or my commitments at al. To do so is to reduce Yiddishkeit to ideology which is exactly what it is not. See the above UL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 16:54:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 19:54:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150426235424.BD633182CE0@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:52 PM 4/26/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: I gave an answer on Areivim, but I saw a couple of things on Shabbat which warrant an Avodah response. The first is from Yoma 86:A, Rashi, B'Amor Lehem (my translation): "Evil comes to chassidim and chachamim because "They desecrated My Holy name" (note: Rashi is of course assuming that they didn't do any particular sin to warrant what happened to them). How did they desecrate (God's name)? In those places to where they were exiled, the non-Jews say "These are the people of God" and He can't redeem them. Conclusion: God's name has been desecrated." End quote. >Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem. >Rav Soloveitch tz"l wrote about this point in Kol Dodi Dofek and in his >drashot for the Kinot, as did Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook tz"l. We all know that there were great Torah scholars who disagreed with the assertion that " the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." to name just 3, the Satmar Rebbe, Rav Breuer, and Rav Schwab. They were also most certainly familiar with the gemara you quote and the RASHI. If you had written, "Therefore, according to some Torah scholars the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." I would not disagree. However, your blanket statement, "Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." is IMO is not valid. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 12:36:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Jay F. Shachter via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 19:36:27 +0000 (WET DST) Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: from "via Avodah" at Apr 26, 2015 03:52:29 pm Message-ID: <14300949890.C90dE41.4028@m5.chicago.il.us> > > What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin (or ate > the food already, the food went bad, etc...) who for some reason can > not rely on the rabbi's communal failsafe eruv (perhaps he isn't in > a neighborhood with an observant community) do for lighting Shabbos > candles? > You light one candle, after plag hamminxa of course, and you say the appropriate brakha, lhadliq ner shel shabbath. You don't need an `eruv tavshilin to light one candle, because the Rabbinic prohibition of performing mlakha on Yom Tov for Shabbath was not intended to override the Rabbinic commandment of lighting one candle for use on Shabbath. Since (unlike in ancient times, and unlike a hundred years ago also) you don't need to have candles burning on Shabbath for their light, because you already have electric lights in your house that will stay on, or that will come on, during Shabbath, you therefore have no reason to light more than one candle (except for minhag, which you can dispense with when needed), so you don't. One candle is the Rabbinic commandment. Lighting two candles is a recent frumkeit, or yhiruth, that started among German Jews and is less than 900 years old. Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter 6424 N Whipple St Chicago IL 60645-4111 (1-773)7613784 landline (1-410)9964737 GoogleVoice jay at m5.chicago.il.us http://m5.chicago.il.us "The umbrella of the gardener's aunt is in the house" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 04:58:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 12:58:34 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001901d080e1$7d6fcbe0$784f63a0$@org.uk> RMB wrote: <> As I have written before, what I find intensely frustrating about this is that RYBS's invocation of tan du appears to itself involve a form of tampering with the chazakos and by implication the denial of the perfection and truthfulness of chachmei chazal that is then claimed to be kefira. The gemora in discussing tan du is very clear - both in Yevamos 118b and Kesuvos 75a: a woman in a tan du marriage commits adultery - "kulan mezanos"! - THAT is the chazaka from Chazal regarding the nature of women. Now this could mean: (a) the sort of woman who is prepared to enter a tan du marriage is prepared to and will commit adultery; or (b) all women will take a tan du marriage (RYBS), but if they find themselves in a tan du marriage - the existential loneliness that RYBS identifies as being the particular province of women will also, according to Chazal, inevitably drive them to adultery; But you can't get away from the fact that Chazal set this up as a chazaka. And if you take these chazakos in the way that RYBS says to do, then there are inevitable conclusions: A Beis Din faced with what can now clearly be seen as a tan du marriage HAS to assume adultery as a consequence - that being the chazaka. If you hold that these statements of Chazal are perhaps limited in time and place to the times of Chazal, and the nature of women then, then we cannot necessarily generalise to today, and despite a woman today being demonstratably in a tan du marriage, one cannot necessarily jump to conclusions regarding her faithfulness. But if these chazakos are immutable - then the only question must surely be, was there the possibility of adultery - and given the freedom of movement of women today, I do not see how anybody can say that opportunity was not available. Therefore the result, and the consequence for the marriage, was a foregone conclusion. A beis din, if it does not treat this marriage as a mekach taus (because the woman is one who would not have entered a tan du marriage), has to treat it as one in which the woman has committed adultery and is therefore forbidden to her husband, and under which the husband is clearly under a Torah obligation to divorce, according to all opinions ("dvar erva"). And yet note that there is none of this in RBYS's analysis. Women's loneliness and spiritual pain, yes - a full facing of the consequences of what is therefore, according to Chazal, endemic in our society and in the nature of Bnos Yisroel, no. There is a complete glossing over of the fundamental conclusion by Chazal regarding the consequence of a tan du marriage. And yet how can you write about tan du as an absolute immutable principle and yet not mention what, according to Chazal, is the cast iron result of that absolute immutable principl? Note by the way that this chazaka, if indeed it is immutable in the nature of women, has another consequence. Given that having women commit adultery is clearly (how shall I put this mildly) a highly destructive thing for society - having women enter into marriages where this is the inevitable consequence is a very bad thing. Surely any Rabbi who is mesader kedushin at such a wedding, any eidim at such a wedding, etc have as a matter of fact engaged in lifnei iver lo titen michshol in the full biblical sense. This isn't, according to Chazal, a maybe or a possibility, this is an inevitability. Surely it is obligatory on any Rabbi who agrees to be mesader kiddushin and on any shadchanim and eidim to investigate very carefully that this marriage is not of the tan du nature? That is if, as Rav Lichtenstein is quoted as saying "given the clear cut evidence in the Rishonim in Yevamot and other places in Shas which clearly indicated that this hazaka was not one that applied in all contexts and at all times and in all situations" - then these concerns would be significantly diminished. After all, any marriage presented to a mesader kedushin would then at the very least be a sfek sfeka - perhaps this isn't a tan du marriage, and if it is, perhaps the woman might not commit adultery. But if it is an inevitable chazaka that a woman in a tan du marriage will commit adultery, then there is only one safek in relation to a serious issur d'orisa - in which case must it not be the responsibility of all those who enable such a marriage to occur to make sure that it is not a tan du marriage and they are not enabling such adultery to take place? To my mind, indeed, that is precisely what Chazal were really getting at. A genuine acknowledgement that - at least in some societies and some environments, women are pressured into inappropriate marriages and give in to that pressure. And that where a woman does indeed give in to such an inappropriate marriage, the consequences are really, really bad for the general society and we need all to be on guard to try and prevent such marriages occurring. That to me demonstrates far more clearly the "perfection and truthfulness of Chazal" than trying to squish them in to some metaphysical understanding of womenkind that does not reverberate as true to many. But if one is going to apply this particular analysis to this particular statement of Chazal, it would seem important to do it honestly while facing the totality of what it is that Chazal actually said. >-Micha Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 11:00:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 18:00:12 GMT Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabal as Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150427.140012.4336.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Rav YB Soloveitchik zt"l was quoted: > ... Let us take for example the chazaka that I was told > about: the chazaka tav l'meisiv tan du mil'meisiv armalo > [20] has absolutely nothing to do with the social and > political status of women in antiquity. This chazaka is > based not upon sociological factors, but upon a verse in > breishis -- harba arbeh itz'voneich v'heironeich b'etzev > teildi vanim v'el isheich t'shukaseich v'hu yimshal bach > -- "I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy travail; in > pain thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall > be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee" [21]. It > is a metaphysical curse rooted in the feminine personality > -- she suffers incomparably more that the male who is in > solitude. Solitude to the male is not as terrible an > experience, as horrifying an experience, as is solitude to > the woman. And this will never change, mayid shamayim > vaaretz [22]. This is not a psychological fact; it is an > existential fact, ... In our discussions of this idea, that the chazaka is "an existential fact" and "based not upon sociological factors", there seems to be a general assumption that the Rav was speaking of ALL chazakos. However, it seems possible to me, or perhaps even likely, that he was singling this chazaka out as different from others. Note that he does not merely assert this chazaka to be existential, but he cites a pasuk as proof. To me, this is significant, because we would then be allowed to treat any NON-pasuk-based chazaka as sociological. I don't know what implications this might have for the chazaka of extramarital relations that R"n Chana Luntz mentioned, or for any other chazakos, but I wanted to mention it in case anyone else wants to comment. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553e7973421b079735cf5st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 14:53:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 17:53:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabal as Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150427.140012.4336.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150427.140012.4336.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150427215316.GA27558@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 06:00:12PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : In our discussions of this idea, that the chazaka is "an existential : fact" and "based not upon sociological factors", there seems to be a : general assumption that the Rav was speaking of ALL chazakos. However, : it seems possible to me, or perhaps even likely, that he was singling : this chazaka out as different from others. I suggested a third possiliblity. The shiur was all about Talmud Torah and Qabbalas Ol Malkhus Shamayim. This was a couple of off topic lines in what was basically a complaint that RER didn't respect the halachic process (as RYBS saw it). RAL reports that this was RYBS's primary argument against RER's beis din; I am suggesting that this quick assertion was an example of that argument, not an independent second reason to reject. It fits better as an efshar lomar than an actual assertion. How do you know you can simply repeal this chazaqah? What if it's an existential statement about the human condition; is it, after all, mentioned in a pasuq! Not so much that tav lemeisav was necessarily an existential and unchanging fact, but that it could be. That one can't simply reason in a vacuum and buck the trend of millennia of pesaq. But in any case, RYBS did say it belashon rabbim: "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above. Let us take for example the chazaka that I was told about: the chazaka tav l'meisiv tan du...." RYBS discusses tav lemeisiv as an example of a general principle not to tamper with chazaqos. Not as a single case. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 23rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Netzach: How does my domination Fax: (270) 514-1507 stifle others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 11:10:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 14:10:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A Halachik analysis of the kosher status of vitamins and medicines. Message-ID: <20150427181040.6E1171834B6@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/osf4fh7 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 12:51:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 21:51:46 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150426235424.BD633182CE0@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150426235424.BD633182CE0@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <553E9352.3030802@zahav.net.il> 1) I have to admit I don't get your answer. You asked in what way could the state be considered a Kiddush Hashem and I gave you an answer. Now you reply that various rabbis wouldn't agree with that answer. Ok, but az mah? 2) The Satmar Rebbe wouldn't have said that anything about the state is a Kiddush Hashem, no matter what it did, so I don't understand why you included him. 3) Lastly, the reply that you gave reminds me of something that Rav AY Kook wrote in Orot, Orot HaTechiya, Chapter 20. He was addressing the question of whether or not the religious should join forces with the non-religious in order to work together for the Zionist cause. Rav Kook used the story of the two women claiming to be the mother of a baby as example of people revealing their true intentions. The woman who agreed that the baby should be cut in half was in effect saying (according to RK) that there shouldn't be babies. She used others claims as way of hiding her true intent, but when the decisive moment came, the truth came out. Meaning - was the demand that the religious not work with the secular the issue or was that a cover story used to mask people's opposition to Zionism? Or in this case, is the demand that the creation of the state be a Kiddush HaShem in the eyes of all rabbanim a real demand or is it simply a cover? If the Breuer community want the state to reflect certain values, than please, make it happen. If they don't want to make it happen or aren't willing, than the demand is (at best) an exercise in dissimulation. Ben On 4/27/2015 1:54 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > We all know that there were great Torah scholars who disagreed with the assertion that " the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." to name just 3, the Satmar Rebbe, Rav Breuer, and Rav Schwab. They were also most certainly familiar with the gemara you quote and the RASHI. > > If you had written, "Therefore, according to some Torah scholars the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." I would not disagree. However, your blanket statement, "Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." is IMO is not valid. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 14:59:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 22:59:07 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] ashkenazi married to sefardi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003e01d08135$629ef9e0$27dceda0$@org.uk> RET writes: <> Note that the Bnei Banim in Chelek 3 siman 29 brings an objection to this position of RMF, based on the Rema in Even HaEzer siman 75 si'if 1. The discussion there is regarding the situation where the man literally comes from one country and the woman comes from another, who can force whom to move? And while the majority of the rishonim (including the Tashbetz) hold (absent special considerations such as Eretz Yisrael versus non Eretz Yisrael) that the man can force the woman to move to his country, Rabbanu Tam holds the opposite, that the woman can force the man to move. And the Rema holds l'halacha that we should be choshesh for the position of Rabbanu Tam, and hence neither can force the other to move. The Bnei Banim points out that if one cannot force the wife to physically move to the locale of the husband, l'halacha, how can she be considered to have moved to his place by mere dint of the marriage? After all, if she has in fact, halachically, moved to his place by entering the chuppah, what possible objection can there possibly be to her being made to up sticks and actually go to his country, Rabbanu Tam or no Rabbanu Tam? So while the Tashbez is in fact being consistent - being a rishon who holds that in fact she is required to physically move to the husband's country, the Bene Banim argues that by being choshesh for Rabbanu Tam, the Rema is clearly not poskening like RMF and the Tashbetz. The Bene Banim also discusses other arguments brought by the Tashbetz (such as ishto k'gufo) - but again rejects this, given that a woman does not take over her husband's chiyuvim and nedarim (with the possible exception of Channukah Candles). >In addition ROY states a similar psak in several places. One can argue that ROY is in a stronger position than RMF, on the grounds that he solely follows the Mechaber, and hence not the Rema, and might hold that one can force a country change. The Bnei Banim also brings, however, that while ROY comes out straightforwardly like the Tashbetz in Yabiat Omer chelek 5 siman 37 (there he is discussing an Ashkenazi woman who married a Sephardi man and whether she can eat rice on Pesach - answer of course, yes), in Or Torah Iyar 4751 ROY writes (quotation taken from the Bene Banim, I don't have access to the original): ?????? ??? ???? ????? ????? ????? ?????? ?????? ???? ??????? ????? ?????? ??? ????? ????? ???? ??? ???? ?? ?"? ????, ?? ???? ??????? ???? ???? ???? ?????? ???? ????? ????? ???? ?' ?? ?????? ????? ???? )??? ?' ???? ?"?(. ??? ?????? ???? ???? ?? ???? ??? ???? ???? ????? ?? ??? ????, ??? ??? ???? ????? ????? ????? ???? ???? ???? ???? ????? ???? ????? ????? ???? ?? ?? ?? ?????. ???? ?? ?????? ?????? ?????? ???? ????? ????? ????? ??, ????? ?? ???? ????? ?? ????. ??? ?? ?? ????? ????? ??? ??? ????? ??? ????? ????? ????? ?????. ???? ???? ???? ??????, ?? ??? ????? ?? ???? ?????? ???? ????? ????? ???? ????? ??? ???? ????? ?? ??? ?????? ????, ??? ??? ????? ???? ???? ????? ??? ?????? ??? ??????? ??? ????? ????? ???"?. ??? ??? ???? ???? ?????? ???????? ?????? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ?? ??? ??? "??? ???" ???? ?? ???, ????? ????? ?? ???? " customs that are required of the husband of necessity because of the tradition of his fathers like the Sephardim who accepted on themselves the rulings of Maran [the Shulchan Aruch] and are not able to be lenient against his opinion even by way of hatarah, it is required of an Ashkenazi woman to go after her husband and even to conduct herself leniently like the custom of her husband like that which I wrote in Yabiat Omer (chelek 5 siman 37). But stringencies that the husband has placed on himself that if he wants he is able to nullify them by way of hatarah, there is no need for the woman to conduct herself like him and he is not able to force on her a stringency that she does not want to accept as there is to her on whom to rely. Therefore if she wants to continue to use Tenuva milk she is able to do this, and the husband if he wants can be stringent upon himself. But not use any form of compulsion that also she be stringent that there not enter their house the products of Tenuva. And this is the law with the fruit of shmitta, if she relies on the heter mechira since there are many great ones of the world who hold to leniency she is also able to continue to be lenient, and so she is not forced to accept upon herself the stringency of not using products which do not have on them the hashgacha of the Badatz. And if the husband is not able to continue his stringencies when the woman does not want to accept he should do hatarah on that which he did not say ?bli neder? and be lenient also he, as great is the peace of a house." The Bnei Banim notes however that ROY does not bring any lamdus to defend the distinction he makes here between longstanding community customs (such as rice on pesach or glatt meat) and more recent customs - such as not eating Tenuva or relying on the heter mechira. To expand on this comment of the Bnei Banim, one might say that if you base the reason for a woman taking on the customs of the husband because she moves to his place, why should it make a difference whether the customs he has established in his place are longstanding ones, such as eating rice on pesach, or not using the products of Tenuva? The customs of his place are the customs of his place. And yet ROY is, in this, reflecting a common (if perhaps inconsistent) practice. In all the debate regarding husbands not using the eruv and relying on their wives doing so, and how it shows a lack of derech eretz etc, nobody suggests that actually it is assur for the wife to use the eruv, on the grounds that she has moved to the husband's place, and his custom is not to do so, and so she is stuck with the stringencies of his house. The Bnei Banim concludes his teshuva by stating: ?????? ???? ??? ????? ???? ????? ???? ??????? ?????? ??? ???? ?????? ?????? ???? ?? ????, ?? ????? ?? ????? ?? ???? ????"? ????? ??? ???? ??"? ???? ????? ???? ????? ???? ?? ????? ??? ????? ?????? ?????? ??? ???? ???? ?? ?? ???? ??? ???? ???? ???????? ??? ???? ???, ??? ?? ?????? ?? ???? ???? ??????? ?????? ????? ??????. "And l?halacha anyway one should not push aside the custom of the world that a woman frees herself from the customs of her father?s household and conduct herself according to the customs of her husband if she wants, but she is able also to rely on the words of [Rav Ovadiah Yosef] in the ma?amer and so it seems to me that when there isn?t in it [a matter] between him and her, and there isn?t a matter of inui nefesh she is able to continue like the customs of the house of her father since behold also if she vowed them from anew after the marriage the husband could not annul [such vows], and she may make a condition with her husband before the marriage that she will continue to conduct herself in accordance with her customs." This point of the Bnei Banim regarding innui nefesh and matters beno uvena is interesting. What he is referring to is the fact that a husband can be mafer (ie nullify) the nedarim of his wife, but only those that either constitute inui nefesh or are considered beno u'vena (Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah Diman 234 si?if 55). And it seems to me that you can therefore deal with the Tashbetz's point (as strongly re-iterated by ROY) regarding food issues - ie that they cannot eat together at the same table where what is permitted for one is prohibited for the other - with the use of this concept, without needing to come on to place changes. Because one of the definitions of inui nefesh brought in the Shulchan Aruch (Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah Diman 234 si?if 60-61) is if the woman forbids an item of food on herself (although the Shulchan Aruch there in si'if 60 notes that the Rambam considers this a matter not of inui nefesh but of beno u'vena). So that, certainly from the perspective of a Sephardi husband, a woman who has has the practice of not eating rice and kitniyot on Pesach is engaging in inui nefesh - and if you follow the Rav Poelim I brought in an earlier post, that if one is forbidden to eat something, one is forbidden to cook it on yom tov for others who may eat it, then the woman could not cook rice or kitniyot for the husband either - making the matter clearly one beno u'vena. So it seems like the whole question of differences in food do not need discussions of place, they can more readily be handled within the context of the existing halachic framework surrounding marriage, and what is and is not appropriate to be waived in the context of a healthy marriage. That set me thinking about the fact that actually we are talking about a whole range of different forms of minhagim - and it seems to me that as a first stab, we are dealing here with four different categories: a) minhagim that really have no impact on the husband - such as whether she benches and davens minhag Ashkenaz or minhag Edot Hamizrach (but will have a major impact on her should she be required to change, both in terms of the huge learning curve, and also in terms of the emotional impact, eg of the kol nidrei tunes). One might perhaps say that if she davens a different nusach, she will want to go to shul to a different place - but she is in a different place from the husband anyway, by virtue of the mechitza, and of course many women do not have the custom to go at all, so real impact would seem to be minimal. That seems to be the underlying message of the Bene Banim. b) minhagim that involve inui nefesh of the woman (which the halacha defines as having an impact on the husband, and which includes her having prohibitions on food) and those beno u'vena. We already have a halachic framework to determine these - the relevant sections of Yoreh Deah siman 234. For example, it doesn't seem to me to be a stretch to say that if he has the minhag of putting food with a majority of solid on the blech on shabbas, and she has a minhag not to, then her following that minhag will impact beno u'vena in terms of what gets provided at the shabbas table, and therefore would fall within the category of minhagim that ought to change in the interests of a unified household. c) minhagim that impact the husband financially. The interesting thing is that these *are* dealt with in the gemora and the halacha based on the principle "olah imo v'ana yoredes imo" - she goes up with him but does not go down with him. The case discussed on Kesubos 48a is regarding what it is necessary for him to hire for her funeral (in the way of flute players and wailers) where the custom between her family and his family is different. And while it might have been the case that it was different because they were from a different socio-economic class, it may also be because she came from a different place where the custom was to spend more on funerals and even so (once you accept that the same rule applies in death as it does in life) he is required to fund the difference - there is no assumption that because she has moved to his place, she is only entitled to the funeral according to the custom of his place. It would therefore seem that the straightforward pshat of this gemora is against the Tashbetz. Similarly the Shulchan Aruch rules in Even HaEzer siman 80 si'if 10 that the various forms of work that are required of a woman for her husband are only required if it is the derech of both her family and his family for a woman to do this - ie it is the intersection of the two sets of minhagim that make the requirement binding. d) minhagim of the husband that cause her tzar: this is in many ways the flip side of b), in that in b) we are talking about a situation where what she has been accustomed to doing all her life is, from the perspective of the husband, a form of inui nefesh, while here, the customs of the husband are what to her might well seem inui nefesh. This could also perhaps be said to be dealt with by the gemora. The gemora in Kesubos 61a discusses the situation where there is a dispute between him and her regarding whether she should nurse their baby in situations where it is the custom of her family but not his or vice versa. The question has a financial aspect, if she does not, then the husband will be put to the expense of hiring a wet nurse, and also, it would appear, a status/beauty aspect (the husband may not want her to, either because only lower class women do this, or because it might make her less beautiful in his eyes). In terms of the financial and status aspect, the gemora again brings the position of olah imo v'ana yoredes imo as per c), but there are also other aspects. For example, in the case where she wants to nurse, and the husband does not want her to, the gemora assumes that it is straightforward that, if she wishes to nurse, we listen to her, on the grounds that "tzara dedei hu" - it is her pain. Now Rashi understands this as the physical pain of having milk and having no-one feed - but it could also be understood to be psychological. However, it is hard to know how far to extend this case, nursing might well be considered sui generis, because (a) it is something very specific to a woman that a man will never do (regardless of what the women in his family did) and (b) there are very specific, unusual, physical and/or psychological factors which are not necessarily duplicated elsewhere. Refraining from specific foods (despite it being considered inui nefesh) would seem to be a far less significant matter. What might perhaps be of more general application is the discussion that immediately follows the nursing question - in which the gemora attempts to find a Torah source for the idea of olah imo v'ana yoredes imo. Rav Huna learns it out of "He beulas ba'al" (Breishis 20:3) [Reference to Sarah Imanu vis a vis Avimelech] and therefore "beilaso shel baal v'lo yoredaso" - she goes up with the husband and not down with him while Rabbi Eliezer learns it out from "ki who eim kol chai" [Breishis 3:20] and therefore "l'chaim nitna vlo l'tzar nitna" - she was given for life and not for tzar. Now the Pnei Yehoshua and the Mahrasha attempt to learn different nafka minas from the bringing of these two different sources - but it seems to me that a straightforward nafka mina is that the first source appears to understand the question primarily as being one of financial or perhaps spiritual improvement (however one understands "going up" rather than "going down"). While the second source seems rather to focus on the idea that marriage is supposed to bring with it life rather than pain. So under the first source one might understand, if one understands prishus from particular foods or activities as a form of greater spirituality, then a woman ought to follow her husband in that, even if it is considered innui nefesh, while following the second source, the key would seem more to be a question of tzar, and inui nefesh must surely be considered at least some aspect of tzar. On some level that does seem to be what is driving ROY in his discussion of customs such as not using tenuva milk or not relying on the heter mechira - both cases deal with the situation where the man is the stringent one, and her custom is towards leniency. But where this question would seem to really bite, is, for example, in the case of a Sephardi woman contemplating marrying an Ashkenazi man - where she has grown up eating and cooking rice and kitniyot on Pesach. I know a number of little Sephardi girls who have told me that they would not contemplate marrying an Ashkenazi man because of this. Now maybe they will grow out of it - but it does seem to me to a really bad reason to be rejecting a potential suitor - and yet the sense of tzar is there, that is what they are saying, I don't want the tzar of making Pesach, which for many women is tzar enough already, totally different from the way I grew up and have been taught - especially when it comes with countless greater stringencies. And even if she does ignore this in practice and accepts such a marriage, one can easily see a level of resentment bubbling to the surface at what can be in any event a very stressful time ("it is your fault that it is so darn difficult so the least you can do is be more helpful"). And if one could in fact understand a fundamental halachic principle to be taken into consideration as that of l'chaim nitna vlo l'tzar nitna - you might end up with something in keeping with the shalom bayis needs of klal yisrael. >Eli Turkel Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 15:12:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 18:12:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: <20150423.205848.16124.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150423.205848.16124.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150427221257.GA6982@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 24, 2015 at 12:58:48AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : > So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, : > ones you used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making : > a berakhah on? Yes, there is light for enjoying the Shabbos meal, : > all the same shalom bayis. But there is no actual pe'ulah to make : > the berakhah on. Is there? : I don't know where you see anything like this in the AhS. The AhS : is explicitly talking about lighting after mincha, when it is already : dark and the light is already useful... And was used or at least "used" before Shabbos (in some halachic rather than commonsensical sense), even if just for seconds, since that's the AhS's grounds for allowing the person who made no eiruv tavshilin to light her Shabbos candles. So, how can she make a berakhah on candles she was only permitted to light because they would be used before Shabbos? What hadlaqah for Shabbos itself occured? > omit the bracha, because it explicitly declares one's intentions to be > of a hachana nature, but that is a separate question not raised by the > AhS... I'm taking his silence, the AhS not telling her to light without a berakhah, as implication that there is no change from the usual WRT berakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 23rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Netzach: How does my domination Fax: (270) 514-1507 stifle others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:01:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:01:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428160119.GA8805@aishdas.org> On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 01:53:10PM -0400, Kaganoff via Avodah wrote: : For many years i had extreme difficulty with R. Elchanan Wasserman understanding : as it conflicted with my belief that Judaism (and other religions) was not : logically provable (contra to Moshe Mendelssohn and his contemporaries) and : therefore required a "leap of faith" and that a disbeliever could not be : faulted for failing to take such a jump. This is a false dichotomy. Logically proving things are not the only way to justify belief in there. How do you know that (in a flat space) two parallel lines never meet? If you're like me, you pictured it in your head. Even though infinite lines don't exist in the real world. (Nor, does it turn out, does flat space.) Did you figure out that oppression was evil by logical proof, or by a combination of imagination and empathy? My favorite example is answering the question, "Do elephants have hair?" A logical/verbal approach would be: Elephants are mammals, all mammals have hair, and so unless elephants are the exception to the rule, they must have hair. Elephants are well known and discussed animals. Could they be an exception to the rule and I don't know it? Nah, they must have hair. How it is more likely the question jogged your memory of elephants you saw, or saw pictures of. The detail may be blurry, so you may have to manipulate the picture a bit. Finally, a version of the picture which has a tuft of hair at the tail, maybe (if your memory is good) some downy hair around the eyes and ears, strikes you as the most familiar, the most real. And again you could reach the conclusion that elephants have hair. (See for some musings about the two modes of thought I'm contrasting here.) In I compare different versions of the Argument from Design from R' Aqiva's response to the apiqoreis through the Rambam, through similar approaches based on more modern science. "G-d created" (Gen. 1:1): A hereic came to Rabbi Aqiva and asked, "Who made the universe?". Rabbi Aqiva answered, "HQBH". The heretic said, "Prove it to me." Rabbi Aqiva said, "Come to me tomorrow". When the heretic returned, Rabbi Aqiva asked, "What is that you are wearing?" "A garment", the unbeliever replied. "Who made it?" "A weaver." "Prove it to me." "What do you mean? How can I prove it to you? Here is the garment, how can you not know that a weaver made it?" Rabbi Akiva said, "And here is the world; how can you not know that Haqadosh barukh Hu made it?" After the heretic left, Rabbi Aqiva's students asked him, "But what is the proof?" He said, "Even as a house proclaims its builder,a garment its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the Holy Blessed One Who created it. Not very rigorous. Rabbi Aqiva's reply revolves around giving a parable to make the conclusion self-evident. Not contructing a deductive argument. The more rigorous we try making it, the more arguable the proof becomes. R' Aqiva's argument is far more convincing than the Rambam's statement based on how objects lose form over time, not gain it. Or a similar argument based on thermodynamics or information theory. (Ironically, every formal / logical proof is built from givens taken as self-evident for informal-reasoning reasons.) Anyway, that's how I understood REW. R' Elchanan argues that on an informal level, the idea that the universe had to have a Creator is as obvious as a Euclidean postulate or the injustice of oppression. To not believe in G-d requires a formal proof, which one's negios then determine if they find it sound or specious, and whether they accept the postulates on which it's built. Notice I didn't invoke any leaps of faith. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:24:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:24:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Peshat and Drash (Was: Re: Meshech Chochmah on Kedushah) In-Reply-To: <5518BD49.3000508@gmail.com> References: <54FC792A.4080400@gmail.com> <20150324195248.GD29350@aishdas.org> <5518BD49.3000508@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150428162406.GB8805@aishdas.org> On Sun, Mar 29, 2015 at 11:04:41PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : But there were such instances where "one said this was how halakhah : was understood miSinai and another says that this is new." One : example (noted by the Chavos Yair in his Teshuva 192) is a 3-way : machlokess in Zevachim 110b, where one Amora says Nissuch HaMayyim : is miDrabannan, another says it is derived from a posuk, and another : says it was a halacha l'Moshe MiSinai. Rambam (Temidim uMussafim : 10:6 ) poskens it is a halacha l'Moshe MiSinai. This is consistent : with the concept that, as the Rambam writes, "once someone says 'so : have I received,' there is no more debate." The reason is that once : one of our sages can demonstrate he is a recipient of explicit data : originating with Moshe Rabbeynu, a HLMS, it is naturally accepted as : fact. I thought it was well accepted that the Rambam's position in HLMS is inconsistent, that he mentions numberous machloqesin in dinim he himself labeled HLMS. I don't have time to summarize the Chavor Ya'ir teshuvah 192, but I gave up waiting until I did. The examples are numerous. Possible resolutions: - No machloqesin in the essence of the matter, but there can be in details. (the CY's conclusion.) - Im halakhah hi neqabel -- no machloqesin in something both sides agree are HLMS. And what I suggested: That we should distinguish between disputes due to lack of knowledge and formal machloqesin, with the Rambam saying the legal term "machloqes" with all the usual rules of pesaq only apply to the latter. Other disputes, while called machloqes in the colloquial sense, are resolved using the rules of safeiq -- because (leshitaso) ignorance does not create a real machloqes (in the technical sense). And the Rambam here is saying that real machloqes is limited to conflicting deductions and extrapolations from existing law to new places. And thus disputes in laws that date back to Sinai can't have real machloqesin. I know I'm repeating myself, but it's been "forever" ago in email list time since I sat on this post awaiting the time to study the CY. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:33:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:33:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] free will In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428163338.GC8805@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 1:38pm IDT, R Eli Turkel wrote: : We have discussed many times the opinion of Rav Dessler that a person : doesn't always have free will. : I recently saw a halachic discussion that may have some connection. : On ketubot 51 the gemara discusses a case of a married woman who was raped : but at the end was willing... : One possibility of explaining Rava is that she is overwhelmed by her : "yetzer" and so is still considered ["anusah"]... While RET's suggested example is consistent REED's concept of nequdas habechirah, the way RET phrased REED's position kept this email on my to-do list for the last 3 weeks. REED's point is one that's pretty consistent with first-hand experience of making choices. We do not feel in control of our subconscious decisions. All the opportunities we filter out before we even are aware of thinking about it. He then says that the decisions that rise to the level of consciousness, and thus we have some control over, are ones that generate internal conflict. The "battlefront" in his metaphor, where the yh"t and yh"r are balanced. But once you accept the notion of non-conscious thought, REED's conclusion is unavoidable. And a person does always have free will, he just isn't aware of every choice he makes to know to exercise it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:41:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:41:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428164110.GD8805@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 04:29:11PM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The world has changed a lot since the time of chazal especially related to : travel... : : 1. Most travel is no longer considered unsafe. When I get in my car every : morning to drive to work I don't think twice about it : 2. The distinction between in the city and out of the city is no longer : true... : Recently, I heard a short shiur on tefilas haderech and was happy to hear : that RSZA seems to say a very similar idea to RYBS. In contrast, the qorban todah and birkhas hagomel depend not only on surviving a dangerous situation but also on reliving one of the four sorts of yeshu'os tehillim ascribes to yetzi'as Mitzrayim: crossing a desert, the sea, bring freed from jail or recovering from illness. So, if we deem flying over the Great Lakes or the Mediterranean (to pick shorter flights over mayim she'ein lahem sof) to be too safe to warrant tefillas haderekh, would one end up in a situation that calls for no tefillas haderekh beforehand, but benching gomel afterward? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:45:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:45:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428164537.GE8805@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 11:12am EDT, RnTK asked: : But to veer back into Avodah territory -- would it have been appropriate to : say Tefillas Haderech at that time? With shem umalchus? (I assume you : can always say it without shem umalchus.) Tefilas haDerekh is never said besheim umalkhus. Sheim, yes, but not malkhus: "Barukh atah H', shomeia tefillah." No mention of "E-lokeinu Melekh ha'olam". Also, when speaking about berakhah vs tefillah, Tefillas haDerekh refers to itself as a tefillah. And notice also the chasimah is about hearing the baqashah, not about the shemirah we're requesting itself. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:58:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:58:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150419.223015.3015.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150419.223015.3015.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150428165812.GF8805@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 02:30:15AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : But then, as I was reviewing this post, my mind turned to the Tanur : Shel Achnai. R' Eliezer had a minority view, and R' Yehoshua was in : the majority. I've got to believe that both views were firmly grounded; : this machlokes was surely just as L'Shem Shamayim as any between Hillel : and Shammai. I'd *like* to say that Klapei Shmaya, both views were Truth. And if not, how would we justify following the majority over Divinely revealed truth? We discussed bas qol, and why we follow the bas qol that says "vehalakhah kebeis Hillel" despite the anur shel achnai story. I listed the opinions in the Encyc Talmudit here It's not 100% accepted that the bas qol was really endorsing R' Eliezer's opinion in this particular machloqes, rather than defending his shitah in general -- "halakhah kemoso bekhol maqom", or that it was a test. Both suggested by R' Nissim gaon. Similarly one of the answers in Tosafos is that it was about R' Eliezer's kavod, and not a Divine statement to be taken literally about din. All three would imply that we would follow a bas qol over halachic process, and so they had to explain how the tanur story wasn't an example. Thus implying that what we are searching for is the truth rather than legal authority. RNG's position on the tanur shel achanai story supports RMHalbertal's theory that in the geonic era, the Retrieval theory of halakhah dominated. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:12:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:12:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] brochos from the amud (was: tefillat haderech) In-Reply-To: <20150420024354.CJVF30458.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo110> References: <20150420024354.CJVF30458.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo110> Message-ID: <20150428171200.GG8805@aishdas.org> On Sun, Apr 19, 2015 at 10:43:47PM -0400, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote: : Slight change of topic: I'm still trying to wrap my head around the : idea that we don't seem to have a chashash of a brocha l'vatalah. I : mean, you have a sh'tz up there, saying a brocho out loud -- and : he's intentionally trying to be motzi _some_ others... But only those who had in mind to be yotzei. : Shomea k'oneh : doesn't apply at all? What if you are in the shul and you're not : thinking about the issue of being yotzie, you're just thinking about : which day it is, and/or you simply have stam kavanah. No chashash : for an issur d'oraissa? RYBS says in the context of the berakhah on Hallel that because mitzvos einum tzerikhos kavanah, if you have no kavanah one way or the other, you would be yotzei. To avoid being yotzei would require having explicit kavanah not to be yotzei. He then continues that the idea of having intent not to want to do a mitzvah bothers him, and so RYBS said he says the berakhah on Hallel along with the chazan. (Which is what my father does, and what I grew up with.) I assume the same would be true here. (Although I don't recall what my father does, I say the berakhah along with the chazan.) I would have thought that interrupting with "barukh Hu uvarukh shemo" should also work. Recall that R Chaim was very against answering BHUBS to chazaras hashatz because one is being yotzei tefillat hatzibur. (Above and beyond one's own chiyuv of tefillah.) While listing my hunches, I believe that intent to say it yourself qualified as kavanah not to be yotzeir. So the default is kavanah not to be yotzei, not an absense of kavanah one way or the other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:44:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:44:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428164445.5B05B18384C@nexus.stevens.edu> At 12:24 PM 4/28/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: >Meaning - was the demand that the religious not work with the >secular the issue or was that a cover story used to mask people's >opposition to Zionism? This was an issue, and there was also opposition to Zionism. The opposition to Zionism was not masked at all. Please read http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/zion_or_zionism.pdf to see what Zionism really is according to Rav Schwab, ZT"L and others who think like him. >Or in this case, is the demand that the creation >of the state be a Kiddush HaShem in the eyes of all rabbanim a real >demand or is it simply a cover? I have never heard of "the demand that the creation of the state be a Kiddush HaShem in the eyes of all rabbanim " Who demanded this? > If the Breuer community want the state >to reflect certain values, than please, make it happen. And how do you propose that they do this? I asked you in an earlier email what the Orthodox Jews in EY and you in particular are doing to make this happen, and I received no response. > If they don't >want to make it happen or aren't willing, than the demand is (at best) >an exercise in dissimulation. Do you really believe that the Breuer's community at the time when Rav Breuer and Rav Schwab has the wherewithal to make the State reflect certain values? Even those living in EY at this time could not do this. There was (and still is) a large non-religious contingent of Jews living in EY. Do you really think that anyone can "make" them change their views or their behavior? YL YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:32:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:32:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eretz Yisrael vs Medinat Yisrael [was: The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L] Message-ID: <125cff.585c1330.42711e42@aol.com> R. Ben Waxman wrote: >Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem. >Rav Soloveitch tz"l wrote about this point in Kol Dodi Dofek and in his >drashot for the Kinot, as did Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook tz"l. RYL wrote: >> We all know that there were great Torah scholars who disagreed with >> the assertion that " the creation of the State is, in of itself, a >> Kiddush Hashem." >>>>> I will have to re-read Kol Dodi Dofek because I don't remember such a forthright quote -- "The creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." But in any case it isn't exactly an either-or question. The Medinah -- the secular socialist Russian government of Israel -- is hardly a kiddush Hashem. Indeed it arouses waves of hatred from the goyim all over the world, on a daily basis. RBW also wrote: >>....The first is from Yoma 86:A, Rashi, B'Amor Lehem: "Evil comes to chassidim and chachamim because "They desecrated My Holy name." How did they desecrate (God's name)? In those places to where they were exiled, the non-Jews say "These are the people of God" and He can't redeem them. Conclusion: God's name has been desecrated." End quote.<< The establishment of a government that is hated and vilified by the whole world is not, it would seem, a kiddush Hashem. Plus the fact that the country is under constant military threat and cannot, apparently, provide security to its inhabitants, also would not seem to be a kiddush Hashem. But I think these facts -- the constant physical attacks, the world-wide moral opprobrium -- are the cosmic result of the fact that the Medinah is determinedly secular and consciously rejects Torah as a guiding principle. HOWEVER, on the other side, RBW's Rashi quote does have a bearing on the current situation in Eretz Yisrael. There is no denying that the flourishing of Eretz Yisrael, after two thousand years of desolation, is miraculous. The continued existence of the country, despite the constant waves of physical and diplomatic attacks, is also miraculous. And the fact that all Jews can go and live in Eretz Yisrael, and that millions actually do live there, is also a huge miracle. I said there is no denying the miraculous aspects and yet I am aware that the Satmar Rebbe did deny it. He admitted that there was a supernatural aspect to Israel's recent history but ascribed the miracles to the Satan, blinding our eyes. He never joined Agudas Yisrael, the world-wide umbrella organization for all Orthodox Jews, because he was on one side and all the other gedolim in the world were on the other side. All the others rejected the ideology of secular Zionism while gratefully acknowledging chasdei Hashem in allowing the Land to be built up, allowing the Torah communities to grow and flourish, allowing millions of Jews to live in our ancient homeland. The Lubavitcher Rebbe also never joined the Agudah -- I refer not to the Israeli political party but to the world-wide umbrella organization. He had other reasons, perhaps for another time. I think he wanted Chabad to be THE world-wide organization, he did not want it to be one of many competing Orthodox groups and derachim. But he agreed with the basic ideology of the Agudah vis-a-vis the state of Israel -- the nuanced view of ohr vechoshech. And so did the Yekkes, very much so! In fact they were instrumental in founding and guiding the Agudah, for decades! Their attitude towards Israel after the founding of the Medinah and the beginning of kibbutz galuyos was very much the same as the whole rest of the Agudah -- grateful acknowledgment of the positive, hakaras hatov to the Ribono Shel Olam, opposition to the negative, working to improve the moral status of Eretz Yisrael, e.g., when it came to forced autopsies (B'H the charedim won that bitterly fought battle), giyus banos and other issues. But the Yekkes in Israel do vote, do participate in running the country, do daven at the kosel (unlike the Satmar and Neturei Karta), do thank Hashem for protecting Eretz Yisrael and daven for continued Divine protection. RYL considers himself the premier acolyte of RSRH but he and I have some fundamental disagreements about what the Hirschian legacy really is. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 11:59:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 20:59:46 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150428164445.5B05B18384C@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150428164445.5B05B18384C@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <553FD8A2.1060306@zahav.net.il> Regarding the second question, yes I did. Please see the previous emails. Regarding the first, all I can say is that it won't be done from New York. Regarding the other points, I addressed them so I won't repeat myself this round. Ben On 4/28/2015 6:44 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > And how do you propose that they do this? > > I asked you in an earlier email what the Orthodox Jews in EY and you > in particular are doing to make this happen, and I received no response. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:59:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:59:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Message-ID: <126fc1.37d9c7fc.4271247d@aol.com> From: Chana Luntz via Avodah >> As I have written before, what I find intensely frustrating about this is that RYBS's invocation of tan du appears to itself involve a form of tampering with the chazakos and by implication the denial of the perfection and truthfulness of chachmei chazal that is then claimed to be kefira. The gemora in discussing tan du is very clear - both in Yevamos 118b and Kesuvos 75a: a woman in a tan du marriage commits adultery - "kulan mezanos"! - THAT is the chazaka from Chazal regarding the nature of women. [snip] But you can't get away from the fact that Chazal set this up as a chazaka. And if you take these chazakos in the way that RYBS says to do, then there are inevitable conclusions: A Beis Din faced with what can now clearly be seen as a tan du marriage HAS to assume adultery as a consequence - that being the chazaka. [snip] Surely it is obligatory on any Rabbi who agrees to be mesader kiddushin and on any shadchanim and eidim to investigate very carefully that this marriage is not of the tan du nature? [snip] But if it is an inevitable chazaka that a woman in a tan du marriage will commit adultery, then there is only one safek in relation to a serious issur d'orisa - in which case must it not be the responsibility of all those who enable such a marriage to occur to make sure that it is not a tan du marriage and they are not enabling such adultery to take place? >>>>> There is brilliant yet convoluted logic behind this post. I hesitate to tangle with someone like R'n CL who is so erudite, yet I truly believe she has misunderstood this Gemara. Yes, a woman in a loveless marriage is much more tempted to commit adultery, given the right set of circumstances, but it is certainly not inevitable. Nor is it correct to deduce that a rav must make sure, before he marries a couple, that the woman is not entering a loveless marriage! He doesn't have to creep into her heart and mind before conducting the wedding, doesn't have to fathom the depths of her motives in marrying this man. There are so many motives, so many emotions, how could you ever fathom them all? I think "kulan mezanos" refers to all women, and it means all women can be seduced, though obviously it will be easier to seduce a woman who does not love her husband. All women potentially can be seduced. IIRC Beruria the wife of R' Meir -- and you can't claim that was a "tan duu marriage"! -- thought she was an exception to this rule about human nature, or feminine nature. And found out she was wrong! Even she, a brilliant and pious woman married to a great man, could be seduced. Without the Gemara most of us would assume that men are more likely to be unfaithful than women, and I do think that is true. I don't know how to square what we see before us -- that men cheat more than women do -- with what the Gemara says. In any case in Torah homes fidelity between husbands and wives is the norm, Baruch Hashem. All those fences -- laws of yichud, negiah, tznius and so on -- really do protect us. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 15:58:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 23:58:31 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos Message-ID: <001b01d081d6$cb2e0680$618a1380$@org.uk> Sorry, been away, and am therefore very behind in Avodah On 04/03/2015 06:57 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >> He also paskens (for EY) that one can cook kitniyot on the 7th day of >> Pesach for use on the shabbat right afterwards (ef this year). And RZS replied: >Yes, I'm surprised that anyone disagrees. It seems so obviously correct. >I know that many people don't do so, and believe it to be forbidden, >but I have never yet heard an argument for why it should be so. Well the arguments to prohibit can be found in Rav Poelim chelek 3 Orech Chaim siman 30 - he brings two: one based on the prohibition of a person who is fasting on yom tov to cook for others - as per the Rema in Shulchan Aruch Orech Chaim siman 527 si'if 20 as explained by the Magen Avraham there and an additional reason added by the Magen Avraham there in si'if katan 22. The Ben Ish Chai in Rav Poelim was discussing whether a person whose custom (in Bagdad) was not to eat rice on Pesach could cook rice for those who do. He rejected the first rationale provided by the Magen Avraham) as being applicable to this case, but accepted the second reason as applicable (although he also cites a number of achronim who accept the first reason as a reason to prohibit)- and therefore held that those who had the custom of treating rice as assur on pesach could not cook rice for those who had the custom of eating rice on yom tov of Pesach for so long as they had this custom of treating rice as assur (although he held that those who had this custom not to eat rice in Bagdad could do hatarat nedarim and be able to eat, and hence cook, rice on pesach so as to solve the problem). >> This is because some sefardi could come over for a visit and so the >> kitniyot are not mukza . >The main issue would surely not be muktzeh, but cooking on yomtov. >But the answer is the same: the hypothetical horde of hungry guests who >might descend on one ten minutes before sunset on Friday, and for whom >one is, in principle, cooking, might very well be sefardim. Yes, but according to the position of the Rav Poelim, Askenazim can never, when cooking for Sephardim on pesach, cook them dishes that they, the Ashkenazim, cannot eat, hence hoeil does not apply. The same ought presumably to apply to gebrochts according to the Ben Ish Chai - if you can't eat it on shvii shel pesach, you can't cook it for others, including hungry guests, and so cannot effectively cook it for shabbas based on hoeil, your shabbas food would have to consist of something else you could eat on shvii shel pesach. >Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 11:03:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Toby Katz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 14:03:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <127300.4be2c63a.42712586@aol.com> In a message dated 4/28/2015 12:45:47 P.M. EDT, micha at aishdas.org writes: > Tefilas haDerekh is never said besheim umalkhus. You are correct, I should have caught that myself. > Also, when speaking about berakhah vs tefillah, Tefillas haDerekh > refers to itself as a tefillah. And notice also the chasimah is about > hearing the baqashah, not about the shemirah we're requesting itself. zsh:1: command not found: Fmt --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 11:34:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 14:34:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: <127300.4be2c63a.42712586@aol.com> References: <127300.4be2c63a.42712586@aol.com> Message-ID: <20150428183420.GA25835@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 02:03:50PM -0400, T613K at aol.com wrote: : >> Also, when speaking about berakhah vs tefillah, Tefillas haDerekh refers : to itself as a tefillah. And notice also the chasimah is about hearing : the baqashah, not about the shemirah we're requesting itself.<< : : That doesn't answer the question of whether it is appropriate to recite : Tefillas HaDerech during a blinding rainstorm on the highway in your own city, : which was my question. It doesn't fully answer your question, but it does point a bit toward saying it. After all, it turns out that the only berakhah is about Hashem hearing baqashos. The body of the tefillah is only a formalized equivalent to saying "Please G-d, just get me home safe, healthy and in one piece!" or some other spontaneous cry for help. So, if you're scared on the road, tefillah is appropriate. Why would thanking G-d for listening to such tefillos depend on rules about travel? Add to that the fact that it's only half a berakhah, which indicates that it's shevach (like Shomeia Tefillah in Shemoneh Esrei), as another small indicator in favor of saying it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 12:58:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 15:58:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <001901d080e1$7d6fcbe0$784f63a0$@org.uk> References: <001901d080e1$7d6fcbe0$784f63a0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <20150428195810.GC25835@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 12:05:17PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: [RAM:] : > At any rate, one can agree or disagree about : > whether this assertion is true, and even among those who agree with : > it, there might be discussion of exactly which chazakos are unchanging : > and which are variable. Still, his point is that there are indeed some : > UNchanging aspects. : I would add an observation that individual exceptions may exist : empirically but are ignored halachically This is the classic case of affirming a chazaqah (or rov) when there is ika rei'usa. No? On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 12:58:34PM +0100, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: : The gemora in discussing tan du is very clear - both in Yevamos 118b and : Kesuvos 75a: a woman in a tan du marriage commits adultery - "kulan : mezanos"! - THAT is the chazaka from Chazal regarding the nature of women. : : Now this could mean: (a) the sort of woman who is prepared to enter a tan : du marriage is prepared to and will commit adultery; or : (b) all women will take a tan du marriage : (RYBS), but if they find themselves in a tan du marriage - the existential : loneliness that RYBS identifies as being the particular province of women : will also, according to Chazal, inevitably drive them to adultery; : But you can't get away from the fact that Chazal set this up as a chazaka. As the gemara was taught to me, what they set up as a chazaqah was pretty much as RYBS describes it. Women feel the loneliness of singlehood more. The flow of the sugya in the two gemaras are quite similar, from the point where Reish Laqish is quoted staying "tav lemeisiv" onward. RL, illustrated with meshalim by Abayei, R' Papa, and R' Ashi, followed by a tana saying that they all are mezanos and then blame their husbands. So, it would seem that tav lemeisiv is about a desire to be married. This has nothing to do with romance or eros, since we are told that a woman who is just married so s not to be like a widow (milemeisiv armelu) do tend to end up cheating. But tav lemeisiv isn't about the affairs, it's about (Yevamos) why hamezakeh gett le'ishto in the middle is not valid. Because it's not a pure zekhus for her, you cannot say zakhin le'adam shelo befanav (or befanehah, as the case may be). There is nothing about "being driven to" adultery by the loneliness, but by having tav lemeisiv alone satisfied by her marriage. Perhaps the reverse of your formulation. (I think the idea that tav lemeisiv means women are more likely to be sexually lonely would be really hard to support, even in a culture where husbands, not wives, have a chiyuv onah.) Or (Kesuvos) it is used (in a complex case I'm too lazy to spell out) why a man might wish not to be married, lest he later be prohibited to her relatives, but in the flipside case, we do not assume the same of the woman. The bit about mezanos vetolos beba'aleihen is not the basis for any halakhos. I have no reason to believe it's a chazaqah. Tangentially... On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 07:27:43PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Another challenge is how to deal with recent "Chachmei Hamesorah" : who don't seem to meet the perfection definition. I have two suggestions that work for me: 1- Make a list of current chakhmei hamesorah that don't pose such a challenge for you. Once you start, you'll likely find it's a longwer list than you had thought. Focus on them, and ignore the rest, no matter how popular as gedolim they may be. 2- Separate the current rabbinate from one's own ties to the mesorah with a project like Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:01:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 23:01:17 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) Message-ID: <553FF51D.6070804@zahav.net.il> Putting the question of Hallel aside, I don't understand the line below. I looked through the Beit Yosef OH 131 where he discusses the days on which Tachanun isn't said. The BY does not list all the days that we skip (like Purim Qatan or Pesach Sheni). These came later. So when did this idea (that we can't change when Tachanun is said or not said) start? Ben On 4/28/2015 12:31 PM, Prof. Levine via Areivim wrote: > Shemone Esrei is followed > by Chazaras Hashatz, which is followed by Tachanun, and then followed > by Ashrei and U'va' Letzion--and we do not have the right or > privilege of changing that, he opined. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:28:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:28:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early Message-ID: The statement was made that "Lighting two candles is a recent frumkeit, or yhiruth, that started among German Jews and is less than 900 years old.." Isn't it also yohara to stand in judgment of a minhag mentioned in the Tur and Shulchan Aruch and observed virtually without exception by klal Yisraeil? EMT From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 13:50:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 16:50:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eretz Yisrael vs Medinat Yisrael [was: The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L] In-Reply-To: <125cff.585c1330.42711e42@aol.com> References: <125cff.585c1330.42711e42@aol.com> Message-ID: <553FF29D.4030208@sero.name> On 04/28/2015 01:32 PM, via Avodah wrote: > The Lubavitcher Rebbe also never joined the Agudah -- I refer not to > the Israeli political party but to the world-wide umbrella > organization. He had other reasons, perhaps for another time. I > think he wanted Chabad to be THE world-wide organization, he did not > want it to be one of many competing Orthodox groups and derachim. The Lubavitcher Rebbe at the time the Agudah was founded was the Rashab, who in matters of askonus generally took his lead from R Chaim Brisker. Lubavitch was a member of the Agudah's precursor, Machzikei Hadas, but when MH merged with the Yekkes to form the Agudah, R Chaim put 18 conditions on his participation, and since they weren't satisfied both Brisk and Lubavitch stayed out. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:22:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 17:22:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Peshat and Drash (Was: Re: Meshech Chochmah on Kedushah) In-Reply-To: <20150428162406.GB8805@aishdas.org> References: <54FC792A.4080400@gmail.com> <20150324195248.GD29350@aishdas.org> <5518BD49.3000508@gmail.com> <20150428162406.GB8805@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <553FFA2E.6000809@gmail.com> On 4/28/2015 12:24 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > I thought it was well accepted that the Rambam's position in HLMS > is inconsistent, that he mentions numberous machloqesin in dinim > he himself labeled HLMS.... Chavor Ya'ir teshuvah 192...examples are numerous. > > Possible resolutions: > > - No machloqesin in the essence of the matter, but there can be in > details. (the CY's conclusion.) I don't think that is the Chavos Yair's conclusion. He leaves the matter bewildered, as Rambam appears incomprehensible and self-contradictory. > - Im halakhah hi neqabel -- no machloqesin in something both sides agree > are HLMS. With the modification of the word "against" in place of the word ''in,'' this is my conclusion, and that of the Maharatz Chayos. The Rambam is addressing the Karaite argument that even Chazal did not really consider the laws they called "payrushim mekuballim" and HLMS (the latter being payrushim mekuballim that lack indications planted in the Torah) to have literally come from Moshe Rabbeynu. That's why, the Karaites argued, Chazal felt free to dispute them. The Rambam explains that Chazal never disputed laws that made it to them from Sinai. The disputes are over issues ''branching out'' from them. Thus, '' There is no machlokess against any payrush that is known to have come from Sinai.'' This understanding fits very well in the Rambam's words, in the context of which he was talking and the issues he confronted; and eliminates what would certainly be a mess of the self-contradictions and open contradictions from the Talmud that the CY lists. Another concern raised by the CY is the fact that the Rambam seems inconsistent between the Mishneh Torah and his list in the hakdama to his Mishneh commentary in that some laws he labels as HLMS in one work he does not in other. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:28:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 17:28:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Renewal Role of Sarah Schenirer Message-ID: <20150428212818.DEBA1182F93@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/njwrn2g There was a major difference, however, between the Bais Yaacov of Williamsburg and the Bais Yaacov of Poland in pre-war Europe. The Bais Yaacov movement in Poland emphasized the universal Torah teachings of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, while the Bais Yaacov of Williamsburg did not give Rabbi Hirsch's teachings the same emphasis. Why were Rabbi Hirsch's teachings regarding the Torah's universal vision no longer the main focus? Most of the teachers and students at the American Bais Yaakov were Holocaust survivors who felt a need to turn inward after experiencing the hatred of the Gentiles around them and the horrors of the Holocaust. They knew that most of the "humanistic" intellectuals and artists of Germany actively supported the brutal persecution of the Jewish people. They also knew that most of the "enlightened" countries closed their doors to Jews who were trying to escape the Holocaust. In addition, they knew that most of the Christian religious leaders of Europe did not protest the organized murder of millions of Jewish men, women, and children; moreover, many Christians in the countries occupied by the Germans actively assisted the Germans in rounding up the Jews for the death camps. In fact, a number of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust who returned to Poland after the war were murdered in Polish pogroms! It is understandable that these survivors felt the need to first heal themselves before worrying about the world which had abandoned their suffering people. In addition, these survivors did not have the strong attraction to secular western culture which an earlier generation of Bais Yaakov students had once experienced, and their feelings are expressed in the following memoir of Dr. Judith Grunfeld: "Almost seventy years have passed since, and we have today most unfortunately an easy enough means of demonstrating that all cultures which we then venerated have revealed themselves to be nothing but a flimsy veneer covering over diabolical inhumanity. European humanitarian ideas so prevalent then, so much on the tip of everyone's tongue, preached by leading university representatives, have been proven utterly hollow. For they did not succeed in preventing, and indeed could be said to be frequently instrumental in strirring up the raging, terrible fire of man's inhumanity to man." ("Rebbitzen Grunfeld" by Miriam Dansky, p. 72) Nevertheless, our sages teach that Torah - the Divine wisdom - is the blueprint of creation, and that the Creator looked into the Torah when He created the world (Genesis Rabbah 1:1). If our Creator looked into the Torah and created the world, then when we look into the Torah we can rediscover this world. In addition, the Torah reveals that we have the potential to become holy vessels with the spiritual power to transform and elevate the world; thus, no matter how much we turn inward, the study of Torah reminds us that we must eventually turn outward. This may be one of the reasons why a growing number of Torah-committed Jews in our generation are rediscovering the writings of Rabbi Hirsch, as a major theme of his teachings is the universal goal of the Torah path. The Bais Yaacov High School of Baltimore, under the leadership of its principal, Rabbi Binyamin Steinberg, gave renewed emphasis to the universal vision of the Torah. Rabbi Steinberg himself was a Holocaust survivor, and in one of his talks to his students about respect for other peoples, he reminded them of the Compassionate One's promise to Abraham that "through you all the families of the earth will be blessed" (Genesis 12:3). The following is an excerpt from his talk: "All the families of the earth," he declared. 'Who cares about all the families of the earth?' you ask. Nevertheless, that's what the Torah says...The people of Israel will be a blessing for all the families of the earth. That means the Albanians, the Greeks, the Chinese, the Indonesians, the African Americans - all the families of the earth. That's what it says in my Torah! " (A Matter of Principal - a biography of Rabbi Binyamin Steinberg by Hanoch Teller). Before we can become a blessing to others, however, we first need to turn inward in order to develop our unique strengths. As Sarah Schneirer realized, we first have to renew ourselves before we can renew the world. As the Prophet Isaiah proclaimed to our people: "O House of Jacob: Come, let us walk by the light of Hashem! " (Isaiah 2:5) See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:59:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 22:59:29 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <002d01d081fe$99c5fcb0$cd51f610$@org.uk> RMB writes: >As the gemara was taught to me, what they set up as a chazaqah was >pretty much as RYBS describes it. Women feel the loneliness of singlehood >more. >The flow of the sugya in the two gemaras are quite similar, from the >point where Reish Laqish is quoted staying "tav lemeisiv" onward. RL, >illustrated with meshalim by Abayei, R' Papa, and R' Ashi, followed by >a tana saying that they all are mezanos and then blame their husbands. >So, it would seem that tav lemeisiv is about a desire to be married. >This has nothing to do with romance or eros, since we are told that a >woman who is just married so s not to be like a widow (milemeisiv >armelu) do tend to end up cheating. >But tav lemeisiv isn't about the affairs, I agree that tav lemeisiv is not brought initially to refer to the issue of affairs, but rather indeed about a desire to be married which is then brought to make a halachic point within another context (eg maezakeh get l'eishto) - but once the gemora is discussing tav lemeisiv marriages - it then takes the time out, twice, to explain what these marriages mean. And it explains, after going through the flow of Abaye etc, that these marriages mean inevitable adultery. Ie according the gemora a tav l'meisiv marriage = adultery. Now, that means, the more tav l'meisiv marriages there are, the more adultery there is. So the more you stress that the world is full of tav l'meisiv marriages, the more you are saying that the world is full of Bnos Yisrael committing adultery. That tav l'meisiv marriage results in adultery is clearly part and parcel of the definition of what a tav l'meisiv marriage is - one where a woman will prefer to be married than to be alone. And it is not a disputed statement, it is a concluding statement rounding up the discussion of what a tav l'meisiv marriage is. In order to break the equation, you have to say that Chazal didn't really mean what they said, or that they were talking about their time and place, but women today are different - but that means denying the truthfulness and accuracy of Chazal's statements (or understanding them differently) in exactly the way that RYBS objects to as kefira. You can't say that a woman prefers to be married than to be alone is a universal truth because it was stated by Chazal, and simultaneously that women in tav lemeisiv marriages commit adultery is not a universal truth, as they are bound up in the same discussion and you are picking and choosing your Chazalic statements - this one I like, this one I don't, and not just any statement, but the concluding statement rounding up the discussion defining the concept. .... >The bit about mezanos vetolos beba'aleihen is not the basis for any >halakhos. I have no reason to believe it's a chazaqah. So why did Chazal say it? For the fun of casting aspersions on Bnos Yisrael? Twice? In the context of a halachic discussion? If this was any other discussion, would anybody dream of suggesting that when Chazal said that something inevitably happened in the context of a halachic discussion they were not, at the very least, postulating a chazaka (albeit perhaps a rebuttable one) and possibly something even stronger? One might say - well nature has changed (eg kol treifos), or one might say - we have to treat something as halachically following Chazal's statement, even if we know or suspect the metzius is different (hence my line about a Beis Din being required to treat a tav l'meisiv marriage as one where adultery has been committed, and those enabling such a marriage being prohibited from so doing based on lifnei iver). That is the way we generally treat Chazalic statements of this nature. In this case, of course, we have another option, if tav l'meisiv marriages themselves do not occur very often, then we do not necessarily have to worry about, as common, the adultery which is part and parcel of their definition. But if they are in fact common and inevitable where the husband is not as a matter of fact suitable for the wife, then I cannot see how you can claim that this is not a significant societal and halachic concern. Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 15:14:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 18:14:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <002d01d081fe$99c5fcb0$cd51f610$@org.uk> References: <002d01d081fe$99c5fcb0$cd51f610$@org.uk> Message-ID: <20150428221418.GF11656@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 10:59:29PM +0100, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: :> The bit about mezanos vetolos beba'aleihen is not the basis for any :> halakhos. I have no reason to believe it's a chazaqah. : : So why did Chazal say it? For the fun of casting aspersions on Bnos : Yisrael? Twice? In the context of a halachic discussion? Well, it's really one conversation quoted twice. But it emphasizes the point. Tav lemeisiv is considered a reason why a gett would not be zakhin le'adam shelo befanav, even though the marriage would too likely lead to sin. The desire not to be husbandless, even by an insufficient husband, is being described as very profound. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 01:56:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 11:56:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith Message-ID: <> the Euclidean postulates are based on everyone's daily experience. In fact we know they are not true in other circumstances (eg on a globe) The injustice of oppression is more debatable. Surely ISIS believes that destroying ancient culture and cutting off heads of nonbelievers is a "mitzvah" As such the belief in a creator is obvious to one with a religious upbringing. For years scientists (and ancient philosophers) believed in an infinitely old world. Even today some scientists are attemping to justify a big bang without a creator (infinite big bangs , other universes etc.). The whole idea of axioms/postulates are that they are not provable. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 06:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 09:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150429135311.GA11332@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 11:56:31AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : the Euclidean postulates are based on everyone's daily experience... I picked the one about parallel lines because no one ever experienced infinitely long parallel lines. They are based on imagining an extrapolation from experience. : we know they are not true in other circumstances (eg on a globe) Thus my parenthetic remarks about flat space. It also doesn't work in Einsteinian Spacetime, as space is no longer believed to be flat. ... : As such the belief in a creator is obvious to one with a religious : upbringing. For years scientists (and ancient philosophers) believed in an : infinitely old world. Even today some scientists are attemping to justify a : big bang without a creator (infinite big bangs , other universes etc.). : : The whole idea of axioms/postulates are that they are not provable. My point exactly -- there are third options between logical proofs and leaps of faith. Logical proofs are only one way to justify belief. The Kuzari points to tradition, which may boil down to reliabilism. (Something you learned from a source that has a track record of being reliable.) I was saying that REW, like R' Aqiva, appealed to the self-evident nature of the universe having a Designer. Closer to the way we accept our postulates than a proof. And that this is so obvious look around at what was created, that belief is the default state for humans. And then REW continues that it takes an act of will to accept a counter-proof despite the self-evidence. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 25th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Netzach: When is domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control too extreme? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 02:02:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 10:02:27 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torahand Kabalas Ol Malchus In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000401d0825b$37ef5150$a7cdf3f0$@org.uk> RTK writes: > I think "kulan mezanos" refers to all women, and it means all women can > be seduced, You may be able to derive, from other contexts, that all women can be seduced - but that is not what is being discussed in the specific gemorros referred to. Our gemora is discussing what happens specifically in tav l'meisiv marriages - it gives examples of such marriages, and then concludes that such marriages result in adultery (and consequent hidden mamzerim). There is just no way of reading what you want to read into this piece > Yes, a woman in a loveless marriage is much more tempted to commit > adultery, given the right set of circumstances, but >it is certainly not inevitable. Nor is it correct to deduce that a rav must >make sure, before he marries a couple, that the woman is not entering a >loveless marriage! He doesn't have to creep into her heart and mind before >conducting the wedding, doesn't have to fathom the depths of her motives in >marrying this man. There are so many motives, so many emotions, how could >you ever fathom them all? Remember, none of what I have described is necessarily a consequence of these gemoros unless you read the gemora with the chiddush of RYBS: that inherent in the existential condition of womankind is that if a woman is offered only an inappropriate marriage she will take it because she cannot bear not to be married. If you understand it merely that there are and have been women, in some times and places, who when offered an inappropriate marriage, will sometimes take it because she cannot bear not to be married, but in other circumstances and times and places there are women who would refuse such a marriage - you have no idea what you are faced with in any given circumstance. And it is of course possible that she knows what she is doing and has seen what you cannot see, meaning that in fact the marriage will indeed be a good one. And it would be, as you describe, inappropriate to creep into her heart and try and fathom what is going on there. But according to RYBS we know what is going on there, in the woman's heart - we know it from RYBS's understanding of the pasuk in Breishis (one certainly does not have to understand the pasuk in Breishis the way RYBS does, but he is darshaning a pasuk to tell us about the human condition). A woman wants to be married above all else because she cannot bear to be alone, she is not capable of making an assessment that any given marriage, without alternative, may not be the best thing. She is never capable of that, according to RYBS's understanding of Chazal, this being an existential condition of womankind. In which case what happens if an outsider is capable of assessing the reality of the marriage in question as being one where the parties are fundamentally incompatible? Does he have an obligation to try and stop the marriage given that the woman is incapable of protecting herself? Well one might say - tough luck, it is not an outsider's job, any more than it is an outsider's job to protect others from a bad bargain in business. But that is where this further statement of the gemora comes in. A marriage which the woman has only entered into because she cannot existentially bear to be unmarried is one with the consequence that such marriage will not in fact be enough for her and she will commit adultery and produce mamzerim who are attributed incorrectly to the husband. So if the outsider does not intervene, he is not just failing to protect the woman from herself, he is failing to protect society from inherent danger. That raises the stakes considerably, and would seem to mean that outsiders (such as Rabbaim, shadchanim etc) do need to be vigilant, and not enable such marriages, so long as what RYBS says is true, in order to protect our society. Now I don't think we need a Rav to check a marriage out, before he marries a couple, to try and determine it is not a tav l'meisiv marriage. But that is because I think it relatively rare, in our society, that a woman will take a loveless marriage merely because she cannot bear to be alone (and I certainly do not think it is a irrebuttable presumption as per RYBS. Nor, as Rav Lichtenstein says, does the halacha over the centuries take this as an irrebuttable presumption despite RYBS's vehemence). And we don't have spend our lives worrying about uncommon cases even if we acknowledge that such cases may exist (and even if, in hindsight, if a marriage turns out to be unquestionably inappropriate, we might need to consider whether perhaps the woman in question *might* have been willing to go through with it anyway). But if RYBS were right and it is indeed a fundamental existential part of a woman's nature, unchanging throughout time and not infrequently occurring, to take whatever marriage is on offer, then we as a society do need such safeguards, because of the potential consequences, and if there is any hint that in fact this might be a tav l'meisiv marriage, since the woman is not able, according to RYBS, to protect herself from it, the Rav/shadchan etc would seem to have the obligation to investigate and if in doubt, to protect our society by preventing the marriage. >Toby Katz >t613k at aol.com Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 04:37:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 11:37:18 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: <20150429.073718.25006.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> I wrote: : But then, as I was reviewing this post, my mind turned to the Tanur : Shel Achnai. R' Eliezer had a minority view, and R' Yehoshua was in : the majority. I've got to believe that both views were firmly grounded; : this machlokes was surely just as L'Shem Shamayim as any between Hillel : and Shammai. I'd *like* to say that Klapei Shmaya, both views were Truth. R' Micha Berger responded: > We discussed bas qol, and why we follow the bas qol that says > "vehalakhah kebeis Hillel" despite the anur shel achnai story. I > listed the opinions in the Encyc Talmudit here > > > It's not 100% accepted that the bas qol was really endorsing R' > Eliezer's opinion in this particular machloqes, rather than > defending his shitah in general -- "halakhah kemoso bekhol maqom", > or that it was a test. ... I apologize for not being clear enough. I was not refering to the Bas Kol part of the story. Rather, I was referring to the end of the story, when Eliyahu Hanavi was asked for Hashem's take on the incident, and he quoted Hashem as laughing, "Nitzchuni banai!" Regardless of how the Bas Kol might be interpreted, is there any way to understand "Nitzchuni banai!" other than Hashem personally siding with one of the litigants, and losing? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540c29a485cf429a1a7cst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 04:46:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 11:46:38 GMT Subject: [Avodah] brochos from the amud (was: tefillat haderech) Message-ID: <20150429.074638.25006.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > RYBS ... then continues that the idea of having intent not > to want to do a mitzvah bothers him, and so RYBS said he > says the berakhah on Hallel along with the chazan. (Which > is what my father does, and what I grew up with.) Data point: Although I have not noticed people doing this for the bracha on Hallel, this IS the common practice for the Shehecheyanu at Kol Nidre, at least according to the ArtScroll and Koren machzorim. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540c4bfde4b244bf3c8cst03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 02:53:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 09:53:19 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) Message-ID: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Reposted from Hakhel: > ... Rav Soloveitchik, obviously upset, instead gave Shiur > on the importance of keeping the Tzuras HaTefillah intact. > Shemone Esrei is followed by Chazaras Hashatz, which is > followed by Tachanun, and then followed by Ashrei and U'va' > Letzion--and we do not have the right or privilege of > changing that, he opined. ... R' Ben Waxman asked: > I looked through the Beit Yosef OH 131 where he discusses > the days on which Tachanun isn't said. The BY does not > list all the days that we skip (like Purim Qatan or Pesach > Sheni). These came later. > > So when did this idea (that we can't change when Tachanun > is said or not said) start? I'm not sure if you are asking the correct question. You presume there was a time when Tachanun was *said* on Purim Katan, and then Tachanun was *omitted* on Purim Katan. I see another possibility, but I must point out that this idea stems from my total ignorance of the History Of Tachanun. Perhaps, since the day when Tachanun first began, the list of days has never changed. What did happen (perhaps) is that some places said it on Purim Katan, and some places did not. Over time, the minhag of skipping it spread to more and more places, but that's somewhat different than if a community would suddenly decide that they had a new appreciation for the significance of the day, and hence wanted to stop saying Tachanun. But either way, I'm not sure of the exact nature of RYBS's objection. It is one thing for a community to change its mind about the significance of the day (as in RMB's example of Purim Katan), and quite another for the day itself to acquire a new significance - as in the example of Yom Haatzma'ut. Shulchan Aruch already establishes the ability for a community to establish holidays, and this has been done many times. A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS insist that they say Tachanun on such days? Thus, I am drawn to conclude that RYBS must not be taken as too absolutist. He cannot have meant that the current list of Tachanun days must remain enshrined in stone forever. I beleive that he must have meant that the question of saying Tachanun on Yom Haatzma'ut is a serious one, to be dealt with seriously by the poskim and leaders of the community. Alas, I personally have seen many cases of where it is decided by those who attend the minyan, on a purely emotional basis, with no thought to the halachos involved, and with no consultation with the LOR. On the other hand, among the many tasks the LOR must deal with, is deciding when he should or should not get involved with the tzibur's choices. Although it does not address Tachanun, I would like to close with a reference to The Rav's opinions about a different tefilah which he "opposed, on halachic grounds". R' Mike Gerver wrote on Mail Jewish (http://www.ottmall.com/mj_ht_arch/v38/mj_v38i49.html) in January 2003: > (This is a continuation of my previous e-mail summarizing > the talk given on "The Rav and Medinat Yisrael" by Rabbi > J. J. Shachter on motzei shabbat, Jan. 25, at Lechu > Neranana in Raanana.) > ... ... ... > Rabbi Shachter quoted Rabbi Walter Wurzberger zt"l as > saying that the Rav's attitude toward Israel was > completely opposed to messianism, to the idea that the > founding of the State was an initial step to the geula > [final redemption]. Thus the Rav did not approve of Gush > Emunim. He even opposed, on halachic grounds, saying the > tefillah for the State of Israel in shul on Shabbat > morning, which only speaks of the State as "reishit > tzmichat geulateinu" [the beginning of the sprouting of > our redemption]. Rabbi Shachter, knowing this, assumed > that the tefillah for the State of Israel would not be > said at the Shabbat morning minyan held at Maimonides > School, a minyan that the Rav started in 1962, and which > generally did things according to his minhag. When Rabbi > Shachter was appointed to his position as director of the > Soloveitchik Institute a couple of years ago, and took > over as rabbi of the Maimonides School Shabbat minyan, he > was surprised to find that they were saying the tefillah > for the State of Israel. He asked someone why, and the > answer was interesting. One Shabbat morning, when the Rav > was still alive and in good health, someone started saying > the tefillah for the State of Israel. The Rav turned to > someone next to him and said {Rabbi Shachter imitated the > Rav's accent) "You would have thought they would have > asked me!" That was all. He didn't make any attempt to > stop them from saying the tefillah for the State of Israel, > and didn't think it was his place to ask the congregation > not to say it if they wanted to. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540aa3d6d7282a3d2b95st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 07:23:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 14:23:25 GMT Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith Message-ID: <20150429.102325.12106.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > I picked the one about parallel lines because no one ever > experienced infinitely long parallel lines. They are based > on imagining an extrapolation from experience. Parallel lines are not provable, but it's not because they are based on experience. Rather, they are based on definition. Find a pair of parallel lines that DO meet (such as on a sphere) and we'll simply say, "What I really meant was parallel lines on a *flat* surface." See more at "No true Scotsman". My choice for something which is unprovable because it is based on personal experience is, "Is there someone whom you love? Prove it to me." Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540e9944d22f699426abst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 12:11:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 15:11:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) In-Reply-To: <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> References: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <20150429191153.GG2666@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 08:53:00PM +0200, Ben Waxman wrote: :> #2 A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate :> the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS :> insist that they say Tachanun on such days? : I had the same question. I bet he said tachanun on the Gra's or R' Chaim's (Volozhin or Brisk) yahrzeit, etc... For people who are seeking his pesaq, it's very likely he would inist on Tachanun on days like that. But I think he would refuse to pasqen for them. Implied in your question is that it's a rav's job to comment and rank other derakhim, an idea RYBS did not share. He even limited his own right to 2nd guess a talmid serving as moreh de'asra. (Stories differ as to how much he insisted on such autonomy of the LOR, depending on which student.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 25th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Netzach: When is domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control too extreme? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 11:53:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 20:53:00 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) In-Reply-To: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> On 4/29/2015 11:53 AM, Kenneth Miller wrote: > #1 Perhaps, since the day when Tachanun first began, the list of days > has never changed. What did happen (perhaps) is that some places said it > on Purim Katan, and some places did not. Over time, the minhag of > skipping it spread to more and more places, but that's somewhat > different than if a community would suddenly decide that they had a new > appreciation for the significance of the day, and hence wanted to stop > saying Tachanun. I don't think so. The Rambam, Hilchot Tefila 5:15 lists the days that one doesn't say Tachanun (or nifilat ah'payim in his words) and the list is much more restricted than our list (Shabbat, Chaggim, Rosh Chodesh, Chanukka, Purim, and the Mincha before them). He writes that this is the minhag b'kol yisrael. I am not a Rambam expert so I don't know what to make of those three words (minhag, b'kol yisrael). If it is a minhag does that mean that it can change? What is b'kol yisrael (I realize that at the time of the Rambam, Ashkenaz was the middle of nowhere)? But it would seem from the Rambam that at his time, the Jewish world didn't skip those other days. > #2 A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate > the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS insist > that they say Tachanun on such days? I had the same question. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 12:25:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 15:25:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) In-Reply-To: <20150429191153.GG2666@aishdas.org> References: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> <20150429191153.GG2666@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55413040.4080903@sero.name> On 04/29/2015 03:11 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 08:53:00PM +0200, Ben Waxman wrote: > :> #2 A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate > :> the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS > :> insist that they say Tachanun on such days? > > : I had the same question. > > I bet he said tachanun on the Gra's or R' Chaim's (Volozhin or Brisk) > yahrzeit, etc... For people who are seeking his pesaq, it's very likely > he would inist on Tachanun on days like that. Of course he said tachanun on their yortzeits, why wouldn't he? The whole concept of turning a yortzeit into a holiday wasn't native to his world. The question is what he would do on a day they had been saved from some danger, and had observed as a private yomtov, or on a day that his community had adopted as a local "purim" to commemorate being saved from danger, as was a common practise among Jewish communities. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 30 01:53:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 30 Apr 2015 04:53:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Netziv, Reading Newspapers on Shabbos & Censorship (Part Two) Message-ID: <20150430085311.F372F183218@nexus.stevens.edu> Please see the article at http://tinyurl.com/oqujmba From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 1 10:09:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 1 May 2015 13:09:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] kol isha In-Reply-To: <842c75958dedf20875dfdece45b65e31@aishdas.org> References: <842c75958dedf20875dfdece45b65e31@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150501170943.GA13995@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 30, 2015 at 5:54pm EDT, R Sholom Simon replied to me on Areivim :> The fact that some ... Jews seem to think the gemara :> didn't realy mean it is something the ... community should have a :> cheshbon hanfesh about. : Gemara? Don't the ge'onim take the gemara to : mean that kol isha is a problem during krias sh'ema? (Which is, after : all, the context of its appearance in Berachos). : (Granted, halacha has : gone much further since then, but you were focused on the gemara) You're thinking of Berakhos 24a, where the gemara concludes that R' Yitchaq's tefach be'ishah ervah is to even include one's own wife during qeri'as Shama. (We knew about other women not during qeri'as shema from R' Sheishes.) And then R' Chisda continues with shoq be'ishah, Shemu'el says qol be'ishah ervah and R Sheishes adds sei'ar be'ishah. >From which one may conclude that all of them are in the same context as R' Yitchaq. R' Hai Gaon (Otar haGeonim Berakhos, peirushin #102), R Yehudai Gaon (acc. to the Yeriem 392), the Behag (1:3). the Eshkol (vol 1, pg 15), the Rivra (Berakhos ad loc) and his father (?), Rabbeinu Yonah (17a), the Shitah meQubetzes (ad loc), only speak of this rule WRT qeri'as shema. Interestlingly, one might also have concluded that all of them were about eishes ish, for the same reason that sei'ar be'ishah is only about eishes ish, but I don't think anyone does understand the gemara that way. But there is also Qiddushin 70a, where R' Yehudah refuses to relay regards from R Nachman to Yala (Mrs Nachman) citing Shemu'el's qol be'ishah ervah. It was this gemara I was remembering (due to recently re-encountering it). Pisqei haRid (Berakhos p' 3), Ri haChasid (Berakhos ad loc), Tosafos haRosh (ad loc) and the Rosh (Berakhos 3:37), say the rule is in general. The Rambam has qol be'ishah ervah in Isurei Bi'ah (21:2), not Hil' QS. Similarly the Tur has nothing about it in QS, but has it in EhE 21. (But then, since his father [the Rosh] and the Rambam do the same, that's no surprise.) And from there -- the Rif is silent, the Rambam and the Rosh agree it's in general -- the SA conforms to his rules and prohibits in general. I think it's a machloqes whether we hold like Shemu'el, who was indeed oly talking about Shema (but not only married women) or like R' Yehudah's extrapolation from Shemu'el. Al pi din, we do hold like the gemara in Qidushin. But it's not as much of a given as I had thought when writing. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 27th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in relationship? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 2 12:29:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 02 May 2015 21:29:39 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Kook on Sports Message-ID: <554525A3.2060408@zahav.net.il> He most certainly did! http://www.yeshiva.org.il/midrash/4234 The article is an examination of Rav Kook's writing on the subject. RK very much supported exercise and sport, and of course he opposed breaking Shabbat to play football (soccer). One quote/translation (mine): Exercise . . . .improves the spiritual strength of the greatest tzaddiqim, those involved in the Unification of God's name, including bringing the Light of God into the world, and no revelation of Light can happen without all the required components. Ben On 5/1/2015 3:36 AM, via Areivim wrote: > and I wonder if it is true that Rav Kook ascribed positive value to sports. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 3 03:01:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 3 May 2015 13:01:40 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Michael Avraham Message-ID: After another shiur with R Michael Avraham (RMA) I wish to clear up some of my previous posts. Apologies for repeating some material but I wish to make it self contained. 1) With regard to Pluaralism, Monism and Harmonism these are typologies. As with any typology real people are combinations and pure members of these groups. Avi Sagi has a book on the topic with listing on many reabbis on each side of the topic. Pluralism means that one accepts ALL opinions as true and legitimate. There is no one single truth Certainly as long as it doesn't harm someone else. RMA pointed out that pure pluralism is not consistent as it would mean accepting monism as also a legitimate truth Nevertheless it is popular in some circles 2) Monism says there is only one truth. I accept that one truth based on the normal rules of halacha, eg majority, chazakah etc. Nothing is ever known with 100% certainty both that is irrelevant. 2b) accepting monism (savlanut in Hebrew) . Though there is only one truth we accommodate those within a certain radius of the real truth even though they are wrong Normally we view pluralism as being more "mekil" than monism. However he considered the case of giving someone food that I consider kosher and he doesn't . The pluralist won't do it because his position is also truth and he doesnt consider the food kosher. However the pure monist has no trouble giving it to someone else. He is wrong and I am right and so the food is kosher (again the fact that he might be right is irrelevant - a bet din can kill based on rov and certainly for shabbat and kosher food we work on majority) The accepting monist won't give the food to someone else. Even though he is wrong I respect his being wrong as long as he is within my radius - ie he relies on someone I consider legitimate and not just an idiotic opinion. OTOH I would give him the food if I feel his "chumra" is too wild fetched and beyond my radius as distinct from the pluralist 3) Harmonism states that both sides are only part of the real truth. Rav Kook and others bring the second gemara about "Elu V-elu". The gemara in Gittin discusses why the man from Binyamin killed his mistress)(pilegesh be-givah) - after an amoraic argument the truth was both were right either because he found a fly in his soup but got angry only he found a hair in the soup. So both views were ight and "Elu V-elu" Based on this RMA had a different interpretation of the argument between Bet Hillel and Bet Shamai Both sides presented arguments supporting their position. Both sides agreed that all the arguments were legitimate. However, in the end one has to make a decision when there are legitimate arguments on both sides and Bet Shamai and Bet Hillel arrived at opposite conclusins. The Harmonism implies that both sides have legitimate arguments. Hoever, in the end there is only one truth that comes out of contradictory arguments. The harmonism means that both sides are right (pluralism) on the basic stands. But only one side is right (monism) in the final decision. As stated before the one truth is found based on standard halachic grounds. Nothing is ever known 100% but that doesnt matter. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 3 18:46:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 11:46:53 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] A halachic problem in measuring wholemeal flour Message-ID: I have recently become aware of a practical halachic problem with measuring wholemeal flour for the shiurim of challah and the kezeitim of matzot mitzva. I don't think this issue is generally recognised, and I hope Areivim members will be able to bring it to appropriate authorities' attention. Traditional flour mills produced a mixture of white flour and bran by grinding whole grains between millstones. This mixture was sifted to produce finer or coarser grades of flour by removing more or less bran, respectively. Halachically, the bran that is removed has changed its status: dough produced from bran is not subject to challah. Furthermore, mixing bran back into its flour does not restore its status: the bran and flour are not "mitztaref". (See Challah 2:6) This was not an issue with traditional mills: nobody would sift bran out of flour and then ruin the white flour by replacing the bran. This is not the case today, though. Modern flour mills do not grind flour between stones. They use a series of graduated rollers that crack the grain into progressively-smaller particles, and the bran is separated off at an early stage of the process. Millers make wholemeal flour by adding bran back to the fine flour near the end of the milling process. You can find a description and video of the process here: http://www.fabflour.co.uk/fab-flour/how-flour-is-milled/ If modern wholemeal flour is halachically considered a mixture of flour and bran, as it seems, then to be obliged in challah one would need a greater shiur of wholemeal than of regular flour, and to fulfil one?s obligation of eating matza one would need to eat more than a kezayit of wholemeal matza. (See S.A. Y.D. 324:3 and M.A. & SAHR O.C 454:1,2) It is not possible to state a definite ratio of bran to white flour, as this will vary between species of grain and between varieties of each species. The relevant shiurim are not measured by weight but by volume, which is affected by the fineness of the bran compared to the fineness of the white flour. Furthermore, the amount of grain removed as bran will depend on the operation of the mill. My research indicates that up to a quarter of each grain of wheat (by weight) consists of bran. If we take this as a rule of thumb then a shiur of wholemeal wheat flour would be one and a third times as large as a shiur of white flour. As a practical matter, I think people making wholemeal bread should probably avoid doubt and bake either less than a minimal shiur (for which, consult your LOR) or bake sufficiently more than one and a third shiurim. Many people deliberately try to use enough flour to require the taking of challah: they consequently use just over a regular shiur and need to be warned about this. With respect to wholemeal matzot mitzva, I presume that people would have noticed and queried any reintroduction of bran to flour ground using modern methods. None the less, it would be very good to establish this for each bakery. Joe Slater Melbourne, Australia -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 3 20:42:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 06:42:58 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RMA Message-ID: On another issue I had quoted RMA as saying that one who doesnt believe in a creator has no punishment or reward for keeping mitzvot. After 120 years he will be punished only for being an atheist but for each individual sin. Hence, there is no problem of "lifne iver" . In particular in the frequent case a religious doctor can ask an atheist to take over for him on shabbat (wouldnt apply to a chiloni doctor who does beleive in G-d) This applies only to mitzvot like shabbat. Of course an atheist can't claim that he is not bound by sins like murder because he doesnt believe in G-d. An atheist will be punished for all moral sins that he commits and all usual laws of :lifne iver" etc apply to all moral commandments. ------------------------ He is now starting a series on religious autonomy. In particular he holds that one goes to a rabbi for a psak only if he is in doubt. If one has seriously learned the halachaot and is convinced of the "truth" then he should follow his own psak and there is no need to go to a "higher authority". He was asked what if the personal psak goes against the generally accepted psak. His answer was that in theory the same holds. However, a person should have enough humility that if he is a "daas yachid" he better be awfully sure that he is right. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 04:47:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 11:47:38 GMT Subject: [Avodah] A married sister Message-ID: <20150504.074738.29327.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, and becomes part of her husband's family. Thus, she is no longer part of her brother's family. But what about her father? According to the above logic, her father may not be m'tamei for her either. And in fact, she *has* left her father's family in the sense that if her husband is not a kohen, then she has been disallowed terumah ever since the wedding. Yet the halacha is that her father *may* be m'tamei for her, despite that change in status. So, in very simple terms, here's my question: If a Bas Kohen is married and then dies, why is it that her father may attend the funeral, but her brother may not? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55475caae730f5caa5375st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 07:42:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 17:42:10 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] A halachic problem in measuring wholemeal flour In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, May 4, 2015 at 4:46 AM, Joe Slater via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > I have recently become aware of a practical halachic problem with > measuring wholemeal flour for the shiurim of challah and the kezeitim of > matzot mitzva. I don't think this issue is generally recognised, and I hope > Areivim members will be able to bring it to appropriate authorities' > attention. > > Traditional flour mills produced a mixture of white flour and bran by > grinding whole grains between millstones. This mixture was sifted to > produce finer or coarser grades of flour by removing more or less bran, > respectively. Halachically, the bran that is removed has changed its > status: dough produced from bran is not subject to challah. Furthermore, > mixing bran back into its flour does not restore its status: the bran and > flour are not "mitztaref". (See Challah 2:6) > > This was not an issue with traditional mills: nobody would sift bran out > of flour and then ruin the white flour by replacing the bran. This is not > the case today, though. > Just a thought: perhaps the halacha that the bran and flour are not mitztaref depended on the metziu't that nobody would return bran to white flour? So if returning the bran to the flour is now the normal way of producing wholemeal flour, maybe today they are mitztaref? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 09:45:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 12:45:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs In-Reply-To: <20150330.221259.10345.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 11:47:38AM +0000, RAM wrote on the thread "A married sister": : In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself : for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I : used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves : the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, : and becomes part of her husband's family... But Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 02:12:59AM +0000, RAM wrote on this subject: > I once heard an interesting argument against Rav Moshe's logic on > this point. He is viewing the wife as the one who is moving to a new > location, but we have an explicit pasuk that takes the opposite view: > Bereshis 2:24 - "Therefore, a man will desert his father and his mother, > and stick to his wife." (The woman may of may not leave her parents, > but the man explicitly does.) > Granted that there are other arguments for the wife taking the husband's > minhagim - terumah is the first that comes to my mind. But if Rav Moshe's > main argument is Minhag Hamakom, I wonder how he would have defended it > against this pasuk. Anyone else see one answering the other? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 30th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Hod: When does capitulation Fax: (270) 514-1507 result in holding back from others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 10:11:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 04 May 2015 13:11:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs In-Reply-To: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> On 05/04/2015 12:45 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 11:47:38AM +0000, RAM wrote on the thread > "A married sister": > : In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself > : for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I > : used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves > : the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, > : and becomes part of her husband's family... > > But Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 02:12:59AM +0000, RAM wrote on this subject: >> I once heard an interesting argument against Rav Moshe's logic on >> this point. He is viewing the wife as the one who is moving to a new >> location, but we have an explicit pasuk that takes the opposite view: >> Bereshis 2:24 - "Therefore, a man will desert his father and his mother, >> and stick to his wife." (The woman may of may not leave her parents, >> but the man explicitly does.) > >> Granted that there are other arguments for the wife taking the husband's >> minhagim - terumah is the first that comes to my mind. But if Rav Moshe's >> main argument is Minhag Hamakom, I wonder how he would have defended it >> against this pasuk. > > Anyone else see one answering the other? Not at all. Her father must still become tamei for her. Only her brothers may not. What's more, suppose her husband dies without issue. She returns to her father's house, and is once more entitled to eat terumah and kodshim. Now suppose the father dies; she continues to eat the terumah and kodshim that her brothers bring home. When she dies the brothers are the only people left who sit shiva for her, and yet they are not allowed to become tamei for her unless there is literally nobody else who can do it! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 10:24:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 17:24:33 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs Message-ID: <20150504.132433.5362.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger asked: > Anyone else see one answering the other? You make a good point, but as I see it, they don't *answer* each other as much as they illustrate how complicated this subject is. For example, consider the case of a Bas Kohen who marries a Yisrael, or a Bas Yisrael who marries a Kohen. Her status changes upon marriage, but it will revert upon the death of her husband. - Unless there is a child, in which case her status will *not* revert. - Unless the child died too, in which case her status *will* revert. - Unless there is a grandchild, in which case she keeps her status even though her own child did not survive. (I probably messed up some of those details, but my point is that itis a very complex topic.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5547ab96da8f82b966b58st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 11:01:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 14:01:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A married sister Message-ID: <1fbaa.22f534a3.42790de1@aol.com> From: Kenneth Miller via Avodah In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, and becomes part of her husband's family. Thus, she is no longer part of her brother's family. But what about her father? [snip] So, in very simple terms, here's my question: If a Bas Kohen is married and then dies, why is it that her father may attend the funeral, but her brother may not? Akiva Miller >>>>> I don't know why the bond between brother and sister seems to be lessened when the sister marries, but we do have other evidence that the bond between father and daughter is never severed: If a man has no sons, only daughters, his daughters inherit his property -- even if they are married. The fact that they are married does not annul the fact that they are still his daughters. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 12:50:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 22:50:54 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith Message-ID: <> A more practical problem based on personal experience is that of defining colors (to a human not in terms of wavelengths). There is no way for 2 people to confirm they are seeing the same colors. One practical application is to examining cloths for a niddah - ketem. I again refer to an article in Keren Zavit by Nadav Shinrav on parshat tazria In particular I learned that brown is not a color -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 13:43:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 16:43:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150504204354.GA2628@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 10:50:54PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : A more practical problem based on personal experience is that of defining : colors (to a human not in terms of wavelengths). There is no way for 2 : people to confirm they are seeing the same colors. Even further: there is no wavelength corrsponding to pink or brown, they only exist as our mind combines wavelengths. Pink is weirder, because it resides on the color wheel where you would glue the two extremes of the spectrum together to close the circle. Colors other than the three in the middle of the sensitivity range of each of the types of cone in your eye can be seen two ways. For example: you could make orange by mixing two parts red with one part green, or by looking at light of one color, that is at the right frequency to trigger your red cones twice as much as they trigger the green. The topic we're discussing is qualia, and color is a favorite sort of quale to use for illustration (pun intended). A quale is the "what it's like to see red". In my example about orange, we have two different physics, but both could end up producing the same experience, the same exact shade and brightness of orange. So orange is not 1:1 any specific wavelength. Asude from the question RET raises, a popular thought experiment among philosophers is Mary the Color Scientist (Frank Jackson 1982): Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor. She specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose, all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes, or the sky, and use terms like 'red', 'blue', and so on. She discovers, for example, just which wavelength combinations from the sky stimulate the retina, and exactly how this produces via the central nervous system the contraction of the vocal chords and expulsion of air from the lungs that results in the uttering of the sentence 'The sky is blue'.... What will happen when Mary is released from her black and white room or is given a color television monitor? Will she learn anything or not? It seems just obvious that she will learn something about the world and our visual experience of it. But then is it inescapable that her previous knowledge was incomplete. But she had all the physical information. Ergo there is more to have than that, and Physicalism is false. And so Jackson concludes that the world can't be reduced to physics. This is also what I was talking about when I referred to justifying a belief based on comparing imagination to memory. Koach hadimyon does mean "imagination", but what Ariso meant by Imagination, or the rishonim by dimyon, includes qualia in general. The image of red while you're seeing it, not just when you're dreaming it up. And I would argue that even when we make rigorous logical proofs, those proofs are conclusions drawn from a set of givens, and those givens end up resting on koach hadimyon anyway. The formally proven theological statement is therefore less conclusive than one based on an appeal to dimyon directly, such as R' Aqiva's argument. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 30th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Hod: When does capitulation Fax: (270) 514-1507 result in holding back from others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 15:25:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 04 May 2015 18:25:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs In-Reply-To: <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> Message-ID: <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> On 05/04/2015 01:11 PM, I wrote: > > What's more, suppose her husband dies without issue. She returns to her > father's house, and is once more entitled to eat terumah and kodshim. This is not quite correct. She returns to eat teruma, but not kodshim. "Milechem, velo kol lechem". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 16:07:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Mon, 04 May 2015 19:07:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy In-Reply-To: <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> Message-ID: <5547FB97.5020203@aishdas.org> Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, d'hashta) would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? Thanks! KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 18:11:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 01:11:49 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy Message-ID: <20150504.211149.15174.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer asked: > Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, > d'hashta) would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? My first knee-jerk reaction is to say that they DON'T relate. Chazakos are all about law, and what the law will *presume* the reality to have been. We found a piece of meat on the street, or we bought it and forgot where, or any of a million similar questions. We don't really know whether it is kosher or not, and to a certain extent we don't really care. What we really care about is whether halacha allows us to *presume* that it is kosher. Schroedinger's Cat and similar ventures are attempts to establish what the *reality* is. The Cat is a thought experiment, but do not make the mistake of thinking that it is mere philosophizing. The whole point of the experiment is to establish what is really and actually happening inside the box, and the answer (that they've come up with) is that two contradictory truths (the cat is alive, the cat is dead) are both true at the same time. This is a question of physics and reality, not a question of legal presumptions. The subject line of this thread says that you're "looking for help with an analogy". Could you tell us more about what you're working on? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5548190613cab19056408st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 19:10:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rafael Jason Hecht via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 22:10:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How Kosher is the Kosher Switch? Message-ID: Last Motzei Shabbos I was among the crowd that was saying Kiddush Levana out in the open. While davening I overheard someone making a joke about using a Kosher Switch (my guess was to place light on the outside so people could better read). I did my own reading and research before that and couldn't tell if the gentleman was joking or being serious. To put it lightly, the development and marketing Kosher Switch has caused a major controversy in the Torah Jewish community. The Kosher Switch, a device purportedly meant to ease the constraints of Sabbath observance, is not the first of its kind. The Grama switch by Zomet Institute, as well as the Zman switch have been created for emergency situations of pikuach nefesh. However, this switch has caused an uproar in the Jewish community. Why? Before going on, let me state that while I am far from an expert in the field of electrical engineering or Hilchos Shabbos (nor am I a certified Rabbi), I treasure Shabbos and am always looking for ways to enhance it. That said, I did my own personal research and humbly present my findings. Before I go on, let me first state that the topic of electricity on Shabbos is far more extensive than what I'm laying out, and that I am not (intentionally) offering my own Psak, just a compilation of "what's out there." Read more: http://www.mywesternwall.net/2015/04/30/how-kosher-is-the-kosher-switch.html Best Regards, Rafi Hecht *rhecht at gmail.com* ------------------------------------------------------- *LinkedIN:* *http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rafihecht* *Facebook:* *http://www.facebook.com/rhecht* *Twitter:* *https://www.twitter.com/#!/rafihecht* *Personal Site:* *www.rafihecht.com* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 12:47:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Shalom Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 22:47:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired Message-ID: I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a woman is owned by her husband, the language of the Mishna notwithstanding. Can anyone point to a clear statement by Hazal or rishonim that supports my supposition? My thanks, Shalom Z. Berger -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 13:51:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 16:51:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150505205140.GA20122@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 05, 2015 at 10:47:20PM +0300, Shalom Berger via Avodah wrote: : I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a : woman is owned by her husband, the language of the Mishna notwithstanding. : Can anyone point to a clear statement by Hazal or rishonim that supports my : supposition? First, the halakhos of qiddushin do not conform to that of purchase. Qinyan is a broader concept than purchase; for example, not that long ago you probably performed a qinyan sudar to appoint your rav as a shaliach to sell your chameitz. Some differences: - no din of ona'ah, a shaveh perutah is sufficient for all - you give the perutah to the woman, not her former "owner" - she has to agree to the qinyan, despite not being the former "owner" - she has to make a qinyan on the money - money needn't exchange hands; she could pardon a loan to effect a marriage. However, qinyan bekesef does require such an exchange. - Hilkhos gittin is a lot more complicated than just calling hefqer. - the wife gets to decide whether to give him her earnings in exchange for being supported. If she were property, he would get her earnings wheter or not *he* chose to support here. Now that I got that out of my system, to answer your question: Qiddushin 6b: ... and if an eved kenaani, whose body he was qoneh, if he says to him [in a shetar shichrur] "you are hereby your own" it means legmaei, ishah DELO QANI LEIH GUFAH, lo qol shekein! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 31st day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Hod: What level of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 results in harmony and balance? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 12:12:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 15:12:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun Message-ID: In Avodah V33n70, RZS responded to R'Micha: >> I bet [RYBS] said tachanun on the Gra's or R' Chaim's (Volozhin or Brisk) >> yahrzeit, etc... For people who are seeking his pesaq, it's very likely >> he would insist on Tachanun on days like that. > Of course he said tachanun on their yortzeits, why wouldn't he? The whole > concept of turning a yortzeit into a holiday wasn't native to his world. > The question is what he would do on a day they had been saved from some > danger, and had observed as a private yomtov, or on a day that his > community had adopted as a local "purim" to commemorate being saved from > danger, as was a common practise among Jewish communities. ...or on Pesach Sheini? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 11:47:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 05 May 2015 13:47:08 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Tree of 40 Fruits Message-ID: <5549102C.40808@starways.net> http://www.sciencealert.com/news/20142107-25892.html What's the halakha regarding eating fruit from one of these trees? Since the grafting was done by a non-Jew, is it okay to eat? Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 14:01:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 21:01:39 GMT Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired Message-ID: <20150505.170139.16146.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Shalom Berger wrote: <<< I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a woman is owned by her husband, ... >>> That depends on what you mean by "own". I own my shoes. This gives me certain rights, such as wearing them to the exclusion of anyone else, or the choice of who I might lend them to. I also have certain responsibilities; I cannot simply destroy them for no reason. I own my tefillin too. But the things I can do with my tefillin are much more limited than whast I can do with my shoes. I have certain rights and responsibilities vis a vis my wife as well. Do I own her? I don't know. Is there a real nafka mina, or is it just semantics? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55492fe2678522fe2353bst03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 15:46:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 05 May 2015 18:46:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Scrolling Down the Pages of Jewish History Message-ID: <20150505224615.83B27181E37@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/ocl2bqe his story appears in R. Yechiel Spero?s Pesach Haggadah: Touched by Our Story (pp. 88-91) and is republished here with permission from the copyright holders (ArtScroll / Mesorah Publications, Ltd.). The pictures below ? of the Tur Shulchan Aruch (printed in Berlin 1702) which belonged to Rabbi Yaakov Emden (Germany, 1697-1776) ? were taken by R. Akiva Males, and are republished with permission of Columbia University?s Rare Book and Manuscript Library. See the above URL for much more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 00:23:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 03:23:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] All About Tehillim Message-ID: <20150506072350.7A9B4181522@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/mxoucvn From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 02:02:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 05:02:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Disappearing Doctor of Iyyar: Virtual Vanishing of a Venerable Minhog Message-ID: <20150506090255.CB5C5182D80@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/mdz6883 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 03:13:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 06:13:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Disappearing Doctor of Iyyar: Virtual Vanishing of a Venerable Minhog In-Reply-To: <20150506090255.CB5C5182D80@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150506090255.CB5C5182D80@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150506101327.GA19813@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 06, 2015 at 05:02:54AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : See http://tinyurl.com/mdz6883 Quoting the Treasures of Ashkenaz blog [transliterations mine]: > The aleph stands for ani, the two yuds for HQBH, and the reish? fo > rofekha. The month is thereby depicted as a month of healing. The vort > seemingly is based on an old minhog of many generations among Yidden, > in which the letters yud-yud (sans hyphen) are used to represent the > venerated name of Hashem However, even yud-yud is not the original minhag. In older manuscripts they used three yuds, with the middle one slightly above the line, making a triangle. Preserved in this printed edition of Siddur R' Saadia Gaon . I suggested two possible reasons for the third yud's disappearance: - The printing press made that middle yud hard to insert into books, because it would require a special letter in the type box. I find this one less than compelling, because they kept an alef-lamed ligature in the type box, and that got less usage. - Xians read their own significance into the three letters. This would be clearner, if there were any evidence of them actually doing so. So the two-yud notation was just one step along the way. The general question of why non-chassidic Ashkenazim (or non-Chida-influenced Sepharadim) suddenly started writing out the sheim in siddurim is compelling, but the two-yud notation isn't necessarily some venerable alternative. The three yuds was often explained as beind the initial letters of Birkhas Kohanim; the yuds from Yevarekhekha, Ya'er, and Yisa. Some suggest that the two yuds represent the first and last letters of an intertwined sheim havayah and sheim adnus: YUD alef HEI dalet ... HEI yud. Itself heavily al pi qabbalah. And associating the two yuds with the transliteration into Hebrew of an Akkadian month name (Ayyaru = n. blossom) requires even more omnisignificance and mysticism than does finding significance in presenting sheim havayah written out. Where I really see this change as a problem is not because of venerable minhagim, but because books have less shelf life now than in the past. Cheap printing means also cheaper paper, not to mention faster replacement. And if generations past wanted to minimize their sheimos problems, al achas kamah vekamah we should. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 00:31:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 10:31:51 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: In some circles it is common for men to keep long peyot (as an aside it has become common also in some chardal circles) The book Keren Zavit says he doesn't understand the custom. The problem is not in long sidebruns but rather that the hair from under the ear rarely grows long. The long "peyot" usually grow from hair above the ear and so has no connection to peyot and in fact come from part of the head where there is no prohibition to shave -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 06:38:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Shalom Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 16:38:38 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired In-Reply-To: <20150505205140.GA20122@aishdas.org> References: <20150505205140.GA20122@aishdas.org> Message-ID: While Micha is correct that the Gemara clearly states "ishah DELO QANI LEIH GUFAH" and that there are many, many differences between true ownership and marriage, this does not keep the Tosafot HaRosh (Ketubot 2a sv Nistahpa Sadeihu) from concluding: "ha-isha kinyan kaspo shel ha-ish kemo avdo ve-shoro va-hamoro." I would like to find a source in the rishonim that clearly rejects the approach of the Tosafot HaRosh. Shalom Rabbi Shalom Z. Berger, Ed.D. The Lookstein Center for Jewish Education Bar-Ilan University http://www.lookstein.org https://www.facebook.com/groups/lookjed/ Follow me on Twitter: @szberger NETWORK*LEARN*GROW From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 09:26:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 12:26:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tree of 40 fruits Message-ID: The question was asked, "What's the halakha regarding eating fruit from one of these trees? Since the grafting was done by a non-Jew, is it okay to eat?" The only issur achila of kilayim is kilei hakerem. Anything else may be eaten. With regard to the fruits of a graft, the explicit halacha in Yoreh Deiah (295:7) is that it may be eaten even by the one who violated the prohibition by performing the graft. (That halacha also continues that one may take a branch from the graft and plant it.) As to the original question about the potato-tomato combination, grafting is prohibited: even though neither is a tree (295:3), but as above, the resulting product may be eaten. EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 10:28:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 13:28:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs Message-ID: The din of a kohein's daughter not eating t'ruma upon marriage to a non-kohein was mentioned in conjunction with this topic. However, I submit that perquisites of k'huna are unrelated to the adoption of one's spouse's customs. How else can we understand the din that a person can give the parts of a slaughtered animal due to the kohein (z'roa, l'chayayim v'keiva) even to a kohein's daughter married to a Yisraeil, or, for that matter, even to her Yisraeil husband (and according to one opinion, the same is true for pidyon habein)? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 10:37:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 13:37:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy Message-ID: <72706.56a00b87.427bab69@aol.com> From: Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, d'hashta) would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? Thanks! KT, YGB >>>>> Not sure where you're going with this but you seem to be saying that chazakos have no independent, objective reality. That a chazaka is in the eye of the beholder. Oops. Looks like you've let the cat out of the bag... --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 11:13:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 14:13:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Strange History of Lag B'Omer Message-ID: <20150506181455.D4FFC1836BF@nexus.stevens.edu> There is an interesting talk by Dr. Shnayer Leiman with the above title at http://yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/734356/ Yitzchok Levine -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 11:48:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 14:48:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy In-Reply-To: <5547FB97.5020203@aishdas.org> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> <5547FB97.5020203@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150506184838.GA4624@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 7:07pm EDT, RYGB wrote: : Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, d'hashta) : would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? Quantum Uncertainty is more similar to rov than chazaqah. And it could model how we can embrace conflicting majorities. Such as in the case of two pieces of shuman and one of cheilev, and being able to eat all three one after the other. (Or perhaps even in a ta'aroves, but that just complicates the picture.) It would fit if we treat the physical state of each piece of fat as ( 2 |shuman> + |cheilev) / 3 rather than as a 67% chance of being shuman. And then those things that were observed are immune from such weirdness, much like qavu'ah. That said: The notion that wavefunction collapse is due to observation, the Copenhagen Interpretation, was once taken as a given. But alternatives involving entanglement, wave function collapse, multiuniverse theory, etc.. have been gaining ground for decades. This parallel to qavu'ah could be illusory. On Tue, May 05, 2015 at 1:11am GMT, R Akive Miller wrote: : My first knee-jerk reaction is to say that they DON'T relate. Chazakos : are all about law, and what the law will *presume* the reality to have : been... : Schroedinger's Cat and similar ventures are attempts to establish what : the *reality* is... I am very inclined to agree. R' Aqiva Eiger (teshuvah $136) makes a chiluq between sefeiqos in the metzi'us and sefeiqos in din. Rov holds when we have sefeiqos in the metzi'us. So we can pasqen about something that is rov-kasher. But if someone knew the metzi'us, then there was a din established for the fat. Now that we don't know what it was, we have a safeiq as to what that din is. LAD, the whole thing is about human experience. See , which has 10 posts covering things like chazaqah (both types), rov, qavu'ah, terei mekei'ah (which I argue ignores rov for the same reason as qavu'ah), nosein ta'am, using tequfas Shemu'el for birkhas hachamah, microsopic bugs etc.... The hashkafic premise is that the goal of halakhah is to shape the self (whether into a tamim, a shelaim, to acheive deveiqus, etc...) And therefore the metzi'us a din has to work with is how we experience reality (and thus birur when we're in doubt) and how we can experience it (only visible bugs count). And not how the universe works in ways we can only understand in the abstract. The most lomdishe consequence of my whole edifice is that it manages to explain why a chazaqah trumps a migo in a case where there are also trei utrei eidim, but why a migo trumps a chazaqah when there are no eidim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 12:13:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 15:13:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150506191353.GB4624@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 06, 2015 at 10:31:51AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : The book Keren Zavit says he doesn't understand the custom. The problem is : not in long sidebruns but rather that the hair from under the ear rarely : grows long. The long "peyot" usually grow from hair above the ear and so : has no connection to peyot and in fact come from part of the head where : there is no prohibition to shave The custom is shared by Chassidim, Chidah-influenced Sepharadim (those with many Qabbalah-based pesaqim) and Teimanim. So there seems to be an ancient maqor unrelated to any reasons given al pi qabbalah by the first two groups. R' Chaim Kanievsky is a living example of a minhag/hanhagah that was once more common -- not combing one's peyos because of the hairs plucked out. Rav Dovid Lifshitz, so now we're talking Litta, had two thick blocks of hair going back from his temples to over his ear. According to the SA YD 181:9, peyos run as high as the hairline above the forehead until the bottom of the ear, where the earlobe detaches from the face. So the prohibition does include the area the KZ is asking about -- there are inches of hair between the top of the ear until you get parallel to the hairline. And this is the very area that the majority of the hair in long peyos grows from. I therefore don't understand the KZ's question. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 12:40:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 22:40:23 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: >From : B. Highest Point. The location of the highest point on the head that the peyos extend is described in Shulchan Aruch (181:9) as "across from the hair on is forehead". There are two basic opinions as to the precise location the Shulchan Aruch refers to: 1. Rabbi Yisroel Belsky (Shulchan Halevi page 122) writes that he had heard directly from Rav Yakov Kaminetzky zt"l that the upper limit of the peyos ha'rosh begins "at the highest point of the hairline as it arches over the ear and extends in a slightly curved line across to where the hairline of the forehead turns sharply downwards towards the sideburns. All the hair from the imaginary line that connect these two points and below comprises the peyos ha'rosh". 2. Rabbi Belsky also quotes "some rabbonim have a mesora, a tradition from their Rabbis, that the peyos do not extend above the upper cartilage of the ear (tenuch ha'ozen) at all. According to their mesorah, the imaginary line extends horizontally from the point in the hairline above the foremost part of ear almost until where the downward slope of the frontal hairline angles back towards the ear. For a picture see -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 13:42:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joel Schnur via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 16:42:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun Message-ID: <554A7CBF.3020300@schnurassociates.com> No one says tachnun on the Gra's yarhzeit. it's 3rd day chol hamoed succos ___________________________ Joel Schnur, Senior VP Government Affairs/Public Relations Schnur Associates, Inc. 25 West 45th Street, Suite 1405 New York, NY 10036 Tel. 212-489-0600 x204 Fax. 212-489-0203 joel at schnurassociates.com www.schnurassociates.com http://www.schnurassociates.com/joels-corner/ From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 14:13:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 17:13:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired In-Reply-To: <20150505.170139.16146.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150505.170139.16146.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150506211338.GB27781@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 5, 2015 at 9:01pm GMT, R Akiva Miller wrote: :> I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that :> a woman is owned by her husband, ... : That depends on what you mean by "own". : : I own my shoes. This gives me certain rights... I suggested more than once in the past that baalus has more to do with responsibility than western notions of property. Which is why yorshim do not inherit chameitz on Pesach. Even though the father owned chameitz in the sense of bal yeira'eh bal yimatzei, he lacked ba'alus at the time of his passing. Or why a rentor has a chiyuv to hang a mezuzah -- he has some measure of ba'alus, despite not being an owner. RAF (CCed) shared my post on Facebook, and since I have no idea what can be seen by the public, I'll paraphrase a couple of responses I thought would be of interest. On my line that "qinyan is a broader concept than purchase", one person compared the mishnah in Avos "qeneih lekha chaver". This morning, at 8:59am PDT, R Shalom Z Berger asked for a rishon who clearly rejected the Tosafos haRosh's statement (Kesuvos 2a "nitapecha sadeihu) that "ha'ishah qinyan kaspo shel ha'ish, kemo avdo veshoro vechamoro". Someone else on FB noted that the Rashba, in his chiddushim on the first pereq of Qiddushin, repeatedly points out that all the rishonim other than the Rosh reject the idea out of hand. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 15:09:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 15:09:17 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes Message-ID: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Shabbat-microphones-catching-on-among-orthodox-despite-taboos-402173 i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at hadchak /bedieved -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 17:12:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 20:12:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150507001204.GA31766@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 06, 2015 at 03:09:17PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Shabbat-microphones-catching-on-among-orthodox-despite-taboos-402173 : : i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at hadchak /bedieved Gerama devices, yes. But a passive element microphone feeding a PA system that is never entirely off -- so it's never turned off or on -- and has no lit indicators is an entirely different beast. (Most microphones generate current when vibrated; a passive element microphone changes resistance.) Still not an open-and-shut heter, as this article makes it sound. And there are more grounds for Sepharadim to be meiqil then Ashkenazim, based on a machloqes between the Mechaber and the Rama in OC 252:5. R' Ovadia was matir. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 18:18:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 01:18:22 GMT Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes Message-ID: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> R' Saul Newman asked: > i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at > hadchak /bedieved I've never read any of their material, but I'm pretty sure that they have MANY halachic "tools" in their arsenal, and not all of them carry the same restrictions. For example, a grama switch would only be useful for a very limited number of situations, as would a pen that writes with disappearing ink. But if you can make an electronic device that generates zero heat and zero light, it just *might* be acceptable for general use. Exhibit A: Hearing aids. I'll admit that a hearing aid is not the same thing as a loudspeaker system. But without getting into a whole discussion, the only point I'm making is that you have to look at the thing, and not just reject it out of hand. One might say that "Hearing aids are by definition for a shaas hadchak; how can this technology help the average person? So I bring you Exhibit B: Sabbath Mode ovens. Without any doubt, one DOES manipulate the electric circuit with these gadgets. If not on Shabbos, then at least on Yom Tov. But I think that the real answer to your question might be: "If the people in shul can't hear the rabbi or the chazan, that IS a shaas hadchak." In any case, about 15 years ago I happened to spend Shabbos at a shul that used one of these systems, and there were two large notices by the entrance to the main sanctuary, pointing out that the system was designed by Zomet. If I remember correctly, there was also a letter on the wall giving more halachic details about it. Which is the bigger chumra: To avoid using such devices, or to insure that even the hard-of-hearing can follow hear? Or, if you prefer, which is the bigger kula: To use such devices, or to disenfranchise part of the tzibur? (I'm not taking sides, just illustrating the issues. If you want answers, ask your LOR.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554abd8864c633d88019cst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 18:45:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 01:45:24 GMT Subject: [Avodah] The Disappearing Doctor of Iyyar: Virtual Vanishing of a Venerable Minhog Message-ID: <20150506.214524.14329.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitzchok Levine posted: > See http://tinyurl.com/mdz6883 That article has only slight relevance to anything medical. It is actually about the practice of abbreviating HaShem's Name with a double (or triple) Yud in siddurim, and how this practice is losing ground recently, with more siddurim using the Four-Lettered Name. That article says: > ... even in the printing of siddurim, where in the past, Shem > Hashem was not written out explicitly, based on venerable, old > practice. In other words, the spelling out of the letters, Yud > ? Kay ? Vov ? Kay in the past was done in Biblical texts, such > as Sifrei Torah and Sifrei Nach. In texts of tefilos, however, > it was not done. Instead, Yud ? Yud was substituted. I am very curious why this distinction was made, that the siddurim use the Yuds, while the printed Tanachs do use the Four Lettered Name. I note that towards the end of that article, he refers to an "Azharah L'Madfisim (Warning To Printers)" on this topic, written by the son-in-law of the Nesivos Hamishpat. Curiously, he writes that the Two Yuds should be printed in siddurim *and* *chumashim*. On the other hand, a few lines later, the Azharah explains a point I've long wondered about. The Four Lettered Name is just one of the *seven* Names Which May Not Be Erased. Why did this abbreviation arise for the Four Lettered Name and not for any of the others? I always figured it was because this one is *truly* a Name; "the Most Holy among equals" one might say. But the Azharah gives an entirely different explanation. Namely, the difference between this Name and the other six is that no matter how you spell it, it is not to be pronounced normally, so what is to be gained by using the correct letters? Therefore, find an abbreviation of some sort for this one, but the others should be spelled as they will be pronounced. Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554ac3e5a6e0843e34b38st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 19:34:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 22:34:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: <85279.31aefae5.427c294a@aol.com> From: Eli Turkel via Avodah In some circles it is common for men to keep long peyot (as an aside it has become common also in some chardal circles) The book Keren Zavit says he doesn't understand the custom.... -- Eli Turkel >>>> Yemenites have long payos, so this must be a very old custom, not some recent chumra. They don't call them "payos" but "simanim," which I find charming. They are signs that a man is a Jew, proud and obvious signs. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 02:13:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 12:13:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: In addition to the points brought up by R' Eli Turkel against long peyot, I would like to raise the following: The shiur given by all of the poskim for each hair is very very short, and in fact because it is a lo taase there is probably not even an inyan of hidur mitzvah. Therefore it is not clear why there would be any inyan to grow long peyot. The truth is it would be much better to be machmir on the shiur of where peyot harosh ends (maybe the very bottom of the ear) which is a safek issur d'oraysa then to grow long peyot which has no kiyum al pi din. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 20:33:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 23:33:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired Message-ID: <86422.6a1e08b9.427c3711@aol.com> [1] I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a woman is owned by her husband, the language of the Mishna notwithstanding. Can anyone point to a clear statement by Hazal or rishonim that supports my supposition? My thanks, Shalom Z. Berger [2] I own my shoes. This gives me certain rights, such as wearing them to the exclusion of anyone else, or the choice of who I might lend them to. I also have certain responsibilities; I cannot simply destroy them for no reason. I own my tefillin too. But the things I can do with my tefillin are much more limited than what I can do with my shoes. I have certain rights and responsibilities vis a vis my wife as well. Do I own her? I don't know. Is there a real nafka mina, or is it just semantics? Akiva Miller >>>> [1] Along the lines of what R' Micha Berger posted. On Ber 24:57 -- "Let us call the maiden and ask her what she wants to do" -- Rashi says, "Mikan she'ein masi'in es ha'isha ela mida'ata -- from here we learn that one does not [or may not, or cannot] marry a woman without her consent." I think he's quoting Kesubos 57b. I can't think of any kind of property whose consent is required before the property can be acquired. [2] The analogy to tefillin is flawed. You do not have any obligations or responsibilities to your tefillin. Rather, in regards to your tefillin, you have obligations towards your Maker! He has told you what you must do, may do, or must not do, with your tefillin. A better analogy would have been to your ox or your dog, where you do actually have obligations to your animals, an obligation, for example, to feed the animal before you eat your own meal. And a still better analogy would have been to acquiring a slave, about which the Talmud says "One who acquires a Jewish slave is like one who has acquired a master! (Kiddushin 20a)" -- because of all the obligations he incurs towards his slave. So there does seem to be some kind of ownership that a husband has vis-a-vis his wife, but then, she also in some sense owns him. Certainly she has the right to make specific claims on him, because he has specific obligations towards her. Shir Hashirim speaks about the love between Hakadosh Baruch Hu and Am Yisrael in an extended poetic analogy to the love between a husband and a wife. What does the wife say about her husband? Dodi li ve'ani lo -- He belongs to me, and I belong to Him. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 23:25:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 02:25:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Princess and I: Academic Kabbalists/Kabbalist Academics Message-ID: <20150507062523.18EF01826EC@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/km8kf2n The last few decades have witnessed the veritable explosion of "new perspectives" and horizons in the academic study of Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism. From the pioneering work of the late Professor Gershom Scholem, and the establishment of the study of Jewish Mysticism as a legitimate scholarly pursuit, we witness a scene nowadays populated by men and women, Jews and non-Jews, who have challenged, (re)constructed, and expanded upon Scholem's work.[2] These men and women themselves have been variously praised and criticized themselves for sometimes blurring the lines between academician and practitioner of Kabbalah and mysticism.[3] Professor Boaz Huss of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has done extensive work in this area.[4] One of the most impressive examples of this fusion of identities is Professor Yehuda Liebes (Jerusalem, 1947-) of Hebrew University, who completed his doctoral studies under Scholem, and rose to prominence himself by challenging scholarly orthodoxies established by his mentor. See the above URL for more. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 23:29:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 02:29:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Shabbat microphones catching on among orthodox despite taboos Message-ID: <20150507062953.0C966182FF8@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/men8bez Relying upon rulings by decision makers such as Rabbi Shaul Yisraeli, Isser Yehuda Unterman and Rav Haim David HaLevi, the Zomet microphone uses only transistors "without any glowing [or 'burning'] elements;" is turned on by an automatic "Shabbat timer;" and, once turned on, "current flows continuously in the system," according to technical notes on the setup released on the group's website. According to Zomet executive director Rabbi Dan Marans, the system has come into use in 15 synagogues in Baltimore, Montreal, West Stamford and other locations, as well as in 18 old-age homes. Leading American poskim, or decidors of Halacha, have even "stipulated in contracts with synagogues that they change the system to our system so that the RCA [will be] able to send rabbis." "I've not heard comments [against it]. If anything, people find the service more enjoyable and more elevating," agreed Schneier, adding that "We must get a dozen calls a year from rabbis contemplating putting this system into their synagogues. "I believe within 25 years it will be commonplace in Orthodox synagogues here in the Northeast." See the above URL for more. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 07:01:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 10:01:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Transferring my comments to Avodah At 04:00 PM 5/6/2015, R Saul Newman wrote on Areivim: >http://www.sharelive.tv/sharlive_Heb/SL27948.html I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire 33rd day, and they wait until the 34th day to take a haircut. Does this not imply that the entire 33rd day is part of Sefirah and the restrictions hold the entire 33rd day? Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva. However, the micktzas starts in the morning of the 7th day, not on the night of the 7th day. Thus, even according to Ashkenazim the night of Lag B'Omer is bound by the restrictions of Sefirah. So how can they make such gatherings on the night of the 33rd day? And, of course there is this post that I made on from Fri, 26 Apr 2013 based on comments by Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel. According to RSRH there is a major difference between the way the uses the terminology un-Jewish and non-Jewish. Un-Jewish things are things that are incompatible with Yahadus, whereas non-Jewish things are things of non-Jewish origin that are compatible with Yahadus. YL The following is from http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol11/v11n014.shtml#17 Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 11:37:58 -0400 From: "Seth Mandel" Subject: Re: bonfires on Lag Ba'Omer From: Phyllos... at aol.com Obviously, the bones of people who believe that there is a s'gullo in making fires . As I have had fun telling people, the _only_ bonfire that was an ancient Jewish tradition was the Simchas Torah bonfire in Ashk'naz, which is attested from the 14th century up until the 19th century, but has gone out of style. The Lag Ba'omer bonfire is a very recent phenomenon among most Jews. Indeed, the word bonfire is from "fire of bones." The term was used primarily in various pagan ceremonies which then were transferred to christianity, for a funeral pyre, and in burning infidels or books (like The Gaon of Vilna or MOAG). The bones used, if 'twere not a pyre, were primarily animal bones. Here's an early quotation (1493): "in worshyppe of saynte John the people waked at home and made all maner of fyres. One was clene bones and no woode, and that is called a bone fyre." From Marlowe in 1586: "Making bonfires for my overthrow. But, ere I die, those foul idolators Shall make me bonfires with their filthy bones." (Think that would get by the moderators on Areivim, R. SBA?) 1689: "The dead corps is buried. They of old made a bone-fire and therein burnt it." 1622: "Their holy Bibles cast into Bone-fires." The term became used for any large fires used for celebrations, although the practice and term continued to be used especially for those associated with various christian saints, particularly John and Peter. From a 1570 history: "Then doth the joyfull feast of John the Baptist take his turne, When bonfiers great with loftie flame, in every towne doe burne." From a constitution of the association of the cooks of Newcastle, 1575: "The said Felloship of Cookes shall yearelie. mainteigne and keep the Bone-fires. that is to say, one Bone-fire on the Even of the Feast of the Nativitie of St. John Baptist. and the other on the Even of the Feast of St. Peter the Apostle." These quotations start in the 15th century, because that is as far back as the term bone-fire goes, but the practice of making a bonfire in honor of Christian saints goes back to ancient times in England (and in France as well). Another practice that goes back to ancient times in Christian Europe is making pilgrimages to "qivrei tzaddiqim" and donating alms at the qever; this practice is well known from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Most Christian scholars attribute the association of the bonfires with celebrations of the feast of a saint to pagan, pre-christian practices which were later adopted by the local people to their new religion. Indeed, the Celtics made bonfires to honor some of their deities and spirits. No one would ever claim that these practices, going back into old Anglo-Saxon England, are of Jewish origin. The Arabs of EY, Syria, and Lebanon, as is well-known, honored the Christian and Jewish "saints" (everyone knows that the qever of Sh'muel haNavi has been a "holy" site to the Arabs for hundreds of years, and they built a mosque there; the site is called "anNabi Samwil"). They made pilgrimages to them, like the Christians did, and they made large celebrations to honor the festival of the saint. The Arab pilgrims who came did various things to honor the saint. They gave alms (a big mitzva in Islam), usually done by the practice of cutting the hair of their children (which they had let grow from before the pilgrimage), then weighing it and giving the same weight in gold or silver for alms. They also made large bonfires to honor the saint. The custom of making pilgrimages, giving alms, and making bonfires may have been borrowed from the christians, since a) they originally appeared among the Arabs of EY, Lebanon and Syria, AFAIK; b) they are first recorded after the time of the Crusades (although the giving of gold or silver in the weight of the hair seems to have been from the Middle East). However there is no clear proof that they did not arise from another source. But they are attested in Arabic sources going back to the 15th century, and probably before. Can the custom of bonfires on Lag Ba'omer have arisen among the Jews separately and independently from the non-Jewish sources? Theoretically it's possible. Books like Minhag Yisruel Toyre he brings all sorts of reasons from various chasidic rebbes and from the book Ta'amei haMinhogim for the origin of the bonfires on Lag Ba'omer. The problem with all the explanations is that a) they are all of recent origin, and b) they somehow ignore the fact that the custom was completely unknown to any Jews up until the time when it is recorded in EY in the 16th century. Furthermore, it was the custom there of only one group of Jews, the Musta'ribim, about whom other Jews complained that they had adopted a lot of Arab customs (the very name mean "Arabicized). From contemporary documents we learn the Muslims (and a few Jews) cut the hair of children as well as lit a bonfires on the yohrtzeit (28 of Iyyar) of non other than the aforementioned Shmu'el haNavi. However, in the 1560s the Arab authorities forbad Jews to go there. Shortly afterwards, we have the testimony of R. Chaim Vital that he was told by R. Yonatan Sagiz that a year before he started learning by the Ari, in the Ari's first year after he immigrated from his homeland of Egypt (also 1570), that "Mori v'Rabbi Z'L took his small son and all of his family there [to the celebration on RaShBY 's yohtzeit in Meron] and there he cut his hair in accordance with the custom." R. Chaim Vital is careful to note, however, that "I do not know whether at that time he was expert and knowledgable in this wondrous wisdom [Qabbolo] as he became after that." IOW, R. Chaim Vital himself is cautioning the reader that he has doubts about whether the Ari did this in accordance with his views in Qabbolo, or just because it was a popular celebration, and he might not have participated had he already been an expert in Qabbolo. Some historians believe that once the Musta'ribim were forbidden to go to the qever of Sh'muel haNavi, they transferred their celebration to Meron and the date to Lag Ba'Omer. Others claim that the custom at Meron predated 1570. But both groups agree that both of these customs, cutting the hair of the children and making bonfires, were practiced by the Arabs and the Musta 'ribim, but not by any of the Ashk'nazi and S'faradi Jews in Israel. Of great interest is that the local rabbis in Tz'fat, who had the practice of going to the all the known q'vorim of the Tano'im from the middle of Iyyar until Shavu'os and having a seder in learning there, opposed the celebrations of the Musta'ribim on Lag ba'Omer and tried to forbid it. They made little headway, and once it became known that the Ari participated one year, any opposition was swept away. We know from travelers to EY in the 18th and 19th centuries that the "hilula" at Meron on Lag Ba'Omer with bonfires and the cutting of children's hair had become an affair of the masses. A well known talmid chochom from Europe, R. Avrohom Rozanes, writes that in his visit to EY in 1867 he saw an Ashk'nazi Jew who had taken his son to the "hilula" and was giving him a haircut. R. Rozanes says that he could not restrain himself, and went to that Jew and tried to dissuade him but was unsuccessful, and that most of the Ashk'nazi and S'faradi Jews of EY participate in this "craziness," with "drinking and dancing and fires." The custom of giving the son his first haircut at that celebration, originally called "halaqa" by the Jews of EY (apparently because there was an established Arabic term but no Jewish term for the custom) was later mixed with the custom of making a celebration when a son reached 3 and began learning Torah. The two customs were combined by many, and resulted in the boy's haircut being delayed until he was 3, and not specifically on Lag ba' Omer. A chasidish rebbe, R. Yehudah Leibush Horenstein, who emigrated to EY in the middle of the 19th century writes that "this haircut, called halaqe, is done by the S'faradim in Yerushalayim at the qever of RaShB'Y during the summer, but during the winter they take the boy to the synagogue or Bet Medrash and perform the haircut with great celebration and parties, something _that is unknown to the Jews in Europe_. and at that point they start him growing his pe'ot. it is incomprehensible why this is not done outside of EY [as well]" [emphasis mine]. Indeed, the custom was adopted by shortly thereafter by chasidim in Europe to imitate the custom of the S'faradim in EY, and the custom of lighting bonfires on Lag Ba'Omer also was adopted at that time by chasidic communities in Europe. The Jews in Europe, knowing no Arabic and having no Yiddish name for the custom of the haircut, called it by a normal Yiddish word for cutting off the hair: opsheren. Both customs are less than 150 years old among Ashk'naz Jews, including chasidim. Now we scarcely can expect to find a historical document that says "we, the undersigned Jews, have decided that there is nothing wrong with copying the Muslim celebrations in honor of saints, and we will participate in them." So you're never going to find better historical evidence for Jewish borrowing of non-Jewish customs than this: that a custom that was previously unknown to any group of Jews arose among a group of Jews known to copy various Arab customs in a time and place that the custom is attested among the Arabs from independent evidence. Is there anything osur about a bonfire on Lag Ba'Omer, or waiting to give a son a haircut until he is 3 or until you go to Meron? Certainly not. As I believe R. SBA has noted, the opsheren provides an excuse for a party that is connected with the boy's beginning to learn; it could be done without the haircut, but if people feel that it is important to give a haircut as well, there is no issur. Certainly no one who lights bonfires or celebrates opsheren has any idea that the source of these customs is extremely questionable. And after 130 years most Jews forget the origin of customs anyway and just assume they are old Jewish customs.. However, those who studiously avoid eating turkey on Thanksgiving should know that the origin of the customs of the bonfire on Lag ba'Omer and halaqa/opsheren are much more suspect. Seth Mandel ---------- So I really do not understand this entire affair at Meron. To add to this see the pictures of Lag B'Omer from many years ago at http://tinyurl.com/khmhcz4 I do not see even one bonfire! YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:07:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 13:07:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 10:01:44AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown : which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. : The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire : 33rd day... : Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last : day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva... Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. Yes, many of us know that the PEC really says Lag baOmer is yom simchas Rashbi, which may or may not be his yahrzeit. "Yom shemeis" is a typo that reached later editions via a dropped ches. See http://seforim.blogspot.com/2011/05/printing-mistake-and-mysterious-origins.html But (as per previous conversations), that also doesn't rule out the possibility that the day of Rashbi's joy is his yahrzeit. But even if the Ari said it's the day he started the Zohar, finished it, left the cave, or whatever, it's still a day the Ari considered worth celebrating. And yes, many of us also know that the whole upsherin-at-the-qever thing was originally on the 43rd in/to the omer, at Nabi Samwel. (See shu"t haRadvaz 2:608.) Which makes sense -- Shemu'el was a nazir, and he lived in the BHMQ starting at age 3. The move to Meron and Lag baOmer happened when the Ottomans restricted access to the qever in the 1500s. The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) and ABD. But the version of the minhag he recorded would not pose the question -- observe the first "half" of the omer, and then a haircut a week before Shavuos isn't a problem. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:07:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 13:07:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 10:01:44AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown : which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. : The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire : 33rd day... : Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last : day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva... Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. Yes, many of us know that the PEC really says Lag baOmer is yom simchas Rashbi, which may or may not be his yahrzeit. "Yom shemeis" is a typo that reached later editions via a dropped ches. See http://seforim.blogspot.com/2011/05/printing-mistake-and-mysterious-origins.html But (as per previous conversations), that also doesn't rule out the possibility that the day of Rashbi's joy is his yahrzeit. But even if the Ari said it's the day he started the Zohar, finished it, left the cave, or whatever, it's still a day the Ari considered worth celebrating. And yes, many of us also know that the whole upsherin-at-the-qever thing was originally on the 43rd in/to the omer, at Nabi Samwel. (See shu"t haRadvaz 2:608.) Which makes sense -- Shemu'el was a nazir, and he lived in the BHMQ starting at age 3. The move to Meron and Lag baOmer happened when the Ottomans restricted access to the qever in the 1500s. The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) and ABD. But the version of the minhag he recorded would not pose the question -- observe the first "half" of the omer, and then a haircut a week before Shavuos isn't a problem. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 08:22:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 11:22:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554B8340.3090001@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 10:01 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > > > The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire 33rd day, and they wait until the 34th day to take a haircut. Does this not imply that the entire 33rd day is part of Sefirah and the restrictions hold the entire 33rd day? > > Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva. However, the micktzas starts in the morning of the 7th day, not on the night of the 7th day. Thus, even according to Ashkenazim the night of Lag B'Omer is bound by the restrictions of Sefirah. So how can they make such gatherings on the night of the 33rd day? That all applies if you regard Lag Ba'omer as simply marking the end of mourning. But as we discussed a few weeks ago, that doesn't really make sense. According to both shitos quoted by the BY there is no such thing as Lag Ba'omer -- the last day on which they died was either the 34th of the Omer or the 49th. Even according to the Tosfos as the Bach quotes it, that they only died for 33 days, Lag Ba'omer was one of the 33, and not the last one! And even if one will find a shita somewhere that they died only on the first 33 days, who makes a party on the last day of shiva? You stop active mourning, you don't go dancing! All of which points to the fact that Lag Ba'omer is *not* about the end of mourning, but a happy day in its own right, the simcha of Rashbi. (The silly discussion over whether the word is "simchas" or "shemeis" is irrelevant here. Either way it's his simcha, which he asked people to celebrate.) This simcha *overrides* the mourning of sefira, no matter which shita one follows. This way of looking at things also explains whether one should say tachanun at mincha of erev Lag Ba'omer. If it's just "the end of shiva", that starts in the morning, so one should say tachanun at the previous mincha, just as one does on erev Pesach Sheni (which also starts in the morning), erev Erev RH and erev Erev YK, and if we said tachanun in Nissan we would also say it at mincha of erev Erev Pesach, because it too starts in the morning. But once we regard Lag Ba'omer as a day of simcha in its own right, then it starts at night, and so we omit tachanun in the previous mincha. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 07:19:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 09:19:59 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] The Princess and I: Academic Kabbalists/Kabbalist Academics In-Reply-To: <20150507062523.18EF01826EC@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507062523.18EF01826EC@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554B748F.8080508@starways.net> On 5/7/2015 1:25 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > From http://tinyurl.com/km8kf2n >> The last few decades have witnessed the veritable explosion of "new >> perspectives" and horizons in the academic study of Kabbalah and >> Jewish Mysticism. From the pioneering work of the late Professor >> Gershom Scholem, and the establishment of the study of Jewish >> Mysticism as a legitimate scholarly pursuit, we witness a scene >> nowadays populated by men and women, Jews and non-Jews, who have >> challenged, (re)constructed, and expanded upon Scholem's work.[2] ... R' Adin Steinsalz once said about the Kabbalah Center type of Kabbalah that it bore the same relationship to real Kabbalah that pornography does to love. This "academic Kabbalah" bears the same relationship to real Kabbalah that an anatomy book does to love. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:32:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 13:32:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> At 01:07 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 10:01:44AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: >: I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown >: which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. > >: The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire >: 33rd day... >: Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last >: day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva... > >Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to >get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would >mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. Indeed, I think one should be. Truth be told my mother, A"H, told me that once a child is at least one year old and can say a few words, then his hair gets cut. This is what I did with my sons, and I am sure it is an old minhag. >Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the >Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning >on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in >the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke >qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to >last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. Indeed, this is where the New Religion is coming from. Years ago someone asked Rav S. Schwab, ZT"L, about certain things that certain chassidishe women do when they are pregnant and if they were valid. His forceful reply was, "My mother never knew about such things, my grandmother never knew about such things, and my great grandmother never knew about such things. These people are making up a religion!!!!!" I am not comfortable with people making up a religion, particularly since RSRH says definitively the Judaism is not a religion, to the New Religion is not Judaism by definition. >The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, >who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where >he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) >and ABD. But the version of the minhag he recorded would not pose the >question -- observe the first "half" of the omer, and then a haircut a >week before Shavuos isn't a problem. The MB points out that the minhag in Vilna was to start the restrictions of Sefirah on the first day of Rosh Chodesh Iyar and then they end in the morning of the first of the 3 days before Shavuous. I took a haircut shortly before Rosh Chodesh Iyar. There were no crowds to contend with and I had no waiting. This morning I trimmed my mustache and the hair that grows under my neck below my beard at shortly after sunrise. I will take a haircut on 3 or 4 Sivan. Again, there will be no crowds to contend with. This has worked and continues to work for me. YL PS. My wife has asked more than once, " How can they observe the aveilus restrictions of Sefirah during Pesach when it is a Yom Tov?" My reply is, "I do not know." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 13:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507175311.GC1758@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 01:32:05PM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : >Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to : >get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would : >mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. : Indeed, I think one should be. Maqor? Since when do we expect 3 yr olds to conform to minhag? ... : >Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the : >Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning : >on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in : >the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke : >qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to : >last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. : : Indeed, this is where the New Religion is coming from.... The PEC is older than RSRH. If you want to label any particular change as a "New Religion", you dwell in a glass house. ... : The MB points out that the minhag in Vilna was to start the : restrictions of Sefirah on the first day of Rosh Chodesh Iyar and : then they end in the morning of the first of the 3 days before : Shavuous. I took a haircut shortly before Rosh Chodesh Iyar. There : were no crowds to contend with and I had no waiting. And the Radbaz predates the SA, never mind the MB. : This has worked and continues to work for me... Good. What I'm objecting to is your insistnce in telling others that what works for them is "New Religion". : PS. My wife has asked more than once, " How can they observe the : aveilus restrictions of Sefirah during Pesach when it is a Yom Tov?" : My reply is, "I do not know." You can't get married on Pesach, not even ch"m either. Nor get a haircut. So you're asking about parties with live music. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:49:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 13:49:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <554BA59A.5040905@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 01:07 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, > who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where > he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) Who taught the Ari, who cut his son's hair at Meron on Lag Ba'omer. Does anyone know whether the Shita Mekubetzes, beside being the Ari's rebbe, was also related to him? I haven't seen this anywhere, but how many Ashkenazi families could there have been in Egypt at that time? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 11:41:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Herbert Basser via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 18:41:42 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah Message-ID: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> A recent post claims the Islamic "opsherin" was called "halaqah". What is the evidence for this claim? The only meaning of arabic "halaqah" I know is "learning circle". Zvi Basser -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 14:31:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 17:31:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Upsherin Message-ID: <20150507213225.D3EDA181A25@nexus.stevens.edu> Since Upsherin is done on Lag B'Omer at Meron, I think one should understand the source for this too. The following is from Shorshei Minhag Ashkenaz, Minhag Ashkenaz: Sources and Roots by Rabbi Binyamin Shlomo Hamburger, Synopsis of Volumes I-IV. YL The German custom to bring a young boy to the synagogue with a wirnpel (wrapping for t he Torah scroll) has no connection whatsoever to the practice of the chalaka (the Arabic term for Upsherin) observed by Sepharadirn and later ad opted by many Chasidirn. Th e custom of holding a special celebration marking the boy's first haircut developed among these groups. The celebration takes place at a specific age, usually three. Th e festivity is customarily held near the gravesite of a tzadik or in a synagogue. *This custom was unknown in ancient Sephardic and Ashkenazic communities.* (Emphasis added by me.) The earliest reports of the chalaka [upsherin] celebration are found in accounts written by Sepharadim early in the period of the Acharonim. Some three centuries later, we find the first indications that the custom had made its way into Chasidic circles. The most important source concerning the chalaka is the account of the celebration in which the Ari-zal is involved. The details of this story are somewhat vague, and it is unclear whether the Ari-zal made a chalaka for his son, or whether the account refers to his disciple, Rabbi Yonatan Sagish. There is also some question as to whether the Ari-zal participated in Lag Ba 'omer events in Meron after his kabalistic insights because the custom to conduct a chalaka on Lag Ba 'omer runs in opposition to the Ari-zal' s final ruling that forbade hair cutting during the orner period. Furthermore, the custom of the chalaka has given rise to some questions as to the propriety of hair cutting at a gravesite or synagogue, which might constitute an infringement upon the sanctity of the site. Some have also questioned the permissibility of haircutting on Lag Ba 'omer, during bein ha-rnetzarirn (the three weeks before Tisha B' A v) or during Chol Ha 'rno 'ed. Yet another concern was the immodest behavior that occasionally accompanied this event. Most Sephardic and Chasidic rabbis applauded, or at least defended the practices observed in their circles, though there were those who forbade the custom in this manner. Rabbi Yitzchak Zev Soloveitchik of Brisk (1889-1960) disapproved of bringing children to rabbis on their third birthday for the chalaka, claiming that this practice "has no reason or basis." He noted that there are sources indicating that one should introduce the child to matters of Torah at the age of three, but none that involve haircutting. Rabbi Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky [the "Steipler Ga'on," (1899-1985)] also opposed this practice, and would send away parents who brought their children to him for the chalaka haircut. The tendency among Ashkenazi communities to refrain from this practice stems, according to one view, from the concern that the chalaka transgresses the prohibition of imitating pagan practices. Cutting a child's hair at the age of three was a well-known custom among several nations in ancient times, and thus observing this practice may constitute an imitation of pagan ritual. Some, however, dismissed this argument, claiming that to the contrary, the chalaka perhaps began as an ancient Jewish practice which was later adopted by the gentiles. There are some older customs, originating in the times of Chazal and the Ge'onim, such as fasting on Erev Rosh Hashana and the ceremony of Kapaprot on Erev Yom Kippur which were opposed by some rabbis since they feared that their origins could be found in pagan rites. In any event, although some communities accepted this custom, Ashkenazi communities were never aware of such a practice. They did not receive this tradition from their forebears, and they found no mention of it in the writings of the Rishonim. The ancient tradition among Ashkenazi communities was to cut a boy's hair at a very young age. In fact, during the times of Chazal, parents would cut an infant's hair not long after birth, and they even permitted cutting a baby's overgrown hair on Chol Ha 'mo' ed. In the times of the Rishonim, too, boys' hair in Ashkenaz was cut already within the first several months after birth. The phenomenon of children with overgrown hair simply did not exist in Germany, and a boy with overgrown hair would have been mistaken for a girl. The custom of chalaka was never accepted in Ashkenazic countries or other regions in Western Europe, not even among the Sephardic communities in these areas. The practice earned acceptance in Eastern Europe among certain Chasidic circles, but only in later generations. Among other circles, boys' hair was cut when they began speaking, and no special affair was held to celebrate the event. .. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 14:31:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 17:31:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554BD9C6.9000803@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 01:32 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > > Indeed, this is where the New Religion is coming from. Years ago > someone asked Rav S. Schwab, ZT"L, about certain things that certain > chassidishe women do when they are pregnant and if they were valid. > His forceful reply was, "My mother never knew about such things, my > grandmother never knew about such things, and my great grandmother > never knew about such things. These people are making up a religion!!!!!" With all due respect to R Schwab's great-grandmother, there are more things in Yiddishkeit than were dreamt of in her philosophy. My great-grandmother did know about such things, and I'm sure her tzidkus and wisdom was no less than hers. And following the Ari's teachings is the very opposite of making up a religion. > I am not comfortable with people making up a religion, particularly > since RSRH says definitively the Judaism is not a religion, to the > New Religion is not Judaism by definition. You're the one assigning to it the word "religion", and then, in what can only be called an act of verbal ju-jitsu, you pull out a definition of that word which (you claim) does not fit Yiddishkeit, and declare that anything called a "religion" must not be Yiddishkeit. I might as well say that since my aunt is a secretary, a secretary is a kind of desk, and Jesus was a carpenter, therefore Jesus made my aunt! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 14:10:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 17:10:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> At 01:07 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. But doesn't "evolving" mean that there is an existing minhag, and it evolves? Here we are talking about a new minhag which no one knew about. The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was appropriate. People certainly can make up new customs whenever they like. But bonfires on Lag Ba'omer are no more or no less than parades on Yom haAtzmaut for those who celebrate it: They have nothing to do with religion. Some Jews have even invented a custom to put up a tree on Chanukkah. But do not try to tell us it then becomes a "religious minhag" and "minhag Hamokom." Everything that Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel wrote in his post is true. There were no rabbonim at the time who approved of the custom. Indeed it is true is that there were no rabbonim who approved of the custom at the time, nor at the time of the Ari and R. Chaim Vital. While they did not say it should be stopped, they gave no support either. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 15:42:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 18:42:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507224237.GA15428@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 05:10:31PM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : At 01:07 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: :> Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. : But doesn't "evolving" mean that there is an existing minhag, and it : evolves? ... The essence of mourning during the omer is not making a wedding, since nissuin, or a se'udas eirusin at the time of eirusin, is the act of simchah par exellance. Then the bit about haircuts crept in, and later, parties with music. Perhaps music as a whole, perhaps instrumental music, perhaps only parties -- machloqes acharonim. That's the minhag I'm talking about evolving. So, people found reason to poke a hole in a minhag that was otherwise growing. As I said, minhagim evolve. : The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was : appropriate. What? The Ari PARTICIPATED in it himself! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 16:39:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 19:39:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Upsherin In-Reply-To: <20150507213225.D3EDA181A25@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507213225.D3EDA181A25@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554BF7A0.10800@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 05:31 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > The earliest reports of the chalaka [upsherin] celebration are found in >accounts written by Sepharadim early in the period of the Acharonim. Indeed it is. For instance, see Gan Hamelech ch 62. http://www.otzar.org/wotzar/book.aspx?64092 This takes it back to at least the 17th century, and he refers to it as a well-known minhag that he doesn't have to explain. The Gan Hamelech is surely himself sufficient authority even if we had no other. And while he was Sefardi, he had a great influence on Ashkenazi psak. > The most important source concerning the chalaka is the account of > the celebration in which the Ari-zal is involved. The details of this > story are somewhat vague, and it is unclear whether the Ari-zal made > a chalaka for his son, or whether the account refers to his disciple, > Rabbi Yonatan Sagish. There is nothing vague about it. It's clear from the context that R Yonatan told R Chaim what the Ari had done a year before he, R Chaim, became the Ari's talmid. > Some have also questioned the permissibility of haircutting on Lag > Ba'omer, during bein ha-metzarirn or during Chol Hamo'ed. Gan Hamelech not only permits it on Chol Hamoed but even permits *delaying* it to Chol Hamoed so as to increase the simcha! And this psak is quoted lehalacha by the Baer Hetev. > The custom of /chalaka /was never accepted in /Ashkenazic /countries or > other regions in Western Europe, not even among the /Sephardic > /communities in these areas. The practice earned acceptance in Eastern > Europe among certain /Chasidic /circles, but only in later generations. This is untrue. It was already accepted in the Baal Shem Tov's time. The only time the Alter Rebbe saw the Baal Shem Tov was on his third birthday, when his parents brought him to have his hair cut. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 16:45:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 19:45:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554BF921.5070409@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 05:10 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was appropriate. On the contrary, he wrote that he personally saw the Ari take his whole family there and stay three days! > There were no rabbonim at the time who approved of the custom. The Ari was not a rov?! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 21:35:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 04:35:03 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Israeli carrots and peppers Message-ID: <20150508.003503.13248.1@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> Om Areivim, R' Yitzchok Levine posted this alert: > Shemitta: Carrots & Peppers from Israel > in Neighborhood Stores > > Please be aware that carrots (including Dorot Farms brand), > peppers, and other vegetables from Israel are consistently > being sold in the Baltimore area at produce markets in our > neighborhood, which are frequented by members of our community. > From the numerous inquiries we have received, it is apparent > that many consumers are unaware of this when shopping. > > The packages or labels state "Product of Israel." These > vegetables likely have Kedushas Shviis and require special > care. If you bought them, contact your local Orthodox rabbi > for further guidance. > > Seven Mile Market in Baltimore is monitored by Star-K and > produce sold there does not have this issue. My question is this: Why does the alert mention only the problem of Kedushas Shviis? If one is concerned about Kedushas Shviis, wouldn't he also be concerned about Sefichin, which (more than merely requiring "special care") is an issur achila? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554c3d3271e3c3d3240a3st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 21:11:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 04:11:14 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Meron live Message-ID: <20150508.001114.13248.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero wrote: > This way of looking at things also explains whether one should > say tachanun at mincha of erev Lag Ba'omer. If it's just "the > end of shiva", that starts in the morning, so one should say > tachanun at the previous mincha, just as one does on erev Pesach > Sheni (which also starts in the morning), erev Erev RH and erev > Erev YK, and if we said tachanun in Nissan we would also say it > at mincha of erev Erev Pesach, because it too starts in the > morning. But once we regard Lag Ba'omer as a day of simcha in > its own right, then it starts at night, and so we omit tachanun > in the previous mincha. I don't follow any of what RZS is saying about Lag Ba'omer, so I'll neither agree nor disagree. But my understanding of the nature of Pesach Sheni is very different from his: As it was explained to me, there's nothing special about the morning of Pesach Sheni. Pesach Sheni exists only on the afternoon of 14 Iyar and the following night. We omit Tachanun on the morning of 14 Iyar NOT because it is a holiday, but because it is the Tachanun *before* the holiday. Alternatively, one might say that the morning of 14 Iyar actually *is* Erev Pesach Sheni. Either way, the afternoon of 13 Iyar is too far removed to be significant enough to warrant skipping Tachanun. It is similar to how the *afternoon* of Erev RH and Erev YK are special enough to skip Tachanun, and this is extended even to the morning, but to say that the entirety of those days are so special that we would skip Tachanun even at the preceding Mincha -- No, that just doesn't fly. This leaves us with three days, at most, when we skip Tachanun at Shacharis, but we *do* say it at the preceding Mincha. (And many siddurim - ArtScroll, for example - explicitly list these three days as exceptions to the general rule.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554c37b79791d37b756e9st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 01:40:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 04:40:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507224237.GA15428@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507224237.GA15428@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150508084208.2D02F182131@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:42 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: > The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was >: appropriate. > >What? The Ari PARTICIPATED in it himself! From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upsherin Rabbi Chaim Vital wrote in Sha'ar Ha-Kavanot that "Isaac Luria, cut his son's hair on Lag BaOmer, according to the well-known custom." However, the age of his son is not mentioned. An obvious problem raised by Avraham Yaari, in an article in Tarbiz 22 (1951), is that many sources cite that the Arizal held one should not cut one's hair for the entire sefirah ? including Lag BaOmer, (see Shaarei Teshuva, O.C. 493, 8). YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 01:44:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 04:44:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Better Version of Upsherin Message-ID: <20150508084606.6189F180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> There were some editorial problems with what I sent out earlier about this topic from Shorshei Minhag Ashkenaz. See http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/shorshei_hair_cutting.pdf for a better version. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 21:02:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 06:02:54 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah In-Reply-To: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> References: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> Message-ID: <554C356E.2030103@zahav.net.il> On 5/7/2015 8:41 PM, Herbert Basser via Avodah wrote: > A recent post claims the Islamic "opsherin" was called "halaqah". What > is the evidence for this claim? The only meaning of arabic "halaqah" I > know is "learning circle". A (Tunisian) Arab told me that it means hair cut. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 01:54:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 04:54:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening in a Large or Small Shul Message-ID: <20150508085532.23F97182131@nexus.stevens.edu> From today's http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ 1)It is a Mitzvah to daven in a Shul that has a large amount of people, as the Pasuk (Mishlei 14:28) says "Brov Am Hadras Melech - with a large assemblage the glory of the King [Hashem] is multiplied." (See Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) 2)There are various exceptions to this rule, and certain times it is deemed Halachically superior to daven in a smaller place and forego the "Brov Am Hadras Melech". A few examples of the many such exceptions: a)Davening in a Bais HaMidrash or Yeshiva , where people learn Torah all [or a large part of the] day (even if you yourself do not learn there) is better than davening in a Shul (i.e. Bais Hakneses that is used only for Tefilah), even if there are more people in the Shul than in the Bais HaMidrash. (See Talmud Brachos 8a. See Chayei Adam Klal 17:1 and Mishna Berura Siman 90 S:K 55) b)If one is on the way to a big Shul, and is stopped by someone and asked to be the tenth man [or any part of the 10] in their Minyan (either in a shiva house, or a smaller Shul whose members cannot go to the larger Shul due to their health or age, or any similar situation) he should stay with them and not refuse based on "Brov Am Hadras Melech" (Psak of Maran Harav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv Zatzal, quoted in Sefer Tefilah K'Hilchasa Perek 2 footnote 29, who maintains that doing a Chesed is just as big a Mitzvah, if not bigger, than fulfilling "Brov Am Hadras Melech") c) If one can concentrate and daven better in a smaller Shul he should daven there, rather than in a bigger Shul where he may not daven as well. (Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) The Aruch Hashulchan (Siman 90:15) rules that if in the larger Shul there are people who talk and converse during the Tefilah (which is a terrible sin, as we have discussed many times, and will iy"H discuss again more thoroughly in the near future), it is better to daven in a small Shul where it is quiet and the proper respect for Tefilah is exhibited. (The Sefer Tefilah K'Hilchasa Perek 2 footnote 28 writes that Rav Shlomo Zalmen Auerbach Zatzal even went so far as to Pasken that if by leaving the Shul with the talking you will end up missing Krias HaTorah or having to leave davening early, one should still avoid the Shul with the talking!) d) Naturally, if by davening in the larger Shul one will miss the proper time for davening (Zman Tefilah), he may daven in an earlier Minyan or Shul even if it is significantly smaller. (See Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) ---------- I think that today there is a move away from davening in large shuls. This is certainly true here in Brooklyn where many of the larger shuls are at times struggling to maintain their congregants. Part of it has to do with the fact that most large shuls daven Ashkenaz, and this is not viewed favorably in Brooklyn. I personally prefer to daven in a minyan consisting of between 20 and forty people. It is much easier to maintain decorum in such a minyan than in a shul where 100 or more people are davening. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 05:14:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 12:14:58 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Davening in a Large or Small Shul In-Reply-To: <20150508085532.23F97182131@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150508085532.23F97182131@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <5f05607383324977a92361bd65ab804c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> From today's http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ 1)It is a Mitzvah to daven in a Shul that has a large amount of people, as the Pasuk (Mishlei 14:28) says "Brov Am Hadras Melech - with a large assemblage the glory of the King [Hashem] is multiplied." (See Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) 2)There are various exceptions to this rule, and certain times it is deemed Halachically superior to daven in a smaller place and forego the "Brov Am Hadras Melech". A few examples of the many such exceptions:....................... ================================================ I wonder if this write up is indicative of a trend seen in "The halachos of X" works, likutim which seem to have become more popular (did they exist 40 years ago?). As Rav Aharon Lichtenstein learned at Harvard, life is complex. Of course there are overarching priorities which need to be learned, but specific applications are hard to summarize in an algorithmic form (see hilchot lashon hara and tzedaka for some obvious examples). Maybe in an internet age we have no choice but to try to put everything on line but what you really need IMHO is a live mentor. KT Joel RIch THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 08:21:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 11:21:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] minhagei S'fira (was "Meron live") Message-ID: In Avodah V33n74, R'Micha replied to RDrYL: : PS. My wife has asked more than once, " How can they observe the : aveilus restrictions of Sefirah during Pesach when it is a Yom Tov?" : My reply is, "I do not know." > You can't get married on Pesach, not even ch"m either. Nor get a haircut. So you're asking about parties with live music. < If one is asking about *minhagei aveilus* during the "first days", one can also ask about the "second days" custom to observe *minhagei aveilus* whenever Tachanun is said, as the number of such days does not come close to 33 and one has to include Shabbos as well as either R'Ch'Iyyar or the *shloshes y'mei hagbala* (all days when Tachanun is _not_ said) in the number. All the best from *Michael Poppers* * Elizabeth, NJ, USA -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 11:39:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 14:39:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] minhagei S'fira (was "Meron live") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150508183940.GA11944@aishdas.org> On Fri, May 08, 2015 at 11:21:28AM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : If one is asking about *minhagei aveilus* during the "first days", one can : also ask about the "second days" custom to observe *minhagei aveilus* whenever : Tachanun is said... Which makes it a good time to remind people of my tweak of RAM's survey of 11 different shitos (12, if we include one that isn't followed) of omer mourning periods It's an interesting side-note that two opinions do not include the night of Lag baOmer. But neither end then. :-)BBii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 11:58:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 14:58:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] minhagei S'fira (was "Meron live") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <554D0756.4070105@sero.name> On 05/08/2015 11:21 AM, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: > If one is asking about /minhagei aveilus/ during the "first days", > one can also ask about the "second days" custom to observe /minhagei > aveilus/ whenever Tachanun is said, as the number of such days does > not come close to 33 and one has to include Shabbos as well as either > R'Ch'Iyyar or the /shloshes y'mei hagbala/ (all days when Tachanun is > _not_ said) in the number. Whose custom is that? This sounds like the shita of Tosfos as quoted by Mahari ibn Shuaib, which is that they died all 49 days, but we observe aveilus only on those days when we don't say *techina*, which comes to exactly 33 days (including Lag Ba'omer, which according to this shita is not a special day at all). -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 9 03:38:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Sat, 9 May 2015 20:38:40 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Upsherin Message-ID: > > R' Levin wrote: The German custom to bring a young boy to the synagogue > with a wimpel > (wrapping for the Torah scroll) has no connection whatsoever to the > practice of the chalaka [...] > This is the way KAJ recommends This the way KAJ recommends Not with the bangs but a wimpel. Joe Slater -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 9 05:12:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sat, 9 May 2015 22:12:16 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <418AFCD6-9213-453C-A268-58AFB75BB81A@balb.in> I didn't know my family Minhag until I chanced on a picture before the war with my grandfather and two of his sons, both with long hair. Using the mimetic tradition my sons and grandsons had an upsherin. It's interesting that mention was made of The Griz. As is well known followers of the Vilna Gaon (including Mori VRabbi Rav Hershel Schachter) don't go to the Beis HaChaim and neither did Rav YD Soloveitchik until in his words he felt compelled to visit his wife's Tziyun. How many know that the Griz asked some Talmidim to go to the Rashbi's grave and pray when the Griz was on his death bed? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 9 12:23:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 9 May 2015 22:23:58 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar Message-ID: The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article They show how Seder Olam is self consistent and in particular it frequently takes people in Tanach whom seem to be different and conflates them. In sefer shoftim they take everything literally that each judge was for 40 years and no gaps between them etc. They then address the difference between the secular and seder olam dates. They also point out the difficulty in the sefer Isuah from chapter 39 onwards (Deutero-Isaiah) 1) the sudden change from rebuke and sestruction to comfort (many years before the destruction) 2) Koresh is listed explicitly twice while prophecy tends to be general 3) Yeshayahu is mention 15 times in the first part but never is mentioned in the second part They conclude that the secular dates are correct (as an aside archaeologists decide on these dates based on astronomical events and carbon 14 dating of pollen seeds which are short lived) They then explain seder olam dating 1) seder olam was not written as a historical text but has a moral side 2) seder olam ignores periods of time when nothing of Jewish importance occurs In particular the Persian era until Shimon Hagadol did not live up to the expectations. Hence, the prophecy of Isaiah-II (name unknown) was simply added to an existing sefer 3) as with its practice conflates Darius I with Darius III. 4) The new Greek calendar (shtarot) was exactly 1000 years after the exodus. In order to achieve this goal parts of the Persian history had to be changed including the order of some kings, again conflating several separate Persian kings which leads to a much shortened Persian kingdom. Finally it removes 6 years from Alexander the great (ie seder olam states Alexander ruled for 6 years in Greece and 6 years in Persia) See above article for more details -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 10 16:49:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 May 2015 18:49:22 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <554FEE82.8090903@starways.net> I think this is tragic. Rather than allow the blasphemous thought that the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their minds, they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple frauds and told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern Orthodox Jews have regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic. Lisa On 5/9/2015 2:23 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a > series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar > > http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see > achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article > > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 10 17:27:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 May 2015 20:27:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <554FF779.8010200@aishdas.org> I cannot believe TABC allowed this to be published as is. /Shreklach!/ KT, YGB On 05/09/2015 03:23 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a > series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar > > http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see > achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 02:19:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 12:19:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebre calendar Message-ID: <> I don't see how you can call this "blasphemous" R. Schwab once suggested that Chazal purposely changed the facts for a good reason. While he later retracted it would be hard to call his original opinion "blasphemous" . Furthermore several current Orthodox rabbis such as R. Leibtag do accept the secular dating. In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some examples 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu As a curios it makes Eliyahu some 700 years old when he runs in front of Achav's chariot. It gives a different meaning to Achav's accusations against Eliyahu when Eliyahu actually worked together with Moshe Rabbenu. Besiades the fact that Eliyahu was from Gilad and worked in the northern kingdom it leaves the halachic question whether a cohen gadol can resign and even leave the land of Israel for various tasks. It is clear from Tanach that Eli and other were the high priest in later generations 2) Ezta = Malachi because both dealt with the problem of foreign wives 3) Nechemia = Zerubavel R. Yaakov Embden already points out that both are mentioned in the same pasuk 4) Daniel = Hatach = Sashvezer Ibn Ezra already doesnt accept this 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta This is part of the missing years controversy. Note that there are several ancient Persian inscriptions that list them as separate kings Note that Ibn Ezra identifies Achashverosh as Artachashasta 6) Conflates Kaleb ben Chetron married to Efrat with Kalen ben Yefuneh married to Miriam Ibn Ezra disagrees and also see the Gra -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 10 23:38:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 09:38:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah In-Reply-To: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> References: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> Message-ID: On Thu, May 7, 2015 at 9:41 PM, Herbert Basser via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > A recent post claims the Islamic "opsherin" was called "halaqah". What > is the evidence for this claim? The only meaning of arabic "halaqah" I know > is "learning circle". > Disclaimer: my knowledge of Arabic doesn't go much beyond being able to look up words in the dictionary, but from doing that the root h-l-q seems to mean both "shave", "form a circle" and "round off". This makes sense to me: after all, "lehakkif" in Biblical Hebrew has the same semantic range. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 03:06:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 06:06:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] He is my G-d Message-ID: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> From Today's Hakhel email bulletin. Hakhel Note: The following is excerpted from Rav Schwab on Prayer, and was related by Rav Schwab at a Shiur he gave on Tefillah: I heard a story from Rav Yosef Breuer, Shlita, which he told about his father, my Rebbe, Rav Shlomo Zalman (Solomon) Breuer. The elder Rav Breuer was a very good friend of Rav Shimon Sofer, the Rav of Cracow, a brother of the Ksav Sofer, and a son of the Chasam Sofer. Once when the two friends met, Rav Shimon Sofer asked Rav Breuer to tell him a short ?vort" from his father-in-law, Rav Shamshon R. Hirsch. Upon which, Rav Breuer told him that Rav Hirsch would point out that while Adon Olam described the unfathomable eternity and omnipotence of Hashem, it nevertheless makes a reference to Him in a very personal way--VeHu Kaili, He is my G-d. Each person in his Tefillah says: I have a personal relationship with HaKadosh Baruch HU, He is my personal G-d. Therefore, whenever a person says the word Ado--i, my Master, no matter how small he thinks he is, he is averring that he is in direct contact with Hashem. This thought is in the introduction to any individual's Iyun Tefillah, concentration on Prayer. There is nothing mystical or supernatural about it. It should be the most natural thing in the world. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 06:38:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 13:38:51 GMT Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebre calendar Message-ID: <20150511.093851.15442.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel wrote: > In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that > Chazal had a tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some > examples > 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu I rarely, if ever, come across the word "conflate", except here on Avodah. When it is used here, it seems to be pejorative, indicating that someone confused or merged two things that really ought to stay distinct. RET, is that what you mean here? Do you feel that it was wrong for Chazal to associate Pinchas and Eliyahu in the way that they did? Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5550b1061639931057a29st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 07:16:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joseph Kaplan via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 10:16:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar Message-ID: <002a01d08bf5$1a951290$4fbf37b0$@tenzerlunin.com> On 5/9/2015 2:23 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a > series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar > > http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see > achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article > There were (so far) two responses: "I think this is tragic. Rather than allow the blasphemous thought that the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their minds, they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple frauds and told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern Orthodox Jews have regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic." "I cannot believe TABC allowed this to be published as is. /Shreklach!/" When I read this when it came out I remember thinking: what a refreshing concept. Letting students use the educational tools they have been given to think on their own and then to publish the results which (to my extremely non-expert eyes) appears to be a nice bit of research and analysis - whether correct or not. Joseph -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 07:30:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 09:30:18 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebre calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> On 5/11/2015 4:19 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > < that the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their > minds, they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple > frauds and told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern > Orthodox Jews have regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic.>> > > I don't see how you can call this "blasphemous" R. Schwab once > suggested that Chazal purposely changed the facts for a good reason. > While he later retracted it would be hard to call his original opinion > "blasphemous" . Furthermore several current Orthodox rabbis such as R. > Leibtag do accept the secular dating. I didn't call it blasphemous. I referred to doubting secular scholarship as blasphemy, tongue in cheek, because that seems to be the way it's viewed by some of the secular thinking Modern Orthodox. R' Schwab once wrote a thought experiment, which was one huge hava amina. What if, he said, we were faced with absolute proof that the historiography of Chazal was wrong? And he gave an idea. He was horrified by the way in which the secular thinking Modern Orthodox misread what he wrote as an actual position, opposing the veracity of Chazal, and wrote, not a retraction, but a clarification that he had *never* espoused the position that was being attributed to him. If R' Leibtag accepts the secular dating, then my comments about the tragedy of Modern Orthodox Jews bowing to the modern idol of secular scholarship apply there as well. > In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a > tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some examples > > 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu > As a curios it makes Eliyahu some 700 years old when he runs in front > of Achav's chariot. > It gives a different meaning to Achav's accusations against Eliyahu > when Eliyahu actually worked together with Moshe Rabbenu. Wrong again. There's no historiography going on here. No chronological framework of any kind. It's Midrash. Like Moshe Rabbenu jumping 10 amot into the air when fighting Og. Like Pharaoh's daughter having a stretchy, Fantastic Four kind of arm. Midrashim are all true. They aren't all true in the literal sense. Pinchas was not literally Aharon's grandson Pinchas ben Elazar. That's quite different from throwing away the entirety of Chazal's historiography, which is internally consistent all the way through, and which *Chazal clearly believed to be literally true*. If you want to say they were wrong, that they were ignorant of the facts, go ahead and do so. But please, don't play games by imagining that they intentionally fudged the facts. > Besiades the fact that Eliyahu was from Gilad and worked in the > northern kingdom it leaves the halachic question whether a cohen gadol > can resign and even leave the land of Israel for various tasks. It is > clear from Tanach that Eli and other were the high priest in later > generations Again, he wasn't Kohen Gadol. No one holds that he was. Let me try and explain a little more about Midrash. Chazal bring Midrashim that contradict one another. For example, there's a Midrash that says Esther never slept with Achashveirosh. That Hashem sent a mal'ach that took her place. That conflicts with "Esther karka hayta", as well as with the Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son. None of this is problematic. Because the truth of Midrashim is not in their concretes. Like analogies, Midrashim are abstractions which are anchored with concretes, but are not defined by those concretes. > 2) Ezta = Malachi because both dealt with the problem of foreign wives And maybe Ezra was Malachi. And maybe he wasn't. I don't see much of a nafka mina either way. Do you? > 3) Nechemia = Zerubavel > R. Yaakov Embden already points out that both are mentioned in the > same pasuk Ditto. Not one single example you're bringing has anything to do with a massive chronological framework that Chazal clearly knew to be the way things happened. Megillat Esther took place *before* Bayit Sheni was built, and not after. Baruch ben Neriah was the talmid of Yirmiyahu and the rav of Ezra, and if you throw that away, you literally snap the chain of tradition from Sinai, rendering all of Judaism stuff and nonsense. > 4) Daniel = Hatach = Sashvezer > Ibn Ezra already doesnt accept this Again, l'mai nafka mina? > 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta > This is part of the missing years controversy. Note that there are > several ancient Persian inscriptions that list them as separate kings > Note that Ibn Ezra identifies Achashverosh as Artachashasta It's not part of the missing years anything. You need to read what Chazal say about that inside. As far as Achashveirosh being Artachshasta, Chazal say Artaxerxes was a throne name. And in fact, Greek sources say that both Artaxerxes II and III adopted it as a throne name. Furthermore, the Septuagint version of Esther refers to the king as Artaxerxes, so saying that Ahasuerus is Artaxerxes is a truism that has nothing to do with chronology. > 6) Conflates Kaleb ben Chetron married to Efrat > with Kalen ben Yefuneh married to Miriam > Ibn Ezra disagrees and also see the Gra I'll go further. R' Moshe Eisenmann's Divrei HaYamim for Artscroll (one of the few books in the Artscroll Tanakh series which I consider to be of inestimable value) has an entire section on the Kalevs. I highly recommend it. But again, Midrash is Midrash, and there's zero relevance here. Let me ask a simple question. Was Baruch ben Neriya Ezra's teacher? As Chazal say, and as Iggeret Rav Shrira Gaon and Rambam and others bring down. Or not? And if not, how do you feel about *not* having a chain of tradition going back to Sinai? Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 08:17:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 11:17:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: <20150511.093851.15442.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150511.093851.15442.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150511151732.GA15699@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 01:38:51PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I rarely, if ever, come across the word "conflate", except here on : Avodah. When it is used here, it seems to be pejorative, indicating that : someone confused or merged two things that really ought to stay distinct. I think that's my doing; I like the word. And yeah, it is merging two things that may be helpful in another context to keep distinct, but without being as pejorative as saying they confused them. If one assumes that Chazal's statements about the past are intended to be about how the past should have happened rather than caring about actual historicity, then their saying that Pinchas is Eliyahu is the identification of what Pinechas means to us with what Eliyahu means, and giving us a license to treat the two are a single symbol. With no intent to imply they were historically the same very-long-lived human being. I would also want a little more clarity from those who object to claims about missing years between levels of objection. Do you mean: 1- This isn't my derekh. 2- I cannot see this even as eilu va'eilu, it's simply false. 3- It is heretical. At least one of us used the latter language, and I don't see it. We have a definition of heresy, three definitions of three subtypes of heres, anyway (kofer, apiqreis, min). Is anyone actually intending to claim that it violates an iqar emunah to take Chazal's dating of events in the Galus Paras uMadai and early Bayis Sheini period as ahistorical, meant for some hashkafic reason? Or is it an epistomological thing? If you believe the academic community's interpretation of the evidence and will create new peshatim to fit in this case, you've bought into a system that would equally argue for kefirah? And for the two people who dismiss the Greek version of Persian history: What do you do with the astronomical state points thrown in that actually work? As RET noted last year, around Purim time, if you read Ezra and Nechemiah literally, ignoring Sefer Olam, it is more consistent with Greek historians than Chazal. I found he gave details in 1999 (v2n176) To quote: ... proofs for the secular history 1. external proofs A. The history of Herodotus (485-425 BCE) discusses in detail the lives of Cyrus, Cambyses,Darius and Xerxes and briefly Atraxerxes who was a contemporary of Herodutus. It is hard to conceive that he wrote about contedmporay figures or recent history who did not exist. Note that according to Chazal the Persians did not come into power until 350 BCE 75 years after the death of Herodutus !!! Thucydides (460-400 BCE) starts with Cyrus and goes through Darius II and the fights between Athens and Sparta and the Peloponnesian Wars. Again according to Seder Olam Rabbah there was no time for all these wars and so probably many of these Athenian and Spartan leaders did not exist. Ctesias (430-380) was a physician in the court of Artaxerxes and describes the 7 kings from Cyrus through Artaxerxes II. There are also later Greek historians who give the complete picture. Josephus also includes more kings than Chazal but not the entire Greek list. Moderchai Breuer in his history accepts the Greek dating. See Parker&Dubberstein, Babylonian Chronology for more details. Note: No modern historian claims that all facts in these histories are true. That is a far cry from stating that the entire history and not just certain details are fabrications and that all these kings never existed. B. Archaological evidence has uncovered many ancient Persian (cuneform) enscriptions (see for example The Persian Empire by J.M. Cook). For example one at the Persian palace in Persepolis says "I, Artaxerxes the son of Artaxerxes the son of Darius the son of Artaxerxes the son of Xerxes the son of Darius the son of Hystaspes" (Darius was not the son of Cambyses). Greek names have used for the original Persian names. There are other earlier enscriptions which are similar. These all conform to the Greek dating. C. There are letters from the Jewish community in Elephantine confirming the Greek position. D. I recently read of the history of the Assyrians. In their history they describe the reign of Sancherub and of a major eclipse of the sun during some battle. Astronomical calaculations confirm that the only full eclipse of the sun in that region occurred exactly during the dates of Sancherub according to the Greek chronology. 2. Internal Proofs A. Ezra 45,7 describes Koresh, Daryavesh, Achasverosh, Artachasta. These exactly parallel the Greek chronology with Achasversh=Xerxes. If one looks at the Persian writing rather than the Greek names then Xerxes is called khshayarsha which is close to Achashverosh (note Cambyses is left out probably because nothing of importance to Ezra occured during that reign). Note that Daat Mikrah on Ezra 4 assumes the secular dates. B. Nehemia 12:10 lists 6 High Priests, son after son, between Yehosua and Yadua. This is hard to explain if the whole period was on 52 years. It is even worse if one assumes that Shimon haTzaddik was the high Priest at the time of Alexander as that adds at least one more high Priest in the 52 years According to Ben Sira Shimon was the son of Johanan which would make of total of at least 8 high priests in 52 years all presumably sons of the previous one. C. Comparing Divrei Hayaim I: 3:19-24 with Ezra 8:2 and Nehemia 3:29 it seems that Ezra and Nehemis lived many years after Zerubbavel. Note: Daniel 11:2 seems more in line with chronology of Chazal. Second Note: According to Seder Olam Purim occured before the rebuilding of the second Temple while according to the secular chronology Achashverosh was the son of Darius and so the Temple was already in existence. According to Chazal, Daniel, Zerubavel, Ezra, Nehemia, Mordecai, Hagai, Zerchahiah and Malachi and even Shimon haTzaddik were basically contemporaries or within 1 to 2 generations of each other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 37th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Yesod: When does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 require one to be strict with another? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 06:52:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 09:52:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun on Pesach Sheni (was Meron Live) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150511135043.8781C182131@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:31 AM 5/11/2015, R. Akiva Miller wrote: >As it was explained to me, there's nothing special about the morning >of Pesach Sheni. Pesach Sheni exists only on the afternoon of 14 >Iyar and the following night. We omit Tachanun on the morning of 14 >Iyar NOT because it is a holiday, but because it is the Tachanun >*before* the holiday. Alternatively, one might say that the morning >of 14 Iyar actually *is* Erev Pesach Sheni. Either way, the >afternoon of 13 Iyar is too far removed to be significant enough to >warrant skipping Tachanun. From http://tinyurl.com/ln7le2m Some say Tachanun on Pesach Sheni (14 Iyar); some do not; some do not say Tachanun on 14 & 15 Iyar. What are the sources for these customs? Those who do say Tachanun probably do so because 14 Iyar is not listed as a day where Tachanun was customarily omitted by the Tur, anyone quoted in the Beit Yosef or Bach, by the Shulchan Aruch and its Mapah, the Levush, the Eliya Rabba, the Taz, the Magen Avraham, the Beiur haGra, the Chayei Adam, the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, the Mishna Berura and others. The Aruch haShulchan notes the custom of omitting Tachanun as foreign to Ashkenaz and deems it a 'wonder' (Pelah ). And from http://www.dinonline.org/2010/04/27/tachanun-on-erev-pesach-sheni/ Do we say Tachanun at minchah on Erev Pesach Sheni? Answer Yes [Shulchan Aruch Harav, Piskei Hassidur, end of Hilchos Krias Shema uTefilloh] YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 07:00:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 10:00:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening in a Large or Small Shul In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150511135900.11012181E6C@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:31 AM 5/11/2015, R. Joel Rich wrote: >I wonder if this write up is indicative of a trend seen in "The >halachos of X" works, likutim which seem to have become more popular >(did they exist 40 years ago?). As Rav Aharon Lichtenstein learned >at Harvard, life is complex. Of course there are overarching >priorities which need to be learned, but specific applications are >hard to summarize in an algorithmic form (see hilchot lashon hara >and tzedaka for some obvious examples). Maybe in an internet age we >have no choice but to try to put everything on line but what you >really need IMHO is a live mentor. Did R. Aharon Lichtenstein really not know that life is complex before he went to Harvard? I am very sure that a man as intelligent as he was knew that life was complex long before he went to Harvard. I never went to Harvard, but I knew by 12 or 13 years old that life in indeed complex. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 09:45:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 12:45:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] He is my G-d In-Reply-To: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150511164501.GA29539@aishdas.org> *On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 06:06:53AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : From Today's Hakhel email bulletin. : :> Hakhel Note: The following is excerpted from Rav Schwab on Prayer, :> and was related by Rav Schwab at a Shiur he gave on Tefillah... We need a source, and such a well documented lineage for the source, to point out what the words say? Does no one try translating a poem they've recited since childhood (and that's true even for many BTs)? "Adon Olam" through "velo ha'oz vehamisrah", the first 2/3 or so, talks about how transcendent HQBH is. Then the poet (usually attributed to Ibn Geveirol, 11th cent CE) abruptly switches to "VeHu Keili ... Hashem li velo ira" -- that despite that transcendence, I am still capable of having a personal relationship with Him. Li nir'eh this is the key to understanding sheim havayah: 1- The tetragrammaton is a contraction of "Yihyeh, Hoveh, veHayah -- Will Be, Is and Was", referring to Hashem being timeless and beyond the created. An el, when used in the secular sense, is a legislative ruler, so that Elokeinu, is a declaration that He is our Lawgiver -- the Author of both moral law and physical law. Havayah denotes connotes a vision of Deity that is very Other, the philosopher's G-d; Elokus is One who relates to man. 2- The very remoteness of the name Havayah also implies Divine Mercy. Which is how Chazal describe its usage in chumash. This is not intuitive, however the need to create law comes from a person's limited ability to deal with many individual cases. A teacher with few students is effective, one with more students, less so. To manage a country, we need laws and policies, since we do not have infinite time and attention to cover every decision on a case-by-case basis. Therefore, it is only because Hashem is Infinite that Divine Mercy is possible. Therefore, this expression can be seen as a declaration of the unity of G-d, despite the different appearances of Mercy and Strict Justice. We can each say "veHu Keili" *because* "velo ha'oz vehamisrah". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 37th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Yesod: When does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 require one to be strict with another? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 09:06:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 19:06:59 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] He is my G-d In-Reply-To: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 1:06 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > From Today's Hakhel email bulletin. > > Hakhel Note: The following is excerpted from *Rav Schwab on Prayer*, and > was related by Rav Schwab at a Shiur he gave on Tefillah: > ... > *whenever a person says the word Ado--i, my Master, no matter how small he > thinks he is, he is averring that he is in direct contact with Hashem*. > This thought is in the introduction to any individual's Iyun Tefillah, > concentration on Prayer. There is nothing mystical or supernatural about > it. It should be the most natural thing in the world. > I understand that "Rav Schwab on Prayer" was edited from recordings of RSS' shiurim, and I suspect that there is some misunderstanding here. If this is not mystical and supernatural, what is? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 11:12:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Herbert Basser via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 18:12:16 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah Message-ID: <1431367937499.87948@queensu.ca> Friendly amendment: When all else fails consult a dictionary-- where I found the root h-l-q both in hebrew and in arabic means "to make smooth" (no surprises here) and (surprise) a note after that indicating arabic h-l-q also applies to making the chin and the head smooth (hairless), i.e. "shaving".-- Not from the idea of rounding but from the idea of smoothing. Like in bereshit (27:11) esav was hairy and yaakov halaq. Zvi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 12:33:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 15:33:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150511193132.F24041829B7@nexus.stevens.edu> At 02:57 PM 5/11/2015, R. Eli Turkel wrote: ><the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their minds, >they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple frauds and >told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern Orthodox Jews have >regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic.>> > >I don't see how you can call this "blasphemous" R. Schwab once suggested >that Chazal purposely changed the facts for a good reason. While he later >retracted it would be hard to call his original opinion "blasphemous" . >Furthermore several current Orthodox rabbis such as R. Leibtag do accept >the secular dating. > >In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a >tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. The most definitive study on this topic is the recent book (2014) The Challenge of Jewish History: The Bible, The Greeks & The Missing 168 Years by Rabbi Alexander Hool From http://tinyurl.com/p42uvvj There is a well-known conundrum concerning Jewish history: The conventional chronology of the Western world - and academia - is in direct conflict with traditional Jewish sources over the history of ... history. Incredibly, there is a gap of roughly 200 years: For instance, the Talmud says the Second Temple stood for roughly 400 years, while mainstream historians today conclude that it stood for almost 600 years. This conflict has major implications on what occurred to who, and when. It also seems to question the accuracy of the entire Jewish tradition as accepted dating methods seem to contradict core parts of the traditional Jewish narrative. In presenting fresh and startling astronomical, mathematical and archaeological evidence, Rabbi Alexander Hool has charted new ground in his quest to find the solution to this ancient problem. The Challenge of Jewish History is revolutionary: it questions all assumptions, dispels unfounded myths, and transports us back in time over 2,500 years. With a subject of great significance and fascination to all those interested in history, and a wealth of scholarship and sources to impress academics, this intriguing book gives us a new perspective on .... This is a highly researched book based on Jewish and non-Jewish sources. the author concludes that there are no missing years and seems to prove his conclusion. I suggest that anyone who is really interested in this topic purchase this book. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 13:10:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Herbert Basser via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 20:10:00 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] chronology Message-ID: <1431375000749.45056@queensu.ca> [Transliteration mine. -micha] Seder Olam: Mahadurah Mada'it Peirush uMavo me'et Chaim Milikovsky's Makhor Yitzchaq ben Zvi shenei chalaqim, 326+711 amudim See Chaim Milikovsky's edition of Seder Olam for a very detailed explanation of all these issues in chazal's chronology and a critical edition of the readings of all extant manuscripts. The issues of chazal's chronologies were first highlighted at length by Azariah de Rossi's Meor Eynayim and should be settled by Milikowski's volume which took about 35 years to research. Chazal were great men but not modern historians, doctors, scientists, or nevi'im -- and certainly not liars. Zvi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 14:46:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 14:46:24 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] explanation Message-ID: the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not PC by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation for some shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a heterodox clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read those passages] . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other than the chok aspect] that the RBSO was looking from the perspective of the kahal and their kovod, and how they would react or be distracted by a baal mum. can someone supply a better take ? thanks -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 18:12:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 21:12:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150429.073718.25006.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150429.073718.25006.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150512011220.GA19224@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 11:37:18AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : Regardless of how the Bas Kol might be interpreted, is there any way : to understand "Nitzchuni banai!" other than Hashem personally siding : with one of the litigants, and losing? I don't see the closing of the story adding any problems the nissim themselves didn't. If you think they were about Hashem backing one side, then "nitzchui banai" is about that sice being defeated. If not, then it's whatever over reason He had for presenting misleading evidence that was defeated. Leshitas those who don't take eilu va'eilu literally and intead use a more classical logic with a law of contradition, the whole story is about HQBH choosing the process as a whole over the correctness of this one particular ruling. HQBH rejoicing that the chakhamim maintained the kelalei pesaq as they should rather than pay attention to His interferance. As the Maharitz Chayes understands it, by keeping the process viable, they keep the Torah eternal, capable of speaking to new circumstances as the world changes. "Nitzchuni banai -- My children have made Me eternal!" Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 37th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Yesod: When does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 require one to be strict with another? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 17:57:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 20:57:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55514FDD.4000100@sero.name> On 05/11/2015 05:46 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not > PC by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation > for some shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a > heterodox clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read > those passages] . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other > than the chok aspect] that the RBSO was looking from the perspective > of the kahal and their kovod, and how they would react or be > distracted by a baal mum. > > can someone supply a better take ? What's the difficulty? Hakriveihu no lefechosecho. The dignity of a king, and especially of The King, demands that all who serve Him be perfect in all respects. People with physical imperfections may be wonderful in many ways, but they are just that, imperfect. The current political correctness that refuses to acknowledge this is literally insane. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 15:31:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 23:31:27 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 12:19:57 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah > In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a > tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some examples > 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu ... > Besiades the fact that Eliyahu was from Gilad and worked in the northern > kingdom it leaves the halachic question whether a cohen gadol can resign > and even leave the land of Israel for various tasks. It is clear from > Tanach that Eli and other were the high priest in later generations Re Pinchos = Eliyohu The Ari says clearly [through the pen of R. Chaim Vital] in Shaar HaGilgulim that this refers to a gilgul neshomoh, not that he was literally the same person in body as well. DR From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 23:21:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 09:21:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar Message-ID: R' YGB writes: "I cannot believe TABC allowed this to be published as is. /Shreklach!/" Should we just bury our heads in the sand and not address these kinds of issues? Its very hard to hide information today, what happens when these kids get to college and find about the missing 165 years. What are they going to think? The fact is that Rabbi S. Schwab found this discrepancy a ?truly vexing problem? and wrote that the historical chronological dating: "?can hardly be doubted for they appear to be the result of painstaking research by hundreds of scholars and are borne out by profound erudition and by ever increasing authoritative evidence ... we are compelled to admit that the Bayis Sheni must have existed for no less than 586 years.? (Hakira A Y2K Solution to the Chronology Problem). If we don't address these kinds of questions (torah and science, the documentary hypothesis, etc.) then the implication that will be drawn by many people is that we don't have answers and we know what happens then. The Seforim blog (http://seforim.blogspot.com/2015/01/blog-post.html) not long ago reviewed a Sefer by R' Amnon Bazak, Ad Hayom Hazeh, which deals with many of the the issues that academia brings up related to Tanach. Are his answers compelling? Many times not. But at least he deals with the issues. A commentator there made a very important point, for those who have been exposed to these questions, we need seforim like this that at least attempt to deal with the issues raised and not simply bury our heads in the sand. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 01:36:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 11:36:40 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> References: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> Message-ID: > 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta <> Do these Greek sources explain how Koresh and Daryavush are the same person? Besides you use the parts of the Greek sources that you like and reject those that dont fit your thesis Now you rely on the Septuagint? Almost everyone else identifies Achashverosh with Xerxes, Besides the are several inscriptions in ancient Persian that give a detailed list of kings eg Artaxerxes the great king, king of kings king of peoples king on this earth son od Darius the king Darius son of Artaxerxes the king, Xerxes son of Darius the king Darius son of Hystapes the Archaemend proclaims .. As an aside modern chronology of Eygpt has been confirmed by recent carbon 14 dating. Dates of Sishak and other Assyrina and Babylonian kings have been confirmed by their writings combined with various astronomical events mentioned in their writings. <> That's your opinion. In fact many achronim take these conflating of names very seriously. While you claim Eliyahu wasn't a cohen gadol there is in fact a halachic literature whether he was or not and whether a cohen gadol can resign. For example see hebrewbooks Magen Tzvi siman 36 page 388 where he concludes that a Cohen Gadol (annointed by oil) who resigns still has all the laws of a cohen gadol You wrote "Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son " . However Darius's own version (Behustan) states that he was not the son of the previous king (see also above inscription on a wall) -------------------------- separately Marty Blake mentioned the sefer of R Amnon Bazak. The shiurim are also available in English http://etzion.org.il/en/topics/fundamental-issues-study-tanakh As Marty mentioned he discusses fundamental issues as are all pesukim in the Torah from Moshe Rabbenu, archaeology, accuracy of the text, Bible criticism, peshat and drash, sins of Biblical figures and many other controversial topics. I am sure that many of his solutions are also controversial. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 19:20:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 02:20:37 GMT Subject: [Avodah] explanation Message-ID: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero wrote: <<< The dignity of a king, and especially of The King, demands that all who serve Him be perfect in all respects. People with physical imperfections may be wonderful in many ways, but they are just that, imperfect. >>> "... in all respects." Really? Where will you find such a person? No, that's an impossible task. For practicality's sake, He cannot and does not demand that all who serve Him be perfect in ALL respects. So instead, there is a set of criteria, and a set of shiurim by which to determine if one is *adequately* perfect. I can't imagine that anyone would disagree with what I wrote thus far. But then we'll go the next step, and study what sorts of things are on that list of criteria. For example, if one is a Mechalel Shabbos, or a murderer, he is disqualified from Birkas Kohanim, so I'd bet that he's disqualified from the avodah too. But those aren't the sort of mumim that the previous poster's Shabbos guests were asking about. They were asking about physical abnormalities. I hope it is okay if I rephrase their question to something like this: It is reasonable for The King to insist on a certain degree of moral perfection, but why is physical perfection relevant? Or to phrase it more bluntly, the kohanim should not be judged by the shape of their nose, but by the content of their character. (Of course, we are not disputing the halacha. The question is WHY the Torah considers physical abnormalities to be disqualifications.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/555163bfd843b63bf2454st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 22:43:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 01:43:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah Message-ID: R? Zvi Basser points out ? H-L-Q was the haircut celebrated Lag B?Omer. Yes! Perhaps Chalak evokes Yaakov Avinu, aka Ish Chalak. An older version of Ibn Ezra's famous Tzama Nafshi has alternate ending stanzas. H?alo Chelk?cha Meirosh ? Addressing Hashem directly Chalak ? that is Yaakov Avinu the weak brother ? and his endless generations of martyrs Damo Darosh ? avenge and right the wrongs Shfoch HHamas Af al Rosh Hasa-ir Hachai ? let your anger pour over its proper target - . Ibn Ezra means that Hashem can grant Dveikus, Nevuah or Ruach Hakodesh. The Ibn Ezra 's philosophical approach ? said that the Nefesh ? as a Spiritual Heavenly entity ? can encounter the Ultimate Hashem ? directly. The alternate ? higher level of Hashkafa ? Tzama Nafshi has a verse ? now found in some better editions ? After dealing with Hagar rebelling against Sara (Shifha no-emmes) H?alo Chelk?cha Meirosh ? Chalak ? that is Yaakov ? and his endless generations of martyrs Damo Darosh ? avenge and right the wrongs Shfoch HHamas Af al Rosh Hasa-ir Hachai ? let your anger pour over its proper target - . -- Two other points ? the first verse in the alternat version of Tzama Nafshi: (See Kol Kisvei RAIE) Eil Chayy Bera-ani ? To my mind this means ? the always watching and involved One watching over us. Compare ? Chai Anochi LeOlam Im Shanosi Brak Charbi ? in Parshas Haazinu ? anger to avenge. Perhaps in Inquisitorial times ? Eil Echad Bera-ani was more relevant. Also fascinating ? The Ayin verse substitutes ? Al Kol Chasadecha ? Techadeish Eidecha!! References Iyov 10:17, where Ibn ezra refers to leprous blemishes. Posei-ach es Yadecha umasbia lechol chai ? directly allow Life, Deveikus and attachment to His Essence ? not the simple meaning of providing food . Earlier Ibn Ezra had said - Ki lo yir-ani ha-adam vachayy - no man can see Hashem and Chai ? no complete experience of Hashem. His Creation is Ne-elama hidden in its wisdom. Parshas Tazria has many multiple references to live healthy skin ? Basar Hachayy - as opposed to leprous skin. I would believe there are multiple references to Tazria Metzora. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 03:51:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 06:51:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150512105130.GC3499@aishdas.org> Lakol zeman va'eis... There is a time to force people to change their reflect reactions, and a time when the focus should be elsewhere. There are two kinds of mummim WRT kehunah (see Bechoros 43b): 1- mar'is ayin -- one whose appearance is repulsive to the people 2- eino shaveh bezar'o shel Aharon -- someone who is unique in appearance to the people (see Rambam, Bi'as haMiqdash 6:6) A kohein in the mar'is ayin category would pasl the avodah bedi'eved, one who is eino shaveh would violate an asei, but the avodah is kasher. Notice that both are defined by their impact on the observer. Presumably the point is that attention should be on avodah, not thoughts about the kohein performing it, or negative judgments of who is fit for service. But notice this is only for the Avodah.... a kohein with a baal mum was still expected to show up with his mishmar and do other necessary jobs. I am not even sure he is pasul from lighting the menorah. After all, we learn these mumim from the animals for qorbanos; it may apply to qorbanos in particular. So to me, the question is why isn't mid-qorban a good time to acclimate Kelal Yisrael away from such visceral reactions. But since I cannot get my head into the mindset of someone bringing a qorban, I leave the question tabled until I have the opportunity to learn what a qorban is like firsthand, bb"a. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 38th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Yesod: How does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 promote harmony in life and relationships? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 09:24:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 12:24:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: <20150512105130.GC3499@aishdas.org> References: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> <20150512105130.GC3499@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150512162421.GA13065@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 6:51am EDT, I wrote: : There is a time to force people to change their reflect reactions, and a : time when the focus should be elsewhere. ... To add, there are TWO reactions that would distract from the purpose of the qorban: Both the person who is turned off by how Hashem made this particular kohein (either through birth, disease, or allowing him to suffer an acctident), and the person who would then turn his qorban into a bein adam lachaveiro rather than a qorban. The one who would be thinking about how touching it was the such a person overcame disability to help them bring it. Rather than simply thinking about G-d. Even according to R' Chaim Volozhiner or R' Shimon Shkop, who see bein adam lachaveiro as the ultimate purpose of life, and thus presumably bein adam laMaqom as a derived value, there is a time to care for the goose, rather than everything being about collecting the golden eggs. In fact, the farmer is likely to spend nearly al of his time into caring for the goose rather than the ultimate payoff. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 38th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Yesod: How does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 promote harmony in life and relationships? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 06:17:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 08:17:09 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: References: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> Message-ID: <5551FD55.5090900@starways.net> On 5/12/2015 3:36 AM, Eli Turkel wrote: > 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta > < was a throne name. And in fact, Greek sources say that both > Artaxerxes II and III adopted it as a throne name. Furthermore, the > Septuagint version of Esther refers to the king as Artaxerxes, so > saying that Ahasuerus is Artaxerxes is a truism that has nothing to do > with chronology >> > Do these Greek sources explain how Koresh and Daryavush are the same > person? Fortunately, they don't have to, since that's just Midrash and has no nafka mina l'maaseh. > Besides you use the parts of the Greek sources that you like and > reject those that dont fit your thesis Of course I do. The Greek sources aren't what we would call "history" today. Herodotus collected folklore and picked the versions he liked to make a more entertaining story. He says himself that he heard 4 different and conflicting stories about Cyrus's backstory, and chose the one he liked best. He didn't even preserve the other three so that we could make our own decisions. He made his living in Greece by entertaining his patron(s) with exotic stories from exotic lands. > Now you rely on the Septuagint? Almost everyone else identifies > Achashverosh with Xerxes, Not so. Everyone recognizes that the *name* Achashveirosh is the same as the *name* Xerxes. Or rather, that both names are transliterations of the original Persian Khshayarsha. To say that "almost everyone else identifies Achashverosh with Xerxes" indicates that you aren't particularly well versed in the subject. I mean, at the very least, read the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahasuerus which notes which sources have identified him as which kings. > Besides the are several inscriptions in ancient Persian that give a > detailed list of kings eg > Artaxerxes the great king, king of kings king of peoples king on this > earth son od Darius the king Darius son of Artaxerxes the king, Xerxes > son of Darius the king Darius son of Hystapes the Archaemend proclaims .. Have you read the Behistun Inscription? Darius son of Hystaspes had it inscribed. In it, he talks about Babylonian kings who weren't actually Babylonian kings. At least not by our standards. They were pretenders, since Babylon had fallen to the Medes and Persians. But they gave themselves royal titles and claimed descent from Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus and the rest. From their point of view, they *were* kings of Babylon. From the Persian point of view, they were pretenders. Similarly, what do you think happened to Persia when Alexander conquered it? From one day to the next, Persia vaporized? Persia covered a huge area. Professor Levine posted about Rabbi Alexander Hool's book "The Challenge of Jewish History". I don't agree with all of his conclusions, and I'm embarrassingly late completing a review of the book, but he posits the Persian line continuing even after Alexander whupped Darius at Gaugamela. And in fact, the Parthian Empire, which started only about 70-80 years after the Alexandrian conquest, claimed descent from the Achaemenids of the Persian Empire. As did the later Sassanids. Names like Ardashir are just Late Persian versions of the Old Persian Artaxerxes. That's completely aside from the fact that we *know* there were forgeries perpetrated in ancient times for the purpose of establishing royal descent. Check out Roland Kent's article "The Present Status of Old Persian Studies" in /Journal of the American Oriental Society, /1936, vol. 56, p. 215ff. (http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/594668?uid=3739656&uid=2134&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21106376285721). A couple of inscriptions that are nothing but royal titles with no actual content to them is kind of flimsy evidence. Certainly not something strong enough to trash Chazal's entire picture of such an important period in our history. > As an aside modern chronology of Eygpt has been confirmed by recent > carbon 14 dating. Source. Because you may not be aware of this, but when you bring items in for carbon dating, you have to tell them -- up front -- what the rough date is that you think they're from. So that they can throw away any results that skew too far from that as "contaminated". The rest are subject to a fudge factor (sorry: correction factor) to help make them fit. But I'd like to see the source you have for carbon dating of modern Egyptian chronology. > Dates of Sishak and other Assyrina and Babylonian kings have been > confirmed by their writings combined with various astronomical events > mentioned in their writings. Assuming Sosenk = Shishak, which is iffy, considering that Sosenk only claims to have campaigned in the north of Israel, which would be odd for Shishak, whose son-in-law Yeravam was ruling there. The rest of what you're talking about is pure confirmation bias. They have a model and they shoehorn any evidence they find into that model, even if they have to kind of mush it in there. > < and explain a little more about Midrash. Chazal bring Midrashim that > contradict one another. For example, there's a Midrash that says > Esther never slept with Achashveirosh. That Hashem sent a mal'ach that > took her place. That conflicts with "Esther karka hayta", as well as > with the Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son. None of > this is problematic. Because the truth of Midrashim is not in their > concretes. Like analogies, Midrashim are abstractions which are > anchored with concretes, but are not defined by those concretes.>> > That's your opinion. In fact many achronim take these conflating of > names very seriously. While you claim Eliyahu wasn't a cohen gadol > there is in fact a halachic literature whether he was or not and > whether a cohen gadol can resign. > For example see hebrewbooks Magen Tzvi siman 36 page 388 where he > concludes that a Cohen Gadol (annointed by oil) who resigns still has > all the laws of a cohen gadol Midrash. And if it were something more solid than that, you'd have more than just some achronim saying so. > You wrote "Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son " . > However Darius's own version (Behustan) states that he was not the son > of the previous king (see also above inscription on a wall) So what? I'm confused. I'm saying that Midrash isn't necessarily the literal fact, and you pick out a phrase from what I wrote and point out that it isn't the literal fact? It seems like you're trying to make a point, but I'm not seeing what it is. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 10:18:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 13:18:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I commend you for having such guests at your table! > the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not PC by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation for some shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a heterodox clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read those passages] . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other than the chok aspect] that the RBSO was looking from the perspective of the kahal and their kovod, and how they would react or be distracted by a baal mum. can someone supply a better take ? This is, indeed, a difficult passage. R Jonathan Sacks has a good take on it -- which is generally along the lines of what you suggested, but a slightly different (and more big-picture) take, and, of course articulated extremely well. An excerpt: > Kugel also writes, "Most people, when they see someone ravaged by chemotherapy, just tend to keep their distance." He quotes Psalm 38:12, "My friends and companions stand back at the sight of my affliction; even those closest to me keep their distance." Although the physical reactions to chemotherapy are quite different from a skin disease or a bodily abnormality, they tend to generate the same feeling in others, part of which has to do with the thought "This could happen to me." They remind us of the "thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to." > > This is the logic - if logic is the right word - of Tumah. It has nothing to do with rationality and everything to do with emotion (Recall Pascal's remark that "the heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing"). Tumah does not mean defilement. It means that which distracts from eternity and infinity by making us forcibly aware of mortality, of the fact that we are physical beings in a physical world. If the above interests you at all, I encourage you to read the whole thing: http://www.aish.com/tp/i/sacks/149811775.html [1] -- Sholom Links: ------ [1] http://www.aish.com/tp/i/sacks/149811775.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 09:51:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Dov Weinstock via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 12:51:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Explanation Message-ID: On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 12:27 PM, via Avodah wrote: > the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not PC > by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation for some > shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a heterodox > clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read those passages] > . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other than the chok aspect] > that the RBSO was looking from the perspective of the kahal and their > kovod, and how they would react or be distracted by a baal mum. > > can someone supply a better take ? > May I suggest the following: http://rabbidovlinzer.blogspot.com/2014_04_27_archive.html Dov Weinstock -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 03:09:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 06:09:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: <20150513100956.GA14377@aishdas.org> Among the arguments that came up in the discussion of the Kosher Switch was that it's zilzul Shabbos. The thought hit me, though... Refraining from operating electrical devices has only been a potential issue for 125 years or so. And except for Yekkes, most of our ancestors come from places where it has been less than a century since electricity became part of our lives. So it's very hard to say that "not using electricity" is a defining feature of the Shabbos experience. Contrast this to hotza'ah, including haavarah, which take up what seems like 1/3 of chazal's discussion of issur melakhah (rough estimate from Berakhos and Eruvin in mishna, Tosefta, Y-mi and Bavli). When community eruvin got started, wasn't there a much easier argument of zilzul? Why wasn't it made? Indeed we use the general kelal of being meiqil WRT eiruvin to quite an extent to build one. And what does the fact that a community eruv is NOT zilzul Shabbos say about the nature of zilzul Shabbos and its applicability to nidon didan? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 12:26:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 15:26:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 06:42:58AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : He is now starting a series on religious autonomy. In particular he holds : that one goes to a rabbi for a psak only if he is in doubt. If one has : seriously learned the halachaot and is convinced of the "truth" then he : should follow his own psak and there is no need to go to a "higher : authority". Interesting. Does "seriously learned the halakhos" translate to higi'ah lehora'ah, or something less? RHS requires a certainly level of general knowledge. See Sanhedrin 5a-b. But it also fits RHS's hashkafah that halakhah is an inseperable whole. And so Rebbe doesn't just tell us that night Shema can be said at sundown, he ties it to the law of tevul yom. And RHS similarly advises his talmidim to look to gedolim from their own camp because one with whom they disagree hashkafically is likely to see even apparenty unrelated halakhos differently. Listen to (RAM transcripted other snippets from this talk for one of our many discussions of da'as Torah at .) For that matter, 5b talks about the need to get a heter hora'ah even if one knows enough to pasqen. But then, the gemara is discussing deciding for others, not only oneself. OTOH, pasqening for oneself has a major problem that one doesn't face when answering others' questions -- vested interest vs objectivity. Listen to R Jonathan Ziring's shiur on the topic at . In particular, his very first source (see link to mar'eh meqomos sheet) Nissah 20b. Yalta, "Rebbetzin Nachman", asks her mar'os questions of Rabbah bar bar Chanah and Rabbi Yitzchaq bereih deR' Yehudah, not her husband. Similarly mishnah Nega'im 2:5 saying you can't pasen nega'im even of relatives, Bekhoros 31a about judging one's own bekhoros. So, I would think that not being in doubt is too easily a delusion. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 12:54:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 15:54:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes In-Reply-To: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150513195451.GA16146@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 01:18:22AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Saul Newman asked: :> i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at :> hadchak /bedieved : ... : But I think that the real answer to your question might be: "If the people : in shul can't hear the rabbi or the chazan, that IS a shaas hadchak." Both letzorekh mitzvah and tzarkhei tzibbur are usually classified with she'as hadechaq and hefsed meruba. The two combined is why shuls have such wide lattitude with amira le'akum. (And perhaps either alone? I dunno.) So if a properly designed PA system is a shevus or other derabannan, why not permit this too? BTW, R/Dr Yisrael Rozen of Machon Zomet makes a point of noting that the issues seem to be the same whether the PA system is electrical or based on air pressure. See Microphones and Amplifiers on Shabbat Rabbi Yisrael Rozen C. Microphones Operating on Air Pressure 1. System Description Recently, the idea of a microphone which operates on air pressure, rather than electricity, has been proposed. A company in the United States is in the process of developing this "air-mike," although to the best of my knowledge, the project is still in the experimental stage. The device consists of a container of compressed air[12] and a system of pipes in which the compressed air flows. After one speaks into a horn-like input, his voice is carried on the stream of compressed air in the pipes. Acoustic adjustment (which apparently lies at the heart of the idea) then causes the voice waves to be amplified... 2. Comparison to an Electronic Microphone Several rabbis have permitted the use of air microphones on Shabbat, viewing it as an appropriate means of sound amplification for a synagogue. I question the distinction between an air microphone and a regular microphone - if we permit one, we must permit the other... Let me explain. We have shown that, given the current technology, the main problems with using a microphone on Shabbat have nothing to do with the fact that it runs on electricity. The problems concern the decree of klei shir, the fear that one will repair it, hashma'at kol like a water mill, avsha milta, denigration of Shabbat, and the suspicion of onlookers. Regarding all but the last of these, I see no difference between an air microphone and a regular microphone. In my opinion, an air microphone is a kli shir exactly like a shofar or trumpet; it creates a loud noise like a water mill; there exists the possibility that one will try to adjust it etc.. If you wish to claim that it is not a kli shir because it transmits speech; that we should not innovate a decree of "lest one repair it;" that it does not resemble a water mill because everyone knows that there is no Shabbat violation involved - then the same considerations should apply to a regular microphone as well. Only regarding the suspicion of onlookers might there be a difference between the two types of microphones; with an electric microphone, onlookers may think that an electric circuit was created on Shabbat. But we have already explained that even if one would turn on existing equipment on Shabbat, he would violate only a rabbinic prohibition, and we are not concerned with creating suspicion regarding rabbinic prohibitions. We also noted above that "everyone knows" that the equipment was turned on either before Shabbat or by means of a timer, and thus resembles a chiming clock (which is permitted). I have heard that there are those who permit the air microphone since the speaker's original voice is carried through the pipes (although clearly the majority of the sound waves reaching the audience's ears comes from the air pumped by the compressor). I am astonished at this claim: even in an actual musical instrument (such as a trumpet) the player's breath is mixed in, and nevertheless it is forbidden! In many musical instruments, the sound comes mainly from an "echo chamber," whose geometry shapes and amplifies the sound. To the best of my understanding, an air microphone operates on the same principle.[13] In my opinion, halachic definitions (in all fields) do not stem from scientific, physical, or technical definitions. The definitions of klei shir and hashma'at kol are not based on the technology of sound production, wave dispersion, or other acoustic considerations. The question at hand is whether these devices are included in the rabbinic decree of klei shir or not. In this regard, it does not matter whether one makes his voice heard by means of an electric or an air microphone. Some of those who give a blanket permit to use an air microphone claim that it does not amplify the speaker's voice, but merely carries it. On the basis of material I have received from the factory, I find this claim to be mistaken. Therefore, as far as klei shir and hashma'at kol are concerned, the two types of microphones are identical. ... 3. Responsa Which Erred in the Realia ... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 13:14:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 16:14:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes In-Reply-To: <20150513195451.GA16146@aishdas.org> References: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> <20150513195451.GA16146@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5553B099.7090100@sero.name> On 05/13/2015 03:54 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Both letzorekh mitzvah and tzarkhei tzibbur are usually classified with > she'as hadechaq and hefsed meruba. The two combined is why shuls have such > wide lattitude with amira le'akum. (And perhaps either alone? I dunno.) Letzorech mitzvah is not enough to justify amira lenochri for an issur derabanan, unless the mitzvah absolutely cannot be fulfilled without it. For instance, if one is pitch darkness one may ask a nochri to bring a lit candle through a communal chatzer that has no eruv, because oneg shabbos is impossible in complete darkness; but if there is already at least dim lighting, so that some minimal oneg shabbos is possible, one is *not* allowed to have a nochri bring another candle. Tzorchei tzibbur, OTOH, seems to justify amira lenochri for almost anything. [Quoting R Rosen] > The problems concern the decree of klei shir, the fear that one will > repair it, hashma'at kol like a water mill, avsha milta, denigration > of Shabbat, and the suspicion of onlookers. He's listing the same thing multiple times. "Hashma'at kol like a water mill" *is* "avsha milsa", i.e. passersby will hear it running and know that a Jew's business is operating on Shabbos, and the problem with that is that they will think the Jew is transgressing amira lenochri. These are not separate issues. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 13:32:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 23:32:51 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> References: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <> I understand the concern. However, there is no halacha that a rabbi can't pasken on his own chicken. In fact in real life we all pasken for ourselves on some level. Anytime one has a shabbat question \he can't always run to the LOR. One usually ends up paskening based on whatever knowledge and mesorah one has. This is what makes the life of a Baal Teshuva very difficult. Certainly what RMA and many others are against is running to the LOR or even gadol hador with every question. I have heard complaints from shul rabbis that some congregants come with questions they could easily look upo themselves but prefer to ask the rabbi so that the rabbi notes how serious they are. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 14:35:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 21:35:43 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> Message-ID: . I have heard complaints from shul rabbis that some congregants come with questions they could easily look upo themselves but prefer to ask the rabbi so that the rabbi notes how serious they are. ---------------------- True, but sometimes it may be to establish a connection (yes, funny coming from me-but it is true) KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 15:04:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 18:04:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150513220422.GC10395@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 13, 2015 at 11:32:51PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> OTOH, pasqening for oneself has a major problem that one doesn't face when :> answering others' questions -- vested interest vs objectivity. : : I understand the concern. However, there is no halacha that a rabbi can't : pasken on his own chicken. : In fact in real life we all pasken for ourselves on some level. Anytime one : has a shabbat question he can't always run to the LOR... I was using "pesaq" to refer specifically to open questions that require shiqul hada'as. Your typical Shabbos question is about a devar mishnah. To quote Rt Chana Luntz from Mon, 7 Sep 1998, 8:33pm BDT: 20:33:38 +0100, a post about not combining chumeros: > ... the Rashba on our daf in Chullin [43b], who hold that a Rav only > needs to pay if there is shikul hadaas and not a mistake in a dvar > mishna, are forced to conclude from this that Rava's mistake was in > shikul hadaas - see there]. It would seem that a devar mishnah is not a pesaq that the rav is as responsible for our following his teaching rather than getting the halakhah correctly from some other source. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 15 08:55:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 15 May 2015 11:55:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Laasok beDivrei Sorah Message-ID: <4c752525c83edeb17b85f6670479b9c0@aishdas.org> >From R' Eliezer Eisenberg's blog Beis Vaad L'Chachamim (highly recommended), at http://beisvaad.blogspot.com/2015/05/bechukosai-at-my-grandsons-bar-mitzva.html A couple of personal comments ellided, mostly to save myself the bother of transliterating more Hebrew text. A belated mazal tov to the author, G'Shabbos to all, -micha Friday, May 15, 2015 Bechukosai. At my grandson's Bar Mitzva Drasha at the Bar Mitzva of Avraham Jofen, 5/14/15 ... The Gemara (Brachos 11b) and the rishonim there talk about the issue of hefsek in Birkas HaTorah. There are those that hold that if a person stops learning, he has to make a new bracha when he begins again, because it is a hefsek from the first bracha. The Rishonim, the Agur and the Rosh, say that it is not a hefsek, because even when you are not actually learning, you have to consider what you can and cannot do according to the dinim of the Torah. Even when you are in a place where you cannot learn, you have to behave in a manner that is prescribed in the Torah. As the Hafla'ah says, when you do business, it is not a hefsek, because you are learning Choshen Mishpat. Every decision you make is examined in the light of the Torah, so that is not a hefsek in limud. I would put it this way. Torah is only a mitzvah when you learn al menas laasos. Al menas laasos means that you don't learn superficially, you make the Torah a part of who you are. On the contrary, if what you learn is just on the surface, the learning itself is bitul Torah. If the Mitzva of limud hatorah requires that it should make you into a different person, do you think that carefully living the life of an ehrilcheh ben Torah is a hefsek in limud hatorah? It's not a hefsek, it is a hemshech, it is a kiyum, of the mitzvah of limud hatorah. My father Ztz'l was very friendly with his lawyer, Bill Rosenthal. Bill was an assimilated Jew. The only contact he had with the Jewish religion was when he shook hands with my father. Nonetheless, he and my father were good friends and respected each other. A lawyer for a mortgage company once asked him which university my father studied at, because he could brilliantly analyze contracts. Bill told him that my father studied at Slabodka U. He once asked my father, "You and I are very ethical and honest men. I wouldn't take a penny that wasn't mine, and I have the highest standards of behavior in business. You, too, are very moral, but you do it because of your religious beliefs. Is there really any difference between us? My father told him, on the spot, that there are three differences. One is that for you, a dollar is a small matter, and a question involving a million dollars is a big matter. To me, there is no difference. The principal, the law, is what matters, and the sum of money is irrelevant. Another difference is that let's say you carefully think an issue through, and you decide the other side is right, and you let them win. you will toss and turn at night, ,thinking that maybe you were really right. I, on the other hand, if I decide that I am right, and I keep something that had been disputed, I won't be able to sleep at night our of a concern that maybe my decision was influenced by self interest. The third difference is that while you and I are both successful people,, and we've both made a lot of money, you think that you made the money yourself, and it's 100% yours to do with as you please. I believe that God decided that I should have the money, and God gave me the money, and every dollar that was given to me was given so that I use it in the right way. So it's true, my father learned how to do business at Slabodka U. Because he learned how to do business at Slabodka U, he was able to give, on the spot, three excellent and lomdusheh chilukim about the difference between Bill Rosenthal's moral code and his own moral code. Doing business like that is not a hefsek in the mitzva of limud hatorah. Farkert, it is the biggest kiyum and chizuk of limud hatorah and mussar and yashrus. This is a kiyum of the passuk [im bechuqosai seleikhu], as Rashi explains, [shetihyu ameilim baTorah]. It is this mesora which we bequeath to the Bar Mitzvah. ... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 15 13:39:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 15 May 2015 16:39:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Learning Chumash with the Trop Message-ID: <20150515203756.96751182847@nexus.stevens.edu> My 6 year-old grandson who is in the first grade was taught the trop at the same time he was being taught Chumash. The bottom line is that when he says the Pesukim he has studies in yeshiva, he says each word with the trop. I think this makes it easier for him to remember the Pesukim. When he davens, he says Shma with the trop! I can only wonder why this is not done in all yeshivas. When it will come time for him to lein at his Bar Mitzvah, it should be much easier for him than for those boys who are taught Chumash without the trop. YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 06:37:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 09:37:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Standing at a Chupah Message-ID: <20150518133702.1FA0A18392A@nexus.stevens.edu> Yesterday a friend of mine told be that the Rov where he davened said that he knew of grandparents who did not want to walk down at their grandchildren's Chassana, because they knew that the people attending the chupah would not stand for them even though they were 70 + years old. They did not want to be involved in lifnei Iver. Truth be told, I have seen the following many times. When the grandparents who are 70 or more years old walk down, no one stands for them. However, when the chosson and kallah walk down everyone stands for them. It is, of course, a positive mitzvah to stand up for any person 70 years old or more. See See http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/35165/standing-for-someone-whos-turned-seventy It is questionable if one has to stand for the chosson and kallah. See http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/levine/standing_chasuna.pdf I told my friend that it should be announced at the beginning of every chupah that 1. All cell phones should be turned off; 2. There should be no talking during the chupah, and 3. If grandparents who are 70 or more will be walking down, then one is required to stand for them. I think if this were done at Chasanas it would soon become the norm. 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URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 06:39:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 14:39:50 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001b01d09170$1d5db6f0$581924d0$@org.uk> Rav Zylberstein in the Cheshukei Chemed on Daf 78a of Kesubos discusses the question as to whether a woman today who has lots of peros from her property can say to her husband - "you do not need to redeem me, and I will not give you the peros" - on the ground that the need for redemption today is not common ("lo schiach") - even though the gemora there says that she cannot avoid this trade as mandated by Chazal (despite her being able to avoid the trade between mezonos versus ma'aseh yadeha, again a takana of Chazal, as this last takana was done for her benefit). Rav Zylberstein brings a discussion based on various rishonim to show that actually, pidyon was not common even at the time of Chazal, or at the time of the rishonim, and hence the fact that it is not common today does not change the situation from that mandated by Chazal. He also adds in the position of the Ran, that the takana regarding pidyon is not just made for her benefit (as the mezonos one is) and hence something that can be waived by her, but is also for the benefit of the husband, as without her redemption, the husband doesn't have the benefit of her company and services, while with mezonos that doesn't apply. However, it seems to me that Rav Zylberstein is not in fact dealing with what strikes me as the fundamental question. That is, it is not a question of whether or not pidyon is not common today (indeed, I would be tempted dispute that it is in fact "lo schiach", despite Rav Zylberstein taking this for granted) - but rather that the job of pidyon today is one of those that has been appropriated away from family members such as husbands, and is now the province of governments. The decision as to whether an individual may or may not be redeemed from ISIS, or pirates off Africa, or wherever, is now one which governments take with regard to their citizens. Governments which are prepared to do deals, like France, redeem their citizens (albeit for astronomical sums). Governments, like the UK and the US, who refuse to do deals on the grounds that it just encourages terrorists - will not let individuals, including husbands, redeem, even if the sums could be raised individually, as a matter of general policy. Nobody assumed it was the job of Gilad Shalit's family to effect his release - except to the extent that they was required to lobby the Israeli government (it might even have been treason to go negotiating with Hamas directly). Release or non release negotiations therefore, including the price to be paid (whether by prisoner release or otherwise) is today a government price. So it seems to me that what in fact we have today is a situation where husbands are, for the most part, forbidden by law (dina d'malchusa dina) from redeeming their wives, ie from fulfilling their side of the takana of Chazal. In such circumstances - while one might argue that the state of which the woman is a citizen is entitled to (at least some portion of) the peros (taxes?) the real question then seems to become: on what basis does one say that the second half of the takana stands - not just in relation to a woman who tries to say "you do not need to redeem me", but in relation to any woman in this circumstance. Has anybody come across anybody discussing this question, and any thoughts on any justification for the retention of the husband's benefit if in fact husbands are not legally allowed to effect redemption? BTW on the question of the commonness of redemption - part of that would depend on the scope of the definition of "pidyon". Clearly redemption from ISIS or pirates in Africa falls within this category - but how about rescuing somebody who was trekking in Nepal at the time of the earthquake? Again this is something that governments are now regarded as having a responsibility to do (the British Government has been criticised for failing to do as much as others, such as the Israeli and US governments, have done). At first blush I can't see why flying somebody out of an earthquake zone would not fit within the pidyon definition - despite it being physical forces, such as landslides, rather than people, who may be trapping the individuals. How about a package tour company going bust? Again, the person in question would (absent ATOL and similar travel bonding schemes set up by the relevant governments) be trapped in a foreign country and need to be returned to their country of origin, as per the language of the takana/ketuba. So why would this not be a form of pidyon? But again, is not the fundamental responsibility now assumed to devolve onto the government in respect of its citizens? So while I am not actually sure that it is true that pidyon is in fact so extremely not common, it seems to me that the fundamental question is rather a different one. Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 05:15:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 12:15:18 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: <20150518.081518.3271.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Among the arguments that came up in the discussion of the Kosher > Switch was that it's zilzul Shabbos. > ... what does the fact that a community eruv is NOT zilzul > Shabbos say about the nature of zilzul Shabbos and its > applicability to nidon didan? Excellent point. And I'd like to add another point: There are those who have argued that the availability of various types of timers (including those with software and adjust themselves for varying sunset times) have made the Kosher Switch unnecessary. I disagree strongly. The Kosher Switch, and similar devices do not merely add convenience, but can do a lot for lessening tzaar, and that is a valid and recognized halachic consideration. There were many times when I went to bed earlier than planned, but the light would not go out for another hour, and it was keeping me awake. And there were many times when my seudah lasted longer than expected, but the lights had gone out and we benched in dim light. There were many times when I set the air conditioning for what was expected to be a very hot day, and when it turn out to be mild, we all froze in the cold house. And there were many times when I left the air conditioning off, and regretted it when the day turned hotter than expected. Of course, a couple of centuries ago, people did not have these conveniences, and they learned to cope with them. But I really believe that for us, who have gotten addicted to them, it is a real tzaar when we must do without. (None of the above should be construed as meaning that I endorse any particular sort of device. I'm only talking about devices which we are allowed to use on Shabbos.) [Email #2. -micha] R' Micha Berger asked: > When community eruvin got started, wasn't there a much easier > argument of zilzul? Why wasn't it made? I'm not sure which period of history you're referring to with the phrase "when community eruvin got started", but here's my attempt at an answer: Eruvin did not allow something which had been previously assur, the way timers do and the way the Shabbos Switch would (according to its supporters). Beginning in Moshe Rabenu's day, people were very careful not to carry from a Reshus Hayachid to a Reshus Harabim, or vice versa, or 4 amos within a Reshus Harabim. But everything else was no problem. People would carry from one home to another within the same chatzer without thinking twice. Or even to a home across the street, IF that street was NOT a Reshus Harabim. But over time, accidents started to happen, because it is not always so easy to determine what's a Reshus Harabim and what's not. So at a certain point (either by David Hamelech's beis din, or Shlomo's, I don't remember) TWO halachos were enacted, at the SAME tme: One, that hotzaah was forbidden in a wide variety of areas other than within one Reshus Hayachid. Two, that these other areas could be transformed into a Reshus Hayachid by following some specific rules. The net result is that after Hilchos Eruvin were instituted, there were NO actions which people could be done that were not being done before. No one said, "Now the neighborhood can have a picnic on Shabbos afternoon!", because they could have done this all along, if there was no Reshus Harabim running through. Thus, no one lamented the zilzul Shabbos caused by allowing picnics which had previously been forbidden, because they had NOT previously been forbidden. I suppose it is possible that in the beginning, these procedures were used only by small neighborhoods (chatzeros and not much larger), and it was only much later that they were used by entire communities. If that's what RMB was referring to, then I'll have to stop here and let a historian continue. Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 07:00:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 10:00:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Megilat Rut: The night of Boaz and Rut Revisited Message-ID: <20150518135955.4DC6C183869@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/kmyx55p YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 08:40:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 11:40:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> On Sun, May 17, 2015 at 1:32pm EDT, R/Prof. Yitzchok Levine wrote on Areivim: : Yesterday in shul I asked a 12 year-old boy who attends a good : yeshiva if he was willing to announce the Molad. He looked at me : incredulously and said "What's the Molad?" I replied, "You know, : when the new moon can be seen." He still didn't get it, and I had : to elaborate a bit. I want to get all nerdy with this. The molad is actually an average, not when you could first see the moon this particular month. From 1601 to 200 CE, the actual physical lunation could be 6h 21m shorter or 7h 15m longer. And, the average too changes over time. (As I've noted in the past, it is amazing to me that we had back in the days of Galus Bavel, a molad value that was most accurate in the same century R' Hillel II and his Sanhedrin crated a standard calendar, some 900 years later. Exact to within the unit of measure (the cheileq). Accurate when we needed the value, not when we first obtained it. Currently, the molad is around 108 chalaqim off. And that's just the time between the molads. Then you have to ask when in the cycle the moon could first be seen. How thin of a sliver is visible to the typical human eye? And which longitude's clock are you using? And we announce the time for this point on the globe using today's hour naming convension. If you look at (eg) the Rambam, you'd be seeing a clock which is restarted every day at sunset, making sunset 0:00, not a number various about 6pm. But that's only something to keep in mind when looking at older Sepharadi sefarim, and wouldn't impact understanding what it is we actually announce. It would seem the molad as we now announce it would be for Kandahar, Afghanistan. But that must be due to slippage because the molad is too long. If we go back to the 4th or 5th cent CE, the molad is being announced given the time around midway between the Nile and the far (south-east) end of the Euphrates, which would have been around the middle of Jewish settlement at the time. In any case, calling is Jerusalem Time is a misnomer. Anyway, because we don't know for sure what location on the globe the molad was defined for, and how much of the current location is due to slippage during centuries of molads growing ever longer, we cannot definitively translate molad time to your local standard time. We simply do not know the starting lattitude to convert from. Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 08:53:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 11:53:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 11:40 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. Sure we do. It's the motion of an "averaged moon" that orbits the earth in a perfect circle, and that, however fictional, forms the basis of our calendar. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 09:41:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 12:41:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150518164134.GC20828@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 11:53:42AM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : On 05/18/2015 11:40 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: : >Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. : Sure we do. It's the motion of an "averaged moon" that orbits the earth : in a perfect circle, and that, however fictional, forms the basis of our : calendar. Except we don't know how much of an idealized moon is supposed to be showing and where between the latitudes of Alexandria and Sura it would have been showing. IOW, we don't know when in the moon's cycle the molad is an idealization of. Note, though, that Rabban Gamliel quotes a mesorah from R' Gamliel haZaqein ("mibeis avi abba) that the molad varies. And in a second quote, that it will never be "less than" 29-1/2d 2/3h 73 chalaqim. (Shabbos 25a) And he uses this to question eidim, so this is a mesorah he accepts for re'iyah, not just computation. Redoing R' Gamaliel's fractions, and converting 73c = 4m 1c, we get 29d 4 hr, 44m, 1 c. Our molad. So Rabban Gamliel held our molad was a lower limit, not an average!? And recall, we'e talking re'iyah (see the sugya) and the actual lunation could be over 6hr easlier than the average. What am I missing? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 08:23:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 11:23:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: <001b01d09170$1d5db6f0$581924d0$@org.uk> References: <001b01d09170$1d5db6f0$581924d0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <555A0402.4060608@sero.name> It should be borne in mind that there are still countries (including ones with substantial Jewish communities) where the need for pidyon is at least as common now as it probably was in Chazal's day. Also that while in many countries paying ransoms may be technically illegal, hardly anybody who is r"l in that situation cares about this. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 09:35:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Riceman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 12:35:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <555A14EF.8070305@optimum.net> RMB: <. In particular, his very first source (see link to mar'eh meqomos sheet) Nissah 20b. Yalta, "Rebbetzin Nachman", asks her mar'os questions of Rabbah bar bar Chanah and Rabbi Yitzchaq bereih deR' Yehudah, not her husband. Similarly mishnah Nega'im 2:5 saying you can't pasen nega'im even of relatives, Bekhoros 31a about judging one's own bekhoros.>> The standard hiluq is is'hazek issura or not. See, e.g., Hochmas Adam H. Shechitah 1:10, Binas Adam ad. loc., and HA H. Nidah 109:6 and BA ad. loc. I think the issue is that hora'ah in the presence of hezkas issur is considered eidus. The argument of self interest raises some problems: 1. Do you know of cases where rabbis have referred questions about communal matters to experts elsewhere because they are self interested since they live in the community? For example, do Hachmai EY refer questions about communal safety (e.g., military matters) to rabbis in Hutz LaAretz because they are self interested? 2. Why shouldn't self interest be a psul in the absence of hezkas issur? I know people on this list have cited it to me in the case of restaurants certifying their own products. David Riceman From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 10:03:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 13:03:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518164134.GC20828@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> <20150518164134.GC20828@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555A1B64.8060409@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 12:41 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > What am I missing? That what we announce is *not* anything to do with the actual moon, which the eidim in RG's time would have claimed to have seen, but the notional averaged moon on which *our* calendar is based. The *real* molad, i.e. conjunction of moon and sun, does vary, because the real moon does not orbit the earth in a perfect circle; the notional molad on which we base our calendar, and which we announce every month (except, ironically, the one month when it actually matters), is perfectly regular. And "molad" does seem to mean the conjunction, not the moment when the first sliver is visible, because the gemara in RH seems to say that the first possible sighting of the new moon is six hours *after* the molad. So we do know exactly what we are announcing: the number on which the calendar is based. Given this Shabbos's announcement, one can easily calculate that next Rosh Hashana will be on a Monday, exactly as it should be. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 10:49:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 13:49:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> At 11:40 AM 5/18/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. Yet it says in the siddurim that it should be announced so people know when it is! My understanding is that what is announced is Jerusalem solar time and this is different from Jerusalem local time. YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 11:47:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 14:47:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150518184701.GD20828@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 01:03:32PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : On 05/18/2015 12:41 PM, Micha Berger wrote: : >What am I missing? : : That what we announce is *not* anything to do with the actual moon, which : the eidim in RG's time would have claimed to have seen, but the notional : averaged moon on which *our* calendar is based... First, as Zev noted to me in private, I meant RH 25a (not Mes' Shabbos). But the point I asked "what am I missing?" about was Rabbi Gamliel questioning what people thought they saw, not the average. In R' Gamliel's day, the length of the molad was pretty close to exact; even today it's closer than they had any way to measure. But that's still an average. And real values can be more than 6 hr earlier. So, how can R' Gamliel question someone's observation for being less than a molad, when in half of all months re'iyah will be early -- and many 5 or 6 hr early. : So we do know exactly what we are announcing: the number on which the : calendar is based. Given this Shabbos's announcement, one can easily : calculate that next Rosh Hashana will be on a Monday, exactly as it : should be. As I said in my previous post... Yes, that explans the length of the molad, but not the point in the idealized cycle. How much moon must be visible for it to be a new moon? Or more accurately, what was visible when the molad was al pi re'iyah that we are now using a simplified model to approximate? And we can't just calculate what it is the molad is approximating, because we don't know what clock to use. It looks to me like Hillel was using a point halfway between EY and Bavel, somewhere in the center of the contiguous Jewish settlement. But that's largely guesswork. On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 01:49:49PM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : My understanding is that what is announced is Jerusalem solar time : and this is different from Jerusalem local time. Which is why I left out the word standard, writing "Jerusalem Time" rather than Israel Standard Time. But as I wrote above, it's not. See also my first post (for Avodah) on this thread for more detail. In 1999, R Yisrael Medad posted something about this on MJ, after having R/Prof Ely Merbach, R/Prof Yaakov Loewinger and the Bar Ilan astronomy dept bad the question around. See They assume Jerusalem Mean Time, but they make the fundamental error of discussing mean conjunction -- no moon -- not the first sliver. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 13:31:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 16:31:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150518203148.GB4022@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 02:24:32PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : >Yes, that explans the length of the molad, but not the point in the : >idealized cycle. How much moon must be visible for it to be a new : >moon? [...] they make the fundamental error of discussing mean : >conjunction -- no moon -- not the first sliver. : : I don't think they made an error at all. The molad is the conjunction; : the earliest time at which the moon can be seen is six hours after : the molad. How do you know this? The Rambam (Qiddush Levana 6:1) appears to say it's the average of the first time the moon could be seen "kedei leida im yeira'eh hayarei'ach of lo yeira'eh.... bemahalakhtam ha'emtza'i, who haniqra 'molad'". And my whole point was that we didn't know how big of a sliver is "yeira'eh", but I'm willing to entertain the possibility that we announce when it cannot be seen, as a way of knowing by deduction when it could. I just can't see it as a given. Combining not knowing how much -- if any -- after the conjunction the molad is with not knowing which lattitude's clock is being used was the not knowing what the molad really means. You could move the lattitude by changing the size sliver. As for why we announce the molad... The Yerei'im gives the answer Zev did. The MA quotes the Yerei'im and says that mevorkhim hachodesh is lezeikher the real qiddush hachodesh by Sanhedrin. Which is why we stand. RMF (IM OC 1:142) says this is in imitation of the qehillah who would stand when answering "Mequdash! Mequdash!" I find the MA's answer more compelling, because it unlikely that it is to know when Rosh Chodesh should be, when the one RC that most depends on the molad isn't announced -- Tishrei. It also adds resonence for me when saying "Mi sheAsah Nissim", that before the chazan announces ther month, we ask for a return of the qiddush hachodesh being commemorated. And if truly "chaverim kol Yisrael" and we acted it, we would have a Sanhedrin. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 11:24:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 14:24:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 01:49 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > At 11:40 AM 5/18/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >> Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. > Yet it says in the siddurim that it should be announced so people know > when it is! It's the number used for calculating the calendar. That's all people need to know. > My understanding is that what is announced is Jerusalem solar time > and this is different from Jerusalem local time. No, it's different from J'm *standard* time, i.e. the modern time system invented by the railroads, which of course we take no notice of. On 05/18/2015 02:47 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > But the point I asked "what am I missing?" about was Rabbi Gamliel > questioning what people thought they saw, not the average. Why are you discussing that? The topic is the announcement in shul, which relates entirely to our calculated system, not to RG's system. You wrote that nobody knows what it is that's being announced, and I dispute that. RG is entirely irrelevant, since he was dealing with the actual moon, not the notional moon that our system deals with. > Yes, that explans the length of the molad, but not the point in the > idealized cycle. How much moon must be visible for it to be a new > moon? [...] they make the fundamental error of discussing mean > conjunction -- no moon -- not the first sliver. I don't think they made an error at all. The molad is the conjunction; the earliest time at which the moon can be seen is six hours after the molad. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 14:36:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 17:36:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518203148.GB4022@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> <20150518203148.GB4022@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555A5B79.2030308@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 04:31 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > > How do you know this? The Rambam (Qiddush Levana 6:1) appears to say > it's the average of the first time the moon could be seen "kedei leida im > yeira'eh hayarei'ach of lo yeira'eh.... bemahalakhtam ha'emtza'i, > who haniqra 'molad'". On the contrary, that Rambam says *explicitly* that the molad is the exact moment of the conjunction, which is *not* when it can be seen. Read it again and you will surely see this. > As for why we announce the molad... The Yerei'im gives the answer > Zev did.The MA quotes the Yerei'im and says that mevorkhim hachodesh > is lezeikher the real qiddush hachodesh by Sanhedrin. Which is why > we stand. RMF (IM OC 1:142) says this is in imitation of the qehillah > who would stand when answering "Mequdash! Mequdash!" Neither the Yere'im nor the MA even mention the announcement of the molad, let alone give any reason for it. All the Yere'im says is that the announcement of Rosh Chodesh in shul is not at all related to kidush hachodesh, but is merely so people should know when Rosh Chodesh will be. The MA adds that although this is true, the custom is to stand for it, as a zecher to kidush hachodesh, which was done standing. R Akiva Eger asks how this could be so, since we know that a beis din must sit, not stand. RMF answers thatkiddush hachodesh was done notby the BD, but by the audience, after hearing the BD's psak, and they were surely standing, and this is what the MA means. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 14:49:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 17:49:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: RMicha Berger wrote: >Among the arguments that came up in the discussion of the Kosher Switch was that it's zilzul Shabbos. >>The thought hit me, though... Refraining from operating electrical devices has only been a potential issue for 125 years or so. And except for Yekkes, most of our ancestors come from places where it has been less than a century since electricity became part of our lives. >So it's very hard to say that "not using electricity" is a defining feature of the Shabbos experience.< True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul Shabbos. (Of course, by this argument, putting an electric light on or off should be prohibited even if the use of electricity is not a m'lacha.) >Contrast this to hotza'ah, including haavarah, which take up what seems like 1/3 of chazal's discussion of issur melakhah (rough estimate from Berakhos and Eruvin in mishna, Tosefta, Y-mi and Bavli).< I assume that "Berakhos" should be replaced by "Shabbos." >When community eruvin got started, wasn't there a much easier argument of zilzul? Why wasn't it made? Indeed we use the general kelal of being meiqil WRT eiruvin to quite an extent to build one. And what does the fact that a community eruv is NOT zilzul Shabbos say about the nature of zilzul Shabbos and its applicability to nidon didan?< What tzuras hapesach and eiruv permit is not carrying prohibited by the Torah. Rather, it is, in effect, a built-in exception to the issurim imposed mid'rabbanan by two g'zeiros: the classification of certain areas, which min haTorah are m'kom p'tur, as a new entity called karmelis, and the imposing of a prohibition of hotza'a from one r'shus hayachid to another of different ownership. Both were in use long before there was a city eruv. E.g., persons sharing a two-family house with a common fenced yard would make an eruv to permit carrying to and from their living quarters to the others' and to the yard. Likewise, a house opening to an unfenced yard would make a tzuras hapesach to permit carrying between house and yard. And, of course, two houses opening to a common unfenced yard would make a tzuras hapesach to "enclose" the yard, and then an eruv to permit carrying among houses and yard. The city eruv was not an introduction of a new practice, but a larger-scale use of already common practices. How does this constitute zilzul Shabbos? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 14:31:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 22:31:48 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000001d091b2$0c5074f0$24f15ed0$@org.uk> RZS writes: >It should be borne in mind that there are still countries (including ones >with substantial Jewish communities) where the need for pidyon is at least >as common now as it probably was in Chazal's day. Are you thinking of South America? I confess that is what springs to mind from your suggestion, although how often ransom is really required in such countries I don't know. > Also that while in many countries paying ransoms may be technically illegal, hardly anybody who is >r"l in that situation cares about this. But presumably you are talking about the same ones (eg South America). My question relates solely to countries, like Britain and Israel, to which Rav Zylberstein was referring. He took it for granted that in fact it was exceedingly uncommon for pidyon to be needed. I am not so sure it is so uncommon, but I doubt very much that in these countries "hardly anybody who is r"l in that situation cares about this". That is, while I know from the press of numbers of cases in which pidyon has been needed for British and Israeli citizens, in none of these cases were private individuals allowed to redeem (despite them quite naturally wanting to, and possibly being willing to do so, if they had not been restrained, whether by circumstances or otherwise). Clearly if one lives in a place where pidyon is common, and where, whatever the technical law says, in practice individual family members redeem, neither my question nor Rav Zylberstein's gets off the ground. But I don't think the existence of a place in the world, that one would never contemplate living in (and is not the locus of the ketuba), is relevant to the obligations under that ketuba which must relate to the places that the couple live and the governments under which they live. Even when it might involve some less scrupulous situations - one of the mothers in our school in England had the situation that her sons were effectively kidnapped by her ex-husband and held in Russia. And while yes, ultimately she found where they were hidden by means of a private investigator, which cost her private money, she would never have been able to extract them had: (a) Russia not signed up to the Hague convention; (b) the Russian court given judgment in her favour; and (c) the Russian police at the bequest of the English government on the basis of the Russian judgment actually going in and retrieving the boys (whose location they had singularly failed to identify until the private investigator had provided the cast iron information as to where they were). And she would have struggled to have brought them back into England without the rulings of the Russian authorities. And even if an adult is different, I cannot see the British government allowing one of its citizens to go off and try and attempt pidyon of another of its citizens without its active involvement, it being seen as cutting across its foreign policy (even if this was occurring in a place where ransom payments amongst locals was common). >Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 15:53:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 18:53:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] measurement error In-Reply-To: <20150111185211.GA15414@aishdas.org> References: <54AD8B25.3010103@optimum.net> <20150111185211.GA15414@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150518225308.GA15666@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 01:52:11PM -0500, Micha Berger wrote: : In an appreciated bit of siyata dishmaya, my Arukh haShulchan yomi : sechedule brought me to a primary source : on this subject -- AhS OC 363:32-35. The he.WikiSource.org ("Vikiteqst") : copy is at ... : When dealing with mavui, where there is only one mavui and therefore one : measuring process to be used for everyone, the above applies. However, : when the measurement is only for one person's use, tbey should be : measuring for himself, with his own norms. : And here he adds a touch of subjectivity: a person should measure how : far he himself could walk. And the rule of carrying in rh"r a distance : of no more 4 of one's own amos is brought into that umbrella. : The reason for the general rule is to cover the personal amos of the : people who will be using the measuring. : BUT, and this is why I do not follow, he opened se'if 32 by telling us : the variability is 1/48 of the total (1/24 of an etzba per ammah). Which : is far less than the variability in forearm lengths in most groups of : people. For example, my own sukkah is used by Yoni, who stands 6'3" and by : my own 5'3" -- and my arms are on the shorter side, even proportionally. : When we hold up elbows together, my ammah ends just past his wrist. Not : within 47/48 of eachother. I came across another AhS datapoint for this thread, OC 586:14. He quotes the Rambam Shofar 1:5, discussing the minimum length of a shofar: that you can hold it in your hand and it's visible on either end. The AhS explains the intent as being the size of the toqei'ah's hand, but rather an average person's hands, "veshi'uro tefach sheheim 4 godelim". Then there is a debate whether the tefach has to be a generous one, so as to be visible (Tur, quoting Ri Gei'os) or a narrow one (Tur himself and SA), which is still visible if the toqei'ah uses four fingers -- after all, they'll still be narrower than 4 thumbs. So the shiur is neither personal nor really the standard tefach. It is literally as the gemara says, what can be held and still seen. Which is why there is a machloqes about where the tefach stands in relation to the real shiur. But, visible if hypothetically held by an average hand. And if the tqoei'ah has wide hands, he could hold a minimal shofar without it being visible, and it would still be kosher. The AhS also says this was already explained in Nidah 26b, which is a depressing gemara about miscarriages, and a tefach comes up in shiurim for tum'ah, but I didn't see where it mentionrs our topic of what kind of tefach is used. What I find even more interesting is that there is no chiluq being drawn between someone who blows in shul and someone who blows just for himself. Wouldn't the rule from OC 363 mean that someone in the latter situation should use what is visible when their own hand holds it? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 15:35:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 18:35:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: <000001d091b2$0c5074f0$24f15ed0$@org.uk> References: <000001d091b2$0c5074f0$24f15ed0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <555A6924.4010709@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 05:31 PM, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: > RZS writes: > >> It should be borne in mind that there are still countries (including ones >> with substantial Jewish communities) where the need for pidyon is at least >> as common now as it probably was in Chazal's day. > > Are you thinking of South America? Well, Latin America (so as to include Mexico). There are also other such countries, such as India, the Philippines, Nigeria, where the need for pidyon is common, but there are not a lot of Jews living there. > But I don't > think the existence of a place in the world, that one would never > contemplate living in (and is not the locus of the ketuba), is relevant to > the obligations under that ketuba which must relate to the places that the > couple live and the governments under which they live. Even a couple marrying in such a country must contemplate the possibility that one or both might one day travel to a country where kidnapping is common, and be kidnapped. Even in Chazal's day the danger was not so much where people lived as on the highways and the seas, where they might travel. Also, I am not at all sure that it is actually illegal in most normal countries to pay ransom. What is illegal is giving *anything* to groups that are officially listed by that country's government as terrorists. If the kidnappers are not on the list, so that it would be legal to give them a gift, then I don't think there's a law against paying them ransom. (Perhaps there should be.) -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 19 11:32:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joseph Kaplan via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 14:32:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Standing at a Chupah Message-ID: <004f01d09262$1f0388c0$5d0a9a40$@tenzerlunin.com> "Truth be told, I have seen the following many times. When the grandparents who are 70 or more years old walk down, no one stands for them. However, when the chosson and kallah walk down everyone stands for them." At almost every MO wedding I've attended over the past 5-10 years, everyone stood when the grandparents walked down whether they were older than 70 or not. But if, God willing, I'm around for my grandchildren's weddings, I plan to walk (or, if necessary, wheelchair) down the aisle whether anybody stands for me or not. Joseph -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 19 12:18:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 15:18:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150519191809.GA8642@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 05:49:16PM -0400, elazar teitz via Avodah wrote: :> So it's very hard to say that "not using electricity" is a defining :> feature of the Shabbos experience. : True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature : of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so : accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul : Shabbos. (Of course, by this argument, putting an electric light on or off : should be prohibited even if the use of electricity is not a m'lacha.) As would replacing gefilte fish with sushi? It's not that people from Sinai to around 100 years ago actually experienced avoiding the lightswitch, nor did they even consciously experience not having one -- since there was no conception of an alternative. Not using electricity, and saying that qedushas shabbos requires avoiding electricity are really two different things, experientially. 100 years ago we had an opportunity to do something new on Shabbos, much like when shomerei Shabbos first learned of sushi. The difference is that we did assur one new opportunity, and not the other. ... : What tzuras hapesach and eiruv permit is not carrying prohibited by : the Torah. Rather, it is, in effect, a built-in exception to the issurim : imposed mid'rabbanan by two g'zeiros... ... : The city eruv was not an introduction of a new practice, but a : larger-scale use of already common practices. How does this constitute : zilzul Shabbos? Yes, that explains why it's nothing clearer cut than zilzul Shabbos. AIUI, worrying about zilzul means that the mechanism is mutar, but the goal is one that cheapens Shabbos, removes some of the feeling of its qedushah. Like taking the pre-existing concept of eiruv as a way to have a reshus that was no included in Shelomo ubeis dino's original issur hotza'ah and stretching it to a much bigger area than ever before, so that most people never have reason to leave it most weeks. So that the entire issur goes from being one of the dominant features of Shabbos (judging just in blatt of discussion) to barely ever experienced. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 45th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Malchus: What is the beauty of Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity (on all levels of relationship)? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 19 12:46:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 22:46:01 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] donor egg Message-ID: "A 65-year-old Bnei Brak woman gave birth this week, becoming the oldest woman to give birth in Israel. The ultra-Orthodox woman and her 67-year-old husband had been battling infertility for 46 years before the birth at Kfar Sava?s Meir hospital. After fertility treatments abroad and with the help of a donor egg, the woman became pregnant, giving birth to a 2.685-kg baby in her 35th week of pregnancy. ?To the best of my knowledge, this is the oldest woman to give birth in Israel. It is extremely rare that pregnancy at this age ends well. The ultra-Orthodox circle from which the couple comes attributed the pregnancy and birth to a blessing the woman received from a Hassidic rabbi. " http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel/.premium-1.657230 Given all the halachic controversy of who is the halachic mother I am a little surprised -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 07:11:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 17:11:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? Message-ID: There is a famous Medrash that before offering the Torah to the Jewish people Hashem offered it to the other nations of the world. "First He approached the children of Esav and asked them, "Do you wish to accept the Torah?" They replied, "What is written in it?" "Do not murder." They said, "...Our father was assured that, 'By your sword will you live (Bereishit 27:40)!'" Next Hashem went to the children of Ammon and Moav, and asked, "Do you wish to accept the Torah?" They asked, "What is written in it?" "Do not commit sexual immorality." They responded, "Master of the Universe, our very existence is based on an immoral act!" Hashem then went to the children of Yishmael, and asked them, "Do you wish to accept the Torah?" They asked, "What is written in it?" "Do not steal." They responded, "Master of the Universe, the essence of our father was to be a bandit, as it is written, 'And he will be a man of the wild; his hand will be in all...'" (Bereishit 16:12)." Sifri, Ve'Zot HaBracha #343 However, the Medrash has an obvious question. All of the examples of Torah prohibitions given by the Medrash, are also prohibited by the 7 mitzvos of Bnei Noach. The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from murder so how would accepting the Torah make things worse for them? The same goes for arayos and stealing, these were already prohibited to them anyway so why does the medrash specifically pick these as examples for Torah prohibitions? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 11:16:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 14:16:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150520181647.GA15475@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 05:11:29PM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : However, the Medrash has an obvious question. All of the examples of Torah : prohibitions given by the Medrash, are also prohibited by the 7 mitzvos of : Bnei Noach. The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from murder so how would : accepting the Torah make things worse for them? The same goes for arayos : and stealing, these were already prohibited to them anyway so why does the : medrash specifically pick these as examples for Torah prohibitions? I raised this and a second question in : Hashem's answer to each of the nations is strange. Why choose the one sin their forefather was known for? Is that how you would do kiruv, starting with the hard stuff? By comparing this medrash to the opening pasuk in this week's parshah, [Lekh Lekha,] we can get a better understanding of the point of the story. "Hashem said to Avram, `Go for yourself from your homeland, from your birthplace and from your father's house to the land which I will show you'." (12:1) The first sentence recorded in the Torah of the Jewish mission on earth is a commandment for Avram to leave his home and his father. Avram didn't say, "I can't worship G-d because my very substance his idolatry, because my father, Terach, manufactures idols". Hashem orders Avram to leave the culture that made him, to leave his father's sphere of influence, and he does. Avram's reply was "And Avram went, just as G-d told him". (12:4) If Hashem said he could change, rise above Ur Casdim to become fit for both the land of Israel and the father of the people of Israel, then he goes. Is man a creature of fate or of destiny? Is his future foretold, etched in rock, unchangeable? Or can he rebuild himself into something greater than he was? Clearly the Torah insists on the latter. The very key to accepting the Torah is to be committed to use its ideas and its mitzvos to improve and to grow. This was the failing ascribed to the other nations in the medrash. They saw a given flaw in their national character as their substance, immutable. Hashem wasn't asking them about a particular prohibition, but about their commitment to leave their "father's house". If they do not believe they can change, what purpose can getting the Torah serve them? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 46th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Malchus: How can some forms of Fax: (270) 514-1507 "unity" be over domineering? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 11:48:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 14:48:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: <20150520181647.GA15475@aishdas.org> References: <20150520181647.GA15475@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555CD6E5.5000606@sero.name> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 05:11:29PM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from murder so how would : accepting the Torah make things worse for them? The same goes for arayos : and stealing, these were already prohibited to them anyway sowhy does the : medrash specifically pick these as examples for Torah prohibitions? Perhaps that was His point: you can't even keep the mitzvos you already have, so how can you want more? On 05/20/2015 02:16 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > I raised this and a second question in > : > Hashem's answer to each of the nations is strange. Why choose the one > sin their forefather was known for? Is that how you would do kiruv, > starting with the hard stuff? Why the premise that the purpose was kiruv? On the contrary, I think the medrash's intent is clear, that Hashem did *not* want them to accept His offer, and thus pitched it in the manner most likely to be rejected. The only purpose of making the offer in the first place was so they wouldn't be able to complain that they hadn't been given the chance. He wasn't trying to sell it to them, He was showing them why they didn't want it, and therefore shouldn't be upset that the Jews were getting it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 17:29:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 20:29:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] 65 Year-Old Woman Gives Birth to First Child in Bnei Brak In-Reply-To: <20150520.101659.17683.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150520.101659.17683.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150521002935.GC9522@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 02:16:59PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Areivim wrote: : If we were speaking Lashon Hakodesh, you'd be correct - Bar Mitzvah is : a noun, and only a noun. However, we are clearly speaking English, and : several dictionaries tell me that in English, "Bar Mitzvah" is both a noun : and a verb. See, for example, http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bar+mitzvah : which gives "bar mitzvahed" (and other forms) as examples. : Languages are funny this way. Stuff can change when a word enters a : new language. However, there is no real concept correspnding to the English word "bar mitzvahed". The borrowing was primarily done by non-traditional Jews, who think that being called up to the Torah changes your status. But in reality, "bar mitzvahed" makes as much sense as saying someone pubertied or menopaused. We O could borrow the word as shorthand for "became a bar mitzah" but since the original borrowing is really based on a misunderstanding of the Torah, why should we? It'll just make it harder to clear up the mistake. : If I'm not mistaken, the Yiddish word for "holiday" is pronounced : "yuntif", and it is spelled "yud vav memsofit blankspace tes vav beis", : and is considered a single word despite the fact... IIRC, on the NY State Yiddish Regents Examination in the late 1970s, it was spelled as it sounds, one word, yud-alef-nun-tes-eyin-ende fei (w/ a refuyah line over it). (R' Riskin, whose HS I attended, required a foreign language, and Hebrew doesn't count as "foreign". The Hebrew Regents exam was a separate requirement to graduate. As was Red Cross swimming certification and you could choose either CPR or First Aid. The latter two were because the HS is the father's shaliach for all of chinukh and education. Anyway, I already had some background in Yiddish, and I heard that the Yiddish regents eere easier than more popular languages like Spanish or French, so...) But the, Chassidishe Yiddish and YIVO Yiddish (the legacy of Litvishe Yiddishists) are different dialects. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 46th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Malchus: How can some forms of Fax: (270) 514-1507 "unity" be over domineering? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 17:53:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 20:53:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Admin: [Areivim] 65 Year-Old Woman Gives Birth to First Child in Bnei Brak In-Reply-To: <20150521002935.GC9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150520.101659.17683.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> <20150521002935.GC9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150521005329.GF9522@aishdas.org> The previous email was misdirected. Replies to it will not be accepted. (On Avodah. If Areivim's mods approve it, reply there.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 18:57:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 20:57:21 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <555D3B81.5030709@starways.net> I think the obvious answer is that midrash is midrash. One midrash doesn't have to be consistent with another. It's there to learn from, and the message of this one comes through regardless of the Noachide laws. On 5/20/2015 9:11 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > There is a famous Medrash that before offering the Torah to the Jewish > people Hashem offered it to the other nations of the world. > > However, the Medrash has an obvious question. All of the examples of > Torah prohibitions given by the Medrash, are also prohibited by the 7 > mitzvos of Bnei Noach. The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from > murder so how would accepting the Torah make things worse for them? > The same goes for arayos and stealing, these were already prohibited > to them anyway so why does the medrash specifically pick these as > examples for Torah prohibitions? > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 03:36:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 06:36:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: <555D3B81.5030709@starways.net> References: <555D3B81.5030709@starways.net> Message-ID: <20150521103619.GC7831@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 08:57:21PM -0500, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: : I think the obvious answer is that midrash is midrash. One midrash : doesn't have to be consistent with another. It's there to learn : from, and the message of this one comes through regardless of the : Noachide laws. I believe the question was finding internal consistency in a single medrash from the Yalqut Shim'oni. The medrash that says the nations were offered the Torah itself says the example mitzvos were ones they were already obligated in, and ones their ancestor was known for. So, what does that tell us about the message? To me, it says that the offer was more about testing one's willingness to change. Therefore, each is asked if they would be willing to refrain from something that they should already be avoiding, but is part of their current culture. And that, in turn, speaks to seeing the Torah as a tool for self-transformation. Which I mean in a manner vague enough to include both Chassidim and Litvaks. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 07:50:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 10:50:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Ways to find non-meat or non-milk Message-ID: <20150521145032.GH9522@aishdas.org> >From the founder of Machon Zomer, RYRosen, on possible ways to eat kosher meat and milk together without violating basar bechalav. -micha Shabbat B'Shabbato Translated by Moshe Goldberg Point Of View Bit of Reality from Sinai Rabbi Yisrael Rosen Dean of the Zomet Institute "This teaches you that scripture, the Mishna, halacha, tosefta, hagadda, and whatever a veteran scholar will teach in the future already exists, and it was all given as halacha to Moshe at Sinai" [Kohellet Rabba 1]. ... Recipes with Meat and Milk In honor of the holiday, we have pieced together for you, from the newest volume, some juicy samples of dairy halachot, as is fitting for the holiday of Shavuot, in order to fulfill the verse, "Honey and milk are under your tongue" [Shir Hashirim 4:11]. We will capture your interest for halachic sophistication by offering you, from this new volume of Techumin, a serving of meat cooked in milk (yes, you read that right!). Compare this to Rav Nachman, who gave his wife an udder soaked in milk in order to satisfy her desire to taste a combination of milk and meat (Chulin 109b). And what is our enticing menu item that fits this requirement? See below... (1) "Ben Pekua" -- It is an accepted halacha (admittedly quite odd) that if a cow is slaughtered in the eighth month of her pregnancy and the calf is found to be alive, it is called a "Ben Pekua" and there is no need to slaughter it. It can be eaten in any manner, including even taking off a limb while it is still alive (Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Dei'ah 13), even many years later, and there is no need to check if it has one of the faults that would render a normal animal unkosher. And now, here is the most surprising part: The offspring of a male and female "Ben Pekua" (both of the "parents must be of this type) will never require kosher slaughtering either, and this includes all subsequent generations. (However, if only one parent is a "Ben Pekua," the offspring cannot be made kosher, even by slaughtering!) Rabbi Meir Rabi from Australia published a dramatic article where he claims that by definition a Ben Pekua is not cattle (but is rather the same as fish), and therefore not only is there no need to remove the veins in the hind quarter, one is even permitted to cook it and eat it together with milk! To come to this conclusion, the rabbi bases his ruling on a Torah insight by the Meshech Chochma, that our Patriarch Avraham served his guests, the angels, "a calf (literally, the son of cattle, or a ben pekua!) that was tender and good," from the womb of a pregnant cow, and he gave them "butter and milk, and the calf" [Bereishit 18:8]. Rabbi Rabi went further, and acted on his ruling. Using this method he created male and female "sheep" and grew flocks from them, and he now has a culinary and halachic declaration -- these animals do not need to be slaughtered, their veins do not have to be removed, their fat is not prohibited -- and the rabbi has a long list of other benefits. However, modern rabbis do not accept this idea! In the new volume of Techumin, Rabbi Zev Vitman, the rabbi of Tenuvah (which sells milk, meat, and fish) vigorously opposes the novel ruling. Aside from the release from the requirement of ritual slaughtering (which is carried over from the mother or the grandmother of the calf), Rabbi Vitman disagrees with (almost) all the other conclusions. He finds no justification for defining the Ben Pekua as a "new and separate species." In addition, in volume 19 of Techumin, sixteen years ago, Sephardi Chief Rabbi Bakshi-Doron rejected a similar proposal that was sent to him by meat farmers on the Golan, fearing that it would lead to serious problems. Other prominent rabbis, such as Rabbi Shmuel Vazner and Rabbi Asher Weiss, warned against getting involved in this sophisticated and complex halachic problem. (2) We are thus left to search elsewhere for a combination of meat and milk: meat that has been cloned from stem cells! In a previous volume, Rev Tvi Reizman (a well-known businessman from Los Angeles who is also a Torah scholar well versed in matters of halacha and actuality) writes about an "artificial hamburger" which was created two years ago. This is produced from artificial meat made from stem cells of a cow which was not slaughtered or which was declared unkosher ("tereifa"). In principle, he concludes that clone meat is not real meat, and that it can therefore be cooked and eaten with milk! (The summary of the article includes many details which will not be repeated here. For example, the problem of appearances can be solved by proper packaging and declarations, as is done for soya milk.) However, my friends, I doubt that you should rush out after the holiday to search for an "artificial hamburger," in order to season it with honey and dip it in milk. Rabbi Yaacov Ariel opposes the idea in the new volume of Techumin. He concludes that such artificial meat can only be produced from a kosher animal, and that then "it will be considered meat for all intents and purposes, including the matter of cooking with milk." So, in the end we are left with the solution in the Talmud: Does anybody want some milk-saturated udders? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 08:36:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 11:36:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula Message-ID: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> In OC 196:1, the Rama mentions the minhag of blowing 30 qolos at the end of RH mussaf. "Ule'achar sheyatze'u bazeh, shuv ein litqua od bechinam." (Although a qatan, even higia lechinuch, may.) So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. As for being yotzei... Mitzvas shofar only requires tashra"t, tasha"t OR tara"t, 3 times. A point the AhS makes besheim the Rash besheim R' Hai Gaon (Shilhei RH), "delav sefeiqos gemuros hein", that Rav Avahu was mesaqein in order for everyone to do the same thing, not because otherwise you're not yotzei shemie'as qol shofar. The AhS criptically adds, "(ulevad zeh yeish bazeh inyan gadol)." So the question is whether you have to blow in numerous ways few other people use in order to fulfil a taqanah created to create uniformity of practice. But enough of the tirade, and back to the point: Being machmir in hilkhos shofar this way involves a qulah in hilkhos yom tov. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:25:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:25:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150521202527.GP9522@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 02:46:27PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : On 05/21/2015 11:36 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: :> In OC 196:1, the Rama mentions the minhag of blowing 30 qolos at the :> end of RH mussaf. "Ule'achar sheyatze'u bazeh, shuv ein litqua od :> bechinam." :> (Although a qatan, even higia lechinuch, may.) : : Not bechinam; for practice, so that he may one day blow for real. That's not what the Rama says, though. He says "you're allowed to tell him to blow (HaMagid, Hil' Shofar, pereq 2) and it's mutar to for him to blow all day (Or Zarua dRH)." The mishnah says "any me'qvim es hatinoqos militqoa, aval mis'asqim imahem ad sheyilmedu", which implies they are not stopped even after yilmedu. The gemara ad loc (RH 33a-b) says that a qatan higia' lechinukh is encouraged to blow to learn, but any child is not prevented from blowing. So I think the Rama is paralleling the gemara, and not saying the seifa is only for chinukh, or for a child who doesn't need to be stopped because he isn't ready yet. The AhS's wording is even further from your deduction. :> So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the :> qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, :> etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. : No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the : last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. They aren't to fulfill minhag. Hey, I didn't outright assur the practice, I said it relies on being meiqil, such as calling wanting to be chosheish for some minority opinion shitah a need to blow. In general, I'm increasingly uncomfortable with this concept of being machmir to be chosheish for ... It seems to reflect a lack of emunah in kelalei pesaq and the authority of pesaq. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 11:46:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 14:46:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 11:36 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > In OC 196:1, the Rama mentions the minhag of blowing 30 qolos at the > end of RH mussaf. "Ule'achar sheyatze'u bazeh, shuv ein litqua od > bechinam." > > (Although a qatan, even higia lechinuch, may.) Not bechinam; for practice, so that he may one day blow for real. > So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the > qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, > etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 05:09:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Arie Folger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 14:09:57 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: RMB wrote: > Yes, that explains why it's nothing clearer cut than zilzul Shabbos. > AIUI, worrying about zilzul means that the mechanism is mutar, but > the goal is one that cheapens Shabbos, removes some of the feeling > of its qedushah. > > Like taking the pre-existing concept of eiruv as a way to have a > reshus that was no included in Shelomo ubeis dino's original issur > hotza'ah and stretching it to a much bigger area than ever before, > so that most people never have reason to leave it most weeks. So > that the entire issur goes from being one of the dominant features > of Shabbos (judging just in blatt of discussion) to barely ever > experienced. RAW actually deals with this explicitly by citing IIRC Rambam on why Chazal legislated mutze. We are not all farmers or builders, not even cooks and bakers. Hence, many of us hardly ever come close to deoraitot of Shabbat. However, Shabbaton requires shevita hanikeret,so Chazal legislated muktze to create a shevita hanikeret. Says RAW, even if he is wrong on electricity being a deoraita (but he doesn't think he is wrong), nonetheless, the consensus of poskim on elecricity makes it into something akin to muktze. That never happened regarding gefillte fish [which outside Hungary hardly anyone ever ate except on Yom Tov, since what passes for gefillte fish is just the filling. ]. No one ever suggested it is chillul Shabbos to eat gevldige Sushi. At worst, some puerile yeshive boocher called it goiyishe maakhoolim. -- Arie Folger, Recent blog posts on http://ariefolger.wordpress.com/ * Kann man die Religion des anderen korrekt wahrnehmen? ? Zur Woche der Br?derlichkeit * ???? ???? ????? ? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ???? ??? * Ist Pessach f?r die Vergangenheit oder die Zukunft? * Frag den Rabbi ? Wie backte man Mazzot in der Bibel? * Frag den Rabbi ? Seit wann und warum bedecken j?dische m?nner beim gebet ihr haupt? * A Critique of Liberal Orthodox Approach to Halacha -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:38:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:38:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 02:46:27PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the : last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. Having 100 qolos as learned from Eim Sisera's 100 cries is a minhag recorded already in the Arukh, and is mentioned by Todafos and the Rosh in RH pereq 4. (AhS OC 596:1) The Tur that R' Amram Gaon mentions of minhag of a single teru'ah gedolah without a teqi'ah kedei le'arbeiv hasatan, but we do not have this minhag. The the AhS continues (se'if 2) with the already mentioned Rama, "ke'achar sheyatz'u bazeh, ein litqoa od bechinam". Which is why I said that blowing more than 100 qolos for reasons less than minhag requires a qula-dik reading of "chinam". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:31:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:31:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521202527.GP9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521202527.GP9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E409C.7080609@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 04:25 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > >:> So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the >:> qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, >:> etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. >: No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the >: last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. > They aren't to fulfill minhag. Hey, I didn't outright assur the practice, > I said it relies on being meiqil, such as calling wanting to be chosheish > for some minority opinion shitah a need to blow. That's not a kulah, because the issur is davka when it's bechinam, and so long as there's a reason it's not chinam. Their wish to hear shofar the way this rishon or that one wanted it heard is at least as good a reason as our "le`arvev es hasoton", or giving women a "nachas ruach". [Email #2. -micha] Follow-up: However, your chashash brings up an interesting suggestion. if they are worried about all possible chashshos, then maybe they should worry about yours too, and they can easily solve it: let them go on mivtzo'im and find Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all, and blow for them according to these opinions. That way, not only will they have heard shofar according to all possible opinions, and not only will they have the zechus of those Jews having heard shofar according to at least one opinion (which is certainly kosher, as you correctly point out), but their "extra" tekios will be with a bracha! -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:51:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:51:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E454E.60107@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 04:38 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 02:46:27PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: > : No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the > : last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. > > Having 100 qolos as learned from Eim Sisera's 100 cries is a minhag > recorded already in the Arukh, and is mentioned by Todafos and the > Rosh in RH pereq 4. (AhS OC 596:1) Yes, but what of the extra 30 kolos after davening? Those are not in the 100 kolos, they're just le'arvev es hasoton, and yet nobody seems to raise this objection to them. > The the AhS continues (se'if 2) with the already mentioned Rama, > "ke'achar sheyatz'u bazeh, ein litqoa od bechinam". Which is why I said > that blowing more than 100 qolos for reasons less than minhag requires > a qula-dik reading of "chinam". No, it's not kuladig, it's just what the word means. Any valid reason is not chinam. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:55:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:55:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <555E454E.60107@sero.name> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> <555E454E.60107@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150521205546.GA9166@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 04:51:26PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Yes, but what of the extra 30 kolos after davening? Those are not in the : 100 kolos, they're just le'arvev es hasoton, and yet nobody seems to raise : this objection to them. Actually, they were part of the 100 qolos, and in nusach Ashkenaz they still are. It's only because y'all starting blowing during chazaras hashatz that it's not obvious. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:44:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:44:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <555E43A6.3020602@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 08:09 AM, Arie Folger via Avodah wrote: > No one ever suggested it is chillul Shabbos to eat gevldige Sushi. At worst, some puerile yeshive boocher called it goiyishe maakhoolim. Chilul Shabbos, no, but I have heard people seriously claim that it's forbidden to eat milchigs on Shabbos because it's "not shabbosdik", and specifically citing as "obviously" ridiculous the idea of eating lasagna on Shabbos. Which struck me as funny, since I recall one Rosh Hashana, no less, being confronted with an excellent milchig lasagna, made with fake meat, and having to wait to eat it because I was still fleishig from lunch. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:52:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:52:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What do Chazal mean when they refer to "pashtei d'kra?" Message-ID: <20150521205201.GA6908@aishdas.org> Maybe one of you could help R' CHaim Brown, even if he did leave us over a decade ago. A recent blog post on his "Divrei Chaim" at or . I mean, we talk about different definitions of the concept of "peshat" often enough, perhaps maybe someone had something. Tir'u baTov! -Micha Divrei Chaim Wednesday, May 20, 2015 what do Chazal mean when they refer to "pashtei d'kra?" The gemara Archin 8b darshens that "tzikascha k'harerei E-l" refers to nigei adam, which Hashem in his mercy limits to affecting a person for a week. The continuation of the pasuk, "mishpatecha tehom rabbah," refers to nigei batim, where the punishment is more severe in that it can stretch out for three weeks. The gemara then asks, "Pashtei d'kra b'mai?" and brings two similar explanations to the pasuk that read it as saying that G-d shows great mercy in tempering and mitigating the verdict that strict justice would call for. What do Chazal mean when they refer to "pashtei d'kra?" Despite the word "pashtei" in there, it does not seem to mean what the Rishonim like Rashi call "pshat," because if you look at Rashi or the Metzudas David, they don't simply quote this gemara. It seems that the gemara's "pashtei d'kra" is itself a derasha, albeit a derasha that is closer to the plain meaning of the words than the derasha that links the pasuk to nega'im. So are there different levels of derashos? The term "pashtei d'kra" is not all that common, so are these isolated exceptional cases, or in general are there different levels of derash? Does it make any nafka minah (except in our understanding of things?) Posted by Chaim B. at 9:40 AM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 14:12:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 17:12:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521205546.GA9166@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> <555E454E.60107@sero.name> <20150521205546.GA9166@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E4A32.8030909@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 04:55 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 04:51:26PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : Yes, but what of the extra 30 kolos after davening? Those are not in the > : 100 kolos, they're just le'arvev es hasoton, and yet nobody seems to raise > : this objection to them. > > Actually, they were part of the 100 qolos, and in nusach Ashkenaz they > still are. It's only because y'all starting blowing during chazaras > hashatz that it's not obvious. No, these kolos are not part of the 100. These are an extra 30, *after* the 100, and their only purpose is le'arvev es hasoton. And yet that doesn't count as "bechinam". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 18:25:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 21:25:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Shulchan Aruch's "Beis Din" Message-ID: <20150522012546.GA28788@aishdas.org> We discussed a number of times the fact that the SA doesn't follow the rule in his haqdamah to OC about following the majority of the Rif, the Rambam and the Rosh. Less often, peoeple mention actual examples. So, in case you were looking for one, the AhS mentions on OC 606:8-9 the machloqes about whetherit's a mitzbvah to eat on erev YK. In se'if 8 we learn the the Rif, the Ramnam and the Smag omit this idea, and in se'if 9 he says the Rosh, Tur and SA (se'if 1) hold that it's a mitzvah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 20:02:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi, its Kosher! via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 13:02:42 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Ways to find non-meat or non-milk - The BP Project Message-ID: I am happy to engage in discussion regarding the Halachos of BP, with anyone who is interested. For the time being such discussions must be and remain private I can confirm that I have been in contact with R Chaim Kanievsky about this for some years now and that he supports the Lomdus and proofs that I have proposed. Best, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi *Its Kosher* and *Exodus Matza * *it's kosher Authority Pty Ltd **ABN: *77 160 144 374 rabbi at itskosher.com.au +61 0423 207 837 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 18:55:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 01:55:29 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula Message-ID: <20150521.215529.1991.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Actually, they were part of the 100 qolos, and in nusach Ashkenaz they > still are. It's only because y'all starting blowing during chazaras > hashatz that it's not obvious. R' Zev Sero responded: > No, these kolos are not part of the 100. These are an extra 30, > *after* the 100, and their only purpose is le'arvev es hasoton. > And yet that doesn't count as "bechinam". Okay, folks, I think it is clear that some of us have been exposed to minhagim that the others are unaware of. I suggest that we clarify the various minhagim, and tally up the different ways of dong it. >From what I've seen, the vast majority of Nusach Ashkenaz shuls blow 30 times before Musaf, 30 during Chazaras Hashatz, 40 during or after Kaddish Tiskabel, and that is the end, for a total of exactly 100. I have been in a Nusach Sfard shul where they blow 30 times before Musaf, 30 during the silent Musaf, 30 during Chazaras Hashatz, 10 during or after Kaddish Tiskabel, and that is the end, for a total of exactly 100. Here in Elizabeth, we blow 30 times before Musaf, 60 during Chazaras Hashatz, 10 during Kaddish Tiskabel, and that is the end, for a total of exactly 100. R' Zev, could you describe for us how the first 100 are blown, and when the extra 30 come in? And if anyone else wants to add to the list, please do so! Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/555e8cc570114cc51cdast04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 01:14:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 11:14:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat Message-ID: REMT wrote > True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature > of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so > accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul > Shabbos. (Of course, by this argument, putting an electric light on or off > should be prohibited even if the use of electricity is not a m'lacha.) In particular using an preset switch to turn lights and off should be prohibited. While RMF originally did object he later changed his mind when it became the norm. In fact even the kosher lamp might be prohibited Can someone come up with a definition of zilzul shabbat? Is every modern way of doing any melacha that does not technically violate hilchot shabbat zilzul? The gemara allows using the sun for cooking on shabbat - why isn't that zilzul shabbat? -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 07:59:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Sassoon via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 15:59:41 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003901d0949f$eed65840$cc8308c0$@org.uk> RZS writes: >That's not a kulah, because the issur is davka when it's bechinam, I don't think that is exactly the correct phrasing to explain the situation. Rather, there is the general blanket rabbinic issur on playing musical instruments on yom tov, into which sounding shofar prima facie falls. This general issur is pushed aside by the d'orisa positive mitzvah of blowing shofar (noting that, at least according to the famous Taz, because rabbinic power doesn't stretch far enough to allow the banning of something which is a mitzvah d'orisa in every circumstances in which it would occur, as this would do - but is only in allowed situations where only sometimes the mitzvah would not end up being performed, such as Rosh Hashana on shabbas). This rabbinic issur of playing musical instruments on yom tov vis a vis the shofar is also pushed aside in other rabbinically recognised circumstances - including (according to the majority rishonim, Shulchan Aruch and Rema, although there are major rishonic dissenters) nachas ruach d'nashim. The case of the katan may well be different, given that the fundamental issue with katanim is chinuch (which might perhaps be said to cut both ways here). > and so long as there's a reason it's not chinam. Their wish to hear shofar >the way this rishon or that one wanted it heard is at least as good a >reason as our "le`arvev es hasoton", or giving women a "nachas ruach". Leaving aside nachas ruach, which has (according to those who hold by it at least rabbinic weight - ie power to push aside at least rabbinic prohibitions) - what is the justification for le'arev es hasoton? My instincts are that, to the extent that le'arvev es hasoton is taken seriously, the argument there is one of pikuach nefesh, which of course would push aside the rabbinic issur of playing musical instruments (think about it, if you can get a few extra years out of confusing the soton, how could that not be considered pikuach nefesh)? Don't think that helps with being choshesh for minority shitos. >However, your chashash brings up an interesting suggestion. if they >are worried about all possible chashshos, then maybe they should worry >about yours too, and they can easily solve it: let them go on mivtzo'im >and find Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all, and blow for them >according to these opinions. That way, not only will they have heard >shofar according to all possible opinions, and not only will they have >the zechus of those Jews having heard shofar according to at least >one opinion (which is certainly kosher, as you correctly point out), >but their "extra" tekios will be with a bracha! But aren't they then denying those Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all the chance to hear shofar according to the majority opinions by only blowing for them according to the minority opinions? Or are you proposing that they *then* blow for them according to the majority opinions? Either way you seem to me to be opening a real can of worms. The principle on which somebody who has fulfilled their obligation can then fulfil the obligation of another is based on kol yisrael areivim zeh b'zeh. But to what extent is that applicable in a situation in which that person would never, had the situation been reversed, have accepted the form of fulfilment they are offering the other. Ie since the person who is blowing the shofar refused to have these alternative ways of blowing as the fundamental method of fulfilling their own mitzvah, is it really areivus to then foist that form of fulfilment on others? >Zev Sero zev at sero.name Shabbat Shalom Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 10:22:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 13:22:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What is the Law? Message-ID: <20150522172240.022581829C9@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/sivan_v.pdf YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 11:16:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 14:16:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula II Message-ID: <20150522181627.GA5977@aishdas.org> I came across another one, more inyana deyoma... According to the AhS (OC 494:3) we used to wait for "laylah mamash" to make Qiddush the first night of Shavu'os, so that the omer could be "sheva shabasos temimos". Presumably this is following the MGA who has us wait until tzeis for Qiddush, and the AhS's "laylah mamash" means tzeis. The Taz (494:haqdamah) and the MB (s"q 1) have us waiting for tzeis to start *Ma'ariv*. The Qorban Nesanel (on the Rosh, Pesachim 130b) brings the Rosh as a ra'ayah against the MGA. The Rosh says that even though on Shabbos *and the other YT-im* we add from the chol to the qodesh and eat before it gets dark, we do not do so for the seder night. So the QN QN takes the implication that "she'ar yamim tovim" includes Shavuos. So the QN treats Shavuos like Shabbos, and presumably let you daven maariv and make Qiddush right after pelag. The QN is machmir in omer, the MGA is machmir in tosefes YT. And each is being correspondingly meiqil in the other. I would presume that the silence in the Tur, the BY and the SA about any waiting means that the Tur, the Mechaber and the Rama hold like the QN and treat erev Shavuos like erev Shabbos, RH, Sukkos, etc... (But not Pesach.) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 48th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Malchus: What binds different Fax: (270) 514-1507 people together into one cohesive whole? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 08:55:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 11:55:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <003901d0949f$eed65840$cc8308c0$@org.uk> References: <003901d0949f$eed65840$cc8308c0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <555F517D.4080806@sero.name> On 05/22/2015 10:59 AM, Chana Sassoon via Avodah wrote: >> >However, your chashash brings up an interesting suggestion. if they >> >are worried about all possible chashshos, then maybe they should worry >> >about yours too, and they can easily solve it: let them go on mivtzo'im >> >and find Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all, and blow for them >> >according to these opinions. That way, not only will they have heard >> >shofar according to all possible opinions, and not only will they have >> >the zechus of those Jews having heard shofar according to at least >> >one opinion (which is certainly kosher, as you correctly point out), >> >but their "extra" tekios will be with a bracha! > But aren't they then denying those Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all > the chance to hear shofar according to the majority opinions by only blowing > for them according to the minority opinions? AFAIK everyone agrees that all these methods are kosher, so those Jews are definitely yotzei the mitzvah. > The principle on which > somebody who has fulfilled their obligation can then fulfil the obligation > of another is based on kol yisrael areivim zeh b'zeh. But to what extent is > that applicable in a situation in which that person would never, had the > situation been reversed, have accepted the form of fulfilment they are > offering the other. Ie since the person who is blowing the shofar refused > to have these alternative ways of blowing as the fundamental method of > fulfilling their own mitzvah, is it really areivus to then foist that form > of fulfilment on others? They're not foisting anything. The people they're blowing for would otherwise not hear shofar at all, so they're clearly better off hearing even some obscure form of it, so long as they're yotzei. On 05/21/2015 09:55 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > R' Zev, could you describe for us how the first 100 are blown, and when the extra 30 come in? And if anyone else wants to add to the list, please do so! I'm talking about 30 kolos blown at the very end of davening, just before going home, and well after all 100 kolos have already been heard (30 meyushav, 30 in each musaf, and 10 in kaddish). Their purpose is le'arvev es hasoton. And I've never heard it suggested that there is any chashash issur. Thus my conclusion that shofar-blowing is allowed on RH for *any* valid purpose, and the only blowing that remains forbidden as usual on Yomtov, is when it is truly "bechinam". -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 25 12:15:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 25 May 2015 19:15:59 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Brisker Theory of Everything Message-ID: 1. The gemara (Ketuvot 5b) discusses whether causing a certain type of blood flowing is considered a Sabbath violation. The first attempt to resolve the question turns on whether "mifkad pakid or chaburei mechbar" (is the blood in the womb stored up or is it the result of a wound?). Rashi there (please look) seems to define this as a physical question. Is this acceptable or must we say Rashi was leaving out the "obvious" philosophical/halachic question (i.e. the physical was known, it's a question of how to categorize it halachically)? 2. That gemara continues to try to resolve the question and is willing to entertain the possibility that the halacha is like Rabbi Yehuda (vs. Rabbi Shimon) in mekalkeil (destroying) and like Rabbi Shimon (vs. Rabbi Yehuda) in davar sheino mitkavein (the result was not the major one intended). If these two issues were interconnected, could the gemara entertain this possibility? 3. If the answer to 2 is no, must we assume that when the Shulchan Aruch said he would decide the psak based on majority 2 of big 3, did he really mean this as a primary tie breaker, or only when he did not have a clear understanding of the underlying philosophy that resulted in their final opinions. 4.Is it possible that R'YBS limited his "canon" to only a few major rishonim (in contradistinction to R" A Lichtenstein) because the more data points included in trying to determine the underlying theoretical construct, the more likely a single errant point would skew the results? Kt Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 25 19:35:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 02:35:10 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir Message-ID: <20150525.223510.2086.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> After Machlon and Kilyon died, we find in Ruth 1:8-13 that Naami tells both Orpah and Ruth to go back home. Didn't Naami realize that they would return to avodah zara if they'd do that? Even if they had not converted yet, wouldn't this be an example of Lifnei Iveir? One answer I can think of is that perhaps this eventuality didn't occur to Naami. But several pesukim later, in 1:15, Naami tells Ruth that Orpah has "returned to her people and to her god; go back with your sister-in-law." Naami persists not only in trying to convince Ruth to leave, but she explicitly urges Ruth to return to her former god! This question is certainly relevant according to those who understand that Orpah and Ruth converted prior to marrying Machlon and Kilyon. But it is relevant even to those who hold that Ruth did not convert until afterward. It is one thing to dissuade a prospective ger from joining us. But Ruth had been living with a Jewish family for ten years! How can Naami urge her to go back to avoda zara? I know that the meforshim give various reasons why Naami did not want them to accompany her back to Eretz Yisrael, but do those reasons justify this Lifnei Iveir? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 06:00:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 09:00:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Who Wrote the Mishna Brura? Message-ID: <20150526130054.4548818394C@nexus.stevens.edu> I am sure that most will answer "The Chofetz Chaim" Israel Meir (HaKohen) Kagan. However, he apparently did not write all of it. I have been reading Marc Shapiro's latest book "Changing the Immutable" How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites its History. See http://www.littman.co.uk/cat/shapiro-orthodox.html Shapiro points out that Rabbi Aryeh Leib Cohen, a son of the Chofetz Chaim, wrote in his biography of his father that he wrote parts of the Mishna Brura and that is why there are contradictions in some parts of the MB. Which parts Aryeh Leib wrote are not indicated. Does anyone know? YL PS. I have found this book an eye opener and recommend it highly. llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 10:19:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kaganoff via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 13:19:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 12:01 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 01:53:10PM -0400, Kaganoff via Avodah wrote: > : For many years i had extreme difficulty with R. Elchanan Wasserman > understanding > : as it conflicted with my belief that Judaism (and other religions) was > not > : logically provable (contra to Moshe Mendelssohn and his contemporaries) > and > : therefore required a "leap of faith" and that a disbeliever could not be > : faulted for failing to take such a jump. > > This is a false dichotomy. Logically proving things are not the only > way to justify belief in there. > > How do you know that (in a flat space) two parallel lines never meet? If > you're like me, you pictured it in your head. Even though infinite lines > don't exist in the real world. (Nor, does it turn out, does flat space.) Actually non-euclidean geometry is an excellent example. We cannot say with absolute certainty that two parallel lines will never meet or that there is only one line that goes through a particular point that is parallel to another line, as there is a well developed body of literature on non-Euclidean geometry (such as Riemannian Geometry). One might "feel" strongly that Euclidean Geometry is true and non-Euclidean Geometry is false. But someone might also feel that chocolate ice cream is superior to vanilla ice cream. But neither can be proven. > > Did you figure out that oppression was evil by logical proof, or by a > combination of imagination and empathy? > Calling anything "evil is not meant to be logical but rather to pull at an audiences' heartstrings. Evil is neither logical nor illogical. Nor can one "prove" that the Nazis are evil and that circumcision is not. However, that is a red herring. Again, emotions are not proof. Feelings are neither true nor false. > My favorite example is answering the question, "Do elephants have hair?" > A logical/verbal approach would be: Elephants are mammals, all mammals > have hair, and so unless elephants are the exception to the rule, they > must have hair. Elephants are well known and discussed animals. Could > they be an exception to the rule and I don't know it? Nah, they must > have hair. > > How it is more likely the question jogged your memory of elephants > you saw, or saw pictures of. The detail may be blurry, so you may have > to manipulate the picture a bit. Finally, a version of the picture > which has a tuft of hair at the tail, maybe (if your memory is good) > some downy hair around the eyes and ears, strikes you as the most > familiar, the most real. And again you could reach the conclusion that > elephants have hair. > That is a proveable thesis. One could prove either way whether or not elephants have hair. Unlike the two earlier examples. As for whether one could prove the existence or non-existance of God, I don't have time now to start that discussion. > > (See for some musings about > the two modes of thought I'm contrasting here.) > > In I compare > different versions of the Argument from Design from R' Aqiva's response > to the apiqoreis through the Rambam, through similar approaches based > on more modern science. > > "G-d created" (Gen. 1:1): A hereic came to Rabbi Aqiva and asked, > "Who made the universe?". Rabbi Aqiva answered, "HQBH". The heretic > said, "Prove it to me." Rabbi Aqiva said, "Come to me tomorrow". > > When the heretic returned, Rabbi Aqiva asked, "What is that you > are wearing?" > > "A garment", the unbeliever replied. > > "Who made it?" > > "A weaver." > > "Prove it to me." > > "What do you mean? How can I prove it to you? Here is the garment, > how can you not know that a weaver made it?" > > Rabbi Akiva said, "And here is the world; how can you not know that > Haqadosh barukh Hu made it?" > > After the heretic left, Rabbi Aqiva's students asked him, "But what is > the proof?" He said, "Even as a house proclaims its builder,a garment > its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the > Holy Blessed One Who created it. > > Not very rigorous. Rabbi Aqiva's reply revolves around giving a parable > to make the conclusion self-evident. Not contructing a deductive argument. > > The more rigorous we try making it, the more arguable the proof becomes. > R' Aqiva's argument is far more convincing than the Rambam's statement > based on how objects lose form over time, not gain it. Or a similar > argument based on thermodynamics or information theory. > > (Ironically, every formal / logical proof is built from givens taken > as self-evident for informal-reasoning reasons.) > > Anyway, that's how I understood REW. R' Elchanan argues that on an > informal level, the idea that the universe had to have a Creator is > as obvious as a Euclidean postulate or the injustice of oppression. > I believe that such an explanation is disrespectful to REW. I am assuming that REW believed what he wrote and wrote down clearly what he believed as opposed to assuming that REW believes one thing and wrote another. > > To not believe in G-d requires a formal proof, which one's negios then > determine if they find it sound or specious, and whether they accept > the postulates on which it's built. > To believe and to not believe in God can be pulled off without formal proofs. However, it is intellectually dishonest to state that one has an arguement for God's existance and than say that we are not talking about formal proofs when a counterarguement is made. > Notice I didn't invoke any leaps of faith. > > Tir'u baTov! > -Micha > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 12:25:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 15:25:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150526192512.GA22762@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 01:19:53PM -0400, Kaganoff wrote: : > How do you know that (in a flat space) two parallel lines never meet? If : > you're like me, you pictured it in your head. Even though infinite lines : > don't exist in the real world. (Nor, does it turn out, does flat space.) : : : Actually non-euclidean geometry is an excellent example. We cannot say with : absolute certainty that two parallel lines will never meet or that there is : only one line that goes through a particular point that is parallel to : another line, as there is a well developed body of literature on : non-Euclidean geometry (such as Riemannian Geometry). Well, if we know the curvature of the space we're dealing with, we know which Geometry to use. And only one is correct for that particular space. :> Did you figure out that oppression was evil by logical proof, or by a :> combination of imagination and empathy? : : Calling anything "evil is not meant to be logical but rather to pull at an : audiences' heartstrings. Evil is neither logical nor illogical. Nor can one : "prove" that the Nazis are evil and that circumcision is not. I disagree with your reisha. Evil is an objectively meaningful predicate. Yahadus wouldn't work is evil were subjective. As for your seifa... that's kind of my point: there are truths that can be justified even when they are not amenable to formal proofs. : However, that is a red herring. Again, emotions are not proof. Feelings are : neither true nor false. Although the notion that John is feeling happy at 2:55pm EST May 26, 2015 is either true or false. Or some fuzzy state in between. It is a predicate, even if it needn't be a boolean predicate. All three of these comments are interrelated: Euclidean geometry is the only accurate description of flat space. Not every space, but flat space. People may disagree about what is evil, and Nazis may be able to fool themselves about what the word means, but HQBH did create a concept of good that has an objective definition. Even if -- again -- we cannot find it via proof. : > My favorite example is answering the question, "Do elephants have hair?" : > A logical/verbal approach would be... : > How it is more likely the question jogged your memory of elephants : > you saw, or saw pictures of... : That is a proveable thesis. One could prove either way whether or not : elephants have hair. Unlike the two earlier examples. As I said in the first paragraph, before the first ellipses. However, in practice, people aren't likely to use proofs to reach the conclusion. We justify our belief that elephants have hair in a different way. : As for whether one could prove the existence or non-existance of God, I : don't have time now to start that discussion. But my whole point is that proof isn't the only grounds for justifying knowledge! ... : > Anyway, that's how I understood REW. R' Elchanan argues that on an : > informal level, the idea that the universe had to have a Creator is : > as obvious as a Euclidean postulate or the injustice of oppression. : I believe that such an explanation is disrespectful to REW. I am assuming : that REW believed what he wrote and wrote down clearly what he believed as : opposed to assuming that REW believes one thing and wrote another. Um... That /is/ what Rav Elchanan wrote. I'm arguing that he is being misread because they think that REW invoking the notion of knowledge (as opposed to belief) is equivalent to his invoking the notion of proof. Instead, he invokes the synthetic a priori, of the self-evident, or whatever your theory of justification is of R' Aqiva's answer to the atheist or that letters aren't the product of ink spilled on paper. AISI, REW is saying that humans know there is a G-d, without his saying anything about the possibility of proving it. And that people then go about creating proofs for His non-Existence or Deism, to hide from that knowledge. Or, to be more loyal to his original wording -- because they took shochad to buy into a proof against the obvious. He might be saying that at some level, that knowledge lingers, no matter how much someone buries it under layers of counter-proof and convincing themselves. But I don't see that in REW either. Quoting: Now, of course, we shouldn't be astonished that so many great philosophers had difficulty believing that the world was created by a Purposeful Creator. Their minds were surely great, but their desire to gain benefit from the pleasures of this world overcame their ability to think straight. Such a powerful bias can divert a person's mind to the point that he can say two plus two does not equal four... After my signature, I'll quote Qovetz Maamariv par 5-7 from a translation provided by Pirchei Shoshanim. You'll notice it's nothing like the Rambam's attempt to formally prove an Argument from Design in Moreh sec. II. Really, all he says is that monotheism woul be self-evident if people didn't want to escape its implications on their lifestyle. Not proven, self-evident, and not that those who argue against it are less than fully convinced of their atheism (or Deism, or polytheism). :> To not believe in G-d requires a formal proof, which one's negios then :> determine if they find it sound or specious, and whether they accept :> the postulates on which it's built. : To believe and to not believe in God can be pulled off without formal : proofs. : However, it is intellectually dishonest to state that one has an arguement : for God's existance and than say that we are not talking about formal : proofs when a counterarguement is made. Not "argument", any more than your acceptance of Euclidean (or Reimann) postulates are based on argument. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_justification#Theories_of_justification and http://www.iep.utm.edu/epistemo/#H3 may be clearer than I have been. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "Man wants to achieve greatness overnight, micha at aishdas.org and he wants to sleep well that night too." http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yosef Yozel Horwitz, Alter of Novarodok Fax: (270) 514-1507 5. If you ponder it, however, you shall find that the belief that the Holy One, blessed by He, created the world is self-understood by any intelligent being -- unless a person is a complete imbecile. And there is no need for any [knowledge of] philosophy to grasp this principle. The author of the Duties of the Heart (Shaar HaYichud 6) thus wrote: There are people who say that the world came into existence by chance, without a Creator who caused it and formed it. I wonder how any rational being in a normal state of mind can entertain such a notion. If one holding such a opinion would hear a person expressing a similar view in regard to a water-wheel that revolves in order to irrigate a portion of a field or garden -- and were to say that he thinks it had been set up without any intention on the part of a mechanic who labored to put it together and adjust it, using all his tools to obtain this useful result -- the hearer would wonder, be exceedingly astonished, and think the man who made such a statement extremely foolish. He would promptly charge him with lying, and would reject his assertion. Now, if such a statement is rejected in regard to a small and insignificant wheel, the fashioning of which requires but little contrivance and which serves for the improvement of but a small portion of the earth, how can anyone permit himself to harbor such a thought concerning the immense sphere that emcompasses the whole earth with all the creatures on it; which exhibits a wisdom so great that the minds of all living creatures, the intellects of all rational mortals, cannot comprehend it; which is appointed for the benefit of the whole earth and all its inhabitants – how can one say that it came into existence without a wise and mighty designer purposing and conceiving it? Whatever takes place without purpose shows, as is well known, no trace of wisdom or power. Do you not realize that if ink were poured out accidentally on a blank sheet of paper, it would be impossible that proper writing should result, legible lines such as are written with a pen? If a person brought us a fair copy of script that could only have been written with a pen, and said that ink had been spilt on paper and these written characters have come of themselves, we would charge him to his face with falsehood, for we would feel certain that this result could not have happened without an intelligent person's purposeful action to produce it. Since this appears to us an impossibility in the case of characters whose form is conventional, how can one assert that something far finer in its art, and which manifests in its fashioning a subtlety infinitely beyond our comprehension, could have happened without the purpose, power and wisdom of a wise and mighty designer? How could anyone say that the universe came into existence on its own, seeing that everywhere we look we see signs of such inconceivably profound wisdom? How wondrous is the wisdom and design in the human body, how wondrous the arrangement of its limbs and organs, as all doctors and surgeons attest. How is it possible to say, with regard to such a wondrous machine, that it came into existence on its own without a purposeful designer? If anyone would claim that a watch had just come into existence on its own, he would be considered insane. We see this in the Midrash (Midrash Temurah in Midrash Aggadot Bereshit): An athiest came to Rebbi Akiva. "Who created the world?", he queried. R. Akiva answered, "The Holy One, blessed be He." The athiest replied, "Show me proof." R. Akiva said, "Come back to me tomorrow and I shall prove it to you." When the man returned the following day, R. Akiva began by asking, "What is that you are wearing?""A piece of clothing,"the athiest replied."And who made it?" R. Akiva continued. "The weaver", he replied. "Show me proof", R. Akiva demanded. "But how can I show you proof if it isn't already obvious to you that it is the work of the weaver?!" With this R. Akiva said, "Have you not heard what your own lips have spoken? Isn't it obvious to you that the Holy One has created this world? Doesn't the clothing testify to the weaver; the house and the door to a builder and a carpenter? Just so does the world testity to the One who made it." Imagine a human being born with a fully developed intellect. We can't imagine his great astonishment upon seeing, suddenly, the heavens and their hosts, the earth and all that is upon it. What would this man's answer be to our question: Did the world that he is seeing now for the first time come into existence on its own, without any conscious intent, or is it the work of a wise Creator? Behold, without a doubt, after contemplating for a moment, he would respond that all this was made with wondrous wisdom and extremely subtle order (fine-tuning). [We find this concept expressed in any number places in our classical literature.] The Psalmist said, "The heavens declare the glory of G-d"(Psalms 19:2). [According the Duties of the Heart 2:5] this is also the meaning of Job's words when he declared, "From my flesh, I will see G-d!"(Job 19:26) [The Psalmist saw proof of G-d's existence in the magnitude of the universe. Job was saying that the very fact that something as wonderful as his body could exist demonstrates that it is the work of a wise Creator.] In view of all this it is therefore extremely puzzling, a great enigma: How could some of the greatest philosophers who ever lived have concluded that the world was brought into existence by chance? 6. The resolution of this enigma can be found in the Torah. The Torah reveals something profound about human psychology when it commands, "Do not take bribes, for bribery blinds the eyes of the wise!" (Deuteronomy 16:19). What is bribery? In legal terms, the smallest amount necessary to constitute a bribe is a "shaveh prutah"(not much more than a penny), similar to the minimum amount needed [for a court] to find a person guilty of stealing or of taking interest. This negative commandment, to never take a bribe, is directed not only at a judge, but at every man, even the wisest of men, even the most righteous, even Moses himself. Yes, if it could be imagined, even if Moses would take the tiniest bribe, a prutah, his perception of reality would be distorted; he would be incapable of bringing forth a just ruling. At first sight, this is nothing short of amazing. Can we imagine Moses or Aaron twisting the law and judging falsely merely for the sake of receiving such miniscule benefit? But the Torah itself testifies to the possibility, and "the testimony of G-d is trustworthy" (Psalms 19:8). We must therefore say that it is a psychological law: A person's will or desire [to gain some benefit] influences his mind [his ability to think straight]. Of course, it depends how strong the desire and how resolute the mind. A small desire will not exert much influence on a great mind, whereas on a lesser mind it will. A powerful desire [for gain] will exert even more influence. One thing is certain: no matter how miniscule, a desire for gain will always have some affect. Even the tiniest desire can cause the greatest mind to waver a fraction. This is exemplified in the Talmud (Ketuvot 105b): Rebbi Yishmael bar Yossi had a land tenant who used to bring him fruits from his [R. Yishmael's] orchard every Friday before Shabbat. Once, he came on a Thursday. R. Yishmael asked him: "What's changed this week?" "I have a court case this week", he answered."Since I was coming to town anyway, I thought I would bring you your fruits."R. Yishmael refused to take the fruits [even though they were his]. "I am disqualified from judging your case."Two [other] rabbis sat and began to hear the land tenant's case. R. Yishmael sat [on the sidelines] watching. At every turn in the discussion, R. Yishmael felt himself wanting to give advice to his land tenant. "If only he would say this now... if only he would say this..."After the case was decided, he exclaimed, "O that the spirit of those who take bribes would explode! I refused to take what was rightfully mine [and I still couldn't help being biased and wanting to see him come out winning]. How much more those who actually take what it is not theirs! It is known that the sages [of the Talmud] were angelic in terms of their expanded consciousness and saintly character. We nevertheless see that the smallest degree of bias could cause them to incline away from the truth. How much more so the rest of us who are sunken in the desires of this world! The desire for gain literally bribes us, saying, "Hey, look, the world is free to do with as you please!"How powerful this bias is! How easily it distorts our perception and blinds us! For when a person has "bought into"a certain bias, he is incapable of recognizing any truth that flies in the face of that bias. As far as that truth is concerned, he might just as well be in a drunken stupor. He doesn't recognize its existence. Now, of course, we shouldn't be astonished that so many great philosophers had difficulty believing that the world was created by a Purposeful Creator. Their minds were surely great, but their desire to gain benefit from the pleasures of this world overcame their ability to think straight. Such a powerful bias can divert a person's mind to the point that he can say two plus two does not equal four, but five. A person cannot judge whether something is true unless his mind is free from any distorting influence vis a vis the thing he wishes to judge. On the contrary, if recognizing a particular truth in any way contradicts a bias that a person has bought into, no amount of intellect, even the intellect of a great person, can remove or overcome that bias. 7. We learn from this that the foundations of true faith are simple and unquestionable for anyone who isn't an idiot. It is simply impossible to doubt their veracity. This is only true, however, on the condition that one does not allow oneself to be bribed. One must be disinterested in and free from the desires and allures of this world, and his own personal desires [for gain]. If so, the root of God-denial lies not in the distortion of the intellect in and of itself. It lies in the heart, i.e., in one's desire to gain benefit [from this world], which distorts and blinds the intellect. It is clear now why the Torah commands, "Do not stray after your hearts..." (Deuteronomy 15:39), concerning which the sages commented, "Do not follow after the heart's desire to deny G-d"(Sifri Shlach 15:70). A person is obligated to subdue and sublimate his desires [for personal gain], because this is the only way his intellect will be free of any blinding influence! He will then automatically recognize the truth of the existence of a Creator. This is what Rebbi Akiva meant when he said that the world attests to the Holy One, blessed be He, who created it. God-denial really has no place in a person's mind. Its place, if man allows it to exist there, is the heart; in a person's desire for gain. And if one would be careful not to allow his desires to overcome him, he could never come to deny G-d's existence or atttribute reality to any form of idolatry. It is a sign that one's desires have grown out of proportion if one is incapable of understanding this simple truth. And the commandment to believe in G-d? It is a commandment not to allow one's desires to overcome his intellect so that he will automatically come to believe. In other words, there is no need to struggle to believe. One must simply remove the obstacles that stand in the way of believing. It will then come naturally, of itself... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 11:11:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 14:11:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura? Message-ID: <20150526181117.9766A180F62@nexus.stevens.edu> Someone sent me the following which is also in Shapiro's book. "The first edition of Shemiras Shabbos K'Hilchasah had a footnote to the effect that some things in the MB had been written by the CC's son. See p. 263 n. 203. The full footnote is not in the later editions of SSK." Shapiro views this as part of the Chareidi attempt to keep certain information from the Chareidi public that they do want people to know. His book is filled with many examples of the "rewriting of history" to fit current Chareidi ideology. He also wrote "Rabbi Jacob J. Schachter wrote an article in The Torah U-Madda Journal about changes and mentioned the MB, the CC's son, and the original SSK footnote. See his "Facing the Truths of History" at http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/704426/Rabbi_Dr-_Jacob_J_Schacter/Facing_the_Truths_of_History (p. 225 and n. 114 on p. 264)." YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 12:44:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 15:44:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura? In-Reply-To: <20150526181117.9766A180F62@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150526181117.9766A180F62@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150526194413.GB22762@aishdas.org> And many of the books we consider the Gra's are students' records of his teachings. For that matter, people talk about what the Ari says in Peri Eitz Chaim or others of R' Chaim Vital's works. RALC piously takes blame for those occasions when he misunderstood his father's position, saying that these errors, rather than actual inconsistencies in the CC's shitah, is what you may find in the MB. But the CC takes ownership of the contents of the MB. See the title page (Warsaw 1884 ed.) "Ube'uri qarative besheim MISHNAH BERURAH..." ... kol eileh chibarti be'ezras H' yisbarakh, haChonen le'adam da'as, YISRAEL MEIR br' Aryeh Ze'ev haKohein zlh"h, mei'ir Radin." Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I long to accomplish a great and noble task, micha at aishdas.org but it is my chief duty to accomplish small http://www.aishdas.org tasks as if they were great and noble. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Helen Keller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 15:01:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 18:01:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150526220106.GA9900@aishdas.org> On Fri, May 22, 2015 at 11:14:15AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature :> of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so :> accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul :> Shabbos... : In particular using an preset switch to turn lights and off should : be prohibited. : While RMF originally did object he later changed his mind when it became : the norm. Actually, RMF's primary argument was mar'is ayin, which would naturally change as people know to blame lights turning on and off on "Shabbos clocks". : In fact even the kosher lamp might be prohibited Well, I would think that fits the zilzul Shabbos argument bewing used WRT the kosher switch. : Can someone come up with a definition of zilzul shabbat? The textbook case would be on Shabbos 6a: situating someone in a meqom petur so that someone in a reshus hayachid can hand items to them so that they could then hand it over to someone in a reshus harabim. Rashi ad loc explains "demezalzel be'isurei Shabbos". I think it's making a farce out of one of the issurim / chiyuvim of Shabbos. Notice that the case Rashi attributes to zilzul would otherwise be perfectly mutar. : Is every modern way of doing any melacha that does not technically : violate hilchot shabbat zilzul? : The gemara allows using the sun for cooking on shabbat - why isn't that : zilzul shabbat? I think the problem is more than just avoiding the issur, but making it trivial to entirely avoid it. Which is what I had in mind when I distinguished between eiruv, which is built into hotza'ah derabbanan, and community eruv, which takes that idea and stretches it until someone can pretty much ignore the whole topic of carmelis for years on end. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Strength does not come from winning. Your micha at aishdas.org struggles develop your strength When you go http://www.aishdas.org through hardship and decide not to surrender, Fax: (270) 514-1507 that is strength. - Arnold Schwarzenegger From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 16:14:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 19:14:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") Message-ID: In Avodah V33n82, RAM requested: > I suggest that we clarify the various minhagim, and tally up the different ways of dong it....And if anyone else wants to add to the list, please do so! < When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: -- 30 *dim'yushav* -- 10 *dim'umad* -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the post-"Aleinu" Qaddish) All the best from *Michael Poppers* * Elizabeth, NJ, USA -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 18:24:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 21:24:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir In-Reply-To: <20150525.223510.2086.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150525.223510.2086.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150527012443.GA5467@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 02:35:10AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : It is one thing to dissuade a prospective ger from joining us. But Ruth : had been living with a Jewish family for ten years! How can Naami urge : her to go back to avoda zara? I know that the meforshim give various : reasons why Naami did not want them to accompany her back to Eretz : Yisrael, but do those reasons justify this Lifnei Iveir? On a technical level, it would be mesayeia, not lifnei iver, and I'm not sure that mesayeia applies to 7 mitzvos benei Noach. But if you're just asking how it's moral... Just thinking off-the cuff. The timing is between eishes Shimshon and Shelomo's mistake with many of his wives. It would seem that women only pretending monotheism to join the Jewish People was common. If Rus was going to be a pagan either way, better not one who people would mistake for a geir. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet micha at aishdas.org about things most people don't watch even on http://www.aishdas.org Yom Kippur. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 00:25:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 10:25:26 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat Message-ID: <<: The gemara allows using the sun for cooking on shabbat - why isn't that : zilzul shabbat? I think the problem is more than just avoiding the issur, but making it trivial to entirely avoid it.>> In that case how about a "dud shemesh" according to the poskim that it is allowed because it uses the sun <> would there be a difference between doing this once and making this a standard procedure? -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 01:22:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:22:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <> The key word is "if" . That is the difference between math and physics. Math assumes axioms and from there everything is provable. Physics discusses the "real" world. This is based on observation and induction. Hence, physics is always subject to modification based on new observations. Hence, we have no proof of the curvature of the universe. <> Yahadus uses the Torah to define evil. Others don't accept this definition. Is ISIS beheading victims and their other acts "evil" ? They believe they are keeping the word of G-d. Destrying ancient monuments is viewed by the world as "evil" while they see it as destroying idols and hence a mitzvah. If we were to eradicate Amalek we would consider it a great mitzvah while the rest of thw world would bring us to the world court for genocide. <> But without a formal proof it is always debatable. You feel that the existence of G-d is obvious even without a formal proof (which doesn't exist) while Dawkins feels that anyone who believes in a diety that interacts with the world is a fool. You accept Torah mi-sinai while most academics are convinced the Torah was written during the late Bayit Rishon if not later -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 02:20:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 12:20:34 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] right and wrong Message-ID: Tangential to some of the recent discussions I wish to point out that the defintion of right and wrong is subjective and indeed changes through history. As one example consider the recent post on love from http://www.talmudology.com/ In the 1440s in England, Elizabeth Paston, the twenty-year old daughter of minor gentry, was told by her parents that she was to marry a man thirty years her senior. Oh, and he was disfigured by smallpox. When she refused, she was beaten "once in the week, or twice and her head broken in two or three places." This persuasive technique worked, and reflected a theme in Great Britain, where Lord Chief Baron Matthew Hale declared in 1662 that "by the law of God, of nature or of reason and by the Common Law, the will of the wife is subject to the will of the husband." Things weren't any better in the New Colonies, as Ann Little points out (in a gloriously titled article "*Shee would Bump his Mouldy Britch; Authority, Masculinity and the Harried Husbands of New Haven Colony 1638-1670.*) The governor of the New Haven Colony was found guilty of "not pressing ye rule upon his wife." What was obvious in one generation is no longer regarded as true today. Similar arguments apply to slavery -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 03:47:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 06:47:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 07:14:36PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: : -- 30 *dim'yushav* : -- 10 *dim'umad* : -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to blow. How do you do less than 10 *each*? Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 05:03:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 12:03:32 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir Message-ID: <20150527.080332.8051.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> I asked if Naami had violated Lifnei Iveir: : It is one thing to dissuade a prospective ger from joining us. : But Ruth had been living with a Jewish family for ten years! How : can Naami urge her to go back to avoda zara? R' Micha Berger answered: > On a technical level, it would be mesayeia, not lifnei iver, and > I'm not sure that mesayeia applies to 7 mitzvos benei Noach. Really? Perhaps I need a better understanding of the difference between the two. I thought that mesayeia was when the other person is going to violate the halacha anyway and I am merely helping him to do it. But in this case, the three of them have been living for ten years as a family unit, and regardless of the geirus (or lack of it) I presume there was no avodah zara under Naami's roof. This status quo could have continued for a long time, as we see even Orpah was reluctant to leave. But Naami urged and insisted, and it is difficult for me to imagine a bigger michshol. Pasuk 1:15 - "So [Naami] said: Look! Your sister in law has returned to her people and to her god. Go follow your sister in law." One of us might as well hand the car keys to our child on Shabbos and tell him to have a good time. Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:14:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:14:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527151410.GG27891@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 11:22:14AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : <> : : The key word is "if" . That is the difference between math and physics. : Math assumes axioms and from there everything is provable... Again, from a set of givens. The givens are accepted as the rules of the formal system. Which is why I spoke of the validity of Euclid's Postulates in the context of flat space. But my point was that there are things other than proof. : <> : : Yahadus uses the Torah to define evil. Others don't accept this definition. Nu, so they're wrong. We may not be able to prove to them they're wrong, but they are. Somewhere "out there" is a real objective definition. Regardless of someone's ability to know what they are, or to accept it if they did. : <> : : But without a formal proof it is always debatable... 1- That's a different topic. We're talking about how I justify my believing in something, not how I prove it to others. 2- There are synthetic a priori knowledge so self-evident people don't debate them. Which is why I dragged Euclid into this. EVERY proof STARTS with these givens. Logic is a means of combining postulates, not starting yeish mei'ayin. And thus no proof is actually more solid than its weakest postulate -- and that postulate is justified by something other than proof. And I brought up these notions because I think that without disentangling why I believe from how can I get others to believe, or the general concept of how knowlege is justified from the specific concepts of formal or experiment proof, we cannot get to what R Elchanan Wasserman means. REW says that if it were not for ulterior motive, G-d's existence would be as self evident as the conclusion that a calligraphied poem had an author and scribe (who may be the same person), and was not just spilled ink on a piece of paper. He doesn't yet talk about proof, and in fact, his language is that of informal justification, not proof. (I've blogged the notion that the more formal we make the Argument from Design the LESS solidly it justifies belief. See . For example, R Aqiva's -- or REW's -- version only requires common experience. The Rambam's requires dividing matter into Form and Substance and accepting certain postulates about Form and Time. Later versions will instead speak of entropy and time... But they all suffer from involving *more* givens and insisting they are self-evident and precede the attempt to prove anything.) REW then says that it's only ulterior motive that allows many of us to create arguments and proofs (validly drawn but from broken givens or flawed in reasoning) to let convince ourselves away from that default position. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When a king dies, his power ends, micha at aishdas.org but when a prophet dies, his influence is just http://www.aishdas.org beginning. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Soren Kierkegaard From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:33:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:33:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527153329.GH27891@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 11:48:03AM +0300, Saul Mashbaum wrote: : Very briefly, R. Rosner cites three approaches in the sources : : 1. Illustrating the truth - The Ran in Drashot HaRan drasha 5 - In this : approach, which severely limits the principle of eilu v'eilu, the Ran : states that actually only one of the opinions is true. The other opinion is : 'divrei Elokim chaim' only insofar as it serves to illustrate and elucidate : the other opinion, which is the real truth, as the dark enables us to : appreciate a candle... R/Dr Moshe Halbertal forms his opinion of the Ran's shitah on the haqdamah to haMafteiach leManulei haTalmud. He translates: It is a known fact that the entire Torah, written and oral, was transm itted to Moses, as it says in the tract ate Meggilah, R. Hiyya bar Abba said in the Name of R. Yohanan: The verse:...and on them was written according to all the words.." teaches that the Holy One blessed be He showed Moses the details prescribed by the Torah and by the Sages, including the innovations they would later enact. And what are those? the reading of Meggila. The 'details' provided by the rabbis are halakhic disputes and conflicting views held by the sa ges of Israel. Moses learned them all by divine word with no resolution every controversy in detail. Yet [God] also gave him a rule whose truth is manifest, i.e., 'Favor the majority opinion'....as the sages of that generation saw fit, for the decision had already been delegated to them as it is written: 'And you shall come to the priest the Levites, and to the judge that shall be in those days' and 'You shall not deviate....". (Quoted from . I do not know where to find the original, to see what's ellided or whether my own attempt to translate would agree.) This quote from the Ran pretty clearly backs the third position in RSR's survey: : 3. Multiple truths (Ritva in Eiruvin, Maharal) - Both opinions are true, : reflecting different perspectives of the subject at hand (IMO, this is : similar to the previous explanation, without establishing a hierarchy : between the truths expressed by the different opinions)... (BTW, I happen to agree with this parenthetic. ) OTOH, in Derashah #7, I think I could defend RSR's #2! To quote the Ran: We have been commanded to obey their decision whether it represents the tru th or its opposite ...for the power of decision-making has been entrusted to the halakhic authorities for each generation. Whatever they decide is what God has commanded. Compare: : 2. Levels of truth - R. Moshe in the hakdama to IM, and R. Yaakov to : Bereishit 26, the Netziv in his Hakadama to Haamek Sh'eila, his commentary : to the Sheiltot). Using R. Moshe's terminology. there is Emet Shamaymit, : and Emet L'Horaa. Both are correct, and in this world we are obligated to : follow the emet l'horaa even if it deviates from the ultimate, heavenly : truth. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You are where your thoughts are. micha at aishdas.org - Ramban, Igeres haQodesh, Ch. 5 http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:38:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:38:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5565E50A.4070406@sero.name> On 05/27/2015 04:22 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Yahadus uses the Torah to define evil. Others don't accept this definition. Why is that relevant? Objective truth doesn't depend on how many people are aware of it or accept it. It's true for everyone, whether they know and accept it or not. Those who don't know it are simply ignorant, and those who dispute it are simply wrong. Subjective truth is a very different matter. If a truth is subjective then those who dispute it are not wrong, it *isn't true* for them, and if someone insists it must be true for them then *he* is wrong. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:41:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:41:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] right and wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5565E599.6050709@sero.name> On 05/27/2015 05:20 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Tangential to some of the recent discussions I wish to point out that > the defintion of right and wrong is subjective and indeed changes > through history. No, it isn't and it doesn't. That the majority of people in the course of history have been wrong is no chiddush; the majority of people *today* are wrong. Truth isn't determined by democracy. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:42:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:42:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") In-Reply-To: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> References: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5565E5EC.7030806@sero.name> On 05/27/2015 06:47 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to > blow. How do you do less than 10*each*? Tashrat for Malchiyos, Tashat for Zichronos, and Tarat for Shofros. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 10:58:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 13:58:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Even More on Who Wrote the Mishnah Brurah Message-ID: <20150527175829.C3B57182454@nexus.stevens.edu> Someone on my email list spoke to a well-known Flatbush Rov and sent me the following: Reb Yitzchok I spoke to Rabbi XX this morning, and he did indeed confirm that the MB was not written only by the Chofetz Chaim. He said R. Moshe Feinstein told him that it is a work of a rabbim, not only a yochid. It seems that R. Arye Leib was not the only one to work on it. According to what R. XX heard the team also consisted of the CC's son in law and the mashgiach Rav Londinski. R. XX also told me that R. Henoch Liebowitz, the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim in Queens told him that his father Reb Dovid, who was a nephew of the CC, also wrote portions of the MB. So thank you for leading me towards this information. llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 12:38:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 15:38:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55661D24.8040207@gmail.com> Micha Berger: >> Rabbi Akiva said, ... "Even as a house proclaims its builder,a garment >> > its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the >> > Holy Blessed One Who created it. >> > >> >Not very rigorous. Rabbi Aqiva's reply revolves around giving a parable >> >to make the conclusion self-evident. Not contructing a deductive argument. >> > >> > ...there are truths that can >> be justified even when they are not amenable to formal proofs. >> ... I'll quote Qovetz Maamariv par 5-7 from a translation >> provided by Pirchei Shoshanim. You'll notice it's nothing like the >> Rambam's attempt to formally prove an Argument from Design in Moreh >> sec. II. Indeed, the Rambam himself in the Moreh Nevuchim recognizes this distinction and supports the superior validity of the non-formal approach. Chapters after he devotes chapters to formal philosophic proofs for Creation ex nihilo, he describes how a healthy (and unbiased) mind thinks: And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, /for one who is modeh al ha-ememmes/ (Ibn Tibbon; KPCH: /baal tsedek/; Pines: an equitable man) [contra Aristotle?see 2:20-23], is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an intender, and that such purposeful intent necessarily implies the production of something new [and not something that always existed along with the one who bears the purposeful intention for its existence]. (MN 3:13) Aristotle agreed to the premise that everything in Nature serves a certain purpose, and that every being contributes to the existence of still another being, but he refused to concede to the conclusion the Rambam considers something a /modeh al ha-emmess/baal tsedek/ is naturally convinced of. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 13:54:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 16:54:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <55661D24.8040207@gmail.com> References: <55661D24.8040207@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150527205440.GB22904@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 03:38:12PM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : Indeed, the Rambam himself in the Moreh Nevuchim recognizes this : distinction and supports the superior validity of the non-formal : approach. Chapters after he devotes chapters to formal philosophic : proofs for Creation ex nihilo, he describes how a healthy (and : unbiased) mind thinks: : : And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, ... : is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities : serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; : and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an : intender, and that such purposeful intent necessarily implies the : production of something new [and not something that always existed : along with the one who bears the purposeful intention for its : existence]. (MN 3:13) There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam recaps a point made in 2:19-20. And for that matter, if the Rambam was talking about not really needing formal proof, despite spending much of sec. II on just that, why would it be buried in a chapter that focuses on something else? 3:13 is about how the universe has its own purpose. It is not just an arena designed for the purpose of humans. He argues here with Aristo who says that plants exist for the purpose of animals, and in general, that things exist for the purpose of other things. Besides, the Rambam writes in 3:51 in the mashal of the palace, that people who believe because of tradition without having proof are like those who wander around the chatzer, whereas someone with a proof is like one who entered the prozdor. Not Aristo's epistomology didn't analyze issues of proof vs other justification. But clearly Reliabilism, trusting an idea found in a source that has already been found to be reliable (hama'aminim ... derekh qabalah), is not being considered good enough justification to fully accomplish life's goal. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 14:39:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 17:39:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527213945.GE22904@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 10:25:26AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> I think the problem is more than just avoiding the issur, but making :> it trivial to entirely avoid it. : : In that case how about a "dud shemesh" according to the poskim that it is : allowed because it uses the sun I don't know. Maybe because you still can't boil hot water if you wanted it, say, for your tea. :> The textbook case would be on Shabbos 6a: situating someone in a meqom :> petur so that someone in a reshus hayachid can hand items to them so :> that they could then hand it over to someone in a reshus harabim. :> Rashi ad loc explains "demezalzel be'isurei Shabbos".>> : would there be a difference between doing this once and making this a : standard procedure? Good question. I don't see "standard procedure" in the gemara, it looks like a one-off. It depends if we're talking about zilzul of kevod Shabbos, or zilzul of the melakhah, the latter being more of a "threat of slippery slope" problem. Rashi has "mezalzel be'isurei Shabbos". BH 337:2 "shelo yishtaberu" uses the same turn of phrase. Why would you be afraid of cheapening the issur if we aren't talking about that opening the door to future violation? The Tur OC 315, Beiur Halakah 344 and elsewhere talk about not doing things "shelo yavo'u lezalzel bo". Which clearly invokes a slippery slope argument; but not that zilzul is itself a slippery slope, rather than zilzul is such a problem, we avoid things that will slide us there. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is harder to eat the day before Yom Kippur micha at aishdas.org with the proper intent than to fast on Yom http://www.aishdas.org Kippur with that intent. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 14:49:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 17:49:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir In-Reply-To: <20150527.080332.8051.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150527.080332.8051.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150527214903.GF22904@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 12:03:32PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Micha Berger answered: :> On a technical level, it would be mesayeia, not lifnei iver, and :> I'm not sure that mesayeia applies to 7 mitzvos benei Noach. : Really? Perhaps I need a better understanding of the difference between : the two. I thought that mesayeia was when the other person is going to : violate the halacha anyway and I am merely helping him to do it... My understanding is that mesayeia is when the person was capable of doing the aveirah without you. Not "would" but "could". Whereas lifnei iveir is when the nazir is mei'eivar hanahar and you're giving him passage. The sugya is on AZ 6a-b. But, I see the Ran does say mesayeia apply to preventing a nakhri from violating the 7MBN. The Rama *YD 151:2) says we are meiqil and allow selling AZ items to nakhriim if they already own similar items or can buy them elsewhere, but there are machmirim. See the Shach YD 151:6-7, who discusses this machloqes rishonim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The mind is a wonderful organ micha at aishdas.org for justifying decisions http://www.aishdas.org the heart already reached. Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 18:33:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 21:33:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] measurement error Message-ID: <20150528013324.GA4749@aishdas.org> The topic I got caught up in has been the AhS and standard shiurim. The story so far.... Jan 8, when this thread was current, I wrote : > BTW, carrying 4 amos bereshus harabbim is 4 of one's own amos, assuming > they have mainstream bone structure. It's where I am in AhS Yomi. > But notice that we would naturally assume "amah" as unit of length, not > as a function of how far that particular person can reach. On Jan 11, I hit the topic again WRT eiruvin AhS OC 363:32-35, and wrote : > But then in se'if 34 he says something I do not follow, but key to > our discussion. > When dealing with mavui, where there is only one mavui and therefore one > measuring process to be used for everyone, the above applies. However, > when the measurement is only for one person's use, tbey should be > measuring for himself, with his own norms. > And here he adds a touch of subjectivity: a person should measure how > far he himself could walk. And the rule of carrying in rh"r a distance > of no more 4 of one's own amos is brought into that umbrella. > The reason for the general rule is to cover the personal amos of the > people who will be using the measuring. > BUT, and this is why I do not follow, he opened se'if 32 by telling us > the variability is 1/48 of the total (1/24 of an etzba per ammah). Which > is far less than the variability in forearm lengths in most groups of > people. For example, my own sukkah is used by Yoni, who stands 6'3" and by > my own 5'3" -- and my arms are on the shorter side, even proportionally. > When we hold up elbows together, my ammah ends just past his wrist. Not > within 47/48 of eachother. And then on May 18 I hit AhS OC 586:14 and tried reviving this thread . The topic was the minimum length for a shofar -- long enough to be seen on either side when being held in one hand. > So the shiur is neither personal nor really the standard tefach. It is > literally as the gemara says, what can be held and still seen. Which is > why there is a machloqes about where the tefach stands in relation to the > real shiur. But, visible if hypothetically held by an average hand. And > if the tqoei'ah has wide hands, he could hold a minimal shofar without > it being visible, and it would still be kosher. ... > What I find even more interesting is that there is no chiluq being drawn > between someone who blows in shul and someone who blows just for himself. > Wouldn't the rule from OC 363 mean that someone in the latter situation > should use what is visible when their own hand holds it? But today I seem to have hit an AhS which deals with shiurim that aren't human: revi'is, kezayis. According to OC 612:8, the shiur of drinking on YK is not a revi'is, but melo lugmav. And unlike akhilah, where there is one kezayis for everyone, melo lugmav is literally his own cheek. So it would seem that kezayis, and perhaps revi'is and other shiurim (beis se'ah) are not subjective. Which makes sense, since I can't figure out how to make a kezayis correspond to the person... Except RCVolozhiner's position, where it's the average kezayis then and there, and not a static shiur. Which could, literally, be the same shiur for all people (living there and then) and thus may be within the AhS's intent. Can't I get anyone else intrigued by this problem? Back on Jan 11, I was in hil' eiruvin, and hit upn the AhS's discussion of an ammah just as we were discussing the topic Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The purely righteous do not complain about evil, micha at aishdas.org but add justice, don't complain about heresy, http://www.aishdas.org but add faith, don't complain about ignorance, Fax: (270) 514-1507 but add wisdom. - R AY Kook, Arpelei Tohar From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:12:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:12:53 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul Message-ID: Micha wrote: The Tur OC 315, Beiur Halakah 344 and elsewhere talk about not doing things "shelo yavo'u lezalzel bo". Which clearly invokes a slippery slope argument; but not that zilzul is itself a slippery slope, rather than zilzul is such a problem, we avoid things that will slide us there. >> My apologies but I am still completely confused when one applies zilzul and when one says something is allowed as an exception to the rule. No purpose in giving examples as there are myriads of exceptions that are allowed. I have the same problem with "lo plug" sometimes something that would be allowed is prohibited because of "lo plug" and sometimes we simply say it is an exception. Perhaps the most famous example is lighting candles on leil yom tov. The wife of the Prisha says one should say the bracha first and then light since lighting (preexisting flame) is allowed on tomtov. The MA calls her names and says this is an obvious "lo plug". My impression is that most women follow the wife of the prisha. The question is what is the basis of the machloket either when do we say "lo plug" and when do we apply "zilzul" and when do we ignore these arguments -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 21:04:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 04:04:33 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir Message-ID: <20150528.000433.22403.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > My understanding is that mesayeia is when the person was capable > of doing the aveirah without you. Not "would" but "could". Whereas > lifnei iveir is when the nazir is mei'eivar hanahar and you're > giving him passage. > > The sugya is on AZ 6a-b. > > ... I will be the first to point out that Lifnei Iveir is one the many topics where my learning and expertise is severely lacking. Even so, I suspect that there is something missing from RMB's definition. In the simplest reading of the pasuk (Vayikra 19:14), Rashi says that Lifnei Iveir forbids one to give bad advice to another person. It is difficult to imagine a worse piece of advice than telling Ruth to follow Orpah back her her previous god. Googling the question "What is Lifnei Iveir" brought me to an interesting article by Rabbi Yirmiyohu Kaganoff (bio at http://rabbikaganoff.com/about) The full article is at http://tinyurl.com/ka3pwq6 and I would like to quote the part where he gives three different categories of Lifnei Iveir: > I. Inciting ? maiseis > > This occurs when a person was not even considering doing an > aveirah until someone encouraged him. Thus, the instigator incited > the performing of the aveirah and is therefore a maiseis. > > II. Encouraging ? chanufah > > One violates this prohibition by complimenting someone for doing a > sin, thus implying that sinning is acceptable. > > III. Enabling ? lifnei iveir > > One violates this prohibition if the sinner wanted to do the > aveirah, but was unable to do so without assistance. The person > who enables the performing of the aveirah violates lifnei iveir. > > IV. Even when none of these Torah prohibitions are involved, > helping the sinner do the aveirah sometimes violates the rabbinic > prohibition of mesaya?a y?dei ovrei aveirah, assisting someone who > is sinning. (It is unfortunate that the article did not cite a source or precedent for these categories, but please bear with me.) It seems to me that RMB is giving a useful tool to distinguish between category 3 and category 4, but that tool is useful only in the case where a person already has the *desire* to commit a sin, but it lacking the *ability* to some degree. If a person has only a mild inability to sin, then the enabler is merely mesayeia; but if the person has a severe inability, then the enabler is placing a real michshol. But what of the case where a person does *not* yet have a desire to sin? Rabbi Kaganoff is saying that one who incites or encourages him to do it is violating Lifnei Iveir. Even if the person already has the ability to do the sin, it was below his "bechirah point" until he was egged on to do it. Rabbi Kaganoff offers an example: > Inciting Someone to Sin ? maiseis > > The classic case of maiseis is when the nachash encouraged Chavah > to eat the forbidden fruit. Even though the nachash itself did > not eat, Hashem punished it for inciting Chavah to sin (Gemara > Sanhedrin 29a). Similarly, if Reuven incites Shimon to sin in a > way that Shimon had not considered, Reuven is a maiseis. And so my question can be rephrased: If the nachash was wrong to tell Chava to eat the fruit, wasn't Naami wrong to tell Ruth to follow Orpah back to her god? Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/556694205dac4141e6338st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 01:07:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:07:24 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim Message-ID: On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 07:14:36PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: : -- 30 **dim'yushav** : -- 10 **dim'umad** : -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the R' Micha Berger asked: "How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to blow. How do you do less than 10 **each**?" Many Rishonim (quoted by the Beis Yosef in Siman 592) hold that during Chazaras Hashatz in Musaf you blow Tashrat for malchiyos, Tashat for zichronos and Tarat for shofaros. In all of the Nusach Ashkenaz shuls that I have davened in they blew 30 before Musaf, 30 during chazaras hashatz and then 40 after Musaf adding up to 100. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:33:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:33:43 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: Micha wrote <> Well Micha and I agree on several points but still disagree on others. Agreed that people in real life don't use formal mathematical proofs. A sanhedrin can kill on a majority vote (OK there a little more than 50%) I also agree that if one is talking about oneself then feelings count. Saying they are wrong but I cant prove it works perfectly OK with regard to your own beliefs. It doesnt work when trying to convince others. Example: Your child comes home and says he learned that the world is billions of years old not about 5700 years. Or else your teenager tells you he doesn't believe G-d is loving because of the Holocaust or because of Amalek. You can tell him that whatever is in the Torah or Chazal is truth and its not open to discussion. That might work with some children. Alternatively you can give him/her one of the many answers that have been discussed on this list. That may or not convince him. There are no proofs that G-d exists or that G-d rules the universe or that G-d is just or loving. You can convince yourself but doing that to others is difficult, We have already argued about REW and I still can't accept it. The argument is that if someone else tells you why he doesn't accept G-d or that G-d rules the world whether for rational or emotional reasons the answer is that we don't believe him and say he is making up reasons. Of course he will say the same about your acceptance of Torah and mitzvot. To simply accuse the other of simply rationalizing his beliefs is simply not true. I have had enough lectures on why the Bible was written very late by many scribes to be convinced they really mean it. You may disagree but you can't accuse them of merely rationalizing their non-belief. In one class the professor said he would willing debate anyone who has a different opinion objectively. However, if you start that the Torah is from Sinai because of your belief then there is nothing to discuss. What is self-evident to you is self-evidently false to someone else. Again it is legitimate to disagree with that person but I claim it is not legitimate to state that he doesn't really believe in his own position. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:57:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:57:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura Message-ID: <> They state clearly these are things they heard from the Gra, Ari etc. No misleading. No different than RHS writing what he heard from RYBS and many other such seforim. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:55:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 05:55:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5566E62F.8040201@sero.name> On 05/28/2015 05:12 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > Perhaps the most famous example is lighting candles on leil yom tov. > The wife of the Prisha The MA's girsa in the Prisha is "mother", and the Machtzis Hashekel confirms that this is not a typo in the MA. > says one should say the bracha first and then > light since lighting (preexisting flame) is allowed on tomtov. > The MA calls her names He does not! He merely quotes the gemara Yoma 66b that "women only have wisdom with the spindle". Machtzis Hashekel says he is not even referring to the Drisha's mother, but to most women, who will not understand the distinction between Shabbos and Yomtov. > and says this is an obvious "lo plug". He doesn't just assert it, he cites clear sources that when a bracha must sometimes be said after the deed, we apply lo plug and always say it after the deed. Thus, he says, the same thing must apply here. (But see Dagul Mervava, who distinguishes this case because the bracha is different, and points out that if not for this distinction then the same should apply to the Chanukah lights). > My impression is that most women follow the wife of the prisha. Really? I'm surrprised. I'm also surprised that you've surveyed enough women to form an impression one way or the other. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:19:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 10:19:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:57:05PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> < teachings. For that matter, people talk about what the Ari says in Peri :> Eitz Chaim or others of R' Chaim Vital's works.>> : They state clearly these are things they heard from the Gra, Ari etc. No : misleading. I'm not sure about such disclaimers on the Gra's talmidim's writings, aside from Maaseh Rav. And if so, lo kol shekein in our case! Here we have the author of Shemiras haLashon -- someone known for thinking about what he said -- calling the MB "beiuri", "od tzarafti" "ki bo biarti", "upo hir'eisi", and "kol eileh chbarti..." on the title page. How can one argue he didn't oversee the entire work and checked the content? Nothing about parts being by Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger What you get by achieving your goals micha at aishdas.org is not as important as http://www.aishdas.org what you become by achieving your goals. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Henry David Thoreau From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:33:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 10:33:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528143339.GB4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:12:53PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : My apologies but I am still completely confused when one applies zilzul and : when one says something is allowed as an exception to the rule. No purpose : in giving examples as there are myriads of exceptions that are allowed. I think the reverse: the norm is to allow valid loopholes to the din, and it's only when the poseiq decides that the loophole would destroy some significant part of the feel of Shabbos (whether qedushas Shabbos or an entire melakhah) that we call it zilzul. ... : Perhaps the most famous example is lighting candles on leil yom tov. The : wife of the Prisha says one should say the bracha first and then light : since lighting (preexisting flame) is allowed on tomtov. The MA calls her : names and says this is an obvious "lo plug". : My impression is that most women follow the wife of the prisha. The AhS OC 263:3 does, citing the Perishah. Then he quotes the MA (s"q 12) and says "and many were choliq on him... vekhein iqar ledina." Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:45:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 10:45:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528144529.GC4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:33:43PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : Well Micha and I agree on several points but still disagree on others. : Agreed that people in real life don't use formal mathematical proofs... I would go further and say that far too many things /can't/ use formal proofs. And even further: even when you do have a formal proof, it is built from givens -- call them postulates or first principles. So, barring an infinite regress, even a formal proof is a structure atop things accepted without formal proof. I should point out that this a major subset of the field of epistomology. : It doesnt work when trying to convince others. True, but not relevant. We -- and more importantly to the origianl point, REW -- are talking about whether it's more natural to believe in G-d or not. Not whether a believer could then convince someone else. ... : We have already argued about REW and I still can't accept it. The argument : is that if someone else tells you why he doesn't accept G-d or that G-d : rules the world whether for rational or emotional reasons the answer is : that we don't believe him and say he is making up reasons. REW doesn't say that. I even cut-n-pasted a translation to support that point. REW says that he really doesn't believe, but he had to work against the natural state of seeing a world that shows obvious signs of a Designer. Someone can truly and honestly convince himself, or be convinced by others (including upbringing) that a poem really could emerge by someone spilling ink. But that's not what people would conclude if we lacked a strong desire to conclude that way -- the "shochad" of freedom if ein din ve'ein Dayan. There is nothing in that quote from Qovetz Maamarim about anyone not really believing what they think they believe. Rather, he ascribes a motive. : Of course he will say the same about your acceptance of Torah and mitzvot. Again, REW isn't speaking about the context of debate. Nor was I. By bringing it in, you complicate matters without addressing the original claim. REW is really just saying that the reason why believe is a fair topic of bechirah because on one side design is self-evident but on the other the desire to live without having to follow the Designer counterbalances it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger People were created to be loved. micha at aishdas.org Things were created to be used. http://www.aishdas.org The reason why the world is in chaos is that Fax: (270) 514-1507 things are being loved, people are being used. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:22:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 14:22:41 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> References: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, May 28, 2015, 5:19 PM Micha Berger wrote: > Here we have the author of Shemiras > haLashon -- someone known for thinking about what he said -- calling > the MB "beiuri", "od tzarafti" "ki bo biarti", "upo hir'eisi", and "kol > eileh chbarti..." on the title page. How can one argue he didn't oversee > the entire work and checked the content? Nothing about parts being by I agree he must have looked it over That leaves the question of contradictions And stories about minhagim of cc that are different than what is in mb From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:23:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:23:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150528152301.GE4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 02:22:41PM +0000, Eli Turkel wrote: : I agree he must have looked it over Which is why I think R/Dr MS is making too much ado over the actual authorship. : That leaves the question of contradictions Well, not every sheverer Rambam is a printing error either. Another case where the academic norm is to run far further with some fun concept than I'm comfortable with. Perhaps we should be looking for how the contradictions are only apparent. Or perhaps the CC felt than ruling al pi rov or safeiq lechumerah/lequlah in two different cases needn't results in consistencies between pesaqim. Before you spend too much time on that bothering you, recall when we daven minchah and maariv. If the tefillos are on two different days, you can end up following different definitions of evening on different days. : And stories about minhagim of cc that are different than what is in mb I thought R/Dr Seth Mandel's position is compelling. Look at the title page and the haqdamah. The CC never claims that the MB is a seifer of pesaq. Rather, he describes the work as a survey. From the title page, defining the MB (as opposed to the left column about the BH): I called my biur by the name MB since within it is explained (misbareir; c.f. "berurah") the words of the SA, every law by its reasoning and origins in the gemara and posqim that it not be like a sealed book. Also I will collect in it all the dinim, halakhos and biurim scattered amog the books of the acharonim, meforshim of the SA who are known (like MA, PMG, Birkhei Yoseif, Maamar Mordekhai and many such.) There are many of them after the Be'er Heitiv and they are not brought in shu"t because they are somwhat scattered in various places. All of these are compiled here, and all is in a straightforward and easy language and in proper order, with Hashem's help. And the BH: Also, I appended on its side some necessary inyanim titled under the name Biur Halakhah -- and as the name, so it is. For in it I sometimes explained the words of halakhah which are brought in summary in the MB without proof, and here I show (be"h) its source looking inall of gemara and the posqim. Also in it are sometimes explains the words of the SA at length in places which need explanation. (Sorry, just always wanted to bother translating that -- this thread was just my excuse.) So, the MB is a survey, and thus the halachic conclusions found in it (and explained in the BH) are purely what in theory the sources surveyed would indicate. It's not that the CC didn't believe in mimeticism, it's that the MB is a book of theory and therefore ignores mimeticism. The MB was written lehalakhah velo lemaaseh. Which makes it ironic that so many RYs of the mid- and late 20th cent worked so hard to make the work a "poseiq acharon" lemaaseh. Whereas he CC's own practice did reflect weighing shitos based on their acceptance. And so, unsurprisingly, in all the places I know of where his own practice didn't fit the MB (such as supporting a community eiruv, despite BH 364 "ve'achar") his practice does follow the AhS. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "The most prevalent illness of our generation is micha at aishdas.org excessive anxiety.... Emunah decreases anxiety: http://www.aishdas.org 'The Almighty is my source of salvation; I will Fax: (270) 514-1507 trust and not be afraid.'" (Isa 12) -Shalhevesya From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:11:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:11:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528151127.C0EE817F7D9@nexus.stevens.edu> At 10:33 AM 5/28/2015, R. Micha Berger wrote: >And if so, lo kol shekein in our case! Here we have the author of Shemiras >haLashon -- someone known for thinking about what he said -- calling >the MB "beiuri", "od tzarafti" "ki bo biarti", "upo hir'eisi", and "kol >eileh chbarti..." on the title page. How can one argue he didn't oversee >the entire work and checked the content? Nothing about parts being by I wonder if these words were on the title page of the first publication of each volume of the MB. After all, publishers do add things. One title page I found online for the second volume of the MB refers to the author as HaGaon. I doubt that the CC would have had this on the title page of the first printing. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:39:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:39:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: <20150528151127.C0EE817F7D9@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150528151127.C0EE817F7D9@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150528153911.GG4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 11:11:28AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : I wonder if these words were on the title page of the first : publication of each volume of the MB... Why wonder? Each volume: 1. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49623&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1884 2. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49624&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1895 3. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49625&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1891 4. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49626&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1898 5. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49627&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1902 6. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49628&pgnum=1 - Pietrekov 1907 (None call him ga'on, all have pretty much the same self description.) These fit the years of the first editions that wikipedia gives, based on "The Chafetz Chaim" by R MM Yoshor, pg 603. (But even if wiki has it wrong, they are editions published by the author.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Rescue me from the desire to win every micha at aishdas.org argument and to always be right. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Nassan of Breslav Fax: (270) 514-1507 Likutei Tefilos 94:964 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:10:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 08:10:56 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH Message-ID: http://menachemmendel.net/blog/are-you-a-mishnah-berurah-or-arukh-hashulhan-person/ see there also the r henkin review . he points out that the Oz Vhadar edition inherently has a difficulty in attributing notes to the [non-satmar oriented] relatives of the Aruch Hashulchan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 09:00:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:00:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the suggestion that a kosher lamp is zilzul shabbas. Isn't just a nice (and -- significantly -- *safer*) way of covering a lamp? If one were to make the argument that its convenience might make it zilzul shabbas, might one respond with "but safety"? Why do the rabbis deem the following to not be a case of zilzul yom tov: cooking a large pot of food on the afternoon of yom tov rishon, "in case people might stop by", and "I'll eat some of it" knowing there will be leftovers? -- Sholom -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 14:15:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 17:15:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") In-Reply-To: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> References: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> Message-ID: R'Micha asked: > How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to blow. How do you do less than 10 *each*? < 3 during Malch., 3 during Zichronos, and 4 during Shof'ros. On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 6:47 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 07:14:36PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: > : When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: > : -- 30 *dim'yushav* > : -- 10 *dim'umad* > : -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the > > How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to > blow. How do you do less than 10 *each*? > > Tir'u baTov! > -Micha > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 15:45:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 18:45:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528224528.GB28282@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:00:22PM -0400, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote: : I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the suggestion that a : kosher lamp is zilzul shabbas. That's okay, it's just a hava amina we raised here. No one AFAIK actually banned kosher lamps over zilzul Shabbos. The question was why a Kosher Switch (that claims to not even be grama) would be zilzul and not the Kosher Lamp. And then, many (most? the vast majority of posqim?) do not believe it actually avoids gerama, including the author of Shemiras Shabbos kehilkhisa. : Isn't just a nice (and -- significantly : -- *safer*) way of covering a lamp? Well, every case where one would discuss zilzul Shabbos would be one where there wasn't a more easily defined problem. So every discussion could be "isn't it just". I think the difference is that a kosher switch would mean being able to turn or off anything, whereas the Kosher Lamp is more limited, being a specific appliance. ... : Why do the rabbis deem the following to not be a : case of zilzul yom tov: cooking a large pot of food on the afternoon of : yom tov rishon, "in case people might stop by", and "I'll eat some of : it" knowing there will be leftovers? I would guess that similarly, because it's of limited utility. It doesn't totally destroy the concept of an issur of cooking on Yom Tov. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The fittingness of your matzos [for the seder] micha at aishdas.org isn't complete with being careful in the laws http://www.aishdas.org of Passover. One must also be very careful in Fax: (270) 514-1507 the laws of business. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 05:52:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 15:52:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Indeed in Europe before WWII the MB was not the "final" arbiter of halacha. Much changed when CI wrote in a letter that the MB has the halacha of a sanhedrin and one can't disagree with its conclusions. Of course CI himself disagreed with the MB and in fact there are published versions of the MB which include the disagreements of the CI. All to show that what is written in letters is not to be taken very literally. In any case that paid a large part of the change in attitude towards the MB. Certainly poskim of the previous generation who grew up before the war also did not take the MB as a final posek. As an example is RMF though I heard similar things from RYBS. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 08:24:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 11:24:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150529152455.GA5770@aishdas.org> R/Dr Haym Soloveitchik focused on the MB's more textualist slant vs the AhS giving weight to shitos that were common practice. Which fits R/DHS's thesis for that particular paper, the idea he was using that particular comparison to illustrate. But I do not believe it's the primary difference between them. I already gave what I saw was the primary difference. The AhS was written by a moreh de'asra to reflect halakhah lemaaseh. The MB was written by a tzasiq and a gaon as a survey of later shitos that weren't available to most people trying to learn halakhah. No focus (by the author, see below about others) on lemaaseh. I see this as the cause for the MB's lack of attention to halakhah as practiced. It wasn't so much that the CC was a textualist when it comes to pesaq, but that he wrote a book for discussing texts. A second difference is that the AhS's idea of understanding the halakhah is looking to see how the pesaq evolved from gemara (and Y-mi) to Rif, Rambam, Rosh to the Tur, BY, SA, and finally to the acharonim since. The MB is more focused on the halakhah in the acharonic period, and how to decide amongst them. Third, the AhS is willing to leave the halakhah fuzzy, and often comes to a range of conclusions rather than one clear-cut pesaq. Or, he will pasqen one way in one se'if, but in a slightly different case in a different se'if reopen the question: ... but if you hold like... The MB offers more clarity. An AhS fan might say that clarity is artificial, because the reality of halakhah isn't cut and dry with only one best pesaq for all people. But it does make it easier to open a MB than to try to decide what to do when you reach one of the fuzzier stretches of the AhS. Perhaps the clarity is really is artifice, and that's why we need LORs rather than thinking a book is our poseiq. On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 03:52:06PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : Indeed in Europe before WWII the MB was not the "final" arbiter of : halacha. Much changed when CI wrote in a letter that the MB has the : halacha of a sanhedrin and one can't disagree with its conclusions. : Of course CI himself disagreed with the MB... : All to show that what is written in letters is not to be taken very : literally... Although it wasn't only the CI, so it's not all about taking his letter overly literally. Rav Yaakov Kamenecki and R' Aharon Kotler called him the "poseiq acharon", and RAK went as far as making sure the MB would appear in photos of him. See also our 2006 discussion Aruch Hashulchan vs. Mishna berura OTOH, R YH Henkin testified about his famous grandfather ( quoting his own Bnei Banim vol. 2 page 31): AH saw the MB; see 11:22; 12:4; 28:23; 62:4; 268:6; and other places where he mentions Mishnah Berurah by name. In 79:11 and 319:22 and elsewhere he disagrees with him by name and in innumerable places he disagrees with him without mentioning his name: for instance, in 55:20 he is writing against the Mishnah Berurah and similarly in 370:13 -- this is obvious anyone who looks carefully. So it is a mitzvah to let people know that AH is not only a Sefer Halacha but also a response to the Mishnah Brerurah. OTOH, similarly R [Shmuel] Yaakov Weinberg (Ner Israel) considered the AhS the more authoritative. And minutes before my chupah (while waiting for the paper to burn to have ashes for my head), R' Dovid Lifshitz asked if I had one for my new home, because it was closer to halakhah as my ancestors held. (RDL knew my family back in Suvalk.) As for RMF, RDF and RRF both agreed that RMF gave priority to the AhS because R' Yechiel Michl Epstein had a qehillah, and therefore the more practiced poseiq of the two. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger People were created to be loved. micha at aishdas.org Things were created to be used. http://www.aishdas.org The reason why the world is in chaos is that Fax: (270) 514-1507 things are being loved, people are being used. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 30 16:03:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 00:03:21 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] : Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001f01d09b2c$d37ec030$7a7c4090$@org.uk> I wrote: >> But aren't they then denying those Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all >> the chance to hear shofar according to the majority opinions by only blowing >> for them according to the minority opinions? And RZS replied: >AFAIK everyone agrees that all these methods are kosher, so those Jews >are definitely yotzei the mitzvah. ... >They're not foisting anything. The people they're blowing for would >otherwise not hear shofar at all, so they're clearly better off hearing >even some obscure form of it, so long as they're yotzei. But if these people who want to hear the shofar blown according to minority shitos are capable of finding people who would otherwise not hear shofar at all and blowing for them, they are *also* capable of finding such people in circumstances where they then blow for them according to the majority shitos. For it to be true that "they're clearly better off hearing some obscure form of it, so long as they are yotzei" - you have to be assuming that the people doing the blowing would only be prepared to go to the trouble of blowing to fulfil their desire to fulfil minority shitos but NOT where the result is only to ensure that fellow Jews perform a mitzvah. You may be correct that indeed people are more concerned with making sure they themselves have fulfilled the mitzvah of shofar in every possible permutation than in making sure another Jew performs the mitzvah at all, but could anybody honestly regard that as praiseworthy? As a consequence, I then raised a halachic query: > The principle on which > somebody who has fulfilled their obligation can then fulfil the obligation > of another is based on kol yisrael areivim zeh b'zeh. But to what extent is > that applicable in a situation in which that person would never, had the > situation been reversed, have accepted the form of fulfilment they are > offering the other. Ie since the person who is blowing the shofar refused > to have these alternative ways of blowing as the fundamental method of > fulfilling their own mitzvah, is it really areivus to then foist that form > of fulfilment on others? RZS's assumption is that, so long as everybody agrees that a form of blowing is kosher bidieved, then areivus works, but I wonder whether this is necessarily true. Areivus is a fascinating halachic concept - it allows somebody who has already fulfilled a mitzvah to do it again, including (importantly) making brachos again (which they would otherwise not be permitted to do) on behalf of another. I went for a bit of a hunt over Yom Tov to see what I could find regarding areivus, but did not turn up much. First of all, the pasuk from the Torah regarding Areivus is brought in Shevuos 39a as being based on the Vayikra 26:37 [vchashlu ish b'achiv] - which is then explained as meaning that a man in *the sin* of his brother so as to teach that kol yisrael areivim ze l'zeh. But while that seems a valid source for what might be considered "negative" areivus or areivus in relation to lo ta'asehs (and the obligation to protest), it led me to wonder how straightforwardly that gets you to what might be called "positive" areivus - ie doing something, such as performing the mitzvah of shofar on behalf of another [not that I have seen this distinction between "negative" and "positive" areivus anywhere]. Ie while you can see that if is permitted to blow shofar for somebody who was otherwise unable to fulfil the mitzvah, and one failed to do so, one might then be considered to have stumbled into the sin of that person's omission - ie failure to perform an aseh - it seems a leap to therefore derive from this particular pasuk that one has the power to fulfil and make brachos on behalf of that person. If anything I would have thought perhaps v'ahavta re'echa k'mocha seemed more likely, but I couldn't find any reference. Note that areivus would seem not to be shlichus, as one can make a shaliach out of somebody who is themselves not commanded in a particular thing - whereas that is not applicable for areivus where the original level of obligation must be at least equal on the part of the arev. [This is all leaving aside the famous Rosh Brachos perek 3 siman 13 which states that areivus does not apply to women, which is clearly discussing what might be termed positive areivus ie making brachos on behalf of one another, and which the achronim generally limit to cases where there is no equal obligation, despite what may seem to be the simple pshat, or the Tosphos in Kidushin 70b that areivus does not apply to gerim - which must surely at most [and here it seems to me you need the definition of negative and positive areivus] to be only a reference to negative areivus - otherwise this would be raised as a problem of a ger making brachos on behalf of others - although given the source of the Tosphos in Sotah 37b, this would also seem to apply to women for the same reasons - ie the number count being made by reference to the 603,550 in the midbar not including the eruv rav, and not including women either]. The most I was able to find in my brief search over Yom Tov was a Birchei Yosef Orech Chaim siman 124 discussing the question as to whether a Ben Chutz L'Aretz who found himself in a village in Israel over Yom Tov (in the case quoted by the Birchei Yosef he had gone to Israel to bury his dead) where nobody besides him had the knowledge to be Shatz, and who had already davened at home on second day yom tov the second day yom tov davening, could be shatz for the community by saying the birchei chol amidah. But there seem to be lots of other reasons to permit (as the Birchei Yosef does) in this particular case. In particular it seems to me, besides all of the Birchei Yosef's arguments, if you were to say that areivus was linked to v'ahavta re'echa kamocha, you can see why, if circumstances were reversed, the ben chutz l'aretz would want the same as he is providing to the benei aretz (ie the mutuality of areivus). But in the case that RZS has outlined, where the people hearing only the minority shitos form of shofar blowing would surely want the majority position shofar blowing if they could get it, can the blower unilaterally choose to force them to fulfil their obligation via a set of minority shitos via areivus, or does the principle of areivus not stretch that far? More generally, if somebody holds a particular position as being the ikar, can they under the principle of areivus perform a mitzvah on behalf of somebody who holds by a contradictory position, so that what the arev is doing is, according to him, possul? How about the reverse situation? And that gets us to RZS's case, where it might be agreed that a particular form is kosher bidieved, but if the arev could provide a l'chatchila version and chooses not to, can he be genuinely be said to be a real arev? How good a guarantor must a guarantor be to be considered a guarantor at all? I am sure some achron has written a treatise on areivus which must cover these kinds of topics, but so far I haven't found it. Zev Sero zev at sero.name Shavuah tov Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 12:25:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 15:25:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] FORBIDDING WOMEN DRIVERS: A HALACHIC ANALYSIS Message-ID: <20150529192533.D89D0182BDA@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/nqnquzc The media has widely reported that a Belz Yeshiva in England has forbidden women from driving their children to Yeshiva. It was further reported that if the mothers do not comply, the children will be thrown out of Yeshiva. In a letter sent to parents last week, seen by the Jewish Chronicle, they say there has been an increase in the number of mothers driving their children to school and add that this has led to ?great resentment among parents of pupils of our [Hasidic] institutions?. The letter says the ban, to come into force in the summer, is based on the recommendations of Rabbi Yissachar Dov Rokeach, the Belzer spiritual leader in Israel. It says that if a mother has no other choice but to drive her child to school ? for medical reasons, for example ? she should ?submit a request to the special committee to this effect and the committee shall consider her request.? The question is what does halacha have to say about this? See the above URL for more. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 14:04:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 17:04:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <5568D45F.9010809@gmail.com> R. Micha Berger maintained that R. E. Wasserman was not positing a formal proof for G-d's existence, formal proofs not being the only way, or even the superior way, to establish truths. I cited a passage in the Moreh Nevuchim to support this concept. But as is occasionally the case, R. MB disagrees with me, even when I attempt to defend him: ZL: Indeed, the Rambam himself in the Moreh Nevuchim recognizes this : distinction and supports the superior validity of the non-formal : approach. Chapters after he devotes chapters to formal philosophic : proofs for Creation ex nihilo, he describes how a healthy (and : unbiased) mind thinks: : :And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, //for //one who ismodeh al ha-ememmes// (RMB substituted an ellipsis for this :crucial clause) :is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities :serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; :and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an :intender, and that such purposeful intent necessarily implies the :production of something new [and not something that always existed :along with the one who bears the purposeful intention for its :existence]. (MN 3:13) RMB: There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam recaps a point made in 2:19-20. In 2:19-20 Rambam makes no reference to each component or entity in nature providing a benefit for another, and certainly does not use that there as a proof for Creation ex nihilo. *(Section II is devoted to developing the argument against a naturally necessary eternal world based on ''particularization,'' the differing formations and behaviors of things despite their being made of the same materials.) * ** *Perhaps you are referring to the fact that in both the argument there and here the crucial concluding step invokes the mindset that purposeful intention on G-d's part (which Aristotle as well attributes to G-d) indicates *a changeable will on His part (which indication Aristotle denies) that allows for and indicates Creation ex nihilo. But just as in 3:13 the Rambam describes that crucial mindset as something that is possessed by those who are modeh al ha-emmess, so too in 2:19-20 the Rambam first describes it as something that is ''pashut'' (KPCH) or ''mevuar" (Ibn Tibbon), which he will then proceed to demonstrate through more formal proof: It has already been shown that according to Aristotle... the Universe is not the result of intent of choice and desire; for if this were the case, they would have been non-existing before the intent had been conceived. We [proponents of Judaism?ZL], however, hold that it is /pashut\mevuar/ that all things in the Universe are the result of intent-not-of necessity; and it is possible for that Intender to change them and have a different intent. But in this chapter, my intent is to show by arguments almost as forceful as real proofs, that the Universe gives compelling evidence of being [freely] intended by an Intender: RMB: And for that matter, if the Rambam was talking about not really needing formal proof, despite spending much of sec. II on just that, why would it be buried in a chapter that focuses on something else? I did not posit that the Rambam's intent was to make the point that formal proof is unnecessary. That indeed is not his purpose. After all, the explicitly stated primary purpose of the Moreh is for those (himself included) who yearned to defend and support the mesorah through philosophical approach of his day. He is not interested in dismissing the project. He explicitly describes this /modeh al ha-emmess/ statement /as a tangential interruption/: After that statement, he says, ''I will now return to the subject of this chapter, viz., the ultimate cause [i.e. the purpose behind the universe being as it is--ZL].'' My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows the non-formal mindset of those who are /modeh al ha-emmess/. It is a reference to those who do not restrict their acceptance of truth to things provable through formal logic, settling for healthy, unbiased reasoning (and who thereby see the truth of Creation ex-nihilo as a simple conclusion from the fact of the purposeful hierarchy of nature). RMB: 3:13 is about how the universe has its own purpose. It is not just an arena designed for the purpose of humans. He argues here with Aristo who says that plants exist for the purpose of animals, and in general, that things exist for the purpose of other things. He does not argue with Aristotle on this point, as is clear in the passage from 3:13 that I originally quoted, and as he elaborates in the introduction to his Mishnah commentary. The disagreement (outside of the parenthetically mentioned one) revolves around the /ultimate/ purpose behind the existence of everything, and the question of why the intermediate steps in this world that lead to its finale of the hierarchy must exist, rather than the finale existing alone. (According to Aristotle, every component of nature is simply a necessity whose non-existence is absolutely impossible. It is impossible for G-d to maintain anything but the universe and its entities as they are. According to the Rambam, although every sub lunar being contributes to the existence of another such being, until we get to Man (and then the Ish Shalem), G-d could nevertheless have created that final being directly, without creating the intermediary plants and animals. Why He in His wisdom decided to do it as He did, and why he decided to create the heavens as He did, we cannot know.) RMB: Besides, the Rambam writes in 3:51 in the mashal of the palace, that people who believe because of tradition without having proof are like those who wander around the chatzer, whereas someone with a proof is like one who entered the prozdor. The ''modeh al ha-emmess'' proof, building upon careful observation of the world and and its components and creatures and theorizing as to how it all works, is also a proof. The inferior knowledge that does not lead to optimum closeness to Hashem is pure tradition without proof. Not[e] Aristo's epistomology didn't analyze issues of proof vs other justification. But clearly Reliabilism, trusting an idea found in a source that has already been found to be reliable (hama'aminim ... derekh qabalah), is not being considered good enough justification to fully accomplish life's goal. I did not refer to emunah b'derech kaballah. That's not what I meant by ''ha-modeh al ha-emmess.'' I meant what I said: the healthy thinking of an unbiased mind, meaning the thinking of such a mind informed by knowledge of the things that exist in the world and their behaviors, and explanations of how they operate. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 30 20:04:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sat, 30 May 2015 23:04:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] : Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <001f01d09b2c$d37ec030$7a7c4090$@org.uk> References: <001f01d09b2c$d37ec030$7a7c4090$@org.uk> Message-ID: <556A7A27.3000006@sero.name> On 05/30/2015 07:03 PM, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: > RZS's assumption is that, so long as everybody agrees that a form of blowing > is kosher bidieved, then areivus works, Not just b'deiavad; my understanding is that all of these shitos are kosher lechatchilah, they're just not the way we do them lemaaseh. Let's say they're not mitzva min hamuvchar. Or "de`avad kemar `avad, ud`avad kemar `avad but we do kemar". > But in the case that RZS has outlined, where the people hearing > only the minority shitos form of shofar blowing would surely want the > majority position shofar blowing if they could get it, We're talking about people who have no particular desire to hear shofar at all, or they'd have done so. They didn't bother going to shul on Rosh Hashana, so they're probably not even aware that there are different shitos in how to blow shofar, let alone have a preferred shitah. Anything that is motzi them in the mitzvah is an improvement over what they would do otherwise, and is a benefit for them. And we're talking about potential blowers who currently don't go out and do this, they don't spend their precious Rosh Hashana hours bringing this zechus to fellow Jews who did not come themselves to hear shofar. So what I'm proposing is a win-win. They get to hear the obscure shitos they want to hear, and the people they're blowing for get the basic mitzvah as the Torah commanded it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 30 20:22:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 30 May 2015 23:22:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <556A7E8D.70007@gmail.com> I wrote: > > > > But as is occasionally the case, > R. MB disagrees with me, even when I attempt to defend him I should have put a smiley after that sentence, or maybe even explicated that it was meant as a humorous observation of irony. It meant to imply that RMB is interested in emmess and does not make it a personal issue. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 31 00:59:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 10:59:58 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura Message-ID: RHS has said many times in his shiurim that the MB was not written alone by the Chofetz Chaim and that is why there are sometimes contradictions. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 31 01:08:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 11:08:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: "Indeed in Europe before WWII the MB was not the "final" arbiter of halacha. Much changed when CI wrote in a letter that the MB has the halacha of a sanhedrin and one can't disagree with its conclusions." I believe it happened even a little later then that. RHS who grew up in the 1950s stated many times in shiur that when he learned halacha in the 1950s no one learned Mishna Berura, people either learned Chayei Adam or they learned Shulchan Aruch with Magen Avraham and the Taz. If you look at the European gedolim who came to America like R' Moshe, R' Ruderman, etc. even after WWII they almost never quoted the Mishna Berura. >From what I understand R' Aharon Kotler was very influential in America in promoting learning Mishna Berura. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 31 10:20:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 13:20:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Texualism and the Mishnah Berurah by R. Micha Berger Message-ID: <20150531172101.ED88B180CD0@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://www.aishdas.org/asp/texualism-and-the-mishnah-berurah The author [of the Mishnah Brurah, the Chofetz Chaim] is clear: the purpose of the book was not to provide his own ruling, but to survey the later posqim who have added complexity to the field so that someone looking to reach a decision knows who wrote on the matter. Yes, the CC (or his son or other students who worked with him) often gave his own opinion, including our ?ba?al nefesh yachmir?, but it is unclear to me he intended that opinion to be a pragmatic ruling rather than a theoretical statement. This would explain why the Mishnah Berurah?s rulings diverge from accepted practice so much more often than the Arukh haShulchan (a contemporary work from the same region). Halakhah lemaaseh, pragmatic rulings, need to take such precedent and continuity into account; discussions of textual theory do not. As further evidence that the Mishnah Berurah was not intended to be a practical law guide, we have a lot of testimony that shows that its own author often followed the common Lithuanian practice over his own ?ruling?. Despite the origin of wearing one?s tzitzis strings out being in the MB, the CC did not. His qiddush cup doesn?t hold as much wine as the MB would require. (It is still in the hands of the Zaks family and has been checked repeatedly.) He advocated for building city eiruvin for carrying on Shabbos despite BH 364 ?ve?achar?. The Chafeitz Chaim did not say ?Berikh Shemeih? when taking out the Torah. Etc 1 I am suggesting that the CC?s textualist and formal stance in the MB is simply because the MB was a book for studying texts. And he did not intend to deemphasize mimetic tradition (the flow of practice transmitted culturally). This shift happened when the Chazon Ish in Israel and a number of American rashei yeshiva (such as R? Aharon Kotler) promoted the idea of using the Mishnah Berurah as a poseiq acharon. See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 00:25:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 10:25:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <> I have a book "The Goldilocks Enigma" by Paul Davies (cosmolgist) on why is the universe just right for life. Most of the book is to show how unlikely it is that the universe has exactly the right properties for existence. The second part is a discussion as to why this happened. He goes through all the theories including the watchmaker etc. One possibility is a "creator" . He adnits that it is logically consistent but finds iy highly unlikely. His own preference is for the multi-verse. The idea is not whether you agree with him or not. Rather here is an intelligent human who has thought deeply about these problems and does not see any obvious signs of a designer. I would venture that that is the opinion of most physicists and certainly biologists. What you consider obvious he considers very unlikely. Again we come to the point that REW claims that anyone who really thinks about the problem and comes up with a different answer than he does simply has an ulterior motive. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 03:08:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 06:08:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150602100830.GA12384@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 10:25:05AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : The idea is not whether you agree with him or not. Rather here is an : intelligent human who has thought deeply about these problems and does not : see any obvious signs of a designer. I would venture that that is the : opinion of most physicists and certainly biologists. REW would say that he found it obvious that the world was created, something deep inside (to add my own 2c: of which he is likely unaware) didn't want to live in a world with a Creator, so he thought deeply about these problems until he could find an alternative. (For what it's worth, I think most physicists believe in G-d.) As you put it: : What you consider obvious he considers very unlikely. Again we come to the : point that REW claims that anyone who really thinks about the problem and : comes up with a different answer than he does simply has an ulterior motive. But that doesn't make the person any less convinced. For that matter, the believer also likely has an unlterior motive. (I said that, I doubt REW would. I am just saying it wouldn't rob him of his point.) REW is asserting that before you even get to bias, the obvious position is ours. Their atheism is the one that takes work, because it's explaining away the obvious. After all, there is no a priori, obvious-as-a-postulate version of the Anthropic Principle or other such atheistic explanations of the universe's design. No equivalent to REW's not attributing a poem to spilled ink or R' Aqiva's insisting that a garment or bread testify to their makers. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Friendship is like stone. A stone has no value, micha at aishdas.org but by rubbing one stone against another, http://www.aishdas.org sparks of fire emerge. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Mordechai of Lechovitz From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 08:40:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 11:40:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] women making a zimun In-Reply-To: <20150602125704.JHYM8162.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo306> References: <20150602125704.JHYM8162.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo306> Message-ID: <20150602154026.GF23551@aishdas.org> Bringing this thread to where this belongs. On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 08:56:59AM -0400, Sholom Simon via Areivim wrote: :> There was no family or community prior to the 20th century in :> which girls or women bentshed with a zimun. : I always wondered about that vis-a-vis the following: : The SA"HaRav (written by somebody who was certainly not a feminist) : at 199:6 writes that three women who are eating together (provided : there are less than 10 men) are permitted to break away and make : their own zimmun. (l'chelek l'zimun l'atzman). ... : What I've always wondered about was: is he writing entirely : theoretically, or was there a practice among some which led him to : clarify this issue? : Thoughts? : -- Sholom The SA haRav says that they must participate when 3 men make a zimun. If there are three women, no minyan of men, and want to separate off to make their own zimun, hareshus beyadam. Then he takes on the case of three women who are eating without men, again "hareshus beyadam" to make a zimun. (Similarly avadim, but not a mix of women and avadim because we we assume avadim are capable of peritzus. Given that the part about avadim couldn't have been a practice in the Baal haTanya's day, I wouldn't assume his mention of zimun for women makes any such implication. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Weeds are flowers too micha at aishdas.org once you get to know them. http://www.aishdas.org - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 08:49:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 11:49:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Modah Ani In-Reply-To: <20150602.081411.27008.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150602.081411.27008.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150602154924.GG23551@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 12:14:11PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Areivim wrote: : R' Micha Berger wrote: :> ... When I told them that traditionally we held that they're :> probably yotz'ot with saying Modah Ani once a day, ... : I noticed your very deliberate spelling here, and I can't help but : wonder: Was there any family or community prior to the late 20th century : in which girls or women said "modAh ani"? Talmidei haGra. The Siddur haGra also mentions "shelo asani nakhriah" (the Gra had "nakhri" for men) and "shelo asani shifcha". Speaking of new minhagim: Modeh Ani is likely the youngest prayer in most siddurim, even younger than Lekha Dodi. It exists to compensate moving "Elokai Neshamah" out of that spot. (Asher Yatzar doesn't open "barukh" because it's a berakhah hasemukhah lechaverta with haMapil -- one before sleep one after. When we moved it, many (including the Gra), made it semuchah to Asher Yazar -- thanking the Creator for both body and soul.) Which is why I find it unwarranted to treat its matbeia as unchangable even in the face of simply reconjugating. But in any case, I'm in favor of most changes that give one pause to think about what they're saying or doing. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow micha at aishdas.org man's soul and his own stomach; a pious Jew worries http://www.aishdas.org about his own soul and his fellow man's stomach. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 09:16:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 12:16:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <5568D45F.9010809@gmail.com> References: <5568D45F.9010809@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150602161633.GA15555@aishdas.org> On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 05:04:31PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: :> There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam :> recaps a point made in 2:19-20. : : In 2:19-20 Rambam makes no reference to each component or entity in : nature providing a benefit for another, and certainly does not use that : there as a proof for Creation ex nihilo... 2:20 marks the end of an Argument from Design, which is what I was referring to. As it opens: "According to Aristotle, none of the products of Nature are due to chance. His proof is this: That which is due to chance does not reappear constantly nor frequently, but all products of Nature reappear either constantly or at least frequently..." This is a formal argument, unlike R' Aqiva's or REW's own appeal to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. I am saying that 3:15, when it mentions in passing the bit that :: And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, //for :: //one who ismodeh al ha-ememmes// ... :: is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities :: serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; :: and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an :: [I]ntender.... This is reference to people being willing to accept a proven point, and not accepting something as true because of a justification system other than proof. ... RZL, continued: : He explicitly describes this /modeh al ha-emmess/ statement /as a : tangential interruption/: After that statement, he says, "I will now : return to the subject of this chapter, viz., the ultimate cause [i.e. : the purpose behind the universe being as it is--ZL]." : My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that : there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows : the non-formal mindset of those who are /modeh al ha-emmess/... Agreed it's tangential, which is why I doubt that if the Rambam did want to say something that signficant, this would be its only mention. But I don't think it makes the point you're making because the Rambam already made design the topic of a formal proof. So the current mention of design in this aside is talking about a proof, not another verification system. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is complex. micha at aishdas.org Decisions are complex. http://www.aishdas.org The Torah is complex. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' Binyamin Hecht From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 13:24:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2015 22:24:55 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <556E1117.1050507@zahav.net.il> That a text written such a short time ago could have questions about it authorship really nails down how hard it is to have definitive knowledge of the past. Ben On 5/31/2015 9:59 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > RHS has said many times in his shiurim that the MB was not written > alone by the Chofetz Chaim and that is why there are sometimes > contradictions. > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 13:27:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 16:27:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed Message-ID: <20150602202700.GA7449@aishdas.org> R/Dr Alan Brill recently carried this essay by comparatively new chaver, R' Ysoscher Katz. I am sharing here the essay in full (see or for R/D AB's biographical introduction) for two reeasons -- or one two-part reason: 1- I think this post could start a nice discussion of the fundamentals of each of our hashkafos; and 2- Comments are blocked on the post, so it's not like I am stealing a conversation that ought to happen there. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you won't be better tomorrow micha at aishdas.org than you were today, http://www.aishdas.org then what need do you have for tomorrow? Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rebbe Nachman of Breslov Torat Chaim Ve'Ahavat Chesed Ysoscher Katz I was raised in the chassidic community of Satmar. I should make it clear from the outset: I am modern but not Orthodox. Do not get me wrong, I am observant and my practice is orthodox but that is not who I am. In other words, I am orthodox-my practice is halakhic and my belief orthodox-but Orthodoxy is not me. It is not an integral part of my identity. My orthodoxy is merely a means towards a religious end. Keeping halakha and accepting orthodox faith-claims provides me with the infrastructure which allows my soul to strive and pursue perfection. Orthodoxy enables me to be who I really am: a Modern Chassidish Jew. As I mentioned, my identity is comprised of two parts, Modern and Chassidish. I inherited these identity markers from my parents, the modernity from my mother and the chassidut from my father. Here, I mean real Chassidic, and not Neo-Chassidic. How my chassidic, homemaking and sheitel-wearing mom made me modern is a conversation for another time. At the moment I wish to focus on my dad. My father is the most non-chassidish Chassid. He does not study "chassidus," nor does he want to "understand" it. The few times I tried to explain to him Moshe Idel's distinction between theosophy and theurgy, his eyes glazed over. Chassidut is what he does, not what he learns. From his perspective, Torah is for learning, chassidut for practicing. His aversion is not limited to the study of academic mysticism. He also stays away from traditional kabbalistic or chassidic texts. He never studied the Zohar nor did he ever read any of the Arizal's writings. Not only would he not read them, he also would not touch them. He is so intimidated by their sacredness; he fears that his touch would contaminate them. Yet, despite never having formally studied chassidic texts, he still is the quintessential chasid. Chassidut is his essence, part of his religious DNA, but it is a chassidut that is behavioral, not intellectual. Chassidut is how he lives his life. It is the prism through which he encounters the world and the ethos by which he lives by. He adores his wife, loves his children, cherishes his community and reveres and respects his neighbors and fellow human beings, Jew and non-Jew alike. While this practice is not special, many people love their family and surroundings, its flavor is unique. It is Chassidic love, deriving its passion from the Chassidic teachings he has absorbed throughout his life. These teachings have filled his being with a deep religiosity, which, in turn, infuses his actions and emotions with a deep and robust spirituality. His love of humanity is, therefore, a love that is sensualized by its spiritualized valance. Chassidut does not just spiritualize my father's interpersonal relationships, it also enhances his religious practices, particularly the yearly calendar. Chassidut allows him to infuse the annual cycle with a sensuous spirituality. Satmar is a Hungarian/Romanian Chassidut (The broad strokes difference between Hungarian Chassidut and the Polish and Russian versions is that the latter were intellectually inclined while the former was not. Hungarian Chassidut was predominantly behavioral. This is, of course, a generalization; the nuances are far more complex but outside the parameters of this presentation.) Hungarian Chassidim are nourished by an elaborate "sacred calendar." They have more days of note than the conventional Jewish calendar, and their holidays tend to be richer than your typical modern Jews' chag experience. A Satmar Chasid's year is thus replete with days of deep joy and periods of intense reflection. While the Jewish calendar has several biblical holidays and two Rabbinic ones, the Chasid's calendar records additional dates of importance. Every winter, the Hungarian Chasid has six to eight weeks of "shovavim," a period that usually falls sometime between Chanukah and Purim, which is dedicated to repentance and introspection, largely focusing on sexual impropriety; the days of awe continue through the end of Chanukah, the potential for repentance lasts for them for two more months; Purim celebrations begin three days earlier than usual; and (a modicum of) Pesach extends all the way to Shavuot (based on Nachmanides' notion that the interim weeks between Pesach and Shavuot are somewhat akin to a chol ha'moed of Pesach). Combined these add up to a significant number of additional days of awe and periods of celebration. Qualitatively, chassidic holidays are different as well. Although many things distinguish a chassidic chag, there is one distinction that is particularly noticeable to the keen observer: chassidic religious celebrations are comprised of a dissonant blend of joy and contemplation. Here are some examples: Shabbat in Satmar is an incredibly meaningful day, bookended by powerful contradictory modes. Friday night is a time of joy, where the spiritually and mystically rich Lecha Dodi chant inspires celebration of the metaphysical significance of the day. While this spirit carries through most of the Shabbat, towards the end of the Shabbat the Satmar Chasid shifts gears, switching modes from the celebratory to the reflective. This transition occurs in a much starker manner than it does in most other communities. A Satmar Shabbat never ends at "shekiah." Sehudah shlishit is always a two hour affair, spent singing and listening to the Rebbe's dvar torah. Speaking in highly evocative tones, he expounds on the weekly reading, spending close to an hour challenging and rebuking his followers. Growing up, this is exactly what Shabbat looked like for me. My dad's Shabbat was intense and complex. While the day began upbeat, it gradually shifted into the contemplative. But, my father's Shabbat, like his chassidut, is adamantly experiential, text and study play a minor role in the development of his religious persona. Kegavna (a section from the Zohar which Chassidim recite during Friday night prayers), is one of the most powerful kabbalistic liturgical texts. Utilizing the connection between Shabbat and the number seven, a prominent kabbalistic trope, it succinctly articulates the mystical value of Shabbat. It emphasizes that Shabbat is a day of heightened divine intimacy and advanced mystical union. I have begged my dad on many occasions to read this Zohar text with me. He refused each time. Sacred mystical texts are for the elite. The lay receive their nourishment residually, from the spiritualized environment created by those qualified to access those recondite sources. While he will not study Kegavna, he does recite it every Friday night as part of the Kabbalat Shabbat service. Notwithstanding that he does not fully grasp its meaning, he reads it with the pathos and passion it deserves. Kegavna's power for him is metaphysical, not intellectual. Purim provides another example of the intensity of Hungarian chassidic practice. Many Jews celebrate Purim, but not the chassidic Purim. The chassidic Purim is unique in its richness and multiplicity. Communally, preparations for the holiday start early. More than a week before Purim, one can already detect the arrival of the holiday, both, in the discourse of the scholars and activities of the laity. The learned discourse focuses on the legal and spiritual aspects of the chag, while the public sphere is filled with people making arrangements for every aspect of the day. When Purim finally arrives, it takes on a distinct theological flavor. Appropriating the Zoharic notion that Purim is analogous to Yom Kippur (Yom Kippurim), Satmar Chassidim created a unique Purim blend that is both frivolous and somber. This day of festivity is overlaid with practices of repentance and reflection. While I am nourished by my dad's behavioral Chassidut, personally it is not enough. Behavioral Chassidut gladdens my heart but does not stimulate my mind nor sufficiently satisfy my soul. I personally seek a religiosity which nourishes both pillars of my being, the mind and the heart. My personal journey is, therefore, informed by a combination of my father's passion and the academic's sophistication. Chassidus resonates with both of them, sometimes simultaneously, when the intellectual engagement and behavioral spiritual encounter complement one another, and sometimes separately, when I religiously shift back and forth between the intellectual and the experiential. Ultimately, the attraction to Chassidut is the fact that it can operate in different modes at different times, in the process offering up a variety of mechanisms to help spiritualize my life. It is precisely this multifacetedness which convinces me that Chassidut is the proper theology for us moderns. Its theology is perfectly situated to offer meaning and spirituality to the contemporary modern seeker. I feel strongly that it is our only hope. Chassidut today is not a luxury, it is a necessity. If the Torah-u'Madda project is to succeed Chassidut needs to become an integral part of its curriculum. Chassidut is of course a vast discipline, teaching all of it would be a daunting task. For the moment there are three aspects of chassidic theology that stand out as particularly suited for the world we live in today. 1) Truth. We live in a post-modern world where objective truth is rejected and absolute claims are frowned upon. I would go as far as to say that rationalism (in the general and colloquial sense) as a source for Emunah is bankrupt, it increasingly speaks to fewer people. It, therefore, behooves us to come up with alternative models. Chassidut could very well be that alternative model. Facts and empirical truth is not Chassidut's primary currency. While it does a priori accept the biblical theological faith statements, its goal is not to argue or prove the scientific veracity of the Bible's claims. Truth is not of primary concern for these thinkers. Chassidic theology has two main features. It is a-rational and a-historical. It is apathetic about Jewish historicity as a proactive theological stance. The Torah for Chassidim is there to teach us how to live life and serve God, the narrative qua narrative (the origin story) is mere background music. The narration parts of the Torah are, therefore, not of much theological significance to them, they are a-historical However, during those rare occasions when they do pay attention to the biblical "stories," their orientation is a-rational. They absolutely "believe" those stories, but their belief is internal: it is true because it happened in the Torah. That is where these events transpire and that is where these stories matter. Asking about their historicity is, as far as they are concerned, foolish and missing the point. At the same time, to the extent that the biblical narratives have religious and theological significance, they read those stories through the Rabbinic lens. So, for example, while Moshe's historicity is not historically relevant to them, his persona carries theological and ethical significance. The same is true for God's attributes. Chassidim are, by choice, apathetic about God as a scientific reality, his attributes and characteristics, however, are theologically highly significant to them. For that they did turn to the Bible, but the encounter with the Torah is filtered through Chazal. They see Chazal as essential to the understanding of the Torah. As believers in immanence they actually see the Sages as much more integral to the experience of the written Torah than the rationalists did. They did not think that the presence at Sinai (mamad har Sinai) ended at the giving of the Torah (mattan Torah). For them the Torah is perpetually and continuously revealed. The modern reader of chassidic texts would, therefore, not have to decide whether they scientifically accept these postulates in order to engage with them. Chassidut's goal is instead to describe an immanence which provides spiritual and emotional transcendence. Chassidut (informed, of course, by kabbalah) promotes a sophisticated immanence which results in a dramatic shift in Judaism's orientation towards God and His commandments. Prior to the emergence of chassidut on the historic scene, theology was convincing and Jewish observance was rewarding. Chassidut changed that. Chassidic theology offered meaning and kabbalistic observance provided sanctity. Personally, my rejection of the Maimonidean ethos and realization of the degree to which chassidut can speak to the modern searcher was a long and arduous process. It came about as a result of a deep sense of betrayal by Maimonides, the champion of Rationalist Judaism. I for many years was the object and fool of Maimonides "the seventh reason" as presented in his introduction to the Guide by not seeing his philosophic views. In that passage, Maimonides condones misleading the masses for their greater good, even to the point of advocating contradictory ideas for different audiences and then obscuring those contradictions. Growing up in Satmar and then Brisk, I was oblivious to his non-halakhic writings and led to believe that he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad. I was exposed to his other writings only later and when I did I felt cheated. I was part of that the masses, whom he thought could not handle his unconventional approach to theology and tradition. As much as I have read about him, I personally have not managed to reconcile his two sides. I do not find Prof. Isidore Twersky's harmonizing approach compelling or convincing. Realizing what a fool I was led me on a tortuous and circuitous search. As the Rabbis say about Yisro, ????? ??? ?? ??????; I explored all the options. I finally found the answer in kabbalah and chassidut, they speak a language which resonates with our current reality. They emphasize that which contemporary Judaism needs. The emphasis in chassidut on meaning and sacredness, are perfectly suited for our community. These are exactly the things our culture needs more of; holiness and meaning. This emphasis in Chassidut on immanence also generates a move towards spiritualization. 2) Spiritualization. As scholars have pointed out, chassidic teachings contain elements of spiritual psychology. They provide us with a language which helps us infuse our lives with meaning. One can point to many examples where this psychological spiritualization occurs in chassidut, I will mention two of them. Everybody sometimes has a bad hair day, when we wake up feeling less than optimal. Chassidut has a term to describe that mood; it calls it mochen de'katnus. While it technically means the same as a "bad hair day," the language is mystical. Mochen de'katnus describes a less than stellar spiritual state, a low energy level which does not allow us to engage in the usual religious pursuits we crave to pursue. Another example is Kabbalah's elaborate taxonomy of love and awe: Kabbalah and Chassidut talks about superior and inferior love (ahavah ela'e'e and ahavah tata'a) or superior and inferior awe (yirah ela'e'e and yira tata'a)While these terms primarily describe nuanced stages in our engagement with the Divine, they have traditionally been imported into the colloquial arena. They are used to describe varied emotional states which we experience in our interactions with our friends and loved ones. Contemporary life does not provide us with that many opportunities for encountering the Divine in our daily lives. Chassidut allows us to bring God in. Sprinkling our conversations with mystical and Chassidic terminology allows us to spiritualize our daily routines and infuse our mundane pursuits with meaning and spiritual significance. Besides enriching our personal encounters, adopting a chassidic ethos could also enhance our communal experiences. 3) Social Change. One of the most pressing tensions in the community is how to reconcile our values with our convictions; what to do when halakha points us in one direction and our values in another direction. We are tempted to follow our values but pulled to abide by our halakhic commitments. A proper resolution requires an emboldened stance towards tradition, one that allows us to cajole the tradition to reconcile itself with our modern sensibilities. [Using, of course, legitimate halakhic mechanisms developed by our predecessors when they were confronted with similar challenges.] Our values are so emboldened because they derive their power from Chaissdut. A chassidic life is a spiritualized life which infuses our values with powerful theological significance, and it allows us to aggressively challenge the tradition to reevaluate its assumptions and attempt to accommodate itself-when halakhically possible- to a changed modern reality. Chassidut is very explicit about the value of religious aggression. The following two quotes are often encountered in chassidic writings, "even a thief says a prayer before he breaks in to his victim's home" (quoted on the margin of Brachot 63A, from the Frankfurt manuscript), and "an aggressive stance towards the Divine bears results" (Sanhedrin 105A). While the provenance of these texts is Talmudic, they take on significant prominence in Chassidic theology. They become the impetus for an aggressive theology which is informed by a religiosity that sees itself driven by a Divine immanence which infuses our values and ethical intuitions with spiritual resonance, subsequently leading to radical societal change. Such change is actually an integral part of Chassidic social history. When one looks at recent major changes in traditional Jewish society it is hard not to notice that the forerunners were often Chassidim. The last sixty years have seen far reaching social and political change. The two most dramatic changes that have happened is that Jews are now sovereign and women have made significant progress in their pursuit of religious equality. The pioneers of both these changes were driven, at least in part, by a chassidic ethos. R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Rebbi of Lubavitch, was one of the first orthodox scholars to champion female Talmud scholarship, while R. Avraham Yitzchak Kook, a serious student of Chassidut, was an outspoken early proponent of a Zionist state. There is no doubt that their chassidic worldview, at least partially, informed their proactive stances towards these changes. Their adherence to a spiritualized religiosity allowed them to explore new religious vistas. Their unique theological outlook changed the religious and legal equation for them, simultaneously making their decisions more complex, but also more progressive. Their spiritualized worldview allowed them to see divinity in the ostensibly secular state or the seemingly illegitimate request of women for greater equality. Granted, this hybrid of chassidic spiritualization and robust religious creativity would be a 21^st century concoction, traditionally, these two do not go together. Chassidism, for the most part, frowns on change and rejects innovation. As a matter of fact, nineteenth century Hungarian Chassidim were vociferously opposed to any accommodations to modernity. Further, the contemporary thinker is not going to intuitively embrace spiritualized non-rational thought. It is, nevertheless, a match pregnant with immense potential and could go a long way towards reviving a dormant Modern Orthodoxy. Contemporary Modern Orthodoxy is struggling; a significant number of its adherents are abandoning yiddishkeit and many who stay no longer find it meaningful; inertia has set in. I suspect that Modern Orthodoxy's rationalist ethos is partially to blame. Current Modern Orthodox theology is Litvish and hyper-Maimonidean, it lacks a native spiritual core, and does not satisfy people's search for meaning. We are due for a change. Chassidus could be that change agent. I strongly believe that a chassidic theology combined with a sophisticated modern overlay could be the elixir for the dispassion and disinterest that ails our community. It will provide our community what it so desperately needs: a torat chaim ve'ahavt chesed; a Torah that stimulates our minds but at the same time also gladdens our neshamah. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 14:39:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:39:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> : > From: Micha Berger via Avodah > > [Rambam's statement (''And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, //for > :: //one who ismodeh al ha-ememmes// ... > :: is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities > :: serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; > :: and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an > :: [I]ntender...'') is not an informal argument, akin to R' Aqiva's or REW's appeal > to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. Rather,] it is a recap of a formal proof The Rambam made in 2:19-20... 2:20 marks the end of an Argument from Design. As it opens: "According to Aristotle, none of the products > of Nature are due to chance. His proof is this: That which is due to > chance does not reappear constantly nor frequently, but all products of > Nature reappear either constantly or at least frequently..." > > This is a formal argument, unlike R' Aqiva's or REW's own appeal > to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. Philosophers may disagree with classifying the argument made in 2:20 from ''frequency of appearance'' as ''an argument from design.'' But even if it is ''an'' argument from design, it's a different argument from the ''modeh al ha-emmess'' proof from the hierarchy of entities benefiting others. So the latter is not a recap of the former. And it does not necessarily follow that one who is modeh to the ''frequency'' argument considers the hierarchy argument ''one of the strongest.'' RZL, continued: : He explicitly describes this/modeh al ha-emmess/ statement /as a : tangential interruption/: After that statement, he says, "I will now : return to the subject of this chapter, viz., the ultimate cause [i.e. : the purpose behind the universe being as it is--ZL]." : My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that : there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows : the non-formal mindset of those who are/modeh al ha-emmess/... RMB: >Agreed it's tangential, which is why I doubt that if the Rambam did want to say something that signficant, this would be its only mention.< Again: Here, where the Rambam, for the first time, is about to bring up the hierarchy proof, he parenthetically mentions that it is intuitively understood by anyone unbiased. He does then go on to state the proof in a formal philosophic form. This is the most proper place to insert such a parenthetical remark parenthetically, and only once. It's not ''that significant'' for his purposes, because, as I had written, the entire purpose of the Moreh is to address people (including himself) concerned with hearing formal philosophic proofs and confronting the challenges that formal philosophic proofsbrought to the mesorah. Those interested in hearing an expanded version of the argument in informal form could find it in the Rambam's introduction to his his Mishnah commentary. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 16:04:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 19:04:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <103ab8.504f8d1e.429f9062@aol.com> From: Eli Turkel via Avodah >> I have a book "The Goldilocks Enigma" by Paul Davies (cosmolgist) on why is the universe just right for life. Most of the book is to show how unlikely it is that the universe has exactly the right properties for existence. The second part is a discussion as to why this happened. He goes through all the theories including the watchmaker etc. One possibility is a "creator" . He admits that it is logically consistent but finds it highly unlikely. His own preference is for the multi-verse. The idea is not whether you agree with him or not. Rather here is an intelligent human who has thought deeply about these problems and does not see any obvious signs of a designer..... << Eli Turkel >>>> On the contrary, he sees many signs of a Designer and he is so desperate to avoid the obvious conclusion -- because of his own prior philosophical biases -- that he adopts the currently trendy and absurd idea of "many universes" to escape from what he does not want to face. You see, if this is the only universe then it is so fantastically improbable that it can only be a miracle. But if it is only one of many universes, then it is not so strange that just one out of millions of universes would happen to have the conditions necessary for life. Normally the definition of "science" includes things like capable of observation or experiment, falsifiable, etc. But if you are desperate enough to escape G-d (and His moral demands) you will take something as airy-fairy, non-observable, not subject to any possible experiment, non-falsifiable as a "multi-verse" -- a product of the human mind that is as real as leprechauns -- and you will crown it with the noble name of "science"! I have a wonderful book in my house called *The Privileged Planet* that should be a science textbook in every yeshiva high school and Bais Yakov. Please please read it. It's by Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards. Here's the website with more information about the book and a video: http://www.privilegedplanet.com/ --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 00:03:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 10:03:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] MB Message-ID: The entry in wikepedia in Hebrew on Mishna Brura contains much of the information that we have been discussing. In particular it discusses the authorship of MB (ie the quote from his son) . MH vs AH and the change after the holocaust and other comments -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 05:39:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2015 08:39:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Standing at a Chupah Message-ID: <20150603123934.850661827E1@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is from today's Hakhel email bulletin. FROM A READER: Further on the point on standing at Chuppahs: Many think/say that it is because of Choson Domeh L'melech that they stand up for the Chosson. Yet, they should be aware that to my knowledge, HaRav Moshe Feinstein, Z'tl, never stood because he used to say, Doi-meh (L)melech NOT (Ke)melech. HaRav Yaakov Kamenetsky, Z'tl, stood but for a totally different reason. The question of L'melech or K'melech never entered into consideration as the Chosson is not a true Chosson until AFTER the Chuppah. Rather, HaRav Yaakov stood purely because of the Mishna in Bikurim (3:3), that discusses the bringing of Bikurim and the rule of standing Lif-Nai Oisei Mitzva, and since the Chosson is entering into a Chupah which will enable him to be mekayeim the mitzvah of P'ru U'revu, we stand. As to why we don't stand for everyone doing a mitzvah, it's for a mitzvah that is mei-kama zman l'zman, not a regular occurrence. The question remains as to a justification for why people stand for the Kallah, since she is not K'Malka (see HaRav Moshe and HaRav Yaakov above) and is peturah from Mitzvas Peru U'revu. HaRav Avraham Kamenetsky, HaRav Yaakov's son, told me that one can say that since the Chosson cannot be mekayeim the mitzvah without her, she has a chelek in the mitzvah and thus qualifies for Lif-Nai Oisei Mitzvah. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 06:57:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 09:57:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 05:39:33PM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : But even if it is "an" argument from design, it's a different argument : from the "modeh al ha-emmess" proof from the hierarchy of entities : benefiting others. So the latter is not a recap of the former. And : it does not necessarily follow that one who is modeh to the : "frequency" argument considers the hierarchy argument "one of the : strongest." I think our point of contention is simple: You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind justification that isn't a proof. Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. And therefore there is nothing in the Rambam about a justification that isn't a philosophical proof. For that matter, I would take his words to say this non-proof, being only meaningful to someone who is already "modeh al ha'emes", is not valid justification -- an instance of what I believe would be his general rule. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 10:58:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 10:58:33 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] ashtei-asar Message-ID: could someone explain please the ibn ezra in last weeks parsha ? someone asked about the origin of 'ashtei' and noted the this week mikshah is translated as eshet--- which must mean one solid piece so that must mean ashtei= one . but why not say achad asar ? [ he pointed out that 'eshet'= 770 , a number of completion ] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 14:23:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 17:23:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] ashtei-asar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150603212342.GA31632@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 03, 2015 at 10:58:33AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : someone asked about the origin of 'ashtei' and noted the this week : mikshah is translated as eshet--- which must mean one solid piece so : that must mean ashtei= on... The Akkadian for 11 is ishteneshret, ishten (one) + shret (ten). It is weird, though, that Hebrew would use a form of isheneshret without also using ishten. Then there's the idea in the Radaq (Mikhlol pg 140) that it was two that was collapsed from "ashtei" to "shtei". Which would explain why "shtayim" isn't "shesayim". The rule is that a sheva under the first letter is a sheva na (pronounced schwa), the legacy of the missing "i-" makes "shtei" an exception -- the sheva under the shin is nach (silent). Along these line, but presumably without the knowledge of Akkadian, the IE (Bamidbar 7:72, citing his own Sefer Me'oznayim) writes that "ashtei asar" is like "eshtenosav" -- that which were born from his thoughts. As though the 10 gave birth. "Vehu sod gadol". He then goes on to dismiss R' Yonah haSefaradi's theory that it means "el shtei asar". Because 1- "al shetei asar" would refer to the number AFTER 12, not before; and 2- "asar" (masc) would get "shnei" (masc), not "shtei" (fem). The gemara doesn't explain peshat, but interestingly R' Ashi's example (Sanhedrin 29a) of "kol hamosif goreia'" is how adding an ayin turns "shtei esrei yeri'os" into "ashtei esrei". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 15:16:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2015 18:16:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> On 6/3/2015 9:57 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > I think our point of contention is simple: > > You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind > justification that isn't a proof. I thought I was clear that I was taking it to be the same informal kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind. > > Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, > but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. I did not see this in your previous remarks that characterized the ''modeh-al-ha-emmess" as a formal proof/argument: :> There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam :> recaps a point made in 2:19-20. > 2:20 marks the end of an Argument from Design, which is what I was > referring to. ...This is a formal argument, unlike R' Aqiva's or REW's own appeal > to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. And I don't see how one can possibly interpret (MN 3:13 [not 3:15 as I mistakenly typed previously]) ''And know that one of the strongest /proofs/ (min /ha-gedolah sheh-b'ra'ayos/) for Creation ex nihilo, for one who is /modeh al ha-ememmes/, is his understanding the /proof/ (/hu mah sheya'amod alav ha-mofase/)...'' as meaning: > ''this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the emes, > look how nicely it works out.'' Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 16:37:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 19:37:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150603233708.GA7958@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 03, 2015 at 06:16:59PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: :> You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind :> justification that isn't a proof. : I thought I was clear that I was taking it to be the same informal : kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof : not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized : and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind. Then I did understand you correctly. When I say, "a kind justification that isn't a proof", I believe I mean the same thing as your "informal kind of proof". To me, the word "proof" implies formality. "Justification" is a general term for how we know something is true. (From Plato's definition of knowledge: "a justified and true belief.") :> Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, :> but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. : I did not see this in your previous remarks that characterized the : "modeh-al-ha-emmess" as a formal proof/argument: Because that's not what I am saying is the formal proof. I overused the word "this", which led to confusion. In addition "modeh al ha'ames" refers to a person, not an argument, so you lost me on that bit. AISI, it refers to the person who accepted the proof in 2:20, would find this point compelling. But since the point he's making here is not a formal proof, he doesn't expect it to convince, only to reinforce belief in those who already accepted the related proof. : And I don't see how one can possibly interpret (MN 3:13 [not 3:15 as : I mistakenly typed previously]) "And know that one of the : strongest /proofs/ (min /ha-gedolah sheh-b'ra'ayos/) for Creation ex : nihilo, for one who is /modeh al ha-ememmes/, is his understanding : the /proof/ (/hu mah sheya'amod alav ha-mofase/)..." as meaning: :> "this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the :> emes, look how nicely it works out." You are taking a sentence that says "One of the greatest proofs for creation for someone who accepts the truth is his understanding the wonder..." He is discussing a ra'ayah that someone who already believes would find compelling. Not a proof that would convince an unbiased seeker. Because I don't think the Rambam accepted that an informal justification other than philosophical proof could be a sounds reason to embrace a belief as true. (I see you consistently double the "s" in "emess". Why? If the sav had a dageish, it would be a tav, not "ss".) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are what we repeatedly do. micha at aishdas.org Thus excellence is not an event, http://www.aishdas.org but a habit. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Aristotle From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 4 15:16:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2015 18:16:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong Message-ID: <20150604221600.GA28870@aishdas.org> An Areivim conversation moved in topicality so that my reply really belongs here. Some background.... At some point, one person wrote, in part: | Right is right and wrong is wrong,... Speaking about moral correctness. To which someone else replied: > Really? ISTM that there is lots of grey in our world. People disagree > about right and wrong like they disagree about assur and mutar... And my reply, from Areivin: } This is why disputes about eilu va'eilu are so significant. Machloqes } can be between two approaches, two paths, one may take. Between different } strategies to obtaining the same goal. } Or it could be between a correct vs an incorrect understanding of the } halakhah. A process by which something becomes law, regardless of which } is right. } Or... } But if there is one right and one wrong, human decision-making wouldn't } change which is which. That second person wrote later in the conversation: > Sure am. Women learning Talmud was wrong, then it was right. In fact, > now it's both right (MO) and wrong (Hareidi). My response: } I don't consider that a good example. It is possible for something to } be right in one settting and wrong in another. Such as whether learning } Talmud is a good idea may depend on how women are being educated to relate } to knowledge in general. Since they aren't obligated to learn halachic } theory, such as gemara, they may be better off with a naive mimetic } faith. But if we have universal education, and an economic system that } demands a certain wordliness in both genders, such that naivite isn't } an option, then our choices are different. } Morality is like a Faucault's Pendulum; it keeps swinging the same } direction. The pendulum only looks like the direction changes over time } because the world rotates beneath it. Them again: > Zionism is right (DL) > and wrong (Satmar). You see the world as black and white; I see lots of > colors, including grey (and black and white sometimes as well). Me: } But gray too objectively exists. We may need to choose a response, } and thus have to fit it into a boolean black-white category. And then } someone may choose a strategy that categorizes it as white and someone } else as black. } But the grayness is not a matter of opinion. And also, from the same person, in an email between the two: > And my point was, the topic under discussion was not gravity ... > it was an issue that what people think about it is, in fact, relevant. My response, continued: } Is that true? } As far as I know, it's pretty basic to Judaism that the Creator has an } "Opinion" of what is moral and what isn't. That things run more smoothly } for everyone involved if we run with the design rather than do something } else. } Not only that, G-d put us on the same page once. } People may not be sure if there is an absolute moral standard, and those } who agree there is one, may not agree about what it looks like. } It's out there and as objectively real as gravity. } Even if you cannot prove it to others, and therefore will always be } subject to conflicting opinions -- some more right in some ways, some } more right in others, some simply wrong. } Your position implies an Empiricism that rules out revelation as a valid } source of truth! In which case, what's left of Torah? Futher down in the conversation, Lisa wrote of halakhah: : There are actually cases where opinions can establish right and : wrong. Tanuro shel Akhnai illustrates one. Actual reality is : *created* by the informed and considered opinions of the Sanhedrin. To which I responded: } Law, not reality. And Lisa, post #2: : I disagree. Torah *is* reality. Finally, some new material. R Chaim Brisker links "vechayei olam nata besokheinu" and "emes mei'eretz tatzmiach". Torah is the seed from which Emes grows, and not (leshitaso, but I bought into it) Emes itself. The Qetzos says something similar on the use of "emes mei'eretz" in the medrash about the 2 forces -- Emes and Shalom -- opposing the creation of humanity. Emes is thrown to the ground, to which the tanna says "emes meieretz tatzmiach". Emes will come out through the process of history. It's not with us yet. Torah is how HQBH leads us there. But in any case, I didn't speak of Torah, of "divrei E-lokim chaim", I spoke of halakhah. Or as RMF put it, I spoke of emes lehora'ah, not Emes as it is kelapei shamay galya. Continuing my reply to Lisa's 1st post: } And the reason why we only let the Sanhedrin vote is because the law is } expected to be consistent with the objective reality. There may be many } ways up Har Hashem, but you really only want people who know mapreading } and reconteuring figuring out which one is best. } And the mountain and its altitude are unchanged by people's decisions. Lisa's 2nd post, cont: : And what Hashem wanted the halakha to be was determined by people's : decisions. New material again: If we combine your insistance that halakhah is Truth with the idea that it is determined by people's decisions, you end up with Constructivism. Halakhah as a man made reality. Which makes sense -- you tend to side with the Rambam on this kind of thing. But if dinim bein adam lachaveiro define or at least shape morality, you are left with the OP's claim that opinion determines what is moral. Opinion as informed by kelalei pesaq, but still, morality isn't entirely absolute or objective. The position I was suggesting that there is an objective Morality that is part of Emes. Emes, with a capital "E", as in something that exists in Shamayim (a/k/a the Olam haEmes) but can't fit in this world among human minds. We have approximating models (Maharal), getting ever closer to the Emes (Qetzos). Halakhah is our means of approaching it, and the existence of multiple correct pesaqim reflects their being more than one viable path (R Chaim Brisker). Or more specifically: The path is on the meta-level, the evolution of the Oral Torah and its pesaqim is part of getting to Emes, not "only" the path taken by a life that follows that pesaqim. So that halakhah is not morality, it is a means of producing ever more moral people. Which makes sense in terms of my own Mussarly tendencies. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are great, and our foibles are great, micha at aishdas.org and therefore our troubles are great -- http://www.aishdas.org but our consolations will also be great. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi AY Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 4 19:55:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2015 22:55:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <20150603233708.GA7958@aishdas.org> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> <20150603233708.GA7958@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55710FAB.70107@gmail.com> On 6/3/2015 7:37 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Wed, Jun 03, 2015 at 06:16:59PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: > :> You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind > :> justification that isn't a proof. > > : I thought I was clear that I was taking it to be the same informal > : kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof > : not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized > : and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind. > > Then I did understand you correctly. > > When I say, "a kind justification that isn't a proof", I believe I mean > the same thing as your "informal kind of proof". To me, the word "proof" > implies formality. "Justification" is a general term for how we know > something is true. (From Plato's definition of knowledge: "a justified and > true belief.") Got it. > :> Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, > :> but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. > > : I did not see this in your previous remarks that characterized the > : "modeh-al-ha-emmess" as a formal proof/argument: > > Because that's not what I am saying is the formal proof. I overused the > word "this", which led to confusion. I''m even more confused now. What "this" that led to confusion was overused? I took you to mean that the ''emmess'' that a ''modeh al ha-emmess'' person was modeh to was the conclusion of a formal proof stated somewhere in 2:19-20. (And such a person would consider, as one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, the proof from the hierarchy of benefit of entities.) > In addition "modeh al ha'ames" refers to a person, not an argument, > so you lost me on that bit. When I wrote ''I was taking it to be the same informal kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind'' I was responding to you statement: :> You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind :> justification that isn't a proof. which was in response to my writing: : My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that : there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows : the non-formal mindset of those who are /modeh al ha-emmess/... I meant to say I was taking Rambam's remark to mean that someone whose thought process is normal and unbiased (i.e. a modeh al ha-emmess) recognizes (without the aid of formal proof) the fact of the hierarchy of benefit as compelling the conclusion of a freely intended Creation ex nihilo. Another way to crystallize our differing interpretations: You are taking the "emmess'' that the ''modeh al ha-emmess'' is modeh to, to be the correct fact. I'm taking it to be the correct process of thinking. > AISI, it refers to the person who accepted > the proof in 2:20, would find this point compelling. But since the point > he's making here is not a formal proof, he doesn't expect it to convince, > only to reinforce belief in those who already accepted the related proof. > > : And I don't see how one can possibly interpret (MN 3:13 [not 3:15 as > : I mistakenly typed previously]) "And know that one of the > : strongest /proofs/ (min /ha-gedolah sheh-b'ra'ayos/) for Creation ex > : nihilo, for one who is /modeh al ha-ememmes/, is his understanding > : the /proof/ (/hu mah sheya'amod alav ha-mofase/)..." as meaning: > > :> "this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the > :> emes, look how nicely it works out." > > You are taking a sentence that says "One of the greatest proofs for > creation for someone who accepts the truth is his understanding the > wonder..." He is discussing a ra'ayah that someone who already believes > would find compelling. Not a proof that would convince an unbiased > seeker. > > Because I don't think the Rambam accepted that an informal justification > other than philosophical proof could be a sounds reason to embrace a > belief as true. Your first paragraph is just restating your position and denying mine. I am saying otherwise, pointing out that saying that this person considers the hierarchy factor ''one of the greatest proofs for creation'' means '"this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out" is incompatible with the words. And /l'fi ta'amych,/ of your second paragraph: If the Rambam considers an informal justification vs philosophical proof an unsound reason to embrace a belief as true, then one would think he would not consider noteworthy a non-ra'ayah found compelling only by someone who already believes in the conclusion (stated or implied somewhere in 2:19-20, or in that previously stated formal ra'aya which /is/, or is not, compelling--I'm not sure which of these you're saying, but my objection applies regardless.) I think it may be productive for us to examine the 4 or 5 other places in MN where the Rambam uses the expression ''modeh al ha-emmess.'' (Curiously, the search of the Hebrewbooks.org MN in my Adobe Reader skips over the instance in 3:13!) > > (I see you consistently double the "s" in "emess". Why? If the sav had > a dageish, it would be a tav, not "ss".) It's to duplicate the /sound/ (not the lettering) of the word as it would be in English, for a careful English-reading person. (Not that I'm sure there are many of those around...) In contemporary English spelling, one "s" at the end of a word that ends in ''e'' is pronounced hard, like a ''z'' (shines, pines, processes); the soft ''s'' added to words that end in "e" is indicated by two ''s'' 's (process, ingress, mess). But we digreSS.... Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 5 03:54:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2015 06:54:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Science and Halachah - The Trumpeting Stone Message-ID: <20150605105427.GA27466@aishdas.org> This stone, at the excacations south of the Kotel, apparently marked a location where the shofar would be blown on Fri afternoon to warn people about the approaching and arrival of Shabbos. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trumpeting_Place_inscription It says "lebeis hateqi'ah lh[k?b?]" and was at the corner of Har haBayis. My obaervation is about the font. Notice the base of the lamed, which is a diagonal. The same is true of the Qumran texts and of texts from the Cairo Geniza. but this pushes the date for this tradition of script back to Herod's rebuilding of the BHMQ. This kind of lamed is also found in Kesav Vellish, that used in Sepharadi sta"m, but not in Kesav Beis Yoseif or the other Ashkenazi variants. http://sofercenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/different-ksavim.jpg Now, the stone is in far from the formal Ashuris required for Sifrei Torah, but if Kesav Beis Yoseif is correct, why aren't other fonts from the period more similar? If this does indicate a preference for one script over the other, we could discuss how the various approaches to Halakhah and Science would handle this case. {In terms of being yotzei, I think the only problem Ashkenazim have with the Sepharadi kesav is that variants that predate the Chida lack Rabbei Tam's qutzo shel yud. And since the popularity of the Ben Ish Chai, this issue has become very rare. Lehalakhah, the Tur, Noda biYhudah, Tzitz Eliezer and R' Ovadiah all alow using the other's sefer. Even with the spelling differences!) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is equipped with such far-reaching vision, micha at aishdas.org yet the smallest coin can obstruct his view. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 5 08:16:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2015 15:16:42 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong Message-ID: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Continuing the discussion from Areivim... R' Joseph Kaplan wrote: > About some things there is a right and a wrong; it is right > to fast on Yom Kippur and wrong to eat. But not everything > fits so neatly into categories of right and wrong. Micha > didn't like my example of Women learning Talmud was wrong, > then it was right. In fact, now it's both right (MO) and > wrong (Hareidi)." He argues that it is possible for > something to be right in one setting and wrong in another. I don't see the distinction between women learning vs eating on Yom Kippur. Women learning is right in some settings (such as where an unlearned woman would be in a spiritual sakana) and wrong in others (the ideal or traditional situation). In the same manner, eating on Yom Kippur is right in some settings (where the person would be in a medical sakana) and wrong in others (where the person is physically healthy). For that matter, learning is dependent on the setting even for a man: In most settings, it is right for a Jewish man to learn Torah, but not if he is in aveilus, or if he is davening, or if he is in other situations where the learning would conflict with another mitzvah. My point is that EVERYTHING depends on the setting. (I once tried to think of a positive or negative mitzvah which is totally independent of setting, and which always applies under all imaginable circumstances. The only one I could come up with is Avodah Zara. If anyone wants to continue that thought, please start a new thread.) Anyway, getting back to *this* thread, which is about whether right and wrong are absolutes decreed by G-d, or whether they are subject to the opinions of the Sanhedrin or others, I was reminded of an interesting gemara. As translated by http://www.torah.org/learning/maharal/p2m10part2.html it reads: > Eruvin (13b): For two and a half years Beith Shammai and > Beith Hillel argued. These [Beith Shammai] said "It is > better for man not to have been created than to have been > created." And those [Beith Hillel] said "It is better for > man to have been created." Together, they [reviewed the > opinions and] reached a consensus: ... I left out their conclusion, because it is not really so critical to this thread. What *IS* critical is the fact that they had the chutzpah to even discuss this question at all. There is a thought in this thread that if G-d does something, then it is good by definition. Yet Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai considered the possibility that G-d had another option which was even better than the option that He did choose. This sounds to me like a good argument for the view that people (or at least certain people, such as the Sanhedrin) CAN decide what is right and what is wrong. Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 5 14:41:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2015 17:41:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong In-Reply-To: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <557217A4.4010309@sero.name> On 06/05/2015 11:16 AM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: >> >Eruvin (13b): For two and a half years Beith Shammai and >> >Beith Hillel argued. These [Beith Shammai] said "It is >> >better for man not to have been created than to have been >> >created." And those [Beith Hillel] said "It is better for >> >man to have been created." > There is a thought in this thread that if G-d does something, then it > is good by definition. Yet Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai considered the > possibility that G-d had another option which was even better than the > option that He did choose. The discussion was not about what is good or right, but about what is better *for a person*. What is in the person's interest. "Noach lo le'adam". What G-d chooses for a person is right, but who says it's "noach lo"? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 12:49:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2015 21:49:38 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] Right/wrong In-Reply-To: <5571BB83.7010500@sero.name> References: <73824318-9EAD-43A2-924A-23983726765C@tenzerlunin.com> <55704A19.7000001@sero.name> <20150604182845.GA18772@aishdas.org> <557113ED.9080608@zahav.net.il> <5571BB83.7010500@sero.name> Message-ID: <55734ED2.8020702@zahav.net.il> Moved from Areivim. It is a case of muttar and assur, which in this case I am equating with right and wrong. For this person, something is muttar and for the other it is pasul. The way I see, it would be absolutely wrong for the wealthier person to eat his chicken, and absolutely wrong for the poorer person to throw his chicken away. Correct, popular opinion doesn't play a part in this one. Ben On 6/5/2015 5:08 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > > That's not a question of right and wrong, From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 17:19:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 01:19:52 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> R' Ysoscher Katz writes: ... <> And yet ironically RYK's experience in Satmar and Brisk would seem to confirm the sense of what Maimonides did. RYK was only the object and fool of Maimonides "seventh reason" because he was immersed in a society that had built very high walls against the risk of engaging with philosophy. Contrast his experience to mine. I read the Guide at fourteen - long before I had any real exposure to the Yad. Why? Because I grew up in a society in which it was more acceptable for girls to read philosophic texts than it was to learn and engage with halachic texts. And indeed, a translation of the Guide was published and available in English, in my shul library, whereas the Mishna Torah, which was no doubt there (I don't remember), was only in Hebrew and would have been in the "halachic" section that only boys (and scholarly boys at that) were expected to access. Even more, when I started asking questions, the librarian pointed me in the direction of the philosophy works, which included the Guide, that is how I got to it. It was just assumed that if somebody was asking theological questions, that was the place to go. So by the time, much, much later, that I read the relevant portions of the Mishna Torah, I already knew Maimonides' philosophic works in some depth, and layered them on to anything in the Yad. And yet Maimonides was surely right, had the Yad contained the opinions expressed in the Guide, in any detectable way, there is no way a society like Satmar and Brisk would have allowed it into their hallowed betei midrash - and what a loss to the halachic world that would have been. What occurred to RYK is merely a by-product and inevitable consequence (if you step outside) of what Satmar/Brisk have created. Not what Maimonides created. He created a work which, in any society that valued philosophy, would be available to those who sought it. And this is why RYK's experience is unlikely to occur in any true Modern Orthodox setting. Because curious, searching teenagers will inevitably take advantage of what is available in languages they can read in their local libraries (assuming they are encouraged to go there, and such libraries are not off limits), and hence, while they might (hopefully) be exposed to the Mishna Torah earlier than I was, they will certainly have the opportunity, and if that way inclined, are likely to take the opportunity of exploring at least the introduction to the Guide. <> Now this I find- well perhaps touchingly naive to the point of bizarre. Not the characterisation of the two most dramatic changes, necessarily, but the idea that "the pioneers of both these changes were driven, at least in part, by Chassidic ethos". Of the two, the claim regarding female Talmud scholarship is the most odd. Chassidic groups have been at the forefront of those fighting a rearguard action against women's exposure to any form of text, not least Talmudic and halachic text. Satmar in particular - I recall once standing in a bookshop in Boro Park, perusing a book (written clearly by somebody from the Satmar derech) who had gathered together all the sources on the evils of giving women access to any text - but most fundamentally, horror of horrors, to Rashi al haChumash. It was of course, an attack on what is taught in Beis Ya'akov. The position advocated being that at most, girls should be taught in school the stories of the Tanach, outside and without any recourse at all to reading in original. Lubavitch, I agree, was and is in this regard unusual amongst the Chassidic groups. But, growing up in Melbourne, a community heavily dominated by Lubvitchers, I am pretty well acquainted with what was allowed and not allowed vis a vis girls/women and learning from people with reasonably close connections with the Lubavitche Rebbe. Sure, streets ahead of the other Chassidic groups - but more open than the Beis Ya'akovs? - dubiously - although there was a fair bit of flexibility granted when dealing with potential ba'alei teshuva who (it was acknowledged) could be seriously put off by bans on access to knowledge of the nature of that on gemora. But what was granted begrudgingly and in a limited fashion in such circles were standard parts of the curriculum in Modern Orthodox schools (with Maimonides in Boston the flagship in this regard). How high a level a girl was taught in MO environments differed (especially given that often the overall level of kodesh education was not always that high in such schools), but the idea that any of this was driven fundamentally by the Lubavitcher Rebbe is ludicrous. And if you look at Israel and the explosion of women's learning there - not a chassid in sight. R' Kook and Zionism is a more justified charge. While it is hard to describe Rav Kook as a "pioneer" of political Zionism (there were many before him who saw political Zionism as logically arising out of their religious belief), he unquestionably provided serious theological underpinnings justifying the religious being involved in this endeavour, and much of what he wrote is rooted in chassidus. But note of course that the major thinker against was again the Satmar Rebbe - ie chassidus provided, yet again, the most reactionary response to this phenomenon. Which is more typical of chassidus - Rav Kook or the Satmar Rebbe? - I think it is far fairer to say that Rav Kook was the exception, despite his deep roots, and the Satmar Rebbe closer to the rule. And note, while we are on the subject of Rav Kook, that while he was "progressive" regarding political Zionism, he was "regressive" regarding woman voting. Was his attitude towards women's place in society also fuelled by his Chassidic studies? In general, while I do agree that Chassidic thinkers, such as Rav Kook, have a lot to say to "the world we live in today" and that there is something to be said for incorporating aspects of their theology in the pursuit of meaning, I suspect that trying to create "chassidish modern Jews" is an enterprise doomed to failure, and certainly not something that will be able to speak to the modern orthodox world. Why? Firstly because Chassidism is all embracing. I have watched many ba'alei teshuva embrace Chassidism (in lots of forms) over the years - as indeed it has a serious pull for many. I have rarely found one who is attracted that way who ends up in the modern orthodox camp. Where do they usually end up? Well amongst the most extreme Chassidic groups, where they can indulge to the fullest extent. Chassidism become so all embracing that it pushes everything else out. And while this phenomenon is already found amongst Modern Orthodox children going "black". It is certainly not going to save modern Orthodoxy. A further problem is articulated at the beginning of the piece, in relation to RYK's father: > My father is the most non-chassidish Chassid. He does not study > "chassidus," nor does he want to "understand" it. But, however you cut it, those with a modern orthodox upbringing are taught to want to "understand". They are brought up with the scientific method, even if some debunking then occurs in universities. For sure, there are those who reject that in favour of exploration of mystery and experience - but as suggested above, by and large those "go right" - further into the ultra orthodox world. By and large, while the ashrams of India are peopled by many Jews, I don't think very many of them are modern orthodox dropouts. The ones we are losing totally are going left, into the secular mundane world without religious input. Because while they are usually aware of the experiential, it appears to simultaneously contemplate a suffocation of the mind that they cannot swallow (as an ashram also does). Such people are never going to be comfortable in a world in which there is any expectation of not "wanting" to understand. They may perhaps be persuaded to find meaning in the writings of people like Rav Kook, or in other aspects of Chassidic writing, but are likely to be even more repelled by a world that implicitly or explicitly tells them to bin what is the attribute they have been taught to spend most of their life cultivating - their mind. I am probably going to be (metaphorically speaking) shot on this list for even mentioning it, but if you want to see what you get when you mix a modicum of Chassidic plus philosophic inspired thinking in a more "modern" context, you could always look at the German thinkers (including Reform thinkers) of the early twentieth century - people like (particularly) Franz Rosenzweig, not to mention Leo Baeck, Martin Buber, Hermann Cohen. What about Levinas? There is your post modern thinking (but note that it comes out of a Lithuanian background with existentialism and philosophical exploration rather than chassidus). But it is a long way from Maimonidian rationalism (despite of course Maimonides being the father of all this philosophy, but only after it has been through Kant and the existentialists). Avraham Yehoshua Heshel is another example of those attempting to integrate a Chassidic background with modern sensibilities. But since he operated out of the Jewish Theological Seminary, and was closely identified with the Conservative Movement, he probably did more to make such explorations treif to MO thinkers than he did to inspire them to explore. A bigger problem, I think, is that MO in America is so fixated on RYBS, and his particular brand of philosophy, that philosophy linked to Orthodoxy becomes identified only with his particular stance. But there is a much wider world out there, and a philosophical world that does not only relate to transcendence (as RYBS appears to do) but to imminence as well. Are those who speak of paradox/polarity of imminence and transcendence inspired by the imminence of the Chassidic world? Maybe, but it is attenuated, and no longer strictly Chassidic. Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 19:09:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 22:09:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Brisker Theory of Everything In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150607020921.GB7516@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 25, 2015 at 07:15:59PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : 1. The gemara (Ketuvot 5b) discusses whether causing a certain type : of blood flowing is considered a Sabbath violation. The first attempt : to resolve the question turns on whether "mifkad pakid or chaburei : mechbar" (is the blood in the womb stored up or is it the result of a : wound?). Rashi there (please look) seems to define this as a physical : question. Is this acceptable or must we say Rashi was leaving out the : "obvious" philosophical/halachic question (i.e. the physical was known, : it's a question of how to categorize it halachically)? It is very hard to identify a real machloqes in metzi'us. There is a machloqes in the Y-mi about whether rice flower and water makes chameitz. Pesachim 2:4, vilna 17a): Rabbi Yochanan ben Nuri said: Qarmis (millet or something similar) requires [giving] challah [from the dough to a kohein] because it can become chameitz or matzah. And the Rabbis say it doesn't because it can not become chameitz or matzah. So check it! They disagree about the essence of the check (iqar bediqasahh): RYBN said they checked it and found it can become chameitz or matzah. The Rabbanan said they checked it and they didn't find it can become chameitz or matzah. What looked like a machloqes about facts, that could just be checked experimentally, was a machloqes about how to categorize the physical reality. Is that dough a chimutz or a sirchon? I am sure that can be generalized. We could be arguing about metzi'us, but as the gemera asks, why not just check it? More likely, when the metzi'us is in the gray area, the machloqes is about: Where is the line between the categories? : 2. That gemara continues to try to resolve the question and is willing : to entertain the possibility that the halacha is like Rabbi Yehuda : (vs. Rabbi Shimon) in mekalkeil (destroying) and like Rabbi Shimon : (vs. Rabbi Yehuda) in davar sheino mitkavein (the result was not the : major one intended). If these two issues were interconnected, could the : gemara entertain this possibility? I think the gemara is consistent with two posibilities: 1- The two machloqesin are not interconnected. 2- The hava amina as that they were not connected, but the masqanah is that indeed they are. : 3. If the answer to 2 is no, must we assume that when the Shulchan : Aruch said he would decide the psak based on majority 2 of big 3, did : he really mean this as a primary tie breaker, or only when he did not : have a clear understanding of the underlying philosophy that resulted : in their final opinions. As I wrote in the past, I think it's easier to excuse the SA's exceptions to his rule by saying he was talking about the majority when counting consistent positions. Which means the rule is subject to which machloqesin the SA held were interconnected, and therefore which statements on other topics need to also be counted toward he majority. : 4.Is it possible that R'YBS limited his "canon" to only a few major : rishonim (in contradistinction to R" A Lichtenstein) because the more : data points included in trying to determine the underlying theoretical : construct, the more likely a single errant point would skew the results? I would think the reverse: How do you identify an outlier point without getting more full statistics on the data? Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger Worrying is like a rocking chair: micha at aishdas.org it gives you something to do for a while, http://www.aishdas.org but in the end it gets you nowhere. Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 19:16:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 22:16:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir In-Reply-To: <20150528.000433.22403.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150528.000433.22403.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150607021626.GC7516@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 04:04:33AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I will be the first to point out that Lifnei Iveir is one the many : topics where my learning and expertise is severely lacking. Even so, : I suspect that there is something missing from RMB's definition... : It seems to me that RMB is giving a useful tool to distinguish between : category 3 and category 4, but that tool is useful only in the case where : a person already has the *desire* to commit a sin, but it lacking the : *ability* to some degree... Correct. I was only thinking of the original question, and the gemara only discusses the one chiluq -- between lifnei iveir (deOraisa) and mesayeia' (deRabbanan). : But what of the case where a person does *not* yet have a desire to : sin? Rabbi Kaganoff is saying that one who incites or encourages him : to do it is violating Lifnei Iveir. Even if the person already has the : ability to do the sin, it was below his "bechirah point" until he was : egged on to do it... I didn't understand Orpah's offer that way. She was convinced her daughters-in-law "converted" for the sake of marriage; and depending which midrashim you quote, that likely wasn't even an actual conversion. But if Rus didn't really buy into Jewish beliefs, she would be better off not going through a pro-forma conversion than in the same boat as Delilah or Shelomo's wives. Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet micha at aishdas.org about things most people don't watch even on http://www.aishdas.org Yom Kippur. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 21:46:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 07:46:04 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] right/wrong Message-ID: <> comes back to the question of pluralism vs monistic vs tolerant monistic vs harmonism. As discussed before there are opinions on all sides -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 7 04:06:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 07:06:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] right/wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150607110645.GA7126@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jun 07, 2015 at 07:46:04AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : comes back to the question of pluralism vs monistic vs tolerant monistic vs : harmonism. Or, as R Moshe Halberatal cateogired halachic legal theories: Retrival, Accumulative, vs Constitutive. But it only starts there. Here the question is whether 1- any of these positions imply that halakhah is man-made more than the other positions would; and 2- does any of this conversation reflect on the absolute nature of right and wrong on a moral plane? Which also drags in the relationship between halakhah and morality. Divine Command Theory (morality is that which Hashem commanded) may well identify the two. But then, we were hard pressed to find an advocate for DCT, (outside contemporary popularizations). R/DR Y Leibowitz coms close, by saying we exist to follow halakhah, and any attempt to map halakhah to some other value system was one step toward AZ. Someone else might say that halakhah approximates morality, but since it's a blanket rule for all people in many situations, it's only an approximate. That said, once the halakhah is set, preserving it and the morality of the majority of cases has greater moral weight than one loses in the exceptional cases. But getting back to our question, while I consider the two related, I do not think the evolving nature of halakhah reflects morality being a human construction. Rather, I think it's because of two effects: 1- dialectics between concflicting values can yeild different strategies for finding balance between them One therefore finds that a machloqes is resolved by finding one strategy more appropriate for the culture asking the question than another. And if it is not resolved with finality, another culture may have the same question (eg mixes of immigrants with different precdent) and choose a different strategy. As I put it last time: choosing different paths up the mountain doesn't imply that the mountain's altitude is subjective. But this assumes that the linkage between halakhah and morality is that halakhah is a means to becoming moral. 2- changes in reality can cause two similar looking situations to have different moral outcomes. I think the vast majority of seemingly reopened questions are really of this sort. E.g. the categorization of today's dead mutes. We didn't change our belief that demands cannot be made of someone who cannot be taught them -- even if it means a consequent loss of priviliges (if being able to be motzi another is a privilege). The realia of the life of a cheiresh changed. (Over Shabbos I read which misses this point, creating a very bloated list of cases where R' JD Bleich, and most contemporary posqim, allow halakhah to "evolve".) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is our choices...that show what we truly are, micha at aishdas.org far more than our abilities. http://www.aishdas.org - J. K. Rowling Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 7 04:10:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 07:10:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong In-Reply-To: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150607111036.GB7126@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 05, 2015 at 03:16:42PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : There is a thought in this thread that if G-d does something, then it : is good by definition. Yet Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai considered the : possibility that G-d had another option which was even better than the : option that He did choose. Aside from Zev's point, that the machloqes is over which is pleasanter for the person, not which is good... I think the discussion is more what if HQBH tells us to do something, it is good by definition, necessarily good by implication, or somehow more distantly related to morality. (I guess someone could say halakhah is not connected to morality, but I don't see that coming up as an O hashkagah.) : This sounds to me like a good argument for the view that people (or at : least certain people, such as the Sanhedrin) CAN decide what is right : and what is wrong. Can determine, which is still different than the original idea on Areivim, that consensus *defines* morality. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger One who kills his inclination is as though he micha at aishdas.org brought an offering. But to bring an offering, http://www.aishdas.org you must know where to slaughter and what Fax: (270) 514-1507 parts to offer. - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 7 05:52:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2015 08:52:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Torah Scholars and Torah Education for the Masses Message-ID: <20150607125250.7E561182EA1@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is taken from Rav Schwab on Chumash, Parshas Acharei Mos. I have posted the entire selection at http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/tide_chumash_schwab.pdf At all times the Torah's unchanging teachings must be applied to the ever-changing derech eretz. All of our actions, attitudes, relationships to man and beast, and positions within nature and history are subject to the jurisdiction and evaluation of the Torah. What follows is that the Torah scholar should be well informed of the "ways of the Earth." The laws of nature and the paths of history should be known to him. He should be well aware of what happens in the world that surrounds him, for he is constantly called upon to apply the yardstick of halachah and the searchlight of hashkafah to the realities that confront him. What also follows is that the greater the wisdom of Torah, the more crucial it is that this wisdom be conveyed to the Jewish contemporary world. It must be transmitted in a language that our generation understands and that will attract the searching youth, the ignorant, the estranged and the potential ba1al teshuvah to a joyous acceptance of the yoke of Heaven. The Torah leader must be able to dispel the doubts of the doubter and to counter the cynicism of the agnostic. He must, therefore, speak their language masterfully so that he can convince and enlighten them. There is indeed a dire need for gedolei Torah, great Torah scholars, who devote their entire lives to the study and dissemination of Torah. The Jewish world today needs many talmidei chachamim whose life task is to enlighten and inspire it with the love and the fear of G-d. We are ready to accord to those "messengers of G-d" the highest respect and a loyal following. These are the kohanim and levi'im of today. Like the members of the Levitic tribe of old, they are to serve all the other tribes and teach them the living Torah. Yet education and leadership cannot function in a vacuum. Therefore it becomes mandatory for the present day "Tribe of Levi" to initiate and encourage an educational system that can serve the other "eleven tribes who comprise the vast majority of our people. It becomes mandatory for the Torah-conscious educator not to inspire fear of the world and hesitancy to meets its challenges, but rather, to fortify the vast majority of our youth to meet head-on the thousand and one pitfalls of professional and business life. Our youth must be inspired to courageously and intelligently brave the onslaught of scientific arrogance and the sensual poison that is masked as intellectual liberalism. The Divine purpose for which Yisrael was created can be served in every capacity, in every profession, in all human endeavors, as long as they are not excluded by the halachah. ---------- Unfortunately, I do not see many Torah scholars today who are "well informed of the "ways of the Earth." The laws of nature and the paths of history should be known to him. He should be well aware of what happens in the world that surrounds him, for he is constantly called upon to apply the yardstick of halachah and the searchlight of hashkafah to the realities that confront him." I also do not see our educational institutions serving "the other 'eleven tribes' who comprise the vast majority of our people. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 8 09:25:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2015 09:25:43 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] replacement value Message-ID: secular law [US] recognizes that one need is not liable replace a lost item with a new one ie if you lost my used IPAD [which happened in fact this month to us] you don't owe me the value of a new one , but rather some pro-rated amount accounting for wear and tear. what does bais din require? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 9 14:17:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2015 17:17:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] replacement value In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150609211745.GA4160@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 08, 2015 at 09:25:43AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : secular law [US] recognizes that one need is not liable replace a lost : item with a new one... what does bais din : require? According to the Business Halakhah Institute : Many years ago I borrowed a Chumash with commentaries from a local beis medrash. I forgot to return it and eventually misplaced the sefer and I do not recall which volume I borrowed. It was "borrowed", ie no reshus was asked. ... [Skipping from opening paragraph to bottom line...] Someone who borrowed a sefer without permission is obligated to return the sefer, the same as any other thief. Even if the owner despaired of retrieving it, e.g., he bought a new set, the obligation to return it remains in force (C.M. 354:2 and 360:5). If the sefers condition changed dramatically (shinui) or if it was lost altogether, the borrower is obligated to repay the value of the sefer (C.M. 360:5). In your case, since the sefer you borrowed is missing, there is no obligation to replace the actual sefer. Your obligation is to repay the beis medrash the sefers value at the time you borrowed it. In other words, you would pay the value of a used sefer rather than a new sefer, and there is no need to pay for a complete set. But then, maybe that's under Gittin 55b, not making a ganav tear down his house in order to return a stolen beam he built into it. But that halakhah is to facilitate teshuvah after theft. And so I won't generalized. Also for hezeq, I know a maziq pays for his damage, and therefore only has to pay replacement value -- what it would take to make things right again. But again, your case, a shomer or sho'el returning a lost item, could be different. I didn't yet find it. But I haven't entirely given up... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A cheerful disposition is an inestimable treasure. micha at aishdas.org It preserves health, promotes convalescence, http://www.aishdas.org and helps us cope with adversity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' SR Hirsch, "From the Wisdom of Mishlei" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 9 14:17:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2015 17:17:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] replacement value In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150609211745.GA4160@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 08, 2015 at 09:25:43AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : secular law [US] recognizes that one need is not liable replace a lost : item with a new one... what does bais din : require? According to the Business Halakhah Institute : Many years ago I borrowed a Chumash with commentaries from a local beis medrash. I forgot to return it and eventually misplaced the sefer and I do not recall which volume I borrowed. It was "borrowed", ie no reshus was asked. ... [Skipping from opening paragraph to bottom line...] Someone who borrowed a sefer without permission is obligated to return the sefer, the same as any other thief. Even if the owner despaired of retrieving it, e.g., he bought a new set, the obligation to return it remains in force (C.M. 354:2 and 360:5). If the sefers condition changed dramatically (shinui) or if it was lost altogether, the borrower is obligated to repay the value of the sefer (C.M. 360:5). In your case, since the sefer you borrowed is missing, there is no obligation to replace the actual sefer. Your obligation is to repay the beis medrash the sefers value at the time you borrowed it. In other words, you would pay the value of a used sefer rather than a new sefer, and there is no need to pay for a complete set. But then, maybe that's under Gittin 55b, not making a ganav tear down his house in order to return a stolen beam he built into it. But that halakhah is to facilitate teshuvah after theft. And so I won't generalized. Also for hezeq, I know a maziq pays for his damage, and therefore only has to pay replacement value -- what it would take to make things right again. But again, your case, a shomer or sho'el returning a lost item, could be different. I didn't yet find it. But I haven't entirely given up... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A cheerful disposition is an inestimable treasure. micha at aishdas.org It preserves health, promotes convalescence, http://www.aishdas.org and helps us cope with adversity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' SR Hirsch, "From the Wisdom of Mishlei" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 10 18:52:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 01:52:34 GMT Subject: [Avodah] 100% Vegetable oils etc. Message-ID: <20150610.215234.27464.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> On Areivim, R' Martin Brody wrote: > If any such ingredient of an ingredient was non-kosher, it would be > batel b'shishim, (more likely nullified by thousands). For those > that are interested, the London Beth Din is not concerned with > "flavourings" as an ingredient for this very reason. This surprises me. I would think that non-kosher flavorings cannot be batel. Bitul is a mathematical procedure by which we can presume that the non-kosher ingredient is not noticeable. But in the case of flavorings (and colorings and maamads), if its presence were not noticeable, then the manufacturer would not go to the trouble and expense of including it. Therefore (I would think) that its presence proves that it *is* noticable, overriding the presumption. Rabbi Binyomin Forst's "The Laws of Kashrus" (ArtScroll) says on page 98, "If, however, the mixture was sampled and the non-kosher taste was noticeable, the mixture may not be eaten, even though it was batel b'shishim. (Shach 98:4)" What other views are there? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5578ea0af09296a0a79abst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 07:41:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 10:41:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Worker or Craftsman Message-ID: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> How do we view the task of life? Is a person an po'el, paid for his time? Implying, it's our job to do good while here on earth, but the determining factor is the duration? Or is a person an uman, paid to get a particular job done. We're put on earth to get some specific accomplishment. The Zohar suggests something more like an uman when it uses an idiom like "ana avda deQBH". Admittedly an eved does not get paid for his time, but an eved is for the duration, whether until shemittah, until yovel, or for the rest of his life. However, in Shaar haGilgulim we get all this talk about a person having a tafqid, and how if they fail to get the job done, they could be given a second chance. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger What you get by achieving your goals micha at aishdas.org is not as important as http://www.aishdas.org what you become by achieving your goals. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Henry David Thoreau From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 07:46:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 10:46:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Color names In-Reply-To: <221167CA3A2A46908C9CA2A3474664EA@webhost.local> References: <221167CA3A2A46908C9CA2A3474664EA@webhost.local> Message-ID: <20150611144639.GF20169@aishdas.org> RZLampel and I discused this once, I think here. If not, the topic could be of interest anyway. So, rather than checking the archive (which is difficult, given the number of tekheiles discussions) I am just sharing either way. -micha Shabbat B'Shabbato Translated by Moshe Goldberg Machon Zomet ... What Is That Phrase? Green Sky? Yaacov Etzion At the end of this week's Torah portion, we are given a command, "Let them place on the tzitzit at the corner a thread of 'techelet.'" [Bamidbar 15:38]. Rashi explains that techelet is "the 'yarok' color of a snail." Any speaker of modern Hebrew can only wonder at this. Why does Rashi call the blue color of techelet "yarok" -- that is, green? Well, it is not only Rashi that calls techelet "yarok." It is an explicit ruling that appears in the Shulchan Aruch: "The color white is ritually pure, as is the look of 'yarok,' even if it has the look of wax or of gold. And this certainly includes the 'yarok' of leek or grass (and also the color that is called 'blue' is included in 'yarok')" [Hilchot Nidda, 188]. We are not interested at this point in the details of the halacha but rather in the fact that the RAMA writes that the color "blue" is called "yarok" in our traditional sources. Our sages spoke of four main colors: shachor (black), lavan (white), adom (red), and yarok. And "yarok" included yellow, orange, blue, and turquoise of today. For example, it happens quite often that a newborn baby is a bit yellow right after its birth. But the Tosefta calls this color "yarok." Rabbi Natan says the following: "When I was in the Land of Kapotakia, there was a woman who had given birth to boys... They brought him to me, and I saw that he was 'yarok'... I looked at him and did not find any blood for circumcision..." [Shabbat 134a]. Moreover, in the wording of the ROSH in his halachic rulings the word yarok as used by the sages is not our color green (which they call "yarok as a leek") but is yellow or orange. "This shows that the word yarok is similar to the yolk of an egg or to gold, which has a tinge of red." Among other sources, the ROSH bases his decision on the words of the verse, "the wings of a dove coated with silver and its limbs the 'yerakrak' of gold" [Tehillim 68:14]. Yerakrak is clearly the color of gold, that is, yellow. The words for orange (katom) and blue (kachol) were instituted in modern times by Zeev Yavetz. This was reported by David Yalin in the newspaper "Hatzevi" in 1887: "When I spoke to my uncle the illustrious rabbi and investigator Rabbi Zeev Yavetz, he said to me that he wants to fill what is missing in our language for the names of two colors, the color of techelet and the color of the yoke of an egg." Yavetz proposed that techelet should be called kachol and that the yoke should be called "ketem," which in the holy writings refers to gold or to the color of gold. (An example appears in the following verse: "Woe, the gold is dim, the good 'ketem' has changed" [Eichah 4:1].) Yavetz wanted to use the word katom for the color of yellow (which we call tzahov), since he felt that tzahov "includes a bit of red" (as per a note by Yalin). But as time went on, katom became the color orange, as we use it today. Thus, the word "yarok" changed in meaning during the years, as did "tzahov." However, "techelet" evidently kept its original meaning, and it remains similar to the color of the sea, which is similar to the color of the sky, and this reminds us of the Divine Throne of Glory. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 09:34:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 12:34:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Worker or Craftsman In-Reply-To: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> References: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5579B89C.8060902@sero.name> On 06/11/2015 10:41 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Is a person an po'el, paid for his time? Implying, it's our job to do > good while here on earth, but the determining factor is the duration? > > Or is a person an uman, paid to get a particular job done. We're put on > earth to get some specific accomplishment. Eruvin 65a: Anan po`alei diy'mamei anan. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 11:17:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 14:17:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> References: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> Message-ID: <20150611181746.GI20169@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 2, 2015 at 4:27pm I forwarded an essay by RYK that had appeared on R/Dr Alan Brill's blog, Kavvanah. In it he proposes from personal experience that MO would be enhanced by shifting away from its focus on RYBS's Briskkeit and in particular that elements of his Hungarian Chassidic birth community would be of great value. : Personally, my rejection of the Maimonidean ethos and realization of : the degree to which chassidut can speak to the modern searcher was a : long and arduous process. It came about as a result of a deep sense : of betrayal by Maimonides, the champion of Rationalist Judaism. I for : many years was the object and fool of Maimonides "the seventh reason" : as presented in his introduction to the Guide by not seeing his : philosophic views. In that passage, Maimonides condones misleading : the masses for their greater good, even to the point of advocating : contradictory ideas for different audiences and then obscuring those : contradictions. : Growing up in Satmar and then Brisk, I was oblivious to his : non-halakhic writings and led to believe that he fully and literally : believed every word he wrote in the Yad... I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." And in fact, that was the whole point of the project -- to outline all of halakhah, to document the TSBP. Not to hint at something for the meivinim without risking that the hoi palloi mistake his words in a heretical way. It's simply not meaningful concept for a book he titled Mishneh Torah. I am uncomfortably using the Rambam as a poster boy for rationalism. In the Rambam's day, science hadn't been invented yet. Claims about physics weren't based on emprical proof and experimental process. It was Natual Philosophy, and the weight of an a priori argument. A lot of it really ended up on reliabilism; deeming the Greeks as reliable sources on such things -- after 1,5000 years of their theories reigning. And therefore, quite honestly, much the same kind of thought that we use to accept mesorah. The word rationalism changed meaning. What I think we really mean is a willingness to be meqabel es ha'emes mimi she'omro, rather than take a maximalist attitude toward mesoretic and Torah-derived statements. But that's quite a bit meta from anyone today using the Moreh as a foundational element of their hashkafah. In particular, RYK mentions three items he believes would enhance MO: : 1) Truth. We live in a post-modern world where objective truth is : rejected and absolute claims are frowned upon. I would go as far as to : say that rationalism (in the general and colloquial sense) as a source : for Emunah is bankrupt, it increasingly speaks to fewer people... I don't think it ever worked. As one of my favorite truisms goes: The mind is a wonderful organ for justifying decisions the heart already reached. People accept the rational argument that fits the experiential justification that really underlies their beliefs. Aristo thought otherwise, which eventually led to the Qalam and the Scholasticists -- including R' Saadia Gaon and the Rambam. But then Scholasticism collapsed, the scientific method arose, leading to a dispute between the Empiricists and Idealists which in turn forced the discipline of philosophy away from belief in the reality of an objective rigorous proof. Experimental eproof, yes. Incontravertible objective philosopy, not so much. Kant then gets all transcendental, and talks about the synthetic a priori. (Knowing things without proof that don't simply boil down to a matter of translations. In the recent past, I mentioned how we know the Euclidean posulates hold in flat space, that Reimannian ones hold in a spherical space, and our knowledge about morality and ethics.) This was the zeitgeist when the Besh"t lived. (Besh"t 1698-1760; Kant 1724-1804.) Someone who is given a proof whose conclusions don't fit their experience is likely to reject the soundness of the givens / postulates / first principles on which it's based. Just as someone who accepts a proof is making synthetic judgments about the quality of the foundations of that proof before even making an analytic decision that the logic seems sound. So even if no one makes a logic error, every proof relies on interpretation of experience. RYBS was not a rationalist in this sense. Brisk is very experiential, to the point of eschewing the study of hashkafah altogether. They are rational when it comes to how to learn, but the value of learning is in the experience of learning. When RYBS does do philosophy, he calls it halachic hermeneutics. Neo-Kantian and Existentialist observations of what halakhah says to the one following it about life. He makes no claims about the function or cause of halakhah, he makes few theological observations. For example, to RYBS tzimtzum speaks mostly to the value of anavah as an emulation of His "Retreat" to give us room. RYBS's Neo-Kantianism is a very different project than the Rambam's Scholasticism. ... : However, during those rare occasions when they do pay attention to the : biblical "stories," their orientation is a-rational. They absolutely : "believe" those stories, but their belief is internal: it is true : because it happened in the Torah. That is where these events transpire : and that is where these stories matter. Asking about their historicity : is, as far as they are concerned, foolish and missing the point. And also a given. It may not be stated as the point, but the confidence given to authority which is a necessary component of the rebbe-chassid relationship means accepting Chazal's historical and scientific claims as being from ruach haqodesh. And not stam as meshalim. The kind of agnosticism about the historicity of medrashic material you are recommending we import Chassidus to justify would itself leave a chassid aghast. And even after citing the long chain of rishonim and acharonim who speak against assuming medrashic stories are historical, And you want to extend that beyond medrashic stories into foundational stories in Tanakh and maybe in the chumash as well? Given my above assertion that the only thread that runs consistently through "rationalism" from the Rambam to today is to choose qabel es ha'emes mimi she'omro over taking some baal mesorah's statement maximally, one actually needs what's left of the Rambam's hashkafic legacy to accomplish this, not Chassidus. : 2) Spiritualization. As scholars have pointed out, chassidic teachings : contain elements of spiritual psychology. They provide us with a : language which helps us infuse our lives with meaning. One can point : to many examples where this psychological spiritualization occurs in : chassidut, I will mention two of them. : 3) Social Change. One of the most pressing tensions in the community : is how to reconcile our values with our convictions; what to do : when halakha points us in one direction and our values in another : direction. We are tempted to follow our values but pulled to abide by : our halakhic commitments.... : Chassidut is very explicit about the value of religious aggression. The : following two quotes are often encountered in chassidic writings, : "even a thief says a prayer before he breaks in to his victim's home" : (quoted on the margin of Brachot 63A, from the Frankfurt manuscript), : and "an aggressive stance towards the Divine bears results" (Sanhedrin : 105A). While the provenance of these texts is Talmudic, they take on : significant prominence in Chassidic theology. They become the impetus : for an aggressive theology which is informed by a religiosity that : sees itself driven by a Divine immanence which infuses our values and : ethical intuitions with spiritual resonance, subsequently leading to : radical societal change. : Such change is actually an integral part of Chassidic social history. : When one looks at recent major changes in traditional Jewish society : it is hard not to notice that the forerunners were often Chassidim. The : last sixty years have seen far reaching social and political change. Both of these are not specific to Chassidus, but would be true of any Ism that draws attention fo the notion that halakhah is merely a "floor" rather than the sum total of behavioral expectations. For that matter, self development and societal needs are both more central to Mussar than chassidus. Pretty much its defning features, really. Which (aside being my own pony in this race) has the advantage of being closer to being consistent with MO's current gestalt; it's easier to get from here to there. OTOH Chaasidic maximalism means that statements made in the past have to be accepted as being from ruach haqodesh, and consequently change in these communities is minimized. Not only because isolation is part of the survival strategy, but because of reverence for and desire to emulate Chassidic isolation is indeed part of their survival stategy. It's hard to leave when you know no other social context and speak with an accent. And knowing that you stand for something greater than yourself in the eyes of those who see your uniform makes it harder to sin. (Harder, not impossible.) But it's not one of the three elements of Chassidus RYK wrote about. : The two most dramatic changes that have happened is that Jews are now : sovereign and women have made significant progress in their pursuit of : religious equality. The pioneers of both these changes were driven, at : least in part, by a chassidic ethos. R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson, : the Rebbi of Lubavitch, was one of the first orthodox scholars to : champion female Talmud scholarship, while R. Avraham Yitzchak Kook, : a serious student of Chassidut, was an outspoken early proponent of : a Zionist state. RAYK is a student of the Leshem, and thus of the Gra's school of Qabbalah. Not Chassidus. You might be able to make a more generic argument for a need for more Qabbalah in MO. Personally, I'm an engineer by inclination, not just training, and my own head doesn't lean that way. Although I had more success with the Leshem Haqdamos uShe'arim, which incidentally heavily draws from the Moreh and Yesodei haTorah, than I did with Qela"ch Pischei Chokhmah, the later parts of Derekh H' or Tomer Devorah after ch. 1. At least in the golah this might be true; in Israel, those of the DL community who are an appropriate audience for Qabbalah already have RAYK in numerous interpretations. Also, Chassidus's approach to Qabbalah puts the Ari Za"l on an even higher pedestal than the Gra did, and elevate R Chaim Vital from *a* talmid of the Ari to his sole authorized presenter. The Gra is willing to question something from RCV that chassidim would literally consider Torah min haShamayim. Which, for the more socially and humanistically minded, might well turn Eitz Chaim 49 ch. 3 into a show stopper. (But this isn't the place to discuss it.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Never must we think that the Jewish element micha at aishdas.org in us could exist without the human element http://www.aishdas.org or vice versa. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 06:48:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 09:48:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <20150611181746.GI20169@aishdas.org> References: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> <20150611181746.GI20169@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150612134802.GA12483@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 2:17 I wrote: : What I think we really mean is a willingness to be meqabel es ha'emes : mimi she'omro, rather than take a maximalist attitude toward mesoretic : and Torah-derived statements. But that's quite a bit meta from anyone : today using the Moreh as a foundational element of their hashkafah. ... : Given my above assertion that the only thread that runs consistently : through "rationalism" from the Rambam to today is to choose qabel es : ha'emes mimi she'omro over taking some baal mesorah's statement maximally... The thought hit me this morning that there is another and drastically different way to view this point. "Qabel es ha'ames mimi she'omro" is a bit of a circularity. Obviously we want to accept the truth from whomever says it, and not errors. So we're deciding what is true /before/ we decide to accept it, not /because/ we accept it. We could therefore say that the single consistent theme we associate with throwing the word "rationalism" about is critical thought. When we judge Aristo's, Copernicus's, Darwin's or Einstein's thought as true, do we second guess that asessment, or accept their ideas as true? And consequently we can phrase this chiluq a third way: As being abut how much authority we give rabbinic works in comparison to how much we trust our own critical thinking. The higher the pedestal we put the historical rabbinate, the more of their statements one would logically choose to suspend judgment and accept. (Not only accept, but accept as literal.) As for the original premise... Rather than looking to RYK's or anyone else's ideas as to what from Chassidus would most benefit MO, perhaps we should look at the Neo-Chassidic phenomenon to see de facto what MO Jews who are open to such experimentation are drawn to. And if those two questions yeild different answers, why? :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger What we do for ourselves dies with us. micha at aishdas.org What we do for others and the world, http://www.aishdas.org remains and is immortal. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Albert Pine From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 06:55:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 09:55:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What FDA Learned About Dark Chocolate and Milk Allergies In-Reply-To: <557A5564.7040807@zahav.net.il> References: <20150611174606.4DC6F181DFA@nexus.stevens.edu> <5579E680.2050607@zahav.net.il> <5579E319.7070103@sero.name> <557A5564.7040807@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <20150612135524.GC12483@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 05:43:32AM +0200, Ben Waxman via Areivim wrote: : This story came out here a few years ago when some kid had an : allergic reaction to parve chocolate. The product had a Badatz Eida : Chareidit heksher. The heksher was fine, they didn't make a mistake. : The amount of milk in the chocolate was much, much less than 1/60. Assuming the allergic reaction isn't lifethreatening so that the child is not prohibited from eating the chocolate on those grounds... Say they're a chocoholic and chose to eat the chocolate shortly after eating meat. Mi ma nafshach for everyone else it's batel. But do we say that since for them it's detectible, bitul doesn't apply? :-)BBii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 14:24:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 21:24:59 GMT Subject: [Avodah] What FDA Learned About Dark Chocolate and Milk Allergies Message-ID: <20150611.172459.6802.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> [Another Areivim email from the same thread. -micha] > Actually it sounds to me that one very much can rely on the > label (from this example). The trace amounts [the LBD are] talking > about are much, much less than 1/60. Completely bateil, > totally parve, but enough to elicit an allergic reaction. I remember learning about a machlokes concerning whether we hold dairy can be batel to pareve, or whether we say that since there is no loss (at least, not the total loss that we have when something becomes nonkosher) we should simply consider it dairy. But I don't remember how we hold on this issue. Anyone else? And shouldn't these questions be on Avodah? Akiva Miller [Done. -micha] From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 11:01:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 14:01:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If and When Message-ID: <20150612180148.GA7261@aishdas.org> R' Yishmael famously (Mechilta BaChodesh-Yisro 11, Mishpatim 182 or ) says that "im" usually means that the decision is up to you, but three times it's a chiyuv: - "Im mizbach avanim ta'aseh Li" (Shemos 20:21) - "Im kesef talveh es ami" (Shemos 22:24) - "Im taqriv minchas bikurim" (Vayiqra 2:14) This is often explained in English as saying that "im" usually means "if", but in these cases it takes on the rarer second meaning of "when". I would prefer to propose a single common interpretation. LAD, "im" introduces an implication -- X implies Y. When X is a conditional, then so will the Y that depends on it. When X is always obligated, then Y will also be always obligated, but the "allways" is because X is. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 13 19:40:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 04:40:37 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Why Chassidut Message-ID: <557CE9A5.6090303@zahav.net.il> From Rav Yehoshua Shapira (my quick translation) The idea that Chassidut?s positive atmosphere isn?t obligatory is a serious mistake. Not only is it obligatory, but it brings with it more obligations. Without emphasis on the Mitzvot of ahava and yirah, simcha and deveikut (which are the soul of the 613 mitzvot) the mitzvot remain external actions, technical, something which doesn?t affect or uplift the heart and soul. Those doreitta mitzvot, which are the pinimiot of all mitzvoth, demand from a person and from us to give their entire being when doing a mitzvah. . . .. In the performance of mitzvoth, God wants our hearts. Therefore, Chassidut definitely demands deep dedication. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 15:34:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ysoscher via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 18:34:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed Message-ID: <073EBBC1-7CA3-4E26-BA35-4A9007B1EAE4@gmail.com> Chana, Three quick points: 1) You are making the mistake many others are making as well, conflating chassidim with chassidut. Chassidic life today has very little to do with original chassidut. Early chassidut was a revolutionary theological movement which appealed to a small elitist group. As time went by more people started joining. As the masses joined, the theology became diluted. The theologically influenced practices reminded but the ethos became stagnant. Therefore, your attempt to disprove my thesis from the way Chassidim behave today is wrong. I'm advocating for chassidic theology which was prevalent during the first and second generation of the chassidic movement, people like the Besht, the Magid, the Toldos Yakov Yosef, Reb Nachaman, the Ba'al Hatanye and others. I have no doubt that their philosophy informed Rav Kook and Lubavitcher Rebbe when dealing with tensions between Halacha and modernity. And, their philosophy can help us today as well. Incorporating a chassidic ethos would allow us to infuse our encounters with modernity with kedusha and meaning. Which brings me to my second point. 2) Kabbakah and chassidut isn't about warmth and community. It's a highly sophisticated philosophical system which offers a nuanced alternative to the Maimonidean/rationalist approach. While the approach is a-rational, it isn't irrational. However, more to the point, the warmth and sense of community is a byproduct of this theology, not its primary focus. 3) Finally, I'm not sure I understand your point about the Rambam. The Rambam says that he believes it is justified to fool and mislead the masses. That to me is highly problematic. Rabbi Ysoscher Katz Chair, Department of Talmud, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School; Director of the Lindenbaum Center for Halakhic Studies; Educational Director of Judaic Studies, Luria Academy, Brooklyn, NY.; Rabbi, Prospect Heights Shul. E-mail: ysoscher at gmail.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 07:00:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 14:00:32 GMT Subject: [Avodah] If and When Message-ID: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > R' Yishmael famously (Mechilta BaChodesh-Yisro 11, Mishpatim 182 > or ) says that "im" usually means that the > decision is up to you, but three times it's a chiyuv: > - "Im mizbach avanim ta'aseh Li" (Shemos 20:21) > - "Im kesef talveh es ami" (Shemos 22:24) > - "Im taqriv minchas bikurim" (Vayiqra 2:14) ... > LAD, "im" introduces an implication -- X implies Y. ... > When X is always obligated, then Y will also be always > obligated, but the "always" is because X is. If I'm understanding you correctly, your logic will work only if there is another pasuk somewhere which *already* obligates us to build a mizbe'ach of stone, to lend money without interest, and to bring bikkurim in this manner. If so, then a fuller translation can be written with the word "if", and without the word "when", like this: : (You are already obligated to build a stone mizbe'ach, and) : if (today is the day that) you will build a stone mizbe'ach, : you will not build it from cut stones... But I thought that R' Yishmael's whole point is that THESE ARE the source pesukim for those mitzvos, and that there are NO other pesukim which obligate you to do these things. That's why R' Yishmael made the whole point of stressing that these "im"s really mean "when". His fear was that if we translate "im" as "if", then someone might think these pesukim are like Hilchos Gittin: "IF you get divorced, here is the right way to do it, and IF you make a stone mizbe'ach, here is the right way." R' Yishmael's point is that there is no "if" - you MUST do these things, and WHEN you do it, this is how. So over Shabbos, I tried to verify my idea. Thanks to RMB, who quoted not only the 3 pesukim, but identified their location, it was pretty simple to look them up in the Torah Temimah. But what I found was rather odd. Torah Temimah Shmos 20:127 quotes R' Yishmael in the Mechilta, pretty much the same way that RMB did, and points out that this is NOT the source for the obligation for build a stone mizbe'ach - that is in Ki Savo. This RMB's logic fits: "If (today is the day that) you build a stone mizbe'ach, don't build it of cut stones." Please note: In the excerpt of the Mechilta which the Torah Temimah quotes regarding the mizbe'ach, R' Yishmael says that there are 3 cases where "im" is not optional, but the other two are not specified. This is very different than the Torah Temimah about lending money. Torah Temimah Shmos 22:198 does quotes R' Yishmael in the Mechilta, but it doesn't mention the word "im" explicitly, nor is there any reference to two other cases. He simply asks whether it is a reshus or a chovah to lend money, and he answers that the obligation appears in Parshas Re'eh. I find it curious that this Mechilta is worded so differently than the previous one, but the message is clearly the same. Finally, we have the pasuk about bikkurim. It turns out that the Torah Temimah on this pasuk doesn't mention R' Yishmael at all. It does mention R' Yehudah, but from the Toras Kohanim, and not from the Mechilta. Further, my unlearned reading of R' Yehudah had little or nothing to do with the reshus/chovah question, but Torah Temimah Vayikra 2:80 DID see a reshus/chovah question that troubled R' Yehudah. I am left with several questions, the main one being whether or not Bikkurim really was R' Yishmael's third "im". And that's where I'll leave this thread, for more skilled minds to investigate should they be so inclined. Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/557d895b6e89195a4573st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 10:27:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 13:27:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If and When In-Reply-To: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150614172744.GA27133@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 02:00:32PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : > LAD, "im" introduces an implication -- X implies Y. : ... : > When X is always obligated, then Y will also be always : > obligated, but the "always" is because X is. : : If I'm understanding you correctly, your logic will work only if : there is another pasuk somewhere which *already* obligates us to build a : mizbe'ach of stone, to lend money without interest, and to bring bikkurim : in this manner. If so, then a fuller translation can be written with : the word "if", and without the word "when"... In reality, the cited Mechilta actually provides derahos to prove that there is nothing optional about the antecedants. But my point was to suggest that "im" has nothing to do with the maybe-ness of "if". Just the implication bit -- if X then Y, or whenever X then Y, or since X then Y, regardless of whether not-X is a possibility or option. Which would reduce what looks like two definitions for "im" into a single common meaning. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Time flies... micha at aishdas.org ... but you're the pilot. http://www.aishdas.org - R' Zelig Pliskin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 13 22:30:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ysoscher via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 01:30:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> R. Micha, you write "I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." This is pure conjecture, perhaps even wishful thinking. The Rambam shares the 7th principle in which he argues that one may disseminate untruths for the greater good of society. Once he believes that, we are left to wonder about everything he wrote: did he really believe that or was there a political (in the Aristotelian sense) agenda behind it. To then preference the yad over the moreh is a personal bias. You and I as Orthodox Jews would like to believe that he believed every word in the yad and that the stuff he says in the moreh, oftentimes contradicting Chazal and the mesorah, was only said for the greater good of society-he personally didn't believe them. The non-observant philosopher, on the other hand, would say the opposite, that in the Moreh he articulates what he really believed, not in the Yad. Ultimately there's no objective measure to determine who's right. R. Isidore Twersky in his book on the Rambam tried to argue that there is no stira, that the moreh and the yad compliment each other. I don't find his arguments compelling. These two sefarim are incompatible and, ultimately, we are left in the dark, never able to objectively determine which of the two Rambam's sefarim were written with ulterior motives. You then write "I am uncomfortably using the Rambam as a poster boy for rationalism." I am using "rationalism" in a loose colloquial sense. Rambam believed in an evidence based religiosity, that we believe in God because His existence can be proven. That project, IMHO, failed. For every proof proving existence there's a proof to the contrary. That is precisely why I believe that the non-rationalist/Kabbalist approach is a better option. They offer an a-rationalist approach ("a-rational," not to be confused with "irrational," they're not the same). They believe because they chose to believe not-because they are "convinced." Their mehalach is more appealing to our post/modern generation where few people believe in absolute truths, and, it's also truer to our tradition. We were always a a-rational tradition until Maimonides came along and changed that. Which brings me to my next point. You then write "...means accepting Chazal's historical and scientific claims as being from ruach haqodesh. And not stam as meshalim." implying that I believe that stories in Chazal or Torah are meshalim. [Chas lei lezar'eih deAvraham deleimru hakha]; God forbid that I should make such a suggestion. I am saying something radically different. We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims. A faith claim is a religious "belief" not a scientific claim. Two things distinguish the chasid's experience of reading Torah from the philosopher's experience. When the chasid reads those stories he or she a) doesn't pause to ask if it's "true" they just learn it. "Truth" isn't a primary orientation of their encounter with toras Ha'shem. B) In the event that he does pause to ask the "truth" question, his approach is a-rational and unscientific. The truth question, for him or her, is internal to the system as is the solution. It truthfully and absolutely happened in the Torah. It's not denying the claim, it's just ignoring the scientific objective layer. Because the chasid's yiddishkeit happens exclusively in the religious realm. I also think there's a lot of confusion between what I'm arguing and what you're responding to. Briefly: 1) As I wrote to Chana: Chassidim and chassidut is not same. Chassidim today have little to do with chassidut. Contemporary chassidic philosophy is a complete deviation from original chassidut. 2) A-rationalism isn't one iota less sophisticated than rationalism. These are two parallel philosophies each with their own set of nuanced assumptions, postulates, and assumptions. 3) My program has nothing to do with neo-chassidut. NC is a behaviorist movement with very little philosophical underpinning. I'm proposing a theological program which also happens to have behavioral implications. Rabbi Ysoscher Katz Chair, Department of Talmud, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School; Director of the Lindenbaum Center for Halakhic Studies; Educational Director of Judaic Studies, Luria Academy, Brooklyn, NY.; Rabbi, Prospect Heights Shul. E-mail: ysoscher at gmail.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 08:55:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 11:55:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] 100% Vegetable oils etc. (Walker Crisps) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <557DA3F6.8050406@sero.name> On Areivim, Kaganoff wrote: > Zev Sero wrote: >> Kaganoff wrote: >>> Zev Sero wrote: >>>> Kaganoff wrote: >>>>> I would be rather surprised if there was a genuine kashrus concern >>>>> from with the Walker Crisps from any meat contamination. >>>>> Any meat would be batel. >>>> It's flavouring. >>> We hold of bittul b'shishim. >> Only as a general assumption that at that dilution it can't be tasted. >> Not applicable to concentrated flavourings which are designed to be tasted >> at high dilution. > That is a chumrah that you could adopt, but should not force on others. Why do you call it a chumra? Do you deny that the din is about ta`am, not percentage, and bitul beshishim is merely a general assumption that at that level of dilution there is no ta`am? >>> And it's a not a flavoring for this particular product. So it is not >>> avida l'ta'amei, even at less than 60. >> Since when does the fact that it wasn't intended to be in this product make it >> not intended for its taste? > That is why companies spend thousands of dollars perfecting formulas > for what is and is not used in a product. If it is not used as an > ingredient, then it was not meant to flavor this product. Once again, so what? Where did you get this idea that it matters whether it was intended to be in this product? Perhaps you're thinking of nosen ta'am lifgam, and saying that even a pleasant flavour, if it was not intended to be in a particular dish, may be considered a pegam in that dish. But that doesn't work. Suppose a chef created a dish flavoured with lard, but made a mistake; he put in too much, or too little, or didn't cook it long enough, or cooked it too long, or at the wrong temperature, and the final flavour of the dish isn't what he was aiming for. It's pleasant, and the diners eat it up and compliment him, but he knows that it wasn't meant to taste like that, and his recipe needs work. Can you imagine calling that dish pagum, and allowing it to be eaten?! That's obviously not tenable. So how is this case any different? A pleasant and desirable flavour has made its way into a product that wasn't intended to have that flavour. Does that make it pagum?!! No. It's a good product, it's just not the product that's on the label. The product that's on the label is kosher, but the product that's inside the packet is treif, exactly as if a labelling error had occurred. >>>>> Stam Keilim Ain ben Yomo. >>>> Are you joking? That klal is clearly not true in any commercial setting. >>> Why do you assume that it is clearly not true. Or rather you are >>> assuming that in a majority of cases, meat is used the same day as >>> the kosher product. That strikes me as a bit extreme. >> It's not at all extreme. Everyone knows that commercial equipment is almost >> *never* idle for 24 hours at a time. And since the meat flavouring is a >> regular product it stands to reason that it's processed every day. > Do you know this for a fact about this particular plant? Otherwise, > it's an assumption that you can make, as per Chazal. Everyone knows that it's true about *all* commercial equipment. And we have no right to "assume" something we know not to be true. Stam keilim einom bnei yomam is simply not a valid rule in the context of commercial equipment today. >> In any case, the issue here isn't keilim, since the flavouring is cold, and >> sprayed on cold chips. If it were keilim then there would be no bittul >> beshishim, since stam keilim are more than 1/60 of their contents. No, >> the issue here is the residue of actual flavouring that remains in the >> equipment after the meat flavours are run, until it is cleaned. > Which again would be batel within the first few products of the new run. It might be, if we knew the order in which the flavours are run. But they refuse to disclose that information. What we do know is that the plain chips are run first, so they're acceptable. After that all bets are off. There is no way to be sure that the packet of non-meat-flavoured chips you are eating was not the first one off the rank immediately after a meat run. >>>>> It's not Avida L'Ta'amei, etc. >>>> It's precisely avida letaama -- it's a flavouring! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 16:53:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 19:53:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> References: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150614235339.GA15695@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 01:30:46AM -0400, Ysoscher via Avodah wrote: : R. Micha, you write "I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle : applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word : in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think : "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." : : This is pure conjecture, perhaps even wishful thinking. The Rambam : shares the 7th principle in which he argues that one may disseminate : untruths for the greater good of society.... Yes, but he says it in an introduction explaining a particular kind of book -- which the Moreh is, and the Yad isn't. Whereas the Yad self-describes as being Mishneh Torah, explanation, not obfuscation. So why look to the intro to the Moreh to muddle what the Rambam himself says was the point of the Yad? In either case, the Rambam describes Yad and the Peirush haMishnayos a explanations written to be comprehensible to the masses. Moreh 2:35 (el-Qafih ["Kapach"]): Kevar bi'arti likhlal benei adam ... veheivesi ra'ayos al kakh ubirartav bePeirush haMishnah ubeMishneh Torah... : You and I as Orthodox Jews would like to believe that he believed every : word in the yad and that the stuff he says in the moreh, oftentimes : contradicting Chazal and the mesorah, was only said for the greater : good of society-he personally didn't believe them. The non-observant : philosopher, on the other hand, would say the opposite, that in the : Moreh he articulates what he really believed, not in the Yad. Actually, I tend to side with the anti-Mamonidians. Mostly because his model of redemption leaves people like my son Shuby (who has Downs) wandering around the palace with no hope of getting in. (To paraphrase 3:51.) : You then write "I am uncomfortably using the Rambam as a poster boy : for rationalism." : : I am using "rationalism" in a loose colloquial sense... Which is so loose as to be meaningless. The Rambam predated science, and followed the secular authority. Rationalism today refers to emprical and other objective proof. : That project, IMHO, failed. For every proof : proving existence there's a proof to the contrary. That is precisely : why I believe that the non-rationalist/Kabbalist approach is a better : option. They offer an a-rationalist approach ("a-rational," not to be : confused with "irrational," they're not the same). They believe because : they chose to believe not-because they are "convinced." Yeah, but so does the Gra's Qabbalah or Mussar. Mussar in particular replaces the Rambam's akrasia based on knowlege / wisdom, and therefore redemption through getting the right knowledge, with talk of first-hand experience, emotions, subconscious, etc... : You then write "...means accepting Chazal's historical and scientific : claims as being from ruach haqodesh. And not stam as meshalim." implying : that I believe that stories in Chazal or Torah are meshalim. : : [Chas lei lezar'eih deAvraham deleimru hakha]; God forbid that I should : make such a suggestion. I am saying something radically different. Well, I wouldn't lump the two together. The Rambam is far from alone in considering aggadic stories to be meshalim repeated with not concern about historicity. Much like you wrote -- an authentic attitude toward such things would be to not care about what really happened. Not to assert they are or aren't historical. (Although the Rambam would tell you to assume the wilder ones aren't historical, lest you make a joke out of the Torah -- the first two of the three katim described in his haqdamah to mishnah Cheileq.) : We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims. A : faith claim is a religious "belief" not a scientific claim... Agreed. BUT... the kind of problem I thought you were trying to address was the person who felt the Torah and academia conflict. To invoke this dichotomy to resolve the issue would be to allow people to assert ahistoricity, rather than avoiding a position altogether. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The true measure of a man micha at aishdas.org is how he treats someone http://www.aishdas.org who can do him absolutely no good. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Samuel Johnson From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 06:49:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ken Bloom via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 09:49:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What FDA Learned About Dark Chocolate and Milk Allergies Message-ID: > > > Actually it sounds to me that one very much can rely on the > > label (from this example). The trace amounts [the LBD are] talking > > about are much, much less than 1/60. Completely bateil, > > totally parve, but enough to elicit an allergic reaction. > I remember learning about a machlokes concerning whether we hold dairy > can be batel to pareve, or whether we say that since there is no loss (at > least, not the total loss that we have when something becomes nonkosher) > we should simply consider it dairy. But I don't remember how we hold on > this issue. Anyone else? > And shouldn't these questions be on Avodah? > Akiva Miller What's the machloket? Doesn't the Rema YD 99:6 clearly hold that that milk is batel in parve? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 14:00:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 17:00:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safeik and Multivalent Logic Message-ID: <20150615210040.GA17358@aishdas.org> Back on Fri, 14 May 2004 10:45am EST (yes, 11 years ago) I wrote on the thread "Valid halachic change" I wrote: > I was at a yarchei (yarei'ach? shavu'ah -- since it was only a > week?) kallah during Elul in Boston where RYBS explicitly said is wasn't. > He also speaks about multivalent logic in halakhah in numorous places > in Ish haHalakhah. From the [yarchei kallah]: > An esrog that was used for the mitzvah is qadosh and assur behana'ah > that entire day. And since it's qadosh bein hashemashos, it's gadosh > part of the next day and therefore assur behan'ah the entire next day. > RYBS asked (as do many) mimanafshach: Either BhS is part of the first > day, and there's an isur hana'ah BhS. But in that case BhS isn't part > of the next day, and on that day han'ah should be mutar. Or, BhS is part > of the 2nd day, and the issur would end BhS! > Rather, for certain sefeiqos both chalosim apply. It's only when the > chalos turns into a pe'ulah that we are forced to choose. > Therefore, one can daven either minchah or ma'ariv BhS. Even switch off > between days. But not both in the same BhS. > This is why a woman who is from safeiq chalal history (Rashi and Tosafos > disagree on details of the case) is called an "almanas issah", the widow > of a dough, a mixture. > This shtims with the teshuvas RAEiger distinguishing kol deparish meiruba > parish and kol kavu'ah kemechtzah al mechtzah. When the question is one > of pasqening on an unknown situation, we follow rov. When one is trying > to resolve a question that arose after the pesaq, rov doesn't apply. > Rov is a non-boolean state, something between yes and no. Therefore, > it does not apply after we've taken the question from the realm of > machshavah to that of ma'aseh. > Also, Rav Tzadoq (Resisei Laylah 17) distringuishes between the logic of > machshavah and that of pe'ulah, saying that when it comes to machshavah, > it's impossible to consider one thing without also considering its > opposite. RThK then develops this idea to explain eilu va'eilu as being > about real plurality. (More on this when I summarize the articles whose > URLs have been posted to the list.) I'm repeating all this because, once again, AhS Yomi showed me that something I thought I understood was more complicated than I realized. AhS OC 638:5 distinguishes between muqtza machmas mitzvah and other forms of muqtza when it comes to migo de'isqatzei bein hashemashos, isqatza'ei lekhulei yoma. And so, sukkah and its decorations (the topic of OC 688) are muqtzah the following day. But beitzah shenoledah beYT rishon is not muqtzah on the next day. So the example RYBS brings of esrog fits this pattern too -- muqtzah machmas mitzvah is muqtzah the day after it's used for the mitzvah. However, RYBS used it to make a general point about the nature of BhS, and I surmized safeiq in general. I don't understand how we can, if even withint the topic of mutqzah we find BhS acting both like a mixture of states and being in one of the two states -- although we don't know which -- depending on the kind of muqtzah we're talking about. Thoughts, anyone? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The Maharal of Prague created a golem, and micha at aishdas.org this was a great wonder. But it is much more http://www.aishdas.org wonderful to transform a corporeal person into a Fax: (270) 514-1507 "mensch"! -Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 14:44:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 17:44:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Worker or Craftsman In-Reply-To: <5579B89C.8060902@sero.name> References: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> <5579B89C.8060902@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150615214430.GA17695@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 12:34:36PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Eruvin 65a: Anan po`alei diy'mamei anan. The context is talmud Torah, and speaks to the fact that when it comes to Torah, it's the amount of learning, not the success at comprehension, that matters most. See also the Me'iri ad loc, who says simply that R' Nachman bar Yitzchaq is saying we should learn the whole day, because that's the only way we'll fully understand. Which alines with R' Zeira's statement, when he was complemented "Mechadedan shema'iskha!" and he replied "diyemama ninhu." I do not think it can be applied to my question -- whether life is a job of "be good as long as you're here", or if we each have a specific task we were put here to accomplish. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Take time, micha at aishdas.org be exact, http://www.aishdas.org unclutter the mind. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 15:01:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 18:01:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] 100% Vegetable oils etc. In-Reply-To: <20150610.215234.27464.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150610.215234.27464.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150615220103.GB17695@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 01:52:34AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : ... I would think that non-kosher flavorings cannot be batel. Bitul : is a mathematical procedure by which we can presume that the non-kosher : ingredient is not noticeable... In fact, the only time the mishnah invokes bitul beshishim is with min bemino, so that you can't tell which of two identically tasting substances one is tasting. (Chullin 7:4-5, Zevachim 8:6) Rava (Chullin 97a-b) says that if a non-Jew can be asked to taste a substance, we rely on their statement, but if not (eg min bemino), then we use batel beshishim. In contrast, Bar Kaparah holds kol issurin shebiTorah is beshishim. Ta'am is just a derabbaanan that doesn't allow us to use the fundamental 1/60 bitul. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you're going through hell micha at aishdas.org keep going. http://www.aishdas.org - Winston Churchill Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 11:20:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 14:20:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> References: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150616182036.GA13263@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 6:34pm EDT, RYK wrote: : 1) You are making the mistake many others are making as well, conflating : chassidim with chassidut. Chassidic life today has very little to do with : original chassidut. Early chassidut was a revolutionary theological : movement which appealed to a small elitist group... I thought Chassidus started out a kiruv movement, designed to bring Judaism to the kind of people Litta's focus on learning left without religion. Like the story of the boy who played his prayers on his flute, or the one who recited the alef beis over and over and begged HQBH to weave them into the right words. But in any case, to get closer to the point I intended to make... ... : 2) Kabbalah and chassidut isn't about warmth and community. It's a highly : sophisticated philosophical system which offers a nuanced alternative : to the Maimonidean/rationalist approach. : While the approach is a-rational, it isn't irrational. I am not sure how you're using "a-rational". Even after your consequent explanation (posted Sun Jun 14, 1:30am EDT): : They offer an a-rationalist approach ("a-rational," not to be : confused with "irrational," they're not the same). They believe because : they chose to believe not-because they are "convinced." What is this a-rational stance that is also highly philosophical and yet not the experiential chassidus of the nostalgic memories with which you opened your blog post? I cannot figure out what you're getting at. Contining the first post: : 3) Finally, I'm not sure I understand your point about the Rambam. The : Rambam says that he believes it is justified to fool and mislead the : masses. That to me is highly problematic. And in the follow-up post he elaborated: : R. Micha, you write "I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle : applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word : in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think : "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." In an introduction to a philosophical book he thought was a bad idea to write that he produced as a necessary evil. Thus the title of the Moreh Nevuchim. It's a tactic he had to reveal the esoteric to those ready for it while keeping it esoteric. Recall, that while we think of Pardes's "sod" as Qabbalah, to him it was more like the Moreh. In the Pesichah the Rambam limits the need of obfuscation to the topics of Maaseh haMerkavah and Maaseh Bereishis. So, after the first 5 chapters of the Yad, the whole discussion in the pesichah and haqdamah of the Moreh wouldn't apply. ... : We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims... Just like I loathe using the word rationalism because it's so vague in meaning as to just add to the confusion, let me add the word "fact". We use it to mean (a) a truth, (b) an empirical/physical truth, (c) a truth established by evidence, (d) an empirical truth established by evidence, and in legal settings: (e) the empirical evidence itself ("let me present the facts of this case"). : We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims. A : faith claim is a religious "belief" not a scientific claim... ... and therefore there is a gap between religious beliefs and scientific claims. Belief is yet another dangerous word. Knowledge is classically (Plato) defined as a justified true belief. In that sense, anything you accept as true is a belief. Other times we use belief in contrast to knowledge. A usage that ends up undermining confidence in something we seem to overtly be claiming is true. After all, if you think it's true, and you think you have real reason to think it's true, why say "believe" rather than "know"? Which gets me back to the point, I hope. You talk about belief in chassidus being an act of will. Personally, I agree with Rihal when he has the chaver note that anything one philosopher can prove, another can prove the opposite. (Kuzari 1:13) Religion isn't amenable to proof, and that's why Scholasticism, the idea of giving religion a philosophical underpinning, lost momentum centuries ago. The reasons why are two-fold: First, negi'os. People cannot really objetively think about these topics. They end up liking proofs of disliking proofs based on where they already decided things should end up. Like one of the truisms in my signature file generator says: The mind is a wonderful organ for justifying decisions the heart already reached. So, whether or not you agree that some postulate is self-evident (Kant: synthetic a priori) and therefore the proof works will depend more on whether you want to believe than actual obviousness. Second, the experiences upon which religious belief gets justified are internal. Questions of whether Shabbos, kashrus, or some of the more elegant outcomes of lomdus statisfy my Search For Meaning (Frankl) is quite a bit more difficult (usually impossible) to duplicate for someone else. Unlike a getting someone else to experience something empirical that you did by repeating a science experiment. But I think chassidic belief, even as per your description of it, is rational rather than an act of will. It's not Scholastic, expecting the kind of proof that would have make R' Saadia Gaon or the Rambam happy, but it is based on deriving a conclusion that fits one's evidence (ie experiences). I would say "rational" but not "rationalist", except that just highlights how many problems we get into throwing around the word "rationalism". This is true about how emunah works whether speaking about why people become BT, go OTD, or even if we're speaking of the Rambam. The Rambam lived in a world that didn't value non-philosophical justification, so he felt that real emunah required Scholasticism. (There was a time, not that long ago, when most people's emunah was backed by Reliabilism. My parents and community have a track record of being reliable sources of truth, so I trust them on this too.) To my mind, the difference is whether someone values the chizuq emunah of affirming that conclusions with that half of the philosophical proofs that end up in the right place. The rationalist does so, thinking that's *why* he believes (despite the Kuzari). Some of us simply enjoy philoosphy or consider such explorations to be part of talmud Torah. And others simply don't need the exercise. : a) doesn't pause to ask if it's "true" they just learn it. "Truth" : isn't a primary orientation of their encounter with toras Ha'shem. B) In : the event that he does pause to ask the "truth" question, his approach : is a-rational and unscientific... Again, if it's taken for granted as being true, truth is still at issue. Moreso, they really don't discuss truth because trueh is a given. It's like water not being the primary orientation of fish. : It truthfully and absolutely : happened in the Torah. It's not denying the claim, it's just ignoring : the scientific objective layer. Because the chasid's yiddishkeit happens : exclusively in the religious realm. Lets plow through the words and just ask outright: A chassid would take it for granted that a time traveler would find the Yam Suf divided into 13 tunnels with everything you might want available to be plucked from the walls. No? You may deprecate the importance of that historical claim to the belief system of Chassidic Judaism. I would agree that chassidim do not consider the historicity important. But the belief is there, and for reasons that speak volumes about the gap between chassidus and MO as a potential target audience. Chassidim have to accept the historicity of this midrashic elaboration of Qerias Yam Suf because maximalism and acceptance of rabbinic authority run much stronger in comparison to confidence in one's own truthometer in chassidus. Part of the value of having a rebbe is to believe he has access to truths I don't. And similarly one's rebbe's rebbes, and so on through Chazal and whomever repeated that medrash. To a community that teaches the value of other sources of knowledge, such as secular historians or other professionals, such maximalism is impossible, and therefore bitul to a rebbe will always be limited. Yes, it would be of value to realize that historical claims are non-central to religion. It makes it much easier to table any questions one might have in those areas as not being important, therefore not very pressing. Things that can wait for an answer rather than being responded to now, with what I know now, or taken as an upshlug. ... : 3) My program has nothing to do with neo-chassidut. NC is a behaviorist : movement with very little philosophical underpinning. I'm proposing a : theological program which also happens to have behavioral implications. I understood this. However, NC is an indication of what elements of chassidus actually were found useful by MO Jews. You're theorizing which elements you thought would in theory be more useful. I am asking about the difference between the two. If your theory were correct about what MO could use, wouldn't the Neo-Chassidim have locked on to those three points? IOW, I know they are different, and some idea as to how -- but why? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Weeds are flowers too micha at aishdas.org once you get to know them. http://www.aishdas.org - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 11:53:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 18:53:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Asking your questions to one authority Message-ID: <45cbca92b332457591636332317a5855@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> I'm looking for sources concerning a requirement or good advice concerning asking all your questions to one authority. According to some commentaries the mishna (actually mentioned twice) in Avot concerning aseih lcha rav points in this direction as does the gemara in eiruvin on not picking all the leniencies of both beit hillel and shammai. OTOH the gemara in avodah zara about not asking 2 rabbis is interpreted as applying only to the particular question at hand. From a Brisker theory angle wouldn't the existence of overarching theoretical constructs argue that all your questions should go to one authority so as to avoid the possible tartei dsatrei on a meta-theory basis (i.e. psak in kashrut case a may share a construct with psak in business case b)? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 13:36:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 16:36:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Asking your questions to one authority In-Reply-To: <45cbca92b332457591636332317a5855@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> References: <45cbca92b332457591636332317a5855@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <558088EA.2070102@sero.name> On 06/16/2015 02:53 PM, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > From a Brisker theory angle wouldn?t the existence of overarching > theoretical constructs argue that all your questions should go to one > authority so as to avoid the possible tartei dsatrei on a meta-theory > basis (i.e. psak in kashrut case a may share a construct with psak in > business case b)? Hilchesa keRav be'isurei vechiShmuel bedinei. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 16:30:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 19:30:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why Chassidut In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150616233048.00B061836ED@nexus.stevens.edu> At 02:20 PM 6/16/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: > From Rav Yehoshua Shapira (my quick translation) > >The idea that Chassidut?s positive atmosphere isn?t obligatory is a >serious mistake. Not only is it obligatory, but it brings with it more >obligations. Without emphasis on the Mitzvot of ahava and yirah, simcha >and deveikut (which are the soul of the 613 mitzvot) the mitzvot remain >external actions, technical, something which doesn?t affect or uplift >the heart and soul. > >Those doreitta mitzvot, which are the pinimiot of all mitzvoth, demand >from a person and from us to give their entire being when doing a >mitzvah. . . .. In the performance of mitzvoth, God wants our hearts. >Therefore, Chassidut definitely demands deep dedication. > The following is from Rav Dr. Y. Breuer's Essay "Our Way" that appears in the collection of Rav Breuer's essays titled A Unique Perspective. One should not confuse Chassidus with the so-called Chassidic movement that began in Poland in the 18th century. The latter met the needs of the Jewish masses who lived in terrible misery, and thus spread rapidly. Tefillah was projected into the foreground, from which flowed strength and faith in God; dances and songs induced enthusiasm and joyfulness; the stress on human and hu- mane qualities increased the self-respect of the impoverished. Thus, without a doubt, Chassidism saved these Jewish masses. However, the resulting frequent neglect of Torah study led to justified protest by Torah giants and caused a regrettable inner rift, which was subsequently healed when a great Chassidic leader returned the study of Torah to its rightful central position. Genuine Chassidic Jewishness strives for Chassidus, which in itself is a lofty achievement on the ethical ladder which the Yehudi must attempt to climb. This is demonstrated for us by R. Pinchas ben Yair (Avodah Zarah 20b): Our highest duty is Torah and its study; this leads to carefulness which in turn leads to active striving; to guiltlessness; to purity; to holiness; to modesty; to the fear of sin; and, finally, to Chassidus. Accordingly, a Chassid is a Jew who gives himself in limitless love to the Divine Will and its realization, and to whom the welfare of his fellowmen constitutes the highest source of satisfaction (see Chorev, Ch. 14). Thus, in the Talmudic era, the title ?Chassid? was a mark of highest distinction ? and this is what it should be today. The so-called Chassid who confines his Avodah to prayer does not deserve this title, as this ?Avodah of the heart? does not call him to the Avodah of life where he must practice and apply the precepts of Chassidus. He does not deserve this title if he is particular regarding the kashrus of his food but fails to apply the precepts of conscientiousness and honesty to his business dealings. He does not deserve this title if his social life is not permeated by love and deep interest in the welfare of his fellowmen; if he does not shun quarreling, envy or even abominable lashon harah; if he does not earnestly strive to acquire those midos for which Rav Hirsch (in his Chorev) calls so eloquently. Certainly the mere exhibition of a certain type of clothing or the type of beard worn or even the adornment of long sideburns does not entitle the bearer to the title of honor?Chassid. These may be marks of distinction ? but they must be earned to be deserved. Even study of the Zohar does not necessarily signify the attainment of Chassidus. If this were so, only a few chosen ones would be eligible. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 23:03:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2015 09:03:25 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] If and When In-Reply-To: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 5:00 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > Please note: In the excerpt of the Mechilta which the Torah Temimah quotes > regarding the mizbe'ach, R' Yishmael says that there are 3 cases where "im" > is not optional, but the other two are not specified. This is very > different than the Torah Temimah about lending money. > > Torah Temimah Shmos 22:198 does quotes R' Yishmael in the Mechilta, but it > doesn't mention the word "im" explicitly, nor is there any reference to two > other cases. He simply asks whether it is a reshus or a chovah to lend > money, and he answers that the obligation appears in Parshas Re'eh. I find > it curious that this Mechilta is worded so differently than the previous > one, but the message is clearly the same. You see this quite often in the Torah Temima when a derasha says something about a number of pesukim in parallel. He quotes the same source in each place, but redacts it so that it appears to be referencing only that specific verse. An example in last week's parasha is the Yerushalmi that all 10 commandments are referenced in Kiryat Shma`, quoted on 15:39 and 41 (OK, not such a close parallel because in that case he does make the cross-reference and quotes the whole passage on Shemot 20:2, but there are plenty of other examples) In any case, inside the Mechilta on both verses in Shemot all three "im"s are listed each time, including bikkurim. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=38109&st=&pgnum=245 http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=38109&st=&pgnum=317 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 17 02:14:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2015 05:14:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Talks by Rav Shimon Schwab, ZT"L Message-ID: <20150617091410.A8547183759@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://torahdownloads.com/shiur-24386.html YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 17 04:00:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2015 07:00:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] =?iso-8859-1?q?Soul_Terminology=2C_and_Expressions_of_Lo?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ve=3A_Proper_Frum_Expression_In_The_Lens_of_the_Ashkenaz_T?= =?iso-8859-1?q?radition_=96_Gleanings__From_Rav_Shimon_Schwab?= Message-ID: <20150617110051.2F7B9183762@nexus.stevens.edu> Please see http://tinyurl.com/q64ehha YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 18 06:50:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2015 09:50:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Ishbaal's Jar Message-ID: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> According to TOI or , discusses finding a jar that dates to around 1020-980 BCE (Iron Age), breating the name the name of Ishbaal ben Beda. Ishbaal is Divrei HaYamim's name for the son of Shaul whom seifer Shemuel calls Ishboshet. (Probably because bearing the name of Baal is a bushah.) Allegedly "Among Judeans, personal names evoking Baal fell out of fashion after the 10th century, but not so among their Israelite cousins to the north." Lisa, does any of this relate to strengthening or weakening the case for revisionist dating? (Newcomers might wish to see the Jewish Action article Lisa has on her site at to understand why I asked.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person must be very patient micha at aishdas.org even with himself. http://www.aishdas.org - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 18 07:43:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2015 17:43:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Ishbaal's Jar In-Reply-To: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> References: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 4:50 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > According to TOI < > http://www.timesofisrael.com/inscription-bearing-name-from-davidic-era-found-at-ancient-site > > > or , discusses finding a jar that dates to around > 1020-980 BCE (Iron Age), breating the name the name of Ishbaal ben Beda. > See also http://bit.ly/1F2HFD9 (= https://www.academia.edu/12775087/The_%CA%BEI%C5%A1ba%CA%BFal_Inscription_from_Khirbet_Qeiyafa) for a more detailed excavation report. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 19 11:46:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 13:46:46 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Ishbaal's Jar In-Reply-To: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> References: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55846396.5000207@starways.net> On 6/18/2015 8:50 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > According to TOI > or , discusses finding a jar that dates to around > 1020-980 BCE (Iron Age), breating the name the name of Ishbaal ben Beda. > > Ishbaal is Divrei HaYamim's name for the son of Shaul whom seifer > Shemuel calls Ishboshet. (Probably because bearing the name of Baal > is a bushah.) The standard form for names in most of the ancient near east was DN-stem, or stem-DN, where DN is a divine name. We have this pattern ourselves with names like Chizki-Yahu and N'tan-El, or El-Chanan and Yeho-natan. From what I've seen, it wasn't unheard of for people to refer to the same person, but exchange the DN. So Ish-Boshet for Ish-Baal is in line with Hado-Ram (I Chron 18:10) for Yo-Ram (II Sam 8:10), or Hado-Ram (II Sam 20:24, I Kings 12:18, II Chron 10:18) for Adoni-Ram (I Kings 4:6, 5:28). I don't see any indication that this pattern of name was different towards the beginning or towards the end of the monarchy. That said, Baal in particular sort of declined after the time of Eliyahu. They had newer avodah zarahs to play with. I don't really see a lot of chronological significance here. Yes, they did some radiometric dating, but as always, I would take that with grain of salt until I saw the raw results. When you send something for carbon dating, you tell them first what your target date is, so that they can discard results that are off from that too significantly. Not very scientific, but I guess it's "science-y". Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 19 13:38:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 16:38:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Soul Terminology, and Expressions of Love: Proper Frum Expression In The Lens of the Ashkenaz Tradition ? Gleanings From Rav Shimon Schwab In-Reply-To: <20150617110051.2F7B9183762@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150617110051.2F7B9183762@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150619203804.GA23818@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 17, 2015 at 07:00:53AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Please see http://tinyurl.com/q64ehha On the second example, I'm reminded of the Soloveitchik tradition that emotions are the Qodesh haQadashim of avodas Hashem. And therefore while RSSschwab's position was depited as: > Nowadays one at times witnesses public statements, in the form of songs, > declarations, and even bumper stickers, proclaiming [HQBH anachnu ohavim > Osakh!] (Hashem, we love you), an expression that was not commonly heard > shouted aloud in the past in our circles. Is that in consonance with our > [Mesorah]? Rav Schwab (in his address entitled Internalizing Eternity) > states the following (after 33:20) Since Ahavas Hashem is such a strictly > personal matter, he who truly loves Hashem does not show his [Ahavah]. He > rather hides it. It is far too intimate to parade it in public. He is > mekayeim [vehatzneia lekhes im E-lokekha]. It is exclusively his private > affair, between him and his Creator. Briskers would not expose any emotion. And so, when RYBS left for Berlin, R' Moshe took him to the train station, but there was no emotional goodbye. Even though RMF didn't know if he would ever see his son (and chavrusah) again. RYBS said he knew his father's feelings at the moment, he just knew that he would never display it publicly. Just a simple "Leikh leshalom HQBH zul dir matzliach zein!" Story told far better, in RYBS's own words here In any case, the Brisker approach doesn't speak to too many people in this generation. I would bet many of us would consider it less-than-positive. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger One who kills his inclination is as though he micha at aishdas.org brought an offering. But to bring an offering, http://www.aishdas.org you must know where to slaughter and what Fax: (270) 514-1507 parts to offer. - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 22 06:53:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2015 09:53:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kuntros chasidei umos haolam Message-ID: <0ce401d0acf2$c108d8f0$431a8ad0$@com> The was once a link posted here to a Kuntros chasidei umos haolam (In hebrew) from a Rav in south Africa (I think he was an Ohr Samach graduate) Does anyone have it or a link to it? Thanks, mc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 22 14:32:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2015 17:32:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Two Levels of Bitachon Message-ID: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is from Rav Schwab on Chumash Parshas Shelach. We suggest the following explanation: Hashem demands bitachon of every Jew - trust in Hashem that everything will turn out for the best, without worrying about what the future might bring. Throughout the generations, devout Jews have walked this path. A person with bitachon ultimately will merit to see clearly that, indeed, "All that Hashem does is for the best." There are two types of bitachon. The first is trusting in Hashem with "closed eyes," with no speculation about what may develop. However, there is a second kind of bitachon that is even greater than the first. This is the bitachon of "open eyes." One who follows this path looks ahead and sees clearly that the future might entail great danger, that his life may be full of trials and tribulations. Nevertheless, he does not hesitate, relying on Hashem to help him deal with whatever the future will hold. This kind of bitachon is greater than the first, because someone who trusts in :Hashem with "open eyes" must elevate his bitachon to a much higher level in order to overcome his worries and quiet his concerns. However, as great as this second path is, it is fraught with danger. There is a strong possibility that instead of overcoming one's fears and worries, one will be vanquished by them. A "realistic" evaluation of the challenges could be so frightening as to cause one to lose his bitachon in Hashem altogether. Therefore, :although the bitachon of "open eyes" might be appropriate for certain great people, Hashem does not demand it of us. Hashem only requires us to have the bitachon of "closed eyes"; we need only trust that everything will turn out for the best, in accordance with His will, without considering what the future might hold. This is implied in the pasuk (Yeshayahu 12:2), 11) Behold the G-d of salvation; I shall trust in Him, and I will not fear. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 12:26:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 21:26:11 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Two Levels of Bitachon In-Reply-To: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <5589B2D3.5030908@zahav.net.il> I'm not sure what this is in reference to, the sin of the spies? What does it mean, to live ones life without worrying about the future? You trust in God so therefore you're calm (meaning you live your life the same way anyone else does, but you have inner peace)? Ben On 6/22/2015 11:32 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > We suggest the following explanation: Hashem demands bitachon of every > Jew - trust > in Hashem that everything will turn out for the best, without worrying > about > what the future might bring. Throughout the generations, devout Jews > have walked > this path. A person with bitachon ultimately will merit to see clearly > that, indeed, > "All that Hashem does is for the best." From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 14:34:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 17:34:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Two Levels of Bitachon In-Reply-To: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150623213434.GA30077@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 22, 2015 at 05:32:42PM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : The following is from Rav Schwab on Chumash Parshas Shelach. ... : There are two types of bitachon. The first is trusting in Hashem with "closed : eyes," with no speculation about what may develop. However, there is : a second kind : of bitachon that is even greater than the first. This is the : bitachon of "open eyes." : One who follows this path looks ahead and sees clearly that the : future might entail : great danger, that his life may be full of trials and tribulations. : Nevertheless, he : does not hesitate, relying on Hashem to help him deal with whatever : the future will : hold... I just want to point out that RSS here is assuming the descriptive bitachon of the CI, not the prescrictive bitachon of Novhardok (and many kiruv programs and religious fiction). The Alter of Novhardok taught that bitachon causes positive results. If you trust G-d enough, He will make things turn out the way you desire. And when you point out to said public speaker that indeed life doesn't work that way this idea gets modified into: Hashem will make things turn out the way you'll be happy with once you get to the end of the road. And while I'm being cynical about it, this is unassailable. If things don't yet have a happy ending, it just means the story isn't over yet. You can just push the long run out further and further until you find the happy outcome you promised. In Emunah uBitchon, the CI rejects this notion. He says that bitachon is belief that things are working out according to Divine Plan. A believe in how things run, not a belief that causes things to run right. Rather than the comfort of knowing that you'll like the results, one aims for the comfort that all of life's suffering has meaning and a purpose. RSS presumes the latter and appears to be saying that one can then take this trust in two different ways: - Since Hashem is driving, I don't need to bother looking out the windsheild, it will just stress me out for nothing. - Hashem and I are in partnership, so I cannot refrain from helping Him bring us to our destination, even when it involves heading for trials and tribulations. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is a stage and we are the actors, micha at aishdas.org but only some of us have the script. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Menachem Nissel Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 15:56:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Toby Katz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 18:56:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book Message-ID: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> I recently came across the issue of Jewish Action (the OU's quarterly magazine) of Fall 2000 and in that issue there was a remarkable article. It was a review of a two-volume book called *The Rav: The World of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik* by Rabbi Dr. Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff. The review article was written by R' Philip Weinberger. It was a very laudatory review, written by someone who admired and respected RYBS and who thought the book was excellent. It's important to note that he respected RYBS and admired the book, because when you see what I am going to quote from the review, you might think otherwise. But if you read the whole review you will clearly see that what looks like a negative to me is clearly seen as a positive by R' Weinberger. http://ou.org.s3.amazonaws.com/publications/ja/5761fall/BOOKS.PDF OK here goes -- the most interesting parts of the review (I have mostly dispensed with ellipses, which are distracting): --quote-- [The book] focused my attention on a paradox that confronts me every time a new book or article appears about the saintly Rabbi Soloveitchik, zt"l. In the latter part of the twentieth century, the Rav was one of the most outstanding rabbinic titans, teaching and leading the Jewish people. A master of communication, orally and in print, he left behind multitudes of devoted students and admirers who still hang on his every word. Yet the Rav seems to have left a legacy that is unclear and misunderstood, despite his gifted powers of communication. Among the numerous questions, debated passionately by those who represent themselves as knowing the Rav's authentic thinking, are: What was the Rav's view toward secular education; Torah u'Madda; new religious practices by women; reciting Hallel on Yom HaAtzma'ut; and Religious Zionism? There is a raging battle among his followers as to who may legitimately and authentically present the Rav's opinions, thoughts, ideas and teachings. How could so careful a teacher, who could literally spend hours at a time in shiurim defining with precision the meaning of a particular word or phrase, be misunderstood on so many basic and critical issues? The Rav himself, despite his best efforts, was misunderstood and misquoted in his lifetime by able people who presumably had the best of intentions. The Rav illustrates that he was misunderstood by journalists because of their lack of familiarity with the Rav's precise use of language and terminology, and because the Rav's thoughts, ideas and speech were extraordinarily nuanced, delicate, subtle and sophisticated. However, the book falls short, even on its own terms, in its failure to more deeply explore the complexity and nuances of the Rav's thoughts and insights that were influenced by the religious, existential, and personal tensions that the Rav experienced and talked about. Similarly, the book does not treat much of the controversy that sometimes surrounded the Rav in a meaningful way. There is no acknowledgment of how the Rav was inappropriately treated and often marginalized in the yeshivah universe because of his embracing secular studies and Religious Zionism (albeit in a disciplined and highly nuanced manner)... in a letter to Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Shragai, the Rav writes : "If I were to judge this matter (which party to associate with) based on pragmatic or political considerations, I would join the zealots who ask nothing of their members (not diligence in Torah study, not pure fear of Heaven, nor spending money on tzedakah, nor excessive care with regard to mitzvot) except to besmirch our movement. I could clothe myself with the mantle of a tzaddik and 'fighter of the Lord's battles.' " This and other letters to Rabbi Shragai show clearly what a man of principle the Rav was. ...Scholars and laymen alike are indebted to Rabbi Rakeffet for his vital work. --end quote-- Well, you can see why this review would interest me. Let's take a few points: [1] "The Rav seems to have left a legacy that is unclear and misunderstood, despite his gifted powers of communication." I would suggest that the end of the sentence is contradicted by the beginning of the sentence. The main thing that the Rav generally managed to communicate was that one could be a great Torah scholar and also be a brilliant intellectual in secular terms. This was not the text but the ur-text of much of what he wrote. I will add that he did this not for his own honor but for the honor of the Torah, which was often treated with contempt by mid-twentieth century Jews who were rapidly abandoning the Torah. But his opaque Germanic philosophical style of speaking and writing was by its very nature open to multiple interpretations, and could neither be summarized nor re-written in plain American English. [2] "Among the numerous questions, debated passionately by those who represent themselves as knowing the Rav's authentic thinking, are: What was the Rav's view toward secular education; Torah u'Madda; new religious practices by women; reciting Hallel on Yom HaAtzma'ut; and Religious Zionism?" I would have to say that this is a highly unusual thing to say of any gadol. Of which other gadol could it be said that after he taught and wrote for decades, no one could be sure what his position was on the most important issues of his day? [2A] "What was the Rav's view toward Religious Zionism?" and "his embracing Religious Zionism (albeit in a disciplined and highly nuanced manner)..." Those of us who have claimed (based admittedly, at times, on anecdotal evidence and oral reports) that RYBS was not really a Zionist have often been vilified. Yet here a great admirer of RYBS admits that his views were far from obvious, and subject to much disagreement even among his followers. That RYBS was a great lover of Eretz Yisrael -- of that there can be no doubt. That he really believed in the whole aschalta de'geulah ideology of RZ -- highly doubtful. The rest can be left for another time, or another book. [3] "How could so careful a teacher, who could literally spend hours at a time in shiurim defining with precision the meaning of a particular word or phrase, be misunderstood on so many basic and critical issues?" It may be that in a Gemara shiur, trying to define a word with great precision may lead to greater understanding, but out here in the larger world, such precise definitions tend to leave most people scratching their heads. Common everyday words lose their accepted, common meanings, and the many sentences used to define those words lead to greater obscurity rather than clarity. "When I use a word, it means precisely what I want it to mean." But his listeners or readers are often left in the dark. [4] "The Rav was misunderstood...because his thoughts, ideas and speech were extraordinarily nuanced, delicate, subtle and sophisticated." The impression left by all that subtlety and nuance is that he was trying to avoid saying anything controversial that could be quoted in a sound bite. [5] "There is no acknowledgment of how the Rav was inappropriately treated and often marginalized in the yeshivah universe" [6] "...the zealots who ask nothing of their members (not diligence in Torah study, not pure fear of Heaven, nor spending money on tzedakah, nor excessive care with regard to mitzvot) except to besmirch our movement. I could clothe myself with the mantle of a tzaddik and 'fighter of the Lord's battles...' " Maybe [6] at least partially explains [5]. Maybe the way he felt about them was reflected in the way they felt about him. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 17:52:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 00:52:25 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> References: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> Message-ID: Let's take a few points: [1] "The Rav seems to have left a legacy that is unclear and misunderstood, despite his gifted powers of communication." I would suggest that the end of the sentence is contradicted by the beginning of the sentence. [2] "Among the numerous questions, debated passionately by those who represent themselves as knowing the Rav's authentic thinking, are: What was the Rav's view toward secular education; Torah u'Madda; new religious practices by women; reciting Hallel on Yom HaAtzma'ut; and Religious Zionism?" [2A] "What was the Rav's view toward Religious Zionism?" and "his embracing Religious Zionism (albeit in a disciplined and highly nuanced manner)..." [3] "How could so careful a teacher, who could literally spend hours at a time in shiurim defining with precision the meaning of a particular word or phrase, be misunderstood on so many basic and critical issues?" [4] "The Rav was misunderstood...because his thoughts, ideas and speech were extraordinarily nuanced, delicate, subtle and sophisticated." The impression left by all that subtlety and nuance is that he was trying to avoid saying anything controversial that could be quoted in a sound bite. [5] "There is no acknowledgment of how the Rav was inappropriately treated and often marginalized in the yeshivah universe" [6] "...the zealots who ask nothing of their members (not diligence in Torah study, not pure fear of Heaven, nor spending money on tzedakah, nor excessive care with regard to mitzvot) except to besmirch our movement. I could clothe myself with the mantle of a tzaddik and 'fighter of the Lord's battles...' " Maybe [6] at least partially explains [5]. Maybe the way he felt about them was reflected in the way they felt about him. _______________________________________________ I remember reading the original review and being very surprised. [1]&[2]&[3] My general impression is that most of the lack of clarity and misunderstandings are on issues that have little to do with the style issue. I don't think many get concerned about whether Adam I and II ever resolve their dialectic . The main cause of misunderstandings imho can be generously stated as being caused by The Rav's being so sui generis that students could not assimilate the whole of his teachings. The less generous approach would be that some want to be toleh on an ilan gadol and project their own priorities and approaches on him. Could anyone who looked at his life as a whole have any doubt that he valued secular studies? That he was a non-messianic RZ lover of eretz Yisrael seems pretty clear. [4]Or how about the world is complex and our desire (btw very reflective of our host society) is to boil everything down to a sound bite goes against the educational need to understand how to look at complex issues [6]explaining [5] seems to me like the classic blaming the victim for "asking for it". I can only assume the fact that other roshei yeshiva didn't publically call for tolerance was that they did think he, and MO, was krum or they had higher priorities or didn't think their talmidim would listen to them. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 18:07:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 21:07:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: References: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> Message-ID: <20150624010730.GA18745@aishdas.org> Both Ishbitz and Chabad, Rushin and Satmar each beleive theirs is the most accurate understanding of Derekh haBhesh"t. Kelm, Novhardok and Slabodka have very different understandings of R Yisrael Salanter's teachings. RAYK's disagree over what their rebbe meant. Even Moshe Rabbeinu -- he had 70 front-row talmidim and ever since we have had 70 panim laTorah. Any gadol brilliant and subtle enough to be worth following will so outstrip his talmidim that each only grasps onto one facet and interpretation of a more complex original. This is far from unique to RYBS. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you're going through hell micha at aishdas.org keep going. http://www.aishdas.org - Winston Churchill Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 19:01:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 22:01:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: <20150624010730.GA18745@aishdas.org> References: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> <20150624010730.GA18745@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <558A0F65.7090501@sero.name> On 06/23/2015 09:07 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Both Ishbitz and Chabad, Rushin and Satmar each beleive theirs is the > most accurate understanding of Derekh haBhesh"t. Satmar doesn't believe this; rather, it believes that the BSh"T's torah has been lost. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 19:21:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 22:21:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kol Isha Twist Message-ID: <558A1421.3060009@gmail.com> See http://www.kikar.co.il/174128.html or http://www.totpi.com/2/ultra-orthodox-woman-performs-incognito-on-the-x-factor/ It's an interesting loophole: Since kol b'isha erva only applies when you know what a woman looks like, the heavy sunglasses and very modest dress may do the trick. Not middas chassidus, but perhaps on a technicality permitted. KT, YGB -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 07:35:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 10:35:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kol Isha Twist In-Reply-To: <558A1421.3060009@gmail.com> References: <558A1421.3060009@gmail.com> Message-ID: <558AC044.2010107@sero.name> On 06/23/2015 10:21 PM, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah wrote: > > It's an interesting loophole: Since kol b'isha erva only applies when > you know what a woman looks like, the heavy sunglasses and very > modest dress may do the trick. Not middas chassidus, but perhaps on a > technicality permitted. I don't see anything in the two linked articles about such a loophole. And I don't think it would work. Surely you can see enough of her to form some idea, perhaps mistaken, but enough for the yetzer hara to work with. I think the true heter for what she's doing is a lot simpler: she is not machshil anyone, because whoever is watching the show is already seeing and hearing enough women sing that one more makes no difference at all. If she didn't sing, then in all likelihood another woman would do so, wearing much less and acting more provocatively; or else a man would be giving some provocative performance that would be almost as bad. So really what has she done wrong? Those who don't normally watch should continue not to watch, and they won't be affected. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 08:33:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kaganoff via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 11:33:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating Message-ID: I am curious if anyone has written about a common practice. We assume that *Kaddish* is a *Devar she-Bikdusha* and requires a *minyan* to be recited. We require separate seating for a *Devar she-Bikdusha.* In many circles it is not uncommon to have a *siyyum* with a *kaddish *at a Bar Mitzvah or a Dinner even when there is mixed seating. Does anyone explicitly discuss this practice and permit it? Yonatan Kaganoff -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 11:38:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 14:38:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150624183849.GA2711@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 11:33:54AM -0400, Kaganoff via Avodah wrote: : We require separate seating for a *Devar she-Bikdusha.* This is news to me. Do those who say that zimmun with a minyan is a davar shebiqdushah (BY OC 199 "umah shekasav", MB s"q 15) require separate seating at my shabbos table? The AhS (200:6) refers to zimun with 10 as "shekhinta sharia", but I didn't see him mention minyan or davar shebiqdushah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 11:52:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 14:52:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating Message-ID: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> From: Kaganoff via Avodah We assume that *Kaddish* is a *Devar she-Bikdusha* and requires a *minyan* to be recited. We require separate seating for a *Devar she-Bikdusha.* In many circles it is not uncommon to have a *siyyum* with a *kaddish *at a Bar Mitzvah or a Dinner even when there is mixed seating. Does anyone explicitly discuss this practice and permit it? Yonatan Kaganoff >>>> You see something similar when people make an ad hoc minyan at a wedding (or an airport lounge). They don't put up a mechitza. Is this situation explicitly discussed in the halachic literature? It must be. Maybe what applies to one also applies to the other. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 12:32:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 15:32:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating In-Reply-To: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> References: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> Message-ID: <20150624193208.GA22316@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 2:52pm EDT, RnTK wrote: : From: Kaganoff via Avodah :> We assume that Kaddish is a Devar she-Bikdusha and requires a minyan :> to be recited. :> We require separate seating for a Devar she-Bikdusha. : You see something similar when people make an ad hoc minyan at a wedding : (or an airport lounge). They don't put up a mechitza... Slight topic change. You can have separate seating (or locations in general) without a mechitzah. I believe that minyanim were held at the kotel even when the Ottomans didn't let us put up a mechitzah by separating the genders even without one. I see R YH Henkin (Responsa on Contemporary Jewish Women's Issues, pg 124 ) rejects the hava amina that mechitzah is only for an established shul. He requires a mechitzah, not just separate seating at a temporary location for davening. While a minyan is there, the laws of mara miqdash apply. I do not whether he would advised the yishuv hayashan not to daven at the kotel. Tir'u baTov! -Micha Cc: RYHH -- Micha Berger The trick is learning to be passionate in one's micha at aishdas.org ideals, but compassionate to one's peers. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 12:21:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 19:21:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating In-Reply-To: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> References: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> Message-ID: <9d095a46ac044dd88d591c13b05195d1@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Yonatan Kaganoff >>>> You see something similar when people make an ad hoc minyan at a wedding (or an airport lounge). They don't put up a mechitza. Is this situation explicitly discussed in the halachic literature? It must be. Maybe what applies to one also applies to the other. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=922&st=&pgnum=66 where R' Moshe deals with the Mechitza issue but still requires that there not be intermingling. That's the part I'm unsure of. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 16:34:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 19:34:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safeik and Multivalent Logic In-Reply-To: <20150615210040.GA17358@aishdas.org> References: <20150615210040.GA17358@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150624233428.GA29242@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 15, 2015 at 05:00:40PM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : Back on Fri, 14 May 2004 10:45am EST (yes, 11 years ago) I wrote : on the thread : "Valid halachic change" I wrote: :> I was at a yarchei ... kallah during Elul in Boston where RYBS... :> An esrog that was used for the mitzvah is qadosh and assur behana'ah :> that entire day. And since it's qadosh bein hashemashos, it's gadosh :> part of the next day and therefore assur behan'ah the entire next day. ... :> Rov is a non-boolean state, something between yes and no. Therefore, :> it does not apply after we've taken the question from the realm of :> machshavah to that of ma'aseh. : I'm repeating all this because, once again, AhS Yomi showed me that : something I thought I understood was more complicated than I realized. : AhS OC 638:5 distinguishes between muqtza machmas : mitzvah and other forms of muqtza when it comes to migo de'isqatzei bein : hashemashos, isqatza'ei lekhulei yoma. : And so, sukkah and its decorations (the topic of OC 688) are muqtzah the : following day. But beitzah shenoledah beYT rishon is not muqtzah on the : next day. More info at AhS OC 667:1, which distinguishes between sukkah and 4 minim on Shemini Atzeres. Because sukkah would actually be used bein hashmeshos between the 7th day Sukkos and SA (speaking of EY now), a sukkah and its decorations are muqtzah on SA. The esrog, because the mitzvah would habe been done before BhS either way, is not. It would seem the point in 638:5 appears not to be that mutzah machamas mitzvah is special, but because the mitzvah would still apply BhS. : Thoughts, anyone? Still looking for other perspectives! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 25 02:54:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 09:54:58 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book Message-ID: <20150625.055458.3550.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Even Moshe Rabbeinu -- he had 70 front-row talmidim and ever since > we have had 70 panim laTorah. > > Any gadol brilliant and subtle enough to be worth following will > so outstrip his talmidim that each only grasps onto one facet and > interpretation of a more complex original. > > This is far from unique to RYBS. Here's my guess about what made RYBS unique in this regard: On the one hand, he did have his opinions about many things. But that was NOT what he tried to pass on to his talmidim. In fact, he is famous for NOT answering many of the questions posed to him. What RYBS wanted was for his talmidim to be able to decide for themselves. He never wanted to teach his talmidim WHAT to think, but HOW to think. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Buffett???s Warning for YOU 4 in 5 Americans aren???t taking his shocking advice. Click here now. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/558bd00ca32f7500c77efst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 25 08:10:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 11:10:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: <20150625.055458.3550.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150625.055458.3550.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150625151002.GD10708@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 25, 2015 at 09:54:58AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: :> This is far from unique to RYBS. : Here's my guess about what made RYBS unique in this regard: On the : one hand, he did have his opinions about many things. But that was NOT : what he tried to pass on to his talmidim. In fact, he is famous for NOT : answering many of the questions posed to him. What RYBS wanted was for : his talmidim to be able to decide for themselves. He never wanted to : teach his talmidim WHAT to think, but HOW to think. I realize that this is about to get meta, because I'm about to disagree with RAM about RYBS's position and why people disagree about what it was. I thin this is overplayed. Yes, he pushed fledgling rabbis to assert themselves as LOR and not defer every halachic question. But he didn't do this with every talmid, nor with every question. I think people are taking a pedagogic technique used for talmidim to scared to pasqen and turning it into a principle. Im kein ein ladavar sof, and there is no way to say he took positions for anyone but himself and his mispalelim in Boston and Moriah. No Qol Dodi Dofeiq promoting Zionism, no attack on RERackman's beis din, etc... And besides, we aren't talking about whether his talmidim vary, but why the talmidim's understandings of the rebbe's position varied. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Never must we think that the Jewish element micha at aishdas.org in us could exist without the human element http://www.aishdas.org or vice versa. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 25 08:56:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 15:56:25 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Hakarat Hatov Message-ID: Does Hakarat Hatov engender a measurable "liability" (e.g. require a marginally greater action) between the recipient and the provider of the "Tov", or is saying "Thank you, I appreciate it" the only requirement? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 26 01:19:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2015 11:19:39 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book Message-ID: <> In addition like many others RYBS gave different answers to different people depending on the person and circumstances. As a simple example he encouraged his talmidim to move to EY but told some to stay in the US. Also RYBS was big believer in everyone making their own decisions and not simply doing what they were told. Hence, he avoided certain statements so that his talmidim would make up their own minds. It is well known that all the children of RYBS got a PhD. Even his nephew R Meiselman the most charedi in the family received this degree from MIT. Nevertheless he never publically stressed this idea probably because he felt it was a very individual decision -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 27 19:37:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2015 22:37:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government Message-ID: Gut voch to all, What alternative texts exist for the tefillah l'shlom malchus? I have heard that other versions exist, perhaps more suited for a Republic than is "Hanosen teshua la-melachim", but the only version I could find comes from a Conservative source -- putting me in the same situation as R' Eliezer ben Hyrcanus upon hearing a good "vort" in the name of Ben Pandera. Can anyone point me to appropriate sources? --Chesky Salomon From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 27 20:29:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2015 23:29:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: An hour or so ago, I wrote: > What alternative texts exist for the tefillah l'shlom malchus? I remember this topic coming up in the past, though I have not been successful in searching the archives for it. I did find an article by Dr Jonathan Sarna, "A Forgotten 19th-Century Prayer for the United States Government: Its Meaning, Significance, and Surprising Author" [1] which pointed to the "Orthodox prayerbook for American Jews entitled Tefilot Yisra'el. Prayers of Israel. with an English Translation." The variant text Sarna discusses, "Ribbon kol ha-olamim", can be seen at -- but he makes the case that the prayer's author was Rabbi Max Lilienthal, leaving me in the same position as before. (As a side note: I recall one of the J-blogs mentioning a Tefillah for the State written for 1930s Germany under the Nazi government, but I cannot find the post again. Any help?) --Chesky Salomon [1]: http://www.brandeis.edu/hornstein/sarna/americanjewishcultureandscholarship/Archive3/AForgottenNineteenthCenturyPrayerfortheUnitedStatesGovenment.pdf From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 29 05:29:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mordechai Harris via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2015 07:29:07 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Here's the one I shard last time from the De Sola Pool Siddur. -Mordechai - Please excuse typos as this was sent from my cell phone. On Jun 28, 2015 2:59 PM, "Chesky Salomon via Avodah" wrote: > An hour or so ago, I wrote: >> What alternative texts exist for the tefillah l'shlom malchus? > I remember this topic coming up in the past, though I have not been > successful in searching the archives for it... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 29 15:15:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 01:15:23 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jun 29, 2015 at 3:29 PM, Mordechai Harris via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > Here's the one I shard last time from the De Sola Pool Siddur. > > Can you also share the publication details and/or title page of this siddur? What I know as the De Sola Pool Siddur is not the same as in this link. I have the second edition of 1977, and the title page says: BOOK OF PRAYER ACCORDING TO THE CUSTOM OF THE SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE JEWS Edited and translated by DAVID DE SOLA POOL Minister of the Congregation Shearith Israel in the City of New York PUBLISHED BY THE UNION OF SEPHARDIC CONGREGATIONS NEW YORK The prayer for the government begins with the usual "Hanoten teshu`a lamelachim" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 11:55:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Arie Folger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 20:55:34 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government Message-ID: Someone asked about alternate texts of the prayer for the government, more attuned to democracies. I have adapted the classic hanoten teshuah lamelakhim for the US, with variant readings for Canada, for inclusion in the still forthcoming new revised RCA Siddur. Send me a message through my web site (see the sig) and I will gladly share that text with you. -- Yours sincerely, Mit freundlichen Gr??en, Arie Folger blogging at http://www.rabbifolger.net/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 10:22:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Baruch Cohen via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 10:22:13 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] BIRCHAT KOHANIM AT THE KOTEL Message-ID: I plan on being in Israel for Sukkot, and hope to be at the Kotel for Birchat Kohanim. I usually daven early every morning, and the Birchat Kohanim occurs later in the morning. My question is: do I have a Chiyuv to "duchen" if I'm in the audience and the Shaliach Tzibbur announces on the loudspeaker the word: "Kohanim!" Does that trigger a halachic obligation for me to duchen, even if I am in the audience, in the back of the crowd? -- Respectfully, Baruch C. Cohen, Esq. e-mail: BCC4929 at gmail.com LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/baruchcohen From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 12:06:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 15:06:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] BIRCHAT KOHANIM AT THE KOTEL In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5592E8B9.5020201@sero.name> On 06/30/2015 01:22 PM, Baruch Cohen via Avodah wrote: > I usually daven early every morning, and the Birchat > Kohanim occurs later in the morning. My question is: do I have a Chiyuv to > "duchen" if I'm in the audience and the Shaliach Tzibbur announces on the > loudspeaker the word: "Kohanim!" Does that trigger a halachic obligation > for me to duchen No. If you have already duchened that day, you have no further chiyuv, even if you hear the chazan, and even if someone directly tells you to go up. However if you *choose* to duchen for a second (or third, etc) time that day, you may do so with a bracha. (SA OC 128:3) [Email #2. -micha] PS: This applies also in an ordinary shul where they duchen at shachris and musaf. Any cohen who duchened at shachris, and doesn't feel like doing it again at musaf, needn't leave the room. He has no obligation to answer the chazan's call. But those who do answer it duchen with a bracha, because that is takanas chachamim. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 12:26:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 19:26:26 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish Yasom Message-ID: <20150630.152626.19374.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> What is the rule for when we do or do not say Kaddish Yasom (Mourner's Kaddish)? >From what I've seen, it is NOT said even if a minyan says Birkas Hamazon, but it IS said when a minyan says Kiddush Levana. It is NOT said when a minyan says Tehillim even as an organized group, but it IS said on Yom Tov after the Megilla (Shir Hashirim, Rus, Koheles) is read. I do not see any pattern. Does anyone else know of a rule? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5592ed93bb00b6d93482cst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 15:03:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 18:03:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish Yasom In-Reply-To: <20150630.152626.19374.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150630.152626.19374.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5593124A.2040905@sero.name> On 06/30/2015 03:26 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > What is the rule for when we do or do not say Kaddish Yasom (Mourner's Kaddish)? > >>From what I've seen, it is NOT said even if a minyan says Birkas Hamazon, Why would it? > but it IS said when a minyan says Kiddush Levana. Probably because people are used to saying it after Alenu. > It is NOT said when a minyan says Tehillim even as an organized group, Where have you seen it not being said then? I'm surprised that this is your experience. > but it IS said on Yom Tov after the Megilla (Shir Hashirim, Rus, Koheles) is read. Yes, that is my experience as well. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 03:47:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 13:47:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] 13th century zeal Message-ID: I found the following story from R Kaganoff interesting not only for the halachic portion but also to show that community fights are not new The question regarding recital of *mei'ein sheva* when *Yom Tov* falls on Friday resulted in a very heated dispute during the era of the Rishonim. In the time of the *Rivash*, Rabbi Amram ben Meroam, a frequent correspondent of the *Rivash*, wrote him the following *shaylah*: Reuven was the *chazzan* for the Friday night *davening *on a *Shabbos* that immediately followed *Yom Tov*. He began reciting *mei'ein sheva*, when Shimon reprimanded him, contending that one should not recite this *bracha* when *Shabbos* follows *Yom Tov* -- since no one was working on Friday, the reason for the *takkanah* did not apply. Levi then got involved, saying that it is accepted that one *does* recite *mei'ein sheva*on Friday night following a *Yom Tov*. The *shul* then burst into a cacophony of voices, with Shimon's and Reuven's backers screaming at one another. Finally, Shimon shouted that Reuven was desecrating*Hashem's *holy Name, since he was willing to recite a *bracha* in vain, and that if he did, Shimon would declare him to be in *cherem*, excommunicated! Reuven did recite the *bracha mei'ein sheva,* and a day later, opened his door to find Shimon and twenty of his backers there to notify him that he had been excommunicated! The Rivash* was asked to rule whether Reuven was indeed in *cherem* because of Shimon's declaration that he recited a *bracha* in vain, or, perhaps, Shimon should be placed in *cherem* for excommunicating someone without proper cause. The *Rivash* ruled that Shimon was mistaken, and that one should recite *mei'ein sheva* when *Shabbos* follows *Yom Tov*. Therefore, he concluded that Reuven, who followed the correct *halachah*, could completely ignore the *cherem* placed on him. However, he also concluded that since Shimon thought he was acting correctly, we do not excommunicate Shimon for his actions (*Shut HaRivash* #34). -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 06:54:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 13:54:19 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos Message-ID: <20150401.095419.16600.0@webmail12.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitzchok Levine wrote: > Does not the SA say that a person who has trouble chewing > matzah can soak it in water and then eat it? If so, then > I fail to see why eating gebrokts should be a problem for > anyone. The answer will depend on what you mean by "SA". If "SA" refers specifically to the author of the Shulchan Aruch, Rav Yosef Karo, then the answer is that he is not the last word in halacha. There are other authorities, and someone who follows the others could have a problem even with something that the SA allows. If "SA" refers to the Shulchan Aruch in general, then I do not understand your question, since the problem of gebrokts *IS* mentioned by authorities other than Rav Karo. If I'm not mistaken, the Shaarei Teshuva (which is in the printed editions of Mishne Brurah) is a good example. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 11:05:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 14:05:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> I repeated on Areivim RSM's deduction that yayin kal is closest to the alcohol level of chazal's wine. On Wed, Apr 1, 2015 at 9:39am PDT, R Saul Newman wrote to Areivim: > interesting, when seeing in ktubot abaye's widow describing the size of > his wine vessel. by that Percentage, it wouldnt be toxic... Here's RSM's science, and it seems impeccable: By natural means, no alcoholic beverage can get above 12% -- at that level the yeast drowns in its own output. That's why beer and wine tend to be 12%. We can tweak that up to 16% with specially bred yeast, and/or control of temperature and humidity -- not options in Chazal's day. (Higher alcohol drinks are made by distilling out the alcohol from the original 12% liquid.) To add my 2 pence: Their barrels weren't perfect, which means there was more evaporation. But since alcohol evaporates faster than water, that will only lower the percentage alcohol. So we're still at about 12% max. RSM's original line of reasoning, continues: Mezigas hakos is typically at least 1:3, or 25% wine. So, the final product would be at most 3%. A third penny: Now let's discuss how big a revi'is was back then... But even without that, I have no idea how any of them would have gotten anywhere near drunk. Why would R' Yonah have a headache until shavu'os off some 16 oz total of 3% wine? Do we have to assume it was the alcohol? Maybe he was a later owner of Abayei's kos... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Mussar is like oil put in water, micha at aishdas.org eventually it will rise to the top. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 12:08:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 01 Apr 2015 15:08:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> On 04/01/2015 02:05 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Now let's discuss how big a revi'is was back then... But even without > that, I have no idea how any of them would have gotten anywhere near > drunk. Why would R' Yonah have a headache until shavu'os off some 16 oz > total of 3% wine? Do we have to assume it was the alcohol? Maybe he was > a later owner of Abayei's kos... I don't think it's at all plausible that it was the alcohol. I have long assumed that he had some sort of allergy or intolerance for some component of grapes or grape skins, or perhaps for the sulfites with which wine was (and is still) preserved. It's well known that there are people today who get headaches from sulfites. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 12:25:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mordechai Harris via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 14:25:38 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> Message-ID: There is a lot of info here: http://seforim.blogspot.com/2012/10/wine-strength-and-dilution.html Chag Kasher v'Samayach< Mordechai -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 12:30:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 22:30:53 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: There recently appeared a sefer "Keren Zavit" by Nadav Shenrav on parshat hashavua that has a very nice combination of science and Torah. On parshat Tzav he brings a question on the shitah of the Nodah BeYuhuda that eggs doubled in size. The Noda Beyehuda claims that there is a contradiction between two sugyot that find measurements based on either the size of the egg or from length (or volume) measurements. To answer the contradiction the Nodah Beyehuda assumes that our eggs are half the size of those in the days of chazal. (Actually modern eggs are larger than those in his day) The basic point is that in order to translate the measurements of chazal to modern measurements we need a fixed point, ie some measurement that has not changed over the generations. If everything can change we have only relative measurements and not absolute measurements. The Nodah BeYehuda assumes that the width of the thumb is constant. Question: Rambam (maaseh hakorbanot 13:14) states the kemitzah which cinsists of 3 fingers closed over the palm contains 2 kezatim. However 2 kezaytim of 50cc (ie 100cc) is impossible to enclose within 3 fingers. He brings that he saw this question in a series "Bet Aharon VeYisrael" and they answered "nishtanu hateva" i.e. their hands were bigger and could hold 100c of flour within 3 fingers. (In general the author is not impressed with the answer of "nishtane hateva" but he assumes it for this article). However, this leads to an internal contradiction, ie Noda Beyehuda assumes that the size of the thumb has not changed but is required to assume that the size of the hand was much larger in the days of chazal ie how is it possible that their hands were MUCH larger but the width of the thumb remained constant. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 14:11:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 17:11:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150401211129.GA23585@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 01, 2015 at 10:30:53PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : There recently appeared a sefer "Keren Zavit" by Nadav Shenrav on parshat : hashavua that has a very nice combination of science and Torah. : : On parshat Tzav he brings a question on the shitah of the Nodah BeYuhuda : that eggs doubled in size. AISI, there are three distinct questions that generally get lumped together in the annual kezayis discussion: 1- Is "kezayis" a constant volume, or is it pinned to the average olive, or perhaps the average among some subset of breeds of olive as breeding, care and climate change? R' Chaim Volozhiner and the Avnei Neizer say the latter. You might remember my post from last Jan at. . The AhS OC 363:34 says that lehalakhah an ammah is the person involved's forearm. E.g. when measuring 4 amos for tiltul, the din is more chamur for me than for taller people. When coming to mavui or techum, where you need a single pesaq for a whole town, you need a standardized ammah, "ameru chakhamim denimdod lechumerah" it's the length of the arm of some very high percentile of the people relying on it (and possibly 100%) -- "debevadei yeish anashim shezehu midasan". (Also, when dealing with someone with a handicap or amputation, you need to use estimates.) To me this seems to feed RCV's approach. Because both assume that measurements are not absolute, but based on the set of whatevers involved. For example, the AhS's position about the standard ammah would imply that a community that is atypically tall would use a longer ammah for techum than in a ghettod population whose malnutrition stunted their typical growth. 2- If kezayis is a constant volume, do all the accepted overestimates performed and accumulated one atop the other unwind when we have more information about chazal's zeisim? Or do we say that the bottom of the range of measurments that dominate common pratice in one's qehillah is binding as pesaq, and one can't just ignore the now huge safety margin? This is what I argued here when RNS's paper came out http://www.zootorah.org/RationalistJudaism/TheEvolutionOfTtheOlive.pdf (And if so, is that extra amount considered as deOraisa as the original olive volume, because it's a pesaq in a din deOraisa? Or is it a harchaqah, and thus derabban? 3- The actual specifics 3a- If the answe to #2 is that we do roll back the kezayis based on better information about what it was, the metzi'us specifics can still be argued. Such as asking (as I did in passing in #1) which subset of olives to average. 3b- And if the answer is that we don't, then there are halachic process details to ask about. But I think many discussions, including our own previous years' iterations, stuble because they blur these topics rather than keeping them separate, which in turn would force dealing with them in the sequence I gave as well. (Because #2 depends on one kind of answer to #1, and #3 has different flavors depending on #2.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 13:36:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 16:36:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Yaknehaz [was: The Quinoa - Kitniyos Conundrum] Message-ID: In a message dated 4/1/2015 6:28:31 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, micha at aishdas.org writes: On Wed, Apr 01, 2015 at 12:03am EDT, RnTK wrote: : It was the norm in my parental home and is what my husband does too. : In fact I have never seen anyone use a regular havdala candle at a seder! : (Or a single wick candle without joining it to another candle or to a match.) A local yeshiva qetana sells two-wick candles that otherwise look like Shabbos candles as a fundraiser. This way you don't have a fire lasting as long as whatever is left on your havdalah candle, and the whole problem is avoided. >>>>> I wasn't really clear. What my parents used to do (and we do similarly) was to take one Shabbos candle ot of the candlestick and hold its flame close to another Shabbos candle for the bracha, and then put it back in the candlestick it came out of. IOW we use the candles that are already burning on the table anyway. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 14:36:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 17:36:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] partnership - adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties Message-ID: partnership - adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties In describing why person would fast all Passover over and above Jewish Law Practice, you used the words "emotional attachment". In the seven years since that wording , perhaps the message is deeper. Salamone Rossi the Jewish Italian composer, became a hero of the assimilationist movement. See AJS Review volume 26 #1 where where a series of books by one Don Harran re Rossi is reviewed. Twice in Adon Olam, the series of fast phrases of excitement called Tritum or whatever is used twice ??? ???? ??? ???? ???? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ?_?? ??? ????? ???? ???? ... ???? ????? ???? ???? ?????? - ??? ???? ? ???? ???? ????? ??? ?? ?????? - ????? ?? ???? ??? ??? ????? - ??? ????? - ????? ???? - ???? ???? ??? ???? ???? ??? ???? ??????? - ???? ????? ????? ??? - ???? ?? ????? ??? ????? - ????? ????? ???? ?? ????? - ??? ???? ??? ???? ???? ?????? ????? ??? ????? - ?? - ???? ?_?? ??? ????? ???? ???? ... ?????? ?? ?? ??? ???? ??? ??? ?? ???? ???? - ??? ???? ?? ????? ?????? ... ?? ?? ???? ?? GLOOMY THOUGHT NEGATIVE CHARACTERIZATION The reviewer - a music professor at Northeastern U in Boston MA - illustrates that limitless exhaustive research did not turn up for M. Harran the fact that in the surrounding milieu which Mr. Rossi is immersed in - these patterns aare reserved for ttheir Trinity.. Lhavdil elef havdalot. Rossi as a Jew with beating Jewish Heart - in Adon Olam his famous composition - when it came to Our God - he proudly used the pattern of the ecstasy of the Tritium (apologies of not being able to look up - will scan and send but each moment I am in danger of interrruption - ) . Why Yeihareig ? Why not float with the waves? Answer - because it is identity of Jew - visceral reaction necessary! taht is Key! Common motif of Piyut - ?????? ????? ?????? ????? - countering their attempted invasion and depriving us of identity - the desperation of drowning brings us to keep our identity- baby will starve self to reserve independence - if it is deprived from baby Not in complete normal routine vassalry to Hashem. But it is the assertion of identity. Sneh Boeir - Papers of Adoption - of formation of Partnership - not the bylaws which may never be read - but the primary identity of Hasheem as responsible party specifically to act as parent re MY CHILD - thsi is basic bedrock Jew - as Rashi certainly subscribed, and rashbam, and likely R' Yonah even Ramban. For my money - when functioning as Jewish Natnion member - the Rambam himself, codifier of the Doctrinal Jew. Back to subject after rant - A JS Reviewer - just like they show reverence for their Hero - we show reverence for our Hero - One God - that the reviewer explained for the first - ??? ???? ??? ???? ???? ?????? What of second threesome - look in Tur for Ecstasy - OC 5 - ???? ?_?? ??? ????? ???? ???? takif..???? ??? ?????? ??? ????? ???? - ???? ?? ???? ??? ??? ????? ??? - ???? ?? ???? - ??? ???? ???? ?? - ??? ???? - ???? ???? - ??? ???? ??? ??? ???? ??????? ?? ??? - ??? ???? ?? ???? ???? ??? ????? ???? ???? - ?? ?? ??? ?? ???? ???? ?????? ???? ???? - ?? ?????? - ??? ?????? ????? ?????? ???? - ???? ???? ?? ??? ?? - ???? ??? ????? ????? ????? - ??? ??? ????? - ?????? ????? ????? ??? ????? - ?? ??? ??? ???? - ?? ??? ??? ????? - ??? ????? - ???? ?????? ?????? - ???? ???? ?????? ????? ?? ?? - ??? ?? ????? ??? ???? ????? ???? ????? ???? ????? ?????? 148-155 - ?_?_?_? ??? ?? - ????? ???? 148 ???? ???? ?????? - ?? ?????? - ??? ???? ??? ???? ?? ?????? - ??? ????? ????? ????? - ?? ??? ??? ???? ???? ?? ????? =- ??? ???????? ?????? ????? ????? - ?? ???? - ????? - ?????? - ???? ???? - ??? ??? ????? - ??? ??? ?? ????? - ????? ??? ??? ?????? - ??? ????? - ????? ??? ?????? ?????? - ???? ???? ?? ??????? ????? ??? - ????? - ???? ?????? ???? ??? ????? ?????? ???? ????? ??????? ????? ?? - ??? ???? ?????? ???? ??"? - ??? ????? ???? ???? ???? ??? ????? ??? ?? ???? - ???? ?? ??? ?? ???? ???-????? ?? ????? ?? ?? ?????? - ??? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ?? ??????? - EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT IS ZILZUL IN A COVENANT ???? ?????? ?? ??? ???? - ??? ??? ??? ? ?? ????? ????? ??? ?????? ??! ???? ????? - ?? ????? ???? ??? ???? ?? ???? ????? ??? ????? ????? - ?? ??? ??? ???? ????? ?? ??? -- David Wacholder Cell: 917-742-7838 Email: dwacholder at gmail.com dwacholder at optonline.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 18:24:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 12:24:45 +1100 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice Message-ID: Wine in those days was frequently (typically?) flavored with resins or spices, some of which are actually toxic. These resins seem to have had the same effect as hops do in beer: they discourage microbial growth and therefore prevent it from souring and spoiling. This was an important consideration before the invention of Pasteurisation. If R' Yonah was allergic or otherwise sensitive to these resins he may have ascribed his symptoms to the wine itself. Alternatively, perhapshe simply didn't have access to any untreated wine and perhaps he didn't consider raisin "wine" to be chashuv enough. Joe Slater -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 18:27:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 12:27:16 +1100 Subject: [Avodah] Yaknehaz [was: The Quinoa - Kitniyos Conundrum] Message-ID: Another data point: I asked my father O'H about this and he said he'd never heard of anyone using a Havdala candle for YAKNEHAZ, or even joining two flames together. He came from central Hungary, and his rabbi was a great-nephew of Maharam Schick. Joe Slater -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 20:32:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 01 Apr 2015 23:32:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> Message-ID: <551CB836.5040609@sero.name> On 04/01/2015 03:25 PM, Mordechai Harris wrote: > There is a lot of info here: http://seforim.blogspot.com/2012/10/wine-strength-and-dilution.html It is interesting, but I think the author may have made a simple mistake in assuming that when Rashi says their wines were "stronger" than ours, he meant "more alcoholic". That may be what he meant, in which case he was mistaken, but it seems to me that he may have meant "strong tasting", or to put it more bluntly, "sour". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 02:18:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 12:18:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kitniyot Message-ID: see a discussion at http://etzion.org.il/en/pesach-journal by Rav Brosky -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 07:53:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 02 Apr 2015 10:53:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Historic Practice Passover Offering Message-ID: <20150402145402.230A3183730@nexus.stevens.edu> See the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kgbRusmqjs A FILM OF THE PRACTICE PASSOVER OFFERING THE TEMPLE INSTITUTE CONDUCTS UNPRECEDENTED PASSOVER OFFERING PRACTICE DRILL As reported earlier, in preparation for the upcoming festival of Passover, this past Wednesday (5 Nisan - 25 March) the 'Priestly Training Academy' established by the Temple Institute held a Passover offering practice drill. This is a film that documents this event. This was the most accurate and authentic reenactment of this service to have taken place in nearly 2,000 years. ---------- It looks to me that they used machine matzos in this video. If I am correct, then I find this bizarre. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 13:36:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 16:36:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: How many swallows of Matzo are necessary? How many olive tree generations to Calendar Year Tohu and Gan Eden? The following came up last year: FEARLESS RULING FOR PERSON WITH DIFFICULTY EATING: Every average person's swallow is a Kezayit, the amount which fulfils the Mitzvah and is the measure for the Bracha on Achilas Matza. As a Hidur and to erase all doubt, a second normal swallow would be good. That is for Motzi-Matzah, where the first olive-size swallowed fulfils a Torah obligation. Additional for Afikoman one swallow is certainly enough. For a person struggling to eat, try to eat at least a taste. Any more than that is for those who tolerate Matzo well. I look at how much a person can swallow - one swallow. That would measure a Kezayit. 100% the person has fulfilled the Mitzvah after one swallow. For margin of error issues, add another second swallow. For those with difficulty eating, one may then stop. For Afikoman the one swallow is sufficient. This needs no authority to base it on. Chazon Ish gave his asembled family pieces about the size of his palm , as described by qualified dedicated observer in Orchos Rabeinu. Traditions vary. Some quoted Rav Chaim Valozhiner as saying - the size of an olive is an olive is an olive. Another tradition said one must use an egg-size as a base unit. On Atkins Low-Carb Diet, daily consumption was - for starting extreme levels - 30 grams per day - about an ounce. I cut the piece of Challah, which by volume probably was an olive, but the air pockets should have been counted, so the person could say Birkas Hamazon for themselves. Someone else was Motzi the dieter in Birkat Hamazon. Air pockets and weight issue The swallow size may be according the the air pockets normally contained in Matzo, not ground, and according to volume not weight. VOLUME NOT WEIGHT By weight, comparable amount of Chareidim Boro Park 5774 MATZOS weighed perhaps 7 grams compared to perhaps 30 grams of a heavy brand of Hand Matzo. Using volume measures as weight measures creates significant errors. The person had been using 30 grams of WEIGHT as the Standard, not 30 grams of volume. It was a reasonably filled sandwich bag. Also Matzo can absorb moisture from the air making it heavier, can be freshened in the oven, which will make it weigh less. Volume remains the same. Weighing your Matza introduces a major error factor. SHEKEIN NEHENEH According to Rav Elchanan Wasserman, even a non-believer fulfils the Mitzvah, Shekein Neheneh. I have doubts if Kavana Hafucha would even work. I certainly think a person should not have Kavana Hafucha in the sense of - only be Yotzei when Measurement X is reached. NOT THE AMOUNT TO FILL THE CHEEK This is neither cheekful nor yet a mouthful. Observe how your neighbor swallows his food eating calmly. [DW comment - this is a normal comfortable swallow, not a contestant requiring for safety a Hatzala person or Heimlich Maneuver needed to monitor. This is not a Superman-Swallower who attempts to swallow the size of all olives ever eaten, whose face turns red but comes out OK after a KAPITAL TEHILIM. That is Achila Shelo K'darkah, and certainly is not optimum. That eliminates the Double and Exponential/Logarithmic olives from consideration for a single swallow. Never swallow more than a comfortable amount. SUKKOT No custom requires swallowing all at once in the Sukkah. Others require an Egg Plus size. ARUCH HASHULCHAN Aruch Hashulchan functioned as a review of the other Poskim in Orach Chaim. He pointedly does not double the Kezayit. MISHNA BRURAH - to my reading - says the same. Indeed I grant the MB does not totally negate a double-size as having precedent. MY HANDWIDTHS On a flat table, I measured my keyboard's width two different ways. first, using all ten fingers flat on table, it was 4 hands wide. With thumbs in air and only the eight fingers flat on the table, my keyboard was 5.5 hands wide. The thumbs were sideways, so the width added drilled through the wrinkle on the back to the fold on the front. This would be the thumb measured in Halacha. I certainly am not a measurement specialist, so I appreciate all feedback. According to best knowledge, that through-thumb measurement is the one which is supposed to be 25 percent of the other four fingers. CHZON ISH Even the writings of CHzon Ish reflect a defensive stance. As a practical matter, the CI knew in his heart that a Zayis will not change in recorded history. Olive trees of 1000 years old are not uncommon, and one in EY is 2000 years old. They are propogated from plantings identical to the original. As little as three generations of trees in EY could easily reach Calender Year 1. RIDDLE - HOW MANY OLIVES TO EAT A KEZAYIT? RABI YOCHANAN ATE ONE OLIVE- and made bracha acharona. It was the big variety salad olive, or a large specimen of the oil olive. I was convinced by a strong presentation in a conference from several years ago. A Bar Ilan professor compared olives from various species and showed pictures of all the oldest olive trees in EY. The oil olives were in the 4 cc to 7 cc (4-7 grams volume). Salad olives - the kind whose seeds were commonly eaten in Masada - max out at 17 grams. He convincingly argued that double size super-olives would in all likelihood kill the trees. 4 ccs is well below an average swallow. Please double check my numbers, as I am writing from memory. -- David Wacholder From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 18:58:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 21:58:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] naive kitniyos question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150403015816.GA8090@aishdas.org> On Thu, Mar 26, 2015 at 12:34:15PM -0400, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote: : Re kitniyos: isn't the issur one of "cooking" with kitniyos? ... Take 2 at answering this question. My wife found http://ph.yhb.org.il/en/04-09-06 "6. Kitniyot That Never Touched Water and Kitniyot Oils" by R' Eliezer Melamed We are not stricter with kitniyot than we are with the five cereal grains, so whatever is acceptable regarding these grains is kosher for kitniyot, too. Thus, kitniyot that have not come into contact with water, or that have come into contact with water but were not left for more than 18 minutes before being cooked (like matza), may be eaten. Some poskim are stringent in this respect, but most are lenient.[4] ... [4] Most authorities are not stricter about kitniyot than about the cereal grains (SAH 453:5; ??ayei Adam 127:1; Responsa Maharsham 1:183; Be'er Yitzhak sec. 11; Responsa Marheshet sec. 3; and Rav Kook's Orah Mishpat sec. 111). Some, however, are more stringent (Sho'el U-meishiv 1:1:175 and Ma'amar Mordechai sec. 32). Their rationale is that no one would understand these distinctions since kitniyot do not become hametz. Additionally, they were concerned that making the kitniyot exactly like the cereal grains would mislead people to think they could use kitniyot to fulfill the mitzva of matza. As noted, though, most poskim are lenient, and in any dispute about a custom the halakha follows the lenient opinion. The Rishonim also debate whether or not scalding works for kitniyot, since scalding any of the five cereal grains technically eliminates the possibility of its leavening, though the Ge'onim agree that no one knows how to scald the grains properly (SA 454:3). However, according to Or Zaru'a 2:256, since the prohibition of kitniyot is just a custom, scalding the kitniyot is effective and permits them. Mordechai rules stringently, and Rabbeinu Peretz's glosses to Smak sec. 222 notes the lenient opinion but rules stringently. So it seems the pesaq I grew up with is, in REM's estimaton, the minority view. And if my sevara holds: It would mean the machloqes is a machloqes as to whether qitniyos are compared to wheat or to dough. Which again would be reflected in the various theories about what risk it is the minhag is trying to avoid: qitniyos includes things used like grain, which can cause confusion of chameitz with mutar legume products; qitniyos could have real flour on them (as per Rava's admonition to the reish galusa's household), etc... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of micha at aishdas.org greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, http://www.aishdas.org in fact, of our modesty. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Louis Kronenberger, writer (1904-1980) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 09:32:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 16:32:11 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Tan Du Message-ID: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> I think we've discussed R'YBS's famous statement on ontological chazakot on a number of occasions. I was glad to see that I have giant shoulders to stand on (hat tip-Isaac Newton): Tradition - Winter 2014 (Rabbi N. Helfgot) In a famous episode in 1975, the Rav strongly denounced a proposal raised by R. Emanuel Rackman, z"l to reevaluating the validity of the Talmudic dictum "a woman would always be rather married to anyone (even a scoundrel) than be alone" in the modern context. R. Rackman called on religious authorities to reevaluate the reach of this dictum as a way of addressing the scourge of modern day recalcitrant husbands who did not give their estranged spouses a get. The reevaluation of this principle might be an opening to examine the use of halakhic annulment of marriages. The Rav vigorously maintained that this principle, like all hazakot of Hazal, was "an ontological statement" about the nature of women, not subject to changing historical factors or changing social mores. R. Lichtenstein in both private conversation with a number of talmidim over the decades, including this author and in remarks in public shiurim, noted his disagreement with the Rav's assessment of this hazaka (and expressed astonishment at the vehemence of the Rav's opposition at the time) given the clear cut evidence in the Rishonim in Yevamot and other places in Shas which clearly indicated that this hazaka was not one that applied in all contexts and at all times and in all situations. I don't recall that R'YBS said this was true of all chazakot of Chazal but haven't listened to that audio in a long time. CKV"S Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 04:06:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 14:06:33 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] rabbits Message-ID: << But PS can someone remind me what a picture of a rabbit is doing in the : medieval illustrated Hagada? There is a fundamental reason why pictures of people were avoided. >> Yet many of the medieval haggadot had pictures of people and even (wow) women!. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 11:41:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 14:41:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] rabbits In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150403184143.GB11664@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 03, 2015 at 02:06:33PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> There is a fundamental reason why pictures of people were avoided. : : Yet many of the medieval haggadot had pictures of people.. The reason is still there. We don't all agree on halakhah and minhag, why would two people necessarily agree during the medieval period? :-)|,|ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger The true measure of a man micha at aishdas.org is how he treats someone http://www.aishdas.org who can do him absolutely no good. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Samuel Johnson From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 23:57:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 09:57:26 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kitniyot Message-ID: see http://ohr.edu/5390 and http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/5184 by Rabbi Spits He discusses Quinoa In the second article he discusses potatos both for kitniyot and bishul akum As for modern products that didnt exist in the days of the gezera he notes Shu"t Igros Moshe (O.C. vol. 3, 63). Others who accept peanuts for Pesach include the Seridei Aish (Shu"t vol. 2, 37, 2; new print vol. 1, 50 -- through a combination of factors), the Yeshuas Moshe (Shu"t vol. 1, 35; he opines that the Kitniyos prohibition never applied to legumes that are eaten raw, but concludes similar to Rav Moshe, that if one has an existing minhag not to eat peanuts on Pesach he still should not do so), and the Rivevos Efraim (Shu"t vol. 7, 257; only if it came still in its shell). [This logic is based on the Shulchan HaRav's understanding (O.C. 453, 5) that the prohibition of Kitniyos only applies when it gets wet). Other poskim who ruled that way (as how can Kitniyos be more stringent than grain -- which only can become chometz when wet) include the Chayei Adam (vol. 2, 128, 1) and Maharsham (Shu"t vol. 1, 183 and Daas Torah O.C. 453), who cites that Rav Shlomo Kluger (Nidrei Zerizin, 8) held this way as well. Those who were stringent include the Shoel U'Meishiv (Mahadura Kama vol. 1, 175), the Avnei Nezer (O.C. 373 and 533), the Maamar Mordechai (Shu"t 32), and the Sdei Chemed (Maareches Chometz U'Matza 6, 1). This was also one of the points of contention between Rav Kook and the Badatz Chasidim of Yerushalayim regarding the permissibility of sesame oil for Pesach -- see footnote 13]. See also Shu"t Atzei HaLevanon (vol. 1, 18) who also permits peanuts for Pesach; yet based on his description it seems he is referring to a pistachio (as per the Yeshuas Moshe ibid.). [Email #2. Subject: kitniyot - summary] After our discussion of kitniyot and the psak of RMF several personal observations 1) We all agree that psak of RMF is controversial. IMHO it is "half" accepted probably more in the US than in Israel 2) There is a separate machkoket about derivatives of kitniyot and especially oils of kitniyot. While there are relatively few ashkenazim who eat corn on the cob or peanuts there are many who combine the 2 positions and use oild and derivatives from "new: kitniyot. Thus there are many rabbis that allow Canola oil (and certainly cottenseed oil) using RMF and the debate over oils. Similarly it has been common in my community to use lecithin (liftit) in candies etc. My rabbi allows this together with most rabbis in my town based on major dati leumi rabbis. R Elyashiv came out strongly against all of this and so in the charedi community especially in Israel no kitniyot oils or lecithin is allowed and only walnut or olive oil is used. Bottom line in spite of the objections on this list that RMF is "wrong" in many communities his teshuva is accepted when combined with the debate of kitniyot derivatives. chag kasher vesameach. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 03:57:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 13:57:43 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos Message-ID: > But let's not get buried under the reports of RMF and R' Tuvia Goldstein, > and forget that we have conflict in reports about whether RSZA would > allow someone to start eating gebrochts after hataras nedarim. > So, while rumor might say he did, we have a first-hand report from R > Yisrael Herczeg that tells us to ignore the grapevine >> In Halichos Shlomo (p90) it states explicitly that one can change his custom and eat gebrochs after hatart nedarim. However, this should be done only if there is a good reason (tzorach chashuv) for the change. Thus, for a chatan he would allow the hatarat nedarim if keeping bebrochs would cause family difficulties. RSZA paskened that the wife follows the customs of the husband both for kula and chumra(without hatart nedarim). He explicitly states that this is different than one who moves to another location where he does need hatarat nedarim since a woman knows that she will eventually marry and might change her minhag. The husband has the right to relinguish his rights. This is prevalant with regard to the nuscah of davening. A Baal Teshuva should prferably keep the customs of his "original" community where the family belonged. However, if he is now connected to some rabbi or community he can choose to keep their customs instead. He also paskens (for EY) that one can cook kitniyot on the 7th day of Pesach for use on the shabbat right afterwards (ef this year). This is because some sefardi could come over for a visit and so the kitniyot are not mukza . The same applies to gebrochs even though it is the 7th day of Pesach. RSZA himself ate gebrochs though he would not eat anything that fell on the floor. He did not use potato starch or anything that rsembled a chametz cake On a different topic he allowed drinking regular water eg from the kinneret since one can't taste at all the taste of any possible chametz, [Email #2] >> So, while rumor might say he did, we have a first-hand report from R >> Yisrael Herczeg that tells us to ignore the grapevine. > Perhaps he changed his mind! It has happened before. In this case he didnt change his mind. He said that it depended on the circumstances. In theory one could do hatarat nedarim and eat Gebrochs but he advocated not using this heter unless there was a good reason to change the custom. Obviously for Yisrael Herczeg he didn't feel there was sufficient justification. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 04:15:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 14:15:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: > 1- Is "kezayis" a constant volume, or is it pinned to the average olive, > or perhaps the average among some subset of breeds of olive as breeding, > care and climate change? archaeology shows that the olive has not changed dramatically over the millenia > 2- If kezayis is a constant volume, do all the accepted overestimates > performed and accumulated one atop the other unwind when we have more > information about chazal's zeisim? Not all communities accepted these various shitot. I can understand some overestimates for being conservative but factors of 5-10 larger seem overdone. This is especially true if one stuffs the matza into ones mouth and swallows together which becomes "achila gasa". In general the problem with the huge shiurim is that it is very difficult for many people. > average. Which is the reason to be on the conservative side and use the largest size olives which is still on the order of 17cc and not 50cc. [Email #2] > Or do we say that the bottom of the > range of measurments that dominate common pratice in one's qehillah is > binding as pesaq, and one can't just ignore the now huge safety margin? Reminds of a story I read on the recent 20th yahrzeit of RSZA. RSZA came up with 2 chumrot for the seder both related to the length of maggid being a problem for kiddush bemkom seudah and the bracha over the wine. His mechutan R Elyashiv accepted the chumrot and rushed his maggid while RSZA didnt accept his own chumrot in practice on the grounds that this was not the minhag of Israel over the generations. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 15:16:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 22:16:11 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Historic Practice Passover Offering Message-ID: <20150403.181611.8008.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitzchok Levine posted: > See the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kgbRusmqjs > ... > As reported earlier, in preparation for the upcoming festival of > Passover, this past Wednesday (5 Nisan - 25 March) the 'Priestly > Training Academy' established by the Temple Institute held a > Passover offering practice drill. This is a film that documents > this event. This was the most accurate and authentic reenactment > of this service to have taken place in nearly 2,000 years. Two things in particular surprised me in this video: 1) The lambs were so small! Children carried them in! 2) At the very end, it shows and mentions that the korban pesach "is roasted whole and in a special oven." Special oven? What was special about it, and why an oven at all? I would think that the oven would (at least partially) bake it, whereas it was supposed to be roasted by the fire, and only by fire. I recall halachos of it being held by a pomegranate branch to avoid heat conduction by metal, and rotated like a rotisserie to avoid it being cooked even by its own juices. What's this oven about? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/551f117e86f4b117e0fdfst03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 12:22:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2015 15:22:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <551EE85D.1030908@sero.name> On 04/03/2015 06:57 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > He also paskens (for EY) that one can cook kitniyot on the 7th day of > Pesach for use on the shabbat right afterwards (ef this year). Yes, I'm surprised that anyone disagrees. It seems so obviously correct. I know that many people don't do so, and believe it to be forbidden, but I have never yet heard an argument for why it should be so. > This is because some sefardi could come over for a visit and so the kitniyot > are not mukza . The main issue would surely not be muktzeh, but cooking on yomtov. But the answer is the same: the hypothetical horde of hungry guests who might descend on one ten minutes before sunset on Friday, and for whom one is, in principle, cooking, might very well be sefardim. > The same applies to gebrochs even though it is the 7th day of > Pesach. Gebrochts, of course, applies in Chu"l as well (since almost everyone who doesn't eat it on the first 7 days does eat it on the last day). And lich'ora the above heter is not applicable. Kitniyos are gebrochts are not similar. Ashkenazim don't avoid kitniyos because of a concern that it might be chametz; they readily agree that there is no such concern, and that for Sefardim it is heter gamur. Thus there is no reason at all why an ashkenazi should not cook kitniyos for a sefardi, any more than there is a reason why a zar who is tahor should not cook terumah for a kohen. But those who avoid gebrochts do so because of an (admittedly remote) concern that it might be chametz. If so, then they should be equally concerned not to give it to someone else, even one who isn't worried about it, and thus shouldn't be able to claim on Friday that they are cooking for hypothetical guests who eat it. Lepoel this question comes up every time there is such a kevius, and there doesn't seem to be one psak about it. Perhaps it comes down to the different reasons people give for why it's OK on the last day. If one holds that the reason is "shelo lehotzi la'az" on those who eat gebrochts all Pesach, then it makes sense that on the first 7 days one should also not be "motzi la'az", and thus should be willing to cook gebrochts for those who eat it. Thus on Friday the 7th one can claim to be cooking for such guests. But if one holds that the reason for not eating gebrochts for 7 days and then eating it on the 8th is as a symbolic gesture towards the kabbalistic idea that on the 8th day one ought to eat chametz, so for 7 days we treat gebrochts *as if* it were chametz, and then eat it on the 8th day, then it would seem to follow that on the 7th day one may not cook it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 14:17:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 21:17:19 GMT Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: <20150403.171719.13613.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' David Wacholder posted: > Every average person's swallow is a Kezayit, the amount which > fulfils the Mitzvah and is the measure for the Bracha on Achilas > Matza. As a Hidur and to erase all doubt, a second normal swallow > would be good. That is for Motzi-Matzah, where the first olive- > size swallowed fulfils a Torah obligation. > ... > This needs no authority to base it on. ... WHY would it need no authority to base it on? If this were the halacha, wouldn't someone have mentioned it? Why did so many authorities struggle with the math and the biology and the physics if such a simple solution were at hand? > Air pockets and weight issue > > The swallow size may be according the the air pockets normally > contained in Matzo, not ground, and according to volume not weight. If a kezayis is a swallowfull, aren't the air pockets gone? Haven't they been lost in the chewing? I concede that by the time the chewed matza gets to the throat, much of the missing air has been replaced by saliva. Or perhaps the saliva even *more* than accounts for the missing air. I am not knowledgeable enough about this to venture a guess on the comparison of the volume of the matza before chewing vis a vis at swallowing. In any case, I've always been bothered by the problem of counting the air bubbles. Mishneh Berurah 208:48 says that when eating cookies, l'chatchilah, one must insure that he ate a kezayis of flour, WITHOUT counting the sugar, in order to say Al Hamichya. MB concedes that the minhag is to count all the ingrdients, but the Igros Moshe 1:71 says not to rely on that minhag. So here's my question: If they would prefer us NOT to count the other ingredients, which have substance, isn't it a simple kal vachomer not to count AIR, she'ayn bo mamash? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/551f039acb72539a4c49st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 13:08:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2015 16:08:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Special Pesach Edition -- Instantaneous Redemption Message-ID: <20150403200810.6EC28181C84@nexus.stevens.edu> [] Instantaneous Redemption HaShem took us out of Mitzrayim at the last minute before we slipped to the fiftieth level of impurity. Had we fallen to that level, we would have been irredeemable. In one moment, we went from darkness to light, from death to life, from slavery to freedom, from anguish to joy, and from impurity to holiness. Lesson: Just as that moment brought instantaneous redemption, so too, every moment of life has the potential to take us from darkness to light, from death to life, from slavery to freedom, from anguish to joy, and from impurity to holiness. App: May we all be encouraged by the miracles of Pesach, that HaShem again will instantaneously redeem us, and take us from darkness to light, from death to life, from slavery to freedom, from anguish to joy, and from impurity to holiness! (Based on Ohr Yahol, Rav Yehoshuah Leib Chousman) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 18:59:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2015 21:59:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geirut Message-ID: <20150406015903.GA15874@aishdas.org> (Ccing most of the participants in our 2008 and 2010 conversations.) You might be interested in On Conversion to Judaism, by Rabbi Dr. Chaim E. Schertz THE YU LAMDAN: The Wilf Campus Torah Journal http://yulamdan.com/2015/03/29/on-conversion-to-judaism-by-rabbi-dr-chaim-e-schertz or http://j.mp/1CIV5GN It starts slow, but R/Dr Schertz has a lot to say about Qabbalas Ol Mitzvos (QOM, or KOM if you prefer) and its role in geirus. Aside from other ideas that my be of interest, but it was QOM that has us going. :-)|,|ii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 22:22:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 01:22:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house Message-ID: <552217FE.4020103@sero.name> Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in EY after kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times. Does this mean that at a shiva house Sholom Rov is said even in shacharis (in EY on a non-Mon/Thu)? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 22:28:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 01:28:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" Message-ID: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the holy serafim's conclave. Nusach Ashkenaz, in the introduction to the kedusha of musaf, has a similar phrase: "kesod siach sarfei kodesh". But what does this mean? Every translation I have seen has rendered it as if it said "kesiach sod sarfei kodesh", but that's not what it says! Does anyone know, if "kesod siach" really means "kesiach sod", why they are reversed? Or, if that's not what it really means, can anyone explain what it does mean? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 22:32:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 01:32:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Moroccan nigunim Message-ID: <55221A63.3010303@sero.name> Do we have any experts here on the history of the Moroccan nigunei hatefilah? If so, can someone please explain when/how the Ashkenazi tune for Maoz Tzur got into the Moroccan liturgy as a tune for Mah Ashiv Lashem? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 03:38:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 13:38:02 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] free will Message-ID: We have discussed many times the opinion of Rav Dessler that a person doesn't always have free will. I recently saw a halachic discussion that may have some connection. On ketubot 51 the gemara discusses a case of a married woman who was raped but at the end was willing (techila be-ones ve-sofa be-ratzon). Shmuel's father forbids her to her husband while Rava allows her. One possibility of explaining Rava is that she is overwhelmed by her "yetzer" and so is still considered "anus" This is explicit in the words of R Zadok (tzidkat zaddik 43) that her desire is so great that it is impossible to overcome it and so she is considered anus gamur and so there is no punishment. Targum Yonatan (Devarim 22:26) holds that she is not punished by death but her husband must divorce her. Maharshal (yevamot 6:3) paskens that she is permitted to her husband only if she is "karka olam" However the Noda Beyehuda disagrees (tenina EH 150) and says she is always permitted to her husband because she is overwhelmed by her yetzer and so is not considered that she did it with her free will. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 05:13:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 12:13:44 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house Message-ID: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero asked: > Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in > EY after kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times. Does this > mean that at a shiva house Sholom Rov is said even in shacharis > (in EY on a non-Mon/Thu)? No, but I don't know why. I never thought of that question before, but here is a possibly-related question that I've wondered for years: If Shir Hamaalos is said whenever we skip Tachanun, should it always be said at the shiva house? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:25:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:25:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house In-Reply-To: <552217FE.4020103@sero.name> References: <552217FE.4020103@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150406182521.GC20912@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:22:06AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in EY after : kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times... This rule isn't 100%. Otherwise Sim Shalom would never be said when davening beyechidus. I think it's more lke Ashk uses Sim Shalom in tefillos where Birkhas Kohanim could be said, if we had opportunity. :-)||ii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:28:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:28:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:28:24AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam : siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the : holy serafim's conclave... Sod means conclave? I thought it was referring to the ofanim and chayos haqodesh who learn the secret of the siach of the sarfei qodesh, thereby are misna'asim le'umas serafim... :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 2nd day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Chesed: What is constricted Fax: (270) 514-1507 Chesed? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:37:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:37:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house In-Reply-To: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150406183751.GE20912@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 12:13:44PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I never thought of that question before, but here is a possibly-related : question that I've wondered for years: If Shir Hamaalos is said whenever : we skip Tachanun, should it always be said at the shiva house? We skip tachanun on shabbos and YT (or the week of 7 berakhos, the day of a beris...) because of the joy of the day being inconsistent with its mournful tenor. Shir haMaalos goes hand-in-hand with the joy of the day; if it's joyous enough to warrant looking toward the geulah rather than lamenting the churban with Al Naharos Bavel, then it's joyous enough for Tachanun not to fit either. But the key is joy, which has nothing to do with a beis avel. We skip tachanun in an aveil's home for the opposite kind of reason -- either because 1- we don't want to add to the aveilim's grief by harping on midas hadin, or 2- it is inappropriate to ask for mitigation of middas hadin in a home where din is being fully felt. :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 2nd day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Chesed: What is constricted Fax: (270) 514-1507 Chesed? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:42:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:42:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tan Du In-Reply-To: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> References: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20150406184227.GF20912@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 03, 2015 at 04:32:11PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Tradition - Winter 2014 (Rabbi N. Helfgot) ... : R. Lichtenstein in both private conversation with a number of talmidim : over the decades, including this author and in remarks in public shiurim, : noted his disagreement with the Rav's assessment of this hazaka (and : expressed astonishment at the vehemence of the Rav's opposition at the : time) given the clear cut evidence in the Rishonim in Yevamot and other : places in Shas which clearly indicated that this hazaka was not one that : applied in all contexts and at all times and in all situations. The way I heard RAL (recorded) was more that the large amount of material in Yevamos, much of the rest of seder Nashim, and the rishonim ad loc that such a proposal would make moot was itself RYBS's primary argument against R' Rackman's proposal. And that RAL understood the statement about tav lemeisiv and its ontological nature as a separate secondary argument RYBS made along the way. :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 2nd day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Chesed: What is constricted Fax: (270) 514-1507 Chesed? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:38:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 14:38:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5522D292.4070305@sero.name> On 04/06/2015 02:28 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:28:24AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam > : siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the > : holy serafim's conclave... > > Sod means conclave? Yes, as in "besodam al tavo nafshi". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:59:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 21:59:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 6, 2015 at 9:28 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:28:24AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam > : siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the > : holy serafim's conclave... > > Sod means conclave? > Yes, as in "besodam al tavo nafshi" in birkat Yaakov (Bereshit 49:6), where it's parallel to "kehalam", or more directly connected to kedusha Ps 89:8 "sod kedoshim". I couldn't say whether "conclave" is the original sense and "secret" a derived meaning, or vice versa -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:30:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 14:30:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house In-Reply-To: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5522D0BC.2010004@sero.name> On 04/06/2015 08:13 AM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > R' Zev Sero asked: > >> Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in >> EY after kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times. Does this >> mean that at a shiva house Sholom Rov is said even in shacharis >> (in EY on a non-Mon/Thu)? > No, but I don't know why. > > I never thought of that question before, but here is a > possibly-related question that I've wondered for years: If Shir > Hamaalos is said whenever we skip Tachanun, should it always be said > at the shiva house? The same question would apply in the afternoon of Erev Tish`a B'av. But the two questions can easily be distinguished. The substitution of Shir Hamaalos for Al Naharos Bavel is not caused by the lack of tachanun; rather both are caused by the same thing: the element of simcha on that day that makes mourning inappropriate. But the omission of tachanun at a shiva house is not because of simcha, but because we don't want to invoke divine judgment in a situation which is already fraught; thus Al Naharos Bavel is not inappropriate. And of course on Erev Tish`a B'av what could be more appropriate than Al Naharos Bavel? Sim Shalom, however, seems (in nusach Ahskenaz) to be directly linked to the conclusion of birchas kohanim, "veyasem lecha shalom". Thus it shouldn't matter why birchas kohanim is not being said; the mere fact that it's not said should be enough to cause the omission of sim shalom, and the substitution of shalom rav. Proof that this distinction is valid comes from the case of Tehilim #49, which is said at a shiva house on days when tachanun is said; on days when tachanun is omitted, #16 is substituted. But of course in a shiva house *every* day is a day when tachanun is omitted, so when does one say #49? The obvious answer is that on normal days omission of tachanun is related to the place, not to the day, and thus #49 is said; when the day has an element of simcha that makes #49 inappropriate, we substitute #16. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 16:23:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 19:23:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] partnership - adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties Message-ID: <001b01d070c0$b326a370$1973ea50$@com> Here is a step towards making my approach to the Relationship of Yisrael with Hashem more understandable. As always it is the feedback and exchange of ideas which contains so much creative force. AVOS WERE PARTNERS, THEIR DESCENDANTS WERE IN LIMBO RACHAMIM WAS DETERMINED INCLUSIVITY - ALL ARE INCLUDED INCLUDED INTO THE COVENANT - UNILATERAL COVENANT OF HASHEM WITH HIMSELF 2. G-d related to the Avos - Avraham Yitzchak Yaakov - as partners, whose faithful service he knew and trusted. The durability was unusual, but the basic partnership never was under question, as with partners who get along. 3. 4. Almost all could ask - we are individuals in a mass of Egyptian slaves, we have lost direct contact!! We cannot compare ourselves to a 70 member Covenant, which included Yaakov Avinu one of the Avos, who actually made every move based on direct prophecy. Even the 12 Shvatim had almost direct access to HASHEM himself. 5. The Crisis of Galus Mitzrayim - assuming all had learnt every Passuk in Breishis - was of uncertainty. - Yes Pakod Yifkod - but who am I? Will my generation merit to see what even the most elderly never saw with their eyes? Even were Moshe Rabeinu assured of membership in the Elite, he retained that uncertainty. On Pshat level, five minutes prior to the moment of noticing the Burning Bush, could ask that question. That vision began transforming Moshe Rabeinu into the instrument of G-d, the Goeil. The man who turned to check - was already entering Geula mode. 6. Machzor Vitri page 148 has a key piece called Pithron Nishmas Kol Chai. According to Psachim, the Nishmas Prayer should contain within it the essence of the message of Seder Night. Towards the end of Yishtabach - there treated as just the ending of Nishmas - RAABAN adds that the 15 praises parallel the 15 Dayeinus. 7. The piece de resistance - Chai Haolamim is explained Haya hoveh yihyeh, Ani Hashem lo Shanisi (from Malachi Haftara of Shabbos Hagadol). 8. Rashi here is one theme - as I would see it. Chai means involved with caring for his children right now - as fits in Chai Anochi leOlam Im shanosi brak charbi or a Shvuah. 9. Haolamim means until the end of time, as in a parent telling the child not to worry, the Parent is always here. 10. The piece on page 148 adds an extra word to Nishmas, to make a point sharper. V' Y H V H Shmo Eir Hineh lo yanum vlo yiyshan. The word Shmo - appears only in this one obscure manuscript, seemingly a Rashi arrow. 11. Here Rashi uses full expression - Hashem appeared to Avraham with the name E I L S H a D a Y but not the Name Y H V H. Avos were established Partners and employees. Now Hashem is showing his determination and leadership - new World Order - all eligible Jews will be included in the Geulah, no exceptions. 12. Hashem is taking on the eternal duty of guarding them, with no limits and no clause for rejection. Yes Hashem admits no such precedent existed. Only Hashem can overturn His Rules. 13. Bnei Yisrael are Unilaterally Covenanted to be Hashem's Bni Bchori. Just like He had focused since the word Breishis, bishvil Torh Shenikra Reishis, now all He wants is that His People be His only. Bni Bchori Yisrael! First Day Chol Hamoeid Pesach - we read these key Psukim. Tephillin wearers understand that Kadesh li kol bchor means singular devotion. 14. In our world, it would be a person seeking a marriage partner, then signing Adoption Papers. The parent chose - volitionally and with focus - to adopt this child. PARENTAL RIGHTS - FAMILY IDENTITY 15.It is a brand new family identity, which cannot be abrogated. Yes - there can be strains. But there cannot be a dissolution. It is stronger than marriage! 16. Rashbam says - He the King says about Himself Ehkeh, I will be. Yisrael as his subjects use the Third Person He Will Be. 17. It is not about Maaseh Breishis in Rashi. It refers to the instant covenant - My determination to Adopt You is irrevocable. 18. Ehkeh - becomes the Name He Calls Himself - totally devoted to watching over my Ben Bchor. Yihyeh is the Ben Bchor's confidence that He is watching me us. 19. The moment the Ben Bchor first uses the He will Care for Me - Hashem makes Ehkeh obsolete. The family has begun. 20. This is Rashi Rashbam. CONFIRMATION The Tzarfas Tosafos included Rabeinu Yosef Bchor Shor. He accepts Rashbam completely, except that HVYH is the holiest Name, not Ehkeh. The structure remains the same. 21. Hashem's Choice in Mitzraim was a Bnos TzlOphchad choice - choose which cousin and which time to marry. It is totally volitional and conscious. He chose adoption of all. Bachar Banu. 22. It means at a specific date signing Adoption Papers for 3,000,000 individuals. 23. Rashi says it means the special Adoption - family identity. That Adoption of all Bnei Yisrael had a specific moment, the Sneh. Those Name issues had meaning for Rashi and Rashbam. 24. Within the short timespan, all the Bnei Yisrael are Hashem's chosen children. Rishon in Emmes Vyatziv means since Ytzias Mitzrayim. Maaseh Breishis is not Primary to Rashi only secondary. 25. It is Family Commitment and Identity. Practical example, a secure Child can look his father in the eye. A secure Jew is able to have Hashem look him/her in the eye without flinching. I know this is my Father. 26. As the Midrash puts it - Yam Suf - I already met him when I was born and raised six months with no human being in sight. I know Him! 27. Ha'tishkach Isha ulahh - even a mother's love for her child cannot equal hashem's love. Hashem's Power is ever greater, but even His Love is stronger. 28. Woman says - Pesach is my adoption as Hashem's own Child - no Chametz ever! There is no bending on identity. This works on the visceral level. 29. Rashi in MV 148 does call it Rachamim - as in Rachamei Av al Banim. It is the strength of Inclusion in the Covenant. It is in its deepest essence - a Unilateral Covenant. Ehkeh Asher Ehkeh - just like in this oppression - in any other oppression. That is the Adoptive Parent's approach. Lo yanum vlo yiyshan shomeir Yisrael. 30. Rashi's approach is extremely strong. Rachamim is only possible as part of a relationship. Rashi makes the relationship primary and volitional. The secondary application of which rewards or concessions will be granted, secondary Rachamim, is put onto a solid base. Only chanun is left as a "nebbish" Midah - even from a cruel tyrant chein is possible. 31. Let adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties 32. 33. In describing why person would fast all Passover over and above Jewish Law Practice, you used the words "emotional attachment". In the seven years since that wording , perhaps the message is deeper. 34. This woman was looking at the strength of the Covenant - which is Identity. The bylaws are only secondary. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: AJS review of Rossi.PDF Type: application/pdf Size: 255404 bytes Desc: not available URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 8 05:37:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2015 08:37:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150408123715.GC8438@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 09:59:14PM +0300, Simon Montagu via Avodah wrote: : > Sod means conclave? : : Yes, as in "besodam al tavo nafshi" in birkat Yaakov (Bereshit 49:6), where : it's parallel to "kehalam", or more directly connected to kedusha Ps 89:8 : "sod kedoshim". To clarify: "Sod" *here* means conclave? I suggested an alternative, which I think fits the sentence better, as it makes "sod siach" a phrase, rather than trying to explain the interruption of "siach" in "sod ... sarfei". : I couldn't say whether "conclave" is the original sense and "secret" a : derived meaning, or vice versa Very different implications hashkafically, whether yesod would then be related to secrets (as foundations are in the ground) or a gathering of people (people as founders?). :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 4th day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Chesed: When is Chesed an Fax: (270) 514-1507 imposition on others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 04:58:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 14:58:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: Just saw a halacha that to me was a chiddush That one cannot (or should not) be yotzeh someone else for tefiilat haderech but everyone should say for them self. Those agreeing (at least lechatchila) include R Aviner R Nebenzahl R C Kanevsky R Tuvia Goldstein (who said he convinced RMF) R Belsky Not what I have seen in practice. Anyone know any opinion that does allow it -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 08:55:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 15:55:59 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: <20150412.115559.22172.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel asked: > Just saw a halacha that to me was a chiddush > That one cannot (or should not) be yotzeh someone else for > tefiilat haderech but everyone should say for them self. > Those agreeing (at least lechatchila) include > R Aviner > R Nebenzahl > R C Kanevsky > R Tuvia Goldstein (who said he convinced RMF) > R Belsky > Not what I have seen in practice. > Anyone know any opinion that does allow it Chidush to me too. I don't where to begin my comments. There's a GIGANTIC difference between "cannot" and "should not". "agreeing (at least lechatchila)" also allows a too-wide variety. And without some sort of reasoning, how can we throw out what we already know? Is there something special about Tefilas Haderech, or is this merely an example of how we have so little kavana nowadays that being motzi others is just too risky? I'm sure there are other sources I could quote, but for now, I will simply quote from "Halachically Speaking", vol 1, pg 75, by Rabbi Moishe Dovid Lebovits, published by Israel Bookshop. > One person can say the tefillah for everyone, as long as he has > everyone in mind and the others concentrate on the words.(20) > Horav Yisroel Belsky shlita maintains that every individual > should try to say tefillas haderech if he can.(21) If this is > not possible, one person can say it for everyone.(22) > 20) Kinyan Torah 2:119, Bais Avi 5:55, Opinion of Horav > Elyashiv shlita quoted in Darchei Ori page 279:2, > U'velechticha Baderech 2:footnote 26 quoting the opinion of > Horav Chaim Kanievesky shlita, see Darchei Ori page 259:1. It > is questionable whether someone who has already said tefilalas > haderech can repeat it for someone else. (Halichos Shlomo > Tefilah 21:5:footnote 9). > > 21) See Emes L'Yaakov page 65. > > 22) See Eishel Avraham Butchtach, Rivevos Ephraim 6:32:2, > Halichos Shlomo Tefilah page 245:5, Divrei Chachamim page > 76:192. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 06:33:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 09:33:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: <10b001d074db$3ad805c0$b0881140$@gmail.com> References: <20150407125218.216501835E4@nexus.stevens.edu> <10b001d074db$3ad805c0$b0881140$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150412133337.B25AB182ACC@nexus.stevens.edu> I am moving this to Avodah. YL At 12:43 AM 4/12/2015, R. Moshe Yehuda Gluck wrote: >R' YL: >Another person wrote to me > >"Chazal say that one is not allowed to daven outside (probably because of >kavana); >-------------------- >Does anyone have a mareh makom for this? > >KT, >MYG From http://www.dinonline.org/2012/07/11/davening-outdoors/ Is it problematic to daven outdoors? Thanks. Answer: One should not daven in an open area outdoors, and should daven in a closed building, or a sheltered area. Sources: The Gemara (Berachos 34b) writes that it is wrong (arrogant ? chatzuf) to daven in an open field. Rashi explains that in an open field, one doesn?t feel fear of the King, and one doesn?t pray with a broken heart. Tosafos, however, understands that the concern is for passers-by, who are liable to disturb a person?s davening. The Magen Avraham (90:6) rules that the problem is that davening outside makes a haughty statement: ?Even though there are passers-by, they will not disturb my intent in davening!? This is arrogant and wrong. The Shulchan Aruch (90:5) rules that one should not daven in an open place, and the Mishnah Berurah (11) adds that those who are always travelling should can daven in an open place, but should try to daven by a tree. Therefore, although it is not forbidden to daven outdoors, it is wrong to daven in an open area, and one should seek a sheltered place. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 09:54:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 19:54:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] reviit Message-ID: In the sefer of Rav Aviner he brings many examples of gedolim who used a kiddush cup the size of the shiur of R Chaim Naeh (86 CC) and not CI. He says he heard from RSZA that when RCN published his sefer on shiurim the rabbis of Yerushalayim were astounded at his chumra !! 1) cup if Chafetz Chaim (from his grandson R Hillel Zaks) 2) cup of GRA (baal eyanim le-mishpat who got it as an inheritance) 3) cup someone got from Ohr Sameach (mesoros she-avdu) 4) Rebbe of Gur - Pnei Menachem stated about the cup of his father Baal Imre Ha-emes 5) cup of R Salanter (Shut Teshuvot Vehanhagot) 6) Rav Dessler used a small cup that belonged to his wife's family. After she passed away he used a larger cup 7) cup of the father of the CI 8) Brother of CI used a cup he got from his father-in-law (Cheshek Shlomo of Vilna) and also had shiur RCN 9) R Elyashiv used a cup the size of CI but explained that he did so in honor of CI not because that is the halacha 10) In the sefer Meged Givat Olam second volume p34) someone showed RMF a cup holding about 88cc and RMF remarked that it was kosher lechatchila (not not the shiur published in his name) 11) In Divrei Yoel the Satmar rebbe is quoted as saying the shiur of reviit is 75 gram (!?) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 12:01:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 15:01:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] reviit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <552AC11F.8060605@sero.name> On 04/12/2015 12:54 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > 11) In Divrei Yoel the Satmar rebbe is quoted as saying the shiur of reviit is 75 gram (!?) > RACN assumed that the Rambam's dirham was the same as the Ottoman dirham used in his day, which was 3.1 g. But there's significant evidence that the Egyptian dirham of the Rambam's day was slightly smaller, about 2.8 g, which gives a revi'it of about 75 ml. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 12:15:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 15:15:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150413191514.GA19165@aishdas.org> R' Ari Kahn posted a transcript of that famous talk that people remember for RYBS's statement about tav lemeisiv. http://arikahn.blogspot.co.il/2013/03/rabbi-soloveitchik-talmud-torah-and.html As a teaser, here is all RYBS said on tev lemeis tan du: Let me add something that is very important: not only the halachos but also the chazakos [19] which chachmei chazal have introduced are indestructible. We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above. Let us take for example the chazaka that I was told about: the chazaka tav l'meisiv tan du mil'meisiv armalo [20] has absolutely nothing to do with the social and political status of women in antiquity. This chazaka is based not upon sociological factors, but upon a verse in breishis -- harba arbeh itz'voneich v'heironeich b'etzev teildi vanim v'el isheich t'shukaseich v'hu yimshal bach -- "I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy travail; in pain thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee" [21]. It is a metaphysical curse rooted in the feminine personality -- she suffers incomparably more that the male who is in solitude. Solitude to the male is not as terrible an experience, as horrifying an experience, as is solitude to the woman. And this will never change, mayid shamayim vaaretz [22]. This is not a psychological fact; it is an existential fact, which is due not to the inferior status of the woman, but rather to the difference, the basic distinction, between the female personality and the male personality. Loneliness frightens the woman, and an old spinster's life is much more miserable and tragic than the life of an old bachelor. This was true in antiquity; it is still true, and it will be true a thousand years from now. So, to say that tan du mil'meisiv armalo was or is due to the inferior political or social status of the woman is simply misinterpreting the chazaka tan du mil'meisiv armalo. No legislation can alleviate the pain of the single woman, and no legislation can change this role. She was burdened by the Almighty, after she violated the first [law]. Let me ask you a question -- ribono shel olam, G-d Almighty, if you should start modifying and reassessing the chazakos upon which a multitude of halachos rest, you will destroy yehadus. So instead of philosophizing, let us rather light a match and set fire to the beis yisrael, and get rid of our problems. What I think is more typical of the general thesis of this portion of his talk was the immediately prior statement: V'chen hakofer b'perusha v'hu torah she b'al peh v'hamach'chish magideha; he who denies the perfection and the truthfulness of chachmei chazal -- not of the Torah, but of the chachmei chazal as personalities, as real persona as far as their character, their philosophy, or their outlook on the world is concerned -- is a kofer. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 9th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 most appropriate? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 12:27:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 19:27:43 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150413191514.GA19165@aishdas.org> References: <20150413191514.GA19165@aishdas.org> Message-ID: What I think is more typical of the general thesis of this portion of his talk was the immediately prior statement: V'chen hakofer b'perusha v'hu torah she b'al peh v'hamach'chish magideha; he who denies the perfection and the truthfulness of chachmei chazal -- not of the Torah, but of the chachmei chazal as personalities, as real persona as far as their character, their philosophy, or their outlook on the world is concerned -- is a kofer. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The whole piece is worth hearing (even more than reading) - it seems to me that the debate echoes here: https://kavvanah.wordpress.com/2015/04/12/rabbi-ysoscher-katz-and-rabbi-ozer-glickman-rounds-one-and-two/ I do wonder whether one can avoid self awareness with a modern education. Another challenge is how to deal with recent "Chachmei Hamesorah" who don't seem to meet the perfection definition. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 13:56:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 13:56:37 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] support obligations Message-ID: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/193853#.VSwsUo6ZPAG interesting question . while in theory the ketuba and consequently the terms of marriage , mandate the husband support a wife , in practice that is not true in the kollel years [which in israel could last a prolonged time ]. here , a kollel man divorcing claims no income , and that the wife should support the children by getting a job . apart from secular courts, is there a positive chiyuv for a husband to leave 'torato umnato' to support his children ? does a get terminate his financial obligations halachically? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 14:23:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 17:23:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Philosophy and practice of shmita In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150413212344.GA3301@aishdas.org> On Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 10:09:02PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : What is the earliest source that ties shmita to the farmers using the : time to learn Torah?... I don't know about first, but the Seforno (Vayiqra 25:4, d"h "shabbos Lashem") writes: So that also those who work the earth, when they rest for this year, yis'oreru lidrosh es H' be'ofen mah. This is then quoted verbatum by R' Yaaqov Tzevi Mecklengburg (HaKesav behaQabbalah, early or mid-19th cent), who sites both the Sefornu and and "Raba"ch" -- who is eluding me. I didn't see it in Rabbeinu Bechayei, nor the Chizquni. Nor am I sure that "liderosh es H'" means learning. More recent is the Ari (as recorded by R' Shemu'el Vital, Shaar haPesuqim) based on the Zohar (vol II 20b). Haro'eh baShoshanim -- "Shoshanim" refers to the 6 shins in "usefarta lekha SHeva SHabasos SHanim, SHeva SHanim SHeva pe'amim". And from there haro'eh bashoshanim becomes: the one who dedicates the 7th year to learning finds G-d in all the 6 years of labor as well. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 9th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 most appropriate? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 14:28:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 17:28:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos In-Reply-To: <20150401084748.2445618205D@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150401084748.2445618205D@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150413212857.GB3301@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 01, 2015 at 04:47:45AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Does not the SA say that a person who has trouble chewing matzah can : soak it in water and then eat it? If so, then I fail to see why : eating gebrokts should be a problem for anyone. : The SA lived in the wrong qehillah for the minhag to be relevant. He would allow you to eat qitniyos too. And if we accept the SA haRav's explanation of gebrochts over the MB's, the Rama lived before we counted kneading time toward the 18 min, and gebrochts wasn't necessary yet. And since according to the SAhR's teshuvah, the minhag caught on after the Besh"t, meaning during the lifetime of its author and his readers, I am inclined to believe his version of the timing over someone who is reconstructing older history. : Also, were not the matzos that were used in the time of the SA : thicker than ours? Again, MB vs the SAhR as to whether that's at issue. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 9th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 most appropriate? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 14:33:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 17:33:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] support obligations In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150413213345.GC3301@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 01:56:37PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : apart from secular courts, is there a positive chiyuv for a husband to : leave 'torato umnato' to support his children ? does a get terminate his : financial obligations halachically? Assuming she didn't agree to the arrangement. Ortherwise, the wife willingly waved her claim to his income, and took on the obligation of self- and child-support. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 20:54:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 03:54:11 GMT Subject: [Avodah] support obligations Message-ID: <20150413.235411.14734.1@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Assuming she didn't agree to the arrangement. Ortherwise, the wife > willingly waved her claim to his income, and took on the obligation > of self- and child-support. I would argue that she accepted the financial responsibilities only in exchange for the s'char she gets from enabling her husband to learn Torah, and that once he ceases to be her husband, that arrangement ends, and the whole thing reverts to the usual. Phrased differently, once he stops giving her the s'char of sharing in his learning, he has to give her a more practical olam-hazeh sort of support. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552c8fb420d2bfb30fdest04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 20:45:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 03:45:47 GMT Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> [RAK gives credit to others in fn. 1. It is not his transcript. -micha] R' Micha Berger posted R' Ari Kahn's transcript of Rav YB Soloveitchik: > ... This is not a psychological > fact; it is an existential fact, which is due not to the inferior > status of the woman, but rather to the difference, the basic > distinction, between the female personality and the male personality. > Loneliness frightens the woman, and an old spinster's life is much > more miserable and tragic than the life of an old bachelor. This was > true in antiquity; it is still true, and it will be true a thousand > years from now. So, to say that tan du mil'meisiv armalo was or > is due to the inferior political or social status of the woman > is simply misinterpreting the chazaka tan du mil'meisiv armalo. ... From what I understand, the objection to hafkaas kiddushin comes from a presumption that a woman would prefer to stay with her husband, even if he seems to be a terrible person, and even if she tells us that in *her* opinion he is a terrible person -- and we have this presumption because of the chazaka of tan du. But I do not see Rav Soloveitchik making that case here. All he is saying is that "an old spinster's life is much more miserable and tragic than the life of an old bachelor." He does say that this relative perspective on singlehood is a "permanent ontological principle[s] rooted in the very depth of the human personality," and that it will never change, and that this information is Revealed in the words of Bereishis. But this refers ONLY to the misery and tragedy of a single woman as opposed to a single man. And that's NOT that argument against hafkaas kiddushin, at least not how I've heard it. The argument that I've heard -- that is to say, the supposed translation of "tav l'meisiv tan du" -- is that a woman would prefer living with ANY man rather than to be alone. I can easily understand opposition to Hafkaas Kiddushin on the grounds that widespread use would give *all* marriages a sort of "tentative" status. But that's not what people are referring to here, right? When they invoke "tan du" against Hafkaas Kidushin, they're saying that despite the wife's protestations, the wife would actually prefer to stay married, and that's why they're unable to annul the marriage. Or am I mistaken? Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 05:26:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 08:26:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <552D0792.4060709@sero.name> On 04/13/2015 11:45 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > From what I understand, the objection to hafkaas kiddushin comes from a > presumption that a woman would prefer to stay with her husband, even if > he seems to be a terrible person, and even if she tells us that in*her* > opinion he is a terrible person -- and we have this presumption because > of the chazaka of tan du. What she prefers is irrelevant. Obviously she wants to leave her husband; she is openly telling us so, and it's ridiculous to suppose she is not telling the truth. And even if she weren't, if the marriage is invalid then it's invalid, no matter what she wants. You're looking at the whole thing from the wrong direction. No objection is needed to annulling a marriage; what's needed is grounds *for* annulling it. The alleged grounds are that it has now become clear that this man was always such a bad person that had the woman known this when he proposed marriage she would have refused, and throughout the subsequent marriage there was never a point at which she was so happy that had she found out the truth she would have consented to stay with him. Now if the husband is bad enough (and it can be proved that he always was so), *and* the woman is such a catch that there was never a point at which she could not have found another husband, then this makes sense. Obviously she has always preferred a good husband to a bad one, and only married this man because she thought he was a good one. But what if refusing to marry him, or leaving him at some point during the marriage, were to expose her to the risk of remaining single forever? Would she still have turned him down or left him? The proponents of annulment say yes, of course she would, just as she has left him now. But, RYBS says, Chazal tell us that it's female nature to prefer a bad husband to none at all, so perhaps even if she had known the truth about this man she would have consented to marry him rather than risk remaining single; or perhaps there was a point after the event at which, had she learned the truth, she would have stayed with him rather than face a single future. > But I do not see Rav Soloveitchik making that case here. All he is saying > is that "an old spinster's life is much more miserable and tragic than > the life of an old bachelor." Yes, and therefore while a man might prefer to be single rather than live with a bad wife, a similarly situated woman will not. That this woman *now* tells us she would, doesn't prove that she always would have. > He does say that this relative perspective on singlehood is a "permanent > ontological principle[s] rooted in the very depth of the human > personality," and that it will never change, and that this information > is Revealed in the words of Bereishis. But this refers ONLY to the misery > and tragedy of a single woman as opposed to a single man. > > And that's NOT that argument against hafkaas kiddushin, at least not > how I've heard it. The argument that I've heard -- that is to say, the > supposed translation of "tav l'meisiv tan du" -- is that a woman would > prefer living with ANY man rather than to be alone. Yes. How is that not the same thing? Spinsterhood is terrible for women, so terrible that they'd prefer living with a bad man to it. > When they invoke "tan du" against Hafkaas Kidushin, they're saying that despite > the wife's protestations, the wife would actually prefer to stay married, > and that's why they're unable to annul the marriage. Or am I mistaken? Not that she'd prefer it now, but that she did prefer it earlier, when she was faced with the risk of never finding anyone else. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 06:44:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 09:44:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Could a New Gadget Change Shabbat Observance - Forever Message-ID: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/njr5j7a List of leading rabbis endorse 'Kosherswitch' to allow lights on Shabbat. High-voltage project could send a current through Jewish world. Will Shabbat observance change forever with a flick of a switch? A new gadget was released to the mass market on Monday promising Orthodox Jews a solution to the age-old problem of leaving lights on or off on Shabbat and then being prevented by Jewish law from flipping the switch. The new invention, dubbed "KosherSwitch," has been beta-tested since 2009 - but an indiegogo campaign launched Monday promises to bring the project to the masses. See the above URL for more as well as for a video explaining how this device works. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 07:59:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 10:59:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Could a New Gadget Change Shabbat Observance - Forever In-Reply-To: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150414145918.GA28845@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 09:44:04AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : From http://tinyurl.com/njr5j7a :> List of leading rabbis endorse 'Kosherswitch' to allow lights on :> Shabbat. High-voltage project could send a current through Jewish :> world. :> Will Shabbat observance change forever with a flick of a switch? Unlikely. They say this is new tech, which could be true since they got a [atenmt, but the How it Works page and the ptent describe something much like what Machon Zomet uses in their wheelchairs . Actually, Zomet makes sure their switch changes the amount of current, I see nothing in the patent about anything but turning the power on and off entirely -- it appears *more* problematic. The engineers among us can check out . As you can read on Zomet's site, R Neuwirth permits the wheelchair only because the issue is basic mobility. KosherSwitch.com shows you that that RYN signed on a "me too" to R' Pinchas Zabihi's haskamah. I have a notion that once things are clarified, the truth is more somewhere in between. When a house is on fire, and someone puts up a wall of pottery flasks filled with water to arrest its progress, geram kibui is mutar. See SA OC 334:22. The Rama either adds or explains (citing the Mordekhai), that this is bemaqom peseida. But gerama isn't suddenly mutar even without hefsed meruba or kevod haberios as a matir. So it all boils down to whether they really have a new tech that is more legitimate for them to call "un-grama" than Machon Zomet's design. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 07:12:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 10:12:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] =?iso-8859-1?q?The_Kosher_Switch=3A_A_Response_from_the_?= =?iso-8859-1?q?Tzomet_Institute=92s_Rabbi_Yisrael_Rosen?= Message-ID: <20150414141204.C79091830F4@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/ptcfckt The rabbinic world and blogosophere (see, for example, here) has been abuzz about the propriety of the Kosher Switch, which its producers claim allows one to halakhically turn on and off lights on shabbat. Attached here is the Hebrew response of Rabbi Yisrael Rosen, the prominent engineer who heads the Tzomet Institute, which includes (signed) clarifications of the positions of Rabbi Avigdor Nevenzahl and Rabbi Yehoshua Neuwirth. It is was sent on Tzomet stationery to Rabbi David Mescheloff, and is reprinted here with permission. Below is a rough English translation of the first page, which does not include some of the halakhic argumentation provided on the 2nd page of the original Hebrew. For all scholarly and halakhic purposes, and purposes of citation, only the original Hebrew letter should be seen as the authoritative writing of Rabbi Rosen. D. And here is the main part of my remarks: Yesterday I went to my teacher and rabbi HaGaon Rabbi Yehoshua Neuwirth, Shlita, and I asked him whether he permitted to use this switch to activate electricity on Shabbat for the purposes of Oneg Shabbat, etc He was really shocked and said he never permitted that. When I showed him the endorsement letter, he added in his handwriting: ?Only for medicine and security? (see photo in attached Hebrew article). Rabbi Avigdor Nebenzahl Shlita, who signed a similar letter, also told me yesterday that he does not recall ever signing anything like that, and expressed the opinion that there is no place for this and was puzzled about the whole thing. I suppose that whoever managed to get the signatures of important rabbis ?sold? them an invention that is a kind of a complex Gramma used for the purpose of medicine or security, and succeeded in skipping this condition when they signed. E. With regard to the claim, written in their accompanying halachic responsum, that it is permitted to use this Gramma switch to minimize the prohibition of those who willfully the violate the Shabbat, we have never heard of such rabbis who permit this. I am sure that those who ?agreed? did not see this argument, and this is an argument that should not be stated. See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 08:01:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joseph Kaplan via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 11:01:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <002d01d076c3$e98d8290$bca887b0$@tenzerlunin.com> "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above." Can anybody explain what this really means? That is, explain it to someone who doesn't use the word "ontological" in his/her normal speech. I have read it many many times but I still don't understand what the Rav is saying. Joseph -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 07:42:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 17:42:18 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: I guess I was a little too succinct in my last post. The major problem is that many consider tefillat haderech as a tefillah and not as a bracha. Thus while one can be motze other for a bracha one cannot do it for a tefillah. Hence, R Nebenzahl paskens that all those that know how to say by themselves should do so R C Kanevsky says it is preferable for each person to say by themself R Tuvia Goldstein says that one cannot be yotzeh someone else and claims that he convinced RMF of that R Belsky repeats that it is a tefillah and not a bracha and so it is appropriate (min ha-raui) that everyone says it for themself. R Aviner says that it is "rachamim" and therefore it is preferable that each one requests for themselves however bidieved one can be motzi others The sefer Piskei Teshuvot (siman 110-2) has a discussion whether one is required to say tefillat haderech in modern times. He concludes that one who does not say it on major roads has someone to rely on but someone who also says it has the reward of a tefilla even though we no longer have "listin" and wild animals on the roads. Instead we have a car accidents. Therefore one should also say tefillat haderech on railroads and planes. He claims that on small side roads that everyone paskens you need to say tefillat haderech -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 08:22:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 11:22:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150414152222.GD28845@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 03:45:47AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : From what I understand, the objection to hafkaas kiddushin comes from a : presumption that a woman would prefer to stay with her husband, even if : he seems to be a terrible person, and even if she tells us that in *her* : opinion he is a terrible person -- and we have this presumption because : of the chazaka of tan du. You phrased it as a psychological issue. RYBS says it's something existential or ontological -- and explicitly NOT pschological. I think he is saying that this vector exists in every woman's character. Even when current social reality provides other vectors that may submerge tav lemeisiv tan du, it is an entity present in her psyche (ontologically) still shaping her perception of reality (existential). And because of that element of her soul, inherited from Chavah, it's very hard to ever call a marriage a complete meqach ta'us on the bride's part. But again, my impression from RAL which is reinforced by this transcript, this particular argument was a side-bar, not RYBS's primary argument. Eg: ... : I can easily understand opposition to Hafkaas Kiddushin on the grounds : that widespread use would give *all* marriages a sort of "tentative" : status. But that's not what people are referring to here, right? ... RYBS discusses that issue at greater length than this one anyway. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 08:32:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 11:32:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] support obligations In-Reply-To: <20150413.235411.14734.1@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150413.235411.14734.1@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150414153245.GE28845@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 03:54:11AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Micha Berger wrote: : > Assuming she didn't agree to the arrangement. Ortherwise, the wife : > willingly waved her claim to his income, and took on the obligation : > of self- and child-support. : I would argue that she accepted the financial responsibilities only : in exchange for the s'char she gets from enabling her husband to learn : Torah, and that once he ceases to be her husband, that arrangement ends, : and the whole thing reverts to the usual. Phrased differently, once he : stops giving her the s'char of sharing in his learning, he has to give : her a more practical olam-hazeh sort of support. We are in the weird situation of talking about what the bride was agreeing to WRT a situation she never pictured arising. (I am reminded of Avodah discussions about what the Rambam would do if faced with what he perceives as a solid philosophical proof for a position he could not find a basis for in Torah. Would he declare something an allegory despite a lack of source in Chazal, would he dismiss the proof as flawed, perhaps even assuming the flaw had to be something he didn't yet find? The Rambam thought the situation was impossible.) So, I want to detour into a case more likely to have crossed the kallah's mind -- his death. If the husband predeceases her without having left kollel, she wouldn't expect him to leave her the same estate than if he had spent that time earning money. It may be equally valid to argue that the bride relinquishes claims to money even after he finishes learning, in exchange for supporting him while learning -- however long that lasts. I really don't know which way of looking at things is more valid. It's kind of like the old chestnut, "But if you did have a brother, would he like noodles?" Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 10:00:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Weiss via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 10:00:06 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3e97bfe1715ba4f18f42bf014d7ab62a.squirrel@mail.panix.com> > From http://www.dinonline.org/2012/07/11/davening-outdoors/ >> Is it problematic to daven outdoors? ... >> The Gemara (Berachos 34b) writes that it is wrong >> (arrogant - chatzuf) to daven in an open field. >> Rashi explains that in an open field, one doesn't >> feel fear of the King, and one doesn't pray with >> a broken heart. Tosafos, however, understands >> that the concern is for passers-by, who are >> liable to disturb a person's davening. >> The Magen Avraham (90:6) rules that the problem >> is that davening outside makes a haughty >> statement... ... >> Therefore, although it is not forbidden to daven >> outdoors, it is wrong to daven in an open area, >> and one should seek a sheltered place. As you see from the above it is the Lechatichilla not do daven in an open place, Last week we had a mincha minyan at the grand canyon, (to wait to a more appropriate place it would have been well after dark) When one davens in a large minyan and is surrounded by other people davening it is easier to concentrate on the tefilla. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 12:44:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 15:44:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd [TM]: Why Does God Test Us? Message-ID: <20150414194402.GB3303@aishdas.org> RGStudent recently posted a piece to answer the question "Why Does God Test Us?" The notion that the all-knowing God needs to test us to determine whether we will follow His command is absurd. He knows the future and therefore gains nothing from the exercise. Yet the Torah discusses in multiple places God's tests. For example, regarding the man (manna) that fell in the desert, God states: "So that I may test them, whether they will follow My law or not" (Ex. 16:4). The midrash (Tanchuma, Vayera 23) expresses the question aptly: ... I. Personal Growth The Kuzari (5:20), followed by the Ramban (Gen. 22:1; Ex. 16:4; Deut. 13:4; Toras Ha-Bayis in Kisvei Ha-Ramban, vol. 2 pp. 272-273), explains that God tests people in order to actualize their potential goodness.... II. Education Rambam (Moreh Nevukhim 3:24) takes an entirely different approach. He sees divine tests as a way to publicize, and thereby teach, the righteousness of an individual.... III. Adult Education I believe that, aside from midrashic sources and textual cues, Rambam had a more fundamental reason for taking a path different from that of the Kuzari and Ramban. The Gemara (Makkos 10a) says that Heaven takes you in the direction you wish to go. Similarly, another Gemara (Yoma 39a) says that someone who wishes to become pure (i.e. do good) is divinely assisted. Apparently, the Ramban takes this literally. ... IV. Self-Discovery Radal (ibid.) offers a third approach to understanding divine tests. Pirkei De-Rabbi Eliezer (31) says that the test was for Avraham to know his heart. God certainly know whether we will pass a test but poses it so that we learn our own abilities. Like a good coach, God pushes us farther than we think we can go. This, too, applies to adults who often underestimate their capacity for strength. God only tests those who will pass and by doing so teaches us the extent of our faith and endurance. ... -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 15:41:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 18:41:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] reviit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150414224153.GA9794@aishdas.org> On Sun, Apr 12, 2015 at 07:54:45PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : In the sefer of Rav Aviner he brings many examples of gedolim who used a : kiddush cup the size of the shiur of R Chaim Naeh (86 CC) and not CI. : He says he heard from RSZA that when RCN published his sefer on shiurim the : rabbis of Yerushalayim were astounded at his chumra !! Interesting, because I thought that RACN's agenda was to justify the accepted practice in his local, in EY in the early 20th cent. (Something I learned on-list 15 years ago.) Minhag Y-m is RACN's shiurim, because RACN started with the assumption that Minhag Y-m was roughly accuate, with the Sepharadim being the more precise. RACN himself was a Lubavitcher chassid of the Yishuva haYashan, born in Chevron. I do not know why people usually call him "Rav Chaim Naeh", ommitting his first name "Avraham". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 15:50:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 18:50:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: <3e97bfe1715ba4f18f42bf014d7ab62a.squirrel@mail.panix.com> References: <3e97bfe1715ba4f18f42bf014d7ab62a.squirrel@mail.panix.com> Message-ID: <20150414225006.GB9794@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 10:00:06AM -0700, Harry Weiss via Avodah wrote: : > From http://www.dinonline.org/2012/07/11/davening-outdoors/ : >> Is it problematic to daven outdoors? : ... : >> The Gemara (Berachos 34b) writes that it is wrong : >> (arrogant - chatzuf) to daven in an open field. : : >> Rashi explains that in an open field, one doesn't : >> feel fear of the King, and one doesn't pray with : >> a broken heart. Tosafos, however, understands : >> that the concern is for passers-by, who are : >> liable to disturb a person's davening. : : >> The Magen Avraham (90:6) rules that the problem : >> is that davening outside makes a haughty : >> statement... : ... : >> Therefore, although it is not forbidden to daven : >> outdoors, it is wrong to daven in an open area, : >> and one should seek a sheltered place. : .... : When one davens in a large minyan and is surrounded by other people : davening it is easier to concentrate on the tefilla. The Kotel Plaza doesn't suffer from any of these concerns, which is unsurprising because centuries of gedolim had no problem davening outside at the kotel. It's set up like a shul, so there is no special chutzpah or yuharah in davening there. Interruptions are likely, but generally for other mitzvos -- tzedaqah, or answering qaddish or qedushah from nearby minyanim. In terms And the location actively fosters yir'ah, koveid rosh and a broken heart. However, davening at Robinson's arch might suffer from the yuhara issue. (Personally, I find it more moving than the Kotel Plaza. One stands on the same road walked by oleh regel, among stones thrown off Har haBayis by the Roman Army (whether during the churban or when Hadrian had the har plowed, I do not know). Behind me are the ghosts of shopkeepers, ready to exchange my maaser sheini coins back to food, sell me flour for a qorban Todah or an animal for a differen qorban. The miqvah is a bit back, and to the left.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 16:12:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 23:12:56 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <20150414.191256.7783.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The major problem is that many consider tefillat haderech as a > tefillah and not as a bracha. Thus while one can be motze other > for a bracha one cannot do it for a tefillah. I am very confused. Many poskim recommend point out that Tefilas Haderech does not begin with "Baruch", so they recommend saying it after another bracha (such as Asher Yatzar, or a Bracha Acharona on food), so as to make it into a Bracha Hasemucha L'chvertah. But if Tefilas Haderech is not a bracha to begin with, then I do not see the advantage of such a procedure. According to "Halachically Speaking", vol 1 pg 76, the poskim who recommend the above procedure includes: Magen Avraham 110:13, Machatzis Hashekel 110:13, Be'er Hetev 110:10, Shulchan Aruch Harav 110:6, Mishneh Berurah 110:28, Aruch Hashulchan 110:14, Kaf Hachaim 110:51 -- but NOT the Chazon Ish (Orchos Rabenu 1:61). In addition, I recall learning of certain situations where it is recommended that one should say tefilas haderech, but omitting the chasima at the end. But if it's not a bracha at all even WITH the chasima, then what is gained by leaving it out? I suspect that I do not appreciate or understand the meaning of "as a tefillah and not as a bracha". Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552d9f0aeea561f0a2aa2st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 19:48:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 22:48:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Could a New Gadget Change Shabbat Observance - Forever In-Reply-To: <20150414145918.GA28845@aishdas.org> References: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150414145918.GA28845@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415024810.GA29474@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 10:59:18AM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 09:44:04AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : : From http://tinyurl.com/njr5j7a : : :> List of leading rabbis endorse 'Kosherswitch' to allow lights on : :> Shabbat. High-voltage project could send a current through Jewish : :> world. RGS just posted http://www.torahmusings.com/2015/04/will-the-kosher-switch-bring-mashiach-2 which also links to his earlier http://www.torahmusings.com/2011/09/in-defense-of-the-kosher-switch .... : As you can read on Zomet's site, R Neuwirth permits the wheelchair only : because the issue is basic mobility. KosherSwitch.com shows you that that : RYN signed on a "me too" to R' Pinchas Zabihi's haskamah. I have a notion : that once things are clarified, the truth is more somewhere in between. Actually, RGS determined that R Neuwirth didn't give his approval of the Kosher Switch outide of special circumstances. RGS writes: > The Kosher Switch adds uncertainty to the Gerama Switch. Every time the > device is supposed to send a light impulse, it calculates a random number > below 100 and only sends the impulse if the number passes a threshold > (usually over 50). However, there is a random element to Machon Zomet's switch too. Again, I do not see anything in the patent that makes this switch any less a simple case of gerama than Machon Zomet's switch. (In fact, R' Rosen of Zomet checked the posqim cited on KosherSwitch.com *because* he saw no reason why they would allow the Kosher Switch for general use and not Zomet's Grama Switch.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 19:26:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 02:26:43 GMT Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150414.222643.13892.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> R' Joseph Kaplan asked: > "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with > the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not > upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon > permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of > the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, > which is as changeless as the heavens above." > > Can anybody explain what this really means? That is, explain it > to someone who doesn?t use the word "ontological" in his/her > normal speech. I have read it many many times but I still > don?t understand what the Rav is saying. This is how I understand it: Just as a leopard cannot change its spots, and just as Shabbos comes each week whether society accepts it or not, so too, there are certain elements of the human condition which Chazal have identified as inherent and unchanging, not subject to variation by time, place, or culture. Or something like that. At any rate, one can agree or disagree about whether this assertion is true, and even among those who agree with it, there might be discussion of exactly which chazakos are unchanging and which are variable. Still, his point is that there are indeed some UNchanging aspects. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552dcca9d8e634ca96125st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 02:07:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 05:07:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's true position on kosher switch I regret that my father's position on the kosher switch was misrepresented by stating that he endorses it l'maaseh . His position is that there are 2 aspects in hilchos shabbos, one is issur melacha and then there is zilzul shabbos. My father's opinion is that there is no issur melacha or chilul shabbos. However , there is a concern about zilzul shabbos as he stated clearly on the video. Before it is used one should ask a shaila from his rav. Moshe Oelbaum Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:01:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:01:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld : regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. ... :> Moshe Oelbaum :> Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum Authentication? -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 23:10:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 09:10:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: The reason for not allowing to be motzi someone else is actually quite simple. The Gemara in Berachos (29b) clearly states that tefilas haderech is a tefila "Amar R' Chisda hayotzeh laderech tzarich lhispallel tefilas haderech". Therefore the general rule of tefilla should apply, namely that if you are a baki someone else cannot be motzi you. Since nowadays we are all considered bekiim and for example, we don't allow someone to be motzi us in tefilas mincha the same would apply to tefilas haderech. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:18:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:18:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:01 AM 4/15/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: >: Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld >: regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. >... >Authentication? What I posted was sent to me by someone on my email list whom I trust. I can send you his email address if you like. YL From http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/kosher-switch > moish3 at yahoo.com > Member > Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's true position on kosher switch . > I regret that my father's position on kosher switch was > misrepresented by stating that he endorses it l'maaseh . His position > is that there are 2 aspects in hilchos shabbos. One is issur melacha > and then there is zilzul shabbos. My father's opinion is that there > is no issur melacha or chilul shabbos. However , there is a concern > about zilzul shabbos as he stated clearly on the video. Before it is > used one should ask a shaila from his rav. > Moshe Oelbaum > Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:44:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:44:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 06:18:35AM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : What I posted was sent to me by someone on my email list whom I trust. : I can send you his email address if you like. YL ... : From http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/kosher-switch : > moish3 at yahoo.com : > Member Oh, I believe it really appeared in YWN, and that link can allow you to check that much for ourselves. What I'm asking is whether anyone contact R' Moshe Oelbaum or RNIO to authenticate that the post really was from his son. It is trivial to claim to be anyone in a YWN chatroom. I don't know RMO, but I can't picture R' NI Oelbaum promulgating his position via chatroom. Could be, if his son is a regular there anyway. The presence of a post really doesn't tell me much. No matter how honest the person reporting to you is, he can be duped unless he spoke to the parties himself. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:13:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:13:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150415101229.BCD31183613@nexus.stevens.edu> At 05:54 AM 4/15/2015, R. Harry Weiss wrote: >When one davens in a large minyan and is surrounded by other people >davening it is easier to concentrate on the tefilla. I do not find this to be true for me personally. I am not a "group person" and hence prefer to daven in a minyan that has between 20 and forty participants. This is the case where I daven during the week and also at the Hashkama Minyan at the YI of Ave J where I daven on Shabbos. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 06:34:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 09:34:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:44 AM 4/15/2015, Micha Berger wrote: > What I'm asking is whether >anyone contact R' Moshe Oelbaum or RNIO to authenticate that the >post really was from his son. It is trivial to claim to be anyone >in a YWN chatroom. I received this in an email from Moshe Deutsch I personally spoke to Rabbi & Rebbetzin Oelbaum who told me to publicize this. I was the one who made them aware that the person behind KosherSwitch is using his name in a way that Rabbi Oelbaum did not intend. Person behind KosherSwitch does not pick up the phone now when Rabbi Oelbaum calls. Moshe From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 07:21:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 10:21:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 09:34:32AM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : I received this in an email from Moshe Deutsch :> I personally spoke to Rabbi & Rebbetzin Oelbaum who told me to :> publicize this. I was the one who made them aware that the person :> behind KosherSwitch is using his name in a way that Rabbi Oelbaum did :> not intend... This still doesn't clear up my confusion, although it does confirm what the YWN post said (if not who authored it). I am trying to understand whether RNIO's problem with the appearance of his name on the KosherSwitch.com "approvers" list is because a- he feels that use of the switch is zilzul Shabbos, or b- he would hold it's gerama. What I am trying to understand is the tzad to say their switch isn't gerama. It appears to conform to the description of the Machon Zomet switch as it existed at the time R' Neuwirth consulted with RSZA who ruled it was. If RNIO holds it's "only" zilzul Shabbos, then clarifying what his position is was useful, but doesn't remove all my confusion. I was expecting that the posqim the Kosher Switch people are hearing overly optimistically (for their investment) would actually all end up agreeing with RSZA once we got clarification. Such as R' Neuwirth, whose approval was based on assuming the proposed use was a medical context. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 04:38:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 14:38:08 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <> On many birtchot hamitzva one can be motzeh others even when they are "experts". This includes shofar, megilla etc (not lulav or netillat yadaim which is considered as a mitzvah be-gufo) similarly for kiddush and havdala. Note that for sefirat haomer usually each person says the bracha himself/herself and also counts for themselves. There are opinions that if needed one can rely on the chazzan for the bracha but not the count. In birchat ha-nehenim usually each individual makes his own bracha. There are some which are a mixture including kiddush and motzi on shabbat on lechem mishne (note there are various minhagim on seder night). For birchat shevach eg lightning seeing great mountains etc each person says it by himself. OTOH the shliach tzibbur can be motzi others with shemone esre only if they cant say it themselves. Shemonei esrei is a tefillah (bakasha and shevach) even though shemonei esrei consists of brachot. The usual minhag is that each individual says birchat hagomel though I once heard from R Zilberstein that if many people need to say it then it is preferable for one person to be motzei everyone else ---------------------------------------- I am not sure if I have made things clearer - if not I leave it to someone else to explain exactly when one can be motze others lechatchila, bidieved or not at all -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 06:29:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 16:29:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: R' Akiva Miller wrote: > I suspect that I do not appreciate or understand the meaning of "as a > tefillah and not as a bracha". The difference between tefila and a beracha is whether you can be motzi a baki nowadays. With a beracha you can however with a tefilla you cannot which is why these poskim hold that each person should say tefilas haderech the same way every person davens shemoneh esrei. You also asked: > I am very confused. Many poskim recommend point out that Tefilas Haderech > does not begin with "Baruch", so they recommend saying it after another > bracha (such as Asher Yatzar, or a Bracha Acharona on food), so as to make > it into a Bracha Hasemucha L'chvertah. But if Tefilas Haderech is not a > bracha to begin with, then I do not see the advantage of such a procedure. Something can be both a beracha and a tefila at the same time, the prime example is shemoneh esrei which is tefilla par excellence but composed of 18 (19) berachos. Tefilas haderech is a tefila composed (possibly) in the form of a beracha and therefore the rules of tefilla would apply. [Email #2. -micha] R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The sefer Piskei Teshuvot (siman 110-2) has a discussion whether one is > required to say tefillat haderech in modern times. He concludes that one > who does not say it on major roads has someone to rely on but someone who > also says it has the reward of a tefilla even though we no longer have > "listin" and wild animals on the roads. It seems clear from the context of the gemara that tefilas haderech is a tefila b'eis tzara. The gemara mentions tefilas haderech right after it mentions that a person who is in a dangerous place says a tefila. The world has changed a lot since the time of chazal especially related to travel and we need to understand if these changes affect the din of tefilas haderech Here are some of the changes that have occurred relating to travel. 1. Most travel is no longer considered unsafe. When I get in my car every morning to drive to work I don't think twice about it 2. The distinction between in the city and out of the city is no longer true. Most people fell much safer driving in the Catskills then driving through Harlem. Driving on a highway from Brooklyn to Queens is in the city but driving in Monsey to the supermarket may be considered out of the city. 3. This is related to 1, people travel all the time. Most people commute some distance to work, this is normal and part of everyday life. In the time of chazal yotze laderech was a big deal. Given the above R' Shachter (in Nefesh Harav) says that R' Soloveitchik did not say tefilas haderech when he commuted from Boston to NY to give his shiurim. He felt that because it is a tefila b'eis tzara and nowadays there is no perceived danger and it is routine that there was no reason to say it. Recently, I heard a short shiur on tefilas haderech and was happy to hear that RSZA seems to say a very similar idea to RYBS. RSZA did not say tefilas haderech when he traveled from Yerushayim to Bnei Brak. He explained his reasoning as follows: 1. In many places it is not considered as if you left the yishuv for the following reasons: 1. There are many other cars on the road 2. The police regularly patrol the road 3. There are houses on the side of the road 2. Traveling by car/bus is a normal activity. Whan a person gets up and commutes to work he does not say he is going on a trip. The takana of tefilas haderech was for someone who was yotze laderech these kinds of trips are not considered ???? ????. 3. There is little or no danger of yotze laderech RSZA reasoning is very similar to RYBS. Basically, the world has changed and it is no longer unusual or dangerous to travel between cities and therefore the din of when you say tefilas haderech changes as well. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 05:05:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:05:17 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150414.222643.13892.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150414.222643.13892.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <0fa3e90282b94c0e95214067965f579a@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> This is how I understand it: Just as a leopard cannot change its spots, and just as Shabbos comes each week whether society accepts it or not, so too, there are certain elements of the human condition which Chazal have identified as inherent and unchanging, not subject to variation by time, place, or culture. Or something like that. At any rate, one can agree or disagree about whether this assertion is true, and even among those who agree with it, there might be discussion of exactly which chazakos are unchanging and which are variable. Still, his point is that there are indeed some UNchanging aspects. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ I would add an observation that individual exceptions may exist empirically but are ignored halachically Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 06:24:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 09:24:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tan Du In-Reply-To: <20150406184227.GF20912@aishdas.org> References: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150406184227.GF20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <552E669A.6000104@aishdas.org> I personally was always inclined to side with Rabbi Rackman over RYBS on tav l'meisav, but this article gives me pause: http://www.bbc.com/news/health-32303997 KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 07:57:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 10:57:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Message-ID: From: Joseph Kaplan via Avodah "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above." Can anybody explain what this really means? That is, explain it to someone who doesn't use the word "ontological" in his/her normal speech. I have read it many many times but I still don't understand what the Rav is saying. Joseph >>>>> If you leave out the word "ontological" here the sentence is perfectly clear: Human nature does not change. I'm sure you looked up the definition of "ontological" so no need to go there. But in this paragraph, the word "ontological" serves a subliminal purpose. Here it means, "Don't condescend to Orthodox Jews and do not assume we are backwards, primitive, and ignorant. One can be an intellectual and still believe the Torah is true and eternal." --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 08:12:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:12:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: From: Eli Turkel via Avodah >>The sefer Piskei Teshuvot (siman 110-2) has a discussion whether one is required to say tefillat haderech in modern times. He concludes that one who does not say it on major roads has someone to rely on but someone who also says it has the reward of a tefilla even though we no longer have "listin" and wild animals on the roads. Instead we have a car accidents. Therefore one should also say tefillat haderech on railroads and planes. He claims that on small side roads that everyone paskens you need to say tefillat haderech<< -- Eli Turkel >>>> Saying tefillas haderech "on major roads" -- does that mean even within one city, not just when traveling between cities? "On small side roads everyone paskens you need to say tefillas haderech"? What does that mean? Every time I get in the car to go to the grocery store in my own neighborhood? Or was the word "don't" inadvertently omitted from that sentence ("you don't need to say tefillat haderech")? I was driving someone to the cemetery for a levaya, we were on the highway doing 60 and all of a sudden it started to rain, but I mean a mabul, a hard, driving, blinding rain. I couldn't see at all in front of me. Of course I slowed down, as did everyone else, but it was still very frightening and certainly I couldn't just stop in the middle of the highway. My passenger, a BT, became very agitated and said, "I only know one perek of Tehillim by heart so I am going to say that." Then she recited Shir Hamaalos (from benching) out loud. The rain stopped immediately! A few miles further down the road, there was another sudden blinding outburst and she said Shir Hamaalos again. Again the rain immediately stopped. She was like a reverse Choni Hamaagel! I really think her emunah peshuta saved the day! But to veer back into Avodah territory -- would it have been appropriate to say Tefillas Haderech at that time? With shem umalchus? (I assume you can always say it without shem umalchus.) --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 08:34:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:34:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides Message-ID: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> There was a bachur next to me this morning whose retzu'os were painted black on both sides. And I believe I know why this is done, in case a retzu'ah gets flipped. Or perhaps to be chosheish for the Rambam's description of such retzu'os being "noi". The MB 933:21 tells us not to follow the Rambam, whereas the Keses haSofer (written by R' Ganzfried of the QSA) says even the *sides* should be black. But the site got me wondering: 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? 2- If the leather is soaked in dye untile its absorbed and the leather is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? R YS Elyashiv is reported by R' Mordeschai Friedlander (a noted sofer and poseiq, a reliable source) to hold they're fine. I am not challenging their kashrus. It just struck me that both seem valid concerns. I assume the talented chevrah can find holes in my problems. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:17:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:17:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> At 10:21 AM 4/15/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >I am trying to understand whether RNIO's problem with the appearance of >his name on the KosherSwitch.com "approvers" list is because >a- he feels that use of the switch is zilzul Shabbos, or >b- he would hold it's gerama. Does it really matter. He is saying that he does not approve of its use. Why do you need to know more? YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:32:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:32:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 12:17:02PM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : Does it really matter. He is saying that he does not approve of its : use. Why do you need to know more? For the sake of the switch, no. For the sake of understanding the concept of gerama -- Torah hi, velilamdah ani tzarikh! Saying this switch isn't gerama, and its use limited to cases where we can permit gerama, really defies my understanding of the concept. Or perhaps I misunderstand how it works, in which case the Electrical Engineer I studied to become (and the neti'ah that motivated the intent to become one) wants to know. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:07:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 17:07:04 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:34:00 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah > 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam > consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? > 2- If the leather is soaked in dye [until it's] absorbed and the leather > is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we > know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? 1. If it is just soaked, there is no problem of chatzitzah. (Did the fact that the pesiloth of the Tsits were soaked in techeles dye constitute a problem of chatsisoh? atmahah?) There may be a problem if it was subsequently glossed black - which it isn't. 2. Why shouldn't it be valid material after soaking? It's still leather. According to halachah, [have not checked this up right now - but if memory serves me] you can even use klaf [bdi'eved] for retsuos - as long as it is the skin of a kosher beheimoh, its kosher. Dovid [sofer] From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:13:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:13:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> References: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <552E8E18.4090201@sero.name> On 04/15/2015 11:34 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam > consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? Why would it be? It's part of the retzua. AFAIK everyone agrees that it's a hiddur, just not necessary, and most people don't bother. > 2- If the leather is soaked in dye untile its absorbed and the leather > is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we > know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? Why wouldn't it be? It's still leather, after all. Where does it say what colour the leather must be? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:57:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:57:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150415165733.GD6173@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:04PM +0100, D via Avodah wrote: : Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:34:00 -0400 : From: Micha Berger via Avodah :> 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam :> consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? : 1. If it is just soaked, there is no problem of chatzitzah. (Did the : fact that the pesiloth of the Tsits were soaked in techeles dye : constitute a problem of chatsisoh? atmahah?) ... So I believe your answer to my first question is that they don't paint the bottom, they only use my scenario two -- soaking the leather. About your parenthetical comment... If halakhah requires tekheiles, it requires blue wool. The completed product would be what the kohein shouldn't have a chatzitzah under. Not the undyed wool. :> 2- If the leather is soaked in dye [until it's] absorbed and the leather :> is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we :> know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? : 2. Why shouldn't it be valid material after soaking? It's still : leather.... But it's no longer entirely skin of a kosher beheimah, as the dye isn't made from skin. It is now a retzuah made of skin + dye. I could see that either way, and am asking how we (or the posqim among us) can just assume that this innovation is not a problem. Just as tekheiles is different than tzemer, perhaps dye-soaked leather is different in kind than leather. How did we determine it isn't? : Dovid [sofer] Thanks for chiming in. But could you kindly put your full name in your email header or signature once in a while, so that people know who we're talking to? One of Avodah's goals is to create chevraschaft, which is difficult when people are anonymous or partially so. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 10:28:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 17:28:55 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150415.132855.9927.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 12:17:02PM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : Does it really matter. He is saying that he does not approve of its : use. Why do you need to know more? This is like saying, about ANY situation, "He is saying that it is assur. Why do you need to know if it is d'Oraisa or d'rabanan?" The answer is very simple: There are some situations which would justify doing it if "merely" d'rabanan, but not otherwise. Similarly, there may be situations where RNIO would allow this it his svara was ABC, but not if his svara was XYZ. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552e9fe45804e1fe4411ast02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 12:42:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 19:42:24 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu>, <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> Message-ID: <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Saying this switch isn't gerama, and its use limited to cases where we can permit gerama, really defies my understanding of the concept. Or perhaps I misunderstand how it works, in which case the Electrical Engineer I studied to become (and the neti'ah that motivated the intent to become one) wants to know. Tir'u baTov! -Micha _______________________________________________ Sounds to me like r' asher weiss's makeh bpatish definition. Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 16:13:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 19:13:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 07:42:24PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Sounds to me like r' asher weiss's makeh bpatish definition. You lost me. I wasn't discussing which melakhah -- if any -- one violates by using electricity in an of itself, but how using this switch relates to that melakhah. For example, even if we say that electricity and electronics itself weren't an issue, the majority of these switches would be installed so as to turn on fluorescent or incandescent bulbs. Both of which heat filaments until glowing -- so there is a melakhah of bishul or hav'arah to discuss. And my question becomes: In that rather typical setting, how the switch not gerama of one of those two melakhos? (Or possibly both, if a glowing filament is hav'arah, and the resulting boiling of mercury in the fluorescent bulb, bishul.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 13:05:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 16:05:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: REliTurkel wrote: >Just saw a halacha that to me was a chiddush That one cannot (or should not) be yotzeh someone else for tefiilat haderech but everyone should say for them self. Those agreeing (at least lechatchila) include R Aviner R Nebenzahl R C Kanevsky R Tuvia Goldstein (who said he convinced RMF) R Belsky Not what I have seen in practice. Anyone know any opinion that does allow it< Is there any opinion, even of the five quoted, which holds that one is _not_ yotzei even b'diavad? As for RET's question, the Kol Bo on Aveilus, quoted in SSK, Perek 64, footnote 75, states that an onein is obligated in t'fillas haderech, but it is preferable that he be yotzei with another's b'racha. (I have not seen the SSK, but have seen it quoted.) EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 15:35:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 15:35:27 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach Message-ID: did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 17:00:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 20:00:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 6:35 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? I have a friend who does this. She once told me the origins but I forget where it came from. I remember that it was very obscure and non traditional. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 17:38:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 20:38:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150416003839.GD1638@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 03:35:27PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? What did it grow out of? Avoiding she'avar alav es hapesach? A way of avoiding chodosh, at least during the omer period? -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 17:44:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 20:44:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: <20150416003839.GD1638@aishdas.org> References: <20150416003839.GD1638@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 8:38 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 03:35:27PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: >: did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? > What did it grow out of? ... It had to do with chodosh and the omer/barley. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 22:05:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Weiss via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 22:05:46 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > From: Marty Bluke via Avodah > Given the above R' Shachter (in Nefesh Harav) says that R' Soloveitchik > did > not say tefilas haderech when he commuted from Boston to NY to give his > shiurim. He felt that because it is a tefila b'eis tzara and nowadays > there > is no perceived danger and it is routine that there was no reason to say > it. I was on a number of trips to Europe with RHS and every morning when the bus left town he said Tefillas Haderech over the loudspeaker. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 22:19:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 08:19:12 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: multipart/alternative Size: 369 bytes Desc: not available URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 07:15:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:15:53 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: Question: If one doesn't view eilu v'eilu as multiple truths but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which is which), how do you explain the approach to halachic process which ignores academic findings concerning texts or historical circumstances? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 07:16:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:16:49 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] =?windows-1252?q?Nikra_Choteih=94_or_=93Nikra_Rasha=94?= Message-ID: <34b0a662bcc7405695661d14e08ddcfd@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> The gemara uses the expression ?Nikra Choteih? or ?Nikra Rasha? from time to time. Has anyone seen anything written on the relative ranking of such categories? (e.g. since it doesn?t say ?assur?? does it mean it?s not a complete prohibition but something less?) KT Joel RIch THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 08:26:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 16:26:54 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I've never heard of the minhag but there is a chasidishe minhag to eat matsoh every time one washes for hamotsi during the Omer [see Chayim VeShoolom - Minhogim of Munkatche Rebbe] - which might be connected. (The source is the Ari who perceives the spiritual influx of Pesach to be repeated over the Omer; the state that warrants the eating of matsoh during Pesach carries over till Shovuos. Full 'maturity' that warrants the eating of chomets is only reached on Shovuos.) Dovid Rubin From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 10:13:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 17:13:44 GMT Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach Message-ID: <20150416.131344.1969.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> R' Dovid Rubin wrote: > (The source is the Ari who perceives the spiritual influx of Pesach > to be repeated over the Omer; the state that warrants the eating of > matsoh during Pesach carries over till Shovuos. This reminds me of the comment (which I've heard several times here on Avodah, but I don't think anywhere else) that in Moshiach's time, all of Sefira will be a sort of Chol Hamoed to Pesach. > Full 'maturity' that > warrants the eating of chomets is only reached on Shovuos.) Shavuos -- a.k.a. -- "Atzeres" -- is of course an entirely distinct holiday, unrelated to Pesach or to its seven-week long chol hamoed. Chometz would not be a problem on Shavuos any more than Sukkah is mandated on the other Atzeres. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552fede2bc7ec6de23df7st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 10:56:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 13:56:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: <20150416.131344.1969.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.131344.1969.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150416175612.GB10238@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 05:13:44PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Dovid Rubin wrote: :> Full 'maturity' that :> warrants the eating of chomets is only reached on Shovuos.) : Shavuos -- a.k.a. -- "Atzeres" -- is of course an entirely : distinct holiday, unrelated to Pesach or to its seven-week long chol : hamoed. Chometz would not be a problem on Shavuos any more than Sukkah : is mandated on the other Atzeres. Entirely distinct, yes. Unrelated.... The chag of cheirus finds its fruition with "charos - cheirus al haluchos." The connection between the issur chameitz of Pesach, the barley of the qorban omer, and the two loaves of chameitz wheat of the Shetei haLechem is at least as old as the Chinukh. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:22:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:22:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> Yesterday, at 7:13 pm EDT, I wrote: > And my question becomes: In that rather typical setting, how the > switch not gerama of one of those two melakhos? (Or possibly both, if > a glowing filament is hav'arah, and the resulting boiling of mercury > in > the fluorescent bulb, bishul.) And then "ssvarc" (RMSS) wrote on Torah Musings at 8:28 am or > In all likelihood, the Zomet one doesn?t have the light on a > randomized > timer (with indicators), nor the randomized chance for the light > pulse > to operate the switch. Now for an updated version of my response (not yet approved) there: Zomet's Grama Switch does have a randomizer on the LED whose light you may or may not block. As do Shabbos mode ovens. The Kosher Switch has a the same randomizer on the detector opposite the LED, but I don?t see how that makes anything more random. But now that you had me looking at their ?How it Works? page, the key difference has the description of a sefeiq sefeiqa. It?s far from clear what is meant. Here?s the quote from : > This creates two safeiks (Halachic uncertainty): the first, whether > or not the light pulse of the Light Pulse Pair will fail; the second, > whether the switch will fail in triggering the circuit based on the > results of the Light Pulse Pair. ?The switch will fail in triggering the circuit?? What are they doing to introduce this second safeiq? The best I can tell, it's a simple bit of software -- a randomizer that says "don't respond anyway". But that's just guessing, I'm not good enough at reading their patent to be sure. Also, in what sense is either a safeiq? Both will eventually happen, the question is when. I am not sure how ?sefeiq sefeiqa? applies to gerama, or to be more precise -- avoiding gerama. But at least I?m a step further in my understanding. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Here is the test to find whether your mission micha at aishdas.org on Earth is finished: http://www.aishdas.org if you're alive, it isn't. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Richard Bach From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:46:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:46:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> Message-ID: PS: On the relevance of random delay to gerama... AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is *geram* kibui". A case of gerama with a random time delay. But this is Yom Tov, where the laws against extinguishing are looser. The AhS refers you to OC 277:7, where we see that on Shabbos it's assur -- but because of a special gezeira to prevent people from doing the same when the wind *is* blowing. Not because of gerama. I also don't think the randomness of the length of the delay is necessarily relevant. Just pointing out halachic precedent. But it's certainly not "iffy" that we could invoke sefeiq sefeiqa. It's a random length delay, not a doubt whether or not the switch will eventually cause the outcome. The odds the wind will never come, or the randomizer(s) will never produce a combination that causes the switch to be honored, is ignorably small. (No one is selling a switch that may or may not shut the light.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:43:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:43:56 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: RJRich >>>Sounds to me like r' asher weiss's makeh bpatish definition. RMBerger >>>> You lost me. I wasn't discussing which melakhah -- if any -- one violates by using electricity in an of itself, but how using this switch relates to that melakhah. >>> IIAMN, the idea RJR is expressing is that the poseik has ad initio determined that the action in question is forbidden, and now is searching around for the category into which to place this prohibition. I have heard RAWeiss explicitly use this concept in classifying the use of electricity as makeh b'patish, based on a Yerushalmi - it's not an idea just made up by contemporary poskim. It does seem that some poskim are looking at the switch and saying "it *must *be assur somehow"; in any event that seems to me to be what RJR is suggesting is going on. Saul Mashbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:45:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:45:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55300361.8020803@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 02:22 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > "The switch will fail in triggering the circuit"? What are they > doing to introduce this second safeiq? The best I can tell, it's > a simple bit of software -- a randomizer that says "don't respond > anyway". But that's just guessing, I'm not good enough at reading their > patent to be sure. Yes, that's how I understood it. If and when the pulse is received, instead of automatically triggering the light to turn on, there's a gatekeeper that flips a coin, heads it obeys the request to turn on the light, tails it refuses. > Also, in what sense is either a safeiq? Both will eventually happen, > the question is when. In principle it might not ever happen. The basis of all this seems to be siman 277. There the concern is that even if the wind isn't blowing right now, it might start to blow *immediately* as you begin to open the door. This implies that if we can be sure that it won't start blowing until some time after the door has been opened it will be OK. But that whole discussion assumes that extinguishing the flame is not the purpose for which the door is being opened, it's just a possible side-effect. Is the halacha different if that was the intention? On 04/16/2015 02:46 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > > AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes > the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable > to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, > as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. > The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is > *geram* kibui". But there you're actively taking it to the place where the wind will blow. Here you're merely opening the door, so that if/when the wind blows the door won't protect the flame. > But it's certainly not "iffy" that we could invoke sefeiq sefeiqa. It's a > random length delay, not a doubt whether or not the switch will eventually > cause the outcome. The odds the wind will never come, or the randomizer(s) > will never produce a combination that causes the switch to be honored, > is ignorably small. (No one is selling a switch that may or may not shut > the light.) Why not? For the shabbos-keeping household, a switch that sometimes fails is better than no switch at all. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 12:12:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 15:12:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <55300361.8020803@sero.name> References: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 02:45:53PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : >Also, in what sense is either a safeiq? Both will eventually happen, : >the question is when. : : In principle it might not ever happen. ... : >But it's certainly not "iffy" that we could invoke sefeiq sefeiqa. It's a : >random length delay, not a doubt whether or not the switch will eventually : >cause the outcome. The odds the wind will never come, or the randomizer(s) : >will never produce a combination that causes the switch to be honored, : >is ignorably small. (No one is selling a switch that may or may not shut : >the light.) : : Why not? For the shabbos-keeping household, a switch that sometimes fails : is better than no switch at all. You want to ask them why not, feel free to do so. I'm not guessing why they're not setting the randomizers to make each even that unlikely. Still, they are repeatedly rolling the dice, the odds of repeatedly getting "no" falls off geometrically with the length of time in question. Ignoring milsa delo shekhicha, the light will indeed go on. They say the average is "several times" at . : The basis of all this seems to be siman 277. There the concern is that : even if the wind isn't blowing right now, it might start to blow : *immediately* as you begin to open the door. This implies that if we : can be sure that it won't start blowing until some time after the door : has been opened it will be OK. But that whole discussion assumes that : extinguishing the flame is not the purpose for which the door is being : opened, it's just a possible side-effect. Is the halacha different if : that was the intention? : >AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes : >the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable : >to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, : >as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. : >The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is : >*geram* kibui". : : But there you're actively taking it to the place where the wind will blow. : Here you're merely opening the door, so that if/when the wind blows the door : won't protect the flame. The AhS invites the comparison, not me. Clearly you're making a disinction that he holds is without a difference. BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at . To quote: An alternative Talmudic analogy: * There is a candle burning next to a closed window, and a strong wind blowing outside. Certainly, opening the window on Shabbat is forbidden, since the candle will be extinguished immediately. * There is a device that can determine if there's no wind currently blowing, and it can predict with 100% accuracy that no wind will be blowing for at least the next ~5 seconds. It lights up with a green light when it has determined this to be true. * On Shabbat, a person opens/closes the window while the device's indicator is green, knowing that a wind will ultimately blow and succeed in extinguishing the candle. * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to KosherSwitch (R). -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:55:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:55:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] {Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: > From: Marty Bluke via Avodah > Given the above R' Shachter (in Nefesh Harav) says that R' Soloveitchik > did > not say tefilas haderech when he commuted from Boston to NY to give his > shiurim. He felt that because it is a tefila b'eis tzara and nowadays > there > is no perceived danger and it is routine that there was no reason to say > it. RAsher Weiss, in a shiur on tefillat haderech, similarly expressed grave reservations about the recitation of tefillat haderech on routine trips which do not involve any particular acute danger, and indicated that his personal practice is not to say tefillat haderech (at least with a bracha) on said routine trips. OTOH, he was apparently very reluctant to issue a definitive psak that others should do the same, in the face of common established practice. Saul Mashbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 12:43:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 15:43:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> References: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 03:12 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > > BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at > . To quote: > > An alternative Talmudic analogy: > > * There is a candle burning next to a closed window, and a strong > wind blowing outside. Certainly, opening the window on Shabbat is > forbidden, since the candle will be extinguished immediately. > > * There is a device that can determine if there's no wind currently > blowing, and it can predict with 100% accuracy that no wind will be > blowing for at least the next ~5 seconds. It lights up with a > green light when it has determined this to be true. > > * On Shabbat, a person opens/closes the window while the device's > indicator is green, knowing that a wind will ultimately blow and > succeed in extinguishing the candle. > > * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind > is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time > when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts > of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they > miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're > able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to > KosherSwitch (R). Yes, and it seems from the SA that this would be permitted. The big difference, though, is that in the SA's case there is no intention to extinguish the flame, and here there is. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 12:53:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 15:53:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> References: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150416195347.GC11430@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 03:43:24PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: :> BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at :> . To quote: ... :> * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind :> is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time :> when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts :> of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they :> miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're :> able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to :> KosherSwitch (R). : Yes, and it seems from the SA that this would be permitted. The big : difference, though, is that in the SA's case there is no intention to : extinguish the flame, and here there is. Getting back to the post that started this tangent, the question was whether this last bullet item actualy is relevant. What's relevant is the probability of the wind eventually blowing the candle out or the switch turning the light off. If it's a rov or maybe a rube deruba, then it's gerama. At least, that's what was consensus decades ago when Machon Zomet first produced their switch technology and wheelchair. Whether you can break down the likelihood of the melakhah occuring into a union of the probability of a number of sub-steps or not doesn't seem to me to impact the question. Because this isn't a safeiq situation, it's whether your action can be blamed for the melakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 13:25:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 16:25:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150416195347.GC11430@aishdas.org> References: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> <20150416195347.GC11430@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55301AC6.7000807@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 03:53 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 03:43:24PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > :> BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at > :> . To quote: > ... > :> * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind > :> is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time > :> when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts > :> of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they > :> miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're > :> able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to > :> KosherSwitch (R). > > : Yes, and it seems from the SA that this would be permitted. The big > : difference, though, is that in the SA's case there is no intention to > : extinguish the flame, and here there is. > > Getting back to the post that started this tangent, the question was > whether this last bullet item actualy is relevant. According to the SA even the penultimate bullet item is permitted: >> * On Shabbat, a person opens/closes the window while the device's >> indicator is green, knowing that a wind will ultimately blow and >> succeed in extinguishing the candle Surely the last bullet item makes the heter much stronger. But again, the case discussed is where this is not one's intention. Note also, in the mashal, that not only is there no wind right now, there is no candle right now either. > What's relevant is the probability of the wind eventually blowing the > candle out or the switch turning the light off. If it's a rov or maybe > a rube deruba, then it's gerama. That doesn't seem to be what the SA says. But again, with the caveat that intention might make a difference. > Whether you can break down the likelihood of the melakhah occuring into > a union of the probability of a number of sub-steps or not doesn't seem > to me to impact the question. Because this isn't a safeiq situation, > it's whether your action can be blamed for the melakhah. It's putting further causal distance between "cause" and "effect". What if you had a series of these routines, each of which may or may not call the next one, until the last one which may or may not do something? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 14:05:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Samuel Svarc via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 17:05:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Apr 15, 2015 6:01 AM, "Micha Berger via Avodah" wrote: > On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > : Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld > : regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. > ... > :> Moshe Oelbaum > :> Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum > Authentication? Um, the fact that R' Oelbaum says the same thing on the KosherSwitch video ()? What I find very disturbing is that this information is in the public arena. Why are people commenting or conjecturing without looking at the companies materials? On Apr 16, 2015 2:46 PM, "Micha Berger" wrote: > PS: On the relevance of random delay to gerama... > AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes > the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable > to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, > as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. > The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is > *geram* kibui". > A case of gerama with a random time delay. But this is Yom Tov, where > the laws against extinguishing are looser. The AhS refers you to OC > 277:7, where we see that on Shabbos it's assur -- but because of a > special gezeira to prevent people from doing the same when the wind *is* > blowing. Not because of gerama. Take a look at R' Schapiro's teshuva (available on the KosherSwitch website) as well as listen to the shuir they link to (26 min.). KT, MSS From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 14:48:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 17:48:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150416214839.GC1824@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 04:25:42PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: :> What's relevant is the probability of the wind eventually blowing the :> candle out or the switch turning the light off. If it's a rov or maybe :> a rube deruba, then it's gerama. : That doesn't seem to be what the SA says. But again, with the caveat that : intention might make a difference. But we already know it does, according to RSZa and numerous other posqim. IOW, your seifa answers your reisha. : >Whether you can break down the likelihood of the melakhah occuring into : >a union of the probability of a number of sub-steps or not doesn't seem : >to me to impact the question. Because this isn't a safeiq situation, : >it's whether your action can be blamed for the melakhah. : It's putting further causal distance between "cause" and "effect". : What if you had a series of these routines, each of which may or may not : call the next one, until the last one which may or may not do something? That's exactly what I'm saying -- gerama is always a chain of events that can be subdivided according to your taste (how fine grained you wish to define the word "event"). There is an oft-discussed difference between melakhah and CM, where the latter subdivides into gerama (culpable) and garmi (no libability) but hilkhos Shabbos does not. And then even so, garmi is about number of human actions, not physical events. On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 05:05:38PM -0400, Samuel Svarc wrote: : On Apr 15, 2015 6:01 AM, "Micha Berger via Avodah" : wrote: :> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: :>: Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld :>: regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. :> ... :>:> Moshe Oelbaum :>:> Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum :> Authentication? : Um, the fact that R' Oelbaum says the same thing on the KosherSwitch video : ()? YOu misunderstand what I'm asking to be authenticated. Yes, I agree that RNIO talks about zilzul Shabbos. He does in the original alleged approbation in print (or PDF) as well. I was asking for authentication that RMO was really the one who said it's "only" zilzul Shabbos and not also gerama. There is nothing in his caveat about them avoiding melakhah that explains in what way shabbos is being cheapened. Could be uvda dechol, could be gerama, could be any other derabbanan or shevus. No? Not to verify the new "chumera", but to very he wasn't being even more machmir. That's a lot to glean from a post on a YWN chatroom that claims to be from his son. No one identity checks on YWN. : What I find very disturbing is that this information is in the public : arena. Why are people commenting or conjecturing without looking at the : companies materials? In the same post I cite the site in numerous ways, including commenting on parts of the patent application. It's not like I stinted on the research. Never blame until the possibility of miscommunication has been eliminated. No? : On Apr 16, 2015 2:46 PM, "Micha Berger" wrote: : Take a look at R' Schapiro's teshuva (available on the KosherSwitch : website) as well as listen to the shuir they link to (26 min.). One thing I had noted about the teshuvah is that he doesn't bother with the whole thing about a second randomizer. Which is why I was lost as to why anyone would think this is more mutar, and why people who generally follow RSZA more often than RZS would think this solves anything. See R' Neuwirth's summary rejection, repudiating the claim he backed their work . Consistent with what he reported besheim RSZA decades ago. I already noted OC 277, which is specific to geram kibui being mutar, with the exception of taking a candle outside while the wind is calm, lest someone not wait for the wind to be calm. And havarah or bishul? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 18:59:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:59:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150417015924.GA11845@aishdas.org> Here's the current state of my understnading, to start the conversation over by clearing the exchanges that got me there. Feel free to correct any misunderstandings, or even points that needn't necessarily be as I present them. 1- RSZA considers Zomet's Gerama Switch to be just that -- gerama, and therefore assur derabanan except in special cases. Randomly delayed changes to a circuit is, leshitaso, gerama. 2- KSTI considers their switch to be halachically different because their version of the Gerama Switch then goes into a second randomizer which determines whether or not it actually turns on or off your light. They invoke the words "sefeik sefeika", which I don't understand, since the random element is to insure an unknown delay, not a doubt about whether or not the switch eventually turns the light on. 3- Those who hold like RSZA -- R Neuwirth (obviously), R' Nebenzahl, R' Shternbuch -- gave the same ruling to the new switch. 4- Those who say this switch is gerama do not actually invoke the second random element. I found nothing in that wouldn't apply to Zomet's switch. I see them as simply disagreeing with RSZA and R' Yehoshua Neuwirth when they dealt with that question decades ago. Which, given the stature of RSZA and the acceptance of Shemiras Shabbos keHilhasah (and thus RYN), I don't think will get very far in terms of communal acceptance. 5- The Machloqes between RSZA and R Chaim Zvi Shapiro (to pick two representative names) appears to be over how to understand the distinction between two statements by the Rama: 334:22- Geram kibui is only allowed in special cases, and 514:3- You may put a cnandle next to an open window even in a windy area. RSZA distinguishes between whether the intent is kibui or not. RCZS makes the chiluq between whether the maaseh is one of kibui. But I still don't see how this makes the Kosher Switch not a maaseh kibui that we would group it with open windows, not the normal geram kibui. 6- You can't take a candle outside to a windy area even when there is no wind because of a gezeira atu not waiting for the wind to die down. This is different than the window, because one is moving the candle itself. Still, the Magein AvrahamA applies the gezeira to the window as well -- inlike the Rama. So my wondering about how the Kosher Switch isn't a maaseh kibui means that I also have no idea why the switch wouldn't be covered by the gezeira. And according to the MA, the gezeira definitely applies, regardless. If so, wouldn't you need the switch to be physically blocked when the response could be immediately, and not merely warned off with a red light? 6- R' Oelbaum is against general usage, due to zilzul Shabbos. (To my understanding, zilzul Shabbos means violating a shevus or other deRabbanan, chilul Shabbos means deOraisa.) According to he explicitly states "it is clear it is not a grama". So, my prior approach to figuring out what he holds was pointless. Regardless of whether the person in YWN's chatroom is his son or just someone pretending to be, ie whether that text is likely to reflect the nuances of his position. And regardless how one is medayeiq the difference between melakhah and zilzul, ie whether he considers geram melakhah a melakhah or a shevus. RNIO is in the same camp as R' Chaim Zvi Shapiro WRT the mechanics of gerama, but with RSZA it all in practice. But at least now my opening question has some kind of resolution: No poseiq makes a point about how the switches differ, its a machloqes about whether the switch is more like bringing a candle outside or opening a window. It may also be a machloqes about whether it's only geram kibui that is limited to acts of kibui, or even other melakhos. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 17:56:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 20:56:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <10e550.ca50480.4261b459@aol.com> From: Zev Sero via Avodah >> Why not? For the shabbos-keeping household, a switch that sometimes fails is better than no switch at all.<< -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name >>>>> Now that Shabbos lamps are readily available -- they work by covering the light rather than turning it off -- why do we need the Shabbos switch at all? --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 18:08:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 01:08:53 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150416.210853.21413.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> > But that whole discussion assumes that > extinguishing the flame is not the purpose for which the door is being > opened, it's just a possible side-effect. Is the halacha different if > that was the intention? If the operative principle were Psik Reisha, then intention certainly would matter. So here's a question: Is Grama a version of Aino Psik Reisha, or is it another principle entirely? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55305d31763705d3173a1st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 15:56:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 23:56:59 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This idea (that the days of the Omer are a type of chol hamoed) is mentioned in Avoidas Yisroel [Koznitse Maggid] and Ramban in Acharie Mois. Dovid Rubin From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 18:27:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:27:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] re Chametz post Pesach Message-ID: >What did it grow out of? Avoiding she'avar alav es hapesach? A way of avoiding chodosh, at least during the omer period?< Since chadash is grain which has taken root after the minchas ha'omer on the second day of Pesach, and it takes more than 7 weeks for newly-sown grain to be ready for harvest, how is it possible for chadash to exist between Pesach and Shavuos? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 19:22:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 02:22:34 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Joel Rich asked: > Question: If one doesn?t view eilu v?eilu as multiple truths > but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don?t know which > is which), ... You've lost me. Doesn't the grammar and definition of the words "eilu v'eilu" imply that the two things under discussion are equal? I just can't wrap my brain around a way to translate "eilu v'eilu" where one is truth and the other isn't. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 19:35:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 22:35:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150417015924.GA11845@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150417015924.GA11845@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5530716C.8070201@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 09:59 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > They invoke the words "sefeik sefeika", which I don't understand, since > the random element is to insure an unknown delay, not a doubt about > whether or not the switch eventually turns the light on. I assume they disagree with this characterisation. This is your editorial opinion, that since it's inevitable that sooner or later the ducks will all be in a row and the light will come on, all that it achieves is a delay of random length. They would say no, each time the sequence is triggered (let's say every minute) is a discrete event, in which there is a sfek-sfeka whether anything will happen, and the fact that in the next hour there will be 60 more such opportunities, one of which is "bound" to succeed, is irrelevant. They would also point out that there *is* in fact a doubt whether the light will ever turn on (before Shabbos is over or the owner decides to flip the switch back), and they would deny your premise that the tininess of that doubt renders it meaningless. *You* think it's halachically insignificant; they are not required to agree with you. > But at least now my opening question has some kind of resolution: > No poseiq makes a point about how the switches differ, its a machloqes > about whether the switch is more like bringing a candle outside or > opening a window. They seem to say that this is like a case where at the time you open the window there is neither a wind nor a candle, but you know that some time later a goy is likely to put a candle in front of the window, and that some time after that a wind is likely to blow and put it out. On 04/16/2015 08:56 PM, T613K at aol.com via Avodah wrote: > Now that Shabbos lamps are readily available -- they work by covering > the light rather than turning it off -- why do we need the Shabbos > switch at all? I assume 1. To save electricity 2. If you want a brighter light than you can get from a 15w CF light (which is the maximum that it's safe to put in a Shabbos lamp) 3. For applications other than lights -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 20:02:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 03:02:13 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel wrote: > On many birchot hamitzva one can be motzeh others even when they > are "experts". This includes shofar, megilla etc (not lulav or > netillat yadaim which is considered as a mitzvah be-gufo) > similarly for kiddush and havdala. > > Note that for sefirat haomer usually each person says the bracha > himself/herself and also counts for themselves. I am not aware of any situation where the halacha says that I cannot say a birkat hamitzva on your behalf, AND that the reason why I cannot do so is because you are a baki. (There might be other good reasons, depending on the situation, but I don't know that "being a baki" is ever such a reason.) That said, I do concede that the common practice is for one person to say the bracha on shofar and megilla for all the assembled, yet we all say our own brachos on lulav, hallel, and sefira. I have never seen this explanation, but I've always felt there was a very simple explanation for how this distinction developed: When I take the lulav, say hallel, or count sefira, I am doing the mitzvah myself. I am doing it in shul, among many other people, but we are each acting as individuals. I do the mitzvah myself, so I say the bracha on it myself. In contrast, I am dependent on someone else to blow the shofar or read the megillah. You can say that I am personally hearing the shofar with my own ears, and you can say that "shome'a k'oneh" means that I am actively doing the mitzvah of krias hamegillah -- but the bottom line, l'maaseh, is that if the guy on the bimah messes up, I've lost the mitzvah. I am dependent on him to get the mitzvah done. I have to do my share of the work too, of course, by paying attention etc etc, but that's not enough. We *both* have to do it right. Under such conditions, I really don't want to risk saying a bracha that could end up being l'vatala. I'd rather answer Amen to *his* birkas hamitzvah. Following that logic, someone who has his own kosher megila, and actually reads along with the baal kriah, ought to say his own Al Mikra Megila. I suppose so! This distinction appears in other brachos too, even brachos other than birchos hamitzvah. For example, at Kol Nidre, everyone says their own Shehecheyanu on the Yom Tov, because, why not? We all say our own Netilas Yadayim, and brachos on Talis and Tefilin, for the same reason. We all listen to one person say Kiddush, but I think that's mostly because only he/she has a cup from which to drink the required amount. But at the Seder, everyone has a cup, so (in many families) everyone says their own Kiddush. EXCEPTION: There are some brachos which *ought* to be said by each individual according to the above logic, but we rely on the other person because a few brachos got bundled together. For example, if we pass around the b'samim and candle at havdala, we should each say our own bracha on them, but most people don't, because it is part of havdala. Similarly, if you are at the Seder and don't have your own 2.5 matzos in front of you, you'll have to hear Hamotzi from someone because of Lechem Mishne, but why not say your own Al Achilas Matza after you have a piece in your hand, and the answer is because Motzi Matzah go together. All of the above is purely my own logic, and I'm sure many of you will be able to punch some good holes in it. And I'm looking forward to reading that! Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553077e61f4dd77e644e0st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 22:30:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 01:30:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] SF - Focus on the Good Message-ID: <20150417053029.35F10181384@nexus.stevens.edu> [] Focus on the Good In ancient days if a person spoke loshon horah he contracted tza'aras. The message was that just as he exposed the flaws of a person, so too, his flaws were exposed. His rectification was to go into isolation and introspect on his own shortcomings. Lesson: If we focus on the faults of others, we are held responsible to correct our own faults. If we focus of the good of others, HaShem will mercifully overlook our flaws and focus exclusively on our good. App: Avoid saying all unbecoming comments about others. (Based on the writings of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 02:52:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 05:52:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150417095237.GB2327@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 17, 2015 at 03:02:13AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I am not aware of any situation where the halacha says that I cannot : say a birkat hamitzva on your behalf, AND that the reason why I cannot : do so is because you are a baki. (There might be other good reasons, : depending on the situation, but I don't know that "being a baki" is ever : such a reason.) More than that, Beis Hillel (Berakhos 38a, brought lehalakhah AhS OC 298:28) gives *preference* to one person making havdalah for all than each person making their own, because of berov am hadras Melekh. Similarly, it is better to be yotzei qiddush from the baal habayis than each person make their own. (AhS OC 273:6, citing Berakhos 53a, and a din mentioned in most Hagados, because at the seder each person already has their own kos.) But when it comes to birkhas shevach and birkhos hanehenin (which are unattached to other berakhos, unlike the the borei peri hagafen of qiddush or havdalah), we do hold that it's better to make your own. (Berakhos 42a) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 13th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Gevurah: To what extent is judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 necessary for a good relationship? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 05:01:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 12:01:53 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150417.080153.18454.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero explained two views: > I assume they disagree with this characterisation. This is your > editorial opinion, that since it's inevitable that sooner or later > the ducks will all be in a row and the light will come on, all that > it achieves is a delay of random length. They would say no, each > time the sequence is triggered (let's say every minute) is a > discrete event, in which there is a sfek-sfeka whether anything > will happen, and the fact that in the next hour there will be 60 > more such opportunities, one of which is "bound" to succeed, is > irrelevant. They would also point out that there *is* in fact a > doubt whether the light will ever turn on (before Shabbos is over > or the owner decides to flip the switch back), and they would deny > your premise that the tininess of that doubt renders it > meaningless. *You* think it's halachically insignificant; they > are not required to agree with you. If I'm understanding this correctly, the difference of opinion centers on: how many links does the chain need, to reach a point where one end has no halachically significant effect on the other end. To me, this whole discussion is very reminiscent of another topic in hilchos Shabbos, namely, that the Gemara never gave any halachos about cooking in a Kli Shlishi. One view says: "A Kli Rishon obviously cooks, and we were told that some easily-cooked things are capable of being cooked in a Kli Sheni, but that's as far as they went, so obviously nothing can get cooked in a Kli Shlishi." The other view says: "A Kli Rishon obviously cooks, and we were told that some easily-cooked things are capable of being cooked even in other keilim, so you have to be careful with *any* keli that's above Yad Soledes." To me, both of those arguments are very logical, and we must follow our poskim to know which one Hashem wants us to follow. I imagine that this whole Grama discussion might be similar: Chazal laid out circumstances under which indirect action is still assur -- so does that mean that *all* indirect action is assur?, or perhaps I can structure an even more remote indirectness which is acceptably distant. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5530f6662145376662eacst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 06:04:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 09:04:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: A shabbos lamp is tiny. Do you have shabbos lamps to light up your dining room table or the main lighting on a timer? > On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 8:56 PM, via Avodah > wrote: > >> >> Now that Shabbos lamps are readily available -- they work by covering the >> light rather than turning it off -- why do we need the Shabbos switch at >> all? >> >> >> >> >> *--Toby Katzt613k at aol.com * >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 06:54:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 06:54:30 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] yom hazikaron origin Message-ID: http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/Parasha/tazria/Ahrend.pdf on rav goren's placement of yom hazikaron on 4 iyar, analogizing to the israeli shmini atzeret , where hakafot precedes yizkor... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 08:26:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 15:26:20 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: > Question: If one doesn?t view eilu v?eilu as multiple truths > but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don?t know which > is which), ... You've lost me. Doesn't the grammar and definition of the words "eilu v'eilu" imply that the two things under discussion are equal? I just can't wrap my brain around a way to translate "eilu v'eilu" where one is truth and the other isn't. ------------------------------------------------------ See here https://kavvanah.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/rav-soloveitchik-religious-definitions-of-man-and-his-social-institutions-part-1of-7-1958/ for a general approach (especially "Part III- Rav Soloveitchik?s God In Judaism, God himself is the hidden God, Jal Mistatar ? unknowable and unknown. The Jewish experience of God (shared by other religions is antithetic, a polarity. it has both remoteness and intimate closeness. How is that possible? Judaism does not use Aristotelian logic of excluded middle. Unlike classic physic, modern physics uses both waves and particles; modern physics does not use Aristotle. God is both remote and close- in our encounter we are bewildered and comforted. Since Creation is also revelation, the every tree also incomprehensible strange. " And here for some more specifics: http://nishma.org/articles/commentary/slifkinrevisted3print.pdf especially starting around page 11. KT Joel Rich (who still can't really understand the double slit experiment, yet it's there) THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 08:54:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 11:54:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150417155456.GA7366@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 02:15:53PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Question: If one doesn't view eilu v'eilu as multiple truths but rather : one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which is which), how do : you explain the approach to halachic process which ignores academic : findings concerning texts or historical circumstances? To quote myself from : Last week I drew the conclusion from the Qetzos haChoshen that Torah is not Truth, it -- combined with the Jewish People -- is the process by which "Truth will bloom from the earth".... Thus, "vechayei olam nata besokheinu" -- Emes is matzmiach from the Torah. Note that the Torah isn't actually identified with Emes, but the process to get there. ... Rav Moshe Feinstein discusses the halachic process and the role of poseiq in his introduction to Igros Mosheh. (The introduction itself deserves serious study.) He writes about "ha'emes lehora'ah umichuyav lehoros kein af al pi im be'etzem galyah kelapei shemaya galya she'eino kein hapeirush - the true ruling, and one is obligated to teach accordingly, even if in essence is it revealed in heaven that this isn't the correct eplanation!" The ideal is following the pesaq as according to the process. As proof, Rav Moshe brings the gemara in Shabbos 130. We rule that only the milah itself overrules Shabbos. All preparation before the milah must be done in advance. Rabbi Eliezer ruled that anything necessary for the milah, even cutting wood to make the fire to make the knife, etc... could also be done on Shabbos. There was a town in Israel that followed Rabbi Eliezer. The gemara says that Hashem rewarded them for their tenacity for the mitzvah of milah. No one in that town died an early death. And when the Romans passed a law in Israel against milah, they exempted that one town from the law! Who was right -- this town, which was rewarded for their position, or we, who rule differently? If we understand that the essence of halakhah is that it and the Jewish People become one in a process to make truth bloom in this world, we can understand how the answer could be "both". Torah, like life, is about becoming, not being. IOW, if Torah is a legal process to reach the truth, and halakhah is law rather than truths, then it would be reasonable for an truth foung by extra-legal means to be irrelevant. We aren't up to pursuing Truth directly yet, we pursue the law. Someday they'll be identical, and and the neti'ah of chayei olam will have been matzmiach into Emes. On Fri, Apr 17, 2015 at 02:22:34AM +0000, R' Akiva ("Kenneth") Miller replied to RJR: : You've lost me. Doesn't the grammar and definition of the words "eilu : v'eilu" imply that the two things under discussion are equal? I just : can't wrap my brain around a way to translate "eilu v'eilu" where one : is truth and the other isn't. RMF says they're equally balid legally, but not as Truths. Implied is that Divrei E-lokim Chaim are on the meta-level, instructions about about how to hunt for halakhah, not the individual halachic conclusions themselves. Eilu va'eilu follow Hashem's instructions for how to pasqen, but the halakhah is like Beis Hillel. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 13th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Gevurah: To what extent is judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 necessary for a good relationship? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 10:03:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 13:03:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Derech Eretz: What is it the sets man apart from the animal? Message-ID: <20150417170308.D3E50183221@nexus.stevens.edu> Perhaps if yeshiva students were taught again and again, RSRH's commentary about what sets man (and this refers to all men, not just Jews) apart from the animal, then they would realize that every human being is to be treated with Derech Eretz and thus proper respect. YL The following is from RSRH's commentary on Bereishis 2:7 7 Then God formed man, dust of the ground, and breathed into his countenance the breath of life, and thus man became a living personality. What is it that sets man apart from the animal? The living individuality of the animal depends on earthly matter; like its body, so its soul, too, was taken from the earth. Not so man. In the creation of man, only the inert material was taken from the earth; only when God breathed into him the breath of life did he become a living individual. Herein lies the nobility and immortality of man, and this is the whole source of his freedom . That which gives the animal its individuality emanates from the earth and must eventually return to the earth. Not so that which makes man a ?living personality.? Man?s preeminence over the animal is not only in his spirit, but also in his vitality. His vitality is linked not to his body, but to his spirit. When he received a spirit he received life, his soul adhering to the spirit. When the spirit departs from the body, the vital soul is not buried with the remains; for man?s soul is bound up with his spirit, not his body. This is why his physical survival and health do not depend on his body alone. Of the many dangers to the life of an animal, not all are dangers to man. The survival of a man cannot be predicted with the same degree of accuracy as the survival of an animal. Adom yesh lo mazel ( Bava Kamma 2b): there is something in man that defies prediction. A man?s spirit will sustain him, even if it appears that all hope is lost; for the spirit sustains life. Who can gauge the power of an unbroken spirit? Who can calculate how long it can keep the body alive? Thus man is composed of two elements that are completely different from each other. One of these was taken from the earth. But man does not belong to the earth; rather, the earth ? as its name, Adama, implies ? has been given to man to rule. So, too, man?s body, which is afar min Ha?Adomo, is subject to man?s control. His true, living, spiritual essence is not dependent on the body; hence, even while he is physically combined with the earthly element, he can and should exercise control over the earthly in him. The afar, the earthly element, in him cannot be released from the realm of physical compulsion and is subject to the influence of earthly factors. But the nishmas chaim, which God breathed into man and which first made man a human being, imparts to man of the dignity of its source and releases him from all physical compulsion; it grants him freedom and elevates his body, too, into the realm of freedom. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 11:45:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mordechai Harris via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 13:45:49 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: > > That said, I do concede that the common practice is for one person to say > the bracha on shofar and megilla for all the assembled, yet we all say our > own brachos on lulav, hallel, and sefira. In the case of Lulav (first day - which is D'Oraita) and counting Sefira, the Pasuk uses the word Lachem which teaches of the need for each individual to have/count their own. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 12:26:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 15:26:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <55315E57.30506@sero.name> On 04/17/2015 02:45 PM, Mordechai Harris via Avodah wrote: >> That said, I do concede that the common practice is for one person >> to say the bracha on shofar and megilla for all the assembled, yet >> we all say our own brachos on lulav, hallel, and sefira. > In the case of Lulav (first day - which is D'Oraita) and counting > Sefira, the Pasuk uses the word Lachem which teaches of the need for > each individual to have/count their own. What has this got to do with the bracha? I actually had meant to post about this, since I've been wondering for some time why it is that the world's minhag is for each person to say their own bracha on hallel and sefira, after hearing the chazan's bracha. Doesn't the usual rule of "berov am" mean that everyone should be yotzei with his bracha? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 13:47:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 16:47:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is from today's Halacha for Today http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ Erev Shabbos Kodesh Parashas Shemini (Parashiyos Tazria- Metzorah in Eretz Yisroel); Mevorchim Chodesh Iyar; Rosh Chodesh will be on Sunday and Monday 28 Nisan , 5775 April 17, 2015 CURRENT TOPIC: REVIEW OF HALACHOS OF SEFIRAS HA'OMER Halachos for Erev Shabbos Kodesh 1) The thirty third day of the Omer, the 18th of Iyar, is referred to as "Lag B'Omer" and the early sources already treat this day as a special day, as a kind of Yom Tov. (See Sefer Hamanhig page 91a and Meiri to Yevamos 62b) 2) The Tur (Siman 493:3) states that the Talmidim of Rav Akiva stopped dying on Lag B'Omer. However, the Talmud (Yevamos 62b) clearly states that they died from Pesach all the way until Shavuos. If that is so, what then is the significance of the 33rd day of the Omer and why does the Tur write that they stopped dying on that day? The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between the Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the days between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not say Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh Chodesh Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 days in all. Therefore they only died on 32 of the 49 days. As a commemoration of this, we designate the "33rd" day as the day that the dying stopped and we celebrate that day, but not that it totally stopped on Lag B'Omer. ---------- Note that according to the Maharil tachanun was originally said during Nissan except for the days indicated! I wonder when saying Tachanun during Nissan ended. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 14:10:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 21:10:04 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150417.171004.3030.1@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitchok Levine reposted: > The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between > the Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the > days between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not > say Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh > Chodesh Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 > days in all. > > Therefore they only died on 32 of the 49 days... ... There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in both of those. Therefore, there are not "17 days in all", but only 16, leaving 33 days on which they died. (And this presumes that none of the 3 Rosh Chodesh days was Shabbos.) In any case, I am very curious how the commemoration of this event ended up as 33 *somewhat* consecutive days, including Shabbos. If the talmidim really died only on the days cited, our procedure sounds like cheating, at least sort of. Granted that a commemoration does NOT have to follow all the details of the event being remembered, but this pushes the envelope on that, in my opinion. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55317717a31937717329dst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 13:58:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 20:58:03 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <20150417.165803.3030.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero asked: > I actually had meant to post about this, since I've been > wondering for some time why it is that the world's minhag is for > each person to say their own bracha on hallel and sefira, after > hearing the chazan's bracha. Doesn't the usual rule of "berov > am" mean that everyone should be yotzei with his bracha? In theory (="l'halacha"), yes, you are correct. But in practice (="l'maaseh") Rov Am gets beat by our lack of kavana. Rov Am is an important hidur, but the ikar is to insure that one is yotzay, and that is more easily insured by saying it oneself. (It's like if one is forced to choose between an esrog which is definitely kosher but only barely so, vs. one which is beautiful but *might* be pasul. To me, it's a no-brainer that one would choose the barely kosher one.) This explanation fits my previous post well: We are all yotzay with someone else's bracha on the shofar and megillah, but NOT because of Rov Am, only because the bracha is somewhat risky because I'm relying on someone else. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5531743bc92df743b2646st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Apr 18 18:34:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sat, 18 Apr 2015 21:34:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Correction to Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150419013412.5B7E7181C69@nexus.stevens.edu> I sent out a couple of days ago. The following is from today's Halacha for Today http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between the Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the days between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not say Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh Chodesh Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 days in all. Therefore they only died on 32 of the 49 days. As a commemoration of this, we designate the "33rd" day as the day that the dying stopped and we celebrate that day, but not that it totally stopped on Lag B'Omer. ---------- Note this calculation is wrong. If one counts 7 days of Pesach then one has included one Shabbos. This leaves 6 Shabbasos until Shavuous. Thus one has 7 days of Pesach, 6 Shabbasos, 2 days Rosh Chodesh Iyar and one day Rosh Chodesh Sivan. Hence 7+6+2+1 = 16 days on which Tachanun was not said. 49 -16 = 33, and this is where the 33 days of aveilus comes from. Thus Tachanun was said not only during Nissan except for the days that are excluded, but also on Lag B'Omer . YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Apr 18 21:19:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 00:19:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <55332CDA.60208@sero.name> > 2) The Tur (Siman 493:3) states that the Talmidim of Rav Akiva > stopped dying on Lag B'Omer. > > However, the Talmud (Yevamos 62b) clearly states that they died from > Pesach all the way until Shavuos. If that is so, what then is the > significance of the 33rd day of the Omer and why does the Tur write > that they stopped dying on that day? He does not say any such thing. He says that *some* people have haircuts from the 33rd day on, because *they say* that this is when the dying stopped. The long list of rishonim who hold this cite a medrash that disagrees with the gemara, and says the dying stopped 15 days before Shavuos. The Tur himself does not express an opinion on the matter. > The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between the > Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the days > between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not say > Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh Chodesh > Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 days in all.* This is *not* a Maharil! It's supposedly a Tosfos, I don't know where. But there seem to be two versions of what this Tosfos says, which is why it would be nice to see the original. Mahari Ibn Shuaib (a talmid of the Rashba, and the rebbe of the Tzeida Laderech) cites this Tosfos as saying that the mourning takes place on 33 days during the Omer, because there are 16 days when no mourning is appropriate. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=9416&pgnum=131 The Bach, however, cites "Acharonim" who cite this Tosfos as saying that they didn't die on these 16 days. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=14268&pgnum=330 On 04/17/2015 04:47 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > Note that according to the Maharil tachanun was originally said > during Nissan except for the days indicated! I wonder when saying > Tachanun during Nissan ended. YL Not Tachanun. Techina, i.e. Kel Erech Apayim, Lamnatzeach Ya`ancha, etc. According to minhag Ashkenaz these are said even on days when there is no nefilas apayim, but not on Yomtov, Chol Hamoed, Shabbos, or Rosh Chodesh. [Email #2. -micha] On 04/17/2015 05:10 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos > Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or > it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in > both of those. Indeed, the Bach noters this and corrects it. > In any case, I am very curious how the commemoration of this event > ended up as 33 *somewhat* consecutive days, including Shabbos. If the > talmidim really died only on the days cited, our procedure sounds > like cheating, at least sort of. Granted that a commemoration does > NOT have to follow all the details of the event being remembered, but > this pushes the envelope on that, in my opinion. Well, according to the Tosfos as Mahari ibn Shuaib quotes it, the common interpretation of 33 days is *wrong*, and the correct minhag is to mourn for 33 days during the sefirah, i.e. all days except Pesach, Shabbos, and Rosh Chodesh. He does *not* say that they only died on these days. The first place I've seen the idea that Tosfos says they only died on those days is in the Bach. He sees it as justifying our mourning for only 33 days, not 34, as we should if our source were the medrash that the dying stopped 15 days before Shavuos. And since they only died on 33 days, our mourning period only lasts 33 days, including Shabbos, even though (according to this view) they didn't die on Shabbos. How exactly we mourn on Shabbos I'm not sure, but I assume the idea is that we do, so we count it toward the 33 days. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 06:26:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 09:26:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <55332CDA.60208@sero.name> References: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> <55332CDA.60208@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150419132604.GB19240@aishdas.org> On Sun, Apr 19, 2015 at 12:19:38AM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : >Note that according to the Maharil tachanun was originally said : >during Nissan except for the days indicated! I wonder when saying : >Tachanun during Nissan ended. YL : : Not Tachanun. Techina, i.e. Kel Erech Apayim, Lamnatzeach Ya`ancha, etc. : According to minhag Ashkenaz these are said even on days when there is no : nefilas apayim, but not on Yomtov, Chol Hamoed, Shabbos, or Rosh Chodesh. I am now wondering: why those techinos and not Tachanun? After all, as the name implies (and the Gra emphasizes), Tachanun is itself the core techinah. (Or perhaps "Elokai, Netzor Leshoni" is more central, since that's the one we place immediately "basar tzelosana", before aqiras raglayim.) I would bet (if I had spare money to bet with) that's the same question as asking why we're nofeil apayim for one but not the other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 04:00:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 11:00:12 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150419.070012.19808.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> I wrote: > There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos > Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or > it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in > both of those. R' Zev Sero added: > Indeed, the Bach notes this and corrects it. Glad to hear that, thank you. But over Shabbos, I thought of another problem: R' Akiva's talmidim were in Eretz Yisrael. There would never be a year where Pesach contains 7 days of Sefira. Even when including Shabbos Chol Hamoed, that yields only 6 days. Add 6 post- Pesach Shabbosim, and 3 days of Rosh Chodesh, and you have only 15 days of no Tachanun, leaving 34 days of mourning. Perhaps this is why Mechaber 493:2 says that the mourning continues straight through Lag Baomer, and does not end until the morning of the 34th. Note that Mishne Brurah 493:7 says that although most of the dying stopped on the 33rd, some deaths did occur on the 34th. I must point out that the above is true only when Pesach begins on Sunday, Monday or Tuesday. In years when it begins on Shabbos, as it did this year, then Eretz Yisrael does have a full seven post-Pesach Sabbaths in Sefira, totalling 16 no-Tachanun days, leaving 33 for mourning. BUT - In years when Pesach begins on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday (and even nowadays Thursday is a real possibility), one of the Rosh Chodesh days will coincide with Shabbos. This lowers the count to 6 days of Pesach, 6 Shabbasos, and only 2 days of Rosh Chodesh - a total of only 14 no-Tachanun days, leaving 35 for mourning. I can't help but wonder how the calendar looked that particular year. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ 4 Fish to Never Eat Click to Learn 4 Fish to NEVER Eat (avoid these like the plague!) http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55338b0147138b0126d6st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 10:34:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 13:34:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <20150419.070012.19808.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150419.070012.19808.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5533E71A.9080700@sero.name> On 04/19/2015 07:00 AM, Kenneth Miller wrote: > I wrote: >> There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos >> Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or >> it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in >> both of those. > > R' Zev Sero added: >> Indeed, the Bach notes this and corrects it. > > Glad to hear that, thank you. But over Shabbos, I thought of another > problem: R' Akiva's talmidim were in Eretz Yisrael. There would never > be a year where Pesach contains 7 days of Sefira. Even when including > Shabbos Chol Hamoed, that yields only 6 days. Add 6 post- Pesach > Shabbosim, and 3 days of Rosh Chodesh, and you have only 15 days of > no Tachanun, leaving 34 days of mourning. Except, as you note, in a year like this one. > Perhaps this is why Mechaber 493:2 says that the mourning continues > straight through Lag Baomer, and does not end until the morning of > the 34th. No, the Mechaber had never heard of this Tosfos that the Bach cites in the name of the "Acharonim". On the contrary, the only Tosfos he seems aware of on topic is the one cited by Mahari ibn Shuaib, which says that the plague raged throughout the Sefira, but that we only mourn for 33 days, because we skip Yomtov, Shabbos, and Rosh Chodesh. The Mechaber's own minhag follows the medrash that the plague stopped 15 days before Shavuos, i.e. the 34th was the last day. Either there are two versions of this Tosfos, or the Acharonim whom the Bach quotes are talking about the same Tosfos as Mahari ibn Shuaib does, and one of them misunderstood it. It would be nice to find it inside (though of course that would not rule out a different girsa). -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 10:36:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 17:36:03 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150419.133603.21006.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero wrote: > Not Tachanun. Techina, i.e. Kel Erech Apayim, Lamnatzeach > Ya`ancha, etc. According to minhag Ashkenaz these are said even > on days when there is no nefilas apayim, but not on Yomtov, Chol > Hamoed, Shabbos, or Rosh Chodesh. R' Micha Berger wrote: > I am now wondering: why those techinos and not Tachanun? Let me add a few more data points: Common practice in Nusach Ashkenaz is to skip Tachanun even for all of the Sefira days of Nisan, and also for all of the pre-Shavuos days of Sivan. (Note that NONE of the various minhagim allow haircuts on ALL of those days. Sounds like a great proof that tachanun takes all the kulos, even contradictory ones.) I concede that this is davka nowadays, and I do not know what the practice was in previous centuries. However, it is difficult for me to imagine anyone ever saying Tachanun on Isru Chag. Perhaps that might answer the point I raised in my previous post about R' Akiva's talmidim being in EY, and that in EY there are only 6 days of Sefirah during Pesach; perhaps the "7" comes from including Isru Chag. I should also mention Pesach Sheni, although that could lead to a messy argument over whether that is really "a non-Tachanun day" or merely "a non-Tachanun afternoon". So I won't mention it. :-) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5533e7dd3196367dd4042st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 09:54:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 12:54:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L Message-ID: <20150419165450.42320180CA8@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is taken in part from Rav Shimon Schwab's Essay The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L that appears in Selected Writings pages 88 -93. Rav Hirsch is usually accepted as the exponent of the Torah im Derech Eretz philosophy. This principle is explained by his grandson, Dr. Isaac Breuer, as follows: "He was strictly opposed to compromise or reconciliation, or even a synthesis: he demanded full and uncompromising rulership of the Torah. The Torah cannot endure co-rulership, far less tolerate it. As a true revolutionary he seized the liberalistic individual, the liberalistic, humanitarian ideal, liberalistic capitalism, and the human intellect, celebrating orgies in the liberalistic science, and dragged them as "circumstances'', in the narrowest sense of the word, to the flaming fire of the Torah to be purified or, if need be, to be consumed. As a true revolutionary he solved the unbearable tension between the Torah and the new era which had dawned over the Jews of Western Europe. He invaded the new era with the weapons of the Torah, analyzed and dissected it down to its last ingredients, and then shaped and reformed it until it could be placed at the feet of the Torah, as new nourishment for the Divine fire. The proclamation of the rulership of the Torah over the new era was the historic achievement of Hirsch's life for his own contemporaries." -- ("Hirsch as a Guide to Jewish History'' in Fundamentals of Judaism, published by Feldheim, 1949.) Unfortunately, the principle of Torah im Derech Eretz is grossly misunderstood by our contemporary Jewish orthodoxy. It does not mean that one who is a full-fledged citizen of hedonistic America and at the same time keeps the laws of the Torah, is a follower of Torah im Derech Eretz. Not to violate the laws of the Torah certainly deserves praise and recognition but it is not an embodiment of the Hirschian philosophy. Likewise, an academy dedicated to the study of science and philosophy, not in order to serve the understanding of Torah or to further the aims of the Torah but as the independent search by the human intellect to understand and control the world around -- even when added to a department of profound and very scholarly Torah studies -this is not an outgrowth of the Torah im Derech Eretz Weltanschauung of Samson Raphael Hirsch. Also, a secular university in Israel, albeit under skullcap auspices, complete with Judaic studies, is extremely remote from a Torah im Derech Eretz school even if it has established a "Samson Raphael Hirsch chair" as part of its academic set-up, something which almost borders on blasphemy . The Orthodox professional who is not regularly "koveah ittim batorah", or otherwise lacks in the performance of mitzvahs, or who is immodest in dress or behavior, is not a follower of Samson Raphael Hirsch. From all of Hirsch's prolific writings, it becomes evident that his main concern was to establish the majesty of the Divine Word and the role of the Divine Will as revealed in the Torah, to dominate all the highways and by-ways of mundane life. Those who abuse Torah im Derech Eretz as a "hetter" to lead a life of easygoing and lenient "Yiddishkeit" or those who consider the Hirschian idea as a compromise between the right and the left in Jewish thinking have distorted the meaning of the principle as laid down in the Mishne, Avos, Perek 2, 2: "Beautiful is the study of Torah combined with Derech Eretz for the effort to attain both makes one forget to commit sins". The Torah is not a mere branch of human knowledge, one discipline amongst many others, but rather must the Torah dominate all secular knowledge and all worldly activities. Equally so, the community of Israel, Klal Yisroel, as well as all Kehillos and organized communities, be they local or international -- which are all segments of Klal Yisroel -- are not supposed to be mere branches of a neutral Israel but are to be totally independent. The Torah community is not beholden to any non-Torah community and it does not even recognize its authenticity. This is the essence of the Hirschian Austritt (separation) ideology. The so-called "Austritt" is the militant vigilance of the conscientious Jew defending the Torah community against all encroachments from the non-Torah powers that be. The "Austritt" and Torah im Derech Eretz go hand in hand, they form "one package", so to speak, and both these aspects of Hirschian thought have one aim: the total domination of Torah over all thinking and actions of individual and national life. He who separates the rule of the Torah over all facets of the communal life of Klal Yisroel from the rule of the Torah over all human knowledge, in short, he who separates the "Austritt" from Torah im Derech Eretz, renders a disservice to both. Instead of becoming an inspiration to serve G-d in the spirit of B'chol D'rochecha dahu, Torah im Derech Eretz is reduced to become an excuse for being "modern but frum", an excuse for the cultural assimilation which plagues the modern Orthodox Jew who considers this world a kosher pleasure cruise eventually resulting in all the sorry hangovers of our age. Let us therefore beware of some common misunderstandings. The motto does not have its accent on the last word but on the first word. It is TORAH -underscored for double emphasis -- with Derech Eretz. Furthermore, the leit-motif is neither Torah and Derech Eretz nor Torah U'Madoh -- the two are not equal partners -- nor must it be twisted around into Derech Eretz plus Torah. It is neither a synthesis of Torah with assimilation nor a bloodless orthopraxy blended with earthbound Americanism. It is none of these. It is Torah im Derech Eretz. It means G-d's Torah in its totality, utilizing Derech Eretz as the means to bring about the Torah's full realization. It means: Torah as a Divine nourishment and the human Derech Eretz as the aromatic ingredient to bring out the Torah's intrinsic flavor to its most perfect bloom. There are two schools of thought and they are both legitimate. One is "Torah Only" and the other is Torah im Derech Eretz. All Torah-conscious Jews work for the same goal. There are various methods and various avenues of approach. They all lead up to the ultimate end of: "Yisgadal v'yisgadash Shmei rabah" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 15:00:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 18:00:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <20150419.133603.21006.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150419.133603.21006.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <55342569.2000502@sero.name> On 04/19/2015 01:36 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > Common practice in Nusach Ashkenaz is to skip Tachanun even for all of the Sefira days of Nisan, This is not just nusach Ashkenaz, it's the universal minhag, originating in Masechet Sofrim 21:3. It's actually the chapter title of Shulchan Aruch OC 429, and AFAIK there is no dissenting opinion or minhag. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 15:08:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Avi Goldstein via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 18:08:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu va'eilu Message-ID: It has always been my understanding that eilu va'eilu means that both (or more than two) are, within the sphere of Torah, "true" as long as they emanate from a valid drashah. As the Rambam writes in Hilchos Mamrim, Perek 2, a Sanhedrin can overturn the ruling of a previous Sanhedrin if that ruling was made based on the yud gimmel middos or based on sevara. The Rambam states that the new ruling becomes normative. So, for example, if a Sanhedrin ruled that yeush shelo mida'as is yeush, that is now the d'oraisa rule. If a later Sanhedrin overturns the ruling, then the new ruling becomes normative. Both, however, are "true," because the Torah has shivim panim; the Torah is multifaceted and can countenance more than one truth. The Rambam seems to hold that Moshe Rabbeinu was merely given the methods by which to darshan; he was not given the various possible halachic outcomes. The Ritva (Eruvin 13b) states that at Sinai, Moshe Rabbeinu was shown 49 possibilities for each halachic situation. Either way, it is up to klal Yisrael to determine what the halacha is, but all the possible outcomes are divrei Elokim Chayim. Avi Goldstein From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 20:47:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 23:47:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L Message-ID: <11211.6b4edbb3.4265d0c0@aol.com> From: "Prof. Levine via Avodah" The following is taken in part from Rav Shimon Schwab's Essay The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L that appears in Selected Writings pages 88 -93. Rav Hirsch is usually accepted as the exponent of the Torah im Derech Eretz philosophy. This principle is explained by his grandson, Dr. Isaac Breuer, as follows: "He was strictly opposed to compromise or reconciliation, or even a synthesis: he demanded full and uncompromising rulership of the Torah. [snip] There are two schools of thought and they are both legitimate. One is "Torah Only" and the other is Torah im Derech Eretz. All Torah-conscious Jews work for the same goal. There are various methods and various avenues of approach. They all lead up to the ultimate end of: "Yisgadal v'yisgadash Shmei rabah" >>>> See the wonderful pamphlet by R' Shimon Schwab, "Eilu ve'Eilu," explaining the broad outlines of the differences between these two hashkafos, "Torah im Derech Eretz" and so-called "Torah-only." I try to re-read this 48-page pamphlet every year. http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/these_and_those.pdf I am grateful to RYL (Prof. Levine) for making this pamphlet available to the public as a pdf. However I note that he is often highly critical of the charedi world, and I believe that R' Hirsch would emphatically not have agreed with him. He would have honored and cherished the talmidei chachamim who devote their lives to limud haTorah, and would have educated his balabatim to take pride in the zechus of financially supporting the "black hat" yeshivos. In the so-called "Torah-only" world they may have disdain for balabatim, but we who believe in TIDE can respect and honor that world of sustained and focused Torah study without internalizing an inferior self-image. We believe in Yisachar and Zevulun even if Yisachar lacks proper respect for Zevulun. We believe in twelve shevatim, we believe in twelve paths through the sea. And we believe that without the shevet of full-time lomdei Torah and talmidei chachamim, the rest of Klal Yisrael would have no kiyum. I would also note that R' Hirsch would certainly not have shared RYL's dour view of present-day Eretz Yisrael. True, all the flaws and failings of Zionism are abundantly on display in the modern Medinah. But at the same time, it takes an almost willful blindness not to see the incredible miracles that have been taking place there over the past sixty years or so. Not the least of these miracles is a flourishing of Torah scholarship, be'eichus uvekamus, the likes of which has not been seen since the churban Bayis Sheni. We owe at least a small measure of gratitude to the Zionist government that helps provide the infrastructure for the Torah community to flourish, and a huge measure of gratitude to the Ribono Shel Olam for allowing us to live in a time in which the beginning of kibbutz galuyos is taking place before our eyes. The sight of thousands of men, young and old, from all corners of the world, streaming into the Mirrer Yeshiva each day, gives us a little foretaste of what it will be like to visit the Third Bais Hamikdash. Again, I urge everyone to read Rav Schwab's wonderful pamphlet, "Eilu ve'Eilu." http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/these_and_those.pdf --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 19:30:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 02:30:15 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: <20150419.223015.3015.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Joel Rich asked: > Question: If one doesn't view eilu v'eilu as multiple truths > but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which > is which), ... I didn't understand that 2nd view, so he suggested to look > here for some more specifics: > http://nishma.org/articles/commentary/slifkinrevisted3print.pdf > especially starting around page 11. On page 4 of that article, the author offers this explanation of the concept of Machlokes L'Shem Shamayim: > ... every individual striving mightily to gain truth and an > understanding of God's Will can only achieve what is possible > within the parameters of his/her own individual being. Since the > fullness of Torah extends beyond the comprehension of any one > individual, machloket must necessarily ensue. It is not simply > that machloket emerges because of the inherent limitations of > the human condition. It is only through the enunciation of > machloket that human beings effectively are able to express the > fullness and truth of the Divine wisdom of Torah. ... Within > this category of disagreement, the existence of differing views > is not a problem. It is actually positive. It is the natural > consequence of a limited humanity trying to encounter the > unlimited nature of God and Torah. Elsewhere in that article, I understood him to say: Because both Hillel and Shammai worked within the rules of how Torah is to be understood, their differing views are equally valid and equally true (notwithstanding the detail that for purely practical reasons, halacha l'maaseh has to go one way or the other). This much fits very well with what I've been taught: Hashem deliberately wrote and designed the Torah in such a way as to allow both Hillel and Shammai to reach those differing views, and when they did reach those views, and (lovingly) refused to yield to the other, they accomplished exactly what Hashem had intended. But RJR referred us specifically to page 11, and on that page, the author brings the two views that RJR had initially posted: > One significant question in this regard, though, that should be > presented is: whether kalpei Shemaya, from the perspective of > Heaven, one view may really be correct or not? How one answers > this question will affect whether one considers any position in > a machloket l'Shem Shamayim as ultimately able to be labeled > incorrect. Effectively the question would be: are all positions > in the disagreement theoretically, equally part of truth and a > decision rendered between the opposing views solely because of > practical necessity? Or is there a truly correct position ? > albeit only able to be ascertained by Heaven ? but we still > accept all positions as part of Torah, albeit some are mistaken, > as they all are equally the best that humanity can achieve and > the mistakes only arise from the actual limitation of the human > being? With all due respect, but it seems to me that this second view is illogical and mistaken. How can there be a view which was obtained by legitimate methods of learning the Torah, without any personal agenda, and the best that humanity can acheive -- and yet be one which Hashem did NOT want us to arrive at? If there is a view that is NOT truly correct, yet the incorrectness can be ascertained only by Heaven, then why did Hashem design the Torah in a manner which allowed us to reach that mistaken conclusion? If only He would have made one little change, if only the pasuk had said this instead of that, then we'd have darshened that pasuk differently, and would have avoided that mistake. But since He did not make that change, but rather He wrote the Torah as we have it, and Toras Hashem Temimah, then I believe that the conclusions reached cannot possibly be mistakes, but rather, this is exactly what we mean by Eilu V'Eilu Divrei Elokim Chayim. (Of course, I am referring only to drashos made with the proper tools, and in the proper manner, such as those made by Hillel and Shammai and others of similar caliber. I am not referring to people who are of lower caliber, or who were working with broken tools. And I'm certainly not referring to people who deliberately distort Torah for their own purposes.) But then, as I was reviewing this post, my mind turned to the Tanur Shel Achnai. R' Eliezer had a minority view, and R' Yehoshua was in the majority. I've got to believe that both views were firmly grounded; this machlokes was surely just as L'Shem Shamayim as any between Hillel and Shammai. I'd *like* to say that Klapei Shmaya, both views were Truth. But then what can I do with Hashem's response of "Nitzchuni banai"? It sure sounds to me like this Judge was not impartial. He was rooting for R' Eliezer! And yet He wrote a Torah that allowed for R' Eliezer's mistaken interpretation. Why would He do that? To paraphrase RJR's question from the very beginning of this post, Tanur Shel Achnai seems to be an example of "eilu v'eilu": At the time of their dispute, it was possible that both views were Truth, but we didn't know which was which, so for practical purposes they took a vote. But later, Eliyahu Hanavi revealed the fact that it was NOT multiple truths, but rather one truth (R' Eliezer) and one nice try (R' Yehoshua). TO RECAP: In the beginning of this post, I explained my logical basis for believing that every true Eilu V'Eilu is a case of multiple Truths. At the end, I brought an example of an Eilu V'Eilu which was "one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which is which)". I cannot reconcile the logic and the example. All I can do is to ask again: Would Hashem really write a Perfect Torah which allows for mistaken interpretation? Why would He do that? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553464ea69a2864ea0cc6st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 01:48:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 11:48:03 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: RMB: Rav Moshe Feinstein discusses the halachic process and the role of poseiq in his introduction to Igros Mosheh. (The introduction itself deserves serious study.) He writes about "ha'emes lehora'ah umichuyav lehoros kein af al pi im be'etzem galyah kelapei shemaya galya she'eino kein hapeirush - the true ruling, and one is obligated to teach accordingly, even if in essence is it revealed in heaven that this isn't the correct explanation!" The ideal is following the pesaq as according to the process. This passage in IM is cited by R. Shalom Rosner in a systematic discussion of the subject of eilu v'eilu in the course of a shiur on Ktuvot 57a at http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/720210/Rabbi_Shalom_Rosner/Kesubos57. Rashi in Ktuvot 57a invokes the principle of eilu 'v'eilu, (read and explained by R. Rosner stating at about 18:30 in the shiur) and R. Rosner elucidates this principle, starting at about 21:30 in the shiur, until about 29:40. For anyone interested in a very clear explanation of the various shittot about what eilu v'eilu means, I can't recommend this shiur highly enough. Very briefly, R. Rosner cites three approaches in the sources 1. Illustrating the truth - The Ran in Drashot HaRan drasha 5 - In this approach, which severely limits the principle of eilu v'eilu, the Ran states that actually only one of the opinions is true. The other opinion is 'divrei Elokim chaim' only insofar as it serves to illustrate and elucidate the other opinion, which is the real truth, as the dark enables us to appreciate a candle. The Chida in Petach Einayim, his commentary on Eiruvin where the principle of eilu v'eilu is cited by the Gemara, takes this approach as well. R. Rosner emphasizes that this is a minority opinion, and personally finds it hard to accept, as he explains in the shiur. 2. Levels of truth - R. Moshe in the hakdama to IM, and R. Yaakov to Bereishit 26, the Netziv in his Hakadama to Haamek Sh'eila, his commentary to the Sheiltot). Using R. Moshe's terminology. there is Emet Shamaymit, and Emet L'Horaa. Both are correct, and in this world we are obligated to follow the emet l'horaa even if it deviates from the ultimate, heavenly truth. 3. Multiple truths (Ritva in Eiruvin, Maharal) - Both opinions are true, reflecting different perspectives of the subject at hand (IMO, this is similar to the previous explanation, without establishing a hierarchy between the truths expressed by the different opinions). R. Rosner states that the Rashi in question on Ktuvot 57a takes this approach. R. Rosner's explanation of the shittot is very lucid and concise. He refers in his shiur to Ktuvot 57 to a previous, more comprehensive shiur he gave on the subject, but I don't know if that shiur is available online. Saul Mashbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 19:43:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 22:43:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] brochos from the amud (was: tefillat haderech) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420024354.CJVF30458.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo110> >R' Zev Sero asked: > > > I actually had meant to post about this, since I've been > > wondering for some time why it is that the world's minhag is for > > each person to say their own bracha on hallel and sefira, after > > hearing the chazan's bracha. Doesn't the usual rule of "berov > > am" mean that everyone should be yotzei with his bracha? R' Akiva Miller wrote: >In theory (="l'halacha"), yes, you are correct. But in practice >(="l'maaseh") Rov Am gets beat by our lack of kavana. Rov Am is an >important hidur, but the ikar is to insure that one is yotzay, and >that is more easily insured by saying it oneself. (It's like if one >is forced to choose between an esrog which is definitely kosher but >only barely so, vs. one which is beautiful but *might* be pasul. To >me, it's a no-brainer that one would choose the barely kosher one.) > >This explanation fits my previous post well: We are all yotzay with >someone else's bracha on the shofar and megillah, but NOT because of >Rov Am, only because the bracha is somewhat risky because I'm >relying on someone else. Slight change of topic: I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea that we don't seem to have a chashash of a brocha l'vatalah. I mean, you have a sh'tz up there, saying a brocho out loud -- and he's intentionally trying to be motzi _some_ others (whoever has missed a day) and everybody says amen, and then they say the brocho themselves. No chashash for an issur d'oraissa? Shomea k'onen doesn't apply at all? What if you are in the shul and you're not thinking about the issue of being yotzie, you're just thinking about which day it is, and/or you simply have stam kavanah. No chashash for an issur d'oraissa? Apparently not because almost everybody does that. But I don't get it. (To satisfy my own comfort level, my preferred action to is to focus and have kavanah to be yotzie with the brocho, say amen, and then I don't have any chashash here). -- Sholom From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 10:36:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 13:36:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 11:48:03AM +0300, Saul Mashbaum via Avodah wrote: : This passage in IM is cited by R. Shalom Rosner in a systematic discussion... : http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/720210/Rabbi_Shalom_Rosner/Kesubos57. ... : Very briefly, R. Rosner cites three approaches in the sources : : 1. Illustrating the truth - The Ran in Drashot HaRan drasha 5 - In this : approach, which severely limits the principle of eilu v'eilu, the Ran : states that actually only one of the opinions is true. The other opinion is : 'divrei Elokim chaim' only insofar as it serves to illustrate and elucidate : the other opinion... : 2. Levels of truth - R. Moshe in the hakdama to IM, and R. Yaakov to : Bereishit 26, the Netziv in his Hakadama to Haamek Sh'eila, his commentary : to the Sheiltot)... : 3. Multiple truths (Ritva in Eiruvin, Maharal) - Both opinions are true, : reflecting different perspectives of the subject at hand (IMO, this is : similar to the previous explanation, without establishing a hierarchy : between the truths expressed by the different opinions).. My opinion differs from yours. The Maharal is saying that what RMF calls emes shamamis (I think that conjugation is yours, no?) is actually too rich to fit in this universe, and certainly in a human mind. Therefore, two shitos can be correct descriptions of the Truth, because each are incomplete. Rather than invoke the 5 blind men and the elephant, I think it's more useful to use a mashal of an object and a shadow. Because a shadow is only 2D, information is lost. It could make you think the two opinions are describing differnt thing, but they don't. If you shine a light directly at the fact of a cube, the shadow is a square. If you shine it at a corner, the result is a hexagon. Beis Shamma could hold "hexagon" while Beis Hillel holds "square", and both are describing the same cube. It all depends on which direction you face the cube from. The difference is in the approach chosen, where one stands at the foothills when answering "mi ya'aleh beHar Hashem", not the emes kelapei shamayim. None of which involves separating abstract truth from law, as RMF does. The Maharal places eilu va'eilu entirely within our understanding of that abstract truth. RSR's analysis differs from the two I've discussed in the past, RMHalbertal's and R' Michel Rosensweig's. E.g. See v32n8 E.g. RMH describes the Ritva and the Ran as sharing what he calls "the Constitutive view" of what pesaq is (halakhah is constituted by pesaq, and there is no one pre-existing reality), and thus the notion of one right answer doesn't fit. Rather, his peshat in the Ran is more like RMF's opinion. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? : that the Rashi in question on Ktuvot 57a takes this approach. : : R. Rosner's explanation of the shittot is very lucid and concise. He : refers in his shiur to Ktuvot 57 to a previous, more comprehensive shiur he : gave on the subject, but I don't know if that shiur is available online. : : Saul Mashbaum : _______________________________________________ : Avodah mailing list : Avodah at lists.aishdas.org : http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 14:43:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:43:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] HaRav Aharon Lichtenstein zt"l Message-ID: <20150420214331.GA31537@aishdas.org> Today's blog post. ... Can't we find children who would have helped him and still know the gemara? Do we have to choose? I hope not; I believe not. Tir'u baTov! -Micha HaRav Aharon Lichtenstein zt"l Posted on April 20, 2015 - 1 Iyyar 5775 by micha When someone passes away, I try to find a life-lesson from their lives that I can incorporate into my own. This is rather easy with regard to Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, as the rosh yeshiva left the Centrist / Modern Orthodox / Religious Zionist community with a cheshbon hanefesh, an accounting of our communal soul. Things that he saw we as a community need to look at and improve. See "By His Light: Character and Values in the Service of God" by R' Reuvein Zeigler, notes of shiurim by Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, pp 220-252, which is available on-line at Yeshivat Har Etzion's Israel Koschitzky Virtual Beit Midrash, as the email shiur from the series "Developing a Torah Personality" Lecture 12: Centrist Orthodoxy: A Spiritual Accounting. Listing the rashei peraqim (subtitles): * The Shift To the Right * The Need for Soul-Searching * Commonalities and Differences With the Right * Shaking Our Confidence In General Culture * The Complexity of Experience * Literary, Psychological and Historical Sensitivity * Attitudes Toward Zionism * "Torah Only" or "Torah And" * The Possibility of Integration * Theory and Practice * Dialectical Tension or Tepid Indifference? * Instilling Passion * The Need for Spirituality * Diffusion and Dilution * The Ascendancy of the Moral Over the Intellectual * "Do Not Fear Any Man" Here's one piece near the end, that stays with me each time I read the article: ... Perhaps much of what I have said in relation to culture, quoting Arnold and Yeats and others, seems very rarefied. People may be asking themselves, "What does this have to do with us? We have to deal with children in elementary school or high school; this is not our concern." Nevertheless, I have related to culture at its apex, because the kind of vision which is maintained at the pinnacle has an impact, and should have an impact, upon what is done at lower levels. In this respect, the awareness of the evaluation of culture does have practical consequences for whatever level of education we are dealing with. Granted that, our challenge is to see to it that indeed we maintain our position with depth and gusto. Given our constituency, of course, we cannot instill many of our students with the optimal level of love of Torah; we know from where they come. But, within our overall community, and surely within its leadership, such a level should exist. Woe unto us, if the only choice lies between tepid compromise and arrogant kana'ut. A couple of years after we moved to Yerushalayim, I was once walking with my family in the Beit Yisrael neighborhood, where R. Isser Zalman Meltzer used to live. For the most part, it consists of narrow alleys. We came to a corner, and found a merchant stuck there with his car. The question came up as to how to help him; it was a clear case of perika u-te'ina (helping one load or unload his burden). There were some youngsters there from the neighborhood, who judging by their looks were probably ten or eleven years old. They saw that this merchant was not wearing a kippa. So they began a whole pilpul, based on the gemara in Pesachim (113b), about whether they should help him or not. They said, "If he walks around bareheaded, presumably he doesn't separate terumot u-ma'asrot, so he is suspect of eating and selling untithed produce..." I wrote R. Soloveitchik a letter at that time, and told him of the incident. I ended with the comment, "Children of that age from our camp would not have known the gemara, but they would have helped him." My feeling then was: Why, Ribbono shel Olam, must this be our choice? Can't we find children who would have helped him and still know the gemara? Do we have to choose? I hope not; I believe not. If forced to choose, however, I would have no doubts where my loyalties lie: I prefer that they know less gemara, but help him. If I can refer again to my experience over the last several decades, I think that one of the central points which has reinforced itself is the sense, in terms of values, of the ascendancy of the moral over the intellectual -- with all my love for and commitment to pure learning. But, when all is said and done, you have to be guided not by what you love; you have to be guided by Torah. And the Torah tells us what is good: He has told you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you: only to do justice, and to love goodness, and to walk modestly with your God. (Mikha 6:8) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 12:48:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 15:48:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L by Rav Shimon Schwab Message-ID: <20150420194854.40DD317FB85@nexus.stevens.edu> See The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 11:46:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 21:46:52 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] hidur Message-ID: <> - changed topic from tefillat hadrech There is a famois R Chaim that if one can use both etgrogim then one should first use the beautiful but *might* be pasul since if one uses the minimally kosher one then one has accomplished the mitzvah and there is no reason to choose a second one. I have seen some that disagree with R Chaim claiming that it is possible to take a better etrog for hidur even after having minimally done the motzvah. This has applications mehadrin of chanukah -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 14:52:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:52:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 09:46:52PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> It's like if one is forced to choose between an esrog which is definitely :> kosher but only barely so, vs. one which is beautiful but *might* be pasul. :> To me, it's a no-brainer that one would choose the barely kosher one.) >> - ... : There is a famois R Chaim that if one can use both etgrogim then one should : first use the beautiful but *might* be pasul since if one uses the : minimally kosher one then one has accomplished the mitzvah and there is no : reason to choose a second one. This presumes you can afford both, or have access to a friend who will give you a matanah al menas lehachzir of whichever you aren't buying. The post you're replying to is "if one is forced to choose". My own dilemma. Say I earmark $X (Y NIS, in your case) to spend on my esrog. And say the price of a definitely kosher (or at least, just as sure to be kosher) but not very hadar esrog is half that or less. Should I buy myself a mehudar, or should I buy two esrogim and give the other to someone hitting on hard times? Shouldn't the asei (tzedaqah, dei machsero) trump a "mere" hidur mitzvah (esrog)? And yet, we know many great rabbanim who didn't follow this calculus. What am I missing? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 15:25:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 18:25:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safeik as Metzi'us Message-ID: <20150420222502.GC1634@aishdas.org> The story so far: Briskers don't wear tzitzis outdoors on Shabbos in case the gemara does conclude that hatekheiles me'eaqes es halavan. (Dspite the tam mishnah, there is reason to wonder.) And if so, the tassels on your tallis or tallis qatan are not tzitzis, and wouldn't be tafeil to the beged. On Shabbos -- hotza'ah. I asked why, since I personally am wearing those tassels because of the safeiq, wouldn't that mean that in terms of my intent, they are hotza'ah? In general, when do we pasqen one din and then use that pesaq as the metzi'us for the next case? And when do we look at the internals of that din (in this case, the safeiq) and carry them through to the next din? Other examples collected so far: AhS OC 409:6 -- An eiruv techumin made with a safeiq tereifah is not an eiruv, because you can't eat a safeiq tereifah. We look to the pesaq, the meat is assur mishum safeiq, not the safeiq itself. (Where a parallel case in the se'if is ruled safeiq derabbanan lequlah.) AhS OC 416:8 -- A person wants to make 2 different eiruvei techumin, one for each day of YT in chu"l. You can't create an eiruv on day 2 that you cannot reach on day 1. We don't say mima nafshach -- if day 1 is YT, you don't need the eiruv, and if day 2 is, you were allowed to reach the food on day 1. Again, we look at the masqanah. Recently I noticed two more in the AhS: AhC OC 509:12 -- The Rama (se'if 5) allows libun on YT of a skewer that that they broiled non-salted meat on to allow using the skewer again that day. The AhS explains this is not a real tiqun keli, because mei'iqar hadin it doesn't need libun (cf YD 76), an therefore even if you could have done the libun on erev YT, you can still do it now. We DO NOT say that lemaaseh we are not nohagim to use the skewer without libun, so therefore the skewer went from usable to non-usable. This time we do look into the cause of the non-use. I am wondering if it's because beshe'as hadechaq, they would go to a rav and get a pesaq that they could use the skewer as is, so it's not fully unusable. AhS 581:18 -- If fruit are stored in a room that is built from uncemented bricks and the room breaks, the fruit are usable. We do not say they a muqtza, because the issur of disassembling the room was only derabbanan, so he didn't have full hesach hadaas. Notice that here he is saying that a person is aware of issur derabbanan being on a lesser level. The ruling is on the metzi'us, but with the understanding the the metzi'us reflects the wishy-washiness of the issur. RAM: Does any of this change your proposed sevaros? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 14:54:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:54:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5535759A.5020909@gmail.com> What would be the kilayim status of this combo? http://www.territorialseed.com/product/grafted-tomtato-ketchup-n-fries/new_for_spring_2015 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 15:57:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 18:57:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> On 04/20/2015 05:52 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > My own dilemma. Say I earmark $X (Y NIS, in your case) to spend on > my esrog. And say the price of a definitely kosher (or at least, just > as sure to be kosher) but not very hadar esrog is half that or less. > Should I buy myself a mehudar, or should I buy two esrogim and give the > other to someone hitting on hard times? Shouldn't the asei (tzedaqah, > dei machsero) trump a "mere" hidur mitzvah (esrog)? And yet, we know > many great rabbanim who didn't follow this calculus. What am I missing? Perhaps that they would then let the other person use their mehudardige esrog, so both benefit. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:21:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:21:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 06:57:15PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: :> ... Shouldn't the asei (tzedaqah, :> dei machsero) trump a "mere" hidur mitzvah (esrog)? And yet, we know :> many great rabbanim who didn't follow this calculus. What am I missing? : Perhaps that they would then let the other person use their mehudardige : esrog, so both benefit. So, both get the mitzvah of esrog with a hadar esrog. But I asked about fulling tzedaqah. How does a matanah al menas lehachzir qualify? And for someone used to having their own esrog, how is it "dei machsero"? Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:15:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:15:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Matza between Pesach and Shavuos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Somebody (either here or on Areivim) was asking about the minhag to eat matza between Pesach and Shavuos. I happened to pick up a sefer called "Bein Pesach u'Shavuos" (by R Zvi Cohn) and saw a few mentions about this. First, he cites the Gr"a that he never ate matza when it was not Pesach. I think the reasoning is that he didn't want to get hana'ah from it, but, rather, eat it only because it was a mitzvah. But then, later in the sefer, I saw reference to (a) a minhag (Belz and Chernobyl) to eat matza to eat matza on every shalosh seudos between Pesach and Shavuos, and wetting it with fish juice/gravy; and (b) v'yesh a minhag to eat matza *every* time one washes for bread, in order to combine "michlei d'm'heimnusa u'michlei d'asvasa" food/meal of emuna and food/meal of refuah (apologies for messing up the vowels). The footnote cites the sefer "Darchei Chayim v'Sholom" siman 633. And also to be m'dakdek to make one kugel for shabbos with matza and to pass it around, particularly on shalosh seudos after the z'miros. I don't translate so well, so if you want to see "inside" R Cohn's sefer, I put it here: http://s3.postimg.org/wukbartcj/matza.jpg [1] and if you look and find mistakes, please let the list (or at least me!) know! FWIW & Kol tuv, -- Sholom Links: ------ [1] http://s3.postimg.org/wukbartcj/matza.jpg -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 16:32:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 19:32:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> At 05:52 PM 4/20/2015, RN Toby Katz wrote: > >I am grateful to RYL (Prof. Levine) for making this pamphlet available to >the public as a pdf. However I note that he is often highly critical of >the charedi world, and I believe that R' Hirsch would emphatically not have >agreed with him. He would have honored and cherished the talmidei chachamim >who devote their lives to limud haTorah, and would have educated his >balabatim to take pride in the zechus of financially supporting the >"black hat" >yeshivos. This is pure speculation on your part. I believe that RSRH would have agreed with my views on this matter. Of course, this is pure speculation on my part. He certainly would not have agreed with the idea of not working to support one's family. See my article "The Obligation to Support a Family" The Jewish Press, February 18, 2015, front page. and the extensive quotes I have there from the writings of Rav Dr. Joseph Breuer, ZT"L, who was, of course, a grandson of RSRH and the foremost expositor of TIDE during his life time. > >I would also note that R' Hirsch would certainly not have shared RYL's dour > view of present-day Eretz Yisrael. True, all the flaws and failings of >Zionism are abundantly on display in the modern Medinah. But at the same >time, it takes an almost willful blindness not to see the >incredible miracles >that have been taking place there over the past sixty years or so. Not the >least of these miracles is a flourishing of Torah scholarship, be'eichus >uvekamus, the likes of which has not been seen since the churban Bayis >Sheni. We owe at least a small measure of gratitude to the >Zionist government >that helps provide the infrastructure for the Torah community to flourish, >and a huge measure of gratitude to the Ribono Shel Olam for allowing us to >live in a time in which the beginning of kibbutz galuyos is taking place >before our eyes. The sight of thousands of men, young and old, from all >corners of the world, streaming into the Mirrer Yeshiva each day, gives us a >little foretaste of what it will be like to visit the Third Bais Hamikdash. Again, I have to disagree. I suggest you read Rav Breuer's writings about EY in the book A Unique Perspective under the heading Eretz Yisroel. The following are some excerpts from his essay The State of Israel. The proclamation of a Jewish state would bring great joy to all the members of our people, if conditions were such that we could feel justified to call it a Kiddush Hashem. It pains us to say, and we have no illusions, that for the time being this is not the case. For every Torah-true Jew the word Kiddush Hashem is his utmost concern, while Chillul Hashem leaves him trembling. Thus the establishment of a Jewish state will fill him with misgivings and alarm. Anyone who is imbued with the eternal truth and validity of God's Torah will have to be aware that a state on God's holy soil will only be able to endure if the conditions that God has set down for a Jewish state on His holy soil are met. These conditions apply to the Jewish entity and to the life of every individual who declares himself a member of God's People. Again, please read Rav Breuer's essays on Eretz Yisroel in this book. Also, please read Rav Shimon Schwab's essay Zion or Zionism that I have placed at http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/zion_or_zionism.pdf Rav Schwab was most certainly a proponent of TIDE and the approach of RSRH. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 15:32:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 18:32:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> References: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 11:34 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > There was a bachur next to me this morning whose retzu'os were painted > black on both sides. And I believe I know why this is done, in case > a retzu'ah gets flipped. Or perhaps to be chosheish for the Rambam's > description of such retzu'os being "noi". I've only ever heard of the leather being soaked in dye; and the reason given was not for flipped retzu'os but for scratches: if the entire thickness of the strap has been dyed, a scratch will not expose undyed leather. (This does not address your actual question, though) ?Chesky Salomon From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:24:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:24:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <553598C0.6010209@sero.name> On 04/20/2015 08:21 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > So, both get the mitzvah of esrog with a hadar esrog. But I asked about > fulling tzedaqah. How does a matanah al menas lehachzir qualify? And > for someone used to having their own esrog, how is it "dei machsero"? At a time when an esrog was a luxury that most people could not afford and were not used to, how often would such a case come up? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:27:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:27:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <553598C0.6010209@sero.name> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> <553598C0.6010209@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150421002736.GA24420@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 08:24:32PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : At a time when an esrog was a luxury that most people could not afford : and were not used to, how often would such a case come up? ... and today? Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:58:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 00:58:13 GMT Subject: [Avodah] hidur Message-ID: <20150420.205813.23096.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> R'Zev Sero asked: > At a time when an esrog was a luxury that most people could > not afford and were not used to, how often would such a case > come up? But it could certainly come up nowadays. About 25 years ago, my budget was so tight that I had decided to share my lulav and esrog with my two sons, despite my having gotten them their own set in previous years. I don't remember whether one or both was still below bar mitzvah that year, but it doesn't really matter, because the point is that they were used to having their own, and that year we shared the one set. Suffice it to say that it was not fun. Baruch Hashem we've each had own own every year since then. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5535a0f9e88320f87fb2st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 18:23:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 01:23:34 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Self-control fatigue Message-ID: <20150420.212334.23096.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> On Areivim, SY Scher wrote: > A now large body of research shows that we can have "self-control > fatigue". Professor Roy Baumeister and his colleagues have > demonstrated experimentally that when people have previously had > to exert self-control, their ability to do so goes down. They > have also showed physiological correlates -- will-power/self- > control takes energy, and after exerting a lot of control, our > blood glucose level is lower. Replenishment of glucose (for > example, by drinking lemonade sweetened with sugar, but not > lemonade with artificial sweeteners) raises self-control ability > back up. > We all know that following the halacha often requires a good deal > of willpower, and I would imagine that for charedi adolescent boys, > that would be even more strongly so. So, the ability to control > the yetzer in outside situations may well be reduced. The muscle > is just too worn out! Is there any way fit this in with the idea that many mitzvos - kashrus in particular and chukim in general - seem designed to train us to *have* self-control? Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 03:14:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 06:14:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Self-control fatigue In-Reply-To: <20150420.212334.23096.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150420.212334.23096.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150421101422.GB7409@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 01:23:34AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : Is there any way fit this in with the idea that many mitzvos - kashrus : in particular and chukim in general - seem designed to train us to *have* : self-control? If (and that's a big if) we define the yeitzer hara as the effects on our souls of living within a mammalian body, then the ability to plan ahead and work toward delayed gratification, rather than just instinctively going for what's before us, is going to be a fundamental skill in rising above it. In R Yitchaq Sher's introduction to the Slabodka edition of Cheshbon haNefesh (Feldheim bilingual ed. ), the mashgiach speaks of the nefesh habehamis's "lack[ing the will to exercise choice" and therefore "the tzivui or azharah of an asei or a lo-sa'asei are not shayach to it at all" (par 2). He then gives guidelines about how to train it by taking examples from animal training (par 304). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 17th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Tifferes: What is the ultimate Fax: (270) 514-1507 state of harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 03:17:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 13:17:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> References: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 8:36 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > The Maharal is saying that what RMF calls emes shamamis (I think that > conjugation is yours, no?) is actually too rich to fit in this universe, > and certainly in a human mind. Therefore, two shitos can be correct > descriptions of the Truth, because each are incomplete. > Where does the Maharal say this? (Not a challenge, I just want to learn it inside) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 06:24:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 09:24:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: References: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150421132444.GD1634@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 01:17:49PM +0300, Simon Montagu wrote: : Where does the Maharal say this? (Not a challenge, I just want to learn it : inside) Be'er haGolah, be'er 1, pg 20 in the common edition, available on pg 94 the whole book) in the Harman edition, on hebrewbooks.org (Onward, I would print the 1[:6] off the link at the top for the whole sefer. R YD Hartman has a clearer edition, with copious footnotes.) I've been citing that Maharal for over a decade, so I had to search for the actual mar'eh maqom. On nice find was the discussion in Mishpat Ivri . I want to go through the whole chapter on machloqos (that hit is mid-chapter) before commenting, but I don't know when I'll get to it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 17th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Tifferes: What is the ultimate Fax: (270) 514-1507 state of harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 09:11:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 12:11:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150421132444.GD1634@aishdas.org> References: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> <20150421132444.GD1634@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55367699.9010203@sero.name> On 04/21/2015 09:24 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 01:17:49PM +0300, Simon Montagu wrote: > : Where does the Maharal say this? (Not a challenge, I just want to learn it > : inside) > > Be'er haGolah, be'er 1, pg 20 The introduction to the Hartman edition shows that the title is actually Be'er haGulah, with a melupum rather than a cholam. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 01:40:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 11:40:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu Message-ID: Sagi in his book on the topic brings 3 basic approaches (all with many supporters) to the sugya 1) Monism - only one truth as subfields we can be tolerant of other attempts or not 2) pluralism - there are many truths and one can't decide 3) harmonism - different views are just separate parts of the same truth R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is self-contradictory. According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint is monism ! He further points out that sometimes pluralism can be a chumra Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he doesn't accept the kashrut Answer: Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable Of course these are only typologies. In the real world anyone who believes in pluralism has some radius of acceptance. Few would accept Naziism or Isis as a legitimate viewpoint -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 01:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 11:53:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] hidur Message-ID: <> As usual R Chaim is asking a theoretical question - he was not a posek In fact I once heard from RYBS that in fact almost all etrogim are kosher bidieved. In Israel one can get a mehudar set for about 100 shekel ($25) see http://www.dafyomi.co.il/nazir/halachah/nz-hl-002.htm 2. Bava Kama 9a (R. Zeira citing Rav Huna): One must spend up to a third for Mitzvos. 3. Question: What does this mean? i. Suggestion: One must spend a third of his wealth to fulfil a Mitzvah. ii. Rejection: It is unreasonable that if he encounters three (expensive) Mitzvos, he must exhaust all his wealth! 4. Answer (R. Zeira): One must spend an extra third to beautify a Mitzvah. Shulchan Aruch (ibid.): Some say that if he finds two Esrogim to buy, and one of them is nicer than the other, he should buy the nicer one if the price difference is no more than a third of the other. i. Source (Beis Yosef DH Kaneh): Rashi (Bava Kama 9b DH b'Hidur) says that if one found two Sifrei Torah to buy, he should add a third of the price to buy the nicer one. ii. Kaf ha'Chayim (17): It seems that neither opinion requires one who bought an Esrog bigger than an egg to exchange it for a nicer one. However, the Rosh, Gra and Taz obligate doing so. The Magen Avraham says that perhaps the Shulchan Aruch holds like the Rosh. iii. Kaf ha'Chayim (18): One must add a third from an Esrog that one could bless on without Safek. Hidur depends on what people in the area consider nice. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 05:09:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 08:09:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55378F6E.2070708@sero.name> On 04/22/2015 04:40 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > 2) pluralism - there are many truths and one can't decide > > R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is self-contradictory. According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint is monism ! Not true. There are many truths, but not an infinite number. Or, as my father says, there are 70 panim latorah, but there are also 70 achor. Strict monism, which rejects the gemara's statement that "eilu va'eilu DACh", is by definition wrong. > Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he > doesn't accept the kashrut > Answer: > Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong > Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable It depends whether his concern is legitimate. If there is a legitimate opinion or minhag that forbids or refrains from whatever it is, or if he has a legitimate private chumra, then there is no question that it is assur to be machshil him. But if he is acting out of pure amhoratzus, then one needn't pander to it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 09:45:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 17:45:34 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Avodah: Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:54, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah wrote: > What would be the kilayim status of this combo? > http://www.territorialseed.com/product/grafted-tomtato-ketchup-n-fries/new_for_spring_2015 Though potato and tomato are from the same family, it is clear from mesechte Kilayim, fruit [or animals] that look different are treated as 2 different species. Hence, though the spuds and tomatoes would be permitted to eat - as with any grafted fruit - it would be ossur for a Yid to grow Dovid Rubin From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 10:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 13:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: <55378F6E.2070708@sero.name> References: <55378F6E.2070708@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150422175311.GA11663@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 08:09:18AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : On 04/22/2015 04:40 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : >2) pluralism - there are many truths and one can't decide : : >R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is :> self-contradictory. According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint :> is monism ! : Not true. There are many truths, but not an infinite number. Or, as my : father says, there are 70 panim latorah, but there are also 70 achor. I think RMA is referring to a paradox I've mentioned here once. While in principle, it's possible for a halachic pluralist to not include any halachic monist positions in his spectrum of eilu va'eilu, I do not know of a halachic pluralist who rules out the Rambam. Or a less absolute case of the same paradox: MO Jews will turn to chareidi gedolim for pesaqim despite those gedoim not believing that MO is within eilu va'eilu. So it would seem that to the MO Jew asking the she'eilah, the variant of chareidism that says MO is not within eilu va'eilu, is (in the MO Jew's opinion) itself within EvE! : Strict monism, which rejects the gemara's statement that "eilu va'eilu DACh", : is by definition wrong. Or, understand it in terms of following HQBH's word, as opposed to being right. As per the Rambam or RMF, for example. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 18th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Tifferes: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 balance? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 11:53:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 14:53:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Chilul Hashem of Disrespecting Non-Jews Message-ID: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/kb4v525 This idea connects with something that has bothered me for some time: the wanton, unprovoked use of disparaging, racist comments among our youth. Over the years I have either heard directly or been made aware of many such comments by students. When I asked why they had expressed themselves in this manner, they could offer no meaningful response. All I could glean was that they were apparently parroting similar remarks they had heard elsewhere, without having given much thought to their words. Many of these students had few if any relationships or even interactions with individuals from the groups they were mocking. See the above URL for the entire article. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:32:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 15:32:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Chilul Hashem of Disrespecting Non-Jews In-Reply-To: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150422193201.GD11663@aishdas.org> One of my many pet peeves is the use of "chilul hasheim" to teach ehrlachkeit. It may win the battle -- historically, it hasn't -- but it does so by avoiding the war. Mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro as important as mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro. Derekh eretz is important as Chazal literally call it a prerequisite for Torah. Worrying about the bein adam laMaqom effects of the cheit misses the point. And perhaps the reason why past attempts to change behavior by talking about chillul hasheim haven't worked is that one is not teaching the centrality of ehrlachkeit as a *primary* value. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 18th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Tifferes: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 balance? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:43:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 21:43:09 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <5537F9CD.7000409@zahav.net.il> How did Rav Breuer work to ensure the conditions that "we could feel justified to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? Ben On 4/21/2015 1:32 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > > Again, I have to disagree. I suggest you read Rav Breuer's writings > about EY in the book A Unique Perspective under the heading Eretz Yisroel. > > The proclamation of a Jewish state would bring great joy to all > the members of our people, if conditions were such that we could > feel justified to call it a Kiddush Hashem. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:36:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 15:36:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Avodah: Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150422193627.GE11663@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 05:45:34PM +0100, D via Avodah wrote: : Hence, though the spuds and tomatoes would be permitted to eat - as : with any grafted fruit - it would be ossur for a Yid to grow I think it would be mutar to buy already grafted, and then grow. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:53:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 22:53:04 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Avodah: Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 7:45 PM, D via Avodah wrote: > Though potato and tomato are from the same family, it is clear from > mesechte Kilayim, fruit [or animals] that look different are treated as 2 > different species. > Hence, though the spuds and tomatoes would be permitted to eat - as with > any grafted fruit - it would be ossur for a Yid to grow > Do you mean because the potato and tomato that we eat look different? You're not comparing apples to apples (pun intended). The fruits of a potato plant look very similar to the fruits of a tomato plant! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 13:07:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joel Schnur via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 16:07:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos Message-ID: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> My understanding is that Briskers don't wear a talis katan outside the house on shabbos because the shiur is "ad habirchaim" according to the Gaon as brought in Keser Rosh by talmidei Reb Chaim Voloshiner. And since "until the knees" is a subjective criterion depending upon each person's height, there is no specific "one size fits all" length. Interestingly, Rav Moshe Shternbuch brings a Rav Moshe that says that the source is unreliable and the Gaon never said such a thing. -- ___________________________ Joel Schnur, Senior VP Government Affairs/Public Relations Schnur Associates, Inc. 25 West 45th Street, Suite 1405 New York, NY 10036 Tel. 212-489-0600 x204 Fax. 212-489-0203 joel at schnurassociates.com www.schnurassociates.com http://www.schnurassociates.com/joels-corner/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 14:57:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 17:57:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Chilul Hashem of Disrespecting Non-Jews In-Reply-To: <20150422193201.GD11663@aishdas.org> References: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150422193201.GD11663@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150422215739.6F5F0180576@nexus.stevens.edu> At 03:32 PM 4/22/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >Mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro as important as mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro. I believe that this sentence is wrong. I believe you meant to write that mitzvos bein adam l'Chaveiro are just as important as mitzvos bein adam l'makom. RSRH points out that the Luchos contained 5 mitzvos bein adam l'Chaveiro and 5 mitzvos bein Adam l"Makom on each side, and that both sides of the Luchos were the same size! >Derekh eretz is important as Chazal literally call it a prerequisite >for Torah. And hence may one deduce that those who do not have proper Derech Eretz do not have Torah? If so, then I guess we should not be surprised at the actions of some so-called Jews that are a Chilul Hashem. They do not have any Torah. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 13:46:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 20:46:08 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos In-Reply-To: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> References: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> Message-ID: <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> On Wednesday, April 22, 2015 3:33 PM, Joel Schnur wrote: > My understanding is that Briskers don't wear a talis katan outside the > house on shabbos because the shiur is "ad habirchaim" according to the > Gaon as brought in Keser Rosh by talmidei Reb Chaim Voloshiner.... > Interestingly, Rav Moshe Shternbuch brings a Rav Moshe that says that > the source is unreliable and the Gaon never said such a thing. The reason that Briskers don't where Tzitzes on Shabbos is because they are Choshesh for the Shita of the Baal HaMeor who says that Techiels is Me'akev the Lavan. As such -- by wearing these now unnecessary 'strings' in Reshus Harabim they will be Oveir the Lav of Hotza'ah on Shabbos, an Issur D'Oraisa and a capital offense. Inetrestingly, accroding to the Baal HaMeor, wearing a Beged of Daled Kanfos using Tzitzs without Techiles is a violation -- same as if he were wearing it without Tzitzis at all. I'm told that the Gra did not wear a woolen Beged for his Talis Katan for that reason. Because wool has a Chiuv D'Oraisa for Tzitzs whereas cotton is only D'Rabbanan. HM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 17:05:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 20:05:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <5537F9CD.7000409@zahav.net.il> References: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> <5537F9CD.7000409@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <5538373F.4000900@aishdas.org> On 04/22/2015 03:43 PM, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: > On 4/21/2015 1:32 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: >> Again, I have to disagree. I suggest you read Rav Breuer's writings >> about EY in the book A Unique Perspective under the heading Eretz >> Yisroel. >> The proclamation of a Jewish state would bring great joy to all >> the members of our people, if conditions were such that we could >> feel justified to call it a Kiddush Hashem. > How did Rav Breuer work to ensure the conditions that "we could feel > justified to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? He thought his late brother's Poalei Agudah might accomplish it. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 03:06:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 06:06:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos In-Reply-To: <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> References: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20150423100635.GA26841@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 08:46:08PM +0000, Harry Maryles via Avodah wrote: : The reason that Briskers don't where Tzitzes on Shabbos is because they : are Choshesh for the Shita of the Baal HaMeor who says that Techiels is : Me'akev the Lavan. : : As such -- by wearing these now unnecessary 'strings' in Reshus Harabim : they will be Oveir the Lav of Hotza'ah on Shabbos... In the opening post, I referred to the BhM's reason. Since there appears to be interest, I will spell it out. The mishnah (Menachos 4:1, 38a) says that techeiles is not me'aqeves the lavan, and v.v. Seems kind of open and shut, and that's what we hold lehalakhah. And so R' Yitzchaq says that R Yochanan ben Nuri says (beraisa , quoted on 39b) that if you have no tekheiles, you make all strings lavan. But, Rebbe is choleiq, and says the mishnah means sequence. Normally the lavan strings have to be put on first, or on a tekheiles garment, the tekheiles string first. And the mishnah is saying that if you put on the other color first, it's not me'aqeiv. According to Rebbe, though, you can't be yotzei without putting on tekheiles altogether. Getting to this understanding of the mishnah is an amud lonq chaqla vetarya in which Levi, Shemu'el and Rami bar Chama defend Rebbe's position. : Interestingly, according to the Baal HaMeor, wearing a Beged of Daled : Kanfos using Tzitzs without Techiles is a violation -- same as if he : were wearing it without Tzitzis at all. Not really. It's an asei, not a lav. So, if tekheiles truly is unavailable, why wouldn't it be mutar, if pointless? However, if you feel there is any possibility whatsoever that the murex derived dye is indeed tekheiles, safeiq de'oraisa lechumerah would force one to choose between not wearing tzitzis and wearing the dye. And there are those who hold it's garua to wear invalid dye, so combine the shitos right, and the discovery of a possible tekheiles would make it better not to wear tzitzis. IF we held like the BhM. But not even Briskers do, me'iqar hadin -- they are merely chosheish for his position as a chumerah. : I'm told that the Gra did not wear a woolen Beged for his Talis Katan : for that reason. Because wool has a Chiuv D'Oraisa for Tzitzs whereas : cotton is only D'Rabbanan. As usual for the Gra -- clever! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 19th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Tifferes: When does harmony promote Fax: (270) 514-1507 withdrawal and submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 02:45:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Allan Engel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 10:45:42 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos In-Reply-To: <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> References: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: So what was his Tallis Godol made of? On 22 April 2015 at 21:46, Harry Maryles via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote:. > > > Inetrestingly, accroding to the Baal HaMeor, wearing a Beged of Daled > Kanfos using Tzitzs without Techiles is a violation -- same as if he > were wearing it without Tzitzis at all. > > I'm told that the Gra did not wear a woolen Beged for his Talis Katan > for that reason. Because wool has a Chiuv D'Oraisa for Tzitzs whereas > cotton is only D'Rabbanan. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 05:07:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 12:07:10 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >> R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is self-contradictory. >> According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint is monism ! ... > Strict monism, which rejects the gemara's statement that "eilu va'eilu > DACh", is by definition wrong. Monism doesn't reject the gemara just interprets it different That was the shiur >> Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he >> doesn't accept the kashrut >> Answer: >> Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong >> Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable > It depends whether his concern is legitimate. If there is a legitimate > opinion or minhag that forbids or refrains from whatever it is, or if he > has a legitimate private chumra, then there is no question that it is assur > to be machshil him. No question is your opinion a true monist Would argue that there are no other legitimate opinions hence the other is wrong and you are not machshil him [Email #2, also in reply to this latter quote. -micha] You are not being machshil by offering food that he won't eat because of his minhag or chumrot you are mikayem shalach Manot even if he doesn't accept the kashrut From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 09:11:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 12:11:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L Message-ID: <20150423161105.DF2701836D1@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:13 AM 4/23/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: >How did Rav Breuer work to ensure the conditions that "we could feel >justified to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? I really have no specifics. but I do know that Rav Breuer was busy here in the US building a model Kehilla and educating Baalei Batim. I know that some of those from his Kehilla did move to EY. In particular, I know one person who was a professional and a follower of TIDE who moved to EY. I am sure that he did whatever he could to strengthen Yahadus in EY. But let me ask a related question. What are the observant now living in EY doing "to ensure the conditions that 'we could feel justifies to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 09:49:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 12:49:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55392297.20909@sero.name> On 04/23/2015 08:07 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > >>> >>Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he >>> >>doesn't accept the kashrut >>> >>Answer: >>> >>Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong >>> >>Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable >> >It depends whether his concern is legitimate. If there is a legitimate >> >opinion or minhag that forbids or refrains from whatever it is, or if he >> >has a legitimate private chumra, then there is no question that it is assur >> >to be machshil him. > No question is your opinion a true monist > Would argue that there are no other legitimate opinions hence the other > is wrong and you are not machshil him Even if there is only one truth, you don't necessarily know for sure what it is. You make your best guess, but someone else makes his, and for all you know he may have hit on the truth, even if only by accident, while you, with all your careful analysis of the evidence, may have been led astray. Let's take medicine, where there really is only one truth, but often we don't know for sure what it is. Does gluten in the diet negatively affect the health of most normal people? There doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence for that proposition, but it can't be ruled out. Maybe in 20 years we will observe that those who have followed the gluten-free fad really are healthier, and someone will discover how it is that gluten harms a person. Or maybe it will be established that it's exactly the mishguas that it appears to be. But until then we are just guessing, and if you hold that it's a mishugas but someone else is worried about it, you have to consider the possibility that he may be right, and by tricking him into eating gluten you may actually be harming him. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 10:54:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 17:54:52 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] A Papal Honor for an Orthodox Rabbi. Message-ID: <393104521.3643892.1429811692300.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> JTA is reporting that Pope Francis will be bestowing Papal Knighthood upon Rabbi Arthur Schneier (who I believe is an Orthodox Rabbi) for (among other things) his work in promoting a positive relationship with the Church. According to JTA,?Schneier will formally become a knight of Saint Sylvester at a ceremony on April 27.Isn't there a Halachic probelm with this? It would seem to me that becoming a 'knight' in the Catholic church ?would at least be Avak Avodah Zara - even though it is just honorary? HM??Want Emes and Emunah in your life? Try this: http://haemtza.blogspot.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 16:14:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 19:14:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early Message-ID: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin (or ate the food already, the food went bad, etc...) who for some reason can not rely on the rabbi's communal failsafe eruv (perhaps he isn't in a neighborhood with an observant community) do for lighting Shabbos candles? So, the BY (OC 537:19) permits, but he says "veyeish oserin". The AhS (se'if 28) names the oserim as the Rosh and the Ran, and that the SA names the Rambam (via a diyuq halashon)as his source lehatir. The AhS then questions the diyuq, but says it should be allowed anyway, since one gets hana'ah from the neiros while on YT too. So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, ones you used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making a berakhah on? Yes, there is light for enjoying the Shabbos meal, all the same shalom bayis. But there is no actual pe'ulah to make the berakhah on. Is there? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 19th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Tifferes: When does harmony promote Fax: (270) 514-1507 withdrawal and submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 16:21:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Daniel M. Israel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 16:21:06 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> References: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <33e302272e45c742ee54349bcfddc40a@kolberamah.org> On 2015-04-23 16:14, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin... > ... do for lighting Shabbos candles? > So, the BY (OC 537:19) permits... The AhS > then questions the diyuq, but says it should be allowed anyway, since > one gets hana'ah from the neiros while on YT too. > So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, ones you > used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making a berakhah on? Off the cuff hypothesis: Perhaps for the one lighting, it becomes Shabbos immediately, so the hadlakah is for Shabbos and there is a beracha. But for others in the house, they likely don't take on Shabbos until davening, and therefor they enjoy it on YT. Which would be enough to matir her lighting them. But I have no source. -- Daniel Israel dmi1 at cornell.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 16:27:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 19:27:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: <33e302272e45c742ee54349bcfddc40a@kolberamah.org> References: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> <33e302272e45c742ee54349bcfddc40a@kolberamah.org> Message-ID: <20150423232727.GB23492@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 04:21:06PM -0700, Daniel M. Israel wrote: : Perhaps for the one lighting, it becomes Shabbos immediately, so the : hadlakah is for Shabbos and there is a beracha. But for others in the : house, they likely don't take on Shabbos until davening, and therefor : they enjoy it on YT. Which would be enough to matir her lighting them. Not bad, if we don't read too much into the AhS not limiting this solution to cases where the candle-lighter isn't alone in the home. Nor does he mention having to use candles lit after pelag, nor her making a berakhah upon lighting and having an issur melakhah... Could be, but I find it dachuq. -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 17:58:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2015 00:58:48 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early Message-ID: <20150423.205848.16124.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger asked: > What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin (or > ate the food already, the food went bad, etc...) who for some > reason can not rely on the rabbi's communal failsafe eruv > (perhaps he isn't in a neighborhood with an observant community) > do for lighting Shabbos candles? Another problem this person will have is what to eat on Shabbos. There are several ideas offered by the poskim, and one of them is to cook extra food on Yom Tov, and the extra will be for Shabbos. This can be done even without an Eiruv Tavshilin, IIRC, because the melacha is not being done exclusively for Shabbos. > So, the BY (OC 537:19) [that should be 527:19 - Akiva] permits, > but he says "veyeish oserin". The AhS (se'if 28) names the oserim > as the Rosh and the Ran, and that the SA names the Rambam (via a > diyuq halashon)as his source lehatir. The AhS then questions the > diyuq, but says it should be allowed anyway, since one gets > hana'ah from the neiros while on YT too. This sounds to me the same as above. The lighting is not being done exclusively for Shabbos, and therefore may be done on YT. I would note that at no point in that se'if, does the AhS explicitly refers to the *mitzvah* of lighting Shabbos neros. Rather, his focus is on the practical need to light them in the late afternoon, both because it is *already* getting dark and hard to see without some artifical light, and because we won't be able to light anything later on. Truth be told, if lighting Shabbos candles is allowed only with an Eruv Tavshilin, then this whole se'if is needed even for a person who DID remember to make an Eruv, because (l'chatchila) one must do his Shabbos preparations early in the day, in a manner in which the melacha is -- or at least *could* be -- for tzorchei Yom Tov, and not exclusively for Shabbos. > So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, > ones you used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making > a berakhah on? Yes, there is light for enjoying the Shabbos meal, > all the same shalom bayis. But there is no actual pe'ulah to make > the berakhah on. Is there? I don't know where you see anything like this in the AhS. The AhS is explicitly talking about lighting after mincha, when it is already dark and the light is already useful. I concede that perhaps one should omit the bracha, because it explicitly declares one's intentions to be of a hachana nature, but that is a separate question not raised by the AhS. The main point I want to make in this paragraph is that the AhS never suggested that one might be yotzay Mitzvas Ner Shabbos via the candle that he lit in the early afternoon; it must be lit after Plag, with the intention that it will be burning into Shabbos. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55399563ca1dd156333b3st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 23:18:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2015 02:18:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Turning Jealousy into Progress Message-ID: Envy - Jealousy ? Kin?ah ? is an obvious theme for Parshas Mtzora. Paraphrasing freely (from L?chai Ro?-EY page 184), Midrash Tehillim/Shochar Tov on 37:1 parallel of TiTCHaR and TeKaNNEi. Do not fall victim to despondence those plotting evil, do not emulate those who succeed in career of crime. Rashi BMiDBar 25:11 neatly ties both into a General Theory of Jealousy. KoL LaSHON KiNAH HU HaMiTCHaReH LiNKom NiKMaS DaVaR. Rashi?s keyword is worth a thousand words. Rashi expects that we know Tanach and Midrash references. To catch Rashi?s nuance, always, I consult my paper Milon Gur [also in HebrewBooks.com]. HaMiTCHaReH is the exotic addition to our vocabulary. My trusty dictionary comes through here. Milon Gur pages 310 311 on CHaRaH: CHaRaH intransitive verb, showing outwardly as Ca_US or KaTZUF. ? foaming and frothing anger, against a traitor or hated enemy. determination to avenge and restore the Balance of Justice. HiTLaHeiV burning simmering anger, pressure like volcanic eruption. Hashem to Yonah ? are you truly upset ? HaHeYTeiV CHaRaH LCHa YoNaH? Divine CHaRON AF boiling or simmering anger is satisfied only by repentance, not by punishment. CHaRUCHA [burnt like over done fire-roast, long term anger leads to burn-through and burn-out. CHaRUL thorny tangle Milon Gur page 1088 McharCher RIV ? drum up strife and enmity CHaRCHuR ? disease of loss of muscle and strength. MChaRCHer Riv, CharumAf [nose ?bent out of shape? inset into face] and for Tacharut as resentment destroyed relationship. Rashi in Machzor Vitri 148 uses CHeReTZ in a unique way. Hashem jealously and with energy demands perfection from the world. Why does the Creator demand perfection? Rashi believes that Hashem cares strongly about the world. When the Adam attempts to be good, but falls short, He uses Rachamim, parenting skills, looking to the potential of ?You will worship Elokim on this mountain?. identification with the world demands perfection. When the world tries but falls short, fails to perform, Hashem uses Rachamim, flexibility, patience, empathy. He settles for potential. When the world rebels against Hashem, refuses to acknowledge Him at all, or mocking Him, rejecting their Father, breaking up the family, then there is Charon Af, red faced simmering anger. Rav Avraham Ruby authored the ?Tzilusa DiShmaata? series, focusing on chapters of the Baba-s routinely learnt Afternoon Seder which are master-works of Lamdus. Rav Moshe Shmuel Shapiro of Be?eir Yaakov was a talented teacher, and R? Ruby is an extremely able student. This year R? Ruby has turned his talents to creating the same sort of succinct and sharp presentation on Chumash.[L?chai Ro?-EY on Vayikra, self published 5775, contact me.]. Each Parsha offers an eclectic collection of solid sources. The organization is always unique and refreshing. L?chai Ro?-EY 185 shows the constructive power of ambition. Identity, membership,self-image, pride, place in society are all motivators of constructive behavior. Kinah jealousy is secondary, when there is an insult or threat to Hashem?s identity, or the individual?s. Ideally our self-image should include praise of Hashem and hatred of all insults against the Honor of Hashem. Only live in a town with Jewish services, and help create them. Your material ambitions include the dimension of Mitzvos and Kidush Hashem. A higher level of identity, ambition and constructive jealousy is aspiring to your neighbor?s higher spiritual levels. Even the Heavenly angels and even Avraham Avinu found mentors to emulate. Of course, the type of destructive strife we often see has other roots. Building a Jewish family is much easier with stronger spiritual models. -- David Wacholder Cell: 917-742-7838 Email: dwacholder at gmail.com dwacholder at optonline.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 24 08:42:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2015 11:42:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Beautiful Vort Message-ID: I recently came upon the following, listening to a hesped for Rabbi Mordechai Fachler zt?l, who was nift?r in November 2010. The hesped (one of many for Rav Fachler) was delivered by Rabbi Moshe Shirkin of England. This is just one part that caught my attention and was very touching. In previous generations the g?dolei Yisroel were discussing what?s the function of a Rav? The Rosh Yeshiva in Grodna (at the time) said the task of the Rav is to give shiurim. The Rav of Kovna, poisek oilam, said the task of the Rav is to pasken shailas. They came to Reb Chayim of Brisk and asked him what is the task of the Rav. His impressive response was: To give shiurim, you have a Rosh Yeshiva. To pasken shailas, you have a dayan. The task of the Rav is to do chesed with his oilam. A clergyman comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comfortable. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Apr 25 12:31:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 25 Apr 2015 21:31:27 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150423161105.DF2701836D1@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150423161105.DF2701836D1@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <553BEB8F.8040802@zahav.net.il> On 4/23/2015 6:11 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > But let me ask a related question. What are the observant now living > in EY doing "to ensure the conditions that 'we could feel justifies > to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? I gave an answer on Areivim, but I saw a couple of things on Shabbat which warrant an Avodah response. The first is from Yoma 86:A, Rashi, B'Amor Lehem (my translation): "Evil comes to chassidim and chachamim because "They desecrated My Holy name" (note: Rashi is of course assuming that they didn't do any particular sin to warrant what happened to them). How did they desecrate (God's name)? In those places to where they were exiled, the non-Jews say "These are the people of God" and He can't redeem them. Conclusion: God's name has been desecrated." End quote. Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem. Rav Soloveitch tz"l wrote about this point in Kol Dodi Dofek and in his drashot for the Kinot, as did Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook tz"l. However, I don't want to leave it at that. Rav Cherki (father of Shalom HY"D) wrote the following in this week's Shabbat B'shabato: "And this leads us to a moral question: How can it be that with respect to the most significant event in all of history, the redemption, the existence or lack of good deeds has no effect at all? This tension between the inevitability of redemption and arbitrary choices made by man is what makes it necessary for the nation of Yisrael to observe all the mitzvot in detail, in order to avoid creating a dissonance between the need for justice (which appears in the covenant in the Torah portion of Bechukotai) and the values of the path of unification, which insists that G-d is always working to glorify His name, no matter what else is happening. And that is why the Haftarah ends with the adamant demand of the Holy One, Blessed be He: "I am your G-d. Follow My laws and maintain My just actions and perform them, and sanctify my Shabbat and let it be a symbol between Me and you, in order to know that I am your G-d." [Yechezkel 20:19-20]." No one, not the most hard core DL around, says that there is nothing wrong with the State, that there isn't what that needs changing, from the level of how people get on a bus to the national agenda. In his hesped, Rav Cherki mentioned that his son Shalom went to the navy to help start a hesder unit for the navy, even though he knew that the religious level in the navy wasn't as high as it was in other units. He went there for the greater good, to help make the IDF a bit more Torah oriented, period. Rav Cherki went on to say that the answer to Shalom's murder was to add Kiddush HaShem. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 13:28:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 20:28:49 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lashon Hara and the Internet Message-ID: <20150426.162849.2967.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> On Areivim, there were some posts speaking about the residents of a certain area or areas. Someone commented: > I'm a little surprised at this exchange. Sefer Chafetz Chaim is > pretty clear about not saying loshen hara on a place or the > residents of a place. Someone else responded: > I am no expert on what is LH and what is not, but with the Internet > I think that some of the halachos probably do not apply to today's > world. Find me a sefer that deals with LH and the Internet, and > then we will talk. I too am no expert in Sefer Chafetz Chaim, but I clearly remember it talking about Lashon Hara via the written word, such as in personal letters to friends and relatives, or by publishing books and newspapers. Can someone find those sources and tell us where they are? I find it difficult to imagine that today's world is so different from that of a hundred years ago "that some of the halachos probably do not apply to today's world." But without quoting actual sources, it's simply a case of my imagination vs that of the other poster. So I am hoping that someone can help with the source material, "and then we will talk." Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553d4ab51dc554ab54c25st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 15:02:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 18:02:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] YIDDISHKEIT WITHOUT IDEOLOGY: A LETTER TO My SON Message-ID: <20150426220229.D93E41836B2@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://traditionarchive.org/news/originals/Volume%2036/No.%202/Yiddishkeit%20Without.pdf Let me be absolutely clear: where the demands of halacha are unambiguous, you must submit to them. But how does one navigate between much less well-defined traditional attitudes and strong personal inclinations? When I was your age I didn't know the answer-I still don't-but one proposition that seemed self-evident to me at the time was that it was essential to be consistent. In other words, I felt that I had to some- how make sure that the way I defined Yiddishkeit and the way I defined my commitments given my own inclinations would be perfectly aligned. I'm now convinced that that commitment to consistency was utter- ly wrong-headed and is the key to all that is wrong with institutional Yiddishkeit. I shouldn't have been defining either Yiddishkeit or my commitments at al. To do so is to reduce Yiddishkeit to ideology which is exactly what it is not. See the above UL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 16:54:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 19:54:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150426235424.BD633182CE0@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:52 PM 4/26/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: I gave an answer on Areivim, but I saw a couple of things on Shabbat which warrant an Avodah response. The first is from Yoma 86:A, Rashi, B'Amor Lehem (my translation): "Evil comes to chassidim and chachamim because "They desecrated My Holy name" (note: Rashi is of course assuming that they didn't do any particular sin to warrant what happened to them). How did they desecrate (God's name)? In those places to where they were exiled, the non-Jews say "These are the people of God" and He can't redeem them. Conclusion: God's name has been desecrated." End quote. >Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem. >Rav Soloveitch tz"l wrote about this point in Kol Dodi Dofek and in his >drashot for the Kinot, as did Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook tz"l. We all know that there were great Torah scholars who disagreed with the assertion that " the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." to name just 3, the Satmar Rebbe, Rav Breuer, and Rav Schwab. They were also most certainly familiar with the gemara you quote and the RASHI. If you had written, "Therefore, according to some Torah scholars the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." I would not disagree. However, your blanket statement, "Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." is IMO is not valid. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 12:36:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Jay F. Shachter via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 19:36:27 +0000 (WET DST) Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: from "via Avodah" at Apr 26, 2015 03:52:29 pm Message-ID: <14300949890.C90dE41.4028@m5.chicago.il.us> > > What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin (or ate > the food already, the food went bad, etc...) who for some reason can > not rely on the rabbi's communal failsafe eruv (perhaps he isn't in > a neighborhood with an observant community) do for lighting Shabbos > candles? > You light one candle, after plag hamminxa of course, and you say the appropriate brakha, lhadliq ner shel shabbath. You don't need an `eruv tavshilin to light one candle, because the Rabbinic prohibition of performing mlakha on Yom Tov for Shabbath was not intended to override the Rabbinic commandment of lighting one candle for use on Shabbath. Since (unlike in ancient times, and unlike a hundred years ago also) you don't need to have candles burning on Shabbath for their light, because you already have electric lights in your house that will stay on, or that will come on, during Shabbath, you therefore have no reason to light more than one candle (except for minhag, which you can dispense with when needed), so you don't. One candle is the Rabbinic commandment. Lighting two candles is a recent frumkeit, or yhiruth, that started among German Jews and is less than 900 years old. Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter 6424 N Whipple St Chicago IL 60645-4111 (1-773)7613784 landline (1-410)9964737 GoogleVoice jay at m5.chicago.il.us http://m5.chicago.il.us "The umbrella of the gardener's aunt is in the house" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 04:58:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 12:58:34 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001901d080e1$7d6fcbe0$784f63a0$@org.uk> RMB wrote: <> As I have written before, what I find intensely frustrating about this is that RYBS's invocation of tan du appears to itself involve a form of tampering with the chazakos and by implication the denial of the perfection and truthfulness of chachmei chazal that is then claimed to be kefira. The gemora in discussing tan du is very clear - both in Yevamos 118b and Kesuvos 75a: a woman in a tan du marriage commits adultery - "kulan mezanos"! - THAT is the chazaka from Chazal regarding the nature of women. Now this could mean: (a) the sort of woman who is prepared to enter a tan du marriage is prepared to and will commit adultery; or (b) all women will take a tan du marriage (RYBS), but if they find themselves in a tan du marriage - the existential loneliness that RYBS identifies as being the particular province of women will also, according to Chazal, inevitably drive them to adultery; But you can't get away from the fact that Chazal set this up as a chazaka. And if you take these chazakos in the way that RYBS says to do, then there are inevitable conclusions: A Beis Din faced with what can now clearly be seen as a tan du marriage HAS to assume adultery as a consequence - that being the chazaka. If you hold that these statements of Chazal are perhaps limited in time and place to the times of Chazal, and the nature of women then, then we cannot necessarily generalise to today, and despite a woman today being demonstratably in a tan du marriage, one cannot necessarily jump to conclusions regarding her faithfulness. But if these chazakos are immutable - then the only question must surely be, was there the possibility of adultery - and given the freedom of movement of women today, I do not see how anybody can say that opportunity was not available. Therefore the result, and the consequence for the marriage, was a foregone conclusion. A beis din, if it does not treat this marriage as a mekach taus (because the woman is one who would not have entered a tan du marriage), has to treat it as one in which the woman has committed adultery and is therefore forbidden to her husband, and under which the husband is clearly under a Torah obligation to divorce, according to all opinions ("dvar erva"). And yet note that there is none of this in RBYS's analysis. Women's loneliness and spiritual pain, yes - a full facing of the consequences of what is therefore, according to Chazal, endemic in our society and in the nature of Bnos Yisroel, no. There is a complete glossing over of the fundamental conclusion by Chazal regarding the consequence of a tan du marriage. And yet how can you write about tan du as an absolute immutable principle and yet not mention what, according to Chazal, is the cast iron result of that absolute immutable principl? Note by the way that this chazaka, if indeed it is immutable in the nature of women, has another consequence. Given that having women commit adultery is clearly (how shall I put this mildly) a highly destructive thing for society - having women enter into marriages where this is the inevitable consequence is a very bad thing. Surely any Rabbi who is mesader kedushin at such a wedding, any eidim at such a wedding, etc have as a matter of fact engaged in lifnei iver lo titen michshol in the full biblical sense. This isn't, according to Chazal, a maybe or a possibility, this is an inevitability. Surely it is obligatory on any Rabbi who agrees to be mesader kiddushin and on any shadchanim and eidim to investigate very carefully that this marriage is not of the tan du nature? That is if, as Rav Lichtenstein is quoted as saying "given the clear cut evidence in the Rishonim in Yevamot and other places in Shas which clearly indicated that this hazaka was not one that applied in all contexts and at all times and in all situations" - then these concerns would be significantly diminished. After all, any marriage presented to a mesader kedushin would then at the very least be a sfek sfeka - perhaps this isn't a tan du marriage, and if it is, perhaps the woman might not commit adultery. But if it is an inevitable chazaka that a woman in a tan du marriage will commit adultery, then there is only one safek in relation to a serious issur d'orisa - in which case must it not be the responsibility of all those who enable such a marriage to occur to make sure that it is not a tan du marriage and they are not enabling such adultery to take place? To my mind, indeed, that is precisely what Chazal were really getting at. A genuine acknowledgement that - at least in some societies and some environments, women are pressured into inappropriate marriages and give in to that pressure. And that where a woman does indeed give in to such an inappropriate marriage, the consequences are really, really bad for the general society and we need all to be on guard to try and prevent such marriages occurring. That to me demonstrates far more clearly the "perfection and truthfulness of Chazal" than trying to squish them in to some metaphysical understanding of womenkind that does not reverberate as true to many. But if one is going to apply this particular analysis to this particular statement of Chazal, it would seem important to do it honestly while facing the totality of what it is that Chazal actually said. >-Micha Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 11:00:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 18:00:12 GMT Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabal as Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150427.140012.4336.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Rav YB Soloveitchik zt"l was quoted: > ... Let us take for example the chazaka that I was told > about: the chazaka tav l'meisiv tan du mil'meisiv armalo > [20] has absolutely nothing to do with the social and > political status of women in antiquity. This chazaka is > based not upon sociological factors, but upon a verse in > breishis -- harba arbeh itz'voneich v'heironeich b'etzev > teildi vanim v'el isheich t'shukaseich v'hu yimshal bach > -- "I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy travail; in > pain thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall > be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee" [21]. It > is a metaphysical curse rooted in the feminine personality > -- she suffers incomparably more that the male who is in > solitude. Solitude to the male is not as terrible an > experience, as horrifying an experience, as is solitude to > the woman. And this will never change, mayid shamayim > vaaretz [22]. This is not a psychological fact; it is an > existential fact, ... In our discussions of this idea, that the chazaka is "an existential fact" and "based not upon sociological factors", there seems to be a general assumption that the Rav was speaking of ALL chazakos. However, it seems possible to me, or perhaps even likely, that he was singling this chazaka out as different from others. Note that he does not merely assert this chazaka to be existential, but he cites a pasuk as proof. To me, this is significant, because we would then be allowed to treat any NON-pasuk-based chazaka as sociological. I don't know what implications this might have for the chazaka of extramarital relations that R"n Chana Luntz mentioned, or for any other chazakos, but I wanted to mention it in case anyone else wants to comment. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553e7973421b079735cf5st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 14:53:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 17:53:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabal as Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150427.140012.4336.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150427.140012.4336.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150427215316.GA27558@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 06:00:12PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : In our discussions of this idea, that the chazaka is "an existential : fact" and "based not upon sociological factors", there seems to be a : general assumption that the Rav was speaking of ALL chazakos. However, : it seems possible to me, or perhaps even likely, that he was singling : this chazaka out as different from others. I suggested a third possiliblity. The shiur was all about Talmud Torah and Qabbalas Ol Malkhus Shamayim. This was a couple of off topic lines in what was basically a complaint that RER didn't respect the halachic process (as RYBS saw it). RAL reports that this was RYBS's primary argument against RER's beis din; I am suggesting that this quick assertion was an example of that argument, not an independent second reason to reject. It fits better as an efshar lomar than an actual assertion. How do you know you can simply repeal this chazaqah? What if it's an existential statement about the human condition; is it, after all, mentioned in a pasuq! Not so much that tav lemeisav was necessarily an existential and unchanging fact, but that it could be. That one can't simply reason in a vacuum and buck the trend of millennia of pesaq. But in any case, RYBS did say it belashon rabbim: "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above. Let us take for example the chazaka that I was told about: the chazaka tav l'meisiv tan du...." RYBS discusses tav lemeisiv as an example of a general principle not to tamper with chazaqos. Not as a single case. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 23rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Netzach: How does my domination Fax: (270) 514-1507 stifle others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 11:10:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 14:10:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A Halachik analysis of the kosher status of vitamins and medicines. Message-ID: <20150427181040.6E1171834B6@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/osf4fh7 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 12:51:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 21:51:46 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150426235424.BD633182CE0@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150426235424.BD633182CE0@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <553E9352.3030802@zahav.net.il> 1) I have to admit I don't get your answer. You asked in what way could the state be considered a Kiddush Hashem and I gave you an answer. Now you reply that various rabbis wouldn't agree with that answer. Ok, but az mah? 2) The Satmar Rebbe wouldn't have said that anything about the state is a Kiddush Hashem, no matter what it did, so I don't understand why you included him. 3) Lastly, the reply that you gave reminds me of something that Rav AY Kook wrote in Orot, Orot HaTechiya, Chapter 20. He was addressing the question of whether or not the religious should join forces with the non-religious in order to work together for the Zionist cause. Rav Kook used the story of the two women claiming to be the mother of a baby as example of people revealing their true intentions. The woman who agreed that the baby should be cut in half was in effect saying (according to RK) that there shouldn't be babies. She used others claims as way of hiding her true intent, but when the decisive moment came, the truth came out. Meaning - was the demand that the religious not work with the secular the issue or was that a cover story used to mask people's opposition to Zionism? Or in this case, is the demand that the creation of the state be a Kiddush HaShem in the eyes of all rabbanim a real demand or is it simply a cover? If the Breuer community want the state to reflect certain values, than please, make it happen. If they don't want to make it happen or aren't willing, than the demand is (at best) an exercise in dissimulation. Ben On 4/27/2015 1:54 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > We all know that there were great Torah scholars who disagreed with the assertion that " the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." to name just 3, the Satmar Rebbe, Rav Breuer, and Rav Schwab. They were also most certainly familiar with the gemara you quote and the RASHI. > > If you had written, "Therefore, according to some Torah scholars the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." I would not disagree. However, your blanket statement, "Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." is IMO is not valid. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 14:59:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 22:59:07 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] ashkenazi married to sefardi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003e01d08135$629ef9e0$27dceda0$@org.uk> RET writes: <> Note that the Bnei Banim in Chelek 3 siman 29 brings an objection to this position of RMF, based on the Rema in Even HaEzer siman 75 si'if 1. The discussion there is regarding the situation where the man literally comes from one country and the woman comes from another, who can force whom to move? And while the majority of the rishonim (including the Tashbetz) hold (absent special considerations such as Eretz Yisrael versus non Eretz Yisrael) that the man can force the woman to move to his country, Rabbanu Tam holds the opposite, that the woman can force the man to move. And the Rema holds l'halacha that we should be choshesh for the position of Rabbanu Tam, and hence neither can force the other to move. The Bnei Banim points out that if one cannot force the wife to physically move to the locale of the husband, l'halacha, how can she be considered to have moved to his place by mere dint of the marriage? After all, if she has in fact, halachically, moved to his place by entering the chuppah, what possible objection can there possibly be to her being made to up sticks and actually go to his country, Rabbanu Tam or no Rabbanu Tam? So while the Tashbez is in fact being consistent - being a rishon who holds that in fact she is required to physically move to the husband's country, the Bene Banim argues that by being choshesh for Rabbanu Tam, the Rema is clearly not poskening like RMF and the Tashbetz. The Bene Banim also discusses other arguments brought by the Tashbetz (such as ishto k'gufo) - but again rejects this, given that a woman does not take over her husband's chiyuvim and nedarim (with the possible exception of Channukah Candles). >In addition ROY states a similar psak in several places. One can argue that ROY is in a stronger position than RMF, on the grounds that he solely follows the Mechaber, and hence not the Rema, and might hold that one can force a country change. The Bnei Banim also brings, however, that while ROY comes out straightforwardly like the Tashbetz in Yabiat Omer chelek 5 siman 37 (there he is discussing an Ashkenazi woman who married a Sephardi man and whether she can eat rice on Pesach - answer of course, yes), in Or Torah Iyar 4751 ROY writes (quotation taken from the Bene Banim, I don't have access to the original): ?????? ??? ???? ????? ????? ????? ?????? ?????? ???? ??????? ????? ?????? ??? ????? ????? ???? ??? ???? ?? ?"? ????, ?? ???? ??????? ???? ???? ???? ?????? ???? ????? ????? ???? ?' ?? ?????? ????? ???? )??? ?' ???? ?"?(. ??? ?????? ???? ???? ?? ???? ??? ???? ???? ????? ?? ??? ????, ??? ??? ???? ????? ????? ????? ???? ???? ???? ???? ????? ???? ????? ????? ???? ?? ?? ?? ?????. ???? ?? ?????? ?????? ?????? ???? ????? ????? ????? ??, ????? ?? ???? ????? ?? ????. ??? ?? ?? ????? ????? ??? ??? ????? ??? ????? ????? ????? ?????. ???? ???? ???? ??????, ?? ??? ????? ?? ???? ?????? ???? ????? ????? ???? ????? ??? ???? ????? ?? ??? ?????? ????, ??? ??? ????? ???? ???? ????? ??? ?????? ??? ??????? ??? ????? ????? ???"?. ??? ??? ???? ???? ?????? ???????? ?????? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ?? ??? ??? "??? ???" ???? ?? ???, ????? ????? ?? ???? " customs that are required of the husband of necessity because of the tradition of his fathers like the Sephardim who accepted on themselves the rulings of Maran [the Shulchan Aruch] and are not able to be lenient against his opinion even by way of hatarah, it is required of an Ashkenazi woman to go after her husband and even to conduct herself leniently like the custom of her husband like that which I wrote in Yabiat Omer (chelek 5 siman 37). But stringencies that the husband has placed on himself that if he wants he is able to nullify them by way of hatarah, there is no need for the woman to conduct herself like him and he is not able to force on her a stringency that she does not want to accept as there is to her on whom to rely. Therefore if she wants to continue to use Tenuva milk she is able to do this, and the husband if he wants can be stringent upon himself. But not use any form of compulsion that also she be stringent that there not enter their house the products of Tenuva. And this is the law with the fruit of shmitta, if she relies on the heter mechira since there are many great ones of the world who hold to leniency she is also able to continue to be lenient, and so she is not forced to accept upon herself the stringency of not using products which do not have on them the hashgacha of the Badatz. And if the husband is not able to continue his stringencies when the woman does not want to accept he should do hatarah on that which he did not say ?bli neder? and be lenient also he, as great is the peace of a house." The Bnei Banim notes however that ROY does not bring any lamdus to defend the distinction he makes here between longstanding community customs (such as rice on pesach or glatt meat) and more recent customs - such as not eating Tenuva or relying on the heter mechira. To expand on this comment of the Bnei Banim, one might say that if you base the reason for a woman taking on the customs of the husband because she moves to his place, why should it make a difference whether the customs he has established in his place are longstanding ones, such as eating rice on pesach, or not using the products of Tenuva? The customs of his place are the customs of his place. And yet ROY is, in this, reflecting a common (if perhaps inconsistent) practice. In all the debate regarding husbands not using the eruv and relying on their wives doing so, and how it shows a lack of derech eretz etc, nobody suggests that actually it is assur for the wife to use the eruv, on the grounds that she has moved to the husband's place, and his custom is not to do so, and so she is stuck with the stringencies of his house. The Bnei Banim concludes his teshuva by stating: ?????? ???? ??? ????? ???? ????? ???? ??????? ?????? ??? ???? ?????? ?????? ???? ?? ????, ?? ????? ?? ????? ?? ???? ????"? ????? ??? ???? ??"? ???? ????? ???? ????? ???? ?? ????? ??? ????? ?????? ?????? ??? ???? ???? ?? ?? ???? ??? ???? ???? ???????? ??? ???? ???, ??? ?? ?????? ?? ???? ???? ??????? ?????? ????? ??????. "And l?halacha anyway one should not push aside the custom of the world that a woman frees herself from the customs of her father?s household and conduct herself according to the customs of her husband if she wants, but she is able also to rely on the words of [Rav Ovadiah Yosef] in the ma?amer and so it seems to me that when there isn?t in it [a matter] between him and her, and there isn?t a matter of inui nefesh she is able to continue like the customs of the house of her father since behold also if she vowed them from anew after the marriage the husband could not annul [such vows], and she may make a condition with her husband before the marriage that she will continue to conduct herself in accordance with her customs." This point of the Bnei Banim regarding innui nefesh and matters beno uvena is interesting. What he is referring to is the fact that a husband can be mafer (ie nullify) the nedarim of his wife, but only those that either constitute inui nefesh or are considered beno u'vena (Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah Diman 234 si?if 55). And it seems to me that you can therefore deal with the Tashbetz's point (as strongly re-iterated by ROY) regarding food issues - ie that they cannot eat together at the same table where what is permitted for one is prohibited for the other - with the use of this concept, without needing to come on to place changes. Because one of the definitions of inui nefesh brought in the Shulchan Aruch (Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah Diman 234 si?if 60-61) is if the woman forbids an item of food on herself (although the Shulchan Aruch there in si'if 60 notes that the Rambam considers this a matter not of inui nefesh but of beno u'vena). So that, certainly from the perspective of a Sephardi husband, a woman who has has the practice of not eating rice and kitniyot on Pesach is engaging in inui nefesh - and if you follow the Rav Poelim I brought in an earlier post, that if one is forbidden to eat something, one is forbidden to cook it on yom tov for others who may eat it, then the woman could not cook rice or kitniyot for the husband either - making the matter clearly one beno u'vena. So it seems like the whole question of differences in food do not need discussions of place, they can more readily be handled within the context of the existing halachic framework surrounding marriage, and what is and is not appropriate to be waived in the context of a healthy marriage. That set me thinking about the fact that actually we are talking about a whole range of different forms of minhagim - and it seems to me that as a first stab, we are dealing here with four different categories: a) minhagim that really have no impact on the husband - such as whether she benches and davens minhag Ashkenaz or minhag Edot Hamizrach (but will have a major impact on her should she be required to change, both in terms of the huge learning curve, and also in terms of the emotional impact, eg of the kol nidrei tunes). One might perhaps say that if she davens a different nusach, she will want to go to shul to a different place - but she is in a different place from the husband anyway, by virtue of the mechitza, and of course many women do not have the custom to go at all, so real impact would seem to be minimal. That seems to be the underlying message of the Bene Banim. b) minhagim that involve inui nefesh of the woman (which the halacha defines as having an impact on the husband, and which includes her having prohibitions on food) and those beno u'vena. We already have a halachic framework to determine these - the relevant sections of Yoreh Deah siman 234. For example, it doesn't seem to me to be a stretch to say that if he has the minhag of putting food with a majority of solid on the blech on shabbas, and she has a minhag not to, then her following that minhag will impact beno u'vena in terms of what gets provided at the shabbas table, and therefore would fall within the category of minhagim that ought to change in the interests of a unified household. c) minhagim that impact the husband financially. The interesting thing is that these *are* dealt with in the gemora and the halacha based on the principle "olah imo v'ana yoredes imo" - she goes up with him but does not go down with him. The case discussed on Kesubos 48a is regarding what it is necessary for him to hire for her funeral (in the way of flute players and wailers) where the custom between her family and his family is different. And while it might have been the case that it was different because they were from a different socio-economic class, it may also be because she came from a different place where the custom was to spend more on funerals and even so (once you accept that the same rule applies in death as it does in life) he is required to fund the difference - there is no assumption that because she has moved to his place, she is only entitled to the funeral according to the custom of his place. It would therefore seem that the straightforward pshat of this gemora is against the Tashbetz. Similarly the Shulchan Aruch rules in Even HaEzer siman 80 si'if 10 that the various forms of work that are required of a woman for her husband are only required if it is the derech of both her family and his family for a woman to do this - ie it is the intersection of the two sets of minhagim that make the requirement binding. d) minhagim of the husband that cause her tzar: this is in many ways the flip side of b), in that in b) we are talking about a situation where what she has been accustomed to doing all her life is, from the perspective of the husband, a form of inui nefesh, while here, the customs of the husband are what to her might well seem inui nefesh. This could also perhaps be said to be dealt with by the gemora. The gemora in Kesubos 61a discusses the situation where there is a dispute between him and her regarding whether she should nurse their baby in situations where it is the custom of her family but not his or vice versa. The question has a financial aspect, if she does not, then the husband will be put to the expense of hiring a wet nurse, and also, it would appear, a status/beauty aspect (the husband may not want her to, either because only lower class women do this, or because it might make her less beautiful in his eyes). In terms of the financial and status aspect, the gemora again brings the position of olah imo v'ana yoredes imo as per c), but there are also other aspects. For example, in the case where she wants to nurse, and the husband does not want her to, the gemora assumes that it is straightforward that, if she wishes to nurse, we listen to her, on the grounds that "tzara dedei hu" - it is her pain. Now Rashi understands this as the physical pain of having milk and having no-one feed - but it could also be understood to be psychological. However, it is hard to know how far to extend this case, nursing might well be considered sui generis, because (a) it is something very specific to a woman that a man will never do (regardless of what the women in his family did) and (b) there are very specific, unusual, physical and/or psychological factors which are not necessarily duplicated elsewhere. Refraining from specific foods (despite it being considered inui nefesh) would seem to be a far less significant matter. What might perhaps be of more general application is the discussion that immediately follows the nursing question - in which the gemora attempts to find a Torah source for the idea of olah imo v'ana yoredes imo. Rav Huna learns it out of "He beulas ba'al" (Breishis 20:3) [Reference to Sarah Imanu vis a vis Avimelech] and therefore "beilaso shel baal v'lo yoredaso" - she goes up with the husband and not down with him while Rabbi Eliezer learns it out from "ki who eim kol chai" [Breishis 3:20] and therefore "l'chaim nitna vlo l'tzar nitna" - she was given for life and not for tzar. Now the Pnei Yehoshua and the Mahrasha attempt to learn different nafka minas from the bringing of these two different sources - but it seems to me that a straightforward nafka mina is that the first source appears to understand the question primarily as being one of financial or perhaps spiritual improvement (however one understands "going up" rather than "going down"). While the second source seems rather to focus on the idea that marriage is supposed to bring with it life rather than pain. So under the first source one might understand, if one understands prishus from particular foods or activities as a form of greater spirituality, then a woman ought to follow her husband in that, even if it is considered innui nefesh, while following the second source, the key would seem more to be a question of tzar, and inui nefesh must surely be considered at least some aspect of tzar. On some level that does seem to be what is driving ROY in his discussion of customs such as not using tenuva milk or not relying on the heter mechira - both cases deal with the situation where the man is the stringent one, and her custom is towards leniency. But where this question would seem to really bite, is, for example, in the case of a Sephardi woman contemplating marrying an Ashkenazi man - where she has grown up eating and cooking rice and kitniyot on Pesach. I know a number of little Sephardi girls who have told me that they would not contemplate marrying an Ashkenazi man because of this. Now maybe they will grow out of it - but it does seem to me to a really bad reason to be rejecting a potential suitor - and yet the sense of tzar is there, that is what they are saying, I don't want the tzar of making Pesach, which for many women is tzar enough already, totally different from the way I grew up and have been taught - especially when it comes with countless greater stringencies. And even if she does ignore this in practice and accepts such a marriage, one can easily see a level of resentment bubbling to the surface at what can be in any event a very stressful time ("it is your fault that it is so darn difficult so the least you can do is be more helpful"). And if one could in fact understand a fundamental halachic principle to be taken into consideration as that of l'chaim nitna vlo l'tzar nitna - you might end up with something in keeping with the shalom bayis needs of klal yisrael. >Eli Turkel Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 15:12:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 18:12:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: <20150423.205848.16124.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150423.205848.16124.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150427221257.GA6982@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 24, 2015 at 12:58:48AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : > So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, : > ones you used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making : > a berakhah on? Yes, there is light for enjoying the Shabbos meal, : > all the same shalom bayis. But there is no actual pe'ulah to make : > the berakhah on. Is there? : I don't know where you see anything like this in the AhS. The AhS : is explicitly talking about lighting after mincha, when it is already : dark and the light is already useful... And was used or at least "used" before Shabbos (in some halachic rather than commonsensical sense), even if just for seconds, since that's the AhS's grounds for allowing the person who made no eiruv tavshilin to light her Shabbos candles. So, how can she make a berakhah on candles she was only permitted to light because they would be used before Shabbos? What hadlaqah for Shabbos itself occured? > omit the bracha, because it explicitly declares one's intentions to be > of a hachana nature, but that is a separate question not raised by the > AhS... I'm taking his silence, the AhS not telling her to light without a berakhah, as implication that there is no change from the usual WRT berakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 23rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Netzach: How does my domination Fax: (270) 514-1507 stifle others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:01:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:01:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428160119.GA8805@aishdas.org> On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 01:53:10PM -0400, Kaganoff via Avodah wrote: : For many years i had extreme difficulty with R. Elchanan Wasserman understanding : as it conflicted with my belief that Judaism (and other religions) was not : logically provable (contra to Moshe Mendelssohn and his contemporaries) and : therefore required a "leap of faith" and that a disbeliever could not be : faulted for failing to take such a jump. This is a false dichotomy. Logically proving things are not the only way to justify belief in there. How do you know that (in a flat space) two parallel lines never meet? If you're like me, you pictured it in your head. Even though infinite lines don't exist in the real world. (Nor, does it turn out, does flat space.) Did you figure out that oppression was evil by logical proof, or by a combination of imagination and empathy? My favorite example is answering the question, "Do elephants have hair?" A logical/verbal approach would be: Elephants are mammals, all mammals have hair, and so unless elephants are the exception to the rule, they must have hair. Elephants are well known and discussed animals. Could they be an exception to the rule and I don't know it? Nah, they must have hair. How it is more likely the question jogged your memory of elephants you saw, or saw pictures of. The detail may be blurry, so you may have to manipulate the picture a bit. Finally, a version of the picture which has a tuft of hair at the tail, maybe (if your memory is good) some downy hair around the eyes and ears, strikes you as the most familiar, the most real. And again you could reach the conclusion that elephants have hair. (See for some musings about the two modes of thought I'm contrasting here.) In I compare different versions of the Argument from Design from R' Aqiva's response to the apiqoreis through the Rambam, through similar approaches based on more modern science. "G-d created" (Gen. 1:1): A hereic came to Rabbi Aqiva and asked, "Who made the universe?". Rabbi Aqiva answered, "HQBH". The heretic said, "Prove it to me." Rabbi Aqiva said, "Come to me tomorrow". When the heretic returned, Rabbi Aqiva asked, "What is that you are wearing?" "A garment", the unbeliever replied. "Who made it?" "A weaver." "Prove it to me." "What do you mean? How can I prove it to you? Here is the garment, how can you not know that a weaver made it?" Rabbi Akiva said, "And here is the world; how can you not know that Haqadosh barukh Hu made it?" After the heretic left, Rabbi Aqiva's students asked him, "But what is the proof?" He said, "Even as a house proclaims its builder,a garment its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the Holy Blessed One Who created it. Not very rigorous. Rabbi Aqiva's reply revolves around giving a parable to make the conclusion self-evident. Not contructing a deductive argument. The more rigorous we try making it, the more arguable the proof becomes. R' Aqiva's argument is far more convincing than the Rambam's statement based on how objects lose form over time, not gain it. Or a similar argument based on thermodynamics or information theory. (Ironically, every formal / logical proof is built from givens taken as self-evident for informal-reasoning reasons.) Anyway, that's how I understood REW. R' Elchanan argues that on an informal level, the idea that the universe had to have a Creator is as obvious as a Euclidean postulate or the injustice of oppression. To not believe in G-d requires a formal proof, which one's negios then determine if they find it sound or specious, and whether they accept the postulates on which it's built. Notice I didn't invoke any leaps of faith. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:24:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:24:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Peshat and Drash (Was: Re: Meshech Chochmah on Kedushah) In-Reply-To: <5518BD49.3000508@gmail.com> References: <54FC792A.4080400@gmail.com> <20150324195248.GD29350@aishdas.org> <5518BD49.3000508@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150428162406.GB8805@aishdas.org> On Sun, Mar 29, 2015 at 11:04:41PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : But there were such instances where "one said this was how halakhah : was understood miSinai and another says that this is new." One : example (noted by the Chavos Yair in his Teshuva 192) is a 3-way : machlokess in Zevachim 110b, where one Amora says Nissuch HaMayyim : is miDrabannan, another says it is derived from a posuk, and another : says it was a halacha l'Moshe MiSinai. Rambam (Temidim uMussafim : 10:6 ) poskens it is a halacha l'Moshe MiSinai. This is consistent : with the concept that, as the Rambam writes, "once someone says 'so : have I received,' there is no more debate." The reason is that once : one of our sages can demonstrate he is a recipient of explicit data : originating with Moshe Rabbeynu, a HLMS, it is naturally accepted as : fact. I thought it was well accepted that the Rambam's position in HLMS is inconsistent, that he mentions numberous machloqesin in dinim he himself labeled HLMS. I don't have time to summarize the Chavor Ya'ir teshuvah 192, but I gave up waiting until I did. The examples are numerous. Possible resolutions: - No machloqesin in the essence of the matter, but there can be in details. (the CY's conclusion.) - Im halakhah hi neqabel -- no machloqesin in something both sides agree are HLMS. And what I suggested: That we should distinguish between disputes due to lack of knowledge and formal machloqesin, with the Rambam saying the legal term "machloqes" with all the usual rules of pesaq only apply to the latter. Other disputes, while called machloqes in the colloquial sense, are resolved using the rules of safeiq -- because (leshitaso) ignorance does not create a real machloqes (in the technical sense). And the Rambam here is saying that real machloqes is limited to conflicting deductions and extrapolations from existing law to new places. And thus disputes in laws that date back to Sinai can't have real machloqesin. I know I'm repeating myself, but it's been "forever" ago in email list time since I sat on this post awaiting the time to study the CY. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:33:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:33:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] free will In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428163338.GC8805@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 1:38pm IDT, R Eli Turkel wrote: : We have discussed many times the opinion of Rav Dessler that a person : doesn't always have free will. : I recently saw a halachic discussion that may have some connection. : On ketubot 51 the gemara discusses a case of a married woman who was raped : but at the end was willing... : One possibility of explaining Rava is that she is overwhelmed by her : "yetzer" and so is still considered ["anusah"]... While RET's suggested example is consistent REED's concept of nequdas habechirah, the way RET phrased REED's position kept this email on my to-do list for the last 3 weeks. REED's point is one that's pretty consistent with first-hand experience of making choices. We do not feel in control of our subconscious decisions. All the opportunities we filter out before we even are aware of thinking about it. He then says that the decisions that rise to the level of consciousness, and thus we have some control over, are ones that generate internal conflict. The "battlefront" in his metaphor, where the yh"t and yh"r are balanced. But once you accept the notion of non-conscious thought, REED's conclusion is unavoidable. And a person does always have free will, he just isn't aware of every choice he makes to know to exercise it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:41:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:41:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428164110.GD8805@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 04:29:11PM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The world has changed a lot since the time of chazal especially related to : travel... : : 1. Most travel is no longer considered unsafe. When I get in my car every : morning to drive to work I don't think twice about it : 2. The distinction between in the city and out of the city is no longer : true... : Recently, I heard a short shiur on tefilas haderech and was happy to hear : that RSZA seems to say a very similar idea to RYBS. In contrast, the qorban todah and birkhas hagomel depend not only on surviving a dangerous situation but also on reliving one of the four sorts of yeshu'os tehillim ascribes to yetzi'as Mitzrayim: crossing a desert, the sea, bring freed from jail or recovering from illness. So, if we deem flying over the Great Lakes or the Mediterranean (to pick shorter flights over mayim she'ein lahem sof) to be too safe to warrant tefillas haderekh, would one end up in a situation that calls for no tefillas haderekh beforehand, but benching gomel afterward? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:45:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:45:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428164537.GE8805@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 11:12am EDT, RnTK asked: : But to veer back into Avodah territory -- would it have been appropriate to : say Tefillas Haderech at that time? With shem umalchus? (I assume you : can always say it without shem umalchus.) Tefilas haDerekh is never said besheim umalkhus. Sheim, yes, but not malkhus: "Barukh atah H', shomeia tefillah." No mention of "E-lokeinu Melekh ha'olam". Also, when speaking about berakhah vs tefillah, Tefillas haDerekh refers to itself as a tefillah. And notice also the chasimah is about hearing the baqashah, not about the shemirah we're requesting itself. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:58:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:58:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150419.223015.3015.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150419.223015.3015.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150428165812.GF8805@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 02:30:15AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : But then, as I was reviewing this post, my mind turned to the Tanur : Shel Achnai. R' Eliezer had a minority view, and R' Yehoshua was in : the majority. I've got to believe that both views were firmly grounded; : this machlokes was surely just as L'Shem Shamayim as any between Hillel : and Shammai. I'd *like* to say that Klapei Shmaya, both views were Truth. And if not, how would we justify following the majority over Divinely revealed truth? We discussed bas qol, and why we follow the bas qol that says "vehalakhah kebeis Hillel" despite the anur shel achnai story. I listed the opinions in the Encyc Talmudit here It's not 100% accepted that the bas qol was really endorsing R' Eliezer's opinion in this particular machloqes, rather than defending his shitah in general -- "halakhah kemoso bekhol maqom", or that it was a test. Both suggested by R' Nissim gaon. Similarly one of the answers in Tosafos is that it was about R' Eliezer's kavod, and not a Divine statement to be taken literally about din. All three would imply that we would follow a bas qol over halachic process, and so they had to explain how the tanur story wasn't an example. Thus implying that what we are searching for is the truth rather than legal authority. RNG's position on the tanur shel achanai story supports RMHalbertal's theory that in the geonic era, the Retrieval theory of halakhah dominated. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:12:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:12:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] brochos from the amud (was: tefillat haderech) In-Reply-To: <20150420024354.CJVF30458.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo110> References: <20150420024354.CJVF30458.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo110> Message-ID: <20150428171200.GG8805@aishdas.org> On Sun, Apr 19, 2015 at 10:43:47PM -0400, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote: : Slight change of topic: I'm still trying to wrap my head around the : idea that we don't seem to have a chashash of a brocha l'vatalah. I : mean, you have a sh'tz up there, saying a brocho out loud -- and : he's intentionally trying to be motzi _some_ others... But only those who had in mind to be yotzei. : Shomea k'oneh : doesn't apply at all? What if you are in the shul and you're not : thinking about the issue of being yotzie, you're just thinking about : which day it is, and/or you simply have stam kavanah. No chashash : for an issur d'oraissa? RYBS says in the context of the berakhah on Hallel that because mitzvos einum tzerikhos kavanah, if you have no kavanah one way or the other, you would be yotzei. To avoid being yotzei would require having explicit kavanah not to be yotzei. He then continues that the idea of having intent not to want to do a mitzvah bothers him, and so RYBS said he says the berakhah on Hallel along with the chazan. (Which is what my father does, and what I grew up with.) I assume the same would be true here. (Although I don't recall what my father does, I say the berakhah along with the chazan.) I would have thought that interrupting with "barukh Hu uvarukh shemo" should also work. Recall that R Chaim was very against answering BHUBS to chazaras hashatz because one is being yotzei tefillat hatzibur. (Above and beyond one's own chiyuv of tefillah.) While listing my hunches, I believe that intent to say it yourself qualified as kavanah not to be yotzeir. So the default is kavanah not to be yotzei, not an absense of kavanah one way or the other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:44:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:44:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428164445.5B05B18384C@nexus.stevens.edu> At 12:24 PM 4/28/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: >Meaning - was the demand that the religious not work with the >secular the issue or was that a cover story used to mask people's >opposition to Zionism? This was an issue, and there was also opposition to Zionism. The opposition to Zionism was not masked at all. Please read http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/zion_or_zionism.pdf to see what Zionism really is according to Rav Schwab, ZT"L and others who think like him. >Or in this case, is the demand that the creation >of the state be a Kiddush HaShem in the eyes of all rabbanim a real >demand or is it simply a cover? I have never heard of "the demand that the creation of the state be a Kiddush HaShem in the eyes of all rabbanim " Who demanded this? > If the Breuer community want the state >to reflect certain values, than please, make it happen. And how do you propose that they do this? I asked you in an earlier email what the Orthodox Jews in EY and you in particular are doing to make this happen, and I received no response. > If they don't >want to make it happen or aren't willing, than the demand is (at best) >an exercise in dissimulation. Do you really believe that the Breuer's community at the time when Rav Breuer and Rav Schwab has the wherewithal to make the State reflect certain values? Even those living in EY at this time could not do this. There was (and still is) a large non-religious contingent of Jews living in EY. Do you really think that anyone can "make" them change their views or their behavior? YL YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:32:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:32:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eretz Yisrael vs Medinat Yisrael [was: The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L] Message-ID: <125cff.585c1330.42711e42@aol.com> R. Ben Waxman wrote: >Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem. >Rav Soloveitch tz"l wrote about this point in Kol Dodi Dofek and in his >drashot for the Kinot, as did Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook tz"l. RYL wrote: >> We all know that there were great Torah scholars who disagreed with >> the assertion that " the creation of the State is, in of itself, a >> Kiddush Hashem." >>>>> I will have to re-read Kol Dodi Dofek because I don't remember such a forthright quote -- "The creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." But in any case it isn't exactly an either-or question. The Medinah -- the secular socialist Russian government of Israel -- is hardly a kiddush Hashem. Indeed it arouses waves of hatred from the goyim all over the world, on a daily basis. RBW also wrote: >>....The first is from Yoma 86:A, Rashi, B'Amor Lehem: "Evil comes to chassidim and chachamim because "They desecrated My Holy name." How did they desecrate (God's name)? In those places to where they were exiled, the non-Jews say "These are the people of God" and He can't redeem them. Conclusion: God's name has been desecrated." End quote.<< The establishment of a government that is hated and vilified by the whole world is not, it would seem, a kiddush Hashem. Plus the fact that the country is under constant military threat and cannot, apparently, provide security to its inhabitants, also would not seem to be a kiddush Hashem. But I think these facts -- the constant physical attacks, the world-wide moral opprobrium -- are the cosmic result of the fact that the Medinah is determinedly secular and consciously rejects Torah as a guiding principle. HOWEVER, on the other side, RBW's Rashi quote does have a bearing on the current situation in Eretz Yisrael. There is no denying that the flourishing of Eretz Yisrael, after two thousand years of desolation, is miraculous. The continued existence of the country, despite the constant waves of physical and diplomatic attacks, is also miraculous. And the fact that all Jews can go and live in Eretz Yisrael, and that millions actually do live there, is also a huge miracle. I said there is no denying the miraculous aspects and yet I am aware that the Satmar Rebbe did deny it. He admitted that there was a supernatural aspect to Israel's recent history but ascribed the miracles to the Satan, blinding our eyes. He never joined Agudas Yisrael, the world-wide umbrella organization for all Orthodox Jews, because he was on one side and all the other gedolim in the world were on the other side. All the others rejected the ideology of secular Zionism while gratefully acknowledging chasdei Hashem in allowing the Land to be built up, allowing the Torah communities to grow and flourish, allowing millions of Jews to live in our ancient homeland. The Lubavitcher Rebbe also never joined the Agudah -- I refer not to the Israeli political party but to the world-wide umbrella organization. He had other reasons, perhaps for another time. I think he wanted Chabad to be THE world-wide organization, he did not want it to be one of many competing Orthodox groups and derachim. But he agreed with the basic ideology of the Agudah vis-a-vis the state of Israel -- the nuanced view of ohr vechoshech. And so did the Yekkes, very much so! In fact they were instrumental in founding and guiding the Agudah, for decades! Their attitude towards Israel after the founding of the Medinah and the beginning of kibbutz galuyos was very much the same as the whole rest of the Agudah -- grateful acknowledgment of the positive, hakaras hatov to the Ribono Shel Olam, opposition to the negative, working to improve the moral status of Eretz Yisrael, e.g., when it came to forced autopsies (B'H the charedim won that bitterly fought battle), giyus banos and other issues. But the Yekkes in Israel do vote, do participate in running the country, do daven at the kosel (unlike the Satmar and Neturei Karta), do thank Hashem for protecting Eretz Yisrael and daven for continued Divine protection. RYL considers himself the premier acolyte of RSRH but he and I have some fundamental disagreements about what the Hirschian legacy really is. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 11:59:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 20:59:46 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150428164445.5B05B18384C@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150428164445.5B05B18384C@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <553FD8A2.1060306@zahav.net.il> Regarding the second question, yes I did. Please see the previous emails. Regarding the first, all I can say is that it won't be done from New York. Regarding the other points, I addressed them so I won't repeat myself this round. Ben On 4/28/2015 6:44 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > And how do you propose that they do this? > > I asked you in an earlier email what the Orthodox Jews in EY and you > in particular are doing to make this happen, and I received no response. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:59:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:59:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Message-ID: <126fc1.37d9c7fc.4271247d@aol.com> From: Chana Luntz via Avodah >> As I have written before, what I find intensely frustrating about this is that RYBS's invocation of tan du appears to itself involve a form of tampering with the chazakos and by implication the denial of the perfection and truthfulness of chachmei chazal that is then claimed to be kefira. The gemora in discussing tan du is very clear - both in Yevamos 118b and Kesuvos 75a: a woman in a tan du marriage commits adultery - "kulan mezanos"! - THAT is the chazaka from Chazal regarding the nature of women. [snip] But you can't get away from the fact that Chazal set this up as a chazaka. And if you take these chazakos in the way that RYBS says to do, then there are inevitable conclusions: A Beis Din faced with what can now clearly be seen as a tan du marriage HAS to assume adultery as a consequence - that being the chazaka. [snip] Surely it is obligatory on any Rabbi who agrees to be mesader kiddushin and on any shadchanim and eidim to investigate very carefully that this marriage is not of the tan du nature? [snip] But if it is an inevitable chazaka that a woman in a tan du marriage will commit adultery, then there is only one safek in relation to a serious issur d'orisa - in which case must it not be the responsibility of all those who enable such a marriage to occur to make sure that it is not a tan du marriage and they are not enabling such adultery to take place? >>>>> There is brilliant yet convoluted logic behind this post. I hesitate to tangle with someone like R'n CL who is so erudite, yet I truly believe she has misunderstood this Gemara. Yes, a woman in a loveless marriage is much more tempted to commit adultery, given the right set of circumstances, but it is certainly not inevitable. Nor is it correct to deduce that a rav must make sure, before he marries a couple, that the woman is not entering a loveless marriage! He doesn't have to creep into her heart and mind before conducting the wedding, doesn't have to fathom the depths of her motives in marrying this man. There are so many motives, so many emotions, how could you ever fathom them all? I think "kulan mezanos" refers to all women, and it means all women can be seduced, though obviously it will be easier to seduce a woman who does not love her husband. All women potentially can be seduced. IIRC Beruria the wife of R' Meir -- and you can't claim that was a "tan duu marriage"! -- thought she was an exception to this rule about human nature, or feminine nature. And found out she was wrong! Even she, a brilliant and pious woman married to a great man, could be seduced. Without the Gemara most of us would assume that men are more likely to be unfaithful than women, and I do think that is true. I don't know how to square what we see before us -- that men cheat more than women do -- with what the Gemara says. In any case in Torah homes fidelity between husbands and wives is the norm, Baruch Hashem. All those fences -- laws of yichud, negiah, tznius and so on -- really do protect us. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 15:58:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 23:58:31 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos Message-ID: <001b01d081d6$cb2e0680$618a1380$@org.uk> Sorry, been away, and am therefore very behind in Avodah On 04/03/2015 06:57 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >> He also paskens (for EY) that one can cook kitniyot on the 7th day of >> Pesach for use on the shabbat right afterwards (ef this year). And RZS replied: >Yes, I'm surprised that anyone disagrees. It seems so obviously correct. >I know that many people don't do so, and believe it to be forbidden, >but I have never yet heard an argument for why it should be so. Well the arguments to prohibit can be found in Rav Poelim chelek 3 Orech Chaim siman 30 - he brings two: one based on the prohibition of a person who is fasting on yom tov to cook for others - as per the Rema in Shulchan Aruch Orech Chaim siman 527 si'if 20 as explained by the Magen Avraham there and an additional reason added by the Magen Avraham there in si'if katan 22. The Ben Ish Chai in Rav Poelim was discussing whether a person whose custom (in Bagdad) was not to eat rice on Pesach could cook rice for those who do. He rejected the first rationale provided by the Magen Avraham) as being applicable to this case, but accepted the second reason as applicable (although he also cites a number of achronim who accept the first reason as a reason to prohibit)- and therefore held that those who had the custom of treating rice as assur on pesach could not cook rice for those who had the custom of eating rice on yom tov of Pesach for so long as they had this custom of treating rice as assur (although he held that those who had this custom not to eat rice in Bagdad could do hatarat nedarim and be able to eat, and hence cook, rice on pesach so as to solve the problem). >> This is because some sefardi could come over for a visit and so the >> kitniyot are not mukza . >The main issue would surely not be muktzeh, but cooking on yomtov. >But the answer is the same: the hypothetical horde of hungry guests who >might descend on one ten minutes before sunset on Friday, and for whom >one is, in principle, cooking, might very well be sefardim. Yes, but according to the position of the Rav Poelim, Askenazim can never, when cooking for Sephardim on pesach, cook them dishes that they, the Ashkenazim, cannot eat, hence hoeil does not apply. The same ought presumably to apply to gebrochts according to the Ben Ish Chai - if you can't eat it on shvii shel pesach, you can't cook it for others, including hungry guests, and so cannot effectively cook it for shabbas based on hoeil, your shabbas food would have to consist of something else you could eat on shvii shel pesach. >Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 11:03:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Toby Katz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 14:03:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <127300.4be2c63a.42712586@aol.com> In a message dated 4/28/2015 12:45:47 P.M. EDT, micha at aishdas.org writes: > Tefilas haDerekh is never said besheim umalkhus. You are correct, I should have caught that myself. > Also, when speaking about berakhah vs tefillah, Tefillas haDerekh > refers to itself as a tefillah. And notice also the chasimah is about > hearing the baqashah, not about the shemirah we're requesting itself. zsh:1: command not found: Fmt --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 11:34:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 14:34:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: <127300.4be2c63a.42712586@aol.com> References: <127300.4be2c63a.42712586@aol.com> Message-ID: <20150428183420.GA25835@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 02:03:50PM -0400, T613K at aol.com wrote: : >> Also, when speaking about berakhah vs tefillah, Tefillas haDerekh refers : to itself as a tefillah. And notice also the chasimah is about hearing : the baqashah, not about the shemirah we're requesting itself.<< : : That doesn't answer the question of whether it is appropriate to recite : Tefillas HaDerech during a blinding rainstorm on the highway in your own city, : which was my question. It doesn't fully answer your question, but it does point a bit toward saying it. After all, it turns out that the only berakhah is about Hashem hearing baqashos. The body of the tefillah is only a formalized equivalent to saying "Please G-d, just get me home safe, healthy and in one piece!" or some other spontaneous cry for help. So, if you're scared on the road, tefillah is appropriate. Why would thanking G-d for listening to such tefillos depend on rules about travel? Add to that the fact that it's only half a berakhah, which indicates that it's shevach (like Shomeia Tefillah in Shemoneh Esrei), as another small indicator in favor of saying it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 12:58:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 15:58:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <001901d080e1$7d6fcbe0$784f63a0$@org.uk> References: <001901d080e1$7d6fcbe0$784f63a0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <20150428195810.GC25835@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 12:05:17PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: [RAM:] : > At any rate, one can agree or disagree about : > whether this assertion is true, and even among those who agree with : > it, there might be discussion of exactly which chazakos are unchanging : > and which are variable. Still, his point is that there are indeed some : > UNchanging aspects. : I would add an observation that individual exceptions may exist : empirically but are ignored halachically This is the classic case of affirming a chazaqah (or rov) when there is ika rei'usa. No? On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 12:58:34PM +0100, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: : The gemora in discussing tan du is very clear - both in Yevamos 118b and : Kesuvos 75a: a woman in a tan du marriage commits adultery - "kulan : mezanos"! - THAT is the chazaka from Chazal regarding the nature of women. : : Now this could mean: (a) the sort of woman who is prepared to enter a tan : du marriage is prepared to and will commit adultery; or : (b) all women will take a tan du marriage : (RYBS), but if they find themselves in a tan du marriage - the existential : loneliness that RYBS identifies as being the particular province of women : will also, according to Chazal, inevitably drive them to adultery; : But you can't get away from the fact that Chazal set this up as a chazaka. As the gemara was taught to me, what they set up as a chazaqah was pretty much as RYBS describes it. Women feel the loneliness of singlehood more. The flow of the sugya in the two gemaras are quite similar, from the point where Reish Laqish is quoted staying "tav lemeisiv" onward. RL, illustrated with meshalim by Abayei, R' Papa, and R' Ashi, followed by a tana saying that they all are mezanos and then blame their husbands. So, it would seem that tav lemeisiv is about a desire to be married. This has nothing to do with romance or eros, since we are told that a woman who is just married so s not to be like a widow (milemeisiv armelu) do tend to end up cheating. But tav lemeisiv isn't about the affairs, it's about (Yevamos) why hamezakeh gett le'ishto in the middle is not valid. Because it's not a pure zekhus for her, you cannot say zakhin le'adam shelo befanav (or befanehah, as the case may be). There is nothing about "being driven to" adultery by the loneliness, but by having tav lemeisiv alone satisfied by her marriage. Perhaps the reverse of your formulation. (I think the idea that tav lemeisiv means women are more likely to be sexually lonely would be really hard to support, even in a culture where husbands, not wives, have a chiyuv onah.) Or (Kesuvos) it is used (in a complex case I'm too lazy to spell out) why a man might wish not to be married, lest he later be prohibited to her relatives, but in the flipside case, we do not assume the same of the woman. The bit about mezanos vetolos beba'aleihen is not the basis for any halakhos. I have no reason to believe it's a chazaqah. Tangentially... On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 07:27:43PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Another challenge is how to deal with recent "Chachmei Hamesorah" : who don't seem to meet the perfection definition. I have two suggestions that work for me: 1- Make a list of current chakhmei hamesorah that don't pose such a challenge for you. Once you start, you'll likely find it's a longwer list than you had thought. Focus on them, and ignore the rest, no matter how popular as gedolim they may be. 2- Separate the current rabbinate from one's own ties to the mesorah with a project like Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:01:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 23:01:17 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) Message-ID: <553FF51D.6070804@zahav.net.il> Putting the question of Hallel aside, I don't understand the line below. I looked through the Beit Yosef OH 131 where he discusses the days on which Tachanun isn't said. The BY does not list all the days that we skip (like Purim Qatan or Pesach Sheni). These came later. So when did this idea (that we can't change when Tachanun is said or not said) start? Ben On 4/28/2015 12:31 PM, Prof. Levine via Areivim wrote: > Shemone Esrei is followed > by Chazaras Hashatz, which is followed by Tachanun, and then followed > by Ashrei and U'va' Letzion--and we do not have the right or > privilege of changing that, he opined. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:28:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:28:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early Message-ID: The statement was made that "Lighting two candles is a recent frumkeit, or yhiruth, that started among German Jews and is less than 900 years old.." Isn't it also yohara to stand in judgment of a minhag mentioned in the Tur and Shulchan Aruch and observed virtually without exception by klal Yisraeil? EMT From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 13:50:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 16:50:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eretz Yisrael vs Medinat Yisrael [was: The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L] In-Reply-To: <125cff.585c1330.42711e42@aol.com> References: <125cff.585c1330.42711e42@aol.com> Message-ID: <553FF29D.4030208@sero.name> On 04/28/2015 01:32 PM, via Avodah wrote: > The Lubavitcher Rebbe also never joined the Agudah -- I refer not to > the Israeli political party but to the world-wide umbrella > organization. He had other reasons, perhaps for another time. I > think he wanted Chabad to be THE world-wide organization, he did not > want it to be one of many competing Orthodox groups and derachim. The Lubavitcher Rebbe at the time the Agudah was founded was the Rashab, who in matters of askonus generally took his lead from R Chaim Brisker. Lubavitch was a member of the Agudah's precursor, Machzikei Hadas, but when MH merged with the Yekkes to form the Agudah, R Chaim put 18 conditions on his participation, and since they weren't satisfied both Brisk and Lubavitch stayed out. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:22:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 17:22:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Peshat and Drash (Was: Re: Meshech Chochmah on Kedushah) In-Reply-To: <20150428162406.GB8805@aishdas.org> References: <54FC792A.4080400@gmail.com> <20150324195248.GD29350@aishdas.org> <5518BD49.3000508@gmail.com> <20150428162406.GB8805@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <553FFA2E.6000809@gmail.com> On 4/28/2015 12:24 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > I thought it was well accepted that the Rambam's position in HLMS > is inconsistent, that he mentions numberous machloqesin in dinim > he himself labeled HLMS.... Chavor Ya'ir teshuvah 192...examples are numerous. > > Possible resolutions: > > - No machloqesin in the essence of the matter, but there can be in > details. (the CY's conclusion.) I don't think that is the Chavos Yair's conclusion. He leaves the matter bewildered, as Rambam appears incomprehensible and self-contradictory. > - Im halakhah hi neqabel -- no machloqesin in something both sides agree > are HLMS. With the modification of the word "against" in place of the word ''in,'' this is my conclusion, and that of the Maharatz Chayos. The Rambam is addressing the Karaite argument that even Chazal did not really consider the laws they called "payrushim mekuballim" and HLMS (the latter being payrushim mekuballim that lack indications planted in the Torah) to have literally come from Moshe Rabbeynu. That's why, the Karaites argued, Chazal felt free to dispute them. The Rambam explains that Chazal never disputed laws that made it to them from Sinai. The disputes are over issues ''branching out'' from them. Thus, '' There is no machlokess against any payrush that is known to have come from Sinai.'' This understanding fits very well in the Rambam's words, in the context of which he was talking and the issues he confronted; and eliminates what would certainly be a mess of the self-contradictions and open contradictions from the Talmud that the CY lists. Another concern raised by the CY is the fact that the Rambam seems inconsistent between the Mishneh Torah and his list in the hakdama to his Mishneh commentary in that some laws he labels as HLMS in one work he does not in other. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:28:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 17:28:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Renewal Role of Sarah Schenirer Message-ID: <20150428212818.DEBA1182F93@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/njwrn2g There was a major difference, however, between the Bais Yaacov of Williamsburg and the Bais Yaacov of Poland in pre-war Europe. The Bais Yaacov movement in Poland emphasized the universal Torah teachings of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, while the Bais Yaacov of Williamsburg did not give Rabbi Hirsch's teachings the same emphasis. Why were Rabbi Hirsch's teachings regarding the Torah's universal vision no longer the main focus? Most of the teachers and students at the American Bais Yaakov were Holocaust survivors who felt a need to turn inward after experiencing the hatred of the Gentiles around them and the horrors of the Holocaust. They knew that most of the "humanistic" intellectuals and artists of Germany actively supported the brutal persecution of the Jewish people. They also knew that most of the "enlightened" countries closed their doors to Jews who were trying to escape the Holocaust. In addition, they knew that most of the Christian religious leaders of Europe did not protest the organized murder of millions of Jewish men, women, and children; moreover, many Christians in the countries occupied by the Germans actively assisted the Germans in rounding up the Jews for the death camps. In fact, a number of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust who returned to Poland after the war were murdered in Polish pogroms! It is understandable that these survivors felt the need to first heal themselves before worrying about the world which had abandoned their suffering people. In addition, these survivors did not have the strong attraction to secular western culture which an earlier generation of Bais Yaakov students had once experienced, and their feelings are expressed in the following memoir of Dr. Judith Grunfeld: "Almost seventy years have passed since, and we have today most unfortunately an easy enough means of demonstrating that all cultures which we then venerated have revealed themselves to be nothing but a flimsy veneer covering over diabolical inhumanity. European humanitarian ideas so prevalent then, so much on the tip of everyone's tongue, preached by leading university representatives, have been proven utterly hollow. For they did not succeed in preventing, and indeed could be said to be frequently instrumental in strirring up the raging, terrible fire of man's inhumanity to man." ("Rebbitzen Grunfeld" by Miriam Dansky, p. 72) Nevertheless, our sages teach that Torah - the Divine wisdom - is the blueprint of creation, and that the Creator looked into the Torah when He created the world (Genesis Rabbah 1:1). If our Creator looked into the Torah and created the world, then when we look into the Torah we can rediscover this world. In addition, the Torah reveals that we have the potential to become holy vessels with the spiritual power to transform and elevate the world; thus, no matter how much we turn inward, the study of Torah reminds us that we must eventually turn outward. This may be one of the reasons why a growing number of Torah-committed Jews in our generation are rediscovering the writings of Rabbi Hirsch, as a major theme of his teachings is the universal goal of the Torah path. The Bais Yaacov High School of Baltimore, under the leadership of its principal, Rabbi Binyamin Steinberg, gave renewed emphasis to the universal vision of the Torah. Rabbi Steinberg himself was a Holocaust survivor, and in one of his talks to his students about respect for other peoples, he reminded them of the Compassionate One's promise to Abraham that "through you all the families of the earth will be blessed" (Genesis 12:3). The following is an excerpt from his talk: "All the families of the earth," he declared. 'Who cares about all the families of the earth?' you ask. Nevertheless, that's what the Torah says...The people of Israel will be a blessing for all the families of the earth. That means the Albanians, the Greeks, the Chinese, the Indonesians, the African Americans - all the families of the earth. That's what it says in my Torah! " (A Matter of Principal - a biography of Rabbi Binyamin Steinberg by Hanoch Teller). Before we can become a blessing to others, however, we first need to turn inward in order to develop our unique strengths. As Sarah Schneirer realized, we first have to renew ourselves before we can renew the world. As the Prophet Isaiah proclaimed to our people: "O House of Jacob: Come, let us walk by the light of Hashem! " (Isaiah 2:5) See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:59:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 22:59:29 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <002d01d081fe$99c5fcb0$cd51f610$@org.uk> RMB writes: >As the gemara was taught to me, what they set up as a chazaqah was >pretty much as RYBS describes it. Women feel the loneliness of singlehood >more. >The flow of the sugya in the two gemaras are quite similar, from the >point where Reish Laqish is quoted staying "tav lemeisiv" onward. RL, >illustrated with meshalim by Abayei, R' Papa, and R' Ashi, followed by >a tana saying that they all are mezanos and then blame their husbands. >So, it would seem that tav lemeisiv is about a desire to be married. >This has nothing to do with romance or eros, since we are told that a >woman who is just married so s not to be like a widow (milemeisiv >armelu) do tend to end up cheating. >But tav lemeisiv isn't about the affairs, I agree that tav lemeisiv is not brought initially to refer to the issue of affairs, but rather indeed about a desire to be married which is then brought to make a halachic point within another context (eg maezakeh get l'eishto) - but once the gemora is discussing tav lemeisiv marriages - it then takes the time out, twice, to explain what these marriages mean. And it explains, after going through the flow of Abaye etc, that these marriages mean inevitable adultery. Ie according the gemora a tav l'meisiv marriage = adultery. Now, that means, the more tav l'meisiv marriages there are, the more adultery there is. So the more you stress that the world is full of tav l'meisiv marriages, the more you are saying that the world is full of Bnos Yisrael committing adultery. That tav l'meisiv marriage results in adultery is clearly part and parcel of the definition of what a tav l'meisiv marriage is - one where a woman will prefer to be married than to be alone. And it is not a disputed statement, it is a concluding statement rounding up the discussion of what a tav l'meisiv marriage is. In order to break the equation, you have to say that Chazal didn't really mean what they said, or that they were talking about their time and place, but women today are different - but that means denying the truthfulness and accuracy of Chazal's statements (or understanding them differently) in exactly the way that RYBS objects to as kefira. You can't say that a woman prefers to be married than to be alone is a universal truth because it was stated by Chazal, and simultaneously that women in tav lemeisiv marriages commit adultery is not a universal truth, as they are bound up in the same discussion and you are picking and choosing your Chazalic statements - this one I like, this one I don't, and not just any statement, but the concluding statement rounding up the discussion defining the concept. .... >The bit about mezanos vetolos beba'aleihen is not the basis for any >halakhos. I have no reason to believe it's a chazaqah. So why did Chazal say it? For the fun of casting aspersions on Bnos Yisrael? Twice? In the context of a halachic discussion? If this was any other discussion, would anybody dream of suggesting that when Chazal said that something inevitably happened in the context of a halachic discussion they were not, at the very least, postulating a chazaka (albeit perhaps a rebuttable one) and possibly something even stronger? One might say - well nature has changed (eg kol treifos), or one might say - we have to treat something as halachically following Chazal's statement, even if we know or suspect the metzius is different (hence my line about a Beis Din being required to treat a tav l'meisiv marriage as one where adultery has been committed, and those enabling such a marriage being prohibited from so doing based on lifnei iver). That is the way we generally treat Chazalic statements of this nature. In this case, of course, we have another option, if tav l'meisiv marriages themselves do not occur very often, then we do not necessarily have to worry about, as common, the adultery which is part and parcel of their definition. But if they are in fact common and inevitable where the husband is not as a matter of fact suitable for the wife, then I cannot see how you can claim that this is not a significant societal and halachic concern. Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 15:14:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 18:14:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <002d01d081fe$99c5fcb0$cd51f610$@org.uk> References: <002d01d081fe$99c5fcb0$cd51f610$@org.uk> Message-ID: <20150428221418.GF11656@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 10:59:29PM +0100, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: :> The bit about mezanos vetolos beba'aleihen is not the basis for any :> halakhos. I have no reason to believe it's a chazaqah. : : So why did Chazal say it? For the fun of casting aspersions on Bnos : Yisrael? Twice? In the context of a halachic discussion? Well, it's really one conversation quoted twice. But it emphasizes the point. Tav lemeisiv is considered a reason why a gett would not be zakhin le'adam shelo befanav, even though the marriage would too likely lead to sin. The desire not to be husbandless, even by an insufficient husband, is being described as very profound. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 01:56:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 11:56:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith Message-ID: <> the Euclidean postulates are based on everyone's daily experience. In fact we know they are not true in other circumstances (eg on a globe) The injustice of oppression is more debatable. Surely ISIS believes that destroying ancient culture and cutting off heads of nonbelievers is a "mitzvah" As such the belief in a creator is obvious to one with a religious upbringing. For years scientists (and ancient philosophers) believed in an infinitely old world. Even today some scientists are attemping to justify a big bang without a creator (infinite big bangs , other universes etc.). The whole idea of axioms/postulates are that they are not provable. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 06:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 09:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150429135311.GA11332@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 11:56:31AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : the Euclidean postulates are based on everyone's daily experience... I picked the one about parallel lines because no one ever experienced infinitely long parallel lines. They are based on imagining an extrapolation from experience. : we know they are not true in other circumstances (eg on a globe) Thus my parenthetic remarks about flat space. It also doesn't work in Einsteinian Spacetime, as space is no longer believed to be flat. ... : As such the belief in a creator is obvious to one with a religious : upbringing. For years scientists (and ancient philosophers) believed in an : infinitely old world. Even today some scientists are attemping to justify a : big bang without a creator (infinite big bangs , other universes etc.). : : The whole idea of axioms/postulates are that they are not provable. My point exactly -- there are third options between logical proofs and leaps of faith. Logical proofs are only one way to justify belief. The Kuzari points to tradition, which may boil down to reliabilism. (Something you learned from a source that has a track record of being reliable.) I was saying that REW, like R' Aqiva, appealed to the self-evident nature of the universe having a Designer. Closer to the way we accept our postulates than a proof. And that this is so obvious look around at what was created, that belief is the default state for humans. And then REW continues that it takes an act of will to accept a counter-proof despite the self-evidence. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 25th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Netzach: When is domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control too extreme? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 02:02:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 10:02:27 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torahand Kabalas Ol Malchus In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000401d0825b$37ef5150$a7cdf3f0$@org.uk> RTK writes: > I think "kulan mezanos" refers to all women, and it means all women can > be seduced, You may be able to derive, from other contexts, that all women can be seduced - but that is not what is being discussed in the specific gemorros referred to. Our gemora is discussing what happens specifically in tav l'meisiv marriages - it gives examples of such marriages, and then concludes that such marriages result in adultery (and consequent hidden mamzerim). There is just no way of reading what you want to read into this piece > Yes, a woman in a loveless marriage is much more tempted to commit > adultery, given the right set of circumstances, but >it is certainly not inevitable. Nor is it correct to deduce that a rav must >make sure, before he marries a couple, that the woman is not entering a >loveless marriage! He doesn't have to creep into her heart and mind before >conducting the wedding, doesn't have to fathom the depths of her motives in >marrying this man. There are so many motives, so many emotions, how could >you ever fathom them all? Remember, none of what I have described is necessarily a consequence of these gemoros unless you read the gemora with the chiddush of RYBS: that inherent in the existential condition of womankind is that if a woman is offered only an inappropriate marriage she will take it because she cannot bear not to be married. If you understand it merely that there are and have been women, in some times and places, who when offered an inappropriate marriage, will sometimes take it because she cannot bear not to be married, but in other circumstances and times and places there are women who would refuse such a marriage - you have no idea what you are faced with in any given circumstance. And it is of course possible that she knows what she is doing and has seen what you cannot see, meaning that in fact the marriage will indeed be a good one. And it would be, as you describe, inappropriate to creep into her heart and try and fathom what is going on there. But according to RYBS we know what is going on there, in the woman's heart - we know it from RYBS's understanding of the pasuk in Breishis (one certainly does not have to understand the pasuk in Breishis the way RYBS does, but he is darshaning a pasuk to tell us about the human condition). A woman wants to be married above all else because she cannot bear to be alone, she is not capable of making an assessment that any given marriage, without alternative, may not be the best thing. She is never capable of that, according to RYBS's understanding of Chazal, this being an existential condition of womankind. In which case what happens if an outsider is capable of assessing the reality of the marriage in question as being one where the parties are fundamentally incompatible? Does he have an obligation to try and stop the marriage given that the woman is incapable of protecting herself? Well one might say - tough luck, it is not an outsider's job, any more than it is an outsider's job to protect others from a bad bargain in business. But that is where this further statement of the gemora comes in. A marriage which the woman has only entered into because she cannot existentially bear to be unmarried is one with the consequence that such marriage will not in fact be enough for her and she will commit adultery and produce mamzerim who are attributed incorrectly to the husband. So if the outsider does not intervene, he is not just failing to protect the woman from herself, he is failing to protect society from inherent danger. That raises the stakes considerably, and would seem to mean that outsiders (such as Rabbaim, shadchanim etc) do need to be vigilant, and not enable such marriages, so long as what RYBS says is true, in order to protect our society. Now I don't think we need a Rav to check a marriage out, before he marries a couple, to try and determine it is not a tav l'meisiv marriage. But that is because I think it relatively rare, in our society, that a woman will take a loveless marriage merely because she cannot bear to be alone (and I certainly do not think it is a irrebuttable presumption as per RYBS. Nor, as Rav Lichtenstein says, does the halacha over the centuries take this as an irrebuttable presumption despite RYBS's vehemence). And we don't have spend our lives worrying about uncommon cases even if we acknowledge that such cases may exist (and even if, in hindsight, if a marriage turns out to be unquestionably inappropriate, we might need to consider whether perhaps the woman in question *might* have been willing to go through with it anyway). But if RYBS were right and it is indeed a fundamental existential part of a woman's nature, unchanging throughout time and not infrequently occurring, to take whatever marriage is on offer, then we as a society do need such safeguards, because of the potential consequences, and if there is any hint that in fact this might be a tav l'meisiv marriage, since the woman is not able, according to RYBS, to protect herself from it, the Rav/shadchan etc would seem to have the obligation to investigate and if in doubt, to protect our society by preventing the marriage. >Toby Katz >t613k at aol.com Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 04:37:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 11:37:18 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: <20150429.073718.25006.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> I wrote: : But then, as I was reviewing this post, my mind turned to the Tanur : Shel Achnai. R' Eliezer had a minority view, and R' Yehoshua was in : the majority. I've got to believe that both views were firmly grounded; : this machlokes was surely just as L'Shem Shamayim as any between Hillel : and Shammai. I'd *like* to say that Klapei Shmaya, both views were Truth. R' Micha Berger responded: > We discussed bas qol, and why we follow the bas qol that says > "vehalakhah kebeis Hillel" despite the anur shel achnai story. I > listed the opinions in the Encyc Talmudit here > > > It's not 100% accepted that the bas qol was really endorsing R' > Eliezer's opinion in this particular machloqes, rather than > defending his shitah in general -- "halakhah kemoso bekhol maqom", > or that it was a test. ... I apologize for not being clear enough. I was not refering to the Bas Kol part of the story. Rather, I was referring to the end of the story, when Eliyahu Hanavi was asked for Hashem's take on the incident, and he quoted Hashem as laughing, "Nitzchuni banai!" Regardless of how the Bas Kol might be interpreted, is there any way to understand "Nitzchuni banai!" other than Hashem personally siding with one of the litigants, and losing? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540c29a485cf429a1a7cst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 04:46:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 11:46:38 GMT Subject: [Avodah] brochos from the amud (was: tefillat haderech) Message-ID: <20150429.074638.25006.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > RYBS ... then continues that the idea of having intent not > to want to do a mitzvah bothers him, and so RYBS said he > says the berakhah on Hallel along with the chazan. (Which > is what my father does, and what I grew up with.) Data point: Although I have not noticed people doing this for the bracha on Hallel, this IS the common practice for the Shehecheyanu at Kol Nidre, at least according to the ArtScroll and Koren machzorim. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540c4bfde4b244bf3c8cst03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 02:53:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 09:53:19 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) Message-ID: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Reposted from Hakhel: > ... Rav Soloveitchik, obviously upset, instead gave Shiur > on the importance of keeping the Tzuras HaTefillah intact. > Shemone Esrei is followed by Chazaras Hashatz, which is > followed by Tachanun, and then followed by Ashrei and U'va' > Letzion--and we do not have the right or privilege of > changing that, he opined. ... R' Ben Waxman asked: > I looked through the Beit Yosef OH 131 where he discusses > the days on which Tachanun isn't said. The BY does not > list all the days that we skip (like Purim Qatan or Pesach > Sheni). These came later. > > So when did this idea (that we can't change when Tachanun > is said or not said) start? I'm not sure if you are asking the correct question. You presume there was a time when Tachanun was *said* on Purim Katan, and then Tachanun was *omitted* on Purim Katan. I see another possibility, but I must point out that this idea stems from my total ignorance of the History Of Tachanun. Perhaps, since the day when Tachanun first began, the list of days has never changed. What did happen (perhaps) is that some places said it on Purim Katan, and some places did not. Over time, the minhag of skipping it spread to more and more places, but that's somewhat different than if a community would suddenly decide that they had a new appreciation for the significance of the day, and hence wanted to stop saying Tachanun. But either way, I'm not sure of the exact nature of RYBS's objection. It is one thing for a community to change its mind about the significance of the day (as in RMB's example of Purim Katan), and quite another for the day itself to acquire a new significance - as in the example of Yom Haatzma'ut. Shulchan Aruch already establishes the ability for a community to establish holidays, and this has been done many times. A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS insist that they say Tachanun on such days? Thus, I am drawn to conclude that RYBS must not be taken as too absolutist. He cannot have meant that the current list of Tachanun days must remain enshrined in stone forever. I beleive that he must have meant that the question of saying Tachanun on Yom Haatzma'ut is a serious one, to be dealt with seriously by the poskim and leaders of the community. Alas, I personally have seen many cases of where it is decided by those who attend the minyan, on a purely emotional basis, with no thought to the halachos involved, and with no consultation with the LOR. On the other hand, among the many tasks the LOR must deal with, is deciding when he should or should not get involved with the tzibur's choices. Although it does not address Tachanun, I would like to close with a reference to The Rav's opinions about a different tefilah which he "opposed, on halachic grounds". R' Mike Gerver wrote on Mail Jewish (http://www.ottmall.com/mj_ht_arch/v38/mj_v38i49.html) in January 2003: > (This is a continuation of my previous e-mail summarizing > the talk given on "The Rav and Medinat Yisrael" by Rabbi > J. J. Shachter on motzei shabbat, Jan. 25, at Lechu > Neranana in Raanana.) > ... ... ... > Rabbi Shachter quoted Rabbi Walter Wurzberger zt"l as > saying that the Rav's attitude toward Israel was > completely opposed to messianism, to the idea that the > founding of the State was an initial step to the geula > [final redemption]. Thus the Rav did not approve of Gush > Emunim. He even opposed, on halachic grounds, saying the > tefillah for the State of Israel in shul on Shabbat > morning, which only speaks of the State as "reishit > tzmichat geulateinu" [the beginning of the sprouting of > our redemption]. Rabbi Shachter, knowing this, assumed > that the tefillah for the State of Israel would not be > said at the Shabbat morning minyan held at Maimonides > School, a minyan that the Rav started in 1962, and which > generally did things according to his minhag. When Rabbi > Shachter was appointed to his position as director of the > Soloveitchik Institute a couple of years ago, and took > over as rabbi of the Maimonides School Shabbat minyan, he > was surprised to find that they were saying the tefillah > for the State of Israel. He asked someone why, and the > answer was interesting. One Shabbat morning, when the Rav > was still alive and in good health, someone started saying > the tefillah for the State of Israel. The Rav turned to > someone next to him and said {Rabbi Shachter imitated the > Rav's accent) "You would have thought they would have > asked me!" That was all. He didn't make any attempt to > stop them from saying the tefillah for the State of Israel, > and didn't think it was his place to ask the congregation > not to say it if they wanted to. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540aa3d6d7282a3d2b95st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 07:23:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 14:23:25 GMT Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith Message-ID: <20150429.102325.12106.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > I picked the one about parallel lines because no one ever > experienced infinitely long parallel lines. They are based > on imagining an extrapolation from experience. Parallel lines are not provable, but it's not because they are based on experience. Rather, they are based on definition. Find a pair of parallel lines that DO meet (such as on a sphere) and we'll simply say, "What I really meant was parallel lines on a *flat* surface." See more at "No true Scotsman". My choice for something which is unprovable because it is based on personal experience is, "Is there someone whom you love? Prove it to me." Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540e9944d22f699426abst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 12:11:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 15:11:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) In-Reply-To: <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> References: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <20150429191153.GG2666@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 08:53:00PM +0200, Ben Waxman wrote: :> #2 A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate :> the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS :> insist that they say Tachanun on such days? : I had the same question. I bet he said tachanun on the Gra's or R' Chaim's (Volozhin or Brisk) yahrzeit, etc... For people who are seeking his pesaq, it's very likely he would inist on Tachanun on days like that. But I think he would refuse to pasqen for them. Implied in your question is that it's a rav's job to comment and rank other derakhim, an idea RYBS did not share. He even limited his own right to 2nd guess a talmid serving as moreh de'asra. (Stories differ as to how much he insisted on such autonomy of the LOR, depending on which student.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 25th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Netzach: When is domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control too extreme? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 11:53:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 20:53:00 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) In-Reply-To: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> On 4/29/2015 11:53 AM, Kenneth Miller wrote: > #1 Perhaps, since the day when Tachanun first began, the list of days > has never changed. What did happen (perhaps) is that some places said it > on Purim Katan, and some places did not. Over time, the minhag of > skipping it spread to more and more places, but that's somewhat > different than if a community would suddenly decide that they had a new > appreciation for the significance of the day, and hence wanted to stop > saying Tachanun. I don't think so. The Rambam, Hilchot Tefila 5:15 lists the days that one doesn't say Tachanun (or nifilat ah'payim in his words) and the list is much more restricted than our list (Shabbat, Chaggim, Rosh Chodesh, Chanukka, Purim, and the Mincha before them). He writes that this is the minhag b'kol yisrael. I am not a Rambam expert so I don't know what to make of those three words (minhag, b'kol yisrael). If it is a minhag does that mean that it can change? What is b'kol yisrael (I realize that at the time of the Rambam, Ashkenaz was the middle of nowhere)? But it would seem from the Rambam that at his time, the Jewish world didn't skip those other days. > #2 A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate > the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS insist > that they say Tachanun on such days? I had the same question. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 12:25:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 15:25:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) In-Reply-To: <20150429191153.GG2666@aishdas.org> References: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> <20150429191153.GG2666@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55413040.4080903@sero.name> On 04/29/2015 03:11 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 08:53:00PM +0200, Ben Waxman wrote: > :> #2 A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate > :> the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS > :> insist that they say Tachanun on such days? > > : I had the same question. > > I bet he said tachanun on the Gra's or R' Chaim's (Volozhin or Brisk) > yahrzeit, etc... For people who are seeking his pesaq, it's very likely > he would inist on Tachanun on days like that. Of course he said tachanun on their yortzeits, why wouldn't he? The whole concept of turning a yortzeit into a holiday wasn't native to his world. The question is what he would do on a day they had been saved from some danger, and had observed as a private yomtov, or on a day that his community had adopted as a local "purim" to commemorate being saved from danger, as was a common practise among Jewish communities. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 30 01:53:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 30 Apr 2015 04:53:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Netziv, Reading Newspapers on Shabbos & Censorship (Part Two) Message-ID: <20150430085311.F372F183218@nexus.stevens.edu> Please see the article at http://tinyurl.com/oqujmba From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 1 10:09:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 1 May 2015 13:09:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] kol isha In-Reply-To: <842c75958dedf20875dfdece45b65e31@aishdas.org> References: <842c75958dedf20875dfdece45b65e31@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150501170943.GA13995@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 30, 2015 at 5:54pm EDT, R Sholom Simon replied to me on Areivim :> The fact that some ... Jews seem to think the gemara :> didn't realy mean it is something the ... community should have a :> cheshbon hanfesh about. : Gemara? Don't the ge'onim take the gemara to : mean that kol isha is a problem during krias sh'ema? (Which is, after : all, the context of its appearance in Berachos). : (Granted, halacha has : gone much further since then, but you were focused on the gemara) You're thinking of Berakhos 24a, where the gemara concludes that R' Yitchaq's tefach be'ishah ervah is to even include one's own wife during qeri'as Shama. (We knew about other women not during qeri'as shema from R' Sheishes.) And then R' Chisda continues with shoq be'ishah, Shemu'el says qol be'ishah ervah and R Sheishes adds sei'ar be'ishah. >From which one may conclude that all of them are in the same context as R' Yitchaq. R' Hai Gaon (Otar haGeonim Berakhos, peirushin #102), R Yehudai Gaon (acc. to the Yeriem 392), the Behag (1:3). the Eshkol (vol 1, pg 15), the Rivra (Berakhos ad loc) and his father (?), Rabbeinu Yonah (17a), the Shitah meQubetzes (ad loc), only speak of this rule WRT qeri'as shema. Interestlingly, one might also have concluded that all of them were about eishes ish, for the same reason that sei'ar be'ishah is only about eishes ish, but I don't think anyone does understand the gemara that way. But there is also Qiddushin 70a, where R' Yehudah refuses to relay regards from R Nachman to Yala (Mrs Nachman) citing Shemu'el's qol be'ishah ervah. It was this gemara I was remembering (due to recently re-encountering it). Pisqei haRid (Berakhos p' 3), Ri haChasid (Berakhos ad loc), Tosafos haRosh (ad loc) and the Rosh (Berakhos 3:37), say the rule is in general. The Rambam has qol be'ishah ervah in Isurei Bi'ah (21:2), not Hil' QS. Similarly the Tur has nothing about it in QS, but has it in EhE 21. (But then, since his father [the Rosh] and the Rambam do the same, that's no surprise.) And from there -- the Rif is silent, the Rambam and the Rosh agree it's in general -- the SA conforms to his rules and prohibits in general. I think it's a machloqes whether we hold like Shemu'el, who was indeed oly talking about Shema (but not only married women) or like R' Yehudah's extrapolation from Shemu'el. Al pi din, we do hold like the gemara in Qidushin. But it's not as much of a given as I had thought when writing. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 27th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in relationship? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 2 12:29:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 02 May 2015 21:29:39 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Kook on Sports Message-ID: <554525A3.2060408@zahav.net.il> He most certainly did! http://www.yeshiva.org.il/midrash/4234 The article is an examination of Rav Kook's writing on the subject. RK very much supported exercise and sport, and of course he opposed breaking Shabbat to play football (soccer). One quote/translation (mine): Exercise . . . .improves the spiritual strength of the greatest tzaddiqim, those involved in the Unification of God's name, including bringing the Light of God into the world, and no revelation of Light can happen without all the required components. Ben On 5/1/2015 3:36 AM, via Areivim wrote: > and I wonder if it is true that Rav Kook ascribed positive value to sports. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 3 03:01:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 3 May 2015 13:01:40 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Michael Avraham Message-ID: After another shiur with R Michael Avraham (RMA) I wish to clear up some of my previous posts. Apologies for repeating some material but I wish to make it self contained. 1) With regard to Pluaralism, Monism and Harmonism these are typologies. As with any typology real people are combinations and pure members of these groups. Avi Sagi has a book on the topic with listing on many reabbis on each side of the topic. Pluralism means that one accepts ALL opinions as true and legitimate. There is no one single truth Certainly as long as it doesn't harm someone else. RMA pointed out that pure pluralism is not consistent as it would mean accepting monism as also a legitimate truth Nevertheless it is popular in some circles 2) Monism says there is only one truth. I accept that one truth based on the normal rules of halacha, eg majority, chazakah etc. Nothing is ever known with 100% certainty both that is irrelevant. 2b) accepting monism (savlanut in Hebrew) . Though there is only one truth we accommodate those within a certain radius of the real truth even though they are wrong Normally we view pluralism as being more "mekil" than monism. However he considered the case of giving someone food that I consider kosher and he doesn't . The pluralist won't do it because his position is also truth and he doesnt consider the food kosher. However the pure monist has no trouble giving it to someone else. He is wrong and I am right and so the food is kosher (again the fact that he might be right is irrelevant - a bet din can kill based on rov and certainly for shabbat and kosher food we work on majority) The accepting monist won't give the food to someone else. Even though he is wrong I respect his being wrong as long as he is within my radius - ie he relies on someone I consider legitimate and not just an idiotic opinion. OTOH I would give him the food if I feel his "chumra" is too wild fetched and beyond my radius as distinct from the pluralist 3) Harmonism states that both sides are only part of the real truth. Rav Kook and others bring the second gemara about "Elu V-elu". The gemara in Gittin discusses why the man from Binyamin killed his mistress)(pilegesh be-givah) - after an amoraic argument the truth was both were right either because he found a fly in his soup but got angry only he found a hair in the soup. So both views were ight and "Elu V-elu" Based on this RMA had a different interpretation of the argument between Bet Hillel and Bet Shamai Both sides presented arguments supporting their position. Both sides agreed that all the arguments were legitimate. However, in the end one has to make a decision when there are legitimate arguments on both sides and Bet Shamai and Bet Hillel arrived at opposite conclusins. The Harmonism implies that both sides have legitimate arguments. Hoever, in the end there is only one truth that comes out of contradictory arguments. The harmonism means that both sides are right (pluralism) on the basic stands. But only one side is right (monism) in the final decision. As stated before the one truth is found based on standard halachic grounds. Nothing is ever known 100% but that doesnt matter. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 3 18:46:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 11:46:53 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] A halachic problem in measuring wholemeal flour Message-ID: I have recently become aware of a practical halachic problem with measuring wholemeal flour for the shiurim of challah and the kezeitim of matzot mitzva. I don't think this issue is generally recognised, and I hope Areivim members will be able to bring it to appropriate authorities' attention. Traditional flour mills produced a mixture of white flour and bran by grinding whole grains between millstones. This mixture was sifted to produce finer or coarser grades of flour by removing more or less bran, respectively. Halachically, the bran that is removed has changed its status: dough produced from bran is not subject to challah. Furthermore, mixing bran back into its flour does not restore its status: the bran and flour are not "mitztaref". (See Challah 2:6) This was not an issue with traditional mills: nobody would sift bran out of flour and then ruin the white flour by replacing the bran. This is not the case today, though. Modern flour mills do not grind flour between stones. They use a series of graduated rollers that crack the grain into progressively-smaller particles, and the bran is separated off at an early stage of the process. Millers make wholemeal flour by adding bran back to the fine flour near the end of the milling process. You can find a description and video of the process here: http://www.fabflour.co.uk/fab-flour/how-flour-is-milled/ If modern wholemeal flour is halachically considered a mixture of flour and bran, as it seems, then to be obliged in challah one would need a greater shiur of wholemeal than of regular flour, and to fulfil one?s obligation of eating matza one would need to eat more than a kezayit of wholemeal matza. (See S.A. Y.D. 324:3 and M.A. & SAHR O.C 454:1,2) It is not possible to state a definite ratio of bran to white flour, as this will vary between species of grain and between varieties of each species. The relevant shiurim are not measured by weight but by volume, which is affected by the fineness of the bran compared to the fineness of the white flour. Furthermore, the amount of grain removed as bran will depend on the operation of the mill. My research indicates that up to a quarter of each grain of wheat (by weight) consists of bran. If we take this as a rule of thumb then a shiur of wholemeal wheat flour would be one and a third times as large as a shiur of white flour. As a practical matter, I think people making wholemeal bread should probably avoid doubt and bake either less than a minimal shiur (for which, consult your LOR) or bake sufficiently more than one and a third shiurim. Many people deliberately try to use enough flour to require the taking of challah: they consequently use just over a regular shiur and need to be warned about this. With respect to wholemeal matzot mitzva, I presume that people would have noticed and queried any reintroduction of bran to flour ground using modern methods. None the less, it would be very good to establish this for each bakery. Joe Slater Melbourne, Australia -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 3 20:42:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 06:42:58 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RMA Message-ID: On another issue I had quoted RMA as saying that one who doesnt believe in a creator has no punishment or reward for keeping mitzvot. After 120 years he will be punished only for being an atheist but for each individual sin. Hence, there is no problem of "lifne iver" . In particular in the frequent case a religious doctor can ask an atheist to take over for him on shabbat (wouldnt apply to a chiloni doctor who does beleive in G-d) This applies only to mitzvot like shabbat. Of course an atheist can't claim that he is not bound by sins like murder because he doesnt believe in G-d. An atheist will be punished for all moral sins that he commits and all usual laws of :lifne iver" etc apply to all moral commandments. ------------------------ He is now starting a series on religious autonomy. In particular he holds that one goes to a rabbi for a psak only if he is in doubt. If one has seriously learned the halachaot and is convinced of the "truth" then he should follow his own psak and there is no need to go to a "higher authority". He was asked what if the personal psak goes against the generally accepted psak. His answer was that in theory the same holds. However, a person should have enough humility that if he is a "daas yachid" he better be awfully sure that he is right. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 04:47:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 11:47:38 GMT Subject: [Avodah] A married sister Message-ID: <20150504.074738.29327.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, and becomes part of her husband's family. Thus, she is no longer part of her brother's family. But what about her father? According to the above logic, her father may not be m'tamei for her either. And in fact, she *has* left her father's family in the sense that if her husband is not a kohen, then she has been disallowed terumah ever since the wedding. Yet the halacha is that her father *may* be m'tamei for her, despite that change in status. So, in very simple terms, here's my question: If a Bas Kohen is married and then dies, why is it that her father may attend the funeral, but her brother may not? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55475caae730f5caa5375st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 07:42:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 17:42:10 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] A halachic problem in measuring wholemeal flour In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, May 4, 2015 at 4:46 AM, Joe Slater via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > I have recently become aware of a practical halachic problem with > measuring wholemeal flour for the shiurim of challah and the kezeitim of > matzot mitzva. I don't think this issue is generally recognised, and I hope > Areivim members will be able to bring it to appropriate authorities' > attention. > > Traditional flour mills produced a mixture of white flour and bran by > grinding whole grains between millstones. This mixture was sifted to > produce finer or coarser grades of flour by removing more or less bran, > respectively. Halachically, the bran that is removed has changed its > status: dough produced from bran is not subject to challah. Furthermore, > mixing bran back into its flour does not restore its status: the bran and > flour are not "mitztaref". (See Challah 2:6) > > This was not an issue with traditional mills: nobody would sift bran out > of flour and then ruin the white flour by replacing the bran. This is not > the case today, though. > Just a thought: perhaps the halacha that the bran and flour are not mitztaref depended on the metziu't that nobody would return bran to white flour? So if returning the bran to the flour is now the normal way of producing wholemeal flour, maybe today they are mitztaref? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 09:45:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 12:45:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs In-Reply-To: <20150330.221259.10345.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 11:47:38AM +0000, RAM wrote on the thread "A married sister": : In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself : for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I : used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves : the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, : and becomes part of her husband's family... But Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 02:12:59AM +0000, RAM wrote on this subject: > I once heard an interesting argument against Rav Moshe's logic on > this point. He is viewing the wife as the one who is moving to a new > location, but we have an explicit pasuk that takes the opposite view: > Bereshis 2:24 - "Therefore, a man will desert his father and his mother, > and stick to his wife." (The woman may of may not leave her parents, > but the man explicitly does.) > Granted that there are other arguments for the wife taking the husband's > minhagim - terumah is the first that comes to my mind. But if Rav Moshe's > main argument is Minhag Hamakom, I wonder how he would have defended it > against this pasuk. Anyone else see one answering the other? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 30th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Hod: When does capitulation Fax: (270) 514-1507 result in holding back from others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 10:11:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 04 May 2015 13:11:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs In-Reply-To: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> On 05/04/2015 12:45 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 11:47:38AM +0000, RAM wrote on the thread > "A married sister": > : In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself > : for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I > : used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves > : the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, > : and becomes part of her husband's family... > > But Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 02:12:59AM +0000, RAM wrote on this subject: >> I once heard an interesting argument against Rav Moshe's logic on >> this point. He is viewing the wife as the one who is moving to a new >> location, but we have an explicit pasuk that takes the opposite view: >> Bereshis 2:24 - "Therefore, a man will desert his father and his mother, >> and stick to his wife." (The woman may of may not leave her parents, >> but the man explicitly does.) > >> Granted that there are other arguments for the wife taking the husband's >> minhagim - terumah is the first that comes to my mind. But if Rav Moshe's >> main argument is Minhag Hamakom, I wonder how he would have defended it >> against this pasuk. > > Anyone else see one answering the other? Not at all. Her father must still become tamei for her. Only her brothers may not. What's more, suppose her husband dies without issue. She returns to her father's house, and is once more entitled to eat terumah and kodshim. Now suppose the father dies; she continues to eat the terumah and kodshim that her brothers bring home. When she dies the brothers are the only people left who sit shiva for her, and yet they are not allowed to become tamei for her unless there is literally nobody else who can do it! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 10:24:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 17:24:33 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs Message-ID: <20150504.132433.5362.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger asked: > Anyone else see one answering the other? You make a good point, but as I see it, they don't *answer* each other as much as they illustrate how complicated this subject is. For example, consider the case of a Bas Kohen who marries a Yisrael, or a Bas Yisrael who marries a Kohen. Her status changes upon marriage, but it will revert upon the death of her husband. - Unless there is a child, in which case her status will *not* revert. - Unless the child died too, in which case her status *will* revert. - Unless there is a grandchild, in which case she keeps her status even though her own child did not survive. (I probably messed up some of those details, but my point is that itis a very complex topic.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5547ab96da8f82b966b58st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 11:01:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 14:01:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A married sister Message-ID: <1fbaa.22f534a3.42790de1@aol.com> From: Kenneth Miller via Avodah In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, and becomes part of her husband's family. Thus, she is no longer part of her brother's family. But what about her father? [snip] So, in very simple terms, here's my question: If a Bas Kohen is married and then dies, why is it that her father may attend the funeral, but her brother may not? Akiva Miller >>>>> I don't know why the bond between brother and sister seems to be lessened when the sister marries, but we do have other evidence that the bond between father and daughter is never severed: If a man has no sons, only daughters, his daughters inherit his property -- even if they are married. The fact that they are married does not annul the fact that they are still his daughters. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 12:50:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 22:50:54 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith Message-ID: <> A more practical problem based on personal experience is that of defining colors (to a human not in terms of wavelengths). There is no way for 2 people to confirm they are seeing the same colors. One practical application is to examining cloths for a niddah - ketem. I again refer to an article in Keren Zavit by Nadav Shinrav on parshat tazria In particular I learned that brown is not a color -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 13:43:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 16:43:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150504204354.GA2628@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 10:50:54PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : A more practical problem based on personal experience is that of defining : colors (to a human not in terms of wavelengths). There is no way for 2 : people to confirm they are seeing the same colors. Even further: there is no wavelength corrsponding to pink or brown, they only exist as our mind combines wavelengths. Pink is weirder, because it resides on the color wheel where you would glue the two extremes of the spectrum together to close the circle. Colors other than the three in the middle of the sensitivity range of each of the types of cone in your eye can be seen two ways. For example: you could make orange by mixing two parts red with one part green, or by looking at light of one color, that is at the right frequency to trigger your red cones twice as much as they trigger the green. The topic we're discussing is qualia, and color is a favorite sort of quale to use for illustration (pun intended). A quale is the "what it's like to see red". In my example about orange, we have two different physics, but both could end up producing the same experience, the same exact shade and brightness of orange. So orange is not 1:1 any specific wavelength. Asude from the question RET raises, a popular thought experiment among philosophers is Mary the Color Scientist (Frank Jackson 1982): Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor. She specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose, all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes, or the sky, and use terms like 'red', 'blue', and so on. She discovers, for example, just which wavelength combinations from the sky stimulate the retina, and exactly how this produces via the central nervous system the contraction of the vocal chords and expulsion of air from the lungs that results in the uttering of the sentence 'The sky is blue'.... What will happen when Mary is released from her black and white room or is given a color television monitor? Will she learn anything or not? It seems just obvious that she will learn something about the world and our visual experience of it. But then is it inescapable that her previous knowledge was incomplete. But she had all the physical information. Ergo there is more to have than that, and Physicalism is false. And so Jackson concludes that the world can't be reduced to physics. This is also what I was talking about when I referred to justifying a belief based on comparing imagination to memory. Koach hadimyon does mean "imagination", but what Ariso meant by Imagination, or the rishonim by dimyon, includes qualia in general. The image of red while you're seeing it, not just when you're dreaming it up. And I would argue that even when we make rigorous logical proofs, those proofs are conclusions drawn from a set of givens, and those givens end up resting on koach hadimyon anyway. The formally proven theological statement is therefore less conclusive than one based on an appeal to dimyon directly, such as R' Aqiva's argument. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 30th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Hod: When does capitulation Fax: (270) 514-1507 result in holding back from others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 15:25:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 04 May 2015 18:25:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs In-Reply-To: <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> Message-ID: <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> On 05/04/2015 01:11 PM, I wrote: > > What's more, suppose her husband dies without issue. She returns to her > father's house, and is once more entitled to eat terumah and kodshim. This is not quite correct. She returns to eat teruma, but not kodshim. "Milechem, velo kol lechem". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 16:07:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Mon, 04 May 2015 19:07:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy In-Reply-To: <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> Message-ID: <5547FB97.5020203@aishdas.org> Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, d'hashta) would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? Thanks! KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 18:11:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 01:11:49 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy Message-ID: <20150504.211149.15174.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer asked: > Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, > d'hashta) would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? My first knee-jerk reaction is to say that they DON'T relate. Chazakos are all about law, and what the law will *presume* the reality to have been. We found a piece of meat on the street, or we bought it and forgot where, or any of a million similar questions. We don't really know whether it is kosher or not, and to a certain extent we don't really care. What we really care about is whether halacha allows us to *presume* that it is kosher. Schroedinger's Cat and similar ventures are attempts to establish what the *reality* is. The Cat is a thought experiment, but do not make the mistake of thinking that it is mere philosophizing. The whole point of the experiment is to establish what is really and actually happening inside the box, and the answer (that they've come up with) is that two contradictory truths (the cat is alive, the cat is dead) are both true at the same time. This is a question of physics and reality, not a question of legal presumptions. The subject line of this thread says that you're "looking for help with an analogy". Could you tell us more about what you're working on? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5548190613cab19056408st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 19:10:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rafael Jason Hecht via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 22:10:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How Kosher is the Kosher Switch? Message-ID: Last Motzei Shabbos I was among the crowd that was saying Kiddush Levana out in the open. While davening I overheard someone making a joke about using a Kosher Switch (my guess was to place light on the outside so people could better read). I did my own reading and research before that and couldn't tell if the gentleman was joking or being serious. To put it lightly, the development and marketing Kosher Switch has caused a major controversy in the Torah Jewish community. The Kosher Switch, a device purportedly meant to ease the constraints of Sabbath observance, is not the first of its kind. The Grama switch by Zomet Institute, as well as the Zman switch have been created for emergency situations of pikuach nefesh. However, this switch has caused an uproar in the Jewish community. Why? Before going on, let me state that while I am far from an expert in the field of electrical engineering or Hilchos Shabbos (nor am I a certified Rabbi), I treasure Shabbos and am always looking for ways to enhance it. That said, I did my own personal research and humbly present my findings. Before I go on, let me first state that the topic of electricity on Shabbos is far more extensive than what I'm laying out, and that I am not (intentionally) offering my own Psak, just a compilation of "what's out there." Read more: http://www.mywesternwall.net/2015/04/30/how-kosher-is-the-kosher-switch.html Best Regards, Rafi Hecht *rhecht at gmail.com* ------------------------------------------------------- *LinkedIN:* *http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rafihecht* *Facebook:* *http://www.facebook.com/rhecht* *Twitter:* *https://www.twitter.com/#!/rafihecht* *Personal Site:* *www.rafihecht.com* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 12:47:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Shalom Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 22:47:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired Message-ID: I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a woman is owned by her husband, the language of the Mishna notwithstanding. Can anyone point to a clear statement by Hazal or rishonim that supports my supposition? My thanks, Shalom Z. Berger -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 13:51:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 16:51:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150505205140.GA20122@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 05, 2015 at 10:47:20PM +0300, Shalom Berger via Avodah wrote: : I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a : woman is owned by her husband, the language of the Mishna notwithstanding. : Can anyone point to a clear statement by Hazal or rishonim that supports my : supposition? First, the halakhos of qiddushin do not conform to that of purchase. Qinyan is a broader concept than purchase; for example, not that long ago you probably performed a qinyan sudar to appoint your rav as a shaliach to sell your chameitz. Some differences: - no din of ona'ah, a shaveh perutah is sufficient for all - you give the perutah to the woman, not her former "owner" - she has to agree to the qinyan, despite not being the former "owner" - she has to make a qinyan on the money - money needn't exchange hands; she could pardon a loan to effect a marriage. However, qinyan bekesef does require such an exchange. - Hilkhos gittin is a lot more complicated than just calling hefqer. - the wife gets to decide whether to give him her earnings in exchange for being supported. If she were property, he would get her earnings wheter or not *he* chose to support here. Now that I got that out of my system, to answer your question: Qiddushin 6b: ... and if an eved kenaani, whose body he was qoneh, if he says to him [in a shetar shichrur] "you are hereby your own" it means legmaei, ishah DELO QANI LEIH GUFAH, lo qol shekein! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 31st day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Hod: What level of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 results in harmony and balance? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 12:12:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 15:12:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun Message-ID: In Avodah V33n70, RZS responded to R'Micha: >> I bet [RYBS] said tachanun on the Gra's or R' Chaim's (Volozhin or Brisk) >> yahrzeit, etc... For people who are seeking his pesaq, it's very likely >> he would insist on Tachanun on days like that. > Of course he said tachanun on their yortzeits, why wouldn't he? The whole > concept of turning a yortzeit into a holiday wasn't native to his world. > The question is what he would do on a day they had been saved from some > danger, and had observed as a private yomtov, or on a day that his > community had adopted as a local "purim" to commemorate being saved from > danger, as was a common practise among Jewish communities. ...or on Pesach Sheini? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 11:47:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 05 May 2015 13:47:08 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Tree of 40 Fruits Message-ID: <5549102C.40808@starways.net> http://www.sciencealert.com/news/20142107-25892.html What's the halakha regarding eating fruit from one of these trees? Since the grafting was done by a non-Jew, is it okay to eat? Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 14:01:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 21:01:39 GMT Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired Message-ID: <20150505.170139.16146.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Shalom Berger wrote: <<< I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a woman is owned by her husband, ... >>> That depends on what you mean by "own". I own my shoes. This gives me certain rights, such as wearing them to the exclusion of anyone else, or the choice of who I might lend them to. I also have certain responsibilities; I cannot simply destroy them for no reason. I own my tefillin too. But the things I can do with my tefillin are much more limited than whast I can do with my shoes. I have certain rights and responsibilities vis a vis my wife as well. Do I own her? I don't know. Is there a real nafka mina, or is it just semantics? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55492fe2678522fe2353bst03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 15:46:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 05 May 2015 18:46:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Scrolling Down the Pages of Jewish History Message-ID: <20150505224615.83B27181E37@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/ocl2bqe his story appears in R. Yechiel Spero?s Pesach Haggadah: Touched by Our Story (pp. 88-91) and is republished here with permission from the copyright holders (ArtScroll / Mesorah Publications, Ltd.). The pictures below ? of the Tur Shulchan Aruch (printed in Berlin 1702) which belonged to Rabbi Yaakov Emden (Germany, 1697-1776) ? were taken by R. Akiva Males, and are republished with permission of Columbia University?s Rare Book and Manuscript Library. See the above URL for much more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 00:23:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 03:23:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] All About Tehillim Message-ID: <20150506072350.7A9B4181522@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/mxoucvn From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 02:02:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 05:02:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Disappearing Doctor of Iyyar: Virtual Vanishing of a Venerable Minhog Message-ID: <20150506090255.CB5C5182D80@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/mdz6883 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 03:13:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 06:13:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Disappearing Doctor of Iyyar: Virtual Vanishing of a Venerable Minhog In-Reply-To: <20150506090255.CB5C5182D80@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150506090255.CB5C5182D80@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150506101327.GA19813@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 06, 2015 at 05:02:54AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : See http://tinyurl.com/mdz6883 Quoting the Treasures of Ashkenaz blog [transliterations mine]: > The aleph stands for ani, the two yuds for HQBH, and the reish? fo > rofekha. The month is thereby depicted as a month of healing. The vort > seemingly is based on an old minhog of many generations among Yidden, > in which the letters yud-yud (sans hyphen) are used to represent the > venerated name of Hashem However, even yud-yud is not the original minhag. In older manuscripts they used three yuds, with the middle one slightly above the line, making a triangle. Preserved in this printed edition of Siddur R' Saadia Gaon . I suggested two possible reasons for the third yud's disappearance: - The printing press made that middle yud hard to insert into books, because it would require a special letter in the type box. I find this one less than compelling, because they kept an alef-lamed ligature in the type box, and that got less usage. - Xians read their own significance into the three letters. This would be clearner, if there were any evidence of them actually doing so. So the two-yud notation was just one step along the way. The general question of why non-chassidic Ashkenazim (or non-Chida-influenced Sepharadim) suddenly started writing out the sheim in siddurim is compelling, but the two-yud notation isn't necessarily some venerable alternative. The three yuds was often explained as beind the initial letters of Birkhas Kohanim; the yuds from Yevarekhekha, Ya'er, and Yisa. Some suggest that the two yuds represent the first and last letters of an intertwined sheim havayah and sheim adnus: YUD alef HEI dalet ... HEI yud. Itself heavily al pi qabbalah. And associating the two yuds with the transliteration into Hebrew of an Akkadian month name (Ayyaru = n. blossom) requires even more omnisignificance and mysticism than does finding significance in presenting sheim havayah written out. Where I really see this change as a problem is not because of venerable minhagim, but because books have less shelf life now than in the past. Cheap printing means also cheaper paper, not to mention faster replacement. And if generations past wanted to minimize their sheimos problems, al achas kamah vekamah we should. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 00:31:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 10:31:51 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: In some circles it is common for men to keep long peyot (as an aside it has become common also in some chardal circles) The book Keren Zavit says he doesn't understand the custom. The problem is not in long sidebruns but rather that the hair from under the ear rarely grows long. The long "peyot" usually grow from hair above the ear and so has no connection to peyot and in fact come from part of the head where there is no prohibition to shave -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 06:38:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Shalom Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 16:38:38 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired In-Reply-To: <20150505205140.GA20122@aishdas.org> References: <20150505205140.GA20122@aishdas.org> Message-ID: While Micha is correct that the Gemara clearly states "ishah DELO QANI LEIH GUFAH" and that there are many, many differences between true ownership and marriage, this does not keep the Tosafot HaRosh (Ketubot 2a sv Nistahpa Sadeihu) from concluding: "ha-isha kinyan kaspo shel ha-ish kemo avdo ve-shoro va-hamoro." I would like to find a source in the rishonim that clearly rejects the approach of the Tosafot HaRosh. Shalom Rabbi Shalom Z. Berger, Ed.D. The Lookstein Center for Jewish Education Bar-Ilan University http://www.lookstein.org https://www.facebook.com/groups/lookjed/ Follow me on Twitter: @szberger NETWORK*LEARN*GROW From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 09:26:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 12:26:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tree of 40 fruits Message-ID: The question was asked, "What's the halakha regarding eating fruit from one of these trees? Since the grafting was done by a non-Jew, is it okay to eat?" The only issur achila of kilayim is kilei hakerem. Anything else may be eaten. With regard to the fruits of a graft, the explicit halacha in Yoreh Deiah (295:7) is that it may be eaten even by the one who violated the prohibition by performing the graft. (That halacha also continues that one may take a branch from the graft and plant it.) As to the original question about the potato-tomato combination, grafting is prohibited: even though neither is a tree (295:3), but as above, the resulting product may be eaten. EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 10:28:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 13:28:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs Message-ID: The din of a kohein's daughter not eating t'ruma upon marriage to a non-kohein was mentioned in conjunction with this topic. However, I submit that perquisites of k'huna are unrelated to the adoption of one's spouse's customs. How else can we understand the din that a person can give the parts of a slaughtered animal due to the kohein (z'roa, l'chayayim v'keiva) even to a kohein's daughter married to a Yisraeil, or, for that matter, even to her Yisraeil husband (and according to one opinion, the same is true for pidyon habein)? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 10:37:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 13:37:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy Message-ID: <72706.56a00b87.427bab69@aol.com> From: Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, d'hashta) would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? Thanks! KT, YGB >>>>> Not sure where you're going with this but you seem to be saying that chazakos have no independent, objective reality. That a chazaka is in the eye of the beholder. Oops. Looks like you've let the cat out of the bag... --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 11:13:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 14:13:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Strange History of Lag B'Omer Message-ID: <20150506181455.D4FFC1836BF@nexus.stevens.edu> There is an interesting talk by Dr. Shnayer Leiman with the above title at http://yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/734356/ Yitzchok Levine -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 11:48:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 14:48:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy In-Reply-To: <5547FB97.5020203@aishdas.org> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> <5547FB97.5020203@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150506184838.GA4624@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 7:07pm EDT, RYGB wrote: : Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, d'hashta) : would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? Quantum Uncertainty is more similar to rov than chazaqah. And it could model how we can embrace conflicting majorities. Such as in the case of two pieces of shuman and one of cheilev, and being able to eat all three one after the other. (Or perhaps even in a ta'aroves, but that just complicates the picture.) It would fit if we treat the physical state of each piece of fat as ( 2 |shuman> + |cheilev) / 3 rather than as a 67% chance of being shuman. And then those things that were observed are immune from such weirdness, much like qavu'ah. That said: The notion that wavefunction collapse is due to observation, the Copenhagen Interpretation, was once taken as a given. But alternatives involving entanglement, wave function collapse, multiuniverse theory, etc.. have been gaining ground for decades. This parallel to qavu'ah could be illusory. On Tue, May 05, 2015 at 1:11am GMT, R Akive Miller wrote: : My first knee-jerk reaction is to say that they DON'T relate. Chazakos : are all about law, and what the law will *presume* the reality to have : been... : Schroedinger's Cat and similar ventures are attempts to establish what : the *reality* is... I am very inclined to agree. R' Aqiva Eiger (teshuvah $136) makes a chiluq between sefeiqos in the metzi'us and sefeiqos in din. Rov holds when we have sefeiqos in the metzi'us. So we can pasqen about something that is rov-kasher. But if someone knew the metzi'us, then there was a din established for the fat. Now that we don't know what it was, we have a safeiq as to what that din is. LAD, the whole thing is about human experience. See , which has 10 posts covering things like chazaqah (both types), rov, qavu'ah, terei mekei'ah (which I argue ignores rov for the same reason as qavu'ah), nosein ta'am, using tequfas Shemu'el for birkhas hachamah, microsopic bugs etc.... The hashkafic premise is that the goal of halakhah is to shape the self (whether into a tamim, a shelaim, to acheive deveiqus, etc...) And therefore the metzi'us a din has to work with is how we experience reality (and thus birur when we're in doubt) and how we can experience it (only visible bugs count). And not how the universe works in ways we can only understand in the abstract. The most lomdishe consequence of my whole edifice is that it manages to explain why a chazaqah trumps a migo in a case where there are also trei utrei eidim, but why a migo trumps a chazaqah when there are no eidim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 12:13:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 15:13:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150506191353.GB4624@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 06, 2015 at 10:31:51AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : The book Keren Zavit says he doesn't understand the custom. The problem is : not in long sidebruns but rather that the hair from under the ear rarely : grows long. The long "peyot" usually grow from hair above the ear and so : has no connection to peyot and in fact come from part of the head where : there is no prohibition to shave The custom is shared by Chassidim, Chidah-influenced Sepharadim (those with many Qabbalah-based pesaqim) and Teimanim. So there seems to be an ancient maqor unrelated to any reasons given al pi qabbalah by the first two groups. R' Chaim Kanievsky is a living example of a minhag/hanhagah that was once more common -- not combing one's peyos because of the hairs plucked out. Rav Dovid Lifshitz, so now we're talking Litta, had two thick blocks of hair going back from his temples to over his ear. According to the SA YD 181:9, peyos run as high as the hairline above the forehead until the bottom of the ear, where the earlobe detaches from the face. So the prohibition does include the area the KZ is asking about -- there are inches of hair between the top of the ear until you get parallel to the hairline. And this is the very area that the majority of the hair in long peyos grows from. I therefore don't understand the KZ's question. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 12:40:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 22:40:23 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: >From : B. Highest Point. The location of the highest point on the head that the peyos extend is described in Shulchan Aruch (181:9) as "across from the hair on is forehead". There are two basic opinions as to the precise location the Shulchan Aruch refers to: 1. Rabbi Yisroel Belsky (Shulchan Halevi page 122) writes that he had heard directly from Rav Yakov Kaminetzky zt"l that the upper limit of the peyos ha'rosh begins "at the highest point of the hairline as it arches over the ear and extends in a slightly curved line across to where the hairline of the forehead turns sharply downwards towards the sideburns. All the hair from the imaginary line that connect these two points and below comprises the peyos ha'rosh". 2. Rabbi Belsky also quotes "some rabbonim have a mesora, a tradition from their Rabbis, that the peyos do not extend above the upper cartilage of the ear (tenuch ha'ozen) at all. According to their mesorah, the imaginary line extends horizontally from the point in the hairline above the foremost part of ear almost until where the downward slope of the frontal hairline angles back towards the ear. For a picture see -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 13:42:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joel Schnur via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 16:42:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun Message-ID: <554A7CBF.3020300@schnurassociates.com> No one says tachnun on the Gra's yarhzeit. it's 3rd day chol hamoed succos ___________________________ Joel Schnur, Senior VP Government Affairs/Public Relations Schnur Associates, Inc. 25 West 45th Street, Suite 1405 New York, NY 10036 Tel. 212-489-0600 x204 Fax. 212-489-0203 joel at schnurassociates.com www.schnurassociates.com http://www.schnurassociates.com/joels-corner/ From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 14:13:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 17:13:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired In-Reply-To: <20150505.170139.16146.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150505.170139.16146.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150506211338.GB27781@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 5, 2015 at 9:01pm GMT, R Akiva Miller wrote: :> I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that :> a woman is owned by her husband, ... : That depends on what you mean by "own". : : I own my shoes. This gives me certain rights... I suggested more than once in the past that baalus has more to do with responsibility than western notions of property. Which is why yorshim do not inherit chameitz on Pesach. Even though the father owned chameitz in the sense of bal yeira'eh bal yimatzei, he lacked ba'alus at the time of his passing. Or why a rentor has a chiyuv to hang a mezuzah -- he has some measure of ba'alus, despite not being an owner. RAF (CCed) shared my post on Facebook, and since I have no idea what can be seen by the public, I'll paraphrase a couple of responses I thought would be of interest. On my line that "qinyan is a broader concept than purchase", one person compared the mishnah in Avos "qeneih lekha chaver". This morning, at 8:59am PDT, R Shalom Z Berger asked for a rishon who clearly rejected the Tosafos haRosh's statement (Kesuvos 2a "nitapecha sadeihu) that "ha'ishah qinyan kaspo shel ha'ish, kemo avdo veshoro vechamoro". Someone else on FB noted that the Rashba, in his chiddushim on the first pereq of Qiddushin, repeatedly points out that all the rishonim other than the Rosh reject the idea out of hand. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 15:09:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 15:09:17 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes Message-ID: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Shabbat-microphones-catching-on-among-orthodox-despite-taboos-402173 i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at hadchak /bedieved -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 17:12:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 20:12:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150507001204.GA31766@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 06, 2015 at 03:09:17PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Shabbat-microphones-catching-on-among-orthodox-despite-taboos-402173 : : i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at hadchak /bedieved Gerama devices, yes. But a passive element microphone feeding a PA system that is never entirely off -- so it's never turned off or on -- and has no lit indicators is an entirely different beast. (Most microphones generate current when vibrated; a passive element microphone changes resistance.) Still not an open-and-shut heter, as this article makes it sound. And there are more grounds for Sepharadim to be meiqil then Ashkenazim, based on a machloqes between the Mechaber and the Rama in OC 252:5. R' Ovadia was matir. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 18:18:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 01:18:22 GMT Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes Message-ID: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> R' Saul Newman asked: > i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at > hadchak /bedieved I've never read any of their material, but I'm pretty sure that they have MANY halachic "tools" in their arsenal, and not all of them carry the same restrictions. For example, a grama switch would only be useful for a very limited number of situations, as would a pen that writes with disappearing ink. But if you can make an electronic device that generates zero heat and zero light, it just *might* be acceptable for general use. Exhibit A: Hearing aids. I'll admit that a hearing aid is not the same thing as a loudspeaker system. But without getting into a whole discussion, the only point I'm making is that you have to look at the thing, and not just reject it out of hand. One might say that "Hearing aids are by definition for a shaas hadchak; how can this technology help the average person? So I bring you Exhibit B: Sabbath Mode ovens. Without any doubt, one DOES manipulate the electric circuit with these gadgets. If not on Shabbos, then at least on Yom Tov. But I think that the real answer to your question might be: "If the people in shul can't hear the rabbi or the chazan, that IS a shaas hadchak." In any case, about 15 years ago I happened to spend Shabbos at a shul that used one of these systems, and there were two large notices by the entrance to the main sanctuary, pointing out that the system was designed by Zomet. If I remember correctly, there was also a letter on the wall giving more halachic details about it. Which is the bigger chumra: To avoid using such devices, or to insure that even the hard-of-hearing can follow hear? Or, if you prefer, which is the bigger kula: To use such devices, or to disenfranchise part of the tzibur? (I'm not taking sides, just illustrating the issues. If you want answers, ask your LOR.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554abd8864c633d88019cst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 18:45:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 01:45:24 GMT Subject: [Avodah] The Disappearing Doctor of Iyyar: Virtual Vanishing of a Venerable Minhog Message-ID: <20150506.214524.14329.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitzchok Levine posted: > See http://tinyurl.com/mdz6883 That article has only slight relevance to anything medical. It is actually about the practice of abbreviating HaShem's Name with a double (or triple) Yud in siddurim, and how this practice is losing ground recently, with more siddurim using the Four-Lettered Name. That article says: > ... even in the printing of siddurim, where in the past, Shem > Hashem was not written out explicitly, based on venerable, old > practice. In other words, the spelling out of the letters, Yud > ? Kay ? Vov ? Kay in the past was done in Biblical texts, such > as Sifrei Torah and Sifrei Nach. In texts of tefilos, however, > it was not done. Instead, Yud ? Yud was substituted. I am very curious why this distinction was made, that the siddurim use the Yuds, while the printed Tanachs do use the Four Lettered Name. I note that towards the end of that article, he refers to an "Azharah L'Madfisim (Warning To Printers)" on this topic, written by the son-in-law of the Nesivos Hamishpat. Curiously, he writes that the Two Yuds should be printed in siddurim *and* *chumashim*. On the other hand, a few lines later, the Azharah explains a point I've long wondered about. The Four Lettered Name is just one of the *seven* Names Which May Not Be Erased. Why did this abbreviation arise for the Four Lettered Name and not for any of the others? I always figured it was because this one is *truly* a Name; "the Most Holy among equals" one might say. But the Azharah gives an entirely different explanation. Namely, the difference between this Name and the other six is that no matter how you spell it, it is not to be pronounced normally, so what is to be gained by using the correct letters? Therefore, find an abbreviation of some sort for this one, but the others should be spelled as they will be pronounced. Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554ac3e5a6e0843e34b38st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 19:34:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 22:34:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: <85279.31aefae5.427c294a@aol.com> From: Eli Turkel via Avodah In some circles it is common for men to keep long peyot (as an aside it has become common also in some chardal circles) The book Keren Zavit says he doesn't understand the custom.... -- Eli Turkel >>>> Yemenites have long payos, so this must be a very old custom, not some recent chumra. They don't call them "payos" but "simanim," which I find charming. They are signs that a man is a Jew, proud and obvious signs. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 02:13:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 12:13:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: In addition to the points brought up by R' Eli Turkel against long peyot, I would like to raise the following: The shiur given by all of the poskim for each hair is very very short, and in fact because it is a lo taase there is probably not even an inyan of hidur mitzvah. Therefore it is not clear why there would be any inyan to grow long peyot. The truth is it would be much better to be machmir on the shiur of where peyot harosh ends (maybe the very bottom of the ear) which is a safek issur d'oraysa then to grow long peyot which has no kiyum al pi din. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 20:33:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 23:33:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired Message-ID: <86422.6a1e08b9.427c3711@aol.com> [1] I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a woman is owned by her husband, the language of the Mishna notwithstanding. Can anyone point to a clear statement by Hazal or rishonim that supports my supposition? My thanks, Shalom Z. Berger [2] I own my shoes. This gives me certain rights, such as wearing them to the exclusion of anyone else, or the choice of who I might lend them to. I also have certain responsibilities; I cannot simply destroy them for no reason. I own my tefillin too. But the things I can do with my tefillin are much more limited than what I can do with my shoes. I have certain rights and responsibilities vis a vis my wife as well. Do I own her? I don't know. Is there a real nafka mina, or is it just semantics? Akiva Miller >>>> [1] Along the lines of what R' Micha Berger posted. On Ber 24:57 -- "Let us call the maiden and ask her what she wants to do" -- Rashi says, "Mikan she'ein masi'in es ha'isha ela mida'ata -- from here we learn that one does not [or may not, or cannot] marry a woman without her consent." I think he's quoting Kesubos 57b. I can't think of any kind of property whose consent is required before the property can be acquired. [2] The analogy to tefillin is flawed. You do not have any obligations or responsibilities to your tefillin. Rather, in regards to your tefillin, you have obligations towards your Maker! He has told you what you must do, may do, or must not do, with your tefillin. A better analogy would have been to your ox or your dog, where you do actually have obligations to your animals, an obligation, for example, to feed the animal before you eat your own meal. And a still better analogy would have been to acquiring a slave, about which the Talmud says "One who acquires a Jewish slave is like one who has acquired a master! (Kiddushin 20a)" -- because of all the obligations he incurs towards his slave. So there does seem to be some kind of ownership that a husband has vis-a-vis his wife, but then, she also in some sense owns him. Certainly she has the right to make specific claims on him, because he has specific obligations towards her. Shir Hashirim speaks about the love between Hakadosh Baruch Hu and Am Yisrael in an extended poetic analogy to the love between a husband and a wife. What does the wife say about her husband? Dodi li ve'ani lo -- He belongs to me, and I belong to Him. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 23:25:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 02:25:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Princess and I: Academic Kabbalists/Kabbalist Academics Message-ID: <20150507062523.18EF01826EC@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/km8kf2n The last few decades have witnessed the veritable explosion of "new perspectives" and horizons in the academic study of Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism. From the pioneering work of the late Professor Gershom Scholem, and the establishment of the study of Jewish Mysticism as a legitimate scholarly pursuit, we witness a scene nowadays populated by men and women, Jews and non-Jews, who have challenged, (re)constructed, and expanded upon Scholem's work.[2] These men and women themselves have been variously praised and criticized themselves for sometimes blurring the lines between academician and practitioner of Kabbalah and mysticism.[3] Professor Boaz Huss of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has done extensive work in this area.[4] One of the most impressive examples of this fusion of identities is Professor Yehuda Liebes (Jerusalem, 1947-) of Hebrew University, who completed his doctoral studies under Scholem, and rose to prominence himself by challenging scholarly orthodoxies established by his mentor. See the above URL for more. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 23:29:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 02:29:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Shabbat microphones catching on among orthodox despite taboos Message-ID: <20150507062953.0C966182FF8@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/men8bez Relying upon rulings by decision makers such as Rabbi Shaul Yisraeli, Isser Yehuda Unterman and Rav Haim David HaLevi, the Zomet microphone uses only transistors "without any glowing [or 'burning'] elements;" is turned on by an automatic "Shabbat timer;" and, once turned on, "current flows continuously in the system," according to technical notes on the setup released on the group's website. According to Zomet executive director Rabbi Dan Marans, the system has come into use in 15 synagogues in Baltimore, Montreal, West Stamford and other locations, as well as in 18 old-age homes. Leading American poskim, or decidors of Halacha, have even "stipulated in contracts with synagogues that they change the system to our system so that the RCA [will be] able to send rabbis." "I've not heard comments [against it]. If anything, people find the service more enjoyable and more elevating," agreed Schneier, adding that "We must get a dozen calls a year from rabbis contemplating putting this system into their synagogues. "I believe within 25 years it will be commonplace in Orthodox synagogues here in the Northeast." See the above URL for more. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 07:01:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 10:01:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Transferring my comments to Avodah At 04:00 PM 5/6/2015, R Saul Newman wrote on Areivim: >http://www.sharelive.tv/sharlive_Heb/SL27948.html I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire 33rd day, and they wait until the 34th day to take a haircut. Does this not imply that the entire 33rd day is part of Sefirah and the restrictions hold the entire 33rd day? Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva. However, the micktzas starts in the morning of the 7th day, not on the night of the 7th day. Thus, even according to Ashkenazim the night of Lag B'Omer is bound by the restrictions of Sefirah. So how can they make such gatherings on the night of the 33rd day? And, of course there is this post that I made on from Fri, 26 Apr 2013 based on comments by Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel. According to RSRH there is a major difference between the way the uses the terminology un-Jewish and non-Jewish. Un-Jewish things are things that are incompatible with Yahadus, whereas non-Jewish things are things of non-Jewish origin that are compatible with Yahadus. YL The following is from http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol11/v11n014.shtml#17 Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 11:37:58 -0400 From: "Seth Mandel" Subject: Re: bonfires on Lag Ba'Omer From: Phyllos... at aol.com Obviously, the bones of people who believe that there is a s'gullo in making fires . As I have had fun telling people, the _only_ bonfire that was an ancient Jewish tradition was the Simchas Torah bonfire in Ashk'naz, which is attested from the 14th century up until the 19th century, but has gone out of style. The Lag Ba'omer bonfire is a very recent phenomenon among most Jews. Indeed, the word bonfire is from "fire of bones." The term was used primarily in various pagan ceremonies which then were transferred to christianity, for a funeral pyre, and in burning infidels or books (like The Gaon of Vilna or MOAG). The bones used, if 'twere not a pyre, were primarily animal bones. Here's an early quotation (1493): "in worshyppe of saynte John the people waked at home and made all maner of fyres. One was clene bones and no woode, and that is called a bone fyre." From Marlowe in 1586: "Making bonfires for my overthrow. But, ere I die, those foul idolators Shall make me bonfires with their filthy bones." (Think that would get by the moderators on Areivim, R. SBA?) 1689: "The dead corps is buried. They of old made a bone-fire and therein burnt it." 1622: "Their holy Bibles cast into Bone-fires." The term became used for any large fires used for celebrations, although the practice and term continued to be used especially for those associated with various christian saints, particularly John and Peter. From a 1570 history: "Then doth the joyfull feast of John the Baptist take his turne, When bonfiers great with loftie flame, in every towne doe burne." From a constitution of the association of the cooks of Newcastle, 1575: "The said Felloship of Cookes shall yearelie. mainteigne and keep the Bone-fires. that is to say, one Bone-fire on the Even of the Feast of the Nativitie of St. John Baptist. and the other on the Even of the Feast of St. Peter the Apostle." These quotations start in the 15th century, because that is as far back as the term bone-fire goes, but the practice of making a bonfire in honor of Christian saints goes back to ancient times in England (and in France as well). Another practice that goes back to ancient times in Christian Europe is making pilgrimages to "qivrei tzaddiqim" and donating alms at the qever; this practice is well known from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Most Christian scholars attribute the association of the bonfires with celebrations of the feast of a saint to pagan, pre-christian practices which were later adopted by the local people to their new religion. Indeed, the Celtics made bonfires to honor some of their deities and spirits. No one would ever claim that these practices, going back into old Anglo-Saxon England, are of Jewish origin. The Arabs of EY, Syria, and Lebanon, as is well-known, honored the Christian and Jewish "saints" (everyone knows that the qever of Sh'muel haNavi has been a "holy" site to the Arabs for hundreds of years, and they built a mosque there; the site is called "anNabi Samwil"). They made pilgrimages to them, like the Christians did, and they made large celebrations to honor the festival of the saint. The Arab pilgrims who came did various things to honor the saint. They gave alms (a big mitzva in Islam), usually done by the practice of cutting the hair of their children (which they had let grow from before the pilgrimage), then weighing it and giving the same weight in gold or silver for alms. They also made large bonfires to honor the saint. The custom of making pilgrimages, giving alms, and making bonfires may have been borrowed from the christians, since a) they originally appeared among the Arabs of EY, Lebanon and Syria, AFAIK; b) they are first recorded after the time of the Crusades (although the giving of gold or silver in the weight of the hair seems to have been from the Middle East). However there is no clear proof that they did not arise from another source. But they are attested in Arabic sources going back to the 15th century, and probably before. Can the custom of bonfires on Lag Ba'omer have arisen among the Jews separately and independently from the non-Jewish sources? Theoretically it's possible. Books like Minhag Yisruel Toyre he brings all sorts of reasons from various chasidic rebbes and from the book Ta'amei haMinhogim for the origin of the bonfires on Lag Ba'omer. The problem with all the explanations is that a) they are all of recent origin, and b) they somehow ignore the fact that the custom was completely unknown to any Jews up until the time when it is recorded in EY in the 16th century. Furthermore, it was the custom there of only one group of Jews, the Musta'ribim, about whom other Jews complained that they had adopted a lot of Arab customs (the very name mean "Arabicized). From contemporary documents we learn the Muslims (and a few Jews) cut the hair of children as well as lit a bonfires on the yohrtzeit (28 of Iyyar) of non other than the aforementioned Shmu'el haNavi. However, in the 1560s the Arab authorities forbad Jews to go there. Shortly afterwards, we have the testimony of R. Chaim Vital that he was told by R. Yonatan Sagiz that a year before he started learning by the Ari, in the Ari's first year after he immigrated from his homeland of Egypt (also 1570), that "Mori v'Rabbi Z'L took his small son and all of his family there [to the celebration on RaShBY 's yohtzeit in Meron] and there he cut his hair in accordance with the custom." R. Chaim Vital is careful to note, however, that "I do not know whether at that time he was expert and knowledgable in this wondrous wisdom [Qabbolo] as he became after that." IOW, R. Chaim Vital himself is cautioning the reader that he has doubts about whether the Ari did this in accordance with his views in Qabbolo, or just because it was a popular celebration, and he might not have participated had he already been an expert in Qabbolo. Some historians believe that once the Musta'ribim were forbidden to go to the qever of Sh'muel haNavi, they transferred their celebration to Meron and the date to Lag Ba'Omer. Others claim that the custom at Meron predated 1570. But both groups agree that both of these customs, cutting the hair of the children and making bonfires, were practiced by the Arabs and the Musta 'ribim, but not by any of the Ashk'nazi and S'faradi Jews in Israel. Of great interest is that the local rabbis in Tz'fat, who had the practice of going to the all the known q'vorim of the Tano'im from the middle of Iyyar until Shavu'os and having a seder in learning there, opposed the celebrations of the Musta'ribim on Lag ba'Omer and tried to forbid it. They made little headway, and once it became known that the Ari participated one year, any opposition was swept away. We know from travelers to EY in the 18th and 19th centuries that the "hilula" at Meron on Lag Ba'Omer with bonfires and the cutting of children's hair had become an affair of the masses. A well known talmid chochom from Europe, R. Avrohom Rozanes, writes that in his visit to EY in 1867 he saw an Ashk'nazi Jew who had taken his son to the "hilula" and was giving him a haircut. R. Rozanes says that he could not restrain himself, and went to that Jew and tried to dissuade him but was unsuccessful, and that most of the Ashk'nazi and S'faradi Jews of EY participate in this "craziness," with "drinking and dancing and fires." The custom of giving the son his first haircut at that celebration, originally called "halaqa" by the Jews of EY (apparently because there was an established Arabic term but no Jewish term for the custom) was later mixed with the custom of making a celebration when a son reached 3 and began learning Torah. The two customs were combined by many, and resulted in the boy's haircut being delayed until he was 3, and not specifically on Lag ba' Omer. A chasidish rebbe, R. Yehudah Leibush Horenstein, who emigrated to EY in the middle of the 19th century writes that "this haircut, called halaqe, is done by the S'faradim in Yerushalayim at the qever of RaShB'Y during the summer, but during the winter they take the boy to the synagogue or Bet Medrash and perform the haircut with great celebration and parties, something _that is unknown to the Jews in Europe_. and at that point they start him growing his pe'ot. it is incomprehensible why this is not done outside of EY [as well]" [emphasis mine]. Indeed, the custom was adopted by shortly thereafter by chasidim in Europe to imitate the custom of the S'faradim in EY, and the custom of lighting bonfires on Lag Ba'Omer also was adopted at that time by chasidic communities in Europe. The Jews in Europe, knowing no Arabic and having no Yiddish name for the custom of the haircut, called it by a normal Yiddish word for cutting off the hair: opsheren. Both customs are less than 150 years old among Ashk'naz Jews, including chasidim. Now we scarcely can expect to find a historical document that says "we, the undersigned Jews, have decided that there is nothing wrong with copying the Muslim celebrations in honor of saints, and we will participate in them." So you're never going to find better historical evidence for Jewish borrowing of non-Jewish customs than this: that a custom that was previously unknown to any group of Jews arose among a group of Jews known to copy various Arab customs in a time and place that the custom is attested among the Arabs from independent evidence. Is there anything osur about a bonfire on Lag Ba'Omer, or waiting to give a son a haircut until he is 3 or until you go to Meron? Certainly not. As I believe R. SBA has noted, the opsheren provides an excuse for a party that is connected with the boy's beginning to learn; it could be done without the haircut, but if people feel that it is important to give a haircut as well, there is no issur. Certainly no one who lights bonfires or celebrates opsheren has any idea that the source of these customs is extremely questionable. And after 130 years most Jews forget the origin of customs anyway and just assume they are old Jewish customs.. However, those who studiously avoid eating turkey on Thanksgiving should know that the origin of the customs of the bonfire on Lag ba'Omer and halaqa/opsheren are much more suspect. Seth Mandel ---------- So I really do not understand this entire affair at Meron. To add to this see the pictures of Lag B'Omer from many years ago at http://tinyurl.com/khmhcz4 I do not see even one bonfire! YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:07:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 13:07:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 10:01:44AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown : which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. : The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire : 33rd day... : Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last : day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva... Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. Yes, many of us know that the PEC really says Lag baOmer is yom simchas Rashbi, which may or may not be his yahrzeit. "Yom shemeis" is a typo that reached later editions via a dropped ches. See http://seforim.blogspot.com/2011/05/printing-mistake-and-mysterious-origins.html But (as per previous conversations), that also doesn't rule out the possibility that the day of Rashbi's joy is his yahrzeit. But even if the Ari said it's the day he started the Zohar, finished it, left the cave, or whatever, it's still a day the Ari considered worth celebrating. And yes, many of us also know that the whole upsherin-at-the-qever thing was originally on the 43rd in/to the omer, at Nabi Samwel. (See shu"t haRadvaz 2:608.) Which makes sense -- Shemu'el was a nazir, and he lived in the BHMQ starting at age 3. The move to Meron and Lag baOmer happened when the Ottomans restricted access to the qever in the 1500s. The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) and ABD. But the version of the minhag he recorded would not pose the question -- observe the first "half" of the omer, and then a haircut a week before Shavuos isn't a problem. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:07:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 13:07:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 10:01:44AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown : which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. : The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire : 33rd day... : Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last : day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva... Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. Yes, many of us know that the PEC really says Lag baOmer is yom simchas Rashbi, which may or may not be his yahrzeit. "Yom shemeis" is a typo that reached later editions via a dropped ches. See http://seforim.blogspot.com/2011/05/printing-mistake-and-mysterious-origins.html But (as per previous conversations), that also doesn't rule out the possibility that the day of Rashbi's joy is his yahrzeit. But even if the Ari said it's the day he started the Zohar, finished it, left the cave, or whatever, it's still a day the Ari considered worth celebrating. And yes, many of us also know that the whole upsherin-at-the-qever thing was originally on the 43rd in/to the omer, at Nabi Samwel. (See shu"t haRadvaz 2:608.) Which makes sense -- Shemu'el was a nazir, and he lived in the BHMQ starting at age 3. The move to Meron and Lag baOmer happened when the Ottomans restricted access to the qever in the 1500s. The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) and ABD. But the version of the minhag he recorded would not pose the question -- observe the first "half" of the omer, and then a haircut a week before Shavuos isn't a problem. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 08:22:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 11:22:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554B8340.3090001@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 10:01 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > > > The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire 33rd day, and they wait until the 34th day to take a haircut. Does this not imply that the entire 33rd day is part of Sefirah and the restrictions hold the entire 33rd day? > > Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva. However, the micktzas starts in the morning of the 7th day, not on the night of the 7th day. Thus, even according to Ashkenazim the night of Lag B'Omer is bound by the restrictions of Sefirah. So how can they make such gatherings on the night of the 33rd day? That all applies if you regard Lag Ba'omer as simply marking the end of mourning. But as we discussed a few weeks ago, that doesn't really make sense. According to both shitos quoted by the BY there is no such thing as Lag Ba'omer -- the last day on which they died was either the 34th of the Omer or the 49th. Even according to the Tosfos as the Bach quotes it, that they only died for 33 days, Lag Ba'omer was one of the 33, and not the last one! And even if one will find a shita somewhere that they died only on the first 33 days, who makes a party on the last day of shiva? You stop active mourning, you don't go dancing! All of which points to the fact that Lag Ba'omer is *not* about the end of mourning, but a happy day in its own right, the simcha of Rashbi. (The silly discussion over whether the word is "simchas" or "shemeis" is irrelevant here. Either way it's his simcha, which he asked people to celebrate.) This simcha *overrides* the mourning of sefira, no matter which shita one follows. This way of looking at things also explains whether one should say tachanun at mincha of erev Lag Ba'omer. If it's just "the end of shiva", that starts in the morning, so one should say tachanun at the previous mincha, just as one does on erev Pesach Sheni (which also starts in the morning), erev Erev RH and erev Erev YK, and if we said tachanun in Nissan we would also say it at mincha of erev Erev Pesach, because it too starts in the morning. But once we regard Lag Ba'omer as a day of simcha in its own right, then it starts at night, and so we omit tachanun in the previous mincha. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 07:19:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 09:19:59 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] The Princess and I: Academic Kabbalists/Kabbalist Academics In-Reply-To: <20150507062523.18EF01826EC@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507062523.18EF01826EC@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554B748F.8080508@starways.net> On 5/7/2015 1:25 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > From http://tinyurl.com/km8kf2n >> The last few decades have witnessed the veritable explosion of "new >> perspectives" and horizons in the academic study of Kabbalah and >> Jewish Mysticism. From the pioneering work of the late Professor >> Gershom Scholem, and the establishment of the study of Jewish >> Mysticism as a legitimate scholarly pursuit, we witness a scene >> nowadays populated by men and women, Jews and non-Jews, who have >> challenged, (re)constructed, and expanded upon Scholem's work.[2] ... R' Adin Steinsalz once said about the Kabbalah Center type of Kabbalah that it bore the same relationship to real Kabbalah that pornography does to love. This "academic Kabbalah" bears the same relationship to real Kabbalah that an anatomy book does to love. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:32:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 13:32:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> At 01:07 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 10:01:44AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: >: I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown >: which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. > >: The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire >: 33rd day... >: Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last >: day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva... > >Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to >get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would >mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. Indeed, I think one should be. Truth be told my mother, A"H, told me that once a child is at least one year old and can say a few words, then his hair gets cut. This is what I did with my sons, and I am sure it is an old minhag. >Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the >Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning >on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in >the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke >qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to >last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. Indeed, this is where the New Religion is coming from. Years ago someone asked Rav S. Schwab, ZT"L, about certain things that certain chassidishe women do when they are pregnant and if they were valid. His forceful reply was, "My mother never knew about such things, my grandmother never knew about such things, and my great grandmother never knew about such things. These people are making up a religion!!!!!" I am not comfortable with people making up a religion, particularly since RSRH says definitively the Judaism is not a religion, to the New Religion is not Judaism by definition. >The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, >who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where >he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) >and ABD. But the version of the minhag he recorded would not pose the >question -- observe the first "half" of the omer, and then a haircut a >week before Shavuos isn't a problem. The MB points out that the minhag in Vilna was to start the restrictions of Sefirah on the first day of Rosh Chodesh Iyar and then they end in the morning of the first of the 3 days before Shavuous. I took a haircut shortly before Rosh Chodesh Iyar. There were no crowds to contend with and I had no waiting. This morning I trimmed my mustache and the hair that grows under my neck below my beard at shortly after sunrise. I will take a haircut on 3 or 4 Sivan. Again, there will be no crowds to contend with. This has worked and continues to work for me. YL PS. My wife has asked more than once, " How can they observe the aveilus restrictions of Sefirah during Pesach when it is a Yom Tov?" My reply is, "I do not know." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 13:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507175311.GC1758@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 01:32:05PM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : >Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to : >get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would : >mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. : Indeed, I think one should be. Maqor? Since when do we expect 3 yr olds to conform to minhag? ... : >Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the : >Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning : >on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in : >the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke : >qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to : >last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. : : Indeed, this is where the New Religion is coming from.... The PEC is older than RSRH. If you want to label any particular change as a "New Religion", you dwell in a glass house. ... : The MB points out that the minhag in Vilna was to start the : restrictions of Sefirah on the first day of Rosh Chodesh Iyar and : then they end in the morning of the first of the 3 days before : Shavuous. I took a haircut shortly before Rosh Chodesh Iyar. There : were no crowds to contend with and I had no waiting. And the Radbaz predates the SA, never mind the MB. : This has worked and continues to work for me... Good. What I'm objecting to is your insistnce in telling others that what works for them is "New Religion". : PS. My wife has asked more than once, " How can they observe the : aveilus restrictions of Sefirah during Pesach when it is a Yom Tov?" : My reply is, "I do not know." You can't get married on Pesach, not even ch"m either. Nor get a haircut. So you're asking about parties with live music. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:49:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 13:49:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <554BA59A.5040905@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 01:07 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, > who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where > he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) Who taught the Ari, who cut his son's hair at Meron on Lag Ba'omer. Does anyone know whether the Shita Mekubetzes, beside being the Ari's rebbe, was also related to him? I haven't seen this anywhere, but how many Ashkenazi families could there have been in Egypt at that time? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 11:41:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Herbert Basser via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 18:41:42 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah Message-ID: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> A recent post claims the Islamic "opsherin" was called "halaqah". What is the evidence for this claim? The only meaning of arabic "halaqah" I know is "learning circle". Zvi Basser -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 14:31:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 17:31:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Upsherin Message-ID: <20150507213225.D3EDA181A25@nexus.stevens.edu> Since Upsherin is done on Lag B'Omer at Meron, I think one should understand the source for this too. The following is from Shorshei Minhag Ashkenaz, Minhag Ashkenaz: Sources and Roots by Rabbi Binyamin Shlomo Hamburger, Synopsis of Volumes I-IV. YL The German custom to bring a young boy to the synagogue with a wirnpel (wrapping for t he Torah scroll) has no connection whatsoever to the practice of the chalaka (the Arabic term for Upsherin) observed by Sepharadirn and later ad opted by many Chasidirn. Th e custom of holding a special celebration marking the boy's first haircut developed among these groups. The celebration takes place at a specific age, usually three. Th e festivity is customarily held near the gravesite of a tzadik or in a synagogue. *This custom was unknown in ancient Sephardic and Ashkenazic communities.* (Emphasis added by me.) The earliest reports of the chalaka [upsherin] celebration are found in accounts written by Sepharadim early in the period of the Acharonim. Some three centuries later, we find the first indications that the custom had made its way into Chasidic circles. The most important source concerning the chalaka is the account of the celebration in which the Ari-zal is involved. The details of this story are somewhat vague, and it is unclear whether the Ari-zal made a chalaka for his son, or whether the account refers to his disciple, Rabbi Yonatan Sagish. There is also some question as to whether the Ari-zal participated in Lag Ba 'omer events in Meron after his kabalistic insights because the custom to conduct a chalaka on Lag Ba 'omer runs in opposition to the Ari-zal' s final ruling that forbade hair cutting during the orner period. Furthermore, the custom of the chalaka has given rise to some questions as to the propriety of hair cutting at a gravesite or synagogue, which might constitute an infringement upon the sanctity of the site. Some have also questioned the permissibility of haircutting on Lag Ba 'omer, during bein ha-rnetzarirn (the three weeks before Tisha B' A v) or during Chol Ha 'rno 'ed. Yet another concern was the immodest behavior that occasionally accompanied this event. Most Sephardic and Chasidic rabbis applauded, or at least defended the practices observed in their circles, though there were those who forbade the custom in this manner. Rabbi Yitzchak Zev Soloveitchik of Brisk (1889-1960) disapproved of bringing children to rabbis on their third birthday for the chalaka, claiming that this practice "has no reason or basis." He noted that there are sources indicating that one should introduce the child to matters of Torah at the age of three, but none that involve haircutting. Rabbi Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky [the "Steipler Ga'on," (1899-1985)] also opposed this practice, and would send away parents who brought their children to him for the chalaka haircut. The tendency among Ashkenazi communities to refrain from this practice stems, according to one view, from the concern that the chalaka transgresses the prohibition of imitating pagan practices. Cutting a child's hair at the age of three was a well-known custom among several nations in ancient times, and thus observing this practice may constitute an imitation of pagan ritual. Some, however, dismissed this argument, claiming that to the contrary, the chalaka perhaps began as an ancient Jewish practice which was later adopted by the gentiles. There are some older customs, originating in the times of Chazal and the Ge'onim, such as fasting on Erev Rosh Hashana and the ceremony of Kapaprot on Erev Yom Kippur which were opposed by some rabbis since they feared that their origins could be found in pagan rites. In any event, although some communities accepted this custom, Ashkenazi communities were never aware of such a practice. They did not receive this tradition from their forebears, and they found no mention of it in the writings of the Rishonim. The ancient tradition among Ashkenazi communities was to cut a boy's hair at a very young age. In fact, during the times of Chazal, parents would cut an infant's hair not long after birth, and they even permitted cutting a baby's overgrown hair on Chol Ha 'mo' ed. In the times of the Rishonim, too, boys' hair in Ashkenaz was cut already within the first several months after birth. The phenomenon of children with overgrown hair simply did not exist in Germany, and a boy with overgrown hair would have been mistaken for a girl. The custom of chalaka was never accepted in Ashkenazic countries or other regions in Western Europe, not even among the Sephardic communities in these areas. The practice earned acceptance in Eastern Europe among certain Chasidic circles, but only in later generations. Among other circles, boys' hair was cut when they began speaking, and no special affair was held to celebrate the event. .. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 14:31:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 17:31:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554BD9C6.9000803@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 01:32 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > > Indeed, this is where the New Religion is coming from. Years ago > someone asked Rav S. Schwab, ZT"L, about certain things that certain > chassidishe women do when they are pregnant and if they were valid. > His forceful reply was, "My mother never knew about such things, my > grandmother never knew about such things, and my great grandmother > never knew about such things. These people are making up a religion!!!!!" With all due respect to R Schwab's great-grandmother, there are more things in Yiddishkeit than were dreamt of in her philosophy. My great-grandmother did know about such things, and I'm sure her tzidkus and wisdom was no less than hers. And following the Ari's teachings is the very opposite of making up a religion. > I am not comfortable with people making up a religion, particularly > since RSRH says definitively the Judaism is not a religion, to the > New Religion is not Judaism by definition. You're the one assigning to it the word "religion", and then, in what can only be called an act of verbal ju-jitsu, you pull out a definition of that word which (you claim) does not fit Yiddishkeit, and declare that anything called a "religion" must not be Yiddishkeit. I might as well say that since my aunt is a secretary, a secretary is a kind of desk, and Jesus was a carpenter, therefore Jesus made my aunt! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 14:10:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 17:10:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> At 01:07 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. But doesn't "evolving" mean that there is an existing minhag, and it evolves? Here we are talking about a new minhag which no one knew about. The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was appropriate. People certainly can make up new customs whenever they like. But bonfires on Lag Ba'omer are no more or no less than parades on Yom haAtzmaut for those who celebrate it: They have nothing to do with religion. Some Jews have even invented a custom to put up a tree on Chanukkah. But do not try to tell us it then becomes a "religious minhag" and "minhag Hamokom." Everything that Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel wrote in his post is true. There were no rabbonim at the time who approved of the custom. Indeed it is true is that there were no rabbonim who approved of the custom at the time, nor at the time of the Ari and R. Chaim Vital. While they did not say it should be stopped, they gave no support either. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 15:42:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 18:42:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507224237.GA15428@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 05:10:31PM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : At 01:07 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: :> Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. : But doesn't "evolving" mean that there is an existing minhag, and it : evolves? ... The essence of mourning during the omer is not making a wedding, since nissuin, or a se'udas eirusin at the time of eirusin, is the act of simchah par exellance. Then the bit about haircuts crept in, and later, parties with music. Perhaps music as a whole, perhaps instrumental music, perhaps only parties -- machloqes acharonim. That's the minhag I'm talking about evolving. So, people found reason to poke a hole in a minhag that was otherwise growing. As I said, minhagim evolve. : The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was : appropriate. What? The Ari PARTICIPATED in it himself! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 16:39:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 19:39:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Upsherin In-Reply-To: <20150507213225.D3EDA181A25@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507213225.D3EDA181A25@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554BF7A0.10800@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 05:31 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > The earliest reports of the chalaka [upsherin] celebration are found in >accounts written by Sepharadim early in the period of the Acharonim. Indeed it is. For instance, see Gan Hamelech ch 62. http://www.otzar.org/wotzar/book.aspx?64092 This takes it back to at least the 17th century, and he refers to it as a well-known minhag that he doesn't have to explain. The Gan Hamelech is surely himself sufficient authority even if we had no other. And while he was Sefardi, he had a great influence on Ashkenazi psak. > The most important source concerning the chalaka is the account of > the celebration in which the Ari-zal is involved. The details of this > story are somewhat vague, and it is unclear whether the Ari-zal made > a chalaka for his son, or whether the account refers to his disciple, > Rabbi Yonatan Sagish. There is nothing vague about it. It's clear from the context that R Yonatan told R Chaim what the Ari had done a year before he, R Chaim, became the Ari's talmid. > Some have also questioned the permissibility of haircutting on Lag > Ba'omer, during bein ha-metzarirn or during Chol Hamo'ed. Gan Hamelech not only permits it on Chol Hamoed but even permits *delaying* it to Chol Hamoed so as to increase the simcha! And this psak is quoted lehalacha by the Baer Hetev. > The custom of /chalaka /was never accepted in /Ashkenazic /countries or > other regions in Western Europe, not even among the /Sephardic > /communities in these areas. The practice earned acceptance in Eastern > Europe among certain /Chasidic /circles, but only in later generations. This is untrue. It was already accepted in the Baal Shem Tov's time. The only time the Alter Rebbe saw the Baal Shem Tov was on his third birthday, when his parents brought him to have his hair cut. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 16:45:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 19:45:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554BF921.5070409@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 05:10 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was appropriate. On the contrary, he wrote that he personally saw the Ari take his whole family there and stay three days! > There were no rabbonim at the time who approved of the custom. The Ari was not a rov?! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 21:35:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 04:35:03 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Israeli carrots and peppers Message-ID: <20150508.003503.13248.1@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> Om Areivim, R' Yitzchok Levine posted this alert: > Shemitta: Carrots & Peppers from Israel > in Neighborhood Stores > > Please be aware that carrots (including Dorot Farms brand), > peppers, and other vegetables from Israel are consistently > being sold in the Baltimore area at produce markets in our > neighborhood, which are frequented by members of our community. > From the numerous inquiries we have received, it is apparent > that many consumers are unaware of this when shopping. > > The packages or labels state "Product of Israel." These > vegetables likely have Kedushas Shviis and require special > care. If you bought them, contact your local Orthodox rabbi > for further guidance. > > Seven Mile Market in Baltimore is monitored by Star-K and > produce sold there does not have this issue. My question is this: Why does the alert mention only the problem of Kedushas Shviis? If one is concerned about Kedushas Shviis, wouldn't he also be concerned about Sefichin, which (more than merely requiring "special care") is an issur achila? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554c3d3271e3c3d3240a3st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 21:11:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 04:11:14 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Meron live Message-ID: <20150508.001114.13248.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero wrote: > This way of looking at things also explains whether one should > say tachanun at mincha of erev Lag Ba'omer. If it's just "the > end of shiva", that starts in the morning, so one should say > tachanun at the previous mincha, just as one does on erev Pesach > Sheni (which also starts in the morning), erev Erev RH and erev > Erev YK, and if we said tachanun in Nissan we would also say it > at mincha of erev Erev Pesach, because it too starts in the > morning. But once we regard Lag Ba'omer as a day of simcha in > its own right, then it starts at night, and so we omit tachanun > in the previous mincha. I don't follow any of what RZS is saying about Lag Ba'omer, so I'll neither agree nor disagree. But my understanding of the nature of Pesach Sheni is very different from his: As it was explained to me, there's nothing special about the morning of Pesach Sheni. Pesach Sheni exists only on the afternoon of 14 Iyar and the following night. We omit Tachanun on the morning of 14 Iyar NOT because it is a holiday, but because it is the Tachanun *before* the holiday. Alternatively, one might say that the morning of 14 Iyar actually *is* Erev Pesach Sheni. Either way, the afternoon of 13 Iyar is too far removed to be significant enough to warrant skipping Tachanun. It is similar to how the *afternoon* of Erev RH and Erev YK are special enough to skip Tachanun, and this is extended even to the morning, but to say that the entirety of those days are so special that we would skip Tachanun even at the preceding Mincha -- No, that just doesn't fly. This leaves us with three days, at most, when we skip Tachanun at Shacharis, but we *do* say it at the preceding Mincha. (And many siddurim - ArtScroll, for example - explicitly list these three days as exceptions to the general rule.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554c37b79791d37b756e9st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 01:40:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 04:40:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507224237.GA15428@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507224237.GA15428@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150508084208.2D02F182131@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:42 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: > The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was >: appropriate. > >What? The Ari PARTICIPATED in it himself! From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upsherin Rabbi Chaim Vital wrote in Sha'ar Ha-Kavanot that "Isaac Luria, cut his son's hair on Lag BaOmer, according to the well-known custom." However, the age of his son is not mentioned. An obvious problem raised by Avraham Yaari, in an article in Tarbiz 22 (1951), is that many sources cite that the Arizal held one should not cut one's hair for the entire sefirah ? including Lag BaOmer, (see Shaarei Teshuva, O.C. 493, 8). YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 01:44:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 04:44:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Better Version of Upsherin Message-ID: <20150508084606.6189F180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> There were some editorial problems with what I sent out earlier about this topic from Shorshei Minhag Ashkenaz. See http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/shorshei_hair_cutting.pdf for a better version. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 21:02:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 06:02:54 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah In-Reply-To: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> References: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> Message-ID: <554C356E.2030103@zahav.net.il> On 5/7/2015 8:41 PM, Herbert Basser via Avodah wrote: > A recent post claims the Islamic "opsherin" was called "halaqah". What > is the evidence for this claim? The only meaning of arabic "halaqah" I > know is "learning circle". A (Tunisian) Arab told me that it means hair cut. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 01:54:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 04:54:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening in a Large or Small Shul Message-ID: <20150508085532.23F97182131@nexus.stevens.edu> From today's http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ 1)It is a Mitzvah to daven in a Shul that has a large amount of people, as the Pasuk (Mishlei 14:28) says "Brov Am Hadras Melech - with a large assemblage the glory of the King [Hashem] is multiplied." (See Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) 2)There are various exceptions to this rule, and certain times it is deemed Halachically superior to daven in a smaller place and forego the "Brov Am Hadras Melech". A few examples of the many such exceptions: a)Davening in a Bais HaMidrash or Yeshiva , where people learn Torah all [or a large part of the] day (even if you yourself do not learn there) is better than davening in a Shul (i.e. Bais Hakneses that is used only for Tefilah), even if there are more people in the Shul than in the Bais HaMidrash. (See Talmud Brachos 8a. See Chayei Adam Klal 17:1 and Mishna Berura Siman 90 S:K 55) b)If one is on the way to a big Shul, and is stopped by someone and asked to be the tenth man [or any part of the 10] in their Minyan (either in a shiva house, or a smaller Shul whose members cannot go to the larger Shul due to their health or age, or any similar situation) he should stay with them and not refuse based on "Brov Am Hadras Melech" (Psak of Maran Harav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv Zatzal, quoted in Sefer Tefilah K'Hilchasa Perek 2 footnote 29, who maintains that doing a Chesed is just as big a Mitzvah, if not bigger, than fulfilling "Brov Am Hadras Melech") c) If one can concentrate and daven better in a smaller Shul he should daven there, rather than in a bigger Shul where he may not daven as well. (Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) The Aruch Hashulchan (Siman 90:15) rules that if in the larger Shul there are people who talk and converse during the Tefilah (which is a terrible sin, as we have discussed many times, and will iy"H discuss again more thoroughly in the near future), it is better to daven in a small Shul where it is quiet and the proper respect for Tefilah is exhibited. (The Sefer Tefilah K'Hilchasa Perek 2 footnote 28 writes that Rav Shlomo Zalmen Auerbach Zatzal even went so far as to Pasken that if by leaving the Shul with the talking you will end up missing Krias HaTorah or having to leave davening early, one should still avoid the Shul with the talking!) d) Naturally, if by davening in the larger Shul one will miss the proper time for davening (Zman Tefilah), he may daven in an earlier Minyan or Shul even if it is significantly smaller. (See Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) ---------- I think that today there is a move away from davening in large shuls. This is certainly true here in Brooklyn where many of the larger shuls are at times struggling to maintain their congregants. Part of it has to do with the fact that most large shuls daven Ashkenaz, and this is not viewed favorably in Brooklyn. I personally prefer to daven in a minyan consisting of between 20 and forty people. It is much easier to maintain decorum in such a minyan than in a shul where 100 or more people are davening. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 05:14:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 12:14:58 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Davening in a Large or Small Shul In-Reply-To: <20150508085532.23F97182131@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150508085532.23F97182131@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <5f05607383324977a92361bd65ab804c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> From today's http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ 1)It is a Mitzvah to daven in a Shul that has a large amount of people, as the Pasuk (Mishlei 14:28) says "Brov Am Hadras Melech - with a large assemblage the glory of the King [Hashem] is multiplied." (See Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) 2)There are various exceptions to this rule, and certain times it is deemed Halachically superior to daven in a smaller place and forego the "Brov Am Hadras Melech". A few examples of the many such exceptions:....................... ================================================ I wonder if this write up is indicative of a trend seen in "The halachos of X" works, likutim which seem to have become more popular (did they exist 40 years ago?). As Rav Aharon Lichtenstein learned at Harvard, life is complex. Of course there are overarching priorities which need to be learned, but specific applications are hard to summarize in an algorithmic form (see hilchot lashon hara and tzedaka for some obvious examples). Maybe in an internet age we have no choice but to try to put everything on line but what you really need IMHO is a live mentor. KT Joel RIch THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 08:21:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 11:21:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] minhagei S'fira (was "Meron live") Message-ID: In Avodah V33n74, R'Micha replied to RDrYL: : PS. My wife has asked more than once, " How can they observe the : aveilus restrictions of Sefirah during Pesach when it is a Yom Tov?" : My reply is, "I do not know." > You can't get married on Pesach, not even ch"m either. Nor get a haircut. So you're asking about parties with live music. < If one is asking about *minhagei aveilus* during the "first days", one can also ask about the "second days" custom to observe *minhagei aveilus* whenever Tachanun is said, as the number of such days does not come close to 33 and one has to include Shabbos as well as either R'Ch'Iyyar or the *shloshes y'mei hagbala* (all days when Tachanun is _not_ said) in the number. All the best from *Michael Poppers* * Elizabeth, NJ, USA -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 11:39:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 14:39:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] minhagei S'fira (was "Meron live") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150508183940.GA11944@aishdas.org> On Fri, May 08, 2015 at 11:21:28AM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : If one is asking about *minhagei aveilus* during the "first days", one can : also ask about the "second days" custom to observe *minhagei aveilus* whenever : Tachanun is said... Which makes it a good time to remind people of my tweak of RAM's survey of 11 different shitos (12, if we include one that isn't followed) of omer mourning periods It's an interesting side-note that two opinions do not include the night of Lag baOmer. But neither end then. :-)BBii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 11:58:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 14:58:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] minhagei S'fira (was "Meron live") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <554D0756.4070105@sero.name> On 05/08/2015 11:21 AM, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: > If one is asking about /minhagei aveilus/ during the "first days", > one can also ask about the "second days" custom to observe /minhagei > aveilus/ whenever Tachanun is said, as the number of such days does > not come close to 33 and one has to include Shabbos as well as either > R'Ch'Iyyar or the /shloshes y'mei hagbala/ (all days when Tachanun is > _not_ said) in the number. Whose custom is that? This sounds like the shita of Tosfos as quoted by Mahari ibn Shuaib, which is that they died all 49 days, but we observe aveilus only on those days when we don't say *techina*, which comes to exactly 33 days (including Lag Ba'omer, which according to this shita is not a special day at all). -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 9 03:38:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Sat, 9 May 2015 20:38:40 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Upsherin Message-ID: > > R' Levin wrote: The German custom to bring a young boy to the synagogue > with a wimpel > (wrapping for the Torah scroll) has no connection whatsoever to the > practice of the chalaka [...] > This is the way KAJ recommends This the way KAJ recommends Not with the bangs but a wimpel. Joe Slater -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 9 05:12:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sat, 9 May 2015 22:12:16 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <418AFCD6-9213-453C-A268-58AFB75BB81A@balb.in> I didn't know my family Minhag until I chanced on a picture before the war with my grandfather and two of his sons, both with long hair. Using the mimetic tradition my sons and grandsons had an upsherin. It's interesting that mention was made of The Griz. As is well known followers of the Vilna Gaon (including Mori VRabbi Rav Hershel Schachter) don't go to the Beis HaChaim and neither did Rav YD Soloveitchik until in his words he felt compelled to visit his wife's Tziyun. How many know that the Griz asked some Talmidim to go to the Rashbi's grave and pray when the Griz was on his death bed? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 9 12:23:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 9 May 2015 22:23:58 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar Message-ID: The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article They show how Seder Olam is self consistent and in particular it frequently takes people in Tanach whom seem to be different and conflates them. In sefer shoftim they take everything literally that each judge was for 40 years and no gaps between them etc. They then address the difference between the secular and seder olam dates. They also point out the difficulty in the sefer Isuah from chapter 39 onwards (Deutero-Isaiah) 1) the sudden change from rebuke and sestruction to comfort (many years before the destruction) 2) Koresh is listed explicitly twice while prophecy tends to be general 3) Yeshayahu is mention 15 times in the first part but never is mentioned in the second part They conclude that the secular dates are correct (as an aside archaeologists decide on these dates based on astronomical events and carbon 14 dating of pollen seeds which are short lived) They then explain seder olam dating 1) seder olam was not written as a historical text but has a moral side 2) seder olam ignores periods of time when nothing of Jewish importance occurs In particular the Persian era until Shimon Hagadol did not live up to the expectations. Hence, the prophecy of Isaiah-II (name unknown) was simply added to an existing sefer 3) as with its practice conflates Darius I with Darius III. 4) The new Greek calendar (shtarot) was exactly 1000 years after the exodus. In order to achieve this goal parts of the Persian history had to be changed including the order of some kings, again conflating several separate Persian kings which leads to a much shortened Persian kingdom. Finally it removes 6 years from Alexander the great (ie seder olam states Alexander ruled for 6 years in Greece and 6 years in Persia) See above article for more details -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 10 16:49:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 May 2015 18:49:22 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <554FEE82.8090903@starways.net> I think this is tragic. Rather than allow the blasphemous thought that the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their minds, they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple frauds and told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern Orthodox Jews have regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic. Lisa On 5/9/2015 2:23 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a > series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar > > http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see > achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article > > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 10 17:27:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 May 2015 20:27:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <554FF779.8010200@aishdas.org> I cannot believe TABC allowed this to be published as is. /Shreklach!/ KT, YGB On 05/09/2015 03:23 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a > series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar > > http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see > achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 02:19:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 12:19:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebre calendar Message-ID: <> I don't see how you can call this "blasphemous" R. Schwab once suggested that Chazal purposely changed the facts for a good reason. While he later retracted it would be hard to call his original opinion "blasphemous" . Furthermore several current Orthodox rabbis such as R. Leibtag do accept the secular dating. In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some examples 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu As a curios it makes Eliyahu some 700 years old when he runs in front of Achav's chariot. It gives a different meaning to Achav's accusations against Eliyahu when Eliyahu actually worked together with Moshe Rabbenu. Besiades the fact that Eliyahu was from Gilad and worked in the northern kingdom it leaves the halachic question whether a cohen gadol can resign and even leave the land of Israel for various tasks. It is clear from Tanach that Eli and other were the high priest in later generations 2) Ezta = Malachi because both dealt with the problem of foreign wives 3) Nechemia = Zerubavel R. Yaakov Embden already points out that both are mentioned in the same pasuk 4) Daniel = Hatach = Sashvezer Ibn Ezra already doesnt accept this 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta This is part of the missing years controversy. Note that there are several ancient Persian inscriptions that list them as separate kings Note that Ibn Ezra identifies Achashverosh as Artachashasta 6) Conflates Kaleb ben Chetron married to Efrat with Kalen ben Yefuneh married to Miriam Ibn Ezra disagrees and also see the Gra -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 10 23:38:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 09:38:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah In-Reply-To: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> References: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> Message-ID: On Thu, May 7, 2015 at 9:41 PM, Herbert Basser via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > A recent post claims the Islamic "opsherin" was called "halaqah". What > is the evidence for this claim? The only meaning of arabic "halaqah" I know > is "learning circle". > Disclaimer: my knowledge of Arabic doesn't go much beyond being able to look up words in the dictionary, but from doing that the root h-l-q seems to mean both "shave", "form a circle" and "round off". This makes sense to me: after all, "lehakkif" in Biblical Hebrew has the same semantic range. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 03:06:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 06:06:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] He is my G-d Message-ID: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> From Today's Hakhel email bulletin. Hakhel Note: The following is excerpted from Rav Schwab on Prayer, and was related by Rav Schwab at a Shiur he gave on Tefillah: I heard a story from Rav Yosef Breuer, Shlita, which he told about his father, my Rebbe, Rav Shlomo Zalman (Solomon) Breuer. The elder Rav Breuer was a very good friend of Rav Shimon Sofer, the Rav of Cracow, a brother of the Ksav Sofer, and a son of the Chasam Sofer. Once when the two friends met, Rav Shimon Sofer asked Rav Breuer to tell him a short ?vort" from his father-in-law, Rav Shamshon R. Hirsch. Upon which, Rav Breuer told him that Rav Hirsch would point out that while Adon Olam described the unfathomable eternity and omnipotence of Hashem, it nevertheless makes a reference to Him in a very personal way--VeHu Kaili, He is my G-d. Each person in his Tefillah says: I have a personal relationship with HaKadosh Baruch HU, He is my personal G-d. Therefore, whenever a person says the word Ado--i, my Master, no matter how small he thinks he is, he is averring that he is in direct contact with Hashem. This thought is in the introduction to any individual's Iyun Tefillah, concentration on Prayer. There is nothing mystical or supernatural about it. It should be the most natural thing in the world. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 06:38:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 13:38:51 GMT Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebre calendar Message-ID: <20150511.093851.15442.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel wrote: > In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that > Chazal had a tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some > examples > 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu I rarely, if ever, come across the word "conflate", except here on Avodah. When it is used here, it seems to be pejorative, indicating that someone confused or merged two things that really ought to stay distinct. RET, is that what you mean here? Do you feel that it was wrong for Chazal to associate Pinchas and Eliyahu in the way that they did? Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5550b1061639931057a29st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 07:16:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joseph Kaplan via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 10:16:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar Message-ID: <002a01d08bf5$1a951290$4fbf37b0$@tenzerlunin.com> On 5/9/2015 2:23 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a > series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar > > http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see > achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article > There were (so far) two responses: "I think this is tragic. Rather than allow the blasphemous thought that the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their minds, they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple frauds and told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern Orthodox Jews have regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic." "I cannot believe TABC allowed this to be published as is. /Shreklach!/" When I read this when it came out I remember thinking: what a refreshing concept. Letting students use the educational tools they have been given to think on their own and then to publish the results which (to my extremely non-expert eyes) appears to be a nice bit of research and analysis - whether correct or not. Joseph -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 07:30:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 09:30:18 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebre calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> On 5/11/2015 4:19 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > < that the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their > minds, they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple > frauds and told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern > Orthodox Jews have regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic.>> > > I don't see how you can call this "blasphemous" R. Schwab once > suggested that Chazal purposely changed the facts for a good reason. > While he later retracted it would be hard to call his original opinion > "blasphemous" . Furthermore several current Orthodox rabbis such as R. > Leibtag do accept the secular dating. I didn't call it blasphemous. I referred to doubting secular scholarship as blasphemy, tongue in cheek, because that seems to be the way it's viewed by some of the secular thinking Modern Orthodox. R' Schwab once wrote a thought experiment, which was one huge hava amina. What if, he said, we were faced with absolute proof that the historiography of Chazal was wrong? And he gave an idea. He was horrified by the way in which the secular thinking Modern Orthodox misread what he wrote as an actual position, opposing the veracity of Chazal, and wrote, not a retraction, but a clarification that he had *never* espoused the position that was being attributed to him. If R' Leibtag accepts the secular dating, then my comments about the tragedy of Modern Orthodox Jews bowing to the modern idol of secular scholarship apply there as well. > In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a > tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some examples > > 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu > As a curios it makes Eliyahu some 700 years old when he runs in front > of Achav's chariot. > It gives a different meaning to Achav's accusations against Eliyahu > when Eliyahu actually worked together with Moshe Rabbenu. Wrong again. There's no historiography going on here. No chronological framework of any kind. It's Midrash. Like Moshe Rabbenu jumping 10 amot into the air when fighting Og. Like Pharaoh's daughter having a stretchy, Fantastic Four kind of arm. Midrashim are all true. They aren't all true in the literal sense. Pinchas was not literally Aharon's grandson Pinchas ben Elazar. That's quite different from throwing away the entirety of Chazal's historiography, which is internally consistent all the way through, and which *Chazal clearly believed to be literally true*. If you want to say they were wrong, that they were ignorant of the facts, go ahead and do so. But please, don't play games by imagining that they intentionally fudged the facts. > Besiades the fact that Eliyahu was from Gilad and worked in the > northern kingdom it leaves the halachic question whether a cohen gadol > can resign and even leave the land of Israel for various tasks. It is > clear from Tanach that Eli and other were the high priest in later > generations Again, he wasn't Kohen Gadol. No one holds that he was. Let me try and explain a little more about Midrash. Chazal bring Midrashim that contradict one another. For example, there's a Midrash that says Esther never slept with Achashveirosh. That Hashem sent a mal'ach that took her place. That conflicts with "Esther karka hayta", as well as with the Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son. None of this is problematic. Because the truth of Midrashim is not in their concretes. Like analogies, Midrashim are abstractions which are anchored with concretes, but are not defined by those concretes. > 2) Ezta = Malachi because both dealt with the problem of foreign wives And maybe Ezra was Malachi. And maybe he wasn't. I don't see much of a nafka mina either way. Do you? > 3) Nechemia = Zerubavel > R. Yaakov Embden already points out that both are mentioned in the > same pasuk Ditto. Not one single example you're bringing has anything to do with a massive chronological framework that Chazal clearly knew to be the way things happened. Megillat Esther took place *before* Bayit Sheni was built, and not after. Baruch ben Neriah was the talmid of Yirmiyahu and the rav of Ezra, and if you throw that away, you literally snap the chain of tradition from Sinai, rendering all of Judaism stuff and nonsense. > 4) Daniel = Hatach = Sashvezer > Ibn Ezra already doesnt accept this Again, l'mai nafka mina? > 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta > This is part of the missing years controversy. Note that there are > several ancient Persian inscriptions that list them as separate kings > Note that Ibn Ezra identifies Achashverosh as Artachashasta It's not part of the missing years anything. You need to read what Chazal say about that inside. As far as Achashveirosh being Artachshasta, Chazal say Artaxerxes was a throne name. And in fact, Greek sources say that both Artaxerxes II and III adopted it as a throne name. Furthermore, the Septuagint version of Esther refers to the king as Artaxerxes, so saying that Ahasuerus is Artaxerxes is a truism that has nothing to do with chronology. > 6) Conflates Kaleb ben Chetron married to Efrat > with Kalen ben Yefuneh married to Miriam > Ibn Ezra disagrees and also see the Gra I'll go further. R' Moshe Eisenmann's Divrei HaYamim for Artscroll (one of the few books in the Artscroll Tanakh series which I consider to be of inestimable value) has an entire section on the Kalevs. I highly recommend it. But again, Midrash is Midrash, and there's zero relevance here. Let me ask a simple question. Was Baruch ben Neriya Ezra's teacher? As Chazal say, and as Iggeret Rav Shrira Gaon and Rambam and others bring down. Or not? And if not, how do you feel about *not* having a chain of tradition going back to Sinai? Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 08:17:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 11:17:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: <20150511.093851.15442.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150511.093851.15442.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150511151732.GA15699@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 01:38:51PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I rarely, if ever, come across the word "conflate", except here on : Avodah. When it is used here, it seems to be pejorative, indicating that : someone confused or merged two things that really ought to stay distinct. I think that's my doing; I like the word. And yeah, it is merging two things that may be helpful in another context to keep distinct, but without being as pejorative as saying they confused them. If one assumes that Chazal's statements about the past are intended to be about how the past should have happened rather than caring about actual historicity, then their saying that Pinchas is Eliyahu is the identification of what Pinechas means to us with what Eliyahu means, and giving us a license to treat the two are a single symbol. With no intent to imply they were historically the same very-long-lived human being. I would also want a little more clarity from those who object to claims about missing years between levels of objection. Do you mean: 1- This isn't my derekh. 2- I cannot see this even as eilu va'eilu, it's simply false. 3- It is heretical. At least one of us used the latter language, and I don't see it. We have a definition of heresy, three definitions of three subtypes of heres, anyway (kofer, apiqreis, min). Is anyone actually intending to claim that it violates an iqar emunah to take Chazal's dating of events in the Galus Paras uMadai and early Bayis Sheini period as ahistorical, meant for some hashkafic reason? Or is it an epistomological thing? If you believe the academic community's interpretation of the evidence and will create new peshatim to fit in this case, you've bought into a system that would equally argue for kefirah? And for the two people who dismiss the Greek version of Persian history: What do you do with the astronomical state points thrown in that actually work? As RET noted last year, around Purim time, if you read Ezra and Nechemiah literally, ignoring Sefer Olam, it is more consistent with Greek historians than Chazal. I found he gave details in 1999 (v2n176) To quote: ... proofs for the secular history 1. external proofs A. The history of Herodotus (485-425 BCE) discusses in detail the lives of Cyrus, Cambyses,Darius and Xerxes and briefly Atraxerxes who was a contemporary of Herodutus. It is hard to conceive that he wrote about contedmporay figures or recent history who did not exist. Note that according to Chazal the Persians did not come into power until 350 BCE 75 years after the death of Herodutus !!! Thucydides (460-400 BCE) starts with Cyrus and goes through Darius II and the fights between Athens and Sparta and the Peloponnesian Wars. Again according to Seder Olam Rabbah there was no time for all these wars and so probably many of these Athenian and Spartan leaders did not exist. Ctesias (430-380) was a physician in the court of Artaxerxes and describes the 7 kings from Cyrus through Artaxerxes II. There are also later Greek historians who give the complete picture. Josephus also includes more kings than Chazal but not the entire Greek list. Moderchai Breuer in his history accepts the Greek dating. See Parker&Dubberstein, Babylonian Chronology for more details. Note: No modern historian claims that all facts in these histories are true. That is a far cry from stating that the entire history and not just certain details are fabrications and that all these kings never existed. B. Archaological evidence has uncovered many ancient Persian (cuneform) enscriptions (see for example The Persian Empire by J.M. Cook). For example one at the Persian palace in Persepolis says "I, Artaxerxes the son of Artaxerxes the son of Darius the son of Artaxerxes the son of Xerxes the son of Darius the son of Hystaspes" (Darius was not the son of Cambyses). Greek names have used for the original Persian names. There are other earlier enscriptions which are similar. These all conform to the Greek dating. C. There are letters from the Jewish community in Elephantine confirming the Greek position. D. I recently read of the history of the Assyrians. In their history they describe the reign of Sancherub and of a major eclipse of the sun during some battle. Astronomical calaculations confirm that the only full eclipse of the sun in that region occurred exactly during the dates of Sancherub according to the Greek chronology. 2. Internal Proofs A. Ezra 45,7 describes Koresh, Daryavesh, Achasverosh, Artachasta. These exactly parallel the Greek chronology with Achasversh=Xerxes. If one looks at the Persian writing rather than the Greek names then Xerxes is called khshayarsha which is close to Achashverosh (note Cambyses is left out probably because nothing of importance to Ezra occured during that reign). Note that Daat Mikrah on Ezra 4 assumes the secular dates. B. Nehemia 12:10 lists 6 High Priests, son after son, between Yehosua and Yadua. This is hard to explain if the whole period was on 52 years. It is even worse if one assumes that Shimon haTzaddik was the high Priest at the time of Alexander as that adds at least one more high Priest in the 52 years According to Ben Sira Shimon was the son of Johanan which would make of total of at least 8 high priests in 52 years all presumably sons of the previous one. C. Comparing Divrei Hayaim I: 3:19-24 with Ezra 8:2 and Nehemia 3:29 it seems that Ezra and Nehemis lived many years after Zerubbavel. Note: Daniel 11:2 seems more in line with chronology of Chazal. Second Note: According to Seder Olam Purim occured before the rebuilding of the second Temple while according to the secular chronology Achashverosh was the son of Darius and so the Temple was already in existence. According to Chazal, Daniel, Zerubavel, Ezra, Nehemia, Mordecai, Hagai, Zerchahiah and Malachi and even Shimon haTzaddik were basically contemporaries or within 1 to 2 generations of each other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 37th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Yesod: When does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 require one to be strict with another? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 06:52:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 09:52:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun on Pesach Sheni (was Meron Live) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150511135043.8781C182131@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:31 AM 5/11/2015, R. Akiva Miller wrote: >As it was explained to me, there's nothing special about the morning >of Pesach Sheni. Pesach Sheni exists only on the afternoon of 14 >Iyar and the following night. We omit Tachanun on the morning of 14 >Iyar NOT because it is a holiday, but because it is the Tachanun >*before* the holiday. Alternatively, one might say that the morning >of 14 Iyar actually *is* Erev Pesach Sheni. Either way, the >afternoon of 13 Iyar is too far removed to be significant enough to >warrant skipping Tachanun. From http://tinyurl.com/ln7le2m Some say Tachanun on Pesach Sheni (14 Iyar); some do not; some do not say Tachanun on 14 & 15 Iyar. What are the sources for these customs? Those who do say Tachanun probably do so because 14 Iyar is not listed as a day where Tachanun was customarily omitted by the Tur, anyone quoted in the Beit Yosef or Bach, by the Shulchan Aruch and its Mapah, the Levush, the Eliya Rabba, the Taz, the Magen Avraham, the Beiur haGra, the Chayei Adam, the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, the Mishna Berura and others. The Aruch haShulchan notes the custom of omitting Tachanun as foreign to Ashkenaz and deems it a 'wonder' (Pelah ). And from http://www.dinonline.org/2010/04/27/tachanun-on-erev-pesach-sheni/ Do we say Tachanun at minchah on Erev Pesach Sheni? Answer Yes [Shulchan Aruch Harav, Piskei Hassidur, end of Hilchos Krias Shema uTefilloh] YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 07:00:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 10:00:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening in a Large or Small Shul In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150511135900.11012181E6C@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:31 AM 5/11/2015, R. Joel Rich wrote: >I wonder if this write up is indicative of a trend seen in "The >halachos of X" works, likutim which seem to have become more popular >(did they exist 40 years ago?). As Rav Aharon Lichtenstein learned >at Harvard, life is complex. Of course there are overarching >priorities which need to be learned, but specific applications are >hard to summarize in an algorithmic form (see hilchot lashon hara >and tzedaka for some obvious examples). Maybe in an internet age we >have no choice but to try to put everything on line but what you >really need IMHO is a live mentor. Did R. Aharon Lichtenstein really not know that life is complex before he went to Harvard? I am very sure that a man as intelligent as he was knew that life was complex long before he went to Harvard. I never went to Harvard, but I knew by 12 or 13 years old that life in indeed complex. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 09:45:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 12:45:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] He is my G-d In-Reply-To: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150511164501.GA29539@aishdas.org> *On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 06:06:53AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : From Today's Hakhel email bulletin. : :> Hakhel Note: The following is excerpted from Rav Schwab on Prayer, :> and was related by Rav Schwab at a Shiur he gave on Tefillah... We need a source, and such a well documented lineage for the source, to point out what the words say? Does no one try translating a poem they've recited since childhood (and that's true even for many BTs)? "Adon Olam" through "velo ha'oz vehamisrah", the first 2/3 or so, talks about how transcendent HQBH is. Then the poet (usually attributed to Ibn Geveirol, 11th cent CE) abruptly switches to "VeHu Keili ... Hashem li velo ira" -- that despite that transcendence, I am still capable of having a personal relationship with Him. Li nir'eh this is the key to understanding sheim havayah: 1- The tetragrammaton is a contraction of "Yihyeh, Hoveh, veHayah -- Will Be, Is and Was", referring to Hashem being timeless and beyond the created. An el, when used in the secular sense, is a legislative ruler, so that Elokeinu, is a declaration that He is our Lawgiver -- the Author of both moral law and physical law. Havayah denotes connotes a vision of Deity that is very Other, the philosopher's G-d; Elokus is One who relates to man. 2- The very remoteness of the name Havayah also implies Divine Mercy. Which is how Chazal describe its usage in chumash. This is not intuitive, however the need to create law comes from a person's limited ability to deal with many individual cases. A teacher with few students is effective, one with more students, less so. To manage a country, we need laws and policies, since we do not have infinite time and attention to cover every decision on a case-by-case basis. Therefore, it is only because Hashem is Infinite that Divine Mercy is possible. Therefore, this expression can be seen as a declaration of the unity of G-d, despite the different appearances of Mercy and Strict Justice. We can each say "veHu Keili" *because* "velo ha'oz vehamisrah". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 37th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Yesod: When does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 require one to be strict with another? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 09:06:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 19:06:59 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] He is my G-d In-Reply-To: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 1:06 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > From Today's Hakhel email bulletin. > > Hakhel Note: The following is excerpted from *Rav Schwab on Prayer*, and > was related by Rav Schwab at a Shiur he gave on Tefillah: > ... > *whenever a person says the word Ado--i, my Master, no matter how small he > thinks he is, he is averring that he is in direct contact with Hashem*. > This thought is in the introduction to any individual's Iyun Tefillah, > concentration on Prayer. There is nothing mystical or supernatural about > it. It should be the most natural thing in the world. > I understand that "Rav Schwab on Prayer" was edited from recordings of RSS' shiurim, and I suspect that there is some misunderstanding here. If this is not mystical and supernatural, what is? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 11:12:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Herbert Basser via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 18:12:16 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah Message-ID: <1431367937499.87948@queensu.ca> Friendly amendment: When all else fails consult a dictionary-- where I found the root h-l-q both in hebrew and in arabic means "to make smooth" (no surprises here) and (surprise) a note after that indicating arabic h-l-q also applies to making the chin and the head smooth (hairless), i.e. "shaving".-- Not from the idea of rounding but from the idea of smoothing. Like in bereshit (27:11) esav was hairy and yaakov halaq. Zvi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 12:33:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 15:33:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150511193132.F24041829B7@nexus.stevens.edu> At 02:57 PM 5/11/2015, R. Eli Turkel wrote: ><the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their minds, >they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple frauds and >told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern Orthodox Jews have >regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic.>> > >I don't see how you can call this "blasphemous" R. Schwab once suggested >that Chazal purposely changed the facts for a good reason. While he later >retracted it would be hard to call his original opinion "blasphemous" . >Furthermore several current Orthodox rabbis such as R. Leibtag do accept >the secular dating. > >In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a >tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. The most definitive study on this topic is the recent book (2014) The Challenge of Jewish History: The Bible, The Greeks & The Missing 168 Years by Rabbi Alexander Hool From http://tinyurl.com/p42uvvj There is a well-known conundrum concerning Jewish history: The conventional chronology of the Western world - and academia - is in direct conflict with traditional Jewish sources over the history of ... history. Incredibly, there is a gap of roughly 200 years: For instance, the Talmud says the Second Temple stood for roughly 400 years, while mainstream historians today conclude that it stood for almost 600 years. This conflict has major implications on what occurred to who, and when. It also seems to question the accuracy of the entire Jewish tradition as accepted dating methods seem to contradict core parts of the traditional Jewish narrative. In presenting fresh and startling astronomical, mathematical and archaeological evidence, Rabbi Alexander Hool has charted new ground in his quest to find the solution to this ancient problem. The Challenge of Jewish History is revolutionary: it questions all assumptions, dispels unfounded myths, and transports us back in time over 2,500 years. With a subject of great significance and fascination to all those interested in history, and a wealth of scholarship and sources to impress academics, this intriguing book gives us a new perspective on .... This is a highly researched book based on Jewish and non-Jewish sources. the author concludes that there are no missing years and seems to prove his conclusion. I suggest that anyone who is really interested in this topic purchase this book. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 13:10:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Herbert Basser via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 20:10:00 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] chronology Message-ID: <1431375000749.45056@queensu.ca> [Transliteration mine. -micha] Seder Olam: Mahadurah Mada'it Peirush uMavo me'et Chaim Milikovsky's Makhor Yitzchaq ben Zvi shenei chalaqim, 326+711 amudim See Chaim Milikovsky's edition of Seder Olam for a very detailed explanation of all these issues in chazal's chronology and a critical edition of the readings of all extant manuscripts. The issues of chazal's chronologies were first highlighted at length by Azariah de Rossi's Meor Eynayim and should be settled by Milikowski's volume which took about 35 years to research. Chazal were great men but not modern historians, doctors, scientists, or nevi'im -- and certainly not liars. Zvi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 14:46:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 14:46:24 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] explanation Message-ID: the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not PC by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation for some shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a heterodox clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read those passages] . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other than the chok aspect] that the RBSO was looking from the perspective of the kahal and their kovod, and how they would react or be distracted by a baal mum. can someone supply a better take ? thanks -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 18:12:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 21:12:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150429.073718.25006.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150429.073718.25006.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150512011220.GA19224@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 11:37:18AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : Regardless of how the Bas Kol might be interpreted, is there any way : to understand "Nitzchuni banai!" other than Hashem personally siding : with one of the litigants, and losing? I don't see the closing of the story adding any problems the nissim themselves didn't. If you think they were about Hashem backing one side, then "nitzchui banai" is about that sice being defeated. If not, then it's whatever over reason He had for presenting misleading evidence that was defeated. Leshitas those who don't take eilu va'eilu literally and intead use a more classical logic with a law of contradition, the whole story is about HQBH choosing the process as a whole over the correctness of this one particular ruling. HQBH rejoicing that the chakhamim maintained the kelalei pesaq as they should rather than pay attention to His interferance. As the Maharitz Chayes understands it, by keeping the process viable, they keep the Torah eternal, capable of speaking to new circumstances as the world changes. "Nitzchuni banai -- My children have made Me eternal!" Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 37th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Yesod: When does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 require one to be strict with another? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 17:57:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 20:57:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55514FDD.4000100@sero.name> On 05/11/2015 05:46 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not > PC by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation > for some shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a > heterodox clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read > those passages] . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other > than the chok aspect] that the RBSO was looking from the perspective > of the kahal and their kovod, and how they would react or be > distracted by a baal mum. > > can someone supply a better take ? What's the difficulty? Hakriveihu no lefechosecho. The dignity of a king, and especially of The King, demands that all who serve Him be perfect in all respects. People with physical imperfections may be wonderful in many ways, but they are just that, imperfect. The current political correctness that refuses to acknowledge this is literally insane. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 15:31:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 23:31:27 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 12:19:57 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah > In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a > tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some examples > 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu ... > Besiades the fact that Eliyahu was from Gilad and worked in the northern > kingdom it leaves the halachic question whether a cohen gadol can resign > and even leave the land of Israel for various tasks. It is clear from > Tanach that Eli and other were the high priest in later generations Re Pinchos = Eliyohu The Ari says clearly [through the pen of R. Chaim Vital] in Shaar HaGilgulim that this refers to a gilgul neshomoh, not that he was literally the same person in body as well. DR From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 23:21:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 09:21:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar Message-ID: R' YGB writes: "I cannot believe TABC allowed this to be published as is. /Shreklach!/" Should we just bury our heads in the sand and not address these kinds of issues? Its very hard to hide information today, what happens when these kids get to college and find about the missing 165 years. What are they going to think? The fact is that Rabbi S. Schwab found this discrepancy a ?truly vexing problem? and wrote that the historical chronological dating: "?can hardly be doubted for they appear to be the result of painstaking research by hundreds of scholars and are borne out by profound erudition and by ever increasing authoritative evidence ... we are compelled to admit that the Bayis Sheni must have existed for no less than 586 years.? (Hakira A Y2K Solution to the Chronology Problem). If we don't address these kinds of questions (torah and science, the documentary hypothesis, etc.) then the implication that will be drawn by many people is that we don't have answers and we know what happens then. The Seforim blog (http://seforim.blogspot.com/2015/01/blog-post.html) not long ago reviewed a Sefer by R' Amnon Bazak, Ad Hayom Hazeh, which deals with many of the the issues that academia brings up related to Tanach. Are his answers compelling? Many times not. But at least he deals with the issues. A commentator there made a very important point, for those who have been exposed to these questions, we need seforim like this that at least attempt to deal with the issues raised and not simply bury our heads in the sand. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 01:36:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 11:36:40 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> References: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> Message-ID: > 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta <> Do these Greek sources explain how Koresh and Daryavush are the same person? Besides you use the parts of the Greek sources that you like and reject those that dont fit your thesis Now you rely on the Septuagint? Almost everyone else identifies Achashverosh with Xerxes, Besides the are several inscriptions in ancient Persian that give a detailed list of kings eg Artaxerxes the great king, king of kings king of peoples king on this earth son od Darius the king Darius son of Artaxerxes the king, Xerxes son of Darius the king Darius son of Hystapes the Archaemend proclaims .. As an aside modern chronology of Eygpt has been confirmed by recent carbon 14 dating. Dates of Sishak and other Assyrina and Babylonian kings have been confirmed by their writings combined with various astronomical events mentioned in their writings. <> That's your opinion. In fact many achronim take these conflating of names very seriously. While you claim Eliyahu wasn't a cohen gadol there is in fact a halachic literature whether he was or not and whether a cohen gadol can resign. For example see hebrewbooks Magen Tzvi siman 36 page 388 where he concludes that a Cohen Gadol (annointed by oil) who resigns still has all the laws of a cohen gadol You wrote "Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son " . However Darius's own version (Behustan) states that he was not the son of the previous king (see also above inscription on a wall) -------------------------- separately Marty Blake mentioned the sefer of R Amnon Bazak. The shiurim are also available in English http://etzion.org.il/en/topics/fundamental-issues-study-tanakh As Marty mentioned he discusses fundamental issues as are all pesukim in the Torah from Moshe Rabbenu, archaeology, accuracy of the text, Bible criticism, peshat and drash, sins of Biblical figures and many other controversial topics. I am sure that many of his solutions are also controversial. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 19:20:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 02:20:37 GMT Subject: [Avodah] explanation Message-ID: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero wrote: <<< The dignity of a king, and especially of The King, demands that all who serve Him be perfect in all respects. People with physical imperfections may be wonderful in many ways, but they are just that, imperfect. >>> "... in all respects." Really? Where will you find such a person? No, that's an impossible task. For practicality's sake, He cannot and does not demand that all who serve Him be perfect in ALL respects. So instead, there is a set of criteria, and a set of shiurim by which to determine if one is *adequately* perfect. I can't imagine that anyone would disagree with what I wrote thus far. But then we'll go the next step, and study what sorts of things are on that list of criteria. For example, if one is a Mechalel Shabbos, or a murderer, he is disqualified from Birkas Kohanim, so I'd bet that he's disqualified from the avodah too. But those aren't the sort of mumim that the previous poster's Shabbos guests were asking about. They were asking about physical abnormalities. I hope it is okay if I rephrase their question to something like this: It is reasonable for The King to insist on a certain degree of moral perfection, but why is physical perfection relevant? Or to phrase it more bluntly, the kohanim should not be judged by the shape of their nose, but by the content of their character. (Of course, we are not disputing the halacha. The question is WHY the Torah considers physical abnormalities to be disqualifications.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/555163bfd843b63bf2454st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 22:43:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 01:43:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah Message-ID: R? Zvi Basser points out ? H-L-Q was the haircut celebrated Lag B?Omer. Yes! Perhaps Chalak evokes Yaakov Avinu, aka Ish Chalak. An older version of Ibn Ezra's famous Tzama Nafshi has alternate ending stanzas. H?alo Chelk?cha Meirosh ? Addressing Hashem directly Chalak ? that is Yaakov Avinu the weak brother ? and his endless generations of martyrs Damo Darosh ? avenge and right the wrongs Shfoch HHamas Af al Rosh Hasa-ir Hachai ? let your anger pour over its proper target - . Ibn Ezra means that Hashem can grant Dveikus, Nevuah or Ruach Hakodesh. The Ibn Ezra 's philosophical approach ? said that the Nefesh ? as a Spiritual Heavenly entity ? can encounter the Ultimate Hashem ? directly. The alternate ? higher level of Hashkafa ? Tzama Nafshi has a verse ? now found in some better editions ? After dealing with Hagar rebelling against Sara (Shifha no-emmes) H?alo Chelk?cha Meirosh ? Chalak ? that is Yaakov ? and his endless generations of martyrs Damo Darosh ? avenge and right the wrongs Shfoch HHamas Af al Rosh Hasa-ir Hachai ? let your anger pour over its proper target - . -- Two other points ? the first verse in the alternat version of Tzama Nafshi: (See Kol Kisvei RAIE) Eil Chayy Bera-ani ? To my mind this means ? the always watching and involved One watching over us. Compare ? Chai Anochi LeOlam Im Shanosi Brak Charbi ? in Parshas Haazinu ? anger to avenge. Perhaps in Inquisitorial times ? Eil Echad Bera-ani was more relevant. Also fascinating ? The Ayin verse substitutes ? Al Kol Chasadecha ? Techadeish Eidecha!! References Iyov 10:17, where Ibn ezra refers to leprous blemishes. Posei-ach es Yadecha umasbia lechol chai ? directly allow Life, Deveikus and attachment to His Essence ? not the simple meaning of providing food . Earlier Ibn Ezra had said - Ki lo yir-ani ha-adam vachayy - no man can see Hashem and Chai ? no complete experience of Hashem. His Creation is Ne-elama hidden in its wisdom. Parshas Tazria has many multiple references to live healthy skin ? Basar Hachayy - as opposed to leprous skin. I would believe there are multiple references to Tazria Metzora. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 03:51:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 06:51:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150512105130.GC3499@aishdas.org> Lakol zeman va'eis... There is a time to force people to change their reflect reactions, and a time when the focus should be elsewhere. There are two kinds of mummim WRT kehunah (see Bechoros 43b): 1- mar'is ayin -- one whose appearance is repulsive to the people 2- eino shaveh bezar'o shel Aharon -- someone who is unique in appearance to the people (see Rambam, Bi'as haMiqdash 6:6) A kohein in the mar'is ayin category would pasl the avodah bedi'eved, one who is eino shaveh would violate an asei, but the avodah is kasher. Notice that both are defined by their impact on the observer. Presumably the point is that attention should be on avodah, not thoughts about the kohein performing it, or negative judgments of who is fit for service. But notice this is only for the Avodah.... a kohein with a baal mum was still expected to show up with his mishmar and do other necessary jobs. I am not even sure he is pasul from lighting the menorah. After all, we learn these mumim from the animals for qorbanos; it may apply to qorbanos in particular. So to me, the question is why isn't mid-qorban a good time to acclimate Kelal Yisrael away from such visceral reactions. But since I cannot get my head into the mindset of someone bringing a qorban, I leave the question tabled until I have the opportunity to learn what a qorban is like firsthand, bb"a. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 38th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Yesod: How does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 promote harmony in life and relationships? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 09:24:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 12:24:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: <20150512105130.GC3499@aishdas.org> References: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> <20150512105130.GC3499@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150512162421.GA13065@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 6:51am EDT, I wrote: : There is a time to force people to change their reflect reactions, and a : time when the focus should be elsewhere. ... To add, there are TWO reactions that would distract from the purpose of the qorban: Both the person who is turned off by how Hashem made this particular kohein (either through birth, disease, or allowing him to suffer an acctident), and the person who would then turn his qorban into a bein adam lachaveiro rather than a qorban. The one who would be thinking about how touching it was the such a person overcame disability to help them bring it. Rather than simply thinking about G-d. Even according to R' Chaim Volozhiner or R' Shimon Shkop, who see bein adam lachaveiro as the ultimate purpose of life, and thus presumably bein adam laMaqom as a derived value, there is a time to care for the goose, rather than everything being about collecting the golden eggs. In fact, the farmer is likely to spend nearly al of his time into caring for the goose rather than the ultimate payoff. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 38th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Yesod: How does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 promote harmony in life and relationships? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 06:17:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 08:17:09 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: References: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> Message-ID: <5551FD55.5090900@starways.net> On 5/12/2015 3:36 AM, Eli Turkel wrote: > 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta > < was a throne name. And in fact, Greek sources say that both > Artaxerxes II and III adopted it as a throne name. Furthermore, the > Septuagint version of Esther refers to the king as Artaxerxes, so > saying that Ahasuerus is Artaxerxes is a truism that has nothing to do > with chronology >> > Do these Greek sources explain how Koresh and Daryavush are the same > person? Fortunately, they don't have to, since that's just Midrash and has no nafka mina l'maaseh. > Besides you use the parts of the Greek sources that you like and > reject those that dont fit your thesis Of course I do. The Greek sources aren't what we would call "history" today. Herodotus collected folklore and picked the versions he liked to make a more entertaining story. He says himself that he heard 4 different and conflicting stories about Cyrus's backstory, and chose the one he liked best. He didn't even preserve the other three so that we could make our own decisions. He made his living in Greece by entertaining his patron(s) with exotic stories from exotic lands. > Now you rely on the Septuagint? Almost everyone else identifies > Achashverosh with Xerxes, Not so. Everyone recognizes that the *name* Achashveirosh is the same as the *name* Xerxes. Or rather, that both names are transliterations of the original Persian Khshayarsha. To say that "almost everyone else identifies Achashverosh with Xerxes" indicates that you aren't particularly well versed in the subject. I mean, at the very least, read the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahasuerus which notes which sources have identified him as which kings. > Besides the are several inscriptions in ancient Persian that give a > detailed list of kings eg > Artaxerxes the great king, king of kings king of peoples king on this > earth son od Darius the king Darius son of Artaxerxes the king, Xerxes > son of Darius the king Darius son of Hystapes the Archaemend proclaims .. Have you read the Behistun Inscription? Darius son of Hystaspes had it inscribed. In it, he talks about Babylonian kings who weren't actually Babylonian kings. At least not by our standards. They were pretenders, since Babylon had fallen to the Medes and Persians. But they gave themselves royal titles and claimed descent from Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus and the rest. From their point of view, they *were* kings of Babylon. From the Persian point of view, they were pretenders. Similarly, what do you think happened to Persia when Alexander conquered it? From one day to the next, Persia vaporized? Persia covered a huge area. Professor Levine posted about Rabbi Alexander Hool's book "The Challenge of Jewish History". I don't agree with all of his conclusions, and I'm embarrassingly late completing a review of the book, but he posits the Persian line continuing even after Alexander whupped Darius at Gaugamela. And in fact, the Parthian Empire, which started only about 70-80 years after the Alexandrian conquest, claimed descent from the Achaemenids of the Persian Empire. As did the later Sassanids. Names like Ardashir are just Late Persian versions of the Old Persian Artaxerxes. That's completely aside from the fact that we *know* there were forgeries perpetrated in ancient times for the purpose of establishing royal descent. Check out Roland Kent's article "The Present Status of Old Persian Studies" in /Journal of the American Oriental Society, /1936, vol. 56, p. 215ff. (http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/594668?uid=3739656&uid=2134&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21106376285721). A couple of inscriptions that are nothing but royal titles with no actual content to them is kind of flimsy evidence. Certainly not something strong enough to trash Chazal's entire picture of such an important period in our history. > As an aside modern chronology of Eygpt has been confirmed by recent > carbon 14 dating. Source. Because you may not be aware of this, but when you bring items in for carbon dating, you have to tell them -- up front -- what the rough date is that you think they're from. So that they can throw away any results that skew too far from that as "contaminated". The rest are subject to a fudge factor (sorry: correction factor) to help make them fit. But I'd like to see the source you have for carbon dating of modern Egyptian chronology. > Dates of Sishak and other Assyrina and Babylonian kings have been > confirmed by their writings combined with various astronomical events > mentioned in their writings. Assuming Sosenk = Shishak, which is iffy, considering that Sosenk only claims to have campaigned in the north of Israel, which would be odd for Shishak, whose son-in-law Yeravam was ruling there. The rest of what you're talking about is pure confirmation bias. They have a model and they shoehorn any evidence they find into that model, even if they have to kind of mush it in there. > < and explain a little more about Midrash. Chazal bring Midrashim that > contradict one another. For example, there's a Midrash that says > Esther never slept with Achashveirosh. That Hashem sent a mal'ach that > took her place. That conflicts with "Esther karka hayta", as well as > with the Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son. None of > this is problematic. Because the truth of Midrashim is not in their > concretes. Like analogies, Midrashim are abstractions which are > anchored with concretes, but are not defined by those concretes.>> > That's your opinion. In fact many achronim take these conflating of > names very seriously. While you claim Eliyahu wasn't a cohen gadol > there is in fact a halachic literature whether he was or not and > whether a cohen gadol can resign. > For example see hebrewbooks Magen Tzvi siman 36 page 388 where he > concludes that a Cohen Gadol (annointed by oil) who resigns still has > all the laws of a cohen gadol Midrash. And if it were something more solid than that, you'd have more than just some achronim saying so. > You wrote "Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son " . > However Darius's own version (Behustan) states that he was not the son > of the previous king (see also above inscription on a wall) So what? I'm confused. I'm saying that Midrash isn't necessarily the literal fact, and you pick out a phrase from what I wrote and point out that it isn't the literal fact? It seems like you're trying to make a point, but I'm not seeing what it is. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 10:18:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 13:18:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I commend you for having such guests at your table! > the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not PC by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation for some shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a heterodox clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read those passages] . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other than the chok aspect] that the RBSO was looking from the perspective of the kahal and their kovod, and how they would react or be distracted by a baal mum. can someone supply a better take ? This is, indeed, a difficult passage. R Jonathan Sacks has a good take on it -- which is generally along the lines of what you suggested, but a slightly different (and more big-picture) take, and, of course articulated extremely well. An excerpt: > Kugel also writes, "Most people, when they see someone ravaged by chemotherapy, just tend to keep their distance." He quotes Psalm 38:12, "My friends and companions stand back at the sight of my affliction; even those closest to me keep their distance." Although the physical reactions to chemotherapy are quite different from a skin disease or a bodily abnormality, they tend to generate the same feeling in others, part of which has to do with the thought "This could happen to me." They remind us of the "thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to." > > This is the logic - if logic is the right word - of Tumah. It has nothing to do with rationality and everything to do with emotion (Recall Pascal's remark that "the heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing"). Tumah does not mean defilement. It means that which distracts from eternity and infinity by making us forcibly aware of mortality, of the fact that we are physical beings in a physical world. If the above interests you at all, I encourage you to read the whole thing: http://www.aish.com/tp/i/sacks/149811775.html [1] -- Sholom Links: ------ [1] http://www.aish.com/tp/i/sacks/149811775.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 09:51:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Dov Weinstock via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 12:51:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Explanation Message-ID: On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 12:27 PM, via Avodah wrote: > the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not PC > by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation for some > shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a heterodox > clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read those passages] > . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other than the chok aspect] > that the RBSO was looking from the perspective of the kahal and their > kovod, and how they would react or be distracted by a baal mum. > > can someone supply a better take ? > May I suggest the following: http://rabbidovlinzer.blogspot.com/2014_04_27_archive.html Dov Weinstock -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 03:09:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 06:09:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: <20150513100956.GA14377@aishdas.org> Among the arguments that came up in the discussion of the Kosher Switch was that it's zilzul Shabbos. The thought hit me, though... Refraining from operating electrical devices has only been a potential issue for 125 years or so. And except for Yekkes, most of our ancestors come from places where it has been less than a century since electricity became part of our lives. So it's very hard to say that "not using electricity" is a defining feature of the Shabbos experience. Contrast this to hotza'ah, including haavarah, which take up what seems like 1/3 of chazal's discussion of issur melakhah (rough estimate from Berakhos and Eruvin in mishna, Tosefta, Y-mi and Bavli). When community eruvin got started, wasn't there a much easier argument of zilzul? Why wasn't it made? Indeed we use the general kelal of being meiqil WRT eiruvin to quite an extent to build one. And what does the fact that a community eruv is NOT zilzul Shabbos say about the nature of zilzul Shabbos and its applicability to nidon didan? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 12:26:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 15:26:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 06:42:58AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : He is now starting a series on religious autonomy. In particular he holds : that one goes to a rabbi for a psak only if he is in doubt. If one has : seriously learned the halachaot and is convinced of the "truth" then he : should follow his own psak and there is no need to go to a "higher : authority". Interesting. Does "seriously learned the halakhos" translate to higi'ah lehora'ah, or something less? RHS requires a certainly level of general knowledge. See Sanhedrin 5a-b. But it also fits RHS's hashkafah that halakhah is an inseperable whole. And so Rebbe doesn't just tell us that night Shema can be said at sundown, he ties it to the law of tevul yom. And RHS similarly advises his talmidim to look to gedolim from their own camp because one with whom they disagree hashkafically is likely to see even apparenty unrelated halakhos differently. Listen to (RAM transcripted other snippets from this talk for one of our many discussions of da'as Torah at .) For that matter, 5b talks about the need to get a heter hora'ah even if one knows enough to pasqen. But then, the gemara is discussing deciding for others, not only oneself. OTOH, pasqening for oneself has a major problem that one doesn't face when answering others' questions -- vested interest vs objectivity. Listen to R Jonathan Ziring's shiur on the topic at . In particular, his very first source (see link to mar'eh meqomos sheet) Nissah 20b. Yalta, "Rebbetzin Nachman", asks her mar'os questions of Rabbah bar bar Chanah and Rabbi Yitzchaq bereih deR' Yehudah, not her husband. Similarly mishnah Nega'im 2:5 saying you can't pasen nega'im even of relatives, Bekhoros 31a about judging one's own bekhoros. So, I would think that not being in doubt is too easily a delusion. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 12:54:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 15:54:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes In-Reply-To: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150513195451.GA16146@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 01:18:22AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Saul Newman asked: :> i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at :> hadchak /bedieved : ... : But I think that the real answer to your question might be: "If the people : in shul can't hear the rabbi or the chazan, that IS a shaas hadchak." Both letzorekh mitzvah and tzarkhei tzibbur are usually classified with she'as hadechaq and hefsed meruba. The two combined is why shuls have such wide lattitude with amira le'akum. (And perhaps either alone? I dunno.) So if a properly designed PA system is a shevus or other derabannan, why not permit this too? BTW, R/Dr Yisrael Rozen of Machon Zomet makes a point of noting that the issues seem to be the same whether the PA system is electrical or based on air pressure. See Microphones and Amplifiers on Shabbat Rabbi Yisrael Rozen C. Microphones Operating on Air Pressure 1. System Description Recently, the idea of a microphone which operates on air pressure, rather than electricity, has been proposed. A company in the United States is in the process of developing this "air-mike," although to the best of my knowledge, the project is still in the experimental stage. The device consists of a container of compressed air[12] and a system of pipes in which the compressed air flows. After one speaks into a horn-like input, his voice is carried on the stream of compressed air in the pipes. Acoustic adjustment (which apparently lies at the heart of the idea) then causes the voice waves to be amplified... 2. Comparison to an Electronic Microphone Several rabbis have permitted the use of air microphones on Shabbat, viewing it as an appropriate means of sound amplification for a synagogue. I question the distinction between an air microphone and a regular microphone - if we permit one, we must permit the other... Let me explain. We have shown that, given the current technology, the main problems with using a microphone on Shabbat have nothing to do with the fact that it runs on electricity. The problems concern the decree of klei shir, the fear that one will repair it, hashma'at kol like a water mill, avsha milta, denigration of Shabbat, and the suspicion of onlookers. Regarding all but the last of these, I see no difference between an air microphone and a regular microphone. In my opinion, an air microphone is a kli shir exactly like a shofar or trumpet; it creates a loud noise like a water mill; there exists the possibility that one will try to adjust it etc.. If you wish to claim that it is not a kli shir because it transmits speech; that we should not innovate a decree of "lest one repair it;" that it does not resemble a water mill because everyone knows that there is no Shabbat violation involved - then the same considerations should apply to a regular microphone as well. Only regarding the suspicion of onlookers might there be a difference between the two types of microphones; with an electric microphone, onlookers may think that an electric circuit was created on Shabbat. But we have already explained that even if one would turn on existing equipment on Shabbat, he would violate only a rabbinic prohibition, and we are not concerned with creating suspicion regarding rabbinic prohibitions. We also noted above that "everyone knows" that the equipment was turned on either before Shabbat or by means of a timer, and thus resembles a chiming clock (which is permitted). I have heard that there are those who permit the air microphone since the speaker's original voice is carried through the pipes (although clearly the majority of the sound waves reaching the audience's ears comes from the air pumped by the compressor). I am astonished at this claim: even in an actual musical instrument (such as a trumpet) the player's breath is mixed in, and nevertheless it is forbidden! In many musical instruments, the sound comes mainly from an "echo chamber," whose geometry shapes and amplifies the sound. To the best of my understanding, an air microphone operates on the same principle.[13] In my opinion, halachic definitions (in all fields) do not stem from scientific, physical, or technical definitions. The definitions of klei shir and hashma'at kol are not based on the technology of sound production, wave dispersion, or other acoustic considerations. The question at hand is whether these devices are included in the rabbinic decree of klei shir or not. In this regard, it does not matter whether one makes his voice heard by means of an electric or an air microphone. Some of those who give a blanket permit to use an air microphone claim that it does not amplify the speaker's voice, but merely carries it. On the basis of material I have received from the factory, I find this claim to be mistaken. Therefore, as far as klei shir and hashma'at kol are concerned, the two types of microphones are identical. ... 3. Responsa Which Erred in the Realia ... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 13:14:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 16:14:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes In-Reply-To: <20150513195451.GA16146@aishdas.org> References: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> <20150513195451.GA16146@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5553B099.7090100@sero.name> On 05/13/2015 03:54 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Both letzorekh mitzvah and tzarkhei tzibbur are usually classified with > she'as hadechaq and hefsed meruba. The two combined is why shuls have such > wide lattitude with amira le'akum. (And perhaps either alone? I dunno.) Letzorech mitzvah is not enough to justify amira lenochri for an issur derabanan, unless the mitzvah absolutely cannot be fulfilled without it. For instance, if one is pitch darkness one may ask a nochri to bring a lit candle through a communal chatzer that has no eruv, because oneg shabbos is impossible in complete darkness; but if there is already at least dim lighting, so that some minimal oneg shabbos is possible, one is *not* allowed to have a nochri bring another candle. Tzorchei tzibbur, OTOH, seems to justify amira lenochri for almost anything. [Quoting R Rosen] > The problems concern the decree of klei shir, the fear that one will > repair it, hashma'at kol like a water mill, avsha milta, denigration > of Shabbat, and the suspicion of onlookers. He's listing the same thing multiple times. "Hashma'at kol like a water mill" *is* "avsha milsa", i.e. passersby will hear it running and know that a Jew's business is operating on Shabbos, and the problem with that is that they will think the Jew is transgressing amira lenochri. These are not separate issues. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 13:32:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 23:32:51 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> References: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <> I understand the concern. However, there is no halacha that a rabbi can't pasken on his own chicken. In fact in real life we all pasken for ourselves on some level. Anytime one has a shabbat question \he can't always run to the LOR. One usually ends up paskening based on whatever knowledge and mesorah one has. This is what makes the life of a Baal Teshuva very difficult. Certainly what RMA and many others are against is running to the LOR or even gadol hador with every question. I have heard complaints from shul rabbis that some congregants come with questions they could easily look upo themselves but prefer to ask the rabbi so that the rabbi notes how serious they are. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 14:35:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 21:35:43 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> Message-ID: . I have heard complaints from shul rabbis that some congregants come with questions they could easily look upo themselves but prefer to ask the rabbi so that the rabbi notes how serious they are. ---------------------- True, but sometimes it may be to establish a connection (yes, funny coming from me-but it is true) KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 15:04:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 18:04:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150513220422.GC10395@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 13, 2015 at 11:32:51PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> OTOH, pasqening for oneself has a major problem that one doesn't face when :> answering others' questions -- vested interest vs objectivity. : : I understand the concern. However, there is no halacha that a rabbi can't : pasken on his own chicken. : In fact in real life we all pasken for ourselves on some level. Anytime one : has a shabbat question he can't always run to the LOR... I was using "pesaq" to refer specifically to open questions that require shiqul hada'as. Your typical Shabbos question is about a devar mishnah. To quote Rt Chana Luntz from Mon, 7 Sep 1998, 8:33pm BDT: 20:33:38 +0100, a post about not combining chumeros: > ... the Rashba on our daf in Chullin [43b], who hold that a Rav only > needs to pay if there is shikul hadaas and not a mistake in a dvar > mishna, are forced to conclude from this that Rava's mistake was in > shikul hadaas - see there]. It would seem that a devar mishnah is not a pesaq that the rav is as responsible for our following his teaching rather than getting the halakhah correctly from some other source. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 15 08:55:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 15 May 2015 11:55:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Laasok beDivrei Sorah Message-ID: <4c752525c83edeb17b85f6670479b9c0@aishdas.org> >From R' Eliezer Eisenberg's blog Beis Vaad L'Chachamim (highly recommended), at http://beisvaad.blogspot.com/2015/05/bechukosai-at-my-grandsons-bar-mitzva.html A couple of personal comments ellided, mostly to save myself the bother of transliterating more Hebrew text. A belated mazal tov to the author, G'Shabbos to all, -micha Friday, May 15, 2015 Bechukosai. At my grandson's Bar Mitzva Drasha at the Bar Mitzva of Avraham Jofen, 5/14/15 ... The Gemara (Brachos 11b) and the rishonim there talk about the issue of hefsek in Birkas HaTorah. There are those that hold that if a person stops learning, he has to make a new bracha when he begins again, because it is a hefsek from the first bracha. The Rishonim, the Agur and the Rosh, say that it is not a hefsek, because even when you are not actually learning, you have to consider what you can and cannot do according to the dinim of the Torah. Even when you are in a place where you cannot learn, you have to behave in a manner that is prescribed in the Torah. As the Hafla'ah says, when you do business, it is not a hefsek, because you are learning Choshen Mishpat. Every decision you make is examined in the light of the Torah, so that is not a hefsek in limud. I would put it this way. Torah is only a mitzvah when you learn al menas laasos. Al menas laasos means that you don't learn superficially, you make the Torah a part of who you are. On the contrary, if what you learn is just on the surface, the learning itself is bitul Torah. If the Mitzva of limud hatorah requires that it should make you into a different person, do you think that carefully living the life of an ehrilcheh ben Torah is a hefsek in limud hatorah? It's not a hefsek, it is a hemshech, it is a kiyum, of the mitzvah of limud hatorah. My father Ztz'l was very friendly with his lawyer, Bill Rosenthal. Bill was an assimilated Jew. The only contact he had with the Jewish religion was when he shook hands with my father. Nonetheless, he and my father were good friends and respected each other. A lawyer for a mortgage company once asked him which university my father studied at, because he could brilliantly analyze contracts. Bill told him that my father studied at Slabodka U. He once asked my father, "You and I are very ethical and honest men. I wouldn't take a penny that wasn't mine, and I have the highest standards of behavior in business. You, too, are very moral, but you do it because of your religious beliefs. Is there really any difference between us? My father told him, on the spot, that there are three differences. One is that for you, a dollar is a small matter, and a question involving a million dollars is a big matter. To me, there is no difference. The principal, the law, is what matters, and the sum of money is irrelevant. Another difference is that let's say you carefully think an issue through, and you decide the other side is right, and you let them win. you will toss and turn at night, ,thinking that maybe you were really right. I, on the other hand, if I decide that I am right, and I keep something that had been disputed, I won't be able to sleep at night our of a concern that maybe my decision was influenced by self interest. The third difference is that while you and I are both successful people,, and we've both made a lot of money, you think that you made the money yourself, and it's 100% yours to do with as you please. I believe that God decided that I should have the money, and God gave me the money, and every dollar that was given to me was given so that I use it in the right way. So it's true, my father learned how to do business at Slabodka U. Because he learned how to do business at Slabodka U, he was able to give, on the spot, three excellent and lomdusheh chilukim about the difference between Bill Rosenthal's moral code and his own moral code. Doing business like that is not a hefsek in the mitzva of limud hatorah. Farkert, it is the biggest kiyum and chizuk of limud hatorah and mussar and yashrus. This is a kiyum of the passuk [im bechuqosai seleikhu], as Rashi explains, [shetihyu ameilim baTorah]. It is this mesora which we bequeath to the Bar Mitzvah. ... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 15 13:39:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 15 May 2015 16:39:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Learning Chumash with the Trop Message-ID: <20150515203756.96751182847@nexus.stevens.edu> My 6 year-old grandson who is in the first grade was taught the trop at the same time he was being taught Chumash. The bottom line is that when he says the Pesukim he has studies in yeshiva, he says each word with the trop. I think this makes it easier for him to remember the Pesukim. When he davens, he says Shma with the trop! I can only wonder why this is not done in all yeshivas. When it will come time for him to lein at his Bar Mitzvah, it should be much easier for him than for those boys who are taught Chumash without the trop. YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 06:37:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 09:37:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Standing at a Chupah Message-ID: <20150518133702.1FA0A18392A@nexus.stevens.edu> Yesterday a friend of mine told be that the Rov where he davened said that he knew of grandparents who did not want to walk down at their grandchildren's Chassana, because they knew that the people attending the chupah would not stand for them even though they were 70 + years old. They did not want to be involved in lifnei Iver. Truth be told, I have seen the following many times. When the grandparents who are 70 or more years old walk down, no one stands for them. However, when the chosson and kallah walk down everyone stands for them. It is, of course, a positive mitzvah to stand up for any person 70 years old or more. See See http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/35165/standing-for-someone-whos-turned-seventy It is questionable if one has to stand for the chosson and kallah. See http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/levine/standing_chasuna.pdf I told my friend that it should be announced at the beginning of every chupah that 1. All cell phones should be turned off; 2. There should be no talking during the chupah, and 3. If grandparents who are 70 or more will be walking down, then one is required to stand for them. I think if this were done at Chasanas it would soon become the norm. 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URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 06:39:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 14:39:50 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001b01d09170$1d5db6f0$581924d0$@org.uk> Rav Zylberstein in the Cheshukei Chemed on Daf 78a of Kesubos discusses the question as to whether a woman today who has lots of peros from her property can say to her husband - "you do not need to redeem me, and I will not give you the peros" - on the ground that the need for redemption today is not common ("lo schiach") - even though the gemora there says that she cannot avoid this trade as mandated by Chazal (despite her being able to avoid the trade between mezonos versus ma'aseh yadeha, again a takana of Chazal, as this last takana was done for her benefit). Rav Zylberstein brings a discussion based on various rishonim to show that actually, pidyon was not common even at the time of Chazal, or at the time of the rishonim, and hence the fact that it is not common today does not change the situation from that mandated by Chazal. He also adds in the position of the Ran, that the takana regarding pidyon is not just made for her benefit (as the mezonos one is) and hence something that can be waived by her, but is also for the benefit of the husband, as without her redemption, the husband doesn't have the benefit of her company and services, while with mezonos that doesn't apply. However, it seems to me that Rav Zylberstein is not in fact dealing with what strikes me as the fundamental question. That is, it is not a question of whether or not pidyon is not common today (indeed, I would be tempted dispute that it is in fact "lo schiach", despite Rav Zylberstein taking this for granted) - but rather that the job of pidyon today is one of those that has been appropriated away from family members such as husbands, and is now the province of governments. The decision as to whether an individual may or may not be redeemed from ISIS, or pirates off Africa, or wherever, is now one which governments take with regard to their citizens. Governments which are prepared to do deals, like France, redeem their citizens (albeit for astronomical sums). Governments, like the UK and the US, who refuse to do deals on the grounds that it just encourages terrorists - will not let individuals, including husbands, redeem, even if the sums could be raised individually, as a matter of general policy. Nobody assumed it was the job of Gilad Shalit's family to effect his release - except to the extent that they was required to lobby the Israeli government (it might even have been treason to go negotiating with Hamas directly). Release or non release negotiations therefore, including the price to be paid (whether by prisoner release or otherwise) is today a government price. So it seems to me that what in fact we have today is a situation where husbands are, for the most part, forbidden by law (dina d'malchusa dina) from redeeming their wives, ie from fulfilling their side of the takana of Chazal. In such circumstances - while one might argue that the state of which the woman is a citizen is entitled to (at least some portion of) the peros (taxes?) the real question then seems to become: on what basis does one say that the second half of the takana stands - not just in relation to a woman who tries to say "you do not need to redeem me", but in relation to any woman in this circumstance. Has anybody come across anybody discussing this question, and any thoughts on any justification for the retention of the husband's benefit if in fact husbands are not legally allowed to effect redemption? BTW on the question of the commonness of redemption - part of that would depend on the scope of the definition of "pidyon". Clearly redemption from ISIS or pirates in Africa falls within this category - but how about rescuing somebody who was trekking in Nepal at the time of the earthquake? Again this is something that governments are now regarded as having a responsibility to do (the British Government has been criticised for failing to do as much as others, such as the Israeli and US governments, have done). At first blush I can't see why flying somebody out of an earthquake zone would not fit within the pidyon definition - despite it being physical forces, such as landslides, rather than people, who may be trapping the individuals. How about a package tour company going bust? Again, the person in question would (absent ATOL and similar travel bonding schemes set up by the relevant governments) be trapped in a foreign country and need to be returned to their country of origin, as per the language of the takana/ketuba. So why would this not be a form of pidyon? But again, is not the fundamental responsibility now assumed to devolve onto the government in respect of its citizens? So while I am not actually sure that it is true that pidyon is in fact so extremely not common, it seems to me that the fundamental question is rather a different one. Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 05:15:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 12:15:18 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: <20150518.081518.3271.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Among the arguments that came up in the discussion of the Kosher > Switch was that it's zilzul Shabbos. > ... what does the fact that a community eruv is NOT zilzul > Shabbos say about the nature of zilzul Shabbos and its > applicability to nidon didan? Excellent point. And I'd like to add another point: There are those who have argued that the availability of various types of timers (including those with software and adjust themselves for varying sunset times) have made the Kosher Switch unnecessary. I disagree strongly. The Kosher Switch, and similar devices do not merely add convenience, but can do a lot for lessening tzaar, and that is a valid and recognized halachic consideration. There were many times when I went to bed earlier than planned, but the light would not go out for another hour, and it was keeping me awake. And there were many times when my seudah lasted longer than expected, but the lights had gone out and we benched in dim light. There were many times when I set the air conditioning for what was expected to be a very hot day, and when it turn out to be mild, we all froze in the cold house. And there were many times when I left the air conditioning off, and regretted it when the day turned hotter than expected. Of course, a couple of centuries ago, people did not have these conveniences, and they learned to cope with them. But I really believe that for us, who have gotten addicted to them, it is a real tzaar when we must do without. (None of the above should be construed as meaning that I endorse any particular sort of device. I'm only talking about devices which we are allowed to use on Shabbos.) [Email #2. -micha] R' Micha Berger asked: > When community eruvin got started, wasn't there a much easier > argument of zilzul? Why wasn't it made? I'm not sure which period of history you're referring to with the phrase "when community eruvin got started", but here's my attempt at an answer: Eruvin did not allow something which had been previously assur, the way timers do and the way the Shabbos Switch would (according to its supporters). Beginning in Moshe Rabenu's day, people were very careful not to carry from a Reshus Hayachid to a Reshus Harabim, or vice versa, or 4 amos within a Reshus Harabim. But everything else was no problem. People would carry from one home to another within the same chatzer without thinking twice. Or even to a home across the street, IF that street was NOT a Reshus Harabim. But over time, accidents started to happen, because it is not always so easy to determine what's a Reshus Harabim and what's not. So at a certain point (either by David Hamelech's beis din, or Shlomo's, I don't remember) TWO halachos were enacted, at the SAME tme: One, that hotzaah was forbidden in a wide variety of areas other than within one Reshus Hayachid. Two, that these other areas could be transformed into a Reshus Hayachid by following some specific rules. The net result is that after Hilchos Eruvin were instituted, there were NO actions which people could be done that were not being done before. No one said, "Now the neighborhood can have a picnic on Shabbos afternoon!", because they could have done this all along, if there was no Reshus Harabim running through. Thus, no one lamented the zilzul Shabbos caused by allowing picnics which had previously been forbidden, because they had NOT previously been forbidden. I suppose it is possible that in the beginning, these procedures were used only by small neighborhoods (chatzeros and not much larger), and it was only much later that they were used by entire communities. If that's what RMB was referring to, then I'll have to stop here and let a historian continue. Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 07:00:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 10:00:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Megilat Rut: The night of Boaz and Rut Revisited Message-ID: <20150518135955.4DC6C183869@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/kmyx55p YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 08:40:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 11:40:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> On Sun, May 17, 2015 at 1:32pm EDT, R/Prof. Yitzchok Levine wrote on Areivim: : Yesterday in shul I asked a 12 year-old boy who attends a good : yeshiva if he was willing to announce the Molad. He looked at me : incredulously and said "What's the Molad?" I replied, "You know, : when the new moon can be seen." He still didn't get it, and I had : to elaborate a bit. I want to get all nerdy with this. The molad is actually an average, not when you could first see the moon this particular month. From 1601 to 200 CE, the actual physical lunation could be 6h 21m shorter or 7h 15m longer. And, the average too changes over time. (As I've noted in the past, it is amazing to me that we had back in the days of Galus Bavel, a molad value that was most accurate in the same century R' Hillel II and his Sanhedrin crated a standard calendar, some 900 years later. Exact to within the unit of measure (the cheileq). Accurate when we needed the value, not when we first obtained it. Currently, the molad is around 108 chalaqim off. And that's just the time between the molads. Then you have to ask when in the cycle the moon could first be seen. How thin of a sliver is visible to the typical human eye? And which longitude's clock are you using? And we announce the time for this point on the globe using today's hour naming convension. If you look at (eg) the Rambam, you'd be seeing a clock which is restarted every day at sunset, making sunset 0:00, not a number various about 6pm. But that's only something to keep in mind when looking at older Sepharadi sefarim, and wouldn't impact understanding what it is we actually announce. It would seem the molad as we now announce it would be for Kandahar, Afghanistan. But that must be due to slippage because the molad is too long. If we go back to the 4th or 5th cent CE, the molad is being announced given the time around midway between the Nile and the far (south-east) end of the Euphrates, which would have been around the middle of Jewish settlement at the time. In any case, calling is Jerusalem Time is a misnomer. Anyway, because we don't know for sure what location on the globe the molad was defined for, and how much of the current location is due to slippage during centuries of molads growing ever longer, we cannot definitively translate molad time to your local standard time. We simply do not know the starting lattitude to convert from. Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 08:53:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 11:53:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 11:40 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. Sure we do. It's the motion of an "averaged moon" that orbits the earth in a perfect circle, and that, however fictional, forms the basis of our calendar. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 09:41:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 12:41:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150518164134.GC20828@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 11:53:42AM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : On 05/18/2015 11:40 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: : >Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. : Sure we do. It's the motion of an "averaged moon" that orbits the earth : in a perfect circle, and that, however fictional, forms the basis of our : calendar. Except we don't know how much of an idealized moon is supposed to be showing and where between the latitudes of Alexandria and Sura it would have been showing. IOW, we don't know when in the moon's cycle the molad is an idealization of. Note, though, that Rabban Gamliel quotes a mesorah from R' Gamliel haZaqein ("mibeis avi abba) that the molad varies. And in a second quote, that it will never be "less than" 29-1/2d 2/3h 73 chalaqim. (Shabbos 25a) And he uses this to question eidim, so this is a mesorah he accepts for re'iyah, not just computation. Redoing R' Gamaliel's fractions, and converting 73c = 4m 1c, we get 29d 4 hr, 44m, 1 c. Our molad. So Rabban Gamliel held our molad was a lower limit, not an average!? And recall, we'e talking re'iyah (see the sugya) and the actual lunation could be over 6hr easlier than the average. What am I missing? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 08:23:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 11:23:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: <001b01d09170$1d5db6f0$581924d0$@org.uk> References: <001b01d09170$1d5db6f0$581924d0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <555A0402.4060608@sero.name> It should be borne in mind that there are still countries (including ones with substantial Jewish communities) where the need for pidyon is at least as common now as it probably was in Chazal's day. Also that while in many countries paying ransoms may be technically illegal, hardly anybody who is r"l in that situation cares about this. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 09:35:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Riceman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 12:35:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <555A14EF.8070305@optimum.net> RMB: <. In particular, his very first source (see link to mar'eh meqomos sheet) Nissah 20b. Yalta, "Rebbetzin Nachman", asks her mar'os questions of Rabbah bar bar Chanah and Rabbi Yitzchaq bereih deR' Yehudah, not her husband. Similarly mishnah Nega'im 2:5 saying you can't pasen nega'im even of relatives, Bekhoros 31a about judging one's own bekhoros.>> The standard hiluq is is'hazek issura or not. See, e.g., Hochmas Adam H. Shechitah 1:10, Binas Adam ad. loc., and HA H. Nidah 109:6 and BA ad. loc. I think the issue is that hora'ah in the presence of hezkas issur is considered eidus. The argument of self interest raises some problems: 1. Do you know of cases where rabbis have referred questions about communal matters to experts elsewhere because they are self interested since they live in the community? For example, do Hachmai EY refer questions about communal safety (e.g., military matters) to rabbis in Hutz LaAretz because they are self interested? 2. Why shouldn't self interest be a psul in the absence of hezkas issur? I know people on this list have cited it to me in the case of restaurants certifying their own products. David Riceman From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 10:03:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 13:03:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518164134.GC20828@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> <20150518164134.GC20828@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555A1B64.8060409@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 12:41 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > What am I missing? That what we announce is *not* anything to do with the actual moon, which the eidim in RG's time would have claimed to have seen, but the notional averaged moon on which *our* calendar is based. The *real* molad, i.e. conjunction of moon and sun, does vary, because the real moon does not orbit the earth in a perfect circle; the notional molad on which we base our calendar, and which we announce every month (except, ironically, the one month when it actually matters), is perfectly regular. And "molad" does seem to mean the conjunction, not the moment when the first sliver is visible, because the gemara in RH seems to say that the first possible sighting of the new moon is six hours *after* the molad. So we do know exactly what we are announcing: the number on which the calendar is based. Given this Shabbos's announcement, one can easily calculate that next Rosh Hashana will be on a Monday, exactly as it should be. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 10:49:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 13:49:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> At 11:40 AM 5/18/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. Yet it says in the siddurim that it should be announced so people know when it is! My understanding is that what is announced is Jerusalem solar time and this is different from Jerusalem local time. YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 11:47:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 14:47:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150518184701.GD20828@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 01:03:32PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : On 05/18/2015 12:41 PM, Micha Berger wrote: : >What am I missing? : : That what we announce is *not* anything to do with the actual moon, which : the eidim in RG's time would have claimed to have seen, but the notional : averaged moon on which *our* calendar is based... First, as Zev noted to me in private, I meant RH 25a (not Mes' Shabbos). But the point I asked "what am I missing?" about was Rabbi Gamliel questioning what people thought they saw, not the average. In R' Gamliel's day, the length of the molad was pretty close to exact; even today it's closer than they had any way to measure. But that's still an average. And real values can be more than 6 hr earlier. So, how can R' Gamliel question someone's observation for being less than a molad, when in half of all months re'iyah will be early -- and many 5 or 6 hr early. : So we do know exactly what we are announcing: the number on which the : calendar is based. Given this Shabbos's announcement, one can easily : calculate that next Rosh Hashana will be on a Monday, exactly as it : should be. As I said in my previous post... Yes, that explans the length of the molad, but not the point in the idealized cycle. How much moon must be visible for it to be a new moon? Or more accurately, what was visible when the molad was al pi re'iyah that we are now using a simplified model to approximate? And we can't just calculate what it is the molad is approximating, because we don't know what clock to use. It looks to me like Hillel was using a point halfway between EY and Bavel, somewhere in the center of the contiguous Jewish settlement. But that's largely guesswork. On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 01:49:49PM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : My understanding is that what is announced is Jerusalem solar time : and this is different from Jerusalem local time. Which is why I left out the word standard, writing "Jerusalem Time" rather than Israel Standard Time. But as I wrote above, it's not. See also my first post (for Avodah) on this thread for more detail. In 1999, R Yisrael Medad posted something about this on MJ, after having R/Prof Ely Merbach, R/Prof Yaakov Loewinger and the Bar Ilan astronomy dept bad the question around. See They assume Jerusalem Mean Time, but they make the fundamental error of discussing mean conjunction -- no moon -- not the first sliver. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 13:31:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 16:31:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150518203148.GB4022@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 02:24:32PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : >Yes, that explans the length of the molad, but not the point in the : >idealized cycle. How much moon must be visible for it to be a new : >moon? [...] they make the fundamental error of discussing mean : >conjunction -- no moon -- not the first sliver. : : I don't think they made an error at all. The molad is the conjunction; : the earliest time at which the moon can be seen is six hours after : the molad. How do you know this? The Rambam (Qiddush Levana 6:1) appears to say it's the average of the first time the moon could be seen "kedei leida im yeira'eh hayarei'ach of lo yeira'eh.... bemahalakhtam ha'emtza'i, who haniqra 'molad'". And my whole point was that we didn't know how big of a sliver is "yeira'eh", but I'm willing to entertain the possibility that we announce when it cannot be seen, as a way of knowing by deduction when it could. I just can't see it as a given. Combining not knowing how much -- if any -- after the conjunction the molad is with not knowing which lattitude's clock is being used was the not knowing what the molad really means. You could move the lattitude by changing the size sliver. As for why we announce the molad... The Yerei'im gives the answer Zev did. The MA quotes the Yerei'im and says that mevorkhim hachodesh is lezeikher the real qiddush hachodesh by Sanhedrin. Which is why we stand. RMF (IM OC 1:142) says this is in imitation of the qehillah who would stand when answering "Mequdash! Mequdash!" I find the MA's answer more compelling, because it unlikely that it is to know when Rosh Chodesh should be, when the one RC that most depends on the molad isn't announced -- Tishrei. It also adds resonence for me when saying "Mi sheAsah Nissim", that before the chazan announces ther month, we ask for a return of the qiddush hachodesh being commemorated. And if truly "chaverim kol Yisrael" and we acted it, we would have a Sanhedrin. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 11:24:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 14:24:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 01:49 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > At 11:40 AM 5/18/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >> Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. > Yet it says in the siddurim that it should be announced so people know > when it is! It's the number used for calculating the calendar. That's all people need to know. > My understanding is that what is announced is Jerusalem solar time > and this is different from Jerusalem local time. No, it's different from J'm *standard* time, i.e. the modern time system invented by the railroads, which of course we take no notice of. On 05/18/2015 02:47 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > But the point I asked "what am I missing?" about was Rabbi Gamliel > questioning what people thought they saw, not the average. Why are you discussing that? The topic is the announcement in shul, which relates entirely to our calculated system, not to RG's system. You wrote that nobody knows what it is that's being announced, and I dispute that. RG is entirely irrelevant, since he was dealing with the actual moon, not the notional moon that our system deals with. > Yes, that explans the length of the molad, but not the point in the > idealized cycle. How much moon must be visible for it to be a new > moon? [...] they make the fundamental error of discussing mean > conjunction -- no moon -- not the first sliver. I don't think they made an error at all. The molad is the conjunction; the earliest time at which the moon can be seen is six hours after the molad. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 14:36:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 17:36:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518203148.GB4022@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> <20150518203148.GB4022@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555A5B79.2030308@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 04:31 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > > How do you know this? The Rambam (Qiddush Levana 6:1) appears to say > it's the average of the first time the moon could be seen "kedei leida im > yeira'eh hayarei'ach of lo yeira'eh.... bemahalakhtam ha'emtza'i, > who haniqra 'molad'". On the contrary, that Rambam says *explicitly* that the molad is the exact moment of the conjunction, which is *not* when it can be seen. Read it again and you will surely see this. > As for why we announce the molad... The Yerei'im gives the answer > Zev did.The MA quotes the Yerei'im and says that mevorkhim hachodesh > is lezeikher the real qiddush hachodesh by Sanhedrin. Which is why > we stand. RMF (IM OC 1:142) says this is in imitation of the qehillah > who would stand when answering "Mequdash! Mequdash!" Neither the Yere'im nor the MA even mention the announcement of the molad, let alone give any reason for it. All the Yere'im says is that the announcement of Rosh Chodesh in shul is not at all related to kidush hachodesh, but is merely so people should know when Rosh Chodesh will be. The MA adds that although this is true, the custom is to stand for it, as a zecher to kidush hachodesh, which was done standing. R Akiva Eger asks how this could be so, since we know that a beis din must sit, not stand. RMF answers thatkiddush hachodesh was done notby the BD, but by the audience, after hearing the BD's psak, and they were surely standing, and this is what the MA means. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 14:49:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 17:49:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: RMicha Berger wrote: >Among the arguments that came up in the discussion of the Kosher Switch was that it's zilzul Shabbos. >>The thought hit me, though... Refraining from operating electrical devices has only been a potential issue for 125 years or so. And except for Yekkes, most of our ancestors come from places where it has been less than a century since electricity became part of our lives. >So it's very hard to say that "not using electricity" is a defining feature of the Shabbos experience.< True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul Shabbos. (Of course, by this argument, putting an electric light on or off should be prohibited even if the use of electricity is not a m'lacha.) >Contrast this to hotza'ah, including haavarah, which take up what seems like 1/3 of chazal's discussion of issur melakhah (rough estimate from Berakhos and Eruvin in mishna, Tosefta, Y-mi and Bavli).< I assume that "Berakhos" should be replaced by "Shabbos." >When community eruvin got started, wasn't there a much easier argument of zilzul? Why wasn't it made? Indeed we use the general kelal of being meiqil WRT eiruvin to quite an extent to build one. And what does the fact that a community eruv is NOT zilzul Shabbos say about the nature of zilzul Shabbos and its applicability to nidon didan?< What tzuras hapesach and eiruv permit is not carrying prohibited by the Torah. Rather, it is, in effect, a built-in exception to the issurim imposed mid'rabbanan by two g'zeiros: the classification of certain areas, which min haTorah are m'kom p'tur, as a new entity called karmelis, and the imposing of a prohibition of hotza'a from one r'shus hayachid to another of different ownership. Both were in use long before there was a city eruv. E.g., persons sharing a two-family house with a common fenced yard would make an eruv to permit carrying to and from their living quarters to the others' and to the yard. Likewise, a house opening to an unfenced yard would make a tzuras hapesach to permit carrying between house and yard. And, of course, two houses opening to a common unfenced yard would make a tzuras hapesach to "enclose" the yard, and then an eruv to permit carrying among houses and yard. The city eruv was not an introduction of a new practice, but a larger-scale use of already common practices. How does this constitute zilzul Shabbos? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 14:31:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 22:31:48 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000001d091b2$0c5074f0$24f15ed0$@org.uk> RZS writes: >It should be borne in mind that there are still countries (including ones >with substantial Jewish communities) where the need for pidyon is at least >as common now as it probably was in Chazal's day. Are you thinking of South America? I confess that is what springs to mind from your suggestion, although how often ransom is really required in such countries I don't know. > Also that while in many countries paying ransoms may be technically illegal, hardly anybody who is >r"l in that situation cares about this. But presumably you are talking about the same ones (eg South America). My question relates solely to countries, like Britain and Israel, to which Rav Zylberstein was referring. He took it for granted that in fact it was exceedingly uncommon for pidyon to be needed. I am not so sure it is so uncommon, but I doubt very much that in these countries "hardly anybody who is r"l in that situation cares about this". That is, while I know from the press of numbers of cases in which pidyon has been needed for British and Israeli citizens, in none of these cases were private individuals allowed to redeem (despite them quite naturally wanting to, and possibly being willing to do so, if they had not been restrained, whether by circumstances or otherwise). Clearly if one lives in a place where pidyon is common, and where, whatever the technical law says, in practice individual family members redeem, neither my question nor Rav Zylberstein's gets off the ground. But I don't think the existence of a place in the world, that one would never contemplate living in (and is not the locus of the ketuba), is relevant to the obligations under that ketuba which must relate to the places that the couple live and the governments under which they live. Even when it might involve some less scrupulous situations - one of the mothers in our school in England had the situation that her sons were effectively kidnapped by her ex-husband and held in Russia. And while yes, ultimately she found where they were hidden by means of a private investigator, which cost her private money, she would never have been able to extract them had: (a) Russia not signed up to the Hague convention; (b) the Russian court given judgment in her favour; and (c) the Russian police at the bequest of the English government on the basis of the Russian judgment actually going in and retrieving the boys (whose location they had singularly failed to identify until the private investigator had provided the cast iron information as to where they were). And she would have struggled to have brought them back into England without the rulings of the Russian authorities. And even if an adult is different, I cannot see the British government allowing one of its citizens to go off and try and attempt pidyon of another of its citizens without its active involvement, it being seen as cutting across its foreign policy (even if this was occurring in a place where ransom payments amongst locals was common). >Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 15:53:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 18:53:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] measurement error In-Reply-To: <20150111185211.GA15414@aishdas.org> References: <54AD8B25.3010103@optimum.net> <20150111185211.GA15414@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150518225308.GA15666@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 01:52:11PM -0500, Micha Berger wrote: : In an appreciated bit of siyata dishmaya, my Arukh haShulchan yomi : sechedule brought me to a primary source : on this subject -- AhS OC 363:32-35. The he.WikiSource.org ("Vikiteqst") : copy is at ... : When dealing with mavui, where there is only one mavui and therefore one : measuring process to be used for everyone, the above applies. However, : when the measurement is only for one person's use, tbey should be : measuring for himself, with his own norms. : And here he adds a touch of subjectivity: a person should measure how : far he himself could walk. And the rule of carrying in rh"r a distance : of no more 4 of one's own amos is brought into that umbrella. : The reason for the general rule is to cover the personal amos of the : people who will be using the measuring. : BUT, and this is why I do not follow, he opened se'if 32 by telling us : the variability is 1/48 of the total (1/24 of an etzba per ammah). Which : is far less than the variability in forearm lengths in most groups of : people. For example, my own sukkah is used by Yoni, who stands 6'3" and by : my own 5'3" -- and my arms are on the shorter side, even proportionally. : When we hold up elbows together, my ammah ends just past his wrist. Not : within 47/48 of eachother. I came across another AhS datapoint for this thread, OC 586:14. He quotes the Rambam Shofar 1:5, discussing the minimum length of a shofar: that you can hold it in your hand and it's visible on either end. The AhS explains the intent as being the size of the toqei'ah's hand, but rather an average person's hands, "veshi'uro tefach sheheim 4 godelim". Then there is a debate whether the tefach has to be a generous one, so as to be visible (Tur, quoting Ri Gei'os) or a narrow one (Tur himself and SA), which is still visible if the toqei'ah uses four fingers -- after all, they'll still be narrower than 4 thumbs. So the shiur is neither personal nor really the standard tefach. It is literally as the gemara says, what can be held and still seen. Which is why there is a machloqes about where the tefach stands in relation to the real shiur. But, visible if hypothetically held by an average hand. And if the tqoei'ah has wide hands, he could hold a minimal shofar without it being visible, and it would still be kosher. The AhS also says this was already explained in Nidah 26b, which is a depressing gemara about miscarriages, and a tefach comes up in shiurim for tum'ah, but I didn't see where it mentionrs our topic of what kind of tefach is used. What I find even more interesting is that there is no chiluq being drawn between someone who blows in shul and someone who blows just for himself. Wouldn't the rule from OC 363 mean that someone in the latter situation should use what is visible when their own hand holds it? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 15:35:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 18:35:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: <000001d091b2$0c5074f0$24f15ed0$@org.uk> References: <000001d091b2$0c5074f0$24f15ed0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <555A6924.4010709@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 05:31 PM, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: > RZS writes: > >> It should be borne in mind that there are still countries (including ones >> with substantial Jewish communities) where the need for pidyon is at least >> as common now as it probably was in Chazal's day. > > Are you thinking of South America? Well, Latin America (so as to include Mexico). There are also other such countries, such as India, the Philippines, Nigeria, where the need for pidyon is common, but there are not a lot of Jews living there. > But I don't > think the existence of a place in the world, that one would never > contemplate living in (and is not the locus of the ketuba), is relevant to > the obligations under that ketuba which must relate to the places that the > couple live and the governments under which they live. Even a couple marrying in such a country must contemplate the possibility that one or both might one day travel to a country where kidnapping is common, and be kidnapped. Even in Chazal's day the danger was not so much where people lived as on the highways and the seas, where they might travel. Also, I am not at all sure that it is actually illegal in most normal countries to pay ransom. What is illegal is giving *anything* to groups that are officially listed by that country's government as terrorists. If the kidnappers are not on the list, so that it would be legal to give them a gift, then I don't think there's a law against paying them ransom. (Perhaps there should be.) -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 19 11:32:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joseph Kaplan via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 14:32:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Standing at a Chupah Message-ID: <004f01d09262$1f0388c0$5d0a9a40$@tenzerlunin.com> "Truth be told, I have seen the following many times. When the grandparents who are 70 or more years old walk down, no one stands for them. However, when the chosson and kallah walk down everyone stands for them." At almost every MO wedding I've attended over the past 5-10 years, everyone stood when the grandparents walked down whether they were older than 70 or not. But if, God willing, I'm around for my grandchildren's weddings, I plan to walk (or, if necessary, wheelchair) down the aisle whether anybody stands for me or not. Joseph -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 19 12:18:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 15:18:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150519191809.GA8642@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 05:49:16PM -0400, elazar teitz via Avodah wrote: :> So it's very hard to say that "not using electricity" is a defining :> feature of the Shabbos experience. : True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature : of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so : accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul : Shabbos. (Of course, by this argument, putting an electric light on or off : should be prohibited even if the use of electricity is not a m'lacha.) As would replacing gefilte fish with sushi? It's not that people from Sinai to around 100 years ago actually experienced avoiding the lightswitch, nor did they even consciously experience not having one -- since there was no conception of an alternative. Not using electricity, and saying that qedushas shabbos requires avoiding electricity are really two different things, experientially. 100 years ago we had an opportunity to do something new on Shabbos, much like when shomerei Shabbos first learned of sushi. The difference is that we did assur one new opportunity, and not the other. ... : What tzuras hapesach and eiruv permit is not carrying prohibited by : the Torah. Rather, it is, in effect, a built-in exception to the issurim : imposed mid'rabbanan by two g'zeiros... ... : The city eruv was not an introduction of a new practice, but a : larger-scale use of already common practices. How does this constitute : zilzul Shabbos? Yes, that explains why it's nothing clearer cut than zilzul Shabbos. AIUI, worrying about zilzul means that the mechanism is mutar, but the goal is one that cheapens Shabbos, removes some of the feeling of its qedushah. Like taking the pre-existing concept of eiruv as a way to have a reshus that was no included in Shelomo ubeis dino's original issur hotza'ah and stretching it to a much bigger area than ever before, so that most people never have reason to leave it most weeks. So that the entire issur goes from being one of the dominant features of Shabbos (judging just in blatt of discussion) to barely ever experienced. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 45th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Malchus: What is the beauty of Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity (on all levels of relationship)? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 19 12:46:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 22:46:01 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] donor egg Message-ID: "A 65-year-old Bnei Brak woman gave birth this week, becoming the oldest woman to give birth in Israel. The ultra-Orthodox woman and her 67-year-old husband had been battling infertility for 46 years before the birth at Kfar Sava?s Meir hospital. After fertility treatments abroad and with the help of a donor egg, the woman became pregnant, giving birth to a 2.685-kg baby in her 35th week of pregnancy. ?To the best of my knowledge, this is the oldest woman to give birth in Israel. It is extremely rare that pregnancy at this age ends well. The ultra-Orthodox circle from which the couple comes attributed the pregnancy and birth to a blessing the woman received from a Hassidic rabbi. " http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel/.premium-1.657230 Given all the halachic controversy of who is the halachic mother I am a little surprised -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 07:11:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 17:11:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? Message-ID: There is a famous Medrash that before offering the Torah to the Jewish people Hashem offered it to the other nations of the world. "First He approached the children of Esav and asked them, "Do you wish to accept the Torah?" They replied, "What is written in it?" "Do not murder." They said, "...Our father was assured that, 'By your sword will you live (Bereishit 27:40)!'" Next Hashem went to the children of Ammon and Moav, and asked, "Do you wish to accept the Torah?" They asked, "What is written in it?" "Do not commit sexual immorality." They responded, "Master of the Universe, our very existence is based on an immoral act!" Hashem then went to the children of Yishmael, and asked them, "Do you wish to accept the Torah?" They asked, "What is written in it?" "Do not steal." They responded, "Master of the Universe, the essence of our father was to be a bandit, as it is written, 'And he will be a man of the wild; his hand will be in all...'" (Bereishit 16:12)." Sifri, Ve'Zot HaBracha #343 However, the Medrash has an obvious question. All of the examples of Torah prohibitions given by the Medrash, are also prohibited by the 7 mitzvos of Bnei Noach. The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from murder so how would accepting the Torah make things worse for them? The same goes for arayos and stealing, these were already prohibited to them anyway so why does the medrash specifically pick these as examples for Torah prohibitions? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 11:16:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 14:16:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150520181647.GA15475@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 05:11:29PM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : However, the Medrash has an obvious question. All of the examples of Torah : prohibitions given by the Medrash, are also prohibited by the 7 mitzvos of : Bnei Noach. The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from murder so how would : accepting the Torah make things worse for them? The same goes for arayos : and stealing, these were already prohibited to them anyway so why does the : medrash specifically pick these as examples for Torah prohibitions? I raised this and a second question in : Hashem's answer to each of the nations is strange. Why choose the one sin their forefather was known for? Is that how you would do kiruv, starting with the hard stuff? By comparing this medrash to the opening pasuk in this week's parshah, [Lekh Lekha,] we can get a better understanding of the point of the story. "Hashem said to Avram, `Go for yourself from your homeland, from your birthplace and from your father's house to the land which I will show you'." (12:1) The first sentence recorded in the Torah of the Jewish mission on earth is a commandment for Avram to leave his home and his father. Avram didn't say, "I can't worship G-d because my very substance his idolatry, because my father, Terach, manufactures idols". Hashem orders Avram to leave the culture that made him, to leave his father's sphere of influence, and he does. Avram's reply was "And Avram went, just as G-d told him". (12:4) If Hashem said he could change, rise above Ur Casdim to become fit for both the land of Israel and the father of the people of Israel, then he goes. Is man a creature of fate or of destiny? Is his future foretold, etched in rock, unchangeable? Or can he rebuild himself into something greater than he was? Clearly the Torah insists on the latter. The very key to accepting the Torah is to be committed to use its ideas and its mitzvos to improve and to grow. This was the failing ascribed to the other nations in the medrash. They saw a given flaw in their national character as their substance, immutable. Hashem wasn't asking them about a particular prohibition, but about their commitment to leave their "father's house". If they do not believe they can change, what purpose can getting the Torah serve them? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 46th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Malchus: How can some forms of Fax: (270) 514-1507 "unity" be over domineering? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 11:48:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 14:48:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: <20150520181647.GA15475@aishdas.org> References: <20150520181647.GA15475@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555CD6E5.5000606@sero.name> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 05:11:29PM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from murder so how would : accepting the Torah make things worse for them? The same goes for arayos : and stealing, these were already prohibited to them anyway sowhy does the : medrash specifically pick these as examples for Torah prohibitions? Perhaps that was His point: you can't even keep the mitzvos you already have, so how can you want more? On 05/20/2015 02:16 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > I raised this and a second question in > : > Hashem's answer to each of the nations is strange. Why choose the one > sin their forefather was known for? Is that how you would do kiruv, > starting with the hard stuff? Why the premise that the purpose was kiruv? On the contrary, I think the medrash's intent is clear, that Hashem did *not* want them to accept His offer, and thus pitched it in the manner most likely to be rejected. The only purpose of making the offer in the first place was so they wouldn't be able to complain that they hadn't been given the chance. He wasn't trying to sell it to them, He was showing them why they didn't want it, and therefore shouldn't be upset that the Jews were getting it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 17:29:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 20:29:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] 65 Year-Old Woman Gives Birth to First Child in Bnei Brak In-Reply-To: <20150520.101659.17683.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150520.101659.17683.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150521002935.GC9522@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 02:16:59PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Areivim wrote: : If we were speaking Lashon Hakodesh, you'd be correct - Bar Mitzvah is : a noun, and only a noun. However, we are clearly speaking English, and : several dictionaries tell me that in English, "Bar Mitzvah" is both a noun : and a verb. See, for example, http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bar+mitzvah : which gives "bar mitzvahed" (and other forms) as examples. : Languages are funny this way. Stuff can change when a word enters a : new language. However, there is no real concept correspnding to the English word "bar mitzvahed". The borrowing was primarily done by non-traditional Jews, who think that being called up to the Torah changes your status. But in reality, "bar mitzvahed" makes as much sense as saying someone pubertied or menopaused. We O could borrow the word as shorthand for "became a bar mitzah" but since the original borrowing is really based on a misunderstanding of the Torah, why should we? It'll just make it harder to clear up the mistake. : If I'm not mistaken, the Yiddish word for "holiday" is pronounced : "yuntif", and it is spelled "yud vav memsofit blankspace tes vav beis", : and is considered a single word despite the fact... IIRC, on the NY State Yiddish Regents Examination in the late 1970s, it was spelled as it sounds, one word, yud-alef-nun-tes-eyin-ende fei (w/ a refuyah line over it). (R' Riskin, whose HS I attended, required a foreign language, and Hebrew doesn't count as "foreign". The Hebrew Regents exam was a separate requirement to graduate. As was Red Cross swimming certification and you could choose either CPR or First Aid. The latter two were because the HS is the father's shaliach for all of chinukh and education. Anyway, I already had some background in Yiddish, and I heard that the Yiddish regents eere easier than more popular languages like Spanish or French, so...) But the, Chassidishe Yiddish and YIVO Yiddish (the legacy of Litvishe Yiddishists) are different dialects. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 46th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Malchus: How can some forms of Fax: (270) 514-1507 "unity" be over domineering? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 17:53:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 20:53:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Admin: [Areivim] 65 Year-Old Woman Gives Birth to First Child in Bnei Brak In-Reply-To: <20150521002935.GC9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150520.101659.17683.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> <20150521002935.GC9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150521005329.GF9522@aishdas.org> The previous email was misdirected. Replies to it will not be accepted. (On Avodah. If Areivim's mods approve it, reply there.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 18:57:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 20:57:21 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <555D3B81.5030709@starways.net> I think the obvious answer is that midrash is midrash. One midrash doesn't have to be consistent with another. It's there to learn from, and the message of this one comes through regardless of the Noachide laws. On 5/20/2015 9:11 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > There is a famous Medrash that before offering the Torah to the Jewish > people Hashem offered it to the other nations of the world. > > However, the Medrash has an obvious question. All of the examples of > Torah prohibitions given by the Medrash, are also prohibited by the 7 > mitzvos of Bnei Noach. The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from > murder so how would accepting the Torah make things worse for them? > The same goes for arayos and stealing, these were already prohibited > to them anyway so why does the medrash specifically pick these as > examples for Torah prohibitions? > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 03:36:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 06:36:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: <555D3B81.5030709@starways.net> References: <555D3B81.5030709@starways.net> Message-ID: <20150521103619.GC7831@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 08:57:21PM -0500, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: : I think the obvious answer is that midrash is midrash. One midrash : doesn't have to be consistent with another. It's there to learn : from, and the message of this one comes through regardless of the : Noachide laws. I believe the question was finding internal consistency in a single medrash from the Yalqut Shim'oni. The medrash that says the nations were offered the Torah itself says the example mitzvos were ones they were already obligated in, and ones their ancestor was known for. So, what does that tell us about the message? To me, it says that the offer was more about testing one's willingness to change. Therefore, each is asked if they would be willing to refrain from something that they should already be avoiding, but is part of their current culture. And that, in turn, speaks to seeing the Torah as a tool for self-transformation. Which I mean in a manner vague enough to include both Chassidim and Litvaks. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 07:50:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 10:50:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Ways to find non-meat or non-milk Message-ID: <20150521145032.GH9522@aishdas.org> >From the founder of Machon Zomer, RYRosen, on possible ways to eat kosher meat and milk together without violating basar bechalav. -micha Shabbat B'Shabbato Translated by Moshe Goldberg Point Of View Bit of Reality from Sinai Rabbi Yisrael Rosen Dean of the Zomet Institute "This teaches you that scripture, the Mishna, halacha, tosefta, hagadda, and whatever a veteran scholar will teach in the future already exists, and it was all given as halacha to Moshe at Sinai" [Kohellet Rabba 1]. ... Recipes with Meat and Milk In honor of the holiday, we have pieced together for you, from the newest volume, some juicy samples of dairy halachot, as is fitting for the holiday of Shavuot, in order to fulfill the verse, "Honey and milk are under your tongue" [Shir Hashirim 4:11]. We will capture your interest for halachic sophistication by offering you, from this new volume of Techumin, a serving of meat cooked in milk (yes, you read that right!). Compare this to Rav Nachman, who gave his wife an udder soaked in milk in order to satisfy her desire to taste a combination of milk and meat (Chulin 109b). And what is our enticing menu item that fits this requirement? See below... (1) "Ben Pekua" -- It is an accepted halacha (admittedly quite odd) that if a cow is slaughtered in the eighth month of her pregnancy and the calf is found to be alive, it is called a "Ben Pekua" and there is no need to slaughter it. It can be eaten in any manner, including even taking off a limb while it is still alive (Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Dei'ah 13), even many years later, and there is no need to check if it has one of the faults that would render a normal animal unkosher. And now, here is the most surprising part: The offspring of a male and female "Ben Pekua" (both of the "parents must be of this type) will never require kosher slaughtering either, and this includes all subsequent generations. (However, if only one parent is a "Ben Pekua," the offspring cannot be made kosher, even by slaughtering!) Rabbi Meir Rabi from Australia published a dramatic article where he claims that by definition a Ben Pekua is not cattle (but is rather the same as fish), and therefore not only is there no need to remove the veins in the hind quarter, one is even permitted to cook it and eat it together with milk! To come to this conclusion, the rabbi bases his ruling on a Torah insight by the Meshech Chochma, that our Patriarch Avraham served his guests, the angels, "a calf (literally, the son of cattle, or a ben pekua!) that was tender and good," from the womb of a pregnant cow, and he gave them "butter and milk, and the calf" [Bereishit 18:8]. Rabbi Rabi went further, and acted on his ruling. Using this method he created male and female "sheep" and grew flocks from them, and he now has a culinary and halachic declaration -- these animals do not need to be slaughtered, their veins do not have to be removed, their fat is not prohibited -- and the rabbi has a long list of other benefits. However, modern rabbis do not accept this idea! In the new volume of Techumin, Rabbi Zev Vitman, the rabbi of Tenuvah (which sells milk, meat, and fish) vigorously opposes the novel ruling. Aside from the release from the requirement of ritual slaughtering (which is carried over from the mother or the grandmother of the calf), Rabbi Vitman disagrees with (almost) all the other conclusions. He finds no justification for defining the Ben Pekua as a "new and separate species." In addition, in volume 19 of Techumin, sixteen years ago, Sephardi Chief Rabbi Bakshi-Doron rejected a similar proposal that was sent to him by meat farmers on the Golan, fearing that it would lead to serious problems. Other prominent rabbis, such as Rabbi Shmuel Vazner and Rabbi Asher Weiss, warned against getting involved in this sophisticated and complex halachic problem. (2) We are thus left to search elsewhere for a combination of meat and milk: meat that has been cloned from stem cells! In a previous volume, Rev Tvi Reizman (a well-known businessman from Los Angeles who is also a Torah scholar well versed in matters of halacha and actuality) writes about an "artificial hamburger" which was created two years ago. This is produced from artificial meat made from stem cells of a cow which was not slaughtered or which was declared unkosher ("tereifa"). In principle, he concludes that clone meat is not real meat, and that it can therefore be cooked and eaten with milk! (The summary of the article includes many details which will not be repeated here. For example, the problem of appearances can be solved by proper packaging and declarations, as is done for soya milk.) However, my friends, I doubt that you should rush out after the holiday to search for an "artificial hamburger," in order to season it with honey and dip it in milk. Rabbi Yaacov Ariel opposes the idea in the new volume of Techumin. He concludes that such artificial meat can only be produced from a kosher animal, and that then "it will be considered meat for all intents and purposes, including the matter of cooking with milk." So, in the end we are left with the solution in the Talmud: Does anybody want some milk-saturated udders? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 08:36:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 11:36:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula Message-ID: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> In OC 196:1, the Rama mentions the minhag of blowing 30 qolos at the end of RH mussaf. "Ule'achar sheyatze'u bazeh, shuv ein litqua od bechinam." (Although a qatan, even higia lechinuch, may.) So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. As for being yotzei... Mitzvas shofar only requires tashra"t, tasha"t OR tara"t, 3 times. A point the AhS makes besheim the Rash besheim R' Hai Gaon (Shilhei RH), "delav sefeiqos gemuros hein", that Rav Avahu was mesaqein in order for everyone to do the same thing, not because otherwise you're not yotzei shemie'as qol shofar. The AhS criptically adds, "(ulevad zeh yeish bazeh inyan gadol)." So the question is whether you have to blow in numerous ways few other people use in order to fulfil a taqanah created to create uniformity of practice. But enough of the tirade, and back to the point: Being machmir in hilkhos shofar this way involves a qulah in hilkhos yom tov. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:25:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:25:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150521202527.GP9522@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 02:46:27PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : On 05/21/2015 11:36 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: :> In OC 196:1, the Rama mentions the minhag of blowing 30 qolos at the :> end of RH mussaf. "Ule'achar sheyatze'u bazeh, shuv ein litqua od :> bechinam." :> (Although a qatan, even higia lechinuch, may.) : : Not bechinam; for practice, so that he may one day blow for real. That's not what the Rama says, though. He says "you're allowed to tell him to blow (HaMagid, Hil' Shofar, pereq 2) and it's mutar to for him to blow all day (Or Zarua dRH)." The mishnah says "any me'qvim es hatinoqos militqoa, aval mis'asqim imahem ad sheyilmedu", which implies they are not stopped even after yilmedu. The gemara ad loc (RH 33a-b) says that a qatan higia' lechinukh is encouraged to blow to learn, but any child is not prevented from blowing. So I think the Rama is paralleling the gemara, and not saying the seifa is only for chinukh, or for a child who doesn't need to be stopped because he isn't ready yet. The AhS's wording is even further from your deduction. :> So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the :> qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, :> etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. : No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the : last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. They aren't to fulfill minhag. Hey, I didn't outright assur the practice, I said it relies on being meiqil, such as calling wanting to be chosheish for some minority opinion shitah a need to blow. In general, I'm increasingly uncomfortable with this concept of being machmir to be chosheish for ... It seems to reflect a lack of emunah in kelalei pesaq and the authority of pesaq. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 11:46:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 14:46:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 11:36 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > In OC 196:1, the Rama mentions the minhag of blowing 30 qolos at the > end of RH mussaf. "Ule'achar sheyatze'u bazeh, shuv ein litqua od > bechinam." > > (Although a qatan, even higia lechinuch, may.) Not bechinam; for practice, so that he may one day blow for real. > So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the > qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, > etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 05:09:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Arie Folger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 14:09:57 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: RMB wrote: > Yes, that explains why it's nothing clearer cut than zilzul Shabbos. > AIUI, worrying about zilzul means that the mechanism is mutar, but > the goal is one that cheapens Shabbos, removes some of the feeling > of its qedushah. > > Like taking the pre-existing concept of eiruv as a way to have a > reshus that was no included in Shelomo ubeis dino's original issur > hotza'ah and stretching it to a much bigger area than ever before, > so that most people never have reason to leave it most weeks. So > that the entire issur goes from being one of the dominant features > of Shabbos (judging just in blatt of discussion) to barely ever > experienced. RAW actually deals with this explicitly by citing IIRC Rambam on why Chazal legislated mutze. We are not all farmers or builders, not even cooks and bakers. Hence, many of us hardly ever come close to deoraitot of Shabbat. However, Shabbaton requires shevita hanikeret,so Chazal legislated muktze to create a shevita hanikeret. Says RAW, even if he is wrong on electricity being a deoraita (but he doesn't think he is wrong), nonetheless, the consensus of poskim on elecricity makes it into something akin to muktze. That never happened regarding gefillte fish [which outside Hungary hardly anyone ever ate except on Yom Tov, since what passes for gefillte fish is just the filling. ]. No one ever suggested it is chillul Shabbos to eat gevldige Sushi. At worst, some puerile yeshive boocher called it goiyishe maakhoolim. -- Arie Folger, Recent blog posts on http://ariefolger.wordpress.com/ * Kann man die Religion des anderen korrekt wahrnehmen? ? Zur Woche der Br?derlichkeit * ???? ???? ????? ? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ???? ??? * Ist Pessach f?r die Vergangenheit oder die Zukunft? * Frag den Rabbi ? Wie backte man Mazzot in der Bibel? * Frag den Rabbi ? Seit wann und warum bedecken j?dische m?nner beim gebet ihr haupt? * A Critique of Liberal Orthodox Approach to Halacha -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:38:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:38:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 02:46:27PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the : last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. Having 100 qolos as learned from Eim Sisera's 100 cries is a minhag recorded already in the Arukh, and is mentioned by Todafos and the Rosh in RH pereq 4. (AhS OC 596:1) The Tur that R' Amram Gaon mentions of minhag of a single teru'ah gedolah without a teqi'ah kedei le'arbeiv hasatan, but we do not have this minhag. The the AhS continues (se'if 2) with the already mentioned Rama, "ke'achar sheyatz'u bazeh, ein litqoa od bechinam". Which is why I said that blowing more than 100 qolos for reasons less than minhag requires a qula-dik reading of "chinam". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:31:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:31:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521202527.GP9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521202527.GP9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E409C.7080609@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 04:25 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > >:> So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the >:> qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, >:> etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. >: No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the >: last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. > They aren't to fulfill minhag. Hey, I didn't outright assur the practice, > I said it relies on being meiqil, such as calling wanting to be chosheish > for some minority opinion shitah a need to blow. That's not a kulah, because the issur is davka when it's bechinam, and so long as there's a reason it's not chinam. Their wish to hear shofar the way this rishon or that one wanted it heard is at least as good a reason as our "le`arvev es hasoton", or giving women a "nachas ruach". [Email #2. -micha] Follow-up: However, your chashash brings up an interesting suggestion. if they are worried about all possible chashshos, then maybe they should worry about yours too, and they can easily solve it: let them go on mivtzo'im and find Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all, and blow for them according to these opinions. That way, not only will they have heard shofar according to all possible opinions, and not only will they have the zechus of those Jews having heard shofar according to at least one opinion (which is certainly kosher, as you correctly point out), but their "extra" tekios will be with a bracha! -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:51:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:51:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E454E.60107@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 04:38 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 02:46:27PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: > : No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the > : last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. > > Having 100 qolos as learned from Eim Sisera's 100 cries is a minhag > recorded already in the Arukh, and is mentioned by Todafos and the > Rosh in RH pereq 4. (AhS OC 596:1) Yes, but what of the extra 30 kolos after davening? Those are not in the 100 kolos, they're just le'arvev es hasoton, and yet nobody seems to raise this objection to them. > The the AhS continues (se'if 2) with the already mentioned Rama, > "ke'achar sheyatz'u bazeh, ein litqoa od bechinam". Which is why I said > that blowing more than 100 qolos for reasons less than minhag requires > a qula-dik reading of "chinam". No, it's not kuladig, it's just what the word means. Any valid reason is not chinam. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:55:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:55:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <555E454E.60107@sero.name> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> <555E454E.60107@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150521205546.GA9166@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 04:51:26PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Yes, but what of the extra 30 kolos after davening? Those are not in the : 100 kolos, they're just le'arvev es hasoton, and yet nobody seems to raise : this objection to them. Actually, they were part of the 100 qolos, and in nusach Ashkenaz they still are. It's only because y'all starting blowing during chazaras hashatz that it's not obvious. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:44:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:44:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <555E43A6.3020602@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 08:09 AM, Arie Folger via Avodah wrote: > No one ever suggested it is chillul Shabbos to eat gevldige Sushi. At worst, some puerile yeshive boocher called it goiyishe maakhoolim. Chilul Shabbos, no, but I have heard people seriously claim that it's forbidden to eat milchigs on Shabbos because it's "not shabbosdik", and specifically citing as "obviously" ridiculous the idea of eating lasagna on Shabbos. Which struck me as funny, since I recall one Rosh Hashana, no less, being confronted with an excellent milchig lasagna, made with fake meat, and having to wait to eat it because I was still fleishig from lunch. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:52:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:52:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What do Chazal mean when they refer to "pashtei d'kra?" Message-ID: <20150521205201.GA6908@aishdas.org> Maybe one of you could help R' CHaim Brown, even if he did leave us over a decade ago. A recent blog post on his "Divrei Chaim" at or . I mean, we talk about different definitions of the concept of "peshat" often enough, perhaps maybe someone had something. Tir'u baTov! -Micha Divrei Chaim Wednesday, May 20, 2015 what do Chazal mean when they refer to "pashtei d'kra?" The gemara Archin 8b darshens that "tzikascha k'harerei E-l" refers to nigei adam, which Hashem in his mercy limits to affecting a person for a week. The continuation of the pasuk, "mishpatecha tehom rabbah," refers to nigei batim, where the punishment is more severe in that it can stretch out for three weeks. The gemara then asks, "Pashtei d'kra b'mai?" and brings two similar explanations to the pasuk that read it as saying that G-d shows great mercy in tempering and mitigating the verdict that strict justice would call for. What do Chazal mean when they refer to "pashtei d'kra?" Despite the word "pashtei" in there, it does not seem to mean what the Rishonim like Rashi call "pshat," because if you look at Rashi or the Metzudas David, they don't simply quote this gemara. It seems that the gemara's "pashtei d'kra" is itself a derasha, albeit a derasha that is closer to the plain meaning of the words than the derasha that links the pasuk to nega'im. So are there different levels of derashos? The term "pashtei d'kra" is not all that common, so are these isolated exceptional cases, or in general are there different levels of derash? Does it make any nafka minah (except in our understanding of things?) Posted by Chaim B. at 9:40 AM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 14:12:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 17:12:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521205546.GA9166@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> <555E454E.60107@sero.name> <20150521205546.GA9166@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E4A32.8030909@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 04:55 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 04:51:26PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : Yes, but what of the extra 30 kolos after davening? Those are not in the > : 100 kolos, they're just le'arvev es hasoton, and yet nobody seems to raise > : this objection to them. > > Actually, they were part of the 100 qolos, and in nusach Ashkenaz they > still are. It's only because y'all starting blowing during chazaras > hashatz that it's not obvious. No, these kolos are not part of the 100. These are an extra 30, *after* the 100, and their only purpose is le'arvev es hasoton. And yet that doesn't count as "bechinam". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 18:25:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 21:25:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Shulchan Aruch's "Beis Din" Message-ID: <20150522012546.GA28788@aishdas.org> We discussed a number of times the fact that the SA doesn't follow the rule in his haqdamah to OC about following the majority of the Rif, the Rambam and the Rosh. Less often, peoeple mention actual examples. So, in case you were looking for one, the AhS mentions on OC 606:8-9 the machloqes about whetherit's a mitzbvah to eat on erev YK. In se'if 8 we learn the the Rif, the Ramnam and the Smag omit this idea, and in se'if 9 he says the Rosh, Tur and SA (se'if 1) hold that it's a mitzvah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 20:02:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi, its Kosher! via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 13:02:42 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Ways to find non-meat or non-milk - The BP Project Message-ID: I am happy to engage in discussion regarding the Halachos of BP, with anyone who is interested. For the time being such discussions must be and remain private I can confirm that I have been in contact with R Chaim Kanievsky about this for some years now and that he supports the Lomdus and proofs that I have proposed. Best, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi *Its Kosher* and *Exodus Matza * *it's kosher Authority Pty Ltd **ABN: *77 160 144 374 rabbi at itskosher.com.au +61 0423 207 837 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 18:55:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 01:55:29 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula Message-ID: <20150521.215529.1991.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Actually, they were part of the 100 qolos, and in nusach Ashkenaz they > still are. It's only because y'all starting blowing during chazaras > hashatz that it's not obvious. R' Zev Sero responded: > No, these kolos are not part of the 100. These are an extra 30, > *after* the 100, and their only purpose is le'arvev es hasoton. > And yet that doesn't count as "bechinam". Okay, folks, I think it is clear that some of us have been exposed to minhagim that the others are unaware of. I suggest that we clarify the various minhagim, and tally up the different ways of dong it. >From what I've seen, the vast majority of Nusach Ashkenaz shuls blow 30 times before Musaf, 30 during Chazaras Hashatz, 40 during or after Kaddish Tiskabel, and that is the end, for a total of exactly 100. I have been in a Nusach Sfard shul where they blow 30 times before Musaf, 30 during the silent Musaf, 30 during Chazaras Hashatz, 10 during or after Kaddish Tiskabel, and that is the end, for a total of exactly 100. Here in Elizabeth, we blow 30 times before Musaf, 60 during Chazaras Hashatz, 10 during Kaddish Tiskabel, and that is the end, for a total of exactly 100. R' Zev, could you describe for us how the first 100 are blown, and when the extra 30 come in? And if anyone else wants to add to the list, please do so! Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/555e8cc570114cc51cdast04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 01:14:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 11:14:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat Message-ID: REMT wrote > True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature > of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so > accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul > Shabbos. (Of course, by this argument, putting an electric light on or off > should be prohibited even if the use of electricity is not a m'lacha.) In particular using an preset switch to turn lights and off should be prohibited. While RMF originally did object he later changed his mind when it became the norm. In fact even the kosher lamp might be prohibited Can someone come up with a definition of zilzul shabbat? Is every modern way of doing any melacha that does not technically violate hilchot shabbat zilzul? The gemara allows using the sun for cooking on shabbat - why isn't that zilzul shabbat? -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 07:59:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Sassoon via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 15:59:41 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003901d0949f$eed65840$cc8308c0$@org.uk> RZS writes: >That's not a kulah, because the issur is davka when it's bechinam, I don't think that is exactly the correct phrasing to explain the situation. Rather, there is the general blanket rabbinic issur on playing musical instruments on yom tov, into which sounding shofar prima facie falls. This general issur is pushed aside by the d'orisa positive mitzvah of blowing shofar (noting that, at least according to the famous Taz, because rabbinic power doesn't stretch far enough to allow the banning of something which is a mitzvah d'orisa in every circumstances in which it would occur, as this would do - but is only in allowed situations where only sometimes the mitzvah would not end up being performed, such as Rosh Hashana on shabbas). This rabbinic issur of playing musical instruments on yom tov vis a vis the shofar is also pushed aside in other rabbinically recognised circumstances - including (according to the majority rishonim, Shulchan Aruch and Rema, although there are major rishonic dissenters) nachas ruach d'nashim. The case of the katan may well be different, given that the fundamental issue with katanim is chinuch (which might perhaps be said to cut both ways here). > and so long as there's a reason it's not chinam. Their wish to hear shofar >the way this rishon or that one wanted it heard is at least as good a >reason as our "le`arvev es hasoton", or giving women a "nachas ruach". Leaving aside nachas ruach, which has (according to those who hold by it at least rabbinic weight - ie power to push aside at least rabbinic prohibitions) - what is the justification for le'arev es hasoton? My instincts are that, to the extent that le'arvev es hasoton is taken seriously, the argument there is one of pikuach nefesh, which of course would push aside the rabbinic issur of playing musical instruments (think about it, if you can get a few extra years out of confusing the soton, how could that not be considered pikuach nefesh)? Don't think that helps with being choshesh for minority shitos. >However, your chashash brings up an interesting suggestion. if they >are worried about all possible chashshos, then maybe they should worry >about yours too, and they can easily solve it: let them go on mivtzo'im >and find Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all, and blow for them >according to these opinions. That way, not only will they have heard >shofar according to all possible opinions, and not only will they have >the zechus of those Jews having heard shofar according to at least >one opinion (which is certainly kosher, as you correctly point out), >but their "extra" tekios will be with a bracha! But aren't they then denying those Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all the chance to hear shofar according to the majority opinions by only blowing for them according to the minority opinions? Or are you proposing that they *then* blow for them according to the majority opinions? Either way you seem to me to be opening a real can of worms. The principle on which somebody who has fulfilled their obligation can then fulfil the obligation of another is based on kol yisrael areivim zeh b'zeh. But to what extent is that applicable in a situation in which that person would never, had the situation been reversed, have accepted the form of fulfilment they are offering the other. Ie since the person who is blowing the shofar refused to have these alternative ways of blowing as the fundamental method of fulfilling their own mitzvah, is it really areivus to then foist that form of fulfilment on others? >Zev Sero zev at sero.name Shabbat Shalom Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 10:22:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 13:22:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What is the Law? Message-ID: <20150522172240.022581829C9@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/sivan_v.pdf YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 11:16:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 14:16:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula II Message-ID: <20150522181627.GA5977@aishdas.org> I came across another one, more inyana deyoma... According to the AhS (OC 494:3) we used to wait for "laylah mamash" to make Qiddush the first night of Shavu'os, so that the omer could be "sheva shabasos temimos". Presumably this is following the MGA who has us wait until tzeis for Qiddush, and the AhS's "laylah mamash" means tzeis. The Taz (494:haqdamah) and the MB (s"q 1) have us waiting for tzeis to start *Ma'ariv*. The Qorban Nesanel (on the Rosh, Pesachim 130b) brings the Rosh as a ra'ayah against the MGA. The Rosh says that even though on Shabbos *and the other YT-im* we add from the chol to the qodesh and eat before it gets dark, we do not do so for the seder night. So the QN QN takes the implication that "she'ar yamim tovim" includes Shavuos. So the QN treats Shavuos like Shabbos, and presumably let you daven maariv and make Qiddush right after pelag. The QN is machmir in omer, the MGA is machmir in tosefes YT. And each is being correspondingly meiqil in the other. I would presume that the silence in the Tur, the BY and the SA about any waiting means that the Tur, the Mechaber and the Rama hold like the QN and treat erev Shavuos like erev Shabbos, RH, Sukkos, etc... (But not Pesach.) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 48th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Malchus: What binds different Fax: (270) 514-1507 people together into one cohesive whole? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 08:55:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 11:55:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <003901d0949f$eed65840$cc8308c0$@org.uk> References: <003901d0949f$eed65840$cc8308c0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <555F517D.4080806@sero.name> On 05/22/2015 10:59 AM, Chana Sassoon via Avodah wrote: >> >However, your chashash brings up an interesting suggestion. if they >> >are worried about all possible chashshos, then maybe they should worry >> >about yours too, and they can easily solve it: let them go on mivtzo'im >> >and find Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all, and blow for them >> >according to these opinions. That way, not only will they have heard >> >shofar according to all possible opinions, and not only will they have >> >the zechus of those Jews having heard shofar according to at least >> >one opinion (which is certainly kosher, as you correctly point out), >> >but their "extra" tekios will be with a bracha! > But aren't they then denying those Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all > the chance to hear shofar according to the majority opinions by only blowing > for them according to the minority opinions? AFAIK everyone agrees that all these methods are kosher, so those Jews are definitely yotzei the mitzvah. > The principle on which > somebody who has fulfilled their obligation can then fulfil the obligation > of another is based on kol yisrael areivim zeh b'zeh. But to what extent is > that applicable in a situation in which that person would never, had the > situation been reversed, have accepted the form of fulfilment they are > offering the other. Ie since the person who is blowing the shofar refused > to have these alternative ways of blowing as the fundamental method of > fulfilling their own mitzvah, is it really areivus to then foist that form > of fulfilment on others? They're not foisting anything. The people they're blowing for would otherwise not hear shofar at all, so they're clearly better off hearing even some obscure form of it, so long as they're yotzei. On 05/21/2015 09:55 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > R' Zev, could you describe for us how the first 100 are blown, and when the extra 30 come in? And if anyone else wants to add to the list, please do so! I'm talking about 30 kolos blown at the very end of davening, just before going home, and well after all 100 kolos have already been heard (30 meyushav, 30 in each musaf, and 10 in kaddish). Their purpose is le'arvev es hasoton. And I've never heard it suggested that there is any chashash issur. Thus my conclusion that shofar-blowing is allowed on RH for *any* valid purpose, and the only blowing that remains forbidden as usual on Yomtov, is when it is truly "bechinam". -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 25 12:15:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 25 May 2015 19:15:59 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Brisker Theory of Everything Message-ID: 1. The gemara (Ketuvot 5b) discusses whether causing a certain type of blood flowing is considered a Sabbath violation. The first attempt to resolve the question turns on whether "mifkad pakid or chaburei mechbar" (is the blood in the womb stored up or is it the result of a wound?). Rashi there (please look) seems to define this as a physical question. Is this acceptable or must we say Rashi was leaving out the "obvious" philosophical/halachic question (i.e. the physical was known, it's a question of how to categorize it halachically)? 2. That gemara continues to try to resolve the question and is willing to entertain the possibility that the halacha is like Rabbi Yehuda (vs. Rabbi Shimon) in mekalkeil (destroying) and like Rabbi Shimon (vs. Rabbi Yehuda) in davar sheino mitkavein (the result was not the major one intended). If these two issues were interconnected, could the gemara entertain this possibility? 3. If the answer to 2 is no, must we assume that when the Shulchan Aruch said he would decide the psak based on majority 2 of big 3, did he really mean this as a primary tie breaker, or only when he did not have a clear understanding of the underlying philosophy that resulted in their final opinions. 4.Is it possible that R'YBS limited his "canon" to only a few major rishonim (in contradistinction to R" A Lichtenstein) because the more data points included in trying to determine the underlying theoretical construct, the more likely a single errant point would skew the results? Kt Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 25 19:35:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 02:35:10 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir Message-ID: <20150525.223510.2086.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> After Machlon and Kilyon died, we find in Ruth 1:8-13 that Naami tells both Orpah and Ruth to go back home. Didn't Naami realize that they would return to avodah zara if they'd do that? Even if they had not converted yet, wouldn't this be an example of Lifnei Iveir? One answer I can think of is that perhaps this eventuality didn't occur to Naami. But several pesukim later, in 1:15, Naami tells Ruth that Orpah has "returned to her people and to her god; go back with your sister-in-law." Naami persists not only in trying to convince Ruth to leave, but she explicitly urges Ruth to return to her former god! This question is certainly relevant according to those who understand that Orpah and Ruth converted prior to marrying Machlon and Kilyon. But it is relevant even to those who hold that Ruth did not convert until afterward. It is one thing to dissuade a prospective ger from joining us. But Ruth had been living with a Jewish family for ten years! How can Naami urge her to go back to avoda zara? I know that the meforshim give various reasons why Naami did not want them to accompany her back to Eretz Yisrael, but do those reasons justify this Lifnei Iveir? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 06:00:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 09:00:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Who Wrote the Mishna Brura? Message-ID: <20150526130054.4548818394C@nexus.stevens.edu> I am sure that most will answer "The Chofetz Chaim" Israel Meir (HaKohen) Kagan. However, he apparently did not write all of it. I have been reading Marc Shapiro's latest book "Changing the Immutable" How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites its History. See http://www.littman.co.uk/cat/shapiro-orthodox.html Shapiro points out that Rabbi Aryeh Leib Cohen, a son of the Chofetz Chaim, wrote in his biography of his father that he wrote parts of the Mishna Brura and that is why there are contradictions in some parts of the MB. Which parts Aryeh Leib wrote are not indicated. Does anyone know? YL PS. I have found this book an eye opener and recommend it highly. llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 10:19:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kaganoff via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 13:19:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 12:01 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 01:53:10PM -0400, Kaganoff via Avodah wrote: > : For many years i had extreme difficulty with R. Elchanan Wasserman > understanding > : as it conflicted with my belief that Judaism (and other religions) was > not > : logically provable (contra to Moshe Mendelssohn and his contemporaries) > and > : therefore required a "leap of faith" and that a disbeliever could not be > : faulted for failing to take such a jump. > > This is a false dichotomy. Logically proving things are not the only > way to justify belief in there. > > How do you know that (in a flat space) two parallel lines never meet? If > you're like me, you pictured it in your head. Even though infinite lines > don't exist in the real world. (Nor, does it turn out, does flat space.) Actually non-euclidean geometry is an excellent example. We cannot say with absolute certainty that two parallel lines will never meet or that there is only one line that goes through a particular point that is parallel to another line, as there is a well developed body of literature on non-Euclidean geometry (such as Riemannian Geometry). One might "feel" strongly that Euclidean Geometry is true and non-Euclidean Geometry is false. But someone might also feel that chocolate ice cream is superior to vanilla ice cream. But neither can be proven. > > Did you figure out that oppression was evil by logical proof, or by a > combination of imagination and empathy? > Calling anything "evil is not meant to be logical but rather to pull at an audiences' heartstrings. Evil is neither logical nor illogical. Nor can one "prove" that the Nazis are evil and that circumcision is not. However, that is a red herring. Again, emotions are not proof. Feelings are neither true nor false. > My favorite example is answering the question, "Do elephants have hair?" > A logical/verbal approach would be: Elephants are mammals, all mammals > have hair, and so unless elephants are the exception to the rule, they > must have hair. Elephants are well known and discussed animals. Could > they be an exception to the rule and I don't know it? Nah, they must > have hair. > > How it is more likely the question jogged your memory of elephants > you saw, or saw pictures of. The detail may be blurry, so you may have > to manipulate the picture a bit. Finally, a version of the picture > which has a tuft of hair at the tail, maybe (if your memory is good) > some downy hair around the eyes and ears, strikes you as the most > familiar, the most real. And again you could reach the conclusion that > elephants have hair. > That is a proveable thesis. One could prove either way whether or not elephants have hair. Unlike the two earlier examples. As for whether one could prove the existence or non-existance of God, I don't have time now to start that discussion. > > (See for some musings about > the two modes of thought I'm contrasting here.) > > In I compare > different versions of the Argument from Design from R' Aqiva's response > to the apiqoreis through the Rambam, through similar approaches based > on more modern science. > > "G-d created" (Gen. 1:1): A hereic came to Rabbi Aqiva and asked, > "Who made the universe?". Rabbi Aqiva answered, "HQBH". The heretic > said, "Prove it to me." Rabbi Aqiva said, "Come to me tomorrow". > > When the heretic returned, Rabbi Aqiva asked, "What is that you > are wearing?" > > "A garment", the unbeliever replied. > > "Who made it?" > > "A weaver." > > "Prove it to me." > > "What do you mean? How can I prove it to you? Here is the garment, > how can you not know that a weaver made it?" > > Rabbi Akiva said, "And here is the world; how can you not know that > Haqadosh barukh Hu made it?" > > After the heretic left, Rabbi Aqiva's students asked him, "But what is > the proof?" He said, "Even as a house proclaims its builder,a garment > its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the > Holy Blessed One Who created it. > > Not very rigorous. Rabbi Aqiva's reply revolves around giving a parable > to make the conclusion self-evident. Not contructing a deductive argument. > > The more rigorous we try making it, the more arguable the proof becomes. > R' Aqiva's argument is far more convincing than the Rambam's statement > based on how objects lose form over time, not gain it. Or a similar > argument based on thermodynamics or information theory. > > (Ironically, every formal / logical proof is built from givens taken > as self-evident for informal-reasoning reasons.) > > Anyway, that's how I understood REW. R' Elchanan argues that on an > informal level, the idea that the universe had to have a Creator is > as obvious as a Euclidean postulate or the injustice of oppression. > I believe that such an explanation is disrespectful to REW. I am assuming that REW believed what he wrote and wrote down clearly what he believed as opposed to assuming that REW believes one thing and wrote another. > > To not believe in G-d requires a formal proof, which one's negios then > determine if they find it sound or specious, and whether they accept > the postulates on which it's built. > To believe and to not believe in God can be pulled off without formal proofs. However, it is intellectually dishonest to state that one has an arguement for God's existance and than say that we are not talking about formal proofs when a counterarguement is made. > Notice I didn't invoke any leaps of faith. > > Tir'u baTov! > -Micha > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 12:25:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 15:25:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150526192512.GA22762@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 01:19:53PM -0400, Kaganoff wrote: : > How do you know that (in a flat space) two parallel lines never meet? If : > you're like me, you pictured it in your head. Even though infinite lines : > don't exist in the real world. (Nor, does it turn out, does flat space.) : : : Actually non-euclidean geometry is an excellent example. We cannot say with : absolute certainty that two parallel lines will never meet or that there is : only one line that goes through a particular point that is parallel to : another line, as there is a well developed body of literature on : non-Euclidean geometry (such as Riemannian Geometry). Well, if we know the curvature of the space we're dealing with, we know which Geometry to use. And only one is correct for that particular space. :> Did you figure out that oppression was evil by logical proof, or by a :> combination of imagination and empathy? : : Calling anything "evil is not meant to be logical but rather to pull at an : audiences' heartstrings. Evil is neither logical nor illogical. Nor can one : "prove" that the Nazis are evil and that circumcision is not. I disagree with your reisha. Evil is an objectively meaningful predicate. Yahadus wouldn't work is evil were subjective. As for your seifa... that's kind of my point: there are truths that can be justified even when they are not amenable to formal proofs. : However, that is a red herring. Again, emotions are not proof. Feelings are : neither true nor false. Although the notion that John is feeling happy at 2:55pm EST May 26, 2015 is either true or false. Or some fuzzy state in between. It is a predicate, even if it needn't be a boolean predicate. All three of these comments are interrelated: Euclidean geometry is the only accurate description of flat space. Not every space, but flat space. People may disagree about what is evil, and Nazis may be able to fool themselves about what the word means, but HQBH did create a concept of good that has an objective definition. Even if -- again -- we cannot find it via proof. : > My favorite example is answering the question, "Do elephants have hair?" : > A logical/verbal approach would be... : > How it is more likely the question jogged your memory of elephants : > you saw, or saw pictures of... : That is a proveable thesis. One could prove either way whether or not : elephants have hair. Unlike the two earlier examples. As I said in the first paragraph, before the first ellipses. However, in practice, people aren't likely to use proofs to reach the conclusion. We justify our belief that elephants have hair in a different way. : As for whether one could prove the existence or non-existance of God, I : don't have time now to start that discussion. But my whole point is that proof isn't the only grounds for justifying knowledge! ... : > Anyway, that's how I understood REW. R' Elchanan argues that on an : > informal level, the idea that the universe had to have a Creator is : > as obvious as a Euclidean postulate or the injustice of oppression. : I believe that such an explanation is disrespectful to REW. I am assuming : that REW believed what he wrote and wrote down clearly what he believed as : opposed to assuming that REW believes one thing and wrote another. Um... That /is/ what Rav Elchanan wrote. I'm arguing that he is being misread because they think that REW invoking the notion of knowledge (as opposed to belief) is equivalent to his invoking the notion of proof. Instead, he invokes the synthetic a priori, of the self-evident, or whatever your theory of justification is of R' Aqiva's answer to the atheist or that letters aren't the product of ink spilled on paper. AISI, REW is saying that humans know there is a G-d, without his saying anything about the possibility of proving it. And that people then go about creating proofs for His non-Existence or Deism, to hide from that knowledge. Or, to be more loyal to his original wording -- because they took shochad to buy into a proof against the obvious. He might be saying that at some level, that knowledge lingers, no matter how much someone buries it under layers of counter-proof and convincing themselves. But I don't see that in REW either. Quoting: Now, of course, we shouldn't be astonished that so many great philosophers had difficulty believing that the world was created by a Purposeful Creator. Their minds were surely great, but their desire to gain benefit from the pleasures of this world overcame their ability to think straight. Such a powerful bias can divert a person's mind to the point that he can say two plus two does not equal four... After my signature, I'll quote Qovetz Maamariv par 5-7 from a translation provided by Pirchei Shoshanim. You'll notice it's nothing like the Rambam's attempt to formally prove an Argument from Design in Moreh sec. II. Really, all he says is that monotheism woul be self-evident if people didn't want to escape its implications on their lifestyle. Not proven, self-evident, and not that those who argue against it are less than fully convinced of their atheism (or Deism, or polytheism). :> To not believe in G-d requires a formal proof, which one's negios then :> determine if they find it sound or specious, and whether they accept :> the postulates on which it's built. : To believe and to not believe in God can be pulled off without formal : proofs. : However, it is intellectually dishonest to state that one has an arguement : for God's existance and than say that we are not talking about formal : proofs when a counterarguement is made. Not "argument", any more than your acceptance of Euclidean (or Reimann) postulates are based on argument. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_justification#Theories_of_justification and http://www.iep.utm.edu/epistemo/#H3 may be clearer than I have been. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "Man wants to achieve greatness overnight, micha at aishdas.org and he wants to sleep well that night too." http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yosef Yozel Horwitz, Alter of Novarodok Fax: (270) 514-1507 5. If you ponder it, however, you shall find that the belief that the Holy One, blessed by He, created the world is self-understood by any intelligent being -- unless a person is a complete imbecile. And there is no need for any [knowledge of] philosophy to grasp this principle. The author of the Duties of the Heart (Shaar HaYichud 6) thus wrote: There are people who say that the world came into existence by chance, without a Creator who caused it and formed it. I wonder how any rational being in a normal state of mind can entertain such a notion. If one holding such a opinion would hear a person expressing a similar view in regard to a water-wheel that revolves in order to irrigate a portion of a field or garden -- and were to say that he thinks it had been set up without any intention on the part of a mechanic who labored to put it together and adjust it, using all his tools to obtain this useful result -- the hearer would wonder, be exceedingly astonished, and think the man who made such a statement extremely foolish. He would promptly charge him with lying, and would reject his assertion. Now, if such a statement is rejected in regard to a small and insignificant wheel, the fashioning of which requires but little contrivance and which serves for the improvement of but a small portion of the earth, how can anyone permit himself to harbor such a thought concerning the immense sphere that emcompasses the whole earth with all the creatures on it; which exhibits a wisdom so great that the minds of all living creatures, the intellects of all rational mortals, cannot comprehend it; which is appointed for the benefit of the whole earth and all its inhabitants – how can one say that it came into existence without a wise and mighty designer purposing and conceiving it? Whatever takes place without purpose shows, as is well known, no trace of wisdom or power. Do you not realize that if ink were poured out accidentally on a blank sheet of paper, it would be impossible that proper writing should result, legible lines such as are written with a pen? If a person brought us a fair copy of script that could only have been written with a pen, and said that ink had been spilt on paper and these written characters have come of themselves, we would charge him to his face with falsehood, for we would feel certain that this result could not have happened without an intelligent person's purposeful action to produce it. Since this appears to us an impossibility in the case of characters whose form is conventional, how can one assert that something far finer in its art, and which manifests in its fashioning a subtlety infinitely beyond our comprehension, could have happened without the purpose, power and wisdom of a wise and mighty designer? How could anyone say that the universe came into existence on its own, seeing that everywhere we look we see signs of such inconceivably profound wisdom? How wondrous is the wisdom and design in the human body, how wondrous the arrangement of its limbs and organs, as all doctors and surgeons attest. How is it possible to say, with regard to such a wondrous machine, that it came into existence on its own without a purposeful designer? If anyone would claim that a watch had just come into existence on its own, he would be considered insane. We see this in the Midrash (Midrash Temurah in Midrash Aggadot Bereshit): An athiest came to Rebbi Akiva. "Who created the world?", he queried. R. Akiva answered, "The Holy One, blessed be He." The athiest replied, "Show me proof." R. Akiva said, "Come back to me tomorrow and I shall prove it to you." When the man returned the following day, R. Akiva began by asking, "What is that you are wearing?""A piece of clothing,"the athiest replied."And who made it?" R. Akiva continued. "The weaver", he replied. "Show me proof", R. Akiva demanded. "But how can I show you proof if it isn't already obvious to you that it is the work of the weaver?!" With this R. Akiva said, "Have you not heard what your own lips have spoken? Isn't it obvious to you that the Holy One has created this world? Doesn't the clothing testify to the weaver; the house and the door to a builder and a carpenter? Just so does the world testity to the One who made it." Imagine a human being born with a fully developed intellect. We can't imagine his great astonishment upon seeing, suddenly, the heavens and their hosts, the earth and all that is upon it. What would this man's answer be to our question: Did the world that he is seeing now for the first time come into existence on its own, without any conscious intent, or is it the work of a wise Creator? Behold, without a doubt, after contemplating for a moment, he would respond that all this was made with wondrous wisdom and extremely subtle order (fine-tuning). [We find this concept expressed in any number places in our classical literature.] The Psalmist said, "The heavens declare the glory of G-d"(Psalms 19:2). [According the Duties of the Heart 2:5] this is also the meaning of Job's words when he declared, "From my flesh, I will see G-d!"(Job 19:26) [The Psalmist saw proof of G-d's existence in the magnitude of the universe. Job was saying that the very fact that something as wonderful as his body could exist demonstrates that it is the work of a wise Creator.] In view of all this it is therefore extremely puzzling, a great enigma: How could some of the greatest philosophers who ever lived have concluded that the world was brought into existence by chance? 6. The resolution of this enigma can be found in the Torah. The Torah reveals something profound about human psychology when it commands, "Do not take bribes, for bribery blinds the eyes of the wise!" (Deuteronomy 16:19). What is bribery? In legal terms, the smallest amount necessary to constitute a bribe is a "shaveh prutah"(not much more than a penny), similar to the minimum amount needed [for a court] to find a person guilty of stealing or of taking interest. This negative commandment, to never take a bribe, is directed not only at a judge, but at every man, even the wisest of men, even the most righteous, even Moses himself. Yes, if it could be imagined, even if Moses would take the tiniest bribe, a prutah, his perception of reality would be distorted; he would be incapable of bringing forth a just ruling. At first sight, this is nothing short of amazing. Can we imagine Moses or Aaron twisting the law and judging falsely merely for the sake of receiving such miniscule benefit? But the Torah itself testifies to the possibility, and "the testimony of G-d is trustworthy" (Psalms 19:8). We must therefore say that it is a psychological law: A person's will or desire [to gain some benefit] influences his mind [his ability to think straight]. Of course, it depends how strong the desire and how resolute the mind. A small desire will not exert much influence on a great mind, whereas on a lesser mind it will. A powerful desire [for gain] will exert even more influence. One thing is certain: no matter how miniscule, a desire for gain will always have some affect. Even the tiniest desire can cause the greatest mind to waver a fraction. This is exemplified in the Talmud (Ketuvot 105b): Rebbi Yishmael bar Yossi had a land tenant who used to bring him fruits from his [R. Yishmael's] orchard every Friday before Shabbat. Once, he came on a Thursday. R. Yishmael asked him: "What's changed this week?" "I have a court case this week", he answered."Since I was coming to town anyway, I thought I would bring you your fruits."R. Yishmael refused to take the fruits [even though they were his]. "I am disqualified from judging your case."Two [other] rabbis sat and began to hear the land tenant's case. R. Yishmael sat [on the sidelines] watching. At every turn in the discussion, R. Yishmael felt himself wanting to give advice to his land tenant. "If only he would say this now... if only he would say this..."After the case was decided, he exclaimed, "O that the spirit of those who take bribes would explode! I refused to take what was rightfully mine [and I still couldn't help being biased and wanting to see him come out winning]. How much more those who actually take what it is not theirs! It is known that the sages [of the Talmud] were angelic in terms of their expanded consciousness and saintly character. We nevertheless see that the smallest degree of bias could cause them to incline away from the truth. How much more so the rest of us who are sunken in the desires of this world! The desire for gain literally bribes us, saying, "Hey, look, the world is free to do with as you please!"How powerful this bias is! How easily it distorts our perception and blinds us! For when a person has "bought into"a certain bias, he is incapable of recognizing any truth that flies in the face of that bias. As far as that truth is concerned, he might just as well be in a drunken stupor. He doesn't recognize its existence. Now, of course, we shouldn't be astonished that so many great philosophers had difficulty believing that the world was created by a Purposeful Creator. Their minds were surely great, but their desire to gain benefit from the pleasures of this world overcame their ability to think straight. Such a powerful bias can divert a person's mind to the point that he can say two plus two does not equal four, but five. A person cannot judge whether something is true unless his mind is free from any distorting influence vis a vis the thing he wishes to judge. On the contrary, if recognizing a particular truth in any way contradicts a bias that a person has bought into, no amount of intellect, even the intellect of a great person, can remove or overcome that bias. 7. We learn from this that the foundations of true faith are simple and unquestionable for anyone who isn't an idiot. It is simply impossible to doubt their veracity. This is only true, however, on the condition that one does not allow oneself to be bribed. One must be disinterested in and free from the desires and allures of this world, and his own personal desires [for gain]. If so, the root of God-denial lies not in the distortion of the intellect in and of itself. It lies in the heart, i.e., in one's desire to gain benefit [from this world], which distorts and blinds the intellect. It is clear now why the Torah commands, "Do not stray after your hearts..." (Deuteronomy 15:39), concerning which the sages commented, "Do not follow after the heart's desire to deny G-d"(Sifri Shlach 15:70). A person is obligated to subdue and sublimate his desires [for personal gain], because this is the only way his intellect will be free of any blinding influence! He will then automatically recognize the truth of the existence of a Creator. This is what Rebbi Akiva meant when he said that the world attests to the Holy One, blessed be He, who created it. God-denial really has no place in a person's mind. Its place, if man allows it to exist there, is the heart; in a person's desire for gain. And if one would be careful not to allow his desires to overcome him, he could never come to deny G-d's existence or atttribute reality to any form of idolatry. It is a sign that one's desires have grown out of proportion if one is incapable of understanding this simple truth. And the commandment to believe in G-d? It is a commandment not to allow one's desires to overcome his intellect so that he will automatically come to believe. In other words, there is no need to struggle to believe. One must simply remove the obstacles that stand in the way of believing. It will then come naturally, of itself... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 11:11:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 14:11:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura? Message-ID: <20150526181117.9766A180F62@nexus.stevens.edu> Someone sent me the following which is also in Shapiro's book. "The first edition of Shemiras Shabbos K'Hilchasah had a footnote to the effect that some things in the MB had been written by the CC's son. See p. 263 n. 203. The full footnote is not in the later editions of SSK." Shapiro views this as part of the Chareidi attempt to keep certain information from the Chareidi public that they do want people to know. His book is filled with many examples of the "rewriting of history" to fit current Chareidi ideology. He also wrote "Rabbi Jacob J. Schachter wrote an article in The Torah U-Madda Journal about changes and mentioned the MB, the CC's son, and the original SSK footnote. See his "Facing the Truths of History" at http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/704426/Rabbi_Dr-_Jacob_J_Schacter/Facing_the_Truths_of_History (p. 225 and n. 114 on p. 264)." YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 12:44:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 15:44:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura? In-Reply-To: <20150526181117.9766A180F62@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150526181117.9766A180F62@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150526194413.GB22762@aishdas.org> And many of the books we consider the Gra's are students' records of his teachings. For that matter, people talk about what the Ari says in Peri Eitz Chaim or others of R' Chaim Vital's works. RALC piously takes blame for those occasions when he misunderstood his father's position, saying that these errors, rather than actual inconsistencies in the CC's shitah, is what you may find in the MB. But the CC takes ownership of the contents of the MB. See the title page (Warsaw 1884 ed.) "Ube'uri qarative besheim MISHNAH BERURAH..." ... kol eileh chibarti be'ezras H' yisbarakh, haChonen le'adam da'as, YISRAEL MEIR br' Aryeh Ze'ev haKohein zlh"h, mei'ir Radin." Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I long to accomplish a great and noble task, micha at aishdas.org but it is my chief duty to accomplish small http://www.aishdas.org tasks as if they were great and noble. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Helen Keller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 15:01:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 18:01:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150526220106.GA9900@aishdas.org> On Fri, May 22, 2015 at 11:14:15AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature :> of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so :> accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul :> Shabbos... : In particular using an preset switch to turn lights and off should : be prohibited. : While RMF originally did object he later changed his mind when it became : the norm. Actually, RMF's primary argument was mar'is ayin, which would naturally change as people know to blame lights turning on and off on "Shabbos clocks". : In fact even the kosher lamp might be prohibited Well, I would think that fits the zilzul Shabbos argument bewing used WRT the kosher switch. : Can someone come up with a definition of zilzul shabbat? The textbook case would be on Shabbos 6a: situating someone in a meqom petur so that someone in a reshus hayachid can hand items to them so that they could then hand it over to someone in a reshus harabim. Rashi ad loc explains "demezalzel be'isurei Shabbos". I think it's making a farce out of one of the issurim / chiyuvim of Shabbos. Notice that the case Rashi attributes to zilzul would otherwise be perfectly mutar. : Is every modern way of doing any melacha that does not technically : violate hilchot shabbat zilzul? : The gemara allows using the sun for cooking on shabbat - why isn't that : zilzul shabbat? I think the problem is more than just avoiding the issur, but making it trivial to entirely avoid it. Which is what I had in mind when I distinguished between eiruv, which is built into hotza'ah derabbanan, and community eruv, which takes that idea and stretches it until someone can pretty much ignore the whole topic of carmelis for years on end. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Strength does not come from winning. Your micha at aishdas.org struggles develop your strength When you go http://www.aishdas.org through hardship and decide not to surrender, Fax: (270) 514-1507 that is strength. - Arnold Schwarzenegger From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 16:14:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 19:14:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") Message-ID: In Avodah V33n82, RAM requested: > I suggest that we clarify the various minhagim, and tally up the different ways of dong it....And if anyone else wants to add to the list, please do so! < When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: -- 30 *dim'yushav* -- 10 *dim'umad* -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the post-"Aleinu" Qaddish) All the best from *Michael Poppers* * Elizabeth, NJ, USA -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 18:24:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 21:24:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir In-Reply-To: <20150525.223510.2086.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150525.223510.2086.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150527012443.GA5467@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 02:35:10AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : It is one thing to dissuade a prospective ger from joining us. But Ruth : had been living with a Jewish family for ten years! How can Naami urge : her to go back to avoda zara? I know that the meforshim give various : reasons why Naami did not want them to accompany her back to Eretz : Yisrael, but do those reasons justify this Lifnei Iveir? On a technical level, it would be mesayeia, not lifnei iver, and I'm not sure that mesayeia applies to 7 mitzvos benei Noach. But if you're just asking how it's moral... Just thinking off-the cuff. The timing is between eishes Shimshon and Shelomo's mistake with many of his wives. It would seem that women only pretending monotheism to join the Jewish People was common. If Rus was going to be a pagan either way, better not one who people would mistake for a geir. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet micha at aishdas.org about things most people don't watch even on http://www.aishdas.org Yom Kippur. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 00:25:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 10:25:26 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat Message-ID: <<: The gemara allows using the sun for cooking on shabbat - why isn't that : zilzul shabbat? I think the problem is more than just avoiding the issur, but making it trivial to entirely avoid it.>> In that case how about a "dud shemesh" according to the poskim that it is allowed because it uses the sun <> would there be a difference between doing this once and making this a standard procedure? -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 01:22:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:22:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <> The key word is "if" . That is the difference between math and physics. Math assumes axioms and from there everything is provable. Physics discusses the "real" world. This is based on observation and induction. Hence, physics is always subject to modification based on new observations. Hence, we have no proof of the curvature of the universe. <> Yahadus uses the Torah to define evil. Others don't accept this definition. Is ISIS beheading victims and their other acts "evil" ? They believe they are keeping the word of G-d. Destrying ancient monuments is viewed by the world as "evil" while they see it as destroying idols and hence a mitzvah. If we were to eradicate Amalek we would consider it a great mitzvah while the rest of thw world would bring us to the world court for genocide. <> But without a formal proof it is always debatable. You feel that the existence of G-d is obvious even without a formal proof (which doesn't exist) while Dawkins feels that anyone who believes in a diety that interacts with the world is a fool. You accept Torah mi-sinai while most academics are convinced the Torah was written during the late Bayit Rishon if not later -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 02:20:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 12:20:34 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] right and wrong Message-ID: Tangential to some of the recent discussions I wish to point out that the defintion of right and wrong is subjective and indeed changes through history. As one example consider the recent post on love from http://www.talmudology.com/ In the 1440s in England, Elizabeth Paston, the twenty-year old daughter of minor gentry, was told by her parents that she was to marry a man thirty years her senior. Oh, and he was disfigured by smallpox. When she refused, she was beaten "once in the week, or twice and her head broken in two or three places." This persuasive technique worked, and reflected a theme in Great Britain, where Lord Chief Baron Matthew Hale declared in 1662 that "by the law of God, of nature or of reason and by the Common Law, the will of the wife is subject to the will of the husband." Things weren't any better in the New Colonies, as Ann Little points out (in a gloriously titled article "*Shee would Bump his Mouldy Britch; Authority, Masculinity and the Harried Husbands of New Haven Colony 1638-1670.*) The governor of the New Haven Colony was found guilty of "not pressing ye rule upon his wife." What was obvious in one generation is no longer regarded as true today. Similar arguments apply to slavery -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 03:47:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 06:47:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 07:14:36PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: : -- 30 *dim'yushav* : -- 10 *dim'umad* : -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to blow. How do you do less than 10 *each*? Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 05:03:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 12:03:32 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir Message-ID: <20150527.080332.8051.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> I asked if Naami had violated Lifnei Iveir: : It is one thing to dissuade a prospective ger from joining us. : But Ruth had been living with a Jewish family for ten years! How : can Naami urge her to go back to avoda zara? R' Micha Berger answered: > On a technical level, it would be mesayeia, not lifnei iver, and > I'm not sure that mesayeia applies to 7 mitzvos benei Noach. Really? Perhaps I need a better understanding of the difference between the two. I thought that mesayeia was when the other person is going to violate the halacha anyway and I am merely helping him to do it. But in this case, the three of them have been living for ten years as a family unit, and regardless of the geirus (or lack of it) I presume there was no avodah zara under Naami's roof. This status quo could have continued for a long time, as we see even Orpah was reluctant to leave. But Naami urged and insisted, and it is difficult for me to imagine a bigger michshol. Pasuk 1:15 - "So [Naami] said: Look! Your sister in law has returned to her people and to her god. Go follow your sister in law." One of us might as well hand the car keys to our child on Shabbos and tell him to have a good time. Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:14:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:14:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527151410.GG27891@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 11:22:14AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : <> : : The key word is "if" . That is the difference between math and physics. : Math assumes axioms and from there everything is provable... Again, from a set of givens. The givens are accepted as the rules of the formal system. Which is why I spoke of the validity of Euclid's Postulates in the context of flat space. But my point was that there are things other than proof. : <> : : Yahadus uses the Torah to define evil. Others don't accept this definition. Nu, so they're wrong. We may not be able to prove to them they're wrong, but they are. Somewhere "out there" is a real objective definition. Regardless of someone's ability to know what they are, or to accept it if they did. : <> : : But without a formal proof it is always debatable... 1- That's a different topic. We're talking about how I justify my believing in something, not how I prove it to others. 2- There are synthetic a priori knowledge so self-evident people don't debate them. Which is why I dragged Euclid into this. EVERY proof STARTS with these givens. Logic is a means of combining postulates, not starting yeish mei'ayin. And thus no proof is actually more solid than its weakest postulate -- and that postulate is justified by something other than proof. And I brought up these notions because I think that without disentangling why I believe from how can I get others to believe, or the general concept of how knowlege is justified from the specific concepts of formal or experiment proof, we cannot get to what R Elchanan Wasserman means. REW says that if it were not for ulterior motive, G-d's existence would be as self evident as the conclusion that a calligraphied poem had an author and scribe (who may be the same person), and was not just spilled ink on a piece of paper. He doesn't yet talk about proof, and in fact, his language is that of informal justification, not proof. (I've blogged the notion that the more formal we make the Argument from Design the LESS solidly it justifies belief. See . For example, R Aqiva's -- or REW's -- version only requires common experience. The Rambam's requires dividing matter into Form and Substance and accepting certain postulates about Form and Time. Later versions will instead speak of entropy and time... But they all suffer from involving *more* givens and insisting they are self-evident and precede the attempt to prove anything.) REW then says that it's only ulterior motive that allows many of us to create arguments and proofs (validly drawn but from broken givens or flawed in reasoning) to let convince ourselves away from that default position. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When a king dies, his power ends, micha at aishdas.org but when a prophet dies, his influence is just http://www.aishdas.org beginning. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Soren Kierkegaard From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:33:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:33:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527153329.GH27891@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 11:48:03AM +0300, Saul Mashbaum wrote: : Very briefly, R. Rosner cites three approaches in the sources : : 1. Illustrating the truth - The Ran in Drashot HaRan drasha 5 - In this : approach, which severely limits the principle of eilu v'eilu, the Ran : states that actually only one of the opinions is true. The other opinion is : 'divrei Elokim chaim' only insofar as it serves to illustrate and elucidate : the other opinion, which is the real truth, as the dark enables us to : appreciate a candle... R/Dr Moshe Halbertal forms his opinion of the Ran's shitah on the haqdamah to haMafteiach leManulei haTalmud. He translates: It is a known fact that the entire Torah, written and oral, was transm itted to Moses, as it says in the tract ate Meggilah, R. Hiyya bar Abba said in the Name of R. Yohanan: The verse:...and on them was written according to all the words.." teaches that the Holy One blessed be He showed Moses the details prescribed by the Torah and by the Sages, including the innovations they would later enact. And what are those? the reading of Meggila. The 'details' provided by the rabbis are halakhic disputes and conflicting views held by the sa ges of Israel. Moses learned them all by divine word with no resolution every controversy in detail. Yet [God] also gave him a rule whose truth is manifest, i.e., 'Favor the majority opinion'....as the sages of that generation saw fit, for the decision had already been delegated to them as it is written: 'And you shall come to the priest the Levites, and to the judge that shall be in those days' and 'You shall not deviate....". (Quoted from . I do not know where to find the original, to see what's ellided or whether my own attempt to translate would agree.) This quote from the Ran pretty clearly backs the third position in RSR's survey: : 3. Multiple truths (Ritva in Eiruvin, Maharal) - Both opinions are true, : reflecting different perspectives of the subject at hand (IMO, this is : similar to the previous explanation, without establishing a hierarchy : between the truths expressed by the different opinions)... (BTW, I happen to agree with this parenthetic. ) OTOH, in Derashah #7, I think I could defend RSR's #2! To quote the Ran: We have been commanded to obey their decision whether it represents the tru th or its opposite ...for the power of decision-making has been entrusted to the halakhic authorities for each generation. Whatever they decide is what God has commanded. Compare: : 2. Levels of truth - R. Moshe in the hakdama to IM, and R. Yaakov to : Bereishit 26, the Netziv in his Hakadama to Haamek Sh'eila, his commentary : to the Sheiltot). Using R. Moshe's terminology. there is Emet Shamaymit, : and Emet L'Horaa. Both are correct, and in this world we are obligated to : follow the emet l'horaa even if it deviates from the ultimate, heavenly : truth. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You are where your thoughts are. micha at aishdas.org - Ramban, Igeres haQodesh, Ch. 5 http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:38:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:38:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5565E50A.4070406@sero.name> On 05/27/2015 04:22 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Yahadus uses the Torah to define evil. Others don't accept this definition. Why is that relevant? Objective truth doesn't depend on how many people are aware of it or accept it. It's true for everyone, whether they know and accept it or not. Those who don't know it are simply ignorant, and those who dispute it are simply wrong. Subjective truth is a very different matter. If a truth is subjective then those who dispute it are not wrong, it *isn't true* for them, and if someone insists it must be true for them then *he* is wrong. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:41:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:41:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] right and wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5565E599.6050709@sero.name> On 05/27/2015 05:20 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Tangential to some of the recent discussions I wish to point out that > the defintion of right and wrong is subjective and indeed changes > through history. No, it isn't and it doesn't. That the majority of people in the course of history have been wrong is no chiddush; the majority of people *today* are wrong. Truth isn't determined by democracy. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:42:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:42:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") In-Reply-To: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> References: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5565E5EC.7030806@sero.name> On 05/27/2015 06:47 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to > blow. How do you do less than 10*each*? Tashrat for Malchiyos, Tashat for Zichronos, and Tarat for Shofros. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 10:58:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 13:58:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Even More on Who Wrote the Mishnah Brurah Message-ID: <20150527175829.C3B57182454@nexus.stevens.edu> Someone on my email list spoke to a well-known Flatbush Rov and sent me the following: Reb Yitzchok I spoke to Rabbi XX this morning, and he did indeed confirm that the MB was not written only by the Chofetz Chaim. He said R. Moshe Feinstein told him that it is a work of a rabbim, not only a yochid. It seems that R. Arye Leib was not the only one to work on it. According to what R. XX heard the team also consisted of the CC's son in law and the mashgiach Rav Londinski. R. XX also told me that R. Henoch Liebowitz, the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim in Queens told him that his father Reb Dovid, who was a nephew of the CC, also wrote portions of the MB. So thank you for leading me towards this information. llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 12:38:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 15:38:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55661D24.8040207@gmail.com> Micha Berger: >> Rabbi Akiva said, ... "Even as a house proclaims its builder,a garment >> > its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the >> > Holy Blessed One Who created it. >> > >> >Not very rigorous. Rabbi Aqiva's reply revolves around giving a parable >> >to make the conclusion self-evident. Not contructing a deductive argument. >> > >> > ...there are truths that can >> be justified even when they are not amenable to formal proofs. >> ... I'll quote Qovetz Maamariv par 5-7 from a translation >> provided by Pirchei Shoshanim. You'll notice it's nothing like the >> Rambam's attempt to formally prove an Argument from Design in Moreh >> sec. II. Indeed, the Rambam himself in the Moreh Nevuchim recognizes this distinction and supports the superior validity of the non-formal approach. Chapters after he devotes chapters to formal philosophic proofs for Creation ex nihilo, he describes how a healthy (and unbiased) mind thinks: And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, /for one who is modeh al ha-ememmes/ (Ibn Tibbon; KPCH: /baal tsedek/; Pines: an equitable man) [contra Aristotle?see 2:20-23], is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an intender, and that such purposeful intent necessarily implies the production of something new [and not something that always existed along with the one who bears the purposeful intention for its existence]. (MN 3:13) Aristotle agreed to the premise that everything in Nature serves a certain purpose, and that every being contributes to the existence of still another being, but he refused to concede to the conclusion the Rambam considers something a /modeh al ha-emmess/baal tsedek/ is naturally convinced of. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 13:54:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 16:54:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <55661D24.8040207@gmail.com> References: <55661D24.8040207@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150527205440.GB22904@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 03:38:12PM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : Indeed, the Rambam himself in the Moreh Nevuchim recognizes this : distinction and supports the superior validity of the non-formal : approach. Chapters after he devotes chapters to formal philosophic : proofs for Creation ex nihilo, he describes how a healthy (and : unbiased) mind thinks: : : And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, ... : is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities : serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; : and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an : intender, and that such purposeful intent necessarily implies the : production of something new [and not something that always existed : along with the one who bears the purposeful intention for its : existence]. (MN 3:13) There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam recaps a point made in 2:19-20. And for that matter, if the Rambam was talking about not really needing formal proof, despite spending much of sec. II on just that, why would it be buried in a chapter that focuses on something else? 3:13 is about how the universe has its own purpose. It is not just an arena designed for the purpose of humans. He argues here with Aristo who says that plants exist for the purpose of animals, and in general, that things exist for the purpose of other things. Besides, the Rambam writes in 3:51 in the mashal of the palace, that people who believe because of tradition without having proof are like those who wander around the chatzer, whereas someone with a proof is like one who entered the prozdor. Not Aristo's epistomology didn't analyze issues of proof vs other justification. But clearly Reliabilism, trusting an idea found in a source that has already been found to be reliable (hama'aminim ... derekh qabalah), is not being considered good enough justification to fully accomplish life's goal. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 14:39:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 17:39:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527213945.GE22904@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 10:25:26AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> I think the problem is more than just avoiding the issur, but making :> it trivial to entirely avoid it. : : In that case how about a "dud shemesh" according to the poskim that it is : allowed because it uses the sun I don't know. Maybe because you still can't boil hot water if you wanted it, say, for your tea. :> The textbook case would be on Shabbos 6a: situating someone in a meqom :> petur so that someone in a reshus hayachid can hand items to them so :> that they could then hand it over to someone in a reshus harabim. :> Rashi ad loc explains "demezalzel be'isurei Shabbos".>> : would there be a difference between doing this once and making this a : standard procedure? Good question. I don't see "standard procedure" in the gemara, it looks like a one-off. It depends if we're talking about zilzul of kevod Shabbos, or zilzul of the melakhah, the latter being more of a "threat of slippery slope" problem. Rashi has "mezalzel be'isurei Shabbos". BH 337:2 "shelo yishtaberu" uses the same turn of phrase. Why would you be afraid of cheapening the issur if we aren't talking about that opening the door to future violation? The Tur OC 315, Beiur Halakah 344 and elsewhere talk about not doing things "shelo yavo'u lezalzel bo". Which clearly invokes a slippery slope argument; but not that zilzul is itself a slippery slope, rather than zilzul is such a problem, we avoid things that will slide us there. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is harder to eat the day before Yom Kippur micha at aishdas.org with the proper intent than to fast on Yom http://www.aishdas.org Kippur with that intent. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 14:49:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 17:49:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir In-Reply-To: <20150527.080332.8051.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150527.080332.8051.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150527214903.GF22904@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 12:03:32PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Micha Berger answered: :> On a technical level, it would be mesayeia, not lifnei iver, and :> I'm not sure that mesayeia applies to 7 mitzvos benei Noach. : Really? Perhaps I need a better understanding of the difference between : the two. I thought that mesayeia was when the other person is going to : violate the halacha anyway and I am merely helping him to do it... My understanding is that mesayeia is when the person was capable of doing the aveirah without you. Not "would" but "could". Whereas lifnei iveir is when the nazir is mei'eivar hanahar and you're giving him passage. The sugya is on AZ 6a-b. But, I see the Ran does say mesayeia apply to preventing a nakhri from violating the 7MBN. The Rama *YD 151:2) says we are meiqil and allow selling AZ items to nakhriim if they already own similar items or can buy them elsewhere, but there are machmirim. See the Shach YD 151:6-7, who discusses this machloqes rishonim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The mind is a wonderful organ micha at aishdas.org for justifying decisions http://www.aishdas.org the heart already reached. Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 18:33:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 21:33:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] measurement error Message-ID: <20150528013324.GA4749@aishdas.org> The topic I got caught up in has been the AhS and standard shiurim. The story so far.... Jan 8, when this thread was current, I wrote : > BTW, carrying 4 amos bereshus harabbim is 4 of one's own amos, assuming > they have mainstream bone structure. It's where I am in AhS Yomi. > But notice that we would naturally assume "amah" as unit of length, not > as a function of how far that particular person can reach. On Jan 11, I hit the topic again WRT eiruvin AhS OC 363:32-35, and wrote : > But then in se'if 34 he says something I do not follow, but key to > our discussion. > When dealing with mavui, where there is only one mavui and therefore one > measuring process to be used for everyone, the above applies. However, > when the measurement is only for one person's use, tbey should be > measuring for himself, with his own norms. > And here he adds a touch of subjectivity: a person should measure how > far he himself could walk. And the rule of carrying in rh"r a distance > of no more 4 of one's own amos is brought into that umbrella. > The reason for the general rule is to cover the personal amos of the > people who will be using the measuring. > BUT, and this is why I do not follow, he opened se'if 32 by telling us > the variability is 1/48 of the total (1/24 of an etzba per ammah). Which > is far less than the variability in forearm lengths in most groups of > people. For example, my own sukkah is used by Yoni, who stands 6'3" and by > my own 5'3" -- and my arms are on the shorter side, even proportionally. > When we hold up elbows together, my ammah ends just past his wrist. Not > within 47/48 of eachother. And then on May 18 I hit AhS OC 586:14 and tried reviving this thread . The topic was the minimum length for a shofar -- long enough to be seen on either side when being held in one hand. > So the shiur is neither personal nor really the standard tefach. It is > literally as the gemara says, what can be held and still seen. Which is > why there is a machloqes about where the tefach stands in relation to the > real shiur. But, visible if hypothetically held by an average hand. And > if the tqoei'ah has wide hands, he could hold a minimal shofar without > it being visible, and it would still be kosher. ... > What I find even more interesting is that there is no chiluq being drawn > between someone who blows in shul and someone who blows just for himself. > Wouldn't the rule from OC 363 mean that someone in the latter situation > should use what is visible when their own hand holds it? But today I seem to have hit an AhS which deals with shiurim that aren't human: revi'is, kezayis. According to OC 612:8, the shiur of drinking on YK is not a revi'is, but melo lugmav. And unlike akhilah, where there is one kezayis for everyone, melo lugmav is literally his own cheek. So it would seem that kezayis, and perhaps revi'is and other shiurim (beis se'ah) are not subjective. Which makes sense, since I can't figure out how to make a kezayis correspond to the person... Except RCVolozhiner's position, where it's the average kezayis then and there, and not a static shiur. Which could, literally, be the same shiur for all people (living there and then) and thus may be within the AhS's intent. Can't I get anyone else intrigued by this problem? Back on Jan 11, I was in hil' eiruvin, and hit upn the AhS's discussion of an ammah just as we were discussing the topic Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The purely righteous do not complain about evil, micha at aishdas.org but add justice, don't complain about heresy, http://www.aishdas.org but add faith, don't complain about ignorance, Fax: (270) 514-1507 but add wisdom. - R AY Kook, Arpelei Tohar From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:12:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:12:53 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul Message-ID: Micha wrote: The Tur OC 315, Beiur Halakah 344 and elsewhere talk about not doing things "shelo yavo'u lezalzel bo". Which clearly invokes a slippery slope argument; but not that zilzul is itself a slippery slope, rather than zilzul is such a problem, we avoid things that will slide us there. >> My apologies but I am still completely confused when one applies zilzul and when one says something is allowed as an exception to the rule. No purpose in giving examples as there are myriads of exceptions that are allowed. I have the same problem with "lo plug" sometimes something that would be allowed is prohibited because of "lo plug" and sometimes we simply say it is an exception. Perhaps the most famous example is lighting candles on leil yom tov. The wife of the Prisha says one should say the bracha first and then light since lighting (preexisting flame) is allowed on tomtov. The MA calls her names and says this is an obvious "lo plug". My impression is that most women follow the wife of the prisha. The question is what is the basis of the machloket either when do we say "lo plug" and when do we apply "zilzul" and when do we ignore these arguments -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 21:04:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 04:04:33 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir Message-ID: <20150528.000433.22403.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > My understanding is that mesayeia is when the person was capable > of doing the aveirah without you. Not "would" but "could". Whereas > lifnei iveir is when the nazir is mei'eivar hanahar and you're > giving him passage. > > The sugya is on AZ 6a-b. > > ... I will be the first to point out that Lifnei Iveir is one the many topics where my learning and expertise is severely lacking. Even so, I suspect that there is something missing from RMB's definition. In the simplest reading of the pasuk (Vayikra 19:14), Rashi says that Lifnei Iveir forbids one to give bad advice to another person. It is difficult to imagine a worse piece of advice than telling Ruth to follow Orpah back her her previous god. Googling the question "What is Lifnei Iveir" brought me to an interesting article by Rabbi Yirmiyohu Kaganoff (bio at http://rabbikaganoff.com/about) The full article is at http://tinyurl.com/ka3pwq6 and I would like to quote the part where he gives three different categories of Lifnei Iveir: > I. Inciting ? maiseis > > This occurs when a person was not even considering doing an > aveirah until someone encouraged him. Thus, the instigator incited > the performing of the aveirah and is therefore a maiseis. > > II. Encouraging ? chanufah > > One violates this prohibition by complimenting someone for doing a > sin, thus implying that sinning is acceptable. > > III. Enabling ? lifnei iveir > > One violates this prohibition if the sinner wanted to do the > aveirah, but was unable to do so without assistance. The person > who enables the performing of the aveirah violates lifnei iveir. > > IV. Even when none of these Torah prohibitions are involved, > helping the sinner do the aveirah sometimes violates the rabbinic > prohibition of mesaya?a y?dei ovrei aveirah, assisting someone who > is sinning. (It is unfortunate that the article did not cite a source or precedent for these categories, but please bear with me.) It seems to me that RMB is giving a useful tool to distinguish between category 3 and category 4, but that tool is useful only in the case where a person already has the *desire* to commit a sin, but it lacking the *ability* to some degree. If a person has only a mild inability to sin, then the enabler is merely mesayeia; but if the person has a severe inability, then the enabler is placing a real michshol. But what of the case where a person does *not* yet have a desire to sin? Rabbi Kaganoff is saying that one who incites or encourages him to do it is violating Lifnei Iveir. Even if the person already has the ability to do the sin, it was below his "bechirah point" until he was egged on to do it. Rabbi Kaganoff offers an example: > Inciting Someone to Sin ? maiseis > > The classic case of maiseis is when the nachash encouraged Chavah > to eat the forbidden fruit. Even though the nachash itself did > not eat, Hashem punished it for inciting Chavah to sin (Gemara > Sanhedrin 29a). Similarly, if Reuven incites Shimon to sin in a > way that Shimon had not considered, Reuven is a maiseis. And so my question can be rephrased: If the nachash was wrong to tell Chava to eat the fruit, wasn't Naami wrong to tell Ruth to follow Orpah back to her god? Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/556694205dac4141e6338st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 01:07:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:07:24 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim Message-ID: On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 07:14:36PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: : -- 30 **dim'yushav** : -- 10 **dim'umad** : -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the R' Micha Berger asked: "How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to blow. How do you do less than 10 **each**?" Many Rishonim (quoted by the Beis Yosef in Siman 592) hold that during Chazaras Hashatz in Musaf you blow Tashrat for malchiyos, Tashat for zichronos and Tarat for shofaros. In all of the Nusach Ashkenaz shuls that I have davened in they blew 30 before Musaf, 30 during chazaras hashatz and then 40 after Musaf adding up to 100. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:33:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:33:43 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: Micha wrote <> Well Micha and I agree on several points but still disagree on others. Agreed that people in real life don't use formal mathematical proofs. A sanhedrin can kill on a majority vote (OK there a little more than 50%) I also agree that if one is talking about oneself then feelings count. Saying they are wrong but I cant prove it works perfectly OK with regard to your own beliefs. It doesnt work when trying to convince others. Example: Your child comes home and says he learned that the world is billions of years old not about 5700 years. Or else your teenager tells you he doesn't believe G-d is loving because of the Holocaust or because of Amalek. You can tell him that whatever is in the Torah or Chazal is truth and its not open to discussion. That might work with some children. Alternatively you can give him/her one of the many answers that have been discussed on this list. That may or not convince him. There are no proofs that G-d exists or that G-d rules the universe or that G-d is just or loving. You can convince yourself but doing that to others is difficult, We have already argued about REW and I still can't accept it. The argument is that if someone else tells you why he doesn't accept G-d or that G-d rules the world whether for rational or emotional reasons the answer is that we don't believe him and say he is making up reasons. Of course he will say the same about your acceptance of Torah and mitzvot. To simply accuse the other of simply rationalizing his beliefs is simply not true. I have had enough lectures on why the Bible was written very late by many scribes to be convinced they really mean it. You may disagree but you can't accuse them of merely rationalizing their non-belief. In one class the professor said he would willing debate anyone who has a different opinion objectively. However, if you start that the Torah is from Sinai because of your belief then there is nothing to discuss. What is self-evident to you is self-evidently false to someone else. Again it is legitimate to disagree with that person but I claim it is not legitimate to state that he doesn't really believe in his own position. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:57:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:57:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura Message-ID: <> They state clearly these are things they heard from the Gra, Ari etc. No misleading. No different than RHS writing what he heard from RYBS and many other such seforim. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:55:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 05:55:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5566E62F.8040201@sero.name> On 05/28/2015 05:12 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > Perhaps the most famous example is lighting candles on leil yom tov. > The wife of the Prisha The MA's girsa in the Prisha is "mother", and the Machtzis Hashekel confirms that this is not a typo in the MA. > says one should say the bracha first and then > light since lighting (preexisting flame) is allowed on tomtov. > The MA calls her names He does not! He merely quotes the gemara Yoma 66b that "women only have wisdom with the spindle". Machtzis Hashekel says he is not even referring to the Drisha's mother, but to most women, who will not understand the distinction between Shabbos and Yomtov. > and says this is an obvious "lo plug". He doesn't just assert it, he cites clear sources that when a bracha must sometimes be said after the deed, we apply lo plug and always say it after the deed. Thus, he says, the same thing must apply here. (But see Dagul Mervava, who distinguishes this case because the bracha is different, and points out that if not for this distinction then the same should apply to the Chanukah lights). > My impression is that most women follow the wife of the prisha. Really? I'm surrprised. I'm also surprised that you've surveyed enough women to form an impression one way or the other. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:19:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 10:19:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:57:05PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> < teachings. For that matter, people talk about what the Ari says in Peri :> Eitz Chaim or others of R' Chaim Vital's works.>> : They state clearly these are things they heard from the Gra, Ari etc. No : misleading. I'm not sure about such disclaimers on the Gra's talmidim's writings, aside from Maaseh Rav. And if so, lo kol shekein in our case! Here we have the author of Shemiras haLashon -- someone known for thinking about what he said -- calling the MB "beiuri", "od tzarafti" "ki bo biarti", "upo hir'eisi", and "kol eileh chbarti..." on the title page. How can one argue he didn't oversee the entire work and checked the content? Nothing about parts being by Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger What you get by achieving your goals micha at aishdas.org is not as important as http://www.aishdas.org what you become by achieving your goals. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Henry David Thoreau From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:33:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 10:33:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528143339.GB4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:12:53PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : My apologies but I am still completely confused when one applies zilzul and : when one says something is allowed as an exception to the rule. No purpose : in giving examples as there are myriads of exceptions that are allowed. I think the reverse: the norm is to allow valid loopholes to the din, and it's only when the poseiq decides that the loophole would destroy some significant part of the feel of Shabbos (whether qedushas Shabbos or an entire melakhah) that we call it zilzul. ... : Perhaps the most famous example is lighting candles on leil yom tov. The : wife of the Prisha says one should say the bracha first and then light : since lighting (preexisting flame) is allowed on tomtov. The MA calls her : names and says this is an obvious "lo plug". : My impression is that most women follow the wife of the prisha. The AhS OC 263:3 does, citing the Perishah. Then he quotes the MA (s"q 12) and says "and many were choliq on him... vekhein iqar ledina." Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:45:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 10:45:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528144529.GC4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:33:43PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : Well Micha and I agree on several points but still disagree on others. : Agreed that people in real life don't use formal mathematical proofs... I would go further and say that far too many things /can't/ use formal proofs. And even further: even when you do have a formal proof, it is built from givens -- call them postulates or first principles. So, barring an infinite regress, even a formal proof is a structure atop things accepted without formal proof. I should point out that this a major subset of the field of epistomology. : It doesnt work when trying to convince others. True, but not relevant. We -- and more importantly to the origianl point, REW -- are talking about whether it's more natural to believe in G-d or not. Not whether a believer could then convince someone else. ... : We have already argued about REW and I still can't accept it. The argument : is that if someone else tells you why he doesn't accept G-d or that G-d : rules the world whether for rational or emotional reasons the answer is : that we don't believe him and say he is making up reasons. REW doesn't say that. I even cut-n-pasted a translation to support that point. REW says that he really doesn't believe, but he had to work against the natural state of seeing a world that shows obvious signs of a Designer. Someone can truly and honestly convince himself, or be convinced by others (including upbringing) that a poem really could emerge by someone spilling ink. But that's not what people would conclude if we lacked a strong desire to conclude that way -- the "shochad" of freedom if ein din ve'ein Dayan. There is nothing in that quote from Qovetz Maamarim about anyone not really believing what they think they believe. Rather, he ascribes a motive. : Of course he will say the same about your acceptance of Torah and mitzvot. Again, REW isn't speaking about the context of debate. Nor was I. By bringing it in, you complicate matters without addressing the original claim. REW is really just saying that the reason why believe is a fair topic of bechirah because on one side design is self-evident but on the other the desire to live without having to follow the Designer counterbalances it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger People were created to be loved. micha at aishdas.org Things were created to be used. http://www.aishdas.org The reason why the world is in chaos is that Fax: (270) 514-1507 things are being loved, people are being used. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:22:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 14:22:41 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> References: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, May 28, 2015, 5:19 PM Micha Berger wrote: > Here we have the author of Shemiras > haLashon -- someone known for thinking about what he said -- calling > the MB "beiuri", "od tzarafti" "ki bo biarti", "upo hir'eisi", and "kol > eileh chbarti..." on the title page. How can one argue he didn't oversee > the entire work and checked the content? Nothing about parts being by I agree he must have looked it over That leaves the question of contradictions And stories about minhagim of cc that are different than what is in mb From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:23:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:23:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150528152301.GE4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 02:22:41PM +0000, Eli Turkel wrote: : I agree he must have looked it over Which is why I think R/Dr MS is making too much ado over the actual authorship. : That leaves the question of contradictions Well, not every sheverer Rambam is a printing error either. Another case where the academic norm is to run far further with some fun concept than I'm comfortable with. Perhaps we should be looking for how the contradictions are only apparent. Or perhaps the CC felt than ruling al pi rov or safeiq lechumerah/lequlah in two different cases needn't results in consistencies between pesaqim. Before you spend too much time on that bothering you, recall when we daven minchah and maariv. If the tefillos are on two different days, you can end up following different definitions of evening on different days. : And stories about minhagim of cc that are different than what is in mb I thought R/Dr Seth Mandel's position is compelling. Look at the title page and the haqdamah. The CC never claims that the MB is a seifer of pesaq. Rather, he describes the work as a survey. From the title page, defining the MB (as opposed to the left column about the BH): I called my biur by the name MB since within it is explained (misbareir; c.f. "berurah") the words of the SA, every law by its reasoning and origins in the gemara and posqim that it not be like a sealed book. Also I will collect in it all the dinim, halakhos and biurim scattered amog the books of the acharonim, meforshim of the SA who are known (like MA, PMG, Birkhei Yoseif, Maamar Mordekhai and many such.) There are many of them after the Be'er Heitiv and they are not brought in shu"t because they are somwhat scattered in various places. All of these are compiled here, and all is in a straightforward and easy language and in proper order, with Hashem's help. And the BH: Also, I appended on its side some necessary inyanim titled under the name Biur Halakhah -- and as the name, so it is. For in it I sometimes explained the words of halakhah which are brought in summary in the MB without proof, and here I show (be"h) its source looking inall of gemara and the posqim. Also in it are sometimes explains the words of the SA at length in places which need explanation. (Sorry, just always wanted to bother translating that -- this thread was just my excuse.) So, the MB is a survey, and thus the halachic conclusions found in it (and explained in the BH) are purely what in theory the sources surveyed would indicate. It's not that the CC didn't believe in mimeticism, it's that the MB is a book of theory and therefore ignores mimeticism. The MB was written lehalakhah velo lemaaseh. Which makes it ironic that so many RYs of the mid- and late 20th cent worked so hard to make the work a "poseiq acharon" lemaaseh. Whereas he CC's own practice did reflect weighing shitos based on their acceptance. And so, unsurprisingly, in all the places I know of where his own practice didn't fit the MB (such as supporting a community eiruv, despite BH 364 "ve'achar") his practice does follow the AhS. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "The most prevalent illness of our generation is micha at aishdas.org excessive anxiety.... Emunah decreases anxiety: http://www.aishdas.org 'The Almighty is my source of salvation; I will Fax: (270) 514-1507 trust and not be afraid.'" (Isa 12) -Shalhevesya From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:11:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:11:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528151127.C0EE817F7D9@nexus.stevens.edu> At 10:33 AM 5/28/2015, R. Micha Berger wrote: >And if so, lo kol shekein in our case! Here we have the author of Shemiras >haLashon -- someone known for thinking about what he said -- calling >the MB "beiuri", "od tzarafti" "ki bo biarti", "upo hir'eisi", and "kol >eileh chbarti..." on the title page. How can one argue he didn't oversee >the entire work and checked the content? Nothing about parts being by I wonder if these words were on the title page of the first publication of each volume of the MB. After all, publishers do add things. One title page I found online for the second volume of the MB refers to the author as HaGaon. I doubt that the CC would have had this on the title page of the first printing. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:39:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:39:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: <20150528151127.C0EE817F7D9@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150528151127.C0EE817F7D9@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150528153911.GG4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 11:11:28AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : I wonder if these words were on the title page of the first : publication of each volume of the MB... Why wonder? Each volume: 1. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49623&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1884 2. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49624&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1895 3. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49625&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1891 4. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49626&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1898 5. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49627&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1902 6. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49628&pgnum=1 - Pietrekov 1907 (None call him ga'on, all have pretty much the same self description.) These fit the years of the first editions that wikipedia gives, based on "The Chafetz Chaim" by R MM Yoshor, pg 603. (But even if wiki has it wrong, they are editions published by the author.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Rescue me from the desire to win every micha at aishdas.org argument and to always be right. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Nassan of Breslav Fax: (270) 514-1507 Likutei Tefilos 94:964 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:10:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 08:10:56 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH Message-ID: http://menachemmendel.net/blog/are-you-a-mishnah-berurah-or-arukh-hashulhan-person/ see there also the r henkin review . he points out that the Oz Vhadar edition inherently has a difficulty in attributing notes to the [non-satmar oriented] relatives of the Aruch Hashulchan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 09:00:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:00:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the suggestion that a kosher lamp is zilzul shabbas. Isn't just a nice (and -- significantly -- *safer*) way of covering a lamp? If one were to make the argument that its convenience might make it zilzul shabbas, might one respond with "but safety"? Why do the rabbis deem the following to not be a case of zilzul yom tov: cooking a large pot of food on the afternoon of yom tov rishon, "in case people might stop by", and "I'll eat some of it" knowing there will be leftovers? -- Sholom -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 14:15:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 17:15:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") In-Reply-To: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> References: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> Message-ID: R'Micha asked: > How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to blow. How do you do less than 10 *each*? < 3 during Malch., 3 during Zichronos, and 4 during Shof'ros. On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 6:47 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 07:14:36PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: > : When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: > : -- 30 *dim'yushav* > : -- 10 *dim'umad* > : -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the > > How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to > blow. How do you do less than 10 *each*? > > Tir'u baTov! > -Micha > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 15:45:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 18:45:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528224528.GB28282@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:00:22PM -0400, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote: : I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the suggestion that a : kosher lamp is zilzul shabbas. That's okay, it's just a hava amina we raised here. No one AFAIK actually banned kosher lamps over zilzul Shabbos. The question was why a Kosher Switch (that claims to not even be grama) would be zilzul and not the Kosher Lamp. And then, many (most? the vast majority of posqim?) do not believe it actually avoids gerama, including the author of Shemiras Shabbos kehilkhisa. : Isn't just a nice (and -- significantly : -- *safer*) way of covering a lamp? Well, every case where one would discuss zilzul Shabbos would be one where there wasn't a more easily defined problem. So every discussion could be "isn't it just". I think the difference is that a kosher switch would mean being able to turn or off anything, whereas the Kosher Lamp is more limited, being a specific appliance. ... : Why do the rabbis deem the following to not be a : case of zilzul yom tov: cooking a large pot of food on the afternoon of : yom tov rishon, "in case people might stop by", and "I'll eat some of : it" knowing there will be leftovers? I would guess that similarly, because it's of limited utility. It doesn't totally destroy the concept of an issur of cooking on Yom Tov. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The fittingness of your matzos [for the seder] micha at aishdas.org isn't complete with being careful in the laws http://www.aishdas.org of Passover. One must also be very careful in Fax: (270) 514-1507 the laws of business. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 05:52:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 15:52:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Indeed in Europe before WWII the MB was not the "final" arbiter of halacha. Much changed when CI wrote in a letter that the MB has the halacha of a sanhedrin and one can't disagree with its conclusions. Of course CI himself disagreed with the MB and in fact there are published versions of the MB which include the disagreements of the CI. All to show that what is written in letters is not to be taken very literally. In any case that paid a large part of the change in attitude towards the MB. Certainly poskim of the previous generation who grew up before the war also did not take the MB as a final posek. As an example is RMF though I heard similar things from RYBS. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 08:24:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 11:24:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150529152455.GA5770@aishdas.org> R/Dr Haym Soloveitchik focused on the MB's more textualist slant vs the AhS giving weight to shitos that were common practice. Which fits R/DHS's thesis for that particular paper, the idea he was using that particular comparison to illustrate. But I do not believe it's the primary difference between them. I already gave what I saw was the primary difference. The AhS was written by a moreh de'asra to reflect halakhah lemaaseh. The MB was written by a tzasiq and a gaon as a survey of later shitos that weren't available to most people trying to learn halakhah. No focus (by the author, see below about others) on lemaaseh. I see this as the cause for the MB's lack of attention to halakhah as practiced. It wasn't so much that the CC was a textualist when it comes to pesaq, but that he wrote a book for discussing texts. A second difference is that the AhS's idea of understanding the halakhah is looking to see how the pesaq evolved from gemara (and Y-mi) to Rif, Rambam, Rosh to the Tur, BY, SA, and finally to the acharonim since. The MB is more focused on the halakhah in the acharonic period, and how to decide amongst them. Third, the AhS is willing to leave the halakhah fuzzy, and often comes to a range of conclusions rather than one clear-cut pesaq. Or, he will pasqen one way in one se'if, but in a slightly different case in a different se'if reopen the question: ... but if you hold like... The MB offers more clarity. An AhS fan might say that clarity is artificial, because the reality of halakhah isn't cut and dry with only one best pesaq for all people. But it does make it easier to open a MB than to try to decide what to do when you reach one of the fuzzier stretches of the AhS. Perhaps the clarity is really is artifice, and that's why we need LORs rather than thinking a book is our poseiq. On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 03:52:06PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : Indeed in Europe before WWII the MB was not the "final" arbiter of : halacha. Much changed when CI wrote in a letter that the MB has the : halacha of a sanhedrin and one can't disagree with its conclusions. : Of course CI himself disagreed with the MB... : All to show that what is written in letters is not to be taken very : literally... Although it wasn't only the CI, so it's not all about taking his letter overly literally. Rav Yaakov Kamenecki and R' Aharon Kotler called him the "poseiq acharon", and RAK went as far as making sure the MB would appear in photos of him. See also our 2006 discussion Aruch Hashulchan vs. Mishna berura OTOH, R YH Henkin testified about his famous grandfather ( quoting his own Bnei Banim vol. 2 page 31): AH saw the MB; see 11:22; 12:4; 28:23; 62:4; 268:6; and other places where he mentions Mishnah Berurah by name. In 79:11 and 319:22 and elsewhere he disagrees with him by name and in innumerable places he disagrees with him without mentioning his name: for instance, in 55:20 he is writing against the Mishnah Berurah and similarly in 370:13 -- this is obvious anyone who looks carefully. So it is a mitzvah to let people know that AH is not only a Sefer Halacha but also a response to the Mishnah Brerurah. OTOH, similarly R [Shmuel] Yaakov Weinberg (Ner Israel) considered the AhS the more authoritative. And minutes before my chupah (while waiting for the paper to burn to have ashes for my head), R' Dovid Lifshitz asked if I had one for my new home, because it was closer to halakhah as my ancestors held. (RDL knew my family back in Suvalk.) As for RMF, RDF and RRF both agreed that RMF gave priority to the AhS because R' Yechiel Michl Epstein had a qehillah, and therefore the more practiced poseiq of the two. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger People were created to be loved. micha at aishdas.org Things were created to be used. http://www.aishdas.org The reason why the world is in chaos is that Fax: (270) 514-1507 things are being loved, people are being used. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 30 16:03:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 00:03:21 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] : Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001f01d09b2c$d37ec030$7a7c4090$@org.uk> I wrote: >> But aren't they then denying those Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all >> the chance to hear shofar according to the majority opinions by only blowing >> for them according to the minority opinions? And RZS replied: >AFAIK everyone agrees that all these methods are kosher, so those Jews >are definitely yotzei the mitzvah. ... >They're not foisting anything. The people they're blowing for would >otherwise not hear shofar at all, so they're clearly better off hearing >even some obscure form of it, so long as they're yotzei. But if these people who want to hear the shofar blown according to minority shitos are capable of finding people who would otherwise not hear shofar at all and blowing for them, they are *also* capable of finding such people in circumstances where they then blow for them according to the majority shitos. For it to be true that "they're clearly better off hearing some obscure form of it, so long as they are yotzei" - you have to be assuming that the people doing the blowing would only be prepared to go to the trouble of blowing to fulfil their desire to fulfil minority shitos but NOT where the result is only to ensure that fellow Jews perform a mitzvah. You may be correct that indeed people are more concerned with making sure they themselves have fulfilled the mitzvah of shofar in every possible permutation than in making sure another Jew performs the mitzvah at all, but could anybody honestly regard that as praiseworthy? As a consequence, I then raised a halachic query: > The principle on which > somebody who has fulfilled their obligation can then fulfil the obligation > of another is based on kol yisrael areivim zeh b'zeh. But to what extent is > that applicable in a situation in which that person would never, had the > situation been reversed, have accepted the form of fulfilment they are > offering the other. Ie since the person who is blowing the shofar refused > to have these alternative ways of blowing as the fundamental method of > fulfilling their own mitzvah, is it really areivus to then foist that form > of fulfilment on others? RZS's assumption is that, so long as everybody agrees that a form of blowing is kosher bidieved, then areivus works, but I wonder whether this is necessarily true. Areivus is a fascinating halachic concept - it allows somebody who has already fulfilled a mitzvah to do it again, including (importantly) making brachos again (which they would otherwise not be permitted to do) on behalf of another. I went for a bit of a hunt over Yom Tov to see what I could find regarding areivus, but did not turn up much. First of all, the pasuk from the Torah regarding Areivus is brought in Shevuos 39a as being based on the Vayikra 26:37 [vchashlu ish b'achiv] - which is then explained as meaning that a man in *the sin* of his brother so as to teach that kol yisrael areivim ze l'zeh. But while that seems a valid source for what might be considered "negative" areivus or areivus in relation to lo ta'asehs (and the obligation to protest), it led me to wonder how straightforwardly that gets you to what might be called "positive" areivus - ie doing something, such as performing the mitzvah of shofar on behalf of another [not that I have seen this distinction between "negative" and "positive" areivus anywhere]. Ie while you can see that if is permitted to blow shofar for somebody who was otherwise unable to fulfil the mitzvah, and one failed to do so, one might then be considered to have stumbled into the sin of that person's omission - ie failure to perform an aseh - it seems a leap to therefore derive from this particular pasuk that one has the power to fulfil and make brachos on behalf of that person. If anything I would have thought perhaps v'ahavta re'echa k'mocha seemed more likely, but I couldn't find any reference. Note that areivus would seem not to be shlichus, as one can make a shaliach out of somebody who is themselves not commanded in a particular thing - whereas that is not applicable for areivus where the original level of obligation must be at least equal on the part of the arev. [This is all leaving aside the famous Rosh Brachos perek 3 siman 13 which states that areivus does not apply to women, which is clearly discussing what might be termed positive areivus ie making brachos on behalf of one another, and which the achronim generally limit to cases where there is no equal obligation, despite what may seem to be the simple pshat, or the Tosphos in Kidushin 70b that areivus does not apply to gerim - which must surely at most [and here it seems to me you need the definition of negative and positive areivus] to be only a reference to negative areivus - otherwise this would be raised as a problem of a ger making brachos on behalf of others - although given the source of the Tosphos in Sotah 37b, this would also seem to apply to women for the same reasons - ie the number count being made by reference to the 603,550 in the midbar not including the eruv rav, and not including women either]. The most I was able to find in my brief search over Yom Tov was a Birchei Yosef Orech Chaim siman 124 discussing the question as to whether a Ben Chutz L'Aretz who found himself in a village in Israel over Yom Tov (in the case quoted by the Birchei Yosef he had gone to Israel to bury his dead) where nobody besides him had the knowledge to be Shatz, and who had already davened at home on second day yom tov the second day yom tov davening, could be shatz for the community by saying the birchei chol amidah. But there seem to be lots of other reasons to permit (as the Birchei Yosef does) in this particular case. In particular it seems to me, besides all of the Birchei Yosef's arguments, if you were to say that areivus was linked to v'ahavta re'echa kamocha, you can see why, if circumstances were reversed, the ben chutz l'aretz would want the same as he is providing to the benei aretz (ie the mutuality of areivus). But in the case that RZS has outlined, where the people hearing only the minority shitos form of shofar blowing would surely want the majority position shofar blowing if they could get it, can the blower unilaterally choose to force them to fulfil their obligation via a set of minority shitos via areivus, or does the principle of areivus not stretch that far? More generally, if somebody holds a particular position as being the ikar, can they under the principle of areivus perform a mitzvah on behalf of somebody who holds by a contradictory position, so that what the arev is doing is, according to him, possul? How about the reverse situation? And that gets us to RZS's case, where it might be agreed that a particular form is kosher bidieved, but if the arev could provide a l'chatchila version and chooses not to, can he be genuinely be said to be a real arev? How good a guarantor must a guarantor be to be considered a guarantor at all? I am sure some achron has written a treatise on areivus which must cover these kinds of topics, but so far I haven't found it. Zev Sero zev at sero.name Shavuah tov Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 12:25:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 15:25:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] FORBIDDING WOMEN DRIVERS: A HALACHIC ANALYSIS Message-ID: <20150529192533.D89D0182BDA@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/nqnquzc The media has widely reported that a Belz Yeshiva in England has forbidden women from driving their children to Yeshiva. It was further reported that if the mothers do not comply, the children will be thrown out of Yeshiva. In a letter sent to parents last week, seen by the Jewish Chronicle, they say there has been an increase in the number of mothers driving their children to school and add that this has led to ?great resentment among parents of pupils of our [Hasidic] institutions?. The letter says the ban, to come into force in the summer, is based on the recommendations of Rabbi Yissachar Dov Rokeach, the Belzer spiritual leader in Israel. It says that if a mother has no other choice but to drive her child to school ? for medical reasons, for example ? she should ?submit a request to the special committee to this effect and the committee shall consider her request.? The question is what does halacha have to say about this? See the above URL for more. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 14:04:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 17:04:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <5568D45F.9010809@gmail.com> R. Micha Berger maintained that R. E. Wasserman was not positing a formal proof for G-d's existence, formal proofs not being the only way, or even the superior way, to establish truths. I cited a passage in the Moreh Nevuchim to support this concept. But as is occasionally the case, R. MB disagrees with me, even when I attempt to defend him: ZL: Indeed, the Rambam himself in the Moreh Nevuchim recognizes this : distinction and supports the superior validity of the non-formal : approach. Chapters after he devotes chapters to formal philosophic : proofs for Creation ex nihilo, he describes how a healthy (and : unbiased) mind thinks: : :And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, //for //one who ismodeh al ha-ememmes// (RMB substituted an ellipsis for this :crucial clause) :is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities :serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; :and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an :intender, and that such purposeful intent necessarily implies the :production of something new [and not something that always existed :along with the one who bears the purposeful intention for its :existence]. (MN 3:13) RMB: There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam recaps a point made in 2:19-20. In 2:19-20 Rambam makes no reference to each component or entity in nature providing a benefit for another, and certainly does not use that there as a proof for Creation ex nihilo. *(Section II is devoted to developing the argument against a naturally necessary eternal world based on ''particularization,'' the differing formations and behaviors of things despite their being made of the same materials.) * ** *Perhaps you are referring to the fact that in both the argument there and here the crucial concluding step invokes the mindset that purposeful intention on G-d's part (which Aristotle as well attributes to G-d) indicates *a changeable will on His part (which indication Aristotle denies) that allows for and indicates Creation ex nihilo. But just as in 3:13 the Rambam describes that crucial mindset as something that is possessed by those who are modeh al ha-emmess, so too in 2:19-20 the Rambam first describes it as something that is ''pashut'' (KPCH) or ''mevuar" (Ibn Tibbon), which he will then proceed to demonstrate through more formal proof: It has already been shown that according to Aristotle... the Universe is not the result of intent of choice and desire; for if this were the case, they would have been non-existing before the intent had been conceived. We [proponents of Judaism?ZL], however, hold that it is /pashut\mevuar/ that all things in the Universe are the result of intent-not-of necessity; and it is possible for that Intender to change them and have a different intent. But in this chapter, my intent is to show by arguments almost as forceful as real proofs, that the Universe gives compelling evidence of being [freely] intended by an Intender: RMB: And for that matter, if the Rambam was talking about not really needing formal proof, despite spending much of sec. II on just that, why would it be buried in a chapter that focuses on something else? I did not posit that the Rambam's intent was to make the point that formal proof is unnecessary. That indeed is not his purpose. After all, the explicitly stated primary purpose of the Moreh is for those (himself included) who yearned to defend and support the mesorah through philosophical approach of his day. He is not interested in dismissing the project. He explicitly describes this /modeh al ha-emmess/ statement /as a tangential interruption/: After that statement, he says, ''I will now return to the subject of this chapter, viz., the ultimate cause [i.e. the purpose behind the universe being as it is--ZL].'' My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows the non-formal mindset of those who are /modeh al ha-emmess/. It is a reference to those who do not restrict their acceptance of truth to things provable through formal logic, settling for healthy, unbiased reasoning (and who thereby see the truth of Creation ex-nihilo as a simple conclusion from the fact of the purposeful hierarchy of nature). RMB: 3:13 is about how the universe has its own purpose. It is not just an arena designed for the purpose of humans. He argues here with Aristo who says that plants exist for the purpose of animals, and in general, that things exist for the purpose of other things. He does not argue with Aristotle on this point, as is clear in the passage from 3:13 that I originally quoted, and as he elaborates in the introduction to his Mishnah commentary. The disagreement (outside of the parenthetically mentioned one) revolves around the /ultimate/ purpose behind the existence of everything, and the question of why the intermediate steps in this world that lead to its finale of the hierarchy must exist, rather than the finale existing alone. (According to Aristotle, every component of nature is simply a necessity whose non-existence is absolutely impossible. It is impossible for G-d to maintain anything but the universe and its entities as they are. According to the Rambam, although every sub lunar being contributes to the existence of another such being, until we get to Man (and then the Ish Shalem), G-d could nevertheless have created that final being directly, without creating the intermediary plants and animals. Why He in His wisdom decided to do it as He did, and why he decided to create the heavens as He did, we cannot know.) RMB: Besides, the Rambam writes in 3:51 in the mashal of the palace, that people who believe because of tradition without having proof are like those who wander around the chatzer, whereas someone with a proof is like one who entered the prozdor. The ''modeh al ha-emmess'' proof, building upon careful observation of the world and and its components and creatures and theorizing as to how it all works, is also a proof. The inferior knowledge that does not lead to optimum closeness to Hashem is pure tradition without proof. Not[e] Aristo's epistomology didn't analyze issues of proof vs other justification. But clearly Reliabilism, trusting an idea found in a source that has already been found to be reliable (hama'aminim ... derekh qabalah), is not being considered good enough justification to fully accomplish life's goal. I did not refer to emunah b'derech kaballah. That's not what I meant by ''ha-modeh al ha-emmess.'' I meant what I said: the healthy thinking of an unbiased mind, meaning the thinking of such a mind informed by knowledge of the things that exist in the world and their behaviors, and explanations of how they operate. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 30 20:04:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sat, 30 May 2015 23:04:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] : Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <001f01d09b2c$d37ec030$7a7c4090$@org.uk> References: <001f01d09b2c$d37ec030$7a7c4090$@org.uk> Message-ID: <556A7A27.3000006@sero.name> On 05/30/2015 07:03 PM, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: > RZS's assumption is that, so long as everybody agrees that a form of blowing > is kosher bidieved, then areivus works, Not just b'deiavad; my understanding is that all of these shitos are kosher lechatchilah, they're just not the way we do them lemaaseh. Let's say they're not mitzva min hamuvchar. Or "de`avad kemar `avad, ud`avad kemar `avad but we do kemar". > But in the case that RZS has outlined, where the people hearing > only the minority shitos form of shofar blowing would surely want the > majority position shofar blowing if they could get it, We're talking about people who have no particular desire to hear shofar at all, or they'd have done so. They didn't bother going to shul on Rosh Hashana, so they're probably not even aware that there are different shitos in how to blow shofar, let alone have a preferred shitah. Anything that is motzi them in the mitzvah is an improvement over what they would do otherwise, and is a benefit for them. And we're talking about potential blowers who currently don't go out and do this, they don't spend their precious Rosh Hashana hours bringing this zechus to fellow Jews who did not come themselves to hear shofar. So what I'm proposing is a win-win. They get to hear the obscure shitos they want to hear, and the people they're blowing for get the basic mitzvah as the Torah commanded it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 30 20:22:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 30 May 2015 23:22:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <556A7E8D.70007@gmail.com> I wrote: > > > > But as is occasionally the case, > R. MB disagrees with me, even when I attempt to defend him I should have put a smiley after that sentence, or maybe even explicated that it was meant as a humorous observation of irony. It meant to imply that RMB is interested in emmess and does not make it a personal issue. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 31 00:59:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 10:59:58 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura Message-ID: RHS has said many times in his shiurim that the MB was not written alone by the Chofetz Chaim and that is why there are sometimes contradictions. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 31 01:08:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 11:08:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: "Indeed in Europe before WWII the MB was not the "final" arbiter of halacha. Much changed when CI wrote in a letter that the MB has the halacha of a sanhedrin and one can't disagree with its conclusions." I believe it happened even a little later then that. RHS who grew up in the 1950s stated many times in shiur that when he learned halacha in the 1950s no one learned Mishna Berura, people either learned Chayei Adam or they learned Shulchan Aruch with Magen Avraham and the Taz. If you look at the European gedolim who came to America like R' Moshe, R' Ruderman, etc. even after WWII they almost never quoted the Mishna Berura. >From what I understand R' Aharon Kotler was very influential in America in promoting learning Mishna Berura. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 31 10:20:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 13:20:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Texualism and the Mishnah Berurah by R. Micha Berger Message-ID: <20150531172101.ED88B180CD0@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://www.aishdas.org/asp/texualism-and-the-mishnah-berurah The author [of the Mishnah Brurah, the Chofetz Chaim] is clear: the purpose of the book was not to provide his own ruling, but to survey the later posqim who have added complexity to the field so that someone looking to reach a decision knows who wrote on the matter. Yes, the CC (or his son or other students who worked with him) often gave his own opinion, including our ?ba?al nefesh yachmir?, but it is unclear to me he intended that opinion to be a pragmatic ruling rather than a theoretical statement. This would explain why the Mishnah Berurah?s rulings diverge from accepted practice so much more often than the Arukh haShulchan (a contemporary work from the same region). Halakhah lemaaseh, pragmatic rulings, need to take such precedent and continuity into account; discussions of textual theory do not. As further evidence that the Mishnah Berurah was not intended to be a practical law guide, we have a lot of testimony that shows that its own author often followed the common Lithuanian practice over his own ?ruling?. Despite the origin of wearing one?s tzitzis strings out being in the MB, the CC did not. His qiddush cup doesn?t hold as much wine as the MB would require. (It is still in the hands of the Zaks family and has been checked repeatedly.) He advocated for building city eiruvin for carrying on Shabbos despite BH 364 ?ve?achar?. The Chafeitz Chaim did not say ?Berikh Shemeih? when taking out the Torah. Etc 1 I am suggesting that the CC?s textualist and formal stance in the MB is simply because the MB was a book for studying texts. And he did not intend to deemphasize mimetic tradition (the flow of practice transmitted culturally). This shift happened when the Chazon Ish in Israel and a number of American rashei yeshiva (such as R? Aharon Kotler) promoted the idea of using the Mishnah Berurah as a poseiq acharon. See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 00:25:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 10:25:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <> I have a book "The Goldilocks Enigma" by Paul Davies (cosmolgist) on why is the universe just right for life. Most of the book is to show how unlikely it is that the universe has exactly the right properties for existence. The second part is a discussion as to why this happened. He goes through all the theories including the watchmaker etc. One possibility is a "creator" . He adnits that it is logically consistent but finds iy highly unlikely. His own preference is for the multi-verse. The idea is not whether you agree with him or not. Rather here is an intelligent human who has thought deeply about these problems and does not see any obvious signs of a designer. I would venture that that is the opinion of most physicists and certainly biologists. What you consider obvious he considers very unlikely. Again we come to the point that REW claims that anyone who really thinks about the problem and comes up with a different answer than he does simply has an ulterior motive. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 03:08:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 06:08:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150602100830.GA12384@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 10:25:05AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : The idea is not whether you agree with him or not. Rather here is an : intelligent human who has thought deeply about these problems and does not : see any obvious signs of a designer. I would venture that that is the : opinion of most physicists and certainly biologists. REW would say that he found it obvious that the world was created, something deep inside (to add my own 2c: of which he is likely unaware) didn't want to live in a world with a Creator, so he thought deeply about these problems until he could find an alternative. (For what it's worth, I think most physicists believe in G-d.) As you put it: : What you consider obvious he considers very unlikely. Again we come to the : point that REW claims that anyone who really thinks about the problem and : comes up with a different answer than he does simply has an ulterior motive. But that doesn't make the person any less convinced. For that matter, the believer also likely has an unlterior motive. (I said that, I doubt REW would. I am just saying it wouldn't rob him of his point.) REW is asserting that before you even get to bias, the obvious position is ours. Their atheism is the one that takes work, because it's explaining away the obvious. After all, there is no a priori, obvious-as-a-postulate version of the Anthropic Principle or other such atheistic explanations of the universe's design. No equivalent to REW's not attributing a poem to spilled ink or R' Aqiva's insisting that a garment or bread testify to their makers. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Friendship is like stone. A stone has no value, micha at aishdas.org but by rubbing one stone against another, http://www.aishdas.org sparks of fire emerge. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Mordechai of Lechovitz From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 08:40:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 11:40:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] women making a zimun In-Reply-To: <20150602125704.JHYM8162.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo306> References: <20150602125704.JHYM8162.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo306> Message-ID: <20150602154026.GF23551@aishdas.org> Bringing this thread to where this belongs. On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 08:56:59AM -0400, Sholom Simon via Areivim wrote: :> There was no family or community prior to the 20th century in :> which girls or women bentshed with a zimun. : I always wondered about that vis-a-vis the following: : The SA"HaRav (written by somebody who was certainly not a feminist) : at 199:6 writes that three women who are eating together (provided : there are less than 10 men) are permitted to break away and make : their own zimmun. (l'chelek l'zimun l'atzman). ... : What I've always wondered about was: is he writing entirely : theoretically, or was there a practice among some which led him to : clarify this issue? : Thoughts? : -- Sholom The SA haRav says that they must participate when 3 men make a zimun. If there are three women, no minyan of men, and want to separate off to make their own zimun, hareshus beyadam. Then he takes on the case of three women who are eating without men, again "hareshus beyadam" to make a zimun. (Similarly avadim, but not a mix of women and avadim because we we assume avadim are capable of peritzus. Given that the part about avadim couldn't have been a practice in the Baal haTanya's day, I wouldn't assume his mention of zimun for women makes any such implication. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Weeds are flowers too micha at aishdas.org once you get to know them. http://www.aishdas.org - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 08:49:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 11:49:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Modah Ani In-Reply-To: <20150602.081411.27008.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150602.081411.27008.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150602154924.GG23551@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 12:14:11PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Areivim wrote: : R' Micha Berger wrote: :> ... When I told them that traditionally we held that they're :> probably yotz'ot with saying Modah Ani once a day, ... : I noticed your very deliberate spelling here, and I can't help but : wonder: Was there any family or community prior to the late 20th century : in which girls or women said "modAh ani"? Talmidei haGra. The Siddur haGra also mentions "shelo asani nakhriah" (the Gra had "nakhri" for men) and "shelo asani shifcha". Speaking of new minhagim: Modeh Ani is likely the youngest prayer in most siddurim, even younger than Lekha Dodi. It exists to compensate moving "Elokai Neshamah" out of that spot. (Asher Yatzar doesn't open "barukh" because it's a berakhah hasemukhah lechaverta with haMapil -- one before sleep one after. When we moved it, many (including the Gra), made it semuchah to Asher Yazar -- thanking the Creator for both body and soul.) Which is why I find it unwarranted to treat its matbeia as unchangable even in the face of simply reconjugating. But in any case, I'm in favor of most changes that give one pause to think about what they're saying or doing. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow micha at aishdas.org man's soul and his own stomach; a pious Jew worries http://www.aishdas.org about his own soul and his fellow man's stomach. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 09:16:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 12:16:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <5568D45F.9010809@gmail.com> References: <5568D45F.9010809@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150602161633.GA15555@aishdas.org> On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 05:04:31PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: :> There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam :> recaps a point made in 2:19-20. : : In 2:19-20 Rambam makes no reference to each component or entity in : nature providing a benefit for another, and certainly does not use that : there as a proof for Creation ex nihilo... 2:20 marks the end of an Argument from Design, which is what I was referring to. As it opens: "According to Aristotle, none of the products of Nature are due to chance. His proof is this: That which is due to chance does not reappear constantly nor frequently, but all products of Nature reappear either constantly or at least frequently..." This is a formal argument, unlike R' Aqiva's or REW's own appeal to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. I am saying that 3:15, when it mentions in passing the bit that :: And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, //for :: //one who ismodeh al ha-ememmes// ... :: is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities :: serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; :: and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an :: [I]ntender.... This is reference to people being willing to accept a proven point, and not accepting something as true because of a justification system other than proof. ... RZL, continued: : He explicitly describes this /modeh al ha-emmess/ statement /as a : tangential interruption/: After that statement, he says, "I will now : return to the subject of this chapter, viz., the ultimate cause [i.e. : the purpose behind the universe being as it is--ZL]." : My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that : there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows : the non-formal mindset of those who are /modeh al ha-emmess/... Agreed it's tangential, which is why I doubt that if the Rambam did want to say something that signficant, this would be its only mention. But I don't think it makes the point you're making because the Rambam already made design the topic of a formal proof. So the current mention of design in this aside is talking about a proof, not another verification system. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is complex. micha at aishdas.org Decisions are complex. http://www.aishdas.org The Torah is complex. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' Binyamin Hecht From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 13:24:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2015 22:24:55 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <556E1117.1050507@zahav.net.il> That a text written such a short time ago could have questions about it authorship really nails down how hard it is to have definitive knowledge of the past. Ben On 5/31/2015 9:59 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > RHS has said many times in his shiurim that the MB was not written > alone by the Chofetz Chaim and that is why there are sometimes > contradictions. > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 13:27:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 16:27:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed Message-ID: <20150602202700.GA7449@aishdas.org> R/Dr Alan Brill recently carried this essay by comparatively new chaver, R' Ysoscher Katz. I am sharing here the essay in full (see or for R/D AB's biographical introduction) for two reeasons -- or one two-part reason: 1- I think this post could start a nice discussion of the fundamentals of each of our hashkafos; and 2- Comments are blocked on the post, so it's not like I am stealing a conversation that ought to happen there. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you won't be better tomorrow micha at aishdas.org than you were today, http://www.aishdas.org then what need do you have for tomorrow? Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rebbe Nachman of Breslov Torat Chaim Ve'Ahavat Chesed Ysoscher Katz I was raised in the chassidic community of Satmar. I should make it clear from the outset: I am modern but not Orthodox. Do not get me wrong, I am observant and my practice is orthodox but that is not who I am. In other words, I am orthodox-my practice is halakhic and my belief orthodox-but Orthodoxy is not me. It is not an integral part of my identity. My orthodoxy is merely a means towards a religious end. Keeping halakha and accepting orthodox faith-claims provides me with the infrastructure which allows my soul to strive and pursue perfection. Orthodoxy enables me to be who I really am: a Modern Chassidish Jew. As I mentioned, my identity is comprised of two parts, Modern and Chassidish. I inherited these identity markers from my parents, the modernity from my mother and the chassidut from my father. Here, I mean real Chassidic, and not Neo-Chassidic. How my chassidic, homemaking and sheitel-wearing mom made me modern is a conversation for another time. At the moment I wish to focus on my dad. My father is the most non-chassidish Chassid. He does not study "chassidus," nor does he want to "understand" it. The few times I tried to explain to him Moshe Idel's distinction between theosophy and theurgy, his eyes glazed over. Chassidut is what he does, not what he learns. From his perspective, Torah is for learning, chassidut for practicing. His aversion is not limited to the study of academic mysticism. He also stays away from traditional kabbalistic or chassidic texts. He never studied the Zohar nor did he ever read any of the Arizal's writings. Not only would he not read them, he also would not touch them. He is so intimidated by their sacredness; he fears that his touch would contaminate them. Yet, despite never having formally studied chassidic texts, he still is the quintessential chasid. Chassidut is his essence, part of his religious DNA, but it is a chassidut that is behavioral, not intellectual. Chassidut is how he lives his life. It is the prism through which he encounters the world and the ethos by which he lives by. He adores his wife, loves his children, cherishes his community and reveres and respects his neighbors and fellow human beings, Jew and non-Jew alike. While this practice is not special, many people love their family and surroundings, its flavor is unique. It is Chassidic love, deriving its passion from the Chassidic teachings he has absorbed throughout his life. These teachings have filled his being with a deep religiosity, which, in turn, infuses his actions and emotions with a deep and robust spirituality. His love of humanity is, therefore, a love that is sensualized by its spiritualized valance. Chassidut does not just spiritualize my father's interpersonal relationships, it also enhances his religious practices, particularly the yearly calendar. Chassidut allows him to infuse the annual cycle with a sensuous spirituality. Satmar is a Hungarian/Romanian Chassidut (The broad strokes difference between Hungarian Chassidut and the Polish and Russian versions is that the latter were intellectually inclined while the former was not. Hungarian Chassidut was predominantly behavioral. This is, of course, a generalization; the nuances are far more complex but outside the parameters of this presentation.) Hungarian Chassidim are nourished by an elaborate "sacred calendar." They have more days of note than the conventional Jewish calendar, and their holidays tend to be richer than your typical modern Jews' chag experience. A Satmar Chasid's year is thus replete with days of deep joy and periods of intense reflection. While the Jewish calendar has several biblical holidays and two Rabbinic ones, the Chasid's calendar records additional dates of importance. Every winter, the Hungarian Chasid has six to eight weeks of "shovavim," a period that usually falls sometime between Chanukah and Purim, which is dedicated to repentance and introspection, largely focusing on sexual impropriety; the days of awe continue through the end of Chanukah, the potential for repentance lasts for them for two more months; Purim celebrations begin three days earlier than usual; and (a modicum of) Pesach extends all the way to Shavuot (based on Nachmanides' notion that the interim weeks between Pesach and Shavuot are somewhat akin to a chol ha'moed of Pesach). Combined these add up to a significant number of additional days of awe and periods of celebration. Qualitatively, chassidic holidays are different as well. Although many things distinguish a chassidic chag, there is one distinction that is particularly noticeable to the keen observer: chassidic religious celebrations are comprised of a dissonant blend of joy and contemplation. Here are some examples: Shabbat in Satmar is an incredibly meaningful day, bookended by powerful contradictory modes. Friday night is a time of joy, where the spiritually and mystically rich Lecha Dodi chant inspires celebration of the metaphysical significance of the day. While this spirit carries through most of the Shabbat, towards the end of the Shabbat the Satmar Chasid shifts gears, switching modes from the celebratory to the reflective. This transition occurs in a much starker manner than it does in most other communities. A Satmar Shabbat never ends at "shekiah." Sehudah shlishit is always a two hour affair, spent singing and listening to the Rebbe's dvar torah. Speaking in highly evocative tones, he expounds on the weekly reading, spending close to an hour challenging and rebuking his followers. Growing up, this is exactly what Shabbat looked like for me. My dad's Shabbat was intense and complex. While the day began upbeat, it gradually shifted into the contemplative. But, my father's Shabbat, like his chassidut, is adamantly experiential, text and study play a minor role in the development of his religious persona. Kegavna (a section from the Zohar which Chassidim recite during Friday night prayers), is one of the most powerful kabbalistic liturgical texts. Utilizing the connection between Shabbat and the number seven, a prominent kabbalistic trope, it succinctly articulates the mystical value of Shabbat. It emphasizes that Shabbat is a day of heightened divine intimacy and advanced mystical union. I have begged my dad on many occasions to read this Zohar text with me. He refused each time. Sacred mystical texts are for the elite. The lay receive their nourishment residually, from the spiritualized environment created by those qualified to access those recondite sources. While he will not study Kegavna, he does recite it every Friday night as part of the Kabbalat Shabbat service. Notwithstanding that he does not fully grasp its meaning, he reads it with the pathos and passion it deserves. Kegavna's power for him is metaphysical, not intellectual. Purim provides another example of the intensity of Hungarian chassidic practice. Many Jews celebrate Purim, but not the chassidic Purim. The chassidic Purim is unique in its richness and multiplicity. Communally, preparations for the holiday start early. More than a week before Purim, one can already detect the arrival of the holiday, both, in the discourse of the scholars and activities of the laity. The learned discourse focuses on the legal and spiritual aspects of the chag, while the public sphere is filled with people making arrangements for every aspect of the day. When Purim finally arrives, it takes on a distinct theological flavor. Appropriating the Zoharic notion that Purim is analogous to Yom Kippur (Yom Kippurim), Satmar Chassidim created a unique Purim blend that is both frivolous and somber. This day of festivity is overlaid with practices of repentance and reflection. While I am nourished by my dad's behavioral Chassidut, personally it is not enough. Behavioral Chassidut gladdens my heart but does not stimulate my mind nor sufficiently satisfy my soul. I personally seek a religiosity which nourishes both pillars of my being, the mind and the heart. My personal journey is, therefore, informed by a combination of my father's passion and the academic's sophistication. Chassidus resonates with both of them, sometimes simultaneously, when the intellectual engagement and behavioral spiritual encounter complement one another, and sometimes separately, when I religiously shift back and forth between the intellectual and the experiential. Ultimately, the attraction to Chassidut is the fact that it can operate in different modes at different times, in the process offering up a variety of mechanisms to help spiritualize my life. It is precisely this multifacetedness which convinces me that Chassidut is the proper theology for us moderns. Its theology is perfectly situated to offer meaning and spirituality to the contemporary modern seeker. I feel strongly that it is our only hope. Chassidut today is not a luxury, it is a necessity. If the Torah-u'Madda project is to succeed Chassidut needs to become an integral part of its curriculum. Chassidut is of course a vast discipline, teaching all of it would be a daunting task. For the moment there are three aspects of chassidic theology that stand out as particularly suited for the world we live in today. 1) Truth. We live in a post-modern world where objective truth is rejected and absolute claims are frowned upon. I would go as far as to say that rationalism (in the general and colloquial sense) as a source for Emunah is bankrupt, it increasingly speaks to fewer people. It, therefore, behooves us to come up with alternative models. Chassidut could very well be that alternative model. Facts and empirical truth is not Chassidut's primary currency. While it does a priori accept the biblical theological faith statements, its goal is not to argue or prove the scientific veracity of the Bible's claims. Truth is not of primary concern for these thinkers. Chassidic theology has two main features. It is a-rational and a-historical. It is apathetic about Jewish historicity as a proactive theological stance. The Torah for Chassidim is there to teach us how to live life and serve God, the narrative qua narrative (the origin story) is mere background music. The narration parts of the Torah are, therefore, not of much theological significance to them, they are a-historical However, during those rare occasions when they do pay attention to the biblical "stories," their orientation is a-rational. They absolutely "believe" those stories, but their belief is internal: it is true because it happened in the Torah. That is where these events transpire and that is where these stories matter. Asking about their historicity is, as far as they are concerned, foolish and missing the point. At the same time, to the extent that the biblical narratives have religious and theological significance, they read those stories through the Rabbinic lens. So, for example, while Moshe's historicity is not historically relevant to them, his persona carries theological and ethical significance. The same is true for God's attributes. Chassidim are, by choice, apathetic about God as a scientific reality, his attributes and characteristics, however, are theologically highly significant to them. For that they did turn to the Bible, but the encounter with the Torah is filtered through Chazal. They see Chazal as essential to the understanding of the Torah. As believers in immanence they actually see the Sages as much more integral to the experience of the written Torah than the rationalists did. They did not think that the presence at Sinai (mamad har Sinai) ended at the giving of the Torah (mattan Torah). For them the Torah is perpetually and continuously revealed. The modern reader of chassidic texts would, therefore, not have to decide whether they scientifically accept these postulates in order to engage with them. Chassidut's goal is instead to describe an immanence which provides spiritual and emotional transcendence. Chassidut (informed, of course, by kabbalah) promotes a sophisticated immanence which results in a dramatic shift in Judaism's orientation towards God and His commandments. Prior to the emergence of chassidut on the historic scene, theology was convincing and Jewish observance was rewarding. Chassidut changed that. Chassidic theology offered meaning and kabbalistic observance provided sanctity. Personally, my rejection of the Maimonidean ethos and realization of the degree to which chassidut can speak to the modern searcher was a long and arduous process. It came about as a result of a deep sense of betrayal by Maimonides, the champion of Rationalist Judaism. I for many years was the object and fool of Maimonides "the seventh reason" as presented in his introduction to the Guide by not seeing his philosophic views. In that passage, Maimonides condones misleading the masses for their greater good, even to the point of advocating contradictory ideas for different audiences and then obscuring those contradictions. Growing up in Satmar and then Brisk, I was oblivious to his non-halakhic writings and led to believe that he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad. I was exposed to his other writings only later and when I did I felt cheated. I was part of that the masses, whom he thought could not handle his unconventional approach to theology and tradition. As much as I have read about him, I personally have not managed to reconcile his two sides. I do not find Prof. Isidore Twersky's harmonizing approach compelling or convincing. Realizing what a fool I was led me on a tortuous and circuitous search. As the Rabbis say about Yisro, ????? ??? ?? ??????; I explored all the options. I finally found the answer in kabbalah and chassidut, they speak a language which resonates with our current reality. They emphasize that which contemporary Judaism needs. The emphasis in chassidut on meaning and sacredness, are perfectly suited for our community. These are exactly the things our culture needs more of; holiness and meaning. This emphasis in Chassidut on immanence also generates a move towards spiritualization. 2) Spiritualization. As scholars have pointed out, chassidic teachings contain elements of spiritual psychology. They provide us with a language which helps us infuse our lives with meaning. One can point to many examples where this psychological spiritualization occurs in chassidut, I will mention two of them. Everybody sometimes has a bad hair day, when we wake up feeling less than optimal. Chassidut has a term to describe that mood; it calls it mochen de'katnus. While it technically means the same as a "bad hair day," the language is mystical. Mochen de'katnus describes a less than stellar spiritual state, a low energy level which does not allow us to engage in the usual religious pursuits we crave to pursue. Another example is Kabbalah's elaborate taxonomy of love and awe: Kabbalah and Chassidut talks about superior and inferior love (ahavah ela'e'e and ahavah tata'a) or superior and inferior awe (yirah ela'e'e and yira tata'a)While these terms primarily describe nuanced stages in our engagement with the Divine, they have traditionally been imported into the colloquial arena. They are used to describe varied emotional states which we experience in our interactions with our friends and loved ones. Contemporary life does not provide us with that many opportunities for encountering the Divine in our daily lives. Chassidut allows us to bring God in. Sprinkling our conversations with mystical and Chassidic terminology allows us to spiritualize our daily routines and infuse our mundane pursuits with meaning and spiritual significance. Besides enriching our personal encounters, adopting a chassidic ethos could also enhance our communal experiences. 3) Social Change. One of the most pressing tensions in the community is how to reconcile our values with our convictions; what to do when halakha points us in one direction and our values in another direction. We are tempted to follow our values but pulled to abide by our halakhic commitments. A proper resolution requires an emboldened stance towards tradition, one that allows us to cajole the tradition to reconcile itself with our modern sensibilities. [Using, of course, legitimate halakhic mechanisms developed by our predecessors when they were confronted with similar challenges.] Our values are so emboldened because they derive their power from Chaissdut. A chassidic life is a spiritualized life which infuses our values with powerful theological significance, and it allows us to aggressively challenge the tradition to reevaluate its assumptions and attempt to accommodate itself-when halakhically possible- to a changed modern reality. Chassidut is very explicit about the value of religious aggression. The following two quotes are often encountered in chassidic writings, "even a thief says a prayer before he breaks in to his victim's home" (quoted on the margin of Brachot 63A, from the Frankfurt manuscript), and "an aggressive stance towards the Divine bears results" (Sanhedrin 105A). While the provenance of these texts is Talmudic, they take on significant prominence in Chassidic theology. They become the impetus for an aggressive theology which is informed by a religiosity that sees itself driven by a Divine immanence which infuses our values and ethical intuitions with spiritual resonance, subsequently leading to radical societal change. Such change is actually an integral part of Chassidic social history. When one looks at recent major changes in traditional Jewish society it is hard not to notice that the forerunners were often Chassidim. The last sixty years have seen far reaching social and political change. The two most dramatic changes that have happened is that Jews are now sovereign and women have made significant progress in their pursuit of religious equality. The pioneers of both these changes were driven, at least in part, by a chassidic ethos. R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Rebbi of Lubavitch, was one of the first orthodox scholars to champion female Talmud scholarship, while R. Avraham Yitzchak Kook, a serious student of Chassidut, was an outspoken early proponent of a Zionist state. There is no doubt that their chassidic worldview, at least partially, informed their proactive stances towards these changes. Their adherence to a spiritualized religiosity allowed them to explore new religious vistas. Their unique theological outlook changed the religious and legal equation for them, simultaneously making their decisions more complex, but also more progressive. Their spiritualized worldview allowed them to see divinity in the ostensibly secular state or the seemingly illegitimate request of women for greater equality. Granted, this hybrid of chassidic spiritualization and robust religious creativity would be a 21^st century concoction, traditionally, these two do not go together. Chassidism, for the most part, frowns on change and rejects innovation. As a matter of fact, nineteenth century Hungarian Chassidim were vociferously opposed to any accommodations to modernity. Further, the contemporary thinker is not going to intuitively embrace spiritualized non-rational thought. It is, nevertheless, a match pregnant with immense potential and could go a long way towards reviving a dormant Modern Orthodoxy. Contemporary Modern Orthodoxy is struggling; a significant number of its adherents are abandoning yiddishkeit and many who stay no longer find it meaningful; inertia has set in. I suspect that Modern Orthodoxy's rationalist ethos is partially to blame. Current Modern Orthodox theology is Litvish and hyper-Maimonidean, it lacks a native spiritual core, and does not satisfy people's search for meaning. We are due for a change. Chassidus could be that change agent. I strongly believe that a chassidic theology combined with a sophisticated modern overlay could be the elixir for the dispassion and disinterest that ails our community. It will provide our community what it so desperately needs: a torat chaim ve'ahavt chesed; a Torah that stimulates our minds but at the same time also gladdens our neshamah. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 14:39:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:39:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> : > From: Micha Berger via Avodah > > [Rambam's statement (''And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, //for > :: //one who ismodeh al ha-ememmes// ... > :: is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities > :: serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; > :: and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an > :: [I]ntender...'') is not an informal argument, akin to R' Aqiva's or REW's appeal > to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. Rather,] it is a recap of a formal proof The Rambam made in 2:19-20... 2:20 marks the end of an Argument from Design. As it opens: "According to Aristotle, none of the products > of Nature are due to chance. His proof is this: That which is due to > chance does not reappear constantly nor frequently, but all products of > Nature reappear either constantly or at least frequently..." > > This is a formal argument, unlike R' Aqiva's or REW's own appeal > to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. Philosophers may disagree with classifying the argument made in 2:20 from ''frequency of appearance'' as ''an argument from design.'' But even if it is ''an'' argument from design, it's a different argument from the ''modeh al ha-emmess'' proof from the hierarchy of entities benefiting others. So the latter is not a recap of the former. And it does not necessarily follow that one who is modeh to the ''frequency'' argument considers the hierarchy argument ''one of the strongest.'' RZL, continued: : He explicitly describes this/modeh al ha-emmess/ statement /as a : tangential interruption/: After that statement, he says, "I will now : return to the subject of this chapter, viz., the ultimate cause [i.e. : the purpose behind the universe being as it is--ZL]." : My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that : there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows : the non-formal mindset of those who are/modeh al ha-emmess/... RMB: >Agreed it's tangential, which is why I doubt that if the Rambam did want to say something that signficant, this would be its only mention.< Again: Here, where the Rambam, for the first time, is about to bring up the hierarchy proof, he parenthetically mentions that it is intuitively understood by anyone unbiased. He does then go on to state the proof in a formal philosophic form. This is the most proper place to insert such a parenthetical remark parenthetically, and only once. It's not ''that significant'' for his purposes, because, as I had written, the entire purpose of the Moreh is to address people (including himself) concerned with hearing formal philosophic proofs and confronting the challenges that formal philosophic proofsbrought to the mesorah. Those interested in hearing an expanded version of the argument in informal form could find it in the Rambam's introduction to his his Mishnah commentary. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 16:04:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 19:04:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <103ab8.504f8d1e.429f9062@aol.com> From: Eli Turkel via Avodah >> I have a book "The Goldilocks Enigma" by Paul Davies (cosmolgist) on why is the universe just right for life. Most of the book is to show how unlikely it is that the universe has exactly the right properties for existence. The second part is a discussion as to why this happened. He goes through all the theories including the watchmaker etc. One possibility is a "creator" . He admits that it is logically consistent but finds it highly unlikely. His own preference is for the multi-verse. The idea is not whether you agree with him or not. Rather here is an intelligent human who has thought deeply about these problems and does not see any obvious signs of a designer..... << Eli Turkel >>>> On the contrary, he sees many signs of a Designer and he is so desperate to avoid the obvious conclusion -- because of his own prior philosophical biases -- that he adopts the currently trendy and absurd idea of "many universes" to escape from what he does not want to face. You see, if this is the only universe then it is so fantastically improbable that it can only be a miracle. But if it is only one of many universes, then it is not so strange that just one out of millions of universes would happen to have the conditions necessary for life. Normally the definition of "science" includes things like capable of observation or experiment, falsifiable, etc. But if you are desperate enough to escape G-d (and His moral demands) you will take something as airy-fairy, non-observable, not subject to any possible experiment, non-falsifiable as a "multi-verse" -- a product of the human mind that is as real as leprechauns -- and you will crown it with the noble name of "science"! I have a wonderful book in my house called *The Privileged Planet* that should be a science textbook in every yeshiva high school and Bais Yakov. Please please read it. It's by Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards. Here's the website with more information about the book and a video: http://www.privilegedplanet.com/ --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 00:03:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 10:03:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] MB Message-ID: The entry in wikepedia in Hebrew on Mishna Brura contains much of the information that we have been discussing. In particular it discusses the authorship of MB (ie the quote from his son) . MH vs AH and the change after the holocaust and other comments -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 05:39:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2015 08:39:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Standing at a Chupah Message-ID: <20150603123934.850661827E1@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is from today's Hakhel email bulletin. FROM A READER: Further on the point on standing at Chuppahs: Many think/say that it is because of Choson Domeh L'melech that they stand up for the Chosson. Yet, they should be aware that to my knowledge, HaRav Moshe Feinstein, Z'tl, never stood because he used to say, Doi-meh (L)melech NOT (Ke)melech. HaRav Yaakov Kamenetsky, Z'tl, stood but for a totally different reason. The question of L'melech or K'melech never entered into consideration as the Chosson is not a true Chosson until AFTER the Chuppah. Rather, HaRav Yaakov stood purely because of the Mishna in Bikurim (3:3), that discusses the bringing of Bikurim and the rule of standing Lif-Nai Oisei Mitzva, and since the Chosson is entering into a Chupah which will enable him to be mekayeim the mitzvah of P'ru U'revu, we stand. As to why we don't stand for everyone doing a mitzvah, it's for a mitzvah that is mei-kama zman l'zman, not a regular occurrence. The question remains as to a justification for why people stand for the Kallah, since she is not K'Malka (see HaRav Moshe and HaRav Yaakov above) and is peturah from Mitzvas Peru U'revu. HaRav Avraham Kamenetsky, HaRav Yaakov's son, told me that one can say that since the Chosson cannot be mekayeim the mitzvah without her, she has a chelek in the mitzvah and thus qualifies for Lif-Nai Oisei Mitzvah. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 06:57:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 09:57:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 05:39:33PM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : But even if it is "an" argument from design, it's a different argument : from the "modeh al ha-emmess" proof from the hierarchy of entities : benefiting others. So the latter is not a recap of the former. And : it does not necessarily follow that one who is modeh to the : "frequency" argument considers the hierarchy argument "one of the : strongest." I think our point of contention is simple: You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind justification that isn't a proof. Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. And therefore there is nothing in the Rambam about a justification that isn't a philosophical proof. For that matter, I would take his words to say this non-proof, being only meaningful to someone who is already "modeh al ha'emes", is not valid justification -- an instance of what I believe would be his general rule. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 10:58:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 10:58:33 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] ashtei-asar Message-ID: could someone explain please the ibn ezra in last weeks parsha ? someone asked about the origin of 'ashtei' and noted the this week mikshah is translated as eshet--- which must mean one solid piece so that must mean ashtei= one . but why not say achad asar ? [ he pointed out that 'eshet'= 770 , a number of completion ] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 14:23:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 17:23:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] ashtei-asar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150603212342.GA31632@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 03, 2015 at 10:58:33AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : someone asked about the origin of 'ashtei' and noted the this week : mikshah is translated as eshet--- which must mean one solid piece so : that must mean ashtei= on... The Akkadian for 11 is ishteneshret, ishten (one) + shret (ten). It is weird, though, that Hebrew would use a form of isheneshret without also using ishten. Then there's the idea in the Radaq (Mikhlol pg 140) that it was two that was collapsed from "ashtei" to "shtei". Which would explain why "shtayim" isn't "shesayim". The rule is that a sheva under the first letter is a sheva na (pronounced schwa), the legacy of the missing "i-" makes "shtei" an exception -- the sheva under the shin is nach (silent). Along these line, but presumably without the knowledge of Akkadian, the IE (Bamidbar 7:72, citing his own Sefer Me'oznayim) writes that "ashtei asar" is like "eshtenosav" -- that which were born from his thoughts. As though the 10 gave birth. "Vehu sod gadol". He then goes on to dismiss R' Yonah haSefaradi's theory that it means "el shtei asar". Because 1- "al shetei asar" would refer to the number AFTER 12, not before; and 2- "asar" (masc) would get "shnei" (masc), not "shtei" (fem). The gemara doesn't explain peshat, but interestingly R' Ashi's example (Sanhedrin 29a) of "kol hamosif goreia'" is how adding an ayin turns "shtei esrei yeri'os" into "ashtei esrei". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 15:16:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2015 18:16:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> On 6/3/2015 9:57 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > I think our point of contention is simple: > > You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind > justification that isn't a proof. I thought I was clear that I was taking it to be the same informal kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind. > > Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, > but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. I did not see this in your previous remarks that characterized the ''modeh-al-ha-emmess" as a formal proof/argument: :> There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam :> recaps a point made in 2:19-20. > 2:20 marks the end of an Argument from Design, which is what I was > referring to. ...This is a formal argument, unlike R' Aqiva's or REW's own appeal > to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. And I don't see how one can possibly interpret (MN 3:13 [not 3:15 as I mistakenly typed previously]) ''And know that one of the strongest /proofs/ (min /ha-gedolah sheh-b'ra'ayos/) for Creation ex nihilo, for one who is /modeh al ha-ememmes/, is his understanding the /proof/ (/hu mah sheya'amod alav ha-mofase/)...'' as meaning: > ''this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the emes, > look how nicely it works out.'' Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 16:37:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 19:37:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150603233708.GA7958@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 03, 2015 at 06:16:59PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: :> You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind :> justification that isn't a proof. : I thought I was clear that I was taking it to be the same informal : kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof : not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized : and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind. Then I did understand you correctly. When I say, "a kind justification that isn't a proof", I believe I mean the same thing as your "informal kind of proof". To me, the word "proof" implies formality. "Justification" is a general term for how we know something is true. (From Plato's definition of knowledge: "a justified and true belief.") :> Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, :> but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. : I did not see this in your previous remarks that characterized the : "modeh-al-ha-emmess" as a formal proof/argument: Because that's not what I am saying is the formal proof. I overused the word "this", which led to confusion. In addition "modeh al ha'ames" refers to a person, not an argument, so you lost me on that bit. AISI, it refers to the person who accepted the proof in 2:20, would find this point compelling. But since the point he's making here is not a formal proof, he doesn't expect it to convince, only to reinforce belief in those who already accepted the related proof. : And I don't see how one can possibly interpret (MN 3:13 [not 3:15 as : I mistakenly typed previously]) "And know that one of the : strongest /proofs/ (min /ha-gedolah sheh-b'ra'ayos/) for Creation ex : nihilo, for one who is /modeh al ha-ememmes/, is his understanding : the /proof/ (/hu mah sheya'amod alav ha-mofase/)..." as meaning: :> "this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the :> emes, look how nicely it works out." You are taking a sentence that says "One of the greatest proofs for creation for someone who accepts the truth is his understanding the wonder..." He is discussing a ra'ayah that someone who already believes would find compelling. Not a proof that would convince an unbiased seeker. Because I don't think the Rambam accepted that an informal justification other than philosophical proof could be a sounds reason to embrace a belief as true. (I see you consistently double the "s" in "emess". Why? If the sav had a dageish, it would be a tav, not "ss".) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are what we repeatedly do. micha at aishdas.org Thus excellence is not an event, http://www.aishdas.org but a habit. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Aristotle From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 4 15:16:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2015 18:16:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong Message-ID: <20150604221600.GA28870@aishdas.org> An Areivim conversation moved in topicality so that my reply really belongs here. Some background.... At some point, one person wrote, in part: | Right is right and wrong is wrong,... Speaking about moral correctness. To which someone else replied: > Really? ISTM that there is lots of grey in our world. People disagree > about right and wrong like they disagree about assur and mutar... And my reply, from Areivin: } This is why disputes about eilu va'eilu are so significant. Machloqes } can be between two approaches, two paths, one may take. Between different } strategies to obtaining the same goal. } Or it could be between a correct vs an incorrect understanding of the } halakhah. A process by which something becomes law, regardless of which } is right. } Or... } But if there is one right and one wrong, human decision-making wouldn't } change which is which. That second person wrote later in the conversation: > Sure am. Women learning Talmud was wrong, then it was right. In fact, > now it's both right (MO) and wrong (Hareidi). My response: } I don't consider that a good example. It is possible for something to } be right in one settting and wrong in another. Such as whether learning } Talmud is a good idea may depend on how women are being educated to relate } to knowledge in general. Since they aren't obligated to learn halachic } theory, such as gemara, they may be better off with a naive mimetic } faith. But if we have universal education, and an economic system that } demands a certain wordliness in both genders, such that naivite isn't } an option, then our choices are different. } Morality is like a Faucault's Pendulum; it keeps swinging the same } direction. The pendulum only looks like the direction changes over time } because the world rotates beneath it. Them again: > Zionism is right (DL) > and wrong (Satmar). You see the world as black and white; I see lots of > colors, including grey (and black and white sometimes as well). Me: } But gray too objectively exists. We may need to choose a response, } and thus have to fit it into a boolean black-white category. And then } someone may choose a strategy that categorizes it as white and someone } else as black. } But the grayness is not a matter of opinion. And also, from the same person, in an email between the two: > And my point was, the topic under discussion was not gravity ... > it was an issue that what people think about it is, in fact, relevant. My response, continued: } Is that true? } As far as I know, it's pretty basic to Judaism that the Creator has an } "Opinion" of what is moral and what isn't. That things run more smoothly } for everyone involved if we run with the design rather than do something } else. } Not only that, G-d put us on the same page once. } People may not be sure if there is an absolute moral standard, and those } who agree there is one, may not agree about what it looks like. } It's out there and as objectively real as gravity. } Even if you cannot prove it to others, and therefore will always be } subject to conflicting opinions -- some more right in some ways, some } more right in others, some simply wrong. } Your position implies an Empiricism that rules out revelation as a valid } source of truth! In which case, what's left of Torah? Futher down in the conversation, Lisa wrote of halakhah: : There are actually cases where opinions can establish right and : wrong. Tanuro shel Akhnai illustrates one. Actual reality is : *created* by the informed and considered opinions of the Sanhedrin. To which I responded: } Law, not reality. And Lisa, post #2: : I disagree. Torah *is* reality. Finally, some new material. R Chaim Brisker links "vechayei olam nata besokheinu" and "emes mei'eretz tatzmiach". Torah is the seed from which Emes grows, and not (leshitaso, but I bought into it) Emes itself. The Qetzos says something similar on the use of "emes mei'eretz" in the medrash about the 2 forces -- Emes and Shalom -- opposing the creation of humanity. Emes is thrown to the ground, to which the tanna says "emes meieretz tatzmiach". Emes will come out through the process of history. It's not with us yet. Torah is how HQBH leads us there. But in any case, I didn't speak of Torah, of "divrei E-lokim chaim", I spoke of halakhah. Or as RMF put it, I spoke of emes lehora'ah, not Emes as it is kelapei shamay galya. Continuing my reply to Lisa's 1st post: } And the reason why we only let the Sanhedrin vote is because the law is } expected to be consistent with the objective reality. There may be many } ways up Har Hashem, but you really only want people who know mapreading } and reconteuring figuring out which one is best. } And the mountain and its altitude are unchanged by people's decisions. Lisa's 2nd post, cont: : And what Hashem wanted the halakha to be was determined by people's : decisions. New material again: If we combine your insistance that halakhah is Truth with the idea that it is determined by people's decisions, you end up with Constructivism. Halakhah as a man made reality. Which makes sense -- you tend to side with the Rambam on this kind of thing. But if dinim bein adam lachaveiro define or at least shape morality, you are left with the OP's claim that opinion determines what is moral. Opinion as informed by kelalei pesaq, but still, morality isn't entirely absolute or objective. The position I was suggesting that there is an objective Morality that is part of Emes. Emes, with a capital "E", as in something that exists in Shamayim (a/k/a the Olam haEmes) but can't fit in this world among human minds. We have approximating models (Maharal), getting ever closer to the Emes (Qetzos). Halakhah is our means of approaching it, and the existence of multiple correct pesaqim reflects their being more than one viable path (R Chaim Brisker). Or more specifically: The path is on the meta-level, the evolution of the Oral Torah and its pesaqim is part of getting to Emes, not "only" the path taken by a life that follows that pesaqim. So that halakhah is not morality, it is a means of producing ever more moral people. Which makes sense in terms of my own Mussarly tendencies. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are great, and our foibles are great, micha at aishdas.org and therefore our troubles are great -- http://www.aishdas.org but our consolations will also be great. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi AY Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 4 19:55:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2015 22:55:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <20150603233708.GA7958@aishdas.org> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> <20150603233708.GA7958@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55710FAB.70107@gmail.com> On 6/3/2015 7:37 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Wed, Jun 03, 2015 at 06:16:59PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: > :> You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind > :> justification that isn't a proof. > > : I thought I was clear that I was taking it to be the same informal > : kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof > : not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized > : and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind. > > Then I did understand you correctly. > > When I say, "a kind justification that isn't a proof", I believe I mean > the same thing as your "informal kind of proof". To me, the word "proof" > implies formality. "Justification" is a general term for how we know > something is true. (From Plato's definition of knowledge: "a justified and > true belief.") Got it. > :> Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, > :> but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. > > : I did not see this in your previous remarks that characterized the > : "modeh-al-ha-emmess" as a formal proof/argument: > > Because that's not what I am saying is the formal proof. I overused the > word "this", which led to confusion. I''m even more confused now. What "this" that led to confusion was overused? I took you to mean that the ''emmess'' that a ''modeh al ha-emmess'' person was modeh to was the conclusion of a formal proof stated somewhere in 2:19-20. (And such a person would consider, as one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, the proof from the hierarchy of benefit of entities.) > In addition "modeh al ha'ames" refers to a person, not an argument, > so you lost me on that bit. When I wrote ''I was taking it to be the same informal kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind'' I was responding to you statement: :> You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind :> justification that isn't a proof. which was in response to my writing: : My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that : there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows : the non-formal mindset of those who are /modeh al ha-emmess/... I meant to say I was taking Rambam's remark to mean that someone whose thought process is normal and unbiased (i.e. a modeh al ha-emmess) recognizes (without the aid of formal proof) the fact of the hierarchy of benefit as compelling the conclusion of a freely intended Creation ex nihilo. Another way to crystallize our differing interpretations: You are taking the "emmess'' that the ''modeh al ha-emmess'' is modeh to, to be the correct fact. I'm taking it to be the correct process of thinking. > AISI, it refers to the person who accepted > the proof in 2:20, would find this point compelling. But since the point > he's making here is not a formal proof, he doesn't expect it to convince, > only to reinforce belief in those who already accepted the related proof. > > : And I don't see how one can possibly interpret (MN 3:13 [not 3:15 as > : I mistakenly typed previously]) "And know that one of the > : strongest /proofs/ (min /ha-gedolah sheh-b'ra'ayos/) for Creation ex > : nihilo, for one who is /modeh al ha-ememmes/, is his understanding > : the /proof/ (/hu mah sheya'amod alav ha-mofase/)..." as meaning: > > :> "this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the > :> emes, look how nicely it works out." > > You are taking a sentence that says "One of the greatest proofs for > creation for someone who accepts the truth is his understanding the > wonder..." He is discussing a ra'ayah that someone who already believes > would find compelling. Not a proof that would convince an unbiased > seeker. > > Because I don't think the Rambam accepted that an informal justification > other than philosophical proof could be a sounds reason to embrace a > belief as true. Your first paragraph is just restating your position and denying mine. I am saying otherwise, pointing out that saying that this person considers the hierarchy factor ''one of the greatest proofs for creation'' means '"this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out" is incompatible with the words. And /l'fi ta'amych,/ of your second paragraph: If the Rambam considers an informal justification vs philosophical proof an unsound reason to embrace a belief as true, then one would think he would not consider noteworthy a non-ra'ayah found compelling only by someone who already believes in the conclusion (stated or implied somewhere in 2:19-20, or in that previously stated formal ra'aya which /is/, or is not, compelling--I'm not sure which of these you're saying, but my objection applies regardless.) I think it may be productive for us to examine the 4 or 5 other places in MN where the Rambam uses the expression ''modeh al ha-emmess.'' (Curiously, the search of the Hebrewbooks.org MN in my Adobe Reader skips over the instance in 3:13!) > > (I see you consistently double the "s" in "emess". Why? If the sav had > a dageish, it would be a tav, not "ss".) It's to duplicate the /sound/ (not the lettering) of the word as it would be in English, for a careful English-reading person. (Not that I'm sure there are many of those around...) In contemporary English spelling, one "s" at the end of a word that ends in ''e'' is pronounced hard, like a ''z'' (shines, pines, processes); the soft ''s'' added to words that end in "e" is indicated by two ''s'' 's (process, ingress, mess). But we digreSS.... Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 5 03:54:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2015 06:54:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Science and Halachah - The Trumpeting Stone Message-ID: <20150605105427.GA27466@aishdas.org> This stone, at the excacations south of the Kotel, apparently marked a location where the shofar would be blown on Fri afternoon to warn people about the approaching and arrival of Shabbos. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trumpeting_Place_inscription It says "lebeis hateqi'ah lh[k?b?]" and was at the corner of Har haBayis. My obaervation is about the font. Notice the base of the lamed, which is a diagonal. The same is true of the Qumran texts and of texts from the Cairo Geniza. but this pushes the date for this tradition of script back to Herod's rebuilding of the BHMQ. This kind of lamed is also found in Kesav Vellish, that used in Sepharadi sta"m, but not in Kesav Beis Yoseif or the other Ashkenazi variants. http://sofercenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/different-ksavim.jpg Now, the stone is in far from the formal Ashuris required for Sifrei Torah, but if Kesav Beis Yoseif is correct, why aren't other fonts from the period more similar? If this does indicate a preference for one script over the other, we could discuss how the various approaches to Halakhah and Science would handle this case. {In terms of being yotzei, I think the only problem Ashkenazim have with the Sepharadi kesav is that variants that predate the Chida lack Rabbei Tam's qutzo shel yud. And since the popularity of the Ben Ish Chai, this issue has become very rare. Lehalakhah, the Tur, Noda biYhudah, Tzitz Eliezer and R' Ovadiah all alow using the other's sefer. Even with the spelling differences!) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is equipped with such far-reaching vision, micha at aishdas.org yet the smallest coin can obstruct his view. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 5 08:16:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2015 15:16:42 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong Message-ID: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Continuing the discussion from Areivim... R' Joseph Kaplan wrote: > About some things there is a right and a wrong; it is right > to fast on Yom Kippur and wrong to eat. But not everything > fits so neatly into categories of right and wrong. Micha > didn't like my example of Women learning Talmud was wrong, > then it was right. In fact, now it's both right (MO) and > wrong (Hareidi)." He argues that it is possible for > something to be right in one setting and wrong in another. I don't see the distinction between women learning vs eating on Yom Kippur. Women learning is right in some settings (such as where an unlearned woman would be in a spiritual sakana) and wrong in others (the ideal or traditional situation). In the same manner, eating on Yom Kippur is right in some settings (where the person would be in a medical sakana) and wrong in others (where the person is physically healthy). For that matter, learning is dependent on the setting even for a man: In most settings, it is right for a Jewish man to learn Torah, but not if he is in aveilus, or if he is davening, or if he is in other situations where the learning would conflict with another mitzvah. My point is that EVERYTHING depends on the setting. (I once tried to think of a positive or negative mitzvah which is totally independent of setting, and which always applies under all imaginable circumstances. The only one I could come up with is Avodah Zara. If anyone wants to continue that thought, please start a new thread.) Anyway, getting back to *this* thread, which is about whether right and wrong are absolutes decreed by G-d, or whether they are subject to the opinions of the Sanhedrin or others, I was reminded of an interesting gemara. As translated by http://www.torah.org/learning/maharal/p2m10part2.html it reads: > Eruvin (13b): For two and a half years Beith Shammai and > Beith Hillel argued. These [Beith Shammai] said "It is > better for man not to have been created than to have been > created." And those [Beith Hillel] said "It is better for > man to have been created." Together, they [reviewed the > opinions and] reached a consensus: ... I left out their conclusion, because it is not really so critical to this thread. What *IS* critical is the fact that they had the chutzpah to even discuss this question at all. There is a thought in this thread that if G-d does something, then it is good by definition. Yet Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai considered the possibility that G-d had another option which was even better than the option that He did choose. This sounds to me like a good argument for the view that people (or at least certain people, such as the Sanhedrin) CAN decide what is right and what is wrong. Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 5 14:41:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2015 17:41:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong In-Reply-To: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <557217A4.4010309@sero.name> On 06/05/2015 11:16 AM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: >> >Eruvin (13b): For two and a half years Beith Shammai and >> >Beith Hillel argued. These [Beith Shammai] said "It is >> >better for man not to have been created than to have been >> >created." And those [Beith Hillel] said "It is better for >> >man to have been created." > There is a thought in this thread that if G-d does something, then it > is good by definition. Yet Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai considered the > possibility that G-d had another option which was even better than the > option that He did choose. The discussion was not about what is good or right, but about what is better *for a person*. What is in the person's interest. "Noach lo le'adam". What G-d chooses for a person is right, but who says it's "noach lo"? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 12:49:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2015 21:49:38 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] Right/wrong In-Reply-To: <5571BB83.7010500@sero.name> References: <73824318-9EAD-43A2-924A-23983726765C@tenzerlunin.com> <55704A19.7000001@sero.name> <20150604182845.GA18772@aishdas.org> <557113ED.9080608@zahav.net.il> <5571BB83.7010500@sero.name> Message-ID: <55734ED2.8020702@zahav.net.il> Moved from Areivim. It is a case of muttar and assur, which in this case I am equating with right and wrong. For this person, something is muttar and for the other it is pasul. The way I see, it would be absolutely wrong for the wealthier person to eat his chicken, and absolutely wrong for the poorer person to throw his chicken away. Correct, popular opinion doesn't play a part in this one. Ben On 6/5/2015 5:08 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > > That's not a question of right and wrong, From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 17:19:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 01:19:52 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> R' Ysoscher Katz writes: ... <> And yet ironically RYK's experience in Satmar and Brisk would seem to confirm the sense of what Maimonides did. RYK was only the object and fool of Maimonides "seventh reason" because he was immersed in a society that had built very high walls against the risk of engaging with philosophy. Contrast his experience to mine. I read the Guide at fourteen - long before I had any real exposure to the Yad. Why? Because I grew up in a society in which it was more acceptable for girls to read philosophic texts than it was to learn and engage with halachic texts. And indeed, a translation of the Guide was published and available in English, in my shul library, whereas the Mishna Torah, which was no doubt there (I don't remember), was only in Hebrew and would have been in the "halachic" section that only boys (and scholarly boys at that) were expected to access. Even more, when I started asking questions, the librarian pointed me in the direction of the philosophy works, which included the Guide, that is how I got to it. It was just assumed that if somebody was asking theological questions, that was the place to go. So by the time, much, much later, that I read the relevant portions of the Mishna Torah, I already knew Maimonides' philosophic works in some depth, and layered them on to anything in the Yad. And yet Maimonides was surely right, had the Yad contained the opinions expressed in the Guide, in any detectable way, there is no way a society like Satmar and Brisk would have allowed it into their hallowed betei midrash - and what a loss to the halachic world that would have been. What occurred to RYK is merely a by-product and inevitable consequence (if you step outside) of what Satmar/Brisk have created. Not what Maimonides created. He created a work which, in any society that valued philosophy, would be available to those who sought it. And this is why RYK's experience is unlikely to occur in any true Modern Orthodox setting. Because curious, searching teenagers will inevitably take advantage of what is available in languages they can read in their local libraries (assuming they are encouraged to go there, and such libraries are not off limits), and hence, while they might (hopefully) be exposed to the Mishna Torah earlier than I was, they will certainly have the opportunity, and if that way inclined, are likely to take the opportunity of exploring at least the introduction to the Guide. <> Now this I find- well perhaps touchingly naive to the point of bizarre. Not the characterisation of the two most dramatic changes, necessarily, but the idea that "the pioneers of both these changes were driven, at least in part, by Chassidic ethos". Of the two, the claim regarding female Talmud scholarship is the most odd. Chassidic groups have been at the forefront of those fighting a rearguard action against women's exposure to any form of text, not least Talmudic and halachic text. Satmar in particular - I recall once standing in a bookshop in Boro Park, perusing a book (written clearly by somebody from the Satmar derech) who had gathered together all the sources on the evils of giving women access to any text - but most fundamentally, horror of horrors, to Rashi al haChumash. It was of course, an attack on what is taught in Beis Ya'akov. The position advocated being that at most, girls should be taught in school the stories of the Tanach, outside and without any recourse at all to reading in original. Lubavitch, I agree, was and is in this regard unusual amongst the Chassidic groups. But, growing up in Melbourne, a community heavily dominated by Lubvitchers, I am pretty well acquainted with what was allowed and not allowed vis a vis girls/women and learning from people with reasonably close connections with the Lubavitche Rebbe. Sure, streets ahead of the other Chassidic groups - but more open than the Beis Ya'akovs? - dubiously - although there was a fair bit of flexibility granted when dealing with potential ba'alei teshuva who (it was acknowledged) could be seriously put off by bans on access to knowledge of the nature of that on gemora. But what was granted begrudgingly and in a limited fashion in such circles were standard parts of the curriculum in Modern Orthodox schools (with Maimonides in Boston the flagship in this regard). How high a level a girl was taught in MO environments differed (especially given that often the overall level of kodesh education was not always that high in such schools), but the idea that any of this was driven fundamentally by the Lubavitcher Rebbe is ludicrous. And if you look at Israel and the explosion of women's learning there - not a chassid in sight. R' Kook and Zionism is a more justified charge. While it is hard to describe Rav Kook as a "pioneer" of political Zionism (there were many before him who saw political Zionism as logically arising out of their religious belief), he unquestionably provided serious theological underpinnings justifying the religious being involved in this endeavour, and much of what he wrote is rooted in chassidus. But note of course that the major thinker against was again the Satmar Rebbe - ie chassidus provided, yet again, the most reactionary response to this phenomenon. Which is more typical of chassidus - Rav Kook or the Satmar Rebbe? - I think it is far fairer to say that Rav Kook was the exception, despite his deep roots, and the Satmar Rebbe closer to the rule. And note, while we are on the subject of Rav Kook, that while he was "progressive" regarding political Zionism, he was "regressive" regarding woman voting. Was his attitude towards women's place in society also fuelled by his Chassidic studies? In general, while I do agree that Chassidic thinkers, such as Rav Kook, have a lot to say to "the world we live in today" and that there is something to be said for incorporating aspects of their theology in the pursuit of meaning, I suspect that trying to create "chassidish modern Jews" is an enterprise doomed to failure, and certainly not something that will be able to speak to the modern orthodox world. Why? Firstly because Chassidism is all embracing. I have watched many ba'alei teshuva embrace Chassidism (in lots of forms) over the years - as indeed it has a serious pull for many. I have rarely found one who is attracted that way who ends up in the modern orthodox camp. Where do they usually end up? Well amongst the most extreme Chassidic groups, where they can indulge to the fullest extent. Chassidism become so all embracing that it pushes everything else out. And while this phenomenon is already found amongst Modern Orthodox children going "black". It is certainly not going to save modern Orthodoxy. A further problem is articulated at the beginning of the piece, in relation to RYK's father: > My father is the most non-chassidish Chassid. He does not study > "chassidus," nor does he want to "understand" it. But, however you cut it, those with a modern orthodox upbringing are taught to want to "understand". They are brought up with the scientific method, even if some debunking then occurs in universities. For sure, there are those who reject that in favour of exploration of mystery and experience - but as suggested above, by and large those "go right" - further into the ultra orthodox world. By and large, while the ashrams of India are peopled by many Jews, I don't think very many of them are modern orthodox dropouts. The ones we are losing totally are going left, into the secular mundane world without religious input. Because while they are usually aware of the experiential, it appears to simultaneously contemplate a suffocation of the mind that they cannot swallow (as an ashram also does). Such people are never going to be comfortable in a world in which there is any expectation of not "wanting" to understand. They may perhaps be persuaded to find meaning in the writings of people like Rav Kook, or in other aspects of Chassidic writing, but are likely to be even more repelled by a world that implicitly or explicitly tells them to bin what is the attribute they have been taught to spend most of their life cultivating - their mind. I am probably going to be (metaphorically speaking) shot on this list for even mentioning it, but if you want to see what you get when you mix a modicum of Chassidic plus philosophic inspired thinking in a more "modern" context, you could always look at the German thinkers (including Reform thinkers) of the early twentieth century - people like (particularly) Franz Rosenzweig, not to mention Leo Baeck, Martin Buber, Hermann Cohen. What about Levinas? There is your post modern thinking (but note that it comes out of a Lithuanian background with existentialism and philosophical exploration rather than chassidus). But it is a long way from Maimonidian rationalism (despite of course Maimonides being the father of all this philosophy, but only after it has been through Kant and the existentialists). Avraham Yehoshua Heshel is another example of those attempting to integrate a Chassidic background with modern sensibilities. But since he operated out of the Jewish Theological Seminary, and was closely identified with the Conservative Movement, he probably did more to make such explorations treif to MO thinkers than he did to inspire them to explore. A bigger problem, I think, is that MO in America is so fixated on RYBS, and his particular brand of philosophy, that philosophy linked to Orthodoxy becomes identified only with his particular stance. But there is a much wider world out there, and a philosophical world that does not only relate to transcendence (as RYBS appears to do) but to imminence as well. Are those who speak of paradox/polarity of imminence and transcendence inspired by the imminence of the Chassidic world? Maybe, but it is attenuated, and no longer strictly Chassidic. Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 19:09:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 22:09:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Brisker Theory of Everything In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150607020921.GB7516@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 25, 2015 at 07:15:59PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : 1. The gemara (Ketuvot 5b) discusses whether causing a certain type : of blood flowing is considered a Sabbath violation. The first attempt : to resolve the question turns on whether "mifkad pakid or chaburei : mechbar" (is the blood in the womb stored up or is it the result of a : wound?). Rashi there (please look) seems to define this as a physical : question. Is this acceptable or must we say Rashi was leaving out the : "obvious" philosophical/halachic question (i.e. the physical was known, : it's a question of how to categorize it halachically)? It is very hard to identify a real machloqes in metzi'us. There is a machloqes in the Y-mi about whether rice flower and water makes chameitz. Pesachim 2:4, vilna 17a): Rabbi Yochanan ben Nuri said: Qarmis (millet or something similar) requires [giving] challah [from the dough to a kohein] because it can become chameitz or matzah. And the Rabbis say it doesn't because it can not become chameitz or matzah. So check it! They disagree about the essence of the check (iqar bediqasahh): RYBN said they checked it and found it can become chameitz or matzah. The Rabbanan said they checked it and they didn't find it can become chameitz or matzah. What looked like a machloqes about facts, that could just be checked experimentally, was a machloqes about how to categorize the physical reality. Is that dough a chimutz or a sirchon? I am sure that can be generalized. We could be arguing about metzi'us, but as the gemera asks, why not just check it? More likely, when the metzi'us is in the gray area, the machloqes is about: Where is the line between the categories? : 2. That gemara continues to try to resolve the question and is willing : to entertain the possibility that the halacha is like Rabbi Yehuda : (vs. Rabbi Shimon) in mekalkeil (destroying) and like Rabbi Shimon : (vs. Rabbi Yehuda) in davar sheino mitkavein (the result was not the : major one intended). If these two issues were interconnected, could the : gemara entertain this possibility? I think the gemara is consistent with two posibilities: 1- The two machloqesin are not interconnected. 2- The hava amina as that they were not connected, but the masqanah is that indeed they are. : 3. If the answer to 2 is no, must we assume that when the Shulchan : Aruch said he would decide the psak based on majority 2 of big 3, did : he really mean this as a primary tie breaker, or only when he did not : have a clear understanding of the underlying philosophy that resulted : in their final opinions. As I wrote in the past, I think it's easier to excuse the SA's exceptions to his rule by saying he was talking about the majority when counting consistent positions. Which means the rule is subject to which machloqesin the SA held were interconnected, and therefore which statements on other topics need to also be counted toward he majority. : 4.Is it possible that R'YBS limited his "canon" to only a few major : rishonim (in contradistinction to R" A Lichtenstein) because the more : data points included in trying to determine the underlying theoretical : construct, the more likely a single errant point would skew the results? I would think the reverse: How do you identify an outlier point without getting more full statistics on the data? Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger Worrying is like a rocking chair: micha at aishdas.org it gives you something to do for a while, http://www.aishdas.org but in the end it gets you nowhere. Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 19:16:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 22:16:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir In-Reply-To: <20150528.000433.22403.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150528.000433.22403.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150607021626.GC7516@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 04:04:33AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I will be the first to point out that Lifnei Iveir is one the many : topics where my learning and expertise is severely lacking. Even so, : I suspect that there is something missing from RMB's definition... : It seems to me that RMB is giving a useful tool to distinguish between : category 3 and category 4, but that tool is useful only in the case where : a person already has the *desire* to commit a sin, but it lacking the : *ability* to some degree... Correct. I was only thinking of the original question, and the gemara only discusses the one chiluq -- between lifnei iveir (deOraisa) and mesayeia' (deRabbanan). : But what of the case where a person does *not* yet have a desire to : sin? Rabbi Kaganoff is saying that one who incites or encourages him : to do it is violating Lifnei Iveir. Even if the person already has the : ability to do the sin, it was below his "bechirah point" until he was : egged on to do it... I didn't understand Orpah's offer that way. She was convinced her daughters-in-law "converted" for the sake of marriage; and depending which midrashim you quote, that likely wasn't even an actual conversion. But if Rus didn't really buy into Jewish beliefs, she would be better off not going through a pro-forma conversion than in the same boat as Delilah or Shelomo's wives. Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet micha at aishdas.org about things most people don't watch even on http://www.aishdas.org Yom Kippur. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 21:46:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 07:46:04 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] right/wrong Message-ID: <> comes back to the question of pluralism vs monistic vs tolerant monistic vs harmonism. As discussed before there are opinions on all sides -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 7 04:06:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 07:06:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] right/wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150607110645.GA7126@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jun 07, 2015 at 07:46:04AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : comes back to the question of pluralism vs monistic vs tolerant monistic vs : harmonism. Or, as R Moshe Halberatal cateogired halachic legal theories: Retrival, Accumulative, vs Constitutive. But it only starts there. Here the question is whether 1- any of these positions imply that halakhah is man-made more than the other positions would; and 2- does any of this conversation reflect on the absolute nature of right and wrong on a moral plane? Which also drags in the relationship between halakhah and morality. Divine Command Theory (morality is that which Hashem commanded) may well identify the two. But then, we were hard pressed to find an advocate for DCT, (outside contemporary popularizations). R/DR Y Leibowitz coms close, by saying we exist to follow halakhah, and any attempt to map halakhah to some other value system was one step toward AZ. Someone else might say that halakhah approximates morality, but since it's a blanket rule for all people in many situations, it's only an approximate. That said, once the halakhah is set, preserving it and the morality of the majority of cases has greater moral weight than one loses in the exceptional cases. But getting back to our question, while I consider the two related, I do not think the evolving nature of halakhah reflects morality being a human construction. Rather, I think it's because of two effects: 1- dialectics between concflicting values can yeild different strategies for finding balance between them One therefore finds that a machloqes is resolved by finding one strategy more appropriate for the culture asking the question than another. And if it is not resolved with finality, another culture may have the same question (eg mixes of immigrants with different precdent) and choose a different strategy. As I put it last time: choosing different paths up the mountain doesn't imply that the mountain's altitude is subjective. But this assumes that the linkage between halakhah and morality is that halakhah is a means to becoming moral. 2- changes in reality can cause two similar looking situations to have different moral outcomes. I think the vast majority of seemingly reopened questions are really of this sort. E.g. the categorization of today's dead mutes. We didn't change our belief that demands cannot be made of someone who cannot be taught them -- even if it means a consequent loss of priviliges (if being able to be motzi another is a privilege). The realia of the life of a cheiresh changed. (Over Shabbos I read which misses this point, creating a very bloated list of cases where R' JD Bleich, and most contemporary posqim, allow halakhah to "evolve".) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is our choices...that show what we truly are, micha at aishdas.org far more than our abilities. http://www.aishdas.org - J. K. Rowling Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 7 04:10:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 07:10:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong In-Reply-To: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150607111036.GB7126@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 05, 2015 at 03:16:42PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : There is a thought in this thread that if G-d does something, then it : is good by definition. Yet Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai considered the : possibility that G-d had another option which was even better than the : option that He did choose. Aside from Zev's point, that the machloqes is over which is pleasanter for the person, not which is good... I think the discussion is more what if HQBH tells us to do something, it is good by definition, necessarily good by implication, or somehow more distantly related to morality. (I guess someone could say halakhah is not connected to morality, but I don't see that coming up as an O hashkagah.) : This sounds to me like a good argument for the view that people (or at : least certain people, such as the Sanhedrin) CAN decide what is right : and what is wrong. Can determine, which is still different than the original idea on Areivim, that consensus *defines* morality. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger One who kills his inclination is as though he micha at aishdas.org brought an offering. But to bring an offering, http://www.aishdas.org you must know where to slaughter and what Fax: (270) 514-1507 parts to offer. - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 7 05:52:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2015 08:52:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Torah Scholars and Torah Education for the Masses Message-ID: <20150607125250.7E561182EA1@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is taken from Rav Schwab on Chumash, Parshas Acharei Mos. I have posted the entire selection at http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/tide_chumash_schwab.pdf At all times the Torah's unchanging teachings must be applied to the ever-changing derech eretz. All of our actions, attitudes, relationships to man and beast, and positions within nature and history are subject to the jurisdiction and evaluation of the Torah. What follows is that the Torah scholar should be well informed of the "ways of the Earth." The laws of nature and the paths of history should be known to him. He should be well aware of what happens in the world that surrounds him, for he is constantly called upon to apply the yardstick of halachah and the searchlight of hashkafah to the realities that confront him. What also follows is that the greater the wisdom of Torah, the more crucial it is that this wisdom be conveyed to the Jewish contemporary world. It must be transmitted in a language that our generation understands and that will attract the searching youth, the ignorant, the estranged and the potential ba1al teshuvah to a joyous acceptance of the yoke of Heaven. The Torah leader must be able to dispel the doubts of the doubter and to counter the cynicism of the agnostic. He must, therefore, speak their language masterfully so that he can convince and enlighten them. There is indeed a dire need for gedolei Torah, great Torah scholars, who devote their entire lives to the study and dissemination of Torah. The Jewish world today needs many talmidei chachamim whose life task is to enlighten and inspire it with the love and the fear of G-d. We are ready to accord to those "messengers of G-d" the highest respect and a loyal following. These are the kohanim and levi'im of today. Like the members of the Levitic tribe of old, they are to serve all the other tribes and teach them the living Torah. Yet education and leadership cannot function in a vacuum. Therefore it becomes mandatory for the present day "Tribe of Levi" to initiate and encourage an educational system that can serve the other "eleven tribes who comprise the vast majority of our people. It becomes mandatory for the Torah-conscious educator not to inspire fear of the world and hesitancy to meets its challenges, but rather, to fortify the vast majority of our youth to meet head-on the thousand and one pitfalls of professional and business life. Our youth must be inspired to courageously and intelligently brave the onslaught of scientific arrogance and the sensual poison that is masked as intellectual liberalism. The Divine purpose for which Yisrael was created can be served in every capacity, in every profession, in all human endeavors, as long as they are not excluded by the halachah. ---------- Unfortunately, I do not see many Torah scholars today who are "well informed of the "ways of the Earth." The laws of nature and the paths of history should be known to him. He should be well aware of what happens in the world that surrounds him, for he is constantly called upon to apply the yardstick of halachah and the searchlight of hashkafah to the realities that confront him." I also do not see our educational institutions serving "the other 'eleven tribes' who comprise the vast majority of our people. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 8 09:25:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2015 09:25:43 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] replacement value Message-ID: secular law [US] recognizes that one need is not liable replace a lost item with a new one ie if you lost my used IPAD [which happened in fact this month to us] you don't owe me the value of a new one , but rather some pro-rated amount accounting for wear and tear. what does bais din require? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 9 14:17:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2015 17:17:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] replacement value In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150609211745.GA4160@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 08, 2015 at 09:25:43AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : secular law [US] recognizes that one need is not liable replace a lost : item with a new one... what does bais din : require? According to the Business Halakhah Institute : Many years ago I borrowed a Chumash with commentaries from a local beis medrash. I forgot to return it and eventually misplaced the sefer and I do not recall which volume I borrowed. It was "borrowed", ie no reshus was asked. ... [Skipping from opening paragraph to bottom line...] Someone who borrowed a sefer without permission is obligated to return the sefer, the same as any other thief. Even if the owner despaired of retrieving it, e.g., he bought a new set, the obligation to return it remains in force (C.M. 354:2 and 360:5). If the sefers condition changed dramatically (shinui) or if it was lost altogether, the borrower is obligated to repay the value of the sefer (C.M. 360:5). In your case, since the sefer you borrowed is missing, there is no obligation to replace the actual sefer. Your obligation is to repay the beis medrash the sefers value at the time you borrowed it. In other words, you would pay the value of a used sefer rather than a new sefer, and there is no need to pay for a complete set. But then, maybe that's under Gittin 55b, not making a ganav tear down his house in order to return a stolen beam he built into it. But that halakhah is to facilitate teshuvah after theft. And so I won't generalized. Also for hezeq, I know a maziq pays for his damage, and therefore only has to pay replacement value -- what it would take to make things right again. But again, your case, a shomer or sho'el returning a lost item, could be different. I didn't yet find it. But I haven't entirely given up... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A cheerful disposition is an inestimable treasure. micha at aishdas.org It preserves health, promotes convalescence, http://www.aishdas.org and helps us cope with adversity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' SR Hirsch, "From the Wisdom of Mishlei" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 9 14:17:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2015 17:17:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] replacement value In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150609211745.GA4160@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 08, 2015 at 09:25:43AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : secular law [US] recognizes that one need is not liable replace a lost : item with a new one... what does bais din : require? According to the Business Halakhah Institute : Many years ago I borrowed a Chumash with commentaries from a local beis medrash. I forgot to return it and eventually misplaced the sefer and I do not recall which volume I borrowed. It was "borrowed", ie no reshus was asked. ... [Skipping from opening paragraph to bottom line...] Someone who borrowed a sefer without permission is obligated to return the sefer, the same as any other thief. Even if the owner despaired of retrieving it, e.g., he bought a new set, the obligation to return it remains in force (C.M. 354:2 and 360:5). If the sefers condition changed dramatically (shinui) or if it was lost altogether, the borrower is obligated to repay the value of the sefer (C.M. 360:5). In your case, since the sefer you borrowed is missing, there is no obligation to replace the actual sefer. Your obligation is to repay the beis medrash the sefers value at the time you borrowed it. In other words, you would pay the value of a used sefer rather than a new sefer, and there is no need to pay for a complete set. But then, maybe that's under Gittin 55b, not making a ganav tear down his house in order to return a stolen beam he built into it. But that halakhah is to facilitate teshuvah after theft. And so I won't generalized. Also for hezeq, I know a maziq pays for his damage, and therefore only has to pay replacement value -- what it would take to make things right again. But again, your case, a shomer or sho'el returning a lost item, could be different. I didn't yet find it. But I haven't entirely given up... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A cheerful disposition is an inestimable treasure. micha at aishdas.org It preserves health, promotes convalescence, http://www.aishdas.org and helps us cope with adversity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' SR Hirsch, "From the Wisdom of Mishlei" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 10 18:52:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 01:52:34 GMT Subject: [Avodah] 100% Vegetable oils etc. Message-ID: <20150610.215234.27464.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> On Areivim, R' Martin Brody wrote: > If any such ingredient of an ingredient was non-kosher, it would be > batel b'shishim, (more likely nullified by thousands). For those > that are interested, the London Beth Din is not concerned with > "flavourings" as an ingredient for this very reason. This surprises me. I would think that non-kosher flavorings cannot be batel. Bitul is a mathematical procedure by which we can presume that the non-kosher ingredient is not noticeable. But in the case of flavorings (and colorings and maamads), if its presence were not noticeable, then the manufacturer would not go to the trouble and expense of including it. Therefore (I would think) that its presence proves that it *is* noticable, overriding the presumption. Rabbi Binyomin Forst's "The Laws of Kashrus" (ArtScroll) says on page 98, "If, however, the mixture was sampled and the non-kosher taste was noticeable, the mixture may not be eaten, even though it was batel b'shishim. (Shach 98:4)" What other views are there? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5578ea0af09296a0a79abst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 07:41:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 10:41:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Worker or Craftsman Message-ID: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> How do we view the task of life? Is a person an po'el, paid for his time? Implying, it's our job to do good while here on earth, but the determining factor is the duration? Or is a person an uman, paid to get a particular job done. We're put on earth to get some specific accomplishment. The Zohar suggests something more like an uman when it uses an idiom like "ana avda deQBH". Admittedly an eved does not get paid for his time, but an eved is for the duration, whether until shemittah, until yovel, or for the rest of his life. However, in Shaar haGilgulim we get all this talk about a person having a tafqid, and how if they fail to get the job done, they could be given a second chance. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger What you get by achieving your goals micha at aishdas.org is not as important as http://www.aishdas.org what you become by achieving your goals. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Henry David Thoreau From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 07:46:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 10:46:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Color names In-Reply-To: <221167CA3A2A46908C9CA2A3474664EA@webhost.local> References: <221167CA3A2A46908C9CA2A3474664EA@webhost.local> Message-ID: <20150611144639.GF20169@aishdas.org> RZLampel and I discused this once, I think here. If not, the topic could be of interest anyway. So, rather than checking the archive (which is difficult, given the number of tekheiles discussions) I am just sharing either way. -micha Shabbat B'Shabbato Translated by Moshe Goldberg Machon Zomet ... What Is That Phrase? Green Sky? Yaacov Etzion At the end of this week's Torah portion, we are given a command, "Let them place on the tzitzit at the corner a thread of 'techelet.'" [Bamidbar 15:38]. Rashi explains that techelet is "the 'yarok' color of a snail." Any speaker of modern Hebrew can only wonder at this. Why does Rashi call the blue color of techelet "yarok" -- that is, green? Well, it is not only Rashi that calls techelet "yarok." It is an explicit ruling that appears in the Shulchan Aruch: "The color white is ritually pure, as is the look of 'yarok,' even if it has the look of wax or of gold. And this certainly includes the 'yarok' of leek or grass (and also the color that is called 'blue' is included in 'yarok')" [Hilchot Nidda, 188]. We are not interested at this point in the details of the halacha but rather in the fact that the RAMA writes that the color "blue" is called "yarok" in our traditional sources. Our sages spoke of four main colors: shachor (black), lavan (white), adom (red), and yarok. And "yarok" included yellow, orange, blue, and turquoise of today. For example, it happens quite often that a newborn baby is a bit yellow right after its birth. But the Tosefta calls this color "yarok." Rabbi Natan says the following: "When I was in the Land of Kapotakia, there was a woman who had given birth to boys... They brought him to me, and I saw that he was 'yarok'... I looked at him and did not find any blood for circumcision..." [Shabbat 134a]. Moreover, in the wording of the ROSH in his halachic rulings the word yarok as used by the sages is not our color green (which they call "yarok as a leek") but is yellow or orange. "This shows that the word yarok is similar to the yolk of an egg or to gold, which has a tinge of red." Among other sources, the ROSH bases his decision on the words of the verse, "the wings of a dove coated with silver and its limbs the 'yerakrak' of gold" [Tehillim 68:14]. Yerakrak is clearly the color of gold, that is, yellow. The words for orange (katom) and blue (kachol) were instituted in modern times by Zeev Yavetz. This was reported by David Yalin in the newspaper "Hatzevi" in 1887: "When I spoke to my uncle the illustrious rabbi and investigator Rabbi Zeev Yavetz, he said to me that he wants to fill what is missing in our language for the names of two colors, the color of techelet and the color of the yoke of an egg." Yavetz proposed that techelet should be called kachol and that the yoke should be called "ketem," which in the holy writings refers to gold or to the color of gold. (An example appears in the following verse: "Woe, the gold is dim, the good 'ketem' has changed" [Eichah 4:1].) Yavetz wanted to use the word katom for the color of yellow (which we call tzahov), since he felt that tzahov "includes a bit of red" (as per a note by Yalin). But as time went on, katom became the color orange, as we use it today. Thus, the word "yarok" changed in meaning during the years, as did "tzahov." However, "techelet" evidently kept its original meaning, and it remains similar to the color of the sea, which is similar to the color of the sky, and this reminds us of the Divine Throne of Glory. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 09:34:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 12:34:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Worker or Craftsman In-Reply-To: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> References: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5579B89C.8060902@sero.name> On 06/11/2015 10:41 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Is a person an po'el, paid for his time? Implying, it's our job to do > good while here on earth, but the determining factor is the duration? > > Or is a person an uman, paid to get a particular job done. We're put on > earth to get some specific accomplishment. Eruvin 65a: Anan po`alei diy'mamei anan. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 11:17:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 14:17:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> References: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> Message-ID: <20150611181746.GI20169@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 2, 2015 at 4:27pm I forwarded an essay by RYK that had appeared on R/Dr Alan Brill's blog, Kavvanah. In it he proposes from personal experience that MO would be enhanced by shifting away from its focus on RYBS's Briskkeit and in particular that elements of his Hungarian Chassidic birth community would be of great value. : Personally, my rejection of the Maimonidean ethos and realization of : the degree to which chassidut can speak to the modern searcher was a : long and arduous process. It came about as a result of a deep sense : of betrayal by Maimonides, the champion of Rationalist Judaism. I for : many years was the object and fool of Maimonides "the seventh reason" : as presented in his introduction to the Guide by not seeing his : philosophic views. In that passage, Maimonides condones misleading : the masses for their greater good, even to the point of advocating : contradictory ideas for different audiences and then obscuring those : contradictions. : Growing up in Satmar and then Brisk, I was oblivious to his : non-halakhic writings and led to believe that he fully and literally : believed every word he wrote in the Yad... I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." And in fact, that was the whole point of the project -- to outline all of halakhah, to document the TSBP. Not to hint at something for the meivinim without risking that the hoi palloi mistake his words in a heretical way. It's simply not meaningful concept for a book he titled Mishneh Torah. I am uncomfortably using the Rambam as a poster boy for rationalism. In the Rambam's day, science hadn't been invented yet. Claims about physics weren't based on emprical proof and experimental process. It was Natual Philosophy, and the weight of an a priori argument. A lot of it really ended up on reliabilism; deeming the Greeks as reliable sources on such things -- after 1,5000 years of their theories reigning. And therefore, quite honestly, much the same kind of thought that we use to accept mesorah. The word rationalism changed meaning. What I think we really mean is a willingness to be meqabel es ha'emes mimi she'omro, rather than take a maximalist attitude toward mesoretic and Torah-derived statements. But that's quite a bit meta from anyone today using the Moreh as a foundational element of their hashkafah. In particular, RYK mentions three items he believes would enhance MO: : 1) Truth. We live in a post-modern world where objective truth is : rejected and absolute claims are frowned upon. I would go as far as to : say that rationalism (in the general and colloquial sense) as a source : for Emunah is bankrupt, it increasingly speaks to fewer people... I don't think it ever worked. As one of my favorite truisms goes: The mind is a wonderful organ for justifying decisions the heart already reached. People accept the rational argument that fits the experiential justification that really underlies their beliefs. Aristo thought otherwise, which eventually led to the Qalam and the Scholasticists -- including R' Saadia Gaon and the Rambam. But then Scholasticism collapsed, the scientific method arose, leading to a dispute between the Empiricists and Idealists which in turn forced the discipline of philosophy away from belief in the reality of an objective rigorous proof. Experimental eproof, yes. Incontravertible objective philosopy, not so much. Kant then gets all transcendental, and talks about the synthetic a priori. (Knowing things without proof that don't simply boil down to a matter of translations. In the recent past, I mentioned how we know the Euclidean posulates hold in flat space, that Reimannian ones hold in a spherical space, and our knowledge about morality and ethics.) This was the zeitgeist when the Besh"t lived. (Besh"t 1698-1760; Kant 1724-1804.) Someone who is given a proof whose conclusions don't fit their experience is likely to reject the soundness of the givens / postulates / first principles on which it's based. Just as someone who accepts a proof is making synthetic judgments about the quality of the foundations of that proof before even making an analytic decision that the logic seems sound. So even if no one makes a logic error, every proof relies on interpretation of experience. RYBS was not a rationalist in this sense. Brisk is very experiential, to the point of eschewing the study of hashkafah altogether. They are rational when it comes to how to learn, but the value of learning is in the experience of learning. When RYBS does do philosophy, he calls it halachic hermeneutics. Neo-Kantian and Existentialist observations of what halakhah says to the one following it about life. He makes no claims about the function or cause of halakhah, he makes few theological observations. For example, to RYBS tzimtzum speaks mostly to the value of anavah as an emulation of His "Retreat" to give us room. RYBS's Neo-Kantianism is a very different project than the Rambam's Scholasticism. ... : However, during those rare occasions when they do pay attention to the : biblical "stories," their orientation is a-rational. They absolutely : "believe" those stories, but their belief is internal: it is true : because it happened in the Torah. That is where these events transpire : and that is where these stories matter. Asking about their historicity : is, as far as they are concerned, foolish and missing the point. And also a given. It may not be stated as the point, but the confidence given to authority which is a necessary component of the rebbe-chassid relationship means accepting Chazal's historical and scientific claims as being from ruach haqodesh. And not stam as meshalim. The kind of agnosticism about the historicity of medrashic material you are recommending we import Chassidus to justify would itself leave a chassid aghast. And even after citing the long chain of rishonim and acharonim who speak against assuming medrashic stories are historical, And you want to extend that beyond medrashic stories into foundational stories in Tanakh and maybe in the chumash as well? Given my above assertion that the only thread that runs consistently through "rationalism" from the Rambam to today is to choose qabel es ha'emes mimi she'omro over taking some baal mesorah's statement maximally, one actually needs what's left of the Rambam's hashkafic legacy to accomplish this, not Chassidus. : 2) Spiritualization. As scholars have pointed out, chassidic teachings : contain elements of spiritual psychology. They provide us with a : language which helps us infuse our lives with meaning. One can point : to many examples where this psychological spiritualization occurs in : chassidut, I will mention two of them. : 3) Social Change. One of the most pressing tensions in the community : is how to reconcile our values with our convictions; what to do : when halakha points us in one direction and our values in another : direction. We are tempted to follow our values but pulled to abide by : our halakhic commitments.... : Chassidut is very explicit about the value of religious aggression. The : following two quotes are often encountered in chassidic writings, : "even a thief says a prayer before he breaks in to his victim's home" : (quoted on the margin of Brachot 63A, from the Frankfurt manuscript), : and "an aggressive stance towards the Divine bears results" (Sanhedrin : 105A). While the provenance of these texts is Talmudic, they take on : significant prominence in Chassidic theology. They become the impetus : for an aggressive theology which is informed by a religiosity that : sees itself driven by a Divine immanence which infuses our values and : ethical intuitions with spiritual resonance, subsequently leading to : radical societal change. : Such change is actually an integral part of Chassidic social history. : When one looks at recent major changes in traditional Jewish society : it is hard not to notice that the forerunners were often Chassidim. The : last sixty years have seen far reaching social and political change. Both of these are not specific to Chassidus, but would be true of any Ism that draws attention fo the notion that halakhah is merely a "floor" rather than the sum total of behavioral expectations. For that matter, self development and societal needs are both more central to Mussar than chassidus. Pretty much its defning features, really. Which (aside being my own pony in this race) has the advantage of being closer to being consistent with MO's current gestalt; it's easier to get from here to there. OTOH Chaasidic maximalism means that statements made in the past have to be accepted as being from ruach haqodesh, and consequently change in these communities is minimized. Not only because isolation is part of the survival strategy, but because of reverence for and desire to emulate Chassidic isolation is indeed part of their survival stategy. It's hard to leave when you know no other social context and speak with an accent. And knowing that you stand for something greater than yourself in the eyes of those who see your uniform makes it harder to sin. (Harder, not impossible.) But it's not one of the three elements of Chassidus RYK wrote about. : The two most dramatic changes that have happened is that Jews are now : sovereign and women have made significant progress in their pursuit of : religious equality. The pioneers of both these changes were driven, at : least in part, by a chassidic ethos. R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson, : the Rebbi of Lubavitch, was one of the first orthodox scholars to : champion female Talmud scholarship, while R. Avraham Yitzchak Kook, : a serious student of Chassidut, was an outspoken early proponent of : a Zionist state. RAYK is a student of the Leshem, and thus of the Gra's school of Qabbalah. Not Chassidus. You might be able to make a more generic argument for a need for more Qabbalah in MO. Personally, I'm an engineer by inclination, not just training, and my own head doesn't lean that way. Although I had more success with the Leshem Haqdamos uShe'arim, which incidentally heavily draws from the Moreh and Yesodei haTorah, than I did with Qela"ch Pischei Chokhmah, the later parts of Derekh H' or Tomer Devorah after ch. 1. At least in the golah this might be true; in Israel, those of the DL community who are an appropriate audience for Qabbalah already have RAYK in numerous interpretations. Also, Chassidus's approach to Qabbalah puts the Ari Za"l on an even higher pedestal than the Gra did, and elevate R Chaim Vital from *a* talmid of the Ari to his sole authorized presenter. The Gra is willing to question something from RCV that chassidim would literally consider Torah min haShamayim. Which, for the more socially and humanistically minded, might well turn Eitz Chaim 49 ch. 3 into a show stopper. (But this isn't the place to discuss it.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Never must we think that the Jewish element micha at aishdas.org in us could exist without the human element http://www.aishdas.org or vice versa. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 06:48:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 09:48:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <20150611181746.GI20169@aishdas.org> References: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> <20150611181746.GI20169@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150612134802.GA12483@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 2:17 I wrote: : What I think we really mean is a willingness to be meqabel es ha'emes : mimi she'omro, rather than take a maximalist attitude toward mesoretic : and Torah-derived statements. But that's quite a bit meta from anyone : today using the Moreh as a foundational element of their hashkafah. ... : Given my above assertion that the only thread that runs consistently : through "rationalism" from the Rambam to today is to choose qabel es : ha'emes mimi she'omro over taking some baal mesorah's statement maximally... The thought hit me this morning that there is another and drastically different way to view this point. "Qabel es ha'ames mimi she'omro" is a bit of a circularity. Obviously we want to accept the truth from whomever says it, and not errors. So we're deciding what is true /before/ we decide to accept it, not /because/ we accept it. We could therefore say that the single consistent theme we associate with throwing the word "rationalism" about is critical thought. When we judge Aristo's, Copernicus's, Darwin's or Einstein's thought as true, do we second guess that asessment, or accept their ideas as true? And consequently we can phrase this chiluq a third way: As being abut how much authority we give rabbinic works in comparison to how much we trust our own critical thinking. The higher the pedestal we put the historical rabbinate, the more of their statements one would logically choose to suspend judgment and accept. (Not only accept, but accept as literal.) As for the original premise... Rather than looking to RYK's or anyone else's ideas as to what from Chassidus would most benefit MO, perhaps we should look at the Neo-Chassidic phenomenon to see de facto what MO Jews who are open to such experimentation are drawn to. And if those two questions yeild different answers, why? :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger What we do for ourselves dies with us. micha at aishdas.org What we do for others and the world, http://www.aishdas.org remains and is immortal. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Albert Pine From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 06:55:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 09:55:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What FDA Learned About Dark Chocolate and Milk Allergies In-Reply-To: <557A5564.7040807@zahav.net.il> References: <20150611174606.4DC6F181DFA@nexus.stevens.edu> <5579E680.2050607@zahav.net.il> <5579E319.7070103@sero.name> <557A5564.7040807@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <20150612135524.GC12483@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 05:43:32AM +0200, Ben Waxman via Areivim wrote: : This story came out here a few years ago when some kid had an : allergic reaction to parve chocolate. The product had a Badatz Eida : Chareidit heksher. The heksher was fine, they didn't make a mistake. : The amount of milk in the chocolate was much, much less than 1/60. Assuming the allergic reaction isn't lifethreatening so that the child is not prohibited from eating the chocolate on those grounds... Say they're a chocoholic and chose to eat the chocolate shortly after eating meat. Mi ma nafshach for everyone else it's batel. But do we say that since for them it's detectible, bitul doesn't apply? :-)BBii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 14:24:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 21:24:59 GMT Subject: [Avodah] What FDA Learned About Dark Chocolate and Milk Allergies Message-ID: <20150611.172459.6802.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> [Another Areivim email from the same thread. -micha] > Actually it sounds to me that one very much can rely on the > label (from this example). The trace amounts [the LBD are] talking > about are much, much less than 1/60. Completely bateil, > totally parve, but enough to elicit an allergic reaction. I remember learning about a machlokes concerning whether we hold dairy can be batel to pareve, or whether we say that since there is no loss (at least, not the total loss that we have when something becomes nonkosher) we should simply consider it dairy. But I don't remember how we hold on this issue. Anyone else? And shouldn't these questions be on Avodah? Akiva Miller [Done. -micha] From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 11:01:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 14:01:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If and When Message-ID: <20150612180148.GA7261@aishdas.org> R' Yishmael famously (Mechilta BaChodesh-Yisro 11, Mishpatim 182 or ) says that "im" usually means that the decision is up to you, but three times it's a chiyuv: - "Im mizbach avanim ta'aseh Li" (Shemos 20:21) - "Im kesef talveh es ami" (Shemos 22:24) - "Im taqriv minchas bikurim" (Vayiqra 2:14) This is often explained in English as saying that "im" usually means "if", but in these cases it takes on the rarer second meaning of "when". I would prefer to propose a single common interpretation. LAD, "im" introduces an implication -- X implies Y. When X is a conditional, then so will the Y that depends on it. When X is always obligated, then Y will also be always obligated, but the "allways" is because X is. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 13 19:40:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 04:40:37 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Why Chassidut Message-ID: <557CE9A5.6090303@zahav.net.il> From Rav Yehoshua Shapira (my quick translation) The idea that Chassidut?s positive atmosphere isn?t obligatory is a serious mistake. Not only is it obligatory, but it brings with it more obligations. Without emphasis on the Mitzvot of ahava and yirah, simcha and deveikut (which are the soul of the 613 mitzvot) the mitzvot remain external actions, technical, something which doesn?t affect or uplift the heart and soul. Those doreitta mitzvot, which are the pinimiot of all mitzvoth, demand from a person and from us to give their entire being when doing a mitzvah. . . .. In the performance of mitzvoth, God wants our hearts. Therefore, Chassidut definitely demands deep dedication. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 15:34:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ysoscher via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 18:34:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed Message-ID: <073EBBC1-7CA3-4E26-BA35-4A9007B1EAE4@gmail.com> Chana, Three quick points: 1) You are making the mistake many others are making as well, conflating chassidim with chassidut. Chassidic life today has very little to do with original chassidut. Early chassidut was a revolutionary theological movement which appealed to a small elitist group. As time went by more people started joining. As the masses joined, the theology became diluted. The theologically influenced practices reminded but the ethos became stagnant. Therefore, your attempt to disprove my thesis from the way Chassidim behave today is wrong. I'm advocating for chassidic theology which was prevalent during the first and second generation of the chassidic movement, people like the Besht, the Magid, the Toldos Yakov Yosef, Reb Nachaman, the Ba'al Hatanye and others. I have no doubt that their philosophy informed Rav Kook and Lubavitcher Rebbe when dealing with tensions between Halacha and modernity. And, their philosophy can help us today as well. Incorporating a chassidic ethos would allow us to infuse our encounters with modernity with kedusha and meaning. Which brings me to my second point. 2) Kabbakah and chassidut isn't about warmth and community. It's a highly sophisticated philosophical system which offers a nuanced alternative to the Maimonidean/rationalist approach. While the approach is a-rational, it isn't irrational. However, more to the point, the warmth and sense of community is a byproduct of this theology, not its primary focus. 3) Finally, I'm not sure I understand your point about the Rambam. The Rambam says that he believes it is justified to fool and mislead the masses. That to me is highly problematic. Rabbi Ysoscher Katz Chair, Department of Talmud, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School; Director of the Lindenbaum Center for Halakhic Studies; Educational Director of Judaic Studies, Luria Academy, Brooklyn, NY.; Rabbi, Prospect Heights Shul. E-mail: ysoscher at gmail.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 07:00:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 14:00:32 GMT Subject: [Avodah] If and When Message-ID: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > R' Yishmael famously (Mechilta BaChodesh-Yisro 11, Mishpatim 182 > or ) says that "im" usually means that the > decision is up to you, but three times it's a chiyuv: > - "Im mizbach avanim ta'aseh Li" (Shemos 20:21) > - "Im kesef talveh es ami" (Shemos 22:24) > - "Im taqriv minchas bikurim" (Vayiqra 2:14) ... > LAD, "im" introduces an implication -- X implies Y. ... > When X is always obligated, then Y will also be always > obligated, but the "always" is because X is. If I'm understanding you correctly, your logic will work only if there is another pasuk somewhere which *already* obligates us to build a mizbe'ach of stone, to lend money without interest, and to bring bikkurim in this manner. If so, then a fuller translation can be written with the word "if", and without the word "when", like this: : (You are already obligated to build a stone mizbe'ach, and) : if (today is the day that) you will build a stone mizbe'ach, : you will not build it from cut stones... But I thought that R' Yishmael's whole point is that THESE ARE the source pesukim for those mitzvos, and that there are NO other pesukim which obligate you to do these things. That's why R' Yishmael made the whole point of stressing that these "im"s really mean "when". His fear was that if we translate "im" as "if", then someone might think these pesukim are like Hilchos Gittin: "IF you get divorced, here is the right way to do it, and IF you make a stone mizbe'ach, here is the right way." R' Yishmael's point is that there is no "if" - you MUST do these things, and WHEN you do it, this is how. So over Shabbos, I tried to verify my idea. Thanks to RMB, who quoted not only the 3 pesukim, but identified their location, it was pretty simple to look them up in the Torah Temimah. But what I found was rather odd. Torah Temimah Shmos 20:127 quotes R' Yishmael in the Mechilta, pretty much the same way that RMB did, and points out that this is NOT the source for the obligation for build a stone mizbe'ach - that is in Ki Savo. This RMB's logic fits: "If (today is the day that) you build a stone mizbe'ach, don't build it of cut stones." Please note: In the excerpt of the Mechilta which the Torah Temimah quotes regarding the mizbe'ach, R' Yishmael says that there are 3 cases where "im" is not optional, but the other two are not specified. This is very different than the Torah Temimah about lending money. Torah Temimah Shmos 22:198 does quotes R' Yishmael in the Mechilta, but it doesn't mention the word "im" explicitly, nor is there any reference to two other cases. He simply asks whether it is a reshus or a chovah to lend money, and he answers that the obligation appears in Parshas Re'eh. I find it curious that this Mechilta is worded so differently than the previous one, but the message is clearly the same. Finally, we have the pasuk about bikkurim. It turns out that the Torah Temimah on this pasuk doesn't mention R' Yishmael at all. It does mention R' Yehudah, but from the Toras Kohanim, and not from the Mechilta. Further, my unlearned reading of R' Yehudah had little or nothing to do with the reshus/chovah question, but Torah Temimah Vayikra 2:80 DID see a reshus/chovah question that troubled R' Yehudah. I am left with several questions, the main one being whether or not Bikkurim really was R' Yishmael's third "im". And that's where I'll leave this thread, for more skilled minds to investigate should they be so inclined. Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/557d895b6e89195a4573st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 10:27:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 13:27:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If and When In-Reply-To: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150614172744.GA27133@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 02:00:32PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : > LAD, "im" introduces an implication -- X implies Y. : ... : > When X is always obligated, then Y will also be always : > obligated, but the "always" is because X is. : : If I'm understanding you correctly, your logic will work only if : there is another pasuk somewhere which *already* obligates us to build a : mizbe'ach of stone, to lend money without interest, and to bring bikkurim : in this manner. If so, then a fuller translation can be written with : the word "if", and without the word "when"... In reality, the cited Mechilta actually provides derahos to prove that there is nothing optional about the antecedants. But my point was to suggest that "im" has nothing to do with the maybe-ness of "if". Just the implication bit -- if X then Y, or whenever X then Y, or since X then Y, regardless of whether not-X is a possibility or option. Which would reduce what looks like two definitions for "im" into a single common meaning. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Time flies... micha at aishdas.org ... but you're the pilot. http://www.aishdas.org - R' Zelig Pliskin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 13 22:30:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ysoscher via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 01:30:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> R. Micha, you write "I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." This is pure conjecture, perhaps even wishful thinking. The Rambam shares the 7th principle in which he argues that one may disseminate untruths for the greater good of society. Once he believes that, we are left to wonder about everything he wrote: did he really believe that or was there a political (in the Aristotelian sense) agenda behind it. To then preference the yad over the moreh is a personal bias. You and I as Orthodox Jews would like to believe that he believed every word in the yad and that the stuff he says in the moreh, oftentimes contradicting Chazal and the mesorah, was only said for the greater good of society-he personally didn't believe them. The non-observant philosopher, on the other hand, would say the opposite, that in the Moreh he articulates what he really believed, not in the Yad. Ultimately there's no objective measure to determine who's right. R. Isidore Twersky in his book on the Rambam tried to argue that there is no stira, that the moreh and the yad compliment each other. I don't find his arguments compelling. These two sefarim are incompatible and, ultimately, we are left in the dark, never able to objectively determine which of the two Rambam's sefarim were written with ulterior motives. You then write "I am uncomfortably using the Rambam as a poster boy for rationalism." I am using "rationalism" in a loose colloquial sense. Rambam believed in an evidence based religiosity, that we believe in God because His existence can be proven. That project, IMHO, failed. For every proof proving existence there's a proof to the contrary. That is precisely why I believe that the non-rationalist/Kabbalist approach is a better option. They offer an a-rationalist approach ("a-rational," not to be confused with "irrational," they're not the same). They believe because they chose to believe not-because they are "convinced." Their mehalach is more appealing to our post/modern generation where few people believe in absolute truths, and, it's also truer to our tradition. We were always a a-rational tradition until Maimonides came along and changed that. Which brings me to my next point. You then write "...means accepting Chazal's historical and scientific claims as being from ruach haqodesh. And not stam as meshalim." implying that I believe that stories in Chazal or Torah are meshalim. [Chas lei lezar'eih deAvraham deleimru hakha]; God forbid that I should make such a suggestion. I am saying something radically different. We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims. A faith claim is a religious "belief" not a scientific claim. Two things distinguish the chasid's experience of reading Torah from the philosopher's experience. When the chasid reads those stories he or she a) doesn't pause to ask if it's "true" they just learn it. "Truth" isn't a primary orientation of their encounter with toras Ha'shem. B) In the event that he does pause to ask the "truth" question, his approach is a-rational and unscientific. The truth question, for him or her, is internal to the system as is the solution. It truthfully and absolutely happened in the Torah. It's not denying the claim, it's just ignoring the scientific objective layer. Because the chasid's yiddishkeit happens exclusively in the religious realm. I also think there's a lot of confusion between what I'm arguing and what you're responding to. Briefly: 1) As I wrote to Chana: Chassidim and chassidut is not same. Chassidim today have little to do with chassidut. Contemporary chassidic philosophy is a complete deviation from original chassidut. 2) A-rationalism isn't one iota less sophisticated than rationalism. These are two parallel philosophies each with their own set of nuanced assumptions, postulates, and assumptions. 3) My program has nothing to do with neo-chassidut. NC is a behaviorist movement with very little philosophical underpinning. I'm proposing a theological program which also happens to have behavioral implications. Rabbi Ysoscher Katz Chair, Department of Talmud, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School; Director of the Lindenbaum Center for Halakhic Studies; Educational Director of Judaic Studies, Luria Academy, Brooklyn, NY.; Rabbi, Prospect Heights Shul. E-mail: ysoscher at gmail.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 08:55:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 11:55:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] 100% Vegetable oils etc. (Walker Crisps) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <557DA3F6.8050406@sero.name> On Areivim, Kaganoff wrote: > Zev Sero wrote: >> Kaganoff wrote: >>> Zev Sero wrote: >>>> Kaganoff wrote: >>>>> I would be rather surprised if there was a genuine kashrus concern >>>>> from with the Walker Crisps from any meat contamination. >>>>> Any meat would be batel. >>>> It's flavouring. >>> We hold of bittul b'shishim. >> Only as a general assumption that at that dilution it can't be tasted. >> Not applicable to concentrated flavourings which are designed to be tasted >> at high dilution. > That is a chumrah that you could adopt, but should not force on others. Why do you call it a chumra? Do you deny that the din is about ta`am, not percentage, and bitul beshishim is merely a general assumption that at that level of dilution there is no ta`am? >>> And it's a not a flavoring for this particular product. So it is not >>> avida l'ta'amei, even at less than 60. >> Since when does the fact that it wasn't intended to be in this product make it >> not intended for its taste? > That is why companies spend thousands of dollars perfecting formulas > for what is and is not used in a product. If it is not used as an > ingredient, then it was not meant to flavor this product. Once again, so what? Where did you get this idea that it matters whether it was intended to be in this product? Perhaps you're thinking of nosen ta'am lifgam, and saying that even a pleasant flavour, if it was not intended to be in a particular dish, may be considered a pegam in that dish. But that doesn't work. Suppose a chef created a dish flavoured with lard, but made a mistake; he put in too much, or too little, or didn't cook it long enough, or cooked it too long, or at the wrong temperature, and the final flavour of the dish isn't what he was aiming for. It's pleasant, and the diners eat it up and compliment him, but he knows that it wasn't meant to taste like that, and his recipe needs work. Can you imagine calling that dish pagum, and allowing it to be eaten?! That's obviously not tenable. So how is this case any different? A pleasant and desirable flavour has made its way into a product that wasn't intended to have that flavour. Does that make it pagum?!! No. It's a good product, it's just not the product that's on the label. The product that's on the label is kosher, but the product that's inside the packet is treif, exactly as if a labelling error had occurred. >>>>> Stam Keilim Ain ben Yomo. >>>> Are you joking? That klal is clearly not true in any commercial setting. >>> Why do you assume that it is clearly not true. Or rather you are >>> assuming that in a majority of cases, meat is used the same day as >>> the kosher product. That strikes me as a bit extreme. >> It's not at all extreme. Everyone knows that commercial equipment is almost >> *never* idle for 24 hours at a time. And since the meat flavouring is a >> regular product it stands to reason that it's processed every day. > Do you know this for a fact about this particular plant? Otherwise, > it's an assumption that you can make, as per Chazal. Everyone knows that it's true about *all* commercial equipment. And we have no right to "assume" something we know not to be true. Stam keilim einom bnei yomam is simply not a valid rule in the context of commercial equipment today. >> In any case, the issue here isn't keilim, since the flavouring is cold, and >> sprayed on cold chips. If it were keilim then there would be no bittul >> beshishim, since stam keilim are more than 1/60 of their contents. No, >> the issue here is the residue of actual flavouring that remains in the >> equipment after the meat flavours are run, until it is cleaned. > Which again would be batel within the first few products of the new run. It might be, if we knew the order in which the flavours are run. But they refuse to disclose that information. What we do know is that the plain chips are run first, so they're acceptable. After that all bets are off. There is no way to be sure that the packet of non-meat-flavoured chips you are eating was not the first one off the rank immediately after a meat run. >>>>> It's not Avida L'Ta'amei, etc. >>>> It's precisely avida letaama -- it's a flavouring! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 16:53:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 19:53:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> References: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150614235339.GA15695@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 01:30:46AM -0400, Ysoscher via Avodah wrote: : R. Micha, you write "I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle : applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word : in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think : "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." : : This is pure conjecture, perhaps even wishful thinking. The Rambam : shares the 7th principle in which he argues that one may disseminate : untruths for the greater good of society.... Yes, but he says it in an introduction explaining a particular kind of book -- which the Moreh is, and the Yad isn't. Whereas the Yad self-describes as being Mishneh Torah, explanation, not obfuscation. So why look to the intro to the Moreh to muddle what the Rambam himself says was the point of the Yad? In either case, the Rambam describes Yad and the Peirush haMishnayos a explanations written to be comprehensible to the masses. Moreh 2:35 (el-Qafih ["Kapach"]): Kevar bi'arti likhlal benei adam ... veheivesi ra'ayos al kakh ubirartav bePeirush haMishnah ubeMishneh Torah... : You and I as Orthodox Jews would like to believe that he believed every : word in the yad and that the stuff he says in the moreh, oftentimes : contradicting Chazal and the mesorah, was only said for the greater : good of society-he personally didn't believe them. The non-observant : philosopher, on the other hand, would say the opposite, that in the : Moreh he articulates what he really believed, not in the Yad. Actually, I tend to side with the anti-Mamonidians. Mostly because his model of redemption leaves people like my son Shuby (who has Downs) wandering around the palace with no hope of getting in. (To paraphrase 3:51.) : You then write "I am uncomfortably using the Rambam as a poster boy : for rationalism." : : I am using "rationalism" in a loose colloquial sense... Which is so loose as to be meaningless. The Rambam predated science, and followed the secular authority. Rationalism today refers to emprical and other objective proof. : That project, IMHO, failed. For every proof : proving existence there's a proof to the contrary. That is precisely : why I believe that the non-rationalist/Kabbalist approach is a better : option. They offer an a-rationalist approach ("a-rational," not to be : confused with "irrational," they're not the same). They believe because : they chose to believe not-because they are "convinced." Yeah, but so does the Gra's Qabbalah or Mussar. Mussar in particular replaces the Rambam's akrasia based on knowlege / wisdom, and therefore redemption through getting the right knowledge, with talk of first-hand experience, emotions, subconscious, etc... : You then write "...means accepting Chazal's historical and scientific : claims as being from ruach haqodesh. And not stam as meshalim." implying : that I believe that stories in Chazal or Torah are meshalim. : : [Chas lei lezar'eih deAvraham deleimru hakha]; God forbid that I should : make such a suggestion. I am saying something radically different. Well, I wouldn't lump the two together. The Rambam is far from alone in considering aggadic stories to be meshalim repeated with not concern about historicity. Much like you wrote -- an authentic attitude toward such things would be to not care about what really happened. Not to assert they are or aren't historical. (Although the Rambam would tell you to assume the wilder ones aren't historical, lest you make a joke out of the Torah -- the first two of the three katim described in his haqdamah to mishnah Cheileq.) : We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims. A : faith claim is a religious "belief" not a scientific claim... Agreed. BUT... the kind of problem I thought you were trying to address was the person who felt the Torah and academia conflict. To invoke this dichotomy to resolve the issue would be to allow people to assert ahistoricity, rather than avoiding a position altogether. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The true measure of a man micha at aishdas.org is how he treats someone http://www.aishdas.org who can do him absolutely no good. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Samuel Johnson From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 06:49:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ken Bloom via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 09:49:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What FDA Learned About Dark Chocolate and Milk Allergies Message-ID: > > > Actually it sounds to me that one very much can rely on the > > label (from this example). The trace amounts [the LBD are] talking > > about are much, much less than 1/60. Completely bateil, > > totally parve, but enough to elicit an allergic reaction. > I remember learning about a machlokes concerning whether we hold dairy > can be batel to pareve, or whether we say that since there is no loss (at > least, not the total loss that we have when something becomes nonkosher) > we should simply consider it dairy. But I don't remember how we hold on > this issue. Anyone else? > And shouldn't these questions be on Avodah? > Akiva Miller What's the machloket? Doesn't the Rema YD 99:6 clearly hold that that milk is batel in parve? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 14:00:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 17:00:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safeik and Multivalent Logic Message-ID: <20150615210040.GA17358@aishdas.org> Back on Fri, 14 May 2004 10:45am EST (yes, 11 years ago) I wrote on the thread "Valid halachic change" I wrote: > I was at a yarchei (yarei'ach? shavu'ah -- since it was only a > week?) kallah during Elul in Boston where RYBS explicitly said is wasn't. > He also speaks about multivalent logic in halakhah in numorous places > in Ish haHalakhah. From the [yarchei kallah]: > An esrog that was used for the mitzvah is qadosh and assur behana'ah > that entire day. And since it's qadosh bein hashemashos, it's gadosh > part of the next day and therefore assur behan'ah the entire next day. > RYBS asked (as do many) mimanafshach: Either BhS is part of the first > day, and there's an isur hana'ah BhS. But in that case BhS isn't part > of the next day, and on that day han'ah should be mutar. Or, BhS is part > of the 2nd day, and the issur would end BhS! > Rather, for certain sefeiqos both chalosim apply. It's only when the > chalos turns into a pe'ulah that we are forced to choose. > Therefore, one can daven either minchah or ma'ariv BhS. Even switch off > between days. But not both in the same BhS. > This is why a woman who is from safeiq chalal history (Rashi and Tosafos > disagree on details of the case) is called an "almanas issah", the widow > of a dough, a mixture. > This shtims with the teshuvas RAEiger distinguishing kol deparish meiruba > parish and kol kavu'ah kemechtzah al mechtzah. When the question is one > of pasqening on an unknown situation, we follow rov. When one is trying > to resolve a question that arose after the pesaq, rov doesn't apply. > Rov is a non-boolean state, something between yes and no. Therefore, > it does not apply after we've taken the question from the realm of > machshavah to that of ma'aseh. > Also, Rav Tzadoq (Resisei Laylah 17) distringuishes between the logic of > machshavah and that of pe'ulah, saying that when it comes to machshavah, > it's impossible to consider one thing without also considering its > opposite. RThK then develops this idea to explain eilu va'eilu as being > about real plurality. (More on this when I summarize the articles whose > URLs have been posted to the list.) I'm repeating all this because, once again, AhS Yomi showed me that something I thought I understood was more complicated than I realized. AhS OC 638:5 distinguishes between muqtza machmas mitzvah and other forms of muqtza when it comes to migo de'isqatzei bein hashemashos, isqatza'ei lekhulei yoma. And so, sukkah and its decorations (the topic of OC 688) are muqtzah the following day. But beitzah shenoledah beYT rishon is not muqtzah on the next day. So the example RYBS brings of esrog fits this pattern too -- muqtzah machmas mitzvah is muqtzah the day after it's used for the mitzvah. However, RYBS used it to make a general point about the nature of BhS, and I surmized safeiq in general. I don't understand how we can, if even withint the topic of mutqzah we find BhS acting both like a mixture of states and being in one of the two states -- although we don't know which -- depending on the kind of muqtzah we're talking about. Thoughts, anyone? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The Maharal of Prague created a golem, and micha at aishdas.org this was a great wonder. But it is much more http://www.aishdas.org wonderful to transform a corporeal person into a Fax: (270) 514-1507 "mensch"! -Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 14:44:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 17:44:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Worker or Craftsman In-Reply-To: <5579B89C.8060902@sero.name> References: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> <5579B89C.8060902@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150615214430.GA17695@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 12:34:36PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Eruvin 65a: Anan po`alei diy'mamei anan. The context is talmud Torah, and speaks to the fact that when it comes to Torah, it's the amount of learning, not the success at comprehension, that matters most. See also the Me'iri ad loc, who says simply that R' Nachman bar Yitzchaq is saying we should learn the whole day, because that's the only way we'll fully understand. Which alines with R' Zeira's statement, when he was complemented "Mechadedan shema'iskha!" and he replied "diyemama ninhu." I do not think it can be applied to my question -- whether life is a job of "be good as long as you're here", or if we each have a specific task we were put here to accomplish. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Take time, micha at aishdas.org be exact, http://www.aishdas.org unclutter the mind. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 15:01:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 18:01:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] 100% Vegetable oils etc. In-Reply-To: <20150610.215234.27464.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150610.215234.27464.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150615220103.GB17695@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 01:52:34AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : ... I would think that non-kosher flavorings cannot be batel. Bitul : is a mathematical procedure by which we can presume that the non-kosher : ingredient is not noticeable... In fact, the only time the mishnah invokes bitul beshishim is with min bemino, so that you can't tell which of two identically tasting substances one is tasting. (Chullin 7:4-5, Zevachim 8:6) Rava (Chullin 97a-b) says that if a non-Jew can be asked to taste a substance, we rely on their statement, but if not (eg min bemino), then we use batel beshishim. In contrast, Bar Kaparah holds kol issurin shebiTorah is beshishim. Ta'am is just a derabbaanan that doesn't allow us to use the fundamental 1/60 bitul. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you're going through hell micha at aishdas.org keep going. http://www.aishdas.org - Winston Churchill Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 11:20:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 14:20:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> References: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150616182036.GA13263@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 6:34pm EDT, RYK wrote: : 1) You are making the mistake many others are making as well, conflating : chassidim with chassidut. Chassidic life today has very little to do with : original chassidut. Early chassidut was a revolutionary theological : movement which appealed to a small elitist group... I thought Chassidus started out a kiruv movement, designed to bring Judaism to the kind of people Litta's focus on learning left without religion. Like the story of the boy who played his prayers on his flute, or the one who recited the alef beis over and over and begged HQBH to weave them into the right words. But in any case, to get closer to the point I intended to make... ... : 2) Kabbalah and chassidut isn't about warmth and community. It's a highly : sophisticated philosophical system which offers a nuanced alternative : to the Maimonidean/rationalist approach. : While the approach is a-rational, it isn't irrational. I am not sure how you're using "a-rational". Even after your consequent explanation (posted Sun Jun 14, 1:30am EDT): : They offer an a-rationalist approach ("a-rational," not to be : confused with "irrational," they're not the same). They believe because : they chose to believe not-because they are "convinced." What is this a-rational stance that is also highly philosophical and yet not the experiential chassidus of the nostalgic memories with which you opened your blog post? I cannot figure out what you're getting at. Contining the first post: : 3) Finally, I'm not sure I understand your point about the Rambam. The : Rambam says that he believes it is justified to fool and mislead the : masses. That to me is highly problematic. And in the follow-up post he elaborated: : R. Micha, you write "I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle : applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word : in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think : "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." In an introduction to a philosophical book he thought was a bad idea to write that he produced as a necessary evil. Thus the title of the Moreh Nevuchim. It's a tactic he had to reveal the esoteric to those ready for it while keeping it esoteric. Recall, that while we think of Pardes's "sod" as Qabbalah, to him it was more like the Moreh. In the Pesichah the Rambam limits the need of obfuscation to the topics of Maaseh haMerkavah and Maaseh Bereishis. So, after the first 5 chapters of the Yad, the whole discussion in the pesichah and haqdamah of the Moreh wouldn't apply. ... : We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims... Just like I loathe using the word rationalism because it's so vague in meaning as to just add to the confusion, let me add the word "fact". We use it to mean (a) a truth, (b) an empirical/physical truth, (c) a truth established by evidence, (d) an empirical truth established by evidence, and in legal settings: (e) the empirical evidence itself ("let me present the facts of this case"). : We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims. A : faith claim is a religious "belief" not a scientific claim... ... and therefore there is a gap between religious beliefs and scientific claims. Belief is yet another dangerous word. Knowledge is classically (Plato) defined as a justified true belief. In that sense, anything you accept as true is a belief. Other times we use belief in contrast to knowledge. A usage that ends up undermining confidence in something we seem to overtly be claiming is true. After all, if you think it's true, and you think you have real reason to think it's true, why say "believe" rather than "know"? Which gets me back to the point, I hope. You talk about belief in chassidus being an act of will. Personally, I agree with Rihal when he has the chaver note that anything one philosopher can prove, another can prove the opposite. (Kuzari 1:13) Religion isn't amenable to proof, and that's why Scholasticism, the idea of giving religion a philosophical underpinning, lost momentum centuries ago. The reasons why are two-fold: First, negi'os. People cannot really objetively think about these topics. They end up liking proofs of disliking proofs based on where they already decided things should end up. Like one of the truisms in my signature file generator says: The mind is a wonderful organ for justifying decisions the heart already reached. So, whether or not you agree that some postulate is self-evident (Kant: synthetic a priori) and therefore the proof works will depend more on whether you want to believe than actual obviousness. Second, the experiences upon which religious belief gets justified are internal. Questions of whether Shabbos, kashrus, or some of the more elegant outcomes of lomdus statisfy my Search For Meaning (Frankl) is quite a bit more difficult (usually impossible) to duplicate for someone else. Unlike a getting someone else to experience something empirical that you did by repeating a science experiment. But I think chassidic belief, even as per your description of it, is rational rather than an act of will. It's not Scholastic, expecting the kind of proof that would have make R' Saadia Gaon or the Rambam happy, but it is based on deriving a conclusion that fits one's evidence (ie experiences). I would say "rational" but not "rationalist", except that just highlights how many problems we get into throwing around the word "rationalism". This is true about how emunah works whether speaking about why people become BT, go OTD, or even if we're speaking of the Rambam. The Rambam lived in a world that didn't value non-philosophical justification, so he felt that real emunah required Scholasticism. (There was a time, not that long ago, when most people's emunah was backed by Reliabilism. My parents and community have a track record of being reliable sources of truth, so I trust them on this too.) To my mind, the difference is whether someone values the chizuq emunah of affirming that conclusions with that half of the philosophical proofs that end up in the right place. The rationalist does so, thinking that's *why* he believes (despite the Kuzari). Some of us simply enjoy philoosphy or consider such explorations to be part of talmud Torah. And others simply don't need the exercise. : a) doesn't pause to ask if it's "true" they just learn it. "Truth" : isn't a primary orientation of their encounter with toras Ha'shem. B) In : the event that he does pause to ask the "truth" question, his approach : is a-rational and unscientific... Again, if it's taken for granted as being true, truth is still at issue. Moreso, they really don't discuss truth because trueh is a given. It's like water not being the primary orientation of fish. : It truthfully and absolutely : happened in the Torah. It's not denying the claim, it's just ignoring : the scientific objective layer. Because the chasid's yiddishkeit happens : exclusively in the religious realm. Lets plow through the words and just ask outright: A chassid would take it for granted that a time traveler would find the Yam Suf divided into 13 tunnels with everything you might want available to be plucked from the walls. No? You may deprecate the importance of that historical claim to the belief system of Chassidic Judaism. I would agree that chassidim do not consider the historicity important. But the belief is there, and for reasons that speak volumes about the gap between chassidus and MO as a potential target audience. Chassidim have to accept the historicity of this midrashic elaboration of Qerias Yam Suf because maximalism and acceptance of rabbinic authority run much stronger in comparison to confidence in one's own truthometer in chassidus. Part of the value of having a rebbe is to believe he has access to truths I don't. And similarly one's rebbe's rebbes, and so on through Chazal and whomever repeated that medrash. To a community that teaches the value of other sources of knowledge, such as secular historians or other professionals, such maximalism is impossible, and therefore bitul to a rebbe will always be limited. Yes, it would be of value to realize that historical claims are non-central to religion. It makes it much easier to table any questions one might have in those areas as not being important, therefore not very pressing. Things that can wait for an answer rather than being responded to now, with what I know now, or taken as an upshlug. ... : 3) My program has nothing to do with neo-chassidut. NC is a behaviorist : movement with very little philosophical underpinning. I'm proposing a : theological program which also happens to have behavioral implications. I understood this. However, NC is an indication of what elements of chassidus actually were found useful by MO Jews. You're theorizing which elements you thought would in theory be more useful. I am asking about the difference between the two. If your theory were correct about what MO could use, wouldn't the Neo-Chassidim have locked on to those three points? IOW, I know they are different, and some idea as to how -- but why? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Weeds are flowers too micha at aishdas.org once you get to know them. http://www.aishdas.org - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 11:53:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 18:53:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Asking your questions to one authority Message-ID: <45cbca92b332457591636332317a5855@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> I'm looking for sources concerning a requirement or good advice concerning asking all your questions to one authority. According to some commentaries the mishna (actually mentioned twice) in Avot concerning aseih lcha rav points in this direction as does the gemara in eiruvin on not picking all the leniencies of both beit hillel and shammai. OTOH the gemara in avodah zara about not asking 2 rabbis is interpreted as applying only to the particular question at hand. From a Brisker theory angle wouldn't the existence of overarching theoretical constructs argue that all your questions should go to one authority so as to avoid the possible tartei dsatrei on a meta-theory basis (i.e. psak in kashrut case a may share a construct with psak in business case b)? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 13:36:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 16:36:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Asking your questions to one authority In-Reply-To: <45cbca92b332457591636332317a5855@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> References: <45cbca92b332457591636332317a5855@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <558088EA.2070102@sero.name> On 06/16/2015 02:53 PM, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > From a Brisker theory angle wouldn?t the existence of overarching > theoretical constructs argue that all your questions should go to one > authority so as to avoid the possible tartei dsatrei on a meta-theory > basis (i.e. psak in kashrut case a may share a construct with psak in > business case b)? Hilchesa keRav be'isurei vechiShmuel bedinei. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 16:30:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 19:30:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why Chassidut In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150616233048.00B061836ED@nexus.stevens.edu> At 02:20 PM 6/16/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: > From Rav Yehoshua Shapira (my quick translation) > >The idea that Chassidut?s positive atmosphere isn?t obligatory is a >serious mistake. Not only is it obligatory, but it brings with it more >obligations. Without emphasis on the Mitzvot of ahava and yirah, simcha >and deveikut (which are the soul of the 613 mitzvot) the mitzvot remain >external actions, technical, something which doesn?t affect or uplift >the heart and soul. > >Those doreitta mitzvot, which are the pinimiot of all mitzvoth, demand >from a person and from us to give their entire being when doing a >mitzvah. . . .. In the performance of mitzvoth, God wants our hearts. >Therefore, Chassidut definitely demands deep dedication. > The following is from Rav Dr. Y. Breuer's Essay "Our Way" that appears in the collection of Rav Breuer's essays titled A Unique Perspective. One should not confuse Chassidus with the so-called Chassidic movement that began in Poland in the 18th century. The latter met the needs of the Jewish masses who lived in terrible misery, and thus spread rapidly. Tefillah was projected into the foreground, from which flowed strength and faith in God; dances and songs induced enthusiasm and joyfulness; the stress on human and hu- mane qualities increased the self-respect of the impoverished. Thus, without a doubt, Chassidism saved these Jewish masses. However, the resulting frequent neglect of Torah study led to justified protest by Torah giants and caused a regrettable inner rift, which was subsequently healed when a great Chassidic leader returned the study of Torah to its rightful central position. Genuine Chassidic Jewishness strives for Chassidus, which in itself is a lofty achievement on the ethical ladder which the Yehudi must attempt to climb. This is demonstrated for us by R. Pinchas ben Yair (Avodah Zarah 20b): Our highest duty is Torah and its study; this leads to carefulness which in turn leads to active striving; to guiltlessness; to purity; to holiness; to modesty; to the fear of sin; and, finally, to Chassidus. Accordingly, a Chassid is a Jew who gives himself in limitless love to the Divine Will and its realization, and to whom the welfare of his fellowmen constitutes the highest source of satisfaction (see Chorev, Ch. 14). Thus, in the Talmudic era, the title ?Chassid? was a mark of highest distinction ? and this is what it should be today. The so-called Chassid who confines his Avodah to prayer does not deserve this title, as this ?Avodah of the heart? does not call him to the Avodah of life where he must practice and apply the precepts of Chassidus. He does not deserve this title if he is particular regarding the kashrus of his food but fails to apply the precepts of conscientiousness and honesty to his business dealings. He does not deserve this title if his social life is not permeated by love and deep interest in the welfare of his fellowmen; if he does not shun quarreling, envy or even abominable lashon harah; if he does not earnestly strive to acquire those midos for which Rav Hirsch (in his Chorev) calls so eloquently. Certainly the mere exhibition of a certain type of clothing or the type of beard worn or even the adornment of long sideburns does not entitle the bearer to the title of honor?Chassid. These may be marks of distinction ? but they must be earned to be deserved. Even study of the Zohar does not necessarily signify the attainment of Chassidus. If this were so, only a few chosen ones would be eligible. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 23:03:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2015 09:03:25 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] If and When In-Reply-To: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 5:00 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > Please note: In the excerpt of the Mechilta which the Torah Temimah quotes > regarding the mizbe'ach, R' Yishmael says that there are 3 cases where "im" > is not optional, but the other two are not specified. This is very > different than the Torah Temimah about lending money. > > Torah Temimah Shmos 22:198 does quotes R' Yishmael in the Mechilta, but it > doesn't mention the word "im" explicitly, nor is there any reference to two > other cases. He simply asks whether it is a reshus or a chovah to lend > money, and he answers that the obligation appears in Parshas Re'eh. I find > it curious that this Mechilta is worded so differently than the previous > one, but the message is clearly the same. You see this quite often in the Torah Temima when a derasha says something about a number of pesukim in parallel. He quotes the same source in each place, but redacts it so that it appears to be referencing only that specific verse. An example in last week's parasha is the Yerushalmi that all 10 commandments are referenced in Kiryat Shma`, quoted on 15:39 and 41 (OK, not such a close parallel because in that case he does make the cross-reference and quotes the whole passage on Shemot 20:2, but there are plenty of other examples) In any case, inside the Mechilta on both verses in Shemot all three "im"s are listed each time, including bikkurim. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=38109&st=&pgnum=245 http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=38109&st=&pgnum=317 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 17 02:14:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2015 05:14:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Talks by Rav Shimon Schwab, ZT"L Message-ID: <20150617091410.A8547183759@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://torahdownloads.com/shiur-24386.html YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 17 04:00:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2015 07:00:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] =?iso-8859-1?q?Soul_Terminology=2C_and_Expressions_of_Lo?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ve=3A_Proper_Frum_Expression_In_The_Lens_of_the_Ashkenaz_T?= =?iso-8859-1?q?radition_=96_Gleanings__From_Rav_Shimon_Schwab?= Message-ID: <20150617110051.2F7B9183762@nexus.stevens.edu> Please see http://tinyurl.com/q64ehha YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 18 06:50:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2015 09:50:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Ishbaal's Jar Message-ID: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> According to TOI or , discusses finding a jar that dates to around 1020-980 BCE (Iron Age), breating the name the name of Ishbaal ben Beda. Ishbaal is Divrei HaYamim's name for the son of Shaul whom seifer Shemuel calls Ishboshet. (Probably because bearing the name of Baal is a bushah.) Allegedly "Among Judeans, personal names evoking Baal fell out of fashion after the 10th century, but not so among their Israelite cousins to the north." Lisa, does any of this relate to strengthening or weakening the case for revisionist dating? (Newcomers might wish to see the Jewish Action article Lisa has on her site at to understand why I asked.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person must be very patient micha at aishdas.org even with himself. http://www.aishdas.org - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 18 07:43:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2015 17:43:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Ishbaal's Jar In-Reply-To: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> References: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 4:50 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > According to TOI < > http://www.timesofisrael.com/inscription-bearing-name-from-davidic-era-found-at-ancient-site > > > or , discusses finding a jar that dates to around > 1020-980 BCE (Iron Age), breating the name the name of Ishbaal ben Beda. > See also http://bit.ly/1F2HFD9 (= https://www.academia.edu/12775087/The_%CA%BEI%C5%A1ba%CA%BFal_Inscription_from_Khirbet_Qeiyafa) for a more detailed excavation report. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 19 11:46:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 13:46:46 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Ishbaal's Jar In-Reply-To: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> References: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55846396.5000207@starways.net> On 6/18/2015 8:50 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > According to TOI > or , discusses finding a jar that dates to around > 1020-980 BCE (Iron Age), breating the name the name of Ishbaal ben Beda. > > Ishbaal is Divrei HaYamim's name for the son of Shaul whom seifer > Shemuel calls Ishboshet. (Probably because bearing the name of Baal > is a bushah.) The standard form for names in most of the ancient near east was DN-stem, or stem-DN, where DN is a divine name. We have this pattern ourselves with names like Chizki-Yahu and N'tan-El, or El-Chanan and Yeho-natan. From what I've seen, it wasn't unheard of for people to refer to the same person, but exchange the DN. So Ish-Boshet for Ish-Baal is in line with Hado-Ram (I Chron 18:10) for Yo-Ram (II Sam 8:10), or Hado-Ram (II Sam 20:24, I Kings 12:18, II Chron 10:18) for Adoni-Ram (I Kings 4:6, 5:28). I don't see any indication that this pattern of name was different towards the beginning or towards the end of the monarchy. That said, Baal in particular sort of declined after the time of Eliyahu. They had newer avodah zarahs to play with. I don't really see a lot of chronological significance here. Yes, they did some radiometric dating, but as always, I would take that with grain of salt until I saw the raw results. When you send something for carbon dating, you tell them first what your target date is, so that they can discard results that are off from that too significantly. Not very scientific, but I guess it's "science-y". Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 19 13:38:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 16:38:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Soul Terminology, and Expressions of Love: Proper Frum Expression In The Lens of the Ashkenaz Tradition ? Gleanings From Rav Shimon Schwab In-Reply-To: <20150617110051.2F7B9183762@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150617110051.2F7B9183762@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150619203804.GA23818@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 17, 2015 at 07:00:53AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Please see http://tinyurl.com/q64ehha On the second example, I'm reminded of the Soloveitchik tradition that emotions are the Qodesh haQadashim of avodas Hashem. And therefore while RSSschwab's position was depited as: > Nowadays one at times witnesses public statements, in the form of songs, > declarations, and even bumper stickers, proclaiming [HQBH anachnu ohavim > Osakh!] (Hashem, we love you), an expression that was not commonly heard > shouted aloud in the past in our circles. Is that in consonance with our > [Mesorah]? Rav Schwab (in his address entitled Internalizing Eternity) > states the following (after 33:20) Since Ahavas Hashem is such a strictly > personal matter, he who truly loves Hashem does not show his [Ahavah]. He > rather hides it. It is far too intimate to parade it in public. He is > mekayeim [vehatzneia lekhes im E-lokekha]. It is exclusively his private > affair, between him and his Creator. Briskers would not expose any emotion. And so, when RYBS left for Berlin, R' Moshe took him to the train station, but there was no emotional goodbye. Even though RMF didn't know if he would ever see his son (and chavrusah) again. RYBS said he knew his father's feelings at the moment, he just knew that he would never display it publicly. Just a simple "Leikh leshalom HQBH zul dir matzliach zein!" Story told far better, in RYBS's own words here In any case, the Brisker approach doesn't speak to too many people in this generation. I would bet many of us would consider it less-than-positive. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger One who kills his inclination is as though he micha at aishdas.org brought an offering. But to bring an offering, http://www.aishdas.org you must know where to slaughter and what Fax: (270) 514-1507 parts to offer. - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 22 06:53:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2015 09:53:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kuntros chasidei umos haolam Message-ID: <0ce401d0acf2$c108d8f0$431a8ad0$@com> The was once a link posted here to a Kuntros chasidei umos haolam (In hebrew) from a Rav in south Africa (I think he was an Ohr Samach graduate) Does anyone have it or a link to it? Thanks, mc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 22 14:32:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2015 17:32:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Two Levels of Bitachon Message-ID: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is from Rav Schwab on Chumash Parshas Shelach. We suggest the following explanation: Hashem demands bitachon of every Jew - trust in Hashem that everything will turn out for the best, without worrying about what the future might bring. Throughout the generations, devout Jews have walked this path. A person with bitachon ultimately will merit to see clearly that, indeed, "All that Hashem does is for the best." There are two types of bitachon. The first is trusting in Hashem with "closed eyes," with no speculation about what may develop. However, there is a second kind of bitachon that is even greater than the first. This is the bitachon of "open eyes." One who follows this path looks ahead and sees clearly that the future might entail great danger, that his life may be full of trials and tribulations. Nevertheless, he does not hesitate, relying on Hashem to help him deal with whatever the future will hold. This kind of bitachon is greater than the first, because someone who trusts in :Hashem with "open eyes" must elevate his bitachon to a much higher level in order to overcome his worries and quiet his concerns. However, as great as this second path is, it is fraught with danger. There is a strong possibility that instead of overcoming one's fears and worries, one will be vanquished by them. A "realistic" evaluation of the challenges could be so frightening as to cause one to lose his bitachon in Hashem altogether. Therefore, :although the bitachon of "open eyes" might be appropriate for certain great people, Hashem does not demand it of us. Hashem only requires us to have the bitachon of "closed eyes"; we need only trust that everything will turn out for the best, in accordance with His will, without considering what the future might hold. This is implied in the pasuk (Yeshayahu 12:2), 11) Behold the G-d of salvation; I shall trust in Him, and I will not fear. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 12:26:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 21:26:11 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Two Levels of Bitachon In-Reply-To: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <5589B2D3.5030908@zahav.net.il> I'm not sure what this is in reference to, the sin of the spies? What does it mean, to live ones life without worrying about the future? You trust in God so therefore you're calm (meaning you live your life the same way anyone else does, but you have inner peace)? Ben On 6/22/2015 11:32 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > We suggest the following explanation: Hashem demands bitachon of every > Jew - trust > in Hashem that everything will turn out for the best, without worrying > about > what the future might bring. Throughout the generations, devout Jews > have walked > this path. A person with bitachon ultimately will merit to see clearly > that, indeed, > "All that Hashem does is for the best." From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 14:34:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 17:34:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Two Levels of Bitachon In-Reply-To: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150623213434.GA30077@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 22, 2015 at 05:32:42PM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : The following is from Rav Schwab on Chumash Parshas Shelach. ... : There are two types of bitachon. The first is trusting in Hashem with "closed : eyes," with no speculation about what may develop. However, there is : a second kind : of bitachon that is even greater than the first. This is the : bitachon of "open eyes." : One who follows this path looks ahead and sees clearly that the : future might entail : great danger, that his life may be full of trials and tribulations. : Nevertheless, he : does not hesitate, relying on Hashem to help him deal with whatever : the future will : hold... I just want to point out that RSS here is assuming the descriptive bitachon of the CI, not the prescrictive bitachon of Novhardok (and many kiruv programs and religious fiction). The Alter of Novhardok taught that bitachon causes positive results. If you trust G-d enough, He will make things turn out the way you desire. And when you point out to said public speaker that indeed life doesn't work that way this idea gets modified into: Hashem will make things turn out the way you'll be happy with once you get to the end of the road. And while I'm being cynical about it, this is unassailable. If things don't yet have a happy ending, it just means the story isn't over yet. You can just push the long run out further and further until you find the happy outcome you promised. In Emunah uBitchon, the CI rejects this notion. He says that bitachon is belief that things are working out according to Divine Plan. A believe in how things run, not a belief that causes things to run right. Rather than the comfort of knowing that you'll like the results, one aims for the comfort that all of life's suffering has meaning and a purpose. RSS presumes the latter and appears to be saying that one can then take this trust in two different ways: - Since Hashem is driving, I don't need to bother looking out the windsheild, it will just stress me out for nothing. - Hashem and I are in partnership, so I cannot refrain from helping Him bring us to our destination, even when it involves heading for trials and tribulations. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is a stage and we are the actors, micha at aishdas.org but only some of us have the script. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Menachem Nissel Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 15:56:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Toby Katz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 18:56:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book Message-ID: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> I recently came across the issue of Jewish Action (the OU's quarterly magazine) of Fall 2000 and in that issue there was a remarkable article. It was a review of a two-volume book called *The Rav: The World of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik* by Rabbi Dr. Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff. The review article was written by R' Philip Weinberger. It was a very laudatory review, written by someone who admired and respected RYBS and who thought the book was excellent. It's important to note that he respected RYBS and admired the book, because when you see what I am going to quote from the review, you might think otherwise. But if you read the whole review you will clearly see that what looks like a negative to me is clearly seen as a positive by R' Weinberger. http://ou.org.s3.amazonaws.com/publications/ja/5761fall/BOOKS.PDF OK here goes -- the most interesting parts of the review (I have mostly dispensed with ellipses, which are distracting): --quote-- [The book] focused my attention on a paradox that confronts me every time a new book or article appears about the saintly Rabbi Soloveitchik, zt"l. In the latter part of the twentieth century, the Rav was one of the most outstanding rabbinic titans, teaching and leading the Jewish people. A master of communication, orally and in print, he left behind multitudes of devoted students and admirers who still hang on his every word. Yet the Rav seems to have left a legacy that is unclear and misunderstood, despite his gifted powers of communication. Among the numerous questions, debated passionately by those who represent themselves as knowing the Rav's authentic thinking, are: What was the Rav's view toward secular education; Torah u'Madda; new religious practices by women; reciting Hallel on Yom HaAtzma'ut; and Religious Zionism? There is a raging battle among his followers as to who may legitimately and authentically present the Rav's opinions, thoughts, ideas and teachings. How could so careful a teacher, who could literally spend hours at a time in shiurim defining with precision the meaning of a particular word or phrase, be misunderstood on so many basic and critical issues? The Rav himself, despite his best efforts, was misunderstood and misquoted in his lifetime by able people who presumably had the best of intentions. The Rav illustrates that he was misunderstood by journalists because of their lack of familiarity with the Rav's precise use of language and terminology, and because the Rav's thoughts, ideas and speech were extraordinarily nuanced, delicate, subtle and sophisticated. However, the book falls short, even on its own terms, in its failure to more deeply explore the complexity and nuances of the Rav's thoughts and insights that were influenced by the religious, existential, and personal tensions that the Rav experienced and talked about. Similarly, the book does not treat much of the controversy that sometimes surrounded the Rav in a meaningful way. There is no acknowledgment of how the Rav was inappropriately treated and often marginalized in the yeshivah universe because of his embracing secular studies and Religious Zionism (albeit in a disciplined and highly nuanced manner)... in a letter to Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Shragai, the Rav writes : "If I were to judge this matter (which party to associate with) based on pragmatic or political considerations, I would join the zealots who ask nothing of their members (not diligence in Torah study, not pure fear of Heaven, nor spending money on tzedakah, nor excessive care with regard to mitzvot) except to besmirch our movement. I could clothe myself with the mantle of a tzaddik and 'fighter of the Lord's battles.' " This and other letters to Rabbi Shragai show clearly what a man of principle the Rav was. ...Scholars and laymen alike are indebted to Rabbi Rakeffet for his vital work. --end quote-- Well, you can see why this review would interest me. Let's take a few points: [1] "The Rav seems to have left a legacy that is unclear and misunderstood, despite his gifted powers of communication." I would suggest that the end of the sentence is contradicted by the beginning of the sentence. The main thing that the Rav generally managed to communicate was that one could be a great Torah scholar and also be a brilliant intellectual in secular terms. This was not the text but the ur-text of much of what he wrote. I will add that he did this not for his own honor but for the honor of the Torah, which was often treated with contempt by mid-twentieth century Jews who were rapidly abandoning the Torah. But his opaque Germanic philosophical style of speaking and writing was by its very nature open to multiple interpretations, and could neither be summarized nor re-written in plain American English. [2] "Among the numerous questions, debated passionately by those who represent themselves as knowing the Rav's authentic thinking, are: What was the Rav's view toward secular education; Torah u'Madda; new religious practices by women; reciting Hallel on Yom HaAtzma'ut; and Religious Zionism?" I would have to say that this is a highly unusual thing to say of any gadol. Of which other gadol could it be said that after he taught and wrote for decades, no one could be sure what his position was on the most important issues of his day? [2A] "What was the Rav's view toward Religious Zionism?" and "his embracing Religious Zionism (albeit in a disciplined and highly nuanced manner)..." Those of us who have claimed (based admittedly, at times, on anecdotal evidence and oral reports) that RYBS was not really a Zionist have often been vilified. Yet here a great admirer of RYBS admits that his views were far from obvious, and subject to much disagreement even among his followers. That RYBS was a great lover of Eretz Yisrael -- of that there can be no doubt. That he really believed in the whole aschalta de'geulah ideology of RZ -- highly doubtful. The rest can be left for another time, or another book. [3] "How could so careful a teacher, who could literally spend hours at a time in shiurim defining with precision the meaning of a particular word or phrase, be misunderstood on so many basic and critical issues?" It may be that in a Gemara shiur, trying to define a word with great precision may lead to greater understanding, but out here in the larger world, such precise definitions tend to leave most people scratching their heads. Common everyday words lose their accepted, common meanings, and the many sentences used to define those words lead to greater obscurity rather than clarity. "When I use a word, it means precisely what I want it to mean." But his listeners or readers are often left in the dark. [4] "The Rav was misunderstood...because his thoughts, ideas and speech were extraordinarily nuanced, delicate, subtle and sophisticated." The impression left by all that subtlety and nuance is that he was trying to avoid saying anything controversial that could be quoted in a sound bite. [5] "There is no acknowledgment of how the Rav was inappropriately treated and often marginalized in the yeshivah universe" [6] "...the zealots who ask nothing of their members (not diligence in Torah study, not pure fear of Heaven, nor spending money on tzedakah, nor excessive care with regard to mitzvot) except to besmirch our movement. I could clothe myself with the mantle of a tzaddik and 'fighter of the Lord's battles...' " Maybe [6] at least partially explains [5]. Maybe the way he felt about them was reflected in the way they felt about him. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 17:52:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 00:52:25 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> References: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> Message-ID: Let's take a few points: [1] "The Rav seems to have left a legacy that is unclear and misunderstood, despite his gifted powers of communication." I would suggest that the end of the sentence is contradicted by the beginning of the sentence. [2] "Among the numerous questions, debated passionately by those who represent themselves as knowing the Rav's authentic thinking, are: What was the Rav's view toward secular education; Torah u'Madda; new religious practices by women; reciting Hallel on Yom HaAtzma'ut; and Religious Zionism?" [2A] "What was the Rav's view toward Religious Zionism?" and "his embracing Religious Zionism (albeit in a disciplined and highly nuanced manner)..." [3] "How could so careful a teacher, who could literally spend hours at a time in shiurim defining with precision the meaning of a particular word or phrase, be misunderstood on so many basic and critical issues?" [4] "The Rav was misunderstood...because his thoughts, ideas and speech were extraordinarily nuanced, delicate, subtle and sophisticated." The impression left by all that subtlety and nuance is that he was trying to avoid saying anything controversial that could be quoted in a sound bite. [5] "There is no acknowledgment of how the Rav was inappropriately treated and often marginalized in the yeshivah universe" [6] "...the zealots who ask nothing of their members (not diligence in Torah study, not pure fear of Heaven, nor spending money on tzedakah, nor excessive care with regard to mitzvot) except to besmirch our movement. I could clothe myself with the mantle of a tzaddik and 'fighter of the Lord's battles...' " Maybe [6] at least partially explains [5]. Maybe the way he felt about them was reflected in the way they felt about him. _______________________________________________ I remember reading the original review and being very surprised. [1]&[2]&[3] My general impression is that most of the lack of clarity and misunderstandings are on issues that have little to do with the style issue. I don't think many get concerned about whether Adam I and II ever resolve their dialectic . The main cause of misunderstandings imho can be generously stated as being caused by The Rav's being so sui generis that students could not assimilate the whole of his teachings. The less generous approach would be that some want to be toleh on an ilan gadol and project their own priorities and approaches on him. Could anyone who looked at his life as a whole have any doubt that he valued secular studies? That he was a non-messianic RZ lover of eretz Yisrael seems pretty clear. [4]Or how about the world is complex and our desire (btw very reflective of our host society) is to boil everything down to a sound bite goes against the educational need to understand how to look at complex issues [6]explaining [5] seems to me like the classic blaming the victim for "asking for it". I can only assume the fact that other roshei yeshiva didn't publically call for tolerance was that they did think he, and MO, was krum or they had higher priorities or didn't think their talmidim would listen to them. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 18:07:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 21:07:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: References: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> Message-ID: <20150624010730.GA18745@aishdas.org> Both Ishbitz and Chabad, Rushin and Satmar each beleive theirs is the most accurate understanding of Derekh haBhesh"t. Kelm, Novhardok and Slabodka have very different understandings of R Yisrael Salanter's teachings. RAYK's disagree over what their rebbe meant. Even Moshe Rabbeinu -- he had 70 front-row talmidim and ever since we have had 70 panim laTorah. Any gadol brilliant and subtle enough to be worth following will so outstrip his talmidim that each only grasps onto one facet and interpretation of a more complex original. This is far from unique to RYBS. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you're going through hell micha at aishdas.org keep going. http://www.aishdas.org - Winston Churchill Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 19:01:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 22:01:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: <20150624010730.GA18745@aishdas.org> References: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> <20150624010730.GA18745@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <558A0F65.7090501@sero.name> On 06/23/2015 09:07 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Both Ishbitz and Chabad, Rushin and Satmar each beleive theirs is the > most accurate understanding of Derekh haBhesh"t. Satmar doesn't believe this; rather, it believes that the BSh"T's torah has been lost. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 19:21:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 22:21:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kol Isha Twist Message-ID: <558A1421.3060009@gmail.com> See http://www.kikar.co.il/174128.html or http://www.totpi.com/2/ultra-orthodox-woman-performs-incognito-on-the-x-factor/ It's an interesting loophole: Since kol b'isha erva only applies when you know what a woman looks like, the heavy sunglasses and very modest dress may do the trick. Not middas chassidus, but perhaps on a technicality permitted. KT, YGB -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 07:35:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 10:35:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kol Isha Twist In-Reply-To: <558A1421.3060009@gmail.com> References: <558A1421.3060009@gmail.com> Message-ID: <558AC044.2010107@sero.name> On 06/23/2015 10:21 PM, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah wrote: > > It's an interesting loophole: Since kol b'isha erva only applies when > you know what a woman looks like, the heavy sunglasses and very > modest dress may do the trick. Not middas chassidus, but perhaps on a > technicality permitted. I don't see anything in the two linked articles about such a loophole. And I don't think it would work. Surely you can see enough of her to form some idea, perhaps mistaken, but enough for the yetzer hara to work with. I think the true heter for what she's doing is a lot simpler: she is not machshil anyone, because whoever is watching the show is already seeing and hearing enough women sing that one more makes no difference at all. If she didn't sing, then in all likelihood another woman would do so, wearing much less and acting more provocatively; or else a man would be giving some provocative performance that would be almost as bad. So really what has she done wrong? Those who don't normally watch should continue not to watch, and they won't be affected. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 08:33:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kaganoff via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 11:33:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating Message-ID: I am curious if anyone has written about a common practice. We assume that *Kaddish* is a *Devar she-Bikdusha* and requires a *minyan* to be recited. We require separate seating for a *Devar she-Bikdusha.* In many circles it is not uncommon to have a *siyyum* with a *kaddish *at a Bar Mitzvah or a Dinner even when there is mixed seating. Does anyone explicitly discuss this practice and permit it? Yonatan Kaganoff -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 11:38:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 14:38:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150624183849.GA2711@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 11:33:54AM -0400, Kaganoff via Avodah wrote: : We require separate seating for a *Devar she-Bikdusha.* This is news to me. Do those who say that zimmun with a minyan is a davar shebiqdushah (BY OC 199 "umah shekasav", MB s"q 15) require separate seating at my shabbos table? The AhS (200:6) refers to zimun with 10 as "shekhinta sharia", but I didn't see him mention minyan or davar shebiqdushah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 11:52:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 14:52:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating Message-ID: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> From: Kaganoff via Avodah We assume that *Kaddish* is a *Devar she-Bikdusha* and requires a *minyan* to be recited. We require separate seating for a *Devar she-Bikdusha.* In many circles it is not uncommon to have a *siyyum* with a *kaddish *at a Bar Mitzvah or a Dinner even when there is mixed seating. Does anyone explicitly discuss this practice and permit it? Yonatan Kaganoff >>>> You see something similar when people make an ad hoc minyan at a wedding (or an airport lounge). They don't put up a mechitza. Is this situation explicitly discussed in the halachic literature? It must be. Maybe what applies to one also applies to the other. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 12:32:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 15:32:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating In-Reply-To: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> References: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> Message-ID: <20150624193208.GA22316@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 2:52pm EDT, RnTK wrote: : From: Kaganoff via Avodah :> We assume that Kaddish is a Devar she-Bikdusha and requires a minyan :> to be recited. :> We require separate seating for a Devar she-Bikdusha. : You see something similar when people make an ad hoc minyan at a wedding : (or an airport lounge). They don't put up a mechitza... Slight topic change. You can have separate seating (or locations in general) without a mechitzah. I believe that minyanim were held at the kotel even when the Ottomans didn't let us put up a mechitzah by separating the genders even without one. I see R YH Henkin (Responsa on Contemporary Jewish Women's Issues, pg 124 ) rejects the hava amina that mechitzah is only for an established shul. He requires a mechitzah, not just separate seating at a temporary location for davening. While a minyan is there, the laws of mara miqdash apply. I do not whether he would advised the yishuv hayashan not to daven at the kotel. Tir'u baTov! -Micha Cc: RYHH -- Micha Berger The trick is learning to be passionate in one's micha at aishdas.org ideals, but compassionate to one's peers. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 12:21:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 19:21:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating In-Reply-To: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> References: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> Message-ID: <9d095a46ac044dd88d591c13b05195d1@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Yonatan Kaganoff >>>> You see something similar when people make an ad hoc minyan at a wedding (or an airport lounge). They don't put up a mechitza. Is this situation explicitly discussed in the halachic literature? It must be. Maybe what applies to one also applies to the other. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=922&st=&pgnum=66 where R' Moshe deals with the Mechitza issue but still requires that there not be intermingling. That's the part I'm unsure of. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 16:34:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 19:34:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safeik and Multivalent Logic In-Reply-To: <20150615210040.GA17358@aishdas.org> References: <20150615210040.GA17358@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150624233428.GA29242@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 15, 2015 at 05:00:40PM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : Back on Fri, 14 May 2004 10:45am EST (yes, 11 years ago) I wrote : on the thread : "Valid halachic change" I wrote: :> I was at a yarchei ... kallah during Elul in Boston where RYBS... :> An esrog that was used for the mitzvah is qadosh and assur behana'ah :> that entire day. And since it's qadosh bein hashemashos, it's gadosh :> part of the next day and therefore assur behan'ah the entire next day. ... :> Rov is a non-boolean state, something between yes and no. Therefore, :> it does not apply after we've taken the question from the realm of :> machshavah to that of ma'aseh. : I'm repeating all this because, once again, AhS Yomi showed me that : something I thought I understood was more complicated than I realized. : AhS OC 638:5 distinguishes between muqtza machmas : mitzvah and other forms of muqtza when it comes to migo de'isqatzei bein : hashemashos, isqatza'ei lekhulei yoma. : And so, sukkah and its decorations (the topic of OC 688) are muqtzah the : following day. But beitzah shenoledah beYT rishon is not muqtzah on the : next day. More info at AhS OC 667:1, which distinguishes between sukkah and 4 minim on Shemini Atzeres. Because sukkah would actually be used bein hashmeshos between the 7th day Sukkos and SA (speaking of EY now), a sukkah and its decorations are muqtzah on SA. The esrog, because the mitzvah would habe been done before BhS either way, is not. It would seem the point in 638:5 appears not to be that mutzah machamas mitzvah is special, but because the mitzvah would still apply BhS. : Thoughts, anyone? Still looking for other perspectives! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 25 02:54:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 09:54:58 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book Message-ID: <20150625.055458.3550.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Even Moshe Rabbeinu -- he had 70 front-row talmidim and ever since > we have had 70 panim laTorah. > > Any gadol brilliant and subtle enough to be worth following will > so outstrip his talmidim that each only grasps onto one facet and > interpretation of a more complex original. > > This is far from unique to RYBS. Here's my guess about what made RYBS unique in this regard: On the one hand, he did have his opinions about many things. But that was NOT what he tried to pass on to his talmidim. In fact, he is famous for NOT answering many of the questions posed to him. What RYBS wanted was for his talmidim to be able to decide for themselves. He never wanted to teach his talmidim WHAT to think, but HOW to think. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Buffett???s Warning for YOU 4 in 5 Americans aren???t taking his shocking advice. Click here now. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/558bd00ca32f7500c77efst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 25 08:10:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 11:10:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: <20150625.055458.3550.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150625.055458.3550.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150625151002.GD10708@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 25, 2015 at 09:54:58AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: :> This is far from unique to RYBS. : Here's my guess about what made RYBS unique in this regard: On the : one hand, he did have his opinions about many things. But that was NOT : what he tried to pass on to his talmidim. In fact, he is famous for NOT : answering many of the questions posed to him. What RYBS wanted was for : his talmidim to be able to decide for themselves. He never wanted to : teach his talmidim WHAT to think, but HOW to think. I realize that this is about to get meta, because I'm about to disagree with RAM about RYBS's position and why people disagree about what it was. I thin this is overplayed. Yes, he pushed fledgling rabbis to assert themselves as LOR and not defer every halachic question. But he didn't do this with every talmid, nor with every question. I think people are taking a pedagogic technique used for talmidim to scared to pasqen and turning it into a principle. Im kein ein ladavar sof, and there is no way to say he took positions for anyone but himself and his mispalelim in Boston and Moriah. No Qol Dodi Dofeiq promoting Zionism, no attack on RERackman's beis din, etc... And besides, we aren't talking about whether his talmidim vary, but why the talmidim's understandings of the rebbe's position varied. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Never must we think that the Jewish element micha at aishdas.org in us could exist without the human element http://www.aishdas.org or vice versa. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 25 08:56:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 15:56:25 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Hakarat Hatov Message-ID: Does Hakarat Hatov engender a measurable "liability" (e.g. require a marginally greater action) between the recipient and the provider of the "Tov", or is saying "Thank you, I appreciate it" the only requirement? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 26 01:19:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2015 11:19:39 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book Message-ID: <> In addition like many others RYBS gave different answers to different people depending on the person and circumstances. As a simple example he encouraged his talmidim to move to EY but told some to stay in the US. Also RYBS was big believer in everyone making their own decisions and not simply doing what they were told. Hence, he avoided certain statements so that his talmidim would make up their own minds. It is well known that all the children of RYBS got a PhD. Even his nephew R Meiselman the most charedi in the family received this degree from MIT. Nevertheless he never publically stressed this idea probably because he felt it was a very individual decision -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 27 19:37:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2015 22:37:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government Message-ID: Gut voch to all, What alternative texts exist for the tefillah l'shlom malchus? I have heard that other versions exist, perhaps more suited for a Republic than is "Hanosen teshua la-melachim", but the only version I could find comes from a Conservative source -- putting me in the same situation as R' Eliezer ben Hyrcanus upon hearing a good "vort" in the name of Ben Pandera. Can anyone point me to appropriate sources? --Chesky Salomon From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 27 20:29:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2015 23:29:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: An hour or so ago, I wrote: > What alternative texts exist for the tefillah l'shlom malchus? I remember this topic coming up in the past, though I have not been successful in searching the archives for it. I did find an article by Dr Jonathan Sarna, "A Forgotten 19th-Century Prayer for the United States Government: Its Meaning, Significance, and Surprising Author" [1] which pointed to the "Orthodox prayerbook for American Jews entitled Tefilot Yisra'el. Prayers of Israel. with an English Translation." The variant text Sarna discusses, "Ribbon kol ha-olamim", can be seen at -- but he makes the case that the prayer's author was Rabbi Max Lilienthal, leaving me in the same position as before. (As a side note: I recall one of the J-blogs mentioning a Tefillah for the State written for 1930s Germany under the Nazi government, but I cannot find the post again. Any help?) --Chesky Salomon [1]: http://www.brandeis.edu/hornstein/sarna/americanjewishcultureandscholarship/Archive3/AForgottenNineteenthCenturyPrayerfortheUnitedStatesGovenment.pdf From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 29 05:29:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mordechai Harris via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2015 07:29:07 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Here's the one I shard last time from the De Sola Pool Siddur. -Mordechai - Please excuse typos as this was sent from my cell phone. On Jun 28, 2015 2:59 PM, "Chesky Salomon via Avodah" wrote: > An hour or so ago, I wrote: >> What alternative texts exist for the tefillah l'shlom malchus? > I remember this topic coming up in the past, though I have not been > successful in searching the archives for it... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 29 15:15:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 01:15:23 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jun 29, 2015 at 3:29 PM, Mordechai Harris via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > Here's the one I shard last time from the De Sola Pool Siddur. > > Can you also share the publication details and/or title page of this siddur? What I know as the De Sola Pool Siddur is not the same as in this link. I have the second edition of 1977, and the title page says: BOOK OF PRAYER ACCORDING TO THE CUSTOM OF THE SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE JEWS Edited and translated by DAVID DE SOLA POOL Minister of the Congregation Shearith Israel in the City of New York PUBLISHED BY THE UNION OF SEPHARDIC CONGREGATIONS NEW YORK The prayer for the government begins with the usual "Hanoten teshu`a lamelachim" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 11:55:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Arie Folger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 20:55:34 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government Message-ID: Someone asked about alternate texts of the prayer for the government, more attuned to democracies. I have adapted the classic hanoten teshuah lamelakhim for the US, with variant readings for Canada, for inclusion in the still forthcoming new revised RCA Siddur. Send me a message through my web site (see the sig) and I will gladly share that text with you. -- Yours sincerely, Mit freundlichen Gr??en, Arie Folger blogging at http://www.rabbifolger.net/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 10:22:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Baruch Cohen via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 10:22:13 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] BIRCHAT KOHANIM AT THE KOTEL Message-ID: I plan on being in Israel for Sukkot, and hope to be at the Kotel for Birchat Kohanim. I usually daven early every morning, and the Birchat Kohanim occurs later in the morning. My question is: do I have a Chiyuv to "duchen" if I'm in the audience and the Shaliach Tzibbur announces on the loudspeaker the word: "Kohanim!" Does that trigger a halachic obligation for me to duchen, even if I am in the audience, in the back of the crowd? -- Respectfully, Baruch C. Cohen, Esq. e-mail: BCC4929 at gmail.com LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/baruchcohen From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 12:06:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 15:06:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] BIRCHAT KOHANIM AT THE KOTEL In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5592E8B9.5020201@sero.name> On 06/30/2015 01:22 PM, Baruch Cohen via Avodah wrote: > I usually daven early every morning, and the Birchat > Kohanim occurs later in the morning. My question is: do I have a Chiyuv to > "duchen" if I'm in the audience and the Shaliach Tzibbur announces on the > loudspeaker the word: "Kohanim!" Does that trigger a halachic obligation > for me to duchen No. If you have already duchened that day, you have no further chiyuv, even if you hear the chazan, and even if someone directly tells you to go up. However if you *choose* to duchen for a second (or third, etc) time that day, you may do so with a bracha. (SA OC 128:3) [Email #2. -micha] PS: This applies also in an ordinary shul where they duchen at shachris and musaf. Any cohen who duchened at shachris, and doesn't feel like doing it again at musaf, needn't leave the room. He has no obligation to answer the chazan's call. But those who do answer it duchen with a bracha, because that is takanas chachamim. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 12:26:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 19:26:26 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish Yasom Message-ID: <20150630.152626.19374.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> What is the rule for when we do or do not say Kaddish Yasom (Mourner's Kaddish)? >From what I've seen, it is NOT said even if a minyan says Birkas Hamazon, but it IS said when a minyan says Kiddush Levana. It is NOT said when a minyan says Tehillim even as an organized group, but it IS said on Yom Tov after the Megilla (Shir Hashirim, Rus, Koheles) is read. I do not see any pattern. Does anyone else know of a rule? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5592ed93bb00b6d93482cst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 15:03:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 18:03:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish Yasom In-Reply-To: <20150630.152626.19374.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150630.152626.19374.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5593124A.2040905@sero.name> On 06/30/2015 03:26 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > What is the rule for when we do or do not say Kaddish Yasom (Mourner's Kaddish)? > >>From what I've seen, it is NOT said even if a minyan says Birkas Hamazon, Why would it? > but it IS said when a minyan says Kiddush Levana. Probably because people are used to saying it after Alenu. > It is NOT said when a minyan says Tehillim even as an organized group, Where have you seen it not being said then? I'm surprised that this is your experience. > but it IS said on Yom Tov after the Megilla (Shir Hashirim, Rus, Koheles) is read. Yes, that is my experience as well. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 03:47:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 13:47:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] 13th century zeal Message-ID: I found the following story from R Kaganoff interesting not only for the halachic portion but also to show that community fights are not new The question regarding recital of *mei'ein sheva* when *Yom Tov* falls on Friday resulted in a very heated dispute during the era of the Rishonim. In the time of the *Rivash*, Rabbi Amram ben Meroam, a frequent correspondent of the *Rivash*, wrote him the following *shaylah*: Reuven was the *chazzan* for the Friday night *davening *on a *Shabbos* that immediately followed *Yom Tov*. He began reciting *mei'ein sheva*, when Shimon reprimanded him, contending that one should not recite this *bracha* when *Shabbos* follows *Yom Tov* -- since no one was working on Friday, the reason for the *takkanah* did not apply. Levi then got involved, saying that it is accepted that one *does* recite *mei'ein sheva*on Friday night following a *Yom Tov*. The *shul* then burst into a cacophony of voices, with Shimon's and Reuven's backers screaming at one another. Finally, Shimon shouted that Reuven was desecrating*Hashem's *holy Name, since he was willing to recite a *bracha* in vain, and that if he did, Shimon would declare him to be in *cherem*, excommunicated! Reuven did recite the *bracha mei'ein sheva,* and a day later, opened his door to find Shimon and twenty of his backers there to notify him that he had been excommunicated! The Rivash* was asked to rule whether Reuven was indeed in *cherem* because of Shimon's declaration that he recited a *bracha* in vain, or, perhaps, Shimon should be placed in *cherem* for excommunicating someone without proper cause. The *Rivash* ruled that Shimon was mistaken, and that one should recite *mei'ein sheva* when *Shabbos* follows *Yom Tov*. Therefore, he concluded that Reuven, who followed the correct *halachah*, could completely ignore the *cherem* placed on him. However, he also concluded that since Shimon thought he was acting correctly, we do not excommunicate Shimon for his actions (*Shut HaRivash* #34). -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 06:54:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 13:54:19 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos Message-ID: <20150401.095419.16600.0@webmail12.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitzchok Levine wrote: > Does not the SA say that a person who has trouble chewing > matzah can soak it in water and then eat it? If so, then > I fail to see why eating gebrokts should be a problem for > anyone. The answer will depend on what you mean by "SA". If "SA" refers specifically to the author of the Shulchan Aruch, Rav Yosef Karo, then the answer is that he is not the last word in halacha. There are other authorities, and someone who follows the others could have a problem even with something that the SA allows. If "SA" refers to the Shulchan Aruch in general, then I do not understand your question, since the problem of gebrokts *IS* mentioned by authorities other than Rav Karo. If I'm not mistaken, the Shaarei Teshuva (which is in the printed editions of Mishne Brurah) is a good example. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 11:05:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 14:05:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> I repeated on Areivim RSM's deduction that yayin kal is closest to the alcohol level of chazal's wine. On Wed, Apr 1, 2015 at 9:39am PDT, R Saul Newman wrote to Areivim: > interesting, when seeing in ktubot abaye's widow describing the size of > his wine vessel. by that Percentage, it wouldnt be toxic... Here's RSM's science, and it seems impeccable: By natural means, no alcoholic beverage can get above 12% -- at that level the yeast drowns in its own output. That's why beer and wine tend to be 12%. We can tweak that up to 16% with specially bred yeast, and/or control of temperature and humidity -- not options in Chazal's day. (Higher alcohol drinks are made by distilling out the alcohol from the original 12% liquid.) To add my 2 pence: Their barrels weren't perfect, which means there was more evaporation. But since alcohol evaporates faster than water, that will only lower the percentage alcohol. So we're still at about 12% max. RSM's original line of reasoning, continues: Mezigas hakos is typically at least 1:3, or 25% wine. So, the final product would be at most 3%. A third penny: Now let's discuss how big a revi'is was back then... But even without that, I have no idea how any of them would have gotten anywhere near drunk. Why would R' Yonah have a headache until shavu'os off some 16 oz total of 3% wine? Do we have to assume it was the alcohol? Maybe he was a later owner of Abayei's kos... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Mussar is like oil put in water, micha at aishdas.org eventually it will rise to the top. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 12:08:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 01 Apr 2015 15:08:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> On 04/01/2015 02:05 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Now let's discuss how big a revi'is was back then... But even without > that, I have no idea how any of them would have gotten anywhere near > drunk. Why would R' Yonah have a headache until shavu'os off some 16 oz > total of 3% wine? Do we have to assume it was the alcohol? Maybe he was > a later owner of Abayei's kos... I don't think it's at all plausible that it was the alcohol. I have long assumed that he had some sort of allergy or intolerance for some component of grapes or grape skins, or perhaps for the sulfites with which wine was (and is still) preserved. It's well known that there are people today who get headaches from sulfites. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 12:25:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mordechai Harris via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 14:25:38 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> Message-ID: There is a lot of info here: http://seforim.blogspot.com/2012/10/wine-strength-and-dilution.html Chag Kasher v'Samayach< Mordechai -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 12:30:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 22:30:53 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: There recently appeared a sefer "Keren Zavit" by Nadav Shenrav on parshat hashavua that has a very nice combination of science and Torah. On parshat Tzav he brings a question on the shitah of the Nodah BeYuhuda that eggs doubled in size. The Noda Beyehuda claims that there is a contradiction between two sugyot that find measurements based on either the size of the egg or from length (or volume) measurements. To answer the contradiction the Nodah Beyehuda assumes that our eggs are half the size of those in the days of chazal. (Actually modern eggs are larger than those in his day) The basic point is that in order to translate the measurements of chazal to modern measurements we need a fixed point, ie some measurement that has not changed over the generations. If everything can change we have only relative measurements and not absolute measurements. The Nodah BeYehuda assumes that the width of the thumb is constant. Question: Rambam (maaseh hakorbanot 13:14) states the kemitzah which cinsists of 3 fingers closed over the palm contains 2 kezatim. However 2 kezaytim of 50cc (ie 100cc) is impossible to enclose within 3 fingers. He brings that he saw this question in a series "Bet Aharon VeYisrael" and they answered "nishtanu hateva" i.e. their hands were bigger and could hold 100c of flour within 3 fingers. (In general the author is not impressed with the answer of "nishtane hateva" but he assumes it for this article). However, this leads to an internal contradiction, ie Noda Beyehuda assumes that the size of the thumb has not changed but is required to assume that the size of the hand was much larger in the days of chazal ie how is it possible that their hands were MUCH larger but the width of the thumb remained constant. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 14:11:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 17:11:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150401211129.GA23585@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 01, 2015 at 10:30:53PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : There recently appeared a sefer "Keren Zavit" by Nadav Shenrav on parshat : hashavua that has a very nice combination of science and Torah. : : On parshat Tzav he brings a question on the shitah of the Nodah BeYuhuda : that eggs doubled in size. AISI, there are three distinct questions that generally get lumped together in the annual kezayis discussion: 1- Is "kezayis" a constant volume, or is it pinned to the average olive, or perhaps the average among some subset of breeds of olive as breeding, care and climate change? R' Chaim Volozhiner and the Avnei Neizer say the latter. You might remember my post from last Jan at. . The AhS OC 363:34 says that lehalakhah an ammah is the person involved's forearm. E.g. when measuring 4 amos for tiltul, the din is more chamur for me than for taller people. When coming to mavui or techum, where you need a single pesaq for a whole town, you need a standardized ammah, "ameru chakhamim denimdod lechumerah" it's the length of the arm of some very high percentile of the people relying on it (and possibly 100%) -- "debevadei yeish anashim shezehu midasan". (Also, when dealing with someone with a handicap or amputation, you need to use estimates.) To me this seems to feed RCV's approach. Because both assume that measurements are not absolute, but based on the set of whatevers involved. For example, the AhS's position about the standard ammah would imply that a community that is atypically tall would use a longer ammah for techum than in a ghettod population whose malnutrition stunted their typical growth. 2- If kezayis is a constant volume, do all the accepted overestimates performed and accumulated one atop the other unwind when we have more information about chazal's zeisim? Or do we say that the bottom of the range of measurments that dominate common pratice in one's qehillah is binding as pesaq, and one can't just ignore the now huge safety margin? This is what I argued here when RNS's paper came out http://www.zootorah.org/RationalistJudaism/TheEvolutionOfTtheOlive.pdf (And if so, is that extra amount considered as deOraisa as the original olive volume, because it's a pesaq in a din deOraisa? Or is it a harchaqah, and thus derabban? 3- The actual specifics 3a- If the answe to #2 is that we do roll back the kezayis based on better information about what it was, the metzi'us specifics can still be argued. Such as asking (as I did in passing in #1) which subset of olives to average. 3b- And if the answer is that we don't, then there are halachic process details to ask about. But I think many discussions, including our own previous years' iterations, stuble because they blur these topics rather than keeping them separate, which in turn would force dealing with them in the sequence I gave as well. (Because #2 depends on one kind of answer to #1, and #3 has different flavors depending on #2.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 13:36:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 16:36:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Yaknehaz [was: The Quinoa - Kitniyos Conundrum] Message-ID: In a message dated 4/1/2015 6:28:31 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, micha at aishdas.org writes: On Wed, Apr 01, 2015 at 12:03am EDT, RnTK wrote: : It was the norm in my parental home and is what my husband does too. : In fact I have never seen anyone use a regular havdala candle at a seder! : (Or a single wick candle without joining it to another candle or to a match.) A local yeshiva qetana sells two-wick candles that otherwise look like Shabbos candles as a fundraiser. This way you don't have a fire lasting as long as whatever is left on your havdalah candle, and the whole problem is avoided. >>>>> I wasn't really clear. What my parents used to do (and we do similarly) was to take one Shabbos candle ot of the candlestick and hold its flame close to another Shabbos candle for the bracha, and then put it back in the candlestick it came out of. IOW we use the candles that are already burning on the table anyway. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 14:36:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 17:36:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] partnership - adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties Message-ID: partnership - adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties In describing why person would fast all Passover over and above Jewish Law Practice, you used the words "emotional attachment". In the seven years since that wording , perhaps the message is deeper. Salamone Rossi the Jewish Italian composer, became a hero of the assimilationist movement. See AJS Review volume 26 #1 where where a series of books by one Don Harran re Rossi is reviewed. Twice in Adon Olam, the series of fast phrases of excitement called Tritum or whatever is used twice ??? ???? ??? ???? ???? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ?_?? ??? ????? ???? ???? ... ???? ????? ???? ???? ?????? - ??? ???? ? ???? ???? ????? ??? ?? ?????? - ????? ?? ???? ??? ??? ????? - ??? ????? - ????? ???? - ???? ???? ??? ???? ???? ??? ???? ??????? - ???? ????? ????? ??? - ???? ?? ????? ??? ????? - ????? ????? ???? ?? ????? - ??? ???? ??? ???? ???? ?????? ????? ??? ????? - ?? - ???? ?_?? ??? ????? ???? ???? ... ?????? ?? ?? ??? ???? ??? ??? ?? ???? ???? - ??? ???? ?? ????? ?????? ... ?? ?? ???? ?? GLOOMY THOUGHT NEGATIVE CHARACTERIZATION The reviewer - a music professor at Northeastern U in Boston MA - illustrates that limitless exhaustive research did not turn up for M. Harran the fact that in the surrounding milieu which Mr. Rossi is immersed in - these patterns aare reserved for ttheir Trinity.. Lhavdil elef havdalot. Rossi as a Jew with beating Jewish Heart - in Adon Olam his famous composition - when it came to Our God - he proudly used the pattern of the ecstasy of the Tritium (apologies of not being able to look up - will scan and send but each moment I am in danger of interrruption - ) . Why Yeihareig ? Why not float with the waves? Answer - because it is identity of Jew - visceral reaction necessary! taht is Key! Common motif of Piyut - ?????? ????? ?????? ????? - countering their attempted invasion and depriving us of identity - the desperation of drowning brings us to keep our identity- baby will starve self to reserve independence - if it is deprived from baby Not in complete normal routine vassalry to Hashem. But it is the assertion of identity. Sneh Boeir - Papers of Adoption - of formation of Partnership - not the bylaws which may never be read - but the primary identity of Hasheem as responsible party specifically to act as parent re MY CHILD - thsi is basic bedrock Jew - as Rashi certainly subscribed, and rashbam, and likely R' Yonah even Ramban. For my money - when functioning as Jewish Natnion member - the Rambam himself, codifier of the Doctrinal Jew. Back to subject after rant - A JS Reviewer - just like they show reverence for their Hero - we show reverence for our Hero - One God - that the reviewer explained for the first - ??? ???? ??? ???? ???? ?????? What of second threesome - look in Tur for Ecstasy - OC 5 - ???? ?_?? ??? ????? ???? ???? takif..???? ??? ?????? ??? ????? ???? - ???? ?? ???? ??? ??? ????? ??? - ???? ?? ???? - ??? ???? ???? ?? - ??? ???? - ???? ???? - ??? ???? ??? ??? ???? ??????? ?? ??? - ??? ???? ?? ???? ???? ??? ????? ???? ???? - ?? ?? ??? ?? ???? ???? ?????? ???? ???? - ?? ?????? - ??? ?????? ????? ?????? ???? - ???? ???? ?? ??? ?? - ???? ??? ????? ????? ????? - ??? ??? ????? - ?????? ????? ????? ??? ????? - ?? ??? ??? ???? - ?? ??? ??? ????? - ??? ????? - ???? ?????? ?????? - ???? ???? ?????? ????? ?? ?? - ??? ?? ????? ??? ???? ????? ???? ????? ???? ????? ?????? 148-155 - ?_?_?_? ??? ?? - ????? ???? 148 ???? ???? ?????? - ?? ?????? - ??? ???? ??? ???? ?? ?????? - ??? ????? ????? ????? - ?? ??? ??? ???? ???? ?? ????? =- ??? ???????? ?????? ????? ????? - ?? ???? - ????? - ?????? - ???? ???? - ??? ??? ????? - ??? ??? ?? ????? - ????? ??? ??? ?????? - ??? ????? - ????? ??? ?????? ?????? - ???? ???? ?? ??????? ????? ??? - ????? - ???? ?????? ???? ??? ????? ?????? ???? ????? ??????? ????? ?? - ??? ???? ?????? ???? ??"? - ??? ????? ???? ???? ???? ??? ????? ??? ?? ???? - ???? ?? ??? ?? ???? ???-????? ?? ????? ?? ?? ?????? - ??? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ?? ??????? - EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT IS ZILZUL IN A COVENANT ???? ?????? ?? ??? ???? - ??? ??? ??? ? ?? ????? ????? ??? ?????? ??! ???? ????? - ?? ????? ???? ??? ???? ?? ???? ????? ??? ????? ????? - ?? ??? ??? ???? ????? ?? ??? -- David Wacholder Cell: 917-742-7838 Email: dwacholder at gmail.com dwacholder at optonline.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 18:24:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 12:24:45 +1100 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice Message-ID: Wine in those days was frequently (typically?) flavored with resins or spices, some of which are actually toxic. These resins seem to have had the same effect as hops do in beer: they discourage microbial growth and therefore prevent it from souring and spoiling. This was an important consideration before the invention of Pasteurisation. If R' Yonah was allergic or otherwise sensitive to these resins he may have ascribed his symptoms to the wine itself. Alternatively, perhapshe simply didn't have access to any untreated wine and perhaps he didn't consider raisin "wine" to be chashuv enough. Joe Slater -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 18:27:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 12:27:16 +1100 Subject: [Avodah] Yaknehaz [was: The Quinoa - Kitniyos Conundrum] Message-ID: Another data point: I asked my father O'H about this and he said he'd never heard of anyone using a Havdala candle for YAKNEHAZ, or even joining two flames together. He came from central Hungary, and his rabbi was a great-nephew of Maharam Schick. Joe Slater -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 20:32:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 01 Apr 2015 23:32:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> Message-ID: <551CB836.5040609@sero.name> On 04/01/2015 03:25 PM, Mordechai Harris wrote: > There is a lot of info here: http://seforim.blogspot.com/2012/10/wine-strength-and-dilution.html It is interesting, but I think the author may have made a simple mistake in assuming that when Rashi says their wines were "stronger" than ours, he meant "more alcoholic". That may be what he meant, in which case he was mistaken, but it seems to me that he may have meant "strong tasting", or to put it more bluntly, "sour". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 02:18:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 12:18:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kitniyot Message-ID: see a discussion at http://etzion.org.il/en/pesach-journal by Rav Brosky -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 07:53:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 02 Apr 2015 10:53:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Historic Practice Passover Offering Message-ID: <20150402145402.230A3183730@nexus.stevens.edu> See the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kgbRusmqjs A FILM OF THE PRACTICE PASSOVER OFFERING THE TEMPLE INSTITUTE CONDUCTS UNPRECEDENTED PASSOVER OFFERING PRACTICE DRILL As reported earlier, in preparation for the upcoming festival of Passover, this past Wednesday (5 Nisan - 25 March) the 'Priestly Training Academy' established by the Temple Institute held a Passover offering practice drill. This is a film that documents this event. This was the most accurate and authentic reenactment of this service to have taken place in nearly 2,000 years. ---------- It looks to me that they used machine matzos in this video. If I am correct, then I find this bizarre. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 13:36:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 16:36:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: How many swallows of Matzo are necessary? How many olive tree generations to Calendar Year Tohu and Gan Eden? The following came up last year: FEARLESS RULING FOR PERSON WITH DIFFICULTY EATING: Every average person's swallow is a Kezayit, the amount which fulfils the Mitzvah and is the measure for the Bracha on Achilas Matza. As a Hidur and to erase all doubt, a second normal swallow would be good. That is for Motzi-Matzah, where the first olive-size swallowed fulfils a Torah obligation. Additional for Afikoman one swallow is certainly enough. For a person struggling to eat, try to eat at least a taste. Any more than that is for those who tolerate Matzo well. I look at how much a person can swallow - one swallow. That would measure a Kezayit. 100% the person has fulfilled the Mitzvah after one swallow. For margin of error issues, add another second swallow. For those with difficulty eating, one may then stop. For Afikoman the one swallow is sufficient. This needs no authority to base it on. Chazon Ish gave his asembled family pieces about the size of his palm , as described by qualified dedicated observer in Orchos Rabeinu. Traditions vary. Some quoted Rav Chaim Valozhiner as saying - the size of an olive is an olive is an olive. Another tradition said one must use an egg-size as a base unit. On Atkins Low-Carb Diet, daily consumption was - for starting extreme levels - 30 grams per day - about an ounce. I cut the piece of Challah, which by volume probably was an olive, but the air pockets should have been counted, so the person could say Birkas Hamazon for themselves. Someone else was Motzi the dieter in Birkat Hamazon. Air pockets and weight issue The swallow size may be according the the air pockets normally contained in Matzo, not ground, and according to volume not weight. VOLUME NOT WEIGHT By weight, comparable amount of Chareidim Boro Park 5774 MATZOS weighed perhaps 7 grams compared to perhaps 30 grams of a heavy brand of Hand Matzo. Using volume measures as weight measures creates significant errors. The person had been using 30 grams of WEIGHT as the Standard, not 30 grams of volume. It was a reasonably filled sandwich bag. Also Matzo can absorb moisture from the air making it heavier, can be freshened in the oven, which will make it weigh less. Volume remains the same. Weighing your Matza introduces a major error factor. SHEKEIN NEHENEH According to Rav Elchanan Wasserman, even a non-believer fulfils the Mitzvah, Shekein Neheneh. I have doubts if Kavana Hafucha would even work. I certainly think a person should not have Kavana Hafucha in the sense of - only be Yotzei when Measurement X is reached. NOT THE AMOUNT TO FILL THE CHEEK This is neither cheekful nor yet a mouthful. Observe how your neighbor swallows his food eating calmly. [DW comment - this is a normal comfortable swallow, not a contestant requiring for safety a Hatzala person or Heimlich Maneuver needed to monitor. This is not a Superman-Swallower who attempts to swallow the size of all olives ever eaten, whose face turns red but comes out OK after a KAPITAL TEHILIM. That is Achila Shelo K'darkah, and certainly is not optimum. That eliminates the Double and Exponential/Logarithmic olives from consideration for a single swallow. Never swallow more than a comfortable amount. SUKKOT No custom requires swallowing all at once in the Sukkah. Others require an Egg Plus size. ARUCH HASHULCHAN Aruch Hashulchan functioned as a review of the other Poskim in Orach Chaim. He pointedly does not double the Kezayit. MISHNA BRURAH - to my reading - says the same. Indeed I grant the MB does not totally negate a double-size as having precedent. MY HANDWIDTHS On a flat table, I measured my keyboard's width two different ways. first, using all ten fingers flat on table, it was 4 hands wide. With thumbs in air and only the eight fingers flat on the table, my keyboard was 5.5 hands wide. The thumbs were sideways, so the width added drilled through the wrinkle on the back to the fold on the front. This would be the thumb measured in Halacha. I certainly am not a measurement specialist, so I appreciate all feedback. According to best knowledge, that through-thumb measurement is the one which is supposed to be 25 percent of the other four fingers. CHZON ISH Even the writings of CHzon Ish reflect a defensive stance. As a practical matter, the CI knew in his heart that a Zayis will not change in recorded history. Olive trees of 1000 years old are not uncommon, and one in EY is 2000 years old. They are propogated from plantings identical to the original. As little as three generations of trees in EY could easily reach Calender Year 1. RIDDLE - HOW MANY OLIVES TO EAT A KEZAYIT? RABI YOCHANAN ATE ONE OLIVE- and made bracha acharona. It was the big variety salad olive, or a large specimen of the oil olive. I was convinced by a strong presentation in a conference from several years ago. A Bar Ilan professor compared olives from various species and showed pictures of all the oldest olive trees in EY. The oil olives were in the 4 cc to 7 cc (4-7 grams volume). Salad olives - the kind whose seeds were commonly eaten in Masada - max out at 17 grams. He convincingly argued that double size super-olives would in all likelihood kill the trees. 4 ccs is well below an average swallow. Please double check my numbers, as I am writing from memory. -- David Wacholder From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 18:58:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 21:58:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] naive kitniyos question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150403015816.GA8090@aishdas.org> On Thu, Mar 26, 2015 at 12:34:15PM -0400, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote: : Re kitniyos: isn't the issur one of "cooking" with kitniyos? ... Take 2 at answering this question. My wife found http://ph.yhb.org.il/en/04-09-06 "6. Kitniyot That Never Touched Water and Kitniyot Oils" by R' Eliezer Melamed We are not stricter with kitniyot than we are with the five cereal grains, so whatever is acceptable regarding these grains is kosher for kitniyot, too. Thus, kitniyot that have not come into contact with water, or that have come into contact with water but were not left for more than 18 minutes before being cooked (like matza), may be eaten. Some poskim are stringent in this respect, but most are lenient.[4] ... [4] Most authorities are not stricter about kitniyot than about the cereal grains (SAH 453:5; ??ayei Adam 127:1; Responsa Maharsham 1:183; Be'er Yitzhak sec. 11; Responsa Marheshet sec. 3; and Rav Kook's Orah Mishpat sec. 111). Some, however, are more stringent (Sho'el U-meishiv 1:1:175 and Ma'amar Mordechai sec. 32). Their rationale is that no one would understand these distinctions since kitniyot do not become hametz. Additionally, they were concerned that making the kitniyot exactly like the cereal grains would mislead people to think they could use kitniyot to fulfill the mitzva of matza. As noted, though, most poskim are lenient, and in any dispute about a custom the halakha follows the lenient opinion. The Rishonim also debate whether or not scalding works for kitniyot, since scalding any of the five cereal grains technically eliminates the possibility of its leavening, though the Ge'onim agree that no one knows how to scald the grains properly (SA 454:3). However, according to Or Zaru'a 2:256, since the prohibition of kitniyot is just a custom, scalding the kitniyot is effective and permits them. Mordechai rules stringently, and Rabbeinu Peretz's glosses to Smak sec. 222 notes the lenient opinion but rules stringently. So it seems the pesaq I grew up with is, in REM's estimaton, the minority view. And if my sevara holds: It would mean the machloqes is a machloqes as to whether qitniyos are compared to wheat or to dough. Which again would be reflected in the various theories about what risk it is the minhag is trying to avoid: qitniyos includes things used like grain, which can cause confusion of chameitz with mutar legume products; qitniyos could have real flour on them (as per Rava's admonition to the reish galusa's household), etc... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of micha at aishdas.org greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, http://www.aishdas.org in fact, of our modesty. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Louis Kronenberger, writer (1904-1980) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 09:32:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 16:32:11 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Tan Du Message-ID: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> I think we've discussed R'YBS's famous statement on ontological chazakot on a number of occasions. I was glad to see that I have giant shoulders to stand on (hat tip-Isaac Newton): Tradition - Winter 2014 (Rabbi N. Helfgot) In a famous episode in 1975, the Rav strongly denounced a proposal raised by R. Emanuel Rackman, z"l to reevaluating the validity of the Talmudic dictum "a woman would always be rather married to anyone (even a scoundrel) than be alone" in the modern context. R. Rackman called on religious authorities to reevaluate the reach of this dictum as a way of addressing the scourge of modern day recalcitrant husbands who did not give their estranged spouses a get. The reevaluation of this principle might be an opening to examine the use of halakhic annulment of marriages. The Rav vigorously maintained that this principle, like all hazakot of Hazal, was "an ontological statement" about the nature of women, not subject to changing historical factors or changing social mores. R. Lichtenstein in both private conversation with a number of talmidim over the decades, including this author and in remarks in public shiurim, noted his disagreement with the Rav's assessment of this hazaka (and expressed astonishment at the vehemence of the Rav's opposition at the time) given the clear cut evidence in the Rishonim in Yevamot and other places in Shas which clearly indicated that this hazaka was not one that applied in all contexts and at all times and in all situations. I don't recall that R'YBS said this was true of all chazakot of Chazal but haven't listened to that audio in a long time. CKV"S Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 04:06:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 14:06:33 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] rabbits Message-ID: << But PS can someone remind me what a picture of a rabbit is doing in the : medieval illustrated Hagada? There is a fundamental reason why pictures of people were avoided. >> Yet many of the medieval haggadot had pictures of people and even (wow) women!. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 11:41:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 14:41:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] rabbits In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150403184143.GB11664@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 03, 2015 at 02:06:33PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> There is a fundamental reason why pictures of people were avoided. : : Yet many of the medieval haggadot had pictures of people.. The reason is still there. We don't all agree on halakhah and minhag, why would two people necessarily agree during the medieval period? :-)|,|ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger The true measure of a man micha at aishdas.org is how he treats someone http://www.aishdas.org who can do him absolutely no good. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Samuel Johnson From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 23:57:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 09:57:26 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kitniyot Message-ID: see http://ohr.edu/5390 and http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/5184 by Rabbi Spits He discusses Quinoa In the second article he discusses potatos both for kitniyot and bishul akum As for modern products that didnt exist in the days of the gezera he notes Shu"t Igros Moshe (O.C. vol. 3, 63). Others who accept peanuts for Pesach include the Seridei Aish (Shu"t vol. 2, 37, 2; new print vol. 1, 50 -- through a combination of factors), the Yeshuas Moshe (Shu"t vol. 1, 35; he opines that the Kitniyos prohibition never applied to legumes that are eaten raw, but concludes similar to Rav Moshe, that if one has an existing minhag not to eat peanuts on Pesach he still should not do so), and the Rivevos Efraim (Shu"t vol. 7, 257; only if it came still in its shell). [This logic is based on the Shulchan HaRav's understanding (O.C. 453, 5) that the prohibition of Kitniyos only applies when it gets wet). Other poskim who ruled that way (as how can Kitniyos be more stringent than grain -- which only can become chometz when wet) include the Chayei Adam (vol. 2, 128, 1) and Maharsham (Shu"t vol. 1, 183 and Daas Torah O.C. 453), who cites that Rav Shlomo Kluger (Nidrei Zerizin, 8) held this way as well. Those who were stringent include the Shoel U'Meishiv (Mahadura Kama vol. 1, 175), the Avnei Nezer (O.C. 373 and 533), the Maamar Mordechai (Shu"t 32), and the Sdei Chemed (Maareches Chometz U'Matza 6, 1). This was also one of the points of contention between Rav Kook and the Badatz Chasidim of Yerushalayim regarding the permissibility of sesame oil for Pesach -- see footnote 13]. See also Shu"t Atzei HaLevanon (vol. 1, 18) who also permits peanuts for Pesach; yet based on his description it seems he is referring to a pistachio (as per the Yeshuas Moshe ibid.). [Email #2. Subject: kitniyot - summary] After our discussion of kitniyot and the psak of RMF several personal observations 1) We all agree that psak of RMF is controversial. IMHO it is "half" accepted probably more in the US than in Israel 2) There is a separate machkoket about derivatives of kitniyot and especially oils of kitniyot. While there are relatively few ashkenazim who eat corn on the cob or peanuts there are many who combine the 2 positions and use oild and derivatives from "new: kitniyot. Thus there are many rabbis that allow Canola oil (and certainly cottenseed oil) using RMF and the debate over oils. Similarly it has been common in my community to use lecithin (liftit) in candies etc. My rabbi allows this together with most rabbis in my town based on major dati leumi rabbis. R Elyashiv came out strongly against all of this and so in the charedi community especially in Israel no kitniyot oils or lecithin is allowed and only walnut or olive oil is used. Bottom line in spite of the objections on this list that RMF is "wrong" in many communities his teshuva is accepted when combined with the debate of kitniyot derivatives. chag kasher vesameach. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 03:57:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 13:57:43 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos Message-ID: > But let's not get buried under the reports of RMF and R' Tuvia Goldstein, > and forget that we have conflict in reports about whether RSZA would > allow someone to start eating gebrochts after hataras nedarim. > So, while rumor might say he did, we have a first-hand report from R > Yisrael Herczeg that tells us to ignore the grapevine >> In Halichos Shlomo (p90) it states explicitly that one can change his custom and eat gebrochs after hatart nedarim. However, this should be done only if there is a good reason (tzorach chashuv) for the change. Thus, for a chatan he would allow the hatarat nedarim if keeping bebrochs would cause family difficulties. RSZA paskened that the wife follows the customs of the husband both for kula and chumra(without hatart nedarim). He explicitly states that this is different than one who moves to another location where he does need hatarat nedarim since a woman knows that she will eventually marry and might change her minhag. The husband has the right to relinguish his rights. This is prevalant with regard to the nuscah of davening. A Baal Teshuva should prferably keep the customs of his "original" community where the family belonged. However, if he is now connected to some rabbi or community he can choose to keep their customs instead. He also paskens (for EY) that one can cook kitniyot on the 7th day of Pesach for use on the shabbat right afterwards (ef this year). This is because some sefardi could come over for a visit and so the kitniyot are not mukza . The same applies to gebrochs even though it is the 7th day of Pesach. RSZA himself ate gebrochs though he would not eat anything that fell on the floor. He did not use potato starch or anything that rsembled a chametz cake On a different topic he allowed drinking regular water eg from the kinneret since one can't taste at all the taste of any possible chametz, [Email #2] >> So, while rumor might say he did, we have a first-hand report from R >> Yisrael Herczeg that tells us to ignore the grapevine. > Perhaps he changed his mind! It has happened before. In this case he didnt change his mind. He said that it depended on the circumstances. In theory one could do hatarat nedarim and eat Gebrochs but he advocated not using this heter unless there was a good reason to change the custom. Obviously for Yisrael Herczeg he didn't feel there was sufficient justification. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 04:15:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 14:15:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: > 1- Is "kezayis" a constant volume, or is it pinned to the average olive, > or perhaps the average among some subset of breeds of olive as breeding, > care and climate change? archaeology shows that the olive has not changed dramatically over the millenia > 2- If kezayis is a constant volume, do all the accepted overestimates > performed and accumulated one atop the other unwind when we have more > information about chazal's zeisim? Not all communities accepted these various shitot. I can understand some overestimates for being conservative but factors of 5-10 larger seem overdone. This is especially true if one stuffs the matza into ones mouth and swallows together which becomes "achila gasa". In general the problem with the huge shiurim is that it is very difficult for many people. > average. Which is the reason to be on the conservative side and use the largest size olives which is still on the order of 17cc and not 50cc. [Email #2] > Or do we say that the bottom of the > range of measurments that dominate common pratice in one's qehillah is > binding as pesaq, and one can't just ignore the now huge safety margin? Reminds of a story I read on the recent 20th yahrzeit of RSZA. RSZA came up with 2 chumrot for the seder both related to the length of maggid being a problem for kiddush bemkom seudah and the bracha over the wine. His mechutan R Elyashiv accepted the chumrot and rushed his maggid while RSZA didnt accept his own chumrot in practice on the grounds that this was not the minhag of Israel over the generations. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 15:16:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 22:16:11 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Historic Practice Passover Offering Message-ID: <20150403.181611.8008.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitzchok Levine posted: > See the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kgbRusmqjs > ... > As reported earlier, in preparation for the upcoming festival of > Passover, this past Wednesday (5 Nisan - 25 March) the 'Priestly > Training Academy' established by the Temple Institute held a > Passover offering practice drill. This is a film that documents > this event. This was the most accurate and authentic reenactment > of this service to have taken place in nearly 2,000 years. Two things in particular surprised me in this video: 1) The lambs were so small! Children carried them in! 2) At the very end, it shows and mentions that the korban pesach "is roasted whole and in a special oven." Special oven? What was special about it, and why an oven at all? I would think that the oven would (at least partially) bake it, whereas it was supposed to be roasted by the fire, and only by fire. I recall halachos of it being held by a pomegranate branch to avoid heat conduction by metal, and rotated like a rotisserie to avoid it being cooked even by its own juices. What's this oven about? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/551f117e86f4b117e0fdfst03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 12:22:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2015 15:22:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <551EE85D.1030908@sero.name> On 04/03/2015 06:57 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > He also paskens (for EY) that one can cook kitniyot on the 7th day of > Pesach for use on the shabbat right afterwards (ef this year). Yes, I'm surprised that anyone disagrees. It seems so obviously correct. I know that many people don't do so, and believe it to be forbidden, but I have never yet heard an argument for why it should be so. > This is because some sefardi could come over for a visit and so the kitniyot > are not mukza . The main issue would surely not be muktzeh, but cooking on yomtov. But the answer is the same: the hypothetical horde of hungry guests who might descend on one ten minutes before sunset on Friday, and for whom one is, in principle, cooking, might very well be sefardim. > The same applies to gebrochs even though it is the 7th day of > Pesach. Gebrochts, of course, applies in Chu"l as well (since almost everyone who doesn't eat it on the first 7 days does eat it on the last day). And lich'ora the above heter is not applicable. Kitniyos are gebrochts are not similar. Ashkenazim don't avoid kitniyos because of a concern that it might be chametz; they readily agree that there is no such concern, and that for Sefardim it is heter gamur. Thus there is no reason at all why an ashkenazi should not cook kitniyos for a sefardi, any more than there is a reason why a zar who is tahor should not cook terumah for a kohen. But those who avoid gebrochts do so because of an (admittedly remote) concern that it might be chametz. If so, then they should be equally concerned not to give it to someone else, even one who isn't worried about it, and thus shouldn't be able to claim on Friday that they are cooking for hypothetical guests who eat it. Lepoel this question comes up every time there is such a kevius, and there doesn't seem to be one psak about it. Perhaps it comes down to the different reasons people give for why it's OK on the last day. If one holds that the reason is "shelo lehotzi la'az" on those who eat gebrochts all Pesach, then it makes sense that on the first 7 days one should also not be "motzi la'az", and thus should be willing to cook gebrochts for those who eat it. Thus on Friday the 7th one can claim to be cooking for such guests. But if one holds that the reason for not eating gebrochts for 7 days and then eating it on the 8th is as a symbolic gesture towards the kabbalistic idea that on the 8th day one ought to eat chametz, so for 7 days we treat gebrochts *as if* it were chametz, and then eat it on the 8th day, then it would seem to follow that on the 7th day one may not cook it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 14:17:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 21:17:19 GMT Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: <20150403.171719.13613.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' David Wacholder posted: > Every average person's swallow is a Kezayit, the amount which > fulfils the Mitzvah and is the measure for the Bracha on Achilas > Matza. As a Hidur and to erase all doubt, a second normal swallow > would be good. That is for Motzi-Matzah, where the first olive- > size swallowed fulfils a Torah obligation. > ... > This needs no authority to base it on. ... WHY would it need no authority to base it on? If this were the halacha, wouldn't someone have mentioned it? Why did so many authorities struggle with the math and the biology and the physics if such a simple solution were at hand? > Air pockets and weight issue > > The swallow size may be according the the air pockets normally > contained in Matzo, not ground, and according to volume not weight. If a kezayis is a swallowfull, aren't the air pockets gone? Haven't they been lost in the chewing? I concede that by the time the chewed matza gets to the throat, much of the missing air has been replaced by saliva. Or perhaps the saliva even *more* than accounts for the missing air. I am not knowledgeable enough about this to venture a guess on the comparison of the volume of the matza before chewing vis a vis at swallowing. In any case, I've always been bothered by the problem of counting the air bubbles. Mishneh Berurah 208:48 says that when eating cookies, l'chatchilah, one must insure that he ate a kezayis of flour, WITHOUT counting the sugar, in order to say Al Hamichya. MB concedes that the minhag is to count all the ingrdients, but the Igros Moshe 1:71 says not to rely on that minhag. So here's my question: If they would prefer us NOT to count the other ingredients, which have substance, isn't it a simple kal vachomer not to count AIR, she'ayn bo mamash? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/551f039acb72539a4c49st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 13:08:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2015 16:08:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Special Pesach Edition -- Instantaneous Redemption Message-ID: <20150403200810.6EC28181C84@nexus.stevens.edu> [] Instantaneous Redemption HaShem took us out of Mitzrayim at the last minute before we slipped to the fiftieth level of impurity. Had we fallen to that level, we would have been irredeemable. In one moment, we went from darkness to light, from death to life, from slavery to freedom, from anguish to joy, and from impurity to holiness. Lesson: Just as that moment brought instantaneous redemption, so too, every moment of life has the potential to take us from darkness to light, from death to life, from slavery to freedom, from anguish to joy, and from impurity to holiness. App: May we all be encouraged by the miracles of Pesach, that HaShem again will instantaneously redeem us, and take us from darkness to light, from death to life, from slavery to freedom, from anguish to joy, and from impurity to holiness! (Based on Ohr Yahol, Rav Yehoshuah Leib Chousman) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 18:59:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2015 21:59:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geirut Message-ID: <20150406015903.GA15874@aishdas.org> (Ccing most of the participants in our 2008 and 2010 conversations.) You might be interested in On Conversion to Judaism, by Rabbi Dr. Chaim E. Schertz THE YU LAMDAN: The Wilf Campus Torah Journal http://yulamdan.com/2015/03/29/on-conversion-to-judaism-by-rabbi-dr-chaim-e-schertz or http://j.mp/1CIV5GN It starts slow, but R/Dr Schertz has a lot to say about Qabbalas Ol Mitzvos (QOM, or KOM if you prefer) and its role in geirus. Aside from other ideas that my be of interest, but it was QOM that has us going. :-)|,|ii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 22:22:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 01:22:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house Message-ID: <552217FE.4020103@sero.name> Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in EY after kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times. Does this mean that at a shiva house Sholom Rov is said even in shacharis (in EY on a non-Mon/Thu)? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 22:28:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 01:28:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" Message-ID: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the holy serafim's conclave. Nusach Ashkenaz, in the introduction to the kedusha of musaf, has a similar phrase: "kesod siach sarfei kodesh". But what does this mean? Every translation I have seen has rendered it as if it said "kesiach sod sarfei kodesh", but that's not what it says! Does anyone know, if "kesod siach" really means "kesiach sod", why they are reversed? Or, if that's not what it really means, can anyone explain what it does mean? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 22:32:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 01:32:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Moroccan nigunim Message-ID: <55221A63.3010303@sero.name> Do we have any experts here on the history of the Moroccan nigunei hatefilah? If so, can someone please explain when/how the Ashkenazi tune for Maoz Tzur got into the Moroccan liturgy as a tune for Mah Ashiv Lashem? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 03:38:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 13:38:02 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] free will Message-ID: We have discussed many times the opinion of Rav Dessler that a person doesn't always have free will. I recently saw a halachic discussion that may have some connection. On ketubot 51 the gemara discusses a case of a married woman who was raped but at the end was willing (techila be-ones ve-sofa be-ratzon). Shmuel's father forbids her to her husband while Rava allows her. One possibility of explaining Rava is that she is overwhelmed by her "yetzer" and so is still considered "anus" This is explicit in the words of R Zadok (tzidkat zaddik 43) that her desire is so great that it is impossible to overcome it and so she is considered anus gamur and so there is no punishment. Targum Yonatan (Devarim 22:26) holds that she is not punished by death but her husband must divorce her. Maharshal (yevamot 6:3) paskens that she is permitted to her husband only if she is "karka olam" However the Noda Beyehuda disagrees (tenina EH 150) and says she is always permitted to her husband because she is overwhelmed by her yetzer and so is not considered that she did it with her free will. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 05:13:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 12:13:44 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house Message-ID: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero asked: > Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in > EY after kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times. Does this > mean that at a shiva house Sholom Rov is said even in shacharis > (in EY on a non-Mon/Thu)? No, but I don't know why. I never thought of that question before, but here is a possibly-related question that I've wondered for years: If Shir Hamaalos is said whenever we skip Tachanun, should it always be said at the shiva house? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:25:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:25:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house In-Reply-To: <552217FE.4020103@sero.name> References: <552217FE.4020103@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150406182521.GC20912@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:22:06AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in EY after : kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times... This rule isn't 100%. Otherwise Sim Shalom would never be said when davening beyechidus. I think it's more lke Ashk uses Sim Shalom in tefillos where Birkhas Kohanim could be said, if we had opportunity. :-)||ii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:28:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:28:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:28:24AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam : siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the : holy serafim's conclave... Sod means conclave? I thought it was referring to the ofanim and chayos haqodesh who learn the secret of the siach of the sarfei qodesh, thereby are misna'asim le'umas serafim... :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 2nd day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Chesed: What is constricted Fax: (270) 514-1507 Chesed? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:37:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:37:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house In-Reply-To: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150406183751.GE20912@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 12:13:44PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I never thought of that question before, but here is a possibly-related : question that I've wondered for years: If Shir Hamaalos is said whenever : we skip Tachanun, should it always be said at the shiva house? We skip tachanun on shabbos and YT (or the week of 7 berakhos, the day of a beris...) because of the joy of the day being inconsistent with its mournful tenor. Shir haMaalos goes hand-in-hand with the joy of the day; if it's joyous enough to warrant looking toward the geulah rather than lamenting the churban with Al Naharos Bavel, then it's joyous enough for Tachanun not to fit either. But the key is joy, which has nothing to do with a beis avel. We skip tachanun in an aveil's home for the opposite kind of reason -- either because 1- we don't want to add to the aveilim's grief by harping on midas hadin, or 2- it is inappropriate to ask for mitigation of middas hadin in a home where din is being fully felt. :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 2nd day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Chesed: What is constricted Fax: (270) 514-1507 Chesed? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:42:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:42:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tan Du In-Reply-To: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> References: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20150406184227.GF20912@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 03, 2015 at 04:32:11PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Tradition - Winter 2014 (Rabbi N. Helfgot) ... : R. Lichtenstein in both private conversation with a number of talmidim : over the decades, including this author and in remarks in public shiurim, : noted his disagreement with the Rav's assessment of this hazaka (and : expressed astonishment at the vehemence of the Rav's opposition at the : time) given the clear cut evidence in the Rishonim in Yevamot and other : places in Shas which clearly indicated that this hazaka was not one that : applied in all contexts and at all times and in all situations. The way I heard RAL (recorded) was more that the large amount of material in Yevamos, much of the rest of seder Nashim, and the rishonim ad loc that such a proposal would make moot was itself RYBS's primary argument against R' Rackman's proposal. And that RAL understood the statement about tav lemeisiv and its ontological nature as a separate secondary argument RYBS made along the way. :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 2nd day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Chesed: What is constricted Fax: (270) 514-1507 Chesed? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:38:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 14:38:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5522D292.4070305@sero.name> On 04/06/2015 02:28 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:28:24AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam > : siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the > : holy serafim's conclave... > > Sod means conclave? Yes, as in "besodam al tavo nafshi". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:59:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 21:59:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 6, 2015 at 9:28 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:28:24AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam > : siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the > : holy serafim's conclave... > > Sod means conclave? > Yes, as in "besodam al tavo nafshi" in birkat Yaakov (Bereshit 49:6), where it's parallel to "kehalam", or more directly connected to kedusha Ps 89:8 "sod kedoshim". I couldn't say whether "conclave" is the original sense and "secret" a derived meaning, or vice versa -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:30:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 14:30:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house In-Reply-To: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5522D0BC.2010004@sero.name> On 04/06/2015 08:13 AM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > R' Zev Sero asked: > >> Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in >> EY after kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times. Does this >> mean that at a shiva house Sholom Rov is said even in shacharis >> (in EY on a non-Mon/Thu)? > No, but I don't know why. > > I never thought of that question before, but here is a > possibly-related question that I've wondered for years: If Shir > Hamaalos is said whenever we skip Tachanun, should it always be said > at the shiva house? The same question would apply in the afternoon of Erev Tish`a B'av. But the two questions can easily be distinguished. The substitution of Shir Hamaalos for Al Naharos Bavel is not caused by the lack of tachanun; rather both are caused by the same thing: the element of simcha on that day that makes mourning inappropriate. But the omission of tachanun at a shiva house is not because of simcha, but because we don't want to invoke divine judgment in a situation which is already fraught; thus Al Naharos Bavel is not inappropriate. And of course on Erev Tish`a B'av what could be more appropriate than Al Naharos Bavel? Sim Shalom, however, seems (in nusach Ahskenaz) to be directly linked to the conclusion of birchas kohanim, "veyasem lecha shalom". Thus it shouldn't matter why birchas kohanim is not being said; the mere fact that it's not said should be enough to cause the omission of sim shalom, and the substitution of shalom rav. Proof that this distinction is valid comes from the case of Tehilim #49, which is said at a shiva house on days when tachanun is said; on days when tachanun is omitted, #16 is substituted. But of course in a shiva house *every* day is a day when tachanun is omitted, so when does one say #49? The obvious answer is that on normal days omission of tachanun is related to the place, not to the day, and thus #49 is said; when the day has an element of simcha that makes #49 inappropriate, we substitute #16. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 16:23:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 19:23:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] partnership - adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties Message-ID: <001b01d070c0$b326a370$1973ea50$@com> Here is a step towards making my approach to the Relationship of Yisrael with Hashem more understandable. As always it is the feedback and exchange of ideas which contains so much creative force. AVOS WERE PARTNERS, THEIR DESCENDANTS WERE IN LIMBO RACHAMIM WAS DETERMINED INCLUSIVITY - ALL ARE INCLUDED INCLUDED INTO THE COVENANT - UNILATERAL COVENANT OF HASHEM WITH HIMSELF 2. G-d related to the Avos - Avraham Yitzchak Yaakov - as partners, whose faithful service he knew and trusted. The durability was unusual, but the basic partnership never was under question, as with partners who get along. 3. 4. Almost all could ask - we are individuals in a mass of Egyptian slaves, we have lost direct contact!! We cannot compare ourselves to a 70 member Covenant, which included Yaakov Avinu one of the Avos, who actually made every move based on direct prophecy. Even the 12 Shvatim had almost direct access to HASHEM himself. 5. The Crisis of Galus Mitzrayim - assuming all had learnt every Passuk in Breishis - was of uncertainty. - Yes Pakod Yifkod - but who am I? Will my generation merit to see what even the most elderly never saw with their eyes? Even were Moshe Rabeinu assured of membership in the Elite, he retained that uncertainty. On Pshat level, five minutes prior to the moment of noticing the Burning Bush, could ask that question. That vision began transforming Moshe Rabeinu into the instrument of G-d, the Goeil. The man who turned to check - was already entering Geula mode. 6. Machzor Vitri page 148 has a key piece called Pithron Nishmas Kol Chai. According to Psachim, the Nishmas Prayer should contain within it the essence of the message of Seder Night. Towards the end of Yishtabach - there treated as just the ending of Nishmas - RAABAN adds that the 15 praises parallel the 15 Dayeinus. 7. The piece de resistance - Chai Haolamim is explained Haya hoveh yihyeh, Ani Hashem lo Shanisi (from Malachi Haftara of Shabbos Hagadol). 8. Rashi here is one theme - as I would see it. Chai means involved with caring for his children right now - as fits in Chai Anochi leOlam Im shanosi brak charbi or a Shvuah. 9. Haolamim means until the end of time, as in a parent telling the child not to worry, the Parent is always here. 10. The piece on page 148 adds an extra word to Nishmas, to make a point sharper. V' Y H V H Shmo Eir Hineh lo yanum vlo yiyshan. The word Shmo - appears only in this one obscure manuscript, seemingly a Rashi arrow. 11. Here Rashi uses full expression - Hashem appeared to Avraham with the name E I L S H a D a Y but not the Name Y H V H. Avos were established Partners and employees. Now Hashem is showing his determination and leadership - new World Order - all eligible Jews will be included in the Geulah, no exceptions. 12. Hashem is taking on the eternal duty of guarding them, with no limits and no clause for rejection. Yes Hashem admits no such precedent existed. Only Hashem can overturn His Rules. 13. Bnei Yisrael are Unilaterally Covenanted to be Hashem's Bni Bchori. Just like He had focused since the word Breishis, bishvil Torh Shenikra Reishis, now all He wants is that His People be His only. Bni Bchori Yisrael! First Day Chol Hamoeid Pesach - we read these key Psukim. Tephillin wearers understand that Kadesh li kol bchor means singular devotion. 14. In our world, it would be a person seeking a marriage partner, then signing Adoption Papers. The parent chose - volitionally and with focus - to adopt this child. PARENTAL RIGHTS - FAMILY IDENTITY 15.It is a brand new family identity, which cannot be abrogated. Yes - there can be strains. But there cannot be a dissolution. It is stronger than marriage! 16. Rashbam says - He the King says about Himself Ehkeh, I will be. Yisrael as his subjects use the Third Person He Will Be. 17. It is not about Maaseh Breishis in Rashi. It refers to the instant covenant - My determination to Adopt You is irrevocable. 18. Ehkeh - becomes the Name He Calls Himself - totally devoted to watching over my Ben Bchor. Yihyeh is the Ben Bchor's confidence that He is watching me us. 19. The moment the Ben Bchor first uses the He will Care for Me - Hashem makes Ehkeh obsolete. The family has begun. 20. This is Rashi Rashbam. CONFIRMATION The Tzarfas Tosafos included Rabeinu Yosef Bchor Shor. He accepts Rashbam completely, except that HVYH is the holiest Name, not Ehkeh. The structure remains the same. 21. Hashem's Choice in Mitzraim was a Bnos TzlOphchad choice - choose which cousin and which time to marry. It is totally volitional and conscious. He chose adoption of all. Bachar Banu. 22. It means at a specific date signing Adoption Papers for 3,000,000 individuals. 23. Rashi says it means the special Adoption - family identity. That Adoption of all Bnei Yisrael had a specific moment, the Sneh. Those Name issues had meaning for Rashi and Rashbam. 24. Within the short timespan, all the Bnei Yisrael are Hashem's chosen children. Rishon in Emmes Vyatziv means since Ytzias Mitzrayim. Maaseh Breishis is not Primary to Rashi only secondary. 25. It is Family Commitment and Identity. Practical example, a secure Child can look his father in the eye. A secure Jew is able to have Hashem look him/her in the eye without flinching. I know this is my Father. 26. As the Midrash puts it - Yam Suf - I already met him when I was born and raised six months with no human being in sight. I know Him! 27. Ha'tishkach Isha ulahh - even a mother's love for her child cannot equal hashem's love. Hashem's Power is ever greater, but even His Love is stronger. 28. Woman says - Pesach is my adoption as Hashem's own Child - no Chametz ever! There is no bending on identity. This works on the visceral level. 29. Rashi in MV 148 does call it Rachamim - as in Rachamei Av al Banim. It is the strength of Inclusion in the Covenant. It is in its deepest essence - a Unilateral Covenant. Ehkeh Asher Ehkeh - just like in this oppression - in any other oppression. That is the Adoptive Parent's approach. Lo yanum vlo yiyshan shomeir Yisrael. 30. Rashi's approach is extremely strong. Rachamim is only possible as part of a relationship. Rashi makes the relationship primary and volitional. The secondary application of which rewards or concessions will be granted, secondary Rachamim, is put onto a solid base. Only chanun is left as a "nebbish" Midah - even from a cruel tyrant chein is possible. 31. Let adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties 32. 33. In describing why person would fast all Passover over and above Jewish Law Practice, you used the words "emotional attachment". In the seven years since that wording , perhaps the message is deeper. 34. This woman was looking at the strength of the Covenant - which is Identity. The bylaws are only secondary. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: AJS review of Rossi.PDF Type: application/pdf Size: 255404 bytes Desc: not available URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 8 05:37:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2015 08:37:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150408123715.GC8438@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 09:59:14PM +0300, Simon Montagu via Avodah wrote: : > Sod means conclave? : : Yes, as in "besodam al tavo nafshi" in birkat Yaakov (Bereshit 49:6), where : it's parallel to "kehalam", or more directly connected to kedusha Ps 89:8 : "sod kedoshim". To clarify: "Sod" *here* means conclave? I suggested an alternative, which I think fits the sentence better, as it makes "sod siach" a phrase, rather than trying to explain the interruption of "siach" in "sod ... sarfei". : I couldn't say whether "conclave" is the original sense and "secret" a : derived meaning, or vice versa Very different implications hashkafically, whether yesod would then be related to secrets (as foundations are in the ground) or a gathering of people (people as founders?). :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 4th day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Chesed: When is Chesed an Fax: (270) 514-1507 imposition on others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 04:58:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 14:58:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: Just saw a halacha that to me was a chiddush That one cannot (or should not) be yotzeh someone else for tefiilat haderech but everyone should say for them self. Those agreeing (at least lechatchila) include R Aviner R Nebenzahl R C Kanevsky R Tuvia Goldstein (who said he convinced RMF) R Belsky Not what I have seen in practice. Anyone know any opinion that does allow it -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 08:55:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 15:55:59 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: <20150412.115559.22172.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel asked: > Just saw a halacha that to me was a chiddush > That one cannot (or should not) be yotzeh someone else for > tefiilat haderech but everyone should say for them self. > Those agreeing (at least lechatchila) include > R Aviner > R Nebenzahl > R C Kanevsky > R Tuvia Goldstein (who said he convinced RMF) > R Belsky > Not what I have seen in practice. > Anyone know any opinion that does allow it Chidush to me too. I don't where to begin my comments. There's a GIGANTIC difference between "cannot" and "should not". "agreeing (at least lechatchila)" also allows a too-wide variety. And without some sort of reasoning, how can we throw out what we already know? Is there something special about Tefilas Haderech, or is this merely an example of how we have so little kavana nowadays that being motzi others is just too risky? I'm sure there are other sources I could quote, but for now, I will simply quote from "Halachically Speaking", vol 1, pg 75, by Rabbi Moishe Dovid Lebovits, published by Israel Bookshop. > One person can say the tefillah for everyone, as long as he has > everyone in mind and the others concentrate on the words.(20) > Horav Yisroel Belsky shlita maintains that every individual > should try to say tefillas haderech if he can.(21) If this is > not possible, one person can say it for everyone.(22) > 20) Kinyan Torah 2:119, Bais Avi 5:55, Opinion of Horav > Elyashiv shlita quoted in Darchei Ori page 279:2, > U'velechticha Baderech 2:footnote 26 quoting the opinion of > Horav Chaim Kanievesky shlita, see Darchei Ori page 259:1. It > is questionable whether someone who has already said tefilalas > haderech can repeat it for someone else. (Halichos Shlomo > Tefilah 21:5:footnote 9). > > 21) See Emes L'Yaakov page 65. > > 22) See Eishel Avraham Butchtach, Rivevos Ephraim 6:32:2, > Halichos Shlomo Tefilah page 245:5, Divrei Chachamim page > 76:192. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 06:33:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 09:33:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: <10b001d074db$3ad805c0$b0881140$@gmail.com> References: <20150407125218.216501835E4@nexus.stevens.edu> <10b001d074db$3ad805c0$b0881140$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150412133337.B25AB182ACC@nexus.stevens.edu> I am moving this to Avodah. YL At 12:43 AM 4/12/2015, R. Moshe Yehuda Gluck wrote: >R' YL: >Another person wrote to me > >"Chazal say that one is not allowed to daven outside (probably because of >kavana); >-------------------- >Does anyone have a mareh makom for this? > >KT, >MYG From http://www.dinonline.org/2012/07/11/davening-outdoors/ Is it problematic to daven outdoors? Thanks. Answer: One should not daven in an open area outdoors, and should daven in a closed building, or a sheltered area. Sources: The Gemara (Berachos 34b) writes that it is wrong (arrogant ? chatzuf) to daven in an open field. Rashi explains that in an open field, one doesn?t feel fear of the King, and one doesn?t pray with a broken heart. Tosafos, however, understands that the concern is for passers-by, who are liable to disturb a person?s davening. The Magen Avraham (90:6) rules that the problem is that davening outside makes a haughty statement: ?Even though there are passers-by, they will not disturb my intent in davening!? This is arrogant and wrong. The Shulchan Aruch (90:5) rules that one should not daven in an open place, and the Mishnah Berurah (11) adds that those who are always travelling should can daven in an open place, but should try to daven by a tree. Therefore, although it is not forbidden to daven outdoors, it is wrong to daven in an open area, and one should seek a sheltered place. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 09:54:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 19:54:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] reviit Message-ID: In the sefer of Rav Aviner he brings many examples of gedolim who used a kiddush cup the size of the shiur of R Chaim Naeh (86 CC) and not CI. He says he heard from RSZA that when RCN published his sefer on shiurim the rabbis of Yerushalayim were astounded at his chumra !! 1) cup if Chafetz Chaim (from his grandson R Hillel Zaks) 2) cup of GRA (baal eyanim le-mishpat who got it as an inheritance) 3) cup someone got from Ohr Sameach (mesoros she-avdu) 4) Rebbe of Gur - Pnei Menachem stated about the cup of his father Baal Imre Ha-emes 5) cup of R Salanter (Shut Teshuvot Vehanhagot) 6) Rav Dessler used a small cup that belonged to his wife's family. After she passed away he used a larger cup 7) cup of the father of the CI 8) Brother of CI used a cup he got from his father-in-law (Cheshek Shlomo of Vilna) and also had shiur RCN 9) R Elyashiv used a cup the size of CI but explained that he did so in honor of CI not because that is the halacha 10) In the sefer Meged Givat Olam second volume p34) someone showed RMF a cup holding about 88cc and RMF remarked that it was kosher lechatchila (not not the shiur published in his name) 11) In Divrei Yoel the Satmar rebbe is quoted as saying the shiur of reviit is 75 gram (!?) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 12:01:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 15:01:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] reviit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <552AC11F.8060605@sero.name> On 04/12/2015 12:54 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > 11) In Divrei Yoel the Satmar rebbe is quoted as saying the shiur of reviit is 75 gram (!?) > RACN assumed that the Rambam's dirham was the same as the Ottoman dirham used in his day, which was 3.1 g. But there's significant evidence that the Egyptian dirham of the Rambam's day was slightly smaller, about 2.8 g, which gives a revi'it of about 75 ml. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 12:15:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 15:15:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150413191514.GA19165@aishdas.org> R' Ari Kahn posted a transcript of that famous talk that people remember for RYBS's statement about tav lemeisiv. http://arikahn.blogspot.co.il/2013/03/rabbi-soloveitchik-talmud-torah-and.html As a teaser, here is all RYBS said on tev lemeis tan du: Let me add something that is very important: not only the halachos but also the chazakos [19] which chachmei chazal have introduced are indestructible. We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above. Let us take for example the chazaka that I was told about: the chazaka tav l'meisiv tan du mil'meisiv armalo [20] has absolutely nothing to do with the social and political status of women in antiquity. This chazaka is based not upon sociological factors, but upon a verse in breishis -- harba arbeh itz'voneich v'heironeich b'etzev teildi vanim v'el isheich t'shukaseich v'hu yimshal bach -- "I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy travail; in pain thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee" [21]. It is a metaphysical curse rooted in the feminine personality -- she suffers incomparably more that the male who is in solitude. Solitude to the male is not as terrible an experience, as horrifying an experience, as is solitude to the woman. And this will never change, mayid shamayim vaaretz [22]. This is not a psychological fact; it is an existential fact, which is due not to the inferior status of the woman, but rather to the difference, the basic distinction, between the female personality and the male personality. Loneliness frightens the woman, and an old spinster's life is much more miserable and tragic than the life of an old bachelor. This was true in antiquity; it is still true, and it will be true a thousand years from now. So, to say that tan du mil'meisiv armalo was or is due to the inferior political or social status of the woman is simply misinterpreting the chazaka tan du mil'meisiv armalo. No legislation can alleviate the pain of the single woman, and no legislation can change this role. She was burdened by the Almighty, after she violated the first [law]. Let me ask you a question -- ribono shel olam, G-d Almighty, if you should start modifying and reassessing the chazakos upon which a multitude of halachos rest, you will destroy yehadus. So instead of philosophizing, let us rather light a match and set fire to the beis yisrael, and get rid of our problems. What I think is more typical of the general thesis of this portion of his talk was the immediately prior statement: V'chen hakofer b'perusha v'hu torah she b'al peh v'hamach'chish magideha; he who denies the perfection and the truthfulness of chachmei chazal -- not of the Torah, but of the chachmei chazal as personalities, as real persona as far as their character, their philosophy, or their outlook on the world is concerned -- is a kofer. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 9th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 most appropriate? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 12:27:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 19:27:43 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150413191514.GA19165@aishdas.org> References: <20150413191514.GA19165@aishdas.org> Message-ID: What I think is more typical of the general thesis of this portion of his talk was the immediately prior statement: V'chen hakofer b'perusha v'hu torah she b'al peh v'hamach'chish magideha; he who denies the perfection and the truthfulness of chachmei chazal -- not of the Torah, but of the chachmei chazal as personalities, as real persona as far as their character, their philosophy, or their outlook on the world is concerned -- is a kofer. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The whole piece is worth hearing (even more than reading) - it seems to me that the debate echoes here: https://kavvanah.wordpress.com/2015/04/12/rabbi-ysoscher-katz-and-rabbi-ozer-glickman-rounds-one-and-two/ I do wonder whether one can avoid self awareness with a modern education. Another challenge is how to deal with recent "Chachmei Hamesorah" who don't seem to meet the perfection definition. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 13:56:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 13:56:37 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] support obligations Message-ID: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/193853#.VSwsUo6ZPAG interesting question . while in theory the ketuba and consequently the terms of marriage , mandate the husband support a wife , in practice that is not true in the kollel years [which in israel could last a prolonged time ]. here , a kollel man divorcing claims no income , and that the wife should support the children by getting a job . apart from secular courts, is there a positive chiyuv for a husband to leave 'torato umnato' to support his children ? does a get terminate his financial obligations halachically? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 14:23:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 17:23:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Philosophy and practice of shmita In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150413212344.GA3301@aishdas.org> On Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 10:09:02PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : What is the earliest source that ties shmita to the farmers using the : time to learn Torah?... I don't know about first, but the Seforno (Vayiqra 25:4, d"h "shabbos Lashem") writes: So that also those who work the earth, when they rest for this year, yis'oreru lidrosh es H' be'ofen mah. This is then quoted verbatum by R' Yaaqov Tzevi Mecklengburg (HaKesav behaQabbalah, early or mid-19th cent), who sites both the Sefornu and and "Raba"ch" -- who is eluding me. I didn't see it in Rabbeinu Bechayei, nor the Chizquni. Nor am I sure that "liderosh es H'" means learning. More recent is the Ari (as recorded by R' Shemu'el Vital, Shaar haPesuqim) based on the Zohar (vol II 20b). Haro'eh baShoshanim -- "Shoshanim" refers to the 6 shins in "usefarta lekha SHeva SHabasos SHanim, SHeva SHanim SHeva pe'amim". And from there haro'eh bashoshanim becomes: the one who dedicates the 7th year to learning finds G-d in all the 6 years of labor as well. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 9th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 most appropriate? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 14:28:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 17:28:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos In-Reply-To: <20150401084748.2445618205D@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150401084748.2445618205D@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150413212857.GB3301@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 01, 2015 at 04:47:45AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Does not the SA say that a person who has trouble chewing matzah can : soak it in water and then eat it? If so, then I fail to see why : eating gebrokts should be a problem for anyone. : The SA lived in the wrong qehillah for the minhag to be relevant. He would allow you to eat qitniyos too. And if we accept the SA haRav's explanation of gebrochts over the MB's, the Rama lived before we counted kneading time toward the 18 min, and gebrochts wasn't necessary yet. And since according to the SAhR's teshuvah, the minhag caught on after the Besh"t, meaning during the lifetime of its author and his readers, I am inclined to believe his version of the timing over someone who is reconstructing older history. : Also, were not the matzos that were used in the time of the SA : thicker than ours? Again, MB vs the SAhR as to whether that's at issue. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 9th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 most appropriate? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 14:33:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 17:33:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] support obligations In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150413213345.GC3301@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 01:56:37PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : apart from secular courts, is there a positive chiyuv for a husband to : leave 'torato umnato' to support his children ? does a get terminate his : financial obligations halachically? Assuming she didn't agree to the arrangement. Ortherwise, the wife willingly waved her claim to his income, and took on the obligation of self- and child-support. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 20:54:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 03:54:11 GMT Subject: [Avodah] support obligations Message-ID: <20150413.235411.14734.1@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Assuming she didn't agree to the arrangement. Ortherwise, the wife > willingly waved her claim to his income, and took on the obligation > of self- and child-support. I would argue that she accepted the financial responsibilities only in exchange for the s'char she gets from enabling her husband to learn Torah, and that once he ceases to be her husband, that arrangement ends, and the whole thing reverts to the usual. Phrased differently, once he stops giving her the s'char of sharing in his learning, he has to give her a more practical olam-hazeh sort of support. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552c8fb420d2bfb30fdest04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 20:45:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 03:45:47 GMT Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> [RAK gives credit to others in fn. 1. It is not his transcript. -micha] R' Micha Berger posted R' Ari Kahn's transcript of Rav YB Soloveitchik: > ... This is not a psychological > fact; it is an existential fact, which is due not to the inferior > status of the woman, but rather to the difference, the basic > distinction, between the female personality and the male personality. > Loneliness frightens the woman, and an old spinster's life is much > more miserable and tragic than the life of an old bachelor. This was > true in antiquity; it is still true, and it will be true a thousand > years from now. So, to say that tan du mil'meisiv armalo was or > is due to the inferior political or social status of the woman > is simply misinterpreting the chazaka tan du mil'meisiv armalo. ... From what I understand, the objection to hafkaas kiddushin comes from a presumption that a woman would prefer to stay with her husband, even if he seems to be a terrible person, and even if she tells us that in *her* opinion he is a terrible person -- and we have this presumption because of the chazaka of tan du. But I do not see Rav Soloveitchik making that case here. All he is saying is that "an old spinster's life is much more miserable and tragic than the life of an old bachelor." He does say that this relative perspective on singlehood is a "permanent ontological principle[s] rooted in the very depth of the human personality," and that it will never change, and that this information is Revealed in the words of Bereishis. But this refers ONLY to the misery and tragedy of a single woman as opposed to a single man. And that's NOT that argument against hafkaas kiddushin, at least not how I've heard it. The argument that I've heard -- that is to say, the supposed translation of "tav l'meisiv tan du" -- is that a woman would prefer living with ANY man rather than to be alone. I can easily understand opposition to Hafkaas Kiddushin on the grounds that widespread use would give *all* marriages a sort of "tentative" status. But that's not what people are referring to here, right? When they invoke "tan du" against Hafkaas Kidushin, they're saying that despite the wife's protestations, the wife would actually prefer to stay married, and that's why they're unable to annul the marriage. Or am I mistaken? Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 05:26:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 08:26:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <552D0792.4060709@sero.name> On 04/13/2015 11:45 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > From what I understand, the objection to hafkaas kiddushin comes from a > presumption that a woman would prefer to stay with her husband, even if > he seems to be a terrible person, and even if she tells us that in*her* > opinion he is a terrible person -- and we have this presumption because > of the chazaka of tan du. What she prefers is irrelevant. Obviously she wants to leave her husband; she is openly telling us so, and it's ridiculous to suppose she is not telling the truth. And even if she weren't, if the marriage is invalid then it's invalid, no matter what she wants. You're looking at the whole thing from the wrong direction. No objection is needed to annulling a marriage; what's needed is grounds *for* annulling it. The alleged grounds are that it has now become clear that this man was always such a bad person that had the woman known this when he proposed marriage she would have refused, and throughout the subsequent marriage there was never a point at which she was so happy that had she found out the truth she would have consented to stay with him. Now if the husband is bad enough (and it can be proved that he always was so), *and* the woman is such a catch that there was never a point at which she could not have found another husband, then this makes sense. Obviously she has always preferred a good husband to a bad one, and only married this man because she thought he was a good one. But what if refusing to marry him, or leaving him at some point during the marriage, were to expose her to the risk of remaining single forever? Would she still have turned him down or left him? The proponents of annulment say yes, of course she would, just as she has left him now. But, RYBS says, Chazal tell us that it's female nature to prefer a bad husband to none at all, so perhaps even if she had known the truth about this man she would have consented to marry him rather than risk remaining single; or perhaps there was a point after the event at which, had she learned the truth, she would have stayed with him rather than face a single future. > But I do not see Rav Soloveitchik making that case here. All he is saying > is that "an old spinster's life is much more miserable and tragic than > the life of an old bachelor." Yes, and therefore while a man might prefer to be single rather than live with a bad wife, a similarly situated woman will not. That this woman *now* tells us she would, doesn't prove that she always would have. > He does say that this relative perspective on singlehood is a "permanent > ontological principle[s] rooted in the very depth of the human > personality," and that it will never change, and that this information > is Revealed in the words of Bereishis. But this refers ONLY to the misery > and tragedy of a single woman as opposed to a single man. > > And that's NOT that argument against hafkaas kiddushin, at least not > how I've heard it. The argument that I've heard -- that is to say, the > supposed translation of "tav l'meisiv tan du" -- is that a woman would > prefer living with ANY man rather than to be alone. Yes. How is that not the same thing? Spinsterhood is terrible for women, so terrible that they'd prefer living with a bad man to it. > When they invoke "tan du" against Hafkaas Kidushin, they're saying that despite > the wife's protestations, the wife would actually prefer to stay married, > and that's why they're unable to annul the marriage. Or am I mistaken? Not that she'd prefer it now, but that she did prefer it earlier, when she was faced with the risk of never finding anyone else. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 06:44:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 09:44:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Could a New Gadget Change Shabbat Observance - Forever Message-ID: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/njr5j7a List of leading rabbis endorse 'Kosherswitch' to allow lights on Shabbat. High-voltage project could send a current through Jewish world. Will Shabbat observance change forever with a flick of a switch? A new gadget was released to the mass market on Monday promising Orthodox Jews a solution to the age-old problem of leaving lights on or off on Shabbat and then being prevented by Jewish law from flipping the switch. The new invention, dubbed "KosherSwitch," has been beta-tested since 2009 - but an indiegogo campaign launched Monday promises to bring the project to the masses. See the above URL for more as well as for a video explaining how this device works. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 07:59:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 10:59:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Could a New Gadget Change Shabbat Observance - Forever In-Reply-To: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150414145918.GA28845@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 09:44:04AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : From http://tinyurl.com/njr5j7a :> List of leading rabbis endorse 'Kosherswitch' to allow lights on :> Shabbat. High-voltage project could send a current through Jewish :> world. :> Will Shabbat observance change forever with a flick of a switch? Unlikely. They say this is new tech, which could be true since they got a [atenmt, but the How it Works page and the ptent describe something much like what Machon Zomet uses in their wheelchairs . Actually, Zomet makes sure their switch changes the amount of current, I see nothing in the patent about anything but turning the power on and off entirely -- it appears *more* problematic. The engineers among us can check out . As you can read on Zomet's site, R Neuwirth permits the wheelchair only because the issue is basic mobility. KosherSwitch.com shows you that that RYN signed on a "me too" to R' Pinchas Zabihi's haskamah. I have a notion that once things are clarified, the truth is more somewhere in between. When a house is on fire, and someone puts up a wall of pottery flasks filled with water to arrest its progress, geram kibui is mutar. See SA OC 334:22. The Rama either adds or explains (citing the Mordekhai), that this is bemaqom peseida. But gerama isn't suddenly mutar even without hefsed meruba or kevod haberios as a matir. So it all boils down to whether they really have a new tech that is more legitimate for them to call "un-grama" than Machon Zomet's design. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 07:12:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 10:12:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] =?iso-8859-1?q?The_Kosher_Switch=3A_A_Response_from_the_?= =?iso-8859-1?q?Tzomet_Institute=92s_Rabbi_Yisrael_Rosen?= Message-ID: <20150414141204.C79091830F4@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/ptcfckt The rabbinic world and blogosophere (see, for example, here) has been abuzz about the propriety of the Kosher Switch, which its producers claim allows one to halakhically turn on and off lights on shabbat. Attached here is the Hebrew response of Rabbi Yisrael Rosen, the prominent engineer who heads the Tzomet Institute, which includes (signed) clarifications of the positions of Rabbi Avigdor Nevenzahl and Rabbi Yehoshua Neuwirth. It is was sent on Tzomet stationery to Rabbi David Mescheloff, and is reprinted here with permission. Below is a rough English translation of the first page, which does not include some of the halakhic argumentation provided on the 2nd page of the original Hebrew. For all scholarly and halakhic purposes, and purposes of citation, only the original Hebrew letter should be seen as the authoritative writing of Rabbi Rosen. D. And here is the main part of my remarks: Yesterday I went to my teacher and rabbi HaGaon Rabbi Yehoshua Neuwirth, Shlita, and I asked him whether he permitted to use this switch to activate electricity on Shabbat for the purposes of Oneg Shabbat, etc He was really shocked and said he never permitted that. When I showed him the endorsement letter, he added in his handwriting: ?Only for medicine and security? (see photo in attached Hebrew article). Rabbi Avigdor Nebenzahl Shlita, who signed a similar letter, also told me yesterday that he does not recall ever signing anything like that, and expressed the opinion that there is no place for this and was puzzled about the whole thing. I suppose that whoever managed to get the signatures of important rabbis ?sold? them an invention that is a kind of a complex Gramma used for the purpose of medicine or security, and succeeded in skipping this condition when they signed. E. With regard to the claim, written in their accompanying halachic responsum, that it is permitted to use this Gramma switch to minimize the prohibition of those who willfully the violate the Shabbat, we have never heard of such rabbis who permit this. I am sure that those who ?agreed? did not see this argument, and this is an argument that should not be stated. See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 08:01:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joseph Kaplan via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 11:01:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <002d01d076c3$e98d8290$bca887b0$@tenzerlunin.com> "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above." Can anybody explain what this really means? That is, explain it to someone who doesn't use the word "ontological" in his/her normal speech. I have read it many many times but I still don't understand what the Rav is saying. Joseph -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 07:42:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 17:42:18 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: I guess I was a little too succinct in my last post. The major problem is that many consider tefillat haderech as a tefillah and not as a bracha. Thus while one can be motze other for a bracha one cannot do it for a tefillah. Hence, R Nebenzahl paskens that all those that know how to say by themselves should do so R C Kanevsky says it is preferable for each person to say by themself R Tuvia Goldstein says that one cannot be yotzeh someone else and claims that he convinced RMF of that R Belsky repeats that it is a tefillah and not a bracha and so it is appropriate (min ha-raui) that everyone says it for themself. R Aviner says that it is "rachamim" and therefore it is preferable that each one requests for themselves however bidieved one can be motzi others The sefer Piskei Teshuvot (siman 110-2) has a discussion whether one is required to say tefillat haderech in modern times. He concludes that one who does not say it on major roads has someone to rely on but someone who also says it has the reward of a tefilla even though we no longer have "listin" and wild animals on the roads. Instead we have a car accidents. Therefore one should also say tefillat haderech on railroads and planes. He claims that on small side roads that everyone paskens you need to say tefillat haderech -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 08:22:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 11:22:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150414152222.GD28845@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 03:45:47AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : From what I understand, the objection to hafkaas kiddushin comes from a : presumption that a woman would prefer to stay with her husband, even if : he seems to be a terrible person, and even if she tells us that in *her* : opinion he is a terrible person -- and we have this presumption because : of the chazaka of tan du. You phrased it as a psychological issue. RYBS says it's something existential or ontological -- and explicitly NOT pschological. I think he is saying that this vector exists in every woman's character. Even when current social reality provides other vectors that may submerge tav lemeisiv tan du, it is an entity present in her psyche (ontologically) still shaping her perception of reality (existential). And because of that element of her soul, inherited from Chavah, it's very hard to ever call a marriage a complete meqach ta'us on the bride's part. But again, my impression from RAL which is reinforced by this transcript, this particular argument was a side-bar, not RYBS's primary argument. Eg: ... : I can easily understand opposition to Hafkaas Kiddushin on the grounds : that widespread use would give *all* marriages a sort of "tentative" : status. But that's not what people are referring to here, right? ... RYBS discusses that issue at greater length than this one anyway. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 08:32:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 11:32:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] support obligations In-Reply-To: <20150413.235411.14734.1@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150413.235411.14734.1@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150414153245.GE28845@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 03:54:11AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Micha Berger wrote: : > Assuming she didn't agree to the arrangement. Ortherwise, the wife : > willingly waved her claim to his income, and took on the obligation : > of self- and child-support. : I would argue that she accepted the financial responsibilities only : in exchange for the s'char she gets from enabling her husband to learn : Torah, and that once he ceases to be her husband, that arrangement ends, : and the whole thing reverts to the usual. Phrased differently, once he : stops giving her the s'char of sharing in his learning, he has to give : her a more practical olam-hazeh sort of support. We are in the weird situation of talking about what the bride was agreeing to WRT a situation she never pictured arising. (I am reminded of Avodah discussions about what the Rambam would do if faced with what he perceives as a solid philosophical proof for a position he could not find a basis for in Torah. Would he declare something an allegory despite a lack of source in Chazal, would he dismiss the proof as flawed, perhaps even assuming the flaw had to be something he didn't yet find? The Rambam thought the situation was impossible.) So, I want to detour into a case more likely to have crossed the kallah's mind -- his death. If the husband predeceases her without having left kollel, she wouldn't expect him to leave her the same estate than if he had spent that time earning money. It may be equally valid to argue that the bride relinquishes claims to money even after he finishes learning, in exchange for supporting him while learning -- however long that lasts. I really don't know which way of looking at things is more valid. It's kind of like the old chestnut, "But if you did have a brother, would he like noodles?" Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 10:00:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Weiss via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 10:00:06 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3e97bfe1715ba4f18f42bf014d7ab62a.squirrel@mail.panix.com> > From http://www.dinonline.org/2012/07/11/davening-outdoors/ >> Is it problematic to daven outdoors? ... >> The Gemara (Berachos 34b) writes that it is wrong >> (arrogant - chatzuf) to daven in an open field. >> Rashi explains that in an open field, one doesn't >> feel fear of the King, and one doesn't pray with >> a broken heart. Tosafos, however, understands >> that the concern is for passers-by, who are >> liable to disturb a person's davening. >> The Magen Avraham (90:6) rules that the problem >> is that davening outside makes a haughty >> statement... ... >> Therefore, although it is not forbidden to daven >> outdoors, it is wrong to daven in an open area, >> and one should seek a sheltered place. As you see from the above it is the Lechatichilla not do daven in an open place, Last week we had a mincha minyan at the grand canyon, (to wait to a more appropriate place it would have been well after dark) When one davens in a large minyan and is surrounded by other people davening it is easier to concentrate on the tefilla. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 12:44:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 15:44:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd [TM]: Why Does God Test Us? Message-ID: <20150414194402.GB3303@aishdas.org> RGStudent recently posted a piece to answer the question "Why Does God Test Us?" The notion that the all-knowing God needs to test us to determine whether we will follow His command is absurd. He knows the future and therefore gains nothing from the exercise. Yet the Torah discusses in multiple places God's tests. For example, regarding the man (manna) that fell in the desert, God states: "So that I may test them, whether they will follow My law or not" (Ex. 16:4). The midrash (Tanchuma, Vayera 23) expresses the question aptly: ... I. Personal Growth The Kuzari (5:20), followed by the Ramban (Gen. 22:1; Ex. 16:4; Deut. 13:4; Toras Ha-Bayis in Kisvei Ha-Ramban, vol. 2 pp. 272-273), explains that God tests people in order to actualize their potential goodness.... II. Education Rambam (Moreh Nevukhim 3:24) takes an entirely different approach. He sees divine tests as a way to publicize, and thereby teach, the righteousness of an individual.... III. Adult Education I believe that, aside from midrashic sources and textual cues, Rambam had a more fundamental reason for taking a path different from that of the Kuzari and Ramban. The Gemara (Makkos 10a) says that Heaven takes you in the direction you wish to go. Similarly, another Gemara (Yoma 39a) says that someone who wishes to become pure (i.e. do good) is divinely assisted. Apparently, the Ramban takes this literally. ... IV. Self-Discovery Radal (ibid.) offers a third approach to understanding divine tests. Pirkei De-Rabbi Eliezer (31) says that the test was for Avraham to know his heart. God certainly know whether we will pass a test but poses it so that we learn our own abilities. Like a good coach, God pushes us farther than we think we can go. This, too, applies to adults who often underestimate their capacity for strength. God only tests those who will pass and by doing so teaches us the extent of our faith and endurance. ... -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 15:41:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 18:41:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] reviit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150414224153.GA9794@aishdas.org> On Sun, Apr 12, 2015 at 07:54:45PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : In the sefer of Rav Aviner he brings many examples of gedolim who used a : kiddush cup the size of the shiur of R Chaim Naeh (86 CC) and not CI. : He says he heard from RSZA that when RCN published his sefer on shiurim the : rabbis of Yerushalayim were astounded at his chumra !! Interesting, because I thought that RACN's agenda was to justify the accepted practice in his local, in EY in the early 20th cent. (Something I learned on-list 15 years ago.) Minhag Y-m is RACN's shiurim, because RACN started with the assumption that Minhag Y-m was roughly accuate, with the Sepharadim being the more precise. RACN himself was a Lubavitcher chassid of the Yishuva haYashan, born in Chevron. I do not know why people usually call him "Rav Chaim Naeh", ommitting his first name "Avraham". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 15:50:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 18:50:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: <3e97bfe1715ba4f18f42bf014d7ab62a.squirrel@mail.panix.com> References: <3e97bfe1715ba4f18f42bf014d7ab62a.squirrel@mail.panix.com> Message-ID: <20150414225006.GB9794@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 10:00:06AM -0700, Harry Weiss via Avodah wrote: : > From http://www.dinonline.org/2012/07/11/davening-outdoors/ : >> Is it problematic to daven outdoors? : ... : >> The Gemara (Berachos 34b) writes that it is wrong : >> (arrogant - chatzuf) to daven in an open field. : : >> Rashi explains that in an open field, one doesn't : >> feel fear of the King, and one doesn't pray with : >> a broken heart. Tosafos, however, understands : >> that the concern is for passers-by, who are : >> liable to disturb a person's davening. : : >> The Magen Avraham (90:6) rules that the problem : >> is that davening outside makes a haughty : >> statement... : ... : >> Therefore, although it is not forbidden to daven : >> outdoors, it is wrong to daven in an open area, : >> and one should seek a sheltered place. : .... : When one davens in a large minyan and is surrounded by other people : davening it is easier to concentrate on the tefilla. The Kotel Plaza doesn't suffer from any of these concerns, which is unsurprising because centuries of gedolim had no problem davening outside at the kotel. It's set up like a shul, so there is no special chutzpah or yuharah in davening there. Interruptions are likely, but generally for other mitzvos -- tzedaqah, or answering qaddish or qedushah from nearby minyanim. In terms And the location actively fosters yir'ah, koveid rosh and a broken heart. However, davening at Robinson's arch might suffer from the yuhara issue. (Personally, I find it more moving than the Kotel Plaza. One stands on the same road walked by oleh regel, among stones thrown off Har haBayis by the Roman Army (whether during the churban or when Hadrian had the har plowed, I do not know). Behind me are the ghosts of shopkeepers, ready to exchange my maaser sheini coins back to food, sell me flour for a qorban Todah or an animal for a differen qorban. The miqvah is a bit back, and to the left.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 16:12:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 23:12:56 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <20150414.191256.7783.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The major problem is that many consider tefillat haderech as a > tefillah and not as a bracha. Thus while one can be motze other > for a bracha one cannot do it for a tefillah. I am very confused. Many poskim recommend point out that Tefilas Haderech does not begin with "Baruch", so they recommend saying it after another bracha (such as Asher Yatzar, or a Bracha Acharona on food), so as to make it into a Bracha Hasemucha L'chvertah. But if Tefilas Haderech is not a bracha to begin with, then I do not see the advantage of such a procedure. According to "Halachically Speaking", vol 1 pg 76, the poskim who recommend the above procedure includes: Magen Avraham 110:13, Machatzis Hashekel 110:13, Be'er Hetev 110:10, Shulchan Aruch Harav 110:6, Mishneh Berurah 110:28, Aruch Hashulchan 110:14, Kaf Hachaim 110:51 -- but NOT the Chazon Ish (Orchos Rabenu 1:61). In addition, I recall learning of certain situations where it is recommended that one should say tefilas haderech, but omitting the chasima at the end. But if it's not a bracha at all even WITH the chasima, then what is gained by leaving it out? I suspect that I do not appreciate or understand the meaning of "as a tefillah and not as a bracha". Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552d9f0aeea561f0a2aa2st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 19:48:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 22:48:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Could a New Gadget Change Shabbat Observance - Forever In-Reply-To: <20150414145918.GA28845@aishdas.org> References: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150414145918.GA28845@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415024810.GA29474@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 10:59:18AM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 09:44:04AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : : From http://tinyurl.com/njr5j7a : : :> List of leading rabbis endorse 'Kosherswitch' to allow lights on : :> Shabbat. High-voltage project could send a current through Jewish : :> world. RGS just posted http://www.torahmusings.com/2015/04/will-the-kosher-switch-bring-mashiach-2 which also links to his earlier http://www.torahmusings.com/2011/09/in-defense-of-the-kosher-switch .... : As you can read on Zomet's site, R Neuwirth permits the wheelchair only : because the issue is basic mobility. KosherSwitch.com shows you that that : RYN signed on a "me too" to R' Pinchas Zabihi's haskamah. I have a notion : that once things are clarified, the truth is more somewhere in between. Actually, RGS determined that R Neuwirth didn't give his approval of the Kosher Switch outide of special circumstances. RGS writes: > The Kosher Switch adds uncertainty to the Gerama Switch. Every time the > device is supposed to send a light impulse, it calculates a random number > below 100 and only sends the impulse if the number passes a threshold > (usually over 50). However, there is a random element to Machon Zomet's switch too. Again, I do not see anything in the patent that makes this switch any less a simple case of gerama than Machon Zomet's switch. (In fact, R' Rosen of Zomet checked the posqim cited on KosherSwitch.com *because* he saw no reason why they would allow the Kosher Switch for general use and not Zomet's Grama Switch.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 19:26:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 02:26:43 GMT Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150414.222643.13892.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> R' Joseph Kaplan asked: > "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with > the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not > upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon > permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of > the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, > which is as changeless as the heavens above." > > Can anybody explain what this really means? That is, explain it > to someone who doesn?t use the word "ontological" in his/her > normal speech. I have read it many many times but I still > don?t understand what the Rav is saying. This is how I understand it: Just as a leopard cannot change its spots, and just as Shabbos comes each week whether society accepts it or not, so too, there are certain elements of the human condition which Chazal have identified as inherent and unchanging, not subject to variation by time, place, or culture. Or something like that. At any rate, one can agree or disagree about whether this assertion is true, and even among those who agree with it, there might be discussion of exactly which chazakos are unchanging and which are variable. Still, his point is that there are indeed some UNchanging aspects. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552dcca9d8e634ca96125st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 02:07:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 05:07:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's true position on kosher switch I regret that my father's position on the kosher switch was misrepresented by stating that he endorses it l'maaseh . His position is that there are 2 aspects in hilchos shabbos, one is issur melacha and then there is zilzul shabbos. My father's opinion is that there is no issur melacha or chilul shabbos. However , there is a concern about zilzul shabbos as he stated clearly on the video. Before it is used one should ask a shaila from his rav. Moshe Oelbaum Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:01:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:01:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld : regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. ... :> Moshe Oelbaum :> Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum Authentication? -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 23:10:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 09:10:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: The reason for not allowing to be motzi someone else is actually quite simple. The Gemara in Berachos (29b) clearly states that tefilas haderech is a tefila "Amar R' Chisda hayotzeh laderech tzarich lhispallel tefilas haderech". Therefore the general rule of tefilla should apply, namely that if you are a baki someone else cannot be motzi you. Since nowadays we are all considered bekiim and for example, we don't allow someone to be motzi us in tefilas mincha the same would apply to tefilas haderech. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:18:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:18:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:01 AM 4/15/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: >: Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld >: regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. >... >Authentication? What I posted was sent to me by someone on my email list whom I trust. I can send you his email address if you like. YL From http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/kosher-switch > moish3 at yahoo.com > Member > Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's true position on kosher switch . > I regret that my father's position on kosher switch was > misrepresented by stating that he endorses it l'maaseh . His position > is that there are 2 aspects in hilchos shabbos. One is issur melacha > and then there is zilzul shabbos. My father's opinion is that there > is no issur melacha or chilul shabbos. However , there is a concern > about zilzul shabbos as he stated clearly on the video. Before it is > used one should ask a shaila from his rav. > Moshe Oelbaum > Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:44:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:44:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 06:18:35AM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : What I posted was sent to me by someone on my email list whom I trust. : I can send you his email address if you like. YL ... : From http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/kosher-switch : > moish3 at yahoo.com : > Member Oh, I believe it really appeared in YWN, and that link can allow you to check that much for ourselves. What I'm asking is whether anyone contact R' Moshe Oelbaum or RNIO to authenticate that the post really was from his son. It is trivial to claim to be anyone in a YWN chatroom. I don't know RMO, but I can't picture R' NI Oelbaum promulgating his position via chatroom. Could be, if his son is a regular there anyway. The presence of a post really doesn't tell me much. No matter how honest the person reporting to you is, he can be duped unless he spoke to the parties himself. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:13:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:13:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150415101229.BCD31183613@nexus.stevens.edu> At 05:54 AM 4/15/2015, R. Harry Weiss wrote: >When one davens in a large minyan and is surrounded by other people >davening it is easier to concentrate on the tefilla. I do not find this to be true for me personally. I am not a "group person" and hence prefer to daven in a minyan that has between 20 and forty participants. This is the case where I daven during the week and also at the Hashkama Minyan at the YI of Ave J where I daven on Shabbos. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 06:34:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 09:34:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:44 AM 4/15/2015, Micha Berger wrote: > What I'm asking is whether >anyone contact R' Moshe Oelbaum or RNIO to authenticate that the >post really was from his son. It is trivial to claim to be anyone >in a YWN chatroom. I received this in an email from Moshe Deutsch I personally spoke to Rabbi & Rebbetzin Oelbaum who told me to publicize this. I was the one who made them aware that the person behind KosherSwitch is using his name in a way that Rabbi Oelbaum did not intend. Person behind KosherSwitch does not pick up the phone now when Rabbi Oelbaum calls. Moshe From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 07:21:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 10:21:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 09:34:32AM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : I received this in an email from Moshe Deutsch :> I personally spoke to Rabbi & Rebbetzin Oelbaum who told me to :> publicize this. I was the one who made them aware that the person :> behind KosherSwitch is using his name in a way that Rabbi Oelbaum did :> not intend... This still doesn't clear up my confusion, although it does confirm what the YWN post said (if not who authored it). I am trying to understand whether RNIO's problem with the appearance of his name on the KosherSwitch.com "approvers" list is because a- he feels that use of the switch is zilzul Shabbos, or b- he would hold it's gerama. What I am trying to understand is the tzad to say their switch isn't gerama. It appears to conform to the description of the Machon Zomet switch as it existed at the time R' Neuwirth consulted with RSZA who ruled it was. If RNIO holds it's "only" zilzul Shabbos, then clarifying what his position is was useful, but doesn't remove all my confusion. I was expecting that the posqim the Kosher Switch people are hearing overly optimistically (for their investment) would actually all end up agreeing with RSZA once we got clarification. Such as R' Neuwirth, whose approval was based on assuming the proposed use was a medical context. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 04:38:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 14:38:08 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <> On many birtchot hamitzva one can be motzeh others even when they are "experts". This includes shofar, megilla etc (not lulav or netillat yadaim which is considered as a mitzvah be-gufo) similarly for kiddush and havdala. Note that for sefirat haomer usually each person says the bracha himself/herself and also counts for themselves. There are opinions that if needed one can rely on the chazzan for the bracha but not the count. In birchat ha-nehenim usually each individual makes his own bracha. There are some which are a mixture including kiddush and motzi on shabbat on lechem mishne (note there are various minhagim on seder night). For birchat shevach eg lightning seeing great mountains etc each person says it by himself. OTOH the shliach tzibbur can be motzi others with shemone esre only if they cant say it themselves. Shemonei esrei is a tefillah (bakasha and shevach) even though shemonei esrei consists of brachot. The usual minhag is that each individual says birchat hagomel though I once heard from R Zilberstein that if many people need to say it then it is preferable for one person to be motzei everyone else ---------------------------------------- I am not sure if I have made things clearer - if not I leave it to someone else to explain exactly when one can be motze others lechatchila, bidieved or not at all -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 06:29:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 16:29:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: R' Akiva Miller wrote: > I suspect that I do not appreciate or understand the meaning of "as a > tefillah and not as a bracha". The difference between tefila and a beracha is whether you can be motzi a baki nowadays. With a beracha you can however with a tefilla you cannot which is why these poskim hold that each person should say tefilas haderech the same way every person davens shemoneh esrei. You also asked: > I am very confused. Many poskim recommend point out that Tefilas Haderech > does not begin with "Baruch", so they recommend saying it after another > bracha (such as Asher Yatzar, or a Bracha Acharona on food), so as to make > it into a Bracha Hasemucha L'chvertah. But if Tefilas Haderech is not a > bracha to begin with, then I do not see the advantage of such a procedure. Something can be both a beracha and a tefila at the same time, the prime example is shemoneh esrei which is tefilla par excellence but composed of 18 (19) berachos. Tefilas haderech is a tefila composed (possibly) in the form of a beracha and therefore the rules of tefilla would apply. [Email #2. -micha] R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The sefer Piskei Teshuvot (siman 110-2) has a discussion whether one is > required to say tefillat haderech in modern times. He concludes that one > who does not say it on major roads has someone to rely on but someone who > also says it has the reward of a tefilla even though we no longer have > "listin" and wild animals on the roads. It seems clear from the context of the gemara that tefilas haderech is a tefila b'eis tzara. The gemara mentions tefilas haderech right after it mentions that a person who is in a dangerous place says a tefila. The world has changed a lot since the time of chazal especially related to travel and we need to understand if these changes affect the din of tefilas haderech Here are some of the changes that have occurred relating to travel. 1. Most travel is no longer considered unsafe. When I get in my car every morning to drive to work I don't think twice about it 2. The distinction between in the city and out of the city is no longer true. Most people fell much safer driving in the Catskills then driving through Harlem. Driving on a highway from Brooklyn to Queens is in the city but driving in Monsey to the supermarket may be considered out of the city. 3. This is related to 1, people travel all the time. Most people commute some distance to work, this is normal and part of everyday life. In the time of chazal yotze laderech was a big deal. Given the above R' Shachter (in Nefesh Harav) says that R' Soloveitchik did not say tefilas haderech when he commuted from Boston to NY to give his shiurim. He felt that because it is a tefila b'eis tzara and nowadays there is no perceived danger and it is routine that there was no reason to say it. Recently, I heard a short shiur on tefilas haderech and was happy to hear that RSZA seems to say a very similar idea to RYBS. RSZA did not say tefilas haderech when he traveled from Yerushayim to Bnei Brak. He explained his reasoning as follows: 1. In many places it is not considered as if you left the yishuv for the following reasons: 1. There are many other cars on the road 2. The police regularly patrol the road 3. There are houses on the side of the road 2. Traveling by car/bus is a normal activity. Whan a person gets up and commutes to work he does not say he is going on a trip. The takana of tefilas haderech was for someone who was yotze laderech these kinds of trips are not considered ???? ????. 3. There is little or no danger of yotze laderech RSZA reasoning is very similar to RYBS. Basically, the world has changed and it is no longer unusual or dangerous to travel between cities and therefore the din of when you say tefilas haderech changes as well. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 05:05:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:05:17 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150414.222643.13892.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150414.222643.13892.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <0fa3e90282b94c0e95214067965f579a@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> This is how I understand it: Just as a leopard cannot change its spots, and just as Shabbos comes each week whether society accepts it or not, so too, there are certain elements of the human condition which Chazal have identified as inherent and unchanging, not subject to variation by time, place, or culture. Or something like that. At any rate, one can agree or disagree about whether this assertion is true, and even among those who agree with it, there might be discussion of exactly which chazakos are unchanging and which are variable. Still, his point is that there are indeed some UNchanging aspects. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ I would add an observation that individual exceptions may exist empirically but are ignored halachically Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 06:24:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 09:24:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tan Du In-Reply-To: <20150406184227.GF20912@aishdas.org> References: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150406184227.GF20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <552E669A.6000104@aishdas.org> I personally was always inclined to side with Rabbi Rackman over RYBS on tav l'meisav, but this article gives me pause: http://www.bbc.com/news/health-32303997 KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 07:57:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 10:57:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Message-ID: From: Joseph Kaplan via Avodah "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above." Can anybody explain what this really means? That is, explain it to someone who doesn't use the word "ontological" in his/her normal speech. I have read it many many times but I still don't understand what the Rav is saying. Joseph >>>>> If you leave out the word "ontological" here the sentence is perfectly clear: Human nature does not change. I'm sure you looked up the definition of "ontological" so no need to go there. But in this paragraph, the word "ontological" serves a subliminal purpose. Here it means, "Don't condescend to Orthodox Jews and do not assume we are backwards, primitive, and ignorant. One can be an intellectual and still believe the Torah is true and eternal." --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 08:12:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:12:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: From: Eli Turkel via Avodah >>The sefer Piskei Teshuvot (siman 110-2) has a discussion whether one is required to say tefillat haderech in modern times. He concludes that one who does not say it on major roads has someone to rely on but someone who also says it has the reward of a tefilla even though we no longer have "listin" and wild animals on the roads. Instead we have a car accidents. Therefore one should also say tefillat haderech on railroads and planes. He claims that on small side roads that everyone paskens you need to say tefillat haderech<< -- Eli Turkel >>>> Saying tefillas haderech "on major roads" -- does that mean even within one city, not just when traveling between cities? "On small side roads everyone paskens you need to say tefillas haderech"? What does that mean? Every time I get in the car to go to the grocery store in my own neighborhood? Or was the word "don't" inadvertently omitted from that sentence ("you don't need to say tefillat haderech")? I was driving someone to the cemetery for a levaya, we were on the highway doing 60 and all of a sudden it started to rain, but I mean a mabul, a hard, driving, blinding rain. I couldn't see at all in front of me. Of course I slowed down, as did everyone else, but it was still very frightening and certainly I couldn't just stop in the middle of the highway. My passenger, a BT, became very agitated and said, "I only know one perek of Tehillim by heart so I am going to say that." Then she recited Shir Hamaalos (from benching) out loud. The rain stopped immediately! A few miles further down the road, there was another sudden blinding outburst and she said Shir Hamaalos again. Again the rain immediately stopped. She was like a reverse Choni Hamaagel! I really think her emunah peshuta saved the day! But to veer back into Avodah territory -- would it have been appropriate to say Tefillas Haderech at that time? With shem umalchus? (I assume you can always say it without shem umalchus.) --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 08:34:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:34:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides Message-ID: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> There was a bachur next to me this morning whose retzu'os were painted black on both sides. And I believe I know why this is done, in case a retzu'ah gets flipped. Or perhaps to be chosheish for the Rambam's description of such retzu'os being "noi". The MB 933:21 tells us not to follow the Rambam, whereas the Keses haSofer (written by R' Ganzfried of the QSA) says even the *sides* should be black. But the site got me wondering: 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? 2- If the leather is soaked in dye untile its absorbed and the leather is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? R YS Elyashiv is reported by R' Mordeschai Friedlander (a noted sofer and poseiq, a reliable source) to hold they're fine. I am not challenging their kashrus. It just struck me that both seem valid concerns. I assume the talented chevrah can find holes in my problems. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:17:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:17:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> At 10:21 AM 4/15/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >I am trying to understand whether RNIO's problem with the appearance of >his name on the KosherSwitch.com "approvers" list is because >a- he feels that use of the switch is zilzul Shabbos, or >b- he would hold it's gerama. Does it really matter. He is saying that he does not approve of its use. Why do you need to know more? YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:32:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:32:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 12:17:02PM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : Does it really matter. He is saying that he does not approve of its : use. Why do you need to know more? For the sake of the switch, no. For the sake of understanding the concept of gerama -- Torah hi, velilamdah ani tzarikh! Saying this switch isn't gerama, and its use limited to cases where we can permit gerama, really defies my understanding of the concept. Or perhaps I misunderstand how it works, in which case the Electrical Engineer I studied to become (and the neti'ah that motivated the intent to become one) wants to know. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:07:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 17:07:04 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:34:00 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah > 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam > consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? > 2- If the leather is soaked in dye [until it's] absorbed and the leather > is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we > know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? 1. If it is just soaked, there is no problem of chatzitzah. (Did the fact that the pesiloth of the Tsits were soaked in techeles dye constitute a problem of chatsisoh? atmahah?) There may be a problem if it was subsequently glossed black - which it isn't. 2. Why shouldn't it be valid material after soaking? It's still leather. According to halachah, [have not checked this up right now - but if memory serves me] you can even use klaf [bdi'eved] for retsuos - as long as it is the skin of a kosher beheimoh, its kosher. Dovid [sofer] From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:13:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:13:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> References: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <552E8E18.4090201@sero.name> On 04/15/2015 11:34 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam > consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? Why would it be? It's part of the retzua. AFAIK everyone agrees that it's a hiddur, just not necessary, and most people don't bother. > 2- If the leather is soaked in dye untile its absorbed and the leather > is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we > know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? Why wouldn't it be? It's still leather, after all. Where does it say what colour the leather must be? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:57:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:57:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150415165733.GD6173@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:04PM +0100, D via Avodah wrote: : Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:34:00 -0400 : From: Micha Berger via Avodah :> 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam :> consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? : 1. If it is just soaked, there is no problem of chatzitzah. (Did the : fact that the pesiloth of the Tsits were soaked in techeles dye : constitute a problem of chatsisoh? atmahah?) ... So I believe your answer to my first question is that they don't paint the bottom, they only use my scenario two -- soaking the leather. About your parenthetical comment... If halakhah requires tekheiles, it requires blue wool. The completed product would be what the kohein shouldn't have a chatzitzah under. Not the undyed wool. :> 2- If the leather is soaked in dye [until it's] absorbed and the leather :> is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we :> know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? : 2. Why shouldn't it be valid material after soaking? It's still : leather.... But it's no longer entirely skin of a kosher beheimah, as the dye isn't made from skin. It is now a retzuah made of skin + dye. I could see that either way, and am asking how we (or the posqim among us) can just assume that this innovation is not a problem. Just as tekheiles is different than tzemer, perhaps dye-soaked leather is different in kind than leather. How did we determine it isn't? : Dovid [sofer] Thanks for chiming in. But could you kindly put your full name in your email header or signature once in a while, so that people know who we're talking to? One of Avodah's goals is to create chevraschaft, which is difficult when people are anonymous or partially so. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 10:28:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 17:28:55 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150415.132855.9927.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 12:17:02PM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : Does it really matter. He is saying that he does not approve of its : use. Why do you need to know more? This is like saying, about ANY situation, "He is saying that it is assur. Why do you need to know if it is d'Oraisa or d'rabanan?" The answer is very simple: There are some situations which would justify doing it if "merely" d'rabanan, but not otherwise. Similarly, there may be situations where RNIO would allow this it his svara was ABC, but not if his svara was XYZ. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552e9fe45804e1fe4411ast02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 12:42:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 19:42:24 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu>, <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> Message-ID: <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Saying this switch isn't gerama, and its use limited to cases where we can permit gerama, really defies my understanding of the concept. Or perhaps I misunderstand how it works, in which case the Electrical Engineer I studied to become (and the neti'ah that motivated the intent to become one) wants to know. Tir'u baTov! -Micha _______________________________________________ Sounds to me like r' asher weiss's makeh bpatish definition. Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 16:13:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 19:13:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 07:42:24PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Sounds to me like r' asher weiss's makeh bpatish definition. You lost me. I wasn't discussing which melakhah -- if any -- one violates by using electricity in an of itself, but how using this switch relates to that melakhah. For example, even if we say that electricity and electronics itself weren't an issue, the majority of these switches would be installed so as to turn on fluorescent or incandescent bulbs. Both of which heat filaments until glowing -- so there is a melakhah of bishul or hav'arah to discuss. And my question becomes: In that rather typical setting, how the switch not gerama of one of those two melakhos? (Or possibly both, if a glowing filament is hav'arah, and the resulting boiling of mercury in the fluorescent bulb, bishul.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 13:05:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 16:05:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: REliTurkel wrote: >Just saw a halacha that to me was a chiddush That one cannot (or should not) be yotzeh someone else for tefiilat haderech but everyone should say for them self. Those agreeing (at least lechatchila) include R Aviner R Nebenzahl R C Kanevsky R Tuvia Goldstein (who said he convinced RMF) R Belsky Not what I have seen in practice. Anyone know any opinion that does allow it< Is there any opinion, even of the five quoted, which holds that one is _not_ yotzei even b'diavad? As for RET's question, the Kol Bo on Aveilus, quoted in SSK, Perek 64, footnote 75, states that an onein is obligated in t'fillas haderech, but it is preferable that he be yotzei with another's b'racha. (I have not seen the SSK, but have seen it quoted.) EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 15:35:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 15:35:27 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach Message-ID: did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 17:00:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 20:00:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 6:35 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? I have a friend who does this. She once told me the origins but I forget where it came from. I remember that it was very obscure and non traditional. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 17:38:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 20:38:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150416003839.GD1638@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 03:35:27PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? What did it grow out of? Avoiding she'avar alav es hapesach? A way of avoiding chodosh, at least during the omer period? -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 17:44:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 20:44:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: <20150416003839.GD1638@aishdas.org> References: <20150416003839.GD1638@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 8:38 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 03:35:27PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: >: did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? > What did it grow out of? ... It had to do with chodosh and the omer/barley. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 22:05:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Weiss via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 22:05:46 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > From: Marty Bluke via Avodah > Given the above R' Shachter (in Nefesh Harav) says that R' Soloveitchik > did > not say tefilas haderech when he commuted from Boston to NY to give his > shiurim. He felt that because it is a tefila b'eis tzara and nowadays > there > is no perceived danger and it is routine that there was no reason to say > it. I was on a number of trips to Europe with RHS and every morning when the bus left town he said Tefillas Haderech over the loudspeaker. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 22:19:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 08:19:12 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: multipart/alternative Size: 369 bytes Desc: not available URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 07:15:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:15:53 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: Question: If one doesn't view eilu v'eilu as multiple truths but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which is which), how do you explain the approach to halachic process which ignores academic findings concerning texts or historical circumstances? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 07:16:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:16:49 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] =?windows-1252?q?Nikra_Choteih=94_or_=93Nikra_Rasha=94?= Message-ID: <34b0a662bcc7405695661d14e08ddcfd@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> The gemara uses the expression ?Nikra Choteih? or ?Nikra Rasha? from time to time. Has anyone seen anything written on the relative ranking of such categories? (e.g. since it doesn?t say ?assur?? does it mean it?s not a complete prohibition but something less?) KT Joel RIch THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 08:26:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 16:26:54 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I've never heard of the minhag but there is a chasidishe minhag to eat matsoh every time one washes for hamotsi during the Omer [see Chayim VeShoolom - Minhogim of Munkatche Rebbe] - which might be connected. (The source is the Ari who perceives the spiritual influx of Pesach to be repeated over the Omer; the state that warrants the eating of matsoh during Pesach carries over till Shovuos. Full 'maturity' that warrants the eating of chomets is only reached on Shovuos.) Dovid Rubin From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 10:13:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 17:13:44 GMT Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach Message-ID: <20150416.131344.1969.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> R' Dovid Rubin wrote: > (The source is the Ari who perceives the spiritual influx of Pesach > to be repeated over the Omer; the state that warrants the eating of > matsoh during Pesach carries over till Shovuos. This reminds me of the comment (which I've heard several times here on Avodah, but I don't think anywhere else) that in Moshiach's time, all of Sefira will be a sort of Chol Hamoed to Pesach. > Full 'maturity' that > warrants the eating of chomets is only reached on Shovuos.) Shavuos -- a.k.a. -- "Atzeres" -- is of course an entirely distinct holiday, unrelated to Pesach or to its seven-week long chol hamoed. Chometz would not be a problem on Shavuos any more than Sukkah is mandated on the other Atzeres. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552fede2bc7ec6de23df7st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 10:56:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 13:56:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: <20150416.131344.1969.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.131344.1969.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150416175612.GB10238@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 05:13:44PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Dovid Rubin wrote: :> Full 'maturity' that :> warrants the eating of chomets is only reached on Shovuos.) : Shavuos -- a.k.a. -- "Atzeres" -- is of course an entirely : distinct holiday, unrelated to Pesach or to its seven-week long chol : hamoed. Chometz would not be a problem on Shavuos any more than Sukkah : is mandated on the other Atzeres. Entirely distinct, yes. Unrelated.... The chag of cheirus finds its fruition with "charos - cheirus al haluchos." The connection between the issur chameitz of Pesach, the barley of the qorban omer, and the two loaves of chameitz wheat of the Shetei haLechem is at least as old as the Chinukh. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:22:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:22:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> Yesterday, at 7:13 pm EDT, I wrote: > And my question becomes: In that rather typical setting, how the > switch not gerama of one of those two melakhos? (Or possibly both, if > a glowing filament is hav'arah, and the resulting boiling of mercury > in > the fluorescent bulb, bishul.) And then "ssvarc" (RMSS) wrote on Torah Musings at 8:28 am or > In all likelihood, the Zomet one doesn?t have the light on a > randomized > timer (with indicators), nor the randomized chance for the light > pulse > to operate the switch. Now for an updated version of my response (not yet approved) there: Zomet's Grama Switch does have a randomizer on the LED whose light you may or may not block. As do Shabbos mode ovens. The Kosher Switch has a the same randomizer on the detector opposite the LED, but I don?t see how that makes anything more random. But now that you had me looking at their ?How it Works? page, the key difference has the description of a sefeiq sefeiqa. It?s far from clear what is meant. Here?s the quote from : > This creates two safeiks (Halachic uncertainty): the first, whether > or not the light pulse of the Light Pulse Pair will fail; the second, > whether the switch will fail in triggering the circuit based on the > results of the Light Pulse Pair. ?The switch will fail in triggering the circuit?? What are they doing to introduce this second safeiq? The best I can tell, it's a simple bit of software -- a randomizer that says "don't respond anyway". But that's just guessing, I'm not good enough at reading their patent to be sure. Also, in what sense is either a safeiq? Both will eventually happen, the question is when. I am not sure how ?sefeiq sefeiqa? applies to gerama, or to be more precise -- avoiding gerama. But at least I?m a step further in my understanding. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Here is the test to find whether your mission micha at aishdas.org on Earth is finished: http://www.aishdas.org if you're alive, it isn't. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Richard Bach From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:46:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:46:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> Message-ID: PS: On the relevance of random delay to gerama... AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is *geram* kibui". A case of gerama with a random time delay. But this is Yom Tov, where the laws against extinguishing are looser. The AhS refers you to OC 277:7, where we see that on Shabbos it's assur -- but because of a special gezeira to prevent people from doing the same when the wind *is* blowing. Not because of gerama. I also don't think the randomness of the length of the delay is necessarily relevant. Just pointing out halachic precedent. But it's certainly not "iffy" that we could invoke sefeiq sefeiqa. It's a random length delay, not a doubt whether or not the switch will eventually cause the outcome. The odds the wind will never come, or the randomizer(s) will never produce a combination that causes the switch to be honored, is ignorably small. (No one is selling a switch that may or may not shut the light.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:43:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:43:56 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: RJRich >>>Sounds to me like r' asher weiss's makeh bpatish definition. RMBerger >>>> You lost me. I wasn't discussing which melakhah -- if any -- one violates by using electricity in an of itself, but how using this switch relates to that melakhah. >>> IIAMN, the idea RJR is expressing is that the poseik has ad initio determined that the action in question is forbidden, and now is searching around for the category into which to place this prohibition. I have heard RAWeiss explicitly use this concept in classifying the use of electricity as makeh b'patish, based on a Yerushalmi - it's not an idea just made up by contemporary poskim. It does seem that some poskim are looking at the switch and saying "it *must *be assur somehow"; in any event that seems to me to be what RJR is suggesting is going on. Saul Mashbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:45:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:45:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55300361.8020803@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 02:22 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > "The switch will fail in triggering the circuit"? What are they > doing to introduce this second safeiq? The best I can tell, it's > a simple bit of software -- a randomizer that says "don't respond > anyway". But that's just guessing, I'm not good enough at reading their > patent to be sure. Yes, that's how I understood it. If and when the pulse is received, instead of automatically triggering the light to turn on, there's a gatekeeper that flips a coin, heads it obeys the request to turn on the light, tails it refuses. > Also, in what sense is either a safeiq? Both will eventually happen, > the question is when. In principle it might not ever happen. The basis of all this seems to be siman 277. There the concern is that even if the wind isn't blowing right now, it might start to blow *immediately* as you begin to open the door. This implies that if we can be sure that it won't start blowing until some time after the door has been opened it will be OK. But that whole discussion assumes that extinguishing the flame is not the purpose for which the door is being opened, it's just a possible side-effect. Is the halacha different if that was the intention? On 04/16/2015 02:46 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > > AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes > the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable > to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, > as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. > The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is > *geram* kibui". But there you're actively taking it to the place where the wind will blow. Here you're merely opening the door, so that if/when the wind blows the door won't protect the flame. > But it's certainly not "iffy" that we could invoke sefeiq sefeiqa. It's a > random length delay, not a doubt whether or not the switch will eventually > cause the outcome. The odds the wind will never come, or the randomizer(s) > will never produce a combination that causes the switch to be honored, > is ignorably small. (No one is selling a switch that may or may not shut > the light.) Why not? For the shabbos-keeping household, a switch that sometimes fails is better than no switch at all. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 12:12:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 15:12:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <55300361.8020803@sero.name> References: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 02:45:53PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : >Also, in what sense is either a safeiq? Both will eventually happen, : >the question is when. : : In principle it might not ever happen. ... : >But it's certainly not "iffy" that we could invoke sefeiq sefeiqa. It's a : >random length delay, not a doubt whether or not the switch will eventually : >cause the outcome. The odds the wind will never come, or the randomizer(s) : >will never produce a combination that causes the switch to be honored, : >is ignorably small. (No one is selling a switch that may or may not shut : >the light.) : : Why not? For the shabbos-keeping household, a switch that sometimes fails : is better than no switch at all. You want to ask them why not, feel free to do so. I'm not guessing why they're not setting the randomizers to make each even that unlikely. Still, they are repeatedly rolling the dice, the odds of repeatedly getting "no" falls off geometrically with the length of time in question. Ignoring milsa delo shekhicha, the light will indeed go on. They say the average is "several times" at . : The basis of all this seems to be siman 277. There the concern is that : even if the wind isn't blowing right now, it might start to blow : *immediately* as you begin to open the door. This implies that if we : can be sure that it won't start blowing until some time after the door : has been opened it will be OK. But that whole discussion assumes that : extinguishing the flame is not the purpose for which the door is being : opened, it's just a possible side-effect. Is the halacha different if : that was the intention? : >AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes : >the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable : >to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, : >as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. : >The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is : >*geram* kibui". : : But there you're actively taking it to the place where the wind will blow. : Here you're merely opening the door, so that if/when the wind blows the door : won't protect the flame. The AhS invites the comparison, not me. Clearly you're making a disinction that he holds is without a difference. BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at . To quote: An alternative Talmudic analogy: * There is a candle burning next to a closed window, and a strong wind blowing outside. Certainly, opening the window on Shabbat is forbidden, since the candle will be extinguished immediately. * There is a device that can determine if there's no wind currently blowing, and it can predict with 100% accuracy that no wind will be blowing for at least the next ~5 seconds. It lights up with a green light when it has determined this to be true. * On Shabbat, a person opens/closes the window while the device's indicator is green, knowing that a wind will ultimately blow and succeed in extinguishing the candle. * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to KosherSwitch (R). -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:55:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:55:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] {Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: > From: Marty Bluke via Avodah > Given the above R' Shachter (in Nefesh Harav) says that R' Soloveitchik > did > not say tefilas haderech when he commuted from Boston to NY to give his > shiurim. He felt that because it is a tefila b'eis tzara and nowadays > there > is no perceived danger and it is routine that there was no reason to say > it. RAsher Weiss, in a shiur on tefillat haderech, similarly expressed grave reservations about the recitation of tefillat haderech on routine trips which do not involve any particular acute danger, and indicated that his personal practice is not to say tefillat haderech (at least with a bracha) on said routine trips. OTOH, he was apparently very reluctant to issue a definitive psak that others should do the same, in the face of common established practice. Saul Mashbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 12:43:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 15:43:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> References: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 03:12 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > > BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at > . To quote: > > An alternative Talmudic analogy: > > * There is a candle burning next to a closed window, and a strong > wind blowing outside. Certainly, opening the window on Shabbat is > forbidden, since the candle will be extinguished immediately. > > * There is a device that can determine if there's no wind currently > blowing, and it can predict with 100% accuracy that no wind will be > blowing for at least the next ~5 seconds. It lights up with a > green light when it has determined this to be true. > > * On Shabbat, a person opens/closes the window while the device's > indicator is green, knowing that a wind will ultimately blow and > succeed in extinguishing the candle. > > * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind > is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time > when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts > of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they > miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're > able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to > KosherSwitch (R). Yes, and it seems from the SA that this would be permitted. The big difference, though, is that in the SA's case there is no intention to extinguish the flame, and here there is. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 12:53:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 15:53:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> References: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150416195347.GC11430@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 03:43:24PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: :> BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at :> . To quote: ... :> * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind :> is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time :> when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts :> of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they :> miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're :> able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to :> KosherSwitch (R). : Yes, and it seems from the SA that this would be permitted. The big : difference, though, is that in the SA's case there is no intention to : extinguish the flame, and here there is. Getting back to the post that started this tangent, the question was whether this last bullet item actualy is relevant. What's relevant is the probability of the wind eventually blowing the candle out or the switch turning the light off. If it's a rov or maybe a rube deruba, then it's gerama. At least, that's what was consensus decades ago when Machon Zomet first produced their switch technology and wheelchair. Whether you can break down the likelihood of the melakhah occuring into a union of the probability of a number of sub-steps or not doesn't seem to me to impact the question. Because this isn't a safeiq situation, it's whether your action can be blamed for the melakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 13:25:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 16:25:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150416195347.GC11430@aishdas.org> References: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> <20150416195347.GC11430@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55301AC6.7000807@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 03:53 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 03:43:24PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > :> BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at > :> . To quote: > ... > :> * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind > :> is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time > :> when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts > :> of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they > :> miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're > :> able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to > :> KosherSwitch (R). > > : Yes, and it seems from the SA that this would be permitted. The big > : difference, though, is that in the SA's case there is no intention to > : extinguish the flame, and here there is. > > Getting back to the post that started this tangent, the question was > whether this last bullet item actualy is relevant. According to the SA even the penultimate bullet item is permitted: >> * On Shabbat, a person opens/closes the window while the device's >> indicator is green, knowing that a wind will ultimately blow and >> succeed in extinguishing the candle Surely the last bullet item makes the heter much stronger. But again, the case discussed is where this is not one's intention. Note also, in the mashal, that not only is there no wind right now, there is no candle right now either. > What's relevant is the probability of the wind eventually blowing the > candle out or the switch turning the light off. If it's a rov or maybe > a rube deruba, then it's gerama. That doesn't seem to be what the SA says. But again, with the caveat that intention might make a difference. > Whether you can break down the likelihood of the melakhah occuring into > a union of the probability of a number of sub-steps or not doesn't seem > to me to impact the question. Because this isn't a safeiq situation, > it's whether your action can be blamed for the melakhah. It's putting further causal distance between "cause" and "effect". What if you had a series of these routines, each of which may or may not call the next one, until the last one which may or may not do something? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 14:05:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Samuel Svarc via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 17:05:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Apr 15, 2015 6:01 AM, "Micha Berger via Avodah" wrote: > On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > : Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld > : regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. > ... > :> Moshe Oelbaum > :> Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum > Authentication? Um, the fact that R' Oelbaum says the same thing on the KosherSwitch video ()? What I find very disturbing is that this information is in the public arena. Why are people commenting or conjecturing without looking at the companies materials? On Apr 16, 2015 2:46 PM, "Micha Berger" wrote: > PS: On the relevance of random delay to gerama... > AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes > the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable > to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, > as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. > The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is > *geram* kibui". > A case of gerama with a random time delay. But this is Yom Tov, where > the laws against extinguishing are looser. The AhS refers you to OC > 277:7, where we see that on Shabbos it's assur -- but because of a > special gezeira to prevent people from doing the same when the wind *is* > blowing. Not because of gerama. Take a look at R' Schapiro's teshuva (available on the KosherSwitch website) as well as listen to the shuir they link to (26 min.). KT, MSS From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 14:48:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 17:48:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150416214839.GC1824@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 04:25:42PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: :> What's relevant is the probability of the wind eventually blowing the :> candle out or the switch turning the light off. If it's a rov or maybe :> a rube deruba, then it's gerama. : That doesn't seem to be what the SA says. But again, with the caveat that : intention might make a difference. But we already know it does, according to RSZa and numerous other posqim. IOW, your seifa answers your reisha. : >Whether you can break down the likelihood of the melakhah occuring into : >a union of the probability of a number of sub-steps or not doesn't seem : >to me to impact the question. Because this isn't a safeiq situation, : >it's whether your action can be blamed for the melakhah. : It's putting further causal distance between "cause" and "effect". : What if you had a series of these routines, each of which may or may not : call the next one, until the last one which may or may not do something? That's exactly what I'm saying -- gerama is always a chain of events that can be subdivided according to your taste (how fine grained you wish to define the word "event"). There is an oft-discussed difference between melakhah and CM, where the latter subdivides into gerama (culpable) and garmi (no libability) but hilkhos Shabbos does not. And then even so, garmi is about number of human actions, not physical events. On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 05:05:38PM -0400, Samuel Svarc wrote: : On Apr 15, 2015 6:01 AM, "Micha Berger via Avodah" : wrote: :> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: :>: Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld :>: regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. :> ... :>:> Moshe Oelbaum :>:> Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum :> Authentication? : Um, the fact that R' Oelbaum says the same thing on the KosherSwitch video : ()? YOu misunderstand what I'm asking to be authenticated. Yes, I agree that RNIO talks about zilzul Shabbos. He does in the original alleged approbation in print (or PDF) as well. I was asking for authentication that RMO was really the one who said it's "only" zilzul Shabbos and not also gerama. There is nothing in his caveat about them avoiding melakhah that explains in what way shabbos is being cheapened. Could be uvda dechol, could be gerama, could be any other derabbanan or shevus. No? Not to verify the new "chumera", but to very he wasn't being even more machmir. That's a lot to glean from a post on a YWN chatroom that claims to be from his son. No one identity checks on YWN. : What I find very disturbing is that this information is in the public : arena. Why are people commenting or conjecturing without looking at the : companies materials? In the same post I cite the site in numerous ways, including commenting on parts of the patent application. It's not like I stinted on the research. Never blame until the possibility of miscommunication has been eliminated. No? : On Apr 16, 2015 2:46 PM, "Micha Berger" wrote: : Take a look at R' Schapiro's teshuva (available on the KosherSwitch : website) as well as listen to the shuir they link to (26 min.). One thing I had noted about the teshuvah is that he doesn't bother with the whole thing about a second randomizer. Which is why I was lost as to why anyone would think this is more mutar, and why people who generally follow RSZA more often than RZS would think this solves anything. See R' Neuwirth's summary rejection, repudiating the claim he backed their work . Consistent with what he reported besheim RSZA decades ago. I already noted OC 277, which is specific to geram kibui being mutar, with the exception of taking a candle outside while the wind is calm, lest someone not wait for the wind to be calm. And havarah or bishul? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 18:59:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:59:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150417015924.GA11845@aishdas.org> Here's the current state of my understnading, to start the conversation over by clearing the exchanges that got me there. Feel free to correct any misunderstandings, or even points that needn't necessarily be as I present them. 1- RSZA considers Zomet's Gerama Switch to be just that -- gerama, and therefore assur derabanan except in special cases. Randomly delayed changes to a circuit is, leshitaso, gerama. 2- KSTI considers their switch to be halachically different because their version of the Gerama Switch then goes into a second randomizer which determines whether or not it actually turns on or off your light. They invoke the words "sefeik sefeika", which I don't understand, since the random element is to insure an unknown delay, not a doubt about whether or not the switch eventually turns the light on. 3- Those who hold like RSZA -- R Neuwirth (obviously), R' Nebenzahl, R' Shternbuch -- gave the same ruling to the new switch. 4- Those who say this switch is gerama do not actually invoke the second random element. I found nothing in that wouldn't apply to Zomet's switch. I see them as simply disagreeing with RSZA and R' Yehoshua Neuwirth when they dealt with that question decades ago. Which, given the stature of RSZA and the acceptance of Shemiras Shabbos keHilhasah (and thus RYN), I don't think will get very far in terms of communal acceptance. 5- The Machloqes between RSZA and R Chaim Zvi Shapiro (to pick two representative names) appears to be over how to understand the distinction between two statements by the Rama: 334:22- Geram kibui is only allowed in special cases, and 514:3- You may put a cnandle next to an open window even in a windy area. RSZA distinguishes between whether the intent is kibui or not. RCZS makes the chiluq between whether the maaseh is one of kibui. But I still don't see how this makes the Kosher Switch not a maaseh kibui that we would group it with open windows, not the normal geram kibui. 6- You can't take a candle outside to a windy area even when there is no wind because of a gezeira atu not waiting for the wind to die down. This is different than the window, because one is moving the candle itself. Still, the Magein AvrahamA applies the gezeira to the window as well -- inlike the Rama. So my wondering about how the Kosher Switch isn't a maaseh kibui means that I also have no idea why the switch wouldn't be covered by the gezeira. And according to the MA, the gezeira definitely applies, regardless. If so, wouldn't you need the switch to be physically blocked when the response could be immediately, and not merely warned off with a red light? 6- R' Oelbaum is against general usage, due to zilzul Shabbos. (To my understanding, zilzul Shabbos means violating a shevus or other deRabbanan, chilul Shabbos means deOraisa.) According to he explicitly states "it is clear it is not a grama". So, my prior approach to figuring out what he holds was pointless. Regardless of whether the person in YWN's chatroom is his son or just someone pretending to be, ie whether that text is likely to reflect the nuances of his position. And regardless how one is medayeiq the difference between melakhah and zilzul, ie whether he considers geram melakhah a melakhah or a shevus. RNIO is in the same camp as R' Chaim Zvi Shapiro WRT the mechanics of gerama, but with RSZA it all in practice. But at least now my opening question has some kind of resolution: No poseiq makes a point about how the switches differ, its a machloqes about whether the switch is more like bringing a candle outside or opening a window. It may also be a machloqes about whether it's only geram kibui that is limited to acts of kibui, or even other melakhos. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 17:56:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 20:56:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <10e550.ca50480.4261b459@aol.com> From: Zev Sero via Avodah >> Why not? For the shabbos-keeping household, a switch that sometimes fails is better than no switch at all.<< -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name >>>>> Now that Shabbos lamps are readily available -- they work by covering the light rather than turning it off -- why do we need the Shabbos switch at all? --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 18:08:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 01:08:53 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150416.210853.21413.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> > But that whole discussion assumes that > extinguishing the flame is not the purpose for which the door is being > opened, it's just a possible side-effect. Is the halacha different if > that was the intention? If the operative principle were Psik Reisha, then intention certainly would matter. So here's a question: Is Grama a version of Aino Psik Reisha, or is it another principle entirely? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55305d31763705d3173a1st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 15:56:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 23:56:59 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This idea (that the days of the Omer are a type of chol hamoed) is mentioned in Avoidas Yisroel [Koznitse Maggid] and Ramban in Acharie Mois. Dovid Rubin From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 18:27:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:27:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] re Chametz post Pesach Message-ID: >What did it grow out of? Avoiding she'avar alav es hapesach? A way of avoiding chodosh, at least during the omer period?< Since chadash is grain which has taken root after the minchas ha'omer on the second day of Pesach, and it takes more than 7 weeks for newly-sown grain to be ready for harvest, how is it possible for chadash to exist between Pesach and Shavuos? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 19:22:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 02:22:34 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Joel Rich asked: > Question: If one doesn?t view eilu v?eilu as multiple truths > but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don?t know which > is which), ... You've lost me. Doesn't the grammar and definition of the words "eilu v'eilu" imply that the two things under discussion are equal? I just can't wrap my brain around a way to translate "eilu v'eilu" where one is truth and the other isn't. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 19:35:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 22:35:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150417015924.GA11845@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150417015924.GA11845@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5530716C.8070201@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 09:59 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > They invoke the words "sefeik sefeika", which I don't understand, since > the random element is to insure an unknown delay, not a doubt about > whether or not the switch eventually turns the light on. I assume they disagree with this characterisation. This is your editorial opinion, that since it's inevitable that sooner or later the ducks will all be in a row and the light will come on, all that it achieves is a delay of random length. They would say no, each time the sequence is triggered (let's say every minute) is a discrete event, in which there is a sfek-sfeka whether anything will happen, and the fact that in the next hour there will be 60 more such opportunities, one of which is "bound" to succeed, is irrelevant. They would also point out that there *is* in fact a doubt whether the light will ever turn on (before Shabbos is over or the owner decides to flip the switch back), and they would deny your premise that the tininess of that doubt renders it meaningless. *You* think it's halachically insignificant; they are not required to agree with you. > But at least now my opening question has some kind of resolution: > No poseiq makes a point about how the switches differ, its a machloqes > about whether the switch is more like bringing a candle outside or > opening a window. They seem to say that this is like a case where at the time you open the window there is neither a wind nor a candle, but you know that some time later a goy is likely to put a candle in front of the window, and that some time after that a wind is likely to blow and put it out. On 04/16/2015 08:56 PM, T613K at aol.com via Avodah wrote: > Now that Shabbos lamps are readily available -- they work by covering > the light rather than turning it off -- why do we need the Shabbos > switch at all? I assume 1. To save electricity 2. If you want a brighter light than you can get from a 15w CF light (which is the maximum that it's safe to put in a Shabbos lamp) 3. For applications other than lights -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 20:02:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 03:02:13 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel wrote: > On many birchot hamitzva one can be motzeh others even when they > are "experts". This includes shofar, megilla etc (not lulav or > netillat yadaim which is considered as a mitzvah be-gufo) > similarly for kiddush and havdala. > > Note that for sefirat haomer usually each person says the bracha > himself/herself and also counts for themselves. I am not aware of any situation where the halacha says that I cannot say a birkat hamitzva on your behalf, AND that the reason why I cannot do so is because you are a baki. (There might be other good reasons, depending on the situation, but I don't know that "being a baki" is ever such a reason.) That said, I do concede that the common practice is for one person to say the bracha on shofar and megilla for all the assembled, yet we all say our own brachos on lulav, hallel, and sefira. I have never seen this explanation, but I've always felt there was a very simple explanation for how this distinction developed: When I take the lulav, say hallel, or count sefira, I am doing the mitzvah myself. I am doing it in shul, among many other people, but we are each acting as individuals. I do the mitzvah myself, so I say the bracha on it myself. In contrast, I am dependent on someone else to blow the shofar or read the megillah. You can say that I am personally hearing the shofar with my own ears, and you can say that "shome'a k'oneh" means that I am actively doing the mitzvah of krias hamegillah -- but the bottom line, l'maaseh, is that if the guy on the bimah messes up, I've lost the mitzvah. I am dependent on him to get the mitzvah done. I have to do my share of the work too, of course, by paying attention etc etc, but that's not enough. We *both* have to do it right. Under such conditions, I really don't want to risk saying a bracha that could end up being l'vatala. I'd rather answer Amen to *his* birkas hamitzvah. Following that logic, someone who has his own kosher megila, and actually reads along with the baal kriah, ought to say his own Al Mikra Megila. I suppose so! This distinction appears in other brachos too, even brachos other than birchos hamitzvah. For example, at Kol Nidre, everyone says their own Shehecheyanu on the Yom Tov, because, why not? We all say our own Netilas Yadayim, and brachos on Talis and Tefilin, for the same reason. We all listen to one person say Kiddush, but I think that's mostly because only he/she has a cup from which to drink the required amount. But at the Seder, everyone has a cup, so (in many families) everyone says their own Kiddush. EXCEPTION: There are some brachos which *ought* to be said by each individual according to the above logic, but we rely on the other person because a few brachos got bundled together. For example, if we pass around the b'samim and candle at havdala, we should each say our own bracha on them, but most people don't, because it is part of havdala. Similarly, if you are at the Seder and don't have your own 2.5 matzos in front of you, you'll have to hear Hamotzi from someone because of Lechem Mishne, but why not say your own Al Achilas Matza after you have a piece in your hand, and the answer is because Motzi Matzah go together. All of the above is purely my own logic, and I'm sure many of you will be able to punch some good holes in it. And I'm looking forward to reading that! Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553077e61f4dd77e644e0st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 22:30:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 01:30:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] SF - Focus on the Good Message-ID: <20150417053029.35F10181384@nexus.stevens.edu> [] Focus on the Good In ancient days if a person spoke loshon horah he contracted tza'aras. The message was that just as he exposed the flaws of a person, so too, his flaws were exposed. His rectification was to go into isolation and introspect on his own shortcomings. Lesson: If we focus on the faults of others, we are held responsible to correct our own faults. If we focus of the good of others, HaShem will mercifully overlook our flaws and focus exclusively on our good. App: Avoid saying all unbecoming comments about others. (Based on the writings of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 02:52:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 05:52:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150417095237.GB2327@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 17, 2015 at 03:02:13AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I am not aware of any situation where the halacha says that I cannot : say a birkat hamitzva on your behalf, AND that the reason why I cannot : do so is because you are a baki. (There might be other good reasons, : depending on the situation, but I don't know that "being a baki" is ever : such a reason.) More than that, Beis Hillel (Berakhos 38a, brought lehalakhah AhS OC 298:28) gives *preference* to one person making havdalah for all than each person making their own, because of berov am hadras Melekh. Similarly, it is better to be yotzei qiddush from the baal habayis than each person make their own. (AhS OC 273:6, citing Berakhos 53a, and a din mentioned in most Hagados, because at the seder each person already has their own kos.) But when it comes to birkhas shevach and birkhos hanehenin (which are unattached to other berakhos, unlike the the borei peri hagafen of qiddush or havdalah), we do hold that it's better to make your own. (Berakhos 42a) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 13th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Gevurah: To what extent is judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 necessary for a good relationship? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 05:01:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 12:01:53 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150417.080153.18454.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero explained two views: > I assume they disagree with this characterisation. This is your > editorial opinion, that since it's inevitable that sooner or later > the ducks will all be in a row and the light will come on, all that > it achieves is a delay of random length. They would say no, each > time the sequence is triggered (let's say every minute) is a > discrete event, in which there is a sfek-sfeka whether anything > will happen, and the fact that in the next hour there will be 60 > more such opportunities, one of which is "bound" to succeed, is > irrelevant. They would also point out that there *is* in fact a > doubt whether the light will ever turn on (before Shabbos is over > or the owner decides to flip the switch back), and they would deny > your premise that the tininess of that doubt renders it > meaningless. *You* think it's halachically insignificant; they > are not required to agree with you. If I'm understanding this correctly, the difference of opinion centers on: how many links does the chain need, to reach a point where one end has no halachically significant effect on the other end. To me, this whole discussion is very reminiscent of another topic in hilchos Shabbos, namely, that the Gemara never gave any halachos about cooking in a Kli Shlishi. One view says: "A Kli Rishon obviously cooks, and we were told that some easily-cooked things are capable of being cooked in a Kli Sheni, but that's as far as they went, so obviously nothing can get cooked in a Kli Shlishi." The other view says: "A Kli Rishon obviously cooks, and we were told that some easily-cooked things are capable of being cooked even in other keilim, so you have to be careful with *any* keli that's above Yad Soledes." To me, both of those arguments are very logical, and we must follow our poskim to know which one Hashem wants us to follow. I imagine that this whole Grama discussion might be similar: Chazal laid out circumstances under which indirect action is still assur -- so does that mean that *all* indirect action is assur?, or perhaps I can structure an even more remote indirectness which is acceptably distant. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5530f6662145376662eacst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 06:04:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 09:04:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: A shabbos lamp is tiny. Do you have shabbos lamps to light up your dining room table or the main lighting on a timer? > On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 8:56 PM, via Avodah > wrote: > >> >> Now that Shabbos lamps are readily available -- they work by covering the >> light rather than turning it off -- why do we need the Shabbos switch at >> all? >> >> >> >> >> *--Toby Katzt613k at aol.com * >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 06:54:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 06:54:30 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] yom hazikaron origin Message-ID: http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/Parasha/tazria/Ahrend.pdf on rav goren's placement of yom hazikaron on 4 iyar, analogizing to the israeli shmini atzeret , where hakafot precedes yizkor... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 08:26:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 15:26:20 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: > Question: If one doesn?t view eilu v?eilu as multiple truths > but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don?t know which > is which), ... You've lost me. Doesn't the grammar and definition of the words "eilu v'eilu" imply that the two things under discussion are equal? I just can't wrap my brain around a way to translate "eilu v'eilu" where one is truth and the other isn't. ------------------------------------------------------ See here https://kavvanah.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/rav-soloveitchik-religious-definitions-of-man-and-his-social-institutions-part-1of-7-1958/ for a general approach (especially "Part III- Rav Soloveitchik?s God In Judaism, God himself is the hidden God, Jal Mistatar ? unknowable and unknown. The Jewish experience of God (shared by other religions is antithetic, a polarity. it has both remoteness and intimate closeness. How is that possible? Judaism does not use Aristotelian logic of excluded middle. Unlike classic physic, modern physics uses both waves and particles; modern physics does not use Aristotle. God is both remote and close- in our encounter we are bewildered and comforted. Since Creation is also revelation, the every tree also incomprehensible strange. " And here for some more specifics: http://nishma.org/articles/commentary/slifkinrevisted3print.pdf especially starting around page 11. KT Joel Rich (who still can't really understand the double slit experiment, yet it's there) THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 08:54:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 11:54:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150417155456.GA7366@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 02:15:53PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Question: If one doesn't view eilu v'eilu as multiple truths but rather : one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which is which), how do : you explain the approach to halachic process which ignores academic : findings concerning texts or historical circumstances? To quote myself from : Last week I drew the conclusion from the Qetzos haChoshen that Torah is not Truth, it -- combined with the Jewish People -- is the process by which "Truth will bloom from the earth".... Thus, "vechayei olam nata besokheinu" -- Emes is matzmiach from the Torah. Note that the Torah isn't actually identified with Emes, but the process to get there. ... Rav Moshe Feinstein discusses the halachic process and the role of poseiq in his introduction to Igros Mosheh. (The introduction itself deserves serious study.) He writes about "ha'emes lehora'ah umichuyav lehoros kein af al pi im be'etzem galyah kelapei shemaya galya she'eino kein hapeirush - the true ruling, and one is obligated to teach accordingly, even if in essence is it revealed in heaven that this isn't the correct eplanation!" The ideal is following the pesaq as according to the process. As proof, Rav Moshe brings the gemara in Shabbos 130. We rule that only the milah itself overrules Shabbos. All preparation before the milah must be done in advance. Rabbi Eliezer ruled that anything necessary for the milah, even cutting wood to make the fire to make the knife, etc... could also be done on Shabbos. There was a town in Israel that followed Rabbi Eliezer. The gemara says that Hashem rewarded them for their tenacity for the mitzvah of milah. No one in that town died an early death. And when the Romans passed a law in Israel against milah, they exempted that one town from the law! Who was right -- this town, which was rewarded for their position, or we, who rule differently? If we understand that the essence of halakhah is that it and the Jewish People become one in a process to make truth bloom in this world, we can understand how the answer could be "both". Torah, like life, is about becoming, not being. IOW, if Torah is a legal process to reach the truth, and halakhah is law rather than truths, then it would be reasonable for an truth foung by extra-legal means to be irrelevant. We aren't up to pursuing Truth directly yet, we pursue the law. Someday they'll be identical, and and the neti'ah of chayei olam will have been matzmiach into Emes. On Fri, Apr 17, 2015 at 02:22:34AM +0000, R' Akiva ("Kenneth") Miller replied to RJR: : You've lost me. Doesn't the grammar and definition of the words "eilu : v'eilu" imply that the two things under discussion are equal? I just : can't wrap my brain around a way to translate "eilu v'eilu" where one : is truth and the other isn't. RMF says they're equally balid legally, but not as Truths. Implied is that Divrei E-lokim Chaim are on the meta-level, instructions about about how to hunt for halakhah, not the individual halachic conclusions themselves. Eilu va'eilu follow Hashem's instructions for how to pasqen, but the halakhah is like Beis Hillel. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 13th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Gevurah: To what extent is judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 necessary for a good relationship? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 10:03:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 13:03:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Derech Eretz: What is it the sets man apart from the animal? Message-ID: <20150417170308.D3E50183221@nexus.stevens.edu> Perhaps if yeshiva students were taught again and again, RSRH's commentary about what sets man (and this refers to all men, not just Jews) apart from the animal, then they would realize that every human being is to be treated with Derech Eretz and thus proper respect. YL The following is from RSRH's commentary on Bereishis 2:7 7 Then God formed man, dust of the ground, and breathed into his countenance the breath of life, and thus man became a living personality. What is it that sets man apart from the animal? The living individuality of the animal depends on earthly matter; like its body, so its soul, too, was taken from the earth. Not so man. In the creation of man, only the inert material was taken from the earth; only when God breathed into him the breath of life did he become a living individual. Herein lies the nobility and immortality of man, and this is the whole source of his freedom . That which gives the animal its individuality emanates from the earth and must eventually return to the earth. Not so that which makes man a ?living personality.? Man?s preeminence over the animal is not only in his spirit, but also in his vitality. His vitality is linked not to his body, but to his spirit. When he received a spirit he received life, his soul adhering to the spirit. When the spirit departs from the body, the vital soul is not buried with the remains; for man?s soul is bound up with his spirit, not his body. This is why his physical survival and health do not depend on his body alone. Of the many dangers to the life of an animal, not all are dangers to man. The survival of a man cannot be predicted with the same degree of accuracy as the survival of an animal. Adom yesh lo mazel ( Bava Kamma 2b): there is something in man that defies prediction. A man?s spirit will sustain him, even if it appears that all hope is lost; for the spirit sustains life. Who can gauge the power of an unbroken spirit? Who can calculate how long it can keep the body alive? Thus man is composed of two elements that are completely different from each other. One of these was taken from the earth. But man does not belong to the earth; rather, the earth ? as its name, Adama, implies ? has been given to man to rule. So, too, man?s body, which is afar min Ha?Adomo, is subject to man?s control. His true, living, spiritual essence is not dependent on the body; hence, even while he is physically combined with the earthly element, he can and should exercise control over the earthly in him. The afar, the earthly element, in him cannot be released from the realm of physical compulsion and is subject to the influence of earthly factors. But the nishmas chaim, which God breathed into man and which first made man a human being, imparts to man of the dignity of its source and releases him from all physical compulsion; it grants him freedom and elevates his body, too, into the realm of freedom. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 11:45:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mordechai Harris via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 13:45:49 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: > > That said, I do concede that the common practice is for one person to say > the bracha on shofar and megilla for all the assembled, yet we all say our > own brachos on lulav, hallel, and sefira. In the case of Lulav (first day - which is D'Oraita) and counting Sefira, the Pasuk uses the word Lachem which teaches of the need for each individual to have/count their own. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 12:26:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 15:26:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <55315E57.30506@sero.name> On 04/17/2015 02:45 PM, Mordechai Harris via Avodah wrote: >> That said, I do concede that the common practice is for one person >> to say the bracha on shofar and megilla for all the assembled, yet >> we all say our own brachos on lulav, hallel, and sefira. > In the case of Lulav (first day - which is D'Oraita) and counting > Sefira, the Pasuk uses the word Lachem which teaches of the need for > each individual to have/count their own. What has this got to do with the bracha? I actually had meant to post about this, since I've been wondering for some time why it is that the world's minhag is for each person to say their own bracha on hallel and sefira, after hearing the chazan's bracha. Doesn't the usual rule of "berov am" mean that everyone should be yotzei with his bracha? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 13:47:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 16:47:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is from today's Halacha for Today http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ Erev Shabbos Kodesh Parashas Shemini (Parashiyos Tazria- Metzorah in Eretz Yisroel); Mevorchim Chodesh Iyar; Rosh Chodesh will be on Sunday and Monday 28 Nisan , 5775 April 17, 2015 CURRENT TOPIC: REVIEW OF HALACHOS OF SEFIRAS HA'OMER Halachos for Erev Shabbos Kodesh 1) The thirty third day of the Omer, the 18th of Iyar, is referred to as "Lag B'Omer" and the early sources already treat this day as a special day, as a kind of Yom Tov. (See Sefer Hamanhig page 91a and Meiri to Yevamos 62b) 2) The Tur (Siman 493:3) states that the Talmidim of Rav Akiva stopped dying on Lag B'Omer. However, the Talmud (Yevamos 62b) clearly states that they died from Pesach all the way until Shavuos. If that is so, what then is the significance of the 33rd day of the Omer and why does the Tur write that they stopped dying on that day? The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between the Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the days between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not say Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh Chodesh Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 days in all. Therefore they only died on 32 of the 49 days. As a commemoration of this, we designate the "33rd" day as the day that the dying stopped and we celebrate that day, but not that it totally stopped on Lag B'Omer. ---------- Note that according to the Maharil tachanun was originally said during Nissan except for the days indicated! I wonder when saying Tachanun during Nissan ended. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 14:10:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 21:10:04 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150417.171004.3030.1@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitchok Levine reposted: > The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between > the Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the > days between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not > say Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh > Chodesh Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 > days in all. > > Therefore they only died on 32 of the 49 days... ... There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in both of those. Therefore, there are not "17 days in all", but only 16, leaving 33 days on which they died. (And this presumes that none of the 3 Rosh Chodesh days was Shabbos.) In any case, I am very curious how the commemoration of this event ended up as 33 *somewhat* consecutive days, including Shabbos. If the talmidim really died only on the days cited, our procedure sounds like cheating, at least sort of. Granted that a commemoration does NOT have to follow all the details of the event being remembered, but this pushes the envelope on that, in my opinion. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55317717a31937717329dst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 13:58:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 20:58:03 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <20150417.165803.3030.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero asked: > I actually had meant to post about this, since I've been > wondering for some time why it is that the world's minhag is for > each person to say their own bracha on hallel and sefira, after > hearing the chazan's bracha. Doesn't the usual rule of "berov > am" mean that everyone should be yotzei with his bracha? In theory (="l'halacha"), yes, you are correct. But in practice (="l'maaseh") Rov Am gets beat by our lack of kavana. Rov Am is an important hidur, but the ikar is to insure that one is yotzay, and that is more easily insured by saying it oneself. (It's like if one is forced to choose between an esrog which is definitely kosher but only barely so, vs. one which is beautiful but *might* be pasul. To me, it's a no-brainer that one would choose the barely kosher one.) This explanation fits my previous post well: We are all yotzay with someone else's bracha on the shofar and megillah, but NOT because of Rov Am, only because the bracha is somewhat risky because I'm relying on someone else. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5531743bc92df743b2646st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Apr 18 18:34:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sat, 18 Apr 2015 21:34:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Correction to Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150419013412.5B7E7181C69@nexus.stevens.edu> I sent out a couple of days ago. The following is from today's Halacha for Today http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between the Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the days between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not say Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh Chodesh Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 days in all. Therefore they only died on 32 of the 49 days. As a commemoration of this, we designate the "33rd" day as the day that the dying stopped and we celebrate that day, but not that it totally stopped on Lag B'Omer. ---------- Note this calculation is wrong. If one counts 7 days of Pesach then one has included one Shabbos. This leaves 6 Shabbasos until Shavuous. Thus one has 7 days of Pesach, 6 Shabbasos, 2 days Rosh Chodesh Iyar and one day Rosh Chodesh Sivan. Hence 7+6+2+1 = 16 days on which Tachanun was not said. 49 -16 = 33, and this is where the 33 days of aveilus comes from. Thus Tachanun was said not only during Nissan except for the days that are excluded, but also on Lag B'Omer . YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Apr 18 21:19:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 00:19:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <55332CDA.60208@sero.name> > 2) The Tur (Siman 493:3) states that the Talmidim of Rav Akiva > stopped dying on Lag B'Omer. > > However, the Talmud (Yevamos 62b) clearly states that they died from > Pesach all the way until Shavuos. If that is so, what then is the > significance of the 33rd day of the Omer and why does the Tur write > that they stopped dying on that day? He does not say any such thing. He says that *some* people have haircuts from the 33rd day on, because *they say* that this is when the dying stopped. The long list of rishonim who hold this cite a medrash that disagrees with the gemara, and says the dying stopped 15 days before Shavuos. The Tur himself does not express an opinion on the matter. > The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between the > Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the days > between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not say > Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh Chodesh > Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 days in all.* This is *not* a Maharil! It's supposedly a Tosfos, I don't know where. But there seem to be two versions of what this Tosfos says, which is why it would be nice to see the original. Mahari Ibn Shuaib (a talmid of the Rashba, and the rebbe of the Tzeida Laderech) cites this Tosfos as saying that the mourning takes place on 33 days during the Omer, because there are 16 days when no mourning is appropriate. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=9416&pgnum=131 The Bach, however, cites "Acharonim" who cite this Tosfos as saying that they didn't die on these 16 days. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=14268&pgnum=330 On 04/17/2015 04:47 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > Note that according to the Maharil tachanun was originally said > during Nissan except for the days indicated! I wonder when saying > Tachanun during Nissan ended. YL Not Tachanun. Techina, i.e. Kel Erech Apayim, Lamnatzeach Ya`ancha, etc. According to minhag Ashkenaz these are said even on days when there is no nefilas apayim, but not on Yomtov, Chol Hamoed, Shabbos, or Rosh Chodesh. [Email #2. -micha] On 04/17/2015 05:10 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos > Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or > it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in > both of those. Indeed, the Bach noters this and corrects it. > In any case, I am very curious how the commemoration of this event > ended up as 33 *somewhat* consecutive days, including Shabbos. If the > talmidim really died only on the days cited, our procedure sounds > like cheating, at least sort of. Granted that a commemoration does > NOT have to follow all the details of the event being remembered, but > this pushes the envelope on that, in my opinion. Well, according to the Tosfos as Mahari ibn Shuaib quotes it, the common interpretation of 33 days is *wrong*, and the correct minhag is to mourn for 33 days during the sefirah, i.e. all days except Pesach, Shabbos, and Rosh Chodesh. He does *not* say that they only died on these days. The first place I've seen the idea that Tosfos says they only died on those days is in the Bach. He sees it as justifying our mourning for only 33 days, not 34, as we should if our source were the medrash that the dying stopped 15 days before Shavuos. And since they only died on 33 days, our mourning period only lasts 33 days, including Shabbos, even though (according to this view) they didn't die on Shabbos. How exactly we mourn on Shabbos I'm not sure, but I assume the idea is that we do, so we count it toward the 33 days. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 06:26:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 09:26:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <55332CDA.60208@sero.name> References: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> <55332CDA.60208@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150419132604.GB19240@aishdas.org> On Sun, Apr 19, 2015 at 12:19:38AM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : >Note that according to the Maharil tachanun was originally said : >during Nissan except for the days indicated! I wonder when saying : >Tachanun during Nissan ended. YL : : Not Tachanun. Techina, i.e. Kel Erech Apayim, Lamnatzeach Ya`ancha, etc. : According to minhag Ashkenaz these are said even on days when there is no : nefilas apayim, but not on Yomtov, Chol Hamoed, Shabbos, or Rosh Chodesh. I am now wondering: why those techinos and not Tachanun? After all, as the name implies (and the Gra emphasizes), Tachanun is itself the core techinah. (Or perhaps "Elokai, Netzor Leshoni" is more central, since that's the one we place immediately "basar tzelosana", before aqiras raglayim.) I would bet (if I had spare money to bet with) that's the same question as asking why we're nofeil apayim for one but not the other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 04:00:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 11:00:12 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150419.070012.19808.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> I wrote: > There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos > Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or > it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in > both of those. R' Zev Sero added: > Indeed, the Bach notes this and corrects it. Glad to hear that, thank you. But over Shabbos, I thought of another problem: R' Akiva's talmidim were in Eretz Yisrael. There would never be a year where Pesach contains 7 days of Sefira. Even when including Shabbos Chol Hamoed, that yields only 6 days. Add 6 post- Pesach Shabbosim, and 3 days of Rosh Chodesh, and you have only 15 days of no Tachanun, leaving 34 days of mourning. Perhaps this is why Mechaber 493:2 says that the mourning continues straight through Lag Baomer, and does not end until the morning of the 34th. Note that Mishne Brurah 493:7 says that although most of the dying stopped on the 33rd, some deaths did occur on the 34th. I must point out that the above is true only when Pesach begins on Sunday, Monday or Tuesday. In years when it begins on Shabbos, as it did this year, then Eretz Yisrael does have a full seven post-Pesach Sabbaths in Sefira, totalling 16 no-Tachanun days, leaving 33 for mourning. BUT - In years when Pesach begins on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday (and even nowadays Thursday is a real possibility), one of the Rosh Chodesh days will coincide with Shabbos. This lowers the count to 6 days of Pesach, 6 Shabbasos, and only 2 days of Rosh Chodesh - a total of only 14 no-Tachanun days, leaving 35 for mourning. I can't help but wonder how the calendar looked that particular year. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ 4 Fish to Never Eat Click to Learn 4 Fish to NEVER Eat (avoid these like the plague!) http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55338b0147138b0126d6st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 10:34:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 13:34:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <20150419.070012.19808.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150419.070012.19808.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5533E71A.9080700@sero.name> On 04/19/2015 07:00 AM, Kenneth Miller wrote: > I wrote: >> There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos >> Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or >> it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in >> both of those. > > R' Zev Sero added: >> Indeed, the Bach notes this and corrects it. > > Glad to hear that, thank you. But over Shabbos, I thought of another > problem: R' Akiva's talmidim were in Eretz Yisrael. There would never > be a year where Pesach contains 7 days of Sefira. Even when including > Shabbos Chol Hamoed, that yields only 6 days. Add 6 post- Pesach > Shabbosim, and 3 days of Rosh Chodesh, and you have only 15 days of > no Tachanun, leaving 34 days of mourning. Except, as you note, in a year like this one. > Perhaps this is why Mechaber 493:2 says that the mourning continues > straight through Lag Baomer, and does not end until the morning of > the 34th. No, the Mechaber had never heard of this Tosfos that the Bach cites in the name of the "Acharonim". On the contrary, the only Tosfos he seems aware of on topic is the one cited by Mahari ibn Shuaib, which says that the plague raged throughout the Sefira, but that we only mourn for 33 days, because we skip Yomtov, Shabbos, and Rosh Chodesh. The Mechaber's own minhag follows the medrash that the plague stopped 15 days before Shavuos, i.e. the 34th was the last day. Either there are two versions of this Tosfos, or the Acharonim whom the Bach quotes are talking about the same Tosfos as Mahari ibn Shuaib does, and one of them misunderstood it. It would be nice to find it inside (though of course that would not rule out a different girsa). -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 10:36:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 17:36:03 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150419.133603.21006.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero wrote: > Not Tachanun. Techina, i.e. Kel Erech Apayim, Lamnatzeach > Ya`ancha, etc. According to minhag Ashkenaz these are said even > on days when there is no nefilas apayim, but not on Yomtov, Chol > Hamoed, Shabbos, or Rosh Chodesh. R' Micha Berger wrote: > I am now wondering: why those techinos and not Tachanun? Let me add a few more data points: Common practice in Nusach Ashkenaz is to skip Tachanun even for all of the Sefira days of Nisan, and also for all of the pre-Shavuos days of Sivan. (Note that NONE of the various minhagim allow haircuts on ALL of those days. Sounds like a great proof that tachanun takes all the kulos, even contradictory ones.) I concede that this is davka nowadays, and I do not know what the practice was in previous centuries. However, it is difficult for me to imagine anyone ever saying Tachanun on Isru Chag. Perhaps that might answer the point I raised in my previous post about R' Akiva's talmidim being in EY, and that in EY there are only 6 days of Sefirah during Pesach; perhaps the "7" comes from including Isru Chag. I should also mention Pesach Sheni, although that could lead to a messy argument over whether that is really "a non-Tachanun day" or merely "a non-Tachanun afternoon". So I won't mention it. :-) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5533e7dd3196367dd4042st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 09:54:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 12:54:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L Message-ID: <20150419165450.42320180CA8@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is taken in part from Rav Shimon Schwab's Essay The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L that appears in Selected Writings pages 88 -93. Rav Hirsch is usually accepted as the exponent of the Torah im Derech Eretz philosophy. This principle is explained by his grandson, Dr. Isaac Breuer, as follows: "He was strictly opposed to compromise or reconciliation, or even a synthesis: he demanded full and uncompromising rulership of the Torah. The Torah cannot endure co-rulership, far less tolerate it. As a true revolutionary he seized the liberalistic individual, the liberalistic, humanitarian ideal, liberalistic capitalism, and the human intellect, celebrating orgies in the liberalistic science, and dragged them as "circumstances'', in the narrowest sense of the word, to the flaming fire of the Torah to be purified or, if need be, to be consumed. As a true revolutionary he solved the unbearable tension between the Torah and the new era which had dawned over the Jews of Western Europe. He invaded the new era with the weapons of the Torah, analyzed and dissected it down to its last ingredients, and then shaped and reformed it until it could be placed at the feet of the Torah, as new nourishment for the Divine fire. The proclamation of the rulership of the Torah over the new era was the historic achievement of Hirsch's life for his own contemporaries." -- ("Hirsch as a Guide to Jewish History'' in Fundamentals of Judaism, published by Feldheim, 1949.) Unfortunately, the principle of Torah im Derech Eretz is grossly misunderstood by our contemporary Jewish orthodoxy. It does not mean that one who is a full-fledged citizen of hedonistic America and at the same time keeps the laws of the Torah, is a follower of Torah im Derech Eretz. Not to violate the laws of the Torah certainly deserves praise and recognition but it is not an embodiment of the Hirschian philosophy. Likewise, an academy dedicated to the study of science and philosophy, not in order to serve the understanding of Torah or to further the aims of the Torah but as the independent search by the human intellect to understand and control the world around -- even when added to a department of profound and very scholarly Torah studies -this is not an outgrowth of the Torah im Derech Eretz Weltanschauung of Samson Raphael Hirsch. Also, a secular university in Israel, albeit under skullcap auspices, complete with Judaic studies, is extremely remote from a Torah im Derech Eretz school even if it has established a "Samson Raphael Hirsch chair" as part of its academic set-up, something which almost borders on blasphemy . The Orthodox professional who is not regularly "koveah ittim batorah", or otherwise lacks in the performance of mitzvahs, or who is immodest in dress or behavior, is not a follower of Samson Raphael Hirsch. From all of Hirsch's prolific writings, it becomes evident that his main concern was to establish the majesty of the Divine Word and the role of the Divine Will as revealed in the Torah, to dominate all the highways and by-ways of mundane life. Those who abuse Torah im Derech Eretz as a "hetter" to lead a life of easygoing and lenient "Yiddishkeit" or those who consider the Hirschian idea as a compromise between the right and the left in Jewish thinking have distorted the meaning of the principle as laid down in the Mishne, Avos, Perek 2, 2: "Beautiful is the study of Torah combined with Derech Eretz for the effort to attain both makes one forget to commit sins". The Torah is not a mere branch of human knowledge, one discipline amongst many others, but rather must the Torah dominate all secular knowledge and all worldly activities. Equally so, the community of Israel, Klal Yisroel, as well as all Kehillos and organized communities, be they local or international -- which are all segments of Klal Yisroel -- are not supposed to be mere branches of a neutral Israel but are to be totally independent. The Torah community is not beholden to any non-Torah community and it does not even recognize its authenticity. This is the essence of the Hirschian Austritt (separation) ideology. The so-called "Austritt" is the militant vigilance of the conscientious Jew defending the Torah community against all encroachments from the non-Torah powers that be. The "Austritt" and Torah im Derech Eretz go hand in hand, they form "one package", so to speak, and both these aspects of Hirschian thought have one aim: the total domination of Torah over all thinking and actions of individual and national life. He who separates the rule of the Torah over all facets of the communal life of Klal Yisroel from the rule of the Torah over all human knowledge, in short, he who separates the "Austritt" from Torah im Derech Eretz, renders a disservice to both. Instead of becoming an inspiration to serve G-d in the spirit of B'chol D'rochecha dahu, Torah im Derech Eretz is reduced to become an excuse for being "modern but frum", an excuse for the cultural assimilation which plagues the modern Orthodox Jew who considers this world a kosher pleasure cruise eventually resulting in all the sorry hangovers of our age. Let us therefore beware of some common misunderstandings. The motto does not have its accent on the last word but on the first word. It is TORAH -underscored for double emphasis -- with Derech Eretz. Furthermore, the leit-motif is neither Torah and Derech Eretz nor Torah U'Madoh -- the two are not equal partners -- nor must it be twisted around into Derech Eretz plus Torah. It is neither a synthesis of Torah with assimilation nor a bloodless orthopraxy blended with earthbound Americanism. It is none of these. It is Torah im Derech Eretz. It means G-d's Torah in its totality, utilizing Derech Eretz as the means to bring about the Torah's full realization. It means: Torah as a Divine nourishment and the human Derech Eretz as the aromatic ingredient to bring out the Torah's intrinsic flavor to its most perfect bloom. There are two schools of thought and they are both legitimate. One is "Torah Only" and the other is Torah im Derech Eretz. All Torah-conscious Jews work for the same goal. There are various methods and various avenues of approach. They all lead up to the ultimate end of: "Yisgadal v'yisgadash Shmei rabah" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 15:00:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 18:00:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <20150419.133603.21006.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150419.133603.21006.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <55342569.2000502@sero.name> On 04/19/2015 01:36 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > Common practice in Nusach Ashkenaz is to skip Tachanun even for all of the Sefira days of Nisan, This is not just nusach Ashkenaz, it's the universal minhag, originating in Masechet Sofrim 21:3. It's actually the chapter title of Shulchan Aruch OC 429, and AFAIK there is no dissenting opinion or minhag. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 15:08:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Avi Goldstein via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 18:08:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu va'eilu Message-ID: It has always been my understanding that eilu va'eilu means that both (or more than two) are, within the sphere of Torah, "true" as long as they emanate from a valid drashah. As the Rambam writes in Hilchos Mamrim, Perek 2, a Sanhedrin can overturn the ruling of a previous Sanhedrin if that ruling was made based on the yud gimmel middos or based on sevara. The Rambam states that the new ruling becomes normative. So, for example, if a Sanhedrin ruled that yeush shelo mida'as is yeush, that is now the d'oraisa rule. If a later Sanhedrin overturns the ruling, then the new ruling becomes normative. Both, however, are "true," because the Torah has shivim panim; the Torah is multifaceted and can countenance more than one truth. The Rambam seems to hold that Moshe Rabbeinu was merely given the methods by which to darshan; he was not given the various possible halachic outcomes. The Ritva (Eruvin 13b) states that at Sinai, Moshe Rabbeinu was shown 49 possibilities for each halachic situation. Either way, it is up to klal Yisrael to determine what the halacha is, but all the possible outcomes are divrei Elokim Chayim. Avi Goldstein From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 20:47:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 23:47:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L Message-ID: <11211.6b4edbb3.4265d0c0@aol.com> From: "Prof. Levine via Avodah" The following is taken in part from Rav Shimon Schwab's Essay The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L that appears in Selected Writings pages 88 -93. Rav Hirsch is usually accepted as the exponent of the Torah im Derech Eretz philosophy. This principle is explained by his grandson, Dr. Isaac Breuer, as follows: "He was strictly opposed to compromise or reconciliation, or even a synthesis: he demanded full and uncompromising rulership of the Torah. [snip] There are two schools of thought and they are both legitimate. One is "Torah Only" and the other is Torah im Derech Eretz. All Torah-conscious Jews work for the same goal. There are various methods and various avenues of approach. They all lead up to the ultimate end of: "Yisgadal v'yisgadash Shmei rabah" >>>> See the wonderful pamphlet by R' Shimon Schwab, "Eilu ve'Eilu," explaining the broad outlines of the differences between these two hashkafos, "Torah im Derech Eretz" and so-called "Torah-only." I try to re-read this 48-page pamphlet every year. http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/these_and_those.pdf I am grateful to RYL (Prof. Levine) for making this pamphlet available to the public as a pdf. However I note that he is often highly critical of the charedi world, and I believe that R' Hirsch would emphatically not have agreed with him. He would have honored and cherished the talmidei chachamim who devote their lives to limud haTorah, and would have educated his balabatim to take pride in the zechus of financially supporting the "black hat" yeshivos. In the so-called "Torah-only" world they may have disdain for balabatim, but we who believe in TIDE can respect and honor that world of sustained and focused Torah study without internalizing an inferior self-image. We believe in Yisachar and Zevulun even if Yisachar lacks proper respect for Zevulun. We believe in twelve shevatim, we believe in twelve paths through the sea. And we believe that without the shevet of full-time lomdei Torah and talmidei chachamim, the rest of Klal Yisrael would have no kiyum. I would also note that R' Hirsch would certainly not have shared RYL's dour view of present-day Eretz Yisrael. True, all the flaws and failings of Zionism are abundantly on display in the modern Medinah. But at the same time, it takes an almost willful blindness not to see the incredible miracles that have been taking place there over the past sixty years or so. Not the least of these miracles is a flourishing of Torah scholarship, be'eichus uvekamus, the likes of which has not been seen since the churban Bayis Sheni. We owe at least a small measure of gratitude to the Zionist government that helps provide the infrastructure for the Torah community to flourish, and a huge measure of gratitude to the Ribono Shel Olam for allowing us to live in a time in which the beginning of kibbutz galuyos is taking place before our eyes. The sight of thousands of men, young and old, from all corners of the world, streaming into the Mirrer Yeshiva each day, gives us a little foretaste of what it will be like to visit the Third Bais Hamikdash. Again, I urge everyone to read Rav Schwab's wonderful pamphlet, "Eilu ve'Eilu." http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/these_and_those.pdf --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 19:30:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 02:30:15 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: <20150419.223015.3015.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Joel Rich asked: > Question: If one doesn't view eilu v'eilu as multiple truths > but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which > is which), ... I didn't understand that 2nd view, so he suggested to look > here for some more specifics: > http://nishma.org/articles/commentary/slifkinrevisted3print.pdf > especially starting around page 11. On page 4 of that article, the author offers this explanation of the concept of Machlokes L'Shem Shamayim: > ... every individual striving mightily to gain truth and an > understanding of God's Will can only achieve what is possible > within the parameters of his/her own individual being. Since the > fullness of Torah extends beyond the comprehension of any one > individual, machloket must necessarily ensue. It is not simply > that machloket emerges because of the inherent limitations of > the human condition. It is only through the enunciation of > machloket that human beings effectively are able to express the > fullness and truth of the Divine wisdom of Torah. ... Within > this category of disagreement, the existence of differing views > is not a problem. It is actually positive. It is the natural > consequence of a limited humanity trying to encounter the > unlimited nature of God and Torah. Elsewhere in that article, I understood him to say: Because both Hillel and Shammai worked within the rules of how Torah is to be understood, their differing views are equally valid and equally true (notwithstanding the detail that for purely practical reasons, halacha l'maaseh has to go one way or the other). This much fits very well with what I've been taught: Hashem deliberately wrote and designed the Torah in such a way as to allow both Hillel and Shammai to reach those differing views, and when they did reach those views, and (lovingly) refused to yield to the other, they accomplished exactly what Hashem had intended. But RJR referred us specifically to page 11, and on that page, the author brings the two views that RJR had initially posted: > One significant question in this regard, though, that should be > presented is: whether kalpei Shemaya, from the perspective of > Heaven, one view may really be correct or not? How one answers > this question will affect whether one considers any position in > a machloket l'Shem Shamayim as ultimately able to be labeled > incorrect. Effectively the question would be: are all positions > in the disagreement theoretically, equally part of truth and a > decision rendered between the opposing views solely because of > practical necessity? Or is there a truly correct position ? > albeit only able to be ascertained by Heaven ? but we still > accept all positions as part of Torah, albeit some are mistaken, > as they all are equally the best that humanity can achieve and > the mistakes only arise from the actual limitation of the human > being? With all due respect, but it seems to me that this second view is illogical and mistaken. How can there be a view which was obtained by legitimate methods of learning the Torah, without any personal agenda, and the best that humanity can acheive -- and yet be one which Hashem did NOT want us to arrive at? If there is a view that is NOT truly correct, yet the incorrectness can be ascertained only by Heaven, then why did Hashem design the Torah in a manner which allowed us to reach that mistaken conclusion? If only He would have made one little change, if only the pasuk had said this instead of that, then we'd have darshened that pasuk differently, and would have avoided that mistake. But since He did not make that change, but rather He wrote the Torah as we have it, and Toras Hashem Temimah, then I believe that the conclusions reached cannot possibly be mistakes, but rather, this is exactly what we mean by Eilu V'Eilu Divrei Elokim Chayim. (Of course, I am referring only to drashos made with the proper tools, and in the proper manner, such as those made by Hillel and Shammai and others of similar caliber. I am not referring to people who are of lower caliber, or who were working with broken tools. And I'm certainly not referring to people who deliberately distort Torah for their own purposes.) But then, as I was reviewing this post, my mind turned to the Tanur Shel Achnai. R' Eliezer had a minority view, and R' Yehoshua was in the majority. I've got to believe that both views were firmly grounded; this machlokes was surely just as L'Shem Shamayim as any between Hillel and Shammai. I'd *like* to say that Klapei Shmaya, both views were Truth. But then what can I do with Hashem's response of "Nitzchuni banai"? It sure sounds to me like this Judge was not impartial. He was rooting for R' Eliezer! And yet He wrote a Torah that allowed for R' Eliezer's mistaken interpretation. Why would He do that? To paraphrase RJR's question from the very beginning of this post, Tanur Shel Achnai seems to be an example of "eilu v'eilu": At the time of their dispute, it was possible that both views were Truth, but we didn't know which was which, so for practical purposes they took a vote. But later, Eliyahu Hanavi revealed the fact that it was NOT multiple truths, but rather one truth (R' Eliezer) and one nice try (R' Yehoshua). TO RECAP: In the beginning of this post, I explained my logical basis for believing that every true Eilu V'Eilu is a case of multiple Truths. At the end, I brought an example of an Eilu V'Eilu which was "one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which is which)". I cannot reconcile the logic and the example. All I can do is to ask again: Would Hashem really write a Perfect Torah which allows for mistaken interpretation? Why would He do that? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553464ea69a2864ea0cc6st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 01:48:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 11:48:03 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: RMB: Rav Moshe Feinstein discusses the halachic process and the role of poseiq in his introduction to Igros Mosheh. (The introduction itself deserves serious study.) He writes about "ha'emes lehora'ah umichuyav lehoros kein af al pi im be'etzem galyah kelapei shemaya galya she'eino kein hapeirush - the true ruling, and one is obligated to teach accordingly, even if in essence is it revealed in heaven that this isn't the correct explanation!" The ideal is following the pesaq as according to the process. This passage in IM is cited by R. Shalom Rosner in a systematic discussion of the subject of eilu v'eilu in the course of a shiur on Ktuvot 57a at http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/720210/Rabbi_Shalom_Rosner/Kesubos57. Rashi in Ktuvot 57a invokes the principle of eilu 'v'eilu, (read and explained by R. Rosner stating at about 18:30 in the shiur) and R. Rosner elucidates this principle, starting at about 21:30 in the shiur, until about 29:40. For anyone interested in a very clear explanation of the various shittot about what eilu v'eilu means, I can't recommend this shiur highly enough. Very briefly, R. Rosner cites three approaches in the sources 1. Illustrating the truth - The Ran in Drashot HaRan drasha 5 - In this approach, which severely limits the principle of eilu v'eilu, the Ran states that actually only one of the opinions is true. The other opinion is 'divrei Elokim chaim' only insofar as it serves to illustrate and elucidate the other opinion, which is the real truth, as the dark enables us to appreciate a candle. The Chida in Petach Einayim, his commentary on Eiruvin where the principle of eilu v'eilu is cited by the Gemara, takes this approach as well. R. Rosner emphasizes that this is a minority opinion, and personally finds it hard to accept, as he explains in the shiur. 2. Levels of truth - R. Moshe in the hakdama to IM, and R. Yaakov to Bereishit 26, the Netziv in his Hakadama to Haamek Sh'eila, his commentary to the Sheiltot). Using R. Moshe's terminology. there is Emet Shamaymit, and Emet L'Horaa. Both are correct, and in this world we are obligated to follow the emet l'horaa even if it deviates from the ultimate, heavenly truth. 3. Multiple truths (Ritva in Eiruvin, Maharal) - Both opinions are true, reflecting different perspectives of the subject at hand (IMO, this is similar to the previous explanation, without establishing a hierarchy between the truths expressed by the different opinions). R. Rosner states that the Rashi in question on Ktuvot 57a takes this approach. R. Rosner's explanation of the shittot is very lucid and concise. He refers in his shiur to Ktuvot 57 to a previous, more comprehensive shiur he gave on the subject, but I don't know if that shiur is available online. Saul Mashbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 19:43:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 22:43:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] brochos from the amud (was: tefillat haderech) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420024354.CJVF30458.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo110> >R' Zev Sero asked: > > > I actually had meant to post about this, since I've been > > wondering for some time why it is that the world's minhag is for > > each person to say their own bracha on hallel and sefira, after > > hearing the chazan's bracha. Doesn't the usual rule of "berov > > am" mean that everyone should be yotzei with his bracha? R' Akiva Miller wrote: >In theory (="l'halacha"), yes, you are correct. But in practice >(="l'maaseh") Rov Am gets beat by our lack of kavana. Rov Am is an >important hidur, but the ikar is to insure that one is yotzay, and >that is more easily insured by saying it oneself. (It's like if one >is forced to choose between an esrog which is definitely kosher but >only barely so, vs. one which is beautiful but *might* be pasul. To >me, it's a no-brainer that one would choose the barely kosher one.) > >This explanation fits my previous post well: We are all yotzay with >someone else's bracha on the shofar and megillah, but NOT because of >Rov Am, only because the bracha is somewhat risky because I'm >relying on someone else. Slight change of topic: I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea that we don't seem to have a chashash of a brocha l'vatalah. I mean, you have a sh'tz up there, saying a brocho out loud -- and he's intentionally trying to be motzi _some_ others (whoever has missed a day) and everybody says amen, and then they say the brocho themselves. No chashash for an issur d'oraissa? Shomea k'onen doesn't apply at all? What if you are in the shul and you're not thinking about the issue of being yotzie, you're just thinking about which day it is, and/or you simply have stam kavanah. No chashash for an issur d'oraissa? Apparently not because almost everybody does that. But I don't get it. (To satisfy my own comfort level, my preferred action to is to focus and have kavanah to be yotzie with the brocho, say amen, and then I don't have any chashash here). -- Sholom From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 10:36:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 13:36:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 11:48:03AM +0300, Saul Mashbaum via Avodah wrote: : This passage in IM is cited by R. Shalom Rosner in a systematic discussion... : http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/720210/Rabbi_Shalom_Rosner/Kesubos57. ... : Very briefly, R. Rosner cites three approaches in the sources : : 1. Illustrating the truth - The Ran in Drashot HaRan drasha 5 - In this : approach, which severely limits the principle of eilu v'eilu, the Ran : states that actually only one of the opinions is true. The other opinion is : 'divrei Elokim chaim' only insofar as it serves to illustrate and elucidate : the other opinion... : 2. Levels of truth - R. Moshe in the hakdama to IM, and R. Yaakov to : Bereishit 26, the Netziv in his Hakadama to Haamek Sh'eila, his commentary : to the Sheiltot)... : 3. Multiple truths (Ritva in Eiruvin, Maharal) - Both opinions are true, : reflecting different perspectives of the subject at hand (IMO, this is : similar to the previous explanation, without establishing a hierarchy : between the truths expressed by the different opinions).. My opinion differs from yours. The Maharal is saying that what RMF calls emes shamamis (I think that conjugation is yours, no?) is actually too rich to fit in this universe, and certainly in a human mind. Therefore, two shitos can be correct descriptions of the Truth, because each are incomplete. Rather than invoke the 5 blind men and the elephant, I think it's more useful to use a mashal of an object and a shadow. Because a shadow is only 2D, information is lost. It could make you think the two opinions are describing differnt thing, but they don't. If you shine a light directly at the fact of a cube, the shadow is a square. If you shine it at a corner, the result is a hexagon. Beis Shamma could hold "hexagon" while Beis Hillel holds "square", and both are describing the same cube. It all depends on which direction you face the cube from. The difference is in the approach chosen, where one stands at the foothills when answering "mi ya'aleh beHar Hashem", not the emes kelapei shamayim. None of which involves separating abstract truth from law, as RMF does. The Maharal places eilu va'eilu entirely within our understanding of that abstract truth. RSR's analysis differs from the two I've discussed in the past, RMHalbertal's and R' Michel Rosensweig's. E.g. See v32n8 E.g. RMH describes the Ritva and the Ran as sharing what he calls "the Constitutive view" of what pesaq is (halakhah is constituted by pesaq, and there is no one pre-existing reality), and thus the notion of one right answer doesn't fit. Rather, his peshat in the Ran is more like RMF's opinion. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? : that the Rashi in question on Ktuvot 57a takes this approach. : : R. Rosner's explanation of the shittot is very lucid and concise. He : refers in his shiur to Ktuvot 57 to a previous, more comprehensive shiur he : gave on the subject, but I don't know if that shiur is available online. : : Saul Mashbaum : _______________________________________________ : Avodah mailing list : Avodah at lists.aishdas.org : http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 14:43:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:43:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] HaRav Aharon Lichtenstein zt"l Message-ID: <20150420214331.GA31537@aishdas.org> Today's blog post. ... Can't we find children who would have helped him and still know the gemara? Do we have to choose? I hope not; I believe not. Tir'u baTov! -Micha HaRav Aharon Lichtenstein zt"l Posted on April 20, 2015 - 1 Iyyar 5775 by micha When someone passes away, I try to find a life-lesson from their lives that I can incorporate into my own. This is rather easy with regard to Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, as the rosh yeshiva left the Centrist / Modern Orthodox / Religious Zionist community with a cheshbon hanefesh, an accounting of our communal soul. Things that he saw we as a community need to look at and improve. See "By His Light: Character and Values in the Service of God" by R' Reuvein Zeigler, notes of shiurim by Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, pp 220-252, which is available on-line at Yeshivat Har Etzion's Israel Koschitzky Virtual Beit Midrash, as the email shiur from the series "Developing a Torah Personality" Lecture 12: Centrist Orthodoxy: A Spiritual Accounting. Listing the rashei peraqim (subtitles): * The Shift To the Right * The Need for Soul-Searching * Commonalities and Differences With the Right * Shaking Our Confidence In General Culture * The Complexity of Experience * Literary, Psychological and Historical Sensitivity * Attitudes Toward Zionism * "Torah Only" or "Torah And" * The Possibility of Integration * Theory and Practice * Dialectical Tension or Tepid Indifference? * Instilling Passion * The Need for Spirituality * Diffusion and Dilution * The Ascendancy of the Moral Over the Intellectual * "Do Not Fear Any Man" Here's one piece near the end, that stays with me each time I read the article: ... Perhaps much of what I have said in relation to culture, quoting Arnold and Yeats and others, seems very rarefied. People may be asking themselves, "What does this have to do with us? We have to deal with children in elementary school or high school; this is not our concern." Nevertheless, I have related to culture at its apex, because the kind of vision which is maintained at the pinnacle has an impact, and should have an impact, upon what is done at lower levels. In this respect, the awareness of the evaluation of culture does have practical consequences for whatever level of education we are dealing with. Granted that, our challenge is to see to it that indeed we maintain our position with depth and gusto. Given our constituency, of course, we cannot instill many of our students with the optimal level of love of Torah; we know from where they come. But, within our overall community, and surely within its leadership, such a level should exist. Woe unto us, if the only choice lies between tepid compromise and arrogant kana'ut. A couple of years after we moved to Yerushalayim, I was once walking with my family in the Beit Yisrael neighborhood, where R. Isser Zalman Meltzer used to live. For the most part, it consists of narrow alleys. We came to a corner, and found a merchant stuck there with his car. The question came up as to how to help him; it was a clear case of perika u-te'ina (helping one load or unload his burden). There were some youngsters there from the neighborhood, who judging by their looks were probably ten or eleven years old. They saw that this merchant was not wearing a kippa. So they began a whole pilpul, based on the gemara in Pesachim (113b), about whether they should help him or not. They said, "If he walks around bareheaded, presumably he doesn't separate terumot u-ma'asrot, so he is suspect of eating and selling untithed produce..." I wrote R. Soloveitchik a letter at that time, and told him of the incident. I ended with the comment, "Children of that age from our camp would not have known the gemara, but they would have helped him." My feeling then was: Why, Ribbono shel Olam, must this be our choice? Can't we find children who would have helped him and still know the gemara? Do we have to choose? I hope not; I believe not. If forced to choose, however, I would have no doubts where my loyalties lie: I prefer that they know less gemara, but help him. If I can refer again to my experience over the last several decades, I think that one of the central points which has reinforced itself is the sense, in terms of values, of the ascendancy of the moral over the intellectual -- with all my love for and commitment to pure learning. But, when all is said and done, you have to be guided not by what you love; you have to be guided by Torah. And the Torah tells us what is good: He has told you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you: only to do justice, and to love goodness, and to walk modestly with your God. (Mikha 6:8) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 12:48:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 15:48:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L by Rav Shimon Schwab Message-ID: <20150420194854.40DD317FB85@nexus.stevens.edu> See The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 11:46:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 21:46:52 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] hidur Message-ID: <> - changed topic from tefillat hadrech There is a famois R Chaim that if one can use both etgrogim then one should first use the beautiful but *might* be pasul since if one uses the minimally kosher one then one has accomplished the mitzvah and there is no reason to choose a second one. I have seen some that disagree with R Chaim claiming that it is possible to take a better etrog for hidur even after having minimally done the motzvah. This has applications mehadrin of chanukah -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 14:52:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:52:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 09:46:52PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> It's like if one is forced to choose between an esrog which is definitely :> kosher but only barely so, vs. one which is beautiful but *might* be pasul. :> To me, it's a no-brainer that one would choose the barely kosher one.) >> - ... : There is a famois R Chaim that if one can use both etgrogim then one should : first use the beautiful but *might* be pasul since if one uses the : minimally kosher one then one has accomplished the mitzvah and there is no : reason to choose a second one. This presumes you can afford both, or have access to a friend who will give you a matanah al menas lehachzir of whichever you aren't buying. The post you're replying to is "if one is forced to choose". My own dilemma. Say I earmark $X (Y NIS, in your case) to spend on my esrog. And say the price of a definitely kosher (or at least, just as sure to be kosher) but not very hadar esrog is half that or less. Should I buy myself a mehudar, or should I buy two esrogim and give the other to someone hitting on hard times? Shouldn't the asei (tzedaqah, dei machsero) trump a "mere" hidur mitzvah (esrog)? And yet, we know many great rabbanim who didn't follow this calculus. What am I missing? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 15:25:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 18:25:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safeik as Metzi'us Message-ID: <20150420222502.GC1634@aishdas.org> The story so far: Briskers don't wear tzitzis outdoors on Shabbos in case the gemara does conclude that hatekheiles me'eaqes es halavan. (Dspite the tam mishnah, there is reason to wonder.) And if so, the tassels on your tallis or tallis qatan are not tzitzis, and wouldn't be tafeil to the beged. On Shabbos -- hotza'ah. I asked why, since I personally am wearing those tassels because of the safeiq, wouldn't that mean that in terms of my intent, they are hotza'ah? In general, when do we pasqen one din and then use that pesaq as the metzi'us for the next case? And when do we look at the internals of that din (in this case, the safeiq) and carry them through to the next din? Other examples collected so far: AhS OC 409:6 -- An eiruv techumin made with a safeiq tereifah is not an eiruv, because you can't eat a safeiq tereifah. We look to the pesaq, the meat is assur mishum safeiq, not the safeiq itself. (Where a parallel case in the se'if is ruled safeiq derabbanan lequlah.) AhS OC 416:8 -- A person wants to make 2 different eiruvei techumin, one for each day of YT in chu"l. You can't create an eiruv on day 2 that you cannot reach on day 1. We don't say mima nafshach -- if day 1 is YT, you don't need the eiruv, and if day 2 is, you were allowed to reach the food on day 1. Again, we look at the masqanah. Recently I noticed two more in the AhS: AhC OC 509:12 -- The Rama (se'if 5) allows libun on YT of a skewer that that they broiled non-salted meat on to allow using the skewer again that day. The AhS explains this is not a real tiqun keli, because mei'iqar hadin it doesn't need libun (cf YD 76), an therefore even if you could have done the libun on erev YT, you can still do it now. We DO NOT say that lemaaseh we are not nohagim to use the skewer without libun, so therefore the skewer went from usable to non-usable. This time we do look into the cause of the non-use. I am wondering if it's because beshe'as hadechaq, they would go to a rav and get a pesaq that they could use the skewer as is, so it's not fully unusable. AhS 581:18 -- If fruit are stored in a room that is built from uncemented bricks and the room breaks, the fruit are usable. We do not say they a muqtza, because the issur of disassembling the room was only derabbanan, so he didn't have full hesach hadaas. Notice that here he is saying that a person is aware of issur derabbanan being on a lesser level. The ruling is on the metzi'us, but with the understanding the the metzi'us reflects the wishy-washiness of the issur. RAM: Does any of this change your proposed sevaros? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 14:54:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:54:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5535759A.5020909@gmail.com> What would be the kilayim status of this combo? http://www.territorialseed.com/product/grafted-tomtato-ketchup-n-fries/new_for_spring_2015 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 15:57:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 18:57:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> On 04/20/2015 05:52 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > My own dilemma. Say I earmark $X (Y NIS, in your case) to spend on > my esrog. And say the price of a definitely kosher (or at least, just > as sure to be kosher) but not very hadar esrog is half that or less. > Should I buy myself a mehudar, or should I buy two esrogim and give the > other to someone hitting on hard times? Shouldn't the asei (tzedaqah, > dei machsero) trump a "mere" hidur mitzvah (esrog)? And yet, we know > many great rabbanim who didn't follow this calculus. What am I missing? Perhaps that they would then let the other person use their mehudardige esrog, so both benefit. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:21:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:21:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 06:57:15PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: :> ... Shouldn't the asei (tzedaqah, :> dei machsero) trump a "mere" hidur mitzvah (esrog)? And yet, we know :> many great rabbanim who didn't follow this calculus. What am I missing? : Perhaps that they would then let the other person use their mehudardige : esrog, so both benefit. So, both get the mitzvah of esrog with a hadar esrog. But I asked about fulling tzedaqah. How does a matanah al menas lehachzir qualify? And for someone used to having their own esrog, how is it "dei machsero"? Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:15:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:15:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Matza between Pesach and Shavuos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Somebody (either here or on Areivim) was asking about the minhag to eat matza between Pesach and Shavuos. I happened to pick up a sefer called "Bein Pesach u'Shavuos" (by R Zvi Cohn) and saw a few mentions about this. First, he cites the Gr"a that he never ate matza when it was not Pesach. I think the reasoning is that he didn't want to get hana'ah from it, but, rather, eat it only because it was a mitzvah. But then, later in the sefer, I saw reference to (a) a minhag (Belz and Chernobyl) to eat matza to eat matza on every shalosh seudos between Pesach and Shavuos, and wetting it with fish juice/gravy; and (b) v'yesh a minhag to eat matza *every* time one washes for bread, in order to combine "michlei d'm'heimnusa u'michlei d'asvasa" food/meal of emuna and food/meal of refuah (apologies for messing up the vowels). The footnote cites the sefer "Darchei Chayim v'Sholom" siman 633. And also to be m'dakdek to make one kugel for shabbos with matza and to pass it around, particularly on shalosh seudos after the z'miros. I don't translate so well, so if you want to see "inside" R Cohn's sefer, I put it here: http://s3.postimg.org/wukbartcj/matza.jpg [1] and if you look and find mistakes, please let the list (or at least me!) know! FWIW & Kol tuv, -- Sholom Links: ------ [1] http://s3.postimg.org/wukbartcj/matza.jpg -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 16:32:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 19:32:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> At 05:52 PM 4/20/2015, RN Toby Katz wrote: > >I am grateful to RYL (Prof. Levine) for making this pamphlet available to >the public as a pdf. However I note that he is often highly critical of >the charedi world, and I believe that R' Hirsch would emphatically not have >agreed with him. He would have honored and cherished the talmidei chachamim >who devote their lives to limud haTorah, and would have educated his >balabatim to take pride in the zechus of financially supporting the >"black hat" >yeshivos. This is pure speculation on your part. I believe that RSRH would have agreed with my views on this matter. Of course, this is pure speculation on my part. He certainly would not have agreed with the idea of not working to support one's family. See my article "The Obligation to Support a Family" The Jewish Press, February 18, 2015, front page. and the extensive quotes I have there from the writings of Rav Dr. Joseph Breuer, ZT"L, who was, of course, a grandson of RSRH and the foremost expositor of TIDE during his life time. > >I would also note that R' Hirsch would certainly not have shared RYL's dour > view of present-day Eretz Yisrael. True, all the flaws and failings of >Zionism are abundantly on display in the modern Medinah. But at the same >time, it takes an almost willful blindness not to see the >incredible miracles >that have been taking place there over the past sixty years or so. Not the >least of these miracles is a flourishing of Torah scholarship, be'eichus >uvekamus, the likes of which has not been seen since the churban Bayis >Sheni. We owe at least a small measure of gratitude to the >Zionist government >that helps provide the infrastructure for the Torah community to flourish, >and a huge measure of gratitude to the Ribono Shel Olam for allowing us to >live in a time in which the beginning of kibbutz galuyos is taking place >before our eyes. The sight of thousands of men, young and old, from all >corners of the world, streaming into the Mirrer Yeshiva each day, gives us a >little foretaste of what it will be like to visit the Third Bais Hamikdash. Again, I have to disagree. I suggest you read Rav Breuer's writings about EY in the book A Unique Perspective under the heading Eretz Yisroel. The following are some excerpts from his essay The State of Israel. The proclamation of a Jewish state would bring great joy to all the members of our people, if conditions were such that we could feel justified to call it a Kiddush Hashem. It pains us to say, and we have no illusions, that for the time being this is not the case. For every Torah-true Jew the word Kiddush Hashem is his utmost concern, while Chillul Hashem leaves him trembling. Thus the establishment of a Jewish state will fill him with misgivings and alarm. Anyone who is imbued with the eternal truth and validity of God's Torah will have to be aware that a state on God's holy soil will only be able to endure if the conditions that God has set down for a Jewish state on His holy soil are met. These conditions apply to the Jewish entity and to the life of every individual who declares himself a member of God's People. Again, please read Rav Breuer's essays on Eretz Yisroel in this book. Also, please read Rav Shimon Schwab's essay Zion or Zionism that I have placed at http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/zion_or_zionism.pdf Rav Schwab was most certainly a proponent of TIDE and the approach of RSRH. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 15:32:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 18:32:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> References: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 11:34 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > There was a bachur next to me this morning whose retzu'os were painted > black on both sides. And I believe I know why this is done, in case > a retzu'ah gets flipped. Or perhaps to be chosheish for the Rambam's > description of such retzu'os being "noi". I've only ever heard of the leather being soaked in dye; and the reason given was not for flipped retzu'os but for scratches: if the entire thickness of the strap has been dyed, a scratch will not expose undyed leather. (This does not address your actual question, though) ?Chesky Salomon From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:24:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:24:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <553598C0.6010209@sero.name> On 04/20/2015 08:21 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > So, both get the mitzvah of esrog with a hadar esrog. But I asked about > fulling tzedaqah. How does a matanah al menas lehachzir qualify? And > for someone used to having their own esrog, how is it "dei machsero"? At a time when an esrog was a luxury that most people could not afford and were not used to, how often would such a case come up? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:27:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:27:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <553598C0.6010209@sero.name> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> <553598C0.6010209@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150421002736.GA24420@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 08:24:32PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : At a time when an esrog was a luxury that most people could not afford : and were not used to, how often would such a case come up? ... and today? Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:58:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 00:58:13 GMT Subject: [Avodah] hidur Message-ID: <20150420.205813.23096.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> R'Zev Sero asked: > At a time when an esrog was a luxury that most people could > not afford and were not used to, how often would such a case > come up? But it could certainly come up nowadays. About 25 years ago, my budget was so tight that I had decided to share my lulav and esrog with my two sons, despite my having gotten them their own set in previous years. I don't remember whether one or both was still below bar mitzvah that year, but it doesn't really matter, because the point is that they were used to having their own, and that year we shared the one set. Suffice it to say that it was not fun. Baruch Hashem we've each had own own every year since then. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5535a0f9e88320f87fb2st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 18:23:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 01:23:34 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Self-control fatigue Message-ID: <20150420.212334.23096.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> On Areivim, SY Scher wrote: > A now large body of research shows that we can have "self-control > fatigue". Professor Roy Baumeister and his colleagues have > demonstrated experimentally that when people have previously had > to exert self-control, their ability to do so goes down. They > have also showed physiological correlates -- will-power/self- > control takes energy, and after exerting a lot of control, our > blood glucose level is lower. Replenishment of glucose (for > example, by drinking lemonade sweetened with sugar, but not > lemonade with artificial sweeteners) raises self-control ability > back up. > We all know that following the halacha often requires a good deal > of willpower, and I would imagine that for charedi adolescent boys, > that would be even more strongly so. So, the ability to control > the yetzer in outside situations may well be reduced. The muscle > is just too worn out! Is there any way fit this in with the idea that many mitzvos - kashrus in particular and chukim in general - seem designed to train us to *have* self-control? Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 03:14:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 06:14:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Self-control fatigue In-Reply-To: <20150420.212334.23096.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150420.212334.23096.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150421101422.GB7409@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 01:23:34AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : Is there any way fit this in with the idea that many mitzvos - kashrus : in particular and chukim in general - seem designed to train us to *have* : self-control? If (and that's a big if) we define the yeitzer hara as the effects on our souls of living within a mammalian body, then the ability to plan ahead and work toward delayed gratification, rather than just instinctively going for what's before us, is going to be a fundamental skill in rising above it. In R Yitchaq Sher's introduction to the Slabodka edition of Cheshbon haNefesh (Feldheim bilingual ed. ), the mashgiach speaks of the nefesh habehamis's "lack[ing the will to exercise choice" and therefore "the tzivui or azharah of an asei or a lo-sa'asei are not shayach to it at all" (par 2). He then gives guidelines about how to train it by taking examples from animal training (par 304). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 17th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Tifferes: What is the ultimate Fax: (270) 514-1507 state of harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 03:17:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 13:17:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> References: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 8:36 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > The Maharal is saying that what RMF calls emes shamamis (I think that > conjugation is yours, no?) is actually too rich to fit in this universe, > and certainly in a human mind. Therefore, two shitos can be correct > descriptions of the Truth, because each are incomplete. > Where does the Maharal say this? (Not a challenge, I just want to learn it inside) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 06:24:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 09:24:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: References: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150421132444.GD1634@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 01:17:49PM +0300, Simon Montagu wrote: : Where does the Maharal say this? (Not a challenge, I just want to learn it : inside) Be'er haGolah, be'er 1, pg 20 in the common edition, available on pg 94 the whole book) in the Harman edition, on hebrewbooks.org (Onward, I would print the 1[:6] off the link at the top for the whole sefer. R YD Hartman has a clearer edition, with copious footnotes.) I've been citing that Maharal for over a decade, so I had to search for the actual mar'eh maqom. On nice find was the discussion in Mishpat Ivri . I want to go through the whole chapter on machloqos (that hit is mid-chapter) before commenting, but I don't know when I'll get to it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 17th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Tifferes: What is the ultimate Fax: (270) 514-1507 state of harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 09:11:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 12:11:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150421132444.GD1634@aishdas.org> References: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> <20150421132444.GD1634@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55367699.9010203@sero.name> On 04/21/2015 09:24 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 01:17:49PM +0300, Simon Montagu wrote: > : Where does the Maharal say this? (Not a challenge, I just want to learn it > : inside) > > Be'er haGolah, be'er 1, pg 20 The introduction to the Hartman edition shows that the title is actually Be'er haGulah, with a melupum rather than a cholam. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 01:40:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 11:40:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu Message-ID: Sagi in his book on the topic brings 3 basic approaches (all with many supporters) to the sugya 1) Monism - only one truth as subfields we can be tolerant of other attempts or not 2) pluralism - there are many truths and one can't decide 3) harmonism - different views are just separate parts of the same truth R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is self-contradictory. According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint is monism ! He further points out that sometimes pluralism can be a chumra Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he doesn't accept the kashrut Answer: Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable Of course these are only typologies. In the real world anyone who believes in pluralism has some radius of acceptance. Few would accept Naziism or Isis as a legitimate viewpoint -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 01:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 11:53:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] hidur Message-ID: <> As usual R Chaim is asking a theoretical question - he was not a posek In fact I once heard from RYBS that in fact almost all etrogim are kosher bidieved. In Israel one can get a mehudar set for about 100 shekel ($25) see http://www.dafyomi.co.il/nazir/halachah/nz-hl-002.htm 2. Bava Kama 9a (R. Zeira citing Rav Huna): One must spend up to a third for Mitzvos. 3. Question: What does this mean? i. Suggestion: One must spend a third of his wealth to fulfil a Mitzvah. ii. Rejection: It is unreasonable that if he encounters three (expensive) Mitzvos, he must exhaust all his wealth! 4. Answer (R. Zeira): One must spend an extra third to beautify a Mitzvah. Shulchan Aruch (ibid.): Some say that if he finds two Esrogim to buy, and one of them is nicer than the other, he should buy the nicer one if the price difference is no more than a third of the other. i. Source (Beis Yosef DH Kaneh): Rashi (Bava Kama 9b DH b'Hidur) says that if one found two Sifrei Torah to buy, he should add a third of the price to buy the nicer one. ii. Kaf ha'Chayim (17): It seems that neither opinion requires one who bought an Esrog bigger than an egg to exchange it for a nicer one. However, the Rosh, Gra and Taz obligate doing so. The Magen Avraham says that perhaps the Shulchan Aruch holds like the Rosh. iii. Kaf ha'Chayim (18): One must add a third from an Esrog that one could bless on without Safek. Hidur depends on what people in the area consider nice. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 05:09:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 08:09:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55378F6E.2070708@sero.name> On 04/22/2015 04:40 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > 2) pluralism - there are many truths and one can't decide > > R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is self-contradictory. According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint is monism ! Not true. There are many truths, but not an infinite number. Or, as my father says, there are 70 panim latorah, but there are also 70 achor. Strict monism, which rejects the gemara's statement that "eilu va'eilu DACh", is by definition wrong. > Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he > doesn't accept the kashrut > Answer: > Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong > Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable It depends whether his concern is legitimate. If there is a legitimate opinion or minhag that forbids or refrains from whatever it is, or if he has a legitimate private chumra, then there is no question that it is assur to be machshil him. But if he is acting out of pure amhoratzus, then one needn't pander to it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 09:45:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 17:45:34 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Avodah: Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:54, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah wrote: > What would be the kilayim status of this combo? > http://www.territorialseed.com/product/grafted-tomtato-ketchup-n-fries/new_for_spring_2015 Though potato and tomato are from the same family, it is clear from mesechte Kilayim, fruit [or animals] that look different are treated as 2 different species. Hence, though the spuds and tomatoes would be permitted to eat - as with any grafted fruit - it would be ossur for a Yid to grow Dovid Rubin From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 10:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 13:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: <55378F6E.2070708@sero.name> References: <55378F6E.2070708@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150422175311.GA11663@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 08:09:18AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : On 04/22/2015 04:40 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : >2) pluralism - there are many truths and one can't decide : : >R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is :> self-contradictory. According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint :> is monism ! : Not true. There are many truths, but not an infinite number. Or, as my : father says, there are 70 panim latorah, but there are also 70 achor. I think RMA is referring to a paradox I've mentioned here once. While in principle, it's possible for a halachic pluralist to not include any halachic monist positions in his spectrum of eilu va'eilu, I do not know of a halachic pluralist who rules out the Rambam. Or a less absolute case of the same paradox: MO Jews will turn to chareidi gedolim for pesaqim despite those gedoim not believing that MO is within eilu va'eilu. So it would seem that to the MO Jew asking the she'eilah, the variant of chareidism that says MO is not within eilu va'eilu, is (in the MO Jew's opinion) itself within EvE! : Strict monism, which rejects the gemara's statement that "eilu va'eilu DACh", : is by definition wrong. Or, understand it in terms of following HQBH's word, as opposed to being right. As per the Rambam or RMF, for example. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 18th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Tifferes: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 balance? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 11:53:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 14:53:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Chilul Hashem of Disrespecting Non-Jews Message-ID: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/kb4v525 This idea connects with something that has bothered me for some time: the wanton, unprovoked use of disparaging, racist comments among our youth. Over the years I have either heard directly or been made aware of many such comments by students. When I asked why they had expressed themselves in this manner, they could offer no meaningful response. All I could glean was that they were apparently parroting similar remarks they had heard elsewhere, without having given much thought to their words. Many of these students had few if any relationships or even interactions with individuals from the groups they were mocking. See the above URL for the entire article. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:32:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 15:32:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Chilul Hashem of Disrespecting Non-Jews In-Reply-To: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150422193201.GD11663@aishdas.org> One of my many pet peeves is the use of "chilul hasheim" to teach ehrlachkeit. It may win the battle -- historically, it hasn't -- but it does so by avoiding the war. Mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro as important as mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro. Derekh eretz is important as Chazal literally call it a prerequisite for Torah. Worrying about the bein adam laMaqom effects of the cheit misses the point. And perhaps the reason why past attempts to change behavior by talking about chillul hasheim haven't worked is that one is not teaching the centrality of ehrlachkeit as a *primary* value. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 18th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Tifferes: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 balance? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:43:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 21:43:09 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <5537F9CD.7000409@zahav.net.il> How did Rav Breuer work to ensure the conditions that "we could feel justified to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? Ben On 4/21/2015 1:32 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > > Again, I have to disagree. I suggest you read Rav Breuer's writings > about EY in the book A Unique Perspective under the heading Eretz Yisroel. > > The proclamation of a Jewish state would bring great joy to all > the members of our people, if conditions were such that we could > feel justified to call it a Kiddush Hashem. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:36:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 15:36:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Avodah: Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150422193627.GE11663@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 05:45:34PM +0100, D via Avodah wrote: : Hence, though the spuds and tomatoes would be permitted to eat - as : with any grafted fruit - it would be ossur for a Yid to grow I think it would be mutar to buy already grafted, and then grow. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:53:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 22:53:04 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Avodah: Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 7:45 PM, D via Avodah wrote: > Though potato and tomato are from the same family, it is clear from > mesechte Kilayim, fruit [or animals] that look different are treated as 2 > different species. > Hence, though the spuds and tomatoes would be permitted to eat - as with > any grafted fruit - it would be ossur for a Yid to grow > Do you mean because the potato and tomato that we eat look different? You're not comparing apples to apples (pun intended). The fruits of a potato plant look very similar to the fruits of a tomato plant! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 13:07:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joel Schnur via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 16:07:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos Message-ID: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> My understanding is that Briskers don't wear a talis katan outside the house on shabbos because the shiur is "ad habirchaim" according to the Gaon as brought in Keser Rosh by talmidei Reb Chaim Voloshiner. And since "until the knees" is a subjective criterion depending upon each person's height, there is no specific "one size fits all" length. Interestingly, Rav Moshe Shternbuch brings a Rav Moshe that says that the source is unreliable and the Gaon never said such a thing. -- ___________________________ Joel Schnur, Senior VP Government Affairs/Public Relations Schnur Associates, Inc. 25 West 45th Street, Suite 1405 New York, NY 10036 Tel. 212-489-0600 x204 Fax. 212-489-0203 joel at schnurassociates.com www.schnurassociates.com http://www.schnurassociates.com/joels-corner/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 14:57:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 17:57:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Chilul Hashem of Disrespecting Non-Jews In-Reply-To: <20150422193201.GD11663@aishdas.org> References: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150422193201.GD11663@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150422215739.6F5F0180576@nexus.stevens.edu> At 03:32 PM 4/22/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >Mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro as important as mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro. I believe that this sentence is wrong. I believe you meant to write that mitzvos bein adam l'Chaveiro are just as important as mitzvos bein adam l'makom. RSRH points out that the Luchos contained 5 mitzvos bein adam l'Chaveiro and 5 mitzvos bein Adam l"Makom on each side, and that both sides of the Luchos were the same size! >Derekh eretz is important as Chazal literally call it a prerequisite >for Torah. And hence may one deduce that those who do not have proper Derech Eretz do not have Torah? If so, then I guess we should not be surprised at the actions of some so-called Jews that are a Chilul Hashem. They do not have any Torah. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 13:46:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 20:46:08 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos In-Reply-To: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> References: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> Message-ID: <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> On Wednesday, April 22, 2015 3:33 PM, Joel Schnur wrote: > My understanding is that Briskers don't wear a talis katan outside the > house on shabbos because the shiur is "ad habirchaim" according to the > Gaon as brought in Keser Rosh by talmidei Reb Chaim Voloshiner.... > Interestingly, Rav Moshe Shternbuch brings a Rav Moshe that says that > the source is unreliable and the Gaon never said such a thing. The reason that Briskers don't where Tzitzes on Shabbos is because they are Choshesh for the Shita of the Baal HaMeor who says that Techiels is Me'akev the Lavan. As such -- by wearing these now unnecessary 'strings' in Reshus Harabim they will be Oveir the Lav of Hotza'ah on Shabbos, an Issur D'Oraisa and a capital offense. Inetrestingly, accroding to the Baal HaMeor, wearing a Beged of Daled Kanfos using Tzitzs without Techiles is a violation -- same as if he were wearing it without Tzitzis at all. I'm told that the Gra did not wear a woolen Beged for his Talis Katan for that reason. Because wool has a Chiuv D'Oraisa for Tzitzs whereas cotton is only D'Rabbanan. HM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 17:05:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 20:05:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <5537F9CD.7000409@zahav.net.il> References: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> <5537F9CD.7000409@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <5538373F.4000900@aishdas.org> On 04/22/2015 03:43 PM, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: > On 4/21/2015 1:32 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: >> Again, I have to disagree. I suggest you read Rav Breuer's writings >> about EY in the book A Unique Perspective under the heading Eretz >> Yisroel. >> The proclamation of a Jewish state would bring great joy to all >> the members of our people, if conditions were such that we could >> feel justified to call it a Kiddush Hashem. > How did Rav Breuer work to ensure the conditions that "we could feel > justified to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? He thought his late brother's Poalei Agudah might accomplish it. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 03:06:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 06:06:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos In-Reply-To: <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> References: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20150423100635.GA26841@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 08:46:08PM +0000, Harry Maryles via Avodah wrote: : The reason that Briskers don't where Tzitzes on Shabbos is because they : are Choshesh for the Shita of the Baal HaMeor who says that Techiels is : Me'akev the Lavan. : : As such -- by wearing these now unnecessary 'strings' in Reshus Harabim : they will be Oveir the Lav of Hotza'ah on Shabbos... In the opening post, I referred to the BhM's reason. Since there appears to be interest, I will spell it out. The mishnah (Menachos 4:1, 38a) says that techeiles is not me'aqeves the lavan, and v.v. Seems kind of open and shut, and that's what we hold lehalakhah. And so R' Yitzchaq says that R Yochanan ben Nuri says (beraisa , quoted on 39b) that if you have no tekheiles, you make all strings lavan. But, Rebbe is choleiq, and says the mishnah means sequence. Normally the lavan strings have to be put on first, or on a tekheiles garment, the tekheiles string first. And the mishnah is saying that if you put on the other color first, it's not me'aqeiv. According to Rebbe, though, you can't be yotzei without putting on tekheiles altogether. Getting to this understanding of the mishnah is an amud lonq chaqla vetarya in which Levi, Shemu'el and Rami bar Chama defend Rebbe's position. : Interestingly, according to the Baal HaMeor, wearing a Beged of Daled : Kanfos using Tzitzs without Techiles is a violation -- same as if he : were wearing it without Tzitzis at all. Not really. It's an asei, not a lav. So, if tekheiles truly is unavailable, why wouldn't it be mutar, if pointless? However, if you feel there is any possibility whatsoever that the murex derived dye is indeed tekheiles, safeiq de'oraisa lechumerah would force one to choose between not wearing tzitzis and wearing the dye. And there are those who hold it's garua to wear invalid dye, so combine the shitos right, and the discovery of a possible tekheiles would make it better not to wear tzitzis. IF we held like the BhM. But not even Briskers do, me'iqar hadin -- they are merely chosheish for his position as a chumerah. : I'm told that the Gra did not wear a woolen Beged for his Talis Katan : for that reason. Because wool has a Chiuv D'Oraisa for Tzitzs whereas : cotton is only D'Rabbanan. As usual for the Gra -- clever! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 19th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Tifferes: When does harmony promote Fax: (270) 514-1507 withdrawal and submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 02:45:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Allan Engel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 10:45:42 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos In-Reply-To: <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> References: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: So what was his Tallis Godol made of? On 22 April 2015 at 21:46, Harry Maryles via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote:. > > > Inetrestingly, accroding to the Baal HaMeor, wearing a Beged of Daled > Kanfos using Tzitzs without Techiles is a violation -- same as if he > were wearing it without Tzitzis at all. > > I'm told that the Gra did not wear a woolen Beged for his Talis Katan > for that reason. Because wool has a Chiuv D'Oraisa for Tzitzs whereas > cotton is only D'Rabbanan. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 05:07:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 12:07:10 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >> R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is self-contradictory. >> According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint is monism ! ... > Strict monism, which rejects the gemara's statement that "eilu va'eilu > DACh", is by definition wrong. Monism doesn't reject the gemara just interprets it different That was the shiur >> Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he >> doesn't accept the kashrut >> Answer: >> Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong >> Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable > It depends whether his concern is legitimate. If there is a legitimate > opinion or minhag that forbids or refrains from whatever it is, or if he > has a legitimate private chumra, then there is no question that it is assur > to be machshil him. No question is your opinion a true monist Would argue that there are no other legitimate opinions hence the other is wrong and you are not machshil him [Email #2, also in reply to this latter quote. -micha] You are not being machshil by offering food that he won't eat because of his minhag or chumrot you are mikayem shalach Manot even if he doesn't accept the kashrut From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 09:11:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 12:11:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L Message-ID: <20150423161105.DF2701836D1@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:13 AM 4/23/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: >How did Rav Breuer work to ensure the conditions that "we could feel >justified to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? I really have no specifics. but I do know that Rav Breuer was busy here in the US building a model Kehilla and educating Baalei Batim. I know that some of those from his Kehilla did move to EY. In particular, I know one person who was a professional and a follower of TIDE who moved to EY. I am sure that he did whatever he could to strengthen Yahadus in EY. But let me ask a related question. What are the observant now living in EY doing "to ensure the conditions that 'we could feel justifies to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 09:49:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 12:49:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55392297.20909@sero.name> On 04/23/2015 08:07 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > >>> >>Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he >>> >>doesn't accept the kashrut >>> >>Answer: >>> >>Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong >>> >>Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable >> >It depends whether his concern is legitimate. If there is a legitimate >> >opinion or minhag that forbids or refrains from whatever it is, or if he >> >has a legitimate private chumra, then there is no question that it is assur >> >to be machshil him. > No question is your opinion a true monist > Would argue that there are no other legitimate opinions hence the other > is wrong and you are not machshil him Even if there is only one truth, you don't necessarily know for sure what it is. You make your best guess, but someone else makes his, and for all you know he may have hit on the truth, even if only by accident, while you, with all your careful analysis of the evidence, may have been led astray. Let's take medicine, where there really is only one truth, but often we don't know for sure what it is. Does gluten in the diet negatively affect the health of most normal people? There doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence for that proposition, but it can't be ruled out. Maybe in 20 years we will observe that those who have followed the gluten-free fad really are healthier, and someone will discover how it is that gluten harms a person. Or maybe it will be established that it's exactly the mishguas that it appears to be. But until then we are just guessing, and if you hold that it's a mishugas but someone else is worried about it, you have to consider the possibility that he may be right, and by tricking him into eating gluten you may actually be harming him. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 10:54:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 17:54:52 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] A Papal Honor for an Orthodox Rabbi. Message-ID: <393104521.3643892.1429811692300.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> JTA is reporting that Pope Francis will be bestowing Papal Knighthood upon Rabbi Arthur Schneier (who I believe is an Orthodox Rabbi) for (among other things) his work in promoting a positive relationship with the Church. According to JTA,?Schneier will formally become a knight of Saint Sylvester at a ceremony on April 27.Isn't there a Halachic probelm with this? It would seem to me that becoming a 'knight' in the Catholic church ?would at least be Avak Avodah Zara - even though it is just honorary? HM??Want Emes and Emunah in your life? Try this: http://haemtza.blogspot.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 16:14:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 19:14:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early Message-ID: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin (or ate the food already, the food went bad, etc...) who for some reason can not rely on the rabbi's communal failsafe eruv (perhaps he isn't in a neighborhood with an observant community) do for lighting Shabbos candles? So, the BY (OC 537:19) permits, but he says "veyeish oserin". The AhS (se'if 28) names the oserim as the Rosh and the Ran, and that the SA names the Rambam (via a diyuq halashon)as his source lehatir. The AhS then questions the diyuq, but says it should be allowed anyway, since one gets hana'ah from the neiros while on YT too. So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, ones you used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making a berakhah on? Yes, there is light for enjoying the Shabbos meal, all the same shalom bayis. But there is no actual pe'ulah to make the berakhah on. Is there? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 19th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Tifferes: When does harmony promote Fax: (270) 514-1507 withdrawal and submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 16:21:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Daniel M. Israel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 16:21:06 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> References: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <33e302272e45c742ee54349bcfddc40a@kolberamah.org> On 2015-04-23 16:14, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin... > ... do for lighting Shabbos candles? > So, the BY (OC 537:19) permits... The AhS > then questions the diyuq, but says it should be allowed anyway, since > one gets hana'ah from the neiros while on YT too. > So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, ones you > used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making a berakhah on? Off the cuff hypothesis: Perhaps for the one lighting, it becomes Shabbos immediately, so the hadlakah is for Shabbos and there is a beracha. But for others in the house, they likely don't take on Shabbos until davening, and therefor they enjoy it on YT. Which would be enough to matir her lighting them. But I have no source. -- Daniel Israel dmi1 at cornell.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 16:27:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 19:27:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: <33e302272e45c742ee54349bcfddc40a@kolberamah.org> References: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> <33e302272e45c742ee54349bcfddc40a@kolberamah.org> Message-ID: <20150423232727.GB23492@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 04:21:06PM -0700, Daniel M. Israel wrote: : Perhaps for the one lighting, it becomes Shabbos immediately, so the : hadlakah is for Shabbos and there is a beracha. But for others in the : house, they likely don't take on Shabbos until davening, and therefor : they enjoy it on YT. Which would be enough to matir her lighting them. Not bad, if we don't read too much into the AhS not limiting this solution to cases where the candle-lighter isn't alone in the home. Nor does he mention having to use candles lit after pelag, nor her making a berakhah upon lighting and having an issur melakhah... Could be, but I find it dachuq. -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 17:58:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2015 00:58:48 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early Message-ID: <20150423.205848.16124.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger asked: > What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin (or > ate the food already, the food went bad, etc...) who for some > reason can not rely on the rabbi's communal failsafe eruv > (perhaps he isn't in a neighborhood with an observant community) > do for lighting Shabbos candles? Another problem this person will have is what to eat on Shabbos. There are several ideas offered by the poskim, and one of them is to cook extra food on Yom Tov, and the extra will be for Shabbos. This can be done even without an Eiruv Tavshilin, IIRC, because the melacha is not being done exclusively for Shabbos. > So, the BY (OC 537:19) [that should be 527:19 - Akiva] permits, > but he says "veyeish oserin". The AhS (se'if 28) names the oserim > as the Rosh and the Ran, and that the SA names the Rambam (via a > diyuq halashon)as his source lehatir. The AhS then questions the > diyuq, but says it should be allowed anyway, since one gets > hana'ah from the neiros while on YT too. This sounds to me the same as above. The lighting is not being done exclusively for Shabbos, and therefore may be done on YT. I would note that at no point in that se'if, does the AhS explicitly refers to the *mitzvah* of lighting Shabbos neros. Rather, his focus is on the practical need to light them in the late afternoon, both because it is *already* getting dark and hard to see without some artifical light, and because we won't be able to light anything later on. Truth be told, if lighting Shabbos candles is allowed only with an Eruv Tavshilin, then this whole se'if is needed even for a person who DID remember to make an Eruv, because (l'chatchila) one must do his Shabbos preparations early in the day, in a manner in which the melacha is -- or at least *could* be -- for tzorchei Yom Tov, and not exclusively for Shabbos. > So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, > ones you used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making > a berakhah on? Yes, there is light for enjoying the Shabbos meal, > all the same shalom bayis. But there is no actual pe'ulah to make > the berakhah on. Is there? I don't know where you see anything like this in the AhS. The AhS is explicitly talking about lighting after mincha, when it is already dark and the light is already useful. I concede that perhaps one should omit the bracha, because it explicitly declares one's intentions to be of a hachana nature, but that is a separate question not raised by the AhS. The main point I want to make in this paragraph is that the AhS never suggested that one might be yotzay Mitzvas Ner Shabbos via the candle that he lit in the early afternoon; it must be lit after Plag, with the intention that it will be burning into Shabbos. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55399563ca1dd156333b3st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 23:18:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2015 02:18:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Turning Jealousy into Progress Message-ID: Envy - Jealousy ? Kin?ah ? is an obvious theme for Parshas Mtzora. Paraphrasing freely (from L?chai Ro?-EY page 184), Midrash Tehillim/Shochar Tov on 37:1 parallel of TiTCHaR and TeKaNNEi. Do not fall victim to despondence those plotting evil, do not emulate those who succeed in career of crime. Rashi BMiDBar 25:11 neatly ties both into a General Theory of Jealousy. KoL LaSHON KiNAH HU HaMiTCHaReH LiNKom NiKMaS DaVaR. Rashi?s keyword is worth a thousand words. Rashi expects that we know Tanach and Midrash references. To catch Rashi?s nuance, always, I consult my paper Milon Gur [also in HebrewBooks.com]. HaMiTCHaReH is the exotic addition to our vocabulary. My trusty dictionary comes through here. Milon Gur pages 310 311 on CHaRaH: CHaRaH intransitive verb, showing outwardly as Ca_US or KaTZUF. ? foaming and frothing anger, against a traitor or hated enemy. determination to avenge and restore the Balance of Justice. HiTLaHeiV burning simmering anger, pressure like volcanic eruption. Hashem to Yonah ? are you truly upset ? HaHeYTeiV CHaRaH LCHa YoNaH? Divine CHaRON AF boiling or simmering anger is satisfied only by repentance, not by punishment. CHaRUCHA [burnt like over done fire-roast, long term anger leads to burn-through and burn-out. CHaRUL thorny tangle Milon Gur page 1088 McharCher RIV ? drum up strife and enmity CHaRCHuR ? disease of loss of muscle and strength. MChaRCHer Riv, CharumAf [nose ?bent out of shape? inset into face] and for Tacharut as resentment destroyed relationship. Rashi in Machzor Vitri 148 uses CHeReTZ in a unique way. Hashem jealously and with energy demands perfection from the world. Why does the Creator demand perfection? Rashi believes that Hashem cares strongly about the world. When the Adam attempts to be good, but falls short, He uses Rachamim, parenting skills, looking to the potential of ?You will worship Elokim on this mountain?. identification with the world demands perfection. When the world tries but falls short, fails to perform, Hashem uses Rachamim, flexibility, patience, empathy. He settles for potential. When the world rebels against Hashem, refuses to acknowledge Him at all, or mocking Him, rejecting their Father, breaking up the family, then there is Charon Af, red faced simmering anger. Rav Avraham Ruby authored the ?Tzilusa DiShmaata? series, focusing on chapters of the Baba-s routinely learnt Afternoon Seder which are master-works of Lamdus. Rav Moshe Shmuel Shapiro of Be?eir Yaakov was a talented teacher, and R? Ruby is an extremely able student. This year R? Ruby has turned his talents to creating the same sort of succinct and sharp presentation on Chumash.[L?chai Ro?-EY on Vayikra, self published 5775, contact me.]. Each Parsha offers an eclectic collection of solid sources. The organization is always unique and refreshing. L?chai Ro?-EY 185 shows the constructive power of ambition. Identity, membership,self-image, pride, place in society are all motivators of constructive behavior. Kinah jealousy is secondary, when there is an insult or threat to Hashem?s identity, or the individual?s. Ideally our self-image should include praise of Hashem and hatred of all insults against the Honor of Hashem. Only live in a town with Jewish services, and help create them. Your material ambitions include the dimension of Mitzvos and Kidush Hashem. A higher level of identity, ambition and constructive jealousy is aspiring to your neighbor?s higher spiritual levels. Even the Heavenly angels and even Avraham Avinu found mentors to emulate. Of course, the type of destructive strife we often see has other roots. Building a Jewish family is much easier with stronger spiritual models. -- David Wacholder Cell: 917-742-7838 Email: dwacholder at gmail.com dwacholder at optonline.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 24 08:42:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2015 11:42:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Beautiful Vort Message-ID: I recently came upon the following, listening to a hesped for Rabbi Mordechai Fachler zt?l, who was nift?r in November 2010. The hesped (one of many for Rav Fachler) was delivered by Rabbi Moshe Shirkin of England. This is just one part that caught my attention and was very touching. In previous generations the g?dolei Yisroel were discussing what?s the function of a Rav? The Rosh Yeshiva in Grodna (at the time) said the task of the Rav is to give shiurim. The Rav of Kovna, poisek oilam, said the task of the Rav is to pasken shailas. They came to Reb Chayim of Brisk and asked him what is the task of the Rav. His impressive response was: To give shiurim, you have a Rosh Yeshiva. To pasken shailas, you have a dayan. The task of the Rav is to do chesed with his oilam. A clergyman comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comfortable. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Apr 25 12:31:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 25 Apr 2015 21:31:27 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150423161105.DF2701836D1@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150423161105.DF2701836D1@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <553BEB8F.8040802@zahav.net.il> On 4/23/2015 6:11 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > But let me ask a related question. What are the observant now living > in EY doing "to ensure the conditions that 'we could feel justifies > to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? I gave an answer on Areivim, but I saw a couple of things on Shabbat which warrant an Avodah response. The first is from Yoma 86:A, Rashi, B'Amor Lehem (my translation): "Evil comes to chassidim and chachamim because "They desecrated My Holy name" (note: Rashi is of course assuming that they didn't do any particular sin to warrant what happened to them). How did they desecrate (God's name)? In those places to where they were exiled, the non-Jews say "These are the people of God" and He can't redeem them. Conclusion: God's name has been desecrated." End quote. Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem. Rav Soloveitch tz"l wrote about this point in Kol Dodi Dofek and in his drashot for the Kinot, as did Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook tz"l. However, I don't want to leave it at that. Rav Cherki (father of Shalom HY"D) wrote the following in this week's Shabbat B'shabato: "And this leads us to a moral question: How can it be that with respect to the most significant event in all of history, the redemption, the existence or lack of good deeds has no effect at all? This tension between the inevitability of redemption and arbitrary choices made by man is what makes it necessary for the nation of Yisrael to observe all the mitzvot in detail, in order to avoid creating a dissonance between the need for justice (which appears in the covenant in the Torah portion of Bechukotai) and the values of the path of unification, which insists that G-d is always working to glorify His name, no matter what else is happening. And that is why the Haftarah ends with the adamant demand of the Holy One, Blessed be He: "I am your G-d. Follow My laws and maintain My just actions and perform them, and sanctify my Shabbat and let it be a symbol between Me and you, in order to know that I am your G-d." [Yechezkel 20:19-20]." No one, not the most hard core DL around, says that there is nothing wrong with the State, that there isn't what that needs changing, from the level of how people get on a bus to the national agenda. In his hesped, Rav Cherki mentioned that his son Shalom went to the navy to help start a hesder unit for the navy, even though he knew that the religious level in the navy wasn't as high as it was in other units. He went there for the greater good, to help make the IDF a bit more Torah oriented, period. Rav Cherki went on to say that the answer to Shalom's murder was to add Kiddush HaShem. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 13:28:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 20:28:49 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lashon Hara and the Internet Message-ID: <20150426.162849.2967.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> On Areivim, there were some posts speaking about the residents of a certain area or areas. Someone commented: > I'm a little surprised at this exchange. Sefer Chafetz Chaim is > pretty clear about not saying loshen hara on a place or the > residents of a place. Someone else responded: > I am no expert on what is LH and what is not, but with the Internet > I think that some of the halachos probably do not apply to today's > world. Find me a sefer that deals with LH and the Internet, and > then we will talk. I too am no expert in Sefer Chafetz Chaim, but I clearly remember it talking about Lashon Hara via the written word, such as in personal letters to friends and relatives, or by publishing books and newspapers. Can someone find those sources and tell us where they are? I find it difficult to imagine that today's world is so different from that of a hundred years ago "that some of the halachos probably do not apply to today's world." But without quoting actual sources, it's simply a case of my imagination vs that of the other poster. So I am hoping that someone can help with the source material, "and then we will talk." Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553d4ab51dc554ab54c25st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 15:02:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 18:02:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] YIDDISHKEIT WITHOUT IDEOLOGY: A LETTER TO My SON Message-ID: <20150426220229.D93E41836B2@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://traditionarchive.org/news/originals/Volume%2036/No.%202/Yiddishkeit%20Without.pdf Let me be absolutely clear: where the demands of halacha are unambiguous, you must submit to them. But how does one navigate between much less well-defined traditional attitudes and strong personal inclinations? When I was your age I didn't know the answer-I still don't-but one proposition that seemed self-evident to me at the time was that it was essential to be consistent. In other words, I felt that I had to some- how make sure that the way I defined Yiddishkeit and the way I defined my commitments given my own inclinations would be perfectly aligned. I'm now convinced that that commitment to consistency was utter- ly wrong-headed and is the key to all that is wrong with institutional Yiddishkeit. I shouldn't have been defining either Yiddishkeit or my commitments at al. To do so is to reduce Yiddishkeit to ideology which is exactly what it is not. See the above UL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 16:54:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 19:54:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150426235424.BD633182CE0@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:52 PM 4/26/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: I gave an answer on Areivim, but I saw a couple of things on Shabbat which warrant an Avodah response. The first is from Yoma 86:A, Rashi, B'Amor Lehem (my translation): "Evil comes to chassidim and chachamim because "They desecrated My Holy name" (note: Rashi is of course assuming that they didn't do any particular sin to warrant what happened to them). How did they desecrate (God's name)? In those places to where they were exiled, the non-Jews say "These are the people of God" and He can't redeem them. Conclusion: God's name has been desecrated." End quote. >Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem. >Rav Soloveitch tz"l wrote about this point in Kol Dodi Dofek and in his >drashot for the Kinot, as did Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook tz"l. We all know that there were great Torah scholars who disagreed with the assertion that " the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." to name just 3, the Satmar Rebbe, Rav Breuer, and Rav Schwab. They were also most certainly familiar with the gemara you quote and the RASHI. If you had written, "Therefore, according to some Torah scholars the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." I would not disagree. However, your blanket statement, "Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." is IMO is not valid. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 12:36:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Jay F. Shachter via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 19:36:27 +0000 (WET DST) Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: from "via Avodah" at Apr 26, 2015 03:52:29 pm Message-ID: <14300949890.C90dE41.4028@m5.chicago.il.us> > > What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin (or ate > the food already, the food went bad, etc...) who for some reason can > not rely on the rabbi's communal failsafe eruv (perhaps he isn't in > a neighborhood with an observant community) do for lighting Shabbos > candles? > You light one candle, after plag hamminxa of course, and you say the appropriate brakha, lhadliq ner shel shabbath. You don't need an `eruv tavshilin to light one candle, because the Rabbinic prohibition of performing mlakha on Yom Tov for Shabbath was not intended to override the Rabbinic commandment of lighting one candle for use on Shabbath. Since (unlike in ancient times, and unlike a hundred years ago also) you don't need to have candles burning on Shabbath for their light, because you already have electric lights in your house that will stay on, or that will come on, during Shabbath, you therefore have no reason to light more than one candle (except for minhag, which you can dispense with when needed), so you don't. One candle is the Rabbinic commandment. Lighting two candles is a recent frumkeit, or yhiruth, that started among German Jews and is less than 900 years old. Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter 6424 N Whipple St Chicago IL 60645-4111 (1-773)7613784 landline (1-410)9964737 GoogleVoice jay at m5.chicago.il.us http://m5.chicago.il.us "The umbrella of the gardener's aunt is in the house" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 04:58:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 12:58:34 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001901d080e1$7d6fcbe0$784f63a0$@org.uk> RMB wrote: <> As I have written before, what I find intensely frustrating about this is that RYBS's invocation of tan du appears to itself involve a form of tampering with the chazakos and by implication the denial of the perfection and truthfulness of chachmei chazal that is then claimed to be kefira. The gemora in discussing tan du is very clear - both in Yevamos 118b and Kesuvos 75a: a woman in a tan du marriage commits adultery - "kulan mezanos"! - THAT is the chazaka from Chazal regarding the nature of women. Now this could mean: (a) the sort of woman who is prepared to enter a tan du marriage is prepared to and will commit adultery; or (b) all women will take a tan du marriage (RYBS), but if they find themselves in a tan du marriage - the existential loneliness that RYBS identifies as being the particular province of women will also, according to Chazal, inevitably drive them to adultery; But you can't get away from the fact that Chazal set this up as a chazaka. And if you take these chazakos in the way that RYBS says to do, then there are inevitable conclusions: A Beis Din faced with what can now clearly be seen as a tan du marriage HAS to assume adultery as a consequence - that being the chazaka. If you hold that these statements of Chazal are perhaps limited in time and place to the times of Chazal, and the nature of women then, then we cannot necessarily generalise to today, and despite a woman today being demonstratably in a tan du marriage, one cannot necessarily jump to conclusions regarding her faithfulness. But if these chazakos are immutable - then the only question must surely be, was there the possibility of adultery - and given the freedom of movement of women today, I do not see how anybody can say that opportunity was not available. Therefore the result, and the consequence for the marriage, was a foregone conclusion. A beis din, if it does not treat this marriage as a mekach taus (because the woman is one who would not have entered a tan du marriage), has to treat it as one in which the woman has committed adultery and is therefore forbidden to her husband, and under which the husband is clearly under a Torah obligation to divorce, according to all opinions ("dvar erva"). And yet note that there is none of this in RBYS's analysis. Women's loneliness and spiritual pain, yes - a full facing of the consequences of what is therefore, according to Chazal, endemic in our society and in the nature of Bnos Yisroel, no. There is a complete glossing over of the fundamental conclusion by Chazal regarding the consequence of a tan du marriage. And yet how can you write about tan du as an absolute immutable principle and yet not mention what, according to Chazal, is the cast iron result of that absolute immutable principl? Note by the way that this chazaka, if indeed it is immutable in the nature of women, has another consequence. Given that having women commit adultery is clearly (how shall I put this mildly) a highly destructive thing for society - having women enter into marriages where this is the inevitable consequence is a very bad thing. Surely any Rabbi who is mesader kedushin at such a wedding, any eidim at such a wedding, etc have as a matter of fact engaged in lifnei iver lo titen michshol in the full biblical sense. This isn't, according to Chazal, a maybe or a possibility, this is an inevitability. Surely it is obligatory on any Rabbi who agrees to be mesader kiddushin and on any shadchanim and eidim to investigate very carefully that this marriage is not of the tan du nature? That is if, as Rav Lichtenstein is quoted as saying "given the clear cut evidence in the Rishonim in Yevamot and other places in Shas which clearly indicated that this hazaka was not one that applied in all contexts and at all times and in all situations" - then these concerns would be significantly diminished. After all, any marriage presented to a mesader kedushin would then at the very least be a sfek sfeka - perhaps this isn't a tan du marriage, and if it is, perhaps the woman might not commit adultery. But if it is an inevitable chazaka that a woman in a tan du marriage will commit adultery, then there is only one safek in relation to a serious issur d'orisa - in which case must it not be the responsibility of all those who enable such a marriage to occur to make sure that it is not a tan du marriage and they are not enabling such adultery to take place? To my mind, indeed, that is precisely what Chazal were really getting at. A genuine acknowledgement that - at least in some societies and some environments, women are pressured into inappropriate marriages and give in to that pressure. And that where a woman does indeed give in to such an inappropriate marriage, the consequences are really, really bad for the general society and we need all to be on guard to try and prevent such marriages occurring. That to me demonstrates far more clearly the "perfection and truthfulness of Chazal" than trying to squish them in to some metaphysical understanding of womenkind that does not reverberate as true to many. But if one is going to apply this particular analysis to this particular statement of Chazal, it would seem important to do it honestly while facing the totality of what it is that Chazal actually said. >-Micha Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 11:00:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 18:00:12 GMT Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabal as Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150427.140012.4336.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Rav YB Soloveitchik zt"l was quoted: > ... Let us take for example the chazaka that I was told > about: the chazaka tav l'meisiv tan du mil'meisiv armalo > [20] has absolutely nothing to do with the social and > political status of women in antiquity. This chazaka is > based not upon sociological factors, but upon a verse in > breishis -- harba arbeh itz'voneich v'heironeich b'etzev > teildi vanim v'el isheich t'shukaseich v'hu yimshal bach > -- "I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy travail; in > pain thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall > be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee" [21]. It > is a metaphysical curse rooted in the feminine personality > -- she suffers incomparably more that the male who is in > solitude. Solitude to the male is not as terrible an > experience, as horrifying an experience, as is solitude to > the woman. And this will never change, mayid shamayim > vaaretz [22]. This is not a psychological fact; it is an > existential fact, ... In our discussions of this idea, that the chazaka is "an existential fact" and "based not upon sociological factors", there seems to be a general assumption that the Rav was speaking of ALL chazakos. However, it seems possible to me, or perhaps even likely, that he was singling this chazaka out as different from others. Note that he does not merely assert this chazaka to be existential, but he cites a pasuk as proof. To me, this is significant, because we would then be allowed to treat any NON-pasuk-based chazaka as sociological. I don't know what implications this might have for the chazaka of extramarital relations that R"n Chana Luntz mentioned, or for any other chazakos, but I wanted to mention it in case anyone else wants to comment. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553e7973421b079735cf5st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 14:53:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 17:53:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabal as Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150427.140012.4336.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150427.140012.4336.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150427215316.GA27558@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 06:00:12PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : In our discussions of this idea, that the chazaka is "an existential : fact" and "based not upon sociological factors", there seems to be a : general assumption that the Rav was speaking of ALL chazakos. However, : it seems possible to me, or perhaps even likely, that he was singling : this chazaka out as different from others. I suggested a third possiliblity. The shiur was all about Talmud Torah and Qabbalas Ol Malkhus Shamayim. This was a couple of off topic lines in what was basically a complaint that RER didn't respect the halachic process (as RYBS saw it). RAL reports that this was RYBS's primary argument against RER's beis din; I am suggesting that this quick assertion was an example of that argument, not an independent second reason to reject. It fits better as an efshar lomar than an actual assertion. How do you know you can simply repeal this chazaqah? What if it's an existential statement about the human condition; is it, after all, mentioned in a pasuq! Not so much that tav lemeisav was necessarily an existential and unchanging fact, but that it could be. That one can't simply reason in a vacuum and buck the trend of millennia of pesaq. But in any case, RYBS did say it belashon rabbim: "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above. Let us take for example the chazaka that I was told about: the chazaka tav l'meisiv tan du...." RYBS discusses tav lemeisiv as an example of a general principle not to tamper with chazaqos. Not as a single case. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 23rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Netzach: How does my domination Fax: (270) 514-1507 stifle others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 11:10:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 14:10:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A Halachik analysis of the kosher status of vitamins and medicines. Message-ID: <20150427181040.6E1171834B6@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/osf4fh7 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 12:51:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 21:51:46 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150426235424.BD633182CE0@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150426235424.BD633182CE0@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <553E9352.3030802@zahav.net.il> 1) I have to admit I don't get your answer. You asked in what way could the state be considered a Kiddush Hashem and I gave you an answer. Now you reply that various rabbis wouldn't agree with that answer. Ok, but az mah? 2) The Satmar Rebbe wouldn't have said that anything about the state is a Kiddush Hashem, no matter what it did, so I don't understand why you included him. 3) Lastly, the reply that you gave reminds me of something that Rav AY Kook wrote in Orot, Orot HaTechiya, Chapter 20. He was addressing the question of whether or not the religious should join forces with the non-religious in order to work together for the Zionist cause. Rav Kook used the story of the two women claiming to be the mother of a baby as example of people revealing their true intentions. The woman who agreed that the baby should be cut in half was in effect saying (according to RK) that there shouldn't be babies. She used others claims as way of hiding her true intent, but when the decisive moment came, the truth came out. Meaning - was the demand that the religious not work with the secular the issue or was that a cover story used to mask people's opposition to Zionism? Or in this case, is the demand that the creation of the state be a Kiddush HaShem in the eyes of all rabbanim a real demand or is it simply a cover? If the Breuer community want the state to reflect certain values, than please, make it happen. If they don't want to make it happen or aren't willing, than the demand is (at best) an exercise in dissimulation. Ben On 4/27/2015 1:54 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > We all know that there were great Torah scholars who disagreed with the assertion that " the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." to name just 3, the Satmar Rebbe, Rav Breuer, and Rav Schwab. They were also most certainly familiar with the gemara you quote and the RASHI. > > If you had written, "Therefore, according to some Torah scholars the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." I would not disagree. However, your blanket statement, "Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." is IMO is not valid. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 14:59:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 22:59:07 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] ashkenazi married to sefardi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003e01d08135$629ef9e0$27dceda0$@org.uk> RET writes: <> Note that the Bnei Banim in Chelek 3 siman 29 brings an objection to this position of RMF, based on the Rema in Even HaEzer siman 75 si'if 1. The discussion there is regarding the situation where the man literally comes from one country and the woman comes from another, who can force whom to move? And while the majority of the rishonim (including the Tashbetz) hold (absent special considerations such as Eretz Yisrael versus non Eretz Yisrael) that the man can force the woman to move to his country, Rabbanu Tam holds the opposite, that the woman can force the man to move. And the Rema holds l'halacha that we should be choshesh for the position of Rabbanu Tam, and hence neither can force the other to move. The Bnei Banim points out that if one cannot force the wife to physically move to the locale of the husband, l'halacha, how can she be considered to have moved to his place by mere dint of the marriage? After all, if she has in fact, halachically, moved to his place by entering the chuppah, what possible objection can there possibly be to her being made to up sticks and actually go to his country, Rabbanu Tam or no Rabbanu Tam? So while the Tashbez is in fact being consistent - being a rishon who holds that in fact she is required to physically move to the husband's country, the Bene Banim argues that by being choshesh for Rabbanu Tam, the Rema is clearly not poskening like RMF and the Tashbetz. The Bene Banim also discusses other arguments brought by the Tashbetz (such as ishto k'gufo) - but again rejects this, given that a woman does not take over her husband's chiyuvim and nedarim (with the possible exception of Channukah Candles). >In addition ROY states a similar psak in several places. One can argue that ROY is in a stronger position than RMF, on the grounds that he solely follows the Mechaber, and hence not the Rema, and might hold that one can force a country change. The Bnei Banim also brings, however, that while ROY comes out straightforwardly like the Tashbetz in Yabiat Omer chelek 5 siman 37 (there he is discussing an Ashkenazi woman who married a Sephardi man and whether she can eat rice on Pesach - answer of course, yes), in Or Torah Iyar 4751 ROY writes (quotation taken from the Bene Banim, I don't have access to the original): ?????? ??? ???? ????? ????? ????? ?????? ?????? ???? ??????? ????? ?????? ??? ????? ????? ???? ??? ???? ?? ?"? ????, ?? ???? ??????? ???? ???? ???? ?????? ???? ????? ????? ???? ?' ?? ?????? ????? ???? )??? ?' ???? ?"?(. ??? ?????? ???? ???? ?? ???? ??? ???? ???? ????? ?? ??? ????, ??? ??? ???? ????? ????? ????? ???? ???? ???? ???? ????? ???? ????? ????? ???? ?? ?? ?? ?????. ???? ?? ?????? ?????? ?????? ???? ????? ????? ????? ??, ????? ?? ???? ????? ?? ????. ??? ?? ?? ????? ????? ??? ??? ????? ??? ????? ????? ????? ?????. ???? ???? ???? ??????, ?? ??? ????? ?? ???? ?????? ???? ????? ????? ???? ????? ??? ???? ????? ?? ??? ?????? ????, ??? ??? ????? ???? ???? ????? ??? ?????? ??? ??????? ??? ????? ????? ???"?. ??? ??? ???? ???? ?????? ???????? ?????? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ?? ??? ??? "??? ???" ???? ?? ???, ????? ????? ?? ???? " customs that are required of the husband of necessity because of the tradition of his fathers like the Sephardim who accepted on themselves the rulings of Maran [the Shulchan Aruch] and are not able to be lenient against his opinion even by way of hatarah, it is required of an Ashkenazi woman to go after her husband and even to conduct herself leniently like the custom of her husband like that which I wrote in Yabiat Omer (chelek 5 siman 37). But stringencies that the husband has placed on himself that if he wants he is able to nullify them by way of hatarah, there is no need for the woman to conduct herself like him and he is not able to force on her a stringency that she does not want to accept as there is to her on whom to rely. Therefore if she wants to continue to use Tenuva milk she is able to do this, and the husband if he wants can be stringent upon himself. But not use any form of compulsion that also she be stringent that there not enter their house the products of Tenuva. And this is the law with the fruit of shmitta, if she relies on the heter mechira since there are many great ones of the world who hold to leniency she is also able to continue to be lenient, and so she is not forced to accept upon herself the stringency of not using products which do not have on them the hashgacha of the Badatz. And if the husband is not able to continue his stringencies when the woman does not want to accept he should do hatarah on that which he did not say ?bli neder? and be lenient also he, as great is the peace of a house." The Bnei Banim notes however that ROY does not bring any lamdus to defend the distinction he makes here between longstanding community customs (such as rice on pesach or glatt meat) and more recent customs - such as not eating Tenuva or relying on the heter mechira. To expand on this comment of the Bnei Banim, one might say that if you base the reason for a woman taking on the customs of the husband because she moves to his place, why should it make a difference whether the customs he has established in his place are longstanding ones, such as eating rice on pesach, or not using the products of Tenuva? The customs of his place are the customs of his place. And yet ROY is, in this, reflecting a common (if perhaps inconsistent) practice. In all the debate regarding husbands not using the eruv and relying on their wives doing so, and how it shows a lack of derech eretz etc, nobody suggests that actually it is assur for the wife to use the eruv, on the grounds that she has moved to the husband's place, and his custom is not to do so, and so she is stuck with the stringencies of his house. The Bnei Banim concludes his teshuva by stating: ?????? ???? ??? ????? ???? ????? ???? ??????? ?????? ??? ???? ?????? ?????? ???? ?? ????, ?? ????? ?? ????? ?? ???? ????"? ????? ??? ???? ??"? ???? ????? ???? ????? ???? ?? ????? ??? ????? ?????? ?????? ??? ???? ???? ?? ?? ???? ??? ???? ???? ???????? ??? ???? ???, ??? ?? ?????? ?? ???? ???? ??????? ?????? ????? ??????. "And l?halacha anyway one should not push aside the custom of the world that a woman frees herself from the customs of her father?s household and conduct herself according to the customs of her husband if she wants, but she is able also to rely on the words of [Rav Ovadiah Yosef] in the ma?amer and so it seems to me that when there isn?t in it [a matter] between him and her, and there isn?t a matter of inui nefesh she is able to continue like the customs of the house of her father since behold also if she vowed them from anew after the marriage the husband could not annul [such vows], and she may make a condition with her husband before the marriage that she will continue to conduct herself in accordance with her customs." This point of the Bnei Banim regarding innui nefesh and matters beno uvena is interesting. What he is referring to is the fact that a husband can be mafer (ie nullify) the nedarim of his wife, but only those that either constitute inui nefesh or are considered beno u'vena (Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah Diman 234 si?if 55). And it seems to me that you can therefore deal with the Tashbetz's point (as strongly re-iterated by ROY) regarding food issues - ie that they cannot eat together at the same table where what is permitted for one is prohibited for the other - with the use of this concept, without needing to come on to place changes. Because one of the definitions of inui nefesh brought in the Shulchan Aruch (Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah Diman 234 si?if 60-61) is if the woman forbids an item of food on herself (although the Shulchan Aruch there in si'if 60 notes that the Rambam considers this a matter not of inui nefesh but of beno u'vena). So that, certainly from the perspective of a Sephardi husband, a woman who has has the practice of not eating rice and kitniyot on Pesach is engaging in inui nefesh - and if you follow the Rav Poelim I brought in an earlier post, that if one is forbidden to eat something, one is forbidden to cook it on yom tov for others who may eat it, then the woman could not cook rice or kitniyot for the husband either - making the matter clearly one beno u'vena. So it seems like the whole question of differences in food do not need discussions of place, they can more readily be handled within the context of the existing halachic framework surrounding marriage, and what is and is not appropriate to be waived in the context of a healthy marriage. That set me thinking about the fact that actually we are talking about a whole range of different forms of minhagim - and it seems to me that as a first stab, we are dealing here with four different categories: a) minhagim that really have no impact on the husband - such as whether she benches and davens minhag Ashkenaz or minhag Edot Hamizrach (but will have a major impact on her should she be required to change, both in terms of the huge learning curve, and also in terms of the emotional impact, eg of the kol nidrei tunes). One might perhaps say that if she davens a different nusach, she will want to go to shul to a different place - but she is in a different place from the husband anyway, by virtue of the mechitza, and of course many women do not have the custom to go at all, so real impact would seem to be minimal. That seems to be the underlying message of the Bene Banim. b) minhagim that involve inui nefesh of the woman (which the halacha defines as having an impact on the husband, and which includes her having prohibitions on food) and those beno u'vena. We already have a halachic framework to determine these - the relevant sections of Yoreh Deah siman 234. For example, it doesn't seem to me to be a stretch to say that if he has the minhag of putting food with a majority of solid on the blech on shabbas, and she has a minhag not to, then her following that minhag will impact beno u'vena in terms of what gets provided at the shabbas table, and therefore would fall within the category of minhagim that ought to change in the interests of a unified household. c) minhagim that impact the husband financially. The interesting thing is that these *are* dealt with in the gemora and the halacha based on the principle "olah imo v'ana yoredes imo" - she goes up with him but does not go down with him. The case discussed on Kesubos 48a is regarding what it is necessary for him to hire for her funeral (in the way of flute players and wailers) where the custom between her family and his family is different. And while it might have been the case that it was different because they were from a different socio-economic class, it may also be because she came from a different place where the custom was to spend more on funerals and even so (once you accept that the same rule applies in death as it does in life) he is required to fund the difference - there is no assumption that because she has moved to his place, she is only entitled to the funeral according to the custom of his place. It would therefore seem that the straightforward pshat of this gemora is against the Tashbetz. Similarly the Shulchan Aruch rules in Even HaEzer siman 80 si'if 10 that the various forms of work that are required of a woman for her husband are only required if it is the derech of both her family and his family for a woman to do this - ie it is the intersection of the two sets of minhagim that make the requirement binding. d) minhagim of the husband that cause her tzar: this is in many ways the flip side of b), in that in b) we are talking about a situation where what she has been accustomed to doing all her life is, from the perspective of the husband, a form of inui nefesh, while here, the customs of the husband are what to her might well seem inui nefesh. This could also perhaps be said to be dealt with by the gemora. The gemora in Kesubos 61a discusses the situation where there is a dispute between him and her regarding whether she should nurse their baby in situations where it is the custom of her family but not his or vice versa. The question has a financial aspect, if she does not, then the husband will be put to the expense of hiring a wet nurse, and also, it would appear, a status/beauty aspect (the husband may not want her to, either because only lower class women do this, or because it might make her less beautiful in his eyes). In terms of the financial and status aspect, the gemora again brings the position of olah imo v'ana yoredes imo as per c), but there are also other aspects. For example, in the case where she wants to nurse, and the husband does not want her to, the gemora assumes that it is straightforward that, if she wishes to nurse, we listen to her, on the grounds that "tzara dedei hu" - it is her pain. Now Rashi understands this as the physical pain of having milk and having no-one feed - but it could also be understood to be psychological. However, it is hard to know how far to extend this case, nursing might well be considered sui generis, because (a) it is something very specific to a woman that a man will never do (regardless of what the women in his family did) and (b) there are very specific, unusual, physical and/or psychological factors which are not necessarily duplicated elsewhere. Refraining from specific foods (despite it being considered inui nefesh) would seem to be a far less significant matter. What might perhaps be of more general application is the discussion that immediately follows the nursing question - in which the gemora attempts to find a Torah source for the idea of olah imo v'ana yoredes imo. Rav Huna learns it out of "He beulas ba'al" (Breishis 20:3) [Reference to Sarah Imanu vis a vis Avimelech] and therefore "beilaso shel baal v'lo yoredaso" - she goes up with the husband and not down with him while Rabbi Eliezer learns it out from "ki who eim kol chai" [Breishis 3:20] and therefore "l'chaim nitna vlo l'tzar nitna" - she was given for life and not for tzar. Now the Pnei Yehoshua and the Mahrasha attempt to learn different nafka minas from the bringing of these two different sources - but it seems to me that a straightforward nafka mina is that the first source appears to understand the question primarily as being one of financial or perhaps spiritual improvement (however one understands "going up" rather than "going down"). While the second source seems rather to focus on the idea that marriage is supposed to bring with it life rather than pain. So under the first source one might understand, if one understands prishus from particular foods or activities as a form of greater spirituality, then a woman ought to follow her husband in that, even if it is considered innui nefesh, while following the second source, the key would seem more to be a question of tzar, and inui nefesh must surely be considered at least some aspect of tzar. On some level that does seem to be what is driving ROY in his discussion of customs such as not using tenuva milk or not relying on the heter mechira - both cases deal with the situation where the man is the stringent one, and her custom is towards leniency. But where this question would seem to really bite, is, for example, in the case of a Sephardi woman contemplating marrying an Ashkenazi man - where she has grown up eating and cooking rice and kitniyot on Pesach. I know a number of little Sephardi girls who have told me that they would not contemplate marrying an Ashkenazi man because of this. Now maybe they will grow out of it - but it does seem to me to a really bad reason to be rejecting a potential suitor - and yet the sense of tzar is there, that is what they are saying, I don't want the tzar of making Pesach, which for many women is tzar enough already, totally different from the way I grew up and have been taught - especially when it comes with countless greater stringencies. And even if she does ignore this in practice and accepts such a marriage, one can easily see a level of resentment bubbling to the surface at what can be in any event a very stressful time ("it is your fault that it is so darn difficult so the least you can do is be more helpful"). And if one could in fact understand a fundamental halachic principle to be taken into consideration as that of l'chaim nitna vlo l'tzar nitna - you might end up with something in keeping with the shalom bayis needs of klal yisrael. >Eli Turkel Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 15:12:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 18:12:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: <20150423.205848.16124.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150423.205848.16124.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150427221257.GA6982@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 24, 2015 at 12:58:48AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : > So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, : > ones you used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making : > a berakhah on? Yes, there is light for enjoying the Shabbos meal, : > all the same shalom bayis. But there is no actual pe'ulah to make : > the berakhah on. Is there? : I don't know where you see anything like this in the AhS. The AhS : is explicitly talking about lighting after mincha, when it is already : dark and the light is already useful... And was used or at least "used" before Shabbos (in some halachic rather than commonsensical sense), even if just for seconds, since that's the AhS's grounds for allowing the person who made no eiruv tavshilin to light her Shabbos candles. So, how can she make a berakhah on candles she was only permitted to light because they would be used before Shabbos? What hadlaqah for Shabbos itself occured? > omit the bracha, because it explicitly declares one's intentions to be > of a hachana nature, but that is a separate question not raised by the > AhS... I'm taking his silence, the AhS not telling her to light without a berakhah, as implication that there is no change from the usual WRT berakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 23rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Netzach: How does my domination Fax: (270) 514-1507 stifle others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:01:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:01:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428160119.GA8805@aishdas.org> On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 01:53:10PM -0400, Kaganoff via Avodah wrote: : For many years i had extreme difficulty with R. Elchanan Wasserman understanding : as it conflicted with my belief that Judaism (and other religions) was not : logically provable (contra to Moshe Mendelssohn and his contemporaries) and : therefore required a "leap of faith" and that a disbeliever could not be : faulted for failing to take such a jump. This is a false dichotomy. Logically proving things are not the only way to justify belief in there. How do you know that (in a flat space) two parallel lines never meet? If you're like me, you pictured it in your head. Even though infinite lines don't exist in the real world. (Nor, does it turn out, does flat space.) Did you figure out that oppression was evil by logical proof, or by a combination of imagination and empathy? My favorite example is answering the question, "Do elephants have hair?" A logical/verbal approach would be: Elephants are mammals, all mammals have hair, and so unless elephants are the exception to the rule, they must have hair. Elephants are well known and discussed animals. Could they be an exception to the rule and I don't know it? Nah, they must have hair. How it is more likely the question jogged your memory of elephants you saw, or saw pictures of. The detail may be blurry, so you may have to manipulate the picture a bit. Finally, a version of the picture which has a tuft of hair at the tail, maybe (if your memory is good) some downy hair around the eyes and ears, strikes you as the most familiar, the most real. And again you could reach the conclusion that elephants have hair. (See for some musings about the two modes of thought I'm contrasting here.) In I compare different versions of the Argument from Design from R' Aqiva's response to the apiqoreis through the Rambam, through similar approaches based on more modern science. "G-d created" (Gen. 1:1): A hereic came to Rabbi Aqiva and asked, "Who made the universe?". Rabbi Aqiva answered, "HQBH". The heretic said, "Prove it to me." Rabbi Aqiva said, "Come to me tomorrow". When the heretic returned, Rabbi Aqiva asked, "What is that you are wearing?" "A garment", the unbeliever replied. "Who made it?" "A weaver." "Prove it to me." "What do you mean? How can I prove it to you? Here is the garment, how can you not know that a weaver made it?" Rabbi Akiva said, "And here is the world; how can you not know that Haqadosh barukh Hu made it?" After the heretic left, Rabbi Aqiva's students asked him, "But what is the proof?" He said, "Even as a house proclaims its builder,a garment its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the Holy Blessed One Who created it. Not very rigorous. Rabbi Aqiva's reply revolves around giving a parable to make the conclusion self-evident. Not contructing a deductive argument. The more rigorous we try making it, the more arguable the proof becomes. R' Aqiva's argument is far more convincing than the Rambam's statement based on how objects lose form over time, not gain it. Or a similar argument based on thermodynamics or information theory. (Ironically, every formal / logical proof is built from givens taken as self-evident for informal-reasoning reasons.) Anyway, that's how I understood REW. R' Elchanan argues that on an informal level, the idea that the universe had to have a Creator is as obvious as a Euclidean postulate or the injustice of oppression. To not believe in G-d requires a formal proof, which one's negios then determine if they find it sound or specious, and whether they accept the postulates on which it's built. Notice I didn't invoke any leaps of faith. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:24:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:24:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Peshat and Drash (Was: Re: Meshech Chochmah on Kedushah) In-Reply-To: <5518BD49.3000508@gmail.com> References: <54FC792A.4080400@gmail.com> <20150324195248.GD29350@aishdas.org> <5518BD49.3000508@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150428162406.GB8805@aishdas.org> On Sun, Mar 29, 2015 at 11:04:41PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : But there were such instances where "one said this was how halakhah : was understood miSinai and another says that this is new." One : example (noted by the Chavos Yair in his Teshuva 192) is a 3-way : machlokess in Zevachim 110b, where one Amora says Nissuch HaMayyim : is miDrabannan, another says it is derived from a posuk, and another : says it was a halacha l'Moshe MiSinai. Rambam (Temidim uMussafim : 10:6 ) poskens it is a halacha l'Moshe MiSinai. This is consistent : with the concept that, as the Rambam writes, "once someone says 'so : have I received,' there is no more debate." The reason is that once : one of our sages can demonstrate he is a recipient of explicit data : originating with Moshe Rabbeynu, a HLMS, it is naturally accepted as : fact. I thought it was well accepted that the Rambam's position in HLMS is inconsistent, that he mentions numberous machloqesin in dinim he himself labeled HLMS. I don't have time to summarize the Chavor Ya'ir teshuvah 192, but I gave up waiting until I did. The examples are numerous. Possible resolutions: - No machloqesin in the essence of the matter, but there can be in details. (the CY's conclusion.) - Im halakhah hi neqabel -- no machloqesin in something both sides agree are HLMS. And what I suggested: That we should distinguish between disputes due to lack of knowledge and formal machloqesin, with the Rambam saying the legal term "machloqes" with all the usual rules of pesaq only apply to the latter. Other disputes, while called machloqes in the colloquial sense, are resolved using the rules of safeiq -- because (leshitaso) ignorance does not create a real machloqes (in the technical sense). And the Rambam here is saying that real machloqes is limited to conflicting deductions and extrapolations from existing law to new places. And thus disputes in laws that date back to Sinai can't have real machloqesin. I know I'm repeating myself, but it's been "forever" ago in email list time since I sat on this post awaiting the time to study the CY. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:33:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:33:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] free will In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428163338.GC8805@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 1:38pm IDT, R Eli Turkel wrote: : We have discussed many times the opinion of Rav Dessler that a person : doesn't always have free will. : I recently saw a halachic discussion that may have some connection. : On ketubot 51 the gemara discusses a case of a married woman who was raped : but at the end was willing... : One possibility of explaining Rava is that she is overwhelmed by her : "yetzer" and so is still considered ["anusah"]... While RET's suggested example is consistent REED's concept of nequdas habechirah, the way RET phrased REED's position kept this email on my to-do list for the last 3 weeks. REED's point is one that's pretty consistent with first-hand experience of making choices. We do not feel in control of our subconscious decisions. All the opportunities we filter out before we even are aware of thinking about it. He then says that the decisions that rise to the level of consciousness, and thus we have some control over, are ones that generate internal conflict. The "battlefront" in his metaphor, where the yh"t and yh"r are balanced. But once you accept the notion of non-conscious thought, REED's conclusion is unavoidable. And a person does always have free will, he just isn't aware of every choice he makes to know to exercise it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:41:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:41:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428164110.GD8805@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 04:29:11PM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The world has changed a lot since the time of chazal especially related to : travel... : : 1. Most travel is no longer considered unsafe. When I get in my car every : morning to drive to work I don't think twice about it : 2. The distinction between in the city and out of the city is no longer : true... : Recently, I heard a short shiur on tefilas haderech and was happy to hear : that RSZA seems to say a very similar idea to RYBS. In contrast, the qorban todah and birkhas hagomel depend not only on surviving a dangerous situation but also on reliving one of the four sorts of yeshu'os tehillim ascribes to yetzi'as Mitzrayim: crossing a desert, the sea, bring freed from jail or recovering from illness. So, if we deem flying over the Great Lakes or the Mediterranean (to pick shorter flights over mayim she'ein lahem sof) to be too safe to warrant tefillas haderekh, would one end up in a situation that calls for no tefillas haderekh beforehand, but benching gomel afterward? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:45:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:45:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428164537.GE8805@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 11:12am EDT, RnTK asked: : But to veer back into Avodah territory -- would it have been appropriate to : say Tefillas Haderech at that time? With shem umalchus? (I assume you : can always say it without shem umalchus.) Tefilas haDerekh is never said besheim umalkhus. Sheim, yes, but not malkhus: "Barukh atah H', shomeia tefillah." No mention of "E-lokeinu Melekh ha'olam". Also, when speaking about berakhah vs tefillah, Tefillas haDerekh refers to itself as a tefillah. And notice also the chasimah is about hearing the baqashah, not about the shemirah we're requesting itself. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:58:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:58:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150419.223015.3015.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150419.223015.3015.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150428165812.GF8805@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 02:30:15AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : But then, as I was reviewing this post, my mind turned to the Tanur : Shel Achnai. R' Eliezer had a minority view, and R' Yehoshua was in : the majority. I've got to believe that both views were firmly grounded; : this machlokes was surely just as L'Shem Shamayim as any between Hillel : and Shammai. I'd *like* to say that Klapei Shmaya, both views were Truth. And if not, how would we justify following the majority over Divinely revealed truth? We discussed bas qol, and why we follow the bas qol that says "vehalakhah kebeis Hillel" despite the anur shel achnai story. I listed the opinions in the Encyc Talmudit here It's not 100% accepted that the bas qol was really endorsing R' Eliezer's opinion in this particular machloqes, rather than defending his shitah in general -- "halakhah kemoso bekhol maqom", or that it was a test. Both suggested by R' Nissim gaon. Similarly one of the answers in Tosafos is that it was about R' Eliezer's kavod, and not a Divine statement to be taken literally about din. All three would imply that we would follow a bas qol over halachic process, and so they had to explain how the tanur story wasn't an example. Thus implying that what we are searching for is the truth rather than legal authority. RNG's position on the tanur shel achanai story supports RMHalbertal's theory that in the geonic era, the Retrieval theory of halakhah dominated. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:12:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:12:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] brochos from the amud (was: tefillat haderech) In-Reply-To: <20150420024354.CJVF30458.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo110> References: <20150420024354.CJVF30458.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo110> Message-ID: <20150428171200.GG8805@aishdas.org> On Sun, Apr 19, 2015 at 10:43:47PM -0400, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote: : Slight change of topic: I'm still trying to wrap my head around the : idea that we don't seem to have a chashash of a brocha l'vatalah. I : mean, you have a sh'tz up there, saying a brocho out loud -- and : he's intentionally trying to be motzi _some_ others... But only those who had in mind to be yotzei. : Shomea k'oneh : doesn't apply at all? What if you are in the shul and you're not : thinking about the issue of being yotzie, you're just thinking about : which day it is, and/or you simply have stam kavanah. No chashash : for an issur d'oraissa? RYBS says in the context of the berakhah on Hallel that because mitzvos einum tzerikhos kavanah, if you have no kavanah one way or the other, you would be yotzei. To avoid being yotzei would require having explicit kavanah not to be yotzei. He then continues that the idea of having intent not to want to do a mitzvah bothers him, and so RYBS said he says the berakhah on Hallel along with the chazan. (Which is what my father does, and what I grew up with.) I assume the same would be true here. (Although I don't recall what my father does, I say the berakhah along with the chazan.) I would have thought that interrupting with "barukh Hu uvarukh shemo" should also work. Recall that R Chaim was very against answering BHUBS to chazaras hashatz because one is being yotzei tefillat hatzibur. (Above and beyond one's own chiyuv of tefillah.) While listing my hunches, I believe that intent to say it yourself qualified as kavanah not to be yotzeir. So the default is kavanah not to be yotzei, not an absense of kavanah one way or the other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:44:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:44:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428164445.5B05B18384C@nexus.stevens.edu> At 12:24 PM 4/28/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: >Meaning - was the demand that the religious not work with the >secular the issue or was that a cover story used to mask people's >opposition to Zionism? This was an issue, and there was also opposition to Zionism. The opposition to Zionism was not masked at all. Please read http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/zion_or_zionism.pdf to see what Zionism really is according to Rav Schwab, ZT"L and others who think like him. >Or in this case, is the demand that the creation >of the state be a Kiddush HaShem in the eyes of all rabbanim a real >demand or is it simply a cover? I have never heard of "the demand that the creation of the state be a Kiddush HaShem in the eyes of all rabbanim " Who demanded this? > If the Breuer community want the state >to reflect certain values, than please, make it happen. And how do you propose that they do this? I asked you in an earlier email what the Orthodox Jews in EY and you in particular are doing to make this happen, and I received no response. > If they don't >want to make it happen or aren't willing, than the demand is (at best) >an exercise in dissimulation. Do you really believe that the Breuer's community at the time when Rav Breuer and Rav Schwab has the wherewithal to make the State reflect certain values? Even those living in EY at this time could not do this. There was (and still is) a large non-religious contingent of Jews living in EY. Do you really think that anyone can "make" them change their views or their behavior? YL YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:32:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:32:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eretz Yisrael vs Medinat Yisrael [was: The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L] Message-ID: <125cff.585c1330.42711e42@aol.com> R. Ben Waxman wrote: >Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem. >Rav Soloveitch tz"l wrote about this point in Kol Dodi Dofek and in his >drashot for the Kinot, as did Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook tz"l. RYL wrote: >> We all know that there were great Torah scholars who disagreed with >> the assertion that " the creation of the State is, in of itself, a >> Kiddush Hashem." >>>>> I will have to re-read Kol Dodi Dofek because I don't remember such a forthright quote -- "The creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." But in any case it isn't exactly an either-or question. The Medinah -- the secular socialist Russian government of Israel -- is hardly a kiddush Hashem. Indeed it arouses waves of hatred from the goyim all over the world, on a daily basis. RBW also wrote: >>....The first is from Yoma 86:A, Rashi, B'Amor Lehem: "Evil comes to chassidim and chachamim because "They desecrated My Holy name." How did they desecrate (God's name)? In those places to where they were exiled, the non-Jews say "These are the people of God" and He can't redeem them. Conclusion: God's name has been desecrated." End quote.<< The establishment of a government that is hated and vilified by the whole world is not, it would seem, a kiddush Hashem. Plus the fact that the country is under constant military threat and cannot, apparently, provide security to its inhabitants, also would not seem to be a kiddush Hashem. But I think these facts -- the constant physical attacks, the world-wide moral opprobrium -- are the cosmic result of the fact that the Medinah is determinedly secular and consciously rejects Torah as a guiding principle. HOWEVER, on the other side, RBW's Rashi quote does have a bearing on the current situation in Eretz Yisrael. There is no denying that the flourishing of Eretz Yisrael, after two thousand years of desolation, is miraculous. The continued existence of the country, despite the constant waves of physical and diplomatic attacks, is also miraculous. And the fact that all Jews can go and live in Eretz Yisrael, and that millions actually do live there, is also a huge miracle. I said there is no denying the miraculous aspects and yet I am aware that the Satmar Rebbe did deny it. He admitted that there was a supernatural aspect to Israel's recent history but ascribed the miracles to the Satan, blinding our eyes. He never joined Agudas Yisrael, the world-wide umbrella organization for all Orthodox Jews, because he was on one side and all the other gedolim in the world were on the other side. All the others rejected the ideology of secular Zionism while gratefully acknowledging chasdei Hashem in allowing the Land to be built up, allowing the Torah communities to grow and flourish, allowing millions of Jews to live in our ancient homeland. The Lubavitcher Rebbe also never joined the Agudah -- I refer not to the Israeli political party but to the world-wide umbrella organization. He had other reasons, perhaps for another time. I think he wanted Chabad to be THE world-wide organization, he did not want it to be one of many competing Orthodox groups and derachim. But he agreed with the basic ideology of the Agudah vis-a-vis the state of Israel -- the nuanced view of ohr vechoshech. And so did the Yekkes, very much so! In fact they were instrumental in founding and guiding the Agudah, for decades! Their attitude towards Israel after the founding of the Medinah and the beginning of kibbutz galuyos was very much the same as the whole rest of the Agudah -- grateful acknowledgment of the positive, hakaras hatov to the Ribono Shel Olam, opposition to the negative, working to improve the moral status of Eretz Yisrael, e.g., when it came to forced autopsies (B'H the charedim won that bitterly fought battle), giyus banos and other issues. But the Yekkes in Israel do vote, do participate in running the country, do daven at the kosel (unlike the Satmar and Neturei Karta), do thank Hashem for protecting Eretz Yisrael and daven for continued Divine protection. RYL considers himself the premier acolyte of RSRH but he and I have some fundamental disagreements about what the Hirschian legacy really is. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 11:59:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 20:59:46 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150428164445.5B05B18384C@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150428164445.5B05B18384C@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <553FD8A2.1060306@zahav.net.il> Regarding the second question, yes I did. Please see the previous emails. Regarding the first, all I can say is that it won't be done from New York. Regarding the other points, I addressed them so I won't repeat myself this round. Ben On 4/28/2015 6:44 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > And how do you propose that they do this? > > I asked you in an earlier email what the Orthodox Jews in EY and you > in particular are doing to make this happen, and I received no response. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:59:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:59:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Message-ID: <126fc1.37d9c7fc.4271247d@aol.com> From: Chana Luntz via Avodah >> As I have written before, what I find intensely frustrating about this is that RYBS's invocation of tan du appears to itself involve a form of tampering with the chazakos and by implication the denial of the perfection and truthfulness of chachmei chazal that is then claimed to be kefira. The gemora in discussing tan du is very clear - both in Yevamos 118b and Kesuvos 75a: a woman in a tan du marriage commits adultery - "kulan mezanos"! - THAT is the chazaka from Chazal regarding the nature of women. [snip] But you can't get away from the fact that Chazal set this up as a chazaka. And if you take these chazakos in the way that RYBS says to do, then there are inevitable conclusions: A Beis Din faced with what can now clearly be seen as a tan du marriage HAS to assume adultery as a consequence - that being the chazaka. [snip] Surely it is obligatory on any Rabbi who agrees to be mesader kiddushin and on any shadchanim and eidim to investigate very carefully that this marriage is not of the tan du nature? [snip] But if it is an inevitable chazaka that a woman in a tan du marriage will commit adultery, then there is only one safek in relation to a serious issur d'orisa - in which case must it not be the responsibility of all those who enable such a marriage to occur to make sure that it is not a tan du marriage and they are not enabling such adultery to take place? >>>>> There is brilliant yet convoluted logic behind this post. I hesitate to tangle with someone like R'n CL who is so erudite, yet I truly believe she has misunderstood this Gemara. Yes, a woman in a loveless marriage is much more tempted to commit adultery, given the right set of circumstances, but it is certainly not inevitable. Nor is it correct to deduce that a rav must make sure, before he marries a couple, that the woman is not entering a loveless marriage! He doesn't have to creep into her heart and mind before conducting the wedding, doesn't have to fathom the depths of her motives in marrying this man. There are so many motives, so many emotions, how could you ever fathom them all? I think "kulan mezanos" refers to all women, and it means all women can be seduced, though obviously it will be easier to seduce a woman who does not love her husband. All women potentially can be seduced. IIRC Beruria the wife of R' Meir -- and you can't claim that was a "tan duu marriage"! -- thought she was an exception to this rule about human nature, or feminine nature. And found out she was wrong! Even she, a brilliant and pious woman married to a great man, could be seduced. Without the Gemara most of us would assume that men are more likely to be unfaithful than women, and I do think that is true. I don't know how to square what we see before us -- that men cheat more than women do -- with what the Gemara says. In any case in Torah homes fidelity between husbands and wives is the norm, Baruch Hashem. All those fences -- laws of yichud, negiah, tznius and so on -- really do protect us. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 15:58:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 23:58:31 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos Message-ID: <001b01d081d6$cb2e0680$618a1380$@org.uk> Sorry, been away, and am therefore very behind in Avodah On 04/03/2015 06:57 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >> He also paskens (for EY) that one can cook kitniyot on the 7th day of >> Pesach for use on the shabbat right afterwards (ef this year). And RZS replied: >Yes, I'm surprised that anyone disagrees. It seems so obviously correct. >I know that many people don't do so, and believe it to be forbidden, >but I have never yet heard an argument for why it should be so. Well the arguments to prohibit can be found in Rav Poelim chelek 3 Orech Chaim siman 30 - he brings two: one based on the prohibition of a person who is fasting on yom tov to cook for others - as per the Rema in Shulchan Aruch Orech Chaim siman 527 si'if 20 as explained by the Magen Avraham there and an additional reason added by the Magen Avraham there in si'if katan 22. The Ben Ish Chai in Rav Poelim was discussing whether a person whose custom (in Bagdad) was not to eat rice on Pesach could cook rice for those who do. He rejected the first rationale provided by the Magen Avraham) as being applicable to this case, but accepted the second reason as applicable (although he also cites a number of achronim who accept the first reason as a reason to prohibit)- and therefore held that those who had the custom of treating rice as assur on pesach could not cook rice for those who had the custom of eating rice on yom tov of Pesach for so long as they had this custom of treating rice as assur (although he held that those who had this custom not to eat rice in Bagdad could do hatarat nedarim and be able to eat, and hence cook, rice on pesach so as to solve the problem). >> This is because some sefardi could come over for a visit and so the >> kitniyot are not mukza . >The main issue would surely not be muktzeh, but cooking on yomtov. >But the answer is the same: the hypothetical horde of hungry guests who >might descend on one ten minutes before sunset on Friday, and for whom >one is, in principle, cooking, might very well be sefardim. Yes, but according to the position of the Rav Poelim, Askenazim can never, when cooking for Sephardim on pesach, cook them dishes that they, the Ashkenazim, cannot eat, hence hoeil does not apply. The same ought presumably to apply to gebrochts according to the Ben Ish Chai - if you can't eat it on shvii shel pesach, you can't cook it for others, including hungry guests, and so cannot effectively cook it for shabbas based on hoeil, your shabbas food would have to consist of something else you could eat on shvii shel pesach. >Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 11:03:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Toby Katz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 14:03:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <127300.4be2c63a.42712586@aol.com> In a message dated 4/28/2015 12:45:47 P.M. EDT, micha at aishdas.org writes: > Tefilas haDerekh is never said besheim umalkhus. You are correct, I should have caught that myself. > Also, when speaking about berakhah vs tefillah, Tefillas haDerekh > refers to itself as a tefillah. And notice also the chasimah is about > hearing the baqashah, not about the shemirah we're requesting itself. zsh:1: command not found: Fmt --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 11:34:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 14:34:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: <127300.4be2c63a.42712586@aol.com> References: <127300.4be2c63a.42712586@aol.com> Message-ID: <20150428183420.GA25835@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 02:03:50PM -0400, T613K at aol.com wrote: : >> Also, when speaking about berakhah vs tefillah, Tefillas haDerekh refers : to itself as a tefillah. And notice also the chasimah is about hearing : the baqashah, not about the shemirah we're requesting itself.<< : : That doesn't answer the question of whether it is appropriate to recite : Tefillas HaDerech during a blinding rainstorm on the highway in your own city, : which was my question. It doesn't fully answer your question, but it does point a bit toward saying it. After all, it turns out that the only berakhah is about Hashem hearing baqashos. The body of the tefillah is only a formalized equivalent to saying "Please G-d, just get me home safe, healthy and in one piece!" or some other spontaneous cry for help. So, if you're scared on the road, tefillah is appropriate. Why would thanking G-d for listening to such tefillos depend on rules about travel? Add to that the fact that it's only half a berakhah, which indicates that it's shevach (like Shomeia Tefillah in Shemoneh Esrei), as another small indicator in favor of saying it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 12:58:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 15:58:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <001901d080e1$7d6fcbe0$784f63a0$@org.uk> References: <001901d080e1$7d6fcbe0$784f63a0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <20150428195810.GC25835@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 12:05:17PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: [RAM:] : > At any rate, one can agree or disagree about : > whether this assertion is true, and even among those who agree with : > it, there might be discussion of exactly which chazakos are unchanging : > and which are variable. Still, his point is that there are indeed some : > UNchanging aspects. : I would add an observation that individual exceptions may exist : empirically but are ignored halachically This is the classic case of affirming a chazaqah (or rov) when there is ika rei'usa. No? On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 12:58:34PM +0100, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: : The gemora in discussing tan du is very clear - both in Yevamos 118b and : Kesuvos 75a: a woman in a tan du marriage commits adultery - "kulan : mezanos"! - THAT is the chazaka from Chazal regarding the nature of women. : : Now this could mean: (a) the sort of woman who is prepared to enter a tan : du marriage is prepared to and will commit adultery; or : (b) all women will take a tan du marriage : (RYBS), but if they find themselves in a tan du marriage - the existential : loneliness that RYBS identifies as being the particular province of women : will also, according to Chazal, inevitably drive them to adultery; : But you can't get away from the fact that Chazal set this up as a chazaka. As the gemara was taught to me, what they set up as a chazaqah was pretty much as RYBS describes it. Women feel the loneliness of singlehood more. The flow of the sugya in the two gemaras are quite similar, from the point where Reish Laqish is quoted staying "tav lemeisiv" onward. RL, illustrated with meshalim by Abayei, R' Papa, and R' Ashi, followed by a tana saying that they all are mezanos and then blame their husbands. So, it would seem that tav lemeisiv is about a desire to be married. This has nothing to do with romance or eros, since we are told that a woman who is just married so s not to be like a widow (milemeisiv armelu) do tend to end up cheating. But tav lemeisiv isn't about the affairs, it's about (Yevamos) why hamezakeh gett le'ishto in the middle is not valid. Because it's not a pure zekhus for her, you cannot say zakhin le'adam shelo befanav (or befanehah, as the case may be). There is nothing about "being driven to" adultery by the loneliness, but by having tav lemeisiv alone satisfied by her marriage. Perhaps the reverse of your formulation. (I think the idea that tav lemeisiv means women are more likely to be sexually lonely would be really hard to support, even in a culture where husbands, not wives, have a chiyuv onah.) Or (Kesuvos) it is used (in a complex case I'm too lazy to spell out) why a man might wish not to be married, lest he later be prohibited to her relatives, but in the flipside case, we do not assume the same of the woman. The bit about mezanos vetolos beba'aleihen is not the basis for any halakhos. I have no reason to believe it's a chazaqah. Tangentially... On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 07:27:43PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Another challenge is how to deal with recent "Chachmei Hamesorah" : who don't seem to meet the perfection definition. I have two suggestions that work for me: 1- Make a list of current chakhmei hamesorah that don't pose such a challenge for you. Once you start, you'll likely find it's a longwer list than you had thought. Focus on them, and ignore the rest, no matter how popular as gedolim they may be. 2- Separate the current rabbinate from one's own ties to the mesorah with a project like Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:01:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 23:01:17 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) Message-ID: <553FF51D.6070804@zahav.net.il> Putting the question of Hallel aside, I don't understand the line below. I looked through the Beit Yosef OH 131 where he discusses the days on which Tachanun isn't said. The BY does not list all the days that we skip (like Purim Qatan or Pesach Sheni). These came later. So when did this idea (that we can't change when Tachanun is said or not said) start? Ben On 4/28/2015 12:31 PM, Prof. Levine via Areivim wrote: > Shemone Esrei is followed > by Chazaras Hashatz, which is followed by Tachanun, and then followed > by Ashrei and U'va' Letzion--and we do not have the right or > privilege of changing that, he opined. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:28:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:28:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early Message-ID: The statement was made that "Lighting two candles is a recent frumkeit, or yhiruth, that started among German Jews and is less than 900 years old.." Isn't it also yohara to stand in judgment of a minhag mentioned in the Tur and Shulchan Aruch and observed virtually without exception by klal Yisraeil? EMT From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 13:50:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 16:50:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eretz Yisrael vs Medinat Yisrael [was: The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L] In-Reply-To: <125cff.585c1330.42711e42@aol.com> References: <125cff.585c1330.42711e42@aol.com> Message-ID: <553FF29D.4030208@sero.name> On 04/28/2015 01:32 PM, via Avodah wrote: > The Lubavitcher Rebbe also never joined the Agudah -- I refer not to > the Israeli political party but to the world-wide umbrella > organization. He had other reasons, perhaps for another time. I > think he wanted Chabad to be THE world-wide organization, he did not > want it to be one of many competing Orthodox groups and derachim. The Lubavitcher Rebbe at the time the Agudah was founded was the Rashab, who in matters of askonus generally took his lead from R Chaim Brisker. Lubavitch was a member of the Agudah's precursor, Machzikei Hadas, but when MH merged with the Yekkes to form the Agudah, R Chaim put 18 conditions on his participation, and since they weren't satisfied both Brisk and Lubavitch stayed out. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:22:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 17:22:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Peshat and Drash (Was: Re: Meshech Chochmah on Kedushah) In-Reply-To: <20150428162406.GB8805@aishdas.org> References: <54FC792A.4080400@gmail.com> <20150324195248.GD29350@aishdas.org> <5518BD49.3000508@gmail.com> <20150428162406.GB8805@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <553FFA2E.6000809@gmail.com> On 4/28/2015 12:24 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > I thought it was well accepted that the Rambam's position in HLMS > is inconsistent, that he mentions numberous machloqesin in dinim > he himself labeled HLMS.... Chavor Ya'ir teshuvah 192...examples are numerous. > > Possible resolutions: > > - No machloqesin in the essence of the matter, but there can be in > details. (the CY's conclusion.) I don't think that is the Chavos Yair's conclusion. He leaves the matter bewildered, as Rambam appears incomprehensible and self-contradictory. > - Im halakhah hi neqabel -- no machloqesin in something both sides agree > are HLMS. With the modification of the word "against" in place of the word ''in,'' this is my conclusion, and that of the Maharatz Chayos. The Rambam is addressing the Karaite argument that even Chazal did not really consider the laws they called "payrushim mekuballim" and HLMS (the latter being payrushim mekuballim that lack indications planted in the Torah) to have literally come from Moshe Rabbeynu. That's why, the Karaites argued, Chazal felt free to dispute them. The Rambam explains that Chazal never disputed laws that made it to them from Sinai. The disputes are over issues ''branching out'' from them. Thus, '' There is no machlokess against any payrush that is known to have come from Sinai.'' This understanding fits very well in the Rambam's words, in the context of which he was talking and the issues he confronted; and eliminates what would certainly be a mess of the self-contradictions and open contradictions from the Talmud that the CY lists. Another concern raised by the CY is the fact that the Rambam seems inconsistent between the Mishneh Torah and his list in the hakdama to his Mishneh commentary in that some laws he labels as HLMS in one work he does not in other. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:28:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 17:28:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Renewal Role of Sarah Schenirer Message-ID: <20150428212818.DEBA1182F93@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/njwrn2g There was a major difference, however, between the Bais Yaacov of Williamsburg and the Bais Yaacov of Poland in pre-war Europe. The Bais Yaacov movement in Poland emphasized the universal Torah teachings of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, while the Bais Yaacov of Williamsburg did not give Rabbi Hirsch's teachings the same emphasis. Why were Rabbi Hirsch's teachings regarding the Torah's universal vision no longer the main focus? Most of the teachers and students at the American Bais Yaakov were Holocaust survivors who felt a need to turn inward after experiencing the hatred of the Gentiles around them and the horrors of the Holocaust. They knew that most of the "humanistic" intellectuals and artists of Germany actively supported the brutal persecution of the Jewish people. They also knew that most of the "enlightened" countries closed their doors to Jews who were trying to escape the Holocaust. In addition, they knew that most of the Christian religious leaders of Europe did not protest the organized murder of millions of Jewish men, women, and children; moreover, many Christians in the countries occupied by the Germans actively assisted the Germans in rounding up the Jews for the death camps. In fact, a number of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust who returned to Poland after the war were murdered in Polish pogroms! It is understandable that these survivors felt the need to first heal themselves before worrying about the world which had abandoned their suffering people. In addition, these survivors did not have the strong attraction to secular western culture which an earlier generation of Bais Yaakov students had once experienced, and their feelings are expressed in the following memoir of Dr. Judith Grunfeld: "Almost seventy years have passed since, and we have today most unfortunately an easy enough means of demonstrating that all cultures which we then venerated have revealed themselves to be nothing but a flimsy veneer covering over diabolical inhumanity. European humanitarian ideas so prevalent then, so much on the tip of everyone's tongue, preached by leading university representatives, have been proven utterly hollow. For they did not succeed in preventing, and indeed could be said to be frequently instrumental in strirring up the raging, terrible fire of man's inhumanity to man." ("Rebbitzen Grunfeld" by Miriam Dansky, p. 72) Nevertheless, our sages teach that Torah - the Divine wisdom - is the blueprint of creation, and that the Creator looked into the Torah when He created the world (Genesis Rabbah 1:1). If our Creator looked into the Torah and created the world, then when we look into the Torah we can rediscover this world. In addition, the Torah reveals that we have the potential to become holy vessels with the spiritual power to transform and elevate the world; thus, no matter how much we turn inward, the study of Torah reminds us that we must eventually turn outward. This may be one of the reasons why a growing number of Torah-committed Jews in our generation are rediscovering the writings of Rabbi Hirsch, as a major theme of his teachings is the universal goal of the Torah path. The Bais Yaacov High School of Baltimore, under the leadership of its principal, Rabbi Binyamin Steinberg, gave renewed emphasis to the universal vision of the Torah. Rabbi Steinberg himself was a Holocaust survivor, and in one of his talks to his students about respect for other peoples, he reminded them of the Compassionate One's promise to Abraham that "through you all the families of the earth will be blessed" (Genesis 12:3). The following is an excerpt from his talk: "All the families of the earth," he declared. 'Who cares about all the families of the earth?' you ask. Nevertheless, that's what the Torah says...The people of Israel will be a blessing for all the families of the earth. That means the Albanians, the Greeks, the Chinese, the Indonesians, the African Americans - all the families of the earth. That's what it says in my Torah! " (A Matter of Principal - a biography of Rabbi Binyamin Steinberg by Hanoch Teller). Before we can become a blessing to others, however, we first need to turn inward in order to develop our unique strengths. As Sarah Schneirer realized, we first have to renew ourselves before we can renew the world. As the Prophet Isaiah proclaimed to our people: "O House of Jacob: Come, let us walk by the light of Hashem! " (Isaiah 2:5) See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:59:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 22:59:29 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <002d01d081fe$99c5fcb0$cd51f610$@org.uk> RMB writes: >As the gemara was taught to me, what they set up as a chazaqah was >pretty much as RYBS describes it. Women feel the loneliness of singlehood >more. >The flow of the sugya in the two gemaras are quite similar, from the >point where Reish Laqish is quoted staying "tav lemeisiv" onward. RL, >illustrated with meshalim by Abayei, R' Papa, and R' Ashi, followed by >a tana saying that they all are mezanos and then blame their husbands. >So, it would seem that tav lemeisiv is about a desire to be married. >This has nothing to do with romance or eros, since we are told that a >woman who is just married so s not to be like a widow (milemeisiv >armelu) do tend to end up cheating. >But tav lemeisiv isn't about the affairs, I agree that tav lemeisiv is not brought initially to refer to the issue of affairs, but rather indeed about a desire to be married which is then brought to make a halachic point within another context (eg maezakeh get l'eishto) - but once the gemora is discussing tav lemeisiv marriages - it then takes the time out, twice, to explain what these marriages mean. And it explains, after going through the flow of Abaye etc, that these marriages mean inevitable adultery. Ie according the gemora a tav l'meisiv marriage = adultery. Now, that means, the more tav l'meisiv marriages there are, the more adultery there is. So the more you stress that the world is full of tav l'meisiv marriages, the more you are saying that the world is full of Bnos Yisrael committing adultery. That tav l'meisiv marriage results in adultery is clearly part and parcel of the definition of what a tav l'meisiv marriage is - one where a woman will prefer to be married than to be alone. And it is not a disputed statement, it is a concluding statement rounding up the discussion of what a tav l'meisiv marriage is. In order to break the equation, you have to say that Chazal didn't really mean what they said, or that they were talking about their time and place, but women today are different - but that means denying the truthfulness and accuracy of Chazal's statements (or understanding them differently) in exactly the way that RYBS objects to as kefira. You can't say that a woman prefers to be married than to be alone is a universal truth because it was stated by Chazal, and simultaneously that women in tav lemeisiv marriages commit adultery is not a universal truth, as they are bound up in the same discussion and you are picking and choosing your Chazalic statements - this one I like, this one I don't, and not just any statement, but the concluding statement rounding up the discussion defining the concept. .... >The bit about mezanos vetolos beba'aleihen is not the basis for any >halakhos. I have no reason to believe it's a chazaqah. So why did Chazal say it? For the fun of casting aspersions on Bnos Yisrael? Twice? In the context of a halachic discussion? If this was any other discussion, would anybody dream of suggesting that when Chazal said that something inevitably happened in the context of a halachic discussion they were not, at the very least, postulating a chazaka (albeit perhaps a rebuttable one) and possibly something even stronger? One might say - well nature has changed (eg kol treifos), or one might say - we have to treat something as halachically following Chazal's statement, even if we know or suspect the metzius is different (hence my line about a Beis Din being required to treat a tav l'meisiv marriage as one where adultery has been committed, and those enabling such a marriage being prohibited from so doing based on lifnei iver). That is the way we generally treat Chazalic statements of this nature. In this case, of course, we have another option, if tav l'meisiv marriages themselves do not occur very often, then we do not necessarily have to worry about, as common, the adultery which is part and parcel of their definition. But if they are in fact common and inevitable where the husband is not as a matter of fact suitable for the wife, then I cannot see how you can claim that this is not a significant societal and halachic concern. Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 15:14:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 18:14:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <002d01d081fe$99c5fcb0$cd51f610$@org.uk> References: <002d01d081fe$99c5fcb0$cd51f610$@org.uk> Message-ID: <20150428221418.GF11656@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 10:59:29PM +0100, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: :> The bit about mezanos vetolos beba'aleihen is not the basis for any :> halakhos. I have no reason to believe it's a chazaqah. : : So why did Chazal say it? For the fun of casting aspersions on Bnos : Yisrael? Twice? In the context of a halachic discussion? Well, it's really one conversation quoted twice. But it emphasizes the point. Tav lemeisiv is considered a reason why a gett would not be zakhin le'adam shelo befanav, even though the marriage would too likely lead to sin. The desire not to be husbandless, even by an insufficient husband, is being described as very profound. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 01:56:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 11:56:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith Message-ID: <> the Euclidean postulates are based on everyone's daily experience. In fact we know they are not true in other circumstances (eg on a globe) The injustice of oppression is more debatable. Surely ISIS believes that destroying ancient culture and cutting off heads of nonbelievers is a "mitzvah" As such the belief in a creator is obvious to one with a religious upbringing. For years scientists (and ancient philosophers) believed in an infinitely old world. Even today some scientists are attemping to justify a big bang without a creator (infinite big bangs , other universes etc.). The whole idea of axioms/postulates are that they are not provable. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 06:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 09:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150429135311.GA11332@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 11:56:31AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : the Euclidean postulates are based on everyone's daily experience... I picked the one about parallel lines because no one ever experienced infinitely long parallel lines. They are based on imagining an extrapolation from experience. : we know they are not true in other circumstances (eg on a globe) Thus my parenthetic remarks about flat space. It also doesn't work in Einsteinian Spacetime, as space is no longer believed to be flat. ... : As such the belief in a creator is obvious to one with a religious : upbringing. For years scientists (and ancient philosophers) believed in an : infinitely old world. Even today some scientists are attemping to justify a : big bang without a creator (infinite big bangs , other universes etc.). : : The whole idea of axioms/postulates are that they are not provable. My point exactly -- there are third options between logical proofs and leaps of faith. Logical proofs are only one way to justify belief. The Kuzari points to tradition, which may boil down to reliabilism. (Something you learned from a source that has a track record of being reliable.) I was saying that REW, like R' Aqiva, appealed to the self-evident nature of the universe having a Designer. Closer to the way we accept our postulates than a proof. And that this is so obvious look around at what was created, that belief is the default state for humans. And then REW continues that it takes an act of will to accept a counter-proof despite the self-evidence. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 25th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Netzach: When is domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control too extreme? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 02:02:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 10:02:27 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torahand Kabalas Ol Malchus In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000401d0825b$37ef5150$a7cdf3f0$@org.uk> RTK writes: > I think "kulan mezanos" refers to all women, and it means all women can > be seduced, You may be able to derive, from other contexts, that all women can be seduced - but that is not what is being discussed in the specific gemorros referred to. Our gemora is discussing what happens specifically in tav l'meisiv marriages - it gives examples of such marriages, and then concludes that such marriages result in adultery (and consequent hidden mamzerim). There is just no way of reading what you want to read into this piece > Yes, a woman in a loveless marriage is much more tempted to commit > adultery, given the right set of circumstances, but >it is certainly not inevitable. Nor is it correct to deduce that a rav must >make sure, before he marries a couple, that the woman is not entering a >loveless marriage! He doesn't have to creep into her heart and mind before >conducting the wedding, doesn't have to fathom the depths of her motives in >marrying this man. There are so many motives, so many emotions, how could >you ever fathom them all? Remember, none of what I have described is necessarily a consequence of these gemoros unless you read the gemora with the chiddush of RYBS: that inherent in the existential condition of womankind is that if a woman is offered only an inappropriate marriage she will take it because she cannot bear not to be married. If you understand it merely that there are and have been women, in some times and places, who when offered an inappropriate marriage, will sometimes take it because she cannot bear not to be married, but in other circumstances and times and places there are women who would refuse such a marriage - you have no idea what you are faced with in any given circumstance. And it is of course possible that she knows what she is doing and has seen what you cannot see, meaning that in fact the marriage will indeed be a good one. And it would be, as you describe, inappropriate to creep into her heart and try and fathom what is going on there. But according to RYBS we know what is going on there, in the woman's heart - we know it from RYBS's understanding of the pasuk in Breishis (one certainly does not have to understand the pasuk in Breishis the way RYBS does, but he is darshaning a pasuk to tell us about the human condition). A woman wants to be married above all else because she cannot bear to be alone, she is not capable of making an assessment that any given marriage, without alternative, may not be the best thing. She is never capable of that, according to RYBS's understanding of Chazal, this being an existential condition of womankind. In which case what happens if an outsider is capable of assessing the reality of the marriage in question as being one where the parties are fundamentally incompatible? Does he have an obligation to try and stop the marriage given that the woman is incapable of protecting herself? Well one might say - tough luck, it is not an outsider's job, any more than it is an outsider's job to protect others from a bad bargain in business. But that is where this further statement of the gemora comes in. A marriage which the woman has only entered into because she cannot existentially bear to be unmarried is one with the consequence that such marriage will not in fact be enough for her and she will commit adultery and produce mamzerim who are attributed incorrectly to the husband. So if the outsider does not intervene, he is not just failing to protect the woman from herself, he is failing to protect society from inherent danger. That raises the stakes considerably, and would seem to mean that outsiders (such as Rabbaim, shadchanim etc) do need to be vigilant, and not enable such marriages, so long as what RYBS says is true, in order to protect our society. Now I don't think we need a Rav to check a marriage out, before he marries a couple, to try and determine it is not a tav l'meisiv marriage. But that is because I think it relatively rare, in our society, that a woman will take a loveless marriage merely because she cannot bear to be alone (and I certainly do not think it is a irrebuttable presumption as per RYBS. Nor, as Rav Lichtenstein says, does the halacha over the centuries take this as an irrebuttable presumption despite RYBS's vehemence). And we don't have spend our lives worrying about uncommon cases even if we acknowledge that such cases may exist (and even if, in hindsight, if a marriage turns out to be unquestionably inappropriate, we might need to consider whether perhaps the woman in question *might* have been willing to go through with it anyway). But if RYBS were right and it is indeed a fundamental existential part of a woman's nature, unchanging throughout time and not infrequently occurring, to take whatever marriage is on offer, then we as a society do need such safeguards, because of the potential consequences, and if there is any hint that in fact this might be a tav l'meisiv marriage, since the woman is not able, according to RYBS, to protect herself from it, the Rav/shadchan etc would seem to have the obligation to investigate and if in doubt, to protect our society by preventing the marriage. >Toby Katz >t613k at aol.com Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 04:37:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 11:37:18 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: <20150429.073718.25006.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> I wrote: : But then, as I was reviewing this post, my mind turned to the Tanur : Shel Achnai. R' Eliezer had a minority view, and R' Yehoshua was in : the majority. I've got to believe that both views were firmly grounded; : this machlokes was surely just as L'Shem Shamayim as any between Hillel : and Shammai. I'd *like* to say that Klapei Shmaya, both views were Truth. R' Micha Berger responded: > We discussed bas qol, and why we follow the bas qol that says > "vehalakhah kebeis Hillel" despite the anur shel achnai story. I > listed the opinions in the Encyc Talmudit here > > > It's not 100% accepted that the bas qol was really endorsing R' > Eliezer's opinion in this particular machloqes, rather than > defending his shitah in general -- "halakhah kemoso bekhol maqom", > or that it was a test. ... I apologize for not being clear enough. I was not refering to the Bas Kol part of the story. Rather, I was referring to the end of the story, when Eliyahu Hanavi was asked for Hashem's take on the incident, and he quoted Hashem as laughing, "Nitzchuni banai!" Regardless of how the Bas Kol might be interpreted, is there any way to understand "Nitzchuni banai!" other than Hashem personally siding with one of the litigants, and losing? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540c29a485cf429a1a7cst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 04:46:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 11:46:38 GMT Subject: [Avodah] brochos from the amud (was: tefillat haderech) Message-ID: <20150429.074638.25006.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > RYBS ... then continues that the idea of having intent not > to want to do a mitzvah bothers him, and so RYBS said he > says the berakhah on Hallel along with the chazan. (Which > is what my father does, and what I grew up with.) Data point: Although I have not noticed people doing this for the bracha on Hallel, this IS the common practice for the Shehecheyanu at Kol Nidre, at least according to the ArtScroll and Koren machzorim. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540c4bfde4b244bf3c8cst03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 02:53:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 09:53:19 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) Message-ID: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Reposted from Hakhel: > ... Rav Soloveitchik, obviously upset, instead gave Shiur > on the importance of keeping the Tzuras HaTefillah intact. > Shemone Esrei is followed by Chazaras Hashatz, which is > followed by Tachanun, and then followed by Ashrei and U'va' > Letzion--and we do not have the right or privilege of > changing that, he opined. ... R' Ben Waxman asked: > I looked through the Beit Yosef OH 131 where he discusses > the days on which Tachanun isn't said. The BY does not > list all the days that we skip (like Purim Qatan or Pesach > Sheni). These came later. > > So when did this idea (that we can't change when Tachanun > is said or not said) start? I'm not sure if you are asking the correct question. You presume there was a time when Tachanun was *said* on Purim Katan, and then Tachanun was *omitted* on Purim Katan. I see another possibility, but I must point out that this idea stems from my total ignorance of the History Of Tachanun. Perhaps, since the day when Tachanun first began, the list of days has never changed. What did happen (perhaps) is that some places said it on Purim Katan, and some places did not. Over time, the minhag of skipping it spread to more and more places, but that's somewhat different than if a community would suddenly decide that they had a new appreciation for the significance of the day, and hence wanted to stop saying Tachanun. But either way, I'm not sure of the exact nature of RYBS's objection. It is one thing for a community to change its mind about the significance of the day (as in RMB's example of Purim Katan), and quite another for the day itself to acquire a new significance - as in the example of Yom Haatzma'ut. Shulchan Aruch already establishes the ability for a community to establish holidays, and this has been done many times. A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS insist that they say Tachanun on such days? Thus, I am drawn to conclude that RYBS must not be taken as too absolutist. He cannot have meant that the current list of Tachanun days must remain enshrined in stone forever. I beleive that he must have meant that the question of saying Tachanun on Yom Haatzma'ut is a serious one, to be dealt with seriously by the poskim and leaders of the community. Alas, I personally have seen many cases of where it is decided by those who attend the minyan, on a purely emotional basis, with no thought to the halachos involved, and with no consultation with the LOR. On the other hand, among the many tasks the LOR must deal with, is deciding when he should or should not get involved with the tzibur's choices. Although it does not address Tachanun, I would like to close with a reference to The Rav's opinions about a different tefilah which he "opposed, on halachic grounds". R' Mike Gerver wrote on Mail Jewish (http://www.ottmall.com/mj_ht_arch/v38/mj_v38i49.html) in January 2003: > (This is a continuation of my previous e-mail summarizing > the talk given on "The Rav and Medinat Yisrael" by Rabbi > J. J. Shachter on motzei shabbat, Jan. 25, at Lechu > Neranana in Raanana.) > ... ... ... > Rabbi Shachter quoted Rabbi Walter Wurzberger zt"l as > saying that the Rav's attitude toward Israel was > completely opposed to messianism, to the idea that the > founding of the State was an initial step to the geula > [final redemption]. Thus the Rav did not approve of Gush > Emunim. He even opposed, on halachic grounds, saying the > tefillah for the State of Israel in shul on Shabbat > morning, which only speaks of the State as "reishit > tzmichat geulateinu" [the beginning of the sprouting of > our redemption]. Rabbi Shachter, knowing this, assumed > that the tefillah for the State of Israel would not be > said at the Shabbat morning minyan held at Maimonides > School, a minyan that the Rav started in 1962, and which > generally did things according to his minhag. When Rabbi > Shachter was appointed to his position as director of the > Soloveitchik Institute a couple of years ago, and took > over as rabbi of the Maimonides School Shabbat minyan, he > was surprised to find that they were saying the tefillah > for the State of Israel. He asked someone why, and the > answer was interesting. One Shabbat morning, when the Rav > was still alive and in good health, someone started saying > the tefillah for the State of Israel. The Rav turned to > someone next to him and said {Rabbi Shachter imitated the > Rav's accent) "You would have thought they would have > asked me!" That was all. He didn't make any attempt to > stop them from saying the tefillah for the State of Israel, > and didn't think it was his place to ask the congregation > not to say it if they wanted to. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540aa3d6d7282a3d2b95st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 07:23:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 14:23:25 GMT Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith Message-ID: <20150429.102325.12106.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > I picked the one about parallel lines because no one ever > experienced infinitely long parallel lines. They are based > on imagining an extrapolation from experience. Parallel lines are not provable, but it's not because they are based on experience. Rather, they are based on definition. Find a pair of parallel lines that DO meet (such as on a sphere) and we'll simply say, "What I really meant was parallel lines on a *flat* surface." See more at "No true Scotsman". My choice for something which is unprovable because it is based on personal experience is, "Is there someone whom you love? Prove it to me." Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540e9944d22f699426abst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 12:11:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 15:11:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) In-Reply-To: <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> References: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <20150429191153.GG2666@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 08:53:00PM +0200, Ben Waxman wrote: :> #2 A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate :> the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS :> insist that they say Tachanun on such days? : I had the same question. I bet he said tachanun on the Gra's or R' Chaim's (Volozhin or Brisk) yahrzeit, etc... For people who are seeking his pesaq, it's very likely he would inist on Tachanun on days like that. But I think he would refuse to pasqen for them. Implied in your question is that it's a rav's job to comment and rank other derakhim, an idea RYBS did not share. He even limited his own right to 2nd guess a talmid serving as moreh de'asra. (Stories differ as to how much he insisted on such autonomy of the LOR, depending on which student.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 25th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Netzach: When is domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control too extreme? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 11:53:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 20:53:00 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) In-Reply-To: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> On 4/29/2015 11:53 AM, Kenneth Miller wrote: > #1 Perhaps, since the day when Tachanun first began, the list of days > has never changed. What did happen (perhaps) is that some places said it > on Purim Katan, and some places did not. Over time, the minhag of > skipping it spread to more and more places, but that's somewhat > different than if a community would suddenly decide that they had a new > appreciation for the significance of the day, and hence wanted to stop > saying Tachanun. I don't think so. The Rambam, Hilchot Tefila 5:15 lists the days that one doesn't say Tachanun (or nifilat ah'payim in his words) and the list is much more restricted than our list (Shabbat, Chaggim, Rosh Chodesh, Chanukka, Purim, and the Mincha before them). He writes that this is the minhag b'kol yisrael. I am not a Rambam expert so I don't know what to make of those three words (minhag, b'kol yisrael). If it is a minhag does that mean that it can change? What is b'kol yisrael (I realize that at the time of the Rambam, Ashkenaz was the middle of nowhere)? But it would seem from the Rambam that at his time, the Jewish world didn't skip those other days. > #2 A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate > the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS insist > that they say Tachanun on such days? I had the same question. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 12:25:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 15:25:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) In-Reply-To: <20150429191153.GG2666@aishdas.org> References: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> <20150429191153.GG2666@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55413040.4080903@sero.name> On 04/29/2015 03:11 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 08:53:00PM +0200, Ben Waxman wrote: > :> #2 A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate > :> the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS > :> insist that they say Tachanun on such days? > > : I had the same question. > > I bet he said tachanun on the Gra's or R' Chaim's (Volozhin or Brisk) > yahrzeit, etc... For people who are seeking his pesaq, it's very likely > he would inist on Tachanun on days like that. Of course he said tachanun on their yortzeits, why wouldn't he? The whole concept of turning a yortzeit into a holiday wasn't native to his world. The question is what he would do on a day they had been saved from some danger, and had observed as a private yomtov, or on a day that his community had adopted as a local "purim" to commemorate being saved from danger, as was a common practise among Jewish communities. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 30 01:53:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 30 Apr 2015 04:53:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Netziv, Reading Newspapers on Shabbos & Censorship (Part Two) Message-ID: <20150430085311.F372F183218@nexus.stevens.edu> Please see the article at http://tinyurl.com/oqujmba From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 1 10:09:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 1 May 2015 13:09:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] kol isha In-Reply-To: <842c75958dedf20875dfdece45b65e31@aishdas.org> References: <842c75958dedf20875dfdece45b65e31@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150501170943.GA13995@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 30, 2015 at 5:54pm EDT, R Sholom Simon replied to me on Areivim :> The fact that some ... Jews seem to think the gemara :> didn't realy mean it is something the ... community should have a :> cheshbon hanfesh about. : Gemara? Don't the ge'onim take the gemara to : mean that kol isha is a problem during krias sh'ema? (Which is, after : all, the context of its appearance in Berachos). : (Granted, halacha has : gone much further since then, but you were focused on the gemara) You're thinking of Berakhos 24a, where the gemara concludes that R' Yitchaq's tefach be'ishah ervah is to even include one's own wife during qeri'as Shama. (We knew about other women not during qeri'as shema from R' Sheishes.) And then R' Chisda continues with shoq be'ishah, Shemu'el says qol be'ishah ervah and R Sheishes adds sei'ar be'ishah. >From which one may conclude that all of them are in the same context as R' Yitchaq. R' Hai Gaon (Otar haGeonim Berakhos, peirushin #102), R Yehudai Gaon (acc. to the Yeriem 392), the Behag (1:3). the Eshkol (vol 1, pg 15), the Rivra (Berakhos ad loc) and his father (?), Rabbeinu Yonah (17a), the Shitah meQubetzes (ad loc), only speak of this rule WRT qeri'as shema. Interestlingly, one might also have concluded that all of them were about eishes ish, for the same reason that sei'ar be'ishah is only about eishes ish, but I don't think anyone does understand the gemara that way. But there is also Qiddushin 70a, where R' Yehudah refuses to relay regards from R Nachman to Yala (Mrs Nachman) citing Shemu'el's qol be'ishah ervah. It was this gemara I was remembering (due to recently re-encountering it). Pisqei haRid (Berakhos p' 3), Ri haChasid (Berakhos ad loc), Tosafos haRosh (ad loc) and the Rosh (Berakhos 3:37), say the rule is in general. The Rambam has qol be'ishah ervah in Isurei Bi'ah (21:2), not Hil' QS. Similarly the Tur has nothing about it in QS, but has it in EhE 21. (But then, since his father [the Rosh] and the Rambam do the same, that's no surprise.) And from there -- the Rif is silent, the Rambam and the Rosh agree it's in general -- the SA conforms to his rules and prohibits in general. I think it's a machloqes whether we hold like Shemu'el, who was indeed oly talking about Shema (but not only married women) or like R' Yehudah's extrapolation from Shemu'el. Al pi din, we do hold like the gemara in Qidushin. But it's not as much of a given as I had thought when writing. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 27th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in relationship? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 2 12:29:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 02 May 2015 21:29:39 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Kook on Sports Message-ID: <554525A3.2060408@zahav.net.il> He most certainly did! http://www.yeshiva.org.il/midrash/4234 The article is an examination of Rav Kook's writing on the subject. RK very much supported exercise and sport, and of course he opposed breaking Shabbat to play football (soccer). One quote/translation (mine): Exercise . . . .improves the spiritual strength of the greatest tzaddiqim, those involved in the Unification of God's name, including bringing the Light of God into the world, and no revelation of Light can happen without all the required components. Ben On 5/1/2015 3:36 AM, via Areivim wrote: > and I wonder if it is true that Rav Kook ascribed positive value to sports. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 3 03:01:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 3 May 2015 13:01:40 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Michael Avraham Message-ID: After another shiur with R Michael Avraham (RMA) I wish to clear up some of my previous posts. Apologies for repeating some material but I wish to make it self contained. 1) With regard to Pluaralism, Monism and Harmonism these are typologies. As with any typology real people are combinations and pure members of these groups. Avi Sagi has a book on the topic with listing on many reabbis on each side of the topic. Pluralism means that one accepts ALL opinions as true and legitimate. There is no one single truth Certainly as long as it doesn't harm someone else. RMA pointed out that pure pluralism is not consistent as it would mean accepting monism as also a legitimate truth Nevertheless it is popular in some circles 2) Monism says there is only one truth. I accept that one truth based on the normal rules of halacha, eg majority, chazakah etc. Nothing is ever known with 100% certainty both that is irrelevant. 2b) accepting monism (savlanut in Hebrew) . Though there is only one truth we accommodate those within a certain radius of the real truth even though they are wrong Normally we view pluralism as being more "mekil" than monism. However he considered the case of giving someone food that I consider kosher and he doesn't . The pluralist won't do it because his position is also truth and he doesnt consider the food kosher. However the pure monist has no trouble giving it to someone else. He is wrong and I am right and so the food is kosher (again the fact that he might be right is irrelevant - a bet din can kill based on rov and certainly for shabbat and kosher food we work on majority) The accepting monist won't give the food to someone else. Even though he is wrong I respect his being wrong as long as he is within my radius - ie he relies on someone I consider legitimate and not just an idiotic opinion. OTOH I would give him the food if I feel his "chumra" is too wild fetched and beyond my radius as distinct from the pluralist 3) Harmonism states that both sides are only part of the real truth. Rav Kook and others bring the second gemara about "Elu V-elu". The gemara in Gittin discusses why the man from Binyamin killed his mistress)(pilegesh be-givah) - after an amoraic argument the truth was both were right either because he found a fly in his soup but got angry only he found a hair in the soup. So both views were ight and "Elu V-elu" Based on this RMA had a different interpretation of the argument between Bet Hillel and Bet Shamai Both sides presented arguments supporting their position. Both sides agreed that all the arguments were legitimate. However, in the end one has to make a decision when there are legitimate arguments on both sides and Bet Shamai and Bet Hillel arrived at opposite conclusins. The Harmonism implies that both sides have legitimate arguments. Hoever, in the end there is only one truth that comes out of contradictory arguments. The harmonism means that both sides are right (pluralism) on the basic stands. But only one side is right (monism) in the final decision. As stated before the one truth is found based on standard halachic grounds. Nothing is ever known 100% but that doesnt matter. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 3 18:46:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 11:46:53 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] A halachic problem in measuring wholemeal flour Message-ID: I have recently become aware of a practical halachic problem with measuring wholemeal flour for the shiurim of challah and the kezeitim of matzot mitzva. I don't think this issue is generally recognised, and I hope Areivim members will be able to bring it to appropriate authorities' attention. Traditional flour mills produced a mixture of white flour and bran by grinding whole grains between millstones. This mixture was sifted to produce finer or coarser grades of flour by removing more or less bran, respectively. Halachically, the bran that is removed has changed its status: dough produced from bran is not subject to challah. Furthermore, mixing bran back into its flour does not restore its status: the bran and flour are not "mitztaref". (See Challah 2:6) This was not an issue with traditional mills: nobody would sift bran out of flour and then ruin the white flour by replacing the bran. This is not the case today, though. Modern flour mills do not grind flour between stones. They use a series of graduated rollers that crack the grain into progressively-smaller particles, and the bran is separated off at an early stage of the process. Millers make wholemeal flour by adding bran back to the fine flour near the end of the milling process. You can find a description and video of the process here: http://www.fabflour.co.uk/fab-flour/how-flour-is-milled/ If modern wholemeal flour is halachically considered a mixture of flour and bran, as it seems, then to be obliged in challah one would need a greater shiur of wholemeal than of regular flour, and to fulfil one?s obligation of eating matza one would need to eat more than a kezayit of wholemeal matza. (See S.A. Y.D. 324:3 and M.A. & SAHR O.C 454:1,2) It is not possible to state a definite ratio of bran to white flour, as this will vary between species of grain and between varieties of each species. The relevant shiurim are not measured by weight but by volume, which is affected by the fineness of the bran compared to the fineness of the white flour. Furthermore, the amount of grain removed as bran will depend on the operation of the mill. My research indicates that up to a quarter of each grain of wheat (by weight) consists of bran. If we take this as a rule of thumb then a shiur of wholemeal wheat flour would be one and a third times as large as a shiur of white flour. As a practical matter, I think people making wholemeal bread should probably avoid doubt and bake either less than a minimal shiur (for which, consult your LOR) or bake sufficiently more than one and a third shiurim. Many people deliberately try to use enough flour to require the taking of challah: they consequently use just over a regular shiur and need to be warned about this. With respect to wholemeal matzot mitzva, I presume that people would have noticed and queried any reintroduction of bran to flour ground using modern methods. None the less, it would be very good to establish this for each bakery. Joe Slater Melbourne, Australia -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 3 20:42:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 06:42:58 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RMA Message-ID: On another issue I had quoted RMA as saying that one who doesnt believe in a creator has no punishment or reward for keeping mitzvot. After 120 years he will be punished only for being an atheist but for each individual sin. Hence, there is no problem of "lifne iver" . In particular in the frequent case a religious doctor can ask an atheist to take over for him on shabbat (wouldnt apply to a chiloni doctor who does beleive in G-d) This applies only to mitzvot like shabbat. Of course an atheist can't claim that he is not bound by sins like murder because he doesnt believe in G-d. An atheist will be punished for all moral sins that he commits and all usual laws of :lifne iver" etc apply to all moral commandments. ------------------------ He is now starting a series on religious autonomy. In particular he holds that one goes to a rabbi for a psak only if he is in doubt. If one has seriously learned the halachaot and is convinced of the "truth" then he should follow his own psak and there is no need to go to a "higher authority". He was asked what if the personal psak goes against the generally accepted psak. His answer was that in theory the same holds. However, a person should have enough humility that if he is a "daas yachid" he better be awfully sure that he is right. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 04:47:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 11:47:38 GMT Subject: [Avodah] A married sister Message-ID: <20150504.074738.29327.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, and becomes part of her husband's family. Thus, she is no longer part of her brother's family. But what about her father? According to the above logic, her father may not be m'tamei for her either. And in fact, she *has* left her father's family in the sense that if her husband is not a kohen, then she has been disallowed terumah ever since the wedding. Yet the halacha is that her father *may* be m'tamei for her, despite that change in status. So, in very simple terms, here's my question: If a Bas Kohen is married and then dies, why is it that her father may attend the funeral, but her brother may not? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55475caae730f5caa5375st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 07:42:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 17:42:10 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] A halachic problem in measuring wholemeal flour In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, May 4, 2015 at 4:46 AM, Joe Slater via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > I have recently become aware of a practical halachic problem with > measuring wholemeal flour for the shiurim of challah and the kezeitim of > matzot mitzva. I don't think this issue is generally recognised, and I hope > Areivim members will be able to bring it to appropriate authorities' > attention. > > Traditional flour mills produced a mixture of white flour and bran by > grinding whole grains between millstones. This mixture was sifted to > produce finer or coarser grades of flour by removing more or less bran, > respectively. Halachically, the bran that is removed has changed its > status: dough produced from bran is not subject to challah. Furthermore, > mixing bran back into its flour does not restore its status: the bran and > flour are not "mitztaref". (See Challah 2:6) > > This was not an issue with traditional mills: nobody would sift bran out > of flour and then ruin the white flour by replacing the bran. This is not > the case today, though. > Just a thought: perhaps the halacha that the bran and flour are not mitztaref depended on the metziu't that nobody would return bran to white flour? So if returning the bran to the flour is now the normal way of producing wholemeal flour, maybe today they are mitztaref? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 09:45:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 12:45:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs In-Reply-To: <20150330.221259.10345.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 11:47:38AM +0000, RAM wrote on the thread "A married sister": : In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself : for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I : used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves : the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, : and becomes part of her husband's family... But Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 02:12:59AM +0000, RAM wrote on this subject: > I once heard an interesting argument against Rav Moshe's logic on > this point. He is viewing the wife as the one who is moving to a new > location, but we have an explicit pasuk that takes the opposite view: > Bereshis 2:24 - "Therefore, a man will desert his father and his mother, > and stick to his wife." (The woman may of may not leave her parents, > but the man explicitly does.) > Granted that there are other arguments for the wife taking the husband's > minhagim - terumah is the first that comes to my mind. But if Rav Moshe's > main argument is Minhag Hamakom, I wonder how he would have defended it > against this pasuk. Anyone else see one answering the other? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 30th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Hod: When does capitulation Fax: (270) 514-1507 result in holding back from others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 10:11:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 04 May 2015 13:11:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs In-Reply-To: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> On 05/04/2015 12:45 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 11:47:38AM +0000, RAM wrote on the thread > "A married sister": > : In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself > : for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I > : used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves > : the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, > : and becomes part of her husband's family... > > But Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 02:12:59AM +0000, RAM wrote on this subject: >> I once heard an interesting argument against Rav Moshe's logic on >> this point. He is viewing the wife as the one who is moving to a new >> location, but we have an explicit pasuk that takes the opposite view: >> Bereshis 2:24 - "Therefore, a man will desert his father and his mother, >> and stick to his wife." (The woman may of may not leave her parents, >> but the man explicitly does.) > >> Granted that there are other arguments for the wife taking the husband's >> minhagim - terumah is the first that comes to my mind. But if Rav Moshe's >> main argument is Minhag Hamakom, I wonder how he would have defended it >> against this pasuk. > > Anyone else see one answering the other? Not at all. Her father must still become tamei for her. Only her brothers may not. What's more, suppose her husband dies without issue. She returns to her father's house, and is once more entitled to eat terumah and kodshim. Now suppose the father dies; she continues to eat the terumah and kodshim that her brothers bring home. When she dies the brothers are the only people left who sit shiva for her, and yet they are not allowed to become tamei for her unless there is literally nobody else who can do it! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 10:24:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 17:24:33 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs Message-ID: <20150504.132433.5362.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger asked: > Anyone else see one answering the other? You make a good point, but as I see it, they don't *answer* each other as much as they illustrate how complicated this subject is. For example, consider the case of a Bas Kohen who marries a Yisrael, or a Bas Yisrael who marries a Kohen. Her status changes upon marriage, but it will revert upon the death of her husband. - Unless there is a child, in which case her status will *not* revert. - Unless the child died too, in which case her status *will* revert. - Unless there is a grandchild, in which case she keeps her status even though her own child did not survive. (I probably messed up some of those details, but my point is that itis a very complex topic.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5547ab96da8f82b966b58st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 11:01:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 14:01:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A married sister Message-ID: <1fbaa.22f534a3.42790de1@aol.com> From: Kenneth Miller via Avodah In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, and becomes part of her husband's family. Thus, she is no longer part of her brother's family. But what about her father? [snip] So, in very simple terms, here's my question: If a Bas Kohen is married and then dies, why is it that her father may attend the funeral, but her brother may not? Akiva Miller >>>>> I don't know why the bond between brother and sister seems to be lessened when the sister marries, but we do have other evidence that the bond between father and daughter is never severed: If a man has no sons, only daughters, his daughters inherit his property -- even if they are married. The fact that they are married does not annul the fact that they are still his daughters. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 12:50:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 22:50:54 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith Message-ID: <> A more practical problem based on personal experience is that of defining colors (to a human not in terms of wavelengths). There is no way for 2 people to confirm they are seeing the same colors. One practical application is to examining cloths for a niddah - ketem. I again refer to an article in Keren Zavit by Nadav Shinrav on parshat tazria In particular I learned that brown is not a color -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 13:43:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 16:43:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150504204354.GA2628@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 10:50:54PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : A more practical problem based on personal experience is that of defining : colors (to a human not in terms of wavelengths). There is no way for 2 : people to confirm they are seeing the same colors. Even further: there is no wavelength corrsponding to pink or brown, they only exist as our mind combines wavelengths. Pink is weirder, because it resides on the color wheel where you would glue the two extremes of the spectrum together to close the circle. Colors other than the three in the middle of the sensitivity range of each of the types of cone in your eye can be seen two ways. For example: you could make orange by mixing two parts red with one part green, or by looking at light of one color, that is at the right frequency to trigger your red cones twice as much as they trigger the green. The topic we're discussing is qualia, and color is a favorite sort of quale to use for illustration (pun intended). A quale is the "what it's like to see red". In my example about orange, we have two different physics, but both could end up producing the same experience, the same exact shade and brightness of orange. So orange is not 1:1 any specific wavelength. Asude from the question RET raises, a popular thought experiment among philosophers is Mary the Color Scientist (Frank Jackson 1982): Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor. She specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose, all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes, or the sky, and use terms like 'red', 'blue', and so on. She discovers, for example, just which wavelength combinations from the sky stimulate the retina, and exactly how this produces via the central nervous system the contraction of the vocal chords and expulsion of air from the lungs that results in the uttering of the sentence 'The sky is blue'.... What will happen when Mary is released from her black and white room or is given a color television monitor? Will she learn anything or not? It seems just obvious that she will learn something about the world and our visual experience of it. But then is it inescapable that her previous knowledge was incomplete. But she had all the physical information. Ergo there is more to have than that, and Physicalism is false. And so Jackson concludes that the world can't be reduced to physics. This is also what I was talking about when I referred to justifying a belief based on comparing imagination to memory. Koach hadimyon does mean "imagination", but what Ariso meant by Imagination, or the rishonim by dimyon, includes qualia in general. The image of red while you're seeing it, not just when you're dreaming it up. And I would argue that even when we make rigorous logical proofs, those proofs are conclusions drawn from a set of givens, and those givens end up resting on koach hadimyon anyway. The formally proven theological statement is therefore less conclusive than one based on an appeal to dimyon directly, such as R' Aqiva's argument. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 30th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Hod: When does capitulation Fax: (270) 514-1507 result in holding back from others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 15:25:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 04 May 2015 18:25:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs In-Reply-To: <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> Message-ID: <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> On 05/04/2015 01:11 PM, I wrote: > > What's more, suppose her husband dies without issue. She returns to her > father's house, and is once more entitled to eat terumah and kodshim. This is not quite correct. She returns to eat teruma, but not kodshim. "Milechem, velo kol lechem". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 16:07:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Mon, 04 May 2015 19:07:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy In-Reply-To: <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> Message-ID: <5547FB97.5020203@aishdas.org> Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, d'hashta) would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? Thanks! KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 18:11:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 01:11:49 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy Message-ID: <20150504.211149.15174.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer asked: > Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, > d'hashta) would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? My first knee-jerk reaction is to say that they DON'T relate. Chazakos are all about law, and what the law will *presume* the reality to have been. We found a piece of meat on the street, or we bought it and forgot where, or any of a million similar questions. We don't really know whether it is kosher or not, and to a certain extent we don't really care. What we really care about is whether halacha allows us to *presume* that it is kosher. Schroedinger's Cat and similar ventures are attempts to establish what the *reality* is. The Cat is a thought experiment, but do not make the mistake of thinking that it is mere philosophizing. The whole point of the experiment is to establish what is really and actually happening inside the box, and the answer (that they've come up with) is that two contradictory truths (the cat is alive, the cat is dead) are both true at the same time. This is a question of physics and reality, not a question of legal presumptions. The subject line of this thread says that you're "looking for help with an analogy". Could you tell us more about what you're working on? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5548190613cab19056408st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 19:10:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rafael Jason Hecht via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 22:10:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How Kosher is the Kosher Switch? Message-ID: Last Motzei Shabbos I was among the crowd that was saying Kiddush Levana out in the open. While davening I overheard someone making a joke about using a Kosher Switch (my guess was to place light on the outside so people could better read). I did my own reading and research before that and couldn't tell if the gentleman was joking or being serious. To put it lightly, the development and marketing Kosher Switch has caused a major controversy in the Torah Jewish community. The Kosher Switch, a device purportedly meant to ease the constraints of Sabbath observance, is not the first of its kind. The Grama switch by Zomet Institute, as well as the Zman switch have been created for emergency situations of pikuach nefesh. However, this switch has caused an uproar in the Jewish community. Why? Before going on, let me state that while I am far from an expert in the field of electrical engineering or Hilchos Shabbos (nor am I a certified Rabbi), I treasure Shabbos and am always looking for ways to enhance it. That said, I did my own personal research and humbly present my findings. Before I go on, let me first state that the topic of electricity on Shabbos is far more extensive than what I'm laying out, and that I am not (intentionally) offering my own Psak, just a compilation of "what's out there." Read more: http://www.mywesternwall.net/2015/04/30/how-kosher-is-the-kosher-switch.html Best Regards, Rafi Hecht *rhecht at gmail.com* ------------------------------------------------------- *LinkedIN:* *http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rafihecht* *Facebook:* *http://www.facebook.com/rhecht* *Twitter:* *https://www.twitter.com/#!/rafihecht* *Personal Site:* *www.rafihecht.com* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 12:47:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Shalom Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 22:47:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired Message-ID: I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a woman is owned by her husband, the language of the Mishna notwithstanding. Can anyone point to a clear statement by Hazal or rishonim that supports my supposition? My thanks, Shalom Z. Berger -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 13:51:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 16:51:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150505205140.GA20122@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 05, 2015 at 10:47:20PM +0300, Shalom Berger via Avodah wrote: : I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a : woman is owned by her husband, the language of the Mishna notwithstanding. : Can anyone point to a clear statement by Hazal or rishonim that supports my : supposition? First, the halakhos of qiddushin do not conform to that of purchase. Qinyan is a broader concept than purchase; for example, not that long ago you probably performed a qinyan sudar to appoint your rav as a shaliach to sell your chameitz. Some differences: - no din of ona'ah, a shaveh perutah is sufficient for all - you give the perutah to the woman, not her former "owner" - she has to agree to the qinyan, despite not being the former "owner" - she has to make a qinyan on the money - money needn't exchange hands; she could pardon a loan to effect a marriage. However, qinyan bekesef does require such an exchange. - Hilkhos gittin is a lot more complicated than just calling hefqer. - the wife gets to decide whether to give him her earnings in exchange for being supported. If she were property, he would get her earnings wheter or not *he* chose to support here. Now that I got that out of my system, to answer your question: Qiddushin 6b: ... and if an eved kenaani, whose body he was qoneh, if he says to him [in a shetar shichrur] "you are hereby your own" it means legmaei, ishah DELO QANI LEIH GUFAH, lo qol shekein! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 31st day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Hod: What level of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 results in harmony and balance? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 12:12:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 15:12:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun Message-ID: In Avodah V33n70, RZS responded to R'Micha: >> I bet [RYBS] said tachanun on the Gra's or R' Chaim's (Volozhin or Brisk) >> yahrzeit, etc... For people who are seeking his pesaq, it's very likely >> he would insist on Tachanun on days like that. > Of course he said tachanun on their yortzeits, why wouldn't he? The whole > concept of turning a yortzeit into a holiday wasn't native to his world. > The question is what he would do on a day they had been saved from some > danger, and had observed as a private yomtov, or on a day that his > community had adopted as a local "purim" to commemorate being saved from > danger, as was a common practise among Jewish communities. ...or on Pesach Sheini? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 11:47:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 05 May 2015 13:47:08 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Tree of 40 Fruits Message-ID: <5549102C.40808@starways.net> http://www.sciencealert.com/news/20142107-25892.html What's the halakha regarding eating fruit from one of these trees? Since the grafting was done by a non-Jew, is it okay to eat? Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 14:01:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 21:01:39 GMT Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired Message-ID: <20150505.170139.16146.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Shalom Berger wrote: <<< I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a woman is owned by her husband, ... >>> That depends on what you mean by "own". I own my shoes. This gives me certain rights, such as wearing them to the exclusion of anyone else, or the choice of who I might lend them to. I also have certain responsibilities; I cannot simply destroy them for no reason. I own my tefillin too. But the things I can do with my tefillin are much more limited than whast I can do with my shoes. I have certain rights and responsibilities vis a vis my wife as well. Do I own her? I don't know. Is there a real nafka mina, or is it just semantics? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55492fe2678522fe2353bst03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 15:46:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 05 May 2015 18:46:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Scrolling Down the Pages of Jewish History Message-ID: <20150505224615.83B27181E37@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/ocl2bqe his story appears in R. Yechiel Spero?s Pesach Haggadah: Touched by Our Story (pp. 88-91) and is republished here with permission from the copyright holders (ArtScroll / Mesorah Publications, Ltd.). The pictures below ? of the Tur Shulchan Aruch (printed in Berlin 1702) which belonged to Rabbi Yaakov Emden (Germany, 1697-1776) ? were taken by R. Akiva Males, and are republished with permission of Columbia University?s Rare Book and Manuscript Library. See the above URL for much more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 00:23:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 03:23:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] All About Tehillim Message-ID: <20150506072350.7A9B4181522@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/mxoucvn From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 02:02:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 05:02:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Disappearing Doctor of Iyyar: Virtual Vanishing of a Venerable Minhog Message-ID: <20150506090255.CB5C5182D80@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/mdz6883 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 03:13:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 06:13:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Disappearing Doctor of Iyyar: Virtual Vanishing of a Venerable Minhog In-Reply-To: <20150506090255.CB5C5182D80@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150506090255.CB5C5182D80@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150506101327.GA19813@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 06, 2015 at 05:02:54AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : See http://tinyurl.com/mdz6883 Quoting the Treasures of Ashkenaz blog [transliterations mine]: > The aleph stands for ani, the two yuds for HQBH, and the reish? fo > rofekha. The month is thereby depicted as a month of healing. The vort > seemingly is based on an old minhog of many generations among Yidden, > in which the letters yud-yud (sans hyphen) are used to represent the > venerated name of Hashem However, even yud-yud is not the original minhag. In older manuscripts they used three yuds, with the middle one slightly above the line, making a triangle. Preserved in this printed edition of Siddur R' Saadia Gaon . I suggested two possible reasons for the third yud's disappearance: - The printing press made that middle yud hard to insert into books, because it would require a special letter in the type box. I find this one less than compelling, because they kept an alef-lamed ligature in the type box, and that got less usage. - Xians read their own significance into the three letters. This would be clearner, if there were any evidence of them actually doing so. So the two-yud notation was just one step along the way. The general question of why non-chassidic Ashkenazim (or non-Chida-influenced Sepharadim) suddenly started writing out the sheim in siddurim is compelling, but the two-yud notation isn't necessarily some venerable alternative. The three yuds was often explained as beind the initial letters of Birkhas Kohanim; the yuds from Yevarekhekha, Ya'er, and Yisa. Some suggest that the two yuds represent the first and last letters of an intertwined sheim havayah and sheim adnus: YUD alef HEI dalet ... HEI yud. Itself heavily al pi qabbalah. And associating the two yuds with the transliteration into Hebrew of an Akkadian month name (Ayyaru = n. blossom) requires even more omnisignificance and mysticism than does finding significance in presenting sheim havayah written out. Where I really see this change as a problem is not because of venerable minhagim, but because books have less shelf life now than in the past. Cheap printing means also cheaper paper, not to mention faster replacement. And if generations past wanted to minimize their sheimos problems, al achas kamah vekamah we should. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 00:31:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 10:31:51 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: In some circles it is common for men to keep long peyot (as an aside it has become common also in some chardal circles) The book Keren Zavit says he doesn't understand the custom. The problem is not in long sidebruns but rather that the hair from under the ear rarely grows long. The long "peyot" usually grow from hair above the ear and so has no connection to peyot and in fact come from part of the head where there is no prohibition to shave -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 06:38:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Shalom Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 16:38:38 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired In-Reply-To: <20150505205140.GA20122@aishdas.org> References: <20150505205140.GA20122@aishdas.org> Message-ID: While Micha is correct that the Gemara clearly states "ishah DELO QANI LEIH GUFAH" and that there are many, many differences between true ownership and marriage, this does not keep the Tosafot HaRosh (Ketubot 2a sv Nistahpa Sadeihu) from concluding: "ha-isha kinyan kaspo shel ha-ish kemo avdo ve-shoro va-hamoro." I would like to find a source in the rishonim that clearly rejects the approach of the Tosafot HaRosh. Shalom Rabbi Shalom Z. Berger, Ed.D. The Lookstein Center for Jewish Education Bar-Ilan University http://www.lookstein.org https://www.facebook.com/groups/lookjed/ Follow me on Twitter: @szberger NETWORK*LEARN*GROW From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 09:26:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 12:26:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tree of 40 fruits Message-ID: The question was asked, "What's the halakha regarding eating fruit from one of these trees? Since the grafting was done by a non-Jew, is it okay to eat?" The only issur achila of kilayim is kilei hakerem. Anything else may be eaten. With regard to the fruits of a graft, the explicit halacha in Yoreh Deiah (295:7) is that it may be eaten even by the one who violated the prohibition by performing the graft. (That halacha also continues that one may take a branch from the graft and plant it.) As to the original question about the potato-tomato combination, grafting is prohibited: even though neither is a tree (295:3), but as above, the resulting product may be eaten. EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 10:28:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 13:28:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs Message-ID: The din of a kohein's daughter not eating t'ruma upon marriage to a non-kohein was mentioned in conjunction with this topic. However, I submit that perquisites of k'huna are unrelated to the adoption of one's spouse's customs. How else can we understand the din that a person can give the parts of a slaughtered animal due to the kohein (z'roa, l'chayayim v'keiva) even to a kohein's daughter married to a Yisraeil, or, for that matter, even to her Yisraeil husband (and according to one opinion, the same is true for pidyon habein)? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 10:37:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 13:37:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy Message-ID: <72706.56a00b87.427bab69@aol.com> From: Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, d'hashta) would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? Thanks! KT, YGB >>>>> Not sure where you're going with this but you seem to be saying that chazakos have no independent, objective reality. That a chazaka is in the eye of the beholder. Oops. Looks like you've let the cat out of the bag... --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 11:13:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 14:13:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Strange History of Lag B'Omer Message-ID: <20150506181455.D4FFC1836BF@nexus.stevens.edu> There is an interesting talk by Dr. Shnayer Leiman with the above title at http://yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/734356/ Yitzchok Levine -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 11:48:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 14:48:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy In-Reply-To: <5547FB97.5020203@aishdas.org> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> <5547FB97.5020203@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150506184838.GA4624@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 7:07pm EDT, RYGB wrote: : Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, d'hashta) : would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? Quantum Uncertainty is more similar to rov than chazaqah. And it could model how we can embrace conflicting majorities. Such as in the case of two pieces of shuman and one of cheilev, and being able to eat all three one after the other. (Or perhaps even in a ta'aroves, but that just complicates the picture.) It would fit if we treat the physical state of each piece of fat as ( 2 |shuman> + |cheilev) / 3 rather than as a 67% chance of being shuman. And then those things that were observed are immune from such weirdness, much like qavu'ah. That said: The notion that wavefunction collapse is due to observation, the Copenhagen Interpretation, was once taken as a given. But alternatives involving entanglement, wave function collapse, multiuniverse theory, etc.. have been gaining ground for decades. This parallel to qavu'ah could be illusory. On Tue, May 05, 2015 at 1:11am GMT, R Akive Miller wrote: : My first knee-jerk reaction is to say that they DON'T relate. Chazakos : are all about law, and what the law will *presume* the reality to have : been... : Schroedinger's Cat and similar ventures are attempts to establish what : the *reality* is... I am very inclined to agree. R' Aqiva Eiger (teshuvah $136) makes a chiluq between sefeiqos in the metzi'us and sefeiqos in din. Rov holds when we have sefeiqos in the metzi'us. So we can pasqen about something that is rov-kasher. But if someone knew the metzi'us, then there was a din established for the fat. Now that we don't know what it was, we have a safeiq as to what that din is. LAD, the whole thing is about human experience. See , which has 10 posts covering things like chazaqah (both types), rov, qavu'ah, terei mekei'ah (which I argue ignores rov for the same reason as qavu'ah), nosein ta'am, using tequfas Shemu'el for birkhas hachamah, microsopic bugs etc.... The hashkafic premise is that the goal of halakhah is to shape the self (whether into a tamim, a shelaim, to acheive deveiqus, etc...) And therefore the metzi'us a din has to work with is how we experience reality (and thus birur when we're in doubt) and how we can experience it (only visible bugs count). And not how the universe works in ways we can only understand in the abstract. The most lomdishe consequence of my whole edifice is that it manages to explain why a chazaqah trumps a migo in a case where there are also trei utrei eidim, but why a migo trumps a chazaqah when there are no eidim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 12:13:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 15:13:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150506191353.GB4624@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 06, 2015 at 10:31:51AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : The book Keren Zavit says he doesn't understand the custom. The problem is : not in long sidebruns but rather that the hair from under the ear rarely : grows long. The long "peyot" usually grow from hair above the ear and so : has no connection to peyot and in fact come from part of the head where : there is no prohibition to shave The custom is shared by Chassidim, Chidah-influenced Sepharadim (those with many Qabbalah-based pesaqim) and Teimanim. So there seems to be an ancient maqor unrelated to any reasons given al pi qabbalah by the first two groups. R' Chaim Kanievsky is a living example of a minhag/hanhagah that was once more common -- not combing one's peyos because of the hairs plucked out. Rav Dovid Lifshitz, so now we're talking Litta, had two thick blocks of hair going back from his temples to over his ear. According to the SA YD 181:9, peyos run as high as the hairline above the forehead until the bottom of the ear, where the earlobe detaches from the face. So the prohibition does include the area the KZ is asking about -- there are inches of hair between the top of the ear until you get parallel to the hairline. And this is the very area that the majority of the hair in long peyos grows from. I therefore don't understand the KZ's question. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 12:40:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 22:40:23 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: >From : B. Highest Point. The location of the highest point on the head that the peyos extend is described in Shulchan Aruch (181:9) as "across from the hair on is forehead". There are two basic opinions as to the precise location the Shulchan Aruch refers to: 1. Rabbi Yisroel Belsky (Shulchan Halevi page 122) writes that he had heard directly from Rav Yakov Kaminetzky zt"l that the upper limit of the peyos ha'rosh begins "at the highest point of the hairline as it arches over the ear and extends in a slightly curved line across to where the hairline of the forehead turns sharply downwards towards the sideburns. All the hair from the imaginary line that connect these two points and below comprises the peyos ha'rosh". 2. Rabbi Belsky also quotes "some rabbonim have a mesora, a tradition from their Rabbis, that the peyos do not extend above the upper cartilage of the ear (tenuch ha'ozen) at all. According to their mesorah, the imaginary line extends horizontally from the point in the hairline above the foremost part of ear almost until where the downward slope of the frontal hairline angles back towards the ear. For a picture see -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 13:42:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joel Schnur via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 16:42:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun Message-ID: <554A7CBF.3020300@schnurassociates.com> No one says tachnun on the Gra's yarhzeit. it's 3rd day chol hamoed succos ___________________________ Joel Schnur, Senior VP Government Affairs/Public Relations Schnur Associates, Inc. 25 West 45th Street, Suite 1405 New York, NY 10036 Tel. 212-489-0600 x204 Fax. 212-489-0203 joel at schnurassociates.com www.schnurassociates.com http://www.schnurassociates.com/joels-corner/ From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 14:13:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 17:13:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired In-Reply-To: <20150505.170139.16146.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150505.170139.16146.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150506211338.GB27781@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 5, 2015 at 9:01pm GMT, R Akiva Miller wrote: :> I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that :> a woman is owned by her husband, ... : That depends on what you mean by "own". : : I own my shoes. This gives me certain rights... I suggested more than once in the past that baalus has more to do with responsibility than western notions of property. Which is why yorshim do not inherit chameitz on Pesach. Even though the father owned chameitz in the sense of bal yeira'eh bal yimatzei, he lacked ba'alus at the time of his passing. Or why a rentor has a chiyuv to hang a mezuzah -- he has some measure of ba'alus, despite not being an owner. RAF (CCed) shared my post on Facebook, and since I have no idea what can be seen by the public, I'll paraphrase a couple of responses I thought would be of interest. On my line that "qinyan is a broader concept than purchase", one person compared the mishnah in Avos "qeneih lekha chaver". This morning, at 8:59am PDT, R Shalom Z Berger asked for a rishon who clearly rejected the Tosafos haRosh's statement (Kesuvos 2a "nitapecha sadeihu) that "ha'ishah qinyan kaspo shel ha'ish, kemo avdo veshoro vechamoro". Someone else on FB noted that the Rashba, in his chiddushim on the first pereq of Qiddushin, repeatedly points out that all the rishonim other than the Rosh reject the idea out of hand. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 15:09:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 15:09:17 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes Message-ID: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Shabbat-microphones-catching-on-among-orthodox-despite-taboos-402173 i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at hadchak /bedieved -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 17:12:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 20:12:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150507001204.GA31766@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 06, 2015 at 03:09:17PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Shabbat-microphones-catching-on-among-orthodox-despite-taboos-402173 : : i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at hadchak /bedieved Gerama devices, yes. But a passive element microphone feeding a PA system that is never entirely off -- so it's never turned off or on -- and has no lit indicators is an entirely different beast. (Most microphones generate current when vibrated; a passive element microphone changes resistance.) Still not an open-and-shut heter, as this article makes it sound. And there are more grounds for Sepharadim to be meiqil then Ashkenazim, based on a machloqes between the Mechaber and the Rama in OC 252:5. R' Ovadia was matir. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 18:18:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 01:18:22 GMT Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes Message-ID: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> R' Saul Newman asked: > i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at > hadchak /bedieved I've never read any of their material, but I'm pretty sure that they have MANY halachic "tools" in their arsenal, and not all of them carry the same restrictions. For example, a grama switch would only be useful for a very limited number of situations, as would a pen that writes with disappearing ink. But if you can make an electronic device that generates zero heat and zero light, it just *might* be acceptable for general use. Exhibit A: Hearing aids. I'll admit that a hearing aid is not the same thing as a loudspeaker system. But without getting into a whole discussion, the only point I'm making is that you have to look at the thing, and not just reject it out of hand. One might say that "Hearing aids are by definition for a shaas hadchak; how can this technology help the average person? So I bring you Exhibit B: Sabbath Mode ovens. Without any doubt, one DOES manipulate the electric circuit with these gadgets. If not on Shabbos, then at least on Yom Tov. But I think that the real answer to your question might be: "If the people in shul can't hear the rabbi or the chazan, that IS a shaas hadchak." In any case, about 15 years ago I happened to spend Shabbos at a shul that used one of these systems, and there were two large notices by the entrance to the main sanctuary, pointing out that the system was designed by Zomet. If I remember correctly, there was also a letter on the wall giving more halachic details about it. Which is the bigger chumra: To avoid using such devices, or to insure that even the hard-of-hearing can follow hear? Or, if you prefer, which is the bigger kula: To use such devices, or to disenfranchise part of the tzibur? (I'm not taking sides, just illustrating the issues. If you want answers, ask your LOR.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554abd8864c633d88019cst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 18:45:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 01:45:24 GMT Subject: [Avodah] The Disappearing Doctor of Iyyar: Virtual Vanishing of a Venerable Minhog Message-ID: <20150506.214524.14329.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitzchok Levine posted: > See http://tinyurl.com/mdz6883 That article has only slight relevance to anything medical. It is actually about the practice of abbreviating HaShem's Name with a double (or triple) Yud in siddurim, and how this practice is losing ground recently, with more siddurim using the Four-Lettered Name. That article says: > ... even in the printing of siddurim, where in the past, Shem > Hashem was not written out explicitly, based on venerable, old > practice. In other words, the spelling out of the letters, Yud > ? Kay ? Vov ? Kay in the past was done in Biblical texts, such > as Sifrei Torah and Sifrei Nach. In texts of tefilos, however, > it was not done. Instead, Yud ? Yud was substituted. I am very curious why this distinction was made, that the siddurim use the Yuds, while the printed Tanachs do use the Four Lettered Name. I note that towards the end of that article, he refers to an "Azharah L'Madfisim (Warning To Printers)" on this topic, written by the son-in-law of the Nesivos Hamishpat. Curiously, he writes that the Two Yuds should be printed in siddurim *and* *chumashim*. On the other hand, a few lines later, the Azharah explains a point I've long wondered about. The Four Lettered Name is just one of the *seven* Names Which May Not Be Erased. Why did this abbreviation arise for the Four Lettered Name and not for any of the others? I always figured it was because this one is *truly* a Name; "the Most Holy among equals" one might say. But the Azharah gives an entirely different explanation. Namely, the difference between this Name and the other six is that no matter how you spell it, it is not to be pronounced normally, so what is to be gained by using the correct letters? Therefore, find an abbreviation of some sort for this one, but the others should be spelled as they will be pronounced. Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554ac3e5a6e0843e34b38st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 19:34:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 22:34:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: <85279.31aefae5.427c294a@aol.com> From: Eli Turkel via Avodah In some circles it is common for men to keep long peyot (as an aside it has become common also in some chardal circles) The book Keren Zavit says he doesn't understand the custom.... -- Eli Turkel >>>> Yemenites have long payos, so this must be a very old custom, not some recent chumra. They don't call them "payos" but "simanim," which I find charming. They are signs that a man is a Jew, proud and obvious signs. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 02:13:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 12:13:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: In addition to the points brought up by R' Eli Turkel against long peyot, I would like to raise the following: The shiur given by all of the poskim for each hair is very very short, and in fact because it is a lo taase there is probably not even an inyan of hidur mitzvah. Therefore it is not clear why there would be any inyan to grow long peyot. The truth is it would be much better to be machmir on the shiur of where peyot harosh ends (maybe the very bottom of the ear) which is a safek issur d'oraysa then to grow long peyot which has no kiyum al pi din. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 20:33:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 23:33:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired Message-ID: <86422.6a1e08b9.427c3711@aol.com> [1] I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a woman is owned by her husband, the language of the Mishna notwithstanding. Can anyone point to a clear statement by Hazal or rishonim that supports my supposition? My thanks, Shalom Z. Berger [2] I own my shoes. This gives me certain rights, such as wearing them to the exclusion of anyone else, or the choice of who I might lend them to. I also have certain responsibilities; I cannot simply destroy them for no reason. I own my tefillin too. But the things I can do with my tefillin are much more limited than what I can do with my shoes. I have certain rights and responsibilities vis a vis my wife as well. Do I own her? I don't know. Is there a real nafka mina, or is it just semantics? Akiva Miller >>>> [1] Along the lines of what R' Micha Berger posted. On Ber 24:57 -- "Let us call the maiden and ask her what she wants to do" -- Rashi says, "Mikan she'ein masi'in es ha'isha ela mida'ata -- from here we learn that one does not [or may not, or cannot] marry a woman without her consent." I think he's quoting Kesubos 57b. I can't think of any kind of property whose consent is required before the property can be acquired. [2] The analogy to tefillin is flawed. You do not have any obligations or responsibilities to your tefillin. Rather, in regards to your tefillin, you have obligations towards your Maker! He has told you what you must do, may do, or must not do, with your tefillin. A better analogy would have been to your ox or your dog, where you do actually have obligations to your animals, an obligation, for example, to feed the animal before you eat your own meal. And a still better analogy would have been to acquiring a slave, about which the Talmud says "One who acquires a Jewish slave is like one who has acquired a master! (Kiddushin 20a)" -- because of all the obligations he incurs towards his slave. So there does seem to be some kind of ownership that a husband has vis-a-vis his wife, but then, she also in some sense owns him. Certainly she has the right to make specific claims on him, because he has specific obligations towards her. Shir Hashirim speaks about the love between Hakadosh Baruch Hu and Am Yisrael in an extended poetic analogy to the love between a husband and a wife. What does the wife say about her husband? Dodi li ve'ani lo -- He belongs to me, and I belong to Him. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 23:25:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 02:25:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Princess and I: Academic Kabbalists/Kabbalist Academics Message-ID: <20150507062523.18EF01826EC@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/km8kf2n The last few decades have witnessed the veritable explosion of "new perspectives" and horizons in the academic study of Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism. From the pioneering work of the late Professor Gershom Scholem, and the establishment of the study of Jewish Mysticism as a legitimate scholarly pursuit, we witness a scene nowadays populated by men and women, Jews and non-Jews, who have challenged, (re)constructed, and expanded upon Scholem's work.[2] These men and women themselves have been variously praised and criticized themselves for sometimes blurring the lines between academician and practitioner of Kabbalah and mysticism.[3] Professor Boaz Huss of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has done extensive work in this area.[4] One of the most impressive examples of this fusion of identities is Professor Yehuda Liebes (Jerusalem, 1947-) of Hebrew University, who completed his doctoral studies under Scholem, and rose to prominence himself by challenging scholarly orthodoxies established by his mentor. See the above URL for more. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 23:29:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 02:29:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Shabbat microphones catching on among orthodox despite taboos Message-ID: <20150507062953.0C966182FF8@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/men8bez Relying upon rulings by decision makers such as Rabbi Shaul Yisraeli, Isser Yehuda Unterman and Rav Haim David HaLevi, the Zomet microphone uses only transistors "without any glowing [or 'burning'] elements;" is turned on by an automatic "Shabbat timer;" and, once turned on, "current flows continuously in the system," according to technical notes on the setup released on the group's website. According to Zomet executive director Rabbi Dan Marans, the system has come into use in 15 synagogues in Baltimore, Montreal, West Stamford and other locations, as well as in 18 old-age homes. Leading American poskim, or decidors of Halacha, have even "stipulated in contracts with synagogues that they change the system to our system so that the RCA [will be] able to send rabbis." "I've not heard comments [against it]. If anything, people find the service more enjoyable and more elevating," agreed Schneier, adding that "We must get a dozen calls a year from rabbis contemplating putting this system into their synagogues. "I believe within 25 years it will be commonplace in Orthodox synagogues here in the Northeast." See the above URL for more. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 07:01:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 10:01:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Transferring my comments to Avodah At 04:00 PM 5/6/2015, R Saul Newman wrote on Areivim: >http://www.sharelive.tv/sharlive_Heb/SL27948.html I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire 33rd day, and they wait until the 34th day to take a haircut. Does this not imply that the entire 33rd day is part of Sefirah and the restrictions hold the entire 33rd day? Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva. However, the micktzas starts in the morning of the 7th day, not on the night of the 7th day. Thus, even according to Ashkenazim the night of Lag B'Omer is bound by the restrictions of Sefirah. So how can they make such gatherings on the night of the 33rd day? And, of course there is this post that I made on from Fri, 26 Apr 2013 based on comments by Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel. According to RSRH there is a major difference between the way the uses the terminology un-Jewish and non-Jewish. Un-Jewish things are things that are incompatible with Yahadus, whereas non-Jewish things are things of non-Jewish origin that are compatible with Yahadus. YL The following is from http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol11/v11n014.shtml#17 Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 11:37:58 -0400 From: "Seth Mandel" Subject: Re: bonfires on Lag Ba'Omer From: Phyllos... at aol.com Obviously, the bones of people who believe that there is a s'gullo in making fires . As I have had fun telling people, the _only_ bonfire that was an ancient Jewish tradition was the Simchas Torah bonfire in Ashk'naz, which is attested from the 14th century up until the 19th century, but has gone out of style. The Lag Ba'omer bonfire is a very recent phenomenon among most Jews. Indeed, the word bonfire is from "fire of bones." The term was used primarily in various pagan ceremonies which then were transferred to christianity, for a funeral pyre, and in burning infidels or books (like The Gaon of Vilna or MOAG). The bones used, if 'twere not a pyre, were primarily animal bones. Here's an early quotation (1493): "in worshyppe of saynte John the people waked at home and made all maner of fyres. One was clene bones and no woode, and that is called a bone fyre." From Marlowe in 1586: "Making bonfires for my overthrow. But, ere I die, those foul idolators Shall make me bonfires with their filthy bones." (Think that would get by the moderators on Areivim, R. SBA?) 1689: "The dead corps is buried. They of old made a bone-fire and therein burnt it." 1622: "Their holy Bibles cast into Bone-fires." The term became used for any large fires used for celebrations, although the practice and term continued to be used especially for those associated with various christian saints, particularly John and Peter. From a 1570 history: "Then doth the joyfull feast of John the Baptist take his turne, When bonfiers great with loftie flame, in every towne doe burne." From a constitution of the association of the cooks of Newcastle, 1575: "The said Felloship of Cookes shall yearelie. mainteigne and keep the Bone-fires. that is to say, one Bone-fire on the Even of the Feast of the Nativitie of St. John Baptist. and the other on the Even of the Feast of St. Peter the Apostle." These quotations start in the 15th century, because that is as far back as the term bone-fire goes, but the practice of making a bonfire in honor of Christian saints goes back to ancient times in England (and in France as well). Another practice that goes back to ancient times in Christian Europe is making pilgrimages to "qivrei tzaddiqim" and donating alms at the qever; this practice is well known from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Most Christian scholars attribute the association of the bonfires with celebrations of the feast of a saint to pagan, pre-christian practices which were later adopted by the local people to their new religion. Indeed, the Celtics made bonfires to honor some of their deities and spirits. No one would ever claim that these practices, going back into old Anglo-Saxon England, are of Jewish origin. The Arabs of EY, Syria, and Lebanon, as is well-known, honored the Christian and Jewish "saints" (everyone knows that the qever of Sh'muel haNavi has been a "holy" site to the Arabs for hundreds of years, and they built a mosque there; the site is called "anNabi Samwil"). They made pilgrimages to them, like the Christians did, and they made large celebrations to honor the festival of the saint. The Arab pilgrims who came did various things to honor the saint. They gave alms (a big mitzva in Islam), usually done by the practice of cutting the hair of their children (which they had let grow from before the pilgrimage), then weighing it and giving the same weight in gold or silver for alms. They also made large bonfires to honor the saint. The custom of making pilgrimages, giving alms, and making bonfires may have been borrowed from the christians, since a) they originally appeared among the Arabs of EY, Lebanon and Syria, AFAIK; b) they are first recorded after the time of the Crusades (although the giving of gold or silver in the weight of the hair seems to have been from the Middle East). However there is no clear proof that they did not arise from another source. But they are attested in Arabic sources going back to the 15th century, and probably before. Can the custom of bonfires on Lag Ba'omer have arisen among the Jews separately and independently from the non-Jewish sources? Theoretically it's possible. Books like Minhag Yisruel Toyre he brings all sorts of reasons from various chasidic rebbes and from the book Ta'amei haMinhogim for the origin of the bonfires on Lag Ba'omer. The problem with all the explanations is that a) they are all of recent origin, and b) they somehow ignore the fact that the custom was completely unknown to any Jews up until the time when it is recorded in EY in the 16th century. Furthermore, it was the custom there of only one group of Jews, the Musta'ribim, about whom other Jews complained that they had adopted a lot of Arab customs (the very name mean "Arabicized). From contemporary documents we learn the Muslims (and a few Jews) cut the hair of children as well as lit a bonfires on the yohrtzeit (28 of Iyyar) of non other than the aforementioned Shmu'el haNavi. However, in the 1560s the Arab authorities forbad Jews to go there. Shortly afterwards, we have the testimony of R. Chaim Vital that he was told by R. Yonatan Sagiz that a year before he started learning by the Ari, in the Ari's first year after he immigrated from his homeland of Egypt (also 1570), that "Mori v'Rabbi Z'L took his small son and all of his family there [to the celebration on RaShBY 's yohtzeit in Meron] and there he cut his hair in accordance with the custom." R. Chaim Vital is careful to note, however, that "I do not know whether at that time he was expert and knowledgable in this wondrous wisdom [Qabbolo] as he became after that." IOW, R. Chaim Vital himself is cautioning the reader that he has doubts about whether the Ari did this in accordance with his views in Qabbolo, or just because it was a popular celebration, and he might not have participated had he already been an expert in Qabbolo. Some historians believe that once the Musta'ribim were forbidden to go to the qever of Sh'muel haNavi, they transferred their celebration to Meron and the date to Lag Ba'Omer. Others claim that the custom at Meron predated 1570. But both groups agree that both of these customs, cutting the hair of the children and making bonfires, were practiced by the Arabs and the Musta 'ribim, but not by any of the Ashk'nazi and S'faradi Jews in Israel. Of great interest is that the local rabbis in Tz'fat, who had the practice of going to the all the known q'vorim of the Tano'im from the middle of Iyyar until Shavu'os and having a seder in learning there, opposed the celebrations of the Musta'ribim on Lag ba'Omer and tried to forbid it. They made little headway, and once it became known that the Ari participated one year, any opposition was swept away. We know from travelers to EY in the 18th and 19th centuries that the "hilula" at Meron on Lag Ba'Omer with bonfires and the cutting of children's hair had become an affair of the masses. A well known talmid chochom from Europe, R. Avrohom Rozanes, writes that in his visit to EY in 1867 he saw an Ashk'nazi Jew who had taken his son to the "hilula" and was giving him a haircut. R. Rozanes says that he could not restrain himself, and went to that Jew and tried to dissuade him but was unsuccessful, and that most of the Ashk'nazi and S'faradi Jews of EY participate in this "craziness," with "drinking and dancing and fires." The custom of giving the son his first haircut at that celebration, originally called "halaqa" by the Jews of EY (apparently because there was an established Arabic term but no Jewish term for the custom) was later mixed with the custom of making a celebration when a son reached 3 and began learning Torah. The two customs were combined by many, and resulted in the boy's haircut being delayed until he was 3, and not specifically on Lag ba' Omer. A chasidish rebbe, R. Yehudah Leibush Horenstein, who emigrated to EY in the middle of the 19th century writes that "this haircut, called halaqe, is done by the S'faradim in Yerushalayim at the qever of RaShB'Y during the summer, but during the winter they take the boy to the synagogue or Bet Medrash and perform the haircut with great celebration and parties, something _that is unknown to the Jews in Europe_. and at that point they start him growing his pe'ot. it is incomprehensible why this is not done outside of EY [as well]" [emphasis mine]. Indeed, the custom was adopted by shortly thereafter by chasidim in Europe to imitate the custom of the S'faradim in EY, and the custom of lighting bonfires on Lag Ba'Omer also was adopted at that time by chasidic communities in Europe. The Jews in Europe, knowing no Arabic and having no Yiddish name for the custom of the haircut, called it by a normal Yiddish word for cutting off the hair: opsheren. Both customs are less than 150 years old among Ashk'naz Jews, including chasidim. Now we scarcely can expect to find a historical document that says "we, the undersigned Jews, have decided that there is nothing wrong with copying the Muslim celebrations in honor of saints, and we will participate in them." So you're never going to find better historical evidence for Jewish borrowing of non-Jewish customs than this: that a custom that was previously unknown to any group of Jews arose among a group of Jews known to copy various Arab customs in a time and place that the custom is attested among the Arabs from independent evidence. Is there anything osur about a bonfire on Lag Ba'Omer, or waiting to give a son a haircut until he is 3 or until you go to Meron? Certainly not. As I believe R. SBA has noted, the opsheren provides an excuse for a party that is connected with the boy's beginning to learn; it could be done without the haircut, but if people feel that it is important to give a haircut as well, there is no issur. Certainly no one who lights bonfires or celebrates opsheren has any idea that the source of these customs is extremely questionable. And after 130 years most Jews forget the origin of customs anyway and just assume they are old Jewish customs.. However, those who studiously avoid eating turkey on Thanksgiving should know that the origin of the customs of the bonfire on Lag ba'Omer and halaqa/opsheren are much more suspect. Seth Mandel ---------- So I really do not understand this entire affair at Meron. To add to this see the pictures of Lag B'Omer from many years ago at http://tinyurl.com/khmhcz4 I do not see even one bonfire! YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:07:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 13:07:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 10:01:44AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown : which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. : The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire : 33rd day... : Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last : day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva... Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. Yes, many of us know that the PEC really says Lag baOmer is yom simchas Rashbi, which may or may not be his yahrzeit. "Yom shemeis" is a typo that reached later editions via a dropped ches. See http://seforim.blogspot.com/2011/05/printing-mistake-and-mysterious-origins.html But (as per previous conversations), that also doesn't rule out the possibility that the day of Rashbi's joy is his yahrzeit. But even if the Ari said it's the day he started the Zohar, finished it, left the cave, or whatever, it's still a day the Ari considered worth celebrating. And yes, many of us also know that the whole upsherin-at-the-qever thing was originally on the 43rd in/to the omer, at Nabi Samwel. (See shu"t haRadvaz 2:608.) Which makes sense -- Shemu'el was a nazir, and he lived in the BHMQ starting at age 3. The move to Meron and Lag baOmer happened when the Ottomans restricted access to the qever in the 1500s. The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) and ABD. But the version of the minhag he recorded would not pose the question -- observe the first "half" of the omer, and then a haircut a week before Shavuos isn't a problem. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:07:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 13:07:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 10:01:44AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown : which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. : The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire : 33rd day... : Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last : day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva... Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. Yes, many of us know that the PEC really says Lag baOmer is yom simchas Rashbi, which may or may not be his yahrzeit. "Yom shemeis" is a typo that reached later editions via a dropped ches. See http://seforim.blogspot.com/2011/05/printing-mistake-and-mysterious-origins.html But (as per previous conversations), that also doesn't rule out the possibility that the day of Rashbi's joy is his yahrzeit. But even if the Ari said it's the day he started the Zohar, finished it, left the cave, or whatever, it's still a day the Ari considered worth celebrating. And yes, many of us also know that the whole upsherin-at-the-qever thing was originally on the 43rd in/to the omer, at Nabi Samwel. (See shu"t haRadvaz 2:608.) Which makes sense -- Shemu'el was a nazir, and he lived in the BHMQ starting at age 3. The move to Meron and Lag baOmer happened when the Ottomans restricted access to the qever in the 1500s. The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) and ABD. But the version of the minhag he recorded would not pose the question -- observe the first "half" of the omer, and then a haircut a week before Shavuos isn't a problem. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 08:22:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 11:22:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554B8340.3090001@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 10:01 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > > > The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire 33rd day, and they wait until the 34th day to take a haircut. Does this not imply that the entire 33rd day is part of Sefirah and the restrictions hold the entire 33rd day? > > Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva. However, the micktzas starts in the morning of the 7th day, not on the night of the 7th day. Thus, even according to Ashkenazim the night of Lag B'Omer is bound by the restrictions of Sefirah. So how can they make such gatherings on the night of the 33rd day? That all applies if you regard Lag Ba'omer as simply marking the end of mourning. But as we discussed a few weeks ago, that doesn't really make sense. According to both shitos quoted by the BY there is no such thing as Lag Ba'omer -- the last day on which they died was either the 34th of the Omer or the 49th. Even according to the Tosfos as the Bach quotes it, that they only died for 33 days, Lag Ba'omer was one of the 33, and not the last one! And even if one will find a shita somewhere that they died only on the first 33 days, who makes a party on the last day of shiva? You stop active mourning, you don't go dancing! All of which points to the fact that Lag Ba'omer is *not* about the end of mourning, but a happy day in its own right, the simcha of Rashbi. (The silly discussion over whether the word is "simchas" or "shemeis" is irrelevant here. Either way it's his simcha, which he asked people to celebrate.) This simcha *overrides* the mourning of sefira, no matter which shita one follows. This way of looking at things also explains whether one should say tachanun at mincha of erev Lag Ba'omer. If it's just "the end of shiva", that starts in the morning, so one should say tachanun at the previous mincha, just as one does on erev Pesach Sheni (which also starts in the morning), erev Erev RH and erev Erev YK, and if we said tachanun in Nissan we would also say it at mincha of erev Erev Pesach, because it too starts in the morning. But once we regard Lag Ba'omer as a day of simcha in its own right, then it starts at night, and so we omit tachanun in the previous mincha. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 07:19:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 09:19:59 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] The Princess and I: Academic Kabbalists/Kabbalist Academics In-Reply-To: <20150507062523.18EF01826EC@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507062523.18EF01826EC@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554B748F.8080508@starways.net> On 5/7/2015 1:25 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > From http://tinyurl.com/km8kf2n >> The last few decades have witnessed the veritable explosion of "new >> perspectives" and horizons in the academic study of Kabbalah and >> Jewish Mysticism. From the pioneering work of the late Professor >> Gershom Scholem, and the establishment of the study of Jewish >> Mysticism as a legitimate scholarly pursuit, we witness a scene >> nowadays populated by men and women, Jews and non-Jews, who have >> challenged, (re)constructed, and expanded upon Scholem's work.[2] ... R' Adin Steinsalz once said about the Kabbalah Center type of Kabbalah that it bore the same relationship to real Kabbalah that pornography does to love. This "academic Kabbalah" bears the same relationship to real Kabbalah that an anatomy book does to love. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:32:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 13:32:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> At 01:07 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 10:01:44AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: >: I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown >: which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. > >: The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire >: 33rd day... >: Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last >: day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva... > >Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to >get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would >mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. Indeed, I think one should be. Truth be told my mother, A"H, told me that once a child is at least one year old and can say a few words, then his hair gets cut. This is what I did with my sons, and I am sure it is an old minhag. >Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the >Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning >on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in >the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke >qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to >last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. Indeed, this is where the New Religion is coming from. Years ago someone asked Rav S. Schwab, ZT"L, about certain things that certain chassidishe women do when they are pregnant and if they were valid. His forceful reply was, "My mother never knew about such things, my grandmother never knew about such things, and my great grandmother never knew about such things. These people are making up a religion!!!!!" I am not comfortable with people making up a religion, particularly since RSRH says definitively the Judaism is not a religion, to the New Religion is not Judaism by definition. >The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, >who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where >he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) >and ABD. But the version of the minhag he recorded would not pose the >question -- observe the first "half" of the omer, and then a haircut a >week before Shavuos isn't a problem. The MB points out that the minhag in Vilna was to start the restrictions of Sefirah on the first day of Rosh Chodesh Iyar and then they end in the morning of the first of the 3 days before Shavuous. I took a haircut shortly before Rosh Chodesh Iyar. There were no crowds to contend with and I had no waiting. This morning I trimmed my mustache and the hair that grows under my neck below my beard at shortly after sunrise. I will take a haircut on 3 or 4 Sivan. Again, there will be no crowds to contend with. This has worked and continues to work for me. YL PS. My wife has asked more than once, " How can they observe the aveilus restrictions of Sefirah during Pesach when it is a Yom Tov?" My reply is, "I do not know." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 13:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507175311.GC1758@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 01:32:05PM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : >Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to : >get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would : >mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. : Indeed, I think one should be. Maqor? Since when do we expect 3 yr olds to conform to minhag? ... : >Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the : >Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning : >on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in : >the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke : >qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to : >last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. : : Indeed, this is where the New Religion is coming from.... The PEC is older than RSRH. If you want to label any particular change as a "New Religion", you dwell in a glass house. ... : The MB points out that the minhag in Vilna was to start the : restrictions of Sefirah on the first day of Rosh Chodesh Iyar and : then they end in the morning of the first of the 3 days before : Shavuous. I took a haircut shortly before Rosh Chodesh Iyar. There : were no crowds to contend with and I had no waiting. And the Radbaz predates the SA, never mind the MB. : This has worked and continues to work for me... Good. What I'm objecting to is your insistnce in telling others that what works for them is "New Religion". : PS. My wife has asked more than once, " How can they observe the : aveilus restrictions of Sefirah during Pesach when it is a Yom Tov?" : My reply is, "I do not know." You can't get married on Pesach, not even ch"m either. Nor get a haircut. So you're asking about parties with live music. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:49:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 13:49:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <554BA59A.5040905@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 01:07 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, > who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where > he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) Who taught the Ari, who cut his son's hair at Meron on Lag Ba'omer. Does anyone know whether the Shita Mekubetzes, beside being the Ari's rebbe, was also related to him? I haven't seen this anywhere, but how many Ashkenazi families could there have been in Egypt at that time? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 11:41:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Herbert Basser via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 18:41:42 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah Message-ID: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> A recent post claims the Islamic "opsherin" was called "halaqah". What is the evidence for this claim? The only meaning of arabic "halaqah" I know is "learning circle". Zvi Basser -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 14:31:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 17:31:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Upsherin Message-ID: <20150507213225.D3EDA181A25@nexus.stevens.edu> Since Upsherin is done on Lag B'Omer at Meron, I think one should understand the source for this too. The following is from Shorshei Minhag Ashkenaz, Minhag Ashkenaz: Sources and Roots by Rabbi Binyamin Shlomo Hamburger, Synopsis of Volumes I-IV. YL The German custom to bring a young boy to the synagogue with a wirnpel (wrapping for t he Torah scroll) has no connection whatsoever to the practice of the chalaka (the Arabic term for Upsherin) observed by Sepharadirn and later ad opted by many Chasidirn. Th e custom of holding a special celebration marking the boy's first haircut developed among these groups. The celebration takes place at a specific age, usually three. Th e festivity is customarily held near the gravesite of a tzadik or in a synagogue. *This custom was unknown in ancient Sephardic and Ashkenazic communities.* (Emphasis added by me.) The earliest reports of the chalaka [upsherin] celebration are found in accounts written by Sepharadim early in the period of the Acharonim. Some three centuries later, we find the first indications that the custom had made its way into Chasidic circles. The most important source concerning the chalaka is the account of the celebration in which the Ari-zal is involved. The details of this story are somewhat vague, and it is unclear whether the Ari-zal made a chalaka for his son, or whether the account refers to his disciple, Rabbi Yonatan Sagish. There is also some question as to whether the Ari-zal participated in Lag Ba 'omer events in Meron after his kabalistic insights because the custom to conduct a chalaka on Lag Ba 'omer runs in opposition to the Ari-zal' s final ruling that forbade hair cutting during the orner period. Furthermore, the custom of the chalaka has given rise to some questions as to the propriety of hair cutting at a gravesite or synagogue, which might constitute an infringement upon the sanctity of the site. Some have also questioned the permissibility of haircutting on Lag Ba 'omer, during bein ha-rnetzarirn (the three weeks before Tisha B' A v) or during Chol Ha 'rno 'ed. Yet another concern was the immodest behavior that occasionally accompanied this event. Most Sephardic and Chasidic rabbis applauded, or at least defended the practices observed in their circles, though there were those who forbade the custom in this manner. Rabbi Yitzchak Zev Soloveitchik of Brisk (1889-1960) disapproved of bringing children to rabbis on their third birthday for the chalaka, claiming that this practice "has no reason or basis." He noted that there are sources indicating that one should introduce the child to matters of Torah at the age of three, but none that involve haircutting. Rabbi Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky [the "Steipler Ga'on," (1899-1985)] also opposed this practice, and would send away parents who brought their children to him for the chalaka haircut. The tendency among Ashkenazi communities to refrain from this practice stems, according to one view, from the concern that the chalaka transgresses the prohibition of imitating pagan practices. Cutting a child's hair at the age of three was a well-known custom among several nations in ancient times, and thus observing this practice may constitute an imitation of pagan ritual. Some, however, dismissed this argument, claiming that to the contrary, the chalaka perhaps began as an ancient Jewish practice which was later adopted by the gentiles. There are some older customs, originating in the times of Chazal and the Ge'onim, such as fasting on Erev Rosh Hashana and the ceremony of Kapaprot on Erev Yom Kippur which were opposed by some rabbis since they feared that their origins could be found in pagan rites. In any event, although some communities accepted this custom, Ashkenazi communities were never aware of such a practice. They did not receive this tradition from their forebears, and they found no mention of it in the writings of the Rishonim. The ancient tradition among Ashkenazi communities was to cut a boy's hair at a very young age. In fact, during the times of Chazal, parents would cut an infant's hair not long after birth, and they even permitted cutting a baby's overgrown hair on Chol Ha 'mo' ed. In the times of the Rishonim, too, boys' hair in Ashkenaz was cut already within the first several months after birth. The phenomenon of children with overgrown hair simply did not exist in Germany, and a boy with overgrown hair would have been mistaken for a girl. The custom of chalaka was never accepted in Ashkenazic countries or other regions in Western Europe, not even among the Sephardic communities in these areas. The practice earned acceptance in Eastern Europe among certain Chasidic circles, but only in later generations. Among other circles, boys' hair was cut when they began speaking, and no special affair was held to celebrate the event. .. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 14:31:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 17:31:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554BD9C6.9000803@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 01:32 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > > Indeed, this is where the New Religion is coming from. Years ago > someone asked Rav S. Schwab, ZT"L, about certain things that certain > chassidishe women do when they are pregnant and if they were valid. > His forceful reply was, "My mother never knew about such things, my > grandmother never knew about such things, and my great grandmother > never knew about such things. These people are making up a religion!!!!!" With all due respect to R Schwab's great-grandmother, there are more things in Yiddishkeit than were dreamt of in her philosophy. My great-grandmother did know about such things, and I'm sure her tzidkus and wisdom was no less than hers. And following the Ari's teachings is the very opposite of making up a religion. > I am not comfortable with people making up a religion, particularly > since RSRH says definitively the Judaism is not a religion, to the > New Religion is not Judaism by definition. You're the one assigning to it the word "religion", and then, in what can only be called an act of verbal ju-jitsu, you pull out a definition of that word which (you claim) does not fit Yiddishkeit, and declare that anything called a "religion" must not be Yiddishkeit. I might as well say that since my aunt is a secretary, a secretary is a kind of desk, and Jesus was a carpenter, therefore Jesus made my aunt! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 14:10:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 17:10:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> At 01:07 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. But doesn't "evolving" mean that there is an existing minhag, and it evolves? Here we are talking about a new minhag which no one knew about. The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was appropriate. People certainly can make up new customs whenever they like. But bonfires on Lag Ba'omer are no more or no less than parades on Yom haAtzmaut for those who celebrate it: They have nothing to do with religion. Some Jews have even invented a custom to put up a tree on Chanukkah. But do not try to tell us it then becomes a "religious minhag" and "minhag Hamokom." Everything that Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel wrote in his post is true. There were no rabbonim at the time who approved of the custom. Indeed it is true is that there were no rabbonim who approved of the custom at the time, nor at the time of the Ari and R. Chaim Vital. While they did not say it should be stopped, they gave no support either. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 15:42:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 18:42:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507224237.GA15428@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 05:10:31PM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : At 01:07 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: :> Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. : But doesn't "evolving" mean that there is an existing minhag, and it : evolves? ... The essence of mourning during the omer is not making a wedding, since nissuin, or a se'udas eirusin at the time of eirusin, is the act of simchah par exellance. Then the bit about haircuts crept in, and later, parties with music. Perhaps music as a whole, perhaps instrumental music, perhaps only parties -- machloqes acharonim. That's the minhag I'm talking about evolving. So, people found reason to poke a hole in a minhag that was otherwise growing. As I said, minhagim evolve. : The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was : appropriate. What? The Ari PARTICIPATED in it himself! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 16:39:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 19:39:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Upsherin In-Reply-To: <20150507213225.D3EDA181A25@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507213225.D3EDA181A25@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554BF7A0.10800@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 05:31 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > The earliest reports of the chalaka [upsherin] celebration are found in >accounts written by Sepharadim early in the period of the Acharonim. Indeed it is. For instance, see Gan Hamelech ch 62. http://www.otzar.org/wotzar/book.aspx?64092 This takes it back to at least the 17th century, and he refers to it as a well-known minhag that he doesn't have to explain. The Gan Hamelech is surely himself sufficient authority even if we had no other. And while he was Sefardi, he had a great influence on Ashkenazi psak. > The most important source concerning the chalaka is the account of > the celebration in which the Ari-zal is involved. The details of this > story are somewhat vague, and it is unclear whether the Ari-zal made > a chalaka for his son, or whether the account refers to his disciple, > Rabbi Yonatan Sagish. There is nothing vague about it. It's clear from the context that R Yonatan told R Chaim what the Ari had done a year before he, R Chaim, became the Ari's talmid. > Some have also questioned the permissibility of haircutting on Lag > Ba'omer, during bein ha-metzarirn or during Chol Hamo'ed. Gan Hamelech not only permits it on Chol Hamoed but even permits *delaying* it to Chol Hamoed so as to increase the simcha! And this psak is quoted lehalacha by the Baer Hetev. > The custom of /chalaka /was never accepted in /Ashkenazic /countries or > other regions in Western Europe, not even among the /Sephardic > /communities in these areas. The practice earned acceptance in Eastern > Europe among certain /Chasidic /circles, but only in later generations. This is untrue. It was already accepted in the Baal Shem Tov's time. The only time the Alter Rebbe saw the Baal Shem Tov was on his third birthday, when his parents brought him to have his hair cut. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 16:45:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 19:45:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554BF921.5070409@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 05:10 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was appropriate. On the contrary, he wrote that he personally saw the Ari take his whole family there and stay three days! > There were no rabbonim at the time who approved of the custom. The Ari was not a rov?! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 21:35:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 04:35:03 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Israeli carrots and peppers Message-ID: <20150508.003503.13248.1@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> Om Areivim, R' Yitzchok Levine posted this alert: > Shemitta: Carrots & Peppers from Israel > in Neighborhood Stores > > Please be aware that carrots (including Dorot Farms brand), > peppers, and other vegetables from Israel are consistently > being sold in the Baltimore area at produce markets in our > neighborhood, which are frequented by members of our community. > From the numerous inquiries we have received, it is apparent > that many consumers are unaware of this when shopping. > > The packages or labels state "Product of Israel." These > vegetables likely have Kedushas Shviis and require special > care. If you bought them, contact your local Orthodox rabbi > for further guidance. > > Seven Mile Market in Baltimore is monitored by Star-K and > produce sold there does not have this issue. My question is this: Why does the alert mention only the problem of Kedushas Shviis? If one is concerned about Kedushas Shviis, wouldn't he also be concerned about Sefichin, which (more than merely requiring "special care") is an issur achila? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554c3d3271e3c3d3240a3st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 21:11:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 04:11:14 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Meron live Message-ID: <20150508.001114.13248.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero wrote: > This way of looking at things also explains whether one should > say tachanun at mincha of erev Lag Ba'omer. If it's just "the > end of shiva", that starts in the morning, so one should say > tachanun at the previous mincha, just as one does on erev Pesach > Sheni (which also starts in the morning), erev Erev RH and erev > Erev YK, and if we said tachanun in Nissan we would also say it > at mincha of erev Erev Pesach, because it too starts in the > morning. But once we regard Lag Ba'omer as a day of simcha in > its own right, then it starts at night, and so we omit tachanun > in the previous mincha. I don't follow any of what RZS is saying about Lag Ba'omer, so I'll neither agree nor disagree. But my understanding of the nature of Pesach Sheni is very different from his: As it was explained to me, there's nothing special about the morning of Pesach Sheni. Pesach Sheni exists only on the afternoon of 14 Iyar and the following night. We omit Tachanun on the morning of 14 Iyar NOT because it is a holiday, but because it is the Tachanun *before* the holiday. Alternatively, one might say that the morning of 14 Iyar actually *is* Erev Pesach Sheni. Either way, the afternoon of 13 Iyar is too far removed to be significant enough to warrant skipping Tachanun. It is similar to how the *afternoon* of Erev RH and Erev YK are special enough to skip Tachanun, and this is extended even to the morning, but to say that the entirety of those days are so special that we would skip Tachanun even at the preceding Mincha -- No, that just doesn't fly. This leaves us with three days, at most, when we skip Tachanun at Shacharis, but we *do* say it at the preceding Mincha. (And many siddurim - ArtScroll, for example - explicitly list these three days as exceptions to the general rule.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554c37b79791d37b756e9st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 01:40:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 04:40:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507224237.GA15428@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507224237.GA15428@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150508084208.2D02F182131@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:42 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: > The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was >: appropriate. > >What? The Ari PARTICIPATED in it himself! From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upsherin Rabbi Chaim Vital wrote in Sha'ar Ha-Kavanot that "Isaac Luria, cut his son's hair on Lag BaOmer, according to the well-known custom." However, the age of his son is not mentioned. An obvious problem raised by Avraham Yaari, in an article in Tarbiz 22 (1951), is that many sources cite that the Arizal held one should not cut one's hair for the entire sefirah ? including Lag BaOmer, (see Shaarei Teshuva, O.C. 493, 8). YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 01:44:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 04:44:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Better Version of Upsherin Message-ID: <20150508084606.6189F180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> There were some editorial problems with what I sent out earlier about this topic from Shorshei Minhag Ashkenaz. See http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/shorshei_hair_cutting.pdf for a better version. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 21:02:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 06:02:54 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah In-Reply-To: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> References: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> Message-ID: <554C356E.2030103@zahav.net.il> On 5/7/2015 8:41 PM, Herbert Basser via Avodah wrote: > A recent post claims the Islamic "opsherin" was called "halaqah". What > is the evidence for this claim? The only meaning of arabic "halaqah" I > know is "learning circle". A (Tunisian) Arab told me that it means hair cut. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 01:54:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 04:54:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening in a Large or Small Shul Message-ID: <20150508085532.23F97182131@nexus.stevens.edu> From today's http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ 1)It is a Mitzvah to daven in a Shul that has a large amount of people, as the Pasuk (Mishlei 14:28) says "Brov Am Hadras Melech - with a large assemblage the glory of the King [Hashem] is multiplied." (See Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) 2)There are various exceptions to this rule, and certain times it is deemed Halachically superior to daven in a smaller place and forego the "Brov Am Hadras Melech". A few examples of the many such exceptions: a)Davening in a Bais HaMidrash or Yeshiva , where people learn Torah all [or a large part of the] day (even if you yourself do not learn there) is better than davening in a Shul (i.e. Bais Hakneses that is used only for Tefilah), even if there are more people in the Shul than in the Bais HaMidrash. (See Talmud Brachos 8a. See Chayei Adam Klal 17:1 and Mishna Berura Siman 90 S:K 55) b)If one is on the way to a big Shul, and is stopped by someone and asked to be the tenth man [or any part of the 10] in their Minyan (either in a shiva house, or a smaller Shul whose members cannot go to the larger Shul due to their health or age, or any similar situation) he should stay with them and not refuse based on "Brov Am Hadras Melech" (Psak of Maran Harav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv Zatzal, quoted in Sefer Tefilah K'Hilchasa Perek 2 footnote 29, who maintains that doing a Chesed is just as big a Mitzvah, if not bigger, than fulfilling "Brov Am Hadras Melech") c) If one can concentrate and daven better in a smaller Shul he should daven there, rather than in a bigger Shul where he may not daven as well. (Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) The Aruch Hashulchan (Siman 90:15) rules that if in the larger Shul there are people who talk and converse during the Tefilah (which is a terrible sin, as we have discussed many times, and will iy"H discuss again more thoroughly in the near future), it is better to daven in a small Shul where it is quiet and the proper respect for Tefilah is exhibited. (The Sefer Tefilah K'Hilchasa Perek 2 footnote 28 writes that Rav Shlomo Zalmen Auerbach Zatzal even went so far as to Pasken that if by leaving the Shul with the talking you will end up missing Krias HaTorah or having to leave davening early, one should still avoid the Shul with the talking!) d) Naturally, if by davening in the larger Shul one will miss the proper time for davening (Zman Tefilah), he may daven in an earlier Minyan or Shul even if it is significantly smaller. (See Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) ---------- I think that today there is a move away from davening in large shuls. This is certainly true here in Brooklyn where many of the larger shuls are at times struggling to maintain their congregants. Part of it has to do with the fact that most large shuls daven Ashkenaz, and this is not viewed favorably in Brooklyn. I personally prefer to daven in a minyan consisting of between 20 and forty people. It is much easier to maintain decorum in such a minyan than in a shul where 100 or more people are davening. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 05:14:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 12:14:58 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Davening in a Large or Small Shul In-Reply-To: <20150508085532.23F97182131@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150508085532.23F97182131@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <5f05607383324977a92361bd65ab804c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> From today's http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ 1)It is a Mitzvah to daven in a Shul that has a large amount of people, as the Pasuk (Mishlei 14:28) says "Brov Am Hadras Melech - with a large assemblage the glory of the King [Hashem] is multiplied." (See Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) 2)There are various exceptions to this rule, and certain times it is deemed Halachically superior to daven in a smaller place and forego the "Brov Am Hadras Melech". A few examples of the many such exceptions:....................... ================================================ I wonder if this write up is indicative of a trend seen in "The halachos of X" works, likutim which seem to have become more popular (did they exist 40 years ago?). As Rav Aharon Lichtenstein learned at Harvard, life is complex. Of course there are overarching priorities which need to be learned, but specific applications are hard to summarize in an algorithmic form (see hilchot lashon hara and tzedaka for some obvious examples). Maybe in an internet age we have no choice but to try to put everything on line but what you really need IMHO is a live mentor. KT Joel RIch THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 08:21:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 11:21:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] minhagei S'fira (was "Meron live") Message-ID: In Avodah V33n74, R'Micha replied to RDrYL: : PS. My wife has asked more than once, " How can they observe the : aveilus restrictions of Sefirah during Pesach when it is a Yom Tov?" : My reply is, "I do not know." > You can't get married on Pesach, not even ch"m either. Nor get a haircut. So you're asking about parties with live music. < If one is asking about *minhagei aveilus* during the "first days", one can also ask about the "second days" custom to observe *minhagei aveilus* whenever Tachanun is said, as the number of such days does not come close to 33 and one has to include Shabbos as well as either R'Ch'Iyyar or the *shloshes y'mei hagbala* (all days when Tachanun is _not_ said) in the number. All the best from *Michael Poppers* * Elizabeth, NJ, USA -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 11:39:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 14:39:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] minhagei S'fira (was "Meron live") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150508183940.GA11944@aishdas.org> On Fri, May 08, 2015 at 11:21:28AM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : If one is asking about *minhagei aveilus* during the "first days", one can : also ask about the "second days" custom to observe *minhagei aveilus* whenever : Tachanun is said... Which makes it a good time to remind people of my tweak of RAM's survey of 11 different shitos (12, if we include one that isn't followed) of omer mourning periods It's an interesting side-note that two opinions do not include the night of Lag baOmer. But neither end then. :-)BBii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 11:58:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 14:58:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] minhagei S'fira (was "Meron live") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <554D0756.4070105@sero.name> On 05/08/2015 11:21 AM, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: > If one is asking about /minhagei aveilus/ during the "first days", > one can also ask about the "second days" custom to observe /minhagei > aveilus/ whenever Tachanun is said, as the number of such days does > not come close to 33 and one has to include Shabbos as well as either > R'Ch'Iyyar or the /shloshes y'mei hagbala/ (all days when Tachanun is > _not_ said) in the number. Whose custom is that? This sounds like the shita of Tosfos as quoted by Mahari ibn Shuaib, which is that they died all 49 days, but we observe aveilus only on those days when we don't say *techina*, which comes to exactly 33 days (including Lag Ba'omer, which according to this shita is not a special day at all). -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 9 03:38:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Sat, 9 May 2015 20:38:40 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Upsherin Message-ID: > > R' Levin wrote: The German custom to bring a young boy to the synagogue > with a wimpel > (wrapping for the Torah scroll) has no connection whatsoever to the > practice of the chalaka [...] > This is the way KAJ recommends This the way KAJ recommends Not with the bangs but a wimpel. Joe Slater -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 9 05:12:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sat, 9 May 2015 22:12:16 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <418AFCD6-9213-453C-A268-58AFB75BB81A@balb.in> I didn't know my family Minhag until I chanced on a picture before the war with my grandfather and two of his sons, both with long hair. Using the mimetic tradition my sons and grandsons had an upsherin. It's interesting that mention was made of The Griz. As is well known followers of the Vilna Gaon (including Mori VRabbi Rav Hershel Schachter) don't go to the Beis HaChaim and neither did Rav YD Soloveitchik until in his words he felt compelled to visit his wife's Tziyun. How many know that the Griz asked some Talmidim to go to the Rashbi's grave and pray when the Griz was on his death bed? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 9 12:23:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 9 May 2015 22:23:58 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar Message-ID: The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article They show how Seder Olam is self consistent and in particular it frequently takes people in Tanach whom seem to be different and conflates them. In sefer shoftim they take everything literally that each judge was for 40 years and no gaps between them etc. They then address the difference between the secular and seder olam dates. They also point out the difficulty in the sefer Isuah from chapter 39 onwards (Deutero-Isaiah) 1) the sudden change from rebuke and sestruction to comfort (many years before the destruction) 2) Koresh is listed explicitly twice while prophecy tends to be general 3) Yeshayahu is mention 15 times in the first part but never is mentioned in the second part They conclude that the secular dates are correct (as an aside archaeologists decide on these dates based on astronomical events and carbon 14 dating of pollen seeds which are short lived) They then explain seder olam dating 1) seder olam was not written as a historical text but has a moral side 2) seder olam ignores periods of time when nothing of Jewish importance occurs In particular the Persian era until Shimon Hagadol did not live up to the expectations. Hence, the prophecy of Isaiah-II (name unknown) was simply added to an existing sefer 3) as with its practice conflates Darius I with Darius III. 4) The new Greek calendar (shtarot) was exactly 1000 years after the exodus. In order to achieve this goal parts of the Persian history had to be changed including the order of some kings, again conflating several separate Persian kings which leads to a much shortened Persian kingdom. Finally it removes 6 years from Alexander the great (ie seder olam states Alexander ruled for 6 years in Greece and 6 years in Persia) See above article for more details -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 10 16:49:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 May 2015 18:49:22 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <554FEE82.8090903@starways.net> I think this is tragic. Rather than allow the blasphemous thought that the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their minds, they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple frauds and told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern Orthodox Jews have regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic. Lisa On 5/9/2015 2:23 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a > series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar > > http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see > achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article > > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 10 17:27:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 May 2015 20:27:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <554FF779.8010200@aishdas.org> I cannot believe TABC allowed this to be published as is. /Shreklach!/ KT, YGB On 05/09/2015 03:23 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a > series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar > > http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see > achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 02:19:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 12:19:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebre calendar Message-ID: <> I don't see how you can call this "blasphemous" R. Schwab once suggested that Chazal purposely changed the facts for a good reason. While he later retracted it would be hard to call his original opinion "blasphemous" . Furthermore several current Orthodox rabbis such as R. Leibtag do accept the secular dating. In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some examples 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu As a curios it makes Eliyahu some 700 years old when he runs in front of Achav's chariot. It gives a different meaning to Achav's accusations against Eliyahu when Eliyahu actually worked together with Moshe Rabbenu. Besiades the fact that Eliyahu was from Gilad and worked in the northern kingdom it leaves the halachic question whether a cohen gadol can resign and even leave the land of Israel for various tasks. It is clear from Tanach that Eli and other were the high priest in later generations 2) Ezta = Malachi because both dealt with the problem of foreign wives 3) Nechemia = Zerubavel R. Yaakov Embden already points out that both are mentioned in the same pasuk 4) Daniel = Hatach = Sashvezer Ibn Ezra already doesnt accept this 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta This is part of the missing years controversy. Note that there are several ancient Persian inscriptions that list them as separate kings Note that Ibn Ezra identifies Achashverosh as Artachashasta 6) Conflates Kaleb ben Chetron married to Efrat with Kalen ben Yefuneh married to Miriam Ibn Ezra disagrees and also see the Gra -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 10 23:38:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 09:38:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah In-Reply-To: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> References: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> Message-ID: On Thu, May 7, 2015 at 9:41 PM, Herbert Basser via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > A recent post claims the Islamic "opsherin" was called "halaqah". What > is the evidence for this claim? The only meaning of arabic "halaqah" I know > is "learning circle". > Disclaimer: my knowledge of Arabic doesn't go much beyond being able to look up words in the dictionary, but from doing that the root h-l-q seems to mean both "shave", "form a circle" and "round off". This makes sense to me: after all, "lehakkif" in Biblical Hebrew has the same semantic range. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 03:06:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 06:06:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] He is my G-d Message-ID: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> From Today's Hakhel email bulletin. Hakhel Note: The following is excerpted from Rav Schwab on Prayer, and was related by Rav Schwab at a Shiur he gave on Tefillah: I heard a story from Rav Yosef Breuer, Shlita, which he told about his father, my Rebbe, Rav Shlomo Zalman (Solomon) Breuer. The elder Rav Breuer was a very good friend of Rav Shimon Sofer, the Rav of Cracow, a brother of the Ksav Sofer, and a son of the Chasam Sofer. Once when the two friends met, Rav Shimon Sofer asked Rav Breuer to tell him a short ?vort" from his father-in-law, Rav Shamshon R. Hirsch. Upon which, Rav Breuer told him that Rav Hirsch would point out that while Adon Olam described the unfathomable eternity and omnipotence of Hashem, it nevertheless makes a reference to Him in a very personal way--VeHu Kaili, He is my G-d. Each person in his Tefillah says: I have a personal relationship with HaKadosh Baruch HU, He is my personal G-d. Therefore, whenever a person says the word Ado--i, my Master, no matter how small he thinks he is, he is averring that he is in direct contact with Hashem. This thought is in the introduction to any individual's Iyun Tefillah, concentration on Prayer. There is nothing mystical or supernatural about it. It should be the most natural thing in the world. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 06:38:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 13:38:51 GMT Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebre calendar Message-ID: <20150511.093851.15442.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel wrote: > In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that > Chazal had a tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some > examples > 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu I rarely, if ever, come across the word "conflate", except here on Avodah. When it is used here, it seems to be pejorative, indicating that someone confused or merged two things that really ought to stay distinct. RET, is that what you mean here? Do you feel that it was wrong for Chazal to associate Pinchas and Eliyahu in the way that they did? Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5550b1061639931057a29st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 07:16:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joseph Kaplan via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 10:16:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar Message-ID: <002a01d08bf5$1a951290$4fbf37b0$@tenzerlunin.com> On 5/9/2015 2:23 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a > series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar > > http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see > achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article > There were (so far) two responses: "I think this is tragic. Rather than allow the blasphemous thought that the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their minds, they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple frauds and told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern Orthodox Jews have regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic." "I cannot believe TABC allowed this to be published as is. /Shreklach!/" When I read this when it came out I remember thinking: what a refreshing concept. Letting students use the educational tools they have been given to think on their own and then to publish the results which (to my extremely non-expert eyes) appears to be a nice bit of research and analysis - whether correct or not. Joseph -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 07:30:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 09:30:18 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebre calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> On 5/11/2015 4:19 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > < that the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their > minds, they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple > frauds and told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern > Orthodox Jews have regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic.>> > > I don't see how you can call this "blasphemous" R. Schwab once > suggested that Chazal purposely changed the facts for a good reason. > While he later retracted it would be hard to call his original opinion > "blasphemous" . Furthermore several current Orthodox rabbis such as R. > Leibtag do accept the secular dating. I didn't call it blasphemous. I referred to doubting secular scholarship as blasphemy, tongue in cheek, because that seems to be the way it's viewed by some of the secular thinking Modern Orthodox. R' Schwab once wrote a thought experiment, which was one huge hava amina. What if, he said, we were faced with absolute proof that the historiography of Chazal was wrong? And he gave an idea. He was horrified by the way in which the secular thinking Modern Orthodox misread what he wrote as an actual position, opposing the veracity of Chazal, and wrote, not a retraction, but a clarification that he had *never* espoused the position that was being attributed to him. If R' Leibtag accepts the secular dating, then my comments about the tragedy of Modern Orthodox Jews bowing to the modern idol of secular scholarship apply there as well. > In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a > tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some examples > > 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu > As a curios it makes Eliyahu some 700 years old when he runs in front > of Achav's chariot. > It gives a different meaning to Achav's accusations against Eliyahu > when Eliyahu actually worked together with Moshe Rabbenu. Wrong again. There's no historiography going on here. No chronological framework of any kind. It's Midrash. Like Moshe Rabbenu jumping 10 amot into the air when fighting Og. Like Pharaoh's daughter having a stretchy, Fantastic Four kind of arm. Midrashim are all true. They aren't all true in the literal sense. Pinchas was not literally Aharon's grandson Pinchas ben Elazar. That's quite different from throwing away the entirety of Chazal's historiography, which is internally consistent all the way through, and which *Chazal clearly believed to be literally true*. If you want to say they were wrong, that they were ignorant of the facts, go ahead and do so. But please, don't play games by imagining that they intentionally fudged the facts. > Besiades the fact that Eliyahu was from Gilad and worked in the > northern kingdom it leaves the halachic question whether a cohen gadol > can resign and even leave the land of Israel for various tasks. It is > clear from Tanach that Eli and other were the high priest in later > generations Again, he wasn't Kohen Gadol. No one holds that he was. Let me try and explain a little more about Midrash. Chazal bring Midrashim that contradict one another. For example, there's a Midrash that says Esther never slept with Achashveirosh. That Hashem sent a mal'ach that took her place. That conflicts with "Esther karka hayta", as well as with the Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son. None of this is problematic. Because the truth of Midrashim is not in their concretes. Like analogies, Midrashim are abstractions which are anchored with concretes, but are not defined by those concretes. > 2) Ezta = Malachi because both dealt with the problem of foreign wives And maybe Ezra was Malachi. And maybe he wasn't. I don't see much of a nafka mina either way. Do you? > 3) Nechemia = Zerubavel > R. Yaakov Embden already points out that both are mentioned in the > same pasuk Ditto. Not one single example you're bringing has anything to do with a massive chronological framework that Chazal clearly knew to be the way things happened. Megillat Esther took place *before* Bayit Sheni was built, and not after. Baruch ben Neriah was the talmid of Yirmiyahu and the rav of Ezra, and if you throw that away, you literally snap the chain of tradition from Sinai, rendering all of Judaism stuff and nonsense. > 4) Daniel = Hatach = Sashvezer > Ibn Ezra already doesnt accept this Again, l'mai nafka mina? > 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta > This is part of the missing years controversy. Note that there are > several ancient Persian inscriptions that list them as separate kings > Note that Ibn Ezra identifies Achashverosh as Artachashasta It's not part of the missing years anything. You need to read what Chazal say about that inside. As far as Achashveirosh being Artachshasta, Chazal say Artaxerxes was a throne name. And in fact, Greek sources say that both Artaxerxes II and III adopted it as a throne name. Furthermore, the Septuagint version of Esther refers to the king as Artaxerxes, so saying that Ahasuerus is Artaxerxes is a truism that has nothing to do with chronology. > 6) Conflates Kaleb ben Chetron married to Efrat > with Kalen ben Yefuneh married to Miriam > Ibn Ezra disagrees and also see the Gra I'll go further. R' Moshe Eisenmann's Divrei HaYamim for Artscroll (one of the few books in the Artscroll Tanakh series which I consider to be of inestimable value) has an entire section on the Kalevs. I highly recommend it. But again, Midrash is Midrash, and there's zero relevance here. Let me ask a simple question. Was Baruch ben Neriya Ezra's teacher? As Chazal say, and as Iggeret Rav Shrira Gaon and Rambam and others bring down. Or not? And if not, how do you feel about *not* having a chain of tradition going back to Sinai? Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 08:17:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 11:17:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: <20150511.093851.15442.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150511.093851.15442.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150511151732.GA15699@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 01:38:51PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I rarely, if ever, come across the word "conflate", except here on : Avodah. When it is used here, it seems to be pejorative, indicating that : someone confused or merged two things that really ought to stay distinct. I think that's my doing; I like the word. And yeah, it is merging two things that may be helpful in another context to keep distinct, but without being as pejorative as saying they confused them. If one assumes that Chazal's statements about the past are intended to be about how the past should have happened rather than caring about actual historicity, then their saying that Pinchas is Eliyahu is the identification of what Pinechas means to us with what Eliyahu means, and giving us a license to treat the two are a single symbol. With no intent to imply they were historically the same very-long-lived human being. I would also want a little more clarity from those who object to claims about missing years between levels of objection. Do you mean: 1- This isn't my derekh. 2- I cannot see this even as eilu va'eilu, it's simply false. 3- It is heretical. At least one of us used the latter language, and I don't see it. We have a definition of heresy, three definitions of three subtypes of heres, anyway (kofer, apiqreis, min). Is anyone actually intending to claim that it violates an iqar emunah to take Chazal's dating of events in the Galus Paras uMadai and early Bayis Sheini period as ahistorical, meant for some hashkafic reason? Or is it an epistomological thing? If you believe the academic community's interpretation of the evidence and will create new peshatim to fit in this case, you've bought into a system that would equally argue for kefirah? And for the two people who dismiss the Greek version of Persian history: What do you do with the astronomical state points thrown in that actually work? As RET noted last year, around Purim time, if you read Ezra and Nechemiah literally, ignoring Sefer Olam, it is more consistent with Greek historians than Chazal. I found he gave details in 1999 (v2n176) To quote: ... proofs for the secular history 1. external proofs A. The history of Herodotus (485-425 BCE) discusses in detail the lives of Cyrus, Cambyses,Darius and Xerxes and briefly Atraxerxes who was a contemporary of Herodutus. It is hard to conceive that he wrote about contedmporay figures or recent history who did not exist. Note that according to Chazal the Persians did not come into power until 350 BCE 75 years after the death of Herodutus !!! Thucydides (460-400 BCE) starts with Cyrus and goes through Darius II and the fights between Athens and Sparta and the Peloponnesian Wars. Again according to Seder Olam Rabbah there was no time for all these wars and so probably many of these Athenian and Spartan leaders did not exist. Ctesias (430-380) was a physician in the court of Artaxerxes and describes the 7 kings from Cyrus through Artaxerxes II. There are also later Greek historians who give the complete picture. Josephus also includes more kings than Chazal but not the entire Greek list. Moderchai Breuer in his history accepts the Greek dating. See Parker&Dubberstein, Babylonian Chronology for more details. Note: No modern historian claims that all facts in these histories are true. That is a far cry from stating that the entire history and not just certain details are fabrications and that all these kings never existed. B. Archaological evidence has uncovered many ancient Persian (cuneform) enscriptions (see for example The Persian Empire by J.M. Cook). For example one at the Persian palace in Persepolis says "I, Artaxerxes the son of Artaxerxes the son of Darius the son of Artaxerxes the son of Xerxes the son of Darius the son of Hystaspes" (Darius was not the son of Cambyses). Greek names have used for the original Persian names. There are other earlier enscriptions which are similar. These all conform to the Greek dating. C. There are letters from the Jewish community in Elephantine confirming the Greek position. D. I recently read of the history of the Assyrians. In their history they describe the reign of Sancherub and of a major eclipse of the sun during some battle. Astronomical calaculations confirm that the only full eclipse of the sun in that region occurred exactly during the dates of Sancherub according to the Greek chronology. 2. Internal Proofs A. Ezra 45,7 describes Koresh, Daryavesh, Achasverosh, Artachasta. These exactly parallel the Greek chronology with Achasversh=Xerxes. If one looks at the Persian writing rather than the Greek names then Xerxes is called khshayarsha which is close to Achashverosh (note Cambyses is left out probably because nothing of importance to Ezra occured during that reign). Note that Daat Mikrah on Ezra 4 assumes the secular dates. B. Nehemia 12:10 lists 6 High Priests, son after son, between Yehosua and Yadua. This is hard to explain if the whole period was on 52 years. It is even worse if one assumes that Shimon haTzaddik was the high Priest at the time of Alexander as that adds at least one more high Priest in the 52 years According to Ben Sira Shimon was the son of Johanan which would make of total of at least 8 high priests in 52 years all presumably sons of the previous one. C. Comparing Divrei Hayaim I: 3:19-24 with Ezra 8:2 and Nehemia 3:29 it seems that Ezra and Nehemis lived many years after Zerubbavel. Note: Daniel 11:2 seems more in line with chronology of Chazal. Second Note: According to Seder Olam Purim occured before the rebuilding of the second Temple while according to the secular chronology Achashverosh was the son of Darius and so the Temple was already in existence. According to Chazal, Daniel, Zerubavel, Ezra, Nehemia, Mordecai, Hagai, Zerchahiah and Malachi and even Shimon haTzaddik were basically contemporaries or within 1 to 2 generations of each other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 37th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Yesod: When does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 require one to be strict with another? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 06:52:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 09:52:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun on Pesach Sheni (was Meron Live) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150511135043.8781C182131@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:31 AM 5/11/2015, R. Akiva Miller wrote: >As it was explained to me, there's nothing special about the morning >of Pesach Sheni. Pesach Sheni exists only on the afternoon of 14 >Iyar and the following night. We omit Tachanun on the morning of 14 >Iyar NOT because it is a holiday, but because it is the Tachanun >*before* the holiday. Alternatively, one might say that the morning >of 14 Iyar actually *is* Erev Pesach Sheni. Either way, the >afternoon of 13 Iyar is too far removed to be significant enough to >warrant skipping Tachanun. From http://tinyurl.com/ln7le2m Some say Tachanun on Pesach Sheni (14 Iyar); some do not; some do not say Tachanun on 14 & 15 Iyar. What are the sources for these customs? Those who do say Tachanun probably do so because 14 Iyar is not listed as a day where Tachanun was customarily omitted by the Tur, anyone quoted in the Beit Yosef or Bach, by the Shulchan Aruch and its Mapah, the Levush, the Eliya Rabba, the Taz, the Magen Avraham, the Beiur haGra, the Chayei Adam, the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, the Mishna Berura and others. The Aruch haShulchan notes the custom of omitting Tachanun as foreign to Ashkenaz and deems it a 'wonder' (Pelah ). And from http://www.dinonline.org/2010/04/27/tachanun-on-erev-pesach-sheni/ Do we say Tachanun at minchah on Erev Pesach Sheni? Answer Yes [Shulchan Aruch Harav, Piskei Hassidur, end of Hilchos Krias Shema uTefilloh] YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 07:00:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 10:00:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening in a Large or Small Shul In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150511135900.11012181E6C@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:31 AM 5/11/2015, R. Joel Rich wrote: >I wonder if this write up is indicative of a trend seen in "The >halachos of X" works, likutim which seem to have become more popular >(did they exist 40 years ago?). As Rav Aharon Lichtenstein learned >at Harvard, life is complex. Of course there are overarching >priorities which need to be learned, but specific applications are >hard to summarize in an algorithmic form (see hilchot lashon hara >and tzedaka for some obvious examples). Maybe in an internet age we >have no choice but to try to put everything on line but what you >really need IMHO is a live mentor. Did R. Aharon Lichtenstein really not know that life is complex before he went to Harvard? I am very sure that a man as intelligent as he was knew that life was complex long before he went to Harvard. I never went to Harvard, but I knew by 12 or 13 years old that life in indeed complex. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 09:45:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 12:45:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] He is my G-d In-Reply-To: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150511164501.GA29539@aishdas.org> *On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 06:06:53AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : From Today's Hakhel email bulletin. : :> Hakhel Note: The following is excerpted from Rav Schwab on Prayer, :> and was related by Rav Schwab at a Shiur he gave on Tefillah... We need a source, and such a well documented lineage for the source, to point out what the words say? Does no one try translating a poem they've recited since childhood (and that's true even for many BTs)? "Adon Olam" through "velo ha'oz vehamisrah", the first 2/3 or so, talks about how transcendent HQBH is. Then the poet (usually attributed to Ibn Geveirol, 11th cent CE) abruptly switches to "VeHu Keili ... Hashem li velo ira" -- that despite that transcendence, I am still capable of having a personal relationship with Him. Li nir'eh this is the key to understanding sheim havayah: 1- The tetragrammaton is a contraction of "Yihyeh, Hoveh, veHayah -- Will Be, Is and Was", referring to Hashem being timeless and beyond the created. An el, when used in the secular sense, is a legislative ruler, so that Elokeinu, is a declaration that He is our Lawgiver -- the Author of both moral law and physical law. Havayah denotes connotes a vision of Deity that is very Other, the philosopher's G-d; Elokus is One who relates to man. 2- The very remoteness of the name Havayah also implies Divine Mercy. Which is how Chazal describe its usage in chumash. This is not intuitive, however the need to create law comes from a person's limited ability to deal with many individual cases. A teacher with few students is effective, one with more students, less so. To manage a country, we need laws and policies, since we do not have infinite time and attention to cover every decision on a case-by-case basis. Therefore, it is only because Hashem is Infinite that Divine Mercy is possible. Therefore, this expression can be seen as a declaration of the unity of G-d, despite the different appearances of Mercy and Strict Justice. We can each say "veHu Keili" *because* "velo ha'oz vehamisrah". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 37th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Yesod: When does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 require one to be strict with another? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 09:06:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 19:06:59 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] He is my G-d In-Reply-To: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 1:06 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > From Today's Hakhel email bulletin. > > Hakhel Note: The following is excerpted from *Rav Schwab on Prayer*, and > was related by Rav Schwab at a Shiur he gave on Tefillah: > ... > *whenever a person says the word Ado--i, my Master, no matter how small he > thinks he is, he is averring that he is in direct contact with Hashem*. > This thought is in the introduction to any individual's Iyun Tefillah, > concentration on Prayer. There is nothing mystical or supernatural about > it. It should be the most natural thing in the world. > I understand that "Rav Schwab on Prayer" was edited from recordings of RSS' shiurim, and I suspect that there is some misunderstanding here. If this is not mystical and supernatural, what is? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 11:12:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Herbert Basser via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 18:12:16 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah Message-ID: <1431367937499.87948@queensu.ca> Friendly amendment: When all else fails consult a dictionary-- where I found the root h-l-q both in hebrew and in arabic means "to make smooth" (no surprises here) and (surprise) a note after that indicating arabic h-l-q also applies to making the chin and the head smooth (hairless), i.e. "shaving".-- Not from the idea of rounding but from the idea of smoothing. Like in bereshit (27:11) esav was hairy and yaakov halaq. Zvi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 12:33:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 15:33:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150511193132.F24041829B7@nexus.stevens.edu> At 02:57 PM 5/11/2015, R. Eli Turkel wrote: ><the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their minds, >they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple frauds and >told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern Orthodox Jews have >regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic.>> > >I don't see how you can call this "blasphemous" R. Schwab once suggested >that Chazal purposely changed the facts for a good reason. While he later >retracted it would be hard to call his original opinion "blasphemous" . >Furthermore several current Orthodox rabbis such as R. Leibtag do accept >the secular dating. > >In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a >tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. The most definitive study on this topic is the recent book (2014) The Challenge of Jewish History: The Bible, The Greeks & The Missing 168 Years by Rabbi Alexander Hool From http://tinyurl.com/p42uvvj There is a well-known conundrum concerning Jewish history: The conventional chronology of the Western world - and academia - is in direct conflict with traditional Jewish sources over the history of ... history. Incredibly, there is a gap of roughly 200 years: For instance, the Talmud says the Second Temple stood for roughly 400 years, while mainstream historians today conclude that it stood for almost 600 years. This conflict has major implications on what occurred to who, and when. It also seems to question the accuracy of the entire Jewish tradition as accepted dating methods seem to contradict core parts of the traditional Jewish narrative. In presenting fresh and startling astronomical, mathematical and archaeological evidence, Rabbi Alexander Hool has charted new ground in his quest to find the solution to this ancient problem. The Challenge of Jewish History is revolutionary: it questions all assumptions, dispels unfounded myths, and transports us back in time over 2,500 years. With a subject of great significance and fascination to all those interested in history, and a wealth of scholarship and sources to impress academics, this intriguing book gives us a new perspective on .... This is a highly researched book based on Jewish and non-Jewish sources. the author concludes that there are no missing years and seems to prove his conclusion. I suggest that anyone who is really interested in this topic purchase this book. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 13:10:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Herbert Basser via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 20:10:00 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] chronology Message-ID: <1431375000749.45056@queensu.ca> [Transliteration mine. -micha] Seder Olam: Mahadurah Mada'it Peirush uMavo me'et Chaim Milikovsky's Makhor Yitzchaq ben Zvi shenei chalaqim, 326+711 amudim See Chaim Milikovsky's edition of Seder Olam for a very detailed explanation of all these issues in chazal's chronology and a critical edition of the readings of all extant manuscripts. The issues of chazal's chronologies were first highlighted at length by Azariah de Rossi's Meor Eynayim and should be settled by Milikowski's volume which took about 35 years to research. Chazal were great men but not modern historians, doctors, scientists, or nevi'im -- and certainly not liars. Zvi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 14:46:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 14:46:24 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] explanation Message-ID: the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not PC by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation for some shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a heterodox clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read those passages] . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other than the chok aspect] that the RBSO was looking from the perspective of the kahal and their kovod, and how they would react or be distracted by a baal mum. can someone supply a better take ? thanks -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 18:12:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 21:12:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150429.073718.25006.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150429.073718.25006.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150512011220.GA19224@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 11:37:18AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : Regardless of how the Bas Kol might be interpreted, is there any way : to understand "Nitzchuni banai!" other than Hashem personally siding : with one of the litigants, and losing? I don't see the closing of the story adding any problems the nissim themselves didn't. If you think they were about Hashem backing one side, then "nitzchui banai" is about that sice being defeated. If not, then it's whatever over reason He had for presenting misleading evidence that was defeated. Leshitas those who don't take eilu va'eilu literally and intead use a more classical logic with a law of contradition, the whole story is about HQBH choosing the process as a whole over the correctness of this one particular ruling. HQBH rejoicing that the chakhamim maintained the kelalei pesaq as they should rather than pay attention to His interferance. As the Maharitz Chayes understands it, by keeping the process viable, they keep the Torah eternal, capable of speaking to new circumstances as the world changes. "Nitzchuni banai -- My children have made Me eternal!" Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 37th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Yesod: When does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 require one to be strict with another? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 17:57:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 20:57:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55514FDD.4000100@sero.name> On 05/11/2015 05:46 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not > PC by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation > for some shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a > heterodox clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read > those passages] . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other > than the chok aspect] that the RBSO was looking from the perspective > of the kahal and their kovod, and how they would react or be > distracted by a baal mum. > > can someone supply a better take ? What's the difficulty? Hakriveihu no lefechosecho. The dignity of a king, and especially of The King, demands that all who serve Him be perfect in all respects. People with physical imperfections may be wonderful in many ways, but they are just that, imperfect. The current political correctness that refuses to acknowledge this is literally insane. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 15:31:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 23:31:27 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 12:19:57 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah > In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a > tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some examples > 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu ... > Besiades the fact that Eliyahu was from Gilad and worked in the northern > kingdom it leaves the halachic question whether a cohen gadol can resign > and even leave the land of Israel for various tasks. It is clear from > Tanach that Eli and other were the high priest in later generations Re Pinchos = Eliyohu The Ari says clearly [through the pen of R. Chaim Vital] in Shaar HaGilgulim that this refers to a gilgul neshomoh, not that he was literally the same person in body as well. DR From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 23:21:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 09:21:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar Message-ID: R' YGB writes: "I cannot believe TABC allowed this to be published as is. /Shreklach!/" Should we just bury our heads in the sand and not address these kinds of issues? Its very hard to hide information today, what happens when these kids get to college and find about the missing 165 years. What are they going to think? The fact is that Rabbi S. Schwab found this discrepancy a ?truly vexing problem? and wrote that the historical chronological dating: "?can hardly be doubted for they appear to be the result of painstaking research by hundreds of scholars and are borne out by profound erudition and by ever increasing authoritative evidence ... we are compelled to admit that the Bayis Sheni must have existed for no less than 586 years.? (Hakira A Y2K Solution to the Chronology Problem). If we don't address these kinds of questions (torah and science, the documentary hypothesis, etc.) then the implication that will be drawn by many people is that we don't have answers and we know what happens then. The Seforim blog (http://seforim.blogspot.com/2015/01/blog-post.html) not long ago reviewed a Sefer by R' Amnon Bazak, Ad Hayom Hazeh, which deals with many of the the issues that academia brings up related to Tanach. Are his answers compelling? Many times not. But at least he deals with the issues. A commentator there made a very important point, for those who have been exposed to these questions, we need seforim like this that at least attempt to deal with the issues raised and not simply bury our heads in the sand. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 01:36:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 11:36:40 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> References: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> Message-ID: > 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta <> Do these Greek sources explain how Koresh and Daryavush are the same person? Besides you use the parts of the Greek sources that you like and reject those that dont fit your thesis Now you rely on the Septuagint? Almost everyone else identifies Achashverosh with Xerxes, Besides the are several inscriptions in ancient Persian that give a detailed list of kings eg Artaxerxes the great king, king of kings king of peoples king on this earth son od Darius the king Darius son of Artaxerxes the king, Xerxes son of Darius the king Darius son of Hystapes the Archaemend proclaims .. As an aside modern chronology of Eygpt has been confirmed by recent carbon 14 dating. Dates of Sishak and other Assyrina and Babylonian kings have been confirmed by their writings combined with various astronomical events mentioned in their writings. <> That's your opinion. In fact many achronim take these conflating of names very seriously. While you claim Eliyahu wasn't a cohen gadol there is in fact a halachic literature whether he was or not and whether a cohen gadol can resign. For example see hebrewbooks Magen Tzvi siman 36 page 388 where he concludes that a Cohen Gadol (annointed by oil) who resigns still has all the laws of a cohen gadol You wrote "Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son " . However Darius's own version (Behustan) states that he was not the son of the previous king (see also above inscription on a wall) -------------------------- separately Marty Blake mentioned the sefer of R Amnon Bazak. The shiurim are also available in English http://etzion.org.il/en/topics/fundamental-issues-study-tanakh As Marty mentioned he discusses fundamental issues as are all pesukim in the Torah from Moshe Rabbenu, archaeology, accuracy of the text, Bible criticism, peshat and drash, sins of Biblical figures and many other controversial topics. I am sure that many of his solutions are also controversial. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 19:20:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 02:20:37 GMT Subject: [Avodah] explanation Message-ID: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero wrote: <<< The dignity of a king, and especially of The King, demands that all who serve Him be perfect in all respects. People with physical imperfections may be wonderful in many ways, but they are just that, imperfect. >>> "... in all respects." Really? Where will you find such a person? No, that's an impossible task. For practicality's sake, He cannot and does not demand that all who serve Him be perfect in ALL respects. So instead, there is a set of criteria, and a set of shiurim by which to determine if one is *adequately* perfect. I can't imagine that anyone would disagree with what I wrote thus far. But then we'll go the next step, and study what sorts of things are on that list of criteria. For example, if one is a Mechalel Shabbos, or a murderer, he is disqualified from Birkas Kohanim, so I'd bet that he's disqualified from the avodah too. But those aren't the sort of mumim that the previous poster's Shabbos guests were asking about. They were asking about physical abnormalities. I hope it is okay if I rephrase their question to something like this: It is reasonable for The King to insist on a certain degree of moral perfection, but why is physical perfection relevant? Or to phrase it more bluntly, the kohanim should not be judged by the shape of their nose, but by the content of their character. (Of course, we are not disputing the halacha. The question is WHY the Torah considers physical abnormalities to be disqualifications.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/555163bfd843b63bf2454st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 22:43:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 01:43:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah Message-ID: R? Zvi Basser points out ? H-L-Q was the haircut celebrated Lag B?Omer. Yes! Perhaps Chalak evokes Yaakov Avinu, aka Ish Chalak. An older version of Ibn Ezra's famous Tzama Nafshi has alternate ending stanzas. H?alo Chelk?cha Meirosh ? Addressing Hashem directly Chalak ? that is Yaakov Avinu the weak brother ? and his endless generations of martyrs Damo Darosh ? avenge and right the wrongs Shfoch HHamas Af al Rosh Hasa-ir Hachai ? let your anger pour over its proper target - . Ibn Ezra means that Hashem can grant Dveikus, Nevuah or Ruach Hakodesh. The Ibn Ezra 's philosophical approach ? said that the Nefesh ? as a Spiritual Heavenly entity ? can encounter the Ultimate Hashem ? directly. The alternate ? higher level of Hashkafa ? Tzama Nafshi has a verse ? now found in some better editions ? After dealing with Hagar rebelling against Sara (Shifha no-emmes) H?alo Chelk?cha Meirosh ? Chalak ? that is Yaakov ? and his endless generations of martyrs Damo Darosh ? avenge and right the wrongs Shfoch HHamas Af al Rosh Hasa-ir Hachai ? let your anger pour over its proper target - . -- Two other points ? the first verse in the alternat version of Tzama Nafshi: (See Kol Kisvei RAIE) Eil Chayy Bera-ani ? To my mind this means ? the always watching and involved One watching over us. Compare ? Chai Anochi LeOlam Im Shanosi Brak Charbi ? in Parshas Haazinu ? anger to avenge. Perhaps in Inquisitorial times ? Eil Echad Bera-ani was more relevant. Also fascinating ? The Ayin verse substitutes ? Al Kol Chasadecha ? Techadeish Eidecha!! References Iyov 10:17, where Ibn ezra refers to leprous blemishes. Posei-ach es Yadecha umasbia lechol chai ? directly allow Life, Deveikus and attachment to His Essence ? not the simple meaning of providing food . Earlier Ibn Ezra had said - Ki lo yir-ani ha-adam vachayy - no man can see Hashem and Chai ? no complete experience of Hashem. His Creation is Ne-elama hidden in its wisdom. Parshas Tazria has many multiple references to live healthy skin ? Basar Hachayy - as opposed to leprous skin. I would believe there are multiple references to Tazria Metzora. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 03:51:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 06:51:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150512105130.GC3499@aishdas.org> Lakol zeman va'eis... There is a time to force people to change their reflect reactions, and a time when the focus should be elsewhere. There are two kinds of mummim WRT kehunah (see Bechoros 43b): 1- mar'is ayin -- one whose appearance is repulsive to the people 2- eino shaveh bezar'o shel Aharon -- someone who is unique in appearance to the people (see Rambam, Bi'as haMiqdash 6:6) A kohein in the mar'is ayin category would pasl the avodah bedi'eved, one who is eino shaveh would violate an asei, but the avodah is kasher. Notice that both are defined by their impact on the observer. Presumably the point is that attention should be on avodah, not thoughts about the kohein performing it, or negative judgments of who is fit for service. But notice this is only for the Avodah.... a kohein with a baal mum was still expected to show up with his mishmar and do other necessary jobs. I am not even sure he is pasul from lighting the menorah. After all, we learn these mumim from the animals for qorbanos; it may apply to qorbanos in particular. So to me, the question is why isn't mid-qorban a good time to acclimate Kelal Yisrael away from such visceral reactions. But since I cannot get my head into the mindset of someone bringing a qorban, I leave the question tabled until I have the opportunity to learn what a qorban is like firsthand, bb"a. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 38th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Yesod: How does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 promote harmony in life and relationships? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 09:24:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 12:24:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: <20150512105130.GC3499@aishdas.org> References: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> <20150512105130.GC3499@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150512162421.GA13065@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 6:51am EDT, I wrote: : There is a time to force people to change their reflect reactions, and a : time when the focus should be elsewhere. ... To add, there are TWO reactions that would distract from the purpose of the qorban: Both the person who is turned off by how Hashem made this particular kohein (either through birth, disease, or allowing him to suffer an acctident), and the person who would then turn his qorban into a bein adam lachaveiro rather than a qorban. The one who would be thinking about how touching it was the such a person overcame disability to help them bring it. Rather than simply thinking about G-d. Even according to R' Chaim Volozhiner or R' Shimon Shkop, who see bein adam lachaveiro as the ultimate purpose of life, and thus presumably bein adam laMaqom as a derived value, there is a time to care for the goose, rather than everything being about collecting the golden eggs. In fact, the farmer is likely to spend nearly al of his time into caring for the goose rather than the ultimate payoff. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 38th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Yesod: How does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 promote harmony in life and relationships? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 06:17:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 08:17:09 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: References: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> Message-ID: <5551FD55.5090900@starways.net> On 5/12/2015 3:36 AM, Eli Turkel wrote: > 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta > < was a throne name. And in fact, Greek sources say that both > Artaxerxes II and III adopted it as a throne name. Furthermore, the > Septuagint version of Esther refers to the king as Artaxerxes, so > saying that Ahasuerus is Artaxerxes is a truism that has nothing to do > with chronology >> > Do these Greek sources explain how Koresh and Daryavush are the same > person? Fortunately, they don't have to, since that's just Midrash and has no nafka mina l'maaseh. > Besides you use the parts of the Greek sources that you like and > reject those that dont fit your thesis Of course I do. The Greek sources aren't what we would call "history" today. Herodotus collected folklore and picked the versions he liked to make a more entertaining story. He says himself that he heard 4 different and conflicting stories about Cyrus's backstory, and chose the one he liked best. He didn't even preserve the other three so that we could make our own decisions. He made his living in Greece by entertaining his patron(s) with exotic stories from exotic lands. > Now you rely on the Septuagint? Almost everyone else identifies > Achashverosh with Xerxes, Not so. Everyone recognizes that the *name* Achashveirosh is the same as the *name* Xerxes. Or rather, that both names are transliterations of the original Persian Khshayarsha. To say that "almost everyone else identifies Achashverosh with Xerxes" indicates that you aren't particularly well versed in the subject. I mean, at the very least, read the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahasuerus which notes which sources have identified him as which kings. > Besides the are several inscriptions in ancient Persian that give a > detailed list of kings eg > Artaxerxes the great king, king of kings king of peoples king on this > earth son od Darius the king Darius son of Artaxerxes the king, Xerxes > son of Darius the king Darius son of Hystapes the Archaemend proclaims .. Have you read the Behistun Inscription? Darius son of Hystaspes had it inscribed. In it, he talks about Babylonian kings who weren't actually Babylonian kings. At least not by our standards. They were pretenders, since Babylon had fallen to the Medes and Persians. But they gave themselves royal titles and claimed descent from Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus and the rest. From their point of view, they *were* kings of Babylon. From the Persian point of view, they were pretenders. Similarly, what do you think happened to Persia when Alexander conquered it? From one day to the next, Persia vaporized? Persia covered a huge area. Professor Levine posted about Rabbi Alexander Hool's book "The Challenge of Jewish History". I don't agree with all of his conclusions, and I'm embarrassingly late completing a review of the book, but he posits the Persian line continuing even after Alexander whupped Darius at Gaugamela. And in fact, the Parthian Empire, which started only about 70-80 years after the Alexandrian conquest, claimed descent from the Achaemenids of the Persian Empire. As did the later Sassanids. Names like Ardashir are just Late Persian versions of the Old Persian Artaxerxes. That's completely aside from the fact that we *know* there were forgeries perpetrated in ancient times for the purpose of establishing royal descent. Check out Roland Kent's article "The Present Status of Old Persian Studies" in /Journal of the American Oriental Society, /1936, vol. 56, p. 215ff. (http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/594668?uid=3739656&uid=2134&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21106376285721). A couple of inscriptions that are nothing but royal titles with no actual content to them is kind of flimsy evidence. Certainly not something strong enough to trash Chazal's entire picture of such an important period in our history. > As an aside modern chronology of Eygpt has been confirmed by recent > carbon 14 dating. Source. Because you may not be aware of this, but when you bring items in for carbon dating, you have to tell them -- up front -- what the rough date is that you think they're from. So that they can throw away any results that skew too far from that as "contaminated". The rest are subject to a fudge factor (sorry: correction factor) to help make them fit. But I'd like to see the source you have for carbon dating of modern Egyptian chronology. > Dates of Sishak and other Assyrina and Babylonian kings have been > confirmed by their writings combined with various astronomical events > mentioned in their writings. Assuming Sosenk = Shishak, which is iffy, considering that Sosenk only claims to have campaigned in the north of Israel, which would be odd for Shishak, whose son-in-law Yeravam was ruling there. The rest of what you're talking about is pure confirmation bias. They have a model and they shoehorn any evidence they find into that model, even if they have to kind of mush it in there. > < and explain a little more about Midrash. Chazal bring Midrashim that > contradict one another. For example, there's a Midrash that says > Esther never slept with Achashveirosh. That Hashem sent a mal'ach that > took her place. That conflicts with "Esther karka hayta", as well as > with the Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son. None of > this is problematic. Because the truth of Midrashim is not in their > concretes. Like analogies, Midrashim are abstractions which are > anchored with concretes, but are not defined by those concretes.>> > That's your opinion. In fact many achronim take these conflating of > names very seriously. While you claim Eliyahu wasn't a cohen gadol > there is in fact a halachic literature whether he was or not and > whether a cohen gadol can resign. > For example see hebrewbooks Magen Tzvi siman 36 page 388 where he > concludes that a Cohen Gadol (annointed by oil) who resigns still has > all the laws of a cohen gadol Midrash. And if it were something more solid than that, you'd have more than just some achronim saying so. > You wrote "Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son " . > However Darius's own version (Behustan) states that he was not the son > of the previous king (see also above inscription on a wall) So what? I'm confused. I'm saying that Midrash isn't necessarily the literal fact, and you pick out a phrase from what I wrote and point out that it isn't the literal fact? It seems like you're trying to make a point, but I'm not seeing what it is. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 10:18:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 13:18:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I commend you for having such guests at your table! > the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not PC by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation for some shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a heterodox clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read those passages] . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other than the chok aspect] that the RBSO was looking from the perspective of the kahal and their kovod, and how they would react or be distracted by a baal mum. can someone supply a better take ? This is, indeed, a difficult passage. R Jonathan Sacks has a good take on it -- which is generally along the lines of what you suggested, but a slightly different (and more big-picture) take, and, of course articulated extremely well. An excerpt: > Kugel also writes, "Most people, when they see someone ravaged by chemotherapy, just tend to keep their distance." He quotes Psalm 38:12, "My friends and companions stand back at the sight of my affliction; even those closest to me keep their distance." Although the physical reactions to chemotherapy are quite different from a skin disease or a bodily abnormality, they tend to generate the same feeling in others, part of which has to do with the thought "This could happen to me." They remind us of the "thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to." > > This is the logic - if logic is the right word - of Tumah. It has nothing to do with rationality and everything to do with emotion (Recall Pascal's remark that "the heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing"). Tumah does not mean defilement. It means that which distracts from eternity and infinity by making us forcibly aware of mortality, of the fact that we are physical beings in a physical world. If the above interests you at all, I encourage you to read the whole thing: http://www.aish.com/tp/i/sacks/149811775.html [1] -- Sholom Links: ------ [1] http://www.aish.com/tp/i/sacks/149811775.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 09:51:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Dov Weinstock via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 12:51:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Explanation Message-ID: On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 12:27 PM, via Avodah wrote: > the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not PC > by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation for some > shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a heterodox > clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read those passages] > . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other than the chok aspect] > that the RBSO was looking from the perspective of the kahal and their > kovod, and how they would react or be distracted by a baal mum. > > can someone supply a better take ? > May I suggest the following: http://rabbidovlinzer.blogspot.com/2014_04_27_archive.html Dov Weinstock -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 03:09:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 06:09:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: <20150513100956.GA14377@aishdas.org> Among the arguments that came up in the discussion of the Kosher Switch was that it's zilzul Shabbos. The thought hit me, though... Refraining from operating electrical devices has only been a potential issue for 125 years or so. And except for Yekkes, most of our ancestors come from places where it has been less than a century since electricity became part of our lives. So it's very hard to say that "not using electricity" is a defining feature of the Shabbos experience. Contrast this to hotza'ah, including haavarah, which take up what seems like 1/3 of chazal's discussion of issur melakhah (rough estimate from Berakhos and Eruvin in mishna, Tosefta, Y-mi and Bavli). When community eruvin got started, wasn't there a much easier argument of zilzul? Why wasn't it made? Indeed we use the general kelal of being meiqil WRT eiruvin to quite an extent to build one. And what does the fact that a community eruv is NOT zilzul Shabbos say about the nature of zilzul Shabbos and its applicability to nidon didan? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 12:26:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 15:26:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 06:42:58AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : He is now starting a series on religious autonomy. In particular he holds : that one goes to a rabbi for a psak only if he is in doubt. If one has : seriously learned the halachaot and is convinced of the "truth" then he : should follow his own psak and there is no need to go to a "higher : authority". Interesting. Does "seriously learned the halakhos" translate to higi'ah lehora'ah, or something less? RHS requires a certainly level of general knowledge. See Sanhedrin 5a-b. But it also fits RHS's hashkafah that halakhah is an inseperable whole. And so Rebbe doesn't just tell us that night Shema can be said at sundown, he ties it to the law of tevul yom. And RHS similarly advises his talmidim to look to gedolim from their own camp because one with whom they disagree hashkafically is likely to see even apparenty unrelated halakhos differently. Listen to (RAM transcripted other snippets from this talk for one of our many discussions of da'as Torah at .) For that matter, 5b talks about the need to get a heter hora'ah even if one knows enough to pasqen. But then, the gemara is discussing deciding for others, not only oneself. OTOH, pasqening for oneself has a major problem that one doesn't face when answering others' questions -- vested interest vs objectivity. Listen to R Jonathan Ziring's shiur on the topic at . In particular, his very first source (see link to mar'eh meqomos sheet) Nissah 20b. Yalta, "Rebbetzin Nachman", asks her mar'os questions of Rabbah bar bar Chanah and Rabbi Yitzchaq bereih deR' Yehudah, not her husband. Similarly mishnah Nega'im 2:5 saying you can't pasen nega'im even of relatives, Bekhoros 31a about judging one's own bekhoros. So, I would think that not being in doubt is too easily a delusion. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 12:54:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 15:54:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes In-Reply-To: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150513195451.GA16146@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 01:18:22AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Saul Newman asked: :> i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at :> hadchak /bedieved : ... : But I think that the real answer to your question might be: "If the people : in shul can't hear the rabbi or the chazan, that IS a shaas hadchak." Both letzorekh mitzvah and tzarkhei tzibbur are usually classified with she'as hadechaq and hefsed meruba. The two combined is why shuls have such wide lattitude with amira le'akum. (And perhaps either alone? I dunno.) So if a properly designed PA system is a shevus or other derabannan, why not permit this too? BTW, R/Dr Yisrael Rozen of Machon Zomet makes a point of noting that the issues seem to be the same whether the PA system is electrical or based on air pressure. See Microphones and Amplifiers on Shabbat Rabbi Yisrael Rozen C. Microphones Operating on Air Pressure 1. System Description Recently, the idea of a microphone which operates on air pressure, rather than electricity, has been proposed. A company in the United States is in the process of developing this "air-mike," although to the best of my knowledge, the project is still in the experimental stage. The device consists of a container of compressed air[12] and a system of pipes in which the compressed air flows. After one speaks into a horn-like input, his voice is carried on the stream of compressed air in the pipes. Acoustic adjustment (which apparently lies at the heart of the idea) then causes the voice waves to be amplified... 2. Comparison to an Electronic Microphone Several rabbis have permitted the use of air microphones on Shabbat, viewing it as an appropriate means of sound amplification for a synagogue. I question the distinction between an air microphone and a regular microphone - if we permit one, we must permit the other... Let me explain. We have shown that, given the current technology, the main problems with using a microphone on Shabbat have nothing to do with the fact that it runs on electricity. The problems concern the decree of klei shir, the fear that one will repair it, hashma'at kol like a water mill, avsha milta, denigration of Shabbat, and the suspicion of onlookers. Regarding all but the last of these, I see no difference between an air microphone and a regular microphone. In my opinion, an air microphone is a kli shir exactly like a shofar or trumpet; it creates a loud noise like a water mill; there exists the possibility that one will try to adjust it etc.. If you wish to claim that it is not a kli shir because it transmits speech; that we should not innovate a decree of "lest one repair it;" that it does not resemble a water mill because everyone knows that there is no Shabbat violation involved - then the same considerations should apply to a regular microphone as well. Only regarding the suspicion of onlookers might there be a difference between the two types of microphones; with an electric microphone, onlookers may think that an electric circuit was created on Shabbat. But we have already explained that even if one would turn on existing equipment on Shabbat, he would violate only a rabbinic prohibition, and we are not concerned with creating suspicion regarding rabbinic prohibitions. We also noted above that "everyone knows" that the equipment was turned on either before Shabbat or by means of a timer, and thus resembles a chiming clock (which is permitted). I have heard that there are those who permit the air microphone since the speaker's original voice is carried through the pipes (although clearly the majority of the sound waves reaching the audience's ears comes from the air pumped by the compressor). I am astonished at this claim: even in an actual musical instrument (such as a trumpet) the player's breath is mixed in, and nevertheless it is forbidden! In many musical instruments, the sound comes mainly from an "echo chamber," whose geometry shapes and amplifies the sound. To the best of my understanding, an air microphone operates on the same principle.[13] In my opinion, halachic definitions (in all fields) do not stem from scientific, physical, or technical definitions. The definitions of klei shir and hashma'at kol are not based on the technology of sound production, wave dispersion, or other acoustic considerations. The question at hand is whether these devices are included in the rabbinic decree of klei shir or not. In this regard, it does not matter whether one makes his voice heard by means of an electric or an air microphone. Some of those who give a blanket permit to use an air microphone claim that it does not amplify the speaker's voice, but merely carries it. On the basis of material I have received from the factory, I find this claim to be mistaken. Therefore, as far as klei shir and hashma'at kol are concerned, the two types of microphones are identical. ... 3. Responsa Which Erred in the Realia ... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 13:14:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 16:14:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes In-Reply-To: <20150513195451.GA16146@aishdas.org> References: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> <20150513195451.GA16146@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5553B099.7090100@sero.name> On 05/13/2015 03:54 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Both letzorekh mitzvah and tzarkhei tzibbur are usually classified with > she'as hadechaq and hefsed meruba. The two combined is why shuls have such > wide lattitude with amira le'akum. (And perhaps either alone? I dunno.) Letzorech mitzvah is not enough to justify amira lenochri for an issur derabanan, unless the mitzvah absolutely cannot be fulfilled without it. For instance, if one is pitch darkness one may ask a nochri to bring a lit candle through a communal chatzer that has no eruv, because oneg shabbos is impossible in complete darkness; but if there is already at least dim lighting, so that some minimal oneg shabbos is possible, one is *not* allowed to have a nochri bring another candle. Tzorchei tzibbur, OTOH, seems to justify amira lenochri for almost anything. [Quoting R Rosen] > The problems concern the decree of klei shir, the fear that one will > repair it, hashma'at kol like a water mill, avsha milta, denigration > of Shabbat, and the suspicion of onlookers. He's listing the same thing multiple times. "Hashma'at kol like a water mill" *is* "avsha milsa", i.e. passersby will hear it running and know that a Jew's business is operating on Shabbos, and the problem with that is that they will think the Jew is transgressing amira lenochri. These are not separate issues. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 13:32:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 23:32:51 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> References: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <> I understand the concern. However, there is no halacha that a rabbi can't pasken on his own chicken. In fact in real life we all pasken for ourselves on some level. Anytime one has a shabbat question \he can't always run to the LOR. One usually ends up paskening based on whatever knowledge and mesorah one has. This is what makes the life of a Baal Teshuva very difficult. Certainly what RMA and many others are against is running to the LOR or even gadol hador with every question. I have heard complaints from shul rabbis that some congregants come with questions they could easily look upo themselves but prefer to ask the rabbi so that the rabbi notes how serious they are. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 14:35:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 21:35:43 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> Message-ID: . I have heard complaints from shul rabbis that some congregants come with questions they could easily look upo themselves but prefer to ask the rabbi so that the rabbi notes how serious they are. ---------------------- True, but sometimes it may be to establish a connection (yes, funny coming from me-but it is true) KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 15:04:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 18:04:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150513220422.GC10395@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 13, 2015 at 11:32:51PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> OTOH, pasqening for oneself has a major problem that one doesn't face when :> answering others' questions -- vested interest vs objectivity. : : I understand the concern. However, there is no halacha that a rabbi can't : pasken on his own chicken. : In fact in real life we all pasken for ourselves on some level. Anytime one : has a shabbat question he can't always run to the LOR... I was using "pesaq" to refer specifically to open questions that require shiqul hada'as. Your typical Shabbos question is about a devar mishnah. To quote Rt Chana Luntz from Mon, 7 Sep 1998, 8:33pm BDT: 20:33:38 +0100, a post about not combining chumeros: > ... the Rashba on our daf in Chullin [43b], who hold that a Rav only > needs to pay if there is shikul hadaas and not a mistake in a dvar > mishna, are forced to conclude from this that Rava's mistake was in > shikul hadaas - see there]. It would seem that a devar mishnah is not a pesaq that the rav is as responsible for our following his teaching rather than getting the halakhah correctly from some other source. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 15 08:55:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 15 May 2015 11:55:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Laasok beDivrei Sorah Message-ID: <4c752525c83edeb17b85f6670479b9c0@aishdas.org> >From R' Eliezer Eisenberg's blog Beis Vaad L'Chachamim (highly recommended), at http://beisvaad.blogspot.com/2015/05/bechukosai-at-my-grandsons-bar-mitzva.html A couple of personal comments ellided, mostly to save myself the bother of transliterating more Hebrew text. A belated mazal tov to the author, G'Shabbos to all, -micha Friday, May 15, 2015 Bechukosai. At my grandson's Bar Mitzva Drasha at the Bar Mitzva of Avraham Jofen, 5/14/15 ... The Gemara (Brachos 11b) and the rishonim there talk about the issue of hefsek in Birkas HaTorah. There are those that hold that if a person stops learning, he has to make a new bracha when he begins again, because it is a hefsek from the first bracha. The Rishonim, the Agur and the Rosh, say that it is not a hefsek, because even when you are not actually learning, you have to consider what you can and cannot do according to the dinim of the Torah. Even when you are in a place where you cannot learn, you have to behave in a manner that is prescribed in the Torah. As the Hafla'ah says, when you do business, it is not a hefsek, because you are learning Choshen Mishpat. Every decision you make is examined in the light of the Torah, so that is not a hefsek in limud. I would put it this way. Torah is only a mitzvah when you learn al menas laasos. Al menas laasos means that you don't learn superficially, you make the Torah a part of who you are. On the contrary, if what you learn is just on the surface, the learning itself is bitul Torah. If the Mitzva of limud hatorah requires that it should make you into a different person, do you think that carefully living the life of an ehrilcheh ben Torah is a hefsek in limud hatorah? It's not a hefsek, it is a hemshech, it is a kiyum, of the mitzvah of limud hatorah. My father Ztz'l was very friendly with his lawyer, Bill Rosenthal. Bill was an assimilated Jew. The only contact he had with the Jewish religion was when he shook hands with my father. Nonetheless, he and my father were good friends and respected each other. A lawyer for a mortgage company once asked him which university my father studied at, because he could brilliantly analyze contracts. Bill told him that my father studied at Slabodka U. He once asked my father, "You and I are very ethical and honest men. I wouldn't take a penny that wasn't mine, and I have the highest standards of behavior in business. You, too, are very moral, but you do it because of your religious beliefs. Is there really any difference between us? My father told him, on the spot, that there are three differences. One is that for you, a dollar is a small matter, and a question involving a million dollars is a big matter. To me, there is no difference. The principal, the law, is what matters, and the sum of money is irrelevant. Another difference is that let's say you carefully think an issue through, and you decide the other side is right, and you let them win. you will toss and turn at night, ,thinking that maybe you were really right. I, on the other hand, if I decide that I am right, and I keep something that had been disputed, I won't be able to sleep at night our of a concern that maybe my decision was influenced by self interest. The third difference is that while you and I are both successful people,, and we've both made a lot of money, you think that you made the money yourself, and it's 100% yours to do with as you please. I believe that God decided that I should have the money, and God gave me the money, and every dollar that was given to me was given so that I use it in the right way. So it's true, my father learned how to do business at Slabodka U. Because he learned how to do business at Slabodka U, he was able to give, on the spot, three excellent and lomdusheh chilukim about the difference between Bill Rosenthal's moral code and his own moral code. Doing business like that is not a hefsek in the mitzva of limud hatorah. Farkert, it is the biggest kiyum and chizuk of limud hatorah and mussar and yashrus. This is a kiyum of the passuk [im bechuqosai seleikhu], as Rashi explains, [shetihyu ameilim baTorah]. It is this mesora which we bequeath to the Bar Mitzvah. ... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 15 13:39:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 15 May 2015 16:39:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Learning Chumash with the Trop Message-ID: <20150515203756.96751182847@nexus.stevens.edu> My 6 year-old grandson who is in the first grade was taught the trop at the same time he was being taught Chumash. The bottom line is that when he says the Pesukim he has studies in yeshiva, he says each word with the trop. I think this makes it easier for him to remember the Pesukim. When he davens, he says Shma with the trop! I can only wonder why this is not done in all yeshivas. When it will come time for him to lein at his Bar Mitzvah, it should be much easier for him than for those boys who are taught Chumash without the trop. YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 06:37:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 09:37:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Standing at a Chupah Message-ID: <20150518133702.1FA0A18392A@nexus.stevens.edu> Yesterday a friend of mine told be that the Rov where he davened said that he knew of grandparents who did not want to walk down at their grandchildren's Chassana, because they knew that the people attending the chupah would not stand for them even though they were 70 + years old. They did not want to be involved in lifnei Iver. Truth be told, I have seen the following many times. When the grandparents who are 70 or more years old walk down, no one stands for them. However, when the chosson and kallah walk down everyone stands for them. It is, of course, a positive mitzvah to stand up for any person 70 years old or more. See See http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/35165/standing-for-someone-whos-turned-seventy It is questionable if one has to stand for the chosson and kallah. See http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/levine/standing_chasuna.pdf I told my friend that it should be announced at the beginning of every chupah that 1. All cell phones should be turned off; 2. There should be no talking during the chupah, and 3. If grandparents who are 70 or more will be walking down, then one is required to stand for them. I think if this were done at Chasanas it would soon become the norm. 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URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 06:39:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 14:39:50 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001b01d09170$1d5db6f0$581924d0$@org.uk> Rav Zylberstein in the Cheshukei Chemed on Daf 78a of Kesubos discusses the question as to whether a woman today who has lots of peros from her property can say to her husband - "you do not need to redeem me, and I will not give you the peros" - on the ground that the need for redemption today is not common ("lo schiach") - even though the gemora there says that she cannot avoid this trade as mandated by Chazal (despite her being able to avoid the trade between mezonos versus ma'aseh yadeha, again a takana of Chazal, as this last takana was done for her benefit). Rav Zylberstein brings a discussion based on various rishonim to show that actually, pidyon was not common even at the time of Chazal, or at the time of the rishonim, and hence the fact that it is not common today does not change the situation from that mandated by Chazal. He also adds in the position of the Ran, that the takana regarding pidyon is not just made for her benefit (as the mezonos one is) and hence something that can be waived by her, but is also for the benefit of the husband, as without her redemption, the husband doesn't have the benefit of her company and services, while with mezonos that doesn't apply. However, it seems to me that Rav Zylberstein is not in fact dealing with what strikes me as the fundamental question. That is, it is not a question of whether or not pidyon is not common today (indeed, I would be tempted dispute that it is in fact "lo schiach", despite Rav Zylberstein taking this for granted) - but rather that the job of pidyon today is one of those that has been appropriated away from family members such as husbands, and is now the province of governments. The decision as to whether an individual may or may not be redeemed from ISIS, or pirates off Africa, or wherever, is now one which governments take with regard to their citizens. Governments which are prepared to do deals, like France, redeem their citizens (albeit for astronomical sums). Governments, like the UK and the US, who refuse to do deals on the grounds that it just encourages terrorists - will not let individuals, including husbands, redeem, even if the sums could be raised individually, as a matter of general policy. Nobody assumed it was the job of Gilad Shalit's family to effect his release - except to the extent that they was required to lobby the Israeli government (it might even have been treason to go negotiating with Hamas directly). Release or non release negotiations therefore, including the price to be paid (whether by prisoner release or otherwise) is today a government price. So it seems to me that what in fact we have today is a situation where husbands are, for the most part, forbidden by law (dina d'malchusa dina) from redeeming their wives, ie from fulfilling their side of the takana of Chazal. In such circumstances - while one might argue that the state of which the woman is a citizen is entitled to (at least some portion of) the peros (taxes?) the real question then seems to become: on what basis does one say that the second half of the takana stands - not just in relation to a woman who tries to say "you do not need to redeem me", but in relation to any woman in this circumstance. Has anybody come across anybody discussing this question, and any thoughts on any justification for the retention of the husband's benefit if in fact husbands are not legally allowed to effect redemption? BTW on the question of the commonness of redemption - part of that would depend on the scope of the definition of "pidyon". Clearly redemption from ISIS or pirates in Africa falls within this category - but how about rescuing somebody who was trekking in Nepal at the time of the earthquake? Again this is something that governments are now regarded as having a responsibility to do (the British Government has been criticised for failing to do as much as others, such as the Israeli and US governments, have done). At first blush I can't see why flying somebody out of an earthquake zone would not fit within the pidyon definition - despite it being physical forces, such as landslides, rather than people, who may be trapping the individuals. How about a package tour company going bust? Again, the person in question would (absent ATOL and similar travel bonding schemes set up by the relevant governments) be trapped in a foreign country and need to be returned to their country of origin, as per the language of the takana/ketuba. So why would this not be a form of pidyon? But again, is not the fundamental responsibility now assumed to devolve onto the government in respect of its citizens? So while I am not actually sure that it is true that pidyon is in fact so extremely not common, it seems to me that the fundamental question is rather a different one. Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 05:15:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 12:15:18 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: <20150518.081518.3271.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Among the arguments that came up in the discussion of the Kosher > Switch was that it's zilzul Shabbos. > ... what does the fact that a community eruv is NOT zilzul > Shabbos say about the nature of zilzul Shabbos and its > applicability to nidon didan? Excellent point. And I'd like to add another point: There are those who have argued that the availability of various types of timers (including those with software and adjust themselves for varying sunset times) have made the Kosher Switch unnecessary. I disagree strongly. The Kosher Switch, and similar devices do not merely add convenience, but can do a lot for lessening tzaar, and that is a valid and recognized halachic consideration. There were many times when I went to bed earlier than planned, but the light would not go out for another hour, and it was keeping me awake. And there were many times when my seudah lasted longer than expected, but the lights had gone out and we benched in dim light. There were many times when I set the air conditioning for what was expected to be a very hot day, and when it turn out to be mild, we all froze in the cold house. And there were many times when I left the air conditioning off, and regretted it when the day turned hotter than expected. Of course, a couple of centuries ago, people did not have these conveniences, and they learned to cope with them. But I really believe that for us, who have gotten addicted to them, it is a real tzaar when we must do without. (None of the above should be construed as meaning that I endorse any particular sort of device. I'm only talking about devices which we are allowed to use on Shabbos.) [Email #2. -micha] R' Micha Berger asked: > When community eruvin got started, wasn't there a much easier > argument of zilzul? Why wasn't it made? I'm not sure which period of history you're referring to with the phrase "when community eruvin got started", but here's my attempt at an answer: Eruvin did not allow something which had been previously assur, the way timers do and the way the Shabbos Switch would (according to its supporters). Beginning in Moshe Rabenu's day, people were very careful not to carry from a Reshus Hayachid to a Reshus Harabim, or vice versa, or 4 amos within a Reshus Harabim. But everything else was no problem. People would carry from one home to another within the same chatzer without thinking twice. Or even to a home across the street, IF that street was NOT a Reshus Harabim. But over time, accidents started to happen, because it is not always so easy to determine what's a Reshus Harabim and what's not. So at a certain point (either by David Hamelech's beis din, or Shlomo's, I don't remember) TWO halachos were enacted, at the SAME tme: One, that hotzaah was forbidden in a wide variety of areas other than within one Reshus Hayachid. Two, that these other areas could be transformed into a Reshus Hayachid by following some specific rules. The net result is that after Hilchos Eruvin were instituted, there were NO actions which people could be done that were not being done before. No one said, "Now the neighborhood can have a picnic on Shabbos afternoon!", because they could have done this all along, if there was no Reshus Harabim running through. Thus, no one lamented the zilzul Shabbos caused by allowing picnics which had previously been forbidden, because they had NOT previously been forbidden. I suppose it is possible that in the beginning, these procedures were used only by small neighborhoods (chatzeros and not much larger), and it was only much later that they were used by entire communities. If that's what RMB was referring to, then I'll have to stop here and let a historian continue. Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 07:00:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 10:00:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Megilat Rut: The night of Boaz and Rut Revisited Message-ID: <20150518135955.4DC6C183869@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/kmyx55p YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 08:40:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 11:40:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> On Sun, May 17, 2015 at 1:32pm EDT, R/Prof. Yitzchok Levine wrote on Areivim: : Yesterday in shul I asked a 12 year-old boy who attends a good : yeshiva if he was willing to announce the Molad. He looked at me : incredulously and said "What's the Molad?" I replied, "You know, : when the new moon can be seen." He still didn't get it, and I had : to elaborate a bit. I want to get all nerdy with this. The molad is actually an average, not when you could first see the moon this particular month. From 1601 to 200 CE, the actual physical lunation could be 6h 21m shorter or 7h 15m longer. And, the average too changes over time. (As I've noted in the past, it is amazing to me that we had back in the days of Galus Bavel, a molad value that was most accurate in the same century R' Hillel II and his Sanhedrin crated a standard calendar, some 900 years later. Exact to within the unit of measure (the cheileq). Accurate when we needed the value, not when we first obtained it. Currently, the molad is around 108 chalaqim off. And that's just the time between the molads. Then you have to ask when in the cycle the moon could first be seen. How thin of a sliver is visible to the typical human eye? And which longitude's clock are you using? And we announce the time for this point on the globe using today's hour naming convension. If you look at (eg) the Rambam, you'd be seeing a clock which is restarted every day at sunset, making sunset 0:00, not a number various about 6pm. But that's only something to keep in mind when looking at older Sepharadi sefarim, and wouldn't impact understanding what it is we actually announce. It would seem the molad as we now announce it would be for Kandahar, Afghanistan. But that must be due to slippage because the molad is too long. If we go back to the 4th or 5th cent CE, the molad is being announced given the time around midway between the Nile and the far (south-east) end of the Euphrates, which would have been around the middle of Jewish settlement at the time. In any case, calling is Jerusalem Time is a misnomer. Anyway, because we don't know for sure what location on the globe the molad was defined for, and how much of the current location is due to slippage during centuries of molads growing ever longer, we cannot definitively translate molad time to your local standard time. We simply do not know the starting lattitude to convert from. Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 08:53:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 11:53:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 11:40 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. Sure we do. It's the motion of an "averaged moon" that orbits the earth in a perfect circle, and that, however fictional, forms the basis of our calendar. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 09:41:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 12:41:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150518164134.GC20828@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 11:53:42AM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : On 05/18/2015 11:40 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: : >Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. : Sure we do. It's the motion of an "averaged moon" that orbits the earth : in a perfect circle, and that, however fictional, forms the basis of our : calendar. Except we don't know how much of an idealized moon is supposed to be showing and where between the latitudes of Alexandria and Sura it would have been showing. IOW, we don't know when in the moon's cycle the molad is an idealization of. Note, though, that Rabban Gamliel quotes a mesorah from R' Gamliel haZaqein ("mibeis avi abba) that the molad varies. And in a second quote, that it will never be "less than" 29-1/2d 2/3h 73 chalaqim. (Shabbos 25a) And he uses this to question eidim, so this is a mesorah he accepts for re'iyah, not just computation. Redoing R' Gamaliel's fractions, and converting 73c = 4m 1c, we get 29d 4 hr, 44m, 1 c. Our molad. So Rabban Gamliel held our molad was a lower limit, not an average!? And recall, we'e talking re'iyah (see the sugya) and the actual lunation could be over 6hr easlier than the average. What am I missing? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 08:23:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 11:23:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: <001b01d09170$1d5db6f0$581924d0$@org.uk> References: <001b01d09170$1d5db6f0$581924d0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <555A0402.4060608@sero.name> It should be borne in mind that there are still countries (including ones with substantial Jewish communities) where the need for pidyon is at least as common now as it probably was in Chazal's day. Also that while in many countries paying ransoms may be technically illegal, hardly anybody who is r"l in that situation cares about this. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 09:35:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Riceman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 12:35:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <555A14EF.8070305@optimum.net> RMB: <. In particular, his very first source (see link to mar'eh meqomos sheet) Nissah 20b. Yalta, "Rebbetzin Nachman", asks her mar'os questions of Rabbah bar bar Chanah and Rabbi Yitzchaq bereih deR' Yehudah, not her husband. Similarly mishnah Nega'im 2:5 saying you can't pasen nega'im even of relatives, Bekhoros 31a about judging one's own bekhoros.>> The standard hiluq is is'hazek issura or not. See, e.g., Hochmas Adam H. Shechitah 1:10, Binas Adam ad. loc., and HA H. Nidah 109:6 and BA ad. loc. I think the issue is that hora'ah in the presence of hezkas issur is considered eidus. The argument of self interest raises some problems: 1. Do you know of cases where rabbis have referred questions about communal matters to experts elsewhere because they are self interested since they live in the community? For example, do Hachmai EY refer questions about communal safety (e.g., military matters) to rabbis in Hutz LaAretz because they are self interested? 2. Why shouldn't self interest be a psul in the absence of hezkas issur? I know people on this list have cited it to me in the case of restaurants certifying their own products. David Riceman From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 10:03:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 13:03:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518164134.GC20828@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> <20150518164134.GC20828@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555A1B64.8060409@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 12:41 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > What am I missing? That what we announce is *not* anything to do with the actual moon, which the eidim in RG's time would have claimed to have seen, but the notional averaged moon on which *our* calendar is based. The *real* molad, i.e. conjunction of moon and sun, does vary, because the real moon does not orbit the earth in a perfect circle; the notional molad on which we base our calendar, and which we announce every month (except, ironically, the one month when it actually matters), is perfectly regular. And "molad" does seem to mean the conjunction, not the moment when the first sliver is visible, because the gemara in RH seems to say that the first possible sighting of the new moon is six hours *after* the molad. So we do know exactly what we are announcing: the number on which the calendar is based. Given this Shabbos's announcement, one can easily calculate that next Rosh Hashana will be on a Monday, exactly as it should be. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 10:49:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 13:49:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> At 11:40 AM 5/18/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. Yet it says in the siddurim that it should be announced so people know when it is! My understanding is that what is announced is Jerusalem solar time and this is different from Jerusalem local time. YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 11:47:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 14:47:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150518184701.GD20828@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 01:03:32PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : On 05/18/2015 12:41 PM, Micha Berger wrote: : >What am I missing? : : That what we announce is *not* anything to do with the actual moon, which : the eidim in RG's time would have claimed to have seen, but the notional : averaged moon on which *our* calendar is based... First, as Zev noted to me in private, I meant RH 25a (not Mes' Shabbos). But the point I asked "what am I missing?" about was Rabbi Gamliel questioning what people thought they saw, not the average. In R' Gamliel's day, the length of the molad was pretty close to exact; even today it's closer than they had any way to measure. But that's still an average. And real values can be more than 6 hr earlier. So, how can R' Gamliel question someone's observation for being less than a molad, when in half of all months re'iyah will be early -- and many 5 or 6 hr early. : So we do know exactly what we are announcing: the number on which the : calendar is based. Given this Shabbos's announcement, one can easily : calculate that next Rosh Hashana will be on a Monday, exactly as it : should be. As I said in my previous post... Yes, that explans the length of the molad, but not the point in the idealized cycle. How much moon must be visible for it to be a new moon? Or more accurately, what was visible when the molad was al pi re'iyah that we are now using a simplified model to approximate? And we can't just calculate what it is the molad is approximating, because we don't know what clock to use. It looks to me like Hillel was using a point halfway between EY and Bavel, somewhere in the center of the contiguous Jewish settlement. But that's largely guesswork. On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 01:49:49PM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : My understanding is that what is announced is Jerusalem solar time : and this is different from Jerusalem local time. Which is why I left out the word standard, writing "Jerusalem Time" rather than Israel Standard Time. But as I wrote above, it's not. See also my first post (for Avodah) on this thread for more detail. In 1999, R Yisrael Medad posted something about this on MJ, after having R/Prof Ely Merbach, R/Prof Yaakov Loewinger and the Bar Ilan astronomy dept bad the question around. See They assume Jerusalem Mean Time, but they make the fundamental error of discussing mean conjunction -- no moon -- not the first sliver. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 13:31:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 16:31:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150518203148.GB4022@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 02:24:32PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : >Yes, that explans the length of the molad, but not the point in the : >idealized cycle. How much moon must be visible for it to be a new : >moon? [...] they make the fundamental error of discussing mean : >conjunction -- no moon -- not the first sliver. : : I don't think they made an error at all. The molad is the conjunction; : the earliest time at which the moon can be seen is six hours after : the molad. How do you know this? The Rambam (Qiddush Levana 6:1) appears to say it's the average of the first time the moon could be seen "kedei leida im yeira'eh hayarei'ach of lo yeira'eh.... bemahalakhtam ha'emtza'i, who haniqra 'molad'". And my whole point was that we didn't know how big of a sliver is "yeira'eh", but I'm willing to entertain the possibility that we announce when it cannot be seen, as a way of knowing by deduction when it could. I just can't see it as a given. Combining not knowing how much -- if any -- after the conjunction the molad is with not knowing which lattitude's clock is being used was the not knowing what the molad really means. You could move the lattitude by changing the size sliver. As for why we announce the molad... The Yerei'im gives the answer Zev did. The MA quotes the Yerei'im and says that mevorkhim hachodesh is lezeikher the real qiddush hachodesh by Sanhedrin. Which is why we stand. RMF (IM OC 1:142) says this is in imitation of the qehillah who would stand when answering "Mequdash! Mequdash!" I find the MA's answer more compelling, because it unlikely that it is to know when Rosh Chodesh should be, when the one RC that most depends on the molad isn't announced -- Tishrei. It also adds resonence for me when saying "Mi sheAsah Nissim", that before the chazan announces ther month, we ask for a return of the qiddush hachodesh being commemorated. And if truly "chaverim kol Yisrael" and we acted it, we would have a Sanhedrin. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 11:24:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 14:24:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 01:49 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > At 11:40 AM 5/18/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >> Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. > Yet it says in the siddurim that it should be announced so people know > when it is! It's the number used for calculating the calendar. That's all people need to know. > My understanding is that what is announced is Jerusalem solar time > and this is different from Jerusalem local time. No, it's different from J'm *standard* time, i.e. the modern time system invented by the railroads, which of course we take no notice of. On 05/18/2015 02:47 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > But the point I asked "what am I missing?" about was Rabbi Gamliel > questioning what people thought they saw, not the average. Why are you discussing that? The topic is the announcement in shul, which relates entirely to our calculated system, not to RG's system. You wrote that nobody knows what it is that's being announced, and I dispute that. RG is entirely irrelevant, since he was dealing with the actual moon, not the notional moon that our system deals with. > Yes, that explans the length of the molad, but not the point in the > idealized cycle. How much moon must be visible for it to be a new > moon? [...] they make the fundamental error of discussing mean > conjunction -- no moon -- not the first sliver. I don't think they made an error at all. The molad is the conjunction; the earliest time at which the moon can be seen is six hours after the molad. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 14:36:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 17:36:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518203148.GB4022@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> <20150518203148.GB4022@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555A5B79.2030308@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 04:31 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > > How do you know this? The Rambam (Qiddush Levana 6:1) appears to say > it's the average of the first time the moon could be seen "kedei leida im > yeira'eh hayarei'ach of lo yeira'eh.... bemahalakhtam ha'emtza'i, > who haniqra 'molad'". On the contrary, that Rambam says *explicitly* that the molad is the exact moment of the conjunction, which is *not* when it can be seen. Read it again and you will surely see this. > As for why we announce the molad... The Yerei'im gives the answer > Zev did.The MA quotes the Yerei'im and says that mevorkhim hachodesh > is lezeikher the real qiddush hachodesh by Sanhedrin. Which is why > we stand. RMF (IM OC 1:142) says this is in imitation of the qehillah > who would stand when answering "Mequdash! Mequdash!" Neither the Yere'im nor the MA even mention the announcement of the molad, let alone give any reason for it. All the Yere'im says is that the announcement of Rosh Chodesh in shul is not at all related to kidush hachodesh, but is merely so people should know when Rosh Chodesh will be. The MA adds that although this is true, the custom is to stand for it, as a zecher to kidush hachodesh, which was done standing. R Akiva Eger asks how this could be so, since we know that a beis din must sit, not stand. RMF answers thatkiddush hachodesh was done notby the BD, but by the audience, after hearing the BD's psak, and they were surely standing, and this is what the MA means. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 14:49:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 17:49:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: RMicha Berger wrote: >Among the arguments that came up in the discussion of the Kosher Switch was that it's zilzul Shabbos. >>The thought hit me, though... Refraining from operating electrical devices has only been a potential issue for 125 years or so. And except for Yekkes, most of our ancestors come from places where it has been less than a century since electricity became part of our lives. >So it's very hard to say that "not using electricity" is a defining feature of the Shabbos experience.< True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul Shabbos. (Of course, by this argument, putting an electric light on or off should be prohibited even if the use of electricity is not a m'lacha.) >Contrast this to hotza'ah, including haavarah, which take up what seems like 1/3 of chazal's discussion of issur melakhah (rough estimate from Berakhos and Eruvin in mishna, Tosefta, Y-mi and Bavli).< I assume that "Berakhos" should be replaced by "Shabbos." >When community eruvin got started, wasn't there a much easier argument of zilzul? Why wasn't it made? Indeed we use the general kelal of being meiqil WRT eiruvin to quite an extent to build one. And what does the fact that a community eruv is NOT zilzul Shabbos say about the nature of zilzul Shabbos and its applicability to nidon didan?< What tzuras hapesach and eiruv permit is not carrying prohibited by the Torah. Rather, it is, in effect, a built-in exception to the issurim imposed mid'rabbanan by two g'zeiros: the classification of certain areas, which min haTorah are m'kom p'tur, as a new entity called karmelis, and the imposing of a prohibition of hotza'a from one r'shus hayachid to another of different ownership. Both were in use long before there was a city eruv. E.g., persons sharing a two-family house with a common fenced yard would make an eruv to permit carrying to and from their living quarters to the others' and to the yard. Likewise, a house opening to an unfenced yard would make a tzuras hapesach to permit carrying between house and yard. And, of course, two houses opening to a common unfenced yard would make a tzuras hapesach to "enclose" the yard, and then an eruv to permit carrying among houses and yard. The city eruv was not an introduction of a new practice, but a larger-scale use of already common practices. How does this constitute zilzul Shabbos? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 14:31:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 22:31:48 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000001d091b2$0c5074f0$24f15ed0$@org.uk> RZS writes: >It should be borne in mind that there are still countries (including ones >with substantial Jewish communities) where the need for pidyon is at least >as common now as it probably was in Chazal's day. Are you thinking of South America? I confess that is what springs to mind from your suggestion, although how often ransom is really required in such countries I don't know. > Also that while in many countries paying ransoms may be technically illegal, hardly anybody who is >r"l in that situation cares about this. But presumably you are talking about the same ones (eg South America). My question relates solely to countries, like Britain and Israel, to which Rav Zylberstein was referring. He took it for granted that in fact it was exceedingly uncommon for pidyon to be needed. I am not so sure it is so uncommon, but I doubt very much that in these countries "hardly anybody who is r"l in that situation cares about this". That is, while I know from the press of numbers of cases in which pidyon has been needed for British and Israeli citizens, in none of these cases were private individuals allowed to redeem (despite them quite naturally wanting to, and possibly being willing to do so, if they had not been restrained, whether by circumstances or otherwise). Clearly if one lives in a place where pidyon is common, and where, whatever the technical law says, in practice individual family members redeem, neither my question nor Rav Zylberstein's gets off the ground. But I don't think the existence of a place in the world, that one would never contemplate living in (and is not the locus of the ketuba), is relevant to the obligations under that ketuba which must relate to the places that the couple live and the governments under which they live. Even when it might involve some less scrupulous situations - one of the mothers in our school in England had the situation that her sons were effectively kidnapped by her ex-husband and held in Russia. And while yes, ultimately she found where they were hidden by means of a private investigator, which cost her private money, she would never have been able to extract them had: (a) Russia not signed up to the Hague convention; (b) the Russian court given judgment in her favour; and (c) the Russian police at the bequest of the English government on the basis of the Russian judgment actually going in and retrieving the boys (whose location they had singularly failed to identify until the private investigator had provided the cast iron information as to where they were). And she would have struggled to have brought them back into England without the rulings of the Russian authorities. And even if an adult is different, I cannot see the British government allowing one of its citizens to go off and try and attempt pidyon of another of its citizens without its active involvement, it being seen as cutting across its foreign policy (even if this was occurring in a place where ransom payments amongst locals was common). >Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 15:53:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 18:53:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] measurement error In-Reply-To: <20150111185211.GA15414@aishdas.org> References: <54AD8B25.3010103@optimum.net> <20150111185211.GA15414@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150518225308.GA15666@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 01:52:11PM -0500, Micha Berger wrote: : In an appreciated bit of siyata dishmaya, my Arukh haShulchan yomi : sechedule brought me to a primary source : on this subject -- AhS OC 363:32-35. The he.WikiSource.org ("Vikiteqst") : copy is at ... : When dealing with mavui, where there is only one mavui and therefore one : measuring process to be used for everyone, the above applies. However, : when the measurement is only for one person's use, tbey should be : measuring for himself, with his own norms. : And here he adds a touch of subjectivity: a person should measure how : far he himself could walk. And the rule of carrying in rh"r a distance : of no more 4 of one's own amos is brought into that umbrella. : The reason for the general rule is to cover the personal amos of the : people who will be using the measuring. : BUT, and this is why I do not follow, he opened se'if 32 by telling us : the variability is 1/48 of the total (1/24 of an etzba per ammah). Which : is far less than the variability in forearm lengths in most groups of : people. For example, my own sukkah is used by Yoni, who stands 6'3" and by : my own 5'3" -- and my arms are on the shorter side, even proportionally. : When we hold up elbows together, my ammah ends just past his wrist. Not : within 47/48 of eachother. I came across another AhS datapoint for this thread, OC 586:14. He quotes the Rambam Shofar 1:5, discussing the minimum length of a shofar: that you can hold it in your hand and it's visible on either end. The AhS explains the intent as being the size of the toqei'ah's hand, but rather an average person's hands, "veshi'uro tefach sheheim 4 godelim". Then there is a debate whether the tefach has to be a generous one, so as to be visible (Tur, quoting Ri Gei'os) or a narrow one (Tur himself and SA), which is still visible if the toqei'ah uses four fingers -- after all, they'll still be narrower than 4 thumbs. So the shiur is neither personal nor really the standard tefach. It is literally as the gemara says, what can be held and still seen. Which is why there is a machloqes about where the tefach stands in relation to the real shiur. But, visible if hypothetically held by an average hand. And if the tqoei'ah has wide hands, he could hold a minimal shofar without it being visible, and it would still be kosher. The AhS also says this was already explained in Nidah 26b, which is a depressing gemara about miscarriages, and a tefach comes up in shiurim for tum'ah, but I didn't see where it mentionrs our topic of what kind of tefach is used. What I find even more interesting is that there is no chiluq being drawn between someone who blows in shul and someone who blows just for himself. Wouldn't the rule from OC 363 mean that someone in the latter situation should use what is visible when their own hand holds it? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 15:35:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 18:35:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: <000001d091b2$0c5074f0$24f15ed0$@org.uk> References: <000001d091b2$0c5074f0$24f15ed0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <555A6924.4010709@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 05:31 PM, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: > RZS writes: > >> It should be borne in mind that there are still countries (including ones >> with substantial Jewish communities) where the need for pidyon is at least >> as common now as it probably was in Chazal's day. > > Are you thinking of South America? Well, Latin America (so as to include Mexico). There are also other such countries, such as India, the Philippines, Nigeria, where the need for pidyon is common, but there are not a lot of Jews living there. > But I don't > think the existence of a place in the world, that one would never > contemplate living in (and is not the locus of the ketuba), is relevant to > the obligations under that ketuba which must relate to the places that the > couple live and the governments under which they live. Even a couple marrying in such a country must contemplate the possibility that one or both might one day travel to a country where kidnapping is common, and be kidnapped. Even in Chazal's day the danger was not so much where people lived as on the highways and the seas, where they might travel. Also, I am not at all sure that it is actually illegal in most normal countries to pay ransom. What is illegal is giving *anything* to groups that are officially listed by that country's government as terrorists. If the kidnappers are not on the list, so that it would be legal to give them a gift, then I don't think there's a law against paying them ransom. (Perhaps there should be.) -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 19 11:32:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joseph Kaplan via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 14:32:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Standing at a Chupah Message-ID: <004f01d09262$1f0388c0$5d0a9a40$@tenzerlunin.com> "Truth be told, I have seen the following many times. When the grandparents who are 70 or more years old walk down, no one stands for them. However, when the chosson and kallah walk down everyone stands for them." At almost every MO wedding I've attended over the past 5-10 years, everyone stood when the grandparents walked down whether they were older than 70 or not. But if, God willing, I'm around for my grandchildren's weddings, I plan to walk (or, if necessary, wheelchair) down the aisle whether anybody stands for me or not. Joseph -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 19 12:18:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 15:18:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150519191809.GA8642@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 05:49:16PM -0400, elazar teitz via Avodah wrote: :> So it's very hard to say that "not using electricity" is a defining :> feature of the Shabbos experience. : True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature : of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so : accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul : Shabbos. (Of course, by this argument, putting an electric light on or off : should be prohibited even if the use of electricity is not a m'lacha.) As would replacing gefilte fish with sushi? It's not that people from Sinai to around 100 years ago actually experienced avoiding the lightswitch, nor did they even consciously experience not having one -- since there was no conception of an alternative. Not using electricity, and saying that qedushas shabbos requires avoiding electricity are really two different things, experientially. 100 years ago we had an opportunity to do something new on Shabbos, much like when shomerei Shabbos first learned of sushi. The difference is that we did assur one new opportunity, and not the other. ... : What tzuras hapesach and eiruv permit is not carrying prohibited by : the Torah. Rather, it is, in effect, a built-in exception to the issurim : imposed mid'rabbanan by two g'zeiros... ... : The city eruv was not an introduction of a new practice, but a : larger-scale use of already common practices. How does this constitute : zilzul Shabbos? Yes, that explains why it's nothing clearer cut than zilzul Shabbos. AIUI, worrying about zilzul means that the mechanism is mutar, but the goal is one that cheapens Shabbos, removes some of the feeling of its qedushah. Like taking the pre-existing concept of eiruv as a way to have a reshus that was no included in Shelomo ubeis dino's original issur hotza'ah and stretching it to a much bigger area than ever before, so that most people never have reason to leave it most weeks. So that the entire issur goes from being one of the dominant features of Shabbos (judging just in blatt of discussion) to barely ever experienced. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 45th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Malchus: What is the beauty of Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity (on all levels of relationship)? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 19 12:46:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 22:46:01 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] donor egg Message-ID: "A 65-year-old Bnei Brak woman gave birth this week, becoming the oldest woman to give birth in Israel. The ultra-Orthodox woman and her 67-year-old husband had been battling infertility for 46 years before the birth at Kfar Sava?s Meir hospital. After fertility treatments abroad and with the help of a donor egg, the woman became pregnant, giving birth to a 2.685-kg baby in her 35th week of pregnancy. ?To the best of my knowledge, this is the oldest woman to give birth in Israel. It is extremely rare that pregnancy at this age ends well. The ultra-Orthodox circle from which the couple comes attributed the pregnancy and birth to a blessing the woman received from a Hassidic rabbi. " http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel/.premium-1.657230 Given all the halachic controversy of who is the halachic mother I am a little surprised -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 07:11:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 17:11:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? Message-ID: There is a famous Medrash that before offering the Torah to the Jewish people Hashem offered it to the other nations of the world. "First He approached the children of Esav and asked them, "Do you wish to accept the Torah?" They replied, "What is written in it?" "Do not murder." They said, "...Our father was assured that, 'By your sword will you live (Bereishit 27:40)!'" Next Hashem went to the children of Ammon and Moav, and asked, "Do you wish to accept the Torah?" They asked, "What is written in it?" "Do not commit sexual immorality." They responded, "Master of the Universe, our very existence is based on an immoral act!" Hashem then went to the children of Yishmael, and asked them, "Do you wish to accept the Torah?" They asked, "What is written in it?" "Do not steal." They responded, "Master of the Universe, the essence of our father was to be a bandit, as it is written, 'And he will be a man of the wild; his hand will be in all...'" (Bereishit 16:12)." Sifri, Ve'Zot HaBracha #343 However, the Medrash has an obvious question. All of the examples of Torah prohibitions given by the Medrash, are also prohibited by the 7 mitzvos of Bnei Noach. The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from murder so how would accepting the Torah make things worse for them? The same goes for arayos and stealing, these were already prohibited to them anyway so why does the medrash specifically pick these as examples for Torah prohibitions? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 11:16:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 14:16:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150520181647.GA15475@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 05:11:29PM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : However, the Medrash has an obvious question. All of the examples of Torah : prohibitions given by the Medrash, are also prohibited by the 7 mitzvos of : Bnei Noach. The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from murder so how would : accepting the Torah make things worse for them? The same goes for arayos : and stealing, these were already prohibited to them anyway so why does the : medrash specifically pick these as examples for Torah prohibitions? I raised this and a second question in : Hashem's answer to each of the nations is strange. Why choose the one sin their forefather was known for? Is that how you would do kiruv, starting with the hard stuff? By comparing this medrash to the opening pasuk in this week's parshah, [Lekh Lekha,] we can get a better understanding of the point of the story. "Hashem said to Avram, `Go for yourself from your homeland, from your birthplace and from your father's house to the land which I will show you'." (12:1) The first sentence recorded in the Torah of the Jewish mission on earth is a commandment for Avram to leave his home and his father. Avram didn't say, "I can't worship G-d because my very substance his idolatry, because my father, Terach, manufactures idols". Hashem orders Avram to leave the culture that made him, to leave his father's sphere of influence, and he does. Avram's reply was "And Avram went, just as G-d told him". (12:4) If Hashem said he could change, rise above Ur Casdim to become fit for both the land of Israel and the father of the people of Israel, then he goes. Is man a creature of fate or of destiny? Is his future foretold, etched in rock, unchangeable? Or can he rebuild himself into something greater than he was? Clearly the Torah insists on the latter. The very key to accepting the Torah is to be committed to use its ideas and its mitzvos to improve and to grow. This was the failing ascribed to the other nations in the medrash. They saw a given flaw in their national character as their substance, immutable. Hashem wasn't asking them about a particular prohibition, but about their commitment to leave their "father's house". If they do not believe they can change, what purpose can getting the Torah serve them? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 46th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Malchus: How can some forms of Fax: (270) 514-1507 "unity" be over domineering? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 11:48:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 14:48:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: <20150520181647.GA15475@aishdas.org> References: <20150520181647.GA15475@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555CD6E5.5000606@sero.name> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 05:11:29PM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from murder so how would : accepting the Torah make things worse for them? The same goes for arayos : and stealing, these were already prohibited to them anyway sowhy does the : medrash specifically pick these as examples for Torah prohibitions? Perhaps that was His point: you can't even keep the mitzvos you already have, so how can you want more? On 05/20/2015 02:16 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > I raised this and a second question in > : > Hashem's answer to each of the nations is strange. Why choose the one > sin their forefather was known for? Is that how you would do kiruv, > starting with the hard stuff? Why the premise that the purpose was kiruv? On the contrary, I think the medrash's intent is clear, that Hashem did *not* want them to accept His offer, and thus pitched it in the manner most likely to be rejected. The only purpose of making the offer in the first place was so they wouldn't be able to complain that they hadn't been given the chance. He wasn't trying to sell it to them, He was showing them why they didn't want it, and therefore shouldn't be upset that the Jews were getting it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 17:29:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 20:29:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] 65 Year-Old Woman Gives Birth to First Child in Bnei Brak In-Reply-To: <20150520.101659.17683.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150520.101659.17683.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150521002935.GC9522@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 02:16:59PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Areivim wrote: : If we were speaking Lashon Hakodesh, you'd be correct - Bar Mitzvah is : a noun, and only a noun. However, we are clearly speaking English, and : several dictionaries tell me that in English, "Bar Mitzvah" is both a noun : and a verb. See, for example, http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bar+mitzvah : which gives "bar mitzvahed" (and other forms) as examples. : Languages are funny this way. Stuff can change when a word enters a : new language. However, there is no real concept correspnding to the English word "bar mitzvahed". The borrowing was primarily done by non-traditional Jews, who think that being called up to the Torah changes your status. But in reality, "bar mitzvahed" makes as much sense as saying someone pubertied or menopaused. We O could borrow the word as shorthand for "became a bar mitzah" but since the original borrowing is really based on a misunderstanding of the Torah, why should we? It'll just make it harder to clear up the mistake. : If I'm not mistaken, the Yiddish word for "holiday" is pronounced : "yuntif", and it is spelled "yud vav memsofit blankspace tes vav beis", : and is considered a single word despite the fact... IIRC, on the NY State Yiddish Regents Examination in the late 1970s, it was spelled as it sounds, one word, yud-alef-nun-tes-eyin-ende fei (w/ a refuyah line over it). (R' Riskin, whose HS I attended, required a foreign language, and Hebrew doesn't count as "foreign". The Hebrew Regents exam was a separate requirement to graduate. As was Red Cross swimming certification and you could choose either CPR or First Aid. The latter two were because the HS is the father's shaliach for all of chinukh and education. Anyway, I already had some background in Yiddish, and I heard that the Yiddish regents eere easier than more popular languages like Spanish or French, so...) But the, Chassidishe Yiddish and YIVO Yiddish (the legacy of Litvishe Yiddishists) are different dialects. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 46th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Malchus: How can some forms of Fax: (270) 514-1507 "unity" be over domineering? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 17:53:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 20:53:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Admin: [Areivim] 65 Year-Old Woman Gives Birth to First Child in Bnei Brak In-Reply-To: <20150521002935.GC9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150520.101659.17683.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> <20150521002935.GC9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150521005329.GF9522@aishdas.org> The previous email was misdirected. Replies to it will not be accepted. (On Avodah. If Areivim's mods approve it, reply there.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 18:57:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 20:57:21 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <555D3B81.5030709@starways.net> I think the obvious answer is that midrash is midrash. One midrash doesn't have to be consistent with another. It's there to learn from, and the message of this one comes through regardless of the Noachide laws. On 5/20/2015 9:11 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > There is a famous Medrash that before offering the Torah to the Jewish > people Hashem offered it to the other nations of the world. > > However, the Medrash has an obvious question. All of the examples of > Torah prohibitions given by the Medrash, are also prohibited by the 7 > mitzvos of Bnei Noach. The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from > murder so how would accepting the Torah make things worse for them? > The same goes for arayos and stealing, these were already prohibited > to them anyway so why does the medrash specifically pick these as > examples for Torah prohibitions? > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 03:36:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 06:36:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: <555D3B81.5030709@starways.net> References: <555D3B81.5030709@starways.net> Message-ID: <20150521103619.GC7831@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 08:57:21PM -0500, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: : I think the obvious answer is that midrash is midrash. One midrash : doesn't have to be consistent with another. It's there to learn : from, and the message of this one comes through regardless of the : Noachide laws. I believe the question was finding internal consistency in a single medrash from the Yalqut Shim'oni. The medrash that says the nations were offered the Torah itself says the example mitzvos were ones they were already obligated in, and ones their ancestor was known for. So, what does that tell us about the message? To me, it says that the offer was more about testing one's willingness to change. Therefore, each is asked if they would be willing to refrain from something that they should already be avoiding, but is part of their current culture. And that, in turn, speaks to seeing the Torah as a tool for self-transformation. Which I mean in a manner vague enough to include both Chassidim and Litvaks. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 07:50:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 10:50:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Ways to find non-meat or non-milk Message-ID: <20150521145032.GH9522@aishdas.org> >From the founder of Machon Zomer, RYRosen, on possible ways to eat kosher meat and milk together without violating basar bechalav. -micha Shabbat B'Shabbato Translated by Moshe Goldberg Point Of View Bit of Reality from Sinai Rabbi Yisrael Rosen Dean of the Zomet Institute "This teaches you that scripture, the Mishna, halacha, tosefta, hagadda, and whatever a veteran scholar will teach in the future already exists, and it was all given as halacha to Moshe at Sinai" [Kohellet Rabba 1]. ... Recipes with Meat and Milk In honor of the holiday, we have pieced together for you, from the newest volume, some juicy samples of dairy halachot, as is fitting for the holiday of Shavuot, in order to fulfill the verse, "Honey and milk are under your tongue" [Shir Hashirim 4:11]. We will capture your interest for halachic sophistication by offering you, from this new volume of Techumin, a serving of meat cooked in milk (yes, you read that right!). Compare this to Rav Nachman, who gave his wife an udder soaked in milk in order to satisfy her desire to taste a combination of milk and meat (Chulin 109b). And what is our enticing menu item that fits this requirement? See below... (1) "Ben Pekua" -- It is an accepted halacha (admittedly quite odd) that if a cow is slaughtered in the eighth month of her pregnancy and the calf is found to be alive, it is called a "Ben Pekua" and there is no need to slaughter it. It can be eaten in any manner, including even taking off a limb while it is still alive (Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Dei'ah 13), even many years later, and there is no need to check if it has one of the faults that would render a normal animal unkosher. And now, here is the most surprising part: The offspring of a male and female "Ben Pekua" (both of the "parents must be of this type) will never require kosher slaughtering either, and this includes all subsequent generations. (However, if only one parent is a "Ben Pekua," the offspring cannot be made kosher, even by slaughtering!) Rabbi Meir Rabi from Australia published a dramatic article where he claims that by definition a Ben Pekua is not cattle (but is rather the same as fish), and therefore not only is there no need to remove the veins in the hind quarter, one is even permitted to cook it and eat it together with milk! To come to this conclusion, the rabbi bases his ruling on a Torah insight by the Meshech Chochma, that our Patriarch Avraham served his guests, the angels, "a calf (literally, the son of cattle, or a ben pekua!) that was tender and good," from the womb of a pregnant cow, and he gave them "butter and milk, and the calf" [Bereishit 18:8]. Rabbi Rabi went further, and acted on his ruling. Using this method he created male and female "sheep" and grew flocks from them, and he now has a culinary and halachic declaration -- these animals do not need to be slaughtered, their veins do not have to be removed, their fat is not prohibited -- and the rabbi has a long list of other benefits. However, modern rabbis do not accept this idea! In the new volume of Techumin, Rabbi Zev Vitman, the rabbi of Tenuvah (which sells milk, meat, and fish) vigorously opposes the novel ruling. Aside from the release from the requirement of ritual slaughtering (which is carried over from the mother or the grandmother of the calf), Rabbi Vitman disagrees with (almost) all the other conclusions. He finds no justification for defining the Ben Pekua as a "new and separate species." In addition, in volume 19 of Techumin, sixteen years ago, Sephardi Chief Rabbi Bakshi-Doron rejected a similar proposal that was sent to him by meat farmers on the Golan, fearing that it would lead to serious problems. Other prominent rabbis, such as Rabbi Shmuel Vazner and Rabbi Asher Weiss, warned against getting involved in this sophisticated and complex halachic problem. (2) We are thus left to search elsewhere for a combination of meat and milk: meat that has been cloned from stem cells! In a previous volume, Rev Tvi Reizman (a well-known businessman from Los Angeles who is also a Torah scholar well versed in matters of halacha and actuality) writes about an "artificial hamburger" which was created two years ago. This is produced from artificial meat made from stem cells of a cow which was not slaughtered or which was declared unkosher ("tereifa"). In principle, he concludes that clone meat is not real meat, and that it can therefore be cooked and eaten with milk! (The summary of the article includes many details which will not be repeated here. For example, the problem of appearances can be solved by proper packaging and declarations, as is done for soya milk.) However, my friends, I doubt that you should rush out after the holiday to search for an "artificial hamburger," in order to season it with honey and dip it in milk. Rabbi Yaacov Ariel opposes the idea in the new volume of Techumin. He concludes that such artificial meat can only be produced from a kosher animal, and that then "it will be considered meat for all intents and purposes, including the matter of cooking with milk." So, in the end we are left with the solution in the Talmud: Does anybody want some milk-saturated udders? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 08:36:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 11:36:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula Message-ID: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> In OC 196:1, the Rama mentions the minhag of blowing 30 qolos at the end of RH mussaf. "Ule'achar sheyatze'u bazeh, shuv ein litqua od bechinam." (Although a qatan, even higia lechinuch, may.) So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. As for being yotzei... Mitzvas shofar only requires tashra"t, tasha"t OR tara"t, 3 times. A point the AhS makes besheim the Rash besheim R' Hai Gaon (Shilhei RH), "delav sefeiqos gemuros hein", that Rav Avahu was mesaqein in order for everyone to do the same thing, not because otherwise you're not yotzei shemie'as qol shofar. The AhS criptically adds, "(ulevad zeh yeish bazeh inyan gadol)." So the question is whether you have to blow in numerous ways few other people use in order to fulfil a taqanah created to create uniformity of practice. But enough of the tirade, and back to the point: Being machmir in hilkhos shofar this way involves a qulah in hilkhos yom tov. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:25:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:25:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150521202527.GP9522@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 02:46:27PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : On 05/21/2015 11:36 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: :> In OC 196:1, the Rama mentions the minhag of blowing 30 qolos at the :> end of RH mussaf. "Ule'achar sheyatze'u bazeh, shuv ein litqua od :> bechinam." :> (Although a qatan, even higia lechinuch, may.) : : Not bechinam; for practice, so that he may one day blow for real. That's not what the Rama says, though. He says "you're allowed to tell him to blow (HaMagid, Hil' Shofar, pereq 2) and it's mutar to for him to blow all day (Or Zarua dRH)." The mishnah says "any me'qvim es hatinoqos militqoa, aval mis'asqim imahem ad sheyilmedu", which implies they are not stopped even after yilmedu. The gemara ad loc (RH 33a-b) says that a qatan higia' lechinukh is encouraged to blow to learn, but any child is not prevented from blowing. So I think the Rama is paralleling the gemara, and not saying the seifa is only for chinukh, or for a child who doesn't need to be stopped because he isn't ready yet. The AhS's wording is even further from your deduction. :> So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the :> qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, :> etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. : No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the : last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. They aren't to fulfill minhag. Hey, I didn't outright assur the practice, I said it relies on being meiqil, such as calling wanting to be chosheish for some minority opinion shitah a need to blow. In general, I'm increasingly uncomfortable with this concept of being machmir to be chosheish for ... It seems to reflect a lack of emunah in kelalei pesaq and the authority of pesaq. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 11:46:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 14:46:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 11:36 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > In OC 196:1, the Rama mentions the minhag of blowing 30 qolos at the > end of RH mussaf. "Ule'achar sheyatze'u bazeh, shuv ein litqua od > bechinam." > > (Although a qatan, even higia lechinuch, may.) Not bechinam; for practice, so that he may one day blow for real. > So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the > qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, > etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 05:09:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Arie Folger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 14:09:57 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: RMB wrote: > Yes, that explains why it's nothing clearer cut than zilzul Shabbos. > AIUI, worrying about zilzul means that the mechanism is mutar, but > the goal is one that cheapens Shabbos, removes some of the feeling > of its qedushah. > > Like taking the pre-existing concept of eiruv as a way to have a > reshus that was no included in Shelomo ubeis dino's original issur > hotza'ah and stretching it to a much bigger area than ever before, > so that most people never have reason to leave it most weeks. So > that the entire issur goes from being one of the dominant features > of Shabbos (judging just in blatt of discussion) to barely ever > experienced. RAW actually deals with this explicitly by citing IIRC Rambam on why Chazal legislated mutze. We are not all farmers or builders, not even cooks and bakers. Hence, many of us hardly ever come close to deoraitot of Shabbat. However, Shabbaton requires shevita hanikeret,so Chazal legislated muktze to create a shevita hanikeret. Says RAW, even if he is wrong on electricity being a deoraita (but he doesn't think he is wrong), nonetheless, the consensus of poskim on elecricity makes it into something akin to muktze. That never happened regarding gefillte fish [which outside Hungary hardly anyone ever ate except on Yom Tov, since what passes for gefillte fish is just the filling. ]. No one ever suggested it is chillul Shabbos to eat gevldige Sushi. At worst, some puerile yeshive boocher called it goiyishe maakhoolim. -- Arie Folger, Recent blog posts on http://ariefolger.wordpress.com/ * Kann man die Religion des anderen korrekt wahrnehmen? ? Zur Woche der Br?derlichkeit * ???? ???? ????? ? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ???? ??? * Ist Pessach f?r die Vergangenheit oder die Zukunft? * Frag den Rabbi ? Wie backte man Mazzot in der Bibel? * Frag den Rabbi ? Seit wann und warum bedecken j?dische m?nner beim gebet ihr haupt? * A Critique of Liberal Orthodox Approach to Halacha -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:38:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:38:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 02:46:27PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the : last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. Having 100 qolos as learned from Eim Sisera's 100 cries is a minhag recorded already in the Arukh, and is mentioned by Todafos and the Rosh in RH pereq 4. (AhS OC 596:1) The Tur that R' Amram Gaon mentions of minhag of a single teru'ah gedolah without a teqi'ah kedei le'arbeiv hasatan, but we do not have this minhag. The the AhS continues (se'if 2) with the already mentioned Rama, "ke'achar sheyatz'u bazeh, ein litqoa od bechinam". Which is why I said that blowing more than 100 qolos for reasons less than minhag requires a qula-dik reading of "chinam". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:31:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:31:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521202527.GP9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521202527.GP9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E409C.7080609@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 04:25 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > >:> So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the >:> qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, >:> etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. >: No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the >: last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. > They aren't to fulfill minhag. Hey, I didn't outright assur the practice, > I said it relies on being meiqil, such as calling wanting to be chosheish > for some minority opinion shitah a need to blow. That's not a kulah, because the issur is davka when it's bechinam, and so long as there's a reason it's not chinam. Their wish to hear shofar the way this rishon or that one wanted it heard is at least as good a reason as our "le`arvev es hasoton", or giving women a "nachas ruach". [Email #2. -micha] Follow-up: However, your chashash brings up an interesting suggestion. if they are worried about all possible chashshos, then maybe they should worry about yours too, and they can easily solve it: let them go on mivtzo'im and find Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all, and blow for them according to these opinions. That way, not only will they have heard shofar according to all possible opinions, and not only will they have the zechus of those Jews having heard shofar according to at least one opinion (which is certainly kosher, as you correctly point out), but their "extra" tekios will be with a bracha! -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:51:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:51:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E454E.60107@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 04:38 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 02:46:27PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: > : No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the > : last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. > > Having 100 qolos as learned from Eim Sisera's 100 cries is a minhag > recorded already in the Arukh, and is mentioned by Todafos and the > Rosh in RH pereq 4. (AhS OC 596:1) Yes, but what of the extra 30 kolos after davening? Those are not in the 100 kolos, they're just le'arvev es hasoton, and yet nobody seems to raise this objection to them. > The the AhS continues (se'if 2) with the already mentioned Rama, > "ke'achar sheyatz'u bazeh, ein litqoa od bechinam". Which is why I said > that blowing more than 100 qolos for reasons less than minhag requires > a qula-dik reading of "chinam". No, it's not kuladig, it's just what the word means. Any valid reason is not chinam. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:55:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:55:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <555E454E.60107@sero.name> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> <555E454E.60107@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150521205546.GA9166@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 04:51:26PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Yes, but what of the extra 30 kolos after davening? Those are not in the : 100 kolos, they're just le'arvev es hasoton, and yet nobody seems to raise : this objection to them. Actually, they were part of the 100 qolos, and in nusach Ashkenaz they still are. It's only because y'all starting blowing during chazaras hashatz that it's not obvious. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:44:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:44:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <555E43A6.3020602@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 08:09 AM, Arie Folger via Avodah wrote: > No one ever suggested it is chillul Shabbos to eat gevldige Sushi. At worst, some puerile yeshive boocher called it goiyishe maakhoolim. Chilul Shabbos, no, but I have heard people seriously claim that it's forbidden to eat milchigs on Shabbos because it's "not shabbosdik", and specifically citing as "obviously" ridiculous the idea of eating lasagna on Shabbos. Which struck me as funny, since I recall one Rosh Hashana, no less, being confronted with an excellent milchig lasagna, made with fake meat, and having to wait to eat it because I was still fleishig from lunch. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:52:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:52:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What do Chazal mean when they refer to "pashtei d'kra?" Message-ID: <20150521205201.GA6908@aishdas.org> Maybe one of you could help R' CHaim Brown, even if he did leave us over a decade ago. A recent blog post on his "Divrei Chaim" at or . I mean, we talk about different definitions of the concept of "peshat" often enough, perhaps maybe someone had something. Tir'u baTov! -Micha Divrei Chaim Wednesday, May 20, 2015 what do Chazal mean when they refer to "pashtei d'kra?" The gemara Archin 8b darshens that "tzikascha k'harerei E-l" refers to nigei adam, which Hashem in his mercy limits to affecting a person for a week. The continuation of the pasuk, "mishpatecha tehom rabbah," refers to nigei batim, where the punishment is more severe in that it can stretch out for three weeks. The gemara then asks, "Pashtei d'kra b'mai?" and brings two similar explanations to the pasuk that read it as saying that G-d shows great mercy in tempering and mitigating the verdict that strict justice would call for. What do Chazal mean when they refer to "pashtei d'kra?" Despite the word "pashtei" in there, it does not seem to mean what the Rishonim like Rashi call "pshat," because if you look at Rashi or the Metzudas David, they don't simply quote this gemara. It seems that the gemara's "pashtei d'kra" is itself a derasha, albeit a derasha that is closer to the plain meaning of the words than the derasha that links the pasuk to nega'im. So are there different levels of derashos? The term "pashtei d'kra" is not all that common, so are these isolated exceptional cases, or in general are there different levels of derash? Does it make any nafka minah (except in our understanding of things?) Posted by Chaim B. at 9:40 AM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 14:12:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 17:12:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521205546.GA9166@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> <555E454E.60107@sero.name> <20150521205546.GA9166@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E4A32.8030909@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 04:55 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 04:51:26PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : Yes, but what of the extra 30 kolos after davening? Those are not in the > : 100 kolos, they're just le'arvev es hasoton, and yet nobody seems to raise > : this objection to them. > > Actually, they were part of the 100 qolos, and in nusach Ashkenaz they > still are. It's only because y'all starting blowing during chazaras > hashatz that it's not obvious. No, these kolos are not part of the 100. These are an extra 30, *after* the 100, and their only purpose is le'arvev es hasoton. And yet that doesn't count as "bechinam". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 18:25:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 21:25:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Shulchan Aruch's "Beis Din" Message-ID: <20150522012546.GA28788@aishdas.org> We discussed a number of times the fact that the SA doesn't follow the rule in his haqdamah to OC about following the majority of the Rif, the Rambam and the Rosh. Less often, peoeple mention actual examples. So, in case you were looking for one, the AhS mentions on OC 606:8-9 the machloqes about whetherit's a mitzbvah to eat on erev YK. In se'if 8 we learn the the Rif, the Ramnam and the Smag omit this idea, and in se'if 9 he says the Rosh, Tur and SA (se'if 1) hold that it's a mitzvah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 20:02:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi, its Kosher! via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 13:02:42 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Ways to find non-meat or non-milk - The BP Project Message-ID: I am happy to engage in discussion regarding the Halachos of BP, with anyone who is interested. For the time being such discussions must be and remain private I can confirm that I have been in contact with R Chaim Kanievsky about this for some years now and that he supports the Lomdus and proofs that I have proposed. Best, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi *Its Kosher* and *Exodus Matza * *it's kosher Authority Pty Ltd **ABN: *77 160 144 374 rabbi at itskosher.com.au +61 0423 207 837 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 18:55:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 01:55:29 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula Message-ID: <20150521.215529.1991.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Actually, they were part of the 100 qolos, and in nusach Ashkenaz they > still are. It's only because y'all starting blowing during chazaras > hashatz that it's not obvious. R' Zev Sero responded: > No, these kolos are not part of the 100. These are an extra 30, > *after* the 100, and their only purpose is le'arvev es hasoton. > And yet that doesn't count as "bechinam". Okay, folks, I think it is clear that some of us have been exposed to minhagim that the others are unaware of. I suggest that we clarify the various minhagim, and tally up the different ways of dong it. >From what I've seen, the vast majority of Nusach Ashkenaz shuls blow 30 times before Musaf, 30 during Chazaras Hashatz, 40 during or after Kaddish Tiskabel, and that is the end, for a total of exactly 100. I have been in a Nusach Sfard shul where they blow 30 times before Musaf, 30 during the silent Musaf, 30 during Chazaras Hashatz, 10 during or after Kaddish Tiskabel, and that is the end, for a total of exactly 100. Here in Elizabeth, we blow 30 times before Musaf, 60 during Chazaras Hashatz, 10 during Kaddish Tiskabel, and that is the end, for a total of exactly 100. R' Zev, could you describe for us how the first 100 are blown, and when the extra 30 come in? And if anyone else wants to add to the list, please do so! Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/555e8cc570114cc51cdast04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 01:14:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 11:14:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat Message-ID: REMT wrote > True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature > of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so > accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul > Shabbos. (Of course, by this argument, putting an electric light on or off > should be prohibited even if the use of electricity is not a m'lacha.) In particular using an preset switch to turn lights and off should be prohibited. While RMF originally did object he later changed his mind when it became the norm. In fact even the kosher lamp might be prohibited Can someone come up with a definition of zilzul shabbat? Is every modern way of doing any melacha that does not technically violate hilchot shabbat zilzul? The gemara allows using the sun for cooking on shabbat - why isn't that zilzul shabbat? -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 07:59:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Sassoon via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 15:59:41 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003901d0949f$eed65840$cc8308c0$@org.uk> RZS writes: >That's not a kulah, because the issur is davka when it's bechinam, I don't think that is exactly the correct phrasing to explain the situation. Rather, there is the general blanket rabbinic issur on playing musical instruments on yom tov, into which sounding shofar prima facie falls. This general issur is pushed aside by the d'orisa positive mitzvah of blowing shofar (noting that, at least according to the famous Taz, because rabbinic power doesn't stretch far enough to allow the banning of something which is a mitzvah d'orisa in every circumstances in which it would occur, as this would do - but is only in allowed situations where only sometimes the mitzvah would not end up being performed, such as Rosh Hashana on shabbas). This rabbinic issur of playing musical instruments on yom tov vis a vis the shofar is also pushed aside in other rabbinically recognised circumstances - including (according to the majority rishonim, Shulchan Aruch and Rema, although there are major rishonic dissenters) nachas ruach d'nashim. The case of the katan may well be different, given that the fundamental issue with katanim is chinuch (which might perhaps be said to cut both ways here). > and so long as there's a reason it's not chinam. Their wish to hear shofar >the way this rishon or that one wanted it heard is at least as good a >reason as our "le`arvev es hasoton", or giving women a "nachas ruach". Leaving aside nachas ruach, which has (according to those who hold by it at least rabbinic weight - ie power to push aside at least rabbinic prohibitions) - what is the justification for le'arev es hasoton? My instincts are that, to the extent that le'arvev es hasoton is taken seriously, the argument there is one of pikuach nefesh, which of course would push aside the rabbinic issur of playing musical instruments (think about it, if you can get a few extra years out of confusing the soton, how could that not be considered pikuach nefesh)? Don't think that helps with being choshesh for minority shitos. >However, your chashash brings up an interesting suggestion. if they >are worried about all possible chashshos, then maybe they should worry >about yours too, and they can easily solve it: let them go on mivtzo'im >and find Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all, and blow for them >according to these opinions. That way, not only will they have heard >shofar according to all possible opinions, and not only will they have >the zechus of those Jews having heard shofar according to at least >one opinion (which is certainly kosher, as you correctly point out), >but their "extra" tekios will be with a bracha! But aren't they then denying those Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all the chance to hear shofar according to the majority opinions by only blowing for them according to the minority opinions? Or are you proposing that they *then* blow for them according to the majority opinions? Either way you seem to me to be opening a real can of worms. The principle on which somebody who has fulfilled their obligation can then fulfil the obligation of another is based on kol yisrael areivim zeh b'zeh. But to what extent is that applicable in a situation in which that person would never, had the situation been reversed, have accepted the form of fulfilment they are offering the other. Ie since the person who is blowing the shofar refused to have these alternative ways of blowing as the fundamental method of fulfilling their own mitzvah, is it really areivus to then foist that form of fulfilment on others? >Zev Sero zev at sero.name Shabbat Shalom Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 10:22:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 13:22:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What is the Law? Message-ID: <20150522172240.022581829C9@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/sivan_v.pdf YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 11:16:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 14:16:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula II Message-ID: <20150522181627.GA5977@aishdas.org> I came across another one, more inyana deyoma... According to the AhS (OC 494:3) we used to wait for "laylah mamash" to make Qiddush the first night of Shavu'os, so that the omer could be "sheva shabasos temimos". Presumably this is following the MGA who has us wait until tzeis for Qiddush, and the AhS's "laylah mamash" means tzeis. The Taz (494:haqdamah) and the MB (s"q 1) have us waiting for tzeis to start *Ma'ariv*. The Qorban Nesanel (on the Rosh, Pesachim 130b) brings the Rosh as a ra'ayah against the MGA. The Rosh says that even though on Shabbos *and the other YT-im* we add from the chol to the qodesh and eat before it gets dark, we do not do so for the seder night. So the QN QN takes the implication that "she'ar yamim tovim" includes Shavuos. So the QN treats Shavuos like Shabbos, and presumably let you daven maariv and make Qiddush right after pelag. The QN is machmir in omer, the MGA is machmir in tosefes YT. And each is being correspondingly meiqil in the other. I would presume that the silence in the Tur, the BY and the SA about any waiting means that the Tur, the Mechaber and the Rama hold like the QN and treat erev Shavuos like erev Shabbos, RH, Sukkos, etc... (But not Pesach.) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 48th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Malchus: What binds different Fax: (270) 514-1507 people together into one cohesive whole? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 08:55:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 11:55:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <003901d0949f$eed65840$cc8308c0$@org.uk> References: <003901d0949f$eed65840$cc8308c0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <555F517D.4080806@sero.name> On 05/22/2015 10:59 AM, Chana Sassoon via Avodah wrote: >> >However, your chashash brings up an interesting suggestion. if they >> >are worried about all possible chashshos, then maybe they should worry >> >about yours too, and they can easily solve it: let them go on mivtzo'im >> >and find Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all, and blow for them >> >according to these opinions. That way, not only will they have heard >> >shofar according to all possible opinions, and not only will they have >> >the zechus of those Jews having heard shofar according to at least >> >one opinion (which is certainly kosher, as you correctly point out), >> >but their "extra" tekios will be with a bracha! > But aren't they then denying those Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all > the chance to hear shofar according to the majority opinions by only blowing > for them according to the minority opinions? AFAIK everyone agrees that all these methods are kosher, so those Jews are definitely yotzei the mitzvah. > The principle on which > somebody who has fulfilled their obligation can then fulfil the obligation > of another is based on kol yisrael areivim zeh b'zeh. But to what extent is > that applicable in a situation in which that person would never, had the > situation been reversed, have accepted the form of fulfilment they are > offering the other. Ie since the person who is blowing the shofar refused > to have these alternative ways of blowing as the fundamental method of > fulfilling their own mitzvah, is it really areivus to then foist that form > of fulfilment on others? They're not foisting anything. The people they're blowing for would otherwise not hear shofar at all, so they're clearly better off hearing even some obscure form of it, so long as they're yotzei. On 05/21/2015 09:55 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > R' Zev, could you describe for us how the first 100 are blown, and when the extra 30 come in? And if anyone else wants to add to the list, please do so! I'm talking about 30 kolos blown at the very end of davening, just before going home, and well after all 100 kolos have already been heard (30 meyushav, 30 in each musaf, and 10 in kaddish). Their purpose is le'arvev es hasoton. And I've never heard it suggested that there is any chashash issur. Thus my conclusion that shofar-blowing is allowed on RH for *any* valid purpose, and the only blowing that remains forbidden as usual on Yomtov, is when it is truly "bechinam". -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 25 12:15:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 25 May 2015 19:15:59 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Brisker Theory of Everything Message-ID: 1. The gemara (Ketuvot 5b) discusses whether causing a certain type of blood flowing is considered a Sabbath violation. The first attempt to resolve the question turns on whether "mifkad pakid or chaburei mechbar" (is the blood in the womb stored up or is it the result of a wound?). Rashi there (please look) seems to define this as a physical question. Is this acceptable or must we say Rashi was leaving out the "obvious" philosophical/halachic question (i.e. the physical was known, it's a question of how to categorize it halachically)? 2. That gemara continues to try to resolve the question and is willing to entertain the possibility that the halacha is like Rabbi Yehuda (vs. Rabbi Shimon) in mekalkeil (destroying) and like Rabbi Shimon (vs. Rabbi Yehuda) in davar sheino mitkavein (the result was not the major one intended). If these two issues were interconnected, could the gemara entertain this possibility? 3. If the answer to 2 is no, must we assume that when the Shulchan Aruch said he would decide the psak based on majority 2 of big 3, did he really mean this as a primary tie breaker, or only when he did not have a clear understanding of the underlying philosophy that resulted in their final opinions. 4.Is it possible that R'YBS limited his "canon" to only a few major rishonim (in contradistinction to R" A Lichtenstein) because the more data points included in trying to determine the underlying theoretical construct, the more likely a single errant point would skew the results? Kt Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 25 19:35:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 02:35:10 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir Message-ID: <20150525.223510.2086.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> After Machlon and Kilyon died, we find in Ruth 1:8-13 that Naami tells both Orpah and Ruth to go back home. Didn't Naami realize that they would return to avodah zara if they'd do that? Even if they had not converted yet, wouldn't this be an example of Lifnei Iveir? One answer I can think of is that perhaps this eventuality didn't occur to Naami. But several pesukim later, in 1:15, Naami tells Ruth that Orpah has "returned to her people and to her god; go back with your sister-in-law." Naami persists not only in trying to convince Ruth to leave, but she explicitly urges Ruth to return to her former god! This question is certainly relevant according to those who understand that Orpah and Ruth converted prior to marrying Machlon and Kilyon. But it is relevant even to those who hold that Ruth did not convert until afterward. It is one thing to dissuade a prospective ger from joining us. But Ruth had been living with a Jewish family for ten years! How can Naami urge her to go back to avoda zara? I know that the meforshim give various reasons why Naami did not want them to accompany her back to Eretz Yisrael, but do those reasons justify this Lifnei Iveir? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 06:00:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 09:00:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Who Wrote the Mishna Brura? Message-ID: <20150526130054.4548818394C@nexus.stevens.edu> I am sure that most will answer "The Chofetz Chaim" Israel Meir (HaKohen) Kagan. However, he apparently did not write all of it. I have been reading Marc Shapiro's latest book "Changing the Immutable" How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites its History. See http://www.littman.co.uk/cat/shapiro-orthodox.html Shapiro points out that Rabbi Aryeh Leib Cohen, a son of the Chofetz Chaim, wrote in his biography of his father that he wrote parts of the Mishna Brura and that is why there are contradictions in some parts of the MB. Which parts Aryeh Leib wrote are not indicated. Does anyone know? YL PS. I have found this book an eye opener and recommend it highly. llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 10:19:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kaganoff via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 13:19:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 12:01 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 01:53:10PM -0400, Kaganoff via Avodah wrote: > : For many years i had extreme difficulty with R. Elchanan Wasserman > understanding > : as it conflicted with my belief that Judaism (and other religions) was > not > : logically provable (contra to Moshe Mendelssohn and his contemporaries) > and > : therefore required a "leap of faith" and that a disbeliever could not be > : faulted for failing to take such a jump. > > This is a false dichotomy. Logically proving things are not the only > way to justify belief in there. > > How do you know that (in a flat space) two parallel lines never meet? If > you're like me, you pictured it in your head. Even though infinite lines > don't exist in the real world. (Nor, does it turn out, does flat space.) Actually non-euclidean geometry is an excellent example. We cannot say with absolute certainty that two parallel lines will never meet or that there is only one line that goes through a particular point that is parallel to another line, as there is a well developed body of literature on non-Euclidean geometry (such as Riemannian Geometry). One might "feel" strongly that Euclidean Geometry is true and non-Euclidean Geometry is false. But someone might also feel that chocolate ice cream is superior to vanilla ice cream. But neither can be proven. > > Did you figure out that oppression was evil by logical proof, or by a > combination of imagination and empathy? > Calling anything "evil is not meant to be logical but rather to pull at an audiences' heartstrings. Evil is neither logical nor illogical. Nor can one "prove" that the Nazis are evil and that circumcision is not. However, that is a red herring. Again, emotions are not proof. Feelings are neither true nor false. > My favorite example is answering the question, "Do elephants have hair?" > A logical/verbal approach would be: Elephants are mammals, all mammals > have hair, and so unless elephants are the exception to the rule, they > must have hair. Elephants are well known and discussed animals. Could > they be an exception to the rule and I don't know it? Nah, they must > have hair. > > How it is more likely the question jogged your memory of elephants > you saw, or saw pictures of. The detail may be blurry, so you may have > to manipulate the picture a bit. Finally, a version of the picture > which has a tuft of hair at the tail, maybe (if your memory is good) > some downy hair around the eyes and ears, strikes you as the most > familiar, the most real. And again you could reach the conclusion that > elephants have hair. > That is a proveable thesis. One could prove either way whether or not elephants have hair. Unlike the two earlier examples. As for whether one could prove the existence or non-existance of God, I don't have time now to start that discussion. > > (See for some musings about > the two modes of thought I'm contrasting here.) > > In I compare > different versions of the Argument from Design from R' Aqiva's response > to the apiqoreis through the Rambam, through similar approaches based > on more modern science. > > "G-d created" (Gen. 1:1): A hereic came to Rabbi Aqiva and asked, > "Who made the universe?". Rabbi Aqiva answered, "HQBH". The heretic > said, "Prove it to me." Rabbi Aqiva said, "Come to me tomorrow". > > When the heretic returned, Rabbi Aqiva asked, "What is that you > are wearing?" > > "A garment", the unbeliever replied. > > "Who made it?" > > "A weaver." > > "Prove it to me." > > "What do you mean? How can I prove it to you? Here is the garment, > how can you not know that a weaver made it?" > > Rabbi Akiva said, "And here is the world; how can you not know that > Haqadosh barukh Hu made it?" > > After the heretic left, Rabbi Aqiva's students asked him, "But what is > the proof?" He said, "Even as a house proclaims its builder,a garment > its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the > Holy Blessed One Who created it. > > Not very rigorous. Rabbi Aqiva's reply revolves around giving a parable > to make the conclusion self-evident. Not contructing a deductive argument. > > The more rigorous we try making it, the more arguable the proof becomes. > R' Aqiva's argument is far more convincing than the Rambam's statement > based on how objects lose form over time, not gain it. Or a similar > argument based on thermodynamics or information theory. > > (Ironically, every formal / logical proof is built from givens taken > as self-evident for informal-reasoning reasons.) > > Anyway, that's how I understood REW. R' Elchanan argues that on an > informal level, the idea that the universe had to have a Creator is > as obvious as a Euclidean postulate or the injustice of oppression. > I believe that such an explanation is disrespectful to REW. I am assuming that REW believed what he wrote and wrote down clearly what he believed as opposed to assuming that REW believes one thing and wrote another. > > To not believe in G-d requires a formal proof, which one's negios then > determine if they find it sound or specious, and whether they accept > the postulates on which it's built. > To believe and to not believe in God can be pulled off without formal proofs. However, it is intellectually dishonest to state that one has an arguement for God's existance and than say that we are not talking about formal proofs when a counterarguement is made. > Notice I didn't invoke any leaps of faith. > > Tir'u baTov! > -Micha > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 12:25:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 15:25:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150526192512.GA22762@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 01:19:53PM -0400, Kaganoff wrote: : > How do you know that (in a flat space) two parallel lines never meet? If : > you're like me, you pictured it in your head. Even though infinite lines : > don't exist in the real world. (Nor, does it turn out, does flat space.) : : : Actually non-euclidean geometry is an excellent example. We cannot say with : absolute certainty that two parallel lines will never meet or that there is : only one line that goes through a particular point that is parallel to : another line, as there is a well developed body of literature on : non-Euclidean geometry (such as Riemannian Geometry). Well, if we know the curvature of the space we're dealing with, we know which Geometry to use. And only one is correct for that particular space. :> Did you figure out that oppression was evil by logical proof, or by a :> combination of imagination and empathy? : : Calling anything "evil is not meant to be logical but rather to pull at an : audiences' heartstrings. Evil is neither logical nor illogical. Nor can one : "prove" that the Nazis are evil and that circumcision is not. I disagree with your reisha. Evil is an objectively meaningful predicate. Yahadus wouldn't work is evil were subjective. As for your seifa... that's kind of my point: there are truths that can be justified even when they are not amenable to formal proofs. : However, that is a red herring. Again, emotions are not proof. Feelings are : neither true nor false. Although the notion that John is feeling happy at 2:55pm EST May 26, 2015 is either true or false. Or some fuzzy state in between. It is a predicate, even if it needn't be a boolean predicate. All three of these comments are interrelated: Euclidean geometry is the only accurate description of flat space. Not every space, but flat space. People may disagree about what is evil, and Nazis may be able to fool themselves about what the word means, but HQBH did create a concept of good that has an objective definition. Even if -- again -- we cannot find it via proof. : > My favorite example is answering the question, "Do elephants have hair?" : > A logical/verbal approach would be... : > How it is more likely the question jogged your memory of elephants : > you saw, or saw pictures of... : That is a proveable thesis. One could prove either way whether or not : elephants have hair. Unlike the two earlier examples. As I said in the first paragraph, before the first ellipses. However, in practice, people aren't likely to use proofs to reach the conclusion. We justify our belief that elephants have hair in a different way. : As for whether one could prove the existence or non-existance of God, I : don't have time now to start that discussion. But my whole point is that proof isn't the only grounds for justifying knowledge! ... : > Anyway, that's how I understood REW. R' Elchanan argues that on an : > informal level, the idea that the universe had to have a Creator is : > as obvious as a Euclidean postulate or the injustice of oppression. : I believe that such an explanation is disrespectful to REW. I am assuming : that REW believed what he wrote and wrote down clearly what he believed as : opposed to assuming that REW believes one thing and wrote another. Um... That /is/ what Rav Elchanan wrote. I'm arguing that he is being misread because they think that REW invoking the notion of knowledge (as opposed to belief) is equivalent to his invoking the notion of proof. Instead, he invokes the synthetic a priori, of the self-evident, or whatever your theory of justification is of R' Aqiva's answer to the atheist or that letters aren't the product of ink spilled on paper. AISI, REW is saying that humans know there is a G-d, without his saying anything about the possibility of proving it. And that people then go about creating proofs for His non-Existence or Deism, to hide from that knowledge. Or, to be more loyal to his original wording -- because they took shochad to buy into a proof against the obvious. He might be saying that at some level, that knowledge lingers, no matter how much someone buries it under layers of counter-proof and convincing themselves. But I don't see that in REW either. Quoting: Now, of course, we shouldn't be astonished that so many great philosophers had difficulty believing that the world was created by a Purposeful Creator. Their minds were surely great, but their desire to gain benefit from the pleasures of this world overcame their ability to think straight. Such a powerful bias can divert a person's mind to the point that he can say two plus two does not equal four... After my signature, I'll quote Qovetz Maamariv par 5-7 from a translation provided by Pirchei Shoshanim. You'll notice it's nothing like the Rambam's attempt to formally prove an Argument from Design in Moreh sec. II. Really, all he says is that monotheism woul be self-evident if people didn't want to escape its implications on their lifestyle. Not proven, self-evident, and not that those who argue against it are less than fully convinced of their atheism (or Deism, or polytheism). :> To not believe in G-d requires a formal proof, which one's negios then :> determine if they find it sound or specious, and whether they accept :> the postulates on which it's built. : To believe and to not believe in God can be pulled off without formal : proofs. : However, it is intellectually dishonest to state that one has an arguement : for God's existance and than say that we are not talking about formal : proofs when a counterarguement is made. Not "argument", any more than your acceptance of Euclidean (or Reimann) postulates are based on argument. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_justification#Theories_of_justification and http://www.iep.utm.edu/epistemo/#H3 may be clearer than I have been. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "Man wants to achieve greatness overnight, micha at aishdas.org and he wants to sleep well that night too." http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yosef Yozel Horwitz, Alter of Novarodok Fax: (270) 514-1507 5. If you ponder it, however, you shall find that the belief that the Holy One, blessed by He, created the world is self-understood by any intelligent being -- unless a person is a complete imbecile. And there is no need for any [knowledge of] philosophy to grasp this principle. The author of the Duties of the Heart (Shaar HaYichud 6) thus wrote: There are people who say that the world came into existence by chance, without a Creator who caused it and formed it. I wonder how any rational being in a normal state of mind can entertain such a notion. If one holding such a opinion would hear a person expressing a similar view in regard to a water-wheel that revolves in order to irrigate a portion of a field or garden -- and were to say that he thinks it had been set up without any intention on the part of a mechanic who labored to put it together and adjust it, using all his tools to obtain this useful result -- the hearer would wonder, be exceedingly astonished, and think the man who made such a statement extremely foolish. He would promptly charge him with lying, and would reject his assertion. Now, if such a statement is rejected in regard to a small and insignificant wheel, the fashioning of which requires but little contrivance and which serves for the improvement of but a small portion of the earth, how can anyone permit himself to harbor such a thought concerning the immense sphere that emcompasses the whole earth with all the creatures on it; which exhibits a wisdom so great that the minds of all living creatures, the intellects of all rational mortals, cannot comprehend it; which is appointed for the benefit of the whole earth and all its inhabitants – how can one say that it came into existence without a wise and mighty designer purposing and conceiving it? Whatever takes place without purpose shows, as is well known, no trace of wisdom or power. Do you not realize that if ink were poured out accidentally on a blank sheet of paper, it would be impossible that proper writing should result, legible lines such as are written with a pen? If a person brought us a fair copy of script that could only have been written with a pen, and said that ink had been spilt on paper and these written characters have come of themselves, we would charge him to his face with falsehood, for we would feel certain that this result could not have happened without an intelligent person's purposeful action to produce it. Since this appears to us an impossibility in the case of characters whose form is conventional, how can one assert that something far finer in its art, and which manifests in its fashioning a subtlety infinitely beyond our comprehension, could have happened without the purpose, power and wisdom of a wise and mighty designer? How could anyone say that the universe came into existence on its own, seeing that everywhere we look we see signs of such inconceivably profound wisdom? How wondrous is the wisdom and design in the human body, how wondrous the arrangement of its limbs and organs, as all doctors and surgeons attest. How is it possible to say, with regard to such a wondrous machine, that it came into existence on its own without a purposeful designer? If anyone would claim that a watch had just come into existence on its own, he would be considered insane. We see this in the Midrash (Midrash Temurah in Midrash Aggadot Bereshit): An athiest came to Rebbi Akiva. "Who created the world?", he queried. R. Akiva answered, "The Holy One, blessed be He." The athiest replied, "Show me proof." R. Akiva said, "Come back to me tomorrow and I shall prove it to you." When the man returned the following day, R. Akiva began by asking, "What is that you are wearing?""A piece of clothing,"the athiest replied."And who made it?" R. Akiva continued. "The weaver", he replied. "Show me proof", R. Akiva demanded. "But how can I show you proof if it isn't already obvious to you that it is the work of the weaver?!" With this R. Akiva said, "Have you not heard what your own lips have spoken? Isn't it obvious to you that the Holy One has created this world? Doesn't the clothing testify to the weaver; the house and the door to a builder and a carpenter? Just so does the world testity to the One who made it." Imagine a human being born with a fully developed intellect. We can't imagine his great astonishment upon seeing, suddenly, the heavens and their hosts, the earth and all that is upon it. What would this man's answer be to our question: Did the world that he is seeing now for the first time come into existence on its own, without any conscious intent, or is it the work of a wise Creator? Behold, without a doubt, after contemplating for a moment, he would respond that all this was made with wondrous wisdom and extremely subtle order (fine-tuning). [We find this concept expressed in any number places in our classical literature.] The Psalmist said, "The heavens declare the glory of G-d"(Psalms 19:2). [According the Duties of the Heart 2:5] this is also the meaning of Job's words when he declared, "From my flesh, I will see G-d!"(Job 19:26) [The Psalmist saw proof of G-d's existence in the magnitude of the universe. Job was saying that the very fact that something as wonderful as his body could exist demonstrates that it is the work of a wise Creator.] In view of all this it is therefore extremely puzzling, a great enigma: How could some of the greatest philosophers who ever lived have concluded that the world was brought into existence by chance? 6. The resolution of this enigma can be found in the Torah. The Torah reveals something profound about human psychology when it commands, "Do not take bribes, for bribery blinds the eyes of the wise!" (Deuteronomy 16:19). What is bribery? In legal terms, the smallest amount necessary to constitute a bribe is a "shaveh prutah"(not much more than a penny), similar to the minimum amount needed [for a court] to find a person guilty of stealing or of taking interest. This negative commandment, to never take a bribe, is directed not only at a judge, but at every man, even the wisest of men, even the most righteous, even Moses himself. Yes, if it could be imagined, even if Moses would take the tiniest bribe, a prutah, his perception of reality would be distorted; he would be incapable of bringing forth a just ruling. At first sight, this is nothing short of amazing. Can we imagine Moses or Aaron twisting the law and judging falsely merely for the sake of receiving such miniscule benefit? But the Torah itself testifies to the possibility, and "the testimony of G-d is trustworthy" (Psalms 19:8). We must therefore say that it is a psychological law: A person's will or desire [to gain some benefit] influences his mind [his ability to think straight]. Of course, it depends how strong the desire and how resolute the mind. A small desire will not exert much influence on a great mind, whereas on a lesser mind it will. A powerful desire [for gain] will exert even more influence. One thing is certain: no matter how miniscule, a desire for gain will always have some affect. Even the tiniest desire can cause the greatest mind to waver a fraction. This is exemplified in the Talmud (Ketuvot 105b): Rebbi Yishmael bar Yossi had a land tenant who used to bring him fruits from his [R. Yishmael's] orchard every Friday before Shabbat. Once, he came on a Thursday. R. Yishmael asked him: "What's changed this week?" "I have a court case this week", he answered."Since I was coming to town anyway, I thought I would bring you your fruits."R. Yishmael refused to take the fruits [even though they were his]. "I am disqualified from judging your case."Two [other] rabbis sat and began to hear the land tenant's case. R. Yishmael sat [on the sidelines] watching. At every turn in the discussion, R. Yishmael felt himself wanting to give advice to his land tenant. "If only he would say this now... if only he would say this..."After the case was decided, he exclaimed, "O that the spirit of those who take bribes would explode! I refused to take what was rightfully mine [and I still couldn't help being biased and wanting to see him come out winning]. How much more those who actually take what it is not theirs! It is known that the sages [of the Talmud] were angelic in terms of their expanded consciousness and saintly character. We nevertheless see that the smallest degree of bias could cause them to incline away from the truth. How much more so the rest of us who are sunken in the desires of this world! The desire for gain literally bribes us, saying, "Hey, look, the world is free to do with as you please!"How powerful this bias is! How easily it distorts our perception and blinds us! For when a person has "bought into"a certain bias, he is incapable of recognizing any truth that flies in the face of that bias. As far as that truth is concerned, he might just as well be in a drunken stupor. He doesn't recognize its existence. Now, of course, we shouldn't be astonished that so many great philosophers had difficulty believing that the world was created by a Purposeful Creator. Their minds were surely great, but their desire to gain benefit from the pleasures of this world overcame their ability to think straight. Such a powerful bias can divert a person's mind to the point that he can say two plus two does not equal four, but five. A person cannot judge whether something is true unless his mind is free from any distorting influence vis a vis the thing he wishes to judge. On the contrary, if recognizing a particular truth in any way contradicts a bias that a person has bought into, no amount of intellect, even the intellect of a great person, can remove or overcome that bias. 7. We learn from this that the foundations of true faith are simple and unquestionable for anyone who isn't an idiot. It is simply impossible to doubt their veracity. This is only true, however, on the condition that one does not allow oneself to be bribed. One must be disinterested in and free from the desires and allures of this world, and his own personal desires [for gain]. If so, the root of God-denial lies not in the distortion of the intellect in and of itself. It lies in the heart, i.e., in one's desire to gain benefit [from this world], which distorts and blinds the intellect. It is clear now why the Torah commands, "Do not stray after your hearts..." (Deuteronomy 15:39), concerning which the sages commented, "Do not follow after the heart's desire to deny G-d"(Sifri Shlach 15:70). A person is obligated to subdue and sublimate his desires [for personal gain], because this is the only way his intellect will be free of any blinding influence! He will then automatically recognize the truth of the existence of a Creator. This is what Rebbi Akiva meant when he said that the world attests to the Holy One, blessed be He, who created it. God-denial really has no place in a person's mind. Its place, if man allows it to exist there, is the heart; in a person's desire for gain. And if one would be careful not to allow his desires to overcome him, he could never come to deny G-d's existence or atttribute reality to any form of idolatry. It is a sign that one's desires have grown out of proportion if one is incapable of understanding this simple truth. And the commandment to believe in G-d? It is a commandment not to allow one's desires to overcome his intellect so that he will automatically come to believe. In other words, there is no need to struggle to believe. One must simply remove the obstacles that stand in the way of believing. It will then come naturally, of itself... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 11:11:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 14:11:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura? Message-ID: <20150526181117.9766A180F62@nexus.stevens.edu> Someone sent me the following which is also in Shapiro's book. "The first edition of Shemiras Shabbos K'Hilchasah had a footnote to the effect that some things in the MB had been written by the CC's son. See p. 263 n. 203. The full footnote is not in the later editions of SSK." Shapiro views this as part of the Chareidi attempt to keep certain information from the Chareidi public that they do want people to know. His book is filled with many examples of the "rewriting of history" to fit current Chareidi ideology. He also wrote "Rabbi Jacob J. Schachter wrote an article in The Torah U-Madda Journal about changes and mentioned the MB, the CC's son, and the original SSK footnote. See his "Facing the Truths of History" at http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/704426/Rabbi_Dr-_Jacob_J_Schacter/Facing_the_Truths_of_History (p. 225 and n. 114 on p. 264)." YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 12:44:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 15:44:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura? In-Reply-To: <20150526181117.9766A180F62@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150526181117.9766A180F62@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150526194413.GB22762@aishdas.org> And many of the books we consider the Gra's are students' records of his teachings. For that matter, people talk about what the Ari says in Peri Eitz Chaim or others of R' Chaim Vital's works. RALC piously takes blame for those occasions when he misunderstood his father's position, saying that these errors, rather than actual inconsistencies in the CC's shitah, is what you may find in the MB. But the CC takes ownership of the contents of the MB. See the title page (Warsaw 1884 ed.) "Ube'uri qarative besheim MISHNAH BERURAH..." ... kol eileh chibarti be'ezras H' yisbarakh, haChonen le'adam da'as, YISRAEL MEIR br' Aryeh Ze'ev haKohein zlh"h, mei'ir Radin." Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I long to accomplish a great and noble task, micha at aishdas.org but it is my chief duty to accomplish small http://www.aishdas.org tasks as if they were great and noble. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Helen Keller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 15:01:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 18:01:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150526220106.GA9900@aishdas.org> On Fri, May 22, 2015 at 11:14:15AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature :> of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so :> accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul :> Shabbos... : In particular using an preset switch to turn lights and off should : be prohibited. : While RMF originally did object he later changed his mind when it became : the norm. Actually, RMF's primary argument was mar'is ayin, which would naturally change as people know to blame lights turning on and off on "Shabbos clocks". : In fact even the kosher lamp might be prohibited Well, I would think that fits the zilzul Shabbos argument bewing used WRT the kosher switch. : Can someone come up with a definition of zilzul shabbat? The textbook case would be on Shabbos 6a: situating someone in a meqom petur so that someone in a reshus hayachid can hand items to them so that they could then hand it over to someone in a reshus harabim. Rashi ad loc explains "demezalzel be'isurei Shabbos". I think it's making a farce out of one of the issurim / chiyuvim of Shabbos. Notice that the case Rashi attributes to zilzul would otherwise be perfectly mutar. : Is every modern way of doing any melacha that does not technically : violate hilchot shabbat zilzul? : The gemara allows using the sun for cooking on shabbat - why isn't that : zilzul shabbat? I think the problem is more than just avoiding the issur, but making it trivial to entirely avoid it. Which is what I had in mind when I distinguished between eiruv, which is built into hotza'ah derabbanan, and community eruv, which takes that idea and stretches it until someone can pretty much ignore the whole topic of carmelis for years on end. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Strength does not come from winning. Your micha at aishdas.org struggles develop your strength When you go http://www.aishdas.org through hardship and decide not to surrender, Fax: (270) 514-1507 that is strength. - Arnold Schwarzenegger From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 16:14:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 19:14:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") Message-ID: In Avodah V33n82, RAM requested: > I suggest that we clarify the various minhagim, and tally up the different ways of dong it....And if anyone else wants to add to the list, please do so! < When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: -- 30 *dim'yushav* -- 10 *dim'umad* -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the post-"Aleinu" Qaddish) All the best from *Michael Poppers* * Elizabeth, NJ, USA -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 18:24:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 21:24:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir In-Reply-To: <20150525.223510.2086.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150525.223510.2086.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150527012443.GA5467@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 02:35:10AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : It is one thing to dissuade a prospective ger from joining us. But Ruth : had been living with a Jewish family for ten years! How can Naami urge : her to go back to avoda zara? I know that the meforshim give various : reasons why Naami did not want them to accompany her back to Eretz : Yisrael, but do those reasons justify this Lifnei Iveir? On a technical level, it would be mesayeia, not lifnei iver, and I'm not sure that mesayeia applies to 7 mitzvos benei Noach. But if you're just asking how it's moral... Just thinking off-the cuff. The timing is between eishes Shimshon and Shelomo's mistake with many of his wives. It would seem that women only pretending monotheism to join the Jewish People was common. If Rus was going to be a pagan either way, better not one who people would mistake for a geir. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet micha at aishdas.org about things most people don't watch even on http://www.aishdas.org Yom Kippur. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 00:25:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 10:25:26 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat Message-ID: <<: The gemara allows using the sun for cooking on shabbat - why isn't that : zilzul shabbat? I think the problem is more than just avoiding the issur, but making it trivial to entirely avoid it.>> In that case how about a "dud shemesh" according to the poskim that it is allowed because it uses the sun <> would there be a difference between doing this once and making this a standard procedure? -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 01:22:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:22:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <> The key word is "if" . That is the difference between math and physics. Math assumes axioms and from there everything is provable. Physics discusses the "real" world. This is based on observation and induction. Hence, physics is always subject to modification based on new observations. Hence, we have no proof of the curvature of the universe. <> Yahadus uses the Torah to define evil. Others don't accept this definition. Is ISIS beheading victims and their other acts "evil" ? They believe they are keeping the word of G-d. Destrying ancient monuments is viewed by the world as "evil" while they see it as destroying idols and hence a mitzvah. If we were to eradicate Amalek we would consider it a great mitzvah while the rest of thw world would bring us to the world court for genocide. <> But without a formal proof it is always debatable. You feel that the existence of G-d is obvious even without a formal proof (which doesn't exist) while Dawkins feels that anyone who believes in a diety that interacts with the world is a fool. You accept Torah mi-sinai while most academics are convinced the Torah was written during the late Bayit Rishon if not later -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 02:20:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 12:20:34 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] right and wrong Message-ID: Tangential to some of the recent discussions I wish to point out that the defintion of right and wrong is subjective and indeed changes through history. As one example consider the recent post on love from http://www.talmudology.com/ In the 1440s in England, Elizabeth Paston, the twenty-year old daughter of minor gentry, was told by her parents that she was to marry a man thirty years her senior. Oh, and he was disfigured by smallpox. When she refused, she was beaten "once in the week, or twice and her head broken in two or three places." This persuasive technique worked, and reflected a theme in Great Britain, where Lord Chief Baron Matthew Hale declared in 1662 that "by the law of God, of nature or of reason and by the Common Law, the will of the wife is subject to the will of the husband." Things weren't any better in the New Colonies, as Ann Little points out (in a gloriously titled article "*Shee would Bump his Mouldy Britch; Authority, Masculinity and the Harried Husbands of New Haven Colony 1638-1670.*) The governor of the New Haven Colony was found guilty of "not pressing ye rule upon his wife." What was obvious in one generation is no longer regarded as true today. Similar arguments apply to slavery -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 03:47:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 06:47:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 07:14:36PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: : -- 30 *dim'yushav* : -- 10 *dim'umad* : -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to blow. How do you do less than 10 *each*? Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 05:03:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 12:03:32 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir Message-ID: <20150527.080332.8051.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> I asked if Naami had violated Lifnei Iveir: : It is one thing to dissuade a prospective ger from joining us. : But Ruth had been living with a Jewish family for ten years! How : can Naami urge her to go back to avoda zara? R' Micha Berger answered: > On a technical level, it would be mesayeia, not lifnei iver, and > I'm not sure that mesayeia applies to 7 mitzvos benei Noach. Really? Perhaps I need a better understanding of the difference between the two. I thought that mesayeia was when the other person is going to violate the halacha anyway and I am merely helping him to do it. But in this case, the three of them have been living for ten years as a family unit, and regardless of the geirus (or lack of it) I presume there was no avodah zara under Naami's roof. This status quo could have continued for a long time, as we see even Orpah was reluctant to leave. But Naami urged and insisted, and it is difficult for me to imagine a bigger michshol. Pasuk 1:15 - "So [Naami] said: Look! Your sister in law has returned to her people and to her god. Go follow your sister in law." One of us might as well hand the car keys to our child on Shabbos and tell him to have a good time. Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:14:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:14:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527151410.GG27891@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 11:22:14AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : <> : : The key word is "if" . That is the difference between math and physics. : Math assumes axioms and from there everything is provable... Again, from a set of givens. The givens are accepted as the rules of the formal system. Which is why I spoke of the validity of Euclid's Postulates in the context of flat space. But my point was that there are things other than proof. : <> : : Yahadus uses the Torah to define evil. Others don't accept this definition. Nu, so they're wrong. We may not be able to prove to them they're wrong, but they are. Somewhere "out there" is a real objective definition. Regardless of someone's ability to know what they are, or to accept it if they did. : <> : : But without a formal proof it is always debatable... 1- That's a different topic. We're talking about how I justify my believing in something, not how I prove it to others. 2- There are synthetic a priori knowledge so self-evident people don't debate them. Which is why I dragged Euclid into this. EVERY proof STARTS with these givens. Logic is a means of combining postulates, not starting yeish mei'ayin. And thus no proof is actually more solid than its weakest postulate -- and that postulate is justified by something other than proof. And I brought up these notions because I think that without disentangling why I believe from how can I get others to believe, or the general concept of how knowlege is justified from the specific concepts of formal or experiment proof, we cannot get to what R Elchanan Wasserman means. REW says that if it were not for ulterior motive, G-d's existence would be as self evident as the conclusion that a calligraphied poem had an author and scribe (who may be the same person), and was not just spilled ink on a piece of paper. He doesn't yet talk about proof, and in fact, his language is that of informal justification, not proof. (I've blogged the notion that the more formal we make the Argument from Design the LESS solidly it justifies belief. See . For example, R Aqiva's -- or REW's -- version only requires common experience. The Rambam's requires dividing matter into Form and Substance and accepting certain postulates about Form and Time. Later versions will instead speak of entropy and time... But they all suffer from involving *more* givens and insisting they are self-evident and precede the attempt to prove anything.) REW then says that it's only ulterior motive that allows many of us to create arguments and proofs (validly drawn but from broken givens or flawed in reasoning) to let convince ourselves away from that default position. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When a king dies, his power ends, micha at aishdas.org but when a prophet dies, his influence is just http://www.aishdas.org beginning. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Soren Kierkegaard From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:33:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:33:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527153329.GH27891@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 11:48:03AM +0300, Saul Mashbaum wrote: : Very briefly, R. Rosner cites three approaches in the sources : : 1. Illustrating the truth - The Ran in Drashot HaRan drasha 5 - In this : approach, which severely limits the principle of eilu v'eilu, the Ran : states that actually only one of the opinions is true. The other opinion is : 'divrei Elokim chaim' only insofar as it serves to illustrate and elucidate : the other opinion, which is the real truth, as the dark enables us to : appreciate a candle... R/Dr Moshe Halbertal forms his opinion of the Ran's shitah on the haqdamah to haMafteiach leManulei haTalmud. He translates: It is a known fact that the entire Torah, written and oral, was transm itted to Moses, as it says in the tract ate Meggilah, R. Hiyya bar Abba said in the Name of R. Yohanan: The verse:...and on them was written according to all the words.." teaches that the Holy One blessed be He showed Moses the details prescribed by the Torah and by the Sages, including the innovations they would later enact. And what are those? the reading of Meggila. The 'details' provided by the rabbis are halakhic disputes and conflicting views held by the sa ges of Israel. Moses learned them all by divine word with no resolution every controversy in detail. Yet [God] also gave him a rule whose truth is manifest, i.e., 'Favor the majority opinion'....as the sages of that generation saw fit, for the decision had already been delegated to them as it is written: 'And you shall come to the priest the Levites, and to the judge that shall be in those days' and 'You shall not deviate....". (Quoted from . I do not know where to find the original, to see what's ellided or whether my own attempt to translate would agree.) This quote from the Ran pretty clearly backs the third position in RSR's survey: : 3. Multiple truths (Ritva in Eiruvin, Maharal) - Both opinions are true, : reflecting different perspectives of the subject at hand (IMO, this is : similar to the previous explanation, without establishing a hierarchy : between the truths expressed by the different opinions)... (BTW, I happen to agree with this parenthetic. ) OTOH, in Derashah #7, I think I could defend RSR's #2! To quote the Ran: We have been commanded to obey their decision whether it represents the tru th or its opposite ...for the power of decision-making has been entrusted to the halakhic authorities for each generation. Whatever they decide is what God has commanded. Compare: : 2. Levels of truth - R. Moshe in the hakdama to IM, and R. Yaakov to : Bereishit 26, the Netziv in his Hakadama to Haamek Sh'eila, his commentary : to the Sheiltot). Using R. Moshe's terminology. there is Emet Shamaymit, : and Emet L'Horaa. Both are correct, and in this world we are obligated to : follow the emet l'horaa even if it deviates from the ultimate, heavenly : truth. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You are where your thoughts are. micha at aishdas.org - Ramban, Igeres haQodesh, Ch. 5 http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:38:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:38:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5565E50A.4070406@sero.name> On 05/27/2015 04:22 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Yahadus uses the Torah to define evil. Others don't accept this definition. Why is that relevant? Objective truth doesn't depend on how many people are aware of it or accept it. It's true for everyone, whether they know and accept it or not. Those who don't know it are simply ignorant, and those who dispute it are simply wrong. Subjective truth is a very different matter. If a truth is subjective then those who dispute it are not wrong, it *isn't true* for them, and if someone insists it must be true for them then *he* is wrong. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:41:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:41:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] right and wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5565E599.6050709@sero.name> On 05/27/2015 05:20 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Tangential to some of the recent discussions I wish to point out that > the defintion of right and wrong is subjective and indeed changes > through history. No, it isn't and it doesn't. That the majority of people in the course of history have been wrong is no chiddush; the majority of people *today* are wrong. Truth isn't determined by democracy. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:42:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:42:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") In-Reply-To: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> References: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5565E5EC.7030806@sero.name> On 05/27/2015 06:47 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to > blow. How do you do less than 10*each*? Tashrat for Malchiyos, Tashat for Zichronos, and Tarat for Shofros. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 10:58:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 13:58:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Even More on Who Wrote the Mishnah Brurah Message-ID: <20150527175829.C3B57182454@nexus.stevens.edu> Someone on my email list spoke to a well-known Flatbush Rov and sent me the following: Reb Yitzchok I spoke to Rabbi XX this morning, and he did indeed confirm that the MB was not written only by the Chofetz Chaim. He said R. Moshe Feinstein told him that it is a work of a rabbim, not only a yochid. It seems that R. Arye Leib was not the only one to work on it. According to what R. XX heard the team also consisted of the CC's son in law and the mashgiach Rav Londinski. R. XX also told me that R. Henoch Liebowitz, the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim in Queens told him that his father Reb Dovid, who was a nephew of the CC, also wrote portions of the MB. So thank you for leading me towards this information. llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 12:38:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 15:38:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55661D24.8040207@gmail.com> Micha Berger: >> Rabbi Akiva said, ... "Even as a house proclaims its builder,a garment >> > its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the >> > Holy Blessed One Who created it. >> > >> >Not very rigorous. Rabbi Aqiva's reply revolves around giving a parable >> >to make the conclusion self-evident. Not contructing a deductive argument. >> > >> > ...there are truths that can >> be justified even when they are not amenable to formal proofs. >> ... I'll quote Qovetz Maamariv par 5-7 from a translation >> provided by Pirchei Shoshanim. You'll notice it's nothing like the >> Rambam's attempt to formally prove an Argument from Design in Moreh >> sec. II. Indeed, the Rambam himself in the Moreh Nevuchim recognizes this distinction and supports the superior validity of the non-formal approach. Chapters after he devotes chapters to formal philosophic proofs for Creation ex nihilo, he describes how a healthy (and unbiased) mind thinks: And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, /for one who is modeh al ha-ememmes/ (Ibn Tibbon; KPCH: /baal tsedek/; Pines: an equitable man) [contra Aristotle?see 2:20-23], is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an intender, and that such purposeful intent necessarily implies the production of something new [and not something that always existed along with the one who bears the purposeful intention for its existence]. (MN 3:13) Aristotle agreed to the premise that everything in Nature serves a certain purpose, and that every being contributes to the existence of still another being, but he refused to concede to the conclusion the Rambam considers something a /modeh al ha-emmess/baal tsedek/ is naturally convinced of. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 13:54:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 16:54:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <55661D24.8040207@gmail.com> References: <55661D24.8040207@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150527205440.GB22904@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 03:38:12PM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : Indeed, the Rambam himself in the Moreh Nevuchim recognizes this : distinction and supports the superior validity of the non-formal : approach. Chapters after he devotes chapters to formal philosophic : proofs for Creation ex nihilo, he describes how a healthy (and : unbiased) mind thinks: : : And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, ... : is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities : serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; : and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an : intender, and that such purposeful intent necessarily implies the : production of something new [and not something that always existed : along with the one who bears the purposeful intention for its : existence]. (MN 3:13) There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam recaps a point made in 2:19-20. And for that matter, if the Rambam was talking about not really needing formal proof, despite spending much of sec. II on just that, why would it be buried in a chapter that focuses on something else? 3:13 is about how the universe has its own purpose. It is not just an arena designed for the purpose of humans. He argues here with Aristo who says that plants exist for the purpose of animals, and in general, that things exist for the purpose of other things. Besides, the Rambam writes in 3:51 in the mashal of the palace, that people who believe because of tradition without having proof are like those who wander around the chatzer, whereas someone with a proof is like one who entered the prozdor. Not Aristo's epistomology didn't analyze issues of proof vs other justification. But clearly Reliabilism, trusting an idea found in a source that has already been found to be reliable (hama'aminim ... derekh qabalah), is not being considered good enough justification to fully accomplish life's goal. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 14:39:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 17:39:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527213945.GE22904@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 10:25:26AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> I think the problem is more than just avoiding the issur, but making :> it trivial to entirely avoid it. : : In that case how about a "dud shemesh" according to the poskim that it is : allowed because it uses the sun I don't know. Maybe because you still can't boil hot water if you wanted it, say, for your tea. :> The textbook case would be on Shabbos 6a: situating someone in a meqom :> petur so that someone in a reshus hayachid can hand items to them so :> that they could then hand it over to someone in a reshus harabim. :> Rashi ad loc explains "demezalzel be'isurei Shabbos".>> : would there be a difference between doing this once and making this a : standard procedure? Good question. I don't see "standard procedure" in the gemara, it looks like a one-off. It depends if we're talking about zilzul of kevod Shabbos, or zilzul of the melakhah, the latter being more of a "threat of slippery slope" problem. Rashi has "mezalzel be'isurei Shabbos". BH 337:2 "shelo yishtaberu" uses the same turn of phrase. Why would you be afraid of cheapening the issur if we aren't talking about that opening the door to future violation? The Tur OC 315, Beiur Halakah 344 and elsewhere talk about not doing things "shelo yavo'u lezalzel bo". Which clearly invokes a slippery slope argument; but not that zilzul is itself a slippery slope, rather than zilzul is such a problem, we avoid things that will slide us there. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is harder to eat the day before Yom Kippur micha at aishdas.org with the proper intent than to fast on Yom http://www.aishdas.org Kippur with that intent. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 14:49:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 17:49:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir In-Reply-To: <20150527.080332.8051.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150527.080332.8051.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150527214903.GF22904@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 12:03:32PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Micha Berger answered: :> On a technical level, it would be mesayeia, not lifnei iver, and :> I'm not sure that mesayeia applies to 7 mitzvos benei Noach. : Really? Perhaps I need a better understanding of the difference between : the two. I thought that mesayeia was when the other person is going to : violate the halacha anyway and I am merely helping him to do it... My understanding is that mesayeia is when the person was capable of doing the aveirah without you. Not "would" but "could". Whereas lifnei iveir is when the nazir is mei'eivar hanahar and you're giving him passage. The sugya is on AZ 6a-b. But, I see the Ran does say mesayeia apply to preventing a nakhri from violating the 7MBN. The Rama *YD 151:2) says we are meiqil and allow selling AZ items to nakhriim if they already own similar items or can buy them elsewhere, but there are machmirim. See the Shach YD 151:6-7, who discusses this machloqes rishonim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The mind is a wonderful organ micha at aishdas.org for justifying decisions http://www.aishdas.org the heart already reached. Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 18:33:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 21:33:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] measurement error Message-ID: <20150528013324.GA4749@aishdas.org> The topic I got caught up in has been the AhS and standard shiurim. The story so far.... Jan 8, when this thread was current, I wrote : > BTW, carrying 4 amos bereshus harabbim is 4 of one's own amos, assuming > they have mainstream bone structure. It's where I am in AhS Yomi. > But notice that we would naturally assume "amah" as unit of length, not > as a function of how far that particular person can reach. On Jan 11, I hit the topic again WRT eiruvin AhS OC 363:32-35, and wrote : > But then in se'if 34 he says something I do not follow, but key to > our discussion. > When dealing with mavui, where there is only one mavui and therefore one > measuring process to be used for everyone, the above applies. However, > when the measurement is only for one person's use, tbey should be > measuring for himself, with his own norms. > And here he adds a touch of subjectivity: a person should measure how > far he himself could walk. And the rule of carrying in rh"r a distance > of no more 4 of one's own amos is brought into that umbrella. > The reason for the general rule is to cover the personal amos of the > people who will be using the measuring. > BUT, and this is why I do not follow, he opened se'if 32 by telling us > the variability is 1/48 of the total (1/24 of an etzba per ammah). Which > is far less than the variability in forearm lengths in most groups of > people. For example, my own sukkah is used by Yoni, who stands 6'3" and by > my own 5'3" -- and my arms are on the shorter side, even proportionally. > When we hold up elbows together, my ammah ends just past his wrist. Not > within 47/48 of eachother. And then on May 18 I hit AhS OC 586:14 and tried reviving this thread . The topic was the minimum length for a shofar -- long enough to be seen on either side when being held in one hand. > So the shiur is neither personal nor really the standard tefach. It is > literally as the gemara says, what can be held and still seen. Which is > why there is a machloqes about where the tefach stands in relation to the > real shiur. But, visible if hypothetically held by an average hand. And > if the tqoei'ah has wide hands, he could hold a minimal shofar without > it being visible, and it would still be kosher. ... > What I find even more interesting is that there is no chiluq being drawn > between someone who blows in shul and someone who blows just for himself. > Wouldn't the rule from OC 363 mean that someone in the latter situation > should use what is visible when their own hand holds it? But today I seem to have hit an AhS which deals with shiurim that aren't human: revi'is, kezayis. According to OC 612:8, the shiur of drinking on YK is not a revi'is, but melo lugmav. And unlike akhilah, where there is one kezayis for everyone, melo lugmav is literally his own cheek. So it would seem that kezayis, and perhaps revi'is and other shiurim (beis se'ah) are not subjective. Which makes sense, since I can't figure out how to make a kezayis correspond to the person... Except RCVolozhiner's position, where it's the average kezayis then and there, and not a static shiur. Which could, literally, be the same shiur for all people (living there and then) and thus may be within the AhS's intent. Can't I get anyone else intrigued by this problem? Back on Jan 11, I was in hil' eiruvin, and hit upn the AhS's discussion of an ammah just as we were discussing the topic Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The purely righteous do not complain about evil, micha at aishdas.org but add justice, don't complain about heresy, http://www.aishdas.org but add faith, don't complain about ignorance, Fax: (270) 514-1507 but add wisdom. - R AY Kook, Arpelei Tohar From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:12:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:12:53 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul Message-ID: Micha wrote: The Tur OC 315, Beiur Halakah 344 and elsewhere talk about not doing things "shelo yavo'u lezalzel bo". Which clearly invokes a slippery slope argument; but not that zilzul is itself a slippery slope, rather than zilzul is such a problem, we avoid things that will slide us there. >> My apologies but I am still completely confused when one applies zilzul and when one says something is allowed as an exception to the rule. No purpose in giving examples as there are myriads of exceptions that are allowed. I have the same problem with "lo plug" sometimes something that would be allowed is prohibited because of "lo plug" and sometimes we simply say it is an exception. Perhaps the most famous example is lighting candles on leil yom tov. The wife of the Prisha says one should say the bracha first and then light since lighting (preexisting flame) is allowed on tomtov. The MA calls her names and says this is an obvious "lo plug". My impression is that most women follow the wife of the prisha. The question is what is the basis of the machloket either when do we say "lo plug" and when do we apply "zilzul" and when do we ignore these arguments -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 21:04:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 04:04:33 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir Message-ID: <20150528.000433.22403.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > My understanding is that mesayeia is when the person was capable > of doing the aveirah without you. Not "would" but "could". Whereas > lifnei iveir is when the nazir is mei'eivar hanahar and you're > giving him passage. > > The sugya is on AZ 6a-b. > > ... I will be the first to point out that Lifnei Iveir is one the many topics where my learning and expertise is severely lacking. Even so, I suspect that there is something missing from RMB's definition. In the simplest reading of the pasuk (Vayikra 19:14), Rashi says that Lifnei Iveir forbids one to give bad advice to another person. It is difficult to imagine a worse piece of advice than telling Ruth to follow Orpah back her her previous god. Googling the question "What is Lifnei Iveir" brought me to an interesting article by Rabbi Yirmiyohu Kaganoff (bio at http://rabbikaganoff.com/about) The full article is at http://tinyurl.com/ka3pwq6 and I would like to quote the part where he gives three different categories of Lifnei Iveir: > I. Inciting ? maiseis > > This occurs when a person was not even considering doing an > aveirah until someone encouraged him. Thus, the instigator incited > the performing of the aveirah and is therefore a maiseis. > > II. Encouraging ? chanufah > > One violates this prohibition by complimenting someone for doing a > sin, thus implying that sinning is acceptable. > > III. Enabling ? lifnei iveir > > One violates this prohibition if the sinner wanted to do the > aveirah, but was unable to do so without assistance. The person > who enables the performing of the aveirah violates lifnei iveir. > > IV. Even when none of these Torah prohibitions are involved, > helping the sinner do the aveirah sometimes violates the rabbinic > prohibition of mesaya?a y?dei ovrei aveirah, assisting someone who > is sinning. (It is unfortunate that the article did not cite a source or precedent for these categories, but please bear with me.) It seems to me that RMB is giving a useful tool to distinguish between category 3 and category 4, but that tool is useful only in the case where a person already has the *desire* to commit a sin, but it lacking the *ability* to some degree. If a person has only a mild inability to sin, then the enabler is merely mesayeia; but if the person has a severe inability, then the enabler is placing a real michshol. But what of the case where a person does *not* yet have a desire to sin? Rabbi Kaganoff is saying that one who incites or encourages him to do it is violating Lifnei Iveir. Even if the person already has the ability to do the sin, it was below his "bechirah point" until he was egged on to do it. Rabbi Kaganoff offers an example: > Inciting Someone to Sin ? maiseis > > The classic case of maiseis is when the nachash encouraged Chavah > to eat the forbidden fruit. Even though the nachash itself did > not eat, Hashem punished it for inciting Chavah to sin (Gemara > Sanhedrin 29a). Similarly, if Reuven incites Shimon to sin in a > way that Shimon had not considered, Reuven is a maiseis. And so my question can be rephrased: If the nachash was wrong to tell Chava to eat the fruit, wasn't Naami wrong to tell Ruth to follow Orpah back to her god? Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/556694205dac4141e6338st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 01:07:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:07:24 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim Message-ID: On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 07:14:36PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: : -- 30 **dim'yushav** : -- 10 **dim'umad** : -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the R' Micha Berger asked: "How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to blow. How do you do less than 10 **each**?" Many Rishonim (quoted by the Beis Yosef in Siman 592) hold that during Chazaras Hashatz in Musaf you blow Tashrat for malchiyos, Tashat for zichronos and Tarat for shofaros. In all of the Nusach Ashkenaz shuls that I have davened in they blew 30 before Musaf, 30 during chazaras hashatz and then 40 after Musaf adding up to 100. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:33:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:33:43 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: Micha wrote <> Well Micha and I agree on several points but still disagree on others. Agreed that people in real life don't use formal mathematical proofs. A sanhedrin can kill on a majority vote (OK there a little more than 50%) I also agree that if one is talking about oneself then feelings count. Saying they are wrong but I cant prove it works perfectly OK with regard to your own beliefs. It doesnt work when trying to convince others. Example: Your child comes home and says he learned that the world is billions of years old not about 5700 years. Or else your teenager tells you he doesn't believe G-d is loving because of the Holocaust or because of Amalek. You can tell him that whatever is in the Torah or Chazal is truth and its not open to discussion. That might work with some children. Alternatively you can give him/her one of the many answers that have been discussed on this list. That may or not convince him. There are no proofs that G-d exists or that G-d rules the universe or that G-d is just or loving. You can convince yourself but doing that to others is difficult, We have already argued about REW and I still can't accept it. The argument is that if someone else tells you why he doesn't accept G-d or that G-d rules the world whether for rational or emotional reasons the answer is that we don't believe him and say he is making up reasons. Of course he will say the same about your acceptance of Torah and mitzvot. To simply accuse the other of simply rationalizing his beliefs is simply not true. I have had enough lectures on why the Bible was written very late by many scribes to be convinced they really mean it. You may disagree but you can't accuse them of merely rationalizing their non-belief. In one class the professor said he would willing debate anyone who has a different opinion objectively. However, if you start that the Torah is from Sinai because of your belief then there is nothing to discuss. What is self-evident to you is self-evidently false to someone else. Again it is legitimate to disagree with that person but I claim it is not legitimate to state that he doesn't really believe in his own position. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:57:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:57:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura Message-ID: <> They state clearly these are things they heard from the Gra, Ari etc. No misleading. No different than RHS writing what he heard from RYBS and many other such seforim. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:55:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 05:55:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5566E62F.8040201@sero.name> On 05/28/2015 05:12 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > Perhaps the most famous example is lighting candles on leil yom tov. > The wife of the Prisha The MA's girsa in the Prisha is "mother", and the Machtzis Hashekel confirms that this is not a typo in the MA. > says one should say the bracha first and then > light since lighting (preexisting flame) is allowed on tomtov. > The MA calls her names He does not! He merely quotes the gemara Yoma 66b that "women only have wisdom with the spindle". Machtzis Hashekel says he is not even referring to the Drisha's mother, but to most women, who will not understand the distinction between Shabbos and Yomtov. > and says this is an obvious "lo plug". He doesn't just assert it, he cites clear sources that when a bracha must sometimes be said after the deed, we apply lo plug and always say it after the deed. Thus, he says, the same thing must apply here. (But see Dagul Mervava, who distinguishes this case because the bracha is different, and points out that if not for this distinction then the same should apply to the Chanukah lights). > My impression is that most women follow the wife of the prisha. Really? I'm surrprised. I'm also surprised that you've surveyed enough women to form an impression one way or the other. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:19:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 10:19:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:57:05PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> < teachings. For that matter, people talk about what the Ari says in Peri :> Eitz Chaim or others of R' Chaim Vital's works.>> : They state clearly these are things they heard from the Gra, Ari etc. No : misleading. I'm not sure about such disclaimers on the Gra's talmidim's writings, aside from Maaseh Rav. And if so, lo kol shekein in our case! Here we have the author of Shemiras haLashon -- someone known for thinking about what he said -- calling the MB "beiuri", "od tzarafti" "ki bo biarti", "upo hir'eisi", and "kol eileh chbarti..." on the title page. How can one argue he didn't oversee the entire work and checked the content? Nothing about parts being by Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger What you get by achieving your goals micha at aishdas.org is not as important as http://www.aishdas.org what you become by achieving your goals. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Henry David Thoreau From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:33:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 10:33:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528143339.GB4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:12:53PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : My apologies but I am still completely confused when one applies zilzul and : when one says something is allowed as an exception to the rule. No purpose : in giving examples as there are myriads of exceptions that are allowed. I think the reverse: the norm is to allow valid loopholes to the din, and it's only when the poseiq decides that the loophole would destroy some significant part of the feel of Shabbos (whether qedushas Shabbos or an entire melakhah) that we call it zilzul. ... : Perhaps the most famous example is lighting candles on leil yom tov. The : wife of the Prisha says one should say the bracha first and then light : since lighting (preexisting flame) is allowed on tomtov. The MA calls her : names and says this is an obvious "lo plug". : My impression is that most women follow the wife of the prisha. The AhS OC 263:3 does, citing the Perishah. Then he quotes the MA (s"q 12) and says "and many were choliq on him... vekhein iqar ledina." Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:45:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 10:45:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528144529.GC4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:33:43PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : Well Micha and I agree on several points but still disagree on others. : Agreed that people in real life don't use formal mathematical proofs... I would go further and say that far too many things /can't/ use formal proofs. And even further: even when you do have a formal proof, it is built from givens -- call them postulates or first principles. So, barring an infinite regress, even a formal proof is a structure atop things accepted without formal proof. I should point out that this a major subset of the field of epistomology. : It doesnt work when trying to convince others. True, but not relevant. We -- and more importantly to the origianl point, REW -- are talking about whether it's more natural to believe in G-d or not. Not whether a believer could then convince someone else. ... : We have already argued about REW and I still can't accept it. The argument : is that if someone else tells you why he doesn't accept G-d or that G-d : rules the world whether for rational or emotional reasons the answer is : that we don't believe him and say he is making up reasons. REW doesn't say that. I even cut-n-pasted a translation to support that point. REW says that he really doesn't believe, but he had to work against the natural state of seeing a world that shows obvious signs of a Designer. Someone can truly and honestly convince himself, or be convinced by others (including upbringing) that a poem really could emerge by someone spilling ink. But that's not what people would conclude if we lacked a strong desire to conclude that way -- the "shochad" of freedom if ein din ve'ein Dayan. There is nothing in that quote from Qovetz Maamarim about anyone not really believing what they think they believe. Rather, he ascribes a motive. : Of course he will say the same about your acceptance of Torah and mitzvot. Again, REW isn't speaking about the context of debate. Nor was I. By bringing it in, you complicate matters without addressing the original claim. REW is really just saying that the reason why believe is a fair topic of bechirah because on one side design is self-evident but on the other the desire to live without having to follow the Designer counterbalances it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger People were created to be loved. micha at aishdas.org Things were created to be used. http://www.aishdas.org The reason why the world is in chaos is that Fax: (270) 514-1507 things are being loved, people are being used. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:22:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 14:22:41 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> References: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, May 28, 2015, 5:19 PM Micha Berger wrote: > Here we have the author of Shemiras > haLashon -- someone known for thinking about what he said -- calling > the MB "beiuri", "od tzarafti" "ki bo biarti", "upo hir'eisi", and "kol > eileh chbarti..." on the title page. How can one argue he didn't oversee > the entire work and checked the content? Nothing about parts being by I agree he must have looked it over That leaves the question of contradictions And stories about minhagim of cc that are different than what is in mb From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:23:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:23:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150528152301.GE4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 02:22:41PM +0000, Eli Turkel wrote: : I agree he must have looked it over Which is why I think R/Dr MS is making too much ado over the actual authorship. : That leaves the question of contradictions Well, not every sheverer Rambam is a printing error either. Another case where the academic norm is to run far further with some fun concept than I'm comfortable with. Perhaps we should be looking for how the contradictions are only apparent. Or perhaps the CC felt than ruling al pi rov or safeiq lechumerah/lequlah in two different cases needn't results in consistencies between pesaqim. Before you spend too much time on that bothering you, recall when we daven minchah and maariv. If the tefillos are on two different days, you can end up following different definitions of evening on different days. : And stories about minhagim of cc that are different than what is in mb I thought R/Dr Seth Mandel's position is compelling. Look at the title page and the haqdamah. The CC never claims that the MB is a seifer of pesaq. Rather, he describes the work as a survey. From the title page, defining the MB (as opposed to the left column about the BH): I called my biur by the name MB since within it is explained (misbareir; c.f. "berurah") the words of the SA, every law by its reasoning and origins in the gemara and posqim that it not be like a sealed book. Also I will collect in it all the dinim, halakhos and biurim scattered amog the books of the acharonim, meforshim of the SA who are known (like MA, PMG, Birkhei Yoseif, Maamar Mordekhai and many such.) There are many of them after the Be'er Heitiv and they are not brought in shu"t because they are somwhat scattered in various places. All of these are compiled here, and all is in a straightforward and easy language and in proper order, with Hashem's help. And the BH: Also, I appended on its side some necessary inyanim titled under the name Biur Halakhah -- and as the name, so it is. For in it I sometimes explained the words of halakhah which are brought in summary in the MB without proof, and here I show (be"h) its source looking inall of gemara and the posqim. Also in it are sometimes explains the words of the SA at length in places which need explanation. (Sorry, just always wanted to bother translating that -- this thread was just my excuse.) So, the MB is a survey, and thus the halachic conclusions found in it (and explained in the BH) are purely what in theory the sources surveyed would indicate. It's not that the CC didn't believe in mimeticism, it's that the MB is a book of theory and therefore ignores mimeticism. The MB was written lehalakhah velo lemaaseh. Which makes it ironic that so many RYs of the mid- and late 20th cent worked so hard to make the work a "poseiq acharon" lemaaseh. Whereas he CC's own practice did reflect weighing shitos based on their acceptance. And so, unsurprisingly, in all the places I know of where his own practice didn't fit the MB (such as supporting a community eiruv, despite BH 364 "ve'achar") his practice does follow the AhS. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "The most prevalent illness of our generation is micha at aishdas.org excessive anxiety.... Emunah decreases anxiety: http://www.aishdas.org 'The Almighty is my source of salvation; I will Fax: (270) 514-1507 trust and not be afraid.'" (Isa 12) -Shalhevesya From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:11:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:11:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528151127.C0EE817F7D9@nexus.stevens.edu> At 10:33 AM 5/28/2015, R. Micha Berger wrote: >And if so, lo kol shekein in our case! Here we have the author of Shemiras >haLashon -- someone known for thinking about what he said -- calling >the MB "beiuri", "od tzarafti" "ki bo biarti", "upo hir'eisi", and "kol >eileh chbarti..." on the title page. How can one argue he didn't oversee >the entire work and checked the content? Nothing about parts being by I wonder if these words were on the title page of the first publication of each volume of the MB. After all, publishers do add things. One title page I found online for the second volume of the MB refers to the author as HaGaon. I doubt that the CC would have had this on the title page of the first printing. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:39:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:39:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: <20150528151127.C0EE817F7D9@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150528151127.C0EE817F7D9@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150528153911.GG4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 11:11:28AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : I wonder if these words were on the title page of the first : publication of each volume of the MB... Why wonder? Each volume: 1. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49623&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1884 2. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49624&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1895 3. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49625&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1891 4. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49626&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1898 5. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49627&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1902 6. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49628&pgnum=1 - Pietrekov 1907 (None call him ga'on, all have pretty much the same self description.) These fit the years of the first editions that wikipedia gives, based on "The Chafetz Chaim" by R MM Yoshor, pg 603. (But even if wiki has it wrong, they are editions published by the author.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Rescue me from the desire to win every micha at aishdas.org argument and to always be right. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Nassan of Breslav Fax: (270) 514-1507 Likutei Tefilos 94:964 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:10:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 08:10:56 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH Message-ID: http://menachemmendel.net/blog/are-you-a-mishnah-berurah-or-arukh-hashulhan-person/ see there also the r henkin review . he points out that the Oz Vhadar edition inherently has a difficulty in attributing notes to the [non-satmar oriented] relatives of the Aruch Hashulchan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 09:00:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:00:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the suggestion that a kosher lamp is zilzul shabbas. Isn't just a nice (and -- significantly -- *safer*) way of covering a lamp? If one were to make the argument that its convenience might make it zilzul shabbas, might one respond with "but safety"? Why do the rabbis deem the following to not be a case of zilzul yom tov: cooking a large pot of food on the afternoon of yom tov rishon, "in case people might stop by", and "I'll eat some of it" knowing there will be leftovers? -- Sholom -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 14:15:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 17:15:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") In-Reply-To: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> References: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> Message-ID: R'Micha asked: > How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to blow. How do you do less than 10 *each*? < 3 during Malch., 3 during Zichronos, and 4 during Shof'ros. On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 6:47 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 07:14:36PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: > : When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: > : -- 30 *dim'yushav* > : -- 10 *dim'umad* > : -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the > > How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to > blow. How do you do less than 10 *each*? > > Tir'u baTov! > -Micha > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 15:45:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 18:45:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528224528.GB28282@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:00:22PM -0400, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote: : I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the suggestion that a : kosher lamp is zilzul shabbas. That's okay, it's just a hava amina we raised here. No one AFAIK actually banned kosher lamps over zilzul Shabbos. The question was why a Kosher Switch (that claims to not even be grama) would be zilzul and not the Kosher Lamp. And then, many (most? the vast majority of posqim?) do not believe it actually avoids gerama, including the author of Shemiras Shabbos kehilkhisa. : Isn't just a nice (and -- significantly : -- *safer*) way of covering a lamp? Well, every case where one would discuss zilzul Shabbos would be one where there wasn't a more easily defined problem. So every discussion could be "isn't it just". I think the difference is that a kosher switch would mean being able to turn or off anything, whereas the Kosher Lamp is more limited, being a specific appliance. ... : Why do the rabbis deem the following to not be a : case of zilzul yom tov: cooking a large pot of food on the afternoon of : yom tov rishon, "in case people might stop by", and "I'll eat some of : it" knowing there will be leftovers? I would guess that similarly, because it's of limited utility. It doesn't totally destroy the concept of an issur of cooking on Yom Tov. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The fittingness of your matzos [for the seder] micha at aishdas.org isn't complete with being careful in the laws http://www.aishdas.org of Passover. One must also be very careful in Fax: (270) 514-1507 the laws of business. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 05:52:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 15:52:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Indeed in Europe before WWII the MB was not the "final" arbiter of halacha. Much changed when CI wrote in a letter that the MB has the halacha of a sanhedrin and one can't disagree with its conclusions. Of course CI himself disagreed with the MB and in fact there are published versions of the MB which include the disagreements of the CI. All to show that what is written in letters is not to be taken very literally. In any case that paid a large part of the change in attitude towards the MB. Certainly poskim of the previous generation who grew up before the war also did not take the MB as a final posek. As an example is RMF though I heard similar things from RYBS. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 08:24:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 11:24:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150529152455.GA5770@aishdas.org> R/Dr Haym Soloveitchik focused on the MB's more textualist slant vs the AhS giving weight to shitos that were common practice. Which fits R/DHS's thesis for that particular paper, the idea he was using that particular comparison to illustrate. But I do not believe it's the primary difference between them. I already gave what I saw was the primary difference. The AhS was written by a moreh de'asra to reflect halakhah lemaaseh. The MB was written by a tzasiq and a gaon as a survey of later shitos that weren't available to most people trying to learn halakhah. No focus (by the author, see below about others) on lemaaseh. I see this as the cause for the MB's lack of attention to halakhah as practiced. It wasn't so much that the CC was a textualist when it comes to pesaq, but that he wrote a book for discussing texts. A second difference is that the AhS's idea of understanding the halakhah is looking to see how the pesaq evolved from gemara (and Y-mi) to Rif, Rambam, Rosh to the Tur, BY, SA, and finally to the acharonim since. The MB is more focused on the halakhah in the acharonic period, and how to decide amongst them. Third, the AhS is willing to leave the halakhah fuzzy, and often comes to a range of conclusions rather than one clear-cut pesaq. Or, he will pasqen one way in one se'if, but in a slightly different case in a different se'if reopen the question: ... but if you hold like... The MB offers more clarity. An AhS fan might say that clarity is artificial, because the reality of halakhah isn't cut and dry with only one best pesaq for all people. But it does make it easier to open a MB than to try to decide what to do when you reach one of the fuzzier stretches of the AhS. Perhaps the clarity is really is artifice, and that's why we need LORs rather than thinking a book is our poseiq. On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 03:52:06PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : Indeed in Europe before WWII the MB was not the "final" arbiter of : halacha. Much changed when CI wrote in a letter that the MB has the : halacha of a sanhedrin and one can't disagree with its conclusions. : Of course CI himself disagreed with the MB... : All to show that what is written in letters is not to be taken very : literally... Although it wasn't only the CI, so it's not all about taking his letter overly literally. Rav Yaakov Kamenecki and R' Aharon Kotler called him the "poseiq acharon", and RAK went as far as making sure the MB would appear in photos of him. See also our 2006 discussion Aruch Hashulchan vs. Mishna berura OTOH, R YH Henkin testified about his famous grandfather ( quoting his own Bnei Banim vol. 2 page 31): AH saw the MB; see 11:22; 12:4; 28:23; 62:4; 268:6; and other places where he mentions Mishnah Berurah by name. In 79:11 and 319:22 and elsewhere he disagrees with him by name and in innumerable places he disagrees with him without mentioning his name: for instance, in 55:20 he is writing against the Mishnah Berurah and similarly in 370:13 -- this is obvious anyone who looks carefully. So it is a mitzvah to let people know that AH is not only a Sefer Halacha but also a response to the Mishnah Brerurah. OTOH, similarly R [Shmuel] Yaakov Weinberg (Ner Israel) considered the AhS the more authoritative. And minutes before my chupah (while waiting for the paper to burn to have ashes for my head), R' Dovid Lifshitz asked if I had one for my new home, because it was closer to halakhah as my ancestors held. (RDL knew my family back in Suvalk.) As for RMF, RDF and RRF both agreed that RMF gave priority to the AhS because R' Yechiel Michl Epstein had a qehillah, and therefore the more practiced poseiq of the two. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger People were created to be loved. micha at aishdas.org Things were created to be used. http://www.aishdas.org The reason why the world is in chaos is that Fax: (270) 514-1507 things are being loved, people are being used. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 30 16:03:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 00:03:21 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] : Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001f01d09b2c$d37ec030$7a7c4090$@org.uk> I wrote: >> But aren't they then denying those Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all >> the chance to hear shofar according to the majority opinions by only blowing >> for them according to the minority opinions? And RZS replied: >AFAIK everyone agrees that all these methods are kosher, so those Jews >are definitely yotzei the mitzvah. ... >They're not foisting anything. The people they're blowing for would >otherwise not hear shofar at all, so they're clearly better off hearing >even some obscure form of it, so long as they're yotzei. But if these people who want to hear the shofar blown according to minority shitos are capable of finding people who would otherwise not hear shofar at all and blowing for them, they are *also* capable of finding such people in circumstances where they then blow for them according to the majority shitos. For it to be true that "they're clearly better off hearing some obscure form of it, so long as they are yotzei" - you have to be assuming that the people doing the blowing would only be prepared to go to the trouble of blowing to fulfil their desire to fulfil minority shitos but NOT where the result is only to ensure that fellow Jews perform a mitzvah. You may be correct that indeed people are more concerned with making sure they themselves have fulfilled the mitzvah of shofar in every possible permutation than in making sure another Jew performs the mitzvah at all, but could anybody honestly regard that as praiseworthy? As a consequence, I then raised a halachic query: > The principle on which > somebody who has fulfilled their obligation can then fulfil the obligation > of another is based on kol yisrael areivim zeh b'zeh. But to what extent is > that applicable in a situation in which that person would never, had the > situation been reversed, have accepted the form of fulfilment they are > offering the other. Ie since the person who is blowing the shofar refused > to have these alternative ways of blowing as the fundamental method of > fulfilling their own mitzvah, is it really areivus to then foist that form > of fulfilment on others? RZS's assumption is that, so long as everybody agrees that a form of blowing is kosher bidieved, then areivus works, but I wonder whether this is necessarily true. Areivus is a fascinating halachic concept - it allows somebody who has already fulfilled a mitzvah to do it again, including (importantly) making brachos again (which they would otherwise not be permitted to do) on behalf of another. I went for a bit of a hunt over Yom Tov to see what I could find regarding areivus, but did not turn up much. First of all, the pasuk from the Torah regarding Areivus is brought in Shevuos 39a as being based on the Vayikra 26:37 [vchashlu ish b'achiv] - which is then explained as meaning that a man in *the sin* of his brother so as to teach that kol yisrael areivim ze l'zeh. But while that seems a valid source for what might be considered "negative" areivus or areivus in relation to lo ta'asehs (and the obligation to protest), it led me to wonder how straightforwardly that gets you to what might be called "positive" areivus - ie doing something, such as performing the mitzvah of shofar on behalf of another [not that I have seen this distinction between "negative" and "positive" areivus anywhere]. Ie while you can see that if is permitted to blow shofar for somebody who was otherwise unable to fulfil the mitzvah, and one failed to do so, one might then be considered to have stumbled into the sin of that person's omission - ie failure to perform an aseh - it seems a leap to therefore derive from this particular pasuk that one has the power to fulfil and make brachos on behalf of that person. If anything I would have thought perhaps v'ahavta re'echa k'mocha seemed more likely, but I couldn't find any reference. Note that areivus would seem not to be shlichus, as one can make a shaliach out of somebody who is themselves not commanded in a particular thing - whereas that is not applicable for areivus where the original level of obligation must be at least equal on the part of the arev. [This is all leaving aside the famous Rosh Brachos perek 3 siman 13 which states that areivus does not apply to women, which is clearly discussing what might be termed positive areivus ie making brachos on behalf of one another, and which the achronim generally limit to cases where there is no equal obligation, despite what may seem to be the simple pshat, or the Tosphos in Kidushin 70b that areivus does not apply to gerim - which must surely at most [and here it seems to me you need the definition of negative and positive areivus] to be only a reference to negative areivus - otherwise this would be raised as a problem of a ger making brachos on behalf of others - although given the source of the Tosphos in Sotah 37b, this would also seem to apply to women for the same reasons - ie the number count being made by reference to the 603,550 in the midbar not including the eruv rav, and not including women either]. The most I was able to find in my brief search over Yom Tov was a Birchei Yosef Orech Chaim siman 124 discussing the question as to whether a Ben Chutz L'Aretz who found himself in a village in Israel over Yom Tov (in the case quoted by the Birchei Yosef he had gone to Israel to bury his dead) where nobody besides him had the knowledge to be Shatz, and who had already davened at home on second day yom tov the second day yom tov davening, could be shatz for the community by saying the birchei chol amidah. But there seem to be lots of other reasons to permit (as the Birchei Yosef does) in this particular case. In particular it seems to me, besides all of the Birchei Yosef's arguments, if you were to say that areivus was linked to v'ahavta re'echa kamocha, you can see why, if circumstances were reversed, the ben chutz l'aretz would want the same as he is providing to the benei aretz (ie the mutuality of areivus). But in the case that RZS has outlined, where the people hearing only the minority shitos form of shofar blowing would surely want the majority position shofar blowing if they could get it, can the blower unilaterally choose to force them to fulfil their obligation via a set of minority shitos via areivus, or does the principle of areivus not stretch that far? More generally, if somebody holds a particular position as being the ikar, can they under the principle of areivus perform a mitzvah on behalf of somebody who holds by a contradictory position, so that what the arev is doing is, according to him, possul? How about the reverse situation? And that gets us to RZS's case, where it might be agreed that a particular form is kosher bidieved, but if the arev could provide a l'chatchila version and chooses not to, can he be genuinely be said to be a real arev? How good a guarantor must a guarantor be to be considered a guarantor at all? I am sure some achron has written a treatise on areivus which must cover these kinds of topics, but so far I haven't found it. Zev Sero zev at sero.name Shavuah tov Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 12:25:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 15:25:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] FORBIDDING WOMEN DRIVERS: A HALACHIC ANALYSIS Message-ID: <20150529192533.D89D0182BDA@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/nqnquzc The media has widely reported that a Belz Yeshiva in England has forbidden women from driving their children to Yeshiva. It was further reported that if the mothers do not comply, the children will be thrown out of Yeshiva. In a letter sent to parents last week, seen by the Jewish Chronicle, they say there has been an increase in the number of mothers driving their children to school and add that this has led to ?great resentment among parents of pupils of our [Hasidic] institutions?. The letter says the ban, to come into force in the summer, is based on the recommendations of Rabbi Yissachar Dov Rokeach, the Belzer spiritual leader in Israel. It says that if a mother has no other choice but to drive her child to school ? for medical reasons, for example ? she should ?submit a request to the special committee to this effect and the committee shall consider her request.? The question is what does halacha have to say about this? See the above URL for more. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 14:04:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 17:04:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <5568D45F.9010809@gmail.com> R. Micha Berger maintained that R. E. Wasserman was not positing a formal proof for G-d's existence, formal proofs not being the only way, or even the superior way, to establish truths. I cited a passage in the Moreh Nevuchim to support this concept. But as is occasionally the case, R. MB disagrees with me, even when I attempt to defend him: ZL: Indeed, the Rambam himself in the Moreh Nevuchim recognizes this : distinction and supports the superior validity of the non-formal : approach. Chapters after he devotes chapters to formal philosophic : proofs for Creation ex nihilo, he describes how a healthy (and : unbiased) mind thinks: : :And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, //for //one who ismodeh al ha-ememmes// (RMB substituted an ellipsis for this :crucial clause) :is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities :serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; :and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an :intender, and that such purposeful intent necessarily implies the :production of something new [and not something that always existed :along with the one who bears the purposeful intention for its :existence]. (MN 3:13) RMB: There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam recaps a point made in 2:19-20. In 2:19-20 Rambam makes no reference to each component or entity in nature providing a benefit for another, and certainly does not use that there as a proof for Creation ex nihilo. *(Section II is devoted to developing the argument against a naturally necessary eternal world based on ''particularization,'' the differing formations and behaviors of things despite their being made of the same materials.) * ** *Perhaps you are referring to the fact that in both the argument there and here the crucial concluding step invokes the mindset that purposeful intention on G-d's part (which Aristotle as well attributes to G-d) indicates *a changeable will on His part (which indication Aristotle denies) that allows for and indicates Creation ex nihilo. But just as in 3:13 the Rambam describes that crucial mindset as something that is possessed by those who are modeh al ha-emmess, so too in 2:19-20 the Rambam first describes it as something that is ''pashut'' (KPCH) or ''mevuar" (Ibn Tibbon), which he will then proceed to demonstrate through more formal proof: It has already been shown that according to Aristotle... the Universe is not the result of intent of choice and desire; for if this were the case, they would have been non-existing before the intent had been conceived. We [proponents of Judaism?ZL], however, hold that it is /pashut\mevuar/ that all things in the Universe are the result of intent-not-of necessity; and it is possible for that Intender to change them and have a different intent. But in this chapter, my intent is to show by arguments almost as forceful as real proofs, that the Universe gives compelling evidence of being [freely] intended by an Intender: RMB: And for that matter, if the Rambam was talking about not really needing formal proof, despite spending much of sec. II on just that, why would it be buried in a chapter that focuses on something else? I did not posit that the Rambam's intent was to make the point that formal proof is unnecessary. That indeed is not his purpose. After all, the explicitly stated primary purpose of the Moreh is for those (himself included) who yearned to defend and support the mesorah through philosophical approach of his day. He is not interested in dismissing the project. He explicitly describes this /modeh al ha-emmess/ statement /as a tangential interruption/: After that statement, he says, ''I will now return to the subject of this chapter, viz., the ultimate cause [i.e. the purpose behind the universe being as it is--ZL].'' My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows the non-formal mindset of those who are /modeh al ha-emmess/. It is a reference to those who do not restrict their acceptance of truth to things provable through formal logic, settling for healthy, unbiased reasoning (and who thereby see the truth of Creation ex-nihilo as a simple conclusion from the fact of the purposeful hierarchy of nature). RMB: 3:13 is about how the universe has its own purpose. It is not just an arena designed for the purpose of humans. He argues here with Aristo who says that plants exist for the purpose of animals, and in general, that things exist for the purpose of other things. He does not argue with Aristotle on this point, as is clear in the passage from 3:13 that I originally quoted, and as he elaborates in the introduction to his Mishnah commentary. The disagreement (outside of the parenthetically mentioned one) revolves around the /ultimate/ purpose behind the existence of everything, and the question of why the intermediate steps in this world that lead to its finale of the hierarchy must exist, rather than the finale existing alone. (According to Aristotle, every component of nature is simply a necessity whose non-existence is absolutely impossible. It is impossible for G-d to maintain anything but the universe and its entities as they are. According to the Rambam, although every sub lunar being contributes to the existence of another such being, until we get to Man (and then the Ish Shalem), G-d could nevertheless have created that final being directly, without creating the intermediary plants and animals. Why He in His wisdom decided to do it as He did, and why he decided to create the heavens as He did, we cannot know.) RMB: Besides, the Rambam writes in 3:51 in the mashal of the palace, that people who believe because of tradition without having proof are like those who wander around the chatzer, whereas someone with a proof is like one who entered the prozdor. The ''modeh al ha-emmess'' proof, building upon careful observation of the world and and its components and creatures and theorizing as to how it all works, is also a proof. The inferior knowledge that does not lead to optimum closeness to Hashem is pure tradition without proof. Not[e] Aristo's epistomology didn't analyze issues of proof vs other justification. But clearly Reliabilism, trusting an idea found in a source that has already been found to be reliable (hama'aminim ... derekh qabalah), is not being considered good enough justification to fully accomplish life's goal. I did not refer to emunah b'derech kaballah. That's not what I meant by ''ha-modeh al ha-emmess.'' I meant what I said: the healthy thinking of an unbiased mind, meaning the thinking of such a mind informed by knowledge of the things that exist in the world and their behaviors, and explanations of how they operate. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 30 20:04:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sat, 30 May 2015 23:04:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] : Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <001f01d09b2c$d37ec030$7a7c4090$@org.uk> References: <001f01d09b2c$d37ec030$7a7c4090$@org.uk> Message-ID: <556A7A27.3000006@sero.name> On 05/30/2015 07:03 PM, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: > RZS's assumption is that, so long as everybody agrees that a form of blowing > is kosher bidieved, then areivus works, Not just b'deiavad; my understanding is that all of these shitos are kosher lechatchilah, they're just not the way we do them lemaaseh. Let's say they're not mitzva min hamuvchar. Or "de`avad kemar `avad, ud`avad kemar `avad but we do kemar". > But in the case that RZS has outlined, where the people hearing > only the minority shitos form of shofar blowing would surely want the > majority position shofar blowing if they could get it, We're talking about people who have no particular desire to hear shofar at all, or they'd have done so. They didn't bother going to shul on Rosh Hashana, so they're probably not even aware that there are different shitos in how to blow shofar, let alone have a preferred shitah. Anything that is motzi them in the mitzvah is an improvement over what they would do otherwise, and is a benefit for them. And we're talking about potential blowers who currently don't go out and do this, they don't spend their precious Rosh Hashana hours bringing this zechus to fellow Jews who did not come themselves to hear shofar. So what I'm proposing is a win-win. They get to hear the obscure shitos they want to hear, and the people they're blowing for get the basic mitzvah as the Torah commanded it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 30 20:22:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 30 May 2015 23:22:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <556A7E8D.70007@gmail.com> I wrote: > > > > But as is occasionally the case, > R. MB disagrees with me, even when I attempt to defend him I should have put a smiley after that sentence, or maybe even explicated that it was meant as a humorous observation of irony. It meant to imply that RMB is interested in emmess and does not make it a personal issue. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 31 00:59:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 10:59:58 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura Message-ID: RHS has said many times in his shiurim that the MB was not written alone by the Chofetz Chaim and that is why there are sometimes contradictions. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 31 01:08:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 11:08:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: "Indeed in Europe before WWII the MB was not the "final" arbiter of halacha. Much changed when CI wrote in a letter that the MB has the halacha of a sanhedrin and one can't disagree with its conclusions." I believe it happened even a little later then that. RHS who grew up in the 1950s stated many times in shiur that when he learned halacha in the 1950s no one learned Mishna Berura, people either learned Chayei Adam or they learned Shulchan Aruch with Magen Avraham and the Taz. If you look at the European gedolim who came to America like R' Moshe, R' Ruderman, etc. even after WWII they almost never quoted the Mishna Berura. >From what I understand R' Aharon Kotler was very influential in America in promoting learning Mishna Berura. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 31 10:20:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 13:20:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Texualism and the Mishnah Berurah by R. Micha Berger Message-ID: <20150531172101.ED88B180CD0@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://www.aishdas.org/asp/texualism-and-the-mishnah-berurah The author [of the Mishnah Brurah, the Chofetz Chaim] is clear: the purpose of the book was not to provide his own ruling, but to survey the later posqim who have added complexity to the field so that someone looking to reach a decision knows who wrote on the matter. Yes, the CC (or his son or other students who worked with him) often gave his own opinion, including our ?ba?al nefesh yachmir?, but it is unclear to me he intended that opinion to be a pragmatic ruling rather than a theoretical statement. This would explain why the Mishnah Berurah?s rulings diverge from accepted practice so much more often than the Arukh haShulchan (a contemporary work from the same region). Halakhah lemaaseh, pragmatic rulings, need to take such precedent and continuity into account; discussions of textual theory do not. As further evidence that the Mishnah Berurah was not intended to be a practical law guide, we have a lot of testimony that shows that its own author often followed the common Lithuanian practice over his own ?ruling?. Despite the origin of wearing one?s tzitzis strings out being in the MB, the CC did not. His qiddush cup doesn?t hold as much wine as the MB would require. (It is still in the hands of the Zaks family and has been checked repeatedly.) He advocated for building city eiruvin for carrying on Shabbos despite BH 364 ?ve?achar?. The Chafeitz Chaim did not say ?Berikh Shemeih? when taking out the Torah. Etc 1 I am suggesting that the CC?s textualist and formal stance in the MB is simply because the MB was a book for studying texts. And he did not intend to deemphasize mimetic tradition (the flow of practice transmitted culturally). This shift happened when the Chazon Ish in Israel and a number of American rashei yeshiva (such as R? Aharon Kotler) promoted the idea of using the Mishnah Berurah as a poseiq acharon. See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 00:25:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 10:25:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <> I have a book "The Goldilocks Enigma" by Paul Davies (cosmolgist) on why is the universe just right for life. Most of the book is to show how unlikely it is that the universe has exactly the right properties for existence. The second part is a discussion as to why this happened. He goes through all the theories including the watchmaker etc. One possibility is a "creator" . He adnits that it is logically consistent but finds iy highly unlikely. His own preference is for the multi-verse. The idea is not whether you agree with him or not. Rather here is an intelligent human who has thought deeply about these problems and does not see any obvious signs of a designer. I would venture that that is the opinion of most physicists and certainly biologists. What you consider obvious he considers very unlikely. Again we come to the point that REW claims that anyone who really thinks about the problem and comes up with a different answer than he does simply has an ulterior motive. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 03:08:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 06:08:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150602100830.GA12384@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 10:25:05AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : The idea is not whether you agree with him or not. Rather here is an : intelligent human who has thought deeply about these problems and does not : see any obvious signs of a designer. I would venture that that is the : opinion of most physicists and certainly biologists. REW would say that he found it obvious that the world was created, something deep inside (to add my own 2c: of which he is likely unaware) didn't want to live in a world with a Creator, so he thought deeply about these problems until he could find an alternative. (For what it's worth, I think most physicists believe in G-d.) As you put it: : What you consider obvious he considers very unlikely. Again we come to the : point that REW claims that anyone who really thinks about the problem and : comes up with a different answer than he does simply has an ulterior motive. But that doesn't make the person any less convinced. For that matter, the believer also likely has an unlterior motive. (I said that, I doubt REW would. I am just saying it wouldn't rob him of his point.) REW is asserting that before you even get to bias, the obvious position is ours. Their atheism is the one that takes work, because it's explaining away the obvious. After all, there is no a priori, obvious-as-a-postulate version of the Anthropic Principle or other such atheistic explanations of the universe's design. No equivalent to REW's not attributing a poem to spilled ink or R' Aqiva's insisting that a garment or bread testify to their makers. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Friendship is like stone. A stone has no value, micha at aishdas.org but by rubbing one stone against another, http://www.aishdas.org sparks of fire emerge. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Mordechai of Lechovitz From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 08:40:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 11:40:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] women making a zimun In-Reply-To: <20150602125704.JHYM8162.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo306> References: <20150602125704.JHYM8162.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo306> Message-ID: <20150602154026.GF23551@aishdas.org> Bringing this thread to where this belongs. On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 08:56:59AM -0400, Sholom Simon via Areivim wrote: :> There was no family or community prior to the 20th century in :> which girls or women bentshed with a zimun. : I always wondered about that vis-a-vis the following: : The SA"HaRav (written by somebody who was certainly not a feminist) : at 199:6 writes that three women who are eating together (provided : there are less than 10 men) are permitted to break away and make : their own zimmun. (l'chelek l'zimun l'atzman). ... : What I've always wondered about was: is he writing entirely : theoretically, or was there a practice among some which led him to : clarify this issue? : Thoughts? : -- Sholom The SA haRav says that they must participate when 3 men make a zimun. If there are three women, no minyan of men, and want to separate off to make their own zimun, hareshus beyadam. Then he takes on the case of three women who are eating without men, again "hareshus beyadam" to make a zimun. (Similarly avadim, but not a mix of women and avadim because we we assume avadim are capable of peritzus. Given that the part about avadim couldn't have been a practice in the Baal haTanya's day, I wouldn't assume his mention of zimun for women makes any such implication. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Weeds are flowers too micha at aishdas.org once you get to know them. http://www.aishdas.org - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 08:49:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 11:49:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Modah Ani In-Reply-To: <20150602.081411.27008.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150602.081411.27008.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150602154924.GG23551@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 12:14:11PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Areivim wrote: : R' Micha Berger wrote: :> ... When I told them that traditionally we held that they're :> probably yotz'ot with saying Modah Ani once a day, ... : I noticed your very deliberate spelling here, and I can't help but : wonder: Was there any family or community prior to the late 20th century : in which girls or women said "modAh ani"? Talmidei haGra. The Siddur haGra also mentions "shelo asani nakhriah" (the Gra had "nakhri" for men) and "shelo asani shifcha". Speaking of new minhagim: Modeh Ani is likely the youngest prayer in most siddurim, even younger than Lekha Dodi. It exists to compensate moving "Elokai Neshamah" out of that spot. (Asher Yatzar doesn't open "barukh" because it's a berakhah hasemukhah lechaverta with haMapil -- one before sleep one after. When we moved it, many (including the Gra), made it semuchah to Asher Yazar -- thanking the Creator for both body and soul.) Which is why I find it unwarranted to treat its matbeia as unchangable even in the face of simply reconjugating. But in any case, I'm in favor of most changes that give one pause to think about what they're saying or doing. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow micha at aishdas.org man's soul and his own stomach; a pious Jew worries http://www.aishdas.org about his own soul and his fellow man's stomach. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 09:16:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 12:16:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <5568D45F.9010809@gmail.com> References: <5568D45F.9010809@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150602161633.GA15555@aishdas.org> On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 05:04:31PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: :> There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam :> recaps a point made in 2:19-20. : : In 2:19-20 Rambam makes no reference to each component or entity in : nature providing a benefit for another, and certainly does not use that : there as a proof for Creation ex nihilo... 2:20 marks the end of an Argument from Design, which is what I was referring to. As it opens: "According to Aristotle, none of the products of Nature are due to chance. His proof is this: That which is due to chance does not reappear constantly nor frequently, but all products of Nature reappear either constantly or at least frequently..." This is a formal argument, unlike R' Aqiva's or REW's own appeal to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. I am saying that 3:15, when it mentions in passing the bit that :: And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, //for :: //one who ismodeh al ha-ememmes// ... :: is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities :: serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; :: and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an :: [I]ntender.... This is reference to people being willing to accept a proven point, and not accepting something as true because of a justification system other than proof. ... RZL, continued: : He explicitly describes this /modeh al ha-emmess/ statement /as a : tangential interruption/: After that statement, he says, "I will now : return to the subject of this chapter, viz., the ultimate cause [i.e. : the purpose behind the universe being as it is--ZL]." : My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that : there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows : the non-formal mindset of those who are /modeh al ha-emmess/... Agreed it's tangential, which is why I doubt that if the Rambam did want to say something that signficant, this would be its only mention. But I don't think it makes the point you're making because the Rambam already made design the topic of a formal proof. So the current mention of design in this aside is talking about a proof, not another verification system. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is complex. micha at aishdas.org Decisions are complex. http://www.aishdas.org The Torah is complex. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' Binyamin Hecht From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 13:24:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2015 22:24:55 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <556E1117.1050507@zahav.net.il> That a text written such a short time ago could have questions about it authorship really nails down how hard it is to have definitive knowledge of the past. Ben On 5/31/2015 9:59 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > RHS has said many times in his shiurim that the MB was not written > alone by the Chofetz Chaim and that is why there are sometimes > contradictions. > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 13:27:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 16:27:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed Message-ID: <20150602202700.GA7449@aishdas.org> R/Dr Alan Brill recently carried this essay by comparatively new chaver, R' Ysoscher Katz. I am sharing here the essay in full (see or for R/D AB's biographical introduction) for two reeasons -- or one two-part reason: 1- I think this post could start a nice discussion of the fundamentals of each of our hashkafos; and 2- Comments are blocked on the post, so it's not like I am stealing a conversation that ought to happen there. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you won't be better tomorrow micha at aishdas.org than you were today, http://www.aishdas.org then what need do you have for tomorrow? Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rebbe Nachman of Breslov Torat Chaim Ve'Ahavat Chesed Ysoscher Katz I was raised in the chassidic community of Satmar. I should make it clear from the outset: I am modern but not Orthodox. Do not get me wrong, I am observant and my practice is orthodox but that is not who I am. In other words, I am orthodox-my practice is halakhic and my belief orthodox-but Orthodoxy is not me. It is not an integral part of my identity. My orthodoxy is merely a means towards a religious end. Keeping halakha and accepting orthodox faith-claims provides me with the infrastructure which allows my soul to strive and pursue perfection. Orthodoxy enables me to be who I really am: a Modern Chassidish Jew. As I mentioned, my identity is comprised of two parts, Modern and Chassidish. I inherited these identity markers from my parents, the modernity from my mother and the chassidut from my father. Here, I mean real Chassidic, and not Neo-Chassidic. How my chassidic, homemaking and sheitel-wearing mom made me modern is a conversation for another time. At the moment I wish to focus on my dad. My father is the most non-chassidish Chassid. He does not study "chassidus," nor does he want to "understand" it. The few times I tried to explain to him Moshe Idel's distinction between theosophy and theurgy, his eyes glazed over. Chassidut is what he does, not what he learns. From his perspective, Torah is for learning, chassidut for practicing. His aversion is not limited to the study of academic mysticism. He also stays away from traditional kabbalistic or chassidic texts. He never studied the Zohar nor did he ever read any of the Arizal's writings. Not only would he not read them, he also would not touch them. He is so intimidated by their sacredness; he fears that his touch would contaminate them. Yet, despite never having formally studied chassidic texts, he still is the quintessential chasid. Chassidut is his essence, part of his religious DNA, but it is a chassidut that is behavioral, not intellectual. Chassidut is how he lives his life. It is the prism through which he encounters the world and the ethos by which he lives by. He adores his wife, loves his children, cherishes his community and reveres and respects his neighbors and fellow human beings, Jew and non-Jew alike. While this practice is not special, many people love their family and surroundings, its flavor is unique. It is Chassidic love, deriving its passion from the Chassidic teachings he has absorbed throughout his life. These teachings have filled his being with a deep religiosity, which, in turn, infuses his actions and emotions with a deep and robust spirituality. His love of humanity is, therefore, a love that is sensualized by its spiritualized valance. Chassidut does not just spiritualize my father's interpersonal relationships, it also enhances his religious practices, particularly the yearly calendar. Chassidut allows him to infuse the annual cycle with a sensuous spirituality. Satmar is a Hungarian/Romanian Chassidut (The broad strokes difference between Hungarian Chassidut and the Polish and Russian versions is that the latter were intellectually inclined while the former was not. Hungarian Chassidut was predominantly behavioral. This is, of course, a generalization; the nuances are far more complex but outside the parameters of this presentation.) Hungarian Chassidim are nourished by an elaborate "sacred calendar." They have more days of note than the conventional Jewish calendar, and their holidays tend to be richer than your typical modern Jews' chag experience. A Satmar Chasid's year is thus replete with days of deep joy and periods of intense reflection. While the Jewish calendar has several biblical holidays and two Rabbinic ones, the Chasid's calendar records additional dates of importance. Every winter, the Hungarian Chasid has six to eight weeks of "shovavim," a period that usually falls sometime between Chanukah and Purim, which is dedicated to repentance and introspection, largely focusing on sexual impropriety; the days of awe continue through the end of Chanukah, the potential for repentance lasts for them for two more months; Purim celebrations begin three days earlier than usual; and (a modicum of) Pesach extends all the way to Shavuot (based on Nachmanides' notion that the interim weeks between Pesach and Shavuot are somewhat akin to a chol ha'moed of Pesach). Combined these add up to a significant number of additional days of awe and periods of celebration. Qualitatively, chassidic holidays are different as well. Although many things distinguish a chassidic chag, there is one distinction that is particularly noticeable to the keen observer: chassidic religious celebrations are comprised of a dissonant blend of joy and contemplation. Here are some examples: Shabbat in Satmar is an incredibly meaningful day, bookended by powerful contradictory modes. Friday night is a time of joy, where the spiritually and mystically rich Lecha Dodi chant inspires celebration of the metaphysical significance of the day. While this spirit carries through most of the Shabbat, towards the end of the Shabbat the Satmar Chasid shifts gears, switching modes from the celebratory to the reflective. This transition occurs in a much starker manner than it does in most other communities. A Satmar Shabbat never ends at "shekiah." Sehudah shlishit is always a two hour affair, spent singing and listening to the Rebbe's dvar torah. Speaking in highly evocative tones, he expounds on the weekly reading, spending close to an hour challenging and rebuking his followers. Growing up, this is exactly what Shabbat looked like for me. My dad's Shabbat was intense and complex. While the day began upbeat, it gradually shifted into the contemplative. But, my father's Shabbat, like his chassidut, is adamantly experiential, text and study play a minor role in the development of his religious persona. Kegavna (a section from the Zohar which Chassidim recite during Friday night prayers), is one of the most powerful kabbalistic liturgical texts. Utilizing the connection between Shabbat and the number seven, a prominent kabbalistic trope, it succinctly articulates the mystical value of Shabbat. It emphasizes that Shabbat is a day of heightened divine intimacy and advanced mystical union. I have begged my dad on many occasions to read this Zohar text with me. He refused each time. Sacred mystical texts are for the elite. The lay receive their nourishment residually, from the spiritualized environment created by those qualified to access those recondite sources. While he will not study Kegavna, he does recite it every Friday night as part of the Kabbalat Shabbat service. Notwithstanding that he does not fully grasp its meaning, he reads it with the pathos and passion it deserves. Kegavna's power for him is metaphysical, not intellectual. Purim provides another example of the intensity of Hungarian chassidic practice. Many Jews celebrate Purim, but not the chassidic Purim. The chassidic Purim is unique in its richness and multiplicity. Communally, preparations for the holiday start early. More than a week before Purim, one can already detect the arrival of the holiday, both, in the discourse of the scholars and activities of the laity. The learned discourse focuses on the legal and spiritual aspects of the chag, while the public sphere is filled with people making arrangements for every aspect of the day. When Purim finally arrives, it takes on a distinct theological flavor. Appropriating the Zoharic notion that Purim is analogous to Yom Kippur (Yom Kippurim), Satmar Chassidim created a unique Purim blend that is both frivolous and somber. This day of festivity is overlaid with practices of repentance and reflection. While I am nourished by my dad's behavioral Chassidut, personally it is not enough. Behavioral Chassidut gladdens my heart but does not stimulate my mind nor sufficiently satisfy my soul. I personally seek a religiosity which nourishes both pillars of my being, the mind and the heart. My personal journey is, therefore, informed by a combination of my father's passion and the academic's sophistication. Chassidus resonates with both of them, sometimes simultaneously, when the intellectual engagement and behavioral spiritual encounter complement one another, and sometimes separately, when I religiously shift back and forth between the intellectual and the experiential. Ultimately, the attraction to Chassidut is the fact that it can operate in different modes at different times, in the process offering up a variety of mechanisms to help spiritualize my life. It is precisely this multifacetedness which convinces me that Chassidut is the proper theology for us moderns. Its theology is perfectly situated to offer meaning and spirituality to the contemporary modern seeker. I feel strongly that it is our only hope. Chassidut today is not a luxury, it is a necessity. If the Torah-u'Madda project is to succeed Chassidut needs to become an integral part of its curriculum. Chassidut is of course a vast discipline, teaching all of it would be a daunting task. For the moment there are three aspects of chassidic theology that stand out as particularly suited for the world we live in today. 1) Truth. We live in a post-modern world where objective truth is rejected and absolute claims are frowned upon. I would go as far as to say that rationalism (in the general and colloquial sense) as a source for Emunah is bankrupt, it increasingly speaks to fewer people. It, therefore, behooves us to come up with alternative models. Chassidut could very well be that alternative model. Facts and empirical truth is not Chassidut's primary currency. While it does a priori accept the biblical theological faith statements, its goal is not to argue or prove the scientific veracity of the Bible's claims. Truth is not of primary concern for these thinkers. Chassidic theology has two main features. It is a-rational and a-historical. It is apathetic about Jewish historicity as a proactive theological stance. The Torah for Chassidim is there to teach us how to live life and serve God, the narrative qua narrative (the origin story) is mere background music. The narration parts of the Torah are, therefore, not of much theological significance to them, they are a-historical However, during those rare occasions when they do pay attention to the biblical "stories," their orientation is a-rational. They absolutely "believe" those stories, but their belief is internal: it is true because it happened in the Torah. That is where these events transpire and that is where these stories matter. Asking about their historicity is, as far as they are concerned, foolish and missing the point. At the same time, to the extent that the biblical narratives have religious and theological significance, they read those stories through the Rabbinic lens. So, for example, while Moshe's historicity is not historically relevant to them, his persona carries theological and ethical significance. The same is true for God's attributes. Chassidim are, by choice, apathetic about God as a scientific reality, his attributes and characteristics, however, are theologically highly significant to them. For that they did turn to the Bible, but the encounter with the Torah is filtered through Chazal. They see Chazal as essential to the understanding of the Torah. As believers in immanence they actually see the Sages as much more integral to the experience of the written Torah than the rationalists did. They did not think that the presence at Sinai (mamad har Sinai) ended at the giving of the Torah (mattan Torah). For them the Torah is perpetually and continuously revealed. The modern reader of chassidic texts would, therefore, not have to decide whether they scientifically accept these postulates in order to engage with them. Chassidut's goal is instead to describe an immanence which provides spiritual and emotional transcendence. Chassidut (informed, of course, by kabbalah) promotes a sophisticated immanence which results in a dramatic shift in Judaism's orientation towards God and His commandments. Prior to the emergence of chassidut on the historic scene, theology was convincing and Jewish observance was rewarding. Chassidut changed that. Chassidic theology offered meaning and kabbalistic observance provided sanctity. Personally, my rejection of the Maimonidean ethos and realization of the degree to which chassidut can speak to the modern searcher was a long and arduous process. It came about as a result of a deep sense of betrayal by Maimonides, the champion of Rationalist Judaism. I for many years was the object and fool of Maimonides "the seventh reason" as presented in his introduction to the Guide by not seeing his philosophic views. In that passage, Maimonides condones misleading the masses for their greater good, even to the point of advocating contradictory ideas for different audiences and then obscuring those contradictions. Growing up in Satmar and then Brisk, I was oblivious to his non-halakhic writings and led to believe that he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad. I was exposed to his other writings only later and when I did I felt cheated. I was part of that the masses, whom he thought could not handle his unconventional approach to theology and tradition. As much as I have read about him, I personally have not managed to reconcile his two sides. I do not find Prof. Isidore Twersky's harmonizing approach compelling or convincing. Realizing what a fool I was led me on a tortuous and circuitous search. As the Rabbis say about Yisro, ????? ??? ?? ??????; I explored all the options. I finally found the answer in kabbalah and chassidut, they speak a language which resonates with our current reality. They emphasize that which contemporary Judaism needs. The emphasis in chassidut on meaning and sacredness, are perfectly suited for our community. These are exactly the things our culture needs more of; holiness and meaning. This emphasis in Chassidut on immanence also generates a move towards spiritualization. 2) Spiritualization. As scholars have pointed out, chassidic teachings contain elements of spiritual psychology. They provide us with a language which helps us infuse our lives with meaning. One can point to many examples where this psychological spiritualization occurs in chassidut, I will mention two of them. Everybody sometimes has a bad hair day, when we wake up feeling less than optimal. Chassidut has a term to describe that mood; it calls it mochen de'katnus. While it technically means the same as a "bad hair day," the language is mystical. Mochen de'katnus describes a less than stellar spiritual state, a low energy level which does not allow us to engage in the usual religious pursuits we crave to pursue. Another example is Kabbalah's elaborate taxonomy of love and awe: Kabbalah and Chassidut talks about superior and inferior love (ahavah ela'e'e and ahavah tata'a) or superior and inferior awe (yirah ela'e'e and yira tata'a)While these terms primarily describe nuanced stages in our engagement with the Divine, they have traditionally been imported into the colloquial arena. They are used to describe varied emotional states which we experience in our interactions with our friends and loved ones. Contemporary life does not provide us with that many opportunities for encountering the Divine in our daily lives. Chassidut allows us to bring God in. Sprinkling our conversations with mystical and Chassidic terminology allows us to spiritualize our daily routines and infuse our mundane pursuits with meaning and spiritual significance. Besides enriching our personal encounters, adopting a chassidic ethos could also enhance our communal experiences. 3) Social Change. One of the most pressing tensions in the community is how to reconcile our values with our convictions; what to do when halakha points us in one direction and our values in another direction. We are tempted to follow our values but pulled to abide by our halakhic commitments. A proper resolution requires an emboldened stance towards tradition, one that allows us to cajole the tradition to reconcile itself with our modern sensibilities. [Using, of course, legitimate halakhic mechanisms developed by our predecessors when they were confronted with similar challenges.] Our values are so emboldened because they derive their power from Chaissdut. A chassidic life is a spiritualized life which infuses our values with powerful theological significance, and it allows us to aggressively challenge the tradition to reevaluate its assumptions and attempt to accommodate itself-when halakhically possible- to a changed modern reality. Chassidut is very explicit about the value of religious aggression. The following two quotes are often encountered in chassidic writings, "even a thief says a prayer before he breaks in to his victim's home" (quoted on the margin of Brachot 63A, from the Frankfurt manuscript), and "an aggressive stance towards the Divine bears results" (Sanhedrin 105A). While the provenance of these texts is Talmudic, they take on significant prominence in Chassidic theology. They become the impetus for an aggressive theology which is informed by a religiosity that sees itself driven by a Divine immanence which infuses our values and ethical intuitions with spiritual resonance, subsequently leading to radical societal change. Such change is actually an integral part of Chassidic social history. When one looks at recent major changes in traditional Jewish society it is hard not to notice that the forerunners were often Chassidim. The last sixty years have seen far reaching social and political change. The two most dramatic changes that have happened is that Jews are now sovereign and women have made significant progress in their pursuit of religious equality. The pioneers of both these changes were driven, at least in part, by a chassidic ethos. R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Rebbi of Lubavitch, was one of the first orthodox scholars to champion female Talmud scholarship, while R. Avraham Yitzchak Kook, a serious student of Chassidut, was an outspoken early proponent of a Zionist state. There is no doubt that their chassidic worldview, at least partially, informed their proactive stances towards these changes. Their adherence to a spiritualized religiosity allowed them to explore new religious vistas. Their unique theological outlook changed the religious and legal equation for them, simultaneously making their decisions more complex, but also more progressive. Their spiritualized worldview allowed them to see divinity in the ostensibly secular state or the seemingly illegitimate request of women for greater equality. Granted, this hybrid of chassidic spiritualization and robust religious creativity would be a 21^st century concoction, traditionally, these two do not go together. Chassidism, for the most part, frowns on change and rejects innovation. As a matter of fact, nineteenth century Hungarian Chassidim were vociferously opposed to any accommodations to modernity. Further, the contemporary thinker is not going to intuitively embrace spiritualized non-rational thought. It is, nevertheless, a match pregnant with immense potential and could go a long way towards reviving a dormant Modern Orthodoxy. Contemporary Modern Orthodoxy is struggling; a significant number of its adherents are abandoning yiddishkeit and many who stay no longer find it meaningful; inertia has set in. I suspect that Modern Orthodoxy's rationalist ethos is partially to blame. Current Modern Orthodox theology is Litvish and hyper-Maimonidean, it lacks a native spiritual core, and does not satisfy people's search for meaning. We are due for a change. Chassidus could be that change agent. I strongly believe that a chassidic theology combined with a sophisticated modern overlay could be the elixir for the dispassion and disinterest that ails our community. It will provide our community what it so desperately needs: a torat chaim ve'ahavt chesed; a Torah that stimulates our minds but at the same time also gladdens our neshamah. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 14:39:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:39:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> : > From: Micha Berger via Avodah > > [Rambam's statement (''And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, //for > :: //one who ismodeh al ha-ememmes// ... > :: is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities > :: serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; > :: and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an > :: [I]ntender...'') is not an informal argument, akin to R' Aqiva's or REW's appeal > to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. Rather,] it is a recap of a formal proof The Rambam made in 2:19-20... 2:20 marks the end of an Argument from Design. As it opens: "According to Aristotle, none of the products > of Nature are due to chance. His proof is this: That which is due to > chance does not reappear constantly nor frequently, but all products of > Nature reappear either constantly or at least frequently..." > > This is a formal argument, unlike R' Aqiva's or REW's own appeal > to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. Philosophers may disagree with classifying the argument made in 2:20 from ''frequency of appearance'' as ''an argument from design.'' But even if it is ''an'' argument from design, it's a different argument from the ''modeh al ha-emmess'' proof from the hierarchy of entities benefiting others. So the latter is not a recap of the former. And it does not necessarily follow that one who is modeh to the ''frequency'' argument considers the hierarchy argument ''one of the strongest.'' RZL, continued: : He explicitly describes this/modeh al ha-emmess/ statement /as a : tangential interruption/: After that statement, he says, "I will now : return to the subject of this chapter, viz., the ultimate cause [i.e. : the purpose behind the universe being as it is--ZL]." : My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that : there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows : the non-formal mindset of those who are/modeh al ha-emmess/... RMB: >Agreed it's tangential, which is why I doubt that if the Rambam did want to say something that signficant, this would be its only mention.< Again: Here, where the Rambam, for the first time, is about to bring up the hierarchy proof, he parenthetically mentions that it is intuitively understood by anyone unbiased. He does then go on to state the proof in a formal philosophic form. This is the most proper place to insert such a parenthetical remark parenthetically, and only once. It's not ''that significant'' for his purposes, because, as I had written, the entire purpose of the Moreh is to address people (including himself) concerned with hearing formal philosophic proofs and confronting the challenges that formal philosophic proofsbrought to the mesorah. Those interested in hearing an expanded version of the argument in informal form could find it in the Rambam's introduction to his his Mishnah commentary. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 16:04:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 19:04:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <103ab8.504f8d1e.429f9062@aol.com> From: Eli Turkel via Avodah >> I have a book "The Goldilocks Enigma" by Paul Davies (cosmolgist) on why is the universe just right for life. Most of the book is to show how unlikely it is that the universe has exactly the right properties for existence. The second part is a discussion as to why this happened. He goes through all the theories including the watchmaker etc. One possibility is a "creator" . He admits that it is logically consistent but finds it highly unlikely. His own preference is for the multi-verse. The idea is not whether you agree with him or not. Rather here is an intelligent human who has thought deeply about these problems and does not see any obvious signs of a designer..... << Eli Turkel >>>> On the contrary, he sees many signs of a Designer and he is so desperate to avoid the obvious conclusion -- because of his own prior philosophical biases -- that he adopts the currently trendy and absurd idea of "many universes" to escape from what he does not want to face. You see, if this is the only universe then it is so fantastically improbable that it can only be a miracle. But if it is only one of many universes, then it is not so strange that just one out of millions of universes would happen to have the conditions necessary for life. Normally the definition of "science" includes things like capable of observation or experiment, falsifiable, etc. But if you are desperate enough to escape G-d (and His moral demands) you will take something as airy-fairy, non-observable, not subject to any possible experiment, non-falsifiable as a "multi-verse" -- a product of the human mind that is as real as leprechauns -- and you will crown it with the noble name of "science"! I have a wonderful book in my house called *The Privileged Planet* that should be a science textbook in every yeshiva high school and Bais Yakov. Please please read it. It's by Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards. Here's the website with more information about the book and a video: http://www.privilegedplanet.com/ --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 00:03:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 10:03:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] MB Message-ID: The entry in wikepedia in Hebrew on Mishna Brura contains much of the information that we have been discussing. In particular it discusses the authorship of MB (ie the quote from his son) . MH vs AH and the change after the holocaust and other comments -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 05:39:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2015 08:39:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Standing at a Chupah Message-ID: <20150603123934.850661827E1@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is from today's Hakhel email bulletin. FROM A READER: Further on the point on standing at Chuppahs: Many think/say that it is because of Choson Domeh L'melech that they stand up for the Chosson. Yet, they should be aware that to my knowledge, HaRav Moshe Feinstein, Z'tl, never stood because he used to say, Doi-meh (L)melech NOT (Ke)melech. HaRav Yaakov Kamenetsky, Z'tl, stood but for a totally different reason. The question of L'melech or K'melech never entered into consideration as the Chosson is not a true Chosson until AFTER the Chuppah. Rather, HaRav Yaakov stood purely because of the Mishna in Bikurim (3:3), that discusses the bringing of Bikurim and the rule of standing Lif-Nai Oisei Mitzva, and since the Chosson is entering into a Chupah which will enable him to be mekayeim the mitzvah of P'ru U'revu, we stand. As to why we don't stand for everyone doing a mitzvah, it's for a mitzvah that is mei-kama zman l'zman, not a regular occurrence. The question remains as to a justification for why people stand for the Kallah, since she is not K'Malka (see HaRav Moshe and HaRav Yaakov above) and is peturah from Mitzvas Peru U'revu. HaRav Avraham Kamenetsky, HaRav Yaakov's son, told me that one can say that since the Chosson cannot be mekayeim the mitzvah without her, she has a chelek in the mitzvah and thus qualifies for Lif-Nai Oisei Mitzvah. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 06:57:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 09:57:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 05:39:33PM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : But even if it is "an" argument from design, it's a different argument : from the "modeh al ha-emmess" proof from the hierarchy of entities : benefiting others. So the latter is not a recap of the former. And : it does not necessarily follow that one who is modeh to the : "frequency" argument considers the hierarchy argument "one of the : strongest." I think our point of contention is simple: You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind justification that isn't a proof. Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. And therefore there is nothing in the Rambam about a justification that isn't a philosophical proof. For that matter, I would take his words to say this non-proof, being only meaningful to someone who is already "modeh al ha'emes", is not valid justification -- an instance of what I believe would be his general rule. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 10:58:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 10:58:33 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] ashtei-asar Message-ID: could someone explain please the ibn ezra in last weeks parsha ? someone asked about the origin of 'ashtei' and noted the this week mikshah is translated as eshet--- which must mean one solid piece so that must mean ashtei= one . but why not say achad asar ? [ he pointed out that 'eshet'= 770 , a number of completion ] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 14:23:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 17:23:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] ashtei-asar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150603212342.GA31632@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 03, 2015 at 10:58:33AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : someone asked about the origin of 'ashtei' and noted the this week : mikshah is translated as eshet--- which must mean one solid piece so : that must mean ashtei= on... The Akkadian for 11 is ishteneshret, ishten (one) + shret (ten). It is weird, though, that Hebrew would use a form of isheneshret without also using ishten. Then there's the idea in the Radaq (Mikhlol pg 140) that it was two that was collapsed from "ashtei" to "shtei". Which would explain why "shtayim" isn't "shesayim". The rule is that a sheva under the first letter is a sheva na (pronounced schwa), the legacy of the missing "i-" makes "shtei" an exception -- the sheva under the shin is nach (silent). Along these line, but presumably without the knowledge of Akkadian, the IE (Bamidbar 7:72, citing his own Sefer Me'oznayim) writes that "ashtei asar" is like "eshtenosav" -- that which were born from his thoughts. As though the 10 gave birth. "Vehu sod gadol". He then goes on to dismiss R' Yonah haSefaradi's theory that it means "el shtei asar". Because 1- "al shetei asar" would refer to the number AFTER 12, not before; and 2- "asar" (masc) would get "shnei" (masc), not "shtei" (fem). The gemara doesn't explain peshat, but interestingly R' Ashi's example (Sanhedrin 29a) of "kol hamosif goreia'" is how adding an ayin turns "shtei esrei yeri'os" into "ashtei esrei". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 15:16:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2015 18:16:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> On 6/3/2015 9:57 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > I think our point of contention is simple: > > You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind > justification that isn't a proof. I thought I was clear that I was taking it to be the same informal kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind. > > Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, > but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. I did not see this in your previous remarks that characterized the ''modeh-al-ha-emmess" as a formal proof/argument: :> There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam :> recaps a point made in 2:19-20. > 2:20 marks the end of an Argument from Design, which is what I was > referring to. ...This is a formal argument, unlike R' Aqiva's or REW's own appeal > to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. And I don't see how one can possibly interpret (MN 3:13 [not 3:15 as I mistakenly typed previously]) ''And know that one of the strongest /proofs/ (min /ha-gedolah sheh-b'ra'ayos/) for Creation ex nihilo, for one who is /modeh al ha-ememmes/, is his understanding the /proof/ (/hu mah sheya'amod alav ha-mofase/)...'' as meaning: > ''this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the emes, > look how nicely it works out.'' Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 16:37:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 19:37:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150603233708.GA7958@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 03, 2015 at 06:16:59PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: :> You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind :> justification that isn't a proof. : I thought I was clear that I was taking it to be the same informal : kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof : not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized : and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind. Then I did understand you correctly. When I say, "a kind justification that isn't a proof", I believe I mean the same thing as your "informal kind of proof". To me, the word "proof" implies formality. "Justification" is a general term for how we know something is true. (From Plato's definition of knowledge: "a justified and true belief.") :> Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, :> but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. : I did not see this in your previous remarks that characterized the : "modeh-al-ha-emmess" as a formal proof/argument: Because that's not what I am saying is the formal proof. I overused the word "this", which led to confusion. In addition "modeh al ha'ames" refers to a person, not an argument, so you lost me on that bit. AISI, it refers to the person who accepted the proof in 2:20, would find this point compelling. But since the point he's making here is not a formal proof, he doesn't expect it to convince, only to reinforce belief in those who already accepted the related proof. : And I don't see how one can possibly interpret (MN 3:13 [not 3:15 as : I mistakenly typed previously]) "And know that one of the : strongest /proofs/ (min /ha-gedolah sheh-b'ra'ayos/) for Creation ex : nihilo, for one who is /modeh al ha-ememmes/, is his understanding : the /proof/ (/hu mah sheya'amod alav ha-mofase/)..." as meaning: :> "this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the :> emes, look how nicely it works out." You are taking a sentence that says "One of the greatest proofs for creation for someone who accepts the truth is his understanding the wonder..." He is discussing a ra'ayah that someone who already believes would find compelling. Not a proof that would convince an unbiased seeker. Because I don't think the Rambam accepted that an informal justification other than philosophical proof could be a sounds reason to embrace a belief as true. (I see you consistently double the "s" in "emess". Why? If the sav had a dageish, it would be a tav, not "ss".) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are what we repeatedly do. micha at aishdas.org Thus excellence is not an event, http://www.aishdas.org but a habit. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Aristotle From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 4 15:16:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2015 18:16:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong Message-ID: <20150604221600.GA28870@aishdas.org> An Areivim conversation moved in topicality so that my reply really belongs here. Some background.... At some point, one person wrote, in part: | Right is right and wrong is wrong,... Speaking about moral correctness. To which someone else replied: > Really? ISTM that there is lots of grey in our world. People disagree > about right and wrong like they disagree about assur and mutar... And my reply, from Areivin: } This is why disputes about eilu va'eilu are so significant. Machloqes } can be between two approaches, two paths, one may take. Between different } strategies to obtaining the same goal. } Or it could be between a correct vs an incorrect understanding of the } halakhah. A process by which something becomes law, regardless of which } is right. } Or... } But if there is one right and one wrong, human decision-making wouldn't } change which is which. That second person wrote later in the conversation: > Sure am. Women learning Talmud was wrong, then it was right. In fact, > now it's both right (MO) and wrong (Hareidi). My response: } I don't consider that a good example. It is possible for something to } be right in one settting and wrong in another. Such as whether learning } Talmud is a good idea may depend on how women are being educated to relate } to knowledge in general. Since they aren't obligated to learn halachic } theory, such as gemara, they may be better off with a naive mimetic } faith. But if we have universal education, and an economic system that } demands a certain wordliness in both genders, such that naivite isn't } an option, then our choices are different. } Morality is like a Faucault's Pendulum; it keeps swinging the same } direction. The pendulum only looks like the direction changes over time } because the world rotates beneath it. Them again: > Zionism is right (DL) > and wrong (Satmar). You see the world as black and white; I see lots of > colors, including grey (and black and white sometimes as well). Me: } But gray too objectively exists. We may need to choose a response, } and thus have to fit it into a boolean black-white category. And then } someone may choose a strategy that categorizes it as white and someone } else as black. } But the grayness is not a matter of opinion. And also, from the same person, in an email between the two: > And my point was, the topic under discussion was not gravity ... > it was an issue that what people think about it is, in fact, relevant. My response, continued: } Is that true? } As far as I know, it's pretty basic to Judaism that the Creator has an } "Opinion" of what is moral and what isn't. That things run more smoothly } for everyone involved if we run with the design rather than do something } else. } Not only that, G-d put us on the same page once. } People may not be sure if there is an absolute moral standard, and those } who agree there is one, may not agree about what it looks like. } It's out there and as objectively real as gravity. } Even if you cannot prove it to others, and therefore will always be } subject to conflicting opinions -- some more right in some ways, some } more right in others, some simply wrong. } Your position implies an Empiricism that rules out revelation as a valid } source of truth! In which case, what's left of Torah? Futher down in the conversation, Lisa wrote of halakhah: : There are actually cases where opinions can establish right and : wrong. Tanuro shel Akhnai illustrates one. Actual reality is : *created* by the informed and considered opinions of the Sanhedrin. To which I responded: } Law, not reality. And Lisa, post #2: : I disagree. Torah *is* reality. Finally, some new material. R Chaim Brisker links "vechayei olam nata besokheinu" and "emes mei'eretz tatzmiach". Torah is the seed from which Emes grows, and not (leshitaso, but I bought into it) Emes itself. The Qetzos says something similar on the use of "emes mei'eretz" in the medrash about the 2 forces -- Emes and Shalom -- opposing the creation of humanity. Emes is thrown to the ground, to which the tanna says "emes meieretz tatzmiach". Emes will come out through the process of history. It's not with us yet. Torah is how HQBH leads us there. But in any case, I didn't speak of Torah, of "divrei E-lokim chaim", I spoke of halakhah. Or as RMF put it, I spoke of emes lehora'ah, not Emes as it is kelapei shamay galya. Continuing my reply to Lisa's 1st post: } And the reason why we only let the Sanhedrin vote is because the law is } expected to be consistent with the objective reality. There may be many } ways up Har Hashem, but you really only want people who know mapreading } and reconteuring figuring out which one is best. } And the mountain and its altitude are unchanged by people's decisions. Lisa's 2nd post, cont: : And what Hashem wanted the halakha to be was determined by people's : decisions. New material again: If we combine your insistance that halakhah is Truth with the idea that it is determined by people's decisions, you end up with Constructivism. Halakhah as a man made reality. Which makes sense -- you tend to side with the Rambam on this kind of thing. But if dinim bein adam lachaveiro define or at least shape morality, you are left with the OP's claim that opinion determines what is moral. Opinion as informed by kelalei pesaq, but still, morality isn't entirely absolute or objective. The position I was suggesting that there is an objective Morality that is part of Emes. Emes, with a capital "E", as in something that exists in Shamayim (a/k/a the Olam haEmes) but can't fit in this world among human minds. We have approximating models (Maharal), getting ever closer to the Emes (Qetzos). Halakhah is our means of approaching it, and the existence of multiple correct pesaqim reflects their being more than one viable path (R Chaim Brisker). Or more specifically: The path is on the meta-level, the evolution of the Oral Torah and its pesaqim is part of getting to Emes, not "only" the path taken by a life that follows that pesaqim. So that halakhah is not morality, it is a means of producing ever more moral people. Which makes sense in terms of my own Mussarly tendencies. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are great, and our foibles are great, micha at aishdas.org and therefore our troubles are great -- http://www.aishdas.org but our consolations will also be great. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi AY Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 4 19:55:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2015 22:55:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <20150603233708.GA7958@aishdas.org> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> <20150603233708.GA7958@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55710FAB.70107@gmail.com> On 6/3/2015 7:37 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Wed, Jun 03, 2015 at 06:16:59PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: > :> You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind > :> justification that isn't a proof. > > : I thought I was clear that I was taking it to be the same informal > : kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof > : not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized > : and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind. > > Then I did understand you correctly. > > When I say, "a kind justification that isn't a proof", I believe I mean > the same thing as your "informal kind of proof". To me, the word "proof" > implies formality. "Justification" is a general term for how we know > something is true. (From Plato's definition of knowledge: "a justified and > true belief.") Got it. > :> Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, > :> but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. > > : I did not see this in your previous remarks that characterized the > : "modeh-al-ha-emmess" as a formal proof/argument: > > Because that's not what I am saying is the formal proof. I overused the > word "this", which led to confusion. I''m even more confused now. What "this" that led to confusion was overused? I took you to mean that the ''emmess'' that a ''modeh al ha-emmess'' person was modeh to was the conclusion of a formal proof stated somewhere in 2:19-20. (And such a person would consider, as one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, the proof from the hierarchy of benefit of entities.) > In addition "modeh al ha'ames" refers to a person, not an argument, > so you lost me on that bit. When I wrote ''I was taking it to be the same informal kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind'' I was responding to you statement: :> You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind :> justification that isn't a proof. which was in response to my writing: : My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that : there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows : the non-formal mindset of those who are /modeh al ha-emmess/... I meant to say I was taking Rambam's remark to mean that someone whose thought process is normal and unbiased (i.e. a modeh al ha-emmess) recognizes (without the aid of formal proof) the fact of the hierarchy of benefit as compelling the conclusion of a freely intended Creation ex nihilo. Another way to crystallize our differing interpretations: You are taking the "emmess'' that the ''modeh al ha-emmess'' is modeh to, to be the correct fact. I'm taking it to be the correct process of thinking. > AISI, it refers to the person who accepted > the proof in 2:20, would find this point compelling. But since the point > he's making here is not a formal proof, he doesn't expect it to convince, > only to reinforce belief in those who already accepted the related proof. > > : And I don't see how one can possibly interpret (MN 3:13 [not 3:15 as > : I mistakenly typed previously]) "And know that one of the > : strongest /proofs/ (min /ha-gedolah sheh-b'ra'ayos/) for Creation ex > : nihilo, for one who is /modeh al ha-ememmes/, is his understanding > : the /proof/ (/hu mah sheya'amod alav ha-mofase/)..." as meaning: > > :> "this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the > :> emes, look how nicely it works out." > > You are taking a sentence that says "One of the greatest proofs for > creation for someone who accepts the truth is his understanding the > wonder..." He is discussing a ra'ayah that someone who already believes > would find compelling. Not a proof that would convince an unbiased > seeker. > > Because I don't think the Rambam accepted that an informal justification > other than philosophical proof could be a sounds reason to embrace a > belief as true. Your first paragraph is just restating your position and denying mine. I am saying otherwise, pointing out that saying that this person considers the hierarchy factor ''one of the greatest proofs for creation'' means '"this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out" is incompatible with the words. And /l'fi ta'amych,/ of your second paragraph: If the Rambam considers an informal justification vs philosophical proof an unsound reason to embrace a belief as true, then one would think he would not consider noteworthy a non-ra'ayah found compelling only by someone who already believes in the conclusion (stated or implied somewhere in 2:19-20, or in that previously stated formal ra'aya which /is/, or is not, compelling--I'm not sure which of these you're saying, but my objection applies regardless.) I think it may be productive for us to examine the 4 or 5 other places in MN where the Rambam uses the expression ''modeh al ha-emmess.'' (Curiously, the search of the Hebrewbooks.org MN in my Adobe Reader skips over the instance in 3:13!) > > (I see you consistently double the "s" in "emess". Why? If the sav had > a dageish, it would be a tav, not "ss".) It's to duplicate the /sound/ (not the lettering) of the word as it would be in English, for a careful English-reading person. (Not that I'm sure there are many of those around...) In contemporary English spelling, one "s" at the end of a word that ends in ''e'' is pronounced hard, like a ''z'' (shines, pines, processes); the soft ''s'' added to words that end in "e" is indicated by two ''s'' 's (process, ingress, mess). But we digreSS.... Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 5 03:54:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2015 06:54:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Science and Halachah - The Trumpeting Stone Message-ID: <20150605105427.GA27466@aishdas.org> This stone, at the excacations south of the Kotel, apparently marked a location where the shofar would be blown on Fri afternoon to warn people about the approaching and arrival of Shabbos. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trumpeting_Place_inscription It says "lebeis hateqi'ah lh[k?b?]" and was at the corner of Har haBayis. My obaervation is about the font. Notice the base of the lamed, which is a diagonal. The same is true of the Qumran texts and of texts from the Cairo Geniza. but this pushes the date for this tradition of script back to Herod's rebuilding of the BHMQ. This kind of lamed is also found in Kesav Vellish, that used in Sepharadi sta"m, but not in Kesav Beis Yoseif or the other Ashkenazi variants. http://sofercenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/different-ksavim.jpg Now, the stone is in far from the formal Ashuris required for Sifrei Torah, but if Kesav Beis Yoseif is correct, why aren't other fonts from the period more similar? If this does indicate a preference for one script over the other, we could discuss how the various approaches to Halakhah and Science would handle this case. {In terms of being yotzei, I think the only problem Ashkenazim have with the Sepharadi kesav is that variants that predate the Chida lack Rabbei Tam's qutzo shel yud. And since the popularity of the Ben Ish Chai, this issue has become very rare. Lehalakhah, the Tur, Noda biYhudah, Tzitz Eliezer and R' Ovadiah all alow using the other's sefer. Even with the spelling differences!) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is equipped with such far-reaching vision, micha at aishdas.org yet the smallest coin can obstruct his view. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 5 08:16:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2015 15:16:42 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong Message-ID: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Continuing the discussion from Areivim... R' Joseph Kaplan wrote: > About some things there is a right and a wrong; it is right > to fast on Yom Kippur and wrong to eat. But not everything > fits so neatly into categories of right and wrong. Micha > didn't like my example of Women learning Talmud was wrong, > then it was right. In fact, now it's both right (MO) and > wrong (Hareidi)." He argues that it is possible for > something to be right in one setting and wrong in another. I don't see the distinction between women learning vs eating on Yom Kippur. Women learning is right in some settings (such as where an unlearned woman would be in a spiritual sakana) and wrong in others (the ideal or traditional situation). In the same manner, eating on Yom Kippur is right in some settings (where the person would be in a medical sakana) and wrong in others (where the person is physically healthy). For that matter, learning is dependent on the setting even for a man: In most settings, it is right for a Jewish man to learn Torah, but not if he is in aveilus, or if he is davening, or if he is in other situations where the learning would conflict with another mitzvah. My point is that EVERYTHING depends on the setting. (I once tried to think of a positive or negative mitzvah which is totally independent of setting, and which always applies under all imaginable circumstances. The only one I could come up with is Avodah Zara. If anyone wants to continue that thought, please start a new thread.) Anyway, getting back to *this* thread, which is about whether right and wrong are absolutes decreed by G-d, or whether they are subject to the opinions of the Sanhedrin or others, I was reminded of an interesting gemara. As translated by http://www.torah.org/learning/maharal/p2m10part2.html it reads: > Eruvin (13b): For two and a half years Beith Shammai and > Beith Hillel argued. These [Beith Shammai] said "It is > better for man not to have been created than to have been > created." And those [Beith Hillel] said "It is better for > man to have been created." Together, they [reviewed the > opinions and] reached a consensus: ... I left out their conclusion, because it is not really so critical to this thread. What *IS* critical is the fact that they had the chutzpah to even discuss this question at all. There is a thought in this thread that if G-d does something, then it is good by definition. Yet Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai considered the possibility that G-d had another option which was even better than the option that He did choose. This sounds to me like a good argument for the view that people (or at least certain people, such as the Sanhedrin) CAN decide what is right and what is wrong. Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 5 14:41:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2015 17:41:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong In-Reply-To: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <557217A4.4010309@sero.name> On 06/05/2015 11:16 AM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: >> >Eruvin (13b): For two and a half years Beith Shammai and >> >Beith Hillel argued. These [Beith Shammai] said "It is >> >better for man not to have been created than to have been >> >created." And those [Beith Hillel] said "It is better for >> >man to have been created." > There is a thought in this thread that if G-d does something, then it > is good by definition. Yet Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai considered the > possibility that G-d had another option which was even better than the > option that He did choose. The discussion was not about what is good or right, but about what is better *for a person*. What is in the person's interest. "Noach lo le'adam". What G-d chooses for a person is right, but who says it's "noach lo"? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 12:49:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2015 21:49:38 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] Right/wrong In-Reply-To: <5571BB83.7010500@sero.name> References: <73824318-9EAD-43A2-924A-23983726765C@tenzerlunin.com> <55704A19.7000001@sero.name> <20150604182845.GA18772@aishdas.org> <557113ED.9080608@zahav.net.il> <5571BB83.7010500@sero.name> Message-ID: <55734ED2.8020702@zahav.net.il> Moved from Areivim. It is a case of muttar and assur, which in this case I am equating with right and wrong. For this person, something is muttar and for the other it is pasul. The way I see, it would be absolutely wrong for the wealthier person to eat his chicken, and absolutely wrong for the poorer person to throw his chicken away. Correct, popular opinion doesn't play a part in this one. Ben On 6/5/2015 5:08 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > > That's not a question of right and wrong, From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 17:19:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 01:19:52 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> R' Ysoscher Katz writes: ... <> And yet ironically RYK's experience in Satmar and Brisk would seem to confirm the sense of what Maimonides did. RYK was only the object and fool of Maimonides "seventh reason" because he was immersed in a society that had built very high walls against the risk of engaging with philosophy. Contrast his experience to mine. I read the Guide at fourteen - long before I had any real exposure to the Yad. Why? Because I grew up in a society in which it was more acceptable for girls to read philosophic texts than it was to learn and engage with halachic texts. And indeed, a translation of the Guide was published and available in English, in my shul library, whereas the Mishna Torah, which was no doubt there (I don't remember), was only in Hebrew and would have been in the "halachic" section that only boys (and scholarly boys at that) were expected to access. Even more, when I started asking questions, the librarian pointed me in the direction of the philosophy works, which included the Guide, that is how I got to it. It was just assumed that if somebody was asking theological questions, that was the place to go. So by the time, much, much later, that I read the relevant portions of the Mishna Torah, I already knew Maimonides' philosophic works in some depth, and layered them on to anything in the Yad. And yet Maimonides was surely right, had the Yad contained the opinions expressed in the Guide, in any detectable way, there is no way a society like Satmar and Brisk would have allowed it into their hallowed betei midrash - and what a loss to the halachic world that would have been. What occurred to RYK is merely a by-product and inevitable consequence (if you step outside) of what Satmar/Brisk have created. Not what Maimonides created. He created a work which, in any society that valued philosophy, would be available to those who sought it. And this is why RYK's experience is unlikely to occur in any true Modern Orthodox setting. Because curious, searching teenagers will inevitably take advantage of what is available in languages they can read in their local libraries (assuming they are encouraged to go there, and such libraries are not off limits), and hence, while they might (hopefully) be exposed to the Mishna Torah earlier than I was, they will certainly have the opportunity, and if that way inclined, are likely to take the opportunity of exploring at least the introduction to the Guide. <> Now this I find- well perhaps touchingly naive to the point of bizarre. Not the characterisation of the two most dramatic changes, necessarily, but the idea that "the pioneers of both these changes were driven, at least in part, by Chassidic ethos". Of the two, the claim regarding female Talmud scholarship is the most odd. Chassidic groups have been at the forefront of those fighting a rearguard action against women's exposure to any form of text, not least Talmudic and halachic text. Satmar in particular - I recall once standing in a bookshop in Boro Park, perusing a book (written clearly by somebody from the Satmar derech) who had gathered together all the sources on the evils of giving women access to any text - but most fundamentally, horror of horrors, to Rashi al haChumash. It was of course, an attack on what is taught in Beis Ya'akov. The position advocated being that at most, girls should be taught in school the stories of the Tanach, outside and without any recourse at all to reading in original. Lubavitch, I agree, was and is in this regard unusual amongst the Chassidic groups. But, growing up in Melbourne, a community heavily dominated by Lubvitchers, I am pretty well acquainted with what was allowed and not allowed vis a vis girls/women and learning from people with reasonably close connections with the Lubavitche Rebbe. Sure, streets ahead of the other Chassidic groups - but more open than the Beis Ya'akovs? - dubiously - although there was a fair bit of flexibility granted when dealing with potential ba'alei teshuva who (it was acknowledged) could be seriously put off by bans on access to knowledge of the nature of that on gemora. But what was granted begrudgingly and in a limited fashion in such circles were standard parts of the curriculum in Modern Orthodox schools (with Maimonides in Boston the flagship in this regard). How high a level a girl was taught in MO environments differed (especially given that often the overall level of kodesh education was not always that high in such schools), but the idea that any of this was driven fundamentally by the Lubavitcher Rebbe is ludicrous. And if you look at Israel and the explosion of women's learning there - not a chassid in sight. R' Kook and Zionism is a more justified charge. While it is hard to describe Rav Kook as a "pioneer" of political Zionism (there were many before him who saw political Zionism as logically arising out of their religious belief), he unquestionably provided serious theological underpinnings justifying the religious being involved in this endeavour, and much of what he wrote is rooted in chassidus. But note of course that the major thinker against was again the Satmar Rebbe - ie chassidus provided, yet again, the most reactionary response to this phenomenon. Which is more typical of chassidus - Rav Kook or the Satmar Rebbe? - I think it is far fairer to say that Rav Kook was the exception, despite his deep roots, and the Satmar Rebbe closer to the rule. And note, while we are on the subject of Rav Kook, that while he was "progressive" regarding political Zionism, he was "regressive" regarding woman voting. Was his attitude towards women's place in society also fuelled by his Chassidic studies? In general, while I do agree that Chassidic thinkers, such as Rav Kook, have a lot to say to "the world we live in today" and that there is something to be said for incorporating aspects of their theology in the pursuit of meaning, I suspect that trying to create "chassidish modern Jews" is an enterprise doomed to failure, and certainly not something that will be able to speak to the modern orthodox world. Why? Firstly because Chassidism is all embracing. I have watched many ba'alei teshuva embrace Chassidism (in lots of forms) over the years - as indeed it has a serious pull for many. I have rarely found one who is attracted that way who ends up in the modern orthodox camp. Where do they usually end up? Well amongst the most extreme Chassidic groups, where they can indulge to the fullest extent. Chassidism become so all embracing that it pushes everything else out. And while this phenomenon is already found amongst Modern Orthodox children going "black". It is certainly not going to save modern Orthodoxy. A further problem is articulated at the beginning of the piece, in relation to RYK's father: > My father is the most non-chassidish Chassid. He does not study > "chassidus," nor does he want to "understand" it. But, however you cut it, those with a modern orthodox upbringing are taught to want to "understand". They are brought up with the scientific method, even if some debunking then occurs in universities. For sure, there are those who reject that in favour of exploration of mystery and experience - but as suggested above, by and large those "go right" - further into the ultra orthodox world. By and large, while the ashrams of India are peopled by many Jews, I don't think very many of them are modern orthodox dropouts. The ones we are losing totally are going left, into the secular mundane world without religious input. Because while they are usually aware of the experiential, it appears to simultaneously contemplate a suffocation of the mind that they cannot swallow (as an ashram also does). Such people are never going to be comfortable in a world in which there is any expectation of not "wanting" to understand. They may perhaps be persuaded to find meaning in the writings of people like Rav Kook, or in other aspects of Chassidic writing, but are likely to be even more repelled by a world that implicitly or explicitly tells them to bin what is the attribute they have been taught to spend most of their life cultivating - their mind. I am probably going to be (metaphorically speaking) shot on this list for even mentioning it, but if you want to see what you get when you mix a modicum of Chassidic plus philosophic inspired thinking in a more "modern" context, you could always look at the German thinkers (including Reform thinkers) of the early twentieth century - people like (particularly) Franz Rosenzweig, not to mention Leo Baeck, Martin Buber, Hermann Cohen. What about Levinas? There is your post modern thinking (but note that it comes out of a Lithuanian background with existentialism and philosophical exploration rather than chassidus). But it is a long way from Maimonidian rationalism (despite of course Maimonides being the father of all this philosophy, but only after it has been through Kant and the existentialists). Avraham Yehoshua Heshel is another example of those attempting to integrate a Chassidic background with modern sensibilities. But since he operated out of the Jewish Theological Seminary, and was closely identified with the Conservative Movement, he probably did more to make such explorations treif to MO thinkers than he did to inspire them to explore. A bigger problem, I think, is that MO in America is so fixated on RYBS, and his particular brand of philosophy, that philosophy linked to Orthodoxy becomes identified only with his particular stance. But there is a much wider world out there, and a philosophical world that does not only relate to transcendence (as RYBS appears to do) but to imminence as well. Are those who speak of paradox/polarity of imminence and transcendence inspired by the imminence of the Chassidic world? Maybe, but it is attenuated, and no longer strictly Chassidic. Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 19:09:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 22:09:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Brisker Theory of Everything In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150607020921.GB7516@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 25, 2015 at 07:15:59PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : 1. The gemara (Ketuvot 5b) discusses whether causing a certain type : of blood flowing is considered a Sabbath violation. The first attempt : to resolve the question turns on whether "mifkad pakid or chaburei : mechbar" (is the blood in the womb stored up or is it the result of a : wound?). Rashi there (please look) seems to define this as a physical : question. Is this acceptable or must we say Rashi was leaving out the : "obvious" philosophical/halachic question (i.e. the physical was known, : it's a question of how to categorize it halachically)? It is very hard to identify a real machloqes in metzi'us. There is a machloqes in the Y-mi about whether rice flower and water makes chameitz. Pesachim 2:4, vilna 17a): Rabbi Yochanan ben Nuri said: Qarmis (millet or something similar) requires [giving] challah [from the dough to a kohein] because it can become chameitz or matzah. And the Rabbis say it doesn't because it can not become chameitz or matzah. So check it! They disagree about the essence of the check (iqar bediqasahh): RYBN said they checked it and found it can become chameitz or matzah. The Rabbanan said they checked it and they didn't find it can become chameitz or matzah. What looked like a machloqes about facts, that could just be checked experimentally, was a machloqes about how to categorize the physical reality. Is that dough a chimutz or a sirchon? I am sure that can be generalized. We could be arguing about metzi'us, but as the gemera asks, why not just check it? More likely, when the metzi'us is in the gray area, the machloqes is about: Where is the line between the categories? : 2. That gemara continues to try to resolve the question and is willing : to entertain the possibility that the halacha is like Rabbi Yehuda : (vs. Rabbi Shimon) in mekalkeil (destroying) and like Rabbi Shimon : (vs. Rabbi Yehuda) in davar sheino mitkavein (the result was not the : major one intended). If these two issues were interconnected, could the : gemara entertain this possibility? I think the gemara is consistent with two posibilities: 1- The two machloqesin are not interconnected. 2- The hava amina as that they were not connected, but the masqanah is that indeed they are. : 3. If the answer to 2 is no, must we assume that when the Shulchan : Aruch said he would decide the psak based on majority 2 of big 3, did : he really mean this as a primary tie breaker, or only when he did not : have a clear understanding of the underlying philosophy that resulted : in their final opinions. As I wrote in the past, I think it's easier to excuse the SA's exceptions to his rule by saying he was talking about the majority when counting consistent positions. Which means the rule is subject to which machloqesin the SA held were interconnected, and therefore which statements on other topics need to also be counted toward he majority. : 4.Is it possible that R'YBS limited his "canon" to only a few major : rishonim (in contradistinction to R" A Lichtenstein) because the more : data points included in trying to determine the underlying theoretical : construct, the more likely a single errant point would skew the results? I would think the reverse: How do you identify an outlier point without getting more full statistics on the data? Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger Worrying is like a rocking chair: micha at aishdas.org it gives you something to do for a while, http://www.aishdas.org but in the end it gets you nowhere. Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 19:16:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 22:16:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir In-Reply-To: <20150528.000433.22403.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150528.000433.22403.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150607021626.GC7516@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 04:04:33AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I will be the first to point out that Lifnei Iveir is one the many : topics where my learning and expertise is severely lacking. Even so, : I suspect that there is something missing from RMB's definition... : It seems to me that RMB is giving a useful tool to distinguish between : category 3 and category 4, but that tool is useful only in the case where : a person already has the *desire* to commit a sin, but it lacking the : *ability* to some degree... Correct. I was only thinking of the original question, and the gemara only discusses the one chiluq -- between lifnei iveir (deOraisa) and mesayeia' (deRabbanan). : But what of the case where a person does *not* yet have a desire to : sin? Rabbi Kaganoff is saying that one who incites or encourages him : to do it is violating Lifnei Iveir. Even if the person already has the : ability to do the sin, it was below his "bechirah point" until he was : egged on to do it... I didn't understand Orpah's offer that way. She was convinced her daughters-in-law "converted" for the sake of marriage; and depending which midrashim you quote, that likely wasn't even an actual conversion. But if Rus didn't really buy into Jewish beliefs, she would be better off not going through a pro-forma conversion than in the same boat as Delilah or Shelomo's wives. Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet micha at aishdas.org about things most people don't watch even on http://www.aishdas.org Yom Kippur. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 21:46:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 07:46:04 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] right/wrong Message-ID: <> comes back to the question of pluralism vs monistic vs tolerant monistic vs harmonism. As discussed before there are opinions on all sides -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 7 04:06:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 07:06:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] right/wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150607110645.GA7126@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jun 07, 2015 at 07:46:04AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : comes back to the question of pluralism vs monistic vs tolerant monistic vs : harmonism. Or, as R Moshe Halberatal cateogired halachic legal theories: Retrival, Accumulative, vs Constitutive. But it only starts there. Here the question is whether 1- any of these positions imply that halakhah is man-made more than the other positions would; and 2- does any of this conversation reflect on the absolute nature of right and wrong on a moral plane? Which also drags in the relationship between halakhah and morality. Divine Command Theory (morality is that which Hashem commanded) may well identify the two. But then, we were hard pressed to find an advocate for DCT, (outside contemporary popularizations). R/DR Y Leibowitz coms close, by saying we exist to follow halakhah, and any attempt to map halakhah to some other value system was one step toward AZ. Someone else might say that halakhah approximates morality, but since it's a blanket rule for all people in many situations, it's only an approximate. That said, once the halakhah is set, preserving it and the morality of the majority of cases has greater moral weight than one loses in the exceptional cases. But getting back to our question, while I consider the two related, I do not think the evolving nature of halakhah reflects morality being a human construction. Rather, I think it's because of two effects: 1- dialectics between concflicting values can yeild different strategies for finding balance between them One therefore finds that a machloqes is resolved by finding one strategy more appropriate for the culture asking the question than another. And if it is not resolved with finality, another culture may have the same question (eg mixes of immigrants with different precdent) and choose a different strategy. As I put it last time: choosing different paths up the mountain doesn't imply that the mountain's altitude is subjective. But this assumes that the linkage between halakhah and morality is that halakhah is a means to becoming moral. 2- changes in reality can cause two similar looking situations to have different moral outcomes. I think the vast majority of seemingly reopened questions are really of this sort. E.g. the categorization of today's dead mutes. We didn't change our belief that demands cannot be made of someone who cannot be taught them -- even if it means a consequent loss of priviliges (if being able to be motzi another is a privilege). The realia of the life of a cheiresh changed. (Over Shabbos I read which misses this point, creating a very bloated list of cases where R' JD Bleich, and most contemporary posqim, allow halakhah to "evolve".) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is our choices...that show what we truly are, micha at aishdas.org far more than our abilities. http://www.aishdas.org - J. K. Rowling Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 7 04:10:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 07:10:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong In-Reply-To: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150607111036.GB7126@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 05, 2015 at 03:16:42PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : There is a thought in this thread that if G-d does something, then it : is good by definition. Yet Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai considered the : possibility that G-d had another option which was even better than the : option that He did choose. Aside from Zev's point, that the machloqes is over which is pleasanter for the person, not which is good... I think the discussion is more what if HQBH tells us to do something, it is good by definition, necessarily good by implication, or somehow more distantly related to morality. (I guess someone could say halakhah is not connected to morality, but I don't see that coming up as an O hashkagah.) : This sounds to me like a good argument for the view that people (or at : least certain people, such as the Sanhedrin) CAN decide what is right : and what is wrong. Can determine, which is still different than the original idea on Areivim, that consensus *defines* morality. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger One who kills his inclination is as though he micha at aishdas.org brought an offering. But to bring an offering, http://www.aishdas.org you must know where to slaughter and what Fax: (270) 514-1507 parts to offer. - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 7 05:52:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2015 08:52:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Torah Scholars and Torah Education for the Masses Message-ID: <20150607125250.7E561182EA1@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is taken from Rav Schwab on Chumash, Parshas Acharei Mos. I have posted the entire selection at http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/tide_chumash_schwab.pdf At all times the Torah's unchanging teachings must be applied to the ever-changing derech eretz. All of our actions, attitudes, relationships to man and beast, and positions within nature and history are subject to the jurisdiction and evaluation of the Torah. What follows is that the Torah scholar should be well informed of the "ways of the Earth." The laws of nature and the paths of history should be known to him. He should be well aware of what happens in the world that surrounds him, for he is constantly called upon to apply the yardstick of halachah and the searchlight of hashkafah to the realities that confront him. What also follows is that the greater the wisdom of Torah, the more crucial it is that this wisdom be conveyed to the Jewish contemporary world. It must be transmitted in a language that our generation understands and that will attract the searching youth, the ignorant, the estranged and the potential ba1al teshuvah to a joyous acceptance of the yoke of Heaven. The Torah leader must be able to dispel the doubts of the doubter and to counter the cynicism of the agnostic. He must, therefore, speak their language masterfully so that he can convince and enlighten them. There is indeed a dire need for gedolei Torah, great Torah scholars, who devote their entire lives to the study and dissemination of Torah. The Jewish world today needs many talmidei chachamim whose life task is to enlighten and inspire it with the love and the fear of G-d. We are ready to accord to those "messengers of G-d" the highest respect and a loyal following. These are the kohanim and levi'im of today. Like the members of the Levitic tribe of old, they are to serve all the other tribes and teach them the living Torah. Yet education and leadership cannot function in a vacuum. Therefore it becomes mandatory for the present day "Tribe of Levi" to initiate and encourage an educational system that can serve the other "eleven tribes who comprise the vast majority of our people. It becomes mandatory for the Torah-conscious educator not to inspire fear of the world and hesitancy to meets its challenges, but rather, to fortify the vast majority of our youth to meet head-on the thousand and one pitfalls of professional and business life. Our youth must be inspired to courageously and intelligently brave the onslaught of scientific arrogance and the sensual poison that is masked as intellectual liberalism. The Divine purpose for which Yisrael was created can be served in every capacity, in every profession, in all human endeavors, as long as they are not excluded by the halachah. ---------- Unfortunately, I do not see many Torah scholars today who are "well informed of the "ways of the Earth." The laws of nature and the paths of history should be known to him. He should be well aware of what happens in the world that surrounds him, for he is constantly called upon to apply the yardstick of halachah and the searchlight of hashkafah to the realities that confront him." I also do not see our educational institutions serving "the other 'eleven tribes' who comprise the vast majority of our people. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 8 09:25:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2015 09:25:43 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] replacement value Message-ID: secular law [US] recognizes that one need is not liable replace a lost item with a new one ie if you lost my used IPAD [which happened in fact this month to us] you don't owe me the value of a new one , but rather some pro-rated amount accounting for wear and tear. what does bais din require? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 9 14:17:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2015 17:17:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] replacement value In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150609211745.GA4160@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 08, 2015 at 09:25:43AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : secular law [US] recognizes that one need is not liable replace a lost : item with a new one... what does bais din : require? According to the Business Halakhah Institute : Many years ago I borrowed a Chumash with commentaries from a local beis medrash. I forgot to return it and eventually misplaced the sefer and I do not recall which volume I borrowed. It was "borrowed", ie no reshus was asked. ... [Skipping from opening paragraph to bottom line...] Someone who borrowed a sefer without permission is obligated to return the sefer, the same as any other thief. Even if the owner despaired of retrieving it, e.g., he bought a new set, the obligation to return it remains in force (C.M. 354:2 and 360:5). If the sefers condition changed dramatically (shinui) or if it was lost altogether, the borrower is obligated to repay the value of the sefer (C.M. 360:5). In your case, since the sefer you borrowed is missing, there is no obligation to replace the actual sefer. Your obligation is to repay the beis medrash the sefers value at the time you borrowed it. In other words, you would pay the value of a used sefer rather than a new sefer, and there is no need to pay for a complete set. But then, maybe that's under Gittin 55b, not making a ganav tear down his house in order to return a stolen beam he built into it. But that halakhah is to facilitate teshuvah after theft. And so I won't generalized. Also for hezeq, I know a maziq pays for his damage, and therefore only has to pay replacement value -- what it would take to make things right again. But again, your case, a shomer or sho'el returning a lost item, could be different. I didn't yet find it. But I haven't entirely given up... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A cheerful disposition is an inestimable treasure. micha at aishdas.org It preserves health, promotes convalescence, http://www.aishdas.org and helps us cope with adversity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' SR Hirsch, "From the Wisdom of Mishlei" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 9 14:17:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2015 17:17:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] replacement value In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150609211745.GA4160@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 08, 2015 at 09:25:43AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : secular law [US] recognizes that one need is not liable replace a lost : item with a new one... what does bais din : require? According to the Business Halakhah Institute : Many years ago I borrowed a Chumash with commentaries from a local beis medrash. I forgot to return it and eventually misplaced the sefer and I do not recall which volume I borrowed. It was "borrowed", ie no reshus was asked. ... [Skipping from opening paragraph to bottom line...] Someone who borrowed a sefer without permission is obligated to return the sefer, the same as any other thief. Even if the owner despaired of retrieving it, e.g., he bought a new set, the obligation to return it remains in force (C.M. 354:2 and 360:5). If the sefers condition changed dramatically (shinui) or if it was lost altogether, the borrower is obligated to repay the value of the sefer (C.M. 360:5). In your case, since the sefer you borrowed is missing, there is no obligation to replace the actual sefer. Your obligation is to repay the beis medrash the sefers value at the time you borrowed it. In other words, you would pay the value of a used sefer rather than a new sefer, and there is no need to pay for a complete set. But then, maybe that's under Gittin 55b, not making a ganav tear down his house in order to return a stolen beam he built into it. But that halakhah is to facilitate teshuvah after theft. And so I won't generalized. Also for hezeq, I know a maziq pays for his damage, and therefore only has to pay replacement value -- what it would take to make things right again. But again, your case, a shomer or sho'el returning a lost item, could be different. I didn't yet find it. But I haven't entirely given up... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A cheerful disposition is an inestimable treasure. micha at aishdas.org It preserves health, promotes convalescence, http://www.aishdas.org and helps us cope with adversity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' SR Hirsch, "From the Wisdom of Mishlei" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 10 18:52:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 01:52:34 GMT Subject: [Avodah] 100% Vegetable oils etc. Message-ID: <20150610.215234.27464.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> On Areivim, R' Martin Brody wrote: > If any such ingredient of an ingredient was non-kosher, it would be > batel b'shishim, (more likely nullified by thousands). For those > that are interested, the London Beth Din is not concerned with > "flavourings" as an ingredient for this very reason. This surprises me. I would think that non-kosher flavorings cannot be batel. Bitul is a mathematical procedure by which we can presume that the non-kosher ingredient is not noticeable. But in the case of flavorings (and colorings and maamads), if its presence were not noticeable, then the manufacturer would not go to the trouble and expense of including it. Therefore (I would think) that its presence proves that it *is* noticable, overriding the presumption. Rabbi Binyomin Forst's "The Laws of Kashrus" (ArtScroll) says on page 98, "If, however, the mixture was sampled and the non-kosher taste was noticeable, the mixture may not be eaten, even though it was batel b'shishim. (Shach 98:4)" What other views are there? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5578ea0af09296a0a79abst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 07:41:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 10:41:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Worker or Craftsman Message-ID: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> How do we view the task of life? Is a person an po'el, paid for his time? Implying, it's our job to do good while here on earth, but the determining factor is the duration? Or is a person an uman, paid to get a particular job done. We're put on earth to get some specific accomplishment. The Zohar suggests something more like an uman when it uses an idiom like "ana avda deQBH". Admittedly an eved does not get paid for his time, but an eved is for the duration, whether until shemittah, until yovel, or for the rest of his life. However, in Shaar haGilgulim we get all this talk about a person having a tafqid, and how if they fail to get the job done, they could be given a second chance. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger What you get by achieving your goals micha at aishdas.org is not as important as http://www.aishdas.org what you become by achieving your goals. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Henry David Thoreau From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 07:46:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 10:46:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Color names In-Reply-To: <221167CA3A2A46908C9CA2A3474664EA@webhost.local> References: <221167CA3A2A46908C9CA2A3474664EA@webhost.local> Message-ID: <20150611144639.GF20169@aishdas.org> RZLampel and I discused this once, I think here. If not, the topic could be of interest anyway. So, rather than checking the archive (which is difficult, given the number of tekheiles discussions) I am just sharing either way. -micha Shabbat B'Shabbato Translated by Moshe Goldberg Machon Zomet ... What Is That Phrase? Green Sky? Yaacov Etzion At the end of this week's Torah portion, we are given a command, "Let them place on the tzitzit at the corner a thread of 'techelet.'" [Bamidbar 15:38]. Rashi explains that techelet is "the 'yarok' color of a snail." Any speaker of modern Hebrew can only wonder at this. Why does Rashi call the blue color of techelet "yarok" -- that is, green? Well, it is not only Rashi that calls techelet "yarok." It is an explicit ruling that appears in the Shulchan Aruch: "The color white is ritually pure, as is the look of 'yarok,' even if it has the look of wax or of gold. And this certainly includes the 'yarok' of leek or grass (and also the color that is called 'blue' is included in 'yarok')" [Hilchot Nidda, 188]. We are not interested at this point in the details of the halacha but rather in the fact that the RAMA writes that the color "blue" is called "yarok" in our traditional sources. Our sages spoke of four main colors: shachor (black), lavan (white), adom (red), and yarok. And "yarok" included yellow, orange, blue, and turquoise of today. For example, it happens quite often that a newborn baby is a bit yellow right after its birth. But the Tosefta calls this color "yarok." Rabbi Natan says the following: "When I was in the Land of Kapotakia, there was a woman who had given birth to boys... They brought him to me, and I saw that he was 'yarok'... I looked at him and did not find any blood for circumcision..." [Shabbat 134a]. Moreover, in the wording of the ROSH in his halachic rulings the word yarok as used by the sages is not our color green (which they call "yarok as a leek") but is yellow or orange. "This shows that the word yarok is similar to the yolk of an egg or to gold, which has a tinge of red." Among other sources, the ROSH bases his decision on the words of the verse, "the wings of a dove coated with silver and its limbs the 'yerakrak' of gold" [Tehillim 68:14]. Yerakrak is clearly the color of gold, that is, yellow. The words for orange (katom) and blue (kachol) were instituted in modern times by Zeev Yavetz. This was reported by David Yalin in the newspaper "Hatzevi" in 1887: "When I spoke to my uncle the illustrious rabbi and investigator Rabbi Zeev Yavetz, he said to me that he wants to fill what is missing in our language for the names of two colors, the color of techelet and the color of the yoke of an egg." Yavetz proposed that techelet should be called kachol and that the yoke should be called "ketem," which in the holy writings refers to gold or to the color of gold. (An example appears in the following verse: "Woe, the gold is dim, the good 'ketem' has changed" [Eichah 4:1].) Yavetz wanted to use the word katom for the color of yellow (which we call tzahov), since he felt that tzahov "includes a bit of red" (as per a note by Yalin). But as time went on, katom became the color orange, as we use it today. Thus, the word "yarok" changed in meaning during the years, as did "tzahov." However, "techelet" evidently kept its original meaning, and it remains similar to the color of the sea, which is similar to the color of the sky, and this reminds us of the Divine Throne of Glory. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 09:34:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 12:34:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Worker or Craftsman In-Reply-To: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> References: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5579B89C.8060902@sero.name> On 06/11/2015 10:41 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Is a person an po'el, paid for his time? Implying, it's our job to do > good while here on earth, but the determining factor is the duration? > > Or is a person an uman, paid to get a particular job done. We're put on > earth to get some specific accomplishment. Eruvin 65a: Anan po`alei diy'mamei anan. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 11:17:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 14:17:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> References: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> Message-ID: <20150611181746.GI20169@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 2, 2015 at 4:27pm I forwarded an essay by RYK that had appeared on R/Dr Alan Brill's blog, Kavvanah. In it he proposes from personal experience that MO would be enhanced by shifting away from its focus on RYBS's Briskkeit and in particular that elements of his Hungarian Chassidic birth community would be of great value. : Personally, my rejection of the Maimonidean ethos and realization of : the degree to which chassidut can speak to the modern searcher was a : long and arduous process. It came about as a result of a deep sense : of betrayal by Maimonides, the champion of Rationalist Judaism. I for : many years was the object and fool of Maimonides "the seventh reason" : as presented in his introduction to the Guide by not seeing his : philosophic views. In that passage, Maimonides condones misleading : the masses for their greater good, even to the point of advocating : contradictory ideas for different audiences and then obscuring those : contradictions. : Growing up in Satmar and then Brisk, I was oblivious to his : non-halakhic writings and led to believe that he fully and literally : believed every word he wrote in the Yad... I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." And in fact, that was the whole point of the project -- to outline all of halakhah, to document the TSBP. Not to hint at something for the meivinim without risking that the hoi palloi mistake his words in a heretical way. It's simply not meaningful concept for a book he titled Mishneh Torah. I am uncomfortably using the Rambam as a poster boy for rationalism. In the Rambam's day, science hadn't been invented yet. Claims about physics weren't based on emprical proof and experimental process. It was Natual Philosophy, and the weight of an a priori argument. A lot of it really ended up on reliabilism; deeming the Greeks as reliable sources on such things -- after 1,5000 years of their theories reigning. And therefore, quite honestly, much the same kind of thought that we use to accept mesorah. The word rationalism changed meaning. What I think we really mean is a willingness to be meqabel es ha'emes mimi she'omro, rather than take a maximalist attitude toward mesoretic and Torah-derived statements. But that's quite a bit meta from anyone today using the Moreh as a foundational element of their hashkafah. In particular, RYK mentions three items he believes would enhance MO: : 1) Truth. We live in a post-modern world where objective truth is : rejected and absolute claims are frowned upon. I would go as far as to : say that rationalism (in the general and colloquial sense) as a source : for Emunah is bankrupt, it increasingly speaks to fewer people... I don't think it ever worked. As one of my favorite truisms goes: The mind is a wonderful organ for justifying decisions the heart already reached. People accept the rational argument that fits the experiential justification that really underlies their beliefs. Aristo thought otherwise, which eventually led to the Qalam and the Scholasticists -- including R' Saadia Gaon and the Rambam. But then Scholasticism collapsed, the scientific method arose, leading to a dispute between the Empiricists and Idealists which in turn forced the discipline of philosophy away from belief in the reality of an objective rigorous proof. Experimental eproof, yes. Incontravertible objective philosopy, not so much. Kant then gets all transcendental, and talks about the synthetic a priori. (Knowing things without proof that don't simply boil down to a matter of translations. In the recent past, I mentioned how we know the Euclidean posulates hold in flat space, that Reimannian ones hold in a spherical space, and our knowledge about morality and ethics.) This was the zeitgeist when the Besh"t lived. (Besh"t 1698-1760; Kant 1724-1804.) Someone who is given a proof whose conclusions don't fit their experience is likely to reject the soundness of the givens / postulates / first principles on which it's based. Just as someone who accepts a proof is making synthetic judgments about the quality of the foundations of that proof before even making an analytic decision that the logic seems sound. So even if no one makes a logic error, every proof relies on interpretation of experience. RYBS was not a rationalist in this sense. Brisk is very experiential, to the point of eschewing the study of hashkafah altogether. They are rational when it comes to how to learn, but the value of learning is in the experience of learning. When RYBS does do philosophy, he calls it halachic hermeneutics. Neo-Kantian and Existentialist observations of what halakhah says to the one following it about life. He makes no claims about the function or cause of halakhah, he makes few theological observations. For example, to RYBS tzimtzum speaks mostly to the value of anavah as an emulation of His "Retreat" to give us room. RYBS's Neo-Kantianism is a very different project than the Rambam's Scholasticism. ... : However, during those rare occasions when they do pay attention to the : biblical "stories," their orientation is a-rational. They absolutely : "believe" those stories, but their belief is internal: it is true : because it happened in the Torah. That is where these events transpire : and that is where these stories matter. Asking about their historicity : is, as far as they are concerned, foolish and missing the point. And also a given. It may not be stated as the point, but the confidence given to authority which is a necessary component of the rebbe-chassid relationship means accepting Chazal's historical and scientific claims as being from ruach haqodesh. And not stam as meshalim. The kind of agnosticism about the historicity of medrashic material you are recommending we import Chassidus to justify would itself leave a chassid aghast. And even after citing the long chain of rishonim and acharonim who speak against assuming medrashic stories are historical, And you want to extend that beyond medrashic stories into foundational stories in Tanakh and maybe in the chumash as well? Given my above assertion that the only thread that runs consistently through "rationalism" from the Rambam to today is to choose qabel es ha'emes mimi she'omro over taking some baal mesorah's statement maximally, one actually needs what's left of the Rambam's hashkafic legacy to accomplish this, not Chassidus. : 2) Spiritualization. As scholars have pointed out, chassidic teachings : contain elements of spiritual psychology. They provide us with a : language which helps us infuse our lives with meaning. One can point : to many examples where this psychological spiritualization occurs in : chassidut, I will mention two of them. : 3) Social Change. One of the most pressing tensions in the community : is how to reconcile our values with our convictions; what to do : when halakha points us in one direction and our values in another : direction. We are tempted to follow our values but pulled to abide by : our halakhic commitments.... : Chassidut is very explicit about the value of religious aggression. The : following two quotes are often encountered in chassidic writings, : "even a thief says a prayer before he breaks in to his victim's home" : (quoted on the margin of Brachot 63A, from the Frankfurt manuscript), : and "an aggressive stance towards the Divine bears results" (Sanhedrin : 105A). While the provenance of these texts is Talmudic, they take on : significant prominence in Chassidic theology. They become the impetus : for an aggressive theology which is informed by a religiosity that : sees itself driven by a Divine immanence which infuses our values and : ethical intuitions with spiritual resonance, subsequently leading to : radical societal change. : Such change is actually an integral part of Chassidic social history. : When one looks at recent major changes in traditional Jewish society : it is hard not to notice that the forerunners were often Chassidim. The : last sixty years have seen far reaching social and political change. Both of these are not specific to Chassidus, but would be true of any Ism that draws attention fo the notion that halakhah is merely a "floor" rather than the sum total of behavioral expectations. For that matter, self development and societal needs are both more central to Mussar than chassidus. Pretty much its defning features, really. Which (aside being my own pony in this race) has the advantage of being closer to being consistent with MO's current gestalt; it's easier to get from here to there. OTOH Chaasidic maximalism means that statements made in the past have to be accepted as being from ruach haqodesh, and consequently change in these communities is minimized. Not only because isolation is part of the survival strategy, but because of reverence for and desire to emulate Chassidic isolation is indeed part of their survival stategy. It's hard to leave when you know no other social context and speak with an accent. And knowing that you stand for something greater than yourself in the eyes of those who see your uniform makes it harder to sin. (Harder, not impossible.) But it's not one of the three elements of Chassidus RYK wrote about. : The two most dramatic changes that have happened is that Jews are now : sovereign and women have made significant progress in their pursuit of : religious equality. The pioneers of both these changes were driven, at : least in part, by a chassidic ethos. R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson, : the Rebbi of Lubavitch, was one of the first orthodox scholars to : champion female Talmud scholarship, while R. Avraham Yitzchak Kook, : a serious student of Chassidut, was an outspoken early proponent of : a Zionist state. RAYK is a student of the Leshem, and thus of the Gra's school of Qabbalah. Not Chassidus. You might be able to make a more generic argument for a need for more Qabbalah in MO. Personally, I'm an engineer by inclination, not just training, and my own head doesn't lean that way. Although I had more success with the Leshem Haqdamos uShe'arim, which incidentally heavily draws from the Moreh and Yesodei haTorah, than I did with Qela"ch Pischei Chokhmah, the later parts of Derekh H' or Tomer Devorah after ch. 1. At least in the golah this might be true; in Israel, those of the DL community who are an appropriate audience for Qabbalah already have RAYK in numerous interpretations. Also, Chassidus's approach to Qabbalah puts the Ari Za"l on an even higher pedestal than the Gra did, and elevate R Chaim Vital from *a* talmid of the Ari to his sole authorized presenter. The Gra is willing to question something from RCV that chassidim would literally consider Torah min haShamayim. Which, for the more socially and humanistically minded, might well turn Eitz Chaim 49 ch. 3 into a show stopper. (But this isn't the place to discuss it.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Never must we think that the Jewish element micha at aishdas.org in us could exist without the human element http://www.aishdas.org or vice versa. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 06:48:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 09:48:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <20150611181746.GI20169@aishdas.org> References: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> <20150611181746.GI20169@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150612134802.GA12483@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 2:17 I wrote: : What I think we really mean is a willingness to be meqabel es ha'emes : mimi she'omro, rather than take a maximalist attitude toward mesoretic : and Torah-derived statements. But that's quite a bit meta from anyone : today using the Moreh as a foundational element of their hashkafah. ... : Given my above assertion that the only thread that runs consistently : through "rationalism" from the Rambam to today is to choose qabel es : ha'emes mimi she'omro over taking some baal mesorah's statement maximally... The thought hit me this morning that there is another and drastically different way to view this point. "Qabel es ha'ames mimi she'omro" is a bit of a circularity. Obviously we want to accept the truth from whomever says it, and not errors. So we're deciding what is true /before/ we decide to accept it, not /because/ we accept it. We could therefore say that the single consistent theme we associate with throwing the word "rationalism" about is critical thought. When we judge Aristo's, Copernicus's, Darwin's or Einstein's thought as true, do we second guess that asessment, or accept their ideas as true? And consequently we can phrase this chiluq a third way: As being abut how much authority we give rabbinic works in comparison to how much we trust our own critical thinking. The higher the pedestal we put the historical rabbinate, the more of their statements one would logically choose to suspend judgment and accept. (Not only accept, but accept as literal.) As for the original premise... Rather than looking to RYK's or anyone else's ideas as to what from Chassidus would most benefit MO, perhaps we should look at the Neo-Chassidic phenomenon to see de facto what MO Jews who are open to such experimentation are drawn to. And if those two questions yeild different answers, why? :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger What we do for ourselves dies with us. micha at aishdas.org What we do for others and the world, http://www.aishdas.org remains and is immortal. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Albert Pine From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 06:55:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 09:55:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What FDA Learned About Dark Chocolate and Milk Allergies In-Reply-To: <557A5564.7040807@zahav.net.il> References: <20150611174606.4DC6F181DFA@nexus.stevens.edu> <5579E680.2050607@zahav.net.il> <5579E319.7070103@sero.name> <557A5564.7040807@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <20150612135524.GC12483@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 05:43:32AM +0200, Ben Waxman via Areivim wrote: : This story came out here a few years ago when some kid had an : allergic reaction to parve chocolate. The product had a Badatz Eida : Chareidit heksher. The heksher was fine, they didn't make a mistake. : The amount of milk in the chocolate was much, much less than 1/60. Assuming the allergic reaction isn't lifethreatening so that the child is not prohibited from eating the chocolate on those grounds... Say they're a chocoholic and chose to eat the chocolate shortly after eating meat. Mi ma nafshach for everyone else it's batel. But do we say that since for them it's detectible, bitul doesn't apply? :-)BBii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 14:24:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 21:24:59 GMT Subject: [Avodah] What FDA Learned About Dark Chocolate and Milk Allergies Message-ID: <20150611.172459.6802.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> [Another Areivim email from the same thread. -micha] > Actually it sounds to me that one very much can rely on the > label (from this example). The trace amounts [the LBD are] talking > about are much, much less than 1/60. Completely bateil, > totally parve, but enough to elicit an allergic reaction. I remember learning about a machlokes concerning whether we hold dairy can be batel to pareve, or whether we say that since there is no loss (at least, not the total loss that we have when something becomes nonkosher) we should simply consider it dairy. But I don't remember how we hold on this issue. Anyone else? And shouldn't these questions be on Avodah? Akiva Miller [Done. -micha] From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 11:01:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 14:01:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If and When Message-ID: <20150612180148.GA7261@aishdas.org> R' Yishmael famously (Mechilta BaChodesh-Yisro 11, Mishpatim 182 or ) says that "im" usually means that the decision is up to you, but three times it's a chiyuv: - "Im mizbach avanim ta'aseh Li" (Shemos 20:21) - "Im kesef talveh es ami" (Shemos 22:24) - "Im taqriv minchas bikurim" (Vayiqra 2:14) This is often explained in English as saying that "im" usually means "if", but in these cases it takes on the rarer second meaning of "when". I would prefer to propose a single common interpretation. LAD, "im" introduces an implication -- X implies Y. When X is a conditional, then so will the Y that depends on it. When X is always obligated, then Y will also be always obligated, but the "allways" is because X is. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 13 19:40:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 04:40:37 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Why Chassidut Message-ID: <557CE9A5.6090303@zahav.net.il> From Rav Yehoshua Shapira (my quick translation) The idea that Chassidut?s positive atmosphere isn?t obligatory is a serious mistake. Not only is it obligatory, but it brings with it more obligations. Without emphasis on the Mitzvot of ahava and yirah, simcha and deveikut (which are the soul of the 613 mitzvot) the mitzvot remain external actions, technical, something which doesn?t affect or uplift the heart and soul. Those doreitta mitzvot, which are the pinimiot of all mitzvoth, demand from a person and from us to give their entire being when doing a mitzvah. . . .. In the performance of mitzvoth, God wants our hearts. Therefore, Chassidut definitely demands deep dedication. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 15:34:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ysoscher via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 18:34:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed Message-ID: <073EBBC1-7CA3-4E26-BA35-4A9007B1EAE4@gmail.com> Chana, Three quick points: 1) You are making the mistake many others are making as well, conflating chassidim with chassidut. Chassidic life today has very little to do with original chassidut. Early chassidut was a revolutionary theological movement which appealed to a small elitist group. As time went by more people started joining. As the masses joined, the theology became diluted. The theologically influenced practices reminded but the ethos became stagnant. Therefore, your attempt to disprove my thesis from the way Chassidim behave today is wrong. I'm advocating for chassidic theology which was prevalent during the first and second generation of the chassidic movement, people like the Besht, the Magid, the Toldos Yakov Yosef, Reb Nachaman, the Ba'al Hatanye and others. I have no doubt that their philosophy informed Rav Kook and Lubavitcher Rebbe when dealing with tensions between Halacha and modernity. And, their philosophy can help us today as well. Incorporating a chassidic ethos would allow us to infuse our encounters with modernity with kedusha and meaning. Which brings me to my second point. 2) Kabbakah and chassidut isn't about warmth and community. It's a highly sophisticated philosophical system which offers a nuanced alternative to the Maimonidean/rationalist approach. While the approach is a-rational, it isn't irrational. However, more to the point, the warmth and sense of community is a byproduct of this theology, not its primary focus. 3) Finally, I'm not sure I understand your point about the Rambam. The Rambam says that he believes it is justified to fool and mislead the masses. That to me is highly problematic. Rabbi Ysoscher Katz Chair, Department of Talmud, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School; Director of the Lindenbaum Center for Halakhic Studies; Educational Director of Judaic Studies, Luria Academy, Brooklyn, NY.; Rabbi, Prospect Heights Shul. E-mail: ysoscher at gmail.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 07:00:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 14:00:32 GMT Subject: [Avodah] If and When Message-ID: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > R' Yishmael famously (Mechilta BaChodesh-Yisro 11, Mishpatim 182 > or ) says that "im" usually means that the > decision is up to you, but three times it's a chiyuv: > - "Im mizbach avanim ta'aseh Li" (Shemos 20:21) > - "Im kesef talveh es ami" (Shemos 22:24) > - "Im taqriv minchas bikurim" (Vayiqra 2:14) ... > LAD, "im" introduces an implication -- X implies Y. ... > When X is always obligated, then Y will also be always > obligated, but the "always" is because X is. If I'm understanding you correctly, your logic will work only if there is another pasuk somewhere which *already* obligates us to build a mizbe'ach of stone, to lend money without interest, and to bring bikkurim in this manner. If so, then a fuller translation can be written with the word "if", and without the word "when", like this: : (You are already obligated to build a stone mizbe'ach, and) : if (today is the day that) you will build a stone mizbe'ach, : you will not build it from cut stones... But I thought that R' Yishmael's whole point is that THESE ARE the source pesukim for those mitzvos, and that there are NO other pesukim which obligate you to do these things. That's why R' Yishmael made the whole point of stressing that these "im"s really mean "when". His fear was that if we translate "im" as "if", then someone might think these pesukim are like Hilchos Gittin: "IF you get divorced, here is the right way to do it, and IF you make a stone mizbe'ach, here is the right way." R' Yishmael's point is that there is no "if" - you MUST do these things, and WHEN you do it, this is how. So over Shabbos, I tried to verify my idea. Thanks to RMB, who quoted not only the 3 pesukim, but identified their location, it was pretty simple to look them up in the Torah Temimah. But what I found was rather odd. Torah Temimah Shmos 20:127 quotes R' Yishmael in the Mechilta, pretty much the same way that RMB did, and points out that this is NOT the source for the obligation for build a stone mizbe'ach - that is in Ki Savo. This RMB's logic fits: "If (today is the day that) you build a stone mizbe'ach, don't build it of cut stones." Please note: In the excerpt of the Mechilta which the Torah Temimah quotes regarding the mizbe'ach, R' Yishmael says that there are 3 cases where "im" is not optional, but the other two are not specified. This is very different than the Torah Temimah about lending money. Torah Temimah Shmos 22:198 does quotes R' Yishmael in the Mechilta, but it doesn't mention the word "im" explicitly, nor is there any reference to two other cases. He simply asks whether it is a reshus or a chovah to lend money, and he answers that the obligation appears in Parshas Re'eh. I find it curious that this Mechilta is worded so differently than the previous one, but the message is clearly the same. Finally, we have the pasuk about bikkurim. It turns out that the Torah Temimah on this pasuk doesn't mention R' Yishmael at all. It does mention R' Yehudah, but from the Toras Kohanim, and not from the Mechilta. Further, my unlearned reading of R' Yehudah had little or nothing to do with the reshus/chovah question, but Torah Temimah Vayikra 2:80 DID see a reshus/chovah question that troubled R' Yehudah. I am left with several questions, the main one being whether or not Bikkurim really was R' Yishmael's third "im". And that's where I'll leave this thread, for more skilled minds to investigate should they be so inclined. Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/557d895b6e89195a4573st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 10:27:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 13:27:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If and When In-Reply-To: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150614172744.GA27133@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 02:00:32PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : > LAD, "im" introduces an implication -- X implies Y. : ... : > When X is always obligated, then Y will also be always : > obligated, but the "always" is because X is. : : If I'm understanding you correctly, your logic will work only if : there is another pasuk somewhere which *already* obligates us to build a : mizbe'ach of stone, to lend money without interest, and to bring bikkurim : in this manner. If so, then a fuller translation can be written with : the word "if", and without the word "when"... In reality, the cited Mechilta actually provides derahos to prove that there is nothing optional about the antecedants. But my point was to suggest that "im" has nothing to do with the maybe-ness of "if". Just the implication bit -- if X then Y, or whenever X then Y, or since X then Y, regardless of whether not-X is a possibility or option. Which would reduce what looks like two definitions for "im" into a single common meaning. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Time flies... micha at aishdas.org ... but you're the pilot. http://www.aishdas.org - R' Zelig Pliskin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 13 22:30:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ysoscher via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 01:30:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> R. Micha, you write "I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." This is pure conjecture, perhaps even wishful thinking. The Rambam shares the 7th principle in which he argues that one may disseminate untruths for the greater good of society. Once he believes that, we are left to wonder about everything he wrote: did he really believe that or was there a political (in the Aristotelian sense) agenda behind it. To then preference the yad over the moreh is a personal bias. You and I as Orthodox Jews would like to believe that he believed every word in the yad and that the stuff he says in the moreh, oftentimes contradicting Chazal and the mesorah, was only said for the greater good of society-he personally didn't believe them. The non-observant philosopher, on the other hand, would say the opposite, that in the Moreh he articulates what he really believed, not in the Yad. Ultimately there's no objective measure to determine who's right. R. Isidore Twersky in his book on the Rambam tried to argue that there is no stira, that the moreh and the yad compliment each other. I don't find his arguments compelling. These two sefarim are incompatible and, ultimately, we are left in the dark, never able to objectively determine which of the two Rambam's sefarim were written with ulterior motives. You then write "I am uncomfortably using the Rambam as a poster boy for rationalism." I am using "rationalism" in a loose colloquial sense. Rambam believed in an evidence based religiosity, that we believe in God because His existence can be proven. That project, IMHO, failed. For every proof proving existence there's a proof to the contrary. That is precisely why I believe that the non-rationalist/Kabbalist approach is a better option. They offer an a-rationalist approach ("a-rational," not to be confused with "irrational," they're not the same). They believe because they chose to believe not-because they are "convinced." Their mehalach is more appealing to our post/modern generation where few people believe in absolute truths, and, it's also truer to our tradition. We were always a a-rational tradition until Maimonides came along and changed that. Which brings me to my next point. You then write "...means accepting Chazal's historical and scientific claims as being from ruach haqodesh. And not stam as meshalim." implying that I believe that stories in Chazal or Torah are meshalim. [Chas lei lezar'eih deAvraham deleimru hakha]; God forbid that I should make such a suggestion. I am saying something radically different. We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims. A faith claim is a religious "belief" not a scientific claim. Two things distinguish the chasid's experience of reading Torah from the philosopher's experience. When the chasid reads those stories he or she a) doesn't pause to ask if it's "true" they just learn it. "Truth" isn't a primary orientation of their encounter with toras Ha'shem. B) In the event that he does pause to ask the "truth" question, his approach is a-rational and unscientific. The truth question, for him or her, is internal to the system as is the solution. It truthfully and absolutely happened in the Torah. It's not denying the claim, it's just ignoring the scientific objective layer. Because the chasid's yiddishkeit happens exclusively in the religious realm. I also think there's a lot of confusion between what I'm arguing and what you're responding to. Briefly: 1) As I wrote to Chana: Chassidim and chassidut is not same. Chassidim today have little to do with chassidut. Contemporary chassidic philosophy is a complete deviation from original chassidut. 2) A-rationalism isn't one iota less sophisticated than rationalism. These are two parallel philosophies each with their own set of nuanced assumptions, postulates, and assumptions. 3) My program has nothing to do with neo-chassidut. NC is a behaviorist movement with very little philosophical underpinning. I'm proposing a theological program which also happens to have behavioral implications. Rabbi Ysoscher Katz Chair, Department of Talmud, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School; Director of the Lindenbaum Center for Halakhic Studies; Educational Director of Judaic Studies, Luria Academy, Brooklyn, NY.; Rabbi, Prospect Heights Shul. E-mail: ysoscher at gmail.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 08:55:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 11:55:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] 100% Vegetable oils etc. (Walker Crisps) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <557DA3F6.8050406@sero.name> On Areivim, Kaganoff wrote: > Zev Sero wrote: >> Kaganoff wrote: >>> Zev Sero wrote: >>>> Kaganoff wrote: >>>>> I would be rather surprised if there was a genuine kashrus concern >>>>> from with the Walker Crisps from any meat contamination. >>>>> Any meat would be batel. >>>> It's flavouring. >>> We hold of bittul b'shishim. >> Only as a general assumption that at that dilution it can't be tasted. >> Not applicable to concentrated flavourings which are designed to be tasted >> at high dilution. > That is a chumrah that you could adopt, but should not force on others. Why do you call it a chumra? Do you deny that the din is about ta`am, not percentage, and bitul beshishim is merely a general assumption that at that level of dilution there is no ta`am? >>> And it's a not a flavoring for this particular product. So it is not >>> avida l'ta'amei, even at less than 60. >> Since when does the fact that it wasn't intended to be in this product make it >> not intended for its taste? > That is why companies spend thousands of dollars perfecting formulas > for what is and is not used in a product. If it is not used as an > ingredient, then it was not meant to flavor this product. Once again, so what? Where did you get this idea that it matters whether it was intended to be in this product? Perhaps you're thinking of nosen ta'am lifgam, and saying that even a pleasant flavour, if it was not intended to be in a particular dish, may be considered a pegam in that dish. But that doesn't work. Suppose a chef created a dish flavoured with lard, but made a mistake; he put in too much, or too little, or didn't cook it long enough, or cooked it too long, or at the wrong temperature, and the final flavour of the dish isn't what he was aiming for. It's pleasant, and the diners eat it up and compliment him, but he knows that it wasn't meant to taste like that, and his recipe needs work. Can you imagine calling that dish pagum, and allowing it to be eaten?! That's obviously not tenable. So how is this case any different? A pleasant and desirable flavour has made its way into a product that wasn't intended to have that flavour. Does that make it pagum?!! No. It's a good product, it's just not the product that's on the label. The product that's on the label is kosher, but the product that's inside the packet is treif, exactly as if a labelling error had occurred. >>>>> Stam Keilim Ain ben Yomo. >>>> Are you joking? That klal is clearly not true in any commercial setting. >>> Why do you assume that it is clearly not true. Or rather you are >>> assuming that in a majority of cases, meat is used the same day as >>> the kosher product. That strikes me as a bit extreme. >> It's not at all extreme. Everyone knows that commercial equipment is almost >> *never* idle for 24 hours at a time. And since the meat flavouring is a >> regular product it stands to reason that it's processed every day. > Do you know this for a fact about this particular plant? Otherwise, > it's an assumption that you can make, as per Chazal. Everyone knows that it's true about *all* commercial equipment. And we have no right to "assume" something we know not to be true. Stam keilim einom bnei yomam is simply not a valid rule in the context of commercial equipment today. >> In any case, the issue here isn't keilim, since the flavouring is cold, and >> sprayed on cold chips. If it were keilim then there would be no bittul >> beshishim, since stam keilim are more than 1/60 of their contents. No, >> the issue here is the residue of actual flavouring that remains in the >> equipment after the meat flavours are run, until it is cleaned. > Which again would be batel within the first few products of the new run. It might be, if we knew the order in which the flavours are run. But they refuse to disclose that information. What we do know is that the plain chips are run first, so they're acceptable. After that all bets are off. There is no way to be sure that the packet of non-meat-flavoured chips you are eating was not the first one off the rank immediately after a meat run. >>>>> It's not Avida L'Ta'amei, etc. >>>> It's precisely avida letaama -- it's a flavouring! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 16:53:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 19:53:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> References: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150614235339.GA15695@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 01:30:46AM -0400, Ysoscher via Avodah wrote: : R. Micha, you write "I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle : applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word : in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think : "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." : : This is pure conjecture, perhaps even wishful thinking. The Rambam : shares the 7th principle in which he argues that one may disseminate : untruths for the greater good of society.... Yes, but he says it in an introduction explaining a particular kind of book -- which the Moreh is, and the Yad isn't. Whereas the Yad self-describes as being Mishneh Torah, explanation, not obfuscation. So why look to the intro to the Moreh to muddle what the Rambam himself says was the point of the Yad? In either case, the Rambam describes Yad and the Peirush haMishnayos a explanations written to be comprehensible to the masses. Moreh 2:35 (el-Qafih ["Kapach"]): Kevar bi'arti likhlal benei adam ... veheivesi ra'ayos al kakh ubirartav bePeirush haMishnah ubeMishneh Torah... : You and I as Orthodox Jews would like to believe that he believed every : word in the yad and that the stuff he says in the moreh, oftentimes : contradicting Chazal and the mesorah, was only said for the greater : good of society-he personally didn't believe them. The non-observant : philosopher, on the other hand, would say the opposite, that in the : Moreh he articulates what he really believed, not in the Yad. Actually, I tend to side with the anti-Mamonidians. Mostly because his model of redemption leaves people like my son Shuby (who has Downs) wandering around the palace with no hope of getting in. (To paraphrase 3:51.) : You then write "I am uncomfortably using the Rambam as a poster boy : for rationalism." : : I am using "rationalism" in a loose colloquial sense... Which is so loose as to be meaningless. The Rambam predated science, and followed the secular authority. Rationalism today refers to emprical and other objective proof. : That project, IMHO, failed. For every proof : proving existence there's a proof to the contrary. That is precisely : why I believe that the non-rationalist/Kabbalist approach is a better : option. They offer an a-rationalist approach ("a-rational," not to be : confused with "irrational," they're not the same). They believe because : they chose to believe not-because they are "convinced." Yeah, but so does the Gra's Qabbalah or Mussar. Mussar in particular replaces the Rambam's akrasia based on knowlege / wisdom, and therefore redemption through getting the right knowledge, with talk of first-hand experience, emotions, subconscious, etc... : You then write "...means accepting Chazal's historical and scientific : claims as being from ruach haqodesh. And not stam as meshalim." implying : that I believe that stories in Chazal or Torah are meshalim. : : [Chas lei lezar'eih deAvraham deleimru hakha]; God forbid that I should : make such a suggestion. I am saying something radically different. Well, I wouldn't lump the two together. The Rambam is far from alone in considering aggadic stories to be meshalim repeated with not concern about historicity. Much like you wrote -- an authentic attitude toward such things would be to not care about what really happened. Not to assert they are or aren't historical. (Although the Rambam would tell you to assume the wilder ones aren't historical, lest you make a joke out of the Torah -- the first two of the three katim described in his haqdamah to mishnah Cheileq.) : We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims. A : faith claim is a religious "belief" not a scientific claim... Agreed. BUT... the kind of problem I thought you were trying to address was the person who felt the Torah and academia conflict. To invoke this dichotomy to resolve the issue would be to allow people to assert ahistoricity, rather than avoiding a position altogether. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The true measure of a man micha at aishdas.org is how he treats someone http://www.aishdas.org who can do him absolutely no good. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Samuel Johnson From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 06:49:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ken Bloom via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 09:49:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What FDA Learned About Dark Chocolate and Milk Allergies Message-ID: > > > Actually it sounds to me that one very much can rely on the > > label (from this example). The trace amounts [the LBD are] talking > > about are much, much less than 1/60. Completely bateil, > > totally parve, but enough to elicit an allergic reaction. > I remember learning about a machlokes concerning whether we hold dairy > can be batel to pareve, or whether we say that since there is no loss (at > least, not the total loss that we have when something becomes nonkosher) > we should simply consider it dairy. But I don't remember how we hold on > this issue. Anyone else? > And shouldn't these questions be on Avodah? > Akiva Miller What's the machloket? Doesn't the Rema YD 99:6 clearly hold that that milk is batel in parve? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 14:00:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 17:00:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safeik and Multivalent Logic Message-ID: <20150615210040.GA17358@aishdas.org> Back on Fri, 14 May 2004 10:45am EST (yes, 11 years ago) I wrote on the thread "Valid halachic change" I wrote: > I was at a yarchei (yarei'ach? shavu'ah -- since it was only a > week?) kallah during Elul in Boston where RYBS explicitly said is wasn't. > He also speaks about multivalent logic in halakhah in numorous places > in Ish haHalakhah. From the [yarchei kallah]: > An esrog that was used for the mitzvah is qadosh and assur behana'ah > that entire day. And since it's qadosh bein hashemashos, it's gadosh > part of the next day and therefore assur behan'ah the entire next day. > RYBS asked (as do many) mimanafshach: Either BhS is part of the first > day, and there's an isur hana'ah BhS. But in that case BhS isn't part > of the next day, and on that day han'ah should be mutar. Or, BhS is part > of the 2nd day, and the issur would end BhS! > Rather, for certain sefeiqos both chalosim apply. It's only when the > chalos turns into a pe'ulah that we are forced to choose. > Therefore, one can daven either minchah or ma'ariv BhS. Even switch off > between days. But not both in the same BhS. > This is why a woman who is from safeiq chalal history (Rashi and Tosafos > disagree on details of the case) is called an "almanas issah", the widow > of a dough, a mixture. > This shtims with the teshuvas RAEiger distinguishing kol deparish meiruba > parish and kol kavu'ah kemechtzah al mechtzah. When the question is one > of pasqening on an unknown situation, we follow rov. When one is trying > to resolve a question that arose after the pesaq, rov doesn't apply. > Rov is a non-boolean state, something between yes and no. Therefore, > it does not apply after we've taken the question from the realm of > machshavah to that of ma'aseh. > Also, Rav Tzadoq (Resisei Laylah 17) distringuishes between the logic of > machshavah and that of pe'ulah, saying that when it comes to machshavah, > it's impossible to consider one thing without also considering its > opposite. RThK then develops this idea to explain eilu va'eilu as being > about real plurality. (More on this when I summarize the articles whose > URLs have been posted to the list.) I'm repeating all this because, once again, AhS Yomi showed me that something I thought I understood was more complicated than I realized. AhS OC 638:5 distinguishes between muqtza machmas mitzvah and other forms of muqtza when it comes to migo de'isqatzei bein hashemashos, isqatza'ei lekhulei yoma. And so, sukkah and its decorations (the topic of OC 688) are muqtzah the following day. But beitzah shenoledah beYT rishon is not muqtzah on the next day. So the example RYBS brings of esrog fits this pattern too -- muqtzah machmas mitzvah is muqtzah the day after it's used for the mitzvah. However, RYBS used it to make a general point about the nature of BhS, and I surmized safeiq in general. I don't understand how we can, if even withint the topic of mutqzah we find BhS acting both like a mixture of states and being in one of the two states -- although we don't know which -- depending on the kind of muqtzah we're talking about. Thoughts, anyone? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The Maharal of Prague created a golem, and micha at aishdas.org this was a great wonder. But it is much more http://www.aishdas.org wonderful to transform a corporeal person into a Fax: (270) 514-1507 "mensch"! -Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 14:44:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 17:44:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Worker or Craftsman In-Reply-To: <5579B89C.8060902@sero.name> References: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> <5579B89C.8060902@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150615214430.GA17695@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 12:34:36PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Eruvin 65a: Anan po`alei diy'mamei anan. The context is talmud Torah, and speaks to the fact that when it comes to Torah, it's the amount of learning, not the success at comprehension, that matters most. See also the Me'iri ad loc, who says simply that R' Nachman bar Yitzchaq is saying we should learn the whole day, because that's the only way we'll fully understand. Which alines with R' Zeira's statement, when he was complemented "Mechadedan shema'iskha!" and he replied "diyemama ninhu." I do not think it can be applied to my question -- whether life is a job of "be good as long as you're here", or if we each have a specific task we were put here to accomplish. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Take time, micha at aishdas.org be exact, http://www.aishdas.org unclutter the mind. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 15:01:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 18:01:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] 100% Vegetable oils etc. In-Reply-To: <20150610.215234.27464.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150610.215234.27464.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150615220103.GB17695@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 01:52:34AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : ... I would think that non-kosher flavorings cannot be batel. Bitul : is a mathematical procedure by which we can presume that the non-kosher : ingredient is not noticeable... In fact, the only time the mishnah invokes bitul beshishim is with min bemino, so that you can't tell which of two identically tasting substances one is tasting. (Chullin 7:4-5, Zevachim 8:6) Rava (Chullin 97a-b) says that if a non-Jew can be asked to taste a substance, we rely on their statement, but if not (eg min bemino), then we use batel beshishim. In contrast, Bar Kaparah holds kol issurin shebiTorah is beshishim. Ta'am is just a derabbaanan that doesn't allow us to use the fundamental 1/60 bitul. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you're going through hell micha at aishdas.org keep going. http://www.aishdas.org - Winston Churchill Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 11:20:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 14:20:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> References: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150616182036.GA13263@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 6:34pm EDT, RYK wrote: : 1) You are making the mistake many others are making as well, conflating : chassidim with chassidut. Chassidic life today has very little to do with : original chassidut. Early chassidut was a revolutionary theological : movement which appealed to a small elitist group... I thought Chassidus started out a kiruv movement, designed to bring Judaism to the kind of people Litta's focus on learning left without religion. Like the story of the boy who played his prayers on his flute, or the one who recited the alef beis over and over and begged HQBH to weave them into the right words. But in any case, to get closer to the point I intended to make... ... : 2) Kabbalah and chassidut isn't about warmth and community. It's a highly : sophisticated philosophical system which offers a nuanced alternative : to the Maimonidean/rationalist approach. : While the approach is a-rational, it isn't irrational. I am not sure how you're using "a-rational". Even after your consequent explanation (posted Sun Jun 14, 1:30am EDT): : They offer an a-rationalist approach ("a-rational," not to be : confused with "irrational," they're not the same). They believe because : they chose to believe not-because they are "convinced." What is this a-rational stance that is also highly philosophical and yet not the experiential chassidus of the nostalgic memories with which you opened your blog post? I cannot figure out what you're getting at. Contining the first post: : 3) Finally, I'm not sure I understand your point about the Rambam. The : Rambam says that he believes it is justified to fool and mislead the : masses. That to me is highly problematic. And in the follow-up post he elaborated: : R. Micha, you write "I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle : applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word : in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think : "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." In an introduction to a philosophical book he thought was a bad idea to write that he produced as a necessary evil. Thus the title of the Moreh Nevuchim. It's a tactic he had to reveal the esoteric to those ready for it while keeping it esoteric. Recall, that while we think of Pardes's "sod" as Qabbalah, to him it was more like the Moreh. In the Pesichah the Rambam limits the need of obfuscation to the topics of Maaseh haMerkavah and Maaseh Bereishis. So, after the first 5 chapters of the Yad, the whole discussion in the pesichah and haqdamah of the Moreh wouldn't apply. ... : We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims... Just like I loathe using the word rationalism because it's so vague in meaning as to just add to the confusion, let me add the word "fact". We use it to mean (a) a truth, (b) an empirical/physical truth, (c) a truth established by evidence, (d) an empirical truth established by evidence, and in legal settings: (e) the empirical evidence itself ("let me present the facts of this case"). : We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims. A : faith claim is a religious "belief" not a scientific claim... ... and therefore there is a gap between religious beliefs and scientific claims. Belief is yet another dangerous word. Knowledge is classically (Plato) defined as a justified true belief. In that sense, anything you accept as true is a belief. Other times we use belief in contrast to knowledge. A usage that ends up undermining confidence in something we seem to overtly be claiming is true. After all, if you think it's true, and you think you have real reason to think it's true, why say "believe" rather than "know"? Which gets me back to the point, I hope. You talk about belief in chassidus being an act of will. Personally, I agree with Rihal when he has the chaver note that anything one philosopher can prove, another can prove the opposite. (Kuzari 1:13) Religion isn't amenable to proof, and that's why Scholasticism, the idea of giving religion a philosophical underpinning, lost momentum centuries ago. The reasons why are two-fold: First, negi'os. People cannot really objetively think about these topics. They end up liking proofs of disliking proofs based on where they already decided things should end up. Like one of the truisms in my signature file generator says: The mind is a wonderful organ for justifying decisions the heart already reached. So, whether or not you agree that some postulate is self-evident (Kant: synthetic a priori) and therefore the proof works will depend more on whether you want to believe than actual obviousness. Second, the experiences upon which religious belief gets justified are internal. Questions of whether Shabbos, kashrus, or some of the more elegant outcomes of lomdus statisfy my Search For Meaning (Frankl) is quite a bit more difficult (usually impossible) to duplicate for someone else. Unlike a getting someone else to experience something empirical that you did by repeating a science experiment. But I think chassidic belief, even as per your description of it, is rational rather than an act of will. It's not Scholastic, expecting the kind of proof that would have make R' Saadia Gaon or the Rambam happy, but it is based on deriving a conclusion that fits one's evidence (ie experiences). I would say "rational" but not "rationalist", except that just highlights how many problems we get into throwing around the word "rationalism". This is true about how emunah works whether speaking about why people become BT, go OTD, or even if we're speaking of the Rambam. The Rambam lived in a world that didn't value non-philosophical justification, so he felt that real emunah required Scholasticism. (There was a time, not that long ago, when most people's emunah was backed by Reliabilism. My parents and community have a track record of being reliable sources of truth, so I trust them on this too.) To my mind, the difference is whether someone values the chizuq emunah of affirming that conclusions with that half of the philosophical proofs that end up in the right place. The rationalist does so, thinking that's *why* he believes (despite the Kuzari). Some of us simply enjoy philoosphy or consider such explorations to be part of talmud Torah. And others simply don't need the exercise. : a) doesn't pause to ask if it's "true" they just learn it. "Truth" : isn't a primary orientation of their encounter with toras Ha'shem. B) In : the event that he does pause to ask the "truth" question, his approach : is a-rational and unscientific... Again, if it's taken for granted as being true, truth is still at issue. Moreso, they really don't discuss truth because trueh is a given. It's like water not being the primary orientation of fish. : It truthfully and absolutely : happened in the Torah. It's not denying the claim, it's just ignoring : the scientific objective layer. Because the chasid's yiddishkeit happens : exclusively in the religious realm. Lets plow through the words and just ask outright: A chassid would take it for granted that a time traveler would find the Yam Suf divided into 13 tunnels with everything you might want available to be plucked from the walls. No? You may deprecate the importance of that historical claim to the belief system of Chassidic Judaism. I would agree that chassidim do not consider the historicity important. But the belief is there, and for reasons that speak volumes about the gap between chassidus and MO as a potential target audience. Chassidim have to accept the historicity of this midrashic elaboration of Qerias Yam Suf because maximalism and acceptance of rabbinic authority run much stronger in comparison to confidence in one's own truthometer in chassidus. Part of the value of having a rebbe is to believe he has access to truths I don't. And similarly one's rebbe's rebbes, and so on through Chazal and whomever repeated that medrash. To a community that teaches the value of other sources of knowledge, such as secular historians or other professionals, such maximalism is impossible, and therefore bitul to a rebbe will always be limited. Yes, it would be of value to realize that historical claims are non-central to religion. It makes it much easier to table any questions one might have in those areas as not being important, therefore not very pressing. Things that can wait for an answer rather than being responded to now, with what I know now, or taken as an upshlug. ... : 3) My program has nothing to do with neo-chassidut. NC is a behaviorist : movement with very little philosophical underpinning. I'm proposing a : theological program which also happens to have behavioral implications. I understood this. However, NC is an indication of what elements of chassidus actually were found useful by MO Jews. You're theorizing which elements you thought would in theory be more useful. I am asking about the difference between the two. If your theory were correct about what MO could use, wouldn't the Neo-Chassidim have locked on to those three points? IOW, I know they are different, and some idea as to how -- but why? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Weeds are flowers too micha at aishdas.org once you get to know them. http://www.aishdas.org - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 11:53:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 18:53:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Asking your questions to one authority Message-ID: <45cbca92b332457591636332317a5855@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> I'm looking for sources concerning a requirement or good advice concerning asking all your questions to one authority. According to some commentaries the mishna (actually mentioned twice) in Avot concerning aseih lcha rav points in this direction as does the gemara in eiruvin on not picking all the leniencies of both beit hillel and shammai. OTOH the gemara in avodah zara about not asking 2 rabbis is interpreted as applying only to the particular question at hand. From a Brisker theory angle wouldn't the existence of overarching theoretical constructs argue that all your questions should go to one authority so as to avoid the possible tartei dsatrei on a meta-theory basis (i.e. psak in kashrut case a may share a construct with psak in business case b)? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 13:36:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 16:36:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Asking your questions to one authority In-Reply-To: <45cbca92b332457591636332317a5855@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> References: <45cbca92b332457591636332317a5855@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <558088EA.2070102@sero.name> On 06/16/2015 02:53 PM, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > From a Brisker theory angle wouldn?t the existence of overarching > theoretical constructs argue that all your questions should go to one > authority so as to avoid the possible tartei dsatrei on a meta-theory > basis (i.e. psak in kashrut case a may share a construct with psak in > business case b)? Hilchesa keRav be'isurei vechiShmuel bedinei. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 16:30:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 19:30:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why Chassidut In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150616233048.00B061836ED@nexus.stevens.edu> At 02:20 PM 6/16/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: > From Rav Yehoshua Shapira (my quick translation) > >The idea that Chassidut?s positive atmosphere isn?t obligatory is a >serious mistake. Not only is it obligatory, but it brings with it more >obligations. Without emphasis on the Mitzvot of ahava and yirah, simcha >and deveikut (which are the soul of the 613 mitzvot) the mitzvot remain >external actions, technical, something which doesn?t affect or uplift >the heart and soul. > >Those doreitta mitzvot, which are the pinimiot of all mitzvoth, demand >from a person and from us to give their entire being when doing a >mitzvah. . . .. In the performance of mitzvoth, God wants our hearts. >Therefore, Chassidut definitely demands deep dedication. > The following is from Rav Dr. Y. Breuer's Essay "Our Way" that appears in the collection of Rav Breuer's essays titled A Unique Perspective. One should not confuse Chassidus with the so-called Chassidic movement that began in Poland in the 18th century. The latter met the needs of the Jewish masses who lived in terrible misery, and thus spread rapidly. Tefillah was projected into the foreground, from which flowed strength and faith in God; dances and songs induced enthusiasm and joyfulness; the stress on human and hu- mane qualities increased the self-respect of the impoverished. Thus, without a doubt, Chassidism saved these Jewish masses. However, the resulting frequent neglect of Torah study led to justified protest by Torah giants and caused a regrettable inner rift, which was subsequently healed when a great Chassidic leader returned the study of Torah to its rightful central position. Genuine Chassidic Jewishness strives for Chassidus, which in itself is a lofty achievement on the ethical ladder which the Yehudi must attempt to climb. This is demonstrated for us by R. Pinchas ben Yair (Avodah Zarah 20b): Our highest duty is Torah and its study; this leads to carefulness which in turn leads to active striving; to guiltlessness; to purity; to holiness; to modesty; to the fear of sin; and, finally, to Chassidus. Accordingly, a Chassid is a Jew who gives himself in limitless love to the Divine Will and its realization, and to whom the welfare of his fellowmen constitutes the highest source of satisfaction (see Chorev, Ch. 14). Thus, in the Talmudic era, the title ?Chassid? was a mark of highest distinction ? and this is what it should be today. The so-called Chassid who confines his Avodah to prayer does not deserve this title, as this ?Avodah of the heart? does not call him to the Avodah of life where he must practice and apply the precepts of Chassidus. He does not deserve this title if he is particular regarding the kashrus of his food but fails to apply the precepts of conscientiousness and honesty to his business dealings. He does not deserve this title if his social life is not permeated by love and deep interest in the welfare of his fellowmen; if he does not shun quarreling, envy or even abominable lashon harah; if he does not earnestly strive to acquire those midos for which Rav Hirsch (in his Chorev) calls so eloquently. Certainly the mere exhibition of a certain type of clothing or the type of beard worn or even the adornment of long sideburns does not entitle the bearer to the title of honor?Chassid. These may be marks of distinction ? but they must be earned to be deserved. Even study of the Zohar does not necessarily signify the attainment of Chassidus. If this were so, only a few chosen ones would be eligible. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 23:03:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2015 09:03:25 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] If and When In-Reply-To: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 5:00 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > Please note: In the excerpt of the Mechilta which the Torah Temimah quotes > regarding the mizbe'ach, R' Yishmael says that there are 3 cases where "im" > is not optional, but the other two are not specified. This is very > different than the Torah Temimah about lending money. > > Torah Temimah Shmos 22:198 does quotes R' Yishmael in the Mechilta, but it > doesn't mention the word "im" explicitly, nor is there any reference to two > other cases. He simply asks whether it is a reshus or a chovah to lend > money, and he answers that the obligation appears in Parshas Re'eh. I find > it curious that this Mechilta is worded so differently than the previous > one, but the message is clearly the same. You see this quite often in the Torah Temima when a derasha says something about a number of pesukim in parallel. He quotes the same source in each place, but redacts it so that it appears to be referencing only that specific verse. An example in last week's parasha is the Yerushalmi that all 10 commandments are referenced in Kiryat Shma`, quoted on 15:39 and 41 (OK, not such a close parallel because in that case he does make the cross-reference and quotes the whole passage on Shemot 20:2, but there are plenty of other examples) In any case, inside the Mechilta on both verses in Shemot all three "im"s are listed each time, including bikkurim. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=38109&st=&pgnum=245 http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=38109&st=&pgnum=317 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 17 02:14:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2015 05:14:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Talks by Rav Shimon Schwab, ZT"L Message-ID: <20150617091410.A8547183759@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://torahdownloads.com/shiur-24386.html YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 17 04:00:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2015 07:00:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] =?iso-8859-1?q?Soul_Terminology=2C_and_Expressions_of_Lo?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ve=3A_Proper_Frum_Expression_In_The_Lens_of_the_Ashkenaz_T?= =?iso-8859-1?q?radition_=96_Gleanings__From_Rav_Shimon_Schwab?= Message-ID: <20150617110051.2F7B9183762@nexus.stevens.edu> Please see http://tinyurl.com/q64ehha YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 18 06:50:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2015 09:50:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Ishbaal's Jar Message-ID: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> According to TOI or , discusses finding a jar that dates to around 1020-980 BCE (Iron Age), breating the name the name of Ishbaal ben Beda. Ishbaal is Divrei HaYamim's name for the son of Shaul whom seifer Shemuel calls Ishboshet. (Probably because bearing the name of Baal is a bushah.) Allegedly "Among Judeans, personal names evoking Baal fell out of fashion after the 10th century, but not so among their Israelite cousins to the north." Lisa, does any of this relate to strengthening or weakening the case for revisionist dating? (Newcomers might wish to see the Jewish Action article Lisa has on her site at to understand why I asked.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person must be very patient micha at aishdas.org even with himself. http://www.aishdas.org - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 18 07:43:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2015 17:43:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Ishbaal's Jar In-Reply-To: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> References: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 4:50 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > According to TOI < > http://www.timesofisrael.com/inscription-bearing-name-from-davidic-era-found-at-ancient-site > > > or , discusses finding a jar that dates to around > 1020-980 BCE (Iron Age), breating the name the name of Ishbaal ben Beda. > See also http://bit.ly/1F2HFD9 (= https://www.academia.edu/12775087/The_%CA%BEI%C5%A1ba%CA%BFal_Inscription_from_Khirbet_Qeiyafa) for a more detailed excavation report. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 19 11:46:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 13:46:46 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Ishbaal's Jar In-Reply-To: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> References: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55846396.5000207@starways.net> On 6/18/2015 8:50 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > According to TOI > or , discusses finding a jar that dates to around > 1020-980 BCE (Iron Age), breating the name the name of Ishbaal ben Beda. > > Ishbaal is Divrei HaYamim's name for the son of Shaul whom seifer > Shemuel calls Ishboshet. (Probably because bearing the name of Baal > is a bushah.) The standard form for names in most of the ancient near east was DN-stem, or stem-DN, where DN is a divine name. We have this pattern ourselves with names like Chizki-Yahu and N'tan-El, or El-Chanan and Yeho-natan. From what I've seen, it wasn't unheard of for people to refer to the same person, but exchange the DN. So Ish-Boshet for Ish-Baal is in line with Hado-Ram (I Chron 18:10) for Yo-Ram (II Sam 8:10), or Hado-Ram (II Sam 20:24, I Kings 12:18, II Chron 10:18) for Adoni-Ram (I Kings 4:6, 5:28). I don't see any indication that this pattern of name was different towards the beginning or towards the end of the monarchy. That said, Baal in particular sort of declined after the time of Eliyahu. They had newer avodah zarahs to play with. I don't really see a lot of chronological significance here. Yes, they did some radiometric dating, but as always, I would take that with grain of salt until I saw the raw results. When you send something for carbon dating, you tell them first what your target date is, so that they can discard results that are off from that too significantly. Not very scientific, but I guess it's "science-y". Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 19 13:38:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 16:38:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Soul Terminology, and Expressions of Love: Proper Frum Expression In The Lens of the Ashkenaz Tradition ? Gleanings From Rav Shimon Schwab In-Reply-To: <20150617110051.2F7B9183762@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150617110051.2F7B9183762@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150619203804.GA23818@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 17, 2015 at 07:00:53AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Please see http://tinyurl.com/q64ehha On the second example, I'm reminded of the Soloveitchik tradition that emotions are the Qodesh haQadashim of avodas Hashem. And therefore while RSSschwab's position was depited as: > Nowadays one at times witnesses public statements, in the form of songs, > declarations, and even bumper stickers, proclaiming [HQBH anachnu ohavim > Osakh!] (Hashem, we love you), an expression that was not commonly heard > shouted aloud in the past in our circles. Is that in consonance with our > [Mesorah]? Rav Schwab (in his address entitled Internalizing Eternity) > states the following (after 33:20) Since Ahavas Hashem is such a strictly > personal matter, he who truly loves Hashem does not show his [Ahavah]. He > rather hides it. It is far too intimate to parade it in public. He is > mekayeim [vehatzneia lekhes im E-lokekha]. It is exclusively his private > affair, between him and his Creator. Briskers would not expose any emotion. And so, when RYBS left for Berlin, R' Moshe took him to the train station, but there was no emotional goodbye. Even though RMF didn't know if he would ever see his son (and chavrusah) again. RYBS said he knew his father's feelings at the moment, he just knew that he would never display it publicly. Just a simple "Leikh leshalom HQBH zul dir matzliach zein!" Story told far better, in RYBS's own words here In any case, the Brisker approach doesn't speak to too many people in this generation. I would bet many of us would consider it less-than-positive. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger One who kills his inclination is as though he micha at aishdas.org brought an offering. But to bring an offering, http://www.aishdas.org you must know where to slaughter and what Fax: (270) 514-1507 parts to offer. - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 22 06:53:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2015 09:53:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kuntros chasidei umos haolam Message-ID: <0ce401d0acf2$c108d8f0$431a8ad0$@com> The was once a link posted here to a Kuntros chasidei umos haolam (In hebrew) from a Rav in south Africa (I think he was an Ohr Samach graduate) Does anyone have it or a link to it? Thanks, mc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 22 14:32:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2015 17:32:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Two Levels of Bitachon Message-ID: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is from Rav Schwab on Chumash Parshas Shelach. We suggest the following explanation: Hashem demands bitachon of every Jew - trust in Hashem that everything will turn out for the best, without worrying about what the future might bring. Throughout the generations, devout Jews have walked this path. A person with bitachon ultimately will merit to see clearly that, indeed, "All that Hashem does is for the best." There are two types of bitachon. The first is trusting in Hashem with "closed eyes," with no speculation about what may develop. However, there is a second kind of bitachon that is even greater than the first. This is the bitachon of "open eyes." One who follows this path looks ahead and sees clearly that the future might entail great danger, that his life may be full of trials and tribulations. Nevertheless, he does not hesitate, relying on Hashem to help him deal with whatever the future will hold. This kind of bitachon is greater than the first, because someone who trusts in :Hashem with "open eyes" must elevate his bitachon to a much higher level in order to overcome his worries and quiet his concerns. However, as great as this second path is, it is fraught with danger. There is a strong possibility that instead of overcoming one's fears and worries, one will be vanquished by them. A "realistic" evaluation of the challenges could be so frightening as to cause one to lose his bitachon in Hashem altogether. Therefore, :although the bitachon of "open eyes" might be appropriate for certain great people, Hashem does not demand it of us. Hashem only requires us to have the bitachon of "closed eyes"; we need only trust that everything will turn out for the best, in accordance with His will, without considering what the future might hold. This is implied in the pasuk (Yeshayahu 12:2), 11) Behold the G-d of salvation; I shall trust in Him, and I will not fear. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 12:26:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 21:26:11 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Two Levels of Bitachon In-Reply-To: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <5589B2D3.5030908@zahav.net.il> I'm not sure what this is in reference to, the sin of the spies? What does it mean, to live ones life without worrying about the future? You trust in God so therefore you're calm (meaning you live your life the same way anyone else does, but you have inner peace)? Ben On 6/22/2015 11:32 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > We suggest the following explanation: Hashem demands bitachon of every > Jew - trust > in Hashem that everything will turn out for the best, without worrying > about > what the future might bring. Throughout the generations, devout Jews > have walked > this path. A person with bitachon ultimately will merit to see clearly > that, indeed, > "All that Hashem does is for the best." From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 14:34:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 17:34:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Two Levels of Bitachon In-Reply-To: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150623213434.GA30077@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 22, 2015 at 05:32:42PM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : The following is from Rav Schwab on Chumash Parshas Shelach. ... : There are two types of bitachon. The first is trusting in Hashem with "closed : eyes," with no speculation about what may develop. However, there is : a second kind : of bitachon that is even greater than the first. This is the : bitachon of "open eyes." : One who follows this path looks ahead and sees clearly that the : future might entail : great danger, that his life may be full of trials and tribulations. : Nevertheless, he : does not hesitate, relying on Hashem to help him deal with whatever : the future will : hold... I just want to point out that RSS here is assuming the descriptive bitachon of the CI, not the prescrictive bitachon of Novhardok (and many kiruv programs and religious fiction). The Alter of Novhardok taught that bitachon causes positive results. If you trust G-d enough, He will make things turn out the way you desire. And when you point out to said public speaker that indeed life doesn't work that way this idea gets modified into: Hashem will make things turn out the way you'll be happy with once you get to the end of the road. And while I'm being cynical about it, this is unassailable. If things don't yet have a happy ending, it just means the story isn't over yet. You can just push the long run out further and further until you find the happy outcome you promised. In Emunah uBitchon, the CI rejects this notion. He says that bitachon is belief that things are working out according to Divine Plan. A believe in how things run, not a belief that causes things to run right. Rather than the comfort of knowing that you'll like the results, one aims for the comfort that all of life's suffering has meaning and a purpose. RSS presumes the latter and appears to be saying that one can then take this trust in two different ways: - Since Hashem is driving, I don't need to bother looking out the windsheild, it will just stress me out for nothing. - Hashem and I are in partnership, so I cannot refrain from helping Him bring us to our destination, even when it involves heading for trials and tribulations. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is a stage and we are the actors, micha at aishdas.org but only some of us have the script. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Menachem Nissel Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 15:56:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Toby Katz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 18:56:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book Message-ID: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> I recently came across the issue of Jewish Action (the OU's quarterly magazine) of Fall 2000 and in that issue there was a remarkable article. It was a review of a two-volume book called *The Rav: The World of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik* by Rabbi Dr. Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff. The review article was written by R' Philip Weinberger. It was a very laudatory review, written by someone who admired and respected RYBS and who thought the book was excellent. It's important to note that he respected RYBS and admired the book, because when you see what I am going to quote from the review, you might think otherwise. But if you read the whole review you will clearly see that what looks like a negative to me is clearly seen as a positive by R' Weinberger. http://ou.org.s3.amazonaws.com/publications/ja/5761fall/BOOKS.PDF OK here goes -- the most interesting parts of the review (I have mostly dispensed with ellipses, which are distracting): --quote-- [The book] focused my attention on a paradox that confronts me every time a new book or article appears about the saintly Rabbi Soloveitchik, zt"l. In the latter part of the twentieth century, the Rav was one of the most outstanding rabbinic titans, teaching and leading the Jewish people. A master of communication, orally and in print, he left behind multitudes of devoted students and admirers who still hang on his every word. Yet the Rav seems to have left a legacy that is unclear and misunderstood, despite his gifted powers of communication. Among the numerous questions, debated passionately by those who represent themselves as knowing the Rav's authentic thinking, are: What was the Rav's view toward secular education; Torah u'Madda; new religious practices by women; reciting Hallel on Yom HaAtzma'ut; and Religious Zionism? There is a raging battle among his followers as to who may legitimately and authentically present the Rav's opinions, thoughts, ideas and teachings. How could so careful a teacher, who could literally spend hours at a time in shiurim defining with precision the meaning of a particular word or phrase, be misunderstood on so many basic and critical issues? The Rav himself, despite his best efforts, was misunderstood and misquoted in his lifetime by able people who presumably had the best of intentions. The Rav illustrates that he was misunderstood by journalists because of their lack of familiarity with the Rav's precise use of language and terminology, and because the Rav's thoughts, ideas and speech were extraordinarily nuanced, delicate, subtle and sophisticated. However, the book falls short, even on its own terms, in its failure to more deeply explore the complexity and nuances of the Rav's thoughts and insights that were influenced by the religious, existential, and personal tensions that the Rav experienced and talked about. Similarly, the book does not treat much of the controversy that sometimes surrounded the Rav in a meaningful way. There is no acknowledgment of how the Rav was inappropriately treated and often marginalized in the yeshivah universe because of his embracing secular studies and Religious Zionism (albeit in a disciplined and highly nuanced manner)... in a letter to Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Shragai, the Rav writes : "If I were to judge this matter (which party to associate with) based on pragmatic or political considerations, I would join the zealots who ask nothing of their members (not diligence in Torah study, not pure fear of Heaven, nor spending money on tzedakah, nor excessive care with regard to mitzvot) except to besmirch our movement. I could clothe myself with the mantle of a tzaddik and 'fighter of the Lord's battles.' " This and other letters to Rabbi Shragai show clearly what a man of principle the Rav was. ...Scholars and laymen alike are indebted to Rabbi Rakeffet for his vital work. --end quote-- Well, you can see why this review would interest me. Let's take a few points: [1] "The Rav seems to have left a legacy that is unclear and misunderstood, despite his gifted powers of communication." I would suggest that the end of the sentence is contradicted by the beginning of the sentence. The main thing that the Rav generally managed to communicate was that one could be a great Torah scholar and also be a brilliant intellectual in secular terms. This was not the text but the ur-text of much of what he wrote. I will add that he did this not for his own honor but for the honor of the Torah, which was often treated with contempt by mid-twentieth century Jews who were rapidly abandoning the Torah. But his opaque Germanic philosophical style of speaking and writing was by its very nature open to multiple interpretations, and could neither be summarized nor re-written in plain American English. [2] "Among the numerous questions, debated passionately by those who represent themselves as knowing the Rav's authentic thinking, are: What was the Rav's view toward secular education; Torah u'Madda; new religious practices by women; reciting Hallel on Yom HaAtzma'ut; and Religious Zionism?" I would have to say that this is a highly unusual thing to say of any gadol. Of which other gadol could it be said that after he taught and wrote for decades, no one could be sure what his position was on the most important issues of his day? [2A] "What was the Rav's view toward Religious Zionism?" and "his embracing Religious Zionism (albeit in a disciplined and highly nuanced manner)..." Those of us who have claimed (based admittedly, at times, on anecdotal evidence and oral reports) that RYBS was not really a Zionist have often been vilified. Yet here a great admirer of RYBS admits that his views were far from obvious, and subject to much disagreement even among his followers. That RYBS was a great lover of Eretz Yisrael -- of that there can be no doubt. That he really believed in the whole aschalta de'geulah ideology of RZ -- highly doubtful. The rest can be left for another time, or another book. [3] "How could so careful a teacher, who could literally spend hours at a time in shiurim defining with precision the meaning of a particular word or phrase, be misunderstood on so many basic and critical issues?" It may be that in a Gemara shiur, trying to define a word with great precision may lead to greater understanding, but out here in the larger world, such precise definitions tend to leave most people scratching their heads. Common everyday words lose their accepted, common meanings, and the many sentences used to define those words lead to greater obscurity rather than clarity. "When I use a word, it means precisely what I want it to mean." But his listeners or readers are often left in the dark. [4] "The Rav was misunderstood...because his thoughts, ideas and speech were extraordinarily nuanced, delicate, subtle and sophisticated." The impression left by all that subtlety and nuance is that he was trying to avoid saying anything controversial that could be quoted in a sound bite. [5] "There is no acknowledgment of how the Rav was inappropriately treated and often marginalized in the yeshivah universe" [6] "...the zealots who ask nothing of their members (not diligence in Torah study, not pure fear of Heaven, nor spending money on tzedakah, nor excessive care with regard to mitzvot) except to besmirch our movement. I could clothe myself with the mantle of a tzaddik and 'fighter of the Lord's battles...' " Maybe [6] at least partially explains [5]. Maybe the way he felt about them was reflected in the way they felt about him. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 17:52:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 00:52:25 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> References: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> Message-ID: Let's take a few points: [1] "The Rav seems to have left a legacy that is unclear and misunderstood, despite his gifted powers of communication." I would suggest that the end of the sentence is contradicted by the beginning of the sentence. [2] "Among the numerous questions, debated passionately by those who represent themselves as knowing the Rav's authentic thinking, are: What was the Rav's view toward secular education; Torah u'Madda; new religious practices by women; reciting Hallel on Yom HaAtzma'ut; and Religious Zionism?" [2A] "What was the Rav's view toward Religious Zionism?" and "his embracing Religious Zionism (albeit in a disciplined and highly nuanced manner)..." [3] "How could so careful a teacher, who could literally spend hours at a time in shiurim defining with precision the meaning of a particular word or phrase, be misunderstood on so many basic and critical issues?" [4] "The Rav was misunderstood...because his thoughts, ideas and speech were extraordinarily nuanced, delicate, subtle and sophisticated." The impression left by all that subtlety and nuance is that he was trying to avoid saying anything controversial that could be quoted in a sound bite. [5] "There is no acknowledgment of how the Rav was inappropriately treated and often marginalized in the yeshivah universe" [6] "...the zealots who ask nothing of their members (not diligence in Torah study, not pure fear of Heaven, nor spending money on tzedakah, nor excessive care with regard to mitzvot) except to besmirch our movement. I could clothe myself with the mantle of a tzaddik and 'fighter of the Lord's battles...' " Maybe [6] at least partially explains [5]. Maybe the way he felt about them was reflected in the way they felt about him. _______________________________________________ I remember reading the original review and being very surprised. [1]&[2]&[3] My general impression is that most of the lack of clarity and misunderstandings are on issues that have little to do with the style issue. I don't think many get concerned about whether Adam I and II ever resolve their dialectic . The main cause of misunderstandings imho can be generously stated as being caused by The Rav's being so sui generis that students could not assimilate the whole of his teachings. The less generous approach would be that some want to be toleh on an ilan gadol and project their own priorities and approaches on him. Could anyone who looked at his life as a whole have any doubt that he valued secular studies? That he was a non-messianic RZ lover of eretz Yisrael seems pretty clear. [4]Or how about the world is complex and our desire (btw very reflective of our host society) is to boil everything down to a sound bite goes against the educational need to understand how to look at complex issues [6]explaining [5] seems to me like the classic blaming the victim for "asking for it". I can only assume the fact that other roshei yeshiva didn't publically call for tolerance was that they did think he, and MO, was krum or they had higher priorities or didn't think their talmidim would listen to them. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 18:07:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 21:07:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: References: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> Message-ID: <20150624010730.GA18745@aishdas.org> Both Ishbitz and Chabad, Rushin and Satmar each beleive theirs is the most accurate understanding of Derekh haBhesh"t. Kelm, Novhardok and Slabodka have very different understandings of R Yisrael Salanter's teachings. RAYK's disagree over what their rebbe meant. Even Moshe Rabbeinu -- he had 70 front-row talmidim and ever since we have had 70 panim laTorah. Any gadol brilliant and subtle enough to be worth following will so outstrip his talmidim that each only grasps onto one facet and interpretation of a more complex original. This is far from unique to RYBS. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you're going through hell micha at aishdas.org keep going. http://www.aishdas.org - Winston Churchill Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 19:01:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 22:01:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: <20150624010730.GA18745@aishdas.org> References: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> <20150624010730.GA18745@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <558A0F65.7090501@sero.name> On 06/23/2015 09:07 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Both Ishbitz and Chabad, Rushin and Satmar each beleive theirs is the > most accurate understanding of Derekh haBhesh"t. Satmar doesn't believe this; rather, it believes that the BSh"T's torah has been lost. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 19:21:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 22:21:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kol Isha Twist Message-ID: <558A1421.3060009@gmail.com> See http://www.kikar.co.il/174128.html or http://www.totpi.com/2/ultra-orthodox-woman-performs-incognito-on-the-x-factor/ It's an interesting loophole: Since kol b'isha erva only applies when you know what a woman looks like, the heavy sunglasses and very modest dress may do the trick. Not middas chassidus, but perhaps on a technicality permitted. KT, YGB -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 07:35:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 10:35:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kol Isha Twist In-Reply-To: <558A1421.3060009@gmail.com> References: <558A1421.3060009@gmail.com> Message-ID: <558AC044.2010107@sero.name> On 06/23/2015 10:21 PM, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah wrote: > > It's an interesting loophole: Since kol b'isha erva only applies when > you know what a woman looks like, the heavy sunglasses and very > modest dress may do the trick. Not middas chassidus, but perhaps on a > technicality permitted. I don't see anything in the two linked articles about such a loophole. And I don't think it would work. Surely you can see enough of her to form some idea, perhaps mistaken, but enough for the yetzer hara to work with. I think the true heter for what she's doing is a lot simpler: she is not machshil anyone, because whoever is watching the show is already seeing and hearing enough women sing that one more makes no difference at all. If she didn't sing, then in all likelihood another woman would do so, wearing much less and acting more provocatively; or else a man would be giving some provocative performance that would be almost as bad. So really what has she done wrong? Those who don't normally watch should continue not to watch, and they won't be affected. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 08:33:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kaganoff via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 11:33:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating Message-ID: I am curious if anyone has written about a common practice. We assume that *Kaddish* is a *Devar she-Bikdusha* and requires a *minyan* to be recited. We require separate seating for a *Devar she-Bikdusha.* In many circles it is not uncommon to have a *siyyum* with a *kaddish *at a Bar Mitzvah or a Dinner even when there is mixed seating. Does anyone explicitly discuss this practice and permit it? Yonatan Kaganoff -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 11:38:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 14:38:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150624183849.GA2711@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 11:33:54AM -0400, Kaganoff via Avodah wrote: : We require separate seating for a *Devar she-Bikdusha.* This is news to me. Do those who say that zimmun with a minyan is a davar shebiqdushah (BY OC 199 "umah shekasav", MB s"q 15) require separate seating at my shabbos table? The AhS (200:6) refers to zimun with 10 as "shekhinta sharia", but I didn't see him mention minyan or davar shebiqdushah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 11:52:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 14:52:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating Message-ID: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> From: Kaganoff via Avodah We assume that *Kaddish* is a *Devar she-Bikdusha* and requires a *minyan* to be recited. We require separate seating for a *Devar she-Bikdusha.* In many circles it is not uncommon to have a *siyyum* with a *kaddish *at a Bar Mitzvah or a Dinner even when there is mixed seating. Does anyone explicitly discuss this practice and permit it? Yonatan Kaganoff >>>> You see something similar when people make an ad hoc minyan at a wedding (or an airport lounge). They don't put up a mechitza. Is this situation explicitly discussed in the halachic literature? It must be. Maybe what applies to one also applies to the other. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 12:32:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 15:32:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating In-Reply-To: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> References: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> Message-ID: <20150624193208.GA22316@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 2:52pm EDT, RnTK wrote: : From: Kaganoff via Avodah :> We assume that Kaddish is a Devar she-Bikdusha and requires a minyan :> to be recited. :> We require separate seating for a Devar she-Bikdusha. : You see something similar when people make an ad hoc minyan at a wedding : (or an airport lounge). They don't put up a mechitza... Slight topic change. You can have separate seating (or locations in general) without a mechitzah. I believe that minyanim were held at the kotel even when the Ottomans didn't let us put up a mechitzah by separating the genders even without one. I see R YH Henkin (Responsa on Contemporary Jewish Women's Issues, pg 124 ) rejects the hava amina that mechitzah is only for an established shul. He requires a mechitzah, not just separate seating at a temporary location for davening. While a minyan is there, the laws of mara miqdash apply. I do not whether he would advised the yishuv hayashan not to daven at the kotel. Tir'u baTov! -Micha Cc: RYHH -- Micha Berger The trick is learning to be passionate in one's micha at aishdas.org ideals, but compassionate to one's peers. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 12:21:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 19:21:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating In-Reply-To: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> References: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> Message-ID: <9d095a46ac044dd88d591c13b05195d1@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Yonatan Kaganoff >>>> You see something similar when people make an ad hoc minyan at a wedding (or an airport lounge). They don't put up a mechitza. Is this situation explicitly discussed in the halachic literature? It must be. Maybe what applies to one also applies to the other. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=922&st=&pgnum=66 where R' Moshe deals with the Mechitza issue but still requires that there not be intermingling. That's the part I'm unsure of. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 16:34:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 19:34:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safeik and Multivalent Logic In-Reply-To: <20150615210040.GA17358@aishdas.org> References: <20150615210040.GA17358@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150624233428.GA29242@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 15, 2015 at 05:00:40PM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : Back on Fri, 14 May 2004 10:45am EST (yes, 11 years ago) I wrote : on the thread : "Valid halachic change" I wrote: :> I was at a yarchei ... kallah during Elul in Boston where RYBS... :> An esrog that was used for the mitzvah is qadosh and assur behana'ah :> that entire day. And since it's qadosh bein hashemashos, it's gadosh :> part of the next day and therefore assur behan'ah the entire next day. ... :> Rov is a non-boolean state, something between yes and no. Therefore, :> it does not apply after we've taken the question from the realm of :> machshavah to that of ma'aseh. : I'm repeating all this because, once again, AhS Yomi showed me that : something I thought I understood was more complicated than I realized. : AhS OC 638:5 distinguishes between muqtza machmas : mitzvah and other forms of muqtza when it comes to migo de'isqatzei bein : hashemashos, isqatza'ei lekhulei yoma. : And so, sukkah and its decorations (the topic of OC 688) are muqtzah the : following day. But beitzah shenoledah beYT rishon is not muqtzah on the : next day. More info at AhS OC 667:1, which distinguishes between sukkah and 4 minim on Shemini Atzeres. Because sukkah would actually be used bein hashmeshos between the 7th day Sukkos and SA (speaking of EY now), a sukkah and its decorations are muqtzah on SA. The esrog, because the mitzvah would habe been done before BhS either way, is not. It would seem the point in 638:5 appears not to be that mutzah machamas mitzvah is special, but because the mitzvah would still apply BhS. : Thoughts, anyone? Still looking for other perspectives! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 25 02:54:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 09:54:58 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book Message-ID: <20150625.055458.3550.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Even Moshe Rabbeinu -- he had 70 front-row talmidim and ever since > we have had 70 panim laTorah. > > Any gadol brilliant and subtle enough to be worth following will > so outstrip his talmidim that each only grasps onto one facet and > interpretation of a more complex original. > > This is far from unique to RYBS. Here's my guess about what made RYBS unique in this regard: On the one hand, he did have his opinions about many things. But that was NOT what he tried to pass on to his talmidim. In fact, he is famous for NOT answering many of the questions posed to him. What RYBS wanted was for his talmidim to be able to decide for themselves. He never wanted to teach his talmidim WHAT to think, but HOW to think. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Buffett???s Warning for YOU 4 in 5 Americans aren???t taking his shocking advice. Click here now. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/558bd00ca32f7500c77efst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 25 08:10:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 11:10:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: <20150625.055458.3550.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150625.055458.3550.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150625151002.GD10708@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 25, 2015 at 09:54:58AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: :> This is far from unique to RYBS. : Here's my guess about what made RYBS unique in this regard: On the : one hand, he did have his opinions about many things. But that was NOT : what he tried to pass on to his talmidim. In fact, he is famous for NOT : answering many of the questions posed to him. What RYBS wanted was for : his talmidim to be able to decide for themselves. He never wanted to : teach his talmidim WHAT to think, but HOW to think. I realize that this is about to get meta, because I'm about to disagree with RAM about RYBS's position and why people disagree about what it was. I thin this is overplayed. Yes, he pushed fledgling rabbis to assert themselves as LOR and not defer every halachic question. But he didn't do this with every talmid, nor with every question. I think people are taking a pedagogic technique used for talmidim to scared to pasqen and turning it into a principle. Im kein ein ladavar sof, and there is no way to say he took positions for anyone but himself and his mispalelim in Boston and Moriah. No Qol Dodi Dofeiq promoting Zionism, no attack on RERackman's beis din, etc... And besides, we aren't talking about whether his talmidim vary, but why the talmidim's understandings of the rebbe's position varied. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Never must we think that the Jewish element micha at aishdas.org in us could exist without the human element http://www.aishdas.org or vice versa. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 25 08:56:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 15:56:25 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Hakarat Hatov Message-ID: Does Hakarat Hatov engender a measurable "liability" (e.g. require a marginally greater action) between the recipient and the provider of the "Tov", or is saying "Thank you, I appreciate it" the only requirement? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 26 01:19:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2015 11:19:39 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book Message-ID: <> In addition like many others RYBS gave different answers to different people depending on the person and circumstances. As a simple example he encouraged his talmidim to move to EY but told some to stay in the US. Also RYBS was big believer in everyone making their own decisions and not simply doing what they were told. Hence, he avoided certain statements so that his talmidim would make up their own minds. It is well known that all the children of RYBS got a PhD. Even his nephew R Meiselman the most charedi in the family received this degree from MIT. Nevertheless he never publically stressed this idea probably because he felt it was a very individual decision -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 27 19:37:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2015 22:37:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government Message-ID: Gut voch to all, What alternative texts exist for the tefillah l'shlom malchus? I have heard that other versions exist, perhaps more suited for a Republic than is "Hanosen teshua la-melachim", but the only version I could find comes from a Conservative source -- putting me in the same situation as R' Eliezer ben Hyrcanus upon hearing a good "vort" in the name of Ben Pandera. Can anyone point me to appropriate sources? --Chesky Salomon From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 27 20:29:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2015 23:29:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: An hour or so ago, I wrote: > What alternative texts exist for the tefillah l'shlom malchus? I remember this topic coming up in the past, though I have not been successful in searching the archives for it. I did find an article by Dr Jonathan Sarna, "A Forgotten 19th-Century Prayer for the United States Government: Its Meaning, Significance, and Surprising Author" [1] which pointed to the "Orthodox prayerbook for American Jews entitled Tefilot Yisra'el. Prayers of Israel. with an English Translation." The variant text Sarna discusses, "Ribbon kol ha-olamim", can be seen at -- but he makes the case that the prayer's author was Rabbi Max Lilienthal, leaving me in the same position as before. (As a side note: I recall one of the J-blogs mentioning a Tefillah for the State written for 1930s Germany under the Nazi government, but I cannot find the post again. Any help?) --Chesky Salomon [1]: http://www.brandeis.edu/hornstein/sarna/americanjewishcultureandscholarship/Archive3/AForgottenNineteenthCenturyPrayerfortheUnitedStatesGovenment.pdf From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 29 05:29:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mordechai Harris via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2015 07:29:07 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Here's the one I shard last time from the De Sola Pool Siddur. -Mordechai - Please excuse typos as this was sent from my cell phone. On Jun 28, 2015 2:59 PM, "Chesky Salomon via Avodah" wrote: > An hour or so ago, I wrote: >> What alternative texts exist for the tefillah l'shlom malchus? > I remember this topic coming up in the past, though I have not been > successful in searching the archives for it... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 29 15:15:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 01:15:23 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jun 29, 2015 at 3:29 PM, Mordechai Harris via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > Here's the one I shard last time from the De Sola Pool Siddur. > > Can you also share the publication details and/or title page of this siddur? What I know as the De Sola Pool Siddur is not the same as in this link. I have the second edition of 1977, and the title page says: BOOK OF PRAYER ACCORDING TO THE CUSTOM OF THE SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE JEWS Edited and translated by DAVID DE SOLA POOL Minister of the Congregation Shearith Israel in the City of New York PUBLISHED BY THE UNION OF SEPHARDIC CONGREGATIONS NEW YORK The prayer for the government begins with the usual "Hanoten teshu`a lamelachim" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 11:55:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Arie Folger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 20:55:34 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government Message-ID: Someone asked about alternate texts of the prayer for the government, more attuned to democracies. I have adapted the classic hanoten teshuah lamelakhim for the US, with variant readings for Canada, for inclusion in the still forthcoming new revised RCA Siddur. Send me a message through my web site (see the sig) and I will gladly share that text with you. -- Yours sincerely, Mit freundlichen Gr??en, Arie Folger blogging at http://www.rabbifolger.net/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 10:22:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Baruch Cohen via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 10:22:13 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] BIRCHAT KOHANIM AT THE KOTEL Message-ID: I plan on being in Israel for Sukkot, and hope to be at the Kotel for Birchat Kohanim. I usually daven early every morning, and the Birchat Kohanim occurs later in the morning. My question is: do I have a Chiyuv to "duchen" if I'm in the audience and the Shaliach Tzibbur announces on the loudspeaker the word: "Kohanim!" Does that trigger a halachic obligation for me to duchen, even if I am in the audience, in the back of the crowd? -- Respectfully, Baruch C. Cohen, Esq. e-mail: BCC4929 at gmail.com LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/baruchcohen From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 12:06:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 15:06:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] BIRCHAT KOHANIM AT THE KOTEL In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5592E8B9.5020201@sero.name> On 06/30/2015 01:22 PM, Baruch Cohen via Avodah wrote: > I usually daven early every morning, and the Birchat > Kohanim occurs later in the morning. My question is: do I have a Chiyuv to > "duchen" if I'm in the audience and the Shaliach Tzibbur announces on the > loudspeaker the word: "Kohanim!" Does that trigger a halachic obligation > for me to duchen No. If you have already duchened that day, you have no further chiyuv, even if you hear the chazan, and even if someone directly tells you to go up. However if you *choose* to duchen for a second (or third, etc) time that day, you may do so with a bracha. (SA OC 128:3) [Email #2. -micha] PS: This applies also in an ordinary shul where they duchen at shachris and musaf. Any cohen who duchened at shachris, and doesn't feel like doing it again at musaf, needn't leave the room. He has no obligation to answer the chazan's call. But those who do answer it duchen with a bracha, because that is takanas chachamim. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 12:26:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 19:26:26 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish Yasom Message-ID: <20150630.152626.19374.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> What is the rule for when we do or do not say Kaddish Yasom (Mourner's Kaddish)? >From what I've seen, it is NOT said even if a minyan says Birkas Hamazon, but it IS said when a minyan says Kiddush Levana. It is NOT said when a minyan says Tehillim even as an organized group, but it IS said on Yom Tov after the Megilla (Shir Hashirim, Rus, Koheles) is read. I do not see any pattern. Does anyone else know of a rule? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5592ed93bb00b6d93482cst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 15:03:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 18:03:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish Yasom In-Reply-To: <20150630.152626.19374.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150630.152626.19374.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5593124A.2040905@sero.name> On 06/30/2015 03:26 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > What is the rule for when we do or do not say Kaddish Yasom (Mourner's Kaddish)? > >>From what I've seen, it is NOT said even if a minyan says Birkas Hamazon, Why would it? > but it IS said when a minyan says Kiddush Levana. Probably because people are used to saying it after Alenu. > It is NOT said when a minyan says Tehillim even as an organized group, Where have you seen it not being said then? I'm surprised that this is your experience. > but it IS said on Yom Tov after the Megilla (Shir Hashirim, Rus, Koheles) is read. Yes, that is my experience as well. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 03:47:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 13:47:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] 13th century zeal Message-ID: I found the following story from R Kaganoff interesting not only for the halachic portion but also to show that community fights are not new The question regarding recital of *mei'ein sheva* when *Yom Tov* falls on Friday resulted in a very heated dispute during the era of the Rishonim. In the time of the *Rivash*, Rabbi Amram ben Meroam, a frequent correspondent of the *Rivash*, wrote him the following *shaylah*: Reuven was the *chazzan* for the Friday night *davening *on a *Shabbos* that immediately followed *Yom Tov*. He began reciting *mei'ein sheva*, when Shimon reprimanded him, contending that one should not recite this *bracha* when *Shabbos* follows *Yom Tov* -- since no one was working on Friday, the reason for the *takkanah* did not apply. Levi then got involved, saying that it is accepted that one *does* recite *mei'ein sheva*on Friday night following a *Yom Tov*. The *shul* then burst into a cacophony of voices, with Shimon's and Reuven's backers screaming at one another. Finally, Shimon shouted that Reuven was desecrating*Hashem's *holy Name, since he was willing to recite a *bracha* in vain, and that if he did, Shimon would declare him to be in *cherem*, excommunicated! Reuven did recite the *bracha mei'ein sheva,* and a day later, opened his door to find Shimon and twenty of his backers there to notify him that he had been excommunicated! The Rivash* was asked to rule whether Reuven was indeed in *cherem* because of Shimon's declaration that he recited a *bracha* in vain, or, perhaps, Shimon should be placed in *cherem* for excommunicating someone without proper cause. The *Rivash* ruled that Shimon was mistaken, and that one should recite *mei'ein sheva* when *Shabbos* follows *Yom Tov*. Therefore, he concluded that Reuven, who followed the correct *halachah*, could completely ignore the *cherem* placed on him. However, he also concluded that since Shimon thought he was acting correctly, we do not excommunicate Shimon for his actions (*Shut HaRivash* #34). -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 06:54:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 13:54:19 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos Message-ID: <20150401.095419.16600.0@webmail12.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitzchok Levine wrote: > Does not the SA say that a person who has trouble chewing > matzah can soak it in water and then eat it? If so, then > I fail to see why eating gebrokts should be a problem for > anyone. The answer will depend on what you mean by "SA". If "SA" refers specifically to the author of the Shulchan Aruch, Rav Yosef Karo, then the answer is that he is not the last word in halacha. There are other authorities, and someone who follows the others could have a problem even with something that the SA allows. If "SA" refers to the Shulchan Aruch in general, then I do not understand your question, since the problem of gebrokts *IS* mentioned by authorities other than Rav Karo. If I'm not mistaken, the Shaarei Teshuva (which is in the printed editions of Mishne Brurah) is a good example. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 11:05:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 14:05:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> I repeated on Areivim RSM's deduction that yayin kal is closest to the alcohol level of chazal's wine. On Wed, Apr 1, 2015 at 9:39am PDT, R Saul Newman wrote to Areivim: > interesting, when seeing in ktubot abaye's widow describing the size of > his wine vessel. by that Percentage, it wouldnt be toxic... Here's RSM's science, and it seems impeccable: By natural means, no alcoholic beverage can get above 12% -- at that level the yeast drowns in its own output. That's why beer and wine tend to be 12%. We can tweak that up to 16% with specially bred yeast, and/or control of temperature and humidity -- not options in Chazal's day. (Higher alcohol drinks are made by distilling out the alcohol from the original 12% liquid.) To add my 2 pence: Their barrels weren't perfect, which means there was more evaporation. But since alcohol evaporates faster than water, that will only lower the percentage alcohol. So we're still at about 12% max. RSM's original line of reasoning, continues: Mezigas hakos is typically at least 1:3, or 25% wine. So, the final product would be at most 3%. A third penny: Now let's discuss how big a revi'is was back then... But even without that, I have no idea how any of them would have gotten anywhere near drunk. Why would R' Yonah have a headache until shavu'os off some 16 oz total of 3% wine? Do we have to assume it was the alcohol? Maybe he was a later owner of Abayei's kos... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Mussar is like oil put in water, micha at aishdas.org eventually it will rise to the top. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 12:08:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 01 Apr 2015 15:08:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> On 04/01/2015 02:05 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Now let's discuss how big a revi'is was back then... But even without > that, I have no idea how any of them would have gotten anywhere near > drunk. Why would R' Yonah have a headache until shavu'os off some 16 oz > total of 3% wine? Do we have to assume it was the alcohol? Maybe he was > a later owner of Abayei's kos... I don't think it's at all plausible that it was the alcohol. I have long assumed that he had some sort of allergy or intolerance for some component of grapes or grape skins, or perhaps for the sulfites with which wine was (and is still) preserved. It's well known that there are people today who get headaches from sulfites. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 12:25:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mordechai Harris via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 14:25:38 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> Message-ID: There is a lot of info here: http://seforim.blogspot.com/2012/10/wine-strength-and-dilution.html Chag Kasher v'Samayach< Mordechai -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 12:30:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 22:30:53 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: There recently appeared a sefer "Keren Zavit" by Nadav Shenrav on parshat hashavua that has a very nice combination of science and Torah. On parshat Tzav he brings a question on the shitah of the Nodah BeYuhuda that eggs doubled in size. The Noda Beyehuda claims that there is a contradiction between two sugyot that find measurements based on either the size of the egg or from length (or volume) measurements. To answer the contradiction the Nodah Beyehuda assumes that our eggs are half the size of those in the days of chazal. (Actually modern eggs are larger than those in his day) The basic point is that in order to translate the measurements of chazal to modern measurements we need a fixed point, ie some measurement that has not changed over the generations. If everything can change we have only relative measurements and not absolute measurements. The Nodah BeYehuda assumes that the width of the thumb is constant. Question: Rambam (maaseh hakorbanot 13:14) states the kemitzah which cinsists of 3 fingers closed over the palm contains 2 kezatim. However 2 kezaytim of 50cc (ie 100cc) is impossible to enclose within 3 fingers. He brings that he saw this question in a series "Bet Aharon VeYisrael" and they answered "nishtanu hateva" i.e. their hands were bigger and could hold 100c of flour within 3 fingers. (In general the author is not impressed with the answer of "nishtane hateva" but he assumes it for this article). However, this leads to an internal contradiction, ie Noda Beyehuda assumes that the size of the thumb has not changed but is required to assume that the size of the hand was much larger in the days of chazal ie how is it possible that their hands were MUCH larger but the width of the thumb remained constant. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 14:11:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 17:11:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150401211129.GA23585@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 01, 2015 at 10:30:53PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : There recently appeared a sefer "Keren Zavit" by Nadav Shenrav on parshat : hashavua that has a very nice combination of science and Torah. : : On parshat Tzav he brings a question on the shitah of the Nodah BeYuhuda : that eggs doubled in size. AISI, there are three distinct questions that generally get lumped together in the annual kezayis discussion: 1- Is "kezayis" a constant volume, or is it pinned to the average olive, or perhaps the average among some subset of breeds of olive as breeding, care and climate change? R' Chaim Volozhiner and the Avnei Neizer say the latter. You might remember my post from last Jan at. . The AhS OC 363:34 says that lehalakhah an ammah is the person involved's forearm. E.g. when measuring 4 amos for tiltul, the din is more chamur for me than for taller people. When coming to mavui or techum, where you need a single pesaq for a whole town, you need a standardized ammah, "ameru chakhamim denimdod lechumerah" it's the length of the arm of some very high percentile of the people relying on it (and possibly 100%) -- "debevadei yeish anashim shezehu midasan". (Also, when dealing with someone with a handicap or amputation, you need to use estimates.) To me this seems to feed RCV's approach. Because both assume that measurements are not absolute, but based on the set of whatevers involved. For example, the AhS's position about the standard ammah would imply that a community that is atypically tall would use a longer ammah for techum than in a ghettod population whose malnutrition stunted their typical growth. 2- If kezayis is a constant volume, do all the accepted overestimates performed and accumulated one atop the other unwind when we have more information about chazal's zeisim? Or do we say that the bottom of the range of measurments that dominate common pratice in one's qehillah is binding as pesaq, and one can't just ignore the now huge safety margin? This is what I argued here when RNS's paper came out http://www.zootorah.org/RationalistJudaism/TheEvolutionOfTtheOlive.pdf (And if so, is that extra amount considered as deOraisa as the original olive volume, because it's a pesaq in a din deOraisa? Or is it a harchaqah, and thus derabban? 3- The actual specifics 3a- If the answe to #2 is that we do roll back the kezayis based on better information about what it was, the metzi'us specifics can still be argued. Such as asking (as I did in passing in #1) which subset of olives to average. 3b- And if the answer is that we don't, then there are halachic process details to ask about. But I think many discussions, including our own previous years' iterations, stuble because they blur these topics rather than keeping them separate, which in turn would force dealing with them in the sequence I gave as well. (Because #2 depends on one kind of answer to #1, and #3 has different flavors depending on #2.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 13:36:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 16:36:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Yaknehaz [was: The Quinoa - Kitniyos Conundrum] Message-ID: In a message dated 4/1/2015 6:28:31 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, micha at aishdas.org writes: On Wed, Apr 01, 2015 at 12:03am EDT, RnTK wrote: : It was the norm in my parental home and is what my husband does too. : In fact I have never seen anyone use a regular havdala candle at a seder! : (Or a single wick candle without joining it to another candle or to a match.) A local yeshiva qetana sells two-wick candles that otherwise look like Shabbos candles as a fundraiser. This way you don't have a fire lasting as long as whatever is left on your havdalah candle, and the whole problem is avoided. >>>>> I wasn't really clear. What my parents used to do (and we do similarly) was to take one Shabbos candle ot of the candlestick and hold its flame close to another Shabbos candle for the bracha, and then put it back in the candlestick it came out of. IOW we use the candles that are already burning on the table anyway. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 14:36:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 17:36:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] partnership - adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties Message-ID: partnership - adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties In describing why person would fast all Passover over and above Jewish Law Practice, you used the words "emotional attachment". In the seven years since that wording , perhaps the message is deeper. Salamone Rossi the Jewish Italian composer, became a hero of the assimilationist movement. See AJS Review volume 26 #1 where where a series of books by one Don Harran re Rossi is reviewed. Twice in Adon Olam, the series of fast phrases of excitement called Tritum or whatever is used twice ??? ???? ??? ???? ???? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ?_?? ??? ????? ???? ???? ... ???? ????? ???? ???? ?????? - ??? ???? ? ???? ???? ????? ??? ?? ?????? - ????? ?? ???? ??? ??? ????? - ??? ????? - ????? ???? - ???? ???? ??? ???? ???? ??? ???? ??????? - ???? ????? ????? ??? - ???? ?? ????? ??? ????? - ????? ????? ???? ?? ????? - ??? ???? ??? ???? ???? ?????? ????? ??? ????? - ?? - ???? ?_?? ??? ????? ???? ???? ... ?????? ?? ?? ??? ???? ??? ??? ?? ???? ???? - ??? ???? ?? ????? ?????? ... ?? ?? ???? ?? GLOOMY THOUGHT NEGATIVE CHARACTERIZATION The reviewer - a music professor at Northeastern U in Boston MA - illustrates that limitless exhaustive research did not turn up for M. Harran the fact that in the surrounding milieu which Mr. Rossi is immersed in - these patterns aare reserved for ttheir Trinity.. Lhavdil elef havdalot. Rossi as a Jew with beating Jewish Heart - in Adon Olam his famous composition - when it came to Our God - he proudly used the pattern of the ecstasy of the Tritium (apologies of not being able to look up - will scan and send but each moment I am in danger of interrruption - ) . Why Yeihareig ? Why not float with the waves? Answer - because it is identity of Jew - visceral reaction necessary! taht is Key! Common motif of Piyut - ?????? ????? ?????? ????? - countering their attempted invasion and depriving us of identity - the desperation of drowning brings us to keep our identity- baby will starve self to reserve independence - if it is deprived from baby Not in complete normal routine vassalry to Hashem. But it is the assertion of identity. Sneh Boeir - Papers of Adoption - of formation of Partnership - not the bylaws which may never be read - but the primary identity of Hasheem as responsible party specifically to act as parent re MY CHILD - thsi is basic bedrock Jew - as Rashi certainly subscribed, and rashbam, and likely R' Yonah even Ramban. For my money - when functioning as Jewish Natnion member - the Rambam himself, codifier of the Doctrinal Jew. Back to subject after rant - A JS Reviewer - just like they show reverence for their Hero - we show reverence for our Hero - One God - that the reviewer explained for the first - ??? ???? ??? ???? ???? ?????? What of second threesome - look in Tur for Ecstasy - OC 5 - ???? ?_?? ??? ????? ???? ???? takif..???? ??? ?????? ??? ????? ???? - ???? ?? ???? ??? ??? ????? ??? - ???? ?? ???? - ??? ???? ???? ?? - ??? ???? - ???? ???? - ??? ???? ??? ??? ???? ??????? ?? ??? - ??? ???? ?? ???? ???? ??? ????? ???? ???? - ?? ?? ??? ?? ???? ???? ?????? ???? ???? - ?? ?????? - ??? ?????? ????? ?????? ???? - ???? ???? ?? ??? ?? - ???? ??? ????? ????? ????? - ??? ??? ????? - ?????? ????? ????? ??? ????? - ?? ??? ??? ???? - ?? ??? ??? ????? - ??? ????? - ???? ?????? ?????? - ???? ???? ?????? ????? ?? ?? - ??? ?? ????? ??? ???? ????? ???? ????? ???? ????? ?????? 148-155 - ?_?_?_? ??? ?? - ????? ???? 148 ???? ???? ?????? - ?? ?????? - ??? ???? ??? ???? ?? ?????? - ??? ????? ????? ????? - ?? ??? ??? ???? ???? ?? ????? =- ??? ???????? ?????? ????? ????? - ?? ???? - ????? - ?????? - ???? ???? - ??? ??? ????? - ??? ??? ?? ????? - ????? ??? ??? ?????? - ??? ????? - ????? ??? ?????? ?????? - ???? ???? ?? ??????? ????? ??? - ????? - ???? ?????? ???? ??? ????? ?????? ???? ????? ??????? ????? ?? - ??? ???? ?????? ???? ??"? - ??? ????? ???? ???? ???? ??? ????? ??? ?? ???? - ???? ?? ??? ?? ???? ???-????? ?? ????? ?? ?? ?????? - ??? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ?? ??????? - EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT IS ZILZUL IN A COVENANT ???? ?????? ?? ??? ???? - ??? ??? ??? ? ?? ????? ????? ??? ?????? ??! ???? ????? - ?? ????? ???? ??? ???? ?? ???? ????? ??? ????? ????? - ?? ??? ??? ???? ????? ?? ??? -- David Wacholder Cell: 917-742-7838 Email: dwacholder at gmail.com dwacholder at optonline.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 18:24:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 12:24:45 +1100 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice Message-ID: Wine in those days was frequently (typically?) flavored with resins or spices, some of which are actually toxic. These resins seem to have had the same effect as hops do in beer: they discourage microbial growth and therefore prevent it from souring and spoiling. This was an important consideration before the invention of Pasteurisation. If R' Yonah was allergic or otherwise sensitive to these resins he may have ascribed his symptoms to the wine itself. Alternatively, perhapshe simply didn't have access to any untreated wine and perhaps he didn't consider raisin "wine" to be chashuv enough. Joe Slater -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 18:27:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 12:27:16 +1100 Subject: [Avodah] Yaknehaz [was: The Quinoa - Kitniyos Conundrum] Message-ID: Another data point: I asked my father O'H about this and he said he'd never heard of anyone using a Havdala candle for YAKNEHAZ, or even joining two flames together. He came from central Hungary, and his rabbi was a great-nephew of Maharam Schick. Joe Slater -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 20:32:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 01 Apr 2015 23:32:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> Message-ID: <551CB836.5040609@sero.name> On 04/01/2015 03:25 PM, Mordechai Harris wrote: > There is a lot of info here: http://seforim.blogspot.com/2012/10/wine-strength-and-dilution.html It is interesting, but I think the author may have made a simple mistake in assuming that when Rashi says their wines were "stronger" than ours, he meant "more alcoholic". That may be what he meant, in which case he was mistaken, but it seems to me that he may have meant "strong tasting", or to put it more bluntly, "sour". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 02:18:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 12:18:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kitniyot Message-ID: see a discussion at http://etzion.org.il/en/pesach-journal by Rav Brosky -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 07:53:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 02 Apr 2015 10:53:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Historic Practice Passover Offering Message-ID: <20150402145402.230A3183730@nexus.stevens.edu> See the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kgbRusmqjs A FILM OF THE PRACTICE PASSOVER OFFERING THE TEMPLE INSTITUTE CONDUCTS UNPRECEDENTED PASSOVER OFFERING PRACTICE DRILL As reported earlier, in preparation for the upcoming festival of Passover, this past Wednesday (5 Nisan - 25 March) the 'Priestly Training Academy' established by the Temple Institute held a Passover offering practice drill. This is a film that documents this event. This was the most accurate and authentic reenactment of this service to have taken place in nearly 2,000 years. ---------- It looks to me that they used machine matzos in this video. If I am correct, then I find this bizarre. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 13:36:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 16:36:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: How many swallows of Matzo are necessary? How many olive tree generations to Calendar Year Tohu and Gan Eden? The following came up last year: FEARLESS RULING FOR PERSON WITH DIFFICULTY EATING: Every average person's swallow is a Kezayit, the amount which fulfils the Mitzvah and is the measure for the Bracha on Achilas Matza. As a Hidur and to erase all doubt, a second normal swallow would be good. That is for Motzi-Matzah, where the first olive-size swallowed fulfils a Torah obligation. Additional for Afikoman one swallow is certainly enough. For a person struggling to eat, try to eat at least a taste. Any more than that is for those who tolerate Matzo well. I look at how much a person can swallow - one swallow. That would measure a Kezayit. 100% the person has fulfilled the Mitzvah after one swallow. For margin of error issues, add another second swallow. For those with difficulty eating, one may then stop. For Afikoman the one swallow is sufficient. This needs no authority to base it on. Chazon Ish gave his asembled family pieces about the size of his palm , as described by qualified dedicated observer in Orchos Rabeinu. Traditions vary. Some quoted Rav Chaim Valozhiner as saying - the size of an olive is an olive is an olive. Another tradition said one must use an egg-size as a base unit. On Atkins Low-Carb Diet, daily consumption was - for starting extreme levels - 30 grams per day - about an ounce. I cut the piece of Challah, which by volume probably was an olive, but the air pockets should have been counted, so the person could say Birkas Hamazon for themselves. Someone else was Motzi the dieter in Birkat Hamazon. Air pockets and weight issue The swallow size may be according the the air pockets normally contained in Matzo, not ground, and according to volume not weight. VOLUME NOT WEIGHT By weight, comparable amount of Chareidim Boro Park 5774 MATZOS weighed perhaps 7 grams compared to perhaps 30 grams of a heavy brand of Hand Matzo. Using volume measures as weight measures creates significant errors. The person had been using 30 grams of WEIGHT as the Standard, not 30 grams of volume. It was a reasonably filled sandwich bag. Also Matzo can absorb moisture from the air making it heavier, can be freshened in the oven, which will make it weigh less. Volume remains the same. Weighing your Matza introduces a major error factor. SHEKEIN NEHENEH According to Rav Elchanan Wasserman, even a non-believer fulfils the Mitzvah, Shekein Neheneh. I have doubts if Kavana Hafucha would even work. I certainly think a person should not have Kavana Hafucha in the sense of - only be Yotzei when Measurement X is reached. NOT THE AMOUNT TO FILL THE CHEEK This is neither cheekful nor yet a mouthful. Observe how your neighbor swallows his food eating calmly. [DW comment - this is a normal comfortable swallow, not a contestant requiring for safety a Hatzala person or Heimlich Maneuver needed to monitor. This is not a Superman-Swallower who attempts to swallow the size of all olives ever eaten, whose face turns red but comes out OK after a KAPITAL TEHILIM. That is Achila Shelo K'darkah, and certainly is not optimum. That eliminates the Double and Exponential/Logarithmic olives from consideration for a single swallow. Never swallow more than a comfortable amount. SUKKOT No custom requires swallowing all at once in the Sukkah. Others require an Egg Plus size. ARUCH HASHULCHAN Aruch Hashulchan functioned as a review of the other Poskim in Orach Chaim. He pointedly does not double the Kezayit. MISHNA BRURAH - to my reading - says the same. Indeed I grant the MB does not totally negate a double-size as having precedent. MY HANDWIDTHS On a flat table, I measured my keyboard's width two different ways. first, using all ten fingers flat on table, it was 4 hands wide. With thumbs in air and only the eight fingers flat on the table, my keyboard was 5.5 hands wide. The thumbs were sideways, so the width added drilled through the wrinkle on the back to the fold on the front. This would be the thumb measured in Halacha. I certainly am not a measurement specialist, so I appreciate all feedback. According to best knowledge, that through-thumb measurement is the one which is supposed to be 25 percent of the other four fingers. CHZON ISH Even the writings of CHzon Ish reflect a defensive stance. As a practical matter, the CI knew in his heart that a Zayis will not change in recorded history. Olive trees of 1000 years old are not uncommon, and one in EY is 2000 years old. They are propogated from plantings identical to the original. As little as three generations of trees in EY could easily reach Calender Year 1. RIDDLE - HOW MANY OLIVES TO EAT A KEZAYIT? RABI YOCHANAN ATE ONE OLIVE- and made bracha acharona. It was the big variety salad olive, or a large specimen of the oil olive. I was convinced by a strong presentation in a conference from several years ago. A Bar Ilan professor compared olives from various species and showed pictures of all the oldest olive trees in EY. The oil olives were in the 4 cc to 7 cc (4-7 grams volume). Salad olives - the kind whose seeds were commonly eaten in Masada - max out at 17 grams. He convincingly argued that double size super-olives would in all likelihood kill the trees. 4 ccs is well below an average swallow. Please double check my numbers, as I am writing from memory. -- David Wacholder From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 18:58:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 21:58:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] naive kitniyos question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150403015816.GA8090@aishdas.org> On Thu, Mar 26, 2015 at 12:34:15PM -0400, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote: : Re kitniyos: isn't the issur one of "cooking" with kitniyos? ... Take 2 at answering this question. My wife found http://ph.yhb.org.il/en/04-09-06 "6. Kitniyot That Never Touched Water and Kitniyot Oils" by R' Eliezer Melamed We are not stricter with kitniyot than we are with the five cereal grains, so whatever is acceptable regarding these grains is kosher for kitniyot, too. Thus, kitniyot that have not come into contact with water, or that have come into contact with water but were not left for more than 18 minutes before being cooked (like matza), may be eaten. Some poskim are stringent in this respect, but most are lenient.[4] ... [4] Most authorities are not stricter about kitniyot than about the cereal grains (SAH 453:5; ??ayei Adam 127:1; Responsa Maharsham 1:183; Be'er Yitzhak sec. 11; Responsa Marheshet sec. 3; and Rav Kook's Orah Mishpat sec. 111). Some, however, are more stringent (Sho'el U-meishiv 1:1:175 and Ma'amar Mordechai sec. 32). Their rationale is that no one would understand these distinctions since kitniyot do not become hametz. Additionally, they were concerned that making the kitniyot exactly like the cereal grains would mislead people to think they could use kitniyot to fulfill the mitzva of matza. As noted, though, most poskim are lenient, and in any dispute about a custom the halakha follows the lenient opinion. The Rishonim also debate whether or not scalding works for kitniyot, since scalding any of the five cereal grains technically eliminates the possibility of its leavening, though the Ge'onim agree that no one knows how to scald the grains properly (SA 454:3). However, according to Or Zaru'a 2:256, since the prohibition of kitniyot is just a custom, scalding the kitniyot is effective and permits them. Mordechai rules stringently, and Rabbeinu Peretz's glosses to Smak sec. 222 notes the lenient opinion but rules stringently. So it seems the pesaq I grew up with is, in REM's estimaton, the minority view. And if my sevara holds: It would mean the machloqes is a machloqes as to whether qitniyos are compared to wheat or to dough. Which again would be reflected in the various theories about what risk it is the minhag is trying to avoid: qitniyos includes things used like grain, which can cause confusion of chameitz with mutar legume products; qitniyos could have real flour on them (as per Rava's admonition to the reish galusa's household), etc... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of micha at aishdas.org greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, http://www.aishdas.org in fact, of our modesty. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Louis Kronenberger, writer (1904-1980) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 09:32:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 16:32:11 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Tan Du Message-ID: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> I think we've discussed R'YBS's famous statement on ontological chazakot on a number of occasions. I was glad to see that I have giant shoulders to stand on (hat tip-Isaac Newton): Tradition - Winter 2014 (Rabbi N. Helfgot) In a famous episode in 1975, the Rav strongly denounced a proposal raised by R. Emanuel Rackman, z"l to reevaluating the validity of the Talmudic dictum "a woman would always be rather married to anyone (even a scoundrel) than be alone" in the modern context. R. Rackman called on religious authorities to reevaluate the reach of this dictum as a way of addressing the scourge of modern day recalcitrant husbands who did not give their estranged spouses a get. The reevaluation of this principle might be an opening to examine the use of halakhic annulment of marriages. The Rav vigorously maintained that this principle, like all hazakot of Hazal, was "an ontological statement" about the nature of women, not subject to changing historical factors or changing social mores. R. Lichtenstein in both private conversation with a number of talmidim over the decades, including this author and in remarks in public shiurim, noted his disagreement with the Rav's assessment of this hazaka (and expressed astonishment at the vehemence of the Rav's opposition at the time) given the clear cut evidence in the Rishonim in Yevamot and other places in Shas which clearly indicated that this hazaka was not one that applied in all contexts and at all times and in all situations. I don't recall that R'YBS said this was true of all chazakot of Chazal but haven't listened to that audio in a long time. CKV"S Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 04:06:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 14:06:33 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] rabbits Message-ID: << But PS can someone remind me what a picture of a rabbit is doing in the : medieval illustrated Hagada? There is a fundamental reason why pictures of people were avoided. >> Yet many of the medieval haggadot had pictures of people and even (wow) women!. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 11:41:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 14:41:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] rabbits In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150403184143.GB11664@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 03, 2015 at 02:06:33PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> There is a fundamental reason why pictures of people were avoided. : : Yet many of the medieval haggadot had pictures of people.. The reason is still there. We don't all agree on halakhah and minhag, why would two people necessarily agree during the medieval period? :-)|,|ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger The true measure of a man micha at aishdas.org is how he treats someone http://www.aishdas.org who can do him absolutely no good. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Samuel Johnson From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 23:57:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 09:57:26 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kitniyot Message-ID: see http://ohr.edu/5390 and http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/5184 by Rabbi Spits He discusses Quinoa In the second article he discusses potatos both for kitniyot and bishul akum As for modern products that didnt exist in the days of the gezera he notes Shu"t Igros Moshe (O.C. vol. 3, 63). Others who accept peanuts for Pesach include the Seridei Aish (Shu"t vol. 2, 37, 2; new print vol. 1, 50 -- through a combination of factors), the Yeshuas Moshe (Shu"t vol. 1, 35; he opines that the Kitniyos prohibition never applied to legumes that are eaten raw, but concludes similar to Rav Moshe, that if one has an existing minhag not to eat peanuts on Pesach he still should not do so), and the Rivevos Efraim (Shu"t vol. 7, 257; only if it came still in its shell). [This logic is based on the Shulchan HaRav's understanding (O.C. 453, 5) that the prohibition of Kitniyos only applies when it gets wet). Other poskim who ruled that way (as how can Kitniyos be more stringent than grain -- which only can become chometz when wet) include the Chayei Adam (vol. 2, 128, 1) and Maharsham (Shu"t vol. 1, 183 and Daas Torah O.C. 453), who cites that Rav Shlomo Kluger (Nidrei Zerizin, 8) held this way as well. Those who were stringent include the Shoel U'Meishiv (Mahadura Kama vol. 1, 175), the Avnei Nezer (O.C. 373 and 533), the Maamar Mordechai (Shu"t 32), and the Sdei Chemed (Maareches Chometz U'Matza 6, 1). This was also one of the points of contention between Rav Kook and the Badatz Chasidim of Yerushalayim regarding the permissibility of sesame oil for Pesach -- see footnote 13]. See also Shu"t Atzei HaLevanon (vol. 1, 18) who also permits peanuts for Pesach; yet based on his description it seems he is referring to a pistachio (as per the Yeshuas Moshe ibid.). [Email #2. Subject: kitniyot - summary] After our discussion of kitniyot and the psak of RMF several personal observations 1) We all agree that psak of RMF is controversial. IMHO it is "half" accepted probably more in the US than in Israel 2) There is a separate machkoket about derivatives of kitniyot and especially oils of kitniyot. While there are relatively few ashkenazim who eat corn on the cob or peanuts there are many who combine the 2 positions and use oild and derivatives from "new: kitniyot. Thus there are many rabbis that allow Canola oil (and certainly cottenseed oil) using RMF and the debate over oils. Similarly it has been common in my community to use lecithin (liftit) in candies etc. My rabbi allows this together with most rabbis in my town based on major dati leumi rabbis. R Elyashiv came out strongly against all of this and so in the charedi community especially in Israel no kitniyot oils or lecithin is allowed and only walnut or olive oil is used. Bottom line in spite of the objections on this list that RMF is "wrong" in many communities his teshuva is accepted when combined with the debate of kitniyot derivatives. chag kasher vesameach. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 03:57:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 13:57:43 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos Message-ID: > But let's not get buried under the reports of RMF and R' Tuvia Goldstein, > and forget that we have conflict in reports about whether RSZA would > allow someone to start eating gebrochts after hataras nedarim. > So, while rumor might say he did, we have a first-hand report from R > Yisrael Herczeg that tells us to ignore the grapevine >> In Halichos Shlomo (p90) it states explicitly that one can change his custom and eat gebrochs after hatart nedarim. However, this should be done only if there is a good reason (tzorach chashuv) for the change. Thus, for a chatan he would allow the hatarat nedarim if keeping bebrochs would cause family difficulties. RSZA paskened that the wife follows the customs of the husband both for kula and chumra(without hatart nedarim). He explicitly states that this is different than one who moves to another location where he does need hatarat nedarim since a woman knows that she will eventually marry and might change her minhag. The husband has the right to relinguish his rights. This is prevalant with regard to the nuscah of davening. A Baal Teshuva should prferably keep the customs of his "original" community where the family belonged. However, if he is now connected to some rabbi or community he can choose to keep their customs instead. He also paskens (for EY) that one can cook kitniyot on the 7th day of Pesach for use on the shabbat right afterwards (ef this year). This is because some sefardi could come over for a visit and so the kitniyot are not mukza . The same applies to gebrochs even though it is the 7th day of Pesach. RSZA himself ate gebrochs though he would not eat anything that fell on the floor. He did not use potato starch or anything that rsembled a chametz cake On a different topic he allowed drinking regular water eg from the kinneret since one can't taste at all the taste of any possible chametz, [Email #2] >> So, while rumor might say he did, we have a first-hand report from R >> Yisrael Herczeg that tells us to ignore the grapevine. > Perhaps he changed his mind! It has happened before. In this case he didnt change his mind. He said that it depended on the circumstances. In theory one could do hatarat nedarim and eat Gebrochs but he advocated not using this heter unless there was a good reason to change the custom. Obviously for Yisrael Herczeg he didn't feel there was sufficient justification. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 04:15:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 14:15:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: > 1- Is "kezayis" a constant volume, or is it pinned to the average olive, > or perhaps the average among some subset of breeds of olive as breeding, > care and climate change? archaeology shows that the olive has not changed dramatically over the millenia > 2- If kezayis is a constant volume, do all the accepted overestimates > performed and accumulated one atop the other unwind when we have more > information about chazal's zeisim? Not all communities accepted these various shitot. I can understand some overestimates for being conservative but factors of 5-10 larger seem overdone. This is especially true if one stuffs the matza into ones mouth and swallows together which becomes "achila gasa". In general the problem with the huge shiurim is that it is very difficult for many people. > average. Which is the reason to be on the conservative side and use the largest size olives which is still on the order of 17cc and not 50cc. [Email #2] > Or do we say that the bottom of the > range of measurments that dominate common pratice in one's qehillah is > binding as pesaq, and one can't just ignore the now huge safety margin? Reminds of a story I read on the recent 20th yahrzeit of RSZA. RSZA came up with 2 chumrot for the seder both related to the length of maggid being a problem for kiddush bemkom seudah and the bracha over the wine. His mechutan R Elyashiv accepted the chumrot and rushed his maggid while RSZA didnt accept his own chumrot in practice on the grounds that this was not the minhag of Israel over the generations. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 15:16:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 22:16:11 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Historic Practice Passover Offering Message-ID: <20150403.181611.8008.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitzchok Levine posted: > See the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kgbRusmqjs > ... > As reported earlier, in preparation for the upcoming festival of > Passover, this past Wednesday (5 Nisan - 25 March) the 'Priestly > Training Academy' established by the Temple Institute held a > Passover offering practice drill. This is a film that documents > this event. This was the most accurate and authentic reenactment > of this service to have taken place in nearly 2,000 years. Two things in particular surprised me in this video: 1) The lambs were so small! Children carried them in! 2) At the very end, it shows and mentions that the korban pesach "is roasted whole and in a special oven." Special oven? What was special about it, and why an oven at all? I would think that the oven would (at least partially) bake it, whereas it was supposed to be roasted by the fire, and only by fire. I recall halachos of it being held by a pomegranate branch to avoid heat conduction by metal, and rotated like a rotisserie to avoid it being cooked even by its own juices. What's this oven about? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/551f117e86f4b117e0fdfst03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 12:22:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2015 15:22:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <551EE85D.1030908@sero.name> On 04/03/2015 06:57 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > He also paskens (for EY) that one can cook kitniyot on the 7th day of > Pesach for use on the shabbat right afterwards (ef this year). Yes, I'm surprised that anyone disagrees. It seems so obviously correct. I know that many people don't do so, and believe it to be forbidden, but I have never yet heard an argument for why it should be so. > This is because some sefardi could come over for a visit and so the kitniyot > are not mukza . The main issue would surely not be muktzeh, but cooking on yomtov. But the answer is the same: the hypothetical horde of hungry guests who might descend on one ten minutes before sunset on Friday, and for whom one is, in principle, cooking, might very well be sefardim. > The same applies to gebrochs even though it is the 7th day of > Pesach. Gebrochts, of course, applies in Chu"l as well (since almost everyone who doesn't eat it on the first 7 days does eat it on the last day). And lich'ora the above heter is not applicable. Kitniyos are gebrochts are not similar. Ashkenazim don't avoid kitniyos because of a concern that it might be chametz; they readily agree that there is no such concern, and that for Sefardim it is heter gamur. Thus there is no reason at all why an ashkenazi should not cook kitniyos for a sefardi, any more than there is a reason why a zar who is tahor should not cook terumah for a kohen. But those who avoid gebrochts do so because of an (admittedly remote) concern that it might be chametz. If so, then they should be equally concerned not to give it to someone else, even one who isn't worried about it, and thus shouldn't be able to claim on Friday that they are cooking for hypothetical guests who eat it. Lepoel this question comes up every time there is such a kevius, and there doesn't seem to be one psak about it. Perhaps it comes down to the different reasons people give for why it's OK on the last day. If one holds that the reason is "shelo lehotzi la'az" on those who eat gebrochts all Pesach, then it makes sense that on the first 7 days one should also not be "motzi la'az", and thus should be willing to cook gebrochts for those who eat it. Thus on Friday the 7th one can claim to be cooking for such guests. But if one holds that the reason for not eating gebrochts for 7 days and then eating it on the 8th is as a symbolic gesture towards the kabbalistic idea that on the 8th day one ought to eat chametz, so for 7 days we treat gebrochts *as if* it were chametz, and then eat it on the 8th day, then it would seem to follow that on the 7th day one may not cook it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 14:17:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 21:17:19 GMT Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: <20150403.171719.13613.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' David Wacholder posted: > Every average person's swallow is a Kezayit, the amount which > fulfils the Mitzvah and is the measure for the Bracha on Achilas > Matza. As a Hidur and to erase all doubt, a second normal swallow > would be good. That is for Motzi-Matzah, where the first olive- > size swallowed fulfils a Torah obligation. > ... > This needs no authority to base it on. ... WHY would it need no authority to base it on? If this were the halacha, wouldn't someone have mentioned it? Why did so many authorities struggle with the math and the biology and the physics if such a simple solution were at hand? > Air pockets and weight issue > > The swallow size may be according the the air pockets normally > contained in Matzo, not ground, and according to volume not weight. If a kezayis is a swallowfull, aren't the air pockets gone? Haven't they been lost in the chewing? I concede that by the time the chewed matza gets to the throat, much of the missing air has been replaced by saliva. Or perhaps the saliva even *more* than accounts for the missing air. I am not knowledgeable enough about this to venture a guess on the comparison of the volume of the matza before chewing vis a vis at swallowing. In any case, I've always been bothered by the problem of counting the air bubbles. Mishneh Berurah 208:48 says that when eating cookies, l'chatchilah, one must insure that he ate a kezayis of flour, WITHOUT counting the sugar, in order to say Al Hamichya. MB concedes that the minhag is to count all the ingrdients, but the Igros Moshe 1:71 says not to rely on that minhag. So here's my question: If they would prefer us NOT to count the other ingredients, which have substance, isn't it a simple kal vachomer not to count AIR, she'ayn bo mamash? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/551f039acb72539a4c49st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 13:08:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2015 16:08:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Special Pesach Edition -- Instantaneous Redemption Message-ID: <20150403200810.6EC28181C84@nexus.stevens.edu> [] Instantaneous Redemption HaShem took us out of Mitzrayim at the last minute before we slipped to the fiftieth level of impurity. Had we fallen to that level, we would have been irredeemable. In one moment, we went from darkness to light, from death to life, from slavery to freedom, from anguish to joy, and from impurity to holiness. Lesson: Just as that moment brought instantaneous redemption, so too, every moment of life has the potential to take us from darkness to light, from death to life, from slavery to freedom, from anguish to joy, and from impurity to holiness. App: May we all be encouraged by the miracles of Pesach, that HaShem again will instantaneously redeem us, and take us from darkness to light, from death to life, from slavery to freedom, from anguish to joy, and from impurity to holiness! (Based on Ohr Yahol, Rav Yehoshuah Leib Chousman) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 18:59:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2015 21:59:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geirut Message-ID: <20150406015903.GA15874@aishdas.org> (Ccing most of the participants in our 2008 and 2010 conversations.) You might be interested in On Conversion to Judaism, by Rabbi Dr. Chaim E. Schertz THE YU LAMDAN: The Wilf Campus Torah Journal http://yulamdan.com/2015/03/29/on-conversion-to-judaism-by-rabbi-dr-chaim-e-schertz or http://j.mp/1CIV5GN It starts slow, but R/Dr Schertz has a lot to say about Qabbalas Ol Mitzvos (QOM, or KOM if you prefer) and its role in geirus. Aside from other ideas that my be of interest, but it was QOM that has us going. :-)|,|ii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 22:22:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 01:22:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house Message-ID: <552217FE.4020103@sero.name> Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in EY after kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times. Does this mean that at a shiva house Sholom Rov is said even in shacharis (in EY on a non-Mon/Thu)? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 22:28:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 01:28:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" Message-ID: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the holy serafim's conclave. Nusach Ashkenaz, in the introduction to the kedusha of musaf, has a similar phrase: "kesod siach sarfei kodesh". But what does this mean? Every translation I have seen has rendered it as if it said "kesiach sod sarfei kodesh", but that's not what it says! Does anyone know, if "kesod siach" really means "kesiach sod", why they are reversed? Or, if that's not what it really means, can anyone explain what it does mean? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 22:32:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 01:32:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Moroccan nigunim Message-ID: <55221A63.3010303@sero.name> Do we have any experts here on the history of the Moroccan nigunei hatefilah? If so, can someone please explain when/how the Ashkenazi tune for Maoz Tzur got into the Moroccan liturgy as a tune for Mah Ashiv Lashem? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 03:38:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 13:38:02 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] free will Message-ID: We have discussed many times the opinion of Rav Dessler that a person doesn't always have free will. I recently saw a halachic discussion that may have some connection. On ketubot 51 the gemara discusses a case of a married woman who was raped but at the end was willing (techila be-ones ve-sofa be-ratzon). Shmuel's father forbids her to her husband while Rava allows her. One possibility of explaining Rava is that she is overwhelmed by her "yetzer" and so is still considered "anus" This is explicit in the words of R Zadok (tzidkat zaddik 43) that her desire is so great that it is impossible to overcome it and so she is considered anus gamur and so there is no punishment. Targum Yonatan (Devarim 22:26) holds that she is not punished by death but her husband must divorce her. Maharshal (yevamot 6:3) paskens that she is permitted to her husband only if she is "karka olam" However the Noda Beyehuda disagrees (tenina EH 150) and says she is always permitted to her husband because she is overwhelmed by her yetzer and so is not considered that she did it with her free will. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 05:13:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 12:13:44 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house Message-ID: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero asked: > Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in > EY after kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times. Does this > mean that at a shiva house Sholom Rov is said even in shacharis > (in EY on a non-Mon/Thu)? No, but I don't know why. I never thought of that question before, but here is a possibly-related question that I've wondered for years: If Shir Hamaalos is said whenever we skip Tachanun, should it always be said at the shiva house? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:25:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:25:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house In-Reply-To: <552217FE.4020103@sero.name> References: <552217FE.4020103@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150406182521.GC20912@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:22:06AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in EY after : kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times... This rule isn't 100%. Otherwise Sim Shalom would never be said when davening beyechidus. I think it's more lke Ashk uses Sim Shalom in tefillos where Birkhas Kohanim could be said, if we had opportunity. :-)||ii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:28:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:28:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:28:24AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam : siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the : holy serafim's conclave... Sod means conclave? I thought it was referring to the ofanim and chayos haqodesh who learn the secret of the siach of the sarfei qodesh, thereby are misna'asim le'umas serafim... :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 2nd day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Chesed: What is constricted Fax: (270) 514-1507 Chesed? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:37:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:37:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house In-Reply-To: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150406183751.GE20912@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 12:13:44PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I never thought of that question before, but here is a possibly-related : question that I've wondered for years: If Shir Hamaalos is said whenever : we skip Tachanun, should it always be said at the shiva house? We skip tachanun on shabbos and YT (or the week of 7 berakhos, the day of a beris...) because of the joy of the day being inconsistent with its mournful tenor. Shir haMaalos goes hand-in-hand with the joy of the day; if it's joyous enough to warrant looking toward the geulah rather than lamenting the churban with Al Naharos Bavel, then it's joyous enough for Tachanun not to fit either. But the key is joy, which has nothing to do with a beis avel. We skip tachanun in an aveil's home for the opposite kind of reason -- either because 1- we don't want to add to the aveilim's grief by harping on midas hadin, or 2- it is inappropriate to ask for mitigation of middas hadin in a home where din is being fully felt. :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 2nd day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Chesed: What is constricted Fax: (270) 514-1507 Chesed? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:42:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:42:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tan Du In-Reply-To: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> References: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20150406184227.GF20912@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 03, 2015 at 04:32:11PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Tradition - Winter 2014 (Rabbi N. Helfgot) ... : R. Lichtenstein in both private conversation with a number of talmidim : over the decades, including this author and in remarks in public shiurim, : noted his disagreement with the Rav's assessment of this hazaka (and : expressed astonishment at the vehemence of the Rav's opposition at the : time) given the clear cut evidence in the Rishonim in Yevamot and other : places in Shas which clearly indicated that this hazaka was not one that : applied in all contexts and at all times and in all situations. The way I heard RAL (recorded) was more that the large amount of material in Yevamos, much of the rest of seder Nashim, and the rishonim ad loc that such a proposal would make moot was itself RYBS's primary argument against R' Rackman's proposal. And that RAL understood the statement about tav lemeisiv and its ontological nature as a separate secondary argument RYBS made along the way. :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 2nd day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Chesed: What is constricted Fax: (270) 514-1507 Chesed? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:38:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 14:38:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5522D292.4070305@sero.name> On 04/06/2015 02:28 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:28:24AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam > : siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the > : holy serafim's conclave... > > Sod means conclave? Yes, as in "besodam al tavo nafshi". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:59:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 21:59:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 6, 2015 at 9:28 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:28:24AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam > : siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the > : holy serafim's conclave... > > Sod means conclave? > Yes, as in "besodam al tavo nafshi" in birkat Yaakov (Bereshit 49:6), where it's parallel to "kehalam", or more directly connected to kedusha Ps 89:8 "sod kedoshim". I couldn't say whether "conclave" is the original sense and "secret" a derived meaning, or vice versa -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:30:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 14:30:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house In-Reply-To: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5522D0BC.2010004@sero.name> On 04/06/2015 08:13 AM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > R' Zev Sero asked: > >> Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in >> EY after kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times. Does this >> mean that at a shiva house Sholom Rov is said even in shacharis >> (in EY on a non-Mon/Thu)? > No, but I don't know why. > > I never thought of that question before, but here is a > possibly-related question that I've wondered for years: If Shir > Hamaalos is said whenever we skip Tachanun, should it always be said > at the shiva house? The same question would apply in the afternoon of Erev Tish`a B'av. But the two questions can easily be distinguished. The substitution of Shir Hamaalos for Al Naharos Bavel is not caused by the lack of tachanun; rather both are caused by the same thing: the element of simcha on that day that makes mourning inappropriate. But the omission of tachanun at a shiva house is not because of simcha, but because we don't want to invoke divine judgment in a situation which is already fraught; thus Al Naharos Bavel is not inappropriate. And of course on Erev Tish`a B'av what could be more appropriate than Al Naharos Bavel? Sim Shalom, however, seems (in nusach Ahskenaz) to be directly linked to the conclusion of birchas kohanim, "veyasem lecha shalom". Thus it shouldn't matter why birchas kohanim is not being said; the mere fact that it's not said should be enough to cause the omission of sim shalom, and the substitution of shalom rav. Proof that this distinction is valid comes from the case of Tehilim #49, which is said at a shiva house on days when tachanun is said; on days when tachanun is omitted, #16 is substituted. But of course in a shiva house *every* day is a day when tachanun is omitted, so when does one say #49? The obvious answer is that on normal days omission of tachanun is related to the place, not to the day, and thus #49 is said; when the day has an element of simcha that makes #49 inappropriate, we substitute #16. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 16:23:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 19:23:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] partnership - adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties Message-ID: <001b01d070c0$b326a370$1973ea50$@com> Here is a step towards making my approach to the Relationship of Yisrael with Hashem more understandable. As always it is the feedback and exchange of ideas which contains so much creative force. AVOS WERE PARTNERS, THEIR DESCENDANTS WERE IN LIMBO RACHAMIM WAS DETERMINED INCLUSIVITY - ALL ARE INCLUDED INCLUDED INTO THE COVENANT - UNILATERAL COVENANT OF HASHEM WITH HIMSELF 2. G-d related to the Avos - Avraham Yitzchak Yaakov - as partners, whose faithful service he knew and trusted. The durability was unusual, but the basic partnership never was under question, as with partners who get along. 3. 4. Almost all could ask - we are individuals in a mass of Egyptian slaves, we have lost direct contact!! We cannot compare ourselves to a 70 member Covenant, which included Yaakov Avinu one of the Avos, who actually made every move based on direct prophecy. Even the 12 Shvatim had almost direct access to HASHEM himself. 5. The Crisis of Galus Mitzrayim - assuming all had learnt every Passuk in Breishis - was of uncertainty. - Yes Pakod Yifkod - but who am I? Will my generation merit to see what even the most elderly never saw with their eyes? Even were Moshe Rabeinu assured of membership in the Elite, he retained that uncertainty. On Pshat level, five minutes prior to the moment of noticing the Burning Bush, could ask that question. That vision began transforming Moshe Rabeinu into the instrument of G-d, the Goeil. The man who turned to check - was already entering Geula mode. 6. Machzor Vitri page 148 has a key piece called Pithron Nishmas Kol Chai. According to Psachim, the Nishmas Prayer should contain within it the essence of the message of Seder Night. Towards the end of Yishtabach - there treated as just the ending of Nishmas - RAABAN adds that the 15 praises parallel the 15 Dayeinus. 7. The piece de resistance - Chai Haolamim is explained Haya hoveh yihyeh, Ani Hashem lo Shanisi (from Malachi Haftara of Shabbos Hagadol). 8. Rashi here is one theme - as I would see it. Chai means involved with caring for his children right now - as fits in Chai Anochi leOlam Im shanosi brak charbi or a Shvuah. 9. Haolamim means until the end of time, as in a parent telling the child not to worry, the Parent is always here. 10. The piece on page 148 adds an extra word to Nishmas, to make a point sharper. V' Y H V H Shmo Eir Hineh lo yanum vlo yiyshan. The word Shmo - appears only in this one obscure manuscript, seemingly a Rashi arrow. 11. Here Rashi uses full expression - Hashem appeared to Avraham with the name E I L S H a D a Y but not the Name Y H V H. Avos were established Partners and employees. Now Hashem is showing his determination and leadership - new World Order - all eligible Jews will be included in the Geulah, no exceptions. 12. Hashem is taking on the eternal duty of guarding them, with no limits and no clause for rejection. Yes Hashem admits no such precedent existed. Only Hashem can overturn His Rules. 13. Bnei Yisrael are Unilaterally Covenanted to be Hashem's Bni Bchori. Just like He had focused since the word Breishis, bishvil Torh Shenikra Reishis, now all He wants is that His People be His only. Bni Bchori Yisrael! First Day Chol Hamoeid Pesach - we read these key Psukim. Tephillin wearers understand that Kadesh li kol bchor means singular devotion. 14. In our world, it would be a person seeking a marriage partner, then signing Adoption Papers. The parent chose - volitionally and with focus - to adopt this child. PARENTAL RIGHTS - FAMILY IDENTITY 15.It is a brand new family identity, which cannot be abrogated. Yes - there can be strains. But there cannot be a dissolution. It is stronger than marriage! 16. Rashbam says - He the King says about Himself Ehkeh, I will be. Yisrael as his subjects use the Third Person He Will Be. 17. It is not about Maaseh Breishis in Rashi. It refers to the instant covenant - My determination to Adopt You is irrevocable. 18. Ehkeh - becomes the Name He Calls Himself - totally devoted to watching over my Ben Bchor. Yihyeh is the Ben Bchor's confidence that He is watching me us. 19. The moment the Ben Bchor first uses the He will Care for Me - Hashem makes Ehkeh obsolete. The family has begun. 20. This is Rashi Rashbam. CONFIRMATION The Tzarfas Tosafos included Rabeinu Yosef Bchor Shor. He accepts Rashbam completely, except that HVYH is the holiest Name, not Ehkeh. The structure remains the same. 21. Hashem's Choice in Mitzraim was a Bnos TzlOphchad choice - choose which cousin and which time to marry. It is totally volitional and conscious. He chose adoption of all. Bachar Banu. 22. It means at a specific date signing Adoption Papers for 3,000,000 individuals. 23. Rashi says it means the special Adoption - family identity. That Adoption of all Bnei Yisrael had a specific moment, the Sneh. Those Name issues had meaning for Rashi and Rashbam. 24. Within the short timespan, all the Bnei Yisrael are Hashem's chosen children. Rishon in Emmes Vyatziv means since Ytzias Mitzrayim. Maaseh Breishis is not Primary to Rashi only secondary. 25. It is Family Commitment and Identity. Practical example, a secure Child can look his father in the eye. A secure Jew is able to have Hashem look him/her in the eye without flinching. I know this is my Father. 26. As the Midrash puts it - Yam Suf - I already met him when I was born and raised six months with no human being in sight. I know Him! 27. Ha'tishkach Isha ulahh - even a mother's love for her child cannot equal hashem's love. Hashem's Power is ever greater, but even His Love is stronger. 28. Woman says - Pesach is my adoption as Hashem's own Child - no Chametz ever! There is no bending on identity. This works on the visceral level. 29. Rashi in MV 148 does call it Rachamim - as in Rachamei Av al Banim. It is the strength of Inclusion in the Covenant. It is in its deepest essence - a Unilateral Covenant. Ehkeh Asher Ehkeh - just like in this oppression - in any other oppression. That is the Adoptive Parent's approach. Lo yanum vlo yiyshan shomeir Yisrael. 30. Rashi's approach is extremely strong. Rachamim is only possible as part of a relationship. Rashi makes the relationship primary and volitional. The secondary application of which rewards or concessions will be granted, secondary Rachamim, is put onto a solid base. Only chanun is left as a "nebbish" Midah - even from a cruel tyrant chein is possible. 31. Let adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties 32. 33. In describing why person would fast all Passover over and above Jewish Law Practice, you used the words "emotional attachment". In the seven years since that wording , perhaps the message is deeper. 34. This woman was looking at the strength of the Covenant - which is Identity. The bylaws are only secondary. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: AJS review of Rossi.PDF Type: application/pdf Size: 255404 bytes Desc: not available URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 8 05:37:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2015 08:37:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150408123715.GC8438@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 09:59:14PM +0300, Simon Montagu via Avodah wrote: : > Sod means conclave? : : Yes, as in "besodam al tavo nafshi" in birkat Yaakov (Bereshit 49:6), where : it's parallel to "kehalam", or more directly connected to kedusha Ps 89:8 : "sod kedoshim". To clarify: "Sod" *here* means conclave? I suggested an alternative, which I think fits the sentence better, as it makes "sod siach" a phrase, rather than trying to explain the interruption of "siach" in "sod ... sarfei". : I couldn't say whether "conclave" is the original sense and "secret" a : derived meaning, or vice versa Very different implications hashkafically, whether yesod would then be related to secrets (as foundations are in the ground) or a gathering of people (people as founders?). :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 4th day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Chesed: When is Chesed an Fax: (270) 514-1507 imposition on others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 04:58:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 14:58:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: Just saw a halacha that to me was a chiddush That one cannot (or should not) be yotzeh someone else for tefiilat haderech but everyone should say for them self. Those agreeing (at least lechatchila) include R Aviner R Nebenzahl R C Kanevsky R Tuvia Goldstein (who said he convinced RMF) R Belsky Not what I have seen in practice. Anyone know any opinion that does allow it -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 08:55:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 15:55:59 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: <20150412.115559.22172.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel asked: > Just saw a halacha that to me was a chiddush > That one cannot (or should not) be yotzeh someone else for > tefiilat haderech but everyone should say for them self. > Those agreeing (at least lechatchila) include > R Aviner > R Nebenzahl > R C Kanevsky > R Tuvia Goldstein (who said he convinced RMF) > R Belsky > Not what I have seen in practice. > Anyone know any opinion that does allow it Chidush to me too. I don't where to begin my comments. There's a GIGANTIC difference between "cannot" and "should not". "agreeing (at least lechatchila)" also allows a too-wide variety. And without some sort of reasoning, how can we throw out what we already know? Is there something special about Tefilas Haderech, or is this merely an example of how we have so little kavana nowadays that being motzi others is just too risky? I'm sure there are other sources I could quote, but for now, I will simply quote from "Halachically Speaking", vol 1, pg 75, by Rabbi Moishe Dovid Lebovits, published by Israel Bookshop. > One person can say the tefillah for everyone, as long as he has > everyone in mind and the others concentrate on the words.(20) > Horav Yisroel Belsky shlita maintains that every individual > should try to say tefillas haderech if he can.(21) If this is > not possible, one person can say it for everyone.(22) > 20) Kinyan Torah 2:119, Bais Avi 5:55, Opinion of Horav > Elyashiv shlita quoted in Darchei Ori page 279:2, > U'velechticha Baderech 2:footnote 26 quoting the opinion of > Horav Chaim Kanievesky shlita, see Darchei Ori page 259:1. It > is questionable whether someone who has already said tefilalas > haderech can repeat it for someone else. (Halichos Shlomo > Tefilah 21:5:footnote 9). > > 21) See Emes L'Yaakov page 65. > > 22) See Eishel Avraham Butchtach, Rivevos Ephraim 6:32:2, > Halichos Shlomo Tefilah page 245:5, Divrei Chachamim page > 76:192. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 06:33:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 09:33:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: <10b001d074db$3ad805c0$b0881140$@gmail.com> References: <20150407125218.216501835E4@nexus.stevens.edu> <10b001d074db$3ad805c0$b0881140$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150412133337.B25AB182ACC@nexus.stevens.edu> I am moving this to Avodah. YL At 12:43 AM 4/12/2015, R. Moshe Yehuda Gluck wrote: >R' YL: >Another person wrote to me > >"Chazal say that one is not allowed to daven outside (probably because of >kavana); >-------------------- >Does anyone have a mareh makom for this? > >KT, >MYG From http://www.dinonline.org/2012/07/11/davening-outdoors/ Is it problematic to daven outdoors? Thanks. Answer: One should not daven in an open area outdoors, and should daven in a closed building, or a sheltered area. Sources: The Gemara (Berachos 34b) writes that it is wrong (arrogant ? chatzuf) to daven in an open field. Rashi explains that in an open field, one doesn?t feel fear of the King, and one doesn?t pray with a broken heart. Tosafos, however, understands that the concern is for passers-by, who are liable to disturb a person?s davening. The Magen Avraham (90:6) rules that the problem is that davening outside makes a haughty statement: ?Even though there are passers-by, they will not disturb my intent in davening!? This is arrogant and wrong. The Shulchan Aruch (90:5) rules that one should not daven in an open place, and the Mishnah Berurah (11) adds that those who are always travelling should can daven in an open place, but should try to daven by a tree. Therefore, although it is not forbidden to daven outdoors, it is wrong to daven in an open area, and one should seek a sheltered place. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 09:54:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 19:54:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] reviit Message-ID: In the sefer of Rav Aviner he brings many examples of gedolim who used a kiddush cup the size of the shiur of R Chaim Naeh (86 CC) and not CI. He says he heard from RSZA that when RCN published his sefer on shiurim the rabbis of Yerushalayim were astounded at his chumra !! 1) cup if Chafetz Chaim (from his grandson R Hillel Zaks) 2) cup of GRA (baal eyanim le-mishpat who got it as an inheritance) 3) cup someone got from Ohr Sameach (mesoros she-avdu) 4) Rebbe of Gur - Pnei Menachem stated about the cup of his father Baal Imre Ha-emes 5) cup of R Salanter (Shut Teshuvot Vehanhagot) 6) Rav Dessler used a small cup that belonged to his wife's family. After she passed away he used a larger cup 7) cup of the father of the CI 8) Brother of CI used a cup he got from his father-in-law (Cheshek Shlomo of Vilna) and also had shiur RCN 9) R Elyashiv used a cup the size of CI but explained that he did so in honor of CI not because that is the halacha 10) In the sefer Meged Givat Olam second volume p34) someone showed RMF a cup holding about 88cc and RMF remarked that it was kosher lechatchila (not not the shiur published in his name) 11) In Divrei Yoel the Satmar rebbe is quoted as saying the shiur of reviit is 75 gram (!?) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 12:01:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 15:01:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] reviit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <552AC11F.8060605@sero.name> On 04/12/2015 12:54 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > 11) In Divrei Yoel the Satmar rebbe is quoted as saying the shiur of reviit is 75 gram (!?) > RACN assumed that the Rambam's dirham was the same as the Ottoman dirham used in his day, which was 3.1 g. But there's significant evidence that the Egyptian dirham of the Rambam's day was slightly smaller, about 2.8 g, which gives a revi'it of about 75 ml. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 12:15:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 15:15:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150413191514.GA19165@aishdas.org> R' Ari Kahn posted a transcript of that famous talk that people remember for RYBS's statement about tav lemeisiv. http://arikahn.blogspot.co.il/2013/03/rabbi-soloveitchik-talmud-torah-and.html As a teaser, here is all RYBS said on tev lemeis tan du: Let me add something that is very important: not only the halachos but also the chazakos [19] which chachmei chazal have introduced are indestructible. We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above. Let us take for example the chazaka that I was told about: the chazaka tav l'meisiv tan du mil'meisiv armalo [20] has absolutely nothing to do with the social and political status of women in antiquity. This chazaka is based not upon sociological factors, but upon a verse in breishis -- harba arbeh itz'voneich v'heironeich b'etzev teildi vanim v'el isheich t'shukaseich v'hu yimshal bach -- "I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy travail; in pain thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee" [21]. It is a metaphysical curse rooted in the feminine personality -- she suffers incomparably more that the male who is in solitude. Solitude to the male is not as terrible an experience, as horrifying an experience, as is solitude to the woman. And this will never change, mayid shamayim vaaretz [22]. This is not a psychological fact; it is an existential fact, which is due not to the inferior status of the woman, but rather to the difference, the basic distinction, between the female personality and the male personality. Loneliness frightens the woman, and an old spinster's life is much more miserable and tragic than the life of an old bachelor. This was true in antiquity; it is still true, and it will be true a thousand years from now. So, to say that tan du mil'meisiv armalo was or is due to the inferior political or social status of the woman is simply misinterpreting the chazaka tan du mil'meisiv armalo. No legislation can alleviate the pain of the single woman, and no legislation can change this role. She was burdened by the Almighty, after she violated the first [law]. Let me ask you a question -- ribono shel olam, G-d Almighty, if you should start modifying and reassessing the chazakos upon which a multitude of halachos rest, you will destroy yehadus. So instead of philosophizing, let us rather light a match and set fire to the beis yisrael, and get rid of our problems. What I think is more typical of the general thesis of this portion of his talk was the immediately prior statement: V'chen hakofer b'perusha v'hu torah she b'al peh v'hamach'chish magideha; he who denies the perfection and the truthfulness of chachmei chazal -- not of the Torah, but of the chachmei chazal as personalities, as real persona as far as their character, their philosophy, or their outlook on the world is concerned -- is a kofer. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 9th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 most appropriate? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 12:27:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 19:27:43 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150413191514.GA19165@aishdas.org> References: <20150413191514.GA19165@aishdas.org> Message-ID: What I think is more typical of the general thesis of this portion of his talk was the immediately prior statement: V'chen hakofer b'perusha v'hu torah she b'al peh v'hamach'chish magideha; he who denies the perfection and the truthfulness of chachmei chazal -- not of the Torah, but of the chachmei chazal as personalities, as real persona as far as their character, their philosophy, or their outlook on the world is concerned -- is a kofer. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The whole piece is worth hearing (even more than reading) - it seems to me that the debate echoes here: https://kavvanah.wordpress.com/2015/04/12/rabbi-ysoscher-katz-and-rabbi-ozer-glickman-rounds-one-and-two/ I do wonder whether one can avoid self awareness with a modern education. Another challenge is how to deal with recent "Chachmei Hamesorah" who don't seem to meet the perfection definition. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 13:56:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 13:56:37 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] support obligations Message-ID: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/193853#.VSwsUo6ZPAG interesting question . while in theory the ketuba and consequently the terms of marriage , mandate the husband support a wife , in practice that is not true in the kollel years [which in israel could last a prolonged time ]. here , a kollel man divorcing claims no income , and that the wife should support the children by getting a job . apart from secular courts, is there a positive chiyuv for a husband to leave 'torato umnato' to support his children ? does a get terminate his financial obligations halachically? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 14:23:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 17:23:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Philosophy and practice of shmita In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150413212344.GA3301@aishdas.org> On Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 10:09:02PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : What is the earliest source that ties shmita to the farmers using the : time to learn Torah?... I don't know about first, but the Seforno (Vayiqra 25:4, d"h "shabbos Lashem") writes: So that also those who work the earth, when they rest for this year, yis'oreru lidrosh es H' be'ofen mah. This is then quoted verbatum by R' Yaaqov Tzevi Mecklengburg (HaKesav behaQabbalah, early or mid-19th cent), who sites both the Sefornu and and "Raba"ch" -- who is eluding me. I didn't see it in Rabbeinu Bechayei, nor the Chizquni. Nor am I sure that "liderosh es H'" means learning. More recent is the Ari (as recorded by R' Shemu'el Vital, Shaar haPesuqim) based on the Zohar (vol II 20b). Haro'eh baShoshanim -- "Shoshanim" refers to the 6 shins in "usefarta lekha SHeva SHabasos SHanim, SHeva SHanim SHeva pe'amim". And from there haro'eh bashoshanim becomes: the one who dedicates the 7th year to learning finds G-d in all the 6 years of labor as well. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 9th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 most appropriate? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 14:28:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 17:28:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos In-Reply-To: <20150401084748.2445618205D@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150401084748.2445618205D@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150413212857.GB3301@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 01, 2015 at 04:47:45AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Does not the SA say that a person who has trouble chewing matzah can : soak it in water and then eat it? If so, then I fail to see why : eating gebrokts should be a problem for anyone. : The SA lived in the wrong qehillah for the minhag to be relevant. He would allow you to eat qitniyos too. And if we accept the SA haRav's explanation of gebrochts over the MB's, the Rama lived before we counted kneading time toward the 18 min, and gebrochts wasn't necessary yet. And since according to the SAhR's teshuvah, the minhag caught on after the Besh"t, meaning during the lifetime of its author and his readers, I am inclined to believe his version of the timing over someone who is reconstructing older history. : Also, were not the matzos that were used in the time of the SA : thicker than ours? Again, MB vs the SAhR as to whether that's at issue. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 9th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 most appropriate? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 14:33:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 17:33:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] support obligations In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150413213345.GC3301@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 01:56:37PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : apart from secular courts, is there a positive chiyuv for a husband to : leave 'torato umnato' to support his children ? does a get terminate his : financial obligations halachically? Assuming she didn't agree to the arrangement. Ortherwise, the wife willingly waved her claim to his income, and took on the obligation of self- and child-support. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 20:54:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 03:54:11 GMT Subject: [Avodah] support obligations Message-ID: <20150413.235411.14734.1@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Assuming she didn't agree to the arrangement. Ortherwise, the wife > willingly waved her claim to his income, and took on the obligation > of self- and child-support. I would argue that she accepted the financial responsibilities only in exchange for the s'char she gets from enabling her husband to learn Torah, and that once he ceases to be her husband, that arrangement ends, and the whole thing reverts to the usual. Phrased differently, once he stops giving her the s'char of sharing in his learning, he has to give her a more practical olam-hazeh sort of support. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552c8fb420d2bfb30fdest04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 20:45:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 03:45:47 GMT Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> [RAK gives credit to others in fn. 1. It is not his transcript. -micha] R' Micha Berger posted R' Ari Kahn's transcript of Rav YB Soloveitchik: > ... This is not a psychological > fact; it is an existential fact, which is due not to the inferior > status of the woman, but rather to the difference, the basic > distinction, between the female personality and the male personality. > Loneliness frightens the woman, and an old spinster's life is much > more miserable and tragic than the life of an old bachelor. This was > true in antiquity; it is still true, and it will be true a thousand > years from now. So, to say that tan du mil'meisiv armalo was or > is due to the inferior political or social status of the woman > is simply misinterpreting the chazaka tan du mil'meisiv armalo. ... From what I understand, the objection to hafkaas kiddushin comes from a presumption that a woman would prefer to stay with her husband, even if he seems to be a terrible person, and even if she tells us that in *her* opinion he is a terrible person -- and we have this presumption because of the chazaka of tan du. But I do not see Rav Soloveitchik making that case here. All he is saying is that "an old spinster's life is much more miserable and tragic than the life of an old bachelor." He does say that this relative perspective on singlehood is a "permanent ontological principle[s] rooted in the very depth of the human personality," and that it will never change, and that this information is Revealed in the words of Bereishis. But this refers ONLY to the misery and tragedy of a single woman as opposed to a single man. And that's NOT that argument against hafkaas kiddushin, at least not how I've heard it. The argument that I've heard -- that is to say, the supposed translation of "tav l'meisiv tan du" -- is that a woman would prefer living with ANY man rather than to be alone. I can easily understand opposition to Hafkaas Kiddushin on the grounds that widespread use would give *all* marriages a sort of "tentative" status. But that's not what people are referring to here, right? When they invoke "tan du" against Hafkaas Kidushin, they're saying that despite the wife's protestations, the wife would actually prefer to stay married, and that's why they're unable to annul the marriage. Or am I mistaken? Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 05:26:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 08:26:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <552D0792.4060709@sero.name> On 04/13/2015 11:45 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > From what I understand, the objection to hafkaas kiddushin comes from a > presumption that a woman would prefer to stay with her husband, even if > he seems to be a terrible person, and even if she tells us that in*her* > opinion he is a terrible person -- and we have this presumption because > of the chazaka of tan du. What she prefers is irrelevant. Obviously she wants to leave her husband; she is openly telling us so, and it's ridiculous to suppose she is not telling the truth. And even if she weren't, if the marriage is invalid then it's invalid, no matter what she wants. You're looking at the whole thing from the wrong direction. No objection is needed to annulling a marriage; what's needed is grounds *for* annulling it. The alleged grounds are that it has now become clear that this man was always such a bad person that had the woman known this when he proposed marriage she would have refused, and throughout the subsequent marriage there was never a point at which she was so happy that had she found out the truth she would have consented to stay with him. Now if the husband is bad enough (and it can be proved that he always was so), *and* the woman is such a catch that there was never a point at which she could not have found another husband, then this makes sense. Obviously she has always preferred a good husband to a bad one, and only married this man because she thought he was a good one. But what if refusing to marry him, or leaving him at some point during the marriage, were to expose her to the risk of remaining single forever? Would she still have turned him down or left him? The proponents of annulment say yes, of course she would, just as she has left him now. But, RYBS says, Chazal tell us that it's female nature to prefer a bad husband to none at all, so perhaps even if she had known the truth about this man she would have consented to marry him rather than risk remaining single; or perhaps there was a point after the event at which, had she learned the truth, she would have stayed with him rather than face a single future. > But I do not see Rav Soloveitchik making that case here. All he is saying > is that "an old spinster's life is much more miserable and tragic than > the life of an old bachelor." Yes, and therefore while a man might prefer to be single rather than live with a bad wife, a similarly situated woman will not. That this woman *now* tells us she would, doesn't prove that she always would have. > He does say that this relative perspective on singlehood is a "permanent > ontological principle[s] rooted in the very depth of the human > personality," and that it will never change, and that this information > is Revealed in the words of Bereishis. But this refers ONLY to the misery > and tragedy of a single woman as opposed to a single man. > > And that's NOT that argument against hafkaas kiddushin, at least not > how I've heard it. The argument that I've heard -- that is to say, the > supposed translation of "tav l'meisiv tan du" -- is that a woman would > prefer living with ANY man rather than to be alone. Yes. How is that not the same thing? Spinsterhood is terrible for women, so terrible that they'd prefer living with a bad man to it. > When they invoke "tan du" against Hafkaas Kidushin, they're saying that despite > the wife's protestations, the wife would actually prefer to stay married, > and that's why they're unable to annul the marriage. Or am I mistaken? Not that she'd prefer it now, but that she did prefer it earlier, when she was faced with the risk of never finding anyone else. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 06:44:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 09:44:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Could a New Gadget Change Shabbat Observance - Forever Message-ID: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/njr5j7a List of leading rabbis endorse 'Kosherswitch' to allow lights on Shabbat. High-voltage project could send a current through Jewish world. Will Shabbat observance change forever with a flick of a switch? A new gadget was released to the mass market on Monday promising Orthodox Jews a solution to the age-old problem of leaving lights on or off on Shabbat and then being prevented by Jewish law from flipping the switch. The new invention, dubbed "KosherSwitch," has been beta-tested since 2009 - but an indiegogo campaign launched Monday promises to bring the project to the masses. See the above URL for more as well as for a video explaining how this device works. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 07:59:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 10:59:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Could a New Gadget Change Shabbat Observance - Forever In-Reply-To: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150414145918.GA28845@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 09:44:04AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : From http://tinyurl.com/njr5j7a :> List of leading rabbis endorse 'Kosherswitch' to allow lights on :> Shabbat. High-voltage project could send a current through Jewish :> world. :> Will Shabbat observance change forever with a flick of a switch? Unlikely. They say this is new tech, which could be true since they got a [atenmt, but the How it Works page and the ptent describe something much like what Machon Zomet uses in their wheelchairs . Actually, Zomet makes sure their switch changes the amount of current, I see nothing in the patent about anything but turning the power on and off entirely -- it appears *more* problematic. The engineers among us can check out . As you can read on Zomet's site, R Neuwirth permits the wheelchair only because the issue is basic mobility. KosherSwitch.com shows you that that RYN signed on a "me too" to R' Pinchas Zabihi's haskamah. I have a notion that once things are clarified, the truth is more somewhere in between. When a house is on fire, and someone puts up a wall of pottery flasks filled with water to arrest its progress, geram kibui is mutar. See SA OC 334:22. The Rama either adds or explains (citing the Mordekhai), that this is bemaqom peseida. But gerama isn't suddenly mutar even without hefsed meruba or kevod haberios as a matir. So it all boils down to whether they really have a new tech that is more legitimate for them to call "un-grama" than Machon Zomet's design. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 07:12:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 10:12:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] =?iso-8859-1?q?The_Kosher_Switch=3A_A_Response_from_the_?= =?iso-8859-1?q?Tzomet_Institute=92s_Rabbi_Yisrael_Rosen?= Message-ID: <20150414141204.C79091830F4@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/ptcfckt The rabbinic world and blogosophere (see, for example, here) has been abuzz about the propriety of the Kosher Switch, which its producers claim allows one to halakhically turn on and off lights on shabbat. Attached here is the Hebrew response of Rabbi Yisrael Rosen, the prominent engineer who heads the Tzomet Institute, which includes (signed) clarifications of the positions of Rabbi Avigdor Nevenzahl and Rabbi Yehoshua Neuwirth. It is was sent on Tzomet stationery to Rabbi David Mescheloff, and is reprinted here with permission. Below is a rough English translation of the first page, which does not include some of the halakhic argumentation provided on the 2nd page of the original Hebrew. For all scholarly and halakhic purposes, and purposes of citation, only the original Hebrew letter should be seen as the authoritative writing of Rabbi Rosen. D. And here is the main part of my remarks: Yesterday I went to my teacher and rabbi HaGaon Rabbi Yehoshua Neuwirth, Shlita, and I asked him whether he permitted to use this switch to activate electricity on Shabbat for the purposes of Oneg Shabbat, etc He was really shocked and said he never permitted that. When I showed him the endorsement letter, he added in his handwriting: ?Only for medicine and security? (see photo in attached Hebrew article). Rabbi Avigdor Nebenzahl Shlita, who signed a similar letter, also told me yesterday that he does not recall ever signing anything like that, and expressed the opinion that there is no place for this and was puzzled about the whole thing. I suppose that whoever managed to get the signatures of important rabbis ?sold? them an invention that is a kind of a complex Gramma used for the purpose of medicine or security, and succeeded in skipping this condition when they signed. E. With regard to the claim, written in their accompanying halachic responsum, that it is permitted to use this Gramma switch to minimize the prohibition of those who willfully the violate the Shabbat, we have never heard of such rabbis who permit this. I am sure that those who ?agreed? did not see this argument, and this is an argument that should not be stated. See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 08:01:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joseph Kaplan via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 11:01:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <002d01d076c3$e98d8290$bca887b0$@tenzerlunin.com> "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above." Can anybody explain what this really means? That is, explain it to someone who doesn't use the word "ontological" in his/her normal speech. I have read it many many times but I still don't understand what the Rav is saying. Joseph -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 07:42:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 17:42:18 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: I guess I was a little too succinct in my last post. The major problem is that many consider tefillat haderech as a tefillah and not as a bracha. Thus while one can be motze other for a bracha one cannot do it for a tefillah. Hence, R Nebenzahl paskens that all those that know how to say by themselves should do so R C Kanevsky says it is preferable for each person to say by themself R Tuvia Goldstein says that one cannot be yotzeh someone else and claims that he convinced RMF of that R Belsky repeats that it is a tefillah and not a bracha and so it is appropriate (min ha-raui) that everyone says it for themself. R Aviner says that it is "rachamim" and therefore it is preferable that each one requests for themselves however bidieved one can be motzi others The sefer Piskei Teshuvot (siman 110-2) has a discussion whether one is required to say tefillat haderech in modern times. He concludes that one who does not say it on major roads has someone to rely on but someone who also says it has the reward of a tefilla even though we no longer have "listin" and wild animals on the roads. Instead we have a car accidents. Therefore one should also say tefillat haderech on railroads and planes. He claims that on small side roads that everyone paskens you need to say tefillat haderech -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 08:22:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 11:22:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150414152222.GD28845@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 03:45:47AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : From what I understand, the objection to hafkaas kiddushin comes from a : presumption that a woman would prefer to stay with her husband, even if : he seems to be a terrible person, and even if she tells us that in *her* : opinion he is a terrible person -- and we have this presumption because : of the chazaka of tan du. You phrased it as a psychological issue. RYBS says it's something existential or ontological -- and explicitly NOT pschological. I think he is saying that this vector exists in every woman's character. Even when current social reality provides other vectors that may submerge tav lemeisiv tan du, it is an entity present in her psyche (ontologically) still shaping her perception of reality (existential). And because of that element of her soul, inherited from Chavah, it's very hard to ever call a marriage a complete meqach ta'us on the bride's part. But again, my impression from RAL which is reinforced by this transcript, this particular argument was a side-bar, not RYBS's primary argument. Eg: ... : I can easily understand opposition to Hafkaas Kiddushin on the grounds : that widespread use would give *all* marriages a sort of "tentative" : status. But that's not what people are referring to here, right? ... RYBS discusses that issue at greater length than this one anyway. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 08:32:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 11:32:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] support obligations In-Reply-To: <20150413.235411.14734.1@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150413.235411.14734.1@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150414153245.GE28845@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 03:54:11AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Micha Berger wrote: : > Assuming she didn't agree to the arrangement. Ortherwise, the wife : > willingly waved her claim to his income, and took on the obligation : > of self- and child-support. : I would argue that she accepted the financial responsibilities only : in exchange for the s'char she gets from enabling her husband to learn : Torah, and that once he ceases to be her husband, that arrangement ends, : and the whole thing reverts to the usual. Phrased differently, once he : stops giving her the s'char of sharing in his learning, he has to give : her a more practical olam-hazeh sort of support. We are in the weird situation of talking about what the bride was agreeing to WRT a situation she never pictured arising. (I am reminded of Avodah discussions about what the Rambam would do if faced with what he perceives as a solid philosophical proof for a position he could not find a basis for in Torah. Would he declare something an allegory despite a lack of source in Chazal, would he dismiss the proof as flawed, perhaps even assuming the flaw had to be something he didn't yet find? The Rambam thought the situation was impossible.) So, I want to detour into a case more likely to have crossed the kallah's mind -- his death. If the husband predeceases her without having left kollel, she wouldn't expect him to leave her the same estate than if he had spent that time earning money. It may be equally valid to argue that the bride relinquishes claims to money even after he finishes learning, in exchange for supporting him while learning -- however long that lasts. I really don't know which way of looking at things is more valid. It's kind of like the old chestnut, "But if you did have a brother, would he like noodles?" Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 10:00:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Weiss via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 10:00:06 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3e97bfe1715ba4f18f42bf014d7ab62a.squirrel@mail.panix.com> > From http://www.dinonline.org/2012/07/11/davening-outdoors/ >> Is it problematic to daven outdoors? ... >> The Gemara (Berachos 34b) writes that it is wrong >> (arrogant - chatzuf) to daven in an open field. >> Rashi explains that in an open field, one doesn't >> feel fear of the King, and one doesn't pray with >> a broken heart. Tosafos, however, understands >> that the concern is for passers-by, who are >> liable to disturb a person's davening. >> The Magen Avraham (90:6) rules that the problem >> is that davening outside makes a haughty >> statement... ... >> Therefore, although it is not forbidden to daven >> outdoors, it is wrong to daven in an open area, >> and one should seek a sheltered place. As you see from the above it is the Lechatichilla not do daven in an open place, Last week we had a mincha minyan at the grand canyon, (to wait to a more appropriate place it would have been well after dark) When one davens in a large minyan and is surrounded by other people davening it is easier to concentrate on the tefilla. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 12:44:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 15:44:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd [TM]: Why Does God Test Us? Message-ID: <20150414194402.GB3303@aishdas.org> RGStudent recently posted a piece to answer the question "Why Does God Test Us?" The notion that the all-knowing God needs to test us to determine whether we will follow His command is absurd. He knows the future and therefore gains nothing from the exercise. Yet the Torah discusses in multiple places God's tests. For example, regarding the man (manna) that fell in the desert, God states: "So that I may test them, whether they will follow My law or not" (Ex. 16:4). The midrash (Tanchuma, Vayera 23) expresses the question aptly: ... I. Personal Growth The Kuzari (5:20), followed by the Ramban (Gen. 22:1; Ex. 16:4; Deut. 13:4; Toras Ha-Bayis in Kisvei Ha-Ramban, vol. 2 pp. 272-273), explains that God tests people in order to actualize their potential goodness.... II. Education Rambam (Moreh Nevukhim 3:24) takes an entirely different approach. He sees divine tests as a way to publicize, and thereby teach, the righteousness of an individual.... III. Adult Education I believe that, aside from midrashic sources and textual cues, Rambam had a more fundamental reason for taking a path different from that of the Kuzari and Ramban. The Gemara (Makkos 10a) says that Heaven takes you in the direction you wish to go. Similarly, another Gemara (Yoma 39a) says that someone who wishes to become pure (i.e. do good) is divinely assisted. Apparently, the Ramban takes this literally. ... IV. Self-Discovery Radal (ibid.) offers a third approach to understanding divine tests. Pirkei De-Rabbi Eliezer (31) says that the test was for Avraham to know his heart. God certainly know whether we will pass a test but poses it so that we learn our own abilities. Like a good coach, God pushes us farther than we think we can go. This, too, applies to adults who often underestimate their capacity for strength. God only tests those who will pass and by doing so teaches us the extent of our faith and endurance. ... -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 15:41:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 18:41:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] reviit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150414224153.GA9794@aishdas.org> On Sun, Apr 12, 2015 at 07:54:45PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : In the sefer of Rav Aviner he brings many examples of gedolim who used a : kiddush cup the size of the shiur of R Chaim Naeh (86 CC) and not CI. : He says he heard from RSZA that when RCN published his sefer on shiurim the : rabbis of Yerushalayim were astounded at his chumra !! Interesting, because I thought that RACN's agenda was to justify the accepted practice in his local, in EY in the early 20th cent. (Something I learned on-list 15 years ago.) Minhag Y-m is RACN's shiurim, because RACN started with the assumption that Minhag Y-m was roughly accuate, with the Sepharadim being the more precise. RACN himself was a Lubavitcher chassid of the Yishuva haYashan, born in Chevron. I do not know why people usually call him "Rav Chaim Naeh", ommitting his first name "Avraham". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 15:50:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 18:50:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: <3e97bfe1715ba4f18f42bf014d7ab62a.squirrel@mail.panix.com> References: <3e97bfe1715ba4f18f42bf014d7ab62a.squirrel@mail.panix.com> Message-ID: <20150414225006.GB9794@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 10:00:06AM -0700, Harry Weiss via Avodah wrote: : > From http://www.dinonline.org/2012/07/11/davening-outdoors/ : >> Is it problematic to daven outdoors? : ... : >> The Gemara (Berachos 34b) writes that it is wrong : >> (arrogant - chatzuf) to daven in an open field. : : >> Rashi explains that in an open field, one doesn't : >> feel fear of the King, and one doesn't pray with : >> a broken heart. Tosafos, however, understands : >> that the concern is for passers-by, who are : >> liable to disturb a person's davening. : : >> The Magen Avraham (90:6) rules that the problem : >> is that davening outside makes a haughty : >> statement... : ... : >> Therefore, although it is not forbidden to daven : >> outdoors, it is wrong to daven in an open area, : >> and one should seek a sheltered place. : .... : When one davens in a large minyan and is surrounded by other people : davening it is easier to concentrate on the tefilla. The Kotel Plaza doesn't suffer from any of these concerns, which is unsurprising because centuries of gedolim had no problem davening outside at the kotel. It's set up like a shul, so there is no special chutzpah or yuharah in davening there. Interruptions are likely, but generally for other mitzvos -- tzedaqah, or answering qaddish or qedushah from nearby minyanim. In terms And the location actively fosters yir'ah, koveid rosh and a broken heart. However, davening at Robinson's arch might suffer from the yuhara issue. (Personally, I find it more moving than the Kotel Plaza. One stands on the same road walked by oleh regel, among stones thrown off Har haBayis by the Roman Army (whether during the churban or when Hadrian had the har plowed, I do not know). Behind me are the ghosts of shopkeepers, ready to exchange my maaser sheini coins back to food, sell me flour for a qorban Todah or an animal for a differen qorban. The miqvah is a bit back, and to the left.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 16:12:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 23:12:56 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <20150414.191256.7783.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The major problem is that many consider tefillat haderech as a > tefillah and not as a bracha. Thus while one can be motze other > for a bracha one cannot do it for a tefillah. I am very confused. Many poskim recommend point out that Tefilas Haderech does not begin with "Baruch", so they recommend saying it after another bracha (such as Asher Yatzar, or a Bracha Acharona on food), so as to make it into a Bracha Hasemucha L'chvertah. But if Tefilas Haderech is not a bracha to begin with, then I do not see the advantage of such a procedure. According to "Halachically Speaking", vol 1 pg 76, the poskim who recommend the above procedure includes: Magen Avraham 110:13, Machatzis Hashekel 110:13, Be'er Hetev 110:10, Shulchan Aruch Harav 110:6, Mishneh Berurah 110:28, Aruch Hashulchan 110:14, Kaf Hachaim 110:51 -- but NOT the Chazon Ish (Orchos Rabenu 1:61). In addition, I recall learning of certain situations where it is recommended that one should say tefilas haderech, but omitting the chasima at the end. But if it's not a bracha at all even WITH the chasima, then what is gained by leaving it out? I suspect that I do not appreciate or understand the meaning of "as a tefillah and not as a bracha". Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552d9f0aeea561f0a2aa2st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 19:48:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 22:48:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Could a New Gadget Change Shabbat Observance - Forever In-Reply-To: <20150414145918.GA28845@aishdas.org> References: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150414145918.GA28845@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415024810.GA29474@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 10:59:18AM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 09:44:04AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : : From http://tinyurl.com/njr5j7a : : :> List of leading rabbis endorse 'Kosherswitch' to allow lights on : :> Shabbat. High-voltage project could send a current through Jewish : :> world. RGS just posted http://www.torahmusings.com/2015/04/will-the-kosher-switch-bring-mashiach-2 which also links to his earlier http://www.torahmusings.com/2011/09/in-defense-of-the-kosher-switch .... : As you can read on Zomet's site, R Neuwirth permits the wheelchair only : because the issue is basic mobility. KosherSwitch.com shows you that that : RYN signed on a "me too" to R' Pinchas Zabihi's haskamah. I have a notion : that once things are clarified, the truth is more somewhere in between. Actually, RGS determined that R Neuwirth didn't give his approval of the Kosher Switch outide of special circumstances. RGS writes: > The Kosher Switch adds uncertainty to the Gerama Switch. Every time the > device is supposed to send a light impulse, it calculates a random number > below 100 and only sends the impulse if the number passes a threshold > (usually over 50). However, there is a random element to Machon Zomet's switch too. Again, I do not see anything in the patent that makes this switch any less a simple case of gerama than Machon Zomet's switch. (In fact, R' Rosen of Zomet checked the posqim cited on KosherSwitch.com *because* he saw no reason why they would allow the Kosher Switch for general use and not Zomet's Grama Switch.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 19:26:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 02:26:43 GMT Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150414.222643.13892.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> R' Joseph Kaplan asked: > "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with > the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not > upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon > permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of > the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, > which is as changeless as the heavens above." > > Can anybody explain what this really means? That is, explain it > to someone who doesn?t use the word "ontological" in his/her > normal speech. I have read it many many times but I still > don?t understand what the Rav is saying. This is how I understand it: Just as a leopard cannot change its spots, and just as Shabbos comes each week whether society accepts it or not, so too, there are certain elements of the human condition which Chazal have identified as inherent and unchanging, not subject to variation by time, place, or culture. Or something like that. At any rate, one can agree or disagree about whether this assertion is true, and even among those who agree with it, there might be discussion of exactly which chazakos are unchanging and which are variable. Still, his point is that there are indeed some UNchanging aspects. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552dcca9d8e634ca96125st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 02:07:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 05:07:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's true position on kosher switch I regret that my father's position on the kosher switch was misrepresented by stating that he endorses it l'maaseh . His position is that there are 2 aspects in hilchos shabbos, one is issur melacha and then there is zilzul shabbos. My father's opinion is that there is no issur melacha or chilul shabbos. However , there is a concern about zilzul shabbos as he stated clearly on the video. Before it is used one should ask a shaila from his rav. Moshe Oelbaum Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:01:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:01:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld : regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. ... :> Moshe Oelbaum :> Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum Authentication? -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 23:10:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 09:10:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: The reason for not allowing to be motzi someone else is actually quite simple. The Gemara in Berachos (29b) clearly states that tefilas haderech is a tefila "Amar R' Chisda hayotzeh laderech tzarich lhispallel tefilas haderech". Therefore the general rule of tefilla should apply, namely that if you are a baki someone else cannot be motzi you. Since nowadays we are all considered bekiim and for example, we don't allow someone to be motzi us in tefilas mincha the same would apply to tefilas haderech. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:18:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:18:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:01 AM 4/15/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: >: Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld >: regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. >... >Authentication? What I posted was sent to me by someone on my email list whom I trust. I can send you his email address if you like. YL From http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/kosher-switch > moish3 at yahoo.com > Member > Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's true position on kosher switch . > I regret that my father's position on kosher switch was > misrepresented by stating that he endorses it l'maaseh . His position > is that there are 2 aspects in hilchos shabbos. One is issur melacha > and then there is zilzul shabbos. My father's opinion is that there > is no issur melacha or chilul shabbos. However , there is a concern > about zilzul shabbos as he stated clearly on the video. Before it is > used one should ask a shaila from his rav. > Moshe Oelbaum > Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:44:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:44:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 06:18:35AM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : What I posted was sent to me by someone on my email list whom I trust. : I can send you his email address if you like. YL ... : From http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/kosher-switch : > moish3 at yahoo.com : > Member Oh, I believe it really appeared in YWN, and that link can allow you to check that much for ourselves. What I'm asking is whether anyone contact R' Moshe Oelbaum or RNIO to authenticate that the post really was from his son. It is trivial to claim to be anyone in a YWN chatroom. I don't know RMO, but I can't picture R' NI Oelbaum promulgating his position via chatroom. Could be, if his son is a regular there anyway. The presence of a post really doesn't tell me much. No matter how honest the person reporting to you is, he can be duped unless he spoke to the parties himself. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:13:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:13:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150415101229.BCD31183613@nexus.stevens.edu> At 05:54 AM 4/15/2015, R. Harry Weiss wrote: >When one davens in a large minyan and is surrounded by other people >davening it is easier to concentrate on the tefilla. I do not find this to be true for me personally. I am not a "group person" and hence prefer to daven in a minyan that has between 20 and forty participants. This is the case where I daven during the week and also at the Hashkama Minyan at the YI of Ave J where I daven on Shabbos. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 06:34:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 09:34:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:44 AM 4/15/2015, Micha Berger wrote: > What I'm asking is whether >anyone contact R' Moshe Oelbaum or RNIO to authenticate that the >post really was from his son. It is trivial to claim to be anyone >in a YWN chatroom. I received this in an email from Moshe Deutsch I personally spoke to Rabbi & Rebbetzin Oelbaum who told me to publicize this. I was the one who made them aware that the person behind KosherSwitch is using his name in a way that Rabbi Oelbaum did not intend. Person behind KosherSwitch does not pick up the phone now when Rabbi Oelbaum calls. Moshe From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 07:21:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 10:21:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 09:34:32AM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : I received this in an email from Moshe Deutsch :> I personally spoke to Rabbi & Rebbetzin Oelbaum who told me to :> publicize this. I was the one who made them aware that the person :> behind KosherSwitch is using his name in a way that Rabbi Oelbaum did :> not intend... This still doesn't clear up my confusion, although it does confirm what the YWN post said (if not who authored it). I am trying to understand whether RNIO's problem with the appearance of his name on the KosherSwitch.com "approvers" list is because a- he feels that use of the switch is zilzul Shabbos, or b- he would hold it's gerama. What I am trying to understand is the tzad to say their switch isn't gerama. It appears to conform to the description of the Machon Zomet switch as it existed at the time R' Neuwirth consulted with RSZA who ruled it was. If RNIO holds it's "only" zilzul Shabbos, then clarifying what his position is was useful, but doesn't remove all my confusion. I was expecting that the posqim the Kosher Switch people are hearing overly optimistically (for their investment) would actually all end up agreeing with RSZA once we got clarification. Such as R' Neuwirth, whose approval was based on assuming the proposed use was a medical context. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 04:38:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 14:38:08 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <> On many birtchot hamitzva one can be motzeh others even when they are "experts". This includes shofar, megilla etc (not lulav or netillat yadaim which is considered as a mitzvah be-gufo) similarly for kiddush and havdala. Note that for sefirat haomer usually each person says the bracha himself/herself and also counts for themselves. There are opinions that if needed one can rely on the chazzan for the bracha but not the count. In birchat ha-nehenim usually each individual makes his own bracha. There are some which are a mixture including kiddush and motzi on shabbat on lechem mishne (note there are various minhagim on seder night). For birchat shevach eg lightning seeing great mountains etc each person says it by himself. OTOH the shliach tzibbur can be motzi others with shemone esre only if they cant say it themselves. Shemonei esrei is a tefillah (bakasha and shevach) even though shemonei esrei consists of brachot. The usual minhag is that each individual says birchat hagomel though I once heard from R Zilberstein that if many people need to say it then it is preferable for one person to be motzei everyone else ---------------------------------------- I am not sure if I have made things clearer - if not I leave it to someone else to explain exactly when one can be motze others lechatchila, bidieved or not at all -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 06:29:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 16:29:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: R' Akiva Miller wrote: > I suspect that I do not appreciate or understand the meaning of "as a > tefillah and not as a bracha". The difference between tefila and a beracha is whether you can be motzi a baki nowadays. With a beracha you can however with a tefilla you cannot which is why these poskim hold that each person should say tefilas haderech the same way every person davens shemoneh esrei. You also asked: > I am very confused. Many poskim recommend point out that Tefilas Haderech > does not begin with "Baruch", so they recommend saying it after another > bracha (such as Asher Yatzar, or a Bracha Acharona on food), so as to make > it into a Bracha Hasemucha L'chvertah. But if Tefilas Haderech is not a > bracha to begin with, then I do not see the advantage of such a procedure. Something can be both a beracha and a tefila at the same time, the prime example is shemoneh esrei which is tefilla par excellence but composed of 18 (19) berachos. Tefilas haderech is a tefila composed (possibly) in the form of a beracha and therefore the rules of tefilla would apply. [Email #2. -micha] R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The sefer Piskei Teshuvot (siman 110-2) has a discussion whether one is > required to say tefillat haderech in modern times. He concludes that one > who does not say it on major roads has someone to rely on but someone who > also says it has the reward of a tefilla even though we no longer have > "listin" and wild animals on the roads. It seems clear from the context of the gemara that tefilas haderech is a tefila b'eis tzara. The gemara mentions tefilas haderech right after it mentions that a person who is in a dangerous place says a tefila. The world has changed a lot since the time of chazal especially related to travel and we need to understand if these changes affect the din of tefilas haderech Here are some of the changes that have occurred relating to travel. 1. Most travel is no longer considered unsafe. When I get in my car every morning to drive to work I don't think twice about it 2. The distinction between in the city and out of the city is no longer true. Most people fell much safer driving in the Catskills then driving through Harlem. Driving on a highway from Brooklyn to Queens is in the city but driving in Monsey to the supermarket may be considered out of the city. 3. This is related to 1, people travel all the time. Most people commute some distance to work, this is normal and part of everyday life. In the time of chazal yotze laderech was a big deal. Given the above R' Shachter (in Nefesh Harav) says that R' Soloveitchik did not say tefilas haderech when he commuted from Boston to NY to give his shiurim. He felt that because it is a tefila b'eis tzara and nowadays there is no perceived danger and it is routine that there was no reason to say it. Recently, I heard a short shiur on tefilas haderech and was happy to hear that RSZA seems to say a very similar idea to RYBS. RSZA did not say tefilas haderech when he traveled from Yerushayim to Bnei Brak. He explained his reasoning as follows: 1. In many places it is not considered as if you left the yishuv for the following reasons: 1. There are many other cars on the road 2. The police regularly patrol the road 3. There are houses on the side of the road 2. Traveling by car/bus is a normal activity. Whan a person gets up and commutes to work he does not say he is going on a trip. The takana of tefilas haderech was for someone who was yotze laderech these kinds of trips are not considered ???? ????. 3. There is little or no danger of yotze laderech RSZA reasoning is very similar to RYBS. Basically, the world has changed and it is no longer unusual or dangerous to travel between cities and therefore the din of when you say tefilas haderech changes as well. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 05:05:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:05:17 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150414.222643.13892.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150414.222643.13892.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <0fa3e90282b94c0e95214067965f579a@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> This is how I understand it: Just as a leopard cannot change its spots, and just as Shabbos comes each week whether society accepts it or not, so too, there are certain elements of the human condition which Chazal have identified as inherent and unchanging, not subject to variation by time, place, or culture. Or something like that. At any rate, one can agree or disagree about whether this assertion is true, and even among those who agree with it, there might be discussion of exactly which chazakos are unchanging and which are variable. Still, his point is that there are indeed some UNchanging aspects. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ I would add an observation that individual exceptions may exist empirically but are ignored halachically Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 06:24:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 09:24:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tan Du In-Reply-To: <20150406184227.GF20912@aishdas.org> References: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150406184227.GF20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <552E669A.6000104@aishdas.org> I personally was always inclined to side with Rabbi Rackman over RYBS on tav l'meisav, but this article gives me pause: http://www.bbc.com/news/health-32303997 KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 07:57:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 10:57:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Message-ID: From: Joseph Kaplan via Avodah "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above." Can anybody explain what this really means? That is, explain it to someone who doesn't use the word "ontological" in his/her normal speech. I have read it many many times but I still don't understand what the Rav is saying. Joseph >>>>> If you leave out the word "ontological" here the sentence is perfectly clear: Human nature does not change. I'm sure you looked up the definition of "ontological" so no need to go there. But in this paragraph, the word "ontological" serves a subliminal purpose. Here it means, "Don't condescend to Orthodox Jews and do not assume we are backwards, primitive, and ignorant. One can be an intellectual and still believe the Torah is true and eternal." --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 08:12:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:12:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: From: Eli Turkel via Avodah >>The sefer Piskei Teshuvot (siman 110-2) has a discussion whether one is required to say tefillat haderech in modern times. He concludes that one who does not say it on major roads has someone to rely on but someone who also says it has the reward of a tefilla even though we no longer have "listin" and wild animals on the roads. Instead we have a car accidents. Therefore one should also say tefillat haderech on railroads and planes. He claims that on small side roads that everyone paskens you need to say tefillat haderech<< -- Eli Turkel >>>> Saying tefillas haderech "on major roads" -- does that mean even within one city, not just when traveling between cities? "On small side roads everyone paskens you need to say tefillas haderech"? What does that mean? Every time I get in the car to go to the grocery store in my own neighborhood? Or was the word "don't" inadvertently omitted from that sentence ("you don't need to say tefillat haderech")? I was driving someone to the cemetery for a levaya, we were on the highway doing 60 and all of a sudden it started to rain, but I mean a mabul, a hard, driving, blinding rain. I couldn't see at all in front of me. Of course I slowed down, as did everyone else, but it was still very frightening and certainly I couldn't just stop in the middle of the highway. My passenger, a BT, became very agitated and said, "I only know one perek of Tehillim by heart so I am going to say that." Then she recited Shir Hamaalos (from benching) out loud. The rain stopped immediately! A few miles further down the road, there was another sudden blinding outburst and she said Shir Hamaalos again. Again the rain immediately stopped. She was like a reverse Choni Hamaagel! I really think her emunah peshuta saved the day! But to veer back into Avodah territory -- would it have been appropriate to say Tefillas Haderech at that time? With shem umalchus? (I assume you can always say it without shem umalchus.) --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 08:34:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:34:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides Message-ID: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> There was a bachur next to me this morning whose retzu'os were painted black on both sides. And I believe I know why this is done, in case a retzu'ah gets flipped. Or perhaps to be chosheish for the Rambam's description of such retzu'os being "noi". The MB 933:21 tells us not to follow the Rambam, whereas the Keses haSofer (written by R' Ganzfried of the QSA) says even the *sides* should be black. But the site got me wondering: 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? 2- If the leather is soaked in dye untile its absorbed and the leather is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? R YS Elyashiv is reported by R' Mordeschai Friedlander (a noted sofer and poseiq, a reliable source) to hold they're fine. I am not challenging their kashrus. It just struck me that both seem valid concerns. I assume the talented chevrah can find holes in my problems. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:17:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:17:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> At 10:21 AM 4/15/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >I am trying to understand whether RNIO's problem with the appearance of >his name on the KosherSwitch.com "approvers" list is because >a- he feels that use of the switch is zilzul Shabbos, or >b- he would hold it's gerama. Does it really matter. He is saying that he does not approve of its use. Why do you need to know more? YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:32:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:32:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 12:17:02PM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : Does it really matter. He is saying that he does not approve of its : use. Why do you need to know more? For the sake of the switch, no. For the sake of understanding the concept of gerama -- Torah hi, velilamdah ani tzarikh! Saying this switch isn't gerama, and its use limited to cases where we can permit gerama, really defies my understanding of the concept. Or perhaps I misunderstand how it works, in which case the Electrical Engineer I studied to become (and the neti'ah that motivated the intent to become one) wants to know. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:07:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 17:07:04 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:34:00 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah > 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam > consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? > 2- If the leather is soaked in dye [until it's] absorbed and the leather > is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we > know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? 1. If it is just soaked, there is no problem of chatzitzah. (Did the fact that the pesiloth of the Tsits were soaked in techeles dye constitute a problem of chatsisoh? atmahah?) There may be a problem if it was subsequently glossed black - which it isn't. 2. Why shouldn't it be valid material after soaking? It's still leather. According to halachah, [have not checked this up right now - but if memory serves me] you can even use klaf [bdi'eved] for retsuos - as long as it is the skin of a kosher beheimoh, its kosher. Dovid [sofer] From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:13:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:13:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> References: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <552E8E18.4090201@sero.name> On 04/15/2015 11:34 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam > consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? Why would it be? It's part of the retzua. AFAIK everyone agrees that it's a hiddur, just not necessary, and most people don't bother. > 2- If the leather is soaked in dye untile its absorbed and the leather > is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we > know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? Why wouldn't it be? It's still leather, after all. Where does it say what colour the leather must be? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:57:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:57:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150415165733.GD6173@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:04PM +0100, D via Avodah wrote: : Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:34:00 -0400 : From: Micha Berger via Avodah :> 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam :> consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? : 1. If it is just soaked, there is no problem of chatzitzah. (Did the : fact that the pesiloth of the Tsits were soaked in techeles dye : constitute a problem of chatsisoh? atmahah?) ... So I believe your answer to my first question is that they don't paint the bottom, they only use my scenario two -- soaking the leather. About your parenthetical comment... If halakhah requires tekheiles, it requires blue wool. The completed product would be what the kohein shouldn't have a chatzitzah under. Not the undyed wool. :> 2- If the leather is soaked in dye [until it's] absorbed and the leather :> is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we :> know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? : 2. Why shouldn't it be valid material after soaking? It's still : leather.... But it's no longer entirely skin of a kosher beheimah, as the dye isn't made from skin. It is now a retzuah made of skin + dye. I could see that either way, and am asking how we (or the posqim among us) can just assume that this innovation is not a problem. Just as tekheiles is different than tzemer, perhaps dye-soaked leather is different in kind than leather. How did we determine it isn't? : Dovid [sofer] Thanks for chiming in. But could you kindly put your full name in your email header or signature once in a while, so that people know who we're talking to? One of Avodah's goals is to create chevraschaft, which is difficult when people are anonymous or partially so. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 10:28:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 17:28:55 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150415.132855.9927.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 12:17:02PM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : Does it really matter. He is saying that he does not approve of its : use. Why do you need to know more? This is like saying, about ANY situation, "He is saying that it is assur. Why do you need to know if it is d'Oraisa or d'rabanan?" The answer is very simple: There are some situations which would justify doing it if "merely" d'rabanan, but not otherwise. Similarly, there may be situations where RNIO would allow this it his svara was ABC, but not if his svara was XYZ. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552e9fe45804e1fe4411ast02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 12:42:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 19:42:24 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu>, <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> Message-ID: <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Saying this switch isn't gerama, and its use limited to cases where we can permit gerama, really defies my understanding of the concept. Or perhaps I misunderstand how it works, in which case the Electrical Engineer I studied to become (and the neti'ah that motivated the intent to become one) wants to know. Tir'u baTov! -Micha _______________________________________________ Sounds to me like r' asher weiss's makeh bpatish definition. Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 16:13:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 19:13:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 07:42:24PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Sounds to me like r' asher weiss's makeh bpatish definition. You lost me. I wasn't discussing which melakhah -- if any -- one violates by using electricity in an of itself, but how using this switch relates to that melakhah. For example, even if we say that electricity and electronics itself weren't an issue, the majority of these switches would be installed so as to turn on fluorescent or incandescent bulbs. Both of which heat filaments until glowing -- so there is a melakhah of bishul or hav'arah to discuss. And my question becomes: In that rather typical setting, how the switch not gerama of one of those two melakhos? (Or possibly both, if a glowing filament is hav'arah, and the resulting boiling of mercury in the fluorescent bulb, bishul.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 13:05:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 16:05:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: REliTurkel wrote: >Just saw a halacha that to me was a chiddush That one cannot (or should not) be yotzeh someone else for tefiilat haderech but everyone should say for them self. Those agreeing (at least lechatchila) include R Aviner R Nebenzahl R C Kanevsky R Tuvia Goldstein (who said he convinced RMF) R Belsky Not what I have seen in practice. Anyone know any opinion that does allow it< Is there any opinion, even of the five quoted, which holds that one is _not_ yotzei even b'diavad? As for RET's question, the Kol Bo on Aveilus, quoted in SSK, Perek 64, footnote 75, states that an onein is obligated in t'fillas haderech, but it is preferable that he be yotzei with another's b'racha. (I have not seen the SSK, but have seen it quoted.) EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 15:35:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 15:35:27 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach Message-ID: did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 17:00:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 20:00:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 6:35 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? I have a friend who does this. She once told me the origins but I forget where it came from. I remember that it was very obscure and non traditional. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 17:38:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 20:38:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150416003839.GD1638@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 03:35:27PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? What did it grow out of? Avoiding she'avar alav es hapesach? A way of avoiding chodosh, at least during the omer period? -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 17:44:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 20:44:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: <20150416003839.GD1638@aishdas.org> References: <20150416003839.GD1638@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 8:38 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 03:35:27PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: >: did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? > What did it grow out of? ... It had to do with chodosh and the omer/barley. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 22:05:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Weiss via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 22:05:46 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > From: Marty Bluke via Avodah > Given the above R' Shachter (in Nefesh Harav) says that R' Soloveitchik > did > not say tefilas haderech when he commuted from Boston to NY to give his > shiurim. He felt that because it is a tefila b'eis tzara and nowadays > there > is no perceived danger and it is routine that there was no reason to say > it. I was on a number of trips to Europe with RHS and every morning when the bus left town he said Tefillas Haderech over the loudspeaker. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 22:19:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 08:19:12 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: multipart/alternative Size: 369 bytes Desc: not available URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 07:15:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:15:53 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: Question: If one doesn't view eilu v'eilu as multiple truths but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which is which), how do you explain the approach to halachic process which ignores academic findings concerning texts or historical circumstances? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 07:16:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:16:49 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] =?windows-1252?q?Nikra_Choteih=94_or_=93Nikra_Rasha=94?= Message-ID: <34b0a662bcc7405695661d14e08ddcfd@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> The gemara uses the expression ?Nikra Choteih? or ?Nikra Rasha? from time to time. Has anyone seen anything written on the relative ranking of such categories? (e.g. since it doesn?t say ?assur?? does it mean it?s not a complete prohibition but something less?) KT Joel RIch THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 08:26:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 16:26:54 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I've never heard of the minhag but there is a chasidishe minhag to eat matsoh every time one washes for hamotsi during the Omer [see Chayim VeShoolom - Minhogim of Munkatche Rebbe] - which might be connected. (The source is the Ari who perceives the spiritual influx of Pesach to be repeated over the Omer; the state that warrants the eating of matsoh during Pesach carries over till Shovuos. Full 'maturity' that warrants the eating of chomets is only reached on Shovuos.) Dovid Rubin From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 10:13:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 17:13:44 GMT Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach Message-ID: <20150416.131344.1969.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> R' Dovid Rubin wrote: > (The source is the Ari who perceives the spiritual influx of Pesach > to be repeated over the Omer; the state that warrants the eating of > matsoh during Pesach carries over till Shovuos. This reminds me of the comment (which I've heard several times here on Avodah, but I don't think anywhere else) that in Moshiach's time, all of Sefira will be a sort of Chol Hamoed to Pesach. > Full 'maturity' that > warrants the eating of chomets is only reached on Shovuos.) Shavuos -- a.k.a. -- "Atzeres" -- is of course an entirely distinct holiday, unrelated to Pesach or to its seven-week long chol hamoed. Chometz would not be a problem on Shavuos any more than Sukkah is mandated on the other Atzeres. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552fede2bc7ec6de23df7st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 10:56:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 13:56:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: <20150416.131344.1969.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.131344.1969.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150416175612.GB10238@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 05:13:44PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Dovid Rubin wrote: :> Full 'maturity' that :> warrants the eating of chomets is only reached on Shovuos.) : Shavuos -- a.k.a. -- "Atzeres" -- is of course an entirely : distinct holiday, unrelated to Pesach or to its seven-week long chol : hamoed. Chometz would not be a problem on Shavuos any more than Sukkah : is mandated on the other Atzeres. Entirely distinct, yes. Unrelated.... The chag of cheirus finds its fruition with "charos - cheirus al haluchos." The connection between the issur chameitz of Pesach, the barley of the qorban omer, and the two loaves of chameitz wheat of the Shetei haLechem is at least as old as the Chinukh. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:22:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:22:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> Yesterday, at 7:13 pm EDT, I wrote: > And my question becomes: In that rather typical setting, how the > switch not gerama of one of those two melakhos? (Or possibly both, if > a glowing filament is hav'arah, and the resulting boiling of mercury > in > the fluorescent bulb, bishul.) And then "ssvarc" (RMSS) wrote on Torah Musings at 8:28 am or > In all likelihood, the Zomet one doesn?t have the light on a > randomized > timer (with indicators), nor the randomized chance for the light > pulse > to operate the switch. Now for an updated version of my response (not yet approved) there: Zomet's Grama Switch does have a randomizer on the LED whose light you may or may not block. As do Shabbos mode ovens. The Kosher Switch has a the same randomizer on the detector opposite the LED, but I don?t see how that makes anything more random. But now that you had me looking at their ?How it Works? page, the key difference has the description of a sefeiq sefeiqa. It?s far from clear what is meant. Here?s the quote from : > This creates two safeiks (Halachic uncertainty): the first, whether > or not the light pulse of the Light Pulse Pair will fail; the second, > whether the switch will fail in triggering the circuit based on the > results of the Light Pulse Pair. ?The switch will fail in triggering the circuit?? What are they doing to introduce this second safeiq? The best I can tell, it's a simple bit of software -- a randomizer that says "don't respond anyway". But that's just guessing, I'm not good enough at reading their patent to be sure. Also, in what sense is either a safeiq? Both will eventually happen, the question is when. I am not sure how ?sefeiq sefeiqa? applies to gerama, or to be more precise -- avoiding gerama. But at least I?m a step further in my understanding. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Here is the test to find whether your mission micha at aishdas.org on Earth is finished: http://www.aishdas.org if you're alive, it isn't. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Richard Bach From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:46:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:46:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> Message-ID: PS: On the relevance of random delay to gerama... AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is *geram* kibui". A case of gerama with a random time delay. But this is Yom Tov, where the laws against extinguishing are looser. The AhS refers you to OC 277:7, where we see that on Shabbos it's assur -- but because of a special gezeira to prevent people from doing the same when the wind *is* blowing. Not because of gerama. I also don't think the randomness of the length of the delay is necessarily relevant. Just pointing out halachic precedent. But it's certainly not "iffy" that we could invoke sefeiq sefeiqa. It's a random length delay, not a doubt whether or not the switch will eventually cause the outcome. The odds the wind will never come, or the randomizer(s) will never produce a combination that causes the switch to be honored, is ignorably small. (No one is selling a switch that may or may not shut the light.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:43:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:43:56 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: RJRich >>>Sounds to me like r' asher weiss's makeh bpatish definition. RMBerger >>>> You lost me. I wasn't discussing which melakhah -- if any -- one violates by using electricity in an of itself, but how using this switch relates to that melakhah. >>> IIAMN, the idea RJR is expressing is that the poseik has ad initio determined that the action in question is forbidden, and now is searching around for the category into which to place this prohibition. I have heard RAWeiss explicitly use this concept in classifying the use of electricity as makeh b'patish, based on a Yerushalmi - it's not an idea just made up by contemporary poskim. It does seem that some poskim are looking at the switch and saying "it *must *be assur somehow"; in any event that seems to me to be what RJR is suggesting is going on. Saul Mashbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:45:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:45:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55300361.8020803@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 02:22 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > "The switch will fail in triggering the circuit"? What are they > doing to introduce this second safeiq? The best I can tell, it's > a simple bit of software -- a randomizer that says "don't respond > anyway". But that's just guessing, I'm not good enough at reading their > patent to be sure. Yes, that's how I understood it. If and when the pulse is received, instead of automatically triggering the light to turn on, there's a gatekeeper that flips a coin, heads it obeys the request to turn on the light, tails it refuses. > Also, in what sense is either a safeiq? Both will eventually happen, > the question is when. In principle it might not ever happen. The basis of all this seems to be siman 277. There the concern is that even if the wind isn't blowing right now, it might start to blow *immediately* as you begin to open the door. This implies that if we can be sure that it won't start blowing until some time after the door has been opened it will be OK. But that whole discussion assumes that extinguishing the flame is not the purpose for which the door is being opened, it's just a possible side-effect. Is the halacha different if that was the intention? On 04/16/2015 02:46 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > > AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes > the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable > to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, > as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. > The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is > *geram* kibui". But there you're actively taking it to the place where the wind will blow. Here you're merely opening the door, so that if/when the wind blows the door won't protect the flame. > But it's certainly not "iffy" that we could invoke sefeiq sefeiqa. It's a > random length delay, not a doubt whether or not the switch will eventually > cause the outcome. The odds the wind will never come, or the randomizer(s) > will never produce a combination that causes the switch to be honored, > is ignorably small. (No one is selling a switch that may or may not shut > the light.) Why not? For the shabbos-keeping household, a switch that sometimes fails is better than no switch at all. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 12:12:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 15:12:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <55300361.8020803@sero.name> References: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 02:45:53PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : >Also, in what sense is either a safeiq? Both will eventually happen, : >the question is when. : : In principle it might not ever happen. ... : >But it's certainly not "iffy" that we could invoke sefeiq sefeiqa. It's a : >random length delay, not a doubt whether or not the switch will eventually : >cause the outcome. The odds the wind will never come, or the randomizer(s) : >will never produce a combination that causes the switch to be honored, : >is ignorably small. (No one is selling a switch that may or may not shut : >the light.) : : Why not? For the shabbos-keeping household, a switch that sometimes fails : is better than no switch at all. You want to ask them why not, feel free to do so. I'm not guessing why they're not setting the randomizers to make each even that unlikely. Still, they are repeatedly rolling the dice, the odds of repeatedly getting "no" falls off geometrically with the length of time in question. Ignoring milsa delo shekhicha, the light will indeed go on. They say the average is "several times" at . : The basis of all this seems to be siman 277. There the concern is that : even if the wind isn't blowing right now, it might start to blow : *immediately* as you begin to open the door. This implies that if we : can be sure that it won't start blowing until some time after the door : has been opened it will be OK. But that whole discussion assumes that : extinguishing the flame is not the purpose for which the door is being : opened, it's just a possible side-effect. Is the halacha different if : that was the intention? : >AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes : >the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable : >to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, : >as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. : >The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is : >*geram* kibui". : : But there you're actively taking it to the place where the wind will blow. : Here you're merely opening the door, so that if/when the wind blows the door : won't protect the flame. The AhS invites the comparison, not me. Clearly you're making a disinction that he holds is without a difference. BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at . To quote: An alternative Talmudic analogy: * There is a candle burning next to a closed window, and a strong wind blowing outside. Certainly, opening the window on Shabbat is forbidden, since the candle will be extinguished immediately. * There is a device that can determine if there's no wind currently blowing, and it can predict with 100% accuracy that no wind will be blowing for at least the next ~5 seconds. It lights up with a green light when it has determined this to be true. * On Shabbat, a person opens/closes the window while the device's indicator is green, knowing that a wind will ultimately blow and succeed in extinguishing the candle. * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to KosherSwitch (R). -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:55:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:55:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] {Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: > From: Marty Bluke via Avodah > Given the above R' Shachter (in Nefesh Harav) says that R' Soloveitchik > did > not say tefilas haderech when he commuted from Boston to NY to give his > shiurim. He felt that because it is a tefila b'eis tzara and nowadays > there > is no perceived danger and it is routine that there was no reason to say > it. RAsher Weiss, in a shiur on tefillat haderech, similarly expressed grave reservations about the recitation of tefillat haderech on routine trips which do not involve any particular acute danger, and indicated that his personal practice is not to say tefillat haderech (at least with a bracha) on said routine trips. OTOH, he was apparently very reluctant to issue a definitive psak that others should do the same, in the face of common established practice. Saul Mashbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 12:43:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 15:43:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> References: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 03:12 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > > BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at > . To quote: > > An alternative Talmudic analogy: > > * There is a candle burning next to a closed window, and a strong > wind blowing outside. Certainly, opening the window on Shabbat is > forbidden, since the candle will be extinguished immediately. > > * There is a device that can determine if there's no wind currently > blowing, and it can predict with 100% accuracy that no wind will be > blowing for at least the next ~5 seconds. It lights up with a > green light when it has determined this to be true. > > * On Shabbat, a person opens/closes the window while the device's > indicator is green, knowing that a wind will ultimately blow and > succeed in extinguishing the candle. > > * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind > is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time > when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts > of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they > miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're > able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to > KosherSwitch (R). Yes, and it seems from the SA that this would be permitted. The big difference, though, is that in the SA's case there is no intention to extinguish the flame, and here there is. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 12:53:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 15:53:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> References: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150416195347.GC11430@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 03:43:24PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: :> BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at :> . To quote: ... :> * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind :> is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time :> when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts :> of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they :> miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're :> able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to :> KosherSwitch (R). : Yes, and it seems from the SA that this would be permitted. The big : difference, though, is that in the SA's case there is no intention to : extinguish the flame, and here there is. Getting back to the post that started this tangent, the question was whether this last bullet item actualy is relevant. What's relevant is the probability of the wind eventually blowing the candle out or the switch turning the light off. If it's a rov or maybe a rube deruba, then it's gerama. At least, that's what was consensus decades ago when Machon Zomet first produced their switch technology and wheelchair. Whether you can break down the likelihood of the melakhah occuring into a union of the probability of a number of sub-steps or not doesn't seem to me to impact the question. Because this isn't a safeiq situation, it's whether your action can be blamed for the melakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 13:25:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 16:25:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150416195347.GC11430@aishdas.org> References: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> <20150416195347.GC11430@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55301AC6.7000807@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 03:53 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 03:43:24PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > :> BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at > :> . To quote: > ... > :> * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind > :> is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time > :> when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts > :> of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they > :> miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're > :> able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to > :> KosherSwitch (R). > > : Yes, and it seems from the SA that this would be permitted. The big > : difference, though, is that in the SA's case there is no intention to > : extinguish the flame, and here there is. > > Getting back to the post that started this tangent, the question was > whether this last bullet item actualy is relevant. According to the SA even the penultimate bullet item is permitted: >> * On Shabbat, a person opens/closes the window while the device's >> indicator is green, knowing that a wind will ultimately blow and >> succeed in extinguishing the candle Surely the last bullet item makes the heter much stronger. But again, the case discussed is where this is not one's intention. Note also, in the mashal, that not only is there no wind right now, there is no candle right now either. > What's relevant is the probability of the wind eventually blowing the > candle out or the switch turning the light off. If it's a rov or maybe > a rube deruba, then it's gerama. That doesn't seem to be what the SA says. But again, with the caveat that intention might make a difference. > Whether you can break down the likelihood of the melakhah occuring into > a union of the probability of a number of sub-steps or not doesn't seem > to me to impact the question. Because this isn't a safeiq situation, > it's whether your action can be blamed for the melakhah. It's putting further causal distance between "cause" and "effect". What if you had a series of these routines, each of which may or may not call the next one, until the last one which may or may not do something? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 14:05:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Samuel Svarc via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 17:05:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Apr 15, 2015 6:01 AM, "Micha Berger via Avodah" wrote: > On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > : Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld > : regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. > ... > :> Moshe Oelbaum > :> Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum > Authentication? Um, the fact that R' Oelbaum says the same thing on the KosherSwitch video ()? What I find very disturbing is that this information is in the public arena. Why are people commenting or conjecturing without looking at the companies materials? On Apr 16, 2015 2:46 PM, "Micha Berger" wrote: > PS: On the relevance of random delay to gerama... > AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes > the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable > to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, > as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. > The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is > *geram* kibui". > A case of gerama with a random time delay. But this is Yom Tov, where > the laws against extinguishing are looser. The AhS refers you to OC > 277:7, where we see that on Shabbos it's assur -- but because of a > special gezeira to prevent people from doing the same when the wind *is* > blowing. Not because of gerama. Take a look at R' Schapiro's teshuva (available on the KosherSwitch website) as well as listen to the shuir they link to (26 min.). KT, MSS From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 14:48:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 17:48:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150416214839.GC1824@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 04:25:42PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: :> What's relevant is the probability of the wind eventually blowing the :> candle out or the switch turning the light off. If it's a rov or maybe :> a rube deruba, then it's gerama. : That doesn't seem to be what the SA says. But again, with the caveat that : intention might make a difference. But we already know it does, according to RSZa and numerous other posqim. IOW, your seifa answers your reisha. : >Whether you can break down the likelihood of the melakhah occuring into : >a union of the probability of a number of sub-steps or not doesn't seem : >to me to impact the question. Because this isn't a safeiq situation, : >it's whether your action can be blamed for the melakhah. : It's putting further causal distance between "cause" and "effect". : What if you had a series of these routines, each of which may or may not : call the next one, until the last one which may or may not do something? That's exactly what I'm saying -- gerama is always a chain of events that can be subdivided according to your taste (how fine grained you wish to define the word "event"). There is an oft-discussed difference between melakhah and CM, where the latter subdivides into gerama (culpable) and garmi (no libability) but hilkhos Shabbos does not. And then even so, garmi is about number of human actions, not physical events. On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 05:05:38PM -0400, Samuel Svarc wrote: : On Apr 15, 2015 6:01 AM, "Micha Berger via Avodah" : wrote: :> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: :>: Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld :>: regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. :> ... :>:> Moshe Oelbaum :>:> Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum :> Authentication? : Um, the fact that R' Oelbaum says the same thing on the KosherSwitch video : ()? YOu misunderstand what I'm asking to be authenticated. Yes, I agree that RNIO talks about zilzul Shabbos. He does in the original alleged approbation in print (or PDF) as well. I was asking for authentication that RMO was really the one who said it's "only" zilzul Shabbos and not also gerama. There is nothing in his caveat about them avoiding melakhah that explains in what way shabbos is being cheapened. Could be uvda dechol, could be gerama, could be any other derabbanan or shevus. No? Not to verify the new "chumera", but to very he wasn't being even more machmir. That's a lot to glean from a post on a YWN chatroom that claims to be from his son. No one identity checks on YWN. : What I find very disturbing is that this information is in the public : arena. Why are people commenting or conjecturing without looking at the : companies materials? In the same post I cite the site in numerous ways, including commenting on parts of the patent application. It's not like I stinted on the research. Never blame until the possibility of miscommunication has been eliminated. No? : On Apr 16, 2015 2:46 PM, "Micha Berger" wrote: : Take a look at R' Schapiro's teshuva (available on the KosherSwitch : website) as well as listen to the shuir they link to (26 min.). One thing I had noted about the teshuvah is that he doesn't bother with the whole thing about a second randomizer. Which is why I was lost as to why anyone would think this is more mutar, and why people who generally follow RSZA more often than RZS would think this solves anything. See R' Neuwirth's summary rejection, repudiating the claim he backed their work . Consistent with what he reported besheim RSZA decades ago. I already noted OC 277, which is specific to geram kibui being mutar, with the exception of taking a candle outside while the wind is calm, lest someone not wait for the wind to be calm. And havarah or bishul? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 18:59:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:59:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150417015924.GA11845@aishdas.org> Here's the current state of my understnading, to start the conversation over by clearing the exchanges that got me there. Feel free to correct any misunderstandings, or even points that needn't necessarily be as I present them. 1- RSZA considers Zomet's Gerama Switch to be just that -- gerama, and therefore assur derabanan except in special cases. Randomly delayed changes to a circuit is, leshitaso, gerama. 2- KSTI considers their switch to be halachically different because their version of the Gerama Switch then goes into a second randomizer which determines whether or not it actually turns on or off your light. They invoke the words "sefeik sefeika", which I don't understand, since the random element is to insure an unknown delay, not a doubt about whether or not the switch eventually turns the light on. 3- Those who hold like RSZA -- R Neuwirth (obviously), R' Nebenzahl, R' Shternbuch -- gave the same ruling to the new switch. 4- Those who say this switch is gerama do not actually invoke the second random element. I found nothing in that wouldn't apply to Zomet's switch. I see them as simply disagreeing with RSZA and R' Yehoshua Neuwirth when they dealt with that question decades ago. Which, given the stature of RSZA and the acceptance of Shemiras Shabbos keHilhasah (and thus RYN), I don't think will get very far in terms of communal acceptance. 5- The Machloqes between RSZA and R Chaim Zvi Shapiro (to pick two representative names) appears to be over how to understand the distinction between two statements by the Rama: 334:22- Geram kibui is only allowed in special cases, and 514:3- You may put a cnandle next to an open window even in a windy area. RSZA distinguishes between whether the intent is kibui or not. RCZS makes the chiluq between whether the maaseh is one of kibui. But I still don't see how this makes the Kosher Switch not a maaseh kibui that we would group it with open windows, not the normal geram kibui. 6- You can't take a candle outside to a windy area even when there is no wind because of a gezeira atu not waiting for the wind to die down. This is different than the window, because one is moving the candle itself. Still, the Magein AvrahamA applies the gezeira to the window as well -- inlike the Rama. So my wondering about how the Kosher Switch isn't a maaseh kibui means that I also have no idea why the switch wouldn't be covered by the gezeira. And according to the MA, the gezeira definitely applies, regardless. If so, wouldn't you need the switch to be physically blocked when the response could be immediately, and not merely warned off with a red light? 6- R' Oelbaum is against general usage, due to zilzul Shabbos. (To my understanding, zilzul Shabbos means violating a shevus or other deRabbanan, chilul Shabbos means deOraisa.) According to he explicitly states "it is clear it is not a grama". So, my prior approach to figuring out what he holds was pointless. Regardless of whether the person in YWN's chatroom is his son or just someone pretending to be, ie whether that text is likely to reflect the nuances of his position. And regardless how one is medayeiq the difference between melakhah and zilzul, ie whether he considers geram melakhah a melakhah or a shevus. RNIO is in the same camp as R' Chaim Zvi Shapiro WRT the mechanics of gerama, but with RSZA it all in practice. But at least now my opening question has some kind of resolution: No poseiq makes a point about how the switches differ, its a machloqes about whether the switch is more like bringing a candle outside or opening a window. It may also be a machloqes about whether it's only geram kibui that is limited to acts of kibui, or even other melakhos. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 17:56:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 20:56:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <10e550.ca50480.4261b459@aol.com> From: Zev Sero via Avodah >> Why not? For the shabbos-keeping household, a switch that sometimes fails is better than no switch at all.<< -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name >>>>> Now that Shabbos lamps are readily available -- they work by covering the light rather than turning it off -- why do we need the Shabbos switch at all? --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 18:08:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 01:08:53 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150416.210853.21413.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> > But that whole discussion assumes that > extinguishing the flame is not the purpose for which the door is being > opened, it's just a possible side-effect. Is the halacha different if > that was the intention? If the operative principle were Psik Reisha, then intention certainly would matter. So here's a question: Is Grama a version of Aino Psik Reisha, or is it another principle entirely? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55305d31763705d3173a1st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 15:56:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 23:56:59 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This idea (that the days of the Omer are a type of chol hamoed) is mentioned in Avoidas Yisroel [Koznitse Maggid] and Ramban in Acharie Mois. Dovid Rubin From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 18:27:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:27:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] re Chametz post Pesach Message-ID: >What did it grow out of? Avoiding she'avar alav es hapesach? A way of avoiding chodosh, at least during the omer period?< Since chadash is grain which has taken root after the minchas ha'omer on the second day of Pesach, and it takes more than 7 weeks for newly-sown grain to be ready for harvest, how is it possible for chadash to exist between Pesach and Shavuos? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 19:22:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 02:22:34 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Joel Rich asked: > Question: If one doesn?t view eilu v?eilu as multiple truths > but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don?t know which > is which), ... You've lost me. Doesn't the grammar and definition of the words "eilu v'eilu" imply that the two things under discussion are equal? I just can't wrap my brain around a way to translate "eilu v'eilu" where one is truth and the other isn't. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 19:35:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 22:35:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150417015924.GA11845@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150417015924.GA11845@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5530716C.8070201@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 09:59 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > They invoke the words "sefeik sefeika", which I don't understand, since > the random element is to insure an unknown delay, not a doubt about > whether or not the switch eventually turns the light on. I assume they disagree with this characterisation. This is your editorial opinion, that since it's inevitable that sooner or later the ducks will all be in a row and the light will come on, all that it achieves is a delay of random length. They would say no, each time the sequence is triggered (let's say every minute) is a discrete event, in which there is a sfek-sfeka whether anything will happen, and the fact that in the next hour there will be 60 more such opportunities, one of which is "bound" to succeed, is irrelevant. They would also point out that there *is* in fact a doubt whether the light will ever turn on (before Shabbos is over or the owner decides to flip the switch back), and they would deny your premise that the tininess of that doubt renders it meaningless. *You* think it's halachically insignificant; they are not required to agree with you. > But at least now my opening question has some kind of resolution: > No poseiq makes a point about how the switches differ, its a machloqes > about whether the switch is more like bringing a candle outside or > opening a window. They seem to say that this is like a case where at the time you open the window there is neither a wind nor a candle, but you know that some time later a goy is likely to put a candle in front of the window, and that some time after that a wind is likely to blow and put it out. On 04/16/2015 08:56 PM, T613K at aol.com via Avodah wrote: > Now that Shabbos lamps are readily available -- they work by covering > the light rather than turning it off -- why do we need the Shabbos > switch at all? I assume 1. To save electricity 2. If you want a brighter light than you can get from a 15w CF light (which is the maximum that it's safe to put in a Shabbos lamp) 3. For applications other than lights -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 20:02:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 03:02:13 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel wrote: > On many birchot hamitzva one can be motzeh others even when they > are "experts". This includes shofar, megilla etc (not lulav or > netillat yadaim which is considered as a mitzvah be-gufo) > similarly for kiddush and havdala. > > Note that for sefirat haomer usually each person says the bracha > himself/herself and also counts for themselves. I am not aware of any situation where the halacha says that I cannot say a birkat hamitzva on your behalf, AND that the reason why I cannot do so is because you are a baki. (There might be other good reasons, depending on the situation, but I don't know that "being a baki" is ever such a reason.) That said, I do concede that the common practice is for one person to say the bracha on shofar and megilla for all the assembled, yet we all say our own brachos on lulav, hallel, and sefira. I have never seen this explanation, but I've always felt there was a very simple explanation for how this distinction developed: When I take the lulav, say hallel, or count sefira, I am doing the mitzvah myself. I am doing it in shul, among many other people, but we are each acting as individuals. I do the mitzvah myself, so I say the bracha on it myself. In contrast, I am dependent on someone else to blow the shofar or read the megillah. You can say that I am personally hearing the shofar with my own ears, and you can say that "shome'a k'oneh" means that I am actively doing the mitzvah of krias hamegillah -- but the bottom line, l'maaseh, is that if the guy on the bimah messes up, I've lost the mitzvah. I am dependent on him to get the mitzvah done. I have to do my share of the work too, of course, by paying attention etc etc, but that's not enough. We *both* have to do it right. Under such conditions, I really don't want to risk saying a bracha that could end up being l'vatala. I'd rather answer Amen to *his* birkas hamitzvah. Following that logic, someone who has his own kosher megila, and actually reads along with the baal kriah, ought to say his own Al Mikra Megila. I suppose so! This distinction appears in other brachos too, even brachos other than birchos hamitzvah. For example, at Kol Nidre, everyone says their own Shehecheyanu on the Yom Tov, because, why not? We all say our own Netilas Yadayim, and brachos on Talis and Tefilin, for the same reason. We all listen to one person say Kiddush, but I think that's mostly because only he/she has a cup from which to drink the required amount. But at the Seder, everyone has a cup, so (in many families) everyone says their own Kiddush. EXCEPTION: There are some brachos which *ought* to be said by each individual according to the above logic, but we rely on the other person because a few brachos got bundled together. For example, if we pass around the b'samim and candle at havdala, we should each say our own bracha on them, but most people don't, because it is part of havdala. Similarly, if you are at the Seder and don't have your own 2.5 matzos in front of you, you'll have to hear Hamotzi from someone because of Lechem Mishne, but why not say your own Al Achilas Matza after you have a piece in your hand, and the answer is because Motzi Matzah go together. All of the above is purely my own logic, and I'm sure many of you will be able to punch some good holes in it. And I'm looking forward to reading that! Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553077e61f4dd77e644e0st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 22:30:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 01:30:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] SF - Focus on the Good Message-ID: <20150417053029.35F10181384@nexus.stevens.edu> [] Focus on the Good In ancient days if a person spoke loshon horah he contracted tza'aras. The message was that just as he exposed the flaws of a person, so too, his flaws were exposed. His rectification was to go into isolation and introspect on his own shortcomings. Lesson: If we focus on the faults of others, we are held responsible to correct our own faults. If we focus of the good of others, HaShem will mercifully overlook our flaws and focus exclusively on our good. App: Avoid saying all unbecoming comments about others. (Based on the writings of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 02:52:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 05:52:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150417095237.GB2327@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 17, 2015 at 03:02:13AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I am not aware of any situation where the halacha says that I cannot : say a birkat hamitzva on your behalf, AND that the reason why I cannot : do so is because you are a baki. (There might be other good reasons, : depending on the situation, but I don't know that "being a baki" is ever : such a reason.) More than that, Beis Hillel (Berakhos 38a, brought lehalakhah AhS OC 298:28) gives *preference* to one person making havdalah for all than each person making their own, because of berov am hadras Melekh. Similarly, it is better to be yotzei qiddush from the baal habayis than each person make their own. (AhS OC 273:6, citing Berakhos 53a, and a din mentioned in most Hagados, because at the seder each person already has their own kos.) But when it comes to birkhas shevach and birkhos hanehenin (which are unattached to other berakhos, unlike the the borei peri hagafen of qiddush or havdalah), we do hold that it's better to make your own. (Berakhos 42a) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 13th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Gevurah: To what extent is judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 necessary for a good relationship? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 05:01:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 12:01:53 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150417.080153.18454.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero explained two views: > I assume they disagree with this characterisation. This is your > editorial opinion, that since it's inevitable that sooner or later > the ducks will all be in a row and the light will come on, all that > it achieves is a delay of random length. They would say no, each > time the sequence is triggered (let's say every minute) is a > discrete event, in which there is a sfek-sfeka whether anything > will happen, and the fact that in the next hour there will be 60 > more such opportunities, one of which is "bound" to succeed, is > irrelevant. They would also point out that there *is* in fact a > doubt whether the light will ever turn on (before Shabbos is over > or the owner decides to flip the switch back), and they would deny > your premise that the tininess of that doubt renders it > meaningless. *You* think it's halachically insignificant; they > are not required to agree with you. If I'm understanding this correctly, the difference of opinion centers on: how many links does the chain need, to reach a point where one end has no halachically significant effect on the other end. To me, this whole discussion is very reminiscent of another topic in hilchos Shabbos, namely, that the Gemara never gave any halachos about cooking in a Kli Shlishi. One view says: "A Kli Rishon obviously cooks, and we were told that some easily-cooked things are capable of being cooked in a Kli Sheni, but that's as far as they went, so obviously nothing can get cooked in a Kli Shlishi." The other view says: "A Kli Rishon obviously cooks, and we were told that some easily-cooked things are capable of being cooked even in other keilim, so you have to be careful with *any* keli that's above Yad Soledes." To me, both of those arguments are very logical, and we must follow our poskim to know which one Hashem wants us to follow. I imagine that this whole Grama discussion might be similar: Chazal laid out circumstances under which indirect action is still assur -- so does that mean that *all* indirect action is assur?, or perhaps I can structure an even more remote indirectness which is acceptably distant. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5530f6662145376662eacst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 06:04:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 09:04:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: A shabbos lamp is tiny. Do you have shabbos lamps to light up your dining room table or the main lighting on a timer? > On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 8:56 PM, via Avodah > wrote: > >> >> Now that Shabbos lamps are readily available -- they work by covering the >> light rather than turning it off -- why do we need the Shabbos switch at >> all? >> >> >> >> >> *--Toby Katzt613k at aol.com * >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 06:54:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 06:54:30 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] yom hazikaron origin Message-ID: http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/Parasha/tazria/Ahrend.pdf on rav goren's placement of yom hazikaron on 4 iyar, analogizing to the israeli shmini atzeret , where hakafot precedes yizkor... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 08:26:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 15:26:20 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: > Question: If one doesn?t view eilu v?eilu as multiple truths > but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don?t know which > is which), ... You've lost me. Doesn't the grammar and definition of the words "eilu v'eilu" imply that the two things under discussion are equal? I just can't wrap my brain around a way to translate "eilu v'eilu" where one is truth and the other isn't. ------------------------------------------------------ See here https://kavvanah.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/rav-soloveitchik-religious-definitions-of-man-and-his-social-institutions-part-1of-7-1958/ for a general approach (especially "Part III- Rav Soloveitchik?s God In Judaism, God himself is the hidden God, Jal Mistatar ? unknowable and unknown. The Jewish experience of God (shared by other religions is antithetic, a polarity. it has both remoteness and intimate closeness. How is that possible? Judaism does not use Aristotelian logic of excluded middle. Unlike classic physic, modern physics uses both waves and particles; modern physics does not use Aristotle. God is both remote and close- in our encounter we are bewildered and comforted. Since Creation is also revelation, the every tree also incomprehensible strange. " And here for some more specifics: http://nishma.org/articles/commentary/slifkinrevisted3print.pdf especially starting around page 11. KT Joel Rich (who still can't really understand the double slit experiment, yet it's there) THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 08:54:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 11:54:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150417155456.GA7366@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 02:15:53PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Question: If one doesn't view eilu v'eilu as multiple truths but rather : one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which is which), how do : you explain the approach to halachic process which ignores academic : findings concerning texts or historical circumstances? To quote myself from : Last week I drew the conclusion from the Qetzos haChoshen that Torah is not Truth, it -- combined with the Jewish People -- is the process by which "Truth will bloom from the earth".... Thus, "vechayei olam nata besokheinu" -- Emes is matzmiach from the Torah. Note that the Torah isn't actually identified with Emes, but the process to get there. ... Rav Moshe Feinstein discusses the halachic process and the role of poseiq in his introduction to Igros Mosheh. (The introduction itself deserves serious study.) He writes about "ha'emes lehora'ah umichuyav lehoros kein af al pi im be'etzem galyah kelapei shemaya galya she'eino kein hapeirush - the true ruling, and one is obligated to teach accordingly, even if in essence is it revealed in heaven that this isn't the correct eplanation!" The ideal is following the pesaq as according to the process. As proof, Rav Moshe brings the gemara in Shabbos 130. We rule that only the milah itself overrules Shabbos. All preparation before the milah must be done in advance. Rabbi Eliezer ruled that anything necessary for the milah, even cutting wood to make the fire to make the knife, etc... could also be done on Shabbos. There was a town in Israel that followed Rabbi Eliezer. The gemara says that Hashem rewarded them for their tenacity for the mitzvah of milah. No one in that town died an early death. And when the Romans passed a law in Israel against milah, they exempted that one town from the law! Who was right -- this town, which was rewarded for their position, or we, who rule differently? If we understand that the essence of halakhah is that it and the Jewish People become one in a process to make truth bloom in this world, we can understand how the answer could be "both". Torah, like life, is about becoming, not being. IOW, if Torah is a legal process to reach the truth, and halakhah is law rather than truths, then it would be reasonable for an truth foung by extra-legal means to be irrelevant. We aren't up to pursuing Truth directly yet, we pursue the law. Someday they'll be identical, and and the neti'ah of chayei olam will have been matzmiach into Emes. On Fri, Apr 17, 2015 at 02:22:34AM +0000, R' Akiva ("Kenneth") Miller replied to RJR: : You've lost me. Doesn't the grammar and definition of the words "eilu : v'eilu" imply that the two things under discussion are equal? I just : can't wrap my brain around a way to translate "eilu v'eilu" where one : is truth and the other isn't. RMF says they're equally balid legally, but not as Truths. Implied is that Divrei E-lokim Chaim are on the meta-level, instructions about about how to hunt for halakhah, not the individual halachic conclusions themselves. Eilu va'eilu follow Hashem's instructions for how to pasqen, but the halakhah is like Beis Hillel. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 13th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Gevurah: To what extent is judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 necessary for a good relationship? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 10:03:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 13:03:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Derech Eretz: What is it the sets man apart from the animal? Message-ID: <20150417170308.D3E50183221@nexus.stevens.edu> Perhaps if yeshiva students were taught again and again, RSRH's commentary about what sets man (and this refers to all men, not just Jews) apart from the animal, then they would realize that every human being is to be treated with Derech Eretz and thus proper respect. YL The following is from RSRH's commentary on Bereishis 2:7 7 Then God formed man, dust of the ground, and breathed into his countenance the breath of life, and thus man became a living personality. What is it that sets man apart from the animal? The living individuality of the animal depends on earthly matter; like its body, so its soul, too, was taken from the earth. Not so man. In the creation of man, only the inert material was taken from the earth; only when God breathed into him the breath of life did he become a living individual. Herein lies the nobility and immortality of man, and this is the whole source of his freedom . That which gives the animal its individuality emanates from the earth and must eventually return to the earth. Not so that which makes man a ?living personality.? Man?s preeminence over the animal is not only in his spirit, but also in his vitality. His vitality is linked not to his body, but to his spirit. When he received a spirit he received life, his soul adhering to the spirit. When the spirit departs from the body, the vital soul is not buried with the remains; for man?s soul is bound up with his spirit, not his body. This is why his physical survival and health do not depend on his body alone. Of the many dangers to the life of an animal, not all are dangers to man. The survival of a man cannot be predicted with the same degree of accuracy as the survival of an animal. Adom yesh lo mazel ( Bava Kamma 2b): there is something in man that defies prediction. A man?s spirit will sustain him, even if it appears that all hope is lost; for the spirit sustains life. Who can gauge the power of an unbroken spirit? Who can calculate how long it can keep the body alive? Thus man is composed of two elements that are completely different from each other. One of these was taken from the earth. But man does not belong to the earth; rather, the earth ? as its name, Adama, implies ? has been given to man to rule. So, too, man?s body, which is afar min Ha?Adomo, is subject to man?s control. His true, living, spiritual essence is not dependent on the body; hence, even while he is physically combined with the earthly element, he can and should exercise control over the earthly in him. The afar, the earthly element, in him cannot be released from the realm of physical compulsion and is subject to the influence of earthly factors. But the nishmas chaim, which God breathed into man and which first made man a human being, imparts to man of the dignity of its source and releases him from all physical compulsion; it grants him freedom and elevates his body, too, into the realm of freedom. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 11:45:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mordechai Harris via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 13:45:49 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: > > That said, I do concede that the common practice is for one person to say > the bracha on shofar and megilla for all the assembled, yet we all say our > own brachos on lulav, hallel, and sefira. In the case of Lulav (first day - which is D'Oraita) and counting Sefira, the Pasuk uses the word Lachem which teaches of the need for each individual to have/count their own. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 12:26:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 15:26:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <55315E57.30506@sero.name> On 04/17/2015 02:45 PM, Mordechai Harris via Avodah wrote: >> That said, I do concede that the common practice is for one person >> to say the bracha on shofar and megilla for all the assembled, yet >> we all say our own brachos on lulav, hallel, and sefira. > In the case of Lulav (first day - which is D'Oraita) and counting > Sefira, the Pasuk uses the word Lachem which teaches of the need for > each individual to have/count their own. What has this got to do with the bracha? I actually had meant to post about this, since I've been wondering for some time why it is that the world's minhag is for each person to say their own bracha on hallel and sefira, after hearing the chazan's bracha. Doesn't the usual rule of "berov am" mean that everyone should be yotzei with his bracha? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 13:47:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 16:47:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is from today's Halacha for Today http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ Erev Shabbos Kodesh Parashas Shemini (Parashiyos Tazria- Metzorah in Eretz Yisroel); Mevorchim Chodesh Iyar; Rosh Chodesh will be on Sunday and Monday 28 Nisan , 5775 April 17, 2015 CURRENT TOPIC: REVIEW OF HALACHOS OF SEFIRAS HA'OMER Halachos for Erev Shabbos Kodesh 1) The thirty third day of the Omer, the 18th of Iyar, is referred to as "Lag B'Omer" and the early sources already treat this day as a special day, as a kind of Yom Tov. (See Sefer Hamanhig page 91a and Meiri to Yevamos 62b) 2) The Tur (Siman 493:3) states that the Talmidim of Rav Akiva stopped dying on Lag B'Omer. However, the Talmud (Yevamos 62b) clearly states that they died from Pesach all the way until Shavuos. If that is so, what then is the significance of the 33rd day of the Omer and why does the Tur write that they stopped dying on that day? The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between the Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the days between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not say Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh Chodesh Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 days in all. Therefore they only died on 32 of the 49 days. As a commemoration of this, we designate the "33rd" day as the day that the dying stopped and we celebrate that day, but not that it totally stopped on Lag B'Omer. ---------- Note that according to the Maharil tachanun was originally said during Nissan except for the days indicated! I wonder when saying Tachanun during Nissan ended. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 14:10:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 21:10:04 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150417.171004.3030.1@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitchok Levine reposted: > The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between > the Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the > days between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not > say Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh > Chodesh Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 > days in all. > > Therefore they only died on 32 of the 49 days... ... There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in both of those. Therefore, there are not "17 days in all", but only 16, leaving 33 days on which they died. (And this presumes that none of the 3 Rosh Chodesh days was Shabbos.) In any case, I am very curious how the commemoration of this event ended up as 33 *somewhat* consecutive days, including Shabbos. If the talmidim really died only on the days cited, our procedure sounds like cheating, at least sort of. Granted that a commemoration does NOT have to follow all the details of the event being remembered, but this pushes the envelope on that, in my opinion. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55317717a31937717329dst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 13:58:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 20:58:03 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <20150417.165803.3030.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero asked: > I actually had meant to post about this, since I've been > wondering for some time why it is that the world's minhag is for > each person to say their own bracha on hallel and sefira, after > hearing the chazan's bracha. Doesn't the usual rule of "berov > am" mean that everyone should be yotzei with his bracha? In theory (="l'halacha"), yes, you are correct. But in practice (="l'maaseh") Rov Am gets beat by our lack of kavana. Rov Am is an important hidur, but the ikar is to insure that one is yotzay, and that is more easily insured by saying it oneself. (It's like if one is forced to choose between an esrog which is definitely kosher but only barely so, vs. one which is beautiful but *might* be pasul. To me, it's a no-brainer that one would choose the barely kosher one.) This explanation fits my previous post well: We are all yotzay with someone else's bracha on the shofar and megillah, but NOT because of Rov Am, only because the bracha is somewhat risky because I'm relying on someone else. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5531743bc92df743b2646st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Apr 18 18:34:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sat, 18 Apr 2015 21:34:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Correction to Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150419013412.5B7E7181C69@nexus.stevens.edu> I sent out a couple of days ago. The following is from today's Halacha for Today http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between the Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the days between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not say Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh Chodesh Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 days in all. Therefore they only died on 32 of the 49 days. As a commemoration of this, we designate the "33rd" day as the day that the dying stopped and we celebrate that day, but not that it totally stopped on Lag B'Omer. ---------- Note this calculation is wrong. If one counts 7 days of Pesach then one has included one Shabbos. This leaves 6 Shabbasos until Shavuous. Thus one has 7 days of Pesach, 6 Shabbasos, 2 days Rosh Chodesh Iyar and one day Rosh Chodesh Sivan. Hence 7+6+2+1 = 16 days on which Tachanun was not said. 49 -16 = 33, and this is where the 33 days of aveilus comes from. Thus Tachanun was said not only during Nissan except for the days that are excluded, but also on Lag B'Omer . YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Apr 18 21:19:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 00:19:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <55332CDA.60208@sero.name> > 2) The Tur (Siman 493:3) states that the Talmidim of Rav Akiva > stopped dying on Lag B'Omer. > > However, the Talmud (Yevamos 62b) clearly states that they died from > Pesach all the way until Shavuos. If that is so, what then is the > significance of the 33rd day of the Omer and why does the Tur write > that they stopped dying on that day? He does not say any such thing. He says that *some* people have haircuts from the 33rd day on, because *they say* that this is when the dying stopped. The long list of rishonim who hold this cite a medrash that disagrees with the gemara, and says the dying stopped 15 days before Shavuos. The Tur himself does not express an opinion on the matter. > The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between the > Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the days > between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not say > Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh Chodesh > Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 days in all.* This is *not* a Maharil! It's supposedly a Tosfos, I don't know where. But there seem to be two versions of what this Tosfos says, which is why it would be nice to see the original. Mahari Ibn Shuaib (a talmid of the Rashba, and the rebbe of the Tzeida Laderech) cites this Tosfos as saying that the mourning takes place on 33 days during the Omer, because there are 16 days when no mourning is appropriate. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=9416&pgnum=131 The Bach, however, cites "Acharonim" who cite this Tosfos as saying that they didn't die on these 16 days. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=14268&pgnum=330 On 04/17/2015 04:47 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > Note that according to the Maharil tachanun was originally said > during Nissan except for the days indicated! I wonder when saying > Tachanun during Nissan ended. YL Not Tachanun. Techina, i.e. Kel Erech Apayim, Lamnatzeach Ya`ancha, etc. According to minhag Ashkenaz these are said even on days when there is no nefilas apayim, but not on Yomtov, Chol Hamoed, Shabbos, or Rosh Chodesh. [Email #2. -micha] On 04/17/2015 05:10 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos > Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or > it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in > both of those. Indeed, the Bach noters this and corrects it. > In any case, I am very curious how the commemoration of this event > ended up as 33 *somewhat* consecutive days, including Shabbos. If the > talmidim really died only on the days cited, our procedure sounds > like cheating, at least sort of. Granted that a commemoration does > NOT have to follow all the details of the event being remembered, but > this pushes the envelope on that, in my opinion. Well, according to the Tosfos as Mahari ibn Shuaib quotes it, the common interpretation of 33 days is *wrong*, and the correct minhag is to mourn for 33 days during the sefirah, i.e. all days except Pesach, Shabbos, and Rosh Chodesh. He does *not* say that they only died on these days. The first place I've seen the idea that Tosfos says they only died on those days is in the Bach. He sees it as justifying our mourning for only 33 days, not 34, as we should if our source were the medrash that the dying stopped 15 days before Shavuos. And since they only died on 33 days, our mourning period only lasts 33 days, including Shabbos, even though (according to this view) they didn't die on Shabbos. How exactly we mourn on Shabbos I'm not sure, but I assume the idea is that we do, so we count it toward the 33 days. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 06:26:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 09:26:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <55332CDA.60208@sero.name> References: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> <55332CDA.60208@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150419132604.GB19240@aishdas.org> On Sun, Apr 19, 2015 at 12:19:38AM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : >Note that according to the Maharil tachanun was originally said : >during Nissan except for the days indicated! I wonder when saying : >Tachanun during Nissan ended. YL : : Not Tachanun. Techina, i.e. Kel Erech Apayim, Lamnatzeach Ya`ancha, etc. : According to minhag Ashkenaz these are said even on days when there is no : nefilas apayim, but not on Yomtov, Chol Hamoed, Shabbos, or Rosh Chodesh. I am now wondering: why those techinos and not Tachanun? After all, as the name implies (and the Gra emphasizes), Tachanun is itself the core techinah. (Or perhaps "Elokai, Netzor Leshoni" is more central, since that's the one we place immediately "basar tzelosana", before aqiras raglayim.) I would bet (if I had spare money to bet with) that's the same question as asking why we're nofeil apayim for one but not the other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 04:00:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 11:00:12 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150419.070012.19808.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> I wrote: > There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos > Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or > it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in > both of those. R' Zev Sero added: > Indeed, the Bach notes this and corrects it. Glad to hear that, thank you. But over Shabbos, I thought of another problem: R' Akiva's talmidim were in Eretz Yisrael. There would never be a year where Pesach contains 7 days of Sefira. Even when including Shabbos Chol Hamoed, that yields only 6 days. Add 6 post- Pesach Shabbosim, and 3 days of Rosh Chodesh, and you have only 15 days of no Tachanun, leaving 34 days of mourning. Perhaps this is why Mechaber 493:2 says that the mourning continues straight through Lag Baomer, and does not end until the morning of the 34th. Note that Mishne Brurah 493:7 says that although most of the dying stopped on the 33rd, some deaths did occur on the 34th. I must point out that the above is true only when Pesach begins on Sunday, Monday or Tuesday. In years when it begins on Shabbos, as it did this year, then Eretz Yisrael does have a full seven post-Pesach Sabbaths in Sefira, totalling 16 no-Tachanun days, leaving 33 for mourning. BUT - In years when Pesach begins on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday (and even nowadays Thursday is a real possibility), one of the Rosh Chodesh days will coincide with Shabbos. This lowers the count to 6 days of Pesach, 6 Shabbasos, and only 2 days of Rosh Chodesh - a total of only 14 no-Tachanun days, leaving 35 for mourning. I can't help but wonder how the calendar looked that particular year. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ 4 Fish to Never Eat Click to Learn 4 Fish to NEVER Eat (avoid these like the plague!) http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55338b0147138b0126d6st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 10:34:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 13:34:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <20150419.070012.19808.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150419.070012.19808.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5533E71A.9080700@sero.name> On 04/19/2015 07:00 AM, Kenneth Miller wrote: > I wrote: >> There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos >> Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or >> it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in >> both of those. > > R' Zev Sero added: >> Indeed, the Bach notes this and corrects it. > > Glad to hear that, thank you. But over Shabbos, I thought of another > problem: R' Akiva's talmidim were in Eretz Yisrael. There would never > be a year where Pesach contains 7 days of Sefira. Even when including > Shabbos Chol Hamoed, that yields only 6 days. Add 6 post- Pesach > Shabbosim, and 3 days of Rosh Chodesh, and you have only 15 days of > no Tachanun, leaving 34 days of mourning. Except, as you note, in a year like this one. > Perhaps this is why Mechaber 493:2 says that the mourning continues > straight through Lag Baomer, and does not end until the morning of > the 34th. No, the Mechaber had never heard of this Tosfos that the Bach cites in the name of the "Acharonim". On the contrary, the only Tosfos he seems aware of on topic is the one cited by Mahari ibn Shuaib, which says that the plague raged throughout the Sefira, but that we only mourn for 33 days, because we skip Yomtov, Shabbos, and Rosh Chodesh. The Mechaber's own minhag follows the medrash that the plague stopped 15 days before Shavuos, i.e. the 34th was the last day. Either there are two versions of this Tosfos, or the Acharonim whom the Bach quotes are talking about the same Tosfos as Mahari ibn Shuaib does, and one of them misunderstood it. It would be nice to find it inside (though of course that would not rule out a different girsa). -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 10:36:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 17:36:03 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150419.133603.21006.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero wrote: > Not Tachanun. Techina, i.e. Kel Erech Apayim, Lamnatzeach > Ya`ancha, etc. According to minhag Ashkenaz these are said even > on days when there is no nefilas apayim, but not on Yomtov, Chol > Hamoed, Shabbos, or Rosh Chodesh. R' Micha Berger wrote: > I am now wondering: why those techinos and not Tachanun? Let me add a few more data points: Common practice in Nusach Ashkenaz is to skip Tachanun even for all of the Sefira days of Nisan, and also for all of the pre-Shavuos days of Sivan. (Note that NONE of the various minhagim allow haircuts on ALL of those days. Sounds like a great proof that tachanun takes all the kulos, even contradictory ones.) I concede that this is davka nowadays, and I do not know what the practice was in previous centuries. However, it is difficult for me to imagine anyone ever saying Tachanun on Isru Chag. Perhaps that might answer the point I raised in my previous post about R' Akiva's talmidim being in EY, and that in EY there are only 6 days of Sefirah during Pesach; perhaps the "7" comes from including Isru Chag. I should also mention Pesach Sheni, although that could lead to a messy argument over whether that is really "a non-Tachanun day" or merely "a non-Tachanun afternoon". So I won't mention it. :-) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5533e7dd3196367dd4042st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 09:54:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 12:54:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L Message-ID: <20150419165450.42320180CA8@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is taken in part from Rav Shimon Schwab's Essay The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L that appears in Selected Writings pages 88 -93. Rav Hirsch is usually accepted as the exponent of the Torah im Derech Eretz philosophy. This principle is explained by his grandson, Dr. Isaac Breuer, as follows: "He was strictly opposed to compromise or reconciliation, or even a synthesis: he demanded full and uncompromising rulership of the Torah. The Torah cannot endure co-rulership, far less tolerate it. As a true revolutionary he seized the liberalistic individual, the liberalistic, humanitarian ideal, liberalistic capitalism, and the human intellect, celebrating orgies in the liberalistic science, and dragged them as "circumstances'', in the narrowest sense of the word, to the flaming fire of the Torah to be purified or, if need be, to be consumed. As a true revolutionary he solved the unbearable tension between the Torah and the new era which had dawned over the Jews of Western Europe. He invaded the new era with the weapons of the Torah, analyzed and dissected it down to its last ingredients, and then shaped and reformed it until it could be placed at the feet of the Torah, as new nourishment for the Divine fire. The proclamation of the rulership of the Torah over the new era was the historic achievement of Hirsch's life for his own contemporaries." -- ("Hirsch as a Guide to Jewish History'' in Fundamentals of Judaism, published by Feldheim, 1949.) Unfortunately, the principle of Torah im Derech Eretz is grossly misunderstood by our contemporary Jewish orthodoxy. It does not mean that one who is a full-fledged citizen of hedonistic America and at the same time keeps the laws of the Torah, is a follower of Torah im Derech Eretz. Not to violate the laws of the Torah certainly deserves praise and recognition but it is not an embodiment of the Hirschian philosophy. Likewise, an academy dedicated to the study of science and philosophy, not in order to serve the understanding of Torah or to further the aims of the Torah but as the independent search by the human intellect to understand and control the world around -- even when added to a department of profound and very scholarly Torah studies -this is not an outgrowth of the Torah im Derech Eretz Weltanschauung of Samson Raphael Hirsch. Also, a secular university in Israel, albeit under skullcap auspices, complete with Judaic studies, is extremely remote from a Torah im Derech Eretz school even if it has established a "Samson Raphael Hirsch chair" as part of its academic set-up, something which almost borders on blasphemy . The Orthodox professional who is not regularly "koveah ittim batorah", or otherwise lacks in the performance of mitzvahs, or who is immodest in dress or behavior, is not a follower of Samson Raphael Hirsch. From all of Hirsch's prolific writings, it becomes evident that his main concern was to establish the majesty of the Divine Word and the role of the Divine Will as revealed in the Torah, to dominate all the highways and by-ways of mundane life. Those who abuse Torah im Derech Eretz as a "hetter" to lead a life of easygoing and lenient "Yiddishkeit" or those who consider the Hirschian idea as a compromise between the right and the left in Jewish thinking have distorted the meaning of the principle as laid down in the Mishne, Avos, Perek 2, 2: "Beautiful is the study of Torah combined with Derech Eretz for the effort to attain both makes one forget to commit sins". The Torah is not a mere branch of human knowledge, one discipline amongst many others, but rather must the Torah dominate all secular knowledge and all worldly activities. Equally so, the community of Israel, Klal Yisroel, as well as all Kehillos and organized communities, be they local or international -- which are all segments of Klal Yisroel -- are not supposed to be mere branches of a neutral Israel but are to be totally independent. The Torah community is not beholden to any non-Torah community and it does not even recognize its authenticity. This is the essence of the Hirschian Austritt (separation) ideology. The so-called "Austritt" is the militant vigilance of the conscientious Jew defending the Torah community against all encroachments from the non-Torah powers that be. The "Austritt" and Torah im Derech Eretz go hand in hand, they form "one package", so to speak, and both these aspects of Hirschian thought have one aim: the total domination of Torah over all thinking and actions of individual and national life. He who separates the rule of the Torah over all facets of the communal life of Klal Yisroel from the rule of the Torah over all human knowledge, in short, he who separates the "Austritt" from Torah im Derech Eretz, renders a disservice to both. Instead of becoming an inspiration to serve G-d in the spirit of B'chol D'rochecha dahu, Torah im Derech Eretz is reduced to become an excuse for being "modern but frum", an excuse for the cultural assimilation which plagues the modern Orthodox Jew who considers this world a kosher pleasure cruise eventually resulting in all the sorry hangovers of our age. Let us therefore beware of some common misunderstandings. The motto does not have its accent on the last word but on the first word. It is TORAH -underscored for double emphasis -- with Derech Eretz. Furthermore, the leit-motif is neither Torah and Derech Eretz nor Torah U'Madoh -- the two are not equal partners -- nor must it be twisted around into Derech Eretz plus Torah. It is neither a synthesis of Torah with assimilation nor a bloodless orthopraxy blended with earthbound Americanism. It is none of these. It is Torah im Derech Eretz. It means G-d's Torah in its totality, utilizing Derech Eretz as the means to bring about the Torah's full realization. It means: Torah as a Divine nourishment and the human Derech Eretz as the aromatic ingredient to bring out the Torah's intrinsic flavor to its most perfect bloom. There are two schools of thought and they are both legitimate. One is "Torah Only" and the other is Torah im Derech Eretz. All Torah-conscious Jews work for the same goal. There are various methods and various avenues of approach. They all lead up to the ultimate end of: "Yisgadal v'yisgadash Shmei rabah" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 15:00:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 18:00:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <20150419.133603.21006.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150419.133603.21006.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <55342569.2000502@sero.name> On 04/19/2015 01:36 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > Common practice in Nusach Ashkenaz is to skip Tachanun even for all of the Sefira days of Nisan, This is not just nusach Ashkenaz, it's the universal minhag, originating in Masechet Sofrim 21:3. It's actually the chapter title of Shulchan Aruch OC 429, and AFAIK there is no dissenting opinion or minhag. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 15:08:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Avi Goldstein via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 18:08:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu va'eilu Message-ID: It has always been my understanding that eilu va'eilu means that both (or more than two) are, within the sphere of Torah, "true" as long as they emanate from a valid drashah. As the Rambam writes in Hilchos Mamrim, Perek 2, a Sanhedrin can overturn the ruling of a previous Sanhedrin if that ruling was made based on the yud gimmel middos or based on sevara. The Rambam states that the new ruling becomes normative. So, for example, if a Sanhedrin ruled that yeush shelo mida'as is yeush, that is now the d'oraisa rule. If a later Sanhedrin overturns the ruling, then the new ruling becomes normative. Both, however, are "true," because the Torah has shivim panim; the Torah is multifaceted and can countenance more than one truth. The Rambam seems to hold that Moshe Rabbeinu was merely given the methods by which to darshan; he was not given the various possible halachic outcomes. The Ritva (Eruvin 13b) states that at Sinai, Moshe Rabbeinu was shown 49 possibilities for each halachic situation. Either way, it is up to klal Yisrael to determine what the halacha is, but all the possible outcomes are divrei Elokim Chayim. Avi Goldstein From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 20:47:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 23:47:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L Message-ID: <11211.6b4edbb3.4265d0c0@aol.com> From: "Prof. Levine via Avodah" The following is taken in part from Rav Shimon Schwab's Essay The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L that appears in Selected Writings pages 88 -93. Rav Hirsch is usually accepted as the exponent of the Torah im Derech Eretz philosophy. This principle is explained by his grandson, Dr. Isaac Breuer, as follows: "He was strictly opposed to compromise or reconciliation, or even a synthesis: he demanded full and uncompromising rulership of the Torah. [snip] There are two schools of thought and they are both legitimate. One is "Torah Only" and the other is Torah im Derech Eretz. All Torah-conscious Jews work for the same goal. There are various methods and various avenues of approach. They all lead up to the ultimate end of: "Yisgadal v'yisgadash Shmei rabah" >>>> See the wonderful pamphlet by R' Shimon Schwab, "Eilu ve'Eilu," explaining the broad outlines of the differences between these two hashkafos, "Torah im Derech Eretz" and so-called "Torah-only." I try to re-read this 48-page pamphlet every year. http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/these_and_those.pdf I am grateful to RYL (Prof. Levine) for making this pamphlet available to the public as a pdf. However I note that he is often highly critical of the charedi world, and I believe that R' Hirsch would emphatically not have agreed with him. He would have honored and cherished the talmidei chachamim who devote their lives to limud haTorah, and would have educated his balabatim to take pride in the zechus of financially supporting the "black hat" yeshivos. In the so-called "Torah-only" world they may have disdain for balabatim, but we who believe in TIDE can respect and honor that world of sustained and focused Torah study without internalizing an inferior self-image. We believe in Yisachar and Zevulun even if Yisachar lacks proper respect for Zevulun. We believe in twelve shevatim, we believe in twelve paths through the sea. And we believe that without the shevet of full-time lomdei Torah and talmidei chachamim, the rest of Klal Yisrael would have no kiyum. I would also note that R' Hirsch would certainly not have shared RYL's dour view of present-day Eretz Yisrael. True, all the flaws and failings of Zionism are abundantly on display in the modern Medinah. But at the same time, it takes an almost willful blindness not to see the incredible miracles that have been taking place there over the past sixty years or so. Not the least of these miracles is a flourishing of Torah scholarship, be'eichus uvekamus, the likes of which has not been seen since the churban Bayis Sheni. We owe at least a small measure of gratitude to the Zionist government that helps provide the infrastructure for the Torah community to flourish, and a huge measure of gratitude to the Ribono Shel Olam for allowing us to live in a time in which the beginning of kibbutz galuyos is taking place before our eyes. The sight of thousands of men, young and old, from all corners of the world, streaming into the Mirrer Yeshiva each day, gives us a little foretaste of what it will be like to visit the Third Bais Hamikdash. Again, I urge everyone to read Rav Schwab's wonderful pamphlet, "Eilu ve'Eilu." http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/these_and_those.pdf --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 19:30:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 02:30:15 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: <20150419.223015.3015.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Joel Rich asked: > Question: If one doesn't view eilu v'eilu as multiple truths > but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which > is which), ... I didn't understand that 2nd view, so he suggested to look > here for some more specifics: > http://nishma.org/articles/commentary/slifkinrevisted3print.pdf > especially starting around page 11. On page 4 of that article, the author offers this explanation of the concept of Machlokes L'Shem Shamayim: > ... every individual striving mightily to gain truth and an > understanding of God's Will can only achieve what is possible > within the parameters of his/her own individual being. Since the > fullness of Torah extends beyond the comprehension of any one > individual, machloket must necessarily ensue. It is not simply > that machloket emerges because of the inherent limitations of > the human condition. It is only through the enunciation of > machloket that human beings effectively are able to express the > fullness and truth of the Divine wisdom of Torah. ... Within > this category of disagreement, the existence of differing views > is not a problem. It is actually positive. It is the natural > consequence of a limited humanity trying to encounter the > unlimited nature of God and Torah. Elsewhere in that article, I understood him to say: Because both Hillel and Shammai worked within the rules of how Torah is to be understood, their differing views are equally valid and equally true (notwithstanding the detail that for purely practical reasons, halacha l'maaseh has to go one way or the other). This much fits very well with what I've been taught: Hashem deliberately wrote and designed the Torah in such a way as to allow both Hillel and Shammai to reach those differing views, and when they did reach those views, and (lovingly) refused to yield to the other, they accomplished exactly what Hashem had intended. But RJR referred us specifically to page 11, and on that page, the author brings the two views that RJR had initially posted: > One significant question in this regard, though, that should be > presented is: whether kalpei Shemaya, from the perspective of > Heaven, one view may really be correct or not? How one answers > this question will affect whether one considers any position in > a machloket l'Shem Shamayim as ultimately able to be labeled > incorrect. Effectively the question would be: are all positions > in the disagreement theoretically, equally part of truth and a > decision rendered between the opposing views solely because of > practical necessity? Or is there a truly correct position ? > albeit only able to be ascertained by Heaven ? but we still > accept all positions as part of Torah, albeit some are mistaken, > as they all are equally the best that humanity can achieve and > the mistakes only arise from the actual limitation of the human > being? With all due respect, but it seems to me that this second view is illogical and mistaken. How can there be a view which was obtained by legitimate methods of learning the Torah, without any personal agenda, and the best that humanity can acheive -- and yet be one which Hashem did NOT want us to arrive at? If there is a view that is NOT truly correct, yet the incorrectness can be ascertained only by Heaven, then why did Hashem design the Torah in a manner which allowed us to reach that mistaken conclusion? If only He would have made one little change, if only the pasuk had said this instead of that, then we'd have darshened that pasuk differently, and would have avoided that mistake. But since He did not make that change, but rather He wrote the Torah as we have it, and Toras Hashem Temimah, then I believe that the conclusions reached cannot possibly be mistakes, but rather, this is exactly what we mean by Eilu V'Eilu Divrei Elokim Chayim. (Of course, I am referring only to drashos made with the proper tools, and in the proper manner, such as those made by Hillel and Shammai and others of similar caliber. I am not referring to people who are of lower caliber, or who were working with broken tools. And I'm certainly not referring to people who deliberately distort Torah for their own purposes.) But then, as I was reviewing this post, my mind turned to the Tanur Shel Achnai. R' Eliezer had a minority view, and R' Yehoshua was in the majority. I've got to believe that both views were firmly grounded; this machlokes was surely just as L'Shem Shamayim as any between Hillel and Shammai. I'd *like* to say that Klapei Shmaya, both views were Truth. But then what can I do with Hashem's response of "Nitzchuni banai"? It sure sounds to me like this Judge was not impartial. He was rooting for R' Eliezer! And yet He wrote a Torah that allowed for R' Eliezer's mistaken interpretation. Why would He do that? To paraphrase RJR's question from the very beginning of this post, Tanur Shel Achnai seems to be an example of "eilu v'eilu": At the time of their dispute, it was possible that both views were Truth, but we didn't know which was which, so for practical purposes they took a vote. But later, Eliyahu Hanavi revealed the fact that it was NOT multiple truths, but rather one truth (R' Eliezer) and one nice try (R' Yehoshua). TO RECAP: In the beginning of this post, I explained my logical basis for believing that every true Eilu V'Eilu is a case of multiple Truths. At the end, I brought an example of an Eilu V'Eilu which was "one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which is which)". I cannot reconcile the logic and the example. All I can do is to ask again: Would Hashem really write a Perfect Torah which allows for mistaken interpretation? Why would He do that? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553464ea69a2864ea0cc6st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 01:48:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 11:48:03 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: RMB: Rav Moshe Feinstein discusses the halachic process and the role of poseiq in his introduction to Igros Mosheh. (The introduction itself deserves serious study.) He writes about "ha'emes lehora'ah umichuyav lehoros kein af al pi im be'etzem galyah kelapei shemaya galya she'eino kein hapeirush - the true ruling, and one is obligated to teach accordingly, even if in essence is it revealed in heaven that this isn't the correct explanation!" The ideal is following the pesaq as according to the process. This passage in IM is cited by R. Shalom Rosner in a systematic discussion of the subject of eilu v'eilu in the course of a shiur on Ktuvot 57a at http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/720210/Rabbi_Shalom_Rosner/Kesubos57. Rashi in Ktuvot 57a invokes the principle of eilu 'v'eilu, (read and explained by R. Rosner stating at about 18:30 in the shiur) and R. Rosner elucidates this principle, starting at about 21:30 in the shiur, until about 29:40. For anyone interested in a very clear explanation of the various shittot about what eilu v'eilu means, I can't recommend this shiur highly enough. Very briefly, R. Rosner cites three approaches in the sources 1. Illustrating the truth - The Ran in Drashot HaRan drasha 5 - In this approach, which severely limits the principle of eilu v'eilu, the Ran states that actually only one of the opinions is true. The other opinion is 'divrei Elokim chaim' only insofar as it serves to illustrate and elucidate the other opinion, which is the real truth, as the dark enables us to appreciate a candle. The Chida in Petach Einayim, his commentary on Eiruvin where the principle of eilu v'eilu is cited by the Gemara, takes this approach as well. R. Rosner emphasizes that this is a minority opinion, and personally finds it hard to accept, as he explains in the shiur. 2. Levels of truth - R. Moshe in the hakdama to IM, and R. Yaakov to Bereishit 26, the Netziv in his Hakadama to Haamek Sh'eila, his commentary to the Sheiltot). Using R. Moshe's terminology. there is Emet Shamaymit, and Emet L'Horaa. Both are correct, and in this world we are obligated to follow the emet l'horaa even if it deviates from the ultimate, heavenly truth. 3. Multiple truths (Ritva in Eiruvin, Maharal) - Both opinions are true, reflecting different perspectives of the subject at hand (IMO, this is similar to the previous explanation, without establishing a hierarchy between the truths expressed by the different opinions). R. Rosner states that the Rashi in question on Ktuvot 57a takes this approach. R. Rosner's explanation of the shittot is very lucid and concise. He refers in his shiur to Ktuvot 57 to a previous, more comprehensive shiur he gave on the subject, but I don't know if that shiur is available online. Saul Mashbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 19:43:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 22:43:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] brochos from the amud (was: tefillat haderech) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420024354.CJVF30458.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo110> >R' Zev Sero asked: > > > I actually had meant to post about this, since I've been > > wondering for some time why it is that the world's minhag is for > > each person to say their own bracha on hallel and sefira, after > > hearing the chazan's bracha. Doesn't the usual rule of "berov > > am" mean that everyone should be yotzei with his bracha? R' Akiva Miller wrote: >In theory (="l'halacha"), yes, you are correct. But in practice >(="l'maaseh") Rov Am gets beat by our lack of kavana. Rov Am is an >important hidur, but the ikar is to insure that one is yotzay, and >that is more easily insured by saying it oneself. (It's like if one >is forced to choose between an esrog which is definitely kosher but >only barely so, vs. one which is beautiful but *might* be pasul. To >me, it's a no-brainer that one would choose the barely kosher one.) > >This explanation fits my previous post well: We are all yotzay with >someone else's bracha on the shofar and megillah, but NOT because of >Rov Am, only because the bracha is somewhat risky because I'm >relying on someone else. Slight change of topic: I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea that we don't seem to have a chashash of a brocha l'vatalah. I mean, you have a sh'tz up there, saying a brocho out loud -- and he's intentionally trying to be motzi _some_ others (whoever has missed a day) and everybody says amen, and then they say the brocho themselves. No chashash for an issur d'oraissa? Shomea k'onen doesn't apply at all? What if you are in the shul and you're not thinking about the issue of being yotzie, you're just thinking about which day it is, and/or you simply have stam kavanah. No chashash for an issur d'oraissa? Apparently not because almost everybody does that. But I don't get it. (To satisfy my own comfort level, my preferred action to is to focus and have kavanah to be yotzie with the brocho, say amen, and then I don't have any chashash here). -- Sholom From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 10:36:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 13:36:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 11:48:03AM +0300, Saul Mashbaum via Avodah wrote: : This passage in IM is cited by R. Shalom Rosner in a systematic discussion... : http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/720210/Rabbi_Shalom_Rosner/Kesubos57. ... : Very briefly, R. Rosner cites three approaches in the sources : : 1. Illustrating the truth - The Ran in Drashot HaRan drasha 5 - In this : approach, which severely limits the principle of eilu v'eilu, the Ran : states that actually only one of the opinions is true. The other opinion is : 'divrei Elokim chaim' only insofar as it serves to illustrate and elucidate : the other opinion... : 2. Levels of truth - R. Moshe in the hakdama to IM, and R. Yaakov to : Bereishit 26, the Netziv in his Hakadama to Haamek Sh'eila, his commentary : to the Sheiltot)... : 3. Multiple truths (Ritva in Eiruvin, Maharal) - Both opinions are true, : reflecting different perspectives of the subject at hand (IMO, this is : similar to the previous explanation, without establishing a hierarchy : between the truths expressed by the different opinions).. My opinion differs from yours. The Maharal is saying that what RMF calls emes shamamis (I think that conjugation is yours, no?) is actually too rich to fit in this universe, and certainly in a human mind. Therefore, two shitos can be correct descriptions of the Truth, because each are incomplete. Rather than invoke the 5 blind men and the elephant, I think it's more useful to use a mashal of an object and a shadow. Because a shadow is only 2D, information is lost. It could make you think the two opinions are describing differnt thing, but they don't. If you shine a light directly at the fact of a cube, the shadow is a square. If you shine it at a corner, the result is a hexagon. Beis Shamma could hold "hexagon" while Beis Hillel holds "square", and both are describing the same cube. It all depends on which direction you face the cube from. The difference is in the approach chosen, where one stands at the foothills when answering "mi ya'aleh beHar Hashem", not the emes kelapei shamayim. None of which involves separating abstract truth from law, as RMF does. The Maharal places eilu va'eilu entirely within our understanding of that abstract truth. RSR's analysis differs from the two I've discussed in the past, RMHalbertal's and R' Michel Rosensweig's. E.g. See v32n8 E.g. RMH describes the Ritva and the Ran as sharing what he calls "the Constitutive view" of what pesaq is (halakhah is constituted by pesaq, and there is no one pre-existing reality), and thus the notion of one right answer doesn't fit. Rather, his peshat in the Ran is more like RMF's opinion. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? : that the Rashi in question on Ktuvot 57a takes this approach. : : R. Rosner's explanation of the shittot is very lucid and concise. He : refers in his shiur to Ktuvot 57 to a previous, more comprehensive shiur he : gave on the subject, but I don't know if that shiur is available online. : : Saul Mashbaum : _______________________________________________ : Avodah mailing list : Avodah at lists.aishdas.org : http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 14:43:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:43:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] HaRav Aharon Lichtenstein zt"l Message-ID: <20150420214331.GA31537@aishdas.org> Today's blog post. ... Can't we find children who would have helped him and still know the gemara? Do we have to choose? I hope not; I believe not. Tir'u baTov! -Micha HaRav Aharon Lichtenstein zt"l Posted on April 20, 2015 - 1 Iyyar 5775 by micha When someone passes away, I try to find a life-lesson from their lives that I can incorporate into my own. This is rather easy with regard to Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, as the rosh yeshiva left the Centrist / Modern Orthodox / Religious Zionist community with a cheshbon hanefesh, an accounting of our communal soul. Things that he saw we as a community need to look at and improve. See "By His Light: Character and Values in the Service of God" by R' Reuvein Zeigler, notes of shiurim by Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, pp 220-252, which is available on-line at Yeshivat Har Etzion's Israel Koschitzky Virtual Beit Midrash, as the email shiur from the series "Developing a Torah Personality" Lecture 12: Centrist Orthodoxy: A Spiritual Accounting. Listing the rashei peraqim (subtitles): * The Shift To the Right * The Need for Soul-Searching * Commonalities and Differences With the Right * Shaking Our Confidence In General Culture * The Complexity of Experience * Literary, Psychological and Historical Sensitivity * Attitudes Toward Zionism * "Torah Only" or "Torah And" * The Possibility of Integration * Theory and Practice * Dialectical Tension or Tepid Indifference? * Instilling Passion * The Need for Spirituality * Diffusion and Dilution * The Ascendancy of the Moral Over the Intellectual * "Do Not Fear Any Man" Here's one piece near the end, that stays with me each time I read the article: ... Perhaps much of what I have said in relation to culture, quoting Arnold and Yeats and others, seems very rarefied. People may be asking themselves, "What does this have to do with us? We have to deal with children in elementary school or high school; this is not our concern." Nevertheless, I have related to culture at its apex, because the kind of vision which is maintained at the pinnacle has an impact, and should have an impact, upon what is done at lower levels. In this respect, the awareness of the evaluation of culture does have practical consequences for whatever level of education we are dealing with. Granted that, our challenge is to see to it that indeed we maintain our position with depth and gusto. Given our constituency, of course, we cannot instill many of our students with the optimal level of love of Torah; we know from where they come. But, within our overall community, and surely within its leadership, such a level should exist. Woe unto us, if the only choice lies between tepid compromise and arrogant kana'ut. A couple of years after we moved to Yerushalayim, I was once walking with my family in the Beit Yisrael neighborhood, where R. Isser Zalman Meltzer used to live. For the most part, it consists of narrow alleys. We came to a corner, and found a merchant stuck there with his car. The question came up as to how to help him; it was a clear case of perika u-te'ina (helping one load or unload his burden). There were some youngsters there from the neighborhood, who judging by their looks were probably ten or eleven years old. They saw that this merchant was not wearing a kippa. So they began a whole pilpul, based on the gemara in Pesachim (113b), about whether they should help him or not. They said, "If he walks around bareheaded, presumably he doesn't separate terumot u-ma'asrot, so he is suspect of eating and selling untithed produce..." I wrote R. Soloveitchik a letter at that time, and told him of the incident. I ended with the comment, "Children of that age from our camp would not have known the gemara, but they would have helped him." My feeling then was: Why, Ribbono shel Olam, must this be our choice? Can't we find children who would have helped him and still know the gemara? Do we have to choose? I hope not; I believe not. If forced to choose, however, I would have no doubts where my loyalties lie: I prefer that they know less gemara, but help him. If I can refer again to my experience over the last several decades, I think that one of the central points which has reinforced itself is the sense, in terms of values, of the ascendancy of the moral over the intellectual -- with all my love for and commitment to pure learning. But, when all is said and done, you have to be guided not by what you love; you have to be guided by Torah. And the Torah tells us what is good: He has told you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you: only to do justice, and to love goodness, and to walk modestly with your God. (Mikha 6:8) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 12:48:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 15:48:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L by Rav Shimon Schwab Message-ID: <20150420194854.40DD317FB85@nexus.stevens.edu> See The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 11:46:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 21:46:52 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] hidur Message-ID: <> - changed topic from tefillat hadrech There is a famois R Chaim that if one can use both etgrogim then one should first use the beautiful but *might* be pasul since if one uses the minimally kosher one then one has accomplished the mitzvah and there is no reason to choose a second one. I have seen some that disagree with R Chaim claiming that it is possible to take a better etrog for hidur even after having minimally done the motzvah. This has applications mehadrin of chanukah -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 14:52:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:52:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 09:46:52PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> It's like if one is forced to choose between an esrog which is definitely :> kosher but only barely so, vs. one which is beautiful but *might* be pasul. :> To me, it's a no-brainer that one would choose the barely kosher one.) >> - ... : There is a famois R Chaim that if one can use both etgrogim then one should : first use the beautiful but *might* be pasul since if one uses the : minimally kosher one then one has accomplished the mitzvah and there is no : reason to choose a second one. This presumes you can afford both, or have access to a friend who will give you a matanah al menas lehachzir of whichever you aren't buying. The post you're replying to is "if one is forced to choose". My own dilemma. Say I earmark $X (Y NIS, in your case) to spend on my esrog. And say the price of a definitely kosher (or at least, just as sure to be kosher) but not very hadar esrog is half that or less. Should I buy myself a mehudar, or should I buy two esrogim and give the other to someone hitting on hard times? Shouldn't the asei (tzedaqah, dei machsero) trump a "mere" hidur mitzvah (esrog)? And yet, we know many great rabbanim who didn't follow this calculus. What am I missing? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 15:25:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 18:25:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safeik as Metzi'us Message-ID: <20150420222502.GC1634@aishdas.org> The story so far: Briskers don't wear tzitzis outdoors on Shabbos in case the gemara does conclude that hatekheiles me'eaqes es halavan. (Dspite the tam mishnah, there is reason to wonder.) And if so, the tassels on your tallis or tallis qatan are not tzitzis, and wouldn't be tafeil to the beged. On Shabbos -- hotza'ah. I asked why, since I personally am wearing those tassels because of the safeiq, wouldn't that mean that in terms of my intent, they are hotza'ah? In general, when do we pasqen one din and then use that pesaq as the metzi'us for the next case? And when do we look at the internals of that din (in this case, the safeiq) and carry them through to the next din? Other examples collected so far: AhS OC 409:6 -- An eiruv techumin made with a safeiq tereifah is not an eiruv, because you can't eat a safeiq tereifah. We look to the pesaq, the meat is assur mishum safeiq, not the safeiq itself. (Where a parallel case in the se'if is ruled safeiq derabbanan lequlah.) AhS OC 416:8 -- A person wants to make 2 different eiruvei techumin, one for each day of YT in chu"l. You can't create an eiruv on day 2 that you cannot reach on day 1. We don't say mima nafshach -- if day 1 is YT, you don't need the eiruv, and if day 2 is, you were allowed to reach the food on day 1. Again, we look at the masqanah. Recently I noticed two more in the AhS: AhC OC 509:12 -- The Rama (se'if 5) allows libun on YT of a skewer that that they broiled non-salted meat on to allow using the skewer again that day. The AhS explains this is not a real tiqun keli, because mei'iqar hadin it doesn't need libun (cf YD 76), an therefore even if you could have done the libun on erev YT, you can still do it now. We DO NOT say that lemaaseh we are not nohagim to use the skewer without libun, so therefore the skewer went from usable to non-usable. This time we do look into the cause of the non-use. I am wondering if it's because beshe'as hadechaq, they would go to a rav and get a pesaq that they could use the skewer as is, so it's not fully unusable. AhS 581:18 -- If fruit are stored in a room that is built from uncemented bricks and the room breaks, the fruit are usable. We do not say they a muqtza, because the issur of disassembling the room was only derabbanan, so he didn't have full hesach hadaas. Notice that here he is saying that a person is aware of issur derabbanan being on a lesser level. The ruling is on the metzi'us, but with the understanding the the metzi'us reflects the wishy-washiness of the issur. RAM: Does any of this change your proposed sevaros? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 14:54:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:54:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5535759A.5020909@gmail.com> What would be the kilayim status of this combo? http://www.territorialseed.com/product/grafted-tomtato-ketchup-n-fries/new_for_spring_2015 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 15:57:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 18:57:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> On 04/20/2015 05:52 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > My own dilemma. Say I earmark $X (Y NIS, in your case) to spend on > my esrog. And say the price of a definitely kosher (or at least, just > as sure to be kosher) but not very hadar esrog is half that or less. > Should I buy myself a mehudar, or should I buy two esrogim and give the > other to someone hitting on hard times? Shouldn't the asei (tzedaqah, > dei machsero) trump a "mere" hidur mitzvah (esrog)? And yet, we know > many great rabbanim who didn't follow this calculus. What am I missing? Perhaps that they would then let the other person use their mehudardige esrog, so both benefit. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:21:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:21:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 06:57:15PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: :> ... Shouldn't the asei (tzedaqah, :> dei machsero) trump a "mere" hidur mitzvah (esrog)? And yet, we know :> many great rabbanim who didn't follow this calculus. What am I missing? : Perhaps that they would then let the other person use their mehudardige : esrog, so both benefit. So, both get the mitzvah of esrog with a hadar esrog. But I asked about fulling tzedaqah. How does a matanah al menas lehachzir qualify? And for someone used to having their own esrog, how is it "dei machsero"? Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:15:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:15:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Matza between Pesach and Shavuos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Somebody (either here or on Areivim) was asking about the minhag to eat matza between Pesach and Shavuos. I happened to pick up a sefer called "Bein Pesach u'Shavuos" (by R Zvi Cohn) and saw a few mentions about this. First, he cites the Gr"a that he never ate matza when it was not Pesach. I think the reasoning is that he didn't want to get hana'ah from it, but, rather, eat it only because it was a mitzvah. But then, later in the sefer, I saw reference to (a) a minhag (Belz and Chernobyl) to eat matza to eat matza on every shalosh seudos between Pesach and Shavuos, and wetting it with fish juice/gravy; and (b) v'yesh a minhag to eat matza *every* time one washes for bread, in order to combine "michlei d'm'heimnusa u'michlei d'asvasa" food/meal of emuna and food/meal of refuah (apologies for messing up the vowels). The footnote cites the sefer "Darchei Chayim v'Sholom" siman 633. And also to be m'dakdek to make one kugel for shabbos with matza and to pass it around, particularly on shalosh seudos after the z'miros. I don't translate so well, so if you want to see "inside" R Cohn's sefer, I put it here: http://s3.postimg.org/wukbartcj/matza.jpg [1] and if you look and find mistakes, please let the list (or at least me!) know! FWIW & Kol tuv, -- Sholom Links: ------ [1] http://s3.postimg.org/wukbartcj/matza.jpg -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 16:32:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 19:32:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> At 05:52 PM 4/20/2015, RN Toby Katz wrote: > >I am grateful to RYL (Prof. Levine) for making this pamphlet available to >the public as a pdf. However I note that he is often highly critical of >the charedi world, and I believe that R' Hirsch would emphatically not have >agreed with him. He would have honored and cherished the talmidei chachamim >who devote their lives to limud haTorah, and would have educated his >balabatim to take pride in the zechus of financially supporting the >"black hat" >yeshivos. This is pure speculation on your part. I believe that RSRH would have agreed with my views on this matter. Of course, this is pure speculation on my part. He certainly would not have agreed with the idea of not working to support one's family. See my article "The Obligation to Support a Family" The Jewish Press, February 18, 2015, front page. and the extensive quotes I have there from the writings of Rav Dr. Joseph Breuer, ZT"L, who was, of course, a grandson of RSRH and the foremost expositor of TIDE during his life time. > >I would also note that R' Hirsch would certainly not have shared RYL's dour > view of present-day Eretz Yisrael. True, all the flaws and failings of >Zionism are abundantly on display in the modern Medinah. But at the same >time, it takes an almost willful blindness not to see the >incredible miracles >that have been taking place there over the past sixty years or so. Not the >least of these miracles is a flourishing of Torah scholarship, be'eichus >uvekamus, the likes of which has not been seen since the churban Bayis >Sheni. We owe at least a small measure of gratitude to the >Zionist government >that helps provide the infrastructure for the Torah community to flourish, >and a huge measure of gratitude to the Ribono Shel Olam for allowing us to >live in a time in which the beginning of kibbutz galuyos is taking place >before our eyes. The sight of thousands of men, young and old, from all >corners of the world, streaming into the Mirrer Yeshiva each day, gives us a >little foretaste of what it will be like to visit the Third Bais Hamikdash. Again, I have to disagree. I suggest you read Rav Breuer's writings about EY in the book A Unique Perspective under the heading Eretz Yisroel. The following are some excerpts from his essay The State of Israel. The proclamation of a Jewish state would bring great joy to all the members of our people, if conditions were such that we could feel justified to call it a Kiddush Hashem. It pains us to say, and we have no illusions, that for the time being this is not the case. For every Torah-true Jew the word Kiddush Hashem is his utmost concern, while Chillul Hashem leaves him trembling. Thus the establishment of a Jewish state will fill him with misgivings and alarm. Anyone who is imbued with the eternal truth and validity of God's Torah will have to be aware that a state on God's holy soil will only be able to endure if the conditions that God has set down for a Jewish state on His holy soil are met. These conditions apply to the Jewish entity and to the life of every individual who declares himself a member of God's People. Again, please read Rav Breuer's essays on Eretz Yisroel in this book. Also, please read Rav Shimon Schwab's essay Zion or Zionism that I have placed at http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/zion_or_zionism.pdf Rav Schwab was most certainly a proponent of TIDE and the approach of RSRH. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 15:32:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 18:32:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> References: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 11:34 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > There was a bachur next to me this morning whose retzu'os were painted > black on both sides. And I believe I know why this is done, in case > a retzu'ah gets flipped. Or perhaps to be chosheish for the Rambam's > description of such retzu'os being "noi". I've only ever heard of the leather being soaked in dye; and the reason given was not for flipped retzu'os but for scratches: if the entire thickness of the strap has been dyed, a scratch will not expose undyed leather. (This does not address your actual question, though) ?Chesky Salomon From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:24:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:24:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <553598C0.6010209@sero.name> On 04/20/2015 08:21 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > So, both get the mitzvah of esrog with a hadar esrog. But I asked about > fulling tzedaqah. How does a matanah al menas lehachzir qualify? And > for someone used to having their own esrog, how is it "dei machsero"? At a time when an esrog was a luxury that most people could not afford and were not used to, how often would such a case come up? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:27:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:27:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <553598C0.6010209@sero.name> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> <553598C0.6010209@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150421002736.GA24420@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 08:24:32PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : At a time when an esrog was a luxury that most people could not afford : and were not used to, how often would such a case come up? ... and today? Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:58:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 00:58:13 GMT Subject: [Avodah] hidur Message-ID: <20150420.205813.23096.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> R'Zev Sero asked: > At a time when an esrog was a luxury that most people could > not afford and were not used to, how often would such a case > come up? But it could certainly come up nowadays. About 25 years ago, my budget was so tight that I had decided to share my lulav and esrog with my two sons, despite my having gotten them their own set in previous years. I don't remember whether one or both was still below bar mitzvah that year, but it doesn't really matter, because the point is that they were used to having their own, and that year we shared the one set. Suffice it to say that it was not fun. Baruch Hashem we've each had own own every year since then. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5535a0f9e88320f87fb2st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 18:23:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 01:23:34 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Self-control fatigue Message-ID: <20150420.212334.23096.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> On Areivim, SY Scher wrote: > A now large body of research shows that we can have "self-control > fatigue". Professor Roy Baumeister and his colleagues have > demonstrated experimentally that when people have previously had > to exert self-control, their ability to do so goes down. They > have also showed physiological correlates -- will-power/self- > control takes energy, and after exerting a lot of control, our > blood glucose level is lower. Replenishment of glucose (for > example, by drinking lemonade sweetened with sugar, but not > lemonade with artificial sweeteners) raises self-control ability > back up. > We all know that following the halacha often requires a good deal > of willpower, and I would imagine that for charedi adolescent boys, > that would be even more strongly so. So, the ability to control > the yetzer in outside situations may well be reduced. The muscle > is just too worn out! Is there any way fit this in with the idea that many mitzvos - kashrus in particular and chukim in general - seem designed to train us to *have* self-control? Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 03:14:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 06:14:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Self-control fatigue In-Reply-To: <20150420.212334.23096.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150420.212334.23096.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150421101422.GB7409@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 01:23:34AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : Is there any way fit this in with the idea that many mitzvos - kashrus : in particular and chukim in general - seem designed to train us to *have* : self-control? If (and that's a big if) we define the yeitzer hara as the effects on our souls of living within a mammalian body, then the ability to plan ahead and work toward delayed gratification, rather than just instinctively going for what's before us, is going to be a fundamental skill in rising above it. In R Yitchaq Sher's introduction to the Slabodka edition of Cheshbon haNefesh (Feldheim bilingual ed. ), the mashgiach speaks of the nefesh habehamis's "lack[ing the will to exercise choice" and therefore "the tzivui or azharah of an asei or a lo-sa'asei are not shayach to it at all" (par 2). He then gives guidelines about how to train it by taking examples from animal training (par 304). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 17th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Tifferes: What is the ultimate Fax: (270) 514-1507 state of harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 03:17:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 13:17:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> References: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 8:36 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > The Maharal is saying that what RMF calls emes shamamis (I think that > conjugation is yours, no?) is actually too rich to fit in this universe, > and certainly in a human mind. Therefore, two shitos can be correct > descriptions of the Truth, because each are incomplete. > Where does the Maharal say this? (Not a challenge, I just want to learn it inside) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 06:24:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 09:24:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: References: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150421132444.GD1634@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 01:17:49PM +0300, Simon Montagu wrote: : Where does the Maharal say this? (Not a challenge, I just want to learn it : inside) Be'er haGolah, be'er 1, pg 20 in the common edition, available on pg 94 the whole book) in the Harman edition, on hebrewbooks.org (Onward, I would print the 1[:6] off the link at the top for the whole sefer. R YD Hartman has a clearer edition, with copious footnotes.) I've been citing that Maharal for over a decade, so I had to search for the actual mar'eh maqom. On nice find was the discussion in Mishpat Ivri . I want to go through the whole chapter on machloqos (that hit is mid-chapter) before commenting, but I don't know when I'll get to it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 17th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Tifferes: What is the ultimate Fax: (270) 514-1507 state of harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 09:11:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 12:11:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150421132444.GD1634@aishdas.org> References: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> <20150421132444.GD1634@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55367699.9010203@sero.name> On 04/21/2015 09:24 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 01:17:49PM +0300, Simon Montagu wrote: > : Where does the Maharal say this? (Not a challenge, I just want to learn it > : inside) > > Be'er haGolah, be'er 1, pg 20 The introduction to the Hartman edition shows that the title is actually Be'er haGulah, with a melupum rather than a cholam. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 01:40:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 11:40:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu Message-ID: Sagi in his book on the topic brings 3 basic approaches (all with many supporters) to the sugya 1) Monism - only one truth as subfields we can be tolerant of other attempts or not 2) pluralism - there are many truths and one can't decide 3) harmonism - different views are just separate parts of the same truth R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is self-contradictory. According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint is monism ! He further points out that sometimes pluralism can be a chumra Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he doesn't accept the kashrut Answer: Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable Of course these are only typologies. In the real world anyone who believes in pluralism has some radius of acceptance. Few would accept Naziism or Isis as a legitimate viewpoint -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 01:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 11:53:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] hidur Message-ID: <> As usual R Chaim is asking a theoretical question - he was not a posek In fact I once heard from RYBS that in fact almost all etrogim are kosher bidieved. In Israel one can get a mehudar set for about 100 shekel ($25) see http://www.dafyomi.co.il/nazir/halachah/nz-hl-002.htm 2. Bava Kama 9a (R. Zeira citing Rav Huna): One must spend up to a third for Mitzvos. 3. Question: What does this mean? i. Suggestion: One must spend a third of his wealth to fulfil a Mitzvah. ii. Rejection: It is unreasonable that if he encounters three (expensive) Mitzvos, he must exhaust all his wealth! 4. Answer (R. Zeira): One must spend an extra third to beautify a Mitzvah. Shulchan Aruch (ibid.): Some say that if he finds two Esrogim to buy, and one of them is nicer than the other, he should buy the nicer one if the price difference is no more than a third of the other. i. Source (Beis Yosef DH Kaneh): Rashi (Bava Kama 9b DH b'Hidur) says that if one found two Sifrei Torah to buy, he should add a third of the price to buy the nicer one. ii. Kaf ha'Chayim (17): It seems that neither opinion requires one who bought an Esrog bigger than an egg to exchange it for a nicer one. However, the Rosh, Gra and Taz obligate doing so. The Magen Avraham says that perhaps the Shulchan Aruch holds like the Rosh. iii. Kaf ha'Chayim (18): One must add a third from an Esrog that one could bless on without Safek. Hidur depends on what people in the area consider nice. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 05:09:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 08:09:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55378F6E.2070708@sero.name> On 04/22/2015 04:40 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > 2) pluralism - there are many truths and one can't decide > > R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is self-contradictory. According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint is monism ! Not true. There are many truths, but not an infinite number. Or, as my father says, there are 70 panim latorah, but there are also 70 achor. Strict monism, which rejects the gemara's statement that "eilu va'eilu DACh", is by definition wrong. > Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he > doesn't accept the kashrut > Answer: > Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong > Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable It depends whether his concern is legitimate. If there is a legitimate opinion or minhag that forbids or refrains from whatever it is, or if he has a legitimate private chumra, then there is no question that it is assur to be machshil him. But if he is acting out of pure amhoratzus, then one needn't pander to it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 09:45:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 17:45:34 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Avodah: Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:54, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah wrote: > What would be the kilayim status of this combo? > http://www.territorialseed.com/product/grafted-tomtato-ketchup-n-fries/new_for_spring_2015 Though potato and tomato are from the same family, it is clear from mesechte Kilayim, fruit [or animals] that look different are treated as 2 different species. Hence, though the spuds and tomatoes would be permitted to eat - as with any grafted fruit - it would be ossur for a Yid to grow Dovid Rubin From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 10:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 13:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: <55378F6E.2070708@sero.name> References: <55378F6E.2070708@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150422175311.GA11663@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 08:09:18AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : On 04/22/2015 04:40 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : >2) pluralism - there are many truths and one can't decide : : >R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is :> self-contradictory. According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint :> is monism ! : Not true. There are many truths, but not an infinite number. Or, as my : father says, there are 70 panim latorah, but there are also 70 achor. I think RMA is referring to a paradox I've mentioned here once. While in principle, it's possible for a halachic pluralist to not include any halachic monist positions in his spectrum of eilu va'eilu, I do not know of a halachic pluralist who rules out the Rambam. Or a less absolute case of the same paradox: MO Jews will turn to chareidi gedolim for pesaqim despite those gedoim not believing that MO is within eilu va'eilu. So it would seem that to the MO Jew asking the she'eilah, the variant of chareidism that says MO is not within eilu va'eilu, is (in the MO Jew's opinion) itself within EvE! : Strict monism, which rejects the gemara's statement that "eilu va'eilu DACh", : is by definition wrong. Or, understand it in terms of following HQBH's word, as opposed to being right. As per the Rambam or RMF, for example. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 18th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Tifferes: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 balance? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 11:53:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 14:53:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Chilul Hashem of Disrespecting Non-Jews Message-ID: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/kb4v525 This idea connects with something that has bothered me for some time: the wanton, unprovoked use of disparaging, racist comments among our youth. Over the years I have either heard directly or been made aware of many such comments by students. When I asked why they had expressed themselves in this manner, they could offer no meaningful response. All I could glean was that they were apparently parroting similar remarks they had heard elsewhere, without having given much thought to their words. Many of these students had few if any relationships or even interactions with individuals from the groups they were mocking. See the above URL for the entire article. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:32:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 15:32:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Chilul Hashem of Disrespecting Non-Jews In-Reply-To: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150422193201.GD11663@aishdas.org> One of my many pet peeves is the use of "chilul hasheim" to teach ehrlachkeit. It may win the battle -- historically, it hasn't -- but it does so by avoiding the war. Mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro as important as mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro. Derekh eretz is important as Chazal literally call it a prerequisite for Torah. Worrying about the bein adam laMaqom effects of the cheit misses the point. And perhaps the reason why past attempts to change behavior by talking about chillul hasheim haven't worked is that one is not teaching the centrality of ehrlachkeit as a *primary* value. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 18th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Tifferes: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 balance? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:43:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 21:43:09 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <5537F9CD.7000409@zahav.net.il> How did Rav Breuer work to ensure the conditions that "we could feel justified to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? Ben On 4/21/2015 1:32 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > > Again, I have to disagree. I suggest you read Rav Breuer's writings > about EY in the book A Unique Perspective under the heading Eretz Yisroel. > > The proclamation of a Jewish state would bring great joy to all > the members of our people, if conditions were such that we could > feel justified to call it a Kiddush Hashem. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:36:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 15:36:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Avodah: Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150422193627.GE11663@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 05:45:34PM +0100, D via Avodah wrote: : Hence, though the spuds and tomatoes would be permitted to eat - as : with any grafted fruit - it would be ossur for a Yid to grow I think it would be mutar to buy already grafted, and then grow. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:53:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 22:53:04 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Avodah: Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 7:45 PM, D via Avodah wrote: > Though potato and tomato are from the same family, it is clear from > mesechte Kilayim, fruit [or animals] that look different are treated as 2 > different species. > Hence, though the spuds and tomatoes would be permitted to eat - as with > any grafted fruit - it would be ossur for a Yid to grow > Do you mean because the potato and tomato that we eat look different? You're not comparing apples to apples (pun intended). The fruits of a potato plant look very similar to the fruits of a tomato plant! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 13:07:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joel Schnur via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 16:07:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos Message-ID: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> My understanding is that Briskers don't wear a talis katan outside the house on shabbos because the shiur is "ad habirchaim" according to the Gaon as brought in Keser Rosh by talmidei Reb Chaim Voloshiner. And since "until the knees" is a subjective criterion depending upon each person's height, there is no specific "one size fits all" length. Interestingly, Rav Moshe Shternbuch brings a Rav Moshe that says that the source is unreliable and the Gaon never said such a thing. -- ___________________________ Joel Schnur, Senior VP Government Affairs/Public Relations Schnur Associates, Inc. 25 West 45th Street, Suite 1405 New York, NY 10036 Tel. 212-489-0600 x204 Fax. 212-489-0203 joel at schnurassociates.com www.schnurassociates.com http://www.schnurassociates.com/joels-corner/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 14:57:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 17:57:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Chilul Hashem of Disrespecting Non-Jews In-Reply-To: <20150422193201.GD11663@aishdas.org> References: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150422193201.GD11663@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150422215739.6F5F0180576@nexus.stevens.edu> At 03:32 PM 4/22/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >Mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro as important as mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro. I believe that this sentence is wrong. I believe you meant to write that mitzvos bein adam l'Chaveiro are just as important as mitzvos bein adam l'makom. RSRH points out that the Luchos contained 5 mitzvos bein adam l'Chaveiro and 5 mitzvos bein Adam l"Makom on each side, and that both sides of the Luchos were the same size! >Derekh eretz is important as Chazal literally call it a prerequisite >for Torah. And hence may one deduce that those who do not have proper Derech Eretz do not have Torah? If so, then I guess we should not be surprised at the actions of some so-called Jews that are a Chilul Hashem. They do not have any Torah. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 13:46:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 20:46:08 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos In-Reply-To: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> References: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> Message-ID: <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> On Wednesday, April 22, 2015 3:33 PM, Joel Schnur wrote: > My understanding is that Briskers don't wear a talis katan outside the > house on shabbos because the shiur is "ad habirchaim" according to the > Gaon as brought in Keser Rosh by talmidei Reb Chaim Voloshiner.... > Interestingly, Rav Moshe Shternbuch brings a Rav Moshe that says that > the source is unreliable and the Gaon never said such a thing. The reason that Briskers don't where Tzitzes on Shabbos is because they are Choshesh for the Shita of the Baal HaMeor who says that Techiels is Me'akev the Lavan. As such -- by wearing these now unnecessary 'strings' in Reshus Harabim they will be Oveir the Lav of Hotza'ah on Shabbos, an Issur D'Oraisa and a capital offense. Inetrestingly, accroding to the Baal HaMeor, wearing a Beged of Daled Kanfos using Tzitzs without Techiles is a violation -- same as if he were wearing it without Tzitzis at all. I'm told that the Gra did not wear a woolen Beged for his Talis Katan for that reason. Because wool has a Chiuv D'Oraisa for Tzitzs whereas cotton is only D'Rabbanan. HM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 17:05:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 20:05:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <5537F9CD.7000409@zahav.net.il> References: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> <5537F9CD.7000409@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <5538373F.4000900@aishdas.org> On 04/22/2015 03:43 PM, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: > On 4/21/2015 1:32 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: >> Again, I have to disagree. I suggest you read Rav Breuer's writings >> about EY in the book A Unique Perspective under the heading Eretz >> Yisroel. >> The proclamation of a Jewish state would bring great joy to all >> the members of our people, if conditions were such that we could >> feel justified to call it a Kiddush Hashem. > How did Rav Breuer work to ensure the conditions that "we could feel > justified to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? He thought his late brother's Poalei Agudah might accomplish it. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 03:06:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 06:06:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos In-Reply-To: <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> References: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20150423100635.GA26841@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 08:46:08PM +0000, Harry Maryles via Avodah wrote: : The reason that Briskers don't where Tzitzes on Shabbos is because they : are Choshesh for the Shita of the Baal HaMeor who says that Techiels is : Me'akev the Lavan. : : As such -- by wearing these now unnecessary 'strings' in Reshus Harabim : they will be Oveir the Lav of Hotza'ah on Shabbos... In the opening post, I referred to the BhM's reason. Since there appears to be interest, I will spell it out. The mishnah (Menachos 4:1, 38a) says that techeiles is not me'aqeves the lavan, and v.v. Seems kind of open and shut, and that's what we hold lehalakhah. And so R' Yitzchaq says that R Yochanan ben Nuri says (beraisa , quoted on 39b) that if you have no tekheiles, you make all strings lavan. But, Rebbe is choleiq, and says the mishnah means sequence. Normally the lavan strings have to be put on first, or on a tekheiles garment, the tekheiles string first. And the mishnah is saying that if you put on the other color first, it's not me'aqeiv. According to Rebbe, though, you can't be yotzei without putting on tekheiles altogether. Getting to this understanding of the mishnah is an amud lonq chaqla vetarya in which Levi, Shemu'el and Rami bar Chama defend Rebbe's position. : Interestingly, according to the Baal HaMeor, wearing a Beged of Daled : Kanfos using Tzitzs without Techiles is a violation -- same as if he : were wearing it without Tzitzis at all. Not really. It's an asei, not a lav. So, if tekheiles truly is unavailable, why wouldn't it be mutar, if pointless? However, if you feel there is any possibility whatsoever that the murex derived dye is indeed tekheiles, safeiq de'oraisa lechumerah would force one to choose between not wearing tzitzis and wearing the dye. And there are those who hold it's garua to wear invalid dye, so combine the shitos right, and the discovery of a possible tekheiles would make it better not to wear tzitzis. IF we held like the BhM. But not even Briskers do, me'iqar hadin -- they are merely chosheish for his position as a chumerah. : I'm told that the Gra did not wear a woolen Beged for his Talis Katan : for that reason. Because wool has a Chiuv D'Oraisa for Tzitzs whereas : cotton is only D'Rabbanan. As usual for the Gra -- clever! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 19th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Tifferes: When does harmony promote Fax: (270) 514-1507 withdrawal and submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 02:45:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Allan Engel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 10:45:42 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos In-Reply-To: <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> References: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: So what was his Tallis Godol made of? On 22 April 2015 at 21:46, Harry Maryles via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote:. > > > Inetrestingly, accroding to the Baal HaMeor, wearing a Beged of Daled > Kanfos using Tzitzs without Techiles is a violation -- same as if he > were wearing it without Tzitzis at all. > > I'm told that the Gra did not wear a woolen Beged for his Talis Katan > for that reason. Because wool has a Chiuv D'Oraisa for Tzitzs whereas > cotton is only D'Rabbanan. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 05:07:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 12:07:10 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >> R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is self-contradictory. >> According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint is monism ! ... > Strict monism, which rejects the gemara's statement that "eilu va'eilu > DACh", is by definition wrong. Monism doesn't reject the gemara just interprets it different That was the shiur >> Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he >> doesn't accept the kashrut >> Answer: >> Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong >> Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable > It depends whether his concern is legitimate. If there is a legitimate > opinion or minhag that forbids or refrains from whatever it is, or if he > has a legitimate private chumra, then there is no question that it is assur > to be machshil him. No question is your opinion a true monist Would argue that there are no other legitimate opinions hence the other is wrong and you are not machshil him [Email #2, also in reply to this latter quote. -micha] You are not being machshil by offering food that he won't eat because of his minhag or chumrot you are mikayem shalach Manot even if he doesn't accept the kashrut From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 09:11:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 12:11:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L Message-ID: <20150423161105.DF2701836D1@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:13 AM 4/23/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: >How did Rav Breuer work to ensure the conditions that "we could feel >justified to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? I really have no specifics. but I do know that Rav Breuer was busy here in the US building a model Kehilla and educating Baalei Batim. I know that some of those from his Kehilla did move to EY. In particular, I know one person who was a professional and a follower of TIDE who moved to EY. I am sure that he did whatever he could to strengthen Yahadus in EY. But let me ask a related question. What are the observant now living in EY doing "to ensure the conditions that 'we could feel justifies to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 09:49:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 12:49:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55392297.20909@sero.name> On 04/23/2015 08:07 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > >>> >>Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he >>> >>doesn't accept the kashrut >>> >>Answer: >>> >>Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong >>> >>Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable >> >It depends whether his concern is legitimate. If there is a legitimate >> >opinion or minhag that forbids or refrains from whatever it is, or if he >> >has a legitimate private chumra, then there is no question that it is assur >> >to be machshil him. > No question is your opinion a true monist > Would argue that there are no other legitimate opinions hence the other > is wrong and you are not machshil him Even if there is only one truth, you don't necessarily know for sure what it is. You make your best guess, but someone else makes his, and for all you know he may have hit on the truth, even if only by accident, while you, with all your careful analysis of the evidence, may have been led astray. Let's take medicine, where there really is only one truth, but often we don't know for sure what it is. Does gluten in the diet negatively affect the health of most normal people? There doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence for that proposition, but it can't be ruled out. Maybe in 20 years we will observe that those who have followed the gluten-free fad really are healthier, and someone will discover how it is that gluten harms a person. Or maybe it will be established that it's exactly the mishguas that it appears to be. But until then we are just guessing, and if you hold that it's a mishugas but someone else is worried about it, you have to consider the possibility that he may be right, and by tricking him into eating gluten you may actually be harming him. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 10:54:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 17:54:52 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] A Papal Honor for an Orthodox Rabbi. Message-ID: <393104521.3643892.1429811692300.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> JTA is reporting that Pope Francis will be bestowing Papal Knighthood upon Rabbi Arthur Schneier (who I believe is an Orthodox Rabbi) for (among other things) his work in promoting a positive relationship with the Church. According to JTA,?Schneier will formally become a knight of Saint Sylvester at a ceremony on April 27.Isn't there a Halachic probelm with this? It would seem to me that becoming a 'knight' in the Catholic church ?would at least be Avak Avodah Zara - even though it is just honorary? HM??Want Emes and Emunah in your life? Try this: http://haemtza.blogspot.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 16:14:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 19:14:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early Message-ID: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin (or ate the food already, the food went bad, etc...) who for some reason can not rely on the rabbi's communal failsafe eruv (perhaps he isn't in a neighborhood with an observant community) do for lighting Shabbos candles? So, the BY (OC 537:19) permits, but he says "veyeish oserin". The AhS (se'if 28) names the oserim as the Rosh and the Ran, and that the SA names the Rambam (via a diyuq halashon)as his source lehatir. The AhS then questions the diyuq, but says it should be allowed anyway, since one gets hana'ah from the neiros while on YT too. So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, ones you used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making a berakhah on? Yes, there is light for enjoying the Shabbos meal, all the same shalom bayis. But there is no actual pe'ulah to make the berakhah on. Is there? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 19th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Tifferes: When does harmony promote Fax: (270) 514-1507 withdrawal and submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 16:21:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Daniel M. Israel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 16:21:06 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> References: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <33e302272e45c742ee54349bcfddc40a@kolberamah.org> On 2015-04-23 16:14, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin... > ... do for lighting Shabbos candles? > So, the BY (OC 537:19) permits... The AhS > then questions the diyuq, but says it should be allowed anyway, since > one gets hana'ah from the neiros while on YT too. > So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, ones you > used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making a berakhah on? Off the cuff hypothesis: Perhaps for the one lighting, it becomes Shabbos immediately, so the hadlakah is for Shabbos and there is a beracha. But for others in the house, they likely don't take on Shabbos until davening, and therefor they enjoy it on YT. Which would be enough to matir her lighting them. But I have no source. -- Daniel Israel dmi1 at cornell.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 16:27:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 19:27:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: <33e302272e45c742ee54349bcfddc40a@kolberamah.org> References: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> <33e302272e45c742ee54349bcfddc40a@kolberamah.org> Message-ID: <20150423232727.GB23492@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 04:21:06PM -0700, Daniel M. Israel wrote: : Perhaps for the one lighting, it becomes Shabbos immediately, so the : hadlakah is for Shabbos and there is a beracha. But for others in the : house, they likely don't take on Shabbos until davening, and therefor : they enjoy it on YT. Which would be enough to matir her lighting them. Not bad, if we don't read too much into the AhS not limiting this solution to cases where the candle-lighter isn't alone in the home. Nor does he mention having to use candles lit after pelag, nor her making a berakhah upon lighting and having an issur melakhah... Could be, but I find it dachuq. -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 17:58:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2015 00:58:48 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early Message-ID: <20150423.205848.16124.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger asked: > What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin (or > ate the food already, the food went bad, etc...) who for some > reason can not rely on the rabbi's communal failsafe eruv > (perhaps he isn't in a neighborhood with an observant community) > do for lighting Shabbos candles? Another problem this person will have is what to eat on Shabbos. There are several ideas offered by the poskim, and one of them is to cook extra food on Yom Tov, and the extra will be for Shabbos. This can be done even without an Eiruv Tavshilin, IIRC, because the melacha is not being done exclusively for Shabbos. > So, the BY (OC 537:19) [that should be 527:19 - Akiva] permits, > but he says "veyeish oserin". The AhS (se'if 28) names the oserim > as the Rosh and the Ran, and that the SA names the Rambam (via a > diyuq halashon)as his source lehatir. The AhS then questions the > diyuq, but says it should be allowed anyway, since one gets > hana'ah from the neiros while on YT too. This sounds to me the same as above. The lighting is not being done exclusively for Shabbos, and therefore may be done on YT. I would note that at no point in that se'if, does the AhS explicitly refers to the *mitzvah* of lighting Shabbos neros. Rather, his focus is on the practical need to light them in the late afternoon, both because it is *already* getting dark and hard to see without some artifical light, and because we won't be able to light anything later on. Truth be told, if lighting Shabbos candles is allowed only with an Eruv Tavshilin, then this whole se'if is needed even for a person who DID remember to make an Eruv, because (l'chatchila) one must do his Shabbos preparations early in the day, in a manner in which the melacha is -- or at least *could* be -- for tzorchei Yom Tov, and not exclusively for Shabbos. > So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, > ones you used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making > a berakhah on? Yes, there is light for enjoying the Shabbos meal, > all the same shalom bayis. But there is no actual pe'ulah to make > the berakhah on. Is there? I don't know where you see anything like this in the AhS. The AhS is explicitly talking about lighting after mincha, when it is already dark and the light is already useful. I concede that perhaps one should omit the bracha, because it explicitly declares one's intentions to be of a hachana nature, but that is a separate question not raised by the AhS. The main point I want to make in this paragraph is that the AhS never suggested that one might be yotzay Mitzvas Ner Shabbos via the candle that he lit in the early afternoon; it must be lit after Plag, with the intention that it will be burning into Shabbos. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55399563ca1dd156333b3st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 23:18:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2015 02:18:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Turning Jealousy into Progress Message-ID: Envy - Jealousy ? Kin?ah ? is an obvious theme for Parshas Mtzora. Paraphrasing freely (from L?chai Ro?-EY page 184), Midrash Tehillim/Shochar Tov on 37:1 parallel of TiTCHaR and TeKaNNEi. Do not fall victim to despondence those plotting evil, do not emulate those who succeed in career of crime. Rashi BMiDBar 25:11 neatly ties both into a General Theory of Jealousy. KoL LaSHON KiNAH HU HaMiTCHaReH LiNKom NiKMaS DaVaR. Rashi?s keyword is worth a thousand words. Rashi expects that we know Tanach and Midrash references. To catch Rashi?s nuance, always, I consult my paper Milon Gur [also in HebrewBooks.com]. HaMiTCHaReH is the exotic addition to our vocabulary. My trusty dictionary comes through here. Milon Gur pages 310 311 on CHaRaH: CHaRaH intransitive verb, showing outwardly as Ca_US or KaTZUF. ? foaming and frothing anger, against a traitor or hated enemy. determination to avenge and restore the Balance of Justice. HiTLaHeiV burning simmering anger, pressure like volcanic eruption. Hashem to Yonah ? are you truly upset ? HaHeYTeiV CHaRaH LCHa YoNaH? Divine CHaRON AF boiling or simmering anger is satisfied only by repentance, not by punishment. CHaRUCHA [burnt like over done fire-roast, long term anger leads to burn-through and burn-out. CHaRUL thorny tangle Milon Gur page 1088 McharCher RIV ? drum up strife and enmity CHaRCHuR ? disease of loss of muscle and strength. MChaRCHer Riv, CharumAf [nose ?bent out of shape? inset into face] and for Tacharut as resentment destroyed relationship. Rashi in Machzor Vitri 148 uses CHeReTZ in a unique way. Hashem jealously and with energy demands perfection from the world. Why does the Creator demand perfection? Rashi believes that Hashem cares strongly about the world. When the Adam attempts to be good, but falls short, He uses Rachamim, parenting skills, looking to the potential of ?You will worship Elokim on this mountain?. identification with the world demands perfection. When the world tries but falls short, fails to perform, Hashem uses Rachamim, flexibility, patience, empathy. He settles for potential. When the world rebels against Hashem, refuses to acknowledge Him at all, or mocking Him, rejecting their Father, breaking up the family, then there is Charon Af, red faced simmering anger. Rav Avraham Ruby authored the ?Tzilusa DiShmaata? series, focusing on chapters of the Baba-s routinely learnt Afternoon Seder which are master-works of Lamdus. Rav Moshe Shmuel Shapiro of Be?eir Yaakov was a talented teacher, and R? Ruby is an extremely able student. This year R? Ruby has turned his talents to creating the same sort of succinct and sharp presentation on Chumash.[L?chai Ro?-EY on Vayikra, self published 5775, contact me.]. Each Parsha offers an eclectic collection of solid sources. The organization is always unique and refreshing. L?chai Ro?-EY 185 shows the constructive power of ambition. Identity, membership,self-image, pride, place in society are all motivators of constructive behavior. Kinah jealousy is secondary, when there is an insult or threat to Hashem?s identity, or the individual?s. Ideally our self-image should include praise of Hashem and hatred of all insults against the Honor of Hashem. Only live in a town with Jewish services, and help create them. Your material ambitions include the dimension of Mitzvos and Kidush Hashem. A higher level of identity, ambition and constructive jealousy is aspiring to your neighbor?s higher spiritual levels. Even the Heavenly angels and even Avraham Avinu found mentors to emulate. Of course, the type of destructive strife we often see has other roots. Building a Jewish family is much easier with stronger spiritual models. -- David Wacholder Cell: 917-742-7838 Email: dwacholder at gmail.com dwacholder at optonline.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 24 08:42:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2015 11:42:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Beautiful Vort Message-ID: I recently came upon the following, listening to a hesped for Rabbi Mordechai Fachler zt?l, who was nift?r in November 2010. The hesped (one of many for Rav Fachler) was delivered by Rabbi Moshe Shirkin of England. This is just one part that caught my attention and was very touching. In previous generations the g?dolei Yisroel were discussing what?s the function of a Rav? The Rosh Yeshiva in Grodna (at the time) said the task of the Rav is to give shiurim. The Rav of Kovna, poisek oilam, said the task of the Rav is to pasken shailas. They came to Reb Chayim of Brisk and asked him what is the task of the Rav. His impressive response was: To give shiurim, you have a Rosh Yeshiva. To pasken shailas, you have a dayan. The task of the Rav is to do chesed with his oilam. A clergyman comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comfortable. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Apr 25 12:31:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 25 Apr 2015 21:31:27 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150423161105.DF2701836D1@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150423161105.DF2701836D1@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <553BEB8F.8040802@zahav.net.il> On 4/23/2015 6:11 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > But let me ask a related question. What are the observant now living > in EY doing "to ensure the conditions that 'we could feel justifies > to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? I gave an answer on Areivim, but I saw a couple of things on Shabbat which warrant an Avodah response. The first is from Yoma 86:A, Rashi, B'Amor Lehem (my translation): "Evil comes to chassidim and chachamim because "They desecrated My Holy name" (note: Rashi is of course assuming that they didn't do any particular sin to warrant what happened to them). How did they desecrate (God's name)? In those places to where they were exiled, the non-Jews say "These are the people of God" and He can't redeem them. Conclusion: God's name has been desecrated." End quote. Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem. Rav Soloveitch tz"l wrote about this point in Kol Dodi Dofek and in his drashot for the Kinot, as did Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook tz"l. However, I don't want to leave it at that. Rav Cherki (father of Shalom HY"D) wrote the following in this week's Shabbat B'shabato: "And this leads us to a moral question: How can it be that with respect to the most significant event in all of history, the redemption, the existence or lack of good deeds has no effect at all? This tension between the inevitability of redemption and arbitrary choices made by man is what makes it necessary for the nation of Yisrael to observe all the mitzvot in detail, in order to avoid creating a dissonance between the need for justice (which appears in the covenant in the Torah portion of Bechukotai) and the values of the path of unification, which insists that G-d is always working to glorify His name, no matter what else is happening. And that is why the Haftarah ends with the adamant demand of the Holy One, Blessed be He: "I am your G-d. Follow My laws and maintain My just actions and perform them, and sanctify my Shabbat and let it be a symbol between Me and you, in order to know that I am your G-d." [Yechezkel 20:19-20]." No one, not the most hard core DL around, says that there is nothing wrong with the State, that there isn't what that needs changing, from the level of how people get on a bus to the national agenda. In his hesped, Rav Cherki mentioned that his son Shalom went to the navy to help start a hesder unit for the navy, even though he knew that the religious level in the navy wasn't as high as it was in other units. He went there for the greater good, to help make the IDF a bit more Torah oriented, period. Rav Cherki went on to say that the answer to Shalom's murder was to add Kiddush HaShem. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 13:28:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 20:28:49 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lashon Hara and the Internet Message-ID: <20150426.162849.2967.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> On Areivim, there were some posts speaking about the residents of a certain area or areas. Someone commented: > I'm a little surprised at this exchange. Sefer Chafetz Chaim is > pretty clear about not saying loshen hara on a place or the > residents of a place. Someone else responded: > I am no expert on what is LH and what is not, but with the Internet > I think that some of the halachos probably do not apply to today's > world. Find me a sefer that deals with LH and the Internet, and > then we will talk. I too am no expert in Sefer Chafetz Chaim, but I clearly remember it talking about Lashon Hara via the written word, such as in personal letters to friends and relatives, or by publishing books and newspapers. Can someone find those sources and tell us where they are? I find it difficult to imagine that today's world is so different from that of a hundred years ago "that some of the halachos probably do not apply to today's world." But without quoting actual sources, it's simply a case of my imagination vs that of the other poster. So I am hoping that someone can help with the source material, "and then we will talk." Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553d4ab51dc554ab54c25st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 15:02:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 18:02:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] YIDDISHKEIT WITHOUT IDEOLOGY: A LETTER TO My SON Message-ID: <20150426220229.D93E41836B2@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://traditionarchive.org/news/originals/Volume%2036/No.%202/Yiddishkeit%20Without.pdf Let me be absolutely clear: where the demands of halacha are unambiguous, you must submit to them. But how does one navigate between much less well-defined traditional attitudes and strong personal inclinations? When I was your age I didn't know the answer-I still don't-but one proposition that seemed self-evident to me at the time was that it was essential to be consistent. In other words, I felt that I had to some- how make sure that the way I defined Yiddishkeit and the way I defined my commitments given my own inclinations would be perfectly aligned. I'm now convinced that that commitment to consistency was utter- ly wrong-headed and is the key to all that is wrong with institutional Yiddishkeit. I shouldn't have been defining either Yiddishkeit or my commitments at al. To do so is to reduce Yiddishkeit to ideology which is exactly what it is not. See the above UL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 16:54:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 19:54:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150426235424.BD633182CE0@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:52 PM 4/26/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: I gave an answer on Areivim, but I saw a couple of things on Shabbat which warrant an Avodah response. The first is from Yoma 86:A, Rashi, B'Amor Lehem (my translation): "Evil comes to chassidim and chachamim because "They desecrated My Holy name" (note: Rashi is of course assuming that they didn't do any particular sin to warrant what happened to them). How did they desecrate (God's name)? In those places to where they were exiled, the non-Jews say "These are the people of God" and He can't redeem them. Conclusion: God's name has been desecrated." End quote. >Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem. >Rav Soloveitch tz"l wrote about this point in Kol Dodi Dofek and in his >drashot for the Kinot, as did Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook tz"l. We all know that there were great Torah scholars who disagreed with the assertion that " the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." to name just 3, the Satmar Rebbe, Rav Breuer, and Rav Schwab. They were also most certainly familiar with the gemara you quote and the RASHI. If you had written, "Therefore, according to some Torah scholars the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." I would not disagree. However, your blanket statement, "Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." is IMO is not valid. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 12:36:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Jay F. Shachter via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 19:36:27 +0000 (WET DST) Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: from "via Avodah" at Apr 26, 2015 03:52:29 pm Message-ID: <14300949890.C90dE41.4028@m5.chicago.il.us> > > What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin (or ate > the food already, the food went bad, etc...) who for some reason can > not rely on the rabbi's communal failsafe eruv (perhaps he isn't in > a neighborhood with an observant community) do for lighting Shabbos > candles? > You light one candle, after plag hamminxa of course, and you say the appropriate brakha, lhadliq ner shel shabbath. You don't need an `eruv tavshilin to light one candle, because the Rabbinic prohibition of performing mlakha on Yom Tov for Shabbath was not intended to override the Rabbinic commandment of lighting one candle for use on Shabbath. Since (unlike in ancient times, and unlike a hundred years ago also) you don't need to have candles burning on Shabbath for their light, because you already have electric lights in your house that will stay on, or that will come on, during Shabbath, you therefore have no reason to light more than one candle (except for minhag, which you can dispense with when needed), so you don't. One candle is the Rabbinic commandment. Lighting two candles is a recent frumkeit, or yhiruth, that started among German Jews and is less than 900 years old. Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter 6424 N Whipple St Chicago IL 60645-4111 (1-773)7613784 landline (1-410)9964737 GoogleVoice jay at m5.chicago.il.us http://m5.chicago.il.us "The umbrella of the gardener's aunt is in the house" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 04:58:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 12:58:34 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001901d080e1$7d6fcbe0$784f63a0$@org.uk> RMB wrote: <> As I have written before, what I find intensely frustrating about this is that RYBS's invocation of tan du appears to itself involve a form of tampering with the chazakos and by implication the denial of the perfection and truthfulness of chachmei chazal that is then claimed to be kefira. The gemora in discussing tan du is very clear - both in Yevamos 118b and Kesuvos 75a: a woman in a tan du marriage commits adultery - "kulan mezanos"! - THAT is the chazaka from Chazal regarding the nature of women. Now this could mean: (a) the sort of woman who is prepared to enter a tan du marriage is prepared to and will commit adultery; or (b) all women will take a tan du marriage (RYBS), but if they find themselves in a tan du marriage - the existential loneliness that RYBS identifies as being the particular province of women will also, according to Chazal, inevitably drive them to adultery; But you can't get away from the fact that Chazal set this up as a chazaka. And if you take these chazakos in the way that RYBS says to do, then there are inevitable conclusions: A Beis Din faced with what can now clearly be seen as a tan du marriage HAS to assume adultery as a consequence - that being the chazaka. If you hold that these statements of Chazal are perhaps limited in time and place to the times of Chazal, and the nature of women then, then we cannot necessarily generalise to today, and despite a woman today being demonstratably in a tan du marriage, one cannot necessarily jump to conclusions regarding her faithfulness. But if these chazakos are immutable - then the only question must surely be, was there the possibility of adultery - and given the freedom of movement of women today, I do not see how anybody can say that opportunity was not available. Therefore the result, and the consequence for the marriage, was a foregone conclusion. A beis din, if it does not treat this marriage as a mekach taus (because the woman is one who would not have entered a tan du marriage), has to treat it as one in which the woman has committed adultery and is therefore forbidden to her husband, and under which the husband is clearly under a Torah obligation to divorce, according to all opinions ("dvar erva"). And yet note that there is none of this in RBYS's analysis. Women's loneliness and spiritual pain, yes - a full facing of the consequences of what is therefore, according to Chazal, endemic in our society and in the nature of Bnos Yisroel, no. There is a complete glossing over of the fundamental conclusion by Chazal regarding the consequence of a tan du marriage. And yet how can you write about tan du as an absolute immutable principle and yet not mention what, according to Chazal, is the cast iron result of that absolute immutable principl? Note by the way that this chazaka, if indeed it is immutable in the nature of women, has another consequence. Given that having women commit adultery is clearly (how shall I put this mildly) a highly destructive thing for society - having women enter into marriages where this is the inevitable consequence is a very bad thing. Surely any Rabbi who is mesader kedushin at such a wedding, any eidim at such a wedding, etc have as a matter of fact engaged in lifnei iver lo titen michshol in the full biblical sense. This isn't, according to Chazal, a maybe or a possibility, this is an inevitability. Surely it is obligatory on any Rabbi who agrees to be mesader kiddushin and on any shadchanim and eidim to investigate very carefully that this marriage is not of the tan du nature? That is if, as Rav Lichtenstein is quoted as saying "given the clear cut evidence in the Rishonim in Yevamot and other places in Shas which clearly indicated that this hazaka was not one that applied in all contexts and at all times and in all situations" - then these concerns would be significantly diminished. After all, any marriage presented to a mesader kedushin would then at the very least be a sfek sfeka - perhaps this isn't a tan du marriage, and if it is, perhaps the woman might not commit adultery. But if it is an inevitable chazaka that a woman in a tan du marriage will commit adultery, then there is only one safek in relation to a serious issur d'orisa - in which case must it not be the responsibility of all those who enable such a marriage to occur to make sure that it is not a tan du marriage and they are not enabling such adultery to take place? To my mind, indeed, that is precisely what Chazal were really getting at. A genuine acknowledgement that - at least in some societies and some environments, women are pressured into inappropriate marriages and give in to that pressure. And that where a woman does indeed give in to such an inappropriate marriage, the consequences are really, really bad for the general society and we need all to be on guard to try and prevent such marriages occurring. That to me demonstrates far more clearly the "perfection and truthfulness of Chazal" than trying to squish them in to some metaphysical understanding of womenkind that does not reverberate as true to many. But if one is going to apply this particular analysis to this particular statement of Chazal, it would seem important to do it honestly while facing the totality of what it is that Chazal actually said. >-Micha Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 11:00:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 18:00:12 GMT Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabal as Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150427.140012.4336.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Rav YB Soloveitchik zt"l was quoted: > ... Let us take for example the chazaka that I was told > about: the chazaka tav l'meisiv tan du mil'meisiv armalo > [20] has absolutely nothing to do with the social and > political status of women in antiquity. This chazaka is > based not upon sociological factors, but upon a verse in > breishis -- harba arbeh itz'voneich v'heironeich b'etzev > teildi vanim v'el isheich t'shukaseich v'hu yimshal bach > -- "I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy travail; in > pain thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall > be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee" [21]. It > is a metaphysical curse rooted in the feminine personality > -- she suffers incomparably more that the male who is in > solitude. Solitude to the male is not as terrible an > experience, as horrifying an experience, as is solitude to > the woman. And this will never change, mayid shamayim > vaaretz [22]. This is not a psychological fact; it is an > existential fact, ... In our discussions of this idea, that the chazaka is "an existential fact" and "based not upon sociological factors", there seems to be a general assumption that the Rav was speaking of ALL chazakos. However, it seems possible to me, or perhaps even likely, that he was singling this chazaka out as different from others. Note that he does not merely assert this chazaka to be existential, but he cites a pasuk as proof. To me, this is significant, because we would then be allowed to treat any NON-pasuk-based chazaka as sociological. I don't know what implications this might have for the chazaka of extramarital relations that R"n Chana Luntz mentioned, or for any other chazakos, but I wanted to mention it in case anyone else wants to comment. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553e7973421b079735cf5st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 14:53:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 17:53:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabal as Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150427.140012.4336.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150427.140012.4336.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150427215316.GA27558@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 06:00:12PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : In our discussions of this idea, that the chazaka is "an existential : fact" and "based not upon sociological factors", there seems to be a : general assumption that the Rav was speaking of ALL chazakos. However, : it seems possible to me, or perhaps even likely, that he was singling : this chazaka out as different from others. I suggested a third possiliblity. The shiur was all about Talmud Torah and Qabbalas Ol Malkhus Shamayim. This was a couple of off topic lines in what was basically a complaint that RER didn't respect the halachic process (as RYBS saw it). RAL reports that this was RYBS's primary argument against RER's beis din; I am suggesting that this quick assertion was an example of that argument, not an independent second reason to reject. It fits better as an efshar lomar than an actual assertion. How do you know you can simply repeal this chazaqah? What if it's an existential statement about the human condition; is it, after all, mentioned in a pasuq! Not so much that tav lemeisav was necessarily an existential and unchanging fact, but that it could be. That one can't simply reason in a vacuum and buck the trend of millennia of pesaq. But in any case, RYBS did say it belashon rabbim: "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above. Let us take for example the chazaka that I was told about: the chazaka tav l'meisiv tan du...." RYBS discusses tav lemeisiv as an example of a general principle not to tamper with chazaqos. Not as a single case. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 23rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Netzach: How does my domination Fax: (270) 514-1507 stifle others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 11:10:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 14:10:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A Halachik analysis of the kosher status of vitamins and medicines. Message-ID: <20150427181040.6E1171834B6@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/osf4fh7 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 12:51:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 21:51:46 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150426235424.BD633182CE0@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150426235424.BD633182CE0@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <553E9352.3030802@zahav.net.il> 1) I have to admit I don't get your answer. You asked in what way could the state be considered a Kiddush Hashem and I gave you an answer. Now you reply that various rabbis wouldn't agree with that answer. Ok, but az mah? 2) The Satmar Rebbe wouldn't have said that anything about the state is a Kiddush Hashem, no matter what it did, so I don't understand why you included him. 3) Lastly, the reply that you gave reminds me of something that Rav AY Kook wrote in Orot, Orot HaTechiya, Chapter 20. He was addressing the question of whether or not the religious should join forces with the non-religious in order to work together for the Zionist cause. Rav Kook used the story of the two women claiming to be the mother of a baby as example of people revealing their true intentions. The woman who agreed that the baby should be cut in half was in effect saying (according to RK) that there shouldn't be babies. She used others claims as way of hiding her true intent, but when the decisive moment came, the truth came out. Meaning - was the demand that the religious not work with the secular the issue or was that a cover story used to mask people's opposition to Zionism? Or in this case, is the demand that the creation of the state be a Kiddush HaShem in the eyes of all rabbanim a real demand or is it simply a cover? If the Breuer community want the state to reflect certain values, than please, make it happen. If they don't want to make it happen or aren't willing, than the demand is (at best) an exercise in dissimulation. Ben On 4/27/2015 1:54 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > We all know that there were great Torah scholars who disagreed with the assertion that " the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." to name just 3, the Satmar Rebbe, Rav Breuer, and Rav Schwab. They were also most certainly familiar with the gemara you quote and the RASHI. > > If you had written, "Therefore, according to some Torah scholars the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." I would not disagree. However, your blanket statement, "Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." is IMO is not valid. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 14:59:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 22:59:07 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] ashkenazi married to sefardi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003e01d08135$629ef9e0$27dceda0$@org.uk> RET writes: <> Note that the Bnei Banim in Chelek 3 siman 29 brings an objection to this position of RMF, based on the Rema in Even HaEzer siman 75 si'if 1. The discussion there is regarding the situation where the man literally comes from one country and the woman comes from another, who can force whom to move? And while the majority of the rishonim (including the Tashbetz) hold (absent special considerations such as Eretz Yisrael versus non Eretz Yisrael) that the man can force the woman to move to his country, Rabbanu Tam holds the opposite, that the woman can force the man to move. And the Rema holds l'halacha that we should be choshesh for the position of Rabbanu Tam, and hence neither can force the other to move. The Bnei Banim points out that if one cannot force the wife to physically move to the locale of the husband, l'halacha, how can she be considered to have moved to his place by mere dint of the marriage? After all, if she has in fact, halachically, moved to his place by entering the chuppah, what possible objection can there possibly be to her being made to up sticks and actually go to his country, Rabbanu Tam or no Rabbanu Tam? So while the Tashbez is in fact being consistent - being a rishon who holds that in fact she is required to physically move to the husband's country, the Bene Banim argues that by being choshesh for Rabbanu Tam, the Rema is clearly not poskening like RMF and the Tashbetz. The Bene Banim also discusses other arguments brought by the Tashbetz (such as ishto k'gufo) - but again rejects this, given that a woman does not take over her husband's chiyuvim and nedarim (with the possible exception of Channukah Candles). >In addition ROY states a similar psak in several places. One can argue that ROY is in a stronger position than RMF, on the grounds that he solely follows the Mechaber, and hence not the Rema, and might hold that one can force a country change. The Bnei Banim also brings, however, that while ROY comes out straightforwardly like the Tashbetz in Yabiat Omer chelek 5 siman 37 (there he is discussing an Ashkenazi woman who married a Sephardi man and whether she can eat rice on Pesach - answer of course, yes), in Or Torah Iyar 4751 ROY writes (quotation taken from the Bene Banim, I don't have access to the original): ?????? ??? ???? ????? ????? ????? ?????? ?????? ???? ??????? ????? ?????? ??? ????? ????? ???? ??? ???? ?? ?"? ????, ?? ???? ??????? ???? ???? ???? ?????? ???? ????? ????? ???? ?' ?? ?????? ????? ???? )??? ?' ???? ?"?(. ??? ?????? ???? ???? ?? ???? ??? ???? ???? ????? ?? ??? ????, ??? ??? ???? ????? ????? ????? ???? ???? ???? ???? ????? ???? ????? ????? ???? ?? ?? ?? ?????. ???? ?? ?????? ?????? ?????? ???? ????? ????? ????? ??, ????? ?? ???? ????? ?? ????. ??? ?? ?? ????? ????? ??? ??? ????? ??? ????? ????? ????? ?????. ???? ???? ???? ??????, ?? ??? ????? ?? ???? ?????? ???? ????? ????? ???? ????? ??? ???? ????? ?? ??? ?????? ????, ??? ??? ????? ???? ???? ????? ??? ?????? ??? ??????? ??? ????? ????? ???"?. ??? ??? ???? ???? ?????? ???????? ?????? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ?? ??? ??? "??? ???" ???? ?? ???, ????? ????? ?? ???? " customs that are required of the husband of necessity because of the tradition of his fathers like the Sephardim who accepted on themselves the rulings of Maran [the Shulchan Aruch] and are not able to be lenient against his opinion even by way of hatarah, it is required of an Ashkenazi woman to go after her husband and even to conduct herself leniently like the custom of her husband like that which I wrote in Yabiat Omer (chelek 5 siman 37). But stringencies that the husband has placed on himself that if he wants he is able to nullify them by way of hatarah, there is no need for the woman to conduct herself like him and he is not able to force on her a stringency that she does not want to accept as there is to her on whom to rely. Therefore if she wants to continue to use Tenuva milk she is able to do this, and the husband if he wants can be stringent upon himself. But not use any form of compulsion that also she be stringent that there not enter their house the products of Tenuva. And this is the law with the fruit of shmitta, if she relies on the heter mechira since there are many great ones of the world who hold to leniency she is also able to continue to be lenient, and so she is not forced to accept upon herself the stringency of not using products which do not have on them the hashgacha of the Badatz. And if the husband is not able to continue his stringencies when the woman does not want to accept he should do hatarah on that which he did not say ?bli neder? and be lenient also he, as great is the peace of a house." The Bnei Banim notes however that ROY does not bring any lamdus to defend the distinction he makes here between longstanding community customs (such as rice on pesach or glatt meat) and more recent customs - such as not eating Tenuva or relying on the heter mechira. To expand on this comment of the Bnei Banim, one might say that if you base the reason for a woman taking on the customs of the husband because she moves to his place, why should it make a difference whether the customs he has established in his place are longstanding ones, such as eating rice on pesach, or not using the products of Tenuva? The customs of his place are the customs of his place. And yet ROY is, in this, reflecting a common (if perhaps inconsistent) practice. In all the debate regarding husbands not using the eruv and relying on their wives doing so, and how it shows a lack of derech eretz etc, nobody suggests that actually it is assur for the wife to use the eruv, on the grounds that she has moved to the husband's place, and his custom is not to do so, and so she is stuck with the stringencies of his house. The Bnei Banim concludes his teshuva by stating: ?????? ???? ??? ????? ???? ????? ???? ??????? ?????? ??? ???? ?????? ?????? ???? ?? ????, ?? ????? ?? ????? ?? ???? ????"? ????? ??? ???? ??"? ???? ????? ???? ????? ???? ?? ????? ??? ????? ?????? ?????? ??? ???? ???? ?? ?? ???? ??? ???? ???? ???????? ??? ???? ???, ??? ?? ?????? ?? ???? ???? ??????? ?????? ????? ??????. "And l?halacha anyway one should not push aside the custom of the world that a woman frees herself from the customs of her father?s household and conduct herself according to the customs of her husband if she wants, but she is able also to rely on the words of [Rav Ovadiah Yosef] in the ma?amer and so it seems to me that when there isn?t in it [a matter] between him and her, and there isn?t a matter of inui nefesh she is able to continue like the customs of the house of her father since behold also if she vowed them from anew after the marriage the husband could not annul [such vows], and she may make a condition with her husband before the marriage that she will continue to conduct herself in accordance with her customs." This point of the Bnei Banim regarding innui nefesh and matters beno uvena is interesting. What he is referring to is the fact that a husband can be mafer (ie nullify) the nedarim of his wife, but only those that either constitute inui nefesh or are considered beno u'vena (Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah Diman 234 si?if 55). And it seems to me that you can therefore deal with the Tashbetz's point (as strongly re-iterated by ROY) regarding food issues - ie that they cannot eat together at the same table where what is permitted for one is prohibited for the other - with the use of this concept, without needing to come on to place changes. Because one of the definitions of inui nefesh brought in the Shulchan Aruch (Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah Diman 234 si?if 60-61) is if the woman forbids an item of food on herself (although the Shulchan Aruch there in si'if 60 notes that the Rambam considers this a matter not of inui nefesh but of beno u'vena). So that, certainly from the perspective of a Sephardi husband, a woman who has has the practice of not eating rice and kitniyot on Pesach is engaging in inui nefesh - and if you follow the Rav Poelim I brought in an earlier post, that if one is forbidden to eat something, one is forbidden to cook it on yom tov for others who may eat it, then the woman could not cook rice or kitniyot for the husband either - making the matter clearly one beno u'vena. So it seems like the whole question of differences in food do not need discussions of place, they can more readily be handled within the context of the existing halachic framework surrounding marriage, and what is and is not appropriate to be waived in the context of a healthy marriage. That set me thinking about the fact that actually we are talking about a whole range of different forms of minhagim - and it seems to me that as a first stab, we are dealing here with four different categories: a) minhagim that really have no impact on the husband - such as whether she benches and davens minhag Ashkenaz or minhag Edot Hamizrach (but will have a major impact on her should she be required to change, both in terms of the huge learning curve, and also in terms of the emotional impact, eg of the kol nidrei tunes). One might perhaps say that if she davens a different nusach, she will want to go to shul to a different place - but she is in a different place from the husband anyway, by virtue of the mechitza, and of course many women do not have the custom to go at all, so real impact would seem to be minimal. That seems to be the underlying message of the Bene Banim. b) minhagim that involve inui nefesh of the woman (which the halacha defines as having an impact on the husband, and which includes her having prohibitions on food) and those beno u'vena. We already have a halachic framework to determine these - the relevant sections of Yoreh Deah siman 234. For example, it doesn't seem to me to be a stretch to say that if he has the minhag of putting food with a majority of solid on the blech on shabbas, and she has a minhag not to, then her following that minhag will impact beno u'vena in terms of what gets provided at the shabbas table, and therefore would fall within the category of minhagim that ought to change in the interests of a unified household. c) minhagim that impact the husband financially. The interesting thing is that these *are* dealt with in the gemora and the halacha based on the principle "olah imo v'ana yoredes imo" - she goes up with him but does not go down with him. The case discussed on Kesubos 48a is regarding what it is necessary for him to hire for her funeral (in the way of flute players and wailers) where the custom between her family and his family is different. And while it might have been the case that it was different because they were from a different socio-economic class, it may also be because she came from a different place where the custom was to spend more on funerals and even so (once you accept that the same rule applies in death as it does in life) he is required to fund the difference - there is no assumption that because she has moved to his place, she is only entitled to the funeral according to the custom of his place. It would therefore seem that the straightforward pshat of this gemora is against the Tashbetz. Similarly the Shulchan Aruch rules in Even HaEzer siman 80 si'if 10 that the various forms of work that are required of a woman for her husband are only required if it is the derech of both her family and his family for a woman to do this - ie it is the intersection of the two sets of minhagim that make the requirement binding. d) minhagim of the husband that cause her tzar: this is in many ways the flip side of b), in that in b) we are talking about a situation where what she has been accustomed to doing all her life is, from the perspective of the husband, a form of inui nefesh, while here, the customs of the husband are what to her might well seem inui nefesh. This could also perhaps be said to be dealt with by the gemora. The gemora in Kesubos 61a discusses the situation where there is a dispute between him and her regarding whether she should nurse their baby in situations where it is the custom of her family but not his or vice versa. The question has a financial aspect, if she does not, then the husband will be put to the expense of hiring a wet nurse, and also, it would appear, a status/beauty aspect (the husband may not want her to, either because only lower class women do this, or because it might make her less beautiful in his eyes). In terms of the financial and status aspect, the gemora again brings the position of olah imo v'ana yoredes imo as per c), but there are also other aspects. For example, in the case where she wants to nurse, and the husband does not want her to, the gemora assumes that it is straightforward that, if she wishes to nurse, we listen to her, on the grounds that "tzara dedei hu" - it is her pain. Now Rashi understands this as the physical pain of having milk and having no-one feed - but it could also be understood to be psychological. However, it is hard to know how far to extend this case, nursing might well be considered sui generis, because (a) it is something very specific to a woman that a man will never do (regardless of what the women in his family did) and (b) there are very specific, unusual, physical and/or psychological factors which are not necessarily duplicated elsewhere. Refraining from specific foods (despite it being considered inui nefesh) would seem to be a far less significant matter. What might perhaps be of more general application is the discussion that immediately follows the nursing question - in which the gemora attempts to find a Torah source for the idea of olah imo v'ana yoredes imo. Rav Huna learns it out of "He beulas ba'al" (Breishis 20:3) [Reference to Sarah Imanu vis a vis Avimelech] and therefore "beilaso shel baal v'lo yoredaso" - she goes up with the husband and not down with him while Rabbi Eliezer learns it out from "ki who eim kol chai" [Breishis 3:20] and therefore "l'chaim nitna vlo l'tzar nitna" - she was given for life and not for tzar. Now the Pnei Yehoshua and the Mahrasha attempt to learn different nafka minas from the bringing of these two different sources - but it seems to me that a straightforward nafka mina is that the first source appears to understand the question primarily as being one of financial or perhaps spiritual improvement (however one understands "going up" rather than "going down"). While the second source seems rather to focus on the idea that marriage is supposed to bring with it life rather than pain. So under the first source one might understand, if one understands prishus from particular foods or activities as a form of greater spirituality, then a woman ought to follow her husband in that, even if it is considered innui nefesh, while following the second source, the key would seem more to be a question of tzar, and inui nefesh must surely be considered at least some aspect of tzar. On some level that does seem to be what is driving ROY in his discussion of customs such as not using tenuva milk or not relying on the heter mechira - both cases deal with the situation where the man is the stringent one, and her custom is towards leniency. But where this question would seem to really bite, is, for example, in the case of a Sephardi woman contemplating marrying an Ashkenazi man - where she has grown up eating and cooking rice and kitniyot on Pesach. I know a number of little Sephardi girls who have told me that they would not contemplate marrying an Ashkenazi man because of this. Now maybe they will grow out of it - but it does seem to me to a really bad reason to be rejecting a potential suitor - and yet the sense of tzar is there, that is what they are saying, I don't want the tzar of making Pesach, which for many women is tzar enough already, totally different from the way I grew up and have been taught - especially when it comes with countless greater stringencies. And even if she does ignore this in practice and accepts such a marriage, one can easily see a level of resentment bubbling to the surface at what can be in any event a very stressful time ("it is your fault that it is so darn difficult so the least you can do is be more helpful"). And if one could in fact understand a fundamental halachic principle to be taken into consideration as that of l'chaim nitna vlo l'tzar nitna - you might end up with something in keeping with the shalom bayis needs of klal yisrael. >Eli Turkel Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 15:12:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 18:12:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: <20150423.205848.16124.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150423.205848.16124.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150427221257.GA6982@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 24, 2015 at 12:58:48AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : > So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, : > ones you used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making : > a berakhah on? Yes, there is light for enjoying the Shabbos meal, : > all the same shalom bayis. But there is no actual pe'ulah to make : > the berakhah on. Is there? : I don't know where you see anything like this in the AhS. The AhS : is explicitly talking about lighting after mincha, when it is already : dark and the light is already useful... And was used or at least "used" before Shabbos (in some halachic rather than commonsensical sense), even if just for seconds, since that's the AhS's grounds for allowing the person who made no eiruv tavshilin to light her Shabbos candles. So, how can she make a berakhah on candles she was only permitted to light because they would be used before Shabbos? What hadlaqah for Shabbos itself occured? > omit the bracha, because it explicitly declares one's intentions to be > of a hachana nature, but that is a separate question not raised by the > AhS... I'm taking his silence, the AhS not telling her to light without a berakhah, as implication that there is no change from the usual WRT berakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 23rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Netzach: How does my domination Fax: (270) 514-1507 stifle others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:01:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:01:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428160119.GA8805@aishdas.org> On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 01:53:10PM -0400, Kaganoff via Avodah wrote: : For many years i had extreme difficulty with R. Elchanan Wasserman understanding : as it conflicted with my belief that Judaism (and other religions) was not : logically provable (contra to Moshe Mendelssohn and his contemporaries) and : therefore required a "leap of faith" and that a disbeliever could not be : faulted for failing to take such a jump. This is a false dichotomy. Logically proving things are not the only way to justify belief in there. How do you know that (in a flat space) two parallel lines never meet? If you're like me, you pictured it in your head. Even though infinite lines don't exist in the real world. (Nor, does it turn out, does flat space.) Did you figure out that oppression was evil by logical proof, or by a combination of imagination and empathy? My favorite example is answering the question, "Do elephants have hair?" A logical/verbal approach would be: Elephants are mammals, all mammals have hair, and so unless elephants are the exception to the rule, they must have hair. Elephants are well known and discussed animals. Could they be an exception to the rule and I don't know it? Nah, they must have hair. How it is more likely the question jogged your memory of elephants you saw, or saw pictures of. The detail may be blurry, so you may have to manipulate the picture a bit. Finally, a version of the picture which has a tuft of hair at the tail, maybe (if your memory is good) some downy hair around the eyes and ears, strikes you as the most familiar, the most real. And again you could reach the conclusion that elephants have hair. (See for some musings about the two modes of thought I'm contrasting here.) In I compare different versions of the Argument from Design from R' Aqiva's response to the apiqoreis through the Rambam, through similar approaches based on more modern science. "G-d created" (Gen. 1:1): A hereic came to Rabbi Aqiva and asked, "Who made the universe?". Rabbi Aqiva answered, "HQBH". The heretic said, "Prove it to me." Rabbi Aqiva said, "Come to me tomorrow". When the heretic returned, Rabbi Aqiva asked, "What is that you are wearing?" "A garment", the unbeliever replied. "Who made it?" "A weaver." "Prove it to me." "What do you mean? How can I prove it to you? Here is the garment, how can you not know that a weaver made it?" Rabbi Akiva said, "And here is the world; how can you not know that Haqadosh barukh Hu made it?" After the heretic left, Rabbi Aqiva's students asked him, "But what is the proof?" He said, "Even as a house proclaims its builder,a garment its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the Holy Blessed One Who created it. Not very rigorous. Rabbi Aqiva's reply revolves around giving a parable to make the conclusion self-evident. Not contructing a deductive argument. The more rigorous we try making it, the more arguable the proof becomes. R' Aqiva's argument is far more convincing than the Rambam's statement based on how objects lose form over time, not gain it. Or a similar argument based on thermodynamics or information theory. (Ironically, every formal / logical proof is built from givens taken as self-evident for informal-reasoning reasons.) Anyway, that's how I understood REW. R' Elchanan argues that on an informal level, the idea that the universe had to have a Creator is as obvious as a Euclidean postulate or the injustice of oppression. To not believe in G-d requires a formal proof, which one's negios then determine if they find it sound or specious, and whether they accept the postulates on which it's built. Notice I didn't invoke any leaps of faith. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:24:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:24:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Peshat and Drash (Was: Re: Meshech Chochmah on Kedushah) In-Reply-To: <5518BD49.3000508@gmail.com> References: <54FC792A.4080400@gmail.com> <20150324195248.GD29350@aishdas.org> <5518BD49.3000508@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150428162406.GB8805@aishdas.org> On Sun, Mar 29, 2015 at 11:04:41PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : But there were such instances where "one said this was how halakhah : was understood miSinai and another says that this is new." One : example (noted by the Chavos Yair in his Teshuva 192) is a 3-way : machlokess in Zevachim 110b, where one Amora says Nissuch HaMayyim : is miDrabannan, another says it is derived from a posuk, and another : says it was a halacha l'Moshe MiSinai. Rambam (Temidim uMussafim : 10:6 ) poskens it is a halacha l'Moshe MiSinai. This is consistent : with the concept that, as the Rambam writes, "once someone says 'so : have I received,' there is no more debate." The reason is that once : one of our sages can demonstrate he is a recipient of explicit data : originating with Moshe Rabbeynu, a HLMS, it is naturally accepted as : fact. I thought it was well accepted that the Rambam's position in HLMS is inconsistent, that he mentions numberous machloqesin in dinim he himself labeled HLMS. I don't have time to summarize the Chavor Ya'ir teshuvah 192, but I gave up waiting until I did. The examples are numerous. Possible resolutions: - No machloqesin in the essence of the matter, but there can be in details. (the CY's conclusion.) - Im halakhah hi neqabel -- no machloqesin in something both sides agree are HLMS. And what I suggested: That we should distinguish between disputes due to lack of knowledge and formal machloqesin, with the Rambam saying the legal term "machloqes" with all the usual rules of pesaq only apply to the latter. Other disputes, while called machloqes in the colloquial sense, are resolved using the rules of safeiq -- because (leshitaso) ignorance does not create a real machloqes (in the technical sense). And the Rambam here is saying that real machloqes is limited to conflicting deductions and extrapolations from existing law to new places. And thus disputes in laws that date back to Sinai can't have real machloqesin. I know I'm repeating myself, but it's been "forever" ago in email list time since I sat on this post awaiting the time to study the CY. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:33:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:33:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] free will In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428163338.GC8805@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 1:38pm IDT, R Eli Turkel wrote: : We have discussed many times the opinion of Rav Dessler that a person : doesn't always have free will. : I recently saw a halachic discussion that may have some connection. : On ketubot 51 the gemara discusses a case of a married woman who was raped : but at the end was willing... : One possibility of explaining Rava is that she is overwhelmed by her : "yetzer" and so is still considered ["anusah"]... While RET's suggested example is consistent REED's concept of nequdas habechirah, the way RET phrased REED's position kept this email on my to-do list for the last 3 weeks. REED's point is one that's pretty consistent with first-hand experience of making choices. We do not feel in control of our subconscious decisions. All the opportunities we filter out before we even are aware of thinking about it. He then says that the decisions that rise to the level of consciousness, and thus we have some control over, are ones that generate internal conflict. The "battlefront" in his metaphor, where the yh"t and yh"r are balanced. But once you accept the notion of non-conscious thought, REED's conclusion is unavoidable. And a person does always have free will, he just isn't aware of every choice he makes to know to exercise it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:41:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:41:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428164110.GD8805@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 04:29:11PM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The world has changed a lot since the time of chazal especially related to : travel... : : 1. Most travel is no longer considered unsafe. When I get in my car every : morning to drive to work I don't think twice about it : 2. The distinction between in the city and out of the city is no longer : true... : Recently, I heard a short shiur on tefilas haderech and was happy to hear : that RSZA seems to say a very similar idea to RYBS. In contrast, the qorban todah and birkhas hagomel depend not only on surviving a dangerous situation but also on reliving one of the four sorts of yeshu'os tehillim ascribes to yetzi'as Mitzrayim: crossing a desert, the sea, bring freed from jail or recovering from illness. So, if we deem flying over the Great Lakes or the Mediterranean (to pick shorter flights over mayim she'ein lahem sof) to be too safe to warrant tefillas haderekh, would one end up in a situation that calls for no tefillas haderekh beforehand, but benching gomel afterward? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:45:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:45:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428164537.GE8805@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 11:12am EDT, RnTK asked: : But to veer back into Avodah territory -- would it have been appropriate to : say Tefillas Haderech at that time? With shem umalchus? (I assume you : can always say it without shem umalchus.) Tefilas haDerekh is never said besheim umalkhus. Sheim, yes, but not malkhus: "Barukh atah H', shomeia tefillah." No mention of "E-lokeinu Melekh ha'olam". Also, when speaking about berakhah vs tefillah, Tefillas haDerekh refers to itself as a tefillah. And notice also the chasimah is about hearing the baqashah, not about the shemirah we're requesting itself. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:58:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:58:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150419.223015.3015.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150419.223015.3015.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150428165812.GF8805@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 02:30:15AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : But then, as I was reviewing this post, my mind turned to the Tanur : Shel Achnai. R' Eliezer had a minority view, and R' Yehoshua was in : the majority. I've got to believe that both views were firmly grounded; : this machlokes was surely just as L'Shem Shamayim as any between Hillel : and Shammai. I'd *like* to say that Klapei Shmaya, both views were Truth. And if not, how would we justify following the majority over Divinely revealed truth? We discussed bas qol, and why we follow the bas qol that says "vehalakhah kebeis Hillel" despite the anur shel achnai story. I listed the opinions in the Encyc Talmudit here It's not 100% accepted that the bas qol was really endorsing R' Eliezer's opinion in this particular machloqes, rather than defending his shitah in general -- "halakhah kemoso bekhol maqom", or that it was a test. Both suggested by R' Nissim gaon. Similarly one of the answers in Tosafos is that it was about R' Eliezer's kavod, and not a Divine statement to be taken literally about din. All three would imply that we would follow a bas qol over halachic process, and so they had to explain how the tanur story wasn't an example. Thus implying that what we are searching for is the truth rather than legal authority. RNG's position on the tanur shel achanai story supports RMHalbertal's theory that in the geonic era, the Retrieval theory of halakhah dominated. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:12:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:12:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] brochos from the amud (was: tefillat haderech) In-Reply-To: <20150420024354.CJVF30458.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo110> References: <20150420024354.CJVF30458.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo110> Message-ID: <20150428171200.GG8805@aishdas.org> On Sun, Apr 19, 2015 at 10:43:47PM -0400, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote: : Slight change of topic: I'm still trying to wrap my head around the : idea that we don't seem to have a chashash of a brocha l'vatalah. I : mean, you have a sh'tz up there, saying a brocho out loud -- and : he's intentionally trying to be motzi _some_ others... But only those who had in mind to be yotzei. : Shomea k'oneh : doesn't apply at all? What if you are in the shul and you're not : thinking about the issue of being yotzie, you're just thinking about : which day it is, and/or you simply have stam kavanah. No chashash : for an issur d'oraissa? RYBS says in the context of the berakhah on Hallel that because mitzvos einum tzerikhos kavanah, if you have no kavanah one way or the other, you would be yotzei. To avoid being yotzei would require having explicit kavanah not to be yotzei. He then continues that the idea of having intent not to want to do a mitzvah bothers him, and so RYBS said he says the berakhah on Hallel along with the chazan. (Which is what my father does, and what I grew up with.) I assume the same would be true here. (Although I don't recall what my father does, I say the berakhah along with the chazan.) I would have thought that interrupting with "barukh Hu uvarukh shemo" should also work. Recall that R Chaim was very against answering BHUBS to chazaras hashatz because one is being yotzei tefillat hatzibur. (Above and beyond one's own chiyuv of tefillah.) While listing my hunches, I believe that intent to say it yourself qualified as kavanah not to be yotzeir. So the default is kavanah not to be yotzei, not an absense of kavanah one way or the other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:44:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:44:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428164445.5B05B18384C@nexus.stevens.edu> At 12:24 PM 4/28/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: >Meaning - was the demand that the religious not work with the >secular the issue or was that a cover story used to mask people's >opposition to Zionism? This was an issue, and there was also opposition to Zionism. The opposition to Zionism was not masked at all. Please read http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/zion_or_zionism.pdf to see what Zionism really is according to Rav Schwab, ZT"L and others who think like him. >Or in this case, is the demand that the creation >of the state be a Kiddush HaShem in the eyes of all rabbanim a real >demand or is it simply a cover? I have never heard of "the demand that the creation of the state be a Kiddush HaShem in the eyes of all rabbanim " Who demanded this? > If the Breuer community want the state >to reflect certain values, than please, make it happen. And how do you propose that they do this? I asked you in an earlier email what the Orthodox Jews in EY and you in particular are doing to make this happen, and I received no response. > If they don't >want to make it happen or aren't willing, than the demand is (at best) >an exercise in dissimulation. Do you really believe that the Breuer's community at the time when Rav Breuer and Rav Schwab has the wherewithal to make the State reflect certain values? Even those living in EY at this time could not do this. There was (and still is) a large non-religious contingent of Jews living in EY. Do you really think that anyone can "make" them change their views or their behavior? YL YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:32:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:32:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eretz Yisrael vs Medinat Yisrael [was: The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L] Message-ID: <125cff.585c1330.42711e42@aol.com> R. Ben Waxman wrote: >Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem. >Rav Soloveitch tz"l wrote about this point in Kol Dodi Dofek and in his >drashot for the Kinot, as did Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook tz"l. RYL wrote: >> We all know that there were great Torah scholars who disagreed with >> the assertion that " the creation of the State is, in of itself, a >> Kiddush Hashem." >>>>> I will have to re-read Kol Dodi Dofek because I don't remember such a forthright quote -- "The creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." But in any case it isn't exactly an either-or question. The Medinah -- the secular socialist Russian government of Israel -- is hardly a kiddush Hashem. Indeed it arouses waves of hatred from the goyim all over the world, on a daily basis. RBW also wrote: >>....The first is from Yoma 86:A, Rashi, B'Amor Lehem: "Evil comes to chassidim and chachamim because "They desecrated My Holy name." How did they desecrate (God's name)? In those places to where they were exiled, the non-Jews say "These are the people of God" and He can't redeem them. Conclusion: God's name has been desecrated." End quote.<< The establishment of a government that is hated and vilified by the whole world is not, it would seem, a kiddush Hashem. Plus the fact that the country is under constant military threat and cannot, apparently, provide security to its inhabitants, also would not seem to be a kiddush Hashem. But I think these facts -- the constant physical attacks, the world-wide moral opprobrium -- are the cosmic result of the fact that the Medinah is determinedly secular and consciously rejects Torah as a guiding principle. HOWEVER, on the other side, RBW's Rashi quote does have a bearing on the current situation in Eretz Yisrael. There is no denying that the flourishing of Eretz Yisrael, after two thousand years of desolation, is miraculous. The continued existence of the country, despite the constant waves of physical and diplomatic attacks, is also miraculous. And the fact that all Jews can go and live in Eretz Yisrael, and that millions actually do live there, is also a huge miracle. I said there is no denying the miraculous aspects and yet I am aware that the Satmar Rebbe did deny it. He admitted that there was a supernatural aspect to Israel's recent history but ascribed the miracles to the Satan, blinding our eyes. He never joined Agudas Yisrael, the world-wide umbrella organization for all Orthodox Jews, because he was on one side and all the other gedolim in the world were on the other side. All the others rejected the ideology of secular Zionism while gratefully acknowledging chasdei Hashem in allowing the Land to be built up, allowing the Torah communities to grow and flourish, allowing millions of Jews to live in our ancient homeland. The Lubavitcher Rebbe also never joined the Agudah -- I refer not to the Israeli political party but to the world-wide umbrella organization. He had other reasons, perhaps for another time. I think he wanted Chabad to be THE world-wide organization, he did not want it to be one of many competing Orthodox groups and derachim. But he agreed with the basic ideology of the Agudah vis-a-vis the state of Israel -- the nuanced view of ohr vechoshech. And so did the Yekkes, very much so! In fact they were instrumental in founding and guiding the Agudah, for decades! Their attitude towards Israel after the founding of the Medinah and the beginning of kibbutz galuyos was very much the same as the whole rest of the Agudah -- grateful acknowledgment of the positive, hakaras hatov to the Ribono Shel Olam, opposition to the negative, working to improve the moral status of Eretz Yisrael, e.g., when it came to forced autopsies (B'H the charedim won that bitterly fought battle), giyus banos and other issues. But the Yekkes in Israel do vote, do participate in running the country, do daven at the kosel (unlike the Satmar and Neturei Karta), do thank Hashem for protecting Eretz Yisrael and daven for continued Divine protection. RYL considers himself the premier acolyte of RSRH but he and I have some fundamental disagreements about what the Hirschian legacy really is. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 11:59:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 20:59:46 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150428164445.5B05B18384C@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150428164445.5B05B18384C@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <553FD8A2.1060306@zahav.net.il> Regarding the second question, yes I did. Please see the previous emails. Regarding the first, all I can say is that it won't be done from New York. Regarding the other points, I addressed them so I won't repeat myself this round. Ben On 4/28/2015 6:44 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > And how do you propose that they do this? > > I asked you in an earlier email what the Orthodox Jews in EY and you > in particular are doing to make this happen, and I received no response. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:59:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:59:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Message-ID: <126fc1.37d9c7fc.4271247d@aol.com> From: Chana Luntz via Avodah >> As I have written before, what I find intensely frustrating about this is that RYBS's invocation of tan du appears to itself involve a form of tampering with the chazakos and by implication the denial of the perfection and truthfulness of chachmei chazal that is then claimed to be kefira. The gemora in discussing tan du is very clear - both in Yevamos 118b and Kesuvos 75a: a woman in a tan du marriage commits adultery - "kulan mezanos"! - THAT is the chazaka from Chazal regarding the nature of women. [snip] But you can't get away from the fact that Chazal set this up as a chazaka. And if you take these chazakos in the way that RYBS says to do, then there are inevitable conclusions: A Beis Din faced with what can now clearly be seen as a tan du marriage HAS to assume adultery as a consequence - that being the chazaka. [snip] Surely it is obligatory on any Rabbi who agrees to be mesader kiddushin and on any shadchanim and eidim to investigate very carefully that this marriage is not of the tan du nature? [snip] But if it is an inevitable chazaka that a woman in a tan du marriage will commit adultery, then there is only one safek in relation to a serious issur d'orisa - in which case must it not be the responsibility of all those who enable such a marriage to occur to make sure that it is not a tan du marriage and they are not enabling such adultery to take place? >>>>> There is brilliant yet convoluted logic behind this post. I hesitate to tangle with someone like R'n CL who is so erudite, yet I truly believe she has misunderstood this Gemara. Yes, a woman in a loveless marriage is much more tempted to commit adultery, given the right set of circumstances, but it is certainly not inevitable. Nor is it correct to deduce that a rav must make sure, before he marries a couple, that the woman is not entering a loveless marriage! He doesn't have to creep into her heart and mind before conducting the wedding, doesn't have to fathom the depths of her motives in marrying this man. There are so many motives, so many emotions, how could you ever fathom them all? I think "kulan mezanos" refers to all women, and it means all women can be seduced, though obviously it will be easier to seduce a woman who does not love her husband. All women potentially can be seduced. IIRC Beruria the wife of R' Meir -- and you can't claim that was a "tan duu marriage"! -- thought she was an exception to this rule about human nature, or feminine nature. And found out she was wrong! Even she, a brilliant and pious woman married to a great man, could be seduced. Without the Gemara most of us would assume that men are more likely to be unfaithful than women, and I do think that is true. I don't know how to square what we see before us -- that men cheat more than women do -- with what the Gemara says. In any case in Torah homes fidelity between husbands and wives is the norm, Baruch Hashem. All those fences -- laws of yichud, negiah, tznius and so on -- really do protect us. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 15:58:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 23:58:31 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos Message-ID: <001b01d081d6$cb2e0680$618a1380$@org.uk> Sorry, been away, and am therefore very behind in Avodah On 04/03/2015 06:57 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >> He also paskens (for EY) that one can cook kitniyot on the 7th day of >> Pesach for use on the shabbat right afterwards (ef this year). And RZS replied: >Yes, I'm surprised that anyone disagrees. It seems so obviously correct. >I know that many people don't do so, and believe it to be forbidden, >but I have never yet heard an argument for why it should be so. Well the arguments to prohibit can be found in Rav Poelim chelek 3 Orech Chaim siman 30 - he brings two: one based on the prohibition of a person who is fasting on yom tov to cook for others - as per the Rema in Shulchan Aruch Orech Chaim siman 527 si'if 20 as explained by the Magen Avraham there and an additional reason added by the Magen Avraham there in si'if katan 22. The Ben Ish Chai in Rav Poelim was discussing whether a person whose custom (in Bagdad) was not to eat rice on Pesach could cook rice for those who do. He rejected the first rationale provided by the Magen Avraham) as being applicable to this case, but accepted the second reason as applicable (although he also cites a number of achronim who accept the first reason as a reason to prohibit)- and therefore held that those who had the custom of treating rice as assur on pesach could not cook rice for those who had the custom of eating rice on yom tov of Pesach for so long as they had this custom of treating rice as assur (although he held that those who had this custom not to eat rice in Bagdad could do hatarat nedarim and be able to eat, and hence cook, rice on pesach so as to solve the problem). >> This is because some sefardi could come over for a visit and so the >> kitniyot are not mukza . >The main issue would surely not be muktzeh, but cooking on yomtov. >But the answer is the same: the hypothetical horde of hungry guests who >might descend on one ten minutes before sunset on Friday, and for whom >one is, in principle, cooking, might very well be sefardim. Yes, but according to the position of the Rav Poelim, Askenazim can never, when cooking for Sephardim on pesach, cook them dishes that they, the Ashkenazim, cannot eat, hence hoeil does not apply. The same ought presumably to apply to gebrochts according to the Ben Ish Chai - if you can't eat it on shvii shel pesach, you can't cook it for others, including hungry guests, and so cannot effectively cook it for shabbas based on hoeil, your shabbas food would have to consist of something else you could eat on shvii shel pesach. >Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 11:03:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Toby Katz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 14:03:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <127300.4be2c63a.42712586@aol.com> In a message dated 4/28/2015 12:45:47 P.M. EDT, micha at aishdas.org writes: > Tefilas haDerekh is never said besheim umalkhus. You are correct, I should have caught that myself. > Also, when speaking about berakhah vs tefillah, Tefillas haDerekh > refers to itself as a tefillah. And notice also the chasimah is about > hearing the baqashah, not about the shemirah we're requesting itself. zsh:1: command not found: Fmt --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 11:34:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 14:34:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: <127300.4be2c63a.42712586@aol.com> References: <127300.4be2c63a.42712586@aol.com> Message-ID: <20150428183420.GA25835@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 02:03:50PM -0400, T613K at aol.com wrote: : >> Also, when speaking about berakhah vs tefillah, Tefillas haDerekh refers : to itself as a tefillah. And notice also the chasimah is about hearing : the baqashah, not about the shemirah we're requesting itself.<< : : That doesn't answer the question of whether it is appropriate to recite : Tefillas HaDerech during a blinding rainstorm on the highway in your own city, : which was my question. It doesn't fully answer your question, but it does point a bit toward saying it. After all, it turns out that the only berakhah is about Hashem hearing baqashos. The body of the tefillah is only a formalized equivalent to saying "Please G-d, just get me home safe, healthy and in one piece!" or some other spontaneous cry for help. So, if you're scared on the road, tefillah is appropriate. Why would thanking G-d for listening to such tefillos depend on rules about travel? Add to that the fact that it's only half a berakhah, which indicates that it's shevach (like Shomeia Tefillah in Shemoneh Esrei), as another small indicator in favor of saying it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 12:58:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 15:58:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <001901d080e1$7d6fcbe0$784f63a0$@org.uk> References: <001901d080e1$7d6fcbe0$784f63a0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <20150428195810.GC25835@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 12:05:17PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: [RAM:] : > At any rate, one can agree or disagree about : > whether this assertion is true, and even among those who agree with : > it, there might be discussion of exactly which chazakos are unchanging : > and which are variable. Still, his point is that there are indeed some : > UNchanging aspects. : I would add an observation that individual exceptions may exist : empirically but are ignored halachically This is the classic case of affirming a chazaqah (or rov) when there is ika rei'usa. No? On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 12:58:34PM +0100, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: : The gemora in discussing tan du is very clear - both in Yevamos 118b and : Kesuvos 75a: a woman in a tan du marriage commits adultery - "kulan : mezanos"! - THAT is the chazaka from Chazal regarding the nature of women. : : Now this could mean: (a) the sort of woman who is prepared to enter a tan : du marriage is prepared to and will commit adultery; or : (b) all women will take a tan du marriage : (RYBS), but if they find themselves in a tan du marriage - the existential : loneliness that RYBS identifies as being the particular province of women : will also, according to Chazal, inevitably drive them to adultery; : But you can't get away from the fact that Chazal set this up as a chazaka. As the gemara was taught to me, what they set up as a chazaqah was pretty much as RYBS describes it. Women feel the loneliness of singlehood more. The flow of the sugya in the two gemaras are quite similar, from the point where Reish Laqish is quoted staying "tav lemeisiv" onward. RL, illustrated with meshalim by Abayei, R' Papa, and R' Ashi, followed by a tana saying that they all are mezanos and then blame their husbands. So, it would seem that tav lemeisiv is about a desire to be married. This has nothing to do with romance or eros, since we are told that a woman who is just married so s not to be like a widow (milemeisiv armelu) do tend to end up cheating. But tav lemeisiv isn't about the affairs, it's about (Yevamos) why hamezakeh gett le'ishto in the middle is not valid. Because it's not a pure zekhus for her, you cannot say zakhin le'adam shelo befanav (or befanehah, as the case may be). There is nothing about "being driven to" adultery by the loneliness, but by having tav lemeisiv alone satisfied by her marriage. Perhaps the reverse of your formulation. (I think the idea that tav lemeisiv means women are more likely to be sexually lonely would be really hard to support, even in a culture where husbands, not wives, have a chiyuv onah.) Or (Kesuvos) it is used (in a complex case I'm too lazy to spell out) why a man might wish not to be married, lest he later be prohibited to her relatives, but in the flipside case, we do not assume the same of the woman. The bit about mezanos vetolos beba'aleihen is not the basis for any halakhos. I have no reason to believe it's a chazaqah. Tangentially... On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 07:27:43PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Another challenge is how to deal with recent "Chachmei Hamesorah" : who don't seem to meet the perfection definition. I have two suggestions that work for me: 1- Make a list of current chakhmei hamesorah that don't pose such a challenge for you. Once you start, you'll likely find it's a longwer list than you had thought. Focus on them, and ignore the rest, no matter how popular as gedolim they may be. 2- Separate the current rabbinate from one's own ties to the mesorah with a project like Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:01:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 23:01:17 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) Message-ID: <553FF51D.6070804@zahav.net.il> Putting the question of Hallel aside, I don't understand the line below. I looked through the Beit Yosef OH 131 where he discusses the days on which Tachanun isn't said. The BY does not list all the days that we skip (like Purim Qatan or Pesach Sheni). These came later. So when did this idea (that we can't change when Tachanun is said or not said) start? Ben On 4/28/2015 12:31 PM, Prof. Levine via Areivim wrote: > Shemone Esrei is followed > by Chazaras Hashatz, which is followed by Tachanun, and then followed > by Ashrei and U'va' Letzion--and we do not have the right or > privilege of changing that, he opined. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:28:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:28:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early Message-ID: The statement was made that "Lighting two candles is a recent frumkeit, or yhiruth, that started among German Jews and is less than 900 years old.." Isn't it also yohara to stand in judgment of a minhag mentioned in the Tur and Shulchan Aruch and observed virtually without exception by klal Yisraeil? EMT From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 13:50:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 16:50:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eretz Yisrael vs Medinat Yisrael [was: The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L] In-Reply-To: <125cff.585c1330.42711e42@aol.com> References: <125cff.585c1330.42711e42@aol.com> Message-ID: <553FF29D.4030208@sero.name> On 04/28/2015 01:32 PM, via Avodah wrote: > The Lubavitcher Rebbe also never joined the Agudah -- I refer not to > the Israeli political party but to the world-wide umbrella > organization. He had other reasons, perhaps for another time. I > think he wanted Chabad to be THE world-wide organization, he did not > want it to be one of many competing Orthodox groups and derachim. The Lubavitcher Rebbe at the time the Agudah was founded was the Rashab, who in matters of askonus generally took his lead from R Chaim Brisker. Lubavitch was a member of the Agudah's precursor, Machzikei Hadas, but when MH merged with the Yekkes to form the Agudah, R Chaim put 18 conditions on his participation, and since they weren't satisfied both Brisk and Lubavitch stayed out. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:22:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 17:22:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Peshat and Drash (Was: Re: Meshech Chochmah on Kedushah) In-Reply-To: <20150428162406.GB8805@aishdas.org> References: <54FC792A.4080400@gmail.com> <20150324195248.GD29350@aishdas.org> <5518BD49.3000508@gmail.com> <20150428162406.GB8805@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <553FFA2E.6000809@gmail.com> On 4/28/2015 12:24 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > I thought it was well accepted that the Rambam's position in HLMS > is inconsistent, that he mentions numberous machloqesin in dinim > he himself labeled HLMS.... Chavor Ya'ir teshuvah 192...examples are numerous. > > Possible resolutions: > > - No machloqesin in the essence of the matter, but there can be in > details. (the CY's conclusion.) I don't think that is the Chavos Yair's conclusion. He leaves the matter bewildered, as Rambam appears incomprehensible and self-contradictory. > - Im halakhah hi neqabel -- no machloqesin in something both sides agree > are HLMS. With the modification of the word "against" in place of the word ''in,'' this is my conclusion, and that of the Maharatz Chayos. The Rambam is addressing the Karaite argument that even Chazal did not really consider the laws they called "payrushim mekuballim" and HLMS (the latter being payrushim mekuballim that lack indications planted in the Torah) to have literally come from Moshe Rabbeynu. That's why, the Karaites argued, Chazal felt free to dispute them. The Rambam explains that Chazal never disputed laws that made it to them from Sinai. The disputes are over issues ''branching out'' from them. Thus, '' There is no machlokess against any payrush that is known to have come from Sinai.'' This understanding fits very well in the Rambam's words, in the context of which he was talking and the issues he confronted; and eliminates what would certainly be a mess of the self-contradictions and open contradictions from the Talmud that the CY lists. Another concern raised by the CY is the fact that the Rambam seems inconsistent between the Mishneh Torah and his list in the hakdama to his Mishneh commentary in that some laws he labels as HLMS in one work he does not in other. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:28:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 17:28:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Renewal Role of Sarah Schenirer Message-ID: <20150428212818.DEBA1182F93@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/njwrn2g There was a major difference, however, between the Bais Yaacov of Williamsburg and the Bais Yaacov of Poland in pre-war Europe. The Bais Yaacov movement in Poland emphasized the universal Torah teachings of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, while the Bais Yaacov of Williamsburg did not give Rabbi Hirsch's teachings the same emphasis. Why were Rabbi Hirsch's teachings regarding the Torah's universal vision no longer the main focus? Most of the teachers and students at the American Bais Yaakov were Holocaust survivors who felt a need to turn inward after experiencing the hatred of the Gentiles around them and the horrors of the Holocaust. They knew that most of the "humanistic" intellectuals and artists of Germany actively supported the brutal persecution of the Jewish people. They also knew that most of the "enlightened" countries closed their doors to Jews who were trying to escape the Holocaust. In addition, they knew that most of the Christian religious leaders of Europe did not protest the organized murder of millions of Jewish men, women, and children; moreover, many Christians in the countries occupied by the Germans actively assisted the Germans in rounding up the Jews for the death camps. In fact, a number of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust who returned to Poland after the war were murdered in Polish pogroms! It is understandable that these survivors felt the need to first heal themselves before worrying about the world which had abandoned their suffering people. In addition, these survivors did not have the strong attraction to secular western culture which an earlier generation of Bais Yaakov students had once experienced, and their feelings are expressed in the following memoir of Dr. Judith Grunfeld: "Almost seventy years have passed since, and we have today most unfortunately an easy enough means of demonstrating that all cultures which we then venerated have revealed themselves to be nothing but a flimsy veneer covering over diabolical inhumanity. European humanitarian ideas so prevalent then, so much on the tip of everyone's tongue, preached by leading university representatives, have been proven utterly hollow. For they did not succeed in preventing, and indeed could be said to be frequently instrumental in strirring up the raging, terrible fire of man's inhumanity to man." ("Rebbitzen Grunfeld" by Miriam Dansky, p. 72) Nevertheless, our sages teach that Torah - the Divine wisdom - is the blueprint of creation, and that the Creator looked into the Torah when He created the world (Genesis Rabbah 1:1). If our Creator looked into the Torah and created the world, then when we look into the Torah we can rediscover this world. In addition, the Torah reveals that we have the potential to become holy vessels with the spiritual power to transform and elevate the world; thus, no matter how much we turn inward, the study of Torah reminds us that we must eventually turn outward. This may be one of the reasons why a growing number of Torah-committed Jews in our generation are rediscovering the writings of Rabbi Hirsch, as a major theme of his teachings is the universal goal of the Torah path. The Bais Yaacov High School of Baltimore, under the leadership of its principal, Rabbi Binyamin Steinberg, gave renewed emphasis to the universal vision of the Torah. Rabbi Steinberg himself was a Holocaust survivor, and in one of his talks to his students about respect for other peoples, he reminded them of the Compassionate One's promise to Abraham that "through you all the families of the earth will be blessed" (Genesis 12:3). The following is an excerpt from his talk: "All the families of the earth," he declared. 'Who cares about all the families of the earth?' you ask. Nevertheless, that's what the Torah says...The people of Israel will be a blessing for all the families of the earth. That means the Albanians, the Greeks, the Chinese, the Indonesians, the African Americans - all the families of the earth. That's what it says in my Torah! " (A Matter of Principal - a biography of Rabbi Binyamin Steinberg by Hanoch Teller). Before we can become a blessing to others, however, we first need to turn inward in order to develop our unique strengths. As Sarah Schneirer realized, we first have to renew ourselves before we can renew the world. As the Prophet Isaiah proclaimed to our people: "O House of Jacob: Come, let us walk by the light of Hashem! " (Isaiah 2:5) See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:59:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 22:59:29 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <002d01d081fe$99c5fcb0$cd51f610$@org.uk> RMB writes: >As the gemara was taught to me, what they set up as a chazaqah was >pretty much as RYBS describes it. Women feel the loneliness of singlehood >more. >The flow of the sugya in the two gemaras are quite similar, from the >point where Reish Laqish is quoted staying "tav lemeisiv" onward. RL, >illustrated with meshalim by Abayei, R' Papa, and R' Ashi, followed by >a tana saying that they all are mezanos and then blame their husbands. >So, it would seem that tav lemeisiv is about a desire to be married. >This has nothing to do with romance or eros, since we are told that a >woman who is just married so s not to be like a widow (milemeisiv >armelu) do tend to end up cheating. >But tav lemeisiv isn't about the affairs, I agree that tav lemeisiv is not brought initially to refer to the issue of affairs, but rather indeed about a desire to be married which is then brought to make a halachic point within another context (eg maezakeh get l'eishto) - but once the gemora is discussing tav lemeisiv marriages - it then takes the time out, twice, to explain what these marriages mean. And it explains, after going through the flow of Abaye etc, that these marriages mean inevitable adultery. Ie according the gemora a tav l'meisiv marriage = adultery. Now, that means, the more tav l'meisiv marriages there are, the more adultery there is. So the more you stress that the world is full of tav l'meisiv marriages, the more you are saying that the world is full of Bnos Yisrael committing adultery. That tav l'meisiv marriage results in adultery is clearly part and parcel of the definition of what a tav l'meisiv marriage is - one where a woman will prefer to be married than to be alone. And it is not a disputed statement, it is a concluding statement rounding up the discussion of what a tav l'meisiv marriage is. In order to break the equation, you have to say that Chazal didn't really mean what they said, or that they were talking about their time and place, but women today are different - but that means denying the truthfulness and accuracy of Chazal's statements (or understanding them differently) in exactly the way that RYBS objects to as kefira. You can't say that a woman prefers to be married than to be alone is a universal truth because it was stated by Chazal, and simultaneously that women in tav lemeisiv marriages commit adultery is not a universal truth, as they are bound up in the same discussion and you are picking and choosing your Chazalic statements - this one I like, this one I don't, and not just any statement, but the concluding statement rounding up the discussion defining the concept. .... >The bit about mezanos vetolos beba'aleihen is not the basis for any >halakhos. I have no reason to believe it's a chazaqah. So why did Chazal say it? For the fun of casting aspersions on Bnos Yisrael? Twice? In the context of a halachic discussion? If this was any other discussion, would anybody dream of suggesting that when Chazal said that something inevitably happened in the context of a halachic discussion they were not, at the very least, postulating a chazaka (albeit perhaps a rebuttable one) and possibly something even stronger? One might say - well nature has changed (eg kol treifos), or one might say - we have to treat something as halachically following Chazal's statement, even if we know or suspect the metzius is different (hence my line about a Beis Din being required to treat a tav l'meisiv marriage as one where adultery has been committed, and those enabling such a marriage being prohibited from so doing based on lifnei iver). That is the way we generally treat Chazalic statements of this nature. In this case, of course, we have another option, if tav l'meisiv marriages themselves do not occur very often, then we do not necessarily have to worry about, as common, the adultery which is part and parcel of their definition. But if they are in fact common and inevitable where the husband is not as a matter of fact suitable for the wife, then I cannot see how you can claim that this is not a significant societal and halachic concern. Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 15:14:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 18:14:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <002d01d081fe$99c5fcb0$cd51f610$@org.uk> References: <002d01d081fe$99c5fcb0$cd51f610$@org.uk> Message-ID: <20150428221418.GF11656@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 10:59:29PM +0100, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: :> The bit about mezanos vetolos beba'aleihen is not the basis for any :> halakhos. I have no reason to believe it's a chazaqah. : : So why did Chazal say it? For the fun of casting aspersions on Bnos : Yisrael? Twice? In the context of a halachic discussion? Well, it's really one conversation quoted twice. But it emphasizes the point. Tav lemeisiv is considered a reason why a gett would not be zakhin le'adam shelo befanav, even though the marriage would too likely lead to sin. The desire not to be husbandless, even by an insufficient husband, is being described as very profound. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 01:56:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 11:56:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith Message-ID: <> the Euclidean postulates are based on everyone's daily experience. In fact we know they are not true in other circumstances (eg on a globe) The injustice of oppression is more debatable. Surely ISIS believes that destroying ancient culture and cutting off heads of nonbelievers is a "mitzvah" As such the belief in a creator is obvious to one with a religious upbringing. For years scientists (and ancient philosophers) believed in an infinitely old world. Even today some scientists are attemping to justify a big bang without a creator (infinite big bangs , other universes etc.). The whole idea of axioms/postulates are that they are not provable. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 06:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 09:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150429135311.GA11332@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 11:56:31AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : the Euclidean postulates are based on everyone's daily experience... I picked the one about parallel lines because no one ever experienced infinitely long parallel lines. They are based on imagining an extrapolation from experience. : we know they are not true in other circumstances (eg on a globe) Thus my parenthetic remarks about flat space. It also doesn't work in Einsteinian Spacetime, as space is no longer believed to be flat. ... : As such the belief in a creator is obvious to one with a religious : upbringing. For years scientists (and ancient philosophers) believed in an : infinitely old world. Even today some scientists are attemping to justify a : big bang without a creator (infinite big bangs , other universes etc.). : : The whole idea of axioms/postulates are that they are not provable. My point exactly -- there are third options between logical proofs and leaps of faith. Logical proofs are only one way to justify belief. The Kuzari points to tradition, which may boil down to reliabilism. (Something you learned from a source that has a track record of being reliable.) I was saying that REW, like R' Aqiva, appealed to the self-evident nature of the universe having a Designer. Closer to the way we accept our postulates than a proof. And that this is so obvious look around at what was created, that belief is the default state for humans. And then REW continues that it takes an act of will to accept a counter-proof despite the self-evidence. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 25th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Netzach: When is domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control too extreme? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 02:02:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 10:02:27 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torahand Kabalas Ol Malchus In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000401d0825b$37ef5150$a7cdf3f0$@org.uk> RTK writes: > I think "kulan mezanos" refers to all women, and it means all women can > be seduced, You may be able to derive, from other contexts, that all women can be seduced - but that is not what is being discussed in the specific gemorros referred to. Our gemora is discussing what happens specifically in tav l'meisiv marriages - it gives examples of such marriages, and then concludes that such marriages result in adultery (and consequent hidden mamzerim). There is just no way of reading what you want to read into this piece > Yes, a woman in a loveless marriage is much more tempted to commit > adultery, given the right set of circumstances, but >it is certainly not inevitable. Nor is it correct to deduce that a rav must >make sure, before he marries a couple, that the woman is not entering a >loveless marriage! He doesn't have to creep into her heart and mind before >conducting the wedding, doesn't have to fathom the depths of her motives in >marrying this man. There are so many motives, so many emotions, how could >you ever fathom them all? Remember, none of what I have described is necessarily a consequence of these gemoros unless you read the gemora with the chiddush of RYBS: that inherent in the existential condition of womankind is that if a woman is offered only an inappropriate marriage she will take it because she cannot bear not to be married. If you understand it merely that there are and have been women, in some times and places, who when offered an inappropriate marriage, will sometimes take it because she cannot bear not to be married, but in other circumstances and times and places there are women who would refuse such a marriage - you have no idea what you are faced with in any given circumstance. And it is of course possible that she knows what she is doing and has seen what you cannot see, meaning that in fact the marriage will indeed be a good one. And it would be, as you describe, inappropriate to creep into her heart and try and fathom what is going on there. But according to RYBS we know what is going on there, in the woman's heart - we know it from RYBS's understanding of the pasuk in Breishis (one certainly does not have to understand the pasuk in Breishis the way RYBS does, but he is darshaning a pasuk to tell us about the human condition). A woman wants to be married above all else because she cannot bear to be alone, she is not capable of making an assessment that any given marriage, without alternative, may not be the best thing. She is never capable of that, according to RYBS's understanding of Chazal, this being an existential condition of womankind. In which case what happens if an outsider is capable of assessing the reality of the marriage in question as being one where the parties are fundamentally incompatible? Does he have an obligation to try and stop the marriage given that the woman is incapable of protecting herself? Well one might say - tough luck, it is not an outsider's job, any more than it is an outsider's job to protect others from a bad bargain in business. But that is where this further statement of the gemora comes in. A marriage which the woman has only entered into because she cannot existentially bear to be unmarried is one with the consequence that such marriage will not in fact be enough for her and she will commit adultery and produce mamzerim who are attributed incorrectly to the husband. So if the outsider does not intervene, he is not just failing to protect the woman from herself, he is failing to protect society from inherent danger. That raises the stakes considerably, and would seem to mean that outsiders (such as Rabbaim, shadchanim etc) do need to be vigilant, and not enable such marriages, so long as what RYBS says is true, in order to protect our society. Now I don't think we need a Rav to check a marriage out, before he marries a couple, to try and determine it is not a tav l'meisiv marriage. But that is because I think it relatively rare, in our society, that a woman will take a loveless marriage merely because she cannot bear to be alone (and I certainly do not think it is a irrebuttable presumption as per RYBS. Nor, as Rav Lichtenstein says, does the halacha over the centuries take this as an irrebuttable presumption despite RYBS's vehemence). And we don't have spend our lives worrying about uncommon cases even if we acknowledge that such cases may exist (and even if, in hindsight, if a marriage turns out to be unquestionably inappropriate, we might need to consider whether perhaps the woman in question *might* have been willing to go through with it anyway). But if RYBS were right and it is indeed a fundamental existential part of a woman's nature, unchanging throughout time and not infrequently occurring, to take whatever marriage is on offer, then we as a society do need such safeguards, because of the potential consequences, and if there is any hint that in fact this might be a tav l'meisiv marriage, since the woman is not able, according to RYBS, to protect herself from it, the Rav/shadchan etc would seem to have the obligation to investigate and if in doubt, to protect our society by preventing the marriage. >Toby Katz >t613k at aol.com Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 04:37:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 11:37:18 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: <20150429.073718.25006.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> I wrote: : But then, as I was reviewing this post, my mind turned to the Tanur : Shel Achnai. R' Eliezer had a minority view, and R' Yehoshua was in : the majority. I've got to believe that both views were firmly grounded; : this machlokes was surely just as L'Shem Shamayim as any between Hillel : and Shammai. I'd *like* to say that Klapei Shmaya, both views were Truth. R' Micha Berger responded: > We discussed bas qol, and why we follow the bas qol that says > "vehalakhah kebeis Hillel" despite the anur shel achnai story. I > listed the opinions in the Encyc Talmudit here > > > It's not 100% accepted that the bas qol was really endorsing R' > Eliezer's opinion in this particular machloqes, rather than > defending his shitah in general -- "halakhah kemoso bekhol maqom", > or that it was a test. ... I apologize for not being clear enough. I was not refering to the Bas Kol part of the story. Rather, I was referring to the end of the story, when Eliyahu Hanavi was asked for Hashem's take on the incident, and he quoted Hashem as laughing, "Nitzchuni banai!" Regardless of how the Bas Kol might be interpreted, is there any way to understand "Nitzchuni banai!" other than Hashem personally siding with one of the litigants, and losing? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540c29a485cf429a1a7cst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 04:46:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 11:46:38 GMT Subject: [Avodah] brochos from the amud (was: tefillat haderech) Message-ID: <20150429.074638.25006.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > RYBS ... then continues that the idea of having intent not > to want to do a mitzvah bothers him, and so RYBS said he > says the berakhah on Hallel along with the chazan. (Which > is what my father does, and what I grew up with.) Data point: Although I have not noticed people doing this for the bracha on Hallel, this IS the common practice for the Shehecheyanu at Kol Nidre, at least according to the ArtScroll and Koren machzorim. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540c4bfde4b244bf3c8cst03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 02:53:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 09:53:19 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) Message-ID: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Reposted from Hakhel: > ... Rav Soloveitchik, obviously upset, instead gave Shiur > on the importance of keeping the Tzuras HaTefillah intact. > Shemone Esrei is followed by Chazaras Hashatz, which is > followed by Tachanun, and then followed by Ashrei and U'va' > Letzion--and we do not have the right or privilege of > changing that, he opined. ... R' Ben Waxman asked: > I looked through the Beit Yosef OH 131 where he discusses > the days on which Tachanun isn't said. The BY does not > list all the days that we skip (like Purim Qatan or Pesach > Sheni). These came later. > > So when did this idea (that we can't change when Tachanun > is said or not said) start? I'm not sure if you are asking the correct question. You presume there was a time when Tachanun was *said* on Purim Katan, and then Tachanun was *omitted* on Purim Katan. I see another possibility, but I must point out that this idea stems from my total ignorance of the History Of Tachanun. Perhaps, since the day when Tachanun first began, the list of days has never changed. What did happen (perhaps) is that some places said it on Purim Katan, and some places did not. Over time, the minhag of skipping it spread to more and more places, but that's somewhat different than if a community would suddenly decide that they had a new appreciation for the significance of the day, and hence wanted to stop saying Tachanun. But either way, I'm not sure of the exact nature of RYBS's objection. It is one thing for a community to change its mind about the significance of the day (as in RMB's example of Purim Katan), and quite another for the day itself to acquire a new significance - as in the example of Yom Haatzma'ut. Shulchan Aruch already establishes the ability for a community to establish holidays, and this has been done many times. A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS insist that they say Tachanun on such days? Thus, I am drawn to conclude that RYBS must not be taken as too absolutist. He cannot have meant that the current list of Tachanun days must remain enshrined in stone forever. I beleive that he must have meant that the question of saying Tachanun on Yom Haatzma'ut is a serious one, to be dealt with seriously by the poskim and leaders of the community. Alas, I personally have seen many cases of where it is decided by those who attend the minyan, on a purely emotional basis, with no thought to the halachos involved, and with no consultation with the LOR. On the other hand, among the many tasks the LOR must deal with, is deciding when he should or should not get involved with the tzibur's choices. Although it does not address Tachanun, I would like to close with a reference to The Rav's opinions about a different tefilah which he "opposed, on halachic grounds". R' Mike Gerver wrote on Mail Jewish (http://www.ottmall.com/mj_ht_arch/v38/mj_v38i49.html) in January 2003: > (This is a continuation of my previous e-mail summarizing > the talk given on "The Rav and Medinat Yisrael" by Rabbi > J. J. Shachter on motzei shabbat, Jan. 25, at Lechu > Neranana in Raanana.) > ... ... ... > Rabbi Shachter quoted Rabbi Walter Wurzberger zt"l as > saying that the Rav's attitude toward Israel was > completely opposed to messianism, to the idea that the > founding of the State was an initial step to the geula > [final redemption]. Thus the Rav did not approve of Gush > Emunim. He even opposed, on halachic grounds, saying the > tefillah for the State of Israel in shul on Shabbat > morning, which only speaks of the State as "reishit > tzmichat geulateinu" [the beginning of the sprouting of > our redemption]. Rabbi Shachter, knowing this, assumed > that the tefillah for the State of Israel would not be > said at the Shabbat morning minyan held at Maimonides > School, a minyan that the Rav started in 1962, and which > generally did things according to his minhag. When Rabbi > Shachter was appointed to his position as director of the > Soloveitchik Institute a couple of years ago, and took > over as rabbi of the Maimonides School Shabbat minyan, he > was surprised to find that they were saying the tefillah > for the State of Israel. He asked someone why, and the > answer was interesting. One Shabbat morning, when the Rav > was still alive and in good health, someone started saying > the tefillah for the State of Israel. The Rav turned to > someone next to him and said {Rabbi Shachter imitated the > Rav's accent) "You would have thought they would have > asked me!" That was all. He didn't make any attempt to > stop them from saying the tefillah for the State of Israel, > and didn't think it was his place to ask the congregation > not to say it if they wanted to. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540aa3d6d7282a3d2b95st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 07:23:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 14:23:25 GMT Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith Message-ID: <20150429.102325.12106.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > I picked the one about parallel lines because no one ever > experienced infinitely long parallel lines. They are based > on imagining an extrapolation from experience. Parallel lines are not provable, but it's not because they are based on experience. Rather, they are based on definition. Find a pair of parallel lines that DO meet (such as on a sphere) and we'll simply say, "What I really meant was parallel lines on a *flat* surface." See more at "No true Scotsman". My choice for something which is unprovable because it is based on personal experience is, "Is there someone whom you love? Prove it to me." Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540e9944d22f699426abst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 12:11:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 15:11:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) In-Reply-To: <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> References: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <20150429191153.GG2666@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 08:53:00PM +0200, Ben Waxman wrote: :> #2 A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate :> the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS :> insist that they say Tachanun on such days? : I had the same question. I bet he said tachanun on the Gra's or R' Chaim's (Volozhin or Brisk) yahrzeit, etc... For people who are seeking his pesaq, it's very likely he would inist on Tachanun on days like that. But I think he would refuse to pasqen for them. Implied in your question is that it's a rav's job to comment and rank other derakhim, an idea RYBS did not share. He even limited his own right to 2nd guess a talmid serving as moreh de'asra. (Stories differ as to how much he insisted on such autonomy of the LOR, depending on which student.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 25th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Netzach: When is domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control too extreme? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 11:53:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 20:53:00 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) In-Reply-To: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> On 4/29/2015 11:53 AM, Kenneth Miller wrote: > #1 Perhaps, since the day when Tachanun first began, the list of days > has never changed. What did happen (perhaps) is that some places said it > on Purim Katan, and some places did not. Over time, the minhag of > skipping it spread to more and more places, but that's somewhat > different than if a community would suddenly decide that they had a new > appreciation for the significance of the day, and hence wanted to stop > saying Tachanun. I don't think so. The Rambam, Hilchot Tefila 5:15 lists the days that one doesn't say Tachanun (or nifilat ah'payim in his words) and the list is much more restricted than our list (Shabbat, Chaggim, Rosh Chodesh, Chanukka, Purim, and the Mincha before them). He writes that this is the minhag b'kol yisrael. I am not a Rambam expert so I don't know what to make of those three words (minhag, b'kol yisrael). If it is a minhag does that mean that it can change? What is b'kol yisrael (I realize that at the time of the Rambam, Ashkenaz was the middle of nowhere)? But it would seem from the Rambam that at his time, the Jewish world didn't skip those other days. > #2 A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate > the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS insist > that they say Tachanun on such days? I had the same question. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 12:25:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 15:25:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) In-Reply-To: <20150429191153.GG2666@aishdas.org> References: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> <20150429191153.GG2666@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55413040.4080903@sero.name> On 04/29/2015 03:11 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 08:53:00PM +0200, Ben Waxman wrote: > :> #2 A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate > :> the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS > :> insist that they say Tachanun on such days? > > : I had the same question. > > I bet he said tachanun on the Gra's or R' Chaim's (Volozhin or Brisk) > yahrzeit, etc... For people who are seeking his pesaq, it's very likely > he would inist on Tachanun on days like that. Of course he said tachanun on their yortzeits, why wouldn't he? The whole concept of turning a yortzeit into a holiday wasn't native to his world. The question is what he would do on a day they had been saved from some danger, and had observed as a private yomtov, or on a day that his community had adopted as a local "purim" to commemorate being saved from danger, as was a common practise among Jewish communities. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 30 01:53:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 30 Apr 2015 04:53:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Netziv, Reading Newspapers on Shabbos & Censorship (Part Two) Message-ID: <20150430085311.F372F183218@nexus.stevens.edu> Please see the article at http://tinyurl.com/oqujmba From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 1 10:09:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 1 May 2015 13:09:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] kol isha In-Reply-To: <842c75958dedf20875dfdece45b65e31@aishdas.org> References: <842c75958dedf20875dfdece45b65e31@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150501170943.GA13995@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 30, 2015 at 5:54pm EDT, R Sholom Simon replied to me on Areivim :> The fact that some ... Jews seem to think the gemara :> didn't realy mean it is something the ... community should have a :> cheshbon hanfesh about. : Gemara? Don't the ge'onim take the gemara to : mean that kol isha is a problem during krias sh'ema? (Which is, after : all, the context of its appearance in Berachos). : (Granted, halacha has : gone much further since then, but you were focused on the gemara) You're thinking of Berakhos 24a, where the gemara concludes that R' Yitchaq's tefach be'ishah ervah is to even include one's own wife during qeri'as Shama. (We knew about other women not during qeri'as shema from R' Sheishes.) And then R' Chisda continues with shoq be'ishah, Shemu'el says qol be'ishah ervah and R Sheishes adds sei'ar be'ishah. >From which one may conclude that all of them are in the same context as R' Yitchaq. R' Hai Gaon (Otar haGeonim Berakhos, peirushin #102), R Yehudai Gaon (acc. to the Yeriem 392), the Behag (1:3). the Eshkol (vol 1, pg 15), the Rivra (Berakhos ad loc) and his father (?), Rabbeinu Yonah (17a), the Shitah meQubetzes (ad loc), only speak of this rule WRT qeri'as shema. Interestlingly, one might also have concluded that all of them were about eishes ish, for the same reason that sei'ar be'ishah is only about eishes ish, but I don't think anyone does understand the gemara that way. But there is also Qiddushin 70a, where R' Yehudah refuses to relay regards from R Nachman to Yala (Mrs Nachman) citing Shemu'el's qol be'ishah ervah. It was this gemara I was remembering (due to recently re-encountering it). Pisqei haRid (Berakhos p' 3), Ri haChasid (Berakhos ad loc), Tosafos haRosh (ad loc) and the Rosh (Berakhos 3:37), say the rule is in general. The Rambam has qol be'ishah ervah in Isurei Bi'ah (21:2), not Hil' QS. Similarly the Tur has nothing about it in QS, but has it in EhE 21. (But then, since his father [the Rosh] and the Rambam do the same, that's no surprise.) And from there -- the Rif is silent, the Rambam and the Rosh agree it's in general -- the SA conforms to his rules and prohibits in general. I think it's a machloqes whether we hold like Shemu'el, who was indeed oly talking about Shema (but not only married women) or like R' Yehudah's extrapolation from Shemu'el. Al pi din, we do hold like the gemara in Qidushin. But it's not as much of a given as I had thought when writing. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 27th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in relationship? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 2 12:29:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 02 May 2015 21:29:39 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Kook on Sports Message-ID: <554525A3.2060408@zahav.net.il> He most certainly did! http://www.yeshiva.org.il/midrash/4234 The article is an examination of Rav Kook's writing on the subject. RK very much supported exercise and sport, and of course he opposed breaking Shabbat to play football (soccer). One quote/translation (mine): Exercise . . . .improves the spiritual strength of the greatest tzaddiqim, those involved in the Unification of God's name, including bringing the Light of God into the world, and no revelation of Light can happen without all the required components. Ben On 5/1/2015 3:36 AM, via Areivim wrote: > and I wonder if it is true that Rav Kook ascribed positive value to sports. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 3 03:01:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 3 May 2015 13:01:40 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Michael Avraham Message-ID: After another shiur with R Michael Avraham (RMA) I wish to clear up some of my previous posts. Apologies for repeating some material but I wish to make it self contained. 1) With regard to Pluaralism, Monism and Harmonism these are typologies. As with any typology real people are combinations and pure members of these groups. Avi Sagi has a book on the topic with listing on many reabbis on each side of the topic. Pluralism means that one accepts ALL opinions as true and legitimate. There is no one single truth Certainly as long as it doesn't harm someone else. RMA pointed out that pure pluralism is not consistent as it would mean accepting monism as also a legitimate truth Nevertheless it is popular in some circles 2) Monism says there is only one truth. I accept that one truth based on the normal rules of halacha, eg majority, chazakah etc. Nothing is ever known with 100% certainty both that is irrelevant. 2b) accepting monism (savlanut in Hebrew) . Though there is only one truth we accommodate those within a certain radius of the real truth even though they are wrong Normally we view pluralism as being more "mekil" than monism. However he considered the case of giving someone food that I consider kosher and he doesn't . The pluralist won't do it because his position is also truth and he doesnt consider the food kosher. However the pure monist has no trouble giving it to someone else. He is wrong and I am right and so the food is kosher (again the fact that he might be right is irrelevant - a bet din can kill based on rov and certainly for shabbat and kosher food we work on majority) The accepting monist won't give the food to someone else. Even though he is wrong I respect his being wrong as long as he is within my radius - ie he relies on someone I consider legitimate and not just an idiotic opinion. OTOH I would give him the food if I feel his "chumra" is too wild fetched and beyond my radius as distinct from the pluralist 3) Harmonism states that both sides are only part of the real truth. Rav Kook and others bring the second gemara about "Elu V-elu". The gemara in Gittin discusses why the man from Binyamin killed his mistress)(pilegesh be-givah) - after an amoraic argument the truth was both were right either because he found a fly in his soup but got angry only he found a hair in the soup. So both views were ight and "Elu V-elu" Based on this RMA had a different interpretation of the argument between Bet Hillel and Bet Shamai Both sides presented arguments supporting their position. Both sides agreed that all the arguments were legitimate. However, in the end one has to make a decision when there are legitimate arguments on both sides and Bet Shamai and Bet Hillel arrived at opposite conclusins. The Harmonism implies that both sides have legitimate arguments. Hoever, in the end there is only one truth that comes out of contradictory arguments. The harmonism means that both sides are right (pluralism) on the basic stands. But only one side is right (monism) in the final decision. As stated before the one truth is found based on standard halachic grounds. Nothing is ever known 100% but that doesnt matter. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 3 18:46:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 11:46:53 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] A halachic problem in measuring wholemeal flour Message-ID: I have recently become aware of a practical halachic problem with measuring wholemeal flour for the shiurim of challah and the kezeitim of matzot mitzva. I don't think this issue is generally recognised, and I hope Areivim members will be able to bring it to appropriate authorities' attention. Traditional flour mills produced a mixture of white flour and bran by grinding whole grains between millstones. This mixture was sifted to produce finer or coarser grades of flour by removing more or less bran, respectively. Halachically, the bran that is removed has changed its status: dough produced from bran is not subject to challah. Furthermore, mixing bran back into its flour does not restore its status: the bran and flour are not "mitztaref". (See Challah 2:6) This was not an issue with traditional mills: nobody would sift bran out of flour and then ruin the white flour by replacing the bran. This is not the case today, though. Modern flour mills do not grind flour between stones. They use a series of graduated rollers that crack the grain into progressively-smaller particles, and the bran is separated off at an early stage of the process. Millers make wholemeal flour by adding bran back to the fine flour near the end of the milling process. You can find a description and video of the process here: http://www.fabflour.co.uk/fab-flour/how-flour-is-milled/ If modern wholemeal flour is halachically considered a mixture of flour and bran, as it seems, then to be obliged in challah one would need a greater shiur of wholemeal than of regular flour, and to fulfil one?s obligation of eating matza one would need to eat more than a kezayit of wholemeal matza. (See S.A. Y.D. 324:3 and M.A. & SAHR O.C 454:1,2) It is not possible to state a definite ratio of bran to white flour, as this will vary between species of grain and between varieties of each species. The relevant shiurim are not measured by weight but by volume, which is affected by the fineness of the bran compared to the fineness of the white flour. Furthermore, the amount of grain removed as bran will depend on the operation of the mill. My research indicates that up to a quarter of each grain of wheat (by weight) consists of bran. If we take this as a rule of thumb then a shiur of wholemeal wheat flour would be one and a third times as large as a shiur of white flour. As a practical matter, I think people making wholemeal bread should probably avoid doubt and bake either less than a minimal shiur (for which, consult your LOR) or bake sufficiently more than one and a third shiurim. Many people deliberately try to use enough flour to require the taking of challah: they consequently use just over a regular shiur and need to be warned about this. With respect to wholemeal matzot mitzva, I presume that people would have noticed and queried any reintroduction of bran to flour ground using modern methods. None the less, it would be very good to establish this for each bakery. Joe Slater Melbourne, Australia -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 3 20:42:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 06:42:58 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RMA Message-ID: On another issue I had quoted RMA as saying that one who doesnt believe in a creator has no punishment or reward for keeping mitzvot. After 120 years he will be punished only for being an atheist but for each individual sin. Hence, there is no problem of "lifne iver" . In particular in the frequent case a religious doctor can ask an atheist to take over for him on shabbat (wouldnt apply to a chiloni doctor who does beleive in G-d) This applies only to mitzvot like shabbat. Of course an atheist can't claim that he is not bound by sins like murder because he doesnt believe in G-d. An atheist will be punished for all moral sins that he commits and all usual laws of :lifne iver" etc apply to all moral commandments. ------------------------ He is now starting a series on religious autonomy. In particular he holds that one goes to a rabbi for a psak only if he is in doubt. If one has seriously learned the halachaot and is convinced of the "truth" then he should follow his own psak and there is no need to go to a "higher authority". He was asked what if the personal psak goes against the generally accepted psak. His answer was that in theory the same holds. However, a person should have enough humility that if he is a "daas yachid" he better be awfully sure that he is right. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 04:47:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 11:47:38 GMT Subject: [Avodah] A married sister Message-ID: <20150504.074738.29327.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, and becomes part of her husband's family. Thus, she is no longer part of her brother's family. But what about her father? According to the above logic, her father may not be m'tamei for her either. And in fact, she *has* left her father's family in the sense that if her husband is not a kohen, then she has been disallowed terumah ever since the wedding. Yet the halacha is that her father *may* be m'tamei for her, despite that change in status. So, in very simple terms, here's my question: If a Bas Kohen is married and then dies, why is it that her father may attend the funeral, but her brother may not? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55475caae730f5caa5375st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 07:42:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 17:42:10 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] A halachic problem in measuring wholemeal flour In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, May 4, 2015 at 4:46 AM, Joe Slater via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > I have recently become aware of a practical halachic problem with > measuring wholemeal flour for the shiurim of challah and the kezeitim of > matzot mitzva. I don't think this issue is generally recognised, and I hope > Areivim members will be able to bring it to appropriate authorities' > attention. > > Traditional flour mills produced a mixture of white flour and bran by > grinding whole grains between millstones. This mixture was sifted to > produce finer or coarser grades of flour by removing more or less bran, > respectively. Halachically, the bran that is removed has changed its > status: dough produced from bran is not subject to challah. Furthermore, > mixing bran back into its flour does not restore its status: the bran and > flour are not "mitztaref". (See Challah 2:6) > > This was not an issue with traditional mills: nobody would sift bran out > of flour and then ruin the white flour by replacing the bran. This is not > the case today, though. > Just a thought: perhaps the halacha that the bran and flour are not mitztaref depended on the metziu't that nobody would return bran to white flour? So if returning the bran to the flour is now the normal way of producing wholemeal flour, maybe today they are mitztaref? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 09:45:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 12:45:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs In-Reply-To: <20150330.221259.10345.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 11:47:38AM +0000, RAM wrote on the thread "A married sister": : In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself : for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I : used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves : the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, : and becomes part of her husband's family... But Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 02:12:59AM +0000, RAM wrote on this subject: > I once heard an interesting argument against Rav Moshe's logic on > this point. He is viewing the wife as the one who is moving to a new > location, but we have an explicit pasuk that takes the opposite view: > Bereshis 2:24 - "Therefore, a man will desert his father and his mother, > and stick to his wife." (The woman may of may not leave her parents, > but the man explicitly does.) > Granted that there are other arguments for the wife taking the husband's > minhagim - terumah is the first that comes to my mind. But if Rav Moshe's > main argument is Minhag Hamakom, I wonder how he would have defended it > against this pasuk. Anyone else see one answering the other? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 30th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Hod: When does capitulation Fax: (270) 514-1507 result in holding back from others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 10:11:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 04 May 2015 13:11:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs In-Reply-To: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> On 05/04/2015 12:45 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 11:47:38AM +0000, RAM wrote on the thread > "A married sister": > : In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself > : for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I > : used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves > : the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, > : and becomes part of her husband's family... > > But Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 02:12:59AM +0000, RAM wrote on this subject: >> I once heard an interesting argument against Rav Moshe's logic on >> this point. He is viewing the wife as the one who is moving to a new >> location, but we have an explicit pasuk that takes the opposite view: >> Bereshis 2:24 - "Therefore, a man will desert his father and his mother, >> and stick to his wife." (The woman may of may not leave her parents, >> but the man explicitly does.) > >> Granted that there are other arguments for the wife taking the husband's >> minhagim - terumah is the first that comes to my mind. But if Rav Moshe's >> main argument is Minhag Hamakom, I wonder how he would have defended it >> against this pasuk. > > Anyone else see one answering the other? Not at all. Her father must still become tamei for her. Only her brothers may not. What's more, suppose her husband dies without issue. She returns to her father's house, and is once more entitled to eat terumah and kodshim. Now suppose the father dies; she continues to eat the terumah and kodshim that her brothers bring home. When she dies the brothers are the only people left who sit shiva for her, and yet they are not allowed to become tamei for her unless there is literally nobody else who can do it! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 10:24:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 17:24:33 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs Message-ID: <20150504.132433.5362.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger asked: > Anyone else see one answering the other? You make a good point, but as I see it, they don't *answer* each other as much as they illustrate how complicated this subject is. For example, consider the case of a Bas Kohen who marries a Yisrael, or a Bas Yisrael who marries a Kohen. Her status changes upon marriage, but it will revert upon the death of her husband. - Unless there is a child, in which case her status will *not* revert. - Unless the child died too, in which case her status *will* revert. - Unless there is a grandchild, in which case she keeps her status even though her own child did not survive. (I probably messed up some of those details, but my point is that itis a very complex topic.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5547ab96da8f82b966b58st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 11:01:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 14:01:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A married sister Message-ID: <1fbaa.22f534a3.42790de1@aol.com> From: Kenneth Miller via Avodah In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, and becomes part of her husband's family. Thus, she is no longer part of her brother's family. But what about her father? [snip] So, in very simple terms, here's my question: If a Bas Kohen is married and then dies, why is it that her father may attend the funeral, but her brother may not? Akiva Miller >>>>> I don't know why the bond between brother and sister seems to be lessened when the sister marries, but we do have other evidence that the bond between father and daughter is never severed: If a man has no sons, only daughters, his daughters inherit his property -- even if they are married. The fact that they are married does not annul the fact that they are still his daughters. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 12:50:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 22:50:54 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith Message-ID: <> A more practical problem based on personal experience is that of defining colors (to a human not in terms of wavelengths). There is no way for 2 people to confirm they are seeing the same colors. One practical application is to examining cloths for a niddah - ketem. I again refer to an article in Keren Zavit by Nadav Shinrav on parshat tazria In particular I learned that brown is not a color -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 13:43:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 16:43:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150504204354.GA2628@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 10:50:54PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : A more practical problem based on personal experience is that of defining : colors (to a human not in terms of wavelengths). There is no way for 2 : people to confirm they are seeing the same colors. Even further: there is no wavelength corrsponding to pink or brown, they only exist as our mind combines wavelengths. Pink is weirder, because it resides on the color wheel where you would glue the two extremes of the spectrum together to close the circle. Colors other than the three in the middle of the sensitivity range of each of the types of cone in your eye can be seen two ways. For example: you could make orange by mixing two parts red with one part green, or by looking at light of one color, that is at the right frequency to trigger your red cones twice as much as they trigger the green. The topic we're discussing is qualia, and color is a favorite sort of quale to use for illustration (pun intended). A quale is the "what it's like to see red". In my example about orange, we have two different physics, but both could end up producing the same experience, the same exact shade and brightness of orange. So orange is not 1:1 any specific wavelength. Asude from the question RET raises, a popular thought experiment among philosophers is Mary the Color Scientist (Frank Jackson 1982): Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor. She specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose, all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes, or the sky, and use terms like 'red', 'blue', and so on. She discovers, for example, just which wavelength combinations from the sky stimulate the retina, and exactly how this produces via the central nervous system the contraction of the vocal chords and expulsion of air from the lungs that results in the uttering of the sentence 'The sky is blue'.... What will happen when Mary is released from her black and white room or is given a color television monitor? Will she learn anything or not? It seems just obvious that she will learn something about the world and our visual experience of it. But then is it inescapable that her previous knowledge was incomplete. But she had all the physical information. Ergo there is more to have than that, and Physicalism is false. And so Jackson concludes that the world can't be reduced to physics. This is also what I was talking about when I referred to justifying a belief based on comparing imagination to memory. Koach hadimyon does mean "imagination", but what Ariso meant by Imagination, or the rishonim by dimyon, includes qualia in general. The image of red while you're seeing it, not just when you're dreaming it up. And I would argue that even when we make rigorous logical proofs, those proofs are conclusions drawn from a set of givens, and those givens end up resting on koach hadimyon anyway. The formally proven theological statement is therefore less conclusive than one based on an appeal to dimyon directly, such as R' Aqiva's argument. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 30th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Hod: When does capitulation Fax: (270) 514-1507 result in holding back from others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 15:25:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 04 May 2015 18:25:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs In-Reply-To: <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> Message-ID: <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> On 05/04/2015 01:11 PM, I wrote: > > What's more, suppose her husband dies without issue. She returns to her > father's house, and is once more entitled to eat terumah and kodshim. This is not quite correct. She returns to eat teruma, but not kodshim. "Milechem, velo kol lechem". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 16:07:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Mon, 04 May 2015 19:07:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy In-Reply-To: <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> Message-ID: <5547FB97.5020203@aishdas.org> Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, d'hashta) would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? Thanks! KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 18:11:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 01:11:49 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy Message-ID: <20150504.211149.15174.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer asked: > Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, > d'hashta) would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? My first knee-jerk reaction is to say that they DON'T relate. Chazakos are all about law, and what the law will *presume* the reality to have been. We found a piece of meat on the street, or we bought it and forgot where, or any of a million similar questions. We don't really know whether it is kosher or not, and to a certain extent we don't really care. What we really care about is whether halacha allows us to *presume* that it is kosher. Schroedinger's Cat and similar ventures are attempts to establish what the *reality* is. The Cat is a thought experiment, but do not make the mistake of thinking that it is mere philosophizing. The whole point of the experiment is to establish what is really and actually happening inside the box, and the answer (that they've come up with) is that two contradictory truths (the cat is alive, the cat is dead) are both true at the same time. This is a question of physics and reality, not a question of legal presumptions. The subject line of this thread says that you're "looking for help with an analogy". Could you tell us more about what you're working on? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5548190613cab19056408st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 19:10:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rafael Jason Hecht via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 22:10:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How Kosher is the Kosher Switch? Message-ID: Last Motzei Shabbos I was among the crowd that was saying Kiddush Levana out in the open. While davening I overheard someone making a joke about using a Kosher Switch (my guess was to place light on the outside so people could better read). I did my own reading and research before that and couldn't tell if the gentleman was joking or being serious. To put it lightly, the development and marketing Kosher Switch has caused a major controversy in the Torah Jewish community. The Kosher Switch, a device purportedly meant to ease the constraints of Sabbath observance, is not the first of its kind. The Grama switch by Zomet Institute, as well as the Zman switch have been created for emergency situations of pikuach nefesh. However, this switch has caused an uproar in the Jewish community. Why? Before going on, let me state that while I am far from an expert in the field of electrical engineering or Hilchos Shabbos (nor am I a certified Rabbi), I treasure Shabbos and am always looking for ways to enhance it. That said, I did my own personal research and humbly present my findings. Before I go on, let me first state that the topic of electricity on Shabbos is far more extensive than what I'm laying out, and that I am not (intentionally) offering my own Psak, just a compilation of "what's out there." Read more: http://www.mywesternwall.net/2015/04/30/how-kosher-is-the-kosher-switch.html Best Regards, Rafi Hecht *rhecht at gmail.com* ------------------------------------------------------- *LinkedIN:* *http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rafihecht* *Facebook:* *http://www.facebook.com/rhecht* *Twitter:* *https://www.twitter.com/#!/rafihecht* *Personal Site:* *www.rafihecht.com* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 12:47:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Shalom Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 22:47:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired Message-ID: I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a woman is owned by her husband, the language of the Mishna notwithstanding. Can anyone point to a clear statement by Hazal or rishonim that supports my supposition? My thanks, Shalom Z. Berger -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 13:51:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 16:51:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150505205140.GA20122@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 05, 2015 at 10:47:20PM +0300, Shalom Berger via Avodah wrote: : I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a : woman is owned by her husband, the language of the Mishna notwithstanding. : Can anyone point to a clear statement by Hazal or rishonim that supports my : supposition? First, the halakhos of qiddushin do not conform to that of purchase. Qinyan is a broader concept than purchase; for example, not that long ago you probably performed a qinyan sudar to appoint your rav as a shaliach to sell your chameitz. Some differences: - no din of ona'ah, a shaveh perutah is sufficient for all - you give the perutah to the woman, not her former "owner" - she has to agree to the qinyan, despite not being the former "owner" - she has to make a qinyan on the money - money needn't exchange hands; she could pardon a loan to effect a marriage. However, qinyan bekesef does require such an exchange. - Hilkhos gittin is a lot more complicated than just calling hefqer. - the wife gets to decide whether to give him her earnings in exchange for being supported. If she were property, he would get her earnings wheter or not *he* chose to support here. Now that I got that out of my system, to answer your question: Qiddushin 6b: ... and if an eved kenaani, whose body he was qoneh, if he says to him [in a shetar shichrur] "you are hereby your own" it means legmaei, ishah DELO QANI LEIH GUFAH, lo qol shekein! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 31st day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Hod: What level of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 results in harmony and balance? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 12:12:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 15:12:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun Message-ID: In Avodah V33n70, RZS responded to R'Micha: >> I bet [RYBS] said tachanun on the Gra's or R' Chaim's (Volozhin or Brisk) >> yahrzeit, etc... For people who are seeking his pesaq, it's very likely >> he would insist on Tachanun on days like that. > Of course he said tachanun on their yortzeits, why wouldn't he? The whole > concept of turning a yortzeit into a holiday wasn't native to his world. > The question is what he would do on a day they had been saved from some > danger, and had observed as a private yomtov, or on a day that his > community had adopted as a local "purim" to commemorate being saved from > danger, as was a common practise among Jewish communities. ...or on Pesach Sheini? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 11:47:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 05 May 2015 13:47:08 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Tree of 40 Fruits Message-ID: <5549102C.40808@starways.net> http://www.sciencealert.com/news/20142107-25892.html What's the halakha regarding eating fruit from one of these trees? Since the grafting was done by a non-Jew, is it okay to eat? Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 14:01:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 21:01:39 GMT Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired Message-ID: <20150505.170139.16146.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Shalom Berger wrote: <<< I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a woman is owned by her husband, ... >>> That depends on what you mean by "own". I own my shoes. This gives me certain rights, such as wearing them to the exclusion of anyone else, or the choice of who I might lend them to. I also have certain responsibilities; I cannot simply destroy them for no reason. I own my tefillin too. But the things I can do with my tefillin are much more limited than whast I can do with my shoes. I have certain rights and responsibilities vis a vis my wife as well. Do I own her? I don't know. Is there a real nafka mina, or is it just semantics? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55492fe2678522fe2353bst03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 15:46:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 05 May 2015 18:46:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Scrolling Down the Pages of Jewish History Message-ID: <20150505224615.83B27181E37@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/ocl2bqe his story appears in R. Yechiel Spero?s Pesach Haggadah: Touched by Our Story (pp. 88-91) and is republished here with permission from the copyright holders (ArtScroll / Mesorah Publications, Ltd.). The pictures below ? of the Tur Shulchan Aruch (printed in Berlin 1702) which belonged to Rabbi Yaakov Emden (Germany, 1697-1776) ? were taken by R. Akiva Males, and are republished with permission of Columbia University?s Rare Book and Manuscript Library. See the above URL for much more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 00:23:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 03:23:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] All About Tehillim Message-ID: <20150506072350.7A9B4181522@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/mxoucvn From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 02:02:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 05:02:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Disappearing Doctor of Iyyar: Virtual Vanishing of a Venerable Minhog Message-ID: <20150506090255.CB5C5182D80@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/mdz6883 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 03:13:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 06:13:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Disappearing Doctor of Iyyar: Virtual Vanishing of a Venerable Minhog In-Reply-To: <20150506090255.CB5C5182D80@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150506090255.CB5C5182D80@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150506101327.GA19813@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 06, 2015 at 05:02:54AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : See http://tinyurl.com/mdz6883 Quoting the Treasures of Ashkenaz blog [transliterations mine]: > The aleph stands for ani, the two yuds for HQBH, and the reish? fo > rofekha. The month is thereby depicted as a month of healing. The vort > seemingly is based on an old minhog of many generations among Yidden, > in which the letters yud-yud (sans hyphen) are used to represent the > venerated name of Hashem However, even yud-yud is not the original minhag. In older manuscripts they used three yuds, with the middle one slightly above the line, making a triangle. Preserved in this printed edition of Siddur R' Saadia Gaon . I suggested two possible reasons for the third yud's disappearance: - The printing press made that middle yud hard to insert into books, because it would require a special letter in the type box. I find this one less than compelling, because they kept an alef-lamed ligature in the type box, and that got less usage. - Xians read their own significance into the three letters. This would be clearner, if there were any evidence of them actually doing so. So the two-yud notation was just one step along the way. The general question of why non-chassidic Ashkenazim (or non-Chida-influenced Sepharadim) suddenly started writing out the sheim in siddurim is compelling, but the two-yud notation isn't necessarily some venerable alternative. The three yuds was often explained as beind the initial letters of Birkhas Kohanim; the yuds from Yevarekhekha, Ya'er, and Yisa. Some suggest that the two yuds represent the first and last letters of an intertwined sheim havayah and sheim adnus: YUD alef HEI dalet ... HEI yud. Itself heavily al pi qabbalah. And associating the two yuds with the transliteration into Hebrew of an Akkadian month name (Ayyaru = n. blossom) requires even more omnisignificance and mysticism than does finding significance in presenting sheim havayah written out. Where I really see this change as a problem is not because of venerable minhagim, but because books have less shelf life now than in the past. Cheap printing means also cheaper paper, not to mention faster replacement. And if generations past wanted to minimize their sheimos problems, al achas kamah vekamah we should. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 00:31:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 10:31:51 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: In some circles it is common for men to keep long peyot (as an aside it has become common also in some chardal circles) The book Keren Zavit says he doesn't understand the custom. The problem is not in long sidebruns but rather that the hair from under the ear rarely grows long. The long "peyot" usually grow from hair above the ear and so has no connection to peyot and in fact come from part of the head where there is no prohibition to shave -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 06:38:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Shalom Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 16:38:38 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired In-Reply-To: <20150505205140.GA20122@aishdas.org> References: <20150505205140.GA20122@aishdas.org> Message-ID: While Micha is correct that the Gemara clearly states "ishah DELO QANI LEIH GUFAH" and that there are many, many differences between true ownership and marriage, this does not keep the Tosafot HaRosh (Ketubot 2a sv Nistahpa Sadeihu) from concluding: "ha-isha kinyan kaspo shel ha-ish kemo avdo ve-shoro va-hamoro." I would like to find a source in the rishonim that clearly rejects the approach of the Tosafot HaRosh. Shalom Rabbi Shalom Z. Berger, Ed.D. The Lookstein Center for Jewish Education Bar-Ilan University http://www.lookstein.org https://www.facebook.com/groups/lookjed/ Follow me on Twitter: @szberger NETWORK*LEARN*GROW From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 09:26:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 12:26:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tree of 40 fruits Message-ID: The question was asked, "What's the halakha regarding eating fruit from one of these trees? Since the grafting was done by a non-Jew, is it okay to eat?" The only issur achila of kilayim is kilei hakerem. Anything else may be eaten. With regard to the fruits of a graft, the explicit halacha in Yoreh Deiah (295:7) is that it may be eaten even by the one who violated the prohibition by performing the graft. (That halacha also continues that one may take a branch from the graft and plant it.) As to the original question about the potato-tomato combination, grafting is prohibited: even though neither is a tree (295:3), but as above, the resulting product may be eaten. EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 10:28:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 13:28:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs Message-ID: The din of a kohein's daughter not eating t'ruma upon marriage to a non-kohein was mentioned in conjunction with this topic. However, I submit that perquisites of k'huna are unrelated to the adoption of one's spouse's customs. How else can we understand the din that a person can give the parts of a slaughtered animal due to the kohein (z'roa, l'chayayim v'keiva) even to a kohein's daughter married to a Yisraeil, or, for that matter, even to her Yisraeil husband (and according to one opinion, the same is true for pidyon habein)? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 10:37:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 13:37:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy Message-ID: <72706.56a00b87.427bab69@aol.com> From: Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, d'hashta) would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? Thanks! KT, YGB >>>>> Not sure where you're going with this but you seem to be saying that chazakos have no independent, objective reality. That a chazaka is in the eye of the beholder. Oops. Looks like you've let the cat out of the bag... --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 11:13:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 14:13:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Strange History of Lag B'Omer Message-ID: <20150506181455.D4FFC1836BF@nexus.stevens.edu> There is an interesting talk by Dr. Shnayer Leiman with the above title at http://yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/734356/ Yitzchok Levine -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 11:48:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 14:48:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy In-Reply-To: <5547FB97.5020203@aishdas.org> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> <5547FB97.5020203@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150506184838.GA4624@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 7:07pm EDT, RYGB wrote: : Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, d'hashta) : would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? Quantum Uncertainty is more similar to rov than chazaqah. And it could model how we can embrace conflicting majorities. Such as in the case of two pieces of shuman and one of cheilev, and being able to eat all three one after the other. (Or perhaps even in a ta'aroves, but that just complicates the picture.) It would fit if we treat the physical state of each piece of fat as ( 2 |shuman> + |cheilev) / 3 rather than as a 67% chance of being shuman. And then those things that were observed are immune from such weirdness, much like qavu'ah. That said: The notion that wavefunction collapse is due to observation, the Copenhagen Interpretation, was once taken as a given. But alternatives involving entanglement, wave function collapse, multiuniverse theory, etc.. have been gaining ground for decades. This parallel to qavu'ah could be illusory. On Tue, May 05, 2015 at 1:11am GMT, R Akive Miller wrote: : My first knee-jerk reaction is to say that they DON'T relate. Chazakos : are all about law, and what the law will *presume* the reality to have : been... : Schroedinger's Cat and similar ventures are attempts to establish what : the *reality* is... I am very inclined to agree. R' Aqiva Eiger (teshuvah $136) makes a chiluq between sefeiqos in the metzi'us and sefeiqos in din. Rov holds when we have sefeiqos in the metzi'us. So we can pasqen about something that is rov-kasher. But if someone knew the metzi'us, then there was a din established for the fat. Now that we don't know what it was, we have a safeiq as to what that din is. LAD, the whole thing is about human experience. See , which has 10 posts covering things like chazaqah (both types), rov, qavu'ah, terei mekei'ah (which I argue ignores rov for the same reason as qavu'ah), nosein ta'am, using tequfas Shemu'el for birkhas hachamah, microsopic bugs etc.... The hashkafic premise is that the goal of halakhah is to shape the self (whether into a tamim, a shelaim, to acheive deveiqus, etc...) And therefore the metzi'us a din has to work with is how we experience reality (and thus birur when we're in doubt) and how we can experience it (only visible bugs count). And not how the universe works in ways we can only understand in the abstract. The most lomdishe consequence of my whole edifice is that it manages to explain why a chazaqah trumps a migo in a case where there are also trei utrei eidim, but why a migo trumps a chazaqah when there are no eidim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 12:13:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 15:13:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150506191353.GB4624@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 06, 2015 at 10:31:51AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : The book Keren Zavit says he doesn't understand the custom. The problem is : not in long sidebruns but rather that the hair from under the ear rarely : grows long. The long "peyot" usually grow from hair above the ear and so : has no connection to peyot and in fact come from part of the head where : there is no prohibition to shave The custom is shared by Chassidim, Chidah-influenced Sepharadim (those with many Qabbalah-based pesaqim) and Teimanim. So there seems to be an ancient maqor unrelated to any reasons given al pi qabbalah by the first two groups. R' Chaim Kanievsky is a living example of a minhag/hanhagah that was once more common -- not combing one's peyos because of the hairs plucked out. Rav Dovid Lifshitz, so now we're talking Litta, had two thick blocks of hair going back from his temples to over his ear. According to the SA YD 181:9, peyos run as high as the hairline above the forehead until the bottom of the ear, where the earlobe detaches from the face. So the prohibition does include the area the KZ is asking about -- there are inches of hair between the top of the ear until you get parallel to the hairline. And this is the very area that the majority of the hair in long peyos grows from. I therefore don't understand the KZ's question. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 12:40:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 22:40:23 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: >From : B. Highest Point. The location of the highest point on the head that the peyos extend is described in Shulchan Aruch (181:9) as "across from the hair on is forehead". There are two basic opinions as to the precise location the Shulchan Aruch refers to: 1. Rabbi Yisroel Belsky (Shulchan Halevi page 122) writes that he had heard directly from Rav Yakov Kaminetzky zt"l that the upper limit of the peyos ha'rosh begins "at the highest point of the hairline as it arches over the ear and extends in a slightly curved line across to where the hairline of the forehead turns sharply downwards towards the sideburns. All the hair from the imaginary line that connect these two points and below comprises the peyos ha'rosh". 2. Rabbi Belsky also quotes "some rabbonim have a mesora, a tradition from their Rabbis, that the peyos do not extend above the upper cartilage of the ear (tenuch ha'ozen) at all. According to their mesorah, the imaginary line extends horizontally from the point in the hairline above the foremost part of ear almost until where the downward slope of the frontal hairline angles back towards the ear. For a picture see -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 13:42:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joel Schnur via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 16:42:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun Message-ID: <554A7CBF.3020300@schnurassociates.com> No one says tachnun on the Gra's yarhzeit. it's 3rd day chol hamoed succos ___________________________ Joel Schnur, Senior VP Government Affairs/Public Relations Schnur Associates, Inc. 25 West 45th Street, Suite 1405 New York, NY 10036 Tel. 212-489-0600 x204 Fax. 212-489-0203 joel at schnurassociates.com www.schnurassociates.com http://www.schnurassociates.com/joels-corner/ From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 14:13:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 17:13:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired In-Reply-To: <20150505.170139.16146.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150505.170139.16146.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150506211338.GB27781@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 5, 2015 at 9:01pm GMT, R Akiva Miller wrote: :> I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that :> a woman is owned by her husband, ... : That depends on what you mean by "own". : : I own my shoes. This gives me certain rights... I suggested more than once in the past that baalus has more to do with responsibility than western notions of property. Which is why yorshim do not inherit chameitz on Pesach. Even though the father owned chameitz in the sense of bal yeira'eh bal yimatzei, he lacked ba'alus at the time of his passing. Or why a rentor has a chiyuv to hang a mezuzah -- he has some measure of ba'alus, despite not being an owner. RAF (CCed) shared my post on Facebook, and since I have no idea what can be seen by the public, I'll paraphrase a couple of responses I thought would be of interest. On my line that "qinyan is a broader concept than purchase", one person compared the mishnah in Avos "qeneih lekha chaver". This morning, at 8:59am PDT, R Shalom Z Berger asked for a rishon who clearly rejected the Tosafos haRosh's statement (Kesuvos 2a "nitapecha sadeihu) that "ha'ishah qinyan kaspo shel ha'ish, kemo avdo veshoro vechamoro". Someone else on FB noted that the Rashba, in his chiddushim on the first pereq of Qiddushin, repeatedly points out that all the rishonim other than the Rosh reject the idea out of hand. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 15:09:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 15:09:17 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes Message-ID: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Shabbat-microphones-catching-on-among-orthodox-despite-taboos-402173 i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at hadchak /bedieved -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 17:12:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 20:12:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150507001204.GA31766@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 06, 2015 at 03:09:17PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Shabbat-microphones-catching-on-among-orthodox-despite-taboos-402173 : : i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at hadchak /bedieved Gerama devices, yes. But a passive element microphone feeding a PA system that is never entirely off -- so it's never turned off or on -- and has no lit indicators is an entirely different beast. (Most microphones generate current when vibrated; a passive element microphone changes resistance.) Still not an open-and-shut heter, as this article makes it sound. And there are more grounds for Sepharadim to be meiqil then Ashkenazim, based on a machloqes between the Mechaber and the Rama in OC 252:5. R' Ovadia was matir. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 18:18:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 01:18:22 GMT Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes Message-ID: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> R' Saul Newman asked: > i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at > hadchak /bedieved I've never read any of their material, but I'm pretty sure that they have MANY halachic "tools" in their arsenal, and not all of them carry the same restrictions. For example, a grama switch would only be useful for a very limited number of situations, as would a pen that writes with disappearing ink. But if you can make an electronic device that generates zero heat and zero light, it just *might* be acceptable for general use. Exhibit A: Hearing aids. I'll admit that a hearing aid is not the same thing as a loudspeaker system. But without getting into a whole discussion, the only point I'm making is that you have to look at the thing, and not just reject it out of hand. One might say that "Hearing aids are by definition for a shaas hadchak; how can this technology help the average person? So I bring you Exhibit B: Sabbath Mode ovens. Without any doubt, one DOES manipulate the electric circuit with these gadgets. If not on Shabbos, then at least on Yom Tov. But I think that the real answer to your question might be: "If the people in shul can't hear the rabbi or the chazan, that IS a shaas hadchak." In any case, about 15 years ago I happened to spend Shabbos at a shul that used one of these systems, and there were two large notices by the entrance to the main sanctuary, pointing out that the system was designed by Zomet. If I remember correctly, there was also a letter on the wall giving more halachic details about it. Which is the bigger chumra: To avoid using such devices, or to insure that even the hard-of-hearing can follow hear? Or, if you prefer, which is the bigger kula: To use such devices, or to disenfranchise part of the tzibur? (I'm not taking sides, just illustrating the issues. If you want answers, ask your LOR.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554abd8864c633d88019cst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 18:45:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 01:45:24 GMT Subject: [Avodah] The Disappearing Doctor of Iyyar: Virtual Vanishing of a Venerable Minhog Message-ID: <20150506.214524.14329.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitzchok Levine posted: > See http://tinyurl.com/mdz6883 That article has only slight relevance to anything medical. It is actually about the practice of abbreviating HaShem's Name with a double (or triple) Yud in siddurim, and how this practice is losing ground recently, with more siddurim using the Four-Lettered Name. That article says: > ... even in the printing of siddurim, where in the past, Shem > Hashem was not written out explicitly, based on venerable, old > practice. In other words, the spelling out of the letters, Yud > ? Kay ? Vov ? Kay in the past was done in Biblical texts, such > as Sifrei Torah and Sifrei Nach. In texts of tefilos, however, > it was not done. Instead, Yud ? Yud was substituted. I am very curious why this distinction was made, that the siddurim use the Yuds, while the printed Tanachs do use the Four Lettered Name. I note that towards the end of that article, he refers to an "Azharah L'Madfisim (Warning To Printers)" on this topic, written by the son-in-law of the Nesivos Hamishpat. Curiously, he writes that the Two Yuds should be printed in siddurim *and* *chumashim*. On the other hand, a few lines later, the Azharah explains a point I've long wondered about. The Four Lettered Name is just one of the *seven* Names Which May Not Be Erased. Why did this abbreviation arise for the Four Lettered Name and not for any of the others? I always figured it was because this one is *truly* a Name; "the Most Holy among equals" one might say. But the Azharah gives an entirely different explanation. Namely, the difference between this Name and the other six is that no matter how you spell it, it is not to be pronounced normally, so what is to be gained by using the correct letters? Therefore, find an abbreviation of some sort for this one, but the others should be spelled as they will be pronounced. Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554ac3e5a6e0843e34b38st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 19:34:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 22:34:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: <85279.31aefae5.427c294a@aol.com> From: Eli Turkel via Avodah In some circles it is common for men to keep long peyot (as an aside it has become common also in some chardal circles) The book Keren Zavit says he doesn't understand the custom.... -- Eli Turkel >>>> Yemenites have long payos, so this must be a very old custom, not some recent chumra. They don't call them "payos" but "simanim," which I find charming. They are signs that a man is a Jew, proud and obvious signs. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 02:13:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 12:13:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: In addition to the points brought up by R' Eli Turkel against long peyot, I would like to raise the following: The shiur given by all of the poskim for each hair is very very short, and in fact because it is a lo taase there is probably not even an inyan of hidur mitzvah. Therefore it is not clear why there would be any inyan to grow long peyot. The truth is it would be much better to be machmir on the shiur of where peyot harosh ends (maybe the very bottom of the ear) which is a safek issur d'oraysa then to grow long peyot which has no kiyum al pi din. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 20:33:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 23:33:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired Message-ID: <86422.6a1e08b9.427c3711@aol.com> [1] I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a woman is owned by her husband, the language of the Mishna notwithstanding. Can anyone point to a clear statement by Hazal or rishonim that supports my supposition? My thanks, Shalom Z. Berger [2] I own my shoes. This gives me certain rights, such as wearing them to the exclusion of anyone else, or the choice of who I might lend them to. I also have certain responsibilities; I cannot simply destroy them for no reason. I own my tefillin too. But the things I can do with my tefillin are much more limited than what I can do with my shoes. I have certain rights and responsibilities vis a vis my wife as well. Do I own her? I don't know. Is there a real nafka mina, or is it just semantics? Akiva Miller >>>> [1] Along the lines of what R' Micha Berger posted. On Ber 24:57 -- "Let us call the maiden and ask her what she wants to do" -- Rashi says, "Mikan she'ein masi'in es ha'isha ela mida'ata -- from here we learn that one does not [or may not, or cannot] marry a woman without her consent." I think he's quoting Kesubos 57b. I can't think of any kind of property whose consent is required before the property can be acquired. [2] The analogy to tefillin is flawed. You do not have any obligations or responsibilities to your tefillin. Rather, in regards to your tefillin, you have obligations towards your Maker! He has told you what you must do, may do, or must not do, with your tefillin. A better analogy would have been to your ox or your dog, where you do actually have obligations to your animals, an obligation, for example, to feed the animal before you eat your own meal. And a still better analogy would have been to acquiring a slave, about which the Talmud says "One who acquires a Jewish slave is like one who has acquired a master! (Kiddushin 20a)" -- because of all the obligations he incurs towards his slave. So there does seem to be some kind of ownership that a husband has vis-a-vis his wife, but then, she also in some sense owns him. Certainly she has the right to make specific claims on him, because he has specific obligations towards her. Shir Hashirim speaks about the love between Hakadosh Baruch Hu and Am Yisrael in an extended poetic analogy to the love between a husband and a wife. What does the wife say about her husband? Dodi li ve'ani lo -- He belongs to me, and I belong to Him. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 23:25:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 02:25:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Princess and I: Academic Kabbalists/Kabbalist Academics Message-ID: <20150507062523.18EF01826EC@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/km8kf2n The last few decades have witnessed the veritable explosion of "new perspectives" and horizons in the academic study of Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism. From the pioneering work of the late Professor Gershom Scholem, and the establishment of the study of Jewish Mysticism as a legitimate scholarly pursuit, we witness a scene nowadays populated by men and women, Jews and non-Jews, who have challenged, (re)constructed, and expanded upon Scholem's work.[2] These men and women themselves have been variously praised and criticized themselves for sometimes blurring the lines between academician and practitioner of Kabbalah and mysticism.[3] Professor Boaz Huss of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has done extensive work in this area.[4] One of the most impressive examples of this fusion of identities is Professor Yehuda Liebes (Jerusalem, 1947-) of Hebrew University, who completed his doctoral studies under Scholem, and rose to prominence himself by challenging scholarly orthodoxies established by his mentor. See the above URL for more. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 23:29:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 02:29:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Shabbat microphones catching on among orthodox despite taboos Message-ID: <20150507062953.0C966182FF8@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/men8bez Relying upon rulings by decision makers such as Rabbi Shaul Yisraeli, Isser Yehuda Unterman and Rav Haim David HaLevi, the Zomet microphone uses only transistors "without any glowing [or 'burning'] elements;" is turned on by an automatic "Shabbat timer;" and, once turned on, "current flows continuously in the system," according to technical notes on the setup released on the group's website. According to Zomet executive director Rabbi Dan Marans, the system has come into use in 15 synagogues in Baltimore, Montreal, West Stamford and other locations, as well as in 18 old-age homes. Leading American poskim, or decidors of Halacha, have even "stipulated in contracts with synagogues that they change the system to our system so that the RCA [will be] able to send rabbis." "I've not heard comments [against it]. If anything, people find the service more enjoyable and more elevating," agreed Schneier, adding that "We must get a dozen calls a year from rabbis contemplating putting this system into their synagogues. "I believe within 25 years it will be commonplace in Orthodox synagogues here in the Northeast." See the above URL for more. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 07:01:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 10:01:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Transferring my comments to Avodah At 04:00 PM 5/6/2015, R Saul Newman wrote on Areivim: >http://www.sharelive.tv/sharlive_Heb/SL27948.html I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire 33rd day, and they wait until the 34th day to take a haircut. Does this not imply that the entire 33rd day is part of Sefirah and the restrictions hold the entire 33rd day? Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva. However, the micktzas starts in the morning of the 7th day, not on the night of the 7th day. Thus, even according to Ashkenazim the night of Lag B'Omer is bound by the restrictions of Sefirah. So how can they make such gatherings on the night of the 33rd day? And, of course there is this post that I made on from Fri, 26 Apr 2013 based on comments by Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel. According to RSRH there is a major difference between the way the uses the terminology un-Jewish and non-Jewish. Un-Jewish things are things that are incompatible with Yahadus, whereas non-Jewish things are things of non-Jewish origin that are compatible with Yahadus. YL The following is from http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol11/v11n014.shtml#17 Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 11:37:58 -0400 From: "Seth Mandel" Subject: Re: bonfires on Lag Ba'Omer From: Phyllos... at aol.com Obviously, the bones of people who believe that there is a s'gullo in making fires . As I have had fun telling people, the _only_ bonfire that was an ancient Jewish tradition was the Simchas Torah bonfire in Ashk'naz, which is attested from the 14th century up until the 19th century, but has gone out of style. The Lag Ba'omer bonfire is a very recent phenomenon among most Jews. Indeed, the word bonfire is from "fire of bones." The term was used primarily in various pagan ceremonies which then were transferred to christianity, for a funeral pyre, and in burning infidels or books (like The Gaon of Vilna or MOAG). The bones used, if 'twere not a pyre, were primarily animal bones. Here's an early quotation (1493): "in worshyppe of saynte John the people waked at home and made all maner of fyres. One was clene bones and no woode, and that is called a bone fyre." From Marlowe in 1586: "Making bonfires for my overthrow. But, ere I die, those foul idolators Shall make me bonfires with their filthy bones." (Think that would get by the moderators on Areivim, R. SBA?) 1689: "The dead corps is buried. They of old made a bone-fire and therein burnt it." 1622: "Their holy Bibles cast into Bone-fires." The term became used for any large fires used for celebrations, although the practice and term continued to be used especially for those associated with various christian saints, particularly John and Peter. From a 1570 history: "Then doth the joyfull feast of John the Baptist take his turne, When bonfiers great with loftie flame, in every towne doe burne." From a constitution of the association of the cooks of Newcastle, 1575: "The said Felloship of Cookes shall yearelie. mainteigne and keep the Bone-fires. that is to say, one Bone-fire on the Even of the Feast of the Nativitie of St. John Baptist. and the other on the Even of the Feast of St. Peter the Apostle." These quotations start in the 15th century, because that is as far back as the term bone-fire goes, but the practice of making a bonfire in honor of Christian saints goes back to ancient times in England (and in France as well). Another practice that goes back to ancient times in Christian Europe is making pilgrimages to "qivrei tzaddiqim" and donating alms at the qever; this practice is well known from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Most Christian scholars attribute the association of the bonfires with celebrations of the feast of a saint to pagan, pre-christian practices which were later adopted by the local people to their new religion. Indeed, the Celtics made bonfires to honor some of their deities and spirits. No one would ever claim that these practices, going back into old Anglo-Saxon England, are of Jewish origin. The Arabs of EY, Syria, and Lebanon, as is well-known, honored the Christian and Jewish "saints" (everyone knows that the qever of Sh'muel haNavi has been a "holy" site to the Arabs for hundreds of years, and they built a mosque there; the site is called "anNabi Samwil"). They made pilgrimages to them, like the Christians did, and they made large celebrations to honor the festival of the saint. The Arab pilgrims who came did various things to honor the saint. They gave alms (a big mitzva in Islam), usually done by the practice of cutting the hair of their children (which they had let grow from before the pilgrimage), then weighing it and giving the same weight in gold or silver for alms. They also made large bonfires to honor the saint. The custom of making pilgrimages, giving alms, and making bonfires may have been borrowed from the christians, since a) they originally appeared among the Arabs of EY, Lebanon and Syria, AFAIK; b) they are first recorded after the time of the Crusades (although the giving of gold or silver in the weight of the hair seems to have been from the Middle East). However there is no clear proof that they did not arise from another source. But they are attested in Arabic sources going back to the 15th century, and probably before. Can the custom of bonfires on Lag Ba'omer have arisen among the Jews separately and independently from the non-Jewish sources? Theoretically it's possible. Books like Minhag Yisruel Toyre he brings all sorts of reasons from various chasidic rebbes and from the book Ta'amei haMinhogim for the origin of the bonfires on Lag Ba'omer. The problem with all the explanations is that a) they are all of recent origin, and b) they somehow ignore the fact that the custom was completely unknown to any Jews up until the time when it is recorded in EY in the 16th century. Furthermore, it was the custom there of only one group of Jews, the Musta'ribim, about whom other Jews complained that they had adopted a lot of Arab customs (the very name mean "Arabicized). From contemporary documents we learn the Muslims (and a few Jews) cut the hair of children as well as lit a bonfires on the yohrtzeit (28 of Iyyar) of non other than the aforementioned Shmu'el haNavi. However, in the 1560s the Arab authorities forbad Jews to go there. Shortly afterwards, we have the testimony of R. Chaim Vital that he was told by R. Yonatan Sagiz that a year before he started learning by the Ari, in the Ari's first year after he immigrated from his homeland of Egypt (also 1570), that "Mori v'Rabbi Z'L took his small son and all of his family there [to the celebration on RaShBY 's yohtzeit in Meron] and there he cut his hair in accordance with the custom." R. Chaim Vital is careful to note, however, that "I do not know whether at that time he was expert and knowledgable in this wondrous wisdom [Qabbolo] as he became after that." IOW, R. Chaim Vital himself is cautioning the reader that he has doubts about whether the Ari did this in accordance with his views in Qabbolo, or just because it was a popular celebration, and he might not have participated had he already been an expert in Qabbolo. Some historians believe that once the Musta'ribim were forbidden to go to the qever of Sh'muel haNavi, they transferred their celebration to Meron and the date to Lag Ba'Omer. Others claim that the custom at Meron predated 1570. But both groups agree that both of these customs, cutting the hair of the children and making bonfires, were practiced by the Arabs and the Musta 'ribim, but not by any of the Ashk'nazi and S'faradi Jews in Israel. Of great interest is that the local rabbis in Tz'fat, who had the practice of going to the all the known q'vorim of the Tano'im from the middle of Iyyar until Shavu'os and having a seder in learning there, opposed the celebrations of the Musta'ribim on Lag ba'Omer and tried to forbid it. They made little headway, and once it became known that the Ari participated one year, any opposition was swept away. We know from travelers to EY in the 18th and 19th centuries that the "hilula" at Meron on Lag Ba'Omer with bonfires and the cutting of children's hair had become an affair of the masses. A well known talmid chochom from Europe, R. Avrohom Rozanes, writes that in his visit to EY in 1867 he saw an Ashk'nazi Jew who had taken his son to the "hilula" and was giving him a haircut. R. Rozanes says that he could not restrain himself, and went to that Jew and tried to dissuade him but was unsuccessful, and that most of the Ashk'nazi and S'faradi Jews of EY participate in this "craziness," with "drinking and dancing and fires." The custom of giving the son his first haircut at that celebration, originally called "halaqa" by the Jews of EY (apparently because there was an established Arabic term but no Jewish term for the custom) was later mixed with the custom of making a celebration when a son reached 3 and began learning Torah. The two customs were combined by many, and resulted in the boy's haircut being delayed until he was 3, and not specifically on Lag ba' Omer. A chasidish rebbe, R. Yehudah Leibush Horenstein, who emigrated to EY in the middle of the 19th century writes that "this haircut, called halaqe, is done by the S'faradim in Yerushalayim at the qever of RaShB'Y during the summer, but during the winter they take the boy to the synagogue or Bet Medrash and perform the haircut with great celebration and parties, something _that is unknown to the Jews in Europe_. and at that point they start him growing his pe'ot. it is incomprehensible why this is not done outside of EY [as well]" [emphasis mine]. Indeed, the custom was adopted by shortly thereafter by chasidim in Europe to imitate the custom of the S'faradim in EY, and the custom of lighting bonfires on Lag Ba'Omer also was adopted at that time by chasidic communities in Europe. The Jews in Europe, knowing no Arabic and having no Yiddish name for the custom of the haircut, called it by a normal Yiddish word for cutting off the hair: opsheren. Both customs are less than 150 years old among Ashk'naz Jews, including chasidim. Now we scarcely can expect to find a historical document that says "we, the undersigned Jews, have decided that there is nothing wrong with copying the Muslim celebrations in honor of saints, and we will participate in them." So you're never going to find better historical evidence for Jewish borrowing of non-Jewish customs than this: that a custom that was previously unknown to any group of Jews arose among a group of Jews known to copy various Arab customs in a time and place that the custom is attested among the Arabs from independent evidence. Is there anything osur about a bonfire on Lag Ba'Omer, or waiting to give a son a haircut until he is 3 or until you go to Meron? Certainly not. As I believe R. SBA has noted, the opsheren provides an excuse for a party that is connected with the boy's beginning to learn; it could be done without the haircut, but if people feel that it is important to give a haircut as well, there is no issur. Certainly no one who lights bonfires or celebrates opsheren has any idea that the source of these customs is extremely questionable. And after 130 years most Jews forget the origin of customs anyway and just assume they are old Jewish customs.. However, those who studiously avoid eating turkey on Thanksgiving should know that the origin of the customs of the bonfire on Lag ba'Omer and halaqa/opsheren are much more suspect. Seth Mandel ---------- So I really do not understand this entire affair at Meron. To add to this see the pictures of Lag B'Omer from many years ago at http://tinyurl.com/khmhcz4 I do not see even one bonfire! YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:07:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 13:07:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 10:01:44AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown : which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. : The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire : 33rd day... : Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last : day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva... Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. Yes, many of us know that the PEC really says Lag baOmer is yom simchas Rashbi, which may or may not be his yahrzeit. "Yom shemeis" is a typo that reached later editions via a dropped ches. See http://seforim.blogspot.com/2011/05/printing-mistake-and-mysterious-origins.html But (as per previous conversations), that also doesn't rule out the possibility that the day of Rashbi's joy is his yahrzeit. But even if the Ari said it's the day he started the Zohar, finished it, left the cave, or whatever, it's still a day the Ari considered worth celebrating. And yes, many of us also know that the whole upsherin-at-the-qever thing was originally on the 43rd in/to the omer, at Nabi Samwel. (See shu"t haRadvaz 2:608.) Which makes sense -- Shemu'el was a nazir, and he lived in the BHMQ starting at age 3. The move to Meron and Lag baOmer happened when the Ottomans restricted access to the qever in the 1500s. The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) and ABD. But the version of the minhag he recorded would not pose the question -- observe the first "half" of the omer, and then a haircut a week before Shavuos isn't a problem. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:07:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 13:07:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 10:01:44AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown : which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. : The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire : 33rd day... : Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last : day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva... Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. Yes, many of us know that the PEC really says Lag baOmer is yom simchas Rashbi, which may or may not be his yahrzeit. "Yom shemeis" is a typo that reached later editions via a dropped ches. See http://seforim.blogspot.com/2011/05/printing-mistake-and-mysterious-origins.html But (as per previous conversations), that also doesn't rule out the possibility that the day of Rashbi's joy is his yahrzeit. But even if the Ari said it's the day he started the Zohar, finished it, left the cave, or whatever, it's still a day the Ari considered worth celebrating. And yes, many of us also know that the whole upsherin-at-the-qever thing was originally on the 43rd in/to the omer, at Nabi Samwel. (See shu"t haRadvaz 2:608.) Which makes sense -- Shemu'el was a nazir, and he lived in the BHMQ starting at age 3. The move to Meron and Lag baOmer happened when the Ottomans restricted access to the qever in the 1500s. The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) and ABD. But the version of the minhag he recorded would not pose the question -- observe the first "half" of the omer, and then a haircut a week before Shavuos isn't a problem. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 08:22:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 11:22:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554B8340.3090001@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 10:01 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > > > The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire 33rd day, and they wait until the 34th day to take a haircut. Does this not imply that the entire 33rd day is part of Sefirah and the restrictions hold the entire 33rd day? > > Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva. However, the micktzas starts in the morning of the 7th day, not on the night of the 7th day. Thus, even according to Ashkenazim the night of Lag B'Omer is bound by the restrictions of Sefirah. So how can they make such gatherings on the night of the 33rd day? That all applies if you regard Lag Ba'omer as simply marking the end of mourning. But as we discussed a few weeks ago, that doesn't really make sense. According to both shitos quoted by the BY there is no such thing as Lag Ba'omer -- the last day on which they died was either the 34th of the Omer or the 49th. Even according to the Tosfos as the Bach quotes it, that they only died for 33 days, Lag Ba'omer was one of the 33, and not the last one! And even if one will find a shita somewhere that they died only on the first 33 days, who makes a party on the last day of shiva? You stop active mourning, you don't go dancing! All of which points to the fact that Lag Ba'omer is *not* about the end of mourning, but a happy day in its own right, the simcha of Rashbi. (The silly discussion over whether the word is "simchas" or "shemeis" is irrelevant here. Either way it's his simcha, which he asked people to celebrate.) This simcha *overrides* the mourning of sefira, no matter which shita one follows. This way of looking at things also explains whether one should say tachanun at mincha of erev Lag Ba'omer. If it's just "the end of shiva", that starts in the morning, so one should say tachanun at the previous mincha, just as one does on erev Pesach Sheni (which also starts in the morning), erev Erev RH and erev Erev YK, and if we said tachanun in Nissan we would also say it at mincha of erev Erev Pesach, because it too starts in the morning. But once we regard Lag Ba'omer as a day of simcha in its own right, then it starts at night, and so we omit tachanun in the previous mincha. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 07:19:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 09:19:59 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] The Princess and I: Academic Kabbalists/Kabbalist Academics In-Reply-To: <20150507062523.18EF01826EC@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507062523.18EF01826EC@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554B748F.8080508@starways.net> On 5/7/2015 1:25 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > From http://tinyurl.com/km8kf2n >> The last few decades have witnessed the veritable explosion of "new >> perspectives" and horizons in the academic study of Kabbalah and >> Jewish Mysticism. From the pioneering work of the late Professor >> Gershom Scholem, and the establishment of the study of Jewish >> Mysticism as a legitimate scholarly pursuit, we witness a scene >> nowadays populated by men and women, Jews and non-Jews, who have >> challenged, (re)constructed, and expanded upon Scholem's work.[2] ... R' Adin Steinsalz once said about the Kabbalah Center type of Kabbalah that it bore the same relationship to real Kabbalah that pornography does to love. This "academic Kabbalah" bears the same relationship to real Kabbalah that an anatomy book does to love. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:32:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 13:32:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> At 01:07 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 10:01:44AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: >: I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown >: which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. > >: The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire >: 33rd day... >: Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last >: day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva... > >Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to >get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would >mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. Indeed, I think one should be. Truth be told my mother, A"H, told me that once a child is at least one year old and can say a few words, then his hair gets cut. This is what I did with my sons, and I am sure it is an old minhag. >Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the >Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning >on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in >the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke >qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to >last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. Indeed, this is where the New Religion is coming from. Years ago someone asked Rav S. Schwab, ZT"L, about certain things that certain chassidishe women do when they are pregnant and if they were valid. His forceful reply was, "My mother never knew about such things, my grandmother never knew about such things, and my great grandmother never knew about such things. These people are making up a religion!!!!!" I am not comfortable with people making up a religion, particularly since RSRH says definitively the Judaism is not a religion, to the New Religion is not Judaism by definition. >The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, >who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where >he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) >and ABD. But the version of the minhag he recorded would not pose the >question -- observe the first "half" of the omer, and then a haircut a >week before Shavuos isn't a problem. The MB points out that the minhag in Vilna was to start the restrictions of Sefirah on the first day of Rosh Chodesh Iyar and then they end in the morning of the first of the 3 days before Shavuous. I took a haircut shortly before Rosh Chodesh Iyar. There were no crowds to contend with and I had no waiting. This morning I trimmed my mustache and the hair that grows under my neck below my beard at shortly after sunrise. I will take a haircut on 3 or 4 Sivan. Again, there will be no crowds to contend with. This has worked and continues to work for me. YL PS. My wife has asked more than once, " How can they observe the aveilus restrictions of Sefirah during Pesach when it is a Yom Tov?" My reply is, "I do not know." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 13:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507175311.GC1758@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 01:32:05PM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : >Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to : >get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would : >mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. : Indeed, I think one should be. Maqor? Since when do we expect 3 yr olds to conform to minhag? ... : >Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the : >Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning : >on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in : >the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke : >qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to : >last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. : : Indeed, this is where the New Religion is coming from.... The PEC is older than RSRH. If you want to label any particular change as a "New Religion", you dwell in a glass house. ... : The MB points out that the minhag in Vilna was to start the : restrictions of Sefirah on the first day of Rosh Chodesh Iyar and : then they end in the morning of the first of the 3 days before : Shavuous. I took a haircut shortly before Rosh Chodesh Iyar. There : were no crowds to contend with and I had no waiting. And the Radbaz predates the SA, never mind the MB. : This has worked and continues to work for me... Good. What I'm objecting to is your insistnce in telling others that what works for them is "New Religion". : PS. My wife has asked more than once, " How can they observe the : aveilus restrictions of Sefirah during Pesach when it is a Yom Tov?" : My reply is, "I do not know." You can't get married on Pesach, not even ch"m either. Nor get a haircut. So you're asking about parties with live music. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:49:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 13:49:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <554BA59A.5040905@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 01:07 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, > who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where > he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) Who taught the Ari, who cut his son's hair at Meron on Lag Ba'omer. Does anyone know whether the Shita Mekubetzes, beside being the Ari's rebbe, was also related to him? I haven't seen this anywhere, but how many Ashkenazi families could there have been in Egypt at that time? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 11:41:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Herbert Basser via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 18:41:42 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah Message-ID: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> A recent post claims the Islamic "opsherin" was called "halaqah". What is the evidence for this claim? The only meaning of arabic "halaqah" I know is "learning circle". Zvi Basser -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 14:31:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 17:31:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Upsherin Message-ID: <20150507213225.D3EDA181A25@nexus.stevens.edu> Since Upsherin is done on Lag B'Omer at Meron, I think one should understand the source for this too. The following is from Shorshei Minhag Ashkenaz, Minhag Ashkenaz: Sources and Roots by Rabbi Binyamin Shlomo Hamburger, Synopsis of Volumes I-IV. YL The German custom to bring a young boy to the synagogue with a wirnpel (wrapping for t he Torah scroll) has no connection whatsoever to the practice of the chalaka (the Arabic term for Upsherin) observed by Sepharadirn and later ad opted by many Chasidirn. Th e custom of holding a special celebration marking the boy's first haircut developed among these groups. The celebration takes place at a specific age, usually three. Th e festivity is customarily held near the gravesite of a tzadik or in a synagogue. *This custom was unknown in ancient Sephardic and Ashkenazic communities.* (Emphasis added by me.) The earliest reports of the chalaka [upsherin] celebration are found in accounts written by Sepharadim early in the period of the Acharonim. Some three centuries later, we find the first indications that the custom had made its way into Chasidic circles. The most important source concerning the chalaka is the account of the celebration in which the Ari-zal is involved. The details of this story are somewhat vague, and it is unclear whether the Ari-zal made a chalaka for his son, or whether the account refers to his disciple, Rabbi Yonatan Sagish. There is also some question as to whether the Ari-zal participated in Lag Ba 'omer events in Meron after his kabalistic insights because the custom to conduct a chalaka on Lag Ba 'omer runs in opposition to the Ari-zal' s final ruling that forbade hair cutting during the orner period. Furthermore, the custom of the chalaka has given rise to some questions as to the propriety of hair cutting at a gravesite or synagogue, which might constitute an infringement upon the sanctity of the site. Some have also questioned the permissibility of haircutting on Lag Ba 'omer, during bein ha-rnetzarirn (the three weeks before Tisha B' A v) or during Chol Ha 'rno 'ed. Yet another concern was the immodest behavior that occasionally accompanied this event. Most Sephardic and Chasidic rabbis applauded, or at least defended the practices observed in their circles, though there were those who forbade the custom in this manner. Rabbi Yitzchak Zev Soloveitchik of Brisk (1889-1960) disapproved of bringing children to rabbis on their third birthday for the chalaka, claiming that this practice "has no reason or basis." He noted that there are sources indicating that one should introduce the child to matters of Torah at the age of three, but none that involve haircutting. Rabbi Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky [the "Steipler Ga'on," (1899-1985)] also opposed this practice, and would send away parents who brought their children to him for the chalaka haircut. The tendency among Ashkenazi communities to refrain from this practice stems, according to one view, from the concern that the chalaka transgresses the prohibition of imitating pagan practices. Cutting a child's hair at the age of three was a well-known custom among several nations in ancient times, and thus observing this practice may constitute an imitation of pagan ritual. Some, however, dismissed this argument, claiming that to the contrary, the chalaka perhaps began as an ancient Jewish practice which was later adopted by the gentiles. There are some older customs, originating in the times of Chazal and the Ge'onim, such as fasting on Erev Rosh Hashana and the ceremony of Kapaprot on Erev Yom Kippur which were opposed by some rabbis since they feared that their origins could be found in pagan rites. In any event, although some communities accepted this custom, Ashkenazi communities were never aware of such a practice. They did not receive this tradition from their forebears, and they found no mention of it in the writings of the Rishonim. The ancient tradition among Ashkenazi communities was to cut a boy's hair at a very young age. In fact, during the times of Chazal, parents would cut an infant's hair not long after birth, and they even permitted cutting a baby's overgrown hair on Chol Ha 'mo' ed. In the times of the Rishonim, too, boys' hair in Ashkenaz was cut already within the first several months after birth. The phenomenon of children with overgrown hair simply did not exist in Germany, and a boy with overgrown hair would have been mistaken for a girl. The custom of chalaka was never accepted in Ashkenazic countries or other regions in Western Europe, not even among the Sephardic communities in these areas. The practice earned acceptance in Eastern Europe among certain Chasidic circles, but only in later generations. Among other circles, boys' hair was cut when they began speaking, and no special affair was held to celebrate the event. .. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 14:31:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 17:31:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554BD9C6.9000803@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 01:32 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > > Indeed, this is where the New Religion is coming from. Years ago > someone asked Rav S. Schwab, ZT"L, about certain things that certain > chassidishe women do when they are pregnant and if they were valid. > His forceful reply was, "My mother never knew about such things, my > grandmother never knew about such things, and my great grandmother > never knew about such things. These people are making up a religion!!!!!" With all due respect to R Schwab's great-grandmother, there are more things in Yiddishkeit than were dreamt of in her philosophy. My great-grandmother did know about such things, and I'm sure her tzidkus and wisdom was no less than hers. And following the Ari's teachings is the very opposite of making up a religion. > I am not comfortable with people making up a religion, particularly > since RSRH says definitively the Judaism is not a religion, to the > New Religion is not Judaism by definition. You're the one assigning to it the word "religion", and then, in what can only be called an act of verbal ju-jitsu, you pull out a definition of that word which (you claim) does not fit Yiddishkeit, and declare that anything called a "religion" must not be Yiddishkeit. I might as well say that since my aunt is a secretary, a secretary is a kind of desk, and Jesus was a carpenter, therefore Jesus made my aunt! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 14:10:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 17:10:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> At 01:07 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. But doesn't "evolving" mean that there is an existing minhag, and it evolves? Here we are talking about a new minhag which no one knew about. The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was appropriate. People certainly can make up new customs whenever they like. But bonfires on Lag Ba'omer are no more or no less than parades on Yom haAtzmaut for those who celebrate it: They have nothing to do with religion. Some Jews have even invented a custom to put up a tree on Chanukkah. But do not try to tell us it then becomes a "religious minhag" and "minhag Hamokom." Everything that Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel wrote in his post is true. There were no rabbonim at the time who approved of the custom. Indeed it is true is that there were no rabbonim who approved of the custom at the time, nor at the time of the Ari and R. Chaim Vital. While they did not say it should be stopped, they gave no support either. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 15:42:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 18:42:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507224237.GA15428@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 05:10:31PM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : At 01:07 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: :> Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. : But doesn't "evolving" mean that there is an existing minhag, and it : evolves? ... The essence of mourning during the omer is not making a wedding, since nissuin, or a se'udas eirusin at the time of eirusin, is the act of simchah par exellance. Then the bit about haircuts crept in, and later, parties with music. Perhaps music as a whole, perhaps instrumental music, perhaps only parties -- machloqes acharonim. That's the minhag I'm talking about evolving. So, people found reason to poke a hole in a minhag that was otherwise growing. As I said, minhagim evolve. : The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was : appropriate. What? The Ari PARTICIPATED in it himself! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 16:39:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 19:39:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Upsherin In-Reply-To: <20150507213225.D3EDA181A25@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507213225.D3EDA181A25@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554BF7A0.10800@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 05:31 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > The earliest reports of the chalaka [upsherin] celebration are found in >accounts written by Sepharadim early in the period of the Acharonim. Indeed it is. For instance, see Gan Hamelech ch 62. http://www.otzar.org/wotzar/book.aspx?64092 This takes it back to at least the 17th century, and he refers to it as a well-known minhag that he doesn't have to explain. The Gan Hamelech is surely himself sufficient authority even if we had no other. And while he was Sefardi, he had a great influence on Ashkenazi psak. > The most important source concerning the chalaka is the account of > the celebration in which the Ari-zal is involved. The details of this > story are somewhat vague, and it is unclear whether the Ari-zal made > a chalaka for his son, or whether the account refers to his disciple, > Rabbi Yonatan Sagish. There is nothing vague about it. It's clear from the context that R Yonatan told R Chaim what the Ari had done a year before he, R Chaim, became the Ari's talmid. > Some have also questioned the permissibility of haircutting on Lag > Ba'omer, during bein ha-metzarirn or during Chol Hamo'ed. Gan Hamelech not only permits it on Chol Hamoed but even permits *delaying* it to Chol Hamoed so as to increase the simcha! And this psak is quoted lehalacha by the Baer Hetev. > The custom of /chalaka /was never accepted in /Ashkenazic /countries or > other regions in Western Europe, not even among the /Sephardic > /communities in these areas. The practice earned acceptance in Eastern > Europe among certain /Chasidic /circles, but only in later generations. This is untrue. It was already accepted in the Baal Shem Tov's time. The only time the Alter Rebbe saw the Baal Shem Tov was on his third birthday, when his parents brought him to have his hair cut. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 16:45:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 19:45:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554BF921.5070409@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 05:10 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was appropriate. On the contrary, he wrote that he personally saw the Ari take his whole family there and stay three days! > There were no rabbonim at the time who approved of the custom. The Ari was not a rov?! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 21:35:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 04:35:03 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Israeli carrots and peppers Message-ID: <20150508.003503.13248.1@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> Om Areivim, R' Yitzchok Levine posted this alert: > Shemitta: Carrots & Peppers from Israel > in Neighborhood Stores > > Please be aware that carrots (including Dorot Farms brand), > peppers, and other vegetables from Israel are consistently > being sold in the Baltimore area at produce markets in our > neighborhood, which are frequented by members of our community. > From the numerous inquiries we have received, it is apparent > that many consumers are unaware of this when shopping. > > The packages or labels state "Product of Israel." These > vegetables likely have Kedushas Shviis and require special > care. If you bought them, contact your local Orthodox rabbi > for further guidance. > > Seven Mile Market in Baltimore is monitored by Star-K and > produce sold there does not have this issue. My question is this: Why does the alert mention only the problem of Kedushas Shviis? If one is concerned about Kedushas Shviis, wouldn't he also be concerned about Sefichin, which (more than merely requiring "special care") is an issur achila? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554c3d3271e3c3d3240a3st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 21:11:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 04:11:14 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Meron live Message-ID: <20150508.001114.13248.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero wrote: > This way of looking at things also explains whether one should > say tachanun at mincha of erev Lag Ba'omer. If it's just "the > end of shiva", that starts in the morning, so one should say > tachanun at the previous mincha, just as one does on erev Pesach > Sheni (which also starts in the morning), erev Erev RH and erev > Erev YK, and if we said tachanun in Nissan we would also say it > at mincha of erev Erev Pesach, because it too starts in the > morning. But once we regard Lag Ba'omer as a day of simcha in > its own right, then it starts at night, and so we omit tachanun > in the previous mincha. I don't follow any of what RZS is saying about Lag Ba'omer, so I'll neither agree nor disagree. But my understanding of the nature of Pesach Sheni is very different from his: As it was explained to me, there's nothing special about the morning of Pesach Sheni. Pesach Sheni exists only on the afternoon of 14 Iyar and the following night. We omit Tachanun on the morning of 14 Iyar NOT because it is a holiday, but because it is the Tachanun *before* the holiday. Alternatively, one might say that the morning of 14 Iyar actually *is* Erev Pesach Sheni. Either way, the afternoon of 13 Iyar is too far removed to be significant enough to warrant skipping Tachanun. It is similar to how the *afternoon* of Erev RH and Erev YK are special enough to skip Tachanun, and this is extended even to the morning, but to say that the entirety of those days are so special that we would skip Tachanun even at the preceding Mincha -- No, that just doesn't fly. This leaves us with three days, at most, when we skip Tachanun at Shacharis, but we *do* say it at the preceding Mincha. (And many siddurim - ArtScroll, for example - explicitly list these three days as exceptions to the general rule.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554c37b79791d37b756e9st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 01:40:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 04:40:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507224237.GA15428@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507224237.GA15428@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150508084208.2D02F182131@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:42 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: > The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was >: appropriate. > >What? The Ari PARTICIPATED in it himself! From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upsherin Rabbi Chaim Vital wrote in Sha'ar Ha-Kavanot that "Isaac Luria, cut his son's hair on Lag BaOmer, according to the well-known custom." However, the age of his son is not mentioned. An obvious problem raised by Avraham Yaari, in an article in Tarbiz 22 (1951), is that many sources cite that the Arizal held one should not cut one's hair for the entire sefirah ? including Lag BaOmer, (see Shaarei Teshuva, O.C. 493, 8). YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 01:44:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 04:44:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Better Version of Upsherin Message-ID: <20150508084606.6189F180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> There were some editorial problems with what I sent out earlier about this topic from Shorshei Minhag Ashkenaz. See http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/shorshei_hair_cutting.pdf for a better version. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 21:02:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 06:02:54 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah In-Reply-To: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> References: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> Message-ID: <554C356E.2030103@zahav.net.il> On 5/7/2015 8:41 PM, Herbert Basser via Avodah wrote: > A recent post claims the Islamic "opsherin" was called "halaqah". What > is the evidence for this claim? The only meaning of arabic "halaqah" I > know is "learning circle". A (Tunisian) Arab told me that it means hair cut. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 01:54:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 04:54:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening in a Large or Small Shul Message-ID: <20150508085532.23F97182131@nexus.stevens.edu> From today's http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ 1)It is a Mitzvah to daven in a Shul that has a large amount of people, as the Pasuk (Mishlei 14:28) says "Brov Am Hadras Melech - with a large assemblage the glory of the King [Hashem] is multiplied." (See Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) 2)There are various exceptions to this rule, and certain times it is deemed Halachically superior to daven in a smaller place and forego the "Brov Am Hadras Melech". A few examples of the many such exceptions: a)Davening in a Bais HaMidrash or Yeshiva , where people learn Torah all [or a large part of the] day (even if you yourself do not learn there) is better than davening in a Shul (i.e. Bais Hakneses that is used only for Tefilah), even if there are more people in the Shul than in the Bais HaMidrash. (See Talmud Brachos 8a. See Chayei Adam Klal 17:1 and Mishna Berura Siman 90 S:K 55) b)If one is on the way to a big Shul, and is stopped by someone and asked to be the tenth man [or any part of the 10] in their Minyan (either in a shiva house, or a smaller Shul whose members cannot go to the larger Shul due to their health or age, or any similar situation) he should stay with them and not refuse based on "Brov Am Hadras Melech" (Psak of Maran Harav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv Zatzal, quoted in Sefer Tefilah K'Hilchasa Perek 2 footnote 29, who maintains that doing a Chesed is just as big a Mitzvah, if not bigger, than fulfilling "Brov Am Hadras Melech") c) If one can concentrate and daven better in a smaller Shul he should daven there, rather than in a bigger Shul where he may not daven as well. (Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) The Aruch Hashulchan (Siman 90:15) rules that if in the larger Shul there are people who talk and converse during the Tefilah (which is a terrible sin, as we have discussed many times, and will iy"H discuss again more thoroughly in the near future), it is better to daven in a small Shul where it is quiet and the proper respect for Tefilah is exhibited. (The Sefer Tefilah K'Hilchasa Perek 2 footnote 28 writes that Rav Shlomo Zalmen Auerbach Zatzal even went so far as to Pasken that if by leaving the Shul with the talking you will end up missing Krias HaTorah or having to leave davening early, one should still avoid the Shul with the talking!) d) Naturally, if by davening in the larger Shul one will miss the proper time for davening (Zman Tefilah), he may daven in an earlier Minyan or Shul even if it is significantly smaller. (See Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) ---------- I think that today there is a move away from davening in large shuls. This is certainly true here in Brooklyn where many of the larger shuls are at times struggling to maintain their congregants. Part of it has to do with the fact that most large shuls daven Ashkenaz, and this is not viewed favorably in Brooklyn. I personally prefer to daven in a minyan consisting of between 20 and forty people. It is much easier to maintain decorum in such a minyan than in a shul where 100 or more people are davening. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 05:14:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 12:14:58 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Davening in a Large or Small Shul In-Reply-To: <20150508085532.23F97182131@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150508085532.23F97182131@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <5f05607383324977a92361bd65ab804c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> From today's http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ 1)It is a Mitzvah to daven in a Shul that has a large amount of people, as the Pasuk (Mishlei 14:28) says "Brov Am Hadras Melech - with a large assemblage the glory of the King [Hashem] is multiplied." (See Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) 2)There are various exceptions to this rule, and certain times it is deemed Halachically superior to daven in a smaller place and forego the "Brov Am Hadras Melech". A few examples of the many such exceptions:....................... ================================================ I wonder if this write up is indicative of a trend seen in "The halachos of X" works, likutim which seem to have become more popular (did they exist 40 years ago?). As Rav Aharon Lichtenstein learned at Harvard, life is complex. Of course there are overarching priorities which need to be learned, but specific applications are hard to summarize in an algorithmic form (see hilchot lashon hara and tzedaka for some obvious examples). Maybe in an internet age we have no choice but to try to put everything on line but what you really need IMHO is a live mentor. KT Joel RIch THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 08:21:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 11:21:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] minhagei S'fira (was "Meron live") Message-ID: In Avodah V33n74, R'Micha replied to RDrYL: : PS. My wife has asked more than once, " How can they observe the : aveilus restrictions of Sefirah during Pesach when it is a Yom Tov?" : My reply is, "I do not know." > You can't get married on Pesach, not even ch"m either. Nor get a haircut. So you're asking about parties with live music. < If one is asking about *minhagei aveilus* during the "first days", one can also ask about the "second days" custom to observe *minhagei aveilus* whenever Tachanun is said, as the number of such days does not come close to 33 and one has to include Shabbos as well as either R'Ch'Iyyar or the *shloshes y'mei hagbala* (all days when Tachanun is _not_ said) in the number. All the best from *Michael Poppers* * Elizabeth, NJ, USA -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 11:39:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 14:39:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] minhagei S'fira (was "Meron live") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150508183940.GA11944@aishdas.org> On Fri, May 08, 2015 at 11:21:28AM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : If one is asking about *minhagei aveilus* during the "first days", one can : also ask about the "second days" custom to observe *minhagei aveilus* whenever : Tachanun is said... Which makes it a good time to remind people of my tweak of RAM's survey of 11 different shitos (12, if we include one that isn't followed) of omer mourning periods It's an interesting side-note that two opinions do not include the night of Lag baOmer. But neither end then. :-)BBii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 11:58:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 14:58:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] minhagei S'fira (was "Meron live") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <554D0756.4070105@sero.name> On 05/08/2015 11:21 AM, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: > If one is asking about /minhagei aveilus/ during the "first days", > one can also ask about the "second days" custom to observe /minhagei > aveilus/ whenever Tachanun is said, as the number of such days does > not come close to 33 and one has to include Shabbos as well as either > R'Ch'Iyyar or the /shloshes y'mei hagbala/ (all days when Tachanun is > _not_ said) in the number. Whose custom is that? This sounds like the shita of Tosfos as quoted by Mahari ibn Shuaib, which is that they died all 49 days, but we observe aveilus only on those days when we don't say *techina*, which comes to exactly 33 days (including Lag Ba'omer, which according to this shita is not a special day at all). -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 9 03:38:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Sat, 9 May 2015 20:38:40 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Upsherin Message-ID: > > R' Levin wrote: The German custom to bring a young boy to the synagogue > with a wimpel > (wrapping for the Torah scroll) has no connection whatsoever to the > practice of the chalaka [...] > This is the way KAJ recommends This the way KAJ recommends Not with the bangs but a wimpel. Joe Slater -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 9 05:12:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sat, 9 May 2015 22:12:16 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <418AFCD6-9213-453C-A268-58AFB75BB81A@balb.in> I didn't know my family Minhag until I chanced on a picture before the war with my grandfather and two of his sons, both with long hair. Using the mimetic tradition my sons and grandsons had an upsherin. It's interesting that mention was made of The Griz. As is well known followers of the Vilna Gaon (including Mori VRabbi Rav Hershel Schachter) don't go to the Beis HaChaim and neither did Rav YD Soloveitchik until in his words he felt compelled to visit his wife's Tziyun. How many know that the Griz asked some Talmidim to go to the Rashbi's grave and pray when the Griz was on his death bed? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 9 12:23:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 9 May 2015 22:23:58 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar Message-ID: The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article They show how Seder Olam is self consistent and in particular it frequently takes people in Tanach whom seem to be different and conflates them. In sefer shoftim they take everything literally that each judge was for 40 years and no gaps between them etc. They then address the difference between the secular and seder olam dates. They also point out the difficulty in the sefer Isuah from chapter 39 onwards (Deutero-Isaiah) 1) the sudden change from rebuke and sestruction to comfort (many years before the destruction) 2) Koresh is listed explicitly twice while prophecy tends to be general 3) Yeshayahu is mention 15 times in the first part but never is mentioned in the second part They conclude that the secular dates are correct (as an aside archaeologists decide on these dates based on astronomical events and carbon 14 dating of pollen seeds which are short lived) They then explain seder olam dating 1) seder olam was not written as a historical text but has a moral side 2) seder olam ignores periods of time when nothing of Jewish importance occurs In particular the Persian era until Shimon Hagadol did not live up to the expectations. Hence, the prophecy of Isaiah-II (name unknown) was simply added to an existing sefer 3) as with its practice conflates Darius I with Darius III. 4) The new Greek calendar (shtarot) was exactly 1000 years after the exodus. In order to achieve this goal parts of the Persian history had to be changed including the order of some kings, again conflating several separate Persian kings which leads to a much shortened Persian kingdom. Finally it removes 6 years from Alexander the great (ie seder olam states Alexander ruled for 6 years in Greece and 6 years in Persia) See above article for more details -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 10 16:49:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 May 2015 18:49:22 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <554FEE82.8090903@starways.net> I think this is tragic. Rather than allow the blasphemous thought that the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their minds, they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple frauds and told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern Orthodox Jews have regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic. Lisa On 5/9/2015 2:23 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a > series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar > > http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see > achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article > > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 10 17:27:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 May 2015 20:27:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <554FF779.8010200@aishdas.org> I cannot believe TABC allowed this to be published as is. /Shreklach!/ KT, YGB On 05/09/2015 03:23 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a > series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar > > http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see > achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 02:19:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 12:19:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebre calendar Message-ID: <> I don't see how you can call this "blasphemous" R. Schwab once suggested that Chazal purposely changed the facts for a good reason. While he later retracted it would be hard to call his original opinion "blasphemous" . Furthermore several current Orthodox rabbis such as R. Leibtag do accept the secular dating. In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some examples 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu As a curios it makes Eliyahu some 700 years old when he runs in front of Achav's chariot. It gives a different meaning to Achav's accusations against Eliyahu when Eliyahu actually worked together with Moshe Rabbenu. Besiades the fact that Eliyahu was from Gilad and worked in the northern kingdom it leaves the halachic question whether a cohen gadol can resign and even leave the land of Israel for various tasks. It is clear from Tanach that Eli and other were the high priest in later generations 2) Ezta = Malachi because both dealt with the problem of foreign wives 3) Nechemia = Zerubavel R. Yaakov Embden already points out that both are mentioned in the same pasuk 4) Daniel = Hatach = Sashvezer Ibn Ezra already doesnt accept this 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta This is part of the missing years controversy. Note that there are several ancient Persian inscriptions that list them as separate kings Note that Ibn Ezra identifies Achashverosh as Artachashasta 6) Conflates Kaleb ben Chetron married to Efrat with Kalen ben Yefuneh married to Miriam Ibn Ezra disagrees and also see the Gra -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 10 23:38:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 09:38:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah In-Reply-To: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> References: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> Message-ID: On Thu, May 7, 2015 at 9:41 PM, Herbert Basser via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > A recent post claims the Islamic "opsherin" was called "halaqah". What > is the evidence for this claim? The only meaning of arabic "halaqah" I know > is "learning circle". > Disclaimer: my knowledge of Arabic doesn't go much beyond being able to look up words in the dictionary, but from doing that the root h-l-q seems to mean both "shave", "form a circle" and "round off". This makes sense to me: after all, "lehakkif" in Biblical Hebrew has the same semantic range. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 03:06:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 06:06:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] He is my G-d Message-ID: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> From Today's Hakhel email bulletin. Hakhel Note: The following is excerpted from Rav Schwab on Prayer, and was related by Rav Schwab at a Shiur he gave on Tefillah: I heard a story from Rav Yosef Breuer, Shlita, which he told about his father, my Rebbe, Rav Shlomo Zalman (Solomon) Breuer. The elder Rav Breuer was a very good friend of Rav Shimon Sofer, the Rav of Cracow, a brother of the Ksav Sofer, and a son of the Chasam Sofer. Once when the two friends met, Rav Shimon Sofer asked Rav Breuer to tell him a short ?vort" from his father-in-law, Rav Shamshon R. Hirsch. Upon which, Rav Breuer told him that Rav Hirsch would point out that while Adon Olam described the unfathomable eternity and omnipotence of Hashem, it nevertheless makes a reference to Him in a very personal way--VeHu Kaili, He is my G-d. Each person in his Tefillah says: I have a personal relationship with HaKadosh Baruch HU, He is my personal G-d. Therefore, whenever a person says the word Ado--i, my Master, no matter how small he thinks he is, he is averring that he is in direct contact with Hashem. This thought is in the introduction to any individual's Iyun Tefillah, concentration on Prayer. There is nothing mystical or supernatural about it. It should be the most natural thing in the world. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 06:38:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 13:38:51 GMT Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebre calendar Message-ID: <20150511.093851.15442.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel wrote: > In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that > Chazal had a tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some > examples > 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu I rarely, if ever, come across the word "conflate", except here on Avodah. When it is used here, it seems to be pejorative, indicating that someone confused or merged two things that really ought to stay distinct. RET, is that what you mean here? Do you feel that it was wrong for Chazal to associate Pinchas and Eliyahu in the way that they did? Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5550b1061639931057a29st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 07:16:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joseph Kaplan via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 10:16:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar Message-ID: <002a01d08bf5$1a951290$4fbf37b0$@tenzerlunin.com> On 5/9/2015 2:23 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a > series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar > > http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see > achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article > There were (so far) two responses: "I think this is tragic. Rather than allow the blasphemous thought that the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their minds, they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple frauds and told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern Orthodox Jews have regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic." "I cannot believe TABC allowed this to be published as is. /Shreklach!/" When I read this when it came out I remember thinking: what a refreshing concept. Letting students use the educational tools they have been given to think on their own and then to publish the results which (to my extremely non-expert eyes) appears to be a nice bit of research and analysis - whether correct or not. Joseph -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 07:30:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 09:30:18 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebre calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> On 5/11/2015 4:19 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > < that the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their > minds, they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple > frauds and told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern > Orthodox Jews have regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic.>> > > I don't see how you can call this "blasphemous" R. Schwab once > suggested that Chazal purposely changed the facts for a good reason. > While he later retracted it would be hard to call his original opinion > "blasphemous" . Furthermore several current Orthodox rabbis such as R. > Leibtag do accept the secular dating. I didn't call it blasphemous. I referred to doubting secular scholarship as blasphemy, tongue in cheek, because that seems to be the way it's viewed by some of the secular thinking Modern Orthodox. R' Schwab once wrote a thought experiment, which was one huge hava amina. What if, he said, we were faced with absolute proof that the historiography of Chazal was wrong? And he gave an idea. He was horrified by the way in which the secular thinking Modern Orthodox misread what he wrote as an actual position, opposing the veracity of Chazal, and wrote, not a retraction, but a clarification that he had *never* espoused the position that was being attributed to him. If R' Leibtag accepts the secular dating, then my comments about the tragedy of Modern Orthodox Jews bowing to the modern idol of secular scholarship apply there as well. > In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a > tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some examples > > 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu > As a curios it makes Eliyahu some 700 years old when he runs in front > of Achav's chariot. > It gives a different meaning to Achav's accusations against Eliyahu > when Eliyahu actually worked together with Moshe Rabbenu. Wrong again. There's no historiography going on here. No chronological framework of any kind. It's Midrash. Like Moshe Rabbenu jumping 10 amot into the air when fighting Og. Like Pharaoh's daughter having a stretchy, Fantastic Four kind of arm. Midrashim are all true. They aren't all true in the literal sense. Pinchas was not literally Aharon's grandson Pinchas ben Elazar. That's quite different from throwing away the entirety of Chazal's historiography, which is internally consistent all the way through, and which *Chazal clearly believed to be literally true*. If you want to say they were wrong, that they were ignorant of the facts, go ahead and do so. But please, don't play games by imagining that they intentionally fudged the facts. > Besiades the fact that Eliyahu was from Gilad and worked in the > northern kingdom it leaves the halachic question whether a cohen gadol > can resign and even leave the land of Israel for various tasks. It is > clear from Tanach that Eli and other were the high priest in later > generations Again, he wasn't Kohen Gadol. No one holds that he was. Let me try and explain a little more about Midrash. Chazal bring Midrashim that contradict one another. For example, there's a Midrash that says Esther never slept with Achashveirosh. That Hashem sent a mal'ach that took her place. That conflicts with "Esther karka hayta", as well as with the Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son. None of this is problematic. Because the truth of Midrashim is not in their concretes. Like analogies, Midrashim are abstractions which are anchored with concretes, but are not defined by those concretes. > 2) Ezta = Malachi because both dealt with the problem of foreign wives And maybe Ezra was Malachi. And maybe he wasn't. I don't see much of a nafka mina either way. Do you? > 3) Nechemia = Zerubavel > R. Yaakov Embden already points out that both are mentioned in the > same pasuk Ditto. Not one single example you're bringing has anything to do with a massive chronological framework that Chazal clearly knew to be the way things happened. Megillat Esther took place *before* Bayit Sheni was built, and not after. Baruch ben Neriah was the talmid of Yirmiyahu and the rav of Ezra, and if you throw that away, you literally snap the chain of tradition from Sinai, rendering all of Judaism stuff and nonsense. > 4) Daniel = Hatach = Sashvezer > Ibn Ezra already doesnt accept this Again, l'mai nafka mina? > 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta > This is part of the missing years controversy. Note that there are > several ancient Persian inscriptions that list them as separate kings > Note that Ibn Ezra identifies Achashverosh as Artachashasta It's not part of the missing years anything. You need to read what Chazal say about that inside. As far as Achashveirosh being Artachshasta, Chazal say Artaxerxes was a throne name. And in fact, Greek sources say that both Artaxerxes II and III adopted it as a throne name. Furthermore, the Septuagint version of Esther refers to the king as Artaxerxes, so saying that Ahasuerus is Artaxerxes is a truism that has nothing to do with chronology. > 6) Conflates Kaleb ben Chetron married to Efrat > with Kalen ben Yefuneh married to Miriam > Ibn Ezra disagrees and also see the Gra I'll go further. R' Moshe Eisenmann's Divrei HaYamim for Artscroll (one of the few books in the Artscroll Tanakh series which I consider to be of inestimable value) has an entire section on the Kalevs. I highly recommend it. But again, Midrash is Midrash, and there's zero relevance here. Let me ask a simple question. Was Baruch ben Neriya Ezra's teacher? As Chazal say, and as Iggeret Rav Shrira Gaon and Rambam and others bring down. Or not? And if not, how do you feel about *not* having a chain of tradition going back to Sinai? Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 08:17:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 11:17:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: <20150511.093851.15442.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150511.093851.15442.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150511151732.GA15699@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 01:38:51PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I rarely, if ever, come across the word "conflate", except here on : Avodah. When it is used here, it seems to be pejorative, indicating that : someone confused or merged two things that really ought to stay distinct. I think that's my doing; I like the word. And yeah, it is merging two things that may be helpful in another context to keep distinct, but without being as pejorative as saying they confused them. If one assumes that Chazal's statements about the past are intended to be about how the past should have happened rather than caring about actual historicity, then their saying that Pinchas is Eliyahu is the identification of what Pinechas means to us with what Eliyahu means, and giving us a license to treat the two are a single symbol. With no intent to imply they were historically the same very-long-lived human being. I would also want a little more clarity from those who object to claims about missing years between levels of objection. Do you mean: 1- This isn't my derekh. 2- I cannot see this even as eilu va'eilu, it's simply false. 3- It is heretical. At least one of us used the latter language, and I don't see it. We have a definition of heresy, three definitions of three subtypes of heres, anyway (kofer, apiqreis, min). Is anyone actually intending to claim that it violates an iqar emunah to take Chazal's dating of events in the Galus Paras uMadai and early Bayis Sheini period as ahistorical, meant for some hashkafic reason? Or is it an epistomological thing? If you believe the academic community's interpretation of the evidence and will create new peshatim to fit in this case, you've bought into a system that would equally argue for kefirah? And for the two people who dismiss the Greek version of Persian history: What do you do with the astronomical state points thrown in that actually work? As RET noted last year, around Purim time, if you read Ezra and Nechemiah literally, ignoring Sefer Olam, it is more consistent with Greek historians than Chazal. I found he gave details in 1999 (v2n176) To quote: ... proofs for the secular history 1. external proofs A. The history of Herodotus (485-425 BCE) discusses in detail the lives of Cyrus, Cambyses,Darius and Xerxes and briefly Atraxerxes who was a contemporary of Herodutus. It is hard to conceive that he wrote about contedmporay figures or recent history who did not exist. Note that according to Chazal the Persians did not come into power until 350 BCE 75 years after the death of Herodutus !!! Thucydides (460-400 BCE) starts with Cyrus and goes through Darius II and the fights between Athens and Sparta and the Peloponnesian Wars. Again according to Seder Olam Rabbah there was no time for all these wars and so probably many of these Athenian and Spartan leaders did not exist. Ctesias (430-380) was a physician in the court of Artaxerxes and describes the 7 kings from Cyrus through Artaxerxes II. There are also later Greek historians who give the complete picture. Josephus also includes more kings than Chazal but not the entire Greek list. Moderchai Breuer in his history accepts the Greek dating. See Parker&Dubberstein, Babylonian Chronology for more details. Note: No modern historian claims that all facts in these histories are true. That is a far cry from stating that the entire history and not just certain details are fabrications and that all these kings never existed. B. Archaological evidence has uncovered many ancient Persian (cuneform) enscriptions (see for example The Persian Empire by J.M. Cook). For example one at the Persian palace in Persepolis says "I, Artaxerxes the son of Artaxerxes the son of Darius the son of Artaxerxes the son of Xerxes the son of Darius the son of Hystaspes" (Darius was not the son of Cambyses). Greek names have used for the original Persian names. There are other earlier enscriptions which are similar. These all conform to the Greek dating. C. There are letters from the Jewish community in Elephantine confirming the Greek position. D. I recently read of the history of the Assyrians. In their history they describe the reign of Sancherub and of a major eclipse of the sun during some battle. Astronomical calaculations confirm that the only full eclipse of the sun in that region occurred exactly during the dates of Sancherub according to the Greek chronology. 2. Internal Proofs A. Ezra 45,7 describes Koresh, Daryavesh, Achasverosh, Artachasta. These exactly parallel the Greek chronology with Achasversh=Xerxes. If one looks at the Persian writing rather than the Greek names then Xerxes is called khshayarsha which is close to Achashverosh (note Cambyses is left out probably because nothing of importance to Ezra occured during that reign). Note that Daat Mikrah on Ezra 4 assumes the secular dates. B. Nehemia 12:10 lists 6 High Priests, son after son, between Yehosua and Yadua. This is hard to explain if the whole period was on 52 years. It is even worse if one assumes that Shimon haTzaddik was the high Priest at the time of Alexander as that adds at least one more high Priest in the 52 years According to Ben Sira Shimon was the son of Johanan which would make of total of at least 8 high priests in 52 years all presumably sons of the previous one. C. Comparing Divrei Hayaim I: 3:19-24 with Ezra 8:2 and Nehemia 3:29 it seems that Ezra and Nehemis lived many years after Zerubbavel. Note: Daniel 11:2 seems more in line with chronology of Chazal. Second Note: According to Seder Olam Purim occured before the rebuilding of the second Temple while according to the secular chronology Achashverosh was the son of Darius and so the Temple was already in existence. According to Chazal, Daniel, Zerubavel, Ezra, Nehemia, Mordecai, Hagai, Zerchahiah and Malachi and even Shimon haTzaddik were basically contemporaries or within 1 to 2 generations of each other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 37th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Yesod: When does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 require one to be strict with another? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 06:52:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 09:52:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun on Pesach Sheni (was Meron Live) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150511135043.8781C182131@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:31 AM 5/11/2015, R. Akiva Miller wrote: >As it was explained to me, there's nothing special about the morning >of Pesach Sheni. Pesach Sheni exists only on the afternoon of 14 >Iyar and the following night. We omit Tachanun on the morning of 14 >Iyar NOT because it is a holiday, but because it is the Tachanun >*before* the holiday. Alternatively, one might say that the morning >of 14 Iyar actually *is* Erev Pesach Sheni. Either way, the >afternoon of 13 Iyar is too far removed to be significant enough to >warrant skipping Tachanun. From http://tinyurl.com/ln7le2m Some say Tachanun on Pesach Sheni (14 Iyar); some do not; some do not say Tachanun on 14 & 15 Iyar. What are the sources for these customs? Those who do say Tachanun probably do so because 14 Iyar is not listed as a day where Tachanun was customarily omitted by the Tur, anyone quoted in the Beit Yosef or Bach, by the Shulchan Aruch and its Mapah, the Levush, the Eliya Rabba, the Taz, the Magen Avraham, the Beiur haGra, the Chayei Adam, the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, the Mishna Berura and others. The Aruch haShulchan notes the custom of omitting Tachanun as foreign to Ashkenaz and deems it a 'wonder' (Pelah ). And from http://www.dinonline.org/2010/04/27/tachanun-on-erev-pesach-sheni/ Do we say Tachanun at minchah on Erev Pesach Sheni? Answer Yes [Shulchan Aruch Harav, Piskei Hassidur, end of Hilchos Krias Shema uTefilloh] YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 07:00:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 10:00:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening in a Large or Small Shul In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150511135900.11012181E6C@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:31 AM 5/11/2015, R. Joel Rich wrote: >I wonder if this write up is indicative of a trend seen in "The >halachos of X" works, likutim which seem to have become more popular >(did they exist 40 years ago?). As Rav Aharon Lichtenstein learned >at Harvard, life is complex. Of course there are overarching >priorities which need to be learned, but specific applications are >hard to summarize in an algorithmic form (see hilchot lashon hara >and tzedaka for some obvious examples). Maybe in an internet age we >have no choice but to try to put everything on line but what you >really need IMHO is a live mentor. Did R. Aharon Lichtenstein really not know that life is complex before he went to Harvard? I am very sure that a man as intelligent as he was knew that life was complex long before he went to Harvard. I never went to Harvard, but I knew by 12 or 13 years old that life in indeed complex. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 09:45:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 12:45:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] He is my G-d In-Reply-To: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150511164501.GA29539@aishdas.org> *On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 06:06:53AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : From Today's Hakhel email bulletin. : :> Hakhel Note: The following is excerpted from Rav Schwab on Prayer, :> and was related by Rav Schwab at a Shiur he gave on Tefillah... We need a source, and such a well documented lineage for the source, to point out what the words say? Does no one try translating a poem they've recited since childhood (and that's true even for many BTs)? "Adon Olam" through "velo ha'oz vehamisrah", the first 2/3 or so, talks about how transcendent HQBH is. Then the poet (usually attributed to Ibn Geveirol, 11th cent CE) abruptly switches to "VeHu Keili ... Hashem li velo ira" -- that despite that transcendence, I am still capable of having a personal relationship with Him. Li nir'eh this is the key to understanding sheim havayah: 1- The tetragrammaton is a contraction of "Yihyeh, Hoveh, veHayah -- Will Be, Is and Was", referring to Hashem being timeless and beyond the created. An el, when used in the secular sense, is a legislative ruler, so that Elokeinu, is a declaration that He is our Lawgiver -- the Author of both moral law and physical law. Havayah denotes connotes a vision of Deity that is very Other, the philosopher's G-d; Elokus is One who relates to man. 2- The very remoteness of the name Havayah also implies Divine Mercy. Which is how Chazal describe its usage in chumash. This is not intuitive, however the need to create law comes from a person's limited ability to deal with many individual cases. A teacher with few students is effective, one with more students, less so. To manage a country, we need laws and policies, since we do not have infinite time and attention to cover every decision on a case-by-case basis. Therefore, it is only because Hashem is Infinite that Divine Mercy is possible. Therefore, this expression can be seen as a declaration of the unity of G-d, despite the different appearances of Mercy and Strict Justice. We can each say "veHu Keili" *because* "velo ha'oz vehamisrah". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 37th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Yesod: When does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 require one to be strict with another? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 09:06:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 19:06:59 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] He is my G-d In-Reply-To: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 1:06 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > From Today's Hakhel email bulletin. > > Hakhel Note: The following is excerpted from *Rav Schwab on Prayer*, and > was related by Rav Schwab at a Shiur he gave on Tefillah: > ... > *whenever a person says the word Ado--i, my Master, no matter how small he > thinks he is, he is averring that he is in direct contact with Hashem*. > This thought is in the introduction to any individual's Iyun Tefillah, > concentration on Prayer. There is nothing mystical or supernatural about > it. It should be the most natural thing in the world. > I understand that "Rav Schwab on Prayer" was edited from recordings of RSS' shiurim, and I suspect that there is some misunderstanding here. If this is not mystical and supernatural, what is? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 11:12:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Herbert Basser via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 18:12:16 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah Message-ID: <1431367937499.87948@queensu.ca> Friendly amendment: When all else fails consult a dictionary-- where I found the root h-l-q both in hebrew and in arabic means "to make smooth" (no surprises here) and (surprise) a note after that indicating arabic h-l-q also applies to making the chin and the head smooth (hairless), i.e. "shaving".-- Not from the idea of rounding but from the idea of smoothing. Like in bereshit (27:11) esav was hairy and yaakov halaq. Zvi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 12:33:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 15:33:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150511193132.F24041829B7@nexus.stevens.edu> At 02:57 PM 5/11/2015, R. Eli Turkel wrote: ><the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their minds, >they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple frauds and >told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern Orthodox Jews have >regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic.>> > >I don't see how you can call this "blasphemous" R. Schwab once suggested >that Chazal purposely changed the facts for a good reason. While he later >retracted it would be hard to call his original opinion "blasphemous" . >Furthermore several current Orthodox rabbis such as R. Leibtag do accept >the secular dating. > >In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a >tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. The most definitive study on this topic is the recent book (2014) The Challenge of Jewish History: The Bible, The Greeks & The Missing 168 Years by Rabbi Alexander Hool From http://tinyurl.com/p42uvvj There is a well-known conundrum concerning Jewish history: The conventional chronology of the Western world - and academia - is in direct conflict with traditional Jewish sources over the history of ... history. Incredibly, there is a gap of roughly 200 years: For instance, the Talmud says the Second Temple stood for roughly 400 years, while mainstream historians today conclude that it stood for almost 600 years. This conflict has major implications on what occurred to who, and when. It also seems to question the accuracy of the entire Jewish tradition as accepted dating methods seem to contradict core parts of the traditional Jewish narrative. In presenting fresh and startling astronomical, mathematical and archaeological evidence, Rabbi Alexander Hool has charted new ground in his quest to find the solution to this ancient problem. The Challenge of Jewish History is revolutionary: it questions all assumptions, dispels unfounded myths, and transports us back in time over 2,500 years. With a subject of great significance and fascination to all those interested in history, and a wealth of scholarship and sources to impress academics, this intriguing book gives us a new perspective on .... This is a highly researched book based on Jewish and non-Jewish sources. the author concludes that there are no missing years and seems to prove his conclusion. I suggest that anyone who is really interested in this topic purchase this book. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 13:10:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Herbert Basser via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 20:10:00 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] chronology Message-ID: <1431375000749.45056@queensu.ca> [Transliteration mine. -micha] Seder Olam: Mahadurah Mada'it Peirush uMavo me'et Chaim Milikovsky's Makhor Yitzchaq ben Zvi shenei chalaqim, 326+711 amudim See Chaim Milikovsky's edition of Seder Olam for a very detailed explanation of all these issues in chazal's chronology and a critical edition of the readings of all extant manuscripts. The issues of chazal's chronologies were first highlighted at length by Azariah de Rossi's Meor Eynayim and should be settled by Milikowski's volume which took about 35 years to research. Chazal were great men but not modern historians, doctors, scientists, or nevi'im -- and certainly not liars. Zvi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 14:46:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 14:46:24 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] explanation Message-ID: the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not PC by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation for some shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a heterodox clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read those passages] . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other than the chok aspect] that the RBSO was looking from the perspective of the kahal and their kovod, and how they would react or be distracted by a baal mum. can someone supply a better take ? thanks -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 18:12:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 21:12:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150429.073718.25006.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150429.073718.25006.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150512011220.GA19224@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 11:37:18AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : Regardless of how the Bas Kol might be interpreted, is there any way : to understand "Nitzchuni banai!" other than Hashem personally siding : with one of the litigants, and losing? I don't see the closing of the story adding any problems the nissim themselves didn't. If you think they were about Hashem backing one side, then "nitzchui banai" is about that sice being defeated. If not, then it's whatever over reason He had for presenting misleading evidence that was defeated. Leshitas those who don't take eilu va'eilu literally and intead use a more classical logic with a law of contradition, the whole story is about HQBH choosing the process as a whole over the correctness of this one particular ruling. HQBH rejoicing that the chakhamim maintained the kelalei pesaq as they should rather than pay attention to His interferance. As the Maharitz Chayes understands it, by keeping the process viable, they keep the Torah eternal, capable of speaking to new circumstances as the world changes. "Nitzchuni banai -- My children have made Me eternal!" Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 37th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Yesod: When does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 require one to be strict with another? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 17:57:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 20:57:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55514FDD.4000100@sero.name> On 05/11/2015 05:46 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not > PC by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation > for some shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a > heterodox clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read > those passages] . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other > than the chok aspect] that the RBSO was looking from the perspective > of the kahal and their kovod, and how they would react or be > distracted by a baal mum. > > can someone supply a better take ? What's the difficulty? Hakriveihu no lefechosecho. The dignity of a king, and especially of The King, demands that all who serve Him be perfect in all respects. People with physical imperfections may be wonderful in many ways, but they are just that, imperfect. The current political correctness that refuses to acknowledge this is literally insane. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 15:31:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 23:31:27 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 12:19:57 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah > In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a > tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some examples > 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu ... > Besiades the fact that Eliyahu was from Gilad and worked in the northern > kingdom it leaves the halachic question whether a cohen gadol can resign > and even leave the land of Israel for various tasks. It is clear from > Tanach that Eli and other were the high priest in later generations Re Pinchos = Eliyohu The Ari says clearly [through the pen of R. Chaim Vital] in Shaar HaGilgulim that this refers to a gilgul neshomoh, not that he was literally the same person in body as well. DR From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 23:21:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 09:21:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar Message-ID: R' YGB writes: "I cannot believe TABC allowed this to be published as is. /Shreklach!/" Should we just bury our heads in the sand and not address these kinds of issues? Its very hard to hide information today, what happens when these kids get to college and find about the missing 165 years. What are they going to think? The fact is that Rabbi S. Schwab found this discrepancy a ?truly vexing problem? and wrote that the historical chronological dating: "?can hardly be doubted for they appear to be the result of painstaking research by hundreds of scholars and are borne out by profound erudition and by ever increasing authoritative evidence ... we are compelled to admit that the Bayis Sheni must have existed for no less than 586 years.? (Hakira A Y2K Solution to the Chronology Problem). If we don't address these kinds of questions (torah and science, the documentary hypothesis, etc.) then the implication that will be drawn by many people is that we don't have answers and we know what happens then. The Seforim blog (http://seforim.blogspot.com/2015/01/blog-post.html) not long ago reviewed a Sefer by R' Amnon Bazak, Ad Hayom Hazeh, which deals with many of the the issues that academia brings up related to Tanach. Are his answers compelling? Many times not. But at least he deals with the issues. A commentator there made a very important point, for those who have been exposed to these questions, we need seforim like this that at least attempt to deal with the issues raised and not simply bury our heads in the sand. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 01:36:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 11:36:40 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> References: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> Message-ID: > 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta <> Do these Greek sources explain how Koresh and Daryavush are the same person? Besides you use the parts of the Greek sources that you like and reject those that dont fit your thesis Now you rely on the Septuagint? Almost everyone else identifies Achashverosh with Xerxes, Besides the are several inscriptions in ancient Persian that give a detailed list of kings eg Artaxerxes the great king, king of kings king of peoples king on this earth son od Darius the king Darius son of Artaxerxes the king, Xerxes son of Darius the king Darius son of Hystapes the Archaemend proclaims .. As an aside modern chronology of Eygpt has been confirmed by recent carbon 14 dating. Dates of Sishak and other Assyrina and Babylonian kings have been confirmed by their writings combined with various astronomical events mentioned in their writings. <> That's your opinion. In fact many achronim take these conflating of names very seriously. While you claim Eliyahu wasn't a cohen gadol there is in fact a halachic literature whether he was or not and whether a cohen gadol can resign. For example see hebrewbooks Magen Tzvi siman 36 page 388 where he concludes that a Cohen Gadol (annointed by oil) who resigns still has all the laws of a cohen gadol You wrote "Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son " . However Darius's own version (Behustan) states that he was not the son of the previous king (see also above inscription on a wall) -------------------------- separately Marty Blake mentioned the sefer of R Amnon Bazak. The shiurim are also available in English http://etzion.org.il/en/topics/fundamental-issues-study-tanakh As Marty mentioned he discusses fundamental issues as are all pesukim in the Torah from Moshe Rabbenu, archaeology, accuracy of the text, Bible criticism, peshat and drash, sins of Biblical figures and many other controversial topics. I am sure that many of his solutions are also controversial. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 19:20:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 02:20:37 GMT Subject: [Avodah] explanation Message-ID: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero wrote: <<< The dignity of a king, and especially of The King, demands that all who serve Him be perfect in all respects. People with physical imperfections may be wonderful in many ways, but they are just that, imperfect. >>> "... in all respects." Really? Where will you find such a person? No, that's an impossible task. For practicality's sake, He cannot and does not demand that all who serve Him be perfect in ALL respects. So instead, there is a set of criteria, and a set of shiurim by which to determine if one is *adequately* perfect. I can't imagine that anyone would disagree with what I wrote thus far. But then we'll go the next step, and study what sorts of things are on that list of criteria. For example, if one is a Mechalel Shabbos, or a murderer, he is disqualified from Birkas Kohanim, so I'd bet that he's disqualified from the avodah too. But those aren't the sort of mumim that the previous poster's Shabbos guests were asking about. They were asking about physical abnormalities. I hope it is okay if I rephrase their question to something like this: It is reasonable for The King to insist on a certain degree of moral perfection, but why is physical perfection relevant? Or to phrase it more bluntly, the kohanim should not be judged by the shape of their nose, but by the content of their character. (Of course, we are not disputing the halacha. The question is WHY the Torah considers physical abnormalities to be disqualifications.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/555163bfd843b63bf2454st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 22:43:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 01:43:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah Message-ID: R? Zvi Basser points out ? H-L-Q was the haircut celebrated Lag B?Omer. Yes! Perhaps Chalak evokes Yaakov Avinu, aka Ish Chalak. An older version of Ibn Ezra's famous Tzama Nafshi has alternate ending stanzas. H?alo Chelk?cha Meirosh ? Addressing Hashem directly Chalak ? that is Yaakov Avinu the weak brother ? and his endless generations of martyrs Damo Darosh ? avenge and right the wrongs Shfoch HHamas Af al Rosh Hasa-ir Hachai ? let your anger pour over its proper target - . Ibn Ezra means that Hashem can grant Dveikus, Nevuah or Ruach Hakodesh. The Ibn Ezra 's philosophical approach ? said that the Nefesh ? as a Spiritual Heavenly entity ? can encounter the Ultimate Hashem ? directly. The alternate ? higher level of Hashkafa ? Tzama Nafshi has a verse ? now found in some better editions ? After dealing with Hagar rebelling against Sara (Shifha no-emmes) H?alo Chelk?cha Meirosh ? Chalak ? that is Yaakov ? and his endless generations of martyrs Damo Darosh ? avenge and right the wrongs Shfoch HHamas Af al Rosh Hasa-ir Hachai ? let your anger pour over its proper target - . -- Two other points ? the first verse in the alternat version of Tzama Nafshi: (See Kol Kisvei RAIE) Eil Chayy Bera-ani ? To my mind this means ? the always watching and involved One watching over us. Compare ? Chai Anochi LeOlam Im Shanosi Brak Charbi ? in Parshas Haazinu ? anger to avenge. Perhaps in Inquisitorial times ? Eil Echad Bera-ani was more relevant. Also fascinating ? The Ayin verse substitutes ? Al Kol Chasadecha ? Techadeish Eidecha!! References Iyov 10:17, where Ibn ezra refers to leprous blemishes. Posei-ach es Yadecha umasbia lechol chai ? directly allow Life, Deveikus and attachment to His Essence ? not the simple meaning of providing food . Earlier Ibn Ezra had said - Ki lo yir-ani ha-adam vachayy - no man can see Hashem and Chai ? no complete experience of Hashem. His Creation is Ne-elama hidden in its wisdom. Parshas Tazria has many multiple references to live healthy skin ? Basar Hachayy - as opposed to leprous skin. I would believe there are multiple references to Tazria Metzora. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 03:51:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 06:51:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150512105130.GC3499@aishdas.org> Lakol zeman va'eis... There is a time to force people to change their reflect reactions, and a time when the focus should be elsewhere. There are two kinds of mummim WRT kehunah (see Bechoros 43b): 1- mar'is ayin -- one whose appearance is repulsive to the people 2- eino shaveh bezar'o shel Aharon -- someone who is unique in appearance to the people (see Rambam, Bi'as haMiqdash 6:6) A kohein in the mar'is ayin category would pasl the avodah bedi'eved, one who is eino shaveh would violate an asei, but the avodah is kasher. Notice that both are defined by their impact on the observer. Presumably the point is that attention should be on avodah, not thoughts about the kohein performing it, or negative judgments of who is fit for service. But notice this is only for the Avodah.... a kohein with a baal mum was still expected to show up with his mishmar and do other necessary jobs. I am not even sure he is pasul from lighting the menorah. After all, we learn these mumim from the animals for qorbanos; it may apply to qorbanos in particular. So to me, the question is why isn't mid-qorban a good time to acclimate Kelal Yisrael away from such visceral reactions. But since I cannot get my head into the mindset of someone bringing a qorban, I leave the question tabled until I have the opportunity to learn what a qorban is like firsthand, bb"a. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 38th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Yesod: How does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 promote harmony in life and relationships? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 09:24:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 12:24:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: <20150512105130.GC3499@aishdas.org> References: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> <20150512105130.GC3499@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150512162421.GA13065@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 6:51am EDT, I wrote: : There is a time to force people to change their reflect reactions, and a : time when the focus should be elsewhere. ... To add, there are TWO reactions that would distract from the purpose of the qorban: Both the person who is turned off by how Hashem made this particular kohein (either through birth, disease, or allowing him to suffer an acctident), and the person who would then turn his qorban into a bein adam lachaveiro rather than a qorban. The one who would be thinking about how touching it was the such a person overcame disability to help them bring it. Rather than simply thinking about G-d. Even according to R' Chaim Volozhiner or R' Shimon Shkop, who see bein adam lachaveiro as the ultimate purpose of life, and thus presumably bein adam laMaqom as a derived value, there is a time to care for the goose, rather than everything being about collecting the golden eggs. In fact, the farmer is likely to spend nearly al of his time into caring for the goose rather than the ultimate payoff. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 38th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Yesod: How does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 promote harmony in life and relationships? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 06:17:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 08:17:09 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: References: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> Message-ID: <5551FD55.5090900@starways.net> On 5/12/2015 3:36 AM, Eli Turkel wrote: > 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta > < was a throne name. And in fact, Greek sources say that both > Artaxerxes II and III adopted it as a throne name. Furthermore, the > Septuagint version of Esther refers to the king as Artaxerxes, so > saying that Ahasuerus is Artaxerxes is a truism that has nothing to do > with chronology >> > Do these Greek sources explain how Koresh and Daryavush are the same > person? Fortunately, they don't have to, since that's just Midrash and has no nafka mina l'maaseh. > Besides you use the parts of the Greek sources that you like and > reject those that dont fit your thesis Of course I do. The Greek sources aren't what we would call "history" today. Herodotus collected folklore and picked the versions he liked to make a more entertaining story. He says himself that he heard 4 different and conflicting stories about Cyrus's backstory, and chose the one he liked best. He didn't even preserve the other three so that we could make our own decisions. He made his living in Greece by entertaining his patron(s) with exotic stories from exotic lands. > Now you rely on the Septuagint? Almost everyone else identifies > Achashverosh with Xerxes, Not so. Everyone recognizes that the *name* Achashveirosh is the same as the *name* Xerxes. Or rather, that both names are transliterations of the original Persian Khshayarsha. To say that "almost everyone else identifies Achashverosh with Xerxes" indicates that you aren't particularly well versed in the subject. I mean, at the very least, read the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahasuerus which notes which sources have identified him as which kings. > Besides the are several inscriptions in ancient Persian that give a > detailed list of kings eg > Artaxerxes the great king, king of kings king of peoples king on this > earth son od Darius the king Darius son of Artaxerxes the king, Xerxes > son of Darius the king Darius son of Hystapes the Archaemend proclaims .. Have you read the Behistun Inscription? Darius son of Hystaspes had it inscribed. In it, he talks about Babylonian kings who weren't actually Babylonian kings. At least not by our standards. They were pretenders, since Babylon had fallen to the Medes and Persians. But they gave themselves royal titles and claimed descent from Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus and the rest. From their point of view, they *were* kings of Babylon. From the Persian point of view, they were pretenders. Similarly, what do you think happened to Persia when Alexander conquered it? From one day to the next, Persia vaporized? Persia covered a huge area. Professor Levine posted about Rabbi Alexander Hool's book "The Challenge of Jewish History". I don't agree with all of his conclusions, and I'm embarrassingly late completing a review of the book, but he posits the Persian line continuing even after Alexander whupped Darius at Gaugamela. And in fact, the Parthian Empire, which started only about 70-80 years after the Alexandrian conquest, claimed descent from the Achaemenids of the Persian Empire. As did the later Sassanids. Names like Ardashir are just Late Persian versions of the Old Persian Artaxerxes. That's completely aside from the fact that we *know* there were forgeries perpetrated in ancient times for the purpose of establishing royal descent. Check out Roland Kent's article "The Present Status of Old Persian Studies" in /Journal of the American Oriental Society, /1936, vol. 56, p. 215ff. (http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/594668?uid=3739656&uid=2134&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21106376285721). A couple of inscriptions that are nothing but royal titles with no actual content to them is kind of flimsy evidence. Certainly not something strong enough to trash Chazal's entire picture of such an important period in our history. > As an aside modern chronology of Eygpt has been confirmed by recent > carbon 14 dating. Source. Because you may not be aware of this, but when you bring items in for carbon dating, you have to tell them -- up front -- what the rough date is that you think they're from. So that they can throw away any results that skew too far from that as "contaminated". The rest are subject to a fudge factor (sorry: correction factor) to help make them fit. But I'd like to see the source you have for carbon dating of modern Egyptian chronology. > Dates of Sishak and other Assyrina and Babylonian kings have been > confirmed by their writings combined with various astronomical events > mentioned in their writings. Assuming Sosenk = Shishak, which is iffy, considering that Sosenk only claims to have campaigned in the north of Israel, which would be odd for Shishak, whose son-in-law Yeravam was ruling there. The rest of what you're talking about is pure confirmation bias. They have a model and they shoehorn any evidence they find into that model, even if they have to kind of mush it in there. > < and explain a little more about Midrash. Chazal bring Midrashim that > contradict one another. For example, there's a Midrash that says > Esther never slept with Achashveirosh. That Hashem sent a mal'ach that > took her place. That conflicts with "Esther karka hayta", as well as > with the Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son. None of > this is problematic. Because the truth of Midrashim is not in their > concretes. Like analogies, Midrashim are abstractions which are > anchored with concretes, but are not defined by those concretes.>> > That's your opinion. In fact many achronim take these conflating of > names very seriously. While you claim Eliyahu wasn't a cohen gadol > there is in fact a halachic literature whether he was or not and > whether a cohen gadol can resign. > For example see hebrewbooks Magen Tzvi siman 36 page 388 where he > concludes that a Cohen Gadol (annointed by oil) who resigns still has > all the laws of a cohen gadol Midrash. And if it were something more solid than that, you'd have more than just some achronim saying so. > You wrote "Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son " . > However Darius's own version (Behustan) states that he was not the son > of the previous king (see also above inscription on a wall) So what? I'm confused. I'm saying that Midrash isn't necessarily the literal fact, and you pick out a phrase from what I wrote and point out that it isn't the literal fact? It seems like you're trying to make a point, but I'm not seeing what it is. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 10:18:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 13:18:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I commend you for having such guests at your table! > the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not PC by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation for some shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a heterodox clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read those passages] . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other than the chok aspect] that the RBSO was looking from the perspective of the kahal and their kovod, and how they would react or be distracted by a baal mum. can someone supply a better take ? This is, indeed, a difficult passage. R Jonathan Sacks has a good take on it -- which is generally along the lines of what you suggested, but a slightly different (and more big-picture) take, and, of course articulated extremely well. An excerpt: > Kugel also writes, "Most people, when they see someone ravaged by chemotherapy, just tend to keep their distance." He quotes Psalm 38:12, "My friends and companions stand back at the sight of my affliction; even those closest to me keep their distance." Although the physical reactions to chemotherapy are quite different from a skin disease or a bodily abnormality, they tend to generate the same feeling in others, part of which has to do with the thought "This could happen to me." They remind us of the "thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to." > > This is the logic - if logic is the right word - of Tumah. It has nothing to do with rationality and everything to do with emotion (Recall Pascal's remark that "the heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing"). Tumah does not mean defilement. It means that which distracts from eternity and infinity by making us forcibly aware of mortality, of the fact that we are physical beings in a physical world. If the above interests you at all, I encourage you to read the whole thing: http://www.aish.com/tp/i/sacks/149811775.html [1] -- Sholom Links: ------ [1] http://www.aish.com/tp/i/sacks/149811775.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 09:51:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Dov Weinstock via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 12:51:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Explanation Message-ID: On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 12:27 PM, via Avodah wrote: > the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not PC > by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation for some > shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a heterodox > clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read those passages] > . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other than the chok aspect] > that the RBSO was looking from the perspective of the kahal and their > kovod, and how they would react or be distracted by a baal mum. > > can someone supply a better take ? > May I suggest the following: http://rabbidovlinzer.blogspot.com/2014_04_27_archive.html Dov Weinstock -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 03:09:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 06:09:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: <20150513100956.GA14377@aishdas.org> Among the arguments that came up in the discussion of the Kosher Switch was that it's zilzul Shabbos. The thought hit me, though... Refraining from operating electrical devices has only been a potential issue for 125 years or so. And except for Yekkes, most of our ancestors come from places where it has been less than a century since electricity became part of our lives. So it's very hard to say that "not using electricity" is a defining feature of the Shabbos experience. Contrast this to hotza'ah, including haavarah, which take up what seems like 1/3 of chazal's discussion of issur melakhah (rough estimate from Berakhos and Eruvin in mishna, Tosefta, Y-mi and Bavli). When community eruvin got started, wasn't there a much easier argument of zilzul? Why wasn't it made? Indeed we use the general kelal of being meiqil WRT eiruvin to quite an extent to build one. And what does the fact that a community eruv is NOT zilzul Shabbos say about the nature of zilzul Shabbos and its applicability to nidon didan? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 12:26:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 15:26:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 06:42:58AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : He is now starting a series on religious autonomy. In particular he holds : that one goes to a rabbi for a psak only if he is in doubt. If one has : seriously learned the halachaot and is convinced of the "truth" then he : should follow his own psak and there is no need to go to a "higher : authority". Interesting. Does "seriously learned the halakhos" translate to higi'ah lehora'ah, or something less? RHS requires a certainly level of general knowledge. See Sanhedrin 5a-b. But it also fits RHS's hashkafah that halakhah is an inseperable whole. And so Rebbe doesn't just tell us that night Shema can be said at sundown, he ties it to the law of tevul yom. And RHS similarly advises his talmidim to look to gedolim from their own camp because one with whom they disagree hashkafically is likely to see even apparenty unrelated halakhos differently. Listen to (RAM transcripted other snippets from this talk for one of our many discussions of da'as Torah at .) For that matter, 5b talks about the need to get a heter hora'ah even if one knows enough to pasqen. But then, the gemara is discussing deciding for others, not only oneself. OTOH, pasqening for oneself has a major problem that one doesn't face when answering others' questions -- vested interest vs objectivity. Listen to R Jonathan Ziring's shiur on the topic at . In particular, his very first source (see link to mar'eh meqomos sheet) Nissah 20b. Yalta, "Rebbetzin Nachman", asks her mar'os questions of Rabbah bar bar Chanah and Rabbi Yitzchaq bereih deR' Yehudah, not her husband. Similarly mishnah Nega'im 2:5 saying you can't pasen nega'im even of relatives, Bekhoros 31a about judging one's own bekhoros. So, I would think that not being in doubt is too easily a delusion. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 12:54:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 15:54:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes In-Reply-To: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150513195451.GA16146@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 01:18:22AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Saul Newman asked: :> i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at :> hadchak /bedieved : ... : But I think that the real answer to your question might be: "If the people : in shul can't hear the rabbi or the chazan, that IS a shaas hadchak." Both letzorekh mitzvah and tzarkhei tzibbur are usually classified with she'as hadechaq and hefsed meruba. The two combined is why shuls have such wide lattitude with amira le'akum. (And perhaps either alone? I dunno.) So if a properly designed PA system is a shevus or other derabannan, why not permit this too? BTW, R/Dr Yisrael Rozen of Machon Zomet makes a point of noting that the issues seem to be the same whether the PA system is electrical or based on air pressure. See Microphones and Amplifiers on Shabbat Rabbi Yisrael Rozen C. Microphones Operating on Air Pressure 1. System Description Recently, the idea of a microphone which operates on air pressure, rather than electricity, has been proposed. A company in the United States is in the process of developing this "air-mike," although to the best of my knowledge, the project is still in the experimental stage. The device consists of a container of compressed air[12] and a system of pipes in which the compressed air flows. After one speaks into a horn-like input, his voice is carried on the stream of compressed air in the pipes. Acoustic adjustment (which apparently lies at the heart of the idea) then causes the voice waves to be amplified... 2. Comparison to an Electronic Microphone Several rabbis have permitted the use of air microphones on Shabbat, viewing it as an appropriate means of sound amplification for a synagogue. I question the distinction between an air microphone and a regular microphone - if we permit one, we must permit the other... Let me explain. We have shown that, given the current technology, the main problems with using a microphone on Shabbat have nothing to do with the fact that it runs on electricity. The problems concern the decree of klei shir, the fear that one will repair it, hashma'at kol like a water mill, avsha milta, denigration of Shabbat, and the suspicion of onlookers. Regarding all but the last of these, I see no difference between an air microphone and a regular microphone. In my opinion, an air microphone is a kli shir exactly like a shofar or trumpet; it creates a loud noise like a water mill; there exists the possibility that one will try to adjust it etc.. If you wish to claim that it is not a kli shir because it transmits speech; that we should not innovate a decree of "lest one repair it;" that it does not resemble a water mill because everyone knows that there is no Shabbat violation involved - then the same considerations should apply to a regular microphone as well. Only regarding the suspicion of onlookers might there be a difference between the two types of microphones; with an electric microphone, onlookers may think that an electric circuit was created on Shabbat. But we have already explained that even if one would turn on existing equipment on Shabbat, he would violate only a rabbinic prohibition, and we are not concerned with creating suspicion regarding rabbinic prohibitions. We also noted above that "everyone knows" that the equipment was turned on either before Shabbat or by means of a timer, and thus resembles a chiming clock (which is permitted). I have heard that there are those who permit the air microphone since the speaker's original voice is carried through the pipes (although clearly the majority of the sound waves reaching the audience's ears comes from the air pumped by the compressor). I am astonished at this claim: even in an actual musical instrument (such as a trumpet) the player's breath is mixed in, and nevertheless it is forbidden! In many musical instruments, the sound comes mainly from an "echo chamber," whose geometry shapes and amplifies the sound. To the best of my understanding, an air microphone operates on the same principle.[13] In my opinion, halachic definitions (in all fields) do not stem from scientific, physical, or technical definitions. The definitions of klei shir and hashma'at kol are not based on the technology of sound production, wave dispersion, or other acoustic considerations. The question at hand is whether these devices are included in the rabbinic decree of klei shir or not. In this regard, it does not matter whether one makes his voice heard by means of an electric or an air microphone. Some of those who give a blanket permit to use an air microphone claim that it does not amplify the speaker's voice, but merely carries it. On the basis of material I have received from the factory, I find this claim to be mistaken. Therefore, as far as klei shir and hashma'at kol are concerned, the two types of microphones are identical. ... 3. Responsa Which Erred in the Realia ... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 13:14:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 16:14:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes In-Reply-To: <20150513195451.GA16146@aishdas.org> References: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> <20150513195451.GA16146@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5553B099.7090100@sero.name> On 05/13/2015 03:54 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Both letzorekh mitzvah and tzarkhei tzibbur are usually classified with > she'as hadechaq and hefsed meruba. The two combined is why shuls have such > wide lattitude with amira le'akum. (And perhaps either alone? I dunno.) Letzorech mitzvah is not enough to justify amira lenochri for an issur derabanan, unless the mitzvah absolutely cannot be fulfilled without it. For instance, if one is pitch darkness one may ask a nochri to bring a lit candle through a communal chatzer that has no eruv, because oneg shabbos is impossible in complete darkness; but if there is already at least dim lighting, so that some minimal oneg shabbos is possible, one is *not* allowed to have a nochri bring another candle. Tzorchei tzibbur, OTOH, seems to justify amira lenochri for almost anything. [Quoting R Rosen] > The problems concern the decree of klei shir, the fear that one will > repair it, hashma'at kol like a water mill, avsha milta, denigration > of Shabbat, and the suspicion of onlookers. He's listing the same thing multiple times. "Hashma'at kol like a water mill" *is* "avsha milsa", i.e. passersby will hear it running and know that a Jew's business is operating on Shabbos, and the problem with that is that they will think the Jew is transgressing amira lenochri. These are not separate issues. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 13:32:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 23:32:51 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> References: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <> I understand the concern. However, there is no halacha that a rabbi can't pasken on his own chicken. In fact in real life we all pasken for ourselves on some level. Anytime one has a shabbat question \he can't always run to the LOR. One usually ends up paskening based on whatever knowledge and mesorah one has. This is what makes the life of a Baal Teshuva very difficult. Certainly what RMA and many others are against is running to the LOR or even gadol hador with every question. I have heard complaints from shul rabbis that some congregants come with questions they could easily look upo themselves but prefer to ask the rabbi so that the rabbi notes how serious they are. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 14:35:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 21:35:43 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> Message-ID: . I have heard complaints from shul rabbis that some congregants come with questions they could easily look upo themselves but prefer to ask the rabbi so that the rabbi notes how serious they are. ---------------------- True, but sometimes it may be to establish a connection (yes, funny coming from me-but it is true) KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 15:04:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 18:04:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150513220422.GC10395@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 13, 2015 at 11:32:51PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> OTOH, pasqening for oneself has a major problem that one doesn't face when :> answering others' questions -- vested interest vs objectivity. : : I understand the concern. However, there is no halacha that a rabbi can't : pasken on his own chicken. : In fact in real life we all pasken for ourselves on some level. Anytime one : has a shabbat question he can't always run to the LOR... I was using "pesaq" to refer specifically to open questions that require shiqul hada'as. Your typical Shabbos question is about a devar mishnah. To quote Rt Chana Luntz from Mon, 7 Sep 1998, 8:33pm BDT: 20:33:38 +0100, a post about not combining chumeros: > ... the Rashba on our daf in Chullin [43b], who hold that a Rav only > needs to pay if there is shikul hadaas and not a mistake in a dvar > mishna, are forced to conclude from this that Rava's mistake was in > shikul hadaas - see there]. It would seem that a devar mishnah is not a pesaq that the rav is as responsible for our following his teaching rather than getting the halakhah correctly from some other source. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 15 08:55:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 15 May 2015 11:55:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Laasok beDivrei Sorah Message-ID: <4c752525c83edeb17b85f6670479b9c0@aishdas.org> >From R' Eliezer Eisenberg's blog Beis Vaad L'Chachamim (highly recommended), at http://beisvaad.blogspot.com/2015/05/bechukosai-at-my-grandsons-bar-mitzva.html A couple of personal comments ellided, mostly to save myself the bother of transliterating more Hebrew text. A belated mazal tov to the author, G'Shabbos to all, -micha Friday, May 15, 2015 Bechukosai. At my grandson's Bar Mitzva Drasha at the Bar Mitzva of Avraham Jofen, 5/14/15 ... The Gemara (Brachos 11b) and the rishonim there talk about the issue of hefsek in Birkas HaTorah. There are those that hold that if a person stops learning, he has to make a new bracha when he begins again, because it is a hefsek from the first bracha. The Rishonim, the Agur and the Rosh, say that it is not a hefsek, because even when you are not actually learning, you have to consider what you can and cannot do according to the dinim of the Torah. Even when you are in a place where you cannot learn, you have to behave in a manner that is prescribed in the Torah. As the Hafla'ah says, when you do business, it is not a hefsek, because you are learning Choshen Mishpat. Every decision you make is examined in the light of the Torah, so that is not a hefsek in limud. I would put it this way. Torah is only a mitzvah when you learn al menas laasos. Al menas laasos means that you don't learn superficially, you make the Torah a part of who you are. On the contrary, if what you learn is just on the surface, the learning itself is bitul Torah. If the Mitzva of limud hatorah requires that it should make you into a different person, do you think that carefully living the life of an ehrilcheh ben Torah is a hefsek in limud hatorah? It's not a hefsek, it is a hemshech, it is a kiyum, of the mitzvah of limud hatorah. My father Ztz'l was very friendly with his lawyer, Bill Rosenthal. Bill was an assimilated Jew. The only contact he had with the Jewish religion was when he shook hands with my father. Nonetheless, he and my father were good friends and respected each other. A lawyer for a mortgage company once asked him which university my father studied at, because he could brilliantly analyze contracts. Bill told him that my father studied at Slabodka U. He once asked my father, "You and I are very ethical and honest men. I wouldn't take a penny that wasn't mine, and I have the highest standards of behavior in business. You, too, are very moral, but you do it because of your religious beliefs. Is there really any difference between us? My father told him, on the spot, that there are three differences. One is that for you, a dollar is a small matter, and a question involving a million dollars is a big matter. To me, there is no difference. The principal, the law, is what matters, and the sum of money is irrelevant. Another difference is that let's say you carefully think an issue through, and you decide the other side is right, and you let them win. you will toss and turn at night, ,thinking that maybe you were really right. I, on the other hand, if I decide that I am right, and I keep something that had been disputed, I won't be able to sleep at night our of a concern that maybe my decision was influenced by self interest. The third difference is that while you and I are both successful people,, and we've both made a lot of money, you think that you made the money yourself, and it's 100% yours to do with as you please. I believe that God decided that I should have the money, and God gave me the money, and every dollar that was given to me was given so that I use it in the right way. So it's true, my father learned how to do business at Slabodka U. Because he learned how to do business at Slabodka U, he was able to give, on the spot, three excellent and lomdusheh chilukim about the difference between Bill Rosenthal's moral code and his own moral code. Doing business like that is not a hefsek in the mitzva of limud hatorah. Farkert, it is the biggest kiyum and chizuk of limud hatorah and mussar and yashrus. This is a kiyum of the passuk [im bechuqosai seleikhu], as Rashi explains, [shetihyu ameilim baTorah]. It is this mesora which we bequeath to the Bar Mitzvah. ... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 15 13:39:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 15 May 2015 16:39:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Learning Chumash with the Trop Message-ID: <20150515203756.96751182847@nexus.stevens.edu> My 6 year-old grandson who is in the first grade was taught the trop at the same time he was being taught Chumash. The bottom line is that when he says the Pesukim he has studies in yeshiva, he says each word with the trop. I think this makes it easier for him to remember the Pesukim. When he davens, he says Shma with the trop! I can only wonder why this is not done in all yeshivas. When it will come time for him to lein at his Bar Mitzvah, it should be much easier for him than for those boys who are taught Chumash without the trop. YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 06:37:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 09:37:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Standing at a Chupah Message-ID: <20150518133702.1FA0A18392A@nexus.stevens.edu> Yesterday a friend of mine told be that the Rov where he davened said that he knew of grandparents who did not want to walk down at their grandchildren's Chassana, because they knew that the people attending the chupah would not stand for them even though they were 70 + years old. They did not want to be involved in lifnei Iver. Truth be told, I have seen the following many times. When the grandparents who are 70 or more years old walk down, no one stands for them. However, when the chosson and kallah walk down everyone stands for them. It is, of course, a positive mitzvah to stand up for any person 70 years old or more. See See http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/35165/standing-for-someone-whos-turned-seventy It is questionable if one has to stand for the chosson and kallah. See http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/levine/standing_chasuna.pdf I told my friend that it should be announced at the beginning of every chupah that 1. All cell phones should be turned off; 2. There should be no talking during the chupah, and 3. If grandparents who are 70 or more will be walking down, then one is required to stand for them. I think if this were done at Chasanas it would soon become the norm. 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URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 06:39:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 14:39:50 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001b01d09170$1d5db6f0$581924d0$@org.uk> Rav Zylberstein in the Cheshukei Chemed on Daf 78a of Kesubos discusses the question as to whether a woman today who has lots of peros from her property can say to her husband - "you do not need to redeem me, and I will not give you the peros" - on the ground that the need for redemption today is not common ("lo schiach") - even though the gemora there says that she cannot avoid this trade as mandated by Chazal (despite her being able to avoid the trade between mezonos versus ma'aseh yadeha, again a takana of Chazal, as this last takana was done for her benefit). Rav Zylberstein brings a discussion based on various rishonim to show that actually, pidyon was not common even at the time of Chazal, or at the time of the rishonim, and hence the fact that it is not common today does not change the situation from that mandated by Chazal. He also adds in the position of the Ran, that the takana regarding pidyon is not just made for her benefit (as the mezonos one is) and hence something that can be waived by her, but is also for the benefit of the husband, as without her redemption, the husband doesn't have the benefit of her company and services, while with mezonos that doesn't apply. However, it seems to me that Rav Zylberstein is not in fact dealing with what strikes me as the fundamental question. That is, it is not a question of whether or not pidyon is not common today (indeed, I would be tempted dispute that it is in fact "lo schiach", despite Rav Zylberstein taking this for granted) - but rather that the job of pidyon today is one of those that has been appropriated away from family members such as husbands, and is now the province of governments. The decision as to whether an individual may or may not be redeemed from ISIS, or pirates off Africa, or wherever, is now one which governments take with regard to their citizens. Governments which are prepared to do deals, like France, redeem their citizens (albeit for astronomical sums). Governments, like the UK and the US, who refuse to do deals on the grounds that it just encourages terrorists - will not let individuals, including husbands, redeem, even if the sums could be raised individually, as a matter of general policy. Nobody assumed it was the job of Gilad Shalit's family to effect his release - except to the extent that they was required to lobby the Israeli government (it might even have been treason to go negotiating with Hamas directly). Release or non release negotiations therefore, including the price to be paid (whether by prisoner release or otherwise) is today a government price. So it seems to me that what in fact we have today is a situation where husbands are, for the most part, forbidden by law (dina d'malchusa dina) from redeeming their wives, ie from fulfilling their side of the takana of Chazal. In such circumstances - while one might argue that the state of which the woman is a citizen is entitled to (at least some portion of) the peros (taxes?) the real question then seems to become: on what basis does one say that the second half of the takana stands - not just in relation to a woman who tries to say "you do not need to redeem me", but in relation to any woman in this circumstance. Has anybody come across anybody discussing this question, and any thoughts on any justification for the retention of the husband's benefit if in fact husbands are not legally allowed to effect redemption? BTW on the question of the commonness of redemption - part of that would depend on the scope of the definition of "pidyon". Clearly redemption from ISIS or pirates in Africa falls within this category - but how about rescuing somebody who was trekking in Nepal at the time of the earthquake? Again this is something that governments are now regarded as having a responsibility to do (the British Government has been criticised for failing to do as much as others, such as the Israeli and US governments, have done). At first blush I can't see why flying somebody out of an earthquake zone would not fit within the pidyon definition - despite it being physical forces, such as landslides, rather than people, who may be trapping the individuals. How about a package tour company going bust? Again, the person in question would (absent ATOL and similar travel bonding schemes set up by the relevant governments) be trapped in a foreign country and need to be returned to their country of origin, as per the language of the takana/ketuba. So why would this not be a form of pidyon? But again, is not the fundamental responsibility now assumed to devolve onto the government in respect of its citizens? So while I am not actually sure that it is true that pidyon is in fact so extremely not common, it seems to me that the fundamental question is rather a different one. Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 05:15:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 12:15:18 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: <20150518.081518.3271.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Among the arguments that came up in the discussion of the Kosher > Switch was that it's zilzul Shabbos. > ... what does the fact that a community eruv is NOT zilzul > Shabbos say about the nature of zilzul Shabbos and its > applicability to nidon didan? Excellent point. And I'd like to add another point: There are those who have argued that the availability of various types of timers (including those with software and adjust themselves for varying sunset times) have made the Kosher Switch unnecessary. I disagree strongly. The Kosher Switch, and similar devices do not merely add convenience, but can do a lot for lessening tzaar, and that is a valid and recognized halachic consideration. There were many times when I went to bed earlier than planned, but the light would not go out for another hour, and it was keeping me awake. And there were many times when my seudah lasted longer than expected, but the lights had gone out and we benched in dim light. There were many times when I set the air conditioning for what was expected to be a very hot day, and when it turn out to be mild, we all froze in the cold house. And there were many times when I left the air conditioning off, and regretted it when the day turned hotter than expected. Of course, a couple of centuries ago, people did not have these conveniences, and they learned to cope with them. But I really believe that for us, who have gotten addicted to them, it is a real tzaar when we must do without. (None of the above should be construed as meaning that I endorse any particular sort of device. I'm only talking about devices which we are allowed to use on Shabbos.) [Email #2. -micha] R' Micha Berger asked: > When community eruvin got started, wasn't there a much easier > argument of zilzul? Why wasn't it made? I'm not sure which period of history you're referring to with the phrase "when community eruvin got started", but here's my attempt at an answer: Eruvin did not allow something which had been previously assur, the way timers do and the way the Shabbos Switch would (according to its supporters). Beginning in Moshe Rabenu's day, people were very careful not to carry from a Reshus Hayachid to a Reshus Harabim, or vice versa, or 4 amos within a Reshus Harabim. But everything else was no problem. People would carry from one home to another within the same chatzer without thinking twice. Or even to a home across the street, IF that street was NOT a Reshus Harabim. But over time, accidents started to happen, because it is not always so easy to determine what's a Reshus Harabim and what's not. So at a certain point (either by David Hamelech's beis din, or Shlomo's, I don't remember) TWO halachos were enacted, at the SAME tme: One, that hotzaah was forbidden in a wide variety of areas other than within one Reshus Hayachid. Two, that these other areas could be transformed into a Reshus Hayachid by following some specific rules. The net result is that after Hilchos Eruvin were instituted, there were NO actions which people could be done that were not being done before. No one said, "Now the neighborhood can have a picnic on Shabbos afternoon!", because they could have done this all along, if there was no Reshus Harabim running through. Thus, no one lamented the zilzul Shabbos caused by allowing picnics which had previously been forbidden, because they had NOT previously been forbidden. I suppose it is possible that in the beginning, these procedures were used only by small neighborhoods (chatzeros and not much larger), and it was only much later that they were used by entire communities. If that's what RMB was referring to, then I'll have to stop here and let a historian continue. Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 07:00:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 10:00:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Megilat Rut: The night of Boaz and Rut Revisited Message-ID: <20150518135955.4DC6C183869@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/kmyx55p YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 08:40:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 11:40:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> On Sun, May 17, 2015 at 1:32pm EDT, R/Prof. Yitzchok Levine wrote on Areivim: : Yesterday in shul I asked a 12 year-old boy who attends a good : yeshiva if he was willing to announce the Molad. He looked at me : incredulously and said "What's the Molad?" I replied, "You know, : when the new moon can be seen." He still didn't get it, and I had : to elaborate a bit. I want to get all nerdy with this. The molad is actually an average, not when you could first see the moon this particular month. From 1601 to 200 CE, the actual physical lunation could be 6h 21m shorter or 7h 15m longer. And, the average too changes over time. (As I've noted in the past, it is amazing to me that we had back in the days of Galus Bavel, a molad value that was most accurate in the same century R' Hillel II and his Sanhedrin crated a standard calendar, some 900 years later. Exact to within the unit of measure (the cheileq). Accurate when we needed the value, not when we first obtained it. Currently, the molad is around 108 chalaqim off. And that's just the time between the molads. Then you have to ask when in the cycle the moon could first be seen. How thin of a sliver is visible to the typical human eye? And which longitude's clock are you using? And we announce the time for this point on the globe using today's hour naming convension. If you look at (eg) the Rambam, you'd be seeing a clock which is restarted every day at sunset, making sunset 0:00, not a number various about 6pm. But that's only something to keep in mind when looking at older Sepharadi sefarim, and wouldn't impact understanding what it is we actually announce. It would seem the molad as we now announce it would be for Kandahar, Afghanistan. But that must be due to slippage because the molad is too long. If we go back to the 4th or 5th cent CE, the molad is being announced given the time around midway between the Nile and the far (south-east) end of the Euphrates, which would have been around the middle of Jewish settlement at the time. In any case, calling is Jerusalem Time is a misnomer. Anyway, because we don't know for sure what location on the globe the molad was defined for, and how much of the current location is due to slippage during centuries of molads growing ever longer, we cannot definitively translate molad time to your local standard time. We simply do not know the starting lattitude to convert from. Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 08:53:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 11:53:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 11:40 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. Sure we do. It's the motion of an "averaged moon" that orbits the earth in a perfect circle, and that, however fictional, forms the basis of our calendar. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 09:41:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 12:41:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150518164134.GC20828@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 11:53:42AM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : On 05/18/2015 11:40 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: : >Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. : Sure we do. It's the motion of an "averaged moon" that orbits the earth : in a perfect circle, and that, however fictional, forms the basis of our : calendar. Except we don't know how much of an idealized moon is supposed to be showing and where between the latitudes of Alexandria and Sura it would have been showing. IOW, we don't know when in the moon's cycle the molad is an idealization of. Note, though, that Rabban Gamliel quotes a mesorah from R' Gamliel haZaqein ("mibeis avi abba) that the molad varies. And in a second quote, that it will never be "less than" 29-1/2d 2/3h 73 chalaqim. (Shabbos 25a) And he uses this to question eidim, so this is a mesorah he accepts for re'iyah, not just computation. Redoing R' Gamaliel's fractions, and converting 73c = 4m 1c, we get 29d 4 hr, 44m, 1 c. Our molad. So Rabban Gamliel held our molad was a lower limit, not an average!? And recall, we'e talking re'iyah (see the sugya) and the actual lunation could be over 6hr easlier than the average. What am I missing? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 08:23:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 11:23:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: <001b01d09170$1d5db6f0$581924d0$@org.uk> References: <001b01d09170$1d5db6f0$581924d0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <555A0402.4060608@sero.name> It should be borne in mind that there are still countries (including ones with substantial Jewish communities) where the need for pidyon is at least as common now as it probably was in Chazal's day. Also that while in many countries paying ransoms may be technically illegal, hardly anybody who is r"l in that situation cares about this. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 09:35:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Riceman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 12:35:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <555A14EF.8070305@optimum.net> RMB: <. In particular, his very first source (see link to mar'eh meqomos sheet) Nissah 20b. Yalta, "Rebbetzin Nachman", asks her mar'os questions of Rabbah bar bar Chanah and Rabbi Yitzchaq bereih deR' Yehudah, not her husband. Similarly mishnah Nega'im 2:5 saying you can't pasen nega'im even of relatives, Bekhoros 31a about judging one's own bekhoros.>> The standard hiluq is is'hazek issura or not. See, e.g., Hochmas Adam H. Shechitah 1:10, Binas Adam ad. loc., and HA H. Nidah 109:6 and BA ad. loc. I think the issue is that hora'ah in the presence of hezkas issur is considered eidus. The argument of self interest raises some problems: 1. Do you know of cases where rabbis have referred questions about communal matters to experts elsewhere because they are self interested since they live in the community? For example, do Hachmai EY refer questions about communal safety (e.g., military matters) to rabbis in Hutz LaAretz because they are self interested? 2. Why shouldn't self interest be a psul in the absence of hezkas issur? I know people on this list have cited it to me in the case of restaurants certifying their own products. David Riceman From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 10:03:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 13:03:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518164134.GC20828@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> <20150518164134.GC20828@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555A1B64.8060409@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 12:41 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > What am I missing? That what we announce is *not* anything to do with the actual moon, which the eidim in RG's time would have claimed to have seen, but the notional averaged moon on which *our* calendar is based. The *real* molad, i.e. conjunction of moon and sun, does vary, because the real moon does not orbit the earth in a perfect circle; the notional molad on which we base our calendar, and which we announce every month (except, ironically, the one month when it actually matters), is perfectly regular. And "molad" does seem to mean the conjunction, not the moment when the first sliver is visible, because the gemara in RH seems to say that the first possible sighting of the new moon is six hours *after* the molad. So we do know exactly what we are announcing: the number on which the calendar is based. Given this Shabbos's announcement, one can easily calculate that next Rosh Hashana will be on a Monday, exactly as it should be. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 10:49:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 13:49:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> At 11:40 AM 5/18/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. Yet it says in the siddurim that it should be announced so people know when it is! My understanding is that what is announced is Jerusalem solar time and this is different from Jerusalem local time. YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 11:47:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 14:47:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150518184701.GD20828@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 01:03:32PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : On 05/18/2015 12:41 PM, Micha Berger wrote: : >What am I missing? : : That what we announce is *not* anything to do with the actual moon, which : the eidim in RG's time would have claimed to have seen, but the notional : averaged moon on which *our* calendar is based... First, as Zev noted to me in private, I meant RH 25a (not Mes' Shabbos). But the point I asked "what am I missing?" about was Rabbi Gamliel questioning what people thought they saw, not the average. In R' Gamliel's day, the length of the molad was pretty close to exact; even today it's closer than they had any way to measure. But that's still an average. And real values can be more than 6 hr earlier. So, how can R' Gamliel question someone's observation for being less than a molad, when in half of all months re'iyah will be early -- and many 5 or 6 hr early. : So we do know exactly what we are announcing: the number on which the : calendar is based. Given this Shabbos's announcement, one can easily : calculate that next Rosh Hashana will be on a Monday, exactly as it : should be. As I said in my previous post... Yes, that explans the length of the molad, but not the point in the idealized cycle. How much moon must be visible for it to be a new moon? Or more accurately, what was visible when the molad was al pi re'iyah that we are now using a simplified model to approximate? And we can't just calculate what it is the molad is approximating, because we don't know what clock to use. It looks to me like Hillel was using a point halfway between EY and Bavel, somewhere in the center of the contiguous Jewish settlement. But that's largely guesswork. On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 01:49:49PM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : My understanding is that what is announced is Jerusalem solar time : and this is different from Jerusalem local time. Which is why I left out the word standard, writing "Jerusalem Time" rather than Israel Standard Time. But as I wrote above, it's not. See also my first post (for Avodah) on this thread for more detail. In 1999, R Yisrael Medad posted something about this on MJ, after having R/Prof Ely Merbach, R/Prof Yaakov Loewinger and the Bar Ilan astronomy dept bad the question around. See They assume Jerusalem Mean Time, but they make the fundamental error of discussing mean conjunction -- no moon -- not the first sliver. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 13:31:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 16:31:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150518203148.GB4022@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 02:24:32PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : >Yes, that explans the length of the molad, but not the point in the : >idealized cycle. How much moon must be visible for it to be a new : >moon? [...] they make the fundamental error of discussing mean : >conjunction -- no moon -- not the first sliver. : : I don't think they made an error at all. The molad is the conjunction; : the earliest time at which the moon can be seen is six hours after : the molad. How do you know this? The Rambam (Qiddush Levana 6:1) appears to say it's the average of the first time the moon could be seen "kedei leida im yeira'eh hayarei'ach of lo yeira'eh.... bemahalakhtam ha'emtza'i, who haniqra 'molad'". And my whole point was that we didn't know how big of a sliver is "yeira'eh", but I'm willing to entertain the possibility that we announce when it cannot be seen, as a way of knowing by deduction when it could. I just can't see it as a given. Combining not knowing how much -- if any -- after the conjunction the molad is with not knowing which lattitude's clock is being used was the not knowing what the molad really means. You could move the lattitude by changing the size sliver. As for why we announce the molad... The Yerei'im gives the answer Zev did. The MA quotes the Yerei'im and says that mevorkhim hachodesh is lezeikher the real qiddush hachodesh by Sanhedrin. Which is why we stand. RMF (IM OC 1:142) says this is in imitation of the qehillah who would stand when answering "Mequdash! Mequdash!" I find the MA's answer more compelling, because it unlikely that it is to know when Rosh Chodesh should be, when the one RC that most depends on the molad isn't announced -- Tishrei. It also adds resonence for me when saying "Mi sheAsah Nissim", that before the chazan announces ther month, we ask for a return of the qiddush hachodesh being commemorated. And if truly "chaverim kol Yisrael" and we acted it, we would have a Sanhedrin. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 11:24:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 14:24:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 01:49 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > At 11:40 AM 5/18/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >> Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. > Yet it says in the siddurim that it should be announced so people know > when it is! It's the number used for calculating the calendar. That's all people need to know. > My understanding is that what is announced is Jerusalem solar time > and this is different from Jerusalem local time. No, it's different from J'm *standard* time, i.e. the modern time system invented by the railroads, which of course we take no notice of. On 05/18/2015 02:47 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > But the point I asked "what am I missing?" about was Rabbi Gamliel > questioning what people thought they saw, not the average. Why are you discussing that? The topic is the announcement in shul, which relates entirely to our calculated system, not to RG's system. You wrote that nobody knows what it is that's being announced, and I dispute that. RG is entirely irrelevant, since he was dealing with the actual moon, not the notional moon that our system deals with. > Yes, that explans the length of the molad, but not the point in the > idealized cycle. How much moon must be visible for it to be a new > moon? [...] they make the fundamental error of discussing mean > conjunction -- no moon -- not the first sliver. I don't think they made an error at all. The molad is the conjunction; the earliest time at which the moon can be seen is six hours after the molad. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 14:36:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 17:36:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518203148.GB4022@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> <20150518203148.GB4022@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555A5B79.2030308@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 04:31 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > > How do you know this? The Rambam (Qiddush Levana 6:1) appears to say > it's the average of the first time the moon could be seen "kedei leida im > yeira'eh hayarei'ach of lo yeira'eh.... bemahalakhtam ha'emtza'i, > who haniqra 'molad'". On the contrary, that Rambam says *explicitly* that the molad is the exact moment of the conjunction, which is *not* when it can be seen. Read it again and you will surely see this. > As for why we announce the molad... The Yerei'im gives the answer > Zev did.The MA quotes the Yerei'im and says that mevorkhim hachodesh > is lezeikher the real qiddush hachodesh by Sanhedrin. Which is why > we stand. RMF (IM OC 1:142) says this is in imitation of the qehillah > who would stand when answering "Mequdash! Mequdash!" Neither the Yere'im nor the MA even mention the announcement of the molad, let alone give any reason for it. All the Yere'im says is that the announcement of Rosh Chodesh in shul is not at all related to kidush hachodesh, but is merely so people should know when Rosh Chodesh will be. The MA adds that although this is true, the custom is to stand for it, as a zecher to kidush hachodesh, which was done standing. R Akiva Eger asks how this could be so, since we know that a beis din must sit, not stand. RMF answers thatkiddush hachodesh was done notby the BD, but by the audience, after hearing the BD's psak, and they were surely standing, and this is what the MA means. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 14:49:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 17:49:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: RMicha Berger wrote: >Among the arguments that came up in the discussion of the Kosher Switch was that it's zilzul Shabbos. >>The thought hit me, though... Refraining from operating electrical devices has only been a potential issue for 125 years or so. And except for Yekkes, most of our ancestors come from places where it has been less than a century since electricity became part of our lives. >So it's very hard to say that "not using electricity" is a defining feature of the Shabbos experience.< True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul Shabbos. (Of course, by this argument, putting an electric light on or off should be prohibited even if the use of electricity is not a m'lacha.) >Contrast this to hotza'ah, including haavarah, which take up what seems like 1/3 of chazal's discussion of issur melakhah (rough estimate from Berakhos and Eruvin in mishna, Tosefta, Y-mi and Bavli).< I assume that "Berakhos" should be replaced by "Shabbos." >When community eruvin got started, wasn't there a much easier argument of zilzul? Why wasn't it made? Indeed we use the general kelal of being meiqil WRT eiruvin to quite an extent to build one. And what does the fact that a community eruv is NOT zilzul Shabbos say about the nature of zilzul Shabbos and its applicability to nidon didan?< What tzuras hapesach and eiruv permit is not carrying prohibited by the Torah. Rather, it is, in effect, a built-in exception to the issurim imposed mid'rabbanan by two g'zeiros: the classification of certain areas, which min haTorah are m'kom p'tur, as a new entity called karmelis, and the imposing of a prohibition of hotza'a from one r'shus hayachid to another of different ownership. Both were in use long before there was a city eruv. E.g., persons sharing a two-family house with a common fenced yard would make an eruv to permit carrying to and from their living quarters to the others' and to the yard. Likewise, a house opening to an unfenced yard would make a tzuras hapesach to permit carrying between house and yard. And, of course, two houses opening to a common unfenced yard would make a tzuras hapesach to "enclose" the yard, and then an eruv to permit carrying among houses and yard. The city eruv was not an introduction of a new practice, but a larger-scale use of already common practices. How does this constitute zilzul Shabbos? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 14:31:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 22:31:48 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000001d091b2$0c5074f0$24f15ed0$@org.uk> RZS writes: >It should be borne in mind that there are still countries (including ones >with substantial Jewish communities) where the need for pidyon is at least >as common now as it probably was in Chazal's day. Are you thinking of South America? I confess that is what springs to mind from your suggestion, although how often ransom is really required in such countries I don't know. > Also that while in many countries paying ransoms may be technically illegal, hardly anybody who is >r"l in that situation cares about this. But presumably you are talking about the same ones (eg South America). My question relates solely to countries, like Britain and Israel, to which Rav Zylberstein was referring. He took it for granted that in fact it was exceedingly uncommon for pidyon to be needed. I am not so sure it is so uncommon, but I doubt very much that in these countries "hardly anybody who is r"l in that situation cares about this". That is, while I know from the press of numbers of cases in which pidyon has been needed for British and Israeli citizens, in none of these cases were private individuals allowed to redeem (despite them quite naturally wanting to, and possibly being willing to do so, if they had not been restrained, whether by circumstances or otherwise). Clearly if one lives in a place where pidyon is common, and where, whatever the technical law says, in practice individual family members redeem, neither my question nor Rav Zylberstein's gets off the ground. But I don't think the existence of a place in the world, that one would never contemplate living in (and is not the locus of the ketuba), is relevant to the obligations under that ketuba which must relate to the places that the couple live and the governments under which they live. Even when it might involve some less scrupulous situations - one of the mothers in our school in England had the situation that her sons were effectively kidnapped by her ex-husband and held in Russia. And while yes, ultimately she found where they were hidden by means of a private investigator, which cost her private money, she would never have been able to extract them had: (a) Russia not signed up to the Hague convention; (b) the Russian court given judgment in her favour; and (c) the Russian police at the bequest of the English government on the basis of the Russian judgment actually going in and retrieving the boys (whose location they had singularly failed to identify until the private investigator had provided the cast iron information as to where they were). And she would have struggled to have brought them back into England without the rulings of the Russian authorities. And even if an adult is different, I cannot see the British government allowing one of its citizens to go off and try and attempt pidyon of another of its citizens without its active involvement, it being seen as cutting across its foreign policy (even if this was occurring in a place where ransom payments amongst locals was common). >Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 15:53:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 18:53:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] measurement error In-Reply-To: <20150111185211.GA15414@aishdas.org> References: <54AD8B25.3010103@optimum.net> <20150111185211.GA15414@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150518225308.GA15666@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 01:52:11PM -0500, Micha Berger wrote: : In an appreciated bit of siyata dishmaya, my Arukh haShulchan yomi : sechedule brought me to a primary source : on this subject -- AhS OC 363:32-35. The he.WikiSource.org ("Vikiteqst") : copy is at ... : When dealing with mavui, where there is only one mavui and therefore one : measuring process to be used for everyone, the above applies. However, : when the measurement is only for one person's use, tbey should be : measuring for himself, with his own norms. : And here he adds a touch of subjectivity: a person should measure how : far he himself could walk. And the rule of carrying in rh"r a distance : of no more 4 of one's own amos is brought into that umbrella. : The reason for the general rule is to cover the personal amos of the : people who will be using the measuring. : BUT, and this is why I do not follow, he opened se'if 32 by telling us : the variability is 1/48 of the total (1/24 of an etzba per ammah). Which : is far less than the variability in forearm lengths in most groups of : people. For example, my own sukkah is used by Yoni, who stands 6'3" and by : my own 5'3" -- and my arms are on the shorter side, even proportionally. : When we hold up elbows together, my ammah ends just past his wrist. Not : within 47/48 of eachother. I came across another AhS datapoint for this thread, OC 586:14. He quotes the Rambam Shofar 1:5, discussing the minimum length of a shofar: that you can hold it in your hand and it's visible on either end. The AhS explains the intent as being the size of the toqei'ah's hand, but rather an average person's hands, "veshi'uro tefach sheheim 4 godelim". Then there is a debate whether the tefach has to be a generous one, so as to be visible (Tur, quoting Ri Gei'os) or a narrow one (Tur himself and SA), which is still visible if the toqei'ah uses four fingers -- after all, they'll still be narrower than 4 thumbs. So the shiur is neither personal nor really the standard tefach. It is literally as the gemara says, what can be held and still seen. Which is why there is a machloqes about where the tefach stands in relation to the real shiur. But, visible if hypothetically held by an average hand. And if the tqoei'ah has wide hands, he could hold a minimal shofar without it being visible, and it would still be kosher. The AhS also says this was already explained in Nidah 26b, which is a depressing gemara about miscarriages, and a tefach comes up in shiurim for tum'ah, but I didn't see where it mentionrs our topic of what kind of tefach is used. What I find even more interesting is that there is no chiluq being drawn between someone who blows in shul and someone who blows just for himself. Wouldn't the rule from OC 363 mean that someone in the latter situation should use what is visible when their own hand holds it? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 15:35:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 18:35:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: <000001d091b2$0c5074f0$24f15ed0$@org.uk> References: <000001d091b2$0c5074f0$24f15ed0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <555A6924.4010709@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 05:31 PM, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: > RZS writes: > >> It should be borne in mind that there are still countries (including ones >> with substantial Jewish communities) where the need for pidyon is at least >> as common now as it probably was in Chazal's day. > > Are you thinking of South America? Well, Latin America (so as to include Mexico). There are also other such countries, such as India, the Philippines, Nigeria, where the need for pidyon is common, but there are not a lot of Jews living there. > But I don't > think the existence of a place in the world, that one would never > contemplate living in (and is not the locus of the ketuba), is relevant to > the obligations under that ketuba which must relate to the places that the > couple live and the governments under which they live. Even a couple marrying in such a country must contemplate the possibility that one or both might one day travel to a country where kidnapping is common, and be kidnapped. Even in Chazal's day the danger was not so much where people lived as on the highways and the seas, where they might travel. Also, I am not at all sure that it is actually illegal in most normal countries to pay ransom. What is illegal is giving *anything* to groups that are officially listed by that country's government as terrorists. If the kidnappers are not on the list, so that it would be legal to give them a gift, then I don't think there's a law against paying them ransom. (Perhaps there should be.) -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 19 11:32:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joseph Kaplan via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 14:32:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Standing at a Chupah Message-ID: <004f01d09262$1f0388c0$5d0a9a40$@tenzerlunin.com> "Truth be told, I have seen the following many times. When the grandparents who are 70 or more years old walk down, no one stands for them. However, when the chosson and kallah walk down everyone stands for them." At almost every MO wedding I've attended over the past 5-10 years, everyone stood when the grandparents walked down whether they were older than 70 or not. But if, God willing, I'm around for my grandchildren's weddings, I plan to walk (or, if necessary, wheelchair) down the aisle whether anybody stands for me or not. Joseph -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 19 12:18:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 15:18:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150519191809.GA8642@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 05:49:16PM -0400, elazar teitz via Avodah wrote: :> So it's very hard to say that "not using electricity" is a defining :> feature of the Shabbos experience. : True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature : of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so : accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul : Shabbos. (Of course, by this argument, putting an electric light on or off : should be prohibited even if the use of electricity is not a m'lacha.) As would replacing gefilte fish with sushi? It's not that people from Sinai to around 100 years ago actually experienced avoiding the lightswitch, nor did they even consciously experience not having one -- since there was no conception of an alternative. Not using electricity, and saying that qedushas shabbos requires avoiding electricity are really two different things, experientially. 100 years ago we had an opportunity to do something new on Shabbos, much like when shomerei Shabbos first learned of sushi. The difference is that we did assur one new opportunity, and not the other. ... : What tzuras hapesach and eiruv permit is not carrying prohibited by : the Torah. Rather, it is, in effect, a built-in exception to the issurim : imposed mid'rabbanan by two g'zeiros... ... : The city eruv was not an introduction of a new practice, but a : larger-scale use of already common practices. How does this constitute : zilzul Shabbos? Yes, that explains why it's nothing clearer cut than zilzul Shabbos. AIUI, worrying about zilzul means that the mechanism is mutar, but the goal is one that cheapens Shabbos, removes some of the feeling of its qedushah. Like taking the pre-existing concept of eiruv as a way to have a reshus that was no included in Shelomo ubeis dino's original issur hotza'ah and stretching it to a much bigger area than ever before, so that most people never have reason to leave it most weeks. So that the entire issur goes from being one of the dominant features of Shabbos (judging just in blatt of discussion) to barely ever experienced. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 45th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Malchus: What is the beauty of Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity (on all levels of relationship)? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 19 12:46:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 22:46:01 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] donor egg Message-ID: "A 65-year-old Bnei Brak woman gave birth this week, becoming the oldest woman to give birth in Israel. The ultra-Orthodox woman and her 67-year-old husband had been battling infertility for 46 years before the birth at Kfar Sava?s Meir hospital. After fertility treatments abroad and with the help of a donor egg, the woman became pregnant, giving birth to a 2.685-kg baby in her 35th week of pregnancy. ?To the best of my knowledge, this is the oldest woman to give birth in Israel. It is extremely rare that pregnancy at this age ends well. The ultra-Orthodox circle from which the couple comes attributed the pregnancy and birth to a blessing the woman received from a Hassidic rabbi. " http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel/.premium-1.657230 Given all the halachic controversy of who is the halachic mother I am a little surprised -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 07:11:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 17:11:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? Message-ID: There is a famous Medrash that before offering the Torah to the Jewish people Hashem offered it to the other nations of the world. "First He approached the children of Esav and asked them, "Do you wish to accept the Torah?" They replied, "What is written in it?" "Do not murder." They said, "...Our father was assured that, 'By your sword will you live (Bereishit 27:40)!'" Next Hashem went to the children of Ammon and Moav, and asked, "Do you wish to accept the Torah?" They asked, "What is written in it?" "Do not commit sexual immorality." They responded, "Master of the Universe, our very existence is based on an immoral act!" Hashem then went to the children of Yishmael, and asked them, "Do you wish to accept the Torah?" They asked, "What is written in it?" "Do not steal." They responded, "Master of the Universe, the essence of our father was to be a bandit, as it is written, 'And he will be a man of the wild; his hand will be in all...'" (Bereishit 16:12)." Sifri, Ve'Zot HaBracha #343 However, the Medrash has an obvious question. All of the examples of Torah prohibitions given by the Medrash, are also prohibited by the 7 mitzvos of Bnei Noach. The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from murder so how would accepting the Torah make things worse for them? The same goes for arayos and stealing, these were already prohibited to them anyway so why does the medrash specifically pick these as examples for Torah prohibitions? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 11:16:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 14:16:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150520181647.GA15475@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 05:11:29PM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : However, the Medrash has an obvious question. All of the examples of Torah : prohibitions given by the Medrash, are also prohibited by the 7 mitzvos of : Bnei Noach. The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from murder so how would : accepting the Torah make things worse for them? The same goes for arayos : and stealing, these were already prohibited to them anyway so why does the : medrash specifically pick these as examples for Torah prohibitions? I raised this and a second question in : Hashem's answer to each of the nations is strange. Why choose the one sin their forefather was known for? Is that how you would do kiruv, starting with the hard stuff? By comparing this medrash to the opening pasuk in this week's parshah, [Lekh Lekha,] we can get a better understanding of the point of the story. "Hashem said to Avram, `Go for yourself from your homeland, from your birthplace and from your father's house to the land which I will show you'." (12:1) The first sentence recorded in the Torah of the Jewish mission on earth is a commandment for Avram to leave his home and his father. Avram didn't say, "I can't worship G-d because my very substance his idolatry, because my father, Terach, manufactures idols". Hashem orders Avram to leave the culture that made him, to leave his father's sphere of influence, and he does. Avram's reply was "And Avram went, just as G-d told him". (12:4) If Hashem said he could change, rise above Ur Casdim to become fit for both the land of Israel and the father of the people of Israel, then he goes. Is man a creature of fate or of destiny? Is his future foretold, etched in rock, unchangeable? Or can he rebuild himself into something greater than he was? Clearly the Torah insists on the latter. The very key to accepting the Torah is to be committed to use its ideas and its mitzvos to improve and to grow. This was the failing ascribed to the other nations in the medrash. They saw a given flaw in their national character as their substance, immutable. Hashem wasn't asking them about a particular prohibition, but about their commitment to leave their "father's house". If they do not believe they can change, what purpose can getting the Torah serve them? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 46th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Malchus: How can some forms of Fax: (270) 514-1507 "unity" be over domineering? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 11:48:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 14:48:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: <20150520181647.GA15475@aishdas.org> References: <20150520181647.GA15475@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555CD6E5.5000606@sero.name> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 05:11:29PM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from murder so how would : accepting the Torah make things worse for them? The same goes for arayos : and stealing, these were already prohibited to them anyway sowhy does the : medrash specifically pick these as examples for Torah prohibitions? Perhaps that was His point: you can't even keep the mitzvos you already have, so how can you want more? On 05/20/2015 02:16 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > I raised this and a second question in > : > Hashem's answer to each of the nations is strange. Why choose the one > sin their forefather was known for? Is that how you would do kiruv, > starting with the hard stuff? Why the premise that the purpose was kiruv? On the contrary, I think the medrash's intent is clear, that Hashem did *not* want them to accept His offer, and thus pitched it in the manner most likely to be rejected. The only purpose of making the offer in the first place was so they wouldn't be able to complain that they hadn't been given the chance. He wasn't trying to sell it to them, He was showing them why they didn't want it, and therefore shouldn't be upset that the Jews were getting it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 17:29:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 20:29:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] 65 Year-Old Woman Gives Birth to First Child in Bnei Brak In-Reply-To: <20150520.101659.17683.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150520.101659.17683.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150521002935.GC9522@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 02:16:59PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Areivim wrote: : If we were speaking Lashon Hakodesh, you'd be correct - Bar Mitzvah is : a noun, and only a noun. However, we are clearly speaking English, and : several dictionaries tell me that in English, "Bar Mitzvah" is both a noun : and a verb. See, for example, http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bar+mitzvah : which gives "bar mitzvahed" (and other forms) as examples. : Languages are funny this way. Stuff can change when a word enters a : new language. However, there is no real concept correspnding to the English word "bar mitzvahed". The borrowing was primarily done by non-traditional Jews, who think that being called up to the Torah changes your status. But in reality, "bar mitzvahed" makes as much sense as saying someone pubertied or menopaused. We O could borrow the word as shorthand for "became a bar mitzah" but since the original borrowing is really based on a misunderstanding of the Torah, why should we? It'll just make it harder to clear up the mistake. : If I'm not mistaken, the Yiddish word for "holiday" is pronounced : "yuntif", and it is spelled "yud vav memsofit blankspace tes vav beis", : and is considered a single word despite the fact... IIRC, on the NY State Yiddish Regents Examination in the late 1970s, it was spelled as it sounds, one word, yud-alef-nun-tes-eyin-ende fei (w/ a refuyah line over it). (R' Riskin, whose HS I attended, required a foreign language, and Hebrew doesn't count as "foreign". The Hebrew Regents exam was a separate requirement to graduate. As was Red Cross swimming certification and you could choose either CPR or First Aid. The latter two were because the HS is the father's shaliach for all of chinukh and education. Anyway, I already had some background in Yiddish, and I heard that the Yiddish regents eere easier than more popular languages like Spanish or French, so...) But the, Chassidishe Yiddish and YIVO Yiddish (the legacy of Litvishe Yiddishists) are different dialects. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 46th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Malchus: How can some forms of Fax: (270) 514-1507 "unity" be over domineering? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 17:53:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 20:53:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Admin: [Areivim] 65 Year-Old Woman Gives Birth to First Child in Bnei Brak In-Reply-To: <20150521002935.GC9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150520.101659.17683.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> <20150521002935.GC9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150521005329.GF9522@aishdas.org> The previous email was misdirected. Replies to it will not be accepted. (On Avodah. If Areivim's mods approve it, reply there.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 18:57:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 20:57:21 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <555D3B81.5030709@starways.net> I think the obvious answer is that midrash is midrash. One midrash doesn't have to be consistent with another. It's there to learn from, and the message of this one comes through regardless of the Noachide laws. On 5/20/2015 9:11 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > There is a famous Medrash that before offering the Torah to the Jewish > people Hashem offered it to the other nations of the world. > > However, the Medrash has an obvious question. All of the examples of > Torah prohibitions given by the Medrash, are also prohibited by the 7 > mitzvos of Bnei Noach. The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from > murder so how would accepting the Torah make things worse for them? > The same goes for arayos and stealing, these were already prohibited > to them anyway so why does the medrash specifically pick these as > examples for Torah prohibitions? > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 03:36:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 06:36:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: <555D3B81.5030709@starways.net> References: <555D3B81.5030709@starways.net> Message-ID: <20150521103619.GC7831@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 08:57:21PM -0500, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: : I think the obvious answer is that midrash is midrash. One midrash : doesn't have to be consistent with another. It's there to learn : from, and the message of this one comes through regardless of the : Noachide laws. I believe the question was finding internal consistency in a single medrash from the Yalqut Shim'oni. The medrash that says the nations were offered the Torah itself says the example mitzvos were ones they were already obligated in, and ones their ancestor was known for. So, what does that tell us about the message? To me, it says that the offer was more about testing one's willingness to change. Therefore, each is asked if they would be willing to refrain from something that they should already be avoiding, but is part of their current culture. And that, in turn, speaks to seeing the Torah as a tool for self-transformation. Which I mean in a manner vague enough to include both Chassidim and Litvaks. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 07:50:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 10:50:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Ways to find non-meat or non-milk Message-ID: <20150521145032.GH9522@aishdas.org> >From the founder of Machon Zomer, RYRosen, on possible ways to eat kosher meat and milk together without violating basar bechalav. -micha Shabbat B'Shabbato Translated by Moshe Goldberg Point Of View Bit of Reality from Sinai Rabbi Yisrael Rosen Dean of the Zomet Institute "This teaches you that scripture, the Mishna, halacha, tosefta, hagadda, and whatever a veteran scholar will teach in the future already exists, and it was all given as halacha to Moshe at Sinai" [Kohellet Rabba 1]. ... Recipes with Meat and Milk In honor of the holiday, we have pieced together for you, from the newest volume, some juicy samples of dairy halachot, as is fitting for the holiday of Shavuot, in order to fulfill the verse, "Honey and milk are under your tongue" [Shir Hashirim 4:11]. We will capture your interest for halachic sophistication by offering you, from this new volume of Techumin, a serving of meat cooked in milk (yes, you read that right!). Compare this to Rav Nachman, who gave his wife an udder soaked in milk in order to satisfy her desire to taste a combination of milk and meat (Chulin 109b). And what is our enticing menu item that fits this requirement? See below... (1) "Ben Pekua" -- It is an accepted halacha (admittedly quite odd) that if a cow is slaughtered in the eighth month of her pregnancy and the calf is found to be alive, it is called a "Ben Pekua" and there is no need to slaughter it. It can be eaten in any manner, including even taking off a limb while it is still alive (Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Dei'ah 13), even many years later, and there is no need to check if it has one of the faults that would render a normal animal unkosher. And now, here is the most surprising part: The offspring of a male and female "Ben Pekua" (both of the "parents must be of this type) will never require kosher slaughtering either, and this includes all subsequent generations. (However, if only one parent is a "Ben Pekua," the offspring cannot be made kosher, even by slaughtering!) Rabbi Meir Rabi from Australia published a dramatic article where he claims that by definition a Ben Pekua is not cattle (but is rather the same as fish), and therefore not only is there no need to remove the veins in the hind quarter, one is even permitted to cook it and eat it together with milk! To come to this conclusion, the rabbi bases his ruling on a Torah insight by the Meshech Chochma, that our Patriarch Avraham served his guests, the angels, "a calf (literally, the son of cattle, or a ben pekua!) that was tender and good," from the womb of a pregnant cow, and he gave them "butter and milk, and the calf" [Bereishit 18:8]. Rabbi Rabi went further, and acted on his ruling. Using this method he created male and female "sheep" and grew flocks from them, and he now has a culinary and halachic declaration -- these animals do not need to be slaughtered, their veins do not have to be removed, their fat is not prohibited -- and the rabbi has a long list of other benefits. However, modern rabbis do not accept this idea! In the new volume of Techumin, Rabbi Zev Vitman, the rabbi of Tenuvah (which sells milk, meat, and fish) vigorously opposes the novel ruling. Aside from the release from the requirement of ritual slaughtering (which is carried over from the mother or the grandmother of the calf), Rabbi Vitman disagrees with (almost) all the other conclusions. He finds no justification for defining the Ben Pekua as a "new and separate species." In addition, in volume 19 of Techumin, sixteen years ago, Sephardi Chief Rabbi Bakshi-Doron rejected a similar proposal that was sent to him by meat farmers on the Golan, fearing that it would lead to serious problems. Other prominent rabbis, such as Rabbi Shmuel Vazner and Rabbi Asher Weiss, warned against getting involved in this sophisticated and complex halachic problem. (2) We are thus left to search elsewhere for a combination of meat and milk: meat that has been cloned from stem cells! In a previous volume, Rev Tvi Reizman (a well-known businessman from Los Angeles who is also a Torah scholar well versed in matters of halacha and actuality) writes about an "artificial hamburger" which was created two years ago. This is produced from artificial meat made from stem cells of a cow which was not slaughtered or which was declared unkosher ("tereifa"). In principle, he concludes that clone meat is not real meat, and that it can therefore be cooked and eaten with milk! (The summary of the article includes many details which will not be repeated here. For example, the problem of appearances can be solved by proper packaging and declarations, as is done for soya milk.) However, my friends, I doubt that you should rush out after the holiday to search for an "artificial hamburger," in order to season it with honey and dip it in milk. Rabbi Yaacov Ariel opposes the idea in the new volume of Techumin. He concludes that such artificial meat can only be produced from a kosher animal, and that then "it will be considered meat for all intents and purposes, including the matter of cooking with milk." So, in the end we are left with the solution in the Talmud: Does anybody want some milk-saturated udders? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 08:36:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 11:36:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula Message-ID: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> In OC 196:1, the Rama mentions the minhag of blowing 30 qolos at the end of RH mussaf. "Ule'achar sheyatze'u bazeh, shuv ein litqua od bechinam." (Although a qatan, even higia lechinuch, may.) So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. As for being yotzei... Mitzvas shofar only requires tashra"t, tasha"t OR tara"t, 3 times. A point the AhS makes besheim the Rash besheim R' Hai Gaon (Shilhei RH), "delav sefeiqos gemuros hein", that Rav Avahu was mesaqein in order for everyone to do the same thing, not because otherwise you're not yotzei shemie'as qol shofar. The AhS criptically adds, "(ulevad zeh yeish bazeh inyan gadol)." So the question is whether you have to blow in numerous ways few other people use in order to fulfil a taqanah created to create uniformity of practice. But enough of the tirade, and back to the point: Being machmir in hilkhos shofar this way involves a qulah in hilkhos yom tov. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:25:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:25:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150521202527.GP9522@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 02:46:27PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : On 05/21/2015 11:36 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: :> In OC 196:1, the Rama mentions the minhag of blowing 30 qolos at the :> end of RH mussaf. "Ule'achar sheyatze'u bazeh, shuv ein litqua od :> bechinam." :> (Although a qatan, even higia lechinuch, may.) : : Not bechinam; for practice, so that he may one day blow for real. That's not what the Rama says, though. He says "you're allowed to tell him to blow (HaMagid, Hil' Shofar, pereq 2) and it's mutar to for him to blow all day (Or Zarua dRH)." The mishnah says "any me'qvim es hatinoqos militqoa, aval mis'asqim imahem ad sheyilmedu", which implies they are not stopped even after yilmedu. The gemara ad loc (RH 33a-b) says that a qatan higia' lechinukh is encouraged to blow to learn, but any child is not prevented from blowing. So I think the Rama is paralleling the gemara, and not saying the seifa is only for chinukh, or for a child who doesn't need to be stopped because he isn't ready yet. The AhS's wording is even further from your deduction. :> So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the :> qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, :> etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. : No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the : last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. They aren't to fulfill minhag. Hey, I didn't outright assur the practice, I said it relies on being meiqil, such as calling wanting to be chosheish for some minority opinion shitah a need to blow. In general, I'm increasingly uncomfortable with this concept of being machmir to be chosheish for ... It seems to reflect a lack of emunah in kelalei pesaq and the authority of pesaq. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 11:46:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 14:46:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 11:36 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > In OC 196:1, the Rama mentions the minhag of blowing 30 qolos at the > end of RH mussaf. "Ule'achar sheyatze'u bazeh, shuv ein litqua od > bechinam." > > (Although a qatan, even higia lechinuch, may.) Not bechinam; for practice, so that he may one day blow for real. > So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the > qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, > etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 05:09:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Arie Folger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 14:09:57 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: RMB wrote: > Yes, that explains why it's nothing clearer cut than zilzul Shabbos. > AIUI, worrying about zilzul means that the mechanism is mutar, but > the goal is one that cheapens Shabbos, removes some of the feeling > of its qedushah. > > Like taking the pre-existing concept of eiruv as a way to have a > reshus that was no included in Shelomo ubeis dino's original issur > hotza'ah and stretching it to a much bigger area than ever before, > so that most people never have reason to leave it most weeks. So > that the entire issur goes from being one of the dominant features > of Shabbos (judging just in blatt of discussion) to barely ever > experienced. RAW actually deals with this explicitly by citing IIRC Rambam on why Chazal legislated mutze. We are not all farmers or builders, not even cooks and bakers. Hence, many of us hardly ever come close to deoraitot of Shabbat. However, Shabbaton requires shevita hanikeret,so Chazal legislated muktze to create a shevita hanikeret. Says RAW, even if he is wrong on electricity being a deoraita (but he doesn't think he is wrong), nonetheless, the consensus of poskim on elecricity makes it into something akin to muktze. That never happened regarding gefillte fish [which outside Hungary hardly anyone ever ate except on Yom Tov, since what passes for gefillte fish is just the filling. ]. No one ever suggested it is chillul Shabbos to eat gevldige Sushi. At worst, some puerile yeshive boocher called it goiyishe maakhoolim. -- Arie Folger, Recent blog posts on http://ariefolger.wordpress.com/ * Kann man die Religion des anderen korrekt wahrnehmen? ? Zur Woche der Br?derlichkeit * ???? ???? ????? ? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ???? ??? * Ist Pessach f?r die Vergangenheit oder die Zukunft? * Frag den Rabbi ? Wie backte man Mazzot in der Bibel? * Frag den Rabbi ? Seit wann und warum bedecken j?dische m?nner beim gebet ihr haupt? * A Critique of Liberal Orthodox Approach to Halacha -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:38:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:38:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 02:46:27PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the : last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. Having 100 qolos as learned from Eim Sisera's 100 cries is a minhag recorded already in the Arukh, and is mentioned by Todafos and the Rosh in RH pereq 4. (AhS OC 596:1) The Tur that R' Amram Gaon mentions of minhag of a single teru'ah gedolah without a teqi'ah kedei le'arbeiv hasatan, but we do not have this minhag. The the AhS continues (se'if 2) with the already mentioned Rama, "ke'achar sheyatz'u bazeh, ein litqoa od bechinam". Which is why I said that blowing more than 100 qolos for reasons less than minhag requires a qula-dik reading of "chinam". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:31:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:31:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521202527.GP9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521202527.GP9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E409C.7080609@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 04:25 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > >:> So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the >:> qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, >:> etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. >: No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the >: last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. > They aren't to fulfill minhag. Hey, I didn't outright assur the practice, > I said it relies on being meiqil, such as calling wanting to be chosheish > for some minority opinion shitah a need to blow. That's not a kulah, because the issur is davka when it's bechinam, and so long as there's a reason it's not chinam. Their wish to hear shofar the way this rishon or that one wanted it heard is at least as good a reason as our "le`arvev es hasoton", or giving women a "nachas ruach". [Email #2. -micha] Follow-up: However, your chashash brings up an interesting suggestion. if they are worried about all possible chashshos, then maybe they should worry about yours too, and they can easily solve it: let them go on mivtzo'im and find Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all, and blow for them according to these opinions. That way, not only will they have heard shofar according to all possible opinions, and not only will they have the zechus of those Jews having heard shofar according to at least one opinion (which is certainly kosher, as you correctly point out), but their "extra" tekios will be with a bracha! -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:51:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:51:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E454E.60107@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 04:38 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 02:46:27PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: > : No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the > : last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. > > Having 100 qolos as learned from Eim Sisera's 100 cries is a minhag > recorded already in the Arukh, and is mentioned by Todafos and the > Rosh in RH pereq 4. (AhS OC 596:1) Yes, but what of the extra 30 kolos after davening? Those are not in the 100 kolos, they're just le'arvev es hasoton, and yet nobody seems to raise this objection to them. > The the AhS continues (se'if 2) with the already mentioned Rama, > "ke'achar sheyatz'u bazeh, ein litqoa od bechinam". Which is why I said > that blowing more than 100 qolos for reasons less than minhag requires > a qula-dik reading of "chinam". No, it's not kuladig, it's just what the word means. Any valid reason is not chinam. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:55:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:55:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <555E454E.60107@sero.name> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> <555E454E.60107@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150521205546.GA9166@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 04:51:26PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Yes, but what of the extra 30 kolos after davening? Those are not in the : 100 kolos, they're just le'arvev es hasoton, and yet nobody seems to raise : this objection to them. Actually, they were part of the 100 qolos, and in nusach Ashkenaz they still are. It's only because y'all starting blowing during chazaras hashatz that it's not obvious. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:44:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:44:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <555E43A6.3020602@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 08:09 AM, Arie Folger via Avodah wrote: > No one ever suggested it is chillul Shabbos to eat gevldige Sushi. At worst, some puerile yeshive boocher called it goiyishe maakhoolim. Chilul Shabbos, no, but I have heard people seriously claim that it's forbidden to eat milchigs on Shabbos because it's "not shabbosdik", and specifically citing as "obviously" ridiculous the idea of eating lasagna on Shabbos. Which struck me as funny, since I recall one Rosh Hashana, no less, being confronted with an excellent milchig lasagna, made with fake meat, and having to wait to eat it because I was still fleishig from lunch. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:52:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:52:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What do Chazal mean when they refer to "pashtei d'kra?" Message-ID: <20150521205201.GA6908@aishdas.org> Maybe one of you could help R' CHaim Brown, even if he did leave us over a decade ago. A recent blog post on his "Divrei Chaim" at or . I mean, we talk about different definitions of the concept of "peshat" often enough, perhaps maybe someone had something. Tir'u baTov! -Micha Divrei Chaim Wednesday, May 20, 2015 what do Chazal mean when they refer to "pashtei d'kra?" The gemara Archin 8b darshens that "tzikascha k'harerei E-l" refers to nigei adam, which Hashem in his mercy limits to affecting a person for a week. The continuation of the pasuk, "mishpatecha tehom rabbah," refers to nigei batim, where the punishment is more severe in that it can stretch out for three weeks. The gemara then asks, "Pashtei d'kra b'mai?" and brings two similar explanations to the pasuk that read it as saying that G-d shows great mercy in tempering and mitigating the verdict that strict justice would call for. What do Chazal mean when they refer to "pashtei d'kra?" Despite the word "pashtei" in there, it does not seem to mean what the Rishonim like Rashi call "pshat," because if you look at Rashi or the Metzudas David, they don't simply quote this gemara. It seems that the gemara's "pashtei d'kra" is itself a derasha, albeit a derasha that is closer to the plain meaning of the words than the derasha that links the pasuk to nega'im. So are there different levels of derashos? The term "pashtei d'kra" is not all that common, so are these isolated exceptional cases, or in general are there different levels of derash? Does it make any nafka minah (except in our understanding of things?) Posted by Chaim B. at 9:40 AM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 14:12:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 17:12:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521205546.GA9166@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> <555E454E.60107@sero.name> <20150521205546.GA9166@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E4A32.8030909@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 04:55 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 04:51:26PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : Yes, but what of the extra 30 kolos after davening? Those are not in the > : 100 kolos, they're just le'arvev es hasoton, and yet nobody seems to raise > : this objection to them. > > Actually, they were part of the 100 qolos, and in nusach Ashkenaz they > still are. It's only because y'all starting blowing during chazaras > hashatz that it's not obvious. No, these kolos are not part of the 100. These are an extra 30, *after* the 100, and their only purpose is le'arvev es hasoton. And yet that doesn't count as "bechinam". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 18:25:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 21:25:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Shulchan Aruch's "Beis Din" Message-ID: <20150522012546.GA28788@aishdas.org> We discussed a number of times the fact that the SA doesn't follow the rule in his haqdamah to OC about following the majority of the Rif, the Rambam and the Rosh. Less often, peoeple mention actual examples. So, in case you were looking for one, the AhS mentions on OC 606:8-9 the machloqes about whetherit's a mitzbvah to eat on erev YK. In se'if 8 we learn the the Rif, the Ramnam and the Smag omit this idea, and in se'if 9 he says the Rosh, Tur and SA (se'if 1) hold that it's a mitzvah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 20:02:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi, its Kosher! via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 13:02:42 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Ways to find non-meat or non-milk - The BP Project Message-ID: I am happy to engage in discussion regarding the Halachos of BP, with anyone who is interested. For the time being such discussions must be and remain private I can confirm that I have been in contact with R Chaim Kanievsky about this for some years now and that he supports the Lomdus and proofs that I have proposed. Best, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi *Its Kosher* and *Exodus Matza * *it's kosher Authority Pty Ltd **ABN: *77 160 144 374 rabbi at itskosher.com.au +61 0423 207 837 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 18:55:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 01:55:29 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula Message-ID: <20150521.215529.1991.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Actually, they were part of the 100 qolos, and in nusach Ashkenaz they > still are. It's only because y'all starting blowing during chazaras > hashatz that it's not obvious. R' Zev Sero responded: > No, these kolos are not part of the 100. These are an extra 30, > *after* the 100, and their only purpose is le'arvev es hasoton. > And yet that doesn't count as "bechinam". Okay, folks, I think it is clear that some of us have been exposed to minhagim that the others are unaware of. I suggest that we clarify the various minhagim, and tally up the different ways of dong it. >From what I've seen, the vast majority of Nusach Ashkenaz shuls blow 30 times before Musaf, 30 during Chazaras Hashatz, 40 during or after Kaddish Tiskabel, and that is the end, for a total of exactly 100. I have been in a Nusach Sfard shul where they blow 30 times before Musaf, 30 during the silent Musaf, 30 during Chazaras Hashatz, 10 during or after Kaddish Tiskabel, and that is the end, for a total of exactly 100. Here in Elizabeth, we blow 30 times before Musaf, 60 during Chazaras Hashatz, 10 during Kaddish Tiskabel, and that is the end, for a total of exactly 100. R' Zev, could you describe for us how the first 100 are blown, and when the extra 30 come in? And if anyone else wants to add to the list, please do so! Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/555e8cc570114cc51cdast04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 01:14:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 11:14:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat Message-ID: REMT wrote > True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature > of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so > accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul > Shabbos. (Of course, by this argument, putting an electric light on or off > should be prohibited even if the use of electricity is not a m'lacha.) In particular using an preset switch to turn lights and off should be prohibited. While RMF originally did object he later changed his mind when it became the norm. In fact even the kosher lamp might be prohibited Can someone come up with a definition of zilzul shabbat? Is every modern way of doing any melacha that does not technically violate hilchot shabbat zilzul? The gemara allows using the sun for cooking on shabbat - why isn't that zilzul shabbat? -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 07:59:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Sassoon via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 15:59:41 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003901d0949f$eed65840$cc8308c0$@org.uk> RZS writes: >That's not a kulah, because the issur is davka when it's bechinam, I don't think that is exactly the correct phrasing to explain the situation. Rather, there is the general blanket rabbinic issur on playing musical instruments on yom tov, into which sounding shofar prima facie falls. This general issur is pushed aside by the d'orisa positive mitzvah of blowing shofar (noting that, at least according to the famous Taz, because rabbinic power doesn't stretch far enough to allow the banning of something which is a mitzvah d'orisa in every circumstances in which it would occur, as this would do - but is only in allowed situations where only sometimes the mitzvah would not end up being performed, such as Rosh Hashana on shabbas). This rabbinic issur of playing musical instruments on yom tov vis a vis the shofar is also pushed aside in other rabbinically recognised circumstances - including (according to the majority rishonim, Shulchan Aruch and Rema, although there are major rishonic dissenters) nachas ruach d'nashim. The case of the katan may well be different, given that the fundamental issue with katanim is chinuch (which might perhaps be said to cut both ways here). > and so long as there's a reason it's not chinam. Their wish to hear shofar >the way this rishon or that one wanted it heard is at least as good a >reason as our "le`arvev es hasoton", or giving women a "nachas ruach". Leaving aside nachas ruach, which has (according to those who hold by it at least rabbinic weight - ie power to push aside at least rabbinic prohibitions) - what is the justification for le'arev es hasoton? My instincts are that, to the extent that le'arvev es hasoton is taken seriously, the argument there is one of pikuach nefesh, which of course would push aside the rabbinic issur of playing musical instruments (think about it, if you can get a few extra years out of confusing the soton, how could that not be considered pikuach nefesh)? Don't think that helps with being choshesh for minority shitos. >However, your chashash brings up an interesting suggestion. if they >are worried about all possible chashshos, then maybe they should worry >about yours too, and they can easily solve it: let them go on mivtzo'im >and find Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all, and blow for them >according to these opinions. That way, not only will they have heard >shofar according to all possible opinions, and not only will they have >the zechus of those Jews having heard shofar according to at least >one opinion (which is certainly kosher, as you correctly point out), >but their "extra" tekios will be with a bracha! But aren't they then denying those Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all the chance to hear shofar according to the majority opinions by only blowing for them according to the minority opinions? Or are you proposing that they *then* blow for them according to the majority opinions? Either way you seem to me to be opening a real can of worms. The principle on which somebody who has fulfilled their obligation can then fulfil the obligation of another is based on kol yisrael areivim zeh b'zeh. But to what extent is that applicable in a situation in which that person would never, had the situation been reversed, have accepted the form of fulfilment they are offering the other. Ie since the person who is blowing the shofar refused to have these alternative ways of blowing as the fundamental method of fulfilling their own mitzvah, is it really areivus to then foist that form of fulfilment on others? >Zev Sero zev at sero.name Shabbat Shalom Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 10:22:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 13:22:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What is the Law? Message-ID: <20150522172240.022581829C9@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/sivan_v.pdf YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 11:16:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 14:16:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula II Message-ID: <20150522181627.GA5977@aishdas.org> I came across another one, more inyana deyoma... According to the AhS (OC 494:3) we used to wait for "laylah mamash" to make Qiddush the first night of Shavu'os, so that the omer could be "sheva shabasos temimos". Presumably this is following the MGA who has us wait until tzeis for Qiddush, and the AhS's "laylah mamash" means tzeis. The Taz (494:haqdamah) and the MB (s"q 1) have us waiting for tzeis to start *Ma'ariv*. The Qorban Nesanel (on the Rosh, Pesachim 130b) brings the Rosh as a ra'ayah against the MGA. The Rosh says that even though on Shabbos *and the other YT-im* we add from the chol to the qodesh and eat before it gets dark, we do not do so for the seder night. So the QN QN takes the implication that "she'ar yamim tovim" includes Shavuos. So the QN treats Shavuos like Shabbos, and presumably let you daven maariv and make Qiddush right after pelag. The QN is machmir in omer, the MGA is machmir in tosefes YT. And each is being correspondingly meiqil in the other. I would presume that the silence in the Tur, the BY and the SA about any waiting means that the Tur, the Mechaber and the Rama hold like the QN and treat erev Shavuos like erev Shabbos, RH, Sukkos, etc... (But not Pesach.) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 48th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Malchus: What binds different Fax: (270) 514-1507 people together into one cohesive whole? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 08:55:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 11:55:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <003901d0949f$eed65840$cc8308c0$@org.uk> References: <003901d0949f$eed65840$cc8308c0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <555F517D.4080806@sero.name> On 05/22/2015 10:59 AM, Chana Sassoon via Avodah wrote: >> >However, your chashash brings up an interesting suggestion. if they >> >are worried about all possible chashshos, then maybe they should worry >> >about yours too, and they can easily solve it: let them go on mivtzo'im >> >and find Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all, and blow for them >> >according to these opinions. That way, not only will they have heard >> >shofar according to all possible opinions, and not only will they have >> >the zechus of those Jews having heard shofar according to at least >> >one opinion (which is certainly kosher, as you correctly point out), >> >but their "extra" tekios will be with a bracha! > But aren't they then denying those Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all > the chance to hear shofar according to the majority opinions by only blowing > for them according to the minority opinions? AFAIK everyone agrees that all these methods are kosher, so those Jews are definitely yotzei the mitzvah. > The principle on which > somebody who has fulfilled their obligation can then fulfil the obligation > of another is based on kol yisrael areivim zeh b'zeh. But to what extent is > that applicable in a situation in which that person would never, had the > situation been reversed, have accepted the form of fulfilment they are > offering the other. Ie since the person who is blowing the shofar refused > to have these alternative ways of blowing as the fundamental method of > fulfilling their own mitzvah, is it really areivus to then foist that form > of fulfilment on others? They're not foisting anything. The people they're blowing for would otherwise not hear shofar at all, so they're clearly better off hearing even some obscure form of it, so long as they're yotzei. On 05/21/2015 09:55 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > R' Zev, could you describe for us how the first 100 are blown, and when the extra 30 come in? And if anyone else wants to add to the list, please do so! I'm talking about 30 kolos blown at the very end of davening, just before going home, and well after all 100 kolos have already been heard (30 meyushav, 30 in each musaf, and 10 in kaddish). Their purpose is le'arvev es hasoton. And I've never heard it suggested that there is any chashash issur. Thus my conclusion that shofar-blowing is allowed on RH for *any* valid purpose, and the only blowing that remains forbidden as usual on Yomtov, is when it is truly "bechinam". -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 25 12:15:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 25 May 2015 19:15:59 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Brisker Theory of Everything Message-ID: 1. The gemara (Ketuvot 5b) discusses whether causing a certain type of blood flowing is considered a Sabbath violation. The first attempt to resolve the question turns on whether "mifkad pakid or chaburei mechbar" (is the blood in the womb stored up or is it the result of a wound?). Rashi there (please look) seems to define this as a physical question. Is this acceptable or must we say Rashi was leaving out the "obvious" philosophical/halachic question (i.e. the physical was known, it's a question of how to categorize it halachically)? 2. That gemara continues to try to resolve the question and is willing to entertain the possibility that the halacha is like Rabbi Yehuda (vs. Rabbi Shimon) in mekalkeil (destroying) and like Rabbi Shimon (vs. Rabbi Yehuda) in davar sheino mitkavein (the result was not the major one intended). If these two issues were interconnected, could the gemara entertain this possibility? 3. If the answer to 2 is no, must we assume that when the Shulchan Aruch said he would decide the psak based on majority 2 of big 3, did he really mean this as a primary tie breaker, or only when he did not have a clear understanding of the underlying philosophy that resulted in their final opinions. 4.Is it possible that R'YBS limited his "canon" to only a few major rishonim (in contradistinction to R" A Lichtenstein) because the more data points included in trying to determine the underlying theoretical construct, the more likely a single errant point would skew the results? Kt Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 25 19:35:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 02:35:10 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir Message-ID: <20150525.223510.2086.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> After Machlon and Kilyon died, we find in Ruth 1:8-13 that Naami tells both Orpah and Ruth to go back home. Didn't Naami realize that they would return to avodah zara if they'd do that? Even if they had not converted yet, wouldn't this be an example of Lifnei Iveir? One answer I can think of is that perhaps this eventuality didn't occur to Naami. But several pesukim later, in 1:15, Naami tells Ruth that Orpah has "returned to her people and to her god; go back with your sister-in-law." Naami persists not only in trying to convince Ruth to leave, but she explicitly urges Ruth to return to her former god! This question is certainly relevant according to those who understand that Orpah and Ruth converted prior to marrying Machlon and Kilyon. But it is relevant even to those who hold that Ruth did not convert until afterward. It is one thing to dissuade a prospective ger from joining us. But Ruth had been living with a Jewish family for ten years! How can Naami urge her to go back to avoda zara? I know that the meforshim give various reasons why Naami did not want them to accompany her back to Eretz Yisrael, but do those reasons justify this Lifnei Iveir? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 06:00:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 09:00:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Who Wrote the Mishna Brura? Message-ID: <20150526130054.4548818394C@nexus.stevens.edu> I am sure that most will answer "The Chofetz Chaim" Israel Meir (HaKohen) Kagan. However, he apparently did not write all of it. I have been reading Marc Shapiro's latest book "Changing the Immutable" How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites its History. See http://www.littman.co.uk/cat/shapiro-orthodox.html Shapiro points out that Rabbi Aryeh Leib Cohen, a son of the Chofetz Chaim, wrote in his biography of his father that he wrote parts of the Mishna Brura and that is why there are contradictions in some parts of the MB. Which parts Aryeh Leib wrote are not indicated. Does anyone know? YL PS. I have found this book an eye opener and recommend it highly. llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 10:19:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kaganoff via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 13:19:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 12:01 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 01:53:10PM -0400, Kaganoff via Avodah wrote: > : For many years i had extreme difficulty with R. Elchanan Wasserman > understanding > : as it conflicted with my belief that Judaism (and other religions) was > not > : logically provable (contra to Moshe Mendelssohn and his contemporaries) > and > : therefore required a "leap of faith" and that a disbeliever could not be > : faulted for failing to take such a jump. > > This is a false dichotomy. Logically proving things are not the only > way to justify belief in there. > > How do you know that (in a flat space) two parallel lines never meet? If > you're like me, you pictured it in your head. Even though infinite lines > don't exist in the real world. (Nor, does it turn out, does flat space.) Actually non-euclidean geometry is an excellent example. We cannot say with absolute certainty that two parallel lines will never meet or that there is only one line that goes through a particular point that is parallel to another line, as there is a well developed body of literature on non-Euclidean geometry (such as Riemannian Geometry). One might "feel" strongly that Euclidean Geometry is true and non-Euclidean Geometry is false. But someone might also feel that chocolate ice cream is superior to vanilla ice cream. But neither can be proven. > > Did you figure out that oppression was evil by logical proof, or by a > combination of imagination and empathy? > Calling anything "evil is not meant to be logical but rather to pull at an audiences' heartstrings. Evil is neither logical nor illogical. Nor can one "prove" that the Nazis are evil and that circumcision is not. However, that is a red herring. Again, emotions are not proof. Feelings are neither true nor false. > My favorite example is answering the question, "Do elephants have hair?" > A logical/verbal approach would be: Elephants are mammals, all mammals > have hair, and so unless elephants are the exception to the rule, they > must have hair. Elephants are well known and discussed animals. Could > they be an exception to the rule and I don't know it? Nah, they must > have hair. > > How it is more likely the question jogged your memory of elephants > you saw, or saw pictures of. The detail may be blurry, so you may have > to manipulate the picture a bit. Finally, a version of the picture > which has a tuft of hair at the tail, maybe (if your memory is good) > some downy hair around the eyes and ears, strikes you as the most > familiar, the most real. And again you could reach the conclusion that > elephants have hair. > That is a proveable thesis. One could prove either way whether or not elephants have hair. Unlike the two earlier examples. As for whether one could prove the existence or non-existance of God, I don't have time now to start that discussion. > > (See for some musings about > the two modes of thought I'm contrasting here.) > > In I compare > different versions of the Argument from Design from R' Aqiva's response > to the apiqoreis through the Rambam, through similar approaches based > on more modern science. > > "G-d created" (Gen. 1:1): A hereic came to Rabbi Aqiva and asked, > "Who made the universe?". Rabbi Aqiva answered, "HQBH". The heretic > said, "Prove it to me." Rabbi Aqiva said, "Come to me tomorrow". > > When the heretic returned, Rabbi Aqiva asked, "What is that you > are wearing?" > > "A garment", the unbeliever replied. > > "Who made it?" > > "A weaver." > > "Prove it to me." > > "What do you mean? How can I prove it to you? Here is the garment, > how can you not know that a weaver made it?" > > Rabbi Akiva said, "And here is the world; how can you not know that > Haqadosh barukh Hu made it?" > > After the heretic left, Rabbi Aqiva's students asked him, "But what is > the proof?" He said, "Even as a house proclaims its builder,a garment > its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the > Holy Blessed One Who created it. > > Not very rigorous. Rabbi Aqiva's reply revolves around giving a parable > to make the conclusion self-evident. Not contructing a deductive argument. > > The more rigorous we try making it, the more arguable the proof becomes. > R' Aqiva's argument is far more convincing than the Rambam's statement > based on how objects lose form over time, not gain it. Or a similar > argument based on thermodynamics or information theory. > > (Ironically, every formal / logical proof is built from givens taken > as self-evident for informal-reasoning reasons.) > > Anyway, that's how I understood REW. R' Elchanan argues that on an > informal level, the idea that the universe had to have a Creator is > as obvious as a Euclidean postulate or the injustice of oppression. > I believe that such an explanation is disrespectful to REW. I am assuming that REW believed what he wrote and wrote down clearly what he believed as opposed to assuming that REW believes one thing and wrote another. > > To not believe in G-d requires a formal proof, which one's negios then > determine if they find it sound or specious, and whether they accept > the postulates on which it's built. > To believe and to not believe in God can be pulled off without formal proofs. However, it is intellectually dishonest to state that one has an arguement for God's existance and than say that we are not talking about formal proofs when a counterarguement is made. > Notice I didn't invoke any leaps of faith. > > Tir'u baTov! > -Micha > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 12:25:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 15:25:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150526192512.GA22762@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 01:19:53PM -0400, Kaganoff wrote: : > How do you know that (in a flat space) two parallel lines never meet? If : > you're like me, you pictured it in your head. Even though infinite lines : > don't exist in the real world. (Nor, does it turn out, does flat space.) : : : Actually non-euclidean geometry is an excellent example. We cannot say with : absolute certainty that two parallel lines will never meet or that there is : only one line that goes through a particular point that is parallel to : another line, as there is a well developed body of literature on : non-Euclidean geometry (such as Riemannian Geometry). Well, if we know the curvature of the space we're dealing with, we know which Geometry to use. And only one is correct for that particular space. :> Did you figure out that oppression was evil by logical proof, or by a :> combination of imagination and empathy? : : Calling anything "evil is not meant to be logical but rather to pull at an : audiences' heartstrings. Evil is neither logical nor illogical. Nor can one : "prove" that the Nazis are evil and that circumcision is not. I disagree with your reisha. Evil is an objectively meaningful predicate. Yahadus wouldn't work is evil were subjective. As for your seifa... that's kind of my point: there are truths that can be justified even when they are not amenable to formal proofs. : However, that is a red herring. Again, emotions are not proof. Feelings are : neither true nor false. Although the notion that John is feeling happy at 2:55pm EST May 26, 2015 is either true or false. Or some fuzzy state in between. It is a predicate, even if it needn't be a boolean predicate. All three of these comments are interrelated: Euclidean geometry is the only accurate description of flat space. Not every space, but flat space. People may disagree about what is evil, and Nazis may be able to fool themselves about what the word means, but HQBH did create a concept of good that has an objective definition. Even if -- again -- we cannot find it via proof. : > My favorite example is answering the question, "Do elephants have hair?" : > A logical/verbal approach would be... : > How it is more likely the question jogged your memory of elephants : > you saw, or saw pictures of... : That is a proveable thesis. One could prove either way whether or not : elephants have hair. Unlike the two earlier examples. As I said in the first paragraph, before the first ellipses. However, in practice, people aren't likely to use proofs to reach the conclusion. We justify our belief that elephants have hair in a different way. : As for whether one could prove the existence or non-existance of God, I : don't have time now to start that discussion. But my whole point is that proof isn't the only grounds for justifying knowledge! ... : > Anyway, that's how I understood REW. R' Elchanan argues that on an : > informal level, the idea that the universe had to have a Creator is : > as obvious as a Euclidean postulate or the injustice of oppression. : I believe that such an explanation is disrespectful to REW. I am assuming : that REW believed what he wrote and wrote down clearly what he believed as : opposed to assuming that REW believes one thing and wrote another. Um... That /is/ what Rav Elchanan wrote. I'm arguing that he is being misread because they think that REW invoking the notion of knowledge (as opposed to belief) is equivalent to his invoking the notion of proof. Instead, he invokes the synthetic a priori, of the self-evident, or whatever your theory of justification is of R' Aqiva's answer to the atheist or that letters aren't the product of ink spilled on paper. AISI, REW is saying that humans know there is a G-d, without his saying anything about the possibility of proving it. And that people then go about creating proofs for His non-Existence or Deism, to hide from that knowledge. Or, to be more loyal to his original wording -- because they took shochad to buy into a proof against the obvious. He might be saying that at some level, that knowledge lingers, no matter how much someone buries it under layers of counter-proof and convincing themselves. But I don't see that in REW either. Quoting: Now, of course, we shouldn't be astonished that so many great philosophers had difficulty believing that the world was created by a Purposeful Creator. Their minds were surely great, but their desire to gain benefit from the pleasures of this world overcame their ability to think straight. Such a powerful bias can divert a person's mind to the point that he can say two plus two does not equal four... After my signature, I'll quote Qovetz Maamariv par 5-7 from a translation provided by Pirchei Shoshanim. You'll notice it's nothing like the Rambam's attempt to formally prove an Argument from Design in Moreh sec. II. Really, all he says is that monotheism woul be self-evident if people didn't want to escape its implications on their lifestyle. Not proven, self-evident, and not that those who argue against it are less than fully convinced of their atheism (or Deism, or polytheism). :> To not believe in G-d requires a formal proof, which one's negios then :> determine if they find it sound or specious, and whether they accept :> the postulates on which it's built. : To believe and to not believe in God can be pulled off without formal : proofs. : However, it is intellectually dishonest to state that one has an arguement : for God's existance and than say that we are not talking about formal : proofs when a counterarguement is made. Not "argument", any more than your acceptance of Euclidean (or Reimann) postulates are based on argument. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_justification#Theories_of_justification and http://www.iep.utm.edu/epistemo/#H3 may be clearer than I have been. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "Man wants to achieve greatness overnight, micha at aishdas.org and he wants to sleep well that night too." http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yosef Yozel Horwitz, Alter of Novarodok Fax: (270) 514-1507 5. If you ponder it, however, you shall find that the belief that the Holy One, blessed by He, created the world is self-understood by any intelligent being -- unless a person is a complete imbecile. And there is no need for any [knowledge of] philosophy to grasp this principle. The author of the Duties of the Heart (Shaar HaYichud 6) thus wrote: There are people who say that the world came into existence by chance, without a Creator who caused it and formed it. I wonder how any rational being in a normal state of mind can entertain such a notion. If one holding such a opinion would hear a person expressing a similar view in regard to a water-wheel that revolves in order to irrigate a portion of a field or garden -- and were to say that he thinks it had been set up without any intention on the part of a mechanic who labored to put it together and adjust it, using all his tools to obtain this useful result -- the hearer would wonder, be exceedingly astonished, and think the man who made such a statement extremely foolish. He would promptly charge him with lying, and would reject his assertion. Now, if such a statement is rejected in regard to a small and insignificant wheel, the fashioning of which requires but little contrivance and which serves for the improvement of but a small portion of the earth, how can anyone permit himself to harbor such a thought concerning the immense sphere that emcompasses the whole earth with all the creatures on it; which exhibits a wisdom so great that the minds of all living creatures, the intellects of all rational mortals, cannot comprehend it; which is appointed for the benefit of the whole earth and all its inhabitants – how can one say that it came into existence without a wise and mighty designer purposing and conceiving it? Whatever takes place without purpose shows, as is well known, no trace of wisdom or power. Do you not realize that if ink were poured out accidentally on a blank sheet of paper, it would be impossible that proper writing should result, legible lines such as are written with a pen? If a person brought us a fair copy of script that could only have been written with a pen, and said that ink had been spilt on paper and these written characters have come of themselves, we would charge him to his face with falsehood, for we would feel certain that this result could not have happened without an intelligent person's purposeful action to produce it. Since this appears to us an impossibility in the case of characters whose form is conventional, how can one assert that something far finer in its art, and which manifests in its fashioning a subtlety infinitely beyond our comprehension, could have happened without the purpose, power and wisdom of a wise and mighty designer? How could anyone say that the universe came into existence on its own, seeing that everywhere we look we see signs of such inconceivably profound wisdom? How wondrous is the wisdom and design in the human body, how wondrous the arrangement of its limbs and organs, as all doctors and surgeons attest. How is it possible to say, with regard to such a wondrous machine, that it came into existence on its own without a purposeful designer? If anyone would claim that a watch had just come into existence on its own, he would be considered insane. We see this in the Midrash (Midrash Temurah in Midrash Aggadot Bereshit): An athiest came to Rebbi Akiva. "Who created the world?", he queried. R. Akiva answered, "The Holy One, blessed be He." The athiest replied, "Show me proof." R. Akiva said, "Come back to me tomorrow and I shall prove it to you." When the man returned the following day, R. Akiva began by asking, "What is that you are wearing?""A piece of clothing,"the athiest replied."And who made it?" R. Akiva continued. "The weaver", he replied. "Show me proof", R. Akiva demanded. "But how can I show you proof if it isn't already obvious to you that it is the work of the weaver?!" With this R. Akiva said, "Have you not heard what your own lips have spoken? Isn't it obvious to you that the Holy One has created this world? Doesn't the clothing testify to the weaver; the house and the door to a builder and a carpenter? Just so does the world testity to the One who made it." Imagine a human being born with a fully developed intellect. We can't imagine his great astonishment upon seeing, suddenly, the heavens and their hosts, the earth and all that is upon it. What would this man's answer be to our question: Did the world that he is seeing now for the first time come into existence on its own, without any conscious intent, or is it the work of a wise Creator? Behold, without a doubt, after contemplating for a moment, he would respond that all this was made with wondrous wisdom and extremely subtle order (fine-tuning). [We find this concept expressed in any number places in our classical literature.] The Psalmist said, "The heavens declare the glory of G-d"(Psalms 19:2). [According the Duties of the Heart 2:5] this is also the meaning of Job's words when he declared, "From my flesh, I will see G-d!"(Job 19:26) [The Psalmist saw proof of G-d's existence in the magnitude of the universe. Job was saying that the very fact that something as wonderful as his body could exist demonstrates that it is the work of a wise Creator.] In view of all this it is therefore extremely puzzling, a great enigma: How could some of the greatest philosophers who ever lived have concluded that the world was brought into existence by chance? 6. The resolution of this enigma can be found in the Torah. The Torah reveals something profound about human psychology when it commands, "Do not take bribes, for bribery blinds the eyes of the wise!" (Deuteronomy 16:19). What is bribery? In legal terms, the smallest amount necessary to constitute a bribe is a "shaveh prutah"(not much more than a penny), similar to the minimum amount needed [for a court] to find a person guilty of stealing or of taking interest. This negative commandment, to never take a bribe, is directed not only at a judge, but at every man, even the wisest of men, even the most righteous, even Moses himself. Yes, if it could be imagined, even if Moses would take the tiniest bribe, a prutah, his perception of reality would be distorted; he would be incapable of bringing forth a just ruling. At first sight, this is nothing short of amazing. Can we imagine Moses or Aaron twisting the law and judging falsely merely for the sake of receiving such miniscule benefit? But the Torah itself testifies to the possibility, and "the testimony of G-d is trustworthy" (Psalms 19:8). We must therefore say that it is a psychological law: A person's will or desire [to gain some benefit] influences his mind [his ability to think straight]. Of course, it depends how strong the desire and how resolute the mind. A small desire will not exert much influence on a great mind, whereas on a lesser mind it will. A powerful desire [for gain] will exert even more influence. One thing is certain: no matter how miniscule, a desire for gain will always have some affect. Even the tiniest desire can cause the greatest mind to waver a fraction. This is exemplified in the Talmud (Ketuvot 105b): Rebbi Yishmael bar Yossi had a land tenant who used to bring him fruits from his [R. Yishmael's] orchard every Friday before Shabbat. Once, he came on a Thursday. R. Yishmael asked him: "What's changed this week?" "I have a court case this week", he answered."Since I was coming to town anyway, I thought I would bring you your fruits."R. Yishmael refused to take the fruits [even though they were his]. "I am disqualified from judging your case."Two [other] rabbis sat and began to hear the land tenant's case. R. Yishmael sat [on the sidelines] watching. At every turn in the discussion, R. Yishmael felt himself wanting to give advice to his land tenant. "If only he would say this now... if only he would say this..."After the case was decided, he exclaimed, "O that the spirit of those who take bribes would explode! I refused to take what was rightfully mine [and I still couldn't help being biased and wanting to see him come out winning]. How much more those who actually take what it is not theirs! It is known that the sages [of the Talmud] were angelic in terms of their expanded consciousness and saintly character. We nevertheless see that the smallest degree of bias could cause them to incline away from the truth. How much more so the rest of us who are sunken in the desires of this world! The desire for gain literally bribes us, saying, "Hey, look, the world is free to do with as you please!"How powerful this bias is! How easily it distorts our perception and blinds us! For when a person has "bought into"a certain bias, he is incapable of recognizing any truth that flies in the face of that bias. As far as that truth is concerned, he might just as well be in a drunken stupor. He doesn't recognize its existence. Now, of course, we shouldn't be astonished that so many great philosophers had difficulty believing that the world was created by a Purposeful Creator. Their minds were surely great, but their desire to gain benefit from the pleasures of this world overcame their ability to think straight. Such a powerful bias can divert a person's mind to the point that he can say two plus two does not equal four, but five. A person cannot judge whether something is true unless his mind is free from any distorting influence vis a vis the thing he wishes to judge. On the contrary, if recognizing a particular truth in any way contradicts a bias that a person has bought into, no amount of intellect, even the intellect of a great person, can remove or overcome that bias. 7. We learn from this that the foundations of true faith are simple and unquestionable for anyone who isn't an idiot. It is simply impossible to doubt their veracity. This is only true, however, on the condition that one does not allow oneself to be bribed. One must be disinterested in and free from the desires and allures of this world, and his own personal desires [for gain]. If so, the root of God-denial lies not in the distortion of the intellect in and of itself. It lies in the heart, i.e., in one's desire to gain benefit [from this world], which distorts and blinds the intellect. It is clear now why the Torah commands, "Do not stray after your hearts..." (Deuteronomy 15:39), concerning which the sages commented, "Do not follow after the heart's desire to deny G-d"(Sifri Shlach 15:70). A person is obligated to subdue and sublimate his desires [for personal gain], because this is the only way his intellect will be free of any blinding influence! He will then automatically recognize the truth of the existence of a Creator. This is what Rebbi Akiva meant when he said that the world attests to the Holy One, blessed be He, who created it. God-denial really has no place in a person's mind. Its place, if man allows it to exist there, is the heart; in a person's desire for gain. And if one would be careful not to allow his desires to overcome him, he could never come to deny G-d's existence or atttribute reality to any form of idolatry. It is a sign that one's desires have grown out of proportion if one is incapable of understanding this simple truth. And the commandment to believe in G-d? It is a commandment not to allow one's desires to overcome his intellect so that he will automatically come to believe. In other words, there is no need to struggle to believe. One must simply remove the obstacles that stand in the way of believing. It will then come naturally, of itself... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 11:11:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 14:11:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura? Message-ID: <20150526181117.9766A180F62@nexus.stevens.edu> Someone sent me the following which is also in Shapiro's book. "The first edition of Shemiras Shabbos K'Hilchasah had a footnote to the effect that some things in the MB had been written by the CC's son. See p. 263 n. 203. The full footnote is not in the later editions of SSK." Shapiro views this as part of the Chareidi attempt to keep certain information from the Chareidi public that they do want people to know. His book is filled with many examples of the "rewriting of history" to fit current Chareidi ideology. He also wrote "Rabbi Jacob J. Schachter wrote an article in The Torah U-Madda Journal about changes and mentioned the MB, the CC's son, and the original SSK footnote. See his "Facing the Truths of History" at http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/704426/Rabbi_Dr-_Jacob_J_Schacter/Facing_the_Truths_of_History (p. 225 and n. 114 on p. 264)." YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 12:44:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 15:44:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura? In-Reply-To: <20150526181117.9766A180F62@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150526181117.9766A180F62@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150526194413.GB22762@aishdas.org> And many of the books we consider the Gra's are students' records of his teachings. For that matter, people talk about what the Ari says in Peri Eitz Chaim or others of R' Chaim Vital's works. RALC piously takes blame for those occasions when he misunderstood his father's position, saying that these errors, rather than actual inconsistencies in the CC's shitah, is what you may find in the MB. But the CC takes ownership of the contents of the MB. See the title page (Warsaw 1884 ed.) "Ube'uri qarative besheim MISHNAH BERURAH..." ... kol eileh chibarti be'ezras H' yisbarakh, haChonen le'adam da'as, YISRAEL MEIR br' Aryeh Ze'ev haKohein zlh"h, mei'ir Radin." Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I long to accomplish a great and noble task, micha at aishdas.org but it is my chief duty to accomplish small http://www.aishdas.org tasks as if they were great and noble. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Helen Keller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 15:01:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 18:01:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150526220106.GA9900@aishdas.org> On Fri, May 22, 2015 at 11:14:15AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature :> of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so :> accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul :> Shabbos... : In particular using an preset switch to turn lights and off should : be prohibited. : While RMF originally did object he later changed his mind when it became : the norm. Actually, RMF's primary argument was mar'is ayin, which would naturally change as people know to blame lights turning on and off on "Shabbos clocks". : In fact even the kosher lamp might be prohibited Well, I would think that fits the zilzul Shabbos argument bewing used WRT the kosher switch. : Can someone come up with a definition of zilzul shabbat? The textbook case would be on Shabbos 6a: situating someone in a meqom petur so that someone in a reshus hayachid can hand items to them so that they could then hand it over to someone in a reshus harabim. Rashi ad loc explains "demezalzel be'isurei Shabbos". I think it's making a farce out of one of the issurim / chiyuvim of Shabbos. Notice that the case Rashi attributes to zilzul would otherwise be perfectly mutar. : Is every modern way of doing any melacha that does not technically : violate hilchot shabbat zilzul? : The gemara allows using the sun for cooking on shabbat - why isn't that : zilzul shabbat? I think the problem is more than just avoiding the issur, but making it trivial to entirely avoid it. Which is what I had in mind when I distinguished between eiruv, which is built into hotza'ah derabbanan, and community eruv, which takes that idea and stretches it until someone can pretty much ignore the whole topic of carmelis for years on end. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Strength does not come from winning. Your micha at aishdas.org struggles develop your strength When you go http://www.aishdas.org through hardship and decide not to surrender, Fax: (270) 514-1507 that is strength. - Arnold Schwarzenegger From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 16:14:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 19:14:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") Message-ID: In Avodah V33n82, RAM requested: > I suggest that we clarify the various minhagim, and tally up the different ways of dong it....And if anyone else wants to add to the list, please do so! < When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: -- 30 *dim'yushav* -- 10 *dim'umad* -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the post-"Aleinu" Qaddish) All the best from *Michael Poppers* * Elizabeth, NJ, USA -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 18:24:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 21:24:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir In-Reply-To: <20150525.223510.2086.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150525.223510.2086.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150527012443.GA5467@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 02:35:10AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : It is one thing to dissuade a prospective ger from joining us. But Ruth : had been living with a Jewish family for ten years! How can Naami urge : her to go back to avoda zara? I know that the meforshim give various : reasons why Naami did not want them to accompany her back to Eretz : Yisrael, but do those reasons justify this Lifnei Iveir? On a technical level, it would be mesayeia, not lifnei iver, and I'm not sure that mesayeia applies to 7 mitzvos benei Noach. But if you're just asking how it's moral... Just thinking off-the cuff. The timing is between eishes Shimshon and Shelomo's mistake with many of his wives. It would seem that women only pretending monotheism to join the Jewish People was common. If Rus was going to be a pagan either way, better not one who people would mistake for a geir. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet micha at aishdas.org about things most people don't watch even on http://www.aishdas.org Yom Kippur. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 00:25:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 10:25:26 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat Message-ID: <<: The gemara allows using the sun for cooking on shabbat - why isn't that : zilzul shabbat? I think the problem is more than just avoiding the issur, but making it trivial to entirely avoid it.>> In that case how about a "dud shemesh" according to the poskim that it is allowed because it uses the sun <> would there be a difference between doing this once and making this a standard procedure? -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 01:22:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:22:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <> The key word is "if" . That is the difference between math and physics. Math assumes axioms and from there everything is provable. Physics discusses the "real" world. This is based on observation and induction. Hence, physics is always subject to modification based on new observations. Hence, we have no proof of the curvature of the universe. <> Yahadus uses the Torah to define evil. Others don't accept this definition. Is ISIS beheading victims and their other acts "evil" ? They believe they are keeping the word of G-d. Destrying ancient monuments is viewed by the world as "evil" while they see it as destroying idols and hence a mitzvah. If we were to eradicate Amalek we would consider it a great mitzvah while the rest of thw world would bring us to the world court for genocide. <> But without a formal proof it is always debatable. You feel that the existence of G-d is obvious even without a formal proof (which doesn't exist) while Dawkins feels that anyone who believes in a diety that interacts with the world is a fool. You accept Torah mi-sinai while most academics are convinced the Torah was written during the late Bayit Rishon if not later -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 02:20:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 12:20:34 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] right and wrong Message-ID: Tangential to some of the recent discussions I wish to point out that the defintion of right and wrong is subjective and indeed changes through history. As one example consider the recent post on love from http://www.talmudology.com/ In the 1440s in England, Elizabeth Paston, the twenty-year old daughter of minor gentry, was told by her parents that she was to marry a man thirty years her senior. Oh, and he was disfigured by smallpox. When she refused, she was beaten "once in the week, or twice and her head broken in two or three places." This persuasive technique worked, and reflected a theme in Great Britain, where Lord Chief Baron Matthew Hale declared in 1662 that "by the law of God, of nature or of reason and by the Common Law, the will of the wife is subject to the will of the husband." Things weren't any better in the New Colonies, as Ann Little points out (in a gloriously titled article "*Shee would Bump his Mouldy Britch; Authority, Masculinity and the Harried Husbands of New Haven Colony 1638-1670.*) The governor of the New Haven Colony was found guilty of "not pressing ye rule upon his wife." What was obvious in one generation is no longer regarded as true today. Similar arguments apply to slavery -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 03:47:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 06:47:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 07:14:36PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: : -- 30 *dim'yushav* : -- 10 *dim'umad* : -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to blow. How do you do less than 10 *each*? Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 05:03:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 12:03:32 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir Message-ID: <20150527.080332.8051.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> I asked if Naami had violated Lifnei Iveir: : It is one thing to dissuade a prospective ger from joining us. : But Ruth had been living with a Jewish family for ten years! How : can Naami urge her to go back to avoda zara? R' Micha Berger answered: > On a technical level, it would be mesayeia, not lifnei iver, and > I'm not sure that mesayeia applies to 7 mitzvos benei Noach. Really? Perhaps I need a better understanding of the difference between the two. I thought that mesayeia was when the other person is going to violate the halacha anyway and I am merely helping him to do it. But in this case, the three of them have been living for ten years as a family unit, and regardless of the geirus (or lack of it) I presume there was no avodah zara under Naami's roof. This status quo could have continued for a long time, as we see even Orpah was reluctant to leave. But Naami urged and insisted, and it is difficult for me to imagine a bigger michshol. Pasuk 1:15 - "So [Naami] said: Look! Your sister in law has returned to her people and to her god. Go follow your sister in law." One of us might as well hand the car keys to our child on Shabbos and tell him to have a good time. Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:14:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:14:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527151410.GG27891@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 11:22:14AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : <> : : The key word is "if" . That is the difference between math and physics. : Math assumes axioms and from there everything is provable... Again, from a set of givens. The givens are accepted as the rules of the formal system. Which is why I spoke of the validity of Euclid's Postulates in the context of flat space. But my point was that there are things other than proof. : <> : : Yahadus uses the Torah to define evil. Others don't accept this definition. Nu, so they're wrong. We may not be able to prove to them they're wrong, but they are. Somewhere "out there" is a real objective definition. Regardless of someone's ability to know what they are, or to accept it if they did. : <> : : But without a formal proof it is always debatable... 1- That's a different topic. We're talking about how I justify my believing in something, not how I prove it to others. 2- There are synthetic a priori knowledge so self-evident people don't debate them. Which is why I dragged Euclid into this. EVERY proof STARTS with these givens. Logic is a means of combining postulates, not starting yeish mei'ayin. And thus no proof is actually more solid than its weakest postulate -- and that postulate is justified by something other than proof. And I brought up these notions because I think that without disentangling why I believe from how can I get others to believe, or the general concept of how knowlege is justified from the specific concepts of formal or experiment proof, we cannot get to what R Elchanan Wasserman means. REW says that if it were not for ulterior motive, G-d's existence would be as self evident as the conclusion that a calligraphied poem had an author and scribe (who may be the same person), and was not just spilled ink on a piece of paper. He doesn't yet talk about proof, and in fact, his language is that of informal justification, not proof. (I've blogged the notion that the more formal we make the Argument from Design the LESS solidly it justifies belief. See . For example, R Aqiva's -- or REW's -- version only requires common experience. The Rambam's requires dividing matter into Form and Substance and accepting certain postulates about Form and Time. Later versions will instead speak of entropy and time... But they all suffer from involving *more* givens and insisting they are self-evident and precede the attempt to prove anything.) REW then says that it's only ulterior motive that allows many of us to create arguments and proofs (validly drawn but from broken givens or flawed in reasoning) to let convince ourselves away from that default position. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When a king dies, his power ends, micha at aishdas.org but when a prophet dies, his influence is just http://www.aishdas.org beginning. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Soren Kierkegaard From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:33:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:33:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527153329.GH27891@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 11:48:03AM +0300, Saul Mashbaum wrote: : Very briefly, R. Rosner cites three approaches in the sources : : 1. Illustrating the truth - The Ran in Drashot HaRan drasha 5 - In this : approach, which severely limits the principle of eilu v'eilu, the Ran : states that actually only one of the opinions is true. The other opinion is : 'divrei Elokim chaim' only insofar as it serves to illustrate and elucidate : the other opinion, which is the real truth, as the dark enables us to : appreciate a candle... R/Dr Moshe Halbertal forms his opinion of the Ran's shitah on the haqdamah to haMafteiach leManulei haTalmud. He translates: It is a known fact that the entire Torah, written and oral, was transm itted to Moses, as it says in the tract ate Meggilah, R. Hiyya bar Abba said in the Name of R. Yohanan: The verse:...and on them was written according to all the words.." teaches that the Holy One blessed be He showed Moses the details prescribed by the Torah and by the Sages, including the innovations they would later enact. And what are those? the reading of Meggila. The 'details' provided by the rabbis are halakhic disputes and conflicting views held by the sa ges of Israel. Moses learned them all by divine word with no resolution every controversy in detail. Yet [God] also gave him a rule whose truth is manifest, i.e., 'Favor the majority opinion'....as the sages of that generation saw fit, for the decision had already been delegated to them as it is written: 'And you shall come to the priest the Levites, and to the judge that shall be in those days' and 'You shall not deviate....". (Quoted from . I do not know where to find the original, to see what's ellided or whether my own attempt to translate would agree.) This quote from the Ran pretty clearly backs the third position in RSR's survey: : 3. Multiple truths (Ritva in Eiruvin, Maharal) - Both opinions are true, : reflecting different perspectives of the subject at hand (IMO, this is : similar to the previous explanation, without establishing a hierarchy : between the truths expressed by the different opinions)... (BTW, I happen to agree with this parenthetic. ) OTOH, in Derashah #7, I think I could defend RSR's #2! To quote the Ran: We have been commanded to obey their decision whether it represents the tru th or its opposite ...for the power of decision-making has been entrusted to the halakhic authorities for each generation. Whatever they decide is what God has commanded. Compare: : 2. Levels of truth - R. Moshe in the hakdama to IM, and R. Yaakov to : Bereishit 26, the Netziv in his Hakadama to Haamek Sh'eila, his commentary : to the Sheiltot). Using R. Moshe's terminology. there is Emet Shamaymit, : and Emet L'Horaa. Both are correct, and in this world we are obligated to : follow the emet l'horaa even if it deviates from the ultimate, heavenly : truth. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You are where your thoughts are. micha at aishdas.org - Ramban, Igeres haQodesh, Ch. 5 http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:38:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:38:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5565E50A.4070406@sero.name> On 05/27/2015 04:22 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Yahadus uses the Torah to define evil. Others don't accept this definition. Why is that relevant? Objective truth doesn't depend on how many people are aware of it or accept it. It's true for everyone, whether they know and accept it or not. Those who don't know it are simply ignorant, and those who dispute it are simply wrong. Subjective truth is a very different matter. If a truth is subjective then those who dispute it are not wrong, it *isn't true* for them, and if someone insists it must be true for them then *he* is wrong. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:41:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:41:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] right and wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5565E599.6050709@sero.name> On 05/27/2015 05:20 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Tangential to some of the recent discussions I wish to point out that > the defintion of right and wrong is subjective and indeed changes > through history. No, it isn't and it doesn't. That the majority of people in the course of history have been wrong is no chiddush; the majority of people *today* are wrong. Truth isn't determined by democracy. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:42:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:42:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") In-Reply-To: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> References: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5565E5EC.7030806@sero.name> On 05/27/2015 06:47 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to > blow. How do you do less than 10*each*? Tashrat for Malchiyos, Tashat for Zichronos, and Tarat for Shofros. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 10:58:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 13:58:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Even More on Who Wrote the Mishnah Brurah Message-ID: <20150527175829.C3B57182454@nexus.stevens.edu> Someone on my email list spoke to a well-known Flatbush Rov and sent me the following: Reb Yitzchok I spoke to Rabbi XX this morning, and he did indeed confirm that the MB was not written only by the Chofetz Chaim. He said R. Moshe Feinstein told him that it is a work of a rabbim, not only a yochid. It seems that R. Arye Leib was not the only one to work on it. According to what R. XX heard the team also consisted of the CC's son in law and the mashgiach Rav Londinski. R. XX also told me that R. Henoch Liebowitz, the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim in Queens told him that his father Reb Dovid, who was a nephew of the CC, also wrote portions of the MB. So thank you for leading me towards this information. llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 12:38:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 15:38:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55661D24.8040207@gmail.com> Micha Berger: >> Rabbi Akiva said, ... "Even as a house proclaims its builder,a garment >> > its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the >> > Holy Blessed One Who created it. >> > >> >Not very rigorous. Rabbi Aqiva's reply revolves around giving a parable >> >to make the conclusion self-evident. Not contructing a deductive argument. >> > >> > ...there are truths that can >> be justified even when they are not amenable to formal proofs. >> ... I'll quote Qovetz Maamariv par 5-7 from a translation >> provided by Pirchei Shoshanim. You'll notice it's nothing like the >> Rambam's attempt to formally prove an Argument from Design in Moreh >> sec. II. Indeed, the Rambam himself in the Moreh Nevuchim recognizes this distinction and supports the superior validity of the non-formal approach. Chapters after he devotes chapters to formal philosophic proofs for Creation ex nihilo, he describes how a healthy (and unbiased) mind thinks: And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, /for one who is modeh al ha-ememmes/ (Ibn Tibbon; KPCH: /baal tsedek/; Pines: an equitable man) [contra Aristotle?see 2:20-23], is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an intender, and that such purposeful intent necessarily implies the production of something new [and not something that always existed along with the one who bears the purposeful intention for its existence]. (MN 3:13) Aristotle agreed to the premise that everything in Nature serves a certain purpose, and that every being contributes to the existence of still another being, but he refused to concede to the conclusion the Rambam considers something a /modeh al ha-emmess/baal tsedek/ is naturally convinced of. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 13:54:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 16:54:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <55661D24.8040207@gmail.com> References: <55661D24.8040207@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150527205440.GB22904@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 03:38:12PM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : Indeed, the Rambam himself in the Moreh Nevuchim recognizes this : distinction and supports the superior validity of the non-formal : approach. Chapters after he devotes chapters to formal philosophic : proofs for Creation ex nihilo, he describes how a healthy (and : unbiased) mind thinks: : : And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, ... : is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities : serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; : and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an : intender, and that such purposeful intent necessarily implies the : production of something new [and not something that always existed : along with the one who bears the purposeful intention for its : existence]. (MN 3:13) There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam recaps a point made in 2:19-20. And for that matter, if the Rambam was talking about not really needing formal proof, despite spending much of sec. II on just that, why would it be buried in a chapter that focuses on something else? 3:13 is about how the universe has its own purpose. It is not just an arena designed for the purpose of humans. He argues here with Aristo who says that plants exist for the purpose of animals, and in general, that things exist for the purpose of other things. Besides, the Rambam writes in 3:51 in the mashal of the palace, that people who believe because of tradition without having proof are like those who wander around the chatzer, whereas someone with a proof is like one who entered the prozdor. Not Aristo's epistomology didn't analyze issues of proof vs other justification. But clearly Reliabilism, trusting an idea found in a source that has already been found to be reliable (hama'aminim ... derekh qabalah), is not being considered good enough justification to fully accomplish life's goal. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 14:39:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 17:39:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527213945.GE22904@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 10:25:26AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> I think the problem is more than just avoiding the issur, but making :> it trivial to entirely avoid it. : : In that case how about a "dud shemesh" according to the poskim that it is : allowed because it uses the sun I don't know. Maybe because you still can't boil hot water if you wanted it, say, for your tea. :> The textbook case would be on Shabbos 6a: situating someone in a meqom :> petur so that someone in a reshus hayachid can hand items to them so :> that they could then hand it over to someone in a reshus harabim. :> Rashi ad loc explains "demezalzel be'isurei Shabbos".>> : would there be a difference between doing this once and making this a : standard procedure? Good question. I don't see "standard procedure" in the gemara, it looks like a one-off. It depends if we're talking about zilzul of kevod Shabbos, or zilzul of the melakhah, the latter being more of a "threat of slippery slope" problem. Rashi has "mezalzel be'isurei Shabbos". BH 337:2 "shelo yishtaberu" uses the same turn of phrase. Why would you be afraid of cheapening the issur if we aren't talking about that opening the door to future violation? The Tur OC 315, Beiur Halakah 344 and elsewhere talk about not doing things "shelo yavo'u lezalzel bo". Which clearly invokes a slippery slope argument; but not that zilzul is itself a slippery slope, rather than zilzul is such a problem, we avoid things that will slide us there. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is harder to eat the day before Yom Kippur micha at aishdas.org with the proper intent than to fast on Yom http://www.aishdas.org Kippur with that intent. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 14:49:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 17:49:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir In-Reply-To: <20150527.080332.8051.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150527.080332.8051.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150527214903.GF22904@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 12:03:32PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Micha Berger answered: :> On a technical level, it would be mesayeia, not lifnei iver, and :> I'm not sure that mesayeia applies to 7 mitzvos benei Noach. : Really? Perhaps I need a better understanding of the difference between : the two. I thought that mesayeia was when the other person is going to : violate the halacha anyway and I am merely helping him to do it... My understanding is that mesayeia is when the person was capable of doing the aveirah without you. Not "would" but "could". Whereas lifnei iveir is when the nazir is mei'eivar hanahar and you're giving him passage. The sugya is on AZ 6a-b. But, I see the Ran does say mesayeia apply to preventing a nakhri from violating the 7MBN. The Rama *YD 151:2) says we are meiqil and allow selling AZ items to nakhriim if they already own similar items or can buy them elsewhere, but there are machmirim. See the Shach YD 151:6-7, who discusses this machloqes rishonim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The mind is a wonderful organ micha at aishdas.org for justifying decisions http://www.aishdas.org the heart already reached. Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 18:33:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 21:33:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] measurement error Message-ID: <20150528013324.GA4749@aishdas.org> The topic I got caught up in has been the AhS and standard shiurim. The story so far.... Jan 8, when this thread was current, I wrote : > BTW, carrying 4 amos bereshus harabbim is 4 of one's own amos, assuming > they have mainstream bone structure. It's where I am in AhS Yomi. > But notice that we would naturally assume "amah" as unit of length, not > as a function of how far that particular person can reach. On Jan 11, I hit the topic again WRT eiruvin AhS OC 363:32-35, and wrote : > But then in se'if 34 he says something I do not follow, but key to > our discussion. > When dealing with mavui, where there is only one mavui and therefore one > measuring process to be used for everyone, the above applies. However, > when the measurement is only for one person's use, tbey should be > measuring for himself, with his own norms. > And here he adds a touch of subjectivity: a person should measure how > far he himself could walk. And the rule of carrying in rh"r a distance > of no more 4 of one's own amos is brought into that umbrella. > The reason for the general rule is to cover the personal amos of the > people who will be using the measuring. > BUT, and this is why I do not follow, he opened se'if 32 by telling us > the variability is 1/48 of the total (1/24 of an etzba per ammah). Which > is far less than the variability in forearm lengths in most groups of > people. For example, my own sukkah is used by Yoni, who stands 6'3" and by > my own 5'3" -- and my arms are on the shorter side, even proportionally. > When we hold up elbows together, my ammah ends just past his wrist. Not > within 47/48 of eachother. And then on May 18 I hit AhS OC 586:14 and tried reviving this thread . The topic was the minimum length for a shofar -- long enough to be seen on either side when being held in one hand. > So the shiur is neither personal nor really the standard tefach. It is > literally as the gemara says, what can be held and still seen. Which is > why there is a machloqes about where the tefach stands in relation to the > real shiur. But, visible if hypothetically held by an average hand. And > if the tqoei'ah has wide hands, he could hold a minimal shofar without > it being visible, and it would still be kosher. ... > What I find even more interesting is that there is no chiluq being drawn > between someone who blows in shul and someone who blows just for himself. > Wouldn't the rule from OC 363 mean that someone in the latter situation > should use what is visible when their own hand holds it? But today I seem to have hit an AhS which deals with shiurim that aren't human: revi'is, kezayis. According to OC 612:8, the shiur of drinking on YK is not a revi'is, but melo lugmav. And unlike akhilah, where there is one kezayis for everyone, melo lugmav is literally his own cheek. So it would seem that kezayis, and perhaps revi'is and other shiurim (beis se'ah) are not subjective. Which makes sense, since I can't figure out how to make a kezayis correspond to the person... Except RCVolozhiner's position, where it's the average kezayis then and there, and not a static shiur. Which could, literally, be the same shiur for all people (living there and then) and thus may be within the AhS's intent. Can't I get anyone else intrigued by this problem? Back on Jan 11, I was in hil' eiruvin, and hit upn the AhS's discussion of an ammah just as we were discussing the topic Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The purely righteous do not complain about evil, micha at aishdas.org but add justice, don't complain about heresy, http://www.aishdas.org but add faith, don't complain about ignorance, Fax: (270) 514-1507 but add wisdom. - R AY Kook, Arpelei Tohar From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:12:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:12:53 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul Message-ID: Micha wrote: The Tur OC 315, Beiur Halakah 344 and elsewhere talk about not doing things "shelo yavo'u lezalzel bo". Which clearly invokes a slippery slope argument; but not that zilzul is itself a slippery slope, rather than zilzul is such a problem, we avoid things that will slide us there. >> My apologies but I am still completely confused when one applies zilzul and when one says something is allowed as an exception to the rule. No purpose in giving examples as there are myriads of exceptions that are allowed. I have the same problem with "lo plug" sometimes something that would be allowed is prohibited because of "lo plug" and sometimes we simply say it is an exception. Perhaps the most famous example is lighting candles on leil yom tov. The wife of the Prisha says one should say the bracha first and then light since lighting (preexisting flame) is allowed on tomtov. The MA calls her names and says this is an obvious "lo plug". My impression is that most women follow the wife of the prisha. The question is what is the basis of the machloket either when do we say "lo plug" and when do we apply "zilzul" and when do we ignore these arguments -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 21:04:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 04:04:33 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir Message-ID: <20150528.000433.22403.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > My understanding is that mesayeia is when the person was capable > of doing the aveirah without you. Not "would" but "could". Whereas > lifnei iveir is when the nazir is mei'eivar hanahar and you're > giving him passage. > > The sugya is on AZ 6a-b. > > ... I will be the first to point out that Lifnei Iveir is one the many topics where my learning and expertise is severely lacking. Even so, I suspect that there is something missing from RMB's definition. In the simplest reading of the pasuk (Vayikra 19:14), Rashi says that Lifnei Iveir forbids one to give bad advice to another person. It is difficult to imagine a worse piece of advice than telling Ruth to follow Orpah back her her previous god. Googling the question "What is Lifnei Iveir" brought me to an interesting article by Rabbi Yirmiyohu Kaganoff (bio at http://rabbikaganoff.com/about) The full article is at http://tinyurl.com/ka3pwq6 and I would like to quote the part where he gives three different categories of Lifnei Iveir: > I. Inciting ? maiseis > > This occurs when a person was not even considering doing an > aveirah until someone encouraged him. Thus, the instigator incited > the performing of the aveirah and is therefore a maiseis. > > II. Encouraging ? chanufah > > One violates this prohibition by complimenting someone for doing a > sin, thus implying that sinning is acceptable. > > III. Enabling ? lifnei iveir > > One violates this prohibition if the sinner wanted to do the > aveirah, but was unable to do so without assistance. The person > who enables the performing of the aveirah violates lifnei iveir. > > IV. Even when none of these Torah prohibitions are involved, > helping the sinner do the aveirah sometimes violates the rabbinic > prohibition of mesaya?a y?dei ovrei aveirah, assisting someone who > is sinning. (It is unfortunate that the article did not cite a source or precedent for these categories, but please bear with me.) It seems to me that RMB is giving a useful tool to distinguish between category 3 and category 4, but that tool is useful only in the case where a person already has the *desire* to commit a sin, but it lacking the *ability* to some degree. If a person has only a mild inability to sin, then the enabler is merely mesayeia; but if the person has a severe inability, then the enabler is placing a real michshol. But what of the case where a person does *not* yet have a desire to sin? Rabbi Kaganoff is saying that one who incites or encourages him to do it is violating Lifnei Iveir. Even if the person already has the ability to do the sin, it was below his "bechirah point" until he was egged on to do it. Rabbi Kaganoff offers an example: > Inciting Someone to Sin ? maiseis > > The classic case of maiseis is when the nachash encouraged Chavah > to eat the forbidden fruit. Even though the nachash itself did > not eat, Hashem punished it for inciting Chavah to sin (Gemara > Sanhedrin 29a). Similarly, if Reuven incites Shimon to sin in a > way that Shimon had not considered, Reuven is a maiseis. And so my question can be rephrased: If the nachash was wrong to tell Chava to eat the fruit, wasn't Naami wrong to tell Ruth to follow Orpah back to her god? Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/556694205dac4141e6338st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 01:07:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:07:24 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim Message-ID: On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 07:14:36PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: : -- 30 **dim'yushav** : -- 10 **dim'umad** : -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the R' Micha Berger asked: "How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to blow. How do you do less than 10 **each**?" Many Rishonim (quoted by the Beis Yosef in Siman 592) hold that during Chazaras Hashatz in Musaf you blow Tashrat for malchiyos, Tashat for zichronos and Tarat for shofaros. In all of the Nusach Ashkenaz shuls that I have davened in they blew 30 before Musaf, 30 during chazaras hashatz and then 40 after Musaf adding up to 100. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:33:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:33:43 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: Micha wrote <> Well Micha and I agree on several points but still disagree on others. Agreed that people in real life don't use formal mathematical proofs. A sanhedrin can kill on a majority vote (OK there a little more than 50%) I also agree that if one is talking about oneself then feelings count. Saying they are wrong but I cant prove it works perfectly OK with regard to your own beliefs. It doesnt work when trying to convince others. Example: Your child comes home and says he learned that the world is billions of years old not about 5700 years. Or else your teenager tells you he doesn't believe G-d is loving because of the Holocaust or because of Amalek. You can tell him that whatever is in the Torah or Chazal is truth and its not open to discussion. That might work with some children. Alternatively you can give him/her one of the many answers that have been discussed on this list. That may or not convince him. There are no proofs that G-d exists or that G-d rules the universe or that G-d is just or loving. You can convince yourself but doing that to others is difficult, We have already argued about REW and I still can't accept it. The argument is that if someone else tells you why he doesn't accept G-d or that G-d rules the world whether for rational or emotional reasons the answer is that we don't believe him and say he is making up reasons. Of course he will say the same about your acceptance of Torah and mitzvot. To simply accuse the other of simply rationalizing his beliefs is simply not true. I have had enough lectures on why the Bible was written very late by many scribes to be convinced they really mean it. You may disagree but you can't accuse them of merely rationalizing their non-belief. In one class the professor said he would willing debate anyone who has a different opinion objectively. However, if you start that the Torah is from Sinai because of your belief then there is nothing to discuss. What is self-evident to you is self-evidently false to someone else. Again it is legitimate to disagree with that person but I claim it is not legitimate to state that he doesn't really believe in his own position. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:57:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:57:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura Message-ID: <> They state clearly these are things they heard from the Gra, Ari etc. No misleading. No different than RHS writing what he heard from RYBS and many other such seforim. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:55:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 05:55:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5566E62F.8040201@sero.name> On 05/28/2015 05:12 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > Perhaps the most famous example is lighting candles on leil yom tov. > The wife of the Prisha The MA's girsa in the Prisha is "mother", and the Machtzis Hashekel confirms that this is not a typo in the MA. > says one should say the bracha first and then > light since lighting (preexisting flame) is allowed on tomtov. > The MA calls her names He does not! He merely quotes the gemara Yoma 66b that "women only have wisdom with the spindle". Machtzis Hashekel says he is not even referring to the Drisha's mother, but to most women, who will not understand the distinction between Shabbos and Yomtov. > and says this is an obvious "lo plug". He doesn't just assert it, he cites clear sources that when a bracha must sometimes be said after the deed, we apply lo plug and always say it after the deed. Thus, he says, the same thing must apply here. (But see Dagul Mervava, who distinguishes this case because the bracha is different, and points out that if not for this distinction then the same should apply to the Chanukah lights). > My impression is that most women follow the wife of the prisha. Really? I'm surrprised. I'm also surprised that you've surveyed enough women to form an impression one way or the other. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:19:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 10:19:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:57:05PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> < teachings. For that matter, people talk about what the Ari says in Peri :> Eitz Chaim or others of R' Chaim Vital's works.>> : They state clearly these are things they heard from the Gra, Ari etc. No : misleading. I'm not sure about such disclaimers on the Gra's talmidim's writings, aside from Maaseh Rav. And if so, lo kol shekein in our case! Here we have the author of Shemiras haLashon -- someone known for thinking about what he said -- calling the MB "beiuri", "od tzarafti" "ki bo biarti", "upo hir'eisi", and "kol eileh chbarti..." on the title page. How can one argue he didn't oversee the entire work and checked the content? Nothing about parts being by Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger What you get by achieving your goals micha at aishdas.org is not as important as http://www.aishdas.org what you become by achieving your goals. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Henry David Thoreau From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:33:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 10:33:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528143339.GB4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:12:53PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : My apologies but I am still completely confused when one applies zilzul and : when one says something is allowed as an exception to the rule. No purpose : in giving examples as there are myriads of exceptions that are allowed. I think the reverse: the norm is to allow valid loopholes to the din, and it's only when the poseiq decides that the loophole would destroy some significant part of the feel of Shabbos (whether qedushas Shabbos or an entire melakhah) that we call it zilzul. ... : Perhaps the most famous example is lighting candles on leil yom tov. The : wife of the Prisha says one should say the bracha first and then light : since lighting (preexisting flame) is allowed on tomtov. The MA calls her : names and says this is an obvious "lo plug". : My impression is that most women follow the wife of the prisha. The AhS OC 263:3 does, citing the Perishah. Then he quotes the MA (s"q 12) and says "and many were choliq on him... vekhein iqar ledina." Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:45:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 10:45:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528144529.GC4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:33:43PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : Well Micha and I agree on several points but still disagree on others. : Agreed that people in real life don't use formal mathematical proofs... I would go further and say that far too many things /can't/ use formal proofs. And even further: even when you do have a formal proof, it is built from givens -- call them postulates or first principles. So, barring an infinite regress, even a formal proof is a structure atop things accepted without formal proof. I should point out that this a major subset of the field of epistomology. : It doesnt work when trying to convince others. True, but not relevant. We -- and more importantly to the origianl point, REW -- are talking about whether it's more natural to believe in G-d or not. Not whether a believer could then convince someone else. ... : We have already argued about REW and I still can't accept it. The argument : is that if someone else tells you why he doesn't accept G-d or that G-d : rules the world whether for rational or emotional reasons the answer is : that we don't believe him and say he is making up reasons. REW doesn't say that. I even cut-n-pasted a translation to support that point. REW says that he really doesn't believe, but he had to work against the natural state of seeing a world that shows obvious signs of a Designer. Someone can truly and honestly convince himself, or be convinced by others (including upbringing) that a poem really could emerge by someone spilling ink. But that's not what people would conclude if we lacked a strong desire to conclude that way -- the "shochad" of freedom if ein din ve'ein Dayan. There is nothing in that quote from Qovetz Maamarim about anyone not really believing what they think they believe. Rather, he ascribes a motive. : Of course he will say the same about your acceptance of Torah and mitzvot. Again, REW isn't speaking about the context of debate. Nor was I. By bringing it in, you complicate matters without addressing the original claim. REW is really just saying that the reason why believe is a fair topic of bechirah because on one side design is self-evident but on the other the desire to live without having to follow the Designer counterbalances it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger People were created to be loved. micha at aishdas.org Things were created to be used. http://www.aishdas.org The reason why the world is in chaos is that Fax: (270) 514-1507 things are being loved, people are being used. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:22:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 14:22:41 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> References: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, May 28, 2015, 5:19 PM Micha Berger wrote: > Here we have the author of Shemiras > haLashon -- someone known for thinking about what he said -- calling > the MB "beiuri", "od tzarafti" "ki bo biarti", "upo hir'eisi", and "kol > eileh chbarti..." on the title page. How can one argue he didn't oversee > the entire work and checked the content? Nothing about parts being by I agree he must have looked it over That leaves the question of contradictions And stories about minhagim of cc that are different than what is in mb From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:23:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:23:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150528152301.GE4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 02:22:41PM +0000, Eli Turkel wrote: : I agree he must have looked it over Which is why I think R/Dr MS is making too much ado over the actual authorship. : That leaves the question of contradictions Well, not every sheverer Rambam is a printing error either. Another case where the academic norm is to run far further with some fun concept than I'm comfortable with. Perhaps we should be looking for how the contradictions are only apparent. Or perhaps the CC felt than ruling al pi rov or safeiq lechumerah/lequlah in two different cases needn't results in consistencies between pesaqim. Before you spend too much time on that bothering you, recall when we daven minchah and maariv. If the tefillos are on two different days, you can end up following different definitions of evening on different days. : And stories about minhagim of cc that are different than what is in mb I thought R/Dr Seth Mandel's position is compelling. Look at the title page and the haqdamah. The CC never claims that the MB is a seifer of pesaq. Rather, he describes the work as a survey. From the title page, defining the MB (as opposed to the left column about the BH): I called my biur by the name MB since within it is explained (misbareir; c.f. "berurah") the words of the SA, every law by its reasoning and origins in the gemara and posqim that it not be like a sealed book. Also I will collect in it all the dinim, halakhos and biurim scattered amog the books of the acharonim, meforshim of the SA who are known (like MA, PMG, Birkhei Yoseif, Maamar Mordekhai and many such.) There are many of them after the Be'er Heitiv and they are not brought in shu"t because they are somwhat scattered in various places. All of these are compiled here, and all is in a straightforward and easy language and in proper order, with Hashem's help. And the BH: Also, I appended on its side some necessary inyanim titled under the name Biur Halakhah -- and as the name, so it is. For in it I sometimes explained the words of halakhah which are brought in summary in the MB without proof, and here I show (be"h) its source looking inall of gemara and the posqim. Also in it are sometimes explains the words of the SA at length in places which need explanation. (Sorry, just always wanted to bother translating that -- this thread was just my excuse.) So, the MB is a survey, and thus the halachic conclusions found in it (and explained in the BH) are purely what in theory the sources surveyed would indicate. It's not that the CC didn't believe in mimeticism, it's that the MB is a book of theory and therefore ignores mimeticism. The MB was written lehalakhah velo lemaaseh. Which makes it ironic that so many RYs of the mid- and late 20th cent worked so hard to make the work a "poseiq acharon" lemaaseh. Whereas he CC's own practice did reflect weighing shitos based on their acceptance. And so, unsurprisingly, in all the places I know of where his own practice didn't fit the MB (such as supporting a community eiruv, despite BH 364 "ve'achar") his practice does follow the AhS. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "The most prevalent illness of our generation is micha at aishdas.org excessive anxiety.... Emunah decreases anxiety: http://www.aishdas.org 'The Almighty is my source of salvation; I will Fax: (270) 514-1507 trust and not be afraid.'" (Isa 12) -Shalhevesya From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:11:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:11:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528151127.C0EE817F7D9@nexus.stevens.edu> At 10:33 AM 5/28/2015, R. Micha Berger wrote: >And if so, lo kol shekein in our case! Here we have the author of Shemiras >haLashon -- someone known for thinking about what he said -- calling >the MB "beiuri", "od tzarafti" "ki bo biarti", "upo hir'eisi", and "kol >eileh chbarti..." on the title page. How can one argue he didn't oversee >the entire work and checked the content? Nothing about parts being by I wonder if these words were on the title page of the first publication of each volume of the MB. After all, publishers do add things. One title page I found online for the second volume of the MB refers to the author as HaGaon. I doubt that the CC would have had this on the title page of the first printing. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:39:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:39:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: <20150528151127.C0EE817F7D9@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150528151127.C0EE817F7D9@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150528153911.GG4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 11:11:28AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : I wonder if these words were on the title page of the first : publication of each volume of the MB... Why wonder? Each volume: 1. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49623&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1884 2. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49624&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1895 3. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49625&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1891 4. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49626&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1898 5. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49627&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1902 6. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49628&pgnum=1 - Pietrekov 1907 (None call him ga'on, all have pretty much the same self description.) These fit the years of the first editions that wikipedia gives, based on "The Chafetz Chaim" by R MM Yoshor, pg 603. (But even if wiki has it wrong, they are editions published by the author.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Rescue me from the desire to win every micha at aishdas.org argument and to always be right. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Nassan of Breslav Fax: (270) 514-1507 Likutei Tefilos 94:964 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:10:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 08:10:56 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH Message-ID: http://menachemmendel.net/blog/are-you-a-mishnah-berurah-or-arukh-hashulhan-person/ see there also the r henkin review . he points out that the Oz Vhadar edition inherently has a difficulty in attributing notes to the [non-satmar oriented] relatives of the Aruch Hashulchan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 09:00:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:00:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the suggestion that a kosher lamp is zilzul shabbas. Isn't just a nice (and -- significantly -- *safer*) way of covering a lamp? If one were to make the argument that its convenience might make it zilzul shabbas, might one respond with "but safety"? Why do the rabbis deem the following to not be a case of zilzul yom tov: cooking a large pot of food on the afternoon of yom tov rishon, "in case people might stop by", and "I'll eat some of it" knowing there will be leftovers? -- Sholom -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 14:15:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 17:15:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") In-Reply-To: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> References: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> Message-ID: R'Micha asked: > How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to blow. How do you do less than 10 *each*? < 3 during Malch., 3 during Zichronos, and 4 during Shof'ros. On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 6:47 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 07:14:36PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: > : When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: > : -- 30 *dim'yushav* > : -- 10 *dim'umad* > : -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the > > How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to > blow. How do you do less than 10 *each*? > > Tir'u baTov! > -Micha > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 15:45:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 18:45:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528224528.GB28282@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:00:22PM -0400, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote: : I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the suggestion that a : kosher lamp is zilzul shabbas. That's okay, it's just a hava amina we raised here. No one AFAIK actually banned kosher lamps over zilzul Shabbos. The question was why a Kosher Switch (that claims to not even be grama) would be zilzul and not the Kosher Lamp. And then, many (most? the vast majority of posqim?) do not believe it actually avoids gerama, including the author of Shemiras Shabbos kehilkhisa. : Isn't just a nice (and -- significantly : -- *safer*) way of covering a lamp? Well, every case where one would discuss zilzul Shabbos would be one where there wasn't a more easily defined problem. So every discussion could be "isn't it just". I think the difference is that a kosher switch would mean being able to turn or off anything, whereas the Kosher Lamp is more limited, being a specific appliance. ... : Why do the rabbis deem the following to not be a : case of zilzul yom tov: cooking a large pot of food on the afternoon of : yom tov rishon, "in case people might stop by", and "I'll eat some of : it" knowing there will be leftovers? I would guess that similarly, because it's of limited utility. It doesn't totally destroy the concept of an issur of cooking on Yom Tov. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The fittingness of your matzos [for the seder] micha at aishdas.org isn't complete with being careful in the laws http://www.aishdas.org of Passover. One must also be very careful in Fax: (270) 514-1507 the laws of business. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 05:52:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 15:52:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Indeed in Europe before WWII the MB was not the "final" arbiter of halacha. Much changed when CI wrote in a letter that the MB has the halacha of a sanhedrin and one can't disagree with its conclusions. Of course CI himself disagreed with the MB and in fact there are published versions of the MB which include the disagreements of the CI. All to show that what is written in letters is not to be taken very literally. In any case that paid a large part of the change in attitude towards the MB. Certainly poskim of the previous generation who grew up before the war also did not take the MB as a final posek. As an example is RMF though I heard similar things from RYBS. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 08:24:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 11:24:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150529152455.GA5770@aishdas.org> R/Dr Haym Soloveitchik focused on the MB's more textualist slant vs the AhS giving weight to shitos that were common practice. Which fits R/DHS's thesis for that particular paper, the idea he was using that particular comparison to illustrate. But I do not believe it's the primary difference between them. I already gave what I saw was the primary difference. The AhS was written by a moreh de'asra to reflect halakhah lemaaseh. The MB was written by a tzasiq and a gaon as a survey of later shitos that weren't available to most people trying to learn halakhah. No focus (by the author, see below about others) on lemaaseh. I see this as the cause for the MB's lack of attention to halakhah as practiced. It wasn't so much that the CC was a textualist when it comes to pesaq, but that he wrote a book for discussing texts. A second difference is that the AhS's idea of understanding the halakhah is looking to see how the pesaq evolved from gemara (and Y-mi) to Rif, Rambam, Rosh to the Tur, BY, SA, and finally to the acharonim since. The MB is more focused on the halakhah in the acharonic period, and how to decide amongst them. Third, the AhS is willing to leave the halakhah fuzzy, and often comes to a range of conclusions rather than one clear-cut pesaq. Or, he will pasqen one way in one se'if, but in a slightly different case in a different se'if reopen the question: ... but if you hold like... The MB offers more clarity. An AhS fan might say that clarity is artificial, because the reality of halakhah isn't cut and dry with only one best pesaq for all people. But it does make it easier to open a MB than to try to decide what to do when you reach one of the fuzzier stretches of the AhS. Perhaps the clarity is really is artifice, and that's why we need LORs rather than thinking a book is our poseiq. On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 03:52:06PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : Indeed in Europe before WWII the MB was not the "final" arbiter of : halacha. Much changed when CI wrote in a letter that the MB has the : halacha of a sanhedrin and one can't disagree with its conclusions. : Of course CI himself disagreed with the MB... : All to show that what is written in letters is not to be taken very : literally... Although it wasn't only the CI, so it's not all about taking his letter overly literally. Rav Yaakov Kamenecki and R' Aharon Kotler called him the "poseiq acharon", and RAK went as far as making sure the MB would appear in photos of him. See also our 2006 discussion Aruch Hashulchan vs. Mishna berura OTOH, R YH Henkin testified about his famous grandfather ( quoting his own Bnei Banim vol. 2 page 31): AH saw the MB; see 11:22; 12:4; 28:23; 62:4; 268:6; and other places where he mentions Mishnah Berurah by name. In 79:11 and 319:22 and elsewhere he disagrees with him by name and in innumerable places he disagrees with him without mentioning his name: for instance, in 55:20 he is writing against the Mishnah Berurah and similarly in 370:13 -- this is obvious anyone who looks carefully. So it is a mitzvah to let people know that AH is not only a Sefer Halacha but also a response to the Mishnah Brerurah. OTOH, similarly R [Shmuel] Yaakov Weinberg (Ner Israel) considered the AhS the more authoritative. And minutes before my chupah (while waiting for the paper to burn to have ashes for my head), R' Dovid Lifshitz asked if I had one for my new home, because it was closer to halakhah as my ancestors held. (RDL knew my family back in Suvalk.) As for RMF, RDF and RRF both agreed that RMF gave priority to the AhS because R' Yechiel Michl Epstein had a qehillah, and therefore the more practiced poseiq of the two. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger People were created to be loved. micha at aishdas.org Things were created to be used. http://www.aishdas.org The reason why the world is in chaos is that Fax: (270) 514-1507 things are being loved, people are being used. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 30 16:03:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 00:03:21 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] : Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001f01d09b2c$d37ec030$7a7c4090$@org.uk> I wrote: >> But aren't they then denying those Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all >> the chance to hear shofar according to the majority opinions by only blowing >> for them according to the minority opinions? And RZS replied: >AFAIK everyone agrees that all these methods are kosher, so those Jews >are definitely yotzei the mitzvah. ... >They're not foisting anything. The people they're blowing for would >otherwise not hear shofar at all, so they're clearly better off hearing >even some obscure form of it, so long as they're yotzei. But if these people who want to hear the shofar blown according to minority shitos are capable of finding people who would otherwise not hear shofar at all and blowing for them, they are *also* capable of finding such people in circumstances where they then blow for them according to the majority shitos. For it to be true that "they're clearly better off hearing some obscure form of it, so long as they are yotzei" - you have to be assuming that the people doing the blowing would only be prepared to go to the trouble of blowing to fulfil their desire to fulfil minority shitos but NOT where the result is only to ensure that fellow Jews perform a mitzvah. You may be correct that indeed people are more concerned with making sure they themselves have fulfilled the mitzvah of shofar in every possible permutation than in making sure another Jew performs the mitzvah at all, but could anybody honestly regard that as praiseworthy? As a consequence, I then raised a halachic query: > The principle on which > somebody who has fulfilled their obligation can then fulfil the obligation > of another is based on kol yisrael areivim zeh b'zeh. But to what extent is > that applicable in a situation in which that person would never, had the > situation been reversed, have accepted the form of fulfilment they are > offering the other. Ie since the person who is blowing the shofar refused > to have these alternative ways of blowing as the fundamental method of > fulfilling their own mitzvah, is it really areivus to then foist that form > of fulfilment on others? RZS's assumption is that, so long as everybody agrees that a form of blowing is kosher bidieved, then areivus works, but I wonder whether this is necessarily true. Areivus is a fascinating halachic concept - it allows somebody who has already fulfilled a mitzvah to do it again, including (importantly) making brachos again (which they would otherwise not be permitted to do) on behalf of another. I went for a bit of a hunt over Yom Tov to see what I could find regarding areivus, but did not turn up much. First of all, the pasuk from the Torah regarding Areivus is brought in Shevuos 39a as being based on the Vayikra 26:37 [vchashlu ish b'achiv] - which is then explained as meaning that a man in *the sin* of his brother so as to teach that kol yisrael areivim ze l'zeh. But while that seems a valid source for what might be considered "negative" areivus or areivus in relation to lo ta'asehs (and the obligation to protest), it led me to wonder how straightforwardly that gets you to what might be called "positive" areivus - ie doing something, such as performing the mitzvah of shofar on behalf of another [not that I have seen this distinction between "negative" and "positive" areivus anywhere]. Ie while you can see that if is permitted to blow shofar for somebody who was otherwise unable to fulfil the mitzvah, and one failed to do so, one might then be considered to have stumbled into the sin of that person's omission - ie failure to perform an aseh - it seems a leap to therefore derive from this particular pasuk that one has the power to fulfil and make brachos on behalf of that person. If anything I would have thought perhaps v'ahavta re'echa k'mocha seemed more likely, but I couldn't find any reference. Note that areivus would seem not to be shlichus, as one can make a shaliach out of somebody who is themselves not commanded in a particular thing - whereas that is not applicable for areivus where the original level of obligation must be at least equal on the part of the arev. [This is all leaving aside the famous Rosh Brachos perek 3 siman 13 which states that areivus does not apply to women, which is clearly discussing what might be termed positive areivus ie making brachos on behalf of one another, and which the achronim generally limit to cases where there is no equal obligation, despite what may seem to be the simple pshat, or the Tosphos in Kidushin 70b that areivus does not apply to gerim - which must surely at most [and here it seems to me you need the definition of negative and positive areivus] to be only a reference to negative areivus - otherwise this would be raised as a problem of a ger making brachos on behalf of others - although given the source of the Tosphos in Sotah 37b, this would also seem to apply to women for the same reasons - ie the number count being made by reference to the 603,550 in the midbar not including the eruv rav, and not including women either]. The most I was able to find in my brief search over Yom Tov was a Birchei Yosef Orech Chaim siman 124 discussing the question as to whether a Ben Chutz L'Aretz who found himself in a village in Israel over Yom Tov (in the case quoted by the Birchei Yosef he had gone to Israel to bury his dead) where nobody besides him had the knowledge to be Shatz, and who had already davened at home on second day yom tov the second day yom tov davening, could be shatz for the community by saying the birchei chol amidah. But there seem to be lots of other reasons to permit (as the Birchei Yosef does) in this particular case. In particular it seems to me, besides all of the Birchei Yosef's arguments, if you were to say that areivus was linked to v'ahavta re'echa kamocha, you can see why, if circumstances were reversed, the ben chutz l'aretz would want the same as he is providing to the benei aretz (ie the mutuality of areivus). But in the case that RZS has outlined, where the people hearing only the minority shitos form of shofar blowing would surely want the majority position shofar blowing if they could get it, can the blower unilaterally choose to force them to fulfil their obligation via a set of minority shitos via areivus, or does the principle of areivus not stretch that far? More generally, if somebody holds a particular position as being the ikar, can they under the principle of areivus perform a mitzvah on behalf of somebody who holds by a contradictory position, so that what the arev is doing is, according to him, possul? How about the reverse situation? And that gets us to RZS's case, where it might be agreed that a particular form is kosher bidieved, but if the arev could provide a l'chatchila version and chooses not to, can he be genuinely be said to be a real arev? How good a guarantor must a guarantor be to be considered a guarantor at all? I am sure some achron has written a treatise on areivus which must cover these kinds of topics, but so far I haven't found it. Zev Sero zev at sero.name Shavuah tov Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 12:25:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 15:25:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] FORBIDDING WOMEN DRIVERS: A HALACHIC ANALYSIS Message-ID: <20150529192533.D89D0182BDA@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/nqnquzc The media has widely reported that a Belz Yeshiva in England has forbidden women from driving their children to Yeshiva. It was further reported that if the mothers do not comply, the children will be thrown out of Yeshiva. In a letter sent to parents last week, seen by the Jewish Chronicle, they say there has been an increase in the number of mothers driving their children to school and add that this has led to ?great resentment among parents of pupils of our [Hasidic] institutions?. The letter says the ban, to come into force in the summer, is based on the recommendations of Rabbi Yissachar Dov Rokeach, the Belzer spiritual leader in Israel. It says that if a mother has no other choice but to drive her child to school ? for medical reasons, for example ? she should ?submit a request to the special committee to this effect and the committee shall consider her request.? The question is what does halacha have to say about this? See the above URL for more. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 14:04:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 17:04:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <5568D45F.9010809@gmail.com> R. Micha Berger maintained that R. E. Wasserman was not positing a formal proof for G-d's existence, formal proofs not being the only way, or even the superior way, to establish truths. I cited a passage in the Moreh Nevuchim to support this concept. But as is occasionally the case, R. MB disagrees with me, even when I attempt to defend him: ZL: Indeed, the Rambam himself in the Moreh Nevuchim recognizes this : distinction and supports the superior validity of the non-formal : approach. Chapters after he devotes chapters to formal philosophic : proofs for Creation ex nihilo, he describes how a healthy (and : unbiased) mind thinks: : :And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, //for //one who ismodeh al ha-ememmes// (RMB substituted an ellipsis for this :crucial clause) :is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities :serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; :and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an :intender, and that such purposeful intent necessarily implies the :production of something new [and not something that always existed :along with the one who bears the purposeful intention for its :existence]. (MN 3:13) RMB: There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam recaps a point made in 2:19-20. In 2:19-20 Rambam makes no reference to each component or entity in nature providing a benefit for another, and certainly does not use that there as a proof for Creation ex nihilo. *(Section II is devoted to developing the argument against a naturally necessary eternal world based on ''particularization,'' the differing formations and behaviors of things despite their being made of the same materials.) * ** *Perhaps you are referring to the fact that in both the argument there and here the crucial concluding step invokes the mindset that purposeful intention on G-d's part (which Aristotle as well attributes to G-d) indicates *a changeable will on His part (which indication Aristotle denies) that allows for and indicates Creation ex nihilo. But just as in 3:13 the Rambam describes that crucial mindset as something that is possessed by those who are modeh al ha-emmess, so too in 2:19-20 the Rambam first describes it as something that is ''pashut'' (KPCH) or ''mevuar" (Ibn Tibbon), which he will then proceed to demonstrate through more formal proof: It has already been shown that according to Aristotle... the Universe is not the result of intent of choice and desire; for if this were the case, they would have been non-existing before the intent had been conceived. We [proponents of Judaism?ZL], however, hold that it is /pashut\mevuar/ that all things in the Universe are the result of intent-not-of necessity; and it is possible for that Intender to change them and have a different intent. But in this chapter, my intent is to show by arguments almost as forceful as real proofs, that the Universe gives compelling evidence of being [freely] intended by an Intender: RMB: And for that matter, if the Rambam was talking about not really needing formal proof, despite spending much of sec. II on just that, why would it be buried in a chapter that focuses on something else? I did not posit that the Rambam's intent was to make the point that formal proof is unnecessary. That indeed is not his purpose. After all, the explicitly stated primary purpose of the Moreh is for those (himself included) who yearned to defend and support the mesorah through philosophical approach of his day. He is not interested in dismissing the project. He explicitly describes this /modeh al ha-emmess/ statement /as a tangential interruption/: After that statement, he says, ''I will now return to the subject of this chapter, viz., the ultimate cause [i.e. the purpose behind the universe being as it is--ZL].'' My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows the non-formal mindset of those who are /modeh al ha-emmess/. It is a reference to those who do not restrict their acceptance of truth to things provable through formal logic, settling for healthy, unbiased reasoning (and who thereby see the truth of Creation ex-nihilo as a simple conclusion from the fact of the purposeful hierarchy of nature). RMB: 3:13 is about how the universe has its own purpose. It is not just an arena designed for the purpose of humans. He argues here with Aristo who says that plants exist for the purpose of animals, and in general, that things exist for the purpose of other things. He does not argue with Aristotle on this point, as is clear in the passage from 3:13 that I originally quoted, and as he elaborates in the introduction to his Mishnah commentary. The disagreement (outside of the parenthetically mentioned one) revolves around the /ultimate/ purpose behind the existence of everything, and the question of why the intermediate steps in this world that lead to its finale of the hierarchy must exist, rather than the finale existing alone. (According to Aristotle, every component of nature is simply a necessity whose non-existence is absolutely impossible. It is impossible for G-d to maintain anything but the universe and its entities as they are. According to the Rambam, although every sub lunar being contributes to the existence of another such being, until we get to Man (and then the Ish Shalem), G-d could nevertheless have created that final being directly, without creating the intermediary plants and animals. Why He in His wisdom decided to do it as He did, and why he decided to create the heavens as He did, we cannot know.) RMB: Besides, the Rambam writes in 3:51 in the mashal of the palace, that people who believe because of tradition without having proof are like those who wander around the chatzer, whereas someone with a proof is like one who entered the prozdor. The ''modeh al ha-emmess'' proof, building upon careful observation of the world and and its components and creatures and theorizing as to how it all works, is also a proof. The inferior knowledge that does not lead to optimum closeness to Hashem is pure tradition without proof. Not[e] Aristo's epistomology didn't analyze issues of proof vs other justification. But clearly Reliabilism, trusting an idea found in a source that has already been found to be reliable (hama'aminim ... derekh qabalah), is not being considered good enough justification to fully accomplish life's goal. I did not refer to emunah b'derech kaballah. That's not what I meant by ''ha-modeh al ha-emmess.'' I meant what I said: the healthy thinking of an unbiased mind, meaning the thinking of such a mind informed by knowledge of the things that exist in the world and their behaviors, and explanations of how they operate. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 30 20:04:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sat, 30 May 2015 23:04:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] : Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <001f01d09b2c$d37ec030$7a7c4090$@org.uk> References: <001f01d09b2c$d37ec030$7a7c4090$@org.uk> Message-ID: <556A7A27.3000006@sero.name> On 05/30/2015 07:03 PM, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: > RZS's assumption is that, so long as everybody agrees that a form of blowing > is kosher bidieved, then areivus works, Not just b'deiavad; my understanding is that all of these shitos are kosher lechatchilah, they're just not the way we do them lemaaseh. Let's say they're not mitzva min hamuvchar. Or "de`avad kemar `avad, ud`avad kemar `avad but we do kemar". > But in the case that RZS has outlined, where the people hearing > only the minority shitos form of shofar blowing would surely want the > majority position shofar blowing if they could get it, We're talking about people who have no particular desire to hear shofar at all, or they'd have done so. They didn't bother going to shul on Rosh Hashana, so they're probably not even aware that there are different shitos in how to blow shofar, let alone have a preferred shitah. Anything that is motzi them in the mitzvah is an improvement over what they would do otherwise, and is a benefit for them. And we're talking about potential blowers who currently don't go out and do this, they don't spend their precious Rosh Hashana hours bringing this zechus to fellow Jews who did not come themselves to hear shofar. So what I'm proposing is a win-win. They get to hear the obscure shitos they want to hear, and the people they're blowing for get the basic mitzvah as the Torah commanded it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 30 20:22:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 30 May 2015 23:22:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <556A7E8D.70007@gmail.com> I wrote: > > > > But as is occasionally the case, > R. MB disagrees with me, even when I attempt to defend him I should have put a smiley after that sentence, or maybe even explicated that it was meant as a humorous observation of irony. It meant to imply that RMB is interested in emmess and does not make it a personal issue. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 31 00:59:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 10:59:58 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura Message-ID: RHS has said many times in his shiurim that the MB was not written alone by the Chofetz Chaim and that is why there are sometimes contradictions. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 31 01:08:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 11:08:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: "Indeed in Europe before WWII the MB was not the "final" arbiter of halacha. Much changed when CI wrote in a letter that the MB has the halacha of a sanhedrin and one can't disagree with its conclusions." I believe it happened even a little later then that. RHS who grew up in the 1950s stated many times in shiur that when he learned halacha in the 1950s no one learned Mishna Berura, people either learned Chayei Adam or they learned Shulchan Aruch with Magen Avraham and the Taz. If you look at the European gedolim who came to America like R' Moshe, R' Ruderman, etc. even after WWII they almost never quoted the Mishna Berura. >From what I understand R' Aharon Kotler was very influential in America in promoting learning Mishna Berura. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 31 10:20:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 13:20:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Texualism and the Mishnah Berurah by R. Micha Berger Message-ID: <20150531172101.ED88B180CD0@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://www.aishdas.org/asp/texualism-and-the-mishnah-berurah The author [of the Mishnah Brurah, the Chofetz Chaim] is clear: the purpose of the book was not to provide his own ruling, but to survey the later posqim who have added complexity to the field so that someone looking to reach a decision knows who wrote on the matter. Yes, the CC (or his son or other students who worked with him) often gave his own opinion, including our ?ba?al nefesh yachmir?, but it is unclear to me he intended that opinion to be a pragmatic ruling rather than a theoretical statement. This would explain why the Mishnah Berurah?s rulings diverge from accepted practice so much more often than the Arukh haShulchan (a contemporary work from the same region). Halakhah lemaaseh, pragmatic rulings, need to take such precedent and continuity into account; discussions of textual theory do not. As further evidence that the Mishnah Berurah was not intended to be a practical law guide, we have a lot of testimony that shows that its own author often followed the common Lithuanian practice over his own ?ruling?. Despite the origin of wearing one?s tzitzis strings out being in the MB, the CC did not. His qiddush cup doesn?t hold as much wine as the MB would require. (It is still in the hands of the Zaks family and has been checked repeatedly.) He advocated for building city eiruvin for carrying on Shabbos despite BH 364 ?ve?achar?. The Chafeitz Chaim did not say ?Berikh Shemeih? when taking out the Torah. Etc 1 I am suggesting that the CC?s textualist and formal stance in the MB is simply because the MB was a book for studying texts. And he did not intend to deemphasize mimetic tradition (the flow of practice transmitted culturally). This shift happened when the Chazon Ish in Israel and a number of American rashei yeshiva (such as R? Aharon Kotler) promoted the idea of using the Mishnah Berurah as a poseiq acharon. See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 00:25:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 10:25:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <> I have a book "The Goldilocks Enigma" by Paul Davies (cosmolgist) on why is the universe just right for life. Most of the book is to show how unlikely it is that the universe has exactly the right properties for existence. The second part is a discussion as to why this happened. He goes through all the theories including the watchmaker etc. One possibility is a "creator" . He adnits that it is logically consistent but finds iy highly unlikely. His own preference is for the multi-verse. The idea is not whether you agree with him or not. Rather here is an intelligent human who has thought deeply about these problems and does not see any obvious signs of a designer. I would venture that that is the opinion of most physicists and certainly biologists. What you consider obvious he considers very unlikely. Again we come to the point that REW claims that anyone who really thinks about the problem and comes up with a different answer than he does simply has an ulterior motive. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 03:08:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 06:08:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150602100830.GA12384@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 10:25:05AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : The idea is not whether you agree with him or not. Rather here is an : intelligent human who has thought deeply about these problems and does not : see any obvious signs of a designer. I would venture that that is the : opinion of most physicists and certainly biologists. REW would say that he found it obvious that the world was created, something deep inside (to add my own 2c: of which he is likely unaware) didn't want to live in a world with a Creator, so he thought deeply about these problems until he could find an alternative. (For what it's worth, I think most physicists believe in G-d.) As you put it: : What you consider obvious he considers very unlikely. Again we come to the : point that REW claims that anyone who really thinks about the problem and : comes up with a different answer than he does simply has an ulterior motive. But that doesn't make the person any less convinced. For that matter, the believer also likely has an unlterior motive. (I said that, I doubt REW would. I am just saying it wouldn't rob him of his point.) REW is asserting that before you even get to bias, the obvious position is ours. Their atheism is the one that takes work, because it's explaining away the obvious. After all, there is no a priori, obvious-as-a-postulate version of the Anthropic Principle or other such atheistic explanations of the universe's design. No equivalent to REW's not attributing a poem to spilled ink or R' Aqiva's insisting that a garment or bread testify to their makers. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Friendship is like stone. A stone has no value, micha at aishdas.org but by rubbing one stone against another, http://www.aishdas.org sparks of fire emerge. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Mordechai of Lechovitz From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 08:40:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 11:40:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] women making a zimun In-Reply-To: <20150602125704.JHYM8162.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo306> References: <20150602125704.JHYM8162.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo306> Message-ID: <20150602154026.GF23551@aishdas.org> Bringing this thread to where this belongs. On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 08:56:59AM -0400, Sholom Simon via Areivim wrote: :> There was no family or community prior to the 20th century in :> which girls or women bentshed with a zimun. : I always wondered about that vis-a-vis the following: : The SA"HaRav (written by somebody who was certainly not a feminist) : at 199:6 writes that three women who are eating together (provided : there are less than 10 men) are permitted to break away and make : their own zimmun. (l'chelek l'zimun l'atzman). ... : What I've always wondered about was: is he writing entirely : theoretically, or was there a practice among some which led him to : clarify this issue? : Thoughts? : -- Sholom The SA haRav says that they must participate when 3 men make a zimun. If there are three women, no minyan of men, and want to separate off to make their own zimun, hareshus beyadam. Then he takes on the case of three women who are eating without men, again "hareshus beyadam" to make a zimun. (Similarly avadim, but not a mix of women and avadim because we we assume avadim are capable of peritzus. Given that the part about avadim couldn't have been a practice in the Baal haTanya's day, I wouldn't assume his mention of zimun for women makes any such implication. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Weeds are flowers too micha at aishdas.org once you get to know them. http://www.aishdas.org - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 08:49:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 11:49:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Modah Ani In-Reply-To: <20150602.081411.27008.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150602.081411.27008.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150602154924.GG23551@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 12:14:11PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Areivim wrote: : R' Micha Berger wrote: :> ... When I told them that traditionally we held that they're :> probably yotz'ot with saying Modah Ani once a day, ... : I noticed your very deliberate spelling here, and I can't help but : wonder: Was there any family or community prior to the late 20th century : in which girls or women said "modAh ani"? Talmidei haGra. The Siddur haGra also mentions "shelo asani nakhriah" (the Gra had "nakhri" for men) and "shelo asani shifcha". Speaking of new minhagim: Modeh Ani is likely the youngest prayer in most siddurim, even younger than Lekha Dodi. It exists to compensate moving "Elokai Neshamah" out of that spot. (Asher Yatzar doesn't open "barukh" because it's a berakhah hasemukhah lechaverta with haMapil -- one before sleep one after. When we moved it, many (including the Gra), made it semuchah to Asher Yazar -- thanking the Creator for both body and soul.) Which is why I find it unwarranted to treat its matbeia as unchangable even in the face of simply reconjugating. But in any case, I'm in favor of most changes that give one pause to think about what they're saying or doing. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow micha at aishdas.org man's soul and his own stomach; a pious Jew worries http://www.aishdas.org about his own soul and his fellow man's stomach. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 09:16:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 12:16:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <5568D45F.9010809@gmail.com> References: <5568D45F.9010809@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150602161633.GA15555@aishdas.org> On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 05:04:31PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: :> There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam :> recaps a point made in 2:19-20. : : In 2:19-20 Rambam makes no reference to each component or entity in : nature providing a benefit for another, and certainly does not use that : there as a proof for Creation ex nihilo... 2:20 marks the end of an Argument from Design, which is what I was referring to. As it opens: "According to Aristotle, none of the products of Nature are due to chance. His proof is this: That which is due to chance does not reappear constantly nor frequently, but all products of Nature reappear either constantly or at least frequently..." This is a formal argument, unlike R' Aqiva's or REW's own appeal to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. I am saying that 3:15, when it mentions in passing the bit that :: And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, //for :: //one who ismodeh al ha-ememmes// ... :: is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities :: serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; :: and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an :: [I]ntender.... This is reference to people being willing to accept a proven point, and not accepting something as true because of a justification system other than proof. ... RZL, continued: : He explicitly describes this /modeh al ha-emmess/ statement /as a : tangential interruption/: After that statement, he says, "I will now : return to the subject of this chapter, viz., the ultimate cause [i.e. : the purpose behind the universe being as it is--ZL]." : My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that : there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows : the non-formal mindset of those who are /modeh al ha-emmess/... Agreed it's tangential, which is why I doubt that if the Rambam did want to say something that signficant, this would be its only mention. But I don't think it makes the point you're making because the Rambam already made design the topic of a formal proof. So the current mention of design in this aside is talking about a proof, not another verification system. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is complex. micha at aishdas.org Decisions are complex. http://www.aishdas.org The Torah is complex. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' Binyamin Hecht From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 13:24:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2015 22:24:55 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <556E1117.1050507@zahav.net.il> That a text written such a short time ago could have questions about it authorship really nails down how hard it is to have definitive knowledge of the past. Ben On 5/31/2015 9:59 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > RHS has said many times in his shiurim that the MB was not written > alone by the Chofetz Chaim and that is why there are sometimes > contradictions. > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 13:27:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 16:27:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed Message-ID: <20150602202700.GA7449@aishdas.org> R/Dr Alan Brill recently carried this essay by comparatively new chaver, R' Ysoscher Katz. I am sharing here the essay in full (see or for R/D AB's biographical introduction) for two reeasons -- or one two-part reason: 1- I think this post could start a nice discussion of the fundamentals of each of our hashkafos; and 2- Comments are blocked on the post, so it's not like I am stealing a conversation that ought to happen there. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you won't be better tomorrow micha at aishdas.org than you were today, http://www.aishdas.org then what need do you have for tomorrow? Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rebbe Nachman of Breslov Torat Chaim Ve'Ahavat Chesed Ysoscher Katz I was raised in the chassidic community of Satmar. I should make it clear from the outset: I am modern but not Orthodox. Do not get me wrong, I am observant and my practice is orthodox but that is not who I am. In other words, I am orthodox-my practice is halakhic and my belief orthodox-but Orthodoxy is not me. It is not an integral part of my identity. My orthodoxy is merely a means towards a religious end. Keeping halakha and accepting orthodox faith-claims provides me with the infrastructure which allows my soul to strive and pursue perfection. Orthodoxy enables me to be who I really am: a Modern Chassidish Jew. As I mentioned, my identity is comprised of two parts, Modern and Chassidish. I inherited these identity markers from my parents, the modernity from my mother and the chassidut from my father. Here, I mean real Chassidic, and not Neo-Chassidic. How my chassidic, homemaking and sheitel-wearing mom made me modern is a conversation for another time. At the moment I wish to focus on my dad. My father is the most non-chassidish Chassid. He does not study "chassidus," nor does he want to "understand" it. The few times I tried to explain to him Moshe Idel's distinction between theosophy and theurgy, his eyes glazed over. Chassidut is what he does, not what he learns. From his perspective, Torah is for learning, chassidut for practicing. His aversion is not limited to the study of academic mysticism. He also stays away from traditional kabbalistic or chassidic texts. He never studied the Zohar nor did he ever read any of the Arizal's writings. Not only would he not read them, he also would not touch them. He is so intimidated by their sacredness; he fears that his touch would contaminate them. Yet, despite never having formally studied chassidic texts, he still is the quintessential chasid. Chassidut is his essence, part of his religious DNA, but it is a chassidut that is behavioral, not intellectual. Chassidut is how he lives his life. It is the prism through which he encounters the world and the ethos by which he lives by. He adores his wife, loves his children, cherishes his community and reveres and respects his neighbors and fellow human beings, Jew and non-Jew alike. While this practice is not special, many people love their family and surroundings, its flavor is unique. It is Chassidic love, deriving its passion from the Chassidic teachings he has absorbed throughout his life. These teachings have filled his being with a deep religiosity, which, in turn, infuses his actions and emotions with a deep and robust spirituality. His love of humanity is, therefore, a love that is sensualized by its spiritualized valance. Chassidut does not just spiritualize my father's interpersonal relationships, it also enhances his religious practices, particularly the yearly calendar. Chassidut allows him to infuse the annual cycle with a sensuous spirituality. Satmar is a Hungarian/Romanian Chassidut (The broad strokes difference between Hungarian Chassidut and the Polish and Russian versions is that the latter were intellectually inclined while the former was not. Hungarian Chassidut was predominantly behavioral. This is, of course, a generalization; the nuances are far more complex but outside the parameters of this presentation.) Hungarian Chassidim are nourished by an elaborate "sacred calendar." They have more days of note than the conventional Jewish calendar, and their holidays tend to be richer than your typical modern Jews' chag experience. A Satmar Chasid's year is thus replete with days of deep joy and periods of intense reflection. While the Jewish calendar has several biblical holidays and two Rabbinic ones, the Chasid's calendar records additional dates of importance. Every winter, the Hungarian Chasid has six to eight weeks of "shovavim," a period that usually falls sometime between Chanukah and Purim, which is dedicated to repentance and introspection, largely focusing on sexual impropriety; the days of awe continue through the end of Chanukah, the potential for repentance lasts for them for two more months; Purim celebrations begin three days earlier than usual; and (a modicum of) Pesach extends all the way to Shavuot (based on Nachmanides' notion that the interim weeks between Pesach and Shavuot are somewhat akin to a chol ha'moed of Pesach). Combined these add up to a significant number of additional days of awe and periods of celebration. Qualitatively, chassidic holidays are different as well. Although many things distinguish a chassidic chag, there is one distinction that is particularly noticeable to the keen observer: chassidic religious celebrations are comprised of a dissonant blend of joy and contemplation. Here are some examples: Shabbat in Satmar is an incredibly meaningful day, bookended by powerful contradictory modes. Friday night is a time of joy, where the spiritually and mystically rich Lecha Dodi chant inspires celebration of the metaphysical significance of the day. While this spirit carries through most of the Shabbat, towards the end of the Shabbat the Satmar Chasid shifts gears, switching modes from the celebratory to the reflective. This transition occurs in a much starker manner than it does in most other communities. A Satmar Shabbat never ends at "shekiah." Sehudah shlishit is always a two hour affair, spent singing and listening to the Rebbe's dvar torah. Speaking in highly evocative tones, he expounds on the weekly reading, spending close to an hour challenging and rebuking his followers. Growing up, this is exactly what Shabbat looked like for me. My dad's Shabbat was intense and complex. While the day began upbeat, it gradually shifted into the contemplative. But, my father's Shabbat, like his chassidut, is adamantly experiential, text and study play a minor role in the development of his religious persona. Kegavna (a section from the Zohar which Chassidim recite during Friday night prayers), is one of the most powerful kabbalistic liturgical texts. Utilizing the connection between Shabbat and the number seven, a prominent kabbalistic trope, it succinctly articulates the mystical value of Shabbat. It emphasizes that Shabbat is a day of heightened divine intimacy and advanced mystical union. I have begged my dad on many occasions to read this Zohar text with me. He refused each time. Sacred mystical texts are for the elite. The lay receive their nourishment residually, from the spiritualized environment created by those qualified to access those recondite sources. While he will not study Kegavna, he does recite it every Friday night as part of the Kabbalat Shabbat service. Notwithstanding that he does not fully grasp its meaning, he reads it with the pathos and passion it deserves. Kegavna's power for him is metaphysical, not intellectual. Purim provides another example of the intensity of Hungarian chassidic practice. Many Jews celebrate Purim, but not the chassidic Purim. The chassidic Purim is unique in its richness and multiplicity. Communally, preparations for the holiday start early. More than a week before Purim, one can already detect the arrival of the holiday, both, in the discourse of the scholars and activities of the laity. The learned discourse focuses on the legal and spiritual aspects of the chag, while the public sphere is filled with people making arrangements for every aspect of the day. When Purim finally arrives, it takes on a distinct theological flavor. Appropriating the Zoharic notion that Purim is analogous to Yom Kippur (Yom Kippurim), Satmar Chassidim created a unique Purim blend that is both frivolous and somber. This day of festivity is overlaid with practices of repentance and reflection. While I am nourished by my dad's behavioral Chassidut, personally it is not enough. Behavioral Chassidut gladdens my heart but does not stimulate my mind nor sufficiently satisfy my soul. I personally seek a religiosity which nourishes both pillars of my being, the mind and the heart. My personal journey is, therefore, informed by a combination of my father's passion and the academic's sophistication. Chassidus resonates with both of them, sometimes simultaneously, when the intellectual engagement and behavioral spiritual encounter complement one another, and sometimes separately, when I religiously shift back and forth between the intellectual and the experiential. Ultimately, the attraction to Chassidut is the fact that it can operate in different modes at different times, in the process offering up a variety of mechanisms to help spiritualize my life. It is precisely this multifacetedness which convinces me that Chassidut is the proper theology for us moderns. Its theology is perfectly situated to offer meaning and spirituality to the contemporary modern seeker. I feel strongly that it is our only hope. Chassidut today is not a luxury, it is a necessity. If the Torah-u'Madda project is to succeed Chassidut needs to become an integral part of its curriculum. Chassidut is of course a vast discipline, teaching all of it would be a daunting task. For the moment there are three aspects of chassidic theology that stand out as particularly suited for the world we live in today. 1) Truth. We live in a post-modern world where objective truth is rejected and absolute claims are frowned upon. I would go as far as to say that rationalism (in the general and colloquial sense) as a source for Emunah is bankrupt, it increasingly speaks to fewer people. It, therefore, behooves us to come up with alternative models. Chassidut could very well be that alternative model. Facts and empirical truth is not Chassidut's primary currency. While it does a priori accept the biblical theological faith statements, its goal is not to argue or prove the scientific veracity of the Bible's claims. Truth is not of primary concern for these thinkers. Chassidic theology has two main features. It is a-rational and a-historical. It is apathetic about Jewish historicity as a proactive theological stance. The Torah for Chassidim is there to teach us how to live life and serve God, the narrative qua narrative (the origin story) is mere background music. The narration parts of the Torah are, therefore, not of much theological significance to them, they are a-historical However, during those rare occasions when they do pay attention to the biblical "stories," their orientation is a-rational. They absolutely "believe" those stories, but their belief is internal: it is true because it happened in the Torah. That is where these events transpire and that is where these stories matter. Asking about their historicity is, as far as they are concerned, foolish and missing the point. At the same time, to the extent that the biblical narratives have religious and theological significance, they read those stories through the Rabbinic lens. So, for example, while Moshe's historicity is not historically relevant to them, his persona carries theological and ethical significance. The same is true for God's attributes. Chassidim are, by choice, apathetic about God as a scientific reality, his attributes and characteristics, however, are theologically highly significant to them. For that they did turn to the Bible, but the encounter with the Torah is filtered through Chazal. They see Chazal as essential to the understanding of the Torah. As believers in immanence they actually see the Sages as much more integral to the experience of the written Torah than the rationalists did. They did not think that the presence at Sinai (mamad har Sinai) ended at the giving of the Torah (mattan Torah). For them the Torah is perpetually and continuously revealed. The modern reader of chassidic texts would, therefore, not have to decide whether they scientifically accept these postulates in order to engage with them. Chassidut's goal is instead to describe an immanence which provides spiritual and emotional transcendence. Chassidut (informed, of course, by kabbalah) promotes a sophisticated immanence which results in a dramatic shift in Judaism's orientation towards God and His commandments. Prior to the emergence of chassidut on the historic scene, theology was convincing and Jewish observance was rewarding. Chassidut changed that. Chassidic theology offered meaning and kabbalistic observance provided sanctity. Personally, my rejection of the Maimonidean ethos and realization of the degree to which chassidut can speak to the modern searcher was a long and arduous process. It came about as a result of a deep sense of betrayal by Maimonides, the champion of Rationalist Judaism. I for many years was the object and fool of Maimonides "the seventh reason" as presented in his introduction to the Guide by not seeing his philosophic views. In that passage, Maimonides condones misleading the masses for their greater good, even to the point of advocating contradictory ideas for different audiences and then obscuring those contradictions. Growing up in Satmar and then Brisk, I was oblivious to his non-halakhic writings and led to believe that he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad. I was exposed to his other writings only later and when I did I felt cheated. I was part of that the masses, whom he thought could not handle his unconventional approach to theology and tradition. As much as I have read about him, I personally have not managed to reconcile his two sides. I do not find Prof. Isidore Twersky's harmonizing approach compelling or convincing. Realizing what a fool I was led me on a tortuous and circuitous search. As the Rabbis say about Yisro, ????? ??? ?? ??????; I explored all the options. I finally found the answer in kabbalah and chassidut, they speak a language which resonates with our current reality. They emphasize that which contemporary Judaism needs. The emphasis in chassidut on meaning and sacredness, are perfectly suited for our community. These are exactly the things our culture needs more of; holiness and meaning. This emphasis in Chassidut on immanence also generates a move towards spiritualization. 2) Spiritualization. As scholars have pointed out, chassidic teachings contain elements of spiritual psychology. They provide us with a language which helps us infuse our lives with meaning. One can point to many examples where this psychological spiritualization occurs in chassidut, I will mention two of them. Everybody sometimes has a bad hair day, when we wake up feeling less than optimal. Chassidut has a term to describe that mood; it calls it mochen de'katnus. While it technically means the same as a "bad hair day," the language is mystical. Mochen de'katnus describes a less than stellar spiritual state, a low energy level which does not allow us to engage in the usual religious pursuits we crave to pursue. Another example is Kabbalah's elaborate taxonomy of love and awe: Kabbalah and Chassidut talks about superior and inferior love (ahavah ela'e'e and ahavah tata'a) or superior and inferior awe (yirah ela'e'e and yira tata'a)While these terms primarily describe nuanced stages in our engagement with the Divine, they have traditionally been imported into the colloquial arena. They are used to describe varied emotional states which we experience in our interactions with our friends and loved ones. Contemporary life does not provide us with that many opportunities for encountering the Divine in our daily lives. Chassidut allows us to bring God in. Sprinkling our conversations with mystical and Chassidic terminology allows us to spiritualize our daily routines and infuse our mundane pursuits with meaning and spiritual significance. Besides enriching our personal encounters, adopting a chassidic ethos could also enhance our communal experiences. 3) Social Change. One of the most pressing tensions in the community is how to reconcile our values with our convictions; what to do when halakha points us in one direction and our values in another direction. We are tempted to follow our values but pulled to abide by our halakhic commitments. A proper resolution requires an emboldened stance towards tradition, one that allows us to cajole the tradition to reconcile itself with our modern sensibilities. [Using, of course, legitimate halakhic mechanisms developed by our predecessors when they were confronted with similar challenges.] Our values are so emboldened because they derive their power from Chaissdut. A chassidic life is a spiritualized life which infuses our values with powerful theological significance, and it allows us to aggressively challenge the tradition to reevaluate its assumptions and attempt to accommodate itself-when halakhically possible- to a changed modern reality. Chassidut is very explicit about the value of religious aggression. The following two quotes are often encountered in chassidic writings, "even a thief says a prayer before he breaks in to his victim's home" (quoted on the margin of Brachot 63A, from the Frankfurt manuscript), and "an aggressive stance towards the Divine bears results" (Sanhedrin 105A). While the provenance of these texts is Talmudic, they take on significant prominence in Chassidic theology. They become the impetus for an aggressive theology which is informed by a religiosity that sees itself driven by a Divine immanence which infuses our values and ethical intuitions with spiritual resonance, subsequently leading to radical societal change. Such change is actually an integral part of Chassidic social history. When one looks at recent major changes in traditional Jewish society it is hard not to notice that the forerunners were often Chassidim. The last sixty years have seen far reaching social and political change. The two most dramatic changes that have happened is that Jews are now sovereign and women have made significant progress in their pursuit of religious equality. The pioneers of both these changes were driven, at least in part, by a chassidic ethos. R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Rebbi of Lubavitch, was one of the first orthodox scholars to champion female Talmud scholarship, while R. Avraham Yitzchak Kook, a serious student of Chassidut, was an outspoken early proponent of a Zionist state. There is no doubt that their chassidic worldview, at least partially, informed their proactive stances towards these changes. Their adherence to a spiritualized religiosity allowed them to explore new religious vistas. Their unique theological outlook changed the religious and legal equation for them, simultaneously making their decisions more complex, but also more progressive. Their spiritualized worldview allowed them to see divinity in the ostensibly secular state or the seemingly illegitimate request of women for greater equality. Granted, this hybrid of chassidic spiritualization and robust religious creativity would be a 21^st century concoction, traditionally, these two do not go together. Chassidism, for the most part, frowns on change and rejects innovation. As a matter of fact, nineteenth century Hungarian Chassidim were vociferously opposed to any accommodations to modernity. Further, the contemporary thinker is not going to intuitively embrace spiritualized non-rational thought. It is, nevertheless, a match pregnant with immense potential and could go a long way towards reviving a dormant Modern Orthodoxy. Contemporary Modern Orthodoxy is struggling; a significant number of its adherents are abandoning yiddishkeit and many who stay no longer find it meaningful; inertia has set in. I suspect that Modern Orthodoxy's rationalist ethos is partially to blame. Current Modern Orthodox theology is Litvish and hyper-Maimonidean, it lacks a native spiritual core, and does not satisfy people's search for meaning. We are due for a change. Chassidus could be that change agent. I strongly believe that a chassidic theology combined with a sophisticated modern overlay could be the elixir for the dispassion and disinterest that ails our community. It will provide our community what it so desperately needs: a torat chaim ve'ahavt chesed; a Torah that stimulates our minds but at the same time also gladdens our neshamah. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 14:39:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:39:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> : > From: Micha Berger via Avodah > > [Rambam's statement (''And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, //for > :: //one who ismodeh al ha-ememmes// ... > :: is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities > :: serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; > :: and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an > :: [I]ntender...'') is not an informal argument, akin to R' Aqiva's or REW's appeal > to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. Rather,] it is a recap of a formal proof The Rambam made in 2:19-20... 2:20 marks the end of an Argument from Design. As it opens: "According to Aristotle, none of the products > of Nature are due to chance. His proof is this: That which is due to > chance does not reappear constantly nor frequently, but all products of > Nature reappear either constantly or at least frequently..." > > This is a formal argument, unlike R' Aqiva's or REW's own appeal > to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. Philosophers may disagree with classifying the argument made in 2:20 from ''frequency of appearance'' as ''an argument from design.'' But even if it is ''an'' argument from design, it's a different argument from the ''modeh al ha-emmess'' proof from the hierarchy of entities benefiting others. So the latter is not a recap of the former. And it does not necessarily follow that one who is modeh to the ''frequency'' argument considers the hierarchy argument ''one of the strongest.'' RZL, continued: : He explicitly describes this/modeh al ha-emmess/ statement /as a : tangential interruption/: After that statement, he says, "I will now : return to the subject of this chapter, viz., the ultimate cause [i.e. : the purpose behind the universe being as it is--ZL]." : My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that : there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows : the non-formal mindset of those who are/modeh al ha-emmess/... RMB: >Agreed it's tangential, which is why I doubt that if the Rambam did want to say something that signficant, this would be its only mention.< Again: Here, where the Rambam, for the first time, is about to bring up the hierarchy proof, he parenthetically mentions that it is intuitively understood by anyone unbiased. He does then go on to state the proof in a formal philosophic form. This is the most proper place to insert such a parenthetical remark parenthetically, and only once. It's not ''that significant'' for his purposes, because, as I had written, the entire purpose of the Moreh is to address people (including himself) concerned with hearing formal philosophic proofs and confronting the challenges that formal philosophic proofsbrought to the mesorah. Those interested in hearing an expanded version of the argument in informal form could find it in the Rambam's introduction to his his Mishnah commentary. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 16:04:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 19:04:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <103ab8.504f8d1e.429f9062@aol.com> From: Eli Turkel via Avodah >> I have a book "The Goldilocks Enigma" by Paul Davies (cosmolgist) on why is the universe just right for life. Most of the book is to show how unlikely it is that the universe has exactly the right properties for existence. The second part is a discussion as to why this happened. He goes through all the theories including the watchmaker etc. One possibility is a "creator" . He admits that it is logically consistent but finds it highly unlikely. His own preference is for the multi-verse. The idea is not whether you agree with him or not. Rather here is an intelligent human who has thought deeply about these problems and does not see any obvious signs of a designer..... << Eli Turkel >>>> On the contrary, he sees many signs of a Designer and he is so desperate to avoid the obvious conclusion -- because of his own prior philosophical biases -- that he adopts the currently trendy and absurd idea of "many universes" to escape from what he does not want to face. You see, if this is the only universe then it is so fantastically improbable that it can only be a miracle. But if it is only one of many universes, then it is not so strange that just one out of millions of universes would happen to have the conditions necessary for life. Normally the definition of "science" includes things like capable of observation or experiment, falsifiable, etc. But if you are desperate enough to escape G-d (and His moral demands) you will take something as airy-fairy, non-observable, not subject to any possible experiment, non-falsifiable as a "multi-verse" -- a product of the human mind that is as real as leprechauns -- and you will crown it with the noble name of "science"! I have a wonderful book in my house called *The Privileged Planet* that should be a science textbook in every yeshiva high school and Bais Yakov. Please please read it. It's by Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards. Here's the website with more information about the book and a video: http://www.privilegedplanet.com/ --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 00:03:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 10:03:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] MB Message-ID: The entry in wikepedia in Hebrew on Mishna Brura contains much of the information that we have been discussing. In particular it discusses the authorship of MB (ie the quote from his son) . MH vs AH and the change after the holocaust and other comments -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 05:39:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2015 08:39:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Standing at a Chupah Message-ID: <20150603123934.850661827E1@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is from today's Hakhel email bulletin. FROM A READER: Further on the point on standing at Chuppahs: Many think/say that it is because of Choson Domeh L'melech that they stand up for the Chosson. Yet, they should be aware that to my knowledge, HaRav Moshe Feinstein, Z'tl, never stood because he used to say, Doi-meh (L)melech NOT (Ke)melech. HaRav Yaakov Kamenetsky, Z'tl, stood but for a totally different reason. The question of L'melech or K'melech never entered into consideration as the Chosson is not a true Chosson until AFTER the Chuppah. Rather, HaRav Yaakov stood purely because of the Mishna in Bikurim (3:3), that discusses the bringing of Bikurim and the rule of standing Lif-Nai Oisei Mitzva, and since the Chosson is entering into a Chupah which will enable him to be mekayeim the mitzvah of P'ru U'revu, we stand. As to why we don't stand for everyone doing a mitzvah, it's for a mitzvah that is mei-kama zman l'zman, not a regular occurrence. The question remains as to a justification for why people stand for the Kallah, since she is not K'Malka (see HaRav Moshe and HaRav Yaakov above) and is peturah from Mitzvas Peru U'revu. HaRav Avraham Kamenetsky, HaRav Yaakov's son, told me that one can say that since the Chosson cannot be mekayeim the mitzvah without her, she has a chelek in the mitzvah and thus qualifies for Lif-Nai Oisei Mitzvah. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 06:57:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 09:57:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 05:39:33PM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : But even if it is "an" argument from design, it's a different argument : from the "modeh al ha-emmess" proof from the hierarchy of entities : benefiting others. So the latter is not a recap of the former. And : it does not necessarily follow that one who is modeh to the : "frequency" argument considers the hierarchy argument "one of the : strongest." I think our point of contention is simple: You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind justification that isn't a proof. Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. And therefore there is nothing in the Rambam about a justification that isn't a philosophical proof. For that matter, I would take his words to say this non-proof, being only meaningful to someone who is already "modeh al ha'emes", is not valid justification -- an instance of what I believe would be his general rule. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 10:58:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 10:58:33 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] ashtei-asar Message-ID: could someone explain please the ibn ezra in last weeks parsha ? someone asked about the origin of 'ashtei' and noted the this week mikshah is translated as eshet--- which must mean one solid piece so that must mean ashtei= one . but why not say achad asar ? [ he pointed out that 'eshet'= 770 , a number of completion ] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 14:23:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 17:23:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] ashtei-asar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150603212342.GA31632@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 03, 2015 at 10:58:33AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : someone asked about the origin of 'ashtei' and noted the this week : mikshah is translated as eshet--- which must mean one solid piece so : that must mean ashtei= on... The Akkadian for 11 is ishteneshret, ishten (one) + shret (ten). It is weird, though, that Hebrew would use a form of isheneshret without also using ishten. Then there's the idea in the Radaq (Mikhlol pg 140) that it was two that was collapsed from "ashtei" to "shtei". Which would explain why "shtayim" isn't "shesayim". The rule is that a sheva under the first letter is a sheva na (pronounced schwa), the legacy of the missing "i-" makes "shtei" an exception -- the sheva under the shin is nach (silent). Along these line, but presumably without the knowledge of Akkadian, the IE (Bamidbar 7:72, citing his own Sefer Me'oznayim) writes that "ashtei asar" is like "eshtenosav" -- that which were born from his thoughts. As though the 10 gave birth. "Vehu sod gadol". He then goes on to dismiss R' Yonah haSefaradi's theory that it means "el shtei asar". Because 1- "al shetei asar" would refer to the number AFTER 12, not before; and 2- "asar" (masc) would get "shnei" (masc), not "shtei" (fem). The gemara doesn't explain peshat, but interestingly R' Ashi's example (Sanhedrin 29a) of "kol hamosif goreia'" is how adding an ayin turns "shtei esrei yeri'os" into "ashtei esrei". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 15:16:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2015 18:16:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> On 6/3/2015 9:57 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > I think our point of contention is simple: > > You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind > justification that isn't a proof. I thought I was clear that I was taking it to be the same informal kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind. > > Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, > but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. I did not see this in your previous remarks that characterized the ''modeh-al-ha-emmess" as a formal proof/argument: :> There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam :> recaps a point made in 2:19-20. > 2:20 marks the end of an Argument from Design, which is what I was > referring to. ...This is a formal argument, unlike R' Aqiva's or REW's own appeal > to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. And I don't see how one can possibly interpret (MN 3:13 [not 3:15 as I mistakenly typed previously]) ''And know that one of the strongest /proofs/ (min /ha-gedolah sheh-b'ra'ayos/) for Creation ex nihilo, for one who is /modeh al ha-ememmes/, is his understanding the /proof/ (/hu mah sheya'amod alav ha-mofase/)...'' as meaning: > ''this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the emes, > look how nicely it works out.'' Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 16:37:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 19:37:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150603233708.GA7958@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 03, 2015 at 06:16:59PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: :> You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind :> justification that isn't a proof. : I thought I was clear that I was taking it to be the same informal : kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof : not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized : and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind. Then I did understand you correctly. When I say, "a kind justification that isn't a proof", I believe I mean the same thing as your "informal kind of proof". To me, the word "proof" implies formality. "Justification" is a general term for how we know something is true. (From Plato's definition of knowledge: "a justified and true belief.") :> Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, :> but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. : I did not see this in your previous remarks that characterized the : "modeh-al-ha-emmess" as a formal proof/argument: Because that's not what I am saying is the formal proof. I overused the word "this", which led to confusion. In addition "modeh al ha'ames" refers to a person, not an argument, so you lost me on that bit. AISI, it refers to the person who accepted the proof in 2:20, would find this point compelling. But since the point he's making here is not a formal proof, he doesn't expect it to convince, only to reinforce belief in those who already accepted the related proof. : And I don't see how one can possibly interpret (MN 3:13 [not 3:15 as : I mistakenly typed previously]) "And know that one of the : strongest /proofs/ (min /ha-gedolah sheh-b'ra'ayos/) for Creation ex : nihilo, for one who is /modeh al ha-ememmes/, is his understanding : the /proof/ (/hu mah sheya'amod alav ha-mofase/)..." as meaning: :> "this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the :> emes, look how nicely it works out." You are taking a sentence that says "One of the greatest proofs for creation for someone who accepts the truth is his understanding the wonder..." He is discussing a ra'ayah that someone who already believes would find compelling. Not a proof that would convince an unbiased seeker. Because I don't think the Rambam accepted that an informal justification other than philosophical proof could be a sounds reason to embrace a belief as true. (I see you consistently double the "s" in "emess". Why? If the sav had a dageish, it would be a tav, not "ss".) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are what we repeatedly do. micha at aishdas.org Thus excellence is not an event, http://www.aishdas.org but a habit. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Aristotle From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 4 15:16:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2015 18:16:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong Message-ID: <20150604221600.GA28870@aishdas.org> An Areivim conversation moved in topicality so that my reply really belongs here. Some background.... At some point, one person wrote, in part: | Right is right and wrong is wrong,... Speaking about moral correctness. To which someone else replied: > Really? ISTM that there is lots of grey in our world. People disagree > about right and wrong like they disagree about assur and mutar... And my reply, from Areivin: } This is why disputes about eilu va'eilu are so significant. Machloqes } can be between two approaches, two paths, one may take. Between different } strategies to obtaining the same goal. } Or it could be between a correct vs an incorrect understanding of the } halakhah. A process by which something becomes law, regardless of which } is right. } Or... } But if there is one right and one wrong, human decision-making wouldn't } change which is which. That second person wrote later in the conversation: > Sure am. Women learning Talmud was wrong, then it was right. In fact, > now it's both right (MO) and wrong (Hareidi). My response: } I don't consider that a good example. It is possible for something to } be right in one settting and wrong in another. Such as whether learning } Talmud is a good idea may depend on how women are being educated to relate } to knowledge in general. Since they aren't obligated to learn halachic } theory, such as gemara, they may be better off with a naive mimetic } faith. But if we have universal education, and an economic system that } demands a certain wordliness in both genders, such that naivite isn't } an option, then our choices are different. } Morality is like a Faucault's Pendulum; it keeps swinging the same } direction. The pendulum only looks like the direction changes over time } because the world rotates beneath it. Them again: > Zionism is right (DL) > and wrong (Satmar). You see the world as black and white; I see lots of > colors, including grey (and black and white sometimes as well). Me: } But gray too objectively exists. We may need to choose a response, } and thus have to fit it into a boolean black-white category. And then } someone may choose a strategy that categorizes it as white and someone } else as black. } But the grayness is not a matter of opinion. And also, from the same person, in an email between the two: > And my point was, the topic under discussion was not gravity ... > it was an issue that what people think about it is, in fact, relevant. My response, continued: } Is that true? } As far as I know, it's pretty basic to Judaism that the Creator has an } "Opinion" of what is moral and what isn't. That things run more smoothly } for everyone involved if we run with the design rather than do something } else. } Not only that, G-d put us on the same page once. } People may not be sure if there is an absolute moral standard, and those } who agree there is one, may not agree about what it looks like. } It's out there and as objectively real as gravity. } Even if you cannot prove it to others, and therefore will always be } subject to conflicting opinions -- some more right in some ways, some } more right in others, some simply wrong. } Your position implies an Empiricism that rules out revelation as a valid } source of truth! In which case, what's left of Torah? Futher down in the conversation, Lisa wrote of halakhah: : There are actually cases where opinions can establish right and : wrong. Tanuro shel Akhnai illustrates one. Actual reality is : *created* by the informed and considered opinions of the Sanhedrin. To which I responded: } Law, not reality. And Lisa, post #2: : I disagree. Torah *is* reality. Finally, some new material. R Chaim Brisker links "vechayei olam nata besokheinu" and "emes mei'eretz tatzmiach". Torah is the seed from which Emes grows, and not (leshitaso, but I bought into it) Emes itself. The Qetzos says something similar on the use of "emes mei'eretz" in the medrash about the 2 forces -- Emes and Shalom -- opposing the creation of humanity. Emes is thrown to the ground, to which the tanna says "emes meieretz tatzmiach". Emes will come out through the process of history. It's not with us yet. Torah is how HQBH leads us there. But in any case, I didn't speak of Torah, of "divrei E-lokim chaim", I spoke of halakhah. Or as RMF put it, I spoke of emes lehora'ah, not Emes as it is kelapei shamay galya. Continuing my reply to Lisa's 1st post: } And the reason why we only let the Sanhedrin vote is because the law is } expected to be consistent with the objective reality. There may be many } ways up Har Hashem, but you really only want people who know mapreading } and reconteuring figuring out which one is best. } And the mountain and its altitude are unchanged by people's decisions. Lisa's 2nd post, cont: : And what Hashem wanted the halakha to be was determined by people's : decisions. New material again: If we combine your insistance that halakhah is Truth with the idea that it is determined by people's decisions, you end up with Constructivism. Halakhah as a man made reality. Which makes sense -- you tend to side with the Rambam on this kind of thing. But if dinim bein adam lachaveiro define or at least shape morality, you are left with the OP's claim that opinion determines what is moral. Opinion as informed by kelalei pesaq, but still, morality isn't entirely absolute or objective. The position I was suggesting that there is an objective Morality that is part of Emes. Emes, with a capital "E", as in something that exists in Shamayim (a/k/a the Olam haEmes) but can't fit in this world among human minds. We have approximating models (Maharal), getting ever closer to the Emes (Qetzos). Halakhah is our means of approaching it, and the existence of multiple correct pesaqim reflects their being more than one viable path (R Chaim Brisker). Or more specifically: The path is on the meta-level, the evolution of the Oral Torah and its pesaqim is part of getting to Emes, not "only" the path taken by a life that follows that pesaqim. So that halakhah is not morality, it is a means of producing ever more moral people. Which makes sense in terms of my own Mussarly tendencies. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are great, and our foibles are great, micha at aishdas.org and therefore our troubles are great -- http://www.aishdas.org but our consolations will also be great. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi AY Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 4 19:55:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2015 22:55:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <20150603233708.GA7958@aishdas.org> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> <20150603233708.GA7958@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55710FAB.70107@gmail.com> On 6/3/2015 7:37 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Wed, Jun 03, 2015 at 06:16:59PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: > :> You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind > :> justification that isn't a proof. > > : I thought I was clear that I was taking it to be the same informal > : kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof > : not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized > : and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind. > > Then I did understand you correctly. > > When I say, "a kind justification that isn't a proof", I believe I mean > the same thing as your "informal kind of proof". To me, the word "proof" > implies formality. "Justification" is a general term for how we know > something is true. (From Plato's definition of knowledge: "a justified and > true belief.") Got it. > :> Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, > :> but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. > > : I did not see this in your previous remarks that characterized the > : "modeh-al-ha-emmess" as a formal proof/argument: > > Because that's not what I am saying is the formal proof. I overused the > word "this", which led to confusion. I''m even more confused now. What "this" that led to confusion was overused? I took you to mean that the ''emmess'' that a ''modeh al ha-emmess'' person was modeh to was the conclusion of a formal proof stated somewhere in 2:19-20. (And such a person would consider, as one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, the proof from the hierarchy of benefit of entities.) > In addition "modeh al ha'ames" refers to a person, not an argument, > so you lost me on that bit. When I wrote ''I was taking it to be the same informal kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind'' I was responding to you statement: :> You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind :> justification that isn't a proof. which was in response to my writing: : My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that : there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows : the non-formal mindset of those who are /modeh al ha-emmess/... I meant to say I was taking Rambam's remark to mean that someone whose thought process is normal and unbiased (i.e. a modeh al ha-emmess) recognizes (without the aid of formal proof) the fact of the hierarchy of benefit as compelling the conclusion of a freely intended Creation ex nihilo. Another way to crystallize our differing interpretations: You are taking the "emmess'' that the ''modeh al ha-emmess'' is modeh to, to be the correct fact. I'm taking it to be the correct process of thinking. > AISI, it refers to the person who accepted > the proof in 2:20, would find this point compelling. But since the point > he's making here is not a formal proof, he doesn't expect it to convince, > only to reinforce belief in those who already accepted the related proof. > > : And I don't see how one can possibly interpret (MN 3:13 [not 3:15 as > : I mistakenly typed previously]) "And know that one of the > : strongest /proofs/ (min /ha-gedolah sheh-b'ra'ayos/) for Creation ex > : nihilo, for one who is /modeh al ha-ememmes/, is his understanding > : the /proof/ (/hu mah sheya'amod alav ha-mofase/)..." as meaning: > > :> "this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the > :> emes, look how nicely it works out." > > You are taking a sentence that says "One of the greatest proofs for > creation for someone who accepts the truth is his understanding the > wonder..." He is discussing a ra'ayah that someone who already believes > would find compelling. Not a proof that would convince an unbiased > seeker. > > Because I don't think the Rambam accepted that an informal justification > other than philosophical proof could be a sounds reason to embrace a > belief as true. Your first paragraph is just restating your position and denying mine. I am saying otherwise, pointing out that saying that this person considers the hierarchy factor ''one of the greatest proofs for creation'' means '"this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out" is incompatible with the words. And /l'fi ta'amych,/ of your second paragraph: If the Rambam considers an informal justification vs philosophical proof an unsound reason to embrace a belief as true, then one would think he would not consider noteworthy a non-ra'ayah found compelling only by someone who already believes in the conclusion (stated or implied somewhere in 2:19-20, or in that previously stated formal ra'aya which /is/, or is not, compelling--I'm not sure which of these you're saying, but my objection applies regardless.) I think it may be productive for us to examine the 4 or 5 other places in MN where the Rambam uses the expression ''modeh al ha-emmess.'' (Curiously, the search of the Hebrewbooks.org MN in my Adobe Reader skips over the instance in 3:13!) > > (I see you consistently double the "s" in "emess". Why? If the sav had > a dageish, it would be a tav, not "ss".) It's to duplicate the /sound/ (not the lettering) of the word as it would be in English, for a careful English-reading person. (Not that I'm sure there are many of those around...) In contemporary English spelling, one "s" at the end of a word that ends in ''e'' is pronounced hard, like a ''z'' (shines, pines, processes); the soft ''s'' added to words that end in "e" is indicated by two ''s'' 's (process, ingress, mess). But we digreSS.... Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 5 03:54:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2015 06:54:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Science and Halachah - The Trumpeting Stone Message-ID: <20150605105427.GA27466@aishdas.org> This stone, at the excacations south of the Kotel, apparently marked a location where the shofar would be blown on Fri afternoon to warn people about the approaching and arrival of Shabbos. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trumpeting_Place_inscription It says "lebeis hateqi'ah lh[k?b?]" and was at the corner of Har haBayis. My obaervation is about the font. Notice the base of the lamed, which is a diagonal. The same is true of the Qumran texts and of texts from the Cairo Geniza. but this pushes the date for this tradition of script back to Herod's rebuilding of the BHMQ. This kind of lamed is also found in Kesav Vellish, that used in Sepharadi sta"m, but not in Kesav Beis Yoseif or the other Ashkenazi variants. http://sofercenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/different-ksavim.jpg Now, the stone is in far from the formal Ashuris required for Sifrei Torah, but if Kesav Beis Yoseif is correct, why aren't other fonts from the period more similar? If this does indicate a preference for one script over the other, we could discuss how the various approaches to Halakhah and Science would handle this case. {In terms of being yotzei, I think the only problem Ashkenazim have with the Sepharadi kesav is that variants that predate the Chida lack Rabbei Tam's qutzo shel yud. And since the popularity of the Ben Ish Chai, this issue has become very rare. Lehalakhah, the Tur, Noda biYhudah, Tzitz Eliezer and R' Ovadiah all alow using the other's sefer. Even with the spelling differences!) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is equipped with such far-reaching vision, micha at aishdas.org yet the smallest coin can obstruct his view. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 5 08:16:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2015 15:16:42 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong Message-ID: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Continuing the discussion from Areivim... R' Joseph Kaplan wrote: > About some things there is a right and a wrong; it is right > to fast on Yom Kippur and wrong to eat. But not everything > fits so neatly into categories of right and wrong. Micha > didn't like my example of Women learning Talmud was wrong, > then it was right. In fact, now it's both right (MO) and > wrong (Hareidi)." He argues that it is possible for > something to be right in one setting and wrong in another. I don't see the distinction between women learning vs eating on Yom Kippur. Women learning is right in some settings (such as where an unlearned woman would be in a spiritual sakana) and wrong in others (the ideal or traditional situation). In the same manner, eating on Yom Kippur is right in some settings (where the person would be in a medical sakana) and wrong in others (where the person is physically healthy). For that matter, learning is dependent on the setting even for a man: In most settings, it is right for a Jewish man to learn Torah, but not if he is in aveilus, or if he is davening, or if he is in other situations where the learning would conflict with another mitzvah. My point is that EVERYTHING depends on the setting. (I once tried to think of a positive or negative mitzvah which is totally independent of setting, and which always applies under all imaginable circumstances. The only one I could come up with is Avodah Zara. If anyone wants to continue that thought, please start a new thread.) Anyway, getting back to *this* thread, which is about whether right and wrong are absolutes decreed by G-d, or whether they are subject to the opinions of the Sanhedrin or others, I was reminded of an interesting gemara. As translated by http://www.torah.org/learning/maharal/p2m10part2.html it reads: > Eruvin (13b): For two and a half years Beith Shammai and > Beith Hillel argued. These [Beith Shammai] said "It is > better for man not to have been created than to have been > created." And those [Beith Hillel] said "It is better for > man to have been created." Together, they [reviewed the > opinions and] reached a consensus: ... I left out their conclusion, because it is not really so critical to this thread. What *IS* critical is the fact that they had the chutzpah to even discuss this question at all. There is a thought in this thread that if G-d does something, then it is good by definition. Yet Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai considered the possibility that G-d had another option which was even better than the option that He did choose. This sounds to me like a good argument for the view that people (or at least certain people, such as the Sanhedrin) CAN decide what is right and what is wrong. Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 5 14:41:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2015 17:41:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong In-Reply-To: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <557217A4.4010309@sero.name> On 06/05/2015 11:16 AM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: >> >Eruvin (13b): For two and a half years Beith Shammai and >> >Beith Hillel argued. These [Beith Shammai] said "It is >> >better for man not to have been created than to have been >> >created." And those [Beith Hillel] said "It is better for >> >man to have been created." > There is a thought in this thread that if G-d does something, then it > is good by definition. Yet Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai considered the > possibility that G-d had another option which was even better than the > option that He did choose. The discussion was not about what is good or right, but about what is better *for a person*. What is in the person's interest. "Noach lo le'adam". What G-d chooses for a person is right, but who says it's "noach lo"? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 12:49:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2015 21:49:38 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] Right/wrong In-Reply-To: <5571BB83.7010500@sero.name> References: <73824318-9EAD-43A2-924A-23983726765C@tenzerlunin.com> <55704A19.7000001@sero.name> <20150604182845.GA18772@aishdas.org> <557113ED.9080608@zahav.net.il> <5571BB83.7010500@sero.name> Message-ID: <55734ED2.8020702@zahav.net.il> Moved from Areivim. It is a case of muttar and assur, which in this case I am equating with right and wrong. For this person, something is muttar and for the other it is pasul. The way I see, it would be absolutely wrong for the wealthier person to eat his chicken, and absolutely wrong for the poorer person to throw his chicken away. Correct, popular opinion doesn't play a part in this one. Ben On 6/5/2015 5:08 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > > That's not a question of right and wrong, From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 17:19:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 01:19:52 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> R' Ysoscher Katz writes: ... <> And yet ironically RYK's experience in Satmar and Brisk would seem to confirm the sense of what Maimonides did. RYK was only the object and fool of Maimonides "seventh reason" because he was immersed in a society that had built very high walls against the risk of engaging with philosophy. Contrast his experience to mine. I read the Guide at fourteen - long before I had any real exposure to the Yad. Why? Because I grew up in a society in which it was more acceptable for girls to read philosophic texts than it was to learn and engage with halachic texts. And indeed, a translation of the Guide was published and available in English, in my shul library, whereas the Mishna Torah, which was no doubt there (I don't remember), was only in Hebrew and would have been in the "halachic" section that only boys (and scholarly boys at that) were expected to access. Even more, when I started asking questions, the librarian pointed me in the direction of the philosophy works, which included the Guide, that is how I got to it. It was just assumed that if somebody was asking theological questions, that was the place to go. So by the time, much, much later, that I read the relevant portions of the Mishna Torah, I already knew Maimonides' philosophic works in some depth, and layered them on to anything in the Yad. And yet Maimonides was surely right, had the Yad contained the opinions expressed in the Guide, in any detectable way, there is no way a society like Satmar and Brisk would have allowed it into their hallowed betei midrash - and what a loss to the halachic world that would have been. What occurred to RYK is merely a by-product and inevitable consequence (if you step outside) of what Satmar/Brisk have created. Not what Maimonides created. He created a work which, in any society that valued philosophy, would be available to those who sought it. And this is why RYK's experience is unlikely to occur in any true Modern Orthodox setting. Because curious, searching teenagers will inevitably take advantage of what is available in languages they can read in their local libraries (assuming they are encouraged to go there, and such libraries are not off limits), and hence, while they might (hopefully) be exposed to the Mishna Torah earlier than I was, they will certainly have the opportunity, and if that way inclined, are likely to take the opportunity of exploring at least the introduction to the Guide. <> Now this I find- well perhaps touchingly naive to the point of bizarre. Not the characterisation of the two most dramatic changes, necessarily, but the idea that "the pioneers of both these changes were driven, at least in part, by Chassidic ethos". Of the two, the claim regarding female Talmud scholarship is the most odd. Chassidic groups have been at the forefront of those fighting a rearguard action against women's exposure to any form of text, not least Talmudic and halachic text. Satmar in particular - I recall once standing in a bookshop in Boro Park, perusing a book (written clearly by somebody from the Satmar derech) who had gathered together all the sources on the evils of giving women access to any text - but most fundamentally, horror of horrors, to Rashi al haChumash. It was of course, an attack on what is taught in Beis Ya'akov. The position advocated being that at most, girls should be taught in school the stories of the Tanach, outside and without any recourse at all to reading in original. Lubavitch, I agree, was and is in this regard unusual amongst the Chassidic groups. But, growing up in Melbourne, a community heavily dominated by Lubvitchers, I am pretty well acquainted with what was allowed and not allowed vis a vis girls/women and learning from people with reasonably close connections with the Lubavitche Rebbe. Sure, streets ahead of the other Chassidic groups - but more open than the Beis Ya'akovs? - dubiously - although there was a fair bit of flexibility granted when dealing with potential ba'alei teshuva who (it was acknowledged) could be seriously put off by bans on access to knowledge of the nature of that on gemora. But what was granted begrudgingly and in a limited fashion in such circles were standard parts of the curriculum in Modern Orthodox schools (with Maimonides in Boston the flagship in this regard). How high a level a girl was taught in MO environments differed (especially given that often the overall level of kodesh education was not always that high in such schools), but the idea that any of this was driven fundamentally by the Lubavitcher Rebbe is ludicrous. And if you look at Israel and the explosion of women's learning there - not a chassid in sight. R' Kook and Zionism is a more justified charge. While it is hard to describe Rav Kook as a "pioneer" of political Zionism (there were many before him who saw political Zionism as logically arising out of their religious belief), he unquestionably provided serious theological underpinnings justifying the religious being involved in this endeavour, and much of what he wrote is rooted in chassidus. But note of course that the major thinker against was again the Satmar Rebbe - ie chassidus provided, yet again, the most reactionary response to this phenomenon. Which is more typical of chassidus - Rav Kook or the Satmar Rebbe? - I think it is far fairer to say that Rav Kook was the exception, despite his deep roots, and the Satmar Rebbe closer to the rule. And note, while we are on the subject of Rav Kook, that while he was "progressive" regarding political Zionism, he was "regressive" regarding woman voting. Was his attitude towards women's place in society also fuelled by his Chassidic studies? In general, while I do agree that Chassidic thinkers, such as Rav Kook, have a lot to say to "the world we live in today" and that there is something to be said for incorporating aspects of their theology in the pursuit of meaning, I suspect that trying to create "chassidish modern Jews" is an enterprise doomed to failure, and certainly not something that will be able to speak to the modern orthodox world. Why? Firstly because Chassidism is all embracing. I have watched many ba'alei teshuva embrace Chassidism (in lots of forms) over the years - as indeed it has a serious pull for many. I have rarely found one who is attracted that way who ends up in the modern orthodox camp. Where do they usually end up? Well amongst the most extreme Chassidic groups, where they can indulge to the fullest extent. Chassidism become so all embracing that it pushes everything else out. And while this phenomenon is already found amongst Modern Orthodox children going "black". It is certainly not going to save modern Orthodoxy. A further problem is articulated at the beginning of the piece, in relation to RYK's father: > My father is the most non-chassidish Chassid. He does not study > "chassidus," nor does he want to "understand" it. But, however you cut it, those with a modern orthodox upbringing are taught to want to "understand". They are brought up with the scientific method, even if some debunking then occurs in universities. For sure, there are those who reject that in favour of exploration of mystery and experience - but as suggested above, by and large those "go right" - further into the ultra orthodox world. By and large, while the ashrams of India are peopled by many Jews, I don't think very many of them are modern orthodox dropouts. The ones we are losing totally are going left, into the secular mundane world without religious input. Because while they are usually aware of the experiential, it appears to simultaneously contemplate a suffocation of the mind that they cannot swallow (as an ashram also does). Such people are never going to be comfortable in a world in which there is any expectation of not "wanting" to understand. They may perhaps be persuaded to find meaning in the writings of people like Rav Kook, or in other aspects of Chassidic writing, but are likely to be even more repelled by a world that implicitly or explicitly tells them to bin what is the attribute they have been taught to spend most of their life cultivating - their mind. I am probably going to be (metaphorically speaking) shot on this list for even mentioning it, but if you want to see what you get when you mix a modicum of Chassidic plus philosophic inspired thinking in a more "modern" context, you could always look at the German thinkers (including Reform thinkers) of the early twentieth century - people like (particularly) Franz Rosenzweig, not to mention Leo Baeck, Martin Buber, Hermann Cohen. What about Levinas? There is your post modern thinking (but note that it comes out of a Lithuanian background with existentialism and philosophical exploration rather than chassidus). But it is a long way from Maimonidian rationalism (despite of course Maimonides being the father of all this philosophy, but only after it has been through Kant and the existentialists). Avraham Yehoshua Heshel is another example of those attempting to integrate a Chassidic background with modern sensibilities. But since he operated out of the Jewish Theological Seminary, and was closely identified with the Conservative Movement, he probably did more to make such explorations treif to MO thinkers than he did to inspire them to explore. A bigger problem, I think, is that MO in America is so fixated on RYBS, and his particular brand of philosophy, that philosophy linked to Orthodoxy becomes identified only with his particular stance. But there is a much wider world out there, and a philosophical world that does not only relate to transcendence (as RYBS appears to do) but to imminence as well. Are those who speak of paradox/polarity of imminence and transcendence inspired by the imminence of the Chassidic world? Maybe, but it is attenuated, and no longer strictly Chassidic. Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 19:09:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 22:09:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Brisker Theory of Everything In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150607020921.GB7516@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 25, 2015 at 07:15:59PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : 1. The gemara (Ketuvot 5b) discusses whether causing a certain type : of blood flowing is considered a Sabbath violation. The first attempt : to resolve the question turns on whether "mifkad pakid or chaburei : mechbar" (is the blood in the womb stored up or is it the result of a : wound?). Rashi there (please look) seems to define this as a physical : question. Is this acceptable or must we say Rashi was leaving out the : "obvious" philosophical/halachic question (i.e. the physical was known, : it's a question of how to categorize it halachically)? It is very hard to identify a real machloqes in metzi'us. There is a machloqes in the Y-mi about whether rice flower and water makes chameitz. Pesachim 2:4, vilna 17a): Rabbi Yochanan ben Nuri said: Qarmis (millet or something similar) requires [giving] challah [from the dough to a kohein] because it can become chameitz or matzah. And the Rabbis say it doesn't because it can not become chameitz or matzah. So check it! They disagree about the essence of the check (iqar bediqasahh): RYBN said they checked it and found it can become chameitz or matzah. The Rabbanan said they checked it and they didn't find it can become chameitz or matzah. What looked like a machloqes about facts, that could just be checked experimentally, was a machloqes about how to categorize the physical reality. Is that dough a chimutz or a sirchon? I am sure that can be generalized. We could be arguing about metzi'us, but as the gemera asks, why not just check it? More likely, when the metzi'us is in the gray area, the machloqes is about: Where is the line between the categories? : 2. That gemara continues to try to resolve the question and is willing : to entertain the possibility that the halacha is like Rabbi Yehuda : (vs. Rabbi Shimon) in mekalkeil (destroying) and like Rabbi Shimon : (vs. Rabbi Yehuda) in davar sheino mitkavein (the result was not the : major one intended). If these two issues were interconnected, could the : gemara entertain this possibility? I think the gemara is consistent with two posibilities: 1- The two machloqesin are not interconnected. 2- The hava amina as that they were not connected, but the masqanah is that indeed they are. : 3. If the answer to 2 is no, must we assume that when the Shulchan : Aruch said he would decide the psak based on majority 2 of big 3, did : he really mean this as a primary tie breaker, or only when he did not : have a clear understanding of the underlying philosophy that resulted : in their final opinions. As I wrote in the past, I think it's easier to excuse the SA's exceptions to his rule by saying he was talking about the majority when counting consistent positions. Which means the rule is subject to which machloqesin the SA held were interconnected, and therefore which statements on other topics need to also be counted toward he majority. : 4.Is it possible that R'YBS limited his "canon" to only a few major : rishonim (in contradistinction to R" A Lichtenstein) because the more : data points included in trying to determine the underlying theoretical : construct, the more likely a single errant point would skew the results? I would think the reverse: How do you identify an outlier point without getting more full statistics on the data? Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger Worrying is like a rocking chair: micha at aishdas.org it gives you something to do for a while, http://www.aishdas.org but in the end it gets you nowhere. Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 19:16:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 22:16:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir In-Reply-To: <20150528.000433.22403.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150528.000433.22403.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150607021626.GC7516@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 04:04:33AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I will be the first to point out that Lifnei Iveir is one the many : topics where my learning and expertise is severely lacking. Even so, : I suspect that there is something missing from RMB's definition... : It seems to me that RMB is giving a useful tool to distinguish between : category 3 and category 4, but that tool is useful only in the case where : a person already has the *desire* to commit a sin, but it lacking the : *ability* to some degree... Correct. I was only thinking of the original question, and the gemara only discusses the one chiluq -- between lifnei iveir (deOraisa) and mesayeia' (deRabbanan). : But what of the case where a person does *not* yet have a desire to : sin? Rabbi Kaganoff is saying that one who incites or encourages him : to do it is violating Lifnei Iveir. Even if the person already has the : ability to do the sin, it was below his "bechirah point" until he was : egged on to do it... I didn't understand Orpah's offer that way. She was convinced her daughters-in-law "converted" for the sake of marriage; and depending which midrashim you quote, that likely wasn't even an actual conversion. But if Rus didn't really buy into Jewish beliefs, she would be better off not going through a pro-forma conversion than in the same boat as Delilah or Shelomo's wives. Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet micha at aishdas.org about things most people don't watch even on http://www.aishdas.org Yom Kippur. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 21:46:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 07:46:04 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] right/wrong Message-ID: <> comes back to the question of pluralism vs monistic vs tolerant monistic vs harmonism. As discussed before there are opinions on all sides -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 7 04:06:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 07:06:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] right/wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150607110645.GA7126@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jun 07, 2015 at 07:46:04AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : comes back to the question of pluralism vs monistic vs tolerant monistic vs : harmonism. Or, as R Moshe Halberatal cateogired halachic legal theories: Retrival, Accumulative, vs Constitutive. But it only starts there. Here the question is whether 1- any of these positions imply that halakhah is man-made more than the other positions would; and 2- does any of this conversation reflect on the absolute nature of right and wrong on a moral plane? Which also drags in the relationship between halakhah and morality. Divine Command Theory (morality is that which Hashem commanded) may well identify the two. But then, we were hard pressed to find an advocate for DCT, (outside contemporary popularizations). R/DR Y Leibowitz coms close, by saying we exist to follow halakhah, and any attempt to map halakhah to some other value system was one step toward AZ. Someone else might say that halakhah approximates morality, but since it's a blanket rule for all people in many situations, it's only an approximate. That said, once the halakhah is set, preserving it and the morality of the majority of cases has greater moral weight than one loses in the exceptional cases. But getting back to our question, while I consider the two related, I do not think the evolving nature of halakhah reflects morality being a human construction. Rather, I think it's because of two effects: 1- dialectics between concflicting values can yeild different strategies for finding balance between them One therefore finds that a machloqes is resolved by finding one strategy more appropriate for the culture asking the question than another. And if it is not resolved with finality, another culture may have the same question (eg mixes of immigrants with different precdent) and choose a different strategy. As I put it last time: choosing different paths up the mountain doesn't imply that the mountain's altitude is subjective. But this assumes that the linkage between halakhah and morality is that halakhah is a means to becoming moral. 2- changes in reality can cause two similar looking situations to have different moral outcomes. I think the vast majority of seemingly reopened questions are really of this sort. E.g. the categorization of today's dead mutes. We didn't change our belief that demands cannot be made of someone who cannot be taught them -- even if it means a consequent loss of priviliges (if being able to be motzi another is a privilege). The realia of the life of a cheiresh changed. (Over Shabbos I read which misses this point, creating a very bloated list of cases where R' JD Bleich, and most contemporary posqim, allow halakhah to "evolve".) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is our choices...that show what we truly are, micha at aishdas.org far more than our abilities. http://www.aishdas.org - J. K. Rowling Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 7 04:10:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 07:10:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong In-Reply-To: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150607111036.GB7126@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 05, 2015 at 03:16:42PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : There is a thought in this thread that if G-d does something, then it : is good by definition. Yet Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai considered the : possibility that G-d had another option which was even better than the : option that He did choose. Aside from Zev's point, that the machloqes is over which is pleasanter for the person, not which is good... I think the discussion is more what if HQBH tells us to do something, it is good by definition, necessarily good by implication, or somehow more distantly related to morality. (I guess someone could say halakhah is not connected to morality, but I don't see that coming up as an O hashkagah.) : This sounds to me like a good argument for the view that people (or at : least certain people, such as the Sanhedrin) CAN decide what is right : and what is wrong. Can determine, which is still different than the original idea on Areivim, that consensus *defines* morality. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger One who kills his inclination is as though he micha at aishdas.org brought an offering. But to bring an offering, http://www.aishdas.org you must know where to slaughter and what Fax: (270) 514-1507 parts to offer. - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 7 05:52:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2015 08:52:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Torah Scholars and Torah Education for the Masses Message-ID: <20150607125250.7E561182EA1@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is taken from Rav Schwab on Chumash, Parshas Acharei Mos. I have posted the entire selection at http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/tide_chumash_schwab.pdf At all times the Torah's unchanging teachings must be applied to the ever-changing derech eretz. All of our actions, attitudes, relationships to man and beast, and positions within nature and history are subject to the jurisdiction and evaluation of the Torah. What follows is that the Torah scholar should be well informed of the "ways of the Earth." The laws of nature and the paths of history should be known to him. He should be well aware of what happens in the world that surrounds him, for he is constantly called upon to apply the yardstick of halachah and the searchlight of hashkafah to the realities that confront him. What also follows is that the greater the wisdom of Torah, the more crucial it is that this wisdom be conveyed to the Jewish contemporary world. It must be transmitted in a language that our generation understands and that will attract the searching youth, the ignorant, the estranged and the potential ba1al teshuvah to a joyous acceptance of the yoke of Heaven. The Torah leader must be able to dispel the doubts of the doubter and to counter the cynicism of the agnostic. He must, therefore, speak their language masterfully so that he can convince and enlighten them. There is indeed a dire need for gedolei Torah, great Torah scholars, who devote their entire lives to the study and dissemination of Torah. The Jewish world today needs many talmidei chachamim whose life task is to enlighten and inspire it with the love and the fear of G-d. We are ready to accord to those "messengers of G-d" the highest respect and a loyal following. These are the kohanim and levi'im of today. Like the members of the Levitic tribe of old, they are to serve all the other tribes and teach them the living Torah. Yet education and leadership cannot function in a vacuum. Therefore it becomes mandatory for the present day "Tribe of Levi" to initiate and encourage an educational system that can serve the other "eleven tribes who comprise the vast majority of our people. It becomes mandatory for the Torah-conscious educator not to inspire fear of the world and hesitancy to meets its challenges, but rather, to fortify the vast majority of our youth to meet head-on the thousand and one pitfalls of professional and business life. Our youth must be inspired to courageously and intelligently brave the onslaught of scientific arrogance and the sensual poison that is masked as intellectual liberalism. The Divine purpose for which Yisrael was created can be served in every capacity, in every profession, in all human endeavors, as long as they are not excluded by the halachah. ---------- Unfortunately, I do not see many Torah scholars today who are "well informed of the "ways of the Earth." The laws of nature and the paths of history should be known to him. He should be well aware of what happens in the world that surrounds him, for he is constantly called upon to apply the yardstick of halachah and the searchlight of hashkafah to the realities that confront him." I also do not see our educational institutions serving "the other 'eleven tribes' who comprise the vast majority of our people. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 8 09:25:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2015 09:25:43 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] replacement value Message-ID: secular law [US] recognizes that one need is not liable replace a lost item with a new one ie if you lost my used IPAD [which happened in fact this month to us] you don't owe me the value of a new one , but rather some pro-rated amount accounting for wear and tear. what does bais din require? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 9 14:17:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2015 17:17:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] replacement value In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150609211745.GA4160@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 08, 2015 at 09:25:43AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : secular law [US] recognizes that one need is not liable replace a lost : item with a new one... what does bais din : require? According to the Business Halakhah Institute : Many years ago I borrowed a Chumash with commentaries from a local beis medrash. I forgot to return it and eventually misplaced the sefer and I do not recall which volume I borrowed. It was "borrowed", ie no reshus was asked. ... [Skipping from opening paragraph to bottom line...] Someone who borrowed a sefer without permission is obligated to return the sefer, the same as any other thief. Even if the owner despaired of retrieving it, e.g., he bought a new set, the obligation to return it remains in force (C.M. 354:2 and 360:5). If the sefers condition changed dramatically (shinui) or if it was lost altogether, the borrower is obligated to repay the value of the sefer (C.M. 360:5). In your case, since the sefer you borrowed is missing, there is no obligation to replace the actual sefer. Your obligation is to repay the beis medrash the sefers value at the time you borrowed it. In other words, you would pay the value of a used sefer rather than a new sefer, and there is no need to pay for a complete set. But then, maybe that's under Gittin 55b, not making a ganav tear down his house in order to return a stolen beam he built into it. But that halakhah is to facilitate teshuvah after theft. And so I won't generalized. Also for hezeq, I know a maziq pays for his damage, and therefore only has to pay replacement value -- what it would take to make things right again. But again, your case, a shomer or sho'el returning a lost item, could be different. I didn't yet find it. But I haven't entirely given up... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A cheerful disposition is an inestimable treasure. micha at aishdas.org It preserves health, promotes convalescence, http://www.aishdas.org and helps us cope with adversity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' SR Hirsch, "From the Wisdom of Mishlei" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 9 14:17:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2015 17:17:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] replacement value In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150609211745.GA4160@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 08, 2015 at 09:25:43AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : secular law [US] recognizes that one need is not liable replace a lost : item with a new one... what does bais din : require? According to the Business Halakhah Institute : Many years ago I borrowed a Chumash with commentaries from a local beis medrash. I forgot to return it and eventually misplaced the sefer and I do not recall which volume I borrowed. It was "borrowed", ie no reshus was asked. ... [Skipping from opening paragraph to bottom line...] Someone who borrowed a sefer without permission is obligated to return the sefer, the same as any other thief. Even if the owner despaired of retrieving it, e.g., he bought a new set, the obligation to return it remains in force (C.M. 354:2 and 360:5). If the sefers condition changed dramatically (shinui) or if it was lost altogether, the borrower is obligated to repay the value of the sefer (C.M. 360:5). In your case, since the sefer you borrowed is missing, there is no obligation to replace the actual sefer. Your obligation is to repay the beis medrash the sefers value at the time you borrowed it. In other words, you would pay the value of a used sefer rather than a new sefer, and there is no need to pay for a complete set. But then, maybe that's under Gittin 55b, not making a ganav tear down his house in order to return a stolen beam he built into it. But that halakhah is to facilitate teshuvah after theft. And so I won't generalized. Also for hezeq, I know a maziq pays for his damage, and therefore only has to pay replacement value -- what it would take to make things right again. But again, your case, a shomer or sho'el returning a lost item, could be different. I didn't yet find it. But I haven't entirely given up... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A cheerful disposition is an inestimable treasure. micha at aishdas.org It preserves health, promotes convalescence, http://www.aishdas.org and helps us cope with adversity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' SR Hirsch, "From the Wisdom of Mishlei" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 10 18:52:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 01:52:34 GMT Subject: [Avodah] 100% Vegetable oils etc. Message-ID: <20150610.215234.27464.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> On Areivim, R' Martin Brody wrote: > If any such ingredient of an ingredient was non-kosher, it would be > batel b'shishim, (more likely nullified by thousands). For those > that are interested, the London Beth Din is not concerned with > "flavourings" as an ingredient for this very reason. This surprises me. I would think that non-kosher flavorings cannot be batel. Bitul is a mathematical procedure by which we can presume that the non-kosher ingredient is not noticeable. But in the case of flavorings (and colorings and maamads), if its presence were not noticeable, then the manufacturer would not go to the trouble and expense of including it. Therefore (I would think) that its presence proves that it *is* noticable, overriding the presumption. Rabbi Binyomin Forst's "The Laws of Kashrus" (ArtScroll) says on page 98, "If, however, the mixture was sampled and the non-kosher taste was noticeable, the mixture may not be eaten, even though it was batel b'shishim. (Shach 98:4)" What other views are there? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5578ea0af09296a0a79abst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 07:41:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 10:41:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Worker or Craftsman Message-ID: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> How do we view the task of life? Is a person an po'el, paid for his time? Implying, it's our job to do good while here on earth, but the determining factor is the duration? Or is a person an uman, paid to get a particular job done. We're put on earth to get some specific accomplishment. The Zohar suggests something more like an uman when it uses an idiom like "ana avda deQBH". Admittedly an eved does not get paid for his time, but an eved is for the duration, whether until shemittah, until yovel, or for the rest of his life. However, in Shaar haGilgulim we get all this talk about a person having a tafqid, and how if they fail to get the job done, they could be given a second chance. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger What you get by achieving your goals micha at aishdas.org is not as important as http://www.aishdas.org what you become by achieving your goals. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Henry David Thoreau From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 07:46:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 10:46:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Color names In-Reply-To: <221167CA3A2A46908C9CA2A3474664EA@webhost.local> References: <221167CA3A2A46908C9CA2A3474664EA@webhost.local> Message-ID: <20150611144639.GF20169@aishdas.org> RZLampel and I discused this once, I think here. If not, the topic could be of interest anyway. So, rather than checking the archive (which is difficult, given the number of tekheiles discussions) I am just sharing either way. -micha Shabbat B'Shabbato Translated by Moshe Goldberg Machon Zomet ... What Is That Phrase? Green Sky? Yaacov Etzion At the end of this week's Torah portion, we are given a command, "Let them place on the tzitzit at the corner a thread of 'techelet.'" [Bamidbar 15:38]. Rashi explains that techelet is "the 'yarok' color of a snail." Any speaker of modern Hebrew can only wonder at this. Why does Rashi call the blue color of techelet "yarok" -- that is, green? Well, it is not only Rashi that calls techelet "yarok." It is an explicit ruling that appears in the Shulchan Aruch: "The color white is ritually pure, as is the look of 'yarok,' even if it has the look of wax or of gold. And this certainly includes the 'yarok' of leek or grass (and also the color that is called 'blue' is included in 'yarok')" [Hilchot Nidda, 188]. We are not interested at this point in the details of the halacha but rather in the fact that the RAMA writes that the color "blue" is called "yarok" in our traditional sources. Our sages spoke of four main colors: shachor (black), lavan (white), adom (red), and yarok. And "yarok" included yellow, orange, blue, and turquoise of today. For example, it happens quite often that a newborn baby is a bit yellow right after its birth. But the Tosefta calls this color "yarok." Rabbi Natan says the following: "When I was in the Land of Kapotakia, there was a woman who had given birth to boys... They brought him to me, and I saw that he was 'yarok'... I looked at him and did not find any blood for circumcision..." [Shabbat 134a]. Moreover, in the wording of the ROSH in his halachic rulings the word yarok as used by the sages is not our color green (which they call "yarok as a leek") but is yellow or orange. "This shows that the word yarok is similar to the yolk of an egg or to gold, which has a tinge of red." Among other sources, the ROSH bases his decision on the words of the verse, "the wings of a dove coated with silver and its limbs the 'yerakrak' of gold" [Tehillim 68:14]. Yerakrak is clearly the color of gold, that is, yellow. The words for orange (katom) and blue (kachol) were instituted in modern times by Zeev Yavetz. This was reported by David Yalin in the newspaper "Hatzevi" in 1887: "When I spoke to my uncle the illustrious rabbi and investigator Rabbi Zeev Yavetz, he said to me that he wants to fill what is missing in our language for the names of two colors, the color of techelet and the color of the yoke of an egg." Yavetz proposed that techelet should be called kachol and that the yoke should be called "ketem," which in the holy writings refers to gold or to the color of gold. (An example appears in the following verse: "Woe, the gold is dim, the good 'ketem' has changed" [Eichah 4:1].) Yavetz wanted to use the word katom for the color of yellow (which we call tzahov), since he felt that tzahov "includes a bit of red" (as per a note by Yalin). But as time went on, katom became the color orange, as we use it today. Thus, the word "yarok" changed in meaning during the years, as did "tzahov." However, "techelet" evidently kept its original meaning, and it remains similar to the color of the sea, which is similar to the color of the sky, and this reminds us of the Divine Throne of Glory. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 09:34:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 12:34:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Worker or Craftsman In-Reply-To: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> References: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5579B89C.8060902@sero.name> On 06/11/2015 10:41 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Is a person an po'el, paid for his time? Implying, it's our job to do > good while here on earth, but the determining factor is the duration? > > Or is a person an uman, paid to get a particular job done. We're put on > earth to get some specific accomplishment. Eruvin 65a: Anan po`alei diy'mamei anan. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 11:17:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 14:17:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> References: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> Message-ID: <20150611181746.GI20169@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 2, 2015 at 4:27pm I forwarded an essay by RYK that had appeared on R/Dr Alan Brill's blog, Kavvanah. In it he proposes from personal experience that MO would be enhanced by shifting away from its focus on RYBS's Briskkeit and in particular that elements of his Hungarian Chassidic birth community would be of great value. : Personally, my rejection of the Maimonidean ethos and realization of : the degree to which chassidut can speak to the modern searcher was a : long and arduous process. It came about as a result of a deep sense : of betrayal by Maimonides, the champion of Rationalist Judaism. I for : many years was the object and fool of Maimonides "the seventh reason" : as presented in his introduction to the Guide by not seeing his : philosophic views. In that passage, Maimonides condones misleading : the masses for their greater good, even to the point of advocating : contradictory ideas for different audiences and then obscuring those : contradictions. : Growing up in Satmar and then Brisk, I was oblivious to his : non-halakhic writings and led to believe that he fully and literally : believed every word he wrote in the Yad... I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." And in fact, that was the whole point of the project -- to outline all of halakhah, to document the TSBP. Not to hint at something for the meivinim without risking that the hoi palloi mistake his words in a heretical way. It's simply not meaningful concept for a book he titled Mishneh Torah. I am uncomfortably using the Rambam as a poster boy for rationalism. In the Rambam's day, science hadn't been invented yet. Claims about physics weren't based on emprical proof and experimental process. It was Natual Philosophy, and the weight of an a priori argument. A lot of it really ended up on reliabilism; deeming the Greeks as reliable sources on such things -- after 1,5000 years of their theories reigning. And therefore, quite honestly, much the same kind of thought that we use to accept mesorah. The word rationalism changed meaning. What I think we really mean is a willingness to be meqabel es ha'emes mimi she'omro, rather than take a maximalist attitude toward mesoretic and Torah-derived statements. But that's quite a bit meta from anyone today using the Moreh as a foundational element of their hashkafah. In particular, RYK mentions three items he believes would enhance MO: : 1) Truth. We live in a post-modern world where objective truth is : rejected and absolute claims are frowned upon. I would go as far as to : say that rationalism (in the general and colloquial sense) as a source : for Emunah is bankrupt, it increasingly speaks to fewer people... I don't think it ever worked. As one of my favorite truisms goes: The mind is a wonderful organ for justifying decisions the heart already reached. People accept the rational argument that fits the experiential justification that really underlies their beliefs. Aristo thought otherwise, which eventually led to the Qalam and the Scholasticists -- including R' Saadia Gaon and the Rambam. But then Scholasticism collapsed, the scientific method arose, leading to a dispute between the Empiricists and Idealists which in turn forced the discipline of philosophy away from belief in the reality of an objective rigorous proof. Experimental eproof, yes. Incontravertible objective philosopy, not so much. Kant then gets all transcendental, and talks about the synthetic a priori. (Knowing things without proof that don't simply boil down to a matter of translations. In the recent past, I mentioned how we know the Euclidean posulates hold in flat space, that Reimannian ones hold in a spherical space, and our knowledge about morality and ethics.) This was the zeitgeist when the Besh"t lived. (Besh"t 1698-1760; Kant 1724-1804.) Someone who is given a proof whose conclusions don't fit their experience is likely to reject the soundness of the givens / postulates / first principles on which it's based. Just as someone who accepts a proof is making synthetic judgments about the quality of the foundations of that proof before even making an analytic decision that the logic seems sound. So even if no one makes a logic error, every proof relies on interpretation of experience. RYBS was not a rationalist in this sense. Brisk is very experiential, to the point of eschewing the study of hashkafah altogether. They are rational when it comes to how to learn, but the value of learning is in the experience of learning. When RYBS does do philosophy, he calls it halachic hermeneutics. Neo-Kantian and Existentialist observations of what halakhah says to the one following it about life. He makes no claims about the function or cause of halakhah, he makes few theological observations. For example, to RYBS tzimtzum speaks mostly to the value of anavah as an emulation of His "Retreat" to give us room. RYBS's Neo-Kantianism is a very different project than the Rambam's Scholasticism. ... : However, during those rare occasions when they do pay attention to the : biblical "stories," their orientation is a-rational. They absolutely : "believe" those stories, but their belief is internal: it is true : because it happened in the Torah. That is where these events transpire : and that is where these stories matter. Asking about their historicity : is, as far as they are concerned, foolish and missing the point. And also a given. It may not be stated as the point, but the confidence given to authority which is a necessary component of the rebbe-chassid relationship means accepting Chazal's historical and scientific claims as being from ruach haqodesh. And not stam as meshalim. The kind of agnosticism about the historicity of medrashic material you are recommending we import Chassidus to justify would itself leave a chassid aghast. And even after citing the long chain of rishonim and acharonim who speak against assuming medrashic stories are historical, And you want to extend that beyond medrashic stories into foundational stories in Tanakh and maybe in the chumash as well? Given my above assertion that the only thread that runs consistently through "rationalism" from the Rambam to today is to choose qabel es ha'emes mimi she'omro over taking some baal mesorah's statement maximally, one actually needs what's left of the Rambam's hashkafic legacy to accomplish this, not Chassidus. : 2) Spiritualization. As scholars have pointed out, chassidic teachings : contain elements of spiritual psychology. They provide us with a : language which helps us infuse our lives with meaning. One can point : to many examples where this psychological spiritualization occurs in : chassidut, I will mention two of them. : 3) Social Change. One of the most pressing tensions in the community : is how to reconcile our values with our convictions; what to do : when halakha points us in one direction and our values in another : direction. We are tempted to follow our values but pulled to abide by : our halakhic commitments.... : Chassidut is very explicit about the value of religious aggression. The : following two quotes are often encountered in chassidic writings, : "even a thief says a prayer before he breaks in to his victim's home" : (quoted on the margin of Brachot 63A, from the Frankfurt manuscript), : and "an aggressive stance towards the Divine bears results" (Sanhedrin : 105A). While the provenance of these texts is Talmudic, they take on : significant prominence in Chassidic theology. They become the impetus : for an aggressive theology which is informed by a religiosity that : sees itself driven by a Divine immanence which infuses our values and : ethical intuitions with spiritual resonance, subsequently leading to : radical societal change. : Such change is actually an integral part of Chassidic social history. : When one looks at recent major changes in traditional Jewish society : it is hard not to notice that the forerunners were often Chassidim. The : last sixty years have seen far reaching social and political change. Both of these are not specific to Chassidus, but would be true of any Ism that draws attention fo the notion that halakhah is merely a "floor" rather than the sum total of behavioral expectations. For that matter, self development and societal needs are both more central to Mussar than chassidus. Pretty much its defning features, really. Which (aside being my own pony in this race) has the advantage of being closer to being consistent with MO's current gestalt; it's easier to get from here to there. OTOH Chaasidic maximalism means that statements made in the past have to be accepted as being from ruach haqodesh, and consequently change in these communities is minimized. Not only because isolation is part of the survival strategy, but because of reverence for and desire to emulate Chassidic isolation is indeed part of their survival stategy. It's hard to leave when you know no other social context and speak with an accent. And knowing that you stand for something greater than yourself in the eyes of those who see your uniform makes it harder to sin. (Harder, not impossible.) But it's not one of the three elements of Chassidus RYK wrote about. : The two most dramatic changes that have happened is that Jews are now : sovereign and women have made significant progress in their pursuit of : religious equality. The pioneers of both these changes were driven, at : least in part, by a chassidic ethos. R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson, : the Rebbi of Lubavitch, was one of the first orthodox scholars to : champion female Talmud scholarship, while R. Avraham Yitzchak Kook, : a serious student of Chassidut, was an outspoken early proponent of : a Zionist state. RAYK is a student of the Leshem, and thus of the Gra's school of Qabbalah. Not Chassidus. You might be able to make a more generic argument for a need for more Qabbalah in MO. Personally, I'm an engineer by inclination, not just training, and my own head doesn't lean that way. Although I had more success with the Leshem Haqdamos uShe'arim, which incidentally heavily draws from the Moreh and Yesodei haTorah, than I did with Qela"ch Pischei Chokhmah, the later parts of Derekh H' or Tomer Devorah after ch. 1. At least in the golah this might be true; in Israel, those of the DL community who are an appropriate audience for Qabbalah already have RAYK in numerous interpretations. Also, Chassidus's approach to Qabbalah puts the Ari Za"l on an even higher pedestal than the Gra did, and elevate R Chaim Vital from *a* talmid of the Ari to his sole authorized presenter. The Gra is willing to question something from RCV that chassidim would literally consider Torah min haShamayim. Which, for the more socially and humanistically minded, might well turn Eitz Chaim 49 ch. 3 into a show stopper. (But this isn't the place to discuss it.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Never must we think that the Jewish element micha at aishdas.org in us could exist without the human element http://www.aishdas.org or vice versa. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 06:48:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 09:48:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <20150611181746.GI20169@aishdas.org> References: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> <20150611181746.GI20169@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150612134802.GA12483@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 2:17 I wrote: : What I think we really mean is a willingness to be meqabel es ha'emes : mimi she'omro, rather than take a maximalist attitude toward mesoretic : and Torah-derived statements. But that's quite a bit meta from anyone : today using the Moreh as a foundational element of their hashkafah. ... : Given my above assertion that the only thread that runs consistently : through "rationalism" from the Rambam to today is to choose qabel es : ha'emes mimi she'omro over taking some baal mesorah's statement maximally... The thought hit me this morning that there is another and drastically different way to view this point. "Qabel es ha'ames mimi she'omro" is a bit of a circularity. Obviously we want to accept the truth from whomever says it, and not errors. So we're deciding what is true /before/ we decide to accept it, not /because/ we accept it. We could therefore say that the single consistent theme we associate with throwing the word "rationalism" about is critical thought. When we judge Aristo's, Copernicus's, Darwin's or Einstein's thought as true, do we second guess that asessment, or accept their ideas as true? And consequently we can phrase this chiluq a third way: As being abut how much authority we give rabbinic works in comparison to how much we trust our own critical thinking. The higher the pedestal we put the historical rabbinate, the more of their statements one would logically choose to suspend judgment and accept. (Not only accept, but accept as literal.) As for the original premise... Rather than looking to RYK's or anyone else's ideas as to what from Chassidus would most benefit MO, perhaps we should look at the Neo-Chassidic phenomenon to see de facto what MO Jews who are open to such experimentation are drawn to. And if those two questions yeild different answers, why? :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger What we do for ourselves dies with us. micha at aishdas.org What we do for others and the world, http://www.aishdas.org remains and is immortal. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Albert Pine From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 06:55:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 09:55:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What FDA Learned About Dark Chocolate and Milk Allergies In-Reply-To: <557A5564.7040807@zahav.net.il> References: <20150611174606.4DC6F181DFA@nexus.stevens.edu> <5579E680.2050607@zahav.net.il> <5579E319.7070103@sero.name> <557A5564.7040807@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <20150612135524.GC12483@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 05:43:32AM +0200, Ben Waxman via Areivim wrote: : This story came out here a few years ago when some kid had an : allergic reaction to parve chocolate. The product had a Badatz Eida : Chareidit heksher. The heksher was fine, they didn't make a mistake. : The amount of milk in the chocolate was much, much less than 1/60. Assuming the allergic reaction isn't lifethreatening so that the child is not prohibited from eating the chocolate on those grounds... Say they're a chocoholic and chose to eat the chocolate shortly after eating meat. Mi ma nafshach for everyone else it's batel. But do we say that since for them it's detectible, bitul doesn't apply? :-)BBii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 14:24:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 21:24:59 GMT Subject: [Avodah] What FDA Learned About Dark Chocolate and Milk Allergies Message-ID: <20150611.172459.6802.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> [Another Areivim email from the same thread. -micha] > Actually it sounds to me that one very much can rely on the > label (from this example). The trace amounts [the LBD are] talking > about are much, much less than 1/60. Completely bateil, > totally parve, but enough to elicit an allergic reaction. I remember learning about a machlokes concerning whether we hold dairy can be batel to pareve, or whether we say that since there is no loss (at least, not the total loss that we have when something becomes nonkosher) we should simply consider it dairy. But I don't remember how we hold on this issue. Anyone else? And shouldn't these questions be on Avodah? Akiva Miller [Done. -micha] From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 11:01:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 14:01:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If and When Message-ID: <20150612180148.GA7261@aishdas.org> R' Yishmael famously (Mechilta BaChodesh-Yisro 11, Mishpatim 182 or ) says that "im" usually means that the decision is up to you, but three times it's a chiyuv: - "Im mizbach avanim ta'aseh Li" (Shemos 20:21) - "Im kesef talveh es ami" (Shemos 22:24) - "Im taqriv minchas bikurim" (Vayiqra 2:14) This is often explained in English as saying that "im" usually means "if", but in these cases it takes on the rarer second meaning of "when". I would prefer to propose a single common interpretation. LAD, "im" introduces an implication -- X implies Y. When X is a conditional, then so will the Y that depends on it. When X is always obligated, then Y will also be always obligated, but the "allways" is because X is. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 13 19:40:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 04:40:37 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Why Chassidut Message-ID: <557CE9A5.6090303@zahav.net.il> From Rav Yehoshua Shapira (my quick translation) The idea that Chassidut?s positive atmosphere isn?t obligatory is a serious mistake. Not only is it obligatory, but it brings with it more obligations. Without emphasis on the Mitzvot of ahava and yirah, simcha and deveikut (which are the soul of the 613 mitzvot) the mitzvot remain external actions, technical, something which doesn?t affect or uplift the heart and soul. Those doreitta mitzvot, which are the pinimiot of all mitzvoth, demand from a person and from us to give their entire being when doing a mitzvah. . . .. In the performance of mitzvoth, God wants our hearts. Therefore, Chassidut definitely demands deep dedication. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 15:34:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ysoscher via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 18:34:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed Message-ID: <073EBBC1-7CA3-4E26-BA35-4A9007B1EAE4@gmail.com> Chana, Three quick points: 1) You are making the mistake many others are making as well, conflating chassidim with chassidut. Chassidic life today has very little to do with original chassidut. Early chassidut was a revolutionary theological movement which appealed to a small elitist group. As time went by more people started joining. As the masses joined, the theology became diluted. The theologically influenced practices reminded but the ethos became stagnant. Therefore, your attempt to disprove my thesis from the way Chassidim behave today is wrong. I'm advocating for chassidic theology which was prevalent during the first and second generation of the chassidic movement, people like the Besht, the Magid, the Toldos Yakov Yosef, Reb Nachaman, the Ba'al Hatanye and others. I have no doubt that their philosophy informed Rav Kook and Lubavitcher Rebbe when dealing with tensions between Halacha and modernity. And, their philosophy can help us today as well. Incorporating a chassidic ethos would allow us to infuse our encounters with modernity with kedusha and meaning. Which brings me to my second point. 2) Kabbakah and chassidut isn't about warmth and community. It's a highly sophisticated philosophical system which offers a nuanced alternative to the Maimonidean/rationalist approach. While the approach is a-rational, it isn't irrational. However, more to the point, the warmth and sense of community is a byproduct of this theology, not its primary focus. 3) Finally, I'm not sure I understand your point about the Rambam. The Rambam says that he believes it is justified to fool and mislead the masses. That to me is highly problematic. Rabbi Ysoscher Katz Chair, Department of Talmud, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School; Director of the Lindenbaum Center for Halakhic Studies; Educational Director of Judaic Studies, Luria Academy, Brooklyn, NY.; Rabbi, Prospect Heights Shul. E-mail: ysoscher at gmail.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 07:00:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 14:00:32 GMT Subject: [Avodah] If and When Message-ID: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > R' Yishmael famously (Mechilta BaChodesh-Yisro 11, Mishpatim 182 > or ) says that "im" usually means that the > decision is up to you, but three times it's a chiyuv: > - "Im mizbach avanim ta'aseh Li" (Shemos 20:21) > - "Im kesef talveh es ami" (Shemos 22:24) > - "Im taqriv minchas bikurim" (Vayiqra 2:14) ... > LAD, "im" introduces an implication -- X implies Y. ... > When X is always obligated, then Y will also be always > obligated, but the "always" is because X is. If I'm understanding you correctly, your logic will work only if there is another pasuk somewhere which *already* obligates us to build a mizbe'ach of stone, to lend money without interest, and to bring bikkurim in this manner. If so, then a fuller translation can be written with the word "if", and without the word "when", like this: : (You are already obligated to build a stone mizbe'ach, and) : if (today is the day that) you will build a stone mizbe'ach, : you will not build it from cut stones... But I thought that R' Yishmael's whole point is that THESE ARE the source pesukim for those mitzvos, and that there are NO other pesukim which obligate you to do these things. That's why R' Yishmael made the whole point of stressing that these "im"s really mean "when". His fear was that if we translate "im" as "if", then someone might think these pesukim are like Hilchos Gittin: "IF you get divorced, here is the right way to do it, and IF you make a stone mizbe'ach, here is the right way." R' Yishmael's point is that there is no "if" - you MUST do these things, and WHEN you do it, this is how. So over Shabbos, I tried to verify my idea. Thanks to RMB, who quoted not only the 3 pesukim, but identified their location, it was pretty simple to look them up in the Torah Temimah. But what I found was rather odd. Torah Temimah Shmos 20:127 quotes R' Yishmael in the Mechilta, pretty much the same way that RMB did, and points out that this is NOT the source for the obligation for build a stone mizbe'ach - that is in Ki Savo. This RMB's logic fits: "If (today is the day that) you build a stone mizbe'ach, don't build it of cut stones." Please note: In the excerpt of the Mechilta which the Torah Temimah quotes regarding the mizbe'ach, R' Yishmael says that there are 3 cases where "im" is not optional, but the other two are not specified. This is very different than the Torah Temimah about lending money. Torah Temimah Shmos 22:198 does quotes R' Yishmael in the Mechilta, but it doesn't mention the word "im" explicitly, nor is there any reference to two other cases. He simply asks whether it is a reshus or a chovah to lend money, and he answers that the obligation appears in Parshas Re'eh. I find it curious that this Mechilta is worded so differently than the previous one, but the message is clearly the same. Finally, we have the pasuk about bikkurim. It turns out that the Torah Temimah on this pasuk doesn't mention R' Yishmael at all. It does mention R' Yehudah, but from the Toras Kohanim, and not from the Mechilta. Further, my unlearned reading of R' Yehudah had little or nothing to do with the reshus/chovah question, but Torah Temimah Vayikra 2:80 DID see a reshus/chovah question that troubled R' Yehudah. I am left with several questions, the main one being whether or not Bikkurim really was R' Yishmael's third "im". And that's where I'll leave this thread, for more skilled minds to investigate should they be so inclined. Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/557d895b6e89195a4573st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 10:27:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 13:27:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If and When In-Reply-To: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150614172744.GA27133@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 02:00:32PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : > LAD, "im" introduces an implication -- X implies Y. : ... : > When X is always obligated, then Y will also be always : > obligated, but the "always" is because X is. : : If I'm understanding you correctly, your logic will work only if : there is another pasuk somewhere which *already* obligates us to build a : mizbe'ach of stone, to lend money without interest, and to bring bikkurim : in this manner. If so, then a fuller translation can be written with : the word "if", and without the word "when"... In reality, the cited Mechilta actually provides derahos to prove that there is nothing optional about the antecedants. But my point was to suggest that "im" has nothing to do with the maybe-ness of "if". Just the implication bit -- if X then Y, or whenever X then Y, or since X then Y, regardless of whether not-X is a possibility or option. Which would reduce what looks like two definitions for "im" into a single common meaning. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Time flies... micha at aishdas.org ... but you're the pilot. http://www.aishdas.org - R' Zelig Pliskin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 13 22:30:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ysoscher via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 01:30:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> R. Micha, you write "I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." This is pure conjecture, perhaps even wishful thinking. The Rambam shares the 7th principle in which he argues that one may disseminate untruths for the greater good of society. Once he believes that, we are left to wonder about everything he wrote: did he really believe that or was there a political (in the Aristotelian sense) agenda behind it. To then preference the yad over the moreh is a personal bias. You and I as Orthodox Jews would like to believe that he believed every word in the yad and that the stuff he says in the moreh, oftentimes contradicting Chazal and the mesorah, was only said for the greater good of society-he personally didn't believe them. The non-observant philosopher, on the other hand, would say the opposite, that in the Moreh he articulates what he really believed, not in the Yad. Ultimately there's no objective measure to determine who's right. R. Isidore Twersky in his book on the Rambam tried to argue that there is no stira, that the moreh and the yad compliment each other. I don't find his arguments compelling. These two sefarim are incompatible and, ultimately, we are left in the dark, never able to objectively determine which of the two Rambam's sefarim were written with ulterior motives. You then write "I am uncomfortably using the Rambam as a poster boy for rationalism." I am using "rationalism" in a loose colloquial sense. Rambam believed in an evidence based religiosity, that we believe in God because His existence can be proven. That project, IMHO, failed. For every proof proving existence there's a proof to the contrary. That is precisely why I believe that the non-rationalist/Kabbalist approach is a better option. They offer an a-rationalist approach ("a-rational," not to be confused with "irrational," they're not the same). They believe because they chose to believe not-because they are "convinced." Their mehalach is more appealing to our post/modern generation where few people believe in absolute truths, and, it's also truer to our tradition. We were always a a-rational tradition until Maimonides came along and changed that. Which brings me to my next point. You then write "...means accepting Chazal's historical and scientific claims as being from ruach haqodesh. And not stam as meshalim." implying that I believe that stories in Chazal or Torah are meshalim. [Chas lei lezar'eih deAvraham deleimru hakha]; God forbid that I should make such a suggestion. I am saying something radically different. We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims. A faith claim is a religious "belief" not a scientific claim. Two things distinguish the chasid's experience of reading Torah from the philosopher's experience. When the chasid reads those stories he or she a) doesn't pause to ask if it's "true" they just learn it. "Truth" isn't a primary orientation of their encounter with toras Ha'shem. B) In the event that he does pause to ask the "truth" question, his approach is a-rational and unscientific. The truth question, for him or her, is internal to the system as is the solution. It truthfully and absolutely happened in the Torah. It's not denying the claim, it's just ignoring the scientific objective layer. Because the chasid's yiddishkeit happens exclusively in the religious realm. I also think there's a lot of confusion between what I'm arguing and what you're responding to. Briefly: 1) As I wrote to Chana: Chassidim and chassidut is not same. Chassidim today have little to do with chassidut. Contemporary chassidic philosophy is a complete deviation from original chassidut. 2) A-rationalism isn't one iota less sophisticated than rationalism. These are two parallel philosophies each with their own set of nuanced assumptions, postulates, and assumptions. 3) My program has nothing to do with neo-chassidut. NC is a behaviorist movement with very little philosophical underpinning. I'm proposing a theological program which also happens to have behavioral implications. Rabbi Ysoscher Katz Chair, Department of Talmud, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School; Director of the Lindenbaum Center for Halakhic Studies; Educational Director of Judaic Studies, Luria Academy, Brooklyn, NY.; Rabbi, Prospect Heights Shul. E-mail: ysoscher at gmail.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 08:55:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 11:55:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] 100% Vegetable oils etc. (Walker Crisps) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <557DA3F6.8050406@sero.name> On Areivim, Kaganoff wrote: > Zev Sero wrote: >> Kaganoff wrote: >>> Zev Sero wrote: >>>> Kaganoff wrote: >>>>> I would be rather surprised if there was a genuine kashrus concern >>>>> from with the Walker Crisps from any meat contamination. >>>>> Any meat would be batel. >>>> It's flavouring. >>> We hold of bittul b'shishim. >> Only as a general assumption that at that dilution it can't be tasted. >> Not applicable to concentrated flavourings which are designed to be tasted >> at high dilution. > That is a chumrah that you could adopt, but should not force on others. Why do you call it a chumra? Do you deny that the din is about ta`am, not percentage, and bitul beshishim is merely a general assumption that at that level of dilution there is no ta`am? >>> And it's a not a flavoring for this particular product. So it is not >>> avida l'ta'amei, even at less than 60. >> Since when does the fact that it wasn't intended to be in this product make it >> not intended for its taste? > That is why companies spend thousands of dollars perfecting formulas > for what is and is not used in a product. If it is not used as an > ingredient, then it was not meant to flavor this product. Once again, so what? Where did you get this idea that it matters whether it was intended to be in this product? Perhaps you're thinking of nosen ta'am lifgam, and saying that even a pleasant flavour, if it was not intended to be in a particular dish, may be considered a pegam in that dish. But that doesn't work. Suppose a chef created a dish flavoured with lard, but made a mistake; he put in too much, or too little, or didn't cook it long enough, or cooked it too long, or at the wrong temperature, and the final flavour of the dish isn't what he was aiming for. It's pleasant, and the diners eat it up and compliment him, but he knows that it wasn't meant to taste like that, and his recipe needs work. Can you imagine calling that dish pagum, and allowing it to be eaten?! That's obviously not tenable. So how is this case any different? A pleasant and desirable flavour has made its way into a product that wasn't intended to have that flavour. Does that make it pagum?!! No. It's a good product, it's just not the product that's on the label. The product that's on the label is kosher, but the product that's inside the packet is treif, exactly as if a labelling error had occurred. >>>>> Stam Keilim Ain ben Yomo. >>>> Are you joking? That klal is clearly not true in any commercial setting. >>> Why do you assume that it is clearly not true. Or rather you are >>> assuming that in a majority of cases, meat is used the same day as >>> the kosher product. That strikes me as a bit extreme. >> It's not at all extreme. Everyone knows that commercial equipment is almost >> *never* idle for 24 hours at a time. And since the meat flavouring is a >> regular product it stands to reason that it's processed every day. > Do you know this for a fact about this particular plant? Otherwise, > it's an assumption that you can make, as per Chazal. Everyone knows that it's true about *all* commercial equipment. And we have no right to "assume" something we know not to be true. Stam keilim einom bnei yomam is simply not a valid rule in the context of commercial equipment today. >> In any case, the issue here isn't keilim, since the flavouring is cold, and >> sprayed on cold chips. If it were keilim then there would be no bittul >> beshishim, since stam keilim are more than 1/60 of their contents. No, >> the issue here is the residue of actual flavouring that remains in the >> equipment after the meat flavours are run, until it is cleaned. > Which again would be batel within the first few products of the new run. It might be, if we knew the order in which the flavours are run. But they refuse to disclose that information. What we do know is that the plain chips are run first, so they're acceptable. After that all bets are off. There is no way to be sure that the packet of non-meat-flavoured chips you are eating was not the first one off the rank immediately after a meat run. >>>>> It's not Avida L'Ta'amei, etc. >>>> It's precisely avida letaama -- it's a flavouring! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 16:53:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 19:53:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> References: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150614235339.GA15695@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 01:30:46AM -0400, Ysoscher via Avodah wrote: : R. Micha, you write "I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle : applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word : in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think : "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." : : This is pure conjecture, perhaps even wishful thinking. The Rambam : shares the 7th principle in which he argues that one may disseminate : untruths for the greater good of society.... Yes, but he says it in an introduction explaining a particular kind of book -- which the Moreh is, and the Yad isn't. Whereas the Yad self-describes as being Mishneh Torah, explanation, not obfuscation. So why look to the intro to the Moreh to muddle what the Rambam himself says was the point of the Yad? In either case, the Rambam describes Yad and the Peirush haMishnayos a explanations written to be comprehensible to the masses. Moreh 2:35 (el-Qafih ["Kapach"]): Kevar bi'arti likhlal benei adam ... veheivesi ra'ayos al kakh ubirartav bePeirush haMishnah ubeMishneh Torah... : You and I as Orthodox Jews would like to believe that he believed every : word in the yad and that the stuff he says in the moreh, oftentimes : contradicting Chazal and the mesorah, was only said for the greater : good of society-he personally didn't believe them. The non-observant : philosopher, on the other hand, would say the opposite, that in the : Moreh he articulates what he really believed, not in the Yad. Actually, I tend to side with the anti-Mamonidians. Mostly because his model of redemption leaves people like my son Shuby (who has Downs) wandering around the palace with no hope of getting in. (To paraphrase 3:51.) : You then write "I am uncomfortably using the Rambam as a poster boy : for rationalism." : : I am using "rationalism" in a loose colloquial sense... Which is so loose as to be meaningless. The Rambam predated science, and followed the secular authority. Rationalism today refers to emprical and other objective proof. : That project, IMHO, failed. For every proof : proving existence there's a proof to the contrary. That is precisely : why I believe that the non-rationalist/Kabbalist approach is a better : option. They offer an a-rationalist approach ("a-rational," not to be : confused with "irrational," they're not the same). They believe because : they chose to believe not-because they are "convinced." Yeah, but so does the Gra's Qabbalah or Mussar. Mussar in particular replaces the Rambam's akrasia based on knowlege / wisdom, and therefore redemption through getting the right knowledge, with talk of first-hand experience, emotions, subconscious, etc... : You then write "...means accepting Chazal's historical and scientific : claims as being from ruach haqodesh. And not stam as meshalim." implying : that I believe that stories in Chazal or Torah are meshalim. : : [Chas lei lezar'eih deAvraham deleimru hakha]; God forbid that I should : make such a suggestion. I am saying something radically different. Well, I wouldn't lump the two together. The Rambam is far from alone in considering aggadic stories to be meshalim repeated with not concern about historicity. Much like you wrote -- an authentic attitude toward such things would be to not care about what really happened. Not to assert they are or aren't historical. (Although the Rambam would tell you to assume the wilder ones aren't historical, lest you make a joke out of the Torah -- the first two of the three katim described in his haqdamah to mishnah Cheileq.) : We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims. A : faith claim is a religious "belief" not a scientific claim... Agreed. BUT... the kind of problem I thought you were trying to address was the person who felt the Torah and academia conflict. To invoke this dichotomy to resolve the issue would be to allow people to assert ahistoricity, rather than avoiding a position altogether. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The true measure of a man micha at aishdas.org is how he treats someone http://www.aishdas.org who can do him absolutely no good. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Samuel Johnson From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 06:49:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ken Bloom via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 09:49:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What FDA Learned About Dark Chocolate and Milk Allergies Message-ID: > > > Actually it sounds to me that one very much can rely on the > > label (from this example). The trace amounts [the LBD are] talking > > about are much, much less than 1/60. Completely bateil, > > totally parve, but enough to elicit an allergic reaction. > I remember learning about a machlokes concerning whether we hold dairy > can be batel to pareve, or whether we say that since there is no loss (at > least, not the total loss that we have when something becomes nonkosher) > we should simply consider it dairy. But I don't remember how we hold on > this issue. Anyone else? > And shouldn't these questions be on Avodah? > Akiva Miller What's the machloket? Doesn't the Rema YD 99:6 clearly hold that that milk is batel in parve? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 14:00:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 17:00:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safeik and Multivalent Logic Message-ID: <20150615210040.GA17358@aishdas.org> Back on Fri, 14 May 2004 10:45am EST (yes, 11 years ago) I wrote on the thread "Valid halachic change" I wrote: > I was at a yarchei (yarei'ach? shavu'ah -- since it was only a > week?) kallah during Elul in Boston where RYBS explicitly said is wasn't. > He also speaks about multivalent logic in halakhah in numorous places > in Ish haHalakhah. From the [yarchei kallah]: > An esrog that was used for the mitzvah is qadosh and assur behana'ah > that entire day. And since it's qadosh bein hashemashos, it's gadosh > part of the next day and therefore assur behan'ah the entire next day. > RYBS asked (as do many) mimanafshach: Either BhS is part of the first > day, and there's an isur hana'ah BhS. But in that case BhS isn't part > of the next day, and on that day han'ah should be mutar. Or, BhS is part > of the 2nd day, and the issur would end BhS! > Rather, for certain sefeiqos both chalosim apply. It's only when the > chalos turns into a pe'ulah that we are forced to choose. > Therefore, one can daven either minchah or ma'ariv BhS. Even switch off > between days. But not both in the same BhS. > This is why a woman who is from safeiq chalal history (Rashi and Tosafos > disagree on details of the case) is called an "almanas issah", the widow > of a dough, a mixture. > This shtims with the teshuvas RAEiger distinguishing kol deparish meiruba > parish and kol kavu'ah kemechtzah al mechtzah. When the question is one > of pasqening on an unknown situation, we follow rov. When one is trying > to resolve a question that arose after the pesaq, rov doesn't apply. > Rov is a non-boolean state, something between yes and no. Therefore, > it does not apply after we've taken the question from the realm of > machshavah to that of ma'aseh. > Also, Rav Tzadoq (Resisei Laylah 17) distringuishes between the logic of > machshavah and that of pe'ulah, saying that when it comes to machshavah, > it's impossible to consider one thing without also considering its > opposite. RThK then develops this idea to explain eilu va'eilu as being > about real plurality. (More on this when I summarize the articles whose > URLs have been posted to the list.) I'm repeating all this because, once again, AhS Yomi showed me that something I thought I understood was more complicated than I realized. AhS OC 638:5 distinguishes between muqtza machmas mitzvah and other forms of muqtza when it comes to migo de'isqatzei bein hashemashos, isqatza'ei lekhulei yoma. And so, sukkah and its decorations (the topic of OC 688) are muqtzah the following day. But beitzah shenoledah beYT rishon is not muqtzah on the next day. So the example RYBS brings of esrog fits this pattern too -- muqtzah machmas mitzvah is muqtzah the day after it's used for the mitzvah. However, RYBS used it to make a general point about the nature of BhS, and I surmized safeiq in general. I don't understand how we can, if even withint the topic of mutqzah we find BhS acting both like a mixture of states and being in one of the two states -- although we don't know which -- depending on the kind of muqtzah we're talking about. Thoughts, anyone? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The Maharal of Prague created a golem, and micha at aishdas.org this was a great wonder. But it is much more http://www.aishdas.org wonderful to transform a corporeal person into a Fax: (270) 514-1507 "mensch"! -Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 14:44:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 17:44:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Worker or Craftsman In-Reply-To: <5579B89C.8060902@sero.name> References: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> <5579B89C.8060902@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150615214430.GA17695@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 12:34:36PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Eruvin 65a: Anan po`alei diy'mamei anan. The context is talmud Torah, and speaks to the fact that when it comes to Torah, it's the amount of learning, not the success at comprehension, that matters most. See also the Me'iri ad loc, who says simply that R' Nachman bar Yitzchaq is saying we should learn the whole day, because that's the only way we'll fully understand. Which alines with R' Zeira's statement, when he was complemented "Mechadedan shema'iskha!" and he replied "diyemama ninhu." I do not think it can be applied to my question -- whether life is a job of "be good as long as you're here", or if we each have a specific task we were put here to accomplish. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Take time, micha at aishdas.org be exact, http://www.aishdas.org unclutter the mind. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 15:01:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 18:01:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] 100% Vegetable oils etc. In-Reply-To: <20150610.215234.27464.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150610.215234.27464.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150615220103.GB17695@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 01:52:34AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : ... I would think that non-kosher flavorings cannot be batel. Bitul : is a mathematical procedure by which we can presume that the non-kosher : ingredient is not noticeable... In fact, the only time the mishnah invokes bitul beshishim is with min bemino, so that you can't tell which of two identically tasting substances one is tasting. (Chullin 7:4-5, Zevachim 8:6) Rava (Chullin 97a-b) says that if a non-Jew can be asked to taste a substance, we rely on their statement, but if not (eg min bemino), then we use batel beshishim. In contrast, Bar Kaparah holds kol issurin shebiTorah is beshishim. Ta'am is just a derabbaanan that doesn't allow us to use the fundamental 1/60 bitul. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you're going through hell micha at aishdas.org keep going. http://www.aishdas.org - Winston Churchill Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 11:20:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 14:20:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> References: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150616182036.GA13263@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 6:34pm EDT, RYK wrote: : 1) You are making the mistake many others are making as well, conflating : chassidim with chassidut. Chassidic life today has very little to do with : original chassidut. Early chassidut was a revolutionary theological : movement which appealed to a small elitist group... I thought Chassidus started out a kiruv movement, designed to bring Judaism to the kind of people Litta's focus on learning left without religion. Like the story of the boy who played his prayers on his flute, or the one who recited the alef beis over and over and begged HQBH to weave them into the right words. But in any case, to get closer to the point I intended to make... ... : 2) Kabbalah and chassidut isn't about warmth and community. It's a highly : sophisticated philosophical system which offers a nuanced alternative : to the Maimonidean/rationalist approach. : While the approach is a-rational, it isn't irrational. I am not sure how you're using "a-rational". Even after your consequent explanation (posted Sun Jun 14, 1:30am EDT): : They offer an a-rationalist approach ("a-rational," not to be : confused with "irrational," they're not the same). They believe because : they chose to believe not-because they are "convinced." What is this a-rational stance that is also highly philosophical and yet not the experiential chassidus of the nostalgic memories with which you opened your blog post? I cannot figure out what you're getting at. Contining the first post: : 3) Finally, I'm not sure I understand your point about the Rambam. The : Rambam says that he believes it is justified to fool and mislead the : masses. That to me is highly problematic. And in the follow-up post he elaborated: : R. Micha, you write "I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle : applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word : in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think : "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." In an introduction to a philosophical book he thought was a bad idea to write that he produced as a necessary evil. Thus the title of the Moreh Nevuchim. It's a tactic he had to reveal the esoteric to those ready for it while keeping it esoteric. Recall, that while we think of Pardes's "sod" as Qabbalah, to him it was more like the Moreh. In the Pesichah the Rambam limits the need of obfuscation to the topics of Maaseh haMerkavah and Maaseh Bereishis. So, after the first 5 chapters of the Yad, the whole discussion in the pesichah and haqdamah of the Moreh wouldn't apply. ... : We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims... Just like I loathe using the word rationalism because it's so vague in meaning as to just add to the confusion, let me add the word "fact". We use it to mean (a) a truth, (b) an empirical/physical truth, (c) a truth established by evidence, (d) an empirical truth established by evidence, and in legal settings: (e) the empirical evidence itself ("let me present the facts of this case"). : We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims. A : faith claim is a religious "belief" not a scientific claim... ... and therefore there is a gap between religious beliefs and scientific claims. Belief is yet another dangerous word. Knowledge is classically (Plato) defined as a justified true belief. In that sense, anything you accept as true is a belief. Other times we use belief in contrast to knowledge. A usage that ends up undermining confidence in something we seem to overtly be claiming is true. After all, if you think it's true, and you think you have real reason to think it's true, why say "believe" rather than "know"? Which gets me back to the point, I hope. You talk about belief in chassidus being an act of will. Personally, I agree with Rihal when he has the chaver note that anything one philosopher can prove, another can prove the opposite. (Kuzari 1:13) Religion isn't amenable to proof, and that's why Scholasticism, the idea of giving religion a philosophical underpinning, lost momentum centuries ago. The reasons why are two-fold: First, negi'os. People cannot really objetively think about these topics. They end up liking proofs of disliking proofs based on where they already decided things should end up. Like one of the truisms in my signature file generator says: The mind is a wonderful organ for justifying decisions the heart already reached. So, whether or not you agree that some postulate is self-evident (Kant: synthetic a priori) and therefore the proof works will depend more on whether you want to believe than actual obviousness. Second, the experiences upon which religious belief gets justified are internal. Questions of whether Shabbos, kashrus, or some of the more elegant outcomes of lomdus statisfy my Search For Meaning (Frankl) is quite a bit more difficult (usually impossible) to duplicate for someone else. Unlike a getting someone else to experience something empirical that you did by repeating a science experiment. But I think chassidic belief, even as per your description of it, is rational rather than an act of will. It's not Scholastic, expecting the kind of proof that would have make R' Saadia Gaon or the Rambam happy, but it is based on deriving a conclusion that fits one's evidence (ie experiences). I would say "rational" but not "rationalist", except that just highlights how many problems we get into throwing around the word "rationalism". This is true about how emunah works whether speaking about why people become BT, go OTD, or even if we're speaking of the Rambam. The Rambam lived in a world that didn't value non-philosophical justification, so he felt that real emunah required Scholasticism. (There was a time, not that long ago, when most people's emunah was backed by Reliabilism. My parents and community have a track record of being reliable sources of truth, so I trust them on this too.) To my mind, the difference is whether someone values the chizuq emunah of affirming that conclusions with that half of the philosophical proofs that end up in the right place. The rationalist does so, thinking that's *why* he believes (despite the Kuzari). Some of us simply enjoy philoosphy or consider such explorations to be part of talmud Torah. And others simply don't need the exercise. : a) doesn't pause to ask if it's "true" they just learn it. "Truth" : isn't a primary orientation of their encounter with toras Ha'shem. B) In : the event that he does pause to ask the "truth" question, his approach : is a-rational and unscientific... Again, if it's taken for granted as being true, truth is still at issue. Moreso, they really don't discuss truth because trueh is a given. It's like water not being the primary orientation of fish. : It truthfully and absolutely : happened in the Torah. It's not denying the claim, it's just ignoring : the scientific objective layer. Because the chasid's yiddishkeit happens : exclusively in the religious realm. Lets plow through the words and just ask outright: A chassid would take it for granted that a time traveler would find the Yam Suf divided into 13 tunnels with everything you might want available to be plucked from the walls. No? You may deprecate the importance of that historical claim to the belief system of Chassidic Judaism. I would agree that chassidim do not consider the historicity important. But the belief is there, and for reasons that speak volumes about the gap between chassidus and MO as a potential target audience. Chassidim have to accept the historicity of this midrashic elaboration of Qerias Yam Suf because maximalism and acceptance of rabbinic authority run much stronger in comparison to confidence in one's own truthometer in chassidus. Part of the value of having a rebbe is to believe he has access to truths I don't. And similarly one's rebbe's rebbes, and so on through Chazal and whomever repeated that medrash. To a community that teaches the value of other sources of knowledge, such as secular historians or other professionals, such maximalism is impossible, and therefore bitul to a rebbe will always be limited. Yes, it would be of value to realize that historical claims are non-central to religion. It makes it much easier to table any questions one might have in those areas as not being important, therefore not very pressing. Things that can wait for an answer rather than being responded to now, with what I know now, or taken as an upshlug. ... : 3) My program has nothing to do with neo-chassidut. NC is a behaviorist : movement with very little philosophical underpinning. I'm proposing a : theological program which also happens to have behavioral implications. I understood this. However, NC is an indication of what elements of chassidus actually were found useful by MO Jews. You're theorizing which elements you thought would in theory be more useful. I am asking about the difference between the two. If your theory were correct about what MO could use, wouldn't the Neo-Chassidim have locked on to those three points? IOW, I know they are different, and some idea as to how -- but why? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Weeds are flowers too micha at aishdas.org once you get to know them. http://www.aishdas.org - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 11:53:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 18:53:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Asking your questions to one authority Message-ID: <45cbca92b332457591636332317a5855@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> I'm looking for sources concerning a requirement or good advice concerning asking all your questions to one authority. According to some commentaries the mishna (actually mentioned twice) in Avot concerning aseih lcha rav points in this direction as does the gemara in eiruvin on not picking all the leniencies of both beit hillel and shammai. OTOH the gemara in avodah zara about not asking 2 rabbis is interpreted as applying only to the particular question at hand. From a Brisker theory angle wouldn't the existence of overarching theoretical constructs argue that all your questions should go to one authority so as to avoid the possible tartei dsatrei on a meta-theory basis (i.e. psak in kashrut case a may share a construct with psak in business case b)? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 13:36:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 16:36:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Asking your questions to one authority In-Reply-To: <45cbca92b332457591636332317a5855@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> References: <45cbca92b332457591636332317a5855@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <558088EA.2070102@sero.name> On 06/16/2015 02:53 PM, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > From a Brisker theory angle wouldn?t the existence of overarching > theoretical constructs argue that all your questions should go to one > authority so as to avoid the possible tartei dsatrei on a meta-theory > basis (i.e. psak in kashrut case a may share a construct with psak in > business case b)? Hilchesa keRav be'isurei vechiShmuel bedinei. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 16:30:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 19:30:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why Chassidut In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150616233048.00B061836ED@nexus.stevens.edu> At 02:20 PM 6/16/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: > From Rav Yehoshua Shapira (my quick translation) > >The idea that Chassidut?s positive atmosphere isn?t obligatory is a >serious mistake. Not only is it obligatory, but it brings with it more >obligations. Without emphasis on the Mitzvot of ahava and yirah, simcha >and deveikut (which are the soul of the 613 mitzvot) the mitzvot remain >external actions, technical, something which doesn?t affect or uplift >the heart and soul. > >Those doreitta mitzvot, which are the pinimiot of all mitzvoth, demand >from a person and from us to give their entire being when doing a >mitzvah. . . .. In the performance of mitzvoth, God wants our hearts. >Therefore, Chassidut definitely demands deep dedication. > The following is from Rav Dr. Y. Breuer's Essay "Our Way" that appears in the collection of Rav Breuer's essays titled A Unique Perspective. One should not confuse Chassidus with the so-called Chassidic movement that began in Poland in the 18th century. The latter met the needs of the Jewish masses who lived in terrible misery, and thus spread rapidly. Tefillah was projected into the foreground, from which flowed strength and faith in God; dances and songs induced enthusiasm and joyfulness; the stress on human and hu- mane qualities increased the self-respect of the impoverished. Thus, without a doubt, Chassidism saved these Jewish masses. However, the resulting frequent neglect of Torah study led to justified protest by Torah giants and caused a regrettable inner rift, which was subsequently healed when a great Chassidic leader returned the study of Torah to its rightful central position. Genuine Chassidic Jewishness strives for Chassidus, which in itself is a lofty achievement on the ethical ladder which the Yehudi must attempt to climb. This is demonstrated for us by R. Pinchas ben Yair (Avodah Zarah 20b): Our highest duty is Torah and its study; this leads to carefulness which in turn leads to active striving; to guiltlessness; to purity; to holiness; to modesty; to the fear of sin; and, finally, to Chassidus. Accordingly, a Chassid is a Jew who gives himself in limitless love to the Divine Will and its realization, and to whom the welfare of his fellowmen constitutes the highest source of satisfaction (see Chorev, Ch. 14). Thus, in the Talmudic era, the title ?Chassid? was a mark of highest distinction ? and this is what it should be today. The so-called Chassid who confines his Avodah to prayer does not deserve this title, as this ?Avodah of the heart? does not call him to the Avodah of life where he must practice and apply the precepts of Chassidus. He does not deserve this title if he is particular regarding the kashrus of his food but fails to apply the precepts of conscientiousness and honesty to his business dealings. He does not deserve this title if his social life is not permeated by love and deep interest in the welfare of his fellowmen; if he does not shun quarreling, envy or even abominable lashon harah; if he does not earnestly strive to acquire those midos for which Rav Hirsch (in his Chorev) calls so eloquently. Certainly the mere exhibition of a certain type of clothing or the type of beard worn or even the adornment of long sideburns does not entitle the bearer to the title of honor?Chassid. These may be marks of distinction ? but they must be earned to be deserved. Even study of the Zohar does not necessarily signify the attainment of Chassidus. If this were so, only a few chosen ones would be eligible. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 23:03:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2015 09:03:25 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] If and When In-Reply-To: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 5:00 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > Please note: In the excerpt of the Mechilta which the Torah Temimah quotes > regarding the mizbe'ach, R' Yishmael says that there are 3 cases where "im" > is not optional, but the other two are not specified. This is very > different than the Torah Temimah about lending money. > > Torah Temimah Shmos 22:198 does quotes R' Yishmael in the Mechilta, but it > doesn't mention the word "im" explicitly, nor is there any reference to two > other cases. He simply asks whether it is a reshus or a chovah to lend > money, and he answers that the obligation appears in Parshas Re'eh. I find > it curious that this Mechilta is worded so differently than the previous > one, but the message is clearly the same. You see this quite often in the Torah Temima when a derasha says something about a number of pesukim in parallel. He quotes the same source in each place, but redacts it so that it appears to be referencing only that specific verse. An example in last week's parasha is the Yerushalmi that all 10 commandments are referenced in Kiryat Shma`, quoted on 15:39 and 41 (OK, not such a close parallel because in that case he does make the cross-reference and quotes the whole passage on Shemot 20:2, but there are plenty of other examples) In any case, inside the Mechilta on both verses in Shemot all three "im"s are listed each time, including bikkurim. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=38109&st=&pgnum=245 http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=38109&st=&pgnum=317 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 17 02:14:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2015 05:14:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Talks by Rav Shimon Schwab, ZT"L Message-ID: <20150617091410.A8547183759@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://torahdownloads.com/shiur-24386.html YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 17 04:00:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2015 07:00:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] =?iso-8859-1?q?Soul_Terminology=2C_and_Expressions_of_Lo?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ve=3A_Proper_Frum_Expression_In_The_Lens_of_the_Ashkenaz_T?= =?iso-8859-1?q?radition_=96_Gleanings__From_Rav_Shimon_Schwab?= Message-ID: <20150617110051.2F7B9183762@nexus.stevens.edu> Please see http://tinyurl.com/q64ehha YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 18 06:50:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2015 09:50:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Ishbaal's Jar Message-ID: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> According to TOI or , discusses finding a jar that dates to around 1020-980 BCE (Iron Age), breating the name the name of Ishbaal ben Beda. Ishbaal is Divrei HaYamim's name for the son of Shaul whom seifer Shemuel calls Ishboshet. (Probably because bearing the name of Baal is a bushah.) Allegedly "Among Judeans, personal names evoking Baal fell out of fashion after the 10th century, but not so among their Israelite cousins to the north." Lisa, does any of this relate to strengthening or weakening the case for revisionist dating? (Newcomers might wish to see the Jewish Action article Lisa has on her site at to understand why I asked.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person must be very patient micha at aishdas.org even with himself. http://www.aishdas.org - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 18 07:43:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2015 17:43:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Ishbaal's Jar In-Reply-To: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> References: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 4:50 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > According to TOI < > http://www.timesofisrael.com/inscription-bearing-name-from-davidic-era-found-at-ancient-site > > > or , discusses finding a jar that dates to around > 1020-980 BCE (Iron Age), breating the name the name of Ishbaal ben Beda. > See also http://bit.ly/1F2HFD9 (= https://www.academia.edu/12775087/The_%CA%BEI%C5%A1ba%CA%BFal_Inscription_from_Khirbet_Qeiyafa) for a more detailed excavation report. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 19 11:46:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 13:46:46 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Ishbaal's Jar In-Reply-To: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> References: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55846396.5000207@starways.net> On 6/18/2015 8:50 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > According to TOI > or , discusses finding a jar that dates to around > 1020-980 BCE (Iron Age), breating the name the name of Ishbaal ben Beda. > > Ishbaal is Divrei HaYamim's name for the son of Shaul whom seifer > Shemuel calls Ishboshet. (Probably because bearing the name of Baal > is a bushah.) The standard form for names in most of the ancient near east was DN-stem, or stem-DN, where DN is a divine name. We have this pattern ourselves with names like Chizki-Yahu and N'tan-El, or El-Chanan and Yeho-natan. From what I've seen, it wasn't unheard of for people to refer to the same person, but exchange the DN. So Ish-Boshet for Ish-Baal is in line with Hado-Ram (I Chron 18:10) for Yo-Ram (II Sam 8:10), or Hado-Ram (II Sam 20:24, I Kings 12:18, II Chron 10:18) for Adoni-Ram (I Kings 4:6, 5:28). I don't see any indication that this pattern of name was different towards the beginning or towards the end of the monarchy. That said, Baal in particular sort of declined after the time of Eliyahu. They had newer avodah zarahs to play with. I don't really see a lot of chronological significance here. Yes, they did some radiometric dating, but as always, I would take that with grain of salt until I saw the raw results. When you send something for carbon dating, you tell them first what your target date is, so that they can discard results that are off from that too significantly. Not very scientific, but I guess it's "science-y". Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 19 13:38:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 16:38:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Soul Terminology, and Expressions of Love: Proper Frum Expression In The Lens of the Ashkenaz Tradition ? Gleanings From Rav Shimon Schwab In-Reply-To: <20150617110051.2F7B9183762@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150617110051.2F7B9183762@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150619203804.GA23818@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 17, 2015 at 07:00:53AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Please see http://tinyurl.com/q64ehha On the second example, I'm reminded of the Soloveitchik tradition that emotions are the Qodesh haQadashim of avodas Hashem. And therefore while RSSschwab's position was depited as: > Nowadays one at times witnesses public statements, in the form of songs, > declarations, and even bumper stickers, proclaiming [HQBH anachnu ohavim > Osakh!] (Hashem, we love you), an expression that was not commonly heard > shouted aloud in the past in our circles. Is that in consonance with our > [Mesorah]? Rav Schwab (in his address entitled Internalizing Eternity) > states the following (after 33:20) Since Ahavas Hashem is such a strictly > personal matter, he who truly loves Hashem does not show his [Ahavah]. He > rather hides it. It is far too intimate to parade it in public. He is > mekayeim [vehatzneia lekhes im E-lokekha]. It is exclusively his private > affair, between him and his Creator. Briskers would not expose any emotion. And so, when RYBS left for Berlin, R' Moshe took him to the train station, but there was no emotional goodbye. Even though RMF didn't know if he would ever see his son (and chavrusah) again. RYBS said he knew his father's feelings at the moment, he just knew that he would never display it publicly. Just a simple "Leikh leshalom HQBH zul dir matzliach zein!" Story told far better, in RYBS's own words here In any case, the Brisker approach doesn't speak to too many people in this generation. I would bet many of us would consider it less-than-positive. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger One who kills his inclination is as though he micha at aishdas.org brought an offering. But to bring an offering, http://www.aishdas.org you must know where to slaughter and what Fax: (270) 514-1507 parts to offer. - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 22 06:53:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2015 09:53:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kuntros chasidei umos haolam Message-ID: <0ce401d0acf2$c108d8f0$431a8ad0$@com> The was once a link posted here to a Kuntros chasidei umos haolam (In hebrew) from a Rav in south Africa (I think he was an Ohr Samach graduate) Does anyone have it or a link to it? Thanks, mc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 22 14:32:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2015 17:32:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Two Levels of Bitachon Message-ID: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is from Rav Schwab on Chumash Parshas Shelach. We suggest the following explanation: Hashem demands bitachon of every Jew - trust in Hashem that everything will turn out for the best, without worrying about what the future might bring. Throughout the generations, devout Jews have walked this path. A person with bitachon ultimately will merit to see clearly that, indeed, "All that Hashem does is for the best." There are two types of bitachon. The first is trusting in Hashem with "closed eyes," with no speculation about what may develop. However, there is a second kind of bitachon that is even greater than the first. This is the bitachon of "open eyes." One who follows this path looks ahead and sees clearly that the future might entail great danger, that his life may be full of trials and tribulations. Nevertheless, he does not hesitate, relying on Hashem to help him deal with whatever the future will hold. This kind of bitachon is greater than the first, because someone who trusts in :Hashem with "open eyes" must elevate his bitachon to a much higher level in order to overcome his worries and quiet his concerns. However, as great as this second path is, it is fraught with danger. There is a strong possibility that instead of overcoming one's fears and worries, one will be vanquished by them. A "realistic" evaluation of the challenges could be so frightening as to cause one to lose his bitachon in Hashem altogether. Therefore, :although the bitachon of "open eyes" might be appropriate for certain great people, Hashem does not demand it of us. Hashem only requires us to have the bitachon of "closed eyes"; we need only trust that everything will turn out for the best, in accordance with His will, without considering what the future might hold. This is implied in the pasuk (Yeshayahu 12:2), 11) Behold the G-d of salvation; I shall trust in Him, and I will not fear. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 12:26:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 21:26:11 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Two Levels of Bitachon In-Reply-To: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <5589B2D3.5030908@zahav.net.il> I'm not sure what this is in reference to, the sin of the spies? What does it mean, to live ones life without worrying about the future? You trust in God so therefore you're calm (meaning you live your life the same way anyone else does, but you have inner peace)? Ben On 6/22/2015 11:32 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > We suggest the following explanation: Hashem demands bitachon of every > Jew - trust > in Hashem that everything will turn out for the best, without worrying > about > what the future might bring. Throughout the generations, devout Jews > have walked > this path. A person with bitachon ultimately will merit to see clearly > that, indeed, > "All that Hashem does is for the best." From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 14:34:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 17:34:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Two Levels of Bitachon In-Reply-To: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150623213434.GA30077@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 22, 2015 at 05:32:42PM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : The following is from Rav Schwab on Chumash Parshas Shelach. ... : There are two types of bitachon. The first is trusting in Hashem with "closed : eyes," with no speculation about what may develop. However, there is : a second kind : of bitachon that is even greater than the first. This is the : bitachon of "open eyes." : One who follows this path looks ahead and sees clearly that the : future might entail : great danger, that his life may be full of trials and tribulations. : Nevertheless, he : does not hesitate, relying on Hashem to help him deal with whatever : the future will : hold... I just want to point out that RSS here is assuming the descriptive bitachon of the CI, not the prescrictive bitachon of Novhardok (and many kiruv programs and religious fiction). The Alter of Novhardok taught that bitachon causes positive results. If you trust G-d enough, He will make things turn out the way you desire. And when you point out to said public speaker that indeed life doesn't work that way this idea gets modified into: Hashem will make things turn out the way you'll be happy with once you get to the end of the road. And while I'm being cynical about it, this is unassailable. If things don't yet have a happy ending, it just means the story isn't over yet. You can just push the long run out further and further until you find the happy outcome you promised. In Emunah uBitchon, the CI rejects this notion. He says that bitachon is belief that things are working out according to Divine Plan. A believe in how things run, not a belief that causes things to run right. Rather than the comfort of knowing that you'll like the results, one aims for the comfort that all of life's suffering has meaning and a purpose. RSS presumes the latter and appears to be saying that one can then take this trust in two different ways: - Since Hashem is driving, I don't need to bother looking out the windsheild, it will just stress me out for nothing. - Hashem and I are in partnership, so I cannot refrain from helping Him bring us to our destination, even when it involves heading for trials and tribulations. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is a stage and we are the actors, micha at aishdas.org but only some of us have the script. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Menachem Nissel Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 15:56:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Toby Katz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 18:56:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book Message-ID: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> I recently came across the issue of Jewish Action (the OU's quarterly magazine) of Fall 2000 and in that issue there was a remarkable article. It was a review of a two-volume book called *The Rav: The World of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik* by Rabbi Dr. Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff. The review article was written by R' Philip Weinberger. It was a very laudatory review, written by someone who admired and respected RYBS and who thought the book was excellent. It's important to note that he respected RYBS and admired the book, because when you see what I am going to quote from the review, you might think otherwise. But if you read the whole review you will clearly see that what looks like a negative to me is clearly seen as a positive by R' Weinberger. http://ou.org.s3.amazonaws.com/publications/ja/5761fall/BOOKS.PDF OK here goes -- the most interesting parts of the review (I have mostly dispensed with ellipses, which are distracting): --quote-- [The book] focused my attention on a paradox that confronts me every time a new book or article appears about the saintly Rabbi Soloveitchik, zt"l. In the latter part of the twentieth century, the Rav was one of the most outstanding rabbinic titans, teaching and leading the Jewish people. A master of communication, orally and in print, he left behind multitudes of devoted students and admirers who still hang on his every word. Yet the Rav seems to have left a legacy that is unclear and misunderstood, despite his gifted powers of communication. Among the numerous questions, debated passionately by those who represent themselves as knowing the Rav's authentic thinking, are: What was the Rav's view toward secular education; Torah u'Madda; new religious practices by women; reciting Hallel on Yom HaAtzma'ut; and Religious Zionism? There is a raging battle among his followers as to who may legitimately and authentically present the Rav's opinions, thoughts, ideas and teachings. How could so careful a teacher, who could literally spend hours at a time in shiurim defining with precision the meaning of a particular word or phrase, be misunderstood on so many basic and critical issues? The Rav himself, despite his best efforts, was misunderstood and misquoted in his lifetime by able people who presumably had the best of intentions. The Rav illustrates that he was misunderstood by journalists because of their lack of familiarity with the Rav's precise use of language and terminology, and because the Rav's thoughts, ideas and speech were extraordinarily nuanced, delicate, subtle and sophisticated. However, the book falls short, even on its own terms, in its failure to more deeply explore the complexity and nuances of the Rav's thoughts and insights that were influenced by the religious, existential, and personal tensions that the Rav experienced and talked about. Similarly, the book does not treat much of the controversy that sometimes surrounded the Rav in a meaningful way. There is no acknowledgment of how the Rav was inappropriately treated and often marginalized in the yeshivah universe because of his embracing secular studies and Religious Zionism (albeit in a disciplined and highly nuanced manner)... in a letter to Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Shragai, the Rav writes : "If I were to judge this matter (which party to associate with) based on pragmatic or political considerations, I would join the zealots who ask nothing of their members (not diligence in Torah study, not pure fear of Heaven, nor spending money on tzedakah, nor excessive care with regard to mitzvot) except to besmirch our movement. I could clothe myself with the mantle of a tzaddik and 'fighter of the Lord's battles.' " This and other letters to Rabbi Shragai show clearly what a man of principle the Rav was. ...Scholars and laymen alike are indebted to Rabbi Rakeffet for his vital work. --end quote-- Well, you can see why this review would interest me. Let's take a few points: [1] "The Rav seems to have left a legacy that is unclear and misunderstood, despite his gifted powers of communication." I would suggest that the end of the sentence is contradicted by the beginning of the sentence. The main thing that the Rav generally managed to communicate was that one could be a great Torah scholar and also be a brilliant intellectual in secular terms. This was not the text but the ur-text of much of what he wrote. I will add that he did this not for his own honor but for the honor of the Torah, which was often treated with contempt by mid-twentieth century Jews who were rapidly abandoning the Torah. But his opaque Germanic philosophical style of speaking and writing was by its very nature open to multiple interpretations, and could neither be summarized nor re-written in plain American English. [2] "Among the numerous questions, debated passionately by those who represent themselves as knowing the Rav's authentic thinking, are: What was the Rav's view toward secular education; Torah u'Madda; new religious practices by women; reciting Hallel on Yom HaAtzma'ut; and Religious Zionism?" I would have to say that this is a highly unusual thing to say of any gadol. Of which other gadol could it be said that after he taught and wrote for decades, no one could be sure what his position was on the most important issues of his day? [2A] "What was the Rav's view toward Religious Zionism?" and "his embracing Religious Zionism (albeit in a disciplined and highly nuanced manner)..." Those of us who have claimed (based admittedly, at times, on anecdotal evidence and oral reports) that RYBS was not really a Zionist have often been vilified. Yet here a great admirer of RYBS admits that his views were far from obvious, and subject to much disagreement even among his followers. That RYBS was a great lover of Eretz Yisrael -- of that there can be no doubt. That he really believed in the whole aschalta de'geulah ideology of RZ -- highly doubtful. The rest can be left for another time, or another book. [3] "How could so careful a teacher, who could literally spend hours at a time in shiurim defining with precision the meaning of a particular word or phrase, be misunderstood on so many basic and critical issues?" It may be that in a Gemara shiur, trying to define a word with great precision may lead to greater understanding, but out here in the larger world, such precise definitions tend to leave most people scratching their heads. Common everyday words lose their accepted, common meanings, and the many sentences used to define those words lead to greater obscurity rather than clarity. "When I use a word, it means precisely what I want it to mean." But his listeners or readers are often left in the dark. [4] "The Rav was misunderstood...because his thoughts, ideas and speech were extraordinarily nuanced, delicate, subtle and sophisticated." The impression left by all that subtlety and nuance is that he was trying to avoid saying anything controversial that could be quoted in a sound bite. [5] "There is no acknowledgment of how the Rav was inappropriately treated and often marginalized in the yeshivah universe" [6] "...the zealots who ask nothing of their members (not diligence in Torah study, not pure fear of Heaven, nor spending money on tzedakah, nor excessive care with regard to mitzvot) except to besmirch our movement. I could clothe myself with the mantle of a tzaddik and 'fighter of the Lord's battles...' " Maybe [6] at least partially explains [5]. Maybe the way he felt about them was reflected in the way they felt about him. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 17:52:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 00:52:25 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> References: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> Message-ID: Let's take a few points: [1] "The Rav seems to have left a legacy that is unclear and misunderstood, despite his gifted powers of communication." I would suggest that the end of the sentence is contradicted by the beginning of the sentence. [2] "Among the numerous questions, debated passionately by those who represent themselves as knowing the Rav's authentic thinking, are: What was the Rav's view toward secular education; Torah u'Madda; new religious practices by women; reciting Hallel on Yom HaAtzma'ut; and Religious Zionism?" [2A] "What was the Rav's view toward Religious Zionism?" and "his embracing Religious Zionism (albeit in a disciplined and highly nuanced manner)..." [3] "How could so careful a teacher, who could literally spend hours at a time in shiurim defining with precision the meaning of a particular word or phrase, be misunderstood on so many basic and critical issues?" [4] "The Rav was misunderstood...because his thoughts, ideas and speech were extraordinarily nuanced, delicate, subtle and sophisticated." The impression left by all that subtlety and nuance is that he was trying to avoid saying anything controversial that could be quoted in a sound bite. [5] "There is no acknowledgment of how the Rav was inappropriately treated and often marginalized in the yeshivah universe" [6] "...the zealots who ask nothing of their members (not diligence in Torah study, not pure fear of Heaven, nor spending money on tzedakah, nor excessive care with regard to mitzvot) except to besmirch our movement. I could clothe myself with the mantle of a tzaddik and 'fighter of the Lord's battles...' " Maybe [6] at least partially explains [5]. Maybe the way he felt about them was reflected in the way they felt about him. _______________________________________________ I remember reading the original review and being very surprised. [1]&[2]&[3] My general impression is that most of the lack of clarity and misunderstandings are on issues that have little to do with the style issue. I don't think many get concerned about whether Adam I and II ever resolve their dialectic . The main cause of misunderstandings imho can be generously stated as being caused by The Rav's being so sui generis that students could not assimilate the whole of his teachings. The less generous approach would be that some want to be toleh on an ilan gadol and project their own priorities and approaches on him. Could anyone who looked at his life as a whole have any doubt that he valued secular studies? That he was a non-messianic RZ lover of eretz Yisrael seems pretty clear. [4]Or how about the world is complex and our desire (btw very reflective of our host society) is to boil everything down to a sound bite goes against the educational need to understand how to look at complex issues [6]explaining [5] seems to me like the classic blaming the victim for "asking for it". I can only assume the fact that other roshei yeshiva didn't publically call for tolerance was that they did think he, and MO, was krum or they had higher priorities or didn't think their talmidim would listen to them. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 18:07:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 21:07:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: References: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> Message-ID: <20150624010730.GA18745@aishdas.org> Both Ishbitz and Chabad, Rushin and Satmar each beleive theirs is the most accurate understanding of Derekh haBhesh"t. Kelm, Novhardok and Slabodka have very different understandings of R Yisrael Salanter's teachings. RAYK's disagree over what their rebbe meant. Even Moshe Rabbeinu -- he had 70 front-row talmidim and ever since we have had 70 panim laTorah. Any gadol brilliant and subtle enough to be worth following will so outstrip his talmidim that each only grasps onto one facet and interpretation of a more complex original. This is far from unique to RYBS. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you're going through hell micha at aishdas.org keep going. http://www.aishdas.org - Winston Churchill Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 19:01:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 22:01:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: <20150624010730.GA18745@aishdas.org> References: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> <20150624010730.GA18745@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <558A0F65.7090501@sero.name> On 06/23/2015 09:07 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Both Ishbitz and Chabad, Rushin and Satmar each beleive theirs is the > most accurate understanding of Derekh haBhesh"t. Satmar doesn't believe this; rather, it believes that the BSh"T's torah has been lost. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 19:21:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 22:21:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kol Isha Twist Message-ID: <558A1421.3060009@gmail.com> See http://www.kikar.co.il/174128.html or http://www.totpi.com/2/ultra-orthodox-woman-performs-incognito-on-the-x-factor/ It's an interesting loophole: Since kol b'isha erva only applies when you know what a woman looks like, the heavy sunglasses and very modest dress may do the trick. Not middas chassidus, but perhaps on a technicality permitted. KT, YGB -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 07:35:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 10:35:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kol Isha Twist In-Reply-To: <558A1421.3060009@gmail.com> References: <558A1421.3060009@gmail.com> Message-ID: <558AC044.2010107@sero.name> On 06/23/2015 10:21 PM, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah wrote: > > It's an interesting loophole: Since kol b'isha erva only applies when > you know what a woman looks like, the heavy sunglasses and very > modest dress may do the trick. Not middas chassidus, but perhaps on a > technicality permitted. I don't see anything in the two linked articles about such a loophole. And I don't think it would work. Surely you can see enough of her to form some idea, perhaps mistaken, but enough for the yetzer hara to work with. I think the true heter for what she's doing is a lot simpler: she is not machshil anyone, because whoever is watching the show is already seeing and hearing enough women sing that one more makes no difference at all. If she didn't sing, then in all likelihood another woman would do so, wearing much less and acting more provocatively; or else a man would be giving some provocative performance that would be almost as bad. So really what has she done wrong? Those who don't normally watch should continue not to watch, and they won't be affected. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 08:33:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kaganoff via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 11:33:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating Message-ID: I am curious if anyone has written about a common practice. We assume that *Kaddish* is a *Devar she-Bikdusha* and requires a *minyan* to be recited. We require separate seating for a *Devar she-Bikdusha.* In many circles it is not uncommon to have a *siyyum* with a *kaddish *at a Bar Mitzvah or a Dinner even when there is mixed seating. Does anyone explicitly discuss this practice and permit it? Yonatan Kaganoff -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 11:38:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 14:38:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150624183849.GA2711@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 11:33:54AM -0400, Kaganoff via Avodah wrote: : We require separate seating for a *Devar she-Bikdusha.* This is news to me. Do those who say that zimmun with a minyan is a davar shebiqdushah (BY OC 199 "umah shekasav", MB s"q 15) require separate seating at my shabbos table? The AhS (200:6) refers to zimun with 10 as "shekhinta sharia", but I didn't see him mention minyan or davar shebiqdushah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 11:52:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 14:52:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating Message-ID: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> From: Kaganoff via Avodah We assume that *Kaddish* is a *Devar she-Bikdusha* and requires a *minyan* to be recited. We require separate seating for a *Devar she-Bikdusha.* In many circles it is not uncommon to have a *siyyum* with a *kaddish *at a Bar Mitzvah or a Dinner even when there is mixed seating. Does anyone explicitly discuss this practice and permit it? Yonatan Kaganoff >>>> You see something similar when people make an ad hoc minyan at a wedding (or an airport lounge). They don't put up a mechitza. Is this situation explicitly discussed in the halachic literature? It must be. Maybe what applies to one also applies to the other. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 12:32:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 15:32:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating In-Reply-To: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> References: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> Message-ID: <20150624193208.GA22316@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 2:52pm EDT, RnTK wrote: : From: Kaganoff via Avodah :> We assume that Kaddish is a Devar she-Bikdusha and requires a minyan :> to be recited. :> We require separate seating for a Devar she-Bikdusha. : You see something similar when people make an ad hoc minyan at a wedding : (or an airport lounge). They don't put up a mechitza... Slight topic change. You can have separate seating (or locations in general) without a mechitzah. I believe that minyanim were held at the kotel even when the Ottomans didn't let us put up a mechitzah by separating the genders even without one. I see R YH Henkin (Responsa on Contemporary Jewish Women's Issues, pg 124 ) rejects the hava amina that mechitzah is only for an established shul. He requires a mechitzah, not just separate seating at a temporary location for davening. While a minyan is there, the laws of mara miqdash apply. I do not whether he would advised the yishuv hayashan not to daven at the kotel. Tir'u baTov! -Micha Cc: RYHH -- Micha Berger The trick is learning to be passionate in one's micha at aishdas.org ideals, but compassionate to one's peers. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 12:21:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 19:21:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating In-Reply-To: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> References: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> Message-ID: <9d095a46ac044dd88d591c13b05195d1@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Yonatan Kaganoff >>>> You see something similar when people make an ad hoc minyan at a wedding (or an airport lounge). They don't put up a mechitza. Is this situation explicitly discussed in the halachic literature? It must be. Maybe what applies to one also applies to the other. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=922&st=&pgnum=66 where R' Moshe deals with the Mechitza issue but still requires that there not be intermingling. That's the part I'm unsure of. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 16:34:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 19:34:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safeik and Multivalent Logic In-Reply-To: <20150615210040.GA17358@aishdas.org> References: <20150615210040.GA17358@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150624233428.GA29242@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 15, 2015 at 05:00:40PM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : Back on Fri, 14 May 2004 10:45am EST (yes, 11 years ago) I wrote : on the thread : "Valid halachic change" I wrote: :> I was at a yarchei ... kallah during Elul in Boston where RYBS... :> An esrog that was used for the mitzvah is qadosh and assur behana'ah :> that entire day. And since it's qadosh bein hashemashos, it's gadosh :> part of the next day and therefore assur behan'ah the entire next day. ... :> Rov is a non-boolean state, something between yes and no. Therefore, :> it does not apply after we've taken the question from the realm of :> machshavah to that of ma'aseh. : I'm repeating all this because, once again, AhS Yomi showed me that : something I thought I understood was more complicated than I realized. : AhS OC 638:5 distinguishes between muqtza machmas : mitzvah and other forms of muqtza when it comes to migo de'isqatzei bein : hashemashos, isqatza'ei lekhulei yoma. : And so, sukkah and its decorations (the topic of OC 688) are muqtzah the : following day. But beitzah shenoledah beYT rishon is not muqtzah on the : next day. More info at AhS OC 667:1, which distinguishes between sukkah and 4 minim on Shemini Atzeres. Because sukkah would actually be used bein hashmeshos between the 7th day Sukkos and SA (speaking of EY now), a sukkah and its decorations are muqtzah on SA. The esrog, because the mitzvah would habe been done before BhS either way, is not. It would seem the point in 638:5 appears not to be that mutzah machamas mitzvah is special, but because the mitzvah would still apply BhS. : Thoughts, anyone? Still looking for other perspectives! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 25 02:54:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 09:54:58 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book Message-ID: <20150625.055458.3550.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Even Moshe Rabbeinu -- he had 70 front-row talmidim and ever since > we have had 70 panim laTorah. > > Any gadol brilliant and subtle enough to be worth following will > so outstrip his talmidim that each only grasps onto one facet and > interpretation of a more complex original. > > This is far from unique to RYBS. Here's my guess about what made RYBS unique in this regard: On the one hand, he did have his opinions about many things. But that was NOT what he tried to pass on to his talmidim. In fact, he is famous for NOT answering many of the questions posed to him. What RYBS wanted was for his talmidim to be able to decide for themselves. He never wanted to teach his talmidim WHAT to think, but HOW to think. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Buffett???s Warning for YOU 4 in 5 Americans aren???t taking his shocking advice. Click here now. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/558bd00ca32f7500c77efst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 25 08:10:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 11:10:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: <20150625.055458.3550.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150625.055458.3550.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150625151002.GD10708@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 25, 2015 at 09:54:58AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: :> This is far from unique to RYBS. : Here's my guess about what made RYBS unique in this regard: On the : one hand, he did have his opinions about many things. But that was NOT : what he tried to pass on to his talmidim. In fact, he is famous for NOT : answering many of the questions posed to him. What RYBS wanted was for : his talmidim to be able to decide for themselves. He never wanted to : teach his talmidim WHAT to think, but HOW to think. I realize that this is about to get meta, because I'm about to disagree with RAM about RYBS's position and why people disagree about what it was. I thin this is overplayed. Yes, he pushed fledgling rabbis to assert themselves as LOR and not defer every halachic question. But he didn't do this with every talmid, nor with every question. I think people are taking a pedagogic technique used for talmidim to scared to pasqen and turning it into a principle. Im kein ein ladavar sof, and there is no way to say he took positions for anyone but himself and his mispalelim in Boston and Moriah. No Qol Dodi Dofeiq promoting Zionism, no attack on RERackman's beis din, etc... And besides, we aren't talking about whether his talmidim vary, but why the talmidim's understandings of the rebbe's position varied. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Never must we think that the Jewish element micha at aishdas.org in us could exist without the human element http://www.aishdas.org or vice versa. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 25 08:56:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 15:56:25 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Hakarat Hatov Message-ID: Does Hakarat Hatov engender a measurable "liability" (e.g. require a marginally greater action) between the recipient and the provider of the "Tov", or is saying "Thank you, I appreciate it" the only requirement? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 26 01:19:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2015 11:19:39 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book Message-ID: <> In addition like many others RYBS gave different answers to different people depending on the person and circumstances. As a simple example he encouraged his talmidim to move to EY but told some to stay in the US. Also RYBS was big believer in everyone making their own decisions and not simply doing what they were told. Hence, he avoided certain statements so that his talmidim would make up their own minds. It is well known that all the children of RYBS got a PhD. Even his nephew R Meiselman the most charedi in the family received this degree from MIT. Nevertheless he never publically stressed this idea probably because he felt it was a very individual decision -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 27 19:37:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2015 22:37:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government Message-ID: Gut voch to all, What alternative texts exist for the tefillah l'shlom malchus? I have heard that other versions exist, perhaps more suited for a Republic than is "Hanosen teshua la-melachim", but the only version I could find comes from a Conservative source -- putting me in the same situation as R' Eliezer ben Hyrcanus upon hearing a good "vort" in the name of Ben Pandera. Can anyone point me to appropriate sources? --Chesky Salomon From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 27 20:29:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2015 23:29:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: An hour or so ago, I wrote: > What alternative texts exist for the tefillah l'shlom malchus? I remember this topic coming up in the past, though I have not been successful in searching the archives for it. I did find an article by Dr Jonathan Sarna, "A Forgotten 19th-Century Prayer for the United States Government: Its Meaning, Significance, and Surprising Author" [1] which pointed to the "Orthodox prayerbook for American Jews entitled Tefilot Yisra'el. Prayers of Israel. with an English Translation." The variant text Sarna discusses, "Ribbon kol ha-olamim", can be seen at -- but he makes the case that the prayer's author was Rabbi Max Lilienthal, leaving me in the same position as before. (As a side note: I recall one of the J-blogs mentioning a Tefillah for the State written for 1930s Germany under the Nazi government, but I cannot find the post again. Any help?) --Chesky Salomon [1]: http://www.brandeis.edu/hornstein/sarna/americanjewishcultureandscholarship/Archive3/AForgottenNineteenthCenturyPrayerfortheUnitedStatesGovenment.pdf From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 29 05:29:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mordechai Harris via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2015 07:29:07 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Here's the one I shard last time from the De Sola Pool Siddur. -Mordechai - Please excuse typos as this was sent from my cell phone. On Jun 28, 2015 2:59 PM, "Chesky Salomon via Avodah" wrote: > An hour or so ago, I wrote: >> What alternative texts exist for the tefillah l'shlom malchus? > I remember this topic coming up in the past, though I have not been > successful in searching the archives for it... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 29 15:15:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 01:15:23 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jun 29, 2015 at 3:29 PM, Mordechai Harris via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > Here's the one I shard last time from the De Sola Pool Siddur. > > Can you also share the publication details and/or title page of this siddur? What I know as the De Sola Pool Siddur is not the same as in this link. I have the second edition of 1977, and the title page says: BOOK OF PRAYER ACCORDING TO THE CUSTOM OF THE SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE JEWS Edited and translated by DAVID DE SOLA POOL Minister of the Congregation Shearith Israel in the City of New York PUBLISHED BY THE UNION OF SEPHARDIC CONGREGATIONS NEW YORK The prayer for the government begins with the usual "Hanoten teshu`a lamelachim" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 11:55:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Arie Folger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 20:55:34 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government Message-ID: Someone asked about alternate texts of the prayer for the government, more attuned to democracies. I have adapted the classic hanoten teshuah lamelakhim for the US, with variant readings for Canada, for inclusion in the still forthcoming new revised RCA Siddur. Send me a message through my web site (see the sig) and I will gladly share that text with you. -- Yours sincerely, Mit freundlichen Gr??en, Arie Folger blogging at http://www.rabbifolger.net/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 10:22:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Baruch Cohen via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 10:22:13 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] BIRCHAT KOHANIM AT THE KOTEL Message-ID: I plan on being in Israel for Sukkot, and hope to be at the Kotel for Birchat Kohanim. I usually daven early every morning, and the Birchat Kohanim occurs later in the morning. My question is: do I have a Chiyuv to "duchen" if I'm in the audience and the Shaliach Tzibbur announces on the loudspeaker the word: "Kohanim!" Does that trigger a halachic obligation for me to duchen, even if I am in the audience, in the back of the crowd? -- Respectfully, Baruch C. Cohen, Esq. e-mail: BCC4929 at gmail.com LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/baruchcohen From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 12:06:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 15:06:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] BIRCHAT KOHANIM AT THE KOTEL In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5592E8B9.5020201@sero.name> On 06/30/2015 01:22 PM, Baruch Cohen via Avodah wrote: > I usually daven early every morning, and the Birchat > Kohanim occurs later in the morning. My question is: do I have a Chiyuv to > "duchen" if I'm in the audience and the Shaliach Tzibbur announces on the > loudspeaker the word: "Kohanim!" Does that trigger a halachic obligation > for me to duchen No. If you have already duchened that day, you have no further chiyuv, even if you hear the chazan, and even if someone directly tells you to go up. However if you *choose* to duchen for a second (or third, etc) time that day, you may do so with a bracha. (SA OC 128:3) [Email #2. -micha] PS: This applies also in an ordinary shul where they duchen at shachris and musaf. Any cohen who duchened at shachris, and doesn't feel like doing it again at musaf, needn't leave the room. He has no obligation to answer the chazan's call. But those who do answer it duchen with a bracha, because that is takanas chachamim. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 12:26:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 19:26:26 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish Yasom Message-ID: <20150630.152626.19374.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> What is the rule for when we do or do not say Kaddish Yasom (Mourner's Kaddish)? >From what I've seen, it is NOT said even if a minyan says Birkas Hamazon, but it IS said when a minyan says Kiddush Levana. It is NOT said when a minyan says Tehillim even as an organized group, but it IS said on Yom Tov after the Megilla (Shir Hashirim, Rus, Koheles) is read. I do not see any pattern. Does anyone else know of a rule? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5592ed93bb00b6d93482cst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 15:03:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 18:03:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish Yasom In-Reply-To: <20150630.152626.19374.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150630.152626.19374.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5593124A.2040905@sero.name> On 06/30/2015 03:26 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > What is the rule for when we do or do not say Kaddish Yasom (Mourner's Kaddish)? > >>From what I've seen, it is NOT said even if a minyan says Birkas Hamazon, Why would it? > but it IS said when a minyan says Kiddush Levana. Probably because people are used to saying it after Alenu. > It is NOT said when a minyan says Tehillim even as an organized group, Where have you seen it not being said then? I'm surprised that this is your experience. > but it IS said on Yom Tov after the Megilla (Shir Hashirim, Rus, Koheles) is read. Yes, that is my experience as well. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 03:47:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 13:47:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] 13th century zeal Message-ID: I found the following story from R Kaganoff interesting not only for the halachic portion but also to show that community fights are not new The question regarding recital of *mei'ein sheva* when *Yom Tov* falls on Friday resulted in a very heated dispute during the era of the Rishonim. In the time of the *Rivash*, Rabbi Amram ben Meroam, a frequent correspondent of the *Rivash*, wrote him the following *shaylah*: Reuven was the *chazzan* for the Friday night *davening *on a *Shabbos* that immediately followed *Yom Tov*. He began reciting *mei'ein sheva*, when Shimon reprimanded him, contending that one should not recite this *bracha* when *Shabbos* follows *Yom Tov* -- since no one was working on Friday, the reason for the *takkanah* did not apply. Levi then got involved, saying that it is accepted that one *does* recite *mei'ein sheva*on Friday night following a *Yom Tov*. The *shul* then burst into a cacophony of voices, with Shimon's and Reuven's backers screaming at one another. Finally, Shimon shouted that Reuven was desecrating*Hashem's *holy Name, since he was willing to recite a *bracha* in vain, and that if he did, Shimon would declare him to be in *cherem*, excommunicated! Reuven did recite the *bracha mei'ein sheva,* and a day later, opened his door to find Shimon and twenty of his backers there to notify him that he had been excommunicated! The Rivash* was asked to rule whether Reuven was indeed in *cherem* because of Shimon's declaration that he recited a *bracha* in vain, or, perhaps, Shimon should be placed in *cherem* for excommunicating someone without proper cause. The *Rivash* ruled that Shimon was mistaken, and that one should recite *mei'ein sheva* when *Shabbos* follows *Yom Tov*. Therefore, he concluded that Reuven, who followed the correct *halachah*, could completely ignore the *cherem* placed on him. However, he also concluded that since Shimon thought he was acting correctly, we do not excommunicate Shimon for his actions (*Shut HaRivash* #34). -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 06:54:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 13:54:19 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos Message-ID: <20150401.095419.16600.0@webmail12.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitzchok Levine wrote: > Does not the SA say that a person who has trouble chewing > matzah can soak it in water and then eat it? If so, then > I fail to see why eating gebrokts should be a problem for > anyone. The answer will depend on what you mean by "SA". If "SA" refers specifically to the author of the Shulchan Aruch, Rav Yosef Karo, then the answer is that he is not the last word in halacha. There are other authorities, and someone who follows the others could have a problem even with something that the SA allows. If "SA" refers to the Shulchan Aruch in general, then I do not understand your question, since the problem of gebrokts *IS* mentioned by authorities other than Rav Karo. If I'm not mistaken, the Shaarei Teshuva (which is in the printed editions of Mishne Brurah) is a good example. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 11:05:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 14:05:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> I repeated on Areivim RSM's deduction that yayin kal is closest to the alcohol level of chazal's wine. On Wed, Apr 1, 2015 at 9:39am PDT, R Saul Newman wrote to Areivim: > interesting, when seeing in ktubot abaye's widow describing the size of > his wine vessel. by that Percentage, it wouldnt be toxic... Here's RSM's science, and it seems impeccable: By natural means, no alcoholic beverage can get above 12% -- at that level the yeast drowns in its own output. That's why beer and wine tend to be 12%. We can tweak that up to 16% with specially bred yeast, and/or control of temperature and humidity -- not options in Chazal's day. (Higher alcohol drinks are made by distilling out the alcohol from the original 12% liquid.) To add my 2 pence: Their barrels weren't perfect, which means there was more evaporation. But since alcohol evaporates faster than water, that will only lower the percentage alcohol. So we're still at about 12% max. RSM's original line of reasoning, continues: Mezigas hakos is typically at least 1:3, or 25% wine. So, the final product would be at most 3%. A third penny: Now let's discuss how big a revi'is was back then... But even without that, I have no idea how any of them would have gotten anywhere near drunk. Why would R' Yonah have a headache until shavu'os off some 16 oz total of 3% wine? Do we have to assume it was the alcohol? Maybe he was a later owner of Abayei's kos... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Mussar is like oil put in water, micha at aishdas.org eventually it will rise to the top. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 12:08:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 01 Apr 2015 15:08:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> On 04/01/2015 02:05 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Now let's discuss how big a revi'is was back then... But even without > that, I have no idea how any of them would have gotten anywhere near > drunk. Why would R' Yonah have a headache until shavu'os off some 16 oz > total of 3% wine? Do we have to assume it was the alcohol? Maybe he was > a later owner of Abayei's kos... I don't think it's at all plausible that it was the alcohol. I have long assumed that he had some sort of allergy or intolerance for some component of grapes or grape skins, or perhaps for the sulfites with which wine was (and is still) preserved. It's well known that there are people today who get headaches from sulfites. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 12:25:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mordechai Harris via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 14:25:38 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> Message-ID: There is a lot of info here: http://seforim.blogspot.com/2012/10/wine-strength-and-dilution.html Chag Kasher v'Samayach< Mordechai -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 12:30:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 22:30:53 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: There recently appeared a sefer "Keren Zavit" by Nadav Shenrav on parshat hashavua that has a very nice combination of science and Torah. On parshat Tzav he brings a question on the shitah of the Nodah BeYuhuda that eggs doubled in size. The Noda Beyehuda claims that there is a contradiction between two sugyot that find measurements based on either the size of the egg or from length (or volume) measurements. To answer the contradiction the Nodah Beyehuda assumes that our eggs are half the size of those in the days of chazal. (Actually modern eggs are larger than those in his day) The basic point is that in order to translate the measurements of chazal to modern measurements we need a fixed point, ie some measurement that has not changed over the generations. If everything can change we have only relative measurements and not absolute measurements. The Nodah BeYehuda assumes that the width of the thumb is constant. Question: Rambam (maaseh hakorbanot 13:14) states the kemitzah which cinsists of 3 fingers closed over the palm contains 2 kezatim. However 2 kezaytim of 50cc (ie 100cc) is impossible to enclose within 3 fingers. He brings that he saw this question in a series "Bet Aharon VeYisrael" and they answered "nishtanu hateva" i.e. their hands were bigger and could hold 100c of flour within 3 fingers. (In general the author is not impressed with the answer of "nishtane hateva" but he assumes it for this article). However, this leads to an internal contradiction, ie Noda Beyehuda assumes that the size of the thumb has not changed but is required to assume that the size of the hand was much larger in the days of chazal ie how is it possible that their hands were MUCH larger but the width of the thumb remained constant. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 14:11:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 17:11:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150401211129.GA23585@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 01, 2015 at 10:30:53PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : There recently appeared a sefer "Keren Zavit" by Nadav Shenrav on parshat : hashavua that has a very nice combination of science and Torah. : : On parshat Tzav he brings a question on the shitah of the Nodah BeYuhuda : that eggs doubled in size. AISI, there are three distinct questions that generally get lumped together in the annual kezayis discussion: 1- Is "kezayis" a constant volume, or is it pinned to the average olive, or perhaps the average among some subset of breeds of olive as breeding, care and climate change? R' Chaim Volozhiner and the Avnei Neizer say the latter. You might remember my post from last Jan at. . The AhS OC 363:34 says that lehalakhah an ammah is the person involved's forearm. E.g. when measuring 4 amos for tiltul, the din is more chamur for me than for taller people. When coming to mavui or techum, where you need a single pesaq for a whole town, you need a standardized ammah, "ameru chakhamim denimdod lechumerah" it's the length of the arm of some very high percentile of the people relying on it (and possibly 100%) -- "debevadei yeish anashim shezehu midasan". (Also, when dealing with someone with a handicap or amputation, you need to use estimates.) To me this seems to feed RCV's approach. Because both assume that measurements are not absolute, but based on the set of whatevers involved. For example, the AhS's position about the standard ammah would imply that a community that is atypically tall would use a longer ammah for techum than in a ghettod population whose malnutrition stunted their typical growth. 2- If kezayis is a constant volume, do all the accepted overestimates performed and accumulated one atop the other unwind when we have more information about chazal's zeisim? Or do we say that the bottom of the range of measurments that dominate common pratice in one's qehillah is binding as pesaq, and one can't just ignore the now huge safety margin? This is what I argued here when RNS's paper came out http://www.zootorah.org/RationalistJudaism/TheEvolutionOfTtheOlive.pdf (And if so, is that extra amount considered as deOraisa as the original olive volume, because it's a pesaq in a din deOraisa? Or is it a harchaqah, and thus derabban? 3- The actual specifics 3a- If the answe to #2 is that we do roll back the kezayis based on better information about what it was, the metzi'us specifics can still be argued. Such as asking (as I did in passing in #1) which subset of olives to average. 3b- And if the answer is that we don't, then there are halachic process details to ask about. But I think many discussions, including our own previous years' iterations, stuble because they blur these topics rather than keeping them separate, which in turn would force dealing with them in the sequence I gave as well. (Because #2 depends on one kind of answer to #1, and #3 has different flavors depending on #2.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 13:36:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 16:36:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Yaknehaz [was: The Quinoa - Kitniyos Conundrum] Message-ID: In a message dated 4/1/2015 6:28:31 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, micha at aishdas.org writes: On Wed, Apr 01, 2015 at 12:03am EDT, RnTK wrote: : It was the norm in my parental home and is what my husband does too. : In fact I have never seen anyone use a regular havdala candle at a seder! : (Or a single wick candle without joining it to another candle or to a match.) A local yeshiva qetana sells two-wick candles that otherwise look like Shabbos candles as a fundraiser. This way you don't have a fire lasting as long as whatever is left on your havdalah candle, and the whole problem is avoided. >>>>> I wasn't really clear. What my parents used to do (and we do similarly) was to take one Shabbos candle ot of the candlestick and hold its flame close to another Shabbos candle for the bracha, and then put it back in the candlestick it came out of. IOW we use the candles that are already burning on the table anyway. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 14:36:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 17:36:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] partnership - adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties Message-ID: partnership - adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties In describing why person would fast all Passover over and above Jewish Law Practice, you used the words "emotional attachment". In the seven years since that wording , perhaps the message is deeper. Salamone Rossi the Jewish Italian composer, became a hero of the assimilationist movement. See AJS Review volume 26 #1 where where a series of books by one Don Harran re Rossi is reviewed. Twice in Adon Olam, the series of fast phrases of excitement called Tritum or whatever is used twice ??? ???? ??? ???? ???? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ?_?? ??? ????? ???? ???? ... ???? ????? ???? ???? ?????? - ??? ???? ? ???? ???? ????? ??? ?? ?????? - ????? ?? ???? ??? ??? ????? - ??? ????? - ????? ???? - ???? ???? ??? ???? ???? ??? ???? ??????? - ???? ????? ????? ??? - ???? ?? ????? ??? ????? - ????? ????? ???? ?? ????? - ??? ???? ??? ???? ???? ?????? ????? ??? ????? - ?? - ???? ?_?? ??? ????? ???? ???? ... ?????? ?? ?? ??? ???? ??? ??? ?? ???? ???? - ??? ???? ?? ????? ?????? ... ?? ?? ???? ?? GLOOMY THOUGHT NEGATIVE CHARACTERIZATION The reviewer - a music professor at Northeastern U in Boston MA - illustrates that limitless exhaustive research did not turn up for M. Harran the fact that in the surrounding milieu which Mr. Rossi is immersed in - these patterns aare reserved for ttheir Trinity.. Lhavdil elef havdalot. Rossi as a Jew with beating Jewish Heart - in Adon Olam his famous composition - when it came to Our God - he proudly used the pattern of the ecstasy of the Tritium (apologies of not being able to look up - will scan and send but each moment I am in danger of interrruption - ) . Why Yeihareig ? Why not float with the waves? Answer - because it is identity of Jew - visceral reaction necessary! taht is Key! Common motif of Piyut - ?????? ????? ?????? ????? - countering their attempted invasion and depriving us of identity - the desperation of drowning brings us to keep our identity- baby will starve self to reserve independence - if it is deprived from baby Not in complete normal routine vassalry to Hashem. But it is the assertion of identity. Sneh Boeir - Papers of Adoption - of formation of Partnership - not the bylaws which may never be read - but the primary identity of Hasheem as responsible party specifically to act as parent re MY CHILD - thsi is basic bedrock Jew - as Rashi certainly subscribed, and rashbam, and likely R' Yonah even Ramban. For my money - when functioning as Jewish Natnion member - the Rambam himself, codifier of the Doctrinal Jew. Back to subject after rant - A JS Reviewer - just like they show reverence for their Hero - we show reverence for our Hero - One God - that the reviewer explained for the first - ??? ???? ??? ???? ???? ?????? What of second threesome - look in Tur for Ecstasy - OC 5 - ???? ?_?? ??? ????? ???? ???? takif..???? ??? ?????? ??? ????? ???? - ???? ?? ???? ??? ??? ????? ??? - ???? ?? ???? - ??? ???? ???? ?? - ??? ???? - ???? ???? - ??? ???? ??? ??? ???? ??????? ?? ??? - ??? ???? ?? ???? ???? ??? ????? ???? ???? - ?? ?? ??? ?? ???? ???? ?????? ???? ???? - ?? ?????? - ??? ?????? ????? ?????? ???? - ???? ???? ?? ??? ?? - ???? ??? ????? ????? ????? - ??? ??? ????? - ?????? ????? ????? ??? ????? - ?? ??? ??? ???? - ?? ??? ??? ????? - ??? ????? - ???? ?????? ?????? - ???? ???? ?????? ????? ?? ?? - ??? ?? ????? ??? ???? ????? ???? ????? ???? ????? ?????? 148-155 - ?_?_?_? ??? ?? - ????? ???? 148 ???? ???? ?????? - ?? ?????? - ??? ???? ??? ???? ?? ?????? - ??? ????? ????? ????? - ?? ??? ??? ???? ???? ?? ????? =- ??? ???????? ?????? ????? ????? - ?? ???? - ????? - ?????? - ???? ???? - ??? ??? ????? - ??? ??? ?? ????? - ????? ??? ??? ?????? - ??? ????? - ????? ??? ?????? ?????? - ???? ???? ?? ??????? ????? ??? - ????? - ???? ?????? ???? ??? ????? ?????? ???? ????? ??????? ????? ?? - ??? ???? ?????? ???? ??"? - ??? ????? ???? ???? ???? ??? ????? ??? ?? ???? - ???? ?? ??? ?? ???? ???-????? ?? ????? ?? ?? ?????? - ??? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ?? ??????? - EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT IS ZILZUL IN A COVENANT ???? ?????? ?? ??? ???? - ??? ??? ??? ? ?? ????? ????? ??? ?????? ??! ???? ????? - ?? ????? ???? ??? ???? ?? ???? ????? ??? ????? ????? - ?? ??? ??? ???? ????? ?? ??? -- David Wacholder Cell: 917-742-7838 Email: dwacholder at gmail.com dwacholder at optonline.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 18:24:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 12:24:45 +1100 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice Message-ID: Wine in those days was frequently (typically?) flavored with resins or spices, some of which are actually toxic. These resins seem to have had the same effect as hops do in beer: they discourage microbial growth and therefore prevent it from souring and spoiling. This was an important consideration before the invention of Pasteurisation. If R' Yonah was allergic or otherwise sensitive to these resins he may have ascribed his symptoms to the wine itself. Alternatively, perhapshe simply didn't have access to any untreated wine and perhaps he didn't consider raisin "wine" to be chashuv enough. Joe Slater -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 18:27:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 12:27:16 +1100 Subject: [Avodah] Yaknehaz [was: The Quinoa - Kitniyos Conundrum] Message-ID: Another data point: I asked my father O'H about this and he said he'd never heard of anyone using a Havdala candle for YAKNEHAZ, or even joining two flames together. He came from central Hungary, and his rabbi was a great-nephew of Maharam Schick. Joe Slater -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 1 20:32:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 01 Apr 2015 23:32:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] wine choice In-Reply-To: References: <20150401155140.GC31614@aishdas.org> <20150401180539.GA9305@aishdas.org> <551C4247.9000005@sero.name> Message-ID: <551CB836.5040609@sero.name> On 04/01/2015 03:25 PM, Mordechai Harris wrote: > There is a lot of info here: http://seforim.blogspot.com/2012/10/wine-strength-and-dilution.html It is interesting, but I think the author may have made a simple mistake in assuming that when Rashi says their wines were "stronger" than ours, he meant "more alcoholic". That may be what he meant, in which case he was mistaken, but it seems to me that he may have meant "strong tasting", or to put it more bluntly, "sour". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 02:18:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 12:18:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kitniyot Message-ID: see a discussion at http://etzion.org.il/en/pesach-journal by Rav Brosky -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 07:53:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 02 Apr 2015 10:53:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Historic Practice Passover Offering Message-ID: <20150402145402.230A3183730@nexus.stevens.edu> See the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kgbRusmqjs A FILM OF THE PRACTICE PASSOVER OFFERING THE TEMPLE INSTITUTE CONDUCTS UNPRECEDENTED PASSOVER OFFERING PRACTICE DRILL As reported earlier, in preparation for the upcoming festival of Passover, this past Wednesday (5 Nisan - 25 March) the 'Priestly Training Academy' established by the Temple Institute held a Passover offering practice drill. This is a film that documents this event. This was the most accurate and authentic reenactment of this service to have taken place in nearly 2,000 years. ---------- It looks to me that they used machine matzos in this video. If I am correct, then I find this bizarre. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 13:36:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 16:36:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: How many swallows of Matzo are necessary? How many olive tree generations to Calendar Year Tohu and Gan Eden? The following came up last year: FEARLESS RULING FOR PERSON WITH DIFFICULTY EATING: Every average person's swallow is a Kezayit, the amount which fulfils the Mitzvah and is the measure for the Bracha on Achilas Matza. As a Hidur and to erase all doubt, a second normal swallow would be good. That is for Motzi-Matzah, where the first olive-size swallowed fulfils a Torah obligation. Additional for Afikoman one swallow is certainly enough. For a person struggling to eat, try to eat at least a taste. Any more than that is for those who tolerate Matzo well. I look at how much a person can swallow - one swallow. That would measure a Kezayit. 100% the person has fulfilled the Mitzvah after one swallow. For margin of error issues, add another second swallow. For those with difficulty eating, one may then stop. For Afikoman the one swallow is sufficient. This needs no authority to base it on. Chazon Ish gave his asembled family pieces about the size of his palm , as described by qualified dedicated observer in Orchos Rabeinu. Traditions vary. Some quoted Rav Chaim Valozhiner as saying - the size of an olive is an olive is an olive. Another tradition said one must use an egg-size as a base unit. On Atkins Low-Carb Diet, daily consumption was - for starting extreme levels - 30 grams per day - about an ounce. I cut the piece of Challah, which by volume probably was an olive, but the air pockets should have been counted, so the person could say Birkas Hamazon for themselves. Someone else was Motzi the dieter in Birkat Hamazon. Air pockets and weight issue The swallow size may be according the the air pockets normally contained in Matzo, not ground, and according to volume not weight. VOLUME NOT WEIGHT By weight, comparable amount of Chareidim Boro Park 5774 MATZOS weighed perhaps 7 grams compared to perhaps 30 grams of a heavy brand of Hand Matzo. Using volume measures as weight measures creates significant errors. The person had been using 30 grams of WEIGHT as the Standard, not 30 grams of volume. It was a reasonably filled sandwich bag. Also Matzo can absorb moisture from the air making it heavier, can be freshened in the oven, which will make it weigh less. Volume remains the same. Weighing your Matza introduces a major error factor. SHEKEIN NEHENEH According to Rav Elchanan Wasserman, even a non-believer fulfils the Mitzvah, Shekein Neheneh. I have doubts if Kavana Hafucha would even work. I certainly think a person should not have Kavana Hafucha in the sense of - only be Yotzei when Measurement X is reached. NOT THE AMOUNT TO FILL THE CHEEK This is neither cheekful nor yet a mouthful. Observe how your neighbor swallows his food eating calmly. [DW comment - this is a normal comfortable swallow, not a contestant requiring for safety a Hatzala person or Heimlich Maneuver needed to monitor. This is not a Superman-Swallower who attempts to swallow the size of all olives ever eaten, whose face turns red but comes out OK after a KAPITAL TEHILIM. That is Achila Shelo K'darkah, and certainly is not optimum. That eliminates the Double and Exponential/Logarithmic olives from consideration for a single swallow. Never swallow more than a comfortable amount. SUKKOT No custom requires swallowing all at once in the Sukkah. Others require an Egg Plus size. ARUCH HASHULCHAN Aruch Hashulchan functioned as a review of the other Poskim in Orach Chaim. He pointedly does not double the Kezayit. MISHNA BRURAH - to my reading - says the same. Indeed I grant the MB does not totally negate a double-size as having precedent. MY HANDWIDTHS On a flat table, I measured my keyboard's width two different ways. first, using all ten fingers flat on table, it was 4 hands wide. With thumbs in air and only the eight fingers flat on the table, my keyboard was 5.5 hands wide. The thumbs were sideways, so the width added drilled through the wrinkle on the back to the fold on the front. This would be the thumb measured in Halacha. I certainly am not a measurement specialist, so I appreciate all feedback. According to best knowledge, that through-thumb measurement is the one which is supposed to be 25 percent of the other four fingers. CHZON ISH Even the writings of CHzon Ish reflect a defensive stance. As a practical matter, the CI knew in his heart that a Zayis will not change in recorded history. Olive trees of 1000 years old are not uncommon, and one in EY is 2000 years old. They are propogated from plantings identical to the original. As little as three generations of trees in EY could easily reach Calender Year 1. RIDDLE - HOW MANY OLIVES TO EAT A KEZAYIT? RABI YOCHANAN ATE ONE OLIVE- and made bracha acharona. It was the big variety salad olive, or a large specimen of the oil olive. I was convinced by a strong presentation in a conference from several years ago. A Bar Ilan professor compared olives from various species and showed pictures of all the oldest olive trees in EY. The oil olives were in the 4 cc to 7 cc (4-7 grams volume). Salad olives - the kind whose seeds were commonly eaten in Masada - max out at 17 grams. He convincingly argued that double size super-olives would in all likelihood kill the trees. 4 ccs is well below an average swallow. Please double check my numbers, as I am writing from memory. -- David Wacholder From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 18:58:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 21:58:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] naive kitniyos question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150403015816.GA8090@aishdas.org> On Thu, Mar 26, 2015 at 12:34:15PM -0400, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote: : Re kitniyos: isn't the issur one of "cooking" with kitniyos? ... Take 2 at answering this question. My wife found http://ph.yhb.org.il/en/04-09-06 "6. Kitniyot That Never Touched Water and Kitniyot Oils" by R' Eliezer Melamed We are not stricter with kitniyot than we are with the five cereal grains, so whatever is acceptable regarding these grains is kosher for kitniyot, too. Thus, kitniyot that have not come into contact with water, or that have come into contact with water but were not left for more than 18 minutes before being cooked (like matza), may be eaten. Some poskim are stringent in this respect, but most are lenient.[4] ... [4] Most authorities are not stricter about kitniyot than about the cereal grains (SAH 453:5; ??ayei Adam 127:1; Responsa Maharsham 1:183; Be'er Yitzhak sec. 11; Responsa Marheshet sec. 3; and Rav Kook's Orah Mishpat sec. 111). Some, however, are more stringent (Sho'el U-meishiv 1:1:175 and Ma'amar Mordechai sec. 32). Their rationale is that no one would understand these distinctions since kitniyot do not become hametz. Additionally, they were concerned that making the kitniyot exactly like the cereal grains would mislead people to think they could use kitniyot to fulfill the mitzva of matza. As noted, though, most poskim are lenient, and in any dispute about a custom the halakha follows the lenient opinion. The Rishonim also debate whether or not scalding works for kitniyot, since scalding any of the five cereal grains technically eliminates the possibility of its leavening, though the Ge'onim agree that no one knows how to scald the grains properly (SA 454:3). However, according to Or Zaru'a 2:256, since the prohibition of kitniyot is just a custom, scalding the kitniyot is effective and permits them. Mordechai rules stringently, and Rabbeinu Peretz's glosses to Smak sec. 222 notes the lenient opinion but rules stringently. So it seems the pesaq I grew up with is, in REM's estimaton, the minority view. And if my sevara holds: It would mean the machloqes is a machloqes as to whether qitniyos are compared to wheat or to dough. Which again would be reflected in the various theories about what risk it is the minhag is trying to avoid: qitniyos includes things used like grain, which can cause confusion of chameitz with mutar legume products; qitniyos could have real flour on them (as per Rava's admonition to the reish galusa's household), etc... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of micha at aishdas.org greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, http://www.aishdas.org in fact, of our modesty. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Louis Kronenberger, writer (1904-1980) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 09:32:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 16:32:11 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Tan Du Message-ID: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> I think we've discussed R'YBS's famous statement on ontological chazakot on a number of occasions. I was glad to see that I have giant shoulders to stand on (hat tip-Isaac Newton): Tradition - Winter 2014 (Rabbi N. Helfgot) In a famous episode in 1975, the Rav strongly denounced a proposal raised by R. Emanuel Rackman, z"l to reevaluating the validity of the Talmudic dictum "a woman would always be rather married to anyone (even a scoundrel) than be alone" in the modern context. R. Rackman called on religious authorities to reevaluate the reach of this dictum as a way of addressing the scourge of modern day recalcitrant husbands who did not give their estranged spouses a get. The reevaluation of this principle might be an opening to examine the use of halakhic annulment of marriages. The Rav vigorously maintained that this principle, like all hazakot of Hazal, was "an ontological statement" about the nature of women, not subject to changing historical factors or changing social mores. R. Lichtenstein in both private conversation with a number of talmidim over the decades, including this author and in remarks in public shiurim, noted his disagreement with the Rav's assessment of this hazaka (and expressed astonishment at the vehemence of the Rav's opposition at the time) given the clear cut evidence in the Rishonim in Yevamot and other places in Shas which clearly indicated that this hazaka was not one that applied in all contexts and at all times and in all situations. I don't recall that R'YBS said this was true of all chazakot of Chazal but haven't listened to that audio in a long time. CKV"S Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 04:06:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 14:06:33 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] rabbits Message-ID: << But PS can someone remind me what a picture of a rabbit is doing in the : medieval illustrated Hagada? There is a fundamental reason why pictures of people were avoided. >> Yet many of the medieval haggadot had pictures of people and even (wow) women!. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 11:41:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 14:41:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] rabbits In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150403184143.GB11664@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 03, 2015 at 02:06:33PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> There is a fundamental reason why pictures of people were avoided. : : Yet many of the medieval haggadot had pictures of people.. The reason is still there. We don't all agree on halakhah and minhag, why would two people necessarily agree during the medieval period? :-)|,|ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger The true measure of a man micha at aishdas.org is how he treats someone http://www.aishdas.org who can do him absolutely no good. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Samuel Johnson From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 2 23:57:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 09:57:26 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kitniyot Message-ID: see http://ohr.edu/5390 and http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/5184 by Rabbi Spits He discusses Quinoa In the second article he discusses potatos both for kitniyot and bishul akum As for modern products that didnt exist in the days of the gezera he notes Shu"t Igros Moshe (O.C. vol. 3, 63). Others who accept peanuts for Pesach include the Seridei Aish (Shu"t vol. 2, 37, 2; new print vol. 1, 50 -- through a combination of factors), the Yeshuas Moshe (Shu"t vol. 1, 35; he opines that the Kitniyos prohibition never applied to legumes that are eaten raw, but concludes similar to Rav Moshe, that if one has an existing minhag not to eat peanuts on Pesach he still should not do so), and the Rivevos Efraim (Shu"t vol. 7, 257; only if it came still in its shell). [This logic is based on the Shulchan HaRav's understanding (O.C. 453, 5) that the prohibition of Kitniyos only applies when it gets wet). Other poskim who ruled that way (as how can Kitniyos be more stringent than grain -- which only can become chometz when wet) include the Chayei Adam (vol. 2, 128, 1) and Maharsham (Shu"t vol. 1, 183 and Daas Torah O.C. 453), who cites that Rav Shlomo Kluger (Nidrei Zerizin, 8) held this way as well. Those who were stringent include the Shoel U'Meishiv (Mahadura Kama vol. 1, 175), the Avnei Nezer (O.C. 373 and 533), the Maamar Mordechai (Shu"t 32), and the Sdei Chemed (Maareches Chometz U'Matza 6, 1). This was also one of the points of contention between Rav Kook and the Badatz Chasidim of Yerushalayim regarding the permissibility of sesame oil for Pesach -- see footnote 13]. See also Shu"t Atzei HaLevanon (vol. 1, 18) who also permits peanuts for Pesach; yet based on his description it seems he is referring to a pistachio (as per the Yeshuas Moshe ibid.). [Email #2. Subject: kitniyot - summary] After our discussion of kitniyot and the psak of RMF several personal observations 1) We all agree that psak of RMF is controversial. IMHO it is "half" accepted probably more in the US than in Israel 2) There is a separate machkoket about derivatives of kitniyot and especially oils of kitniyot. While there are relatively few ashkenazim who eat corn on the cob or peanuts there are many who combine the 2 positions and use oild and derivatives from "new: kitniyot. Thus there are many rabbis that allow Canola oil (and certainly cottenseed oil) using RMF and the debate over oils. Similarly it has been common in my community to use lecithin (liftit) in candies etc. My rabbi allows this together with most rabbis in my town based on major dati leumi rabbis. R Elyashiv came out strongly against all of this and so in the charedi community especially in Israel no kitniyot oils or lecithin is allowed and only walnut or olive oil is used. Bottom line in spite of the objections on this list that RMF is "wrong" in many communities his teshuva is accepted when combined with the debate of kitniyot derivatives. chag kasher vesameach. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 03:57:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 13:57:43 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos Message-ID: > But let's not get buried under the reports of RMF and R' Tuvia Goldstein, > and forget that we have conflict in reports about whether RSZA would > allow someone to start eating gebrochts after hataras nedarim. > So, while rumor might say he did, we have a first-hand report from R > Yisrael Herczeg that tells us to ignore the grapevine >> In Halichos Shlomo (p90) it states explicitly that one can change his custom and eat gebrochs after hatart nedarim. However, this should be done only if there is a good reason (tzorach chashuv) for the change. Thus, for a chatan he would allow the hatarat nedarim if keeping bebrochs would cause family difficulties. RSZA paskened that the wife follows the customs of the husband both for kula and chumra(without hatart nedarim). He explicitly states that this is different than one who moves to another location where he does need hatarat nedarim since a woman knows that she will eventually marry and might change her minhag. The husband has the right to relinguish his rights. This is prevalant with regard to the nuscah of davening. A Baal Teshuva should prferably keep the customs of his "original" community where the family belonged. However, if he is now connected to some rabbi or community he can choose to keep their customs instead. He also paskens (for EY) that one can cook kitniyot on the 7th day of Pesach for use on the shabbat right afterwards (ef this year). This is because some sefardi could come over for a visit and so the kitniyot are not mukza . The same applies to gebrochs even though it is the 7th day of Pesach. RSZA himself ate gebrochs though he would not eat anything that fell on the floor. He did not use potato starch or anything that rsembled a chametz cake On a different topic he allowed drinking regular water eg from the kinneret since one can't taste at all the taste of any possible chametz, [Email #2] >> So, while rumor might say he did, we have a first-hand report from R >> Yisrael Herczeg that tells us to ignore the grapevine. > Perhaps he changed his mind! It has happened before. In this case he didnt change his mind. He said that it depended on the circumstances. In theory one could do hatarat nedarim and eat Gebrochs but he advocated not using this heter unless there was a good reason to change the custom. Obviously for Yisrael Herczeg he didn't feel there was sufficient justification. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 04:15:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 14:15:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: > 1- Is "kezayis" a constant volume, or is it pinned to the average olive, > or perhaps the average among some subset of breeds of olive as breeding, > care and climate change? archaeology shows that the olive has not changed dramatically over the millenia > 2- If kezayis is a constant volume, do all the accepted overestimates > performed and accumulated one atop the other unwind when we have more > information about chazal's zeisim? Not all communities accepted these various shitot. I can understand some overestimates for being conservative but factors of 5-10 larger seem overdone. This is especially true if one stuffs the matza into ones mouth and swallows together which becomes "achila gasa". In general the problem with the huge shiurim is that it is very difficult for many people. > average. Which is the reason to be on the conservative side and use the largest size olives which is still on the order of 17cc and not 50cc. [Email #2] > Or do we say that the bottom of the > range of measurments that dominate common pratice in one's qehillah is > binding as pesaq, and one can't just ignore the now huge safety margin? Reminds of a story I read on the recent 20th yahrzeit of RSZA. RSZA came up with 2 chumrot for the seder both related to the length of maggid being a problem for kiddush bemkom seudah and the bracha over the wine. His mechutan R Elyashiv accepted the chumrot and rushed his maggid while RSZA didnt accept his own chumrot in practice on the grounds that this was not the minhag of Israel over the generations. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 15:16:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 22:16:11 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Historic Practice Passover Offering Message-ID: <20150403.181611.8008.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitzchok Levine posted: > See the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kgbRusmqjs > ... > As reported earlier, in preparation for the upcoming festival of > Passover, this past Wednesday (5 Nisan - 25 March) the 'Priestly > Training Academy' established by the Temple Institute held a > Passover offering practice drill. This is a film that documents > this event. This was the most accurate and authentic reenactment > of this service to have taken place in nearly 2,000 years. Two things in particular surprised me in this video: 1) The lambs were so small! Children carried them in! 2) At the very end, it shows and mentions that the korban pesach "is roasted whole and in a special oven." Special oven? What was special about it, and why an oven at all? I would think that the oven would (at least partially) bake it, whereas it was supposed to be roasted by the fire, and only by fire. I recall halachos of it being held by a pomegranate branch to avoid heat conduction by metal, and rotated like a rotisserie to avoid it being cooked even by its own juices. What's this oven about? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/551f117e86f4b117e0fdfst03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 12:22:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2015 15:22:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <551EE85D.1030908@sero.name> On 04/03/2015 06:57 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > He also paskens (for EY) that one can cook kitniyot on the 7th day of > Pesach for use on the shabbat right afterwards (ef this year). Yes, I'm surprised that anyone disagrees. It seems so obviously correct. I know that many people don't do so, and believe it to be forbidden, but I have never yet heard an argument for why it should be so. > This is because some sefardi could come over for a visit and so the kitniyot > are not mukza . The main issue would surely not be muktzeh, but cooking on yomtov. But the answer is the same: the hypothetical horde of hungry guests who might descend on one ten minutes before sunset on Friday, and for whom one is, in principle, cooking, might very well be sefardim. > The same applies to gebrochs even though it is the 7th day of > Pesach. Gebrochts, of course, applies in Chu"l as well (since almost everyone who doesn't eat it on the first 7 days does eat it on the last day). And lich'ora the above heter is not applicable. Kitniyos are gebrochts are not similar. Ashkenazim don't avoid kitniyos because of a concern that it might be chametz; they readily agree that there is no such concern, and that for Sefardim it is heter gamur. Thus there is no reason at all why an ashkenazi should not cook kitniyos for a sefardi, any more than there is a reason why a zar who is tahor should not cook terumah for a kohen. But those who avoid gebrochts do so because of an (admittedly remote) concern that it might be chametz. If so, then they should be equally concerned not to give it to someone else, even one who isn't worried about it, and thus shouldn't be able to claim on Friday that they are cooking for hypothetical guests who eat it. Lepoel this question comes up every time there is such a kevius, and there doesn't seem to be one psak about it. Perhaps it comes down to the different reasons people give for why it's OK on the last day. If one holds that the reason is "shelo lehotzi la'az" on those who eat gebrochts all Pesach, then it makes sense that on the first 7 days one should also not be "motzi la'az", and thus should be willing to cook gebrochts for those who eat it. Thus on Friday the 7th one can claim to be cooking for such guests. But if one holds that the reason for not eating gebrochts for 7 days and then eating it on the 8th is as a symbolic gesture towards the kabbalistic idea that on the 8th day one ought to eat chametz, so for 7 days we treat gebrochts *as if* it were chametz, and then eat it on the 8th day, then it would seem to follow that on the 7th day one may not cook it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 14:17:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 21:17:19 GMT Subject: [Avodah] kezayit Message-ID: <20150403.171719.13613.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' David Wacholder posted: > Every average person's swallow is a Kezayit, the amount which > fulfils the Mitzvah and is the measure for the Bracha on Achilas > Matza. As a Hidur and to erase all doubt, a second normal swallow > would be good. That is for Motzi-Matzah, where the first olive- > size swallowed fulfils a Torah obligation. > ... > This needs no authority to base it on. ... WHY would it need no authority to base it on? If this were the halacha, wouldn't someone have mentioned it? Why did so many authorities struggle with the math and the biology and the physics if such a simple solution were at hand? > Air pockets and weight issue > > The swallow size may be according the the air pockets normally > contained in Matzo, not ground, and according to volume not weight. If a kezayis is a swallowfull, aren't the air pockets gone? Haven't they been lost in the chewing? I concede that by the time the chewed matza gets to the throat, much of the missing air has been replaced by saliva. Or perhaps the saliva even *more* than accounts for the missing air. I am not knowledgeable enough about this to venture a guess on the comparison of the volume of the matza before chewing vis a vis at swallowing. In any case, I've always been bothered by the problem of counting the air bubbles. Mishneh Berurah 208:48 says that when eating cookies, l'chatchilah, one must insure that he ate a kezayis of flour, WITHOUT counting the sugar, in order to say Al Hamichya. MB concedes that the minhag is to count all the ingrdients, but the Igros Moshe 1:71 says not to rely on that minhag. So here's my question: If they would prefer us NOT to count the other ingredients, which have substance, isn't it a simple kal vachomer not to count AIR, she'ayn bo mamash? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/551f039acb72539a4c49st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 3 13:08:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2015 16:08:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Special Pesach Edition -- Instantaneous Redemption Message-ID: <20150403200810.6EC28181C84@nexus.stevens.edu> [] Instantaneous Redemption HaShem took us out of Mitzrayim at the last minute before we slipped to the fiftieth level of impurity. Had we fallen to that level, we would have been irredeemable. In one moment, we went from darkness to light, from death to life, from slavery to freedom, from anguish to joy, and from impurity to holiness. Lesson: Just as that moment brought instantaneous redemption, so too, every moment of life has the potential to take us from darkness to light, from death to life, from slavery to freedom, from anguish to joy, and from impurity to holiness. App: May we all be encouraged by the miracles of Pesach, that HaShem again will instantaneously redeem us, and take us from darkness to light, from death to life, from slavery to freedom, from anguish to joy, and from impurity to holiness! (Based on Ohr Yahol, Rav Yehoshuah Leib Chousman) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 18:59:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2015 21:59:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geirut Message-ID: <20150406015903.GA15874@aishdas.org> (Ccing most of the participants in our 2008 and 2010 conversations.) You might be interested in On Conversion to Judaism, by Rabbi Dr. Chaim E. Schertz THE YU LAMDAN: The Wilf Campus Torah Journal http://yulamdan.com/2015/03/29/on-conversion-to-judaism-by-rabbi-dr-chaim-e-schertz or http://j.mp/1CIV5GN It starts slow, but R/Dr Schertz has a lot to say about Qabbalas Ol Mitzvos (QOM, or KOM if you prefer) and its role in geirus. Aside from other ideas that my be of interest, but it was QOM that has us going. :-)|,|ii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 22:22:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 01:22:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house Message-ID: <552217FE.4020103@sero.name> Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in EY after kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times. Does this mean that at a shiva house Sholom Rov is said even in shacharis (in EY on a non-Mon/Thu)? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 22:28:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 01:28:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" Message-ID: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the holy serafim's conclave. Nusach Ashkenaz, in the introduction to the kedusha of musaf, has a similar phrase: "kesod siach sarfei kodesh". But what does this mean? Every translation I have seen has rendered it as if it said "kesiach sod sarfei kodesh", but that's not what it says! Does anyone know, if "kesod siach" really means "kesiach sod", why they are reversed? Or, if that's not what it really means, can anyone explain what it does mean? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 5 22:32:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 01:32:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Moroccan nigunim Message-ID: <55221A63.3010303@sero.name> Do we have any experts here on the history of the Moroccan nigunei hatefilah? If so, can someone please explain when/how the Ashkenazi tune for Maoz Tzur got into the Moroccan liturgy as a tune for Mah Ashiv Lashem? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 03:38:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 13:38:02 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] free will Message-ID: We have discussed many times the opinion of Rav Dessler that a person doesn't always have free will. I recently saw a halachic discussion that may have some connection. On ketubot 51 the gemara discusses a case of a married woman who was raped but at the end was willing (techila be-ones ve-sofa be-ratzon). Shmuel's father forbids her to her husband while Rava allows her. One possibility of explaining Rava is that she is overwhelmed by her "yetzer" and so is still considered "anus" This is explicit in the words of R Zadok (tzidkat zaddik 43) that her desire is so great that it is impossible to overcome it and so she is considered anus gamur and so there is no punishment. Targum Yonatan (Devarim 22:26) holds that she is not punished by death but her husband must divorce her. Maharshal (yevamot 6:3) paskens that she is permitted to her husband only if she is "karka olam" However the Noda Beyehuda disagrees (tenina EH 150) and says she is always permitted to her husband because she is overwhelmed by her yetzer and so is not considered that she did it with her free will. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 05:13:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 12:13:44 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house Message-ID: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero asked: > Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in > EY after kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times. Does this > mean that at a shiva house Sholom Rov is said even in shacharis > (in EY on a non-Mon/Thu)? No, but I don't know why. I never thought of that question before, but here is a possibly-related question that I've wondered for years: If Shir Hamaalos is said whenever we skip Tachanun, should it always be said at the shiva house? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:25:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:25:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house In-Reply-To: <552217FE.4020103@sero.name> References: <552217FE.4020103@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150406182521.GC20912@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:22:06AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in EY after : kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times... This rule isn't 100%. Otherwise Sim Shalom would never be said when davening beyechidus. I think it's more lke Ashk uses Sim Shalom in tefillos where Birkhas Kohanim could be said, if we had opportunity. :-)||ii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:28:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:28:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:28:24AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam : siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the : holy serafim's conclave... Sod means conclave? I thought it was referring to the ofanim and chayos haqodesh who learn the secret of the siach of the sarfei qodesh, thereby are misna'asim le'umas serafim... :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 2nd day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Chesed: What is constricted Fax: (270) 514-1507 Chesed? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:37:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:37:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house In-Reply-To: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150406183751.GE20912@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 12:13:44PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I never thought of that question before, but here is a possibly-related : question that I've wondered for years: If Shir Hamaalos is said whenever : we skip Tachanun, should it always be said at the shiva house? We skip tachanun on shabbos and YT (or the week of 7 berakhos, the day of a beris...) because of the joy of the day being inconsistent with its mournful tenor. Shir haMaalos goes hand-in-hand with the joy of the day; if it's joyous enough to warrant looking toward the geulah rather than lamenting the churban with Al Naharos Bavel, then it's joyous enough for Tachanun not to fit either. But the key is joy, which has nothing to do with a beis avel. We skip tachanun in an aveil's home for the opposite kind of reason -- either because 1- we don't want to add to the aveilim's grief by harping on midas hadin, or 2- it is inappropriate to ask for mitigation of middas hadin in a home where din is being fully felt. :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 2nd day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Chesed: What is constricted Fax: (270) 514-1507 Chesed? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:42:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 14:42:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tan Du In-Reply-To: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> References: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20150406184227.GF20912@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 03, 2015 at 04:32:11PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Tradition - Winter 2014 (Rabbi N. Helfgot) ... : R. Lichtenstein in both private conversation with a number of talmidim : over the decades, including this author and in remarks in public shiurim, : noted his disagreement with the Rav's assessment of this hazaka (and : expressed astonishment at the vehemence of the Rav's opposition at the : time) given the clear cut evidence in the Rishonim in Yevamot and other : places in Shas which clearly indicated that this hazaka was not one that : applied in all contexts and at all times and in all situations. The way I heard RAL (recorded) was more that the large amount of material in Yevamos, much of the rest of seder Nashim, and the rishonim ad loc that such a proposal would make moot was itself RYBS's primary argument against R' Rackman's proposal. And that RAL understood the statement about tav lemeisiv and its ontological nature as a separate secondary argument RYBS made along the way. :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 2nd day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Chesed: What is constricted Fax: (270) 514-1507 Chesed? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:38:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 14:38:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5522D292.4070305@sero.name> On 04/06/2015 02:28 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:28:24AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam > : siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the > : holy serafim's conclave... > > Sod means conclave? Yes, as in "besodam al tavo nafshi". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:59:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 21:59:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 6, 2015 at 9:28 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 01:28:24AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : Nusach Sefard, in the introduction to the normal kedusha, says "kenoam > : siach sod sarfei kodesh" -- like the pleasantness of the speech of the > : holy serafim's conclave... > > Sod means conclave? > Yes, as in "besodam al tavo nafshi" in birkat Yaakov (Bereshit 49:6), where it's parallel to "kehalam", or more directly connected to kedusha Ps 89:8 "sod kedoshim". I couldn't say whether "conclave" is the original sense and "secret" a derived meaning, or vice versa -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 11:30:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2015 14:30:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Sim Sholom at a shiva house In-Reply-To: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150406.081344.21471.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5522D0BC.2010004@sero.name> On 04/06/2015 08:13 AM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > R' Zev Sero asked: > >> Nusach Ashkenaz says Sim Sholom only after birchas cohanim (and in >> EY after kriyas hatorah), and Sholom Rov at other times. Does this >> mean that at a shiva house Sholom Rov is said even in shacharis >> (in EY on a non-Mon/Thu)? > No, but I don't know why. > > I never thought of that question before, but here is a > possibly-related question that I've wondered for years: If Shir > Hamaalos is said whenever we skip Tachanun, should it always be said > at the shiva house? The same question would apply in the afternoon of Erev Tish`a B'av. But the two questions can easily be distinguished. The substitution of Shir Hamaalos for Al Naharos Bavel is not caused by the lack of tachanun; rather both are caused by the same thing: the element of simcha on that day that makes mourning inappropriate. But the omission of tachanun at a shiva house is not because of simcha, but because we don't want to invoke divine judgment in a situation which is already fraught; thus Al Naharos Bavel is not inappropriate. And of course on Erev Tish`a B'av what could be more appropriate than Al Naharos Bavel? Sim Shalom, however, seems (in nusach Ahskenaz) to be directly linked to the conclusion of birchas kohanim, "veyasem lecha shalom". Thus it shouldn't matter why birchas kohanim is not being said; the mere fact that it's not said should be enough to cause the omission of sim shalom, and the substitution of shalom rav. Proof that this distinction is valid comes from the case of Tehilim #49, which is said at a shiva house on days when tachanun is said; on days when tachanun is omitted, #16 is substituted. But of course in a shiva house *every* day is a day when tachanun is omitted, so when does one say #49? The obvious answer is that on normal days omission of tachanun is related to the place, not to the day, and thus #49 is said; when the day has an element of simcha that makes #49 inappropriate, we substitute #16. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 6 16:23:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2015 19:23:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] partnership - adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties Message-ID: <001b01d070c0$b326a370$1973ea50$@com> Here is a step towards making my approach to the Relationship of Yisrael with Hashem more understandable. As always it is the feedback and exchange of ideas which contains so much creative force. AVOS WERE PARTNERS, THEIR DESCENDANTS WERE IN LIMBO RACHAMIM WAS DETERMINED INCLUSIVITY - ALL ARE INCLUDED INCLUDED INTO THE COVENANT - UNILATERAL COVENANT OF HASHEM WITH HIMSELF 2. G-d related to the Avos - Avraham Yitzchak Yaakov - as partners, whose faithful service he knew and trusted. The durability was unusual, but the basic partnership never was under question, as with partners who get along. 3. 4. Almost all could ask - we are individuals in a mass of Egyptian slaves, we have lost direct contact!! We cannot compare ourselves to a 70 member Covenant, which included Yaakov Avinu one of the Avos, who actually made every move based on direct prophecy. Even the 12 Shvatim had almost direct access to HASHEM himself. 5. The Crisis of Galus Mitzrayim - assuming all had learnt every Passuk in Breishis - was of uncertainty. - Yes Pakod Yifkod - but who am I? Will my generation merit to see what even the most elderly never saw with their eyes? Even were Moshe Rabeinu assured of membership in the Elite, he retained that uncertainty. On Pshat level, five minutes prior to the moment of noticing the Burning Bush, could ask that question. That vision began transforming Moshe Rabeinu into the instrument of G-d, the Goeil. The man who turned to check - was already entering Geula mode. 6. Machzor Vitri page 148 has a key piece called Pithron Nishmas Kol Chai. According to Psachim, the Nishmas Prayer should contain within it the essence of the message of Seder Night. Towards the end of Yishtabach - there treated as just the ending of Nishmas - RAABAN adds that the 15 praises parallel the 15 Dayeinus. 7. The piece de resistance - Chai Haolamim is explained Haya hoveh yihyeh, Ani Hashem lo Shanisi (from Malachi Haftara of Shabbos Hagadol). 8. Rashi here is one theme - as I would see it. Chai means involved with caring for his children right now - as fits in Chai Anochi leOlam Im shanosi brak charbi or a Shvuah. 9. Haolamim means until the end of time, as in a parent telling the child not to worry, the Parent is always here. 10. The piece on page 148 adds an extra word to Nishmas, to make a point sharper. V' Y H V H Shmo Eir Hineh lo yanum vlo yiyshan. The word Shmo - appears only in this one obscure manuscript, seemingly a Rashi arrow. 11. Here Rashi uses full expression - Hashem appeared to Avraham with the name E I L S H a D a Y but not the Name Y H V H. Avos were established Partners and employees. Now Hashem is showing his determination and leadership - new World Order - all eligible Jews will be included in the Geulah, no exceptions. 12. Hashem is taking on the eternal duty of guarding them, with no limits and no clause for rejection. Yes Hashem admits no such precedent existed. Only Hashem can overturn His Rules. 13. Bnei Yisrael are Unilaterally Covenanted to be Hashem's Bni Bchori. Just like He had focused since the word Breishis, bishvil Torh Shenikra Reishis, now all He wants is that His People be His only. Bni Bchori Yisrael! First Day Chol Hamoeid Pesach - we read these key Psukim. Tephillin wearers understand that Kadesh li kol bchor means singular devotion. 14. In our world, it would be a person seeking a marriage partner, then signing Adoption Papers. The parent chose - volitionally and with focus - to adopt this child. PARENTAL RIGHTS - FAMILY IDENTITY 15.It is a brand new family identity, which cannot be abrogated. Yes - there can be strains. But there cannot be a dissolution. It is stronger than marriage! 16. Rashbam says - He the King says about Himself Ehkeh, I will be. Yisrael as his subjects use the Third Person He Will Be. 17. It is not about Maaseh Breishis in Rashi. It refers to the instant covenant - My determination to Adopt You is irrevocable. 18. Ehkeh - becomes the Name He Calls Himself - totally devoted to watching over my Ben Bchor. Yihyeh is the Ben Bchor's confidence that He is watching me us. 19. The moment the Ben Bchor first uses the He will Care for Me - Hashem makes Ehkeh obsolete. The family has begun. 20. This is Rashi Rashbam. CONFIRMATION The Tzarfas Tosafos included Rabeinu Yosef Bchor Shor. He accepts Rashbam completely, except that HVYH is the holiest Name, not Ehkeh. The structure remains the same. 21. Hashem's Choice in Mitzraim was a Bnos TzlOphchad choice - choose which cousin and which time to marry. It is totally volitional and conscious. He chose adoption of all. Bachar Banu. 22. It means at a specific date signing Adoption Papers for 3,000,000 individuals. 23. Rashi says it means the special Adoption - family identity. That Adoption of all Bnei Yisrael had a specific moment, the Sneh. Those Name issues had meaning for Rashi and Rashbam. 24. Within the short timespan, all the Bnei Yisrael are Hashem's chosen children. Rishon in Emmes Vyatziv means since Ytzias Mitzrayim. Maaseh Breishis is not Primary to Rashi only secondary. 25. It is Family Commitment and Identity. Practical example, a secure Child can look his father in the eye. A secure Jew is able to have Hashem look him/her in the eye without flinching. I know this is my Father. 26. As the Midrash puts it - Yam Suf - I already met him when I was born and raised six months with no human being in sight. I know Him! 27. Ha'tishkach Isha ulahh - even a mother's love for her child cannot equal hashem's love. Hashem's Power is ever greater, but even His Love is stronger. 28. Woman says - Pesach is my adoption as Hashem's own Child - no Chametz ever! There is no bending on identity. This works on the visceral level. 29. Rashi in MV 148 does call it Rachamim - as in Rachamei Av al Banim. It is the strength of Inclusion in the Covenant. It is in its deepest essence - a Unilateral Covenant. Ehkeh Asher Ehkeh - just like in this oppression - in any other oppression. That is the Adoptive Parent's approach. Lo yanum vlo yiyshan shomeir Yisrael. 30. Rashi's approach is extremely strong. Rachamim is only possible as part of a relationship. Rashi makes the relationship primary and volitional. The secondary application of which rewards or concessions will be granted, secondary Rachamim, is put onto a solid base. Only chanun is left as a "nebbish" Midah - even from a cruel tyrant chein is possible. 31. Let adoption - permanent irrevocable relationship - not Emotional ties 32. 33. In describing why person would fast all Passover over and above Jewish Law Practice, you used the words "emotional attachment". In the seven years since that wording , perhaps the message is deeper. 34. This woman was looking at the strength of the Covenant - which is Identity. The bylaws are only secondary. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: AJS review of Rossi.PDF Type: application/pdf Size: 255404 bytes Desc: not available URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 8 05:37:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2015 08:37:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "kesod siach sarfei kodesh" In-Reply-To: References: <55221978.1070505@sero.name> <20150406182807.GD20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150408123715.GC8438@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 09:59:14PM +0300, Simon Montagu via Avodah wrote: : > Sod means conclave? : : Yes, as in "besodam al tavo nafshi" in birkat Yaakov (Bereshit 49:6), where : it's parallel to "kehalam", or more directly connected to kedusha Ps 89:8 : "sod kedoshim". To clarify: "Sod" *here* means conclave? I suggested an alternative, which I think fits the sentence better, as it makes "sod siach" a phrase, rather than trying to explain the interruption of "siach" in "sod ... sarfei". : I couldn't say whether "conclave" is the original sense and "secret" a : derived meaning, or vice versa Very different implications hashkafically, whether yesod would then be related to secrets (as foundations are in the ground) or a gathering of people (people as founders?). :-)||ii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 4th day micha at aishdas.org in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Chesed: When is Chesed an Fax: (270) 514-1507 imposition on others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 04:58:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 14:58:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: Just saw a halacha that to me was a chiddush That one cannot (or should not) be yotzeh someone else for tefiilat haderech but everyone should say for them self. Those agreeing (at least lechatchila) include R Aviner R Nebenzahl R C Kanevsky R Tuvia Goldstein (who said he convinced RMF) R Belsky Not what I have seen in practice. Anyone know any opinion that does allow it -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 08:55:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 15:55:59 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: <20150412.115559.22172.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel asked: > Just saw a halacha that to me was a chiddush > That one cannot (or should not) be yotzeh someone else for > tefiilat haderech but everyone should say for them self. > Those agreeing (at least lechatchila) include > R Aviner > R Nebenzahl > R C Kanevsky > R Tuvia Goldstein (who said he convinced RMF) > R Belsky > Not what I have seen in practice. > Anyone know any opinion that does allow it Chidush to me too. I don't where to begin my comments. There's a GIGANTIC difference between "cannot" and "should not". "agreeing (at least lechatchila)" also allows a too-wide variety. And without some sort of reasoning, how can we throw out what we already know? Is there something special about Tefilas Haderech, or is this merely an example of how we have so little kavana nowadays that being motzi others is just too risky? I'm sure there are other sources I could quote, but for now, I will simply quote from "Halachically Speaking", vol 1, pg 75, by Rabbi Moishe Dovid Lebovits, published by Israel Bookshop. > One person can say the tefillah for everyone, as long as he has > everyone in mind and the others concentrate on the words.(20) > Horav Yisroel Belsky shlita maintains that every individual > should try to say tefillas haderech if he can.(21) If this is > not possible, one person can say it for everyone.(22) > 20) Kinyan Torah 2:119, Bais Avi 5:55, Opinion of Horav > Elyashiv shlita quoted in Darchei Ori page 279:2, > U'velechticha Baderech 2:footnote 26 quoting the opinion of > Horav Chaim Kanievesky shlita, see Darchei Ori page 259:1. It > is questionable whether someone who has already said tefilalas > haderech can repeat it for someone else. (Halichos Shlomo > Tefilah 21:5:footnote 9). > > 21) See Emes L'Yaakov page 65. > > 22) See Eishel Avraham Butchtach, Rivevos Ephraim 6:32:2, > Halichos Shlomo Tefilah page 245:5, Divrei Chachamim page > 76:192. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 06:33:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 09:33:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: <10b001d074db$3ad805c0$b0881140$@gmail.com> References: <20150407125218.216501835E4@nexus.stevens.edu> <10b001d074db$3ad805c0$b0881140$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150412133337.B25AB182ACC@nexus.stevens.edu> I am moving this to Avodah. YL At 12:43 AM 4/12/2015, R. Moshe Yehuda Gluck wrote: >R' YL: >Another person wrote to me > >"Chazal say that one is not allowed to daven outside (probably because of >kavana); >-------------------- >Does anyone have a mareh makom for this? > >KT, >MYG From http://www.dinonline.org/2012/07/11/davening-outdoors/ Is it problematic to daven outdoors? Thanks. Answer: One should not daven in an open area outdoors, and should daven in a closed building, or a sheltered area. Sources: The Gemara (Berachos 34b) writes that it is wrong (arrogant ? chatzuf) to daven in an open field. Rashi explains that in an open field, one doesn?t feel fear of the King, and one doesn?t pray with a broken heart. Tosafos, however, understands that the concern is for passers-by, who are liable to disturb a person?s davening. The Magen Avraham (90:6) rules that the problem is that davening outside makes a haughty statement: ?Even though there are passers-by, they will not disturb my intent in davening!? This is arrogant and wrong. The Shulchan Aruch (90:5) rules that one should not daven in an open place, and the Mishnah Berurah (11) adds that those who are always travelling should can daven in an open place, but should try to daven by a tree. Therefore, although it is not forbidden to daven outdoors, it is wrong to daven in an open area, and one should seek a sheltered place. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 09:54:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 19:54:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] reviit Message-ID: In the sefer of Rav Aviner he brings many examples of gedolim who used a kiddush cup the size of the shiur of R Chaim Naeh (86 CC) and not CI. He says he heard from RSZA that when RCN published his sefer on shiurim the rabbis of Yerushalayim were astounded at his chumra !! 1) cup if Chafetz Chaim (from his grandson R Hillel Zaks) 2) cup of GRA (baal eyanim le-mishpat who got it as an inheritance) 3) cup someone got from Ohr Sameach (mesoros she-avdu) 4) Rebbe of Gur - Pnei Menachem stated about the cup of his father Baal Imre Ha-emes 5) cup of R Salanter (Shut Teshuvot Vehanhagot) 6) Rav Dessler used a small cup that belonged to his wife's family. After she passed away he used a larger cup 7) cup of the father of the CI 8) Brother of CI used a cup he got from his father-in-law (Cheshek Shlomo of Vilna) and also had shiur RCN 9) R Elyashiv used a cup the size of CI but explained that he did so in honor of CI not because that is the halacha 10) In the sefer Meged Givat Olam second volume p34) someone showed RMF a cup holding about 88cc and RMF remarked that it was kosher lechatchila (not not the shiur published in his name) 11) In Divrei Yoel the Satmar rebbe is quoted as saying the shiur of reviit is 75 gram (!?) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 12 12:01:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2015 15:01:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] reviit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <552AC11F.8060605@sero.name> On 04/12/2015 12:54 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > 11) In Divrei Yoel the Satmar rebbe is quoted as saying the shiur of reviit is 75 gram (!?) > RACN assumed that the Rambam's dirham was the same as the Ottoman dirham used in his day, which was 3.1 g. But there's significant evidence that the Egyptian dirham of the Rambam's day was slightly smaller, about 2.8 g, which gives a revi'it of about 75 ml. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 12:15:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 15:15:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150413191514.GA19165@aishdas.org> R' Ari Kahn posted a transcript of that famous talk that people remember for RYBS's statement about tav lemeisiv. http://arikahn.blogspot.co.il/2013/03/rabbi-soloveitchik-talmud-torah-and.html As a teaser, here is all RYBS said on tev lemeis tan du: Let me add something that is very important: not only the halachos but also the chazakos [19] which chachmei chazal have introduced are indestructible. We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above. Let us take for example the chazaka that I was told about: the chazaka tav l'meisiv tan du mil'meisiv armalo [20] has absolutely nothing to do with the social and political status of women in antiquity. This chazaka is based not upon sociological factors, but upon a verse in breishis -- harba arbeh itz'voneich v'heironeich b'etzev teildi vanim v'el isheich t'shukaseich v'hu yimshal bach -- "I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy travail; in pain thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee" [21]. It is a metaphysical curse rooted in the feminine personality -- she suffers incomparably more that the male who is in solitude. Solitude to the male is not as terrible an experience, as horrifying an experience, as is solitude to the woman. And this will never change, mayid shamayim vaaretz [22]. This is not a psychological fact; it is an existential fact, which is due not to the inferior status of the woman, but rather to the difference, the basic distinction, between the female personality and the male personality. Loneliness frightens the woman, and an old spinster's life is much more miserable and tragic than the life of an old bachelor. This was true in antiquity; it is still true, and it will be true a thousand years from now. So, to say that tan du mil'meisiv armalo was or is due to the inferior political or social status of the woman is simply misinterpreting the chazaka tan du mil'meisiv armalo. No legislation can alleviate the pain of the single woman, and no legislation can change this role. She was burdened by the Almighty, after she violated the first [law]. Let me ask you a question -- ribono shel olam, G-d Almighty, if you should start modifying and reassessing the chazakos upon which a multitude of halachos rest, you will destroy yehadus. So instead of philosophizing, let us rather light a match and set fire to the beis yisrael, and get rid of our problems. What I think is more typical of the general thesis of this portion of his talk was the immediately prior statement: V'chen hakofer b'perusha v'hu torah she b'al peh v'hamach'chish magideha; he who denies the perfection and the truthfulness of chachmei chazal -- not of the Torah, but of the chachmei chazal as personalities, as real persona as far as their character, their philosophy, or their outlook on the world is concerned -- is a kofer. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 9th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 most appropriate? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 12:27:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 19:27:43 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150413191514.GA19165@aishdas.org> References: <20150413191514.GA19165@aishdas.org> Message-ID: What I think is more typical of the general thesis of this portion of his talk was the immediately prior statement: V'chen hakofer b'perusha v'hu torah she b'al peh v'hamach'chish magideha; he who denies the perfection and the truthfulness of chachmei chazal -- not of the Torah, but of the chachmei chazal as personalities, as real persona as far as their character, their philosophy, or their outlook on the world is concerned -- is a kofer. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The whole piece is worth hearing (even more than reading) - it seems to me that the debate echoes here: https://kavvanah.wordpress.com/2015/04/12/rabbi-ysoscher-katz-and-rabbi-ozer-glickman-rounds-one-and-two/ I do wonder whether one can avoid self awareness with a modern education. Another challenge is how to deal with recent "Chachmei Hamesorah" who don't seem to meet the perfection definition. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 13:56:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 13:56:37 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] support obligations Message-ID: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/193853#.VSwsUo6ZPAG interesting question . while in theory the ketuba and consequently the terms of marriage , mandate the husband support a wife , in practice that is not true in the kollel years [which in israel could last a prolonged time ]. here , a kollel man divorcing claims no income , and that the wife should support the children by getting a job . apart from secular courts, is there a positive chiyuv for a husband to leave 'torato umnato' to support his children ? does a get terminate his financial obligations halachically? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 14:23:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 17:23:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Philosophy and practice of shmita In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150413212344.GA3301@aishdas.org> On Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 10:09:02PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : What is the earliest source that ties shmita to the farmers using the : time to learn Torah?... I don't know about first, but the Seforno (Vayiqra 25:4, d"h "shabbos Lashem") writes: So that also those who work the earth, when they rest for this year, yis'oreru lidrosh es H' be'ofen mah. This is then quoted verbatum by R' Yaaqov Tzevi Mecklengburg (HaKesav behaQabbalah, early or mid-19th cent), who sites both the Sefornu and and "Raba"ch" -- who is eluding me. I didn't see it in Rabbeinu Bechayei, nor the Chizquni. Nor am I sure that "liderosh es H'" means learning. More recent is the Ari (as recorded by R' Shemu'el Vital, Shaar haPesuqim) based on the Zohar (vol II 20b). Haro'eh baShoshanim -- "Shoshanim" refers to the 6 shins in "usefarta lekha SHeva SHabasos SHanim, SHeva SHanim SHeva pe'amim". And from there haro'eh bashoshanim becomes: the one who dedicates the 7th year to learning finds G-d in all the 6 years of labor as well. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 9th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 most appropriate? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 14:28:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 17:28:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos In-Reply-To: <20150401084748.2445618205D@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150401084748.2445618205D@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150413212857.GB3301@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 01, 2015 at 04:47:45AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Does not the SA say that a person who has trouble chewing matzah can : soak it in water and then eat it? If so, then I fail to see why : eating gebrokts should be a problem for anyone. : The SA lived in the wrong qehillah for the minhag to be relevant. He would allow you to eat qitniyos too. And if we accept the SA haRav's explanation of gebrochts over the MB's, the Rama lived before we counted kneading time toward the 18 min, and gebrochts wasn't necessary yet. And since according to the SAhR's teshuvah, the minhag caught on after the Besh"t, meaning during the lifetime of its author and his readers, I am inclined to believe his version of the timing over someone who is reconstructing older history. : Also, were not the matzos that were used in the time of the SA : thicker than ours? Again, MB vs the SAhR as to whether that's at issue. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 9th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 most appropriate? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 14:33:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 17:33:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] support obligations In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150413213345.GC3301@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 01:56:37PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : apart from secular courts, is there a positive chiyuv for a husband to : leave 'torato umnato' to support his children ? does a get terminate his : financial obligations halachically? Assuming she didn't agree to the arrangement. Ortherwise, the wife willingly waved her claim to his income, and took on the obligation of self- and child-support. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 20:54:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 03:54:11 GMT Subject: [Avodah] support obligations Message-ID: <20150413.235411.14734.1@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Assuming she didn't agree to the arrangement. Ortherwise, the wife > willingly waved her claim to his income, and took on the obligation > of self- and child-support. I would argue that she accepted the financial responsibilities only in exchange for the s'char she gets from enabling her husband to learn Torah, and that once he ceases to be her husband, that arrangement ends, and the whole thing reverts to the usual. Phrased differently, once he stops giving her the s'char of sharing in his learning, he has to give her a more practical olam-hazeh sort of support. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552c8fb420d2bfb30fdest04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 13 20:45:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 03:45:47 GMT Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> [RAK gives credit to others in fn. 1. It is not his transcript. -micha] R' Micha Berger posted R' Ari Kahn's transcript of Rav YB Soloveitchik: > ... This is not a psychological > fact; it is an existential fact, which is due not to the inferior > status of the woman, but rather to the difference, the basic > distinction, between the female personality and the male personality. > Loneliness frightens the woman, and an old spinster's life is much > more miserable and tragic than the life of an old bachelor. This was > true in antiquity; it is still true, and it will be true a thousand > years from now. So, to say that tan du mil'meisiv armalo was or > is due to the inferior political or social status of the woman > is simply misinterpreting the chazaka tan du mil'meisiv armalo. ... From what I understand, the objection to hafkaas kiddushin comes from a presumption that a woman would prefer to stay with her husband, even if he seems to be a terrible person, and even if she tells us that in *her* opinion he is a terrible person -- and we have this presumption because of the chazaka of tan du. But I do not see Rav Soloveitchik making that case here. All he is saying is that "an old spinster's life is much more miserable and tragic than the life of an old bachelor." He does say that this relative perspective on singlehood is a "permanent ontological principle[s] rooted in the very depth of the human personality," and that it will never change, and that this information is Revealed in the words of Bereishis. But this refers ONLY to the misery and tragedy of a single woman as opposed to a single man. And that's NOT that argument against hafkaas kiddushin, at least not how I've heard it. The argument that I've heard -- that is to say, the supposed translation of "tav l'meisiv tan du" -- is that a woman would prefer living with ANY man rather than to be alone. I can easily understand opposition to Hafkaas Kiddushin on the grounds that widespread use would give *all* marriages a sort of "tentative" status. But that's not what people are referring to here, right? When they invoke "tan du" against Hafkaas Kidushin, they're saying that despite the wife's protestations, the wife would actually prefer to stay married, and that's why they're unable to annul the marriage. Or am I mistaken? Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 05:26:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 08:26:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <552D0792.4060709@sero.name> On 04/13/2015 11:45 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > From what I understand, the objection to hafkaas kiddushin comes from a > presumption that a woman would prefer to stay with her husband, even if > he seems to be a terrible person, and even if she tells us that in*her* > opinion he is a terrible person -- and we have this presumption because > of the chazaka of tan du. What she prefers is irrelevant. Obviously she wants to leave her husband; she is openly telling us so, and it's ridiculous to suppose she is not telling the truth. And even if she weren't, if the marriage is invalid then it's invalid, no matter what she wants. You're looking at the whole thing from the wrong direction. No objection is needed to annulling a marriage; what's needed is grounds *for* annulling it. The alleged grounds are that it has now become clear that this man was always such a bad person that had the woman known this when he proposed marriage she would have refused, and throughout the subsequent marriage there was never a point at which she was so happy that had she found out the truth she would have consented to stay with him. Now if the husband is bad enough (and it can be proved that he always was so), *and* the woman is such a catch that there was never a point at which she could not have found another husband, then this makes sense. Obviously she has always preferred a good husband to a bad one, and only married this man because she thought he was a good one. But what if refusing to marry him, or leaving him at some point during the marriage, were to expose her to the risk of remaining single forever? Would she still have turned him down or left him? The proponents of annulment say yes, of course she would, just as she has left him now. But, RYBS says, Chazal tell us that it's female nature to prefer a bad husband to none at all, so perhaps even if she had known the truth about this man she would have consented to marry him rather than risk remaining single; or perhaps there was a point after the event at which, had she learned the truth, she would have stayed with him rather than face a single future. > But I do not see Rav Soloveitchik making that case here. All he is saying > is that "an old spinster's life is much more miserable and tragic than > the life of an old bachelor." Yes, and therefore while a man might prefer to be single rather than live with a bad wife, a similarly situated woman will not. That this woman *now* tells us she would, doesn't prove that she always would have. > He does say that this relative perspective on singlehood is a "permanent > ontological principle[s] rooted in the very depth of the human > personality," and that it will never change, and that this information > is Revealed in the words of Bereishis. But this refers ONLY to the misery > and tragedy of a single woman as opposed to a single man. > > And that's NOT that argument against hafkaas kiddushin, at least not > how I've heard it. The argument that I've heard -- that is to say, the > supposed translation of "tav l'meisiv tan du" -- is that a woman would > prefer living with ANY man rather than to be alone. Yes. How is that not the same thing? Spinsterhood is terrible for women, so terrible that they'd prefer living with a bad man to it. > When they invoke "tan du" against Hafkaas Kidushin, they're saying that despite > the wife's protestations, the wife would actually prefer to stay married, > and that's why they're unable to annul the marriage. Or am I mistaken? Not that she'd prefer it now, but that she did prefer it earlier, when she was faced with the risk of never finding anyone else. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 06:44:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 09:44:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Could a New Gadget Change Shabbat Observance - Forever Message-ID: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/njr5j7a List of leading rabbis endorse 'Kosherswitch' to allow lights on Shabbat. High-voltage project could send a current through Jewish world. Will Shabbat observance change forever with a flick of a switch? A new gadget was released to the mass market on Monday promising Orthodox Jews a solution to the age-old problem of leaving lights on or off on Shabbat and then being prevented by Jewish law from flipping the switch. The new invention, dubbed "KosherSwitch," has been beta-tested since 2009 - but an indiegogo campaign launched Monday promises to bring the project to the masses. See the above URL for more as well as for a video explaining how this device works. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 07:59:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 10:59:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Could a New Gadget Change Shabbat Observance - Forever In-Reply-To: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150414145918.GA28845@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 09:44:04AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : From http://tinyurl.com/njr5j7a :> List of leading rabbis endorse 'Kosherswitch' to allow lights on :> Shabbat. High-voltage project could send a current through Jewish :> world. :> Will Shabbat observance change forever with a flick of a switch? Unlikely. They say this is new tech, which could be true since they got a [atenmt, but the How it Works page and the ptent describe something much like what Machon Zomet uses in their wheelchairs . Actually, Zomet makes sure their switch changes the amount of current, I see nothing in the patent about anything but turning the power on and off entirely -- it appears *more* problematic. The engineers among us can check out . As you can read on Zomet's site, R Neuwirth permits the wheelchair only because the issue is basic mobility. KosherSwitch.com shows you that that RYN signed on a "me too" to R' Pinchas Zabihi's haskamah. I have a notion that once things are clarified, the truth is more somewhere in between. When a house is on fire, and someone puts up a wall of pottery flasks filled with water to arrest its progress, geram kibui is mutar. See SA OC 334:22. The Rama either adds or explains (citing the Mordekhai), that this is bemaqom peseida. But gerama isn't suddenly mutar even without hefsed meruba or kevod haberios as a matir. So it all boils down to whether they really have a new tech that is more legitimate for them to call "un-grama" than Machon Zomet's design. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 07:12:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 10:12:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] =?iso-8859-1?q?The_Kosher_Switch=3A_A_Response_from_the_?= =?iso-8859-1?q?Tzomet_Institute=92s_Rabbi_Yisrael_Rosen?= Message-ID: <20150414141204.C79091830F4@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/ptcfckt The rabbinic world and blogosophere (see, for example, here) has been abuzz about the propriety of the Kosher Switch, which its producers claim allows one to halakhically turn on and off lights on shabbat. Attached here is the Hebrew response of Rabbi Yisrael Rosen, the prominent engineer who heads the Tzomet Institute, which includes (signed) clarifications of the positions of Rabbi Avigdor Nevenzahl and Rabbi Yehoshua Neuwirth. It is was sent on Tzomet stationery to Rabbi David Mescheloff, and is reprinted here with permission. Below is a rough English translation of the first page, which does not include some of the halakhic argumentation provided on the 2nd page of the original Hebrew. For all scholarly and halakhic purposes, and purposes of citation, only the original Hebrew letter should be seen as the authoritative writing of Rabbi Rosen. D. And here is the main part of my remarks: Yesterday I went to my teacher and rabbi HaGaon Rabbi Yehoshua Neuwirth, Shlita, and I asked him whether he permitted to use this switch to activate electricity on Shabbat for the purposes of Oneg Shabbat, etc He was really shocked and said he never permitted that. When I showed him the endorsement letter, he added in his handwriting: ?Only for medicine and security? (see photo in attached Hebrew article). Rabbi Avigdor Nebenzahl Shlita, who signed a similar letter, also told me yesterday that he does not recall ever signing anything like that, and expressed the opinion that there is no place for this and was puzzled about the whole thing. I suppose that whoever managed to get the signatures of important rabbis ?sold? them an invention that is a kind of a complex Gramma used for the purpose of medicine or security, and succeeded in skipping this condition when they signed. E. With regard to the claim, written in their accompanying halachic responsum, that it is permitted to use this Gramma switch to minimize the prohibition of those who willfully the violate the Shabbat, we have never heard of such rabbis who permit this. I am sure that those who ?agreed? did not see this argument, and this is an argument that should not be stated. See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 08:01:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joseph Kaplan via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 11:01:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <002d01d076c3$e98d8290$bca887b0$@tenzerlunin.com> "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above." Can anybody explain what this really means? That is, explain it to someone who doesn't use the word "ontological" in his/her normal speech. I have read it many many times but I still don't understand what the Rav is saying. Joseph -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 07:42:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 17:42:18 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: I guess I was a little too succinct in my last post. The major problem is that many consider tefillat haderech as a tefillah and not as a bracha. Thus while one can be motze other for a bracha one cannot do it for a tefillah. Hence, R Nebenzahl paskens that all those that know how to say by themselves should do so R C Kanevsky says it is preferable for each person to say by themself R Tuvia Goldstein says that one cannot be yotzeh someone else and claims that he convinced RMF of that R Belsky repeats that it is a tefillah and not a bracha and so it is appropriate (min ha-raui) that everyone says it for themself. R Aviner says that it is "rachamim" and therefore it is preferable that each one requests for themselves however bidieved one can be motzi others The sefer Piskei Teshuvot (siman 110-2) has a discussion whether one is required to say tefillat haderech in modern times. He concludes that one who does not say it on major roads has someone to rely on but someone who also says it has the reward of a tefilla even though we no longer have "listin" and wild animals on the roads. Instead we have a car accidents. Therefore one should also say tefillat haderech on railroads and planes. He claims that on small side roads that everyone paskens you need to say tefillat haderech -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 08:22:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 11:22:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150413.234547.14734.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150414152222.GD28845@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 03:45:47AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : From what I understand, the objection to hafkaas kiddushin comes from a : presumption that a woman would prefer to stay with her husband, even if : he seems to be a terrible person, and even if she tells us that in *her* : opinion he is a terrible person -- and we have this presumption because : of the chazaka of tan du. You phrased it as a psychological issue. RYBS says it's something existential or ontological -- and explicitly NOT pschological. I think he is saying that this vector exists in every woman's character. Even when current social reality provides other vectors that may submerge tav lemeisiv tan du, it is an entity present in her psyche (ontologically) still shaping her perception of reality (existential). And because of that element of her soul, inherited from Chavah, it's very hard to ever call a marriage a complete meqach ta'us on the bride's part. But again, my impression from RAL which is reinforced by this transcript, this particular argument was a side-bar, not RYBS's primary argument. Eg: ... : I can easily understand opposition to Hafkaas Kiddushin on the grounds : that widespread use would give *all* marriages a sort of "tentative" : status. But that's not what people are referring to here, right? ... RYBS discusses that issue at greater length than this one anyway. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 08:32:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 11:32:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] support obligations In-Reply-To: <20150413.235411.14734.1@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150413.235411.14734.1@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150414153245.GE28845@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 03:54:11AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Micha Berger wrote: : > Assuming she didn't agree to the arrangement. Ortherwise, the wife : > willingly waved her claim to his income, and took on the obligation : > of self- and child-support. : I would argue that she accepted the financial responsibilities only : in exchange for the s'char she gets from enabling her husband to learn : Torah, and that once he ceases to be her husband, that arrangement ends, : and the whole thing reverts to the usual. Phrased differently, once he : stops giving her the s'char of sharing in his learning, he has to give : her a more practical olam-hazeh sort of support. We are in the weird situation of talking about what the bride was agreeing to WRT a situation she never pictured arising. (I am reminded of Avodah discussions about what the Rambam would do if faced with what he perceives as a solid philosophical proof for a position he could not find a basis for in Torah. Would he declare something an allegory despite a lack of source in Chazal, would he dismiss the proof as flawed, perhaps even assuming the flaw had to be something he didn't yet find? The Rambam thought the situation was impossible.) So, I want to detour into a case more likely to have crossed the kallah's mind -- his death. If the husband predeceases her without having left kollel, she wouldn't expect him to leave her the same estate than if he had spent that time earning money. It may be equally valid to argue that the bride relinquishes claims to money even after he finishes learning, in exchange for supporting him while learning -- however long that lasts. I really don't know which way of looking at things is more valid. It's kind of like the old chestnut, "But if you did have a brother, would he like noodles?" Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 10:00:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Weiss via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 10:00:06 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3e97bfe1715ba4f18f42bf014d7ab62a.squirrel@mail.panix.com> > From http://www.dinonline.org/2012/07/11/davening-outdoors/ >> Is it problematic to daven outdoors? ... >> The Gemara (Berachos 34b) writes that it is wrong >> (arrogant - chatzuf) to daven in an open field. >> Rashi explains that in an open field, one doesn't >> feel fear of the King, and one doesn't pray with >> a broken heart. Tosafos, however, understands >> that the concern is for passers-by, who are >> liable to disturb a person's davening. >> The Magen Avraham (90:6) rules that the problem >> is that davening outside makes a haughty >> statement... ... >> Therefore, although it is not forbidden to daven >> outdoors, it is wrong to daven in an open area, >> and one should seek a sheltered place. As you see from the above it is the Lechatichilla not do daven in an open place, Last week we had a mincha minyan at the grand canyon, (to wait to a more appropriate place it would have been well after dark) When one davens in a large minyan and is surrounded by other people davening it is easier to concentrate on the tefilla. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 12:44:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 15:44:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd [TM]: Why Does God Test Us? Message-ID: <20150414194402.GB3303@aishdas.org> RGStudent recently posted a piece to answer the question "Why Does God Test Us?" The notion that the all-knowing God needs to test us to determine whether we will follow His command is absurd. He knows the future and therefore gains nothing from the exercise. Yet the Torah discusses in multiple places God's tests. For example, regarding the man (manna) that fell in the desert, God states: "So that I may test them, whether they will follow My law or not" (Ex. 16:4). The midrash (Tanchuma, Vayera 23) expresses the question aptly: ... I. Personal Growth The Kuzari (5:20), followed by the Ramban (Gen. 22:1; Ex. 16:4; Deut. 13:4; Toras Ha-Bayis in Kisvei Ha-Ramban, vol. 2 pp. 272-273), explains that God tests people in order to actualize their potential goodness.... II. Education Rambam (Moreh Nevukhim 3:24) takes an entirely different approach. He sees divine tests as a way to publicize, and thereby teach, the righteousness of an individual.... III. Adult Education I believe that, aside from midrashic sources and textual cues, Rambam had a more fundamental reason for taking a path different from that of the Kuzari and Ramban. The Gemara (Makkos 10a) says that Heaven takes you in the direction you wish to go. Similarly, another Gemara (Yoma 39a) says that someone who wishes to become pure (i.e. do good) is divinely assisted. Apparently, the Ramban takes this literally. ... IV. Self-Discovery Radal (ibid.) offers a third approach to understanding divine tests. Pirkei De-Rabbi Eliezer (31) says that the test was for Avraham to know his heart. God certainly know whether we will pass a test but poses it so that we learn our own abilities. Like a good coach, God pushes us farther than we think we can go. This, too, applies to adults who often underestimate their capacity for strength. God only tests those who will pass and by doing so teaches us the extent of our faith and endurance. ... -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 15:41:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 18:41:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] reviit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150414224153.GA9794@aishdas.org> On Sun, Apr 12, 2015 at 07:54:45PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : In the sefer of Rav Aviner he brings many examples of gedolim who used a : kiddush cup the size of the shiur of R Chaim Naeh (86 CC) and not CI. : He says he heard from RSZA that when RCN published his sefer on shiurim the : rabbis of Yerushalayim were astounded at his chumra !! Interesting, because I thought that RACN's agenda was to justify the accepted practice in his local, in EY in the early 20th cent. (Something I learned on-list 15 years ago.) Minhag Y-m is RACN's shiurim, because RACN started with the assumption that Minhag Y-m was roughly accuate, with the Sepharadim being the more precise. RACN himself was a Lubavitcher chassid of the Yishuva haYashan, born in Chevron. I do not know why people usually call him "Rav Chaim Naeh", ommitting his first name "Avraham". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 15:50:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 18:50:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: <3e97bfe1715ba4f18f42bf014d7ab62a.squirrel@mail.panix.com> References: <3e97bfe1715ba4f18f42bf014d7ab62a.squirrel@mail.panix.com> Message-ID: <20150414225006.GB9794@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 10:00:06AM -0700, Harry Weiss via Avodah wrote: : > From http://www.dinonline.org/2012/07/11/davening-outdoors/ : >> Is it problematic to daven outdoors? : ... : >> The Gemara (Berachos 34b) writes that it is wrong : >> (arrogant - chatzuf) to daven in an open field. : : >> Rashi explains that in an open field, one doesn't : >> feel fear of the King, and one doesn't pray with : >> a broken heart. Tosafos, however, understands : >> that the concern is for passers-by, who are : >> liable to disturb a person's davening. : : >> The Magen Avraham (90:6) rules that the problem : >> is that davening outside makes a haughty : >> statement... : ... : >> Therefore, although it is not forbidden to daven : >> outdoors, it is wrong to daven in an open area, : >> and one should seek a sheltered place. : .... : When one davens in a large minyan and is surrounded by other people : davening it is easier to concentrate on the tefilla. The Kotel Plaza doesn't suffer from any of these concerns, which is unsurprising because centuries of gedolim had no problem davening outside at the kotel. It's set up like a shul, so there is no special chutzpah or yuharah in davening there. Interruptions are likely, but generally for other mitzvos -- tzedaqah, or answering qaddish or qedushah from nearby minyanim. In terms And the location actively fosters yir'ah, koveid rosh and a broken heart. However, davening at Robinson's arch might suffer from the yuhara issue. (Personally, I find it more moving than the Kotel Plaza. One stands on the same road walked by oleh regel, among stones thrown off Har haBayis by the Roman Army (whether during the churban or when Hadrian had the har plowed, I do not know). Behind me are the ghosts of shopkeepers, ready to exchange my maaser sheini coins back to food, sell me flour for a qorban Todah or an animal for a differen qorban. The miqvah is a bit back, and to the left.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 16:12:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 23:12:56 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <20150414.191256.7783.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The major problem is that many consider tefillat haderech as a > tefillah and not as a bracha. Thus while one can be motze other > for a bracha one cannot do it for a tefillah. I am very confused. Many poskim recommend point out that Tefilas Haderech does not begin with "Baruch", so they recommend saying it after another bracha (such as Asher Yatzar, or a Bracha Acharona on food), so as to make it into a Bracha Hasemucha L'chvertah. But if Tefilas Haderech is not a bracha to begin with, then I do not see the advantage of such a procedure. According to "Halachically Speaking", vol 1 pg 76, the poskim who recommend the above procedure includes: Magen Avraham 110:13, Machatzis Hashekel 110:13, Be'er Hetev 110:10, Shulchan Aruch Harav 110:6, Mishneh Berurah 110:28, Aruch Hashulchan 110:14, Kaf Hachaim 110:51 -- but NOT the Chazon Ish (Orchos Rabenu 1:61). In addition, I recall learning of certain situations where it is recommended that one should say tefilas haderech, but omitting the chasima at the end. But if it's not a bracha at all even WITH the chasima, then what is gained by leaving it out? I suspect that I do not appreciate or understand the meaning of "as a tefillah and not as a bracha". Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552d9f0aeea561f0a2aa2st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 19:48:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 22:48:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Could a New Gadget Change Shabbat Observance - Forever In-Reply-To: <20150414145918.GA28845@aishdas.org> References: <20150414134335.4701A181A1F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150414145918.GA28845@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415024810.GA29474@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 10:59:18AM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 09:44:04AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : : From http://tinyurl.com/njr5j7a : : :> List of leading rabbis endorse 'Kosherswitch' to allow lights on : :> Shabbat. High-voltage project could send a current through Jewish : :> world. RGS just posted http://www.torahmusings.com/2015/04/will-the-kosher-switch-bring-mashiach-2 which also links to his earlier http://www.torahmusings.com/2011/09/in-defense-of-the-kosher-switch .... : As you can read on Zomet's site, R Neuwirth permits the wheelchair only : because the issue is basic mobility. KosherSwitch.com shows you that that : RYN signed on a "me too" to R' Pinchas Zabihi's haskamah. I have a notion : that once things are clarified, the truth is more somewhere in between. Actually, RGS determined that R Neuwirth didn't give his approval of the Kosher Switch outide of special circumstances. RGS writes: > The Kosher Switch adds uncertainty to the Gerama Switch. Every time the > device is supposed to send a light impulse, it calculates a random number > below 100 and only sends the impulse if the number passes a threshold > (usually over 50). However, there is a random element to Machon Zomet's switch too. Again, I do not see anything in the patent that makes this switch any less a simple case of gerama than Machon Zomet's switch. (In fact, R' Rosen of Zomet checked the posqim cited on KosherSwitch.com *because* he saw no reason why they would allow the Kosher Switch for general use and not Zomet's Grama Switch.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 10th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict Fax: (270) 514-1507 judgment bring balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 19:26:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 02:26:43 GMT Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150414.222643.13892.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> R' Joseph Kaplan asked: > "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with > the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not > upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon > permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of > the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, > which is as changeless as the heavens above." > > Can anybody explain what this really means? That is, explain it > to someone who doesn?t use the word "ontological" in his/her > normal speech. I have read it many many times but I still > don?t understand what the Rav is saying. This is how I understand it: Just as a leopard cannot change its spots, and just as Shabbos comes each week whether society accepts it or not, so too, there are certain elements of the human condition which Chazal have identified as inherent and unchanging, not subject to variation by time, place, or culture. Or something like that. At any rate, one can agree or disagree about whether this assertion is true, and even among those who agree with it, there might be discussion of exactly which chazakos are unchanging and which are variable. Still, his point is that there are indeed some UNchanging aspects. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552dcca9d8e634ca96125st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 02:07:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 05:07:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's true position on kosher switch I regret that my father's position on the kosher switch was misrepresented by stating that he endorses it l'maaseh . His position is that there are 2 aspects in hilchos shabbos, one is issur melacha and then there is zilzul shabbos. My father's opinion is that there is no issur melacha or chilul shabbos. However , there is a concern about zilzul shabbos as he stated clearly on the video. Before it is used one should ask a shaila from his rav. Moshe Oelbaum Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:01:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:01:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld : regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. ... :> Moshe Oelbaum :> Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum Authentication? -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 14 23:10:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 09:10:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: The reason for not allowing to be motzi someone else is actually quite simple. The Gemara in Berachos (29b) clearly states that tefilas haderech is a tefila "Amar R' Chisda hayotzeh laderech tzarich lhispallel tefilas haderech". Therefore the general rule of tefilla should apply, namely that if you are a baki someone else cannot be motzi you. Since nowadays we are all considered bekiim and for example, we don't allow someone to be motzi us in tefilas mincha the same would apply to tefilas haderech. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:18:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:18:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:01 AM 4/15/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: >: Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld >: regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. >... >Authentication? What I posted was sent to me by someone on my email list whom I trust. I can send you his email address if you like. YL From http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/kosher-switch > moish3 at yahoo.com > Member > Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's true position on kosher switch . > I regret that my father's position on kosher switch was > misrepresented by stating that he endorses it l'maaseh . His position > is that there are 2 aspects in hilchos shabbos. One is issur melacha > and then there is zilzul shabbos. My father's opinion is that there > is no issur melacha or chilul shabbos. However , there is a concern > about zilzul shabbos as he stated clearly on the video. Before it is > used one should ask a shaila from his rav. > Moshe Oelbaum > Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:44:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:44:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 06:18:35AM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : What I posted was sent to me by someone on my email list whom I trust. : I can send you his email address if you like. YL ... : From http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/kosher-switch : > moish3 at yahoo.com : > Member Oh, I believe it really appeared in YWN, and that link can allow you to check that much for ourselves. What I'm asking is whether anyone contact R' Moshe Oelbaum or RNIO to authenticate that the post really was from his son. It is trivial to claim to be anyone in a YWN chatroom. I don't know RMO, but I can't picture R' NI Oelbaum promulgating his position via chatroom. Could be, if his son is a regular there anyway. The presence of a post really doesn't tell me much. No matter how honest the person reporting to you is, he can be duped unless he spoke to the parties himself. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 03:13:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 06:13:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening Outdoors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150415101229.BCD31183613@nexus.stevens.edu> At 05:54 AM 4/15/2015, R. Harry Weiss wrote: >When one davens in a large minyan and is surrounded by other people >davening it is easier to concentrate on the tefilla. I do not find this to be true for me personally. I am not a "group person" and hence prefer to daven in a minyan that has between 20 and forty participants. This is the case where I daven during the week and also at the Hashkama Minyan at the YI of Ave J where I daven on Shabbos. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 06:34:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 09:34:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:44 AM 4/15/2015, Micha Berger wrote: > What I'm asking is whether >anyone contact R' Moshe Oelbaum or RNIO to authenticate that the >post really was from his son. It is trivial to claim to be anyone >in a YWN chatroom. I received this in an email from Moshe Deutsch I personally spoke to Rabbi & Rebbetzin Oelbaum who told me to publicize this. I was the one who made them aware that the person behind KosherSwitch is using his name in a way that Rabbi Oelbaum did not intend. Person behind KosherSwitch does not pick up the phone now when Rabbi Oelbaum calls. Moshe From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 07:21:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 10:21:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 09:34:32AM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : I received this in an email from Moshe Deutsch :> I personally spoke to Rabbi & Rebbetzin Oelbaum who told me to :> publicize this. I was the one who made them aware that the person :> behind KosherSwitch is using his name in a way that Rabbi Oelbaum did :> not intend... This still doesn't clear up my confusion, although it does confirm what the YWN post said (if not who authored it). I am trying to understand whether RNIO's problem with the appearance of his name on the KosherSwitch.com "approvers" list is because a- he feels that use of the switch is zilzul Shabbos, or b- he would hold it's gerama. What I am trying to understand is the tzad to say their switch isn't gerama. It appears to conform to the description of the Machon Zomet switch as it existed at the time R' Neuwirth consulted with RSZA who ruled it was. If RNIO holds it's "only" zilzul Shabbos, then clarifying what his position is was useful, but doesn't remove all my confusion. I was expecting that the posqim the Kosher Switch people are hearing overly optimistically (for their investment) would actually all end up agreeing with RSZA once we got clarification. Such as R' Neuwirth, whose approval was based on assuming the proposed use was a medical context. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 04:38:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 14:38:08 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <> On many birtchot hamitzva one can be motzeh others even when they are "experts". This includes shofar, megilla etc (not lulav or netillat yadaim which is considered as a mitzvah be-gufo) similarly for kiddush and havdala. Note that for sefirat haomer usually each person says the bracha himself/herself and also counts for themselves. There are opinions that if needed one can rely on the chazzan for the bracha but not the count. In birchat ha-nehenim usually each individual makes his own bracha. There are some which are a mixture including kiddush and motzi on shabbat on lechem mishne (note there are various minhagim on seder night). For birchat shevach eg lightning seeing great mountains etc each person says it by himself. OTOH the shliach tzibbur can be motzi others with shemone esre only if they cant say it themselves. Shemonei esrei is a tefillah (bakasha and shevach) even though shemonei esrei consists of brachot. The usual minhag is that each individual says birchat hagomel though I once heard from R Zilberstein that if many people need to say it then it is preferable for one person to be motzei everyone else ---------------------------------------- I am not sure if I have made things clearer - if not I leave it to someone else to explain exactly when one can be motze others lechatchila, bidieved or not at all -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 06:29:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 16:29:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: R' Akiva Miller wrote: > I suspect that I do not appreciate or understand the meaning of "as a > tefillah and not as a bracha". The difference between tefila and a beracha is whether you can be motzi a baki nowadays. With a beracha you can however with a tefilla you cannot which is why these poskim hold that each person should say tefilas haderech the same way every person davens shemoneh esrei. You also asked: > I am very confused. Many poskim recommend point out that Tefilas Haderech > does not begin with "Baruch", so they recommend saying it after another > bracha (such as Asher Yatzar, or a Bracha Acharona on food), so as to make > it into a Bracha Hasemucha L'chvertah. But if Tefilas Haderech is not a > bracha to begin with, then I do not see the advantage of such a procedure. Something can be both a beracha and a tefila at the same time, the prime example is shemoneh esrei which is tefilla par excellence but composed of 18 (19) berachos. Tefilas haderech is a tefila composed (possibly) in the form of a beracha and therefore the rules of tefilla would apply. [Email #2. -micha] R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The sefer Piskei Teshuvot (siman 110-2) has a discussion whether one is > required to say tefillat haderech in modern times. He concludes that one > who does not say it on major roads has someone to rely on but someone who > also says it has the reward of a tefilla even though we no longer have > "listin" and wild animals on the roads. It seems clear from the context of the gemara that tefilas haderech is a tefila b'eis tzara. The gemara mentions tefilas haderech right after it mentions that a person who is in a dangerous place says a tefila. The world has changed a lot since the time of chazal especially related to travel and we need to understand if these changes affect the din of tefilas haderech Here are some of the changes that have occurred relating to travel. 1. Most travel is no longer considered unsafe. When I get in my car every morning to drive to work I don't think twice about it 2. The distinction between in the city and out of the city is no longer true. Most people fell much safer driving in the Catskills then driving through Harlem. Driving on a highway from Brooklyn to Queens is in the city but driving in Monsey to the supermarket may be considered out of the city. 3. This is related to 1, people travel all the time. Most people commute some distance to work, this is normal and part of everyday life. In the time of chazal yotze laderech was a big deal. Given the above R' Shachter (in Nefesh Harav) says that R' Soloveitchik did not say tefilas haderech when he commuted from Boston to NY to give his shiurim. He felt that because it is a tefila b'eis tzara and nowadays there is no perceived danger and it is routine that there was no reason to say it. Recently, I heard a short shiur on tefilas haderech and was happy to hear that RSZA seems to say a very similar idea to RYBS. RSZA did not say tefilas haderech when he traveled from Yerushayim to Bnei Brak. He explained his reasoning as follows: 1. In many places it is not considered as if you left the yishuv for the following reasons: 1. There are many other cars on the road 2. The police regularly patrol the road 3. There are houses on the side of the road 2. Traveling by car/bus is a normal activity. Whan a person gets up and commutes to work he does not say he is going on a trip. The takana of tefilas haderech was for someone who was yotze laderech these kinds of trips are not considered ???? ????. 3. There is little or no danger of yotze laderech RSZA reasoning is very similar to RYBS. Basically, the world has changed and it is no longer unusual or dangerous to travel between cities and therefore the din of when you say tefilas haderech changes as well. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 05:05:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:05:17 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabala s Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150414.222643.13892.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150414.222643.13892.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <0fa3e90282b94c0e95214067965f579a@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> This is how I understand it: Just as a leopard cannot change its spots, and just as Shabbos comes each week whether society accepts it or not, so too, there are certain elements of the human condition which Chazal have identified as inherent and unchanging, not subject to variation by time, place, or culture. Or something like that. At any rate, one can agree or disagree about whether this assertion is true, and even among those who agree with it, there might be discussion of exactly which chazakos are unchanging and which are variable. Still, his point is that there are indeed some UNchanging aspects. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ I would add an observation that individual exceptions may exist empirically but are ignored halachically Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 06:24:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 09:24:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tan Du In-Reply-To: <20150406184227.GF20912@aishdas.org> References: <5337d09497e1424c940f51c8dc26d451@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150406184227.GF20912@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <552E669A.6000104@aishdas.org> I personally was always inclined to side with Rabbi Rackman over RYBS on tav l'meisav, but this article gives me pause: http://www.bbc.com/news/health-32303997 KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 07:57:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 10:57:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Message-ID: From: Joseph Kaplan via Avodah "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above." Can anybody explain what this really means? That is, explain it to someone who doesn't use the word "ontological" in his/her normal speech. I have read it many many times but I still don't understand what the Rav is saying. Joseph >>>>> If you leave out the word "ontological" here the sentence is perfectly clear: Human nature does not change. I'm sure you looked up the definition of "ontological" so no need to go there. But in this paragraph, the word "ontological" serves a subliminal purpose. Here it means, "Don't condescend to Orthodox Jews and do not assume we are backwards, primitive, and ignorant. One can be an intellectual and still believe the Torah is true and eternal." --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 08:12:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:12:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: From: Eli Turkel via Avodah >>The sefer Piskei Teshuvot (siman 110-2) has a discussion whether one is required to say tefillat haderech in modern times. He concludes that one who does not say it on major roads has someone to rely on but someone who also says it has the reward of a tefilla even though we no longer have "listin" and wild animals on the roads. Instead we have a car accidents. Therefore one should also say tefillat haderech on railroads and planes. He claims that on small side roads that everyone paskens you need to say tefillat haderech<< -- Eli Turkel >>>> Saying tefillas haderech "on major roads" -- does that mean even within one city, not just when traveling between cities? "On small side roads everyone paskens you need to say tefillas haderech"? What does that mean? Every time I get in the car to go to the grocery store in my own neighborhood? Or was the word "don't" inadvertently omitted from that sentence ("you don't need to say tefillat haderech")? I was driving someone to the cemetery for a levaya, we were on the highway doing 60 and all of a sudden it started to rain, but I mean a mabul, a hard, driving, blinding rain. I couldn't see at all in front of me. Of course I slowed down, as did everyone else, but it was still very frightening and certainly I couldn't just stop in the middle of the highway. My passenger, a BT, became very agitated and said, "I only know one perek of Tehillim by heart so I am going to say that." Then she recited Shir Hamaalos (from benching) out loud. The rain stopped immediately! A few miles further down the road, there was another sudden blinding outburst and she said Shir Hamaalos again. Again the rain immediately stopped. She was like a reverse Choni Hamaagel! I really think her emunah peshuta saved the day! But to veer back into Avodah territory -- would it have been appropriate to say Tefillas Haderech at that time? With shem umalchus? (I assume you can always say it without shem umalchus.) --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 08:34:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:34:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides Message-ID: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> There was a bachur next to me this morning whose retzu'os were painted black on both sides. And I believe I know why this is done, in case a retzu'ah gets flipped. Or perhaps to be chosheish for the Rambam's description of such retzu'os being "noi". The MB 933:21 tells us not to follow the Rambam, whereas the Keses haSofer (written by R' Ganzfried of the QSA) says even the *sides* should be black. But the site got me wondering: 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? 2- If the leather is soaked in dye untile its absorbed and the leather is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? R YS Elyashiv is reported by R' Mordeschai Friedlander (a noted sofer and poseiq, a reliable source) to hold they're fine. I am not challenging their kashrus. It just struck me that both seem valid concerns. I assume the talented chevrah can find holes in my problems. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:17:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:17:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> At 10:21 AM 4/15/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >I am trying to understand whether RNIO's problem with the appearance of >his name on the KosherSwitch.com "approvers" list is because >a- he feels that use of the switch is zilzul Shabbos, or >b- he would hold it's gerama. Does it really matter. He is saying that he does not approve of its use. Why do you need to know more? YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:32:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:32:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 12:17:02PM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : Does it really matter. He is saying that he does not approve of its : use. Why do you need to know more? For the sake of the switch, no. For the sake of understanding the concept of gerama -- Torah hi, velilamdah ani tzarikh! Saying this switch isn't gerama, and its use limited to cases where we can permit gerama, really defies my understanding of the concept. Or perhaps I misunderstand how it works, in which case the Electrical Engineer I studied to become (and the neti'ah that motivated the intent to become one) wants to know. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:07:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 17:07:04 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:34:00 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah > 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam > consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? > 2- If the leather is soaked in dye [until it's] absorbed and the leather > is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we > know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? 1. If it is just soaked, there is no problem of chatzitzah. (Did the fact that the pesiloth of the Tsits were soaked in techeles dye constitute a problem of chatsisoh? atmahah?) There may be a problem if it was subsequently glossed black - which it isn't. 2. Why shouldn't it be valid material after soaking? It's still leather. According to halachah, [have not checked this up right now - but if memory serves me] you can even use klaf [bdi'eved] for retsuos - as long as it is the skin of a kosher beheimoh, its kosher. Dovid [sofer] From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:13:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:13:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> References: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <552E8E18.4090201@sero.name> On 04/15/2015 11:34 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam > consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? Why would it be? It's part of the retzua. AFAIK everyone agrees that it's a hiddur, just not necessary, and most people don't bother. > 2- If the leather is soaked in dye untile its absorbed and the leather > is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we > know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? Why wouldn't it be? It's still leather, after all. Where does it say what colour the leather must be? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 09:57:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 12:57:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150415165733.GD6173@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:04PM +0100, D via Avodah wrote: : Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:34:00 -0400 : From: Micha Berger via Avodah :> 1- If the bottom is painted, why wouldn't the cholqim on the Rambam :> consider the paint a chatzitzah between the retzu'ah and the head or arm? : 1. If it is just soaked, there is no problem of chatzitzah. (Did the : fact that the pesiloth of the Tsits were soaked in techeles dye : constitute a problem of chatsisoh? atmahah?) ... So I believe your answer to my first question is that they don't paint the bottom, they only use my scenario two -- soaking the leather. About your parenthetical comment... If halakhah requires tekheiles, it requires blue wool. The completed product would be what the kohein shouldn't have a chatzitzah under. Not the undyed wool. :> 2- If the leather is soaked in dye [until it's] absorbed and the leather :> is fully black (a process developed about 12-13 years ago), how do we :> know it's still valid material from which to make a retzu'ah? : 2. Why shouldn't it be valid material after soaking? It's still : leather.... But it's no longer entirely skin of a kosher beheimah, as the dye isn't made from skin. It is now a retzuah made of skin + dye. I could see that either way, and am asking how we (or the posqim among us) can just assume that this innovation is not a problem. Just as tekheiles is different than tzemer, perhaps dye-soaked leather is different in kind than leather. How did we determine it isn't? : Dovid [sofer] Thanks for chiming in. But could you kindly put your full name in your email header or signature once in a while, so that people know who we're talking to? One of Avodah's goals is to create chevraschaft, which is difficult when people are anonymous or partially so. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 10:28:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 17:28:55 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150415.132855.9927.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 12:17:02PM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : Does it really matter. He is saying that he does not approve of its : use. Why do you need to know more? This is like saying, about ANY situation, "He is saying that it is assur. Why do you need to know if it is d'Oraisa or d'rabanan?" The answer is very simple: There are some situations which would justify doing it if "merely" d'rabanan, but not otherwise. Similarly, there may be situations where RNIO would allow this it his svara was ABC, but not if his svara was XYZ. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552e9fe45804e1fe4411ast02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 12:42:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 19:42:24 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu>, <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> Message-ID: <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Saying this switch isn't gerama, and its use limited to cases where we can permit gerama, really defies my understanding of the concept. Or perhaps I misunderstand how it works, in which case the Electrical Engineer I studied to become (and the neti'ah that motivated the intent to become one) wants to know. Tir'u baTov! -Micha _______________________________________________ Sounds to me like r' asher weiss's makeh bpatish definition. Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 16:13:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 19:13:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 07:42:24PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Sounds to me like r' asher weiss's makeh bpatish definition. You lost me. I wasn't discussing which melakhah -- if any -- one violates by using electricity in an of itself, but how using this switch relates to that melakhah. For example, even if we say that electricity and electronics itself weren't an issue, the majority of these switches would be installed so as to turn on fluorescent or incandescent bulbs. Both of which heat filaments until glowing -- so there is a melakhah of bishul or hav'arah to discuss. And my question becomes: In that rather typical setting, how the switch not gerama of one of those two melakhos? (Or possibly both, if a glowing filament is hav'arah, and the resulting boiling of mercury in the fluorescent bulb, bishul.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 11th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 strict justice? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 13:05:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 16:05:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillas haderech Message-ID: REliTurkel wrote: >Just saw a halacha that to me was a chiddush That one cannot (or should not) be yotzeh someone else for tefiilat haderech but everyone should say for them self. Those agreeing (at least lechatchila) include R Aviner R Nebenzahl R C Kanevsky R Tuvia Goldstein (who said he convinced RMF) R Belsky Not what I have seen in practice. Anyone know any opinion that does allow it< Is there any opinion, even of the five quoted, which holds that one is _not_ yotzei even b'diavad? As for RET's question, the Kol Bo on Aveilus, quoted in SSK, Perek 64, footnote 75, states that an onein is obligated in t'fillas haderech, but it is preferable that he be yotzei with another's b'racha. (I have not seen the SSK, but have seen it quoted.) EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 15:35:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 15:35:27 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach Message-ID: did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 17:00:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 20:00:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 6:35 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? I have a friend who does this. She once told me the origins but I forget where it came from. I remember that it was very obscure and non traditional. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 17:38:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 20:38:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150416003839.GD1638@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 03:35:27PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? What did it grow out of? Avoiding she'avar alav es hapesach? A way of avoiding chodosh, at least during the omer period? -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 17:44:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 20:44:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: <20150416003839.GD1638@aishdas.org> References: <20150416003839.GD1638@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 8:38 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 03:35:27PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: >: did anyone ever hear of a minhag not to eat chametz till after shavuos? > What did it grow out of? ... It had to do with chodosh and the omer/barley. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 22:05:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Weiss via Avodah) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 22:05:46 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > From: Marty Bluke via Avodah > Given the above R' Shachter (in Nefesh Harav) says that R' Soloveitchik > did > not say tefilas haderech when he commuted from Boston to NY to give his > shiurim. He felt that because it is a tefila b'eis tzara and nowadays > there > is no perceived danger and it is routine that there was no reason to say > it. I was on a number of trips to Europe with RHS and every morning when the bus left town he said Tefillas Haderech over the loudspeaker. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 15 22:19:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 08:19:12 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: multipart/alternative Size: 369 bytes Desc: not available URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 07:15:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:15:53 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: Question: If one doesn't view eilu v'eilu as multiple truths but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which is which), how do you explain the approach to halachic process which ignores academic findings concerning texts or historical circumstances? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 07:16:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:16:49 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] =?windows-1252?q?Nikra_Choteih=94_or_=93Nikra_Rasha=94?= Message-ID: <34b0a662bcc7405695661d14e08ddcfd@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> The gemara uses the expression ?Nikra Choteih? or ?Nikra Rasha? from time to time. Has anyone seen anything written on the relative ranking of such categories? (e.g. since it doesn?t say ?assur?? does it mean it?s not a complete prohibition but something less?) KT Joel RIch THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 08:26:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 16:26:54 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I've never heard of the minhag but there is a chasidishe minhag to eat matsoh every time one washes for hamotsi during the Omer [see Chayim VeShoolom - Minhogim of Munkatche Rebbe] - which might be connected. (The source is the Ari who perceives the spiritual influx of Pesach to be repeated over the Omer; the state that warrants the eating of matsoh during Pesach carries over till Shovuos. Full 'maturity' that warrants the eating of chomets is only reached on Shovuos.) Dovid Rubin From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 10:13:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 17:13:44 GMT Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach Message-ID: <20150416.131344.1969.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> R' Dovid Rubin wrote: > (The source is the Ari who perceives the spiritual influx of Pesach > to be repeated over the Omer; the state that warrants the eating of > matsoh during Pesach carries over till Shovuos. This reminds me of the comment (which I've heard several times here on Avodah, but I don't think anywhere else) that in Moshiach's time, all of Sefira will be a sort of Chol Hamoed to Pesach. > Full 'maturity' that > warrants the eating of chomets is only reached on Shovuos.) Shavuos -- a.k.a. -- "Atzeres" -- is of course an entirely distinct holiday, unrelated to Pesach or to its seven-week long chol hamoed. Chometz would not be a problem on Shavuos any more than Sukkah is mandated on the other Atzeres. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/552fede2bc7ec6de23df7st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 10:56:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 13:56:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach In-Reply-To: <20150416.131344.1969.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.131344.1969.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150416175612.GB10238@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 05:13:44PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Dovid Rubin wrote: :> Full 'maturity' that :> warrants the eating of chomets is only reached on Shovuos.) : Shavuos -- a.k.a. -- "Atzeres" -- is of course an entirely : distinct holiday, unrelated to Pesach or to its seven-week long chol : hamoed. Chometz would not be a problem on Shavuos any more than Sukkah : is mandated on the other Atzeres. Entirely distinct, yes. Unrelated.... The chag of cheirus finds its fruition with "charos - cheirus al haluchos." The connection between the issur chameitz of Pesach, the barley of the qorban omer, and the two loaves of chameitz wheat of the Shetei haLechem is at least as old as the Chinukh. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:22:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:22:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> Yesterday, at 7:13 pm EDT, I wrote: > And my question becomes: In that rather typical setting, how the > switch not gerama of one of those two melakhos? (Or possibly both, if > a glowing filament is hav'arah, and the resulting boiling of mercury > in > the fluorescent bulb, bishul.) And then "ssvarc" (RMSS) wrote on Torah Musings at 8:28 am or > In all likelihood, the Zomet one doesn?t have the light on a > randomized > timer (with indicators), nor the randomized chance for the light > pulse > to operate the switch. Now for an updated version of my response (not yet approved) there: Zomet's Grama Switch does have a randomizer on the LED whose light you may or may not block. As do Shabbos mode ovens. The Kosher Switch has a the same randomizer on the detector opposite the LED, but I don?t see how that makes anything more random. But now that you had me looking at their ?How it Works? page, the key difference has the description of a sefeiq sefeiqa. It?s far from clear what is meant. Here?s the quote from : > This creates two safeiks (Halachic uncertainty): the first, whether > or not the light pulse of the Light Pulse Pair will fail; the second, > whether the switch will fail in triggering the circuit based on the > results of the Light Pulse Pair. ?The switch will fail in triggering the circuit?? What are they doing to introduce this second safeiq? The best I can tell, it's a simple bit of software -- a randomizer that says "don't respond anyway". But that's just guessing, I'm not good enough at reading their patent to be sure. Also, in what sense is either a safeiq? Both will eventually happen, the question is when. I am not sure how ?sefeiq sefeiqa? applies to gerama, or to be more precise -- avoiding gerama. But at least I?m a step further in my understanding. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Here is the test to find whether your mission micha at aishdas.org on Earth is finished: http://www.aishdas.org if you're alive, it isn't. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Richard Bach From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:46:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:46:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> Message-ID: PS: On the relevance of random delay to gerama... AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is *geram* kibui". A case of gerama with a random time delay. But this is Yom Tov, where the laws against extinguishing are looser. The AhS refers you to OC 277:7, where we see that on Shabbos it's assur -- but because of a special gezeira to prevent people from doing the same when the wind *is* blowing. Not because of gerama. I also don't think the randomness of the length of the delay is necessarily relevant. Just pointing out halachic precedent. But it's certainly not "iffy" that we could invoke sefeiq sefeiqa. It's a random length delay, not a doubt whether or not the switch will eventually cause the outcome. The odds the wind will never come, or the randomizer(s) will never produce a combination that causes the switch to be honored, is ignorably small. (No one is selling a switch that may or may not shut the light.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:43:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:43:56 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: RJRich >>>Sounds to me like r' asher weiss's makeh bpatish definition. RMBerger >>>> You lost me. I wasn't discussing which melakhah -- if any -- one violates by using electricity in an of itself, but how using this switch relates to that melakhah. >>> IIAMN, the idea RJR is expressing is that the poseik has ad initio determined that the action in question is forbidden, and now is searching around for the category into which to place this prohibition. I have heard RAWeiss explicitly use this concept in classifying the use of electricity as makeh b'patish, based on a Yerushalmi - it's not an idea just made up by contemporary poskim. It does seem that some poskim are looking at the switch and saying "it *must *be assur somehow"; in any event that seems to me to be what RJR is suggesting is going on. Saul Mashbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:45:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:45:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150415101804.EF38F17FA5F@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55300361.8020803@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 02:22 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > "The switch will fail in triggering the circuit"? What are they > doing to introduce this second safeiq? The best I can tell, it's > a simple bit of software -- a randomizer that says "don't respond > anyway". But that's just guessing, I'm not good enough at reading their > patent to be sure. Yes, that's how I understood it. If and when the pulse is received, instead of automatically triggering the light to turn on, there's a gatekeeper that flips a coin, heads it obeys the request to turn on the light, tails it refuses. > Also, in what sense is either a safeiq? Both will eventually happen, > the question is when. In principle it might not ever happen. The basis of all this seems to be siman 277. There the concern is that even if the wind isn't blowing right now, it might start to blow *immediately* as you begin to open the door. This implies that if we can be sure that it won't start blowing until some time after the door has been opened it will be OK. But that whole discussion assumes that extinguishing the flame is not the purpose for which the door is being opened, it's just a possible side-effect. Is the halacha different if that was the intention? On 04/16/2015 02:46 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > > AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes > the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable > to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, > as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. > The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is > *geram* kibui". But there you're actively taking it to the place where the wind will blow. Here you're merely opening the door, so that if/when the wind blows the door won't protect the flame. > But it's certainly not "iffy" that we could invoke sefeiq sefeiqa. It's a > random length delay, not a doubt whether or not the switch will eventually > cause the outcome. The odds the wind will never come, or the randomizer(s) > will never produce a combination that causes the switch to be honored, > is ignorably small. (No one is selling a switch that may or may not shut > the light.) Why not? For the shabbos-keeping household, a switch that sometimes fails is better than no switch at all. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 12:12:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 15:12:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <55300361.8020803@sero.name> References: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 02:45:53PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : >Also, in what sense is either a safeiq? Both will eventually happen, : >the question is when. : : In principle it might not ever happen. ... : >But it's certainly not "iffy" that we could invoke sefeiq sefeiqa. It's a : >random length delay, not a doubt whether or not the switch will eventually : >cause the outcome. The odds the wind will never come, or the randomizer(s) : >will never produce a combination that causes the switch to be honored, : >is ignorably small. (No one is selling a switch that may or may not shut : >the light.) : : Why not? For the shabbos-keeping household, a switch that sometimes fails : is better than no switch at all. You want to ask them why not, feel free to do so. I'm not guessing why they're not setting the randomizers to make each even that unlikely. Still, they are repeatedly rolling the dice, the odds of repeatedly getting "no" falls off geometrically with the length of time in question. Ignoring milsa delo shekhicha, the light will indeed go on. They say the average is "several times" at . : The basis of all this seems to be siman 277. There the concern is that : even if the wind isn't blowing right now, it might start to blow : *immediately* as you begin to open the door. This implies that if we : can be sure that it won't start blowing until some time after the door : has been opened it will be OK. But that whole discussion assumes that : extinguishing the flame is not the purpose for which the door is being : opened, it's just a possible side-effect. Is the halacha different if : that was the intention? : >AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes : >the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable : >to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, : >as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. : >The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is : >*geram* kibui". : : But there you're actively taking it to the place where the wind will blow. : Here you're merely opening the door, so that if/when the wind blows the door : won't protect the flame. The AhS invites the comparison, not me. Clearly you're making a disinction that he holds is without a difference. BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at . To quote: An alternative Talmudic analogy: * There is a candle burning next to a closed window, and a strong wind blowing outside. Certainly, opening the window on Shabbat is forbidden, since the candle will be extinguished immediately. * There is a device that can determine if there's no wind currently blowing, and it can predict with 100% accuracy that no wind will be blowing for at least the next ~5 seconds. It lights up with a green light when it has determined this to be true. * On Shabbat, a person opens/closes the window while the device's indicator is green, knowing that a wind will ultimately blow and succeed in extinguishing the candle. * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to KosherSwitch (R). -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 11:55:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:55:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] {Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: > From: Marty Bluke via Avodah > Given the above R' Shachter (in Nefesh Harav) says that R' Soloveitchik > did > not say tefilas haderech when he commuted from Boston to NY to give his > shiurim. He felt that because it is a tefila b'eis tzara and nowadays > there > is no perceived danger and it is routine that there was no reason to say > it. RAsher Weiss, in a shiur on tefillat haderech, similarly expressed grave reservations about the recitation of tefillat haderech on routine trips which do not involve any particular acute danger, and indicated that his personal practice is not to say tefillat haderech (at least with a bracha) on said routine trips. OTOH, he was apparently very reluctant to issue a definitive psak that others should do the same, in the face of common established practice. Saul Mashbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 12:43:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 15:43:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> References: <20150415104448.GC14904@aishdas.org> <20150415133401.A5AA51836FC@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 03:12 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > > BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at > . To quote: > > An alternative Talmudic analogy: > > * There is a candle burning next to a closed window, and a strong > wind blowing outside. Certainly, opening the window on Shabbat is > forbidden, since the candle will be extinguished immediately. > > * There is a device that can determine if there's no wind currently > blowing, and it can predict with 100% accuracy that no wind will be > blowing for at least the next ~5 seconds. It lights up with a > green light when it has determined this to be true. > > * On Shabbat, a person opens/closes the window while the device's > indicator is green, knowing that a wind will ultimately blow and > succeed in extinguishing the candle. > > * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind > is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time > when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts > of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they > miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're > able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to > KosherSwitch (R). Yes, and it seems from the SA that this would be permitted. The big difference, though, is that in the SA's case there is no intention to extinguish the flame, and here there is. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 12:53:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 15:53:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> References: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150416195347.GC11430@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 03:43:24PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: :> BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at :> . To quote: ... :> * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind :> is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time :> when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts :> of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they :> miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're :> able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to :> KosherSwitch (R). : Yes, and it seems from the SA that this would be permitted. The big : difference, though, is that in the SA's case there is no intention to : extinguish the flame, and here there is. Getting back to the post that started this tangent, the question was whether this last bullet item actualy is relevant. What's relevant is the probability of the wind eventually blowing the candle out or the switch turning the light off. If it's a rov or maybe a rube deruba, then it's gerama. At least, that's what was consensus decades ago when Machon Zomet first produced their switch technology and wheelchair. Whether you can break down the likelihood of the melakhah occuring into a union of the probability of a number of sub-steps or not doesn't seem to me to impact the question. Because this isn't a safeiq situation, it's whether your action can be blamed for the melakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 13:25:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 16:25:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150416195347.GC11430@aishdas.org> References: <20150415142109.GD9794@aishdas.org> <20150415161631.625E0183492@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415163259.GB6173@aishdas.org> <60499493-7998-4DE4-B038-35E9ACBB0344@sibson.com> <1cc7012eb8b14306be3a6107280cf9fb@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> <20150415231358.GA7199@aishdas.org> <77bc62816c3df8f212ab7f67dd53782e@aishdas.org> <55300361.8020803@sero.name> <20150416191259.GB11430@aishdas.org> <553010DC.2070508@sero.name> <20150416195347.GC11430@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55301AC6.7000807@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 03:53 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 03:43:24PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > :> BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at > :> . To quote: > ... > :> * More accurately: A person opens/closes the window before the wind > :> is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time > :> when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts > :> of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they > :> miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're > :> able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to > :> KosherSwitch (R). > > : Yes, and it seems from the SA that this would be permitted. The big > : difference, though, is that in the SA's case there is no intention to > : extinguish the flame, and here there is. > > Getting back to the post that started this tangent, the question was > whether this last bullet item actualy is relevant. According to the SA even the penultimate bullet item is permitted: >> * On Shabbat, a person opens/closes the window while the device's >> indicator is green, knowing that a wind will ultimately blow and >> succeed in extinguishing the candle Surely the last bullet item makes the heter much stronger. But again, the case discussed is where this is not one's intention. Note also, in the mashal, that not only is there no wind right now, there is no candle right now either. > What's relevant is the probability of the wind eventually blowing the > candle out or the switch turning the light off. If it's a rov or maybe > a rube deruba, then it's gerama. That doesn't seem to be what the SA says. But again, with the caveat that intention might make a difference. > Whether you can break down the likelihood of the melakhah occuring into > a union of the probability of a number of sub-steps or not doesn't seem > to me to impact the question. Because this isn't a safeiq situation, > it's whether your action can be blamed for the melakhah. It's putting further causal distance between "cause" and "effect". What if you had a series of these routines, each of which may or may not call the next one, until the last one which may or may not do something? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 14:05:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Samuel Svarc via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 17:05:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Apr 15, 2015 6:01 AM, "Micha Berger via Avodah" wrote: > On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > : Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld > : regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. > ... > :> Moshe Oelbaum > :> Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum > Authentication? Um, the fact that R' Oelbaum says the same thing on the KosherSwitch video ()? What I find very disturbing is that this information is in the public arena. Why are people commenting or conjecturing without looking at the companies materials? On Apr 16, 2015 2:46 PM, "Micha Berger" wrote: > PS: On the relevance of random delay to gerama... > AhS OC 514:11 (still catching up to the yomi schedule after Pesach) quotes > the Rama (se'if 3) who in turn cites the Maharil that it's permissable > to put a candle in a windy place on Yom Tov that it should be blown out, > as long as the wind isn't blowing at the time you're taking it outside. > The AhS explains, "For doing so before the wind comes -- that is > *geram* kibui". > A case of gerama with a random time delay. But this is Yom Tov, where > the laws against extinguishing are looser. The AhS refers you to OC > 277:7, where we see that on Shabbos it's assur -- but because of a > special gezeira to prevent people from doing the same when the wind *is* > blowing. Not because of gerama. Take a look at R' Schapiro's teshuva (available on the KosherSwitch website) as well as listen to the shuir they link to (26 min.). KT, MSS From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 14:48:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 17:48:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150416214839.GC1824@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 04:25:42PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: :> What's relevant is the probability of the wind eventually blowing the :> candle out or the switch turning the light off. If it's a rov or maybe :> a rube deruba, then it's gerama. : That doesn't seem to be what the SA says. But again, with the caveat that : intention might make a difference. But we already know it does, according to RSZa and numerous other posqim. IOW, your seifa answers your reisha. : >Whether you can break down the likelihood of the melakhah occuring into : >a union of the probability of a number of sub-steps or not doesn't seem : >to me to impact the question. Because this isn't a safeiq situation, : >it's whether your action can be blamed for the melakhah. : It's putting further causal distance between "cause" and "effect". : What if you had a series of these routines, each of which may or may not : call the next one, until the last one which may or may not do something? That's exactly what I'm saying -- gerama is always a chain of events that can be subdivided according to your taste (how fine grained you wish to define the word "event"). There is an oft-discussed difference between melakhah and CM, where the latter subdivides into gerama (culpable) and garmi (no libability) but hilkhos Shabbos does not. And then even so, garmi is about number of human actions, not physical events. On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 05:05:38PM -0400, Samuel Svarc wrote: : On Apr 15, 2015 6:01 AM, "Micha Berger via Avodah" : wrote: :> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 05:07:57AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: :>: Rabbi Oelbaum has asked that his son's comment on YeshivaWorld :>: regarding Rav Oelbaum's position on kosher switch be publicized. :> ... :>:> Moshe Oelbaum :>:> Son of Rabbi N I Oelbaum :> Authentication? : Um, the fact that R' Oelbaum says the same thing on the KosherSwitch video : ()? YOu misunderstand what I'm asking to be authenticated. Yes, I agree that RNIO talks about zilzul Shabbos. He does in the original alleged approbation in print (or PDF) as well. I was asking for authentication that RMO was really the one who said it's "only" zilzul Shabbos and not also gerama. There is nothing in his caveat about them avoiding melakhah that explains in what way shabbos is being cheapened. Could be uvda dechol, could be gerama, could be any other derabbanan or shevus. No? Not to verify the new "chumera", but to very he wasn't being even more machmir. That's a lot to glean from a post on a YWN chatroom that claims to be from his son. No one identity checks on YWN. : What I find very disturbing is that this information is in the public : arena. Why are people commenting or conjecturing without looking at the : companies materials? In the same post I cite the site in numerous ways, including commenting on parts of the patent application. It's not like I stinted on the research. Never blame until the possibility of miscommunication has been eliminated. No? : On Apr 16, 2015 2:46 PM, "Micha Berger" wrote: : Take a look at R' Schapiro's teshuva (available on the KosherSwitch : website) as well as listen to the shuir they link to (26 min.). One thing I had noted about the teshuvah is that he doesn't bother with the whole thing about a second randomizer. Which is why I was lost as to why anyone would think this is more mutar, and why people who generally follow RSZA more often than RZS would think this solves anything. See R' Neuwirth's summary rejection, repudiating the claim he backed their work . Consistent with what he reported besheim RSZA decades ago. I already noted OC 277, which is specific to geram kibui being mutar, with the exception of taking a candle outside while the wind is calm, lest someone not wait for the wind to be calm. And havarah or bishul? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 18:59:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:59:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150417015924.GA11845@aishdas.org> Here's the current state of my understnading, to start the conversation over by clearing the exchanges that got me there. Feel free to correct any misunderstandings, or even points that needn't necessarily be as I present them. 1- RSZA considers Zomet's Gerama Switch to be just that -- gerama, and therefore assur derabanan except in special cases. Randomly delayed changes to a circuit is, leshitaso, gerama. 2- KSTI considers their switch to be halachically different because their version of the Gerama Switch then goes into a second randomizer which determines whether or not it actually turns on or off your light. They invoke the words "sefeik sefeika", which I don't understand, since the random element is to insure an unknown delay, not a doubt about whether or not the switch eventually turns the light on. 3- Those who hold like RSZA -- R Neuwirth (obviously), R' Nebenzahl, R' Shternbuch -- gave the same ruling to the new switch. 4- Those who say this switch is gerama do not actually invoke the second random element. I found nothing in that wouldn't apply to Zomet's switch. I see them as simply disagreeing with RSZA and R' Yehoshua Neuwirth when they dealt with that question decades ago. Which, given the stature of RSZA and the acceptance of Shemiras Shabbos keHilhasah (and thus RYN), I don't think will get very far in terms of communal acceptance. 5- The Machloqes between RSZA and R Chaim Zvi Shapiro (to pick two representative names) appears to be over how to understand the distinction between two statements by the Rama: 334:22- Geram kibui is only allowed in special cases, and 514:3- You may put a cnandle next to an open window even in a windy area. RSZA distinguishes between whether the intent is kibui or not. RCZS makes the chiluq between whether the maaseh is one of kibui. But I still don't see how this makes the Kosher Switch not a maaseh kibui that we would group it with open windows, not the normal geram kibui. 6- You can't take a candle outside to a windy area even when there is no wind because of a gezeira atu not waiting for the wind to die down. This is different than the window, because one is moving the candle itself. Still, the Magein AvrahamA applies the gezeira to the window as well -- inlike the Rama. So my wondering about how the Kosher Switch isn't a maaseh kibui means that I also have no idea why the switch wouldn't be covered by the gezeira. And according to the MA, the gezeira definitely applies, regardless. If so, wouldn't you need the switch to be physically blocked when the response could be immediately, and not merely warned off with a red light? 6- R' Oelbaum is against general usage, due to zilzul Shabbos. (To my understanding, zilzul Shabbos means violating a shevus or other deRabbanan, chilul Shabbos means deOraisa.) According to he explicitly states "it is clear it is not a grama". So, my prior approach to figuring out what he holds was pointless. Regardless of whether the person in YWN's chatroom is his son or just someone pretending to be, ie whether that text is likely to reflect the nuances of his position. And regardless how one is medayeiq the difference between melakhah and zilzul, ie whether he considers geram melakhah a melakhah or a shevus. RNIO is in the same camp as R' Chaim Zvi Shapiro WRT the mechanics of gerama, but with RSZA it all in practice. But at least now my opening question has some kind of resolution: No poseiq makes a point about how the switches differ, its a machloqes about whether the switch is more like bringing a candle outside or opening a window. It may also be a machloqes about whether it's only geram kibui that is limited to acts of kibui, or even other melakhos. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 12th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Gevurah: What aspect of judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 forces the "judge" into submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 17:56:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 20:56:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <10e550.ca50480.4261b459@aol.com> From: Zev Sero via Avodah >> Why not? For the shabbos-keeping household, a switch that sometimes fails is better than no switch at all.<< -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name >>>>> Now that Shabbos lamps are readily available -- they work by covering the light rather than turning it off -- why do we need the Shabbos switch at all? --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 18:08:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 01:08:53 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150416.210853.21413.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> > But that whole discussion assumes that > extinguishing the flame is not the purpose for which the door is being > opened, it's just a possible side-effect. Is the halacha different if > that was the intention? If the operative principle were Psik Reisha, then intention certainly would matter. So here's a question: Is Grama a version of Aino Psik Reisha, or is it another principle entirely? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55305d31763705d3173a1st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 15:56:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 23:56:59 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] chametz post pesach (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This idea (that the days of the Omer are a type of chol hamoed) is mentioned in Avoidas Yisroel [Koznitse Maggid] and Ramban in Acharie Mois. Dovid Rubin From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 18:27:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:27:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] re Chametz post Pesach Message-ID: >What did it grow out of? Avoiding she'avar alav es hapesach? A way of avoiding chodosh, at least during the omer period?< Since chadash is grain which has taken root after the minchas ha'omer on the second day of Pesach, and it takes more than 7 weeks for newly-sown grain to be ready for harvest, how is it possible for chadash to exist between Pesach and Shavuos? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 19:22:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 02:22:34 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Joel Rich asked: > Question: If one doesn?t view eilu v?eilu as multiple truths > but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don?t know which > is which), ... You've lost me. Doesn't the grammar and definition of the words "eilu v'eilu" imply that the two things under discussion are equal? I just can't wrap my brain around a way to translate "eilu v'eilu" where one is truth and the other isn't. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 19:35:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 22:35:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch In-Reply-To: <20150417015924.GA11845@aishdas.org> References: <20150415090727.9FCCC182CED@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150415100146.GA14904@aishdas.org> <20150417015924.GA11845@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5530716C.8070201@sero.name> On 04/16/2015 09:59 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > They invoke the words "sefeik sefeika", which I don't understand, since > the random element is to insure an unknown delay, not a doubt about > whether or not the switch eventually turns the light on. I assume they disagree with this characterisation. This is your editorial opinion, that since it's inevitable that sooner or later the ducks will all be in a row and the light will come on, all that it achieves is a delay of random length. They would say no, each time the sequence is triggered (let's say every minute) is a discrete event, in which there is a sfek-sfeka whether anything will happen, and the fact that in the next hour there will be 60 more such opportunities, one of which is "bound" to succeed, is irrelevant. They would also point out that there *is* in fact a doubt whether the light will ever turn on (before Shabbos is over or the owner decides to flip the switch back), and they would deny your premise that the tininess of that doubt renders it meaningless. *You* think it's halachically insignificant; they are not required to agree with you. > But at least now my opening question has some kind of resolution: > No poseiq makes a point about how the switches differ, its a machloqes > about whether the switch is more like bringing a candle outside or > opening a window. They seem to say that this is like a case where at the time you open the window there is neither a wind nor a candle, but you know that some time later a goy is likely to put a candle in front of the window, and that some time after that a wind is likely to blow and put it out. On 04/16/2015 08:56 PM, T613K at aol.com via Avodah wrote: > Now that Shabbos lamps are readily available -- they work by covering > the light rather than turning it off -- why do we need the Shabbos > switch at all? I assume 1. To save electricity 2. If you want a brighter light than you can get from a 15w CF light (which is the maximum that it's safe to put in a Shabbos lamp) 3. For applications other than lights -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 20:02:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 03:02:13 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel wrote: > On many birchot hamitzva one can be motzeh others even when they > are "experts". This includes shofar, megilla etc (not lulav or > netillat yadaim which is considered as a mitzvah be-gufo) > similarly for kiddush and havdala. > > Note that for sefirat haomer usually each person says the bracha > himself/herself and also counts for themselves. I am not aware of any situation where the halacha says that I cannot say a birkat hamitzva on your behalf, AND that the reason why I cannot do so is because you are a baki. (There might be other good reasons, depending on the situation, but I don't know that "being a baki" is ever such a reason.) That said, I do concede that the common practice is for one person to say the bracha on shofar and megilla for all the assembled, yet we all say our own brachos on lulav, hallel, and sefira. I have never seen this explanation, but I've always felt there was a very simple explanation for how this distinction developed: When I take the lulav, say hallel, or count sefira, I am doing the mitzvah myself. I am doing it in shul, among many other people, but we are each acting as individuals. I do the mitzvah myself, so I say the bracha on it myself. In contrast, I am dependent on someone else to blow the shofar or read the megillah. You can say that I am personally hearing the shofar with my own ears, and you can say that "shome'a k'oneh" means that I am actively doing the mitzvah of krias hamegillah -- but the bottom line, l'maaseh, is that if the guy on the bimah messes up, I've lost the mitzvah. I am dependent on him to get the mitzvah done. I have to do my share of the work too, of course, by paying attention etc etc, but that's not enough. We *both* have to do it right. Under such conditions, I really don't want to risk saying a bracha that could end up being l'vatala. I'd rather answer Amen to *his* birkas hamitzvah. Following that logic, someone who has his own kosher megila, and actually reads along with the baal kriah, ought to say his own Al Mikra Megila. I suppose so! This distinction appears in other brachos too, even brachos other than birchos hamitzvah. For example, at Kol Nidre, everyone says their own Shehecheyanu on the Yom Tov, because, why not? We all say our own Netilas Yadayim, and brachos on Talis and Tefilin, for the same reason. We all listen to one person say Kiddush, but I think that's mostly because only he/she has a cup from which to drink the required amount. But at the Seder, everyone has a cup, so (in many families) everyone says their own Kiddush. EXCEPTION: There are some brachos which *ought* to be said by each individual according to the above logic, but we rely on the other person because a few brachos got bundled together. For example, if we pass around the b'samim and candle at havdala, we should each say our own bracha on them, but most people don't, because it is part of havdala. Similarly, if you are at the Seder and don't have your own 2.5 matzos in front of you, you'll have to hear Hamotzi from someone because of Lechem Mishne, but why not say your own Al Achilas Matza after you have a piece in your hand, and the answer is because Motzi Matzah go together. All of the above is purely my own logic, and I'm sure many of you will be able to punch some good holes in it. And I'm looking forward to reading that! Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553077e61f4dd77e644e0st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 16 22:30:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 01:30:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] SF - Focus on the Good Message-ID: <20150417053029.35F10181384@nexus.stevens.edu> [] Focus on the Good In ancient days if a person spoke loshon horah he contracted tza'aras. The message was that just as he exposed the flaws of a person, so too, his flaws were exposed. His rectification was to go into isolation and introspect on his own shortcomings. Lesson: If we focus on the faults of others, we are held responsible to correct our own faults. If we focus of the good of others, HaShem will mercifully overlook our flaws and focus exclusively on our good. App: Avoid saying all unbecoming comments about others. (Based on the writings of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 02:52:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 05:52:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150417095237.GB2327@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 17, 2015 at 03:02:13AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I am not aware of any situation where the halacha says that I cannot : say a birkat hamitzva on your behalf, AND that the reason why I cannot : do so is because you are a baki. (There might be other good reasons, : depending on the situation, but I don't know that "being a baki" is ever : such a reason.) More than that, Beis Hillel (Berakhos 38a, brought lehalakhah AhS OC 298:28) gives *preference* to one person making havdalah for all than each person making their own, because of berov am hadras Melekh. Similarly, it is better to be yotzei qiddush from the baal habayis than each person make their own. (AhS OC 273:6, citing Berakhos 53a, and a din mentioned in most Hagados, because at the seder each person already has their own kos.) But when it comes to birkhas shevach and birkhos hanehenin (which are unattached to other berakhos, unlike the the borei peri hagafen of qiddush or havdalah), we do hold that it's better to make your own. (Berakhos 42a) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 13th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Gevurah: To what extent is judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 necessary for a good relationship? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 05:01:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 12:01:53 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: <20150417.080153.18454.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero explained two views: > I assume they disagree with this characterisation. This is your > editorial opinion, that since it's inevitable that sooner or later > the ducks will all be in a row and the light will come on, all that > it achieves is a delay of random length. They would say no, each > time the sequence is triggered (let's say every minute) is a > discrete event, in which there is a sfek-sfeka whether anything > will happen, and the fact that in the next hour there will be 60 > more such opportunities, one of which is "bound" to succeed, is > irrelevant. They would also point out that there *is* in fact a > doubt whether the light will ever turn on (before Shabbos is over > or the owner decides to flip the switch back), and they would deny > your premise that the tininess of that doubt renders it > meaningless. *You* think it's halachically insignificant; they > are not required to agree with you. If I'm understanding this correctly, the difference of opinion centers on: how many links does the chain need, to reach a point where one end has no halachically significant effect on the other end. To me, this whole discussion is very reminiscent of another topic in hilchos Shabbos, namely, that the Gemara never gave any halachos about cooking in a Kli Shlishi. One view says: "A Kli Rishon obviously cooks, and we were told that some easily-cooked things are capable of being cooked in a Kli Sheni, but that's as far as they went, so obviously nothing can get cooked in a Kli Shlishi." The other view says: "A Kli Rishon obviously cooks, and we were told that some easily-cooked things are capable of being cooked even in other keilim, so you have to be careful with *any* keli that's above Yad Soledes." To me, both of those arguments are very logical, and we must follow our poskim to know which one Hashem wants us to follow. I imagine that this whole Grama discussion might be similar: Chazal laid out circumstances under which indirect action is still assur -- so does that mean that *all* indirect action is assur?, or perhaps I can structure an even more remote indirectness which is acceptably distant. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5530f6662145376662eacst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 06:04:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 09:04:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch Message-ID: A shabbos lamp is tiny. Do you have shabbos lamps to light up your dining room table or the main lighting on a timer? > On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 8:56 PM, via Avodah > wrote: > >> >> Now that Shabbos lamps are readily available -- they work by covering the >> light rather than turning it off -- why do we need the Shabbos switch at >> all? >> >> >> >> >> *--Toby Katzt613k at aol.com * >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 06:54:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 06:54:30 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] yom hazikaron origin Message-ID: http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/Parasha/tazria/Ahrend.pdf on rav goren's placement of yom hazikaron on 4 iyar, analogizing to the israeli shmini atzeret , where hakafot precedes yizkor... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 08:26:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 15:26:20 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: > Question: If one doesn?t view eilu v?eilu as multiple truths > but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don?t know which > is which), ... You've lost me. Doesn't the grammar and definition of the words "eilu v'eilu" imply that the two things under discussion are equal? I just can't wrap my brain around a way to translate "eilu v'eilu" where one is truth and the other isn't. ------------------------------------------------------ See here https://kavvanah.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/rav-soloveitchik-religious-definitions-of-man-and-his-social-institutions-part-1of-7-1958/ for a general approach (especially "Part III- Rav Soloveitchik?s God In Judaism, God himself is the hidden God, Jal Mistatar ? unknowable and unknown. The Jewish experience of God (shared by other religions is antithetic, a polarity. it has both remoteness and intimate closeness. How is that possible? Judaism does not use Aristotelian logic of excluded middle. Unlike classic physic, modern physics uses both waves and particles; modern physics does not use Aristotle. God is both remote and close- in our encounter we are bewildered and comforted. Since Creation is also revelation, the every tree also incomprehensible strange. " And here for some more specifics: http://nishma.org/articles/commentary/slifkinrevisted3print.pdf especially starting around page 11. KT Joel Rich (who still can't really understand the double slit experiment, yet it's there) THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 08:54:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 11:54:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.222234.18432.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150417155456.GA7366@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 02:15:53PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Question: If one doesn't view eilu v'eilu as multiple truths but rather : one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which is which), how do : you explain the approach to halachic process which ignores academic : findings concerning texts or historical circumstances? To quote myself from : Last week I drew the conclusion from the Qetzos haChoshen that Torah is not Truth, it -- combined with the Jewish People -- is the process by which "Truth will bloom from the earth".... Thus, "vechayei olam nata besokheinu" -- Emes is matzmiach from the Torah. Note that the Torah isn't actually identified with Emes, but the process to get there. ... Rav Moshe Feinstein discusses the halachic process and the role of poseiq in his introduction to Igros Mosheh. (The introduction itself deserves serious study.) He writes about "ha'emes lehora'ah umichuyav lehoros kein af al pi im be'etzem galyah kelapei shemaya galya she'eino kein hapeirush - the true ruling, and one is obligated to teach accordingly, even if in essence is it revealed in heaven that this isn't the correct eplanation!" The ideal is following the pesaq as according to the process. As proof, Rav Moshe brings the gemara in Shabbos 130. We rule that only the milah itself overrules Shabbos. All preparation before the milah must be done in advance. Rabbi Eliezer ruled that anything necessary for the milah, even cutting wood to make the fire to make the knife, etc... could also be done on Shabbos. There was a town in Israel that followed Rabbi Eliezer. The gemara says that Hashem rewarded them for their tenacity for the mitzvah of milah. No one in that town died an early death. And when the Romans passed a law in Israel against milah, they exempted that one town from the law! Who was right -- this town, which was rewarded for their position, or we, who rule differently? If we understand that the essence of halakhah is that it and the Jewish People become one in a process to make truth bloom in this world, we can understand how the answer could be "both". Torah, like life, is about becoming, not being. IOW, if Torah is a legal process to reach the truth, and halakhah is law rather than truths, then it would be reasonable for an truth foung by extra-legal means to be irrelevant. We aren't up to pursuing Truth directly yet, we pursue the law. Someday they'll be identical, and and the neti'ah of chayei olam will have been matzmiach into Emes. On Fri, Apr 17, 2015 at 02:22:34AM +0000, R' Akiva ("Kenneth") Miller replied to RJR: : You've lost me. Doesn't the grammar and definition of the words "eilu : v'eilu" imply that the two things under discussion are equal? I just : can't wrap my brain around a way to translate "eilu v'eilu" where one : is truth and the other isn't. RMF says they're equally balid legally, but not as Truths. Implied is that Divrei E-lokim Chaim are on the meta-level, instructions about about how to hunt for halakhah, not the individual halachic conclusions themselves. Eilu va'eilu follow Hashem's instructions for how to pasqen, but the halakhah is like Beis Hillel. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 13th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 1 week and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Gevurah: To what extent is judgment Fax: (270) 514-1507 necessary for a good relationship? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 10:03:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 13:03:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Derech Eretz: What is it the sets man apart from the animal? Message-ID: <20150417170308.D3E50183221@nexus.stevens.edu> Perhaps if yeshiva students were taught again and again, RSRH's commentary about what sets man (and this refers to all men, not just Jews) apart from the animal, then they would realize that every human being is to be treated with Derech Eretz and thus proper respect. YL The following is from RSRH's commentary on Bereishis 2:7 7 Then God formed man, dust of the ground, and breathed into his countenance the breath of life, and thus man became a living personality. What is it that sets man apart from the animal? The living individuality of the animal depends on earthly matter; like its body, so its soul, too, was taken from the earth. Not so man. In the creation of man, only the inert material was taken from the earth; only when God breathed into him the breath of life did he become a living individual. Herein lies the nobility and immortality of man, and this is the whole source of his freedom . That which gives the animal its individuality emanates from the earth and must eventually return to the earth. Not so that which makes man a ?living personality.? Man?s preeminence over the animal is not only in his spirit, but also in his vitality. His vitality is linked not to his body, but to his spirit. When he received a spirit he received life, his soul adhering to the spirit. When the spirit departs from the body, the vital soul is not buried with the remains; for man?s soul is bound up with his spirit, not his body. This is why his physical survival and health do not depend on his body alone. Of the many dangers to the life of an animal, not all are dangers to man. The survival of a man cannot be predicted with the same degree of accuracy as the survival of an animal. Adom yesh lo mazel ( Bava Kamma 2b): there is something in man that defies prediction. A man?s spirit will sustain him, even if it appears that all hope is lost; for the spirit sustains life. Who can gauge the power of an unbroken spirit? Who can calculate how long it can keep the body alive? Thus man is composed of two elements that are completely different from each other. One of these was taken from the earth. But man does not belong to the earth; rather, the earth ? as its name, Adama, implies ? has been given to man to rule. So, too, man?s body, which is afar min Ha?Adomo, is subject to man?s control. His true, living, spiritual essence is not dependent on the body; hence, even while he is physically combined with the earthly element, he can and should exercise control over the earthly in him. The afar, the earthly element, in him cannot be released from the realm of physical compulsion and is subject to the influence of earthly factors. But the nishmas chaim, which God breathed into man and which first made man a human being, imparts to man of the dignity of its source and releases him from all physical compulsion; it grants him freedom and elevates his body, too, into the realm of freedom. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 11:45:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mordechai Harris via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 13:45:49 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: > > That said, I do concede that the common practice is for one person to say > the bracha on shofar and megilla for all the assembled, yet we all say our > own brachos on lulav, hallel, and sefira. In the case of Lulav (first day - which is D'Oraita) and counting Sefira, the Pasuk uses the word Lachem which teaches of the need for each individual to have/count their own. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 12:26:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 15:26:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: <20150416.230213.10757.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <55315E57.30506@sero.name> On 04/17/2015 02:45 PM, Mordechai Harris via Avodah wrote: >> That said, I do concede that the common practice is for one person >> to say the bracha on shofar and megilla for all the assembled, yet >> we all say our own brachos on lulav, hallel, and sefira. > In the case of Lulav (first day - which is D'Oraita) and counting > Sefira, the Pasuk uses the word Lachem which teaches of the need for > each individual to have/count their own. What has this got to do with the bracha? I actually had meant to post about this, since I've been wondering for some time why it is that the world's minhag is for each person to say their own bracha on hallel and sefira, after hearing the chazan's bracha. Doesn't the usual rule of "berov am" mean that everyone should be yotzei with his bracha? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 13:47:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 16:47:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is from today's Halacha for Today http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ Erev Shabbos Kodesh Parashas Shemini (Parashiyos Tazria- Metzorah in Eretz Yisroel); Mevorchim Chodesh Iyar; Rosh Chodesh will be on Sunday and Monday 28 Nisan , 5775 April 17, 2015 CURRENT TOPIC: REVIEW OF HALACHOS OF SEFIRAS HA'OMER Halachos for Erev Shabbos Kodesh 1) The thirty third day of the Omer, the 18th of Iyar, is referred to as "Lag B'Omer" and the early sources already treat this day as a special day, as a kind of Yom Tov. (See Sefer Hamanhig page 91a and Meiri to Yevamos 62b) 2) The Tur (Siman 493:3) states that the Talmidim of Rav Akiva stopped dying on Lag B'Omer. However, the Talmud (Yevamos 62b) clearly states that they died from Pesach all the way until Shavuos. If that is so, what then is the significance of the 33rd day of the Omer and why does the Tur write that they stopped dying on that day? The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between the Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the days between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not say Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh Chodesh Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 days in all. Therefore they only died on 32 of the 49 days. As a commemoration of this, we designate the "33rd" day as the day that the dying stopped and we celebrate that day, but not that it totally stopped on Lag B'Omer. ---------- Note that according to the Maharil tachanun was originally said during Nissan except for the days indicated! I wonder when saying Tachanun during Nissan ended. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 14:10:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 21:10:04 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150417.171004.3030.1@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitchok Levine reposted: > The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between > the Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the > days between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not > say Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh > Chodesh Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 > days in all. > > Therefore they only died on 32 of the 49 days... ... There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in both of those. Therefore, there are not "17 days in all", but only 16, leaving 33 days on which they died. (And this presumes that none of the 3 Rosh Chodesh days was Shabbos.) In any case, I am very curious how the commemoration of this event ended up as 33 *somewhat* consecutive days, including Shabbos. If the talmidim really died only on the days cited, our procedure sounds like cheating, at least sort of. Granted that a commemoration does NOT have to follow all the details of the event being remembered, but this pushes the envelope on that, in my opinion. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55317717a31937717329dst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 17 13:58:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 20:58:03 GMT Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <20150417.165803.3030.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero asked: > I actually had meant to post about this, since I've been > wondering for some time why it is that the world's minhag is for > each person to say their own bracha on hallel and sefira, after > hearing the chazan's bracha. Doesn't the usual rule of "berov > am" mean that everyone should be yotzei with his bracha? In theory (="l'halacha"), yes, you are correct. But in practice (="l'maaseh") Rov Am gets beat by our lack of kavana. Rov Am is an important hidur, but the ikar is to insure that one is yotzay, and that is more easily insured by saying it oneself. (It's like if one is forced to choose between an esrog which is definitely kosher but only barely so, vs. one which is beautiful but *might* be pasul. To me, it's a no-brainer that one would choose the barely kosher one.) This explanation fits my previous post well: We are all yotzay with someone else's bracha on the shofar and megillah, but NOT because of Rov Am, only because the bracha is somewhat risky because I'm relying on someone else. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5531743bc92df743b2646st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Apr 18 18:34:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sat, 18 Apr 2015 21:34:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Correction to Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150419013412.5B7E7181C69@nexus.stevens.edu> I sent out a couple of days ago. The following is from today's Halacha for Today http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between the Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the days between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not say Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh Chodesh Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 days in all. Therefore they only died on 32 of the 49 days. As a commemoration of this, we designate the "33rd" day as the day that the dying stopped and we celebrate that day, but not that it totally stopped on Lag B'Omer. ---------- Note this calculation is wrong. If one counts 7 days of Pesach then one has included one Shabbos. This leaves 6 Shabbasos until Shavuous. Thus one has 7 days of Pesach, 6 Shabbasos, 2 days Rosh Chodesh Iyar and one day Rosh Chodesh Sivan. Hence 7+6+2+1 = 16 days on which Tachanun was not said. 49 -16 = 33, and this is where the 33 days of aveilus comes from. Thus Tachanun was said not only during Nissan except for the days that are excluded, but also on Lag B'Omer . YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Apr 18 21:19:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 00:19:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <55332CDA.60208@sero.name> > 2) The Tur (Siman 493:3) states that the Talmidim of Rav Akiva > stopped dying on Lag B'Omer. > > However, the Talmud (Yevamos 62b) clearly states that they died from > Pesach all the way until Shavuos. If that is so, what then is the > significance of the 33rd day of the Omer and why does the Tur write > that they stopped dying on that day? He does not say any such thing. He says that *some* people have haircuts from the 33rd day on, because *they say* that this is when the dying stopped. The long list of rishonim who hold this cite a medrash that disagrees with the gemara, and says the dying stopped 15 days before Shavuos. The Tur himself does not express an opinion on the matter. > The Maharil writes, to explain this apparent discrepancy between the > Talmud and the words of the Tur, that they died on all of the days > between Pesach and Shavuos except on the days that we do not say > Tachanun. These days are: 7 days of Pesach, 2 days of Rosh Chodesh > Iyar, Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the 7 Shabbasos in sefira; 17 days in all.* This is *not* a Maharil! It's supposedly a Tosfos, I don't know where. But there seem to be two versions of what this Tosfos says, which is why it would be nice to see the original. Mahari Ibn Shuaib (a talmid of the Rashba, and the rebbe of the Tzeida Laderech) cites this Tosfos as saying that the mourning takes place on 33 days during the Omer, because there are 16 days when no mourning is appropriate. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=9416&pgnum=131 The Bach, however, cites "Acharonim" who cite this Tosfos as saying that they didn't die on these 16 days. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=14268&pgnum=330 On 04/17/2015 04:47 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > Note that according to the Maharil tachanun was originally said > during Nissan except for the days indicated! I wonder when saying > Tachanun during Nissan ended. YL Not Tachanun. Techina, i.e. Kel Erech Apayim, Lamnatzeach Ya`ancha, etc. According to minhag Ashkenaz these are said even on days when there is no nefilas apayim, but not on Yomtov, Chol Hamoed, Shabbos, or Rosh Chodesh. [Email #2. -micha] On 04/17/2015 05:10 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos > Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or > it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in > both of those. Indeed, the Bach noters this and corrects it. > In any case, I am very curious how the commemoration of this event > ended up as 33 *somewhat* consecutive days, including Shabbos. If the > talmidim really died only on the days cited, our procedure sounds > like cheating, at least sort of. Granted that a commemoration does > NOT have to follow all the details of the event being remembered, but > this pushes the envelope on that, in my opinion. Well, according to the Tosfos as Mahari ibn Shuaib quotes it, the common interpretation of 33 days is *wrong*, and the correct minhag is to mourn for 33 days during the sefirah, i.e. all days except Pesach, Shabbos, and Rosh Chodesh. He does *not* say that they only died on these days. The first place I've seen the idea that Tosfos says they only died on those days is in the Bach. He sees it as justifying our mourning for only 33 days, not 34, as we should if our source were the medrash that the dying stopped 15 days before Shavuos. And since they only died on 33 days, our mourning period only lasts 33 days, including Shabbos, even though (according to this view) they didn't die on Shabbos. How exactly we mourn on Shabbos I'm not sure, but I assume the idea is that we do, so we count it toward the 33 days. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 06:26:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 09:26:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <55332CDA.60208@sero.name> References: <20150417204759.C4C36183716@nexus.stevens.edu> <55332CDA.60208@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150419132604.GB19240@aishdas.org> On Sun, Apr 19, 2015 at 12:19:38AM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : >Note that according to the Maharil tachanun was originally said : >during Nissan except for the days indicated! I wonder when saying : >Tachanun during Nissan ended. YL : : Not Tachanun. Techina, i.e. Kel Erech Apayim, Lamnatzeach Ya`ancha, etc. : According to minhag Ashkenaz these are said even on days when there is no : nefilas apayim, but not on Yomtov, Chol Hamoed, Shabbos, or Rosh Chodesh. I am now wondering: why those techinos and not Tachanun? After all, as the name implies (and the Gra emphasizes), Tachanun is itself the core techinah. (Or perhaps "Elokai, Netzor Leshoni" is more central, since that's the one we place immediately "basar tzelosana", before aqiras raglayim.) I would bet (if I had spare money to bet with) that's the same question as asking why we're nofeil apayim for one but not the other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 04:00:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 11:00:12 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150419.070012.19808.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> I wrote: > There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos > Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or > it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in > both of those. R' Zev Sero added: > Indeed, the Bach notes this and corrects it. Glad to hear that, thank you. But over Shabbos, I thought of another problem: R' Akiva's talmidim were in Eretz Yisrael. There would never be a year where Pesach contains 7 days of Sefira. Even when including Shabbos Chol Hamoed, that yields only 6 days. Add 6 post- Pesach Shabbosim, and 3 days of Rosh Chodesh, and you have only 15 days of no Tachanun, leaving 34 days of mourning. Perhaps this is why Mechaber 493:2 says that the mourning continues straight through Lag Baomer, and does not end until the morning of the 34th. Note that Mishne Brurah 493:7 says that although most of the dying stopped on the 33rd, some deaths did occur on the 34th. I must point out that the above is true only when Pesach begins on Sunday, Monday or Tuesday. In years when it begins on Shabbos, as it did this year, then Eretz Yisrael does have a full seven post-Pesach Sabbaths in Sefira, totalling 16 no-Tachanun days, leaving 33 for mourning. BUT - In years when Pesach begins on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday (and even nowadays Thursday is a real possibility), one of the Rosh Chodesh days will coincide with Shabbos. This lowers the count to 6 days of Pesach, 6 Shabbasos, and only 2 days of Rosh Chodesh - a total of only 14 no-Tachanun days, leaving 35 for mourning. I can't help but wonder how the calendar looked that particular year. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ 4 Fish to Never Eat Click to Learn 4 Fish to NEVER Eat (avoid these like the plague!) http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55338b0147138b0126d6st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 10:34:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 13:34:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <20150419.070012.19808.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150419.070012.19808.0@webmail10.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5533E71A.9080700@sero.name> On 04/19/2015 07:00 AM, Kenneth Miller wrote: > I wrote: >> There's an error somewhere in that chain of quotes, namely Shabbos >> Chol Hamoed Pesach. The calculation should say "6 days of Pesach", or >> it should say "the 6 Shabbasos in sefira", but you can't have 7 in >> both of those. > > R' Zev Sero added: >> Indeed, the Bach notes this and corrects it. > > Glad to hear that, thank you. But over Shabbos, I thought of another > problem: R' Akiva's talmidim were in Eretz Yisrael. There would never > be a year where Pesach contains 7 days of Sefira. Even when including > Shabbos Chol Hamoed, that yields only 6 days. Add 6 post- Pesach > Shabbosim, and 3 days of Rosh Chodesh, and you have only 15 days of > no Tachanun, leaving 34 days of mourning. Except, as you note, in a year like this one. > Perhaps this is why Mechaber 493:2 says that the mourning continues > straight through Lag Baomer, and does not end until the morning of > the 34th. No, the Mechaber had never heard of this Tosfos that the Bach cites in the name of the "Acharonim". On the contrary, the only Tosfos he seems aware of on topic is the one cited by Mahari ibn Shuaib, which says that the plague raged throughout the Sefira, but that we only mourn for 33 days, because we skip Yomtov, Shabbos, and Rosh Chodesh. The Mechaber's own minhag follows the medrash that the plague stopped 15 days before Shavuos, i.e. the 34th was the last day. Either there are two versions of this Tosfos, or the Acharonim whom the Bach quotes are talking about the same Tosfos as Mahari ibn Shuaib does, and one of them misunderstood it. It would be nice to find it inside (though of course that would not rule out a different girsa). -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 10:36:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 17:36:03 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan Message-ID: <20150419.133603.21006.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero wrote: > Not Tachanun. Techina, i.e. Kel Erech Apayim, Lamnatzeach > Ya`ancha, etc. According to minhag Ashkenaz these are said even > on days when there is no nefilas apayim, but not on Yomtov, Chol > Hamoed, Shabbos, or Rosh Chodesh. R' Micha Berger wrote: > I am now wondering: why those techinos and not Tachanun? Let me add a few more data points: Common practice in Nusach Ashkenaz is to skip Tachanun even for all of the Sefira days of Nisan, and also for all of the pre-Shavuos days of Sivan. (Note that NONE of the various minhagim allow haircuts on ALL of those days. Sounds like a great proof that tachanun takes all the kulos, even contradictory ones.) I concede that this is davka nowadays, and I do not know what the practice was in previous centuries. However, it is difficult for me to imagine anyone ever saying Tachanun on Isru Chag. Perhaps that might answer the point I raised in my previous post about R' Akiva's talmidim being in EY, and that in EY there are only 6 days of Sefirah during Pesach; perhaps the "7" comes from including Isru Chag. I should also mention Pesach Sheni, although that could lead to a messy argument over whether that is really "a non-Tachanun day" or merely "a non-Tachanun afternoon". So I won't mention it. :-) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5533e7dd3196367dd4042st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 09:54:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 12:54:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L Message-ID: <20150419165450.42320180CA8@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is taken in part from Rav Shimon Schwab's Essay The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L that appears in Selected Writings pages 88 -93. Rav Hirsch is usually accepted as the exponent of the Torah im Derech Eretz philosophy. This principle is explained by his grandson, Dr. Isaac Breuer, as follows: "He was strictly opposed to compromise or reconciliation, or even a synthesis: he demanded full and uncompromising rulership of the Torah. The Torah cannot endure co-rulership, far less tolerate it. As a true revolutionary he seized the liberalistic individual, the liberalistic, humanitarian ideal, liberalistic capitalism, and the human intellect, celebrating orgies in the liberalistic science, and dragged them as "circumstances'', in the narrowest sense of the word, to the flaming fire of the Torah to be purified or, if need be, to be consumed. As a true revolutionary he solved the unbearable tension between the Torah and the new era which had dawned over the Jews of Western Europe. He invaded the new era with the weapons of the Torah, analyzed and dissected it down to its last ingredients, and then shaped and reformed it until it could be placed at the feet of the Torah, as new nourishment for the Divine fire. The proclamation of the rulership of the Torah over the new era was the historic achievement of Hirsch's life for his own contemporaries." -- ("Hirsch as a Guide to Jewish History'' in Fundamentals of Judaism, published by Feldheim, 1949.) Unfortunately, the principle of Torah im Derech Eretz is grossly misunderstood by our contemporary Jewish orthodoxy. It does not mean that one who is a full-fledged citizen of hedonistic America and at the same time keeps the laws of the Torah, is a follower of Torah im Derech Eretz. Not to violate the laws of the Torah certainly deserves praise and recognition but it is not an embodiment of the Hirschian philosophy. Likewise, an academy dedicated to the study of science and philosophy, not in order to serve the understanding of Torah or to further the aims of the Torah but as the independent search by the human intellect to understand and control the world around -- even when added to a department of profound and very scholarly Torah studies -this is not an outgrowth of the Torah im Derech Eretz Weltanschauung of Samson Raphael Hirsch. Also, a secular university in Israel, albeit under skullcap auspices, complete with Judaic studies, is extremely remote from a Torah im Derech Eretz school even if it has established a "Samson Raphael Hirsch chair" as part of its academic set-up, something which almost borders on blasphemy . The Orthodox professional who is not regularly "koveah ittim batorah", or otherwise lacks in the performance of mitzvahs, or who is immodest in dress or behavior, is not a follower of Samson Raphael Hirsch. From all of Hirsch's prolific writings, it becomes evident that his main concern was to establish the majesty of the Divine Word and the role of the Divine Will as revealed in the Torah, to dominate all the highways and by-ways of mundane life. Those who abuse Torah im Derech Eretz as a "hetter" to lead a life of easygoing and lenient "Yiddishkeit" or those who consider the Hirschian idea as a compromise between the right and the left in Jewish thinking have distorted the meaning of the principle as laid down in the Mishne, Avos, Perek 2, 2: "Beautiful is the study of Torah combined with Derech Eretz for the effort to attain both makes one forget to commit sins". The Torah is not a mere branch of human knowledge, one discipline amongst many others, but rather must the Torah dominate all secular knowledge and all worldly activities. Equally so, the community of Israel, Klal Yisroel, as well as all Kehillos and organized communities, be they local or international -- which are all segments of Klal Yisroel -- are not supposed to be mere branches of a neutral Israel but are to be totally independent. The Torah community is not beholden to any non-Torah community and it does not even recognize its authenticity. This is the essence of the Hirschian Austritt (separation) ideology. The so-called "Austritt" is the militant vigilance of the conscientious Jew defending the Torah community against all encroachments from the non-Torah powers that be. The "Austritt" and Torah im Derech Eretz go hand in hand, they form "one package", so to speak, and both these aspects of Hirschian thought have one aim: the total domination of Torah over all thinking and actions of individual and national life. He who separates the rule of the Torah over all facets of the communal life of Klal Yisroel from the rule of the Torah over all human knowledge, in short, he who separates the "Austritt" from Torah im Derech Eretz, renders a disservice to both. Instead of becoming an inspiration to serve G-d in the spirit of B'chol D'rochecha dahu, Torah im Derech Eretz is reduced to become an excuse for being "modern but frum", an excuse for the cultural assimilation which plagues the modern Orthodox Jew who considers this world a kosher pleasure cruise eventually resulting in all the sorry hangovers of our age. Let us therefore beware of some common misunderstandings. The motto does not have its accent on the last word but on the first word. It is TORAH -underscored for double emphasis -- with Derech Eretz. Furthermore, the leit-motif is neither Torah and Derech Eretz nor Torah U'Madoh -- the two are not equal partners -- nor must it be twisted around into Derech Eretz plus Torah. It is neither a synthesis of Torah with assimilation nor a bloodless orthopraxy blended with earthbound Americanism. It is none of these. It is Torah im Derech Eretz. It means G-d's Torah in its totality, utilizing Derech Eretz as the means to bring about the Torah's full realization. It means: Torah as a Divine nourishment and the human Derech Eretz as the aromatic ingredient to bring out the Torah's intrinsic flavor to its most perfect bloom. There are two schools of thought and they are both legitimate. One is "Torah Only" and the other is Torah im Derech Eretz. All Torah-conscious Jews work for the same goal. There are various methods and various avenues of approach. They all lead up to the ultimate end of: "Yisgadal v'yisgadash Shmei rabah" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 15:00:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 18:00:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun During Nissan In-Reply-To: <20150419.133603.21006.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150419.133603.21006.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <55342569.2000502@sero.name> On 04/19/2015 01:36 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > Common practice in Nusach Ashkenaz is to skip Tachanun even for all of the Sefira days of Nisan, This is not just nusach Ashkenaz, it's the universal minhag, originating in Masechet Sofrim 21:3. It's actually the chapter title of Shulchan Aruch OC 429, and AFAIK there is no dissenting opinion or minhag. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 15:08:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Avi Goldstein via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 18:08:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu va'eilu Message-ID: It has always been my understanding that eilu va'eilu means that both (or more than two) are, within the sphere of Torah, "true" as long as they emanate from a valid drashah. As the Rambam writes in Hilchos Mamrim, Perek 2, a Sanhedrin can overturn the ruling of a previous Sanhedrin if that ruling was made based on the yud gimmel middos or based on sevara. The Rambam states that the new ruling becomes normative. So, for example, if a Sanhedrin ruled that yeush shelo mida'as is yeush, that is now the d'oraisa rule. If a later Sanhedrin overturns the ruling, then the new ruling becomes normative. Both, however, are "true," because the Torah has shivim panim; the Torah is multifaceted and can countenance more than one truth. The Rambam seems to hold that Moshe Rabbeinu was merely given the methods by which to darshan; he was not given the various possible halachic outcomes. The Ritva (Eruvin 13b) states that at Sinai, Moshe Rabbeinu was shown 49 possibilities for each halachic situation. Either way, it is up to klal Yisrael to determine what the halacha is, but all the possible outcomes are divrei Elokim Chayim. Avi Goldstein From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 20:47:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 23:47:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L Message-ID: <11211.6b4edbb3.4265d0c0@aol.com> From: "Prof. Levine via Avodah" The following is taken in part from Rav Shimon Schwab's Essay The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L that appears in Selected Writings pages 88 -93. Rav Hirsch is usually accepted as the exponent of the Torah im Derech Eretz philosophy. This principle is explained by his grandson, Dr. Isaac Breuer, as follows: "He was strictly opposed to compromise or reconciliation, or even a synthesis: he demanded full and uncompromising rulership of the Torah. [snip] There are two schools of thought and they are both legitimate. One is "Torah Only" and the other is Torah im Derech Eretz. All Torah-conscious Jews work for the same goal. There are various methods and various avenues of approach. They all lead up to the ultimate end of: "Yisgadal v'yisgadash Shmei rabah" >>>> See the wonderful pamphlet by R' Shimon Schwab, "Eilu ve'Eilu," explaining the broad outlines of the differences between these two hashkafos, "Torah im Derech Eretz" and so-called "Torah-only." I try to re-read this 48-page pamphlet every year. http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/these_and_those.pdf I am grateful to RYL (Prof. Levine) for making this pamphlet available to the public as a pdf. However I note that he is often highly critical of the charedi world, and I believe that R' Hirsch would emphatically not have agreed with him. He would have honored and cherished the talmidei chachamim who devote their lives to limud haTorah, and would have educated his balabatim to take pride in the zechus of financially supporting the "black hat" yeshivos. In the so-called "Torah-only" world they may have disdain for balabatim, but we who believe in TIDE can respect and honor that world of sustained and focused Torah study without internalizing an inferior self-image. We believe in Yisachar and Zevulun even if Yisachar lacks proper respect for Zevulun. We believe in twelve shevatim, we believe in twelve paths through the sea. And we believe that without the shevet of full-time lomdei Torah and talmidei chachamim, the rest of Klal Yisrael would have no kiyum. I would also note that R' Hirsch would certainly not have shared RYL's dour view of present-day Eretz Yisrael. True, all the flaws and failings of Zionism are abundantly on display in the modern Medinah. But at the same time, it takes an almost willful blindness not to see the incredible miracles that have been taking place there over the past sixty years or so. Not the least of these miracles is a flourishing of Torah scholarship, be'eichus uvekamus, the likes of which has not been seen since the churban Bayis Sheni. We owe at least a small measure of gratitude to the Zionist government that helps provide the infrastructure for the Torah community to flourish, and a huge measure of gratitude to the Ribono Shel Olam for allowing us to live in a time in which the beginning of kibbutz galuyos is taking place before our eyes. The sight of thousands of men, young and old, from all corners of the world, streaming into the Mirrer Yeshiva each day, gives us a little foretaste of what it will be like to visit the Third Bais Hamikdash. Again, I urge everyone to read Rav Schwab's wonderful pamphlet, "Eilu ve'Eilu." http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/these_and_those.pdf --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 19:30:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 02:30:15 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: <20150419.223015.3015.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Joel Rich asked: > Question: If one doesn't view eilu v'eilu as multiple truths > but rather one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which > is which), ... I didn't understand that 2nd view, so he suggested to look > here for some more specifics: > http://nishma.org/articles/commentary/slifkinrevisted3print.pdf > especially starting around page 11. On page 4 of that article, the author offers this explanation of the concept of Machlokes L'Shem Shamayim: > ... every individual striving mightily to gain truth and an > understanding of God's Will can only achieve what is possible > within the parameters of his/her own individual being. Since the > fullness of Torah extends beyond the comprehension of any one > individual, machloket must necessarily ensue. It is not simply > that machloket emerges because of the inherent limitations of > the human condition. It is only through the enunciation of > machloket that human beings effectively are able to express the > fullness and truth of the Divine wisdom of Torah. ... Within > this category of disagreement, the existence of differing views > is not a problem. It is actually positive. It is the natural > consequence of a limited humanity trying to encounter the > unlimited nature of God and Torah. Elsewhere in that article, I understood him to say: Because both Hillel and Shammai worked within the rules of how Torah is to be understood, their differing views are equally valid and equally true (notwithstanding the detail that for purely practical reasons, halacha l'maaseh has to go one way or the other). This much fits very well with what I've been taught: Hashem deliberately wrote and designed the Torah in such a way as to allow both Hillel and Shammai to reach those differing views, and when they did reach those views, and (lovingly) refused to yield to the other, they accomplished exactly what Hashem had intended. But RJR referred us specifically to page 11, and on that page, the author brings the two views that RJR had initially posted: > One significant question in this regard, though, that should be > presented is: whether kalpei Shemaya, from the perspective of > Heaven, one view may really be correct or not? How one answers > this question will affect whether one considers any position in > a machloket l'Shem Shamayim as ultimately able to be labeled > incorrect. Effectively the question would be: are all positions > in the disagreement theoretically, equally part of truth and a > decision rendered between the opposing views solely because of > practical necessity? Or is there a truly correct position ? > albeit only able to be ascertained by Heaven ? but we still > accept all positions as part of Torah, albeit some are mistaken, > as they all are equally the best that humanity can achieve and > the mistakes only arise from the actual limitation of the human > being? With all due respect, but it seems to me that this second view is illogical and mistaken. How can there be a view which was obtained by legitimate methods of learning the Torah, without any personal agenda, and the best that humanity can acheive -- and yet be one which Hashem did NOT want us to arrive at? If there is a view that is NOT truly correct, yet the incorrectness can be ascertained only by Heaven, then why did Hashem design the Torah in a manner which allowed us to reach that mistaken conclusion? If only He would have made one little change, if only the pasuk had said this instead of that, then we'd have darshened that pasuk differently, and would have avoided that mistake. But since He did not make that change, but rather He wrote the Torah as we have it, and Toras Hashem Temimah, then I believe that the conclusions reached cannot possibly be mistakes, but rather, this is exactly what we mean by Eilu V'Eilu Divrei Elokim Chayim. (Of course, I am referring only to drashos made with the proper tools, and in the proper manner, such as those made by Hillel and Shammai and others of similar caliber. I am not referring to people who are of lower caliber, or who were working with broken tools. And I'm certainly not referring to people who deliberately distort Torah for their own purposes.) But then, as I was reviewing this post, my mind turned to the Tanur Shel Achnai. R' Eliezer had a minority view, and R' Yehoshua was in the majority. I've got to believe that both views were firmly grounded; this machlokes was surely just as L'Shem Shamayim as any between Hillel and Shammai. I'd *like* to say that Klapei Shmaya, both views were Truth. But then what can I do with Hashem's response of "Nitzchuni banai"? It sure sounds to me like this Judge was not impartial. He was rooting for R' Eliezer! And yet He wrote a Torah that allowed for R' Eliezer's mistaken interpretation. Why would He do that? To paraphrase RJR's question from the very beginning of this post, Tanur Shel Achnai seems to be an example of "eilu v'eilu": At the time of their dispute, it was possible that both views were Truth, but we didn't know which was which, so for practical purposes they took a vote. But later, Eliyahu Hanavi revealed the fact that it was NOT multiple truths, but rather one truth (R' Eliezer) and one nice try (R' Yehoshua). TO RECAP: In the beginning of this post, I explained my logical basis for believing that every true Eilu V'Eilu is a case of multiple Truths. At the end, I brought an example of an Eilu V'Eilu which was "one truth and one nice try (but we don't know which is which)". I cannot reconcile the logic and the example. All I can do is to ask again: Would Hashem really write a Perfect Torah which allows for mistaken interpretation? Why would He do that? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553464ea69a2864ea0cc6st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 01:48:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 11:48:03 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: RMB: Rav Moshe Feinstein discusses the halachic process and the role of poseiq in his introduction to Igros Mosheh. (The introduction itself deserves serious study.) He writes about "ha'emes lehora'ah umichuyav lehoros kein af al pi im be'etzem galyah kelapei shemaya galya she'eino kein hapeirush - the true ruling, and one is obligated to teach accordingly, even if in essence is it revealed in heaven that this isn't the correct explanation!" The ideal is following the pesaq as according to the process. This passage in IM is cited by R. Shalom Rosner in a systematic discussion of the subject of eilu v'eilu in the course of a shiur on Ktuvot 57a at http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/720210/Rabbi_Shalom_Rosner/Kesubos57. Rashi in Ktuvot 57a invokes the principle of eilu 'v'eilu, (read and explained by R. Rosner stating at about 18:30 in the shiur) and R. Rosner elucidates this principle, starting at about 21:30 in the shiur, until about 29:40. For anyone interested in a very clear explanation of the various shittot about what eilu v'eilu means, I can't recommend this shiur highly enough. Very briefly, R. Rosner cites three approaches in the sources 1. Illustrating the truth - The Ran in Drashot HaRan drasha 5 - In this approach, which severely limits the principle of eilu v'eilu, the Ran states that actually only one of the opinions is true. The other opinion is 'divrei Elokim chaim' only insofar as it serves to illustrate and elucidate the other opinion, which is the real truth, as the dark enables us to appreciate a candle. The Chida in Petach Einayim, his commentary on Eiruvin where the principle of eilu v'eilu is cited by the Gemara, takes this approach as well. R. Rosner emphasizes that this is a minority opinion, and personally finds it hard to accept, as he explains in the shiur. 2. Levels of truth - R. Moshe in the hakdama to IM, and R. Yaakov to Bereishit 26, the Netziv in his Hakadama to Haamek Sh'eila, his commentary to the Sheiltot). Using R. Moshe's terminology. there is Emet Shamaymit, and Emet L'Horaa. Both are correct, and in this world we are obligated to follow the emet l'horaa even if it deviates from the ultimate, heavenly truth. 3. Multiple truths (Ritva in Eiruvin, Maharal) - Both opinions are true, reflecting different perspectives of the subject at hand (IMO, this is similar to the previous explanation, without establishing a hierarchy between the truths expressed by the different opinions). R. Rosner states that the Rashi in question on Ktuvot 57a takes this approach. R. Rosner's explanation of the shittot is very lucid and concise. He refers in his shiur to Ktuvot 57 to a previous, more comprehensive shiur he gave on the subject, but I don't know if that shiur is available online. Saul Mashbaum -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 19 19:43:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 22:43:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] brochos from the amud (was: tefillat haderech) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420024354.CJVF30458.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo110> >R' Zev Sero asked: > > > I actually had meant to post about this, since I've been > > wondering for some time why it is that the world's minhag is for > > each person to say their own bracha on hallel and sefira, after > > hearing the chazan's bracha. Doesn't the usual rule of "berov > > am" mean that everyone should be yotzei with his bracha? R' Akiva Miller wrote: >In theory (="l'halacha"), yes, you are correct. But in practice >(="l'maaseh") Rov Am gets beat by our lack of kavana. Rov Am is an >important hidur, but the ikar is to insure that one is yotzay, and >that is more easily insured by saying it oneself. (It's like if one >is forced to choose between an esrog which is definitely kosher but >only barely so, vs. one which is beautiful but *might* be pasul. To >me, it's a no-brainer that one would choose the barely kosher one.) > >This explanation fits my previous post well: We are all yotzay with >someone else's bracha on the shofar and megillah, but NOT because of >Rov Am, only because the bracha is somewhat risky because I'm >relying on someone else. Slight change of topic: I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea that we don't seem to have a chashash of a brocha l'vatalah. I mean, you have a sh'tz up there, saying a brocho out loud -- and he's intentionally trying to be motzi _some_ others (whoever has missed a day) and everybody says amen, and then they say the brocho themselves. No chashash for an issur d'oraissa? Shomea k'onen doesn't apply at all? What if you are in the shul and you're not thinking about the issue of being yotzie, you're just thinking about which day it is, and/or you simply have stam kavanah. No chashash for an issur d'oraissa? Apparently not because almost everybody does that. But I don't get it. (To satisfy my own comfort level, my preferred action to is to focus and have kavanah to be yotzie with the brocho, say amen, and then I don't have any chashash here). -- Sholom From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 10:36:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 13:36:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 11:48:03AM +0300, Saul Mashbaum via Avodah wrote: : This passage in IM is cited by R. Shalom Rosner in a systematic discussion... : http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/720210/Rabbi_Shalom_Rosner/Kesubos57. ... : Very briefly, R. Rosner cites three approaches in the sources : : 1. Illustrating the truth - The Ran in Drashot HaRan drasha 5 - In this : approach, which severely limits the principle of eilu v'eilu, the Ran : states that actually only one of the opinions is true. The other opinion is : 'divrei Elokim chaim' only insofar as it serves to illustrate and elucidate : the other opinion... : 2. Levels of truth - R. Moshe in the hakdama to IM, and R. Yaakov to : Bereishit 26, the Netziv in his Hakadama to Haamek Sh'eila, his commentary : to the Sheiltot)... : 3. Multiple truths (Ritva in Eiruvin, Maharal) - Both opinions are true, : reflecting different perspectives of the subject at hand (IMO, this is : similar to the previous explanation, without establishing a hierarchy : between the truths expressed by the different opinions).. My opinion differs from yours. The Maharal is saying that what RMF calls emes shamamis (I think that conjugation is yours, no?) is actually too rich to fit in this universe, and certainly in a human mind. Therefore, two shitos can be correct descriptions of the Truth, because each are incomplete. Rather than invoke the 5 blind men and the elephant, I think it's more useful to use a mashal of an object and a shadow. Because a shadow is only 2D, information is lost. It could make you think the two opinions are describing differnt thing, but they don't. If you shine a light directly at the fact of a cube, the shadow is a square. If you shine it at a corner, the result is a hexagon. Beis Shamma could hold "hexagon" while Beis Hillel holds "square", and both are describing the same cube. It all depends on which direction you face the cube from. The difference is in the approach chosen, where one stands at the foothills when answering "mi ya'aleh beHar Hashem", not the emes kelapei shamayim. None of which involves separating abstract truth from law, as RMF does. The Maharal places eilu va'eilu entirely within our understanding of that abstract truth. RSR's analysis differs from the two I've discussed in the past, RMHalbertal's and R' Michel Rosensweig's. E.g. See v32n8 E.g. RMH describes the Ritva and the Ran as sharing what he calls "the Constitutive view" of what pesaq is (halakhah is constituted by pesaq, and there is no one pre-existing reality), and thus the notion of one right answer doesn't fit. Rather, his peshat in the Ran is more like RMF's opinion. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? : that the Rashi in question on Ktuvot 57a takes this approach. : : R. Rosner's explanation of the shittot is very lucid and concise. He : refers in his shiur to Ktuvot 57 to a previous, more comprehensive shiur he : gave on the subject, but I don't know if that shiur is available online. : : Saul Mashbaum : _______________________________________________ : Avodah mailing list : Avodah at lists.aishdas.org : http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 14:43:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:43:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] HaRav Aharon Lichtenstein zt"l Message-ID: <20150420214331.GA31537@aishdas.org> Today's blog post. ... Can't we find children who would have helped him and still know the gemara? Do we have to choose? I hope not; I believe not. Tir'u baTov! -Micha HaRav Aharon Lichtenstein zt"l Posted on April 20, 2015 - 1 Iyyar 5775 by micha When someone passes away, I try to find a life-lesson from their lives that I can incorporate into my own. This is rather easy with regard to Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, as the rosh yeshiva left the Centrist / Modern Orthodox / Religious Zionist community with a cheshbon hanefesh, an accounting of our communal soul. Things that he saw we as a community need to look at and improve. See "By His Light: Character and Values in the Service of God" by R' Reuvein Zeigler, notes of shiurim by Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, pp 220-252, which is available on-line at Yeshivat Har Etzion's Israel Koschitzky Virtual Beit Midrash, as the email shiur from the series "Developing a Torah Personality" Lecture 12: Centrist Orthodoxy: A Spiritual Accounting. Listing the rashei peraqim (subtitles): * The Shift To the Right * The Need for Soul-Searching * Commonalities and Differences With the Right * Shaking Our Confidence In General Culture * The Complexity of Experience * Literary, Psychological and Historical Sensitivity * Attitudes Toward Zionism * "Torah Only" or "Torah And" * The Possibility of Integration * Theory and Practice * Dialectical Tension or Tepid Indifference? * Instilling Passion * The Need for Spirituality * Diffusion and Dilution * The Ascendancy of the Moral Over the Intellectual * "Do Not Fear Any Man" Here's one piece near the end, that stays with me each time I read the article: ... Perhaps much of what I have said in relation to culture, quoting Arnold and Yeats and others, seems very rarefied. People may be asking themselves, "What does this have to do with us? We have to deal with children in elementary school or high school; this is not our concern." Nevertheless, I have related to culture at its apex, because the kind of vision which is maintained at the pinnacle has an impact, and should have an impact, upon what is done at lower levels. In this respect, the awareness of the evaluation of culture does have practical consequences for whatever level of education we are dealing with. Granted that, our challenge is to see to it that indeed we maintain our position with depth and gusto. Given our constituency, of course, we cannot instill many of our students with the optimal level of love of Torah; we know from where they come. But, within our overall community, and surely within its leadership, such a level should exist. Woe unto us, if the only choice lies between tepid compromise and arrogant kana'ut. A couple of years after we moved to Yerushalayim, I was once walking with my family in the Beit Yisrael neighborhood, where R. Isser Zalman Meltzer used to live. For the most part, it consists of narrow alleys. We came to a corner, and found a merchant stuck there with his car. The question came up as to how to help him; it was a clear case of perika u-te'ina (helping one load or unload his burden). There were some youngsters there from the neighborhood, who judging by their looks were probably ten or eleven years old. They saw that this merchant was not wearing a kippa. So they began a whole pilpul, based on the gemara in Pesachim (113b), about whether they should help him or not. They said, "If he walks around bareheaded, presumably he doesn't separate terumot u-ma'asrot, so he is suspect of eating and selling untithed produce..." I wrote R. Soloveitchik a letter at that time, and told him of the incident. I ended with the comment, "Children of that age from our camp would not have known the gemara, but they would have helped him." My feeling then was: Why, Ribbono shel Olam, must this be our choice? Can't we find children who would have helped him and still know the gemara? Do we have to choose? I hope not; I believe not. If forced to choose, however, I would have no doubts where my loyalties lie: I prefer that they know less gemara, but help him. If I can refer again to my experience over the last several decades, I think that one of the central points which has reinforced itself is the sense, in terms of values, of the ascendancy of the moral over the intellectual -- with all my love for and commitment to pure learning. But, when all is said and done, you have to be guided not by what you love; you have to be guided by Torah. And the Torah tells us what is good: He has told you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you: only to do justice, and to love goodness, and to walk modestly with your God. (Mikha 6:8) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 12:48:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 15:48:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L by Rav Shimon Schwab Message-ID: <20150420194854.40DD317FB85@nexus.stevens.edu> See The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L The Legacy of RSRH, ZT"L -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 11:46:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 21:46:52 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] hidur Message-ID: <> - changed topic from tefillat hadrech There is a famois R Chaim that if one can use both etgrogim then one should first use the beautiful but *might* be pasul since if one uses the minimally kosher one then one has accomplished the mitzvah and there is no reason to choose a second one. I have seen some that disagree with R Chaim claiming that it is possible to take a better etrog for hidur even after having minimally done the motzvah. This has applications mehadrin of chanukah -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 14:52:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:52:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 09:46:52PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> It's like if one is forced to choose between an esrog which is definitely :> kosher but only barely so, vs. one which is beautiful but *might* be pasul. :> To me, it's a no-brainer that one would choose the barely kosher one.) >> - ... : There is a famois R Chaim that if one can use both etgrogim then one should : first use the beautiful but *might* be pasul since if one uses the : minimally kosher one then one has accomplished the mitzvah and there is no : reason to choose a second one. This presumes you can afford both, or have access to a friend who will give you a matanah al menas lehachzir of whichever you aren't buying. The post you're replying to is "if one is forced to choose". My own dilemma. Say I earmark $X (Y NIS, in your case) to spend on my esrog. And say the price of a definitely kosher (or at least, just as sure to be kosher) but not very hadar esrog is half that or less. Should I buy myself a mehudar, or should I buy two esrogim and give the other to someone hitting on hard times? Shouldn't the asei (tzedaqah, dei machsero) trump a "mere" hidur mitzvah (esrog)? And yet, we know many great rabbanim who didn't follow this calculus. What am I missing? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 15:25:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 18:25:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safeik as Metzi'us Message-ID: <20150420222502.GC1634@aishdas.org> The story so far: Briskers don't wear tzitzis outdoors on Shabbos in case the gemara does conclude that hatekheiles me'eaqes es halavan. (Dspite the tam mishnah, there is reason to wonder.) And if so, the tassels on your tallis or tallis qatan are not tzitzis, and wouldn't be tafeil to the beged. On Shabbos -- hotza'ah. I asked why, since I personally am wearing those tassels because of the safeiq, wouldn't that mean that in terms of my intent, they are hotza'ah? In general, when do we pasqen one din and then use that pesaq as the metzi'us for the next case? And when do we look at the internals of that din (in this case, the safeiq) and carry them through to the next din? Other examples collected so far: AhS OC 409:6 -- An eiruv techumin made with a safeiq tereifah is not an eiruv, because you can't eat a safeiq tereifah. We look to the pesaq, the meat is assur mishum safeiq, not the safeiq itself. (Where a parallel case in the se'if is ruled safeiq derabbanan lequlah.) AhS OC 416:8 -- A person wants to make 2 different eiruvei techumin, one for each day of YT in chu"l. You can't create an eiruv on day 2 that you cannot reach on day 1. We don't say mima nafshach -- if day 1 is YT, you don't need the eiruv, and if day 2 is, you were allowed to reach the food on day 1. Again, we look at the masqanah. Recently I noticed two more in the AhS: AhC OC 509:12 -- The Rama (se'if 5) allows libun on YT of a skewer that that they broiled non-salted meat on to allow using the skewer again that day. The AhS explains this is not a real tiqun keli, because mei'iqar hadin it doesn't need libun (cf YD 76), an therefore even if you could have done the libun on erev YT, you can still do it now. We DO NOT say that lemaaseh we are not nohagim to use the skewer without libun, so therefore the skewer went from usable to non-usable. This time we do look into the cause of the non-use. I am wondering if it's because beshe'as hadechaq, they would go to a rav and get a pesaq that they could use the skewer as is, so it's not fully unusable. AhS 581:18 -- If fruit are stored in a room that is built from uncemented bricks and the room breaks, the fruit are usable. We do not say they a muqtza, because the issur of disassembling the room was only derabbanan, so he didn't have full hesach hadaas. Notice that here he is saying that a person is aware of issur derabbanan being on a lesser level. The ruling is on the metzi'us, but with the understanding the the metzi'us reflects the wishy-washiness of the issur. RAM: Does any of this change your proposed sevaros? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 16th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline Fax: (270) 514-1507 does harmony promote? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 14:54:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:54:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5535759A.5020909@gmail.com> What would be the kilayim status of this combo? http://www.territorialseed.com/product/grafted-tomtato-ketchup-n-fries/new_for_spring_2015 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 15:57:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 18:57:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> On 04/20/2015 05:52 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > My own dilemma. Say I earmark $X (Y NIS, in your case) to spend on > my esrog. And say the price of a definitely kosher (or at least, just > as sure to be kosher) but not very hadar esrog is half that or less. > Should I buy myself a mehudar, or should I buy two esrogim and give the > other to someone hitting on hard times? Shouldn't the asei (tzedaqah, > dei machsero) trump a "mere" hidur mitzvah (esrog)? And yet, we know > many great rabbanim who didn't follow this calculus. What am I missing? Perhaps that they would then let the other person use their mehudardige esrog, so both benefit. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:21:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:21:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 06:57:15PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: :> ... Shouldn't the asei (tzedaqah, :> dei machsero) trump a "mere" hidur mitzvah (esrog)? And yet, we know :> many great rabbanim who didn't follow this calculus. What am I missing? : Perhaps that they would then let the other person use their mehudardige : esrog, so both benefit. So, both get the mitzvah of esrog with a hadar esrog. But I asked about fulling tzedaqah. How does a matanah al menas lehachzir qualify? And for someone used to having their own esrog, how is it "dei machsero"? Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:15:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:15:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Matza between Pesach and Shavuos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Somebody (either here or on Areivim) was asking about the minhag to eat matza between Pesach and Shavuos. I happened to pick up a sefer called "Bein Pesach u'Shavuos" (by R Zvi Cohn) and saw a few mentions about this. First, he cites the Gr"a that he never ate matza when it was not Pesach. I think the reasoning is that he didn't want to get hana'ah from it, but, rather, eat it only because it was a mitzvah. But then, later in the sefer, I saw reference to (a) a minhag (Belz and Chernobyl) to eat matza to eat matza on every shalosh seudos between Pesach and Shavuos, and wetting it with fish juice/gravy; and (b) v'yesh a minhag to eat matza *every* time one washes for bread, in order to combine "michlei d'm'heimnusa u'michlei d'asvasa" food/meal of emuna and food/meal of refuah (apologies for messing up the vowels). The footnote cites the sefer "Darchei Chayim v'Sholom" siman 633. And also to be m'dakdek to make one kugel for shabbos with matza and to pass it around, particularly on shalosh seudos after the z'miros. I don't translate so well, so if you want to see "inside" R Cohn's sefer, I put it here: http://s3.postimg.org/wukbartcj/matza.jpg [1] and if you look and find mistakes, please let the list (or at least me!) know! FWIW & Kol tuv, -- Sholom Links: ------ [1] http://s3.postimg.org/wukbartcj/matza.jpg -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 16:32:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 19:32:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> At 05:52 PM 4/20/2015, RN Toby Katz wrote: > >I am grateful to RYL (Prof. Levine) for making this pamphlet available to >the public as a pdf. However I note that he is often highly critical of >the charedi world, and I believe that R' Hirsch would emphatically not have >agreed with him. He would have honored and cherished the talmidei chachamim >who devote their lives to limud haTorah, and would have educated his >balabatim to take pride in the zechus of financially supporting the >"black hat" >yeshivos. This is pure speculation on your part. I believe that RSRH would have agreed with my views on this matter. Of course, this is pure speculation on my part. He certainly would not have agreed with the idea of not working to support one's family. See my article "The Obligation to Support a Family" The Jewish Press, February 18, 2015, front page. and the extensive quotes I have there from the writings of Rav Dr. Joseph Breuer, ZT"L, who was, of course, a grandson of RSRH and the foremost expositor of TIDE during his life time. > >I would also note that R' Hirsch would certainly not have shared RYL's dour > view of present-day Eretz Yisrael. True, all the flaws and failings of >Zionism are abundantly on display in the modern Medinah. But at the same >time, it takes an almost willful blindness not to see the >incredible miracles >that have been taking place there over the past sixty years or so. Not the >least of these miracles is a flourishing of Torah scholarship, be'eichus >uvekamus, the likes of which has not been seen since the churban Bayis >Sheni. We owe at least a small measure of gratitude to the >Zionist government >that helps provide the infrastructure for the Torah community to flourish, >and a huge measure of gratitude to the Ribono Shel Olam for allowing us to >live in a time in which the beginning of kibbutz galuyos is taking place >before our eyes. The sight of thousands of men, young and old, from all >corners of the world, streaming into the Mirrer Yeshiva each day, gives us a >little foretaste of what it will be like to visit the Third Bais Hamikdash. Again, I have to disagree. I suggest you read Rav Breuer's writings about EY in the book A Unique Perspective under the heading Eretz Yisroel. The following are some excerpts from his essay The State of Israel. The proclamation of a Jewish state would bring great joy to all the members of our people, if conditions were such that we could feel justified to call it a Kiddush Hashem. It pains us to say, and we have no illusions, that for the time being this is not the case. For every Torah-true Jew the word Kiddush Hashem is his utmost concern, while Chillul Hashem leaves him trembling. Thus the establishment of a Jewish state will fill him with misgivings and alarm. Anyone who is imbued with the eternal truth and validity of God's Torah will have to be aware that a state on God's holy soil will only be able to endure if the conditions that God has set down for a Jewish state on His holy soil are met. These conditions apply to the Jewish entity and to the life of every individual who declares himself a member of God's People. Again, please read Rav Breuer's essays on Eretz Yisroel in this book. Also, please read Rav Shimon Schwab's essay Zion or Zionism that I have placed at http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/zion_or_zionism.pdf Rav Schwab was most certainly a proponent of TIDE and the approach of RSRH. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 15:32:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 18:32:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Retzuos that are Black on Both Sides In-Reply-To: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> References: <20150415153400.GA24782@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 11:34 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > There was a bachur next to me this morning whose retzu'os were painted > black on both sides. And I believe I know why this is done, in case > a retzu'ah gets flipped. Or perhaps to be chosheish for the Rambam's > description of such retzu'os being "noi". I've only ever heard of the leather being soaked in dye; and the reason given was not for flipped retzu'os but for scratches: if the entire thickness of the strap has been dyed, a scratch will not expose undyed leather. (This does not address your actual question, though) ?Chesky Salomon From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:24:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:24:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <553598C0.6010209@sero.name> On 04/20/2015 08:21 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > So, both get the mitzvah of esrog with a hadar esrog. But I asked about > fulling tzedaqah. How does a matanah al menas lehachzir qualify? And > for someone used to having their own esrog, how is it "dei machsero"? At a time when an esrog was a luxury that most people could not afford and were not used to, how often would such a case come up? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:27:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:27:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] hidur In-Reply-To: <553598C0.6010209@sero.name> References: <20150420215241.GA1634@aishdas.org> <5535844B.9080804@sero.name> <20150421002111.GA20863@aishdas.org> <553598C0.6010209@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150421002736.GA24420@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 08:24:32PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : At a time when an esrog was a luxury that most people could not afford : and were not used to, how often would such a case come up? ... and today? Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 17:58:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 00:58:13 GMT Subject: [Avodah] hidur Message-ID: <20150420.205813.23096.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> R'Zev Sero asked: > At a time when an esrog was a luxury that most people could > not afford and were not used to, how often would such a case > come up? But it could certainly come up nowadays. About 25 years ago, my budget was so tight that I had decided to share my lulav and esrog with my two sons, despite my having gotten them their own set in previous years. I don't remember whether one or both was still below bar mitzvah that year, but it doesn't really matter, because the point is that they were used to having their own, and that year we shared the one set. Suffice it to say that it was not fun. Baruch Hashem we've each had own own every year since then. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5535a0f9e88320f87fb2st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 20 18:23:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 01:23:34 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Self-control fatigue Message-ID: <20150420.212334.23096.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> On Areivim, SY Scher wrote: > A now large body of research shows that we can have "self-control > fatigue". Professor Roy Baumeister and his colleagues have > demonstrated experimentally that when people have previously had > to exert self-control, their ability to do so goes down. They > have also showed physiological correlates -- will-power/self- > control takes energy, and after exerting a lot of control, our > blood glucose level is lower. Replenishment of glucose (for > example, by drinking lemonade sweetened with sugar, but not > lemonade with artificial sweeteners) raises self-control ability > back up. > We all know that following the halacha often requires a good deal > of willpower, and I would imagine that for charedi adolescent boys, > that would be even more strongly so. So, the ability to control > the yetzer in outside situations may well be reduced. The muscle > is just too worn out! Is there any way fit this in with the idea that many mitzvos - kashrus in particular and chukim in general - seem designed to train us to *have* self-control? Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 03:14:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 06:14:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Self-control fatigue In-Reply-To: <20150420.212334.23096.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150420.212334.23096.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150421101422.GB7409@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 01:23:34AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : Is there any way fit this in with the idea that many mitzvos - kashrus : in particular and chukim in general - seem designed to train us to *have* : self-control? If (and that's a big if) we define the yeitzer hara as the effects on our souls of living within a mammalian body, then the ability to plan ahead and work toward delayed gratification, rather than just instinctively going for what's before us, is going to be a fundamental skill in rising above it. In R Yitchaq Sher's introduction to the Slabodka edition of Cheshbon haNefesh (Feldheim bilingual ed. ), the mashgiach speaks of the nefesh habehamis's "lack[ing the will to exercise choice" and therefore "the tzivui or azharah of an asei or a lo-sa'asei are not shayach to it at all" (par 2). He then gives guidelines about how to train it by taking examples from animal training (par 304). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 17th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Tifferes: What is the ultimate Fax: (270) 514-1507 state of harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 03:17:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 13:17:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> References: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 8:36 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > The Maharal is saying that what RMF calls emes shamamis (I think that > conjugation is yours, no?) is actually too rich to fit in this universe, > and certainly in a human mind. Therefore, two shitos can be correct > descriptions of the Truth, because each are incomplete. > Where does the Maharal say this? (Not a challenge, I just want to learn it inside) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 06:24:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 09:24:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: References: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150421132444.GD1634@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 01:17:49PM +0300, Simon Montagu wrote: : Where does the Maharal say this? (Not a challenge, I just want to learn it : inside) Be'er haGolah, be'er 1, pg 20 in the common edition, available on pg 94 the whole book) in the Harman edition, on hebrewbooks.org (Onward, I would print the 1[:6] off the link at the top for the whole sefer. R YD Hartman has a clearer edition, with copious footnotes.) I've been citing that Maharal for over a decade, so I had to search for the actual mar'eh maqom. On nice find was the discussion in Mishpat Ivri . I want to go through the whole chapter on machloqos (that hit is mid-chapter) before commenting, but I don't know when I'll get to it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 17th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Tifferes: What is the ultimate Fax: (270) 514-1507 state of harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 21 09:11:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 12:11:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150421132444.GD1634@aishdas.org> References: <20150420173610.GA902@aishdas.org> <20150421132444.GD1634@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55367699.9010203@sero.name> On 04/21/2015 09:24 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 01:17:49PM +0300, Simon Montagu wrote: > : Where does the Maharal say this? (Not a challenge, I just want to learn it > : inside) > > Be'er haGolah, be'er 1, pg 20 The introduction to the Hartman edition shows that the title is actually Be'er haGulah, with a melupum rather than a cholam. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 01:40:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 11:40:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu Message-ID: Sagi in his book on the topic brings 3 basic approaches (all with many supporters) to the sugya 1) Monism - only one truth as subfields we can be tolerant of other attempts or not 2) pluralism - there are many truths and one can't decide 3) harmonism - different views are just separate parts of the same truth R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is self-contradictory. According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint is monism ! He further points out that sometimes pluralism can be a chumra Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he doesn't accept the kashrut Answer: Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable Of course these are only typologies. In the real world anyone who believes in pluralism has some radius of acceptance. Few would accept Naziism or Isis as a legitimate viewpoint -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 01:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 11:53:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] hidur Message-ID: <> As usual R Chaim is asking a theoretical question - he was not a posek In fact I once heard from RYBS that in fact almost all etrogim are kosher bidieved. In Israel one can get a mehudar set for about 100 shekel ($25) see http://www.dafyomi.co.il/nazir/halachah/nz-hl-002.htm 2. Bava Kama 9a (R. Zeira citing Rav Huna): One must spend up to a third for Mitzvos. 3. Question: What does this mean? i. Suggestion: One must spend a third of his wealth to fulfil a Mitzvah. ii. Rejection: It is unreasonable that if he encounters three (expensive) Mitzvos, he must exhaust all his wealth! 4. Answer (R. Zeira): One must spend an extra third to beautify a Mitzvah. Shulchan Aruch (ibid.): Some say that if he finds two Esrogim to buy, and one of them is nicer than the other, he should buy the nicer one if the price difference is no more than a third of the other. i. Source (Beis Yosef DH Kaneh): Rashi (Bava Kama 9b DH b'Hidur) says that if one found two Sifrei Torah to buy, he should add a third of the price to buy the nicer one. ii. Kaf ha'Chayim (17): It seems that neither opinion requires one who bought an Esrog bigger than an egg to exchange it for a nicer one. However, the Rosh, Gra and Taz obligate doing so. The Magen Avraham says that perhaps the Shulchan Aruch holds like the Rosh. iii. Kaf ha'Chayim (18): One must add a third from an Esrog that one could bless on without Safek. Hidur depends on what people in the area consider nice. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 05:09:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 08:09:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55378F6E.2070708@sero.name> On 04/22/2015 04:40 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > 2) pluralism - there are many truths and one can't decide > > R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is self-contradictory. According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint is monism ! Not true. There are many truths, but not an infinite number. Or, as my father says, there are 70 panim latorah, but there are also 70 achor. Strict monism, which rejects the gemara's statement that "eilu va'eilu DACh", is by definition wrong. > Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he > doesn't accept the kashrut > Answer: > Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong > Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable It depends whether his concern is legitimate. If there is a legitimate opinion or minhag that forbids or refrains from whatever it is, or if he has a legitimate private chumra, then there is no question that it is assur to be machshil him. But if he is acting out of pure amhoratzus, then one needn't pander to it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 09:45:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 17:45:34 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Avodah: Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, 20 Apr 2015 17:54, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah wrote: > What would be the kilayim status of this combo? > http://www.territorialseed.com/product/grafted-tomtato-ketchup-n-fries/new_for_spring_2015 Though potato and tomato are from the same family, it is clear from mesechte Kilayim, fruit [or animals] that look different are treated as 2 different species. Hence, though the spuds and tomatoes would be permitted to eat - as with any grafted fruit - it would be ossur for a Yid to grow Dovid Rubin From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 10:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 13:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: <55378F6E.2070708@sero.name> References: <55378F6E.2070708@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150422175311.GA11663@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 08:09:18AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : On 04/22/2015 04:40 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : >2) pluralism - there are many truths and one can't decide : : >R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is :> self-contradictory. According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint :> is monism ! : Not true. There are many truths, but not an infinite number. Or, as my : father says, there are 70 panim latorah, but there are also 70 achor. I think RMA is referring to a paradox I've mentioned here once. While in principle, it's possible for a halachic pluralist to not include any halachic monist positions in his spectrum of eilu va'eilu, I do not know of a halachic pluralist who rules out the Rambam. Or a less absolute case of the same paradox: MO Jews will turn to chareidi gedolim for pesaqim despite those gedoim not believing that MO is within eilu va'eilu. So it would seem that to the MO Jew asking the she'eilah, the variant of chareidism that says MO is not within eilu va'eilu, is (in the MO Jew's opinion) itself within EvE! : Strict monism, which rejects the gemara's statement that "eilu va'eilu DACh", : is by definition wrong. Or, understand it in terms of following HQBH's word, as opposed to being right. As per the Rambam or RMF, for example. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 18th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Tifferes: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 balance? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 11:53:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 14:53:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Chilul Hashem of Disrespecting Non-Jews Message-ID: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/kb4v525 This idea connects with something that has bothered me for some time: the wanton, unprovoked use of disparaging, racist comments among our youth. Over the years I have either heard directly or been made aware of many such comments by students. When I asked why they had expressed themselves in this manner, they could offer no meaningful response. All I could glean was that they were apparently parroting similar remarks they had heard elsewhere, without having given much thought to their words. Many of these students had few if any relationships or even interactions with individuals from the groups they were mocking. See the above URL for the entire article. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:32:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 15:32:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Chilul Hashem of Disrespecting Non-Jews In-Reply-To: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150422193201.GD11663@aishdas.org> One of my many pet peeves is the use of "chilul hasheim" to teach ehrlachkeit. It may win the battle -- historically, it hasn't -- but it does so by avoiding the war. Mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro as important as mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro. Derekh eretz is important as Chazal literally call it a prerequisite for Torah. Worrying about the bein adam laMaqom effects of the cheit misses the point. And perhaps the reason why past attempts to change behavior by talking about chillul hasheim haven't worked is that one is not teaching the centrality of ehrlachkeit as a *primary* value. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 18th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Tifferes: What is imposing about Fax: (270) 514-1507 balance? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:43:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 21:43:09 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <5537F9CD.7000409@zahav.net.il> How did Rav Breuer work to ensure the conditions that "we could feel justified to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? Ben On 4/21/2015 1:32 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > > Again, I have to disagree. I suggest you read Rav Breuer's writings > about EY in the book A Unique Perspective under the heading Eretz Yisroel. > > The proclamation of a Jewish state would bring great joy to all > the members of our people, if conditions were such that we could > feel justified to call it a Kiddush Hashem. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:36:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 15:36:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Avodah: Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150422193627.GE11663@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 05:45:34PM +0100, D via Avodah wrote: : Hence, though the spuds and tomatoes would be permitted to eat - as : with any grafted fruit - it would be ossur for a Yid to grow I think it would be mutar to buy already grafted, and then grow. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 12:53:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 22:53:04 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Avodah: Kilyaim for Sale !? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 7:45 PM, D via Avodah wrote: > Though potato and tomato are from the same family, it is clear from > mesechte Kilayim, fruit [or animals] that look different are treated as 2 > different species. > Hence, though the spuds and tomatoes would be permitted to eat - as with > any grafted fruit - it would be ossur for a Yid to grow > Do you mean because the potato and tomato that we eat look different? You're not comparing apples to apples (pun intended). The fruits of a potato plant look very similar to the fruits of a tomato plant! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 13:07:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joel Schnur via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 16:07:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos Message-ID: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> My understanding is that Briskers don't wear a talis katan outside the house on shabbos because the shiur is "ad habirchaim" according to the Gaon as brought in Keser Rosh by talmidei Reb Chaim Voloshiner. And since "until the knees" is a subjective criterion depending upon each person's height, there is no specific "one size fits all" length. Interestingly, Rav Moshe Shternbuch brings a Rav Moshe that says that the source is unreliable and the Gaon never said such a thing. -- ___________________________ Joel Schnur, Senior VP Government Affairs/Public Relations Schnur Associates, Inc. 25 West 45th Street, Suite 1405 New York, NY 10036 Tel. 212-489-0600 x204 Fax. 212-489-0203 joel at schnurassociates.com www.schnurassociates.com http://www.schnurassociates.com/joels-corner/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 14:57:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 17:57:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Chilul Hashem of Disrespecting Non-Jews In-Reply-To: <20150422193201.GD11663@aishdas.org> References: <20150422185338.5F2B4182B14@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150422193201.GD11663@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150422215739.6F5F0180576@nexus.stevens.edu> At 03:32 PM 4/22/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >Mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro as important as mitzvos bein adam lachaveiro. I believe that this sentence is wrong. I believe you meant to write that mitzvos bein adam l'Chaveiro are just as important as mitzvos bein adam l'makom. RSRH points out that the Luchos contained 5 mitzvos bein adam l'Chaveiro and 5 mitzvos bein Adam l"Makom on each side, and that both sides of the Luchos were the same size! >Derekh eretz is important as Chazal literally call it a prerequisite >for Torah. And hence may one deduce that those who do not have proper Derech Eretz do not have Torah? If so, then I guess we should not be surprised at the actions of some so-called Jews that are a Chilul Hashem. They do not have any Torah. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 13:46:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 20:46:08 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos In-Reply-To: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> References: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> Message-ID: <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> On Wednesday, April 22, 2015 3:33 PM, Joel Schnur wrote: > My understanding is that Briskers don't wear a talis katan outside the > house on shabbos because the shiur is "ad habirchaim" according to the > Gaon as brought in Keser Rosh by talmidei Reb Chaim Voloshiner.... > Interestingly, Rav Moshe Shternbuch brings a Rav Moshe that says that > the source is unreliable and the Gaon never said such a thing. The reason that Briskers don't where Tzitzes on Shabbos is because they are Choshesh for the Shita of the Baal HaMeor who says that Techiels is Me'akev the Lavan. As such -- by wearing these now unnecessary 'strings' in Reshus Harabim they will be Oveir the Lav of Hotza'ah on Shabbos, an Issur D'Oraisa and a capital offense. Inetrestingly, accroding to the Baal HaMeor, wearing a Beged of Daled Kanfos using Tzitzs without Techiles is a violation -- same as if he were wearing it without Tzitzis at all. I'm told that the Gra did not wear a woolen Beged for his Talis Katan for that reason. Because wool has a Chiuv D'Oraisa for Tzitzs whereas cotton is only D'Rabbanan. HM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 22 17:05:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 20:05:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <5537F9CD.7000409@zahav.net.il> References: <20150420233319.D07A01813AA@nexus.stevens.edu> <5537F9CD.7000409@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <5538373F.4000900@aishdas.org> On 04/22/2015 03:43 PM, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: > On 4/21/2015 1:32 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: >> Again, I have to disagree. I suggest you read Rav Breuer's writings >> about EY in the book A Unique Perspective under the heading Eretz >> Yisroel. >> The proclamation of a Jewish state would bring great joy to all >> the members of our people, if conditions were such that we could >> feel justified to call it a Kiddush Hashem. > How did Rav Breuer work to ensure the conditions that "we could feel > justified to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? He thought his late brother's Poalei Agudah might accomplish it. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 03:06:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 06:06:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos In-Reply-To: <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> References: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20150423100635.GA26841@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 08:46:08PM +0000, Harry Maryles via Avodah wrote: : The reason that Briskers don't where Tzitzes on Shabbos is because they : are Choshesh for the Shita of the Baal HaMeor who says that Techiels is : Me'akev the Lavan. : : As such -- by wearing these now unnecessary 'strings' in Reshus Harabim : they will be Oveir the Lav of Hotza'ah on Shabbos... In the opening post, I referred to the BhM's reason. Since there appears to be interest, I will spell it out. The mishnah (Menachos 4:1, 38a) says that techeiles is not me'aqeves the lavan, and v.v. Seems kind of open and shut, and that's what we hold lehalakhah. And so R' Yitzchaq says that R Yochanan ben Nuri says (beraisa , quoted on 39b) that if you have no tekheiles, you make all strings lavan. But, Rebbe is choleiq, and says the mishnah means sequence. Normally the lavan strings have to be put on first, or on a tekheiles garment, the tekheiles string first. And the mishnah is saying that if you put on the other color first, it's not me'aqeiv. According to Rebbe, though, you can't be yotzei without putting on tekheiles altogether. Getting to this understanding of the mishnah is an amud lonq chaqla vetarya in which Levi, Shemu'el and Rami bar Chama defend Rebbe's position. : Interestingly, according to the Baal HaMeor, wearing a Beged of Daled : Kanfos using Tzitzs without Techiles is a violation -- same as if he : were wearing it without Tzitzis at all. Not really. It's an asei, not a lav. So, if tekheiles truly is unavailable, why wouldn't it be mutar, if pointless? However, if you feel there is any possibility whatsoever that the murex derived dye is indeed tekheiles, safeiq de'oraisa lechumerah would force one to choose between not wearing tzitzis and wearing the dye. And there are those who hold it's garua to wear invalid dye, so combine the shitos right, and the discovery of a possible tekheiles would make it better not to wear tzitzis. IF we held like the BhM. But not even Briskers do, me'iqar hadin -- they are merely chosheish for his position as a chumerah. : I'm told that the Gra did not wear a woolen Beged for his Talis Katan : for that reason. Because wool has a Chiuv D'Oraisa for Tzitzs whereas : cotton is only D'Rabbanan. As usual for the Gra -- clever! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 19th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Tifferes: When does harmony promote Fax: (270) 514-1507 withdrawal and submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 02:45:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Allan Engel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 10:45:42 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Briskers not wearing Tzitzis outside on shabbos In-Reply-To: <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> References: <5537FF69.90504@schnurassociates.com> <73216865.2809614.1429735568670.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: So what was his Tallis Godol made of? On 22 April 2015 at 21:46, Harry Maryles via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote:. > > > Inetrestingly, accroding to the Baal HaMeor, wearing a Beged of Daled > Kanfos using Tzitzs without Techiles is a violation -- same as if he > were wearing it without Tzitzis at all. > > I'm told that the Gra did not wear a woolen Beged for his Talis Katan > for that reason. Because wool has a Chiuv D'Oraisa for Tzitzs whereas > cotton is only D'Rabbanan. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 05:07:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 12:07:10 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >> R Michael Avraham points out that pluraism is self-contradictory. >> According to that viewpoint one legitimate viewpoint is monism ! ... > Strict monism, which rejects the gemara's statement that "eilu va'eilu > DACh", is by definition wrong. Monism doesn't reject the gemara just interprets it different That was the shiur >> Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he >> doesn't accept the kashrut >> Answer: >> Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong >> Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable > It depends whether his concern is legitimate. If there is a legitimate > opinion or minhag that forbids or refrains from whatever it is, or if he > has a legitimate private chumra, then there is no question that it is assur > to be machshil him. No question is your opinion a true monist Would argue that there are no other legitimate opinions hence the other is wrong and you are not machshil him [Email #2, also in reply to this latter quote. -micha] You are not being machshil by offering food that he won't eat because of his minhag or chumrot you are mikayem shalach Manot even if he doesn't accept the kashrut From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 09:11:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 12:11:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L Message-ID: <20150423161105.DF2701836D1@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:13 AM 4/23/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: >How did Rav Breuer work to ensure the conditions that "we could feel >justified to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? I really have no specifics. but I do know that Rav Breuer was busy here in the US building a model Kehilla and educating Baalei Batim. I know that some of those from his Kehilla did move to EY. In particular, I know one person who was a professional and a follower of TIDE who moved to EY. I am sure that he did whatever he could to strengthen Yahadus in EY. But let me ask a related question. What are the observant now living in EY doing "to ensure the conditions that 'we could feel justifies to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 09:49:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 12:49:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] elu v-elu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55392297.20909@sero.name> On 04/23/2015 08:07 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > >>> >>Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he >>> >>doesn't accept the kashrut >>> >>Answer: >>> >>Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong >>> >>Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable >> >It depends whether his concern is legitimate. If there is a legitimate >> >opinion or minhag that forbids or refrains from whatever it is, or if he >> >has a legitimate private chumra, then there is no question that it is assur >> >to be machshil him. > No question is your opinion a true monist > Would argue that there are no other legitimate opinions hence the other > is wrong and you are not machshil him Even if there is only one truth, you don't necessarily know for sure what it is. You make your best guess, but someone else makes his, and for all you know he may have hit on the truth, even if only by accident, while you, with all your careful analysis of the evidence, may have been led astray. Let's take medicine, where there really is only one truth, but often we don't know for sure what it is. Does gluten in the diet negatively affect the health of most normal people? There doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence for that proposition, but it can't be ruled out. Maybe in 20 years we will observe that those who have followed the gluten-free fad really are healthier, and someone will discover how it is that gluten harms a person. Or maybe it will be established that it's exactly the mishguas that it appears to be. But until then we are just guessing, and if you hold that it's a mishugas but someone else is worried about it, you have to consider the possibility that he may be right, and by tricking him into eating gluten you may actually be harming him. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 10:54:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 17:54:52 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] A Papal Honor for an Orthodox Rabbi. Message-ID: <393104521.3643892.1429811692300.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> JTA is reporting that Pope Francis will be bestowing Papal Knighthood upon Rabbi Arthur Schneier (who I believe is an Orthodox Rabbi) for (among other things) his work in promoting a positive relationship with the Church. According to JTA,?Schneier will formally become a knight of Saint Sylvester at a ceremony on April 27.Isn't there a Halachic probelm with this? It would seem to me that becoming a 'knight' in the Catholic church ?would at least be Avak Avodah Zara - even though it is just honorary? HM??Want Emes and Emunah in your life? Try this: http://haemtza.blogspot.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 16:14:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 19:14:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early Message-ID: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin (or ate the food already, the food went bad, etc...) who for some reason can not rely on the rabbi's communal failsafe eruv (perhaps he isn't in a neighborhood with an observant community) do for lighting Shabbos candles? So, the BY (OC 537:19) permits, but he says "veyeish oserin". The AhS (se'if 28) names the oserim as the Rosh and the Ran, and that the SA names the Rambam (via a diyuq halashon)as his source lehatir. The AhS then questions the diyuq, but says it should be allowed anyway, since one gets hana'ah from the neiros while on YT too. So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, ones you used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making a berakhah on? Yes, there is light for enjoying the Shabbos meal, all the same shalom bayis. But there is no actual pe'ulah to make the berakhah on. Is there? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 19th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 2 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Tifferes: When does harmony promote Fax: (270) 514-1507 withdrawal and submission? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 16:21:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Daniel M. Israel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 16:21:06 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> References: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <33e302272e45c742ee54349bcfddc40a@kolberamah.org> On 2015-04-23 16:14, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin... > ... do for lighting Shabbos candles? > So, the BY (OC 537:19) permits... The AhS > then questions the diyuq, but says it should be allowed anyway, since > one gets hana'ah from the neiros while on YT too. > So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, ones you > used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making a berakhah on? Off the cuff hypothesis: Perhaps for the one lighting, it becomes Shabbos immediately, so the hadlakah is for Shabbos and there is a beracha. But for others in the house, they likely don't take on Shabbos until davening, and therefor they enjoy it on YT. Which would be enough to matir her lighting them. But I have no source. -- Daniel Israel dmi1 at cornell.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 16:27:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 19:27:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: <33e302272e45c742ee54349bcfddc40a@kolberamah.org> References: <20150423231457.GA17845@aishdas.org> <33e302272e45c742ee54349bcfddc40a@kolberamah.org> Message-ID: <20150423232727.GB23492@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 04:21:06PM -0700, Daniel M. Israel wrote: : Perhaps for the one lighting, it becomes Shabbos immediately, so the : hadlakah is for Shabbos and there is a beracha. But for others in the : house, they likely don't take on Shabbos until davening, and therefor : they enjoy it on YT. Which would be enough to matir her lighting them. Not bad, if we don't read too much into the AhS not limiting this solution to cases where the candle-lighter isn't alone in the home. Nor does he mention having to use candles lit after pelag, nor her making a berakhah upon lighting and having an issur melakhah... Could be, but I find it dachuq. -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 17:58:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2015 00:58:48 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early Message-ID: <20150423.205848.16124.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger asked: > What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin (or > ate the food already, the food went bad, etc...) who for some > reason can not rely on the rabbi's communal failsafe eruv > (perhaps he isn't in a neighborhood with an observant community) > do for lighting Shabbos candles? Another problem this person will have is what to eat on Shabbos. There are several ideas offered by the poskim, and one of them is to cook extra food on Yom Tov, and the extra will be for Shabbos. This can be done even without an Eiruv Tavshilin, IIRC, because the melacha is not being done exclusively for Shabbos. > So, the BY (OC 537:19) [that should be 527:19 - Akiva] permits, > but he says "veyeish oserin". The AhS (se'if 28) names the oserim > as the Rosh and the Ran, and that the SA names the Rambam (via a > diyuq halashon)as his source lehatir. The AhS then questions the > diyuq, but says it should be allowed anyway, since one gets > hana'ah from the neiros while on YT too. This sounds to me the same as above. The lighting is not being done exclusively for Shabbos, and therefore may be done on YT. I would note that at no point in that se'if, does the AhS explicitly refers to the *mitzvah* of lighting Shabbos neros. Rather, his focus is on the practical need to light them in the late afternoon, both because it is *already* getting dark and hard to see without some artifical light, and because we won't be able to light anything later on. Truth be told, if lighting Shabbos candles is allowed only with an Eruv Tavshilin, then this whole se'if is needed even for a person who DID remember to make an Eruv, because (l'chatchila) one must do his Shabbos preparations early in the day, in a manner in which the melacha is -- or at least *could* be -- for tzorchei Yom Tov, and not exclusively for Shabbos. > So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, > ones you used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making > a berakhah on? Yes, there is light for enjoying the Shabbos meal, > all the same shalom bayis. But there is no actual pe'ulah to make > the berakhah on. Is there? I don't know where you see anything like this in the AhS. The AhS is explicitly talking about lighting after mincha, when it is already dark and the light is already useful. I concede that perhaps one should omit the bracha, because it explicitly declares one's intentions to be of a hachana nature, but that is a separate question not raised by the AhS. The main point I want to make in this paragraph is that the AhS never suggested that one might be yotzay Mitzvas Ner Shabbos via the candle that he lit in the early afternoon; it must be lit after Plag, with the intention that it will be burning into Shabbos. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55399563ca1dd156333b3st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 23 23:18:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2015 02:18:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Turning Jealousy into Progress Message-ID: Envy - Jealousy ? Kin?ah ? is an obvious theme for Parshas Mtzora. Paraphrasing freely (from L?chai Ro?-EY page 184), Midrash Tehillim/Shochar Tov on 37:1 parallel of TiTCHaR and TeKaNNEi. Do not fall victim to despondence those plotting evil, do not emulate those who succeed in career of crime. Rashi BMiDBar 25:11 neatly ties both into a General Theory of Jealousy. KoL LaSHON KiNAH HU HaMiTCHaReH LiNKom NiKMaS DaVaR. Rashi?s keyword is worth a thousand words. Rashi expects that we know Tanach and Midrash references. To catch Rashi?s nuance, always, I consult my paper Milon Gur [also in HebrewBooks.com]. HaMiTCHaReH is the exotic addition to our vocabulary. My trusty dictionary comes through here. Milon Gur pages 310 311 on CHaRaH: CHaRaH intransitive verb, showing outwardly as Ca_US or KaTZUF. ? foaming and frothing anger, against a traitor or hated enemy. determination to avenge and restore the Balance of Justice. HiTLaHeiV burning simmering anger, pressure like volcanic eruption. Hashem to Yonah ? are you truly upset ? HaHeYTeiV CHaRaH LCHa YoNaH? Divine CHaRON AF boiling or simmering anger is satisfied only by repentance, not by punishment. CHaRUCHA [burnt like over done fire-roast, long term anger leads to burn-through and burn-out. CHaRUL thorny tangle Milon Gur page 1088 McharCher RIV ? drum up strife and enmity CHaRCHuR ? disease of loss of muscle and strength. MChaRCHer Riv, CharumAf [nose ?bent out of shape? inset into face] and for Tacharut as resentment destroyed relationship. Rashi in Machzor Vitri 148 uses CHeReTZ in a unique way. Hashem jealously and with energy demands perfection from the world. Why does the Creator demand perfection? Rashi believes that Hashem cares strongly about the world. When the Adam attempts to be good, but falls short, He uses Rachamim, parenting skills, looking to the potential of ?You will worship Elokim on this mountain?. identification with the world demands perfection. When the world tries but falls short, fails to perform, Hashem uses Rachamim, flexibility, patience, empathy. He settles for potential. When the world rebels against Hashem, refuses to acknowledge Him at all, or mocking Him, rejecting their Father, breaking up the family, then there is Charon Af, red faced simmering anger. Rav Avraham Ruby authored the ?Tzilusa DiShmaata? series, focusing on chapters of the Baba-s routinely learnt Afternoon Seder which are master-works of Lamdus. Rav Moshe Shmuel Shapiro of Be?eir Yaakov was a talented teacher, and R? Ruby is an extremely able student. This year R? Ruby has turned his talents to creating the same sort of succinct and sharp presentation on Chumash.[L?chai Ro?-EY on Vayikra, self published 5775, contact me.]. Each Parsha offers an eclectic collection of solid sources. The organization is always unique and refreshing. L?chai Ro?-EY 185 shows the constructive power of ambition. Identity, membership,self-image, pride, place in society are all motivators of constructive behavior. Kinah jealousy is secondary, when there is an insult or threat to Hashem?s identity, or the individual?s. Ideally our self-image should include praise of Hashem and hatred of all insults against the Honor of Hashem. Only live in a town with Jewish services, and help create them. Your material ambitions include the dimension of Mitzvos and Kidush Hashem. A higher level of identity, ambition and constructive jealousy is aspiring to your neighbor?s higher spiritual levels. Even the Heavenly angels and even Avraham Avinu found mentors to emulate. Of course, the type of destructive strife we often see has other roots. Building a Jewish family is much easier with stronger spiritual models. -- David Wacholder Cell: 917-742-7838 Email: dwacholder at gmail.com dwacholder at optonline.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Apr 24 08:42:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2015 11:42:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Beautiful Vort Message-ID: I recently came upon the following, listening to a hesped for Rabbi Mordechai Fachler zt?l, who was nift?r in November 2010. The hesped (one of many for Rav Fachler) was delivered by Rabbi Moshe Shirkin of England. This is just one part that caught my attention and was very touching. In previous generations the g?dolei Yisroel were discussing what?s the function of a Rav? The Rosh Yeshiva in Grodna (at the time) said the task of the Rav is to give shiurim. The Rav of Kovna, poisek oilam, said the task of the Rav is to pasken shailas. They came to Reb Chayim of Brisk and asked him what is the task of the Rav. His impressive response was: To give shiurim, you have a Rosh Yeshiva. To pasken shailas, you have a dayan. The task of the Rav is to do chesed with his oilam. A clergyman comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comfortable. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Apr 25 12:31:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 25 Apr 2015 21:31:27 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150423161105.DF2701836D1@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150423161105.DF2701836D1@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <553BEB8F.8040802@zahav.net.il> On 4/23/2015 6:11 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > But let me ask a related question. What are the observant now living > in EY doing "to ensure the conditions that 'we could feel justifies > to call it a Kiddush HaShem"? I gave an answer on Areivim, but I saw a couple of things on Shabbat which warrant an Avodah response. The first is from Yoma 86:A, Rashi, B'Amor Lehem (my translation): "Evil comes to chassidim and chachamim because "They desecrated My Holy name" (note: Rashi is of course assuming that they didn't do any particular sin to warrant what happened to them). How did they desecrate (God's name)? In those places to where they were exiled, the non-Jews say "These are the people of God" and He can't redeem them. Conclusion: God's name has been desecrated." End quote. Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem. Rav Soloveitch tz"l wrote about this point in Kol Dodi Dofek and in his drashot for the Kinot, as did Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook tz"l. However, I don't want to leave it at that. Rav Cherki (father of Shalom HY"D) wrote the following in this week's Shabbat B'shabato: "And this leads us to a moral question: How can it be that with respect to the most significant event in all of history, the redemption, the existence or lack of good deeds has no effect at all? This tension between the inevitability of redemption and arbitrary choices made by man is what makes it necessary for the nation of Yisrael to observe all the mitzvot in detail, in order to avoid creating a dissonance between the need for justice (which appears in the covenant in the Torah portion of Bechukotai) and the values of the path of unification, which insists that G-d is always working to glorify His name, no matter what else is happening. And that is why the Haftarah ends with the adamant demand of the Holy One, Blessed be He: "I am your G-d. Follow My laws and maintain My just actions and perform them, and sanctify my Shabbat and let it be a symbol between Me and you, in order to know that I am your G-d." [Yechezkel 20:19-20]." No one, not the most hard core DL around, says that there is nothing wrong with the State, that there isn't what that needs changing, from the level of how people get on a bus to the national agenda. In his hesped, Rav Cherki mentioned that his son Shalom went to the navy to help start a hesder unit for the navy, even though he knew that the religious level in the navy wasn't as high as it was in other units. He went there for the greater good, to help make the IDF a bit more Torah oriented, period. Rav Cherki went on to say that the answer to Shalom's murder was to add Kiddush HaShem. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 13:28:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 20:28:49 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lashon Hara and the Internet Message-ID: <20150426.162849.2967.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> On Areivim, there were some posts speaking about the residents of a certain area or areas. Someone commented: > I'm a little surprised at this exchange. Sefer Chafetz Chaim is > pretty clear about not saying loshen hara on a place or the > residents of a place. Someone else responded: > I am no expert on what is LH and what is not, but with the Internet > I think that some of the halachos probably do not apply to today's > world. Find me a sefer that deals with LH and the Internet, and > then we will talk. I too am no expert in Sefer Chafetz Chaim, but I clearly remember it talking about Lashon Hara via the written word, such as in personal letters to friends and relatives, or by publishing books and newspapers. Can someone find those sources and tell us where they are? I find it difficult to imagine that today's world is so different from that of a hundred years ago "that some of the halachos probably do not apply to today's world." But without quoting actual sources, it's simply a case of my imagination vs that of the other poster. So I am hoping that someone can help with the source material, "and then we will talk." Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553d4ab51dc554ab54c25st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 15:02:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 18:02:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] YIDDISHKEIT WITHOUT IDEOLOGY: A LETTER TO My SON Message-ID: <20150426220229.D93E41836B2@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://traditionarchive.org/news/originals/Volume%2036/No.%202/Yiddishkeit%20Without.pdf Let me be absolutely clear: where the demands of halacha are unambiguous, you must submit to them. But how does one navigate between much less well-defined traditional attitudes and strong personal inclinations? When I was your age I didn't know the answer-I still don't-but one proposition that seemed self-evident to me at the time was that it was essential to be consistent. In other words, I felt that I had to some- how make sure that the way I defined Yiddishkeit and the way I defined my commitments given my own inclinations would be perfectly aligned. I'm now convinced that that commitment to consistency was utter- ly wrong-headed and is the key to all that is wrong with institutional Yiddishkeit. I shouldn't have been defining either Yiddishkeit or my commitments at al. To do so is to reduce Yiddishkeit to ideology which is exactly what it is not. See the above UL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 16:54:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 19:54:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150426235424.BD633182CE0@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:52 PM 4/26/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: I gave an answer on Areivim, but I saw a couple of things on Shabbat which warrant an Avodah response. The first is from Yoma 86:A, Rashi, B'Amor Lehem (my translation): "Evil comes to chassidim and chachamim because "They desecrated My Holy name" (note: Rashi is of course assuming that they didn't do any particular sin to warrant what happened to them). How did they desecrate (God's name)? In those places to where they were exiled, the non-Jews say "These are the people of God" and He can't redeem them. Conclusion: God's name has been desecrated." End quote. >Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem. >Rav Soloveitch tz"l wrote about this point in Kol Dodi Dofek and in his >drashot for the Kinot, as did Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook tz"l. We all know that there were great Torah scholars who disagreed with the assertion that " the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." to name just 3, the Satmar Rebbe, Rav Breuer, and Rav Schwab. They were also most certainly familiar with the gemara you quote and the RASHI. If you had written, "Therefore, according to some Torah scholars the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." I would not disagree. However, your blanket statement, "Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." is IMO is not valid. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 12:36:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Jay F. Shachter via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 19:36:27 +0000 (WET DST) Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: from "via Avodah" at Apr 26, 2015 03:52:29 pm Message-ID: <14300949890.C90dE41.4028@m5.chicago.il.us> > > What should someone who forgot to make an eiruv tavshilin (or ate > the food already, the food went bad, etc...) who for some reason can > not rely on the rabbi's communal failsafe eruv (perhaps he isn't in > a neighborhood with an observant community) do for lighting Shabbos > candles? > You light one candle, after plag hamminxa of course, and you say the appropriate brakha, lhadliq ner shel shabbath. You don't need an `eruv tavshilin to light one candle, because the Rabbinic prohibition of performing mlakha on Yom Tov for Shabbath was not intended to override the Rabbinic commandment of lighting one candle for use on Shabbath. Since (unlike in ancient times, and unlike a hundred years ago also) you don't need to have candles burning on Shabbath for their light, because you already have electric lights in your house that will stay on, or that will come on, during Shabbath, you therefore have no reason to light more than one candle (except for minhag, which you can dispense with when needed), so you don't. One candle is the Rabbinic commandment. Lighting two candles is a recent frumkeit, or yhiruth, that started among German Jews and is less than 900 years old. Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter 6424 N Whipple St Chicago IL 60645-4111 (1-773)7613784 landline (1-410)9964737 GoogleVoice jay at m5.chicago.il.us http://m5.chicago.il.us "The umbrella of the gardener's aunt is in the house" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 04:58:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 12:58:34 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001901d080e1$7d6fcbe0$784f63a0$@org.uk> RMB wrote: <> As I have written before, what I find intensely frustrating about this is that RYBS's invocation of tan du appears to itself involve a form of tampering with the chazakos and by implication the denial of the perfection and truthfulness of chachmei chazal that is then claimed to be kefira. The gemora in discussing tan du is very clear - both in Yevamos 118b and Kesuvos 75a: a woman in a tan du marriage commits adultery - "kulan mezanos"! - THAT is the chazaka from Chazal regarding the nature of women. Now this could mean: (a) the sort of woman who is prepared to enter a tan du marriage is prepared to and will commit adultery; or (b) all women will take a tan du marriage (RYBS), but if they find themselves in a tan du marriage - the existential loneliness that RYBS identifies as being the particular province of women will also, according to Chazal, inevitably drive them to adultery; But you can't get away from the fact that Chazal set this up as a chazaka. And if you take these chazakos in the way that RYBS says to do, then there are inevitable conclusions: A Beis Din faced with what can now clearly be seen as a tan du marriage HAS to assume adultery as a consequence - that being the chazaka. If you hold that these statements of Chazal are perhaps limited in time and place to the times of Chazal, and the nature of women then, then we cannot necessarily generalise to today, and despite a woman today being demonstratably in a tan du marriage, one cannot necessarily jump to conclusions regarding her faithfulness. But if these chazakos are immutable - then the only question must surely be, was there the possibility of adultery - and given the freedom of movement of women today, I do not see how anybody can say that opportunity was not available. Therefore the result, and the consequence for the marriage, was a foregone conclusion. A beis din, if it does not treat this marriage as a mekach taus (because the woman is one who would not have entered a tan du marriage), has to treat it as one in which the woman has committed adultery and is therefore forbidden to her husband, and under which the husband is clearly under a Torah obligation to divorce, according to all opinions ("dvar erva"). And yet note that there is none of this in RBYS's analysis. Women's loneliness and spiritual pain, yes - a full facing of the consequences of what is therefore, according to Chazal, endemic in our society and in the nature of Bnos Yisroel, no. There is a complete glossing over of the fundamental conclusion by Chazal regarding the consequence of a tan du marriage. And yet how can you write about tan du as an absolute immutable principle and yet not mention what, according to Chazal, is the cast iron result of that absolute immutable principl? Note by the way that this chazaka, if indeed it is immutable in the nature of women, has another consequence. Given that having women commit adultery is clearly (how shall I put this mildly) a highly destructive thing for society - having women enter into marriages where this is the inevitable consequence is a very bad thing. Surely any Rabbi who is mesader kedushin at such a wedding, any eidim at such a wedding, etc have as a matter of fact engaged in lifnei iver lo titen michshol in the full biblical sense. This isn't, according to Chazal, a maybe or a possibility, this is an inevitability. Surely it is obligatory on any Rabbi who agrees to be mesader kiddushin and on any shadchanim and eidim to investigate very carefully that this marriage is not of the tan du nature? That is if, as Rav Lichtenstein is quoted as saying "given the clear cut evidence in the Rishonim in Yevamot and other places in Shas which clearly indicated that this hazaka was not one that applied in all contexts and at all times and in all situations" - then these concerns would be significantly diminished. After all, any marriage presented to a mesader kedushin would then at the very least be a sfek sfeka - perhaps this isn't a tan du marriage, and if it is, perhaps the woman might not commit adultery. But if it is an inevitable chazaka that a woman in a tan du marriage will commit adultery, then there is only one safek in relation to a serious issur d'orisa - in which case must it not be the responsibility of all those who enable such a marriage to occur to make sure that it is not a tan du marriage and they are not enabling such adultery to take place? To my mind, indeed, that is precisely what Chazal were really getting at. A genuine acknowledgement that - at least in some societies and some environments, women are pressured into inappropriate marriages and give in to that pressure. And that where a woman does indeed give in to such an inappropriate marriage, the consequences are really, really bad for the general society and we need all to be on guard to try and prevent such marriages occurring. That to me demonstrates far more clearly the "perfection and truthfulness of Chazal" than trying to squish them in to some metaphysical understanding of womenkind that does not reverberate as true to many. But if one is going to apply this particular analysis to this particular statement of Chazal, it would seem important to do it honestly while facing the totality of what it is that Chazal actually said. >-Micha Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 11:00:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 18:00:12 GMT Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabal as Ol Malchus Shamayim Message-ID: <20150427.140012.4336.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Rav YB Soloveitchik zt"l was quoted: > ... Let us take for example the chazaka that I was told > about: the chazaka tav l'meisiv tan du mil'meisiv armalo > [20] has absolutely nothing to do with the social and > political status of women in antiquity. This chazaka is > based not upon sociological factors, but upon a verse in > breishis -- harba arbeh itz'voneich v'heironeich b'etzev > teildi vanim v'el isheich t'shukaseich v'hu yimshal bach > -- "I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy travail; in > pain thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall > be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee" [21]. It > is a metaphysical curse rooted in the feminine personality > -- she suffers incomparably more that the male who is in > solitude. Solitude to the male is not as terrible an > experience, as horrifying an experience, as is solitude to > the woman. And this will never change, mayid shamayim > vaaretz [22]. This is not a psychological fact; it is an > existential fact, ... In our discussions of this idea, that the chazaka is "an existential fact" and "based not upon sociological factors", there seems to be a general assumption that the Rav was speaking of ALL chazakos. However, it seems possible to me, or perhaps even likely, that he was singling this chazaka out as different from others. Note that he does not merely assert this chazaka to be existential, but he cites a pasuk as proof. To me, this is significant, because we would then be allowed to treat any NON-pasuk-based chazaka as sociological. I don't know what implications this might have for the chazaka of extramarital relations that R"n Chana Luntz mentioned, or for any other chazakos, but I wanted to mention it in case anyone else wants to comment. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/553e7973421b079735cf5st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 14:53:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 17:53:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabal as Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <20150427.140012.4336.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150427.140012.4336.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150427215316.GA27558@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 06:00:12PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : In our discussions of this idea, that the chazaka is "an existential : fact" and "based not upon sociological factors", there seems to be a : general assumption that the Rav was speaking of ALL chazakos. However, : it seems possible to me, or perhaps even likely, that he was singling : this chazaka out as different from others. I suggested a third possiliblity. The shiur was all about Talmud Torah and Qabbalas Ol Malkhus Shamayim. This was a couple of off topic lines in what was basically a complaint that RER didn't respect the halachic process (as RYBS saw it). RAL reports that this was RYBS's primary argument against RER's beis din; I am suggesting that this quick assertion was an example of that argument, not an independent second reason to reject. It fits better as an efshar lomar than an actual assertion. How do you know you can simply repeal this chazaqah? What if it's an existential statement about the human condition; is it, after all, mentioned in a pasuq! Not so much that tav lemeisav was necessarily an existential and unchanging fact, but that it could be. That one can't simply reason in a vacuum and buck the trend of millennia of pesaq. But in any case, RYBS did say it belashon rabbim: "We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above. Let us take for example the chazaka that I was told about: the chazaka tav l'meisiv tan du...." RYBS discusses tav lemeisiv as an example of a general principle not to tamper with chazaqos. Not as a single case. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 23rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Netzach: How does my domination Fax: (270) 514-1507 stifle others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 11:10:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 14:10:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A Halachik analysis of the kosher status of vitamins and medicines. Message-ID: <20150427181040.6E1171834B6@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/osf4fh7 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 12:51:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 21:51:46 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150426235424.BD633182CE0@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150426235424.BD633182CE0@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <553E9352.3030802@zahav.net.il> 1) I have to admit I don't get your answer. You asked in what way could the state be considered a Kiddush Hashem and I gave you an answer. Now you reply that various rabbis wouldn't agree with that answer. Ok, but az mah? 2) The Satmar Rebbe wouldn't have said that anything about the state is a Kiddush Hashem, no matter what it did, so I don't understand why you included him. 3) Lastly, the reply that you gave reminds me of something that Rav AY Kook wrote in Orot, Orot HaTechiya, Chapter 20. He was addressing the question of whether or not the religious should join forces with the non-religious in order to work together for the Zionist cause. Rav Kook used the story of the two women claiming to be the mother of a baby as example of people revealing their true intentions. The woman who agreed that the baby should be cut in half was in effect saying (according to RK) that there shouldn't be babies. She used others claims as way of hiding her true intent, but when the decisive moment came, the truth came out. Meaning - was the demand that the religious not work with the secular the issue or was that a cover story used to mask people's opposition to Zionism? Or in this case, is the demand that the creation of the state be a Kiddush HaShem in the eyes of all rabbanim a real demand or is it simply a cover? If the Breuer community want the state to reflect certain values, than please, make it happen. If they don't want to make it happen or aren't willing, than the demand is (at best) an exercise in dissimulation. Ben On 4/27/2015 1:54 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > We all know that there were great Torah scholars who disagreed with the assertion that " the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." to name just 3, the Satmar Rebbe, Rav Breuer, and Rav Schwab. They were also most certainly familiar with the gemara you quote and the RASHI. > > If you had written, "Therefore, according to some Torah scholars the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." I would not disagree. However, your blanket statement, "Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." is IMO is not valid. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 14:59:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 22:59:07 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] ashkenazi married to sefardi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003e01d08135$629ef9e0$27dceda0$@org.uk> RET writes: <> Note that the Bnei Banim in Chelek 3 siman 29 brings an objection to this position of RMF, based on the Rema in Even HaEzer siman 75 si'if 1. The discussion there is regarding the situation where the man literally comes from one country and the woman comes from another, who can force whom to move? And while the majority of the rishonim (including the Tashbetz) hold (absent special considerations such as Eretz Yisrael versus non Eretz Yisrael) that the man can force the woman to move to his country, Rabbanu Tam holds the opposite, that the woman can force the man to move. And the Rema holds l'halacha that we should be choshesh for the position of Rabbanu Tam, and hence neither can force the other to move. The Bnei Banim points out that if one cannot force the wife to physically move to the locale of the husband, l'halacha, how can she be considered to have moved to his place by mere dint of the marriage? After all, if she has in fact, halachically, moved to his place by entering the chuppah, what possible objection can there possibly be to her being made to up sticks and actually go to his country, Rabbanu Tam or no Rabbanu Tam? So while the Tashbez is in fact being consistent - being a rishon who holds that in fact she is required to physically move to the husband's country, the Bene Banim argues that by being choshesh for Rabbanu Tam, the Rema is clearly not poskening like RMF and the Tashbetz. The Bene Banim also discusses other arguments brought by the Tashbetz (such as ishto k'gufo) - but again rejects this, given that a woman does not take over her husband's chiyuvim and nedarim (with the possible exception of Channukah Candles). >In addition ROY states a similar psak in several places. One can argue that ROY is in a stronger position than RMF, on the grounds that he solely follows the Mechaber, and hence not the Rema, and might hold that one can force a country change. The Bnei Banim also brings, however, that while ROY comes out straightforwardly like the Tashbetz in Yabiat Omer chelek 5 siman 37 (there he is discussing an Ashkenazi woman who married a Sephardi man and whether she can eat rice on Pesach - answer of course, yes), in Or Torah Iyar 4751 ROY writes (quotation taken from the Bene Banim, I don't have access to the original): ?????? ??? ???? ????? ????? ????? ?????? ?????? ???? ??????? ????? ?????? ??? ????? ????? ???? ??? ???? ?? ?"? ????, ?? ???? ??????? ???? ???? ???? ?????? ???? ????? ????? ???? ?' ?? ?????? ????? ???? )??? ?' ???? ?"?(. ??? ?????? ???? ???? ?? ???? ??? ???? ???? ????? ?? ??? ????, ??? ??? ???? ????? ????? ????? ???? ???? ???? ???? ????? ???? ????? ????? ???? ?? ?? ?? ?????. ???? ?? ?????? ?????? ?????? ???? ????? ????? ????? ??, ????? ?? ???? ????? ?? ????. ??? ?? ?? ????? ????? ??? ??? ????? ??? ????? ????? ????? ?????. ???? ???? ???? ??????, ?? ??? ????? ?? ???? ?????? ???? ????? ????? ???? ????? ??? ???? ????? ?? ??? ?????? ????, ??? ??? ????? ???? ???? ????? ??? ?????? ??? ??????? ??? ????? ????? ???"?. ??? ??? ???? ???? ?????? ???????? ?????? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ?? ??? ??? "??? ???" ???? ?? ???, ????? ????? ?? ???? " customs that are required of the husband of necessity because of the tradition of his fathers like the Sephardim who accepted on themselves the rulings of Maran [the Shulchan Aruch] and are not able to be lenient against his opinion even by way of hatarah, it is required of an Ashkenazi woman to go after her husband and even to conduct herself leniently like the custom of her husband like that which I wrote in Yabiat Omer (chelek 5 siman 37). But stringencies that the husband has placed on himself that if he wants he is able to nullify them by way of hatarah, there is no need for the woman to conduct herself like him and he is not able to force on her a stringency that she does not want to accept as there is to her on whom to rely. Therefore if she wants to continue to use Tenuva milk she is able to do this, and the husband if he wants can be stringent upon himself. But not use any form of compulsion that also she be stringent that there not enter their house the products of Tenuva. And this is the law with the fruit of shmitta, if she relies on the heter mechira since there are many great ones of the world who hold to leniency she is also able to continue to be lenient, and so she is not forced to accept upon herself the stringency of not using products which do not have on them the hashgacha of the Badatz. And if the husband is not able to continue his stringencies when the woman does not want to accept he should do hatarah on that which he did not say ?bli neder? and be lenient also he, as great is the peace of a house." The Bnei Banim notes however that ROY does not bring any lamdus to defend the distinction he makes here between longstanding community customs (such as rice on pesach or glatt meat) and more recent customs - such as not eating Tenuva or relying on the heter mechira. To expand on this comment of the Bnei Banim, one might say that if you base the reason for a woman taking on the customs of the husband because she moves to his place, why should it make a difference whether the customs he has established in his place are longstanding ones, such as eating rice on pesach, or not using the products of Tenuva? The customs of his place are the customs of his place. And yet ROY is, in this, reflecting a common (if perhaps inconsistent) practice. In all the debate regarding husbands not using the eruv and relying on their wives doing so, and how it shows a lack of derech eretz etc, nobody suggests that actually it is assur for the wife to use the eruv, on the grounds that she has moved to the husband's place, and his custom is not to do so, and so she is stuck with the stringencies of his house. The Bnei Banim concludes his teshuva by stating: ?????? ???? ??? ????? ???? ????? ???? ??????? ?????? ??? ???? ?????? ?????? ???? ?? ????, ?? ????? ?? ????? ?? ???? ????"? ????? ??? ???? ??"? ???? ????? ???? ????? ???? ?? ????? ??? ????? ?????? ?????? ??? ???? ???? ?? ?? ???? ??? ???? ???? ???????? ??? ???? ???, ??? ?? ?????? ?? ???? ???? ??????? ?????? ????? ??????. "And l?halacha anyway one should not push aside the custom of the world that a woman frees herself from the customs of her father?s household and conduct herself according to the customs of her husband if she wants, but she is able also to rely on the words of [Rav Ovadiah Yosef] in the ma?amer and so it seems to me that when there isn?t in it [a matter] between him and her, and there isn?t a matter of inui nefesh she is able to continue like the customs of the house of her father since behold also if she vowed them from anew after the marriage the husband could not annul [such vows], and she may make a condition with her husband before the marriage that she will continue to conduct herself in accordance with her customs." This point of the Bnei Banim regarding innui nefesh and matters beno uvena is interesting. What he is referring to is the fact that a husband can be mafer (ie nullify) the nedarim of his wife, but only those that either constitute inui nefesh or are considered beno u'vena (Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah Diman 234 si?if 55). And it seems to me that you can therefore deal with the Tashbetz's point (as strongly re-iterated by ROY) regarding food issues - ie that they cannot eat together at the same table where what is permitted for one is prohibited for the other - with the use of this concept, without needing to come on to place changes. Because one of the definitions of inui nefesh brought in the Shulchan Aruch (Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah Diman 234 si?if 60-61) is if the woman forbids an item of food on herself (although the Shulchan Aruch there in si'if 60 notes that the Rambam considers this a matter not of inui nefesh but of beno u'vena). So that, certainly from the perspective of a Sephardi husband, a woman who has has the practice of not eating rice and kitniyot on Pesach is engaging in inui nefesh - and if you follow the Rav Poelim I brought in an earlier post, that if one is forbidden to eat something, one is forbidden to cook it on yom tov for others who may eat it, then the woman could not cook rice or kitniyot for the husband either - making the matter clearly one beno u'vena. So it seems like the whole question of differences in food do not need discussions of place, they can more readily be handled within the context of the existing halachic framework surrounding marriage, and what is and is not appropriate to be waived in the context of a healthy marriage. That set me thinking about the fact that actually we are talking about a whole range of different forms of minhagim - and it seems to me that as a first stab, we are dealing here with four different categories: a) minhagim that really have no impact on the husband - such as whether she benches and davens minhag Ashkenaz or minhag Edot Hamizrach (but will have a major impact on her should she be required to change, both in terms of the huge learning curve, and also in terms of the emotional impact, eg of the kol nidrei tunes). One might perhaps say that if she davens a different nusach, she will want to go to shul to a different place - but she is in a different place from the husband anyway, by virtue of the mechitza, and of course many women do not have the custom to go at all, so real impact would seem to be minimal. That seems to be the underlying message of the Bene Banim. b) minhagim that involve inui nefesh of the woman (which the halacha defines as having an impact on the husband, and which includes her having prohibitions on food) and those beno u'vena. We already have a halachic framework to determine these - the relevant sections of Yoreh Deah siman 234. For example, it doesn't seem to me to be a stretch to say that if he has the minhag of putting food with a majority of solid on the blech on shabbas, and she has a minhag not to, then her following that minhag will impact beno u'vena in terms of what gets provided at the shabbas table, and therefore would fall within the category of minhagim that ought to change in the interests of a unified household. c) minhagim that impact the husband financially. The interesting thing is that these *are* dealt with in the gemora and the halacha based on the principle "olah imo v'ana yoredes imo" - she goes up with him but does not go down with him. The case discussed on Kesubos 48a is regarding what it is necessary for him to hire for her funeral (in the way of flute players and wailers) where the custom between her family and his family is different. And while it might have been the case that it was different because they were from a different socio-economic class, it may also be because she came from a different place where the custom was to spend more on funerals and even so (once you accept that the same rule applies in death as it does in life) he is required to fund the difference - there is no assumption that because she has moved to his place, she is only entitled to the funeral according to the custom of his place. It would therefore seem that the straightforward pshat of this gemora is against the Tashbetz. Similarly the Shulchan Aruch rules in Even HaEzer siman 80 si'if 10 that the various forms of work that are required of a woman for her husband are only required if it is the derech of both her family and his family for a woman to do this - ie it is the intersection of the two sets of minhagim that make the requirement binding. d) minhagim of the husband that cause her tzar: this is in many ways the flip side of b), in that in b) we are talking about a situation where what she has been accustomed to doing all her life is, from the perspective of the husband, a form of inui nefesh, while here, the customs of the husband are what to her might well seem inui nefesh. This could also perhaps be said to be dealt with by the gemora. The gemora in Kesubos 61a discusses the situation where there is a dispute between him and her regarding whether she should nurse their baby in situations where it is the custom of her family but not his or vice versa. The question has a financial aspect, if she does not, then the husband will be put to the expense of hiring a wet nurse, and also, it would appear, a status/beauty aspect (the husband may not want her to, either because only lower class women do this, or because it might make her less beautiful in his eyes). In terms of the financial and status aspect, the gemora again brings the position of olah imo v'ana yoredes imo as per c), but there are also other aspects. For example, in the case where she wants to nurse, and the husband does not want her to, the gemora assumes that it is straightforward that, if she wishes to nurse, we listen to her, on the grounds that "tzara dedei hu" - it is her pain. Now Rashi understands this as the physical pain of having milk and having no-one feed - but it could also be understood to be psychological. However, it is hard to know how far to extend this case, nursing might well be considered sui generis, because (a) it is something very specific to a woman that a man will never do (regardless of what the women in his family did) and (b) there are very specific, unusual, physical and/or psychological factors which are not necessarily duplicated elsewhere. Refraining from specific foods (despite it being considered inui nefesh) would seem to be a far less significant matter. What might perhaps be of more general application is the discussion that immediately follows the nursing question - in which the gemora attempts to find a Torah source for the idea of olah imo v'ana yoredes imo. Rav Huna learns it out of "He beulas ba'al" (Breishis 20:3) [Reference to Sarah Imanu vis a vis Avimelech] and therefore "beilaso shel baal v'lo yoredaso" - she goes up with the husband and not down with him while Rabbi Eliezer learns it out from "ki who eim kol chai" [Breishis 3:20] and therefore "l'chaim nitna vlo l'tzar nitna" - she was given for life and not for tzar. Now the Pnei Yehoshua and the Mahrasha attempt to learn different nafka minas from the bringing of these two different sources - but it seems to me that a straightforward nafka mina is that the first source appears to understand the question primarily as being one of financial or perhaps spiritual improvement (however one understands "going up" rather than "going down"). While the second source seems rather to focus on the idea that marriage is supposed to bring with it life rather than pain. So under the first source one might understand, if one understands prishus from particular foods or activities as a form of greater spirituality, then a woman ought to follow her husband in that, even if it is considered innui nefesh, while following the second source, the key would seem more to be a question of tzar, and inui nefesh must surely be considered at least some aspect of tzar. On some level that does seem to be what is driving ROY in his discussion of customs such as not using tenuva milk or not relying on the heter mechira - both cases deal with the situation where the man is the stringent one, and her custom is towards leniency. But where this question would seem to really bite, is, for example, in the case of a Sephardi woman contemplating marrying an Ashkenazi man - where she has grown up eating and cooking rice and kitniyot on Pesach. I know a number of little Sephardi girls who have told me that they would not contemplate marrying an Ashkenazi man because of this. Now maybe they will grow out of it - but it does seem to me to a really bad reason to be rejecting a potential suitor - and yet the sense of tzar is there, that is what they are saying, I don't want the tzar of making Pesach, which for many women is tzar enough already, totally different from the way I grew up and have been taught - especially when it comes with countless greater stringencies. And even if she does ignore this in practice and accepts such a marriage, one can easily see a level of resentment bubbling to the surface at what can be in any event a very stressful time ("it is your fault that it is so darn difficult so the least you can do is be more helpful"). And if one could in fact understand a fundamental halachic principle to be taken into consideration as that of l'chaim nitna vlo l'tzar nitna - you might end up with something in keeping with the shalom bayis needs of klal yisrael. >Eli Turkel Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Apr 27 15:12:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 18:12:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early In-Reply-To: <20150423.205848.16124.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150423.205848.16124.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150427221257.GA6982@aishdas.org> On Fri, Apr 24, 2015 at 12:58:48AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : > So I'm wondering about this... If someone uses existing lights, : > ones you used while still Friday, what "lehadliq" is she making : > a berakhah on? Yes, there is light for enjoying the Shabbos meal, : > all the same shalom bayis. But there is no actual pe'ulah to make : > the berakhah on. Is there? : I don't know where you see anything like this in the AhS. The AhS : is explicitly talking about lighting after mincha, when it is already : dark and the light is already useful... And was used or at least "used" before Shabbos (in some halachic rather than commonsensical sense), even if just for seconds, since that's the AhS's grounds for allowing the person who made no eiruv tavshilin to light her Shabbos candles. So, how can she make a berakhah on candles she was only permitted to light because they would be used before Shabbos? What hadlaqah for Shabbos itself occured? > omit the bracha, because it explicitly declares one's intentions to be > of a hachana nature, but that is a separate question not raised by the > AhS... I'm taking his silence, the AhS not telling her to light without a berakhah, as implication that there is no change from the usual WRT berakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 23rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Netzach: How does my domination Fax: (270) 514-1507 stifle others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:01:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:01:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428160119.GA8805@aishdas.org> On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 01:53:10PM -0400, Kaganoff via Avodah wrote: : For many years i had extreme difficulty with R. Elchanan Wasserman understanding : as it conflicted with my belief that Judaism (and other religions) was not : logically provable (contra to Moshe Mendelssohn and his contemporaries) and : therefore required a "leap of faith" and that a disbeliever could not be : faulted for failing to take such a jump. This is a false dichotomy. Logically proving things are not the only way to justify belief in there. How do you know that (in a flat space) two parallel lines never meet? If you're like me, you pictured it in your head. Even though infinite lines don't exist in the real world. (Nor, does it turn out, does flat space.) Did you figure out that oppression was evil by logical proof, or by a combination of imagination and empathy? My favorite example is answering the question, "Do elephants have hair?" A logical/verbal approach would be: Elephants are mammals, all mammals have hair, and so unless elephants are the exception to the rule, they must have hair. Elephants are well known and discussed animals. Could they be an exception to the rule and I don't know it? Nah, they must have hair. How it is more likely the question jogged your memory of elephants you saw, or saw pictures of. The detail may be blurry, so you may have to manipulate the picture a bit. Finally, a version of the picture which has a tuft of hair at the tail, maybe (if your memory is good) some downy hair around the eyes and ears, strikes you as the most familiar, the most real. And again you could reach the conclusion that elephants have hair. (See for some musings about the two modes of thought I'm contrasting here.) In I compare different versions of the Argument from Design from R' Aqiva's response to the apiqoreis through the Rambam, through similar approaches based on more modern science. "G-d created" (Gen. 1:1): A hereic came to Rabbi Aqiva and asked, "Who made the universe?". Rabbi Aqiva answered, "HQBH". The heretic said, "Prove it to me." Rabbi Aqiva said, "Come to me tomorrow". When the heretic returned, Rabbi Aqiva asked, "What is that you are wearing?" "A garment", the unbeliever replied. "Who made it?" "A weaver." "Prove it to me." "What do you mean? How can I prove it to you? Here is the garment, how can you not know that a weaver made it?" Rabbi Akiva said, "And here is the world; how can you not know that Haqadosh barukh Hu made it?" After the heretic left, Rabbi Aqiva's students asked him, "But what is the proof?" He said, "Even as a house proclaims its builder,a garment its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the Holy Blessed One Who created it. Not very rigorous. Rabbi Aqiva's reply revolves around giving a parable to make the conclusion self-evident. Not contructing a deductive argument. The more rigorous we try making it, the more arguable the proof becomes. R' Aqiva's argument is far more convincing than the Rambam's statement based on how objects lose form over time, not gain it. Or a similar argument based on thermodynamics or information theory. (Ironically, every formal / logical proof is built from givens taken as self-evident for informal-reasoning reasons.) Anyway, that's how I understood REW. R' Elchanan argues that on an informal level, the idea that the universe had to have a Creator is as obvious as a Euclidean postulate or the injustice of oppression. To not believe in G-d requires a formal proof, which one's negios then determine if they find it sound or specious, and whether they accept the postulates on which it's built. Notice I didn't invoke any leaps of faith. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:24:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:24:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Peshat and Drash (Was: Re: Meshech Chochmah on Kedushah) In-Reply-To: <5518BD49.3000508@gmail.com> References: <54FC792A.4080400@gmail.com> <20150324195248.GD29350@aishdas.org> <5518BD49.3000508@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150428162406.GB8805@aishdas.org> On Sun, Mar 29, 2015 at 11:04:41PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : But there were such instances where "one said this was how halakhah : was understood miSinai and another says that this is new." One : example (noted by the Chavos Yair in his Teshuva 192) is a 3-way : machlokess in Zevachim 110b, where one Amora says Nissuch HaMayyim : is miDrabannan, another says it is derived from a posuk, and another : says it was a halacha l'Moshe MiSinai. Rambam (Temidim uMussafim : 10:6 ) poskens it is a halacha l'Moshe MiSinai. This is consistent : with the concept that, as the Rambam writes, "once someone says 'so : have I received,' there is no more debate." The reason is that once : one of our sages can demonstrate he is a recipient of explicit data : originating with Moshe Rabbeynu, a HLMS, it is naturally accepted as : fact. I thought it was well accepted that the Rambam's position in HLMS is inconsistent, that he mentions numberous machloqesin in dinim he himself labeled HLMS. I don't have time to summarize the Chavor Ya'ir teshuvah 192, but I gave up waiting until I did. The examples are numerous. Possible resolutions: - No machloqesin in the essence of the matter, but there can be in details. (the CY's conclusion.) - Im halakhah hi neqabel -- no machloqesin in something both sides agree are HLMS. And what I suggested: That we should distinguish between disputes due to lack of knowledge and formal machloqesin, with the Rambam saying the legal term "machloqes" with all the usual rules of pesaq only apply to the latter. Other disputes, while called machloqes in the colloquial sense, are resolved using the rules of safeiq -- because (leshitaso) ignorance does not create a real machloqes (in the technical sense). And the Rambam here is saying that real machloqes is limited to conflicting deductions and extrapolations from existing law to new places. And thus disputes in laws that date back to Sinai can't have real machloqesin. I know I'm repeating myself, but it's been "forever" ago in email list time since I sat on this post awaiting the time to study the CY. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:33:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:33:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] free will In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428163338.GC8805@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 06, 2015 at 1:38pm IDT, R Eli Turkel wrote: : We have discussed many times the opinion of Rav Dessler that a person : doesn't always have free will. : I recently saw a halachic discussion that may have some connection. : On ketubot 51 the gemara discusses a case of a married woman who was raped : but at the end was willing... : One possibility of explaining Rava is that she is overwhelmed by her : "yetzer" and so is still considered ["anusah"]... While RET's suggested example is consistent REED's concept of nequdas habechirah, the way RET phrased REED's position kept this email on my to-do list for the last 3 weeks. REED's point is one that's pretty consistent with first-hand experience of making choices. We do not feel in control of our subconscious decisions. All the opportunities we filter out before we even are aware of thinking about it. He then says that the decisions that rise to the level of consciousness, and thus we have some control over, are ones that generate internal conflict. The "battlefront" in his metaphor, where the yh"t and yh"r are balanced. But once you accept the notion of non-conscious thought, REED's conclusion is unavoidable. And a person does always have free will, he just isn't aware of every choice he makes to know to exercise it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:41:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:41:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428164110.GD8805@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 04:29:11PM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The world has changed a lot since the time of chazal especially related to : travel... : : 1. Most travel is no longer considered unsafe. When I get in my car every : morning to drive to work I don't think twice about it : 2. The distinction between in the city and out of the city is no longer : true... : Recently, I heard a short shiur on tefilas haderech and was happy to hear : that RSZA seems to say a very similar idea to RYBS. In contrast, the qorban todah and birkhas hagomel depend not only on surviving a dangerous situation but also on reliving one of the four sorts of yeshu'os tehillim ascribes to yetzi'as Mitzrayim: crossing a desert, the sea, bring freed from jail or recovering from illness. So, if we deem flying over the Great Lakes or the Mediterranean (to pick shorter flights over mayim she'ein lahem sof) to be too safe to warrant tefillas haderekh, would one end up in a situation that calls for no tefillas haderekh beforehand, but benching gomel afterward? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:45:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:45:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428164537.GE8805@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 11:12am EDT, RnTK asked: : But to veer back into Avodah territory -- would it have been appropriate to : say Tefillas Haderech at that time? With shem umalchus? (I assume you : can always say it without shem umalchus.) Tefilas haDerekh is never said besheim umalkhus. Sheim, yes, but not malkhus: "Barukh atah H', shomeia tefillah." No mention of "E-lokeinu Melekh ha'olam". Also, when speaking about berakhah vs tefillah, Tefillas haDerekh refers to itself as a tefillah. And notice also the chasimah is about hearing the baqashah, not about the shemirah we're requesting itself. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:58:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:58:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150419.223015.3015.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150419.223015.3015.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150428165812.GF8805@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 02:30:15AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : But then, as I was reviewing this post, my mind turned to the Tanur : Shel Achnai. R' Eliezer had a minority view, and R' Yehoshua was in : the majority. I've got to believe that both views were firmly grounded; : this machlokes was surely just as L'Shem Shamayim as any between Hillel : and Shammai. I'd *like* to say that Klapei Shmaya, both views were Truth. And if not, how would we justify following the majority over Divinely revealed truth? We discussed bas qol, and why we follow the bas qol that says "vehalakhah kebeis Hillel" despite the anur shel achnai story. I listed the opinions in the Encyc Talmudit here It's not 100% accepted that the bas qol was really endorsing R' Eliezer's opinion in this particular machloqes, rather than defending his shitah in general -- "halakhah kemoso bekhol maqom", or that it was a test. Both suggested by R' Nissim gaon. Similarly one of the answers in Tosafos is that it was about R' Eliezer's kavod, and not a Divine statement to be taken literally about din. All three would imply that we would follow a bas qol over halachic process, and so they had to explain how the tanur story wasn't an example. Thus implying that what we are searching for is the truth rather than legal authority. RNG's position on the tanur shel achanai story supports RMHalbertal's theory that in the geonic era, the Retrieval theory of halakhah dominated. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:12:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:12:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] brochos from the amud (was: tefillat haderech) In-Reply-To: <20150420024354.CJVF30458.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo110> References: <20150420024354.CJVF30458.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo110> Message-ID: <20150428171200.GG8805@aishdas.org> On Sun, Apr 19, 2015 at 10:43:47PM -0400, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote: : Slight change of topic: I'm still trying to wrap my head around the : idea that we don't seem to have a chashash of a brocha l'vatalah. I : mean, you have a sh'tz up there, saying a brocho out loud -- and : he's intentionally trying to be motzi _some_ others... But only those who had in mind to be yotzei. : Shomea k'oneh : doesn't apply at all? What if you are in the shul and you're not : thinking about the issue of being yotzie, you're just thinking about : which day it is, and/or you simply have stam kavanah. No chashash : for an issur d'oraissa? RYBS says in the context of the berakhah on Hallel that because mitzvos einum tzerikhos kavanah, if you have no kavanah one way or the other, you would be yotzei. To avoid being yotzei would require having explicit kavanah not to be yotzei. He then continues that the idea of having intent not to want to do a mitzvah bothers him, and so RYBS said he says the berakhah on Hallel along with the chazan. (Which is what my father does, and what I grew up with.) I assume the same would be true here. (Although I don't recall what my father does, I say the berakhah along with the chazan.) I would have thought that interrupting with "barukh Hu uvarukh shemo" should also work. Recall that R Chaim was very against answering BHUBS to chazaras hashatz because one is being yotzei tefillat hatzibur. (Above and beyond one's own chiyuv of tefillah.) While listing my hunches, I believe that intent to say it yourself qualified as kavanah not to be yotzeir. So the default is kavanah not to be yotzei, not an absense of kavanah one way or the other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 09:44:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 12:44:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150428164445.5B05B18384C@nexus.stevens.edu> At 12:24 PM 4/28/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: >Meaning - was the demand that the religious not work with the >secular the issue or was that a cover story used to mask people's >opposition to Zionism? This was an issue, and there was also opposition to Zionism. The opposition to Zionism was not masked at all. Please read http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/zion_or_zionism.pdf to see what Zionism really is according to Rav Schwab, ZT"L and others who think like him. >Or in this case, is the demand that the creation >of the state be a Kiddush HaShem in the eyes of all rabbanim a real >demand or is it simply a cover? I have never heard of "the demand that the creation of the state be a Kiddush HaShem in the eyes of all rabbanim " Who demanded this? > If the Breuer community want the state >to reflect certain values, than please, make it happen. And how do you propose that they do this? I asked you in an earlier email what the Orthodox Jews in EY and you in particular are doing to make this happen, and I received no response. > If they don't >want to make it happen or aren't willing, than the demand is (at best) >an exercise in dissimulation. Do you really believe that the Breuer's community at the time when Rav Breuer and Rav Schwab has the wherewithal to make the State reflect certain values? Even those living in EY at this time could not do this. There was (and still is) a large non-religious contingent of Jews living in EY. Do you really think that anyone can "make" them change their views or their behavior? YL YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:32:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:32:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eretz Yisrael vs Medinat Yisrael [was: The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L] Message-ID: <125cff.585c1330.42711e42@aol.com> R. Ben Waxman wrote: >Therefore the creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem. >Rav Soloveitch tz"l wrote about this point in Kol Dodi Dofek and in his >drashot for the Kinot, as did Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook tz"l. RYL wrote: >> We all know that there were great Torah scholars who disagreed with >> the assertion that " the creation of the State is, in of itself, a >> Kiddush Hashem." >>>>> I will have to re-read Kol Dodi Dofek because I don't remember such a forthright quote -- "The creation of the State is, in of itself, a Kiddush Hashem." But in any case it isn't exactly an either-or question. The Medinah -- the secular socialist Russian government of Israel -- is hardly a kiddush Hashem. Indeed it arouses waves of hatred from the goyim all over the world, on a daily basis. RBW also wrote: >>....The first is from Yoma 86:A, Rashi, B'Amor Lehem: "Evil comes to chassidim and chachamim because "They desecrated My Holy name." How did they desecrate (God's name)? In those places to where they were exiled, the non-Jews say "These are the people of God" and He can't redeem them. Conclusion: God's name has been desecrated." End quote.<< The establishment of a government that is hated and vilified by the whole world is not, it would seem, a kiddush Hashem. Plus the fact that the country is under constant military threat and cannot, apparently, provide security to its inhabitants, also would not seem to be a kiddush Hashem. But I think these facts -- the constant physical attacks, the world-wide moral opprobrium -- are the cosmic result of the fact that the Medinah is determinedly secular and consciously rejects Torah as a guiding principle. HOWEVER, on the other side, RBW's Rashi quote does have a bearing on the current situation in Eretz Yisrael. There is no denying that the flourishing of Eretz Yisrael, after two thousand years of desolation, is miraculous. The continued existence of the country, despite the constant waves of physical and diplomatic attacks, is also miraculous. And the fact that all Jews can go and live in Eretz Yisrael, and that millions actually do live there, is also a huge miracle. I said there is no denying the miraculous aspects and yet I am aware that the Satmar Rebbe did deny it. He admitted that there was a supernatural aspect to Israel's recent history but ascribed the miracles to the Satan, blinding our eyes. He never joined Agudas Yisrael, the world-wide umbrella organization for all Orthodox Jews, because he was on one side and all the other gedolim in the world were on the other side. All the others rejected the ideology of secular Zionism while gratefully acknowledging chasdei Hashem in allowing the Land to be built up, allowing the Torah communities to grow and flourish, allowing millions of Jews to live in our ancient homeland. The Lubavitcher Rebbe also never joined the Agudah -- I refer not to the Israeli political party but to the world-wide umbrella organization. He had other reasons, perhaps for another time. I think he wanted Chabad to be THE world-wide organization, he did not want it to be one of many competing Orthodox groups and derachim. But he agreed with the basic ideology of the Agudah vis-a-vis the state of Israel -- the nuanced view of ohr vechoshech. And so did the Yekkes, very much so! In fact they were instrumental in founding and guiding the Agudah, for decades! Their attitude towards Israel after the founding of the Medinah and the beginning of kibbutz galuyos was very much the same as the whole rest of the Agudah -- grateful acknowledgment of the positive, hakaras hatov to the Ribono Shel Olam, opposition to the negative, working to improve the moral status of Eretz Yisrael, e.g., when it came to forced autopsies (B'H the charedim won that bitterly fought battle), giyus banos and other issues. But the Yekkes in Israel do vote, do participate in running the country, do daven at the kosel (unlike the Satmar and Neturei Karta), do thank Hashem for protecting Eretz Yisrael and daven for continued Divine protection. RYL considers himself the premier acolyte of RSRH but he and I have some fundamental disagreements about what the Hirschian legacy really is. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 11:59:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 20:59:46 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L In-Reply-To: <20150428164445.5B05B18384C@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150428164445.5B05B18384C@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <553FD8A2.1060306@zahav.net.il> Regarding the second question, yes I did. Please see the previous emails. Regarding the first, all I can say is that it won't be done from New York. Regarding the other points, I addressed them so I won't repeat myself this round. Ben On 4/28/2015 6:44 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > And how do you propose that they do this? > > I asked you in an earlier email what the Orthodox Jews in EY and you > in particular are doing to make this happen, and I received no response. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:59:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:59:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Message-ID: <126fc1.37d9c7fc.4271247d@aol.com> From: Chana Luntz via Avodah >> As I have written before, what I find intensely frustrating about this is that RYBS's invocation of tan du appears to itself involve a form of tampering with the chazakos and by implication the denial of the perfection and truthfulness of chachmei chazal that is then claimed to be kefira. The gemora in discussing tan du is very clear - both in Yevamos 118b and Kesuvos 75a: a woman in a tan du marriage commits adultery - "kulan mezanos"! - THAT is the chazaka from Chazal regarding the nature of women. [snip] But you can't get away from the fact that Chazal set this up as a chazaka. And if you take these chazakos in the way that RYBS says to do, then there are inevitable conclusions: A Beis Din faced with what can now clearly be seen as a tan du marriage HAS to assume adultery as a consequence - that being the chazaka. [snip] Surely it is obligatory on any Rabbi who agrees to be mesader kiddushin and on any shadchanim and eidim to investigate very carefully that this marriage is not of the tan du nature? [snip] But if it is an inevitable chazaka that a woman in a tan du marriage will commit adultery, then there is only one safek in relation to a serious issur d'orisa - in which case must it not be the responsibility of all those who enable such a marriage to occur to make sure that it is not a tan du marriage and they are not enabling such adultery to take place? >>>>> There is brilliant yet convoluted logic behind this post. I hesitate to tangle with someone like R'n CL who is so erudite, yet I truly believe she has misunderstood this Gemara. Yes, a woman in a loveless marriage is much more tempted to commit adultery, given the right set of circumstances, but it is certainly not inevitable. Nor is it correct to deduce that a rav must make sure, before he marries a couple, that the woman is not entering a loveless marriage! He doesn't have to creep into her heart and mind before conducting the wedding, doesn't have to fathom the depths of her motives in marrying this man. There are so many motives, so many emotions, how could you ever fathom them all? I think "kulan mezanos" refers to all women, and it means all women can be seduced, though obviously it will be easier to seduce a woman who does not love her husband. All women potentially can be seduced. IIRC Beruria the wife of R' Meir -- and you can't claim that was a "tan duu marriage"! -- thought she was an exception to this rule about human nature, or feminine nature. And found out she was wrong! Even she, a brilliant and pious woman married to a great man, could be seduced. Without the Gemara most of us would assume that men are more likely to be unfaithful than women, and I do think that is true. I don't know how to square what we see before us -- that men cheat more than women do -- with what the Gemara says. In any case in Torah homes fidelity between husbands and wives is the norm, Baruch Hashem. All those fences -- laws of yichud, negiah, tznius and so on -- really do protect us. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Apr 26 15:58:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 23:58:31 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Of Gebrokts and Kitniyos Message-ID: <001b01d081d6$cb2e0680$618a1380$@org.uk> Sorry, been away, and am therefore very behind in Avodah On 04/03/2015 06:57 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >> He also paskens (for EY) that one can cook kitniyot on the 7th day of >> Pesach for use on the shabbat right afterwards (ef this year). And RZS replied: >Yes, I'm surprised that anyone disagrees. It seems so obviously correct. >I know that many people don't do so, and believe it to be forbidden, >but I have never yet heard an argument for why it should be so. Well the arguments to prohibit can be found in Rav Poelim chelek 3 Orech Chaim siman 30 - he brings two: one based on the prohibition of a person who is fasting on yom tov to cook for others - as per the Rema in Shulchan Aruch Orech Chaim siman 527 si'if 20 as explained by the Magen Avraham there and an additional reason added by the Magen Avraham there in si'if katan 22. The Ben Ish Chai in Rav Poelim was discussing whether a person whose custom (in Bagdad) was not to eat rice on Pesach could cook rice for those who do. He rejected the first rationale provided by the Magen Avraham) as being applicable to this case, but accepted the second reason as applicable (although he also cites a number of achronim who accept the first reason as a reason to prohibit)- and therefore held that those who had the custom of treating rice as assur on pesach could not cook rice for those who had the custom of eating rice on yom tov of Pesach for so long as they had this custom of treating rice as assur (although he held that those who had this custom not to eat rice in Bagdad could do hatarat nedarim and be able to eat, and hence cook, rice on pesach so as to solve the problem). >> This is because some sefardi could come over for a visit and so the >> kitniyot are not mukza . >The main issue would surely not be muktzeh, but cooking on yomtov. >But the answer is the same: the hypothetical horde of hungry guests who >might descend on one ten minutes before sunset on Friday, and for whom >one is, in principle, cooking, might very well be sefardim. Yes, but according to the position of the Rav Poelim, Askenazim can never, when cooking for Sephardim on pesach, cook them dishes that they, the Ashkenazim, cannot eat, hence hoeil does not apply. The same ought presumably to apply to gebrochts according to the Ben Ish Chai - if you can't eat it on shvii shel pesach, you can't cook it for others, including hungry guests, and so cannot effectively cook it for shabbas based on hoeil, your shabbas food would have to consist of something else you could eat on shvii shel pesach. >Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 11:03:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Toby Katz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 14:03:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech Message-ID: <127300.4be2c63a.42712586@aol.com> In a message dated 4/28/2015 12:45:47 P.M. EDT, micha at aishdas.org writes: > Tefilas haDerekh is never said besheim umalkhus. You are correct, I should have caught that myself. > Also, when speaking about berakhah vs tefillah, Tefillas haDerekh > refers to itself as a tefillah. And notice also the chasimah is about > hearing the baqashah, not about the shemirah we're requesting itself. zsh:1: command not found: Fmt --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 11:34:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 14:34:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tefillat haderech In-Reply-To: <127300.4be2c63a.42712586@aol.com> References: <127300.4be2c63a.42712586@aol.com> Message-ID: <20150428183420.GA25835@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 02:03:50PM -0400, T613K at aol.com wrote: : >> Also, when speaking about berakhah vs tefillah, Tefillas haDerekh refers : to itself as a tefillah. And notice also the chasimah is about hearing : the baqashah, not about the shemirah we're requesting itself.<< : : That doesn't answer the question of whether it is appropriate to recite : Tefillas HaDerech during a blinding rainstorm on the highway in your own city, : which was my question. It doesn't fully answer your question, but it does point a bit toward saying it. After all, it turns out that the only berakhah is about Hashem hearing baqashos. The body of the tefillah is only a formalized equivalent to saying "Please G-d, just get me home safe, healthy and in one piece!" or some other spontaneous cry for help. So, if you're scared on the road, tefillah is appropriate. Why would thanking G-d for listening to such tefillos depend on rules about travel? Add to that the fact that it's only half a berakhah, which indicates that it's shevach (like Shomeia Tefillah in Shemoneh Esrei), as another small indicator in favor of saying it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 12:58:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 15:58:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <001901d080e1$7d6fcbe0$784f63a0$@org.uk> References: <001901d080e1$7d6fcbe0$784f63a0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <20150428195810.GC25835@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 12:05:17PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: [RAM:] : > At any rate, one can agree or disagree about : > whether this assertion is true, and even among those who agree with : > it, there might be discussion of exactly which chazakos are unchanging : > and which are variable. Still, his point is that there are indeed some : > UNchanging aspects. : I would add an observation that individual exceptions may exist : empirically but are ignored halachically This is the classic case of affirming a chazaqah (or rov) when there is ika rei'usa. No? On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 12:58:34PM +0100, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: : The gemora in discussing tan du is very clear - both in Yevamos 118b and : Kesuvos 75a: a woman in a tan du marriage commits adultery - "kulan : mezanos"! - THAT is the chazaka from Chazal regarding the nature of women. : : Now this could mean: (a) the sort of woman who is prepared to enter a tan : du marriage is prepared to and will commit adultery; or : (b) all women will take a tan du marriage : (RYBS), but if they find themselves in a tan du marriage - the existential : loneliness that RYBS identifies as being the particular province of women : will also, according to Chazal, inevitably drive them to adultery; : But you can't get away from the fact that Chazal set this up as a chazaka. As the gemara was taught to me, what they set up as a chazaqah was pretty much as RYBS describes it. Women feel the loneliness of singlehood more. The flow of the sugya in the two gemaras are quite similar, from the point where Reish Laqish is quoted staying "tav lemeisiv" onward. RL, illustrated with meshalim by Abayei, R' Papa, and R' Ashi, followed by a tana saying that they all are mezanos and then blame their husbands. So, it would seem that tav lemeisiv is about a desire to be married. This has nothing to do with romance or eros, since we are told that a woman who is just married so s not to be like a widow (milemeisiv armelu) do tend to end up cheating. But tav lemeisiv isn't about the affairs, it's about (Yevamos) why hamezakeh gett le'ishto in the middle is not valid. Because it's not a pure zekhus for her, you cannot say zakhin le'adam shelo befanav (or befanehah, as the case may be). There is nothing about "being driven to" adultery by the loneliness, but by having tav lemeisiv alone satisfied by her marriage. Perhaps the reverse of your formulation. (I think the idea that tav lemeisiv means women are more likely to be sexually lonely would be really hard to support, even in a culture where husbands, not wives, have a chiyuv onah.) Or (Kesuvos) it is used (in a complex case I'm too lazy to spell out) why a man might wish not to be married, lest he later be prohibited to her relatives, but in the flipside case, we do not assume the same of the woman. The bit about mezanos vetolos beba'aleihen is not the basis for any halakhos. I have no reason to believe it's a chazaqah. Tangentially... On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 07:27:43PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Another challenge is how to deal with recent "Chachmei Hamesorah" : who don't seem to meet the perfection definition. I have two suggestions that work for me: 1- Make a list of current chakhmei hamesorah that don't pose such a challenge for you. Once you start, you'll likely find it's a longwer list than you had thought. Focus on them, and ignore the rest, no matter how popular as gedolim they may be. 2- Separate the current rabbinate from one's own ties to the mesorah with a project like Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 24th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in balance and harmony? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:01:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 23:01:17 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) Message-ID: <553FF51D.6070804@zahav.net.il> Putting the question of Hallel aside, I don't understand the line below. I looked through the Beit Yosef OH 131 where he discusses the days on which Tachanun isn't said. The BY does not list all the days that we skip (like Purim Qatan or Pesach Sheni). These came later. So when did this idea (that we can't change when Tachanun is said or not said) start? Ben On 4/28/2015 12:31 PM, Prof. Levine via Areivim wrote: > Shemone Esrei is followed > by Chazaras Hashatz, which is followed by Tachanun, and then followed > by Ashrei and U'va' Letzion--and we do not have the right or > privilege of changing that, he opined. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 10:28:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:28:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Making a Berakhah when Lighting for Shabbos Early Message-ID: The statement was made that "Lighting two candles is a recent frumkeit, or yhiruth, that started among German Jews and is less than 900 years old.." Isn't it also yohara to stand in judgment of a minhag mentioned in the Tur and Shulchan Aruch and observed virtually without exception by klal Yisraeil? EMT From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 13:50:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 16:50:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eretz Yisrael vs Medinat Yisrael [was: The Legacy of RSRH, Zt'L] In-Reply-To: <125cff.585c1330.42711e42@aol.com> References: <125cff.585c1330.42711e42@aol.com> Message-ID: <553FF29D.4030208@sero.name> On 04/28/2015 01:32 PM, via Avodah wrote: > The Lubavitcher Rebbe also never joined the Agudah -- I refer not to > the Israeli political party but to the world-wide umbrella > organization. He had other reasons, perhaps for another time. I > think he wanted Chabad to be THE world-wide organization, he did not > want it to be one of many competing Orthodox groups and derachim. The Lubavitcher Rebbe at the time the Agudah was founded was the Rashab, who in matters of askonus generally took his lead from R Chaim Brisker. Lubavitch was a member of the Agudah's precursor, Machzikei Hadas, but when MH merged with the Yekkes to form the Agudah, R Chaim put 18 conditions on his participation, and since they weren't satisfied both Brisk and Lubavitch stayed out. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:22:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 17:22:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Peshat and Drash (Was: Re: Meshech Chochmah on Kedushah) In-Reply-To: <20150428162406.GB8805@aishdas.org> References: <54FC792A.4080400@gmail.com> <20150324195248.GD29350@aishdas.org> <5518BD49.3000508@gmail.com> <20150428162406.GB8805@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <553FFA2E.6000809@gmail.com> On 4/28/2015 12:24 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > I thought it was well accepted that the Rambam's position in HLMS > is inconsistent, that he mentions numberous machloqesin in dinim > he himself labeled HLMS.... Chavor Ya'ir teshuvah 192...examples are numerous. > > Possible resolutions: > > - No machloqesin in the essence of the matter, but there can be in > details. (the CY's conclusion.) I don't think that is the Chavos Yair's conclusion. He leaves the matter bewildered, as Rambam appears incomprehensible and self-contradictory. > - Im halakhah hi neqabel -- no machloqesin in something both sides agree > are HLMS. With the modification of the word "against" in place of the word ''in,'' this is my conclusion, and that of the Maharatz Chayos. The Rambam is addressing the Karaite argument that even Chazal did not really consider the laws they called "payrushim mekuballim" and HLMS (the latter being payrushim mekuballim that lack indications planted in the Torah) to have literally come from Moshe Rabbeynu. That's why, the Karaites argued, Chazal felt free to dispute them. The Rambam explains that Chazal never disputed laws that made it to them from Sinai. The disputes are over issues ''branching out'' from them. Thus, '' There is no machlokess against any payrush that is known to have come from Sinai.'' This understanding fits very well in the Rambam's words, in the context of which he was talking and the issues he confronted; and eliminates what would certainly be a mess of the self-contradictions and open contradictions from the Talmud that the CY lists. Another concern raised by the CY is the fact that the Rambam seems inconsistent between the Mishneh Torah and his list in the hakdama to his Mishneh commentary in that some laws he labels as HLMS in one work he does not in other. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:28:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 17:28:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Renewal Role of Sarah Schenirer Message-ID: <20150428212818.DEBA1182F93@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/njwrn2g There was a major difference, however, between the Bais Yaacov of Williamsburg and the Bais Yaacov of Poland in pre-war Europe. The Bais Yaacov movement in Poland emphasized the universal Torah teachings of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, while the Bais Yaacov of Williamsburg did not give Rabbi Hirsch's teachings the same emphasis. Why were Rabbi Hirsch's teachings regarding the Torah's universal vision no longer the main focus? Most of the teachers and students at the American Bais Yaakov were Holocaust survivors who felt a need to turn inward after experiencing the hatred of the Gentiles around them and the horrors of the Holocaust. They knew that most of the "humanistic" intellectuals and artists of Germany actively supported the brutal persecution of the Jewish people. They also knew that most of the "enlightened" countries closed their doors to Jews who were trying to escape the Holocaust. In addition, they knew that most of the Christian religious leaders of Europe did not protest the organized murder of millions of Jewish men, women, and children; moreover, many Christians in the countries occupied by the Germans actively assisted the Germans in rounding up the Jews for the death camps. In fact, a number of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust who returned to Poland after the war were murdered in Polish pogroms! It is understandable that these survivors felt the need to first heal themselves before worrying about the world which had abandoned their suffering people. In addition, these survivors did not have the strong attraction to secular western culture which an earlier generation of Bais Yaakov students had once experienced, and their feelings are expressed in the following memoir of Dr. Judith Grunfeld: "Almost seventy years have passed since, and we have today most unfortunately an easy enough means of demonstrating that all cultures which we then venerated have revealed themselves to be nothing but a flimsy veneer covering over diabolical inhumanity. European humanitarian ideas so prevalent then, so much on the tip of everyone's tongue, preached by leading university representatives, have been proven utterly hollow. For they did not succeed in preventing, and indeed could be said to be frequently instrumental in strirring up the raging, terrible fire of man's inhumanity to man." ("Rebbitzen Grunfeld" by Miriam Dansky, p. 72) Nevertheless, our sages teach that Torah - the Divine wisdom - is the blueprint of creation, and that the Creator looked into the Torah when He created the world (Genesis Rabbah 1:1). If our Creator looked into the Torah and created the world, then when we look into the Torah we can rediscover this world. In addition, the Torah reveals that we have the potential to become holy vessels with the spiritual power to transform and elevate the world; thus, no matter how much we turn inward, the study of Torah reminds us that we must eventually turn outward. This may be one of the reasons why a growing number of Torah-committed Jews in our generation are rediscovering the writings of Rabbi Hirsch, as a major theme of his teachings is the universal goal of the Torah path. The Bais Yaacov High School of Baltimore, under the leadership of its principal, Rabbi Binyamin Steinberg, gave renewed emphasis to the universal vision of the Torah. Rabbi Steinberg himself was a Holocaust survivor, and in one of his talks to his students about respect for other peoples, he reminded them of the Compassionate One's promise to Abraham that "through you all the families of the earth will be blessed" (Genesis 12:3). The following is an excerpt from his talk: "All the families of the earth," he declared. 'Who cares about all the families of the earth?' you ask. Nevertheless, that's what the Torah says...The people of Israel will be a blessing for all the families of the earth. That means the Albanians, the Greeks, the Chinese, the Indonesians, the African Americans - all the families of the earth. That's what it says in my Torah! " (A Matter of Principal - a biography of Rabbi Binyamin Steinberg by Hanoch Teller). Before we can become a blessing to others, however, we first need to turn inward in order to develop our unique strengths. As Sarah Schneirer realized, we first have to renew ourselves before we can renew the world. As the Prophet Isaiah proclaimed to our people: "O House of Jacob: Come, let us walk by the light of Hashem! " (Isaiah 2:5) See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 14:59:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 22:59:29 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <002d01d081fe$99c5fcb0$cd51f610$@org.uk> RMB writes: >As the gemara was taught to me, what they set up as a chazaqah was >pretty much as RYBS describes it. Women feel the loneliness of singlehood >more. >The flow of the sugya in the two gemaras are quite similar, from the >point where Reish Laqish is quoted staying "tav lemeisiv" onward. RL, >illustrated with meshalim by Abayei, R' Papa, and R' Ashi, followed by >a tana saying that they all are mezanos and then blame their husbands. >So, it would seem that tav lemeisiv is about a desire to be married. >This has nothing to do with romance or eros, since we are told that a >woman who is just married so s not to be like a widow (milemeisiv >armelu) do tend to end up cheating. >But tav lemeisiv isn't about the affairs, I agree that tav lemeisiv is not brought initially to refer to the issue of affairs, but rather indeed about a desire to be married which is then brought to make a halachic point within another context (eg maezakeh get l'eishto) - but once the gemora is discussing tav lemeisiv marriages - it then takes the time out, twice, to explain what these marriages mean. And it explains, after going through the flow of Abaye etc, that these marriages mean inevitable adultery. Ie according the gemora a tav l'meisiv marriage = adultery. Now, that means, the more tav l'meisiv marriages there are, the more adultery there is. So the more you stress that the world is full of tav l'meisiv marriages, the more you are saying that the world is full of Bnos Yisrael committing adultery. That tav l'meisiv marriage results in adultery is clearly part and parcel of the definition of what a tav l'meisiv marriage is - one where a woman will prefer to be married than to be alone. And it is not a disputed statement, it is a concluding statement rounding up the discussion of what a tav l'meisiv marriage is. In order to break the equation, you have to say that Chazal didn't really mean what they said, or that they were talking about their time and place, but women today are different - but that means denying the truthfulness and accuracy of Chazal's statements (or understanding them differently) in exactly the way that RYBS objects to as kefira. You can't say that a woman prefers to be married than to be alone is a universal truth because it was stated by Chazal, and simultaneously that women in tav lemeisiv marriages commit adultery is not a universal truth, as they are bound up in the same discussion and you are picking and choosing your Chazalic statements - this one I like, this one I don't, and not just any statement, but the concluding statement rounding up the discussion defining the concept. .... >The bit about mezanos vetolos beba'aleihen is not the basis for any >halakhos. I have no reason to believe it's a chazaqah. So why did Chazal say it? For the fun of casting aspersions on Bnos Yisrael? Twice? In the context of a halachic discussion? If this was any other discussion, would anybody dream of suggesting that when Chazal said that something inevitably happened in the context of a halachic discussion they were not, at the very least, postulating a chazaka (albeit perhaps a rebuttable one) and possibly something even stronger? One might say - well nature has changed (eg kol treifos), or one might say - we have to treat something as halachically following Chazal's statement, even if we know or suspect the metzius is different (hence my line about a Beis Din being required to treat a tav l'meisiv marriage as one where adultery has been committed, and those enabling such a marriage being prohibited from so doing based on lifnei iver). That is the way we generally treat Chazalic statements of this nature. In this case, of course, we have another option, if tav l'meisiv marriages themselves do not occur very often, then we do not necessarily have to worry about, as common, the adultery which is part and parcel of their definition. But if they are in fact common and inevitable where the husband is not as a matter of fact suitable for the wife, then I cannot see how you can claim that this is not a significant societal and halachic concern. Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Apr 28 15:14:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 18:14:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabalas Ol Malchus Shamayim In-Reply-To: <002d01d081fe$99c5fcb0$cd51f610$@org.uk> References: <002d01d081fe$99c5fcb0$cd51f610$@org.uk> Message-ID: <20150428221418.GF11656@aishdas.org> On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 10:59:29PM +0100, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: :> The bit about mezanos vetolos beba'aleihen is not the basis for any :> halakhos. I have no reason to believe it's a chazaqah. : : So why did Chazal say it? For the fun of casting aspersions on Bnos : Yisrael? Twice? In the context of a halachic discussion? Well, it's really one conversation quoted twice. But it emphasizes the point. Tav lemeisiv is considered a reason why a gett would not be zakhin le'adam shelo befanav, even though the marriage would too likely lead to sin. The desire not to be husbandless, even by an insufficient husband, is being described as very profound. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 01:56:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 11:56:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith Message-ID: <> the Euclidean postulates are based on everyone's daily experience. In fact we know they are not true in other circumstances (eg on a globe) The injustice of oppression is more debatable. Surely ISIS believes that destroying ancient culture and cutting off heads of nonbelievers is a "mitzvah" As such the belief in a creator is obvious to one with a religious upbringing. For years scientists (and ancient philosophers) believed in an infinitely old world. Even today some scientists are attemping to justify a big bang without a creator (infinite big bangs , other universes etc.). The whole idea of axioms/postulates are that they are not provable. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 06:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 09:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150429135311.GA11332@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 11:56:31AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : the Euclidean postulates are based on everyone's daily experience... I picked the one about parallel lines because no one ever experienced infinitely long parallel lines. They are based on imagining an extrapolation from experience. : we know they are not true in other circumstances (eg on a globe) Thus my parenthetic remarks about flat space. It also doesn't work in Einsteinian Spacetime, as space is no longer believed to be flat. ... : As such the belief in a creator is obvious to one with a religious : upbringing. For years scientists (and ancient philosophers) believed in an : infinitely old world. Even today some scientists are attemping to justify a : big bang without a creator (infinite big bangs , other universes etc.). : : The whole idea of axioms/postulates are that they are not provable. My point exactly -- there are third options between logical proofs and leaps of faith. Logical proofs are only one way to justify belief. The Kuzari points to tradition, which may boil down to reliabilism. (Something you learned from a source that has a track record of being reliable.) I was saying that REW, like R' Aqiva, appealed to the self-evident nature of the universe having a Designer. Closer to the way we accept our postulates than a proof. And that this is so obvious look around at what was created, that belief is the default state for humans. And then REW continues that it takes an act of will to accept a counter-proof despite the self-evidence. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 25th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Netzach: When is domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control too extreme? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 02:02:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 10:02:27 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torahand Kabalas Ol Malchus In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000401d0825b$37ef5150$a7cdf3f0$@org.uk> RTK writes: > I think "kulan mezanos" refers to all women, and it means all women can > be seduced, You may be able to derive, from other contexts, that all women can be seduced - but that is not what is being discussed in the specific gemorros referred to. Our gemora is discussing what happens specifically in tav l'meisiv marriages - it gives examples of such marriages, and then concludes that such marriages result in adultery (and consequent hidden mamzerim). There is just no way of reading what you want to read into this piece > Yes, a woman in a loveless marriage is much more tempted to commit > adultery, given the right set of circumstances, but >it is certainly not inevitable. Nor is it correct to deduce that a rav must >make sure, before he marries a couple, that the woman is not entering a >loveless marriage! He doesn't have to creep into her heart and mind before >conducting the wedding, doesn't have to fathom the depths of her motives in >marrying this man. There are so many motives, so many emotions, how could >you ever fathom them all? Remember, none of what I have described is necessarily a consequence of these gemoros unless you read the gemora with the chiddush of RYBS: that inherent in the existential condition of womankind is that if a woman is offered only an inappropriate marriage she will take it because she cannot bear not to be married. If you understand it merely that there are and have been women, in some times and places, who when offered an inappropriate marriage, will sometimes take it because she cannot bear not to be married, but in other circumstances and times and places there are women who would refuse such a marriage - you have no idea what you are faced with in any given circumstance. And it is of course possible that she knows what she is doing and has seen what you cannot see, meaning that in fact the marriage will indeed be a good one. And it would be, as you describe, inappropriate to creep into her heart and try and fathom what is going on there. But according to RYBS we know what is going on there, in the woman's heart - we know it from RYBS's understanding of the pasuk in Breishis (one certainly does not have to understand the pasuk in Breishis the way RYBS does, but he is darshaning a pasuk to tell us about the human condition). A woman wants to be married above all else because she cannot bear to be alone, she is not capable of making an assessment that any given marriage, without alternative, may not be the best thing. She is never capable of that, according to RYBS's understanding of Chazal, this being an existential condition of womankind. In which case what happens if an outsider is capable of assessing the reality of the marriage in question as being one where the parties are fundamentally incompatible? Does he have an obligation to try and stop the marriage given that the woman is incapable of protecting herself? Well one might say - tough luck, it is not an outsider's job, any more than it is an outsider's job to protect others from a bad bargain in business. But that is where this further statement of the gemora comes in. A marriage which the woman has only entered into because she cannot existentially bear to be unmarried is one with the consequence that such marriage will not in fact be enough for her and she will commit adultery and produce mamzerim who are attributed incorrectly to the husband. So if the outsider does not intervene, he is not just failing to protect the woman from herself, he is failing to protect society from inherent danger. That raises the stakes considerably, and would seem to mean that outsiders (such as Rabbaim, shadchanim etc) do need to be vigilant, and not enable such marriages, so long as what RYBS says is true, in order to protect our society. Now I don't think we need a Rav to check a marriage out, before he marries a couple, to try and determine it is not a tav l'meisiv marriage. But that is because I think it relatively rare, in our society, that a woman will take a loveless marriage merely because she cannot bear to be alone (and I certainly do not think it is a irrebuttable presumption as per RYBS. Nor, as Rav Lichtenstein says, does the halacha over the centuries take this as an irrebuttable presumption despite RYBS's vehemence). And we don't have spend our lives worrying about uncommon cases even if we acknowledge that such cases may exist (and even if, in hindsight, if a marriage turns out to be unquestionably inappropriate, we might need to consider whether perhaps the woman in question *might* have been willing to go through with it anyway). But if RYBS were right and it is indeed a fundamental existential part of a woman's nature, unchanging throughout time and not infrequently occurring, to take whatever marriage is on offer, then we as a society do need such safeguards, because of the potential consequences, and if there is any hint that in fact this might be a tav l'meisiv marriage, since the woman is not able, according to RYBS, to protect herself from it, the Rav/shadchan etc would seem to have the obligation to investigate and if in doubt, to protect our society by preventing the marriage. >Toby Katz >t613k at aol.com Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 04:37:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 11:37:18 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu Message-ID: <20150429.073718.25006.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> I wrote: : But then, as I was reviewing this post, my mind turned to the Tanur : Shel Achnai. R' Eliezer had a minority view, and R' Yehoshua was in : the majority. I've got to believe that both views were firmly grounded; : this machlokes was surely just as L'Shem Shamayim as any between Hillel : and Shammai. I'd *like* to say that Klapei Shmaya, both views were Truth. R' Micha Berger responded: > We discussed bas qol, and why we follow the bas qol that says > "vehalakhah kebeis Hillel" despite the anur shel achnai story. I > listed the opinions in the Encyc Talmudit here > > > It's not 100% accepted that the bas qol was really endorsing R' > Eliezer's opinion in this particular machloqes, rather than > defending his shitah in general -- "halakhah kemoso bekhol maqom", > or that it was a test. ... I apologize for not being clear enough. I was not refering to the Bas Kol part of the story. Rather, I was referring to the end of the story, when Eliyahu Hanavi was asked for Hashem's take on the incident, and he quoted Hashem as laughing, "Nitzchuni banai!" Regardless of how the Bas Kol might be interpreted, is there any way to understand "Nitzchuni banai!" other than Hashem personally siding with one of the litigants, and losing? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540c29a485cf429a1a7cst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 04:46:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 11:46:38 GMT Subject: [Avodah] brochos from the amud (was: tefillat haderech) Message-ID: <20150429.074638.25006.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > RYBS ... then continues that the idea of having intent not > to want to do a mitzvah bothers him, and so RYBS said he > says the berakhah on Hallel along with the chazan. (Which > is what my father does, and what I grew up with.) Data point: Although I have not noticed people doing this for the bracha on Hallel, this IS the common practice for the Shehecheyanu at Kol Nidre, at least according to the ArtScroll and Koren machzorim. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540c4bfde4b244bf3c8cst03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 02:53:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 09:53:19 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) Message-ID: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Reposted from Hakhel: > ... Rav Soloveitchik, obviously upset, instead gave Shiur > on the importance of keeping the Tzuras HaTefillah intact. > Shemone Esrei is followed by Chazaras Hashatz, which is > followed by Tachanun, and then followed by Ashrei and U'va' > Letzion--and we do not have the right or privilege of > changing that, he opined. ... R' Ben Waxman asked: > I looked through the Beit Yosef OH 131 where he discusses > the days on which Tachanun isn't said. The BY does not > list all the days that we skip (like Purim Qatan or Pesach > Sheni). These came later. > > So when did this idea (that we can't change when Tachanun > is said or not said) start? I'm not sure if you are asking the correct question. You presume there was a time when Tachanun was *said* on Purim Katan, and then Tachanun was *omitted* on Purim Katan. I see another possibility, but I must point out that this idea stems from my total ignorance of the History Of Tachanun. Perhaps, since the day when Tachanun first began, the list of days has never changed. What did happen (perhaps) is that some places said it on Purim Katan, and some places did not. Over time, the minhag of skipping it spread to more and more places, but that's somewhat different than if a community would suddenly decide that they had a new appreciation for the significance of the day, and hence wanted to stop saying Tachanun. But either way, I'm not sure of the exact nature of RYBS's objection. It is one thing for a community to change its mind about the significance of the day (as in RMB's example of Purim Katan), and quite another for the day itself to acquire a new significance - as in the example of Yom Haatzma'ut. Shulchan Aruch already establishes the ability for a community to establish holidays, and this has been done many times. A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS insist that they say Tachanun on such days? Thus, I am drawn to conclude that RYBS must not be taken as too absolutist. He cannot have meant that the current list of Tachanun days must remain enshrined in stone forever. I beleive that he must have meant that the question of saying Tachanun on Yom Haatzma'ut is a serious one, to be dealt with seriously by the poskim and leaders of the community. Alas, I personally have seen many cases of where it is decided by those who attend the minyan, on a purely emotional basis, with no thought to the halachos involved, and with no consultation with the LOR. On the other hand, among the many tasks the LOR must deal with, is deciding when he should or should not get involved with the tzibur's choices. Although it does not address Tachanun, I would like to close with a reference to The Rav's opinions about a different tefilah which he "opposed, on halachic grounds". R' Mike Gerver wrote on Mail Jewish (http://www.ottmall.com/mj_ht_arch/v38/mj_v38i49.html) in January 2003: > (This is a continuation of my previous e-mail summarizing > the talk given on "The Rav and Medinat Yisrael" by Rabbi > J. J. Shachter on motzei shabbat, Jan. 25, at Lechu > Neranana in Raanana.) > ... ... ... > Rabbi Shachter quoted Rabbi Walter Wurzberger zt"l as > saying that the Rav's attitude toward Israel was > completely opposed to messianism, to the idea that the > founding of the State was an initial step to the geula > [final redemption]. Thus the Rav did not approve of Gush > Emunim. He even opposed, on halachic grounds, saying the > tefillah for the State of Israel in shul on Shabbat > morning, which only speaks of the State as "reishit > tzmichat geulateinu" [the beginning of the sprouting of > our redemption]. Rabbi Shachter, knowing this, assumed > that the tefillah for the State of Israel would not be > said at the Shabbat morning minyan held at Maimonides > School, a minyan that the Rav started in 1962, and which > generally did things according to his minhag. When Rabbi > Shachter was appointed to his position as director of the > Soloveitchik Institute a couple of years ago, and took > over as rabbi of the Maimonides School Shabbat minyan, he > was surprised to find that they were saying the tefillah > for the State of Israel. He asked someone why, and the > answer was interesting. One Shabbat morning, when the Rav > was still alive and in good health, someone started saying > the tefillah for the State of Israel. The Rav turned to > someone next to him and said {Rabbi Shachter imitated the > Rav's accent) "You would have thought they would have > asked me!" That was all. He didn't make any attempt to > stop them from saying the tefillah for the State of Israel, > and didn't think it was his place to ask the congregation > not to say it if they wanted to. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540aa3d6d7282a3d2b95st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 07:23:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 14:23:25 GMT Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith Message-ID: <20150429.102325.12106.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > I picked the one about parallel lines because no one ever > experienced infinitely long parallel lines. They are based > on imagining an extrapolation from experience. Parallel lines are not provable, but it's not because they are based on experience. Rather, they are based on definition. Find a pair of parallel lines that DO meet (such as on a sphere) and we'll simply say, "What I really meant was parallel lines on a *flat* surface." See more at "No true Scotsman". My choice for something which is unprovable because it is based on personal experience is, "Is there someone whom you love? Prove it to me." Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5540e9944d22f699426abst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 12:11:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 15:11:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) In-Reply-To: <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> References: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <20150429191153.GG2666@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 08:53:00PM +0200, Ben Waxman wrote: :> #2 A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate :> the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS :> insist that they say Tachanun on such days? : I had the same question. I bet he said tachanun on the Gra's or R' Chaim's (Volozhin or Brisk) yahrzeit, etc... For people who are seeking his pesaq, it's very likely he would inist on Tachanun on days like that. But I think he would refuse to pasqen for them. Implied in your question is that it's a rav's job to comment and rank other derakhim, an idea RYBS did not share. He even limited his own right to 2nd guess a talmid serving as moreh de'asra. (Stories differ as to how much he insisted on such autonomy of the LOR, depending on which student.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 25th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Netzach: When is domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control too extreme? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 11:53:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 20:53:00 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) In-Reply-To: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> On 4/29/2015 11:53 AM, Kenneth Miller wrote: > #1 Perhaps, since the day when Tachanun first began, the list of days > has never changed. What did happen (perhaps) is that some places said it > on Purim Katan, and some places did not. Over time, the minhag of > skipping it spread to more and more places, but that's somewhat > different than if a community would suddenly decide that they had a new > appreciation for the significance of the day, and hence wanted to stop > saying Tachanun. I don't think so. The Rambam, Hilchot Tefila 5:15 lists the days that one doesn't say Tachanun (or nifilat ah'payim in his words) and the list is much more restricted than our list (Shabbat, Chaggim, Rosh Chodesh, Chanukka, Purim, and the Mincha before them). He writes that this is the minhag b'kol yisrael. I am not a Rambam expert so I don't know what to make of those three words (minhag, b'kol yisrael). If it is a minhag does that mean that it can change? What is b'kol yisrael (I realize that at the time of the Rambam, Ashkenaz was the middle of nowhere)? But it would seem from the Rambam that at his time, the Jewish world didn't skip those other days. > #2 A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate > the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS insist > that they say Tachanun on such days? I had the same question. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Apr 29 12:25:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 15:25:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun (was Yom Haatzmaut) In-Reply-To: <20150429191153.GG2666@aishdas.org> References: <20150429.055319.27255.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> <5541288C.3000408@zahav.net.il> <20150429191153.GG2666@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55413040.4080903@sero.name> On 04/29/2015 03:11 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 08:53:00PM +0200, Ben Waxman wrote: > :> #2 A good example to my mind is the chasidic groups who celebrate > :> the anniversary of their rebbe's release from prison. Would RYBS > :> insist that they say Tachanun on such days? > > : I had the same question. > > I bet he said tachanun on the Gra's or R' Chaim's (Volozhin or Brisk) > yahrzeit, etc... For people who are seeking his pesaq, it's very likely > he would inist on Tachanun on days like that. Of course he said tachanun on their yortzeits, why wouldn't he? The whole concept of turning a yortzeit into a holiday wasn't native to his world. The question is what he would do on a day they had been saved from some danger, and had observed as a private yomtov, or on a day that his community had adopted as a local "purim" to commemorate being saved from danger, as was a common practise among Jewish communities. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Apr 30 01:53:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 30 Apr 2015 04:53:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Netziv, Reading Newspapers on Shabbos & Censorship (Part Two) Message-ID: <20150430085311.F372F183218@nexus.stevens.edu> Please see the article at http://tinyurl.com/oqujmba From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 1 10:09:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 1 May 2015 13:09:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] kol isha In-Reply-To: <842c75958dedf20875dfdece45b65e31@aishdas.org> References: <842c75958dedf20875dfdece45b65e31@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150501170943.GA13995@aishdas.org> On Thu, Apr 30, 2015 at 5:54pm EDT, R Sholom Simon replied to me on Areivim :> The fact that some ... Jews seem to think the gemara :> didn't realy mean it is something the ... community should have a :> cheshbon hanfesh about. : Gemara? Don't the ge'onim take the gemara to : mean that kol isha is a problem during krias sh'ema? (Which is, after : all, the context of its appearance in Berachos). : (Granted, halacha has : gone much further since then, but you were focused on the gemara) You're thinking of Berakhos 24a, where the gemara concludes that R' Yitchaq's tefach be'ishah ervah is to even include one's own wife during qeri'as Shama. (We knew about other women not during qeri'as shema from R' Sheishes.) And then R' Chisda continues with shoq be'ishah, Shemu'el says qol be'ishah ervah and R Sheishes adds sei'ar be'ishah. >From which one may conclude that all of them are in the same context as R' Yitchaq. R' Hai Gaon (Otar haGeonim Berakhos, peirushin #102), R Yehudai Gaon (acc. to the Yeriem 392), the Behag (1:3). the Eshkol (vol 1, pg 15), the Rivra (Berakhos ad loc) and his father (?), Rabbeinu Yonah (17a), the Shitah meQubetzes (ad loc), only speak of this rule WRT qeri'as shema. Interestlingly, one might also have concluded that all of them were about eishes ish, for the same reason that sei'ar be'ishah is only about eishes ish, but I don't think anyone does understand the gemara that way. But there is also Qiddushin 70a, where R' Yehudah refuses to relay regards from R Nachman to Yala (Mrs Nachman) citing Shemu'el's qol be'ishah ervah. It was this gemara I was remembering (due to recently re-encountering it). Pisqei haRid (Berakhos p' 3), Ri haChasid (Berakhos ad loc), Tosafos haRosh (ad loc) and the Rosh (Berakhos 3:37), say the rule is in general. The Rambam has qol be'ishah ervah in Isurei Bi'ah (21:2), not Hil' QS. Similarly the Tur has nothing about it in QS, but has it in EhE 21. (But then, since his father [the Rosh] and the Rambam do the same, that's no surprise.) And from there -- the Rif is silent, the Rambam and the Rosh agree it's in general -- the SA conforms to his rules and prohibits in general. I think it's a machloqes whether we hold like Shemu'el, who was indeed oly talking about Shema (but not only married women) or like R' Yehudah's extrapolation from Shemu'el. Al pi din, we do hold like the gemara in Qidushin. But it's not as much of a given as I had thought when writing. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 27th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 3 weeks and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Netzach: When does domination or Fax: (270) 514-1507 taking control result in relationship? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 2 12:29:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 02 May 2015 21:29:39 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Kook on Sports Message-ID: <554525A3.2060408@zahav.net.il> He most certainly did! http://www.yeshiva.org.il/midrash/4234 The article is an examination of Rav Kook's writing on the subject. RK very much supported exercise and sport, and of course he opposed breaking Shabbat to play football (soccer). One quote/translation (mine): Exercise . . . .improves the spiritual strength of the greatest tzaddiqim, those involved in the Unification of God's name, including bringing the Light of God into the world, and no revelation of Light can happen without all the required components. Ben On 5/1/2015 3:36 AM, via Areivim wrote: > and I wonder if it is true that Rav Kook ascribed positive value to sports. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 3 03:01:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 3 May 2015 13:01:40 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Michael Avraham Message-ID: After another shiur with R Michael Avraham (RMA) I wish to clear up some of my previous posts. Apologies for repeating some material but I wish to make it self contained. 1) With regard to Pluaralism, Monism and Harmonism these are typologies. As with any typology real people are combinations and pure members of these groups. Avi Sagi has a book on the topic with listing on many reabbis on each side of the topic. Pluralism means that one accepts ALL opinions as true and legitimate. There is no one single truth Certainly as long as it doesn't harm someone else. RMA pointed out that pure pluralism is not consistent as it would mean accepting monism as also a legitimate truth Nevertheless it is popular in some circles 2) Monism says there is only one truth. I accept that one truth based on the normal rules of halacha, eg majority, chazakah etc. Nothing is ever known with 100% certainty both that is irrelevant. 2b) accepting monism (savlanut in Hebrew) . Though there is only one truth we accommodate those within a certain radius of the real truth even though they are wrong Normally we view pluralism as being more "mekil" than monism. However he considered the case of giving someone food that I consider kosher and he doesn't . The pluralist won't do it because his position is also truth and he doesnt consider the food kosher. However the pure monist has no trouble giving it to someone else. He is wrong and I am right and so the food is kosher (again the fact that he might be right is irrelevant - a bet din can kill based on rov and certainly for shabbat and kosher food we work on majority) The accepting monist won't give the food to someone else. Even though he is wrong I respect his being wrong as long as he is within my radius - ie he relies on someone I consider legitimate and not just an idiotic opinion. OTOH I would give him the food if I feel his "chumra" is too wild fetched and beyond my radius as distinct from the pluralist 3) Harmonism states that both sides are only part of the real truth. Rav Kook and others bring the second gemara about "Elu V-elu". The gemara in Gittin discusses why the man from Binyamin killed his mistress)(pilegesh be-givah) - after an amoraic argument the truth was both were right either because he found a fly in his soup but got angry only he found a hair in the soup. So both views were ight and "Elu V-elu" Based on this RMA had a different interpretation of the argument between Bet Hillel and Bet Shamai Both sides presented arguments supporting their position. Both sides agreed that all the arguments were legitimate. However, in the end one has to make a decision when there are legitimate arguments on both sides and Bet Shamai and Bet Hillel arrived at opposite conclusins. The Harmonism implies that both sides have legitimate arguments. Hoever, in the end there is only one truth that comes out of contradictory arguments. The harmonism means that both sides are right (pluralism) on the basic stands. But only one side is right (monism) in the final decision. As stated before the one truth is found based on standard halachic grounds. Nothing is ever known 100% but that doesnt matter. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 3 18:46:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 11:46:53 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] A halachic problem in measuring wholemeal flour Message-ID: I have recently become aware of a practical halachic problem with measuring wholemeal flour for the shiurim of challah and the kezeitim of matzot mitzva. I don't think this issue is generally recognised, and I hope Areivim members will be able to bring it to appropriate authorities' attention. Traditional flour mills produced a mixture of white flour and bran by grinding whole grains between millstones. This mixture was sifted to produce finer or coarser grades of flour by removing more or less bran, respectively. Halachically, the bran that is removed has changed its status: dough produced from bran is not subject to challah. Furthermore, mixing bran back into its flour does not restore its status: the bran and flour are not "mitztaref". (See Challah 2:6) This was not an issue with traditional mills: nobody would sift bran out of flour and then ruin the white flour by replacing the bran. This is not the case today, though. Modern flour mills do not grind flour between stones. They use a series of graduated rollers that crack the grain into progressively-smaller particles, and the bran is separated off at an early stage of the process. Millers make wholemeal flour by adding bran back to the fine flour near the end of the milling process. You can find a description and video of the process here: http://www.fabflour.co.uk/fab-flour/how-flour-is-milled/ If modern wholemeal flour is halachically considered a mixture of flour and bran, as it seems, then to be obliged in challah one would need a greater shiur of wholemeal than of regular flour, and to fulfil one?s obligation of eating matza one would need to eat more than a kezayit of wholemeal matza. (See S.A. Y.D. 324:3 and M.A. & SAHR O.C 454:1,2) It is not possible to state a definite ratio of bran to white flour, as this will vary between species of grain and between varieties of each species. The relevant shiurim are not measured by weight but by volume, which is affected by the fineness of the bran compared to the fineness of the white flour. Furthermore, the amount of grain removed as bran will depend on the operation of the mill. My research indicates that up to a quarter of each grain of wheat (by weight) consists of bran. If we take this as a rule of thumb then a shiur of wholemeal wheat flour would be one and a third times as large as a shiur of white flour. As a practical matter, I think people making wholemeal bread should probably avoid doubt and bake either less than a minimal shiur (for which, consult your LOR) or bake sufficiently more than one and a third shiurim. Many people deliberately try to use enough flour to require the taking of challah: they consequently use just over a regular shiur and need to be warned about this. With respect to wholemeal matzot mitzva, I presume that people would have noticed and queried any reintroduction of bran to flour ground using modern methods. None the less, it would be very good to establish this for each bakery. Joe Slater Melbourne, Australia -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 3 20:42:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 06:42:58 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RMA Message-ID: On another issue I had quoted RMA as saying that one who doesnt believe in a creator has no punishment or reward for keeping mitzvot. After 120 years he will be punished only for being an atheist but for each individual sin. Hence, there is no problem of "lifne iver" . In particular in the frequent case a religious doctor can ask an atheist to take over for him on shabbat (wouldnt apply to a chiloni doctor who does beleive in G-d) This applies only to mitzvot like shabbat. Of course an atheist can't claim that he is not bound by sins like murder because he doesnt believe in G-d. An atheist will be punished for all moral sins that he commits and all usual laws of :lifne iver" etc apply to all moral commandments. ------------------------ He is now starting a series on religious autonomy. In particular he holds that one goes to a rabbi for a psak only if he is in doubt. If one has seriously learned the halachaot and is convinced of the "truth" then he should follow his own psak and there is no need to go to a "higher authority". He was asked what if the personal psak goes against the generally accepted psak. His answer was that in theory the same holds. However, a person should have enough humility that if he is a "daas yachid" he better be awfully sure that he is right. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 04:47:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 11:47:38 GMT Subject: [Avodah] A married sister Message-ID: <20150504.074738.29327.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, and becomes part of her husband's family. Thus, she is no longer part of her brother's family. But what about her father? According to the above logic, her father may not be m'tamei for her either. And in fact, she *has* left her father's family in the sense that if her husband is not a kohen, then she has been disallowed terumah ever since the wedding. Yet the halacha is that her father *may* be m'tamei for her, despite that change in status. So, in very simple terms, here's my question: If a Bas Kohen is married and then dies, why is it that her father may attend the funeral, but her brother may not? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55475caae730f5caa5375st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 07:42:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 17:42:10 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] A halachic problem in measuring wholemeal flour In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, May 4, 2015 at 4:46 AM, Joe Slater via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > I have recently become aware of a practical halachic problem with > measuring wholemeal flour for the shiurim of challah and the kezeitim of > matzot mitzva. I don't think this issue is generally recognised, and I hope > Areivim members will be able to bring it to appropriate authorities' > attention. > > Traditional flour mills produced a mixture of white flour and bran by > grinding whole grains between millstones. This mixture was sifted to > produce finer or coarser grades of flour by removing more or less bran, > respectively. Halachically, the bran that is removed has changed its > status: dough produced from bran is not subject to challah. Furthermore, > mixing bran back into its flour does not restore its status: the bran and > flour are not "mitztaref". (See Challah 2:6) > > This was not an issue with traditional mills: nobody would sift bran out > of flour and then ruin the white flour by replacing the bran. This is not > the case today, though. > Just a thought: perhaps the halacha that the bran and flour are not mitztaref depended on the metziu't that nobody would return bran to white flour? So if returning the bran to the flour is now the normal way of producing wholemeal flour, maybe today they are mitztaref? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 09:45:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 12:45:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs In-Reply-To: <20150330.221259.10345.0@webmail13.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 11:47:38AM +0000, RAM wrote on the thread "A married sister": : In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself : for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I : used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves : the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, : and becomes part of her husband's family... But Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 02:12:59AM +0000, RAM wrote on this subject: > I once heard an interesting argument against Rav Moshe's logic on > this point. He is viewing the wife as the one who is moving to a new > location, but we have an explicit pasuk that takes the opposite view: > Bereshis 2:24 - "Therefore, a man will desert his father and his mother, > and stick to his wife." (The woman may of may not leave her parents, > but the man explicitly does.) > Granted that there are other arguments for the wife taking the husband's > minhagim - terumah is the first that comes to my mind. But if Rav Moshe's > main argument is Minhag Hamakom, I wonder how he would have defended it > against this pasuk. Anyone else see one answering the other? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 30th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Hod: When does capitulation Fax: (270) 514-1507 result in holding back from others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 10:11:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 04 May 2015 13:11:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs In-Reply-To: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> On 05/04/2015 12:45 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 11:47:38AM +0000, RAM wrote on the thread > "A married sister": > : In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself > : for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I > : used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves > : the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, > : and becomes part of her husband's family... > > But Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 02:12:59AM +0000, RAM wrote on this subject: >> I once heard an interesting argument against Rav Moshe's logic on >> this point. He is viewing the wife as the one who is moving to a new >> location, but we have an explicit pasuk that takes the opposite view: >> Bereshis 2:24 - "Therefore, a man will desert his father and his mother, >> and stick to his wife." (The woman may of may not leave her parents, >> but the man explicitly does.) > >> Granted that there are other arguments for the wife taking the husband's >> minhagim - terumah is the first that comes to my mind. But if Rav Moshe's >> main argument is Minhag Hamakom, I wonder how he would have defended it >> against this pasuk. > > Anyone else see one answering the other? Not at all. Her father must still become tamei for her. Only her brothers may not. What's more, suppose her husband dies without issue. She returns to her father's house, and is once more entitled to eat terumah and kodshim. Now suppose the father dies; she continues to eat the terumah and kodshim that her brothers bring home. When she dies the brothers are the only people left who sit shiva for her, and yet they are not allowed to become tamei for her unless there is literally nobody else who can do it! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 10:24:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 17:24:33 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs Message-ID: <20150504.132433.5362.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger asked: > Anyone else see one answering the other? You make a good point, but as I see it, they don't *answer* each other as much as they illustrate how complicated this subject is. For example, consider the case of a Bas Kohen who marries a Yisrael, or a Bas Yisrael who marries a Kohen. Her status changes upon marriage, but it will revert upon the death of her husband. - Unless there is a child, in which case her status will *not* revert. - Unless the child died too, in which case her status *will* revert. - Unless there is a grandchild, in which case she keeps her status even though her own child did not survive. (I probably messed up some of those details, but my point is that itis a very complex topic.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5547ab96da8f82b966b58st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 11:01:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 14:01:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A married sister Message-ID: <1fbaa.22f534a3.42790de1@aol.com> From: Kenneth Miller via Avodah In this morning's parsha, we learn that a kohen may m'tamei himself for his unmarried sister, but not for one who has been married. I used to think that this was because upon marriage, the sister leaves the family that she grew up in, and is no longer part of that family, and becomes part of her husband's family. Thus, she is no longer part of her brother's family. But what about her father? [snip] So, in very simple terms, here's my question: If a Bas Kohen is married and then dies, why is it that her father may attend the funeral, but her brother may not? Akiva Miller >>>>> I don't know why the bond between brother and sister seems to be lessened when the sister marries, but we do have other evidence that the bond between father and daughter is never severed: If a man has no sons, only daughters, his daughters inherit his property -- even if they are married. The fact that they are married does not annul the fact that they are still his daughters. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 12:50:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 22:50:54 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith Message-ID: <> A more practical problem based on personal experience is that of defining colors (to a human not in terms of wavelengths). There is no way for 2 people to confirm they are seeing the same colors. One practical application is to examining cloths for a niddah - ketem. I again refer to an article in Keren Zavit by Nadav Shinrav on parshat tazria In particular I learned that brown is not a color -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 13:43:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 16:43:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leap of faith In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150504204354.GA2628@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 10:50:54PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : A more practical problem based on personal experience is that of defining : colors (to a human not in terms of wavelengths). There is no way for 2 : people to confirm they are seeing the same colors. Even further: there is no wavelength corrsponding to pink or brown, they only exist as our mind combines wavelengths. Pink is weirder, because it resides on the color wheel where you would glue the two extremes of the spectrum together to close the circle. Colors other than the three in the middle of the sensitivity range of each of the types of cone in your eye can be seen two ways. For example: you could make orange by mixing two parts red with one part green, or by looking at light of one color, that is at the right frequency to trigger your red cones twice as much as they trigger the green. The topic we're discussing is qualia, and color is a favorite sort of quale to use for illustration (pun intended). A quale is the "what it's like to see red". In my example about orange, we have two different physics, but both could end up producing the same experience, the same exact shade and brightness of orange. So orange is not 1:1 any specific wavelength. Asude from the question RET raises, a popular thought experiment among philosophers is Mary the Color Scientist (Frank Jackson 1982): Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor. She specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose, all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes, or the sky, and use terms like 'red', 'blue', and so on. She discovers, for example, just which wavelength combinations from the sky stimulate the retina, and exactly how this produces via the central nervous system the contraction of the vocal chords and expulsion of air from the lungs that results in the uttering of the sentence 'The sky is blue'.... What will happen when Mary is released from her black and white room or is given a color television monitor? Will she learn anything or not? It seems just obvious that she will learn something about the world and our visual experience of it. But then is it inescapable that her previous knowledge was incomplete. But she had all the physical information. Ergo there is more to have than that, and Physicalism is false. And so Jackson concludes that the world can't be reduced to physics. This is also what I was talking about when I referred to justifying a belief based on comparing imagination to memory. Koach hadimyon does mean "imagination", but what Ariso meant by Imagination, or the rishonim by dimyon, includes qualia in general. The image of red while you're seeing it, not just when you're dreaming it up. And I would argue that even when we make rigorous logical proofs, those proofs are conclusions drawn from a set of givens, and those givens end up resting on koach hadimyon anyway. The formally proven theological statement is therefore less conclusive than one based on an appeal to dimyon directly, such as R' Aqiva's argument. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 30th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Hod: When does capitulation Fax: (270) 514-1507 result in holding back from others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 15:25:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 04 May 2015 18:25:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs In-Reply-To: <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> Message-ID: <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> On 05/04/2015 01:11 PM, I wrote: > > What's more, suppose her husband dies without issue. She returns to her > father's house, and is once more entitled to eat terumah and kodshim. This is not quite correct. She returns to eat teruma, but not kodshim. "Milechem, velo kol lechem". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 16:07:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Mon, 04 May 2015 19:07:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy In-Reply-To: <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> Message-ID: <5547FB97.5020203@aishdas.org> Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, d'hashta) would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? Thanks! KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 18:11:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 01:11:49 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy Message-ID: <20150504.211149.15174.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer asked: > Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, > d'hashta) would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? My first knee-jerk reaction is to say that they DON'T relate. Chazakos are all about law, and what the law will *presume* the reality to have been. We found a piece of meat on the street, or we bought it and forgot where, or any of a million similar questions. We don't really know whether it is kosher or not, and to a certain extent we don't really care. What we really care about is whether halacha allows us to *presume* that it is kosher. Schroedinger's Cat and similar ventures are attempts to establish what the *reality* is. The Cat is a thought experiment, but do not make the mistake of thinking that it is mere philosophizing. The whole point of the experiment is to establish what is really and actually happening inside the box, and the answer (that they've come up with) is that two contradictory truths (the cat is alive, the cat is dead) are both true at the same time. This is a question of physics and reality, not a question of legal presumptions. The subject line of this thread says that you're "looking for help with an analogy". Could you tell us more about what you're working on? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5548190613cab19056408st04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 4 19:10:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rafael Jason Hecht via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 May 2015 22:10:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How Kosher is the Kosher Switch? Message-ID: Last Motzei Shabbos I was among the crowd that was saying Kiddush Levana out in the open. While davening I overheard someone making a joke about using a Kosher Switch (my guess was to place light on the outside so people could better read). I did my own reading and research before that and couldn't tell if the gentleman was joking or being serious. To put it lightly, the development and marketing Kosher Switch has caused a major controversy in the Torah Jewish community. The Kosher Switch, a device purportedly meant to ease the constraints of Sabbath observance, is not the first of its kind. The Grama switch by Zomet Institute, as well as the Zman switch have been created for emergency situations of pikuach nefesh. However, this switch has caused an uproar in the Jewish community. Why? Before going on, let me state that while I am far from an expert in the field of electrical engineering or Hilchos Shabbos (nor am I a certified Rabbi), I treasure Shabbos and am always looking for ways to enhance it. That said, I did my own personal research and humbly present my findings. Before I go on, let me first state that the topic of electricity on Shabbos is far more extensive than what I'm laying out, and that I am not (intentionally) offering my own Psak, just a compilation of "what's out there." Read more: http://www.mywesternwall.net/2015/04/30/how-kosher-is-the-kosher-switch.html Best Regards, Rafi Hecht *rhecht at gmail.com* ------------------------------------------------------- *LinkedIN:* *http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rafihecht* *Facebook:* *http://www.facebook.com/rhecht* *Twitter:* *https://www.twitter.com/#!/rafihecht* *Personal Site:* *www.rafihecht.com* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 12:47:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Shalom Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 22:47:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired Message-ID: I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a woman is owned by her husband, the language of the Mishna notwithstanding. Can anyone point to a clear statement by Hazal or rishonim that supports my supposition? My thanks, Shalom Z. Berger -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 13:51:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 16:51:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150505205140.GA20122@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 05, 2015 at 10:47:20PM +0300, Shalom Berger via Avodah wrote: : I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a : woman is owned by her husband, the language of the Mishna notwithstanding. : Can anyone point to a clear statement by Hazal or rishonim that supports my : supposition? First, the halakhos of qiddushin do not conform to that of purchase. Qinyan is a broader concept than purchase; for example, not that long ago you probably performed a qinyan sudar to appoint your rav as a shaliach to sell your chameitz. Some differences: - no din of ona'ah, a shaveh perutah is sufficient for all - you give the perutah to the woman, not her former "owner" - she has to agree to the qinyan, despite not being the former "owner" - she has to make a qinyan on the money - money needn't exchange hands; she could pardon a loan to effect a marriage. However, qinyan bekesef does require such an exchange. - Hilkhos gittin is a lot more complicated than just calling hefqer. - the wife gets to decide whether to give him her earnings in exchange for being supported. If she were property, he would get her earnings wheter or not *he* chose to support here. Now that I got that out of my system, to answer your question: Qiddushin 6b: ... and if an eved kenaani, whose body he was qoneh, if he says to him [in a shetar shichrur] "you are hereby your own" it means legmaei, ishah DELO QANI LEIH GUFAH, lo qol shekein! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 31st day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Hod: What level of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 results in harmony and balance? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 12:12:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 15:12:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun Message-ID: In Avodah V33n70, RZS responded to R'Micha: >> I bet [RYBS] said tachanun on the Gra's or R' Chaim's (Volozhin or Brisk) >> yahrzeit, etc... For people who are seeking his pesaq, it's very likely >> he would insist on Tachanun on days like that. > Of course he said tachanun on their yortzeits, why wouldn't he? The whole > concept of turning a yortzeit into a holiday wasn't native to his world. > The question is what he would do on a day they had been saved from some > danger, and had observed as a private yomtov, or on a day that his > community had adopted as a local "purim" to commemorate being saved from > danger, as was a common practise among Jewish communities. ...or on Pesach Sheini? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 11:47:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 05 May 2015 13:47:08 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Tree of 40 Fruits Message-ID: <5549102C.40808@starways.net> http://www.sciencealert.com/news/20142107-25892.html What's the halakha regarding eating fruit from one of these trees? Since the grafting was done by a non-Jew, is it okay to eat? Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 14:01:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 21:01:39 GMT Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired Message-ID: <20150505.170139.16146.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Shalom Berger wrote: <<< I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a woman is owned by her husband, ... >>> That depends on what you mean by "own". I own my shoes. This gives me certain rights, such as wearing them to the exclusion of anyone else, or the choice of who I might lend them to. I also have certain responsibilities; I cannot simply destroy them for no reason. I own my tefillin too. But the things I can do with my tefillin are much more limited than whast I can do with my shoes. I have certain rights and responsibilities vis a vis my wife as well. Do I own her? I don't know. Is there a real nafka mina, or is it just semantics? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Forget the iPhone 6 1 little-known Apple supplier holds wealth-changing growth potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/55492fe2678522fe2353bst03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 5 15:46:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 05 May 2015 18:46:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Scrolling Down the Pages of Jewish History Message-ID: <20150505224615.83B27181E37@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/ocl2bqe his story appears in R. Yechiel Spero?s Pesach Haggadah: Touched by Our Story (pp. 88-91) and is republished here with permission from the copyright holders (ArtScroll / Mesorah Publications, Ltd.). The pictures below ? of the Tur Shulchan Aruch (printed in Berlin 1702) which belonged to Rabbi Yaakov Emden (Germany, 1697-1776) ? were taken by R. Akiva Males, and are republished with permission of Columbia University?s Rare Book and Manuscript Library. See the above URL for much more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 00:23:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 03:23:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] All About Tehillim Message-ID: <20150506072350.7A9B4181522@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/mxoucvn From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 02:02:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 05:02:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Disappearing Doctor of Iyyar: Virtual Vanishing of a Venerable Minhog Message-ID: <20150506090255.CB5C5182D80@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/mdz6883 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 03:13:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 06:13:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Disappearing Doctor of Iyyar: Virtual Vanishing of a Venerable Minhog In-Reply-To: <20150506090255.CB5C5182D80@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150506090255.CB5C5182D80@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150506101327.GA19813@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 06, 2015 at 05:02:54AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : See http://tinyurl.com/mdz6883 Quoting the Treasures of Ashkenaz blog [transliterations mine]: > The aleph stands for ani, the two yuds for HQBH, and the reish? fo > rofekha. The month is thereby depicted as a month of healing. The vort > seemingly is based on an old minhog of many generations among Yidden, > in which the letters yud-yud (sans hyphen) are used to represent the > venerated name of Hashem However, even yud-yud is not the original minhag. In older manuscripts they used three yuds, with the middle one slightly above the line, making a triangle. Preserved in this printed edition of Siddur R' Saadia Gaon . I suggested two possible reasons for the third yud's disappearance: - The printing press made that middle yud hard to insert into books, because it would require a special letter in the type box. I find this one less than compelling, because they kept an alef-lamed ligature in the type box, and that got less usage. - Xians read their own significance into the three letters. This would be clearner, if there were any evidence of them actually doing so. So the two-yud notation was just one step along the way. The general question of why non-chassidic Ashkenazim (or non-Chida-influenced Sepharadim) suddenly started writing out the sheim in siddurim is compelling, but the two-yud notation isn't necessarily some venerable alternative. The three yuds was often explained as beind the initial letters of Birkhas Kohanim; the yuds from Yevarekhekha, Ya'er, and Yisa. Some suggest that the two yuds represent the first and last letters of an intertwined sheim havayah and sheim adnus: YUD alef HEI dalet ... HEI yud. Itself heavily al pi qabbalah. And associating the two yuds with the transliteration into Hebrew of an Akkadian month name (Ayyaru = n. blossom) requires even more omnisignificance and mysticism than does finding significance in presenting sheim havayah written out. Where I really see this change as a problem is not because of venerable minhagim, but because books have less shelf life now than in the past. Cheap printing means also cheaper paper, not to mention faster replacement. And if generations past wanted to minimize their sheimos problems, al achas kamah vekamah we should. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 00:31:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 10:31:51 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: In some circles it is common for men to keep long peyot (as an aside it has become common also in some chardal circles) The book Keren Zavit says he doesn't understand the custom. The problem is not in long sidebruns but rather that the hair from under the ear rarely grows long. The long "peyot" usually grow from hair above the ear and so has no connection to peyot and in fact come from part of the head where there is no prohibition to shave -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 06:38:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Shalom Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 16:38:38 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired In-Reply-To: <20150505205140.GA20122@aishdas.org> References: <20150505205140.GA20122@aishdas.org> Message-ID: While Micha is correct that the Gemara clearly states "ishah DELO QANI LEIH GUFAH" and that there are many, many differences between true ownership and marriage, this does not keep the Tosafot HaRosh (Ketubot 2a sv Nistahpa Sadeihu) from concluding: "ha-isha kinyan kaspo shel ha-ish kemo avdo ve-shoro va-hamoro." I would like to find a source in the rishonim that clearly rejects the approach of the Tosafot HaRosh. Shalom Rabbi Shalom Z. Berger, Ed.D. The Lookstein Center for Jewish Education Bar-Ilan University http://www.lookstein.org https://www.facebook.com/groups/lookjed/ Follow me on Twitter: @szberger NETWORK*LEARN*GROW From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 09:26:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 12:26:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] tree of 40 fruits Message-ID: The question was asked, "What's the halakha regarding eating fruit from one of these trees? Since the grafting was done by a non-Jew, is it okay to eat?" The only issur achila of kilayim is kilei hakerem. Anything else may be eaten. With regard to the fruits of a graft, the explicit halacha in Yoreh Deiah (295:7) is that it may be eaten even by the one who violated the prohibition by performing the graft. (That halacha also continues that one may take a branch from the graft and plant it.) As to the original question about the potato-tomato combination, grafting is prohibited: even though neither is a tree (295:3), but as above, the resulting product may be eaten. EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 10:28:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 13:28:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Spouses with Conflicting Customs Message-ID: The din of a kohein's daughter not eating t'ruma upon marriage to a non-kohein was mentioned in conjunction with this topic. However, I submit that perquisites of k'huna are unrelated to the adoption of one's spouse's customs. How else can we understand the din that a person can give the parts of a slaughtered animal due to the kohein (z'roa, l'chayayim v'keiva) even to a kohein's daughter married to a Yisraeil, or, for that matter, even to her Yisraeil husband (and according to one opinion, the same is true for pidyon habein)? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 10:37:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 13:37:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy Message-ID: <72706.56a00b87.427bab69@aol.com> From: Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, d'hashta) would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? Thanks! KT, YGB >>>>> Not sure where you're going with this but you seem to be saying that chazakos have no independent, objective reality. That a chazaka is in the eye of the beholder. Oops. Looks like you've let the cat out of the bag... --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 11:13:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 14:13:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Strange History of Lag B'Omer Message-ID: <20150506181455.D4FFC1836BF@nexus.stevens.edu> There is an interesting talk by Dr. Shnayer Leiman with the above title at http://yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/734356/ Yitzchok Levine -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 11:48:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 14:48:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Looking for help with an analogy In-Reply-To: <5547FB97.5020203@aishdas.org> References: <20150504164503.GC11371@aishdas.org> <5547A85A.8000609@sero.name> <5547F1D4.4040809@sero.name> <5547FB97.5020203@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150506184838.GA4624@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 7:07pm EDT, RYGB wrote: : Can anyone here please explain how chazakos (d'mei'ikara, d'hashta) : would relate to Schroedinger's Cat? Quantum Uncertainty is more similar to rov than chazaqah. And it could model how we can embrace conflicting majorities. Such as in the case of two pieces of shuman and one of cheilev, and being able to eat all three one after the other. (Or perhaps even in a ta'aroves, but that just complicates the picture.) It would fit if we treat the physical state of each piece of fat as ( 2 |shuman> + |cheilev) / 3 rather than as a 67% chance of being shuman. And then those things that were observed are immune from such weirdness, much like qavu'ah. That said: The notion that wavefunction collapse is due to observation, the Copenhagen Interpretation, was once taken as a given. But alternatives involving entanglement, wave function collapse, multiuniverse theory, etc.. have been gaining ground for decades. This parallel to qavu'ah could be illusory. On Tue, May 05, 2015 at 1:11am GMT, R Akive Miller wrote: : My first knee-jerk reaction is to say that they DON'T relate. Chazakos : are all about law, and what the law will *presume* the reality to have : been... : Schroedinger's Cat and similar ventures are attempts to establish what : the *reality* is... I am very inclined to agree. R' Aqiva Eiger (teshuvah $136) makes a chiluq between sefeiqos in the metzi'us and sefeiqos in din. Rov holds when we have sefeiqos in the metzi'us. So we can pasqen about something that is rov-kasher. But if someone knew the metzi'us, then there was a din established for the fat. Now that we don't know what it was, we have a safeiq as to what that din is. LAD, the whole thing is about human experience. See , which has 10 posts covering things like chazaqah (both types), rov, qavu'ah, terei mekei'ah (which I argue ignores rov for the same reason as qavu'ah), nosein ta'am, using tequfas Shemu'el for birkhas hachamah, microsopic bugs etc.... The hashkafic premise is that the goal of halakhah is to shape the self (whether into a tamim, a shelaim, to acheive deveiqus, etc...) And therefore the metzi'us a din has to work with is how we experience reality (and thus birur when we're in doubt) and how we can experience it (only visible bugs count). And not how the universe works in ways we can only understand in the abstract. The most lomdishe consequence of my whole edifice is that it manages to explain why a chazaqah trumps a migo in a case where there are also trei utrei eidim, but why a migo trumps a chazaqah when there are no eidim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 12:13:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 15:13:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150506191353.GB4624@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 06, 2015 at 10:31:51AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : The book Keren Zavit says he doesn't understand the custom. The problem is : not in long sidebruns but rather that the hair from under the ear rarely : grows long. The long "peyot" usually grow from hair above the ear and so : has no connection to peyot and in fact come from part of the head where : there is no prohibition to shave The custom is shared by Chassidim, Chidah-influenced Sepharadim (those with many Qabbalah-based pesaqim) and Teimanim. So there seems to be an ancient maqor unrelated to any reasons given al pi qabbalah by the first two groups. R' Chaim Kanievsky is a living example of a minhag/hanhagah that was once more common -- not combing one's peyos because of the hairs plucked out. Rav Dovid Lifshitz, so now we're talking Litta, had two thick blocks of hair going back from his temples to over his ear. According to the SA YD 181:9, peyos run as high as the hairline above the forehead until the bottom of the ear, where the earlobe detaches from the face. So the prohibition does include the area the KZ is asking about -- there are inches of hair between the top of the ear until you get parallel to the hairline. And this is the very area that the majority of the hair in long peyos grows from. I therefore don't understand the KZ's question. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 12:40:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 22:40:23 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: >From : B. Highest Point. The location of the highest point on the head that the peyos extend is described in Shulchan Aruch (181:9) as "across from the hair on is forehead". There are two basic opinions as to the precise location the Shulchan Aruch refers to: 1. Rabbi Yisroel Belsky (Shulchan Halevi page 122) writes that he had heard directly from Rav Yakov Kaminetzky zt"l that the upper limit of the peyos ha'rosh begins "at the highest point of the hairline as it arches over the ear and extends in a slightly curved line across to where the hairline of the forehead turns sharply downwards towards the sideburns. All the hair from the imaginary line that connect these two points and below comprises the peyos ha'rosh". 2. Rabbi Belsky also quotes "some rabbonim have a mesora, a tradition from their Rabbis, that the peyos do not extend above the upper cartilage of the ear (tenuch ha'ozen) at all. According to their mesorah, the imaginary line extends horizontally from the point in the hairline above the foremost part of ear almost until where the downward slope of the frontal hairline angles back towards the ear. For a picture see -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 13:42:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joel Schnur via Avodah) Date: Wed, 06 May 2015 16:42:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Not saying Tachanun Message-ID: <554A7CBF.3020300@schnurassociates.com> No one says tachnun on the Gra's yarhzeit. it's 3rd day chol hamoed succos ___________________________ Joel Schnur, Senior VP Government Affairs/Public Relations Schnur Associates, Inc. 25 West 45th Street, Suite 1405 New York, NY 10036 Tel. 212-489-0600 x204 Fax. 212-489-0203 joel at schnurassociates.com www.schnurassociates.com http://www.schnurassociates.com/joels-corner/ From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 14:13:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 17:13:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired In-Reply-To: <20150505.170139.16146.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150505.170139.16146.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150506211338.GB27781@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 5, 2015 at 9:01pm GMT, R Akiva Miller wrote: :> I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that :> a woman is owned by her husband, ... : That depends on what you mean by "own". : : I own my shoes. This gives me certain rights... I suggested more than once in the past that baalus has more to do with responsibility than western notions of property. Which is why yorshim do not inherit chameitz on Pesach. Even though the father owned chameitz in the sense of bal yeira'eh bal yimatzei, he lacked ba'alus at the time of his passing. Or why a rentor has a chiyuv to hang a mezuzah -- he has some measure of ba'alus, despite not being an owner. RAF (CCed) shared my post on Facebook, and since I have no idea what can be seen by the public, I'll paraphrase a couple of responses I thought would be of interest. On my line that "qinyan is a broader concept than purchase", one person compared the mishnah in Avos "qeneih lekha chaver". This morning, at 8:59am PDT, R Shalom Z Berger asked for a rishon who clearly rejected the Tosafos haRosh's statement (Kesuvos 2a "nitapecha sadeihu) that "ha'ishah qinyan kaspo shel ha'ish, kemo avdo veshoro vechamoro". Someone else on FB noted that the Rashba, in his chiddushim on the first pereq of Qiddushin, repeatedly points out that all the rishonim other than the Rosh reject the idea out of hand. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 15:09:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 15:09:17 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes Message-ID: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Shabbat-microphones-catching-on-among-orthodox-despite-taboos-402173 i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at hadchak /bedieved -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 17:12:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 20:12:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150507001204.GA31766@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 06, 2015 at 03:09:17PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Shabbat-microphones-catching-on-among-orthodox-despite-taboos-402173 : : i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at hadchak /bedieved Gerama devices, yes. But a passive element microphone feeding a PA system that is never entirely off -- so it's never turned off or on -- and has no lit indicators is an entirely different beast. (Most microphones generate current when vibrated; a passive element microphone changes resistance.) Still not an open-and-shut heter, as this article makes it sound. And there are more grounds for Sepharadim to be meiqil then Ashkenazim, based on a machloqes between the Mechaber and the Rama in OC 252:5. R' Ovadia was matir. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 32nd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Hod: What type of submission Fax: (270) 514-1507 really results in dominating others? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 18:18:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 01:18:22 GMT Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes Message-ID: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> R' Saul Newman asked: > i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at > hadchak /bedieved I've never read any of their material, but I'm pretty sure that they have MANY halachic "tools" in their arsenal, and not all of them carry the same restrictions. For example, a grama switch would only be useful for a very limited number of situations, as would a pen that writes with disappearing ink. But if you can make an electronic device that generates zero heat and zero light, it just *might* be acceptable for general use. Exhibit A: Hearing aids. I'll admit that a hearing aid is not the same thing as a loudspeaker system. But without getting into a whole discussion, the only point I'm making is that you have to look at the thing, and not just reject it out of hand. One might say that "Hearing aids are by definition for a shaas hadchak; how can this technology help the average person? So I bring you Exhibit B: Sabbath Mode ovens. Without any doubt, one DOES manipulate the electric circuit with these gadgets. If not on Shabbos, then at least on Yom Tov. But I think that the real answer to your question might be: "If the people in shul can't hear the rabbi or the chazan, that IS a shaas hadchak." In any case, about 15 years ago I happened to spend Shabbos at a shul that used one of these systems, and there were two large notices by the entrance to the main sanctuary, pointing out that the system was designed by Zomet. If I remember correctly, there was also a letter on the wall giving more halachic details about it. Which is the bigger chumra: To avoid using such devices, or to insure that even the hard-of-hearing can follow hear? Or, if you prefer, which is the bigger kula: To use such devices, or to disenfranchise part of the tzibur? (I'm not taking sides, just illustrating the issues. If you want answers, ask your LOR.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554abd8864c633d88019cst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 18:45:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 01:45:24 GMT Subject: [Avodah] The Disappearing Doctor of Iyyar: Virtual Vanishing of a Venerable Minhog Message-ID: <20150506.214524.14329.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> R' Yitzchok Levine posted: > See http://tinyurl.com/mdz6883 That article has only slight relevance to anything medical. It is actually about the practice of abbreviating HaShem's Name with a double (or triple) Yud in siddurim, and how this practice is losing ground recently, with more siddurim using the Four-Lettered Name. That article says: > ... even in the printing of siddurim, where in the past, Shem > Hashem was not written out explicitly, based on venerable, old > practice. In other words, the spelling out of the letters, Yud > ? Kay ? Vov ? Kay in the past was done in Biblical texts, such > as Sifrei Torah and Sifrei Nach. In texts of tefilos, however, > it was not done. Instead, Yud ? Yud was substituted. I am very curious why this distinction was made, that the siddurim use the Yuds, while the printed Tanachs do use the Four Lettered Name. I note that towards the end of that article, he refers to an "Azharah L'Madfisim (Warning To Printers)" on this topic, written by the son-in-law of the Nesivos Hamishpat. Curiously, he writes that the Two Yuds should be printed in siddurim *and* *chumashim*. On the other hand, a few lines later, the Azharah explains a point I've long wondered about. The Four Lettered Name is just one of the *seven* Names Which May Not Be Erased. Why did this abbreviation arise for the Four Lettered Name and not for any of the others? I always figured it was because this one is *truly* a Name; "the Most Holy among equals" one might say. But the Azharah gives an entirely different explanation. Namely, the difference between this Name and the other six is that no matter how you spell it, it is not to be pronounced normally, so what is to be gained by using the correct letters? Therefore, find an abbreviation of some sort for this one, but the others should be spelled as they will be pronounced. Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554ac3e5a6e0843e34b38st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 19:34:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 22:34:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: <85279.31aefae5.427c294a@aol.com> From: Eli Turkel via Avodah In some circles it is common for men to keep long peyot (as an aside it has become common also in some chardal circles) The book Keren Zavit says he doesn't understand the custom.... -- Eli Turkel >>>> Yemenites have long payos, so this must be a very old custom, not some recent chumra. They don't call them "payos" but "simanim," which I find charming. They are signs that a man is a Jew, proud and obvious signs. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 02:13:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 12:13:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] long peyot Message-ID: In addition to the points brought up by R' Eli Turkel against long peyot, I would like to raise the following: The shiur given by all of the poskim for each hair is very very short, and in fact because it is a lo taase there is probably not even an inyan of hidur mitzvah. Therefore it is not clear why there would be any inyan to grow long peyot. The truth is it would be much better to be machmir on the shiur of where peyot harosh ends (maybe the very bottom of the ear) which is a safek issur d'oraysa then to grow long peyot which has no kiyum al pi din. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 20:33:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 23:33:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] A woman is acquired Message-ID: <86422.6a1e08b9.427c3711@aol.com> [1] I think that it is fairly clear that Jewish law does not believe that a woman is owned by her husband, the language of the Mishna notwithstanding. Can anyone point to a clear statement by Hazal or rishonim that supports my supposition? My thanks, Shalom Z. Berger [2] I own my shoes. This gives me certain rights, such as wearing them to the exclusion of anyone else, or the choice of who I might lend them to. I also have certain responsibilities; I cannot simply destroy them for no reason. I own my tefillin too. But the things I can do with my tefillin are much more limited than what I can do with my shoes. I have certain rights and responsibilities vis a vis my wife as well. Do I own her? I don't know. Is there a real nafka mina, or is it just semantics? Akiva Miller >>>> [1] Along the lines of what R' Micha Berger posted. On Ber 24:57 -- "Let us call the maiden and ask her what she wants to do" -- Rashi says, "Mikan she'ein masi'in es ha'isha ela mida'ata -- from here we learn that one does not [or may not, or cannot] marry a woman without her consent." I think he's quoting Kesubos 57b. I can't think of any kind of property whose consent is required before the property can be acquired. [2] The analogy to tefillin is flawed. You do not have any obligations or responsibilities to your tefillin. Rather, in regards to your tefillin, you have obligations towards your Maker! He has told you what you must do, may do, or must not do, with your tefillin. A better analogy would have been to your ox or your dog, where you do actually have obligations to your animals, an obligation, for example, to feed the animal before you eat your own meal. And a still better analogy would have been to acquiring a slave, about which the Talmud says "One who acquires a Jewish slave is like one who has acquired a master! (Kiddushin 20a)" -- because of all the obligations he incurs towards his slave. So there does seem to be some kind of ownership that a husband has vis-a-vis his wife, but then, she also in some sense owns him. Certainly she has the right to make specific claims on him, because he has specific obligations towards her. Shir Hashirim speaks about the love between Hakadosh Baruch Hu and Am Yisrael in an extended poetic analogy to the love between a husband and a wife. What does the wife say about her husband? Dodi li ve'ani lo -- He belongs to me, and I belong to Him. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 23:25:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 02:25:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Princess and I: Academic Kabbalists/Kabbalist Academics Message-ID: <20150507062523.18EF01826EC@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/km8kf2n The last few decades have witnessed the veritable explosion of "new perspectives" and horizons in the academic study of Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism. From the pioneering work of the late Professor Gershom Scholem, and the establishment of the study of Jewish Mysticism as a legitimate scholarly pursuit, we witness a scene nowadays populated by men and women, Jews and non-Jews, who have challenged, (re)constructed, and expanded upon Scholem's work.[2] These men and women themselves have been variously praised and criticized themselves for sometimes blurring the lines between academician and practitioner of Kabbalah and mysticism.[3] Professor Boaz Huss of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has done extensive work in this area.[4] One of the most impressive examples of this fusion of identities is Professor Yehuda Liebes (Jerusalem, 1947-) of Hebrew University, who completed his doctoral studies under Scholem, and rose to prominence himself by challenging scholarly orthodoxies established by his mentor. See the above URL for more. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 6 23:29:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 02:29:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Shabbat microphones catching on among orthodox despite taboos Message-ID: <20150507062953.0C966182FF8@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/men8bez Relying upon rulings by decision makers such as Rabbi Shaul Yisraeli, Isser Yehuda Unterman and Rav Haim David HaLevi, the Zomet microphone uses only transistors "without any glowing [or 'burning'] elements;" is turned on by an automatic "Shabbat timer;" and, once turned on, "current flows continuously in the system," according to technical notes on the setup released on the group's website. According to Zomet executive director Rabbi Dan Marans, the system has come into use in 15 synagogues in Baltimore, Montreal, West Stamford and other locations, as well as in 18 old-age homes. Leading American poskim, or decidors of Halacha, have even "stipulated in contracts with synagogues that they change the system to our system so that the RCA [will be] able to send rabbis." "I've not heard comments [against it]. If anything, people find the service more enjoyable and more elevating," agreed Schneier, adding that "We must get a dozen calls a year from rabbis contemplating putting this system into their synagogues. "I believe within 25 years it will be commonplace in Orthodox synagogues here in the Northeast." See the above URL for more. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 07:01:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 10:01:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Transferring my comments to Avodah At 04:00 PM 5/6/2015, R Saul Newman wrote on Areivim: >http://www.sharelive.tv/sharlive_Heb/SL27948.html I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire 33rd day, and they wait until the 34th day to take a haircut. Does this not imply that the entire 33rd day is part of Sefirah and the restrictions hold the entire 33rd day? Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva. However, the micktzas starts in the morning of the 7th day, not on the night of the 7th day. Thus, even according to Ashkenazim the night of Lag B'Omer is bound by the restrictions of Sefirah. So how can they make such gatherings on the night of the 33rd day? And, of course there is this post that I made on from Fri, 26 Apr 2013 based on comments by Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel. According to RSRH there is a major difference between the way the uses the terminology un-Jewish and non-Jewish. Un-Jewish things are things that are incompatible with Yahadus, whereas non-Jewish things are things of non-Jewish origin that are compatible with Yahadus. YL The following is from http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol11/v11n014.shtml#17 Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 11:37:58 -0400 From: "Seth Mandel" Subject: Re: bonfires on Lag Ba'Omer From: Phyllos... at aol.com Obviously, the bones of people who believe that there is a s'gullo in making fires . As I have had fun telling people, the _only_ bonfire that was an ancient Jewish tradition was the Simchas Torah bonfire in Ashk'naz, which is attested from the 14th century up until the 19th century, but has gone out of style. The Lag Ba'omer bonfire is a very recent phenomenon among most Jews. Indeed, the word bonfire is from "fire of bones." The term was used primarily in various pagan ceremonies which then were transferred to christianity, for a funeral pyre, and in burning infidels or books (like The Gaon of Vilna or MOAG). The bones used, if 'twere not a pyre, were primarily animal bones. Here's an early quotation (1493): "in worshyppe of saynte John the people waked at home and made all maner of fyres. One was clene bones and no woode, and that is called a bone fyre." From Marlowe in 1586: "Making bonfires for my overthrow. But, ere I die, those foul idolators Shall make me bonfires with their filthy bones." (Think that would get by the moderators on Areivim, R. SBA?) 1689: "The dead corps is buried. They of old made a bone-fire and therein burnt it." 1622: "Their holy Bibles cast into Bone-fires." The term became used for any large fires used for celebrations, although the practice and term continued to be used especially for those associated with various christian saints, particularly John and Peter. From a 1570 history: "Then doth the joyfull feast of John the Baptist take his turne, When bonfiers great with loftie flame, in every towne doe burne." From a constitution of the association of the cooks of Newcastle, 1575: "The said Felloship of Cookes shall yearelie. mainteigne and keep the Bone-fires. that is to say, one Bone-fire on the Even of the Feast of the Nativitie of St. John Baptist. and the other on the Even of the Feast of St. Peter the Apostle." These quotations start in the 15th century, because that is as far back as the term bone-fire goes, but the practice of making a bonfire in honor of Christian saints goes back to ancient times in England (and in France as well). Another practice that goes back to ancient times in Christian Europe is making pilgrimages to "qivrei tzaddiqim" and donating alms at the qever; this practice is well known from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Most Christian scholars attribute the association of the bonfires with celebrations of the feast of a saint to pagan, pre-christian practices which were later adopted by the local people to their new religion. Indeed, the Celtics made bonfires to honor some of their deities and spirits. No one would ever claim that these practices, going back into old Anglo-Saxon England, are of Jewish origin. The Arabs of EY, Syria, and Lebanon, as is well-known, honored the Christian and Jewish "saints" (everyone knows that the qever of Sh'muel haNavi has been a "holy" site to the Arabs for hundreds of years, and they built a mosque there; the site is called "anNabi Samwil"). They made pilgrimages to them, like the Christians did, and they made large celebrations to honor the festival of the saint. The Arab pilgrims who came did various things to honor the saint. They gave alms (a big mitzva in Islam), usually done by the practice of cutting the hair of their children (which they had let grow from before the pilgrimage), then weighing it and giving the same weight in gold or silver for alms. They also made large bonfires to honor the saint. The custom of making pilgrimages, giving alms, and making bonfires may have been borrowed from the christians, since a) they originally appeared among the Arabs of EY, Lebanon and Syria, AFAIK; b) they are first recorded after the time of the Crusades (although the giving of gold or silver in the weight of the hair seems to have been from the Middle East). However there is no clear proof that they did not arise from another source. But they are attested in Arabic sources going back to the 15th century, and probably before. Can the custom of bonfires on Lag Ba'omer have arisen among the Jews separately and independently from the non-Jewish sources? Theoretically it's possible. Books like Minhag Yisruel Toyre he brings all sorts of reasons from various chasidic rebbes and from the book Ta'amei haMinhogim for the origin of the bonfires on Lag Ba'omer. The problem with all the explanations is that a) they are all of recent origin, and b) they somehow ignore the fact that the custom was completely unknown to any Jews up until the time when it is recorded in EY in the 16th century. Furthermore, it was the custom there of only one group of Jews, the Musta'ribim, about whom other Jews complained that they had adopted a lot of Arab customs (the very name mean "Arabicized). From contemporary documents we learn the Muslims (and a few Jews) cut the hair of children as well as lit a bonfires on the yohrtzeit (28 of Iyyar) of non other than the aforementioned Shmu'el haNavi. However, in the 1560s the Arab authorities forbad Jews to go there. Shortly afterwards, we have the testimony of R. Chaim Vital that he was told by R. Yonatan Sagiz that a year before he started learning by the Ari, in the Ari's first year after he immigrated from his homeland of Egypt (also 1570), that "Mori v'Rabbi Z'L took his small son and all of his family there [to the celebration on RaShBY 's yohtzeit in Meron] and there he cut his hair in accordance with the custom." R. Chaim Vital is careful to note, however, that "I do not know whether at that time he was expert and knowledgable in this wondrous wisdom [Qabbolo] as he became after that." IOW, R. Chaim Vital himself is cautioning the reader that he has doubts about whether the Ari did this in accordance with his views in Qabbolo, or just because it was a popular celebration, and he might not have participated had he already been an expert in Qabbolo. Some historians believe that once the Musta'ribim were forbidden to go to the qever of Sh'muel haNavi, they transferred their celebration to Meron and the date to Lag Ba'Omer. Others claim that the custom at Meron predated 1570. But both groups agree that both of these customs, cutting the hair of the children and making bonfires, were practiced by the Arabs and the Musta 'ribim, but not by any of the Ashk'nazi and S'faradi Jews in Israel. Of great interest is that the local rabbis in Tz'fat, who had the practice of going to the all the known q'vorim of the Tano'im from the middle of Iyyar until Shavu'os and having a seder in learning there, opposed the celebrations of the Musta'ribim on Lag ba'Omer and tried to forbid it. They made little headway, and once it became known that the Ari participated one year, any opposition was swept away. We know from travelers to EY in the 18th and 19th centuries that the "hilula" at Meron on Lag Ba'Omer with bonfires and the cutting of children's hair had become an affair of the masses. A well known talmid chochom from Europe, R. Avrohom Rozanes, writes that in his visit to EY in 1867 he saw an Ashk'nazi Jew who had taken his son to the "hilula" and was giving him a haircut. R. Rozanes says that he could not restrain himself, and went to that Jew and tried to dissuade him but was unsuccessful, and that most of the Ashk'nazi and S'faradi Jews of EY participate in this "craziness," with "drinking and dancing and fires." The custom of giving the son his first haircut at that celebration, originally called "halaqa" by the Jews of EY (apparently because there was an established Arabic term but no Jewish term for the custom) was later mixed with the custom of making a celebration when a son reached 3 and began learning Torah. The two customs were combined by many, and resulted in the boy's haircut being delayed until he was 3, and not specifically on Lag ba' Omer. A chasidish rebbe, R. Yehudah Leibush Horenstein, who emigrated to EY in the middle of the 19th century writes that "this haircut, called halaqe, is done by the S'faradim in Yerushalayim at the qever of RaShB'Y during the summer, but during the winter they take the boy to the synagogue or Bet Medrash and perform the haircut with great celebration and parties, something _that is unknown to the Jews in Europe_. and at that point they start him growing his pe'ot. it is incomprehensible why this is not done outside of EY [as well]" [emphasis mine]. Indeed, the custom was adopted by shortly thereafter by chasidim in Europe to imitate the custom of the S'faradim in EY, and the custom of lighting bonfires on Lag Ba'Omer also was adopted at that time by chasidic communities in Europe. The Jews in Europe, knowing no Arabic and having no Yiddish name for the custom of the haircut, called it by a normal Yiddish word for cutting off the hair: opsheren. Both customs are less than 150 years old among Ashk'naz Jews, including chasidim. Now we scarcely can expect to find a historical document that says "we, the undersigned Jews, have decided that there is nothing wrong with copying the Muslim celebrations in honor of saints, and we will participate in them." So you're never going to find better historical evidence for Jewish borrowing of non-Jewish customs than this: that a custom that was previously unknown to any group of Jews arose among a group of Jews known to copy various Arab customs in a time and place that the custom is attested among the Arabs from independent evidence. Is there anything osur about a bonfire on Lag Ba'Omer, or waiting to give a son a haircut until he is 3 or until you go to Meron? Certainly not. As I believe R. SBA has noted, the opsheren provides an excuse for a party that is connected with the boy's beginning to learn; it could be done without the haircut, but if people feel that it is important to give a haircut as well, there is no issur. Certainly no one who lights bonfires or celebrates opsheren has any idea that the source of these customs is extremely questionable. And after 130 years most Jews forget the origin of customs anyway and just assume they are old Jewish customs.. However, those who studiously avoid eating turkey on Thanksgiving should know that the origin of the customs of the bonfire on Lag ba'Omer and halaqa/opsheren are much more suspect. Seth Mandel ---------- So I really do not understand this entire affair at Meron. To add to this see the pictures of Lag B'Omer from many years ago at http://tinyurl.com/khmhcz4 I do not see even one bonfire! YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:07:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 13:07:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 10:01:44AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown : which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. : The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire : 33rd day... : Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last : day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva... Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. Yes, many of us know that the PEC really says Lag baOmer is yom simchas Rashbi, which may or may not be his yahrzeit. "Yom shemeis" is a typo that reached later editions via a dropped ches. See http://seforim.blogspot.com/2011/05/printing-mistake-and-mysterious-origins.html But (as per previous conversations), that also doesn't rule out the possibility that the day of Rashbi's joy is his yahrzeit. But even if the Ari said it's the day he started the Zohar, finished it, left the cave, or whatever, it's still a day the Ari considered worth celebrating. And yes, many of us also know that the whole upsherin-at-the-qever thing was originally on the 43rd in/to the omer, at Nabi Samwel. (See shu"t haRadvaz 2:608.) Which makes sense -- Shemu'el was a nazir, and he lived in the BHMQ starting at age 3. The move to Meron and Lag baOmer happened when the Ottomans restricted access to the qever in the 1500s. The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) and ABD. But the version of the minhag he recorded would not pose the question -- observe the first "half" of the omer, and then a haircut a week before Shavuos isn't a problem. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:07:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 13:07:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 10:01:44AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown : which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. : The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire : 33rd day... : Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last : day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva... Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. Yes, many of us know that the PEC really says Lag baOmer is yom simchas Rashbi, which may or may not be his yahrzeit. "Yom shemeis" is a typo that reached later editions via a dropped ches. See http://seforim.blogspot.com/2011/05/printing-mistake-and-mysterious-origins.html But (as per previous conversations), that also doesn't rule out the possibility that the day of Rashbi's joy is his yahrzeit. But even if the Ari said it's the day he started the Zohar, finished it, left the cave, or whatever, it's still a day the Ari considered worth celebrating. And yes, many of us also know that the whole upsherin-at-the-qever thing was originally on the 43rd in/to the omer, at Nabi Samwel. (See shu"t haRadvaz 2:608.) Which makes sense -- Shemu'el was a nazir, and he lived in the BHMQ starting at age 3. The move to Meron and Lag baOmer happened when the Ottomans restricted access to the qever in the 1500s. The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) and ABD. But the version of the minhag he recorded would not pose the question -- observe the first "half" of the omer, and then a haircut a week before Shavuos isn't a problem. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 08:22:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 11:22:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554B8340.3090001@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 10:01 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > > > The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire 33rd day, and they wait until the 34th day to take a haircut. Does this not imply that the entire 33rd day is part of Sefirah and the restrictions hold the entire 33rd day? > > Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva. However, the micktzas starts in the morning of the 7th day, not on the night of the 7th day. Thus, even according to Ashkenazim the night of Lag B'Omer is bound by the restrictions of Sefirah. So how can they make such gatherings on the night of the 33rd day? That all applies if you regard Lag Ba'omer as simply marking the end of mourning. But as we discussed a few weeks ago, that doesn't really make sense. According to both shitos quoted by the BY there is no such thing as Lag Ba'omer -- the last day on which they died was either the 34th of the Omer or the 49th. Even according to the Tosfos as the Bach quotes it, that they only died for 33 days, Lag Ba'omer was one of the 33, and not the last one! And even if one will find a shita somewhere that they died only on the first 33 days, who makes a party on the last day of shiva? You stop active mourning, you don't go dancing! All of which points to the fact that Lag Ba'omer is *not* about the end of mourning, but a happy day in its own right, the simcha of Rashbi. (The silly discussion over whether the word is "simchas" or "shemeis" is irrelevant here. Either way it's his simcha, which he asked people to celebrate.) This simcha *overrides* the mourning of sefira, no matter which shita one follows. This way of looking at things also explains whether one should say tachanun at mincha of erev Lag Ba'omer. If it's just "the end of shiva", that starts in the morning, so one should say tachanun at the previous mincha, just as one does on erev Pesach Sheni (which also starts in the morning), erev Erev RH and erev Erev YK, and if we said tachanun in Nissan we would also say it at mincha of erev Erev Pesach, because it too starts in the morning. But once we regard Lag Ba'omer as a day of simcha in its own right, then it starts at night, and so we omit tachanun in the previous mincha. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 07:19:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 09:19:59 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] The Princess and I: Academic Kabbalists/Kabbalist Academics In-Reply-To: <20150507062523.18EF01826EC@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507062523.18EF01826EC@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554B748F.8080508@starways.net> On 5/7/2015 1:25 AM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > From http://tinyurl.com/km8kf2n >> The last few decades have witnessed the veritable explosion of "new >> perspectives" and horizons in the academic study of Kabbalah and >> Jewish Mysticism. From the pioneering work of the late Professor >> Gershom Scholem, and the establishment of the study of Jewish >> Mysticism as a legitimate scholarly pursuit, we witness a scene >> nowadays populated by men and women, Jews and non-Jews, who have >> challenged, (re)constructed, and expanded upon Scholem's work.[2] ... R' Adin Steinsalz once said about the Kabbalah Center type of Kabbalah that it bore the same relationship to real Kabbalah that pornography does to love. This "academic Kabbalah" bears the same relationship to real Kabbalah that an anatomy book does to love. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:32:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 13:32:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> At 01:07 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 10:01:44AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: >: I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown >: which I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit. > >: The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire >: 33rd day... >: Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the last >: day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva... > >Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to >get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would >mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. Indeed, I think one should be. Truth be told my mother, A"H, told me that once a child is at least one year old and can say a few words, then his hair gets cut. This is what I did with my sons, and I am sure it is an old minhag. >Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the >Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning >on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in >the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke >qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to >last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. Indeed, this is where the New Religion is coming from. Years ago someone asked Rav S. Schwab, ZT"L, about certain things that certain chassidishe women do when they are pregnant and if they were valid. His forceful reply was, "My mother never knew about such things, my grandmother never knew about such things, and my great grandmother never knew about such things. These people are making up a religion!!!!!" I am not comfortable with people making up a religion, particularly since RSRH says definitively the Judaism is not a religion, to the New Religion is not Judaism by definition. >The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, >who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where >he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) >and ABD. But the version of the minhag he recorded would not pose the >question -- observe the first "half" of the omer, and then a haircut a >week before Shavuos isn't a problem. The MB points out that the minhag in Vilna was to start the restrictions of Sefirah on the first day of Rosh Chodesh Iyar and then they end in the morning of the first of the 3 days before Shavuous. I took a haircut shortly before Rosh Chodesh Iyar. There were no crowds to contend with and I had no waiting. This morning I trimmed my mustache and the hair that grows under my neck below my beard at shortly after sunrise. I will take a haircut on 3 or 4 Sivan. Again, there will be no crowds to contend with. This has worked and continues to work for me. YL PS. My wife has asked more than once, " How can they observe the aveilus restrictions of Sefirah during Pesach when it is a Yom Tov?" My reply is, "I do not know." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:53:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 13:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507175311.GC1758@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 01:32:05PM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : >Both of which are minhagim, not halakhah. Also, the minhag is not to : >get one's hair cut, rather than cutting someone else's hair, which would : >mean you're worried about whether it applies to 3 year olds. : Indeed, I think one should be. Maqor? Since when do we expect 3 yr olds to conform to minhag? ... : >Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. If the Peri Eitz Chaim records the : >Ari's position that it's apprpriate to not just refrain from mourning : >on Lag baOmer but to celebrate it, there is sufficient motive -- in : >the eyes of many. Of course, that "many" wouldn't include the Yekke : >qehilos. And I had a choice of bonfires at yeshivos gedolos to go to : >last night, had I wanted to. Litta joining in is defintely new. : : Indeed, this is where the New Religion is coming from.... The PEC is older than RSRH. If you want to label any particular change as a "New Religion", you dwell in a glass house. ... : The MB points out that the minhag in Vilna was to start the : restrictions of Sefirah on the first day of Rosh Chodesh Iyar and : then they end in the morning of the first of the 3 days before : Shavuous. I took a haircut shortly before Rosh Chodesh Iyar. There : were no crowds to contend with and I had no waiting. And the Radbaz predates the SA, never mind the MB. : This has worked and continues to work for me... Good. What I'm objecting to is your insistnce in telling others that what works for them is "New Religion". : PS. My wife has asked more than once, " How can they observe the : aveilus restrictions of Sefirah during Pesach when it is a Yom Tov?" : My reply is, "I do not know." You can't get married on Pesach, not even ch"m either. Nor get a haircut. So you're asking about parties with live music. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 10:49:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 13:49:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <554BA59A.5040905@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 01:07 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > The Radbaz, R' David b Shelomo ibn Zimra was among the gerushei Sefarad, > who ended up in Tzefas in 1513 and eventually end up in Egypt where > he was RY (he taught the Shitah Mequbetzes, R' Betzalel Ashkenazi) Who taught the Ari, who cut his son's hair at Meron on Lag Ba'omer. Does anyone know whether the Shita Mekubetzes, beside being the Ari's rebbe, was also related to him? I haven't seen this anywhere, but how many Ashkenazi families could there have been in Egypt at that time? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 11:41:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Herbert Basser via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 18:41:42 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah Message-ID: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> A recent post claims the Islamic "opsherin" was called "halaqah". What is the evidence for this claim? The only meaning of arabic "halaqah" I know is "learning circle". Zvi Basser -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 14:31:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 17:31:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Upsherin Message-ID: <20150507213225.D3EDA181A25@nexus.stevens.edu> Since Upsherin is done on Lag B'Omer at Meron, I think one should understand the source for this too. The following is from Shorshei Minhag Ashkenaz, Minhag Ashkenaz: Sources and Roots by Rabbi Binyamin Shlomo Hamburger, Synopsis of Volumes I-IV. YL The German custom to bring a young boy to the synagogue with a wirnpel (wrapping for t he Torah scroll) has no connection whatsoever to the practice of the chalaka (the Arabic term for Upsherin) observed by Sepharadirn and later ad opted by many Chasidirn. Th e custom of holding a special celebration marking the boy's first haircut developed among these groups. The celebration takes place at a specific age, usually three. Th e festivity is customarily held near the gravesite of a tzadik or in a synagogue. *This custom was unknown in ancient Sephardic and Ashkenazic communities.* (Emphasis added by me.) The earliest reports of the chalaka [upsherin] celebration are found in accounts written by Sepharadim early in the period of the Acharonim. Some three centuries later, we find the first indications that the custom had made its way into Chasidic circles. The most important source concerning the chalaka is the account of the celebration in which the Ari-zal is involved. The details of this story are somewhat vague, and it is unclear whether the Ari-zal made a chalaka for his son, or whether the account refers to his disciple, Rabbi Yonatan Sagish. There is also some question as to whether the Ari-zal participated in Lag Ba 'omer events in Meron after his kabalistic insights because the custom to conduct a chalaka on Lag Ba 'omer runs in opposition to the Ari-zal' s final ruling that forbade hair cutting during the orner period. Furthermore, the custom of the chalaka has given rise to some questions as to the propriety of hair cutting at a gravesite or synagogue, which might constitute an infringement upon the sanctity of the site. Some have also questioned the permissibility of haircutting on Lag Ba 'omer, during bein ha-rnetzarirn (the three weeks before Tisha B' A v) or during Chol Ha 'rno 'ed. Yet another concern was the immodest behavior that occasionally accompanied this event. Most Sephardic and Chasidic rabbis applauded, or at least defended the practices observed in their circles, though there were those who forbade the custom in this manner. Rabbi Yitzchak Zev Soloveitchik of Brisk (1889-1960) disapproved of bringing children to rabbis on their third birthday for the chalaka, claiming that this practice "has no reason or basis." He noted that there are sources indicating that one should introduce the child to matters of Torah at the age of three, but none that involve haircutting. Rabbi Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky [the "Steipler Ga'on," (1899-1985)] also opposed this practice, and would send away parents who brought their children to him for the chalaka haircut. The tendency among Ashkenazi communities to refrain from this practice stems, according to one view, from the concern that the chalaka transgresses the prohibition of imitating pagan practices. Cutting a child's hair at the age of three was a well-known custom among several nations in ancient times, and thus observing this practice may constitute an imitation of pagan ritual. Some, however, dismissed this argument, claiming that to the contrary, the chalaka perhaps began as an ancient Jewish practice which was later adopted by the gentiles. There are some older customs, originating in the times of Chazal and the Ge'onim, such as fasting on Erev Rosh Hashana and the ceremony of Kapaprot on Erev Yom Kippur which were opposed by some rabbis since they feared that their origins could be found in pagan rites. In any event, although some communities accepted this custom, Ashkenazi communities were never aware of such a practice. They did not receive this tradition from their forebears, and they found no mention of it in the writings of the Rishonim. The ancient tradition among Ashkenazi communities was to cut a boy's hair at a very young age. In fact, during the times of Chazal, parents would cut an infant's hair not long after birth, and they even permitted cutting a baby's overgrown hair on Chol Ha 'mo' ed. In the times of the Rishonim, too, boys' hair in Ashkenaz was cut already within the first several months after birth. The phenomenon of children with overgrown hair simply did not exist in Germany, and a boy with overgrown hair would have been mistaken for a girl. The custom of chalaka was never accepted in Ashkenazic countries or other regions in Western Europe, not even among the Sephardic communities in these areas. The practice earned acceptance in Eastern Europe among certain Chasidic circles, but only in later generations. Among other circles, boys' hair was cut when they began speaking, and no special affair was held to celebrate the event. .. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 14:31:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 17:31:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507173307.5A2F818369B@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554BD9C6.9000803@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 01:32 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > > Indeed, this is where the New Religion is coming from. Years ago > someone asked Rav S. Schwab, ZT"L, about certain things that certain > chassidishe women do when they are pregnant and if they were valid. > His forceful reply was, "My mother never knew about such things, my > grandmother never knew about such things, and my great grandmother > never knew about such things. These people are making up a religion!!!!!" With all due respect to R Schwab's great-grandmother, there are more things in Yiddishkeit than were dreamt of in her philosophy. My great-grandmother did know about such things, and I'm sure her tzidkus and wisdom was no less than hers. And following the Ari's teachings is the very opposite of making up a religion. > I am not comfortable with people making up a religion, particularly > since RSRH says definitively the Judaism is not a religion, to the > New Religion is not Judaism by definition. You're the one assigning to it the word "religion", and then, in what can only be called an act of verbal ju-jitsu, you pull out a definition of that word which (you claim) does not fit Yiddishkeit, and declare that anything called a "religion" must not be Yiddishkeit. I might as well say that since my aunt is a secretary, a secretary is a kind of desk, and Jesus was a carpenter, therefore Jesus made my aunt! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 14:10:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 17:10:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> At 01:07 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. But doesn't "evolving" mean that there is an existing minhag, and it evolves? Here we are talking about a new minhag which no one knew about. The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was appropriate. People certainly can make up new customs whenever they like. But bonfires on Lag Ba'omer are no more or no less than parades on Yom haAtzmaut for those who celebrate it: They have nothing to do with religion. Some Jews have even invented a custom to put up a tree on Chanukkah. But do not try to tell us it then becomes a "religious minhag" and "minhag Hamokom." Everything that Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel wrote in his post is true. There were no rabbonim at the time who approved of the custom. Indeed it is true is that there were no rabbonim who approved of the custom at the time, nor at the time of the Ari and R. Chaim Vital. While they did not say it should be stopped, they gave no support either. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 15:42:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 18:42:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150507224237.GA15428@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 05:10:31PM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote: : At 01:07 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: :> Minhagim evolve, that's what they do. : But doesn't "evolving" mean that there is an existing minhag, and it : evolves? ... The essence of mourning during the omer is not making a wedding, since nissuin, or a se'udas eirusin at the time of eirusin, is the act of simchah par exellance. Then the bit about haircuts crept in, and later, parties with music. Perhaps music as a whole, perhaps instrumental music, perhaps only parties -- machloqes acharonim. That's the minhag I'm talking about evolving. So, people found reason to poke a hole in a minhag that was otherwise growing. As I said, minhagim evolve. : The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was : appropriate. What? The Ari PARTICIPATED in it himself! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 33rd day, which is micha at aishdas.org 4 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Hod: LAG B'OMER - What is total Fax: (270) 514-1507 submission to truth, and what results? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 16:39:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 19:39:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Upsherin In-Reply-To: <20150507213225.D3EDA181A25@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507213225.D3EDA181A25@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554BF7A0.10800@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 05:31 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > The earliest reports of the chalaka [upsherin] celebration are found in >accounts written by Sepharadim early in the period of the Acharonim. Indeed it is. For instance, see Gan Hamelech ch 62. http://www.otzar.org/wotzar/book.aspx?64092 This takes it back to at least the 17th century, and he refers to it as a well-known minhag that he doesn't have to explain. The Gan Hamelech is surely himself sufficient authority even if we had no other. And while he was Sefardi, he had a great influence on Ashkenazi psak. > The most important source concerning the chalaka is the account of > the celebration in which the Ari-zal is involved. The details of this > story are somewhat vague, and it is unclear whether the Ari-zal made > a chalaka for his son, or whether the account refers to his disciple, > Rabbi Yonatan Sagish. There is nothing vague about it. It's clear from the context that R Yonatan told R Chaim what the Ari had done a year before he, R Chaim, became the Ari's talmid. > Some have also questioned the permissibility of haircutting on Lag > Ba'omer, during bein ha-metzarirn or during Chol Hamo'ed. Gan Hamelech not only permits it on Chol Hamoed but even permits *delaying* it to Chol Hamoed so as to increase the simcha! And this psak is quoted lehalacha by the Baer Hetev. > The custom of /chalaka /was never accepted in /Ashkenazic /countries or > other regions in Western Europe, not even among the /Sephardic > /communities in these areas. The practice earned acceptance in Eastern > Europe among certain /Chasidic /circles, but only in later generations. This is untrue. It was already accepted in the Baal Shem Tov's time. The only time the Alter Rebbe saw the Baal Shem Tov was on his third birthday, when his parents brought him to have his hair cut. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 16:45:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 07 May 2015 19:45:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <554BF921.5070409@sero.name> On 05/07/2015 05:10 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was appropriate. On the contrary, he wrote that he personally saw the Ari take his whole family there and stay three days! > There were no rabbonim at the time who approved of the custom. The Ari was not a rov?! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 21:35:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 04:35:03 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Israeli carrots and peppers Message-ID: <20150508.003503.13248.1@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> Om Areivim, R' Yitzchok Levine posted this alert: > Shemitta: Carrots & Peppers from Israel > in Neighborhood Stores > > Please be aware that carrots (including Dorot Farms brand), > peppers, and other vegetables from Israel are consistently > being sold in the Baltimore area at produce markets in our > neighborhood, which are frequented by members of our community. > From the numerous inquiries we have received, it is apparent > that many consumers are unaware of this when shopping. > > The packages or labels state "Product of Israel." These > vegetables likely have Kedushas Shviis and require special > care. If you bought them, contact your local Orthodox rabbi > for further guidance. > > Seven Mile Market in Baltimore is monitored by Star-K and > produce sold there does not have this issue. My question is this: Why does the alert mention only the problem of Kedushas Shviis? If one is concerned about Kedushas Shviis, wouldn't he also be concerned about Sefichin, which (more than merely requiring "special care") is an issur achila? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554c3d3271e3c3d3240a3st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 21:11:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 04:11:14 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Meron live Message-ID: <20150508.001114.13248.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero wrote: > This way of looking at things also explains whether one should > say tachanun at mincha of erev Lag Ba'omer. If it's just "the > end of shiva", that starts in the morning, so one should say > tachanun at the previous mincha, just as one does on erev Pesach > Sheni (which also starts in the morning), erev Erev RH and erev > Erev YK, and if we said tachanun in Nissan we would also say it > at mincha of erev Erev Pesach, because it too starts in the > morning. But once we regard Lag Ba'omer as a day of simcha in > its own right, then it starts at night, and so we omit tachanun > in the previous mincha. I don't follow any of what RZS is saying about Lag Ba'omer, so I'll neither agree nor disagree. But my understanding of the nature of Pesach Sheni is very different from his: As it was explained to me, there's nothing special about the morning of Pesach Sheni. Pesach Sheni exists only on the afternoon of 14 Iyar and the following night. We omit Tachanun on the morning of 14 Iyar NOT because it is a holiday, but because it is the Tachanun *before* the holiday. Alternatively, one might say that the morning of 14 Iyar actually *is* Erev Pesach Sheni. Either way, the afternoon of 13 Iyar is too far removed to be significant enough to warrant skipping Tachanun. It is similar to how the *afternoon* of Erev RH and Erev YK are special enough to skip Tachanun, and this is extended even to the morning, but to say that the entirety of those days are so special that we would skip Tachanun even at the preceding Mincha -- No, that just doesn't fly. This leaves us with three days, at most, when we skip Tachanun at Shacharis, but we *do* say it at the preceding Mincha. (And many siddurim - ArtScroll, for example - explicitly list these three days as exceptions to the general rule.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/554c37b79791d37b756e9st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 01:40:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 04:40:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: <20150507224237.GA15428@aishdas.org> References: <20150507140310.64971182ADA@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507170707.GB1758@aishdas.org> <20150507211115.046C5181C94@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150507224237.GA15428@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150508084208.2D02F182131@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:42 PM 5/7/2015, Micha Berger wrote: > The Pri Etz Chaim never said that the Ari said it was >: appropriate. > >What? The Ari PARTICIPATED in it himself! From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upsherin Rabbi Chaim Vital wrote in Sha'ar Ha-Kavanot that "Isaac Luria, cut his son's hair on Lag BaOmer, according to the well-known custom." However, the age of his son is not mentioned. An obvious problem raised by Avraham Yaari, in an article in Tarbiz 22 (1951), is that many sources cite that the Arizal held one should not cut one's hair for the entire sefirah ? including Lag BaOmer, (see Shaarei Teshuva, O.C. 493, 8). YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 01:44:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 04:44:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Better Version of Upsherin Message-ID: <20150508084606.6189F180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> There were some editorial problems with what I sent out earlier about this topic from Shorshei Minhag Ashkenaz. See http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/shorshei_hair_cutting.pdf for a better version. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 7 21:02:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 06:02:54 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah In-Reply-To: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> References: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> Message-ID: <554C356E.2030103@zahav.net.il> On 5/7/2015 8:41 PM, Herbert Basser via Avodah wrote: > A recent post claims the Islamic "opsherin" was called "halaqah". What > is the evidence for this claim? The only meaning of arabic "halaqah" I > know is "learning circle". A (Tunisian) Arab told me that it means hair cut. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 01:54:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 04:54:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening in a Large or Small Shul Message-ID: <20150508085532.23F97182131@nexus.stevens.edu> From today's http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ 1)It is a Mitzvah to daven in a Shul that has a large amount of people, as the Pasuk (Mishlei 14:28) says "Brov Am Hadras Melech - with a large assemblage the glory of the King [Hashem] is multiplied." (See Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) 2)There are various exceptions to this rule, and certain times it is deemed Halachically superior to daven in a smaller place and forego the "Brov Am Hadras Melech". A few examples of the many such exceptions: a)Davening in a Bais HaMidrash or Yeshiva , where people learn Torah all [or a large part of the] day (even if you yourself do not learn there) is better than davening in a Shul (i.e. Bais Hakneses that is used only for Tefilah), even if there are more people in the Shul than in the Bais HaMidrash. (See Talmud Brachos 8a. See Chayei Adam Klal 17:1 and Mishna Berura Siman 90 S:K 55) b)If one is on the way to a big Shul, and is stopped by someone and asked to be the tenth man [or any part of the 10] in their Minyan (either in a shiva house, or a smaller Shul whose members cannot go to the larger Shul due to their health or age, or any similar situation) he should stay with them and not refuse based on "Brov Am Hadras Melech" (Psak of Maran Harav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv Zatzal, quoted in Sefer Tefilah K'Hilchasa Perek 2 footnote 29, who maintains that doing a Chesed is just as big a Mitzvah, if not bigger, than fulfilling "Brov Am Hadras Melech") c) If one can concentrate and daven better in a smaller Shul he should daven there, rather than in a bigger Shul where he may not daven as well. (Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) The Aruch Hashulchan (Siman 90:15) rules that if in the larger Shul there are people who talk and converse during the Tefilah (which is a terrible sin, as we have discussed many times, and will iy"H discuss again more thoroughly in the near future), it is better to daven in a small Shul where it is quiet and the proper respect for Tefilah is exhibited. (The Sefer Tefilah K'Hilchasa Perek 2 footnote 28 writes that Rav Shlomo Zalmen Auerbach Zatzal even went so far as to Pasken that if by leaving the Shul with the talking you will end up missing Krias HaTorah or having to leave davening early, one should still avoid the Shul with the talking!) d) Naturally, if by davening in the larger Shul one will miss the proper time for davening (Zman Tefilah), he may daven in an earlier Minyan or Shul even if it is significantly smaller. (See Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) ---------- I think that today there is a move away from davening in large shuls. This is certainly true here in Brooklyn where many of the larger shuls are at times struggling to maintain their congregants. Part of it has to do with the fact that most large shuls daven Ashkenaz, and this is not viewed favorably in Brooklyn. I personally prefer to daven in a minyan consisting of between 20 and forty people. It is much easier to maintain decorum in such a minyan than in a shul where 100 or more people are davening. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 05:14:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 12:14:58 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Davening in a Large or Small Shul In-Reply-To: <20150508085532.23F97182131@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150508085532.23F97182131@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <5f05607383324977a92361bd65ab804c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> From today's http://halachafortodaycom.blogspot.com/ 1)It is a Mitzvah to daven in a Shul that has a large amount of people, as the Pasuk (Mishlei 14:28) says "Brov Am Hadras Melech - with a large assemblage the glory of the King [Hashem] is multiplied." (See Mishna Berura Siman 90 S"K 28) 2)There are various exceptions to this rule, and certain times it is deemed Halachically superior to daven in a smaller place and forego the "Brov Am Hadras Melech". A few examples of the many such exceptions:....................... ================================================ I wonder if this write up is indicative of a trend seen in "The halachos of X" works, likutim which seem to have become more popular (did they exist 40 years ago?). As Rav Aharon Lichtenstein learned at Harvard, life is complex. Of course there are overarching priorities which need to be learned, but specific applications are hard to summarize in an algorithmic form (see hilchot lashon hara and tzedaka for some obvious examples). Maybe in an internet age we have no choice but to try to put everything on line but what you really need IMHO is a live mentor. KT Joel RIch THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 08:21:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 11:21:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] minhagei S'fira (was "Meron live") Message-ID: In Avodah V33n74, R'Micha replied to RDrYL: : PS. My wife has asked more than once, " How can they observe the : aveilus restrictions of Sefirah during Pesach when it is a Yom Tov?" : My reply is, "I do not know." > You can't get married on Pesach, not even ch"m either. Nor get a haircut. So you're asking about parties with live music. < If one is asking about *minhagei aveilus* during the "first days", one can also ask about the "second days" custom to observe *minhagei aveilus* whenever Tachanun is said, as the number of such days does not come close to 33 and one has to include Shabbos as well as either R'Ch'Iyyar or the *shloshes y'mei hagbala* (all days when Tachanun is _not_ said) in the number. All the best from *Michael Poppers* * Elizabeth, NJ, USA -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 11:39:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 14:39:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] minhagei S'fira (was "Meron live") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150508183940.GA11944@aishdas.org> On Fri, May 08, 2015 at 11:21:28AM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : If one is asking about *minhagei aveilus* during the "first days", one can : also ask about the "second days" custom to observe *minhagei aveilus* whenever : Tachanun is said... Which makes it a good time to remind people of my tweak of RAM's survey of 11 different shitos (12, if we include one that isn't followed) of omer mourning periods It's an interesting side-note that two opinions do not include the night of Lag baOmer. But neither end then. :-)BBii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 8 11:58:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 14:58:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] minhagei S'fira (was "Meron live") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <554D0756.4070105@sero.name> On 05/08/2015 11:21 AM, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: > If one is asking about /minhagei aveilus/ during the "first days", > one can also ask about the "second days" custom to observe /minhagei > aveilus/ whenever Tachanun is said, as the number of such days does > not come close to 33 and one has to include Shabbos as well as either > R'Ch'Iyyar or the /shloshes y'mei hagbala/ (all days when Tachanun is > _not_ said) in the number. Whose custom is that? This sounds like the shita of Tosfos as quoted by Mahari ibn Shuaib, which is that they died all 49 days, but we observe aveilus only on those days when we don't say *techina*, which comes to exactly 33 days (including Lag Ba'omer, which according to this shita is not a special day at all). -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 9 03:38:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joe Slater via Avodah) Date: Sat, 9 May 2015 20:38:40 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Upsherin Message-ID: > > R' Levin wrote: The German custom to bring a young boy to the synagogue > with a wimpel > (wrapping for the Torah scroll) has no connection whatsoever to the > practice of the chalaka [...] > This is the way KAJ recommends This the way KAJ recommends Not with the bangs but a wimpel. Joe Slater -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 9 05:12:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sat, 9 May 2015 22:12:16 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Meron live In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <418AFCD6-9213-453C-A268-58AFB75BB81A@balb.in> I didn't know my family Minhag until I chanced on a picture before the war with my grandfather and two of his sons, both with long hair. Using the mimetic tradition my sons and grandsons had an upsherin. It's interesting that mention was made of The Griz. As is well known followers of the Vilna Gaon (including Mori VRabbi Rav Hershel Schachter) don't go to the Beis HaChaim and neither did Rav YD Soloveitchik until in his words he felt compelled to visit his wife's Tziyun. How many know that the Griz asked some Talmidim to go to the Rashbi's grave and pray when the Griz was on his death bed? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 9 12:23:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 9 May 2015 22:23:58 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar Message-ID: The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article They show how Seder Olam is self consistent and in particular it frequently takes people in Tanach whom seem to be different and conflates them. In sefer shoftim they take everything literally that each judge was for 40 years and no gaps between them etc. They then address the difference between the secular and seder olam dates. They also point out the difficulty in the sefer Isuah from chapter 39 onwards (Deutero-Isaiah) 1) the sudden change from rebuke and sestruction to comfort (many years before the destruction) 2) Koresh is listed explicitly twice while prophecy tends to be general 3) Yeshayahu is mention 15 times in the first part but never is mentioned in the second part They conclude that the secular dates are correct (as an aside archaeologists decide on these dates based on astronomical events and carbon 14 dating of pollen seeds which are short lived) They then explain seder olam dating 1) seder olam was not written as a historical text but has a moral side 2) seder olam ignores periods of time when nothing of Jewish importance occurs In particular the Persian era until Shimon Hagadol did not live up to the expectations. Hence, the prophecy of Isaiah-II (name unknown) was simply added to an existing sefer 3) as with its practice conflates Darius I with Darius III. 4) The new Greek calendar (shtarot) was exactly 1000 years after the exodus. In order to achieve this goal parts of the Persian history had to be changed including the order of some kings, again conflating several separate Persian kings which leads to a much shortened Persian kingdom. Finally it removes 6 years from Alexander the great (ie seder olam states Alexander ruled for 6 years in Greece and 6 years in Persia) See above article for more details -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 10 16:49:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 May 2015 18:49:22 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <554FEE82.8090903@starways.net> I think this is tragic. Rather than allow the blasphemous thought that the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their minds, they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple frauds and told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern Orthodox Jews have regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic. Lisa On 5/9/2015 2:23 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a > series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar > > http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see > achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article > > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 10 17:27:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 May 2015 20:27:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <554FF779.8010200@aishdas.org> I cannot believe TABC allowed this to be published as is. /Shreklach!/ KT, YGB On 05/09/2015 03:23 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a > series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar > > http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see > achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 02:19:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 12:19:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebre calendar Message-ID: <> I don't see how you can call this "blasphemous" R. Schwab once suggested that Chazal purposely changed the facts for a good reason. While he later retracted it would be hard to call his original opinion "blasphemous" . Furthermore several current Orthodox rabbis such as R. Leibtag do accept the secular dating. In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some examples 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu As a curios it makes Eliyahu some 700 years old when he runs in front of Achav's chariot. It gives a different meaning to Achav's accusations against Eliyahu when Eliyahu actually worked together with Moshe Rabbenu. Besiades the fact that Eliyahu was from Gilad and worked in the northern kingdom it leaves the halachic question whether a cohen gadol can resign and even leave the land of Israel for various tasks. It is clear from Tanach that Eli and other were the high priest in later generations 2) Ezta = Malachi because both dealt with the problem of foreign wives 3) Nechemia = Zerubavel R. Yaakov Embden already points out that both are mentioned in the same pasuk 4) Daniel = Hatach = Sashvezer Ibn Ezra already doesnt accept this 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta This is part of the missing years controversy. Note that there are several ancient Persian inscriptions that list them as separate kings Note that Ibn Ezra identifies Achashverosh as Artachashasta 6) Conflates Kaleb ben Chetron married to Efrat with Kalen ben Yefuneh married to Miriam Ibn Ezra disagrees and also see the Gra -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 10 23:38:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 09:38:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah In-Reply-To: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> References: <1431024107637.64880@queensu.ca> Message-ID: On Thu, May 7, 2015 at 9:41 PM, Herbert Basser via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > A recent post claims the Islamic "opsherin" was called "halaqah". What > is the evidence for this claim? The only meaning of arabic "halaqah" I know > is "learning circle". > Disclaimer: my knowledge of Arabic doesn't go much beyond being able to look up words in the dictionary, but from doing that the root h-l-q seems to mean both "shave", "form a circle" and "round off". This makes sense to me: after all, "lehakkif" in Biblical Hebrew has the same semantic range. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 03:06:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 06:06:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] He is my G-d Message-ID: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> From Today's Hakhel email bulletin. Hakhel Note: The following is excerpted from Rav Schwab on Prayer, and was related by Rav Schwab at a Shiur he gave on Tefillah: I heard a story from Rav Yosef Breuer, Shlita, which he told about his father, my Rebbe, Rav Shlomo Zalman (Solomon) Breuer. The elder Rav Breuer was a very good friend of Rav Shimon Sofer, the Rav of Cracow, a brother of the Ksav Sofer, and a son of the Chasam Sofer. Once when the two friends met, Rav Shimon Sofer asked Rav Breuer to tell him a short ?vort" from his father-in-law, Rav Shamshon R. Hirsch. Upon which, Rav Breuer told him that Rav Hirsch would point out that while Adon Olam described the unfathomable eternity and omnipotence of Hashem, it nevertheless makes a reference to Him in a very personal way--VeHu Kaili, He is my G-d. Each person in his Tefillah says: I have a personal relationship with HaKadosh Baruch HU, He is my personal G-d. Therefore, whenever a person says the word Ado--i, my Master, no matter how small he thinks he is, he is averring that he is in direct contact with Hashem. This thought is in the introduction to any individual's Iyun Tefillah, concentration on Prayer. There is nothing mystical or supernatural about it. It should be the most natural thing in the world. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 06:38:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 13:38:51 GMT Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebre calendar Message-ID: <20150511.093851.15442.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> R' Eli Turkel wrote: > In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that > Chazal had a tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some > examples > 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu I rarely, if ever, come across the word "conflate", except here on Avodah. When it is used here, it seems to be pejorative, indicating that someone confused or merged two things that really ought to stay distinct. RET, is that what you mean here? Do you feel that it was wrong for Chazal to associate Pinchas and Eliyahu in the way that they did? Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5550b1061639931057a29st01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 07:16:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joseph Kaplan via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 10:16:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar Message-ID: <002a01d08bf5$1a951290$4fbf37b0$@tenzerlunin.com> On 5/9/2015 2:23 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > The student newspaper of the Torah Academy of Bergen County had a > series of articles on the missing years in the Jewish calendar > > http://www.tabc.org/student-publications/kol-torah/index.aspx - see > achrei mot-kedoshim for the 3rd (final) article > There were (so far) two responses: "I think this is tragic. Rather than allow the blasphemous thought that the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their minds, they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple frauds and told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern Orthodox Jews have regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic." "I cannot believe TABC allowed this to be published as is. /Shreklach!/" When I read this when it came out I remember thinking: what a refreshing concept. Letting students use the educational tools they have been given to think on their own and then to publish the results which (to my extremely non-expert eyes) appears to be a nice bit of research and analysis - whether correct or not. Joseph -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 07:30:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 09:30:18 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebre calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> On 5/11/2015 4:19 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > < that the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their > minds, they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple > frauds and told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern > Orthodox Jews have regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic.>> > > I don't see how you can call this "blasphemous" R. Schwab once > suggested that Chazal purposely changed the facts for a good reason. > While he later retracted it would be hard to call his original opinion > "blasphemous" . Furthermore several current Orthodox rabbis such as R. > Leibtag do accept the secular dating. I didn't call it blasphemous. I referred to doubting secular scholarship as blasphemy, tongue in cheek, because that seems to be the way it's viewed by some of the secular thinking Modern Orthodox. R' Schwab once wrote a thought experiment, which was one huge hava amina. What if, he said, we were faced with absolute proof that the historiography of Chazal was wrong? And he gave an idea. He was horrified by the way in which the secular thinking Modern Orthodox misread what he wrote as an actual position, opposing the veracity of Chazal, and wrote, not a retraction, but a clarification that he had *never* espoused the position that was being attributed to him. If R' Leibtag accepts the secular dating, then my comments about the tragedy of Modern Orthodox Jews bowing to the modern idol of secular scholarship apply there as well. > In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a > tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some examples > > 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu > As a curios it makes Eliyahu some 700 years old when he runs in front > of Achav's chariot. > It gives a different meaning to Achav's accusations against Eliyahu > when Eliyahu actually worked together with Moshe Rabbenu. Wrong again. There's no historiography going on here. No chronological framework of any kind. It's Midrash. Like Moshe Rabbenu jumping 10 amot into the air when fighting Og. Like Pharaoh's daughter having a stretchy, Fantastic Four kind of arm. Midrashim are all true. They aren't all true in the literal sense. Pinchas was not literally Aharon's grandson Pinchas ben Elazar. That's quite different from throwing away the entirety of Chazal's historiography, which is internally consistent all the way through, and which *Chazal clearly believed to be literally true*. If you want to say they were wrong, that they were ignorant of the facts, go ahead and do so. But please, don't play games by imagining that they intentionally fudged the facts. > Besiades the fact that Eliyahu was from Gilad and worked in the > northern kingdom it leaves the halachic question whether a cohen gadol > can resign and even leave the land of Israel for various tasks. It is > clear from Tanach that Eli and other were the high priest in later > generations Again, he wasn't Kohen Gadol. No one holds that he was. Let me try and explain a little more about Midrash. Chazal bring Midrashim that contradict one another. For example, there's a Midrash that says Esther never slept with Achashveirosh. That Hashem sent a mal'ach that took her place. That conflicts with "Esther karka hayta", as well as with the Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son. None of this is problematic. Because the truth of Midrashim is not in their concretes. Like analogies, Midrashim are abstractions which are anchored with concretes, but are not defined by those concretes. > 2) Ezta = Malachi because both dealt with the problem of foreign wives And maybe Ezra was Malachi. And maybe he wasn't. I don't see much of a nafka mina either way. Do you? > 3) Nechemia = Zerubavel > R. Yaakov Embden already points out that both are mentioned in the > same pasuk Ditto. Not one single example you're bringing has anything to do with a massive chronological framework that Chazal clearly knew to be the way things happened. Megillat Esther took place *before* Bayit Sheni was built, and not after. Baruch ben Neriah was the talmid of Yirmiyahu and the rav of Ezra, and if you throw that away, you literally snap the chain of tradition from Sinai, rendering all of Judaism stuff and nonsense. > 4) Daniel = Hatach = Sashvezer > Ibn Ezra already doesnt accept this Again, l'mai nafka mina? > 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta > This is part of the missing years controversy. Note that there are > several ancient Persian inscriptions that list them as separate kings > Note that Ibn Ezra identifies Achashverosh as Artachashasta It's not part of the missing years anything. You need to read what Chazal say about that inside. As far as Achashveirosh being Artachshasta, Chazal say Artaxerxes was a throne name. And in fact, Greek sources say that both Artaxerxes II and III adopted it as a throne name. Furthermore, the Septuagint version of Esther refers to the king as Artaxerxes, so saying that Ahasuerus is Artaxerxes is a truism that has nothing to do with chronology. > 6) Conflates Kaleb ben Chetron married to Efrat > with Kalen ben Yefuneh married to Miriam > Ibn Ezra disagrees and also see the Gra I'll go further. R' Moshe Eisenmann's Divrei HaYamim for Artscroll (one of the few books in the Artscroll Tanakh series which I consider to be of inestimable value) has an entire section on the Kalevs. I highly recommend it. But again, Midrash is Midrash, and there's zero relevance here. Let me ask a simple question. Was Baruch ben Neriya Ezra's teacher? As Chazal say, and as Iggeret Rav Shrira Gaon and Rambam and others bring down. Or not? And if not, how do you feel about *not* having a chain of tradition going back to Sinai? Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 08:17:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 11:17:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: <20150511.093851.15442.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150511.093851.15442.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150511151732.GA15699@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 01:38:51PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I rarely, if ever, come across the word "conflate", except here on : Avodah. When it is used here, it seems to be pejorative, indicating that : someone confused or merged two things that really ought to stay distinct. I think that's my doing; I like the word. And yeah, it is merging two things that may be helpful in another context to keep distinct, but without being as pejorative as saying they confused them. If one assumes that Chazal's statements about the past are intended to be about how the past should have happened rather than caring about actual historicity, then their saying that Pinchas is Eliyahu is the identification of what Pinechas means to us with what Eliyahu means, and giving us a license to treat the two are a single symbol. With no intent to imply they were historically the same very-long-lived human being. I would also want a little more clarity from those who object to claims about missing years between levels of objection. Do you mean: 1- This isn't my derekh. 2- I cannot see this even as eilu va'eilu, it's simply false. 3- It is heretical. At least one of us used the latter language, and I don't see it. We have a definition of heresy, three definitions of three subtypes of heres, anyway (kofer, apiqreis, min). Is anyone actually intending to claim that it violates an iqar emunah to take Chazal's dating of events in the Galus Paras uMadai and early Bayis Sheini period as ahistorical, meant for some hashkafic reason? Or is it an epistomological thing? If you believe the academic community's interpretation of the evidence and will create new peshatim to fit in this case, you've bought into a system that would equally argue for kefirah? And for the two people who dismiss the Greek version of Persian history: What do you do with the astronomical state points thrown in that actually work? As RET noted last year, around Purim time, if you read Ezra and Nechemiah literally, ignoring Sefer Olam, it is more consistent with Greek historians than Chazal. I found he gave details in 1999 (v2n176) To quote: ... proofs for the secular history 1. external proofs A. The history of Herodotus (485-425 BCE) discusses in detail the lives of Cyrus, Cambyses,Darius and Xerxes and briefly Atraxerxes who was a contemporary of Herodutus. It is hard to conceive that he wrote about contedmporay figures or recent history who did not exist. Note that according to Chazal the Persians did not come into power until 350 BCE 75 years after the death of Herodutus !!! Thucydides (460-400 BCE) starts with Cyrus and goes through Darius II and the fights between Athens and Sparta and the Peloponnesian Wars. Again according to Seder Olam Rabbah there was no time for all these wars and so probably many of these Athenian and Spartan leaders did not exist. Ctesias (430-380) was a physician in the court of Artaxerxes and describes the 7 kings from Cyrus through Artaxerxes II. There are also later Greek historians who give the complete picture. Josephus also includes more kings than Chazal but not the entire Greek list. Moderchai Breuer in his history accepts the Greek dating. See Parker&Dubberstein, Babylonian Chronology for more details. Note: No modern historian claims that all facts in these histories are true. That is a far cry from stating that the entire history and not just certain details are fabrications and that all these kings never existed. B. Archaological evidence has uncovered many ancient Persian (cuneform) enscriptions (see for example The Persian Empire by J.M. Cook). For example one at the Persian palace in Persepolis says "I, Artaxerxes the son of Artaxerxes the son of Darius the son of Artaxerxes the son of Xerxes the son of Darius the son of Hystaspes" (Darius was not the son of Cambyses). Greek names have used for the original Persian names. There are other earlier enscriptions which are similar. These all conform to the Greek dating. C. There are letters from the Jewish community in Elephantine confirming the Greek position. D. I recently read of the history of the Assyrians. In their history they describe the reign of Sancherub and of a major eclipse of the sun during some battle. Astronomical calaculations confirm that the only full eclipse of the sun in that region occurred exactly during the dates of Sancherub according to the Greek chronology. 2. Internal Proofs A. Ezra 45,7 describes Koresh, Daryavesh, Achasverosh, Artachasta. These exactly parallel the Greek chronology with Achasversh=Xerxes. If one looks at the Persian writing rather than the Greek names then Xerxes is called khshayarsha which is close to Achashverosh (note Cambyses is left out probably because nothing of importance to Ezra occured during that reign). Note that Daat Mikrah on Ezra 4 assumes the secular dates. B. Nehemia 12:10 lists 6 High Priests, son after son, between Yehosua and Yadua. This is hard to explain if the whole period was on 52 years. It is even worse if one assumes that Shimon haTzaddik was the high Priest at the time of Alexander as that adds at least one more high Priest in the 52 years According to Ben Sira Shimon was the son of Johanan which would make of total of at least 8 high priests in 52 years all presumably sons of the previous one. C. Comparing Divrei Hayaim I: 3:19-24 with Ezra 8:2 and Nehemia 3:29 it seems that Ezra and Nehemis lived many years after Zerubbavel. Note: Daniel 11:2 seems more in line with chronology of Chazal. Second Note: According to Seder Olam Purim occured before the rebuilding of the second Temple while according to the secular chronology Achashverosh was the son of Darius and so the Temple was already in existence. According to Chazal, Daniel, Zerubavel, Ezra, Nehemia, Mordecai, Hagai, Zerchahiah and Malachi and even Shimon haTzaddik were basically contemporaries or within 1 to 2 generations of each other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 37th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Yesod: When does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 require one to be strict with another? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 06:52:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 09:52:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tachanun on Pesach Sheni (was Meron Live) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150511135043.8781C182131@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:31 AM 5/11/2015, R. Akiva Miller wrote: >As it was explained to me, there's nothing special about the morning >of Pesach Sheni. Pesach Sheni exists only on the afternoon of 14 >Iyar and the following night. We omit Tachanun on the morning of 14 >Iyar NOT because it is a holiday, but because it is the Tachanun >*before* the holiday. Alternatively, one might say that the morning >of 14 Iyar actually *is* Erev Pesach Sheni. Either way, the >afternoon of 13 Iyar is too far removed to be significant enough to >warrant skipping Tachanun. From http://tinyurl.com/ln7le2m Some say Tachanun on Pesach Sheni (14 Iyar); some do not; some do not say Tachanun on 14 & 15 Iyar. What are the sources for these customs? Those who do say Tachanun probably do so because 14 Iyar is not listed as a day where Tachanun was customarily omitted by the Tur, anyone quoted in the Beit Yosef or Bach, by the Shulchan Aruch and its Mapah, the Levush, the Eliya Rabba, the Taz, the Magen Avraham, the Beiur haGra, the Chayei Adam, the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, the Mishna Berura and others. The Aruch haShulchan notes the custom of omitting Tachanun as foreign to Ashkenaz and deems it a 'wonder' (Pelah ). And from http://www.dinonline.org/2010/04/27/tachanun-on-erev-pesach-sheni/ Do we say Tachanun at minchah on Erev Pesach Sheni? Answer Yes [Shulchan Aruch Harav, Piskei Hassidur, end of Hilchos Krias Shema uTefilloh] YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 07:00:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 10:00:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Davening in a Large or Small Shul In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150511135900.11012181E6C@nexus.stevens.edu> At 06:31 AM 5/11/2015, R. Joel Rich wrote: >I wonder if this write up is indicative of a trend seen in "The >halachos of X" works, likutim which seem to have become more popular >(did they exist 40 years ago?). As Rav Aharon Lichtenstein learned >at Harvard, life is complex. Of course there are overarching >priorities which need to be learned, but specific applications are >hard to summarize in an algorithmic form (see hilchot lashon hara >and tzedaka for some obvious examples). Maybe in an internet age we >have no choice but to try to put everything on line but what you >really need IMHO is a live mentor. Did R. Aharon Lichtenstein really not know that life is complex before he went to Harvard? I am very sure that a man as intelligent as he was knew that life was complex long before he went to Harvard. I never went to Harvard, but I knew by 12 or 13 years old that life in indeed complex. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 09:45:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 12:45:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] He is my G-d In-Reply-To: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150511164501.GA29539@aishdas.org> *On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 06:06:53AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : From Today's Hakhel email bulletin. : :> Hakhel Note: The following is excerpted from Rav Schwab on Prayer, :> and was related by Rav Schwab at a Shiur he gave on Tefillah... We need a source, and such a well documented lineage for the source, to point out what the words say? Does no one try translating a poem they've recited since childhood (and that's true even for many BTs)? "Adon Olam" through "velo ha'oz vehamisrah", the first 2/3 or so, talks about how transcendent HQBH is. Then the poet (usually attributed to Ibn Geveirol, 11th cent CE) abruptly switches to "VeHu Keili ... Hashem li velo ira" -- that despite that transcendence, I am still capable of having a personal relationship with Him. Li nir'eh this is the key to understanding sheim havayah: 1- The tetragrammaton is a contraction of "Yihyeh, Hoveh, veHayah -- Will Be, Is and Was", referring to Hashem being timeless and beyond the created. An el, when used in the secular sense, is a legislative ruler, so that Elokeinu, is a declaration that He is our Lawgiver -- the Author of both moral law and physical law. Havayah denotes connotes a vision of Deity that is very Other, the philosopher's G-d; Elokus is One who relates to man. 2- The very remoteness of the name Havayah also implies Divine Mercy. Which is how Chazal describe its usage in chumash. This is not intuitive, however the need to create law comes from a person's limited ability to deal with many individual cases. A teacher with few students is effective, one with more students, less so. To manage a country, we need laws and policies, since we do not have infinite time and attention to cover every decision on a case-by-case basis. Therefore, it is only because Hashem is Infinite that Divine Mercy is possible. Therefore, this expression can be seen as a declaration of the unity of G-d, despite the different appearances of Mercy and Strict Justice. We can each say "veHu Keili" *because* "velo ha'oz vehamisrah". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 37th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Yesod: When does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 require one to be strict with another? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 09:06:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 19:06:59 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] He is my G-d In-Reply-To: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150511100526.DC5DA180D72@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 1:06 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > From Today's Hakhel email bulletin. > > Hakhel Note: The following is excerpted from *Rav Schwab on Prayer*, and > was related by Rav Schwab at a Shiur he gave on Tefillah: > ... > *whenever a person says the word Ado--i, my Master, no matter how small he > thinks he is, he is averring that he is in direct contact with Hashem*. > This thought is in the introduction to any individual's Iyun Tefillah, > concentration on Prayer. There is nothing mystical or supernatural about > it. It should be the most natural thing in the world. > I understand that "Rav Schwab on Prayer" was edited from recordings of RSS' shiurim, and I suspect that there is some misunderstanding here. If this is not mystical and supernatural, what is? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 11:12:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Herbert Basser via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 18:12:16 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah Message-ID: <1431367937499.87948@queensu.ca> Friendly amendment: When all else fails consult a dictionary-- where I found the root h-l-q both in hebrew and in arabic means "to make smooth" (no surprises here) and (surprise) a note after that indicating arabic h-l-q also applies to making the chin and the head smooth (hairless), i.e. "shaving".-- Not from the idea of rounding but from the idea of smoothing. Like in bereshit (27:11) esav was hairy and yaakov halaq. Zvi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 12:33:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 15:33:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150511193132.F24041829B7@nexus.stevens.edu> At 02:57 PM 5/11/2015, R. Eli Turkel wrote: ><the current vogue in scholarly circles might be wrong cross their minds, >they feel forced to conclude that Chazal perpetrated multiple frauds and >told multiple lies. The inferiority complex many Modern Orthodox Jews have >regarding secular scholarship is beyond tragic.>> > >I don't see how you can call this "blasphemous" R. Schwab once suggested >that Chazal purposely changed the facts for a good reason. While he later >retracted it would be hard to call his original opinion "blasphemous" . >Furthermore several current Orthodox rabbis such as R. Leibtag do accept >the secular dating. > >In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a >tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. The most definitive study on this topic is the recent book (2014) The Challenge of Jewish History: The Bible, The Greeks & The Missing 168 Years by Rabbi Alexander Hool From http://tinyurl.com/p42uvvj There is a well-known conundrum concerning Jewish history: The conventional chronology of the Western world - and academia - is in direct conflict with traditional Jewish sources over the history of ... history. Incredibly, there is a gap of roughly 200 years: For instance, the Talmud says the Second Temple stood for roughly 400 years, while mainstream historians today conclude that it stood for almost 600 years. This conflict has major implications on what occurred to who, and when. It also seems to question the accuracy of the entire Jewish tradition as accepted dating methods seem to contradict core parts of the traditional Jewish narrative. In presenting fresh and startling astronomical, mathematical and archaeological evidence, Rabbi Alexander Hool has charted new ground in his quest to find the solution to this ancient problem. The Challenge of Jewish History is revolutionary: it questions all assumptions, dispels unfounded myths, and transports us back in time over 2,500 years. With a subject of great significance and fascination to all those interested in history, and a wealth of scholarship and sources to impress academics, this intriguing book gives us a new perspective on .... This is a highly researched book based on Jewish and non-Jewish sources. the author concludes that there are no missing years and seems to prove his conclusion. I suggest that anyone who is really interested in this topic purchase this book. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 13:10:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Herbert Basser via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 20:10:00 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] chronology Message-ID: <1431375000749.45056@queensu.ca> [Transliteration mine. -micha] Seder Olam: Mahadurah Mada'it Peirush uMavo me'et Chaim Milikovsky's Makhor Yitzchaq ben Zvi shenei chalaqim, 326+711 amudim See Chaim Milikovsky's edition of Seder Olam for a very detailed explanation of all these issues in chazal's chronology and a critical edition of the readings of all extant manuscripts. The issues of chazal's chronologies were first highlighted at length by Azariah de Rossi's Meor Eynayim and should be settled by Milikowski's volume which took about 35 years to research. Chazal were great men but not modern historians, doctors, scientists, or nevi'im -- and certainly not liars. Zvi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 14:46:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 14:46:24 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] explanation Message-ID: the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not PC by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation for some shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a heterodox clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read those passages] . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other than the chok aspect] that the RBSO was looking from the perspective of the kahal and their kovod, and how they would react or be distracted by a baal mum. can someone supply a better take ? thanks -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 18:12:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 21:12:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: <20150429.073718.25006.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150429.073718.25006.0@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150512011220.GA19224@aishdas.org> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 11:37:18AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : Regardless of how the Bas Kol might be interpreted, is there any way : to understand "Nitzchuni banai!" other than Hashem personally siding : with one of the litigants, and losing? I don't see the closing of the story adding any problems the nissim themselves didn't. If you think they were about Hashem backing one side, then "nitzchui banai" is about that sice being defeated. If not, then it's whatever over reason He had for presenting misleading evidence that was defeated. Leshitas those who don't take eilu va'eilu literally and intead use a more classical logic with a law of contradition, the whole story is about HQBH choosing the process as a whole over the correctness of this one particular ruling. HQBH rejoicing that the chakhamim maintained the kelalei pesaq as they should rather than pay attention to His interferance. As the Maharitz Chayes understands it, by keeping the process viable, they keep the Torah eternal, capable of speaking to new circumstances as the world changes. "Nitzchuni banai -- My children have made Me eternal!" Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 37th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Yesod: When does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 require one to be strict with another? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 17:57:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 20:57:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55514FDD.4000100@sero.name> On 05/11/2015 05:46 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not > PC by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation > for some shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a > heterodox clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read > those passages] . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other > than the chok aspect] that the RBSO was looking from the perspective > of the kahal and their kovod, and how they would react or be > distracted by a baal mum. > > can someone supply a better take ? What's the difficulty? Hakriveihu no lefechosecho. The dignity of a king, and especially of The King, demands that all who serve Him be perfect in all respects. People with physical imperfections may be wonderful in many ways, but they are just that, imperfect. The current political correctness that refuses to acknowledge this is literally insane. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 15:31:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (D via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 23:31:27 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 12:19:57 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah > In any case the TABC article makes the clear point that Chazal had a > tendency to conflate figures in Tanach. Some examples > 1) Probably the most famous is Pinchas=Eliyahu ... > Besiades the fact that Eliyahu was from Gilad and worked in the northern > kingdom it leaves the halachic question whether a cohen gadol can resign > and even leave the land of Israel for various tasks. It is clear from > Tanach that Eli and other were the high priest in later generations Re Pinchos = Eliyohu The Ari says clearly [through the pen of R. Chaim Vital] in Shaar HaGilgulim that this refers to a gilgul neshomoh, not that he was literally the same person in body as well. DR From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 23:21:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 09:21:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew Calendar Message-ID: R' YGB writes: "I cannot believe TABC allowed this to be published as is. /Shreklach!/" Should we just bury our heads in the sand and not address these kinds of issues? Its very hard to hide information today, what happens when these kids get to college and find about the missing 165 years. What are they going to think? The fact is that Rabbi S. Schwab found this discrepancy a ?truly vexing problem? and wrote that the historical chronological dating: "?can hardly be doubted for they appear to be the result of painstaking research by hundreds of scholars and are borne out by profound erudition and by ever increasing authoritative evidence ... we are compelled to admit that the Bayis Sheni must have existed for no less than 586 years.? (Hakira A Y2K Solution to the Chronology Problem). If we don't address these kinds of questions (torah and science, the documentary hypothesis, etc.) then the implication that will be drawn by many people is that we don't have answers and we know what happens then. The Seforim blog (http://seforim.blogspot.com/2015/01/blog-post.html) not long ago reviewed a Sefer by R' Amnon Bazak, Ad Hayom Hazeh, which deals with many of the the issues that academia brings up related to Tanach. Are his answers compelling? Many times not. But at least he deals with the issues. A commentator there made a very important point, for those who have been exposed to these questions, we need seforim like this that at least attempt to deal with the issues raised and not simply bury our heads in the sand. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 01:36:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 11:36:40 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> References: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> Message-ID: > 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta <> Do these Greek sources explain how Koresh and Daryavush are the same person? Besides you use the parts of the Greek sources that you like and reject those that dont fit your thesis Now you rely on the Septuagint? Almost everyone else identifies Achashverosh with Xerxes, Besides the are several inscriptions in ancient Persian that give a detailed list of kings eg Artaxerxes the great king, king of kings king of peoples king on this earth son od Darius the king Darius son of Artaxerxes the king, Xerxes son of Darius the king Darius son of Hystapes the Archaemend proclaims .. As an aside modern chronology of Eygpt has been confirmed by recent carbon 14 dating. Dates of Sishak and other Assyrina and Babylonian kings have been confirmed by their writings combined with various astronomical events mentioned in their writings. <> That's your opinion. In fact many achronim take these conflating of names very seriously. While you claim Eliyahu wasn't a cohen gadol there is in fact a halachic literature whether he was or not and whether a cohen gadol can resign. For example see hebrewbooks Magen Tzvi siman 36 page 388 where he concludes that a Cohen Gadol (annointed by oil) who resigns still has all the laws of a cohen gadol You wrote "Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son " . However Darius's own version (Behustan) states that he was not the son of the previous king (see also above inscription on a wall) -------------------------- separately Marty Blake mentioned the sefer of R Amnon Bazak. The shiurim are also available in English http://etzion.org.il/en/topics/fundamental-issues-study-tanakh As Marty mentioned he discusses fundamental issues as are all pesukim in the Torah from Moshe Rabbenu, archaeology, accuracy of the text, Bible criticism, peshat and drash, sins of Biblical figures and many other controversial topics. I am sure that many of his solutions are also controversial. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 19:20:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 02:20:37 GMT Subject: [Avodah] explanation Message-ID: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Zev Sero wrote: <<< The dignity of a king, and especially of The King, demands that all who serve Him be perfect in all respects. People with physical imperfections may be wonderful in many ways, but they are just that, imperfect. >>> "... in all respects." Really? Where will you find such a person? No, that's an impossible task. For practicality's sake, He cannot and does not demand that all who serve Him be perfect in ALL respects. So instead, there is a set of criteria, and a set of shiurim by which to determine if one is *adequately* perfect. I can't imagine that anyone would disagree with what I wrote thus far. But then we'll go the next step, and study what sorts of things are on that list of criteria. For example, if one is a Mechalel Shabbos, or a murderer, he is disqualified from Birkas Kohanim, so I'd bet that he's disqualified from the avodah too. But those aren't the sort of mumim that the previous poster's Shabbos guests were asking about. They were asking about physical abnormalities. I hope it is okay if I rephrase their question to something like this: It is reasonable for The King to insist on a certain degree of moral perfection, but why is physical perfection relevant? Or to phrase it more bluntly, the kohanim should not be judged by the shape of their nose, but by the content of their character. (Of course, we are not disputing the halacha. The question is WHY the Torah considers physical abnormalities to be disqualifications.) Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/555163bfd843b63bf2454st03vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 11 22:43:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Wacholder via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 01:43:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] halaqah Message-ID: R? Zvi Basser points out ? H-L-Q was the haircut celebrated Lag B?Omer. Yes! Perhaps Chalak evokes Yaakov Avinu, aka Ish Chalak. An older version of Ibn Ezra's famous Tzama Nafshi has alternate ending stanzas. H?alo Chelk?cha Meirosh ? Addressing Hashem directly Chalak ? that is Yaakov Avinu the weak brother ? and his endless generations of martyrs Damo Darosh ? avenge and right the wrongs Shfoch HHamas Af al Rosh Hasa-ir Hachai ? let your anger pour over its proper target - . Ibn Ezra means that Hashem can grant Dveikus, Nevuah or Ruach Hakodesh. The Ibn Ezra 's philosophical approach ? said that the Nefesh ? as a Spiritual Heavenly entity ? can encounter the Ultimate Hashem ? directly. The alternate ? higher level of Hashkafa ? Tzama Nafshi has a verse ? now found in some better editions ? After dealing with Hagar rebelling against Sara (Shifha no-emmes) H?alo Chelk?cha Meirosh ? Chalak ? that is Yaakov ? and his endless generations of martyrs Damo Darosh ? avenge and right the wrongs Shfoch HHamas Af al Rosh Hasa-ir Hachai ? let your anger pour over its proper target - . -- Two other points ? the first verse in the alternat version of Tzama Nafshi: (See Kol Kisvei RAIE) Eil Chayy Bera-ani ? To my mind this means ? the always watching and involved One watching over us. Compare ? Chai Anochi LeOlam Im Shanosi Brak Charbi ? in Parshas Haazinu ? anger to avenge. Perhaps in Inquisitorial times ? Eil Echad Bera-ani was more relevant. Also fascinating ? The Ayin verse substitutes ? Al Kol Chasadecha ? Techadeish Eidecha!! References Iyov 10:17, where Ibn ezra refers to leprous blemishes. Posei-ach es Yadecha umasbia lechol chai ? directly allow Life, Deveikus and attachment to His Essence ? not the simple meaning of providing food . Earlier Ibn Ezra had said - Ki lo yir-ani ha-adam vachayy - no man can see Hashem and Chai ? no complete experience of Hashem. His Creation is Ne-elama hidden in its wisdom. Parshas Tazria has many multiple references to live healthy skin ? Basar Hachayy - as opposed to leprous skin. I would believe there are multiple references to Tazria Metzora. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 03:51:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 06:51:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150512105130.GC3499@aishdas.org> Lakol zeman va'eis... There is a time to force people to change their reflect reactions, and a time when the focus should be elsewhere. There are two kinds of mummim WRT kehunah (see Bechoros 43b): 1- mar'is ayin -- one whose appearance is repulsive to the people 2- eino shaveh bezar'o shel Aharon -- someone who is unique in appearance to the people (see Rambam, Bi'as haMiqdash 6:6) A kohein in the mar'is ayin category would pasl the avodah bedi'eved, one who is eino shaveh would violate an asei, but the avodah is kasher. Notice that both are defined by their impact on the observer. Presumably the point is that attention should be on avodah, not thoughts about the kohein performing it, or negative judgments of who is fit for service. But notice this is only for the Avodah.... a kohein with a baal mum was still expected to show up with his mishmar and do other necessary jobs. I am not even sure he is pasul from lighting the menorah. After all, we learn these mumim from the animals for qorbanos; it may apply to qorbanos in particular. So to me, the question is why isn't mid-qorban a good time to acclimate Kelal Yisrael away from such visceral reactions. But since I cannot get my head into the mindset of someone bringing a qorban, I leave the question tabled until I have the opportunity to learn what a qorban is like firsthand, bb"a. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 38th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Yesod: How does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 promote harmony in life and relationships? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 09:24:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 12:24:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: <20150512105130.GC3499@aishdas.org> References: <20150511.222037.6954.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> <20150512105130.GC3499@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150512162421.GA13065@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 6:51am EDT, I wrote: : There is a time to force people to change their reflect reactions, and a : time when the focus should be elsewhere. ... To add, there are TWO reactions that would distract from the purpose of the qorban: Both the person who is turned off by how Hashem made this particular kohein (either through birth, disease, or allowing him to suffer an acctident), and the person who would then turn his qorban into a bein adam lachaveiro rather than a qorban. The one who would be thinking about how touching it was the such a person overcame disability to help them bring it. Rather than simply thinking about G-d. Even according to R' Chaim Volozhiner or R' Shimon Shkop, who see bein adam lachaveiro as the ultimate purpose of life, and thus presumably bein adam laMaqom as a derived value, there is a time to care for the goose, rather than everything being about collecting the golden eggs. In fact, the farmer is likely to spend nearly al of his time into caring for the goose rather than the ultimate payoff. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 38th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Yesod: How does reliability Fax: (270) 514-1507 promote harmony in life and relationships? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 06:17:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 08:17:09 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] missing years in Hebrew calendar In-Reply-To: References: <5550BCFA.1090800@starways.net> Message-ID: <5551FD55.5090900@starways.net> On 5/12/2015 3:36 AM, Eli Turkel wrote: > 5) Koresh= Daryavush=Artachasta > < was a throne name. And in fact, Greek sources say that both > Artaxerxes II and III adopted it as a throne name. Furthermore, the > Septuagint version of Esther refers to the king as Artaxerxes, so > saying that Ahasuerus is Artaxerxes is a truism that has nothing to do > with chronology >> > Do these Greek sources explain how Koresh and Daryavush are the same > person? Fortunately, they don't have to, since that's just Midrash and has no nafka mina l'maaseh. > Besides you use the parts of the Greek sources that you like and > reject those that dont fit your thesis Of course I do. The Greek sources aren't what we would call "history" today. Herodotus collected folklore and picked the versions he liked to make a more entertaining story. He says himself that he heard 4 different and conflicting stories about Cyrus's backstory, and chose the one he liked best. He didn't even preserve the other three so that we could make our own decisions. He made his living in Greece by entertaining his patron(s) with exotic stories from exotic lands. > Now you rely on the Septuagint? Almost everyone else identifies > Achashverosh with Xerxes, Not so. Everyone recognizes that the *name* Achashveirosh is the same as the *name* Xerxes. Or rather, that both names are transliterations of the original Persian Khshayarsha. To say that "almost everyone else identifies Achashverosh with Xerxes" indicates that you aren't particularly well versed in the subject. I mean, at the very least, read the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahasuerus which notes which sources have identified him as which kings. > Besides the are several inscriptions in ancient Persian that give a > detailed list of kings eg > Artaxerxes the great king, king of kings king of peoples king on this > earth son od Darius the king Darius son of Artaxerxes the king, Xerxes > son of Darius the king Darius son of Hystapes the Archaemend proclaims .. Have you read the Behistun Inscription? Darius son of Hystaspes had it inscribed. In it, he talks about Babylonian kings who weren't actually Babylonian kings. At least not by our standards. They were pretenders, since Babylon had fallen to the Medes and Persians. But they gave themselves royal titles and claimed descent from Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus and the rest. From their point of view, they *were* kings of Babylon. From the Persian point of view, they were pretenders. Similarly, what do you think happened to Persia when Alexander conquered it? From one day to the next, Persia vaporized? Persia covered a huge area. Professor Levine posted about Rabbi Alexander Hool's book "The Challenge of Jewish History". I don't agree with all of his conclusions, and I'm embarrassingly late completing a review of the book, but he posits the Persian line continuing even after Alexander whupped Darius at Gaugamela. And in fact, the Parthian Empire, which started only about 70-80 years after the Alexandrian conquest, claimed descent from the Achaemenids of the Persian Empire. As did the later Sassanids. Names like Ardashir are just Late Persian versions of the Old Persian Artaxerxes. That's completely aside from the fact that we *know* there were forgeries perpetrated in ancient times for the purpose of establishing royal descent. Check out Roland Kent's article "The Present Status of Old Persian Studies" in /Journal of the American Oriental Society, /1936, vol. 56, p. 215ff. (http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/594668?uid=3739656&uid=2134&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21106376285721). A couple of inscriptions that are nothing but royal titles with no actual content to them is kind of flimsy evidence. Certainly not something strong enough to trash Chazal's entire picture of such an important period in our history. > As an aside modern chronology of Eygpt has been confirmed by recent > carbon 14 dating. Source. Because you may not be aware of this, but when you bring items in for carbon dating, you have to tell them -- up front -- what the rough date is that you think they're from. So that they can throw away any results that skew too far from that as "contaminated". The rest are subject to a fudge factor (sorry: correction factor) to help make them fit. But I'd like to see the source you have for carbon dating of modern Egyptian chronology. > Dates of Sishak and other Assyrina and Babylonian kings have been > confirmed by their writings combined with various astronomical events > mentioned in their writings. Assuming Sosenk = Shishak, which is iffy, considering that Sosenk only claims to have campaigned in the north of Israel, which would be odd for Shishak, whose son-in-law Yeravam was ruling there. The rest of what you're talking about is pure confirmation bias. They have a model and they shoehorn any evidence they find into that model, even if they have to kind of mush it in there. > < and explain a little more about Midrash. Chazal bring Midrashim that > contradict one another. For example, there's a Midrash that says > Esther never slept with Achashveirosh. That Hashem sent a mal'ach that > took her place. That conflicts with "Esther karka hayta", as well as > with the Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son. None of > this is problematic. Because the truth of Midrashim is not in their > concretes. Like analogies, Midrashim are abstractions which are > anchored with concretes, but are not defined by those concretes.>> > That's your opinion. In fact many achronim take these conflating of > names very seriously. While you claim Eliyahu wasn't a cohen gadol > there is in fact a halachic literature whether he was or not and > whether a cohen gadol can resign. > For example see hebrewbooks Magen Tzvi siman 36 page 388 where he > concludes that a Cohen Gadol (annointed by oil) who resigns still has > all the laws of a cohen gadol Midrash. And if it were something more solid than that, you'd have more than just some achronim saying so. > You wrote "Midrash that Darius the Persian was Esther's son " . > However Darius's own version (Behustan) states that he was not the son > of the previous king (see also above inscription on a wall) So what? I'm confused. I'm saying that Midrash isn't necessarily the literal fact, and you pick out a phrase from what I wrote and point out that it isn't the literal fact? It seems like you're trying to make a point, but I'm not seeing what it is. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 10:18:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 13:18:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] explanation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I commend you for having such guests at your table! > the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not PC by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation for some shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a heterodox clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read those passages] . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other than the chok aspect] that the RBSO was looking from the perspective of the kahal and their kovod, and how they would react or be distracted by a baal mum. can someone supply a better take ? This is, indeed, a difficult passage. R Jonathan Sacks has a good take on it -- which is generally along the lines of what you suggested, but a slightly different (and more big-picture) take, and, of course articulated extremely well. An excerpt: > Kugel also writes, "Most people, when they see someone ravaged by chemotherapy, just tend to keep their distance." He quotes Psalm 38:12, "My friends and companions stand back at the sight of my affliction; even those closest to me keep their distance." Although the physical reactions to chemotherapy are quite different from a skin disease or a bodily abnormality, they tend to generate the same feeling in others, part of which has to do with the thought "This could happen to me." They remind us of the "thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to." > > This is the logic - if logic is the right word - of Tumah. It has nothing to do with rationality and everything to do with emotion (Recall Pascal's remark that "the heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing"). Tumah does not mean defilement. It means that which distracts from eternity and infinity by making us forcibly aware of mortality, of the fact that we are physical beings in a physical world. If the above interests you at all, I encourage you to read the whole thing: http://www.aish.com/tp/i/sacks/149811775.html [1] -- Sholom Links: ------ [1] http://www.aish.com/tp/i/sacks/149811775.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 12 09:51:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Dov Weinstock via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 May 2015 12:51:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Explanation Message-ID: On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 12:27 PM, via Avodah wrote: > the torah's law on who may do the actual avodah [ ie mum-free] is not PC > by today's standards, and in fact was a source of consternation for some > shabbos guests last week [ not to mention the column of a heterodox > clergylady in the local paper, who says she can't even read those passages] > . i didn't have an answer other than to say [ other than the chok aspect] > that the RBSO was looking from the perspective of the kahal and their > kovod, and how they would react or be distracted by a baal mum. > > can someone supply a better take ? > May I suggest the following: http://rabbidovlinzer.blogspot.com/2014_04_27_archive.html Dov Weinstock -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 03:09:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 06:09:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: <20150513100956.GA14377@aishdas.org> Among the arguments that came up in the discussion of the Kosher Switch was that it's zilzul Shabbos. The thought hit me, though... Refraining from operating electrical devices has only been a potential issue for 125 years or so. And except for Yekkes, most of our ancestors come from places where it has been less than a century since electricity became part of our lives. So it's very hard to say that "not using electricity" is a defining feature of the Shabbos experience. Contrast this to hotza'ah, including haavarah, which take up what seems like 1/3 of chazal's discussion of issur melakhah (rough estimate from Berakhos and Eruvin in mishna, Tosefta, Y-mi and Bavli). When community eruvin got started, wasn't there a much easier argument of zilzul? Why wasn't it made? Indeed we use the general kelal of being meiqil WRT eiruvin to quite an extent to build one. And what does the fact that a community eruv is NOT zilzul Shabbos say about the nature of zilzul Shabbos and its applicability to nidon didan? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 12:26:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 15:26:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 04, 2015 at 06:42:58AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : He is now starting a series on religious autonomy. In particular he holds : that one goes to a rabbi for a psak only if he is in doubt. If one has : seriously learned the halachaot and is convinced of the "truth" then he : should follow his own psak and there is no need to go to a "higher : authority". Interesting. Does "seriously learned the halakhos" translate to higi'ah lehora'ah, or something less? RHS requires a certainly level of general knowledge. See Sanhedrin 5a-b. But it also fits RHS's hashkafah that halakhah is an inseperable whole. And so Rebbe doesn't just tell us that night Shema can be said at sundown, he ties it to the law of tevul yom. And RHS similarly advises his talmidim to look to gedolim from their own camp because one with whom they disagree hashkafically is likely to see even apparenty unrelated halakhos differently. Listen to (RAM transcripted other snippets from this talk for one of our many discussions of da'as Torah at .) For that matter, 5b talks about the need to get a heter hora'ah even if one knows enough to pasqen. But then, the gemara is discussing deciding for others, not only oneself. OTOH, pasqening for oneself has a major problem that one doesn't face when answering others' questions -- vested interest vs objectivity. Listen to R Jonathan Ziring's shiur on the topic at . In particular, his very first source (see link to mar'eh meqomos sheet) Nissah 20b. Yalta, "Rebbetzin Nachman", asks her mar'os questions of Rabbah bar bar Chanah and Rabbi Yitzchaq bereih deR' Yehudah, not her husband. Similarly mishnah Nega'im 2:5 saying you can't pasen nega'im even of relatives, Bekhoros 31a about judging one's own bekhoros. So, I would think that not being in doubt is too easily a delusion. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 12:54:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 15:54:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes In-Reply-To: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150513195451.GA16146@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 07, 2015 at 01:18:22AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Saul Newman asked: :> i thought that tzomet products are meant for sha'at :> hadchak /bedieved : ... : But I think that the real answer to your question might be: "If the people : in shul can't hear the rabbi or the chazan, that IS a shaas hadchak." Both letzorekh mitzvah and tzarkhei tzibbur are usually classified with she'as hadechaq and hefsed meruba. The two combined is why shuls have such wide lattitude with amira le'akum. (And perhaps either alone? I dunno.) So if a properly designed PA system is a shevus or other derabannan, why not permit this too? BTW, R/Dr Yisrael Rozen of Machon Zomet makes a point of noting that the issues seem to be the same whether the PA system is electrical or based on air pressure. See Microphones and Amplifiers on Shabbat Rabbi Yisrael Rozen C. Microphones Operating on Air Pressure 1. System Description Recently, the idea of a microphone which operates on air pressure, rather than electricity, has been proposed. A company in the United States is in the process of developing this "air-mike," although to the best of my knowledge, the project is still in the experimental stage. The device consists of a container of compressed air[12] and a system of pipes in which the compressed air flows. After one speaks into a horn-like input, his voice is carried on the stream of compressed air in the pipes. Acoustic adjustment (which apparently lies at the heart of the idea) then causes the voice waves to be amplified... 2. Comparison to an Electronic Microphone Several rabbis have permitted the use of air microphones on Shabbat, viewing it as an appropriate means of sound amplification for a synagogue. I question the distinction between an air microphone and a regular microphone - if we permit one, we must permit the other... Let me explain. We have shown that, given the current technology, the main problems with using a microphone on Shabbat have nothing to do with the fact that it runs on electricity. The problems concern the decree of klei shir, the fear that one will repair it, hashma'at kol like a water mill, avsha milta, denigration of Shabbat, and the suspicion of onlookers. Regarding all but the last of these, I see no difference between an air microphone and a regular microphone. In my opinion, an air microphone is a kli shir exactly like a shofar or trumpet; it creates a loud noise like a water mill; there exists the possibility that one will try to adjust it etc.. If you wish to claim that it is not a kli shir because it transmits speech; that we should not innovate a decree of "lest one repair it;" that it does not resemble a water mill because everyone knows that there is no Shabbat violation involved - then the same considerations should apply to a regular microphone as well. Only regarding the suspicion of onlookers might there be a difference between the two types of microphones; with an electric microphone, onlookers may think that an electric circuit was created on Shabbat. But we have already explained that even if one would turn on existing equipment on Shabbat, he would violate only a rabbinic prohibition, and we are not concerned with creating suspicion regarding rabbinic prohibitions. We also noted above that "everyone knows" that the equipment was turned on either before Shabbat or by means of a timer, and thus resembles a chiming clock (which is permitted). I have heard that there are those who permit the air microphone since the speaker's original voice is carried through the pipes (although clearly the majority of the sound waves reaching the audience's ears comes from the air pumped by the compressor). I am astonished at this claim: even in an actual musical instrument (such as a trumpet) the player's breath is mixed in, and nevertheless it is forbidden! In many musical instruments, the sound comes mainly from an "echo chamber," whose geometry shapes and amplifies the sound. To the best of my understanding, an air microphone operates on the same principle.[13] In my opinion, halachic definitions (in all fields) do not stem from scientific, physical, or technical definitions. The definitions of klei shir and hashma'at kol are not based on the technology of sound production, wave dispersion, or other acoustic considerations. The question at hand is whether these devices are included in the rabbinic decree of klei shir or not. In this regard, it does not matter whether one makes his voice heard by means of an electric or an air microphone. Some of those who give a blanket permit to use an air microphone claim that it does not amplify the speaker's voice, but merely carries it. On the basis of material I have received from the factory, I find this claim to be mistaken. Therefore, as far as klei shir and hashma'at kol are concerned, the two types of microphones are identical. ... 3. Responsa Which Erred in the Realia ... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 13:14:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 16:14:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shabbat mikes In-Reply-To: <20150513195451.GA16146@aishdas.org> References: <20150506.211822.905.0@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> <20150513195451.GA16146@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5553B099.7090100@sero.name> On 05/13/2015 03:54 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Both letzorekh mitzvah and tzarkhei tzibbur are usually classified with > she'as hadechaq and hefsed meruba. The two combined is why shuls have such > wide lattitude with amira le'akum. (And perhaps either alone? I dunno.) Letzorech mitzvah is not enough to justify amira lenochri for an issur derabanan, unless the mitzvah absolutely cannot be fulfilled without it. For instance, if one is pitch darkness one may ask a nochri to bring a lit candle through a communal chatzer that has no eruv, because oneg shabbos is impossible in complete darkness; but if there is already at least dim lighting, so that some minimal oneg shabbos is possible, one is *not* allowed to have a nochri bring another candle. Tzorchei tzibbur, OTOH, seems to justify amira lenochri for almost anything. [Quoting R Rosen] > The problems concern the decree of klei shir, the fear that one will > repair it, hashma'at kol like a water mill, avsha milta, denigration > of Shabbat, and the suspicion of onlookers. He's listing the same thing multiple times. "Hashma'at kol like a water mill" *is* "avsha milsa", i.e. passersby will hear it running and know that a Jew's business is operating on Shabbos, and the problem with that is that they will think the Jew is transgressing amira lenochri. These are not separate issues. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 13:32:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 23:32:51 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> References: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <> I understand the concern. However, there is no halacha that a rabbi can't pasken on his own chicken. In fact in real life we all pasken for ourselves on some level. Anytime one has a shabbat question \he can't always run to the LOR. One usually ends up paskening based on whatever knowledge and mesorah one has. This is what makes the life of a Baal Teshuva very difficult. Certainly what RMA and many others are against is running to the LOR or even gadol hador with every question. I have heard complaints from shul rabbis that some congregants come with questions they could easily look upo themselves but prefer to ask the rabbi so that the rabbi notes how serious they are. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 14:35:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 21:35:43 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> Message-ID: . I have heard complaints from shul rabbis that some congregants come with questions they could easily look upo themselves but prefer to ask the rabbi so that the rabbi notes how serious they are. ---------------------- True, but sometimes it may be to establish a connection (yes, funny coming from me-but it is true) KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 13 15:04:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 18:04:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: <20150513192658.GA28224@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150513220422.GC10395@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 13, 2015 at 11:32:51PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> OTOH, pasqening for oneself has a major problem that one doesn't face when :> answering others' questions -- vested interest vs objectivity. : : I understand the concern. However, there is no halacha that a rabbi can't : pasken on his own chicken. : In fact in real life we all pasken for ourselves on some level. Anytime one : has a shabbat question he can't always run to the LOR... I was using "pesaq" to refer specifically to open questions that require shiqul hada'as. Your typical Shabbos question is about a devar mishnah. To quote Rt Chana Luntz from Mon, 7 Sep 1998, 8:33pm BDT: 20:33:38 +0100, a post about not combining chumeros: > ... the Rashba on our daf in Chullin [43b], who hold that a Rav only > needs to pay if there is shikul hadaas and not a mistake in a dvar > mishna, are forced to conclude from this that Rava's mistake was in > shikul hadaas - see there]. It would seem that a devar mishnah is not a pesaq that the rav is as responsible for our following his teaching rather than getting the halakhah correctly from some other source. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 39th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a Fax: (270) 514-1507 reliable person? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 15 08:55:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 15 May 2015 11:55:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Laasok beDivrei Sorah Message-ID: <4c752525c83edeb17b85f6670479b9c0@aishdas.org> >From R' Eliezer Eisenberg's blog Beis Vaad L'Chachamim (highly recommended), at http://beisvaad.blogspot.com/2015/05/bechukosai-at-my-grandsons-bar-mitzva.html A couple of personal comments ellided, mostly to save myself the bother of transliterating more Hebrew text. A belated mazal tov to the author, G'Shabbos to all, -micha Friday, May 15, 2015 Bechukosai. At my grandson's Bar Mitzva Drasha at the Bar Mitzva of Avraham Jofen, 5/14/15 ... The Gemara (Brachos 11b) and the rishonim there talk about the issue of hefsek in Birkas HaTorah. There are those that hold that if a person stops learning, he has to make a new bracha when he begins again, because it is a hefsek from the first bracha. The Rishonim, the Agur and the Rosh, say that it is not a hefsek, because even when you are not actually learning, you have to consider what you can and cannot do according to the dinim of the Torah. Even when you are in a place where you cannot learn, you have to behave in a manner that is prescribed in the Torah. As the Hafla'ah says, when you do business, it is not a hefsek, because you are learning Choshen Mishpat. Every decision you make is examined in the light of the Torah, so that is not a hefsek in limud. I would put it this way. Torah is only a mitzvah when you learn al menas laasos. Al menas laasos means that you don't learn superficially, you make the Torah a part of who you are. On the contrary, if what you learn is just on the surface, the learning itself is bitul Torah. If the Mitzva of limud hatorah requires that it should make you into a different person, do you think that carefully living the life of an ehrilcheh ben Torah is a hefsek in limud hatorah? It's not a hefsek, it is a hemshech, it is a kiyum, of the mitzvah of limud hatorah. My father Ztz'l was very friendly with his lawyer, Bill Rosenthal. Bill was an assimilated Jew. The only contact he had with the Jewish religion was when he shook hands with my father. Nonetheless, he and my father were good friends and respected each other. A lawyer for a mortgage company once asked him which university my father studied at, because he could brilliantly analyze contracts. Bill told him that my father studied at Slabodka U. He once asked my father, "You and I are very ethical and honest men. I wouldn't take a penny that wasn't mine, and I have the highest standards of behavior in business. You, too, are very moral, but you do it because of your religious beliefs. Is there really any difference between us? My father told him, on the spot, that there are three differences. One is that for you, a dollar is a small matter, and a question involving a million dollars is a big matter. To me, there is no difference. The principal, the law, is what matters, and the sum of money is irrelevant. Another difference is that let's say you carefully think an issue through, and you decide the other side is right, and you let them win. you will toss and turn at night, ,thinking that maybe you were really right. I, on the other hand, if I decide that I am right, and I keep something that had been disputed, I won't be able to sleep at night our of a concern that maybe my decision was influenced by self interest. The third difference is that while you and I are both successful people,, and we've both made a lot of money, you think that you made the money yourself, and it's 100% yours to do with as you please. I believe that God decided that I should have the money, and God gave me the money, and every dollar that was given to me was given so that I use it in the right way. So it's true, my father learned how to do business at Slabodka U. Because he learned how to do business at Slabodka U, he was able to give, on the spot, three excellent and lomdusheh chilukim about the difference between Bill Rosenthal's moral code and his own moral code. Doing business like that is not a hefsek in the mitzva of limud hatorah. Farkert, it is the biggest kiyum and chizuk of limud hatorah and mussar and yashrus. This is a kiyum of the passuk [im bechuqosai seleikhu], as Rashi explains, [shetihyu ameilim baTorah]. It is this mesora which we bequeath to the Bar Mitzvah. ... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 15 13:39:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 15 May 2015 16:39:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Learning Chumash with the Trop Message-ID: <20150515203756.96751182847@nexus.stevens.edu> My 6 year-old grandson who is in the first grade was taught the trop at the same time he was being taught Chumash. The bottom line is that when he says the Pesukim he has studies in yeshiva, he says each word with the trop. I think this makes it easier for him to remember the Pesukim. When he davens, he says Shma with the trop! I can only wonder why this is not done in all yeshivas. When it will come time for him to lein at his Bar Mitzvah, it should be much easier for him than for those boys who are taught Chumash without the trop. YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 06:37:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 09:37:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Standing at a Chupah Message-ID: <20150518133702.1FA0A18392A@nexus.stevens.edu> Yesterday a friend of mine told be that the Rov where he davened said that he knew of grandparents who did not want to walk down at their grandchildren's Chassana, because they knew that the people attending the chupah would not stand for them even though they were 70 + years old. They did not want to be involved in lifnei Iver. Truth be told, I have seen the following many times. When the grandparents who are 70 or more years old walk down, no one stands for them. However, when the chosson and kallah walk down everyone stands for them. It is, of course, a positive mitzvah to stand up for any person 70 years old or more. See See http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/35165/standing-for-someone-whos-turned-seventy It is questionable if one has to stand for the chosson and kallah. See http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/levine/standing_chasuna.pdf I told my friend that it should be announced at the beginning of every chupah that 1. All cell phones should be turned off; 2. There should be no talking during the chupah, and 3. If grandparents who are 70 or more will be walking down, then one is required to stand for them. I think if this were done at Chasanas it would soon become the norm. 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URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 06:39:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 14:39:50 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001b01d09170$1d5db6f0$581924d0$@org.uk> Rav Zylberstein in the Cheshukei Chemed on Daf 78a of Kesubos discusses the question as to whether a woman today who has lots of peros from her property can say to her husband - "you do not need to redeem me, and I will not give you the peros" - on the ground that the need for redemption today is not common ("lo schiach") - even though the gemora there says that she cannot avoid this trade as mandated by Chazal (despite her being able to avoid the trade between mezonos versus ma'aseh yadeha, again a takana of Chazal, as this last takana was done for her benefit). Rav Zylberstein brings a discussion based on various rishonim to show that actually, pidyon was not common even at the time of Chazal, or at the time of the rishonim, and hence the fact that it is not common today does not change the situation from that mandated by Chazal. He also adds in the position of the Ran, that the takana regarding pidyon is not just made for her benefit (as the mezonos one is) and hence something that can be waived by her, but is also for the benefit of the husband, as without her redemption, the husband doesn't have the benefit of her company and services, while with mezonos that doesn't apply. However, it seems to me that Rav Zylberstein is not in fact dealing with what strikes me as the fundamental question. That is, it is not a question of whether or not pidyon is not common today (indeed, I would be tempted dispute that it is in fact "lo schiach", despite Rav Zylberstein taking this for granted) - but rather that the job of pidyon today is one of those that has been appropriated away from family members such as husbands, and is now the province of governments. The decision as to whether an individual may or may not be redeemed from ISIS, or pirates off Africa, or wherever, is now one which governments take with regard to their citizens. Governments which are prepared to do deals, like France, redeem their citizens (albeit for astronomical sums). Governments, like the UK and the US, who refuse to do deals on the grounds that it just encourages terrorists - will not let individuals, including husbands, redeem, even if the sums could be raised individually, as a matter of general policy. Nobody assumed it was the job of Gilad Shalit's family to effect his release - except to the extent that they was required to lobby the Israeli government (it might even have been treason to go negotiating with Hamas directly). Release or non release negotiations therefore, including the price to be paid (whether by prisoner release or otherwise) is today a government price. So it seems to me that what in fact we have today is a situation where husbands are, for the most part, forbidden by law (dina d'malchusa dina) from redeeming their wives, ie from fulfilling their side of the takana of Chazal. In such circumstances - while one might argue that the state of which the woman is a citizen is entitled to (at least some portion of) the peros (taxes?) the real question then seems to become: on what basis does one say that the second half of the takana stands - not just in relation to a woman who tries to say "you do not need to redeem me", but in relation to any woman in this circumstance. Has anybody come across anybody discussing this question, and any thoughts on any justification for the retention of the husband's benefit if in fact husbands are not legally allowed to effect redemption? BTW on the question of the commonness of redemption - part of that would depend on the scope of the definition of "pidyon". Clearly redemption from ISIS or pirates in Africa falls within this category - but how about rescuing somebody who was trekking in Nepal at the time of the earthquake? Again this is something that governments are now regarded as having a responsibility to do (the British Government has been criticised for failing to do as much as others, such as the Israeli and US governments, have done). At first blush I can't see why flying somebody out of an earthquake zone would not fit within the pidyon definition - despite it being physical forces, such as landslides, rather than people, who may be trapping the individuals. How about a package tour company going bust? Again, the person in question would (absent ATOL and similar travel bonding schemes set up by the relevant governments) be trapped in a foreign country and need to be returned to their country of origin, as per the language of the takana/ketuba. So why would this not be a form of pidyon? But again, is not the fundamental responsibility now assumed to devolve onto the government in respect of its citizens? So while I am not actually sure that it is true that pidyon is in fact so extremely not common, it seems to me that the fundamental question is rather a different one. Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 05:15:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 12:15:18 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: <20150518.081518.3271.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Among the arguments that came up in the discussion of the Kosher > Switch was that it's zilzul Shabbos. > ... what does the fact that a community eruv is NOT zilzul > Shabbos say about the nature of zilzul Shabbos and its > applicability to nidon didan? Excellent point. And I'd like to add another point: There are those who have argued that the availability of various types of timers (including those with software and adjust themselves for varying sunset times) have made the Kosher Switch unnecessary. I disagree strongly. The Kosher Switch, and similar devices do not merely add convenience, but can do a lot for lessening tzaar, and that is a valid and recognized halachic consideration. There were many times when I went to bed earlier than planned, but the light would not go out for another hour, and it was keeping me awake. And there were many times when my seudah lasted longer than expected, but the lights had gone out and we benched in dim light. There were many times when I set the air conditioning for what was expected to be a very hot day, and when it turn out to be mild, we all froze in the cold house. And there were many times when I left the air conditioning off, and regretted it when the day turned hotter than expected. Of course, a couple of centuries ago, people did not have these conveniences, and they learned to cope with them. But I really believe that for us, who have gotten addicted to them, it is a real tzaar when we must do without. (None of the above should be construed as meaning that I endorse any particular sort of device. I'm only talking about devices which we are allowed to use on Shabbos.) [Email #2. -micha] R' Micha Berger asked: > When community eruvin got started, wasn't there a much easier > argument of zilzul? Why wasn't it made? I'm not sure which period of history you're referring to with the phrase "when community eruvin got started", but here's my attempt at an answer: Eruvin did not allow something which had been previously assur, the way timers do and the way the Shabbos Switch would (according to its supporters). Beginning in Moshe Rabenu's day, people were very careful not to carry from a Reshus Hayachid to a Reshus Harabim, or vice versa, or 4 amos within a Reshus Harabim. But everything else was no problem. People would carry from one home to another within the same chatzer without thinking twice. Or even to a home across the street, IF that street was NOT a Reshus Harabim. But over time, accidents started to happen, because it is not always so easy to determine what's a Reshus Harabim and what's not. So at a certain point (either by David Hamelech's beis din, or Shlomo's, I don't remember) TWO halachos were enacted, at the SAME tme: One, that hotzaah was forbidden in a wide variety of areas other than within one Reshus Hayachid. Two, that these other areas could be transformed into a Reshus Hayachid by following some specific rules. The net result is that after Hilchos Eruvin were instituted, there were NO actions which people could be done that were not being done before. No one said, "Now the neighborhood can have a picnic on Shabbos afternoon!", because they could have done this all along, if there was no Reshus Harabim running through. Thus, no one lamented the zilzul Shabbos caused by allowing picnics which had previously been forbidden, because they had NOT previously been forbidden. I suppose it is possible that in the beginning, these procedures were used only by small neighborhoods (chatzeros and not much larger), and it was only much later that they were used by entire communities. If that's what RMB was referring to, then I'll have to stop here and let a historian continue. Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 07:00:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 10:00:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Megilat Rut: The night of Boaz and Rut Revisited Message-ID: <20150518135955.4DC6C183869@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/kmyx55p YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 08:40:51 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 11:40:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> On Sun, May 17, 2015 at 1:32pm EDT, R/Prof. Yitzchok Levine wrote on Areivim: : Yesterday in shul I asked a 12 year-old boy who attends a good : yeshiva if he was willing to announce the Molad. He looked at me : incredulously and said "What's the Molad?" I replied, "You know, : when the new moon can be seen." He still didn't get it, and I had : to elaborate a bit. I want to get all nerdy with this. The molad is actually an average, not when you could first see the moon this particular month. From 1601 to 200 CE, the actual physical lunation could be 6h 21m shorter or 7h 15m longer. And, the average too changes over time. (As I've noted in the past, it is amazing to me that we had back in the days of Galus Bavel, a molad value that was most accurate in the same century R' Hillel II and his Sanhedrin crated a standard calendar, some 900 years later. Exact to within the unit of measure (the cheileq). Accurate when we needed the value, not when we first obtained it. Currently, the molad is around 108 chalaqim off. And that's just the time between the molads. Then you have to ask when in the cycle the moon could first be seen. How thin of a sliver is visible to the typical human eye? And which longitude's clock are you using? And we announce the time for this point on the globe using today's hour naming convension. If you look at (eg) the Rambam, you'd be seeing a clock which is restarted every day at sunset, making sunset 0:00, not a number various about 6pm. But that's only something to keep in mind when looking at older Sepharadi sefarim, and wouldn't impact understanding what it is we actually announce. It would seem the molad as we now announce it would be for Kandahar, Afghanistan. But that must be due to slippage because the molad is too long. If we go back to the 4th or 5th cent CE, the molad is being announced given the time around midway between the Nile and the far (south-east) end of the Euphrates, which would have been around the middle of Jewish settlement at the time. In any case, calling is Jerusalem Time is a misnomer. Anyway, because we don't know for sure what location on the globe the molad was defined for, and how much of the current location is due to slippage during centuries of molads growing ever longer, we cannot definitively translate molad time to your local standard time. We simply do not know the starting lattitude to convert from. Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 08:53:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 11:53:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 11:40 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. Sure we do. It's the motion of an "averaged moon" that orbits the earth in a perfect circle, and that, however fictional, forms the basis of our calendar. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 09:41:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 12:41:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150518164134.GC20828@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 11:53:42AM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : On 05/18/2015 11:40 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: : >Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. : Sure we do. It's the motion of an "averaged moon" that orbits the earth : in a perfect circle, and that, however fictional, forms the basis of our : calendar. Except we don't know how much of an idealized moon is supposed to be showing and where between the latitudes of Alexandria and Sura it would have been showing. IOW, we don't know when in the moon's cycle the molad is an idealization of. Note, though, that Rabban Gamliel quotes a mesorah from R' Gamliel haZaqein ("mibeis avi abba) that the molad varies. And in a second quote, that it will never be "less than" 29-1/2d 2/3h 73 chalaqim. (Shabbos 25a) And he uses this to question eidim, so this is a mesorah he accepts for re'iyah, not just computation. Redoing R' Gamaliel's fractions, and converting 73c = 4m 1c, we get 29d 4 hr, 44m, 1 c. Our molad. So Rabban Gamliel held our molad was a lower limit, not an average!? And recall, we'e talking re'iyah (see the sugya) and the actual lunation could be over 6hr easlier than the average. What am I missing? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 08:23:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 11:23:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: <001b01d09170$1d5db6f0$581924d0$@org.uk> References: <001b01d09170$1d5db6f0$581924d0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <555A0402.4060608@sero.name> It should be borne in mind that there are still countries (including ones with substantial Jewish communities) where the need for pidyon is at least as common now as it probably was in Chazal's day. Also that while in many countries paying ransoms may be technically illegal, hardly anybody who is r"l in that situation cares about this. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 09:35:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Riceman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 12:35:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RMA In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <555A14EF.8070305@optimum.net> RMB: <. In particular, his very first source (see link to mar'eh meqomos sheet) Nissah 20b. Yalta, "Rebbetzin Nachman", asks her mar'os questions of Rabbah bar bar Chanah and Rabbi Yitzchaq bereih deR' Yehudah, not her husband. Similarly mishnah Nega'im 2:5 saying you can't pasen nega'im even of relatives, Bekhoros 31a about judging one's own bekhoros.>> The standard hiluq is is'hazek issura or not. See, e.g., Hochmas Adam H. Shechitah 1:10, Binas Adam ad. loc., and HA H. Nidah 109:6 and BA ad. loc. I think the issue is that hora'ah in the presence of hezkas issur is considered eidus. The argument of self interest raises some problems: 1. Do you know of cases where rabbis have referred questions about communal matters to experts elsewhere because they are self interested since they live in the community? For example, do Hachmai EY refer questions about communal safety (e.g., military matters) to rabbis in Hutz LaAretz because they are self interested? 2. Why shouldn't self interest be a psul in the absence of hezkas issur? I know people on this list have cited it to me in the case of restaurants certifying their own products. David Riceman From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 10:03:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 13:03:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518164134.GC20828@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <555A0B06.2090204@sero.name> <20150518164134.GC20828@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555A1B64.8060409@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 12:41 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > What am I missing? That what we announce is *not* anything to do with the actual moon, which the eidim in RG's time would have claimed to have seen, but the notional averaged moon on which *our* calendar is based. The *real* molad, i.e. conjunction of moon and sun, does vary, because the real moon does not orbit the earth in a perfect circle; the notional molad on which we base our calendar, and which we announce every month (except, ironically, the one month when it actually matters), is perfectly regular. And "molad" does seem to mean the conjunction, not the moment when the first sliver is visible, because the gemara in RH seems to say that the first possible sighting of the new moon is six hours *after* the molad. So we do know exactly what we are announcing: the number on which the calendar is based. Given this Shabbos's announcement, one can easily calculate that next Rosh Hashana will be on a Monday, exactly as it should be. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 10:49:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 13:49:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> At 11:40 AM 5/18/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. Yet it says in the siddurim that it should be announced so people know when it is! My understanding is that what is announced is Jerusalem solar time and this is different from Jerusalem local time. YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 11:47:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 14:47:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150518184701.GD20828@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 01:03:32PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : On 05/18/2015 12:41 PM, Micha Berger wrote: : >What am I missing? : : That what we announce is *not* anything to do with the actual moon, which : the eidim in RG's time would have claimed to have seen, but the notional : averaged moon on which *our* calendar is based... First, as Zev noted to me in private, I meant RH 25a (not Mes' Shabbos). But the point I asked "what am I missing?" about was Rabbi Gamliel questioning what people thought they saw, not the average. In R' Gamliel's day, the length of the molad was pretty close to exact; even today it's closer than they had any way to measure. But that's still an average. And real values can be more than 6 hr earlier. So, how can R' Gamliel question someone's observation for being less than a molad, when in half of all months re'iyah will be early -- and many 5 or 6 hr early. : So we do know exactly what we are announcing: the number on which the : calendar is based. Given this Shabbos's announcement, one can easily : calculate that next Rosh Hashana will be on a Monday, exactly as it : should be. As I said in my previous post... Yes, that explans the length of the molad, but not the point in the idealized cycle. How much moon must be visible for it to be a new moon? Or more accurately, what was visible when the molad was al pi re'iyah that we are now using a simplified model to approximate? And we can't just calculate what it is the molad is approximating, because we don't know what clock to use. It looks to me like Hillel was using a point halfway between EY and Bavel, somewhere in the center of the contiguous Jewish settlement. But that's largely guesswork. On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 01:49:49PM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : My understanding is that what is announced is Jerusalem solar time : and this is different from Jerusalem local time. Which is why I left out the word standard, writing "Jerusalem Time" rather than Israel Standard Time. But as I wrote above, it's not. See also my first post (for Avodah) on this thread for more detail. In 1999, R Yisrael Medad posted something about this on MJ, after having R/Prof Ely Merbach, R/Prof Yaakov Loewinger and the Bar Ilan astronomy dept bad the question around. See They assume Jerusalem Mean Time, but they make the fundamental error of discussing mean conjunction -- no moon -- not the first sliver. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 13:31:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 16:31:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150518203148.GB4022@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 02:24:32PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : >Yes, that explans the length of the molad, but not the point in the : >idealized cycle. How much moon must be visible for it to be a new : >moon? [...] they make the fundamental error of discussing mean : >conjunction -- no moon -- not the first sliver. : : I don't think they made an error at all. The molad is the conjunction; : the earliest time at which the moon can be seen is six hours after : the molad. How do you know this? The Rambam (Qiddush Levana 6:1) appears to say it's the average of the first time the moon could be seen "kedei leida im yeira'eh hayarei'ach of lo yeira'eh.... bemahalakhtam ha'emtza'i, who haniqra 'molad'". And my whole point was that we didn't know how big of a sliver is "yeira'eh", but I'm willing to entertain the possibility that we announce when it cannot be seen, as a way of knowing by deduction when it could. I just can't see it as a given. Combining not knowing how much -- if any -- after the conjunction the molad is with not knowing which lattitude's clock is being used was the not knowing what the molad really means. You could move the lattitude by changing the size sliver. As for why we announce the molad... The Yerei'im gives the answer Zev did. The MA quotes the Yerei'im and says that mevorkhim hachodesh is lezeikher the real qiddush hachodesh by Sanhedrin. Which is why we stand. RMF (IM OC 1:142) says this is in imitation of the qehillah who would stand when answering "Mequdash! Mequdash!" I find the MA's answer more compelling, because it unlikely that it is to know when Rosh Chodesh should be, when the one RC that most depends on the molad isn't announced -- Tishrei. It also adds resonence for me when saying "Mi sheAsah Nissim", that before the chazan announces ther month, we ask for a return of the qiddush hachodesh being commemorated. And if truly "chaverim kol Yisrael" and we acted it, we would have a Sanhedrin. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 11:24:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 14:24:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 01:49 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > At 11:40 AM 5/18/2015, Micha Berger wrote: >> Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means. > Yet it says in the siddurim that it should be announced so people know > when it is! It's the number used for calculating the calendar. That's all people need to know. > My understanding is that what is announced is Jerusalem solar time > and this is different from Jerusalem local time. No, it's different from J'm *standard* time, i.e. the modern time system invented by the railroads, which of course we take no notice of. On 05/18/2015 02:47 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > But the point I asked "what am I missing?" about was Rabbi Gamliel > questioning what people thought they saw, not the average. Why are you discussing that? The topic is the announcement in shul, which relates entirely to our calculated system, not to RG's system. You wrote that nobody knows what it is that's being announced, and I dispute that. RG is entirely irrelevant, since he was dealing with the actual moon, not the notional moon that our system deals with. > Yes, that explans the length of the molad, but not the point in the > idealized cycle. How much moon must be visible for it to be a new > moon? [...] they make the fundamental error of discussing mean > conjunction -- no moon -- not the first sliver. I don't think they made an error at all. The molad is the conjunction; the earliest time at which the moon can be seen is six hours after the molad. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 14:36:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 17:36:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Announcing the Molad In-Reply-To: <20150518203148.GB4022@aishdas.org> References: <20150517173225.C6AC517FAD3@nexus.stevens.edu> <20150518154042.GA19855@aishdas.org> <20150518174953.68CBC1830E2@nexus.stevens.edu> <555A2E60.9040201@sero.name> <20150518203148.GB4022@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555A5B79.2030308@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 04:31 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > > How do you know this? The Rambam (Qiddush Levana 6:1) appears to say > it's the average of the first time the moon could be seen "kedei leida im > yeira'eh hayarei'ach of lo yeira'eh.... bemahalakhtam ha'emtza'i, > who haniqra 'molad'". On the contrary, that Rambam says *explicitly* that the molad is the exact moment of the conjunction, which is *not* when it can be seen. Read it again and you will surely see this. > As for why we announce the molad... The Yerei'im gives the answer > Zev did.The MA quotes the Yerei'im and says that mevorkhim hachodesh > is lezeikher the real qiddush hachodesh by Sanhedrin. Which is why > we stand. RMF (IM OC 1:142) says this is in imitation of the qehillah > who would stand when answering "Mequdash! Mequdash!" Neither the Yere'im nor the MA even mention the announcement of the molad, let alone give any reason for it. All the Yere'im says is that the announcement of Rosh Chodesh in shul is not at all related to kidush hachodesh, but is merely so people should know when Rosh Chodesh will be. The MA adds that although this is true, the custom is to stand for it, as a zecher to kidush hachodesh, which was done standing. R Akiva Eger asks how this could be so, since we know that a beis din must sit, not stand. RMF answers thatkiddush hachodesh was done notby the BD, but by the audience, after hearing the BD's psak, and they were surely standing, and this is what the MA means. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 14:49:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 17:49:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: RMicha Berger wrote: >Among the arguments that came up in the discussion of the Kosher Switch was that it's zilzul Shabbos. >>The thought hit me, though... Refraining from operating electrical devices has only been a potential issue for 125 years or so. And except for Yekkes, most of our ancestors come from places where it has been less than a century since electricity became part of our lives. >So it's very hard to say that "not using electricity" is a defining feature of the Shabbos experience.< True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul Shabbos. (Of course, by this argument, putting an electric light on or off should be prohibited even if the use of electricity is not a m'lacha.) >Contrast this to hotza'ah, including haavarah, which take up what seems like 1/3 of chazal's discussion of issur melakhah (rough estimate from Berakhos and Eruvin in mishna, Tosefta, Y-mi and Bavli).< I assume that "Berakhos" should be replaced by "Shabbos." >When community eruvin got started, wasn't there a much easier argument of zilzul? Why wasn't it made? Indeed we use the general kelal of being meiqil WRT eiruvin to quite an extent to build one. And what does the fact that a community eruv is NOT zilzul Shabbos say about the nature of zilzul Shabbos and its applicability to nidon didan?< What tzuras hapesach and eiruv permit is not carrying prohibited by the Torah. Rather, it is, in effect, a built-in exception to the issurim imposed mid'rabbanan by two g'zeiros: the classification of certain areas, which min haTorah are m'kom p'tur, as a new entity called karmelis, and the imposing of a prohibition of hotza'a from one r'shus hayachid to another of different ownership. Both were in use long before there was a city eruv. E.g., persons sharing a two-family house with a common fenced yard would make an eruv to permit carrying to and from their living quarters to the others' and to the yard. Likewise, a house opening to an unfenced yard would make a tzuras hapesach to permit carrying between house and yard. And, of course, two houses opening to a common unfenced yard would make a tzuras hapesach to "enclose" the yard, and then an eruv to permit carrying among houses and yard. The city eruv was not an introduction of a new practice, but a larger-scale use of already common practices. How does this constitute zilzul Shabbos? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 14:31:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 22:31:48 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000001d091b2$0c5074f0$24f15ed0$@org.uk> RZS writes: >It should be borne in mind that there are still countries (including ones >with substantial Jewish communities) where the need for pidyon is at least >as common now as it probably was in Chazal's day. Are you thinking of South America? I confess that is what springs to mind from your suggestion, although how often ransom is really required in such countries I don't know. > Also that while in many countries paying ransoms may be technically illegal, hardly anybody who is >r"l in that situation cares about this. But presumably you are talking about the same ones (eg South America). My question relates solely to countries, like Britain and Israel, to which Rav Zylberstein was referring. He took it for granted that in fact it was exceedingly uncommon for pidyon to be needed. I am not so sure it is so uncommon, but I doubt very much that in these countries "hardly anybody who is r"l in that situation cares about this". That is, while I know from the press of numbers of cases in which pidyon has been needed for British and Israeli citizens, in none of these cases were private individuals allowed to redeem (despite them quite naturally wanting to, and possibly being willing to do so, if they had not been restrained, whether by circumstances or otherwise). Clearly if one lives in a place where pidyon is common, and where, whatever the technical law says, in practice individual family members redeem, neither my question nor Rav Zylberstein's gets off the ground. But I don't think the existence of a place in the world, that one would never contemplate living in (and is not the locus of the ketuba), is relevant to the obligations under that ketuba which must relate to the places that the couple live and the governments under which they live. Even when it might involve some less scrupulous situations - one of the mothers in our school in England had the situation that her sons were effectively kidnapped by her ex-husband and held in Russia. And while yes, ultimately she found where they were hidden by means of a private investigator, which cost her private money, she would never have been able to extract them had: (a) Russia not signed up to the Hague convention; (b) the Russian court given judgment in her favour; and (c) the Russian police at the bequest of the English government on the basis of the Russian judgment actually going in and retrieving the boys (whose location they had singularly failed to identify until the private investigator had provided the cast iron information as to where they were). And she would have struggled to have brought them back into England without the rulings of the Russian authorities. And even if an adult is different, I cannot see the British government allowing one of its citizens to go off and try and attempt pidyon of another of its citizens without its active involvement, it being seen as cutting across its foreign policy (even if this was occurring in a place where ransom payments amongst locals was common). >Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 15:53:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 18:53:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] measurement error In-Reply-To: <20150111185211.GA15414@aishdas.org> References: <54AD8B25.3010103@optimum.net> <20150111185211.GA15414@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150518225308.GA15666@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 01:52:11PM -0500, Micha Berger wrote: : In an appreciated bit of siyata dishmaya, my Arukh haShulchan yomi : sechedule brought me to a primary source : on this subject -- AhS OC 363:32-35. The he.WikiSource.org ("Vikiteqst") : copy is at ... : When dealing with mavui, where there is only one mavui and therefore one : measuring process to be used for everyone, the above applies. However, : when the measurement is only for one person's use, tbey should be : measuring for himself, with his own norms. : And here he adds a touch of subjectivity: a person should measure how : far he himself could walk. And the rule of carrying in rh"r a distance : of no more 4 of one's own amos is brought into that umbrella. : The reason for the general rule is to cover the personal amos of the : people who will be using the measuring. : BUT, and this is why I do not follow, he opened se'if 32 by telling us : the variability is 1/48 of the total (1/24 of an etzba per ammah). Which : is far less than the variability in forearm lengths in most groups of : people. For example, my own sukkah is used by Yoni, who stands 6'3" and by : my own 5'3" -- and my arms are on the shorter side, even proportionally. : When we hold up elbows together, my ammah ends just past his wrist. Not : within 47/48 of eachother. I came across another AhS datapoint for this thread, OC 586:14. He quotes the Rambam Shofar 1:5, discussing the minimum length of a shofar: that you can hold it in your hand and it's visible on either end. The AhS explains the intent as being the size of the toqei'ah's hand, but rather an average person's hands, "veshi'uro tefach sheheim 4 godelim". Then there is a debate whether the tefach has to be a generous one, so as to be visible (Tur, quoting Ri Gei'os) or a narrow one (Tur himself and SA), which is still visible if the toqei'ah uses four fingers -- after all, they'll still be narrower than 4 thumbs. So the shiur is neither personal nor really the standard tefach. It is literally as the gemara says, what can be held and still seen. Which is why there is a machloqes about where the tefach stands in relation to the real shiur. But, visible if hypothetically held by an average hand. And if the tqoei'ah has wide hands, he could hold a minimal shofar without it being visible, and it would still be kosher. The AhS also says this was already explained in Nidah 26b, which is a depressing gemara about miscarriages, and a tefach comes up in shiurim for tum'ah, but I didn't see where it mentionrs our topic of what kind of tefach is used. What I find even more interesting is that there is no chiluq being drawn between someone who blows in shul and someone who blows just for himself. Wouldn't the rule from OC 363 mean that someone in the latter situation should use what is visible when their own hand holds it? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 44th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Gevurah sheb'Malchus: What type of justice Fax: (270) 514-1507 does unity demand? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 18 15:35:16 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 18:35:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If a woman can say "you do not need to redeem me and I will not give you peros" In-Reply-To: <000001d091b2$0c5074f0$24f15ed0$@org.uk> References: <000001d091b2$0c5074f0$24f15ed0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <555A6924.4010709@sero.name> On 05/18/2015 05:31 PM, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: > RZS writes: > >> It should be borne in mind that there are still countries (including ones >> with substantial Jewish communities) where the need for pidyon is at least >> as common now as it probably was in Chazal's day. > > Are you thinking of South America? Well, Latin America (so as to include Mexico). There are also other such countries, such as India, the Philippines, Nigeria, where the need for pidyon is common, but there are not a lot of Jews living there. > But I don't > think the existence of a place in the world, that one would never > contemplate living in (and is not the locus of the ketuba), is relevant to > the obligations under that ketuba which must relate to the places that the > couple live and the governments under which they live. Even a couple marrying in such a country must contemplate the possibility that one or both might one day travel to a country where kidnapping is common, and be kidnapped. Even in Chazal's day the danger was not so much where people lived as on the highways and the seas, where they might travel. Also, I am not at all sure that it is actually illegal in most normal countries to pay ransom. What is illegal is giving *anything* to groups that are officially listed by that country's government as terrorists. If the kidnappers are not on the list, so that it would be legal to give them a gift, then I don't think there's a law against paying them ransom. (Perhaps there should be.) -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 19 11:32:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Joseph Kaplan via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 14:32:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Standing at a Chupah Message-ID: <004f01d09262$1f0388c0$5d0a9a40$@tenzerlunin.com> "Truth be told, I have seen the following many times. When the grandparents who are 70 or more years old walk down, no one stands for them. However, when the chosson and kallah walk down everyone stands for them." At almost every MO wedding I've attended over the past 5-10 years, everyone stood when the grandparents walked down whether they were older than 70 or not. But if, God willing, I'm around for my grandchildren's weddings, I plan to walk (or, if necessary, wheelchair) down the aisle whether anybody stands for me or not. Joseph -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 19 12:18:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 15:18:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150519191809.GA8642@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 05:49:16PM -0400, elazar teitz via Avodah wrote: :> So it's very hard to say that "not using electricity" is a defining :> feature of the Shabbos experience. : True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature : of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so : accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul : Shabbos. (Of course, by this argument, putting an electric light on or off : should be prohibited even if the use of electricity is not a m'lacha.) As would replacing gefilte fish with sushi? It's not that people from Sinai to around 100 years ago actually experienced avoiding the lightswitch, nor did they even consciously experience not having one -- since there was no conception of an alternative. Not using electricity, and saying that qedushas shabbos requires avoiding electricity are really two different things, experientially. 100 years ago we had an opportunity to do something new on Shabbos, much like when shomerei Shabbos first learned of sushi. The difference is that we did assur one new opportunity, and not the other. ... : What tzuras hapesach and eiruv permit is not carrying prohibited by : the Torah. Rather, it is, in effect, a built-in exception to the issurim : imposed mid'rabbanan by two g'zeiros... ... : The city eruv was not an introduction of a new practice, but a : larger-scale use of already common practices. How does this constitute : zilzul Shabbos? Yes, that explains why it's nothing clearer cut than zilzul Shabbos. AIUI, worrying about zilzul means that the mechanism is mutar, but the goal is one that cheapens Shabbos, removes some of the feeling of its qedushah. Like taking the pre-existing concept of eiruv as a way to have a reshus that was no included in Shelomo ubeis dino's original issur hotza'ah and stretching it to a much bigger area than ever before, so that most people never have reason to leave it most weeks. So that the entire issur goes from being one of the dominant features of Shabbos (judging just in blatt of discussion) to barely ever experienced. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 45th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Malchus: What is the beauty of Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity (on all levels of relationship)? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 19 12:46:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 22:46:01 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] donor egg Message-ID: "A 65-year-old Bnei Brak woman gave birth this week, becoming the oldest woman to give birth in Israel. The ultra-Orthodox woman and her 67-year-old husband had been battling infertility for 46 years before the birth at Kfar Sava?s Meir hospital. After fertility treatments abroad and with the help of a donor egg, the woman became pregnant, giving birth to a 2.685-kg baby in her 35th week of pregnancy. ?To the best of my knowledge, this is the oldest woman to give birth in Israel. It is extremely rare that pregnancy at this age ends well. The ultra-Orthodox circle from which the couple comes attributed the pregnancy and birth to a blessing the woman received from a Hassidic rabbi. " http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel/.premium-1.657230 Given all the halachic controversy of who is the halachic mother I am a little surprised -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 07:11:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 17:11:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? Message-ID: There is a famous Medrash that before offering the Torah to the Jewish people Hashem offered it to the other nations of the world. "First He approached the children of Esav and asked them, "Do you wish to accept the Torah?" They replied, "What is written in it?" "Do not murder." They said, "...Our father was assured that, 'By your sword will you live (Bereishit 27:40)!'" Next Hashem went to the children of Ammon and Moav, and asked, "Do you wish to accept the Torah?" They asked, "What is written in it?" "Do not commit sexual immorality." They responded, "Master of the Universe, our very existence is based on an immoral act!" Hashem then went to the children of Yishmael, and asked them, "Do you wish to accept the Torah?" They asked, "What is written in it?" "Do not steal." They responded, "Master of the Universe, the essence of our father was to be a bandit, as it is written, 'And he will be a man of the wild; his hand will be in all...'" (Bereishit 16:12)." Sifri, Ve'Zot HaBracha #343 However, the Medrash has an obvious question. All of the examples of Torah prohibitions given by the Medrash, are also prohibited by the 7 mitzvos of Bnei Noach. The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from murder so how would accepting the Torah make things worse for them? The same goes for arayos and stealing, these were already prohibited to them anyway so why does the medrash specifically pick these as examples for Torah prohibitions? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 11:16:47 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 14:16:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150520181647.GA15475@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 05:11:29PM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : However, the Medrash has an obvious question. All of the examples of Torah : prohibitions given by the Medrash, are also prohibited by the 7 mitzvos of : Bnei Noach. The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from murder so how would : accepting the Torah make things worse for them? The same goes for arayos : and stealing, these were already prohibited to them anyway so why does the : medrash specifically pick these as examples for Torah prohibitions? I raised this and a second question in : Hashem's answer to each of the nations is strange. Why choose the one sin their forefather was known for? Is that how you would do kiruv, starting with the hard stuff? By comparing this medrash to the opening pasuk in this week's parshah, [Lekh Lekha,] we can get a better understanding of the point of the story. "Hashem said to Avram, `Go for yourself from your homeland, from your birthplace and from your father's house to the land which I will show you'." (12:1) The first sentence recorded in the Torah of the Jewish mission on earth is a commandment for Avram to leave his home and his father. Avram didn't say, "I can't worship G-d because my very substance his idolatry, because my father, Terach, manufactures idols". Hashem orders Avram to leave the culture that made him, to leave his father's sphere of influence, and he does. Avram's reply was "And Avram went, just as G-d told him". (12:4) If Hashem said he could change, rise above Ur Casdim to become fit for both the land of Israel and the father of the people of Israel, then he goes. Is man a creature of fate or of destiny? Is his future foretold, etched in rock, unchangeable? Or can he rebuild himself into something greater than he was? Clearly the Torah insists on the latter. The very key to accepting the Torah is to be committed to use its ideas and its mitzvos to improve and to grow. This was the failing ascribed to the other nations in the medrash. They saw a given flaw in their national character as their substance, immutable. Hashem wasn't asking them about a particular prohibition, but about their commitment to leave their "father's house". If they do not believe they can change, what purpose can getting the Torah serve them? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 46th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Malchus: How can some forms of Fax: (270) 514-1507 "unity" be over domineering? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 11:48:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 14:48:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: <20150520181647.GA15475@aishdas.org> References: <20150520181647.GA15475@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555CD6E5.5000606@sero.name> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 05:11:29PM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from murder so how would : accepting the Torah make things worse for them? The same goes for arayos : and stealing, these were already prohibited to them anyway sowhy does the : medrash specifically pick these as examples for Torah prohibitions? Perhaps that was His point: you can't even keep the mitzvos you already have, so how can you want more? On 05/20/2015 02:16 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > I raised this and a second question in > : > Hashem's answer to each of the nations is strange. Why choose the one > sin their forefather was known for? Is that how you would do kiruv, > starting with the hard stuff? Why the premise that the purpose was kiruv? On the contrary, I think the medrash's intent is clear, that Hashem did *not* want them to accept His offer, and thus pitched it in the manner most likely to be rejected. The only purpose of making the offer in the first place was so they wouldn't be able to complain that they hadn't been given the chance. He wasn't trying to sell it to them, He was showing them why they didn't want it, and therefore shouldn't be upset that the Jews were getting it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 17:29:35 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 20:29:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] 65 Year-Old Woman Gives Birth to First Child in Bnei Brak In-Reply-To: <20150520.101659.17683.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150520.101659.17683.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150521002935.GC9522@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 02:16:59PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Areivim wrote: : If we were speaking Lashon Hakodesh, you'd be correct - Bar Mitzvah is : a noun, and only a noun. However, we are clearly speaking English, and : several dictionaries tell me that in English, "Bar Mitzvah" is both a noun : and a verb. See, for example, http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bar+mitzvah : which gives "bar mitzvahed" (and other forms) as examples. : Languages are funny this way. Stuff can change when a word enters a : new language. However, there is no real concept correspnding to the English word "bar mitzvahed". The borrowing was primarily done by non-traditional Jews, who think that being called up to the Torah changes your status. But in reality, "bar mitzvahed" makes as much sense as saying someone pubertied or menopaused. We O could borrow the word as shorthand for "became a bar mitzah" but since the original borrowing is really based on a misunderstanding of the Torah, why should we? It'll just make it harder to clear up the mistake. : If I'm not mistaken, the Yiddish word for "holiday" is pronounced : "yuntif", and it is spelled "yud vav memsofit blankspace tes vav beis", : and is considered a single word despite the fact... IIRC, on the NY State Yiddish Regents Examination in the late 1970s, it was spelled as it sounds, one word, yud-alef-nun-tes-eyin-ende fei (w/ a refuyah line over it). (R' Riskin, whose HS I attended, required a foreign language, and Hebrew doesn't count as "foreign". The Hebrew Regents exam was a separate requirement to graduate. As was Red Cross swimming certification and you could choose either CPR or First Aid. The latter two were because the HS is the father's shaliach for all of chinukh and education. Anyway, I already had some background in Yiddish, and I heard that the Yiddish regents eere easier than more popular languages like Spanish or French, so...) But the, Chassidishe Yiddish and YIVO Yiddish (the legacy of Litvishe Yiddishists) are different dialects. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 46th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Netzach sheb'Malchus: How can some forms of Fax: (270) 514-1507 "unity" be over domineering? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 17:53:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 20:53:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Admin: [Areivim] 65 Year-Old Woman Gives Birth to First Child in Bnei Brak In-Reply-To: <20150521002935.GC9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150520.101659.17683.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> <20150521002935.GC9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150521005329.GF9522@aishdas.org> The previous email was misdirected. Replies to it will not be accepted. (On Avodah. If Areivim's mods approve it, reply there.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 20 18:57:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 20:57:21 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <555D3B81.5030709@starways.net> I think the obvious answer is that midrash is midrash. One midrash doesn't have to be consistent with another. It's there to learn from, and the message of this one comes through regardless of the Noachide laws. On 5/20/2015 9:11 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > There is a famous Medrash that before offering the Torah to the Jewish > people Hashem offered it to the other nations of the world. > > However, the Medrash has an obvious question. All of the examples of > Torah prohibitions given by the Medrash, are also prohibited by the 7 > mitzvos of Bnei Noach. The Bnei Eisav were already prohibited from > murder so how would accepting the Torah make things worse for them? > The same goes for arayos and stealing, these were already prohibited > to them anyway so why does the medrash specifically pick these as > examples for Torah prohibitions? > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 03:36:19 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 06:36:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why didn't the other nations accept the Torah? In-Reply-To: <555D3B81.5030709@starways.net> References: <555D3B81.5030709@starways.net> Message-ID: <20150521103619.GC7831@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 08:57:21PM -0500, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: : I think the obvious answer is that midrash is midrash. One midrash : doesn't have to be consistent with another. It's there to learn : from, and the message of this one comes through regardless of the : Noachide laws. I believe the question was finding internal consistency in a single medrash from the Yalqut Shim'oni. The medrash that says the nations were offered the Torah itself says the example mitzvos were ones they were already obligated in, and ones their ancestor was known for. So, what does that tell us about the message? To me, it says that the offer was more about testing one's willingness to change. Therefore, each is asked if they would be willing to refrain from something that they should already be avoiding, but is part of their current culture. And that, in turn, speaks to seeing the Torah as a tool for self-transformation. Which I mean in a manner vague enough to include both Chassidim and Litvaks. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 07:50:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 10:50:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Ways to find non-meat or non-milk Message-ID: <20150521145032.GH9522@aishdas.org> >From the founder of Machon Zomer, RYRosen, on possible ways to eat kosher meat and milk together without violating basar bechalav. -micha Shabbat B'Shabbato Translated by Moshe Goldberg Point Of View Bit of Reality from Sinai Rabbi Yisrael Rosen Dean of the Zomet Institute "This teaches you that scripture, the Mishna, halacha, tosefta, hagadda, and whatever a veteran scholar will teach in the future already exists, and it was all given as halacha to Moshe at Sinai" [Kohellet Rabba 1]. ... Recipes with Meat and Milk In honor of the holiday, we have pieced together for you, from the newest volume, some juicy samples of dairy halachot, as is fitting for the holiday of Shavuot, in order to fulfill the verse, "Honey and milk are under your tongue" [Shir Hashirim 4:11]. We will capture your interest for halachic sophistication by offering you, from this new volume of Techumin, a serving of meat cooked in milk (yes, you read that right!). Compare this to Rav Nachman, who gave his wife an udder soaked in milk in order to satisfy her desire to taste a combination of milk and meat (Chulin 109b). And what is our enticing menu item that fits this requirement? See below... (1) "Ben Pekua" -- It is an accepted halacha (admittedly quite odd) that if a cow is slaughtered in the eighth month of her pregnancy and the calf is found to be alive, it is called a "Ben Pekua" and there is no need to slaughter it. It can be eaten in any manner, including even taking off a limb while it is still alive (Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Dei'ah 13), even many years later, and there is no need to check if it has one of the faults that would render a normal animal unkosher. And now, here is the most surprising part: The offspring of a male and female "Ben Pekua" (both of the "parents must be of this type) will never require kosher slaughtering either, and this includes all subsequent generations. (However, if only one parent is a "Ben Pekua," the offspring cannot be made kosher, even by slaughtering!) Rabbi Meir Rabi from Australia published a dramatic article where he claims that by definition a Ben Pekua is not cattle (but is rather the same as fish), and therefore not only is there no need to remove the veins in the hind quarter, one is even permitted to cook it and eat it together with milk! To come to this conclusion, the rabbi bases his ruling on a Torah insight by the Meshech Chochma, that our Patriarch Avraham served his guests, the angels, "a calf (literally, the son of cattle, or a ben pekua!) that was tender and good," from the womb of a pregnant cow, and he gave them "butter and milk, and the calf" [Bereishit 18:8]. Rabbi Rabi went further, and acted on his ruling. Using this method he created male and female "sheep" and grew flocks from them, and he now has a culinary and halachic declaration -- these animals do not need to be slaughtered, their veins do not have to be removed, their fat is not prohibited -- and the rabbi has a long list of other benefits. However, modern rabbis do not accept this idea! In the new volume of Techumin, Rabbi Zev Vitman, the rabbi of Tenuvah (which sells milk, meat, and fish) vigorously opposes the novel ruling. Aside from the release from the requirement of ritual slaughtering (which is carried over from the mother or the grandmother of the calf), Rabbi Vitman disagrees with (almost) all the other conclusions. He finds no justification for defining the Ben Pekua as a "new and separate species." In addition, in volume 19 of Techumin, sixteen years ago, Sephardi Chief Rabbi Bakshi-Doron rejected a similar proposal that was sent to him by meat farmers on the Golan, fearing that it would lead to serious problems. Other prominent rabbis, such as Rabbi Shmuel Vazner and Rabbi Asher Weiss, warned against getting involved in this sophisticated and complex halachic problem. (2) We are thus left to search elsewhere for a combination of meat and milk: meat that has been cloned from stem cells! In a previous volume, Rev Tvi Reizman (a well-known businessman from Los Angeles who is also a Torah scholar well versed in matters of halacha and actuality) writes about an "artificial hamburger" which was created two years ago. This is produced from artificial meat made from stem cells of a cow which was not slaughtered or which was declared unkosher ("tereifa"). In principle, he concludes that clone meat is not real meat, and that it can therefore be cooked and eaten with milk! (The summary of the article includes many details which will not be repeated here. For example, the problem of appearances can be solved by proper packaging and declarations, as is done for soya milk.) However, my friends, I doubt that you should rush out after the holiday to search for an "artificial hamburger," in order to season it with honey and dip it in milk. Rabbi Yaacov Ariel opposes the idea in the new volume of Techumin. He concludes that such artificial meat can only be produced from a kosher animal, and that then "it will be considered meat for all intents and purposes, including the matter of cooking with milk." So, in the end we are left with the solution in the Talmud: Does anybody want some milk-saturated udders? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 08:36:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 11:36:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula Message-ID: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> In OC 196:1, the Rama mentions the minhag of blowing 30 qolos at the end of RH mussaf. "Ule'achar sheyatze'u bazeh, shuv ein litqua od bechinam." (Although a qatan, even higia lechinuch, may.) So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. As for being yotzei... Mitzvas shofar only requires tashra"t, tasha"t OR tara"t, 3 times. A point the AhS makes besheim the Rash besheim R' Hai Gaon (Shilhei RH), "delav sefeiqos gemuros hein", that Rav Avahu was mesaqein in order for everyone to do the same thing, not because otherwise you're not yotzei shemie'as qol shofar. The AhS criptically adds, "(ulevad zeh yeish bazeh inyan gadol)." So the question is whether you have to blow in numerous ways few other people use in order to fulfil a taqanah created to create uniformity of practice. But enough of the tirade, and back to the point: Being machmir in hilkhos shofar this way involves a qulah in hilkhos yom tov. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:25:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:25:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150521202527.GP9522@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 02:46:27PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : On 05/21/2015 11:36 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: :> In OC 196:1, the Rama mentions the minhag of blowing 30 qolos at the :> end of RH mussaf. "Ule'achar sheyatze'u bazeh, shuv ein litqua od :> bechinam." :> (Although a qatan, even higia lechinuch, may.) : : Not bechinam; for practice, so that he may one day blow for real. That's not what the Rama says, though. He says "you're allowed to tell him to blow (HaMagid, Hil' Shofar, pereq 2) and it's mutar to for him to blow all day (Or Zarua dRH)." The mishnah says "any me'qvim es hatinoqos militqoa, aval mis'asqim imahem ad sheyilmedu", which implies they are not stopped even after yilmedu. The gemara ad loc (RH 33a-b) says that a qatan higia' lechinukh is encouraged to blow to learn, but any child is not prevented from blowing. So I think the Rama is paralleling the gemara, and not saying the seifa is only for chinukh, or for a child who doesn't need to be stopped because he isn't ready yet. The AhS's wording is even further from your deduction. :> So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the :> qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, :> etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. : No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the : last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. They aren't to fulfill minhag. Hey, I didn't outright assur the practice, I said it relies on being meiqil, such as calling wanting to be chosheish for some minority opinion shitah a need to blow. In general, I'm increasingly uncomfortable with this concept of being machmir to be chosheish for ... It seems to reflect a lack of emunah in kelalei pesaq and the authority of pesaq. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 11:46:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 14:46:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 11:36 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > In OC 196:1, the Rama mentions the minhag of blowing 30 qolos at the > end of RH mussaf. "Ule'achar sheyatze'u bazeh, shuv ein litqua od > bechinam." > > (Although a qatan, even higia lechinuch, may.) Not bechinam; for practice, so that he may one day blow for real. > So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the > qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, > etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 05:09:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Arie Folger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 14:09:57 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos Message-ID: RMB wrote: > Yes, that explains why it's nothing clearer cut than zilzul Shabbos. > AIUI, worrying about zilzul means that the mechanism is mutar, but > the goal is one that cheapens Shabbos, removes some of the feeling > of its qedushah. > > Like taking the pre-existing concept of eiruv as a way to have a > reshus that was no included in Shelomo ubeis dino's original issur > hotza'ah and stretching it to a much bigger area than ever before, > so that most people never have reason to leave it most weeks. So > that the entire issur goes from being one of the dominant features > of Shabbos (judging just in blatt of discussion) to barely ever > experienced. RAW actually deals with this explicitly by citing IIRC Rambam on why Chazal legislated mutze. We are not all farmers or builders, not even cooks and bakers. Hence, many of us hardly ever come close to deoraitot of Shabbat. However, Shabbaton requires shevita hanikeret,so Chazal legislated muktze to create a shevita hanikeret. Says RAW, even if he is wrong on electricity being a deoraita (but he doesn't think he is wrong), nonetheless, the consensus of poskim on elecricity makes it into something akin to muktze. That never happened regarding gefillte fish [which outside Hungary hardly anyone ever ate except on Yom Tov, since what passes for gefillte fish is just the filling. ]. No one ever suggested it is chillul Shabbos to eat gevldige Sushi. At worst, some puerile yeshive boocher called it goiyishe maakhoolim. -- Arie Folger, Recent blog posts on http://ariefolger.wordpress.com/ * Kann man die Religion des anderen korrekt wahrnehmen? ? Zur Woche der Br?derlichkeit * ???? ???? ????? ? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ???? ??? * Ist Pessach f?r die Vergangenheit oder die Zukunft? * Frag den Rabbi ? Wie backte man Mazzot in der Bibel? * Frag den Rabbi ? Seit wann und warum bedecken j?dische m?nner beim gebet ihr haupt? * A Critique of Liberal Orthodox Approach to Halacha -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:38:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:38:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 02:46:27PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the : last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. Having 100 qolos as learned from Eim Sisera's 100 cries is a minhag recorded already in the Arukh, and is mentioned by Todafos and the Rosh in RH pereq 4. (AhS OC 596:1) The Tur that R' Amram Gaon mentions of minhag of a single teru'ah gedolah without a teqi'ah kedei le'arbeiv hasatan, but we do not have this minhag. The the AhS continues (se'if 2) with the already mentioned Rama, "ke'achar sheyatz'u bazeh, ein litqoa od bechinam". Which is why I said that blowing more than 100 qolos for reasons less than minhag requires a qula-dik reading of "chinam". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:31:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:31:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521202527.GP9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521202527.GP9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E409C.7080609@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 04:25 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > >:> So, if in your shul, people stay late to hear other varations of the >:> qolos -- Rashi, Brisker, shevarim-ter'uah beneshimah achas or 2 neshimos, >:> etc... -- they are actually being meiqil as well. >: No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the >: last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. > They aren't to fulfill minhag. Hey, I didn't outright assur the practice, > I said it relies on being meiqil, such as calling wanting to be chosheish > for some minority opinion shitah a need to blow. That's not a kulah, because the issur is davka when it's bechinam, and so long as there's a reason it's not chinam. Their wish to hear shofar the way this rishon or that one wanted it heard is at least as good a reason as our "le`arvev es hasoton", or giving women a "nachas ruach". [Email #2. -micha] Follow-up: However, your chashash brings up an interesting suggestion. if they are worried about all possible chashshos, then maybe they should worry about yours too, and they can easily solve it: let them go on mivtzo'im and find Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all, and blow for them according to these opinions. That way, not only will they have heard shofar according to all possible opinions, and not only will they have the zechus of those Jews having heard shofar according to at least one opinion (which is certainly kosher, as you correctly point out), but their "extra" tekios will be with a bracha! -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:51:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:51:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E454E.60107@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 04:38 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 02:46:27PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: > : No, they're not. None of these tekios are "bechinam", any more than the > : last 30 kolos "le`arvev es hasatan", or a katan blowing for practice. > > Having 100 qolos as learned from Eim Sisera's 100 cries is a minhag > recorded already in the Arukh, and is mentioned by Todafos and the > Rosh in RH pereq 4. (AhS OC 596:1) Yes, but what of the extra 30 kolos after davening? Those are not in the 100 kolos, they're just le'arvev es hasoton, and yet nobody seems to raise this objection to them. > The the AhS continues (se'if 2) with the already mentioned Rama, > "ke'achar sheyatz'u bazeh, ein litqoa od bechinam". Which is why I said > that blowing more than 100 qolos for reasons less than minhag requires > a qula-dik reading of "chinam". No, it's not kuladig, it's just what the word means. Any valid reason is not chinam. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:55:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:55:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <555E454E.60107@sero.name> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> <555E454E.60107@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150521205546.GA9166@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 04:51:26PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Yes, but what of the extra 30 kolos after davening? Those are not in the : 100 kolos, they're just le'arvev es hasoton, and yet nobody seems to raise : this objection to them. Actually, they were part of the 100 qolos, and in nusach Ashkenaz they still are. It's only because y'all starting blowing during chazaras hashatz that it's not obvious. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:44:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:44:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Zilzul Shabbos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <555E43A6.3020602@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 08:09 AM, Arie Folger via Avodah wrote: > No one ever suggested it is chillul Shabbos to eat gevldige Sushi. At worst, some puerile yeshive boocher called it goiyishe maakhoolim. Chilul Shabbos, no, but I have heard people seriously claim that it's forbidden to eat milchigs on Shabbos because it's "not shabbosdik", and specifically citing as "obviously" ridiculous the idea of eating lasagna on Shabbos. Which struck me as funny, since I recall one Rosh Hashana, no less, being confronted with an excellent milchig lasagna, made with fake meat, and having to wait to eat it because I was still fleishig from lunch. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 13:52:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:52:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What do Chazal mean when they refer to "pashtei d'kra?" Message-ID: <20150521205201.GA6908@aishdas.org> Maybe one of you could help R' CHaim Brown, even if he did leave us over a decade ago. A recent blog post on his "Divrei Chaim" at or . I mean, we talk about different definitions of the concept of "peshat" often enough, perhaps maybe someone had something. Tir'u baTov! -Micha Divrei Chaim Wednesday, May 20, 2015 what do Chazal mean when they refer to "pashtei d'kra?" The gemara Archin 8b darshens that "tzikascha k'harerei E-l" refers to nigei adam, which Hashem in his mercy limits to affecting a person for a week. The continuation of the pasuk, "mishpatecha tehom rabbah," refers to nigei batim, where the punishment is more severe in that it can stretch out for three weeks. The gemara then asks, "Pashtei d'kra b'mai?" and brings two similar explanations to the pasuk that read it as saying that G-d shows great mercy in tempering and mitigating the verdict that strict justice would call for. What do Chazal mean when they refer to "pashtei d'kra?" Despite the word "pashtei" in there, it does not seem to mean what the Rishonim like Rashi call "pshat," because if you look at Rashi or the Metzudas David, they don't simply quote this gemara. It seems that the gemara's "pashtei d'kra" is itself a derasha, albeit a derasha that is closer to the plain meaning of the words than the derasha that links the pasuk to nega'im. So are there different levels of derashos? The term "pashtei d'kra" is not all that common, so are these isolated exceptional cases, or in general are there different levels of derash? Does it make any nafka minah (except in our understanding of things?) Posted by Chaim B. at 9:40 AM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 14:12:18 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 17:12:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <20150521205546.GA9166@aishdas.org> References: <20150521153600.GI9522@aishdas.org> <555E2803.6020907@sero.name> <20150521203838.GQ9522@aishdas.org> <555E454E.60107@sero.name> <20150521205546.GA9166@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <555E4A32.8030909@sero.name> On 05/21/2015 04:55 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 04:51:26PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : Yes, but what of the extra 30 kolos after davening? Those are not in the > : 100 kolos, they're just le'arvev es hasoton, and yet nobody seems to raise > : this objection to them. > > Actually, they were part of the 100 qolos, and in nusach Ashkenaz they > still are. It's only because y'all starting blowing during chazaras > hashatz that it's not obvious. No, these kolos are not part of the 100. These are an extra 30, *after* the 100, and their only purpose is le'arvev es hasoton. And yet that doesn't count as "bechinam". -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 18:25:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 21:25:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Shulchan Aruch's "Beis Din" Message-ID: <20150522012546.GA28788@aishdas.org> We discussed a number of times the fact that the SA doesn't follow the rule in his haqdamah to OC about following the majority of the Rif, the Rambam and the Rosh. Less often, peoeple mention actual examples. So, in case you were looking for one, the AhS mentions on OC 606:8-9 the machloqes about whetherit's a mitzbvah to eat on erev YK. In se'if 8 we learn the the Rif, the Ramnam and the Smag omit this idea, and in se'if 9 he says the Rosh, Tur and SA (se'if 1) hold that it's a mitzvah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 20:02:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi, its Kosher! via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 13:02:42 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Ways to find non-meat or non-milk - The BP Project Message-ID: I am happy to engage in discussion regarding the Halachos of BP, with anyone who is interested. For the time being such discussions must be and remain private I can confirm that I have been in contact with R Chaim Kanievsky about this for some years now and that he supports the Lomdus and proofs that I have proposed. Best, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi *Its Kosher* and *Exodus Matza * *it's kosher Authority Pty Ltd **ABN: *77 160 144 374 rabbi at itskosher.com.au +61 0423 207 837 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 21 18:55:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 01:55:29 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula Message-ID: <20150521.215529.1991.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Actually, they were part of the 100 qolos, and in nusach Ashkenaz they > still are. It's only because y'all starting blowing during chazaras > hashatz that it's not obvious. R' Zev Sero responded: > No, these kolos are not part of the 100. These are an extra 30, > *after* the 100, and their only purpose is le'arvev es hasoton. > And yet that doesn't count as "bechinam". Okay, folks, I think it is clear that some of us have been exposed to minhagim that the others are unaware of. I suggest that we clarify the various minhagim, and tally up the different ways of dong it. >From what I've seen, the vast majority of Nusach Ashkenaz shuls blow 30 times before Musaf, 30 during Chazaras Hashatz, 40 during or after Kaddish Tiskabel, and that is the end, for a total of exactly 100. I have been in a Nusach Sfard shul where they blow 30 times before Musaf, 30 during the silent Musaf, 30 during Chazaras Hashatz, 10 during or after Kaddish Tiskabel, and that is the end, for a total of exactly 100. Here in Elizabeth, we blow 30 times before Musaf, 60 during Chazaras Hashatz, 10 during Kaddish Tiskabel, and that is the end, for a total of exactly 100. R' Zev, could you describe for us how the first 100 are blown, and when the extra 30 come in? And if anyone else wants to add to the list, please do so! Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/555e8cc570114cc51cdast04vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 01:14:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 11:14:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat Message-ID: REMT wrote > True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature > of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so > accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul > Shabbos. (Of course, by this argument, putting an electric light on or off > should be prohibited even if the use of electricity is not a m'lacha.) In particular using an preset switch to turn lights and off should be prohibited. While RMF originally did object he later changed his mind when it became the norm. In fact even the kosher lamp might be prohibited Can someone come up with a definition of zilzul shabbat? Is every modern way of doing any melacha that does not technically violate hilchot shabbat zilzul? The gemara allows using the sun for cooking on shabbat - why isn't that zilzul shabbat? -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 07:59:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Sassoon via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 15:59:41 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003901d0949f$eed65840$cc8308c0$@org.uk> RZS writes: >That's not a kulah, because the issur is davka when it's bechinam, I don't think that is exactly the correct phrasing to explain the situation. Rather, there is the general blanket rabbinic issur on playing musical instruments on yom tov, into which sounding shofar prima facie falls. This general issur is pushed aside by the d'orisa positive mitzvah of blowing shofar (noting that, at least according to the famous Taz, because rabbinic power doesn't stretch far enough to allow the banning of something which is a mitzvah d'orisa in every circumstances in which it would occur, as this would do - but is only in allowed situations where only sometimes the mitzvah would not end up being performed, such as Rosh Hashana on shabbas). This rabbinic issur of playing musical instruments on yom tov vis a vis the shofar is also pushed aside in other rabbinically recognised circumstances - including (according to the majority rishonim, Shulchan Aruch and Rema, although there are major rishonic dissenters) nachas ruach d'nashim. The case of the katan may well be different, given that the fundamental issue with katanim is chinuch (which might perhaps be said to cut both ways here). > and so long as there's a reason it's not chinam. Their wish to hear shofar >the way this rishon or that one wanted it heard is at least as good a >reason as our "le`arvev es hasoton", or giving women a "nachas ruach". Leaving aside nachas ruach, which has (according to those who hold by it at least rabbinic weight - ie power to push aside at least rabbinic prohibitions) - what is the justification for le'arev es hasoton? My instincts are that, to the extent that le'arvev es hasoton is taken seriously, the argument there is one of pikuach nefesh, which of course would push aside the rabbinic issur of playing musical instruments (think about it, if you can get a few extra years out of confusing the soton, how could that not be considered pikuach nefesh)? Don't think that helps with being choshesh for minority shitos. >However, your chashash brings up an interesting suggestion. if they >are worried about all possible chashshos, then maybe they should worry >about yours too, and they can easily solve it: let them go on mivtzo'im >and find Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all, and blow for them >according to these opinions. That way, not only will they have heard >shofar according to all possible opinions, and not only will they have >the zechus of those Jews having heard shofar according to at least >one opinion (which is certainly kosher, as you correctly point out), >but their "extra" tekios will be with a bracha! But aren't they then denying those Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all the chance to hear shofar according to the majority opinions by only blowing for them according to the minority opinions? Or are you proposing that they *then* blow for them according to the majority opinions? Either way you seem to me to be opening a real can of worms. The principle on which somebody who has fulfilled their obligation can then fulfil the obligation of another is based on kol yisrael areivim zeh b'zeh. But to what extent is that applicable in a situation in which that person would never, had the situation been reversed, have accepted the form of fulfilment they are offering the other. Ie since the person who is blowing the shofar refused to have these alternative ways of blowing as the fundamental method of fulfilling their own mitzvah, is it really areivus to then foist that form of fulfilment on others? >Zev Sero zev at sero.name Shabbat Shalom Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 10:22:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 13:22:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What is the Law? Message-ID: <20150522172240.022581829C9@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/sivan_v.pdf YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 11:16:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 14:16:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula II Message-ID: <20150522181627.GA5977@aishdas.org> I came across another one, more inyana deyoma... According to the AhS (OC 494:3) we used to wait for "laylah mamash" to make Qiddush the first night of Shavu'os, so that the omer could be "sheva shabasos temimos". Presumably this is following the MGA who has us wait until tzeis for Qiddush, and the AhS's "laylah mamash" means tzeis. The Taz (494:haqdamah) and the MB (s"q 1) have us waiting for tzeis to start *Ma'ariv*. The Qorban Nesanel (on the Rosh, Pesachim 130b) brings the Rosh as a ra'ayah against the MGA. The Rosh says that even though on Shabbos *and the other YT-im* we add from the chol to the qodesh and eat before it gets dark, we do not do so for the seder night. So the QN QN takes the implication that "she'ar yamim tovim" includes Shavuos. So the QN treats Shavuos like Shabbos, and presumably let you daven maariv and make Qiddush right after pelag. The QN is machmir in omer, the MGA is machmir in tosefes YT. And each is being correspondingly meiqil in the other. I would presume that the silence in the Tur, the BY and the SA about any waiting means that the Tur, the Mechaber and the Rama hold like the QN and treat erev Shavuos like erev Shabbos, RH, Sukkos, etc... (But not Pesach.) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Today is the 48th day, which is micha at aishdas.org 6 weeks and 6 days in/toward the omer. http://www.aishdas.org Yesod sheb'Malchus: What binds different Fax: (270) 514-1507 people together into one cohesive whole? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 22 08:55:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 11:55:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <003901d0949f$eed65840$cc8308c0$@org.uk> References: <003901d0949f$eed65840$cc8308c0$@org.uk> Message-ID: <555F517D.4080806@sero.name> On 05/22/2015 10:59 AM, Chana Sassoon via Avodah wrote: >> >However, your chashash brings up an interesting suggestion. if they >> >are worried about all possible chashshos, then maybe they should worry >> >about yours too, and they can easily solve it: let them go on mivtzo'im >> >and find Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all, and blow for them >> >according to these opinions. That way, not only will they have heard >> >shofar according to all possible opinions, and not only will they have >> >the zechus of those Jews having heard shofar according to at least >> >one opinion (which is certainly kosher, as you correctly point out), >> >but their "extra" tekios will be with a bracha! > But aren't they then denying those Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all > the chance to hear shofar according to the majority opinions by only blowing > for them according to the minority opinions? AFAIK everyone agrees that all these methods are kosher, so those Jews are definitely yotzei the mitzvah. > The principle on which > somebody who has fulfilled their obligation can then fulfil the obligation > of another is based on kol yisrael areivim zeh b'zeh. But to what extent is > that applicable in a situation in which that person would never, had the > situation been reversed, have accepted the form of fulfilment they are > offering the other. Ie since the person who is blowing the shofar refused > to have these alternative ways of blowing as the fundamental method of > fulfilling their own mitzvah, is it really areivus to then foist that form > of fulfilment on others? They're not foisting anything. The people they're blowing for would otherwise not hear shofar at all, so they're clearly better off hearing even some obscure form of it, so long as they're yotzei. On 05/21/2015 09:55 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > R' Zev, could you describe for us how the first 100 are blown, and when the extra 30 come in? And if anyone else wants to add to the list, please do so! I'm talking about 30 kolos blown at the very end of davening, just before going home, and well after all 100 kolos have already been heard (30 meyushav, 30 in each musaf, and 10 in kaddish). Their purpose is le'arvev es hasoton. And I've never heard it suggested that there is any chashash issur. Thus my conclusion that shofar-blowing is allowed on RH for *any* valid purpose, and the only blowing that remains forbidden as usual on Yomtov, is when it is truly "bechinam". -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 25 12:15:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 25 May 2015 19:15:59 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Brisker Theory of Everything Message-ID: 1. The gemara (Ketuvot 5b) discusses whether causing a certain type of blood flowing is considered a Sabbath violation. The first attempt to resolve the question turns on whether "mifkad pakid or chaburei mechbar" (is the blood in the womb stored up or is it the result of a wound?). Rashi there (please look) seems to define this as a physical question. Is this acceptable or must we say Rashi was leaving out the "obvious" philosophical/halachic question (i.e. the physical was known, it's a question of how to categorize it halachically)? 2. That gemara continues to try to resolve the question and is willing to entertain the possibility that the halacha is like Rabbi Yehuda (vs. Rabbi Shimon) in mekalkeil (destroying) and like Rabbi Shimon (vs. Rabbi Yehuda) in davar sheino mitkavein (the result was not the major one intended). If these two issues were interconnected, could the gemara entertain this possibility? 3. If the answer to 2 is no, must we assume that when the Shulchan Aruch said he would decide the psak based on majority 2 of big 3, did he really mean this as a primary tie breaker, or only when he did not have a clear understanding of the underlying philosophy that resulted in their final opinions. 4.Is it possible that R'YBS limited his "canon" to only a few major rishonim (in contradistinction to R" A Lichtenstein) because the more data points included in trying to determine the underlying theoretical construct, the more likely a single errant point would skew the results? Kt Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon May 25 19:35:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 02:35:10 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir Message-ID: <20150525.223510.2086.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> After Machlon and Kilyon died, we find in Ruth 1:8-13 that Naami tells both Orpah and Ruth to go back home. Didn't Naami realize that they would return to avodah zara if they'd do that? Even if they had not converted yet, wouldn't this be an example of Lifnei Iveir? One answer I can think of is that perhaps this eventuality didn't occur to Naami. But several pesukim later, in 1:15, Naami tells Ruth that Orpah has "returned to her people and to her god; go back with your sister-in-law." Naami persists not only in trying to convince Ruth to leave, but she explicitly urges Ruth to return to her former god! This question is certainly relevant according to those who understand that Orpah and Ruth converted prior to marrying Machlon and Kilyon. But it is relevant even to those who hold that Ruth did not convert until afterward. It is one thing to dissuade a prospective ger from joining us. But Ruth had been living with a Jewish family for ten years! How can Naami urge her to go back to avoda zara? I know that the meforshim give various reasons why Naami did not want them to accompany her back to Eretz Yisrael, but do those reasons justify this Lifnei Iveir? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 06:00:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 09:00:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Who Wrote the Mishna Brura? Message-ID: <20150526130054.4548818394C@nexus.stevens.edu> I am sure that most will answer "The Chofetz Chaim" Israel Meir (HaKohen) Kagan. However, he apparently did not write all of it. I have been reading Marc Shapiro's latest book "Changing the Immutable" How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites its History. See http://www.littman.co.uk/cat/shapiro-orthodox.html Shapiro points out that Rabbi Aryeh Leib Cohen, a son of the Chofetz Chaim, wrote in his biography of his father that he wrote parts of the Mishna Brura and that is why there are contradictions in some parts of the MB. Which parts Aryeh Leib wrote are not indicated. Does anyone know? YL PS. I have found this book an eye opener and recommend it highly. llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 10:19:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kaganoff via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 13:19:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 12:01 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 01:53:10PM -0400, Kaganoff via Avodah wrote: > : For many years i had extreme difficulty with R. Elchanan Wasserman > understanding > : as it conflicted with my belief that Judaism (and other religions) was > not > : logically provable (contra to Moshe Mendelssohn and his contemporaries) > and > : therefore required a "leap of faith" and that a disbeliever could not be > : faulted for failing to take such a jump. > > This is a false dichotomy. Logically proving things are not the only > way to justify belief in there. > > How do you know that (in a flat space) two parallel lines never meet? If > you're like me, you pictured it in your head. Even though infinite lines > don't exist in the real world. (Nor, does it turn out, does flat space.) Actually non-euclidean geometry is an excellent example. We cannot say with absolute certainty that two parallel lines will never meet or that there is only one line that goes through a particular point that is parallel to another line, as there is a well developed body of literature on non-Euclidean geometry (such as Riemannian Geometry). One might "feel" strongly that Euclidean Geometry is true and non-Euclidean Geometry is false. But someone might also feel that chocolate ice cream is superior to vanilla ice cream. But neither can be proven. > > Did you figure out that oppression was evil by logical proof, or by a > combination of imagination and empathy? > Calling anything "evil is not meant to be logical but rather to pull at an audiences' heartstrings. Evil is neither logical nor illogical. Nor can one "prove" that the Nazis are evil and that circumcision is not. However, that is a red herring. Again, emotions are not proof. Feelings are neither true nor false. > My favorite example is answering the question, "Do elephants have hair?" > A logical/verbal approach would be: Elephants are mammals, all mammals > have hair, and so unless elephants are the exception to the rule, they > must have hair. Elephants are well known and discussed animals. Could > they be an exception to the rule and I don't know it? Nah, they must > have hair. > > How it is more likely the question jogged your memory of elephants > you saw, or saw pictures of. The detail may be blurry, so you may have > to manipulate the picture a bit. Finally, a version of the picture > which has a tuft of hair at the tail, maybe (if your memory is good) > some downy hair around the eyes and ears, strikes you as the most > familiar, the most real. And again you could reach the conclusion that > elephants have hair. > That is a proveable thesis. One could prove either way whether or not elephants have hair. Unlike the two earlier examples. As for whether one could prove the existence or non-existance of God, I don't have time now to start that discussion. > > (See for some musings about > the two modes of thought I'm contrasting here.) > > In I compare > different versions of the Argument from Design from R' Aqiva's response > to the apiqoreis through the Rambam, through similar approaches based > on more modern science. > > "G-d created" (Gen. 1:1): A hereic came to Rabbi Aqiva and asked, > "Who made the universe?". Rabbi Aqiva answered, "HQBH". The heretic > said, "Prove it to me." Rabbi Aqiva said, "Come to me tomorrow". > > When the heretic returned, Rabbi Aqiva asked, "What is that you > are wearing?" > > "A garment", the unbeliever replied. > > "Who made it?" > > "A weaver." > > "Prove it to me." > > "What do you mean? How can I prove it to you? Here is the garment, > how can you not know that a weaver made it?" > > Rabbi Akiva said, "And here is the world; how can you not know that > Haqadosh barukh Hu made it?" > > After the heretic left, Rabbi Aqiva's students asked him, "But what is > the proof?" He said, "Even as a house proclaims its builder,a garment > its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the > Holy Blessed One Who created it. > > Not very rigorous. Rabbi Aqiva's reply revolves around giving a parable > to make the conclusion self-evident. Not contructing a deductive argument. > > The more rigorous we try making it, the more arguable the proof becomes. > R' Aqiva's argument is far more convincing than the Rambam's statement > based on how objects lose form over time, not gain it. Or a similar > argument based on thermodynamics or information theory. > > (Ironically, every formal / logical proof is built from givens taken > as self-evident for informal-reasoning reasons.) > > Anyway, that's how I understood REW. R' Elchanan argues that on an > informal level, the idea that the universe had to have a Creator is > as obvious as a Euclidean postulate or the injustice of oppression. > I believe that such an explanation is disrespectful to REW. I am assuming that REW believed what he wrote and wrote down clearly what he believed as opposed to assuming that REW believes one thing and wrote another. > > To not believe in G-d requires a formal proof, which one's negios then > determine if they find it sound or specious, and whether they accept > the postulates on which it's built. > To believe and to not believe in God can be pulled off without formal proofs. However, it is intellectually dishonest to state that one has an arguement for God's existance and than say that we are not talking about formal proofs when a counterarguement is made. > Notice I didn't invoke any leaps of faith. > > Tir'u baTov! > -Micha > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 12:25:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 15:25:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150526192512.GA22762@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 01:19:53PM -0400, Kaganoff wrote: : > How do you know that (in a flat space) two parallel lines never meet? If : > you're like me, you pictured it in your head. Even though infinite lines : > don't exist in the real world. (Nor, does it turn out, does flat space.) : : : Actually non-euclidean geometry is an excellent example. We cannot say with : absolute certainty that two parallel lines will never meet or that there is : only one line that goes through a particular point that is parallel to : another line, as there is a well developed body of literature on : non-Euclidean geometry (such as Riemannian Geometry). Well, if we know the curvature of the space we're dealing with, we know which Geometry to use. And only one is correct for that particular space. :> Did you figure out that oppression was evil by logical proof, or by a :> combination of imagination and empathy? : : Calling anything "evil is not meant to be logical but rather to pull at an : audiences' heartstrings. Evil is neither logical nor illogical. Nor can one : "prove" that the Nazis are evil and that circumcision is not. I disagree with your reisha. Evil is an objectively meaningful predicate. Yahadus wouldn't work is evil were subjective. As for your seifa... that's kind of my point: there are truths that can be justified even when they are not amenable to formal proofs. : However, that is a red herring. Again, emotions are not proof. Feelings are : neither true nor false. Although the notion that John is feeling happy at 2:55pm EST May 26, 2015 is either true or false. Or some fuzzy state in between. It is a predicate, even if it needn't be a boolean predicate. All three of these comments are interrelated: Euclidean geometry is the only accurate description of flat space. Not every space, but flat space. People may disagree about what is evil, and Nazis may be able to fool themselves about what the word means, but HQBH did create a concept of good that has an objective definition. Even if -- again -- we cannot find it via proof. : > My favorite example is answering the question, "Do elephants have hair?" : > A logical/verbal approach would be... : > How it is more likely the question jogged your memory of elephants : > you saw, or saw pictures of... : That is a proveable thesis. One could prove either way whether or not : elephants have hair. Unlike the two earlier examples. As I said in the first paragraph, before the first ellipses. However, in practice, people aren't likely to use proofs to reach the conclusion. We justify our belief that elephants have hair in a different way. : As for whether one could prove the existence or non-existance of God, I : don't have time now to start that discussion. But my whole point is that proof isn't the only grounds for justifying knowledge! ... : > Anyway, that's how I understood REW. R' Elchanan argues that on an : > informal level, the idea that the universe had to have a Creator is : > as obvious as a Euclidean postulate or the injustice of oppression. : I believe that such an explanation is disrespectful to REW. I am assuming : that REW believed what he wrote and wrote down clearly what he believed as : opposed to assuming that REW believes one thing and wrote another. Um... That /is/ what Rav Elchanan wrote. I'm arguing that he is being misread because they think that REW invoking the notion of knowledge (as opposed to belief) is equivalent to his invoking the notion of proof. Instead, he invokes the synthetic a priori, of the self-evident, or whatever your theory of justification is of R' Aqiva's answer to the atheist or that letters aren't the product of ink spilled on paper. AISI, REW is saying that humans know there is a G-d, without his saying anything about the possibility of proving it. And that people then go about creating proofs for His non-Existence or Deism, to hide from that knowledge. Or, to be more loyal to his original wording -- because they took shochad to buy into a proof against the obvious. He might be saying that at some level, that knowledge lingers, no matter how much someone buries it under layers of counter-proof and convincing themselves. But I don't see that in REW either. Quoting: Now, of course, we shouldn't be astonished that so many great philosophers had difficulty believing that the world was created by a Purposeful Creator. Their minds were surely great, but their desire to gain benefit from the pleasures of this world overcame their ability to think straight. Such a powerful bias can divert a person's mind to the point that he can say two plus two does not equal four... After my signature, I'll quote Qovetz Maamariv par 5-7 from a translation provided by Pirchei Shoshanim. You'll notice it's nothing like the Rambam's attempt to formally prove an Argument from Design in Moreh sec. II. Really, all he says is that monotheism woul be self-evident if people didn't want to escape its implications on their lifestyle. Not proven, self-evident, and not that those who argue against it are less than fully convinced of their atheism (or Deism, or polytheism). :> To not believe in G-d requires a formal proof, which one's negios then :> determine if they find it sound or specious, and whether they accept :> the postulates on which it's built. : To believe and to not believe in God can be pulled off without formal : proofs. : However, it is intellectually dishonest to state that one has an arguement : for God's existance and than say that we are not talking about formal : proofs when a counterarguement is made. Not "argument", any more than your acceptance of Euclidean (or Reimann) postulates are based on argument. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_justification#Theories_of_justification and http://www.iep.utm.edu/epistemo/#H3 may be clearer than I have been. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "Man wants to achieve greatness overnight, micha at aishdas.org and he wants to sleep well that night too." http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yosef Yozel Horwitz, Alter of Novarodok Fax: (270) 514-1507 5. If you ponder it, however, you shall find that the belief that the Holy One, blessed by He, created the world is self-understood by any intelligent being -- unless a person is a complete imbecile. And there is no need for any [knowledge of] philosophy to grasp this principle. The author of the Duties of the Heart (Shaar HaYichud 6) thus wrote: There are people who say that the world came into existence by chance, without a Creator who caused it and formed it. I wonder how any rational being in a normal state of mind can entertain such a notion. If one holding such a opinion would hear a person expressing a similar view in regard to a water-wheel that revolves in order to irrigate a portion of a field or garden -- and were to say that he thinks it had been set up without any intention on the part of a mechanic who labored to put it together and adjust it, using all his tools to obtain this useful result -- the hearer would wonder, be exceedingly astonished, and think the man who made such a statement extremely foolish. He would promptly charge him with lying, and would reject his assertion. Now, if such a statement is rejected in regard to a small and insignificant wheel, the fashioning of which requires but little contrivance and which serves for the improvement of but a small portion of the earth, how can anyone permit himself to harbor such a thought concerning the immense sphere that emcompasses the whole earth with all the creatures on it; which exhibits a wisdom so great that the minds of all living creatures, the intellects of all rational mortals, cannot comprehend it; which is appointed for the benefit of the whole earth and all its inhabitants – how can one say that it came into existence without a wise and mighty designer purposing and conceiving it? Whatever takes place without purpose shows, as is well known, no trace of wisdom or power. Do you not realize that if ink were poured out accidentally on a blank sheet of paper, it would be impossible that proper writing should result, legible lines such as are written with a pen? If a person brought us a fair copy of script that could only have been written with a pen, and said that ink had been spilt on paper and these written characters have come of themselves, we would charge him to his face with falsehood, for we would feel certain that this result could not have happened without an intelligent person's purposeful action to produce it. Since this appears to us an impossibility in the case of characters whose form is conventional, how can one assert that something far finer in its art, and which manifests in its fashioning a subtlety infinitely beyond our comprehension, could have happened without the purpose, power and wisdom of a wise and mighty designer? How could anyone say that the universe came into existence on its own, seeing that everywhere we look we see signs of such inconceivably profound wisdom? How wondrous is the wisdom and design in the human body, how wondrous the arrangement of its limbs and organs, as all doctors and surgeons attest. How is it possible to say, with regard to such a wondrous machine, that it came into existence on its own without a purposeful designer? If anyone would claim that a watch had just come into existence on its own, he would be considered insane. We see this in the Midrash (Midrash Temurah in Midrash Aggadot Bereshit): An athiest came to Rebbi Akiva. "Who created the world?", he queried. R. Akiva answered, "The Holy One, blessed be He." The athiest replied, "Show me proof." R. Akiva said, "Come back to me tomorrow and I shall prove it to you." When the man returned the following day, R. Akiva began by asking, "What is that you are wearing?""A piece of clothing,"the athiest replied."And who made it?" R. Akiva continued. "The weaver", he replied. "Show me proof", R. Akiva demanded. "But how can I show you proof if it isn't already obvious to you that it is the work of the weaver?!" With this R. Akiva said, "Have you not heard what your own lips have spoken? Isn't it obvious to you that the Holy One has created this world? Doesn't the clothing testify to the weaver; the house and the door to a builder and a carpenter? Just so does the world testity to the One who made it." Imagine a human being born with a fully developed intellect. We can't imagine his great astonishment upon seeing, suddenly, the heavens and their hosts, the earth and all that is upon it. What would this man's answer be to our question: Did the world that he is seeing now for the first time come into existence on its own, without any conscious intent, or is it the work of a wise Creator? Behold, without a doubt, after contemplating for a moment, he would respond that all this was made with wondrous wisdom and extremely subtle order (fine-tuning). [We find this concept expressed in any number places in our classical literature.] The Psalmist said, "The heavens declare the glory of G-d"(Psalms 19:2). [According the Duties of the Heart 2:5] this is also the meaning of Job's words when he declared, "From my flesh, I will see G-d!"(Job 19:26) [The Psalmist saw proof of G-d's existence in the magnitude of the universe. Job was saying that the very fact that something as wonderful as his body could exist demonstrates that it is the work of a wise Creator.] In view of all this it is therefore extremely puzzling, a great enigma: How could some of the greatest philosophers who ever lived have concluded that the world was brought into existence by chance? 6. The resolution of this enigma can be found in the Torah. The Torah reveals something profound about human psychology when it commands, "Do not take bribes, for bribery blinds the eyes of the wise!" (Deuteronomy 16:19). What is bribery? In legal terms, the smallest amount necessary to constitute a bribe is a "shaveh prutah"(not much more than a penny), similar to the minimum amount needed [for a court] to find a person guilty of stealing or of taking interest. This negative commandment, to never take a bribe, is directed not only at a judge, but at every man, even the wisest of men, even the most righteous, even Moses himself. Yes, if it could be imagined, even if Moses would take the tiniest bribe, a prutah, his perception of reality would be distorted; he would be incapable of bringing forth a just ruling. At first sight, this is nothing short of amazing. Can we imagine Moses or Aaron twisting the law and judging falsely merely for the sake of receiving such miniscule benefit? But the Torah itself testifies to the possibility, and "the testimony of G-d is trustworthy" (Psalms 19:8). We must therefore say that it is a psychological law: A person's will or desire [to gain some benefit] influences his mind [his ability to think straight]. Of course, it depends how strong the desire and how resolute the mind. A small desire will not exert much influence on a great mind, whereas on a lesser mind it will. A powerful desire [for gain] will exert even more influence. One thing is certain: no matter how miniscule, a desire for gain will always have some affect. Even the tiniest desire can cause the greatest mind to waver a fraction. This is exemplified in the Talmud (Ketuvot 105b): Rebbi Yishmael bar Yossi had a land tenant who used to bring him fruits from his [R. Yishmael's] orchard every Friday before Shabbat. Once, he came on a Thursday. R. Yishmael asked him: "What's changed this week?" "I have a court case this week", he answered."Since I was coming to town anyway, I thought I would bring you your fruits."R. Yishmael refused to take the fruits [even though they were his]. "I am disqualified from judging your case."Two [other] rabbis sat and began to hear the land tenant's case. R. Yishmael sat [on the sidelines] watching. At every turn in the discussion, R. Yishmael felt himself wanting to give advice to his land tenant. "If only he would say this now... if only he would say this..."After the case was decided, he exclaimed, "O that the spirit of those who take bribes would explode! I refused to take what was rightfully mine [and I still couldn't help being biased and wanting to see him come out winning]. How much more those who actually take what it is not theirs! It is known that the sages [of the Talmud] were angelic in terms of their expanded consciousness and saintly character. We nevertheless see that the smallest degree of bias could cause them to incline away from the truth. How much more so the rest of us who are sunken in the desires of this world! The desire for gain literally bribes us, saying, "Hey, look, the world is free to do with as you please!"How powerful this bias is! How easily it distorts our perception and blinds us! For when a person has "bought into"a certain bias, he is incapable of recognizing any truth that flies in the face of that bias. As far as that truth is concerned, he might just as well be in a drunken stupor. He doesn't recognize its existence. Now, of course, we shouldn't be astonished that so many great philosophers had difficulty believing that the world was created by a Purposeful Creator. Their minds were surely great, but their desire to gain benefit from the pleasures of this world overcame their ability to think straight. Such a powerful bias can divert a person's mind to the point that he can say two plus two does not equal four, but five. A person cannot judge whether something is true unless his mind is free from any distorting influence vis a vis the thing he wishes to judge. On the contrary, if recognizing a particular truth in any way contradicts a bias that a person has bought into, no amount of intellect, even the intellect of a great person, can remove or overcome that bias. 7. We learn from this that the foundations of true faith are simple and unquestionable for anyone who isn't an idiot. It is simply impossible to doubt their veracity. This is only true, however, on the condition that one does not allow oneself to be bribed. One must be disinterested in and free from the desires and allures of this world, and his own personal desires [for gain]. If so, the root of God-denial lies not in the distortion of the intellect in and of itself. It lies in the heart, i.e., in one's desire to gain benefit [from this world], which distorts and blinds the intellect. It is clear now why the Torah commands, "Do not stray after your hearts..." (Deuteronomy 15:39), concerning which the sages commented, "Do not follow after the heart's desire to deny G-d"(Sifri Shlach 15:70). A person is obligated to subdue and sublimate his desires [for personal gain], because this is the only way his intellect will be free of any blinding influence! He will then automatically recognize the truth of the existence of a Creator. This is what Rebbi Akiva meant when he said that the world attests to the Holy One, blessed be He, who created it. God-denial really has no place in a person's mind. Its place, if man allows it to exist there, is the heart; in a person's desire for gain. And if one would be careful not to allow his desires to overcome him, he could never come to deny G-d's existence or atttribute reality to any form of idolatry. It is a sign that one's desires have grown out of proportion if one is incapable of understanding this simple truth. And the commandment to believe in G-d? It is a commandment not to allow one's desires to overcome his intellect so that he will automatically come to believe. In other words, there is no need to struggle to believe. One must simply remove the obstacles that stand in the way of believing. It will then come naturally, of itself... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 11:11:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 14:11:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura? Message-ID: <20150526181117.9766A180F62@nexus.stevens.edu> Someone sent me the following which is also in Shapiro's book. "The first edition of Shemiras Shabbos K'Hilchasah had a footnote to the effect that some things in the MB had been written by the CC's son. See p. 263 n. 203. The full footnote is not in the later editions of SSK." Shapiro views this as part of the Chareidi attempt to keep certain information from the Chareidi public that they do want people to know. His book is filled with many examples of the "rewriting of history" to fit current Chareidi ideology. He also wrote "Rabbi Jacob J. Schachter wrote an article in The Torah U-Madda Journal about changes and mentioned the MB, the CC's son, and the original SSK footnote. See his "Facing the Truths of History" at http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/704426/Rabbi_Dr-_Jacob_J_Schacter/Facing_the_Truths_of_History (p. 225 and n. 114 on p. 264)." YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 12:44:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 15:44:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura? In-Reply-To: <20150526181117.9766A180F62@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150526181117.9766A180F62@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150526194413.GB22762@aishdas.org> And many of the books we consider the Gra's are students' records of his teachings. For that matter, people talk about what the Ari says in Peri Eitz Chaim or others of R' Chaim Vital's works. RALC piously takes blame for those occasions when he misunderstood his father's position, saying that these errors, rather than actual inconsistencies in the CC's shitah, is what you may find in the MB. But the CC takes ownership of the contents of the MB. See the title page (Warsaw 1884 ed.) "Ube'uri qarative besheim MISHNAH BERURAH..." ... kol eileh chibarti be'ezras H' yisbarakh, haChonen le'adam da'as, YISRAEL MEIR br' Aryeh Ze'ev haKohein zlh"h, mei'ir Radin." Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I long to accomplish a great and noble task, micha at aishdas.org but it is my chief duty to accomplish small http://www.aishdas.org tasks as if they were great and noble. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Helen Keller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 15:01:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 18:01:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150526220106.GA9900@aishdas.org> On Fri, May 22, 2015 at 11:14:15AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> True; but not putting a light on or off *has* been a defining feature :> of the Shabbos experience since the mitzva of Shabbos was given, so :> accomplishing it by any means might properly be considered a zilzul :> Shabbos... : In particular using an preset switch to turn lights and off should : be prohibited. : While RMF originally did object he later changed his mind when it became : the norm. Actually, RMF's primary argument was mar'is ayin, which would naturally change as people know to blame lights turning on and off on "Shabbos clocks". : In fact even the kosher lamp might be prohibited Well, I would think that fits the zilzul Shabbos argument bewing used WRT the kosher switch. : Can someone come up with a definition of zilzul shabbat? The textbook case would be on Shabbos 6a: situating someone in a meqom petur so that someone in a reshus hayachid can hand items to them so that they could then hand it over to someone in a reshus harabim. Rashi ad loc explains "demezalzel be'isurei Shabbos". I think it's making a farce out of one of the issurim / chiyuvim of Shabbos. Notice that the case Rashi attributes to zilzul would otherwise be perfectly mutar. : Is every modern way of doing any melacha that does not technically : violate hilchot shabbat zilzul? : The gemara allows using the sun for cooking on shabbat - why isn't that : zilzul shabbat? I think the problem is more than just avoiding the issur, but making it trivial to entirely avoid it. Which is what I had in mind when I distinguished between eiruv, which is built into hotza'ah derabbanan, and community eruv, which takes that idea and stretches it until someone can pretty much ignore the whole topic of carmelis for years on end. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Strength does not come from winning. Your micha at aishdas.org struggles develop your strength When you go http://www.aishdas.org through hardship and decide not to surrender, Fax: (270) 514-1507 that is strength. - Arnold Schwarzenegger From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 16:14:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 19:14:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") Message-ID: In Avodah V33n82, RAM requested: > I suggest that we clarify the various minhagim, and tally up the different ways of dong it....And if anyone else wants to add to the list, please do so! < When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: -- 30 *dim'yushav* -- 10 *dim'umad* -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the post-"Aleinu" Qaddish) All the best from *Michael Poppers* * Elizabeth, NJ, USA -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue May 26 18:24:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 21:24:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir In-Reply-To: <20150525.223510.2086.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150525.223510.2086.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150527012443.GA5467@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 02:35:10AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : It is one thing to dissuade a prospective ger from joining us. But Ruth : had been living with a Jewish family for ten years! How can Naami urge : her to go back to avoda zara? I know that the meforshim give various : reasons why Naami did not want them to accompany her back to Eretz : Yisrael, but do those reasons justify this Lifnei Iveir? On a technical level, it would be mesayeia, not lifnei iver, and I'm not sure that mesayeia applies to 7 mitzvos benei Noach. But if you're just asking how it's moral... Just thinking off-the cuff. The timing is between eishes Shimshon and Shelomo's mistake with many of his wives. It would seem that women only pretending monotheism to join the Jewish People was common. If Rus was going to be a pagan either way, better not one who people would mistake for a geir. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet micha at aishdas.org about things most people don't watch even on http://www.aishdas.org Yom Kippur. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 00:25:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 10:25:26 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat Message-ID: <<: The gemara allows using the sun for cooking on shabbat - why isn't that : zilzul shabbat? I think the problem is more than just avoiding the issur, but making it trivial to entirely avoid it.>> In that case how about a "dud shemesh" according to the poskim that it is allowed because it uses the sun <> would there be a difference between doing this once and making this a standard procedure? -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 01:22:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:22:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <> The key word is "if" . That is the difference between math and physics. Math assumes axioms and from there everything is provable. Physics discusses the "real" world. This is based on observation and induction. Hence, physics is always subject to modification based on new observations. Hence, we have no proof of the curvature of the universe. <> Yahadus uses the Torah to define evil. Others don't accept this definition. Is ISIS beheading victims and their other acts "evil" ? They believe they are keeping the word of G-d. Destrying ancient monuments is viewed by the world as "evil" while they see it as destroying idols and hence a mitzvah. If we were to eradicate Amalek we would consider it a great mitzvah while the rest of thw world would bring us to the world court for genocide. <> But without a formal proof it is always debatable. You feel that the existence of G-d is obvious even without a formal proof (which doesn't exist) while Dawkins feels that anyone who believes in a diety that interacts with the world is a fool. You accept Torah mi-sinai while most academics are convinced the Torah was written during the late Bayit Rishon if not later -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 02:20:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 12:20:34 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] right and wrong Message-ID: Tangential to some of the recent discussions I wish to point out that the defintion of right and wrong is subjective and indeed changes through history. As one example consider the recent post on love from http://www.talmudology.com/ In the 1440s in England, Elizabeth Paston, the twenty-year old daughter of minor gentry, was told by her parents that she was to marry a man thirty years her senior. Oh, and he was disfigured by smallpox. When she refused, she was beaten "once in the week, or twice and her head broken in two or three places." This persuasive technique worked, and reflected a theme in Great Britain, where Lord Chief Baron Matthew Hale declared in 1662 that "by the law of God, of nature or of reason and by the Common Law, the will of the wife is subject to the will of the husband." Things weren't any better in the New Colonies, as Ann Little points out (in a gloriously titled article "*Shee would Bump his Mouldy Britch; Authority, Masculinity and the Harried Husbands of New Haven Colony 1638-1670.*) The governor of the New Haven Colony was found guilty of "not pressing ye rule upon his wife." What was obvious in one generation is no longer regarded as true today. Similar arguments apply to slavery -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 03:47:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 06:47:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 07:14:36PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: : -- 30 *dim'yushav* : -- 10 *dim'umad* : -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to blow. How do you do less than 10 *each*? Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 05:03:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 12:03:32 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir Message-ID: <20150527.080332.8051.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> I asked if Naami had violated Lifnei Iveir: : It is one thing to dissuade a prospective ger from joining us. : But Ruth had been living with a Jewish family for ten years! How : can Naami urge her to go back to avoda zara? R' Micha Berger answered: > On a technical level, it would be mesayeia, not lifnei iver, and > I'm not sure that mesayeia applies to 7 mitzvos benei Noach. Really? Perhaps I need a better understanding of the difference between the two. I thought that mesayeia was when the other person is going to violate the halacha anyway and I am merely helping him to do it. But in this case, the three of them have been living for ten years as a family unit, and regardless of the geirus (or lack of it) I presume there was no avodah zara under Naami's roof. This status quo could have continued for a long time, as we see even Orpah was reluctant to leave. But Naami urged and insisted, and it is difficult for me to imagine a bigger michshol. Pasuk 1:15 - "So [Naami] said: Look! Your sister in law has returned to her people and to her god. Go follow your sister in law." One of us might as well hand the car keys to our child on Shabbos and tell him to have a good time. Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:14:10 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:14:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527151410.GG27891@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 11:22:14AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : <> : : The key word is "if" . That is the difference between math and physics. : Math assumes axioms and from there everything is provable... Again, from a set of givens. The givens are accepted as the rules of the formal system. Which is why I spoke of the validity of Euclid's Postulates in the context of flat space. But my point was that there are things other than proof. : <> : : Yahadus uses the Torah to define evil. Others don't accept this definition. Nu, so they're wrong. We may not be able to prove to them they're wrong, but they are. Somewhere "out there" is a real objective definition. Regardless of someone's ability to know what they are, or to accept it if they did. : <> : : But without a formal proof it is always debatable... 1- That's a different topic. We're talking about how I justify my believing in something, not how I prove it to others. 2- There are synthetic a priori knowledge so self-evident people don't debate them. Which is why I dragged Euclid into this. EVERY proof STARTS with these givens. Logic is a means of combining postulates, not starting yeish mei'ayin. And thus no proof is actually more solid than its weakest postulate -- and that postulate is justified by something other than proof. And I brought up these notions because I think that without disentangling why I believe from how can I get others to believe, or the general concept of how knowlege is justified from the specific concepts of formal or experiment proof, we cannot get to what R Elchanan Wasserman means. REW says that if it were not for ulterior motive, G-d's existence would be as self evident as the conclusion that a calligraphied poem had an author and scribe (who may be the same person), and was not just spilled ink on a piece of paper. He doesn't yet talk about proof, and in fact, his language is that of informal justification, not proof. (I've blogged the notion that the more formal we make the Argument from Design the LESS solidly it justifies belief. See . For example, R Aqiva's -- or REW's -- version only requires common experience. The Rambam's requires dividing matter into Form and Substance and accepting certain postulates about Form and Time. Later versions will instead speak of entropy and time... But they all suffer from involving *more* givens and insisting they are self-evident and precede the attempt to prove anything.) REW then says that it's only ulterior motive that allows many of us to create arguments and proofs (validly drawn but from broken givens or flawed in reasoning) to let convince ourselves away from that default position. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When a king dies, his power ends, micha at aishdas.org but when a prophet dies, his influence is just http://www.aishdas.org beginning. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Soren Kierkegaard From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:33:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:33:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Eilu v'eilu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527153329.GH27891@aishdas.org> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 11:48:03AM +0300, Saul Mashbaum wrote: : Very briefly, R. Rosner cites three approaches in the sources : : 1. Illustrating the truth - The Ran in Drashot HaRan drasha 5 - In this : approach, which severely limits the principle of eilu v'eilu, the Ran : states that actually only one of the opinions is true. The other opinion is : 'divrei Elokim chaim' only insofar as it serves to illustrate and elucidate : the other opinion, which is the real truth, as the dark enables us to : appreciate a candle... R/Dr Moshe Halbertal forms his opinion of the Ran's shitah on the haqdamah to haMafteiach leManulei haTalmud. He translates: It is a known fact that the entire Torah, written and oral, was transm itted to Moses, as it says in the tract ate Meggilah, R. Hiyya bar Abba said in the Name of R. Yohanan: The verse:...and on them was written according to all the words.." teaches that the Holy One blessed be He showed Moses the details prescribed by the Torah and by the Sages, including the innovations they would later enact. And what are those? the reading of Meggila. The 'details' provided by the rabbis are halakhic disputes and conflicting views held by the sa ges of Israel. Moses learned them all by divine word with no resolution every controversy in detail. Yet [God] also gave him a rule whose truth is manifest, i.e., 'Favor the majority opinion'....as the sages of that generation saw fit, for the decision had already been delegated to them as it is written: 'And you shall come to the priest the Levites, and to the judge that shall be in those days' and 'You shall not deviate....". (Quoted from . I do not know where to find the original, to see what's ellided or whether my own attempt to translate would agree.) This quote from the Ran pretty clearly backs the third position in RSR's survey: : 3. Multiple truths (Ritva in Eiruvin, Maharal) - Both opinions are true, : reflecting different perspectives of the subject at hand (IMO, this is : similar to the previous explanation, without establishing a hierarchy : between the truths expressed by the different opinions)... (BTW, I happen to agree with this parenthetic. ) OTOH, in Derashah #7, I think I could defend RSR's #2! To quote the Ran: We have been commanded to obey their decision whether it represents the tru th or its opposite ...for the power of decision-making has been entrusted to the halakhic authorities for each generation. Whatever they decide is what God has commanded. Compare: : 2. Levels of truth - R. Moshe in the hakdama to IM, and R. Yaakov to : Bereishit 26, the Netziv in his Hakadama to Haamek Sh'eila, his commentary : to the Sheiltot). Using R. Moshe's terminology. there is Emet Shamaymit, : and Emet L'Horaa. Both are correct, and in this world we are obligated to : follow the emet l'horaa even if it deviates from the ultimate, heavenly : truth. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You are where your thoughts are. micha at aishdas.org - Ramban, Igeres haQodesh, Ch. 5 http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:38:50 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:38:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5565E50A.4070406@sero.name> On 05/27/2015 04:22 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Yahadus uses the Torah to define evil. Others don't accept this definition. Why is that relevant? Objective truth doesn't depend on how many people are aware of it or accept it. It's true for everyone, whether they know and accept it or not. Those who don't know it are simply ignorant, and those who dispute it are simply wrong. Subjective truth is a very different matter. If a truth is subjective then those who dispute it are not wrong, it *isn't true* for them, and if someone insists it must be true for them then *he* is wrong. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:41:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:41:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] right and wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5565E599.6050709@sero.name> On 05/27/2015 05:20 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Tangential to some of the recent discussions I wish to point out that > the defintion of right and wrong is subjective and indeed changes > through history. No, it isn't and it doesn't. That the majority of people in the course of history have been wrong is no chiddush; the majority of people *today* are wrong. Truth isn't determined by democracy. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 08:42:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 11:42:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") In-Reply-To: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> References: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5565E5EC.7030806@sero.name> On 05/27/2015 06:47 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to > blow. How do you do less than 10*each*? Tashrat for Malchiyos, Tashat for Zichronos, and Tarat for Shofros. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 10:58:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 13:58:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Even More on Who Wrote the Mishnah Brurah Message-ID: <20150527175829.C3B57182454@nexus.stevens.edu> Someone on my email list spoke to a well-known Flatbush Rov and sent me the following: Reb Yitzchok I spoke to Rabbi XX this morning, and he did indeed confirm that the MB was not written only by the Chofetz Chaim. He said R. Moshe Feinstein told him that it is a work of a rabbim, not only a yochid. It seems that R. Arye Leib was not the only one to work on it. According to what R. XX heard the team also consisted of the CC's son in law and the mashgiach Rav Londinski. R. XX also told me that R. Henoch Liebowitz, the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim in Queens told him that his father Reb Dovid, who was a nephew of the CC, also wrote portions of the MB. So thank you for leading me towards this information. llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 12:38:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 15:38:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55661D24.8040207@gmail.com> Micha Berger: >> Rabbi Akiva said, ... "Even as a house proclaims its builder,a garment >> > its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the >> > Holy Blessed One Who created it. >> > >> >Not very rigorous. Rabbi Aqiva's reply revolves around giving a parable >> >to make the conclusion self-evident. Not contructing a deductive argument. >> > >> > ...there are truths that can >> be justified even when they are not amenable to formal proofs. >> ... I'll quote Qovetz Maamariv par 5-7 from a translation >> provided by Pirchei Shoshanim. You'll notice it's nothing like the >> Rambam's attempt to formally prove an Argument from Design in Moreh >> sec. II. Indeed, the Rambam himself in the Moreh Nevuchim recognizes this distinction and supports the superior validity of the non-formal approach. Chapters after he devotes chapters to formal philosophic proofs for Creation ex nihilo, he describes how a healthy (and unbiased) mind thinks: And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, /for one who is modeh al ha-ememmes/ (Ibn Tibbon; KPCH: /baal tsedek/; Pines: an equitable man) [contra Aristotle?see 2:20-23], is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an intender, and that such purposeful intent necessarily implies the production of something new [and not something that always existed along with the one who bears the purposeful intention for its existence]. (MN 3:13) Aristotle agreed to the premise that everything in Nature serves a certain purpose, and that every being contributes to the existence of still another being, but he refused to concede to the conclusion the Rambam considers something a /modeh al ha-emmess/baal tsedek/ is naturally convinced of. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 13:54:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 16:54:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <55661D24.8040207@gmail.com> References: <55661D24.8040207@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150527205440.GB22904@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 03:38:12PM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : Indeed, the Rambam himself in the Moreh Nevuchim recognizes this : distinction and supports the superior validity of the non-formal : approach. Chapters after he devotes chapters to formal philosophic : proofs for Creation ex nihilo, he describes how a healthy (and : unbiased) mind thinks: : : And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, ... : is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities : serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; : and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an : intender, and that such purposeful intent necessarily implies the : production of something new [and not something that always existed : along with the one who bears the purposeful intention for its : existence]. (MN 3:13) There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam recaps a point made in 2:19-20. And for that matter, if the Rambam was talking about not really needing formal proof, despite spending much of sec. II on just that, why would it be buried in a chapter that focuses on something else? 3:13 is about how the universe has its own purpose. It is not just an arena designed for the purpose of humans. He argues here with Aristo who says that plants exist for the purpose of animals, and in general, that things exist for the purpose of other things. Besides, the Rambam writes in 3:51 in the mashal of the palace, that people who believe because of tradition without having proof are like those who wander around the chatzer, whereas someone with a proof is like one who entered the prozdor. Not Aristo's epistomology didn't analyze issues of proof vs other justification. But clearly Reliabilism, trusting an idea found in a source that has already been found to be reliable (hama'aminim ... derekh qabalah), is not being considered good enough justification to fully accomplish life's goal. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 14:39:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 17:39:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150527213945.GE22904@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 10:25:26AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> I think the problem is more than just avoiding the issur, but making :> it trivial to entirely avoid it. : : In that case how about a "dud shemesh" according to the poskim that it is : allowed because it uses the sun I don't know. Maybe because you still can't boil hot water if you wanted it, say, for your tea. :> The textbook case would be on Shabbos 6a: situating someone in a meqom :> petur so that someone in a reshus hayachid can hand items to them so :> that they could then hand it over to someone in a reshus harabim. :> Rashi ad loc explains "demezalzel be'isurei Shabbos".>> : would there be a difference between doing this once and making this a : standard procedure? Good question. I don't see "standard procedure" in the gemara, it looks like a one-off. It depends if we're talking about zilzul of kevod Shabbos, or zilzul of the melakhah, the latter being more of a "threat of slippery slope" problem. Rashi has "mezalzel be'isurei Shabbos". BH 337:2 "shelo yishtaberu" uses the same turn of phrase. Why would you be afraid of cheapening the issur if we aren't talking about that opening the door to future violation? The Tur OC 315, Beiur Halakah 344 and elsewhere talk about not doing things "shelo yavo'u lezalzel bo". Which clearly invokes a slippery slope argument; but not that zilzul is itself a slippery slope, rather than zilzul is such a problem, we avoid things that will slide us there. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is harder to eat the day before Yom Kippur micha at aishdas.org with the proper intent than to fast on Yom http://www.aishdas.org Kippur with that intent. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 14:49:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 17:49:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir In-Reply-To: <20150527.080332.8051.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150527.080332.8051.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150527214903.GF22904@aishdas.org> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 12:03:32PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Micha Berger answered: :> On a technical level, it would be mesayeia, not lifnei iver, and :> I'm not sure that mesayeia applies to 7 mitzvos benei Noach. : Really? Perhaps I need a better understanding of the difference between : the two. I thought that mesayeia was when the other person is going to : violate the halacha anyway and I am merely helping him to do it... My understanding is that mesayeia is when the person was capable of doing the aveirah without you. Not "would" but "could". Whereas lifnei iveir is when the nazir is mei'eivar hanahar and you're giving him passage. The sugya is on AZ 6a-b. But, I see the Ran does say mesayeia apply to preventing a nakhri from violating the 7MBN. The Rama *YD 151:2) says we are meiqil and allow selling AZ items to nakhriim if they already own similar items or can buy them elsewhere, but there are machmirim. See the Shach YD 151:6-7, who discusses this machloqes rishonim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The mind is a wonderful organ micha at aishdas.org for justifying decisions http://www.aishdas.org the heart already reached. Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 18:33:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 21:33:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] measurement error Message-ID: <20150528013324.GA4749@aishdas.org> The topic I got caught up in has been the AhS and standard shiurim. The story so far.... Jan 8, when this thread was current, I wrote : > BTW, carrying 4 amos bereshus harabbim is 4 of one's own amos, assuming > they have mainstream bone structure. It's where I am in AhS Yomi. > But notice that we would naturally assume "amah" as unit of length, not > as a function of how far that particular person can reach. On Jan 11, I hit the topic again WRT eiruvin AhS OC 363:32-35, and wrote : > But then in se'if 34 he says something I do not follow, but key to > our discussion. > When dealing with mavui, where there is only one mavui and therefore one > measuring process to be used for everyone, the above applies. However, > when the measurement is only for one person's use, tbey should be > measuring for himself, with his own norms. > And here he adds a touch of subjectivity: a person should measure how > far he himself could walk. And the rule of carrying in rh"r a distance > of no more 4 of one's own amos is brought into that umbrella. > The reason for the general rule is to cover the personal amos of the > people who will be using the measuring. > BUT, and this is why I do not follow, he opened se'if 32 by telling us > the variability is 1/48 of the total (1/24 of an etzba per ammah). Which > is far less than the variability in forearm lengths in most groups of > people. For example, my own sukkah is used by Yoni, who stands 6'3" and by > my own 5'3" -- and my arms are on the shorter side, even proportionally. > When we hold up elbows together, my ammah ends just past his wrist. Not > within 47/48 of eachother. And then on May 18 I hit AhS OC 586:14 and tried reviving this thread . The topic was the minimum length for a shofar -- long enough to be seen on either side when being held in one hand. > So the shiur is neither personal nor really the standard tefach. It is > literally as the gemara says, what can be held and still seen. Which is > why there is a machloqes about where the tefach stands in relation to the > real shiur. But, visible if hypothetically held by an average hand. And > if the tqoei'ah has wide hands, he could hold a minimal shofar without > it being visible, and it would still be kosher. ... > What I find even more interesting is that there is no chiluq being drawn > between someone who blows in shul and someone who blows just for himself. > Wouldn't the rule from OC 363 mean that someone in the latter situation > should use what is visible when their own hand holds it? But today I seem to have hit an AhS which deals with shiurim that aren't human: revi'is, kezayis. According to OC 612:8, the shiur of drinking on YK is not a revi'is, but melo lugmav. And unlike akhilah, where there is one kezayis for everyone, melo lugmav is literally his own cheek. So it would seem that kezayis, and perhaps revi'is and other shiurim (beis se'ah) are not subjective. Which makes sense, since I can't figure out how to make a kezayis correspond to the person... Except RCVolozhiner's position, where it's the average kezayis then and there, and not a static shiur. Which could, literally, be the same shiur for all people (living there and then) and thus may be within the AhS's intent. Can't I get anyone else intrigued by this problem? Back on Jan 11, I was in hil' eiruvin, and hit upn the AhS's discussion of an ammah just as we were discussing the topic Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The purely righteous do not complain about evil, micha at aishdas.org but add justice, don't complain about heresy, http://www.aishdas.org but add faith, don't complain about ignorance, Fax: (270) 514-1507 but add wisdom. - R AY Kook, Arpelei Tohar From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:12:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:12:53 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul Message-ID: Micha wrote: The Tur OC 315, Beiur Halakah 344 and elsewhere talk about not doing things "shelo yavo'u lezalzel bo". Which clearly invokes a slippery slope argument; but not that zilzul is itself a slippery slope, rather than zilzul is such a problem, we avoid things that will slide us there. >> My apologies but I am still completely confused when one applies zilzul and when one says something is allowed as an exception to the rule. No purpose in giving examples as there are myriads of exceptions that are allowed. I have the same problem with "lo plug" sometimes something that would be allowed is prohibited because of "lo plug" and sometimes we simply say it is an exception. Perhaps the most famous example is lighting candles on leil yom tov. The wife of the Prisha says one should say the bracha first and then light since lighting (preexisting flame) is allowed on tomtov. The MA calls her names and says this is an obvious "lo plug". My impression is that most women follow the wife of the prisha. The question is what is the basis of the machloket either when do we say "lo plug" and when do we apply "zilzul" and when do we ignore these arguments -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed May 27 21:04:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 04:04:33 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir Message-ID: <20150528.000433.22403.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > My understanding is that mesayeia is when the person was capable > of doing the aveirah without you. Not "would" but "could". Whereas > lifnei iveir is when the nazir is mei'eivar hanahar and you're > giving him passage. > > The sugya is on AZ 6a-b. > > ... I will be the first to point out that Lifnei Iveir is one the many topics where my learning and expertise is severely lacking. Even so, I suspect that there is something missing from RMB's definition. In the simplest reading of the pasuk (Vayikra 19:14), Rashi says that Lifnei Iveir forbids one to give bad advice to another person. It is difficult to imagine a worse piece of advice than telling Ruth to follow Orpah back her her previous god. Googling the question "What is Lifnei Iveir" brought me to an interesting article by Rabbi Yirmiyohu Kaganoff (bio at http://rabbikaganoff.com/about) The full article is at http://tinyurl.com/ka3pwq6 and I would like to quote the part where he gives three different categories of Lifnei Iveir: > I. Inciting ? maiseis > > This occurs when a person was not even considering doing an > aveirah until someone encouraged him. Thus, the instigator incited > the performing of the aveirah and is therefore a maiseis. > > II. Encouraging ? chanufah > > One violates this prohibition by complimenting someone for doing a > sin, thus implying that sinning is acceptable. > > III. Enabling ? lifnei iveir > > One violates this prohibition if the sinner wanted to do the > aveirah, but was unable to do so without assistance. The person > who enables the performing of the aveirah violates lifnei iveir. > > IV. Even when none of these Torah prohibitions are involved, > helping the sinner do the aveirah sometimes violates the rabbinic > prohibition of mesaya?a y?dei ovrei aveirah, assisting someone who > is sinning. (It is unfortunate that the article did not cite a source or precedent for these categories, but please bear with me.) It seems to me that RMB is giving a useful tool to distinguish between category 3 and category 4, but that tool is useful only in the case where a person already has the *desire* to commit a sin, but it lacking the *ability* to some degree. If a person has only a mild inability to sin, then the enabler is merely mesayeia; but if the person has a severe inability, then the enabler is placing a real michshol. But what of the case where a person does *not* yet have a desire to sin? Rabbi Kaganoff is saying that one who incites or encourages him to do it is violating Lifnei Iveir. Even if the person already has the ability to do the sin, it was below his "bechirah point" until he was egged on to do it. Rabbi Kaganoff offers an example: > Inciting Someone to Sin ? maiseis > > The classic case of maiseis is when the nachash encouraged Chavah > to eat the forbidden fruit. Even though the nachash itself did > not eat, Hashem punished it for inciting Chavah to sin (Gemara > Sanhedrin 29a). Similarly, if Reuven incites Shimon to sin in a > way that Shimon had not considered, Reuven is a maiseis. And so my question can be rephrased: If the nachash was wrong to tell Chava to eat the fruit, wasn't Naami wrong to tell Ruth to follow Orpah back to her god? Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/556694205dac4141e6338st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 01:07:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:07:24 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim Message-ID: On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 07:14:36PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: : -- 30 **dim'yushav** : -- 10 **dim'umad** : -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the R' Micha Berger asked: "How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to blow. How do you do less than 10 **each**?" Many Rishonim (quoted by the Beis Yosef in Siman 592) hold that during Chazaras Hashatz in Musaf you blow Tashrat for malchiyos, Tashat for zichronos and Tarat for shofaros. In all of the Nusach Ashkenaz shuls that I have davened in they blew 30 before Musaf, 30 during chazaras hashatz and then 40 after Musaf adding up to 100. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:33:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:33:43 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: Micha wrote <> Well Micha and I agree on several points but still disagree on others. Agreed that people in real life don't use formal mathematical proofs. A sanhedrin can kill on a majority vote (OK there a little more than 50%) I also agree that if one is talking about oneself then feelings count. Saying they are wrong but I cant prove it works perfectly OK with regard to your own beliefs. It doesnt work when trying to convince others. Example: Your child comes home and says he learned that the world is billions of years old not about 5700 years. Or else your teenager tells you he doesn't believe G-d is loving because of the Holocaust or because of Amalek. You can tell him that whatever is in the Torah or Chazal is truth and its not open to discussion. That might work with some children. Alternatively you can give him/her one of the many answers that have been discussed on this list. That may or not convince him. There are no proofs that G-d exists or that G-d rules the universe or that G-d is just or loving. You can convince yourself but doing that to others is difficult, We have already argued about REW and I still can't accept it. The argument is that if someone else tells you why he doesn't accept G-d or that G-d rules the world whether for rational or emotional reasons the answer is that we don't believe him and say he is making up reasons. Of course he will say the same about your acceptance of Torah and mitzvot. To simply accuse the other of simply rationalizing his beliefs is simply not true. I have had enough lectures on why the Bible was written very late by many scribes to be convinced they really mean it. You may disagree but you can't accuse them of merely rationalizing their non-belief. In one class the professor said he would willing debate anyone who has a different opinion objectively. However, if you start that the Torah is from Sinai because of your belief then there is nothing to discuss. What is self-evident to you is self-evidently false to someone else. Again it is legitimate to disagree with that person but I claim it is not legitimate to state that he doesn't really believe in his own position. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:57:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:57:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura Message-ID: <> They state clearly these are things they heard from the Gra, Ari etc. No misleading. No different than RHS writing what he heard from RYBS and many other such seforim. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 02:55:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 05:55:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5566E62F.8040201@sero.name> On 05/28/2015 05:12 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > Perhaps the most famous example is lighting candles on leil yom tov. > The wife of the Prisha The MA's girsa in the Prisha is "mother", and the Machtzis Hashekel confirms that this is not a typo in the MA. > says one should say the bracha first and then > light since lighting (preexisting flame) is allowed on tomtov. > The MA calls her names He does not! He merely quotes the gemara Yoma 66b that "women only have wisdom with the spindle". Machtzis Hashekel says he is not even referring to the Drisha's mother, but to most women, who will not understand the distinction between Shabbos and Yomtov. > and says this is an obvious "lo plug". He doesn't just assert it, he cites clear sources that when a bracha must sometimes be said after the deed, we apply lo plug and always say it after the deed. Thus, he says, the same thing must apply here. (But see Dagul Mervava, who distinguishes this case because the bracha is different, and points out that if not for this distinction then the same should apply to the Chanukah lights). > My impression is that most women follow the wife of the prisha. Really? I'm surrprised. I'm also surprised that you've surveyed enough women to form an impression one way or the other. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:19:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 10:19:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:57:05PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> < teachings. For that matter, people talk about what the Ari says in Peri :> Eitz Chaim or others of R' Chaim Vital's works.>> : They state clearly these are things they heard from the Gra, Ari etc. No : misleading. I'm not sure about such disclaimers on the Gra's talmidim's writings, aside from Maaseh Rav. And if so, lo kol shekein in our case! Here we have the author of Shemiras haLashon -- someone known for thinking about what he said -- calling the MB "beiuri", "od tzarafti" "ki bo biarti", "upo hir'eisi", and "kol eileh chbarti..." on the title page. How can one argue he didn't oversee the entire work and checked the content? Nothing about parts being by Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger What you get by achieving your goals micha at aishdas.org is not as important as http://www.aishdas.org what you become by achieving your goals. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Henry David Thoreau From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:33:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 10:33:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528143339.GB4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:12:53PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : My apologies but I am still completely confused when one applies zilzul and : when one says something is allowed as an exception to the rule. No purpose : in giving examples as there are myriads of exceptions that are allowed. I think the reverse: the norm is to allow valid loopholes to the din, and it's only when the poseiq decides that the loophole would destroy some significant part of the feel of Shabbos (whether qedushas Shabbos or an entire melakhah) that we call it zilzul. ... : Perhaps the most famous example is lighting candles on leil yom tov. The : wife of the Prisha says one should say the bracha first and then light : since lighting (preexisting flame) is allowed on tomtov. The MA calls her : names and says this is an obvious "lo plug". : My impression is that most women follow the wife of the prisha. The AhS OC 263:3 does, citing the Perishah. Then he quotes the MA (s"q 12) and says "and many were choliq on him... vekhein iqar ledina." Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:45:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 10:45:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528144529.GC4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:33:43PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : Well Micha and I agree on several points but still disagree on others. : Agreed that people in real life don't use formal mathematical proofs... I would go further and say that far too many things /can't/ use formal proofs. And even further: even when you do have a formal proof, it is built from givens -- call them postulates or first principles. So, barring an infinite regress, even a formal proof is a structure atop things accepted without formal proof. I should point out that this a major subset of the field of epistomology. : It doesnt work when trying to convince others. True, but not relevant. We -- and more importantly to the origianl point, REW -- are talking about whether it's more natural to believe in G-d or not. Not whether a believer could then convince someone else. ... : We have already argued about REW and I still can't accept it. The argument : is that if someone else tells you why he doesn't accept G-d or that G-d : rules the world whether for rational or emotional reasons the answer is : that we don't believe him and say he is making up reasons. REW doesn't say that. I even cut-n-pasted a translation to support that point. REW says that he really doesn't believe, but he had to work against the natural state of seeing a world that shows obvious signs of a Designer. Someone can truly and honestly convince himself, or be convinced by others (including upbringing) that a poem really could emerge by someone spilling ink. But that's not what people would conclude if we lacked a strong desire to conclude that way -- the "shochad" of freedom if ein din ve'ein Dayan. There is nothing in that quote from Qovetz Maamarim about anyone not really believing what they think they believe. Rather, he ascribes a motive. : Of course he will say the same about your acceptance of Torah and mitzvot. Again, REW isn't speaking about the context of debate. Nor was I. By bringing it in, you complicate matters without addressing the original claim. REW is really just saying that the reason why believe is a fair topic of bechirah because on one side design is self-evident but on the other the desire to live without having to follow the Designer counterbalances it. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger People were created to be loved. micha at aishdas.org Things were created to be used. http://www.aishdas.org The reason why the world is in chaos is that Fax: (270) 514-1507 things are being loved, people are being used. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 07:22:41 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 14:22:41 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> References: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, May 28, 2015, 5:19 PM Micha Berger wrote: > Here we have the author of Shemiras > haLashon -- someone known for thinking about what he said -- calling > the MB "beiuri", "od tzarafti" "ki bo biarti", "upo hir'eisi", and "kol > eileh chbarti..." on the title page. How can one argue he didn't oversee > the entire work and checked the content? Nothing about parts being by I agree he must have looked it over That leaves the question of contradictions And stories about minhagim of cc that are different than what is in mb From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:23:01 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:23:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: <20150528141904.GA4591@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150528152301.GE4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 02:22:41PM +0000, Eli Turkel wrote: : I agree he must have looked it over Which is why I think R/Dr MS is making too much ado over the actual authorship. : That leaves the question of contradictions Well, not every sheverer Rambam is a printing error either. Another case where the academic norm is to run far further with some fun concept than I'm comfortable with. Perhaps we should be looking for how the contradictions are only apparent. Or perhaps the CC felt than ruling al pi rov or safeiq lechumerah/lequlah in two different cases needn't results in consistencies between pesaqim. Before you spend too much time on that bothering you, recall when we daven minchah and maariv. If the tefillos are on two different days, you can end up following different definitions of evening on different days. : And stories about minhagim of cc that are different than what is in mb I thought R/Dr Seth Mandel's position is compelling. Look at the title page and the haqdamah. The CC never claims that the MB is a seifer of pesaq. Rather, he describes the work as a survey. From the title page, defining the MB (as opposed to the left column about the BH): I called my biur by the name MB since within it is explained (misbareir; c.f. "berurah") the words of the SA, every law by its reasoning and origins in the gemara and posqim that it not be like a sealed book. Also I will collect in it all the dinim, halakhos and biurim scattered amog the books of the acharonim, meforshim of the SA who are known (like MA, PMG, Birkhei Yoseif, Maamar Mordekhai and many such.) There are many of them after the Be'er Heitiv and they are not brought in shu"t because they are somwhat scattered in various places. All of these are compiled here, and all is in a straightforward and easy language and in proper order, with Hashem's help. And the BH: Also, I appended on its side some necessary inyanim titled under the name Biur Halakhah -- and as the name, so it is. For in it I sometimes explained the words of halakhah which are brought in summary in the MB without proof, and here I show (be"h) its source looking inall of gemara and the posqim. Also in it are sometimes explains the words of the SA at length in places which need explanation. (Sorry, just always wanted to bother translating that -- this thread was just my excuse.) So, the MB is a survey, and thus the halachic conclusions found in it (and explained in the BH) are purely what in theory the sources surveyed would indicate. It's not that the CC didn't believe in mimeticism, it's that the MB is a book of theory and therefore ignores mimeticism. The MB was written lehalakhah velo lemaaseh. Which makes it ironic that so many RYs of the mid- and late 20th cent worked so hard to make the work a "poseiq acharon" lemaaseh. Whereas he CC's own practice did reflect weighing shitos based on their acceptance. And so, unsurprisingly, in all the places I know of where his own practice didn't fit the MB (such as supporting a community eiruv, despite BH 364 "ve'achar") his practice does follow the AhS. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "The most prevalent illness of our generation is micha at aishdas.org excessive anxiety.... Emunah decreases anxiety: http://www.aishdas.org 'The Almighty is my source of salvation; I will Fax: (270) 514-1507 trust and not be afraid.'" (Isa 12) -Shalhevesya From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:11:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:11:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528151127.C0EE817F7D9@nexus.stevens.edu> At 10:33 AM 5/28/2015, R. Micha Berger wrote: >And if so, lo kol shekein in our case! Here we have the author of Shemiras >haLashon -- someone known for thinking about what he said -- calling >the MB "beiuri", "od tzarafti" "ki bo biarti", "upo hir'eisi", and "kol >eileh chbarti..." on the title page. How can one argue he didn't oversee >the entire work and checked the content? Nothing about parts being by I wonder if these words were on the title page of the first publication of each volume of the MB. After all, publishers do add things. One title page I found online for the second volume of the MB refers to the author as HaGaon. I doubt that the CC would have had this on the title page of the first printing. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:39:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 11:39:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: <20150528151127.C0EE817F7D9@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150528151127.C0EE817F7D9@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150528153911.GG4591@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 11:11:28AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : I wonder if these words were on the title page of the first : publication of each volume of the MB... Why wonder? Each volume: 1. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49623&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1884 2. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49624&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1895 3. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49625&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1891 4. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49626&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1898 5. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49627&pgnum=1 - Warsaw 1902 6. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49628&pgnum=1 - Pietrekov 1907 (None call him ga'on, all have pretty much the same self description.) These fit the years of the first editions that wikipedia gives, based on "The Chafetz Chaim" by R MM Yoshor, pg 603. (But even if wiki has it wrong, they are editions published by the author.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Rescue me from the desire to win every micha at aishdas.org argument and to always be right. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Nassan of Breslav Fax: (270) 514-1507 Likutei Tefilos 94:964 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 08:10:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 08:10:56 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH Message-ID: http://menachemmendel.net/blog/are-you-a-mishnah-berurah-or-arukh-hashulhan-person/ see there also the r henkin review . he points out that the Oz Vhadar edition inherently has a difficulty in attributing notes to the [non-satmar oriented] relatives of the Aruch Hashulchan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 09:00:22 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 12:00:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the suggestion that a kosher lamp is zilzul shabbas. Isn't just a nice (and -- significantly -- *safer*) way of covering a lamp? If one were to make the argument that its convenience might make it zilzul shabbas, might one respond with "but safety"? Why do the rabbis deem the following to not be a case of zilzul yom tov: cooking a large pot of food on the afternoon of yom tov rishon, "in case people might stop by", and "I'll eat some of it" knowing there will be leftovers? -- Sholom -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 14:15:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 17:15:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Re various shofar-blowing minhagim (was "Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula") In-Reply-To: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> References: <20150527104725.GB29637@aishdas.org> Message-ID: R'Micha asked: > How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to blow. How do you do less than 10 *each*? < 3 during Malch., 3 during Zichronos, and 4 during Shof'ros. On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 6:47 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 07:14:36PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: > : When I davened in KAJ/"Breuer's", the minhag was: > : -- 30 *dim'yushav* > : -- 10 *dim'umad* > : -- 60 sandwiched around post-Musaf "Aleinu" (30 just before, 30 after the > > How does that work? You have three points in Chazaras HaShatz in which to > blow. How do you do less than 10 *each*? > > Tir'u baTov! > -Micha > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu May 28 15:45:29 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 18:45:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] zilzul shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150528224528.GB28282@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:00:22PM -0400, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote: : I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the suggestion that a : kosher lamp is zilzul shabbas. That's okay, it's just a hava amina we raised here. No one AFAIK actually banned kosher lamps over zilzul Shabbos. The question was why a Kosher Switch (that claims to not even be grama) would be zilzul and not the Kosher Lamp. And then, many (most? the vast majority of posqim?) do not believe it actually avoids gerama, including the author of Shemiras Shabbos kehilkhisa. : Isn't just a nice (and -- significantly : -- *safer*) way of covering a lamp? Well, every case where one would discuss zilzul Shabbos would be one where there wasn't a more easily defined problem. So every discussion could be "isn't it just". I think the difference is that a kosher switch would mean being able to turn or off anything, whereas the Kosher Lamp is more limited, being a specific appliance. ... : Why do the rabbis deem the following to not be a : case of zilzul yom tov: cooking a large pot of food on the afternoon of : yom tov rishon, "in case people might stop by", and "I'll eat some of : it" knowing there will be leftovers? I would guess that similarly, because it's of limited utility. It doesn't totally destroy the concept of an issur of cooking on Yom Tov. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The fittingness of your matzos [for the seder] micha at aishdas.org isn't complete with being careful in the laws http://www.aishdas.org of Passover. One must also be very careful in Fax: (270) 514-1507 the laws of business. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 05:52:06 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 15:52:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Indeed in Europe before WWII the MB was not the "final" arbiter of halacha. Much changed when CI wrote in a letter that the MB has the halacha of a sanhedrin and one can't disagree with its conclusions. Of course CI himself disagreed with the MB and in fact there are published versions of the MB which include the disagreements of the CI. All to show that what is written in letters is not to be taken very literally. In any case that paid a large part of the change in attitude towards the MB. Certainly poskim of the previous generation who grew up before the war also did not take the MB as a final posek. As an example is RMF though I heard similar things from RYBS. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 08:24:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 11:24:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150529152455.GA5770@aishdas.org> R/Dr Haym Soloveitchik focused on the MB's more textualist slant vs the AhS giving weight to shitos that were common practice. Which fits R/DHS's thesis for that particular paper, the idea he was using that particular comparison to illustrate. But I do not believe it's the primary difference between them. I already gave what I saw was the primary difference. The AhS was written by a moreh de'asra to reflect halakhah lemaaseh. The MB was written by a tzasiq and a gaon as a survey of later shitos that weren't available to most people trying to learn halakhah. No focus (by the author, see below about others) on lemaaseh. I see this as the cause for the MB's lack of attention to halakhah as practiced. It wasn't so much that the CC was a textualist when it comes to pesaq, but that he wrote a book for discussing texts. A second difference is that the AhS's idea of understanding the halakhah is looking to see how the pesaq evolved from gemara (and Y-mi) to Rif, Rambam, Rosh to the Tur, BY, SA, and finally to the acharonim since. The MB is more focused on the halakhah in the acharonic period, and how to decide amongst them. Third, the AhS is willing to leave the halakhah fuzzy, and often comes to a range of conclusions rather than one clear-cut pesaq. Or, he will pasqen one way in one se'if, but in a slightly different case in a different se'if reopen the question: ... but if you hold like... The MB offers more clarity. An AhS fan might say that clarity is artificial, because the reality of halakhah isn't cut and dry with only one best pesaq for all people. But it does make it easier to open a MB than to try to decide what to do when you reach one of the fuzzier stretches of the AhS. Perhaps the clarity is really is artifice, and that's why we need LORs rather than thinking a book is our poseiq. On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 03:52:06PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : Indeed in Europe before WWII the MB was not the "final" arbiter of : halacha. Much changed when CI wrote in a letter that the MB has the : halacha of a sanhedrin and one can't disagree with its conclusions. : Of course CI himself disagreed with the MB... : All to show that what is written in letters is not to be taken very : literally... Although it wasn't only the CI, so it's not all about taking his letter overly literally. Rav Yaakov Kamenecki and R' Aharon Kotler called him the "poseiq acharon", and RAK went as far as making sure the MB would appear in photos of him. See also our 2006 discussion Aruch Hashulchan vs. Mishna berura OTOH, R YH Henkin testified about his famous grandfather ( quoting his own Bnei Banim vol. 2 page 31): AH saw the MB; see 11:22; 12:4; 28:23; 62:4; 268:6; and other places where he mentions Mishnah Berurah by name. In 79:11 and 319:22 and elsewhere he disagrees with him by name and in innumerable places he disagrees with him without mentioning his name: for instance, in 55:20 he is writing against the Mishnah Berurah and similarly in 370:13 -- this is obvious anyone who looks carefully. So it is a mitzvah to let people know that AH is not only a Sefer Halacha but also a response to the Mishnah Brerurah. OTOH, similarly R [Shmuel] Yaakov Weinberg (Ner Israel) considered the AhS the more authoritative. And minutes before my chupah (while waiting for the paper to burn to have ashes for my head), R' Dovid Lifshitz asked if I had one for my new home, because it was closer to halakhah as my ancestors held. (RDL knew my family back in Suvalk.) As for RMF, RDF and RRF both agreed that RMF gave priority to the AhS because R' Yechiel Michl Epstein had a qehillah, and therefore the more practiced poseiq of the two. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger People were created to be loved. micha at aishdas.org Things were created to be used. http://www.aishdas.org The reason why the world is in chaos is that Fax: (270) 514-1507 things are being loved, people are being used. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 30 16:03:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 00:03:21 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] : Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001f01d09b2c$d37ec030$7a7c4090$@org.uk> I wrote: >> But aren't they then denying those Jews who have not yet heard shofar at all >> the chance to hear shofar according to the majority opinions by only blowing >> for them according to the minority opinions? And RZS replied: >AFAIK everyone agrees that all these methods are kosher, so those Jews >are definitely yotzei the mitzvah. ... >They're not foisting anything. The people they're blowing for would >otherwise not hear shofar at all, so they're clearly better off hearing >even some obscure form of it, so long as they're yotzei. But if these people who want to hear the shofar blown according to minority shitos are capable of finding people who would otherwise not hear shofar at all and blowing for them, they are *also* capable of finding such people in circumstances where they then blow for them according to the majority shitos. For it to be true that "they're clearly better off hearing some obscure form of it, so long as they are yotzei" - you have to be assuming that the people doing the blowing would only be prepared to go to the trouble of blowing to fulfil their desire to fulfil minority shitos but NOT where the result is only to ensure that fellow Jews perform a mitzvah. You may be correct that indeed people are more concerned with making sure they themselves have fulfilled the mitzvah of shofar in every possible permutation than in making sure another Jew performs the mitzvah at all, but could anybody honestly regard that as praiseworthy? As a consequence, I then raised a halachic query: > The principle on which > somebody who has fulfilled their obligation can then fulfil the obligation > of another is based on kol yisrael areivim zeh b'zeh. But to what extent is > that applicable in a situation in which that person would never, had the > situation been reversed, have accepted the form of fulfilment they are > offering the other. Ie since the person who is blowing the shofar refused > to have these alternative ways of blowing as the fundamental method of > fulfilling their own mitzvah, is it really areivus to then foist that form > of fulfilment on others? RZS's assumption is that, so long as everybody agrees that a form of blowing is kosher bidieved, then areivus works, but I wonder whether this is necessarily true. Areivus is a fascinating halachic concept - it allows somebody who has already fulfilled a mitzvah to do it again, including (importantly) making brachos again (which they would otherwise not be permitted to do) on behalf of another. I went for a bit of a hunt over Yom Tov to see what I could find regarding areivus, but did not turn up much. First of all, the pasuk from the Torah regarding Areivus is brought in Shevuos 39a as being based on the Vayikra 26:37 [vchashlu ish b'achiv] - which is then explained as meaning that a man in *the sin* of his brother so as to teach that kol yisrael areivim ze l'zeh. But while that seems a valid source for what might be considered "negative" areivus or areivus in relation to lo ta'asehs (and the obligation to protest), it led me to wonder how straightforwardly that gets you to what might be called "positive" areivus - ie doing something, such as performing the mitzvah of shofar on behalf of another [not that I have seen this distinction between "negative" and "positive" areivus anywhere]. Ie while you can see that if is permitted to blow shofar for somebody who was otherwise unable to fulfil the mitzvah, and one failed to do so, one might then be considered to have stumbled into the sin of that person's omission - ie failure to perform an aseh - it seems a leap to therefore derive from this particular pasuk that one has the power to fulfil and make brachos on behalf of that person. If anything I would have thought perhaps v'ahavta re'echa k'mocha seemed more likely, but I couldn't find any reference. Note that areivus would seem not to be shlichus, as one can make a shaliach out of somebody who is themselves not commanded in a particular thing - whereas that is not applicable for areivus where the original level of obligation must be at least equal on the part of the arev. [This is all leaving aside the famous Rosh Brachos perek 3 siman 13 which states that areivus does not apply to women, which is clearly discussing what might be termed positive areivus ie making brachos on behalf of one another, and which the achronim generally limit to cases where there is no equal obligation, despite what may seem to be the simple pshat, or the Tosphos in Kidushin 70b that areivus does not apply to gerim - which must surely at most [and here it seems to me you need the definition of negative and positive areivus] to be only a reference to negative areivus - otherwise this would be raised as a problem of a ger making brachos on behalf of others - although given the source of the Tosphos in Sotah 37b, this would also seem to apply to women for the same reasons - ie the number count being made by reference to the 603,550 in the midbar not including the eruv rav, and not including women either]. The most I was able to find in my brief search over Yom Tov was a Birchei Yosef Orech Chaim siman 124 discussing the question as to whether a Ben Chutz L'Aretz who found himself in a village in Israel over Yom Tov (in the case quoted by the Birchei Yosef he had gone to Israel to bury his dead) where nobody besides him had the knowledge to be Shatz, and who had already davened at home on second day yom tov the second day yom tov davening, could be shatz for the community by saying the birchei chol amidah. But there seem to be lots of other reasons to permit (as the Birchei Yosef does) in this particular case. In particular it seems to me, besides all of the Birchei Yosef's arguments, if you were to say that areivus was linked to v'ahavta re'echa kamocha, you can see why, if circumstances were reversed, the ben chutz l'aretz would want the same as he is providing to the benei aretz (ie the mutuality of areivus). But in the case that RZS has outlined, where the people hearing only the minority shitos form of shofar blowing would surely want the majority position shofar blowing if they could get it, can the blower unilaterally choose to force them to fulfil their obligation via a set of minority shitos via areivus, or does the principle of areivus not stretch that far? More generally, if somebody holds a particular position as being the ikar, can they under the principle of areivus perform a mitzvah on behalf of somebody who holds by a contradictory position, so that what the arev is doing is, according to him, possul? How about the reverse situation? And that gets us to RZS's case, where it might be agreed that a particular form is kosher bidieved, but if the arev could provide a l'chatchila version and chooses not to, can he be genuinely be said to be a real arev? How good a guarantor must a guarantor be to be considered a guarantor at all? I am sure some achron has written a treatise on areivus which must cover these kinds of topics, but so far I haven't found it. Zev Sero zev at sero.name Shavuah tov Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 12:25:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 15:25:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] FORBIDDING WOMEN DRIVERS: A HALACHIC ANALYSIS Message-ID: <20150529192533.D89D0182BDA@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/nqnquzc The media has widely reported that a Belz Yeshiva in England has forbidden women from driving their children to Yeshiva. It was further reported that if the mothers do not comply, the children will be thrown out of Yeshiva. In a letter sent to parents last week, seen by the Jewish Chronicle, they say there has been an increase in the number of mothers driving their children to school and add that this has led to ?great resentment among parents of pupils of our [Hasidic] institutions?. The letter says the ban, to come into force in the summer, is based on the recommendations of Rabbi Yissachar Dov Rokeach, the Belzer spiritual leader in Israel. It says that if a mother has no other choice but to drive her child to school ? for medical reasons, for example ? she should ?submit a request to the special committee to this effect and the committee shall consider her request.? The question is what does halacha have to say about this? See the above URL for more. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri May 29 14:04:31 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 17:04:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <5568D45F.9010809@gmail.com> R. Micha Berger maintained that R. E. Wasserman was not positing a formal proof for G-d's existence, formal proofs not being the only way, or even the superior way, to establish truths. I cited a passage in the Moreh Nevuchim to support this concept. But as is occasionally the case, R. MB disagrees with me, even when I attempt to defend him: ZL: Indeed, the Rambam himself in the Moreh Nevuchim recognizes this : distinction and supports the superior validity of the non-formal : approach. Chapters after he devotes chapters to formal philosophic : proofs for Creation ex nihilo, he describes how a healthy (and : unbiased) mind thinks: : :And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, //for //one who ismodeh al ha-ememmes// (RMB substituted an ellipsis for this :crucial clause) :is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities :serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; :and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an :intender, and that such purposeful intent necessarily implies the :production of something new [and not something that always existed :along with the one who bears the purposeful intention for its :existence]. (MN 3:13) RMB: There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam recaps a point made in 2:19-20. In 2:19-20 Rambam makes no reference to each component or entity in nature providing a benefit for another, and certainly does not use that there as a proof for Creation ex nihilo. *(Section II is devoted to developing the argument against a naturally necessary eternal world based on ''particularization,'' the differing formations and behaviors of things despite their being made of the same materials.) * ** *Perhaps you are referring to the fact that in both the argument there and here the crucial concluding step invokes the mindset that purposeful intention on G-d's part (which Aristotle as well attributes to G-d) indicates *a changeable will on His part (which indication Aristotle denies) that allows for and indicates Creation ex nihilo. But just as in 3:13 the Rambam describes that crucial mindset as something that is possessed by those who are modeh al ha-emmess, so too in 2:19-20 the Rambam first describes it as something that is ''pashut'' (KPCH) or ''mevuar" (Ibn Tibbon), which he will then proceed to demonstrate through more formal proof: It has already been shown that according to Aristotle... the Universe is not the result of intent of choice and desire; for if this were the case, they would have been non-existing before the intent had been conceived. We [proponents of Judaism?ZL], however, hold that it is /pashut\mevuar/ that all things in the Universe are the result of intent-not-of necessity; and it is possible for that Intender to change them and have a different intent. But in this chapter, my intent is to show by arguments almost as forceful as real proofs, that the Universe gives compelling evidence of being [freely] intended by an Intender: RMB: And for that matter, if the Rambam was talking about not really needing formal proof, despite spending much of sec. II on just that, why would it be buried in a chapter that focuses on something else? I did not posit that the Rambam's intent was to make the point that formal proof is unnecessary. That indeed is not his purpose. After all, the explicitly stated primary purpose of the Moreh is for those (himself included) who yearned to defend and support the mesorah through philosophical approach of his day. He is not interested in dismissing the project. He explicitly describes this /modeh al ha-emmess/ statement /as a tangential interruption/: After that statement, he says, ''I will now return to the subject of this chapter, viz., the ultimate cause [i.e. the purpose behind the universe being as it is--ZL].'' My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows the non-formal mindset of those who are /modeh al ha-emmess/. It is a reference to those who do not restrict their acceptance of truth to things provable through formal logic, settling for healthy, unbiased reasoning (and who thereby see the truth of Creation ex-nihilo as a simple conclusion from the fact of the purposeful hierarchy of nature). RMB: 3:13 is about how the universe has its own purpose. It is not just an arena designed for the purpose of humans. He argues here with Aristo who says that plants exist for the purpose of animals, and in general, that things exist for the purpose of other things. He does not argue with Aristotle on this point, as is clear in the passage from 3:13 that I originally quoted, and as he elaborates in the introduction to his Mishnah commentary. The disagreement (outside of the parenthetically mentioned one) revolves around the /ultimate/ purpose behind the existence of everything, and the question of why the intermediate steps in this world that lead to its finale of the hierarchy must exist, rather than the finale existing alone. (According to Aristotle, every component of nature is simply a necessity whose non-existence is absolutely impossible. It is impossible for G-d to maintain anything but the universe and its entities as they are. According to the Rambam, although every sub lunar being contributes to the existence of another such being, until we get to Man (and then the Ish Shalem), G-d could nevertheless have created that final being directly, without creating the intermediary plants and animals. Why He in His wisdom decided to do it as He did, and why he decided to create the heavens as He did, we cannot know.) RMB: Besides, the Rambam writes in 3:51 in the mashal of the palace, that people who believe because of tradition without having proof are like those who wander around the chatzer, whereas someone with a proof is like one who entered the prozdor. The ''modeh al ha-emmess'' proof, building upon careful observation of the world and and its components and creatures and theorizing as to how it all works, is also a proof. The inferior knowledge that does not lead to optimum closeness to Hashem is pure tradition without proof. Not[e] Aristo's epistomology didn't analyze issues of proof vs other justification. But clearly Reliabilism, trusting an idea found in a source that has already been found to be reliable (hama'aminim ... derekh qabalah), is not being considered good enough justification to fully accomplish life's goal. I did not refer to emunah b'derech kaballah. That's not what I meant by ''ha-modeh al ha-emmess.'' I meant what I said: the healthy thinking of an unbiased mind, meaning the thinking of such a mind informed by knowledge of the things that exist in the world and their behaviors, and explanations of how they operate. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 30 20:04:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sat, 30 May 2015 23:04:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] : Another Chumera ends up Involving a Kula In-Reply-To: <001f01d09b2c$d37ec030$7a7c4090$@org.uk> References: <001f01d09b2c$d37ec030$7a7c4090$@org.uk> Message-ID: <556A7A27.3000006@sero.name> On 05/30/2015 07:03 PM, Chana Luntz via Avodah wrote: > RZS's assumption is that, so long as everybody agrees that a form of blowing > is kosher bidieved, then areivus works, Not just b'deiavad; my understanding is that all of these shitos are kosher lechatchilah, they're just not the way we do them lemaaseh. Let's say they're not mitzva min hamuvchar. Or "de`avad kemar `avad, ud`avad kemar `avad but we do kemar". > But in the case that RZS has outlined, where the people hearing > only the minority shitos form of shofar blowing would surely want the > majority position shofar blowing if they could get it, We're talking about people who have no particular desire to hear shofar at all, or they'd have done so. They didn't bother going to shul on Rosh Hashana, so they're probably not even aware that there are different shitos in how to blow shofar, let alone have a preferred shitah. Anything that is motzi them in the mitzvah is an improvement over what they would do otherwise, and is a benefit for them. And we're talking about potential blowers who currently don't go out and do this, they don't spend their precious Rosh Hashana hours bringing this zechus to fellow Jews who did not come themselves to hear shofar. So what I'm proposing is a win-win. They get to hear the obscure shitos they want to hear, and the people they're blowing for get the basic mitzvah as the Torah commanded it. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat May 30 20:22:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 30 May 2015 23:22:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <556A7E8D.70007@gmail.com> I wrote: > > > > But as is occasionally the case, > R. MB disagrees with me, even when I attempt to defend him I should have put a smiley after that sentence, or maybe even explicated that it was meant as a humorous observation of irony. It meant to imply that RMB is interested in emmess and does not make it a personal issue. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 31 00:59:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 10:59:58 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura Message-ID: RHS has said many times in his shiurim that the MB was not written alone by the Chofetz Chaim and that is why there are sometimes contradictions. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 31 01:08:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 11:08:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] MB vs AH Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: "Indeed in Europe before WWII the MB was not the "final" arbiter of halacha. Much changed when CI wrote in a letter that the MB has the halacha of a sanhedrin and one can't disagree with its conclusions." I believe it happened even a little later then that. RHS who grew up in the 1950s stated many times in shiur that when he learned halacha in the 1950s no one learned Mishna Berura, people either learned Chayei Adam or they learned Shulchan Aruch with Magen Avraham and the Taz. If you look at the European gedolim who came to America like R' Moshe, R' Ruderman, etc. even after WWII they almost never quoted the Mishna Berura. >From what I understand R' Aharon Kotler was very influential in America in promoting learning Mishna Berura. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun May 31 10:20:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 13:20:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Texualism and the Mishnah Berurah by R. Micha Berger Message-ID: <20150531172101.ED88B180CD0@nexus.stevens.edu> From http://www.aishdas.org/asp/texualism-and-the-mishnah-berurah The author [of the Mishnah Brurah, the Chofetz Chaim] is clear: the purpose of the book was not to provide his own ruling, but to survey the later posqim who have added complexity to the field so that someone looking to reach a decision knows who wrote on the matter. Yes, the CC (or his son or other students who worked with him) often gave his own opinion, including our ?ba?al nefesh yachmir?, but it is unclear to me he intended that opinion to be a pragmatic ruling rather than a theoretical statement. This would explain why the Mishnah Berurah?s rulings diverge from accepted practice so much more often than the Arukh haShulchan (a contemporary work from the same region). Halakhah lemaaseh, pragmatic rulings, need to take such precedent and continuity into account; discussions of textual theory do not. As further evidence that the Mishnah Berurah was not intended to be a practical law guide, we have a lot of testimony that shows that its own author often followed the common Lithuanian practice over his own ?ruling?. Despite the origin of wearing one?s tzitzis strings out being in the MB, the CC did not. His qiddush cup doesn?t hold as much wine as the MB would require. (It is still in the hands of the Zaks family and has been checked repeatedly.) He advocated for building city eiruvin for carrying on Shabbos despite BH 364 ?ve?achar?. The Chafeitz Chaim did not say ?Berikh Shemeih? when taking out the Torah. Etc 1 I am suggesting that the CC?s textualist and formal stance in the MB is simply because the MB was a book for studying texts. And he did not intend to deemphasize mimetic tradition (the flow of practice transmitted culturally). This shift happened when the Chazon Ish in Israel and a number of American rashei yeshiva (such as R? Aharon Kotler) promoted the idea of using the Mishnah Berurah as a poseiq acharon. See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 00:25:05 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 10:25:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <> I have a book "The Goldilocks Enigma" by Paul Davies (cosmolgist) on why is the universe just right for life. Most of the book is to show how unlikely it is that the universe has exactly the right properties for existence. The second part is a discussion as to why this happened. He goes through all the theories including the watchmaker etc. One possibility is a "creator" . He adnits that it is logically consistent but finds iy highly unlikely. His own preference is for the multi-verse. The idea is not whether you agree with him or not. Rather here is an intelligent human who has thought deeply about these problems and does not see any obvious signs of a designer. I would venture that that is the opinion of most physicists and certainly biologists. What you consider obvious he considers very unlikely. Again we come to the point that REW claims that anyone who really thinks about the problem and comes up with a different answer than he does simply has an ulterior motive. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 03:08:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 06:08:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150602100830.GA12384@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 10:25:05AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : The idea is not whether you agree with him or not. Rather here is an : intelligent human who has thought deeply about these problems and does not : see any obvious signs of a designer. I would venture that that is the : opinion of most physicists and certainly biologists. REW would say that he found it obvious that the world was created, something deep inside (to add my own 2c: of which he is likely unaware) didn't want to live in a world with a Creator, so he thought deeply about these problems until he could find an alternative. (For what it's worth, I think most physicists believe in G-d.) As you put it: : What you consider obvious he considers very unlikely. Again we come to the : point that REW claims that anyone who really thinks about the problem and : comes up with a different answer than he does simply has an ulterior motive. But that doesn't make the person any less convinced. For that matter, the believer also likely has an unlterior motive. (I said that, I doubt REW would. I am just saying it wouldn't rob him of his point.) REW is asserting that before you even get to bias, the obvious position is ours. Their atheism is the one that takes work, because it's explaining away the obvious. After all, there is no a priori, obvious-as-a-postulate version of the Anthropic Principle or other such atheistic explanations of the universe's design. No equivalent to REW's not attributing a poem to spilled ink or R' Aqiva's insisting that a garment or bread testify to their makers. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Friendship is like stone. A stone has no value, micha at aishdas.org but by rubbing one stone against another, http://www.aishdas.org sparks of fire emerge. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Mordechai of Lechovitz From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 08:40:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 11:40:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] women making a zimun In-Reply-To: <20150602125704.JHYM8162.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo306> References: <20150602125704.JHYM8162.fed1rmfepo103.cox.net@fed1rmimpo306> Message-ID: <20150602154026.GF23551@aishdas.org> Bringing this thread to where this belongs. On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 08:56:59AM -0400, Sholom Simon via Areivim wrote: :> There was no family or community prior to the 20th century in :> which girls or women bentshed with a zimun. : I always wondered about that vis-a-vis the following: : The SA"HaRav (written by somebody who was certainly not a feminist) : at 199:6 writes that three women who are eating together (provided : there are less than 10 men) are permitted to break away and make : their own zimmun. (l'chelek l'zimun l'atzman). ... : What I've always wondered about was: is he writing entirely : theoretically, or was there a practice among some which led him to : clarify this issue? : Thoughts? : -- Sholom The SA haRav says that they must participate when 3 men make a zimun. If there are three women, no minyan of men, and want to separate off to make their own zimun, hareshus beyadam. Then he takes on the case of three women who are eating without men, again "hareshus beyadam" to make a zimun. (Similarly avadim, but not a mix of women and avadim because we we assume avadim are capable of peritzus. Given that the part about avadim couldn't have been a practice in the Baal haTanya's day, I wouldn't assume his mention of zimun for women makes any such implication. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Weeds are flowers too micha at aishdas.org once you get to know them. http://www.aishdas.org - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 08:49:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 11:49:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Modah Ani In-Reply-To: <20150602.081411.27008.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150602.081411.27008.0@webmail06.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150602154924.GG23551@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 12:14:11PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Areivim wrote: : R' Micha Berger wrote: :> ... When I told them that traditionally we held that they're :> probably yotz'ot with saying Modah Ani once a day, ... : I noticed your very deliberate spelling here, and I can't help but : wonder: Was there any family or community prior to the late 20th century : in which girls or women said "modAh ani"? Talmidei haGra. The Siddur haGra also mentions "shelo asani nakhriah" (the Gra had "nakhri" for men) and "shelo asani shifcha". Speaking of new minhagim: Modeh Ani is likely the youngest prayer in most siddurim, even younger than Lekha Dodi. It exists to compensate moving "Elokai Neshamah" out of that spot. (Asher Yatzar doesn't open "barukh" because it's a berakhah hasemukhah lechaverta with haMapil -- one before sleep one after. When we moved it, many (including the Gra), made it semuchah to Asher Yazar -- thanking the Creator for both body and soul.) Which is why I find it unwarranted to treat its matbeia as unchangable even in the face of simply reconjugating. But in any case, I'm in favor of most changes that give one pause to think about what they're saying or doing. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow micha at aishdas.org man's soul and his own stomach; a pious Jew worries http://www.aishdas.org about his own soul and his fellow man's stomach. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 09:16:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 12:16:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <5568D45F.9010809@gmail.com> References: <5568D45F.9010809@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150602161633.GA15555@aishdas.org> On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 05:04:31PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: :> There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam :> recaps a point made in 2:19-20. : : In 2:19-20 Rambam makes no reference to each component or entity in : nature providing a benefit for another, and certainly does not use that : there as a proof for Creation ex nihilo... 2:20 marks the end of an Argument from Design, which is what I was referring to. As it opens: "According to Aristotle, none of the products of Nature are due to chance. His proof is this: That which is due to chance does not reappear constantly nor frequently, but all products of Nature reappear either constantly or at least frequently..." This is a formal argument, unlike R' Aqiva's or REW's own appeal to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. I am saying that 3:15, when it mentions in passing the bit that :: And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, //for :: //one who ismodeh al ha-ememmes// ... :: is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities :: serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; :: and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an :: [I]ntender.... This is reference to people being willing to accept a proven point, and not accepting something as true because of a justification system other than proof. ... RZL, continued: : He explicitly describes this /modeh al ha-emmess/ statement /as a : tangential interruption/: After that statement, he says, "I will now : return to the subject of this chapter, viz., the ultimate cause [i.e. : the purpose behind the universe being as it is--ZL]." : My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that : there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows : the non-formal mindset of those who are /modeh al ha-emmess/... Agreed it's tangential, which is why I doubt that if the Rambam did want to say something that signficant, this would be its only mention. But I don't think it makes the point you're making because the Rambam already made design the topic of a formal proof. So the current mention of design in this aside is talking about a proof, not another verification system. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is complex. micha at aishdas.org Decisions are complex. http://www.aishdas.org The Torah is complex. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' Binyamin Hecht From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 13:24:55 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2015 22:24:55 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] More on Who Wrote the Mishna Brura In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <556E1117.1050507@zahav.net.il> That a text written such a short time ago could have questions about it authorship really nails down how hard it is to have definitive knowledge of the past. Ben On 5/31/2015 9:59 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > RHS has said many times in his shiurim that the MB was not written > alone by the Chofetz Chaim and that is why there are sometimes > contradictions. > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 13:27:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 16:27:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed Message-ID: <20150602202700.GA7449@aishdas.org> R/Dr Alan Brill recently carried this essay by comparatively new chaver, R' Ysoscher Katz. I am sharing here the essay in full (see or for R/D AB's biographical introduction) for two reeasons -- or one two-part reason: 1- I think this post could start a nice discussion of the fundamentals of each of our hashkafos; and 2- Comments are blocked on the post, so it's not like I am stealing a conversation that ought to happen there. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you won't be better tomorrow micha at aishdas.org than you were today, http://www.aishdas.org then what need do you have for tomorrow? Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rebbe Nachman of Breslov Torat Chaim Ve'Ahavat Chesed Ysoscher Katz I was raised in the chassidic community of Satmar. I should make it clear from the outset: I am modern but not Orthodox. Do not get me wrong, I am observant and my practice is orthodox but that is not who I am. In other words, I am orthodox-my practice is halakhic and my belief orthodox-but Orthodoxy is not me. It is not an integral part of my identity. My orthodoxy is merely a means towards a religious end. Keeping halakha and accepting orthodox faith-claims provides me with the infrastructure which allows my soul to strive and pursue perfection. Orthodoxy enables me to be who I really am: a Modern Chassidish Jew. As I mentioned, my identity is comprised of two parts, Modern and Chassidish. I inherited these identity markers from my parents, the modernity from my mother and the chassidut from my father. Here, I mean real Chassidic, and not Neo-Chassidic. How my chassidic, homemaking and sheitel-wearing mom made me modern is a conversation for another time. At the moment I wish to focus on my dad. My father is the most non-chassidish Chassid. He does not study "chassidus," nor does he want to "understand" it. The few times I tried to explain to him Moshe Idel's distinction between theosophy and theurgy, his eyes glazed over. Chassidut is what he does, not what he learns. From his perspective, Torah is for learning, chassidut for practicing. His aversion is not limited to the study of academic mysticism. He also stays away from traditional kabbalistic or chassidic texts. He never studied the Zohar nor did he ever read any of the Arizal's writings. Not only would he not read them, he also would not touch them. He is so intimidated by their sacredness; he fears that his touch would contaminate them. Yet, despite never having formally studied chassidic texts, he still is the quintessential chasid. Chassidut is his essence, part of his religious DNA, but it is a chassidut that is behavioral, not intellectual. Chassidut is how he lives his life. It is the prism through which he encounters the world and the ethos by which he lives by. He adores his wife, loves his children, cherishes his community and reveres and respects his neighbors and fellow human beings, Jew and non-Jew alike. While this practice is not special, many people love their family and surroundings, its flavor is unique. It is Chassidic love, deriving its passion from the Chassidic teachings he has absorbed throughout his life. These teachings have filled his being with a deep religiosity, which, in turn, infuses his actions and emotions with a deep and robust spirituality. His love of humanity is, therefore, a love that is sensualized by its spiritualized valance. Chassidut does not just spiritualize my father's interpersonal relationships, it also enhances his religious practices, particularly the yearly calendar. Chassidut allows him to infuse the annual cycle with a sensuous spirituality. Satmar is a Hungarian/Romanian Chassidut (The broad strokes difference between Hungarian Chassidut and the Polish and Russian versions is that the latter were intellectually inclined while the former was not. Hungarian Chassidut was predominantly behavioral. This is, of course, a generalization; the nuances are far more complex but outside the parameters of this presentation.) Hungarian Chassidim are nourished by an elaborate "sacred calendar." They have more days of note than the conventional Jewish calendar, and their holidays tend to be richer than your typical modern Jews' chag experience. A Satmar Chasid's year is thus replete with days of deep joy and periods of intense reflection. While the Jewish calendar has several biblical holidays and two Rabbinic ones, the Chasid's calendar records additional dates of importance. Every winter, the Hungarian Chasid has six to eight weeks of "shovavim," a period that usually falls sometime between Chanukah and Purim, which is dedicated to repentance and introspection, largely focusing on sexual impropriety; the days of awe continue through the end of Chanukah, the potential for repentance lasts for them for two more months; Purim celebrations begin three days earlier than usual; and (a modicum of) Pesach extends all the way to Shavuot (based on Nachmanides' notion that the interim weeks between Pesach and Shavuot are somewhat akin to a chol ha'moed of Pesach). Combined these add up to a significant number of additional days of awe and periods of celebration. Qualitatively, chassidic holidays are different as well. Although many things distinguish a chassidic chag, there is one distinction that is particularly noticeable to the keen observer: chassidic religious celebrations are comprised of a dissonant blend of joy and contemplation. Here are some examples: Shabbat in Satmar is an incredibly meaningful day, bookended by powerful contradictory modes. Friday night is a time of joy, where the spiritually and mystically rich Lecha Dodi chant inspires celebration of the metaphysical significance of the day. While this spirit carries through most of the Shabbat, towards the end of the Shabbat the Satmar Chasid shifts gears, switching modes from the celebratory to the reflective. This transition occurs in a much starker manner than it does in most other communities. A Satmar Shabbat never ends at "shekiah." Sehudah shlishit is always a two hour affair, spent singing and listening to the Rebbe's dvar torah. Speaking in highly evocative tones, he expounds on the weekly reading, spending close to an hour challenging and rebuking his followers. Growing up, this is exactly what Shabbat looked like for me. My dad's Shabbat was intense and complex. While the day began upbeat, it gradually shifted into the contemplative. But, my father's Shabbat, like his chassidut, is adamantly experiential, text and study play a minor role in the development of his religious persona. Kegavna (a section from the Zohar which Chassidim recite during Friday night prayers), is one of the most powerful kabbalistic liturgical texts. Utilizing the connection between Shabbat and the number seven, a prominent kabbalistic trope, it succinctly articulates the mystical value of Shabbat. It emphasizes that Shabbat is a day of heightened divine intimacy and advanced mystical union. I have begged my dad on many occasions to read this Zohar text with me. He refused each time. Sacred mystical texts are for the elite. The lay receive their nourishment residually, from the spiritualized environment created by those qualified to access those recondite sources. While he will not study Kegavna, he does recite it every Friday night as part of the Kabbalat Shabbat service. Notwithstanding that he does not fully grasp its meaning, he reads it with the pathos and passion it deserves. Kegavna's power for him is metaphysical, not intellectual. Purim provides another example of the intensity of Hungarian chassidic practice. Many Jews celebrate Purim, but not the chassidic Purim. The chassidic Purim is unique in its richness and multiplicity. Communally, preparations for the holiday start early. More than a week before Purim, one can already detect the arrival of the holiday, both, in the discourse of the scholars and activities of the laity. The learned discourse focuses on the legal and spiritual aspects of the chag, while the public sphere is filled with people making arrangements for every aspect of the day. When Purim finally arrives, it takes on a distinct theological flavor. Appropriating the Zoharic notion that Purim is analogous to Yom Kippur (Yom Kippurim), Satmar Chassidim created a unique Purim blend that is both frivolous and somber. This day of festivity is overlaid with practices of repentance and reflection. While I am nourished by my dad's behavioral Chassidut, personally it is not enough. Behavioral Chassidut gladdens my heart but does not stimulate my mind nor sufficiently satisfy my soul. I personally seek a religiosity which nourishes both pillars of my being, the mind and the heart. My personal journey is, therefore, informed by a combination of my father's passion and the academic's sophistication. Chassidus resonates with both of them, sometimes simultaneously, when the intellectual engagement and behavioral spiritual encounter complement one another, and sometimes separately, when I religiously shift back and forth between the intellectual and the experiential. Ultimately, the attraction to Chassidut is the fact that it can operate in different modes at different times, in the process offering up a variety of mechanisms to help spiritualize my life. It is precisely this multifacetedness which convinces me that Chassidut is the proper theology for us moderns. Its theology is perfectly situated to offer meaning and spirituality to the contemporary modern seeker. I feel strongly that it is our only hope. Chassidut today is not a luxury, it is a necessity. If the Torah-u'Madda project is to succeed Chassidut needs to become an integral part of its curriculum. Chassidut is of course a vast discipline, teaching all of it would be a daunting task. For the moment there are three aspects of chassidic theology that stand out as particularly suited for the world we live in today. 1) Truth. We live in a post-modern world where objective truth is rejected and absolute claims are frowned upon. I would go as far as to say that rationalism (in the general and colloquial sense) as a source for Emunah is bankrupt, it increasingly speaks to fewer people. It, therefore, behooves us to come up with alternative models. Chassidut could very well be that alternative model. Facts and empirical truth is not Chassidut's primary currency. While it does a priori accept the biblical theological faith statements, its goal is not to argue or prove the scientific veracity of the Bible's claims. Truth is not of primary concern for these thinkers. Chassidic theology has two main features. It is a-rational and a-historical. It is apathetic about Jewish historicity as a proactive theological stance. The Torah for Chassidim is there to teach us how to live life and serve God, the narrative qua narrative (the origin story) is mere background music. The narration parts of the Torah are, therefore, not of much theological significance to them, they are a-historical However, during those rare occasions when they do pay attention to the biblical "stories," their orientation is a-rational. They absolutely "believe" those stories, but their belief is internal: it is true because it happened in the Torah. That is where these events transpire and that is where these stories matter. Asking about their historicity is, as far as they are concerned, foolish and missing the point. At the same time, to the extent that the biblical narratives have religious and theological significance, they read those stories through the Rabbinic lens. So, for example, while Moshe's historicity is not historically relevant to them, his persona carries theological and ethical significance. The same is true for God's attributes. Chassidim are, by choice, apathetic about God as a scientific reality, his attributes and characteristics, however, are theologically highly significant to them. For that they did turn to the Bible, but the encounter with the Torah is filtered through Chazal. They see Chazal as essential to the understanding of the Torah. As believers in immanence they actually see the Sages as much more integral to the experience of the written Torah than the rationalists did. They did not think that the presence at Sinai (mamad har Sinai) ended at the giving of the Torah (mattan Torah). For them the Torah is perpetually and continuously revealed. The modern reader of chassidic texts would, therefore, not have to decide whether they scientifically accept these postulates in order to engage with them. Chassidut's goal is instead to describe an immanence which provides spiritual and emotional transcendence. Chassidut (informed, of course, by kabbalah) promotes a sophisticated immanence which results in a dramatic shift in Judaism's orientation towards God and His commandments. Prior to the emergence of chassidut on the historic scene, theology was convincing and Jewish observance was rewarding. Chassidut changed that. Chassidic theology offered meaning and kabbalistic observance provided sanctity. Personally, my rejection of the Maimonidean ethos and realization of the degree to which chassidut can speak to the modern searcher was a long and arduous process. It came about as a result of a deep sense of betrayal by Maimonides, the champion of Rationalist Judaism. I for many years was the object and fool of Maimonides "the seventh reason" as presented in his introduction to the Guide by not seeing his philosophic views. In that passage, Maimonides condones misleading the masses for their greater good, even to the point of advocating contradictory ideas for different audiences and then obscuring those contradictions. Growing up in Satmar and then Brisk, I was oblivious to his non-halakhic writings and led to believe that he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad. I was exposed to his other writings only later and when I did I felt cheated. I was part of that the masses, whom he thought could not handle his unconventional approach to theology and tradition. As much as I have read about him, I personally have not managed to reconcile his two sides. I do not find Prof. Isidore Twersky's harmonizing approach compelling or convincing. Realizing what a fool I was led me on a tortuous and circuitous search. As the Rabbis say about Yisro, ????? ??? ?? ??????; I explored all the options. I finally found the answer in kabbalah and chassidut, they speak a language which resonates with our current reality. They emphasize that which contemporary Judaism needs. The emphasis in chassidut on meaning and sacredness, are perfectly suited for our community. These are exactly the things our culture needs more of; holiness and meaning. This emphasis in Chassidut on immanence also generates a move towards spiritualization. 2) Spiritualization. As scholars have pointed out, chassidic teachings contain elements of spiritual psychology. They provide us with a language which helps us infuse our lives with meaning. One can point to many examples where this psychological spiritualization occurs in chassidut, I will mention two of them. Everybody sometimes has a bad hair day, when we wake up feeling less than optimal. Chassidut has a term to describe that mood; it calls it mochen de'katnus. While it technically means the same as a "bad hair day," the language is mystical. Mochen de'katnus describes a less than stellar spiritual state, a low energy level which does not allow us to engage in the usual religious pursuits we crave to pursue. Another example is Kabbalah's elaborate taxonomy of love and awe: Kabbalah and Chassidut talks about superior and inferior love (ahavah ela'e'e and ahavah tata'a) or superior and inferior awe (yirah ela'e'e and yira tata'a)While these terms primarily describe nuanced stages in our engagement with the Divine, they have traditionally been imported into the colloquial arena. They are used to describe varied emotional states which we experience in our interactions with our friends and loved ones. Contemporary life does not provide us with that many opportunities for encountering the Divine in our daily lives. Chassidut allows us to bring God in. Sprinkling our conversations with mystical and Chassidic terminology allows us to spiritualize our daily routines and infuse our mundane pursuits with meaning and spiritual significance. Besides enriching our personal encounters, adopting a chassidic ethos could also enhance our communal experiences. 3) Social Change. One of the most pressing tensions in the community is how to reconcile our values with our convictions; what to do when halakha points us in one direction and our values in another direction. We are tempted to follow our values but pulled to abide by our halakhic commitments. A proper resolution requires an emboldened stance towards tradition, one that allows us to cajole the tradition to reconcile itself with our modern sensibilities. [Using, of course, legitimate halakhic mechanisms developed by our predecessors when they were confronted with similar challenges.] Our values are so emboldened because they derive their power from Chaissdut. A chassidic life is a spiritualized life which infuses our values with powerful theological significance, and it allows us to aggressively challenge the tradition to reevaluate its assumptions and attempt to accommodate itself-when halakhically possible- to a changed modern reality. Chassidut is very explicit about the value of religious aggression. The following two quotes are often encountered in chassidic writings, "even a thief says a prayer before he breaks in to his victim's home" (quoted on the margin of Brachot 63A, from the Frankfurt manuscript), and "an aggressive stance towards the Divine bears results" (Sanhedrin 105A). While the provenance of these texts is Talmudic, they take on significant prominence in Chassidic theology. They become the impetus for an aggressive theology which is informed by a religiosity that sees itself driven by a Divine immanence which infuses our values and ethical intuitions with spiritual resonance, subsequently leading to radical societal change. Such change is actually an integral part of Chassidic social history. When one looks at recent major changes in traditional Jewish society it is hard not to notice that the forerunners were often Chassidim. The last sixty years have seen far reaching social and political change. The two most dramatic changes that have happened is that Jews are now sovereign and women have made significant progress in their pursuit of religious equality. The pioneers of both these changes were driven, at least in part, by a chassidic ethos. R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Rebbi of Lubavitch, was one of the first orthodox scholars to champion female Talmud scholarship, while R. Avraham Yitzchak Kook, a serious student of Chassidut, was an outspoken early proponent of a Zionist state. There is no doubt that their chassidic worldview, at least partially, informed their proactive stances towards these changes. Their adherence to a spiritualized religiosity allowed them to explore new religious vistas. Their unique theological outlook changed the religious and legal equation for them, simultaneously making their decisions more complex, but also more progressive. Their spiritualized worldview allowed them to see divinity in the ostensibly secular state or the seemingly illegitimate request of women for greater equality. Granted, this hybrid of chassidic spiritualization and robust religious creativity would be a 21^st century concoction, traditionally, these two do not go together. Chassidism, for the most part, frowns on change and rejects innovation. As a matter of fact, nineteenth century Hungarian Chassidim were vociferously opposed to any accommodations to modernity. Further, the contemporary thinker is not going to intuitively embrace spiritualized non-rational thought. It is, nevertheless, a match pregnant with immense potential and could go a long way towards reviving a dormant Modern Orthodoxy. Contemporary Modern Orthodoxy is struggling; a significant number of its adherents are abandoning yiddishkeit and many who stay no longer find it meaningful; inertia has set in. I suspect that Modern Orthodoxy's rationalist ethos is partially to blame. Current Modern Orthodox theology is Litvish and hyper-Maimonidean, it lacks a native spiritual core, and does not satisfy people's search for meaning. We are due for a change. Chassidus could be that change agent. I strongly believe that a chassidic theology combined with a sophisticated modern overlay could be the elixir for the dispassion and disinterest that ails our community. It will provide our community what it so desperately needs: a torat chaim ve'ahavt chesed; a Torah that stimulates our minds but at the same time also gladdens our neshamah. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 14:39:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:39:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> : > From: Micha Berger via Avodah > > [Rambam's statement (''And know that one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, //for > :: //one who ismodeh al ha-ememmes// ... > :: is his confirming the fact that every one of all natural entities > :: serves a specific purpose, with each one benefiting still another; > :: and that this fact is a proof for the purposeful intent of an > :: [I]ntender...'') is not an informal argument, akin to R' Aqiva's or REW's appeal > to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. Rather,] it is a recap of a formal proof The Rambam made in 2:19-20... 2:20 marks the end of an Argument from Design. As it opens: "According to Aristotle, none of the products > of Nature are due to chance. His proof is this: That which is due to > chance does not reappear constantly nor frequently, but all products of > Nature reappear either constantly or at least frequently..." > > This is a formal argument, unlike R' Aqiva's or REW's own appeal > to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. Philosophers may disagree with classifying the argument made in 2:20 from ''frequency of appearance'' as ''an argument from design.'' But even if it is ''an'' argument from design, it's a different argument from the ''modeh al ha-emmess'' proof from the hierarchy of entities benefiting others. So the latter is not a recap of the former. And it does not necessarily follow that one who is modeh to the ''frequency'' argument considers the hierarchy argument ''one of the strongest.'' RZL, continued: : He explicitly describes this/modeh al ha-emmess/ statement /as a : tangential interruption/: After that statement, he says, "I will now : return to the subject of this chapter, viz., the ultimate cause [i.e. : the purpose behind the universe being as it is--ZL]." : My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that : there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows : the non-formal mindset of those who are/modeh al ha-emmess/... RMB: >Agreed it's tangential, which is why I doubt that if the Rambam did want to say something that signficant, this would be its only mention.< Again: Here, where the Rambam, for the first time, is about to bring up the hierarchy proof, he parenthetically mentions that it is intuitively understood by anyone unbiased. He does then go on to state the proof in a formal philosophic form. This is the most proper place to insert such a parenthetical remark parenthetically, and only once. It's not ''that significant'' for his purposes, because, as I had written, the entire purpose of the Moreh is to address people (including himself) concerned with hearing formal philosophic proofs and confronting the challenges that formal philosophic proofsbrought to the mesorah. Those interested in hearing an expanded version of the argument in informal form could find it in the Rambam's introduction to his his Mishnah commentary. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 2 16:04:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 19:04:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin Message-ID: <103ab8.504f8d1e.429f9062@aol.com> From: Eli Turkel via Avodah >> I have a book "The Goldilocks Enigma" by Paul Davies (cosmolgist) on why is the universe just right for life. Most of the book is to show how unlikely it is that the universe has exactly the right properties for existence. The second part is a discussion as to why this happened. He goes through all the theories including the watchmaker etc. One possibility is a "creator" . He admits that it is logically consistent but finds it highly unlikely. His own preference is for the multi-verse. The idea is not whether you agree with him or not. Rather here is an intelligent human who has thought deeply about these problems and does not see any obvious signs of a designer..... << Eli Turkel >>>> On the contrary, he sees many signs of a Designer and he is so desperate to avoid the obvious conclusion -- because of his own prior philosophical biases -- that he adopts the currently trendy and absurd idea of "many universes" to escape from what he does not want to face. You see, if this is the only universe then it is so fantastically improbable that it can only be a miracle. But if it is only one of many universes, then it is not so strange that just one out of millions of universes would happen to have the conditions necessary for life. Normally the definition of "science" includes things like capable of observation or experiment, falsifiable, etc. But if you are desperate enough to escape G-d (and His moral demands) you will take something as airy-fairy, non-observable, not subject to any possible experiment, non-falsifiable as a "multi-verse" -- a product of the human mind that is as real as leprechauns -- and you will crown it with the noble name of "science"! I have a wonderful book in my house called *The Privileged Planet* that should be a science textbook in every yeshiva high school and Bais Yakov. Please please read it. It's by Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards. Here's the website with more information about the book and a video: http://www.privilegedplanet.com/ --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 00:03:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 10:03:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] MB Message-ID: The entry in wikepedia in Hebrew on Mishna Brura contains much of the information that we have been discussing. In particular it discusses the authorship of MB (ie the quote from his son) . MH vs AH and the change after the holocaust and other comments -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 05:39:12 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2015 08:39:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] More on Standing at a Chupah Message-ID: <20150603123934.850661827E1@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is from today's Hakhel email bulletin. FROM A READER: Further on the point on standing at Chuppahs: Many think/say that it is because of Choson Domeh L'melech that they stand up for the Chosson. Yet, they should be aware that to my knowledge, HaRav Moshe Feinstein, Z'tl, never stood because he used to say, Doi-meh (L)melech NOT (Ke)melech. HaRav Yaakov Kamenetsky, Z'tl, stood but for a totally different reason. The question of L'melech or K'melech never entered into consideration as the Chosson is not a true Chosson until AFTER the Chuppah. Rather, HaRav Yaakov stood purely because of the Mishna in Bikurim (3:3), that discusses the bringing of Bikurim and the rule of standing Lif-Nai Oisei Mitzva, and since the Chosson is entering into a Chupah which will enable him to be mekayeim the mitzvah of P'ru U'revu, we stand. As to why we don't stand for everyone doing a mitzvah, it's for a mitzvah that is mei-kama zman l'zman, not a regular occurrence. The question remains as to a justification for why people stand for the Kallah, since she is not K'Malka (see HaRav Moshe and HaRav Yaakov above) and is peturah from Mitzvas Peru U'revu. HaRav Avraham Kamenetsky, HaRav Yaakov's son, told me that one can say that since the Chosson cannot be mekayeim the mitzvah without her, she has a chelek in the mitzvah and thus qualifies for Lif-Nai Oisei Mitzvah. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 06:57:17 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 09:57:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 05:39:33PM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : But even if it is "an" argument from design, it's a different argument : from the "modeh al ha-emmess" proof from the hierarchy of entities : benefiting others. So the latter is not a recap of the former. And : it does not necessarily follow that one who is modeh to the : "frequency" argument considers the hierarchy argument "one of the : strongest." I think our point of contention is simple: You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind justification that isn't a proof. Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. And therefore there is nothing in the Rambam about a justification that isn't a philosophical proof. For that matter, I would take his words to say this non-proof, being only meaningful to someone who is already "modeh al ha'emes", is not valid justification -- an instance of what I believe would be his general rule. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 10:58:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 10:58:33 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] ashtei-asar Message-ID: could someone explain please the ibn ezra in last weeks parsha ? someone asked about the origin of 'ashtei' and noted the this week mikshah is translated as eshet--- which must mean one solid piece so that must mean ashtei= one . but why not say achad asar ? [ he pointed out that 'eshet'= 770 , a number of completion ] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 14:23:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 17:23:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] ashtei-asar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150603212342.GA31632@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 03, 2015 at 10:58:33AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : someone asked about the origin of 'ashtei' and noted the this week : mikshah is translated as eshet--- which must mean one solid piece so : that must mean ashtei= on... The Akkadian for 11 is ishteneshret, ishten (one) + shret (ten). It is weird, though, that Hebrew would use a form of isheneshret without also using ishten. Then there's the idea in the Radaq (Mikhlol pg 140) that it was two that was collapsed from "ashtei" to "shtei". Which would explain why "shtayim" isn't "shesayim". The rule is that a sheva under the first letter is a sheva na (pronounced schwa), the legacy of the missing "i-" makes "shtei" an exception -- the sheva under the shin is nach (silent). Along these line, but presumably without the knowledge of Akkadian, the IE (Bamidbar 7:72, citing his own Sefer Me'oznayim) writes that "ashtei asar" is like "eshtenosav" -- that which were born from his thoughts. As though the 10 gave birth. "Vehu sod gadol". He then goes on to dismiss R' Yonah haSefaradi's theory that it means "el shtei asar". Because 1- "al shetei asar" would refer to the number AFTER 12, not before; and 2- "asar" (masc) would get "shnei" (masc), not "shtei" (fem). The gemara doesn't explain peshat, but interestingly R' Ashi's example (Sanhedrin 29a) of "kol hamosif goreia'" is how adding an ayin turns "shtei esrei yeri'os" into "ashtei esrei". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 15:16:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2015 18:16:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> On 6/3/2015 9:57 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > I think our point of contention is simple: > > You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind > justification that isn't a proof. I thought I was clear that I was taking it to be the same informal kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind. > > Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, > but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. I did not see this in your previous remarks that characterized the ''modeh-al-ha-emmess" as a formal proof/argument: :> There is here an actually a reference to a formal proof. The Rambam :> recaps a point made in 2:19-20. > 2:20 marks the end of an Argument from Design, which is what I was > referring to. ...This is a formal argument, unlike R' Aqiva's or REW's own appeal > to the obviousness of a design and thus Designer. And I don't see how one can possibly interpret (MN 3:13 [not 3:15 as I mistakenly typed previously]) ''And know that one of the strongest /proofs/ (min /ha-gedolah sheh-b'ra'ayos/) for Creation ex nihilo, for one who is /modeh al ha-ememmes/, is his understanding the /proof/ (/hu mah sheya'amod alav ha-mofase/)...'' as meaning: > ''this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the emes, > look how nicely it works out.'' Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 3 16:37:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 19:37:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150603233708.GA7958@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 03, 2015 at 06:16:59PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: :> You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind :> justification that isn't a proof. : I thought I was clear that I was taking it to be the same informal : kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof : not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized : and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind. Then I did understand you correctly. When I say, "a kind justification that isn't a proof", I believe I mean the same thing as your "informal kind of proof". To me, the word "proof" implies formality. "Justification" is a general term for how we know something is true. (From Plato's definition of knowledge: "a justified and true belief.") :> Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, :> but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. : I did not see this in your previous remarks that characterized the : "modeh-al-ha-emmess" as a formal proof/argument: Because that's not what I am saying is the formal proof. I overused the word "this", which led to confusion. In addition "modeh al ha'ames" refers to a person, not an argument, so you lost me on that bit. AISI, it refers to the person who accepted the proof in 2:20, would find this point compelling. But since the point he's making here is not a formal proof, he doesn't expect it to convince, only to reinforce belief in those who already accepted the related proof. : And I don't see how one can possibly interpret (MN 3:13 [not 3:15 as : I mistakenly typed previously]) "And know that one of the : strongest /proofs/ (min /ha-gedolah sheh-b'ra'ayos/) for Creation ex : nihilo, for one who is /modeh al ha-ememmes/, is his understanding : the /proof/ (/hu mah sheya'amod alav ha-mofase/)..." as meaning: :> "this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the :> emes, look how nicely it works out." You are taking a sentence that says "One of the greatest proofs for creation for someone who accepts the truth is his understanding the wonder..." He is discussing a ra'ayah that someone who already believes would find compelling. Not a proof that would convince an unbiased seeker. Because I don't think the Rambam accepted that an informal justification other than philosophical proof could be a sounds reason to embrace a belief as true. (I see you consistently double the "s" in "emess". Why? If the sav had a dageish, it would be a tav, not "ss".) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are what we repeatedly do. micha at aishdas.org Thus excellence is not an event, http://www.aishdas.org but a habit. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Aristotle From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 4 15:16:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2015 18:16:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong Message-ID: <20150604221600.GA28870@aishdas.org> An Areivim conversation moved in topicality so that my reply really belongs here. Some background.... At some point, one person wrote, in part: | Right is right and wrong is wrong,... Speaking about moral correctness. To which someone else replied: > Really? ISTM that there is lots of grey in our world. People disagree > about right and wrong like they disagree about assur and mutar... And my reply, from Areivin: } This is why disputes about eilu va'eilu are so significant. Machloqes } can be between two approaches, two paths, one may take. Between different } strategies to obtaining the same goal. } Or it could be between a correct vs an incorrect understanding of the } halakhah. A process by which something becomes law, regardless of which } is right. } Or... } But if there is one right and one wrong, human decision-making wouldn't } change which is which. That second person wrote later in the conversation: > Sure am. Women learning Talmud was wrong, then it was right. In fact, > now it's both right (MO) and wrong (Hareidi). My response: } I don't consider that a good example. It is possible for something to } be right in one settting and wrong in another. Such as whether learning } Talmud is a good idea may depend on how women are being educated to relate } to knowledge in general. Since they aren't obligated to learn halachic } theory, such as gemara, they may be better off with a naive mimetic } faith. But if we have universal education, and an economic system that } demands a certain wordliness in both genders, such that naivite isn't } an option, then our choices are different. } Morality is like a Faucault's Pendulum; it keeps swinging the same } direction. The pendulum only looks like the direction changes over time } because the world rotates beneath it. Them again: > Zionism is right (DL) > and wrong (Satmar). You see the world as black and white; I see lots of > colors, including grey (and black and white sometimes as well). Me: } But gray too objectively exists. We may need to choose a response, } and thus have to fit it into a boolean black-white category. And then } someone may choose a strategy that categorizes it as white and someone } else as black. } But the grayness is not a matter of opinion. And also, from the same person, in an email between the two: > And my point was, the topic under discussion was not gravity ... > it was an issue that what people think about it is, in fact, relevant. My response, continued: } Is that true? } As far as I know, it's pretty basic to Judaism that the Creator has an } "Opinion" of what is moral and what isn't. That things run more smoothly } for everyone involved if we run with the design rather than do something } else. } Not only that, G-d put us on the same page once. } People may not be sure if there is an absolute moral standard, and those } who agree there is one, may not agree about what it looks like. } It's out there and as objectively real as gravity. } Even if you cannot prove it to others, and therefore will always be } subject to conflicting opinions -- some more right in some ways, some } more right in others, some simply wrong. } Your position implies an Empiricism that rules out revelation as a valid } source of truth! In which case, what's left of Torah? Futher down in the conversation, Lisa wrote of halakhah: : There are actually cases where opinions can establish right and : wrong. Tanuro shel Akhnai illustrates one. Actual reality is : *created* by the informed and considered opinions of the Sanhedrin. To which I responded: } Law, not reality. And Lisa, post #2: : I disagree. Torah *is* reality. Finally, some new material. R Chaim Brisker links "vechayei olam nata besokheinu" and "emes mei'eretz tatzmiach". Torah is the seed from which Emes grows, and not (leshitaso, but I bought into it) Emes itself. The Qetzos says something similar on the use of "emes mei'eretz" in the medrash about the 2 forces -- Emes and Shalom -- opposing the creation of humanity. Emes is thrown to the ground, to which the tanna says "emes meieretz tatzmiach". Emes will come out through the process of history. It's not with us yet. Torah is how HQBH leads us there. But in any case, I didn't speak of Torah, of "divrei E-lokim chaim", I spoke of halakhah. Or as RMF put it, I spoke of emes lehora'ah, not Emes as it is kelapei shamay galya. Continuing my reply to Lisa's 1st post: } And the reason why we only let the Sanhedrin vote is because the law is } expected to be consistent with the objective reality. There may be many } ways up Har Hashem, but you really only want people who know mapreading } and reconteuring figuring out which one is best. } And the mountain and its altitude are unchanged by people's decisions. Lisa's 2nd post, cont: : And what Hashem wanted the halakha to be was determined by people's : decisions. New material again: If we combine your insistance that halakhah is Truth with the idea that it is determined by people's decisions, you end up with Constructivism. Halakhah as a man made reality. Which makes sense -- you tend to side with the Rambam on this kind of thing. But if dinim bein adam lachaveiro define or at least shape morality, you are left with the OP's claim that opinion determines what is moral. Opinion as informed by kelalei pesaq, but still, morality isn't entirely absolute or objective. The position I was suggesting that there is an objective Morality that is part of Emes. Emes, with a capital "E", as in something that exists in Shamayim (a/k/a the Olam haEmes) but can't fit in this world among human minds. We have approximating models (Maharal), getting ever closer to the Emes (Qetzos). Halakhah is our means of approaching it, and the existence of multiple correct pesaqim reflects their being more than one viable path (R Chaim Brisker). Or more specifically: The path is on the meta-level, the evolution of the Oral Torah and its pesaqim is part of getting to Emes, not "only" the path taken by a life that follows that pesaqim. So that halakhah is not morality, it is a means of producing ever more moral people. Which makes sense in terms of my own Mussarly tendencies. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are great, and our foibles are great, micha at aishdas.org and therefore our troubles are great -- http://www.aishdas.org but our consolations will also be great. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi AY Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 4 19:55:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2015 22:55:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin In-Reply-To: <20150603233708.GA7958@aishdas.org> References: <556E2295.60406@gmail.com> <20150603135717.GA7831@aishdas.org> <556F7CDB.7060408@gmail.com> <20150603233708.GA7958@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55710FAB.70107@gmail.com> On 6/3/2015 7:37 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Wed, Jun 03, 2015 at 06:16:59PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: > :> You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind > :> justification that isn't a proof. > > : I thought I was clear that I was taking it to be the same informal > : kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof > : not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized > : and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind. > > Then I did understand you correctly. > > When I say, "a kind justification that isn't a proof", I believe I mean > the same thing as your "informal kind of proof". To me, the word "proof" > implies formality. "Justification" is a general term for how we know > something is true. (From Plato's definition of knowledge: "a justified and > true belief.") Got it. > :> Whereas I see the Rambam as saying more like: this doesn't work as proof, > :> but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out. > > : I did not see this in your previous remarks that characterized the > : "modeh-al-ha-emmess" as a formal proof/argument: > > Because that's not what I am saying is the formal proof. I overused the > word "this", which led to confusion. I''m even more confused now. What "this" that led to confusion was overused? I took you to mean that the ''emmess'' that a ''modeh al ha-emmess'' person was modeh to was the conclusion of a formal proof stated somewhere in 2:19-20. (And such a person would consider, as one of the strongest proofs for Creation ex nihilo, the proof from the hierarchy of benefit of entities.) > In addition "modeh al ha'ames" refers to a person, not an argument, > so you lost me on that bit. When I wrote ''I was taking it to be the same informal kind of proof as R. E. Wasserman's and R. Akiva's. The kind of proof not delineated in formal Aristotelian format, but clearly recognized and accepted by a healthy and unbiased mind'' I was responding to you statement: :> You seem to be treating "modeh al ha-emes" as referring to a kind :> justification that isn't a proof. which was in response to my writing: : My point was that we nevertheless see that the Rambam recognizes that : there is another approach to verifying truth, namely that which follows : the non-formal mindset of those who are /modeh al ha-emmess/... I meant to say I was taking Rambam's remark to mean that someone whose thought process is normal and unbiased (i.e. a modeh al ha-emmess) recognizes (without the aid of formal proof) the fact of the hierarchy of benefit as compelling the conclusion of a freely intended Creation ex nihilo. Another way to crystallize our differing interpretations: You are taking the "emmess'' that the ''modeh al ha-emmess'' is modeh to, to be the correct fact. I'm taking it to be the correct process of thinking. > AISI, it refers to the person who accepted > the proof in 2:20, would find this point compelling. But since the point > he's making here is not a formal proof, he doesn't expect it to convince, > only to reinforce belief in those who already accepted the related proof. > > : And I don't see how one can possibly interpret (MN 3:13 [not 3:15 as > : I mistakenly typed previously]) "And know that one of the > : strongest /proofs/ (min /ha-gedolah sheh-b'ra'ayos/) for Creation ex > : nihilo, for one who is /modeh al ha-ememmes/, is his understanding > : the /proof/ (/hu mah sheya'amod alav ha-mofase/)..." as meaning: > > :> "this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the > :> emes, look how nicely it works out." > > You are taking a sentence that says "One of the greatest proofs for > creation for someone who accepts the truth is his understanding the > wonder..." He is discussing a ra'ayah that someone who already believes > would find compelling. Not a proof that would convince an unbiased > seeker. > > Because I don't think the Rambam accepted that an informal justification > other than philosophical proof could be a sounds reason to embrace a > belief as true. Your first paragraph is just restating your position and denying mine. I am saying otherwise, pointing out that saying that this person considers the hierarchy factor ''one of the greatest proofs for creation'' means '"this doesn't work as proof, but if you already agree to the emes, look how nicely it works out" is incompatible with the words. And /l'fi ta'amych,/ of your second paragraph: If the Rambam considers an informal justification vs philosophical proof an unsound reason to embrace a belief as true, then one would think he would not consider noteworthy a non-ra'ayah found compelling only by someone who already believes in the conclusion (stated or implied somewhere in 2:19-20, or in that previously stated formal ra'aya which /is/, or is not, compelling--I'm not sure which of these you're saying, but my objection applies regardless.) I think it may be productive for us to examine the 4 or 5 other places in MN where the Rambam uses the expression ''modeh al ha-emmess.'' (Curiously, the search of the Hebrewbooks.org MN in my Adobe Reader skips over the instance in 3:13!) > > (I see you consistently double the "s" in "emess". Why? If the sav had > a dageish, it would be a tav, not "ss".) It's to duplicate the /sound/ (not the lettering) of the word as it would be in English, for a careful English-reading person. (Not that I'm sure there are many of those around...) In contemporary English spelling, one "s" at the end of a word that ends in ''e'' is pronounced hard, like a ''z'' (shines, pines, processes); the soft ''s'' added to words that end in "e" is indicated by two ''s'' 's (process, ingress, mess). But we digreSS.... Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 5 03:54:27 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2015 06:54:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Science and Halachah - The Trumpeting Stone Message-ID: <20150605105427.GA27466@aishdas.org> This stone, at the excacations south of the Kotel, apparently marked a location where the shofar would be blown on Fri afternoon to warn people about the approaching and arrival of Shabbos. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trumpeting_Place_inscription It says "lebeis hateqi'ah lh[k?b?]" and was at the corner of Har haBayis. My obaervation is about the font. Notice the base of the lamed, which is a diagonal. The same is true of the Qumran texts and of texts from the Cairo Geniza. but this pushes the date for this tradition of script back to Herod's rebuilding of the BHMQ. This kind of lamed is also found in Kesav Vellish, that used in Sepharadi sta"m, but not in Kesav Beis Yoseif or the other Ashkenazi variants. http://sofercenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/different-ksavim.jpg Now, the stone is in far from the formal Ashuris required for Sifrei Torah, but if Kesav Beis Yoseif is correct, why aren't other fonts from the period more similar? If this does indicate a preference for one script over the other, we could discuss how the various approaches to Halakhah and Science would handle this case. {In terms of being yotzei, I think the only problem Ashkenazim have with the Sepharadi kesav is that variants that predate the Chida lack Rabbei Tam's qutzo shel yud. And since the popularity of the Ben Ish Chai, this issue has become very rare. Lehalakhah, the Tur, Noda biYhudah, Tzitz Eliezer and R' Ovadiah all alow using the other's sefer. Even with the spelling differences!) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is equipped with such far-reaching vision, micha at aishdas.org yet the smallest coin can obstruct his view. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 5 08:16:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2015 15:16:42 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong Message-ID: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Continuing the discussion from Areivim... R' Joseph Kaplan wrote: > About some things there is a right and a wrong; it is right > to fast on Yom Kippur and wrong to eat. But not everything > fits so neatly into categories of right and wrong. Micha > didn't like my example of Women learning Talmud was wrong, > then it was right. In fact, now it's both right (MO) and > wrong (Hareidi)." He argues that it is possible for > something to be right in one setting and wrong in another. I don't see the distinction between women learning vs eating on Yom Kippur. Women learning is right in some settings (such as where an unlearned woman would be in a spiritual sakana) and wrong in others (the ideal or traditional situation). In the same manner, eating on Yom Kippur is right in some settings (where the person would be in a medical sakana) and wrong in others (where the person is physically healthy). For that matter, learning is dependent on the setting even for a man: In most settings, it is right for a Jewish man to learn Torah, but not if he is in aveilus, or if he is davening, or if he is in other situations where the learning would conflict with another mitzvah. My point is that EVERYTHING depends on the setting. (I once tried to think of a positive or negative mitzvah which is totally independent of setting, and which always applies under all imaginable circumstances. The only one I could come up with is Avodah Zara. If anyone wants to continue that thought, please start a new thread.) Anyway, getting back to *this* thread, which is about whether right and wrong are absolutes decreed by G-d, or whether they are subject to the opinions of the Sanhedrin or others, I was reminded of an interesting gemara. As translated by http://www.torah.org/learning/maharal/p2m10part2.html it reads: > Eruvin (13b): For two and a half years Beith Shammai and > Beith Hillel argued. These [Beith Shammai] said "It is > better for man not to have been created than to have been > created." And those [Beith Hillel] said "It is better for > man to have been created." Together, they [reviewed the > opinions and] reached a consensus: ... I left out their conclusion, because it is not really so critical to this thread. What *IS* critical is the fact that they had the chutzpah to even discuss this question at all. There is a thought in this thread that if G-d does something, then it is good by definition. Yet Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai considered the possibility that G-d had another option which was even better than the option that He did choose. This sounds to me like a good argument for the view that people (or at least certain people, such as the Sanhedrin) CAN decide what is right and what is wrong. Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 5 14:41:56 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2015 17:41:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong In-Reply-To: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <557217A4.4010309@sero.name> On 06/05/2015 11:16 AM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: >> >Eruvin (13b): For two and a half years Beith Shammai and >> >Beith Hillel argued. These [Beith Shammai] said "It is >> >better for man not to have been created than to have been >> >created." And those [Beith Hillel] said "It is better for >> >man to have been created." > There is a thought in this thread that if G-d does something, then it > is good by definition. Yet Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai considered the > possibility that G-d had another option which was even better than the > option that He did choose. The discussion was not about what is good or right, but about what is better *for a person*. What is in the person's interest. "Noach lo le'adam". What G-d chooses for a person is right, but who says it's "noach lo"? -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 12:49:38 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2015 21:49:38 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] Right/wrong In-Reply-To: <5571BB83.7010500@sero.name> References: <73824318-9EAD-43A2-924A-23983726765C@tenzerlunin.com> <55704A19.7000001@sero.name> <20150604182845.GA18772@aishdas.org> <557113ED.9080608@zahav.net.il> <5571BB83.7010500@sero.name> Message-ID: <55734ED2.8020702@zahav.net.il> Moved from Areivim. It is a case of muttar and assur, which in this case I am equating with right and wrong. For this person, something is muttar and for the other it is pasul. The way I see, it would be absolutely wrong for the wealthier person to eat his chicken, and absolutely wrong for the poorer person to throw his chicken away. Correct, popular opinion doesn't play a part in this one. Ben On 6/5/2015 5:08 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > > That's not a question of right and wrong, From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 17:19:52 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chana Luntz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 01:19:52 +0100 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> R' Ysoscher Katz writes: ... <> And yet ironically RYK's experience in Satmar and Brisk would seem to confirm the sense of what Maimonides did. RYK was only the object and fool of Maimonides "seventh reason" because he was immersed in a society that had built very high walls against the risk of engaging with philosophy. Contrast his experience to mine. I read the Guide at fourteen - long before I had any real exposure to the Yad. Why? Because I grew up in a society in which it was more acceptable for girls to read philosophic texts than it was to learn and engage with halachic texts. And indeed, a translation of the Guide was published and available in English, in my shul library, whereas the Mishna Torah, which was no doubt there (I don't remember), was only in Hebrew and would have been in the "halachic" section that only boys (and scholarly boys at that) were expected to access. Even more, when I started asking questions, the librarian pointed me in the direction of the philosophy works, which included the Guide, that is how I got to it. It was just assumed that if somebody was asking theological questions, that was the place to go. So by the time, much, much later, that I read the relevant portions of the Mishna Torah, I already knew Maimonides' philosophic works in some depth, and layered them on to anything in the Yad. And yet Maimonides was surely right, had the Yad contained the opinions expressed in the Guide, in any detectable way, there is no way a society like Satmar and Brisk would have allowed it into their hallowed betei midrash - and what a loss to the halachic world that would have been. What occurred to RYK is merely a by-product and inevitable consequence (if you step outside) of what Satmar/Brisk have created. Not what Maimonides created. He created a work which, in any society that valued philosophy, would be available to those who sought it. And this is why RYK's experience is unlikely to occur in any true Modern Orthodox setting. Because curious, searching teenagers will inevitably take advantage of what is available in languages they can read in their local libraries (assuming they are encouraged to go there, and such libraries are not off limits), and hence, while they might (hopefully) be exposed to the Mishna Torah earlier than I was, they will certainly have the opportunity, and if that way inclined, are likely to take the opportunity of exploring at least the introduction to the Guide. <> Now this I find- well perhaps touchingly naive to the point of bizarre. Not the characterisation of the two most dramatic changes, necessarily, but the idea that "the pioneers of both these changes were driven, at least in part, by Chassidic ethos". Of the two, the claim regarding female Talmud scholarship is the most odd. Chassidic groups have been at the forefront of those fighting a rearguard action against women's exposure to any form of text, not least Talmudic and halachic text. Satmar in particular - I recall once standing in a bookshop in Boro Park, perusing a book (written clearly by somebody from the Satmar derech) who had gathered together all the sources on the evils of giving women access to any text - but most fundamentally, horror of horrors, to Rashi al haChumash. It was of course, an attack on what is taught in Beis Ya'akov. The position advocated being that at most, girls should be taught in school the stories of the Tanach, outside and without any recourse at all to reading in original. Lubavitch, I agree, was and is in this regard unusual amongst the Chassidic groups. But, growing up in Melbourne, a community heavily dominated by Lubvitchers, I am pretty well acquainted with what was allowed and not allowed vis a vis girls/women and learning from people with reasonably close connections with the Lubavitche Rebbe. Sure, streets ahead of the other Chassidic groups - but more open than the Beis Ya'akovs? - dubiously - although there was a fair bit of flexibility granted when dealing with potential ba'alei teshuva who (it was acknowledged) could be seriously put off by bans on access to knowledge of the nature of that on gemora. But what was granted begrudgingly and in a limited fashion in such circles were standard parts of the curriculum in Modern Orthodox schools (with Maimonides in Boston the flagship in this regard). How high a level a girl was taught in MO environments differed (especially given that often the overall level of kodesh education was not always that high in such schools), but the idea that any of this was driven fundamentally by the Lubavitcher Rebbe is ludicrous. And if you look at Israel and the explosion of women's learning there - not a chassid in sight. R' Kook and Zionism is a more justified charge. While it is hard to describe Rav Kook as a "pioneer" of political Zionism (there were many before him who saw political Zionism as logically arising out of their religious belief), he unquestionably provided serious theological underpinnings justifying the religious being involved in this endeavour, and much of what he wrote is rooted in chassidus. But note of course that the major thinker against was again the Satmar Rebbe - ie chassidus provided, yet again, the most reactionary response to this phenomenon. Which is more typical of chassidus - Rav Kook or the Satmar Rebbe? - I think it is far fairer to say that Rav Kook was the exception, despite his deep roots, and the Satmar Rebbe closer to the rule. And note, while we are on the subject of Rav Kook, that while he was "progressive" regarding political Zionism, he was "regressive" regarding woman voting. Was his attitude towards women's place in society also fuelled by his Chassidic studies? In general, while I do agree that Chassidic thinkers, such as Rav Kook, have a lot to say to "the world we live in today" and that there is something to be said for incorporating aspects of their theology in the pursuit of meaning, I suspect that trying to create "chassidish modern Jews" is an enterprise doomed to failure, and certainly not something that will be able to speak to the modern orthodox world. Why? Firstly because Chassidism is all embracing. I have watched many ba'alei teshuva embrace Chassidism (in lots of forms) over the years - as indeed it has a serious pull for many. I have rarely found one who is attracted that way who ends up in the modern orthodox camp. Where do they usually end up? Well amongst the most extreme Chassidic groups, where they can indulge to the fullest extent. Chassidism become so all embracing that it pushes everything else out. And while this phenomenon is already found amongst Modern Orthodox children going "black". It is certainly not going to save modern Orthodoxy. A further problem is articulated at the beginning of the piece, in relation to RYK's father: > My father is the most non-chassidish Chassid. He does not study > "chassidus," nor does he want to "understand" it. But, however you cut it, those with a modern orthodox upbringing are taught to want to "understand". They are brought up with the scientific method, even if some debunking then occurs in universities. For sure, there are those who reject that in favour of exploration of mystery and experience - but as suggested above, by and large those "go right" - further into the ultra orthodox world. By and large, while the ashrams of India are peopled by many Jews, I don't think very many of them are modern orthodox dropouts. The ones we are losing totally are going left, into the secular mundane world without religious input. Because while they are usually aware of the experiential, it appears to simultaneously contemplate a suffocation of the mind that they cannot swallow (as an ashram also does). Such people are never going to be comfortable in a world in which there is any expectation of not "wanting" to understand. They may perhaps be persuaded to find meaning in the writings of people like Rav Kook, or in other aspects of Chassidic writing, but are likely to be even more repelled by a world that implicitly or explicitly tells them to bin what is the attribute they have been taught to spend most of their life cultivating - their mind. I am probably going to be (metaphorically speaking) shot on this list for even mentioning it, but if you want to see what you get when you mix a modicum of Chassidic plus philosophic inspired thinking in a more "modern" context, you could always look at the German thinkers (including Reform thinkers) of the early twentieth century - people like (particularly) Franz Rosenzweig, not to mention Leo Baeck, Martin Buber, Hermann Cohen. What about Levinas? There is your post modern thinking (but note that it comes out of a Lithuanian background with existentialism and philosophical exploration rather than chassidus). But it is a long way from Maimonidian rationalism (despite of course Maimonides being the father of all this philosophy, but only after it has been through Kant and the existentialists). Avraham Yehoshua Heshel is another example of those attempting to integrate a Chassidic background with modern sensibilities. But since he operated out of the Jewish Theological Seminary, and was closely identified with the Conservative Movement, he probably did more to make such explorations treif to MO thinkers than he did to inspire them to explore. A bigger problem, I think, is that MO in America is so fixated on RYBS, and his particular brand of philosophy, that philosophy linked to Orthodoxy becomes identified only with his particular stance. But there is a much wider world out there, and a philosophical world that does not only relate to transcendence (as RYBS appears to do) but to imminence as well. Are those who speak of paradox/polarity of imminence and transcendence inspired by the imminence of the Chassidic world? Maybe, but it is attenuated, and no longer strictly Chassidic. Regards Chana From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 19:09:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 22:09:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Brisker Theory of Everything In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150607020921.GB7516@aishdas.org> On Mon, May 25, 2015 at 07:15:59PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : 1. The gemara (Ketuvot 5b) discusses whether causing a certain type : of blood flowing is considered a Sabbath violation. The first attempt : to resolve the question turns on whether "mifkad pakid or chaburei : mechbar" (is the blood in the womb stored up or is it the result of a : wound?). Rashi there (please look) seems to define this as a physical : question. Is this acceptable or must we say Rashi was leaving out the : "obvious" philosophical/halachic question (i.e. the physical was known, : it's a question of how to categorize it halachically)? It is very hard to identify a real machloqes in metzi'us. There is a machloqes in the Y-mi about whether rice flower and water makes chameitz. Pesachim 2:4, vilna 17a): Rabbi Yochanan ben Nuri said: Qarmis (millet or something similar) requires [giving] challah [from the dough to a kohein] because it can become chameitz or matzah. And the Rabbis say it doesn't because it can not become chameitz or matzah. So check it! They disagree about the essence of the check (iqar bediqasahh): RYBN said they checked it and found it can become chameitz or matzah. The Rabbanan said they checked it and they didn't find it can become chameitz or matzah. What looked like a machloqes about facts, that could just be checked experimentally, was a machloqes about how to categorize the physical reality. Is that dough a chimutz or a sirchon? I am sure that can be generalized. We could be arguing about metzi'us, but as the gemera asks, why not just check it? More likely, when the metzi'us is in the gray area, the machloqes is about: Where is the line between the categories? : 2. That gemara continues to try to resolve the question and is willing : to entertain the possibility that the halacha is like Rabbi Yehuda : (vs. Rabbi Shimon) in mekalkeil (destroying) and like Rabbi Shimon : (vs. Rabbi Yehuda) in davar sheino mitkavein (the result was not the : major one intended). If these two issues were interconnected, could the : gemara entertain this possibility? I think the gemara is consistent with two posibilities: 1- The two machloqesin are not interconnected. 2- The hava amina as that they were not connected, but the masqanah is that indeed they are. : 3. If the answer to 2 is no, must we assume that when the Shulchan : Aruch said he would decide the psak based on majority 2 of big 3, did : he really mean this as a primary tie breaker, or only when he did not : have a clear understanding of the underlying philosophy that resulted : in their final opinions. As I wrote in the past, I think it's easier to excuse the SA's exceptions to his rule by saying he was talking about the majority when counting consistent positions. Which means the rule is subject to which machloqesin the SA held were interconnected, and therefore which statements on other topics need to also be counted toward he majority. : 4.Is it possible that R'YBS limited his "canon" to only a few major : rishonim (in contradistinction to R" A Lichtenstein) because the more : data points included in trying to determine the underlying theoretical : construct, the more likely a single errant point would skew the results? I would think the reverse: How do you identify an outlier point without getting more full statistics on the data? Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger Worrying is like a rocking chair: micha at aishdas.org it gives you something to do for a while, http://www.aishdas.org but in the end it gets you nowhere. Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 19:16:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 22:16:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Lifnei Iveir In-Reply-To: <20150528.000433.22403.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150528.000433.22403.0@webmail04.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150607021626.GC7516@aishdas.org> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 04:04:33AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : I will be the first to point out that Lifnei Iveir is one the many : topics where my learning and expertise is severely lacking. Even so, : I suspect that there is something missing from RMB's definition... : It seems to me that RMB is giving a useful tool to distinguish between : category 3 and category 4, but that tool is useful only in the case where : a person already has the *desire* to commit a sin, but it lacking the : *ability* to some degree... Correct. I was only thinking of the original question, and the gemara only discusses the one chiluq -- between lifnei iveir (deOraisa) and mesayeia' (deRabbanan). : But what of the case where a person does *not* yet have a desire to : sin? Rabbi Kaganoff is saying that one who incites or encourages him : to do it is violating Lifnei Iveir. Even if the person already has the : ability to do the sin, it was below his "bechirah point" until he was : egged on to do it... I didn't understand Orpah's offer that way. She was convinced her daughters-in-law "converted" for the sake of marriage; and depending which midrashim you quote, that likely wasn't even an actual conversion. But if Rus didn't really buy into Jewish beliefs, she would be better off not going through a pro-forma conversion than in the same boat as Delilah or Shelomo's wives. Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet micha at aishdas.org about things most people don't watch even on http://www.aishdas.org Yom Kippur. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 6 21:46:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 07:46:04 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] right/wrong Message-ID: <> comes back to the question of pluralism vs monistic vs tolerant monistic vs harmonism. As discussed before there are opinions on all sides -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 7 04:06:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 07:06:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] right/wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150607110645.GA7126@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jun 07, 2015 at 07:46:04AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : comes back to the question of pluralism vs monistic vs tolerant monistic vs : harmonism. Or, as R Moshe Halberatal cateogired halachic legal theories: Retrival, Accumulative, vs Constitutive. But it only starts there. Here the question is whether 1- any of these positions imply that halakhah is man-made more than the other positions would; and 2- does any of this conversation reflect on the absolute nature of right and wrong on a moral plane? Which also drags in the relationship between halakhah and morality. Divine Command Theory (morality is that which Hashem commanded) may well identify the two. But then, we were hard pressed to find an advocate for DCT, (outside contemporary popularizations). R/DR Y Leibowitz coms close, by saying we exist to follow halakhah, and any attempt to map halakhah to some other value system was one step toward AZ. Someone else might say that halakhah approximates morality, but since it's a blanket rule for all people in many situations, it's only an approximate. That said, once the halakhah is set, preserving it and the morality of the majority of cases has greater moral weight than one loses in the exceptional cases. But getting back to our question, while I consider the two related, I do not think the evolving nature of halakhah reflects morality being a human construction. Rather, I think it's because of two effects: 1- dialectics between concflicting values can yeild different strategies for finding balance between them One therefore finds that a machloqes is resolved by finding one strategy more appropriate for the culture asking the question than another. And if it is not resolved with finality, another culture may have the same question (eg mixes of immigrants with different precdent) and choose a different strategy. As I put it last time: choosing different paths up the mountain doesn't imply that the mountain's altitude is subjective. But this assumes that the linkage between halakhah and morality is that halakhah is a means to becoming moral. 2- changes in reality can cause two similar looking situations to have different moral outcomes. I think the vast majority of seemingly reopened questions are really of this sort. E.g. the categorization of today's dead mutes. We didn't change our belief that demands cannot be made of someone who cannot be taught them -- even if it means a consequent loss of priviliges (if being able to be motzi another is a privilege). The realia of the life of a cheiresh changed. (Over Shabbos I read which misses this point, creating a very bloated list of cases where R' JD Bleich, and most contemporary posqim, allow halakhah to "evolve".) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is our choices...that show what we truly are, micha at aishdas.org far more than our abilities. http://www.aishdas.org - J. K. Rowling Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 7 04:10:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 07:10:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Right/Wrong In-Reply-To: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150605.111642.27558.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150607111036.GB7126@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 05, 2015 at 03:16:42PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : There is a thought in this thread that if G-d does something, then it : is good by definition. Yet Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai considered the : possibility that G-d had another option which was even better than the : option that He did choose. Aside from Zev's point, that the machloqes is over which is pleasanter for the person, not which is good... I think the discussion is more what if HQBH tells us to do something, it is good by definition, necessarily good by implication, or somehow more distantly related to morality. (I guess someone could say halakhah is not connected to morality, but I don't see that coming up as an O hashkagah.) : This sounds to me like a good argument for the view that people (or at : least certain people, such as the Sanhedrin) CAN decide what is right : and what is wrong. Can determine, which is still different than the original idea on Areivim, that consensus *defines* morality. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger One who kills his inclination is as though he micha at aishdas.org brought an offering. But to bring an offering, http://www.aishdas.org you must know where to slaughter and what Fax: (270) 514-1507 parts to offer. - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 7 05:52:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2015 08:52:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Torah Scholars and Torah Education for the Masses Message-ID: <20150607125250.7E561182EA1@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is taken from Rav Schwab on Chumash, Parshas Acharei Mos. I have posted the entire selection at http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/tide_chumash_schwab.pdf At all times the Torah's unchanging teachings must be applied to the ever-changing derech eretz. All of our actions, attitudes, relationships to man and beast, and positions within nature and history are subject to the jurisdiction and evaluation of the Torah. What follows is that the Torah scholar should be well informed of the "ways of the Earth." The laws of nature and the paths of history should be known to him. He should be well aware of what happens in the world that surrounds him, for he is constantly called upon to apply the yardstick of halachah and the searchlight of hashkafah to the realities that confront him. What also follows is that the greater the wisdom of Torah, the more crucial it is that this wisdom be conveyed to the Jewish contemporary world. It must be transmitted in a language that our generation understands and that will attract the searching youth, the ignorant, the estranged and the potential ba1al teshuvah to a joyous acceptance of the yoke of Heaven. The Torah leader must be able to dispel the doubts of the doubter and to counter the cynicism of the agnostic. He must, therefore, speak their language masterfully so that he can convince and enlighten them. There is indeed a dire need for gedolei Torah, great Torah scholars, who devote their entire lives to the study and dissemination of Torah. The Jewish world today needs many talmidei chachamim whose life task is to enlighten and inspire it with the love and the fear of G-d. We are ready to accord to those "messengers of G-d" the highest respect and a loyal following. These are the kohanim and levi'im of today. Like the members of the Levitic tribe of old, they are to serve all the other tribes and teach them the living Torah. Yet education and leadership cannot function in a vacuum. Therefore it becomes mandatory for the present day "Tribe of Levi" to initiate and encourage an educational system that can serve the other "eleven tribes who comprise the vast majority of our people. It becomes mandatory for the Torah-conscious educator not to inspire fear of the world and hesitancy to meets its challenges, but rather, to fortify the vast majority of our youth to meet head-on the thousand and one pitfalls of professional and business life. Our youth must be inspired to courageously and intelligently brave the onslaught of scientific arrogance and the sensual poison that is masked as intellectual liberalism. The Divine purpose for which Yisrael was created can be served in every capacity, in every profession, in all human endeavors, as long as they are not excluded by the halachah. ---------- Unfortunately, I do not see many Torah scholars today who are "well informed of the "ways of the Earth." The laws of nature and the paths of history should be known to him. He should be well aware of what happens in the world that surrounds him, for he is constantly called upon to apply the yardstick of halachah and the searchlight of hashkafah to the realities that confront him." I also do not see our educational institutions serving "the other 'eleven tribes' who comprise the vast majority of our people. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 8 09:25:43 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2015 09:25:43 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] replacement value Message-ID: secular law [US] recognizes that one need is not liable replace a lost item with a new one ie if you lost my used IPAD [which happened in fact this month to us] you don't owe me the value of a new one , but rather some pro-rated amount accounting for wear and tear. what does bais din require? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 9 14:17:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2015 17:17:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] replacement value In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150609211745.GA4160@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 08, 2015 at 09:25:43AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : secular law [US] recognizes that one need is not liable replace a lost : item with a new one... what does bais din : require? According to the Business Halakhah Institute : Many years ago I borrowed a Chumash with commentaries from a local beis medrash. I forgot to return it and eventually misplaced the sefer and I do not recall which volume I borrowed. It was "borrowed", ie no reshus was asked. ... [Skipping from opening paragraph to bottom line...] Someone who borrowed a sefer without permission is obligated to return the sefer, the same as any other thief. Even if the owner despaired of retrieving it, e.g., he bought a new set, the obligation to return it remains in force (C.M. 354:2 and 360:5). If the sefers condition changed dramatically (shinui) or if it was lost altogether, the borrower is obligated to repay the value of the sefer (C.M. 360:5). In your case, since the sefer you borrowed is missing, there is no obligation to replace the actual sefer. Your obligation is to repay the beis medrash the sefers value at the time you borrowed it. In other words, you would pay the value of a used sefer rather than a new sefer, and there is no need to pay for a complete set. But then, maybe that's under Gittin 55b, not making a ganav tear down his house in order to return a stolen beam he built into it. But that halakhah is to facilitate teshuvah after theft. And so I won't generalized. Also for hezeq, I know a maziq pays for his damage, and therefore only has to pay replacement value -- what it would take to make things right again. But again, your case, a shomer or sho'el returning a lost item, could be different. I didn't yet find it. But I haven't entirely given up... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A cheerful disposition is an inestimable treasure. micha at aishdas.org It preserves health, promotes convalescence, http://www.aishdas.org and helps us cope with adversity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' SR Hirsch, "From the Wisdom of Mishlei" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 9 14:17:45 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2015 17:17:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] replacement value In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150609211745.GA4160@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 08, 2015 at 09:25:43AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : secular law [US] recognizes that one need is not liable replace a lost : item with a new one... what does bais din : require? According to the Business Halakhah Institute : Many years ago I borrowed a Chumash with commentaries from a local beis medrash. I forgot to return it and eventually misplaced the sefer and I do not recall which volume I borrowed. It was "borrowed", ie no reshus was asked. ... [Skipping from opening paragraph to bottom line...] Someone who borrowed a sefer without permission is obligated to return the sefer, the same as any other thief. Even if the owner despaired of retrieving it, e.g., he bought a new set, the obligation to return it remains in force (C.M. 354:2 and 360:5). If the sefers condition changed dramatically (shinui) or if it was lost altogether, the borrower is obligated to repay the value of the sefer (C.M. 360:5). In your case, since the sefer you borrowed is missing, there is no obligation to replace the actual sefer. Your obligation is to repay the beis medrash the sefers value at the time you borrowed it. In other words, you would pay the value of a used sefer rather than a new sefer, and there is no need to pay for a complete set. But then, maybe that's under Gittin 55b, not making a ganav tear down his house in order to return a stolen beam he built into it. But that halakhah is to facilitate teshuvah after theft. And so I won't generalized. Also for hezeq, I know a maziq pays for his damage, and therefore only has to pay replacement value -- what it would take to make things right again. But again, your case, a shomer or sho'el returning a lost item, could be different. I didn't yet find it. But I haven't entirely given up... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A cheerful disposition is an inestimable treasure. micha at aishdas.org It preserves health, promotes convalescence, http://www.aishdas.org and helps us cope with adversity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' SR Hirsch, "From the Wisdom of Mishlei" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 10 18:52:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 01:52:34 GMT Subject: [Avodah] 100% Vegetable oils etc. Message-ID: <20150610.215234.27464.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> On Areivim, R' Martin Brody wrote: > If any such ingredient of an ingredient was non-kosher, it would be > batel b'shishim, (more likely nullified by thousands). For those > that are interested, the London Beth Din is not concerned with > "flavourings" as an ingredient for this very reason. This surprises me. I would think that non-kosher flavorings cannot be batel. Bitul is a mathematical procedure by which we can presume that the non-kosher ingredient is not noticeable. But in the case of flavorings (and colorings and maamads), if its presence were not noticeable, then the manufacturer would not go to the trouble and expense of including it. Therefore (I would think) that its presence proves that it *is* noticable, overriding the presumption. Rabbi Binyomin Forst's "The Laws of Kashrus" (ArtScroll) says on page 98, "If, however, the mixture was sampled and the non-kosher taste was noticeable, the mixture may not be eaten, even though it was batel b'shishim. (Shach 98:4)" What other views are there? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5578ea0af09296a0a79abst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 07:41:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 10:41:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Worker or Craftsman Message-ID: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> How do we view the task of life? Is a person an po'el, paid for his time? Implying, it's our job to do good while here on earth, but the determining factor is the duration? Or is a person an uman, paid to get a particular job done. We're put on earth to get some specific accomplishment. The Zohar suggests something more like an uman when it uses an idiom like "ana avda deQBH". Admittedly an eved does not get paid for his time, but an eved is for the duration, whether until shemittah, until yovel, or for the rest of his life. However, in Shaar haGilgulim we get all this talk about a person having a tafqid, and how if they fail to get the job done, they could be given a second chance. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger What you get by achieving your goals micha at aishdas.org is not as important as http://www.aishdas.org what you become by achieving your goals. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Henry David Thoreau From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 07:46:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 10:46:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Color names In-Reply-To: <221167CA3A2A46908C9CA2A3474664EA@webhost.local> References: <221167CA3A2A46908C9CA2A3474664EA@webhost.local> Message-ID: <20150611144639.GF20169@aishdas.org> RZLampel and I discused this once, I think here. If not, the topic could be of interest anyway. So, rather than checking the archive (which is difficult, given the number of tekheiles discussions) I am just sharing either way. -micha Shabbat B'Shabbato Translated by Moshe Goldberg Machon Zomet ... What Is That Phrase? Green Sky? Yaacov Etzion At the end of this week's Torah portion, we are given a command, "Let them place on the tzitzit at the corner a thread of 'techelet.'" [Bamidbar 15:38]. Rashi explains that techelet is "the 'yarok' color of a snail." Any speaker of modern Hebrew can only wonder at this. Why does Rashi call the blue color of techelet "yarok" -- that is, green? Well, it is not only Rashi that calls techelet "yarok." It is an explicit ruling that appears in the Shulchan Aruch: "The color white is ritually pure, as is the look of 'yarok,' even if it has the look of wax or of gold. And this certainly includes the 'yarok' of leek or grass (and also the color that is called 'blue' is included in 'yarok')" [Hilchot Nidda, 188]. We are not interested at this point in the details of the halacha but rather in the fact that the RAMA writes that the color "blue" is called "yarok" in our traditional sources. Our sages spoke of four main colors: shachor (black), lavan (white), adom (red), and yarok. And "yarok" included yellow, orange, blue, and turquoise of today. For example, it happens quite often that a newborn baby is a bit yellow right after its birth. But the Tosefta calls this color "yarok." Rabbi Natan says the following: "When I was in the Land of Kapotakia, there was a woman who had given birth to boys... They brought him to me, and I saw that he was 'yarok'... I looked at him and did not find any blood for circumcision..." [Shabbat 134a]. Moreover, in the wording of the ROSH in his halachic rulings the word yarok as used by the sages is not our color green (which they call "yarok as a leek") but is yellow or orange. "This shows that the word yarok is similar to the yolk of an egg or to gold, which has a tinge of red." Among other sources, the ROSH bases his decision on the words of the verse, "the wings of a dove coated with silver and its limbs the 'yerakrak' of gold" [Tehillim 68:14]. Yerakrak is clearly the color of gold, that is, yellow. The words for orange (katom) and blue (kachol) were instituted in modern times by Zeev Yavetz. This was reported by David Yalin in the newspaper "Hatzevi" in 1887: "When I spoke to my uncle the illustrious rabbi and investigator Rabbi Zeev Yavetz, he said to me that he wants to fill what is missing in our language for the names of two colors, the color of techelet and the color of the yoke of an egg." Yavetz proposed that techelet should be called kachol and that the yoke should be called "ketem," which in the holy writings refers to gold or to the color of gold. (An example appears in the following verse: "Woe, the gold is dim, the good 'ketem' has changed" [Eichah 4:1].) Yavetz wanted to use the word katom for the color of yellow (which we call tzahov), since he felt that tzahov "includes a bit of red" (as per a note by Yalin). But as time went on, katom became the color orange, as we use it today. Thus, the word "yarok" changed in meaning during the years, as did "tzahov." However, "techelet" evidently kept its original meaning, and it remains similar to the color of the sea, which is similar to the color of the sky, and this reminds us of the Divine Throne of Glory. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 09:34:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 12:34:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Worker or Craftsman In-Reply-To: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> References: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <5579B89C.8060902@sero.name> On 06/11/2015 10:41 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Is a person an po'el, paid for his time? Implying, it's our job to do > good while here on earth, but the determining factor is the duration? > > Or is a person an uman, paid to get a particular job done. We're put on > earth to get some specific accomplishment. Eruvin 65a: Anan po`alei diy'mamei anan. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 11:17:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 14:17:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> References: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> Message-ID: <20150611181746.GI20169@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 2, 2015 at 4:27pm I forwarded an essay by RYK that had appeared on R/Dr Alan Brill's blog, Kavvanah. In it he proposes from personal experience that MO would be enhanced by shifting away from its focus on RYBS's Briskkeit and in particular that elements of his Hungarian Chassidic birth community would be of great value. : Personally, my rejection of the Maimonidean ethos and realization of : the degree to which chassidut can speak to the modern searcher was a : long and arduous process. It came about as a result of a deep sense : of betrayal by Maimonides, the champion of Rationalist Judaism. I for : many years was the object and fool of Maimonides "the seventh reason" : as presented in his introduction to the Guide by not seeing his : philosophic views. In that passage, Maimonides condones misleading : the masses for their greater good, even to the point of advocating : contradictory ideas for different audiences and then obscuring those : contradictions. : Growing up in Satmar and then Brisk, I was oblivious to his : non-halakhic writings and led to believe that he fully and literally : believed every word he wrote in the Yad... I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." And in fact, that was the whole point of the project -- to outline all of halakhah, to document the TSBP. Not to hint at something for the meivinim without risking that the hoi palloi mistake his words in a heretical way. It's simply not meaningful concept for a book he titled Mishneh Torah. I am uncomfortably using the Rambam as a poster boy for rationalism. In the Rambam's day, science hadn't been invented yet. Claims about physics weren't based on emprical proof and experimental process. It was Natual Philosophy, and the weight of an a priori argument. A lot of it really ended up on reliabilism; deeming the Greeks as reliable sources on such things -- after 1,5000 years of their theories reigning. And therefore, quite honestly, much the same kind of thought that we use to accept mesorah. The word rationalism changed meaning. What I think we really mean is a willingness to be meqabel es ha'emes mimi she'omro, rather than take a maximalist attitude toward mesoretic and Torah-derived statements. But that's quite a bit meta from anyone today using the Moreh as a foundational element of their hashkafah. In particular, RYK mentions three items he believes would enhance MO: : 1) Truth. We live in a post-modern world where objective truth is : rejected and absolute claims are frowned upon. I would go as far as to : say that rationalism (in the general and colloquial sense) as a source : for Emunah is bankrupt, it increasingly speaks to fewer people... I don't think it ever worked. As one of my favorite truisms goes: The mind is a wonderful organ for justifying decisions the heart already reached. People accept the rational argument that fits the experiential justification that really underlies their beliefs. Aristo thought otherwise, which eventually led to the Qalam and the Scholasticists -- including R' Saadia Gaon and the Rambam. But then Scholasticism collapsed, the scientific method arose, leading to a dispute between the Empiricists and Idealists which in turn forced the discipline of philosophy away from belief in the reality of an objective rigorous proof. Experimental eproof, yes. Incontravertible objective philosopy, not so much. Kant then gets all transcendental, and talks about the synthetic a priori. (Knowing things without proof that don't simply boil down to a matter of translations. In the recent past, I mentioned how we know the Euclidean posulates hold in flat space, that Reimannian ones hold in a spherical space, and our knowledge about morality and ethics.) This was the zeitgeist when the Besh"t lived. (Besh"t 1698-1760; Kant 1724-1804.) Someone who is given a proof whose conclusions don't fit their experience is likely to reject the soundness of the givens / postulates / first principles on which it's based. Just as someone who accepts a proof is making synthetic judgments about the quality of the foundations of that proof before even making an analytic decision that the logic seems sound. So even if no one makes a logic error, every proof relies on interpretation of experience. RYBS was not a rationalist in this sense. Brisk is very experiential, to the point of eschewing the study of hashkafah altogether. They are rational when it comes to how to learn, but the value of learning is in the experience of learning. When RYBS does do philosophy, he calls it halachic hermeneutics. Neo-Kantian and Existentialist observations of what halakhah says to the one following it about life. He makes no claims about the function or cause of halakhah, he makes few theological observations. For example, to RYBS tzimtzum speaks mostly to the value of anavah as an emulation of His "Retreat" to give us room. RYBS's Neo-Kantianism is a very different project than the Rambam's Scholasticism. ... : However, during those rare occasions when they do pay attention to the : biblical "stories," their orientation is a-rational. They absolutely : "believe" those stories, but their belief is internal: it is true : because it happened in the Torah. That is where these events transpire : and that is where these stories matter. Asking about their historicity : is, as far as they are concerned, foolish and missing the point. And also a given. It may not be stated as the point, but the confidence given to authority which is a necessary component of the rebbe-chassid relationship means accepting Chazal's historical and scientific claims as being from ruach haqodesh. And not stam as meshalim. The kind of agnosticism about the historicity of medrashic material you are recommending we import Chassidus to justify would itself leave a chassid aghast. And even after citing the long chain of rishonim and acharonim who speak against assuming medrashic stories are historical, And you want to extend that beyond medrashic stories into foundational stories in Tanakh and maybe in the chumash as well? Given my above assertion that the only thread that runs consistently through "rationalism" from the Rambam to today is to choose qabel es ha'emes mimi she'omro over taking some baal mesorah's statement maximally, one actually needs what's left of the Rambam's hashkafic legacy to accomplish this, not Chassidus. : 2) Spiritualization. As scholars have pointed out, chassidic teachings : contain elements of spiritual psychology. They provide us with a : language which helps us infuse our lives with meaning. One can point : to many examples where this psychological spiritualization occurs in : chassidut, I will mention two of them. : 3) Social Change. One of the most pressing tensions in the community : is how to reconcile our values with our convictions; what to do : when halakha points us in one direction and our values in another : direction. We are tempted to follow our values but pulled to abide by : our halakhic commitments.... : Chassidut is very explicit about the value of religious aggression. The : following two quotes are often encountered in chassidic writings, : "even a thief says a prayer before he breaks in to his victim's home" : (quoted on the margin of Brachot 63A, from the Frankfurt manuscript), : and "an aggressive stance towards the Divine bears results" (Sanhedrin : 105A). While the provenance of these texts is Talmudic, they take on : significant prominence in Chassidic theology. They become the impetus : for an aggressive theology which is informed by a religiosity that : sees itself driven by a Divine immanence which infuses our values and : ethical intuitions with spiritual resonance, subsequently leading to : radical societal change. : Such change is actually an integral part of Chassidic social history. : When one looks at recent major changes in traditional Jewish society : it is hard not to notice that the forerunners were often Chassidim. The : last sixty years have seen far reaching social and political change. Both of these are not specific to Chassidus, but would be true of any Ism that draws attention fo the notion that halakhah is merely a "floor" rather than the sum total of behavioral expectations. For that matter, self development and societal needs are both more central to Mussar than chassidus. Pretty much its defning features, really. Which (aside being my own pony in this race) has the advantage of being closer to being consistent with MO's current gestalt; it's easier to get from here to there. OTOH Chaasidic maximalism means that statements made in the past have to be accepted as being from ruach haqodesh, and consequently change in these communities is minimized. Not only because isolation is part of the survival strategy, but because of reverence for and desire to emulate Chassidic isolation is indeed part of their survival stategy. It's hard to leave when you know no other social context and speak with an accent. And knowing that you stand for something greater than yourself in the eyes of those who see your uniform makes it harder to sin. (Harder, not impossible.) But it's not one of the three elements of Chassidus RYK wrote about. : The two most dramatic changes that have happened is that Jews are now : sovereign and women have made significant progress in their pursuit of : religious equality. The pioneers of both these changes were driven, at : least in part, by a chassidic ethos. R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson, : the Rebbi of Lubavitch, was one of the first orthodox scholars to : champion female Talmud scholarship, while R. Avraham Yitzchak Kook, : a serious student of Chassidut, was an outspoken early proponent of : a Zionist state. RAYK is a student of the Leshem, and thus of the Gra's school of Qabbalah. Not Chassidus. You might be able to make a more generic argument for a need for more Qabbalah in MO. Personally, I'm an engineer by inclination, not just training, and my own head doesn't lean that way. Although I had more success with the Leshem Haqdamos uShe'arim, which incidentally heavily draws from the Moreh and Yesodei haTorah, than I did with Qela"ch Pischei Chokhmah, the later parts of Derekh H' or Tomer Devorah after ch. 1. At least in the golah this might be true; in Israel, those of the DL community who are an appropriate audience for Qabbalah already have RAYK in numerous interpretations. Also, Chassidus's approach to Qabbalah puts the Ari Za"l on an even higher pedestal than the Gra did, and elevate R Chaim Vital from *a* talmid of the Ari to his sole authorized presenter. The Gra is willing to question something from RCV that chassidim would literally consider Torah min haShamayim. Which, for the more socially and humanistically minded, might well turn Eitz Chaim 49 ch. 3 into a show stopper. (But this isn't the place to discuss it.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Never must we think that the Jewish element micha at aishdas.org in us could exist without the human element http://www.aishdas.org or vice versa. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 06:48:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 09:48:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <20150611181746.GI20169@aishdas.org> References: <003101d0a0b7$ace2fa00$06a8ee00$@org.uk> <20150611181746.GI20169@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150612134802.GA12483@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 2:17 I wrote: : What I think we really mean is a willingness to be meqabel es ha'emes : mimi she'omro, rather than take a maximalist attitude toward mesoretic : and Torah-derived statements. But that's quite a bit meta from anyone : today using the Moreh as a foundational element of their hashkafah. ... : Given my above assertion that the only thread that runs consistently : through "rationalism" from the Rambam to today is to choose qabel es : ha'emes mimi she'omro over taking some baal mesorah's statement maximally... The thought hit me this morning that there is another and drastically different way to view this point. "Qabel es ha'ames mimi she'omro" is a bit of a circularity. Obviously we want to accept the truth from whomever says it, and not errors. So we're deciding what is true /before/ we decide to accept it, not /because/ we accept it. We could therefore say that the single consistent theme we associate with throwing the word "rationalism" about is critical thought. When we judge Aristo's, Copernicus's, Darwin's or Einstein's thought as true, do we second guess that asessment, or accept their ideas as true? And consequently we can phrase this chiluq a third way: As being abut how much authority we give rabbinic works in comparison to how much we trust our own critical thinking. The higher the pedestal we put the historical rabbinate, the more of their statements one would logically choose to suspend judgment and accept. (Not only accept, but accept as literal.) As for the original premise... Rather than looking to RYK's or anyone else's ideas as to what from Chassidus would most benefit MO, perhaps we should look at the Neo-Chassidic phenomenon to see de facto what MO Jews who are open to such experimentation are drawn to. And if those two questions yeild different answers, why? :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger What we do for ourselves dies with us. micha at aishdas.org What we do for others and the world, http://www.aishdas.org remains and is immortal. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Albert Pine From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 06:55:24 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 09:55:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What FDA Learned About Dark Chocolate and Milk Allergies In-Reply-To: <557A5564.7040807@zahav.net.il> References: <20150611174606.4DC6F181DFA@nexus.stevens.edu> <5579E680.2050607@zahav.net.il> <5579E319.7070103@sero.name> <557A5564.7040807@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <20150612135524.GC12483@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 05:43:32AM +0200, Ben Waxman via Areivim wrote: : This story came out here a few years ago when some kid had an : allergic reaction to parve chocolate. The product had a Badatz Eida : Chareidit heksher. The heksher was fine, they didn't make a mistake. : The amount of milk in the chocolate was much, much less than 1/60. Assuming the allergic reaction isn't lifethreatening so that the child is not prohibited from eating the chocolate on those grounds... Say they're a chocoholic and chose to eat the chocolate shortly after eating meat. Mi ma nafshach for everyone else it's batel. But do we say that since for them it's detectible, bitul doesn't apply? :-)BBii! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 11 14:24:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 21:24:59 GMT Subject: [Avodah] What FDA Learned About Dark Chocolate and Milk Allergies Message-ID: <20150611.172459.6802.0@webmail09.vgs.untd.com> [Another Areivim email from the same thread. -micha] > Actually it sounds to me that one very much can rely on the > label (from this example). The trace amounts [the LBD are] talking > about are much, much less than 1/60. Completely bateil, > totally parve, but enough to elicit an allergic reaction. I remember learning about a machlokes concerning whether we hold dairy can be batel to pareve, or whether we say that since there is no loss (at least, not the total loss that we have when something becomes nonkosher) we should simply consider it dairy. But I don't remember how we hold on this issue. Anyone else? And shouldn't these questions be on Avodah? Akiva Miller [Done. -micha] From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 11:01:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 14:01:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If and When Message-ID: <20150612180148.GA7261@aishdas.org> R' Yishmael famously (Mechilta BaChodesh-Yisro 11, Mishpatim 182 or ) says that "im" usually means that the decision is up to you, but three times it's a chiyuv: - "Im mizbach avanim ta'aseh Li" (Shemos 20:21) - "Im kesef talveh es ami" (Shemos 22:24) - "Im taqriv minchas bikurim" (Vayiqra 2:14) This is often explained in English as saying that "im" usually means "if", but in these cases it takes on the rarer second meaning of "when". I would prefer to propose a single common interpretation. LAD, "im" introduces an implication -- X implies Y. When X is a conditional, then so will the Y that depends on it. When X is always obligated, then Y will also be always obligated, but the "allways" is because X is. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 13 19:40:37 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 04:40:37 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Why Chassidut Message-ID: <557CE9A5.6090303@zahav.net.il> From Rav Yehoshua Shapira (my quick translation) The idea that Chassidut?s positive atmosphere isn?t obligatory is a serious mistake. Not only is it obligatory, but it brings with it more obligations. Without emphasis on the Mitzvot of ahava and yirah, simcha and deveikut (which are the soul of the 613 mitzvot) the mitzvot remain external actions, technical, something which doesn?t affect or uplift the heart and soul. Those doreitta mitzvot, which are the pinimiot of all mitzvoth, demand from a person and from us to give their entire being when doing a mitzvah. . . .. In the performance of mitzvoth, God wants our hearts. Therefore, Chassidut definitely demands deep dedication. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 12 15:34:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ysoscher via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 18:34:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed Message-ID: <073EBBC1-7CA3-4E26-BA35-4A9007B1EAE4@gmail.com> Chana, Three quick points: 1) You are making the mistake many others are making as well, conflating chassidim with chassidut. Chassidic life today has very little to do with original chassidut. Early chassidut was a revolutionary theological movement which appealed to a small elitist group. As time went by more people started joining. As the masses joined, the theology became diluted. The theologically influenced practices reminded but the ethos became stagnant. Therefore, your attempt to disprove my thesis from the way Chassidim behave today is wrong. I'm advocating for chassidic theology which was prevalent during the first and second generation of the chassidic movement, people like the Besht, the Magid, the Toldos Yakov Yosef, Reb Nachaman, the Ba'al Hatanye and others. I have no doubt that their philosophy informed Rav Kook and Lubavitcher Rebbe when dealing with tensions between Halacha and modernity. And, their philosophy can help us today as well. Incorporating a chassidic ethos would allow us to infuse our encounters with modernity with kedusha and meaning. Which brings me to my second point. 2) Kabbakah and chassidut isn't about warmth and community. It's a highly sophisticated philosophical system which offers a nuanced alternative to the Maimonidean/rationalist approach. While the approach is a-rational, it isn't irrational. However, more to the point, the warmth and sense of community is a byproduct of this theology, not its primary focus. 3) Finally, I'm not sure I understand your point about the Rambam. The Rambam says that he believes it is justified to fool and mislead the masses. That to me is highly problematic. Rabbi Ysoscher Katz Chair, Department of Talmud, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School; Director of the Lindenbaum Center for Halakhic Studies; Educational Director of Judaic Studies, Luria Academy, Brooklyn, NY.; Rabbi, Prospect Heights Shul. E-mail: ysoscher at gmail.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 07:00:32 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 14:00:32 GMT Subject: [Avodah] If and When Message-ID: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > R' Yishmael famously (Mechilta BaChodesh-Yisro 11, Mishpatim 182 > or ) says that "im" usually means that the > decision is up to you, but three times it's a chiyuv: > - "Im mizbach avanim ta'aseh Li" (Shemos 20:21) > - "Im kesef talveh es ami" (Shemos 22:24) > - "Im taqriv minchas bikurim" (Vayiqra 2:14) ... > LAD, "im" introduces an implication -- X implies Y. ... > When X is always obligated, then Y will also be always > obligated, but the "always" is because X is. If I'm understanding you correctly, your logic will work only if there is another pasuk somewhere which *already* obligates us to build a mizbe'ach of stone, to lend money without interest, and to bring bikkurim in this manner. If so, then a fuller translation can be written with the word "if", and without the word "when", like this: : (You are already obligated to build a stone mizbe'ach, and) : if (today is the day that) you will build a stone mizbe'ach, : you will not build it from cut stones... But I thought that R' Yishmael's whole point is that THESE ARE the source pesukim for those mitzvos, and that there are NO other pesukim which obligate you to do these things. That's why R' Yishmael made the whole point of stressing that these "im"s really mean "when". His fear was that if we translate "im" as "if", then someone might think these pesukim are like Hilchos Gittin: "IF you get divorced, here is the right way to do it, and IF you make a stone mizbe'ach, here is the right way." R' Yishmael's point is that there is no "if" - you MUST do these things, and WHEN you do it, this is how. So over Shabbos, I tried to verify my idea. Thanks to RMB, who quoted not only the 3 pesukim, but identified their location, it was pretty simple to look them up in the Torah Temimah. But what I found was rather odd. Torah Temimah Shmos 20:127 quotes R' Yishmael in the Mechilta, pretty much the same way that RMB did, and points out that this is NOT the source for the obligation for build a stone mizbe'ach - that is in Ki Savo. This RMB's logic fits: "If (today is the day that) you build a stone mizbe'ach, don't build it of cut stones." Please note: In the excerpt of the Mechilta which the Torah Temimah quotes regarding the mizbe'ach, R' Yishmael says that there are 3 cases where "im" is not optional, but the other two are not specified. This is very different than the Torah Temimah about lending money. Torah Temimah Shmos 22:198 does quotes R' Yishmael in the Mechilta, but it doesn't mention the word "im" explicitly, nor is there any reference to two other cases. He simply asks whether it is a reshus or a chovah to lend money, and he answers that the obligation appears in Parshas Re'eh. I find it curious that this Mechilta is worded so differently than the previous one, but the message is clearly the same. Finally, we have the pasuk about bikkurim. It turns out that the Torah Temimah on this pasuk doesn't mention R' Yishmael at all. It does mention R' Yehudah, but from the Toras Kohanim, and not from the Mechilta. Further, my unlearned reading of R' Yehudah had little or nothing to do with the reshus/chovah question, but Torah Temimah Vayikra 2:80 DID see a reshus/chovah question that troubled R' Yehudah. I am left with several questions, the main one being whether or not Bikkurim really was R' Yishmael's third "im". And that's where I'll leave this thread, for more skilled minds to investigate should they be so inclined. Akiva Miller KennethGMiller at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Old School Yearbook Pics View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Search by School & Year. Look Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/557d895b6e89195a4573st02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 10:27:44 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 13:27:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] If and When In-Reply-To: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150614172744.GA27133@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 02:00:32PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : > LAD, "im" introduces an implication -- X implies Y. : ... : > When X is always obligated, then Y will also be always : > obligated, but the "always" is because X is. : : If I'm understanding you correctly, your logic will work only if : there is another pasuk somewhere which *already* obligates us to build a : mizbe'ach of stone, to lend money without interest, and to bring bikkurim : in this manner. If so, then a fuller translation can be written with : the word "if", and without the word "when"... In reality, the cited Mechilta actually provides derahos to prove that there is nothing optional about the antecedants. But my point was to suggest that "im" has nothing to do with the maybe-ness of "if". Just the implication bit -- if X then Y, or whenever X then Y, or since X then Y, regardless of whether not-X is a possibility or option. Which would reduce what looks like two definitions for "im" into a single common meaning. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Time flies... micha at aishdas.org ... but you're the pilot. http://www.aishdas.org - R' Zelig Pliskin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 13 22:30:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ysoscher via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 01:30:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> R. Micha, you write "I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." This is pure conjecture, perhaps even wishful thinking. The Rambam shares the 7th principle in which he argues that one may disseminate untruths for the greater good of society. Once he believes that, we are left to wonder about everything he wrote: did he really believe that or was there a political (in the Aristotelian sense) agenda behind it. To then preference the yad over the moreh is a personal bias. You and I as Orthodox Jews would like to believe that he believed every word in the yad and that the stuff he says in the moreh, oftentimes contradicting Chazal and the mesorah, was only said for the greater good of society-he personally didn't believe them. The non-observant philosopher, on the other hand, would say the opposite, that in the Moreh he articulates what he really believed, not in the Yad. Ultimately there's no objective measure to determine who's right. R. Isidore Twersky in his book on the Rambam tried to argue that there is no stira, that the moreh and the yad compliment each other. I don't find his arguments compelling. These two sefarim are incompatible and, ultimately, we are left in the dark, never able to objectively determine which of the two Rambam's sefarim were written with ulterior motives. You then write "I am uncomfortably using the Rambam as a poster boy for rationalism." I am using "rationalism" in a loose colloquial sense. Rambam believed in an evidence based religiosity, that we believe in God because His existence can be proven. That project, IMHO, failed. For every proof proving existence there's a proof to the contrary. That is precisely why I believe that the non-rationalist/Kabbalist approach is a better option. They offer an a-rationalist approach ("a-rational," not to be confused with "irrational," they're not the same). They believe because they chose to believe not-because they are "convinced." Their mehalach is more appealing to our post/modern generation where few people believe in absolute truths, and, it's also truer to our tradition. We were always a a-rational tradition until Maimonides came along and changed that. Which brings me to my next point. You then write "...means accepting Chazal's historical and scientific claims as being from ruach haqodesh. And not stam as meshalim." implying that I believe that stories in Chazal or Torah are meshalim. [Chas lei lezar'eih deAvraham deleimru hakha]; God forbid that I should make such a suggestion. I am saying something radically different. We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims. A faith claim is a religious "belief" not a scientific claim. Two things distinguish the chasid's experience of reading Torah from the philosopher's experience. When the chasid reads those stories he or she a) doesn't pause to ask if it's "true" they just learn it. "Truth" isn't a primary orientation of their encounter with toras Ha'shem. B) In the event that he does pause to ask the "truth" question, his approach is a-rational and unscientific. The truth question, for him or her, is internal to the system as is the solution. It truthfully and absolutely happened in the Torah. It's not denying the claim, it's just ignoring the scientific objective layer. Because the chasid's yiddishkeit happens exclusively in the religious realm. I also think there's a lot of confusion between what I'm arguing and what you're responding to. Briefly: 1) As I wrote to Chana: Chassidim and chassidut is not same. Chassidim today have little to do with chassidut. Contemporary chassidic philosophy is a complete deviation from original chassidut. 2) A-rationalism isn't one iota less sophisticated than rationalism. These are two parallel philosophies each with their own set of nuanced assumptions, postulates, and assumptions. 3) My program has nothing to do with neo-chassidut. NC is a behaviorist movement with very little philosophical underpinning. I'm proposing a theological program which also happens to have behavioral implications. Rabbi Ysoscher Katz Chair, Department of Talmud, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School; Director of the Lindenbaum Center for Halakhic Studies; Educational Director of Judaic Studies, Luria Academy, Brooklyn, NY.; Rabbi, Prospect Heights Shul. E-mail: ysoscher at gmail.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 08:55:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 11:55:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [Areivim] 100% Vegetable oils etc. (Walker Crisps) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <557DA3F6.8050406@sero.name> On Areivim, Kaganoff wrote: > Zev Sero wrote: >> Kaganoff wrote: >>> Zev Sero wrote: >>>> Kaganoff wrote: >>>>> I would be rather surprised if there was a genuine kashrus concern >>>>> from with the Walker Crisps from any meat contamination. >>>>> Any meat would be batel. >>>> It's flavouring. >>> We hold of bittul b'shishim. >> Only as a general assumption that at that dilution it can't be tasted. >> Not applicable to concentrated flavourings which are designed to be tasted >> at high dilution. > That is a chumrah that you could adopt, but should not force on others. Why do you call it a chumra? Do you deny that the din is about ta`am, not percentage, and bitul beshishim is merely a general assumption that at that level of dilution there is no ta`am? >>> And it's a not a flavoring for this particular product. So it is not >>> avida l'ta'amei, even at less than 60. >> Since when does the fact that it wasn't intended to be in this product make it >> not intended for its taste? > That is why companies spend thousands of dollars perfecting formulas > for what is and is not used in a product. If it is not used as an > ingredient, then it was not meant to flavor this product. Once again, so what? Where did you get this idea that it matters whether it was intended to be in this product? Perhaps you're thinking of nosen ta'am lifgam, and saying that even a pleasant flavour, if it was not intended to be in a particular dish, may be considered a pegam in that dish. But that doesn't work. Suppose a chef created a dish flavoured with lard, but made a mistake; he put in too much, or too little, or didn't cook it long enough, or cooked it too long, or at the wrong temperature, and the final flavour of the dish isn't what he was aiming for. It's pleasant, and the diners eat it up and compliment him, but he knows that it wasn't meant to taste like that, and his recipe needs work. Can you imagine calling that dish pagum, and allowing it to be eaten?! That's obviously not tenable. So how is this case any different? A pleasant and desirable flavour has made its way into a product that wasn't intended to have that flavour. Does that make it pagum?!! No. It's a good product, it's just not the product that's on the label. The product that's on the label is kosher, but the product that's inside the packet is treif, exactly as if a labelling error had occurred. >>>>> Stam Keilim Ain ben Yomo. >>>> Are you joking? That klal is clearly not true in any commercial setting. >>> Why do you assume that it is clearly not true. Or rather you are >>> assuming that in a majority of cases, meat is used the same day as >>> the kosher product. That strikes me as a bit extreme. >> It's not at all extreme. Everyone knows that commercial equipment is almost >> *never* idle for 24 hours at a time. And since the meat flavouring is a >> regular product it stands to reason that it's processed every day. > Do you know this for a fact about this particular plant? Otherwise, > it's an assumption that you can make, as per Chazal. Everyone knows that it's true about *all* commercial equipment. And we have no right to "assume" something we know not to be true. Stam keilim einom bnei yomam is simply not a valid rule in the context of commercial equipment today. >> In any case, the issue here isn't keilim, since the flavouring is cold, and >> sprayed on cold chips. If it were keilim then there would be no bittul >> beshishim, since stam keilim are more than 1/60 of their contents. No, >> the issue here is the residue of actual flavouring that remains in the >> equipment after the meat flavours are run, until it is cleaned. > Which again would be batel within the first few products of the new run. It might be, if we knew the order in which the flavours are run. But they refuse to disclose that information. What we do know is that the plain chips are run first, so they're acceptable. After that all bets are off. There is no way to be sure that the packet of non-meat-flavoured chips you are eating was not the first one off the rank immediately after a meat run. >>>>> It's not Avida L'Ta'amei, etc. >>>> It's precisely avida letaama -- it's a flavouring! -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jun 14 16:53:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 19:53:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> References: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150614235339.GA15695@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 01:30:46AM -0400, Ysoscher via Avodah wrote: : R. Micha, you write "I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle : applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word : in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think : "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." : : This is pure conjecture, perhaps even wishful thinking. The Rambam : shares the 7th principle in which he argues that one may disseminate : untruths for the greater good of society.... Yes, but he says it in an introduction explaining a particular kind of book -- which the Moreh is, and the Yad isn't. Whereas the Yad self-describes as being Mishneh Torah, explanation, not obfuscation. So why look to the intro to the Moreh to muddle what the Rambam himself says was the point of the Yad? In either case, the Rambam describes Yad and the Peirush haMishnayos a explanations written to be comprehensible to the masses. Moreh 2:35 (el-Qafih ["Kapach"]): Kevar bi'arti likhlal benei adam ... veheivesi ra'ayos al kakh ubirartav bePeirush haMishnah ubeMishneh Torah... : You and I as Orthodox Jews would like to believe that he believed every : word in the yad and that the stuff he says in the moreh, oftentimes : contradicting Chazal and the mesorah, was only said for the greater : good of society-he personally didn't believe them. The non-observant : philosopher, on the other hand, would say the opposite, that in the : Moreh he articulates what he really believed, not in the Yad. Actually, I tend to side with the anti-Mamonidians. Mostly because his model of redemption leaves people like my son Shuby (who has Downs) wandering around the palace with no hope of getting in. (To paraphrase 3:51.) : You then write "I am uncomfortably using the Rambam as a poster boy : for rationalism." : : I am using "rationalism" in a loose colloquial sense... Which is so loose as to be meaningless. The Rambam predated science, and followed the secular authority. Rationalism today refers to emprical and other objective proof. : That project, IMHO, failed. For every proof : proving existence there's a proof to the contrary. That is precisely : why I believe that the non-rationalist/Kabbalist approach is a better : option. They offer an a-rationalist approach ("a-rational," not to be : confused with "irrational," they're not the same). They believe because : they chose to believe not-because they are "convinced." Yeah, but so does the Gra's Qabbalah or Mussar. Mussar in particular replaces the Rambam's akrasia based on knowlege / wisdom, and therefore redemption through getting the right knowledge, with talk of first-hand experience, emotions, subconscious, etc... : You then write "...means accepting Chazal's historical and scientific : claims as being from ruach haqodesh. And not stam as meshalim." implying : that I believe that stories in Chazal or Torah are meshalim. : : [Chas lei lezar'eih deAvraham deleimru hakha]; God forbid that I should : make such a suggestion. I am saying something radically different. Well, I wouldn't lump the two together. The Rambam is far from alone in considering aggadic stories to be meshalim repeated with not concern about historicity. Much like you wrote -- an authentic attitude toward such things would be to not care about what really happened. Not to assert they are or aren't historical. (Although the Rambam would tell you to assume the wilder ones aren't historical, lest you make a joke out of the Torah -- the first two of the three katim described in his haqdamah to mishnah Cheileq.) : We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims. A : faith claim is a religious "belief" not a scientific claim... Agreed. BUT... the kind of problem I thought you were trying to address was the person who felt the Torah and academia conflict. To invoke this dichotomy to resolve the issue would be to allow people to assert ahistoricity, rather than avoiding a position altogether. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The true measure of a man micha at aishdas.org is how he treats someone http://www.aishdas.org who can do him absolutely no good. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Samuel Johnson From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 06:49:20 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ken Bloom via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 09:49:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What FDA Learned About Dark Chocolate and Milk Allergies Message-ID: > > > Actually it sounds to me that one very much can rely on the > > label (from this example). The trace amounts [the LBD are] talking > > about are much, much less than 1/60. Completely bateil, > > totally parve, but enough to elicit an allergic reaction. > I remember learning about a machlokes concerning whether we hold dairy > can be batel to pareve, or whether we say that since there is no loss (at > least, not the total loss that we have when something becomes nonkosher) > we should simply consider it dairy. But I don't remember how we hold on > this issue. Anyone else? > And shouldn't these questions be on Avodah? > Akiva Miller What's the machloket? Doesn't the Rema YD 99:6 clearly hold that that milk is batel in parve? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 14:00:40 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 17:00:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safeik and Multivalent Logic Message-ID: <20150615210040.GA17358@aishdas.org> Back on Fri, 14 May 2004 10:45am EST (yes, 11 years ago) I wrote on the thread "Valid halachic change" I wrote: > I was at a yarchei (yarei'ach? shavu'ah -- since it was only a > week?) kallah during Elul in Boston where RYBS explicitly said is wasn't. > He also speaks about multivalent logic in halakhah in numorous places > in Ish haHalakhah. From the [yarchei kallah]: > An esrog that was used for the mitzvah is qadosh and assur behana'ah > that entire day. And since it's qadosh bein hashemashos, it's gadosh > part of the next day and therefore assur behan'ah the entire next day. > RYBS asked (as do many) mimanafshach: Either BhS is part of the first > day, and there's an isur hana'ah BhS. But in that case BhS isn't part > of the next day, and on that day han'ah should be mutar. Or, BhS is part > of the 2nd day, and the issur would end BhS! > Rather, for certain sefeiqos both chalosim apply. It's only when the > chalos turns into a pe'ulah that we are forced to choose. > Therefore, one can daven either minchah or ma'ariv BhS. Even switch off > between days. But not both in the same BhS. > This is why a woman who is from safeiq chalal history (Rashi and Tosafos > disagree on details of the case) is called an "almanas issah", the widow > of a dough, a mixture. > This shtims with the teshuvas RAEiger distinguishing kol deparish meiruba > parish and kol kavu'ah kemechtzah al mechtzah. When the question is one > of pasqening on an unknown situation, we follow rov. When one is trying > to resolve a question that arose after the pesaq, rov doesn't apply. > Rov is a non-boolean state, something between yes and no. Therefore, > it does not apply after we've taken the question from the realm of > machshavah to that of ma'aseh. > Also, Rav Tzadoq (Resisei Laylah 17) distringuishes between the logic of > machshavah and that of pe'ulah, saying that when it comes to machshavah, > it's impossible to consider one thing without also considering its > opposite. RThK then develops this idea to explain eilu va'eilu as being > about real plurality. (More on this when I summarize the articles whose > URLs have been posted to the list.) I'm repeating all this because, once again, AhS Yomi showed me that something I thought I understood was more complicated than I realized. AhS OC 638:5 distinguishes between muqtza machmas mitzvah and other forms of muqtza when it comes to migo de'isqatzei bein hashemashos, isqatza'ei lekhulei yoma. And so, sukkah and its decorations (the topic of OC 688) are muqtzah the following day. But beitzah shenoledah beYT rishon is not muqtzah on the next day. So the example RYBS brings of esrog fits this pattern too -- muqtzah machmas mitzvah is muqtzah the day after it's used for the mitzvah. However, RYBS used it to make a general point about the nature of BhS, and I surmized safeiq in general. I don't understand how we can, if even withint the topic of mutqzah we find BhS acting both like a mixture of states and being in one of the two states -- although we don't know which -- depending on the kind of muqtzah we're talking about. Thoughts, anyone? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The Maharal of Prague created a golem, and micha at aishdas.org this was a great wonder. But it is much more http://www.aishdas.org wonderful to transform a corporeal person into a Fax: (270) 514-1507 "mensch"! -Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 14:44:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 17:44:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Worker or Craftsman In-Reply-To: <5579B89C.8060902@sero.name> References: <20150611144104.GE20169@aishdas.org> <5579B89C.8060902@sero.name> Message-ID: <20150615214430.GA17695@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 12:34:36PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : Eruvin 65a: Anan po`alei diy'mamei anan. The context is talmud Torah, and speaks to the fact that when it comes to Torah, it's the amount of learning, not the success at comprehension, that matters most. See also the Me'iri ad loc, who says simply that R' Nachman bar Yitzchaq is saying we should learn the whole day, because that's the only way we'll fully understand. Which alines with R' Zeira's statement, when he was complemented "Mechadedan shema'iskha!" and he replied "diyemama ninhu." I do not think it can be applied to my question -- whether life is a job of "be good as long as you're here", or if we each have a specific task we were put here to accomplish. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Take time, micha at aishdas.org be exact, http://www.aishdas.org unclutter the mind. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 15 15:01:03 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 18:01:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] 100% Vegetable oils etc. In-Reply-To: <20150610.215234.27464.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150610.215234.27464.0@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150615220103.GB17695@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 01:52:34AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: : ... I would think that non-kosher flavorings cannot be batel. Bitul : is a mathematical procedure by which we can presume that the non-kosher : ingredient is not noticeable... In fact, the only time the mishnah invokes bitul beshishim is with min bemino, so that you can't tell which of two identically tasting substances one is tasting. (Chullin 7:4-5, Zevachim 8:6) Rava (Chullin 97a-b) says that if a non-Jew can be asked to taste a substance, we rely on their statement, but if not (eg min bemino), then we use batel beshishim. In contrast, Bar Kaparah holds kol issurin shebiTorah is beshishim. Ta'am is just a derabbaanan that doesn't allow us to use the fundamental 1/60 bitul. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you're going through hell micha at aishdas.org keep going. http://www.aishdas.org - Winston Churchill Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 11:20:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 14:20:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed In-Reply-To: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> References: <33A3258A-19E9-4088-A760-52B8E8B96756@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20150616182036.GA13263@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 6:34pm EDT, RYK wrote: : 1) You are making the mistake many others are making as well, conflating : chassidim with chassidut. Chassidic life today has very little to do with : original chassidut. Early chassidut was a revolutionary theological : movement which appealed to a small elitist group... I thought Chassidus started out a kiruv movement, designed to bring Judaism to the kind of people Litta's focus on learning left without religion. Like the story of the boy who played his prayers on his flute, or the one who recited the alef beis over and over and begged HQBH to weave them into the right words. But in any case, to get closer to the point I intended to make... ... : 2) Kabbalah and chassidut isn't about warmth and community. It's a highly : sophisticated philosophical system which offers a nuanced alternative : to the Maimonidean/rationalist approach. : While the approach is a-rational, it isn't irrational. I am not sure how you're using "a-rational". Even after your consequent explanation (posted Sun Jun 14, 1:30am EDT): : They offer an a-rationalist approach ("a-rational," not to be : confused with "irrational," they're not the same). They believe because : they chose to believe not-because they are "convinced." What is this a-rational stance that is also highly philosophical and yet not the experiential chassidus of the nostalgic memories with which you opened your blog post? I cannot figure out what you're getting at. Contining the first post: : 3) Finally, I'm not sure I understand your point about the Rambam. The : Rambam says that he believes it is justified to fool and mislead the : masses. That to me is highly problematic. And in the follow-up post he elaborated: : R. Micha, you write "I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle : applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word : in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think : "he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad." In an introduction to a philosophical book he thought was a bad idea to write that he produced as a necessary evil. Thus the title of the Moreh Nevuchim. It's a tactic he had to reveal the esoteric to those ready for it while keeping it esoteric. Recall, that while we think of Pardes's "sod" as Qabbalah, to him it was more like the Moreh. In the Pesichah the Rambam limits the need of obfuscation to the topics of Maaseh haMerkavah and Maaseh Bereishis. So, after the first 5 chapters of the Yad, the whole discussion in the pesichah and haqdamah of the Moreh wouldn't apply. ... : We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims... Just like I loathe using the word rationalism because it's so vague in meaning as to just add to the confusion, let me add the word "fact". We use it to mean (a) a truth, (b) an empirical/physical truth, (c) a truth established by evidence, (d) an empirical truth established by evidence, and in legal settings: (e) the empirical evidence itself ("let me present the facts of this case"). : We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims. A : faith claim is a religious "belief" not a scientific claim... ... and therefore there is a gap between religious beliefs and scientific claims. Belief is yet another dangerous word. Knowledge is classically (Plato) defined as a justified true belief. In that sense, anything you accept as true is a belief. Other times we use belief in contrast to knowledge. A usage that ends up undermining confidence in something we seem to overtly be claiming is true. After all, if you think it's true, and you think you have real reason to think it's true, why say "believe" rather than "know"? Which gets me back to the point, I hope. You talk about belief in chassidus being an act of will. Personally, I agree with Rihal when he has the chaver note that anything one philosopher can prove, another can prove the opposite. (Kuzari 1:13) Religion isn't amenable to proof, and that's why Scholasticism, the idea of giving religion a philosophical underpinning, lost momentum centuries ago. The reasons why are two-fold: First, negi'os. People cannot really objetively think about these topics. They end up liking proofs of disliking proofs based on where they already decided things should end up. Like one of the truisms in my signature file generator says: The mind is a wonderful organ for justifying decisions the heart already reached. So, whether or not you agree that some postulate is self-evident (Kant: synthetic a priori) and therefore the proof works will depend more on whether you want to believe than actual obviousness. Second, the experiences upon which religious belief gets justified are internal. Questions of whether Shabbos, kashrus, or some of the more elegant outcomes of lomdus statisfy my Search For Meaning (Frankl) is quite a bit more difficult (usually impossible) to duplicate for someone else. Unlike a getting someone else to experience something empirical that you did by repeating a science experiment. But I think chassidic belief, even as per your description of it, is rational rather than an act of will. It's not Scholastic, expecting the kind of proof that would have make R' Saadia Gaon or the Rambam happy, but it is based on deriving a conclusion that fits one's evidence (ie experiences). I would say "rational" but not "rationalist", except that just highlights how many problems we get into throwing around the word "rationalism". This is true about how emunah works whether speaking about why people become BT, go OTD, or even if we're speaking of the Rambam. The Rambam lived in a world that didn't value non-philosophical justification, so he felt that real emunah required Scholasticism. (There was a time, not that long ago, when most people's emunah was backed by Reliabilism. My parents and community have a track record of being reliable sources of truth, so I trust them on this too.) To my mind, the difference is whether someone values the chizuq emunah of affirming that conclusions with that half of the philosophical proofs that end up in the right place. The rationalist does so, thinking that's *why* he believes (despite the Kuzari). Some of us simply enjoy philoosphy or consider such explorations to be part of talmud Torah. And others simply don't need the exercise. : a) doesn't pause to ask if it's "true" they just learn it. "Truth" : isn't a primary orientation of their encounter with toras Ha'shem. B) In : the event that he does pause to ask the "truth" question, his approach : is a-rational and unscientific... Again, if it's taken for granted as being true, truth is still at issue. Moreso, they really don't discuss truth because trueh is a given. It's like water not being the primary orientation of fish. : It truthfully and absolutely : happened in the Torah. It's not denying the claim, it's just ignoring : the scientific objective layer. Because the chasid's yiddishkeit happens : exclusively in the religious realm. Lets plow through the words and just ask outright: A chassid would take it for granted that a time traveler would find the Yam Suf divided into 13 tunnels with everything you might want available to be plucked from the walls. No? You may deprecate the importance of that historical claim to the belief system of Chassidic Judaism. I would agree that chassidim do not consider the historicity important. But the belief is there, and for reasons that speak volumes about the gap between chassidus and MO as a potential target audience. Chassidim have to accept the historicity of this midrashic elaboration of Qerias Yam Suf because maximalism and acceptance of rabbinic authority run much stronger in comparison to confidence in one's own truthometer in chassidus. Part of the value of having a rebbe is to believe he has access to truths I don't. And similarly one's rebbe's rebbes, and so on through Chazal and whomever repeated that medrash. To a community that teaches the value of other sources of knowledge, such as secular historians or other professionals, such maximalism is impossible, and therefore bitul to a rebbe will always be limited. Yes, it would be of value to realize that historical claims are non-central to religion. It makes it much easier to table any questions one might have in those areas as not being important, therefore not very pressing. Things that can wait for an answer rather than being responded to now, with what I know now, or taken as an upshlug. ... : 3) My program has nothing to do with neo-chassidut. NC is a behaviorist : movement with very little philosophical underpinning. I'm proposing a : theological program which also happens to have behavioral implications. I understood this. However, NC is an indication of what elements of chassidus actually were found useful by MO Jews. You're theorizing which elements you thought would in theory be more useful. I am asking about the difference between the two. If your theory were correct about what MO could use, wouldn't the Neo-Chassidim have locked on to those three points? IOW, I know they are different, and some idea as to how -- but why? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Weeds are flowers too micha at aishdas.org once you get to know them. http://www.aishdas.org - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 11:53:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 18:53:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Asking your questions to one authority Message-ID: <45cbca92b332457591636332317a5855@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> I'm looking for sources concerning a requirement or good advice concerning asking all your questions to one authority. According to some commentaries the mishna (actually mentioned twice) in Avot concerning aseih lcha rav points in this direction as does the gemara in eiruvin on not picking all the leniencies of both beit hillel and shammai. OTOH the gemara in avodah zara about not asking 2 rabbis is interpreted as applying only to the particular question at hand. From a Brisker theory angle wouldn't the existence of overarching theoretical constructs argue that all your questions should go to one authority so as to avoid the possible tartei dsatrei on a meta-theory basis (i.e. psak in kashrut case a may share a construct with psak in business case b)? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 13:36:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 16:36:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Asking your questions to one authority In-Reply-To: <45cbca92b332457591636332317a5855@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> References: <45cbca92b332457591636332317a5855@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <558088EA.2070102@sero.name> On 06/16/2015 02:53 PM, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > From a Brisker theory angle wouldn?t the existence of overarching > theoretical constructs argue that all your questions should go to one > authority so as to avoid the possible tartei dsatrei on a meta-theory > basis (i.e. psak in kashrut case a may share a construct with psak in > business case b)? Hilchesa keRav be'isurei vechiShmuel bedinei. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 16:30:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 19:30:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why Chassidut In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150616233048.00B061836ED@nexus.stevens.edu> At 02:20 PM 6/16/2015, R. Ben Waxman wrote: > From Rav Yehoshua Shapira (my quick translation) > >The idea that Chassidut?s positive atmosphere isn?t obligatory is a >serious mistake. Not only is it obligatory, but it brings with it more >obligations. Without emphasis on the Mitzvot of ahava and yirah, simcha >and deveikut (which are the soul of the 613 mitzvot) the mitzvot remain >external actions, technical, something which doesn?t affect or uplift >the heart and soul. > >Those doreitta mitzvot, which are the pinimiot of all mitzvoth, demand >from a person and from us to give their entire being when doing a >mitzvah. . . .. In the performance of mitzvoth, God wants our hearts. >Therefore, Chassidut definitely demands deep dedication. > The following is from Rav Dr. Y. Breuer's Essay "Our Way" that appears in the collection of Rav Breuer's essays titled A Unique Perspective. One should not confuse Chassidus with the so-called Chassidic movement that began in Poland in the 18th century. The latter met the needs of the Jewish masses who lived in terrible misery, and thus spread rapidly. Tefillah was projected into the foreground, from which flowed strength and faith in God; dances and songs induced enthusiasm and joyfulness; the stress on human and hu- mane qualities increased the self-respect of the impoverished. Thus, without a doubt, Chassidism saved these Jewish masses. However, the resulting frequent neglect of Torah study led to justified protest by Torah giants and caused a regrettable inner rift, which was subsequently healed when a great Chassidic leader returned the study of Torah to its rightful central position. Genuine Chassidic Jewishness strives for Chassidus, which in itself is a lofty achievement on the ethical ladder which the Yehudi must attempt to climb. This is demonstrated for us by R. Pinchas ben Yair (Avodah Zarah 20b): Our highest duty is Torah and its study; this leads to carefulness which in turn leads to active striving; to guiltlessness; to purity; to holiness; to modesty; to the fear of sin; and, finally, to Chassidus. Accordingly, a Chassid is a Jew who gives himself in limitless love to the Divine Will and its realization, and to whom the welfare of his fellowmen constitutes the highest source of satisfaction (see Chorev, Ch. 14). Thus, in the Talmudic era, the title ?Chassid? was a mark of highest distinction ? and this is what it should be today. The so-called Chassid who confines his Avodah to prayer does not deserve this title, as this ?Avodah of the heart? does not call him to the Avodah of life where he must practice and apply the precepts of Chassidus. He does not deserve this title if he is particular regarding the kashrus of his food but fails to apply the precepts of conscientiousness and honesty to his business dealings. He does not deserve this title if his social life is not permeated by love and deep interest in the welfare of his fellowmen; if he does not shun quarreling, envy or even abominable lashon harah; if he does not earnestly strive to acquire those midos for which Rav Hirsch (in his Chorev) calls so eloquently. Certainly the mere exhibition of a certain type of clothing or the type of beard worn or even the adornment of long sideburns does not entitle the bearer to the title of honor?Chassid. These may be marks of distinction ? but they must be earned to be deserved. Even study of the Zohar does not necessarily signify the attainment of Chassidus. If this were so, only a few chosen ones would be eligible. YL llevine at stevens.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 16 23:03:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2015 09:03:25 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] If and When In-Reply-To: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150614.100032.1235.0@webmail01.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 5:00 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > Please note: In the excerpt of the Mechilta which the Torah Temimah quotes > regarding the mizbe'ach, R' Yishmael says that there are 3 cases where "im" > is not optional, but the other two are not specified. This is very > different than the Torah Temimah about lending money. > > Torah Temimah Shmos 22:198 does quotes R' Yishmael in the Mechilta, but it > doesn't mention the word "im" explicitly, nor is there any reference to two > other cases. He simply asks whether it is a reshus or a chovah to lend > money, and he answers that the obligation appears in Parshas Re'eh. I find > it curious that this Mechilta is worded so differently than the previous > one, but the message is clearly the same. You see this quite often in the Torah Temima when a derasha says something about a number of pesukim in parallel. He quotes the same source in each place, but redacts it so that it appears to be referencing only that specific verse. An example in last week's parasha is the Yerushalmi that all 10 commandments are referenced in Kiryat Shma`, quoted on 15:39 and 41 (OK, not such a close parallel because in that case he does make the cross-reference and quotes the whole passage on Shemot 20:2, but there are plenty of other examples) In any case, inside the Mechilta on both verses in Shemot all three "im"s are listed each time, including bikkurim. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=38109&st=&pgnum=245 http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=38109&st=&pgnum=317 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 17 02:14:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2015 05:14:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Talks by Rav Shimon Schwab, ZT"L Message-ID: <20150617091410.A8547183759@nexus.stevens.edu> See http://torahdownloads.com/shiur-24386.html YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 17 04:00:53 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2015 07:00:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] =?iso-8859-1?q?Soul_Terminology=2C_and_Expressions_of_Lo?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ve=3A_Proper_Frum_Expression_In_The_Lens_of_the_Ashkenaz_T?= =?iso-8859-1?q?radition_=96_Gleanings__From_Rav_Shimon_Schwab?= Message-ID: <20150617110051.2F7B9183762@nexus.stevens.edu> Please see http://tinyurl.com/q64ehha YL llevine at stevens.edu From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 18 06:50:14 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2015 09:50:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Ishbaal's Jar Message-ID: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> According to TOI or , discusses finding a jar that dates to around 1020-980 BCE (Iron Age), breating the name the name of Ishbaal ben Beda. Ishbaal is Divrei HaYamim's name for the son of Shaul whom seifer Shemuel calls Ishboshet. (Probably because bearing the name of Baal is a bushah.) Allegedly "Among Judeans, personal names evoking Baal fell out of fashion after the 10th century, but not so among their Israelite cousins to the north." Lisa, does any of this relate to strengthening or weakening the case for revisionist dating? (Newcomers might wish to see the Jewish Action article Lisa has on her site at to understand why I asked.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person must be very patient micha at aishdas.org even with himself. http://www.aishdas.org - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 18 07:43:15 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2015 17:43:15 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Ishbaal's Jar In-Reply-To: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> References: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 4:50 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > According to TOI < > http://www.timesofisrael.com/inscription-bearing-name-from-davidic-era-found-at-ancient-site > > > or , discusses finding a jar that dates to around > 1020-980 BCE (Iron Age), breating the name the name of Ishbaal ben Beda. > See also http://bit.ly/1F2HFD9 (= https://www.academia.edu/12775087/The_%CA%BEI%C5%A1ba%CA%BFal_Inscription_from_Khirbet_Qeiyafa) for a more detailed excavation report. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 19 11:46:46 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 13:46:46 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Ishbaal's Jar In-Reply-To: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> References: <20150618135014.GA2450@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <55846396.5000207@starways.net> On 6/18/2015 8:50 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > According to TOI > or , discusses finding a jar that dates to around > 1020-980 BCE (Iron Age), breating the name the name of Ishbaal ben Beda. > > Ishbaal is Divrei HaYamim's name for the son of Shaul whom seifer > Shemuel calls Ishboshet. (Probably because bearing the name of Baal > is a bushah.) The standard form for names in most of the ancient near east was DN-stem, or stem-DN, where DN is a divine name. We have this pattern ourselves with names like Chizki-Yahu and N'tan-El, or El-Chanan and Yeho-natan. From what I've seen, it wasn't unheard of for people to refer to the same person, but exchange the DN. So Ish-Boshet for Ish-Baal is in line with Hado-Ram (I Chron 18:10) for Yo-Ram (II Sam 8:10), or Hado-Ram (II Sam 20:24, I Kings 12:18, II Chron 10:18) for Adoni-Ram (I Kings 4:6, 5:28). I don't see any indication that this pattern of name was different towards the beginning or towards the end of the monarchy. That said, Baal in particular sort of declined after the time of Eliyahu. They had newer avodah zarahs to play with. I don't really see a lot of chronological significance here. Yes, they did some radiometric dating, but as always, I would take that with grain of salt until I saw the raw results. When you send something for carbon dating, you tell them first what your target date is, so that they can discard results that are off from that too significantly. Not very scientific, but I guess it's "science-y". Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 19 13:38:04 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 16:38:04 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Soul Terminology, and Expressions of Love: Proper Frum Expression In The Lens of the Ashkenaz Tradition ? Gleanings From Rav Shimon Schwab In-Reply-To: <20150617110051.2F7B9183762@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150617110051.2F7B9183762@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150619203804.GA23818@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 17, 2015 at 07:00:53AM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Please see http://tinyurl.com/q64ehha On the second example, I'm reminded of the Soloveitchik tradition that emotions are the Qodesh haQadashim of avodas Hashem. And therefore while RSSschwab's position was depited as: > Nowadays one at times witnesses public statements, in the form of songs, > declarations, and even bumper stickers, proclaiming [HQBH anachnu ohavim > Osakh!] (Hashem, we love you), an expression that was not commonly heard > shouted aloud in the past in our circles. Is that in consonance with our > [Mesorah]? Rav Schwab (in his address entitled Internalizing Eternity) > states the following (after 33:20) Since Ahavas Hashem is such a strictly > personal matter, he who truly loves Hashem does not show his [Ahavah]. He > rather hides it. It is far too intimate to parade it in public. He is > mekayeim [vehatzneia lekhes im E-lokekha]. It is exclusively his private > affair, between him and his Creator. Briskers would not expose any emotion. And so, when RYBS left for Berlin, R' Moshe took him to the train station, but there was no emotional goodbye. Even though RMF didn't know if he would ever see his son (and chavrusah) again. RYBS said he knew his father's feelings at the moment, he just knew that he would never display it publicly. Just a simple "Leikh leshalom HQBH zul dir matzliach zein!" Story told far better, in RYBS's own words here In any case, the Brisker approach doesn't speak to too many people in this generation. I would bet many of us would consider it less-than-positive. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger One who kills his inclination is as though he micha at aishdas.org brought an offering. But to bring an offering, http://www.aishdas.org you must know where to slaughter and what Fax: (270) 514-1507 parts to offer. - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 22 06:53:00 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2015 09:53:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kuntros chasidei umos haolam Message-ID: <0ce401d0acf2$c108d8f0$431a8ad0$@com> The was once a link posted here to a Kuntros chasidei umos haolam (In hebrew) from a Rav in south Africa (I think he was an Ohr Samach graduate) Does anyone have it or a link to it? Thanks, mc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 22 14:32:42 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2015 17:32:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Two Levels of Bitachon Message-ID: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> The following is from Rav Schwab on Chumash Parshas Shelach. We suggest the following explanation: Hashem demands bitachon of every Jew - trust in Hashem that everything will turn out for the best, without worrying about what the future might bring. Throughout the generations, devout Jews have walked this path. A person with bitachon ultimately will merit to see clearly that, indeed, "All that Hashem does is for the best." There are two types of bitachon. The first is trusting in Hashem with "closed eyes," with no speculation about what may develop. However, there is a second kind of bitachon that is even greater than the first. This is the bitachon of "open eyes." One who follows this path looks ahead and sees clearly that the future might entail great danger, that his life may be full of trials and tribulations. Nevertheless, he does not hesitate, relying on Hashem to help him deal with whatever the future will hold. This kind of bitachon is greater than the first, because someone who trusts in :Hashem with "open eyes" must elevate his bitachon to a much higher level in order to overcome his worries and quiet his concerns. However, as great as this second path is, it is fraught with danger. There is a strong possibility that instead of overcoming one's fears and worries, one will be vanquished by them. A "realistic" evaluation of the challenges could be so frightening as to cause one to lose his bitachon in Hashem altogether. Therefore, :although the bitachon of "open eyes" might be appropriate for certain great people, Hashem does not demand it of us. Hashem only requires us to have the bitachon of "closed eyes"; we need only trust that everything will turn out for the best, in accordance with His will, without considering what the future might hold. This is implied in the pasuk (Yeshayahu 12:2), 11) Behold the G-d of salvation; I shall trust in Him, and I will not fear. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 12:26:11 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 21:26:11 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Two Levels of Bitachon In-Reply-To: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <5589B2D3.5030908@zahav.net.il> I'm not sure what this is in reference to, the sin of the spies? What does it mean, to live ones life without worrying about the future? You trust in God so therefore you're calm (meaning you live your life the same way anyone else does, but you have inner peace)? Ben On 6/22/2015 11:32 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > We suggest the following explanation: Hashem demands bitachon of every > Jew - trust > in Hashem that everything will turn out for the best, without worrying > about > what the future might bring. Throughout the generations, devout Jews > have walked > this path. A person with bitachon ultimately will merit to see clearly > that, indeed, > "All that Hashem does is for the best." From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 14:34:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 17:34:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Two Levels of Bitachon In-Reply-To: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> References: <20150622213309.AEDF11836D6@nexus.stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20150623213434.GA30077@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 22, 2015 at 05:32:42PM -0400, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: : The following is from Rav Schwab on Chumash Parshas Shelach. ... : There are two types of bitachon. The first is trusting in Hashem with "closed : eyes," with no speculation about what may develop. However, there is : a second kind : of bitachon that is even greater than the first. This is the : bitachon of "open eyes." : One who follows this path looks ahead and sees clearly that the : future might entail : great danger, that his life may be full of trials and tribulations. : Nevertheless, he : does not hesitate, relying on Hashem to help him deal with whatever : the future will : hold... I just want to point out that RSS here is assuming the descriptive bitachon of the CI, not the prescrictive bitachon of Novhardok (and many kiruv programs and religious fiction). The Alter of Novhardok taught that bitachon causes positive results. If you trust G-d enough, He will make things turn out the way you desire. And when you point out to said public speaker that indeed life doesn't work that way this idea gets modified into: Hashem will make things turn out the way you'll be happy with once you get to the end of the road. And while I'm being cynical about it, this is unassailable. If things don't yet have a happy ending, it just means the story isn't over yet. You can just push the long run out further and further until you find the happy outcome you promised. In Emunah uBitchon, the CI rejects this notion. He says that bitachon is belief that things are working out according to Divine Plan. A believe in how things run, not a belief that causes things to run right. Rather than the comfort of knowing that you'll like the results, one aims for the comfort that all of life's suffering has meaning and a purpose. RSS presumes the latter and appears to be saying that one can then take this trust in two different ways: - Since Hashem is driving, I don't need to bother looking out the windsheild, it will just stress me out for nothing. - Hashem and I are in partnership, so I cannot refrain from helping Him bring us to our destination, even when it involves heading for trials and tribulations. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is a stage and we are the actors, micha at aishdas.org but only some of us have the script. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Menachem Nissel Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 15:56:59 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Toby Katz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 18:56:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book Message-ID: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> I recently came across the issue of Jewish Action (the OU's quarterly magazine) of Fall 2000 and in that issue there was a remarkable article. It was a review of a two-volume book called *The Rav: The World of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik* by Rabbi Dr. Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff. The review article was written by R' Philip Weinberger. It was a very laudatory review, written by someone who admired and respected RYBS and who thought the book was excellent. It's important to note that he respected RYBS and admired the book, because when you see what I am going to quote from the review, you might think otherwise. But if you read the whole review you will clearly see that what looks like a negative to me is clearly seen as a positive by R' Weinberger. http://ou.org.s3.amazonaws.com/publications/ja/5761fall/BOOKS.PDF OK here goes -- the most interesting parts of the review (I have mostly dispensed with ellipses, which are distracting): --quote-- [The book] focused my attention on a paradox that confronts me every time a new book or article appears about the saintly Rabbi Soloveitchik, zt"l. In the latter part of the twentieth century, the Rav was one of the most outstanding rabbinic titans, teaching and leading the Jewish people. A master of communication, orally and in print, he left behind multitudes of devoted students and admirers who still hang on his every word. Yet the Rav seems to have left a legacy that is unclear and misunderstood, despite his gifted powers of communication. Among the numerous questions, debated passionately by those who represent themselves as knowing the Rav's authentic thinking, are: What was the Rav's view toward secular education; Torah u'Madda; new religious practices by women; reciting Hallel on Yom HaAtzma'ut; and Religious Zionism? There is a raging battle among his followers as to who may legitimately and authentically present the Rav's opinions, thoughts, ideas and teachings. How could so careful a teacher, who could literally spend hours at a time in shiurim defining with precision the meaning of a particular word or phrase, be misunderstood on so many basic and critical issues? The Rav himself, despite his best efforts, was misunderstood and misquoted in his lifetime by able people who presumably had the best of intentions. The Rav illustrates that he was misunderstood by journalists because of their lack of familiarity with the Rav's precise use of language and terminology, and because the Rav's thoughts, ideas and speech were extraordinarily nuanced, delicate, subtle and sophisticated. However, the book falls short, even on its own terms, in its failure to more deeply explore the complexity and nuances of the Rav's thoughts and insights that were influenced by the religious, existential, and personal tensions that the Rav experienced and talked about. Similarly, the book does not treat much of the controversy that sometimes surrounded the Rav in a meaningful way. There is no acknowledgment of how the Rav was inappropriately treated and often marginalized in the yeshivah universe because of his embracing secular studies and Religious Zionism (albeit in a disciplined and highly nuanced manner)... in a letter to Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Shragai, the Rav writes : "If I were to judge this matter (which party to associate with) based on pragmatic or political considerations, I would join the zealots who ask nothing of their members (not diligence in Torah study, not pure fear of Heaven, nor spending money on tzedakah, nor excessive care with regard to mitzvot) except to besmirch our movement. I could clothe myself with the mantle of a tzaddik and 'fighter of the Lord's battles.' " This and other letters to Rabbi Shragai show clearly what a man of principle the Rav was. ...Scholars and laymen alike are indebted to Rabbi Rakeffet for his vital work. --end quote-- Well, you can see why this review would interest me. Let's take a few points: [1] "The Rav seems to have left a legacy that is unclear and misunderstood, despite his gifted powers of communication." I would suggest that the end of the sentence is contradicted by the beginning of the sentence. The main thing that the Rav generally managed to communicate was that one could be a great Torah scholar and also be a brilliant intellectual in secular terms. This was not the text but the ur-text of much of what he wrote. I will add that he did this not for his own honor but for the honor of the Torah, which was often treated with contempt by mid-twentieth century Jews who were rapidly abandoning the Torah. But his opaque Germanic philosophical style of speaking and writing was by its very nature open to multiple interpretations, and could neither be summarized nor re-written in plain American English. [2] "Among the numerous questions, debated passionately by those who represent themselves as knowing the Rav's authentic thinking, are: What was the Rav's view toward secular education; Torah u'Madda; new religious practices by women; reciting Hallel on Yom HaAtzma'ut; and Religious Zionism?" I would have to say that this is a highly unusual thing to say of any gadol. Of which other gadol could it be said that after he taught and wrote for decades, no one could be sure what his position was on the most important issues of his day? [2A] "What was the Rav's view toward Religious Zionism?" and "his embracing Religious Zionism (albeit in a disciplined and highly nuanced manner)..." Those of us who have claimed (based admittedly, at times, on anecdotal evidence and oral reports) that RYBS was not really a Zionist have often been vilified. Yet here a great admirer of RYBS admits that his views were far from obvious, and subject to much disagreement even among his followers. That RYBS was a great lover of Eretz Yisrael -- of that there can be no doubt. That he really believed in the whole aschalta de'geulah ideology of RZ -- highly doubtful. The rest can be left for another time, or another book. [3] "How could so careful a teacher, who could literally spend hours at a time in shiurim defining with precision the meaning of a particular word or phrase, be misunderstood on so many basic and critical issues?" It may be that in a Gemara shiur, trying to define a word with great precision may lead to greater understanding, but out here in the larger world, such precise definitions tend to leave most people scratching their heads. Common everyday words lose their accepted, common meanings, and the many sentences used to define those words lead to greater obscurity rather than clarity. "When I use a word, it means precisely what I want it to mean." But his listeners or readers are often left in the dark. [4] "The Rav was misunderstood...because his thoughts, ideas and speech were extraordinarily nuanced, delicate, subtle and sophisticated." The impression left by all that subtlety and nuance is that he was trying to avoid saying anything controversial that could be quoted in a sound bite. [5] "There is no acknowledgment of how the Rav was inappropriately treated and often marginalized in the yeshivah universe" [6] "...the zealots who ask nothing of their members (not diligence in Torah study, not pure fear of Heaven, nor spending money on tzedakah, nor excessive care with regard to mitzvot) except to besmirch our movement. I could clothe myself with the mantle of a tzaddik and 'fighter of the Lord's battles...' " Maybe [6] at least partially explains [5]. Maybe the way he felt about them was reflected in the way they felt about him. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 17:52:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 00:52:25 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> References: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> Message-ID: Let's take a few points: [1] "The Rav seems to have left a legacy that is unclear and misunderstood, despite his gifted powers of communication." I would suggest that the end of the sentence is contradicted by the beginning of the sentence. [2] "Among the numerous questions, debated passionately by those who represent themselves as knowing the Rav's authentic thinking, are: What was the Rav's view toward secular education; Torah u'Madda; new religious practices by women; reciting Hallel on Yom HaAtzma'ut; and Religious Zionism?" [2A] "What was the Rav's view toward Religious Zionism?" and "his embracing Religious Zionism (albeit in a disciplined and highly nuanced manner)..." [3] "How could so careful a teacher, who could literally spend hours at a time in shiurim defining with precision the meaning of a particular word or phrase, be misunderstood on so many basic and critical issues?" [4] "The Rav was misunderstood...because his thoughts, ideas and speech were extraordinarily nuanced, delicate, subtle and sophisticated." The impression left by all that subtlety and nuance is that he was trying to avoid saying anything controversial that could be quoted in a sound bite. [5] "There is no acknowledgment of how the Rav was inappropriately treated and often marginalized in the yeshivah universe" [6] "...the zealots who ask nothing of their members (not diligence in Torah study, not pure fear of Heaven, nor spending money on tzedakah, nor excessive care with regard to mitzvot) except to besmirch our movement. I could clothe myself with the mantle of a tzaddik and 'fighter of the Lord's battles...' " Maybe [6] at least partially explains [5]. Maybe the way he felt about them was reflected in the way they felt about him. _______________________________________________ I remember reading the original review and being very surprised. [1]&[2]&[3] My general impression is that most of the lack of clarity and misunderstandings are on issues that have little to do with the style issue. I don't think many get concerned about whether Adam I and II ever resolve their dialectic . The main cause of misunderstandings imho can be generously stated as being caused by The Rav's being so sui generis that students could not assimilate the whole of his teachings. The less generous approach would be that some want to be toleh on an ilan gadol and project their own priorities and approaches on him. Could anyone who looked at his life as a whole have any doubt that he valued secular studies? That he was a non-messianic RZ lover of eretz Yisrael seems pretty clear. [4]Or how about the world is complex and our desire (btw very reflective of our host society) is to boil everything down to a sound bite goes against the educational need to understand how to look at complex issues [6]explaining [5] seems to me like the classic blaming the victim for "asking for it". I can only assume the fact that other roshei yeshiva didn't publically call for tolerance was that they did think he, and MO, was krum or they had higher priorities or didn't think their talmidim would listen to them. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 18:07:30 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 21:07:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: References: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> Message-ID: <20150624010730.GA18745@aishdas.org> Both Ishbitz and Chabad, Rushin and Satmar each beleive theirs is the most accurate understanding of Derekh haBhesh"t. Kelm, Novhardok and Slabodka have very different understandings of R Yisrael Salanter's teachings. RAYK's disagree over what their rebbe meant. Even Moshe Rabbeinu -- he had 70 front-row talmidim and ever since we have had 70 panim laTorah. Any gadol brilliant and subtle enough to be worth following will so outstrip his talmidim that each only grasps onto one facet and interpretation of a more complex original. This is far from unique to RYBS. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you're going through hell micha at aishdas.org keep going. http://www.aishdas.org - Winston Churchill Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 19:01:09 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 22:01:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: <20150624010730.GA18745@aishdas.org> References: <157c52.4a98508e.42bb3e3b@aol.com> <20150624010730.GA18745@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <558A0F65.7090501@sero.name> On 06/23/2015 09:07 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Both Ishbitz and Chabad, Rushin and Satmar each beleive theirs is the > most accurate understanding of Derekh haBhesh"t. Satmar doesn't believe this; rather, it believes that the BSh"T's torah has been lost. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 23 19:21:21 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 22:21:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kol Isha Twist Message-ID: <558A1421.3060009@gmail.com> See http://www.kikar.co.il/174128.html or http://www.totpi.com/2/ultra-orthodox-woman-performs-incognito-on-the-x-factor/ It's an interesting loophole: Since kol b'isha erva only applies when you know what a woman looks like, the heavy sunglasses and very modest dress may do the trick. Not middas chassidus, but perhaps on a technicality permitted. KT, YGB -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 07:35:48 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 10:35:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kol Isha Twist In-Reply-To: <558A1421.3060009@gmail.com> References: <558A1421.3060009@gmail.com> Message-ID: <558AC044.2010107@sero.name> On 06/23/2015 10:21 PM, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah wrote: > > It's an interesting loophole: Since kol b'isha erva only applies when > you know what a woman looks like, the heavy sunglasses and very > modest dress may do the trick. Not middas chassidus, but perhaps on a > technicality permitted. I don't see anything in the two linked articles about such a loophole. And I don't think it would work. Surely you can see enough of her to form some idea, perhaps mistaken, but enough for the yetzer hara to work with. I think the true heter for what she's doing is a lot simpler: she is not machshil anyone, because whoever is watching the show is already seeing and hearing enough women sing that one more makes no difference at all. If she didn't sing, then in all likelihood another woman would do so, wearing much less and acting more provocatively; or else a man would be giving some provocative performance that would be almost as bad. So really what has she done wrong? Those who don't normally watch should continue not to watch, and they won't be affected. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 08:33:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kaganoff via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 11:33:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating Message-ID: I am curious if anyone has written about a common practice. We assume that *Kaddish* is a *Devar she-Bikdusha* and requires a *minyan* to be recited. We require separate seating for a *Devar she-Bikdusha.* In many circles it is not uncommon to have a *siyyum* with a *kaddish *at a Bar Mitzvah or a Dinner even when there is mixed seating. Does anyone explicitly discuss this practice and permit it? Yonatan Kaganoff -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 11:38:49 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 14:38:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150624183849.GA2711@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 11:33:54AM -0400, Kaganoff via Avodah wrote: : We require separate seating for a *Devar she-Bikdusha.* This is news to me. Do those who say that zimmun with a minyan is a davar shebiqdushah (BY OC 199 "umah shekasav", MB s"q 15) require separate seating at my shabbos table? The AhS (200:6) refers to zimun with 10 as "shekhinta sharia", but I didn't see him mention minyan or davar shebiqdushah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 11:52:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 14:52:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating Message-ID: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> From: Kaganoff via Avodah We assume that *Kaddish* is a *Devar she-Bikdusha* and requires a *minyan* to be recited. We require separate seating for a *Devar she-Bikdusha.* In many circles it is not uncommon to have a *siyyum* with a *kaddish *at a Bar Mitzvah or a Dinner even when there is mixed seating. Does anyone explicitly discuss this practice and permit it? Yonatan Kaganoff >>>> You see something similar when people make an ad hoc minyan at a wedding (or an airport lounge). They don't put up a mechitza. Is this situation explicitly discussed in the halachic literature? It must be. Maybe what applies to one also applies to the other. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 12:32:08 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 15:32:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating In-Reply-To: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> References: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> Message-ID: <20150624193208.GA22316@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 2:52pm EDT, RnTK wrote: : From: Kaganoff via Avodah :> We assume that Kaddish is a Devar she-Bikdusha and requires a minyan :> to be recited. :> We require separate seating for a Devar she-Bikdusha. : You see something similar when people make an ad hoc minyan at a wedding : (or an airport lounge). They don't put up a mechitza... Slight topic change. You can have separate seating (or locations in general) without a mechitzah. I believe that minyanim were held at the kotel even when the Ottomans didn't let us put up a mechitzah by separating the genders even without one. I see R YH Henkin (Responsa on Contemporary Jewish Women's Issues, pg 124 ) rejects the hava amina that mechitzah is only for an established shul. He requires a mechitzah, not just separate seating at a temporary location for davening. While a minyan is there, the laws of mara miqdash apply. I do not whether he would advised the yishuv hayashan not to daven at the kotel. Tir'u baTov! -Micha Cc: RYHH -- Micha Berger The trick is learning to be passionate in one's micha at aishdas.org ideals, but compassionate to one's peers. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 12:21:57 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 19:21:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish with mixed seating In-Reply-To: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> References: <128196.27ada22b.42bc5667@aol.com> Message-ID: <9d095a46ac044dd88d591c13b05195d1@VW2K8NYCEXMBX1.segal.segalco.com> Yonatan Kaganoff >>>> You see something similar when people make an ad hoc minyan at a wedding (or an airport lounge). They don't put up a mechitza. Is this situation explicitly discussed in the halachic literature? It must be. Maybe what applies to one also applies to the other. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=922&st=&pgnum=66 where R' Moshe deals with the Mechitza issue but still requires that there not be intermingling. That's the part I'm unsure of. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jun 24 16:34:28 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 19:34:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safeik and Multivalent Logic In-Reply-To: <20150615210040.GA17358@aishdas.org> References: <20150615210040.GA17358@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20150624233428.GA29242@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jun 15, 2015 at 05:00:40PM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : Back on Fri, 14 May 2004 10:45am EST (yes, 11 years ago) I wrote : on the thread : "Valid halachic change" I wrote: :> I was at a yarchei ... kallah during Elul in Boston where RYBS... :> An esrog that was used for the mitzvah is qadosh and assur behana'ah :> that entire day. And since it's qadosh bein hashemashos, it's gadosh :> part of the next day and therefore assur behan'ah the entire next day. ... :> Rov is a non-boolean state, something between yes and no. Therefore, :> it does not apply after we've taken the question from the realm of :> machshavah to that of ma'aseh. : I'm repeating all this because, once again, AhS Yomi showed me that : something I thought I understood was more complicated than I realized. : AhS OC 638:5 distinguishes between muqtza machmas : mitzvah and other forms of muqtza when it comes to migo de'isqatzei bein : hashemashos, isqatza'ei lekhulei yoma. : And so, sukkah and its decorations (the topic of OC 688) are muqtzah the : following day. But beitzah shenoledah beYT rishon is not muqtzah on the : next day. More info at AhS OC 667:1, which distinguishes between sukkah and 4 minim on Shemini Atzeres. Because sukkah would actually be used bein hashmeshos between the 7th day Sukkos and SA (speaking of EY now), a sukkah and its decorations are muqtzah on SA. The esrog, because the mitzvah would habe been done before BhS either way, is not. It would seem the point in 638:5 appears not to be that mutzah machamas mitzvah is special, but because the mitzvah would still apply BhS. : Thoughts, anyone? Still looking for other perspectives! Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 25 02:54:58 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 09:54:58 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book Message-ID: <20150625.055458.3550.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> R' Micha Berger wrote: > Even Moshe Rabbeinu -- he had 70 front-row talmidim and ever since > we have had 70 panim laTorah. > > Any gadol brilliant and subtle enough to be worth following will > so outstrip his talmidim that each only grasps onto one facet and > interpretation of a more complex original. > > This is far from unique to RYBS. Here's my guess about what made RYBS unique in this regard: On the one hand, he did have his opinions about many things. But that was NOT what he tried to pass on to his talmidim. In fact, he is famous for NOT answering many of the questions posed to him. What RYBS wanted was for his talmidim to be able to decide for themselves. He never wanted to teach his talmidim WHAT to think, but HOW to think. Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Buffett???s Warning for YOU 4 in 5 Americans aren???t taking his shocking advice. Click here now. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/558bd00ca32f7500c77efst02vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 25 08:10:02 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 11:10:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book In-Reply-To: <20150625.055458.3550.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150625.055458.3550.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <20150625151002.GD10708@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 25, 2015 at 09:54:58AM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: :> This is far from unique to RYBS. : Here's my guess about what made RYBS unique in this regard: On the : one hand, he did have his opinions about many things. But that was NOT : what he tried to pass on to his talmidim. In fact, he is famous for NOT : answering many of the questions posed to him. What RYBS wanted was for : his talmidim to be able to decide for themselves. He never wanted to : teach his talmidim WHAT to think, but HOW to think. I realize that this is about to get meta, because I'm about to disagree with RAM about RYBS's position and why people disagree about what it was. I thin this is overplayed. Yes, he pushed fledgling rabbis to assert themselves as LOR and not defer every halachic question. But he didn't do this with every talmid, nor with every question. I think people are taking a pedagogic technique used for talmidim to scared to pasqen and turning it into a principle. Im kein ein ladavar sof, and there is no way to say he took positions for anyone but himself and his mispalelim in Boston and Moriah. No Qol Dodi Dofeiq promoting Zionism, no attack on RERackman's beis din, etc... And besides, we aren't talking about whether his talmidim vary, but why the talmidim's understandings of the rebbe's position varied. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Never must we think that the Jewish element micha at aishdas.org in us could exist without the human element http://www.aishdas.org or vice versa. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jun 25 08:56:25 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 15:56:25 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Hakarat Hatov Message-ID: Does Hakarat Hatov engender a measurable "liability" (e.g. require a marginally greater action) between the recipient and the provider of the "Tov", or is saying "Thank you, I appreciate it" the only requirement? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jun 26 01:19:39 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2015 11:19:39 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Jewish Action 2000 review of RYBS book Message-ID: <> In addition like many others RYBS gave different answers to different people depending on the person and circumstances. As a simple example he encouraged his talmidim to move to EY but told some to stay in the US. Also RYBS was big believer in everyone making their own decisions and not simply doing what they were told. Hence, he avoided certain statements so that his talmidim would make up their own minds. It is well known that all the children of RYBS got a PhD. Even his nephew R Meiselman the most charedi in the family received this degree from MIT. Nevertheless he never publically stressed this idea probably because he felt it was a very individual decision -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 27 19:37:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2015 22:37:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government Message-ID: Gut voch to all, What alternative texts exist for the tefillah l'shlom malchus? I have heard that other versions exist, perhaps more suited for a Republic than is "Hanosen teshua la-melachim", but the only version I could find comes from a Conservative source -- putting me in the same situation as R' Eliezer ben Hyrcanus upon hearing a good "vort" in the name of Ben Pandera. Can anyone point me to appropriate sources? --Chesky Salomon From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Jun 27 20:29:36 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2015 23:29:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: An hour or so ago, I wrote: > What alternative texts exist for the tefillah l'shlom malchus? I remember this topic coming up in the past, though I have not been successful in searching the archives for it. I did find an article by Dr Jonathan Sarna, "A Forgotten 19th-Century Prayer for the United States Government: Its Meaning, Significance, and Surprising Author" [1] which pointed to the "Orthodox prayerbook for American Jews entitled Tefilot Yisra'el. Prayers of Israel. with an English Translation." The variant text Sarna discusses, "Ribbon kol ha-olamim", can be seen at -- but he makes the case that the prayer's author was Rabbi Max Lilienthal, leaving me in the same position as before. (As a side note: I recall one of the J-blogs mentioning a Tefillah for the State written for 1930s Germany under the Nazi government, but I cannot find the post again. Any help?) --Chesky Salomon [1]: http://www.brandeis.edu/hornstein/sarna/americanjewishcultureandscholarship/Archive3/AForgottenNineteenthCenturyPrayerfortheUnitedStatesGovenment.pdf From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 29 05:29:07 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mordechai Harris via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2015 07:29:07 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Here's the one I shard last time from the De Sola Pool Siddur. -Mordechai - Please excuse typos as this was sent from my cell phone. On Jun 28, 2015 2:59 PM, "Chesky Salomon via Avodah" wrote: > An hour or so ago, I wrote: >> What alternative texts exist for the tefillah l'shlom malchus? > I remember this topic coming up in the past, though I have not been > successful in searching the archives for it... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jun 29 15:15:23 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 01:15:23 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jun 29, 2015 at 3:29 PM, Mordechai Harris via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > Here's the one I shard last time from the De Sola Pool Siddur. > > Can you also share the publication details and/or title page of this siddur? What I know as the De Sola Pool Siddur is not the same as in this link. I have the second edition of 1977, and the title page says: BOOK OF PRAYER ACCORDING TO THE CUSTOM OF THE SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE JEWS Edited and translated by DAVID DE SOLA POOL Minister of the Congregation Shearith Israel in the City of New York PUBLISHED BY THE UNION OF SEPHARDIC CONGREGATIONS NEW YORK The prayer for the government begins with the usual "Hanoten teshu`a lamelachim" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 11:55:34 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Arie Folger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 20:55:34 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Alternate texts for the Prayer for the Government Message-ID: Someone asked about alternate texts of the prayer for the government, more attuned to democracies. I have adapted the classic hanoten teshuah lamelakhim for the US, with variant readings for Canada, for inclusion in the still forthcoming new revised RCA Siddur. Send me a message through my web site (see the sig) and I will gladly share that text with you. -- Yours sincerely, Mit freundlichen Gr??en, Arie Folger blogging at http://www.rabbifolger.net/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 10:22:13 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Baruch Cohen via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 10:22:13 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] BIRCHAT KOHANIM AT THE KOTEL Message-ID: I plan on being in Israel for Sukkot, and hope to be at the Kotel for Birchat Kohanim. I usually daven early every morning, and the Birchat Kohanim occurs later in the morning. My question is: do I have a Chiyuv to "duchen" if I'm in the audience and the Shaliach Tzibbur announces on the loudspeaker the word: "Kohanim!" Does that trigger a halachic obligation for me to duchen, even if I am in the audience, in the back of the crowd? -- Respectfully, Baruch C. Cohen, Esq. e-mail: BCC4929 at gmail.com LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/baruchcohen From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 12:06:33 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 15:06:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] BIRCHAT KOHANIM AT THE KOTEL In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5592E8B9.5020201@sero.name> On 06/30/2015 01:22 PM, Baruch Cohen via Avodah wrote: > I usually daven early every morning, and the Birchat > Kohanim occurs later in the morning. My question is: do I have a Chiyuv to > "duchen" if I'm in the audience and the Shaliach Tzibbur announces on the > loudspeaker the word: "Kohanim!" Does that trigger a halachic obligation > for me to duchen No. If you have already duchened that day, you have no further chiyuv, even if you hear the chazan, and even if someone directly tells you to go up. However if you *choose* to duchen for a second (or third, etc) time that day, you may do so with a bracha. (SA OC 128:3) [Email #2. -micha] PS: This applies also in an ordinary shul where they duchen at shachris and musaf. Any cohen who duchened at shachris, and doesn't feel like doing it again at musaf, needn't leave the room. He has no obligation to answer the chazan's call. But those who do answer it duchen with a bracha, because that is takanas chachamim. -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 12:26:26 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Kenneth Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 19:26:26 GMT Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish Yasom Message-ID: <20150630.152626.19374.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> What is the rule for when we do or do not say Kaddish Yasom (Mourner's Kaddish)? >From what I've seen, it is NOT said even if a minyan says Birkas Hamazon, but it IS said when a minyan says Kiddush Levana. It is NOT said when a minyan says Tehillim even as an organized group, but it IS said on Yom Tov after the Megilla (Shir Hashirim, Rus, Koheles) is read. I do not see any pattern. Does anyone else know of a rule? Akiva Miller ____________________________________________________________ Want to place your ad here? Advertise on United Online http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5592ed93bb00b6d93482cst01vuc From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jun 30 15:03:54 2015 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 18:03:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kaddish Yasom In-Reply-To: <20150630.152626.19374.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> References: <20150630.152626.19374.1@webmail07.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <5593124A.2040905@sero.name> On 06/30/2015 03:26 PM, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote: > What is the rule for when we do or do not say Kaddish Yasom (Mourner's Kaddish)? > >>From what I've seen, it is NOT said even if a minyan says Birkas Hamazon, Why would it? > but it IS said when a minyan says Kiddush Levana. Probably because people are used to saying it after Alenu. > It is NOT said when a minyan says Tehillim even as an organized group, Where have you seen it not being said then? I'm surprised that this is your experience. > but it IS said on Yom Tov after the Megilla (Shir Hashirim, Rus, Koheles) is read. Yes, that is my experience as well. -- Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you zev at sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in the street and commands me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking questions -- John Adams